Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Lecture 096 on 26-September-2023

Summary

The lecture begins on a conversation between Sri Ramakrishna and his devotees about the benefit of holy company. Sri Ramakrishna explains that being in the company of holy people, gurus, scriptures etc. helps one cultivate discrimination between the real and the unreal. He gives the example of a woman husking rice - even though she is talking and doing multiple tasks, her primary focus remains on the pestle so her hands don't get injured. Similarly, being in holy company helps focus the mind on God and spiritual truths.

A neighbor then asks why God creates people with sinful tendencies. Sri Ramakrishna explains that God has created both good and bad people as part of His divine play. He says sinful actions bring their own results, just like chewing chili will burn your tongue. He gives the example of his devotee Madhur, who lived an uncontrolled life and suffered from diseases before his early death. Sri Ramakrishna says passions like lust, anger and greed should be conquered. He points out that even someone with intense desire like Hanuman trembled with fear when he thought Sitā might be harmed by the fire he had set in Lanka.

The lecture then returns to the question of why God created wicked people and evil. Sri Ramakrishna answers that the person is divine but qualities like wickedness are part of God's māyā. He explains there is darkness and ignorance as well as light and knowledge in this world. Anger, lust and greed are evils but they are needed to create saints who conquer them. Lust perpetuates creation but can be transformed into divine love for God. Wicked people have a role to play in God's creation, just as an unruly estate needed a harsh manager to control the tenants.

Sri Ramakrishna goes on to explain that a person's tendencies come from past actions and samskaras developed over many lifetimes. But God has also given man the power of discrimination and free will to choose how to act. So each person is responsible for their own sins, not God. Spiritual practice helps overcome sinful tendencies by developing virtuous samskaras. With God's grace, even a wicked person can become a saint by conquering their negative passions.

The lecture concludes by explaining that the root desire underlying all karma is the longing to rediscover one's own divine nature, which has been forgotten. The mind's restlessness is truly a search for God. All worldly desires are expressions of the basic urge to experience infinite and unbroken bliss, which only comes from realizing one's eternal identity with Brahman. Attachment to sense objects is really attachment to the happiness they provoke. When this desire is directed toward God, it transforms into sublime love and devotion.

So in summary, the passage emphasizes practicing discrimination, conquering negative tendencies through spiritual discipline, recognizing the divine essence in all people, and transforming worldly desires into selfless love of God as the path to saintliness, even for those with wicked natures. Evil and ignorance have their place in God's creation but the human goal is to transcend them by realizing the Atman is Brahman.

Detailed Transcript

Sunday, April 9, 1882. Sri Ramakrishna was seated with his devotees in the drawing room of Pranakrishna Mukherjee's house in Calcutta. It was between one and two o'clock in the afternoon. The topic was: What is the benefit of holy company? Sri Ramakrishna's first commandment is, "God Realization is the only goal of life." But what is the way? So the second commandment is: always cultivate holy company. And this is what Sri Ramakrishna was emphasizing and would be emphasizing again and again. So what do we get? What is the benefit we get from holy company? Sri Ramakrishna used to give many examples observed from village life in those days. Nowadays, when we try to find out by reading those examples, sometimes we find it challenging because living in cities, we rarely get such sights that were an everyday, common affair in every village. For example, how careful one has to be while living in this world. Sri Ramakrishna gives examples from those days when practically every household used to husk their grain. They would cultivate or buy and bring the rice with husk, paddy, and then husk it themselves. I used to see in my village that practically everybody had a need for many things, like masala powder, chili powder, husking grains, etc. So, there would be a woman who had the business of selling and also husking and selling. She would continuously be engaged in husking the paddy. Sometimes, even in those days, they had invented some mechanical things. So, previously, somebody, a second person, used to put one big iron rod, but later on, they made it a bit more mechanical. Sri Ramakrishna observed it and he is telling all of us how careful this woman is. 99% of her mind is on her hand because she has to continuously shift the paddy from one side to the other side. And every time, if this iron rod falls upon her hands, then injury will occur, severe injury will occur, and she won't be able to do it. But at the same time, she is talking with the customers, bargaining with them, and scolding somebody. "You have not given for the last few times. You have been promising. Now you must give, and you owe me so much." Everything is in her head. So, she is doing all of this, and at the same time, maybe she has a baby, and she is suckling the baby, multitasking. But all the time, most of her mind is on her hand, lest a pestle can come and injure her. What a marvelous example we are seeing here. Like this, many kinds of examples are there. Then, somebody told him that there was a popular saying also, that when a wasp stings a small insect, this is called "Kirta Bhramara Nyaya." Then, it is so painful for the worm that the worm itself will turn into a butterfly. So, immediately, Sri Ramakrishna finds out, this is not a scientific fact, but if we casually observe it, then we can see that there is something there, and it is strung, and then it becomes immobile, and after some time, many butterflies will come out, baby wasps will come out, etc. So, what is it? By continuously being in holy company, one must become holy. There is no choice, and that is what we are seeing in our day-to-day life. I will give you only one example. There are so many newspapers and news channels nowadays, and because of the presentation, because of the beauty of the person who is presenting, some kind of magnetic attraction, we are likely to be addicted to see one particular channel and then go on listening to that person. After some time, we lose all power of discrimination. Even the capacity to inquire is lost. Is it a fact? Is it true? Or is it her own honest interpretation? Or is it a twisted interpretation? She has got some selfishness, some motive. Then my party should appear in a better light, etc. And people go on thinking, "This is what is called Parama Veda, this is gospel truth," as they call it. And then our opinions, our hatreds, our friendships, our admiration, this is how we are caught. In the household also, this is how we are caught. "This is my son." If only we knew what this fellow's son has done in the past life to us, or what we did to that son in the past life. Why is he born? So something we have done wrong. And then when we come back, now karma phala has to be exhausted. So maybe that person whom we have tortured has now taken birth in our own family because something very peculiar happens. If somebody is torturing us from the neighborhood, we can protest, we can quarrel, we can beat. But if our own children are torturing us, now our tongues are completely tied because of what we call attachment. And at the same time, a person will be torturing us. How many ways, how many billions of people are suffering? Either one way or the other. Especially so many young people are addicted to drinks, to drugs. In my own life, I have seen so many. Our own devotees, children, they have no devotion. They are addicted to something very bad. Now the agony that the parents go through, it must be due to karma phala only. So this is what Sri Ramakrishna is telling. What does holy company do? We become holy. Just as in the company of a wasp, an insect is turned into a wasp. That is one type of example. Then by the company of people, all the time, how much we are influenced. If somebody whom we love goes on telling, many times what happens is even at the beginning, we may have discrimination. Later on, while going on reading or listening, etc., we take it for granted that the person is telling the truth, and we come to believe that is the truth. So much after going on eating every day, even bitter things, we develop an attachment, a taste. That is what Sri Ramakrishna wants to tell. It helps one cultivate discrimination between the real and the unreal. In the past also, we have seen what is discrimination. One of the very first qualities a person has to acquire in order to progress in life, secular or spiritual, worldly or spiritual life, is called discrimination. What is discrimination? What is desirable? What is not desirable? What is not only not desirable, but what is most harmful? That sense of separating one from the other is the very first step, the first condition to be happy in this world. Even if we want to be healthy, we have to find out. This kind of lifestyle is not good for us. This type of food is not good for us. This quantity is more than enough for me, etc. So, the discrimination between the real and the unreal. What is real? Sri Ramakrishna said many times, "God alone is real. Everything else is unreal." Now, what does Sri Ramakrishna mean by real and unreal? Whatever we are experiencing in this world is very real. Why? How do we know what is real? There must be a definition. Supposing somebody shows you a plastic cobra. And then you can see clearly, it looks like a cobra. And it may even move and hiss and unfurl its hood through some mechanism. But we know it doesn't have life. It doesn't have poison. It becomes a wonderful plaything. In our childhood, we used to play with a kind of plastic or rubber material. So, it has a string. And when we try to pull that string, this snake-like thing, it wriggles and moves. So, that is a great fun for us. "I am the master of the snake. I am not frightened of the snake," etc. So, when we come to know that this is a plastic snake, we are not frightened. We don't react. But when we see any snake, it may be a water snake. It is not at all poisonous. There are so many snakes which are not poisonous at all. But we don't know the discrimination, poisonous or not. Many creatures get frightened. Even animals get frightened. By experience, even though they might not have experience, somehow from their parents, they get this instinctual fear. But when we see a real snake, automatically we react. So, our reaction tells us what we consider to be real. Because we will never react to something what we think we know as unreal. So, do we know anything about God? No. Do we know anything about the world? Sadly, the answer is no. We see the world. We are in the world. We are the world. Our body is the world. Our mind is the world. Every day, we are either happy (that is the world) or unhappy (that is the world). But we think it is real. What does the scripture say? "God alone is real, and this world is unreal." That is to say, transitory or temporary. As soon as a man finds his mind wandering away to the unreal, he should apply discrimination. The moment an elephant stretches out its trunk to eat a plantain tree in a neighbor's garden, it gets a blow from the iron goad of the driver. Very funny example, because if anybody has cows, sometimes cows, sometimes buffaloes, what do we do? The moment any cow stretches out its mouth to eat plantain or any fruit from the neighbor's garden, we just look away. But if the same cow stretches to do the same thing in our garden, we give it a blow. This is ungentlemanly behavior. This is what is being said here. Sri Ramakrishna is telling the opposite. A good man never allows anything to be done, any unjustified act to be done to others because the person is highly truthful. And Sri Ramakrishna is also connecting. A person who is not truthful can never be practicing discrimination. It is impossible. So this is one of the benefits of holy company. And Sri Ramakrishna used to tell, holy company specially means company of one's own Guru. And Sri Ramakrishna had observed many times. In the olden times, there will be what we call a carpenter who teaches his own children or somebody who is from the neighbor. And an Ayurvedic physician, he will be passing his secrets to his family or sometimes to some others also. So there was a person who can trade in threads. And the threads are counted 38, 39, 40, 41. The distinction between them is extremely subtle. So Sri Ramakrishna used to give that example that after living many, many years, a person acquires that power. This is the 40 number thread. This is 41 number thread. Similarly, a person wants to learn Ayurvedic medicine and he becomes a novice under somebody. And then the master teaches him how to feel the pulse. The pulse of phlegm, pulse of Kapha, Vata, Pitta, everything is totally different because there are, there were, especially expert Ayurvedic physicians by just taking the pulse, they can, it is said, even predict whether the patient is going to recover or not. So continuous, constant, holy company is necessary as we discussed many times. Holy company doesn't mean only a person. It could be a book. It could be a talk like our Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. It could be a holy place. It could be any incident in life, especially tragic incidents in life. They are the greatest holy company and tragedies happen everywhere. That should remind us that this is common. If I am in Samsara, this is going to happen all the time. And now comes the second most important point. This question practically every day rises up in our mind. What is the subject? Explanation of evil. Why is this? Rarely people ask about God. Only a few times they ask. But they also have doubt about God because if God is real, why should there be evil in this world? Not understanding the very nature of this world, it consists of duality: heat and cold, good and evil, victory and defeat, respect and humiliation, victory and defeat, life and death. Everything comes only, male and female in pair and absence of the knowledge of one will be absence of the knowledge of the other also. If we don't know what is cold, we will never know what is called heat also. So here is a neighbor asking, and why do we ask? When do we remember God?

There is a popular saying: "Sankata Kaale Venkata Ramana." So many times, we have to ask the question, "How come that I am happy? What brought me this happiness?" That should be the real question because we should be humble enough to say, "I did not deserve it, but I got it, so somebody must be very kind to me." But at least, if not that, we should ask both times. But usually, we ask the question, "Why am I suffering? Nobody asks the question, "Why am I so happy? What right does God have to make me so happy?" Except perhaps people like Kunti Devi. She says, "O Lord, you always surround us with problems, hardship, suffering. Why?" Because we remember God only at times of suffering.

So here is the question, why does a man have sinful tendencies? A useless type of question, really speaking. Why does this fellow have a habit of reading books? Why is he reading? Why does he have the habit of? What do you mean by habit? Habit means what? A person goes on doing, repeating the same thing again and again and again; that becomes a habit. So, a tendency is what we call in Vedanta Samskaras. Whether they are good Samskaras or evil Samskaras, Samskara is something which we develop through repeated experience. That is why South Indians like South Indian food. Why do they like it? Because they have been repeating that experience ever since they were in the womb of the mother. I don't know if a mother eats Masala Vada whether the child also gets a little bit of taste of it and gets addicted. Probably not. But whatever we are habituated to from childhood seems to be what gives us pleasure, actually. So many points, many times I had discussed; you have to do a lot of Mananam also. I know you do Shravanam, but whether you are doing Mananam, that is a point we have to also keep in mind.

So, we are there with sinful tendencies. The simple answer is the man had assiduously, consciously, and cultivated them through many, many lifetimes—stealing, telling lies, cheating others, etc.

So, Sri Ram Krishna is replying, in God's creation, there are all sorts of things. He has created bad men as well as good men. This is the greatness of Vedanta. Hinduism, Hindu Dharma, at first glance, reading it may not appear to be anything strange. God created everybody. But if you go to other religions, they ask, "Who created evil? Saturn created." But they don't ask further questions. "Who created Saturn?" Because there cannot be two Gods. One is the creator of good, and another is the creator of evil. According to Hinduism, everything, whether it is a good person, a bad person, whether they are Gods or demons (Devas, Asuras, Rakshasas, Chinese President, Hitler, and so many other people you see in the newspapers), distorts our opinion. Most of the people in the West, especially leaders, they are... When we were children, we used to read Chandra Mama stories—Rakshasas come, kidnap people, and sometimes eat them up, sometimes imprison them, etc. So these are the people; really great, good political leader is rarely available. Perhaps once in a while, like Abraham Lincoln, maybe available like Mahatma Gandhi may be available, but rarely. But what happens? There are some people who have got this, what is called propaganda machines, like newspapers, and these people are the masters, and they twist everybody's mind. We are democratic people; we are very good people; we want justice; we don't want inequality. What is happening in their own backyard, they completely neglect? Democracy is going on all the time, practically all over the world, but if any country is trying to do its best to bring about true democracy, then everybody becomes its enemies, probably out of jealousy. When I am not able to do this, how are you able to do this?

Anyway, who created good people? Only God. Who creates evil people? Only God. Now the wonderful thing is we have to distinguish between person and quality. A person is not quality; quality is not a person, but they come together. For example, there is a beautiful saying that every sinner is a future saint, and every saint was a sinner in the past, something like that. So, nobody has ever fallen from the sky either as a saint or as a sinner. Very, very important for all of us to understand this. So who created God? But as we have been discussing in Aitareya Upanishad and other Upanishads, what is this creation? It is not I or you or anybody; God only is manifesting as each one of us. We, as separated from God, as distinguished from God, we do not have any existence at all. But such is the Mahamaya, as if God has forgotten and thinking himself as a human being. "I am separate from God." So, it is God only who has created a good man as well as a bad man. Now, that is where the doubts come. Let me read a little bit.

It is He who gives us good tendencies, and it is He again who gives us evil tendencies. Another doubt will come, and that doubt is being expressed by the same person who put that first question, "Why does a man have sinful tendencies?" And he should have put the question, "Why does a man have good tendencies, meritorious tendencies, punya samskaras?" So the neighbor is asking, "In that case, we are not responsible for our sinful actions, are we?" He is telling, "If God has planted in us, then I am helplessly being carried, influenced, acting, as Duryodhana had said." Very interesting case. We all know Mahabharata and Kurukshetra. It was over 18th day; Duryodhana was lying with his thighs broken, and somebody went and asked him, "Oh prince, you are a very intelligent person. I know, super intelligent. You knew even before if I continue like this, inevitably, inevitably, there would be a war, and in that war, I am going to be destroyed. You knew it, did you not?" Of course, the way I am presenting is not the Mahabharata, but this is what has happened. And then Duryodhana seemed to have replied, "Yes, I knew it." Then why did you not stop? Because you are courting your own destruction. And Duryodhana was supposed to reply, whether he replied or somebody is putting those words in his mouth is not important. Important thing is it is a tremendous lesson for all of us. He said, "I know what is right, what is Dharma. I have no inclination to put it into practice (Janami Adharma). Similarly, I know what is Adharma. I have no willpower to resist." Then he adds, as if somebody is sitting in the heart of my heart and making me do, even though I am helplessly witnessing that this is all happening. That is not true, a great word of wisdom. But what good does it do? Because God also has given some freedom to us to act. Not only he gave us the power of discrimination, he also gave us the power either to go along with it or not to go along with it, that is called willpower. And we can develop that willpower. And if we don't do, we are going to either enjoy or suffer because if we do something good, the inevitable result will be Sukham. Punya gives Sukham, and Papa gives unhappiness. In fact, many times I told you we go to the extent of defining what is Punyam and Papam. Punyam doesn't give, Papam doesn't give. Punyam is the ability to squeeze happiness even under the most unfortunate circumstances. Papam is the marvelous felicity to squeeze unhappiness from even the best circumstances. A person is lying on a water bed and not getting sleep at all. So who gives us these evil tendencies then? God is responsible.

So Ramakrishna's beautiful reply: sin begets its own result; this is again God's law. Won't you burn your tongue if you chew a chili? In his youth, Madhur led a rather fast life, so he suffered from various diseases before his death. Very interesting case. Those who studied the life of Sri Ramakrishna know Madhur Babu looked upon Sri Ramakrishna as his own chosen deity, Mother Kali. This is a contradiction which is so difficult for us to understand. At the same time, he was addicted to women. Not only that, he used to take his Ishta Devata also along with him to the prostitute's house. "Baba, I have got some urgent work to finish; you wait," and then he would go into the house. After half an hour or 45 minutes, he would come back and say, "My work is done; let us go." That means, what? Even the very presence of the Ishta Devata doesn't prevent because of what? Evil tendencies, sinful tendencies, strong negative samskaras are so very difficult but not impossible. That is why in the 6th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna says that it is very, very difficult to control this mind, as difficult as catching hold of the air. And then Bhagavan Krishna also sympathizes, and then he agrees with Arjuna, and he says, "Yes, you are absolutely right. It is very true." But there is something called Abhyasa and Vairagya. " abhyāsena tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇa cha gṛihyate " It is possible because, as my mother used to tell, if you have rolled multicolored thread into a ball and you want to get one particular colored thread, now you will have to unroll everything. So, evil tendencies have to be overcome by good tendencies. That's why it takes time. So this is what Ramakrishna is trying to tell, that God has created, no doubt, but God also has given you the power of discrimination. And he doesn't mean that that power should be kept in a box and worshipped; it is not supposed to be rusty; you are supposed to use it, discrimination, that is very important. So, that is what he is trying to tell. One may not realize this in youth. I have looked into the hearth in the kitchen of the Kali temple, and logs are being burnt. At first, the wet wood burns rather well; it doesn't seem then that it contains much moisture. But when the wood is sufficiently burnt, all the moisture runs back to one end; at last, water squirts from the fuel and puts out the fire. So one should be careful about anger, passion, and greed and many other things. But this is very, very interesting, Ramakrishna's word, exact translation from the Bhagavad Gita. Kama, Krodha, and Lobha, that is what exactly Ramakrishna is expressing; anger is Krodha, and Lobha means greed.

Take, for instance, the case of Hanuman. Ramakrishna always quotes with examples. Take the case of Hanuman, Shri Rama sent Hanuman in search of Sita. So, he went there, he saw in Sri Lanka, and then he consoled Sita, said, "Mother, I have got tremendous hunger, after all, crossing fourteen kilometers, flying, and fighting with so many Rakshasas, Rakshasis, it was a really set-breaking work, so I am very hungry." And she went on prolonging the conversation. Instead of asking whether you have eaten or not, at last, then he asked permission, "Can I eat some fruits from here?" She probably did not understand, a small monkey, a few fruits will do. And then he grew to his enormous length and started breaking and swallowing and eating everything. And then there was a fight, and then Ravana's son, Indrajith, he conquered Indra, he pleased Brahma through Tapasya, even Rakshasas do Tapasya. Tapasya means extraordinary concentration of something. And he obtained even Brahmastra. Brahmasastra cannot bind me. But because it is Brahmastra belonging to Brahma, so it will just bind you for a moment, touches, binds you, then it becomes powerless. Then Hanuman was carried, and then he insulted Ravana by creating his own Simhasana by his tail and then abused him in so many ways, and unwarranted advice he gave to Ravana. And then Ravana commanded, "Kill this fellow," and Vibhishana said, "No, no, he is only a representative of China, so you should not kill him. So you should burn his tail." Ravana thought that monkey's tail is the biggest tail, so burn it, and there will be no more monkeys. There will be... What happens when a monkey's tail is burned? He will turn into a monk, and when a monk grows a big tail, he becomes a monkey. So, then they put a lot of cloth, oil, and then he was delightfully, Agni Devata was his greatest benefactor. He says, "Don't worry, nothing happens. Even one hair of your body will not burn." So he started jumping from house to house, but he had tremendous discrimination. He observed Vibhishana, and to his house, he did not put, but to all the neighboring houses, he put them on fire. "Now it passes my poor brain. If all the houses around are burning, how can this one house in the middle escape?" Even today, I can't solve that enigma.

Anyway, then the whole Lanka started burning. In the middle of the Lanka, there was a garden, and in that garden, Sita was there. Suddenly, Hanuman remembered. "Now, Sita will also be burned," and he started burning. His heart started burning. That was what Sri Ramakrishna is referring. At last, he remembered that Sita was living in the Ashoka grove. Then he began to tremble lest the fire should injure her. Lest you may be curious, I am going to complete it. Then he discriminated himself. You see, "I am a monkey, I am a servant of Rama. Agni is not burning me, so that same Agni will never burn Mother Sita because Agni Devata knows who is Rama, who is the boss, and who is the real boss." So he consoled himself. Of course, to make doubly sure that his faith is right before going, coming out of Sri Lanka, so he went to Sita Devi, and then he also takes leave of her. But this is a beautiful example; anger is very bad.

Then the question which we raised: why God has created not only sinful tendencies but tendencies. Tendencies mean what? A tendency is a guna. I mentioned earlier. Very important to understand. A wicked man can become a saint, but a saint will not become a wicked person. If at all a saint misbehaves, then it is because of some strength, some Purva Janma Samskara. But very soon he will come out. But a wicked man will go on evolving. But it is just for us to... If it is any consolation that nobody has become a saint in a day, Purva Janmas like any one of us, every saint has gone through the same problem, but through sadhana, life after life, he has become a saint. Now, we will also become the same saints; there is no doubt about it. And this listening to the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is one of the best means.

So, a wonderful question, especially nowadays. If you go on listening to the news, we see everywhere wickedness seems to be growing: killing, looting, cheating, scams, trying to grab other people's properties, enslaving other people through whatever means, internet or artificial intelligence, everything seems to be happening now. So, whom did God create? "Wicked people? what we want to understand is wickedness, and wicked people; they are not the same. The person is divine; each soul is potentially divine, and we have a body and mind. Our identity with the body and mind will never be bodies; we will never be minds forever, even in our same conditions, at the same times. I am not the body; I am not the mind at all. So wickedness is a bad quality, whether I would say it is a combination of many bad qualities, because evil qualities come together in a company, and good qualities also come in a gang. So, a wicked person doesn't have only one wicked quality.

One fellow was asked, 'Do you have any bad habits?' and that fellow answered, 'No, I don't have bad habits.' Really? Are you a saint? 'I am not a saint, if you have to say. Occasionally, I chew betel nut.' So that is okay; it is absolutely fine. Do you chew it every day? 'No, no, no, only occasionally.' And what is the occasion? 'Whenever I smoke a cigarette, then I eat betel, this tamal paku, oh, betel leaf.' Then do you have cigarettes? 'No, no, no, whenever I drink a little, then only I have this cigarette.' Oh, do you drink? 'No, no, no, only when I steal something and get some money, then only, like that, all evil qualities come together.' So what is the point I am making? That person and qualities are totally separate; they are separable. And spiritual practice means taking out first of all the bad qualities, acquiring divine or spiritual qualities, and in the course of time, even giving up those good qualities because good qualities bind us, gunas bind us. So this is how we have to grow.

Sri Ramakrishna's answer to this, 'Why has God created wicked people?' Part of the question, 'Why is there evil?' Evil is there because evil quality cannot be separate from an evil person. Quality and person must always be together; that is His will, His play in His maya. There exists avidya as well as vidya; darkness is needed too; it reveals all the more the glory of light. There is no doubt anger, lust, and greed are evils; why then has God created them? In order to create saints, this is the resounding answer.

All these things, it is, how do we know a person is a saint? Because a person is a saint only if he has conquered kama, krodha, loha, moha, mada, matsarya. And then not only that, these very qualities, they become the most positive qualities. We must be angry if something is not allowing us to move towards God. Lust, what is lust? 'I want only God, nothing else.' And what is greed? 'That I will never be satisfied, however much devotion I get or thinking of God, I will never be able to satisfy.' And then say, 'Enough is enough; I want more, I want more, pratikshanam varthamanam; I want to be completely mesmerized only by God.' And then, 'I want to be proud, I am a child of God; I am a devotee of God.' Shankaracharya has kept the ego of knowledge. Narada kept the ego of bhakti, 'I am a servant of God.' Hanuman kept the ego, 'I am a servant of God; I will not serve anybody like that.' So this is how a man becomes a saint, by conquering the senses. Is there anything impossible for a man who has subdued his passions, to even realize God through His grace?

Again, see how His whole play of creation is perpetuated through lust. Is lust only negative? No, it has a very positive quality. If there were to be no lust, there would be no world at all. The whole world will come to an end. And a very interesting story, Bhagwan Narayana created Brahma, commanded him to continue with the creation, and Brahma created four manasa putras: Sanaka, etc., and commanded them to propagate, to expand this samsara. And being manasa putras of Brahma, Brahma Sattvika Sampannas, and they became discriminative and said, 'Our father wants to trap us; let us run away.' They ran away, became monks, never returned. Then Brahma created man and woman, and now the Srishti went on merrily.

So, if there were to be no lust, then there would be no creation at all. But the same lust can also be turned. What is lust? An intense desire to create oneself or to recreate oneself. There are three births of a man. The first birth is in the man in the form of seed, the second birth is the woman, and then, after coming out of the mother's womb also, the third birth will be actually going back. So this very lust, when it is turned to God, it is called Prema. In Bengali, there is a beautiful saying that says, 'That is called Kama; if the desire is for one's own satisfaction of one's own body and mind, selfishness, it is called Kama, lust. But if the same lust is, 'I want to please only Bhagwan Krishna, like Gopis, every Gopi is a Gopi only because they don't want their own happiness; they want only Krishna's happiness.' So this is called Prema. Kama and Prema differ only in the direction. Kama makes us very fit to enter into the spiritual path. This is a very strange thing; a fellow who doesn't have Kama is never going to be a spiritual person; take it from me.

Once a disciple asked Swami Brahmananda, 'I am suffering from this Kama; will you not be able to remove it?' Swami Brahmananda said, 'I will definitely be able to remove it, but my son, know this is the truth: if I remove your desire, then your very desire to live itself will disappear. There is so much psychology; it is because of Kama we are happy; it is because of Kama we are so enthusiastic; it is because of Kama life becomes worth living. It is because of Kama. Ultimately, when this Kama becomes Agni Kama Agni, then nothing in this world can satisfy us. At that time, God gives us that power of understanding; it is only God alone that we are really after. In fact, we are after only God; we are not after any object.

Today's class, I will close with an explanation of this thing, but let me first complete a little bit. A man becomes a saint by conquering the senses. Is there anything impossible for a man who has subdued his passions, to even realize God through His grace? Again, see how His whole play of creation is perpetuated through lust. Wicked people are needed too. At one time, the tenants of an estate became unruly; a landlord had to send one Golak Choudhury, who was a ruffian, a goonda; he was such a harsh administrator that the tenants trembled at the very mention of his name.

This subject about wicked people will be coming in the next class. We will discuss what I wanted to discuss is this: karma has got a tremendous role in our life; it is only because of desire. But everything is perpetuating. Now, most people, most of us, we think that it is this karma which is diverting our mind, which is binding us. But actually, do you know what is karma? It is the desire. What is that desire? Only one desire: 'I have lost; I have forgotten myself; I want to know myself.' This is the only desire, the root cause of everything in this world. How come the mind is restless? One of our swamis, Ashokanandaji, he gave a beautiful talk. The mind is restless only for God. But to be very brief, this is the explanation. You ask a person, 'What is it you are seeking?' 'I want to eat a sweet, for example.' 'Why do you want to eat sweet?' 'Are you after the sweet?' If he is a discriminating person, he will say, 'No, I am not after sweet; I am after the happiness that I am after because I can get happiness by eating the sweet. If the sweet doesn't give happiness, I will not even look at it; it will be abhorrent to me.' So we have only that Ananda.

What type of Ananda? Unbroken Ananda and infinite Ananda; it should be infinite; it should be unbroken, unbroken means eternal. And if we have to be happy, then we have to be alive eternally, and if we have to be eternally happy, we have to know that I am eternity, I am Paramatma. Then Paramatma's happiness, Brahma, by knowing Brahman, what does one become? Brahma Gnanena Brahma Eva Bhavati, Brahma with Brahma Eva Bhavati. This is the real truth. We will explore it in our next class.

Om Jananim Shardam Devi Ramakrishnam Jagat Gurum Pada Padmetayo Shritva Pranamami Mohur Moho. May Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, and Swami Vivekananda bless us all with bhakti. Jai Ramakrishna."

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