Patanjali Yoga Sutras Lecture 082

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

Om Sahanaavavatu Sahanaubhunaktu Saaveeryam Karavavahai Tejasvinavaditamastumavidvishavahai Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Hari Om Om Yogena Chittasya Padena Vacham Malam Sharirasya Javaidhyakeena Yopakarottam Pravaram Muninam Patanjalim Praanjali Rana Tosmi I bow to the eminent sage Patanjali who removed the impurities of the mind through yoga, of speech through grammar and of the body through medicine. We are studying Shri Ramakrishna as a great yogi from the viewpoint of Patanjali Yogashastra. We have covered some portions of the Niyama that is Saucha, Cleanliness, Purity and Santosha. We are also, we discussed about austerity, Tapasya. What is Tapasya? That which burns away our impurities, that which makes our vision clear and that which inspires us towards God Realization that is Tapasya. If it is for any other purpose such as Siddhis, supernatural powers or world enjoyments then that is not to be considered as austerity in the real sense of the term. The mythologies, especially Indian mythologies, give us several examples, Ravanasura, Hiranyakashyapu, etc. They perform tremendous amount of superhuman austerities. What was the end? What was the goal? So they could enjoy this world. So what is the point? What is wrong with that in enjoying this world? If we enjoy the world, we become bound. If we enjoy God, we become free. It is a question of whether we want to be bound or whether we want to be freed. It is this purpose or end which determines what we do is really austerity or not. Now we have started discussing the fourth quality, what is called Adhyayana, Shastra Adhyayana, Swadhyaya. It has two meanings. One is study of the scriptures. The other is study of one's own mind, one's own mind. Both are extremely important. First of all, what is a scripture? What is the purpose of a scripture? Shri Ramakrishna gives wonderful examples to make this point very clear. A scripture is that which tells us what is the goal of human life. We may study any amount of what is called world scriptures. What do they tell us? For example, psychology. If you study psychology, it tells us how to make our mind very rational, the ability to think deeply and clearly and the ability to come to good decisions. But what is the goal? These are instruments. But what is the purpose? A psychologically healthy person is one who enjoys this world. A scripture's purpose is totally different. Why is it different? The difference is worldly knowledge, worldly scriptures means worldly knowledge can be got through worldly instruments. Any amount of worldly instruments means our five sense organs are incapable of giving us supernatural knowledge. That is to say knowledge about God. Agnatha Gnapakam Shastram, what is Shastram is the Sanskrit name for scripture. So what is it? Agnatha Gnapakam, that which tells us what we cannot understand through our five sense organs and what are those things? Three things, whether God exists, whether there is life after death and whether there is other world, only these three things and there is no other way excepting to go through the scriptures. So in Hindu philosophy, there are three technical terms used which every spiritual aspirant should be familiar with even if they do not know the technical words. It is called Tattva, Hita and Purushartha. Tattva means what is the truth, what is reality, Purushartha means what a human being should aim at, Hita means what is the means of attaining this goal. Now these three, truth and why we should go after this particular truth, not worldly truth but scriptural spiritual truth and what is the way to attain it. We cannot get anywhere else excepting in a scripture. In this sense, the teachings of any realized soul and scripture, they are absolutely one and the same. So for example, Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna gives these three, what is the goal of life and what should we do and why we should do it. All these three are clearly delineated in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. So it goes for all the scriptures. So why we should or how we should and why we should study the scriptures, here are certain reasons. First, how to study scriptures, do not study, do not start studying scriptures with a rational mind, intellectual mind. Intellectuality is not going to make the slightest difference. Sri Ramakrishna as you know is almost unlettered, so to say, but when he hears a scripture then his way of understanding is totally different, ours is totally different. Famous Upanishadic example is Naciketa's father. He also studied the scripture and his son Naciketa, he also studied scripture. What a difference, in Sri Ramakrishna's life there is an incident, his father wanted him to go to school, his father and elder brother, he refused to go. Very famous saying of his, I do not want that education which gives me money etc. so that I can live happily in this world. Mind you, he is not saying I do not want to be happy, I want to be very, very happy. What is the problem? He understood worldly knowledge has got only very little amount of happiness. How much happiness, how much happiness worldly objects can give us? Sri Ramakrishna's famous teachings, you know a camel is eating thorny bush and he eats things that I am very happy, a dog is chewing a bone. Another example he gave is a man eats, there is a kind of berry which comes in the summer season, huge seed inside and it is sour and it creates stomach problems, but if you put it in the mouth like you are chewing gum, it is for a few seconds, it gives you kind of titillation to the tongue. All these points to illustrate what Sri Ramakrishna's teachings about worldly happiness, but in our blindness, we do not accept it, we think that we are wiser than scriptures, okay. So how to study scriptures? Don't study with an intellectual mind, study with full faith, no rationality about it. Study with full faith, that is the first thing. Second, what is the purpose of a scripture? It tells us tattva, purushartha and hita, it tells us what is the goal of life, it tells us why we should adopt that goal of life and what is the means to attain to that life. To put it in Sri Ramakrishna's words, God realization is the only goal of life and why we should strive after God realization, because that is the only thing which can give us much more happiness for all the time together. Swami Vivekananda put it in a beautiful way. He met a great agnostic called Robert Ingersoll in America and they had a small conversation, we don't know much of what went on between them, but Swamiji seems to have asked, what is the goal of your life? This man said, the goal of my life is to squeeze this orange called the world and enjoy it, worldly enjoyment. Swami Vivekananda's retort, instantaneous retort, spiritual retort was that I know that you can only squeeze this orange once, but I can squeeze it again and again and again any number of times. There is sometimes, there is a kind of misunderstanding in our minds, spiritual life is opposed to worldly type of happiness. No, spiritual happiness includes all worldly happiness and much much more. So why not opt for it? What is the purpose of a scripture, what can it do? It can tell us the goal of life, it can tell us why that should be the goal of life and it can also tell us how to attain it. So how many paths are there? As we all know, only four roads are there, four-laned motor road. What are they, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga. The third point, why should we study scriptures? Because of these few things, first, our resolution, our understanding is very very short lived. Any event can shake our faith, that's why we should go on studying the scriptures for whole life. Naturally, the question arises, some doubting Thomas, what if I can't read, what if I go blind? The meaning of the scripture is, not necessarily you have to study Bible or Vedas or etc. Once you grasped it, you have to go on thinking about it, your mantra given by your guru, what is it? That is the biggest scripture in the whole world, go on hearing about it. So one purpose of the scripture is, in this world, it is extremely difficult to get holy company. Scriptures give us the instantaneous, infallible, ever-present inspiration, satsang, holy company and it also gives us inspiration because our minds as they are constituted, their very nature is move in a wave-like motion, go up, go down, go up, go down. When we study the scripture, immediately we are filled. Another benefit of scriptural study is, when the scripture teaches us, constantly you have to think of God, it's wonderful teaching, but how many of us are capable of sustaining constant remembrance of God? What does the scripture do? It fills the gap for us, it works as a substitute for our remembering because these are the thoughts that are given out by other realized souls. So our mind is filled with no other thought excepting God when we study the scriptures. This is the third point. Fourth, why should we study the scriptures? Because it is human nature. What is human nature? To err is human. We can commit lot of mistakes, but many times we are not aware that we are committing mistakes. But when we study the scriptures, then they act as corrective, in fact they act as guru. Scripture is a guru. So what happens when we study a scripture? Guru may not be there all the time with us, but the scripture is there. You study Bhagavad Gita, you study the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, what happens, oh, this is what the scripture is telling, I knew it, but I had forgotten it. Now I remember it, after reading I do remember it. So this is how we can correct. See how many benefits are there, holy company, then inspiration, then correcting our mistakes and then it fills up remembrance of God, it is doing it for us, a scripture is doing it for us. A scripture doesn't mean only books, it can be worship, ritualistic worship, it can be hearing devotional songs, singing devotional songs, anything that elevates our mind and directs it towards God, that is called scripture. Sri Ramakrishna gives us beautiful teachings, two teachings come to my mind at this time. One is what is the essence of scriptures. Once a person or to put it this way, how long should a person go on studying scriptures? One of the questions raised is how long, whole life, no, not necessary, how long, until we grasp the essence and then we can throw it out. Sri Ramakrishna gives the example, a man went to town and he received a letter from his village and he lost the letter, he misplaced the letter and he spent several hours searching for it, ultimately he got it. What was written, when you come home, you buy these things and come home. Once he understood, he tore the letter into pieces and threw them in the dustbin. This was Sri Ramakrishna's teaching. Once our mind has understood this is the essence of scripture, this is the goal which the scripture is teaching, then you don't need any scriptures. I also remember a story, you will also remember, many of you. Once a wandering monk came to Dakshineshwar, he had a big book. Sri Ramakrishna was curious, so with his permission, he opened the book. What was written? Rama. On every page, only this one word, Rama and then the sadhu smiled and explained, probably Sri Ramakrishna was intrigued. So what was the point? What is the essence of this scripture? If you can remember God, then your purpose is fulfilled. You don't need that scripture, but it doesn't mean and you forget everything. Once you know, this is called Shravana. In the path of Jnana Yoga, there are these three steps, Shravana, Manana and Nididhyasana. First you hear, second you think deeply about them, remove all doubts and become absolutely convinced that this is the essence and after that put them into practice. But it doesn't go sequentially, it goes simultaneously. You read and you also think about it, you start practicing, then you understand it better, your doubts will become less and then you practice it, you understand even better, etc. Go forward, that is the example. One example, people think that they are very wise. People think unfortunately that they are very wise. Who is a wise person according to this scripture or according to Sri Ramakrishna? I am quoting Sri Ramakrishna because we are very familiar with that. Once two friends entered into a mango orchard. One fellow took out his calculator and started counting how many trees, how many branches, how many leaves, how many fruits, his whole time was spent in that. The other man quietly approached the watchman, took his permission. He must have asked which fruits are sweeter because even among trees there will be differences. The watchman must have been highly pleased, so he pointed out, this is the best tree. So quietly climbed up to the tree, started eating. Now who is the wiser person? So who is wiser? He who knows what is the goal of life and quietly goes about doing what he needs to do, he is the wiser person. These are the benefits that we get from studying of the scripture. To summarize, scriptures must never be studied with an intellectual mind. Always they should be studied with deep faith, no question about it at all. Until we realize God, the scripture is necessary either in the form of reading or in the form of thinking or in the form of repeating mantra, etc. And scripture has lot of benefits, I told you three benefits, holy company, inspiration and correcting our misbehavior, where we have gone wrong, this is the scripture. Now did Sri Ramakrishna really studied the scripture? Now the scriptural study means all these things that we have mentioned right now, Sri Ramakrishna has tremendous faith, it is also funny to say even secular governments have a way of imposing the scriptures. You know if somebody has to be sworn as a witness, what do they do? Take Bible, Bhagavad Gita, Koran and you promise put it on your head and say otherwise you are going to go to the other place. They know the weakness, there are so many people who fear and therefore these are used to induce truthfulness in them. Sri Ramakrishna, he said, I have heard a lot and we also hear a lot, we also hear a lot, most of you hear from me a lot. If I ask you what did we discuss last week, sometimes I tell you, last year we have discussed so many things, last year, Swamiji how do you expect us to remember, alright, my hopes are not that high, but what about last week, what about today morning, this is the point we have to complete faith and the scripture means you grasp the essence and then think deeply about it until all your doubts go away and you are convinced and for Sri Ramakrishna what was his greatest asset, wonderful memory, once he hears, he never forgets, Swami Vivekananda, he has to hear it twice, then he remembers it forever, read or hear, that is called Shravana, real Shravana, then Sri Ramakrishna heard a lot and he was very, very intelligent person, what you call, Swami Shardanji has described, smart, so Sri Ramakrishna studied scriptures in the sense, he read very few things, but he heard a lot, he remembered a lot and he had the capacity to grasp the essence, I will give one instance, Swami Turiyananda was deeply absorbed in the study of Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta and whenever Sri Ramakrishna used to go to Calcutta, he knew who was going to be a monk, so he would like his would-be monks to gather around him to instruct them, to inspire them and Swami Turiyananda was not visiting for many days, so one day he sent for this young man and he asked, why don't I see you nowadays, why don't you come, he said, sir, I am deeply absorbed in studying scriptures, he was really studying many scriptures with Shankaras, commentaries, etc., Sri Ramakrishna said, after all, what is the essence of this Advaita, God, Brahma Sathyam, Jaganmithya, God alone is real and everything else is not real, is this not the essence of Vedanta, the young man had to accept and say, yes, you are right, that is the, but that did not stop there because Swami Turiyananda was very, very sincere and one of the person who had the strongest will so far as I could see, you know why, it is not directly related to this topic, when he was in USA, Shanti Ashrama, the Divine Mother appeared to him and by that time Swami Turiyananda decided he would come back to India and would not go back to USA and Divine Mother appeared and said, I wish you would be here and I will provide you with devotees, I would provide you with buildings and I would provide you with everything and he did not accept. A man who could go against the Divine Mother's will, whose will is greater, but by whose will was his will greater, by the will of the Divine Mother only because he relied totally upon the Divine Mother. Coming back to our point, Ramakrishna understood the essence and there is something very important. He knew and he prayed to the Divine, oh Mother, I am a fool, I do not know all the scriptures, you teach me the essence of the scriptures. So his graphic description was, I made a garland of Vedas, Gita, others Puranas, Tantras and offered it at the Mother's lotus feet, said Mother, you tell me the essence of it and he said, Mother taught me everything that is contained in the scriptures. That is alright, but do not come and tell me next week, I also have bundled all those things and offered at the feet of the Mother and I do not need to do any of these things now, that is not going to be helpful at all. And Swadhyaya, we are talking about Swadhyaya, that is why it is said, Swadhyaya, several times this is repeated in the Taittiriya Upanishad, so long as a man is alive, he must go on studying the scriptures. This is only one meaning of the Swadhyaya. What is the second meaning? Swadhyaya, study of one's own mind. I think some of you will be interested, I have recently come across a very wonderful book, the title of this book, somebody asked me who is the author, he said unfortunately I do not remember the names of these authors very, very, but titles I do remember. The title of this book is Kidding Ourselves. What is this book about? All about how we are such experts in deceiving ourselves, self-deception. How do we know, everyone in three is insane, if this is the truth, how could they be so mentally deranged with all this modern knowledge and education and everything, unless they are kidding themselves, we are kidding ourselves. Self-deception is one of our strongest forte, we are all born with it, how do we know, because how many years since we have been practicing japa meditation and other things, why are we not progressing? If we are progressing, that means we know what our mind is doing, what obstructions it is raising and what is the remedy for it, all that we know. I recommend, this is a wonderful book, how does it help us? First it convinces us that each one of us are experts in kidding ourselves, secondly in how many ways it kids, I will give you one example from the book, it said how much influence just seeing something, we are influenced by that, it said they have experimented, here is a patient and painkiller is being given through intravenous injection, the drip the patient is able to see drop by drop, the liquid is falling and they had studied this phenomena and they found out the person who is seeing this drop by drop dripping, he gets rid of the pain quickly and for a long time than persons who have not seen. The very witnessing seeing this tube and the dripping has so much of effect upon the mind, the whole book is about how much our mind influences our personal behaviour, I also came to know before 1985, very few people knew the intimate relationship that existed between the mind and body and after 1985, there were tremendous what is called surge in studying the relationship between the body and mind, what is called psychosomatic, psychosomatic, psycho means the mind, somatic means, soma means the body, mind-body relationship, even Sriram Krishna was a victim to the psychosomatic illness, what was the incident? Holy mother was feeding him with condensed milk and he was drinking nicely and putting on weight but he had a sneaking suspicion that maybe he used to ask holy mother, how much milk? She said only this much, I boiled it this much but he had his own sneaking suspicion, one day a devotee brought the same material and he asked how much milk? She said this much milk, oh, how can I digest? All these other days, he was drinking nicely, digesting nicely and putting on weight, the moment he heard so much of milk indigestion, so we are all subject to it, only thing is what is the problem? The problem is these people are very alert, they know what their mind is trying to do, whereas we are not alert at all, so how we deceive ourselves, 3 ways we deceive ourselves, the first way is we want to be deceived, we encourage the deception because oh, I am a spiritual aspirant, I want everyone in this world to know I am a great spiritual aspirant because I do my prayers, meditation, etc. regularly, I am doing it for the last 50 years but why are you not making progress, why are you still a foot rug, this is the first way. Second way is we do not want to find out because it creates another feeling of guilt that I know what is wrong with me and I am not taking any steps to correct myself that produces extra guilt, so we want to suppress it, first is we are totally unaware, second we are vaguely aware but do not want to go into it. Thirdly, we have no intention of correcting ourselves, no intention, we know very clearly this is my goal and this is what I am trying to do but my real purpose in life is totally different, I do not wish to go in, how many ways you want to deceive yourself, this is the 3 ways how we deceive ourselves. If we want to progress, what is the first thing we need to do, we must be totally aware, that is why a Zen master was approached by a disciple, master how to progress in spiritual life, he said awareness, the disciple said I do not understand, what is awareness? The master replied awareness is equivalent to awareness, the disciple said I do not still understand, he looked at him and then said awareness is equivalent to awareness is equivalent to awareness, out, what is the Vipassana, what does Vipassana do, what is the real purpose, it is not breathing, it is how to be aware of the breathing, we will come to that point when we come to this pranayama section. So Sairam Krishna never allowed his mind to deceive him, Swami Shardananda is graphically describing before Sairam Krishna undertook any particular spiritual practice, he used to confront his mind, he used to divide his mind into two and say one part of the mind would ask the other part, oh mind, do you really want this or are you kidding yourself and the other part of the mind said no, I am not kidding, I want 100%, first question. Second question, are you prepared to sacrifice whatever is required to achieve your goal, if the mind cannot deceive because there is a law, if you watch your mind, what does your mind do, if you watch your mind, what does your mind do, it watches in its turn you, have you noticed it, go and do it, when you go into the shrine room you do it, if you watch your mind, if you keep a watch on your mind, in its turn they watch, oh this man is keeping a watch on me, I will also keep a watch, I will find out when this man is not keeping a watch on me and I will do what I would like to do, this is a psychologist, you know I am always very fond of this psychological points because it helped me and I wish it would help you also, okay, if you do not want, be frank about it and say I do not want it, be frank with yourself first, afterwards with everybody else, Sri Ramakrishna used to ask first question is do you want this, yes, yes, I want it, how much you want, 100% and are you prepared to do everything that is prescribed, if you wish to attain to this goal, if the mind says yes, then only he will proceed, if it hesitates or if it hems and haws, he is not going to do it, but usually he knows what he wanted, so the mind says yes, 100%, then both the parts of the mind will become one, now what is the beauty of it? It is not a split mind, you know we are all having split what? We all suffer from split personalities, we all suffer from multiple personality syndrome, this is what Sri Ramakrishna used to do, there are well-known examples, Sri Ramakrishna was 100% sincere and yet he kept a part of his mind as a watchman, oh mind, you watch over me and Sri Ramakrishna's extraordinary power of concentration, extraordinary power of imagination combined together, he used to see one young man, a Paramahamsa exactly like himself, in this connection I remembered, Swami Vivekananda used to fall asleep with one particular type of vision and at that time he did not understand it was a vision, he thought everybody was having the same type, what was it? first there used to come a brilliant, very, very intelligent, hard-working, discriminative young man, he has that tremendous power, he can enjoy the whole world, the whole world is at his feet, if he wants he wants to enjoy, next moment the figure of a shaven monk used to flash before his eyes and he used to fall asleep with that vision, now interesting point is when he grew up, of course he became a monk and it was lost, so the interesting point is what were these visions really? The goals of life, he was as it were visualising himself in two ways, I have that capacity, I can also be an emperor in this world, I can also be an all-renouncing monk and of these two visions which used to overpower which? The vision of the monk, that's what he became, interestingly if you remember the life of Buddha, when Buddha was born, his father Shuddhodana, he called the astrologers and he asked what is the future of this young baby and they predicted, either he becomes an all-conquering emperor of this world or he becomes the emperor of monks and that's why Shuddhodana, he had placed so many temptations and then he never allowed anybody to see an old person and etc. But you know the will of God was totally other way, now what is my point here? Each one of us, we have an image of ourselves, what we want to become and I think one day retreat I have covered this one, the images of man, now you will have to go back if you still remember images, several images, one image is a social image but the other image is ideal image, each one of us have got that deep in our psyche, it is there, ideally what would we like to be and if it comes into conflict with spiritual image that we cherish and whichever conquers that, that will become victorious, so we have to find out which image is stronger and which is weaker, that is the one of the purposes of Swadhyaya, self-analysis, go on doing self-analysis. Sri Ramakrishna never kidded himself, he knew he would say you know just imagine, he would say when I see a person, I could see the contents of his mind as though I am seeing objects in a glass case, if that is the case with others, what about himself? He used to also see, that is why mirror is one of the most wonderful inventions in this world, what does the mirror say and we are aware of only one mirror, what is that mirror? You know the physical mirror everybody has in the bathroom, so what is this mirror we are talking about? There is a mirror called social mirror, are you aware of that, what is social mirror? How you think the society is estimating you, that is called social mirror, in reality we don't know what the society is thinking about it, what is the truth, who cares, who cares a damn what the other person, everybody is focused only on himself, but we think like a mad person, everybody is only their attention is focused on us, who cares for you in this world, even you don't care, what to speak of other people caring for you, so this is called social mirror, our whole life is as it were, we are as though making our life dependent upon what the Tom, Dick and Harry or what the neighbours think about us, we never think what is my guru going to think about me, what is my God going to think about me, in other words what am I thinking about myself, this is what Swami Yudhishthira Maharaj used to say, find out your centre of consciousness, what is that, find out the image you are cherishing, your ideal image, not your dream image, not your social image, not your romantic image, your real image, that is the purpose of self-analysis, what is the point of self-analysis, because we have got so many assets, so we have also got so many liabilities, find out, this is what a guru does actually, one of the functions of the guru is what, to find out the good side of a disciple and encourage him and find out the negative side of the disciple and slowly help him to overcome those things, examples we discussed, Swami Yogananda and Swami Niranjanananda, I am not going into details, you know that, same incident, was it an asset or a liability, the way they reacted to the people in the boat, both were, because Ramakrishna scolded them and pointed out you are deceiving yourself in both cases, same incident but two different types of corrections, so this is one of the functions of the guru, but why not become your own guru, can we become, yes, but not now, only when you stop kidding yourself, when you stop deceiving yourself, when you know your mind as clearly as we know a book or a table in front of us and we have that determination that I have to progress, if you don't have that determination, then all these analysis will not work at all, in fact there is something we are blind, our analysis will follow our cherished ideal, our cherished ideal, again I will give you, even at the expense of a little bit of time, I will give you an example from this book, Kidding Ourselves, what happened, I think it was a famous film director, I forget his name, very famous film director, anyway, he was filming and there was an actress and one day, you know, your dress is not proper, so you have to dress in a slightly different way, go and do it and there was no choice, so then this lady simply hung her head, went into the dressing room and furious, this man is dictating to me how I can look better, I know better than, but there was an assistant and she suggested, you know, let the old man go and tell him, you just put on something just to satisfy his ego, in fact they did not do anything except in changing one or two things here and when she came out, this man's face broke into broad smile and said, I told you, you will look much better, what is the point, point is, he believed that this lady followed his directions and brought about the change, in fact the change was never brought, he was expecting and we see what we expect, this is the greatest defect we have got, we see what we see, if we go to Ramakrishna, if you are a devotee, then you see him as the greatest saint, but if a sceptical person goes, what does he see, a psychological case, as simple as that, what is the law, we see what we expect to see and this is how we go on deceiving, what should be our goal, not what we expect, as we are, this is the purpose of Zen Buddhism's training, so once there was a Zen master and he was asked, Zen master, how come you are so happy, I said, very simple, when it is winter, I say it is winter, when it is summer, I say it is summer, this is the one of my most favourite quotes, what do we do, oh this winter, it is so cold, just now I remembered, somebody predicted, this winter is going to be very very harsh winter, we don't know, because British weather forecasting is as good as British weather, the point is, we see what we expect to see, that may be okay in this world, but for spiritual progress, it is not okay at all, this phenomena is very well known, so you are walking in this street in a winter day and you are quite okay and suddenly somebody comes, do you know the temperature now, it is minus 6, immediately you start shivering, one second before that, you are absolutely fine, but as soon as you hear, it makes a lot of difference, that means how slavish we are to this, that which enters into our Karnaputas etc., coming back to us, Sri Ramakrishna was absolutely, he never allowed to kid himself, he could see himself, as though he is seeing himself in a clear mirror, he understands, so that's why his mind could never deceive him, even for a split second, two examples I have got, Sri Ramakrishna once asked, there was a devotee called Balarambasu and Balarambasu came to Sri Ramakrishna and asked him, sir, how can I realise God, Sri Ramakrishna looked at him straight, one question, he said, do you love God as much as you love your family members, the moment he heard, he thought about it, because there is no way of deceiving Ramakrishna, see in the presence of great souls, our mind also becomes extremely clear, that is why the holy company is very very necessary, so Balarambasu thought and said, no sir, I do not love God, I love my family members more, answer is clear, how to this, another example, Sri Ramakrishna's how we deceive ourselves, Swami Yogananda was a young man, he was coming to Dakshineshwar, one day Sri Ramakrishna found a cockroach in his bedroom, asked him to go and kill it, take it out and kill it, so the man took it out but he thought he was too compassionate and he left it to go and then he came back, he did not expect Sri Ramakrishna to ask him, Sri Ramakrishna asked him, did you kill and he had to tell, no I did not kill, Sri Ramakrishna's instantaneous rebuke was, if you disobey me in these small matters, then you will disobey me in bigger matters, what a marvellous truth Sri Ramakrishna was telling, how do we kid ourselves, you know, I will observe big matters I will be absolutely spiritual, small matters I want to have one more cup of ice cream, what does it matter, I want one more rasagulla, after all what is there a rasagulla is a rasagulla, but if you give in to these small matters, what happens, it is the same mindset, the point is not the object, the point is it is the same mind, so it is likely to deceive us in the future, here the point is, why did Sri Ramakrishna want the cockroach to be killed, was it his purpose, could he not have killed it himself, he wanted to teach a lesson that if you accept me as your guru, then you have to be prepared to give up everything, whatever I say that goes, that's all, the moment you say I accept you as my teacher, then your independence will disappear, until that time don't take initiation, otherwise you will be only lagging, you won't lose anything, but you won't gain anything, that is the thing, this is the good thing about spiritual life, this is called swadhyaya, what is it, study of the scriptures and analysis of the mind at all times, this is what Swami Brahmananda used to say, every spiritual aspirant, every night before going to bed, you should sit and say, how much time I remembered God, how much time I remembered the world, where did I go wrong, where did I do right thing and how to correct our defects, etc., etc., this is the most important thing, last of the niyamas, what is the last one, self-surrender, sharanagati, eshwara pranidhana, Sri Ramakrishna's whole life is an act of self-surrender, from the very beginning he said, oh mother, I do not know anything, I leave everything in your hands, that's why we have got these two hymns, which we sing, tasmat tvameva sharanam mama dhenubandhu, we are singing right now, and the other one is constant, sharanagata dhenartha paritranaparayane sarvasyaarthi hare devi narayana mosthati, Sri Ramakrishna's life is a blazing example of what surrender to God should be, here also there is a law, if a person surrenders to God, will he surrender to his guru or not, if a person surrenders to his guru, will he surrender to God or not, because both phenomena go together, so what is surrender, simply I surrender myself to you and do everything that you are not expected to do, now what is self-surrender, it has six characteristics, what are the six characteristics, anukulasya sankalpaha, pratikulasya varjanam, rakshasya seetha vishwasaha, goptritva varanam, atma nikshayapaha, karpanye, iti shadvidha, sharanagati, very briefly I will deal with them in today's talk, I will, a person who wants to practice self-surrender, he must fulfil six conditions, the first condition is I will do only what pleases the Lord, second I will never do what displeases the Lord, third I have absolute faith that God and God alone can save me, rakshasya seetha vishwasaha, fourth I choose God as my target practice to surrender everything to him, fifth I transfer all my responsibilities to God and last that I have been able to fulfil all these five conditions is exclusively due to the grace of God alone, when these six conditions are fulfilled and that qualifies as self-surrender, I will give you an example, you know Girish Chandra Ghosh has surrendered himself, he said yes I give my power of patarni to you and one day he happened to blurt out unthinking that I will do this, Ramakrishna overheard it and immediately he called and then gave him a thrashing, oh Girish should you say that I will do it, you have to say if it is God's will, I will do it, see we know we forget about it, see self-surrender is like giving up smoking, there was a man who was trying to give up smoking, habit of smoking and he was not able to give up and he went to his friend who was also a smoker and said this is my problem and that friend said what you foolish fellow, giving up the habit of smoking is the easiest thing in this world, you see how many times I have given up, how many times I have given up, so every day we are saying Sharanagatha, how many times do you need to say, only once you have given yourself up, how many times you are going to take it back, again next day and to be able to say today I am giving this to you, this is our condition, the point is forget about self-surrender, remember these 6 points, I will not do anything that displeases God, I will do only whatever pleases God and I have total faith in God and I choose God as my protector and I transfer all my responsibilities to God and I live in great humility because I have been able to do this only by the grace of God.