Gospel | Chapter 4: Aug 13, 1882 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is our weekly reading of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, which is the English translation of the Bengali Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very remarkable spiritual document.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the other stuff that we study, Vedanta texts, which is wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you study a text, when you study a philosophy, a system, it's very neat, geometrical, almost,
[SPEAKER_00]: But on the other hand, when you look at the life of a spiritual seeker of a spiritually enlightened person, that has a really special value, especially someone as remarkable as Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference between this and the other classes is
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just thinking about the Museum of Natural History here in Upper West in Manhattan, where you go there and you see all these fossils of creatures long dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so these books, the texts on Vedanta, they are like those fossils, you have the outline, the skeleton of spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you want to see the living thing in action, then you must read the lives of saints, the lives of enlightened persons.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sri Ramakrishna was of course a phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christopher Ayeshaur would begin his biography of Sri Ramakrishna Ramakrishna and his disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have not read it, I would really urge you to read that book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he begins it by saying that this is a story of a phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here we have the live creature itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's start.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: where I've said often in the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this class is not like the other classes here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not so much that we are learning a particular system as we are reading this text together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll read, you comment questions, observations, everything's welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in this book, we are on page one hundred and eleven in my copy.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is chapter four.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the title of the chapter is advised to householders.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the date we are reading, we're beginning chapter four.
[SPEAKER_00]: The date is thirteenth August, eighteen eighty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember we just concluded a long long chapter of Sri Ramakrishna's meeting with Vidya Sagar, Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a very remarkable meeting of two giants of nineteenth century Bengal at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is induction ashore itself in the Cali Temple of the Xeneshwar.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it seemed August, eighteen, eighty-two.
[SPEAKER_00]: The master was conversing with Kidar and some other devotees in his room in the temple garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kedaar was a government official and had spent several years at Dhaka in East Bengal, where he had become a friend of Vijay Goswami.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two would spend a great part of their time together talking about Sri Ramakrishna and his spiritual experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kedaar had once been a member of the Brahma Samaj.
[SPEAKER_00]: He followed the path of Bhakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual talk always brought tears to his eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was five o'clock in the afternoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cather was very happy that day, having arranged a religious festival for Sri Rama Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: A singer had been hired by Rama and the whole day passed in joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The master explained to the devotees the secret of communion with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, with the realization of Satjidana and the one goes into Samadhi, then duties drop away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose I have been talking about the OSTAR, OSTAR means the music expert, music expert.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose I have been talking about the OSTAR and he arrives, what need is there of talking about him then?
[SPEAKER_00]: How long does the B buzz around?
[SPEAKER_00]: So long as it isn't sitting on a flower.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it will not do for the sadhaka to renounce duties.
[SPEAKER_00]: He should perform his duties, such as worship, japa, meditation, prayer and pilgrimage.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you see someone engaged in reasoning, even after he has realized God, you may liken him to a bee, which also buzzes a little, even while sipping honey from a flower.
[SPEAKER_00]: The master was highly pleased with the ostard's music.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said to the musician, there is a special manifestation of God's power in a man who has any outstanding gift such as proficiency in music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sir, what is the way to realize God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, Bhakti is the one essential thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be sure God exists in all beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who then is the devotee?
[SPEAKER_00]: He whose mind works on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is not possible as long as one has ego-tism and vanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: The water of God's grace cannot collect on the high amount of ego-tism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It runs down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a mere machine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Together and other devotees, God can be realized through all paths, all religions are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: The important thing is to reach the roof.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can reach it by stone stairs, or by wooden stairs, or by bamboo steps, or by a rope.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also climb up by a bamboo pole.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may say that there are many errors and superstitions in another religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose there are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every religion has errors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone thinks that his watch alone gives the correct time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is enough to have yearning for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is enough to love him and feel attracted to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you know that that God is the inner guide?
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees the longing of our heart and the yearning of our soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose a man has several sons, the older boys address him distinctly as Baba or Papa.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the babies can at best call him Ba or Pa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now will the father be angry with those who address him in this indistinct way?
[SPEAKER_00]: The father knows that they are day two or calling him only they cannot pronounce his name well.
[SPEAKER_00]: All children are the same to the father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, the devotees call on God alone, though by different names.
[SPEAKER_00]: They call on on one person only.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is one, but his names are many.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a beautiful dialogue, Sadama Prishna is talking to devotees here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see that going back to the beginning of the reading,
[SPEAKER_00]: So they were all members of the Brahmasamaj, Kedar had been a member of the Brahmasamaj, Vijay Kuswami of some others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was a reform movement in late nineteenth century Bengal reform movement of Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's relevant because later on, when he talks about saying, there are so many superstitions in another religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Brahmas would say that the Hindus have things like image, worship, or superstitions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his reply was so what if there are?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Sri Ramakrishna is saying, with the realization of Satjidana and the one goes into Samadhi, then duties drop away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose I've been talking to those stars and he arrives, what need is there to talk about him then?
[SPEAKER_00]: How long does the B buzz around?
[SPEAKER_00]: So long as it is sitting on a flower.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't do for the sadhaka to denounce duties.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, here the translation duties is slightly misleading.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the correct translation would be what Sri Ram Krishna intended, I think, would be spiritual practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the Bengali also is not very precise.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bengali Sri Ram Krishna uses the term karma, karma, action.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, with the realization, with enlightenment, with the realization of Satya Dhananda, with the realization of Brahman, one goes into Samadhi, then your spiritual practices drop away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see, then it matches.
[SPEAKER_00]: This duties drop away.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little vague there.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you say spiritual practices, Grapavi, because when he gives an example, look, the music master has come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before he came, I was, we were talking about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then he has come, what's the need of talking about him?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So before becoming enlightened, we were practicing various spiritual practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that you have found the reality itself, it's real to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is real to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever path you are practicing,
[SPEAKER_00]: You feel the presence of God, or if you're practicing, you know, on the path of non-duality, you realize your true nature that I am, that existence, consciousness, place, this is what Sri Ram Krishna calls, Satji Dhan in the lab.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, realization of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you realize that, then the practices that you are doing to realize that, that those are not necessary, because the reality is already present before you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, it talis with what he says next.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not do for the Salaqa to renounce duties.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what are those duties?
[SPEAKER_00]: He should perform his duties such as worship, japa, meditation, prayer and pilgrimage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are actually spiritual practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are not duties like, you know, your job description in the office or your work at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not quite like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although that might be included in the larger picture, but specifically, I feel Sri Ram Krishna meant spiritual practices here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Often in the Gospel of Sri Ram Krishna's original Bengali, when the word karma, karma is mentioned, it doesn't mean that all sorts of karma.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means what we consider as spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your job, your worship, your chanting, your devotional singing or prayer, meditation, and Vedantic inquiry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vedantic enquiry is very much included in that, because you'll see Sri Ram Krishna next, he says, if you see someone engaged in reasoning, even after he has realized God, one may liken him to a bee, which also buses a little even while sipping honey from our flower.
[SPEAKER_00]: So notice, he uses reasoning.
[SPEAKER_00]: who, which path is the path of reasoning in the Bengali original, it's Vichara.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the path of Ghani Yoga, the path of Adwaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sri Ramakrishna is making a sweeping statement, including all paths here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has mentioned meditation, he has mentioned japa, he has mentioned ritualistic worship, even prayer, pilgrimage, all of that, all of which are devotional practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, then he talks about reasoning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have realized God, why are you reasoning after that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course there are many masters who do that even enlightened ones, they do their reasoning.
[SPEAKER_00]: For multiple reasons, one might be for to teach others.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you are found it yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you are using the same techniques which help you, or many other techniques which you may not have used yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you can deploy them.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the beauty of finding the reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you found it, once you know what it is, multiple methods become open to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may have reached it in one way, but all other ways now you immediately make sense to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can now guide people through multiple ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, realization of such adhana, the one goes into samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, God is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: God can be realized and God must be realized.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the purpose of all of these practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: We often people do not understand this.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the purpose of religion and spirituality?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it to believe in something?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it a community where you get together in church and worship once in a week?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it lots of rituals, cultural programs, you know, like a cultural activity, like a big dhudga pruja, once in a year or something like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it an identity to rally around and do politics?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it something to fight over?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the purpose?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it something that inculcates morality and makes people go into society?
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those might be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the ultimate purpose of religion, there is a goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The God which religion speaks about actually exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the purpose of religion is to lead us to that God.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the nature of God?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll see.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna will talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the purpose of religion is to lead us to God and lead us to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean just believe in something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means actually realizing a direct experience of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why would one do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that leads to fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fulfillment that we have been searching for, you're overcoming of suffering, attainment of bliss, whichever way you put it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But fulfillment we have been searching for throughout our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And life after life, that is attained only when you realize God, only upon God realization, upon enlightenment, whichever way you put it in any of the paths of religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna will say, I'd say that next.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a lot of people don't take that seriously, that actually what religions say, they mean it, they mean that God exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the purpose of religion, not even one of the purpose, they might say, those who are not very clear about them, they might say, oh, yes, some mystic, some saints, they say they found God, but it's not for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it is for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are religious in spiritual, your real purpose ultimately is to realize God.
[SPEAKER_00]: One may say again, that that may be your purpose or some sage purpose or a mystics purpose, but my purpose I have not been looking for fulfillment through God realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, but you have been looking for fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every one of us, it's not a choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever we do in life, you may
[SPEAKER_00]: be up and working like a work colleague and Wall Street trying to earn lots of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or they just be the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be a couch potato and lie down and watch TV all day long.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you do or do not do.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is always this fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to reach this fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the case that religion makes is that this fulfillment which everybody is looking for is available only in only one day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is through God Realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the other ways, the worldly ways can only give you a little bit of pleasure, a little bit of solace, but then ultimately disappointing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're looking for the infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing in this finite world can give you the infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only the infinite can satisfy your desire for the infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you find that, that is the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual practice is not needed after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he goes on to say, but you do see enlightened persons doing spiritual practice sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, they meditate, they teach, they study.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like he says like the B, which is sipping nectar from the flower, but still buzzes once in a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hums and buzzes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be just out of the joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: expressing the joy of enlightenment of the divine communion or it might be too teach or often both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he makes other comments that when he sees the music of the musician.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a special manifestation of God's power in a man who has any outstanding gift such as proficiency in music.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just an often commenting makes, but he has said this more than once.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brahman, God exists in everybody and equalism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that there is more God in the elephant and that less God in the individual ant.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a body which is big and the body which is small.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that there is more God in the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and less of God in, say, somebody who's illiterate maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind is more cultivated in one case and the mind is not cultivated in the other case, but the reality, the spiritual reality in both are exactly the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: not more not less.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, however, Shakti power, there is a difference in the manifestation of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in human beings, it may be more than other animals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Among human beings, those who are artistic, creative, intellectual, charismatic in some way, they are more power.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the maximum manifestation is there in those who are enlightened, tremendous manifestation of a septic power of a power of a very high order.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's true that sometimes you see
[SPEAKER_00]: people who are extraordinary.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just talking about this particular professor, I know who is a brilliant academician, who is an extraordinary classical singer, who is an artist, and who is a great cook too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a wonderful conversation is, how is it that one person has all these qualities?
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sri Ramakrishna says, when you see this, you know that there's more manifestation of God's power in such people, especially he loved music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Music is a direct way to enlightenment, not all music, but music if you have conscious desire, spiritual, goal in your life and your musical, it's a very powerful way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can lead to enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the musician asks Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sir, what is the way to realize God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna says Bhakti is the one essential thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be sure, God exists in all beings who then is a devotee.
[SPEAKER_00]: He who's mind dwells on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not possible as long as one has ego-tism and vanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sri Ramakrishna would respond according to the mental attitude of the people present.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, you noted when Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sahib had a great scholar in Sri Ram Krishna's talking to it, it was a very Vedantic discussion, you know, the path of philosophical analysis.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here, the whole day has been spent in devotional singing and, you know, enjoyment in the company of devotees of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the when this person asks, what is the way to realize God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ram Krishna says, Bhakti is the one essential thing, devotion, love of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our, what really ties us to this world is we simply don't want God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Upanishad says, our attention, our senses are all externalized.
[SPEAKER_00]: World, towards the world, not towards God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what ties us to this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is Bhakti?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bhakti is taking the same attention, the same desire.
[SPEAKER_00]: which flows in a hundred different streams to the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: To collect it all and make it flow in a powerful stream, God word.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same power.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same psychological energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take away from the word and poured out towards God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you really want God, when you want, you love God, want God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there you see, one thing enlightenment, there you see the special power of bhakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say, intense desire for enlightenment for freedom, in Vedanta, the Vedanta, one of the necessities, the four, four qualifications, one of them is Mukshuddhuam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Intense desire for freedom, Mukshuddhuam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mukshuddhuam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mukshayichha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Desire for Mukshuddhuam.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's such an abstract thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to realize my identity as the absolute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's difficult to be tremendously passionate about something that sounds so philosophical.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where something like, so if you have Krishna or Rama or Jesus or somewhere, your heart can be centered there, your attention because it is a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a name, a form, a story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is music associated with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: iconography associated with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful stories associated with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God in the form of Saguna Brahman or Ishwara or in the form of the incarnation of God, it's easy to love them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to be attracted and it's easy to focus there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Bhakti is the one thing essentially says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he says, to be sure God exists in all beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But who then is the devotee?
[SPEAKER_00]: He who's mind dwells on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God is in all beings, but same reality is everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the underlying non-duality of the whole teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: He starts with, after retaining Satjidana and the existence consciousness place, one goes into Samathi.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could have said, the whole discussion was in Bhakti, the whole day.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could have said, after getting a vision of Kali or Krishna, he said, no, attaining Satjidana.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, he says here, the same divine reality is in all beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: such it on and the such means existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So where is God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever exists, God is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you consider to be real, why do you consider anything to be real?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it exists, then God is right there because that's the very existence of that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like saying, where is gold?
[SPEAKER_00]: In all the gold ornaments, whatever ornament is made of gold, gold is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say, it's nature of existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you realize, I am that existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your own existence becomes the word is Avirodha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Avirodha means limitless, daryless.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing that you are afraid of anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing that you hate anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing that you resist anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because everything is that same divine reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: whom do you hate somebody different, something different from it?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you resist?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you consider to be different that something other than me?
[SPEAKER_00]: But if your existence, yourself, your real nature is sucked existence, what is other than you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you consider in the universe, living, non-diving, men, women, sky and earth and fire and wind and water, none of it is other than you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they all have existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: The existence you identify immediately with everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So your existence becomes the word is al-Wirodha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without resistance, without limit, without fear, without any anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wherever you are, with whomever you are, in whatever situation you are, you are fulfilled, you are, without any anxiety whatsoever, you are absolutely relaxed.
[SPEAKER_00]: consciousness, not that only this little spark of consciousness which I think myself to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we say?
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand consciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: This body, mine, I'm aware that is consciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the one consciousness, illuminating all bodies and minds, illuminating this entire universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever appears anywhere in anybody's experience, anybody's thought, anybody's conception.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's all illuminating by the one consciousness which you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: then on and the bliss fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_00]: This complete fulfillment which cannot increase cannot decrease its infinite always there effortlessly so.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is such a done and there is other over the limitless existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is always the sunlight light always blazing forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: In consciousness it is always daytime.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no night there.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's always shining.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this effortless fulfillment, limitless fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wherever you are with whom, wherever you are in whatever condition you are, you are fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paramaharan, absolutely in English and relaxed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is such an honor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's there everywhere he says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then if it's there everywhere in everybody is also there in me, then why don't I know it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says,
[SPEAKER_00]: the devotee who is a devotee.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not enough that God is everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not enough that the same divinity is everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: What more is required?
[SPEAKER_00]: A devotee he says is he who's mind dwells on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, this is the important thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether we want it or not, where is our attention?
[SPEAKER_00]: The divinity is present right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's constantly available, but our attention is not there, because we want something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our attention is focused on the works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is it, is that so?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the problem?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where is, where are we getting stuck?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, this is not possible as long as one is egotism and vanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Water of God's grace cannot collect on the high amount of egotism.
[SPEAKER_00]: It runs down.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is this egotism?
[SPEAKER_00]: In all the functions of the mind, there is one function called ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: This Sanskrit Sanskrit term is Ahankara.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one function called ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what does that do?
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes upon itself all the activities which are going on in the mind and the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I'm thinking something, the ego says, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking is going on in the mind, ego says, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I remember something, ego says, I am remembering.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I see, I am seeing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing is happening with the eyes and the, you know, the mind is working on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of processes involved in visual perception.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the ego says, I am seeing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am hearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love, I desire, I hate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am dissatisfied.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am feeling of dissatisfaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, I am dissatisfied.
[SPEAKER_00]: then all the activities, I am happy, I am unhappy, it appropriate to itself, it takes upon itself, everything that's going on in this one particular body might.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does it do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's its function.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what lens unity to the activity of one unit, this body might.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's absolutely necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then only will feel like one being, not a mass of disparate activities going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's perfectly good.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ego is doing exactly what it's designed for.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's also the mechanism of our bondage.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see the whole thing here, what is going on in the body might including the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can say that it is the activity of nature, property, or you can say it is the activity of God's power, Maya, Maya Shakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: In any case, it has nothing really to do with our real nature as existence consciousness space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever is going on in the movie on the screen, the hero and the villain and
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe rainfall, earthquake, sky and earth, space, battles and whatnot is whatever is going on in the movie, tragic or funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really has nothing to do with the screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: The screen is not really effective, but the screen makes the whole thing possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, you as Satyidanda, you make this entire magic show possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, under this present condition of ignorance, what happens is we do not know ourselves as Satyidanda, as existence consciousness, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do not know ourselves as the screen of the movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: So not knowing that, then what the ego does is devastating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the ego, now we identify ourselves with the ego, I.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the ego is connected to every activity of the body mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: And only this body mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, I immediately become I, this person, Sarva Priyaananda, all the personal history of Sarva Priyaananda is my history.
[SPEAKER_00]: And nothing else.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the desires in the mind, I'm my desires.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the frustrations and the hopes and ambitions, my frustrations of the phenomena, this is my story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not true, but it becomes like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So on one side is our ignorance about our reality that we are Satyadananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on the other side is the ego attached to the body mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here is putting the same truth in a devotional way.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one way of doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're saying that I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a direct Advaiti Kvay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or there's a dualistic way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Theistic way.
[SPEAKER_00]: God exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: You forget non-duality, I am Raman forget that bit for the time being.
[SPEAKER_00]: God exists, I am this person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care so much for, I am such a done in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is God, I want to believe in God, I want to love God, I want to surrender to God, but I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why can't I?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because again, the same thing, the same ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives me a sense of individual separate existence.
[SPEAKER_00]: My own story becomes most important to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it prevents me from surrendering to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It prevents me from believing in God, from loving God because all my love and my fears, anxieties, everything is centered around this world pool of one body might.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, and then everything here becomes important.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the most important thing in the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: Greatest of tragedies, I may shed tears about that, but if a pin prick on my foot, that becomes the most alarming pain for me, that's my problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, it's logical, otherwise biological entity cannot survive, but I, the conscious being, I'm tied to this mass of flesh and blood then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my personal project becomes so important, my little sorrows.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the presence of the Divine, the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the Universe, my little complaints, how dare I hold on to those little things in the presence of the Divine?
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet I will, that's why he says, ego-tism and vanity, the amount of ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the reign of God's grace is falling, but it will not collect there, it flows off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I becomes imported.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in spiritual seeking, one really wants God, anyway, anyhow, my mind will be on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if the mind is so much attached to the ego, this one personality, then even there, I'll pick and choose.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am spiritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but I must be the highest quality spirituality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must be, you know, all the cool kids are non-duals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must be non-dualistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: This little belief in Krishna or the divine mother or, you know, that is that sort of down market.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must be the most sophisticated kind of spirituality.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must have that Sri Ramakrishna says, a person who is very thirsty will take water wherever it is available.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is even on a pond which seems to have come on its top, the plants which are floating.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will remove that with his hands and get the clear water from below and drink it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the person is very thirsty.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we are not thirsty, then what happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I not that water, that's not drinkable.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I need is the alpine water from the springs of Switzerland.
[SPEAKER_00]: That has to be put in a bottle and bought to be only that water will do for me, drink that only.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm not thirsty actually, that's why.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's high amount of egotism which runs down.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the counter to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ram Krishna suggests, I am a mere machine.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would often sing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mother, you are the, you are the dweller in this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the operator of the machine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a machine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put the whole thing on the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put the whole thing on, on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: A great relief comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: People think they know, well, one will become lazy, not at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't become lazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't worry about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nature will make you work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Society will make you work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your own tendencies will make you work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You won't become lazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all the activities now you can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the responsibilities you can, you know, uphold and fulfill your responsibilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet you can feel perfectly at ease, perfectly happy, relaxed.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is taking care of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the Bhakti approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he moves on to another important thing, which is the central message, one of the central things which Ram Krishna taught, the harmony of all religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So together and other devotees, God can be realized through all paths, all religions are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: The important thing is to reach the roof.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also climb up by a bamboo pole.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God can be realized through all paths, all religions are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: We accept it very simply, especially in Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: One reason is there is such a vast diversity of paths and practices within Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have been brought up to respect all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, if anything you are exposed to something new, Islam or Christianity or something,
[SPEAKER_00]: Your automatic response is to say that this also is another path.
[SPEAKER_00]: This also is the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can you can see God in not only in Krishna and Rama in the Divine Mother or Ganesha and Shiva in the far width farm and without farm but also in the all of the Muslims in the father in heaven of the Christians and in the Jehovah of the Jews.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can you can do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There doesn't seem to be any problem there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in fact, there is this new pushback in the new climate, political climate in India, so we, as in the Ramakrishna or the Vacriti says, saying, oh, you people, you keep on saying all religions are the same, all religions are not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's such a silly thing to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the fall?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at what's the Ramakrishna saying, at no point does he say all religions are the same?
[SPEAKER_00]: What did he say, all religions are true?
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, all religions are not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he says they're different paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: All religions are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: In what sense are they true?
[SPEAKER_00]: They are all true because they all work.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean they work?
[SPEAKER_00]: Consider all religions to be paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can all religions be true?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just how can they be different and true?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a simple truth, but many people don't understand it, especially have seen in this country in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: People come up and say that, but truth is one, how can you have many, many truths?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you consider that the ultimate reality, God, Brahman, whatever you call it, that is the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: The religion itself is not the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, what is important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Christianity important or the God of Christianity important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is why Shnavism important or why Shnavism important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Shaktism important or the Divine Mother important?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you treat the religions as paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Ram Krishna says, they are paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take you to a goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are means.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are not the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: The well-known scholar, Philodian, John Hick,
[SPEAKER_00]: He says that the religions of the world are like planets revolving around the central sum of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is like the sun.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are planets which draw light and warmth from the religions are not the center.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are whirling around one center which is God, which is the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ceramic Krishna like this metaphor of a path, different paths.
[SPEAKER_00]: So notice when you say paths, multiple things come to your mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path itself is not important, but goal is important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, so a path means there is a destination, somewhere you want to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Religion is a path means God is the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only that, the paths are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're not upset why paths are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are multiple paths to the same goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you get upset if they're multiple, if Google maps and what's the other one, ways?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's the other one, the Apple has one map.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if they show you different paths, do you get upset?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a very nature of paths to be different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only that, some of the paths may be convenient to some people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Depending on who you are, where you are, you want to get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: One path may be more convenient.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, one religion may be more convenient for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's in your culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it matches your mental makeup, your emotional makeup.
[SPEAKER_00]: It matches that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's more convenient for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Better for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It appeals mode.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's mode living to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That does not mean others are false.
[SPEAKER_00]: That does not mean that it will not lead you to the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will lead you to the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And others also will lead you to the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though they are very different from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So differences are, so at no point in Sri Ramakrishna or V, we are ever saying that all religions are the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's saying that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna said religions are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are true, they are valid, they work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And further, they lead you to the same goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's also implying that here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The important thing is to reach the roof.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you go through the stone stairs, the wooden steps, the bamboo steps, or even a climb up a bamboo pole or climb up a rope or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those just didn't have elevators.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was one option he didn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two kinds of objections to this, which I've come across again in this country more than in India.
[SPEAKER_00]: In India, there's such an easy acceptance of this that we don't really notice this.
[SPEAKER_00]: in India, which it seems to be pretty obvious that there are different paths to the same reality, different paths are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in theory, the accepted, in practice we accepted.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here there are two main objections I have seen, which in recent times, one is the old objection of the religious fanatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the religious fanatic would say no, no, no, first of all all religions are not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: All religions are true, no, not even that.
[SPEAKER_00]: only one of them, one religion is true and that somehow happens to be my religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever religious fanatic is, somehow suspiciously it turns out that the one true religion always happens to be the one I am following.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that the objection from the religious fanatic is that all religions are not true because the religious fanatic wants his or her particular path to be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so religion
[SPEAKER_00]: You may treat religion as a path, but that genetic will say there's only one path.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all others are false.
[SPEAKER_00]: One variation of this, I have seen in more modern times, because in this day and age, it's not so politically correct to say such things.
[SPEAKER_00]: People will now laugh at you or you will be seen as crude or backward.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a clever
[SPEAKER_00]: slightly slimy of saying this I've come across this is saying no no no you see these religions they are they lead to different goals so they're all paths of the mountain but they're paths of different mountains
[SPEAKER_00]: So the truths, they are different goals you go to, because you see how they are described.
[SPEAKER_00]: But these are describes in one way and Hinduism in another way, in Christianity, in another way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they lead to different goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never been able to understand this.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you admit, if you are saying that there are many gods,
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a very contradictory, especially in the Abrahamic religions, which is the whole thing is that God is one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you want to say that, oh, these religions lead to different goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: So are you saying the different mountain tops in what are these different mountains?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they different gods, different spiritual realities?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you admit that there are different spiritual realities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you trying to say that the Christian god and Islamic god and the Jewish god are different, there are three different gods.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a hundred and one different Hindu gods.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are hundreds and hundreds of different gods.
[SPEAKER_00]: And don't forget, each Theistic religion makes the claim that God created this universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because obviously, this one universe will live in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all these hundreds and hundreds of different gods created this one universe, or was it a committee, or did they create multiple universes, separate universes?
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, the kind of tangles, they will end up with the moment you try.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is behind this?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is behind this is fanaticism?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the behind this is narrowness?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want others to be accepted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some way of pushing others away.
[SPEAKER_00]: This leads to narrowness, this leads to religious fanaticism, hatred, ultimate violence and terrorism.
[SPEAKER_00]: The direct path from this kind of thinking to there is
[SPEAKER_00]: If you push such people, I am sure that different paths lead to different goals, if they say, this one logical alternative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then if you push such people, so are you, do you believe in politics?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then obviously they cannot say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their whole thing is gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So ultimately what's covertly hidden there is different paths lead to different goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Different paths lead to different mountain tops.
[SPEAKER_00]: All those other mountain tops don't exist actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those different goals don't exist actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only one exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are back to square one.
[SPEAKER_00]: My path is the only path.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is one group of people who reject this teaching that all the religions are true and they lead to the same, because this is one group of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other group, interestingly, are academicians.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I found this teaching of Sri Ramakrishna, is not particularly fashionable or acceptable, even at Harvard, I found they are not happy with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: not all of them, some of them, only some of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In faculties of religion, in theology, in philosophy also, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, it's not very difficult to understand why, because academicians thrive on difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if all the religions ultimately are true and all of them lead to the same goal, then it's no longer very interesting to the academician.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do you generate papers and books and conferences?
[SPEAKER_00]: Only it drives on difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is not really a, this is sort of, it goes against the very nature of modern academics.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a very beautiful movement, the apparently movement, Alder Saxley wrote that beautiful book, the Perennial Philosophy, that's somewhat out of fashion now, hopefully it'll come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I say this track animation, they get very annoyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter what you say.
[SPEAKER_00]: People in general,
[SPEAKER_00]: have more and more accepting this idea that there are multiple paths to God, multiple paths to enlightenment, multiple paths to be spiritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may not accept it, but people don't bother about you anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can play, go on playing your little games.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a real problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stephen Prasero, who is a leading scholar of religion, he's written this book, God is not one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's name of the book, God is not one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole book is how these religions are actually fundamentally very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says that there are well-meaning people who try to say that all the religions are ultimately one, there is a deep unity of religions, but I want to show that in depth, if you investigate the religions, they are all different.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, you know, from an Atlantic perspective, it's like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Forms are contradictory.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I mean by that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine a less same lump of gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can make it into a necklace, you can make it into a ring, you can make it into a bracelet.
[SPEAKER_00]: They cannot all be the same at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it can be a necklace or a bracelet or a ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you change the necklace, then you can make it into a bracelet, but the necklace is gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The farm is gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can't call it a necklace anymore, you can't put it around your neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you have to call it a bracelet.
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks different and you put it on your wrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what continues?
[SPEAKER_00]: The gold, the underlying reality continues.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there is a deep oneness to all of these forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: forms of contradictory.
[SPEAKER_00]: This comes from the Advaiti Kaya.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a non-dwellistic idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: The necklace and the bracelet and the ring are all non-duals with respect to the gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because from that gold only you have made the same necklace.
[SPEAKER_00]: You melt it down and make it into a bracelet, melt it down, make it into a ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not one second thing has ever been created.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always been that one bit of gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's non-dwellistic idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, apply it to this multiplicity of religious, religious scholars, what they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is it that a noted scholar like Stephen Prothiro for example, and others also?
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't seem to feel, let's take them at their word.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't really seem to feel that there is something deep, they deep oneness.
[SPEAKER_00]: They feel deeply if you look at it, they're all different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Religions are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now tell me, what are they looking at?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they looking at form or substance?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they looking at the ornament or at the gold?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're looking at the ornament.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is true at the level of form.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously they're different.
[SPEAKER_00]: The conceptions are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: The names are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna will say, different names are used, but they all mean the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all point to the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment you see names are different, that means the conceptions are also different.
[SPEAKER_00]: The theology is a different.
[SPEAKER_00]: The philosophy is behind it are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: So does it mean, is the theology different, plus of these different names are different, conceptions are different, does it not mean then what we mean by that is different from what you mean, not necessarily, not necessarily, that's the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a saying, the opposite of one petty truth is falsehood.
[SPEAKER_00]: opposite of a petty truth is falsehood.
[SPEAKER_00]: The opposite of a great truth is another great truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the in its depth these religions are great truths.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the opposite of suppose is a dualistic religion and says ultimately personal God is the ultimate reality and you are the devotee.
[SPEAKER_00]: You love God and tax it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another one which says, you and God are one reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a non-duality.
[SPEAKER_00]: We seem to be completely opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the scholar of religion will say, look, they're opposite in depth at its core idea they're different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this idea which I'm talking about which says, they may seem to be in their formulation, but they're still talking about the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something not too difficult to grasp actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is because of some other motivation either religious fanaticism or the need to publish papers and books.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of those reasons which is preventing them from seeing this truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another objection might be, obviously we can see there are problems with religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are obvious superstitions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clearly there were ship idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: images of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is fondless.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're worshiping God with fun or something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the multiple problems, one can easily find problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't they said, anybody who criticizes the tradition from the outside is mischievous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is either ignorant and mischievous and often both.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really to understand the tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that has nourished millions of human beings through centuries, millennia.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't be bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not only good, it has to be deeply true and spiritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we once should always try to see it from the perspective of the practitioner and the believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, won't you call a superstition of superstition?
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that's obviously falls, won't you call it out?
[SPEAKER_00]: Silam Krishna says, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: You may say that there are many errors and superstitions in another religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should reply, suppose there are, every religion is errors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every religion is errors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at this, who is saying this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ram Krishna who said, every religion is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every religion is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what is he saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: Every religion as errors.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, isn't he contradicting himself?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: The errors are at the level of what you might call errors, superstition.
[SPEAKER_00]: He don't like these teachings.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are at the level of form.
[SPEAKER_00]: The distinction I made between form and substance, ornament and gold, they are at the level of the ornament.
[SPEAKER_00]: He don't like it in this particular ornament.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: You like that ornament?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, it's the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you don't like is a necklace and you said, I like the bracelet.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's exactly the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally the same gold has been melted and made into your favorite bracelet and not the necklace which you hated.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Sianam Krishna is trying to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond language, beyond conception, there is one reality which transcends all our ability to speak it and think of it, and that reality is gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not what you conceive of and what you speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in Vedanta, you say, awang, manasar gochara, beyond speech and beyond conception, beyond mind and beyond speech.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every religion is errors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same Sri Ram Krishna, he said, truth of all religions, he proclaims so many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is clearly remember this, he said, every religion is also wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he goes on to say, harshly, everyone thinks that he's watch alone gives the correct time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's watch alone gives the correct time.
[SPEAKER_00]: This reminds me of Kant, a story, Emmanuel Kant, a great German philosopher in Königsberg.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was famous for his meticulous routine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he would go out for a walk in the afternoon and people would set their watch that it must be three p.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: because Kant is taking his walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he would go up to the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd go to the church square and come back home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a church square there was this used to be this clock towers in those days, big clocks were there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he would see the clock tower and he would adjust his own watch and he'd come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one day he had the pastor of the church over for dinner and he asked father
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you set your watch the watch in the in the clock see the why like just like everybody else I wait for you to come out for you walk and I set it according to your work So when you come out I set the clock in the tower and Can't adjust his his watch according to that clock So now Christian says everybody thinks he's watch alone His watch alone gives the right time everybody think that his watch alone gives the right correct time The great
[SPEAKER_00]: Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna, his famous conclusion, Shun Yata Sarva Dhristina, every philosophy, every formulation of the ultimate reality is empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, I can prove it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever formulation, whatever whatever your philosophy is, whatever the existing philosophy is, both Hindu and Buddhist at that time, he cut them to pieces with his logic, his tetralema, tatushkoti.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, if something like Atman, God or whatever it is, if you say, it is, it is, no, that's not correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can show that if you say, it is, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it is not a nailist.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is no, not even that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is and it is not, not even that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It neither is nor is not, not even that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every formulation of the troops, he says is erroneous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shun Niyata, Sarva, Drishti, Namdhishti, means philosophy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nagarjuna said, the emptiness of all philosophical viewpoints.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then somebody cleverly asked him, oh Nagarjuna, your philosophy is also a philosophical viewpoint.
[SPEAKER_00]: So is that not wrong also?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Nagarjuna replied that, if I did say something, then it would be erroneous.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not saying anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's just waiting for you to say something, I'll prove you wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a particular kind of debate in ancient India called withernda, where you have no thesis of your own to prove, but your entire philosophical activities to prove everybody else from.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might think that's so mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna himself is saying that here in a certain way, he says that every religion has errors.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says,
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why doesn't it matter if you have errors?
[SPEAKER_00]: So our tendency is, if we admit it as error, let's correct it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the Brahmas, but he's talking to the Brahmas or X Brahmas, that the Hindus worship images.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has the no farm, obviously he should be Hindus of idolatres and superstitious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's correct it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole idea was reform.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll give lectures, published papers, and tell people, they used to make them sign, vows, that I will not worship images.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that story is there, Rakhaal, Swami Brahman on the later.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Swami Vivekan and the Narendhi had signed that,
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Narayan saw Rakhaal going into the early temple of Daksioneshwar following Sri Ramakrishna, he started bullying Rakhaal.
[SPEAKER_00]: That you signed, you will not go to a temple and worship an image, why are you doing that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna scolded Narayan, Vivekananda, leave him alone, that's his attitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, why doesn't it matter if there are errors because he says,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's enough to have yearning for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is enough to love Him and feel attracted to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because God is our inner guide, God is aware of what is there in our heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to realize God, whether I see Him as Krishna or Christ, whether I see Him as Kali or Vishnu, or I don't believe any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that God is the one existence consciousness, which is shining forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm completely convinced that this is the highest philosophy, non-dualism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have God, God, a father, and Shankara to blast anybody who comes even close to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's miles at all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, as, you know, so I will make on this set.
[SPEAKER_00]: that an ounce of practice is worth twenty tons of tall talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here an ounce of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Genuine love for God is what all kinds of, you know, philosophy is and arguments and publications and papers published and books published.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he gives the beautiful example of a man who has several children and some grown-ups, they can call him papa or papa and others can only say ba or pa.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the man loves all its children equally.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes no difference to him whether somebody can address him properly or are indistinctly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's look at the chat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probir Babu says, why don't we study systematically study Lila Prashanga?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is really a very good book, very deep book.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's written by Swami Saradhan and the G, and profound study of the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here it's the conversations of Sri Ramakrishna, but there the life story of Sri Ramakrishna and the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and analysis of that from the perspective of somebody who is obviously an enlightened person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, maybe one day.
[SPEAKER_00]: We used to do that as novices.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a teacher, Jagadish Maharaj.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, he had done a thorough study of the Lila Prashankan, he used to teach us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe one day, Rafael says, with enlightenment, would it be correct to say that it's not personally that personality dissolves, but seen as unreal?
[SPEAKER_00]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the dissolution of the personality.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the dissolution of the blue color in the sky?
[SPEAKER_00]: This realizing that the sky is actually not blue, just looks like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the dissolution of the movie in the screen?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not switching of the movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Realizing that the movie is a movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the realization of the falsity that it's an appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is called dissolution.
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked because Ram Krishna is distinct personality is different from Sri Ramana Maharsheet, different from Sri Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi Nasi
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd still retain enormous diversity.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stamp of whatever was there in the past, your cultural background, your spiritual practices, whole makeup, if you mind, that will continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because you realize that the necklace is gold and the bracelet is gold and the ring is gold, will they all become an indistinguishable mass of gold?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, necklace will continue to be a necklace.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will look like a necklace, you can call it a necklace and you can wear it like a necklace.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know it's the same gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, so all differences will still appear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because you realize, the movies are not rare.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only the screen appearing in all those pictures and sounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: So will the tragedy and the comedy and all everything get mushed together into a mess.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will know, the tragedy will remain a tragedy, a comedy will remain a comedy, a science fiction movie, a science fiction movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will all remain distinct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing will be disturbed, but you realize they are movies.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are appearances of the same screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, enlightened persons are very distinct.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will remain different.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we attain enlightenment, we will also be unique and different in our own way.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of our realization will be, even the realizations will not be the same, but it will be about the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: that the one reality of the universe, that is Brahman or whatever you call it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sanghita says, Swami Vivekananda is the greatest aid to this practice of keeping God in memory is perhaps music.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord said to Naurada, the great teacher of Bhakti, I do not live in heaven, not live out of the yogi, but where my devotees sing my praise, Dairama, yes, very beautiful singing from Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alpana says, even after enlightenment, the first person experience still continues,
[SPEAKER_00]: with one body mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we say, but reality is accessible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does it mean one can experience the attachment at will from this body mind state of Somali?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but that body mind is also the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, when you realize that the necklace is gold, you don't have to smash the necklace into a lump of gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can remain exactly a necklace.
[SPEAKER_00]: A bracelet can remain exactly a bracelet and every bit of it will be gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, body mind appears, but after non-dual realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is only Brahman, which is appearing not only just this universe, but as this physical body with a hair and blood and bones, there are all appearances in one existence consciousness place in one such adhananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: As appearing as the body, you are nothing but Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Appearing as every in breath and out breath, you're nothing but Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Appearing as every emotion, every memory, every desire, every up and down of the mind, you're nothing but the same Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Appearing as the blankness of deep sleep or the complete peace of samadhi, you're nothing but the same Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the physical level, at the subtle level, at the causal level.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are all appearances of one reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Grinder says, what is the difference state of mind between Samadhi and Sushupti?
[SPEAKER_00]: Very big difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Samadhi, you're still awake.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind is awake, but not in the waking state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mind is not gone to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mind is not covered in ignorance there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Profile says, isn't the goal of religion different?
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal of Christianity seems very different from the goal of, yes, it is put in different language.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may even be experienced differently in phenomenologically, but it is about the same reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, when you look at the form of it, the goal of Buddhism and goal of Christianity seems very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nirvana and going to heaven and staying with God is in very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you go deeper into it, what exactly is Nirvana?
[SPEAKER_00]: What exactly do you mean by God and heaven?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the language is different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Saddam Krishna says that the language used is different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise what happens is at this point and you will say all the religions are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then truth cannot be many.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them must be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore this one is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's either mine or this particular religion is true and everything else must be false.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after this, you have two choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll follow the one true religion which is my religion and leave everybody else alone in their erroneous wrong ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or worse, I will not leave everybody else alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my responsibility to bring everybody to the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll run around trying to convert people, trying to preach to them the error of their ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if they don't listen, I may even go to the extent of, you know, for their own good forcing them to the one true religion which is my religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if they don't respond to force, I may for their own good had to kill them also.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, see, this is where it goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say, every goal is different and it must be one goal, it is my goal and therefore, the fanaticism is result.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we will conclude here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, shanti shanti, hariyom tatsat Sri Ramakrishna Ruparnamastu.