Gospel | Chapter 4: Oct 16, 1882 (Part 4) | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[SPEAKER_00]: So we are studying the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, which is the translation, the English translation of the Bengali,
[SPEAKER_01]: We were on a long section, which was the conversations on 16th October, 1882, 16th October, 1882, and going to be reading from page 124, from the bottom half of the page 124.
[SPEAKER_01]: About half past 10, Narendra and his Brahmav friends were meditating in the Panchavati.
[SPEAKER_01]: After a while, Sri Ramakrishna came to them, M2 was present.
[SPEAKER_01]: The masters said to the Brahmav devotees, in meditation one must be absorbed in God, by merely floating on the surface of the water, can you reach the gems lying at the bottom of the sea?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he sang, taking the name of Kali, dive deep down, oh mind, into the heart's fathomless depths, where many a precious gem lies hid.
[SPEAKER_01]: But never believe that the bed of the ocean bear of gems.
[SPEAKER_01]: If in the first few dives you fail, with firm resolve and self-control, dive deep and make your way to mother Kali's realm.
[SPEAKER_01]: down in the ocean depths of heavenly wisdom lie, the wondrous pearls of peace, oh mind, and you yourself can gather them.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you but have pure love and follow the scriptures rule, within those ocean depths as well, six
[SPEAKER_01]: last anger and the rest, swimming about in search of prey, smearing yourself with the turmeric of discrimination, the very smell of it will shield you from their jaws.
[SPEAKER_01]: Upon the ocean bed lies true, unnumbered pearls and precious gems.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plungin says Ram Prasad and gather up hands-full stare.
[SPEAKER_01]: Will they put note?
[SPEAKER_01]: The six alligators are the six passions, lost anger, Everest delusion, pride, and envy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Narendra and his friends came down from their seats on the raised platform of the Pancjavati and stood near the master.
[SPEAKER_01]: He turned to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He turned, he returned to his room with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master continued, when you plunge in the water of the ocean, you may be attacked by alligators, but they won't touch you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If your body is smeared with turmeric, there are no doubt six alligators, lust, anger, evaries, and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Within you, in the hearts, fathomless deaths.
[SPEAKER_01]: But protect yourself with the turmeric of discrimination and renunciation, and they won't touch you.
[SPEAKER_01]: What can you achieve by mere lecturing and scholarship without discrimination and dispassion?
[SPEAKER_01]: God alone is real and all else is unreal.
[SPEAKER_01]: God alone is substance and all else is non-inditi.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is discrimination.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, set up God in the shrine of your heart and then deliver lectures as much as you like.
[SPEAKER_01]: How will the mere repetition of Brahma profit you?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are not imbued with discrimination and dispassionate, it is the empty sound of a conscious.
[SPEAKER_01]: They lived in a village, a young man named Padmalaochan, people used to call him Potho for short.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this village, there was a temple in a very dilapidated condition.
[SPEAKER_01]: It contained no image of God, Ashwapthai and other plants sprang up on the ruins of its walls, bats lived inside, and the floor was covered with dust and the droppings of the bats.
[SPEAKER_01]: The people of the village had stopped visiting the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: one day after dusk, Devilages heard the sound of a conch shell from the direction of the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: Withered, perhaps somebody had installed an image in the shrine and was performing the evening worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of them softly opened the door and saw Padmal Occhan standing in a corner, blowing the conch.
[SPEAKER_01]: No image had been set up.
[SPEAKER_01]: The temple hadn't been swept or washed and filled with and dirt lay everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he shouted to Pothu.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have set up no image here, within the shrine of full, blowing the conch, you simply make confusion worse confounded.
[SPEAKER_01]: Day and night, 11 batch cream there, incestantly.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no use in merely making a noise.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to establish the deity in the shrine of your heart, if you want to realize God, first of all, purify the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the pure heart, God takes His seat.
[SPEAKER_01]: One cannot bring the holy image of the temple into the temple if the droppings of bats are all around.
[SPEAKER_01]: The 11 bats are our 11 organs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five of action, five of perception and the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, invoke the deity, then give lectures to your hearts content.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, dive deep, plunge to the bottom and gather up the gems.
[SPEAKER_01]: But nobody wants to plunge.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are without spiritual discipline and prayer, without renunciation and dispassion.
[SPEAKER_01]: They learn a few words and immediately start to deliver lectures.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is difficult to teach others.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only if a man gets a command from God after realizing him is he entitled to teach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thus conversing, the master came to the west end of the Warranda, M stood by his side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna had repeated again and again that God cannot be realized without discrimination and renunciation.
[SPEAKER_01]: This made him extremely worried.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had married and was then a young man of 28, educated in college in the western way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Having a sense of duty, he asked himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do discrimination and dispassion mean giving up lust and gold?
[SPEAKER_01]: He was really at a loss to know what to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: to the master.
[SPEAKER_01]: What should one do?
[SPEAKER_01]: If one's wife says, you are neglecting me, I shall commit suicide.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master, in a serious tone, give up such a wife if she proves an obstacle in the way of spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let her commit suicide or anything else she likes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The wife that hampers her husband's spiritual life, a spiritual life is an ungodly wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: He merged in deep thought, M stood leaning against the wall, Narendra and the other devotee is remain silent for a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The master exchange several words with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then suddenly going to M, he whispered in his ear.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if a man has since year loved for God, then all commander is controlled.
[SPEAKER_01]: The king, the wicked persons, and his wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: Since your love of God, on the husband's part, may eventually help the wife to lead a spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the husband is good, then through the grace of God, the wife may also follow his example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we can reverse his also true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the husband and the wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: This had a most soothing effect on M's worried mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the while he had been thinking, let her commit suicide.
[SPEAKER_01]: What can I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: M to the master.
[SPEAKER_01]: This world is a terrible place indeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master to the devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the reason Chaitanya said to his companion, Nithyananda.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, brother, there is no hope of salvation for the worldly minded.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the, on another occasion, the master had said to him privately, yes, there is no hope for a worldly man, if he is not sincerely devoted to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he has nothing to fear if he remains in the world after realizing God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nor need a man have any fear, whatever of the world, if he attained sincere devotion by practicing spiritual discipline, now and then in solitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tritanya had several householders among his devotees, but they were householders in name only for they lived unattached to the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was known the worship was over and food offerings had been made in the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: The doors of the temple were shut, Sri Ramakrishna sat down for his meal and Arendra and the other devotees part took of the food offerings from the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the portion we're going to look at today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the master set to the Brahma devotees, one must die deep, one must be absorbed in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the secret of meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not mechanically, you know, following the breath or repeating a mantra or visualizing an image, but absorption.
[SPEAKER_01]: So absorption means, first of all, cutting oneself off from the world outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: People and activities silencing the movements of the body, so sitting still, cutting yourself off from the world outside, then sitting still, the silencing, the movements of the body,
[SPEAKER_01]: a rhythmic breathing that pranayama to harmonize the body and mind, then slowly withdrawing from that surrounding also.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't look around, you look inwardly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then emotionally mentally intellectually, in our thoughts, in our understanding, and in our emotions, you turn
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, it depends on your technique of meditation, what has been given to you by the Guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in all kinds of meditation, absorption is important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Flickering mind, flickering attention, is the enemy of meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So becoming absorbed in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This absorption is true for any great task.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you're a scholar, a painter, an artist, musician, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: One great power that we have is the power of focus, of concentration.
[SPEAKER_01]: So becoming absorbed in something, this power of attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, attend this continuous attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: could be a breath, could be an image of God, could be a mantra, could be devedantic understanding of the self, whatever your focus, whatever your technique of meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Sri Ramakrishna is giving something common here, absorption.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, I deep, dive deep into the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, in the mind itself, underneath the activities of the mind, the real self is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm Vivekananda gives the example of a lake and lake.
[SPEAKER_01]: The waters are moving, that obscures the bottom of the lake.
[SPEAKER_01]: Waters are dirty, that obscures the bottom of the lake.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the waters are clean, and if the waves, there are no waves in the lake, if the waters are steady and pure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm Vivekananda says, one can see through to the bottom of the lake.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, if the mind is silent and clean pure, in that case one can see beyond, see means experience, let's put it that way, that the witness self from a Vedantic perspective, or if you are meditating on a deity, a some form of Saguna Brahman or Ishwara, that also will
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the next objection would have been that, well, I try to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind doesn't get upset.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very rarely do we get once in a while, a little short good meditation, but most of the time it is just running battle with the mind or chattering of the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sri Ramakrishna says, the six
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem is also in the mind which prevents us from meditating from being focused.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Six Alligators in Indian Spirituality is where they are called the Shadharipu, the Six Enemies, the Six Enemies, Kama, Krodha, Lohbha, Kama, essential desire, Krodha's anger, Lohbha's greed, mother, matseria, mother,
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are the alligators, what do they do?
[SPEAKER_01]: They prevent us from meditating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only that, they sweep us away from spiritual life, not just at the time of meditation, at other times also, they sweep us away from God, they sweep us away from spiritual life into the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they entangles us in the world in a terrible way, so that spirituality just becomes theoretical for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: karma, this feeling that sensual pleasure of any kind, that is fulfilling.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's wrong with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's where animals do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the level at which animals do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Animals have all the delight in the senses.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, we can just say, which of you can eat with the gusto and delight of a dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can give food to the dog and how the dog falls upon its food, which of you can eat with that kind of delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: fulfillment.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a sad thing that getting a human birth where we can become enlightened, a God-realized, we are using it for essential pleasures and chasing sense pleasures, karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: When that is obstructed, Krotham means anger.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anger is basically the obstruction of desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the flip side of desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: Angle means there is desire, desire has been frustrated or suppressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Desire means the possibility of anger is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I may be the sweetest of persons.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just means I'm getting my way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop me from getting my way then see what a demon I change into.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the person who does not get angry, even when obstructed, that means desire also is under control there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes somebody, you know, some people said, and say that why are spiritual people so angry?
[SPEAKER_01]: Monks is a, I mean, maybe not here, but sometimes we've seen in monasteries and India, they're notoriously short tempered and, you know, they can snap at you and be irretable.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's actually not a bad sign.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually a good sign.
[SPEAKER_01]: It means somewhere of the other, the person is controlling the desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a very immature state that controlling of multiple desires and leading, you know, that struggling to using the will to struggle and lead a controlled life, that has often a reaction in the form of irritability and anger, not that that's desirable, not that that's actually spiritual, but it's a kind of preliminary reaction and you see sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was an article somewhere at it, something like this, why are good people so bad?
[SPEAKER_01]: So anger, but anger is same as desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: The presence of anger means there's the presence of desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: The presence of desire means the possibility of anger is always there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stricrishna sets as much to Arjuna and the Gita.
[SPEAKER_01]: Karma, Krodhova, Vijaya.
[SPEAKER_01]: From desire comes anger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Arjuna.
[SPEAKER_01]: When desire is obstructed, the same force turns into anger.
[SPEAKER_01]: then a greed, low of accumulation, the power of the desire to have more and more, it could be many things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It primarily wealth of course, money, property, gadgets, possessions of all sorts of things, clothes, nice and pretty things around you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or even more subtle things like Facebook
[SPEAKER_01]: various kinds of to greet, to accumulate, then there is more or delusion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basic delusion is that these things, people, and appreciation, and money, and if I have it, I am good, I am well off, or I need more of it, or I don't have it, and therefore I am unhappy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because I've got some of those things, doesn't really mean I'm well off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because I don't have them, doesn't really mean I am badly off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who is well off?
[SPEAKER_01]: The one who is mind is ungod.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who is badly off?
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind, one who's mind is not ungod.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Moha, mother, anger, pride or arrogance.
[SPEAKER_01]: giving a little bit of something and suddenly the little ego, the pride is always connected to the little ego.
[SPEAKER_01]: Atman, Brahman, the infinite has no pride at all, the greater the person, no pride.
[SPEAKER_01]: They say, with the Adadati Vinayam, there's a verse which we used to memorize.
[SPEAKER_01]: So knowledge gives humility.
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually it does not.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just have to go to Ivy League professors and meet them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of knowledge and publications and, you know, awards, it seems to do exactly the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gives arrogance.
[SPEAKER_01]: of an arrogance is connected to intellect.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know more, I understand more.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am better than you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill has said, I thought delusion means seeing ourselves separately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's a deepest form.
[SPEAKER_01]: in Adwaitaviranta, the oneness is the reality and the seeing of duality, Dwaita is delusion, and that's the deepest, but this is at the level of the common person on the street, common worldly person, what are they doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of delusion do they suffer from?
[SPEAKER_01]: Deepest delusion is ignorance of not knowing God or not realizing our true self, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Moha is attachment, yes, Moha is attachment, then Moha, then Mother is arrogance.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sri Ramakrishna gives the example of
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one day he was going with I think Ridae, his nephew, his attendant and a priest in the temple looked at him and waved and said, well, well, talk or, you know, priest, how are you these days?
[SPEAKER_01]: somebody who was much inferior to him in grand can imposition or something, but treats him with a with a contempt of familiarity and then sadama Krishna remarked, I think he has come into some money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reaction is like, I'm somebody great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he tells the story of a frog, little frog who lived in a little hole,
[SPEAKER_01]: one day found a coin which had been lying around somewhere nearby and dragged the coin to its hole and then a elephant was passing by.
[SPEAKER_01]: The frog, you know, the way it shows a kick to the elephant.
[SPEAKER_01]: It showed its feet to the elephant like a kick.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's pretending to kick the or trying to kick the elephant because it has it has got a little coin in its account.
[SPEAKER_01]: That leads to
[SPEAKER_01]: is a literally ridiculous thing, a pride or arrogance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Often you find people, I'm not seeing just spiritual people, people who have got tremendous achievements in some field of the other, they become quite humble and quite normal, quite ordinary.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen sometimes founders, big businesses,
[SPEAKER_01]: very normal, I mean, very humble, the reverse is also this funny, you know, that somebody some manager gave a speech in their board meeting and, you know, saying that I'm just one of you guys and I'm so ordinary, there's nothing special about me, somebody snapped at him, don't be so humble, you're not that great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one sign of true achievement is sometimes it gives, sometimes it gives him a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should.
[SPEAKER_01]: So mother is arrogance or pride, and often it is ridiculous, if you see it from a distance, it is ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_01]: let people praise you for your achievements and your goodness and your greatness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really ruins it completely when even the person who's of great excellence tries to promote or praise oneself.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very unseemly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami Vivekananda, he says about giving.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, give, and do not look back.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you look back, your ocean dwindles to a drop.
[SPEAKER_01]: should look back and say, I have done so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have so much, these are my achievements.
[SPEAKER_01]: Truly, they may be great, but it dwindles to a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look back and start calculating.
[SPEAKER_01]: So give without limit, be great without limit, and don't at all, in often, the greatest of people, geniuses in every field, they are often unconscious of their own greatness.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're so absorbed in their fashion, their art, their science, their spiritual quest.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen Swami Ranganathanji for example, all these very great Swami's whom I've seen, all of them had that humility, but it was not a practice humility.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was something natural to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen Ranganathanji standing in line in a queue for some religious offering, there was offering of water to Shiva and Shiva Ratri.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something I've seen in with my own eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: At that time Swami Ranganathanji was the vice president of our order.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a line in which us lowly dramatraries, novices, we got to get in glass because all the senior swamis, the big swamis would go first or elderly ones, and they would pour water.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then at the end we were there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Towards the end of our line, when I was one of the junior most, to my utter, I think just in front of me, just behind me, I saw this monk standing, elderly monk, and suddenly if it was turned to see to swami ranganathan, obviously.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know of so many such instances, little instances, but it shows that in earlier days the Durga Puja in Beludmat was performed inside the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the last decade or two, it's been outside because huge numbers of people have gathered 2010,000 people at the time can be seated in the Pandal outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a good move.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the senior Swami's and the elderly devotees, they have all seen the pooja being performed inside the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even I have seen it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But inside the temple, it used to be very crowded.
[SPEAKER_01]: This year again, it was inside the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last year and this year, thanks to COVID, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the big pillars of the temple is difficult to get a good seat where you could continuously see the image of the Divine Mother Durga.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there always be a struggle for seats, you know, a position to sit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's this story about decades ago, I think it was Swami Madhavanandaji, who was at that time the general secretary before he became the president of the order.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one monk who got an high CT jumped and sat down there in order to get a good view of the Pooja of the Updurga.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he noticed behind the pillar
[SPEAKER_01]: the general secretary of the order.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami mother one Ji, he was sitting there, which is I was closed in meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And quickly this monk got up and said, Swami, you come come, I've got a better seat, come and take that seat.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't see anything from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got behind a pillar.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't see anything at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let alone the image of the mother, you can't see the worshiper, you can't see the devotees, the monks, nothing, just the we are sitting in front of a wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen it for many years.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go and sit and see.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this kind of self-effacing nature is just the opposite of arrogance.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another story about Stephen Hawking, who has passed
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's actually a real anecdote about this four-star general who was rushing to catch a flight and it was a commercial airline in England and he was going to audition flying to Cambridge to attend a talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: by Stephen Hawking.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what happened was they hadn't even no more seats, but he was the first art general here, all his age and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the flight airport, you know, the airline, the lady who was doing the ticketing, she got so intimidated by this.
[SPEAKER_01]: she bumped off a late comer for the flight and that happened to be Stephen Hawking himself and this general was going to attend talk by Stephen Hawking.
[SPEAKER_01]: So self-effacing sometimes you know this mother mother is just opposite of that is arrogance overwhelming pride and then
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it is thinking, envy, where does it come from?
[SPEAKER_01]: It really ultimately, you know, I can all trace all these defects back to a misapprehension of our real nature, misapprehension of reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are infinitely great, you are infinitely happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you find yourself not happy, not great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I need to have somebody else, the greatness of the happiness is in somebody else, in some other family, in the neighbor.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the reaction is one of envy, that should be me, that should be mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should be so happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have those fancy gadgets, or so much money, or those fancy clothes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reacting in a dislike and envy of other people's happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's a tamasic or a rajasic reaction, tamasic reaction basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rajasic reaction would be competition.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have it, I also should get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: A sartvik reaction should be happiness at other people's happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Should be compassionate at other people's misery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tamasic reaction is just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the yet other people's happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a kind of malicious delight at other people's unhappiness is tamasic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rajasya's reaction would be competition and other people's happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want that also.
[SPEAKER_01]: or desire to dominate when other people are less well of or unhappy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so these are the six aggregators and Sri Ramakrishna says, they are terribly dangerous for spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: They destroy spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: They destroy one's happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why only spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_01]: They destroy one's worldly happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: The angry person is not happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lustful person is not happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Envious person is definitely not happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: A person whose arrogant and proud is also not happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, destroys happiness in this world, let alone spiritual joy, let alone spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he gives the solution, the alligators, apparently, I don't know if it's true, if you put turmeric powder on yourself and alligators won't catch you, I don't recommend you try that, but anyway here is an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: discrimination and renunciation, Vivek and Vivek and Vivek and Vivek, he says the solution for all these problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is Vivek, he says, God alone is real and all else is unreal, God alone is substance and all else is non-entity that is discrimination.
[SPEAKER_01]: We studied this, if you remember Vedanta Sara, to line which I emphasized again and again, towards the beginning of Vedanta Sara.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the central idea of Vedanta?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was tu satsjidana dhamma dwayam brahma, aggana, di-sakhala-jada-samoha, was tu.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reality is Brahman, which is one without a second, which is existence, consciousness, bliss, non-dual existence, consciousness, bliss, one without a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: and from ignorance downwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: The causal body, which is the Anandhamaya, downwards means from there to the intellect with Ghanamaya Koshah, from there to the mind, Manomya Koshah, from there to the pranic body and sensory organs and all that pranamaya Koshah, there to the physical body, Anandhamaya Koshah, there to the physical world, the gross material world, all of it he says, who says, Vizantasara, Sadananda Yogindra.
[SPEAKER_01]: Avastu, none of it is real.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is delusion, it is a magic show, it is an appearance, it's a dream, it's a bubble that's going to burst, we see in central part of these performers and they make they blow soap bubbles and children are delighted by these soap bubbles because they're big and shiny and they float in the air and they burst after some time all of which we surround ourselves with and with which we we seek them for delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: the people and activities in the possessions and we we forward them when we don't get it or we lose it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, he says all of them are non-real, which is them and that is productive of suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: God alone is real, all the rest is an appearance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Between the eternal and the non-eternal,
[SPEAKER_01]: We set up relationships with everything in the world, primarily with our own bodies and minds.
[SPEAKER_01]: We think we are the body mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a relationship, it's eye, it is mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then through the body mind, to everything in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: My father, mother, husband, wife, children, grandchildren, my house, my position, my dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: So on my mind, my mind seems obvious to us, it's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems true, but between the eternal and the non-eternal, there can be no relationship, which is the eternal, you, the Jeevatma, you were not even talking about Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: You, the sentient being, you are eternal in the sense, you existed before all these relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you will exist after all these relationships are gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: All relationships are required to end two terms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Relationship between this and this, at least two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: coming and going, that which is eternal, it seems to have a relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sadhu said, again, say, money, we have just accepted it out of ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have just, you have, you have imposed it upon yourself through ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's wrong with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It will lead to disappointment, lead to a shock.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because this thing with pitch, I'm trying to set up a hold on to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will go away.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will disappear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Children grow up and go away, husbands and wives, spouses, they grow old, they change, they go away too, our own body, wealth, wealth increases, decreases, just like that ups and downs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And our own bodies about wealth, I was reading somewhere recent news item.
[SPEAKER_01]: some person is being huge amounts of money to excavate a landfill.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you write on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Long ago he had invested in this cryptocurrency Bitcoin and it was seems to be worthless at that time so he had thrown it away in trash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it is worth 500 million dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's thinking it may still be there in that landfill somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what farm it would be.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be a document or would it be something electronic?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: So imagine, I want to recover that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it comes and goes and our own bodies, external hard drive, well, good luck to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then our own bodies, they age and they get diseased and they become sources of sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: They become sources of continuous travel and trying to take care of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they die after all the effort that you're putting in the body's die.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't die, and you think after all that I did for you, you died.
[SPEAKER_01]: That will be our reaction to the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a Buddhist meditation of how much we have consumed.
[SPEAKER_01]: You sit quietly and think of your lunch which you had, the rice and the doll and the vegetables and the bread and the yogurt and what not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then add to it, just keep it in mind, in table in front of you, keep it in mind, add to it the breakfast that you had, then add to it the dinner you had last night and the breakfast lunch and breakfast you had day before and all the food you've had whole all week long and pile on top of that all that lunches and breakfast and dinner all the items food and drink in one month, of course, table will not be enough, it will over spill your room until now you have to take it out into the lawn.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then for a year, for 10 years, for 20 years, you'll have mountains of rice, you'll have lakes of dull, and forests of vegetables, which all has been consumed by this one body, and imagine what we have consumed in 30, 40, 50, 60, 180 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at enormous resources, when we are kids, these to read in comic books of demons, raksas, who eat so much, but that's just us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Each one of us is worth more terrible than those mythical demons.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've eaten more than all of them put together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Each one of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the next part of the meditation is, what have I gained?
[SPEAKER_01]: Forget what I've given to the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: be very embarrassing to think about what I've got done for the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I have I gained through this enormous consumption, just a food.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to forget about other resources.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a food which I have processed through this one body, what am I left with today?
[SPEAKER_01]: Have I solved my own problems?
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I satisfied?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I have peace?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I have contentment?
[SPEAKER_01]: Have I
[SPEAKER_01]: discernment of the eternal and the non-eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then next, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: You take up, you do very wrong care.
[SPEAKER_01]: That which I see as non-eternal, let me recognize it as non-eternal and dispassion for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That dispassion for everything in the world, it is necessary for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody is going to be a serious spiritual secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only a difference between a monk and a householder is that which you have dispassion for as a monk you are supposed to give it up physically.
[SPEAKER_01]: as far as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are a person in the world, a householder, you can't give it every physically.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to live in the midst of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Internally that despite the passion must be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that the dispassion is common to both, the target, which is the giving up, physical giving up.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is physically externally and internally for a month and internally for a householder.
[SPEAKER_01]: a deeper solution, Sudam Krishna will get towards the end, he says first, so the renunciation and discrimination and renunciation, Vivek and Vivek and Vivek, then these will be safe from those six aggregators.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the defense against those enemies, the six enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Meditation is not possible without Vivek and Vive Rakyam, discrimination and renunciation or instead of discrimination, the word which I nowadays use is discernment, discerning that the divine is real, God is real, the world is interference, the world is unreal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then,
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, first of all, set up God in the shrine of your heart and then deliver as much lectures as you like before this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, what can you achieve?
[SPEAKER_01]: My mere lecturing and scholarship without discrimination and dispassion.
[SPEAKER_01]: How will merely the repetition of Brahman?
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahma, profit you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are not imbued with discrimination dispersion, so merely the sound of empty sound of a conscious.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why in Vedanta, before you plunge into all kinds of philosophy and enquiry, the fourfold qualification is stressed very strongly.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, Viveka, this discrimination or discernment, eternal and non-eternment, a clear understanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: on that clear understanding, a clear decision that I shall seek the eternal, I shall seek the eternal and give up the non-eternal, have dispassion, I will be indifferent to even, I will have positive dislike for the non-eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will seek the divine, not the material, the worldly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will seek that which is godly and not that which is godly.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is called Viraagga, dispassion, dispassion for all that is non-eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the sixfold treasures, the discipline disciplines, Shama, that is quietude, control of the mind, quiet mind, a calm mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, Dhamma, the physical system also must be under control, when Tritika, whatever you can do from your perspective, from your from our side, the world is there, so there will be many things which will the world will do to us, which we cannot calculate, so one must have toughness.
[SPEAKER_01]: people may behave badly, because the weather may not be good, you know, illness may come, physically illness may come, certain shocks may come, ups and downs, COVID may come, so many things can come.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will persist, I will persist in my spiritual quest, in spite of whatever the world may
[SPEAKER_01]: a reversal is we are continuously plunging into the world, reverse that step back, inwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this samadhan of focus, having reversed turned inwards, having this passion for worldly engagements, so you will free up a lot of time and energy and use that to focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, what happens is India, you see the sight of wandering monks.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, they have given up, presumably the goal is God realization, and they have given up early and they hardly have any positions, they are wandering around, but are they focused often, unfortunately, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if you are freed up your time and energy and you do not devote yourself, one does not devote oneself to spiritual practices.
[SPEAKER_01]: prayer, meditation, scriptural study, then one will just become an aimless beggar and that's what you see sometimes, there are many such monks.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Samadhan, then Shadda, then Shadda.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shraddha is this firm faith that what we are being taught, what the scriptures have said, what the great spiritual masters have told us through the ages.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's destroyed there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me check it out myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So firm faith in the teachings of the Guru and the texts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And finally, the fourth one, intense desire for enlightenment,
[SPEAKER_01]: So, those things are necessary, and he says without that, if you simply study Vedanta and keep talking about Brahman, Brahman, all the time, it won't help, and then he gives a very nice example, and this is something, one has seen, I have myself seen in little villages in India, we will once sometimes come across this little temples which are fallen into disuse.
[SPEAKER_01]: So nobody goes there, they are overrun with beads, and sometimes they are overrun with the roots of banyan trees, banyan tree is growing, that's why he says the Ashwatha tree is growing there, and who lives there, bats.
[SPEAKER_01]: bats lived there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can hear the chittering of the bats at night and the droppings of the bats are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's dirty, maybe a fox or a frog lives in there a snake.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no, what no worship has been done for ages there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody goes there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this simple-minded fellow Pagmalo Jan Potho, she goes there suddenly starts blowing a con shell.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, in the Hindu ritual
[SPEAKER_01]: So, people thought something is going on, maybe somebody's cleaned up the temple and started and doing worship there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, they go to see and they open the door and they see, nobody is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that village simpleton is there with the consuel and blowing the consuel mightily.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing else.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's dirty.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's filthy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The backs are all flapping around the backs, also must be thinking, guys, nuts, why is the why is it disturbing us?
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no image.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what does it mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it is that little funny little song is there, oh Padmaluchan, so you crazy fool, your temple is dirty, they are the
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no image there to be worshipped, you are blowing the consciousness, you are inviting people to the image, you are announcing the worship of God, but there is no image installed there, there is no God installed there, so and it is filthy, it is full of the eleven backs, the whirling around and with the droppings of the back, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: thoughts, feelings, emotions, it's a whirlwind in there, and the five sense organs running amok, I want to see this, I want to hear that, I want to smell this, I want to eat that, I want to touch this, the five sense organs, each crazily running outwards, this, this and this, trying to get the respective objects and the five organs of action, up and doing, running around and trying to satisfy these desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on top of that, you're announcing here is spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Course of lectures, workshops and seminars and book tours, crash courses, and all of the very expensive courses in meditation and then becoming enlightened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we begin to realize that this poor fellow, this is the simple, the village simple-ton.
[SPEAKER_01]: is actually quite a common figure, has always been throughout history, even today.
[SPEAKER_01]: They might be on television and on internet and going on book tours, and on private jets, and you know, being this person who is trying to inspire millions, it might be just this kind of a guy, there's nothing inside, and only the
[SPEAKER_01]: a time it was a conchial and now it is social media and so many other things that still the conchial there is nothing inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am reminded of a song by a very great poet, devotional poet, Rajani Kanto I think,
[SPEAKER_01]: or Bhangagare, but the meaning there is different, but it's a similar imagery.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, it's very, very full of methods and devotion, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my mind, look inwards for one side, be seated, you look inwards into this broken heart, a broken heart of your, you know, being.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look inside your heart, you will find, you have not prepared it, you haven't cleaned it up, there is no bed and chair and there is no seat for the Lord to come and sit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is dirty, you have not invited the Lord to come and sit, you are wasted, you are thrown away your life, it is all in disrepair inside, there is no devotion, there is no peace of mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet you will find, if you but turn in words, you will find the Lord who is the most compassionate to you who do not deserve even the slightest compassion, he is full of compassion for you, his heart breaks for those who are helpless like you, and he is there, you will find his radiant form, you don't deserve it, but he is there in your heart, you will find his radiant form, sitting there full of compassion,
[SPEAKER_01]: waiting to give is grace to you unbidden.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, that's a
[SPEAKER_01]: different what you call a bhava.
[SPEAKER_01]: This village simple term is he is doing just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is advertising that something spiritual is going on here, there is nothing there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even for such a person, the poet says that if you sincerely turn in words, that sort of the condition where most of us are.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you sincerely turn in words, even in this condition, even in that broken ruined temple of our heart, God still exists.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can take refuge in God and God will help.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very touching.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, those who know Bingoly, back they keep on knowing Muddhe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Close your eyes and look inwards for just a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be see you in my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one must clean the heart, clean the mind, purify.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is called purification of the mind, before you install God in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, invoke the deity and then give lectures to your heart's content.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's actually talking to those young people, the Brahmhodevotees who were big on study and lecturing and changing people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he says something very important, by the way, of concluding this, that day's discussion.
[SPEAKER_01]: M is worried.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a young man, he's a school teacher, and he's married, his children, and his wife was neurotic, actually, and she was very grasping, and he was scared that she's going to kill herself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she didn't like him, you know, staying so much with three Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this, remember, this is just, it is true for both husband and wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: It works both ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are any number of ladies who have come and said that we are interested in spiritual life, but our husbands are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our men who are interested, but the wives are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is what Sri Ram Krishna first, he says, something very harsh, anybody, if it's your wife, and we have heard this from senior monks and all your father and mother, they come in the way of your spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: then there is no mercy there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Goal of life is God realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: The entirety of Indian civilization was built up that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: The greatest of all duties is the duty to your father and mother and your husband and wife, duty to your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is great and that is what you should really
[SPEAKER_01]: and yet beyond all of that, beyond family, beyond community, beyond country, one duty is above everything, from ancient times, most ancient times, Indian civilization has acknowledged that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just Hindus, Buddhists, giants, that you can give up all duties if you're seeking God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not that you have to give up duties.
[SPEAKER_01]: But your highest duty ultimately is God-realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything can be given up for God.
[SPEAKER_01]: and God cannot be given up for anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as that is not a burning concern in our lives, definitely this entire social structure is very helpful for our ethical and spiritual development also.
[SPEAKER_01]: The duties that we are asked to do in family, in profession, in community, they're all very good for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: But once you have the desire for enlightenment, God Realization, then that takes primacy over everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says something as harsh as my wife says she'll kill herself.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I come here too much in five states here, or if I see God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna says, straight away, that she can commit suicide, she can do whatever she likes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one who stops,
[SPEAKER_01]: your spiritual progress, you know, is ungodly wife or ungodly husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's shocked, and other people also, they all heard it, they're in the rain, others, they're shocked, but he's full of this intense desire for God Realization.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, M says he's standing there, worried anxious.
[SPEAKER_01]: These people really mean it.
[SPEAKER_01]: When they take up something they really mean it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's thinking, well, let her commit suicide, then what can I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Sramakrishna comes to him and suddenly whispers in his ear.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's an important solution.
[SPEAKER_01]: The solution is not, where the wife will commit suicide or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: The solution is not, how can I bring my wife around to spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_01]: How can I bring my husband around to spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_01]: And more than husband and wife, how can I bring my children around to spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the eternal mom question?
[SPEAKER_01]: Ceramakrishna says, that is not the question.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the putting emphasis on the wrong thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's putting the cart before the horse.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, and this is important, I'll read it out again.
[SPEAKER_01]: If a man has since year love for God, then all commander is controlled the king.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means anybody in power, who may be troubled, it could be the politician, could be the boss at office, wherever.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get persons.
[SPEAKER_01]: People who are troubling you,
[SPEAKER_01]: neighbor, anointing neighbor, or the one who's not paying his, the guest who's not paying his rent or whatever, anointing colleagues at work, wicked persons, and his wife, or husband, say everything comes around to your favor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Since here, love of God, on the husband's part, part, or wife's part, may eventually help the wife or husband to lead a spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the husband is good, then through the grace of God, the wife also may also follow his example.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not guaranteed, but it can happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has happened in many, many cases.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all know such examples.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also know such examples.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is to emphasize one's own spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: emphasize your own spiritual life, immerse yourself in God consciousness, feeling the presence of God, and the person you are worried about, could be an annoying person, could be your spouse, could be your children, whoever it is, pray for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of directly trying to change them, it doesn't work very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: See Ram Krishna says, it is very difficult to teach others.
[SPEAKER_01]: you are invoking a much higher power, but it may take time, it may take time, but that actually works over time it works.
[SPEAKER_01]: This had a most soothing effect on M's worried mind, for he had been thinking all along.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let her commit suicide, what can I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says to the master, the world is a terrible place indeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he quotes Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who said to Nithyananda, there's no hope for salvation for the worldly mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, not the person in the world, the worldly mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you are a person in worldly life or sitting in a monastery, in the mind is in the world, there's no hope or salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no hope of enlightenment there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if the mind is on guard, as far as possible, we are trying, at least we're trying to have our mind on guard, and then spirituality is possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Enlightenment, Moksha, all of it becomes possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: By God's grace, all of it is by God's grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: anger that is directed towards evil doing, evil or wrongdoing is not bad, is it?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it is not.
[SPEAKER_01]: This one good thing to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, if I can't just say that, it is a fool who cannot get angry.
[SPEAKER_01]: The wise do not get angry.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a power of the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it must be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's no anger at all, there's no, there's no, that means that other kind of the force is not there.
[SPEAKER_01]: desire to go and achieve something is also not there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it is a wise person who does not get angry.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot get angry, that is a fool, he says.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even righteous anger, one has to be careful about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always reminded of the famous Buddhist monk, Thick Nathan, the one who popularized mindfulness meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, he writes, when he first came to Europe in the 1970s, at that time green piece was agitating against nuclear weapons in Europe.
[SPEAKER_01]: All a good cause for peace, but Thick Nathan said, I was continually surprised at how these activists' peace activists were so angry.
[SPEAKER_01]: and see, peace, did you not see the contradiction?
[SPEAKER_01]: They are facing righteous anger.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are angry against people who are out to make war.
[SPEAKER_01]: But how peace activists, how can you personally internally be angry?
[SPEAKER_01]: You can still do your activism without being angry, you see?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the secret of the non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was non-violent, we didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, we didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just in action.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not many people thought it was a good strategy to fight against the British in India, were very powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a very superficial way of looking at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: For Mahatma Gandhi, a hymnsabha was a spiritual struggle.
[SPEAKER_01]: There should be no anger within.
[SPEAKER_01]: While fighting against the British Empire, he had no anger at all against any man or woman who was British.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mohai is also attachment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Sanghita says, what might be the deeper workings behind granting truths to the statement?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't look back or your ocean reduces to a drop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the deeper workings behind this is causality.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, I give a lot of resources, donations, my time, and effort.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I'm conscious of what I'm doing, then I'm trapped in causality, in karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've given something, I want the results of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have done Purnya, I want Sukha.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here, the example is the Holy Mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the bank of the Ganga in Kalkata, it was this sadhu or a beggar who was sitting there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just casually, the mother walks past him and gives him a fruit or a plate of fruits.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here, take the fruits and take the fruits of giving the fruits to and she walks away.
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't want anything out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is giving without looking back, not being aware of how much you have given or what you have given.
[SPEAKER_01]: I give and I calculate, I have an endowment set up to give me the results month by month details of what's being done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm not against endowment because if you have huge amounts of money, it's always good to have control and you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I mean is,
[SPEAKER_01]: My goal, it should be the welfare of others, not my own aggrandizement.
[SPEAKER_01]: My own aggrandizement, if I keep calculating how much I've done for you, whether it's a family, your husband, wife, children, or whether it's co-workers, or any kind of philanthropic activity, then one is trapped in karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the deeper reason why one should not look back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spirituality is unconditional.
[SPEAKER_01]: karma, karma yoga becomes unconditional service, not that I expect something in return, even not even abode or recognition.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, Gyan is unconditional because it takes it to the self which is beyond conditions,
[SPEAKER_01]: cause and effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, we can just say that good, good, bad, bad, none escaped the law, or whoever wears a form, wears the chain too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But far beyond name and form is Atman ever free.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's far beyond name and form is Atman ever free.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means you are beyond cause and effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what Giana takes you to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you've noticed all the
[SPEAKER_01]: they are all beyond causality, they are unconditional.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even meditation, all efforts will take you only up to deep meditation, Dhana from Dhana to Samadhi is unconditional.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will come by itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't force it there.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Praveen, as you say, earlier Taku told him that Prathap's weather wanted to stay at the temple, but Taku told him to return home because he was married and children needed to support them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rea Taku is saying that someone's wife proved an obstacle.
[SPEAKER_01]: He should give up his wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't this a dichotomy?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we explain the difference, please?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he has pointed out something important.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to see the context.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna would tailor his advice to the person concerned with the person is an escapeist trying to avoid the responsibilities which Oman has already set up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to stay with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are back in the village, his wife and children, and his old mother, they are a helpless.
[SPEAKER_01]: They depend it upon him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this person is highly spiritual.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he can't be bothered to look after them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna could not bear this kind of hypocrisy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because even for that person, for Pratap, he knows it will not lead to any genuine spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good for that person to go back into and face the responsibilities that develop his character which will be helpful ultimately in his spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rita says, Buddhism offers four habits of the mind, Maita, Karuna, Upeka and Mudita.
[SPEAKER_01]: They seem to parallel Southern Chaturstaya, what is the difference?
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, these are from yoga, the yoga sutras, how do you deal with various situations
[SPEAKER_01]: My three, Karuna, Upeksha and Muddhita, to some you will offer friendship, to some you will offer compassion, to some you will ignore and to for some you will be happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are doing well instead of being envious, doing well in any way.
[SPEAKER_01]: They may be richer than me, their children might be an Ivy League Colleges and mine might not be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their car might be fancier, they may have more Facebook friends than me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of these, they might be doing better than I, my reaction is what, not envy, mood is the happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed the way they are enjoying it.
[SPEAKER_01]: From their perspective and see how happy they must speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good, I feel that happiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: the opposite people who are harassing me, being nasty to me, giving me trouble, who begsha, ignore, ignore, ignore, brush off, brush off, brush off, you're most unwise, if you give into that, and you let your mind be upset.
[SPEAKER_01]: As it is those people are being a nuisance, and they're on top of that, you allow your mind to be upset.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody can make you unhappy without
[SPEAKER_01]: your mind after all.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to give permission for something to enter your mind and make you unhappy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing can make you nobody and nothing can make you unhappy without your own permission, without your permission.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who said that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which great sage?
[SPEAKER_01]: Eleanor Roosevelt.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Abijit says, and met as my three, general friendship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Karuna is for those who are suffering, those who are in suffering, compassion for them, not delight in their unhappiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Compassion for them and try to help them.
[SPEAKER_01]: My three, general friendship towards all beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be a well-wisher for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's operative is an active word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anthemoc is a state, inverteness, introverted state.
[SPEAKER_01]: But operative is actively withdrawing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it requires active withdrawal because we have a habitual tendency to flow outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: So active withdrawal is required.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shree says,
[SPEAKER_01]: Regarding, he who blows the conshell, what a battalier evangelist who leads a very effluent life, managed to give wonderful sermons is that not his gift from God, despite his common nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because the person leads a very effluent life, that person may not be actually a bad person, who one may not know, one does not know actually on what the internal status.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what Sri Ramakrishna says is that there must be some genuine spirituality within.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a condition.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, just attractive speeches may be nice for the time being, but they cannot be really life-changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: How best can one pray for others?
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't this amount to asking God for something?
[SPEAKER_01]: Pray for the welfare of others?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a general prayer one must do for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Any spiritual seeker will be a well-bisher for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let good come to all.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that good?
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sanghita says, Thakur also gave some harsh first response to the end as resolve and renunciation correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Additional soothing solution for dealing at a practical level correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the attitude one must have, where strength and one's own spiritual practices and surrendered to God, things will eventually, eventually very important.
[SPEAKER_01]: We become impatient, God is not impatient.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may take years, but things will turn out well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anurodha says is the prayer that helps or is the person's karma faller that has got a reason to become spiritual, both ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot really have control over our karma faller, but we have control of prayer that we can seriously deeply ask God for Viveka, Viveka, Vairakya, Bhakti, Gyanah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Om shanti shanti shanti hari hiyom tatsat Sri Ramakrishna Rupana-masthu.