Faith

The devotees from Manirampur asked the Master how to realize God. 

MASTER: "You must practise spiritual discipline a little. It will not do simply to say that milk contains butter. You must let the milk set into curd and then churn it. Only then can you get butter from it. Spiritual aspirants must go into solitude now and then. After acquiring love of God in solitude, they may live in the world. If one is wearing a pair of shoes, one can easily walk over thorns. 

            The most important thing is faith. 

           As is a man's meditation, so is his feeling of love; 

           As is a man's feeling of love, so is his gain; 

  And faith is the root of all.

If one has faith one has nothing to fear."  

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 241 

                   (10 June 1883)

Chaitanya’s States

 

'Framework of Illusion'

There are two schools of thought: the Vedānta and the Purana. 

According to the Vedānta this world is a 'framework of illusion', that is to say, it is all illusory, like a dream. 

But according to the Purana, the books of devotion, God Himself has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. Worship God both within and without. 

As long as God keeps the awareness of 'I' in us, so long do sense-objects exist; and we cannot very well speak of the world as a dream. 

There is fire in the hearth; therefore the rice and pulse and potatoes and the other vegetables jump about in the pot. They jump about as if to say: 'We are here! We are jumping!' 

This body is the pot. The mind and intelligence are the water. The objects of the senses are the rice, potatoes, and other vegetables. The 'I-consciousness' identified with the senses says, 'I am jumping about.' 

And Satchidananda is the fire.  

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 243 

                       (10 June 1883)

Radha’s Mahabhava

Paths of Love and Knowledge

Knowledge and love - both are paths leading to God. 

Those who follow the path of love have to observe a little more outer purity. But the violation of this by a man following the path of knowledge cannot injure him. It is destroyed in the fire of knowledge. Even a banana tree is burnt up when it is thrown into a roaring fire.

The jnanis follow the path of discrimination. Sometimes it happens that, discriminating between the Real and the unreal, a man loses his faith in the existence of God. But a devotee who sincerely yearns for God does not give up his meditation even though he is invaded by atheistic ideas. A man whose father and grandfather have been farmers continues his farming even though he doesn't get any crop in a year of drought.  

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 238 

                      (5 June 1883)

Parable of the Farmer

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. Sri Ramakrishna was sitting on the steps of his verandah. Hazra, Rākhāl, and M. were near him. Hazra had the attitude of a Vedantist: "I am He." 

MASTER (to Hazra): "Yes, all one's confusion comes to an end if one only realizes that it is God who manifests Himself as the atheist and the believer, the good and the bad, the real and the unreal; that it is He who is present in waking and in sleep; and that He is beyond all these.

 

"There was a farmer to whom an only son was born when he was rather advanced in age. As the child grew up, his parents became very fond of him. One day the farmer was out working in the fields, when a neighbor told him that his son was dangerously ill-indeed, at the point of death. Returning home he found the boy dead. His wife wept bitterly, but his own eyes remained dry. Sadly the wife said to her ncighbors, 'Such a son  has  passed  away,  and  he  hasn't  even  one  tear  to  shed!' 

After a long while the farmer said to his wife: 'Do you know why I am not crying? Last night I dreamt I had become a king, and the father of seven princes. These princes were beautiful as well as virtuous. They grew in stature and acquired wisdom and knowledge in the various arts. Suddenly I woke up. Now I have been wondering whether I should weep for those seven children or this one boy.' 

To the jnanis the waking state is no more real than the dream state. 

"God alone is the Doer.  Everything happens by His will."  

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 236 

                           (5 June 1883)

‘Condensed Milk'