God and Maya

 

Mother through All

I see all things – trees, plants, people, cows, grass, water – as if they are covered with different sheaths, like pillow cases. Haven’t you seen them? Some are made of coarse cloth dyed red, some of finely patterned cloth, and others of different kinds of cloth; some are quadrangles and some are round. Everything in the universe is just like that. 

Just as there is only one substance – cotton – stuffed into all those pillow cases, so the same indivisible Satchidananda exists within the sheaths of people, cows, grass, water, mountains, and everything else. Look, I see clearly that the Divine Mother has covered Herself with different wrappers – She has assumed various forms and is peeping through them. 

Without understanding my condition, people tried to correct and pacify me. …  

- Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play, P 632

 

In Heart

 

The Entangled Soul

The entangled souls repeat those very actions that make them suffer so much. They are like the camel, which eats thorny bushes till the blood streams from its mouth, but still will not give them up. 

Such a man may have lost his son and be stricken with grief, but still he will have children year after year. He may ruin himself by his daughter's marriage, but still he will go on having daughters every year. And he says: 'What can I do? It's just my luck!' When he goes to a holy place he doesn't have any time to think of God. He almost kills himself carrying bundles for his wife. Entering the temple, he is very eager to give his child the holy water to drink or make him roll on the floor; but he has no time for his own devotions. 

These bound creatures slave for their masters to earn food for themselves and their families; and they earn money by lying, cheating, flattery. They laugh at those who think of God and meditate on Him, and call them lunatics. 

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 631 (19 October 1884)

No Limit

 

Granny’s Will

Haven't you seen the game of hide-and-seek? It is the 'granny's' will that the game should continue. If all touch her and are released, then the playing comes to a stop. Therefore it is not her will that all should touch her. 

You see, in big grain stores the merchants keep rice in great heaps that touch the ceiling. Beside them there are heaps of lentils. To protect the grain from the mice, the merchants leave trays of puffed rice and sweetened rice near it. The mice like the smell and the sweet taste of these and so stay around the trays. They don't find the big heaps of grain. 

Similarly, men are deluded by 'woman and gold'; they do not know where God is. 

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 614 (11 October 1884)

Ādyāśakti