Parable of the Farmer

Tuesday, June 5, 1883

Rākhāl and Hazra were staying with the Master in the temple garden at Dakshineswar.

M., too, had been there since the previous Sunday. As it was a week-day there were only a few devotees in the room. Generally people gathered there in large numbers on Sundays or holidays.

It was afternoon. Sri Ramakrishna was telling the devotees about his experiences during his God-intoxicated state.

MASTER (to M.): “Oh, what a state I passed through! At that time I didn’t eat my meals here. I would enter the house of a brahmin in the village or at Baranagore or at Ariadaha.

Generally it would be past meal-time. I would just sit down there without saying a word. If the members of the household asked me why I had come, I would simply say, ‘I want something to eat.’

Now and then I would go, uninvited of course, to Ram Chatterji’s house at Alambazar or to the Choudhurys at Dakshineswar. But I didn’t relish the food at the Choudhurys’ house.

One day I begged Mathur to take me to Devendra Tagore’s house. I said: ‘Devendra chants the name of God, I want to see him. Will you take me there?’ Mathur Babu was a very proud man.

How could one expect him to go to another man’s house uninvited? At first he hesitated. But then he said: ‘All right. Devendra and I were fellow students. I will take you to him.’

“Another day I learnt of a good man named Dina Mukherji, living at Baghbazar near the bridge. He was a devotee. I asked Mathur to take me there. Finding me insistent, he took me to Dina’s house in a carriage. It was a small place. The arrival of a rich man in a big carriage embarrassed the inmates.

We too were embarrassed. That day Dina’s son was being invested with the sacred thread. The house was crowded, and there was hardly any place for Dina to receive us.

We were about to enter a side room, when someone cried out: ‘Please don’t go into that room. There are ladies there.’ It was really a distressing situation.

Returning, Mathur Babu said, ‘Father, I shall never listen to you again.’ I laughed.

“Oh, what a state I passed through! Once Kumar Singh gave a feast to the sadhus and invited me too. I found a great many holy men assembled there. When I sat down for the meal, several sadhus asked me about myself. At once I felt like leaving them and sitting alone. I wondered why they should bother about all that.

The sadhus took their seats. I began to eat before they had started. I heard several of them remark, ‘Oh! What sort of man is this?’ "

It was around 5PM. 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.

Parable of the farmer

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 neighbour 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 ncighbours, ‘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 7 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.”

Law of karma

HAZRA: “But it is very difficult to understand that. Take the case of the sadhu of Bhukailas. How people tortured him and; in a way, killed him! They had found him in samadhi.

First they buried him, then they put him under water, and then they branded him with a hot iron. Thus they brought him back to consciousness of the world.

But in the end the sadhu died as a result of these tortures. He undoubtedly suffered at the hands of men, though, as you say, he died by the will of God.”

MASTER: “Man must reap the fruit of his own karma. But as far as the death of that holy man is concerned, it was brought about by the will of God. The kavirajs prepare makaradhvaja in a bottle. The bottle is covered with clay and heated in the fire.

The gold inside the bottle melts and combines with the other ingredients, and the medicine is made.

Then the physicians break the bottle carefully and take out the medicine. When the medicine is made, what difference does it make whether the bottle is preserved or broken?

So people think that the holy man was killed. But perhaps his inner stuff had been made. After the realization of God, what difference does it make whether the body lives or dies?

Different kinds of samadhi

The sadhu of Bhukailas was in samadhi. There are many kinds of samadhi.

My own spiritual experiences tally with the words I heard from a sadhu of Hrishikesh. Sometimes I feel the rising of the spiritual current inside me, as though it were the creeping of an ant. Sometimes it feels like the movement of a monkey jumping from one branch to another.

Again, sometimes it feels like a fish swimming in water. Only he who experiences it knows what it is like. In samadhi one forgets the world. When the mind comes down a little, I say to the Divine Mother: ‘Mother, please cure me of this. I want to talk to people.’

None but the Isvarakotis can return to the plane of relative consciousness after attaining samadhi. Some ordinary men attain samadhi through spiritual discipline; but they do not come back. But when God Himself is born as a man, as an Incarnation, holding in His hand the key to others’ liberation, then for the welfare of humanity the Incarnation returns from samadhi to consciousness of the world.”

M. (to himself): “Does the Master hold in his hand the key to man’s liberation?”

HAZRA: “The one thing needful is to please God. What does it matter whether an Incarnation of God exists or not?”

It was the day of the new moon. Gradually night descended and dense darkness enveloped the trees and the temples. A few lights shone here and there in the temple garden.

The black sky was reflected in the waters of the Ganges.

The Master went to the verandah south of his room. A spiritual mood was the natural state of his mind. The dark night of the new moon, associated with the black complexion of Kali, the Divine Mother, intensified his spiritual exaltation. Now and then he repeated “Om” and the name of Kali.

He lay down on a mat and whispered to M.

MASTER: “Yes, God can be seen. X- has had a vision of God. But don’t tell anyone about it. Tell me, which do you like better, God with form, or the formless Realitv?”

M: “Sir, nowadays I like to think of God without form. But I am also beginning to understand that it is God alone who manifests Himself through different forms.”

MASTER: “Will you take me in a carriage some day to Mati Seal’s garden house at Belgharia? When you throw puffed rice into the lake there, the fish come to the surface and eat it. Ah! I feel so happy to see them sport in the water. That will awaken your spiritual consciousness too.

You will feel as if the fish of the human soul were playing in the Ocean of Satchidananda. In the same manner, I go into an ecstatic mood when I stand in a big meadow. I feel like a fish released from a bowl into a lake. “Spiritual discipline is necessary in order to see God. I had to pass through very severe discipline.

How many austerities I practised under the bel-tree! I would lie down under it, crying to the Divine Mother, ‘O Mother, reveal Thyself to me.’ The tears would flow in torrents and soak my body.”

M: “You practised so many austerities, but people expect to realize God in a moment!

Can a man build a wall simply by moving his finger around his home?”

MASTER (with a smile): “Amrita says that one man lights a fire and ten bask in its heat.

I want to tell you something else. It is good to remain on the plane of the Lila after reaching the Nitya.”

M: “You once said that one comes down to the plane of the Lila in order to enjoy the divine play.”

MASTER; “No, not exactly that. The Lila is real too.

Whenever you come here, bring a trifle with you. Perhaps I shouldn’t say it; it may look like egotism. I also told Adhar Sen that he should bring a pennyworth of something with him. I asked Bhavanath to bring a pennyworth of betel-leaf.

Have you noticed Bhavanath’s devotion? Narendra and he seem like man and woman. He is devoted to Narendra. Bring Narendra here with you in a carriage, and also bring some sweets with you. It will do you good.

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.”

Lying on the mat and resting his head on a pillow, Sri Ramakrishna continued the conversation. He said to M: “My legs are aching. Please stroke them gently.” Thus, out of his infinite compassion, the Master allowed his disciple to render him personal service.