Different Attitudes Toward God

Friday, January 4, 1884

Sri Ramakrishna was sitting in his room. M. was still staying with the Master, devoting his time to the practice of spiritual discipline. He had been spending a great part of each day in prayer and meditation under the bel-tree, where the Master had performed great austerities and had seen many wonderful visions of God.

Master exhorts M. not to reason

MASTER (to M.): “Don’t reason any more. In the end, reasoning only injures the aspirant. One should assume a particular attitude toward God while praying to Him-the attitude of friend or servant or son or ‘hero’.“I assume the attitude of a child.

To me every woman is my mother. The divine Maya, seeing this attitude in an aspirant, moves away from his path out of sheer shame. “The attitude of ‘hero’ is extremely difficult.

The Saktas and the Bauls among the Vaishnavas follow it, but it is very hard to keep one’s spiritual life pure in that attitude.

One can assume other attitudes toward God as well the attitude in which the devotee serenely contemplates God as the Creator, the attitude of service to Him, the attitude of friendship, the attitude of motherly affection, or the attitude of conjugal love.

The conjugal relationship, the attitude of a woman to her husband or sweetheart, contains all the rest-serenity, service, friendship, and motherly affection. (To M.) Which one of these appeals to your mind?”

M: “I like them all.”

MASTER: “When one attains perfection one takes delight in all these relationships. In that state a devotee has not the slightest trace of lust. The holy books of the Vaishnavas speak of Chandidas and the washerwoman. Their love was entirely free from lust.

“In that state a devotee looks on himself as a woman. He does not regard himself as a man. Sanatana Goswami refused to see Mirabai because she was a woman. Mira informed him that at Vrindāvan the only man was Krishna and that all others were His handmaids. ‘Was it right of Sanatana to think of himself as a man?’ Mira inquired.”

At dusk, M was sitting at the Master’s feet. Sri Ramakrishna had been told that Keshab’s illness had taken a turn for the worse. He was talking about Keshab and incidentally about the Brahmo Samaj.

MASTER (to M.): “Do they only give lectures in the Brahmo Samaj? Or do they also meditate? I understand that they call their service in the temple ‘upasana’. “Keshab at one time thought a great deal of Christianity and the Christian views. At that time, and even before, he belonged to Devendranath Tagore’s organization.”

M: “Had Keshab Babu come here from the very beginning, he would not have been so preoccupied with social reform. He would not have been so busy with the abolition of the caste system, widow remarriage, intercaste marriage, women’s education, and such social activities.”

MASTER: “Keshab now believes in Kāli as the Embodiment of Spirit and Consciousness, the Primal Energy. Besides, he repeats the holy name of the Mother and chants Her glories.

“Do you think the Brahmo Samaj will develop in the future into a sort of social-reform organization?

M: “The soil of this country is different. Only what is true survives here.”

MASTER: “Yes, that is so. The Sanatana Dharma, the Eternal Religion declared by the rishis, will alone endure. But there will also remain some sects like the Brahmo Samaj. Everything appears and disappears through the will of God.”

Earlier in the afternoon several devotees from Calcutta had visited the Master and had sung many songs. One of the songs contained the following idea: “O Mother, You have cajoled us with red toys. You will certainly come running to us when we throw them away and cry ourselves hoarse for You.” MASTER (to M.): “How well they sang about the red toys!”

M: “Yes, sir. You once told Kesbab about the red toys.”

MASTER: “Yes. I also told him about the Chidakasa, the Inner Consciousness, and about many other things. Oh, how happy we were! We used to sing and dance together.”

Saturday, January 5, 1884

It was the 23rd day of M.’s stay with Sri Ramakrishna. M. had finished his midday meal about 1PM and was resting in the nahabat when suddenly he heard someone call his name three or four times. Coming out, he saw Sri Ramakrishna calling to him from the verandah north of his room.

M. saluted the Master and they conversed on the south verandah.

MASTER: “I want to know how you meditate. When I meditated under the bel-tree I used to see various visions clearly. One day I saw in front of me money, a shawl, a tray of sandesh and two women. I asked my mind, ‘Mind, do you want any of these?’ I saw the sandesh to be mere filth. One of the women had a big ring in her nose. I could see both their inside and outside-entrails, filth, bone, flesh, and blood.

The mind did not want any of these-money, shawl, sweets, or women. It remained fixed at the Lotus Feet of God.

“A small balance has two needles, the upper and the lower. The mind is the lower needle. I was always afraid lest the mind should move away from the upper needle- God. Further, I would see a man always sitting by me with a trident in his hand. He threatened to strike me with it if the lower needle moved away from the upper one. “But no spiritual progress is possible without the renunciation of ‘woman and gold’.

I renounced these 3: land, wife, and wealth.

Once I went to the Registry Office to register some land, the title of which was in the name of Raghuvir. The officer asked me to sign my name; but I didn’t do it, because I couldn’t feel that it was ‘my’ land. I was shown much respect as the guru of Keshab Sen.

They presented me with mangoes, but I couldn’t carry them home. A sannyasi cannot lay things up.“How can one expect to attain God without renunciation? Suppose one thing is placed upon another; how can you get the second without removing the first?

One must pray to God without any selfish desire. But selfish worship, if practised with perseverance, is gradually turned into selfless worship. Dhruva practised tapasya to obtain his kingdom, but at last he realized God. He said, ‘Why should a man give up gold if he gets it while searching for glass beads?’

God can be realized when a man acquires sattva. Householders engage in philanthropic work, such as charity, mostly with a motive. That is not good. But actions without motives are good. Yet it is very difficult to leave motives out of one’s actions.

“When you realize God, will you pray to Him, ‘O God, please grant that I may dig reservoirs, build roads, and found hospitals and dispensaries’? After the realization of God all such desires are left behind.

“Then mustn’t one perform acts of compassion, such as charity to the poor? I do not forbid it. If a man has money, he should give it to remove the sorrows and sufferings that come to his notice. In such an event the wise man says, ‘Give the poor something.’

But inwardly he feels: ‘What can I do? God alone is the Doer. I am nothing.’

“The great souls, deeply affected by the sufferings of men, show them the way to God.

Sankaracharya kept the ’ego of Knowledge’ in order to teach mankind. The gift of knowledge and devotion is far superior to the gift of food.

Therefore Chaitanyadeva distributed bhakti to all, including the outcaste. Happiness and suffering are the inevitable characteristics of the body. You have come to eat mangoes. Fulfil that desire. The one thing needful is jnāna and bhakti. God alone is Substance; all else is illusory.

“It is God alone who does everything. You may say that in that case man may commit sin. But that is not true. If a man is firmly convinced that God alone is the Doer and that he himself is nothing, then he will never make a false step.