Rules for Concentration and The Ohm Sound

Ramakrishna replied:

The heart is a splendid place. One can meditate there or in the Sahasrara.

These are rules for meditation given in the scriptures. But you may meditate wherever you like.

Every place is filled with Brahman-Consciousness. Is there any place where It does not exist?

Narayana, in Vali’s presence, covered with 2 steps the heavens, the earth, and the interspaces.

Is there then any place left uncovered by God?

A dirty place is as holy as the bank of the Ganges. It is said that the whole creation is the Virat.

Two forms of meditation

There are 2 kinds of meditation:

1. One on the formless God

2. One on God with form

But meditation on the formless God is extremely difficult. In that meditation, you must wipe out all that you see or hear. You contemplate only the nature of your Inner Self. Meditating on His Inner Self, Shiva dances about.

He exclaims, ‘What am I! What am I!’ This is called the Shiva yoga’.

While practising this form of meditation, one directs one’s look to the forehead. It is meditation on the nature of one’s Inner Self after negating the world, following the Vedantic method of ‘Neti, neti’.

There is another form of meditation, known as the ‘Vishnu yoga’ where the eyes are fixed on the tip of the nose.

Half the look is directed inward and the other half outward. This is how one meditates on God with form. Sometimes Shiva meditates on God with form, and dances. At that time he exclaims, ‘Rāma! Rāma!’ and dances about."

Meaning of Om

Sri Ramakrishna then explained the sacred Word “Om” and the true Knowledge of Brahman and the state of mind after the attainment of Brahmajnana.

The sound Om is Brahman.

The rishis and sages practised austerity to realize that Sound-Brahman. After attaining perfection, one hears the sound of this eternal Word rising spontaneously from the navel.

Some sages ask: ‘What will you gain by merely hearing this sound?’

You hear the roar of the ocean from a distance. By following the roar you can reach the ocean. As long as there is the roar, there must also be the ocean.

By following the trail of Om you attain Brahman, of which the Word is the symbol. That Brahman has been described by the Vedas as the ultimate goal. But such vision is not possible as long as you are conscious of your ego.

A man realizes Brahman only when he feels neither ‘I’ nor ‘you’, neither ‘one’ nor ‘many’.

Think of the sun and of 10 jars filled with water.

The sun is reflected in each jar. At first you see one real sun and 10 reflected ones. If you break 9 of the jars, there will remain only the real sun and one reflection.

Each jar represents a jiva. Following the reflection one can find the real sun. Through the individual soul one can reach the Supreme Soul.

Through spiritual discipline the individual soul can get the vision of the Supreme Soul. What remains when the last jar is broken cannot be described.

The jiva at first remains in a state of ignorance.

He is not conscious of God, but of the multiplicity. He sees many things around him. On attaining Knowledge he becomes conscious that God dwells in all beings.

Suppose a man has a thorn in the sole of his foot. He gets another thorn and takes out the first one.

In other words, he removes the thorn of ajnāna, ignorance, by means of the thorn of jnāna, knowledge. But on attaining vijnāna, he discards both thorns, knowledge and ignorance. Then he talks intimately with God day and night. It is no mere vision of God.

He who has merely heard of milk is ‘ignorant’.

He who has seen milk has ‘knowledge’.

But he who has drunk milk and been strengthened by it has attained vijnāna.

There is a difference between, a Sādhu endowed with jnāna and one endowed with vijnāna.

The Jnāni Sādhu has a certain way of sitting.

• He twirls his moustache and asks the visitor, ‘Well, sir! Have you any question to ask?’

But the man who always sees God and talks to Him intimately has an altogether different nature. He is:

• sometimes like an inert thing
• sometimes like a ghoul
• sometimes like a child, and
• sometimes like a madman.

When he is in samādhi, he becomes unconscious of the outer world and appears inert.

He sees everything to be full of Brahman-Consciousness. Therefore he behaves like a ghoul. He is not conscious of the holy and the unholy. He does not observe any formal purity.

To him everything is Brahman. He is not aware of filth as such. Even rice and other cooked food after a few days become like filth.

Again, he is like a madman. People notice his ways and actions and think of him as insane. Or sometimes he is like a child-no bondage, no shame, no hatred, no hesitation, or the like.

One reaches this state of mind after having the vision of God. When a boat passes by a magnetic hill, its screws and nails become loose and drop out. Lust, anger, and the other passions cannot exist after the vision of God.

Once a thunderbolt struck the Kāli temple. I noticed that it flattened the points of the screws.

It is no longer possible for the man who has seen God to beget children and perpetuate the creation. When a grain of paddy is sown it grows into a plant; but a grain of boiled paddy does not germinate.

He who has seen God retains his ‘I’ only in name. No evil can be done by that ‘I’. It is a mere appearance, like the mark left on the coconut tree by its branch. The branch has fallen off. Only the mark remains.

The 2 egos

Bhagavan Das, a Brahmo devotee, arrived.