A Day At Dakshineswar

Saturday, April 5, 1884

M. arrived at the temple garden around 8 AM.

He found Sri Ramakrishna seated on the small couch in his room. A few devotees were sitting on the floor. The Master was talking to them. Prankrishna Mukherji was there.

Prankrishna belonged to an aristocratic family and lived in the northern part of Calcutta.

He held a high post in an English business firm. He was very much devoted to Sri Ramakrishna and, though a householder, derived great pleasure from the study of Vedānta philosophy. He was a frequent visitor at the temple garden.

Once he invited the Master to his house in Calcutta and held a religious festival. Every day, early in the morning, he bathed in the holy water of the Ganges. Whenever it was convenient, he would come to Dakshineswar in a hired country boat.

That morning he had hired a boat and invited M. to accompany him to Dakshineswar.

The boat had hardly left shore when the river became choppy. M. had become frightened and begged Prankrishna to put him back on land. In spite of assurances, M. had kept saying: “You must put me ashore. I shall walk to Dakshineswar.” And so M. came on foot and found Sri Ramakrishna talking to Prankrishna and the others.

MASTER (to Prankrishna): “But there is a greater manifestation of God in man. You may ask, ‘How is it possible for God to be incarnated as a man who suffers from hunger, thirst, and the other traits of an embodied being, and perhaps also from disease and grief?’

The reply is, ‘Even Brahman weeps, entrapped in the snare of the five elements.’

“Don’t you know how Rāma had to weep, stricken with grief for Sita? Further, it is said that the Lord incarnated Himself as a sow in order to kill the demon Hiranyaksha.

Hiranyaksha was eventually killed, but God would not go back to His abode in heaven.

He enjoyed His sow’s life. He had given birth to several young ones and was rather happy with them. The gods said among themselves: ‘What does this mean? The Lord doesn’t care to return to heaven!’ They all went to Shiva and laid the matter before him.

Shiva came down and urged the Lord to leave the sow body and return to heaven. But the sow only suckled her young ones. (Laughter.) Then Shiva destroyed the sow body with his trident, and the Lord came out laughing aloud and went back to His own abode.”

The Anāhata sound

PRANKRISHNA (to the Master): “Sir, what is the Anāhata sound?”

MASTER: “It is a spontaneous sound constantly going on by itself. It is the sound of the Pranava, Om. It originates in the Supreme Brahman and is heard by yogis. People immersed in worldliness do not hear it. A yogi alone knows that this sound originates both from his navel and from the Supreme Brahman resting on the Ocean of Milk.”

Reincarnation

PRANKRISHNA: “Sir, what is the nature of the life after death?”

MASTER: “Keshab Sen also asked that question. As long as a man remains ignorant, that is to say, as long as he has not realized God, so long will, he be born. But after attaining Knowledge he will not have to come back to this earth or to any other plane of existence.

“The potter puts his pots in the sun to dry. Haven’t you noticed that among them there are both baked and unbaked ones? When a cow happens to walk over them, some of the pots get broken to pieces. The broken pots that are already baked, the potter throws away, since they are of no more use to him. But the soft ones, though broken, he gathers up. He makes them into a lump and out of this forms new pots.

In the same way, so long as a man has not realized God, he will have to come back to the Potter’s hand, that is, he will have to be born again and again.

What is the use of sowing a boiled paddy grain? It will never bring forth a shoot.

Likewise, if a man is boiled in the fire of Knowledge, he will not be used for new creation. He is liberated.

The “ego of Devotion”

“According to the Puranas, the bhakta and the Bhagavan are two separate entities. ‘I’ am one and ‘You’ are another. The body is a plate, as it were, containing the water of mind, intelligence, and ego. Brahman is like the sun. It is reflected in the water.

Therefore the devotee sees the divine form.

The “ego of Knowledge”

According to the Vedānta, Brahman alone is real and all else is māyā, dreamlike and unsubstantial. The ego, like a stick, lies across the Ocean of Satchidananda.

(To M.) Listen to what I am saying. When this ego is taken away, there remains only one undivided Ocean of Satchidananda. But as long as the stick of ego remains, there is an appearance of two: here is one part of the water and there another part. Attaining the Knowledge of Brahman one is established in samādhi. Then the ego is effaced.

“But Sankaracharya retained the ’ego of Knowledge’ in order to teach men.

The signs of a Jnāni

(To Prankrishna) But there are signs that distinguish the man of Knowledge. Some people think they have Knowledge. What are the characteristics of Knowledge?

A Jnāni cannot injure anybody. He becomes like a child. If a steel sword touches the philosopher’s stone, it is transformed into gold. Gold can never cut. It may seem from the outside that a Jnāni also has anger or egotism, but in reality he has no such thing.

The ego of a Jnāni

“From a distance a burnt string lying on the ground may look like a real one; but if you come near and blow at it, it disappears altogether. The anger and egotism of a Jnāni are mere appearances; they are not real.

“A child has no attachment. He makes a play house, and if anyone touches it, he will jump about and cry. The next moment he himself will break it. This moment he may be very attached to his cloth. He says: ‘My daddy has given it to me. I won’t part with it.’

But the next moment you can cajole him away from it with a toy. He will go away with you, leaving the cloth behind.

These are the characteristics of a Jnāni. Perhaps he has many luxuries at home―couch, chairs, paintings, and equipage. But any day he may leave all these and go off to Benares.

Jnāni looks on the world as illusory

“According to Vedānta the waking state, too, is unreal.

Once a wood-cutter lay dreaming, when someone woke him up. Greatly annoyed, he said: ‘Why have you disturbed my sleep?

I was dreaming that I was a king and the father of seven children.

The princes were becoming well versed in letters and military arts. I was secure on my throne and ruled over my subjects. Why have you demolished my world of joy?’ ‘But that was a mere dream’, said the other man.

‘Why should that bother you?’ ‘Fool!’ said the wood-cutter. ‘You don’t understand. My becoming a king in the dream was just as real as is my being a wood-cutter.

If being a wood-cutter is real, then being a king in a dream is real also.’ "