Sin and God's name

SUB-JUDGE: “Sir, I am a sinner. How can I say that God dwells in me?”

MASTER: “That’s the one trouble with you Brahmos. With you it is always sin and sin!

That’s the Christian view, isn’t it? Once a man gave me a Bible.A part of it was read to me, and it was full of that one thing-sin and sin! One must have such faith that one can say: ‘I have uttered the name of God; I have repeated the name of Rāma or Hari. How can I be a sinner?’ One must have faith in the glory of God’s name.”

SUB-JUDGE: “Sir, how can one have such faith?”

MASTER: “Have passionate love for God. One of your Brahmo songs says:

O Lord, is it ever possible to know Thee without love, However much one may perform worship and sacrifice? Pray to God in secret and with yearning, that you may have that passionate attachment and devotion to Him. Shed tears for Him. A man sheds a jugful of tears because his wife is sick or because he is losing money or because he is worrying about getting a job. But tell me, who ever weeps for God?’

Self-surrender to God

TRAlLOKYA: “Sir, where is people’s leisure? They must serve their English masters.”

MASTER: “Well, then give God the power of attorney. If a man entrusts his affairs to a good person, will the latter do him any harm? With all the sincerity of your heart resign yourself to God and drive all your worries out of your mind. Do whatever duties He has assigned to you. The kitten does not have a calculating mind. It only cries, ‘Mew, mew!’

It lies in the kitchen contentedly if the mother cat leaves it there, and only calls the mother, crying, ‘Mew, mew!’ It has the same feeling of contentment when the mother cat puts it on the soft bed of the master of the house. It only cries for its mother.” Duty to wife and children

SUB-JUDGE: “Sir, we are householders. How long should we perform our worldly duties?”

MASTER: “Surely you have duties to perform. You must bring up your children, support your wife, and provide for her in case of your death. If you don’t, then I shall call you unkind. Sages like Sukadeva had compassion. He who has no compassion is no man.”

SUB-JUDGE: “How long should one support one’s children?”

MASTER: “As long as they have not reached their majority. When the chick becomes a full-grown bird and can look after itself, then the mother bird pecks it and doesn’t allow it to come near her.” (All laugh.)

SUB-JUDGE: “What is a householder’s duty to his wife?”

MASTER: “You should give her spiritual advice and support her during your lifetime and provide for her livelihood after your death, if she is a chaste wife.

“But if you are intoxicated with the Knowledge of God, then you have no more duties to perform. Then God Himself will think about your morrow if you yourself cannot do so. God Himself will think about your family if you are intoxicated with Him. If a landlord dies leaving behind a minor son, then a guardian appointed by the court takes charge of the son. These are all points of law; you know them.”

SUB-JUDGE: “Yes, sir.”

VIJAY: “Ah! Priceless words! God Himself carries on His shoulders all the responsibilities of a person who thinks of Him with single-minded devotion and is mad with divine love.

A minor gets his guardian without seeking him. Alas, when shall I have that state of mind? How lucky they are who feel that way!”

TRAILOKYA: “Is it ever possible, sir, to have true knowledge of God while living in the world? Can one realize God here?”

MASTER (with a smile): “Why do you worry? You are enjoying both treacle and refined sugar. (All laugh.) You are living in the world with your mind in God. Isn’t that true? Why shouldn’t a man realize God in the world’? Certainly he can.”

TRAILOKYA: What are the signs of a householder having attained Knowledge?”

MASTER: “His tears will flow, and the hair on his body will stand on end. No sooner does he hear the sweet name of God than the hair on his body stands on end from sheer delight, and tears roll down his cheeks. “A man cannot get rid of body-consciousness as long as he is attached to worldly things and loves ‘woman and gold’. As he becomes less and less attached to worldly things, he approaches nearer and nearer to the Knowledge of Self.

He also becomes less and less conscious of his body. He attains Self-Knowledge when his worldly attachment totally disappears. Then he realizes that body and soul are two separate things. It is very difficult to separate with a knife the kernel of a coconut from the shell before the milk inside has dried up. When the milk dries up, the kernel rattles inside the shell. At that time it loosens itself from the shell. Then the fruit is called a dry coconut.

Signs of God-vision

“The sign of a man’s having realized God is that he has become like a dry coconut. He has become utterly free from the consciousness that he is the body. He does not feel happy or unhappy with the happiness or unhappiness of the body. He does not seek the comforts of the body. He roams about in the world as a jivanmukta, one liberated in life. ‘The devotee of Kāli is a jivanmukta , full of Eternal Bliss.’

“When you find that the very mention of God’s name brings tears to your eyes and makes your hair stand on end, then you will know that you have freed yourself from attachment to ‘woman and gold’ and attained God. If the matches are dry, you get a spark by striking only one of them. But if they are damp, you don’t get a spark even if you strike fifty. You only waste matches. Similarly, if your mind is soaked in the pleasure of worldly things, in ‘woman and gold’, then God-Consciousness will not be kindled in you. You may try a thousand times, but all your efforts will be futile. But no sooner does attachment to worldly pleasure dry up than the spark of God flashes forth.”

Force your demand on the Divine Mother

TRAILOKYA: “What is the way to dry up the craving for worldly pleasure?”

MASTER: “Pray to the Divine Mother with a longing heart. Her vision dries up all craving for the world and completely destroys all attachment to ‘woman and gold’. It happens instantly if you think of Her as your own mother. She is by no means a godmother. She is your own mother.

With a yearning heart persist in your demands on Her. The child holds to the skirt of its mother and begs a penny of her to buy a kite. Perhaps the mother is gossiping with her friends. At first she refuses to give the penny and says to the child: ‘No, you can’t have it. Your daddy has asked me not to give you money. When he comes home I’ll ask him about it. You will get into trouble if you play with a kite now.’ The child begins to cry and will not give up his demand. Then the mother says to her friends: ‘Excuse me a moment. Let me pacify this child.’ Immediately she unlocks the cash-box with a click and throws the child a penny.

“You too must force your demand on the Divine Mother. She will come to you without fail. I once said the same thing to some Sikhs when they visited the temple at Dakshineswar. We were conversing in front of the Kāli temple. They said, ‘God is compassionate.’

‘Why compassionate?’ I asked. They said, ‘Why, revered sir, He constantly looks after us, gives us righteousness and wealth, and provides us with our food.’ ‘Suppose’, I said, ‘a man has children. Who will look after them and provide them with food-their own father, or a man from another village?’

SUB-JUDGE: “Is not God, then, compassionate, sir?”

MASTER: “Why should you think that? I just made a remark. What I mean to say is that God is our very own. We can exert force on Him. With one’s own people one can even go so far as to say, ‘You rascal! Won’t you give it to me?’

Futility of egotism

(To the sub-judge) “Let me ask you one thing. Are vanity and egotism the result of knowledge or of ignorance? Egotism is of the nature of tamas; it is begotten by ignorance. On account of the barrier of ego one does not see God. ‘All troubles come to an end when the ego dies.’

It is futile to be egotistic. Neither body nor wealth will last. Once a drunkard was looking at the image of Durga. At the sight of Her decorations, he said, ‘Well, Mother! However You may fix Yourself up, after two or three days they will drag You out and throw You into the Ganges.’

(All laugh.)

“So I say to you all, you may be a judge or anybody else, but it is all for two days only. Therefore you should give up vanity and pride.