Sattva, rajas, and tamas

“The characteristics of sattva, rajas, and tamas are very different. Egotism sleep, gluttony, lust, anger, and the like, are the traits of’ people with tamas. Men with rajas entangle themselves in many activities. Such a man has clothes all spick and span. His house is immaculately clean. A portrait of the Queen hangs on a wall in his drawing-room.

When he worships God he wears a silk cloth. He has a string of rudraksha beads around his neck, and in between the beads he puts a few gold ones. When someone comes to visit the worship hall in his house, he himself acts as guide. After showing the hall, he says to the visitor: ‘Please come this way, sir. There are other things too-the floor of white marble and the natmandir with its exquisite carvings.’ When he gives in charity he makes a show of it. But a man endowed with sattva is quiet and peaceful.

So far as dress is concerned, anything will do. He earns only enough money to give his stomach the simplest of food; he never flatters men to get money. His house is out of repair. He never worries about his children’s clothing. He does not hanker for name and fame.

His worship, charity, and meditation are all done in secret; people do not know, about them at all. He meditates inside his mosquito curtain. People think he doesn’t sleep well at night and for that reason sleeps late in the morning. Sattva is the last step of the stairs; next is the roof. As soon as sattva is acquired there is no further delay in attaining God. One step forward and God is realized. (To the sub-judge) Didn’t you say that all men were equal? Now you see that there are so many varieties of human nature.

Four classes of men

“There are still other classes and kinds of people. For instance, there are those who are eternally free, those who have attained liberation, those struggling for liberation, and those entangled in the world. So many varieties of men! Sages like Nārada and Sukadeva are eternally free. They are like a steamship, which not only crosses the ocean but can carry big animals, even an elephant. Further, the soul that is eternally free is like the superintendent of an estate. After bringing one part of the estate under control, he goes to another. Those struggling for liberation strive heart and soul to free themselves from the net of the world. One or two of them may get out of the net. They are called the liberated. The souls that are eternally free are like clever fish; they are never caught in the net.

“But the souls that are entangled, involved in worldliness, never come to their senses. They lie in the net but are not even conscious that they are entangled. If you speak of God before them, they at once leave the place. They say: ‘Why God now? We shall think of Him in the hour of death.’ But when they lie on their death-beds, they say to their wives or children: ‘Why have you put so many wicks in the lamp? Use only one wick. Otherwise too much oil will be burnt.’ While dying they think of their wives and children, and weep, ‘Alas! What will happen to them after my death?’

The entangled soul

“The entangled souls repeat those very actions that make them suffer so much. They are like the camel, which eats thorny bushes till the blood streams from its mouth, but still will not give them up. Such a man may have lost his son and be stricken with grief, but still he will have children year after year. He may ruin himself by his daughter’s marriage, but still he will go on having daughters every year. And he says: ‘What can I do? It’s just my luck!’ When he goes to a holy place he doesn’t have any time to think of God.

He almost kills himself carrying bundles for his wife. Entering the temple, he is very eager to give his child the holy water to drink or make him roll on the floor; but he has no time for his own devotions. These bound creatures slave for their masters to earn food for themselves and their families; and they earn money by lying, cheating, flattery. They laugh at those who think of God and meditate on Him, and call them lunatics. “So you see how many different kinds of men there are. You said that all men were equal. But how many varieties of men there are! Some have more power and some less.

Thought of God at the hour of death

“The entangled creatures, attached to worldliness, talk only of worldly things in the hour of death. What will it avail such men if they outwardly repeat the name of God, take a bath in the Ganges, or visit sacred places? If they cherish within themselves attachment to the world, it must show up at the hour of death. While dying they rave nonsense. Perhaps they cry out in a delirium, ‘Turmeric powder! Seasoning! Bay-leaf!’ The singing parrot, when at ease, repeats the holy names of Radha and Krishna, but when it is seized by a cat it utters its own natural sound; it squawks, ‘Kaa! Kaa!’ It is said in the Gitā that whatever one thinks in the hour of death, one becomes in the after-life. King Bharata gave up his body exclaiming, ‘Deer! Deer!’ and was born as a deer in his next life. But if a man dies thinking of God, then he attains God, and he does not have to come back to the life of this world.”

A BRAMO DEVOTEE: “Sir, suppose a man has thought of God at other times during his life, but at the time of his death forgets Him. Would he, on that account, come back to this world of sorrow and suffering? Why should it be so? He certainly thought of God some time during his life.”

MASTER: “A man thinks of God, no doubt, but he has no faith in Him. Again and again he forgets God and becomes attached to the world. It is like giving the elephant a bath; afterwards he covers his body with mud and dirt again. ‘The mind is a mad elephant.’

But if you can make the elephant go into the stable immediately after bathing him, then he stays clean. Just so, if a man thinks of God in the hour of death, then his mind becomes pure and it gets no more opportunity to become attached to ‘woman and gold’. “Man has no faith in God. That is the reason he suffers so much. They say that when you plunge into the holy waters of the Ganges your sins perch on a tree on the bank. No sooner do you come out of the water after the bath than the sins jump back on your shoulders. (All laugh.) A man must prepare the way beforehand, so that he may think of God in the hour of death. The way lies through constant practice. If a man practises meditation on God, he will remember God even on the last day of his life.”

A BRAHMO DEVOTEE: “You have spoken very beautifully, sir. Beautiful words, indeed.”

Master’s humility

MASTER: “Oh, this is just idle talk. But do you know my inner feeling? I am the machine and God is the Operator. I am the house and He is the Indweller. I am the engine and He is the Engineer. I am the chariot and He is the Charioteer. I move as He moves me; I do as He makes me do.”

Presently Trailokya began to sing to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals. Sri Ramakrishna danced, intoxicated with divine love. Many times he went into samādhi. He stood still, his eyes fixed, his face beaming, with one hand on the shoulder of a beloved disciple. Coming down a little from the state of ecstasy, he danced again like a mad elephant. Regaining consciousness of the outer world, he improvised lines to the music:

O Mother, dance about Thy devotees! Dance Thyself and make them dance as well. O Mother, dance in the lotus of my heart; Dance, O Thou the ever blessed Brahman! Dance in all Thy world-bewitching beauty.

An indescribable scene. The exquisite and celestial dance of a child completely filled with ecstatic love of God and identified heart and soul with the Divine Mother! The Brahmo devotees danced around the Master again and again, attracted like iron to a magnet. In ecstatic voices they chanted the name of Brahman. Again, they chanted the name of the Divine Mother. Many of them wept like children, crying, “Mother! Mother!”

When the music was over, the devotees and the Master sat down. Although it was about eight o’clock, the evening worship of the Brahmo Samaj had not yet begun. In the joy of this divine music they had forgotten all about their formal worship. Vijay, who was to conduct the evening service, sat facing the Master. His mother-in-law and the other Brahmo ladies wanted to see Sri Ramakrishna; so the Master went to meet them in another room.