Bankim

Suddenly the teacher pressed the disciple’s head under the water. After a few moments he released him and the disciple raised his head and stood up.

The guru asked him, ‘How did you feel?’ The disciple said, ‘Oh! I thought I should die; I was panting for breath.’ The teacher said, ‘When you feel like that for God, then you will know you haven’t long to wait for His vision.’

(To Bankim) “Let me tell you something. What will you gain by floating on the surface?

Dive a little under the water. The gems lie deep under the water; so what is the good of throwing your arms and legs about on the surface? A real gem is heavy. It doesn’t float; it sinks to the bottom. To get the real gem you must dive deep.”

BANKIM: “Sir, what can we do? We are tied to a cork. It prevents us from diving.” (All laugh.)

MASTER: “All sins vanish if one only remembers God. His name breaks the fetters of death. You must dive; otherwise you can’t get the gem. Listen to a song.”

The Master sang in his sweet voice:

Dive deep, O mind, dive deep in the Ocean of God’s Beauty;

If you descend to the uttermost depths,

There you will find the gem of Love.

Go seek, O mind, go seek Vrindāvan in your heart,

Where with His loving devotees

Sri Krishna sports eternally. Light up, O mind, light up true wisdom’s shining lamp, And let it burn with steady flame Unceasingly within your heart.

Who is it that steers your boat across the solid earth? It is your guru, says Kubir; Meditate on his holy feet.

All listened spellbound. Again Sri Ramakrishna began to talk.

MASTER (to Bankim): “There are some who do not want to dive. They say, ‘Won’t we become deranged if we go to excess about God?’ Referring to those who are intoxicated with divine love, they say, ‘These people have lost their heads.’ But they don’t understand this simple thing: God is the Ocean of Amrita, Immortality. Once I said to

Narendra: ‘Suppose there were a cup of syrup and you were a fly. Where would you sit to drink the syrup?’ Narendra said, ‘I would sit on the edge of the cup and stretch out my neck to drink it.’ ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What’s the harm of plunging into the middle of the cup and drinking the syrup?’ Narendra answered, ‘Then I should stick in the syrup and die.’

‘My child,’ I said to him, ’that isn’t the nature of the Nectar of Satchidananda. It is the Nectar of Immortality. Man does not die from diving into It. On the contrary he becomes immortal.’

“Therefore I say, dive deep. Don’t be afraid. By diving deep in God one becomes immortal.”

Bankim bowed low before the Master. He was about to take his leave.

BANKIM: “Sir, I am not such an idiot as you may think. I have a prayer to make. Please be kind enough to grace my house with the dust of your holy feet.”

MASTER: “That’s nice. I shall go if God wills.”

BANKIM: “There too you will see devotees of God.”

MASTER (smiling):“How so? What kind of devotees are they? Are they like those who said, ‘Gopal! Gopal! Kesava! Kesava!’?"(All laugh.)

A DEVOTEE: “What is the story of ‘Gopal’, sir?”

MASTER (smiling): “Let me tell you. At a certain place there is a goldsmith’s shop. The workers there are known as pious Vaishnavas: they have strings of beads around their necks, religious marks on their foreheads, and bags containing rosaries in their hands.

They repeat the names of God aloud. One can almost call them sādhus; only they have to work as goldsmiths to earn their bread and support their wives and children. Many customers, hearing of their piety, come to the shop because they believe that in that shop there will be no trickery with their gold or silver. When the customers enter the shop, they see the workers repeating the name of Hari with their tongues and doing their work with their hands.

No sooner do the customers take seats in the shop than one of the workers cries out, ‘Kesava! Kesava! Kesava!’ A few minutes later another says, ‘Gopal! Gopal! Gopal!’ After they talk a little while, the third man cries out, ‘Hari! Hari! Hari!’

In the mean time the customers have almost finished their transactions. Then the fourth exclaims, ‘Hara! Hara! Hara!’ The customers are very much impressed with the devotion and fervour of the owners and feel themselves quite secure in handing them the money. They are sure they won’t be cheated.

“But do you know what lies behind all this? The man who says ‘Kesava! Kesava!’ after the arrival of the customers means, ‘Who are they?’ In other words, he wants to know how intelligent they are. The man who says ‘Gopal! Gopal!’ means to say he finds them no better than a herd of cows.

The man saying ‘Hari! Hari!’ means, ‘May I rob them?’; he suggests that since they are like a herd of cows they can be robbed. And the last man, who says ‘Hara! Hara!’, replies, ‘Yes, rob them.’ He means that since the customers are like a herd of cows, they can certainly be robbed. Here, too, you see a group of pious men, very much devoted to God!”

(All laugh.)

Bankim took his leave; but he was absent-minded. When he reached the door he discovered that he had dropped his shawl in the room; he was in his short-sleeves. A gentleman handed him his shawl.

Of the devotees at Adhar’s house, Sarat and Sannyal were brahmins. But Adhar belonged to the lower caste of the goldsmiths, and so the two brahmins quickly left, lest they should be pressed by their host to take their meal there. Sarat and Sannyal had been coming to the Master only a short time and did not know how fond the Master was of Adhar.

The Master used to say that the devotees formed a separate caste by themselves; among them there could be no caste distinction. Adhar entertained the Master and the devotees with a feast. It was quite late in the evening when the devotees returned home, cherishing in their hearts the image of the Master in his spiritual ecstasy and remembering his words of great wisdom.

Since Bankim had invited Sri Ramakrishna to visit his home, the Master a few days later sent Girish and M. to his Calcutta residence. At that time Bankim had a long discussion with these two devotees about the Master. He told them that he wanted to visit Sri Ramakrishna again. But his desire was not fulfilled.