Dear ones,
The women I see among these people are astonishing! What kṛpā of the Divine Mother Jagadamba this is! My God, what women! They are well on the way to pushing the men into a corner. The men are floundering, going under. Divine Mother, it is all Your kṛpā. I am very glad about what Golap-Ma has done. Why shouldn’t Golap-Ma or Gauri-Ma give them mantras? I will not stop until I have struck at the very root of this distinction between woman and man. Is there any sex in the Ātman? Away with woman and man, all is Ātman. Give up śarīrābhimāna and stand up. Say ‘It is! It is!’ The country has gone to ruin crying ‘It is not, it is not!’ Sohaṁ, Sohaṁ, Śivohaṁ! What a plague! There is infinite śakti in every Ātman; you wretches, are you going to turn into dogs and cats by crying ‘Nothing, nothing’? Nothing of what? Who has nothing? Śivohaṁ, Śivohaṁ! When I hear ‘nothing, nothing’ it is as if a thunderbolt struck my head. Rama, Rama, a whole life gone herding cattle! That muskrat pettiness, that ‘poor and lowly’ attitude: that is a disease. Is that humility? That is hidden ahaṅkāra! No outward mark is the ground of dharma; sameness toward all beings, that is the sign of the mukta. It is, it is, it is! Sohaṁ, Sohaṁ, my nature is Cidānanda, Śivohaṁ, Śivohaṁ! ‘He breaks out of the net of the world like a lion out of its cage.’ Go on creeping about like a muskrat and you will have to lie where you are forever. ‘This Ātman is not won by the weak.’ Sashi, don’t take it to heart; now and then I get nervous and let fly a few words. You know me, don’t you? I am very glad that you have no part in bigotry. Fall on the world like an avalanche; let the world split with a crack and a crash! Hara Hara Mahadeva! ‘Raise the Ātman by the Ātman.’
Let people say what they will; go your own stubborn way, and the world will come and lie at your feet, never fear. They say, believe in this one, believe in that one; I say, first believe in yourself, will you! Have faith in yourself, all power is in you. Be conscious and bring it out. Say, I can do everything. ‘Say “nothing, nothing” and the snake’s venom comes to nothing.’ Beware! No ‘nothing, nothing’; say ‘Yes, yes!’, ‘Sohaṁ, Sohaṁ!’
Why do you weep, friend? In you is sarvaśakti. Call forth, O mighty one, your own svarūpa, the giver of all glory. These three worlds, entire, lie at your feet. It is the Ātman alone that prevails, never dead matter.
Begin the work with a mighty roar. What is there to fear? Who has the power to stand in the way? We will chew up the stars, we will tear up the three worlds by force! What, sir, don’t you know us? We are the servants of Ramakrishna. Fear? Fear of whom? Of which of them?
‘We are weak, we are wretched,’ deluded people babble piteously; this, alas, is denial, from those sick with dehātmavāda. When we, heroes rid of fear, have reached the ground of abhaya, this is the faith we gather, we, the servants of Ramakrishna.
Drinking and drinking the supreme nectar, our craving for saṁsāra gone, casting and casting away the self-seeking that brings every quarrel, in dhyāna and dhyāna again on the holy Guru’s feet, the form of all good, bowing and bowing, we call the whole world to drink.
That which, without beginning or end, was won by churning the ocean of the Vedas, into whose making Hari, Hara, Brahma and the other gods poured their strength, which is filled with the essence of the lives of the Narayanas who walked the earth: Ramakrishna has taken a body; this, friends, is that brimming vessel.
… ‘Some attained amṛtatva by tyāga.’ Tyāga, tyāga: this above all has to be preached. Unless you are tyāgins, there will be no tejas. …
Why are Baburam and Yogen suffering so much? From the torment of that ‘poor and lowly’ attitude. Tell them to shake off all this sickness and whatnot, and within an hour every bit of it will be cured. Can the Ātman fall ill? Nonsense! Tell them to sit for a full hour and think, ‘I am the Ātman; what disease can there be in me?’ It will all go. All of you, think, ‘We are the Ātman, infinite in strength’, and just see what strength comes out. ‘Poor and lowly!’ Poor and lowly how? I am the son of the Divine Mother, Brahmamayi! What disease, what fear, what want? Fan that ‘poor and lowly’ attitude out of the house with the winnowing basket, will you! All will be well. No negative, all positive, affirmative. I am, God is and everything is in me. I will manifest health, purity, knowledge, whatever I want. Why, these mlecchas here have begun to understand what I say, and you sit there suffering from the ‘poor and lowly’ disease? Whose sickness? What disease? Shake it off! They say, ‘Am I a fool like you?’ Is there any difference between one Ātman and another? The opium-smoker is terrified of touching water. To hell with ‘poor and lowly’; don’t want no ‘poor and puny’! ‘You are vigour, give me vigour; you are strength, give me strength; you are ojas, give me ojas; you are endurance, give me endurance.’ Every day in the pūjā of Thakur, when the āsana is consecrated, ‘let one think of the Ātman as whole, without a flaw’: what does that mean? Say, everything is within me; when I will it, it will come out. Say in your own mind, Baburam and Yogen are the Ātman; they are whole; what disease can they have? Say it for an hour or so, for a few days. Every disease and affliction will vanish. What more need I say?
Narendra.