CHAPTER III.
WORK1 WITHOUT ATTACHMENT OR THE PROBLEM FOR THE MAN OF THE WORLD SOLVED.
A Brahmo: Sir, is it a fact that one cannot realise God unless one gives up the world?
Master (smiling): Assuredly not. It is certainly not for you to give up everything. You are very well off as you are. There are both pure gold and alloyed; are they not both useful? The pure crystallized sugar and the molasses with all its impurities; are they not both sweet? (Laughter.)
O! I should think that you are very well off. Do you know nox* (a kind of play with cards)? Having taken more cards from the play and scored more points than were necessary, behold I have lost the play! You are far too clever for the player. You rest content some with ten points, some with six, some others even with five! You have been clever enough not to ask for more from the player; so you have not lost the play. The play still goes on. That is alright; do you not think so? (Laughter).
Verily I say to you, it matters not whether you live the life of a householder or that you are men of the world. Only you must fix your mind on God. Do your work with one hand and touch the Feet of the Lord with the other. When you have no work in the world to do, hold His Feet fast to your heart with both your hands.
1 Karma Yoga.
* One need score only 17 points to win this game.
The power of environments
The mind is everything. If the mind has lost its liberty, you lose yours. If the mind is free, you are free too. The mind may be dipped in colours, red, orange, yellow, violet, or green. It is like the white cloth just returned to you by the washerman. This white cloth you may dip in any colour you like. Study English, and you must speak in English in spite of yourself (laughter); you put on boots, whistle; in fact do your level best to behave like a native of England. The pundit who studies Sanskrit must quote couplets.1 If the mind be kept in bad company, it will colour one's thought and conversation. Placed in the midst of devotees, one's mind shall meditate upon God and talk on God and God alone.
The mind is everything. It changes its nature according to the object—according to the things amongst which it lives and acts. The attraction for the wife is of one kind and the affection for the child is of a quite different nature. On one side is one's wife, on another side is the child; one caresses both, but moved by quite different impulses!
THE SENSE OF SIN; MESSAGE TO CHRISTIANITY AND THE BRAHMO SAMAJ.
Sri Râmakrishna (to the Brahmo devotees): The bondage is of the mind. Freedom is also of the mind. I am a free soul; be it in the world, or in the forest, I am not bound. I am the son of God, the son of the King of kings. Who is there to bind me in fetters? In case you are bitten by a snake, one way of getting rid of the venom is to make use of your will-power and say, 'There is no venom, there is no venom.' In the same way you should say, 'I am not in fetters; I am free.' Call your will-power into action and free you shall be.
1 Slokas.
They once placed a book in my hands written by Christians. I wanted them to read and explain passages from it. Would you believe me the one theme in that book was—Sin and Sin—from the beginning to the end!
(To Keshab): The members of the Brahmo Samaj also talk only of sin and sinners. The fool who says without ceasing 'I am in bondage' does indeed, bring bondage on himself in the end! The wretch who says eternally. 'I am a sinner' 'I am a sinner' turns out a sinner, indeed!
The name of God when uttered through faith by a sinner shall bring salvation unto him. 'What! have I not chanted His holy name, and must I be a sinner still? Must I still be in bondage?'—are words of Faith in the Lord. Kristo Kishore was a pious Hindu, a Brahmin of Brahmins, who worshipped the Lord with a single-minded devotion. He went to Brindaban on pilgrimage. One day, while visiting the various shrines, he felt very thirsty. He went to a well where he found a man standing whom he asked, 'Sirrah, can you not draw some water for me? What caste are you?' The man replied, 'Oh, Divine Sir, I belong to a low caste, that of a cobbler.' Kristo Kishore thereupon told him, "It matters not; utter the name of the Lord; say, 'Siva,' 'Siva' and draw the water for me."
Chant the name of God and, depend upon it, your body, mind and soul shall become pure.
Why talk of sin and hell-fire all the days of your life? Do say but once, 'I have, O Lord, done things that I ought not to have done and I have left undone things that I ought to have done. O Lord; forgive me!'
Saying this, have faith in His hallowed Name and you shall be purged of all sins.
And the Master sang of the power of God's Sacred Name.
SONG.
God's Sacred name and its Power.
1. O Mother, grant unto me but to die With thy Sacred Name on my lips; Then, O good Mother shall it be seen Whether or not Thou savest this poor helpless child of Thine.
2. I care not if I kill the sacred cow Or a god-like Brahmin, Or even the child in its mother's womb; O, I care not if I am sinful enough to drink or even to kill a woman.
With all these sins of the darkest type, I have within my easy reach, and can lay claim to, the high office of the God whom you have appointed to be Creator1 of the World.
* * * * * *
1 Brahmâ.
The Lord's Prayer.
To my Divine Mother, I prayed for pure devotion1 alone. With flowers in my folded hands, I prayed, saying, "Do Thou, O Mother, grant that I may have pure and unalloyed devotion. Here is sin, here again is merit, O take them both; I lay them at Thy Feet. Here is knowledge (of many things), here again is ignorance, O take them both and grant that I may have devotion alone. Here again is purification on the one hand and defilement on the other; I desire neither of them. Here are good works, here are bad, and both I lay at Thy Feet; O, grant that I may have devotion alone and love for Thee!"
(To the Brahmo devotees): Listen to a song by Ram Prasad.
SONG.
My Divine Mother and the Discipline of the Mind.
1. Come, O my Mind, let us go out for a walk.
Let us gather the four* fruits at the foot of the Kalpa Tree†—my Divine Mother.
2. Thou hast, O My Mind, two wives; take Non-worldliness2 with thee on thy way to the Tree.
Ask—about the Lord—Her Son Viveka who knoweth the Real (God) from the unreal phenomenal world.
3. O, when shalt thou lie down in the abode of the blessed with Purification3 and Defilement4 alike by thy side;
1 Bhakti.
2 Nivritti.
3 Suchi.
4 Asuchi.
* Four fruits: Dharma (good works); Artha (wealth); kâma (desires): Moksha (liberation of the soul).
† Kalpa Tree—a tree in Heaven which grants everything that the believer prays for.
Thou shalt see my Divine Mother as soon as all difference between the two co-wives shall cease to exist.
4. Do thou turn out thy parents, Egotism1 and Ignorance.2
Should Mine-ness3 try to draw thee into its hole do thou cling to the post of patience.
5. Tie to a worthless post the two goats, Virtue4 (due to good works) and Vice5 (due to bad works);
Should they prove refractory, let them be killed before the altar of God with the sword of Knowledge.
6. Admonish, O my Mind, the children of thy first wife Worldliness6 from a safe distance:
Should they not obey thee, see that they are drowned in the Sea of True Knowledge.7
7. Prasad saith, "If thou go on like this, thou shalt be able to render a satisfactory account of thyself to the Lord of Death;"
"And I shall be glad to call thee 'my child,' 'my darling,' the 'idol of my father' and by other pet names; and then thou shalt be indeed a mind after my mind."
THE PROBLEM OF LIFE FOR THE MAN OF THE WORLD.
It may be given even to the householder to see God. It was the case with Raja Janak, the great royal sage. A great devotee once called the world a structure of dreams. But, according to Prasad, another great lover of God, that is not the whole truth, and one may be in the world though not of the world.
And the Master sang:—
SONG.
The World to a Lover of God.
1. The world is indeed a thing of joy; let me eat and drink and be merry.
1 Ahamkâr.
2 Avidyâ.
3 Moha.
4 Dharma.
5 Adharma.
6 Pravritti.
7 Jnâna.
2. Râjâ Janak, the great royal sage, was he inferior in any respect to the holy man who has given up the world?
Oh no, he it was who was loyal to both Matter and Spirit,* who realised God and at the same time drank his cup of milk. (Laughter).
The Brahmo Samaj and Janak Raja.
But one cannot rise to the height of Janak Raja all of a sudden by leaps and bounds. Janak spent many long years in devotional practices, in solitude away from the din and bustle of the world. Thus it behoves everybody to go into solitude for some time. It is a great thing, if one can cry out for the Lord for three days steadily, in solitude, away from the haunts of men. Indeed, one day passed in such a way would be a great gain. People are ready enough to shed, for wives and children, tears that will fill a water-pot; but who cries for the Lord? It would do men of the world infinite good if they would now and then retire into solitude to the end that God may be seen and realised.
There are a thousand-and-one difficulties in the way of the aspirant in the first stage of his spiritual life. These difficulties are caused by the world and its attractions. The tree planted on the footpath stands in need of a fence lest it be eaten up by goats and cows. The fence is to last so long as the plant is young and tender; when the trunk and roots get thicker and stronger no fence will be needed. An elephant tied to the trunk of such a tree will not injure it.
* Loyal to Matter and Spirit.—Compare 'Sensibility' and 'Rationality' (of the Hegelian philosophers).
The disease of a worldly man is of a serious type. His organs with their functions are entirely out of order. He has lost sight of the Lord, his own Father, and is attached to 'Woman and Gold.' These have brought all this trouble on him and he needs rest and solitude.
Would you keep a large water-jar and savoury pickles in the same room in which a patient is laid up with typhoid fever? If you wish to cure such a patient you must have him removed from that room, in case it is impossible to send away the jar and the pickles!
A man of the world, a householder, is such a patient; worldly things make the water-jar; desire to enjoy those things is the patient's thirst. The mouth waters at the mere thought of the pickles; they need not be placed before us. Women looked at with a carnal eye are such things. Hence solitude is the best remedy for it.
First, have a sense of what is Real and what is unreal; and secondly, know what it is to live unattached to the world. Having these two, viz., Discrimination1 and Non-attachment2 we may live a family life. In the sea of the world are the crocodiles—passions and desires. Rub your body with turmeric pounded to a pulp, if you wish to bathe in that sea; for then, crocodiles will do no harm to you. The turmeric is Discrimination,3 that is, knowing the Real from the unreal and non-attachment.1 God is the only Reality; the phenomenal universe is unreal.
1 Viveka.
2 Vairâgya.
3 Viveka.
Yearning for the Lord.
Along with this another thing is wanted—that is, intense devotion to God. The Gopis of Brindaban had such a devotion. They had an intense love for Sri Krishna—God-Incarnate. Here is a song about their intense love for the God-Man.
SONG
Yearning for the Lord.
1. O, the sweet flute is again being played in yonder wood!
I for my part must go there!
My Beloved of the dark-brown colour standeth waiting for me there!
O tell me, my dears, if you are coming too or not.
2. My Beloved—O, I am afraid He is a mere word—an empty sound to you, my friends!
But to me He is the vital part. O, He is my very life, my heart, my soul!
Sri Râmakrishna is in tears as he sings. He says to Keshab and other devotees with great feeling. You are Brahmos; you believe that God is formless and do not believe in God-Incarnate. Well, it matters not. You need not accept Râdhâ and Sri Krishna or any persons as Incarnations of the Supreme Being. But the attachment, the intense love, the yearning which they2 felt for Sri Krishna is a thing which you may well make your own.
Yearning is the next step leading to Realization—to God-vision.
1 Vairâgya.
2 Gopis.