1885.
SECTION XII.
1885.
Sri Ramakrishna at Syampukur (Calcutta) with the Disciples; and Ishan, Dr. Sarkar and others.
CHAPTER I.
IS GOD WITH FORM OR WITHOUT FORM?
It is the fourteenth day of the light fortnight after Durga Puja; Thursday, 22nd October 1885. The Master is at Syampukur (a district in Calcutta) and is under the treatment of Dr. Sarkar and other physicians. This day, besides Dr. Sarkar, Girish (Ghosh), Ishan (Mukhopadhyaya), M., and many other disciples and Bhaktas are present.
Sri Râmakrishna talks pleasantly with a smiling face to everybody; Ishan, Girish and the Doctor take part in the conversation.
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Doctor: Knowledge (of God's works) makes one speechless; his eyes are closed and he is in tears! Here comes the Love1 of God.
Sri Râmakrishna: The Love1 of God is like a lady and so has access even to the zenana (harem). Knowledge (derived by reasoning) can go only up to the outer apartments (quarters reserved for men) and cannot get any entry into the inner apartments.
1 Bhakti.
Doctor: That is indeed true. But women of questionable character should not be admitted into the zenana,—for instance women of the town. Hence the need for Knowledge. Every fool should not be allowed to get in because he says 'I love God.'
Sri Râmakrishna: If a person is sincere and yearns for God, he is sure to realise Him in the end; whether he knows your Philosophy or not. If in his search after the Lord he comes into a wrong path, the Lord will lead him forth to the Goal, provided he thirsts after Him. A certain devotee went out on a pilgrimage to Puri; but not knowing the way he went due west instead of south. In his longing to see the Holy Image he asked people which way he should go. They said, 'Go thy way towards the south. Thou hast lost sight of the right road leading to the Temple.'
Doctor: Well, the man in his ignorance did lose his way.
Master: People talk of errors and superstitions and pride themselves upon book-learning. But the sincere dovotee finds the Loving Lord ever ready to lend him a helping hand. It matters not that he has been for a time walking along a wrong path. The Lord knows what we want, and in the end fulfils the desire of our heart.
Is God with form or without form?
The question was asked whether God is with form or without form.
Sri Râmakrishna: God is 'with form' as well as 'without form.'
A certain monk1 went to the Temple of Jagannath at Puri. He had doubts as to whether God is with form or without form. When he saw the Holy Image he desired to examine this. He passed his staff from the left to the right in order to feel if it touched the Image. For a time he could not see anything or feel with the staff! So he decided that God is without form. But when he was about to pass the staff from the right side to the left, it touched the Image! So the sannyasin decided that God is both with form and without form.
But it is very difficult to realise this. He that is without form—how can he be with form? This question naturally arises in the mind.
Doctor: He has made Forms; hence He is with Form. Again, He has created the Mind, which has no Form. Hence, He, the Creator, is without Form. Thus it is possible for Him to be both with Form and without Form.
Master: Unless one realises God one is not able to comprehend all this. For the sake of those that love the Lord, He manifests Himself in various ways and in various forms.
A dyer had his own way of dyeing cloths. He would ask the customer, 'In what colour do you want your cloth dyed?' If he said 'red' the dyer dipped the cloth in his tub and brought it out saying, 'Here is your cloth dyed red.' Another wants his cloth dyed yellow. The dyer dips it in the same tub, brings it up, and behold, the cloth is dyed yellow. In the same way, when another colour is wanted—blue or orange or violet or green—the same tub is used with the like result.
1 Sannyâsin.
A customer who was watching all this came up to the dyer and said, 'My friend, I am not fond of any one colour. I rather like your own taste. I want the dye in which you have dyed yourself. (Laughter.)
The Lord manifests Himself, as with form or without form, with particular reference to the need of the devotee. The manifested Vision is relatively true that is relatively to different men who are, in the first place, limited, conditioned beings, and, in the second place, placed in the midst of the different things about them. The Divine Dyer alone knows in what colour He has dyed Himself. Verily He is not bound by any limitation as to form or manifestation or the negation thereof.
A man said to his friend, 'My friend, I went to the foot of the tree up there and saw a beautiful animal of red colour.' His friend said, 'O, I have seen it, too. You say it is red. But no, it is green.' A third man said, 'No, no, I saw it too, I saw it yellow.' Others testified that they were sure that the colour was orange, blue, green and so forth. From words they were about to come to blows, when another man joined them. He heard everything and bade them hold their peace, saying, 'Behold, I abide at the foot of the tree, and I know the animal very well. Every one of you is right; for it is a chameleon, which changes its colour every moment. It is now red, now green, now yellow, now blue and so on. What is more, I see that sometimes it is colourless.'
He who has left all for the sake of the Lord—who lives under the Tree of Life and watches—to him is it given to know what the Lord is like. He knows that the Lord manifests Himself in diverse forms to His devotees. The Chameleon,—now he is red, now yellow, now orange, now green!—and now absolutely devoid of colour! He is the Omnipotent Being, Creating, Preserving, and Destroying-possessed of Attributes, the thought of which strikes us dumb. But that is only as He manifests Himself to Man. He is, again, the Absolute of whom nothing can be predicated, like the chameleon which is devoid of all colour!
Yes, He is both with Form and without Form, as you say. Just think of a shoreless ocean. When it is very cold, the water near the surface congeals into ice. And the ice takes different forms in different places. But when the sun is up and shines upon the ice, it melts away into formless water again.
The Shoreless Ocean is God. The intense cold is the soft, cooling influence of Devotion1 or the Love of God. The Ice appearing under different forms is God, manifesting Himself, as it were, to the devotees under the cooling influence of deep devotion. The melting away of the ice under different forms is the disappearance of the Spiritual Forms (in which the Lord manifests Himself) under the burning rays of the Sun of Knowledge Absolute realised in Samâdhi.
1 Bhakti.
Doctor: When the sun is up, the ice indeed melts. And what is more, the water changes into invisible vapour. This we know from science. Do you not think, Sir, this will carry the analogy a little higher?
Master: The meaning of the analogy is that reasoning as to the real and the unreal, we come to the conclusion that God the Absolute is Real and the phenomenal universe is unreal. The latter includes all things that have name or form—material or spiritual. This is the conclusion of Vedanta Philosophy. Reasoning on this line and realising in the Samâdhi which follows, the Knowing One says, 'God is not a person'—for that would be limiting God. Nothing can be predicated of God the Absolute. The conditioned self is effaced in Samâdhi. Thus there remains no individuality to predicate about the Absolute. The Absolute is realised then only as Absolute Consciousness.
Hence Bhakti (the devotional feeling) is like the cooling light of the moon. Absolute Knowledge is like the sun with its burning rays. It is said that in the extreme north and in the extreme south there are seas where water changes into masses of ice which stop the course of ships.
Doctor: You see, Sir, man has his progress stopped in the path of Devotion1 unaided by Reasoning.
1 Bhakti.
Master: His course, indeed, is stopped,—were you to carry the metaphor further on. But surely no harm is done by that. For that ice is nothing else but the congealed form of the formless water of that ocean of the Absolute-God Satchidananda. So he realizes God only in His different aspect. If you like the path of Knowledge or Philosophy better, you may reason, "The Absolute is the only Reality, and the world with names and forms is unreal." The ice will then melt away under the powerful rays of the Sun of True Knowledge, leaving the Shoreless Unbounded Ocean for you to realise!
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