CHAPTER III.
BOOK-LEARNING AND EGOTISM
Addressing the Doctor, Sri Râmakrishna went on saying, "Unless one gets rid of egotism, one cannot look for the wisdom of life.
"Then shall I be free When 'I' shall cease to be."
'I' and 'mine' is Ignorance. 'Thou' and 'Thine,' is Knowledge. The true devotee says "Lord, Thou art the only active Agent. I am only an instrument in Thy hands! I act as I am made to act by Thee. Thine are all these riches, the house, the family, everything! Nothing is mine. I am only a servant. Mine is only to serve according to Thy bidding."
Strange that conceit must have a hold on those who have anything to do with books. Once Kalikrishna Tagore had a talk with me on God. He said to me, 'Sir, I am quite aware of all that you say. I have read them in the books,' Well, thereupon I said to him, "My dear sir, a person who has visited Delhi, does not make much of his travels and say, 'I have been to Delhi,' and brag of it. A Babu (a well-to-do and highly respectable gentleman) does not himself say, 'I am a Babu." (Laughter.)
Syam Basu: Sir, Mr. Tagore has a great respect for you.
Sri Râmakrishna: My dear sir, how shall I describe the vanity of a sweeper woman who was once serving at the Temple at Dakshineswar? She had a jewel or two on her person. This, I suppose, had filled her with vanity; so she once cried out at the sight of the persons crossing her way, 'hey! get out of the way, you people!' (Laughter.)
Such was the sweeper woman. It is needless to speak of the vanity and the conceit of other and bigger people!
Sin and man's Responsibility.
Syam Basu: Sir, on the one hand, we are told that man is punished for his sins; and on the other hand that God is the Actor, created beings being humble instruments in His hands, How can we reconcile the two views.
Sri Râmakrishna: To see how you talk like 'a gold merchant1'—who weighs things with his delicate balance!
Narendra: What the Master means to say is that you are talking like one who has too much of a calculating turn of mind.
1 Suvarna banika
Sri Râmakrishna: I say, Podo! eat the mangoes! What is the use of thy counting how many hundreds of mango trees there are in the garden, how many thousands of branches, how many tens of millions of leaves, and so on? Thou art here to eat the mangoes! Do eat them and go thy way.
To Syam Basu: You have come into this world as a human being, with a view to attain God by means of devotion and piety. Your duty is to try your best to acquire love1 for the Lotus of the Feet of the Lord. Why trouble yourself about this and that and a hundred other matters? Would philosophical discussions make you wiser than before? Do you not see that four ounces of wine are quite capable of making you intoxicated? That being so, there is no use in your calculating how many barrels of liquor there are in the tavern, getting intoxicated being your only object!
Doctor: Quite so, Sir. What is more, the liquor in God's wine-shop is beyond all measure! It can never be exhausted.
Sri Râmakrishna (to Syam Basu): Furthermore, why do you not execute a power of attorney in favour of the Lord? Let all thy cares and responsibilities rest on Him. A person of high character, suppose, is entrusted by you with certain duties. Surely, such a person is not capable of doing you wrong. The question whether a sinner will be punished hereafter or not may well be left to Him.
1 Bhakti
Doctor: It is He alone who knows what He is going to do. Human calculation cannot go far enough. The Lord is above and beyond all human calculation.'
Sri Râmakrishna (to Syam Basu): How very fashionable this sort of talk has grown amongst you Calcutta people! They speak of the absence of the principle of equality in God's dealings with man! Why should God, they complain, make some people happy and others unhappy! These fools only see God's nature to be the same as their own.
Is Fame or Popularity the End of Life?
Hem used to come to the Temple at Dakshineswar in company with his friends, the Janbazaar Baboos. Whenever he had occasion to meet me he used to say, "Well Mr. Bhattacharya, there is only one thing worth having in this world, viz, honour. Is it not so?' Very few see that the end of human life is to see God.
The Subtle or fine Body
Syam Basu: Sir, we hear a good deal of the 'astral' body we possess,—the subtle body1 as known from the gross2 body. Can any person show that my double (the subtle body) actually leaves the gross body and goes elsewhere?
Sri Râmakrishna: A true devotee would not care to show you all this. He cares not the least whether some fool will regard him with respect or not. To have some big people hover about him is the last thing he wishes for.
1 Sukshma Sarira.
2 Sthula.
Syam Basu:—Will you please say, Sir, how you know the subtle body from the gross?
The gross body, the subtle body, the body of ecstasy and the Great Cause or the Unconditioned.
Sri Râmakrishna: The five elements make up the gross body. The subtle body is made up of the manas (feeling and volitional aspect of mind), the buddhi (the determinative faculty), ahamkara (the egoism or the sense of I) and the chitta (the memory). The inner body which feels the beatitude of God-vision is called the 'Body of Ecstasy' or the Karana saria. The Tantras call it bhagavatitanu. Beyond all these is mahakarana, the Great First Cause—the Unconditioned—which cannot be expressed by words!