Prema-bhakti

But it isn’t any and every kind of bhakti that enables one to realize God. One cannot realize God without prema-bhakti. Another name for prema-bhakti is raga-bhakti. God cannot be realized without love and longing. Unless one has learnt to love God, one cannot realize Him.

There is another kind of bhakti, known as vaidhi-bhakti, according to which one must repeat the name of God a fixed number of times, fast, make pilgrimages, worship God with prescribed offerings, make so many sacrifices, and so forth and so on.

By continuing such practices a long time one gradually acquires raga-bhakti. God cannot be realized until one has raga-bhakti. One must love God.

In order to realize God one must be completely free from worldliness and direct all of one’s mind to Him.

“But some acquire raga-bhakti directly.

It is innate in them. They have it from their very childhood. Even at an early age they weep for God. An instance of such bhakti is to be found in Prahlada. Vaidhi-bhakti is like moving a fan to make a breeze.

One needs the fan to make the breeze. Similarly, one practises japa, austerity, and fasting, in order to acquire love of God. But the fan is set aside when the southern breeze blows of itself.

Such actions as japa and austerity drop away when one spontaneously feels love and attachment for God. Who, indeed, will perform the ceremonies enjoined in the scriptures, when mad with love of God?

“Devotion to God may be said to be ‘green’ so long as it doesn’t grow into love of God; but it becomes ‘ripe’ when it has grown into such love.

“A man with ‘green’ bhakti cannot assimilate spiritual talk and instruction; but one with ‘ripe’ bhakti can. The image that falls on a photographic plate covered with black film is retained. On the other hand, thousands of images may be reflected on a bare piece of glass, but not one of them is retained. As the object moves away, the glass becomes the same as it was before. One cannot assimilate spiritual instruction unless one has already developed love of God.”

VIJAY: “Is bhakti alone sufficient for the attainment of God, for His vision?”

MASTER: “Yes, one can see God through bhakti alone. But it must be ‘ripe’ bhakti, prema-bhakti and raga-bhakti. When one has that bhakti, one loves God even as the mother loves the child, the child the mother, or the wife the husband. “When one has such love and attachment for God, one doesn’t feel the attraction of maya to wife, children, relatives, and friends. One retains only compassion for them.

To such a man the world appears a strange land, a place where he has merely to perform his duties. It is like a man’s having his real home in the country, but coming to Calcutta for work; he has to rent a house in Calcutta for the sake of his duties. When one develops love of God, one completely gets rid of one’s attachment to the world and worldly wisdom.

One cannot see God if one has even the slightest trace of worldliness. Match-sticks, if damp, won’t strike fire though you rub a thousand of them against the match-box. You only waste a heap of sticks. The mind soaked in worldliness is such a damp match-stick.

Once Sri Radha said to her friends that she saw Krishna everywhere-both within and without. The friends answered: ‘Why, we don’t see Him at all. Are you delirious?’

Radha said, ‘Friends, paint your eyes with the collyrium of divine love, and then you will see Him.’

(To Vijay) “It is said in a song of your Brahmo Samaj:

O Lord, is it ever possible to know Thee without love, However much one may perform worship and sacrifice? “If the devotee but once feels this attachment and ecstatic love for God, this mature devotion and longing, then he sees God in both His aspects, with form and without form.”

Purity of heart

VIJAY: “How can one see God?”

Ramakrishna

One cannot see God without purity of heart. Through attachment to ‘woman and gold’ the mind has become stained with dirt.

A magnet cannot attract a needle if the needle is covered with mud. Wash away the mud and the magnet will draw it.

Likewise, the dirt of the mind can be washed away with the tears of our eyes.

This stain is removed if one sheds tears of repentance and says, ‘O God, I shall never again do such a thing.’

Thereupon God, who is like the magnet, draws to Himself the mind, which is like the needle. Then the devotee goes into samādhi and obtains the vision of God.

You may try thousands of times, but nothing can be achieved without God’s grace. One cannot see God without His grace.

Is it easy to receive God’s grace?

One must renounce egotism, One cannot see God as long as one feels, ‘I am the doer.’

Suppose, in a family, a man has taken charge of the store-room; then if someone asks the master, ‘Sir, will you yourself kindly give me something from the store-room?’, the master says to him: ‘There is already someone in the store-room. What can I do there?’

God doesn’t easily appear in the heart of a man who feels himself to be his own master. But God can be seen the moment His grace descends. He is the Sun of Knowledge.

One single ray of His has illumined the world with the light of knowledge. That is how we are able to see one another and acquire varied knowledge. One can see God only if He turns His light toward His own face.

The police sergeant goes his rounds in the dark of night with a lantern6 in his hand. No one sees his face; but with the help of that light the sergeant sees everybody’s face, and others, too, can see one another.

If you want to see the sergeant, however, you must pray to him: ‘Sir, please turn the light on your own face. Let me see you.’

In the same way one must pray to God: ‘O Lord, be gracious and turn the light of knowledge on Thyself, that I may see Thy face.’

A house without light indicates poverty. So one must light the lamp of Knowledge in one’s heart. As it is said in a song:

Lighting the lamp of Knowledge in the chamber of your heart, Behold the face of the Mother, Brahman’s Embodiment.

As Vijay had brought medicine with him, the Master asked a devotee to give him some water.

He was indeed a fountain of infinite compassion. He had arranged for Vijay’s boat fare, since the latter was too poor to pay it. Vijay, Balaram, M., and the other devotees left for Calcutta in a country boat.