Various classes of devotees

Coming down nearly to a normal state, the Master said, “I shall take some of the Divine Mother’s prasad.” Then he ate a little of it.

Jadu Mallick was sitting near him with several friends, among whom were a few of his flatterers.

MASTER (with a smile): “Well, why do you keep these buffoons with you?”

JADU (with a smile): “Suppose they are. Won’t you redeem them?”

MASTER (smiling): “The water of the Ganges cannot purify a wine-jar.”

Jadu had promised the Master that he would arrange a recital of the Chandi in his house. Some time had elapsed, but he had not yet kept his promise.

MASTER: “Well, what about the recital of the Chandi?”

JADU: “I have been busy with many things; I haven’t been able to arrange it.”

MASTER: “How is that? A man gives his word and doesn’t take it back! ‘The words of a man are like the tusks of the elephant: they come out but do not go back.’ A man must be true to his word. What do you say?”

JADU (with a smile): “You are right.”

MASTER: “You are a shrewd man. You do a thing after much calculation. You are like the brahmin who selects a cow that eats very little, supplies plenty of dung, and gives much milk.”

(All laugh.)

After a time he said to Jadu: “I now understand your nature. It is half warm and half cold. You are devoted to God and also to the world.”

The Master and his devotees were served by Jadu with sweets and fruit, and then the party left for the home of Khelat Ghosh.

Khelat Ghosh’s house was a big mansion, but it looked deserted. As the Master entered the house he fell into an ecstatic mood. M., Ramlal, and a few other devotees were with him. Their host was Khelat Ghosh’s brother-in-law. He was an old man, a Vaishnava. His body was stamped with the name of God, according to the Vaishnava custom, and he carried in his hand a small bag containing his rosary. He had visited the Master, now and then, at Dakshineswar. But most of the Vaishnavas held narrow religious views; they criticized the Vedantists and the followers of the Śiva cult. Sri Ramakrishna soon began to speak.

Dogmatism condemned

MASTER: “It is not good to feel that one’s own religion alone is true and all others are false. God is one only, and not two. Different people call on Him by different names: some as Allah, some as God, and others as Krishna, Śiva, and Brahman. It is like the water in a lake. Some drink it at one place and call it ‘jal’, others at another place and call it ‘pani’, and still others at a third place and call it ‘water’. The Hindus call it ‘jal’, the Christians ‘water’, and the Muslims ‘pani’. But it is one and the same thing. Opinions are but paths. Each religion is only a path leading to God, as rivers come from different directions and ultimately become one in the one ocean.

Oneness of God

“The Truth established in the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantras is but one Satchidananda. In the Vedas It is called Brahman, in the Puranas It is called Krishna, Rāma, and so on, and in the Tantras It is called Śiva. The one Satchidananda is called Brahman, Krishna, and Śiva.”

The devotees were silent.

A VAISHNAVA DEVOTEE: “Sir, why should one think of God at all”

MASTER: “If a man really has that knowledge, then he is indeed liberated though living in a body.

Shallow faith of the worldly-minded “Not all, by any means, believe in God. They simply talk. The worldly-minded have heard from someone that God exists and that everything happens by His will; but it is not their inner belief.

“Do you know what a worldly man’s idea of God is like? It is like the children’s swearing by God when they quarrel. They have heard the word while listening to their elderly aunts quarreling.

“Is it possible for all to comprehend God? God has created the good and the bad, the devoted and the impious, the faithful and the sceptical. The wonders that we see all exist in His creation. In one place there is more manifestation of His Power, in another less. The sun’s light is better reflected by water than by earth, and still better by a mirror. Again, there are different levels among the devotees of God: superior, mediocre, and inferior. All this has been described in the Gitā.”

VAISHNAVA: “True, sir.”

Various classes of devotees

MASTER: “The inferior devotee says, ‘God exists, heaven.’ The mediocre devotee says, ‘God exists in The superior devotee says: ‘It is God Himself who see is only a form of God. It is He alone who has living beings. Nothing exists but God.’ " but He is very far off, up there in all beings as life and consciousness.’ has become everything; whatever I become maya, the universe, and all

VAISHNAVA: “Does anyone ever attain that state of mind?”

Signs of God-vision

MASTER: “One cannot attain it unless one has seen God. But there are signs that a man has had the vision of God. A man who has seen God sometimes behaves like a madman: he laughs, weeps, dances, and sings. Sometimes he behaves like a child, a child five years old-guileless, generous, without vanity, unattached to anything, not under the control of any of the gunas, always blissful. Sometimes he behaves like a ghoul: he doesn’t differentiate between things pure and things impure; he sees no difference between things clean and things unclean. And sometimes he is like an inert thing, staring vacantly: he cannot do any work; he cannot strive for anything.” Was the Master making a veiled reference to his own states of mind?

Knowledge and ignorance

MASTER (to the Vaishnava devotee): “The feeling of ‘Thee and Thine’ is the outcome of Knowledge; ‘I and mine’ comes from ignorance. Knowledge makes one feel: ‘O God,

Thou art the Doer and I am Thy instrument.

O God, to Thee belongs all-body, mind, house, family, living beings, and the universe. All these are Thine. Nothing belongs to me.’ “An ignorant person says, ‘Oh, God is there-very far off.’ The man of Knowledge knows that God is right here, very near, in the heart; that He has assumed all forms and dwells in all hearts as their Inner Controller.”