Signs of a real devotee

(smiling): “You are Jnan. Then why should you have ajnan, ignorance? Oh, I understand. Where there is knowledge there is also ignorance.

The sage Vasishtha was endowed with great knowledge and still he wept at the death of his sons. Therefore I ask you to go beyond both knowledge and ignorance. The thorn of ignorance has pierced the sole of a man’s foot. He needs the thorn of knowledge to take it out. Afterwards he throws away both thorns. The Jnāni says, ‘This world is a “framework of illusion”.’

But he who is beyond both knowledge and ignorance describes it as a ‘mansion of mirth’. He sees that it is God Himself who has become the universe, all living beings, and the 24 cosmic principles.

“A man can live in the world after attaining God. Then he can lead the life of detachment.

In the country I have seen the women of the carpenter families making flattened rice with a husking-machine.

With one hand one of them turns the paddy in the hole and with the other she holds a nursing child. At the same time she talks with the buyer. She says to him:

But 75% of the woman’s mind is on her hand lest it should be crushed by the pestle of the husking machine.

“A man should do his worldly duties with only twenty-five percent of his mind, devoting the rest to God.”

“He alone who, after reaching the Nitya, the Absolute, can dwell in the Lila, the Relative, and again climb from the Lila to the Nitya, has ripe knowledge and devotion. Sages like Nārada cherished love of God after attaining the Knowledge of Brahman. This is called vijnāna.

“Mere dry knowledge is like an ordinary rocket: it bursts into a few sparks and then dies out. But the Knowledge of sages like Nārada and Sukadeva is like a good rocket: for a while it showers balls of different colours, and then it stops; again it throws out new balls, and again it stops; and thus it goes on. Those sages had prema for God. Prema is the rope by which one can reach Satchidananda.”