Futility of mere study of scriptures

After a long time the Master regained partial consciousness of the world and sat down on the mat. Narendra finished his singing, and the Tānpura was put back in its place. The Master was still in a spiritual mood and said: “Mother, tell me what this is. They want someone to extract the butter for them and hold it to their mouths. They won’t throw the spiced bait into the lake. They won’t even hold the fishing-rod. Someone must catch the fish and put it into their hands! How troublesome! Mother, I won’t listen to any more argument.

The rogues force it on me. What a bother! I shall shake it off. God is beyond the Vedas and their injunctions. Can one realize Him by studying the scriptures, the Vedas, and the Vedānta? (To Narendra) Do you understand this? The Vedas give only a hint” Narendra wanted the Tānpura again. The Master said, “I want to sing.” He was still in an ecstatic mood and sang:

Mother, this is the grief that sorely grieves my heart, That even with Thee for Mother, and though I am wide awake, There should be robbery in my house. . .

The Master said, “Mother, why do You make me argue?” He sang again: Once for all, this time, I have thoroughly understood; From One who knows it well, I have learnt the secret of bhava…

The Master said, “I am quite conscious.” But he was still groggy with divine fervour. He sang once more:

I drink no ordinary wine, but Wine of Everlasting Bliss, As I repeat my Mother Kāli’s name; It so intoxicates my mind that people take me to be drunk!…

Futility of reasoning

Sri Ramakrishna had said, “Mother, I won’t listen to any more argument.” Narendra sang:

O Mother, make me mad with Thy love! What need have I of knowledge or reason? . . .

Sri Ramakrishna said with a smile: “O Mother, make me mad! God cannot be realized through knowledge and reasoning, through the arguments in the scriptures.” He had been pleased with the singing of the musician from Konnagar and said to him humbly: “Please sing about the Divine Mother. Please - one song.”

MUSICIAN: “You must excuse me, sir.”

MASTER (bowing with folded hands): “No, sir. I can enforce this demand.” Saying this, Sri Ramakrishna sang a few lines from a kirtan, assuming the attitude of a gopi:

Radha has every right to say it; She has kept awake for Krishna. She has stayed awake all night, And she has every right to be piqued.

Then he said to the musician: “My dear sir, you are a child of the Divine Mother. She dwells in all beings. Therefore I have every right to enforce my demand. A farmer said to his guru, ‘I shall get my mantra from you by beating you, if I have to.’ "

MUSICIAN (smiling): “By a shoe-beating?”

MASTER (smiling): “No! I won’t go that far.”

Again in an abstracted mood Sri Ramakrishna said: “The beginner, the struggling, the perfect, and the supremely perfect. Which are you―perfect or supremely perfect? Come along! Sing for us.”

The musician complied. He sang just a melody.

MASTER: “My dear sir, that too makes me happy.” The musician then sang a song. When the music was over, the devotees from Konnagar saluted the Master and took their leave.

The sadhaka bowed before him with folded hands and said, “Holy man, let me say good- bye.”

Sri Ramakrishna, still in an ecstatic mood, was talking to the Divine Mother.

MASTER: “Mother, is it You or I? Do I do anything? No. no! It is You. Was it You who heard the arguments all this time, or was it I? No, not I. It was You.”. Sri Ramakrishna became conscious of the outer world and began to converse with Narendra, Bhavanath, and the other devotees.

They were talking about the sadhaka.

BHAVANATH (smiling): “What kind of man is he?”

MASTER: “He is a tamasic devotee.”

BHAVANATH: “He can certainly recite Sanskrit verses.”

MASTER: “Once I said to a man about a sādhu: ‘He is a rajasic sādhu. Why should one give him food and other presents?’ At this another sādhu taught me a lesson by saying to me: ‘Don’t say that. There are three classes of holy men: sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic.’ Since that day I have respected holy men of all classes.”

NARENDRA (smiling): “What? Is it like the ’elephant God’? All, indeed, are God.”

MASTER (smiling): “It is God Himself who sports in the world as both vidyā and avidyā.

Therefore I salute both. It is written in the Chandi: ‘The Divine Mother is the good fortune of the blessed and the ill fortune of the unlucky.’ (To Bhavanath) Is that mentioned in the Vishnu Purana?”

BHAVANATH (smiling): “I don’t know, sir. The devotees from Konnagar did not understand your samādhi and were about to leave the room.”

MASTER: “Who was it that asked them to remain?”

BHAVANATH (smiling): “It was I.”

MASTER: “My child, you are equally good in bringing people here and in driving them away.”

The conversation turned to the argument that Narendra had had with the musician from Konnagar.

MUKHERJI: “Narendra didn’t spare him.”

MASTER: “That’s right. One needs such grit. This is called the influence of tamas on sattva. Must a man listen to everything another man says? Should one say to a prostitute, ‘All right, you may do whatever you like’? Must one listen to her? At one time Radha was piqued. A friend said, ‘Her ego has been roused.’ Brinde, another friend, said: ‘Whose is this’ ego? Her ego belongs to Krishna alone. She is proud in the pride of Krishna.’ "