Bondage and freedom are of the mind

PRIYA (smiling): “Sir, our legs are in chains. We cannot go forward.”

MASTER: “What if the legs are chained? The important thing is the mind. Bondage is of the mind, and freedom also is of the mind.

“Listen to a story. There were two friends. One went into a house of prostitution and the other to hear a recital of the Bhagavata. ‘What a shame!’ thought the first. ‘My friend is hearing spiritual discourse, but just see what I have slipped down to!’ The second friend said to himself:

‘Shame on me! My friend is having a good time, but how stupid I am!’ After death the soul of the first was taken to Vaikuntha by the messenger of Vishnu, while that of the second was taken to the nether world of Yama.”

PRIYA: “But the mind is not under my control.”

MASTER: “How is that? There is such a thing as abhyiisayoga, yoga through practice.

Keep up the practice and you will find that your mind will follow in whatever direction you lead it. The mind is like a white cloth just returned from the laundry. It will be red if you dip it in red dye and blue if you dip it in blue. It will have whatever colour you dip it in.

(To Goswami) “Have you anything to ask?”

GOSWAMI: “No, sir. I am satisfied that I have seen you and have been I listening to your words.”

MASTER: “Go and visit the temples.”

GOSWAMI (very humbly): “Won’t you please sing something about Sri Chaitanya?”

The Master complied. He sang:

Why has My body turned so golden?It is not time for this to be:

Many the ages that must pass, before as Gaurānga I appear! . .

Again:

Gora gazes at Vrindāvan and tears stream from his eyes; In an exuberance of joy, he laughs and weeps and dances and sings.

He takes a wood for Vrindāvan, the ocean for the blue Jamuna;

He rolls on the ground for love of Hari.

After singing, the Master went on with the conversation.

MASTER (to Goswami): “I have sung these songs to suit your Vaishnava temperament. But I must sing differently when the Saktas or others come.

Herepeople of all sects come-Vaishnavas, Saktas, Kartabhajas,Vedantists, and also members of the modern Brahmo Samaj. Therefore one finds here all ideals and attitudes. It is by the will of God that different religions and opinions have come into existence.

God gives to different people what they can digest. The mother does not give fish pilau to all her children. All cannot digest it; so she prepares simple fish soup for some. Everyone cherishes his own special ideal and follows his own nature.

They provide various images for the Baroari because people of different sects assemble at it. You see there images of Radha-Krishna, Śiva-Durga, and Sita-Rāma-different images in different places. A crowd gathers before each image. The Vaishnavas spend most of their time before the image of Radha-Krishna, the Saktas before Śiva-Durga, and the devotees of Rāma before Sita-Rāma.

But it is quite different with those who are not spiritually minded at all. In the Baroari one sees another image also-a prostitute beating her paramour with a broomstick. Those people stand there with gaping mouths and cry to their friends: ‘What are you looking at over there? Come here! Look at this!’ " (All laugh.)

Radhika Goswami saluted the Master and took his leave.

It was about five o’clock. The Master was on the semicircular west porch. Baburam, Lātu, the Mukherji brothers, M., and some other devotees were with him. MASTER (to M. and the others): “Why should I be one-sided? The goswamis belong to the Vaishnava school and are very bigoted. They think that their opinion alone is right and all other opinions are wrong. My words have hit him hard. (Smiling) One must strike the elephant on the head with the goad; that is the elephant’s most sensitive spot.”

Then Sri Ramakrishna told a few naughty jokes for the young men.

MASTER (to the devotees): “I don’t give the youngsters a pure vegetarian diet: now and then I give them a little water smelling of fish. Otherwise, why should they come?”

The Mukherji brothers left the porch. They went to the garden for a stroll.

MASTER (to M.): “I wonder whether the Mukherjis have taken offence at my jokes?”

M: “Why should they? Captain said that you are like a child. After realizing God a man becomes childlike.”

MASTER: “Yes, and sometimes he behaves like a boy, and sometimes like a young man.

As a boy he is very light-hearted. He may use frivolous language. As a young man he is like a roaring lion while teaching others. You had better explain my state of mind to the Mukherjis.”

M: “I don’t have to do that. Haven’t they the sense to see it?”

Again the Master became light-hearted with the boys. Then he said to one of the devotees: “Today is the new moon. Go to the Kāli temple in the evening.” It was dusk. They heard the sound of gongs, cymbals, and other instruments used in the evening service in. the temples. The Master said to Baburam, “Come with me to the Kāli temple.”

He and Baburam went toward the temple, accompanied by M. At the sight of Harish sitting on the porch, the Master said: “What is this? Is he in ecstasy?” Going through the courtyard, the Master and the devotees stopped a minute in front of the Radhakanta temple to watch the worship. Then they proceeded to the shrine of Kāli.

With folded hands the Master prayed to the Divine Mother: “O Mother! O Divine Mother! O Brahmamayi!”

Reaching the raised platform in front of the shrine, he bowed low before the image. The Ārati was going on. He entered the shrine and fanned the image. The evening worship was over. The devotees bowed before the Deity. It was the night of the new moon. The Master was in a spiritual mood. Gradually his mood deepened into intense ecstasy.

He returned to his room, reeling like a drunkard and holding to Baburam’s hand.

A lamp was lighted on the west porch. The Master sat there a few minutes, chanting: “Hari Om! Hari Om! Hari Om!” and other mystic syllables of the Tantra. Presently he returned to his room and sat on the small couch, facing the east. He was still completely. absorbed in divine fervour. He said to the Divine Mother: “Mother, that I should first speak and You then act-oh, that’s nonsense! What is the meaning of talk? It is nothing but a sign. One man says, ‘I shall eat.’ Again, another says, ‘No! I won’t hear of it.’ Well, Mother, suppose I had said I would not eat; wouldn’t I still feel hungry? Is it ever possible that You should listen only when one prays aloud and not when one feels an inner longing? You are what You are. Then why do I speak? Why do I pray? I do as You make me do. Oh, what confusion! Why do You make me reason?”

As Sri Ramakrishna was thus talking to God, the devotees listened wonder-struck to his words. The Master’s eyes fell upon them.

MASTER (to the devotees): “One must inherit good tendencies to realize God, One must have done something, some form of tapasya, either in this life or in another. “When Draupadi’s clothes were being taken off, she cried earnestly, praying to God. God revealed Himself to her and said: ‘Try to remember whether you have ever made a gift of a cloth to anyone. Then your modesty will be preserved.’ Draupadi replied: ‘Yes, I remember now. Once a rishi was taking his bath when his loin-cloth was carried away by the current. I tore off half my cloth and gave it to him.’ Thereupon the Lord said, ‘Then you have nothing to fear.’ "

M. was sitting on the small foot-rug.

MASTER (to M.): “You have understood what I said.”

M: “Yes, sir. You spoke about inherent tendencies.”

MASTER: “Repeat what I said.”

M. repeated the story of Draupadi.

Hazra entered the room. He had been living with Sri Ramakrishna in the temple garden for the past two years and had first met the Master in 1880 at Sihore in the house of Hriday, the Master’s nephew. Hazra’s native village was near Sihore, and he owned some property there. He had a wife and children and also some debts. From youth he had felt a spirit of renunciation and sought the company of holy men and devotees. The Master had asked him to live with him at Dakshineswar and looked after his necessities. Hazra’s mind was a jumble of undigested religious moods. He professed the path of knowledge and disapproved of Sri Ramakrishna’s attitude of bhakti and his longing for the young devotees.

Now and then he thought of the Master as a great soul, but again he slighted him as an ordinary human being. He spent much of his time in telling his beads, and he criticized Rakhal and the other young men for their indifference to the practice. He was a strong advocate of religious conventions and rules of conduct, and made a fad of them.

He was about thirty-eight years old.

As Hazra came in, the Master became a little abstracted and in that mood began to talk.

MASTER (to Hazra): “What you are doing is right in principle, but the application is not quite correct. Don’t find fault with anyone, not even with an insect. As you pray to God for devotion, so also pray that you may not find fault with anyone.”

HAZRA: “Does God listen to our prayer for bhakti?”

MASTER: “Surely. I can assure you of that a hundred times. But the prayer must be genuine and earnest. Do worldly-minded people weep for God as they do for wife and children?

At Kamarpukur the wife of a certain man fell ill. The man thought she would not recover; he began to tremble and was about to faint. Who feels that way for God?” Hazra was about to take the dust of the Master’s feet.

MASTER (shrinking): “What is this?”

HAZRA: “Why should I not take the dust of his feet who has so kindly kept me with him?”

MASTER: “Satisfy God and everyone will be satisfied.‘If He is pleased the world is pleased.’ Once the Lord ate a few greens from Draupadi’s cooking-pot and said, ‘Ah, I am satisfied.’ Immediately the whole world and all its living beings were satisfied; they felt as if they had eaten their fill. But was the world satisfied or did it feel that way when the rishis ate their food?

(To Hazra) “A perfect soul, even after attaining Knowledge, practises devotions or observes religious ceremonies to set an example to others. I go to the Kāli temple and I bow before the holy pictures in my room; therefore others do the same. Further, if a man has become habituated to such ceremonies, he feels restless if he does not observe them.

“One day I saw a sannyasi under the banyan-tree. He had put the salagram on the same carpet with his guru’s sandals. He was worshipping them. I said to him, ‘If you have attained Knowledge to that extent, then why such formal worship at all?’ He replied:

‘What difference does it make? Since I do everything else, why not this too? Sometimes I offer the flowers at the guru’s feet and sometimes to God.’ “One cannot renounce work as long as one has a body. As long as there is mud at the bottom of the lake, bubbles will be produced.