Brahman is indescribable

If you ask me what Brahman is like, all I can say is that It cannot be described in words.

Even when one has realized Brahman, one cannot describe It. If someone asks you whatghee is like, your answer will be, ‘Ghee is like ghee.’ The only analogy for Brahman is Brahman. Nothing exists besides It."

Saturday, October 31, 1885

Hariballav

Hariballav Bose, a cousin of Balarām, came to see Sri Ramakrishna. He saluted the Master respectfully.

Hariballav was the government pleader at Cuttack. He did not approve of Balarām’s visiting the Master, especially with the ladies of the family: Balarām had said to his cousin: “You had better meet him first. Then you can say whatever you like.”

Presently the Master and Hariballav became engaged in conversation.

MASTER: “Can you tell me how I shall get well? Do you think this is a serious illness?”

HARIBALLAV: “Sir, the doctors can tell you better than I about that.”

MASTER: “When the women take the dust of my feet, I say to myself that they are saluting God, who dwells inside me. I look at it in that way.”

HARIBALLAV: “You are a holy man. All should take the dust of your feet. What harm is there in that?”

MASTER: “You may speak that way about sages like Dhruva, Prahlada, Nārada, or

Kapila; but who am I? Please come again.”

HARIBALLAV: “I shall certainly come, because you attract me. You don’t have to urge me.”

Hariballav was about to depart. He saluted Sri Ramakrishna and was going to take the dust of the Master’s feet, when Sri Ramakrishna moved his feet away. But Hariballav persisted; he took the dust of Sri Ramakrishna’s feet against the latter’s wish.

When he stood up, the Master stood up too, to show him courtesy. The Master said to him: “Balarām feels unhappy because I don’t go to his house. I thought of visiting you all there one day, but then I was afraid you might say to Balarām, ‘Who asked him to come here?’”

HARIBALLAV: “Who has been telling you things? Please don’t let such a thought enter your mind.”

Hariballav departed.

MASTER (to M.): “He is a devotee of God; why else would he have forcibly taken the dust of my feet? I told you the other day that in samādhi I had seen Dr. Sarkar and another person. He is the other person. So he has come.“M: “Yes, sir. Undoubtedly he is a bhakta.”

MASTER: “How guileless he is!”

M. went to Dr.Sarkar’s house to report Sri Ramakrishna’s condition. The doctor talked to M. about Sri Ramakrishna, Mahimacharan, and the other devotees.

DOCTOR: “Mahimacharan didn’t bring the book he promised to show me. He said he had forgotten all about it. It is quite possible. I am forgetful too.”

M: “He has read a great deal.”

DOCTOR: “Then why is he in such a plight?”

Referring to the Master, the doctor said: “What will a man accomplish with mere bhakti? He needs jnāna too.”

M. explains Master’s conceptions of jnāna and bhakti

M: “Why, the Master says that bhakti comes after jnāna. But his conception of jnāna and

bhakti is quite different from yours. When he says that one obtains bhakti after jnāna, he means that first comes the Knowledge of Reality and then bhakti; first the Knowledge of Brahman and then bhakti; first the Knowledge of God and then love for Him. When you speak of jnāna you mean the knowledge obtained through the senses. The jnāna Sri Ramakrishna speaks of cannot be verified by our standards. The Knowledge of Reality cannot be tested by the knowledge obtained through the senses. But your jnāna, the knowledge through the senses, can be verified.”

The doctor remained silent. Then he referred to the subject of Divine Incarnation.

DOCTOR: “What is this idea of Divine Incarnation? What is this taking the dust of a man’s feet?”

M: “Why, you say that during your experiments in the laboratory you go into ecstasy when you think of God’s creation. Further, you feel the same emotion when you think of man. If that is so, why shouldn’t we bow our heads before God? God dwells in the heart of man.

“According to Hinduism God dwells in all beings. You have not studied this subject much. Since God dwells in all beings, what is wrong in saluting a man? “Sri Ramakrishna says that there is a greater manifestation of God in certain things than in others, as the sun is reflected better by water and by a mirror than by other objects.

Water exists everywhere, but is most apparent in a river or lake. We bow down to God and not to man. God is God-not, man is God.

“God cannot be known through reasoning. All depends on faith. Of course, I am repeating to you what Sri Ramakrishna says.“Dr. Sarkar presented M. with one of his books, The Physiological Basis of Psychology.

He wrote on the first page “As a token of brotherly regards.”

Misra’s visit

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning. Sri Ramakrishna was sitting in his room with the devotees. He was talking to a Christian devotee named Misra. Misra was born of a Christian family in northwestern India and belonged to the Quaker sect. He was 35 years old.

Though clad in European dress he wore the ochre cloth of a sannyāsi under his foreign clothes. Two of his brothers had died on the day fixed for the marriage of one of them, and on that very day Misra had renounced the world.

MISRA: " ‘It is Rāma alone who dwells in all beings.’”

Sri Ramkarishna said to the younger Naren, within Misra’s hearing: “Rāma is one, but He has a thousand names. He who is called ‘God’ by the Christians is addressed by the Hindus as Rāma, Krishna, Isvara, and by other names. A lake has many ghats. The Hindus drink water at one ghat and call it ‘jal’; the Christians at another, and call it ‘water’; the Mussulmans at a third, and call it ‘pani’. Likewise, He who is God to the Christians is Allah to the Mussulmans.”

MISRA: “Jesus is not the son of Mary. He is God Himself.

(To the devotees) Now he (pointing to Sri Ramakrishna) is as you see him-again, he is God Himself. You are not able to recognize him. I have seen him before, in visions, though I see him now directly with my eyes. I saw a garden where he was seated on a raised seat. Another person was seated on the ground, but he was not so far advanced.

“There are four door-keepers of God in this country: Tukaram in Bombay, Robert Michael in Kashmir, himself [meaning Sri Ramakrishna] in this part of the country, and another person in eastern Bengal.”

MASTER: “Do you see visions?”

MISRA: “Sir, even when I lived at home I used to see light. Then I had a vision of Jesus.

How can I describe that beauty? How insignificant is the beauty of a woman compared with that beauty!”

After a while Misra took off his trousers and showed the devotees the Gerruā loin-cloth that he wore underneath.

Presently Sri Ramakrishna went out on the porch. Returning to the room, he said to the devotees, “I saw him [meaning Misra] standing in a heroic posture.” As he uttered these words he went into samādhi. He stood facing the west.

Regaining partial consciousness, he fixed his gaze on Misra and began to laugh. Still in an ecstatic mood, he shook hands with him and laughed again. Taking him by the hands, he said, “You will get what you are seeking.“MISRA (with folded hands): “Since that day I have surrendered to you my mind, soul, and body.”

Sri Ramakrishna was laughing, still in an ecstatic mood. The Master resumed his seat. Misra was describing his worldly life to the devotees. He told them how his two brothers were killed when the canopy came down at the time of the marriage.

Sri Ramakrishna asked the devotees to take care of Misra.

Dr.Sarkar arrived. At the sight of him Sri Ramakrishna went into samādhi. When his ecstasy abated a little, he said, “First the bliss of divine inebriation and then the Bliss of Satchidananda, the Cause of the cause.”

DOCTOR: “Yes.”

MASTER: “I am not unconscious.”

The doctor realized that the Master was inebriated with divine bliss. Therefore he said, “No, no! You are quite conscious.”

Sri Ramakrishna smiled and said:

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! First my guru gives molasses for the making of the Wine; My longing is the ferment to transform it.

Knowledge, the maker of the Wine, prepares it for me then; And when it is done, my mind imbibes it from the bottle of the mantra,

Taking the Mother’s name to make it pure.

Drink of this Wine, says Ramprasad, and the four fruits of life are yours.