Ramakrishna Quote 1

Ramakrishna Quote 1

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Teachings
Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

You were talking of worshipping the clay image. Even if the image is made of clay, there is need for that sort of worship. God Himself has provided different forms of worship. He who is the Lord of the Universe has arranged all these forms to suit different men in different stages of knowledge.

Pathway to God – God – Gandhi

Pathway to God – God – Gandhi

Pathway to God
Part 1 : Intellectual Sadhana
CHAPTER ONE
GOD

Om
The Supreme Ideal
Man’s Ultimate Aim is Realization of God.

God
is Sat-Chit-Ananda Existence, Knowledge, Power and Bliss.
He is an Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omniblissful Mysterious Power.

Our Soul
is A Spark of Divine Fire, A Drop in the Divine Ocean.

The World
is Full of Joy and Misery— Joy with God and Misery without Him.

Man’s Duty
is to realize God, serve Humanity, and Enjoy His Eternal Bliss.

GOD

(1) GOD IS ONE, WITHOUT A SECOND

God is certainly One. He has no second. He is unfathomable, unknowable and unknown to the vast majority of mankind. He is everywhere. He sees without eyes and hears without ears. He is formless and indivisible. He is uncreate, has no father, mother or child; and yet He allows Himself to be worshipped as father, mother, wife and child. He allows Himself even to be worshipped as stock and stone, although He is none of these things. He is the most elusive. He is the nearest to us, if we would but know the fact. But He is farthest from us when we do not want to realize His omnipresence.

I dispute the description that Hindus believe in many Gods and are idolaters. They do say that there are many gods, but they also declare unmistakably that there is one God, the God of gods. It is, not therefore, proper to suggest that Hindus believe in many gods. They certainly believe in many worlds. Just as there is a world inhabited by men and another by beast, so also, is there one inhabited by superior beings called gods, whom we do not see but who nevertheless exist.

The whole mischief is created by the English rendering of the word देव or देवता (deva or devata) for which you have not found a better term than “god”. But God is Ishwara, Devadhideva, God of gods. So you see it is the word “God” used to describe different divine beings that has given rise to such confusion. I believe that I am a thorough Hindu but I never believe in many gods. Never even in my childhood did I hold that belief and no one ever taught me to do so.

(2) HE IS OMNIPRESENT, OMNISCIENT AND OMNIPOTENT

God is not some person outside ourselves or away from the universe. He pervades everything and is omniscient as well as omnipotent. He does not need any praise or petitions. Being immanent in all beings, He hears everything and reads our innermost thoughts. He abides in our hearts and is nearer to us than the nails on our fingers.

God is then not a person. He is the all-pervading, all-powerful Spirit. Any one who hears Him in his heart has accession of a marvellous force or energy, comparable in its results to physical forces like steam or electricity but much more subtle.

(3) HE IS A MYSTERIOUS POWER

There is an indefinable Mysterious Power that pervades everything. I feel it though I don’t see it. It is this Unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses.

I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing and ever dying, there is underlying all that change a Living Power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. This informing Power or Spirit is God.

The truth is that God is the Force. He is the essence of life. He is pure, undefiled consciousness. He is eternal. And yet, strangely enough, all are not able to derive, either benefit from or shelter in the all-pervading Living Presence.

Electricity is a powerful force. Not all can benefit from it. It can only be produced by following certain laws. It is a lifeless force. Man can utilize it if he can labour hard enough to acquire the knowledge of its laws. The Living Force which we call God can similarly be followed if we know and follow His law leading to the discovery of Him in us.

God is an Unseen Power residing within us. There are many powers lying hidden within us and we discover them by constant struggle. Even so, we may find this Supreme Power, if we make deligent search with the fixed determination to find Him.

My God does not reside above. He has to be realized on earth. He is here, within you, within me. He is omnipotent and omnipresent. You need not think of the world beyond. If we can do our duty here, the beyond will take care of itself.

(4) THE SUPREME GOOD

Is this Power benevolent or malevolent? I see It as purely benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of death, life persists; in the midst of untruth, truth persists; in the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence, I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good.

God is wholly good. There is no evil in Him. God made man in His own image. Unfortunately for us, man has fashioned Him in his own. This arrogation has landed mankind in a sea of troubles. God is the Supreme Alchemist. In His presence all iron and dross turn into pure gold. Similarly does all evil turn into good.

Again God lives, but not as we. His creatures live but to die. But God is Life. Therefore, goodness and all it connotes is not an attribute. Goodness is God. Goodness conceived as apart from Him, is a lifeless thing and exists while it is a paying policy. So are all morals. If they are to live in us, they must be considered and cultivated in their relation to God. We try to become good, because we want to reach and realize God. All the dry ethics of the world turns to dust because apart from God they are lifeless. Coming from God they come with life in them. They become part of us and ennoble us.

(5) GOD IS TRUTH AND LOVE

The Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God. There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me. But I worship God as Truth only.

To me God is Truth and Love. God is ethics and morality; God is fearlessness. God is the source of Light and Life, and yet He is above and beyond all these.

God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. For in His boundless love, God permits the atheist to live. He is the searcher of the hearts. He knows us and our hearts better than we do ourselves. … He is personal God to those who need His personal presence. He is embodied to those who need His touch. He is the purest Essence. He is, to those who have faith. He is all things to all men.

(6) GOD IS SAT-CHIT-ANANDA

The word Satya (Truth) is derived from Sat which means “Being”. And nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God. In fact, it is more correct to say Truth is God than to say God is Truth.

And where there is Truth, there is also Knowledge, which is true. Where there is no Truth, there can be no true knowledge. That is why the word Chit or Knowledge is associated with the name of God. And where there is true Knowledge, there is always Bliss (Ananda). Sorrow has no place there. And even as Truth is Eternal, so is the Bliss derived from it. Hence we know God as Sat- Chit-Ananda, one who combines in Himself, Truth, Knowledge and Bliss.

(7) HE Is LAW ETERNAL

God is an Idea, Law Himself. … He and His Law abide everywhere and govern everything. Therefore, though I do not think that He answers in every detail, every request of ours, there is no doubt that He rules our actions and I literally believe that not a blade of grass grows or moves without His will.

I do feel that there is orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable Law governing everything and every being that lives and moves. It is not a blind law, for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings. . . . The Law and the Law-giver are one. I may not deny the Law or Law-giver, because I know so little about It or Him. Even as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail nothing, so will not my denial of God and His Law, liberate me from its operation; whereas, humble and mute acceptance of Divine Authority makes life’s journey easier even as acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier.

(8) HIS INFINITE MERCY

God is, even though the whole world deny Him. God embraces not only this tiny globe of ours, but millions and billions of such globes. How can we, little crawling creatures so utterly helpless as He has made us, how could we possibly measure His greatness, His boundless love, His infinite compassion? So great is His infinite love and pity that He allows man insolently to deny Him, wrangle about Him, and cut the throats of his fellowmen. How can we measure the greatness of God, who is so forgiving, so divine ?

He allows us freedom and yet His compassion commands obedience to His Will. But if anyone of us disdains to bow to His Will, He says: “So be it.” “My sun will shine no less for thee, My clouds will rain no less for thee. I need not force thee to accept My sway.” Of such a God let the ignorant dispute the existence. I am one of the millions of wise men who believe in Him and am never tired of bowing to Him and singing His glory.

God is the hardest task-master, I have known on earth. He tries you through and through. And when you find your faith is failing, or your body is failing you, and you are sinking, He comes to your assistance somehow or other and proves to you that you must not lose your faith and that He is always at your beck and call, but on His terms. So I have found. I cannot recall a single instance when at the eleventh hour, He has forsaken me.

(9) HE HAS MANY NAMES

There is only one omnipotent and omnipresent God. He is named variously and we remember Him by the name which is most familiar to us. Each person can choose the name that appeals most to him. Ishwara, Allah, Khuda, God mean the same.

God has a thousand names, or rather, He is nameless. We may worship or pray to Him by whichever name that pleases us. All worship the same Spirit, but as all foods do not agree with all, all names do not appeal to all. Each chooses the name according to His associations and He being the Indweller, All-Powerful and Omniscient, knows our inmost feelings and responds to us according to our deserts.

In my opinion, Rama, Rahaman, Ahurmazda, God or Krishna, are all attempts on the part of man to name that invisible Force. . . . Man can only conceive God within the limitations of his own mind. What matters, then, whether one man worships God as a person and another as Force? Both do right according to their lights. One need only remember that God is the Force among all the forces. All other forces are material. But God is the Vital Force or Spirit which is all- pervading, all-embracing and therefore beyond human ken.

Daridranarayan is one of millions of names by which humanity knows God who is unnameable and unfathomable by human understanding. And it means God of the poor, God appearing in the hearts of the poor.

(10) HIS INCARNATIONS

God is not a person. To affirm that He descends to earth every now and again, in the form of human being, is a partial truth, which merely signifies that such a person lives near to God. Inasmuch as God is omnipresent, He dwells within every human being and all may, therefore, be said to be incarnations of Him. But this leads us nowhere. Rama, Krishna, etc. are called incarnations of God because we attribute divine qualities to them. Whether they actually lived or not does not affect the picture of them in man’s mind.

God is a Friend of All Beings – Jnanananda Bharati

God is a Friend of All Beings – Jnanananda Bharati

He attains peace who knows Me as the friend of all beings, as the enjoyer of all sacrifices and penances, and as the Overlord of the entire universe. (Bhagavad Geeta V:29)

If our conception of God is a terrible entity of whom we have to be constantly afraid, there can be no peace or happiness, as the element of fear, a state of unpleasant unrest, will be present. God has, therefore, to be accepted as a friend, well-wisher, deeply interested in our welfare. If we have the confident belief that we have such a friend in God, there is no need to tell him about our wants as he is omniscient and knows what it is good for us, and is sure to look after our welfare without any request from us.

As God is omnipotent, that is no need to doubt his ability to help us in every way. As he is omnipresent, we have no need to seek him out elsewhere than in our own marks hearts where He is ever present, regulating every thought wave of ours. In fact, he is even in our stomach looking after the digestion of the food we send there.

Having become(the fire), I abide in the body of beings, associated with prana and apana, digest the fourfold food. (Geeta XV: 14).

If we recognize the existence of such a friend, it will give us strength and mental equilibrium, which are quite necessary for a state of peace.

All–Inclusive Love

But it is only proper to remind ourselves that though God is certainly our friend, he is not only our friend but the friend of all created beings. If we think of hurting any other being, he will remind us that he is a friend of that being also. If we persist in injuring that being, he himself will turn against us as he has to befriend that being. Thus if we contemplate to do any harm to any other being, you will not only be forfeiting his friendship but will invest him with the character of an enemy of whom we have to be afraid.

It is not necessary for that being to call upon God to befriend him against the injury contemplated by us. The mere contemplation, being known to God who is seated in our heart itself, is sufficient to discredit us in his eyes. If the other person is a devotee who has surrendered himself entirely to God, the injury contemplated will automatically rebound on ourselves. If we bear in mind therefore that he is the friend of all, we cannot possibly cause or contemplate any harm or fear to any being and this necessarily leads to a state where nobody else can cause or contemplate any harm or fear to us. The result will be a state of peace and happiness.

As he it Is the Overlord of all created beings, he cannot be partial to anyone to the detriment of any other. If he is partial, he cannot be the friend of all. To be impartial, he has necessarily to be just and can never swerve from the strict standards of Right. If we repose confidence in such a friend, we also must be very careful that we do not violate that standard, for any violation will only result in our forfeiting his friendship with the inevitable loss of peace and happiness.

Here is a very healthy and practical recipe which the sage Patanjali prescribes, and which can be easily and profitably used for maintaining our mental equilibrium even in our daily intercourse with others amongst whom we have to live.

People are generally happy or miserable in their experiences, are virtuous or sinful in their actions. Thus the people with whom we come into contact may be conceived of as falling into four classes; (i) the happy, (ii) the miserable, (iii) the virtuous, and (iv) the sinful.

Patanjali says that if you think of all happy people as your own, if you’ll extend your pity to all miserable people, if you evince your commendation of the virtuous, and if you ignore the sinful by your indifference, none of these can generate in you any feelings which can disturb your peace of mind. Therefore, the mind will be pure, clear, and restful and consequently capable of full receptiveness toward Truth.

Sri Jnanananda Bharati

Definition of Religion – Mahatma Gandhi

Definition of Religion (Mahatma Gandhi)

By religion, I do not mean formal religion or customary religion, but that religion which underlies all religions, which brings us face to face with our Maker.
M. K. Gandhi, By Joseph J. Doke, 1909, p. 7

Religion should pervade every one of our actions. Here religion does not mean sectarianism. It means a belief in ordered moral government of the universe. It is not less real because it is unseen. This religion transcends Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. It does not supersede them. It harmonizes them and gives them reality.
Harijan, 10-2-’40 p. 445

Let me explain what I mean by religion. It is not the Hindu religion which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and whichever purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly restless until it has found itself, known its Maker and appreciated the true correspondence between the Maker and itself.
Young India, 12-5-’20, p. 2

No man can live without religion. There are some who in the egotism of their reason declare that they have nothing to do with religion. But it is like a man saying that he breathes but that he has no nose. Whether by reason, or by instinct, or by superstition, man acknowledges some sort of relationship with the divine. The rankest agnostic or atheist does acknowledge the need of a moral principle, and associates something good with its observance and something bad with its non-observance. Bradlaugh, whose atheism is well-known, always insisted on proclaiming his innermost conviction. He had to suffer a lot for thus speaking the truth, but he delighted in it and said that truth is its own reward. Not that he was quite insensible to the joy resulting from the observance of truth. This joy however is not at all worldly, but springs out of communion with the divine. That is why I have said that even a man who disowns religion cannot and does not live without religion.
Young India, 23-1-’30, p. 2

My Religion
By M.K.Gandhi
What I mean by Religion
01 Definition of Religion

The Supreme is the easiest to reach – Nisargadatta

The Supreme is the easiest to reach – Nisargadatta

Questioner: What is the link between the Self (Vyakta) and the Supreme (Avyakta)?
Maharaj: From the self’s point of view the world is the known, the Supreme — the Unknown. The Unknown gives birth to the known, yet remains Unknown. The known is infinite, but the Unknown is an infinitude of infinities. Just like a ray of light is never seen unless intercepted by the specs of dust, so does the Supreme make everything known, itself remaining unknown.

Q: Does it mean that the Unknown is inaccessible?
M: Oh, no. The Supreme is the easiest to reach for it is your very being. It is enough to stop thinking and desiring anything, but the Supreme.

Q: And if I desire nothing, not even the Supreme?
M: Then you are as good as dead, or you are the Supreme.

Q: The world is full of desires. Everybody wants something or other. Who is the desirer? The person or the self?
M: The self. All desires, holy and unholy, come from the self; they all hang on the sense ‘I am’.

Q: I can understand holy desires (satyakama) emanating from the self. It may be the expression of the bliss aspect of the Sadchitananda (Beingness — Awareness — Happiness) of the Self. But why unholy desires?
M: All desires aim at happiness. Their shape and quality depend on the psyche (antahkarana). Where inertia (tamas) predominates, we find perversions. With energy (rajas), passions arise. With lucidity (sattva) the motive behind the desire is goodwill, compassion, the urge to make happy rather than be happy. But the Supreme is beyond all, yet because of its infinite permeability all cogent desires can be fulfilled.

Q: Which desires are cogent?
M: Desires that destroy their subjects, or objects, or do not subside on satisfaction are self-contradictory and cannot be fulfilled. Only desires motivated by love, goodwill and compassion are beneficial to both the subject and object and can be fully satisfied.

Q: All desires are painful, the holy as well as the unholy.
M: They are not the same and pain is not the same. Passion is painful, compassion — never. The entire universe strives to fulfill a desire born of compassion.

Q: Does the Supreme know itself? Is the Impersonal conscious?
M: The source of all has all. Whatever flows from it must be there already in seed form. And as a seed is the last of innumerable seeds, and contains the experience and the promise of numberless forests, so does the Unknown contain all that was, or could have been and all that shall or would be. The entire field of becoming is open and accessible; past and future co-exist in the eternal now.

Q: Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?
M: Where else?

Q: What makes you say so?
M: No desire ever arises in my mind.

Q: Are you then unconscious?
M: Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect silence.

Q: Who knows the silence?
M: Silence knows itself. It is the silence of the silent mind, when passions and desires are silenced.

I Am That – Talks with Sri Nisargatta Maharaj
The Supreme is Beyond All
Item 20

The Supreme is Beyond All – Nisargadatta

The Supreme is Beyond All – Nisargadatta

Questioner: You say, reality is one. Oneness, unity, is the attribute of the person. Is then reality a person, with the universe as its body?
Maharaj: Whatever you may say will be both true and false. Words do not reach beyond the mind.

Q: I am just trying to understand. You are telling us of the Person, the Self and the Supreme. (vyakti, vyakta, avyakta). The light of Pure Awareness (pragna), focussed as ‘I am’ in the Self (jivatma), as consciousness (chetana) illumines the mind (antahkarana) and as life (prana) vitalizes the body (deha). All this is fine as far as the words go. But when it comes to distin- guishing in myself the person from the Self and the Self from the Supreme, I get mixed up.
M: The person is never the subject. You can see a person, but you are not the person. You are always the Supreme which ap- pears at a given point of time and space as the witness, a bridge between the pure awareness of the Supreme and the manifold consciousness of the person.

Q: When I look at myself, I find I am several persons fighting among themselves for the use of the body.
M: They correspond to the various tendencies (samskara) of the mind.

Q: Can I make peace between them?
M: How can you? They are so contradictory! See them as they are — mere habits of thoughts and feelings, bundles of memories and urges.

Q: Yet they all say ‘I am’.
M: It is only because you identify yourself with them. Once you realize that whatever appears before you cannot be yourself, and cannot say ‘I am’, you are free of all your ‘persons’ and their demands. The sense ‘I am’ is your own. You cannot part with it, but you can impart it to anything, as in saying: I am young. I am rich etc. But such self-identifications are patently false and the cause of bondage.

Q: I can now understand that I am not the person, but that which, when reflected in the person, gives it a sense of being. Now, about the Supreme? In what way do I know myself as the Supreme?
M: The source of consciousness cannot be an object in con- sciousness. To know the source is to be the source. When you realize that you are not the person, but the pure and calm witness, and that fearless awareness is your very being, you are the being. It is the source, the Inexhaustible Possibility.

Q: Are there many sources or one for all?
M: It depends how you look at it, from which end. The objects in the world are many, but the eye that sees them is one. The higher always appears as one to the lower and the lower as many to the higher.

Q: Shapes and names are all of one and the same God?
M: Again, it all depends on how you look at it. On the verbal level everything is relative. Absolutes should be experienced, not discussed.

Q: How is the Absolute experienced?
M: It is not an object to be recognized and stored up in memory. It is in the present and in feeling rather. It has more to do with the ‘how’ than with the ‘what’. It is in the quality, in the value; being the source of everything, it is in everything.

Q: If it is the source, why and how does it manifest itself?
M: It gives birth to consciousness. All else is in consciousness.

Q: Why are there so many centres of consciousness?
M: The objective universe (mahadakash) is in constant move- ment, projecting and dissolving innumerable forms. Whenever a form is infused with life (prana), consciousness (chetana) ap- pears by reflection of awareness in matter.

Q: How is the Supreme affected?
M: What can affect it and how? The source is not affected by the vagaries of the river nor is the metal — by the shape of the jewellery. Is the light affected by the picture on the screen? The Supreme makes everything possible, that is all.

Q: How is it that some things do happen and some don’t?
M: Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is its own cause.

Q: No purposeful action is then possible?
M: All I say is that consciousness contains all. In consciousness all is possible. You can have causes if you want them, in your world. Another may be content with a single cause — God’s will. The root cause is one: the sense ‘I am’.

I Am That – Talks with Sri Nisargatta Maharaj
The Supreme is Beyond All
Item 20

How to see God – Ramakrishna

How to see God – Ramakrishna

M: (Mahendranath Gupta) “Is it possible to see God?”
MASTER: “Yes, certainly. Living in solitude now and then, repeating God’s name and singing His glories, and discriminating between the Real and the unreal – these are the means to employ to see Him.”

Longing and yearning

M: “Under what conditions does one see God?”
MASTER: “Cry to the Lord with an intensely yearning heart and you will certainly see Him. People shed a whole jug of tears for wife and children. They swim in tears for money. But who weeps for God? Cry to Him with a real cry.”

The Master sang:

Cry to your Mother Syama , with a real cry, O mind! And how can She hold Herself from you?
How can Syama stay away?
How can your Mother Kali hold Herself away?
O mind, if you are in earnest, bring Her an offering Of bel-leaves and hibiscus flowers;
Lay at Her feet your offering
And with it mingle the fragrant sandal-paste of Love.

Continuing, he said: “Longing is like the rosy dawn. After the dawn out comes the sun. Longing is followed by the vision of God.

“God reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the child’s attraction for its mother, and the husband’s attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions, then through it one can attain Him.

“The point is, to love God even as the mother loves her child, the chaste wife her husband, and the worldly man his wealth. Add together these three forces of love, these three powers of attraction, and give it all to God. Then you will certainly see Him.

“It is necessary to pray to Him with a longing heart. The kitten knows only how to call its mother, crying, ‘Meow, meow!’ It remains satisfied wherever its mother puts it. And the mother cat puts the kitten sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes on the floor, and sometimes on the bed. When it suffers it cries only, ‘Meow, meow!’ That’s all it knows. But as soon as the mother hears this cry, wherever she may be; she comes to the kitten.”

Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
By Mahendranath Gupta (“M”), His Disciple
Translated from the Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda

Devotion and Worldly Duties – Ramakrishna

Devotion and Worldly Duties – Ramakrishna

Need of holy company & Meditation in solitude

M. (Mahendranath Gupta) (humbly): “How, sir, may we fix our minds on God?”
MASTER: “Repeat God’s name and sing His glories, and keep holy company; and now and then visit God’s devotees and holy men. The mind cannot dwell on God if it is immersed day and night in worldliness, in worldly duties and responsibilities; it is most necessary to go into solitude now and then and think of God. To fix the mind on God is very difficult, in the beginning, unless one practises meditation in solitude. When a tree is young it should be fenced all around; otherwise it may be destroyed by cattle.

“To meditate, you should withdraw within yourself or retire to a secluded corner or to the forest. And you should always discriminate between the Real and the unreal. God alone is real, the Eternal Substance; all else is unreal, that is, impermanent. By discriminating thus, one should shake off impermanent objects from the mind.”

God and worldly duties

M. (humbly):”How should we live in the world?”
MASTER: “Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Live with all – with wife and children, father and mother – and serve them. Treat them as if they were very dear to you, but know in your heart of hearts that they do not belong to you.

“A maidservant in the house of a rich man performs all the household duties, but her thoughts are fixed on her own home in her native village. She brings up her Master’s children as if they were her own. She even speaks of them as ‘my Rāma’ or ‘my Hari’. But in her own mind she knows very well that they do not belong to her at all.

“The tortoise moves about in the water. But can you guess where her thoughts are? There on the bank, where her eggs are lying. Do all your duties in the world, but keep your mind on God.

“If you enter the world without first cultivating love for God, you will be entangled more and more. You will be overwhelmed with its danger, its grief, its sorrows. And the more you think of worldly things, the more you will be attached to them.

“You first rub your hands with oil and then break open the jack-fruit; otherwise they will be smeared with its sticky milk. Same way, first secure the oil of divine love, and then set your hands to the duties of the world.

“But one must go into solitude to attain this divine love. To get butter from milk you must let it set into curd in a secluded spot; if it is too much disturbed, milk won’t turn into curd. You must put aside all other duties, sit in a quiet spot, and churn the curd. Only then do you get butter.

“Same way, by meditating on God in solitude the mind acquires knowledge, dispassion, and devotion. But the very same mind goes downward if it dwells in the world. In the world there is only one thought: ‘woman and gold’.

“The world is water and the mind milk. If you pour milk into water they become one; you cannot find the pure milk any more. But turn the milk into curd and churn it into butter. Then, when that butter is placed in water, it will float. So also, practise spiritual discipline in solitude and obtain the butter of knowledge and love. Even if you keep that butter in the water of the world the two will not mix. The butter will float.

Practice of discrimination

“Together with this, you must practise discrimination. ‘Sensual pleasures and money’ is impermanent. God is the only Eternal Substance. What does a man get with money? Food, clothes, and a dwelling-place – nothing more. You cannot realize God with its help. Therefore money can never be the goal of life. That is the process of discrimination. Do you understand?”

M: “Yes, sir. I recently read a Sanskrit play called Prabodha Chandrodaya. It deals with discrimination.”
MASTER: “Yes, discrimination about objects. Consider – what is there in money or in a beautiful body? Discriminate and you will find that even the body of a beautiful person consists of bones, flesh, fat, and other disagreeable things. Why should a person give up God and direct the attention to such things? Why should a person forget God for their sake?”

Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
By Mahendranath Gupta (“M”), His Disciple
Translated from the Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda

God With and Without Form – Ramakrishna

God With and Without Form

Sri Mahendra Nath Gupta is familiary known to the readers of the “Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna” by his pen name M.  He kept a diary of all his meetings and experiences with Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and later wrote them in a book. This first, full-fledged volume of  the “Gospel” was  published in Chennai in 1907.

God With and Without Form

Master: “Well, do you believe in God with form or without form?”

M., rather surprised, said to himself: “How can one believe in God without form when one believes in God with form? And if one believes in God without form, how can one believe that God has a form? Can these two contradictory ideas be true at the same time? Can a white liquid like milk be black?”

M: “Sir, I like to think of God as formless.”

Master: “Very good. It is enough to have faith in either aspect. You believe in God without form; that is quite all right. But never for a moment think that this alone is true and all else false. Remember that God with form is just as true as God without form. But hold fast to your own conviction.”

The assertion that both are equally true amazed M.; he had never learnt this from his books. Thus his ego received another blow; but since it was not yet completely crushed, he came forward to argue with the Master a little more.

God and the clay image

M: “Sir, suppose one believes in God with form. Certainly He is not the clay image!”

Master (interrupting): “But why clay? It is an image of Spirit.”

M. could not quite understand the significance of this “image of Spirit”. “But, sir,” he said to the Master, “one should explain to those who worship the clay image that it is not God, and that, while worshipping it, they should have God in view and not the clay image. One should not worship clay.”

God the only real teacher

Master (sharply): “That’s the one hobby of you Calcutta people – giving lectures and bringing others to the light! Nobody ever stops to consider how to get the light himself. Who are you to teach others?

He who is the Lord of the Universe will teach everyone. He alone teaches us, who has created this universe; who has made the sun and moon, men and beasts, and all other beings; who has provided means for their sustenance; who has given children parents and endowed them with love to bring them up. The Lord has done so many things – will He not show people the way to worship Him? If they need teaching, then He will be the Teacher. He is our Inner Guide.

Suppose there is an error in worshipping the clay image; doesn’t God know that through it He alone is being invoked? He will be pleased with that very worship. Why should you get a headache over it? You had better try for knowledge and devotion yourself.”

This time M. felt that his ego was completely crushed. He now said to himself: “Yes, he has spoken the truth. What need is there for me to teach others? Have I known God? Do I really love Him? ‘I haven’t room enough for myself in my bed, and I am inviting my friend to share it with me!’ I know nothing about God, yet I am trying to teach others. What a shame! How foolish I am! This is not mathematics or history or literature, that one can teach it to others. No, this is the deep mystery of God. What he says appeals to me.”

This was M.’s first argument with the Master, and happily his last.

Master: “You were talking of worshipping the clay image. Even if the image is made of clay, there is need for that sort of worship. God Himself has provided different forms of worship. He who is the Lord of the Universe has arranged all these forms to suit different men in different stages of knowledge.

“The mother cooks different dishes to suit the stomachs of her different children. Suppose she has five children. If there is a food item to cook, she prepares various dishes from it to suit their different tastes and powers of digestion. “Do you understand me?”

Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
By Mahendranath Gupta (“M”), His Disciple
Translated from the Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda

Where is your God? – Chinmayananda

Where is your God? – Chinmayananda

Question:  Where is your God?  I do not see, hear or know Him, and in these days of misery and sorrow, if at all He exists, I find Him to be absolutely blind and deaf.   I refuse to believe in God.

Answer:  You are perfectly right in your cry of protest against a God who is not coming forward to protect and save the world which is suffering from sorrow and miseries.  If the coolness of ice does not reach to console the finger that is in the fire, it must certainly be the impotency of the ice to cool!  Or else we will have to accept that the suffering of the finger is because of the stupidity of the person behind the finger, and this is rather inconvenient!

If one has the intelligence to know and recognize that both heat and cold exist in life, and that each is the immediate antidote of the other, then how can a person court the persecutions of the one, crying out the impotency of the other? If you are feeling persecuted by the cold, move toward the fire, invoke its grace, and bask in its warmth. If your are suffering from heat, move toward the cooler and embrace some refreshing shade.

Just as we have been running after the world of sense cravings, lust and passions, of loveless cruelties, and of empty values, thus courting “these days of sorrow”, we can now turn to seek the opposite virtues and enjoy their comforts.

This positive state of harmony and peace, which can be invoked by an intelligent person of will and courage, is called God. He is present everywhere as the raaga (melody) in the music, or the canvas in a painting.  He is the warp and woof of the entire tapestry of life, as the thread in a piece of cotton cloth.  We must have the ears to listen to the raaga, we must have the understanding to see the canvas, and we must have the knowledge to recognize the thread in the cloth. The hurried existence of busy experiences diverts our attention and we must necessarily fail “to see, hear, or know Him”.

In the form of a letter, I can do no better than sing in chorus with Hans Denk: “Oh my God, how does it happen in this poor old world that Thou art so great and yet nobody finds Thee, that Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears Thee, that Thou art so near and yet nobody feels Thee, that Thou givest Thyself to everybody and yet nobody even knows Thy name? Men flee from Thee and say that they cannot find Thee; they turn their backs and say they cannot see Thee; they cover their ears and say they cannot hear Thee.”

Mananam Publication Series – Volume XIV Number 3
Satsang with Swami Chinmayananda
Chapter: The Spiritual Quest

Sri Shvetaketu and King Pravaahana Jaivali – Vivekananda

No difference between religion and life



The Vedanta as a religion must be intensely practical. We must be able to carry it out in every part of our lives. And not only this, the fictitious differentiation between religion and the life of the world must vanish, for the Vedanta teaches oneness — one life throughout.

Shvetaketu was the son of Âruni, a sage, most probably a recluse. He was brought up in the forest, but he went to the city of the Panchâlas and appeared at the court of the king, Pravâhana Jaivali. The king asked him, “Do you know how beings depart hence at death?” “No, sir.” “Do you know how they return hither?” “No, sir.” “Do you know the way of the fathers and the way of the gods?” “No, sir.”

Then the king asked other questions. Shvetaketu could not answer them. So the king told him that he knew nothing. The boy went back to his father, and the father admitted that he himself could not answer these questions. It was not that he was unwilling to answer these questions. It was not that he was unwilling to teach the boy, but he did not know these things. So he went to the king and asked to be taught these secrets.

The king said that these things had been hitherto known only among kings; the priests never knew them. He, however, proceeded to teach him what he desired to know. In various Upanishads we find that this Vedanta philosophy is not the outcome of meditation in the forests only, but that the very best parts of it were thought outand expressed by brains which were busiest in the everyday affairs of life. We cannot conceive any man busier than an absolute monarch, a man who is ruling over millions of people, and yet, some of these rulers were deep thinkers.

Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Volume 2 Practical Vedanta and other lectures
PRACTICAL VEDANTA – PART I
(Delivered in London, 10th November 1896)

God : With Form or Without Form?

God : With Form or Without Form?



The Attributeless Being is the Highest Reality.  So should we worship God only this way, or is it okay to worship God with a Form and Name?  There are so many Gods and  Goddesses, Forms, Names and Symbols and Attributes.  Why?  These baffling questions are probably raised in the minds of many.

It seems to me that worshipping God in both these ways are good and necessary at different stages of one’s spiritual development and mental inclinations.  Different solutions are needed for different problems.

Let’s take a simple example of a City with people of different ages and mental capabilities. And let’s say the goal is to get a PhD degree.  A rare few geniuses may be eligible to pursue PhD even as a child or teenager. But typically little kids have to learn the alphabet and basic numbers in Elementary School. Elementary School kids cannot learn complicated subjects that only Junior High or High School students can. In the same way, there are steps for Under Graduate, Graduate, PhD etc.  Therefore, can we say that since PhD program is available and that is the Goal, anyone can directly join the PhD program, whether they are capable or not? The truth is, everyone has to educate themselves according to a certain combination of their age, capacities, mental framework and preference.  When they are ready, they can pursue their ultimate goal.  So the City has to have schools all the way from Kindergarten to the Highest Education.

The same applies to Religion and Spirituality too. Not everyone can directly worship the Supreme Reality that has no attributes and which is all-pervading Being and Bliss. The Sanatana Dharma – the Eternal Way of Life in India – allows ways of worship to God at every phase of life.  It caters to all ages, all temperaments, all levels of abilities, all preferences, even though the end goal or aim is one – true liberation from sorrows, realization of the Real Self.  All the others kind of worships apart from the transcendental, can be said to be supplementary aids to achieve the Goal.

It is not easy for everyone to think of something or someone without a form or name, especially children. It is easy to contemplate when one associates the Highest with a Divine Form or Name or Symbol of preference. There are phases and stages of development too. A person who loves worshipping God with a Form may later prefer to meditate on the sound of OM, or perhaps just do Self-Enquiry. So Hinduism addresses all of this. It is complete.  It does not leave anyone hanging out there without suitable guidance.

To put it in a nutshell, here are the words of the Great Sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi.

D.: Has God a form?
M.: Who says so?
D.: Well, if God has no form is it proper to worship idols?
M.: Leave God alone because He is unknown. What about you? Have you a form?
D.: Yes. I am this and so and so.
M.: So then, you are a man with limbs, about three and a half cubits high, with beard, etc. Is it so?
D.: Certainly.
M.: Then do you find yourself so in deep sleep?
……..
D.: No, I am the subtle jiva within the gross body.
M.: So you see that you are really formless; but you are at present identifying yourself with the body. So long as you are formful why should you not worship the formless God as being formful?

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
25th December, 1935
Talk 121.

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Below is another discussion on the same subject with Sri Ramana Maharshi

D.: Idol worship does not seem good. They worship the formless God in Islam.
M.: What is their conception of God?

D.: As Immanence, etc.
M.: Is not God even then endowed with attributes? Form is only one kind of attribute. One cannot worship God without some notions. Any bhavana premises a God with attributes (saguna). Moreover, where is the use of discussing the form or formlessness of God? Find out if you have a form. You can then understand God.

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
6th April, 1937
Talk 385.