This may be of help.
when the southern breeze blows of itself, you can put the fan aside. When intense love for God comes of itself, rituals like repetition of the name, and so on drop off. When you are mad with love for God, how can you perform rituals?
I don’t want to become sugar, I want to taste it...
Sri Ramakrishna Katha (words, etc of Sri Ramakrishna, or gospel of)
Chapter Seven kleço ‘dhikataras teñäm avyaktäsaktacetasäm | avyaktä hi gatir duùkhaà dehavadbhir aväpyate ||
[It is more difficult for those whose minds are attached to the Unmanifest, because it is very hard for the embodied soul to reach the Unmanifest.]
– Bhagavad Gita 12:5
The path of loving devotion to God is the law of this age – the path of knowledge is very difficult – ‘servant I,’ ‘I of a devotee,’ ‘I of a child’
Vijay (to Sri Ramakrishna): “Sir, you ask us to renounce the ‘rascal I.’ Is there any harm in the ‘servant I’?”
Sri Ramakrishna: “One should have this ego – the ‘servant I.’ That is to say, ‘I am the servant of the Lord, I am His devotee.’ There’s no harm in that. Rather, it leads to God-realization.”
Vijay: “Well, sir, what is the nature of the feelings of lust and anger of a man who has the ‘servant I?’”
Sri Ramakrishna: “It is only the semblance of lust and anger in the man if he has the right feeling. If he retains the feeling of the ‘servant I’ or the ‘I of a devotee’ after having God-realization, he can do no harm to others. After a sword has touched the philosopher’s stone, it becomes gold; it has the semblance of a sword, but it can’t kill anybody.
“The fronds of a coconut tree dry up and drop off, leaving only a mark [on the trunk]. One can make out from these marks that there were once palm fronds there. Similarly, the ego of one who has realized God only leaves a mark, only a semblance of lust and anger. He is then like a child. A child is not subject to the three gunas of sattva, rajas, and tamas. It takes the same amount of time for a child to give up something as it does for him to be attracted to it.
“You can take a child’s piece of cloth worth five rupees by tempting him with a half-a-pice doll. He may first say firmly: ‘No, I won’t give it to you! My father bought it for me!’ But everything is the same to a child; there is nothing big or small to him. He has no feeling of caste. His mother says, ‘He is your elder brother.’ Then even if he is a carpenter [low caste], the child will sit with him and eat from the same plate. A child hates no one; he has no feeling of purity and impurity. He doesn’t bother to clean his hands with mud after relieving himself.
“Even after attaining samadhi some people live with the ‘I of a devotee’ or the ‘I of a servant.’ The devotee retains the feeling of ‘I-ness’: ‘I am Your servant, You are my Master,’ ‘I am Your devotee, You are my Lord.’ Even after God-realization one retains this ‘I-ness.’ One’s ‘I-ness’ does not vanish completely. The practice of this feeling of ‘I-ness’ leads to God-realization. This is what is known as the path of devotion.
“By following the path of devotion, one can attain the knowledge of Brahman, too. God is omnipotent. He can also impart the knowledge of Brahman to a follower of the path of devotion. But generally speaking, a devotee does not seek the knowledge of Brahman. He wishes to retain the ‘Iness’ of ‘I am Your servant, You are my Master,’ ‘I am Your child, You are my Mother.’”
Vijay: “Will the people who reason according to Vedanta also attain Him?”
Sri Ramakrishna: “Yes, He can also be attained by the path of reasoning and discrimination. This is known as Jnana Yoga. The path of reason is very difficult. I told you about the seven planes. When the mind reaches the seventh plane, one attains samadhi. On genuine realization that Brahman is real and the world illusory, the mind merges, and it experiences samadhi. But in the Kaliyuga, the life of a man depends on food. Then how can he understand that Brahman is real and the world illusory? Such awareness does not come without getting rid of body consciousness: ‘I am neither the body, nor the mind, nor the twenty-four cosmic principles.1 I am beyond pleasure and pain. How then can I have disease and sorrow, old age and death?’ Such a realization is difficult in this Kaliyuga. However much you may reason, the conviction that I am the body creeps in somehow and shows itself. You may cut down an ashwattha tree and think its roots are dead, but the very next morning you will see that a new sprout has appeared. The feeling of the body does not go away. Thus the path of devotion is a good and easy path in this age.
“I don’t want to become sugar, I want to taste it. I never feel like saying, ‘I am Brahman.’ I say, ‘You are my Lord and I am Your servant.’ It is good to play between the fifth and sixth planes. After crossing the sixth plane, I have no desire to stay on the seventh plane for long. My desire is to sing His name and glories. The attitude of the Master and the servant is very good. Look, everybody says that the wave belongs to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the wave. The feeling ‘I am He’ is not good. If a person entertains such a feeling of ’I-ness’ but retains identification with his body, it will bring great harm to him – he won’t advance further. And because he cannot understand his own predicament, he deceives others as well as himself. He gradually goes down spiritually.”
Two kinds of devotion – most eligible aspirant – means to God-realization
“Devotion alone does not enable you to realize God. Unless you have intense love for God,1 you cannot attain Him. Passionate devotion2 is another name for intense love. Without intense love, you cannot realize God. Without loving God, you cannot attain Him.
“There is another kind of devotion known as ritualistic devotion.3 You have to repeat the name of God a fixed number of times. Along with this, you must fast, go on pilgrimage, worship in a prescribed manner, make so many sacrifices, and so
1. Prema bhakti. 2. Raga bhakti. 3. Vaidhi bhakti.
on. These are all part of ritualistic devotion. By practicing it you gradually gain raga, intense devotion. But God cannot be realized as long as you don’t have this intense love for Him. You must have love for Him. When your worldly way of thinking disappears completely and your mind goes to Him one hundred percent, only then do you attain God. “But some people acquire loving devotion naturally. They are born that way. Being perfect from childhood, they weep for God at an early age, as Prahlada wept for Vishnu. Ritualistic devotion is like moving a fan to make a breeze. You need a fan to create a breeze. You will eventually attain love for God by repetition of the name, austerity, fasting, and such practices. But when the southern breeze blows of itself, you can put the fan aside. When intense love1 for God comes of itself, rituals like repetition of the name, and so on drop off. When you are mad with love for God, how can you perform rituals?
“As long as you haven’t acquired love for God, your devotion is unripe. When you have love for Him, your devotion is called ripe.
“A person who has unripe devotion cannot internalize spiritual instructions or talk about God. It is only when the photographer’s glass is coated black with love for God, so to speak, that it catches an image and is retained. You may throw a thousand images on ordinary glass and not one of them will stay. As soon as the object is removed, the glass becomes the same as it was. You cannot internalize spiritual instruction unless you have developed love for God.”
Vijay: “Sir, is love for God enough to attain Him, to have His vision?”
Sri Ramakrishna: “Yes, you can see God through love alone – but it must be ripe, prema bhakti, or raga bhakti. Only after gaining that kind of love can you love God as the son loves his mother, or the mother loves her child, or the wife loves her husband.
“When you have such love for God, you don’t feel the attraction of maya – for wife, children, or dear relatives. You only retain compassion for them. The world then appears to be a foreign land, a land of duty alone. It’s like having your home in a village and your place of work in Calcutta. You may have to live in a rented house in Calcutta for work. When you’ve gained love for God, you are completely rid of attachment to the world and of so-called worldly wisdom.
“If there is just a trace of worldliness, you can’t see God. If a match-stick is wet, you may strike it a thousand times and it won’t ignite; you will only waste a pile of matches. The mind attached to the world is like a wet match stick.
“When Srimati (Radha) said, ‘I see Krishna everywhere,’ her gopi friends1 said, ‘How? We can’t see him. Are you delirious?’ Srimati said, ‘Friend, apply the collyrium of love to your eyes and you will be able to see him.’ (To Vijay) A song of your Brahmo Samaj says: ‘O Lord, is it possible to know You without love, however much one may perform sacrifices, worship, and the rest?’
“If you but once acquire this love, this longing, this ripe devotion, you will see Him both with form and without form.”
God-vision not possible without His grace
Vijay: “How can one see God?”
Sri Ramakrishna: “Not until the mind is purified. Attached to ‘lust and greed,’ the mind remains soiled, it remains covered with dirt. If a needle is covered with mud, a magnet can’t attract it. But when the mud and dirt are washed off, the magnet attracts. You can wash the dirt of the mind with the tears from your eyes. If you weep with tears of repentance, crying, ‘O Lord, I shall never do such a thing again!’ then this dirt is washed away and the magnet of God can attract the needle of the mind. You then go into samadhi and have the vision of God.
“But though you try a thousand times, nothing is achieved without God’s grace. Without His grace, you cannot see Him. Is it easy to gain His grace? You have to get rid of your ego completely. When you have the feeling that you are the doer, you cannot see God. Suppose a man is in charge of the storeroom and somebody comes and says to the master of the house, ‘Sir, please give me some provisions from your storeroom.’ The master says, ‘There’s a man in the storeroom. I don’t have to go there.’ God doesn’t appear easily in the heart of the person who feels himself to be the doer.
“Only after gaining God’s grace can you have His vision. He is the sun of knowledge. With just one of His rays, this whole world is illumined. That’s how we’re able to know one another and acquire different kinds of knowledge in the world. If God only once brings His light to His own face, we can see Him. A police sergeant goes around at night with a lantern in his hand. Nobody can see his face. But in this light he can see everybody else’s face, and others can see each other.
“If you want to see the sergeant, you must ask, ‘Sir, be kind enough to turn the light on your own face so that I may see you.’
“You must pray to God, ‘Lord, be kind enough to turn the light of knowledge on Your own face so that I may see You.’
“If there is no light in a house, it means poverty. You must light the lamp of knowledge in the heart: ‘Lighting the lamp of knowledge in the house, behold the face of the all-blissful Mother.’”
Vijay has brought medicine with him and wishes to take it now. The medicine has to be taken with water, so Thakur asks that some be brought. Thakur is a sea of motiveless grace. Vijay cannot afford a carriage or the boat fare to go to see Sri Ramakrishna, so now and then Thakur sends someone to bring him. This time he sent Balaram, who paid for the carriage in which Vijay accompanied him. In the evening Vijay, Nava Kumar, and others of Vijay’s companions go to Balaram’s boat. Balaram will take them to the Baghbazar ghat. M. takes the same boat.
The boat reaches the Annapurna ghat in Bagbhazar. When they are close to Balaram’s residence in Baghbazar, the moon begins to cast a mellow light.
Today is the fourth day of the bright fortnight. It is winter and a bit chilly. Pondering the nectar-like teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and carrying his blissful image in their hearts, Vijay, Balaram, M. and the others return home.
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