From the Gospel - 41

In the previous part, M. had asked a question, "What is meant by God realization?" In this part also the answer to that question is being continued. Sri Ramakrishna is trying to explain with various examples the complex idea of realizing God. 

M: "When one sees God does one see Him with these eyes?"

MASTER: "God cannot be seen with these physical eyes.  In the course of spiritual discipline one gets a 'love body', endowed with 'love eyes', 'love ears', and so on.  One sees God with those 'love eyes'.  One hears the voice of God with those 'love ears'.  One even gets a sexual organ made of love."

At these words M. burst out laughing.  The Master continued, unannoyed, "With this 'love body' the soul communes with God."

M. again became serious.

MASTER: "But this is not possible without intense love of God.  One sees nothing but God everywhere when one loves Him with great intensity.  It is like a person with jaundice, who sees everything yellow.   Then one feels, 'I am verily He'. 

A drunkard, deeply intoxicated, says, 'Verily I am Kāli!' The gopis, intoxicated with love, exclaimed, 'Verily I am Krishna!'

One who thinks of God, day and night, beholds Him everywhere.  It is like a man's seeing flames on all sides after he has gazed fixedly at one flame for some time."

"But that isn't the real flame", flashed through M.'s mind. 

Sri Ramakrishna, who could read a man's inmost thought, said: "One doesn't lose consciousness by thinking of Him who is all Spirit, all Consciousness.  Shivanath once remarked that too much thinking about God confounds the brain.  Thereupon I said to him, 'How can one become unconscious by thinking of Consciousness?' "

M: "Yes, sir, I realize that.  It isn't like thinking of an unreal object.  How can a man lose his intelligence if he always fixes his mind on Him whose very nature is eternal Intelligence?"

MASTER (with pleasure): "It is through God's grace that you understand that.  The doubts of the mind will not disappear without His grace.  Doubts do not disappear without Self-realization.

But one need not fear anything if one has received the grace of God.  It is rather easy for a child to stumble if he holds his father's hand; but there can be no such fear if the father holds the child's hand.  A man does not have to suffer any more if God, in His grace, removes his doubts and reveals Himself to him.  But this grace descends upon him only after he has prayed to God with intense yearning of heart and practised spiritual discipline.  The mother feels compassion for her child when she sees him running about breathlessly.  She has been hiding herself; now she appears before the child."

"But why should God make us run about?" thought M.

Immediately Sri Ramakrishna said: "It is His will that we should run about a little.  Then it is great fun.  God has created the world in play, as it were.  This is called Mahamaya, the Great Illusion.  Therefore one must take refuge in the Divine Mother, the Cosmic Power Itself.  It is She who has bound us with the shackles of illusion.  The realization of God is possible only when those shackles are severed."