Message from the Gospel – 31. Enjoy Fish Soup and Embrace a Young Woman

Do you think Sri Ramakrishna would have ever said that?

Worldly people are totally indifferent to God and spiritual practices. How to attract them to God? How to make them understand that they are wasting their precious human birth? Some trick should be played to divert people from their ignorant life full of hopeless materialistic pursuits.

About such people, Sri Ramakrishna says, "Many people visit the temple garden at Dakshineswar.  If I see some among the visitors indifferent to God, I say to them, 'You had better sit over there.' Or sometimes I say, 'Go and see the beautiful buildings.'" (Laughter.)

"Sometimes I find that the devotees of God are accompanied by worthless people.  Their companions are immersed in gross worldliness and don't enjoy spiritual talk at all.  Since the devotees keep on, for a long time, talking with me about God, the others become restless.  Finding it impossible to sit there any longer, they whisper to their devotee friends: 'When shall we be going? How long will you stay here?' The devotees say: 'Wait a bit.  We shall go after a little while.' Then the worldly people say in a disgusted tone: 'Well, then, you can talk.  We shall wait for you in the boat.'" (All laugh.)

"Worldly people will never listen to you if you ask them to renounce everything and devote themselves whole-heartedly to God.  Therefore Chaitanya and Nitai, after some deliberation, made an arrangement to attract the worldly.  They would say to such persons, 'Come, repeat the name of Hari, and you shall have a delicious soup of magur fish and the embrace of a young woman.' Many people, attracted by the fish and the woman, would chant the name of God.  After tasting a little of the nectar of God's hallowed name, they would soon realize that the 'fish soup' really meant the tears they shed for love of God, while the 'young woman' signified the earth.¹  The embrace of the woman meant rolling on the ground in the rapture of divine love."

"Nitai would employ any means to make people repeat Hari's name.  Chaitanya said: 'The name of God has very great sanctity.  It may not produce an immediate result, but one day it must bear fruit.  It is like a seed that has been left on the cornice of a building.  After many days, the house crumbles, and the seed falls on the earth, germinates, and at last bears fruit."

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¹ Mother Earth is considered to be a beautiful woman, ‘Booma Devi’, and is  believed to be the consort of Maha Vishnu. Rolling on the ground is therefore a form of embracing the beautiful Bhooma Devi.