Message from the Gospel – 14. What God Wants From Us?

Man loves his own riches, and so he thinks that God loves His, too.  He thinks that God will be pleased if we glorify His riches.  Once Sambhu, a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna, said to him, “Please bless me, that I may die leaving my riches at the Lotus Feet of God.” Sri Ramakrishna answered: “These are riches only to you.  What riches can you offer God? To Him these are mere dust and straw.”

In the Dakshineshwar temple premises there were 12 Shiva temples and a temple dedicated to Vishnu known as the temple of Radhakanta. Once a thief broke into the temple of Vishnu and robbed the image of its jewels.  Mathur Babu, who was the custodian of the temple after the death of his mother-in-law Rani Rasmani (who built the temple) and Sri Ramakrishna went to the temple after they were told about the theft to get first-hand information about the matter.  Addressing the image of God in the sanctum sanctorum, Mathur said bitterly: “What a shame, Lord! You are so worthless! The thief took all the ornaments from Your body, and You couldn't do a thing about it.” Thereupon Sri Ramakrishna said to Mathur: “Shame on you! How improper your words are! To God, the jewels you talk so much about are only lumps of clay.  Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, is His Consort.  Do you mean to say that He should spend sleepless nights because a thief has taken your few rupees? You mustn't say such things.”

Sri Ramakrishna says further, "Can one ever bring God under control through wealth? He can be tamed only through love.  What does He want? Certainly not wealth! He wants from His devotees love, devotion, feeling, discrimination, and renunciation.”

We have reason to rejoice. Here is somebody who cannot be controlled by wealth. But to control God we need a few things. Do we have any of those – love, devotion, feeling, discrimination, and renunciation – even a small measure? If we have them, and if we can give them to Him, then we have the most powerful person under our control.

There is a beautiful song of Purandara Dasa, a poet saint of Karnataka, India, which goes like this:

If you lie down and sing, He would sit and listen

If you sit and sing, He would stand and listen

If you stand and sing, He would dance

And if you dance and sing, He would immediately appear before you...

Can everybody sing? Singing is an expression of intense devotion. God can be bound by unselfish love and intense devotion. 

Message from the Gospel – 13. Move Forward

Sri Ramakrishna tells the following story of the wood-cutter to emphasize that with continuous effort God-realization is possible in course of time.

"Once upon a time a wood-cutter went into a forest to chop wood. There suddenly he met a brahmachari. The holy man said to him, 'My good man, go forward.' On returning home the wood-cutter asked himself, 'Why did the brahmachari tell me to go forward?' Some time passed. One day he remembered the brahmachari's words. He said to himself, 'Today I shall go deeper into the forest.' Going deep into the forest, he discovered innumerable sandal-wood trees. He was very happy and returned with cart-loads of sandal-wood. He sold them in the market and became very rich.”

"A few days later he again remembered the words of the holy man to go forward. He went deeper into the forest and discovered a silver-mine near a river. This was even beyond his dreams. He dug out silver from the mine and sold it in the market. He got so much money that he didn't even know how much he had.”

"A few more days passed. One day he thought: 'The brahmachari didn't ask me to stop at the silver-mine; he told me to go forward.' This time he went to the other side of the river and found a gold-mine. Then he exclaimed: 'Ah, just see! This is why he asked me to go forward.'”

"Again, a few days afterwards, he went still deeper into the forest and found heaps of diamonds and other precious gems. He took these also and became as rich as the god of wealth himself.”

"Therefore I say that, whatever you may do, you will find better and better things if only you go forward. You may feel a little ecstasy as the result of japa, but don't conclude from this that you have achieved everything in spiritual life. Work is by no means the goal of life. Go forward, and then you will be able to perform unselfish work. But again I say that it is most difficult to perform unselfish work. Therefore with love and longing in your heart pray to God: 'O God, grant me devotion at Thy Lotus Feet and reduce my worldly duties. Please grant me the boon that the few duties I must do may be done in a detached spirit.' If you go still farther you will realize God. You will see Him. In time you will converse with Him."

Message from the Gospel – 12. The Best Path

MASTER: "The best path for this age is bhaktiyoga, the path of bhakti prescribed by Nārada: to sing the name and glories of God and pray to Him with a longing heart, 'O God, give me knowledge, give me devotion, and reveal Thyself to me!' The path of karma is extremely difficult. Therefore one should pray: 'O God, make my duties fewer and fewer; and may I, through Thy grace, do the few duties that Thou givest me without any attachment to their results! May I have no desire to be involved in many activities!'"

"It is not possible to give up work altogether. Even to think or to meditate is a kind of work.”

“As you develop love for God, your worldly activities become fewer and fewer of themselves. And you lose all interest in them. Can one who has tasted a drink made of sugar candy enjoy a drink made of ordinary molasses?"

A DEVOTEE: "The English people always exhort us to be active. Isn't action the aim of life then?"

MASTER: "The aim of life is the attainment of God. Work is only a preliminary step; it can never be the end. Even unselfish work is only a means; it is not the end."

"Sambhu Mallick once said to me, 'Please bless me, sir, that I may spend all my money for good purposes, such as building hospitals and dispensaries; making roads, and digging wells.' I said to him: 'It will be good if you can do these things in a spirit of detachment. But that is very difficult. Whatever you may do, you must always remember that the aim of this life of yours is the attainment of God and not the building of hospitals and dispensaries. Suppose God appeared before you and said to you, "Accept a boon from Me." Would you then ask Him, "O God, build me some hospitals and dispensaries"? Or would you not rather pray to Him: "O God, may I have pure love at Your Lotus Feet! May I have Your uninterrupted vision!"? Hospitals, dispensaries, and all such things are unreal. God alone is real and all else unreal. Furthermore, after realizing God one feels that He alone is the Doer and we are but His instruments. Then why should we forget Him and destroy ourselves by being involved in too many activities? After realizing Him, one may, through His grace, become His instrument in building many hospitals and dispensaries."

"Therefore I say again that work is only the first step. It can never be the goal of life. Devote yourself to spiritual practice and go forward. Through practice you will advance more and more in the path of God. At last you will come to know that God alone is real and all else is illusory, and that the goal of life is the attainment of God."

Message from the Gospel – 11. The Aim of Human Life

What need is there of penance if God is worshipped with love?
What is the use of penance if God is not worshipped with love?
What need is there of penance if God is seen within and without?
What is the use of penance if God is not seen within and without?

Krishna, God Incarnate, lived the years of His boyhood in Vrindāvan as a cowherd. He tended His cows on the green meadows along the bank of the Jamuna and played His flute. The milkmaids could not resist the force of His divine attraction. At the sound of His flute they would leave their household duties and go to the bank of the sacred river. Their love for Krishna destroyed their attachment to worldly things. Neither the threats of their relatives nor the criticism of others could make them desist from seeking the company of Krishna. In the love of the gopis for Krishna there was not the slightest trace of worldliness. It was the innate attraction of God for pure souls, as of the magnet for iron. The author of the Bhagavata has compared this love to the all-consuming love of a woman for her beloved. Before the on rush of that love all barriers between man and God are swept away. The devotee surrenders himself completely to his Divine Beloved and in the end becomes one with Him.

For centuries and centuries the lovers of God in India have been worshipping the Divine by recreating in themselves the yearning of the gopis for Krishna. Many of the folk-songs of India have as their theme this sweet episode of Krishna's life. Sri Chaitanya revived this phase of Hindu religious life by his spiritual practice and his divine visions. In his ecstatic music Chaitanya assumed the role of Radha and manifested the longing to be united with Krishna. For a long period Sri Ramakrishna also worshipped God as his beloved Krishna, looking on himself as one of the gopis or as God's handmaid. 

Sri Ramakrishna says, "Ah! If anyone has but a particle of such prema! What yearning! What love! Radha possessed not only one hundred per cent of divine love, but one hundred and twenty-five per cent. This is what it means to be intoxicated with ecstatic love of God. The sum and substance of the whole matter is that a man must love God, must be restless for Him. It doesn't matter whether you believe in God with form or in God without form. You may or may not believe that God incarnates Himself as man. But you will realize Him if you have that yearning. Then He Himself will let you know what He is like. If you must be mad, why should you be mad for the things of the world? If you must be mad, be mad for God alone."

He says further, "Suppose you have entered a tavern for a drink. Is it necessary for you to know how many gallons of wine there are in the tavern? One glass is enough for you. What need is there of your knowing the infinite qualities of God? You may discriminate for millions of years about God's attributes and still you will not know them."

"What need is there of your counting the number of trees and branches in an orchard? You have come to the orchard to eat mangoes. Do that and be happy. The aim of human birth is to love God. Realize that love and be at peace.”

Can we love God unless we have faith in Him that He will protect us, that He will save us, relieve us from our suffering? Before we love God, let us ask ourselves whether we love our relatives and friends. Once, Sri Ramakrishna asked a woman devotee the same question, whether she loves her family members. Her answer was “No”. Then he told her, "If you cannot love your own family members who are with you, how will you be able to love God whom you have not seen?” So let us cultivate unselfish love towards our fellow human beings and strive to realize the love that gopis of Vrindaban cherished for Krishna.

As is a man's meditation, so is his feeling of love; 
As is a man's feeling of love, so is his gain;
And faith is the root of all. . . .

Message from the Gospel – 10. Be like a kitten

Sri Ramakrishna says, “There are two kinds of aspirants.  The nature of the one kind is like that of the young monkey, and the nature of the other kind is like that of the kitten.  The young monkey, with great exertion, somehow clings to its mother.  Likewise, there are some aspirants who think that in order to realize God they must repeat His name a certain number of times, meditate on Him for a certain period, and practise a certain amount of austerity.  An aspirant of this kind makes his own efforts to catch hold of God.  But the kitten, of itself, cannot cling to its mother.  It lies on the ground and cries, 'Mew, mew!' It leaves everything to its mother.  The mother cat sometimes puts it on a bed, sometimes on the roof behind a pile of wood.  She carries the kitten in her mouth hither and thither.  The kitten doesn't know how to cling to the mother.  Likewise, there are some aspirants who cannot practise spiritual discipline by calculating about japa or the period of meditation.  All that they do is cry to God with yearning hearts.  God hears their cry and cannot keep Himself away.  He reveals Himself to them."

“Be like a kitten and cry to Him with a fervent heart.  The mother cat puts the kitten wherever she wants to.  The kitten doesn't know anything.  It is left sometimes on the bed and sometimes near the hearth. Devotees of this class give God the power of attorney and thus become free of all worry.”

“Give God the power of attorney. If a man entrusts his affairs to a good person, will the latter do him any harm? With all the sincerity of your heart resign yourself to God and drive all your worries out of your mind. Do whatever duties He has assigned to you. The kitten does not have a calculating mind. It only cries, 'Mew, mew!' It lies in the kitchen contentedly if the mother cat leaves it there, and only calls the mother, crying, 'Mew, mew!' It has the same feeling of contentment when the mother cat puts it on the soft bed of the master of the house. It only cries for its mother."

Maintaining equanimity of mind in pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, success and failure is not easy. The best example that comes to our mind is Lord Sri Ram. When told about His coronation He remained calm. Again when the fortunes changed and He was asked to leave the kingdom and proceed to forest He maintained His composure.

Let us be like a kitten and not like a baby monkey. Let the trials of life put us in any kind of situation. May God give us unflinching faith in His kindness and compassion that He will carry us through all hurdles and will never let us down.

Message from the Gospel – 9. ‘I’ and ‘mine’ Is Ignorance

Sri Ramakrishna says, "The feeling of 'I ' and 'mine' is ignorance. People say that Rani Rasmani built the Kāli temple; but nobody says it was the work of God. They say that such and such a person established the Brahmo Samaj; but nobody says it was founded through the will of God. This feeling, 'I am the doer', is ignorance. On the contrary, the idea, 'O God, Thou art the Doer and I am only an instrument; Thou art the Operator and I am the machine', is Knowledge. After attaining Knowledge a man says: 'O God, nothing belongs to me – neither this house of worship nor this Kāli temple nor this Brahmo Samaj. These are all Thine. Wife, son, and family do not belong to me. They are all Thine.'

To love these objects, regarding them as one's own, is māyā. But to love all things is daya, compassion. To love only the members of the Brahmo Samaj or of one's own family is māyā; to love one's own countrymen is māyā. But to love the people of all countries, to love the members of all religions, is daya. Such love comes from love of God, from daya.

Māyā entangles a man and turns him away from God. But through daya one realizes God. Sages like Sukadeva and Nārada always cherished daya in their hearts.

God is the Ocean of Bliss; Don't you want to plunge into this Ocean? Suppose there is a cup of syrup and you are a fly. Where will you sit to sip the syrup?' Narendra said, 'I will sit on the edge of the cup and stick my head out to drink it.' 'Why?' said I. 'Why should you sit on the edge?' He replied, 'If I go far into the syrup, I shall be drowned and lose my life.' Then I said to him: 'But, my child, there is no such fear in the Ocean of Satchidananda. It is the Ocean of Immortality. By plunging into it a man does not die; he becomes immortal. Man does not lose his consciousness by being mad about God.”

It is not easy to lose the feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. When people achieve success, their ego soars up and they start thinking, “How hard I worked to achieve this success”, “How much I helped him in work”, etc. But when they encounter failure, they blame God. Even though it is very difficult, by constant effort, by continuously reminding oneself that God is the Doer and we are only instruments in His hand, it is indeed possible to reach a stage where one can surrender both – success and failure – at the feet of God and attain complete peace.