352. It is useless to pore over holy scriptures and sacred Shastras without a discriminating and dispassionate mind. No spiritual progress can be made without discrimination (Viveka) and dispassion (Vairâgya).
353. Know thyself, and thou shalt then know the non-self
and the Lord of all. What is my ego? Is it my hand, or foot, or flesh, or blood, or muscle, or tendon? Ponder deep, and thou shalt know that there is no such thing as I. As by continually peeling off the skin of the onion, so by analysing the ego it will be found that there is not any real entity corresponding to the ego. The ultimate result of all such analysis is God. When egoism drops away, Divinity manifests itself.
354. The truly devotional and spiritual practice suited for this Iron-age (Kâlî-yuga) is the constant repetition of the name of the Lord of Love.
355. If thou wishest to see God, have firm faith in the efficacy of repeating the name of Hari, and try to discriminate the real from the unreal.
356. When an elephant is let loose, it goes about uprooting trees and shrubs, but as soon as the driver pricks him on the head with the goad he becomes quiet; so the mind when unrestrained wantons in the luxuriance of idle thoughts, but becomes calm at once when struck with the goad of discrimination.
357. Devotional practices are necessary only so long as tears of ecstasy do not flow at hearing the name of Hari. He needs no devotional practices whose heart is moved to tears at the mere mention of the name of Hari.
358. The companionship of the holy and wise is one of the main elements of spiritual progress.
359. The soul reincarnates in a body of which it was
thinking just before its last departure from this world. Devotional practices may therefore be seen to be very necessary. When, by constant practice, no worldly ideas arise in the mind, then the god-idea alone fills the soul, and does not leave it even when on the brink of eternity.
360. How should one love God? As the true and chaste wife loves her husband and the niggardly miser loves his hoarded wealth, so the devotee should love the Lord with all his heart and soul.
361. How may we conquer the old Adam in us? When the fruit grows out of the flower, the petals of the flower drop off of themselves. So, when the divinity in thee increases, the weaknesses of thy human nature will all vanish of their own accord.
362, 363. When does the attraction of sensual and worldly pleasures die away? In God, who is Indivisible Ever-Existing Bliss, there is a consolidation of all happiness and of all pleasures. They who enjoy Him can find no attraction in the cheap and worthless pleasures of the world.
364. In what condition of the mind does God-vision take place? God is seen when the mind is tranquil. When the mental sea is agitated by the wind of desires, it cannot reflect God, and then God-vision is impossible.
365. How may we find our God? The angler, anxious to hook a big and beautiful Rohitta-fish, waits calmly for hours together, having thrown the bait and the hook into the water, watching patiently until the bait is caught by the
fish. Similarly, the devotee who patiently goes on with his devotions is sure at last to find his God.
386. The heart of a sinner is like a curled hair. You may pull it ever so long, but will not succeed in making it straight. So also the heart of the wicked cannot be easily changed.
367. Knowledge leads to unity, and Ignorance to diversity.
368, 369. The society of pious men is like the water in which rice is washed. The rice-water dissipates intoxication. So doth the society of the pious relieve worldly men, intoxicated with the wine of desires, from their intoxication.
370. The agent of a rich Zemindar, when he goes into the mofussil or interior, tyrannises in various ways over the tenants. But when he comes back to the head-quarters under the eyes of his master, he changes his ways, becomes very pious, treats the tenants kindly, inquires fully into all their grievances, and tries to mete out impartial justice to all. The tyrannical agent even becomes good through the fear of the landlord, and by the effect of his society. Similarly doth the society of the pious make even the wicked righteous, awakening awe and reverence within them.
371. Moist wood placed upon a fire soon becomes dry, and ultimately begins to burn. Similarly, the society of the pious drives away the moisture of greed and lust from the hearts of worldly men and women, and then the fire of Viveka (Discrimination) burns in them.
372. How should one pass his or her life? As the fire on the hearth is stirred from time to time with a poker to make it burn brightly and prevent it from going out, so the mind should be invigorated occasionally by the society of the pious.
373. As the blacksmith keeps alive the fire of his furnace by the occasional blowing of his bellows, so the mind should be kept a-burning by the society of the pious.
374. Throw an unbaked cake of flour into hot ghee, it will make a sort of boiling noise. But the more it is fried, the less becomes the noise; and when it is fully fried the bubbling ceases altogether. So long as a man has little knowledge, he goes about lecturing and preaching, but when the perfection of knowledge is obtained, he ceases to make vain displays.
375. That man who, living in the midst of the temptations of the world, attains perfection, is the true hero.
376. We must dive deep into the ocean of the Eternal-Intelligent-Bliss. Fear not the deep-sea monsters, Avarice and Anger. Coat thyself with the turmeric of Discrimination and Dispassion (Viveka and Vairâgya) and those alligators will not approach thee, as the scent of this turmeric is too much for them.
377. When unavoidably entering into places where there may be temptation, carry always with thee the thought of thy Divine Mother. She will protect thee from the many evils that may be lurking even in thy heart. Cannot the presence of thy mother shame thee away from evil deeds and evil thoughts?
378. How may we conquer the love of life? The human frame is made up of decaying things; of flesh and blood and bone. It is a collection of flesh, bone, marrow, blood, and other filthy substances subject to putrefaction. By thus analysing the body, our love thereof vanishes.
379. Should the devotee adopt any particular costume? The adoption of a suitable costume is good. Dressed in the Samnyâsin's orange robes, or carrying the religious mendicant's tambourine and cymbals, a man can never utter light and profane things, or sing profane songs. But a man dressed in the smart style of a beau will naturally have his heart inclined to think low thoughts and sing low songs.
380. Sometimes peace reigns in the heart, but why does it not always last long? The fire made by the burning of the bamboo is soon extinguished unless kept alive by constant blowing. Continual devotion is necessary to keep alive the fire of spirituality.
381. Those who live in the world and try to find salvation are like soldiers that fight protected by the breast-work of a fort, while the ascetics who renounce the world in search of God are like soldiers fighting in the open field. To fight from within the fort is safer than to fight in the open field. (Is this right or should it be transposed?)
382. Pray to the Divine Mother in this wise. Give me,
[paragraph continues] O Mother! love that knows no incontinence, and faith adamantine that cannot be shaken.
383. As persons living in a house infested by venomous snakes are always alert and cautious, so should men living in the world be always on their guard against the allurements of lust and greed.
384. If there is a small hole in the bottom of a jar of water, the whole water flows out of it by that small aperture. Similarly, if there be the smallest tinge of worldliness in the neophyte, all his exertions come to naught.
385. When the butter is produced by churning the whey, it should not be kept in the same vessel containing the remaining whey, for then it will lose something of its sweetness and cohesion. It should be kept in pure water and in a different vessel. So after attaining some partial perfection in the world, if one still continues to mix with the worldly, and remains in the midst of the world, it is likely that he will be tainted; but he will remain pure if he lives out of it.
386. You cannot live in a sooty room without blackening your body to some extent, however small it may be, with all your caution. So, if a man or a woman lives in the company of one of his or her opposite sex of the same age, with the greatest circumspection and control over his or her passion, still some carnal thought, however small, is sure to arise in his or her mind.
387. Two persons, it is said, began together the rite of
invoking the Goddess Kâlî by the terrible process called 'Savasâdhana.' (This Tantrik invocation is performed in the cemetery yard, the invoker sitting on the body of a corpse in a dark night.) One invoker was frightened to insanity by the horrors of the earlier portion of the night; the other was favoured with the vision of the Divine Mother at the end of the night. Then he asked her, 'Mother! why did the other man become mad?' The Deity answered, Thou too, O child! didst become mad many times in thy various previous births, and now at last thou seest me.'
388. There are various sects among the Hindus; which sect or which creed should we then adopt? Pârvatî once asked Mahâdeva, 'O Lord! what is the root of the Eternal, Everlasting, All-embracing Bliss?' To her Mahâdeva thus replied, 'The root is faith.' The peculiarities of creeds and sects matter little or nothing. Let every one perform with faith the devotions and the duties of his own creed.
389. As a little boy or a girl can have no idea of conjugal affection, even so a worldly man cannot at all comprehend the ecstasy of Divine communion.
390. The body is transient and unimportant. Why then is it so much looked after? No one cares for an empty box. But people carefully preserve the box that contains money and other valuable property. The virtuous cannot but take care of the body, the temple of the soul in which God has manifested Himself or which has been blessed by God's advent.
391. How long does godliness remain in man? The iron is red so long as it is in fire. It is black the moment it is removed from fire. So the human being is godly so long as he is in communion with God.
392. Soft clay admits of forms, but the burnt clay does not. So those whose hearts are consumed with the desire of worldly things cannot realise higher ideas.
393. As the water and its bubbles are one, and as the bubbles have their birth in the water, float on the water, and ultimately are resolved into water; so the Gîvâtman and the Paramâtman are one and the same: the difference is in degrees--the one is finite and small, the other is infinite; the one is dependent, the other independent.
394, 395. When the tail of the tadpole drops off, it can live both in water and on land. When the tail of ignorance drops off, man becomes free. He can then live both in God and in the world equally well.
Sri Ramakrishna Kali
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