The More I Think

The more I think of Sri Ramakrishna’s bhakti, the more I am wonderstruck. Keshab Sen repeats the name of Hari, meditates on God, so he (Thakur [a.k.a., Sri Ramakrishna]) immediately ran to meet him. ­ Keshab at once became his own. He then did not listen to the Captain. That Keshab went to a foreign land, ate with white men, gave his daughter in marriage in a different caste -- ­ all these matters vanished.

“I take only cherries. I have nothing to do with thorns.” In the bond of bhakti the believers in God with form and believers in God without form become the same; the Hindus, the Muslims and the Christians ­ all become one and also the four varnas [castes]. Bhakti be victorious! Blessed you are Sri Ramakrishna! Victory to you! You have embodied the universal view of sanatana dharma (the eternal religion). It is perhaps for this reason that you have such an attraction! You embrace the followers of all religions as your own without any difference! You have but one test ­ it is that of bhakti. You only see whether a person has love for God within, whether he has bhakti or not. If that is there, he immediately becomes your very own. If you see bhakti in a Hindu, he is at once your own. And if a Muslim has bhakti for Allah, he is also your own. If a Christian has the love for Jesus, he is also your near and dear one. You say that all rivers coming from different directions, from different regions fall into the same one ocean.

Thakur does not consider this world as a dream. If that be so, it will "lose weight". It is not mayavada; it is Vishishtadvaitavada. This is because he does not consider the jiva and the world as imaginary. He doesn’t think them to be an illusion. God is real, so are men and the world. Brahman is qualified with jiva and the world. You cannot get the whole of the bel fruit if you take away seeds and its shell.

-- The Kathamrita, Volume I, Section XIII, Chapter Nine

I Have Not Said

"I have not said that a Guru is not necessary. But a Guru need not always be in human form. First a person thinks that he is an inferior and that there is a superior, all-knowing, all powerful God who controls his own and the world's destiny and worships him or does Bhakti. When he reaches a certain stage and becomes fit for enlightenment, the same God whom he was worshipping comes as Guru and leads him on. That Guru comes only to tell him 'That God is within yourself. Dive within and realize'. God, Guru and the Self are the same."

-- Ramana Maharshi

The Road of the Heart

"Some of the God-fire in your heart must have rubbed off on your letter I received last evening. I read it to Baba and the look on His face was very deep. His message for you is that you are very fortunate to experience this Love and that you should, "Plunge in, unafraid."

It immediately brought to my mind something Baba told us one evening just before the accident and made us repeat it a few times. It is the lines of an Urdu couplet by a mystic poet: "Understand well this Love is no joke; it is an Ocean of Fire in which you have to plunge deep and drown yourself."

The road of the mind is narrow, and for a dnyani (seeker) it is a long journey. The road of the heart, however, has no limits and it's the most direct to God. For the dnyani there are a thousand questions to all of which the bhakti (lover) has one answer — and it is all-sufficient and satisfying."

-- Mani Irani

Secret Dharma

The secret to Buddhism is the secret of bhakti.

Wisdom and Love

I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says "I am everything". Wisdom says "I am nothing". Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both.

-- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Questions to Swami Premanandaji Saraswati

Q. A question was put about a quartet of Sri Ramacharitmanas and replied by Swamiji Maharaj purporting to point out that according to Sant Tulsidas, devotion to God is as easy and enjoyable as taking a morsel to the mouth and eating it. Food gives satisfaction and strength and removes hunger. So devotion to God gives contentment and confidence and removes attachment to the world. In the path of jnana, one has to renounce everything. In bhakti, a devotee can progress on the spiritual path without giving up attachment—but the attachment should be to God alone. Once you completely surrender to God, He looks after all your needs.

The Third Skull

Once a rakshasa (demon) came to a king’s court with three skulls and threatened to eat the king unless he could correctly point out which was the best skull out of the three. The king asked three days’ time, and the demon agreed. Then the king asked his court pundits as to which of them was the best. None could say anything since all the three resembled outwardly all alike.

One intelligent pundit came and passed a rod through one ear of the first skull, and the rod went straight through the other ear.

Then he made the rod pass through the second skull. In this case, the rod, inserted through one ear, came out of the mouth.

Then the rod was made to pass through the third skull. When inserted through one ear, the rod went right into the chest.

The court-pundit remarked that the third skull was the best.

-- Sri Swami Chidananda

Joke of the Day

Q: What do you get when you cross a Baptist with a Shakta?
A: I don't know. What do you get when you cross a Baptist with a Shakta?
Q: A Bhakta!

I See Arjuna's Chariot

Chaitanyadeva, in the course of his pilgrimage through South India, came across a person reading the Gita. Another man sat a little away from him, listening and shedding tears. How bitterly he was weeping! Chaitanyadeva asked him, ‘Do you understand all this?’ He replied, ‘No, Master, I do not understand these verses.’ Chaitanyadeva then asked why he was in tears. The devotee said, ‘I see Arjuna’s chariot; in it the Lord and Arjuna are talking. This is what fills my eyes with tears of joy and love.'
-- Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, Vol. III, Section I, Chapter IV