Once Krishnakishore asked me, ‘Why have you cast off the sacred thread?’. In those days of God-Vision I felt as if I were passing through the great storm of Aswin and everything had blown away from me. No trace of my old-self was left. I lost all consciousness of the world. I would hardly keep my cloth on my body, not to speak of the sacred thread! I said to Krishnakishore, ‘Ah, you will understand if you happen to be as intoxicated with God as I was.’
And it actually came to pass. He too passed through a God-intoxicated state, when he would repeat only the word ‘Om’ and shut himself alone in his room. His relative thought he was actually mad, and called in a physician, Ram Kaviraj of Natagore came to see him. Krishnakishore said to the physician, ‘Cure me, Sir, of my malady, if you please, but not of my Om’.
Once a holy man came to the bank of Ganges and lived near the bathing ghat at Ariadaha, not far from Dakshineswar. We thought of paying him a visit. I said to Haladhari: ‘Krishnakishore and I are going to see a holy man. Will you come with us?’ Haladhari replied, ‘What is the use of seeing a mere human body, which is no better than a cage of clay?’ Haladhari was a student of Gita and Vedanta philosphy, and therefore referred the holy man as a mere ‘cage of clay’. I repeated this to Krishnakishore. With great anger he said: ‘How impudent of Haladhari to make such a remark! How can he ridicule as a ‘cage of clay’ the body of a man who constantly thinks of God, who meditates on Rama, and renounced all for the sake of the Lord? Doesn’t he know that such a man is the embodiment of spirit?’ He was so upset by Haladhari’s remarks that he would turn his face away from him whenever he met him in the temple garden, and stopped speaking to him.
Master Said: After I had experienced samadhi, my mind craved intensely to hear only about God. I would always search for places where they were reciting or explaining the sacred books, such as Bhagavata, the Mahabharata, and the Adhyatma Ramayana. I used to go to Krishnakishore to hear him read Adhyatama Ramayana.
What tremendous faith Krishnakishore had! Once, while at Vrindavan, he felt thirsty and went to a well. Near it he saw a man standing. On being asked to draw a little water for him, the man said: “I belong to low caste, sir. You are Brahmin. How can a draw water for you?”. Krishnakishore said: ‘Take the name of Siva. By repeating his holy name you will make yourself pure’. The Low caste man did as he was told, and Krishnakishore, orthodox Brahmin that he was, drank that water. What a tremendous faith!
Shakti alone the root of the Universe. That primal energy has two aspects; vidya and avidya. Avidya deludes. Avidya conjures up, ‘woman and gold’, which casts the spell. Vidya begets devotion, kindness, wisdom and love, which leads one to God. This avidya must be propitiated, and that is the purpose of the rites of Sakti workship.
The devotee assumes various attitude toward Sakti in order to propitiate Her; the attitude of the handmaid, a ‘hero’, or a child. A hero’s attitude is to please Her even as a man pleases a woman through intercourse.
The worship of the Sakti is extremely difficult. It is no joke. I passed two year as a handmaid and companion of the Divine Mother. But my natural attitude has always been that of a child toward his mother. I regard the breast of any woman as those of my own mother.
Women are, all of them, the veritable images of Sakti. In the Northwest India the bride holds a knife in her hand at the time of marriage; in Bengal, a nut-cutter. The meaning is the bridegroom with the help of bride, who is the embodiment of the Divine power, will sever the bondage of illusion. This is the ‘heroic’ attitude. I never worship the Divine Mother that way. My attitude toward Her is that of a child toward its Mother.
The bride is the very embodiment of Sakti. Haven’t you noticed at the marriage ceremony, how groom sits behind like an idiot ? But the bride- she is so Bold!.
After attaining God one forgets His external splendors, the glories of his creation. One does not think of God’s glories after he has seen him. The devotee, once immersed in God’s bliss, doesn’t calculate anymore about outer things. When I see Narendra, I don’t need to ask him: ‘Whats your name? Where do you live ? Where is the time for such questions ? Once a mas asked Hanuman which day of the fortnight it was. “Brother,” said Hanuman, “I don’t know anything of the day of the week, or the fortnight, or the position of the stars. I think of Rama alone.”
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 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 re severed.
One must propitiate the Divine Mother, the Primal Energy, in order to obtain the God’s grace. God Himself is Mahamaya, who deludes the world with her illusion and conjures up with the magic of creation, preservation and destruction. She has spread this veil of ignorance before your eyes. We can go into the inner chamber only when She lets us pass through the door. Living outside we only see other objects, but not that Eternal Being. Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Therefore it is stated in the Purana that dieties like Brahma praised Mahamaya for the destruction of the demons Madhu and Kaitabha.
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: It is through God’s grace that you understood that. The doubt of the mind will not disappear without His grace. Doubts do not disappear without self realization.
But one need not fear anything if he 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 fear if the father holds the child’s hand. The man does not have to suffer anymore 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 practice spiritual discipline. The mother feels compassion for his child when she sees him running about breathlessly. She has been hiding herself; now she appears before the child.
God cannot be seen with these physical eyes. In the course of spiritual discipline one gets a ‘love body’, endowed with ‘love eyes’, ‘love ear’, and so on. One see God with those love eyes. One hears the sound of God with those ‘love ears’. One even gets a sexual organ made of love.
‘With this love body’ the sould communes with God.
But this is not possible without intense love of God. One sees nothing but God everywhere when he loves him with the great intensity. It is like a person with jaundice, who sees everything in yellow. Then one feels, ‘I am verily He’.
‘A drunkard, deeply intoxicated, says, “Verily I am Kali!”. The gopis, intoxicated with love, exclaimed, “Verily I am Krishna”.
One who thinks of God day and night, behold him everywhere. It is like a man seeing flames on all sides after he has gazed fixedly at one flame for some time.
One does not lose consciousness by thinking of Him who is all spirit, all Consciousness. Shivnath 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?’
In order to realize God, one must assume one of these attitude : santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, or madhur.
Santa, the serene attitude. The rishi in the olden time had this attitude toward God. They did not desire any worldly enjoyment. It is like the single minded devotion of wife to her husband. She knows that her husband is the embodiment of beauty and love, a veritable madan.
Dasya, the attitude of the servant toward the master. Hanuman had this attitude toward Rama. He felt the strength of a lion when he worked for Rama. A wife feel this mood also. She served her husband with all her heart and soul. A mother also has a little of this attitude, as Yashoda had for Krishna.
Sakhya, the attitude of friendship. Friends say to one another. ‘Come here and sit near me’. Sridama and other friends sometime fed Krishna with fruits, part of which they had already eaten, and sometime climbed on his shoulders.
Vatsalya, the attitude of a mother toward her child. This is Yasoda’s attitude toward Krishna. The wife, too, has a little of this. She feeds her husband with her very life-blood, as it were. The mother feels happy only when child has eaten to his heart’s content. Yasoda will roam around with butter in her hand, in order to feed Krishna.
Madhur, the attitude of a woman toward he paramour. Radha had this attitude toward Krishna. The wife also feels it for her husband. This attitude includes all the other four.
According to Vaishnavas the aspirant and the seers of God may be divided into different groups. These are the pravartaka, the sadhaka, the siddha and the siddha of the siddha. He who has just set foot on the path may be called a pravartaka. He may be called sadhaka who has for some time been practicing spiritual disciplines, such as worship, japa, meditation and the chanting of God’s name and glories. He may be called a siddha, who has know from his inner experience that God exists.
An analogy is given in Vedanta to explain this. The master of the house is asleep in the dark room. Someone is groping in the darkness to find him. He touches the couch and says, “No, it is not he”. He touches the window and says, “No, it is not he”. This is known in Vedanta as the process of “Neti, Neti”, ‘Not this, Not this’. At last his hands touches the master’s body and he exclaims, ‘Here he is!’. In other words he is now conscious of the ‘existence’ of the master. He has found him, but he doesn’t yet know him intimately.
There is another type, known as the Siddha of siddha, the supremely perfect. It is quite a different thing when one talks to the master intimately, when one knows God very intimately through love and devotion. A siddha has undoubtedly attained God, but the ‘Supremely Perfect’ has know God very intimately.
“The blossom drops off when the fruit appears. One doesn’t have to do one’s duty after the attainment of God, nor does one feel like doing it then.”
“If a drunkard takes too much liquor he cannot retain consciousness. If he takes only two or three glasses, he can go on with his work. As you advance nearer and nearer to God, He will reduce your activities little by little, Have no fear.”
“Finish the few duties you have at hand, and then you will have peace. When the mistress of the house goes to bathe after finishing her cooking and other household duties, she won’t come back, however you may shout after her.”