RELIGION AND REALIZATION BY DIAMOND PICKED UP IN THE STREET

The Master with Sri Keshab

At

Dakshineswar and other places.

Saturday, January 1, 1881

(Henceforth Shri Ramkrishna will be spoken of as Thakur” when required as it is so done in the Gospel )

537. “Why so? Can’t you sleep without the smell of the fish-basket? Once, at night, a fish-wife became a guest at the house of a gardener. She was lodged to sleep in the room where flowers were stored and she could not lull herself to sleep. She commenced fidgeting. The flower-maid marked it and asked, ‘Hello! What’s up? What keeps you awake’? The fish-wife replied, ‘Well mummy, this smell of the flowers hinders the sleep. Can’t you get me my fish-basket’? Then a little water was sprinkled on the fish-basket, it gave off smell of fish and she fell fast asleep”.

Fish-basket – The lower zone of the three planes: –

a) Organ of evacuation,

b) Organ of generation,

c) and the navel.

It is the head-quarter of Tama-Guna which denotes dullness and inertia. One of the foremost insignia of Tamas is heavy sleep.

Fish-wife – is Avidyamaya or the Maya of ignorance. In some cases she assumes form and is seen by the aspirants.

Guest – Ego or ‘I’.

House – temple or church or mosque or synagogue – the human body.

Gardener – God in the body. Sri Krishna is called the gardener of the forest, Vanamali, and Vana is forest, i.e. body. It is so compared as ‘I’ in the body has lost his way in the forest. It is only the Gardener’s grace which can set a man aright and lead one in the right path.

Room where flowers were stored – It is the seventh plane or the cerebrum and here only divinity reigns Supreme – Sattva-Guna.

Flowers – Cells in the brain – they are so seen by the aspirants. Flowers of various kinds are seen and it expresses divinity occupying the cells in place of the animality. Lotus is the best insignia and then comes rose.

Could not lull herself to sleep – When one reaches the seventh plane Sattva Guna prevails and he loses sleep.

Flower-maid – Vidyamaya – the Maya of knowledge.

Water – (here in the metaphor) indicates Pranamaya Kosha where Life Power at the outset is seen like bluish gurgling water. The test is that one comes down to the lower zone where Tama-Guna pervades and the outcome is sound sleep.

Of course there is another rough sense that runs in the under-current of the metaphor. Sri Keshab has got his wife and he will get a sleep in the company of his wife.

Saturday, December 10, 1881.

538. “Now you see, it is due to her undivided devotion to her man-the-preceptor she saw Narayana (God with form and with four hands – a creation of imagination) and she showed Narayana to the Guru (Preceptor)”.

It is not the seeing of God.

It is a realization of the sixth plane.

Even in the case, God took pity to her earnest yearning, gave His grace and the realization of the sixth plane came upon her and she in her turn, gave her grace to the preceptor and he also saw Narayana.

The episode of the widow with the pot of endless curd and her guru bears a different character.

Thakur’s version runs thus: it is Guru, God-the-Preceptor, who shows the disciple his (disciple’s) Ishta – or an imaginary form of God and merges into the form. No guru or man-the-preceptor can do it.

Here it reveals that of one makes a man-guru then it turns out that the disciple may see Ishta – God-with-Form (if God takes pity and gives His grace) and if he (disciple) gives his grace to the preceptor then the guru may see the Ishta. In other words, the disciple becomes guru and man-the-preceptor takes the place of the disciple. Rather, it is a warning to the ‘gurus’ that being a man if you play the role of a guru, then your fate is sealed; nay, you are doomed.

There is no man to play the role of a Guru in the Universalism as it is ‘One and Oneness’. Very simple and plain is the method. A man becomes Brahma through spontaneity; numberless people will see Him within and become ‘One’ with ‘Him’ in the Atmic (spiritual) sphere and the ‘seeing of Him’ also comes automatically. A mango tree is grown. Not only the owner enjoys the mangoes but thousand others enjoy the mangoes.