The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - 6

[Guest guest]

Dear Spiritial Brothers and Sisters,

 

I have extracted few significant teachings (to the

best of my capability) from "The Gospel of Sri

Ramakrishna" (Abridged Edition). Here, I place the

sixth part - In the Company of Devotees.

 

 

6. In the Company of Devotees

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* There are certain signs of God-realization. A man

who longs for God is not far from attaining Him. What

are the outer indications of such longing? They are

discrimination, dispassion, compassion for living

beings, serving holy men, loving their company,

chanting God's name and glories, telling the truth,

and the like.

 

* How can one develop love for God? Repeat His name,

and sins will disappear.

 

* As is a man's feeling, so is his gain.

 

* The Lord looks into a man's heart and does not judge

him by what he does or where he lives.

 

* The way is - attachment to God, or, in other words,

love for Him; and secondly, prayer.

 

* One must always chant God's name and glories and

pray to Him.

 

* One must practise discrimination and renunciation;

one must be conscious of the unreality of the world.

 

* Those who have not yet come to the end of their

enjoyments should not renounce the world.

 

* Dispassion is not possible unless there is satiety

through enjoyment.

 

* After having the vision of God, man is empowered

with bliss.

 

* Under the spell of God's maya, man forgets his true

nature. This divine maya is made up of three gunas.

And all three are robbers; for they rob man of all his

treasures and make him forget his true nature. The

three gunas are sattva, rajas, and tamas. Of these,

sattva alone points the way to God. But even sattva

cannot take a man to God.

 

* One cannot attain the Knowledge of Brahman unless

one transcends the three gunas.

 

* I found maidens to be the embodiments of the Divine

Mother Herself.

 

* If the devotee practises spiritual discipline a

little, the guru explains everything to him. Then the

disciple understands for himself what is real and what

is unreal.

 

* Even after attaining Knowledge through the guru's

grace, one can very well live in the world as a

jivanmukta.

 

* One is aware of pleasure and pain, birth and death,

disease and grief, as long as one is identified with

the body. All these belong to the body alone, and not

to the Soul.

 

* Attaining Self-Knowledge, one looks on pleasure and

pain, birth and death, as a dream.

 

* It is good to meditate in the small hours of the

morning and at dawn. One should also meditate daily

after dusk.

 

* A guileless man easily realizes God. There are two

paths: the path of righteousness and the path of

wickedness. One should follow the path of

righteousness.

 

* It is enough to believe that all is possible in

God's creation. Never allow the thought to cross your

mind that your ideas are the only true ones and that

those of others are false. Then God will explain

everything.

 

* God has covered all with His maya. He doesn't let us

know anything. Maya is 'woman' (lust) and 'gold'

(greed). He who puts maya aside to see God, can see

Him.

 

* Every man believes he is wise. In reality, all are

ignorant.

 

* Dwell in the truth and you will certainly realize

God.

 

* Some persons must perform selfless work a long time

before they can practise dispassion and direct their

minds to the spiritual ideal. In the end, they too are

absorbed in God.

 

* There is a great deal of difference between

daya-compassion and maya-attachment. Daya is good, but

maya is not. Maya is love for one's relatives, one's

wife, children, brother, sister, nephew, father, and

mother. But daya is the same love for all created

beings without any distinction.

 

* Sattva preserves, rajas creates, and tamas destroys.

 

* "I" and "mine" indicate ignorance. Without

ignorance, one cannot have such a feeling as "I am the

doer".

 

* The "unripe I" makes one feel: "I am the doer. These

are my wife and children. I am a teacher." Renounce

this "unripe I" and keep the "ripe I", which will make

you feel that you are God's servant, His devotee, and

that God is the Doer and you are His instrument.

 

* The ego that feels, 'I am the servant of God and

lover of God' does not injure one.

 

* It is extremely difficult to go beyond the three

gunas. One cannot reach that state without having

realized God.

 

* Man dwells in the realm of maya. Maya does not

permit him to see God. It has made him a victim of

ignorance.

 

* Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory.

Nothing exists, in reality, except Brahman. But there

is an appearance of the manifold because of maya,

egotism.

 

* After realizing God, one does not identify oneself

any more with the body. Then one knows that body and

soul are two different things.

 

* When you see a man doing great works, you may know

that God's special power is manifested through him.

 

* After realizing God, one sees Him in all beings.

 

* Many spiritual emotions have passed through your

body; therefore it has fallen ill. At the time, an

emotion is aroused, one understands very little about

it. The blow that it delivers to the body is felt only

after a long while.

 

* The elephant of divine emotion enters the hut of

this body and shatters it to pieces.

 

* The fire of Knowledge at first destroys such enemies

of spiritual life as passion, anger, and so forth.

Then comes the turn of ego. And lastly, a violent

commotion is seen in the physical frame.

 

* A house without light becomes stricken with poverty.

 

 

Love, Light and Peace...

Kumar

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C. P. KUMAR

Scientist 'E1'

National Institute of Hydrology

Jal Vigyan Bhawan

Roorkee - 247667 (Uttaranchal)

INDIA

 

Web Page : http://www.angelfire.com/nh/cpkumar/

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