Sri Ramakrishna: No teacher comes to earth without his own band of faithfuls.

December 27, 2009

Shri Ramakrishna: " No teacher comes to earth without his own band of faithfuls "

(p.149)...He did not wish to die without telling his disciples the last thing

they wanted to know.

With a firmness not of this world he said:

Why am I explaining all I know to you? Because I brought you with me. No teacher

comes to earth without his own band of faithfuls. It is they who understand him

first. Then they explain him to the world. I am telling you all, so that you

will be able to explain without any obscurity and without any magic the

simplicity of truth.... You and I came to earth as a band of minstrels.

Minstrels sing at the door of every house, then depart--no one cares to know

their name. We have sung at the doors of the earth! When we depart, they will

not know our hidden names.... Pain is unavoidable so long as the spirit must

speak through forms. It is the body--the form--that suffers.... One must

renounce matter. If a man sits on a cushion and you want it, you must move him

in order to find it. So must one remove materialism to find spirituality

beneath. In course of time, every one of you will find the Spirit saturating

all. But that comes later...

Here he pointed at a disciple and remarked, " He moves about like a naked sword,

while the one yonder--Hirananda--is docile, but full of the sting of the Spirit;

like a cobra under the charmer's flute--quite docile but the power of the sting

is there. " He was silent for a while and then said quietly, as if making his own

mind clear on the point: " Today I gave you all. I am taking nothing with me. I

am a beggar now. Depend no more on me, nor on any other man. Depend on him. It

is through his power that you will act. Through his power you will do great

kindness to the world. After that is done, you, the minstrels, will return to

the house of song whence you came. "

Sri Ramakrishna, The Face of Silence

Swami Nikhilananda and Dhan Gopal Mukerji

Edited and with an Introduction by Swami Adiswarananda

Foreword by Dhan Gopal Mukerji II

Mahaprasthan or Last Journey, p.149

SkyLight Paths Publishing, Woodstock, Vermont

ISBN 1-59473-115-2

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