Q & A (reformatted)

[Guest guest]

(Sorry for the poor formatting of the previous mail.)

 

Excerpts of an address given by Srimat Swami Gahananandaji Mahraj at

the curtain raiser function of the 9 day festival of the consecration

of the Universal Temple at Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai. The

address was given on 5th February 2000. The text below is not verbatim,

but I hope it conveys the spirit. (The text below is from the Gospel

of Sri Ramakrishna.)

 

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The message of Sri Ramakrishna to the common man is found in the conversation

during the second visit of M. to Dakshineshwar.

 

M.: How ought we to live in the world ?

 

Master: Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Live will all - with

wife and children, father and mother - and serve them. Treat them as

if they were very dear to you, but know in your heart of hearts that

they do not belong to you.

 

A maidservant in the house of a rich man performs all the household

duties, but her thoughts are fixed on her own house in her native

village. She brings up her master's children as if they were her own.

She even speaks of them as 'my Rama' or 'my Hari'. But in her own

mind she knows very well that they do not belong to her at all.

 

M.: How, sir, may we fix our minds on God ?

 

Master: Repeat God's name and sing His glories, and keep holy company; and

now and then visit God's devotees and holy men. The mind cannot dwell

on God if it is immersed day and night in worldliness, in worldly

duties and responsibilities; it is most necessary to go into solitude

now and then, and think of God. To fix the mind on God is very

difficult, in the beginning, unless one practices meditation in

solitute. When a tree is young it should be fenced all around;

otherwise it may be destroyed by cattle.

 

To meditate, you should withdraw within yourself or retire to a

secluded corner or to the forest. And you should always discriminate

between the real and unreal. God alone is real, the Eternal Substance;

all else is unreal, that is, impermanent. By discriminating thus, one

should shake off impermanent objects from the mind.

 

M.: Is it possible to SEE God ?

 

Master: Yes, certainly. Living in solitute now and then, repeating God's name

and singing His glories, and discriminating between the Real and the

unreal - these are the means to employ to see Him.

 

M.: Under what conditions does one see God ?

 

Master: Cry to the Lord with an intensely yearning heart and you will

certainly see Him. People shed a whole jug of tears for wife and

children. They swim in tears for money. But who weeps for God ? Cry

to him with a real cry.

 

Longing is like the rosy dawn. After the dawn out comes the sun.

Longing is followed by the vision of God.

 

God reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the

combined force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly

possessions for the worldly man, the child's attraction for its mother

and the husband's attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn

to Him by the combined force of these three attractions then through

it, one can attain Him.

 

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