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RAMAK/?/SHiVA 
 
 HIS LIFE AND SAYINGS 
 
OjtfotS 
 
 HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
RAMAK7?/SHi\^A 
 
 HIS LIFE AND SAYINGS 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. F. MAX MULLER, K.M. 
 
 FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE 
 FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 18^9 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The name of Ritnakrishna. has lately been so often 
 mentioned in Indian, American, and English news- 
 papers that a fuller account of his life and doctrine 
 seemed to me likely to be welcome, not only to the 
 many who take an interest in the intellectual and 
 moral state of India, but to the few also to whom the 
 growth of philosophy and religion, whether at home or 
 abroad, can never be a matter of indifference. I have 
 therefore tried to collect as much information as I could 
 about this lately-deceased Indian Saint (died in 1886), 
 partly from his own devoted disciples, partly from 
 Indian newspapers, journals, and books in which the 
 principal events of his life were chronicled, and his 
 moral and religious teaching described and discussed, 
 whether in a friendly or unfriendly spirit. 
 
 Whatever may be said about the aberrations of 
 the Indian ascetics to whom Rdmaky«sh«a belonged, 
 
 as 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 there are certainly some of them who deserve our 
 interest, nay even our warmest sympathy. The tor- 
 tures which some of them, who hardly deserve to be 
 called SaMnyisins, for they are not much better than 
 jugglers or Ha/-^ayogins, inflict on themselves, the 
 ascetic methods by which they try to subdue and 
 annihilate their passions, and bring themselves to 
 a state of extreme nervous exaltation accompanied 
 by trances or fainting fits of long duration, are well 
 known to all who have lived in India and have 
 become acquainted there not only with Rajahs and 
 MahSrijahs, but with all, the various elements that 
 constitute the complicated system of Indian society. 
 Though some of the stories told of these martyrs 
 of the flesh and of the spirit may be exaggerated, 
 enough remains of real facts to rouse at all events 
 our curiosity. When some of the true SumnyAsms, 
 however, devote their thoughts and meditations to 
 philosophical and religious problems, their utterances, 
 which sway large multitudes that gather round them 
 in their own country, cannot fail to engage our 
 attention and sympathy, particularly if, as in the 
 case of RSmakreshwa, their doctrines are being spread 
 by zealous advocates not only in India, but in 
 America also, nay even in England. 
 
 We need not fear that the Saw^nyasins of India will 
 ever find followers or imitators in Europe, nor would 
 it be at all desirable that they should, not even for 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 the sake of Psychic Research, or for experiments in 
 Physico-psychological Laboratories. But apart from 
 that, a better knowledge of the teachings of one 
 of them seems certainly desirable, whether for the 
 statesmen who have to deal with the various classes of 
 Indian society, or for the missionaries who are anxious 
 to understand and to influence the inhabitants of that 
 country, or lastly for the students of philosophy and 
 religion who ought to know how the most ancient 
 philosophy of the world, the Vedinta, is taught at the 
 present day by the Bhaktas, that is 'the friends and 
 devoted lovers of God,' and continues to exercise its 
 powerful influence, not only on a few philosophers, but 
 on the large masses of what has always been called 
 a country of philosophers. A country permeated by 
 such thoughts as were uttered by Ramakrzshwa cannot 
 possibly be looked upon as a country of ignorant 
 idolaters to be converted by the same methods which 
 are applicable to the races of Central Africa. 
 
 As the Vedclnta forms the background of the sayings 
 of Kkmakrishna., I thought it useful to add a short 
 sketch of some of the most characteristic doctrines of 
 that philosophy. Without it, many readers would 
 hardly be able to understand the ideals of RSma- 
 knsh«a and his disciples. 
 
 I am quite aware that some of his sayings may sound 
 strange to our ears, nay even ofliensive. Thus the 
 conception of the Deity as the Divine Mother is apt to 
 
Vlll - PREFACE. 
 
 startle us, but we can understand what R^makn'sh«a 
 really meant by it, when we read his saying (No. 89) : 
 
 ' Why does the God-lover find such pleasure in address- 
 ing the Deity as Mother ? Because the child is more free 
 with its mother, and consequently she is dearer to the child 
 than any one else.' 
 
 Sometimes the language which these Hindu devotees 
 use of the Deity must appear to us too familiar, nay 
 even irreverent. They themselves seem to be aware 
 of this and say in excuse : 
 
 'A true devotee who has drunk deep of Divine Love 
 is like a veritable drunkard, and, as such, cannot always 
 observe the rules of propriety ' (104). 
 
 Or again : 
 
 ' What is the strength of a devotee ? He is a child of 
 God, and tears are his greatest strength ' (92). 
 
 Unless we remember that harem means originally 
 no more than a sacred and guarded place, the follow- 
 ing saying will certainly jar on our ears : 
 
 ' The Knowledge of God may be likened to a man, while 
 the Love of God is like a woman. Knowledge has entry 
 only up to the outer rooms of God, but no one can enter 
 into the inner mysteries of God save a lover, for a woman 
 has access even into the harem of the Almighty ' (172). 
 
 How deep RSmakr«sh«a has seen into the mysteries 
 of knowledge and love of God, we see from the next 
 saying : 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 ' Knowledge and love of God are ultimately one and the 
 same. There is no difference between pure knowledge and 
 pure love.' 
 
 The following utterances also show the exalted 
 nature of his faith : 
 
 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, that he who yearns for 
 God, finds Him ' (159). 
 
 ' He who has faith has all, and he who wants faith wants 
 all ' (201). 
 
 ' So long as one does not become simple like a child, 
 one does not get Divine illumination. Forget all the 
 worldly knowledge that thou hast acquired, and become as 
 ignorant about it as a child, and then thou wilt get the 
 knowledge of the True ' (241). 
 
 ' Where does the strength of an aspirant lie ? It is in 
 his tears. As a mother gives her consent to fulfil the desire 
 of her importunately weeping child, so God vouchsafes to 
 His weeping son whatever he is crying for ' (306). 
 
 ' As a lamp does not burn without oil, so a man cannot 
 live without God' (288). 
 
 ' God is in all men, but all men are not in God : that is 
 the reason why they suffer' (215). 
 
 From such sayings we learn that though the real 
 presence of the Divine in nature and in the human 
 soul was nowhere felt so strongly and so universally 
 as in India, and though the fervent love of God, nay 
 the sense of complete absorption in the Godhead, 
 has nowhere found a stronger and more eloquent ex- 
 pression than in the utterances of Kkmakrishna., yet 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 he perfectly knew the barriers that separate divine 
 and human nature. 
 
 If we remember that these utterances of Rima- 
 krishna, reveal to us not only his own thoughts, but 
 the faith and hope of millions of human beings, we 
 may indeed feel hopeful about the future of that 
 country. The consciousness of the Divine in man is 
 there, and is shared by all, even by those who seem to 
 worship idols. This constant sense of the presence of 
 God is indeed the common ground on which we may 
 hope that in time not too distant the great temple of 
 the future will be erected, in which Hindus and non- 
 Hindus may join hands and hearts in worshipping the 
 same Supreme Spirit — who is not far from every one 
 of us, for in Him we live and move and have our 
 being. 
 
 F. M. M. 
 
 IGHTHAM Mote, 
 Oct. i8, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 1-97 
 
 The Mahatmans i 
 
 The Four Stages of Life 3 
 
 SamnySsins or Saints 6 
 
 Ascetic Exercises or Yoga 8 
 
 RSmakrzshna . 10 
 
 DaySnanda Sarasvati 12 
 
 PawSri Baba . 13 
 
 Debendranath Tagore . 16 
 
 Rai ShaligrSm Saheb Bahadur .... 20 
 
 RSmakWsh»a 23 
 
 The Dialogic Process 25 
 
 RSmalo^sh«a's Life 30 
 
 Remarks on Ramalcr2sh»a's Life .... 59 
 
 Mozoomdar's Judgement .... . 61 
 
 RSmakrzshwa's Language 62 
 
 RSmalcrsshwa's Wife 64 
 
 RSmak?-2sh»a's Influence on Keshub Chunder Sen . 66 
 
 Ved&nta-philosophy 69 
 
 Ekam advitlyam. One without a Second . . 74 
 
 rvSiBi aeavrSv 80 
 
 Final Conclusion, Tat tvamasi 91 
 
 Remarks on the Sayings 95 
 
 The Sayings of Ramaicb/sh^a 98-187 
 
 Index to the Sayings 189-200 
 
THE LIFE AND SAYINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 rAmak/?/sh7va 
 
 The MaMtmaus. 
 
 It is not many years since I felt called upon to say 
 a few words on certain religious movements now going on 
 in India, which seemed to me to have been very much 
 misrepresented and misunderstood at home. To people 
 who are unacquainted with the religious state of India, 
 whether modern or ancient, and ignorant of the systems 
 of philosophy prevalent in what has often, and not unjustly, 
 been called a country of philosophers, it is very difficult to 
 understand these movements, more particularly to distin- 
 guish between their leaders, who may be open to criticism, 
 and the ideas themselves by which they feel inspired, and 
 which they preachy often with great eloquence, to the 
 multitudes that believe in them and follow them. My 
 article, entitled 'A Real Mahitman,' appeared in the 
 August number, 1896, of the Nineteenth Century, and 
 gave rise to a good deal of controversy both in India 
 and in England. My object was twofold: I wished to 
 
 B 
 
2 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RA.UAKRISHNA. 
 
 protest against the wild and overcharged accounts of Saints 
 and Sages living and teaching at present in India which 
 had been pubUshed and scattered broadcast in Indian, 
 American, and English papers, and I wished to show at 
 the same time that behind such strange names as Indian 
 Theosophy, and Esoteric Buddhism and all the rest, there 
 was something real, something worth knowing, worth know- 
 ing even for us, the students of Plato and Aristotle, Kant 
 and Hegelj in Europe. What happens so often to people 
 whose powers of admiration are in excess of their know- 
 ledge and discretion, has happened to the admirers of 
 certain Hindu sages. They thought they had been the 
 first to discover and unearth these Indian Mahitmans, 
 whom they credited not only with a profound knowledge 
 of ancient or even primeval wisdom, but with superhuman 
 powers exhibited generally in the performance of very silly 
 miracles. Not knowing what had long been known to 
 every student of Sanskrit philology, they were carried away 
 by the idea that they had found in India quite a new race 
 of human beings, who had gone through a number of the 
 most fearful ascetic exercises, had retired from the world, 
 and had gained great popularity among low and high by 
 their preachings and teachings, by their abstemious life, 
 by their stirring eloquence, and by the power ascribed to 
 them of working miracles. MahStman, however, is but 
 one of the many names by which these people have long 
 been known. Mahatman means literally great-souled, 
 then high-minded, noble, and all the rest. It is often 
 used simply as a complimentary term, much as we use 
 
THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE. 3 
 
 reverend or honourable, but it has also been accepted as 
 a technical term, applied to a class of men who in the 
 ancient language of India are well known to us by their 
 name of Sawznyisin. SawznySsin means literally one who 
 has laid down or surrendered everything, that is, one 
 who has abandoned all worldly affections and desires. 
 'He is to be known as a Sa»2nyasin,' we read in the 
 Bhagavad-gita V, 3, 'who does not hate and does not 
 love anything.' 
 
 The Four Stages of Life. 
 
 The life of a BrShman was, according to the Laws of 
 Manu, divided into four periods or Axramas, that of 
 a pupil or BrahmaHrin, that of a householder or 
 G«hastha, of an ascetic or Vdnaprastha, and of a 
 hermit or Yati^ The first and second stages are clear 
 enough; they represent the scholastic and the married 
 stages of a man's life, the former regulated by the strictest 
 rules as to obedience, chastity, and study, the second 
 devoted to all the duties of a married man, including the 
 duty of performing sacrifices, both public and private. 
 The names of ascetic and hermit for the third and fourth 
 stages are of course approximate renderings only; not 
 having the thing, we have not got the name. But the 
 chief difference between the two seems to be that in the 
 third stage the BrS,hman still keeps to his dwelling in 
 the forest outside his village, and may even be accompanied 
 there by his wife, see his children, and keep up his sacred 
 
 ' Manu VI, 87. 
 B 2 
 
4 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK^/SHJVA. 
 
 fires, performing all the time certain exercises, as enjoined 
 in their sacred books, while in the last stage a man is 
 released from all restrictions, and has to live alone and 
 without any fixed abode'- Some translators have used 
 hermit for the third, and ascetic for the fourth stage. In 
 Sanskrit also there exists a variety of names for these two 
 stages, but the distinctive character of each is clear, the 
 third stage representing a mere retreat firom the world, 
 the fourth a complete surrender of all worldly interests, 
 a cessation of all duties, a sundering of all the fetters of 
 passion and desire, and a life without a fixed abode. The 
 modern MahStmans should therefore be considered as 
 belonging partly to the third, partly to the fourth or last 
 stage. They are what we should call friars or itinerant 
 mendicants, for it is their acknowledged privilege to beg 
 and to live on charity. 
 
 Another name of these SawznySsins was Avadhfita, 
 literally one who has shaken off all attachments, while in 
 the language of the common people they are often called 
 simply Sadhus, or good men. 
 
 It has sometimes been denied that there are any 
 Sa»2nyisins left in India, and in one sense this is true. 
 The whole scheme of life, with its four stages, as traced 
 in the Laws of Manu, seems to ' have been at all times 
 more or less of an ideal scheme, a plan of life such as, 
 according to the aspirations of the Brihmans, it ought to 
 be, but as, taking human nature as it is, it could hardly 
 ever have been all over India. Anyhow, at present, though 
 
 ' Apastamba II, 9, 22, 21, &c. 
 
THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE. 5 
 
 there are men in India who call themselves Sa»«nyasins, 
 and are called Sadhus by the people, they are no longer 
 what Manu meant them to be. They no longer pass 
 through the severe discipline of their studentship, they 
 need no longer have fulfilled all the public and private 
 duties of a married householder, nor have remained for 
 a number of years in the seclusion of their forest dwelling. 
 They seem free at any time of their life to throw off all 
 restraints, if need be, their very clothing, and begin to 
 preach and teach whenever and wherever they can find 
 people willing to listen to them. 
 
 That the rules laid down in Manu's Law-book had often 
 been broken in early times, we learn from the existence of 
 a whole class of people called Vrityas. As far back as 
 the BrShma^a period we read of these Vrityas, outcasts 
 who had not practised brahma,4arya, proper studentship \ 
 but who, if they would only perform certain sacrifices, 
 might be readmitted to all the privileges of the three 
 upper castes. That these VrStyas were originally non- 
 Aryan people is a mere assertion that has often been 
 repeated, but never been proved. The name was technically 
 applied, during the Bi&hmana. period, to Aryan people who 
 had belonged to a certain caste, but who had forfeited 
 their caste-privileges by their own neglect of the duties 
 pertaining to the first stage, brahma-^arya. There were 
 actually three classes of them, according as the forfeiture 
 affected them personally or dated from their parents or 
 grandparents. All the three classes could be readmitted 
 ' Jonm. As. Soc. Bombay, XIX, p. 358 (they use silver coins). 
 
6 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiS/SHiVA. 
 
 after performmg certain sacrifices. In the modern lan- 
 guage vrStya has come to mean no more than naughty 
 or unmanageable. 
 
 It is curious to observe how the Buddhist revolt was 
 mainly based on the argument that if emancipation or 
 spiritual freedom, as enjoyed in the third, and more par- 
 ticularly in the fourth stage, was the highest goal of our 
 life on earth, it was a mistake to wait for it till the very 
 end of life. The Buddhists were in one sense Vratyas who 
 declined to pass through the long and tedious discipline of 
 a pupil, who considered the performance of the duties of 
 a householder, including marriage and endless sacrifices, 
 not only as unprofitable, but as mischievous. Buddha 
 himself had declared against the penances prescribed for 
 the Brdhmanic ascetic as a hindrance rather than as a help 
 to those who wished for perfect freedom, freedom from all 
 passions and desires, and from the many prejudices of 
 Brahmanic society. It seems almost as if the early 
 Buddhists, by adopting the name of Bhikshu, mendicant, 
 for the members of their order (Sawgha), had wished to 
 show that they were all Sawznydsins, carrying out the old 
 BrShmanic principles to their natural conclusion, though 
 they had renounced at the same time the Vedas, the Laws 
 of tradition, and all Brahmanic sacrifices as mere vanity 
 and vexation of spirit. 
 
 Sa^znyftsins or Saints. 
 
 Similar ideas existed already among the Brahman s, and 
 we meet among them, even before the rise of Buddhism, 
 
SAMNYASINS OR SAINTS. 7 
 
 with men who had shaken off all social fetters, who had 
 left their home and family, lived by themselves in forests or 
 in caves, abstained from all material enjoyment, restricted 
 their food and drink to a startling minimum, and often 
 underwent tortures which make us creep when we read 
 of them or see them as represented in pictures and, in 
 modern times, in faithful photographs. Such men were 
 naturally surrounded by a halo of holiness, and they 
 received the little they wanted from those who visited 
 them and who profited by their teaching. Some of these 
 saints, but not many, were scholars, and became teachers 
 of ancient lore. Some, however, and we need not be 
 surprised at it, turned out to be impostors and hypocrites, 
 and brought disgrace on the whole profession. We must 
 not forget that formerly the status of a Sa»znyasin pre- 
 supposed a very serious discipline during the many years 
 of the student and the domestic life. Such discipline 
 might generally be accepted as a warrant for a well- 
 controlled mind and as security against the propensity to 
 self-indulgence, not quite uncommon even in the lives of 
 so-called Saints. When this security is removed, and 
 when anybody at any time of life may proclaim himself 
 a Sawnyasin, the temptations even of a Saint are very 
 much increased. But that there were real Sa»znySsins, and 
 that there are even now men who have completely shaken 
 off the fetters of passion, who have disciplined their body 
 and subdued the imaginations of their mind to a perfectly 
 marvellous extent, cannot be doubted. They are often 
 called Yogins, as having exercised Yoga. 
 
8 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 Ascetic Exercises or Yoga. 
 
 Within certain limits Yoga seems to be an excellent dis- 
 cipline, and, in one sense, we ought all to be Yogins. Yoga, 
 as a technical term, means application, concentration, effort ; 
 the idea that it meant originally union with the deity has long 
 been given up. This Yoga, however, was soon elaborated into 
 an artificial system, and though supplying the means only 
 that are supposed to be helpful for philosophy, it has been 
 elaborated into a complete system of philosophy, the Yoga 
 philosophy ascribed to Pata«^li, a variety of Kapila's 
 SS»«khya-philosophy. As described by Svimin Rama- 
 knsh«inanda in the Brahmav^din, p. 511 seq., it consists, 
 as practised at present, of four kinds — Mantra, Lay a, Ra^a, 
 and Ha^a-yoga. Mantra-yoga consists in repeating 
 a certain word again and again, particularly a word expres- 
 sive of deity, and concentrating all one's thoughts on it. 
 Laya-yoga is the concentration of all our thoughts on 
 a thing or the idea of a thing, so that we become almost 
 one with it. Here again the ideal image of a god, or 
 names expressive of the Godhead, are the best, as pro- 
 ducing absorption in God. Ra^a-yoga consists in con- 
 trolling the breath so as to control the mind. It was 
 observed that when fixing our attention suddenly on any- 
 thing new we hold our breath, and it was supposed there- 
 fore that concentration of the mind would be sure to follow 
 the holding back of the breath, or the PrS«4yima. Ha^^a- 
 yoga is concerned with the general health of the body, and 
 is supposed to produce concentration by certain portions of 
 
ASCETIC EXERCISES OR YOGA. 9 
 
 the body, by fixing the eyes on one point, particularly the 
 tip of the nose, and similar contrivances. All this is fully 
 described in the Yoga-S(itras, a work that gives one the 
 impression of being perfectly honest. No doubt it is 
 difficult to believe all the things which the ancient Yogins 
 are credited with, and the achievements of modern Yogins 
 also are often very startling. I confess I find it equally 
 difficult to believe them or not to believe them. We are 
 told by eye-witnesses and trustworthy witnesses that these 
 Yogins go without food for weeks and months, that they 
 can sit unmoved for any length of time, that they feel no 
 pain, that they can mesmerise with their eyes and read 
 people's thoughts. All this I can beheve, but if the same 
 authorities tell us that Yogins can see the forms of gods 
 and goddesses moving in the sky, or that the ideal God 
 appears before them, that they hear voices from the sky, 
 perceive a divine fragrance, and lastly that they have been 
 seen to sit in the air without any support, I must claim 
 the privilege of St. Thomas a little longer, though I am 
 bound to say that the evidence that has come to me in 
 support of the last achievement is most startling'. 
 
 That what is called a state of Samadhi, or a trance, can 
 be produced by the very means which are employed by the 
 Yogins in India, is, I believe, admitted by medical and 
 psychiatric authorities; and though impostors certainly 
 exist among the Indian Yogins, we should be careful not 
 to treat all these Indian Saints as mere impostors. The 
 temptation, no doubt, is great for people, who are believed 
 ' See also H. Walter, HaMayogapradlpikd, 1893. 
 
lO THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKS/SHiVA. 
 
 to be inspired, to pretend to be what they are beh'eved to be, 
 nay, in the end, not only to pretend, but really to believe what 
 others believe of them. And if they have been brought up 
 in a philosophical atmosphere, or are filled by deep religious 
 feelings, they would very naturally become what the MahSt- 
 mans are described to be — men who can pour out their souls 
 in perfervid eloquence and high-flown poetry, or who are able 
 to enter even on subtle discussions of the great problems 
 of philosophy and answer any questions addressed to them. 
 
 B&maknsh/za. 
 
 Such a man was Ramak«sh«a, who has lately obtained 
 considerable celebrity both in India and America, where his 
 disciples have been actively engaged in preaching his gospel 
 and winning converts to his doctrines, even among Christian 
 audiences. This may seem very strange, nay, almost in- 
 credible to us. But we have only to remember what the 
 religion of large numbers of people consists in who call 
 themselves Christians, without even having had an idea of 
 what Christ really taught or what He was meant for in the 
 history of mankind. There are many who know absolutely 
 nothing either of the history or of the doctrines of Christi- 
 anity, or if they do, they have simply learnt their catechism 
 by heart. They repeat what they have learnt, but without an 
 atom of real faith or love. Yet every human heart has its 
 religious yearnings, it has a hunger for religion which sooner 
 or later wants to be satisfied. Now the religion taught by 
 the disciples of 'BAmakrishna. comes to these hungry souls 
 without any outward authority. So far from being forced on 
 
RX.MAKRISHNA. I I 
 
 them, it is to them at first a heathen and despised religion. 
 If they listen to it at all, it is of their own free will ; and if 
 they believe in any part of it, it is of their own free choice. 
 A chosen religion is always stronger than an inherited religion, 
 and hence we find that converts from one religion to another 
 are generally so zealous for their new faith, while those who 
 never knew what real religion meant are enthusiastic in 
 proclaiming any truths which they seem to have discovered 
 for themselves and to which their heart has yielded a free 
 assent. Hence, though there may be some exaggeration in 
 the number of those who are stated to have become con- 
 verted to the religion of R§.makrishna., and though some 
 who now call themselves converts to the Vedanta may in 
 reality have made but the first step towards real Christianity, 
 there can be no doubt that a religion which can achieve such 
 successes in our time, while it calls itself with perfect truth 
 the oldest religion and philosophy of the world, viz. the 
 Vedanta, the end or highest object of the Veda, deserves our 
 careful attention '. 
 
 Ra.maknsh«a himself never claimed to be the founder 
 of a new religion. He simply preached the old religion of 
 India, which was founded on the Veda, more particularly on 
 the Upanishads, and was systematised later on in the Sfitras 
 of Badarayawa, and finally developed in the commentaries 
 
 ' This is the explanation given of the name of Vedanta. But it is 
 probably an after-thooght. Like other compounds in anta, such as 
 SiddhSnta, Svitranta, &c., it was probably meant at first for no 
 more than the subject-matter of the Veda ; then, as it stands at the end 
 of Brahma»as and Aranyakas, it was explained as end of the Veda, and 
 lastly as the end, i.e. the goal, the highest object of the Veda. 
 
12 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/irSHiVA. 
 
 of Samkara. and others. Even in preaching that religion, 
 and in living the life of a recluse, as he did, Ramak«sh«a 
 by no means claimed to stand alone. There were several 
 leading Vedanta preachers in India during the last fifty 
 years, sometimes called Paramaha»zsas. Keshub Chunder 
 Sen, well known in England and America, who was a great 
 reformer with a strong leaning towards Christianity, was not 
 counted as one of them, because he never passed through 
 the proper discipline and did not live the life of a SawnySsin. 
 But he mentions four among his contemporaries who 
 deserved that title : first, Dayananda Sarasvatt, for a time 
 unfortunately connected with Madame Blavatsky; secondly, 
 Pawiri Baba of Ghazipur; thirdly, the Sikh Nagaji of Doom- 
 raon; and lastly, our Ramak«'sh«a, commonly called the 
 Faramahamsa of Dakshi«esvar. ' These,' he adds, ' are the 
 four ascetic saints whom our friends have from time to time 
 duly honoured, and in whose company they have sought 
 the sanctifying influences of character and example. May 
 we respect,' he continues, ' and serve with profound respect 
 and humility, every ascetic saint whom Providence may 
 bring to us. The impure become pure in the company of 
 Sadhus.' 
 
 Bay&nanda Sarasvatt. 
 
 Of the life of the first, of Dayinanda Sarasvatt, we have 
 very full accounts. He initiated a great reform of BrSh- 
 manism, and seems to have been a liberal-minded man, so far 
 as social reforms were concerned. He also was willing to 
 surrender his belief in the divine revelation of the Br£ihma»as, 
 
dayAnanda sarasvatI. 13 
 
 though he retained it in full strength with regard to the 
 Vedic hymns. He published large commentaries on the 
 Vedas, which show great familiarity with Sanskrit and very 
 wide reading, though at the same time an utter want of critical 
 judgement. He sanctioned the remarriage of widows, sup- 
 ported the movement in favour of raising the marriageable 
 age of boys and girls, and altogether showed himself free 
 from many prejudices as to caste, food, and all the rest. He 
 condemned idolatry and even polytheism. His name became 
 better known in Europe also, from the time that he fell 
 into the net spread for him by Madame Blavatsky. But this 
 lasted for a short time only, and when he perceived what 
 her real objects were, the Sa/wnySsin would have nothing 
 more to say to her. She was not quite the Maitreyi he had 
 expected. He did not know English, she did not know 
 Bengali or Sanskrit ; hence they did not understand each 
 other at first, while later on, as some people said, they 
 understood each other but too well. However that may be, 
 he certainly seems to have been a powerful disputant, his 
 influence became greater and greater, till at last his op- 
 ponents, the orthodox and unchanging Brahmans, were 
 suspected of having poisoned their dangerous rival. He 
 died suddenly, but his followers, under the name of Arya- 
 Samdj, form still a very important and growing sect in 
 India, that keeps aloof from all European influences. 
 
 Fawd;ri Bd^ba. 
 
 The second Saint was Pawiri Baba of Ghazipur. Little 
 is known of him, but his recent death has created a painful 
 
14 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/JZSHiVA. 
 
 sensation all over India. He had lived for about thirty 
 years at Ghazipur, and was venerated as a Saint by the 
 whole native community. The last nine years, however, he 
 had almost entirely withdrawn from the world ', living by 
 himself in a compound surrounded by high walls and 
 protected by a formidable gate. Inside there was a small 
 flower-garden, a well, a small temple, and his own dwelling- 
 house, which consisted of one room. He never allowed the 
 gate to be opened, and no one ever saw him except his 
 younger brother. Once every week or ten days, however, 
 he would come up to the gate and converse for a few 
 moments from within with any one who happened to be 
 there. His younger brother always remained within calling- 
 distance. But though his saintly brother had told him that 
 he could not any longer bear the misery which the Kali-yuga, 
 i. e. the present age, had brought upon India, he little sus- 
 pected what his brothers meant. The venerable man, after 
 taking his usual bath and performing his devotions, seems to 
 have covered his whole body with clarified butter, to have 
 sprinkled himself all over with incense, then to have set 
 fire to the four corners of his lonely house, and when the 
 flames had taken hold of it on all sides, to have deliberately 
 thrown himself into the fire, thus performing his last 
 sacrifice. Before anybody could rescue him, the old man 
 was burnt to ashes, and what remained of him was con- 
 signed with due ceremony to the sacred waters of the 
 Ganges. All this happened only a few months ago. It is 
 always difficult to get an exact account of anything that 
 ' Interpreter, June, 1898. Indian Social Reformer, June 19, 1898. 
 
PAWARI BABA. I 5 
 
 happens in India. The conflagration of the house in which 
 the old Saint had lived for many years cannot be doubted, 
 nor the discovery of his burnt body. But some of his 
 friends, unwillihg to admit his self-immolation, ascribe the 
 fire to an accident, while others consider his voluntary 
 sacrifice as the proper ending to his saintly life. 
 
 His name Pawari, sometimes spelt Pahtri, is explained as 
 a contraction of Pavanahari, he who lives on air. 
 
 His teaching was probably much the same as that of 
 RSmakr«sh«a, but I have not been able to get a more 
 accurate account of it. His position, however, as a Sage 
 and a Saint seems to have been generally recognised, and 
 Keshub Chunder Sen is a sufficient authority for the fact 
 that he well deserved a place by the side of such men 
 as Dayinanda Sarasvatt and R&makrishna.. The people 
 of India evidently distinguish clearly between these professed 
 ascetics and saints on one side, and mere reformers such as 
 Rammohun Roy and Keshub Chunder Sen on the other. 
 They evidently want to see a complete surrender of the 
 world and its pleasures, riches, and honours before they 
 quite believe in the truth and the sincerity of any teachers 
 and reformers. Having undergone severe tortures and 
 penances is likewise an essential condition of Sainthood, 
 and for the crowd at large even the power of working 
 miracles is by no means out of fashion yet as a test of 
 being an inspired sage. 
 
 The best-known name by which some of these sages are 
 called is Paramaha^zsa, a name that hardly lends itself to trans- 
 lation in English. Scholars who like to cavil and raise a smile 
 
1 6 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF ^MAKRISHNA. 
 
 at every custom or tradition of the Hindus, translate it literally 
 by Great Goose, but it would be more faithful to render 
 that ancient title by High-soaring Eagle. Besides, hawsa, 
 though it is the same word as goose, is not the same bird. 
 But though these Paramaha»?sas form an //t'te by themselves, 
 we know how many men there have been and are even 
 now in India who, by the asceticism and saintliness of their 
 lives, deserve a place very near to the Paramahawsas in 
 our estimation. We know how Udayashankar, the Prime 
 Minister of Bhavnagar, tried hard to revive, in his own case, 
 the strict rules of life prescribed for the ancient SawnySsins. 
 The life of Keshub Chunder Sen also, though he was 
 a married man and travelled much and moved in the world, 
 was a life of extreme self-denial, as much as that of any 
 Paramaha»?sa. 
 
 Bebendran&th Tagore. 
 The same apphes to Debendranath Tagore, the friend 
 and constant patron of Keshub Chunder Sen. Though he 
 was the head of a wealthy and influential family, he spent 
 most of his life in retirement from the world, in study, 
 meditation, and contemplation. He has reached now what 
 is considered a very high age in India, eighty-two, and we 
 are glad to hear that he has written an autobiography to be 
 published after his death. As the friend and protector of 
 Keshub Chunder Sen, though for a time separated from him, 
 he has acted a far more important part in the history of the 
 Brahma-Samij than is commonly supposed. The following 
 account of a visit lately paid to him by some members of 
 the Brahma-Samdj will give us an idea of the life of this 
 
DEBENDRANATH TAGORE., I 7 
 
 man. I am in possession of some of his letters, which are 
 very instructive, but which are hardly fit for publication. 
 Some friends who visited him lately give the following 
 account of their interview with the old Saint. 
 
 'We were conducted to the spacious verandah on the 
 second story, where the venerable old man was seated on 
 a chair. We bowed down reverentially and took our seats. 
 The Maharshi was the first to speak. He said : " Since you 
 came here three months ago, my communication with the 
 external world has been much diminished. I see things 
 much less and hear much fewer words. But that is no loss to 
 me. As my dealings with the external world are decreasing, 
 my Yoga with the internal world is rapidly increasing. No 
 effort on my part is now required for communion. I sit 
 by myself and enjoy this company." As he spoke these 
 words his countenance glowed with emotion. 
 
 ' On being asked if he remembered the different occasions 
 on which he selected the verses from the Ved^ntic 
 texts to form the liturgy of the Brihma-Samdj (published 
 by him many years ago), the Saint replied : " I cannot 
 call back to my mind after such a length of time the 
 process through which these texts were brought together 
 from different Upanishads. I have got the essence of these 
 things within me now, and I am enjoying the sweetness 
 thereof. So there is now no. more need for me to go to 
 the texts. I fully agree with you, that from the True and the 
 Intelligent we go to the Infinite person, and that then we find 
 in the Infinite infinite splendours and behold his infinite 
 mercy and other attributes. I might have talked much 
 
 c 
 
1 8 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ7SHiVA. 
 
 with you on these subjects, had you come a short time 
 before this. Now my mind is mostly occupied with things 
 which the eyes see not nor the ears hear, so I shall not be 
 able to talk much with you. ... I have written an account 
 of my life as I have been moved by the Spirit of God, but 
 I do not know of what use it will be. Now I have become 
 quite useless to the world. I have now very little to 
 connect me with the world." When we replied that 
 we did not consider his life to have been in vain, as he 
 had given the world an example of a life lived in and 
 with God, the Maharshi continued, "I am living the life of 
 a recluse, I have no energy left. The energy and earnest- 
 ness you see in me now is roused only by seeing you. 
 Long, long ago, while I was studying the Upanishads, 
 a great light dawned upon my soul and I felt that India 
 would one day worship Brahman, the Only True God. 
 I then badly wanted a companion, a man after my own heart, 
 who would have my feelings and join hands with me. 
 I tried almost all the men of light and leading of the time, 
 but could find none. I then left Calcutta in despair and 
 repaired to the hills. After a two years' stay there, the fall 
 of the river Sutlej suggested to my mind a sacred lesson. 
 I heard a voice urging me to go to Calcutta and resume 
 my holy work. I was so much engrossed with this divine 
 voice that nothing would give me rest. Every object 
 seemed to reverberate the Divine injunction and press me 
 to fulfil the Lord's will. In all haste I came back, and as 
 I came back, Brahmananda (Keshub Chunder Sen) made 
 my acquaintance. I saw at once that he was exactly the 
 
DEBENDRANATH TAGORE. I 9 
 
 right man whom I wanted. I could then discern why 
 I was led by the Spirit to come back to Calcutta. My joy 
 knew no bounds. We passed the greater portion of the 
 nights in conversation about deep spiritual matters, even 
 up to two in the morning. BrahmSnanda even told me 
 that when he would be gone, those whom he would leave 
 behind would express and promote my cause. I find his 
 words are going to be fulfilled now." " Yes," we replied, 
 " that is very true. While our minister was with us in the 
 flesh, we did not realise our nearness unto you so much. 
 Our impression is that the Brahma-Samij has accepted 
 RSja Rammohun Roy, but has not yet accepted you. As 
 you represent Yoga or direct vision of God, the Br3,hma- 
 Samij will not be able to attain to that feature of spirituality, 
 unless it accepts you. The present deplorable state of 
 the BrS.hma-SamSj is owing to its non-acceptance of you." 
 The Maharshi replied : " God has called you to preach the 
 Brahma Dharma to this poor countryof India, and particularly 
 to Bengal — our weak, indigent, and helpless country. As 
 the mother loves her decrepit child more tenderly, so God 
 has shown this greater love to these His poor ones. For 
 this special grace we are peculiarly thankful to God. God 
 has shown special favour to you, and has made you 
 particularly fit for your work. I have published my last 
 work about Paraloka and Mukti, the next world and 
 salvation, in a small volume. I make an offering of it 
 to you.'' After these words the pilgrims departed, much 
 comforted and helped'.' 
 
 '■ Unity and the Minister, 1896, Jnly 12. 
 C 2 
 
20 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKJJ/SH^A. 
 
 I thought that this glimpse at what passes in India 
 within doors, and is but seldom seen or even suspected by 
 those who tell us so much about the palaces, the RSjahs 
 and Maharajahs, the car of Juggernath, the Towers of 
 Silence, or the Caves of EUora, was worth preserving and 
 might interest the true friends of India. 
 
 We have but to open the Indian papers to meet with 
 notices of men who have led the same saintly and God- 
 devoted life as Debendranath Tagore, but who nevertheless 
 have not reached the rank of a Paramahawsa in the eyes of 
 the people of India. It is quite possible that some of them 
 who are venerated as Saints in their own country, would be 
 disposed of as fools or fanatics by European critics. Still 
 they hold their own place in their own country, and they 
 represent a power which ought not to be entirely neglected 
 by the rulers of ' weak, indigent, helpless Bengal.' 
 
 Bai Shaligrd^m Saheb Bahadur. 
 
 One more case and I have done with my imperfect 
 sketch of the stage on which RdmakWshwa appears before 
 us to act his part, together with his fellow-actors who sup- 
 ported and often guided him in his unselfish and devoted 
 endeavours. We read in the Prabuddha Bhirata, May, 
 1898, p. 132 seq., of one Rai ShaligrSm Saheb Bahadur. 
 Saheb Bahadur, who is now about seventy years of age, 
 has spent a very active and useful life as an oiEcial in 
 the Post Office, where he rose to be Postmaster-General 
 of the North- Western Provinces. It seems that the horrors 
 of the mutiny in 1857 made a deep impression on his mind. 
 
RAI SHALIGRAM SAHEB BAHADUR. 21 
 
 He saw thousands of men, women, and children butchered 
 before his eyes, the rich reduced to poverty, the poor raised 
 to unexpected and undeserved wealth, so that the idea of 
 the world's impermanent and transient nature took complete 
 possession of him and estranged him from all that had 
 formerly enlisted his interest and occupied his energies. 
 From his very youth, however, his mind had been filled 
 with religious and philosophical questions, and he is said to 
 have devoted much time from his youth onward through 
 all the years of his official life to the study of the Sacred 
 Scriptures. No wonder therefore that after wrtnessing the 
 horrors of the mutiny and its suppression, he should have 
 wished to flee from this den of misery and to get happiness 
 unalloyed and permanent where alone it could be found. 
 He went to consult several Sa^^znyisins and Yogins, but 
 they could not help him. At last one of his colleagues at 
 the Post Office recommended his elder brother as a spiritual 
 guide who could be trusted. For two years he attended his 
 lectures, compared his teaching with that of the Upanishads 
 and other holy writings, and then became his devoted pupil 
 or Chela. During his stay at Agra he allowed no one else 
 to serve his master. He used to grind the flour for him, to 
 cook his meals, and feed him with his own hands. Every 
 morning he could be seen carrying a pitcher of pure water 
 on his head for the Guru to bathe in, which he fetched 
 from a place two miles distant. His monthly salary also 
 was handed over to the Saint, who used it for the support of 
 his pupils, wife and children, and spent the rest in charity. 
 All his home affairs were superintended by his Guru, and 
 
22 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAUAKRISBNA. 
 
 this was done in spite of the opposition of his castemen 
 who were Kayasthas, and did not approve of one of their 
 caste cooking the Saint's food and eating from his dishes, 
 because the Saint was a member of another caste, that of 
 the Khetris. After some time the pupil wished to retire 
 from the postal service, but the Saint would not allow it. 
 When he, was appointed Postmaster-General of the North- 
 West he fell on his knees before the Saint and begged 
 his permission to retire and enter soul and body into the 
 true spiritual life, but the Saint once more refused, saying 
 that the discharge of his official duties would in no way 
 interfere with his spiritual progress. Accordingly he left 
 Agra, and for many years held his new post at Allahabad, 
 as it is said, with great success, having introduced many 
 reforms and useful changes in the Postal Department. 
 
 It was not till the death of his Guru in 1897 that the 
 Postmaster-General felt himself free and justified in leaving 
 the service. He then became a Guru himself, and im- 
 parted spiritual instruction to those who came to seek for 
 his help. Often those who came to listen to him were 
 so inspired by his teaching that they renounced the world 
 and began to lead the life of Sawznyisins, so that it became 
 a general belief that whoever went to Rai Shaligrim would 
 forsake his family and become an ascetic. Nay, it was said 
 that no one could even look at the lamp burning on 
 the upper story of his house without being influenced to 
 renounce the world, to forsake his relations, and thus to 
 become useless to the community at large. When last 
 heard of the old man was still alive, his house besieged every 
 
RAMAKii/SHiVA. 23 
 
 day by large numbers of persons, both male and female, 
 who flock there from different parts of the country. He 
 holds five meetings day and night for the purpose of im- 
 parting religious instruction, so that he has hardly more 
 than two hours left for sleep. Everybody is welcome, and 
 no distinction is made between Brihman and ^lidra, rich 
 and poor, good and bad. The people are convinced 
 that he can work miracles, but he himself regards such 
 things as unbecoming, and below his dignity. It is said 
 that the late Doctor Makund Lai, Assistant-Surgeon to the 
 Viceroy, was in the habit of sending to him patients who 
 had made themselves senseless by excessive practice of 
 Prd/zSyama, restraint of the breath, and that by a mere look he 
 brought them back to their senses, and taught them that 
 this practice was of little good, and in many cases injurious. 
 
 The few cases mentioned here may suffice to show that 
 'R&.makn'shna. was by no means a solitary instance, and 
 that, however much the old social system of the Four 
 Stages as described by Manu may have changed, there are 
 still SawnySsins in India who live the life of the ancient 
 Sa^znySsins, though of course in different surroundings and 
 under different conditions. These cases are as well authen- 
 ticated as anything that comes to us from India is ever 
 likely to be. If we turned our eyes to the ancient litera- 
 ture of that country, we should see Sa»«nySsins in large 
 numbers, but their performances would probably be con- 
 sidered as fabulous, nor should I venture to say that they 
 
24 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/S/SHiVA. 
 
 are what we mean by well authenticated. The fact, how- 
 ever, that some of these Sa»2nyS.sins reduced themselves by 
 ascetic exercises to mere skeletons ^ or became raving mad- 
 men can hardly be doubted, if we may judge by the warn- 
 ings against such excesses which appear at a very early 
 time in the ancient literature of the country. A well-known 
 instance is that of Buddha himself, who, before he founded 
 his own religion, went through all the tortures of Brdh- 
 manic ascesis, but derived so little benefit from them that 
 he denounced the whole system, as then practised, not 
 only as useless but as mischievous, preferring in all things 
 what he called the via media. 
 
 If now we turn our attention again to the fourth of the 
 Paramahai^sas, recognised by Keshub Chunder Sen as 
 pre-eminent among his contemporaries, we shall feel less 
 surprised by his life and his doctrines, but accept him as 
 one of a class which has always existed in India. We 
 possess indeed full accounts of his life, but they are often so 
 strangely exaggerated, nay so contradictory, that it seemed 
 almost hopeless to form a correct and true idea of his earthly 
 career and his character. I applied therefore to one of his 
 most eminent pupils, Vivekinanda, asking him to write down 
 for me what he could tell of his own knowledge of his 
 venerable teacher, and I received from him a full descrip- 
 tion of his Master's life. It will be easily seen, however, that 
 even this account is not quite free from traditional elements. 
 If I give it as much as possible unaltered, I have a reason for it. 
 
 ' See >■ remarkable instance in Mrs. Flora Annie Steel's 'In the 
 Pennanent Way,' 1898. 
 
THE DIALOGIC PROCESS. 25 
 
 The Dialogic Process. 
 
 Such as it is, it will give us an insight into the way in 
 which a new religion, or rather a new sect, springs up and 
 grows. It will place before our eyes the transformation 
 which mere repetition, conversation, or what is called oral 
 tradition will and must produce in the description of the 
 facts as they really happened. We can watch here what 
 is really a kind of Dialectic Process which is at work in all 
 history, both ancient and modern. This Dialectic Process 
 as applied to the facts of history comprehends all the 
 changes which are inevitably produced by the mere com- 
 munication and interchange of ideas, by the give and take 
 of dialogue, by the turning of thoughts from one side to 
 the other. It is in reality what is called in German the 
 threshing out of<,a subject, a kind of Durchsprechen, or 
 what the Greeks called a speaking forward and backward, 
 or dialogue. Even Hegel's Dialectic Process, the movement 
 of the idea by itself, that leads irresistibly from positive to 
 negative and to conciliation, has its origin in what I should 
 prefer to call by a wider name the Dialogic Process, of the 
 greatest importance in history, both ancient and modern. 
 There is hardly a single fact in history which can escape 
 being modified by this process before it reaches the writer 
 of history. It must be distinguished from the Mytho- 
 logical Process, which forms indeed a part of it, but acts 
 under much more special rules. We can watch the Dialogic 
 Process in Modern History also, though we have here 
 reporters, and newspapers, the autobiographies and remin- 
 
26 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKi?/SHiVA. 
 
 iscences of great statesmen which would seem to render 
 this Dialogic infection impossible or harmless. We can 
 only guess what it must have been in times when neither 
 shorthand nor printing existed, when writing and reading 
 were the privilege of a small class, and when very often 
 two or three generations had passed away before the idea 
 of recording certain facts and certain sayings occurred to 
 a chronicler or a historiographer. It is extraordinary that 
 so many historians should have completely neglected this 
 Dialogic Process through which ever)^hing must pass before 
 it reaches even the first recorder, forgetting that it could 
 never have been absent. How many difficulties would have 
 been solved, how many contradictions explained, nay how 
 many miracles would become perfectly natural and intel- 
 ligible, if historians would only learn this one lesson, that 
 we do not and cannot know of any historical event that has 
 not previously passed through this Dialogic Process. 
 
 Let us take so recent an event as the telegram sent from 
 Ems, where I am writing. It was meant to tell the world of 
 the supposed insult which Benedetti had offered to the King 
 of Prussia. That telegram marks one of the most decisive 
 events in modern history, it has really helped to change the 
 whole face of Europe. What do we know of it, even after 
 Bismarck's own confessions, beyond what he thought and 
 spoke in his own mind, beyond what he said to my friend 
 Abeken, who wrote it out and sent it off, beyond what the 
 people in Germany and in France thought of it, said of it, 
 made of it, whether as justifying or condemning the war 
 that sprang out of it. Shall we ever know the ipsissima 
 
THE DIALOGIC PROCESS. 27 
 
 verba of Benedetti, his tone of voice, the tone of voice in 
 the Emperor's reply, the consternation or chuckle when 
 the iron chancellor heard from all parts of Europe the echo 
 of his own words and thoughts. And yet all this happened 
 but yesterday. Benedetti himself has told us what he 
 actually said, what the Emperor replied ; Bismarck himself 
 has told us what he meant when he had the cooked telegram 
 published to all the world. Does the historian know then 
 what really happened, what was intended by the words used 
 by Benedetti, by the Emperor, and by Bismarck ? Here in 
 Ems the very spot is shown where the words were spoken, 
 though opinions vary even on this point. We possess now 
 the version given by the French diplomatist which is totally 
 different from that given by Bismarck, and yet they had 
 passed through one Dialogic Process only, that of the old 
 King in his conversation with Benedetti and in his com- 
 munications with his ministers. Again, every reader of 
 modern history is acquainted with the words put into the 
 mouth of the French officer at Waterloo, La guarde meurt, 
 mats ne se rend pas ; and every reader of French Memoirs 
 knows by this time the real word which is said to have 
 been uttered at that historical moment. How can we 
 ever hope to escape from the transforming power of oral 
 tradition ? 
 
 The changes wrought by that power are of course more 
 or less violent according to circumstances ; entirely absent, 
 I believe, they never are. And nowhere are they more 
 evident than in the accounts which have reached us of 
 the founding of new religions and of their founders. In 
 
28 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rAmAK/J/SHA^A. 
 
 the case of Buddhism, it is well known that some excellent 
 scholars have actually denied that there ever was such 
 a person as the young prince of KapilavSstu, of whose life 
 and doings and sayings we possess fuller accounts than of 
 the founders of any other religion. And let it be remem- 
 bered that no revealed or miraculous character is claimed 
 for Buddha's biographies, nay that Buddha himself rejected 
 any such exceptional claims for himself and for his 
 apostles, being satisfied with having been a man on earth, 
 which, according to him, is the highest form of being in 
 the world, potentially, and is, even in reality, high above 
 all angels and above all gods (devas), such as they were in 
 his time. Atideva, above all gods, is one of the names 
 assigned to Buddha, showing the estimation in which 
 Buddha and in which the gods were held by their followers. 
 This inevitable influence of the Dialogic Process in 
 history cannot be recognised too soon. It will remove 
 endless difficulties by which we are ensnared, endless dis- 
 honesties in which we have ensnared ourselves. If we 
 once understand that after only one day, one week, one 
 year any communication, even a communication given from 
 heaven, must suffer the consequences of this Dialogic Process, 
 must be infected by the breath of human thought and of 
 human weakness, many a self-made difficulty will vanish, 
 many a story distorted by the childish love of the miraculous 
 will regain its true moral character, many a face disguised 
 by a misplaced apotheosis will look upon us again with 
 his truly human, loving, and divine eyes. All honest hearts, 
 whatever religion they may profess, will feel relieved and 
 
THE DIALOGIC PROCESS. 29 
 
 grateful if they once thoroughly understand the dialectic or 
 dialogic working of oral tradition, particularly where it can 
 be traced back to pure and perfectly natural sources. 
 
 It is for this very reason, and because this process can 
 be so seldom watched, but can generally be traced in 
 its later results only, that even this slight sketch of what 
 a disciple of R&makrt'shna., with every wish to be truthful, 
 can tell us of his master, may be of some interest to our- 
 selves both for its own sake and for the light which it throws 
 on the conditions under which every religion has to grow 
 up and to be recorded. Nothing is so human as religion, 
 nothing so much exposed to the frailties inherent in human 
 nature. Whatever the origin of a religion may be supposed 
 to have been, its growth from the very first depends clearly 
 on the recipient soil, that is, on human nature, and to 
 study that human nature as it reacts on religion is one 
 of the most useful lessons of Comparative Theology. 
 
 I had made it as clear as possible to VivekSnanda that 
 the accounts hitherto published of his Master, however 
 edifying they might _ be to his followers, would sound 
 perfectly absurd to European students, that stories of 
 miraculous events in childhood, of apparitions of goddesses 
 (devi) communicating to the Sa»znyisin a knowledge of 
 languages and literatures which, as we know, he never 
 possessed in real life, would simply be thrown away on 
 us poor unbelievers, and that descriptions of miracles per- 
 formed by the Saint, however well authenticated, would 
 produce the very opposite effect of what they were in- 
 tended for. VivekSnanda himself is a man who knows 
 
30 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF HAMAKRISliNA. 
 
 England and America well, and perfectly understood what 
 I meant. Yet even his unvarnished description of his 
 Master discloses here and there the clear traces of what 
 I call the Dialogic Process, and the irrepressible miraculising 
 tendencies of devoted disciples. And I am really glad that 
 it does so, if only it helps to teach us that no historian 
 can ever pretend to do more than to show us what a man 
 or a fact seemed to be to him or to the authorities whom 
 he has to follow, and not what he or it actually was. 
 I have also, as far as I could, consulted another account 
 of the life of Ramalw/sh«a published in the late numbers 
 of the BrahmavS.din. But I am sorry to say that this 
 account stops with No. 19, and has not been continued. 
 
 TLdxaSLkriahn&'B Life. 
 
 'BAvaakrtshna., we are told, was born in the village of 
 KamSrpukar, in the Zillah Hugli, situated about four miles 
 to the west of the Jah3.nSbad subdivision, and thirty-two 
 miles south of Burdwan. His life on earth began on the 
 20th of February, 1833, and ended the i6th of August, 
 1886, I a.m.^ The village in which he was born was 
 inhabited chiefly by people of the lower castes, mostly 
 blacksmiths, Karmakars, or in familiar abbreviation, Ka- 
 mars, and hence called Kamarpukar, with some sprinkling 
 of carpenters, cowherds (Gowalas), husbandmen (Kai- 
 vartas), and oilmen (Telis). His father was the head 
 
 ' Even dates are inaccnrate in the biographical notices of RSma- 
 kfishna, as published in various Indian papers immediately after 
 his death. 
 
RAMAKiJ/SHWA S LIFE. 3 1 
 
 of the only Brahmanic family settled in the village. 
 Though very poor, he would rather starve than stray 
 from the strictest path of Brdhmanical orthodoxy. The 
 original name given to his child was GadSdhara, a name 
 of Vish«u, which means one who holds the club, and it 
 was given him, we are told, on account of a prophetic 
 dream of his father, to whom, while on a pilgrimage 
 to Gya, Vish«u appeared, telling him that he, the deity, 
 would be born as his son. It was later in life that he 
 began to be called BAmakrishna.. We are told, and we 
 could hardly have expected anything else, that his father, 
 whose name was Khudiram ChattopSdhyiya, was a great 
 lover of God, a man pure in mind, handsome of figure, 
 straightforward and independent. Rumour says — and 
 what is rumour but another name for the Dialogic 
 Process of which we spoke — that he possessed super- 
 natural powers, particularly what is called Vak-siddhi, 
 power of speech, which means that everything he told, 
 good or bad, of anybody, would always come to pass. 
 He was highly reverenced by all the people of his village, 
 who stood up whenever they saw him coming, and saluted 
 him, nay who would never talk frivolity in his presence. 
 
 It could hardly have been otherwise than that his mother 
 also, Chandrama«i Devi, was a pattern of simplicity and 
 kindness. We are told that Mathura Ndth, the rich and 
 devoted disciple of her son, came to her once and pressed 
 her to accept a present of a few thousand rupees, but to 
 his astonishment she declined the offer. 
 
 The father proved his independence while still living at 
 
32 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/JJSHiVA. 
 
 Dere, on his own ancestral property. The Zemindar of the 
 village wanted him to appear as a witness on his side, 
 threatening him with confiscation of his property and ex- 
 pulsion from his village, if he refused. Khudiram refused, 
 left his village, and migrated to KSmarpur, a village two or 
 three miles east of Dere. There, through the help of some 
 true friends, he managed to make a poor hving, and yet he 
 was always profusely generous to the poor and hospitable 
 to everybody, living chiefly in the company of religious 
 men, performing every kind of worship, and trying to 
 realise religion to its fullest extent. 
 
 There is a story that 'R&makrishna.'s father was going 
 to pay a visit to his daughter one day, some twelve or 
 fourteen miles from the place where he lived. After 
 travelling more than half the way, he came across a Bel- 
 tree, beautifully covered with new-grown green leaves. 
 These leaves are very sacred to a Hindu, and they use 
 them in worshipping the god ^iva. It was spring-time. 
 The Bel-trees were casting oif their old leaves, and the 
 man had not recently been able to find any good leaves 
 to offer to 5iva. On finding these, he at once climbed up 
 the tree, gathered as many leaves as he could carry, and 
 returned home to worship ^iva, without going to see his 
 daughter. He was a great lover of Rima, and his tutelary 
 deity was the pure and divine Srt RSma^andra. He had 
 a little plot of land outside the village, and in the sowing 
 time, after getting a man to plough the field, he would go 
 himself, put a few grains of rice in the name of Raghuvira 
 on the ground first, and then order the labourers to finish 
 
RAMAKRZSHiVA S LIFE. 33 
 
 the work. It is said that that little plot of land produced 
 enough, as long as he lived, to maintain the whole of the 
 family. He ever depended upon his Raghuvlra, or the hero 
 of the race of Raghu, the divine Rama, and never cared for 
 the morrow. His son R&makn'shnu, we are told, had 
 something in him which attracted everybody and made 
 people love him, as if he were of their own kith and kin, 
 even at the first appearance. 
 
 The young child used to repeat the whole of the religious 
 operas and dramas, the acting, the music, and everything, 
 after hearing them once. He had a very good musical 
 voice and a taste for music. He was a very good judge 
 of the merits and defects of the statues or images of gods 
 or goddesses, and his judgement was held as final by the 
 old people of the village, even from his childhood. He 
 could draw and make images of gods himself. One of 
 the broken stone images of &{ Krishfia, which he repaired 
 in later days, is still to be seen in the temple of Dakshi«ex- 
 vara of Rani RSsmoni, about four miles to the north of 
 Calcutta. After hearing a religious drama, e. g. the doings 
 of Sri Krishna., he would gather his playmates, teach them 
 the different parts, and enact it in the fields, under the 
 trees. Sometimes he would JDuild an image of the god 
 .Siva, and worship it with his companions. At the age of 
 six he was well versed in the PurS«as, likewise in the 
 Ram^a^za, the Mahabhirata, and the 5rimad Bhagavata, 
 by hearing them from the Ka/,4aks, a class of men who 
 preach and read these Purawas for the enlightenment of 
 the uneducated masses all over India. (His knowledge of 
 
 D 
 
34 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR7SHJVA. 
 
 the PurS«as, the Mahibhslrata, the Riiniya«a, and the 
 Bhigavata must have been in Bengali, as he never, ac- 
 cording to Mozoomdarj who was his friend, knew a word 
 of Sanskrit.) 
 
 The pilgrim road to Puri passes through the outskirts 
 of the village where he lived, and very often a whole host 
 of ascetics and religious men would come and take shelter 
 in the Dharmasili or pilgrim-house, built by the Ltha 
 family, the Zemindar of the village. Ramakr/sh«a used 
 to go there very often, talk to them on religious subjects, 
 mark their habits, and hear their tales of travel. 
 
 It is the custom in India to gather all the learned pandits 
 or professors of the neighbourhood at a funeral ceremony. 
 In one of these gatherings in the house of the Liha family, 
 a question arose about some intricate points of theology, and 
 the professors could not come to a conclusion. The boy 
 Ramakr/sh»a went to them and decided it quickly with his 
 simple language, and all present were astonished. (This 
 might be taken from any Evangelium tnfantiae.) 
 
 Before he reached his teens, he was walking in the fields 
 one day. The sky was very clear and blue, and he saw 
 a flight of white cranes moving along it. The contrast of 
 colours was so very beautiful and dazzling to his imagination, 
 and produced such thoughts in him, that he fell down in 
 a trance. (This would admit of a very natural pathological 
 explanation, and may therefore be perfectly true, though it 
 would easily lend itself to further poetical expansion.) 
 
 He was the youngest child of a family of three sons and 
 two daughters. His eldest brother, Ramkumar Chattopa- 
 
RAMAICR/SHiVA S LIFE. 35 
 
 dhyaya, was a very learned professor of the old school. He 
 had his own school at Calcutta. At the age of sixteen 
 Ramak«sh«a, having been invested by his own father with 
 the sacred Brihmanic thread, was taken to this school, but 
 what was his disgust to find that after all their high talk on 
 being and non-being, on Brahman and MayS, on how the 
 soul is liberated by the realisation of Atman, they would 
 never dream of practising these precepts in their own lives, but 
 run after lust and gold, after name and fame. He told his 
 brother plainly he would never care for that kind of learning, 
 the sole aim of which was to gain a few pieces of silver, or 
 a few maunds of rice and vegetables. He yearned to learn 
 something which would raise him above all these, and give 
 him as a recompense God Himself. From that time he 
 kept aloof from the school. 
 
 The temple of the goddess Kali at Dakshi«exvara, about 
 five miles to the north of Calcutta, was established in 1853 a.d. 
 It stands on the side of the Ganges, and is one of the finest 
 temples in India. The temple deeds were drawn in the 
 name of the Guru, or spiritual director of Rani Rasmoni, 
 for she being of a lower caste, none of the higher castes 
 would come to the temple and take food there if she drew 
 the deeds in her own name. The eldest brother of SiA Rima 
 krtshna. was appointed as priest to the temple. The two 
 brothers came on the day when the temple was first opened 
 and established, but such were the caste prejudices of RSma- 
 'krishna, at that time that he protested vehemently against 
 his brother's taking service under a 5fldra woman, or one of 
 the lowest caste, and would not take any cooked food in 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAi/iAKRISHNA. 
 
 the temple precincts, because it was forbidden in the 5istras. 
 So, amidst all the rejoicings of the day, in which some fifteen 
 to twenty thousand people were sumptuously entertained, 
 he was the only man who kept his fast. At night he went 
 to the grocer's close by, took a pice-worth of fried paddy, 
 and returned to Calcutta. But after a week his love for 
 his brother made him return again, and at his entreaty he 
 consented to live there, on condition, however, that he' should 
 be allowed to cook his own meals by the side of the Ganges, 
 which is the holiest place according to the Hindus. A few 
 months afterwards his brother became incapable of con- 
 ducting the services through illness, and requested Rama- 
 krishfia. to take charge of the duties. He consented at 
 last, and became a recognised worshipper of the goddess 
 Kdh. 
 
 Sincere as he always was, he could do nothing from 
 mercenary motives, nor did he ever do anything which he 
 did not thoroughly believe. He now began to look upon 
 the image of the goddess Kali as his mother and the mother 
 of the universe. He believed it to be living and breathing 
 and taking food out of his hand. After the regular forms of 
 worship he would sit there for hours and hours, singing 
 hymns and talking and praying to her as a child to his 
 mother, till he lost all consciousness of the outward world. 
 Sometimes he would weep for hours, and would not be 
 comforted, because he could not see his mother as perfectly 
 as he wished. People became divided in their opinions 
 regarding him. Some held the young priest to be mad, and 
 some took him to be a great lover of God, and all this 
 
HAUAKRISHNA S LIFE. 37 
 
 outward madness as the manifestation of that love. His 
 mother and brothers, thinking that his imagination would 
 calm down when he had a young wife and a family of his 
 own to look after, took him to his native village and married 
 him to the daughter of RIma Chandra Mukhopadhyaya, who 
 was then five years of age, .Srimatt Saroda Devi or Sara- 
 damani Devi by name. It is said when his mother and 
 brothers were looking after a suitable bride for him, he 
 himself told them that the daughter of such and such a man 
 was destined to be joined to him in marriage, and that she 
 Was endowed with all the qualities of a goddess or Devi, 
 and they went and found the bride. 
 
 He used to hold that some women were born with all the 
 qualities of a Devt, and some with the opposite qualities — 
 the Asurt, or the demoniacal. The former would help their 
 husbands in becoming religious, and would never lead them 
 to lust and sensuality, and he could distinguish them by 
 their mere appearance. A woman, a perfect stranger to 
 him, came to see him once at Dakshi^exvara many years 
 afterwards. She was of a noble family, the wife of a gentle- 
 man, and mother of five or six children, yet looked still 
 very young and beautiful. E.lmak/-«sh«a told his disciples 
 at once that she had the qualities of a Devi in her, and he 
 would prove it to them. He ordered them to burn some 
 incense before her, and taking some flowers, placed them on 
 her feet and addressed her as ' mother.' And the lady who 
 never knew anything before of meditation, or Samidhi, and 
 had never seen him before, fell into a deep trance with her 
 hands lifted as in the act of blessing. That trance did not 
 
38 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 leave her for some hours, and he got frightened at the 
 thought that her husband would accuse him of some black 
 magic. He began, therefore, to pray to his mother Kail 
 (the goddess) to bring her back to her senses. By-and-by 
 she came to herself, and when she opened her eyes they 
 were quite red, and she looked as if she were quite drunk. 
 Her attendants had to support her while she got into 
 a carriage, then she drove back home. This is one of many 
 instances of the same kind (evidently cases of hypnosis). 
 
 Of men he used to tell the same. In his later days, when 
 crowds of men and boys came to him to learn, he would 
 select and point out some whoj he said, would realise 
 religion in this life, and of the rest he would say that they 
 must enjoy life a little longer before they would have 
 a sincere desire for religion. He used to say, ' That man 
 who had been an emperor in his former birth, who had 
 enjoyed the highest pleasures the world can give, and who 
 had seen the vanities of them all, would attain to perfection 
 in this life on earth.' 
 
 After his marriage he returned to Calcutta and took upon 
 himself the charges of the temple again, but instead of 
 toning down, his fervour and devotion increased a thousand- 
 fold. His whole soul, as it were, melted into one flood of 
 tears, and he appealed to the goddess to have mercy on 
 him and reveal herself to him. No mother ever shed such 
 burning tears over the death-bed of her only child. Crowds 
 assembled round him and tried to console him, when the 
 blowing of the conch-shells proclaimed the death of another 
 day, and he gave vent to his sorrow, saying, ' Mother, oh my 
 
RAMAKR/SHJVA S LIFE. 39 
 
 mother, another day has gone, and still I have not found 
 thee.' People thought he was mad, or that he was suffering 
 from some acute pain, for how was it possible for them, 
 devoted as they were to lust and gold, to name and fame, 
 to imagine that a man could love his God or Goddess 
 Mother with as much intensity as they loved their wives and 
 children ? The son-in-law of RSni Rasmoni, Babu MathurS- 
 nS.th, who had always had a love for this young Brihman, 
 took him to the best physicians in Calcutta to get him 
 cured of his madness. But all their skill was of no avail. 
 Only one physician of Dacca told them that this man was 
 a great Yogin or ascetic, and that all their pharmacopoeia 
 was useless for curing his disease, if indeed it were a disease 
 at all. So his friends gave him up as lost. 
 
 Meanwhile he increased in love and devotion day by 
 day. One day as he was feeling his separation from Devi 
 very keenly, and thinking of putting an end to himself, as 
 he could not bear his loneliness any longer, he lost all 
 outward sensation, and saw his mother (Kalt) in a vision. 
 These visions came to him again and again, and then he 
 became calmer. Sometimes he doubted whether these 
 visions were really true, and then he would say, ' I would 
 believe them true, if such and such a thing happened,' and 
 it would invariably happen, even at the very hour he ex- 
 pected. For instance, he said one day, ' I could believe 
 them true, and not resulting from a disease of my brain, 
 if the two young daughters of RSni Rasmoni, who never 
 once came to this temple, would come under the big banyan- 
 tree this afternoon, and would speak to me,' though he was 
 
40 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA. 
 
 a perfect stranger to them. And what was his astonishment 
 when he saw them standing under the tree at the exact 
 hour, and calling him by name, and telling him to be 
 consoled, for the Mother Kill would surely have mercy on 
 him. These ladies of the Zenana had never come to a public 
 place, especially when young, but somehow or other they 
 got a strong desire to see that temple that very day, and 
 they got permission to go there. 
 
 These visions grew more and more, and his trances 
 became longer and longer in duration, till every one saw 
 it was no longer possible for him to perform his daily 
 course of duties. For instance, it is prescribed in the 
 5astras that a man should put a flower over his own head 
 and think of himself as the very god or goddess he is going 
 to worship, and RSmakr/sh«a, as he put the flower, and 
 thought himself as identified with his mother, would get 
 entranced, and would remain in that state for hours. Then 
 again, from time to time, he would entirely lose his own 
 identity, so much so as to appropriate to himself the offerings 
 brought for the goddess. Sometimes forgetting to adorn 
 the image, he would adorn himself with the flowers. 
 MathurSnath at first objected to this, but shortly after- 
 wards, it is said, he saw the body of Rimaky«sh«a trans- 
 figured into that of the god ^iva, and from, that day 
 forward he looked upon him as God Himself, and 
 addressed him always as Father whenever he spoke to 
 him. He appointed the nephew of 'Kimakrishna. to 
 conduct the regular services, and left him free to do 
 whatever he liked. 
 
V.AUAKRISHNAS LIFE. 4 1 
 
 The ardent soul of Ramakr/shwa could not remain quiet 
 with these frequent visions, but ran eagerly to attain per- 
 fection and realisation of God in all His different aspects. 
 He thus began the twelve years of unheard-of tapasya, or 
 ascetic exercises. Looking back to these years of self- 
 torture in his later days, he said, 'that a great religious 
 tornado, as it were, raged within him during these years and 
 made everything topsy-turvy.' He had no idea then that 
 it lasted for so long a time. He never had a wink of sound 
 sleep during these years, could not even doze, but his eyes 
 would remain always open and fixed. He thought some^ 
 times that he was seriously ill, and holding a looking-glass 
 before him, he put his finger within the sockets of the eye, 
 that the lids might close, but they would not. In his 
 despair he cried out, ' Mother, oh ! my mother, is this the 
 result of calling upon thee and believing in thee?' And 
 anon a sweet voice would come, and a sweeter smiling face, 
 and said, ' My son ! how could you hope to realise the 
 highest truth, if you don't give up the love of your body 
 and of your little self? ' ' A torrent of spiritual light,' he 
 said, ' would come then, deluging my mind and urging me 
 forward. I used to tell my mother, " Mother ! I could 
 never learn from these erring men; but I will learn from 
 thee, and thee alone," and the same voice would say, " Yea, 
 my son ! " ' 'I did not once,' he continued, ' look to the 
 preservation of my body. My hair grew till it became 
 matted, and I had no idea of it. My nephew, Tiridaya, 
 used to bring me some food daily, and some days succeeded 
 and some days did not succeed in forcing a few mouthfuls 
 
42 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKi?7SHiVA. 
 
 down my throat, though I had no idea of it. Sometimes 
 I used to go to the closet of the servants and sweepers and 
 clean it with my own hands, and prayed, " Mother ! destroy 
 in me all idea that I am great, and that I am a Brahman, 
 and that they are low and pariahs, for who are they but 
 Thou in so many forms?"' 
 
 'Sometimes,' he said, 'I would sit by the Ganges, 
 with some gold and silver coins and a heap of rubbish 
 by my side, and taking some coins in my right hand 
 and a handful of rubbish in the left, I would tell my 
 soul, " My soul ! this is what the world calls money, 
 impressed with the queen's face. It has the power of 
 bringing you rice and vegetables, of feeding the poor, of 
 building houses, and doing all that the world calls great, 
 but it can never help thee to realise the ever-existent 
 knowledge and bliss, the Brahman. Regard it, therefore, 
 as rubbish." Then mixing the coins and the rubbish in 
 my hands, while repeating all the time, " money is rubbish, 
 money is rubbish," I lost all perception of difference 
 between the two in my mind, and threw them both into the 
 Ganges. No wonder people took me for mad.' About 
 this time Mathurinitha, who was very devoted to him, one 
 day put a shawl fringed with gold round him, which cost 
 about 1,500 Rs. At first he seemed to be pleased with it. 
 But what was the astonishment of Mathurinatha when 
 the next moment RimakWsh«a threw it on the ground, 
 trampled and spat on it, and began to cleanse the floor of 
 the room with it, saying, 'It increases vanity, but it can 
 never help to realise the ever-existent knowledge and bliss 
 
RAMAK/JZSHA-A S LIFE. 43 
 
 (Sat-kit-Snanda), and therefore is no better than a piece of 
 torn rag.' 
 
 ' About this time,' he said, ' I felt such a burning 
 sensation all over my body ; I used to stand in the waters 
 of the Ganges, with my body immersed up to the shoulders 
 and a wet towel over my head all through the day, for it 
 was insufferable. Then a Brihman lady came and cured 
 me of it in three days. She smeared my body with sandal- 
 wood paste and put garlands on my neck, and the pain 
 vanished in three days.' 
 
 Now this Brihman lady was, we are told, an extraordinary 
 Bengali woman. She was versed in the philosophies and 
 mythologies of India, and could recite book after book 
 from memory. She could hold her ground in argument 
 with the best pandits of the country. Tall and graceful, 
 she combined in herself all the physical and intellectual 
 qualities that would raise any man or woman high above 
 ordinaiy mortals. She had a fine voice and was well 
 versed in music. She had given up the world, practised 
 Yoga (ascetics), attained to some wonderful Yogic powers, 
 and was roaming all over India in the red garb of a 
 Sawnyasin. Nobody knew anything of her birth or family 
 or name even, and nobody could induce her to say any- 
 thing about them. She was as if some goddess had come 
 to this earth to help men to perfection, moved by the 
 sorrows and sins of this wicked world. She seemed to 
 have known full well that she was destined to help three 
 particular personages, who were very advanced in attaining 
 perfection. Rimakn'shna. had been informed by his divine 
 
44 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 mother that she would come and teach him the certain 
 way to attain perfection. He recognised her at once, and 
 she recognised him and said, ' I have found out the other 
 two, and have been searching for thee for a long, long time, 
 and to-day I have found thee.' Up to this time Rama- 
 krishna. had not found a single soul who could understand 
 his superhuman devotion and perfect purity, and the 
 arrival of this woman was therefore a great relief to him. 
 His devotion and love knew no bounds. 
 
 All people were astonished at the wonderful learning of 
 this Brahman lady, but they could not understand how she 
 could sympathise and place even above herself this half- 
 crazed Ramak/7sh«a they took him for. To prove that he 
 was not mad, the lady mentioned some Vaishwava scriptures, 
 got the manuscripts from some learned pandits, and quoted 
 passage after passage, showing that all these physical 
 manifestations come to an ardent lover of God. It was 
 recorded in these books that all these states physical and 
 mental did happen to the great religious reformer of Bengal, 
 Sri Chaitanya, four hundred years back, and the remedies 
 were given, too, by which he overcame them. For instance, 
 this burning sensation, as if all the body were in flames, 
 from which Sii RamakWsh^a was suffering at the time, was 
 mentioned in these Vaishwava scriptures as having happened 
 to the shepherdess of Braja, to the stainless Sii RadhS, the 
 beloved of Krishna, centuries before, and again in later 
 times to Sii Chaitanya, when both of them felt deeply the 
 pain of separation from their beloved (God). In both 
 these cases relief came by smearing the body with sandal- 
 
RAMAK/J/SHiVA S LIFE. 45 
 
 wood paste and wearing garlands of sweet-scented flowers. 
 The lady held it to be no real disease, but a state of physical 
 disturbance, which would come to all who arrive at that 
 stage of Bhakti, or love of God. She applied the same 
 remedies for three days, and the trouble passed away. 
 
 At another time during her stay he suffered much from 
 an insatiable appetite. However much he might eat, the 
 appetite was there, preying upon him as if he had taken 
 nothing. The Brdhman lady assured him that the same 
 had happened to Chaitanya and other Yogins, and ordered 
 all sorts of dishes to be put into his room on every side, 
 day and night. This practice was continued for a few 
 days, and the sight of so much food gradually acted upon 
 the mind, and the false sensation passed away. 
 
 The lady lived there for some years, and made her friend 
 practise all the different sorts of Yoga which make a man 
 complete master of his body and mind, render his passions 
 subservient to his reason, and produce a thorough and 
 deep concentration of thought, and, above all, the fearless 
 and unbiased disposition which is essential to everybody 
 who desires to know the truth and the whole truth. 
 
 About this time Rimakft'shna. began to practise Yoga, or 
 the physical discipline, which makes the body strong and 
 enduring. He began by regulating his breath, and went 
 through the eight-fold methods prescribed by Pata«^ali. 
 His teachers were astonished at the short time in which he 
 came to the realisation and attained the end of all these 
 ascetic practices. One night, when he was practising Yoga, 
 he was very much frightened at two strings of clotted blood 
 
46 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAM.AKRISHNA. 
 
 coming out of his mouth. The temple services were then 
 in the hands of one of his cousins, Haladhiri, a man of 
 great learning and purity and possessed of certain psychical 
 powers, such as Vak-siddhi, power of speech. A few days 
 before, R4makr/sh«a had offended him by pointing out to 
 him certain defects of his character, so much so that his 
 cousin cursed him and said that blood should come out of 
 his mouth. So Ramaknsh«a was frightened, but a great 
 Yogin who was living there at the time came, to his help, 
 and after inquiring into his case assured him that it was 
 very good that the blood had come out that way. It was 
 because he had to teach many men, and to do good to them, 
 that he was not permitted to enter into that Samadhi (trance) 
 from which nobody returns. He explained to him that 
 when a man has attained to the perfection of this Yoga his 
 blood rushes to his brain, and he becomes absorbed in 
 Samadhi, perceives his identity with the Supreme Self, and 
 never returns any more to speak of his religious experiences 
 to others. Only a few returned, namely, those who by the 
 will of God were bom to be the great teachers of mankind. 
 In their case the blood rushes to the brain, and they feel 
 the identity for some time, but after that the blood flows 
 out again and they are able to teach. 
 
 By this time Ramakr«sh«a had learnt all that the 
 BrShman lady could teach, but he was still hankering after 
 higher truths, when a Gn^nin (a true philosopher) came 
 and initiated him into the truths of the Vedanta. This 
 was a SawnySsin named TotS-puri, tall, muscular, and 
 powerful. He had taken the vow of the order from his 
 
RAMAKiirSHiVA S LIFE. 47 
 
 very boyhood, and after a hard struggle had succeeded in 
 realising the highest truths of the Vedinta. He wore no 
 clothes whatever, and never rested under a roof. When the 
 doors of palaces might have been opened to him if he had 
 only wished, he passed the night always under a tree or the 
 blue canopy of the heavens, even in winter and in the rainy 
 season, never remaining more than three days in any place, 
 and never caring to ask for food from anybody. Free as 
 the wind, he was roaming all over the country, teaching and 
 exhorting wherever he could find a sincere soul, and helping 
 them to attain to that perfection which he had himself 
 reached. He was a living illustration of the truth that 
 Vedinta, when properly realised, can become a practical 
 rule of life. On seeing Sri R^makrishna. sitting on the 
 border of the Ganges, he at once recognised in him a great 
 Yogin and a perfectly-prepared ground for the reception of 
 the seeds of the highest truths of religion. He addressed 
 him at once and said, ' My son ! do you want to learn the 
 way to perfect freedom ? Come, then, and I will teach it to 
 you.' Kkmakrishna., who never did anything without first 
 asking his mother (the goddess Kdli), said that he did not 
 know what he should do, but he would go and ask his 
 mother. He came back in a few minutes and told the 
 Sa»2nyasin that he was ready. Tota-puri made him take 
 the vow, and told him how he was to meditate and how to 
 realise unity. After three days of practice he attained 
 to the highest, the Nirvikalpa stage of Samadhi, where 
 there is no longer any perception of the subject or of the 
 object. The Sawznyisin was perfectly bewildered at the 
 
48 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 rapid progress of his protdg^, and said, ' My boy ! what 
 I realised after forty years of hard struggle, you have 
 arrived at in three days. I dare not call you my disciple ; 
 henceforth I will address you as my friend.' And such 
 was the love of this holy man for Sri Ramakr«h«a that he 
 stayed with him for eleven months, and in his turn learnt 
 many things from his own disciple. There is a story told 
 of the Sawnyasin. He always kept a fire and regarded it 
 as very holy. One day as he was sitting by this fire and 
 talking to Sit Ramakn'sh^a, a man came and lighted his 
 pipe out of the same fire. The Sawnyasin felt enraged at 
 this sacrilege, when a gentle scolding came from his disciple, 
 who said, ' Is this the way that you look upon everything as 
 Brahman ? Is not the man himself Brahman as well as the 
 fire? What is high and what is low in the sight of a 
 GwSnin ? ' The SawnySsin was brought to his senses, and 
 said, ' Brother, you are right. From this day forth you shall 
 never find me angry again,' and he kept his word. He 
 could never understand, however, Rlmak«sh«a's love for. 
 his Mother (the goddess Kali). He would talk of it as 
 mere superstition, and ridicule it, when Ramaky-/sh«a 
 made him understand that in the Absolute there is no 
 thou, nor I, nor God, nay, that it is beyond all speech or 
 thought. As long, however, as there is the least grain of 
 relativity left, the Absolute is within thought and speech 
 and within the limits of the mind, which mind is sub- 
 servient to the universal mind and consciousness ; and this 
 omniscient, universal consciousness was to him his mother 
 and God. 
 
RAMAKiJ/SHWA S LIFE. 49 
 
 After the departure of TotS-puri, Rkmakrishfia, himself 
 tried to remain always in union with the absolute Brahman 
 and in the Nirvikalpa state. Looking back to this period 
 of his life. in his later days, he said, 'I remained for six 
 months in that state of perfect union which people seldom 
 reach, and if they reach it, they cannot return to their 
 individual consciousness again. Their bodies and minds 
 could never bear it. But this my body is made up of 
 Sattwa particles (pure elements) and can bear much strain. 
 In those days I was quite unconscious of the outer world. 
 My body would have died for want of nourishment, 
 but for a Sadhu (an advanced religious ascetic) who came 
 at that time and stayed there for three days for my sake. 
 He recognised my state of Samddhi, and took much in- 
 terest to preserve this body, while I was unconscious of its 
 very existence. He used to bring some food every day, and 
 when all methods failed to restore sensation or conscious- 
 ness to this body of mine, he would even strike me with 
 a heavy club, so that the pain might bring me back to con- 
 sciousness. Sometimes he succeeded in awakening a sort 
 of partial consciousness in me, and he would immediately 
 force down one or two mouthfuls of food before I was lost 
 again in deep Samidhi. Some days when he could not 
 produce any response, even after a severe beating, he was 
 very sorrowful.' After six months the body gave way under 
 these severe irregularities, and Ramak«sh«a was laid up 
 with dysentery. This disease, he said, did much in bringing 
 him back to consciousness, slowly and gently, in a month 
 or two. When the native physicians had cured him, his 
 
 E 
 
50 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA. 
 
 deep religious zeal took another turn. He began to prac- 
 tise and realise the Vaish«ava ideal of love for God. This 
 love, according to the Vaishwavas, becomes manifested 
 practically in any one of the following relations — the re- 
 lation of a servant to his master, of a friend to his friend, 
 of a child to his parents, or vice versa, and a wife to her 
 husband. The highest point of love is reached when the 
 human soul can love his God as a wife loves her husband. 
 The shepherdess of Braja had this sort of love towards 
 the divine Knsh«a, and there was no thought of any carnal 
 relationship. No man, they say, can understand this love 
 of SA RadhI and Sn Krishna until he is perfectly free 
 from all carnal desires. They even prohibit ordinary men 
 to read the books which treat of this love of RSdhd and 
 K«'sh«a, because they are still under the sway of passion. 
 R^mak«sh«a, in order to realise this love, dressed himself 
 in women's attire for several days, thought of himself as 
 a woman, and at last succeeded in gaining his ideal. He 
 saw the beautiful form of Sri K«sh«a in a trance, and was 
 satisfied. After having thus devoted himself to Vaish- 
 «avism, he practised in turn many other religions prevalent 
 in India, even Mohammedanism, always arriving at an 
 understanding of their highest purposes in an incredibly 
 short time. Whenever he wished to learn and practise the 
 doctrines of any faith, he always found a good and learned 
 man of that faith coming to him and advising him how to 
 do it. This is one out of many wonderful things that 
 happened in his life. They may be explained as happy 
 coincidences, which is much the same as to say they were 
 
ramakr7Sh;va s life. 51 
 
 wonderful, and cannot be explained. To give another such 
 instance. At the time when he perceived the desire of 
 practising and realising religion, he was sitting one day 
 under the big banyan-tree (called the Pancha-vatI, or the 
 place of the five banyans) to the north of the temple. He 
 found the place very secluded and fit for carrying out his 
 religious practices without disturbance. He was thinking 
 of building a little thatched hut in the place, when the tide 
 came up the river and brought along with it all that was 
 necessary to make a httle hut — the bamboos, the sticks, the 
 rope and all — and dropped them just a few yards off the 
 place where he was sitting. He took the materials joyfuUy, 
 and with the help of the gardener built his little hut, where 
 he practised his Yoga. 
 
 In his later days he was thinking of practising the tenets 
 of Christianity. He had seen Jesus in a vision, and for 
 three days he could think of nothing and speak of nothing 
 but Jesus and His love. There was this peculiarity in all 
 his visions — that he always saw them outside himself, but 
 when they vanished they seemed to have entered into him. 
 This was true of Rama, of .Siva, of Kali, of Krishna,, of 
 Jesus, and of every other god or goddess or prophet. 
 
 After all these visions and his realisations of different 
 religions he came to the conclusion that all rehgions are 
 true, though each of them takes account of one aspect only 
 of the Akhanda Sa^>^^idSnanda, i.e. the undivided and 
 eternal existence, knowledge, and bUss. Each of these 
 different religions seemed to him a way to arrive at that 
 One. 
 
 K 2 
 
52 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 During all these years he forgot entirely that he had 
 been married, which was not unnatural for one who had 
 lost all idea of the existence even of his own body. The 
 girl had in the meantime attained the age of seventeen or 
 eighteen. She had heard rumours that her husband had 
 become mad, and was in deep grief. Then again she heard 
 that he had become a great religious man. She determined 
 therefore to find him and to learn her fate from himself. 
 Having obtained permission from her mother, she walked 
 all the way, about thirty or forty miles, to the Dakshiwef- 
 vara temple. Ramakr?sh«a received her very kindly, but 
 told her that the old Ramak/-«sh«a was dead, and that the 
 new one could never look upon any woman as his wife. He 
 said that even then he saw his mother, the Goddess KSlt, 
 in her, and however much he might try he could never see 
 anything else. He addressed her as his mother, worshipped 
 her with flowers and incense, asked her blessings, as 
 a child does from his mother, and then became lost in 
 a deep trance. The wife, who was fully worthy of such 
 a hero, told him she wanted nothing from him as her 
 husband, but that he would teach her how to realise God, 
 and allow her to remain near him and cook his meals and 
 do what little she could for his health and comfort. From 
 that day forward she lived within the temple compound, 
 and began to practise whatever her husband taught her. 
 Mathuranitha offered her the sum of 10,000 Rs., but she 
 declined, saying that her husband had attained perfection 
 by renouncing gold and all pleasures, and she did not care 
 for any, as she was determined to follow him. She is living 
 
rXmakrishna's life. 53 
 
 still, revered by all for her purity and strength of character, 
 helping others of her sex to religion and perfection, looking 
 upon her husband as an incarnation of God Himself, and 
 trying to forward the work her husband began. 
 
 Though R&raakrishKa. had no proper education, he had 
 such a wonderful memory that he never forgot what he 
 once heard. In his later days he had a desire to hear the 
 AdhyStma RSmaya«a, and he requested one of his disciples 
 to read it to him in the original verse. As he was hearing, 
 another of his disciples came and asked him whether he 
 was understanding the original verses. He said he had 
 heard the book before, with an explanation of it, and there- 
 fore knew all of it, but he wanted to hear it again because 
 the book was so beautiful, and he repeated at once the 
 purport of some of the verses which followed, and which 
 were about to be read. 
 
 He had attained to great Yoga powers, but he never 
 cared to display these marvellous powers to anybody. He 
 told his disciples that all these powers would come to 
 a man as he advanced, but he warned them never to take 
 any heed of the opinions of men. They had not to please 
 men, but to try to attain the highest perfection, that is, 
 unity with Brahman. The power of working miracles was 
 rather a hindrance in the way to perfection, inasmuch as 
 it diverted the attention of man from his highest goal. 
 But persons who went to him have found abundant proofs 
 of his possessing such powers as thought-reading, predict- 
 ing future events, seeing things at a distance, and healing 
 a disease by simply willing. The one great power of 
 
54 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF ^kUAKRISHNA. 
 
 which he made most use, and which was by far the most 
 wonderful, was that he was able to change a man's thoughts 
 by simply touching his body. In some this touch produced 
 immediate Samidhi, in which they saw visions of gods and 
 goddesses', and lost for some hours all sensation of the out- 
 ward world. In others it produced no outward changes, 
 but they felt that their thoughts had received a new direc- 
 tion and a new impetus, by which they could easily travel in 
 the path of progress in religion. The carnally minded, for 
 instance, would feel that their thoughts never ran after 
 carnal pleasures afterwards, the miser would find that he 
 did not love his gold, and so on. 
 
 About that time Mathuranatha and his family went on 
 a pilgrimage, and took RSmak«sh«a with them. They 
 visited all the sacred places of the Hindus as far as Brm- 
 dabana, and Ramakn'shzza took the opportunity not only 
 of seeing the temples, but of forming acquaintances with 
 all the religious men, and with the SawnySsins who 
 were living in these places, such as the famous Tailanga 
 SwSmin of Benares and Gangi MitS. of B^/ndabana. These 
 SSdhus assigned to him a very high position, and regarded 
 him not only as a Brahma^Snin, but as a great religious 
 teacher (Achirya), nay, as an incarnation of God Himself. 
 At B«'ndabana he was so much struck by the natural 
 scenery and associations of the place, that he nearly made 
 up his mind to reside there for ever. But the memory of 
 his old mother made him return home. On his way back 
 he was so much struck by the poverty of a village near 
 Vaidyanath, that he wept bitterly, and would not go from 
 
RAMAKR/SHNAS LIFE. 55 
 
 the place without seeing them happy. So Mathurtnitha 
 fed the whole village for several days, gave proper clothing 
 and some money to each of the villagers, and departed 
 with Ramaknsh«a contented. 
 
 'When the rose is blown, and sheds its fragrance all 
 around, the bees come of themselves. The bees seek the 
 full-blown rose, and not the rose the bees.' This saying of 
 ^ri 'R^makn'shna. has been verified often and often in his 
 own life. Numbers of earnest men, of all sects and creeds, 
 began to flock to him to receive instruction and to drink 
 the waters of life. From day-dawn to night-fall he had 
 no leisure to eat or drink, so engaged was he in teaching, 
 exhorting, and ministering to the wants of these hungry 
 and thirsty millions. Men possessed of wonderful Yoga 
 powers and great learning came to learn from this illiterate 
 Paramaha»zsa of Dakshi«efvara, and in their turn ac- 
 knowledged him as their spiritual director (Guru), touched 
 as they were by the wonderful purity, the childlike sim- 
 plicity, the perfect unselfishness, and by the simple language 
 in which he propounded the highest truths of religion and 
 philosophy. But the people of Calcutta knew him not 
 till Babu Keshub Chunder Sen went to him and wrote 
 about him. RSmak^sh^a's interview with Keshub was 
 brought about in this way. It was in the year 1866 that 
 Keshub was leading a life of prayer and seclusion in a 
 garden house at Belgharia, about two miles from the 
 temple of Dakshi«ejvara. BAmakrishna. heard of him, and 
 went to see him. Keshub was so much impressed with 
 the simple words, full of the highest knowledge, the 
 
56 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKK/SHiVA 
 
 wonderful love of God, and the deep trances of Sri Rama- 
 kWshwa, that he began to come often and often to him. 
 He would sit for hours at the feet of Rimak«'sh«a and 
 listen with rapture to the wonderful sayings on religion 
 of that wonderful man. From time to time Ramakrishwa 
 would be lost in a deep Samddhi, and Keshub would 
 gently touch his feet that he might thereby be purified. 
 Sometimes he would invite the Paramahawzsa to his house, 
 or would take him in a boat and proceed a few miles 
 up and down the river. He then used to question him 
 on some points of religion to clear away his own doubts. 
 A strong and deep love grew up between the two, and 
 Keshub's whole life became changed, till, a few years 
 later, he proclaimed his views of religion as the New 
 Dispensation, which was nothing but a partial representa- 
 tion of the truths which Ramaknsh«a had taught for 
 a long time. 
 
 A brief sketch of the teachings of RSmakr/sh«a, and 
 a few of his sayings, which Keshub published, were suffi- 
 cient to rouse a wide interest in the Faramaha^.izsa, and 
 numbers of highly-educated men of Calcutta and women 
 of noble family began to pour in to receive instruction 
 from this wonderful Yogin. RAmakrishna. began to teach 
 them and talk to them from morn till evening. At night, 
 too, he had no rest, for some of the more earnest would 
 remain and spend the night with him. He then forgot 
 his sleep, and talked to them incessantly about Bhakti 
 (devotion) or Gnina. (knowledge) and his own experiences, 
 and how he arrived at them. Though this incessant labour 
 
RAMAKRTSHiVA S LIFE. 57 
 
 began at last to tell upon him, yet he would not rest. In 
 the meanwhile the crowds of men and women began to 
 increase daily, and he went on as before. When pressed 
 to take rest, he would say, ' I would suffer willingly all 
 sorts of bodily pains, and death also, a hundred thousand 
 times, if by so doing I could bring one single soul to 
 freedom and salvation.' 
 
 In the beginning of 1885 he suffered from what is known 
 as 'the clergyman's throat,' which by-and-by developed 
 into cancer. He was removed to Calcutta, and the best 
 physicians were engaged, such as Babu Mohindra Lai 
 Sircar, &c., who advised him to keep the strictest silence ; 
 but the advice was to no effect. Crowds of men and 
 women gathered wherever he went, and waited patiently 
 to hear a single word from his mouth, and he, out of com- 
 passion for them, would not remain silent. Many a time 
 he would be lost in a Samadhi, losing all consciousness 
 of his body and of his disease, and coming back he would 
 talk incessantly as before. Even when the passage of his 
 throat became so constricted that he could not swallow 
 even liquid food, he would never stop his efforts. He was 
 undaunted and remained as cheerful as ever, till on August 
 16, 1886, at 10 o'clock in the night, he entered into 
 Samadhi, from which he never returned. His disciples 
 took it at first to be an ordinary SamSdhi, such as he 
 used to have every day, during which the best doctors 
 even could not find any pulsation or beating of the heart ; 
 but, alas, they were mistaken. 
 
 Ramakrishna. felt such an aversion to gold and silver 
 
58 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF kXmaKRISHNA. 
 
 that he could not even touch them, and a simple touch, 
 even when he was asleep, would produce physical con- 
 tortions. His breath would stop, and his fingers would 
 become contorted and paralysed for a few minutes, even 
 when the metal had been removed. In his later days he 
 could touch no metals, not even iron. 
 
 He was a wonderful mixture of God and man. In his 
 ordinary state he would talk of himself as servant of all 
 men and women. He looked upon them all as God. He 
 himself would never be addressed as Guru, or teacher. 
 Never would he claim for himself any high position. He 
 would touch the ground reverently where his disciples had 
 trodden. But every now and then strange fits of God- 
 consciousness came upon him. He then became changed 
 into a diiferent being altogether. He then spoke of himself 
 as being able to do and know everything. He spoke as 
 if he had the power of giving anything to anybody. He 
 would speak of himself as the same soul that had been 
 born before as Rima, as Krishna., as Jesus, or as Buddha, 
 born again as Rimakrishna.. He told MathurSnStha, long 
 before anybody knew him, that he had many disciples who 
 would come to him shortly, and he knew all of them. He 
 said that he was free from all eternity, and the practices 
 and struggles after religion which he went through were 
 only meant to show the people the way to salvation. He 
 had done all for them alone. He would say he was a 
 Nitya-mukta, or eternally free, and an incarnation of God 
 Himself. 'The fruit of the pumpkin,' he said, 'comes out 
 first, and then the flowers ; so it is with the Nitya-muktas, 
 
REMARKS ON RAMAKJJ/SHJVA S LIFE. 59 
 
 or those who are free from all eternity, but come down 
 for the good of others.' 
 
 During the state of SamSdhi he was totally unconscious 
 of himself and of the outward world. At one time he 
 fell down upon a piece of live coal during this state. It 
 burned deep into his flesh, but he did not know for hours, 
 and the surgeon had to come in to extract the coal, when 
 he came back to consciousness, and felt the wound. 
 
 At another time his foot slipped, and he broke his hand. 
 The surgeon came and bound it up and advised him not 
 to use it till it was quite cured. But it was impossible. 
 As soon as anybody spoke anything of religion or on God, 
 he went straight into the state of SamSdhi, and ''his hands 
 became straight and stiff, and the injured hand had to be 
 bound up again. This went on for months, and it took 
 six months or more to cure that simple fracture. 
 
 Mathurinatha proposed again and again to hand over 
 to him the temple of Dakshiraexvara and a property yielding 
 an income of 25,000 Rs. a year, but he declined the pro- 
 posal, and added that he would have to fly away from the 
 place if Mathurinatha pressed his gift upon him. At 
 another time another gentleman made an offer of some 
 25,000 Rs. to him, with the same result. 
 
 Bemarks on Bftmabr/sh/za's Life. 
 
 This is all that VivekSnanda sent me when I had asked 
 him to write down whatever he could gather from his own 
 memory and from communication with Rdmakr/sh^a's other 
 disciples. I had warned him repeatedly not to send me 
 
6o THE LIKE AND SAYINGS OF TlXmAKRISHNA. 
 
 mere fables, such as I had read about his Giiru in several 
 Indian periodicals, and I believe he fully understood what 
 I meant. Yet we can hardly fail to see the first beginnings 
 of the ravages which the Dialogic Process works even in the 
 first generation. Given his own veneration for his departed 
 master, there is a natural unwillingness, nay, an incapability, 
 to believe or to repeat anything that might place his master 
 in an unfavourable light. Besides, his master was dead when 
 these records were written, and the de mortuis nihil nisi 
 bonum is deeply engraved in every human heart. What is 
 believed and told by everybody in a small village, chiefly by 
 his friends and admirers, is not likely to be contradicted ; 
 and if once a man is looked upon as different from others, as 
 possessed of superhuman and miraculous powers, everybody 
 has something new to add in confirmation of what everybody 
 is ready to believe, while a doubt or a denial is treated as 
 a sign of unkindness, possibly of envy or malice. The story, 
 for instance, of the Brahman lady who was sent as a 
 messenger and teacher to Ramak/fshwa, will sound to us 
 far from probable. But when I first heard of it, this lady 
 was represented as a kind of goddess who met her pupil in 
 a forest and instructed him, like another Sarasvatl, in all 
 the Vedas, Purawas, and philosophies. The difficulty that 
 had to be solved by this heavenly apparition was, no doubt, 
 the fact that RSmakWshwa had never received a proper 
 classical education, and yet spoke with authority about the 
 ancient hterature and religion of his countrymen. The 
 fact that he was ignorant of Sanskrit, nay, that he did not 
 know a single word of the sacred language of India, is 
 
mozoomdar's judgement, 6 1 
 
 denied by nobody, and has been distinctly asserted by one 
 of his great admirers, the Rev. P. C. Mozoomdar. Of 
 course he knew Bengali, and a man who speaks Bengali 
 can guess the meaning of Sanskrit as an Italian may guess 
 the meaning of Latin. Some of the classical Sanskrit texts 
 exist in Bengali translations, and may have given him all 
 the information which he wanted for his own purposes, to 
 say nothing of his constant intercourse with learned men 
 who would have warned him against mistakes and answered 
 any question he chose to ask. Thus the Dea ex machina 
 was really not wanted. If this BrShman lady was called a 
 goddess, we must remember that Devi is not much more 
 than a title of honour given to high-born and illustrious 
 ladies, nay, that an exceptionally well-informed and en- 
 lightened lady might well have been spoken of as an 
 incarnation of the goddess Sarasvati. In India the distance 
 between deity and humanity is very small ; gods are believed 
 to become men, and men gods, without much ado about it. 
 
 Mozoomdar's Judgement. 
 
 Fortunately in our case we have the testimony not only 
 of Vivekinanda, who, as a devoted disciple of RSmaknshwa, 
 might be suspected of partiality, but we have several inde- 
 pendent witnesses, some favourable, others unfavourable. 
 Mozoomdar must be counted as a favourable witness. He 
 stands aloof from the propaganda carried on by Ramak/7sh«a's 
 disciples, but he speaks of him in the highest terms. In 
 a letter which he addressed to me in September, 1895, he 
 wrote : ' Both in Keshub's Life and Teachings, and in the 
 
62 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RkUAKRISUNA. 
 
 old Theistic Review, I have frankly and warmly expressed 
 my estimate of that saintly man and our obligations to him. 
 But there was another side of his character, which of course 
 one could not take up, because it was not edifying.' Here 
 we see another ingredient of the Dialogic Process. 
 
 Bftmakmh^a's Iiangoage. 
 
 ' His speech at times was abominably filthy. For all that, 
 he was, as you say, a real Mah^tman, and I would not with- 
 draw a single word I wrote in his praise. RSmak/ish«a was 
 not in the least a Vedantist, except that every Hindu uncon- 
 sciously imbibes from the atmosphere around some amount 
 of Vedantism, which is the philosophical backbone of every 
 national cult. He did not know a word of Sanskrit, and 
 it is doubtful whether he knew enough BengSU. His 
 spiritual wisdom was the result of genius and practical 
 observation.' 
 
 There is a ring of truth and impartiality about this, and 
 there is no sign of jealousy, which often breaks out, even 
 in India, among religious reformers and their followers. 
 As to his filthy language, we must be prepared for much 
 plain speaking among Oriental races. In a country where 
 certain classes of men are allowed to walk about in public 
 places stark naked, language too is not likely to veil what 
 with us requires to be veiled. There is, however, a great 
 difference between what is filthy and what is meant to be 
 filthy. I doubt whether the charge of intentional filthiness 
 or obscenity, which has been brought against writers like 
 Zola, could be brought, or has ever been brought, against 
 
RAMAKRTSHiVA's LANGUAGE. 63 
 
 RSmakr?sh«a. It is quite true that Hindus who belong 
 socially to the higher classes, though not necessarily BrShmans 
 by birth, would be more careful in their expressions. We 
 seldom find any blemishes of that kind in the writings of 
 Rammohun Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, and their friends. 
 But a certain directness of speech which would be most 
 offensive in England is evidently not regarded in that light 
 in India, and every scholar knows that many of their classical 
 poems, nay, even their Sacred Writings, contain passages 
 which simply do not admit of translation into English. In 
 the three centuries (jataka) of Bhartn'hari, treating of worldly 
 wisdom, love, and passionlessness, the second, that of love, 
 has generally been left out in English translations. But 
 the spirit of that Sn'mgiia-Sataka. is by no means the same 
 as that of Zola's novels. On the contrary, the object of 
 the poet is to warn people against voluptuousness, not 
 as something in itself criminal, which has never been an 
 Indian view, but as a hindrance in obtaining that serenity 
 of mind without which the highest objects of life, dis- 
 passionateness, serenity, and clear-sightedness can never 
 be obtained. A most useful edition of all the three ^atakas 
 has lately been published by Purohit Gopi Nath, M.A., 
 Bombay, 1896. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that in Homer, in Shakespeare, 
 nay, even in the Bible, there are passages against which our 
 modern taste revolts, yet we object to Bowdlerised editions, 
 because the indecencies are never of an intentional cha- 
 racter, and would seem to have been so, if they were now 
 removed by us.' 
 
64 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJZSHWA. 
 
 Hd.aia.'k.riahna.'s Wife. 
 
 Another charge which Mozoomdar seems to consider as 
 proved against Rajaakrishna. is what he calls his almost 
 barbarous treatment of his wife. What he means is evi- 
 dently that he forgot or neglected her till she was seventeen 
 years of age. But this can hardly be called barbarous in 
 India, where it is a recognised custom that a girl of five years 
 of age, as his wife was when he married her, should remain 
 at her parents' house for years before she migrated to the 
 house of her husband and his parents. And that a man 
 in a state such as Ramakr/sh«a is described to have been in 
 should decline to live maritakment, is again by no means 
 unusual in Eastern, nay, in Western countries also. 
 
 VivekSnanda told us that when at the age of seventeen 
 his wife went to find him, he received her with real kind- 
 ness, and that she was quite satisfied to live with him 
 on his own terms, if he would only enlighten her mind and 
 make her to see and to serve God. Such a relationship is 
 by no means without a precedent, and cannot be called 
 barbarous, for volenti non fit injuria. Strange to say, I 
 received not many days ago a letter from an American lady 
 who had gone to visit Ramak«sh«a's widow, Mrs. S. C. 
 Ole Bull, the widow of the famous violin player, and 
 deeply interested in the religious movements in India. 
 On July II, 1898, she writes from ^rm3,gar in Kashmir: 
 'We were the first foreigners who were allowed to see 
 Sarada-devS, the widow of Ramak«'sh«a. She called us 
 her children, and saying that our visit to her was of the 
 
rAmakjj/shjva's wife. 65 
 
 Lord, she felt no strangeness in being with us. When 
 asked to define the obedience to a Guru, who in her case 
 was her husband, she replied to the effect that when one 
 had chosen a Guru or teacher, one should listen to and 
 obey all his directions for spiritual advancement, but in 
 things temporal one could most truly serve a Guru by 
 using one's own best discernment, even if at times it were 
 not in agreement with suggestions given. 
 
 'When she gladly gave her husband, to whom she had 
 been united by child-marriage, her assent that he should 
 lead a Sa»«nySsin's life, she gained his intimate friendship, 
 and became his disciple, receiving daily instruction. During 
 the years of her life with him she was his adviser, praying 
 earnestly for such purity of motive that she might never 
 fail him. She had also taken the vow of poverty and 
 chastity, and in renouncing the natural joys of a mother, 
 she became with him the spiritual parent of many children.' 
 
 It is strange that a man of Mozoomdar's knowledge and 
 experience should have considered the resolve of RSma- 
 kn'shnn's wife to live with him as a Sawznyasini as bar- 
 barous treatment. She herself evidently did not think so, 
 nor have I heard of any other cruelties on the part of her 
 husband. If she was satisfied with her life, who has any 
 right to complain ; and is love between husband and wife 
 really impossible without the procreation of children ? We 
 must learn to believe in Hindu honesty, however incredulous 
 we might justly be on such matters in our own country. 
 Anyhow, I know of no one else who has taken offence 
 at Kimakrishna.'s spiritual marriage. 
 
66 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKRISHNA. 
 
 B&makr2sh»a's Influence on Eeshub Chunder Sen. 
 
 A more painful misunderstanding has arisen with regard 
 to the exact relationship between Rimak«sh«a and Keshub 
 Chunder Sen. A disciple may mean many things, but 
 Keshub Chunder Sen was never chary in giving credit 
 where credit was due, and he was the last man to withhold 
 the name of master and teacher from Ka.xnakrish.na. or any 
 one else from whom he had received inspiration, encourage- 
 ment, or instruction. 'Whoever he may be,' he writes, 
 ' I desire to leam from him. If I see an ordinary minstrel, 
 I love to learn at his feet. If an ascetic comes, I consider 
 that a lac of rupees has come to my house. I leam much 
 by hearing his hymns. ... I can clearly perceive that when- 
 ever a saint takes leave of me he pours into my heart his 
 virtues. To some extent I become like him — I am a bom 
 disciple! On the other hand, no one repudiated the title of 
 Master or Guru more emphatically than Rimakrjshwa. A 
 relative of Keshub Chunder Sen, however, who evidently 
 completely misapprehended whatwas implied by the influence 
 which I said that Ramak«sh«a had exercised on Keshub 
 Chunder Sen, Mozoomdar, and others as his disciples, is 
 very anxious to establish the priority of Keshub Chunder 
 Sen, as if there could be priority in philosophical or religious 
 truth. ' It was Keshub Chunder,' he tells us, * who brought 
 RamakWshwa out of obscurity.' That may be so, but how 
 often have disciples been instrumental in bringing out their 
 master? He then continues to bring charges against 
 RSniak«sh«a, which may be true or not, but have nothing 
 
RAMAKiJ/SHiVA's INFLUENCE. 67 
 
 to do with the true relation between Keshub and Rama- 
 kr/sh«a. If, as we are told, he did not show sufficient 
 moral abhorrence of prostitutes, he does not stand quite 
 alone in this among the founders of religion. If he did not 
 ' honour the principle of teetotalism according to Western 
 notions,' no one, as far as I know, has ever accused him of 
 any excess in drinking. Such bickerings and cavillings 
 would have been most distasteful both to Keshub Chunder 
 Sen and to E.Smak/-/sh«a. Both had no words but words 
 of praise and love for each other, and it was a great pity that 
 their mutual relation should have been treated in a jealous 
 spirit, and thereby totally misrepresented. I can under- 
 stand that in India, where the relation between Guru and 
 ^shya is a very pecuhar and very definite one, one of Keshub 
 Chunder Sen's relatives should have objected to Rama- 
 kr/sh«a being represented as the Guru of Keshub. Keshub 
 had no real Guru, nor was he a Brahman by birth like 
 RSmaknsh«a. But that he learnt from Ramak/7sh«a he, as 
 well as Mozoomdar, has repeatedly admitted. As to myself, 
 I can only say that Keshub Chunder Sen's memory is quite 
 safe in my hands, perhaps safer than in those of his rela- 
 tives. I stood up for him when his nearest friends forsook 
 him and turned against him. If my words could possibly 
 have been misunderstood in India, I gladly state that neither 
 did RimakHshna act as Guru or Keshub Chunder Sen as 
 •Sishya. The only thing that interested me was whether 
 the influence exercised by the former on the latter might 
 possibly account for certain, as yet unexplained, phases in 
 the later spiritual development of Keshub Chunder Sen. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/J/SHiVA. 
 
 It would be a real help in judging of Keshub Chunder Sen 
 if we knew that — to quote the words of Mozoomdar — ' his 
 association with Kimakrishna. developed the conception 
 of the Motherhood of God'; or, again, that 'the strange 
 selectivism of Ramakn'shwa suggested to Keshub's appre- 
 ciative mind the thought of broadening the spiritual struc- 
 ture of his own movement.' Whether toward the end of 
 his life Keshub became mystic and ecstatic in his utter- 
 ances, and whether his concept of the Godhead as the 
 Divine Mother was inspired by Ramakrishwa, I gladly leave 
 to others to decide. By whatever terms these words mystic 
 and ecstatic may be, if translated into Bengali, in English 
 they mean exactly that spirit which pervades many of the 
 utterances of the so-called New Dispensation, and which 
 was so severely, and far too severely, animadverted on by 
 many of Keshub's European admirers. Mystic has no such 
 terrible meaning in English as its corresponding term 
 seems to have in Bengdli. People always seem to imagine 
 that mystic has something to do with mist. Thus the late 
 B. R. Rajam Iyer wrote in the Prabuddha Bharata, p. 123 : 
 ' The Vedanta will certainly be mysticism if it seek to make 
 a man live without food, enable him to preserve his life as 
 long as he pleases, or get stiff like a corpse, dead entirely 
 to the world, though an obscure spark of life may yet linger 
 in the system. The Vedinta will be mysticism if it seek 
 to enable man to work wonderful feats, as flying in the air, 
 leaving the body at will, and wandering in space unob- 
 structed like a ghost, or entering into the bodies of others, 
 and possessing them like spirits, and doing similar things 
 
vedAnta-philosophy. 69 
 
 of an unnatural character. The VedSnta will certainly be 
 mysticism if it seek to make a man read the thoughts of 
 others, and lay him in an eternal trance, when he would be 
 more dead than alive, both with reference to himself and to 
 others.' I quote these words partly to show the misapplica- 
 tion of the term mysticism, for all this should not be called 
 mysticism, but fraud and jugglery ; and partly to show what 
 the VedSnta is not, and certainly never was, in the eyes of 
 Keshub Chunder Sen or RSmak«sh«a. It was in order to 
 express my conviction that some later phases in Keshub's 
 so-called New Dispensation were not essential to his simple 
 original teaching, that I tried to trace them back to their 
 different sources. If some of RSmak«sh«a's followers have 
 made capital out of these remarks, surely such local jealousies 
 and backbitings may safely be ignored. An honest under- 
 standing between East and West, which was one of Keshub's 
 highest ideals, cannot be furthered by the somewhat childish 
 misunderstandings of Keshub's self-constituted advocates. 
 Keshub himself would have been the last person to approve 
 of the spirit that pervades his friend's passionate, though, 
 I trust, well-intentioned advocacy. 
 
 Vedflnta-philosophy. 
 
 If now we return to RSmakr?sh«a, I can assure Keshub's 
 zealous advocate that I never looked upon Kiraakrishna. 
 as the originator of the VedSnta-philosophy. He was 
 not a man possessed of a scholarlike knowledge of the 
 ancient system of the VedSnta-philosophy, nor do I feel 
 certain that even Keshub Chunder Sen had studied Sam- 
 
70 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHJVA. 
 
 kara's or RSmdnu^'s famous commentaries on the Vedanta 
 Sdtras. But both were thoroughly imbued with the spirit 
 of that philosophy, which is, in fact, like the air breathed 
 more or less by every Hindu who cares for philosophy or 
 religion. It is difficult to say whether we should treat 
 the Vedinta as philosophy or religion, the two being really 
 inseparable from the Hindu point of view. 
 
 What is curious, however, both in Keshub Chunder 
 Sen's and in Ramak«"sh;2a's utterances, is the admixture 
 of European ideas. Neither the one nor the other would 
 have spoken as they did, before the English Government 
 began its educational work in India. The bulk of their 
 teaching is, no doubt, Indian to the backbone. It is the 
 old Indian philosophy, properly called Vedanta or the 
 highest goal of the Veda, but there is clearly a sprinkling, 
 and sometimes far more than a mere sprinkling, of European 
 thoughts in Keshub's writings ; and we often meet with 
 quite unexpected references to European subjects, not ex- 
 cluding railways and gas, in the sayings of Rimakrishna. 
 
 It is necessary to explain in a few words the character 
 of that Vedanta-philosophy which is the very marrow 
 running through all the bones of RSmakWsh«a's doctrine. 
 It is by no means easy, however, to give a short abstract 
 of that ancient philosophy, particularly if we consider that 
 it exists now, and seems always to have existed, under three 
 different forms, the Advaita School (non-duality school), 
 the Vifish/a-advaita School (non-duality school, with a 
 difference), and the Dvaita School (real duality school), 
 the last of which seems hardly to have a right to the name 
 
VEDANTA-PHTLOSOPHY. 7 1 
 
 of Vedanta, but nevertheless is so called. The Advaita or 
 non-duality school, chiefly represented by Sa.mka.ta. and his 
 followers, holds that there is and there can be one reality 
 only, whether we call it God, the Infinite or the Absolute, the 
 Unknowable or Brahman, so that it follows by the strictest 
 rules of logic that whatever is or seems to be, can be that one 
 Absolute only, though wrongly conceived, as we are told, 
 by AvidyS or Nescience. The human soul, like everything 
 else, is and can be nothing but Brahman or the Absolute, 
 though for a time misconceived by Avidya or Nescience. 
 The desire of each individual soul is not, as commonly 
 supposed, an approach to or a union with Brahman, but 
 simply a becoming what it has always been, a recovering 
 and recollection of its true being, a recognition of the full 
 and undivided Brahman as the eternal basis of every 
 apparently individual soul. 
 
 The second school, called Vij-ish/^-advaita, or Advaita, 
 non-duality, with a difference, was evidently intended for 
 a larger public, for those who could not bring them- 
 selves to deny all reality to the phenomenal world, and 
 some individuality likewise to their own souls. It is diffi- 
 cult to say which of the two schools was the more ancient, 
 and I am bound to acknowledge, after Professor Thibaut's 
 luminous exposition, that the Vifish/idvaita interpretation 
 seems to me more in keeping with the Sutras of Bida- 
 rdya«a. It is true that Ramdnu^ lived in the twelfth, 
 .Sawikara in the eighth century, but there were Virish/Sdvaita 
 expositions and commentaries long before RdmSni;^. 
 Considered as a case of philosophical athletics, the rigidly 
 
72 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKii/SHJVA. 
 
 monistic school cannot fail to command our admiration. 
 Sa.mka.TiL makes no concessions of any kind. He begins 
 and never parts with his conviction that whatever is, is one 
 and the same in itself, without variableness or shadow of 
 turning. This, what he calls the Brahman, does not possess 
 any qualities (vijesha), not even those of being and thinking, 
 but it is both being and thought. To every attempt to 
 define or qualify Brahman, .Samkara has but one answer — 
 No, No ! When the question is asked as to the cause of 
 what cannot be denied, namely, the manifold phenomenal 
 world, or the world as reflected in our consciousness, with 
 all its individual subjects, and all its individual objects, 
 all that .Sa^zkara condescends to say is that their cause is 
 Avidya or Nescience. Here hes what strikes a Western 
 mind as the vulnerable point of Samka.ra.'s Vedanta-philo- 
 sophy. We should feel inclined to say that even this 
 AvidyS, which causes the phenomenal world to appear, 
 must itself have some cause and reality, but Samkara. does 
 not allow this, and repeats again and again that, as an 
 illusion, Nescience is neither real nor unreal, but is some- 
 thing exactly like our own ignorance when, for instance, 
 we imagine we see a serpent, while what we really see 
 is a rope, and yet we run away from it in all earnestness 
 as if it were a real cobra. This creative Nescience once 
 granted, everything else proceeds smoothly enough. Brah- 
 man (or Atman), as held or as beheld by AvidyS, seems 
 modified into all that is phenomenal. Our instruments of 
 knowledge, whether senses or mind, nay, our whole body, 
 should be considered as impediments or fetters rather, as 
 
VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY. 73 
 
 Upidhis, as they are called, which one feels tempted to 
 translate by impositions. And here the difficulty arises — are 
 these Upidhis, these misleading organs of knowledge, the 
 cause or the result of Avidyi? With us they are clearly 
 the cause of AvidyS ; but are they not, like everything that 
 we call created, the result also of that universal beginning- 
 less AvidyS, without which Brahman could never have 
 become even phenomenally creative ? This is a point that 
 requires further consideration. It is touched upon, but hardly 
 decided, by Sumkaxa. in his commentary (pp. 787, 789), where 
 we read ^ : ' The omniscience and omnipotence of the Atman 
 are hidden by its union with the body, that is, by the union 
 with the body, senses, Manas (mind), and Buddhi (thought), 
 the objects, and their perception as such.' And here we 
 have the simile : As fire is endowed with burning and 
 light, but both are hidden when fire has retired into the 
 wood or is covered with ashes, in the same manner, through 
 the union of the Self with the UpSdhis, such as body, senses, 
 &c., that is, with the Upidhis formed by Avidya from NSma- 
 rfipa, names and forms, there arises the error of the Atman 
 not being different from them, and this is what causes the 
 hiding of the omniscience and omnipotence of the Atman. 
 It is under the influence of that AvidyS that Brahman 
 assumes or receives names and forms (namarflpa), which 
 come very near to the Greek Xdyoi, or the archetypes of every- 
 thing. Then follow the material objective elements which 
 constitute animate and inanimate bodies, in fact the whole 
 objective world. But all this is illusive. In reality there 
 ' Deussen, System des Vedinta, p, 115. 
 
74 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKS/SHiVA. 
 
 are no individual things, no individual souls (^vas) ; they 
 only seem to exist so long as Nescience prevails over 
 Atman or Brahman. 
 
 Ekam advitiyam. One without a Second. 
 
 If you ask, what then is real in all things and in every 
 individual soul? the answer is. Brahman, the One without 
 a Second, the One besides whom there is nothing ; but this 
 answer can be understood by those only who know Avidya, 
 and by knowing it have destroyed it. Others believe that the 
 world is this or that, and that they themselves are this and 
 that. Man thinks that he is an Ego dwelling in the body, 
 seeing and hearing, comprehending and reasoning, reasoning 
 and acting, while with the strict Vedintist the true Self 
 lies deep below the Ego, or the Aham, which belongs to 
 the world of illusion. As an Ego, man has become already 
 an actor and enjoyer, instead of remaining a distant witness 
 of the world. He is then carried along into the SsLmsiiSL, 
 the concourse of the world; he becomes the creature or 
 the slave of his accumulated acts (karman), and goes on 
 from change to change, till in the end he discovers the true 
 Brahman which alone really exists, and which as being 
 himself is called Atman or Self, and at the same time 
 Paramatman, or the Highest, Atman and Brahman, both 
 being one and the same thing. Good works may be help- 
 ful in producing a proper state of mind for receiving this 
 knowledge, but it is by knowledge alone that men can be 
 saved and obtain Mukti, freedom, and not by good works. 
 This salvation or freedom finds expression in the celebrated 
 
EKAM ADVITIYAM, 75 
 
 words Tat tvam asi, thou art that, i.e. thou art not thou, 
 but that, i. e. the only existing Brahman ; the Atman, the 
 Self, and the Brahman are one and the same. 
 
 Strange as ^awkara's monism may seem to us, yet the 
 current idea that God created the world out of nothing 
 can, strictly speaking, mean nothing else than that nothing 
 can ever exist by the side of God, that God, out of His own 
 energy, supplied both the material and the efficient cause 
 of the world. Rstmanu^ is less exacting. He is at one 
 with Sumkaia. in admitting that there can be only one 
 thing real, namely Brahman, but he allows what ^awzkara 
 strenuously denies, that Brahman possesses attributes. 
 His chief attribute, according to Raminu^, is thought or 
 intelligence, but he is likewise allowed to possess omnipo- 
 tence, omniscience, love, and other good qualities. He is 
 allowed to possess within himself certain powers (jaktis), 
 the seeds of plurality, so that both the material objects 
 of our experience and the individual souls (^vas) may be 
 considered as real modifications of the real Brahman, and 
 not merely as phenomena or illusions (mSya). In this 
 modified capacity Brahman is spoken of as mara, the 
 Lord, and both the thinking (^it) and the unthinking 
 world (a^it) are supposed to constitute his body. He is 
 then called the Antarydmin, the ruler within, so that 
 both the objects and the souls which he controls are 
 entitled in their individuality to an independent reality, 
 which, as we saw, ^awkara boldly denies. Though RSm^nnga 
 also would hardly accept our idea of creation, he teaches 
 evolution or a process by which all that existed potentially 
 
76 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF ukUAKRISHNA. 
 
 or in a subtile invisible form in the one Brahman, while 
 in its undeveloped state (pralaya), becomes visible, material, 
 objective, and individual in this phenomenal world. Could 
 our evolutionists have wished for a better ancestor ? Their 
 phraseology may be different, but what is meant is the same. 
 Ramanu^ distinguishes between Brahman as a cause and 
 Brahman as an effect, but he teaches at the same time that 
 cause and effect are always the same, though what we call 
 cause undergoes pariwima, i. e. development, in order to 
 become what we call effect. Instead of holding with Samkara. 
 that we are deceived about Brahman, that we turn it aside 
 or invert it (vivarta) while under the sway of Nescience, 
 BAminuga. teaches that Brahman really changes, that what is 
 potential in him at first, becomes real and objective at last. 
 Another important difference between the two is that while 
 &i»2kara's highest goal consists in Brahman recovering itself 
 by knowledge, Raman^§a recognises the merit of good 
 works, and allows a pure soul to rise by successive stages 
 to the world of Brahman, to enjoy there perfect felicity 
 without fear of new births or of further transmigration. 
 With him, as with us, the soul is really supposed to 
 approach the throne of Brahman, to become like Brahman, 
 and participate in all his powers except one, that of creating, 
 that is, sending forth the phenomenal world, governing it, 
 and absorbing it again when the time comes. Thus not 
 only does Ramanu^ allow individuality to individual souls, 
 but likewise to I jvara, the Lord, the personal God, while with 
 Samkaia. a personal god would be as unreal as a personal 
 soul, both becoming real only in their recovered identity. 
 
EKAM ADVITIYAM. ']'] 
 
 What RamSnu^ thus represents as the highest truth and 
 as the highest goal to be reached by a man seeking for 
 salvation, is not altogether rejected by .Sawzkara. It is 
 tolerated, but it is looked upon by him as Lower Know- 
 ledge, the personal Brahman as the Lower Brahman. That 
 Brahman is called aparam, lower, and sagu«am, qualified, 
 and being a merely personal God, he is often worshipped 
 by RSminu^ and his numerous followers, even under such 
 popular names as Vishnu or Naraya«a. With ^kwkara that 
 personal trvara or Lord would be conceived as the pratika, 
 the outward face or appearance only, we might almost say as 
 the persona or the trpoirainou of the Godhead, and his 
 worship (upisana), though ignorant, is tolerated and even 
 recommended as practically useful. The Jewish and the 
 Christian id,ea of God would be in his eyes the same, 
 a pratika or persona of the Godhead. A worship of that 
 God makes the God to be what he is worshipped as (Ved. 
 Sfltra III, 4, 52), and, such as it is, it may lead the pious 
 and virtuous man to eternal happiness. But it is true 
 knowledge alone that can produce eternal salvation, that is, 
 recovered Brahmanhood, and this, even in this life (^tvan 
 mukti), with freedom from karman (works) and from all 
 further transmigration after death, in fact with freedom from 
 the law of causality. It seems strange that the followers of 
 these two schools of Vedanta have so long lived in peace and 
 harmony together, though differing on what we should con- 
 sider the most essential points, whether of philosophy or 
 religion. The followers of 5a»zkara do not accuse the fol- 
 lowers of Ramintr^ of downright error (mithyadar^ana), but 
 
78 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKitrSH^A, 
 
 of Nescience only, or of, humanly speaking, inevitable Avidya. 
 Even the phenomenal world and the individual souls, though 
 due to Avidya, are not, as we saw, considered as empty or 
 false; they are phenomenal, but have their reality in Brahman 
 if only our eyes, by the withdrawal of AvidyS, are opened 
 to see the truth. What is phenomenal is not nothing, 
 but is always the appearance of that which is and remains 
 
 A 
 
 real, whether we call it the Brahman, the Atman, the Abso- 
 lute, the Unknowable, or, in Kantian language, das Ding 
 an sick. Besides, it is recognised, even by the strictest 
 monists, that for all practical purposes (vyavahira) the 
 phenomenal world may be treated as real. It could not 
 even seem to exist (videri) unless it had its real founda- 
 tion in Brahman. The only riddle that remains is Avidyd 
 or Nescience, often called MayS. or illusion. Sa.mksxa. him- 
 self will not say that it is or that it is not real. All he can 
 say is that it is there, and that it is the aim of the Vedinta- 
 philosophy to annihilate it by Vidysi, Nescience by science, 
 proving thereby, it would seem, that Avidyi is not real. 
 
 At first sight this Vedtnta-philosophy is, no doubt, start- 
 ling, but after some time one grows so familiar with it and 
 becomes so fond of it that one wonders why it should not 
 have been discovered by the philosophers of any other 
 country. It seems to solve all difficulties but one, to adapt 
 itself to any other philosophy, nay, to every kind of religion 
 which does not intrench itself behind the ramparts of revela- 
 tion and miracle. The difficulty is to find a natural approach 
 to it from the position which we occupy in looking at 
 philosophical and religious problems. I tried before to open 
 
EKAM ADVITIYAM. 79 
 
 one of its doors by asking the question, what is the cause of 
 all things? and we met with the answer that that cause must 
 be one, without a second, because the very presence of 
 a second would limit and condition that which is to be 
 unlimited and unconditioned. We saw how, in order to 
 explain what cannot be doubted, namely, the constant 
 changes in the world by which we are surrounded, Avidya 
 or Nescience was called in to explain what cannot be denied 
 — the variety of our sensations. It is curious only that what 
 the Greek philosophers called the logoi, the thoughts or 
 names as architypes of all phenomenal things, were by the 
 Vedanta treated not as the expressions of Divine Wisdom or 
 of Sophia, but as Nama-rupa, names and forms, the result of 
 Nescience or AvidyS. This Greek conception, apparently 
 the very opposite of that of the VedSnta, is nevertheless the 
 same, only looked at from a lower and higher point of view. 
 Nama-rfipa, names and forms, and Logoi, names and what 
 is named, express the same idea, namely, that as words are 
 thoughts realised, the whole creation is the word or the 
 expression of eternal thoughts, whether of Brahman or 
 of the Godhead, or, in another version, that the world 
 represents the idea in its dialectic progress from mere being 
 to the highest manifestations of thought. That Brahman 
 can easily be proved to have originally meant word, makes 
 the coincidence between VedS,nta, Neo-Platonism, and 
 Christian philosophy still more striking, though it would be 
 hazardous to think of any historical connexion between 
 these ancient conceptions of a rational universe. Lest it 
 should be supposed that I had assimilated the Hindu idea 
 
8o THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKJJ/SHiVA. 
 
 of the word, as being with Brahman and becoming the 
 origin of the world, too closely to the Greek conception 
 of the Logos,v I subjoin a literal translation of a passage in 
 ^awkara's commentary (p. 96, i). He holds that Brah- 
 man is pure intelligence, and when the opponent remarks 
 that intelligence is possible only if there are objects of in- 
 telligence, he replies : 'As the sun would shine even if there 
 were no objects to illuminate, Brahman would be intelli- 
 gence even if there were no objects on which to exercise 
 his intelligence. Such an object, however, exists even 
 before the creation, namely, Nama-rupa, the names and 
 forms, as yet undeveloped, but striving for development 
 (avyakwte, vyS^iklrshite), that is the words of the Veda 
 living in the mind of the creator even before the creation ^' 
 Might not this have been written by Plato himself? 
 
 Ti'uGi (r€aUTiSi>. 
 
 We may try now another door for an entrance into the 
 Vedanta-philosophy, which may help in bringing the 
 Vedanta nearer to ourselves, or ourselves nearer to the 
 Vedinta, so that it may be looked upon not simply as a 
 strange and curious system, but as a system of thought 
 with which we can sympathise, nay, which, with certain 
 modifications, we can appropriate for our own purposes "■'. ' 
 
 One of the most ancient commands of Greek philosophy 
 was the famous Tvadt o-eaurdv, know thyself. Here the 
 Hindu philosopher would step in at once and say that 
 
 ' See Denssen, Das System des Veddnta, pp. 75, 147. 
 ' Cf. Deussen, 1. c. p. 60 seq. 
 
TNOei 2EAYT0N. 8 1 
 
 this is likewise the very highest object of their own philo- 
 sophy, only that they express it more fully by Atmanam 
 atmanS, pajya, See the Self by the Self! But like true 
 philosophers they would let no word pass unchallenged, and 
 would ask at once, who or what is meant by the atros, 
 or by the Self ? The VedSnta-philosophy has been called 
 a philosophy of negation, which tries to arrive at the truth 
 by a repeated denial of what cannot be the truth. It often 
 defines its own character by Na, na, Not this, not that. 
 First of all then the Vedanta would say, the aurdi, or that 
 which is what we are, the Self, cannot be the body. In the 
 true sense of the word, the body is not, has no right to be 
 called being, sat, because sooner or later it ceases to be, and 
 nothing can ever cease to be, if it really is. As the body 
 is not eternal, it is not real in the highest sense of reality. 
 If therefore we want to know what is truly real, the body 
 (deha or sthflla^arira) cannot be the aMs or the Self. 
 
 But if we see that all we know comes to us through 
 the five senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and 
 smelling, that we cannot go beyond the senses, that we 
 never have nor can have more than sensuous images of 
 the world and of ourselves, and that what we call our 
 knowledge consists in the first instance of these images, 
 not of any realities, which we may postulate, indeed, as 
 underlying these images, but which we can never reach, 
 except by hypothesis, might we not say that our senses 
 as a whole are our air<5s or Self? The Vedantist would 
 reply again. No, no. Our senses are wonderful indeed, 
 but they are only the instruments of our knowledge, they 
 
 G 
 
82 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA. 
 
 form part of our body, they perish with the body, and 
 cannot therefore constitute our real Self. Besides the five 
 senses which the Hindus call ^«Snendriyas, senses of 
 knowledge, they admit five other senses which they call 
 karmendriyas, senses of action, namely, the senses of 
 speaking, grasping, moving, excretion, and procreation. 
 This is an idea peculiar to the Hindus, the former five 
 being intended for action from without to within (upalabdhi), 
 the latter for action from within to without (karman). The 
 images brought to us by the senses, on which we depend 
 for all our knowledge, are what we should call states of 
 consciousness, they are not even our Ego, much less our 
 Self. They come and go, arise and vanish, and cannot 
 therefore be called real or eternal, as little as the body. 
 In all these images we may distinguish the subject or the 
 active element, and the object or the passive element. 
 The passive or objective elements are what we are ac- 
 customed to call matter, and this matter, according to the 
 five senses by which it is perceived, is divided into five 
 kinds, viz. ether, corresponding to hearing; light, corre- 
 sponding to seeing ; air, corresponding to touching ; water, 
 corresponding to tasting; and earth, corresponding to 
 smelling. This is all that we can legitimately mean by 
 the five elements. They are to us states of consciousness, 
 or vi^nina only. But though to us elementary matter 
 exists, and can exist as known, or in the form of knowledge 
 only, the Vedanta does not deny its existence, whatever 
 it may say about its reality. If the objects of our sensuous 
 knowledge are all the result of Avidya, the elements also 
 
TNaei SEAYTON. 83 
 
 must share that fate, and cannot claim more than a phe- 
 nomenal reality. 
 
 As, however, there are few, if any, sensations correspond- 
 ing to one element only, without being mixed up with 
 others, each element is supposed to be five-folded, that is, 
 to contain one preponderating quality, and small portions 
 of the others. This so-called V&nMk&xa.na. or quintupling 
 is not to be found, however, in the ancient VedSnta; it 
 belongs to the refinements, and not always improvements, 
 of a later age to which we owe such works as the very 
 popular Vedantasira. A diiferent and, as it would seem, 
 far more primitive conception of the elements is found in 
 the Upanishads, for instance, the .OSndogya Upanishad 
 VI, 2. We generally find in India four elements, or, with 
 the addition of akSja, ether, as the vehicle of sound, five. 
 The most primitive conception of the constituent elements 
 of the world, however, would seem to have been three, 
 namely, what is earthy, what is fiery, and what is watery. 
 These three elements could not possibly be overlooked, and 
 this threefold division is actually found in the .Oandogya, 
 where the three elements are called Anna, Te^s, and 
 Ap, or, as they are arranged there, first, Te^s, including 
 fire, light, and warmth, then Ap, water, and lastly Anna, 
 earth. It is true that Anna means otherwise food, but 
 it can here be taken in the sense of earth only, as sup- 
 plying food. The first is represented as red, the second 
 as white, the third as black. These three elements also 
 are represented as being mixed in three proportions, 
 and as constituent elements of the human body they are 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 represented as passing through three forms of development, 
 the earthy portion being manifested in faeces, flesh, and 
 Manas, the watery portion in urine, blood, and life, the fiefy 
 portion in bones, marrow, and speech. There are many 
 of these purely fanciful speculations to be found in the 
 Upanishads. This, however, should not be allowed to pre- 
 judice us against what is simple and primitive and rational 
 in these depositories of ancient thought. But if it is asked, 
 Can these passive and active senses be the Self? the 
 Vedantist says again, No, no; they are not what we are 
 in search of, they cannot be the airos, which must be real, 
 unchanging, and eternal. 
 
 If this applies to the ten senses, it applies with equal 
 strength to what is sometimes called the eleventh sense, the 
 Manas, all treated as material, and as products of the earthy 
 element. Manas is etymologically closely connected with 
 mens and has therefore been generally translated by mind. 
 But though it may be used in that sense in ordinary 
 language, it has a narrower meaning in Sanskrit philosophy. 
 It is meant for the central and combining organ of the 
 senses of perception and action. This Manas performs 
 originally, what we ascribe to the faculty of attention 
 (avadhana) : it acts, as we are told, as a doorkeeper, pre- 
 venting the impressions of the different senses from rushing 
 in simultaneously, and producing nothing but confusion. 
 It is easy to show that this central sense also falls under 
 the Vedantic No, no. It cannot be the Self, which must 
 be permanent and real ; it is an instrument only, and there- 
 fore called anta/%kara«a — the inner organ. We see here the 
 
rNOei 2EAYT0N. 85 
 
 same confusion which exists elsewhere. There is such an 
 abundance of words expressive of what is going on within 
 us, our antaAkara«a, our mind in its various manifestations, 
 that we are embarrassed rather than helped by this wealth. 
 The worst of it is that as there are so many words, it was 
 supposed at a later time that each must have its own 
 peculiar meaning; and, if it had not, scholastic definition 
 soon came in to assign to each that special meaning which 
 it was to have in future. In the meantime the stream of 
 languages flowed on in complete disregard of such artificial 
 barriers, and with every new philosophy the confusion 
 became greater and greater. It is easy to understand that 
 if each language by itself can seldom give us well-defined 
 terms for the various manifestations of our perceptive and 
 reasoning powers, the confusion becomes still greater when 
 we attempt to render the psychological terms of one by 
 those of another language. For instance, if we translated 
 Atman, as is mostly done, by soul, we should be rendering 
 what is free from all passions by a word which generally 
 implies the seat of the passions. And if we were to follow 
 the example of others and translate Manas by understanding 
 or Verstand, we should render what is meant as chiefly 
 a perceptive and arranging faculty by a name that implies 
 reasoning from the lowest to the highest form. With us 
 Verstand is what distinguishes men from animals, while in 
 the Vedanta Manas is not denied to animals, not even, as it 
 would seem, to plants ^ 
 
 It seems better therefore to retain as much as possible 
 * Deussen, l.u. p. 258. 
 
86 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RlMAK/i/SHiVA. 
 
 the technical terms of Sanskrit philosophy, and to speak of 
 Atman or the Self instead of soul, of Manas, or possibly 
 mind, instead of understanding or Verstand. 
 
 We shall see that even in Sanskrit itself the confusion 
 is very great, there being more terms than can be accom- 
 modated or be kept distinct one from the other. By the 
 side of the Indriyas, or senses, for instance, we also find 
 PrS/zas, literally vital spirits, which include the Manas, and 
 as a conditio sine qua non, but not as one of the Indriyas, the 
 so-called Mukhya PrS«a, the vital breath, that passes from 
 the lungs through the mouth, and which again in a very 
 artificial, if not to say foolish, manner is divided into five 
 varieties. The Manas is then treated, like the senses, as 
 part of the body, being meant at first, I believe, for no 
 more than the central and superintending perceptive organ. 
 But it has many functions, and the names of some of them 
 are interchanged with the names of the Manas itself. We 
 have Buddhi, the general name for perception and mental 
 activity, .^itta, thought or what is thought, Vi^«ana, 
 discrimination, some of which are sometimes treated as 
 separate faculties. Sawzkara, however, shows his powerful 
 grasp by comprising all under Manas, so that Manas is 
 sometimes reason, sometimes understanding, or mind or 
 thought. This simplifies his psychology very much, though 
 it may lead to misunderstandings also. Manas gives us the 
 images (Vorstellungen) which consist of the contributions 
 of the different senses ; it tells us this is this (nij/^aya) and 
 fixes it (adhyavasSya). Images are formed into concepts and 
 words (sawkalpa); these may be called into question {sa.msa.ya.), 
 
TNOei 2EAYT0N. 87 
 
 and weighed (vikalpa) against each other, so as to give us 
 judgements. Here then we should have in a rough form 
 the elements of our psychology, but it must be confessed 
 that they were never minutely elaborated by the Vedanta 
 philosophers. Even the meanings here assigned to the 
 different psychological terms, were so assigned etymo- 
 logically rather than from definitions given by ^a»zkara 
 himself. According to him, Manas gives us everything ; 
 impressions, images, concepts, and judgements, nay even 
 self-consciousness or Ahamkira., i. e. the Ego-making, and 
 consequently the distinguishing between subjects and ob- 
 jects, all are Manas. But when we ask, is the Manas, or 
 the Aha^zkara, or Buddhi, or Xitta, are any of thfe 
 attributes of Manas, such as KSma, desire, Dht, fear, Hrt, 
 shame, Dhl, wisdom, Vi^ikitsS, doubt, AaddhS, belief, 
 Ajraddhd, unbelief, Dhriti, decision, Adhr/ti, wavering, — 
 are all or any of these the true Self? the Vedantist answers 
 again. No, no ; they are temporal, they are composite, they 
 come and they go, they cannot be what we are in search 
 of, the true and eternal Self. It is clear that when we say 
 my body, there are two things presupposed, one thing the 
 body, the other he to whom it belongs. So again when 
 we speak of my senses, my mind, nay of my Ego, we 
 distinguish between a possessor and what for the time 
 being he possesses. But we should never say my Self, 
 because that is tautological : the Self cannot belong to any 
 one else. If we were to say my Self, we could only mean 
 our Ego, but if we say our Self, i.e. the Self of all, or simply 
 Self, we mean Brahman, Brahman as hidden within us and 
 
88 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 within the world. At the time of death the organs of know- 
 ledge are not supposed to be destroyed absolutely, but while 
 there is another life before us, they are reduced to a seminal 
 or potential form only, and though the outward organs them- 
 selves will decay, their potentia or powers remain, dwelling 
 in what is called the Sfikshma-^Sarira, the subtile body, the 
 body that migrates from birth to birth and becomes again 
 and again a Sthula-&rira, a material body. But when real 
 freedom has once been obtained, this Sukshma-.Sarira also 
 vanishes and there remains the Atman only, or Brahman as 
 he was and always will be. The form assumed by the 
 body in every new existence is determined by the deeds 
 and thoughts during former existences : it is still, so to say, 
 under the law of causality. 
 
 Then what remains for the airos, for the Atman ? The 
 Greek sages have hardly any answer to give ; to them the 
 auTcSs was seldom more than the Ego, Ahawzkara, while with 
 the Vedantist it is distinctly not the Ego as opposed to 
 a Non-Ego, but something beyond, something not touched 
 by the law of causality, something neither suffering, nor 
 enjoying, nor acting, but that without which neither the 
 gross nor the subtile body could ever exist. This Self, 
 this the true airSs, was discovered in the lotus of the heart 
 in true Self-consciousness, it was discovered as not-personal ; 
 though dwelling in the personal or living Atman, the Giva., 
 it remained for ever a mere looker-on, untouched by anything. 
 As I said before, the Vedinta-philosophy is a philosophy 
 of negation ; it says No, no, it says all that the Self is not, 
 but what the Self is, defies all words and all thoughts. 
 
TNOei 2EAYT0N. 89 
 
 Our thoughts and our words return from it baffled, as the 
 Veda says. There are passages in the Upanishads where 
 attempts are made to bring us nearer to a conception of the 
 Self, whether we call it the Brahman or the Atman, but 
 these attempts never go so far as a definition of these two, 
 or of this One Power. In the XHndogya Upanishad 
 III, 14, we read: 'Surely this universe is Brahman. It 
 should be worshipped in silence as the beginning, the 
 being, and the end of all. Its matter is thought, life its 
 body, light its form. Its will is truth, its Self the infinite 
 (ether). It works all, it wills all, it scents all, it tastes all, 
 embracing the Universe, silent and unconcerned. This is 
 the Self in the innermost heart, smaller than a mustard- 
 seed or the kernel of it. This is the Self in the innermost 
 heart, larger than the earth, larger than the atmosphere, 
 larger than the sky, larger than all worlds. The all- 
 working, all-willing, all-scenting, all-tasting one, the all- 
 embracing, silent, unconcerned one, this is the Self in 
 the innermost heart, this is Brahman, this I shall become 
 when parting from hence. He who has this, does not 
 doubt.' 
 
 This subject is treated again and again. Very much 
 as we saw it treated in the ^Mndogya, we find it treated 
 in the Taittiriya Upanishad II, 1-7. One covering after 
 another is there removed, till there remains in the end 
 the pure Self. First the body of flesh and blood is re- 
 moved, then the vital breath, then the Manas, and with it 
 thought, till at last nothing remains but the Self full of 
 bliss. This is called the sap or the essence. It is this Self 
 
go THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/e/SHWA. 
 
 that brings bliss, finding peace and rest in the invisible, 
 the immaterial, the inexpressible, the unfathomable. So 
 long as anything else is left, hidden anywhere, there is no 
 peace and no rest, however wise a man may think himself. 
 Or, as 'YS^avalkya says : ' He who knows this, knows 
 everything.' Every name that can be imagined for ex- 
 pressing what is really inexpressible, is assigned in the 
 Upanishads to Brahman. Brahman is neither long nor 
 short, neither subtile nor gross ; he is without parts, without 
 activity, still, without spot, without fraud, he is unborn, 
 never growing old, not fading nor dying, nor fearing any- 
 thing; he is without and within.' Whether such a being 
 can be called he, is very doubtful, for he is neither he 
 nor she; he is It in the very highest sense of that un- 
 differentiated pronoun. 
 
 We thus see that both methods, the first that started 
 from the postulate that the true Self must be one, without 
 a second, and the second, which holds that the true Self 
 must be unchanging, eternal, without beginning or end, 
 arrive at the same final result, viz. that the Self of the 
 world can be nothing that is perceived in this changing 
 world, and that our own Self too can be nothing that is 
 perceived as changing, as being born, as living and dying. 
 Both may, in one sense of the word, be called nothings ; 
 though they are in reality that in comparison with which 
 everything else is nothing. If the world is real the Self 
 is not, if the Self is real the world is not. 
 
FINAL CONCLUSION, TAT TVAMASI. 9 1 
 
 Final Conclusion, Tat tvamasi. 
 
 Then follows the final conclusion that these two Selfs are 
 one and the same, only reached by different methods. Man 
 is man phenomenally, the world is world phenomenally, the 
 gods of the world are gods phenomenally, but in full reality 
 all are the Godhead, call it Atman or Brahman, metamor- 
 phosed and hidden for a time by AvidyS. or Nescience, but 
 always recoverable by VidyS or by the Vedanta-philosophy. 
 
 These ideas in a more or less popular form seem to 
 pervade the Hindu mind from the earliest to the latest 
 date. They are taught in the schools, but even without 
 the schools they seem to be imbibed with the mother's 
 milk. They are often exaggerated and caricatured so as 
 to become repulsive to a European mind, but in their 
 purity and simplicity they contain an amount of truth which 
 can no longer be safely neglected by any student, whether 
 of philosophy or religion. It can no longer be put aside as 
 merely curious, or disposed of as mystic, without a defini- 
 tion of what is meant by mystic, and without an argument 
 that everything that is called mystic has really nothing to 
 do with either religion or philosophy. That it may lead to 
 dangerous consequences no one would deny, but the same 
 may be said of almost every religion and every philosophy, 
 if carried to its last consequences. I have already drawn 
 attention to the false reasoning, that because good works 
 cannot secure salvation, therefore bad works also are in- 
 different or harmless. Good works, according to the 
 Vedanta, certainly do not lead straight to salvation, but 
 
92 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/J/SHiVA. 
 
 they represent the first essential step that leads on to 
 salvation, while evil deeds form a barrier that keeps a man 
 from making even the first step in his progress towards 
 knowledge and beatitude. That a Saint cannot sin, or 
 that Sciens non peccat, has been held true not in India 
 only, but it is easily seen in what sense this is either 
 true or false, whether in India or at home. It cannot be 
 deeply enough impressed on the minds of the modern 
 apostles of Ramak«sh«a that nothing would be more 
 likely to lower their master and their own work in the 
 eyes of serious people than the slightest moral laxity on 
 their part, or a defence of any such laxity on the ground 
 that a G«anin, a Knower, is above morality. It is one 
 thing to say that such a man cannot sin because his passions 
 are completely subdued, another that if he should from any 
 defect of knowledge lapse from his passionless and perfect 
 state it could not be imputed to him as sin. I confess 
 there is a httle uncertainty on that point even among ancient 
 authorities, but we know as yet far too Uttle of the classical 
 Veddntic writings to speak with confidence on such a point. 
 There are too many passages in which strict morality is 
 enjoined as a sine qua non for Vedintic freedom to allow 
 any one to use a few doubtful passages in defence of im- 
 morality. When we have first learnt all that can be learnt 
 from the Vedanta, it will be time to begin to criticise it, 
 or, if possible, to improve it. We study the systems of 
 Plato and Aristotle, of Spinoza and Kant, not as containing 
 the full and perfect truth, cut and dry, but as helping us 
 on towards the' truth. Every one of these contains partial 
 
FINAL CONCLUSION, TAT TVAMASI. 93 
 
 truths which might easily be proved to lead to dangerous 
 consequences. What is necessary to us at present, more 
 than at any previous time, is a historical study of all 
 philosophy, that of India not excluded, in its genetic or 
 dialectic development, so that we may not be swayed by every 
 philosophical breeze that announces itself as new, though 
 it has been discussed again and again before, and, it may 
 be, far more thoroughly than by its most recent advocates. 
 It will hereafter sound almost incredible that in our time 
 the philosophical public should have been startled by the 
 idea of evolution as a philosophical novelty, nay, that there 
 should have been an angry contest as to who was really 
 the first discoverer of what has been discussed again and 
 again during the last two thousand years. What is pari«ama, 
 if not evolution, the evolution advocated by Rdminu^, but 
 rejected by Samkaxa.. That the illustration of this evolu- 
 tionary process of the world, as given in our time, should 
 stand incomparably higher than anything attempted from 
 R^manuga. down to Herder, who would deny ? But to the 
 historian of philosophy the idea is one thing, its illustration 
 of it quite another. It is most unfair to represent a man like 
 Darwin, who was the most eminent observer of nature, as 
 a philosopher, an abstract philosopher, the very thing which 
 he himself would have most strongly deprecated. 
 
 At present, however, I am not concerned with Indian 
 philosophy, Jiure ef simple, but with its effects on the 
 popular mind of India, as shown by one of its recent 
 representatives, Ramak«sh«a. He himself distinguishes 
 very clearly between philosophy or Gnina (knowledge) and 
 
94 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/tTSHiVA. 
 
 devotion or Bhakti, and he himself was a Bhakta, a wor- 
 shipper' or lover of the deity, much more than a GnSnm 
 or a knower. It was in order to show the background 
 from which Ramakr/sh«a emerges, and the lights and 
 shades of the atmosphere in which he moved, that 
 I thought it useful to add a short sketch of Vedantic 
 thought. Ramakr«sh«a was in nC sense of the word an 
 original thinker, the discoverer of a new idea or the pro- 
 pounder of any new view of the world. But he saw many 
 things which others had not seen, he recognised the Divine 
 Presence where it was least suspected, he was a poet, an 
 enthusiast, or, if you like, a dreamer of dreams. But such 
 dreams also have a right to exist, and have a claim on our 
 attention and sympathy. 'Rsimakrishfia. never composed 
 a philosophical treatise; he simply poured out short sayings, 
 and the people came to listen to them, whether the speaker 
 was at the time in full possession of his faculties, or in 
 a dream, or in a trance. From all we can learn, it is quite 
 clear that he had, by a powerful control of his breath, and 
 by long continued ascetic exercises, arrived at such a pitch 
 of nervous excitability that he could at any moment faint 
 away or fall into a state of unconsciousness, the so-called 
 Samadhi. This Samadhi may be looked at, however, from 
 
 ^ This difference between Bhakti, devotion, and Gnina, knowledge, 
 is fully treated by Kishori Lai Sarkar in his interesting little book, The 
 Hindu System of Religions Science and Art, or the Revelations of 
 Rationalism and Emotionalism, Calcutta, 1898. ' GnSjia.,' the anthor 
 says, ' sees with a telescopic, Bhakti with a. microscopic eye. C^ana 
 perceives the essence, Bhakti feels the sweetness. Gnhia. discovers the 
 Supreme Intelligence, Bhakti reciprocates the Supreme Loving Will.' 
 
THE SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA. 95 
 
 two points, as either purely physical or as psychical. From 
 an ordinary SaraSdhi a man may recover as one recovers 
 from a fainting fit, but the true Samidhi consists in losing 
 oneself or finding oneself entirely in the Supreme Spirit. 
 From this Samidhi there is no return, because there is 
 nothing left that can return. A few men only who have 
 reached it, are enabled to return from it by means of a small 
 remnant of their Ego, and through the efficacy of their wish 
 to become the instructors and saviours of mankind. Some- 
 thing very like Samadhi is the state of deep dreamless sleep, 
 during which the soul is supposed to be with Brahman for 
 a time, but able to return. This deep, unconscious sleep 
 is one of the four states, waking, sleeping with dreams, 
 sleeping without dreams, and dying. With Ramakn'sh^ea 
 it often happened that when he had fallen into this deep 
 sleep, he remained in it so long that his friends were afraid 
 he would never return to consciousness, and so it was at 
 last at the time of his death. He had fallen into a trance, 
 and he never awoke, but even death could lay hold of his 
 body and his breath only; his Self, no longer his, had 
 recovered its Brahmahood, had become what it had always 
 been and always will be, the Atman, the Highest Self, in all 
 its glory, freed from all the clouds of appearances, and 
 independent of individuality, personality, and of the whole 
 phenomenal world. 
 
 The Sayings of B,&m.a,'krtBhna,. 
 
 His sayings or Logia were collected and written down by 
 his pupils, in Bengali; some were translated into Sanskrit 
 
96 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rXnLAKRISUNA. 
 
 and into English. There are many that remind us of old 
 Sanskrit sayings, of which there are several collections, all, 
 however, in metrical form. The sayings of 'R.&makrishna, 
 are different, because they are in prose, uttered evidently 
 on the spur of the moment, and tinged here and there with 
 European ideas which must have reached RSmakr/sh«a 
 through his intercourse with Anglo-Indians, and not from 
 books, for he was ignorant of English. I received a complete 
 collection of them from 'KS.vaakn'shna.'s own pupil, Viveka- 
 nanda, well known by his missionary labours in the United 
 States and England. I give them as they were sent to me, 
 with such corrections only as seemed absolutely necessary. 
 I thought at first of arranging them under different heads, 
 but found that this would have destroyed their character 
 and made them rather monotonous reading. I believe 
 as they are, they give a true picture of the man and 
 of his way of teaching, suggested by the impulses of the 
 moment, but by no means systematic, and by no means free 
 from repetitions and contradictions. I should have liked 
 very much to leave out some of his sayings, because, 
 to our mind, they seem insipid, in bad taste, or even 
 blasphemous. But should I not in doing so have offended 
 against historic truth? We want to know the man who 
 has exercised and is exercising so wide an influence, such 
 as he was, not such as we wish him to have been. He 
 himself never wished to appear different from what he was, 
 and he often seems to have made himself out worse than 
 he was. Besides, if I had done so, I know that there are 
 .men who would not have been ashamed of suspecting me 
 
THE SAYINGS OF RAMAK/JZSHJVA. 97 
 
 of a wish to represent the religions of the East, both modem 
 and ancient, as better than they really are. These are the 
 very men who would find many a lesson to learn from 
 Ramakr?sh;za's sayings. No, I said, let the wheat and the 
 tares remain together. Few thoughtful readers will go 
 through them without finding some thought that makes 
 them ponder, some truth that will startle them as coming 
 from so unexpected a quarter. Nothing, on the other hand, 
 would be easier than to pick out a saying here and there, 
 and thus to show that they are all insipid and foolish. 
 This is a very old trick, described in India as the trick of 
 the rice-merchants who wish to sell or to buy a rice-field, 
 and who offer you a handful of good or bad grains to show 
 that the field is either valuable or worthless. To my mind 
 these sayings, the good, the bad, and the indifferent, are 
 interesting because they represent an important phase of 
 thought, an attempt to give prominence to the devotional 
 and practical side of the Vedanta, and because they show 
 the compatibility of the Vedinta with other religions. They 
 will make it clear that the Vedinta also possesses a morality 
 of its own, which may seem too high and too spiritual for 
 ordinary mortals, but which in India has done good, is doing 
 good, and may continue to do good for centuries to come. 
 In conclusion, I have to thank my friend Mozoomdar, 
 and several of the disciples of RAmakrishna., more par- 
 ticularly VivSkS,nanda and the editor of the Brahmavadin, 
 for the ready help they have rendered me in publishing this 
 collection of the sayings of their departed Master. 
 
 H 
 
THE 
 
 SAYINGS OF RAMAIC^/SHiVA\ 
 
 1. Thou seest many stars at night in the sky, but findest 
 them not when the sun rises. Canst thou say that there 
 are no stars, then, in the heaven of day? So, O man, 
 because thou beholdest not the Almighty in the days of 
 thy ignorance, say not that there is no God. 
 
 2. As one and the same material, viz. water, is called by 
 different names by different people — one calling it ' water,' 
 another 'vtri,' a third 'aqua,' and another 'pa«i' — so 
 the one Sat-^t-ananda, the Everlasting-Intelligent-Bliss, is 
 invoked by some as God, by some as Allah, by some as 
 Hari, and by others as Brahman. 
 
 3. Two persons were hotly disputing as to the colour 
 of a chameleon. One said, ' The chameleon on that palm- 
 tree is of a beautiful red colour.' The other, contradicting 
 him, said, ' You are mistaken, the chameleon is not red, but 
 blue.' Not being able to settle the matter by arguments, 
 both went to the person who always lived under that tree 
 and had watched the chameleon in all its phases of colour. 
 
 ' Some more of R^akrtsh»a's sayings have been sent to me lately, 
 but their publication will have to wait for another opportunity. 
 
THE SAYINGS. 99 
 
 One of them said, ' Sir, is not the chameleon on that tree 
 of a red colour?' The person replied, 'Yes, sir.' The 
 other disputant said, ' What do you say ? How is it ? It is 
 not red, it is blue.' That person again humbly replied, 
 'Yes, sir.' The person knew that the chameleon is an 
 animal that constantly changes its colour; thus it was 
 that he said ' yes ' to both these conflicting statements. 
 The Sat-^it4nanda likewise has various forms. The devotee 
 who has seen God in one aspect only, knows Him in that 
 aspect alone. But he who has seen Him in His manifold 
 aspects, is alone in a position to say, ' All these forms are 
 of one God, for God is multiform.' He has forms and has 
 no forms, and many are His forms which no one knows. 
 
 4. Many are the names of God, and infinite the forms 
 that lead us to know Him. In whatsoever name or form 
 you desire to call Him, in that very form and name you will 
 see Him. 
 
 5. Four blind men went to see an elephant. One 
 touched the leg of the elephant, and said, ' The elephant is 
 like a pillar.' The second touched the trunk, and said, 
 'The elephant is like a thick stick or club.' The third 
 touched the belly, and said, 'The elephant is like a big 
 jar.' The fourth touched the ears, and said, ' The elephant 
 is like a winnowing basket.' Thus they began to dispute 
 amongst themselves as to the figure of the elephant. A 
 passer-by seeing them thus quarrelling, said, 'What is it 
 that you are disputing about ? ' They told him everything, 
 and asked him to arbitrate. That man said, ' None of you 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKJUSBNA. 
 
 has seen the elephant. The elephant is not like a pillar, 
 its legs are like pillars. It is not like a big water-vessel, its 
 belly is like a water-vessel. It is not like a winnowing 
 basket, its ears are like winnowing baskets. It is not like 
 a thick stick or club, but its proboscis is like that. The 
 elephant is the combination of all these.' In the same 
 manner those quarrel who have seen one aspect only of the 
 Deity. 
 
 e. As the same sugar is made into various figures of 
 birds and beasts, so one sweet Mother Divine is worshipped 
 in various climes and ages under various names and forms. 
 Different creeds are but different paths to reach the 
 Almighty. 
 
 7. As with one gold various ornaments are made, having 
 different forms and names, so one God is worshipped in 
 different countries and ages, and has different forms and 
 names. Though He may be worshipped variously, some 
 loving to call him Father, others Mother, &c., yet it is one 
 God that is being worshipped in all these various relations 
 and modes. 
 
 8. Q. If the God of every religion is the same, why 
 is it then that the God is painted differently by different 
 religionists ? A. God is one, but His aspects are different : 
 as one master of the house is father to one, brother to 
 another, and husband to a third, and is called by these 
 different names by those different persons, so one God is 
 described and called in various ways according to the 
 
THE SAYINGS. lOI 
 
 particular aspect in which He appears to His particular 
 worshipper. 
 
 9. In a potter's shop there are vessels of different shapes 
 and forms — pots, jars, dishes, plates, &c. — but all are 
 made of one clay. So God is one, but is worshipped in 
 different ages and climes under different names and aspects. 
 
 10. God is one, but his aspects are many. One and the 
 same fish may be made to taste differently, according to the 
 different modes of preparing it, so one God is enjoyed 
 variously (i. e. in His various aspects) by His devotees. 
 
 U. Man is like a pillow-case. The colour of one may 
 be red, another blue, another black, but all contain the 
 same cotton. So it is with man — one is beautiful, one is 
 black, another is holy, a fourth wicked; but the Divine 
 dwells in them all. 
 
 12. All waters are brooded over by Nariya^a, but every 
 kind of water is not fit for drink. Similarly, though it is 
 true that the Almighty dwells in every place, yet every 
 place is not fit to be visited by man. As one kind of 
 water may be used for washing our feet, another may 
 serve the purpose of ablution, and others may be drunk, 
 and others again may not be touched at all ; so there 
 are different kinds of places. We may approach some, we 
 can enter into the inside of others, others we must avoid, 
 even at a distance. 
 
 13. It is true that God is even in the tiger, but we must 
 not go and face the animal. So it is true that God dwells 
 
I02 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHJVA. 
 
 even in the most wicked, but it is not meet that we should 
 associate with the wicked. 
 
 14. The manifestation of the Divinity must be under- 
 stood to be in greater degree in those who are honoured, 
 respected, and obeyed by a large following, than in those 
 who have gained no such influence. 
 
 15. The Master said: 'Everything that exists is God.' 
 The pupil understood it literally, but not in the true spirit. 
 While he was passing through a street, he met with an 
 elephant. The driver (m^hut) shouted aloud from his 
 high place, ' Move away, move away ! ' The pupil argued 
 in his mind, ' Why should I move away ? I am God, so 
 is the elephant also God. What fear has God of Himself? ' 
 Thinking thus he did not move. At last the elephant 
 took him up by his trunk, and dashed him aside. He was 
 severely hurt, and going back to his Master, he related the 
 whole adventure. The Master said, 'All right, you are 
 God. The elephant is God also, but God in the shape of 
 the elephant-driver was warning you also from above. Why 
 did you not pay heed to his warnings ? ' 
 
 16. God, His scripture (the Bhigavata), and His devotee 
 are all to be regarded as one, i.e. in one and the same light. 
 
 17. Every being is Niriyawa. Man or animal, sage or 
 knave, nay, the whole universe, is Niriya«a, the Supreme 
 Spirit. 
 
 18. As many have merely heard of snow but not seen 
 it, so many are the religious preachers who have read only 
 in books about the attributes of God, but have not realised 
 
THE SAYINGS. IO3 
 
 them in their lives. And as many may have seen but not 
 tasted it, so many are the religious teachers who have got 
 only a glimpse of Divine Glory, but have not understood 
 its real essence. He who has tasted the snow can say 
 what it is like. He who has enjoyed the society of God 
 in different aspects, now as a servant, now as a friend, now 
 as a lover, or as being absorbed in Him, &c., he alone 
 can tell what are the attributes of God. 
 
 19. As the lamp does not burn without oil, so man 
 cannot live without God. 
 
 20. The human body is like a boiling pot, and the 
 mind and the senses are like water, rice or potato, &c. 
 in it. Put the pot with its ingredients on the fire ; it 
 will be so hot as to burn your finger when you touch it. 
 But the heat does not belong to the pot, nor anything con- 
 tained in it, but is in the fire. So it is the fire of Brahman 
 in man that causes the mind and the senses to perform 
 their functions, and when that fire ceases to act, the senses 
 also, or the organs, stop. 
 
 21. Says God, ' I am the snake that biteth and the 
 charmer that healeth; I am the judge that condemneth 
 and the executioner that whippeth.' 
 
 22. God tells the thief to go and steal, and at the same 
 time warns the householder against the thief. 
 
 23. How doth the Lord dwell in the body ? He dwells 
 in the body like the plug of a syringe, i. e. in the body, 
 and yet apart from it. 
 
I04 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKRISHNA. 
 
 24. The Lord can pass an elephant through the eye of 
 a needle. He can do whatever He likes. 
 
 25. As fishes playing in a pond covered over with reeds 
 and scum cannot be seen from outside, so God plays in 
 the heart of a man invisibly, being screened by MiyS, from 
 human view. 
 
 28. A man sitting under the shade of the Kalpa-v«Tisha 
 (wishing-tree) wished to be a king, and in an instant he 
 was a king. The next moment he wished to have a charm- 
 ing damsel, and the damsel was instantly by his side. The 
 man then thought within himself, if a tiger came and 
 devoured him, and alas ! in an instant he was in the jaws of 
 a tiger ! God is like that wishing-tree : whosoever in His 
 presence thinks that he is destitute and poor, remains as 
 such, but he who thinks and believes that the Lord fulfils 
 all his wants, receives everything from Him. 
 
 27. The landlord may be very rich, but when a poor 
 cultivator brings a humble present to him with a loving 
 heart, he accepts it with the greatest pleasure and satis- 
 faction. 
 
 28. While a bell is being rung, the repeated ding-dongs 
 can be distinguished one from the other, but when we 
 stop ringing, then an undistinguishable sound only remains 
 audible. We can easily distinguish one note from the 
 other, as if each distinct note had a certain shape ; but the 
 continued and unbroken sound when the ding-dongs have 
 ceased is undistinguishable, as if formless. Like the sound 
 of the bell, God is both with and without form. 
 
THE SAYINGS. IO5 
 
 29. As a boy begins to learn writing by drawing big 
 scrawls, before he can master the small-hand, so we must 
 learn concentration of the mind by fixing it first on forms ; 
 and when we have attained success therein, we can easily 
 fix it upon the formless. 
 
 30. As a marksman learns to shoot by first taking aim at 
 large and big objects, and the more he acquires the facility, 
 the greater becomes the ease with which he can shoot at 
 the smaller marks on the target, so when the mind has 
 been trained to be fixed on images having form, it becomes 
 easy for it to be fixed upon images having no form. 
 
 31. God is the Absolute and Eternal Brahman, as well 
 as the Father of the Universe. The indivisible Brahman 
 is like a vast shoreless ocean, without bounds and limits, 
 in which I can only struggle and sink. But when I 
 approach the always sportive (active) personal Deity (Hari), 
 I get peace, like the sinking man who nears the shore. 
 
 32. God is formless, and is with form too, and He is 
 that which transcends both form and formlessness. He 
 alone can say what else He is. 
 
 33. At a certain stage of his path of devotion, the 
 devotee finds satisfaction in God with form; at another 
 stage, in God without form. 
 
 34. The God with form is visible, nay, we can touch 
 Him face to face, as with one's dearest friend. 
 
 35. As at one time I am clothed, and at another time 
 naked, so Brahman is at one time with attributes and at 
 another without. 
 
I06 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKJJ/SHiVA. 
 
 36. As water when congealed becomes ice, so the visible 
 form of the Almighty is the materialised manifestation of 
 the all-pervading formless Brahman. It may be called, 
 in fact, Sat-^it-inanda solidiiied. As the ice, being part 
 and parcel of the water, remains in the water for a time 
 and afterwards melts in it, so the Personal God is part and 
 parcel of the Impersonal. He rises from the Impersonal, 
 remains there, and ultimately merges into it and dis- 
 appears. 
 
 87. His name is Intelligence ; His abode is Intelligence 
 too, and He, the Lord, is Intelligence Himself. 
 
 38. Two are the occasions when the Lord smiles, first, 
 when brothers remove the chains which partition off the 
 family property, saying, 'This is mine and that is thine;' 
 and secondly, when the patient is on the point of death, 
 and the physician says, ' I will cure him.' 
 
 30. Lunatics, drunkards, and children sometimes give 
 out the truth unconsciously, as if inspired by Heaven. 
 
 40. The sun is many times larger than the earth, but 
 owing to the great distance it appears like a small disk. So 
 the Lord is infinitely great, but owing to our being too far 
 from Him we fall very, very short of comprehending His 
 real greatness. 
 
 41. Knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, in whatever state we utter His name, we acquire 
 the merit of such utterance. A man who voluntarily goes 
 into a river and bathes therein gets the benefit of the bath ; 
 
THE SAYINGS. I07 
 
 so does likewise he who has been pushed into the river by 
 another, or who while sleeping soundly has water thrown 
 upon him by another. 
 
 42. Satan never enters the house wherein are always 
 sung the praises of Hari. 
 
 43. A king having committed the mortal crime of killing 
 a Brihma^a, went to the hermitage of a sage to learn what 
 penance he must perform in order to be purified. The 
 sage was absent from home, but his son was there. The 
 son hearing the case of the king, said, ' Repeat the name 
 of God (Rama) three times and your sin will be expiated.' 
 When the sage came back and heard the penance prescribed 
 by his son, he said to him in great wrath, ' Sins committed 
 in myriads of births are purged at once by but once uttering 
 the name of the Almighty ;. how weak must be thy faith, 
 O son, that thou hast ordered that name to be repeated 
 thrice ! For this olfence of thine go and become a Kin- 
 dala,.' And the son became the Guhaka Xlindkla. of the 
 RS.miya«a. 
 
 44. Consciously or unconsciously, in whatever way one 
 falls into the trough of nectar, one becomes immortal. 
 Similarly, whosoever utters the name of the Deity voluntarily 
 or involuntarily finds immortality in the end. 
 
 45. As a large and powerful steamer moves swiftly over 
 the waters, towing rafts and barges in its wake, so when 
 a Saviour descends, He easily carries thousands across the 
 ocean of Mllyi (illusion). , 
 
I08 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rAmAKR/SHWA. 
 
 46. When the flood comes, it overflows rivers and 
 streams, and makes one watery surface of all adjacent 
 lands. But the rain-water flows away through flxed chan- 
 nels. When the Saviour becomes incarnate, all are saved 
 through His grace. The Siddhas (perfect ones) only save 
 themselves with much pain and penance. 
 
 47. When a mighty raft of wood floats down a stream, it 
 can carry a hundred men, and still it does not sink. A reed 
 floating down may sink with the weight of even a crow. 
 So when a Saviour becomes incarnate, innumerable are the 
 men who find salvation by taking refiige under Him. The 
 Siddha only saves himself with much toil and trouble. 
 
 48. The locomotive engine reaches the destination itself, 
 and also draws and takes with it a long train of loaded 
 wagons. So likewise act the Saviours. They carry multi- 
 tudes of men, heavily laden with the cares and sorrows of 
 the world, to the feet of the Almighty. 
 
 49. When Bhagav^n ,51:1 Rima^andra came to this world, 
 seven sages only could recognise Him to be the God 
 incarnate. So when God descends into this world, few only 
 can recognise His Divine nature. 
 
 50. On the tree of Sat-^it-inanda there are innumerable 
 Rimas, KrishnsLS, Christs, &c. ; one or two of them come 
 down into this world now and then, and produce mighty 
 changes and revolutions. 
 
 51. The Avatira or Saviour is the messenger of God. 
 He is like the Viceroy of a mighty monarch. As when 
 
THE SAYINGS. lOQ 
 
 there is some disturbance in a far-off province the king 
 sends his viceroy to quell it; so whenever there is any 
 waning of religion in any part of the world, God sends His 
 Avatdra there. 
 
 52. It is one and the same Avat^ra that, having plunged 
 into the ocean of life, rises up in one place and is known as 
 Krishna, and diving again rises in another place and is 
 known as Christ. 
 
 53. In some seasons water can be obtained from the 
 great depths of the wells only and with great difficulty, but 
 when the country is flooded in the rainy season, water is 
 obtained with ease everywhere. So ordinarily, God is 
 reached with great pains through prayers and penances, 
 but when the flood of Incarnation descends, God is seen 
 anywhere and everywhere. 
 
 54. A Siddha-purusha (perfect one) is like an archaeo- 
 logist who removes the dust and lays open an old well 
 which was covered up during ages of disuse by rank 
 growth. The Avatara, on the other hand, is like a great 
 engineer who sinks a new well in a place where there was 
 no water before. Great men can give salvation to those 
 only who have the waters of piety and goodness hidden 
 in themselves, but the Saviour saves him too whose heart 
 is devoid of all love, and dry as a desert. 
 
 55. Think not that Rima, Sit^, .Sri Krishnu, R^dh^ 
 Ar^na, &c., were not historical personages, but mere 
 allegories, or that the Scriptures have an inner and esoteric 
 meaning only. Nay, they were human beings of flesh and 
 
no THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHJVA. 
 
 blood just as you are, but because they were Divinities, 
 their lives can be interpreted both historically and spiritually. 
 
 56. None knoweth the immensity of the sacrifice which 
 the Godhead maketh when it becomes incarnate or becomes 
 flesh. 
 
 57. The Saviours are to Brahman as the waves are to 
 the ocean. 
 
 58. What is the state which a Siddha attains ? (A perfect 
 man and well-cooked food are both called siddha. 
 There is a pun here on the word.) As potato or brinjal, 
 &c., when boiled properly (siddha), becomes soft and tender, 
 so when a man reaches perfection (Siddha) he becomes all 
 humility and tenderness. 
 
 59. Five are the kinds of Siddhas found in this world : — 
 (i) The Svapna Siddhas are those who attain perfection 
 
 by means of dream inspiration. 
 
 (2) The Mantra Siddhas are those who attain perfection 
 by means of any sacred mantra. 
 
 (3) The Ha/lfet Siddhas are those who attain perfection 
 suddenly. As a poor man may suddenly become rich by 
 finding a hidden treasure, or by marrying into a rich family, 
 so many sinners become pure all of a sudden, and enter 
 the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 (4) The Kripk Siddhas are those who attain perfection 
 through the tangible grace of the Almighty, as a poor man 
 is made wealthy by the kindness of a king. 
 
 (5) The Nitya Siddhas are those who are ever-perfect. 
 As a gourd or a pumpkin-creeper brings forth fruit first and 
 
THE SAYINGS. Ill 
 
 then its flower, so the ever-perfect is born a Siddha, and all 
 his seeming exertions after perfection are merely for the 
 sake of setting examples to humanity. 
 
 60. There is a fabled species of birds called 'Homi,' 
 which live so high up in the heavens, and so dearly love 
 those regions, that they never condescend to come down to 
 the earth. Even their eggs, which, when laid in the sky, 
 begin to fall down to the earth attracted by gravity, are 
 said to get hatched in the middle of their downward course 
 and give birth to the young ones. The fledgelings at once 
 find out that they are falling down, and immediately change 
 their course and begin to fly up towards their home, drawn 
 thither by instinct. Men such as Suka. Deva, Nirada, 
 Jesus, Sa.mkai^ktya. and others, are like those birds, who 
 even in their boyhood give up all attachments to the things 
 of this world and betake themselves to the highest regions 
 of true Knowledge and Divine Light. These men are 
 called Nitya Siddhas. 
 
 61. The Divine sages form, as it were, the inner circle of 
 God's nearest relatives. They are like friends, companions, 
 kinsmen of God. Ordinary beings form the outer circle or 
 are the creatures of God. 
 
 62. When the shell of an ordinary cocoa-nut is pierced 
 through, the nail enters the kernel of the nut too. But in 
 the case of the dry nut, the kernel becomes separate from 
 the shell, and so when the shell is pierced the kernel is not 
 touched. Jesus was hke the dry nut, i.e. His inner soul 
 
1 1 2 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAUAKRISUNA. 
 
 was separate from His physical shell, and consequently 
 the sufferings of the body did not affect Him. 
 
 63. Once a holy man, while passing through a crowded 
 street, accidentally trod upon the toe of a wicked person. 
 The wicked man, furious with rage, beat the Sadhu merci- 
 lessly, till he fell to the ground in a faint. His disciples 
 took great pains and adopted various measures to bring 
 him back to consciousness, and when they saw that he had 
 recovered a little, one of them asked, ' Sir, do you recognise 
 who is attending upon you ? ' The Sadhu replied, ' He 
 who beat me.' A true SMhu finds no distinction between 
 a friend and a foe. 
 
 64. The swan can separate the milk from water; it 
 drinks only the milk, leaving the water untouched. Other 
 birds cannot do so. Similarly God is intimately mixed up 
 with MiyS. ; ordinary men cannot see Him separately from 
 M3,yi. Only the Paramaha»zsa (the great soul — here is a pun 
 on the word 'hawzsa,' which means both soul and swan) 
 throws oflF Mtyi, and takes up God only. 
 
 65. The wind carries the smell of the sandal-wood as 
 well as that of ordure, but does not mix with either. 
 Similarly a perfect man lives in the world, but does not 
 mix with it. 
 
 66. A perfect man is like a lotus-leaf in the water or like 
 a mud-fish in the marsh. Neither of these is polluted by 
 the element in which it lives. 
 
 67. As water passes under a bridge but never stagnates, 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 1 3 
 
 so money passes through the hands of 'The Free' who 
 never hoard it. 
 
 68. As a rope that is burnt retains its shape intact, but 
 has become all ashes, so that nothing can be bound with 
 it ; similarly, the man who is emancipated retains the form 
 of his egoism, but not an idea of vanity (Ahawkira). 
 
 69. As an aquatic bird, such as a pelican, dives into 
 water, but the water does not wet its plumage, so the 
 perfect man lives in the world, but the world does not 
 touch him. 
 
 70. When the head of a goat is severed from its body, 
 the trunk moves about for some time, still showing the 
 signs of life. Similarly, though the Aha»zk^ra (vanity or 
 egoism) is beheaded in the perfect man, yet sufificient of its 
 vitality is left to make such a man carry on the functions of 
 physical life ; but that much is not sufficient to bind him 
 again to the world. 
 
 71. Ornaments cannot be made of pure gold. Some 
 alloy must be mixed with it. A man totally devoid of 
 Mayi will not survive more than twenty-one days. So long 
 as the man has body, he must have some Miyi, however 
 small it may be, to carry on the functions of the body. 
 
 72. In the play of hide-and-seek, if the player once 
 succeeds in touching the non-player, called the grand-dame 
 (Boo;^), he is no longer hable to be made a thief. Similarly, 
 by once seeing the Almighty, a man is no longer bound 
 down by the fetters of the world. The boy, by touching 
 
114 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF kXmAKRISBNA. 
 
 the Boofi, is free to go wherever he wishes, without being 
 pursued, and no one can make him a thief. Similarly, in 
 this world's playground, there is no fear to him who has 
 once touched the feet of the Almighty. 
 
 73. The iron, once converted into gold by the touch of 
 the Philosopher's stone, may be kept under the ground, or 
 thrown into a rubbish-heap, but it remains always gold, and 
 will never return to its former condition. Similar is the 
 case with him who has once touched the feet of the 
 Almighty. Whether he dwells in the bustle of the world, 
 or in the solitude of forests, nothing will ever contaminate 
 him. 
 
 74. The steel sword turns into a golden sword by the 
 touch of the Philosopher's stone, and though it retains its 
 former form it becomes incapable of injuring any one. 
 Similarly, the outward form of a man who has touched the 
 feet of the Almighty is not changed, but he no longer 
 doeth any evil. 
 
 75. The loadstone rock under the sea attracts the ship 
 sailing over it, draws out all its iron nails, separates its 
 planks, and sinks the vessel into the deep. Thus, when the 
 human soul is attracted by the magnetism of Universal 
 Consciousness, the latter destroys in a moment all its 
 individuality and selfishness, and plunges it in the ocean 
 of God's infinite Love. 
 
 76. Milk and water, when brought into contact, are sure 
 to mix so that the milk can never be separated again. 
 So if the neophyte, thirsting after self-improvement, mixes 
 
THE SAYINGS. I 1 5 
 
 indiscriminately with all sorts of worldly men, he not only 
 loses his ideals, but his former faith, love, and enthusiasm 
 also die away imperceptibly. When, however, you convert 
 the milk into butter, it no longer mixes with water, but 
 floats over it. Similarly, when the soul once attains God- 
 head, it may live in any company, without ever being 
 affected by its evil influences. 
 
 77. So long as no child is born to her, the newly-married 
 girl remains deeply absorbed in her domestic duties. But 
 no sooner is a son born, than she leaves off all her house- 
 hold concerns, and no longer finds any pleasure in them. 
 On the contrary, she fondles the newborn baby the livelong 
 day, and kisses it with intense joy. Thus man, in his state 
 of ignorance, performs all sorts of worldly works, but no 
 sooner does he see the Almighty, than he finds no longer 
 any relish in them. On the contrary, his happiness now 
 consists only in serving the Deity and doing His works 
 alone. 
 
 78. So long as a man is far from the market, he hears 
 aloud and indistinct buzzing only, something like 'Ho! Ho!' 
 But when he enters the market he no longer hears the 
 uproar, but perceives distinctly that some one is bargaining 
 for potatoes, another for Brinjal, and so on. As long as 
 a man is far away from God, he is in the midst of the noise 
 and confusion of reason, argument, and discussion ; but 
 when once a person approaches the Almighty, all reasonings, 
 arguments, and discussions cease, and he understands the 
 mysteries of God with vivid and clear perception. 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA . 
 
 79. So long as a man calls aloud, 'Allah Ho ! Allah Ho ! ' 
 (O God ! O God !), be sure that he has not found God, for 
 he who has found him becomes still. 
 
 80. So long as the bee is outside the petals of the lotus, 
 and has not tasted its honey, it hovers round the flower, 
 emitting its buzzing sound ; but when it is inside the flower, 
 it drinks its nectar noiselessly. So long as a man quarrels 
 and disputes about doctrines and dogmas, he has not tasted 
 the nectar of true faith ; when he has tasted it he becomes 
 still. 
 
 81. Little children play with dolls in a room apart just 
 as they like, but as soon as their mother comes in they 
 throw aside the dolls and run to her crying, 'Mamma, 
 Mamma ! ' You also are now playing in this world deeply 
 absorbed with the dolls of wealth, honour, and fame, and 
 have no fear or anxiety. But if you once see the Divine 
 Mother entering in, you will not find pleasure any more in 
 wealth, honour, and fame. Leaving off" all these you will 
 run to Her. 
 
 82. The naked Sage, Totapuri, used to say, ' If a brass 
 pot be not rubbed daily, it will get rusty. So if a man does 
 not contemplate the Deity daily, his heart will grow impure.' 
 To him SjA RS,makr/sh«a replied, ' Yes, but if the vessel be 
 of gold, it does not require daily cleaning. The man who 
 has reached God requires prayers or penances no more.' 
 
 83. He who has once tasted the refined and crystalline 
 sugar-candy, finds no pleasure in raw treacle ; he who has 
 slept in a palace, wiU not find pleasure in lying down in 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 1 7 
 
 a dirty hovel. So the soul that has once tasted the sweet- 
 ness of the Divine Bliss finds no delight in the ignoble 
 pleasures of the world. 
 
 84. She who has a king for her lover will not accept the 
 homage of a street beggar. So the soul that has once found 
 favour in the sight of the Lord does not want the paltry 
 things of this world. 
 
 85. When a man is in the plains he sees the lowly grass 
 and the mighty pine-tree and says, ' How big is the tree and 
 how small is the grass ! ' But when he ascends the moun- 
 tain and looks from its high peak to the plain below, the 
 mighty pine-tree and the lowly grass blend into one indistinct 
 mass of green verdure. So in the sight of worldly men 
 there are differences of rank and position, but when the 
 Divine sight is opened there remains no distinction of high 
 and low. 
 
 86. When water is poured into an empty vessel a bubbling 
 noise ensues, but when the vessel is full no such noise is 
 heard. Similarly, the man who has not found God is full of 
 vain disputations. But when he has seen Him, all vanities 
 disappear, and he silently enjoys the BUss Divine. 
 
 87. A woman naturally feels shy to relate to all the talk 
 she daily has with her husband, save to her own companions. 
 Similarly, a devotee does not like to relate to any one but 
 a true Bhakta (devotee) the ecstatic joys which he experiences 
 in his Divine communion ; nay, sometimes he becomes im- 
 patient of relating his experiences even to those of his own 
 class. 
 
Tl8 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAJCR/SayA. 
 
 88. The moth once seeing the light never returns to 
 darkness ; the ant dies in the sugar-heap, but never retreats 
 therefrom. Similarly, a good devotee gladly sacrifices his 
 life for his God by renunciation. 
 
 89. Why does the God-lover find such pleasure in 
 addressing the Deity as Mother? Because the child 
 is more free with its mother, and consequently she is 
 dearer to the child than any one else. 
 
 90. The pious man, like a hemp-smoker, finds no 
 pleasure in singing the praises of the Almighty alone. (The 
 hemp-smoker never finds pleasure in smoking alone.) 
 
 91. If a strange animal enters a herd of cows, it is 
 driven off by the combined attacks of the whole herd. But 
 let only a cow enter, and all the other cows will make 
 friends with her by mutual licking of bodies. Thus, when 
 a devotee meets with another devotee, both experience 
 great happiness and feel loth to separate, but when a scoffer 
 enters the circle they carefully avoid him. 
 
 92. What is the strength of a devotee ? He is a child 
 of God, and tears are his greatest strength. 
 
 93. The yQHng of a monkey clasps and clings to its 
 mother. The young kitten cannot clasp its mother, but 
 mews piteously whenever it is near her. If the young monkey 
 lets go its hold on its mother, it falls down and gets hurt. 
 This is because it depends upon its own strength ; but the 
 kitten runs no such risk, as the mother herself carries it 
 about from place to place. Such is the difference between 
 self-reliance and entire resignation to the will of God. 
 
THE SAYINGS. II9 
 
 94. It is fabled that the pearl oyster leaves its bed at 
 the bottom of the sea and comes up to the surface to 
 catch the rain-water when the star Sviti is in the ascendant. 
 It floats about on the surface of the sea with its mouth 
 agape, until it succeeds in catching a drop of the marvellous 
 Sviti-rain. Then it dives down to its sea-bed and there 
 rests, till it has succeeded in fashioning a beautiful pearl 
 out of that rain-drop. Similarly, there are some true and 
 eager aspirants who travel from place to place in search of 
 that watchword from a godly and perfect preceptor (Sad- 
 guru) which will open for them the gate of eternal bliss, 
 and if in their diligent search one is fortunate enough to 
 meet such a Guru and get from him the much-longed-for 
 logos, which is sure to break down all fetters, he at once 
 retires from society, enters into the deep recess of his own 
 heart and rests there, till he has succeeded in gaining 
 eternal peace. 
 
 95. The flint may remain for myriads of years under 
 water, still it does not lose its inner iire. Strike it with 
 iron whenever you like and out flows the glowing spark. 
 So is the true devotee firm in his faith. Though he may 
 remain surrounded by all the impurities of the world, he 
 never loses his faith and love. He becomes entranced as 
 soon as he hears the name of the Almighty. 
 
 96. The Stone may remain for myriads of years in water, 
 and the water will never penetrate it. But clay is soon 
 softened into mud by the contact of water. So the strong 
 heart of the faithful does not despair in the midst of trials 
 
I20 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAICR/SHiVA. 
 
 and persecutions, but the man of weak faith is easily 
 shaken even by the most trifling cause. 
 
 97. How sweet is the simphcity of the child ! He prefers 
 a doll to all riches and wealth. So is the faithful devotee. 
 No one else can throw aside wealth and honour to take 
 God only. 
 
 98. God is like unto a hill of sugar. A small ant carries 
 away from it a small grain of sugar, the bi^er ant takes from 
 it a larger grain. But the hill remains as large as before. 
 So are the devotees of God. They become ecstatic with 
 even a grain of one Divine attribute. No one can contain 
 within him all His attributes. 
 
 99. A logician once asked Sii Rimak«sh«a, 'What 
 are knowledge, knower, and the object known ? ' To which 
 he replied, ' Good man, I do not know all these niceties of 
 scholastic learning. I know only my Mother Divine, and 
 that I am Her son.' 
 
 100. A man who finds all the hairs of his body standing 
 on end at the bare mention of SjA Hari's name, through 
 sheer ecstasy, and who sheds tears of love on hearing the 
 name of God, he has reached his last birth. 
 
 101. The more you scratch the ringworm, the greater 
 grows the itching, and the more pleasure do you find in 
 scratching. Similarly, the devotees once beginning to sing 
 His praises, never get tired of it, but continue for hours 
 and hours together. 
 
 102. When grains are measured out to the purchaser in 
 
THE SAYINGS. 121 
 
 the granary of a rich merchant, the measurer unceasingly 
 goes on measuring, while the attending women supply him 
 with basket-fulls of grain from the main store. The mea- 
 surer does not leave his seat, while the women incessantly 
 supply him with grain. But a small grocer has neither 
 such attendants, nor is his store so inexhaustible. Similarly, 
 it is God Himself who is constantly inspiring thoughts and 
 sentiments in the hearts of His devotees, and that is the 
 reason why the latter are never in lack of new and wise 
 thoughts and sentiments; while, on the other hand, the 
 book-learned, like petty grocers, soon find that their 
 thoughts have become exhausted. 
 
 103. A born farmer does not leave off tilling the soil, 
 though it may not rain for twelve consecutive years, while 
 a merchant who has but lately taken himself to the plough 
 is discouraged by one season of drought. The true believer 
 is never discouraged, if even with his lifelong devotion he 
 fails to see God. 
 
 104. A true devotee who has drunk deep of the Divine 
 Love is hke a veritable drunkard, and, as such, cannot 
 always observe the rules of propriety. 
 
 105. Dala (sedge) does not grow in large and pure 
 water-tanks, but in small stagnant and miasmatic pools. 
 Similarly, Dala (schism) does not take place in a party 
 whose adherents are guided by pure, broad, and unselfish 
 motives, but it takes firm root in a party whose advocates 
 are given to selfishness, insincerity, and bigotry. (' Dala,' 
 in Bengali, means both sedges and schism.) 
 
122 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKjRJSHJVA. 
 
 106. The Yogins and Sawy3sins are like snakes. The 
 snake never digs a hole for itself, but it hves in the hole 
 made by the mouse. When one hole becomes uninhabit- 
 able, it enters into another hole. So the Yogins and the 
 Sawyisins make no houses for themselves ; they pass their 
 days in other men's houses — to-day in one house, to-morrow 
 in another. 
 
 107. The sage alone can recognise a sage. He who 
 deals in cotton twists can alone tell of what number and 
 quality a particular twist is made. 
 
 108. A sage was lying in a deep trance (Samadhi) by 
 a roadside ; a thief passing by, saw him, and thought within 
 himself, ' This fellow, lying here, is a thief. He has been 
 breaking into some house by night, and now sleeps ex- 
 hausted. The police will very soon be here to catch him. 
 So let me escape in time.' Thus thinking, he ran away. 
 Soon after a drunkard came upon the sage, and said, 
 ' Hallo ! thou hast fallen into the ditch by taking a drop 
 too much. I am steadier than thou, and am not going 
 to tumble.' Last of all came a sage, and understanding 
 that a great sage was in a trance (Samadhi), he sat down, 
 and touched him, and began to rub gently his holy feet. 
 
 109. An itinerant Sadhu came once upon the Kali 
 temple of Rini R^samam, and seeing a dog eating the 
 remains of a feast, he went up to him and said, embracing 
 him, ' Brother, how is it that thou eatest alone, without 
 giving me a share?' So saying, he began to eat along 
 with the dog. The people of the place naturally thought 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 23 
 
 him mad, but when standing before the temple of the 
 Goddess, he began to chant forth some hymns in praise of 
 Kili, and the temple appeared to shake through the fervour 
 of his devotion. Then the people knew him to be a great 
 Sidhu. The true Sidhus roam about like children or mad 
 men, in dirty clothes, and various other disguises. 
 
 110. The true religious man is he who does not do 
 anything wrong or act impiously when he is alone, i. e. 
 when there is none to look after and blame him. 
 
 111. In the Bengali alphabet no three letters are alike 
 in sound except the three sibilants {Sa., sha, and sa), all 
 meaning 'forbear,' 'forbear,' 'forbear.' This shows that 
 even from our childhood we are made to learn forbear- 
 ance in our very alphabets. The quality of forbearance 
 is of the highest importance to every man. 
 
 112. Sugar and sand may be mixed together, but the ant 
 rejects the sand and goes off with the sugar-grain ; so pious 
 men sift the good from the bad. 
 
 113. It is the nature of the winnowing basket to reject 
 the bad and keep the good ; even such is the case with 
 pious men. 
 
 114. He is truly a pious man who is dead even in Ufe, 
 i. e. whose passions and desires have been all destroyed as 
 in a dead body. 
 
 115. Worldly persons perform many pious and charitable 
 acts with a hope of worldly rewards, but when misfortune, 
 sorrow, and poverty approach them, they forget them all. 
 
124 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAILR/SHJVA. 
 
 They are like the parrot that repeats the Divine name 
 
 ' Radha-K«sh«a, Ridha-Kr/shwa ' the livelong day, but 
 
 cries 'Kaw, Kaw' when caught by a cat, forgetting the 
 Divine name. 
 
 116. A spring cushion is squeezed down when one sits 
 upon it, but it soon resumes its original shape when the 
 pressure is removed. So it is with worldly men. They 
 are full of religious sentiments, so long as they hear rehgious 
 talks ; but no sooner do they enter into the daily routine 
 of the world, than they forget all those high and noble 
 thoughts, and become as impure as before. 
 
 117. So long as the iron is in the furnace it is red-hot, 
 but it becomes black as soon as it is taken out of the fire. 
 So also is the worldly man. As long as he is in church or 
 in the society of pious people, he is full of religious emo- 
 tions, but no sooner does he come out of those associations 
 than he loses them alL 
 
 118. Some one said, ' When my boy Harish grows up, 
 I wiU get him married, and give him the charge of the 
 family j I shall then renounce the world, and begin to 
 practise Yoga.' At this a Sadhu remarked, 'You will 
 never find any opportunity of practising Yoga (devotion). 
 You will say afterwards, " Harish and Girish are too much 
 attached to me. They do not like to leave my company 
 as yet." Then you wiU desire perhaps, " Let Harish have 
 a son, and let me see that son married." And thus there 
 will be no end of your desires.' 
 
 119. Flies sit at times on the sweetmeats kept exposed 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 25 
 
 for sale in the shop of a confectioner ; but no sooner does 
 a sweeper pass by with a basket full of filth than the flies 
 leave the sweetmeats and sit upon the filth-basket. But 
 the honey-bee never sits on filthy objects, and always 
 drinks honey from the flowers. The worldly men are like 
 flies. At times they get a momentary taste of Divine 
 sweetness, but their natural tendency for filth soon brings 
 them back to the dunghill of the world. The good man, on 
 the other hand, is always absorbed in the beatific con- 
 templation of Divine Beauty. 
 
 N.B. The worldly man is like a filthy worm that always 
 lives and dies in filth, and has no idea of higher things; 
 the good man of the world is like the fly that sits now on 
 the filth and now on the sweet ; while the free soul of 
 a Yogin is like the bee that always drinks the honey of 
 God's holy presence, and nothing else. 
 
 120. When it was argued that a family-man {Grihastha) 
 may remain in the family, but may have no concern with 
 it, and consequently may remain uncontaminated by the 
 world, an illustration was cited to refute such an argument, 
 which is as follows : — 
 
 A poor Brahma«a once came to one of those family- 
 men, who are unconcerned with family affairs, to beg some 
 money. When the beggar asked of him some money, he 
 replied, ' Sir, I never touch money. Why are you wasting 
 your time in begging of me?' The Brihma«a, however, 
 would not go away. Tired with his importunate entreaties 
 the man at last resolved in his mind to give him a rupee. 
 
126 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAK/J/SHiVA. 
 
 and told him, ' Well, sir, come to-morrow, I shall see what 
 I can do for you.' Then going in, this typical family-man 
 told his wife, who was the manager of all his affairs, he 
 being unconcerned, 'Look here, dear, a poor Brllhma«a 
 is in .great difficulty, and wants something of me. I have 
 made up my mind to give him a rupee. What is your 
 opinion about it?' 'Aha! what a generous fellow you 
 are!' she replied, in great excitement at the name of a 
 rupee. ' Rupees are not, like leaves or stones, to be thrown 
 away without any thought.' 'Well, dear,' replied the hus- 
 band, in an apologising tone, ' the man is very poor and 
 we should not give him less than a rupee.' 'No !' replied 
 the wife, ' I cannot spare that much ; here is a two-anna-bit 
 and you can give him that, if you like.' The man of 
 course had no other alternative, being himself unconcerned 
 in all such worldly matters, and he took what his wife 
 gave him. Next day the beggar came, and received only 
 a two-anna-bit. Such uncontaminated family-men are 
 really henpecked persons who are solely guided by their 
 wives, and as such are very poor specimens of humanity. 
 
 121. Seeing the water pass glittering through the net 
 of bamboo frame-work \ the small fry enter into it with 
 great pleasure, and having once entered they cannot get 
 out again — and are caught. Similarly, foolish men enter 
 into the world allured by its false glitter, but as it is easier 
 to enter the net than to get out of it, it is easier to enter the 
 world than renounce it, after having once entered it. 
 
 ' A trap for catching small fish. 
 
THE SAYINGS. I 27 
 
 122. Men always quote the example of the king G^anaka, 
 as that of a man who lived in the world and yet attained 
 perfection. But throughout the whole history of mankind 
 there is only this solitary example. His case was not the 
 rule, but the exception. The general rule is that no one 
 can attain spiritual perfection unless he renounces lust and 
 greed. Do not think yourself to be a (Panaka. Many 
 centuries have rolled away and the world has not produced 
 another (kanaka. 
 
 123. This world is like a stage, where men perform many 
 parts under various disguises. They do not like to take 
 off the mask, unless they have played for some time. Let 
 them play for a while, and then they will leave off the mask 
 of their own accord. 
 
 124. The heart of the devotee is like a dry match ; and 
 the slightest mention of the name of the Deity kindles 
 the fire of love in his heart. But the mind of the worldly, 
 soaked in lust and greed, is like the moist match, and 
 can never be heated to enthusiasm, though God may be 
 preached to him innumerable times. 
 
 125. A worldly man may be endowed with intellect as 
 great as that of kanaka, may take as much pains and 
 trouble as a Yogin, and make as great sacrifices as an 
 ascetic ; but all these he makes and does, not for God, but 
 for worldliness, honour, and wealth. 
 
 126. As water does not enter into a stone, so religious 
 advice produces no impression on the heart of a worldly 
 
128 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF sluAKRISHNA. 
 
 127. As a nail cannot enter into a stone, but can easily 
 be driven into the earth, so the advice of the pious does 
 not affect the soul of a worldly man. It enters into the 
 heart of a believer. 
 
 128. As soft clay easily takes an impression, but not so 
 a stone, so also the Divine Wisdom impresses itself on 
 the heart of the devotee, but not on the soul of the worldly 
 man. 
 
 129. The characteristic of a thoroughly worldly man is 
 that he does not only not listen to hymns, religious dis- 
 courses, praises of the Almighty, &c., but also prevents 
 others from hearing them, and abuses religious men and 
 societies, and scoffs at prayers. 
 
 130. The alligator has got such a thick and scaly hide 
 that no weapons can pierce it ; on the contrary, they fall 
 off harmless. So, howmuchsoever you may preach religion 
 to a worldly man, it will have no effect upon his heart. 
 
 131. As the water enters in on one side under the bridge, 
 and soon passes out on the other, so religious advice affects 
 worldly souls. It enters into them by one ear and goes 
 out by the other, without making any impression upon 
 their minds. 
 
 132. By talking with a worldly man one can feel that 
 his heart is filled with worldly thoughts and desires, even 
 as the crop of a pigeon is filled with grains. 
 
 133. So long as the fire is beneath, the milk boils and 
 bubbles. Remove the fire and it is quiet again. So the 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 29 
 
 heart of the neophyte boils with enthusiasm, so long as 
 he goes on with his spiritual exercises, but afterwards it 
 cools down. 
 
 134. As to approach a monarch one must ingratiate 
 oneself with the officials that keep the gate and surround 
 the throne, so to reach the Almighty one must practise 
 many devotions, as well as serve many devotees and keep 
 the company of the wise. 
 
 135. Keep thy own sentiments and faith to thyself. 
 Do not talk about them abroad. Otherwise thou wilt be 
 a great loser. 
 
 136. There are three kinds of dolls; the first made 
 of salt, the second made of cloth, and the third made of 
 stone. If these dolls be immersed in water, the first will 
 get dissolved and lose its form, the second will absorb 
 a large quantity of water but retain its form, while the 
 third will be impervious to the water. The first doU 
 represents the man who merges his self in the Universal 
 and All-pervading Self and becomes one with it, that is 
 the ' Mukta purusha ' j the second represents a true lover 
 or Bhakta, who is full of Divine bliss and knowledge ; and 
 the third represents a worldly man, who will not absorb 
 the least drop of true knowledge. 
 
 137. As when fishes are caught in a net some do not 
 struggle at all, some again struggle hard to come out of 
 the net, while a few are happy enough to effect their escape 
 by rending the netj so there are three sorts of men, 
 
 K 
 
I30 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHWA. 
 
 viz. fettered (Baddha), wriggling (Mumukshu), and released 
 (Mukta). 
 
 138. As sieves separate the finer and coarser parts of 
 a pulverized or ground substance, keeping the coarser and 
 rejecting the finer, even so the wicked man takes the evil 
 and rejects the good. 
 
 139. Two men went into a garden. The worldly-wise 
 man no sooner entered the gate than he began to count 
 the number of the mango-trees, how many mangoes each 
 tree bore, and what might be the approximate price of 
 the whole orchard. The other went to the owner, made 
 his acquaintance, and quietly going under a mango-tree 
 began to pluck the fruit and eat it with the owner's con- 
 sent. Now who is the wiser of the two? Eat mangoes, 
 it will satisfy your hunger. What is the good of counting 
 the leaves and making vain calculations? The vain man 
 of intellect is uselessly busy in finding out the ' why and 
 wherefore' of creation, while the humble man of wisdom 
 makes acquaintance with the Creator and enjoys Supreme 
 Bliss in this world. 
 
 140. The vulture soars high up in the air, but all the 
 while he is looking down into the charnel-pits in search 
 of putrid carcasses. So the book-read pandits speak glibly 
 and volubly about Divine Knowledge, but it is all mere 
 talk, for all the while their mind is thinking about how to 
 get money, respect, honour, power, &c., the vain guerdon 
 of their learning. 
 
 141. Once a dispute arose in the court of the Maharajah 
 
THE SAYINGS. I31 
 
 of Burdwan among the learned men there, as to who was 
 the greater Deity, ^va or Vish«u. Some gave preference 
 to Siva., others to Vishwu. When the dispute grew hot 
 a wise pandit remarked, addressing the Rija, ' Sire, I have 
 neither met .Siva nor seen Vish«u; how can I say who 
 is the greater of the two?' At this the dispute stopped, 
 for none of the disputants really had seen the Deities. 
 Similarly none should compare one Deity with another. 
 When a man has really seen a Deity, he comes to know 
 that all the Deities are manifestations of one and the same 
 Brahman. 
 
 142. As the elephant has two sets of teeth, the external 
 tusks and the inner grinders, so the God-men, like Sii 
 Krishna, &c., act and behave to all appearances like 
 common men, while their heart and soul rest far beyond 
 the pale of Karman. 
 
 143. The S^dhu who distributes medicines, and uses in- 
 toxicants, is not a proper Sidhu ; avoid the company of such. 
 
 144. A Br3,hma«a was laying down a garden, and looked 
 after it day and night. One day a cow straying into the 
 garden browsed away a mango sapling which was one of 
 the most carefully-watched trees of the Brihma^a. The 
 Brihma^a seeing the cow destroy his favourite plant gave 
 it such a sound beating that it died of the injuries received. 
 The news soon spread like wildfire that the Br^hma/za 
 killed the sacred animal. 
 
 Now the Br4hma«a was a so-called VedSntist, and when 
 taxed with the sin denied it, saying, — 'No, I have not 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiiZSHiVA. 
 
 killed the cow; it is my hand that has done it, and as 
 Indra is the presiding Deity of the hand, so if any one has 
 incurred the guilt of killing the cow, it is Indra and not I.' 
 
 Indra in his Heaven heard all this, assumed the shape 
 of an old Brahma«a, came to the owner of the garden, and 
 said, 'Sir, whose garden is this?' 
 
 Brihma»a — ' Mine.' 
 
 Indra — 'It is a beautiful garden. You have got a 
 skilful gardener, for see how neatly and artistically he 
 has planted the trees ! ' 
 
 BrS.hma«a — 'Well, sir, that is also my work. The trees 
 are planted under my personal supervision and direction.' 
 
 Indra — ' Indeed ! O, you are very clever. But who has 
 laid out this road? It is very ably planned and neatly 
 executed.' 
 
 Brihmawa — ' All this has been done by me.' 
 
 Then Indra with joined hands said, 'When all these 
 things are yours, and you take credit for all the works 
 done in this garden, it is hard lines for poor Indra to be 
 held responsible for the killing of the cow.' 
 
 145. If thou art in right earnest to be good and perfect, 
 God will send the true and proper Master (Sad-Guru) to 
 thee. Earnestness is the only thing necessary. 
 
 146, As when going to a strange country, one must abide 
 by the directions of him who knows the way, while taking 
 the advice of many may lead to confusion, so in trying to 
 reach God one should follow implicitly the advice of one 
 single Guru who knows the way to God. 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 33 
 
 147. Whoever can call on the Almighty with sincerity 
 and intense earnestness needs no Guru. But such a man 
 is rare, hence the necessity of a Guru or Guide. The Guru 
 should be only one, but Upagurus (assistant Gurus) may be 
 many. He from whom any thing whatsoever is learned is an 
 Upaguru. The great Avadhfita had twenty-four such Gurus. 
 
 148. Many roads lead to Calcutta. A certain man 
 started from his home in a distant village towards the 
 metropolis. He asked a man on the road, 'What road 
 must I take to reach Calcutta soon?' The man said, 
 'Follow this road.' Proceeding some distance, he met 
 another man and asked him, ' Is this the shortest road to 
 Calcutta ? ' The man replied, ' O, no ! You must retrace 
 your footsteps and take the road to your left.' The man 
 did so. Going in that new road for some distance he met 
 a third man who pointed him out another road to Calcutta. 
 Thus the traveller made no progress, but spent the day in 
 changing one road for another. As he wanted to reach 
 Calcutta he should have stuck to the road pointed out to 
 him by the first man. Similarly those who want to reach 
 God must follow one and one only Guide. 
 
 149. The disciple should never criticise his own Guru. 
 He must implicitly obey whatever his Guru says. Says 
 a Bengali couplet : 
 
 Though my Gnrn may visit tavern and still, 
 My Gnra is holy Rai Nityananda still. 
 
 150. The Guru is a mediator. He brings man and 
 God together. 
 
134 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SffiVA. 
 
 151. Take the pearl and throw the oyster-shell away. 
 Follow the mantra (advice) given thee by thy Guru and 
 throw out of consideration the human frailties of thy 
 teacher. 
 
 152. Listen not, if any one criticises and censures thy 
 Guru. Leave his presence at once. 
 
 153. As the moon is the uncle of every child, so God 
 is the Father and Guide of the whole Humanity. (The 
 children in Bengal call the moon their ' maternal uncle.') 
 
 154. A disciple, having firm faith in the infinite power 
 of his Guru, walked over a river even by pronouncing his 
 name. The Guru, seeing this, thought within himself, 
 ' Well, is there such a power even in my name ? Then 
 I must be very great and powerful, no doubt ! ' The next 
 day he also tried to walk over the river pronouncing ' I, I, I,' 
 but no sooner had he stepped into the waters than he sank 
 and was drowned. Faith can achieve miracles, while vanity 
 or egoism is the death of man. 
 
 155. Gurus can be had by hundreds, but good Chelas 
 (disciples) are very rare. 
 
 156. It is easy to utter 'do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si,' by 
 mouth, but not so easy to sing or play them on any instru- 
 ment. So it is easy to talk religion, but it is difficult to act 
 religion. 
 
 157. Common men talk bagfuls of religion, but act not 
 a grain of it, while the wise man speaks little, but his whole 
 life is a religion acted out. 
 
THE SAYINGS. 135 
 
 158. What you wish others to do, do yourself. 
 
 159. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that he who yearns 
 for God, finds Him. 
 
 160. The petals of the lotus drop off in time, but they 
 leave scars behind. So when true knowledge comes egoism 
 goes off, but its traces remain. These, however, are not at 
 all active for evil. 
 
 161. There are two Egos in man, one ripe and the other 
 unripe. The ripe Ego thinks, ' Nothing is mine ; whatever 
 I see, or feel, or hear, nay, even this body is not mine, I am 
 always free and eternal.' The unripe Ego, on the contrary, 
 thinks, ' This is my house, my room, my child, my wife, my 
 body, &c.' 
 
 162. The cup in which garlic juice is kept retains the 
 nasty odour, though it may be rubbed and scoured hundreds 
 of times. Egohood also is such an obstinate creature. It 
 never leaves us completely. 
 
 163. The leaves of the cocoa-palm fall off, but leave still 
 their marks behind on the trunk. Similarly, so long as one 
 has this body, there will remain the mark of egoism, how 
 high soever a man may advance in spirituality. But these 
 traces of egoism do not bind such men to the world nor 
 cause their re-birth. 
 
 164. The sun can give heat and light to the whole world, 
 but it can do nothing when the clouds are in the sky and 
 shut out its rays. Similarly, so long as egoism is in the soul, 
 God cannot shine upon the heart. 
 
136 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rAmAK/J/SHATA, 
 
 165. Vanity is like a heap of rubbish or ashes on which 
 the water, as soon *as it falls, dries away. Prayers and 
 contemplations produce no effect upon the heart puffed 
 up with vanity. 
 
 166. Of all the birds of the air the crow is considered to 
 be the wisest, and he thinks himself so too. He never falls 
 into a snare. He flies off at the slightest approach of danger, 
 and steals the food with the greatest dexterity. But all this 
 wisdom can supply him with no better living than filth and 
 foul matter. This is the result of his having the wisdom of 
 the pettifogger. 
 
 167. Once upon a time conceit entered the heart of the 
 Divine Sage N^rada, and he thought there was no greater 
 devotee than himself. Reading his heart, the Lord .Sri 
 Vishrau said, ' Narada, go to such and such a place, there is 
 a great Bhakta of mine there, and cultivate his acquaint- 
 ance.' Nirada went there and found an agriculturist, who 
 rose early in the morning, pronounced the name of Hari 
 only once, and taking his plough went out to till the ground 
 all day long. At night he went to bed after pronouncing 
 the name of Hari once more. Nirada said within himself, 
 ' How can this rustic be called a lover of God ? I see him 
 busily engaged in worldly duties, and he has no signs of 
 a pious man in him.' NS,rada then went back to the Lord 
 and said all he thought of his new acquaintance. The 
 Lord said, ' Nirada, take this cup full of oil, go round this 
 city and come back with it, but beware lest a drop of it fall 
 to the ground.' Nirada did as he was told, and on his 
 
THE SAYINGS. I37 
 
 return he was asked, 'Well, Nirada, how often did you 
 remember me in your walk?' 'Not once, my Lord/ 
 replied Nirada, 'and how could I when I had to watch 
 this cup brimming over with oil?' The Lord then said, 
 ' This one cup of oil did so divert your attention that even 
 you did forget me altogether, but look to that rustic who, 
 carrying the heavy load of a family, still remembers me 
 twice every day.' 
 
 168. There are three kinds of love, selfish, mutual, and 
 unselfish. The selfish love is the lowest. It only looks 
 towards its own happiness, no matter whether the beloved 
 suffers weal or woe. In mutual love the lover not only 
 wants the happiness of his or her beloved, but has an eye 
 towards his or her own happiness also. The unselfish love 
 is of the highest kind. The lover only minds the welfare 
 of the beloved. 
 
 169. A true lover sees his God as his nearest and dearest 
 relative, just as the shepherd women of V^hd^-vana saw in 
 5rt KHshna., not the Lord of the Universe (G^agann4tha), 
 but their own beloved (Gopin3,tha). 
 
 170. ' I must attain perfection in this life, yea, in three 
 days I must find God ; nay, with a single utterance of His 
 name I will draw Him to me.' With such a violent love the 
 Lord is attracted soon. The lukewarm lovers take ages to 
 go to Him, if at all. 
 
 171. A lover and a knower of God were once passing 
 through a forest. On their way they saw a tiger at 
 a distance. The Gninin or knower of God said, 'There 
 
138 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rAmaKB/SHJVA. 
 
 is no reason why we should flee ; the Almighty God will 
 certainly protect us.' At this the lover said, ' No, brother, 
 come let us run away. Why should we trouble the Lord 
 for what can be accomplished by our own exertions ? ' 
 
 172. The Knowledge of God may be likened to a man, 
 while the Love of God is like a woman. Knowledge has 
 entry only up to the outer rooms of God, but no one can 
 enter into the inner mysteries of God save a lover, for 
 a woman has access even into the harem of the Almighty. 
 
 173. Knowledge and love of God are ultimately one and 
 the same. There is no difference between pure knowledge 
 and pure love. 
 
 174. A group of fisherwomen on their way home from 
 a distant market held on an afternoon, were overtaken by 
 a heavy hailstorm at nightfall in the middle of their way, 
 and so were compelled to take shelter in a florist's house 
 near at hand. Through the kindness of the florist they 
 were allowed to sleep that night in one of his rooms, where 
 some baskets of sweet-smelling flowers had been kept for 
 supplying his customers. The atmosphere of the room was 
 too good for the fisherwomen, and they could not, owing 
 to it, get even a wink of sleep, till one of them suggested 
 a remedy by saying, ' Let each of us keep her .empty basket 
 of fish close to her nose, and thus prevent this troublesome 
 smell of flowers from attacking our nostrils and killing our 
 sleep.' Every one gladly agreed to the proposal, and did 
 accordingly ; and soon all began to snore. Such, indeed, is 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 39 
 
 the power and influence of bad habits over all those who 
 are addicted to them. 
 
 176. A tame mungoose had its home high up on the wall 
 of a house. One end of a rope was tied to its neck, while 
 the other end was fastened to a weight. The mungoose 
 with the appendage runs and plays in the parlour or in the 
 yard of the house, but no sooner does it get frightened than 
 it at once runs up and hides itself in its home on the wall. 
 But it cannot stay there long, as the weight at the other end 
 of the rope draws it down, and it is constrained to leave its 
 home. Similarly, a man has his home high up at the feet 
 of the Almighty. Whenever he is frightened by adversity 
 and misfortune he goes up to his God, his true home ; but 
 in a short time he is constrained to come down into the 
 world by its irresistible attractions. 
 
 176. As Helonchi (Hingcha repens) should not be 
 counted among pot-herbs, or sugar-candy among common 
 sweets, because even a sick man can use them without 
 injuring his health; or as the pra«ava ('^) is not to be 
 counted as a word, but as Divinity itself; so the desires 
 of holiness, devotion, and love are not to be reckoned as 
 desires at all. 
 
 177. When the fruit grows the petals drop off of them- 
 selves. So when the Divinity in thee increases, the 
 weakness of humanity in thee will vanish. 
 
 178. The new-born calf falls and tumbles down scores 
 of times before it learns to stand steady. So in the path 
 of devotion, the slips are many before success is achieved. 
 
I40 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHJVA. 
 
 179. Some get tipsy with even a small glass of wine. 
 Others require two or three bottles to make them intoxi- 
 cated. But both get equal and full pleasure of intoxication. 
 Similarly, some devotees get intoxicated with celestial bliss 
 by coming in direct contact with the Lord of the Universe, 
 while others become full of ecstasy even by a glimpse of the 
 Divine Glory. But both are equally fortunate, since both 
 are deluged with Divine bliss. 
 
 180. The snake is very venomous. It bites when any one 
 approaches to catch it. But the person who has learnt the 
 snake-charm can not only catch a snake, but carries about 
 several of them like so many ornaments. Similarly, he who 
 has acquired spiritual knowledge can never be polluted by 
 lust and greed. 
 
 181. When a man realises one of the following states 
 he becomes perfect: — (i) All this am I; (2) All this art 
 thou ; (3) Thou the Master, and I the servant. 
 
 182. Thou shouldst sacrifice thy body, mind, and riches, 
 to find God. 
 
 183. Humanity must die before Divinity manifests itself 
 But this Divinity must, in turn, die before the higher 
 manifestation of the Blissful Mother takes place. It is 
 on the bosom of dead Divinity (^va) that the Blissful 
 Mother dances Her dance celestial. 
 
 184. He finds God the quickest whose yearning and 
 concentration are the greatest. 
 
 185. Samidhi is the state of bliss which is experienced 
 
THE SAYINGS. 141 
 
 by a live fish which, being kept out of water for some time, 
 is again put into it. 
 
 186. There are hills and mountains, dales and valleys, 
 under the sea, but they are not visible from the surface. 
 So in the state of Samadhi, when one floats upon the 
 ocean of Sat-/^it-3.nanda, all human consciousness lies 
 latent in him. 
 
 187. If you fill an earthen vessel with water, and set 
 it apart upon a shelf, the water in it will dry up in a few 
 days ; but if you place the same pot into water it will remain 
 filled as long as it is kept there. Even such is the case 
 with your love to the Lord God. Fill and enrich your 
 bosom with the love of God for a time, and then employ 
 yourself in other affairs, forgetting Him all the while, and 
 then you are sure to find within a short time that your 
 heart has become poor and vacant and devoid of that 
 precious love. But if you keep your heart immersed 
 always in the depth of that holy love, your heart is sure 
 to remain ever full to overflowing with the Divine fervour 
 of sacred love. 
 
 188. He who at the time of contemplation is entirely 
 unconscious of everything outside, has acquired the per- 
 fection of contemplation. 
 
 189. A jar kept in water is full of water inside and 
 outside. Similarly the soul immersed in God sees the 
 all-pervading spirit within and without. 
 
 180. When the grace of the Almighty descends, every 
 
142 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKRTSHiVA. 
 
 one will understand his mistakes ; knowing this you should 
 not dispute. 
 
 101. The darkness of centuries is dispersed at once as 
 soon as a light is brought into the room. The accumulated 
 ignorances and misdoings of innumerable births vanish 
 before the single glance of the Almighty's gracious look. 
 
 192. When the Malaya breeze blows, all trees, having 
 stamina in them, become converted into sandal-trees ; 
 but those which have no stamina remain unchanged as 
 before, like bamboo, plantain, palm-tree, &c. So when 
 Divine Grace descends, men having the germs of piety and 
 goodness in them are changed at once into holy beings 
 and are filled with Divinity, but worthless and worldly men 
 remain as before. 
 
 193. As the dawn heralds in the rising sun, so unselfish- 
 ness, purity, righteousness. Sec, precede the advent of the 
 Lord. 
 
 104. As a king, before going to the house of his servant, 
 sends from his own stores the necessary seats, ornaments, 
 food, &c., to his servant, so that the latter may properly 
 receive him ; so before the Lord cometh. He sends love, 
 reverence, faith, yearning, &c., into the heart of the 
 devotee. 
 
 195. Shallow water in an open field will in time be dried 
 up though no one may lessen it by using it. So a sinner 
 is sometimes purified by simply resigning himself totally 
 and absolutely to the mercy and grace of God. 
 
THE SAYINGS, 1 43 
 
 108. A policeman can see with a dark lantern (bull's- 
 eye) every one upon whom he throws the rays, but no one 
 can see him so long as he does not turn the light towards 
 himself. So does God see every one, but no one seeth 
 Him until the Lord revealeth Himself to him in His 
 mercy. 
 
 197. There are some fish which have many sets of 
 bones, and others have one; but as the eater cleans all 
 the bones and eats the fish, so some men have many 
 sins and others have few; but the grace of God purifies 
 them all in time. 
 
 198. The breeze of His grace is blowing night and day 
 over thy head. Unfurl the sails of thy boat (mind) if thou 
 Wantest to make rapid progress through the ocean of life. 
 
 199. Fans should be discarded when the wind blows. 
 Prayers and penances should be discarded when the grace 
 of God descends. 
 
 200. Creeds and sects matter nothing. Let every one 
 perform with faith the devotions and practices of his creed. 
 Faith is the only clue to get to God. 
 
 201. He who has faith has all, and he who wants faith 
 wants all. 
 
 202. The faith-healers of India order their patients to 
 repeat with full conviction the words, 'There is no ill- 
 ness in me, there is no illness at all.' The patient repeats 
 it, and, thus mentally denying, the illness goes off. So if 
 you think yourself to be morally weak and without good- 
 
144 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKi^SHJVA. 
 
 ness, you will really find yourself to be so in no time. 
 Know and believe that you are of immense power, and the 
 power will come to you at last. 
 
 203. Bhagavin Sii Rama^andra had to bridge the 
 ocean before he could cross over to Lawki. (Ceylon). But 
 Hanum3.n, his faithful monkey-servant, with one jump 
 crossed the ocean through the firmness of his faith in Rima. 
 Here the servant achieved more than the master, simply 
 through faith. 
 
 204. A man wanted to cross the river. A sage gave 
 him an amulet and said, ' This will carry thee across.' The 
 man, taking it in his hand, began to walk over the waters. 
 When he reached the middle of the river curiosity entered 
 into his heart, and he opened the amulet to see what was 
 in it. Therein he found, written on a bit of paper, the 
 sacred name of Rima. The man at this said deprecatingly, 
 ' Is this the only secret ? ' No sooner had he said this than 
 he sank down. It is faith in the name of the Lord that 
 works miracles, for faith is life, and doubt is death. 
 
 205. Q. How can I perform devotion when I must 
 always think of my daily bread? A. He for whom thou 
 workest will supply thy necessities. God hath made pro' 
 vision for thy support before he sent thee here. 
 
 206. Q. When shall I be free? A. When thy I-hood 
 (egoism) will vanish, and thy self-will be merged in the 
 Divinity. 
 
 207. Out of the myriads of paper kites that are made to 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 45 
 
 fly in the air, only one or two rend the string and get 
 free. So out of hundreds of Sddhakas, only one or two 
 get free from worldly bonds. 
 
 208. As a piece of lead, thrown into a basin of mercury, 
 is soon dissolved therein, so the human soul loses its in- 
 dividual existence when it falls into the ocean of Brahma. 
 
 209. Q. What do you say about the method of religious 
 preaching employed now-a-days? A. It is inviting hundreds 
 of persons to dinner, when the food supply is sufficient for 
 one only. 
 
 210. Instead of preaching to others, if one worships God 
 all that time, that is enough preaching. He who strives to 
 make himself free, is the real preacher. Hundreds come 
 from all sides, no one knows whence, to him who is 
 free, and are taught. When a flower opens the bees come 
 from all sides uninvited and unasked. 
 
 211. Hast thou got, O preacher, the badge of authority ? 
 As the humblest subject wearing the badge of the King 
 is heard with respect and awe, and can quell the riot by 
 showing his badge ; so must thou, O preacher, obtain first 
 the order and inspiration from God. So long as thou hast 
 not this inspiration, thou mayest preach all thy life, but that 
 will be mere waste of breath. 
 
 212. He alone is the true ' man ' who is illumined with 
 the Spiritual Light. 
 
 213. The soul enchained is ' man,' and free from chain is 
 '.Siva' (God). 
 
146 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHArA. 
 
 214. The heavier scale of a balance goes down while the 
 lighter one rises up. Similarly he who is weighed down 
 with too many cares and anxieties of the world, goes down 
 to the world, while he who has less cares rises up towards 
 the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 215. God is in all men, but all men are not in God : 
 that is the reason why they suffer. 
 
 216. There are two sorts of men. The Guru said to one 
 of his disciples, 'What I impart to thee, my dear, is 
 invaluable ; keep it to thyself,' and the disciple kept it all 
 to himself. But when the Guru imparted that knowledge 
 to another of his disciples, the latter, knowing its inestim- 
 able worth, and not liking to enjoy it all alone, stood upon 
 a high place and began to declare the good tidings to 
 all the people. The Avatiras are of the latter class, while 
 the Siddhas are of the former. 
 
 217. No man keeps a total fast. Some get food at 9 a.m., 
 others at noon, others at 2 p.m., and others in the evening. 
 Similarly, at some time or other, in this life or after many 
 lives, all will see God. 
 
 218. When fruit becomes ripe and falls of itself, it 
 tastes very sweet; but when unripe fruit is plucked and 
 artificially ripened it does not taste so sweet and becomes 
 shrivelled up. So when one has attained perfection, the 
 observance of caste distinctions falls off of itself from him, 
 but so long as this exalted knowledge is not reached, 
 one must observe caste distinctions. 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 47 
 
 219. When a storm blows, it is impossible to distin- 
 guish an Afvattha (pippal) and a Vafe (banian) tree. So 
 when the storm of true knowledge (the knowledge of one 
 universal existence) blows, there can be no distinction of 
 caste. 
 
 220. When a wound is perfectly healed, the slough falls 
 off of itself; but if the slough be taken off earlier, it bleeds. 
 Similarly, when the perfection of knowledge is reached by 
 a man, the distinctions of caste fall off from him, but it is 
 wrong for the ignorant to break sHch distinctions. 
 
 221. Q. Is it proper to keep the Brahmanical thread? 
 A. When the knowledge of self is obtained, all fetters fall 
 off of themselves. Then there is no distinction of a Brih- 
 mana. or a ^lidra, a high caste or a low caste. In that case 
 the sacred thread-sign of caste falls away of itself. But so 
 long as a man has the consciousness of distinction and 
 difference he should not forcibly throw it off. 
 
 222. Q. Why do you not lead a family life with your 
 wife ? A. The God Kirtikeya, the leader of the Heavenly 
 army, once happened to scratch a cat with his nail. On 
 going home he saw there was the mark of a scratch on the 
 cheek of his Mother. Seeing this, he asked of her, • Mother, 
 dear, how have you got that ugly scratch on your cheek ? ' 
 The Goddess Durg^ replied, ' Child, this is thy own handi- 
 work, — the mark scratched by thy own nail.' Kirtikeya 
 asked in wonder, ' Mother, how is it ? I never remember 
 to have scratched thee ! ' The Mother replied, ' Darling, 
 hast thou forgotten having scratched a cat this morning ? ' 
 
 I. 2 
 
T48 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKJJ/SHiVA. 
 
 Kirtikeya said, 'Yes, I did scratch a cat ; but how did your 
 cheek get marked?' The Mother replied, 'Dear child, 
 nothing exists in this world but myself. I am all creation. 
 Whomsoever thou hurtest, thou hurtest me.' Kartikeya 
 was greatly surprised at this, and determined thenceforward 
 never to marry; for whom would he marry? Every woman 
 was mother to him. I am like Kartikeya. I consider every 
 woman as my Divine Mother. 
 
 223. When I look upon chaste women of respectable 
 families, I see in them the Mother Divine arrayed in the 
 garb of a chaste lady ; and again, when I look upon the 
 public women of the city, sitting in their open verandas, 
 arrayed in the garb of immorality and shamelessness, I see 
 in them also the Mother Divine, sporting in a different 
 way. 
 
 224. The light of the gas illumines various localities with 
 various intensities. But the life of the light, namely, the 
 gas, comes from one common reservoir. So the rehgious 
 teachers of all climes and ages are but as many lamp-posts 
 through which is emitted the light of the spirit flowing 
 constantly from one source, the Lord Almighty. 
 
 225. As the rain-water from the top of a house may be 
 discharged through pipes having their mouth-pieces shaped 
 like the head of a tiger, a cow or a bull, &c., although the 
 water does not belong to these pipeSj but comes from the 
 heaven above, so are the holy Sadhus (saints) through whose 
 mouths eternal and heavenly truths are discharged into this 
 world by the Almighty. 
 
THE SAYINGS. 149 
 
 226. The cries of all jackals are alike. The teachings of 
 all the wise men of the world are essentially one and the 
 same. 
 
 227. Whatever gives happiness in this world contains a 
 bit of divine enjoyment in it. The difference between the 
 two is as between treacle and refined candy. 
 
 228. He who is absorbed in others' affairs, forgets his 
 own outer and inner affairs (i.e. does not think about his 
 own lower and higher self, but is absorbed in the affairs of 
 other selfs). 
 
 229. When the mind dwells in evil propensities, it is like 
 a high-caste Brihma«a living in the quarters of the out- 
 castes, or like a gentleman dwelling in the back slums of 
 the town. 
 
 230. If a man sees a pleader he naturally thinks of cases 
 and causes ; similarly, on seeing a pious devotee, the man 
 remembers his God and the hereafter. 
 
 231. Q. What is the reason that a Prophet is not honoured 
 by his own kinsmen ? A. The kinsmen of a juggler do not 
 crowd round him to see his performances, while strangers 
 stand agape at his wonderful tricks. 
 
 232. The seeds of Va^avintula do not fall to the bottom 
 of the tree. From the shell they shoot far away from the 
 tree and take root there. So the Spirit of a Prophet mani- 
 fests itself at a distance, and he is appreciated there. 
 
 233. There is always a shade under the lamp while its 
 light illumines the surrounding objects. So the man in the 
 
1 50 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 immediate proximity of a Prophet does not understand him. 
 Those who live afar off are charmed by his spirit and extra- 
 ordinary power. 
 
 234. The waters of a swiftly-flowing current move round 
 and round in eddies and whirlpools, but quickly crossing 
 these they resume their former course. So the hearts of 
 the pious fall sometimes into the whirlpools of despondency, 
 grief, and unbelief, but it is only a momentary aberration. 
 It does not last long. 
 
 235. A tree, laden with fruit, always bends low. So, if 
 thou wantest to be great, be low and meek. 
 
 236. The heavier scale goes down and the lighter one 
 rises up. So the man of merit and ability is always humble, 
 but the fool is always puffed up with vanity. 
 
 237. The anger of the good is like a line drawn on the 
 surface of water, which does not last long. 
 
 238. If a white cloth is stained with a small speck the 
 blackness appears very ugly indeed by the contrast ; so the 
 smallest fault of a holy man becomes painfully prominent 
 by his surrounding purity. 
 
 239. The sunlight is one and the same wherever it falls ; 
 but bright surfaces like water, mirror and polished metals, 
 &c., can reflect it fully. So is the Light Divine. It falls 
 equally and impartially on all hearts, but the pure and 
 clean hearts of the good and holy Sidhus only can fully 
 reflect it. 
 
 240. As in a pane of glass on which quicksilver has 
 
THE SAYINGS. 15I 
 
 been laid, one can see his face reflected, so in the chaste 
 heart of a totally abstinent man is reflected the image of 
 the Almighty. 
 
 241. So long as one does not become Simple like a child, 
 one does not get Divine illumination. Forget all the worldly 
 knowledge that thou hast acquired, and become as ignorant 
 about it as a child, and then thou wilt get the knowledge of 
 the True. 
 
 242. The Hindu almanacs contain predictions of the 
 annual rainfall. But squeeze the book, and not a drop of 
 water will be got out of it. So also many good sayings 
 are to be found in books, but merely reading them will 
 not make one religious. One has to practise the virtues 
 taught therein. 
 
 243. Q. Why do religions degenerate? A. The rain- 
 water is pure, but becomes soiled according to the medium 
 it passes through. If the roof and the pipe be dirty, the 
 discharge is dirty. 
 
 244. Money can procure bread and butter only. Do 
 not consider it therefore as if it were thy sole end and aim. 
 
 245. As by rubbing gold and brass on a touch-stone, 
 their real worth becomes known ; so a sincere Sidhu and 
 a hypocrite are found out when they are rubbed through 
 the touch-stone of persecution and adversity. 
 
 246. The iron must be heated several times and hammered 
 before it becomes good steel. Then only it becomes fit to 
 be made into a sharp sword, and can be bent any way you 
 
152 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rXmAKRISHNA. 
 
 like. So a man must be heated several times in the furnace 
 of tribulations, and hammered with the persecutions of the 
 world, before he becomes pure and humble. 
 
 247. Remain always strong and steadfast in thy own 
 faith, but eschew all bigotry and intolerance. 
 
 248. Be not like the frog in the well. The frog in the 
 weU knows nothing bigger and grander than its well. So 
 are all bigots : they do not see anything better than their 
 own creeds. 
 
 249. There was a man who worshipped ,Siva, but hated 
 all other Deities. One day Siva appeared to him and said, 
 ' I shall never be pleased with thee, so long as thou hatest 
 the other gods.' But the man was inexorable. After a few 
 days ^va again appeared to him. This time he appeared 
 as Hari-Hara, that is, one side of his body was that of ,S5va, 
 and the other side that of Vish«u. At this the man was 
 half pleased and half displeased. He laid his offerings on 
 the side representing Sivsi, and did not offer anything to 
 the side representing Vishnu, and when he offered the 
 burning incense to his beloved God (6'iva) he was careful as 
 well as audacious enough to press the nostril of Vish«u, the 
 other half of Hari-Hara, lest the fragrance should be pleasing 
 to Vish«u. Seeing him altogether inexorable, the God ^va 
 was sorely displeased with him, and at once vanished from 
 his sight. But the man was as undaunted as ever. How- 
 ever, the children of the village began to tease him by utter- 
 ing the name of Vish«u in his hearing. Displeased with 
 this, the man hung two bells to his ears, which he used to 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 53 
 
 ring as soon as the boys cried out the names of Vish«u, in 
 order to prevent the sound entering his ears. And thus he 
 was known by the name of Bell-eared, or Gha«/i-kar«a. 
 He is still so much hated for his bigotry that every year at 
 a certain period the boys of Bengal break down his effigy 
 with a cudgel, and this serves him right. 
 
 250. As the young wife in a family shows her love and 
 respect to her father-in-law, mother-in-law, and every other 
 member of the family, and at the same time loves her 
 husband more than these ; similarly, being firm in thy devo- 
 tion to the Deity of thy own choice (Ishfe-Devati), do not 
 despise other Deities, but honour them all. 
 
 251. A truly religious man should think that other re- 
 ligions also are paths leading to the truth. We should 
 always maintain an attitude of respect towards other 
 religions. 
 
 252. The difference between the modern Brdhmaism and 
 Hinduism is like the difference between the single note of 
 music and the whole music. The modern Brihmas are 
 content with the single note of Brahman, while the Hindu 
 religion is made up of several notes producing a sweet and 
 melodious harmony. 
 
 253. Some years ago, when the Hindus and the Brahmas 
 were preaching their respective religions with true earnest- 
 ness and great zeal, some one asked Bhagavin Sii Rama- 
 kr!sh«a his opinion about both parties^ on which he replied, 
 ' I see that my Mother Divine is getting her work done 
 through both parties.' 
 
1 54 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA. 
 
 254. Hari (from hri, to steal) means 'He who steals our 
 hearts,' and Haribala means 'Hari is our strength.' 
 
 255. Sin like quicksilver can never be kept concealed. 
 (When a man takes calomel, sooner or later it is sure to 
 show itself in the shape of eruptions on the skin.) 
 
 256. The tears of repentance and the tears of happiness 
 flow from the two different corners of the eye. The tears 
 of repentance flow from the side near the nose, and the 
 tears of happiness flow from the other extremity. 
 
 257. Visit not miracle workers. They are wanderers 
 from the path of truth. Their minds have become 
 entangled in the meshes of psychic powers, which lie in the 
 way of the pilgrim towards Brahman, as temptations. Beware 
 of these powers, and desire them not. 
 
 258. A man after fourteen years of hard asceticism in 
 a lonely forest obtained at last the power of walking over 
 the waters. Overjoyed at this acquisition, he went to his 
 Guru, and told him of his grand feat. At this the Master 
 replied, ' My poor boy, what thou hast accomplished after 
 fourteen years' arduous labour, ordinary men do the same 
 by paying a penny to the boatman.' 
 
 259. A youthful disciple of 5rt Rimakn'shwa once 
 acquired the power of reading the heart of another. When 
 he related this experience to the Master, he rebuked him 
 and said, ' Shame on thee, child, do not waste thy energies 
 on these petty things.' 
 
 260. A washerman keeps a large store of clothes and has 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 55 
 
 a rich wardrobe, but these are not his. As soon as the 
 clothes are washed his wardrobe becomes empty. Men 
 having no original thoughts of their own are like the 
 washerman. 
 
 261. Greed brings woe, while contentment is all happi- 
 ness. A barber was once passing under a haunted tree 
 when he heard a voice say, ' Wilt thou accept of seven jars 
 of gold ? ' The barber looked round, but could see no one. 
 The mysterious voice again repeated the words, and the 
 cupidity of the barber being greatly roused by the spon- 
 taneous offer of such vast wealth he spoke aloud, 'When 
 the merciful God is so good as to take pity even on a poor 
 barber like me, is there anything to be said as to my 
 accepting the kind offer so generously made?' At once 
 the reply came, ' Go home, I have already carried the jars 
 thither.' The barber ran in hot haste to his house, and 
 was transported to see the promised jars there. He opened 
 them one after another and saw them all filled, save one 
 which was half filled. Now arose the desire of filling this 
 last jar in the heart of the barber. So he sold all his gold 
 and silver ornaments and converted them into coins and 
 threw them into the jar. But the jar still remained empty. 
 He now began to starve himself and his family by living 
 upon insufficient, coarse, and cheap food, throwing all his 
 savings into the jar, but the jar remained as empty as ever. 
 The barber then requested the King to increase his pay as 
 it was not sufficient to maintain him and his family. As he 
 was a favourite of the King, the latter granted his request. 
 
1 56 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA. 
 
 The barber now began to save all his pay and emoluments, 
 and throw them all into the jar, but the greedy jar showed 
 no sign of being filled. He now began to live by begging, 
 and became as wretched and miserable as ever. One day 
 the King seeing his sad plight, inquired of him by saying, 
 ' Hallo ! when thy pay was half of what thou gettest now, 
 thou wast far happier and more cheerful, contented, and 
 healthy, but with double that pay I see thee morose, care- 
 worn, and dejected. Now what is the matter with thee? 
 Hast thou accepted the seven jars of gold ? ' The barber 
 was taken aback by this home-thrust, and with clasped 
 hands asked the King as to who had informed his majesty 
 about the matter. The King answered, ' Whosoever accepts 
 the riches of a Yaksha is sure to be reduced to such an 
 abject and wretched plight. I have known thee through 
 this invariable sign. Do away with the money at once. 
 Thou canst not spend a farthing of it. That money is for 
 hoarding and not for spending.' The barber was brought 
 to his senses by this advice and went to the haunted tree 
 and said, ' O Yaksha, take back thy gold,' and he returned 
 home to find the seven jars vanished, taking with them his 
 life-long savings. Nevertheless he began to live happily 
 after it. 
 
 262. It is very pleasant to scratch a ringworm, but the 
 after-sensation is very painful and intolerable ; so the 
 pleasures of the world are very pleasant in the beginning, 
 but their after-consequences are very terrible to contem- 
 plate. 
 
THE SAYINGS. I 57 
 
 263. Q. What is the world like? A. It is like an Amli, 
 fruit, all skin and stone with but very little pulp, the eating 
 of which produces colic. 
 
 264. Like unto a miser that longeth after gold, let thy 
 heart pant after Him. 
 
 266. So long as the heavenly expanse of the heart is 
 troubled and disturbed by the gusts of desire, there is little 
 chance of our beholding therein the brightness of God. 
 The beatific vision occurs only in the heart which is calm 
 and rapt up in divine communion. 
 
 266. The soiled mirror never reflects the rays of the sun, 
 and the impure and unclean in heart who are subject to 
 Miyi (illusion) never perceive the glory of the Bhagavin 
 (the Venerable). But the pure in heart see the Lord, as 
 the clear mirror reflects the sun. Be holy, then. 
 
 267. As on the troubled surface of rolling waters the 
 moon shines in broken images, so on the unsettled mind of 
 a worldly man engrossed in M.tyk, the perfect God shines 
 with partial light only. 
 
 268. Why does a Bhakta (one full of the love of God) 
 forsake everything for the sake of God? An insect flies 
 from the darkness as soon as any light meets its eyes ; the 
 ant loses its life in molasses, but never leaves them. So 
 the Bhakta cleaves unto his God for ever^ and leaves all 
 else. 
 
 269. As one can ascend to the top of a house by means 
 of a ladder or a bamboo or a staircase or a rope, so diverse 
 
158 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rAmAKJI/SHJVA. 
 
 also are the ways and means to approach God, and every 
 religion in the world shows one of these ways. 
 
 270. If God is Omnipresent, why do we not see Him ? 
 Standing by the bank of a pool thickly overspread with 
 scum and weeds, you will say that there is no water in it. 
 If you desire to see the water, remove the scum from the 
 surface of the pond. With eyes covered with the film of 
 Miyi you complain that you cannot see God. If you 
 wish to see Him, remove the film of Maya from ofiF your 
 eyes. 
 
 271. Why cannot we see the Divine Mother? She is 
 like a high-born lady transacting all her business from 
 behind the screen, seeing all, but seen by none. Her 
 devout sons only see Her, by going near Her and behind 
 the screen of MiyL 
 
 272. Dispute not. As you rest firmly on your own faith, 
 allow others also the same liberty to stand by their own 
 faiths. By mere disputation you shall never succeed in 
 convincing another of his error. When the grace of God 
 descends on him, every one will understand his own 
 mistakes. 
 
 273. A husbandman was watering a sugar-cane field the 
 whole of a day. After finishing his task he saw that not 
 a drop of water had entered the field ; all the water had 
 gone underground through several big rat-holes. Such is 
 the state of that devotee who, cherishing secretly in his 
 heart worldly desires (of fame, pleasures, and comforts) 
 and ambitions, worships God. Though daily praying, he 
 
THE SAYINGS. 159 
 
 makes no progress because the entire devotion runs to 
 waste through the rat-holes of his desires, and at the end 
 of his life-long devotion he is the same man as before, and 
 has not advanced one step. 
 
 274. Keep thyself aloof at the time of thy devotion from 
 those who scoflf, and those who ridicule piety and the pious. 
 
 275. Is it good to create sects ? (Here is a pun on the 
 word 'Dal,' which means both a 'sect' or 'party' as well 
 as 'the rank growth on the surface of a stagnant pool.') 
 The 'Dal' cannot grow in a current of water: it grows 
 only in the stagnant waters of petty pools. He whose heart 
 earnestly longs after the Deity has no time for anything 
 else. He who looks for fame and honour, forms sects 
 (Dal). (Cf. 105.) 
 
 276. The Vedas, Tantras, and the Pur^«as, and all 
 the sacred scriptures of the world, have become as if defiled 
 (as food thrown out of the mouth becomes polluted) : 
 because they have been constantly repeated by and have 
 come out of human mouths. But the Brahman or the 
 Absolute has never been defiled, for no one as yet has 
 been able to express Him by human speech. 
 
 277. The parable of a Brahman and his low-caste 
 servant : 
 
 As soon as Miyi is found out, she flies away. A priest 
 was once going to the village of a disciple. He had no 
 servant with him. On the way, seeing a cobbler, he 
 addressed him, saying, ' Hallo ! good man, wilt thou 
 accompany me as a servant? Thou shall dine well and 
 
l6o THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKJJ/SHiVA. 
 
 wilt be cared for; come along.' The cobbler replied, 
 ' Reverend Sir, I am of the lowest caste, how can I repre- 
 sent your servant?' The priest said, 'Never mind that. 
 Do not tell anybody what thou art, nor speak to or make 
 acquaintance with any one.' The cobbler agreed. At 
 twilight, while the priest was sitting at prayers in the house 
 of his disciple, another Brahman came and addressed the 
 priest's servant, ' Fellow, go and bring my shoes from 
 there.' The servant, true to the words of his master, made 
 no response. The Brahman repeated the order a second 
 time, but the servant remained silent. The Brihman 
 repeated it again and again, but the cobbler moved not an 
 inch. At last, getting annoyed, the Brihman angrily said, 
 ' Hallo Sirrah ! How darest thou not obey a Brahman's 
 command ! What is thy caste ? Art thou not a cobbler ? ' 
 The cobbler hearing this began to tremble with fear, and 
 piteously looking at the priest said, 'O venerable Sir, 
 O venerable Sir ! I am found out. I cannot stay here any 
 longer, let me flee.' So saying he took to his heels. 
 
 278. What is the relation between (Pivdtman and 
 Paramitman, the personal and the Highest Self? 
 
 As when a plank of wood is stretched across a current of 
 water, the water seems to be divided into two, so the 
 indivisible appears divided into two by limitations (Upidhi) 
 of M%3.. In truth they are one and the same. 
 
 279. There is little chance of a ship running astray, so 
 long as its compass points towards the true North. So if 
 the mind of man — the compass-needle of the ship of life — 
 
THE SAYINGS. l6l 
 
 is turned always towards the Parabrahman without oscilla- 
 tion, it will steer clear of every danger. 
 
 280. The Avadhfita saw a bridal procession passing 
 through a meadow, with the beating of drums and the 
 blowing of trumpets, and with great pomp. Hard by the 
 road through which the procession was passing he saw 
 a hunter deeply absorbed in aiming at a bird, and perfectly 
 inattentive to the noise and pomp of the procession, casting 
 not even a passing look at it. The Avadhflta, saluting the 
 hunter, said, ' Sir, you are my Guru. When I sit in medi- 
 tation let my mind be concentrated on its object of 
 meditation as yours has been on the bird.' 
 
 281. An angler was fishing in a pond. The Avadhflta, 
 approaching him, asked, ' Brother, which way leads to such 
 and such a place ? ' The float of the rod at that time was 
 indicating that the fish was nibbling the bait : so the man 
 did not give any reply, but was all attention to his fishing- 
 rod. When the fish was caught, he turned round and said, 
 'What is it you have been saying, sir?' The Avadhdta 
 saluted him and said, ' Sir, you are my Guru. When I sit 
 in the contemplation of the Paramitman, let me follow 
 your example, and before finishing my devotions let me not 
 attend to anything else.' 
 
 282. A heron was slowly walking to catch a fish. 
 Behind, there was a hunter aiming an arrow at it ; but the 
 bird was totally unmindful of this fact. The Avadhflta, 
 saluting the heron, said, ' When I sit in meditation let me 
 
 M 
 
l62 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF VtlUAKRISHNA. 
 
 follow your example, and never turn back to see who is 
 behind me.' 
 
 283. A kite with a fish in its beak was followed by 
 a host of crows and other kites, which were screeching and 
 pecking at it, and were trying to snatch the fish away. In 
 whatever direction it went the crowd of kites and crows 
 followed it, screeching and cawing. Getting tired of this 
 annoyance, the kite let go the fish, when it was instantly 
 caught by another kite, and at once the crowd of kites and 
 crows transferred their kind attentions to the new owner of 
 the fish. The first kite was left unmolested, and sat calmly 
 on the branch of a tree. Seeing this quiet and tranquil 
 state of the bird the Avadhfita, saluting it, said, ' You are my 
 Guru, O Kite ; for you have taught me that so long as man 
 does not throw off the burden of the worldly desires he 
 carries, he cannot be undisturbed and at peace with him- 
 self.' 
 
 284. The human Guru whispers the sacred formula into 
 the ear; the Divine Guru breathes the spirit into the 
 soul. 
 
 285. If thou wishest to thread the needle, make the 
 thread pointed, and remove all extraneous fibres. Then the 
 thread will easily enter into the eye of the needle. So if 
 thou wishest to concentrate thy heart on God, be meek, 
 humble, and poor in spirit, and remove all filaments of 
 desire. 
 
 286. A snake dwelt in a certain place. No one dared 
 to pass by that way. For whoever did so was instan- 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 63 
 
 taneously bitten to death. Once a Mahitman passed by 
 that road, and the serpent ran after the sage in order to 
 bite him. But when the snake approached the holy man 
 he lost all his ferocity, and was overpowered by the gentle- 
 ness of the Yogin. Seeing the snake, the sage said, ' Well, 
 friend, thinkest thou to bite me ?' The snake was abashed 
 and made no reply. At this the sage said, 'Hearken, 
 friend, do not injure anybody in future.' The snake bowed 
 and nodded assent. The sage went his own way and the 
 snake entered his hole, and thenceforward began to live 
 a life of innocence and purity without even attempting to 
 harm any one. In a few days all the neighbourhood began 
 to think that the snake had lost all his venom, and was no 
 more dangerous, and so every one began to tease him. 
 Some pelted him, others dragged him mercilessly by the 
 tail, and in this way there was no end to his troubles. 
 Fortunately the sage again passed by that way, and seeing 
 the bruised and battered condition of the good snake, was 
 very much moved, and inquired the cause of his distress. 
 At this the snake replied, ' Holy sir, this is because I do 
 not injure any one, after your advice. But alas ! they are so 
 merciless ! ' The sage smilingly said, ' My dear friend, 
 I simply advised you not to bite any one, but I did not tell 
 you not to frighten others. Although you should not bite 
 any creature, still you should keep every one at a consider- 
 able distance by hissing at him.' 
 
 Similarly, if thou livest in the world, make thyself feared 
 and respected. Do not injure any one, but be not, at the 
 same time, injured by others. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rKwAKRISHNA. 
 
 287. When the bird has flown away from it, one cares no 
 longer for the cage. So when the bird of life has flown 
 away, no one cares any longer for the carcase. 
 
 288. As a lamp does not burn without oil, so a man 
 cannot live without God. 
 
 289. 290. A learned Brahman once went over to a wise 
 king and said, ' Hear, O king, I am well versed in the holy 
 scriptures. I intend to teach thee the holy book of the 
 Bhigavata.' The king, who was the wiser of the two, well 
 knew that a man who has read the BhSgavata would seek 
 more to know his own Self than honour and wealth in 
 a king's court. He replied, ' I see, O Br§,hman, that you 
 yourself have not mastered that book thoroughly. I promise 
 to make you my tutor, but go first and learn the scripture 
 well.' The Brihman went his way, thinking within himself, 
 ' How foolish the king is to say I have not mastered the 
 Bhagavata well, when I have been reading the book over 
 and over again for all these years.' However, he went over 
 the book carefully once more and appeared before the king. 
 The king told him the same thing again and sent him 
 away. The Brihman was sore vexed, but thought there 
 must be some meaning for this behaviour of the king. He 
 went home, shut himself up in his closet, and applied him- 
 self more than ever to the study of the book. By and by the 
 hidden meanings began to flash before his intellect; the 
 vanity of running after the bubbles, riches and honour, 
 kings and courts, wealth and fame, all vanished before 
 his unclouded vision. From that day forward he gave 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 65 
 
 himself up entirely to attain perfection by the worship of 
 God, and never returned to the king. A few years after 
 the king thought of the Brihman, and went to his house to 
 see what he was about. Seeing the BrUhman, all radiant 
 with the divine light and love, he fell upon his knees and 
 said, ' I see you have now arrived at the true meaning of 
 the scriptures ; I am ready to be your disciple, if you will 
 duly condescend to make me one.' 
 
 291. As long as there is no breeze blowing, we fan our- 
 selves to alleviate heat, but when the breeze blows both for 
 rich and poor, we give up fanning. We should persevere 
 ourselves to reach our final goal as long as there is no help 
 from above; but when that help comes to any, let him 
 then stop labouring and persevering ; otherwise not. 
 
 292. Q. Where is God? How can we get to Him? 
 A. There are pearls in the sea, you must dive deep again 
 and again until you get the pearls. So there is God in the 
 world, but you should persevere to see Him. 
 
 293. How does the soul stay in the body? As the 
 piston stays in a syringe. 
 
 294. As in mid-ocean a bird, which found its perch 
 upon the topmast of a ship, getting tired of its position, 
 flies away to discover a new place of rest for itself, and 
 alas ! without finding any, returns at last to its old roost 
 upon the masthead, weary and exhausted; so when an 
 ordinary aspirant, being disgusted with the monotony of 
 the task and the discipline imposed upon him by his 
 well-wishing and thoroughly experienced preceptor (Guru), 
 
1 68 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rAuAKRISHNA. 
 
 feels the weight of the responsibilities of a man of family, 
 by binding himself in time to the world by the indissoluble 
 tie of wedlock, then he no longer appears jolly, but wears 
 the look of dejection, care, and anxiety, and is seen to lose 
 the glow of health from his cheeks, while wrinkles gradually 
 make their appearance over the forehead. Blessed is he 
 that remains a boy throughout his life, free as the morning 
 air, fresh as a newly-blown flower, and pure as a dewdrop. 
 
 301. A boat may stay in the water, but water should not 
 stay in the boat. An aspirant may live in the world, but 
 the world should not live in him. 
 
 302. He who thinks his spiritual guide a mere man, can- 
 not derive any benefit from him. 
 
 303. What you think you should say. Let there be a 
 harmony between your thoughts and your words ; otherwise, 
 if you merely tell that God is your all in all, while your 
 mind has made the world its all in all, you cannot derive 
 any benefit thereby. 
 
 304. A young plant should be always protected by a 
 fence from the mischief of goats and cows and httle urchins. 
 But when once it becomes a big tree, a flock of goats or 
 a herd' of cows may find shelter under its spreading boughs, 
 and fill their stomachs with its leaves. So when you have but 
 little faith within you, you should protect it from the evil 
 influences of bad company and worldhness. But when once 
 you grow strong in faith, no worldliness or evil inclination 
 will dare approach your holy presence ; and many who are 
 wicked will become godly through your holy contact. 
 
1 66 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rXmAKRISBNA. 
 
 loses all hope, and, having no confidence in him, launches 
 forth into the broad world ever in search of a new adviser, 
 he is sure at last to return to his original master after 
 a fruitless search, which has, however, increased the 
 reverence of the repentant aspirant for the master. 
 
 295. In the month of June a young goat was playing 
 near his mother, when, with a merry frisk, he told her that 
 he meant to make a feast of Ris-flowers, a species of 
 flowers budding abundantly during the time of the Rislili 
 festival. ' Well, my darling,' replied the dam, ' it is not 
 such an easy thing as you seem to think. You will have to 
 pass through many crises before you can hope to feast on 
 Rds-flowers. The interval between the coming September 
 and October is not very auspicious to you ; for some one 
 may take you for a sacrifice to the Goddess Durgi ; then, 
 again, you will have to get through the time of Ktli-pUg^ 
 and if you are fortunate enough to escape through that 
 period, there comes the <ragaddhit«-pfl^, when almost all 
 the surviving male members of our tribe are destroyed. If 
 your good luck leads you safe and sound through all these 
 crises, then you can hope to make a feast of Ris-flowers in 
 the beginning of November.' Like the dam in the fable, 
 we should not hastily approve of all the aspirations which 
 our youthful hopes may entertain, remembering the mani- 
 fold crises which one will have to pass through in the 
 course of one's life. 
 
 296. As the fly sits, now on the unclean sore of the 
 human body, and now on the offerings dedicated to the 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 67 
 
 gods, so the mind of the worldly man is at one time deeply 
 engaged in religious topics and at the next moment loses 
 itself in the pleasures of wealth and lust. 
 
 297. As the rain-water falling upon the roof of a house 
 flows down to the ground through spouts grotesquely 
 shaped like the tiger's head, thus seeming to come out of 
 tigers' mouths, while in reality it descends from the sky ; 
 even so are the holy instructions that come out of the 
 mouths of godly men, which seem to be uttered by those 
 men themselves, while in reality they proceed from the 
 throne of God. (See 225). 
 
 298. As it is very difficult to gather together the mustard- 
 seeds that escape out of a torn package, and are scattered 
 in all directions ; so, when the human mind runs in diverse 
 directions and is occupied with many things in the world, it 
 is not a very easy affair to collect and concentrate it. 
 
 299. As thieves cannot enter the house the inmates of 
 which are wide awake, so, if you are always on your guard, 
 no evil spirits will be able to enter your heart to rob it of 
 its goodness. 
 
 300. The new-born calf looks very lively, blithe, and 
 merry. It jumps and runs all day long, and only stops to 
 suck the sweet milk from its dam. But no sooner is the 
 rope placed round its neck than it begins to pine away 
 gradually, and, far from being merry, wears a dejected and 
 sorry appearance, and gets almost reduced to a skeleton. 
 So long as a boy has no concern with the affairs of the 
 world he is as merry as the day is long. But when he once 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 69 
 
 305. If you wash the body of an elephant and set him at 
 large, he is sure to get himself dirtied in no time, but if 
 after washing him you tie him down to his own room he 
 will remain clean. So if by the good influences of holy 
 men you once become pure in spirit, and then allow yourself 
 the liberty to mix freely with worldly men, you are sure to 
 lose that purity soon ; but if you keep your mind fixed on 
 your God, you will never more get soiled in spirit. 
 
 308. Where does the strength of an aspirant lie ? It is 
 in his tears. As a mother gives her consent to fulfil the 
 desire of her importunately weeping child, so God vouch- 
 safes to His weeping son whatever he is crying for. 
 
 307. Meditate on God either in an unknown corner, or 
 in the solitude of forests, or within your own mind. 
 
 308. Chant forth the sweet name of Hari (God), keeping 
 time all the while by clapping your hands, then you will 
 acquire mental concentration. If you clap your hands, 
 sitting under a tree, the birds on the boughs thereof will fly 
 away in all directions, and when you chant forth the name 
 of Hari and clap your hands, all evil thoughts will fly away 
 from your mind. 
 
 309. 310. As the same fish is dressed into soup, curry, or 
 cutlet, and each has his own choice dish of it, so the Lord 
 of the Universe, though one, manifests Himself differently 
 according to the difierent likings of His worshippers, and 
 each of these has his own taste of God, which he values the 
 most. To some He is a kind master or a loving father, 
 
I 70 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR7SHJVA. 
 
 a sweet smiling mother or a devout friend, and to others 
 a faithful husband or a dutiful and obliging son. 
 
 311. Bow down and adore where others kneel, for where 
 so many hearts have been paying the tribute of adoration, 
 the kind Lord will manifest Himself, for He is all mercy. 
 
 312. There are men, who, although they have nothing 
 to attract them in this world, create some attachments for 
 themselves, and so try to bind themselves to this earth. 
 They do not want and do not like to be free. A man 
 who has no family to care for, no relatives to look after, 
 generally takes a cat, or a monkey, or a dog, or a bird for 
 a pet object and companion ; and thus slakes his thirst for 
 milk by drinking mere whey. Such is the power of Mkyk 
 or Nescience over humanity. 
 
 313. 314. A patient, in high fever and excess of thirst, 
 imagines that he can drink away quite a sea of water ; but 
 when that fit of fever goes and he regains his normal 
 temperature, he can barely quafiF off a single cupful of 
 water, and his thirst is at once appeased with even a very 
 small quantity of it. So a man, being under the feverish 
 excitement of Miyi, and forgetful of his own littleness, 
 imagines that he can embrace the whole of Divinity within 
 his own bosom, but when the illusion passes away a single 
 ray of Divine Light is seen to be sufficient to flood him 
 with eternal divine bliss. 
 
 315. A man, under the influence of very high fever 
 and in excessive thirst, is placed between a row of pitchers 
 
THE SAYINGS, 171 
 
 filled with cold water and a set of open-mouthed bottles 
 filled with flavoury sauces. Is it possible for the thirsty 
 and restless patient in such a case to refrain from either 
 drinking the water or from tasting the sauces placed so 
 near him, although thereby his case may become worse? 
 Even such is the case with the man who is under the 
 maddening influence of his ever-active and misleading 
 senses when he is placed between the attractions of woman's 
 charm on the one side and those of wealth on the other. 
 It is then difficult for him to behave properly, and he is 
 liable to deviate often from the true path and thus make 
 his case worse. 
 
 318. None ventures to keep milk in a vessel in which 
 curd had formerly formed, lest the milk itself should get 
 curdled. Nor can the vessel be safely used for other 
 working purposes lest it should crack upon the fire. It is 
 therefore almost useless. A good and experienced pre- 
 ceptor does not entrust to a worldly man valuable and 
 exalting precepts, for he is sure to misinterpret and misuse 
 them to suit his own mean designs. Nor will he ask him 
 to do any useful work that may cost a little labour, lest he 
 should think that the preceptor was taking undue advantage 
 of him. 
 
 317. When a certain quantity of pure milk is mixed with 
 double the quantity of water, it takes a long time and much 
 labour to thicken it to the consistency of Kshira (condensed 
 milk). The mind of a worldly man is largely diluted with 
 the filthy water of evil and impure thoughts, and it requires 
 
I 72 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKJUSBNA. 
 
 much time and labour before anything can be done to 
 purify and give the proper consistency to it. 
 
 318. The vanities of all others may gradually die out, 
 but the vanity of a saint as regards his sainthood is hard 
 indeed to wear away. 
 
 319. Of the grains of paddy which are fried in a frying- 
 pan, the few which leap out of the pan and burst outside 
 are the best fried, being without the slightest mark of any 
 tinge ; while every one of the properly-fried grains in the 
 pan itself is sure to have at least a very small charred mark 
 of a burn. So of all good devotees, the few who altogether 
 give up the world and go out of it are perfect without any 
 spot, while even the best of those devotees who are in the 
 world must have at least some small spot of imperfection 
 in their character. 
 
 320. We cannot say that God is gracious because He 
 feeds us, for every father is bound to supply his children 
 with food ; but when He keeps us from going astray, and 
 holds us back from temptations, then He is truly gracious. 
 
 32L If you can detect and find out the universal illusion 
 or MiyS, it wUl fly away from you, just as a thief runs away 
 when found out. 
 
 322. Fire itself has no definite shape, but in glowing 
 embers it assumes certain forms, and the formless fire is 
 then endowed with forms. Similarly, the formless God 
 sometimes invests Himself with definite forms. 
 
 323. Should we pray aloud unto God ? Pray unto Him 
 
THE SAYINGS. I 73 
 
 in any way you like. He is sure to hear you, for He can 
 hear even the footfall of an ant. 
 
 324. He who tries to give one an idea of God by mere 
 book-learning is like the man who tries to give one an idea 
 of Kift (Benares) by means of a map or a picture. 
 
 325. A man began to sink a well, but having dug down 
 to the depth of twenty cubits he could not find the least 
 trace of the water-spring which was to feed his well. So he 
 desisted from the work and selected another place for the 
 purpose. There he dug deeper than before, but even then 
 he could not find any water. So again he selected another 
 spot and dug still deeper than before, but it was also of no 
 avail. At last in utter disgust he gave up the task alto- 
 gether. The sum total of the depths of these three wells 
 was little short of a hundred cubits. Had he had the 
 patience to devote even a half of the whole of this labour 
 to his first well, without shifting the site of the well from 
 place to place, he would surely have been successful in 
 getting water. Such is the case with men who continually 
 shift their positions in regard to faith. In order to meet 
 with success we should devote ourselves entirely to a single 
 object of faith, without being doubtful as to its efficacy. 
 
 326. Although in a grain of paddy the germ is considered 
 the only necessary thing (for germination and growth), while 
 the husk or chaff is considered to be of no importance, still 
 if the unhusked grain be put into the ground it will not 
 sprout up and grow into a plant and produce rice. To get 
 a crop one must needs sow the grain with the husk on ; but 
 
1 74 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAjIAKii/SH^A. 
 
 if one wants to get at the germinating matter itself he must 
 first perform the operation of removing the husk from the 
 seed. So rites and ceremonies are necessary for the growth 
 and perpetuation of a religion. They are the receptacles 
 that contain the seeds of truth, and consequently every man 
 must perform them before he reaches the central truth. 
 
 327. The pearl-oyster that contains the precious pearl 
 is in itself of very little value, but it is essential for the 
 growth of the pearl. The shell itself is of no use to the 
 man who has got the pearl, neither are ceremonies and 
 rites necessary for him who has attained the Highest Truth 
 —God. 
 
 328. A woodcutter led a very miserable life with the 
 small means he could procure by daily selling the load 
 of wood brought from a neighbouring forest. Once a 
 Sawnyisin, who was wending his way through the forest, 
 saw him at work, and advised him to proceed onward 
 into the interior recesses of the forest, intimating to him 
 that he would be a gainer thereby. The woodcutter 
 obeyed the injunction and proceeded onward till he came 
 to a sandal-wood tree, and being much pleased he took 
 away with him as many sandal-logs as he could carry, 
 and sold them in the market and derived much profit. 
 Then he began to think within himself why the good 
 Sa»?nyisin did not tell him anything about the wood of 
 the sandal-trees, but simply advised him to proceed onward 
 into the interior of the forest. So the next day he went 
 on even beyond the place of the sandal-wood, and at last 
 
THE SAYINGS. 175 
 
 came upon a copper-mine, and he took with him as much 
 copper as he could carry, and selling it in the market got 
 much money by it. Next day, without stopping at the 
 copper-mine, he proceeded further still, as the SMhu had 
 advised him to do, and came upon a silver-mine, and took 
 with him as much of it as he could carry, and sold it all and 
 got even more money; and so daily proceeding further 
 and further he got at gold-mines and diamond-mines, and 
 at last became exceedingly rich. Such is also the case with 
 the man who aspires after true knowledge. If he does not 
 stop in his progress after attaining a few extraordinary and 
 supernatural powers, he at last becomes really rich in the 
 eternal knowledge of truth. 
 
 329. If you first smear the palms of your hands with 
 oil and then break open the jack-fruit, the sticky milky 
 exudation of the fruit will not stick to your hands and 
 trouble you. So if you first fortify yourself with the true 
 knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst 
 of wealth and women, they will affect you in no way. 
 
 330. He who would learn to swim must attempt swimming 
 for some days. No one can venture to swim in the sea after 
 a single day's practice. So if you want to swim in the sea 
 of Brahman, you must make many ineffectual attempts at 
 first, before you can successfully swim therein. 
 
 331. When does a man get his salvation? When his 
 egoism dies. 
 
 332. When a sharp thorn finds its way into the sole of 
 one's foot, one takes another thorn to get the former out, 
 
1 76 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKiJ/SHiVA. 
 
 and then casts both of them away. So relative knowledge 
 alone can remove the relative ignorance which blinds the 
 eye of the Self. As both such knowledge and ignorance are 
 comprised truly under Nescience, the man who attains the 
 highest Gnina, or knowledge of the Absolute, does away 
 with both knowledge and ignorance in the end, being him- 
 self free from all duality. 
 
 333. To drink pure water from a shallow pond, one 
 should gently take the water from the surface, and not dis- 
 turb it. If it is disturbed the sediments will rise up from 
 the bottom and make the whole water muddy. If you 
 desire to be pure, have firm faith and slowly go on with 
 your devotional practices, and waste not your energies 
 in useless scriptural discussions and arguments. The little 
 brain will otherwise be muddled. 
 
 334. If this body is worthless and transitory, why do 
 pious and devout men take care of it ? No one takes care 
 of an empty box. All protect with care a chest full of 
 precious jewels, gold, and costly articles. The pious soul 
 cannot help taking care of the body in which the Divine 
 one dwells, for all our bodies form the playground of the 
 Deity. 
 
 335. The tender bamboo can be easily bent, but the full- 
 grown bamboo breaks when an attempt is made to bend it. 
 It is easy to bend young hearts towards good, but the heart 
 of the old escapes the hold when so drawn. 
 
 386. The locomotive engine easily drags along a train of 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 77 
 
 heavily-laden carriages. So the loving children of God, 
 firm in their faith and devotion to Him, feel no trouble in 
 passing through all the worries and anxieties of life, and 
 leading many men along with them to God. 
 
 337. Every man should follow his own religion. A 
 Christian should follow Christianity, a Mohammedan should 
 follow Mohammedanism, and so on. For the Hindus the 
 ancient path, the path of the Aryan Rishis, is the best. 
 
 338, 339. He alone is the true man who is illumined with 
 the light of true knowledge. Others are men in name only. 
 
 340. The magnetic needle always points towards the 
 North, and hence it is that the sailing-vessel does not lose 
 her course. So long as the heart of man is directed towards 
 God he cannot be lost in the ocean of worldliness. 
 
 341. As the village maidens in India carry four or five 
 pots of water placed one over the other upon their heads, 
 talking all the way with one another about their own joys 
 and sorrows, and yet do not allow one drop of water to be 
 spilt, so must the traveller in the path of virtue walk along. 
 In whatever circumstances he may be placed, let him always 
 take heed that his heart does not swerve from the true path. 
 
 342. In our theatrical exhibitions wherein the life and 
 exploits of Krishna, are exhibited, the performance com- 
 mences with the beating of drums and the singing aloud of 
 'O K«sh«a, come; come, O dear one.' But the person 
 who plays the part of Krishna, pays no heed to this noise 
 and turmoil, and goes on complacently chatting and smoking 
 
1 78 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR7SHJVA. 
 
 in the green-room behind the stage. But as soon as the 
 noise ceases, and the pious sage NSiada enters on the stage 
 with sweet and soft music and calls upon K«sh«a to come 
 out with a heart overflowing with love, K«sh«a finds that 
 he can no longer remain indifferent, and hurriedly comes on 
 to the stage. So long as the religious devotee cries, ' Come, 
 O Lord ; come, O Lord,' with lip-prayers only, verily the 
 Lord will never come ; when the Lord does come, the heart 
 of the devotee will melt in divine emotion, and his loud 
 utterances will all cease for ever. The Lord cannot delay 
 in coming when man calls upon Him from the depths of 
 his heart overflowing with deep love and devotion. 
 
 343. There is no Path safer and smoother than that of 
 ba-kalami («V). Ba-kalami means resigning the self to the 
 will of the Almighty, to have no consciousness that anything 
 is ' mine.' 
 
 344, What is the nature of absolute reliance ? It is that 
 happy state of comfort felt by a fatigued worker, when re- 
 clining on a pillow he smokes at leisure after a hard day's 
 toil : it is a cessation of all anxieties and worries. 
 
 345. As dry leaves are blown about here and there by 
 the wind, and have no choice of their own, and make no 
 exertion : so those who depend upon God move in harmony 
 with His will, and can have no will, and put forth no effort, 
 of their own. 
 
 346, 347. What do you think of the man who is a good 
 orator and preacher, but whose spirituality is undeveloped ? 
 He is like a person who squanders another's property left in 
 
THE SAYINGS. I 79 
 
 trust with him. He can easily advise others, for it costs 
 him nothing, as the ideas he expresses are not his own, but 
 borrowed. 
 
 348. A worldly man is best known by his antipathy to 
 whatever savours of religion. He does not like to hear any 
 sacred music or psalm, or to utter the holy name of God, 
 and even dissuades otliers from doing the same. He scoffs 
 at prayers, and pours down a volley of abuse upon all religious 
 societies and men. 
 
 349. As a boy holding on to a post or a pillar gyrates 
 round it with headlong speed without fear of a fall, so, fixing 
 thy hold firmly on God, perform thy worldly duties, and 
 thou shalt be free from all dangers. 
 
 350. As an unchaste woman, busily engaged in household 
 affairs, is all the while thinking of her secret lover, even so, 
 O thou man of the world, do thy round of worldly duties, 
 but fix thy heart always on the Lord. 
 
 351. As a wet-nurse in a rich family brings up the child 
 of her master, loving the baby as if it were her own, but 
 knows well that she has no claim upon it ; so think ye also 
 that you are but trustees and guardians of your children 
 whose real father is the Lord God in Heaven. 
 
 352. It is useless to pore over holy scriptures and sacred 
 Shastras without a discriminating and dispassionate mind. 
 No spiritual progress can be made without discrimination 
 (Viveka) and dispassion (Vairigya). 
 
 353. Know thyself, and thou shalt then know the non- 
 
 N 2 
 
l8o THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rKmAKRISHNA. 
 
 self and the Lord of all. What is my ego ? Is it my hand, 
 or foot, or flesh, or blood, or muscle, or tendon ? Ponder 
 deep, and thou shalt know that there is no such thing as I. 
 As by continually peeling off the skin of the onion, so by 
 analysing the ego it will be found that there is not any real 
 entity corresponding to the ego. The ultimate result of all 
 such analysis is God. When egoism drops away, Divinity 
 manifests itself. 
 
 354. The truly devotional and spiritual practice suited 
 for this Iron-age (Kali-)aiga) is the constant repetition of 
 the name of the Lord of Love. 
 
 355. If thou wishest to see God, have firm faith in the 
 efficacy of repeating the name of Hari, and try to discriminate 
 the real firom the unreal. 
 
 356. When an elephant is let loose, it goes about uproot- 
 ing trees and shrubs, but as soon as the driver pricks him 
 on the head with the goad he becomes quiet ; so the mind 
 when unrestrained wantons in the luxuriance of idle thoughts, 
 but becomes calm at once when struck with the goad of 
 discrimination. 
 
 357. Devotional practices are necessary only so long as 
 tears of ecstasy do not flow at hearing the name of Hari. 
 He needs no devotional practices whose heart is moved to 
 tears at the mere mention of the name of Hari. 
 
 358. The companionship of the holy and wise is one of 
 the main elements of spiritual progress. 
 
 359. The soul reincarnates in a body of which it was 
 
THE SAYINGS. l8l 
 
 thinking just before its last departure from this world. 
 Devotional practices may therefore be seen to be very 
 necessary. When, by constant practice, no worldly ideas 
 arise in the mind, then the god-idea alone fills the soul, and 
 does not leave it even when on the brink of eternity. 
 
 360. How should one love God ? As the true and chaste 
 wife loves her husband and the niggardly miser loves his 
 hoarded wealth, so the devotee should love the Lord with 
 all his heart and soul. 
 
 361. How may we conquer the old Adam in us? When 
 the fruit grows out of the flower, the petals of the flower 
 drop off of themselves. So, when the divinity in thee in- 
 creases, the weaknesses of thy human nature will all vanish 
 of their own accord. 
 
 362. 363. When does the attraction of sensual and worldly 
 pleasures die away ? In God, who is Indivisible Ever- 
 Existing Bliss, there is a consolidation of all happiness and 
 of all pleasures. They who enjoy Him can find no attrac- 
 tion in the cheap and worthless pleasures of the world. 
 
 364. In what condition of the mind does God-vision take 
 place ? God is seen when the mind is tranquil. When the 
 mental sea is agitated by the wind of desires, it cannot 
 reflect God, and then God-vision is impossible. 
 
 365. How may we find our God? The angler, anxious 
 to hook a big and beautiful Rohitta-fish, waits calmly for 
 hours together, having thrown the bait and the hook into 
 the water, watching patiently until the bait is caught by the 
 
1 82 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF rAmAKRZSHJVA. 
 
 fish. Similarly, the devotee who patiently goes on with his 
 devotions is sure at last to find his God. 
 
 366. The heart of a sinner is like a curled hair. You 
 may pull it ever so long, but will not succeed in making it 
 straight. So also the heart of the wicked cannot be easily 
 changed. 
 
 367. Knowledge leads to unity, and Ignorance to di- 
 versity. 
 
 368. 369. The society of pious men is like the water in 
 which rice is washed. The rice-water dissipates intoxica- 
 tion. So doth the society of the pious relieve worldly men, 
 intoxicated with the wine of desires, from their intoxication. 
 
 370. The agent of a rich Zemindar, when he goes into 
 the mofussil or interior, tyrannises in various ways over the 
 tenants. But when he comes back to the head-quarters 
 under the eyes of his master, he changes his ways, becomes 
 very pious, treats the tenants kindly, inquires fully into all 
 their grievances, and tries to mete out impartial justice to 
 all. The tyrannical agent even becomes good through the 
 fear of the landlord, and by the effect of his society. 
 Similarly doth the society of the pious make even the 
 wicked righteous, awakening awe and reverence within 
 them. 
 
 371. Moist wood placed upon a fire soon becomes dry, 
 and ultimately begins to bum. Similarly, the society of the 
 pious drives away the moisture of greed and lust from the 
 hearts of worldly men and women, and then the fire of 
 Viveka (Discrimination) burns in them. 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 83 
 
 372. How should one pass his or her hfe ? As the fire 
 on the hearth is stirred from time to time with a poker to 
 make it burn brightly and prevent it from going out, so the 
 mind should be invigorated occasionally by the society of 
 the pious. 
 
 373. As the blacksmith keeps alive the fire of his furnace 
 by the occasional blowing of his bellows, so the mind 
 should be kept a-burning by the society of the pious. 
 
 374. Throw an unbaked cake of flour into hot ghee, it 
 will make a sort of boiling noise. But the more it is fried, 
 the less becomes the noise ; and when it is fully fried the 
 bubbling ceases altogether. So long as a man has little 
 knowledge, he goes about lecturing and preaching, but 
 when the perfection of knowledge is obtained, he ceases to 
 make vain displays. 
 
 375. That man who, living in the midst of the tempta- 
 tions of the world, attains perfection, is the true hero. 
 
 376. We must dive deep into the ocean of the Eternal- 
 Intelligent-BUss. Fear not the deep-sea monsters. Avarice 
 and Anger. Coat thyself with the turmeric of Discrimina- 
 tion and Dispassion (Viveka and Vairigya) and those 
 alligators will not approach thee, as the scent of this 
 turmeric is too much for them. 
 
 377. When unavoidably entering into places where there 
 may be temptation, carry always with thee the thought of 
 thy Divine Mother. She will protect thee from the many 
 evils that may be lurking even in thy heart. Cannot the 
 
184 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAlIAKfi/SHiVA. 
 
 presence of thy mother shame thee away from evil deeds 
 and evil thoughts? 
 
 378. How may we conquer the love of life? The 
 human frame is made up of decaying things ; of flesh and 
 blood and bone. It is a collection of flesh, bone, marrow, 
 blood, and other filthy substances subject to putrefaction. 
 By thus analysing the body, our love thereof vanishes. 
 
 379. Should the devotee adopt any particular costume ? 
 The adoption of a suitable costume is good. Dressed in 
 the Sawnyisin's orange robes, or carrying the religious 
 mendicant's tambourine and cymbals, a man can never 
 utter light and profane things, or sing profane songs. But 
 a man dressed in the smart style of a beau will naturally 
 have his heart inclined to think low thoughts and sing low 
 songs. 
 
 380. Sometimes peace reigns in the heart, but why does 
 it not always last long ? The fire made by the burning of the 
 bamboo is soon extinguished unless kept alive by constant 
 blowing. Continual devotion is necessary to keep alive the 
 fire of spirituality. 
 
 381. Those who live in the world and try to find 
 salvation are like soldiers that fight protected by the breast- 
 work of a fort, while the ascetics who renounce the world in 
 search of God are like soldiers fighting in the open field. 
 To fight from within the fort is safer than to fight in the 
 open field. 
 
 382. Pray to the Divine Mother in this wise. Give me, 
 
THE SAYINGS. 1 85 
 
 O Mother ! love that knows no incontinence, and faith 
 adamantine that cannot be shaken. 
 
 383. As persons living in a house infested by venomous 
 snakes are always alert and cautious, so should men living 
 in the world be always on their guard against the allure- 
 ments of lust and greed. 
 
 384. If there is a small hole in the bottom of a jar of 
 water, the whole water flows out of it by that small aperture. 
 Similarly, if there be the smallest tinge of worldliness in the 
 neophyte, all his exertions come to naught. 
 
 385. When the butter is produced by churning the 
 whey, it should not be kept in the same vessel containing 
 the remaining whey, for then it will lose something of its 
 sweetness and cohesion. It should be kept in pure water 
 and in a different vessel. So after attaining some partial 
 perfection in the world, if one still continues to mix with 
 the worldly, and remains in the midst of the world, it is 
 likely that he will be tainted ; but he will remain pure if he 
 lives out of it. 
 
 386. You cannot live in a sooty room without blackening 
 your body to some extent, however small it may be, with 
 all your caution. So, if a man or a woman lives in the 
 company of one of his or her opposite sex of the same age, 
 with the greatest circumspection and control over his or her 
 passion, still some carnal thought, however small, is sure to 
 arise in his or her mind. 
 
 387. Two persons, it is said, began together the rite of 
 
1 86 THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RAMAKR/SHiVA. 
 
 invoking the Goddess Klli by the terrible process called 
 ' &vasidhana.' (This Tantrik invocation is performed in 
 the cemetery yard, the invoker sitting on the body of a corpse 
 in a dark night.) One invoker was frightened to insanity 
 by the horrors of the earUer portion of the night ; the other 
 was favoured with the vision of the Divine Mother at the 
 end of the night. Then he asked her, ' Mother ! why did 
 the other man become mad ? ' The Deity answered, ' Thou 
 too, O child ! didst become mad many times in thy various 
 previous births, and now at last thou seest me.' 
 
 388. There are various sects among the Hindus ; which 
 sect or which creed should we then adopt ? Pirvati once 
 asked Mahadeva, ' O Lord ! what is the root of the Eternal, 
 Everlasting, All-embracing Bliss ? ' To her MahMeva thus 
 rephed, ' The root is faith.' The peculiarities of creeds and 
 sects matter little or nothing. Let every one perform with 
 faith the devotions and the duties of his own creed. 
 
 389. As a little boy or a girl can have no idea of 
 conjugal affection, even so a worldly man cannot at all 
 comprehend the ecstasy of Divine communion. 
 
 390. The body is transient and unimportant. Why then 
 is it so much looked after? No one cares for an empty 
 box. But people carefully preserve the box that contains 
 money and other valuable property. The virtuous cannot 
 but take care of the body, the temple of the soul in which 
 God has manifested Himself or which has been blessed by 
 God's advent. 
 
THE SAYINGS. 187 
 
 391. How long does godliness remain in man? The 
 iron is red so long as it is in fire. It is black the moment 
 it is removed from fire. So the human being is godly so 
 long as he is in communion with God. 
 
 392. Soft clay admits of forms, but the burnt clay does 
 not. So those whose hearts are consumed with the desire 
 of worldly things cannot realise higher ideas. 
 
 393. As the water and its bubbles are one, and as the 
 bubbles have their birth in the water, float on the water, 
 and ultimately are resolved into water; so the Gtv^tman 
 and the Param^tman are one and the same : the difference 
 is in degrees — the one is finite and small, the other is 
 infinite ; the one is dependent, the other independent. 
 
 394. 395. When the tail of the tadpole drops off, it can 
 live both in water and on land. When the tail of ignorance 
 drops off, man becomes free. He can then live both in 
 God and in the world equally well. 
 
INDEX TO THE SAYINGS ^ 
 
 [Tie references in this Index correspond to the numbering of the 
 Sayings in this volume.'] 
 
 Adam, how to conquer the old, 
 361. 
 
 Adore where others do, 311. 
 
 Advice of many, leads to con- 
 fusion, 146, 148. 
 
 Affairs, danger of being absorbed 
 in otiiers', 228. 
 
 Agriculturalist and Vish»u, 167. 
 
 Ahamkara, vanity or egoism, fo. 
 
 Almighty, the, dwells in every 
 place, 12. 
 
 — visible form of, the materialised 
 manifestation of the formless 
 Brahman, 36, 
 
 — sight of, gives safety, 72. 
 
 — power of, lasting, 73. 
 
 — power of, makes a man in- 
 capable of evil, 74- 
 
 — absorbing effect of, 77. 
 
 — arguments cease in presence of, 
 78. 
 
 — how to reach, 134. 
 
 — man's home at feet of, 175. 
 
 Almighty, the, grace of, 190. 
 
 — disperses accumulated ignor- 
 ance and sin, 191. 
 
 — source of light of the spirit, 
 224. 
 
 — transmits truth through teachers, 
 224, 225. 
 
 — image of, reflected, 240. 
 Alphabet, BengSU, 11 1. 
 Amid fruit, world like, 263. 
 Anger, shortlived in good men, 
 
 237- 
 Ant distinguishes sand from sugar, 
 
 112. 
 Ar^ima, human being and Divinity, 
 
 55- 
 Aspirant, may live in the world 
 but it should not live in him, 
 301. 
 
 — like a bird, 294. 
 
 — tears, the strength of, 306. 
 Avadhfita, twenty - four Gurus, 
 
 147. 
 
 ' This Index was made for a collection of the Sayings of Rdma- 
 krishna. which was sent to me in manuscript. When the MS. came to 
 be printed there were several sayings which had been given twice. As 
 these had to be left out when they occurred the second time, it was 
 necessary to assign two numbers to some of the sayings in order not to 
 disturb the figures of the Index. 
 
I go 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Avadhfita and hunter, 380. 
 
 — and fisher, 281. 
 
 — and heron, 282. 
 
 — and kite, 283. 
 
 AvatSra or Saviour, messenger of 
 
 God, 51. 
 Avat^ras, Kn'shna and Christ as, 
 
 — keep knowledge to themselves, 
 216. 
 
 Baddha, fettered, 137. 
 Ba-kalami (sic), resigning the self 
 
 to will of Almighty, 343. 
 Barber and jars of gold, 261. 
 Bee like a Yogin, 119. 
 Believer, true, never discouraged, 
 
 103. 
 Bengal alphabet, in. 
 Bhagavan, glory of the, 266. 
 
 — SA Rama/^dra, journey to 
 Ceylon, 203. 
 
 recognised by seven sages, 
 
 49. 
 Bh^gavata, scnpture, 10. 
 
 — knowledge of, 290. 
 Bhakta or true lover, 136, 268. 
 Bigot, like frog in well, 248. 
 Bigotry, to be eschewed, 247. 
 Blmd men, the, and the ele- 
 phant, 5. 
 
 Body, playground of Deity, 334. 
 
 — transient and unimportant, 390. 
 
 — temple of the soul, 390. 
 Books, mere reading of, will not 
 
 make a man religions, 242. 
 Boon or grand-dame, in hide and 
 
 seek, 72. 
 Boy and goat, likeness between, 
 
 300- 
 Br^hmaism and Hinduism, 252, 
 
 253- 
 Brahman (Brahma), fire of, causes 
 mind to perform its functions, 
 20. 
 
 — God the Absolute and Eternal, 
 31- 
 
 Brahman (Brahma), sometimes 
 with attributes, sometimes with- 
 out, 35. 
 
 — all-pervading and formless, 36. 
 
 — visible Almighty a manifesta- 
 tion of, 36. 
 
 — Saviours are to Brahma as 
 waves to ocean, 57. 
 
 — I^eities, manifestations of, 141. 
 
 — Human soul loses individual 
 existence in ocean of, 208. 
 
 — temptations in path towards, 
 
 267- 
 
 — inexpressible, 276. 
 
 — hides behind MayS, 313. 
 
 — sea of, 330. 
 
 Brahman and low-caste servant, 
 parable of, 277. 
 
 — and king, story of, 290. 
 
 — and Samnyasin, story of, 342. 
 BrShmana and his garden, 144. 
 Brihmanical thread, 221. 
 Bubbles and water are one, 393. 
 Bnrdwan, MahdrSjah of, 141. 
 
 Cage, no value when bird has 
 
 flown, 287. 
 Calcutta, many roads lead to, 
 
 148. 
 Caste, distinctions of, disregarded 
 
 by a perfect man, 218, 219, 220, 
 
 221. 
 Cat scratched by K^rtikeya, 222. 
 Ceylon or La»«k3, 203. 
 Chameleon, many colours of, 3. 
 Chelas (disciples), very rare, 
 
 155- 
 Child, simplicity of, 97, 241. 
 Children at play, 81. 
 Christ and KWshna, both Avataras, 
 
 52- 
 Clay, burnt and soft, 392. 
 Cloth, doll of, 136. 
 Conceit of NSrada, 167. 
 Contemplation, perfection of, 188. 
 Contentment is happiness, 261. 
 Costume of devotee, 379. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ^91. 
 
 Creeds, paths to reach the Al- 
 mighty, 6. 
 
 — and sects, matter nothing, 200, 
 388. 
 
 Crow, wisest of birds, 166. 
 
 Dala, sedges and schism, 105, 275. 
 
 Darkness of centuries dispersed at 
 once by light, 191. 
 
 Deities, manifestations of Brah- 
 man, 141. 
 
 — not to be compared, 141. 
 
 — all to be honoured, 250. 
 Deity, daily contemplation of, 
 
 necessary, 82. 
 Desires of holiness, devotion, and 
 
 love not to be reckoned among 
 
 desires, 176. 
 Devotee, stages in path of devotion, 
 
 33- 
 
 — loath to relate experiences, 87. 
 
 — sacrifices life to God, 88. 
 
 — pleasure in meeting a fellow, 
 91. 
 
 — tears, the strength of, 92. 
 
 — a child of God, 92. 
 
 — retains faith and love, though 
 surrounded by impurities of the 
 world, 95. 
 
 — desires God only, 97. 
 
 — never wearies of praise, loi. 
 
 — inspired by God, 102. 
 
 — heart of, fired by name of God, 
 124. 
 
 — reminds men of God, 230. 
 
 — progress stopped by desires, 
 
 273- 
 
 — costume of, 379. 
 
 Devotees, those out of the world 
 
 are perfect, 319. 
 Devotion, difficult to practise, 
 
 118. 
 
 — many slips in path of, 178. 
 
 — how possible when working for 
 daily bread, 205. 
 
 — keep aloof from scoffers during, 
 274. 
 
 Devotion, continual, necessary to 
 keep up fire of spirituality, 380. 
 
 Disciple, must not criticise Guru, 
 149. 
 
 — faith in power of Guru, 154. 
 
 — a good one very rare, 155. 
 Dispute not, 272. 
 
 Divine Glory, effect on man, 
 179. 
 
 — Mother in every woman, 222, 
 223. 
 
 — Light falls impartially on all 
 hearts, 239. 
 
 — Illumination, only comes to 
 those who are simple as a child, 
 241. 
 
 — Communion, incomprehensible 
 to worldly man, 389. 
 
 Divinity, manifested in greater de- 
 gree in those who are honoured, 
 
 14- 
 
 — Sacrifice made in Incarnation, 
 
 56- 
 
 — weakness of humanity vanishes 
 at increase of, 177, 361. 
 
 — manifests itself after death of 
 Humanity, 183. 
 
 — self merged in, 206. 
 
 — manifests itself when egoism 
 dies away, 353. 
 
 Do yourself what you wish others 
 
 to do, 158. 
 Dolls, the three, 136. 
 Doubt is death, 204. 
 DurgS, mother of Kirtikeya, 222. 
 
 Earnestness, necessary, 145. 
 Egoism, disappears when know- 
 ledge comes, 160. 
 
 — marks of, never eradicated, 162, 
 163. 
 
 — shuts out God from the heart, 
 164. 
 
 — death of, gets salvation, 331. 
 
 — drops away and Divinity mani- 
 fests itself, 353. 
 
 Egos, two in man, 161. 
 
192 INDEX. 
 
 Elephant and blind men, 5. 
 
 — God in the, 15. 
 
 Faith, tme, ends all qnarrel and 
 dispute, 80. 
 
 — weak, easily shaken, 96. 
 
 — achieves miracles, 154, 202, 
 203, 204. 
 
 — only clue to reach God, 200. 
 
 — he who has, has all, 201. 
 
 — who has not, wants all, 201. 
 
 — is life, 204. 
 
 — be steadfast in, 247, 272. 
 
 — liberty of, 272. 
 
 — should be protected in the be- 
 ginning, 304. 
 
 — must devote ourselves to single 
 object of, 325. 
 
 — how to attain firm, 333. 
 
 — root of Eternal Bliss, 388. 
 Faith-healers, 202. 
 
 Fault of holy man intensified by 
 
 surrounding purity, 238. 
 Fire of Brahman, working of, 20. 
 
 — no definite shape, 322. 
 Fisherwomen, story of, 174. 
 Flint, always retains inner fire, 
 
 PS- 
 Fly and honey-bee, contrasted, 
 
 119. 
 Fool, puffed up with vanity, 236. 
 'Forbear' in Beng^, III. 
 Free, when shall I be? 206. 
 Frog in a well, 248. 
 
 Cagannatha, Lord of the Universe, 
 169. 
 
 Gim&a., King, 122, 124. 
 
 Garlic, odour of, lasting, 162. 
 
 (7ivStman and FaiamStman, re- 
 lation between, 278, 393. 
 
 (Tnana, knowledge of the Absolute, 
 332- 
 
 Goat, moves after decapitation, 70. 
 
 — story of young, 295. 
 
 God, compared with stars by day 
 and by night, i. 
 
 God, worshipped under different 
 names, 2, 4, 9. 
 
 — multiform, 3. 
 
 — appears to us in whatever form 
 we desire to call Him, 4. 
 
 — different ways of worshipping, 
 
 7- 
 
 — many aspects of, 8, 10, 309. 
 
 — present even in tiger or wicked 
 man, 13. 
 
 — everything that eadsts is, 15. 
 
 — to be regarded in same light as 
 His Scripture and His devotee, 
 J 6. 
 
 — impossible to live without, 19. 
 
 — both the snake and the charmer, 
 21. 
 
 — both judge and executioner, 21. 
 
 — incites the thief, 22. 
 
 — warns the householder, 22. 
 
 — dwells in the body, yet apart 
 from it, 23. 
 
 — omnipotence of, 24. 
 
 — screened by Miyi, 25, 270. 
 
 — like the wishing-tree, 26. 
 
 — with and without form, 28, 32, 
 
 33. 322- 
 
 — the Father of the Universe, 
 
 31. 
 
 — the Absolute and Eternal Brah- 
 man, 31. 
 
 — with form is visible, 34. 
 
 — is Intelligence, 37. 
 
 — reached by prayer and penance, 
 
 53- 
 
 — divine sages, like kinsmen of, 
 61. 
 
 — ordinary men the creatures of, 
 61. 
 
 — separable from MSyS, 64. 
 
 — infinite Love of, 75. 
 
 — man in the midst of confusion 
 of argument and reasoning when 
 away from, 78. 
 
 — he who has found Him, is 
 quiet, 79, 86. 
 
 — devotee a child of, 92. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 193 
 
 God, like a hill of sugar, 98. 
 
 — Inspires His devotees, 102. 
 
 — will send Master, 145. 
 
 — how to reach, 146, 148, 269, 
 292. 
 
 — and man, brought together by- 
 Gum, I£0. 
 
 — Father and Guide of Humanity, 
 
 153- 
 
 — he who yearns for, finds, 159. 
 
 — shut out from heart by egoism, 
 164. 
 
 — nearest and dearest, 169. 
 
 — attracted by violent love, 170. 
 
 — knower of, 171. 
 
 — why trouble Him for what we 
 can do ourselves, iji. 
 
 — only a lover enters into the inner 
 mysteries of, 172. 
 
 — sacrifice all to find, 182. 
 
 — concentration necessary to find- 
 ing of, 184. 
 
 — how best found, 184, 365. 
 
 — heart must be kept full of love 
 for, 187. 
 
 — all-pervading Spirit, 189. 
 
 — Soul immersed in, 1 89. 
 
 — resignation to mercy of, 195. 
 
 — only reached by faith, 200. 
 
 — provided for us, before sending 
 us into the world, 205. 
 
 — gives order and inspiration to 
 preacher, 211. 
 
 — in all men, 215. 
 
 — all men not in, 215. 
 
 — all will see, 217. 
 
 — devotee reminds men of, 230. 
 
 — heart pants after, like miser 
 after gold, 264. 
 
 — must be calm in orderto see, 203. 
 
 — Omnipresent, 270. 
 
 how to concentrate the heart 
 
 on, 285. 
 
 — man cannot live without, 288. 
 
 — source of all holy inspiration, 
 297. 
 
 — mind fixed on, never soiled, 305 . 
 
 God, meditate on, in solitude, 
 
 3°r- 
 
 — holds us back from temptation, 
 320. 
 
 — hears footfall of ant, 323. 
 
 — book-learning can give no idea 
 
 of, 324- 
 
 — children of, feel no anxiety, 
 
 336- 
 
 — those who depend on, move m 
 harmony with will of, 345. 
 
 — perform worldly duties, holding 
 fast to, 349, 350. 
 
 — how to love, 360. 
 
 — Indivisible Ever-Existing Bliss, 
 
 363- 
 
 God, attributes of, only realised 
 by communion with Him, 18. 
 
 too vast for man's compre- 
 hension, 98. 
 
 God, grace of, purifies sin, 197. 
 
 prayers and penances dis- 
 carded when it descends, 199. 
 
 God, greatness of, man too far 
 away to comprehend, 40. 
 
 God, knowledge of, like a man, 
 172. 
 
 — — and love, ultimately the 
 same, 173. 
 
 God, love of, like a woman, 172. 
 God, name of, merit in, 41, 43, 
 
 44. 
 
 ecstasy on neanng, 100. 
 
 God, will of, resignation to, 93. 
 God, worship of, preachirgenough, 
 
 210. 
 Godliness, how long it remains in 
 
 man, 391. 
 Godly men, inspired by God, 297. 
 God-men, souls beyond pale of 
 
 Karman, 142. 
 God-vision, how attained, 364. 
 Gold and brass, how distinguished, 
 
 — seven jars of, 201. 
 
 Good and bad, sifted by pious 
 men, 112, 113. 
 
194 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Goptnatha, beloved, 169. 
 Grace, divine, changes men, 192. 
 Grace of God, purifies sin, 197. 
 
 — — a breeze always blowing, 
 198. 
 
 prayers and penances dis- 
 carded, when it descends, igg. 
 
 Great, be low and meek if thon 
 wonldst be, 235. 
 
 Greed brings woe, 261. 
 
 Gohaka A'S«//ala of Ramayawa, 
 
 43- 
 Guide, one to be chosen, 146, 148. 
 
 — spiritual, more than mere man, 
 
 3°2- 
 Guru, guide to God, 146. 
 
 — sent by God, 145. 
 
 — necessary, 147. 
 
 — to be implicitly obeyed, 149. 
 
 — not to be criticised, 149, 152. 
 
 — is Mediator, 150. 
 
 — faith in powers of, 154. 
 
 — difference between human and 
 divine, 284. 
 
 Habit, power of, 174. 
 
 Hanuman, monkey - servant of 
 
 Bhagavan Sii RSmaj^andra, 203. 
 Happiness, divine enjoyment in 
 
 whatever gives, 227. 
 
 — is contentment, 261. 
 Hari, personal deity, 31. 
 
 — praise of, efficacious in ex- 
 cluding Satan, 42. 
 
 — ' He who steals our hearts,' 
 
 254- 
 
 — mental concentration acquired 
 by chanting name of, 308. 
 
 — efficacy in repeating name of, 
 
 355- 
 
 — tears of ecstasy on hearing 
 name of, 357. 
 
 Haribala, 'Hari is our strength,' 
 
 254- 
 Heart, full of vanity, prayer has no 
 effect on, 165. 
 
 — power of reading the, 259. 
 
 Heart, pants after God like miser 
 
 after gold, 264. 
 •^ how to concentrate on God, 
 
 285. 
 
 — must be guarded, 299. 
 
 — easily influenced when young, 
 
 335- 
 
 — of man, directed towards God, 
 
 34°- 
 
 — must not swerve from true path, 
 
 341- , , . 
 
 — consumed vrith worldly thmgs, 
 
 392- 
 
 Hemp-smoker, no pleasure in 
 smoking alone, 90. 
 
 Hero, true, he who attains per- 
 fection amid temptations of the 
 world, 375. 
 
 Hindu almanacs and rainfall, 242. 
 
 Hinduism and Brahmaism, 252, 
 
 253- 
 Hindus, sects among, 388. 
 Holy and wise, companionship of, 
 
 358. 
 Homa, bird, 60. 
 Honey-bee and fly, contrasted, 
 
 119. 
 Human frailties of teacher, to be 
 
 disregarded, 151. 
 Humanity must die before Divinity 
 
 manifests itself, 183. 
 Humility, virtue of, 235, 236. 
 Husbandman and sugar-cane, 
 
 273. 
 
 Ignorance and knowledge, com- 
 prised under ignorance, 332. 
 
 — leads to diversity, 367. 
 Incarnation, flood of, 53. 
 Individual existence, lost in ocean 
 
 of Brahman, 208. 
 Indra, deity of hand, 144. 
 Intelligence, God is, 37. 
 Intolerance to be eschewed, 247. 
 Iron changed to gold, 73. 
 
 Jack-fruit, 329. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 195 
 
 Jesns, inner Soul separate from 
 physical shell, 62. 
 
 — physical pain no effect on, 62. 
 
 KaU, temple of, 109. 
 
 — goddess, rite of invoking, 387. 
 Kalpa-vriksha, wishing-tree, 26. 
 Karman, heart of God-men be- 
 yond pale of, 142. 
 
 Kartikeya, leader of heavenly 
 
 army, 222. 
 Kite and fish, 383. 
 Knowledge, true, causes egoism 
 
 to disappear, 160. 
 
 — of God, like a man, 172. 
 
 — entry only to outer rooms of 
 God, 172. 
 
 — and love, ultimately the same, 
 173- 
 
 — true, of one universal existence, 
 219. 
 
 — of True, gained by forgetting 
 worldly knowledge, 241. 
 
 — and ignorance comprised under 
 Nescience, 332. 
 
 — leads to unity, 367. 
 
 — a little makes a noise, 374. 
 Krishna., life and exploits of, 
 
 342- 
 
 — and Christ, both AvatSras, 
 52. 
 
 Kshlra, condensed milk, 317. 
 
 LawjkS, Ceylon, 203. 
 Lead, dissolved by mercury, 208. 
 Life sacrificed to God by re- 
 nunciation, 88. 
 
 — of wise man, a religion acted 
 out, 157. 
 
 — love of, how conquered, 378. 
 Light disperses darkness of cen- 
 turies, 191. 
 
 — spiritual, illumines true man, 
 212. 
 
 — divine, falls impartially on all 
 hearts, 239. 
 
 Loadstone rock, 75. 
 
 Lord, advent of, preceded by un- 
 selfishness, &c., 193. 
 
 — prepares heart to receive Him, 
 194. 
 
 — unseen until He reveals Him- 
 self, 196. 
 
 — all mercy, 311. 
 
 — of Love, repetition of name of, 
 364- 
 
 Lotus-leaf, like perfect man, 66. 
 Love, three kinds of, 168. 
 
 — of God, like a woman, 172. 
 
 — and knowledge, ultimately the 
 same, 173. 
 
 — of God, heart must be kept 
 full of, 187. • 
 
 — of life, how conquered, 378. 
 Lover of God, ardent and luke- 
 warm, 170. 
 
 Lust and greed, no effect on him 
 who has acquired true Icnow- 
 ledge, 180. 
 
 Mahadeva on faith, 388. 
 Mahatman and snaJce, 286. 
 Malaya breeze, converts trees to 
 
 sandal-trees, 192. 
 Man, emancipated, like burnt rope, 
 
 u8> 
 
 — freed by touch of Almighty, 
 72. 
 
 — playing in the world like child 
 with doll, 81. 
 
 — truly religious, no difference 
 when alone, no. 
 
 — two Egos in, 161. 
 
 — knowledge of God like a, 172. 
 
 — his home at feet of Almighty, 
 176- 
 
 — true, illumined with Spiritual 
 Light, 212, 339. 
 
 — Soul enchained is, 213. 
 
 — of merit, always humble, 236. 
 
 — heated in furnace of persecution, 
 246. 
 
 — cannot live without God, 288. 
 
 — easily led away, 315. 
 
 O 2 
 
196 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Man becomes free when tail of 
 ignorance drops off, 395. 
 
 Mantra of Guru to be followed, 
 human frailties disregarded, 151. 
 
 Marksman, how trained, 30. 
 
 Mayi, screens God from human 
 view, 25, 270. 
 
 — ocean of, 45. 
 
 — God intimately connected with, 
 64. 
 
 — necessary to life, 71. 
 
 — illnsion of, 266. 
 
 — worldly man engrossed in, 267. 
 
 — eyes covered with film of, 270. 
 
 — screen of, 271. 
 
 — flies away as soon as found out, 
 377, 321. 
 
 — limitations of, 278. 
 
 — or Nescience, power of, 312. 
 
 — mask of Brahman, 313. 
 
 — fever of, 314. 
 
 Men, three sorts of, 137. 
 
 — God in all, 215. 
 
 — all not in God, 215. 
 
 — two sorts of, 216. 
 
 — without original thoughts, 260. 
 Mercury dissolves lead, 208. , 
 Mind, concentration of, learnt first 
 
 by fixing it on forms, then on 
 the formless, 29, 30. 
 
 — evil propensities of, 229. 
 
 — compass-needle of ship of life, 
 279. 
 
 — difiScult to concentrate, 298. 
 
 — fixed on God, never soiled, 
 
 305- 
 
 — ruled like elephant, 356. 
 
 — invigorated by society of pious, 
 
 372. 373- 
 Miracle-workers, warning against, 
 
 267- 
 Miracles worked by faith, 154, 
 
 202, 203, 204. 
 Mirror, soiled, does not reflect rays 
 
 of sun, 266. 
 Money, like water passing under 
 
 a bridge, 67. 
 
 Money, not sole end and aim, 224. 
 Moon or ' Uncle Moon,' 153- 
 Moth, having seen light never 
 
 returns to darkness, 88. 
 Mother, Deity addressed as, 89. 
 Mother Divine, worshipped in 
 
 various forms, 6. 
 why invisible, 271. 
 
 — — protects from temptation, 
 
 377- 
 
 prayer to, 382. 
 
 Mountains and plains, different 
 
 view from, 85. 
 
 — under the sea, invisible, 86. 
 Mukta, released, 137. 
 Mnktapurusha, one who merges 
 
 himself in the Universal Self, 
 
 136. 
 Mungoose in house, 175. 
 Mutual love, 168. 
 
 Name of God, merit in pronounc- 
 
 mg. 41. 43. 44- 
 NSrada, Divine Sage, 167. 
 NSriya«a, all water brooded over 
 
 by, 12. 
 
 — every being is, 17. 
 
 Nectar, trough of, makes immortal, 
 
 44- 
 Neophyte, harmed by mixing with 
 the world, 76. 
 
 — spiritual exercises necessary to, 
 
 133- 
 
 — worldliness in, 384. 
 Nescience, or MSyi, power of, 312. 
 
 — mask of Brahman, 313. 
 
 — knowledge and ignorance com- 
 prised under, 332. 
 
 Nitya Siddhas, ever-perfect, 59, 
 60. 
 
 Ocean of Sat-^t-Snanda, 186. 
 Oyster, pearl, 94. 
 
 Pandits, false, like vultures, 140. 
 Farabrahman, mind turned to- 
 wards, 279. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 197 
 
 ParamStman and GivStman, rela- 
 tion between, 27^" 393- 
 
 — contemplation of, 281. 
 Paramahamsa, soul and swan, 64. 
 Parents, guardians, and trustees of 
 
 children, 351. 
 
 Parrot and Divine Name, 115. 
 
 ParvatJ or Eternal Bliss, 388. 
 
 Pearl, bow fashioned, 94. 
 
 Pelican, not wetted by water, 69. 
 
 Perfect man, in the world but un- 
 touched by it, 65, 66, 69. 
 
 freed from egoism, yet alive, 
 
 68, 70. 
 
 observes no caste distinctions, 
 
 21S, 219, 220, 221. 
 
 reflects image of Almighty, 
 
 •240. 
 
 — — influence diffused every- 
 where, 294. 
 
 Perfection, state of, 181. 
 
 Persecution, a tondistone, 245. 
 
 Persevere until help comes, 291. 
 
 Personal God, rises from Imper- 
 sonal, 36. 
 
 Philosopher's stone, 73, 74. 
 
 Pillow-case, man compared with, 
 II. 
 
 Pious man, sifts good from bad, 
 112, 113. 
 
 dead even in life, 1 14. 
 
 only temporarily despondent, 
 
 234- 
 society of, like rice-water, 
 
 369- 
 
 — — makes wicked righteous, 
 370. 
 
 drives away lust and greed, 
 
 — — mvigorates mmd, 372, 
 
 373- 
 Potter, makes many-shaped vessels 
 
 out of same clay, 9. 
 Power, comes to those who think 
 
 they have it, 202. 
 Prayer, no effect on heart filled 
 
 with vanity, 165. 
 
 Prayer and penance not necessary 
 to him who has reached God, 
 82. 
 
 discarded when grace of 
 
 God descends, 1 99. 
 
 Preacher, inspired by God, 211. 
 
 — with undeveloped spirituality, 
 
 347- 
 Preaching, present method of, 209. 
 
 — worthless without inspiration, 
 211. 
 
 Property, division of, 38. 
 Prophet, why not hononred by his 
 own kinsmen, 231. 
 
 — spirit of, manifests itself at a 
 distance, 232. 
 
 — appreciated at a distance, 232, 
 
 233- 
 
 Psychic powers, dangerous, 257. 
 
 Pupil, the, and the elephant, story 
 of, 15. 
 
 Pura«as, defiled by constant re- 
 petition, 276. 
 
 Pure in heart see God, 266. 
 
 Purity precedes advent of the Lord, 
 
 193- 
 
 — of holy men, intensifies faults, 
 238. 
 
 — difficult to keep in the world, 
 
 385- 
 
 Rama, God, 43. 
 
 — human being and Divinity, 55. 
 Rank and position, no difference 
 
 in Divine sight, 85. 
 RSs-flowers, 295. 
 RSsltla festival, 295. 
 Reliance, nature of absolute, 344. 
 Religion, no effect on worldly 
 
 man, 130. 
 
 — easy to talk, difficult to act, 
 
 156, 157- 
 
 — life of wise man, a religion 
 acted out, 157. 
 
 — not learnt from books, 242. 
 
 — every, a way to reach God, 
 269. 
 
198 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Religion, rites and ceremonies 
 necessary to growth of, 326. 
 
 — every man should follow his 
 own, 337. 
 
 Religions, why they degenerate, 
 
 243- 
 
 — respect for other, 251. 
 
 — all paths leading to tmth, 
 251. 
 
 Religious preaching, 209. 
 
 — sentiments, not to be talked 
 abont, 135. 
 
 Reticence very desirable, 135. 
 Rice-water, dissipates intoxication, 
 
 369. 
 Rites and ceremonies, necessary 
 
 for growth of i'eligion, 336. 
 tmnecessaiy to him who 
 
 has attaine^ighest growth, 327. 
 Rohitta-fish, 365. 
 Rope, retains form iwhen burnt, 
 
 but of no use, 68. ' 
 
 Sadhakas, few get free, 207. 
 Sadhu, the, and the wicked man, 
 63. 
 
 — makes no distinction between 
 friend and foe, 63. 
 
 — characteristics of, 109. 
 
 — the, and the dog, 109. 
 
 — false, 143. 
 
 — true and false, discovered in 
 persecution, 245. 
 
 S^dhus (saints), dispense heavenly 
 truths, 225. 
 
 — reflect Light Divine, 239. 
 Sage, recognised alone by sage, 
 
 107, 108. 
 
 — in trance, 108. 
 
 Sages, Divine, like kinsmen of 
 
 God, 61. 
 Saint, vanity of, 318. 
 Salt, doll of, 136. 
 Salvation got by death of egoism, 
 
 331- . 
 Samadhi, trance, 108. 
 
 — state of bliss, 185, 186. 
 
 Sand and sugar, distingoished by 
 ant, 112. 
 
 Sandal, trees changed to, by Ma- 
 laya breeze, 192. 
 
 Samnyasin, has no home, like a 
 snake, 106. 
 
 Satan kept out by praise of Hari, 
 42. 
 
 Sat-^t-Snanda, Ocean of, 186. 
 
 — the Everlasting LiteUigent 
 Bliss, 2. 
 
 — various forms, 3. 
 
 — solidified, 36. 
 
 — tree of, 50. 
 
 .javas^dhana, rite of invoking god- 
 dess Kait, 387. 
 
 Saviour, carries thousands across 
 ocean of May£, 45. 
 
 — saves all, 46, 47, 48, S4- 
 
 — carries multitudes to feet of 
 Almighty, 48. 
 
 — sent to rekindle religion, 51. 
 Saviours are to Brahman as waves 
 
 to the sea, 57. 
 Sects and creeds matter nothing, 
 300, 388. 
 
 — how created, 275. 
 
 — among Hindus, 388. 
 Self, universal, 136. 
 
 — merged in Divinity, 206. 
 
 — knowledge of, 221. 
 Self-reliance, danger of, 93. 
 Selfish love, lowest kind, 168. 
 Shepherd women of Vrindavana, 
 
 169. 
 Siddha, state to which he attains, 
 
 58. 
 
 — = perfect man and well-cooked 
 food, 58. 
 
 — five kinds of, 59. 
 Siddha-pnmsha like an archaeo- 
 logist, 54. 
 
 Siddhas, save themselves by pain 
 and penance, 46, 47, 48. 
 
 — spread knowledge, 216. 
 Sieve, wicked man compared to a, 
 
 138. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 199 
 
 Sin, purged by uttering Name of 
 the Almighty, 43. 
 
 — purified by grace of God, 197, 
 
 — never concealed, 255. 
 
 Sinner saved by resignation to will 
 
 of God, 195. 
 SttS, human being and divinity, 55. 
 Siva, and Vish»u, which the greater, 
 
 141. 
 
 — soul free from chain, is, 213. 
 
 — and bigoted worshipper, 249. 
 Snake and MahStman, 286. 
 Snow, 18. 
 
 Soul attracted by magnetism of 
 Universal Consciousness, 75. 
 
 — having attained Godhead, un- 
 influenced by world, 76. 
 
 — immersed i^ God, 189. 
 
 — loses individual existence in 
 ocean of Brahman, 208. 
 
 — free from chain is .Siva, 213. 
 
 — enchained is man, 213. 
 
 — how it stays in body, 293. 
 
 — re-incamation of, 359. 
 Spiritual Light illumines true man, 
 
 212. 
 
 — progress impossible without dis- 
 crimination and dispassion, 352. 
 
 — : progress, main elements of, 358. 
 Sli KfishKa, RadhS, human being 
 
 and divinity, 55. 
 Stars, invisible by day, 1. 
 Stone, impervious to water, 96, 
 
 126, 136. 
 
 — doll of, 136. 
 
 Sugar and sand, distinguished by 
 
 ant, 112. 
 Sun, power of, 164. 
 
 — reflected best from polished 
 surfaces, 239, 266. 
 
 Sv^ti, star, 94. 
 SvSti-rain, 94. 
 Swan, peculiarity of, 64. 
 
 Tadpole, 395. 
 
 Tantras, defiled by constant repe- 
 tition, 276. 
 
 Teachers, channel through which 
 light is transmitted, 224. 
 
 Tears, strength of a devotee, 92, 
 306. 
 
 — of repentance and happiness 
 flow from different corners, 
 356. 
 
 Thoughts and words, harmony 
 between, 303. 
 
 Tiger, God present in the, 13. 
 
 Treacle and candy, difference be- 
 tween, 227. 
 
 Truth, uttered by lunatics, drunk- 
 ards, and children, 39. 
 
 — all religious paths leading to, 
 251. 
 
 Universal Conscioijine'ss, mag- 
 netism of, 75. 
 
 — Existence, knowledge of, 219. 
 
 — Self, knowledge of, 329. 
 Unselfish love, highest kind, 168. 
 Unselfishness precedes advent of 
 
 the Lord, 193. 
 UpSdhi, limitations, 278. 
 Upagurus, many, 147. 
 
 VairSgya, dispassion, 353, 376. 
 Va^ravSntula tree, seeds of, 232. 
 Vanity, death of man, 154. 
 
 — like heap of rubbish, 165. 
 
 — of saint, 318. 
 
 Vedas, defiled by constant repeti- 
 tion, 276. 
 
 Vish«u or .Siva, which the greater, 
 141. 
 
 Viveka, discrimination, 352, 376. 
 
 — fire of, 371. 
 
 Vulture, soars high but searches 
 for carrion, 140. 
 
 Water, brooded over by Nar4ya«a, 
 12. 
 
 — no effect on stone, 96, 126, 
 136- 
 
 — power of walking on, 258. 
 
 — and bubbles are one, 393. 
 
200 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wicked man, like a sieve, 138. 
 righteous in society of pions, 
 
 37°- 
 Wife and mother, 77. 
 Wind, carries all scents, 65. 
 Winnowing basket, 113. 
 Wishing-tree (Kalpa-vnksha), 26. 
 Woe, brought by greed, 261. 
 Woman, every woman the Divine 
 
 Mother, 222, 223. 
 
 — love of God like a, 172. 
 Woodcutter and SawuySsin, story 
 
 of, 328. 
 
 Words and thoughts, harmony be- 
 tween, 303. 
 
 World, men who have renounced 
 the, 60. 
 
 — perfect man lives in but does 
 not mix with, 65, 95. 
 
 — no power over perfect man, 
 69. 
 
 — influence on neophyte and more 
 advanced mind, 76. 
 
 — no attraction for those who 
 have tasted Divine Bliss, 83. 
 
 — false glitter like a trap, 121. 
 
 — easier to enter than renounce, 
 121. 
 
 — impossible to attain perfection 
 in, 122. 
 
 — lUce a stage, 123. 
 
 — irresistible attraction of, 175. 
 
 — cares of, weigh down, 214. 
 
 — like Smla fruit, 263. 
 
 — make yourself feared and re- 
 spected in, 286. 
 
 — aspirant may live in, 301. 
 
 — difference between those who 
 live in and those who renounce, 
 381. 
 
 World, those living in should be 
 
 on their guard, 383. 
 — contamination of, 385. 
 Worldliness in neophyte, 384. 
 Worldly bond, few freed from, 207. 
 Worldly knowledge, to be for- 
 gotten, 241. 
 Worldly man, motive for good 
 
 deeds, 115, 125. 
 
 like spring cushion, 116. 
 
 religious feeling evanescent 
 
 in, 116, 117, 119, 296. 
 heart of, never roused to 
 
 enthusiasm, 124. 
 nninfluenced by good advice, 
 
 126, 127, 128, 130, 131. 
 
 characteristics of, 129. 
 
 full of worldly thoughts, 13a. 
 
 unchanged by Divine Grace, 
 
 192. 
 perfect God shines in partial 
 
 light on mind of, 267. 
 lose purity by mixing with, 
 
 305- 
 heart filled with worldly 
 
 thoughts and desires, 368. 
 antipathy to all that savours 
 
 of religion, 348. 
 cannot comprehend ecstasy 
 
 of Divine Communion, 389. 
 Worship of God, preaching enough, 
 
 Yaksha, riches of, 261. 
 
 Yoga, difficult to practise, 118. 
 
 Yogin, has no home, like a snake, 
 
 106. 
 — like a bee, 119. 
 
 Zemindar, agent of, 370. 
 
 oxford: HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY