Why should you have any duty? Resign everything unto God. In this tremendous fiery furnace where the fire of duty scorches everybody, drink this cup of nectar and be happy. We are all simply working out God's will, and have nothing to do with rewards and punishments. If you want the reward, you must also be ready for the punishment. The only way to get out of the punishment is to give up the reward.
Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 10, 1896. Complete Works, 1.104.
The book is all in us. In your own heart day and night is singing that Eternal Music-Saccidānanda, so'ham, so'ham-Being, Consciousness, Bliss Absolute. I am He, I am He.
Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 28, 1895. Complete Works, 7.20.
Classification or regrouping of phenomena by their similarities is the first step in scientific knowledge--perhaps it is all. An organized grouping, revealing to us a similarity running through the whole group, and a conviction that under similar circumstances the group will arrange itself in the same form--stretched over all time, past, present and future--is what we call law.
From Swamiji's article in the February 1895 issue of the New York Medical Times. Complete Works, 9.285.
Each thought is a little hammer blow on the lump of iron which our bodies are, manufacturing out of it what we want to be. We are heirs to all the good thoughts of the universe, if we open ourselves to them.
Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 28, 1895. Complete Works, 7.20.
All the difference that you see between a bhakta and a jnani is in the preparatory stage: the bhakta sees God outside and the jnani sees God within. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that there is a higher stage, which is called supreme bhakti (parabhakti), in which the bhakta loves God after becoming established in the nondual consciousness and attaining spiritual freedom (mukti). This may seem paradoxical, ... but the free person is beyond all law, and hence no question can be asked regarding such a person. Even after becoming free, out of their own free will, some retain bhakti to taste of its sweetness.
Conversation: Saturday, January 23, 1898. Recorded in Bengali by
Surendra Nath Sen in his private diary. Complete Works, 5.336-37.
The bhakti-scriptures mention five different kinds of relationships, through any of which one can attain God. But another kind of relationship can also be added to them, viz. the relationship of oneness with God, which is attained through the path of meditation on the non-separateness from God. Thus even the nondualists can be called bhaktas, but of the non-differentiating type.
Conversation: Saturday, January 23, 1898. Recorded in Bengali by Surendra Nath Sen in his private diary. Complete Works, 5.336.
No comments:
Post a Comment