1.

M. (to himself) ­ Why do I go to the Brahmo Samaj? Not for instruction. I go there because there is a connection between it and Thakur. Keshab Babu only elaborated his (Thakur’s) words. And this is what the teachers there propagate. I go there just to hear them and also to hear a group of songs which sing of Thakur’s different states.

"These people could not understand Thakur’s state but Keshab Babu did. He used to deliver his sermons on those very states. Then Trailokya Sanyal, a devotee of Keshab, would compose songs on them. I go there to listen to these songs. All the songs express the different moods of Thakur, as if his moods have taken the form of songs.

"Wherever there is a connection with Thakur, they become very interesting.

"It is like the water of the Ganga ­ clean at some places, muddy at others and full of pebbles at some places, but it is the same water. It is the same with his (Thakur’s) sayings. One has to see how they emerge from different channels. It is all very interesting.

"Vivekananda has said it in one way. From Keshab Babu they come out in another way and it comes out from Shivanath Shastri and Vijay Krishna Goswami in different ways. Thus, it comes out of so many people. All very interesting!"

A Particular Bhakta ­ Thakur only asked his intimate disciples to talk about God to others. You were also given a kala of power to talk of Thakur to men scalded by the fire of the world. He used to send Khoka Maharaj and others to hear about Thakur from you. He also gave this power to Ram Babu and Girish Babu for the same reason. Householders and sannyasi intimate disciples are co-sharers of this power. The water that flows within them comes from the same source.

M. ­ Yes, Thakur had infinite moods. He was a sea of bhavas. The devotees only express his bhavas. The bhaktas express the bhava which He wishes Himself to be expressed. Their methods are, of course, different.

M. (to the devotees) ­ Wherever Keshab Babu talks of his own ideas, there is confusion. If one knows what Thakur has said, one can always catch what are Thakur’s and what are those of the speaker, whosoever may be speaking. Wherever he has tried to strike a parallelism between Thakur’s words and his own, he has created confusion. So, it is possible to catch it.

"As for me, I can remember nothing else. It enters one ear and goes out of the other. I can only remember Thakur’s words. And I long to hear them from their mouths. So, I go there. I go to see how his words are working in different receptacles.

"His sayings are like crystallised water ­ even a child can understand them. The texts of the shastras and what different people say are intelligible only when one dives deep into them."

M. ­ Please give some to the bhaktas.

Jagabandhu ­ What use it will it be?

M. ­ No, it has come from such a great place. On seeing the myrobalan, one would be inspired by Vinduvasini (the goddess of Vindhyachal). When they eat it, its juice will go into the body. This juice will develop the mind. Doesn’t the basic portion of food prepare the mind? The mind will then be able to engage itself in God. First fruit, then its juice, then the mind and lastly the mood. The prasad (holy food) therefore purifies the mind. The divine mood impresses the mind without one’s knowing it.

2.

M. (to Buddhiram) ­

[When, like a tortoise, which withdraws its limbs into his shell, he can also withdraw the senses from sense objects, his wisdom is then firm.(Gita 2:58)]

"What is a man of steady wisdom like? He is like a tortoise, (to Gadadhar) isn’t it?"

Gadadhar ­ The tortoise once it takes its limbs into shell, does not bring them out again.

M. (together with Gadadhar) ­ Does not bring them out again. Cut it into a thousand pieces but it does not bring its limbs out of its shell. Similarly, the man of steady wisdom would not let his senses go into sensory objects. In doing so, the body may endure or perish, he doesn’t care. Such a firm determination! Even if his whole world perishes, he would not let the mind go into sensory objects. The man of steady wisdom will force his mind in this way to withdraw itself.

M. (to Buddhiram) ­ These are steps to a man’s fall. Listen to them now:

[Brooding on the objects of senses, man develops attachment to them; from attachment comes desire and from desire anger.

From anger comes delusion, from delusion, confused memory, and thereby, the ruin of reason and the man perishes with this ruin of reason.(Gita 2:62,63)]

"(Counting on his fingers) 1. Brooding on sensory objects 2. Attachment 3. Desire 4. Anger 5. Delusion 6. Loss of memory 7. The ruin of reason. Please count them on your fingers."

M. (to Buddhiram) ­ Speak. Tell me from memory.

Buddhiram ­ Brooding over sensory objects, desire, anger (He cannot tell further).

M. ­ Attachment. Then what? Loss of memory, then what?

Buddhiram ­ Loss of reason.

M. ­ Please repeat them again and again some time more as you sit here.

M. (to the devotees) ­ Thakur used to say, ‘Brooding over sensory objects i.e. brooding over women and gold.’ Except for thinking on God, all is brooding on women and gold. Only that thought which helps in attaining God is real.

"Suppose a man wants to eat mango. He will always be thinking of the mango. By doing so, he develops an attachment for the mango ­ he feels affection, love and attraction for it. If there is some obstacle in his getting the mango, it is delayed, he feels angry. Thereafter, comes moha, the loss of discrimination between the good and the bad. After this, he forgets the word of the guru and that of the scripture ­ then, he has only one thought ­ that of the mango. The memory of the mango keeps pressing on the mind, the intellect and consciousness. The memory of the words of guru is lost. He forgets the guru. Thereafter, his right reason vanishes. When the discrimination of what is real and what is not disappears completely, the man falls.

"Acting in this manner, the senses take one to the objects of senses. He who can forcefully keep this mind within is the real man. His wisdom is steady. Where will this man withdraw his mind into? In the lotus feet of Sri Bhagavan, in the meditation of the Self. It always goes outward. Such is the nature of the mind ­ outgoing. Paranci khani vyatrinat swyambhuh [Brahma has made all doors of the senses outward facing. (Kathopanishad, 2nd valli)] is there in the Veda. This mind has to be taken within."

M. (to Antevasi) ­ Thakur used to say, ‘When a person has even a little love for the Lord, the mind becomes steady in no time. You don’t have to fight with it.’ There are these two paths, one of yama, niyama etc. and the second that of fixing the mind in God, joining the mind to Him. The latter is the direct path, the former is artificially pressing the nose and so on.

"Thakur used to say, ‘When you have devotion for God, when you love Him, your desire, anger etc. perish just like that.’ He used to say, ‘Just as the lion eats up the goat so quickly, when you develop love for Him, it (love) eats up desire, anger etc.’

"There are different ways to steady the mind. This is Bhakti Yoga, the path of love. By jnanavichara (reasoning about jnana) also, one can steady the mind. Then, one is always thinking of what is real and what is illusion. Giving up illusion, you have to take up real. The way of the eight steps, I have already talked about. And then, there is the path of Karma Yoga. By doing selfless work, the mind gets purified and one attains jnana. Purity of the mind, destruction of ignorance and attainment of jnana all come together."

M. (to Buddhiram) ­ Do it, do it, finish it up. When you memorise it, it enters the mind. It takes so little time if you will so.

"But the lazy can’t do it. (Pointing at a person) For example, he. How lazy he is! (The devotee sheds tears).

"Those who want it, how little time they need to memorise it. Commit it to memory, please commit it to memory. (Pointing at a person) You tell him.

"(to a person, pointing at another) I asked him to memorise two shlokas daily, but he never did."

M. (to Buddhiram) ­ Do it, do it quickly. You see, I have begun with the second chapter ­ directly with atma-tattva. The contents of the first chapter, I have just described verbally."

"And how do people read? Word by word, taking days. Whereas, I have started immediately with atma-tattva."

M. (to Buddhiram) ­ And to memorise the inflection and the word is also not of little importance. When you are introduced to one, you want to know the other also.

"You must know a little of Sanskrit. You see, shastras are all in this language.

"Just see, we were talking of other things but since a shloka came to memory, it all changed. All this is like the match stick catching fire. They illumine the mind ­ every word is like a lamp.

"If you remember or just recite all these along with mediation over them, you succeed.

"So long as feeling does not become same with those words, you should only memorise them and repeat them. As you repeat them, a fire gets lighted within, like it happens when a piece of wood is rubbed with another.

"Feeling remains latent in all these words. That is why, the words of the avatara and of the spiritually great have so much power. Feeling i.e power. This power takes hold of the mind and takes it to the Absolute Power at the end. Thakur used to say, ‘It is like holding the links of the chain one by one to reach the plank.’ The plank is under water."

M. (all present) ­ That is why, Buddha Deva has talked of middle path, that is to say neither too much, nor too little. One should work in the middle of extremes, that is to say, as much as one can bear, as much as the body and mind do not get too much tired. When the body is much strained, it falls. It is the same with the mind. It also becomes like that when it is too much strained. It breaks. A song by Girish Babu says .... What is the Song?

A Particular Bhakta ­ ‘One should tune the veena of the mind very gently,’ etc.

Jagabandhu ­ This time Mukunda Babu went to Kashi, to Advaita Ashram, during the puja holidays. One day he had trouble with his heart. The sadhus were worried. They took him to the Sevashrama. He recovered when administered makardhwaja (an Ayurvedic medicine).

M. ­ It couldn’t be otherwise. How many worries he has! How much anxiety! It dries up the whole blood. This happens to those who shoulder authority. So many people like to work as subordinates, then they don’t have so much strain.

"(After thinking for a while) And this also is true, if those who can do a work, don’t put in hard work to do it, how can it then be accomplished? This also is a viewpoint.

"Once you start a machine, it moves automatically later on. In the beginning, it is a little difficult."

A Particular Bhakta ­ What was Thakur’s opinion? He did not emphasise work so far as I find in the books.

M. ­ Yes, he was a different person. He knew nothing else but God. He just had ‘Mother, Mother’ always on his tongue. Even a little talk on God or a song would immediately plunge him into samadhi. The whole of his later life was spent in making bhaktas. Earlier, he was different. He was continuously in samadhi. Later on, he came down as if from the seventh level to the ground floor. Then, he lived with bhakti and bhaktas. Just a little inspiration of God and he would reach the seventh level.

"One does not see another person like him. Nobody can be compared to him. A matchless personality!

"But every bhakta has had to do something. Their work is ordained ­ to tell His sayings to others. Swami Vivekananda had to go abroad to the west. All this is work, to talk of Him, to attend to welfare work, to propagate and to render service. It is different for Thakur and his bhaktas. They belong to another class.

"There is work in the nature of ordinary people. What will they do without any work? So, the way has been told ­ to work selflessly. Even there, there are two classes. One class wants to take the credit as a doer. The other does not want it or cannot do it. We are talking of the latter.

"Those who have the desire for credit of doing work have to take to all these big undertakings. And for it they have face a number of pushes and pulls.

"Thakur was completely free from rajas, shuddhamapapaviddham pure and sinless. He used to say, ‘This body cannot take to any rajasic work.’ So, he made the bhaktas do it.

"Thakur always would be established in the ideal, in Brahman. He used to come down only to make devotees. This was the only little work he took up. He was to get them to work for the world ­ the establishment of the dharma. There is great difference between this work and that.

"The ordinary man works for himself. A class higher to him is that of those who work to realise God. There is yet another higher class who only takes to ordained work ­ they work at the command of the Lord. The work of Thakur’s devotees belongs to this class. They have been given commission by Him. To a man (M.) he said, ‘The Mother has told me that you have to do a little of Her work. You have to read out the Bhagavata to people.’ He had asked for sannyasa. It is then that he said so to him. He would have to live in the household for Mother’s work. It is Thakur’s work. The Mother of the Universe makes him do it holding his hand, like a machine.

"What a wonder! On one hand, he says that he is an avatara. On the other, he says that he does what the Mother makes him do. He is talking and suddenly he stops and says, ‘Mother does not let me speak.’ Both these moods are there in him simultaneously ­ that he is an avatara and Her instrument. These two ideas contradict each other. In the mood of the avatara, he is free, he is God, and in the mood of an instrument, he is a man. He has both moods, that of God and of the jiva (creature). They who show both of these moods together are avataras.

"We did not see Thakur separated from God even for a second. Leaving aside the world, he was merged in Brahman.

"The four states of being awake, in dream, in deep sleep, in turiya (fourth), and in turiyatita (beyond the fourth) are all to be found in the avatara together. Man sees them separate from each other. Because, he has a limited intelligence. So he used to say, ‘A one seer jug cannot contain ten seers of milk.’ One cannot understand the avatara. Even so, if He makes one understand, it is possible. He made his intimate disciples understand that he was both man and God. Sometimes they see this. Then after that, they see him as a man. Yashoda and the Gopis also saw the same ­ at one time they saw Lord Krishna raising the Govardhan mount and then they saw Him as a cowherd-boy (Gopal). His (Lord Krishna’s) mother also saw him the same way. Once, she saw him as man and then as Gopal merged into Lord, she saw this one side and then the other.

"Sitting on the smaller cot in the evening, Thakur used to say, ‘Brahma Maya, Jiva Jagat.’ It appeared that he was seeing all these as one and then also separate. And then sometimes, he would merge himself in Param Brahman.

"The devotes of Thakur saw him as a perfect man and now Perfect God. What a wonder! What a riddle!"

Morton School, Calcutta,

Monday, 3rd November, 1924,

18th Kartik, 1331 (B.Y.),

7th day of the bright fortnight,

38 Dandas/7 Palas.