Talk from 11 am  (10.30 am: Vedanta Hall open for Meditation)

Talk by Pravrajika Sridharaprana

Introduction by Pravrajika Nityatmaprana

& Guided Meditation by Pravrajika Ajayaprana

NOTE: No Zoom Session Available for this Talk

In this Talk:

Chapter 44

The Master on Himself and His Experiences

September 2, 1885

Master’s renunciation

“Well, what do you think of this? When I touch a coin my hand gets twisted; my breathing stops. Further, if tie a knot in the comer of my cloth, I cannot breathe. My breathing stops until the knot is untied.”

The Master asked a devotee to bring a rupee. When Sri Ramakrishna held it in his hand, the hand began to writhe with pain. The Master’s breathing also stopped. After the coin had been taken away, he breathed deeply three times and his hand relaxed. The doctor became speechless with wonder to see this strange phenomenon.

The doctor said to M., “Action on the nerves.”

MASTER (to the doctor): “I get into another state of mind. It is impossible for me to lay up anything. One day I visited Sambhu Mallick’s garden house. At that time I had been suffering badly from stomach trouble. Sambhu said to me: Take a grain of opium now and then. It will help you.’ He tied a little opium in a corner of my cloth. As I was returning to the Kāli temple, I began to Vander about near the gate as if unable to find the way. Then I threw the opium away and at once regained my normal state. I returned to the temple garden.

“One day at Kamarpukur I picked some mangoes. I was carrying them home. But I could not walk; I had to stay standing in one place. Then I left the mangoes in a hollow. Only after that could I return home. Well, how do you explain that?”

DOCTOR: “There is a force behind it. Will-force.”

M: “He [meaning the Master] says that it is God-force. You say that it is will-force.”

MASTER (to the doctor): “Again, I get into such a state of mind that if someone says I am better, I at once feel much better. The other day the brahmani said: ‘You are fifty per cent better.’ At once I began to dance.”

Sri Ramakrishna was much pleased with the physician. He said to him: “You have a very fine nature. There are two characteristics of knowledge: a peaceful nature and absence of pride.”

M:. “The doctor has lost his wife.”

MASTER (to the doctor): “I say that God can be realized if one feels drawn to Him by the intensity of these three attractions: the child’s attraction for the mother, the husband’s attraction for the chaste wife, and the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man. “Please cure me of my illness.”

The doctor was going to examine the Master’s throat Sri Ramakrishna was seated in a chair on the semicircular porch. Referring to Dr. Sarkar, the Master said: “He is a villain. He pressed my tongue as if I were a cow.”

DOCTOR: “He didn’t hurt you purposely.”

MASTER: “No, he pressed the tongue to make a thorough examination.”

From Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:

The conversations between Sri Ramakrishna, the 19th-century mystic and promoter of interfaith understanding, and the brilliant, questioning minds of Calcutta. In Sri Ramakrishna, they came face-to-face with a type of Spirituality and mystical states they had only read about. Translated from Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda with the literary help of Margaret Woodrow Wilson, daughter of President Woodrow Wilson and Joseph Campbell, foreword by Aldous Huxley.