Museum on Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at Baghbazar
Post No. 13,954
Date uploaded in London – 30 November 2024
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Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge.
this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.
tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com
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There are more interesting anecdotes from the book Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna:
“Where the devotion is genuine, even the most ordinary things make the devotee remember God and lose himself in Him. Have you not heard how Lord Chaitanya was merged in Samadhi at the thought,
Once, while passing through a village, Sri Chaitanya came to know that the inhabitants of that village earned their living by making drums. At once he exclaimed, ‘This is the earth of which drums are made,” and immediately lost all external consciousness. For he thought that out of that earth drums were made which were used in congregational music and that the music again, was in praise of God who is the Soul of our souls and the Beauty of beauties.
In this way a train of ideas flashed upon him, and he was at once engrossed in God. Likewise, when a man has true devotion to his Guru, he is certainly reminded of him by the sight of his relatives. Not only that. Even if he meets people from the Guru’s village his thoughts are at once directed to the Guru himself. He prostrates before those people constantly, sprinkles the dust of their feet over his body, feeds them sumptuously and renders all other kinds of service to them.
At this stage the disciple fails to see any defect in his Guru.
Now only can he say, “Even if my Guru frequents taverns, he is the Lord, the Eternal Bliss, all the same.”
As a human being a Guru cannot be a repository of virtues alone and be free from any defect whatsoever. The disciple, on account of his devotion, no longer sees the Guru as man but as God Himself, just as one sees everything yellow, because of a jaundiced eye. His devotion then reveals to the devotee that God alone is everything; it is He that has become the master, the father and the mother, man and beast, the animate and the inanimate.”
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Sometimes there appears that unique composite light which may be called lunar-solar light., and to this may be compared the unique incarnations like Chaitanya Deva, who are marked alike by Bhakti (love) and Gnan (knowledge). Their case is like the sun and the moon appearing in the firmament at one and the same time, the manifestation of Gnana and Bhakti in one and the same person is as unique an occurrence as the phenomenon referred to above.
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The Prema or ecstatic love is attainable only by a few. Those few are men of extraordinary powers entrusted with a divine commission. Being heirs to Divine powers and glory, they form a class of their own. To this class belong incarnations of God like Chaitanya Deva, and their devotees of the highest order, who are parts of the Lord.
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The bhakta as a rule does not long for Brahma Gnana but remains content with realising the divine person alone—my Divine Mother, or any of Her infinite forms of glory, such as the Divine Incarnations of Krishna and Chaitanya Deva, the visible revelations of God he is anxious to ensure that the whole of his ego is not effaced in Samadhi. He would fain have sufficient individuality left to enjoy the vision Divine as a person. He would fain taste sugar, rather than become sugar.
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Sri Ramakrishna was one day expounding the gist of Sri Gauranga’s cult in the following words: “This faith insists that man should at all times try to cultivate three things–delight in the ‘name’ of the Lord, loving sympathy for all living beings, and service to devotees. God and His ‘name’ are identical. Knowing this, one should take the ‘name’ of the Lord with great Love and fervour. The devotees of God should be respected and adored in the conviction that there is no difference between the Lord and his worshippers, between Krishna and the Vaishnava. With the knowledge that the whole universe is the household of the Lord, one should show pity to all creatures … ” Uttering the last words ‘pity to all creatures’ in a rather abrupt fashion, the Master went into Samadhi. Sometime after returning to a semi-conscious state the Master exclaimed, “Pity to creatures! Pity to creatures! Sirrah! you who are lower than even a worm, how dare you speak of showing pity to creatures! Who are you to show pity to them? No, no, it is not pity to creatures, but service to them in the consciousness that they are verily God Himself.”
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So I say, in the beginning there is much fuss of Karma. But the more you proceed towards God, the less will it grow. Finally comes the complete renunciation of work and the attainment of Samadhi. Generally, the body does not remain long after the attainment of Samadhi. But in the case of some it remains for the work of teaching the world. Sages like Narada and Divine Incarnations like Sri Chaitanya are examples of this.
After a well is dug some throw away all the spades and baskets, but others preserve them with the idea that they may be of some use to any of their neighbours. Such great souls are moved with pity at the sight of the sufferings of the world. They are not so selfish as to care only for the attainment of Jnana for themselves.
To be continued………
Tags– Sri Ramakrishna on Chaitanya Mahaprabhu— Part 2
Tamil and Vedas 