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Valentina: All this time I was contemplating about Ramakrishna's Realness. He once was introduced to the great pundit. The name of the pundit was Bankim, and in Sanscrit it means the "bent down." Ramakrishna smiled and said, "What made you bent?" (Joking) And Bankim was a pundit, you see, smart, and he said, "Well, I suppose it's the yoke of our English invaders that's made me so bent." And the Master said, "Oh my dear sir, not at all, it's not that. It's because you are worldly and bent to the world. Krishna was bent differently, because of His ecstatic love, but not world." And that was a smart pundit, which is very often the case with everybody who is learned. And Ramakrishna never would miss the opportunity of shutting them up. The way He was shutting up was not the way ordinary people do, because He did not have anything against the man, pundit, the personality, it was just always the Truth vis-à-vis the falsehood. So the person for Him is neither good nor bad, but through what He sees and what goes through the person - that He was either attacking or else admitting, or else almost adoring, or else adoring! - all depending what He saw with His eye of intuition.
Well, that particular pundit asked Ramakrishna, "Why is it that you do not give lectures?" He was a great lecturer and big celebrity. And Ramakrishna laughed and He said, "It's God alone who can really lecture and He does lecture through me. But usually people go for lectures and for tours and all that sort of thing just because of their formidable vanity." Then, He says, "God reveals Himself and gives you command to say a word and then you can say the right word." And then He smiles and says, "Of course, no one can stop you from lecturing! You can do what you want. You haven't received the Divine Command, the Divine Sakti, but still you can shout yourself hoarse! People will listen to you a couple of days and then forget all about it. As long as you speak, people will say, 'Ah, he speaks so well!' And the moment you stop, everyone will disappear and never care for you. If God reveals Himself to you and gives you the command, then you can preach and teach people and inspire people. Otherwise it's of no use." And don't forget that this was told to the man who was at that time a celebrity, something like Billy Graham in the West and all those big Swamis in the East. And that's how He was talking. He didn't give a damn.
And then He turned again to that Bankim and said, "Well... well... you're a great pundit, aren't you? Haven't you written many books? Please tell me, what do you think about man's duties. You must know things. What accompanies him after death? You believe in the hereafter, don't you?" And the big shot pundit says, "Hereafter? Huh! What's that?" And the Master says, "Sure, it's nothing for you, because if you'll die, you'll sure be the same man. But when a man dies after attaining realization, he then doesn't have to go to another plane of existence because for him then this existence is everywhere and that's called Immortality.... You're... you're a big writer, aren't you?" Bankim, with the same smile, "Well, there's a lot of articles about me, you can read them."
"Well, what do you say about man's duties in life? You must be well competent about it." And then Bankim wanted to be real smart so he answered with a sarcastic and yet vain smile, "If you ask me about the duties, Sir, I should say they are eating, sleeping, procreating, sex life, fun and... sometimes work." (Ha, ha, ha!) And then suddenly Ramakrishna became... well, a little bit on the Siva side and Durga side, everything grew in stature and His small physical frame became huge and a big foot suddenly started to come out! And so He said, "Ah-ha! So that's what you think. Well! Hum! You see, what you do day and night comes out through your foul mouth. A man usually belches what he eats. If you'll eat onions you'll belch it, and if you'll eat fruit and if your stomach is not too good, you'll belch it also. You see, every day, day after day and night after night you live in the midst of grossness, of sex and greed for money and for fame and for name. So definitely your mouth utters words about that which you are! Doesn't matter how many books you wrote! Doesn't matter how many universities you finished! By constantly thinking of worldly things, a man becomes calculating, deceitful, disrespectful. On the other hand, he becomes innocent and fragrant if he thinks of the Supreme all the time. A man who sees the Truth will never say what you have just said! What will a pundit's scholarship profit him if he doesn't think of the Truth and has no discrimination, has no renunciation of all that filth? Definitely you did study many books, many scriptures, and you may rattle off their texts or you may have written many books, but if you are attached to the things which you have just mentioned so ardently, if you think all the time of profit and honours and sensuality, what kind of a pundit you are!" The big foot comes out again. "How can a man be a pundit if his mind doesn't dwell on Truth! - pundit learned man. You, and maybe somebody else, may say about the devotees, about the poets, about the inspired souls, that they all the time speak about the lofty things. They might be even in the eyes of people who live in so-called real, realer life, they might appear in their eyes as crazy. They say, ‘Well, they have no... [Words missing] - huh!... we sure are more clever than that! We do enjoy things we see and touch and smell; we know the pleasure; we know money, honours, senses, and that's all, there isn't anything else.'
"Do you know what? There is such bird - it's called a crow, a blackie. It also thinks it's a very clever bird. The first thing it does when it wakes up early in the morning is to fill its stomach with nothing but other's filth. Haven't you noticed how it struts about? Very clever, right? Well, so that's what it is." And Sri Ramakrishna also said after that, that there is a swan and those who think about the Truth and who pray and who meditate and who love and who understand - they get rid of their interest in the filth of others, of the worldly things which are of no use. They don't enjoy anything except the beauty and for them all these temptations, they don't taste much, they are quite bitter.
And there is his famous simile "If you put a mixture of milk and water before the swan, it will leave the water and drink only the milk." Also He says, "Do you notice how the swan walks? It goes straight ahead in one direction. So it is with a genuine man, he goes straight ahead to God alone. He sees nothing else, he enjoys nothing else."
Then Ramakrishna realized that He gave quite a bit to this big fellow, and He suddenly became a child and the big smashing foot of Siva disappeared. And He said softly and shyly, "Hey, you know what? Don't mind what I said, don't take it as offensive." And this big shot, who was real tough guy, at last sobered down and said, "Sir, you forgive me, I haven't come here to hear compliments." And then Ramakrishna continued to speak with him because of that little transformation. And He explained that it is the lust and the greed for money: that is the world and they alone constitute Maya, and because of them, one cannot see Truth and can't think of the Supreme. And, of course, I many times explained to you that "woman and gold," as He termed the world, is not just, in a limited way, connected, literally, with woman and gold. But, by that He means general grossness, general carnality of mind, body and senses, and put it only in a nutshell because that's what it is. And He says that one should understand the Divine without any artificiality... artificiality in the sense of pretense, and that no one can taste the Divine Beauty without giving up his carnality, his animal attitude.
And that's what He was talking about.... I guess I said enough maybe. So there are such; there are pundits and there are Ramakrishnas. And these are by milliards; Ramakrishnas are by one. And let's stop and think - maybe two, maybe three. Genug? Okay!
(February 18, 1977 Fri. Morning)
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