February 20, 2012

"The worldly man is like a snake trying to swallow a mole.  The snake can neither swallow the mole nor give it up." - Ramakrishna

"The worm that grows in filth feels very happy there.  It thrives in filth.  It will die if you put it in a pot of rice." - R

"People worship God according to their tastes and temperaments.  The mother cooks the same fish differently for her children, that each one may have what suits his stomach." - R

Personally, I prefer deep-fried Advaita Vedanta.

R on spiritual practice and liberation:  "The goldsmith is up and doing while melting gold.  As long as the gold hasn't melted, he works the bellows with one hand, moves the fan with the other, and blows through a pipe with his mouth.  But the moment the gold melts and is poured into the mold, he is relieved of all anxiety."

Comments on any of his stuff are superfluous, except to say that they confirm spiritual experience in words and images that are perfect and complete,and wonderfully surprising, much like the revelation of great art.

February 19, 2012

"The mind is like white linen fresh from the laundry; it takes the color in which you dip it.  If it is associated with falsehood for a long time, it will be stained with falsehood." - Ramakrishna

"...a  man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest..." - Paul Simon

"Amen, brothers!" - Roger Ailes, FOX News

"Not all birds have crooked beaks." - Ramakrishna to Roger Ailes

"I feel exactly like a fish released from a pot into the Ganges." - R, simply and precisely putting the ineffable into words.

February 16, 2012

"Living in the world and entangled in many of its duties, the aspirant, during the first stage of spiritual life, finds many obstacles in the path of concentration.  While the trees on the foot-path are young, they must be fenced around; otherwise they will be destroyed by cattle.  The fence is necessary when the tree is young, but it can be taken away when the trunk is thick and strong.  Then the tree won't be hurt even if an elephant is tied to it." - R

Earnest and persistent self-inquiry establishes a fence along the foot-path of concentration.

"...like the water of a lake, which appears green, blue, or black from a distance.  Go near, take the water in your hand, and you will find that it has no color.  The sky also appears blue from a distance.  Go near and you will see no color at all.  Therefore I say that in the light of Vedantic reasoning Brahman has no attributes.  The real nature of Brahman cannot be described.  But so long as your individuality is real, the world is also real, and equally real are the different forms of God and the feeling that God is a Person." - R

Earnest and persistent self-inquiry erases the last vestige of individuality.

"It is like a seed that has been left on the cornice of a building.  After standing many days the house crumbles, and the seed falls on the earth, germinates, and at last gives fruit." - R

"It is like the light inside a lantern.  One feels as if one could touch the light, but one cannot on account of the pane of glass." - R

Earnest and persistent self-inquiry demolishes this pane of glass.

"Speaking of householders [regular working stiffs] entangled in worldliness, the Master said: 'They are like the silk-worm.  They can come out of the cocoon of their worldly life if they wish.  But they can't bear to, for they themselves have built the cocoon with great love and care.  So they die there.'"

February 15, 2012

"Mere muttering of magic words doesn't cure one of the pain of a spider or scorpion sting.  One must also apply the smoke of burning cow dung." - R

"Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name and creature comforts may become less and less every day." - R

And so he blows burning dung smoke directly into the nostrils of materialism.

February 13, 2012

"I have seen a prostitute dying in the Ganges and retaining consciousness [focused spiritual concentration] to the very end." - Ramakrishna

So I don't wanna hear it when you whiners bitch about rat races and ceaseless hubbub.

Addiction: "The camel eats thorny shrubs, and blood gushes from its mouth; still it will eat thorns." - R

I am, in a wonderful, exhilarating way, a complete waste of flesh. - Sri Hippie Speedball

February 11, 2012

The will to survive is the basic instinct.  Because it is conducted by humans, science is harnessed to this tenet first and foremost.  All of our scientific breakthroughs, no matter how far reaching, are doomed to frustration not because regardless of the miraculous new palatives which may even some day cause death to surrender its sting we die, but because immortality of the body-mind is fools' gold.  What we are precedes and succeeds immortality.  So when I read of a new Alzheimer's drug of great potential I have mixed feelings.  On the one hand I hope it succeeds and relieves the human suffering, and on the other hand I wonder whether these ever more sophisticated efforts to prop up the body-mind divert our attention from true liberation.  We waste time trying to polish a mirror that does not exist.

"Do your duty with one hand and with the other hold to God.  After the duty is over, you will hold to God with both hands." - Ramakrishna

February 9, 2013

"Truthfulness alone is the spiritual discipline in the Kaliyuga." - Ramakrishna

Awakened vision is usually described as "light" because it shares with light all-encompassing, all-pervasive, boundless clarity, which through our normal sensual channels amounts to light.  But in fact we disappear into clarity, not light.

"The nearer you come to God, the more you feel peace.  Peace, peace, peace--supreme peace!  The nearer you come to the Ganges, the more you feel its coolness.  You will feel completely soothed when you plunge into the river." - R

"One ultimately discovers God by trying to know who this "I" is.  Is this 'I' the flesh, the blood, the bones, the marrow?  Is it the mind or the buddhi?  Analyzing thus, you realize at last you are none of these.  This is called the process of 'neti, neti,' 'not  this, not this.'  One can neither comprehend nor touch the Atman.  It is without qualities or attributes.." - R

February 8, 2012

"I once met a man fifty years old.  He was playing cards.  As if the time had not yet come for him to think of God!" - Ramakrishna

I am of the first cradle-to-grave TV generation.  My children are gestating in a marinade of computer-generated verisimilitude with no end in sight.  To think of God midst the mists of modern distraction--is this possible?  The next Ramakrishna will be pulling his samadhi-stiffened hair out by the roots.  Good luck to you, sir.  And so it goes.

"The path of knowledge is difficult.  One cannot obtain knowledge unless one gets rid of the feeling that one is the body.  In the Kaliyuga the life of man is centered on food.  He cannot get rid of the feeling that he is the body and the ego,  Therefore the path of devotion is prescribed for this cycle."

Most of what we see today in avowed religion or worship or spiritual aspiration would seem to originate in bhakti, the path of devotion.  At best, though, it still leaves a seeker begging at the door of something sought, a dreamer still trapped in a dream, adrift in fabrication, separate.  Jnana, the path of knowledge, dissolves this final veil.  It awakens us into pure non-duality, perfect and free of the slightest tint of discrimination.




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February 7, 2012

'The Reality is one and the same; the difference is in name and form." - Rama

February 6, 2012

"You see, you are a devotee of God.  The very sight of you gladdens my heart.  One hemp-smoker feels very happy to meet another.  Very often they embrace each other in an exuberance of joy." - Ramakrishna

Here was a friend of intoxication whose drug of choice was God.

February 5, 2012

In answer to a question of whether one must practice spiritual disciplines all one's life, Ramakrishna replied, "No. But one must be up and doing in the beginning.  After that one need not work hard.  The helmsman stands up and clutches the rudder firmly as long as the boat is passing though waves, storms, high wind or around the curve of a river; but he relaxes after steering through them.  As soon as the boat passes the curves and the helmsman feels a favorable wind, he sits comfortably and just touches the rudder.  Next he prepares to unfurl the sail and gets ready for a smoke.  Likewise, the aspirant enjoys peace and calm after passing the storms of 'woman' [lust] and 'gold' [greed]."

Ah, truly.  Freak flag unfurled and partaking of the holy smoke, I'd best keep my hands off rudders altogether.

"The mind of the yogi is always fixed on God, absorbed in the Self.  You can recognize such a man by merely looking at him.  His eyes are wide open with an aimless look, like the eyes of the mother bird hatching her eggs.  Her entire mind is fixed on the eggs, and there is a vacant look in her eyes..."

Ramakrishna was uncanny in his ability to come up with perfect analogies, direct pointers, resonant images.  A mother bird hatching her eggs means everything to the seeker who employs self-inquiry.

"Pointing to his body the Master said with a smile, 'just a pillow-case.'"
  

February 4, 2012

"The bee buzzes as long as it is not sitting on a flower.  It becomes silent when it begins to sip the honey.  But sometimes, intoxicated with the honey, it buzzes again." - Rama

The jnani's use of reason to discriminate--between real and unreal, between permanent and transitory--is the buzzing of the jnani bee.  The bhakti buzzes through yearning and methodical ritual.  And then there is the spacious buzz of Sri Hippie Speedball, encompassing everything, interpolating nothing.  G'day now.

"But in the Kaliyuga, man, being totally dependent on food for life, cannot altogether shake off the idea he is the body." - Rama

The Kaliyuga is the last of the four cycles of human history.  It should be no surprise that we are immersed in a time of minimal virtue and great excess of vice.  Those rishis weren't born yesterday, or maybe they were, but they were extremely savvy and street smart just the same.  The delusion of a separate self poisons us with greed.  Every human conflict stems from this delusion, its din a constant siren-call from the echo chamber of Kaliyuga.

"If you see someone engaged in reasoning even after he has realized God, you may liken him to a bee, which also buzzes a little even while sipping honey from a flower." - Rama 

January 31, 2012

Ramakrishna would often ask of his guest, "what aspect of God appeals to your mind--with form or without form?"   He was simply aligning what he was about to say with the perspective of his listener.  "With form" would suggest a listener of bhakti persuasion, that is, someone who preferred God as an object or person of love.  "Without form" concludes the jnani who has traveled the path of "neti, neti." discrimination to the ultimate One without a second, the non-dualist God without form or attribute.  Either way was just fine with Ramakrishna--different strokes for different folks--it all embodied the same truth.  Remember, this may be the first avatar in history who made the effort to sample each of the major religions and to conclude each to be valid in essence.

'I had to practice each religion for a time--Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, [many others]...I realized that there was only one God toward whom all are travelling, but the paths are different," - Rama

In part, with or without form implies with or without emotion.  Some folks use emotion, principally love, as a catapult into the arms of a God with form, that is, a separate God.  However, beautiful as this may be, even a blissful emotion such as love is a barrier to unity.  Ramakrishna seemed to literally sway back and forth between the two attitudes, doing so we can be sure as a living teaching for his disciples.

I have asked many people how it is possible for God to exist in a world rife with misery and suffering. Many of the many become theological pretzels in their efforts to defend God and their own beliefs.  Salt-of-the-earth types like Ramakrishna had no problem with that one:

"There is poison in a snake, and others may die if bitten by it, but the snake is not affected by the poison.'

He tossed them off in just the way Jesus did, the way the Beatles and Mozart tossed off music. They resonate with each other like bells harmonizing truth.  Jesus tells us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike and Ramakrishna says "one man may read the Bhagavata by the light of a lamp, and another may commit a forgery by that very light, but the lamp is unaffected.  The sun sheds its light on the wicked as well as the virtuous."