A Symbol of Respect: Shri Ramakrishna's 'Maa' for All Women || Acharya Prashant
Video Information: 32nd Advait Learning Camp, 28.5.17, Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand
Context:
~ What is self-love?
~ What is obsession?
~ What is the difference between self-love and obsession?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
~ What is self-love?
~ What is obsession?
~ What is the difference between self-love and obsession?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 You will rush to the world only if the world is seen as different from God. If you can
00:12 see that the world is actually only an extension of God, then two things will happen. Please
00:26 pay attention to these two things.
00:39 If you look at someone's hand and find it beautiful, charming, the skin has a certain
01:01 purity, a certain radiance. Don't you feel like looking at that person's face?
01:15 The world is the extended hand of God. If you are really intelligent, then you will
01:24 say that if the hand is so beautiful, how beautiful will be the face? Are you getting
01:35 it? If the hand is so beautiful, if the extension is so beautiful, how beautiful would be the
01:42 center? How beautiful would be the eyes, the face? That is the approach of the religious
01:49 man. That is how he relates to the world. The world is the extended hand of God. So
02:00 will he shun the world? Will he spit at the world? Will he renounce the world? And will
02:07 he be attached to the world? The hand is so beautiful, can you renounce it? Come on please.
02:14 The hand is so beautiful, do you renounce beauty? And the hand is so beautiful, will
02:21 you get attached to it or would you rather move to the face? So the approach of the real
02:29 man, the wise man towards world is neither of renunciation nor of attachment. The world
02:38 is beautiful as an extension of God. You say, oh if the world is so beautiful, how beautiful
02:44 would be the center of this world, the source of this world? If the hand is so beautiful,
02:50 how beautiful would be the center, the face? So the world then is Shakti. The world then
02:59 is the mother goddess. The world then is Kali. Yes? And the center of Shakti is Shiv. The
03:14 world is an extension of Shiv in the form of Shakti. What you see spread all around
03:19 yourself is nothing but Shiva in his dance. Shiv when he is dancing is Shakti. Shakti
03:28 is nothing but Shiv in motion. When Shiv is in motion, he is called Shakti. And Ramakrishna
03:35 was a worshipper of Shakti. When you are worshipping Shakti, you are worshipping nothing else
03:42 but Shiv. If the face is somehow not available for you to be seen, you may as well worship
03:50 the hand. Let s say the face is hidden for some reason. Let s say your eyes cannot look
03:57 at the face. Then it would not be improper to worship the hand. Are you getting it? So
04:08 when you are worshipping the world as mother, when you are worshipping woman as mother,
04:13 you are actually worshipping Shiv, truth. You are saying, Oh if your creation can be
04:19 so beautiful, how beautiful would you be? Are you getting it? And that is why when Ramakrishna
04:29 would come across a lady, he would simply say, Mother. Are you getting it? By mother
04:37 he meant Shakti. Do you really require to test and touch every grain of sand on the
04:53 beach? You just pick up whatever can be contained in your palm and you look at it and it s golden.
05:07 It s shining. It s pure. It s fine. And you say, Wow, what a beach. What lovely sand.
05:16 Now have you tested each and every single grain? You haven t. So you look at the immensity
05:24 in one grain. Similarly, when you look at a woman and call her Ma, Shakti, you are looking
05:38 at the entire expanse of Shakti in one individual which is alright, which is beautiful. Please
05:47 understand what Ramakrishna is doing when he is prostrating to a woman. Even when he
05:53 would come across a young girl, he would call her Ma and bow to her. What is he doing? He
06:06 is prostrating to one grain of sand as a representative of the entire vast expanse of the beach which
06:15 is great, which is just right. Are you getting it? He is seeing in her the entire creation
06:27 just as you can see in one grain of sand, the entire sands of the world. And when you
06:39 are worshipping the sands, you are worshipping the source from where the sands come. Do you
06:47 see how it is two layered? When you bow to one individual lady, a woman, you are bowing
06:59 to all that which has been created, all that which exists as manifested. The woman is not
07:07 one woman but all women. The woman is not only all women but also all men. The woman
07:17 is not only all human beings but also all animals and vegetation. The woman is not only
07:25 all sentient beings but also the rivers, the mountains. The woman is not only all things
07:32 upon this planet but actually the entire universe. Do you see how it is circle after circle,
07:39 concentric? So by bowing to one woman, Ramakrishna is actually saluting the entire universe and
07:52 when he is saluting the universe, he is saluting the hand of God.
08:01 You can get attached only if you think that the world shop offers you what the God shop
08:07 does not offer. One is not a fool to be attached. One gets attached only in anticipation, only
08:16 when you have hopes. Remember that you never go to a woman, you go to your hope. Once you
08:24 realize that your hope is false, then would you still continue going to that woman? You
08:32 are going to the wrong shop. You have a particular desire, you want to be fulfilled but you are
08:38 going to the wrong shop and that is why you are being cheated again and again. But one
08:46 requires to be blessed, to gain wisdom even after being repeatedly cheated. Otherwise
08:54 if the shadow of foolishness is there on the mind, then one will get cheated a thousand
08:59 times and still be prepared to be cheated once again. Strange are these ways. You will
09:08 say if one has been cheated a thousand times, why would he want to be cheated once more?
09:13 But such is the story of humanity all around us. We fall in the same snare a thousand times.
09:23 We fall to the same tendencies a thousand times. Don't we? You will say no, no, no,
09:35 we are intelligent people, you see. Yes, we do get trapped but it's a fresh trap every
09:40 time. No, it's not a fresh trap. Hope is a very dangerous animal. It can make you do
10:01 the most stupid things. It can make you fall in the same trap a million times. It can make
10:10 you do the most foolish of things. Hope.
10:13 .
10:14 .
10:15 [Music]