XIV

(Translated from Bengali )

RENUNCIATION OF KAMA-KANCHANA — GOD'S MERCY FALLS ON THOSE WHO STRUGGLE FOR REALISATION — UNCONDITIONAL MERCY AND BRAHMAN ARE ONE

Disciple: Shri Ramakrishna used to say, Swamiji, that a man cannot progress far towards religious realisation unless he first relinquishes Kāma-Kānchana (lust and greed). If so, what will become of householders? For their whole minds are set on these two things.

Swamiji: It is true that the mind can never turn to God until the desire for lust and wealth has gone from it, be the man a householder or a Sannyāsin. Know this for a fact, that as long as the mind is caught in these, so long true devotion, firmness, and Shraddhā (faith) can never come.

Disciple: Where will the householders be, then? What way are they to follow?

Swamiji: To satisfy our smaller desires and have done with them for ever, and to relinquish the greater ones by discrimination—that is the way. Without renunciation God can never be realised— यदि ब्रह्मा स्वयं वदेत्—even if Brahmā himself enjoined otherwise!

Disciple: But does renunciation of everything come as soon as one becomes a monk?

Swamiji: Sannyāsins are at least struggling to make themselves ready for renunciation, whereas householders are in this matter like boatmen who work at their oars while the boat lies at anchor. Is the desire for enjoyment ever appeased? “भूय एवाभिवर्धते —It increases ever and ever” (Bhāgavata, IX. xix. 14).

Disciple: Why? May not world-weariness come, after enjoying the objects of the senses over and over for a long time?

Swamiji: To how many does that come? The mind becomes tarnished by constant contact with the objects of the senses and receives a permanent moulding and impress from them. Renunciation, and renunciation alone, is the real secret, the Mulamantra, of all Realisation.

Disciple: But there are such injunctions of the seers in the scriptures as these: “गृहेषु पञ्चेन्द्रियनिग्रहस्तप:—To restrain the five senses while living with one’s wife and children is Tapas.” “निवृत्तरागस्य गृहं तपोवनम्—For him whose desires are under control, living in the midst of his family is the same as retiring into a forest for Tapasyā.”

Swamiji: Blessed indeed are those who can renounce Kāma-Kānchana, living in their homes with their family! But how many can do that?

Disciple: But then, what about the Sannyāsins? Are they all able to relinquish lust and love for riches fully?

Swamiji: As I said just now, Sannyāsins are on the path of renunciation, they have taken the field, at least, to fight for the goal; but householders, on the other hand, having no knowledge as yet of the danger that comes through lust and greed, do not even attempt to realise the Self; that they must struggle to get rid of these is an idea that has not yet entered their minds.

Disciple: But many of them are struggling for it.

Swamiji: Oh, yes, and those who are doing so will surely renounce by degrees; their inordinate attachment for Kāma-Kānchana will diminish gradually. But for those who procrastinate, saying, “Oh, not so soon! I shall do it when the time comes”, Self-realisation is very far off. “Let me realise the Truth this moment! In this very life!”—these are the words of a hero. Such heroes are ever ready to renounce the very next moment, and to such the scripture¹ says, “यदहरेव विरजेत् तदहरेव प्रव्रजेत्—The moment you feel disgust for the vanities of the world, leave it all and take to the life of a monk.”

Disciple: But was not Shri Ramakrishna wont to say, “All these attachments vanish through the grace of God when one prays to Him?”

Swamiji: Yes, it is so, no doubt, through His mercy, but one needs to be pure first before one can receive this mercy—pure in thought, word, and deed; then it is that His grace descends on one.

Disciple: But of what necessity is grace to him who can control himself in thought, word, and deed? For then he would be able to develop himself in the path of spirituality by means of his own exertions!

Swamiji: The Lord is very merciful to him whom He sees struggling heart and soul for Realisation. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.

Disciple: Everyone longs to be good, yet the mind, for some inscrutable reasons, turns to evil! Does not everyone wish to be good—to be perfect—to realise God?

Swamiji: Know them to be already struggling who desire this. God bestows His mercy when this struggle is maintained.

Disciple: In the history of the Incarnations, we find many persons who, we should say, had led very dissipated lives and yet were able to realise God without much trouble and without performing any Sādhanā or devotion. How is this accounted for?

Swamiji: Yes, but a great restlessness must already have come upon them; long enjoyment of the objects of the senses must already have created in them deep disgust. Want of peace must have been consuming their very hearts. So deeply they had already felt this void in their hearts that life even for a moment had seemed unbearable to them unless they could gain that peace which follows in the train of the Lord’s mercy. So God was kind to them. This development took place in them direct from Tamas to Sattva.

Disciple: Then, whatever was the path, they may be said to have realised God truly in that way?

Swamiji: Yes, why not? But is it not better to enter into a mansion by the main entrance than by its doorway of dishonour?

Disciple: No doubt that is true. Yet, the point is established that through mercy alone one can realise God.

Swamiji: Oh, yes, that one can, but few indeed are there who do so!

Disciple: It appears to me that those who seek to realise God by restraining their senses and renouncing lust and wealth hold to the (free-will) theory of self-exertion and self-help; and that those who take the name of the Lord and depend on Him are made free by the Lord Himself of all worldly attachments, and led by Him to the supreme stage of realisation.

Swamiji: True, those are the two different stand-points, the former held by the Jnānis, and the latter by the Bhaktas. But the ideal of renunciation is the keynote of both.

Disciple: No doubt about that! But Shri Girish Chandra Ghosh² once said to me that there could be no condition in God’s mercy; there could be no law for it! If there were, then it could no longer be termed mercy. The realm of grace or mercy must transcend all law.

Swamiji: But there must be some higher law at work in the sphere alluded to by G. C. of which we are ignorant. Those are words, indeed, for the last stage of development, which alone is beyond time, space, and causation. But, when we get there, who will be merciful, and to whom, where there is no law of causation? There the worshipper and the worshipped, the meditator and the object of meditation, the knower and the known, all become one—call that Grace or Brahman, if you will. It is all one uniform homogeneous entity!

Disciple: Hearing these words from you, Swamiji, I have come to understand the essence of all philosophy and religion (Vedas and Vedānta); it seems as if I had hitherto been living in the midst of high-sounding words without any meaning.

Notes

1. Jābāla Upanishad. 3. ↩
2. The great Bengali actor-dramatist, a staunch devotee of Shri Ramakrishna. ↩