यन्मनसा न मनुते येनाहुर्मनो मतम् ।
तदेव ब्रह्म त्वं विद्धि नेदं यदिदमुपासते ॥ ६॥
yanmanasā na manute yenāhurmano matam .
tadeva brahma tvaṃ viddhi nedaṃ yadidamupāsate .. 6..
That which cannot be apprehended by the mind, but by which, they say, the mind is apprehended-That alone know as Brahman and not that which people here worship.
Sri Ramakrishna Says —
MASTER: “Bhakti is the only essential thing. One obtains love of God by constantly chanting His name and singing His glories. Ah! What a devotee Shivanath is! He is soaked in the love of God, like a cheese-cake in syrup.
“One should not think, ‘My religion alone is the right path and other religions are false.’ God can be realised by means of all paths. It is enough to have sincere yearning for God. Infinite are the paths and infinite the opinions.
“Let me tell you one thing. God can be seen. The Vedas say that God is beyond mind and speech. The meaning of this is that God is unknown to the mind attached to worldly objects. Vaishnavcharan (A noted devotee of the Vaishnava sect and an admirer of Sri Ramakrishna.) used to say, ‘God is known by the mind and intellect that are pure.’ Therefore it is necessary to seek the company of holy men, practise prayer, and listen to the instruction of the guru. These purify the mind. Then one sees God. Dirt can be removed from water by a purifying agent. Then one sees one’s reflection in it. One cannot see one’s face in a mirror if the mirror is covered with dirt. (Amritabindu Upanishad Verses 1 to 5, Maitrayini Upanishad 6.34)
“After the purification of the heart one obtains divine love. Then one sees God, through His grace. One can teach others if one receives that command from God after seeing Him. Before that one should not ‘lecture’. There is a song that says:
You have set up no image here,
Within the shrine, O fool!
Blowing the conch, you simply make
Confusion worse confounded. (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
—–
MASTER (to Girish): “Who can comprehend everything about God? It is not given to man to know any aspect of God, great or small. And what need is there to know everything about God? It is enough if we only realise Him. And we see God Himself if we but see His Incarnation. Suppose a person goes to the Ganges and touches its water. He will then say, ‘Yes, I have seen and touched the Ganges.’ To say this it is not necessary for him to touch the whole length of the river from Hardwar to Gangasagar. (Laughter.)
“If I touch your feet, surely that is the same as touching you. (Laughter.) If a person goes to the ocean and touches but a little of its water, he has surely touched the ocean itself. Fire, as an element, exists in all things, but in wood it is present to a greater degree.”
GIRISH (smiling): “I am looking for fire. Naturally I want to go to a place where I can get it.”
MASTER (smiling): “Yes, fire, as an element, is present more in wood than in any other object. If you seek God, then seek Him in man; He manifests Himself more in man than in any other thing. If you see a man endowed with ecstatic love, overflowing with prema, mad after God, intoxicated with His love, then know for certain that God has incarnated Himself through that man.
(To M.) “There is no doubt that God exists in all things; but the manifestations of His Power are different in different beings. The greatest manifestation of His Power is through an Incarnation. Again, in some Incarnations there is a complete manifestation of God’s Power. It is the Sakti, the Power of God, that is born as an Incarnation.”
GIRISH: “Narendra says that God is beyond our words and thought.”
MASTER: “That is not altogether true. He is, no doubt, unknowable by this ordinary mind, but He can indeed be known by the pure mind. The mind and intellect become pure the moment they are free from attachment to ‘woman and gold’. The pure mind and pure intellect are one and the same. God is known by the pure mind. Didn’t the sages and seers of olden times see God? They realised the All-pervading Consciousness by means of their inner consciousness.” (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)