AN INTERESTING INCIDENT!

PADMALOCHAN was a man of deep wisdom.
He had great respect for me, though at that time I
constantly repeated the name of the Divine
Mother. He was the court pandit of the Maharaja
of Burdwan. Once he came to Calcutta and went
to live in a garden house near Kamarhati. I felt a
desire to see him and sent Hriday there to learn if
the pandit had any vanity, I was told that he had
none. Then I met him. Though a man of great
knowledge and scholarship, he began to weep on
hearing me sing Ramprasad's devotional songs. We
talked together a long while; conversation with
nobody else gave me such satisfaction.
Padmalochan told me an interesting incident. Once
a meeting was called to decide which of the two
deities, Siva or Brahma, was the greater, and unable
to come to any decision, the pandits at last referred
the matter to Padmalochan. With characteristic
guilelessness he said: "How do I know? Neither I
nor any of my ancestors back to the fourteenth
generation have seen Siva or Brahma!"

INSCRUTABLE ARE THE WAYS OF GOD

How can we understand the ways of God through
our small intellects?
As Bhishma lay dying on his bed of arrows, the
Pandava brothers and Krishna stood around him.
They saw tears flowing from the eyes of the great
hero. Arjuna said to Krishna: "Friend, how
surprising it is! Even such a man as our grandsire
Bhishma - truthful, self-restrained, supremely wise
and one of the eight Vasus - weeps through Maya,
at the hour of death." Sri Krishna asked Bhishma
about it. Bhishma replied: "O Krishna, You know
very well that this is not the cause of my grief. 1 am
thinking that there is no end to the Pandavas'
sufferings, though God Himself is their charioteer,
A thought like this makes me feel that 1 have
understood » nothing of the ways of God, and so I
weep."

KA! KA! KA!

THERE was a pundit who was tremendously vain.
He did not believe in the forms of God. But who
can understand the inscrutable ways of the Divine?
God revealed Himself to him as the Primal Power.
The vision made the pundit unconscious for a long
time.
After regaining partial consciousness he uttered
only the sound 'Ka! Ka! Ka!' He could not fully
pronounce 'Kali'.

A PEACOCK THAT TASTED OPIUM

A MAN once fed a peacock with a pill of opium at
four o'clock in the afternoon. The next day, exactly
at that lime, the peacock came back. It had felt the
intoxication of the drug and returned just in time
to have another dose.
Similarly, a devotee who had the good fortune to
meet the Master felt an uncontrollable desire to
meet him again and again.

THE LURE OF DIVINE LILA

AFTER the destruction of Ravana at Rama's
hands, Nikasha, Ravana's mother, began to run
away for fear of her life. Lakshmana' said to Rama:
"Revered brother, please explain this strange thing
to me. This Nikasha is an old woman who has
suffered a great deal from the loss of her many
sons, and yet she is so afraid of losing her own life
that she is taking to her heels!" Rama bade her
come near, gave her assurance of safety, and asked
her why she was running away. Nikasha answered
"O Rama, I am able to witness all this lila of Yours
because I am still alive. I want to live longer so that
I may see the many more things You will do on
this earth."

ALL ELSE IS UNREAL

THE truth is that God alone is real and all else is
unreal. Men, universe, house, children—all these
are like the magic of the magician. The magician
strikes his wand and says: "Come delusion! Come
confusion!" Then he says to the audience, "Open
the lid of the pot; see the birds fly into the sky."
But the magician alone is real and his magic unreal.
The unreal exists for a second and then vanishes.
Siva was seated in Kailas. His companion Nandi
was near Him. Suddenly a terrific noise arose.
"Revered sir," asked Nandi "what does that mean?"
Siva said: "Havana is born. That is the meaning!" A
few moments later another terrific noise
was heard. "Now what is this noise?" Nandi
asked. Siva said with a smile, "Ravana is dead."
Birth and death are like magic. You see the magic
for a second and then it disappears. God alone is
real and all else unreal. Water alone is real; its
bubbles appear and disappear. They disappear into
the very water from which they rise.

GOD IS UNDER THE CONTROL OF HTS DEVOTEES

 SOME Sikhs said to me in front of the Kali
temple, "God is compassionate". I said, "To
whom is he compassionate?" '"Why revered sir, to
all of us", said the Sikhs. I said: "We are His
children. Does compassion to one's own children
mean much? A father must look after his children;
or do you expect the people of the neighbourhood
to bring them up? Well, won't those who say that
God is compassionate ever understand that we are
God's children and not someone else's?"
Should we not, then, address God as
compassionate? Of course we should, as long as
we practise sadhana. After realizing God, one
rightly feels that God is our Father or Mother. As
long as we ha\e not realized God, we feel that we
are far away from Him, children of someone else.
During the stage of sadhana one should describe
God by all His attributes. One day Hazra said to
Narendra: "God is Infinity. Infinite is His
splendour. Do you think He will accept your
offerings of sweets and bananas or listen to your
 music? This is a mistaken notion of yours."
Narendra at once sank ten fathom. So I said to
Hazra, "You villain! Where will these youngsters be
if you talk to them like that?" How can a man live
if he gives up devotion? No doubt God has infinite
splendour; yet He is under the control of His
devotees. A rich man's gate keeper comes to the
parlour where his master is seated with his friends.
He stands on one side of the room. In his hand he
has something covered with a cloth. He is very
hesitant, The master asks him, "Well, gatekeeper,
what have you in your hand?" Very hesitantly the
servant takes out a custard-apple from under the
cover, places it in front of his master, and says,
"Sir, it is my desire that you eat this," The master is
impressed by his servant's devotion. With great
love he takes the fruit in his hand and says: "Ah!
This is a very nice custard-apple. Where did you
pick it? You must have taken a great deal of
trouble to get it."
God is under the control of His devotees. King
Duryodhana was very attentive to Krishna and said
to Him, "Please have your meal here." But the
Lord went to Vidura's hut. He was very fond of
His devotee. He ate Vidura's simple rice and greens
as if they were celestial food.