Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Series - Questions

గురు బ్రహ్మ గురు ర్విష్ణుః గురు ర్దేవో మహేశ్వరః

గురు స్సాక్షాత్ప రబ్రహ్మ తస్మై శ్రీ గురవే నమః

శుక్లాంబరధరం విష్ణుం శశివర్ణం చతుర్భుజం

ప్రసన్న వదనం ధ్యాయేత్సర్వ విఘ్నోప శాంతయే

శ్రుతిస్మృతి పురాణానాం ఆలయం కరుణాలయం

నమామి భగవత్పాదం శంకరం లోక శంకరం

ఓం నమః శివాయ

Here is one more post as part of the Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Series.

Lets say there is a very rich man in the town. He has a very big bungalow and he has lots of servants, guards, dogs protecting the house. He is not visible and is not approachable either as he is very busy and you have to cross multiple security levels before being able to reach him. But, you are curious to know multiple things, like

How much money he has and how did he earn?

How many plots, houses etc doesn’t he own?

How did he earn all of those?

What does he want to do in future?

The list of such questions can go on like that. Now to get answers to those questions, you will try befriending the guards or the owner’s contacts or ask some people who live around etc. But you still don’t get all your questions answered. Importantly, once in a while you will get to hear contradictory responses as well. That would confuse you more.

One day, you decide, “Enough is enough. The only reliable source is the owner. If I befriend him, then I will get all my questions answered and importantly within no time. I need to figure out a way to reach him. No point checking with so many people, who claim to know the owner in different ways.”

Once you become successful in knowing the owner, then not only will you get all your questions answered, but also, you don’t have to pay much attention to all those security guards, PAs, dogs, Secretaries etc. Importantly, once the owner instructs them to allow you inside the house, no one will dare to stop despite all those innumerable security levels.

In our spiritual journey, many of us face questions for which we don’t find ready made answers. For example

What is life?

Why are we born?

Will I be born again?

Which god to pray and will appeasing the planets help at all?

What’s the basis for some one’s fortune and some one’s misfortune?

Is every action in this world predecided?

Like these, the questions can go on and importantly, new questions crop up, when we get a response to one of the questions. We read different books, we approach different people, we discuss with similar minded people. As in the above story, we get to hear contradictory answers at times and that confuses us even more.

The solution to this is to meet God directly. The owner of the house is analogous to God. All the security guards, servants etc are different other devathas, planetary gods etc. While appeasing of all those does help, but with your dedication and commitment, if you are able to reach the God directly, then all your questions get answered. For all you know, you might not have any questions to ask as well.

So, while its important to put in efforts to get answers to your questions by reading books, listening to commentaries, doing lot of internal thinking etc, we have to understand that what is more important is to know the Owner, the God. Let all (as much as possible) the efforts go towards that objective. Once that happens, your state of life will be completely different.

సర్వే జనాః సుఖినో భవంతు

PS: There could be typos and other mistakes in Telugu and English. Please ignore

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Series - Tamo Gunam

గురు బ్రహ్మ గురు ర్విష్ణుః గురు ర్దేవో మహేశ్వరః

గురు స్సాక్షాత్ప రబ్రహ్మ తస్మై శ్రీ గురవే నమః

శుక్లాంబరధరం విష్ణుం శశివర్ణం చతుర్భుజం

ప్రసన్న వదనం ధ్యాయేత్సర్వ విఘ్నోప శాంతయే

శ్రుతిస్మృతి పురాణానాం ఆలయం కరుణాలయం

నమామి భగవత్పాదం శంకరం లోక శంకరం

ఓం నమః శివాయ

Swami Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to discuss lot of things with people, who would gather around him, including his disciples. He used to narrate stories to convey a concept. I will try to post some of those stories as part of this series.

Nature has three gunas - Sattva, Rajas and Tamo. Humans being part of nature also carry these three gunas in some proportion. The nature and character of a person is driven by this proportion. Tamo gunam basically stands for anger, sinning, causing pain/harm etc.

One person asks swamiji about the need for Tamo gunam for a person. Swamiji promptly responds that it is required. To elucidate further, he narrates the following story.

Outside a village, there used to be a big anthill in which a poisonous snake used to reside. It used to bite the people who would go anywhere close to that. The villagers were scared of it and so never ventured to go anywhere near its anthill. Importantly, they used to warn all the new comers to the village.

Once, a Brahmachari entered the village on some work and started going out in the direction of the anthill. The villagers warned him about the snake and told him to take a different path. The Brahmachari said that he can handle the snake and told them not to worry and went in his intended direction.

As expected, the snake came out as he neared the anthill and started hissing at the Brahmachari. The Brahmachari recited some mantras and sprinkled some water on the snake. The snake curled up like an earth worm near the Brahmachari and said, “What’s the order?”.

“Hence forth, never harm anyone. Don’t be angry with anyone. Recite this mantra.” Saying this the Brahmachari initiated the snake with a mantra (మంత్రోపదేశం) and he went his way.

The snake gave up its anger and started eating some fruits and leaves and gave up eating rats, frogs, eggs, birds etc. The villagers realised that the snake stopped biting and hissing at people. Some of the boys even went up to the snake and caught hold of its tail and started playing. But the snake would not do a thing.

One day, one of the boys took the snake by its tail, rotated it in the air and hit it hard on the ground. The snake became unconscious and lay there. Thinking that the snake died, the boys spread the news around in the village. The snake woke up after some time and slowly crawled into its anthill and took multiple days to recover.

Days went by like that and one day the Brahmachari came to the village once more. Hearing from the villagers that the snake died, he was surprised. He went close to the anthill and called for the snake as he was very sure that the snake would not have died.

After initiating someone with a mantra, the Guru apparently would know how successful the disciple would be. Here the Guru knew that the snake would not have given up on its life without reaching a certain stage.

The snake slowly came out and the Brahmachari was shocked to see the state of it. He checked with the snake about its condition. The snake mentioned that its saatvik diet could be the reason for its condition. But the Brahmachari was not convinced and asked it to remember any incident that would have brought the snake to this condition.

(Please note that once you reduce/lose the Tamo gunam and increase the satva gunam, you wouldn’t even remember the bad/negative things)

After giving a serious thought, the snake responded that he was banged onto the ground by one village boy. Hearing this the Brahmachari felt very bad.

He said, “I told you to stop harming people. But I never told you to stop threatening people if they attempt at causing harm to you. You could have hissed at them without spitting the venom.”

Swamiji concluded that while one should give up the tamo gunam, one should pretend to possess it, at times when required.

To elaborate on the above, the following are some situations.

When a child does something wrong, pretend that you are very angry with the child, but don’t be actually angry or don’t cause harm.

When someone threatens physically or mentally, instead of taking it silently, respond appropriately so that you are not thought of as a roll over.

But one should be in complete control of this reaction state and it should not be that the reaction takes over you.

సర్వే జనాః సుఖినో భవంతు

PS: There could be typos and other mistakes in Telugu and English. Please ignore