User:Goethean/SRK/Bio/Practices/Vineeth
Other attitudes
[edit]Not satisfied with his visions, he started practicing severe asceticism, usually by the banks of ganga at the Panchavati garden of Kali temple.
To get rid of the ego that he belonged to a higher brahmanical caste, he used to serve the Pariahs — servants and cleaners who belonged to the lowest caste. He would eat food cooked by the lowest classes. He explained his state as follows[1][2]:
'Sometimes I used to go to the closet of the servants and sweepers and clean it with my own hands, and prayed, "Mother! destroy in me all idea that I am great, and that I am a Brahman, and that they are low and pariahs, for who are they but Thou in so many forms?"'
He regarded gold, silver and dust to be the same. He said[2]:
'I would sit by the Ganges, with some gold and silver coins and a heap of rubbish by my side, and taking some coins in my right hand and a handful of rubbish in the left, I would tell my soul, "My soul! this is what the world calls money, impressed with the queen's face. It has the power of bringing you rice and vegetables, of feeding the poor, of building houses, and doing all that the world calls great, but it can never help thee to realise the ever-existent knowledge and bliss, the Brahman. Regard it, therefore, as rubbish." Then mixing the coins and the rubbish in my hands, while repeating all the time, "money is rubbish, money is rubbish," I lost all perception of difference between the two in my mind, and threw them both into the Ganges. No wonder people took me for mad.'
Notes
[edit]- ^ Cite error: The named reference
My_Master
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Muller, Max (1898). "Râmakrishna's Life". Râmakrishna his Life and Sayings. p. 42.