I am asked to share some thoughts about the concept of faith and surrender. Most of us who are practising the system are of the opinion that we have faith and we have also surrendered. May be it is a good feeling but if you go deep into the subject, you know these two things are not all that easy as we talk about. If you have gone through the book 'Reality at Dawn' and if you have studied the chapter 'Faith' there you would have seen Rev. Babuji's approach is entirely different from the other scriptures. They are definitely from a different angle. When we talk about faith, generally we think of faith in God. That is not the only thing that Master talks about. Faith in your own capacity to reach the Goal, is the fundamental faith, because, if you don't have the confidence that you will reach the Goal, you are not likely to progress. This, of course, is modern psychology, or modern management. Rev. Babuji makes it a point here, that you should have that self confidence. Now, immediately it must have struck you that we are talking about self-confidence while talking about surrender. They seem to be exact opposites, but they are not, and how it is not is what perhaps I would today talk about, basing on what Rev. Babuji has written.

This faith in the Goal that you can reach the goal is a recurring point. In the beginning of Reality at Dawn he talks about goal clarity and this goal can only be one. It cannot be many. We have 360 crores of Gods in Hinduism and finally when we reduce it the number comes to 3. Three seems to be quite minimum but in Upanishads, Krishna has talked about one and half Gods also. So anything other than one seems to be already in our mind. More than one seems to be accepted as the number of Gods. But one alone is the Truth. The difficulty comes because when we think about God we think about one form or one name. If you get rid of this name and form - for God, your Sadhana for realisation of one goal gets a meaning. Multiplicity of Goals is not acceptable, because that dilutes your energy, dilutes your concentration, dilutes your attention. There is absolute necessity of accepting one reality which is beyond all sensory perception. This faith in you that you can reach that stage is what you should have, the first faith.

Having decided about the goal, one has decide about the 'means'. This means shall also be only one. You cannot be following hundreds of means, and say that all are equally good. All may be equally good but it is absolutely essential that you follow only one. You will not be in a position to reach Delhi starting from Hyderabad and on the way change the train at Nagpur and start going towards Bombay, finally thinking that from Bombay you still can go to Delhi. This type of ideas will not work. Have one means and the means also includes the Master. That can also be only one. Rev. Babuji has stated, if you can remember one goal, one Master, one means, this oneness, absolute clarity of having one is what we are talking about. How do we get it? This requires faith. First one, we should have faith in you, that you can reach the Ultimate. "No, no, it is not possible for me. I am a sinner, I do not think it is not for people like me to realise at all". This type of despondency is not accepted in spirituality. It was written somewhere else that despondency and despair are the worst diseases that we can have. If we have this, that means, we have lost the game. This does not mean that we should be arrogant. It does not mean we should say that we are all powerful or omnipotent. Now from where do we get this faith. What is the basis of this faith? Only if we can understand that all of us have come from one source, and our parenthood lies in that Ultimate and He is ever eager to come towards us, is yawning towards us - 'Centre is yawning Towards Circumference' that's how Rev. Babuji has put it. The Divinity is willing to accept all of us, once if we know this, then we will have the confidence. Then how do we know that? How do we know that the Centre is yawning towards us, this is a practical point which we experience during our meditation. The power of Pranahuti makes us all the more confident that Divinity loves us more than we love Divinity. So this faith is based on this fundamental experience we have. This is why Rev. Babuji was always saying "don't question, sit before me, see for yourself. You will understand it". Not just sitting, closing eyes and going. But, if we have thought about what makes Him flow into us and give a certain amount of calmness to us, we will know what is the Love He has; that strengthens our confidence in us, that we can reach Him. One, that we are sufficiently worthy enough to have the attention of the Divine is what is proved and then two, the capacity to attract the attention of the Divine is sufficient logic for us to have confidence that we one day or other will reach Him. So this is the fundamental faith that you should have.

As for the means - Rev. Babuji says there are so many means, so many saints have given so many methods, all of them may be right, all of them may be wrong. He never bothers about them. He says whatever we do, we should know that the God is simple and the means should also be simple. This is again a fundamental point. Rev. Babuji drives in saying that the means should be of the same nature as the end. If the means and the ends are of different nature, if the means do not justify the end or the end does not justify the means, both ways it is not acceptable because many people give logic for both sides. We shall do that which is acceptable to reach the ultimate. That alone is right and Rev. Babuji says that simplest means alone is suitable. What is that simplest means he has given? He has given the means of meditating on the Divine light in the heart. This is the means. Pranahuti is the support. This is the means. Why not I meditate on the tip of the nose? Why not I meditate on the eyebrows? Why not I meditate on the top of my head or tip of the toe? All these things will not work. Why? Not because Rev. Babuji has said it. But, because light is the most subtle thing that we can ever think of. The Divine light is the most subtle thing that we can think of and He goes to the extent of saying that we can think of light as gross also because, light is matter. Everybody knows it. That is why He says light without luminosity. He says even if you strain yourself to see the light, and say you have seen the light, "I don't bother about it". He ignores it. He asks you to ignore it. He has written very clearly. Some of the abhyasis may see light in the beginning but they should not bother about it, whereas in other systems seeing the light is a very great phenomena and a very great achievement. We are not interested in it. Whether it is great or small we are not concerned. Rev. Babuji says do not bother about it. Please do not bother about it. Great or small that is not our concern. Because that is not our Goal. Now what else does He say? He says in the heart. Where the heart beats, and why does He say so? Because it is the meeting point of the activity and inactivity. What is the goal that we are seeking. We are seeking a goal where we are going to totally merge in the Ultimate and where we are not going to feel our independent existence. That means, we are going to end our activity and we are going to allow the Divine activity.

So this complex of our activity and His activity is the real problem of life. Our activity or the activity of our nature at its worst level is 'inactivity'. His activity is always an activity of super fine order. The meeting point of these is the heart. So that is where you shall start, so that, His activity alone continues and your activity stops. How? Because of the 'Pranahuti' that is happening. Because of the thought you are giving that the Divine light is there, it is going to percolate into the system and total transformation of the system is going to happen. So this is the 'means'. To say we will meditate on the form of Rev. Babuji or Shiva is not proper. We are not asked to do that. Rev. Babuji asked a practicant "What is the practice that you do?" He said, "I meditate on Lord Krishna". He said, how? He replied, "I meditate on his photo" and Rev. Babuji immediately remarked, "who photographed Krishna?" So that is the type of humour with which He answers your question. The silliness of our thinking, if we understand, would immediately help to leave that habit and start meditating as Rev. Babuji said. After all some form should be there, and that is Divine light. Incidentally I had an occasion to see a T.V. programme. Some Guruji, was giving T.V. serial on yoga and he said we should meditate. I was happy at least somebody is going to tell something about meditation. I wanted to see what is that meditation, he was talking. Then he said you can meditate on the 'Bhrumadhya'. Why he talked about 'Bhrumadhya'. Then he said, what you should think - then he showed lot of calender pictures of Gods and said we can meditate on Ganesha or Lakshmi or Krishna and went on showing in the portraits. He next said you should think that that form is there and you should do 'Archana' for it, 'Harathi' for it and 'Pooja' for it. We are to go on thinking about it. This is the meditation he talked about. Some farce of a meditation and no one can accept it. Yet there are so many people to follow him. I am neither against him nor am I bothered about his philosophy. Why I am saying this is when you see such pictures, chances are instead of putting those pictures you may try to put Rev. Babuji there. That type of confusion let us not have. Let us be very very clear as to what is the method given and why is it given. Only that we shall do.

Secondly Rev. Babuji has written so many letters to so many people and he has advised so many methods for them, and without verifying whether it will be useful for us or not many people have implemented it and landed into unnecessary troubles. Do not implement the type of meditation which is not given to you by Rev. Babuji. However, if the trainer takes up the full responsibility for having suggested to you, do follow any other method. Even then it can be for a limited period. There are cases where we suggested a different method and very soon we said you leave that, in order to stabilise at certain times, very rarely, we resort to this but because the help of Master is such in our system we may not have to take recourse to such practices often. There is no need. So this means, the faith in the Means is another great thing. All the more so for people who come from traditional families. These families have accustomed to worship of Gods of several types. So you tend to confuse that tradition with your Sadhana. Don't do it. I am not asking you not to follow the tradition, but please don't confuse with this. If it has to be done, if some puja has to be done, in order that some peace may exist in your house, by all means do it, don't fight with them, but don't confuse it with your Sadhana. Your Sadhana and that has nothing to do. While you are a good Cricket player you should play only cricket. You can definitely watch tennis but don't play tennis strokes in Cricket, that will be a disaster. Nothing wrong in seeing tennis, nothing wrong in seeing hockey. But don't confuse that with your game. Our game here is the Sri Ram Chandra's Raja Yoga and this has nothing to do with other things. You see some similarity. Be happy about it. Ah! there is some similarity there, to that extent we shall say, we don't implement it here, nor that is going to be our logic to convince another man about our means. Because Rev. Babuji have permitted in some case where meditation on Divine light is not possible, to do 'Gayatri Japam', it does not mean we can also suggest that. The traditional way and the way Rev. Babuji has asked to do it are different. He says, 'if you know the meaning of it and then you meditate, do japa'. It makes some sense, but whereas, those of you who know something about tradition know how complicated procedure it is to do a Gayatri. It is not all that simple. He has simplified it, what is the point in saying to others to convince him saying it is the same thing. It is not the same thing, let us be very very clear. The system given by Rev. Babuji, the Means given by Him is a new one. It has got certain good things of tradition borrowed within it, Rev. Babuji himself acknowledges that openly saying that, whatever good available that has been taught so far has been incorporated in the system. Simply because there is some similarity somewhere else it does not permit us to follow that. So much of clarity all sadhakas should have.

Now one of the most important means Rev. Babuji talks about is the Master. The help of the guru is another means here. In tradition the Guru gives us the 'Mantra Deeksha' and then the matter ends. His role ends there. He doesn't do anything. Whereas in the system of Sri Ram Chandra the active assistance of the Guru is there till the end of our Sadhana, which means sadhana even after our present form of existence. It doesn't end with our present form of existence. It goes on till our sadhana is completed. A stage of swimming in the Ultimate, till that stage comes, the help goes on. The guru guides us. Now how do we choose that person? This is one of the major problems today that we are confronting. It is not by the capacity with which he talks. It is not by his capacity to attract crowds. It is not by his 'Aura'. It is not by any one of his external features. But by the internal peace we get in the presence of another person. This is the yardstick given to us, and that person shall serve us as a servant of his Master and without any motive of gain of any type. This is the most important aspect of the means, selection of the means that one has to carefully observe in our system. Because there is always a possibility of some of us thinking somebody else amongst us as capable of being the means. None of us are capable of that. Only one means and that is 'Sri Ramchandra'. Now in spiritual existence or in existence, which consists of the physical, mental, vital and spiritual levels. The most decaying is the physical. Unfortunately over a period of time humanity has confused itself on these two points and thought the 'physical' is the most real and 'spiritual' to be most doubtful. They consider the spiritual as nonexistent, literally of the five levels of existence, of the 'kosas' the tradition talk about, the Annamaya, Pranamaya, Manomaya, Vignanamaya and Anandamaya Koshas - people have tended to accept the 'Annamaya' to be more real than the 'Ananda maya' - the real spiritual. The real spiritual is always the truth. 'Anandamaya' is the truth. You, I and all are only 'Anandamaya'. If we are suffering today, if we feel suffering today, it's our own making, or the veils that we have put around having become such a burden as to make us feel miserable. Instead of knowing the reality inside we have tended to see the externality and the externality has taken the precedence over the internality. Why I am saying this is Rev. Babuji is existing today, is an eternal presence, even as Lord Krishna is, even as the Ultimate is.

We don't see them. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. They do not exist in the form that we exist. They exist in the form of thought that is why Rama is influential. Christ is influential. Mohammad is influential. Moses is less influential. Yagnavalkya is influential. Nobody remembers all others who lived with them. They are dead, spiritually dead. Spiritually gone. If I were to recall a story. "It's in Bhagavata" - one of the kings who has done so many of yagnas and yagas. I think he did some thousand yagas, goes to heaven and at a particular point of time the Gods come and say, now it is time for you to go down. Then he says, 'no, no. I have done so many of yagnas and yagas. It cannot be that easy for me to get down'. The Gods said nobody remembers you now. It is for you to get down. Then he seeks permission to let him go to that Kurukshetra where he had done yagas. Then in Kurukshetra he asked people, none of them remembered this man's name. The Devatas say, now it is time for you to return. He said "no, let me exhaust the other beings". He asks one after the other the trees etc. none of them respond. One tortoise finally says "yes, yes I come from that place. I am aware, he has done so much". So he gets a lease till that tortoise dies. That is the story. The point is, so long as somebody remembers you, having done something good, you continue to live in a better world, otherwise you come back to this world. That is what the tradition has stated. What I am trying to tell you is, existence is not confined to physical body, and you continue at other levels and whatever Karma you have done here has got its own influence. Now this presence of Great Personality on whom we should have that absolute faith as a means is something we should understand fully and that position cannot be taken by anybody else. You may be a trainer. You may be the best Preceptor available. But you are still working for Him. Independently you are nobody. This the abhyasi should know. This the trainer should know. The pitfall is "after all Rev. Babuji is working through me. I am doing the Rev. Babuji's work and he has no other way except working through me and if I am not there how can Rev. Babuji work?" All these things are rational, logical but not real. The reality is that He can function without you, and there are other forms of existence than the physical. This is all that I am trying to drive at. You should know that have got a vital self, a mental self and a spiritual self.

So once we are aware of these levels of existence for us, we can easily understand at what level Rev. Babuji is functioning. If we yield to Him and then allow Him to work through us, He will be happy and we shall be happy. Because as I told you, the Divinity is Yawning towards us. This is much greater than our leaning on Him. Our leaning is many times very doubtful and we question whether Rev. Babuji will be in a position to support us or not. Whether he will solve our problems or not. Will it not be better to go and do a particular Anjaneya Vratam to get rid of family problem rather than trusting this Babuji. This is our type of leaning, this is our difficulty. Our difficulties are many because our faith is not all that great. Please note, that is why I said people think that they have faith. I do not accept it. Because it was not that easy for me to develop that faith in Him also. I do not think you are in any way superior to me or inferior to me and you must be having the same problem as I had. So please watch yourself. You shall have that absolute faith in Him and the goal clarity if it is there, I don't think you will ask relief for your stomach ache, if not some other ache. We don't ask for reliefs. Whatever we are asking, is Him. If the goal clarity is there, if you know the goal is only one and if you have faith that you are going to reach it despite all family problems - my son doesn't obey me, my daughter doesn't obey me, she runs away, my wife puts me into lot of debts, my husband is a spendthrift, there is no end to this list. You can go on adding up but these are not the problems, that we are trying to solve. The problem that we are trying to solve is the problem of existence itself. Let me not feel that I am an independent fellow. Let me feel that I am dependent upon that Ultimate, upon Him, who is the substance behind everything. If we can understand this, that goal clarity is there.

But regarding our problems, we seek remedy from different quarters. Thus we end up having umpteen number of Gods and that is the reason we have so many gods. One God for this relief, another God for some other relief. This goddess Lakshmi can give me money and that goddess Saraswathi can give me wisdom. You have to differentiate because of functions, because of lack of goal clarity. Because we do not know what we are seeking. We sought all these. If we seek 'That' by which everything is also got, then this question does not arise. Do we get everything else we may not have. As Rev. Babuji himself has put it, if you are going to get merged in God, Omniscience, you will not have but you will have that much of knowledge that will carry on with your work. You will get to know something which you ought to know. You may not know the things which you need not know. Only that which is required for us we have to know. Can you tell me what is there on top of a tree now? What does it matter? Is that Omniscience? I don't think it matters to anybody what is there on the top of the tree. Whatever is there is there. How am I concerned with it? The only thing which perhaps we should know is that the Divinity exists in our heart. If this much of knowledge is there I think you have all the knowledge in the world. There is no other knowledge that is required because once you have got that, once you know that the Divinity is with you, there is nothing except love that is flowing from you and once that is there all existence becomes easy. When love flows instead of hatred or animosity from you, then I think everybody starts getting attracted to you and you get attracted to others and life is happy. So this 'Means', the relationship with a Master is another ticklish thing. Most ticklish thing where you are likely to fall. Because we are likely to hear Swamy Vivekananda's speeches, or some one like him, then we feel like following that and accept them as our Gurus. Now, can I say that Swamy Vivekananda is not great? I will be a fool to say so. But, is He my Means? Surely not. The greatness of Swamy Vivekananda is just unquestioned. His service to mankind is unquestioned. We love him, we adore him, we worship him but he is not the 'Means'. This much of clarity you should have.

If you don't have this clarity you are in real troubles. If you read 'Ramana' you definitely feel enlightened. If you read 'Aurobindo' surely you feel enlightened. If you read 'Sivananda' you will be enlightened, if you go and hear 'Chinmayananda' you feel happy. There are people who felt happy with 'Rajneesh'. I have nothing against them. By all means see what is good in others, but follow your Master, follow the proper Master. Follow that Master who takes you to the ultimate. He speaks beautifully sir, I will go and sit in that class, do by all means. If you want to go and spend your time there you can go but then guard yourself against the human weakness, to conform. Once you start seeing others, you start following them also, consciously or unconsciously. That is where 'Gita' becomes very very relevant where it is clearly stated "Ananyaschintayoman" The Lord says ... "You cannot think about anything else except me". Only in such cases He takes the responsibility of us.

When? 'Ananyaschintayoman', if you start thinking about anybody else other than Sri Ram Chandra, I don't think you got any right to ask Him to protect you. But let this be very clear in our mind. Once you say you are following Him, there can only Him you follow and nobody else. And why do we follow Him? Because He is the proper Means. How is He the proper 'Means'? He has given you the peace of mind which is required, He has made you feel the Divinity, or influx of the Divinity in your heart, which is much more than what you require as an evidence of His competence. That He is the ultimate, that He is equal to ultimate, that He is the Supreme Personality all these things I will talk later. In the beginning what you should know is that you are given sufficient evidence that He is the person who is capable of leading you to the ultimate. Now having come upto that do you accept Him or not. If you accept Him let not anybody else's consciousness flow into you. That is why this Institute insists on Sri Ramchandra Consciousness, and no other person's consciousness has relevance. If this 'Viswasa' is there, then what happens, now 'faith' as, those of you know something about Vedanta or 'Shat Sampathi', know that the fifth of the 'Shat Sampathi' is 'Shraddha'. What is the 'Shraddha' about? Why is it coming at the fifth level, not at the beginning? In the beginning you should have confidence in you but then that develops later into 'Mahaviswasa' in God. Mahaviswasa is a stage that comes after Anukoolasya Sankalpa Pratikoolasya Varjanam, Goptrutva Varanam and Atmanikshepam. This is not the first faith. The Mahaviswasa that comes here is of a different order than the 'Faith' in beginning that we have got in beginning in ourselves. This 'Maha Viswasa' comes to you when you know that your Master is capable of doing everything for you, there is nothing that is beyond Him, a thing that comes to our experience. Anything that is happening to you, you know is due to Him. It is because of Him I live, because of Him I breath, because of Him I move. Finally you say I move in Him, I breath in Him. This is the stage to which you come. That is the 'Maha Viswasa'. 'Mahaviswasa' should not be confused with ordinary faith. Faith you and I have in the beginning. If you get to the stage of this 'Maha Viswasa', you have almost realised. There is nothing more to realise.

A stage will come where you will not ask Him what you want. Because the 'Viswasa' is of that type that you will not ask. He knows what is best for you. You come out of a stage of asking Him. Question of Prayer doesn't arise. Meditation becomes impossible there. You cannot meditate. There is nothing there to meditate upon. A stage comes where it becomes impossible for you to think about the Divinity itself. That is why He says "neither the beggar is there, nor the Master is there, only the extended arm appears now and then". In the article "Beggar's Bowl" that is the stage you will come to when you have 'Maha Viswasa'. Don't confuse the faiths in the beginning saying I have absolute faith in the Master. We should know the limitations here. It is at different levels of existence. That existence is 'Anandamaya' existence, this initial faith is at the 'Annamaya' existence. In 'Anandamaya Kosha' when you are seeing Master eye to eye, when you are feeling Him, when you breath Him, then what will you ask? and what is it that He can't give you. When you ask Him, what is that He will not give you. There is nothing that he forgets to give you on His own. There is nothing that you need to ask Him. He is you and you are He. There is no question at the stage of 'Maha Viswasa'. That is the stage of self surrender when the 'self' is totally surrendered there is nothing like a 'self' at all, 'self' does not exist. When faith develops into a 'Mahaviswasa' it becomes self surrender (Sarana). To say that I am 'Sarana' in the beginning is not correct. However, remember Gayopakyanam. The man runs to Arjuna and say 'save me', nobody else can save me. That is physical one. Then Vibheeshan comes to lord Rama, that is also surrender. Nobody questions all these things, but at what levels? That is the level of beginner. That level which you and I have already crossed only not with their confidence. Nor our existence problem was all that worse as theirs was. Gaya was absolutely facing death, he has to run for his life. I don't think any of us are running for our life. So his stage of surrender was dependent upon the 'Kripanatva'. The helplessness. The helplessness was such that he has to ask for help. There is another type of 'Kripanatva' which "Arjuna had, as we see in the 'Bhagavadgita'. That is the 'Dharma' problem. Not exactly a 'Dharma' problem, he was a warrior, he was capable of killing so many people there was no difficulty for him to kill so many people before him. 'Himsa' was not his problem. His problem was how to kill his own men. So the 'Bhagavadgita' does not deal with 'Ahimsa'. It tells you how to do 'himsa' under what circumstances himsa is permissible. It is not 'ahimsa' siddhanta as some people interpret. It has nothing to do with 'ahimsa'. He was a warrior, he has killed so many thousands of people earlier, what is the great problem then? His problem were his grand father, his teacher who were standing just opposite him, they have to be killed. What is this? He is my grand father, he is my teacher, he is my brother, how can I kill them? What type of life I am going to lead later. This is absolutely a problem of attachment 'Bandhupreeti'. His problem was one of 'Bandhupreeti' nothing else. From there he wanted to come out. The 'kripanatva' there is of a different variety. It was not of his existence, he was not afraid of his death, he knew definitely he will win, but even then he surrendered because of the confusion that he had. Whereas in the case of Vibheeshana, the surrender is of a different variety. He was also not afraid of his death. He said what is this 'Dharma' about? The 'Dharma' is in trouble, so he wanted to come away from Ravana and take refuge under Rama, because he was the person spearheading the 'Dharma'." He was seeking refuge under 'Dharma'.

None of these cases are similar. Similarly none of our surrenders are similar. Each one of us have surrendered to our Master for our own reasons. But this surrender is not the selfsurrender that we are going to have at the 'Maha Viswasa' level. That is entirely different. There you will not even ask Him. You will forget the doubt with which you started. Why you thought of the Master's feet in the beginning will be totally forgotten when you come to that stage. There it is only how to be His disciple, how to serve Him. Unless 'Laya' is there with the Master, you will never start working for Him, because it is His work, to propagate the system. It is His work, not yours. To 'establish' an order of 'Dharma' is His work, not your work, you are not competent, you are not capable. So such a possibility exists only when certain amount of 'laya' starts. That is why acceptance of the Master is the beginning of eligibility for work, otherwise you cannot work for Him. Even to talk about Him, there must be certain amount of 'laya' otherwise you won't talk about Him, you feel hesitant about Him. With Laya you know that He is worth talking about whatever may be the advantage or disadvantage you get out of it. When the Love takes over, when you start Loving the Divine, then this natural tendency to talk about Divine starts.

So that is the stage when you cease to exist for yourself and that is the beginning of your 'Yatra' in 'Brahmanda'. Till that time there is no question of 'Yatra' at all. The concern for others starts not so much as concern out of pity for another but as a service to the Divine, as a Love to the Divine. That you know the Divine makes you to talk about the Divine rather than, the need for another man to know about the Divine. That is a 'Yogi' is a person who talks out of Love for the Divine about the Divine. A person who talks about the Divine to another person because he thinks that man is an ignorant fellow is what a 'Vedantin' is. That is the difference between a 'vedantin' and a 'Yogi'. The 'Yogi' will never talk about God unless a stage comes where he says "yes I have felt Him". That is the assurance with which Ramakrishna talked about it. That is the assurance with which we talk about it. Those of you who read Swamy Vivekananda's literature a bit know that in the first instance Vivekananda asked "Tell me how do you know that you have seen God"? Then he says "you come near me" and he puts his hand on Vivekananda's heart and then says "just keep quiet for a few seconds". He feels the transmission. He sees the universe, he sees everything, he becomes still and he says "Yes! I am convinced about it". He didn't see God, but he felt God, you and I have felt God many more times than Vivekananda, but then we don't have the courage to talk about Him. We have not approached God with that feeling of knowing God because we have our own 'kripanatva' of different varieties and we felt God incidentally. He never talked about God incidentally, he never approached Ramakrishna for some relief, he went there to know God, and that makes all the difference.

He questioned him "Can you show me God". Yes! the same transmission which we are feeling, which was such a rarity then, which has become such a commonality now with the disciples of Sri Ram Chandra, is what made Vivekananda talk. We say, we are working for our Master. If you can see this agony of the Master, I think you will start vibrating along with Him. There is an agony, because what was impossible earlier He is giving everybody now and why is it people are not doing the work as done by somebody else. Why is it that people are not talking about divinity? He doesn't want us to talk about Him. I want you to talk about Rev. Babuji, but He never wanted to talk about Him. He never wanted that, He wanted all people to practice the system. He wanted everybody to think about divinity. He never wanted anybody to think about Him. You and I feel so grateful to Him, we want to talk about Him, but incidentally please note it, the 'Means' is Rev. Babuji, the Goal from my point of view is Rev. Babuji. But from real point of view, it is only the ultimate. It is the ultimate that has got relevance, because after two thousand years, or three thousand years or ten thousand years, or twenty thousand years ahead, it may not be Rev. Babuji. It may be another Personality, and equally great, or greater. I am not capable of judging all that because I do not think that I have judged Rev. Babuji nor will I judge the coming personality. It is stupidity. It is stupidity to judge them. Let us know what we are and be under our limits. So this self-surrender what we are talking is possible only when this 'Sarana' comes. Even in tradition, there is a distinction between 'Bhakti' and then 'Prapathi'. 'Bhakti' is what we have got in the beginning and 'prapathi' comes to you after 'Mahaviswasa'. There you don't at all talk about anything else. There are two stages of Surrender. One I advocate, is trying to be dependent upon the Master all the time allowing Him to do whatever He wants to do, it is left to Him, it is the theory of kitten. The other one is the theory of monkey - trying to hold on to the Master by our effort. That also is a surrender but of an inferior order. That is not due to 'Mahaviswasa' at all, 'Mahaviswasa' is lacking in that monkey approach. It has got this much of faith that the mother monkey will take it so long as it holds on. To that extent alone is its faith. But in case of kitten the mother cat is capable of taking care of me. Whatever happens it is capable of taking care of me. This is of a superior order. To that order alone, to which you and I belong. I personally appeal that you accept this approach that alone is the 'Mahaviswasa'. It doesn't mean that you are not to do your 'sadhana', because many people come to that interesting conclusion, that if cat is capable of taking care of kitten, then why should the kitten bother about anything else? That is only an analogy. Analogies cannot be extended beyond certain limits. You shall do your duty but always resign yourself to the will of the God. Don't say I am capable of clinging on to God always. Know that the divinity is yawning towards you. This yawning is what you feel as 'Pranahuti'. That is the basis of our 'Mahaviswasa'.