Monday, September 15, 2008

#015, What was Balaram Bose's problem?

Here is a small quote from the Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna, Volume I.

Date: Apr. 7, 1883.

"SRI RAMAKRISHNA was visiting Balaram in Calcutta, with Narendra, Bhavanath, Rakhal, M., and others. Balaram, at the Master's bidding, had invited some of the young devotees to lunch. Sri Ramakrishna often said to him, "Feed them now and then; that will confer on you the merit of feeding holy men." The Master looked on his young disciples, yet untouched by "woman and gold", as veritable embodiments of God."


BLOGGER'S VIEW

*Balaram was a rich devotee of Shri Ramakrishna. What did he want?
*Why was Shri Ramakrishna assuring Balram the merit of feeding holy men.
*Were the young disciples really holy? They might have been simply revolving around Shri Ramakrishna for food. Did anybody test them for their "resistance against woman and gold".
*Though Vivekananda claimed resistance against woman and gold before Prof. Deussen, a Sanskrit scholar of Germany, Vivekananda on that occasion did not resist alcohol and meat. At that time Vivekananda was making money, lecturing in Europe and America. Was there any difference among Pounds, Dollars and gold? Did gold mean only bullion?

Swami Vivekananda wrote to Shri Balaram Bose from Ghazipur on the 14th Feb. 1890:

"... You have expressed remorse at not having reaped any appreciable results by serving the Sadhus. It is true, and yet not true; it is true if you look towards ideal bliss; but if you look behind to the place from which you started, you will find that before you were an animal, now you are a man, and will be a god or God Himself in future. Moreover, that sort of regret and dissatisfaction is very good; it is the prelude to improvement. Without this none can rise. He who puts on a turban and immediately sees the Lord, progresses thus far and no farther ..."


BLOGGER'S VIEW
*Why didn't Balram get appreciable results by serving monks?
*Why was he regreting?
*What was Vivekananda promising?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ybr (alias ybrao a donkey) said...

Reason for deleting above comment: A palladium sales spam ad.