Discrimination and Dispassion

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
(18 Feb 1836 - 16 Aug 1886)
Ramakrishna Aratrikam - Khandana Bhava Bandhana
Ramakrishna Sahasranama Stotram

Shake off impermanent objects from the mind

To meditate, you should withdraw within yourself or retire to a secluded corner or to the forest. And you should always discriminate between the Real and the unreal. God alone is real, the Eternal Substance; all else is unreal, that is, impermanent. By discriminating thus, one should shake off impermanent objects from the mind.

God is the only Eternal substance

'Woman and gold' is impermanent. God is the only Eternal Substance.

What does a man get with money? Food, clothes, and a dwelling-place - nothing more. You cannot realize God with its help. Therefore money can never be the goal of life. That is the process of discrimination.

Discrimination and dispassion are like turmeric

In the ocean of the world there are six alligators: lust, anger, and so forth. But you need not fear the alligators if you smear your body with turmeric before you go into the water. Discrimination and dispassion are the turmeric.

Discrimination is the knowledge of what is real and what is unreal. It is the realization that God alone is the real and eternal Substance and that all else is unreal, transitory, impermanent.

Leave behind the steps by 'Neti-Neti' and climb the roof

First of all you must discriminate, following the method of 'Neti, neti': 'He is not the five elements, nor the sense-organs, nor the mind, nor the intelligence, nor the ego. He is beyond all these cosmic principles.'

You want to climb to the roof; then you must eliminate and leave behind all the steps one by one. The steps are by no means the roof.

But after reaching the roof you find that the steps are made of the same materials: brick, lime, and brick-dust as the roof. It is the Supreme Brahman that has become the universe and its living beings and the twenty-four cosmic principles.

Beware of 'woman' and 'gold' in this whirlpool of Visalakshi

My good man, beware. Beware of 'woman and gold'. Once you sink in the maya of a woman, you will not be able to rise. It is the whirlpool of the Visalakshi. He who has fallen into it cannot pull himself out again.

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