Page:Ramakrishna - His Life and Sayings.djvu/188

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THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RÂMAKRISHNA.

a sweet smiling mother or a devout friend, and to others a faithful husband or a dutiful and obliging son.

31L Bow down and adore where others kneel, for where so many hearts have been paying the tribute of adoration, the kind Lord will manifest Himself, for He is all mercy.

312. There are men, who, although they have nothing to attract them in this world, create some attachments for themselves, and so try to bind themselves to this earth. They do not want and do not like to be free. A man who has no family to care for, no relatives to look after, generally takes a cat, or a monkey, or a dog, or a bird for a pet object and companion ; and thus slakes his thirst for milk by drinking mere whey. Such is the power of My or Nescience over humanity.

313, 314. A patient, in high fever and excess of thirst, imagines that he can drink away quite a sea of water; but when that fit of fever goes and he regains his normal temperature, he can barely quaff off a single cupful of water, and his thirst is at once appeased with even a very small quantity of it So a man, being under the feverish excitement of Miy, and forgetful of his own littleness, imagines that he can embrace the whole of Divinity within his own bosom, but when the illusion passes away a single ray of Divine Light is seen to be sufficient to flood him with eternal divine bliss.

315. A man, under the influence of very high fever and in excessive thirst, is placed between a row of pitchers