"Worldly
people will never listen to you if you ask them to renounce everything and
devote themselves whole-heartedly to God. Therefore Chaitanya and Nitai, after
some deliberation, made an arrangement to attract the worldly. They would say
to such persons, 'Come, repeat the name of Hari, and you shall have a delicious
soup of magur fish and the embrace of a young woman.' Many people, attracted by
the fish and the woman, would chant the name of God. After tasting a little of
the nectar of God's hallowed name, they would soon realize that the 'fish soup'
really meant the tears they shed for love of God, while the 'young woman'
signified the earth. The embrace of the woman meant rolling on the ground in
the rapture of divine love.
"Nitai would employ any means to make people repeat Hari's name. Chaitanya
said: 'The name of God has very great sanctity. It may not produce an immediate
result, but one day it must bear fruit. It is like a seed that has been left on
the cornice of a building. After many days the house crumbles, and the seed
falls on the earth, germinates, and at last bears fruit.'
"As worldly people are endowed with sattva, rajas, and tamas, so also is
bhakti characterized by the three gunas.
"Do you know what a worldly person endowed with sattva is like? Perhaps
his house is in a dilapidated condition here and there. He doesn't care to
repair it. The worship hall may be strewn with pigeon droppings and the courtyard
covered with moss, but he pays no attention to these things. The furniture of
the house may be old; he doesn't think of polishing it and making it look neat.
He doesn't care for dress at all; anything is good enough for him. But the man
himself is very gentle, quiet, kind, and humble; he doesn't injure anyone:
"Again, among the worldly there are people with the traits of rajas. Such
a man has a watch and chain, and two or three rings on his fingers. The
furniture of his house is all spick and span. On the walls hang portraits of
the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and other prominent people; the building is
whitewashed and spotlessly clean. His wardrobe is filled with a large
assortment of clothes; even the servants have their livery, and all that.
"The traits of a worldly man endowed with tamas are sleep, lust, anger,
egotism, and the like.
"Similarly, bhakti, devotion, has its sattva. A devotee who possesses it
meditates on God in absolute secret, perhaps inside his mosquito net. Others
think he is asleep. Since he is late in getting up, they think perhaps he has
not slept well during the night. His love for the body goes only as far as
appeasing his hunger, and that only by means of rice and simple greens. There
is no elaborate arrangement about his meals, no luxury in clothes, and no
display of furniture. Besides, such a devotee never flatters anybody for money.
"An aspirant possessed of rajasic bhakti puts a tilak (A mark of sandal-paste or other material to
denote one's religious affiliation.) on his forehead and a necklace of holy rudraksha
beads, interspersed with gold ones, around his neck. (All laugh.) At
worship he wears a silk cloth.
"A man endowed with tamasic bhakti has burning faith. Such a devotee
literally extorts boons from God, even as a robber falls upon a man and
plunders his money. 'Bind! Beat! Kill!' — that is his way, the way of the
dacoits."
Source: The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
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