Q & A-4: How ought we to live in the world?

"Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Live with all - with wife and children, father and mother - and serve them. Treat them as if they were very dear to you, but know in your heart of hearts that they do not belong to you.

A maidservant in the house of a rich man performs all the household duties, but her thoughts are fixed on her own home in the village. She brings up her master's children as if they were her own. She even speaks of 'my Rama' or 'my Hari'. But in her own mind she knows very well that they do not belong to her.

The tortoise moves about in the water. But can you guess where her thoughts are? There on the bank, where her eggs are lying. Do all your duties in the world, but keep your mind on God.

If you enter the world without first cultivating love for God, you will be entangled more and more. You will be overwhelmed with its danger, its grief, its sorrows. And the more you think of worldly things, the more you get attached to them.

First rub your hands with oil and then open the jack-fruit; otherwise they will be smeared with its sticky milk. First secure the oil of divine love, and then set your hands to the duties of the world.

But one must go into solitude to attain this divine love. To get butter from milk, you must let it set into curd in a secluded spot: if it is too much disturbed, milk won't turn into curd. Next, you must put aside all other duties, sit in a quiet spot, and churn the curd. Only then do you get butter.

Further, by meditating on God in solitude the mind acquires knowledge, dispassion and devotion. But the very same mind goes downward if it dwells in the world. In the world, there is only one thought: "lust and greed".

The world is water and the mind milk. If you pour milk into water they become one; you cannot find the pure milk anymore. But turn the milk into curd and churn it into butter. Then, when that butter is placed in water, it will float. So, practise spiritual discipline in solitude and obtain the butter of knowledge and love. Even if you keep that butter in the water of the world the two will not mix. The butter will not float.

Together with this, you must practise discrimination. 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 cannot be the goal of life. That is the process of discrimination. (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna: Translated into English by Srimat Swami Nikhilanandaji Maharaj)