Experiencing union

Ramakrisha:

There is the saying: "I don't want to become sugar; I want to eat it." I never feel like saying, "I am Brahman." I say, "Thou art my Lord and I am Thy servant." My desire is to sing God's name and glories. It is very good to look on God as the Master and on oneself as His servant. Further, you see, people speak of the waves as belonging to the Ganges; but no one says that the Ganges belongs to the waves. The feeling "I am He" is not wholesome... He deceives himself as well as others. He cannot understand his own state of mind.
(pp. 230-231)

Ramakrishna, placing his hand over his heart:

There are two person in this (body). One, the Divine Mother... And the other is Her devotee.
(p. 478)

Ramakrishan:

I have seen that He and the one who dwells in my heart are one and the same Person.

Narendra:

Yes, yes! Soham -- I am He.

Ramakrishan:

But only a line divides the two -- that I may enjoy divine bliss.
(p. 487)

From Appenidix B on Tantra:

During this upward journey of the Kundalini, the jiva is not quite released from the relative state till it reaches the sixth centre of plane, which is the centre (... located at the junction of the eyebrows) where the jiva sheds its ego and burns the seed of duality, and its higher self rises from the ashes of its lower self. It now dies physically, as it were, in order to be able to live in Pure Consciousness. The sixth centre is the key by which the power in the thousand-petalled lotus in the cerebrum, which is like the limitless ocean, is switched on to the little reservoir which is the individual self, filling the latter and making it overflow and cease to be the little reservoir. Finally the Kundalini rises to the lotus at the cerebrum and becomes united with Shiva, or the Absolute; and the aspirant realizes, in the transcendental consciousness, his union with Shiva-Shakti.
(p. 581-582)

Ramakrishna:

When one realizes Svarupa, the true nature of one's Self, one attains a state that is something between asti, is, and nasti, is not.

Narendra (aside to Mahendranath):

It is a state in which contradictions meet... In that state both activity and non-activity are possible; that is to say, one then performs unselfish action.
(p. 485)

Narendra:

Like an insane person I ran out of our house. (Ramakrishna) asked me, "What do you want?" I replied, "I want to remain immersed in samadhi." He said: "What a small mind you have! Go beyond samadhi! Samadhi is a very trifling thing."
(p. 539)

©1999 by Deb Platt