Udai/Friends,
Here is an excerpt from the Gospel where M expresses a wish to be free from worldly duties:
Master:I came to know in an ecstatic mood that, though Niranjan had accepted a job in an office, he would not be stained by it. He is earning money for his mother. There is no harm in that.
The work you are doing won't injure you either. What you are doing is good. Suppose a clerk is sent to jail; he is shut up there and chained, and at last he is released. Does he cut capers after his release? Of course not. He works again as a clerk. It is not your intention to accumulate money. You only want to support your family. Otherwise, where will they go?
M: I shall be relieved if someone takes charge of them.
MASTER: That is true. But now do 'this' as well as 'that'
M: It is great luck to be able to renounce everything.
MASTER: That is true. But people act according to their inherent tendencies. You have a few more duties to perform. After these are over you will have peace. Then you will be released. A man cannot easily get out of the hospital once his name is registered there. He is discharged only when he is completely cured.
This is the beauty of the Gospel....every aspiration,wish,difficulty,desperation,hope,diffidence that a spiritual aspirant is beset is reflected and the master comes down to that level and allays it with reassurance...there is nothing that is not covered here and the earnest aspirant will get all the guidance and inspiration that he needs to put him on track and encourage him onward.
M always cherished sannyasa as the highest ideal...he had an ardent desire to embrace it but the master always dissuaded him and advised him to continue to perform his duties as a householder while uncompromisingly pursuing the spiritual path...Yet,such was M's earnestness to see if he had true inner renunciation and he often put that to test!
In the book 'A Search in Secret India'he tells paul Brunton:
One day the master said to me:' " I can see from the signs of your eyes, brow and face that you are a Yogi. Do all your work then, but keep your mind on God. Wife, children, father and mother, live with all and serve them as if they are your own. The tortoise swims about in the waters of the lake, but her mind is fixed to where her eggs are laid on the banks. So, do all the work of the world but keep the mind in God.'
"And so, after the passing away of our master, when most of the other disciples voluntarily renounced the world, adopted the yellow robe, and trained themselves to spread Ramakrishna's message through India, I did not give up my profession but carried on with my work in education. Nevertheless, such was my determination not to be of the world although I was in it, that on some nights I would retire at dead of night to the open veranda before the Senate House and sleep among the homeless beggars of the city, who usually collected there to spend the night. This used to make me feel, temporarily at least, that I was a man with no possessions".
namaskar
