[The Absolute Brahman.] Sri Ramakrishna: What remains is the Absolute, called in the Vedas Nityasuddha-bodharupam (the unchangeable, the absolutely pure source of all knowledge). But how shall I explain it to you? Suppose some one asks you what is the taste of Ghee (clarified butter) like? Is it possible to define it? The utmost that you can say is that it is precisely like the taste of Ghee. A young girl once asked a friend: "Your husband is come: tell me what sort of joy you feel when you meet him?': Thereupon the married friend replied: "My dear, you will know everything when you have got a husband of your own; how can I explain it to you?"

In the Puranas we are told that the Mother of the Universe incarnated Herself as the daughter of the presiding god of the Himalayas Just after she was born, the king of the mountains was blessed with a vision of the various manifestations of the Omnipotent Mother.

[paragraph continues] Then he said: "O Mother! Let me see Brahman about whom there is so much in the Vedas." The child Incarnate thereupon said: "O father if thou wishest to see the Absolute Brahman thou must associate with the holy sages who have renounced everything. What the Absolute Brahman is cannot be expressed in words." The Tantra has well said: "All things with the sole exception of God the Absolute, have become defiled like leavings of food." The idea is that the Sacred Scriptures of the world having been read and recited with the aid of the tongue have got defiled like food thrown out of the mouth. The Absolute Brahman, however, no one has ever been able to describe by word of mouth. Therefore it is said that the Absolute is not defiled by the mouth. Again, who can express in words the blissful joy that one experiences in the company of the Lord and in communion with the Absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda. He alone knows who has been blessed with such realization.

Addressing the doctor, Sri Ramakrishna continued: True knowledge does not come until egotism is entirely gone.

"When shall I be free?" When "I" shall cease to be. The sense of "I" and "mine" is

[Egotism and knowledge.] ignorance. The sense of "Thou" and "Thine" is knowledge. A true Bhakta says: "O Lord! Thou art the doer, Thou hast created everything, I am nothing but an instrument in Thy hands. I do only whatever Thou makest me do. All this is Thy wealth, Thy glory. Thine is the Universe, Thine, the family, Thine the relatives. Nothing belongs to me, I am Thy servant. Thine is to command and mine is to serve Thee with my whole heart and soul."[Prayer of a true Bhakta.]