usual, and after finishing his work he came home and found his wife and the other members of the family still weeping and wailing and plunged in deep sorrow. The wife reproached him, saying: "How heartless you are! you have not shed a single tear for your only child." The farmer then calmly replied: "Shall I tell you why I do not weep? Last night I had a wonderful dream. I saw that I was a king, and the father of eight beautiful children, and that I was enjoying all the pleasures and comforts of life. Suddenly I woke up and the dream passed away. Now I am in great confusion,--whether I shall weep and wail for my eight children or for this only one." The farmer was an Advaita Jnani, therefore he realized that the waking state was as unreal as the dream state, and that the one permanent Reality was Atman. But I accept all states as true,--the state of Samadhi, which is the fourth state, and again, the waking, dream and dreamless sleep state. I accept Brahman the Absolute and Maya, Jiva (the individual soul) and the world. If I do not take all, a portion will be missing and the weight will be less.

A devotee: How could the weight be less?

Ramakrishna: Brahman the Absolute is with

[The Absolute and the phenomenal.] the individual souls and the phenomenal world. First, when a person is discriminating by saying: "Not this, not this," he leaves the individual egos and the phenomenal world aside; then after reaching the Absolute, when he returns, he realizes that the Absolute appears as the phenomenal world. In a wood-apple there are seeds, pulp and the shell. When I take the pulp, I leave out the seeds and the shell; but when I speak of the weight of the wood-apple, the weight of the pulp alone would not be equal to it. You will have to weigh the pulp, seeds, shell and everything. That which has pulp has also seeds and shell. Similarly, that which is the Absolute has also all phenomena. Therefore I take both the Absolute Reality and the phenomenal reality. I do not blow away the phenomenal world by calling it a dream, because then the weight will be less.

Mahima: This is a wonderful harmony. From the Absolute to the phenomenal and from the phenomenal to the Absolute.

Ramakrishna: Those who are Jnanis (monists) look at the world as a dream, but the realistic Bhaktas take every state as real. There are some cows who pick only certain tufts of grass

and give very little milk; but there are other cows who eat all kinds of grass and give plenty of milk. The Jnanis may be compared to the former, and the Bhaktas to the latter. The highest of the Bhaktas take both the Absolute and the phenomenal; therefore when they come down from the Absolute to the plane of relativity, they continue to enjoy the Absolute through the phenomenal. [Meaning of Om.] (To Mahima) You explain Om as containing three letters, A-u-m.