Sri Ramakrishna: Do you know what is Maya? Love towards one's own father, brother, sister, wife, child, nephew, niece, is called Maya, and compassion means loving all beings equally. Now what is this, my anxiety, due to--Maya or compassion? But Hridai did a great deal for me. He served me much. He never hesitated to do all sorts of menial services for me. My mind will be set at rest if he can get the money he needs. Now whom am I to ask for money? And how can I ask, being a Sannyasin?

At two or three o'clock in the afternoon two great devotees, Adhar [**] and Balaram, came and prostrated themselves before Him and took their seats. They asked Him how He was doing. The Bhagavan replied: "Well, my body is all right, but not so is the mind." He did not mention anything about Hridaya's illness.

ii

In the course of the conversation, when the talk was about the Goddess Simhavahini [**] (seated upon a lion) belonging to the Mullik family of Barabazar, He said: Once I went to see the Simhavahini. She was then staying in one Mullik's house at Chashadhopapara. The house was almost a deserted one. The family had become very poor. In some places there was filth, in other places mosses were growing undisturbed. The cement upon the wall was crumbling down, and brick-dust and sand were slowly falling. Other houses belonging to the Mulliks are very neat and clean, but this was not so. Can you explain why this was the case? The truth is that everyone must reap the fruit of his past actions. [Law of Karma.] We should believe in the law of Karma. One thing, however, I saw in that deserted house,--that the face of the Goddess was beaming with glory. [The Divine Presence in images.] We should believe in the Divine Presence infilling the images of the Deity.

I went to Vishnupura. [**] The Raja has several good temples. In one of the temples there is the image of a Goddess named Mrinmayi. A big tank is before the temple. But how was it that I smelled in the tank the spices that women use to perfume their hair? I did not know that they offered such spices to the Goddess when they went to worship her. I had not seen her image near the tank, but in Samadhi I saw her Divine form down to her waist. The Divine Mother of the universe appeared to me in the form of Mrinmayi.

By this time other devotees had arrived. The talk then turned on the Kabul war and the civil war that came after. One gave the news that Yakub Khan [*+] had been deposed from his throne, adding: Sir, Yakub Khan is a great devotee.

[Trials of a devotee.] Sri Ramakrishna: Well, pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, are things one cannot separate from the body. We read in Kavi Kankana's [*++] "Chandi" that Kaluvira, a great devotee, was shut up in prison.