- Swami Vivekananda

In the Shastras real self-surrender and reliance on God has been indicated as the culmination of human achievement. But in your country nowadays the way people speak of Daiva or reliance on Divine dispensation is a sign of death, the outcome of great cowardliness; conjuring up some monstrous idea of God-head and trying to saddle that with all your faults and shortcomings.

Haven’t you heard Shri Ramakrishna’s story about “the sin of killing a cow”? In the end the owner of the garden had to suffer for the sin of killing the cow.. Nowadays everybody says: “I am acting as I am being directed by the Lord”, and thus throws the burden of both his sins and virtues on the Lord. As if he is himself the lotus-leaf in the water (untouched by it)! If everybody can truly live always in this mood, then he is a Free Soul.

But what really happens is that for the “good” I have the credit, but the “bad” Thou, God, art responsible! Praise be to such reliance on God! Without the attainment of the fullness of Knowledge or Divine Love, such a state of absolute reliance on the Lord does not come. He who is truly and sincerely reliant on the Lord goes beyond all idea of the duality of good and bad.

The brightest example of the attainment of this state among us at the present time is Nag Mahashaya. Shri Ramakrishna used to compare him to King Janaka. A man with such control over all the senses one does not hear of even, much less come across. You must associate with him as much as you can. He is one of Shri Ramakrishna’s nearest disciples.