IF a devotee believes one hundred per cent that his Chosen Ideal is God, then he attains God and sees Him.
People of bygone generations had tremendous faith. What faith Haladhari’s1 father had! Once he was on the way to his daughter’s house when he noticed some beautiful flowers and Bel leaves. He gathered them for the worship of the family Deity and walked back five or six miles to his own house.
Once, a theatrical troupe in the village was enacting the life of Rama. When Kaikeyi asked Rama to go into exile in the forest, Haladhari’s father, who had been watching the performance, sprang up. He went to the actor who played Kaikeyi, crying out, “You wretch!”, and was about to burn the actor’s face with a torch.
He was a very pious man. After finishing his ablutions he would stand in the water and meditate on the Deity, reciting the invocation: “I meditate on Thee, of red hue and four faces,” while tears streamed down his cheeks. (68)
- A priest in the temple garden at Dakshineswar and a cousin of Sri Ramakrishna. ↩︎