MAYA AS 'WOMAN AND GOLD' - THE BONDAGE OF SEX

[The bondage of sex—Sex and spiritual progress— How to conquer sex ?—Riches and the spiritual aspirant]

THE BONDAGE OF SEX

66. What is Maya ? It is lust which forms an obstacle to spiritual progress.

67. Is it Maya or Meye (woman, sex) which has devoured everything ?

68. Souls enmeshed in worldliness cannot resist the temptation of ' woman and gold' and direct their minds to God, even though these things bring upon them a thousand humiliations.

69. Be careful, O householders 1 Put not too much confidence in women; they establish their mastery over you very insidiously !

70. You cannot live in a sooty room, and at the same time escape being somewhat blackened in spite of all your caution. So also, if a man lives in the company of women, some carnality, however little, is bound to arise in him, to even though he may be very circumspect and has his senses under control.

In reading the sayings contained in this chapter and others, where reference is made to Kamini-Kanchana, 'woman and gold', one must specially bear in mind that the Master is propounding no cult of woman-hatred. The study of his sayings in their entirety, as well as perusal of the Introduction this Volume, will show that his attitude towards womankind was one of profound respect bordering on worship. For he saw in them a symbol of the Divine Mother of the universe in a special sense. It was in this light that he himself viewed all women, and he wanted his devotees also to cultivate the same attitude. But at the same time he impressed on his disciples that when viewed with a sensual eye, ' woman ' was the greatest danger to the spiritual aspirant. Of course, by ' woman ' he meant ' sex ' or ' carnality '; but the great teacher that he was, with deep insight into the workings of the human mind, he preferred to use the concrete for the abstract, and always spoke of the bondage of ' woman ' and not of ' sex '. His motive must have been purely psychological ; for speaking on the same subject to his women devotees, he used to warn them against the dangers from 'man '. Since his teachings were all recorded by men devotees, we naturally get warnings against dangers from ' woman ' only, and not from ' man '. Just as ' woman ' stands for sex, ' gold ' stands for the acquisitive instinct, and is a concrete representation of all the material things that men value and like to possess. The correct English expression for it is ' wealth ' or ' riches'.

71. If pitchers of ice-cold water and bottles of savoury sauces are placed near a man who is suffering from very high fever and is semi-delirious, do you think that it is possible for him, thirsty and restless that he is, to resist the temptation of drinking the water or tasting the sauces? Similarly the worldly man who suffers from the high fever of lust, and is thirsty for sensual pleasures, cannot resist temptations when he is placed between the charms of beauty on one side, and those of wealth on the other. He is sure to deviate from the path of devotion.

72. Once a Marwari gentleman approached Sri Ramakrishna and said, " How is it, Sir, that I do not see God although I have renounced everything?

The Master: Well, haven't you seen leather jars for keeping oil ? If one of them is emptied of its contents, still it retains something of the oil as well as its smell In the same way there is still some worldliness left in you, and its odour persists.

73. ' Woman and gold ', remember, keep men immersed in worldliness and away from God. It is strange that no one has anything but praise for his own wife, be she good, bad or indifferent.

74. As the monkey sacrifices his life at the feet of the hunter, so does a man at the feet of a beautiful woman.