Lecture in Ranchi Mission The Redeeming Power of Sri Ramakrishna & The Problem of Drinking Some of you might

be thinking if the problem of drinking is a good topic for a monk to be speaking upon. Some of you might be thinking if a monk can indeed speak at all on this topic. Let me tell you something first of all. You all know of the famous greased pole and the monkey story. There was a long pole fixed on the ground. A monkey wanted to climb to its top. When it tried, it found that for every three feet that it rose, it slipped down by two feet. Why? Because the pole was covered with grease! Most of you have been associated with Ramakrishna Mission here at Ranchi for quite some time now. The wonderful ideas that you get from this place are very powerful. By now, a tremendous revolution in your personality should have already been brought about by these ideas. Well, in some cases, that is indeed the case. But, in many other cases, we find that the impact of these ideas is quite transient. Why is that? Because the personality is greased with addictions like drinking, ganja, substance-abuse, etc.! It is due to this reason that we monks have had to give some thought into this terrible problem of drinking in society. This problem is undoing the positive work that we are doing on people who come into our contact. This problem is creating a back-drag on our work, and that is frustrating. Sri Ramakrishna gives a wonderful example to explain this phenomenon. He speaks of a ricefield. A rice-field has to be filled with water after the rice saplings are sown in the ground. This water has to be held within the field for a few days, for rice cultivation needs all that water. So, mud walls are built all around the rice-field, which holds the water inside. But the farmers face a constant problem. They find that the water seeps out. How does the water seep out? Rats make holes in the mud walls and water runs out through those holes! Sri Ramakrishna says that these problems we have in our personality are those holes made by rats. Due to these holes in our personality, we are unable to profit from the grace we receive from our Guru and God. Naturally, some thought must be given to fixing these holes in our personality. And that is the reason why monks like me have to think about these issues! Let us see why people drink, in the first place. With the majority of people, alcohol is not the problem; it is the answer to their problems! Most people are unable to face the problems of life. Therefore they drink. Short-sighted people fall for the instant stupefaction that alcohol and other intoxicants confer on them, dulling their senses and drowning their awareness of real problems. Let me tell you a story. A young man once joined the Army. He was brief by his commander on how he should behave in the Army. The commander said, Son, listen to me. Be punctual, obey orders implicitly and do not drink. You will find that in twenty years time, you too will be a platoon commander like me. The young man replied, Sir, but when I drink, I immediately become the General! Such is the immense power of these intoxicants.

Page 1 of 4

Lecture in Ranchi Mission History is replete with examples of the horror wrought by liquor. Alexander the Great fell from grace as the greatest conqueror of the world due to his addiction to liquor. The formidable Roman Empire crumbled only because its citizens were addicted to liquor. The downfall of the Mughal Empire was also due to the addiction of the Emperors to liquor. Michael Angelo, the great Italian artist, was commissioned for painting the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. He wanted to depict the entire life of Jesus Christ on the walls of the Chapel. He started with the birth of the Lord. He wanted a suitable childs face for the Bambino. He went searching in the villages of Tuscany. In one house, he found a new born baby with a cherubic face which he selected as the face of the Bambino. He requested the mother for modelling with her child for the famous nativity scene in the Sistine Chapel. Then he went on painting the different scenes from the Lords life. Many years late r, he came to the point when he had to paint the scene where the Lord was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. He now sought a sufficiently devilish face to depict Judas, one who sold the Lord to the enemies for a mere 30 pieces of silver. He went searching the different prisons in Tuscany and Alsace. In one prison he saw a most dangerous criminal whose face seemed to be the very personification of the Devil. He talked to him to pose for Judas. The prisoner recognized Michael Angelo. Michael Angelo was frightened that this demon knew him! The prisoner then told him that his mother had told him that when he was a baby, a famous painter had come to his village looking for a babys face cherubic enough to represent the infant Jesus. Then the prisoner confessed that he had been the baby that had posed for the Bambino! Michael Angelo was flabbergasted. Such is the horror that alcohol can wreak on a personality! Then there is the staggering variety that intoxication takes. People use all sorts of items for whetting their appetites for a kick. I worked in the hills of North-East and have sufficient exposure to this menace among the youths. Alcohol is just one of them. Youths today use all sorts of narcotics like marijuana and bhang. Then there is the abuse of petroleum products like industrial adhesives [dendrite, fevicol, etc]. Further, I know how youths use the medicinal gauze in Band-Aids for intoxication! If I continue to list the variety of things that youths use for getting their daily high or kick, some of you may get repulsed. You may ask why the Government doesnt do anything about this, at least about alcohol. Well, truth be told, the Government wouldnt be very happy in promulgating Prohibition, for sale of liquor is a major source of income for any Government! Yet, we find that many Governments do enforce Prohibition. But none of those Prohibition Orders ever work successfully, for we find that people trade and buy liquor under the Governments radar, on the sly. Moreover, all that the Government can do is control the sale of liquor in legal outlets. What can the Government do about the massive illegal production of bootleg liquor that every house in Indian villages indulges in! So, I hold that there is no point in blaming the poor Government regarding this issue. The only viable option is to educate the people and build awareness among the masses against the use of liquor. The main question is how can one wean oneself from this terrible addiction? Is there any way out? The problem is that in most cases, even when the person understands that he wants to stop drinking, he is unable to! Two friends were walking on the banks of a river. They saw a beautiful woolen blanket float by. One of them jumped in to get it. After some time, when he didnt return, the one stand ing on the bank shouted, Why are you not coming back? The other friend shouted back, I am unable to. The one on the bank shouted again, Leave the damned blanket and come back. To this, the friend in the river

Page 2 of 4

Lecture in Ranchi Mission shouted back, I left it long back; now, it has caught me! The thing was a Bear! They had mistaken it to be a blanket. Now, the Bear had caught the man and wouldnt let go of him. That would be his end. Similar is the case with people addicted to drinking. We can find a very viable way out from this despicable habit by the grace of Sri Ramakrishna. We shall outline how this can be done. Kalipada Ghosh was a confirmed alcoholic. He once came completely drunk to Dakshineswar. Why had he come there? A friend had told him that the holy man living there also would get completely intoxicated! Actually he was referring to the divine afflatus that Sri Ramakrishna experienced often by chanting the name of God. Quite often he would lose himself in the bliss of the divine name and in such conditions, outwardly, he would reel almost like a drunkard would! The friend was referring to this. So, one fine day, Kalipada Ghosh came to Dakshineswar, drunk. He saw Sri Ramakrishna and directly asked him if what he had heard, about a very heady drink being dispensed from there, was true. Sri Ramakrishna humoured him and said that he did indeed have a most heady wine with him and teased him that he wouldnt stand its impact. Kalipada then inquired if it was foreign liquor, if it was so strong! And Sri Ramakrishna replied, No. This is completely local make! Thus started a wonderful relationship between the debauched drunkard Kalipada Ghosh and Sri Ramakrishna. Kalipadas close friend was Girish Chandra Ghosh, the famous dramatist and notorious bohemian of the age. When Girish Ghosh came to Sri Ramakrishna, he used to brag that he had consumed so much liquor in his life that if one were to collect all the bottles, the pile would be higher than the Mt. Everest! In other words, he was an inveterate alcoholic. It is a testament to the great redeeming power of Sri Ramakrishna that both these great bohemians were weaned off from the death-grip of liquor addiction. A study of how exactly Sri Ramakrishna helped them do this would be very fruitful to many people today. Sri Ramakrishnas technique was unique. He never once ordered them to desist from drinking. In fact, there were even times when he instructed one of his attendants to collect the half-consumed liquor bottle from the horse-drawn carriage in which Girish or Kalipada came to him, for their use later on! All that he did was this: He accepted them as they were! He just told them very naturally that each time they drank, they were to offer the liquor mentally to Mother Kali, and then consume it. In due course of time, both were freed from the curse of the addiction. From this, we learn that we can do the same thing even now. For, the laws of psychology tell us that what happened once to one man can happen to another person, if the same mental state can be achieved. Both Girish and Kalipada had intense faith in Sri Ramakrishna, in his redeeming power. We too shall develop a similar faith in the redeeming power of Sri Ramakrishna, who still continues to work in this world among us in palpable ways. And each time an alcoholic is driven to the bottle, he will mentally offer it to Sri Ramakrishna and will then drink it. Let the person who wants to free himself from this curse do this and in time, he will certainly become free of the addiction. We know of cases that have done this and have achieved full abstinence.

Page 3 of 4

Lecture in Ranchi Mission Faith in the redeeming power of Sri Ramakrishna is the essence here. If he could wean Kalipada Ghosh and Girish Ghosh from the bottle, so too can he wean me - this kind of faith. Let me tell you a story. A missionary once went to a village and caught a hapless man. He went to his house and was pleasantly surprised to see that he had a cross in his house. He was very happy to learn that the rustic indeed believed in Jesus being the savior. He asked the villager, Tell me, my good man, do you read the Bible daily? The villager had no idea what the Bible was. He then asked, Certainly you know who Jesus parents were and how the Lord was conceived by his blessed Mother. Again, the villager looked at him blankly. Exasperated, the conscientious Father asked him, Well, you certainly know how our Lord died on the Cross to save all of us? The poor rustic was again blissfully ignorant of any such event! The Father asked him, How then do you consider yourself a Christian and look upon our Lord as the savior? The villager answered with great feeling, Father, I dont any of the things you talk of; never heard of any such thing. What happened was this: A few years ago, I was a drunkard. I drank and gambled all that I had. My wife and kids went hungry. My family was breaking up. I was shattered. I wanted to free myself from all my gambling and drinking, but couldnt. Then a good friend of mine gave me this cross and said to me, Keep it in your house and ask the power in this idol to help you overcome your problems. I prayed. I freed myself from the curses. Now I am a happy, contented man. Hence I believe this cross is my savior. Similarly, keep a photo of Sri Ramakrishna in your house. Pray to that photo to free you from the addiction you have. The power represented in that photo responds. You can try this out. ****************

Page 4 of 4