Page:The Gospel of Râmakrishna.djvu/116

 and give very little milk; but there are other cows who eat all kinds of grass and give plenty of milk. The Jnanis may be compared to the former, and the Bhaktas to the latter. The highest of the Bhaktas take both the Absolute and the phenomenal; therefore when they come down from the Absolute to the plane of relativity, they continue to enjoy the Absolute through the phenomenal. (To Mahima) You explain Om as containing three letters, A-u-m. Mahima: Revered Sir, A-u-m means creation, preservation and destruction. Ramakrishna: But for me it is like the sound d-o-n-g of a big bell, which is at first audible, then inaudible, and ultimately melts away into infinite space. So the phenomenal melts away in the Absolute; the gross, subtle and causal states lose themselves in the Great Cause, the Absolute; the waking, dream and dreamless sleep states become merged in the fourth state, Samadhi. When the bell sounds, it creates waves like those in the ocean when a heavy stone is thrown into it. From the Absolute phenomena come out, from the same Absolute, which is the great First Cause, have also evolved the gross, subtle and causal bodies.