Page:The Gospel of Râmakrishna.djvu/179

 if a Pandit studies Sanskrit, he will readily quote verses from Sacred Books. If you keep your mind in evil company, your thoughts, ideas and words will be colored with evil; but keep in the company of Bhaktas, then your thoughts, ideas and words will be of God. The mind is everything. On one side is the wife, on the other side is the child; it loves the wife in one way and the child in another way, yet the mind is the same. By the mind one is bound; by the mind one is freed. If I think I am absolutely free, whether I live in the world or in the forest, where is my bondage? I am the child of God, the son of the King of kings; who can bind me? When bitten by a snake, if you assert with firmness, "There is no venom in me," you will be cured. In the same way, he who asserts with strong conviction "I am not bound, I am free," be-comes free. Some one gave me a book of the Christians. I asked him to read it to me. In it there was only one theme—sin and sin, from the beginning to the end. (To Keshab) In your Brahmo-Samaj the main topic is also sin. The fool who repeats again and again, "I am bound, I am bound," remains in bondage.