Page:The Gospel of Râmakrishna.djvu/321

 glories, they form a class of their own. To this class belong the Incarnations of God like Christ, Krishna, Buddha, and Chaitanya and their dev- otees of the highest order. The two characteristics of ecstatic love are, first, the forgetfulness of the external world, and second, the forgetfulness of one's

own body which is so dear to one. The first is like the unripe mango, the second is like the ripe mango. Ecstatic love of God is like a string in the hands of the Bhakta which binds God. The devotee holds the Lord under his control, so to speak. The Lord must come to him whenever he calls out to Him. In Per- sian books it is written that within the flesh are the bones, within the bones is the marrow, within the marrow, the last and innermost of all, is this ecstatic love. Sri Krishna is called "Tribhanga," that is, the usual posture of His body is bent in three different angles. Now a soft substance alone can take such an angular shape, so this form of Sri Krishna implies that His whole being must have been made very tender by this ecstatic love. Chaitanya Deva was the incarnation of Divine Love or Bhakti. He came to teach mankind true Bhakti. He used to have three states of