But he cannot climb down from that state or tell others what he has seen there :

To,



All Members,




There are different planes of consciousness: the gross, the subtle, the causal, and the Great Cause.

Entering the Mahakarana, the Great Cause, one becomes silent; one cannot utter a word.

But an Isvarakoti, after attaining the Great Cause, can come down again to the lower planes.

Incarnations of God, and others like them, belong to the class of the Isvarakotis.

They climb up, and they can also come down.

They climb to the roof, and they can come down again by the stairs and move about on a lower floor.

It is a case of negation and affirmation.

There is, for instance, the seven-storey palace of a king.

Strangers have access only to the lower apartments; but the prince, who knows the palace to be his own, can move up and down from floor to floor.

There is a kind of rocket that throws out sparks in one pattern and then seems to go out.

After a moment it makes another pattern, and then still another.

There is no end to the patterns it can make.

But there is another kind of rocket that, when it is lighted, makes only a dull sound, throws out a few sparks, and then goes out altogether.

Like this second kind, an ordinary jiva, after much spiritual effort, can go to a higher plane; but he cannot come down to tell others his experiences.

After much effort he may go into samadhi; but he cannot climb down from that state or tell others what he has seen there.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

-From the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna