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you will have helped your own self. If someone else has given you a helping hand, then he too has only helped himself. But this comes within our understanding only after the ultimate experience. Before that, the other is definitely the other.
Question 4
ONCE YOU MENTIONED THAT SHAKTIPAT PROVED TO BE HARMFUL TO VIVEKANANDA.
It was not shaktipat that was harmful for Vivekananda but what followed afterwards. But the idea of gain and loss also pertains to the dream state; it is not beyond dreams.
With the help of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda had a glimpse of samadhi which he would have had on the basis of his own strength, but much later. Now, it is like this: I struck the door with a hammer and the door fell, but I can make the door stand again by fixing the nails into it with the same hammer. The hammer that can bring down the door can fix it also -- but it is the same hammer working in both the cases.
Ramakrishna had some difficulties for which he had to make use of Vivekananda. Ramakrishna was a complete rustic, unlearned, uneducated. His experience was profound but he had no means of expressing it, conveying it. It was necessary for him to use another person as a vehicle, as a medium to make his experience known to the world. If this had not been so you would never have heard of Ramakrishna. It was out of his compassion that he tried to convey to you his experiences through another person.
If I have come upon some treasure in my house and if I am lame and I climb upon the shoulders of another man to deliver the treasure to your house, I will be making use of this man's shoulders. He will be put to a little inconvenience and trouble by carrying me, but my intention was only to deliver the treasure to you. But because I am lame, and the treasure may be unclaimed for all time, I cannot even go out and give the news.
This problem was there with Ramakrishna; it was not so with Buddha. In Buddha's personality both Ramakrishna and Vivek-ananda were present together. Buddha could express what he knew; Ramakrishna could not express what he knew. He needed another person who could be a vehicle for his expression. So he showed
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