‘Attraction causes sufferings’

Sri Ramakrishna led an extraordinarily spiritual life.  He had innumerable spiritual experiences.  Some devotees would ask Sri Ramakrishna about the nature of spiritual experiences.  Although sometimes, when he would be in an exalted mood, he would give his devotees glimpses of his great experiences. But normally, he would refrain from sharing the details of those experiences for they would have been beyond the grasp of the devotees.  He would often quote an example to drive home his point.  Once a young girl told her newly married friend, “You now have a husband.  Can you tell me how you enjoy him?”  The friend answered, “What can I say?  You will know it yourself when you will have your own.”  All humans except for a few, rare individuals live in the domain of senses.  All their experiences are through the indriyas or the sense organs.  Although these are transitory and perishable in nature, human beings get attracted to worldly experiences and hence, suffer endlessly.  They cannot look inside the spiritual world.  Unless one realizes the utter briefness of the world and the worldly experiences, it is impossible to enter the world of spirit.  Through the hard blows that one receives in the world, if one develops vairagya or dispassion, then one tends to discriminate through viveka.  Then it dawns on such aspirants that one has to go beyond the body and the mind to enter the world of spirit.  This is how a long journey of intense sadhana, or spiritual striving, begins.  Slowly, after years of intense struggle, one gets a glimpse of the world of transcendence i.e. the world beyond body and mind.  Only if one reaches this level of spiritual maturity, it is possible to have spiritual experiences, or understand experiences of other sadhakas. That is why Sri Ramakrishna would share his spiritual experiences only with spiritual aspirants like Narendra (later Swami Vivekananda).