Sri Ramakrishna: “Before you came here, you didn’t know who you were. Now you will know. It is God who, as the guru, makes one know. “Nangta told the story of the tigress and the herd of goats. Once a tigress attacked a herd of goats. A hunter saw her from a distance and killed her.
The tigress was pregnant and gave birth to a cub as she expired. The cub began to grow in the company of the goats. At first it was nursed by the she-goats, and later on, as it grew bigger, it began to eat grass and bleat like the goats. Gradually the cub became a big tiger; but still it ate grass and bleated.
When attacked by other animals, it would run away, like the goats. One day a fierce-looking tiger attacked the herd. It was amazed to see a tiger in the herd eating grass and running away with the goats at its approach. It left the goats and caught hold of the grass-eating tiger, which began to bleat and tried to run away.
But the fierce tiger dragged it to the water and said: ‘Now look at your face in the water. You see, you have the face of a tiger; it is exactly like mine.’ Next it pressed a piece of meat into its mouth. At first the grass-eating tiger refused to eat the meat. Then it got the taste of the meat and relished it.
At last the fierce tiger said to the grass-eater: ‘What a disgrace! You lived with the goats and ate grass like them!’ And the other was really ashamed of itself. “Eating grass is like enjoying ‘woman and gold’. To bleat and run away like a goat is to behave like an ordinary man. Going away with the new tiger is like taking shelter with the guru, who awakens one’s spiritual consciousness, and recognizing him alone as one’s relative. To see one’s face rightly is to know one’s real Self.”
Sri Ramakrishna stood up. There was silence all around, disturbed only by the gentle rustling of the pine-needles and the murmuring of the Ganges. The Sri Ramakrishna went to the Panchavati and then to his room, talking all the while with M. The disciple followed him, fascinated. At the Panchavati Sri Ramakrishna touched with his forehead the raised platform around the banyan-tree.
This was the place of his intense spiritual discipline, where he had wept bitterly for the vision of the Divine Mother, where he had held intimate communion with Her, and where he had seen many divine forms. The Sri Ramakrishna and M. passed the cluster of bakul-trees and came to the nahabat. Hazra was there.
The Sri Ramakrishna said to him: “Don’t eat too much, and give up this craze for outer cleanliness. People with a craze do not attain Knowledge. Follow conventions only as much as necessary. Don’t go to excess.” The Sri Ramakrishna entered his room and sat on the couch.
Source: from book “Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna”