GOSPEL OF RAMAKRISHNA
ing waters of the rivulet, talking and singing. This shows that they too kept this ego of knowledge. They were Jnanis (knowers), but they talked and sang the praises of the Personal God for the good of others. A steamboat not only reaches its destination itself but also carries numbers of people on board to the same place. Preceptors such as Narada are like steamboats. The Avataras or Incarnations of God are born with Divine powers and Divine qualities. They can go anywhere and can stay Avataras. in any state of existence from the highest to the lowest. They can stand on the top of the house and come down by the stairs to the ground floor and can go back to the roof again. They possess the power both to come down and to return. In a seven-story palace a stranger can go only to the outer quarters, but the king's own child, the prince of the house, is free to go to every corner.
As in fireworks there is a kind of flower-pot which sends off one kind of flower for a while, then another kind and still another, Avataras and ordinary Jivas. possessing, as it were, an innumer- able variety of flowers, so are the Avataras. Then there is another kind of flower-
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