Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

62

Sri Ramakrishna

Once upon a time, there lived a Brahmin. Like his tribe elsewhere, he too was poor. Also, like most of his tribe, he was upright. He earned his living by officiating as a priest in several villages whenever the occasion arose —puja, thread-ceremony, deaths and marriages. He lived a contented life in his village Dere. But human contentment depends on so many things. Specially if one is poor. The local zamindar wanted our upright Brahmin to testify falsely in a case. The Brahmin refused.

Thus it was that Khudiram Chattopadhyay left his village Dere to go and settle at Kamarpukur, about seven kilometres away from Dere, and some twenty kilometres south of Burdwan. Both these villages are in the Hooghly District of Bengal. Khudiram got a small mud house with thatched roof, a small plot of land on which stood a few fruit-bearing trees, and a little garden to grow flowers and vegetables.

Khudiram's wife Chandromani was very simple and very kind-hearted. She was already mother of two sons and a daughter —Ram Kumar, Rameshwaram and Katyayani. A poor but contented family.

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One day Khudiram was returning home from another village. He felt quite tired and sat down under the shade of a tree. Then gradually he fell asleep. And he had a dream. His family deity Raghunathji had come and was standing near him pointing to a place and saying, "Oh, take me from there. Take me home and care for me." Startled, Khudiram awoke. He looked around, but no, there was nobody there. He went, however, to the place pointed out by Raghunathji, and was rendered speechless. There was indeed a Shalagram shila¹ half-buried in the earth, and a serpent was shading it with its hood. Both husband and wife installed the Shalagram and worshipped it regularly with great devotion. The fruit of their devotion was not long in coming. Khudiram had gone to Gaya on a pilgrimage. Again he had a dream. Lord Gadadhar² was seated on a jewelled throne, in his radiant form. Looking at Khudiram, He said smilingly, "I shall descend in your house as your son." And, Chandromani, in her village, had exactly the same dream at the same time.

Gadadhar was born on 18 February 1836.³ He was very sweet, this child, and became a pet of the whole village. He had a sweet voice and could sing any song he

1.Shālagram shilā is a black geode worshipped as the symbol of Vishnu.

2.Gadadhar: holder of the mace, another name of Vishnu.

3.This date is according to the officially adopted horoscope, prepared by Narayan Jyotirbhushan. Other astrologers differ in the date of birth (20 February says one), even the year. But all seem to agree that it was a Wednesday), and Shukla Dwitiya (the 2^nd day of the waxing moon) in the month of Phalgun.

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Sri Ramakrishna

ever heard. But he was less than enthusiastic about learning his lessons at the local school. He was left to do pretty much as he liked. One of the reasons being that once in a while this little boy would lose his consciousness. No-no, Reader, rest assured, it was no epilepsy! For example, he was one day playing in a field when he looked up and saw a wedge of cranes flying in the sky. He lost his outward sense, for he was taken into the Infinite. That indeed made sense to him.

But his father died in 1845 when he was nine years old. Life began to change. His brother Ram Kumar finally went to Calcutta to improve the family's situation. Three years later he called his youngest brother to join him there. By then Gadadhar was seventeen years old. He served as a family priest to several households.

In the meantime, Rani Rasmoni had purchased some land in a locality called Dakshineswar which was around eight kilometres from Calcutta. There she built temples and temple gardens. On 31 May 1855, the temple was dedicated, and Ram Kumar was appointed the first priest of the Kali temple. Kali here is known as Bhavatarini—the Deliverer of the world. Gadadhar also was a frequent visitor, and after some time he too became a priest at the Bhavatarini temple of Rani Rasmoni.

Next year, in 1856, his eldest brother passed away.

The same year Gadadhar had his first vision of the Mother.

In 1859, when he was around twenty-three years old, he married a girl of six. Sarada was the daughter of Ramchandra Mukhopadhyay of Jayrambati, a village six kilometres away from Kamarpukur.

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After the marriage Gadadhar returned to Dakshineswar. From this time onward his 'state' changed. While worshipping the image of Mother Kali, he began to see Her divine forms. People thought he had gone mad. Complaints began to reach Mathuranath, the son-in-law of Rani Rasmoni, who in effect ran her estate. He came to see for himself. Seeing was understanding. He realized that this young Brahmin was not mad, not at all, at least not in the ordinary sense. The young man was under the spell of an ecstasy. So Mathur made arrangements to continue with the ritualistic worship by engaging another priest. He also gave strict orders that Gadadhar was not to be disturbed in any way.

Gadadhar told the Mother, "Mother I shall listen to Thee only. I know neither shastras, nor do I recognize pandits. Thou makest me understand, then only shall I accept it." Such friendship developed between this couple of Mother and son! It was the most intimate relationship there could ever be. Like a little child he always asked Mother Kali whether he should do something or not. For example, when the Vedantist Totapuri wanted to initiate him in Vedanta —"I'll give you Nirvikalpa samadhi,¹ will you take it?"—he replied, "I don't know what I should or should not do. Mother knows everything. If She gives Her permission, then only shall I do you bidding." The Vedantist could not control his laughter. What is this weakness to be tied to form I

1. A complete trance in which there is no thought or movement of consciousness or awareness of either inner or outer things.

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The Mother gave Gadadhar Her permission. That day, Totapuri gave initiation to Gadadhar, and made him a sannyasin. Gadadhar became Ramakrishna.

Totapuri was the greatest living Vedantist. He had practised intense sadhana on the banks of the Narmada for forty years before he achieved realisation. And what did this 'idol-worshipper' do? Whit him three days he had mastered all that the Vedantist could teach him, and had entered Nirvikalpa samadhi.

One by one Ramakrishna mastered all the different lines of Hindu spirituality: Tantrism, Vaishnavism, Buddhism, etc. His teacher of Tantrism was a Bhairavi, a Brahmin lady. Not only did Ramakrishna master the intricacies of various lines of Hindu spirituality, but he experienced also the essence of Islam and Christianity ... and found them dry and poor.

Ramakrishna summed up in his life the final message of Hinduism. "In the life of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity, first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example cannot be generalised," Sri Aurobindo wrote in The Synthesis of Yoga.

It was when scepticism had reached its height that the time had come for spirituality to assert itself. "This is the work

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whose consummation Sri Ramakrishna came to begin ... for while others felt God in a single or limited aspect, he felt Him in His illimitable unity as the sum of an illimitable variety. In him the spiritual experiences of the millions of saints who had gone before was renewed and united."

What other religions failed to do or achieve, Hinduism as summed up in the life of the Avatar of Dakshineswar has to attempt for all the world. Nor is it surprising that the soul of India would wake first in the grand workshop of spiritual experiment. "It was in religion first that the soul of India awoke and triumphed. There were always indications, always great forerunners, but it was when the flower of the educated youth of Calcutta bowed down at the feet of an illiterate Hindu ascetic, a self-illuminated ecstatic and 'mystic' without a single trace or touch of the alien thought or education upon him that the battle was won." The battle for our national elasticity and power of self-renovation. The Master-Soul had developed a faculty of direct knowledge, which is above reason and imagination, "the faculty which in Ramakrishna, the supreme outcome of the race, dispensed with education and commanded any knowledge he desired easily and divinely."

When the full knowledge dawns all experiences are embraced in oneself. "That is what Ramakrishna taught by His life and Sadhana," said Sri Aurobindo, "and therefore is He the Avatar of the Age, the One who prepares the future of humanity.... The destruction of bondage, the realisation of freedom, the trampling upon our fetters, that is the first need of the future. It was to give mukti

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Ma Sarada Devi

impose a new bondage. Therefore was Vivekananda His Apostle to the Gentiles, a man who in all things asserted freedom."

Sarada Devi had heard perturbing news of her husband. People said that he had gone mad! In 1872, the year Sri Aurobindo was born, she went to Dakshineswar accompanied by her father. It was a perilous journey for the young girl in her first womanhood.

From 1879-80 disciples started to come to Ramakrishna.

In April 1885, the first signs of throat cancer appeared.

On 16 August 1886, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa left the earthly body. But not the Earth.

It was in the Karmayogin

In a word, "A Power worked, but none knew whence it came."

Another had started his walk through Time. His walk outstripped the human stride. A radical change in the earth-consciousness was his

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Mother before leaving Japan to return to India