Ramakrishna : Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1 Feb. 1836-16 Aug. 1886). Sri Aurobindo received three crucial Akashic messages from him. In 1912, he wrote, “It was Ramakrishna who personally came & turned me to this Yoga.” [s/a Purani’s Life of Sri Aurobindo, 1958, p.64]
... Sri Ramakrishna, p. 81) 2 The Life of Sri Ramakrishna (Advaita Ashram, Almora), p. 182. (Italics ours) 3 4 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, pp. 931, 935. Page 66 much importance from the point of view of traditional spirituality, for they do not obstruct the return to the highest state of Knowledge. They are, in the imagery of Sri Ramakrishna, "like... of the garland of beads, which is no other than the physical body, and hence with the string gone, the body-garland vanishes in no time. 7 1 Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathasar, p. 304. 2 3 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, pp. 794, 101. 4 5 Ibid., pp. 102, 1014. 6 āhaṁkṛtiryadā yasya naṣṭā bhavati tasya vai dehastvapi bhavennaṣṭaḥ. ( Yogaśikhopaniṣad, I... Page 65 But such is the case for the majority of Sadhakas whom Sri Ramakrishna would designate as j ī vako ṭis. But what about those rare great souls, the īś varako ṭ is of Ramakrishnian terminology, who, like Narada, Janaka, Prahlada and others of tradition and Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and others of historical times, are reputed to have ascended to the Nirvikalpa state ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7 Sri Ramakrishna SRI Ramakrishna represents spirituality at its absolute, its pristine fount and power. In him we find the pure gold of spirituality at a time when duplicity, perplexity, deceit and falsehood on the one hand and atheism, disbelief and irreverence on the other reigned supreme. When spirituality... India it existed, as it were, merely in name, there was the advent of Sri Ramakrishna bringing with him spirituality in its sheer plenitude and investing it with eternal certitude and infallibility. He proclaimed the quintessence of spirituality casting aside all husk and rejecting all that was irrelevant. Sri Ramakrishna is the very embodiment of this true and unadulterated spirituality. The... external conduct reflects his inner becoming. In the words of Sri Ramakrishna, a man breathes out what he eats. Perhaps we have a mission in the world, but before that we have to realise God. He alone has the right to act, and his deeds alone achieve fulfilment, who has been chosen and authorised by God. The spiritual practice of Sri Ramakrishna laid great stress on Yogic trance. It signifies that the ...
... situation similar to that of Hriday, the nephew of Ramakrishna." "Why? What happened to him?" asked Anirban. "Haven't you read the Kathamrita, the life and teaching of Sri Ramakrishna?" Page 43 "Some of it we have tried to read, though it's often hard to understand. But we remember seeing Hriday in the film on Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna used to call him 'Hride'. He did look a bit stupid... but since his being had not been purified and prepared for such an experience, he lost his head. He began to shout, 'Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna, come, let's set out to save the country!' He had forgotten he was talking to his uncle. It was as though he himself was the Guru and Ramakrishna his disciple! (Laughter) The latter smiled to see how little was needed to make a man lose his self-control. So he... revolution. But looking at her eyes one could say that she could easily enter into the states of meditation and trance." "Why was she obliged to leave the Ramakrishna Mission?" , "Because of her work in the Swadeshi Movement. The Ramakrishna Mission was after all a cloister, a home for Page 118 ascetics. Religion was its chief preoccupation and it believed also in social service in the ...
... of 1913, to Motilal Roy in the course of a comment on the Ramakrishna Mission: "What you say about the Ramakrishna Mission is, I dare say, true to a certain extent. Do not oppose that movement or enter into any conflict with it.. Remember also that we derive from Ramakrishna. For myself it was Ramakrishna who personally came and first turned me to this Yoga. Vivekananda in... procession of the Avatars. We have the query: 'When Ramakrishna was doing Sadhana, Mother was on earth physically for the first eight years of her childhood, from 1878 to 1886. Did he not know that Mother had come down? He must have had some vision at least of her coming, but we do not read anywhere definitely about it. And when Ramakrishna must have been intensely calling Mother, she must have... 'Krishna' — she did not see Ramakrishna. "It was not necessary that he should have a vision of her coming down as he was not thinking of the future nor consciously preparing for it. I don't think he had the idea of any incarnation of the Mother." The complexities of Avatarhood to which this reply directs us are suggested by the mention of Ramakrishna. In connection with "the Hindu ...
... Nirviklapa Samadhi — the culmination of Advaita practice! "Totapuri immediately took steps to bring the mind of Sri Ramakrishna down to the world of phenomena." 2 After Totapuri left Dakshineswar, Sri Ramakrishna decided to 1 Life of Sri Ramakrishna (Advaita Ashram, Almora), p. 183. 2 Ibid., pp. 190-92. Page 84 withdraw from the world of 'I'... to the waking state, in no other wise can he be aroused.' " 2 The Trance-Experience of Sri Ramakrishna : Now we come to the very authentic historical case of the Sage of Dakshinesvara whose trance-experiences as depicted in his authoritative biography published by the Ramakrishna Order itself we reproduce below: "Sri Ramakrishna's Samadhi covered a wide range of experiences... sadhana altogether different from his previous ones." 1 Then, a few pages further on, the biographer gives a vivid description of the first Nirvikalpa Samadhi-state of Sri Ramakrishna: "Sri Ramakrishna passed into the ineffable glory of the Nirvikalpa Samadhi. In that rapturous ecstasy the senses and mind stopped their functions. The body became motionless as a corpse. The universe ...
... Contemporary Problems Letters on Himself and the Ashram Remarks on Spiritual Figures in India Ramakrishna Paramhansa I would have been surprised to hear that I regard (in agreement with an advanced sadhak) Ramakrishna as a spiritual pigmy, if I had not become past astonishment in these matters. I have said, it seems, so many things that were never in my... different things about Ramakrishna from different people. Some say he was an Avatar and some that he was not. Do you think he was an Avatar as he said in his autobiography? He never wrote an autobiography. What he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly quite as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya. 13 November 1936 Page 162 Ramakrishna himself never thought... and must have helped him—it does not follow that it must be accepted as a universal spiritual necessity or ideal. Whether in declaring it he was the mouthpiece of Ramakrishna or not, I cannot pronounce. It seems certain that Ramakrishna expected him to be a great power for changing the world-mind in a spiritual direction and it may be assumed that the mission came to the disciple from the Master. The ...
... remarkable ascetic admired by Ramakrishna and revered by Vivekananda. Even Ramakrishna himself had habits of speech about which Vivekananda in a letter to his gurubhais [brother disciples] [rates?] them for translating these portions as it would make a very bad impression on his English readers. But would these English readers have been justified in denouncing Ramakrishna on that Page 356 ... in a great hurry and under much pressure. I did not mean that anyone here could replace or equal myself and the Mother; much less the persons you name— or the actual Muthu equal the actual Ramakrishna. But certainly it is possible for X and Y and Z (I won't repeat the names) to change, to throw off their present perversities or limitations and come nearer to us than they are now—if they have the... said that suicide can under any circumstances lead to Nir- vana; the death spoken of is a natural or a yogic death with the mind concentrated with faith and absorption in the Divine. I am sure that Ramakrishna also never meant such a thing as that anyone dying under any circumstances would have his last wish satisfied. There is no escape by that kind of exit. I do not know either how you can say that you ...
... of life. His lecture on Maya, delivered in England, was the best of all his lectures. After his first experience of Samadhi, he came running to Sri Ramakrishna and begged him to let him remain in that state of ecstatic release for ever. But Sri Ramakrishna was not at all a Mayavadin, and he came down upon him with a bang : "Fie on you, you want personal salvation! Here, I lock the door of samadhi; you... acquired new and considerable knowledge of the higher planes after his death. The Vivekananda we know was a combination of two disparate tendencies—one, derived from Sri Ramakrishna which drove him to action, "The Mother's work", as Ramakrishna called it, and the other, innate in him, which drew him to the peace and silence of inaction, the passive calm of meditation. Ram Krishna knew of this double strain... difference that a strong leaven of humanitarianism was introduced into it. Spiritually the members of the Ramakrishna Mission might as well have been members of a Shankarite monastery. All the commentaries and translations published by the Mission faithfully follow Shankar, though Ramakrishna had declared more than once that he was not a Vedantin—he was a Vaishnav, a Tantric, and many things more. ...
... forms come naturally in the development is the proper way for our sadhana. What three signs [ of the Paramhansa ]? If you refer to the four conditions (child, madman, demon, inert), it is not Ramakrishna who invented that. It is an old Sanskrit sloka, bālonmādapiśācajaḍavat , describing the Paramhansa or rather the various forms of Paramhansahood. The Paramhansa is a particular grade of realisation... If one is like that, then there may be the immediate reply—if not, one has to become like that, then there will be the reply. But some go on using the Name for years, before there is an answer. Ramakrishna himself got it after a few months, but what months! and what a condition he had to pass through before he got it! Still he succeeded quickly because he had a pure heart already—and that divine passion... not inevitable—on the way,—not because they are helps, but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. I do not suppose Ramakrishna or Vivekananda would have recommended the incidents you allude to as an example for others to follow—they would surely have said that faith, fortitude, perseverance were the better way. That after ...
... supramental, but they are indications of a divinely realised person—at least Ramakrishna used to say so. But I don't suppose you would very much approve of strong eruptions of vital bhakti and constant emotional outbursts. What three signs? If you refer to the four conditions (child, madman, demon, inert), it is not Ramakrishna who invented that. It is an old Sanskrit sloka बालिन्मादपिशाचजडवत् 87... impersonal Truth. You say Buddha achieved Illumined Mind and Ramakrishna the Intuitive. According to your explanation, Intuitive plane appears to be on a higher level than the Illumined. How is it then that Buddha's works and manifestation of realisation greatly superseded that of Ramakrishna's? He had a more powerful vital than Ramakrishna, a stupendous will and an invincible mind of thought. If he... you mean living wholly in the Divine. Then where is the difference between the Divine realisation as you define it, and the transformation you are yourself seeking for us? Did not persons like Ramakrishna, for example, who had this realisation, merge their consciousness entirely in the Divine, thus having this kind of transformation? I think there is a difference, because you speak of a complete ...
... after the need of his family. Finally Ramakrishna himself had to give Noren the assurance that his family would never lack any basic necessities of life. Thus reassured, Noren was now free from family responsibilities. He committed himself totally to the path of Yoga. The Yoga of Sri Ramakrishna. Page 560 After the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna in 1886 and before leaving for America... Sri Ramakrishna and Noren. One day, early in their acquaintance, Noren put his burning question to Thakur, "Have you seen God?" without really expecting an answer, for he had put it to so many and knew their stock reply. But this man, who had seemed half-mad to him, stunned him. "Oh, exactly as I see you in front of me, I have seen him.... One can speak with Him...." So said Sri Ramakrishna. ... ever gave him a plain answer. But it is a law of Nature that when a question burns within, a response is bound to come. A neighbour of the Duttas, Surendranath Mitra, was a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna. One day, the Guru came to the house of his disciple. Knowing how much 'Thakur' loved to hear Page 558 songs, Mitra went to get a good singer. Who better than Noren? But Noren, ...
... accept whatever Sri Ramakrishna used to say to him. "I don't believe it" used to be Vivekananda's reaction. Sri Ramakrishna told him "You know, I see the Mother; I talk with Her, She feeds me." Vivekananda used to listen quietly to all that Ramakrishna used to say and he did not answer. On one occasion, he lost his temper: "I don't believe all that you say!" Then Sri Ramakrishna lost his temper: "Tobe... another anecdote comes to my mind, apropos of the relation between Sri Ramakrishna and his famous disciple with the independent spirit - Vivekananda, before he was converted. You know, I suppose, that Vivekananda was a fiery spirit and he would not accept all that his guru Sri Ramakrishna said, without testing it first. And Sri Ramakrishna encouraged him, "Yes, do test at every step. Don't accept anything... hell did you come here, why the devil did you come ?) Here "shala" would mean that. Then Vivekananda gave an answer: "Ami ashi, apnake bhalo bashi bole" (Because I love you, I come), and Sri Ramakrishna simply embraced him and forgot everything. It doesn't matter whether you believe or don't believe, the fact that you love Page 130 me is enough. This is what divine love is. A true ...
... and Sri Ramakrishna, the illumined teacher. Page 287 Sri Ramakrishna standing in ecstasy during a kirtan at Keshab Chandra Sen's house in Calcutta. His nephew Hriday is seen supporting him. ( September 1879 ) S ri Ramakrishna and Narendranath could not have been more different in their background and approach to life. Sri Ramakrishna represented... test Sri Ramakrishna s experiences and he accepted Page 297 only those which stood the test. One day, Narendra came to Dakshineshwar and found that Sri Ramakrishna had gone to Calcutta. He was alone in the room and suddenly felt a desire to test the genuineness of Sri Ramakrishna' s often expressed aversion for money — so he hid a rupee under the mattress. Presently Sri Ramakrishna returned... hypnotized, as he said. They were sitting in the garden house when Sri Ramakrishna passed into samadhi. Narendra watched him. Suddenly Sri Ramakrishna touched him and despite Narendra's strong will to resist, he was unable to control himself and became completely unconscious. When he came to himself, he found Sri Ramakrishna passing his hand over his chest and sweetly smiling at him. He had no idea ...
... Nikhilananda, Swami, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (tr.), Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, 1986. Padmapdda, Pancapddika. with Vivarana of Prakasatman, Government Oriental Manuscript Library, Madras, 1958.Panali, V., Upanishads in Sankara's own words, Matribhumi Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd., Calicut, 1996. PanchadasT, with the commentary of Sri Ramakrishna, Nimaya Sagar Press, Bombay 1912... Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, Bombay, 2004. Swami Jitatmananda, Swami Vivekananda : Prophet and Pathfinder, Ramakrishna Ashram, Rajkot, 2004. Swami Maheshananda et al, Siva Samhita, Kaivalya Dhama, S.M.Y.M. Samiti, Lonavala, 1999. Swami Swahananda, Chhandogya Upanisad, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, 1965. Swinburne, R., The Evolution of the Soul, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986. ... W., Einstein, World Publishing, New York, 1971. Cornforth, M., Dialectical Materialism, International Publishers, New York, 1971. Cultural Heritage of India, The, Volumes I & II, Ramakrishna Mission Institute ofGulture, Calcutta, 1962. Dalal, A.S., A Greater Psychology, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry, 2001. Dandekar, R.N., Vedic Bibliography (4 Vols.), Bhandarkar ...
... unexpected! (3) Sri Ramakrishna becoming a half-full jar? "You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But something puzzles me, as Shankara's stupendous activity of karma puzzles me in the apostle of inaction! - you see you are not the only puzzled person in the world. Ramakrishna also gave the image of the jar which ceased gurgling when it was full. Well, but Ramakrishna spent the last few... few years of his life in talking about the Divine and receiving disciples - was that not action, not work? Did Ramakrishna become a half-full jar after being a full one or was he never full? Did he get far away from God and so begin work? Or had he reached a condition in which he was bound neither to rajasic work and mental prattling nor to inactivity and silence, but could do, from the divine realisation... past seers, they don't trouble me. If going beyond the experiences of the past seers and sages is so shocking, each new seer or sage in turn has perpetrated that shocking thing -Buddha, Shankara, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda - all did that wicked act. If not, what was the necessity of their starting new philosophies, religions, schools of Yoga? If they were merely verifying and meekly repeating the lives ...
... will. The Mission made the error of keeping too much to the forms of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. The authorities did not keep themselves open for new outpourings of their spirit, thus making the error of all organized religious bodies, all 'Churches.' Yet was Vivekananda fiercely progressive. Yet was Sri Ramakrishna an Avatar for them. Thus the Instrument which Swami Vivekananda had forged... Page 543 "My nature is not such as to understand or accept as truth all that you say." Vivekananda's mind had been very agnostic, and it had taken him years before he accepted Ramakrishna. So he replied happily, "I never ask anyone to accept any words without testing." But he had seen the leaping flames in her heart. Wrote Vivekananda to M. Noble on 7 June 1896. "My ideal indeed... and to take her to the house assigned to her." While at Baroda she gave some lectures. "I do not remember Nivedita speaking to me on spiritual Page 546 subjects or about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. We spoke of politics and other subjects. On the way from the station to the town she cried out against the ugliness of the College building and its top-heavy dome" —"What an ugly ...
... world. Page 240 Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (In one of his lectures abroad, Swami Vivekananda spoke thus about his Master, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa:) I am what I am, and what I am is always due to him, whatever in me and in my words is good and true and eternal came to me through his mouth, his heart, his soul. Sri Ramakrishna is the spring of this phase of the earth's... You think you have understood Sri Ramakrishna better than myself! You think jnana is dry knowledge to be attained by a desert path, killing out the tenderest faculties of the heart! Your bhakti is sentimental nonsense which makes one impotent. You want to preach Sri Ramakrishna as you have understood him, which is mighty little! Hands off! Who cares for your Ramakrishna! Who cares for your bhakti and... Calcutta. 1881 Encounter with Ramakrishna 1886 (August, 16) Passing of Ramakrishna. 1888 Vivekananda starts to spread his message in India. 1893 (September, 11) World's Parliament of Religions in USA 1897 Return to India. Foundation of Ramakrishna mission. 1899 Second trip abroad ...
... the Jamuna with Krishna in his arms." So deep was his ecstasy then that Sri Ramakrishna had to be carried in a palanquin to Brindavan, and it was a few hours before he came down to the normal plane of consciousness. * Adapted from Journeys with Ramakrishna by Swami Pradhananda. Page 221 Sri Ramakrishna experienced a special manifestation of divine presence at Brindavan. Praising... Brindavan Sri Krishna is the only male and everyone else there is his handmaid. Sri Ramakrishna himself endorsed this view. Sri Ramakrishna was in an elevated state of consciousness during the entire period of his stay in Brindavan, as was the case with Sri Caitanya. Referring to Sri Caitanya's spiritual state, Sri Ramakrishna once observed: "So intense is one's love of God that one becomes unconscious... sacred grove of Brindavan and the ocean for the dark waters of the Jamuna.'" Sri Ramakrishna lovingly cherished the memory of Sri Caitanya's ecstatic love all through. Sri Ramakrishna also experienced similar ecstatic moods at Brindavan. By way of illustration we can recall an episode recounted by Sri Ramakrishna himself. He said: "When my father chanted the name of Raghuvira, his chest would ...
... awake on the summits of realisation, far be it to express what he realised. Swami Saradananda, one of the closest direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and the writer of his authoritative biography, is reporting: "In how simple terms the Thakur [Sri Ramakrishna] used to explain to us these abstruse truths of spiritual life: " 'Well, something rises from my feet and climbs towards the head... rational to admit of the possibility of different types of languages to correspond to different 4. Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna Lila-Prasanga (Gurubhava, Purv-ardha), pp. 64-66. 5.& 6. Swami Nikhilananda (Translator), The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 81'. Page 141 segments of human experience and activity. Philosophy including Metaphysics, the various Sciences... deepening and heightening of spiritual consciousness the seeker after supernal knowledge honestly feels the total inaptitude of all verbal communication and thus falls mute and speechless. Sri Ramakrishna himself expresses this indubitable fact of all true spiritual experience in the two following parables; "In the Kirtan the devotee first sings 'Net ā i ā m ā r m ā t ā h ã ti ('My Netai ...
... I had read a lot about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, I wanted to go to Belur Math, built by Vivekananda on the bank of the Ganges. Ma Sharadamani Devi and Vivekananda had lived there. My husband took me to this wonderful place. My heart was quickened by the evening prayers: various instruments were played while the monks sang in front of the huge marble statue of Ramakrishna. The atmosphere was ent... entrancing—the presence of Ramakrishna, Ma Sharadamani Devi and Vivekananda could be felt there. I was reluctant to return to my house, which was not mine. I was aloof, disinterested. I was pining to return to my true home—the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I also had a glimpse of Dakshineshwar, on the other side of the Ganges. Here Ramakrishna lived, meditated, did tapasya and realised the Supreme Goddess... the complex. There is a big banyan tree known as Panchvati, referring to Sri Ramakrishna's five-fold sadhana which culminated in the realisation of the harmony of all religions. Beneath this tree Ramakrishna sat for hours together—it was his favourite seat for prayer and meditation. I found peace and silence in this place, and his words arose in my consciousness: You see many stars in the sky at ...
... If one is like that, then there may be the immediate reply—if not, one has to become like that, then there will be the reply. But some go on using the Name for years, before there is an answer. Ramakrishna himself got it after a few months, but what months ! and what a condition he had to pass through before he got it! Still he succeeded quickly because he had a pure heart already—and that divine passion... confidence in the Divine and a progressive self-giving. It is in fact the principle of sadhana that I myself followed and it is the central part of the Yoga as I envisage it. It is, I suppose, what Ramakrishna meant by the method of the baby cat in his image. But all cannot follow that at once; it takes time for them to arrive at it—it grows most when the mind and vital fall quiet. What I meant by... corrections—as I very often do. How did you like this song though when I sang, eh ? Very fine. I worked very hard at an article all day—(no lolling alas)—for the Ramakrishna Centenary. Mother said my meditation too improved! Joyous what ? Though how it had the time to improve when I worked all the time, eh ? Strange, what ? But I do feel very devoted to her ...
... Kuni, New Delhi 53.Fanthom, F. Secretary, Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination Pragati House, Nehru Place New Delhi-110019 54.Gangal.J.K. H-196 Ramakrishna Vihar LP. Extension, Patparganj, Delhi -110092 55.Gangrade, K.D. Vice-Chairman Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samity 5, Tees January Marg, New Delhi -110011 56.Ganguly... H-21 Maharani Bagh New Delhi-110065 164.Sarkar, Tripti 61 Aravalli, DDA Flats Alakananda, New Delhi -110019 165.Seetha Ram, A.R. Principal, B.Ed. School Ramakrishna Institute of Moral & Spiritual Education Yadavagiri, Mysore - 570020 166.Sengupta, A.K. Senior Addl. P.I.O. P.I.B., Ministry ofl&B Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi... Educational Research, Auroville. Professor B.P. Khandelwal, Director, NIEPA, New Delhi. Shri M.L. Khanna, General Secretary, DAV College Managing Committee, New Delhi. Shri Sunil Kumar, Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi. Shri M.M. Luther, Author and Expert in Management and Values, Gurgaon. Professor A.N. Maheshwari, Chairman, NCTE, New Delhi. Shri A.K. Merchant, Vice-Chairman, National ...
... if we become afraid, it means we have already accepted the contagion, and hence have already accepted the angry man's blow or the snake's bite. (One can also accept a blow out of love, like Sri Ramakrishna, who at the sight of a cart driver beating an ox, suddenly cried out in pain and found himself lacerated and bleeding, his back covered with lash marks.) The same holds for physical pain; we can... which is considered the "peak" of all spiritual Page 131 life – what could there be beyond the Transcendent? Sri Aurobindo could tangibly verify the words of the great Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna: "If we live in God, the world disappears; if we live in the world, God exists no longer." The gulf he had tried to bridge between Matter and Spirit had split open again before his unveiled eyes... attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become. 156 Without that secret identity, that underlying total oneness, we would be unable to know anything about the world and beings. Ramakrishna crying out in pain and bleeding from the cuts of the whip that lashed the ox nearby, the psychic knowing that an object is hidden in a particular place, the yogi curing a sick disciple hundreds of ...
... Sri Aurobindo perused the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and the speeches and writings of Vivekananda. He had the highest regard and admiration for Sri Ramakrishna. What he has written about him has hardly been surpassed in the depth and ardour of its Page 63 appreciation. He says: "And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity... than "seeing" God. When Swami Vivekananda met Sri Ramakrishna for the first time, he put the same question to him: "Have you seen God?". He had put the same question to Maharshi Debendra Nath Tagore, father of Rabindra Nath Tagore. The question is typical of spiritual aspirants in India. And no less typical was the breath-taking reply Sri Ramakrishna gave to Vivekananda: "Yes, my boy, I have seen... walking on the ridge of the Takht-e- 26. 27. Nirodbaran's Notes. 28. Vivekananda describes the beginning of a somewhat similar experience: "But in the twinkling of an eye he (Ramakrishna) placed his right foot on my body. The touch at once gave rise to a novel experience within me. With my eyes open I saw that the walls, and everything in the room, whirled rapidly and vanished ...
... method of Sadhana – not the mental outlook – of Sri Aurobindo were influenced by Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, I think this is not a tenable proposition. If Sri Aurobindo was so influenced and owed his spirituality entirely to Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, the most natural thing for him would have been to join the Ramakrishna Mission. Besides, one cannot always make much even of spiritual help and influence... tried to show that Sri Aurobindo was not only influenced in his mind by Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Vivekananda – in fact most educated Indians have been for the last forty years, – but that he owes his Yoga and spirituality to them, which is not true at all. In his enthusiasm to prove the prabhava [influence] of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, Girija forgets that one of the quotations he gives... tantamount to a rebuff: "Yours is still a mental seeking: for my Yoga something more is needed." . . . ... At this juncture I heard a lecture of Swami Abhedananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. He spoke among other things of vairdgya mevabhayam and explained forcefully why turning away from life must mean deliverance from fear and bondage. I approached him and he kindly agreed to give ...
... 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... 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... 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 ...
... than all. You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But one thing puzzles me, as Shankara's stupendous activity of karma puzzles me in the apostle of inaction—you see you are not the Page 186 only puzzled person in the world. Ramakrishna also gave the image of the jar which ceased gurgling when it was full. Well, but Ramakrishna spent the last years of his life in talking about... and must have helped him—it does not follow that il must hp accepted as a universal spiritual necessity or ideal. Whether in declaring il he was the mouthpiece of Ramakrishna or not I cannot pronounce. It seems certain that Ramakrishna expected him to be a great power for changing the world- mind in a spiritual direction and it may be assumed that the mission came to the disciple from the Maser... Purpose, it has to be done. Rama-Krishna himself whom you quote for a capability of asking s ions answered thousands of questions, I believe. But the Page 59 answers must be such as Ramakrishna gave and such as I try to give, answers from a higher spiritual experience, from a deeper source of knowledge and not lucubrations of the logical intellect trying to co-ordinate its ignorance; still ...
... spiritual vision had foreseen the drift and significance of the many-sided renaissance 13 that was taking place 11. Italics are ours. 12. From Bande Mataram of 8.3.1908. 13. Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda had prophesied it. Page 170 in India, and of which the revolution in Bengal was but a political prelude. That was why he did not fear the chaos that appeared... his steps and careless of fate and consequence, he followed the inner Gleam wherever it led him, with the utter self-abandon of a child. It was the self-abandon whose mighty potentialities Sri Ramakrishna had realised and illustrated so marvellously in his epoch-making life. Sri Aurobindo visualised the destiny of India, of which he speaks in the above extract, and became an instrument in God's... Galileo and Newton, Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre and Napoleon, Mazzini and Garibaldi, Marx and Lenin etc., in the West, and Rama, Sri Krishna, Mahavira and Buddha, Shankaracharya and Chaitanya, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda etc., in India, all have been, in their different spheres of work, such prophets and pioneers, or executors and realisers of the invincible Will of the Time-Spirit. ...
... y brought to the notice of the modern world. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda inspired nearly two generations of Indians when they were in bondage with self-confidence and pride in their culture. The Ramakrishna Mission; organised by Vivekananda carries out the work. It is unfortunate that in recent years the spiritual work of Ramakrishna is put into the shade and the emphasis of ... of God and Brotherhood of man " was the inspiring ideal of his life. More than Dayananda and Rammohan Roy, Ramakrishna Paramahansa represents the neo-spirituality of modern India and marks a stage in the evolution of Indian spirituality. Sri Aurobindo paid a tribute to Sri Ramakrishna in 1908 : " In Bengal there came a flood of religious truth. Certain men were born, men whom the educated... at the feet of this ascetic. The work of salvation, the work of raising India was begun. " In another book on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo wrote about Ramakrishna as one " with a colossal spiritual capacity taking the kingdom of heaven by storm. " Ramakrishna taught the modern world that religion is a matter of experience, not of professing or believing and that experience in all religions, ultimately ...
... disparities, to act as if all were equal there or to try and make all equal. It is like Hriday, the nephew of Ramakrishna, who when he got the touch from Ramakrishna began to shout, "Ramakrishna, you are the Brahman and I too am the Brahman; there is no difference between us", till Ramakrishna, as he refused to be quiet, had to withdraw the power. Or like the disciple who refused to listen to the Mahout ...
... by the purity of their desires. Of all these souls Sri Ramakrishna was the last and greatest, 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 were renewed and united. Sri Ramakrishna gave to India the final message of Hinduism to the world... the spirit, the secret of the confusion created by the senses, the magnificent possibilities of man and the ineffable beatitude of God. This is the work whose consummation Sri Page 977 Ramakrishna came to begin and all the development of the previous two thousand years and more since Buddha appeared has been a preparation for the harmonization of spiritual teaching and experience by the avatar... do, what Mahomedanism strove to accomplish in times as yet unripe, what Buddhism half-accomplished for a brief period and among a limited number of men, Hinduism as summed up in the life of Sri Ramakrishna has to attempt for all the world. This is the reason of India's resurgence, this is why God has breathed life into her once more, why great souls are at work to bring about her salvation, why a sudden ...
... disparities, to act as if all were equal there or to try and make all equal. It is like Hridaya, the nephew of Ramakrishna, who when he got the touch from Ramakrishna began to shout, "Ramakrishna, you are the Brahman and I too am the Brahman; there is no difference between us", till Ramakrishna, as he refused to be quiet, had to withdraw the power. Or like the disciple who refused to listen to the mahout ...
... To illustrate this attitude, we may be allowed to cite here the view held by so great a personality as Sri Ramakrishna, an acknowledged master of Yoga and spirituality. On the occasion of his last visit to Keshav Chandra Sen who was then suffering from a fatal illness, Ramakrishna addressed Keshav and said: "Why is it that you are ill ? There is a reason for it. Many spiritual feelings... Chandra, one cannot put forward solely on that basis a general and absolute proposition correlating 1 2 Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga p. 1561. 3 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, 1947, p. 266. Page 352 the illness of a Yogi with his spiritual endeavour. For, as Sri Aurobindo has made abundantly clear in course of his refutal 1 ...
... Mother’s Agenda 1951-1960 July 2, 1958 Ramdas 1 must be a continuation of the line of Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, etc ... . ( silence ) Page 171 A subject for this evening ... Something I have never said completely. On the one hand, there is the attitude of those in yesterday evening's film 2 : God is everything, God is everywhere,... are not as they should be. In The Synthesis of Yoga , Sri Aurobindo says that this idea of good and bad, of pure and impure, is a notion needed for action; but the purists, such as Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and others, do not agree. They do not agree that it is indispensable for action. They simply say: your acceptance of action as a necessary thing is contrary to your perception of the Divine in all... work. It is He who has to progress, not you! Ramdas does not at all consider that the world as it is, is good. No, but I know all these people, I know them thoroughly! I know Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and Ramdas thoroughly. They are utterly familiar to me. It doesn't bother them. These are people who live with a certain feeling, who have an entirely concrete experience and live in this experience ...
... by a door. The inner room was his private room. In the front room there was an almirah and on it was placed a framed photo of Sri Ramakrishna in a dancing pose. After some time I came across the same photo in a special number of a journal brought out by the Ramakrishna Mission. I was happy on seeing it and thought of getting one for myself. But I had no money, not even a single pie. You know that... bring myself to ask for money for this purpose. If I had asked, he would surely have given me the necessary money. Then I wrote to the Ramakrishna Mission saying that I was a student, I had no money but would like to have a print of the photograph of Sri Ramakrishna in a dancing pose that was included in their special number. I wrote that I was very eager to have it and requested them to send me one ...
... between. The inner room was his private room. In the front room there was an almirah and on it was placed a photo of Sri Ramakrishna in a dancing pose. It was framed. After some time I came across the same photo in a special number of a journal brought out by the Ramakrishna mission. I was happy on seeing it and thought of getting one for myself. But I had no money, not even a single pie. You know... but somehow I could not ask for money for this purpose. If I had asked, he would surely have given me the necessary money. Then I wrote to the Ramakrishna Mission saying that I was a student, I had no money, but I would like to have a print of Sri Ramakrishna in the dancing pose, that was included in their special number. I wrote that I was very eager to have it and requested them to send me one free ...
... 1908-1909 Nirmalendu Lahiri, his cousin and devout follower of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, took him to Sri 'M' (Sri Mahendranath Gupta), who had kept a day-to-day record of Sri Ramakrishna's sayings, later published as Ramakrishna Kath-amrita in Bengali (translated into English as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 1922). Dilip was deeply fascinated by Sri Ramakrishna's personality, installed... installed him in his heart as his Guru and loved him deeply. He wrote, "Faith suddenly descended into me—the Mother's grace through the soul- stirring message of her beloved son, the great Messiah Sri Ramakrishna." 17 May 1913 Sudden demise of his father Dwijendralal Roy, owing to apoplexy. 1913 Passed matriculation examination with scholarship, scoring high marks ...
... human life and its limited energies, one cannot expect the capacity to cross the stages and hurdles of specialised systems with the kind of rapidity that was exemplified in the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna Page 39 was a master-soul, whose object was to exemplify in the great and decisive experience the demonstration that all sects are forms and segments of a single integral truth... practice of different systems of yoga may result in some kind of synthesis. Sometimes, for example, the practice of Hatha Yoga is followed by the practice of Raja Yoga. Or, as in the life of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, we find a powerful example, even a unique example, of a colossal spiritual capacity, as a result of which the great yogin drove straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were... Caitanya, a new element in the synthesis was added by means of which the psychic love for the divine consciousness could inundate the mind, life and the body. In the nineteenth century, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Swami Vivekananda have provided a vast system of synthesis in the light of which the conflict of religions could find a helpful solution. The twentieth century presents a new synthesis ...
... receive Light, Knowledge etc. I would like to know if a vertical opening can be there without the opening of the heart centre. It can—but that usually leads to মোক্ষ or to জ্ঞান 91 only, what Ramakrishna called শুষ্ক জ্ঞান 92 I think that an intellectually developed man like N has an advantage over an emotional man like U; he will have a greater depth, wideness and vastness, and will most... Can we say that Ramakrishna's mind or Christ's mind was as powerful as that of Buddha? Buddha's mind as a mind was more powerful, but had he as much or as many-sided a spiritual knowledge as Ramakrishna? I leave out Christ, because his spiritual knowledge was from the heart only and intense but limited. Or can we ever imagine that a supramental X will have the same mental range and altitude... like to know? But this resistance must go. I quite agree with you. If I can't love.you, give myself to you, of what use is the sadhana? For mukti? I have no appetite for such mukti. Ramakrishna used to say "I have no objection to give liberation but I will not give willingly শুদ্ধা ভক্তি." 94 Meaning? But what is শুদ্ধা ভক্তি, then? But even if you are serious, I don't know ...
... the Matin . Every now and then a tremendous collision and holocaust. I admit that in India railway is slow and scanty and therefore more though not quite safe. Anyway, what about aeroplanes? Ramakrishna had a word of hope for his disciples and used to say, 'এখানে যারা এসেছে, সবার হবে' 22 You don't or won't give any, not even a quarter. You might say it is a greater Truth but we have greater Divines... side to the picture. Women are perhaps less physically sexual than men on the whole,—but what about vital sexuality? the instinct of possessing and being possessed etc., etc.? How is it that Ramakrishna always used to ask his disciples to avoid kāmini-kānchan ? 31 Buddha was no less strict. That is the old monastic idea. It arises from the extreme sexuality of men. They see in women the... sacrificed and tied to man, and also incapacitated from any spiritual endeavour N conjunction with man? Man has taken advantage of it to keep them under his heel. Can we not then justify Buddha, Ramakrishna and others who advocated isolation from women? After all, is it not essentially the same principle here, because if vital relations are debarred, nothing remains except a simple exchange of words ...
... realisation in your Yoga through work alone, or is work to be used only as a means up to a certain stage and then left aside, as Ramakrishna said in his well-known analogy of a pregnant woman and the gradual falling off of her work with the nearing of her full term? Am I Ramakrishna or is there no difference between my yoga and his? If I remember right, you wrote to me that work is only a means for... quite easy to add the outer one. I hope you won't say like Ramakrishna that these things—outer knowledge, beauty of expression, thought-power, etc., don't matter since they don't lead us to the Divine. But you have said we are children of an intellectual age. Should we not follow in the footsteps of the Master? Essentially Ramakrishna was right. The literature etc. belongs to the instrumentation ...
... Disciple : Ramakrishna also had a similar experience when the bullock that was being driven by the gardener was whipped in spite Ramakrishna's protest; the marks of the whip were reproduced on Ramakrishna's body Disciple : The story in the Ramakrishna Kathamrita is different. It refers to two fishermen who were quarrelling. One of them gave a slap to the other on the back and Ramakrishna who was... on whose body the marks of the crucifixion were reproduced merely by the power of auto-suggestion. Well; if you have a stronger power than that, you can immediately feel any marks on your body. Ramakrishna himself seems to have said that when he was doing Hanuman Sadhana, he grew a little tail. Disciple : He also said that when he was living in sakhi-bhāva , the Radha attitude, he developed ...
... If it had come up, he would have rejected it. NIRODBARAN: Then if rejection is possible, why bother so much about transformation and all that? SRI AUROBINDO: Ramakrishna is Ramakrishna. I bother because everybody is not Ramakrishna. Haven't you heard of many Yogis and Rishis falling from the path owing to these impulses? I was suffering from some intermittent fever in the North for a long time... and other parts and purifies them, bringing in the realisation of devotion (Bhakti) and love. But the ego remains—it is the saint ego, the Bhakta ego, the ego of the Sadhu or the virtuous man: as Ramakrishna says, "Bhakta ami, das ami" ("Bhakta I, servant I") and Ramprasad says, "I want to eat sugar, not be sugar." The psychic of course opens the way to the realisation of the spiritual Self by which ...
... conclusions. Actually, his first real acquaintance with Indian spirituality was through the reported sayings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the speeches and writings of Swami Vivekananda. Sri Aurobindo had certainly an immense admiration for Vivekananda and a deeper feeling still for Ramakrishna. But Sri Aurobindo did not accept altogether Vivekananda's philosophy or Advaitic standpoint; and though spiritual... — averted in the case of India. And the reasons are not far too seek. The Indian countryside had all along remained inveterately Indian; and men like Ramalinga Swami, Dayanand Saraswati, Sri Ramakrishna, Mahadev Govind Ranade and others were able, in varying degrees, to stem the tide of denationalisation and assert the claims of the Indian genius to live its own life and win its own spiritual... the Mother, and now found in her a fiery spirit utterly consecrated to the cause of the liberation of Mother India from despotic foreign rule. They discussed neither spiritual questions nor Ramakrishna or Vivekananda; they saw themselves as fellow-votaries of Kali the Mother, as children of Bhavani Bharati, and this was the adamantine basis of their collaboration on the political field. ...
... seems to have been brilliant but rather chaotic. All that is different from the supramental. Then about the vital of the Paramahansas. It is said that their vital behaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like something inert (of. Jadabharata). Well, there is nothing supramental in all that. One can be an instrument of the Divine in any of the trans... development of the consciousness upon earth the great past ought to be followed by a greater future. ¹ 14-1.1932 You appeal to the Vaishnava-Tantric traditions; to Chaitanya, Ramprasad, Ramakrishna. I know something about them and, if I did not try to repeat them, it is because I do not find in them the solution, the reconciliation I am seeking. ² 14-1-1932 In the beginning, before... nature. An association is not enough, a transformation is indispensable. ³ 14-1-1932 In any case, my object is a realisation on the physical plane and I cannot consent merely to repeat Ramakrishna. 4 14-1-1932 The Supramental is not grand, aloof, cold and austere; it is not something opposed to or inconsistent with a full vital and physical manifestation; on the contrary, it carries ...
... a by his idea of service to humanity, brought mixture and spoiled the spirituality that was intended to be cultivated by Ramakrishna. Sri Aurobindo : In what way? Disciple : I don't know. But was it Ramakrishna's idea that Vivekananda followed? Was it Ramakrishna who asked him to do service to humanity? Disciple : So far as I remember he said : "Lok hiter kaj karo." "Lok... "Lok hit" "Good of the world" – is not the same thing as "service to humanity." Disciple : So far as I remember Ramakrishna did not say anything like that. In fact, there was a great difference among Ramakrishna's disciples about what Vivekananda was bringing in. But some of them submitted saying : "Vivekananda must know better." The phrase "Daridra Narayana" was Vivekanand's. Disciple... some letters received from "G". I don't remember what it was about. He asked me whether he should do anything or keep quiet. I asked him to keep silent and not give any reply. Disciple : Ramakrishna Mission seems to be more occupied with social and humanitarian work; I don't know if there is much spirituality in it. My cousin Swami Adwaitananda went there and was quite dissatisfied and came ...
... Nehru Memorial Museum & Library) 529 A ghat in Calcutta in the 1900s (from an old postcard) 548 Sister Nivedita (courtesy Ramakrishna Mission) 569 Sri Ramakrishna (courtesy Ramakrishna Mission) 574 Ma Sarada Devi (courtesy Ramakrishna Mission) 576 Mother before leaving Japan to return to India (from Abhay Singh's collection) 582 The stairs Mirra climbed ...
... Some of Bengal's remarkable leaders of religious and social movements —such as Raja Rammohan Roy —came from this fertile riverine soil, as did he in whom India's spirituality was embodied: Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa. Around the eighth or ninth century A.D., the story goes, a king named Adisura is said to have invited to Bengal five Brahmins with five non-Brahmin attendants from Kannauj (near... Bengal. One Makaranda Ghose was among the five non-Brahmins. The Ghoses of Konnagar are the descendants of Makaranda. Some well-known sannyasins were born in his line, a few of them disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Sivbhadra, sixteenth in the lineage, was the first to settle in Konnagar in the sixteenth century. Counting from Makaranda, Krishna Dhan's was the twenty-fourth generation. Kaliprasad Ghose... 1.Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-84) was to break away from the original Brahmo Samaj, form another branch and disclaim any relation with Hinduism. But ironically he was a great admirer of Ramakrishna, whom he met in 1875, and wrote glowingly about him in his daily, The Indian Mirror. This was a widely read newspaper among the young college students, and many of Ramakrishna's disciples came ...
... × Sri Ramakrishna very often used this alliterative phrase in Bengali to signify lust and greed. × The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Vol. 1. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna march. p. 360. ... to simply open your mouth and roar." Page 26 The Grace of the Guru Another version of the story was narrated from a different perspective to Sri Ramakrishna by his guru, and subsequently by Sri Ramakrishna to his devotees. A tigress once attacked a herd of goats. As she leapt to seize one of the goats, she gave birth to a cub and died. The cub tiger grew up among the... story, Sri Ramakrishna said: Eating grass is like enjoying "woman and gold." 38 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. 39 Sri Ramakrishna narrated ...
... mere post factum explanation which amounts to an evasion of the difficulty. They state very strongly that a paid Ashram worker, like Muthu, for example, cannot be changed into a Ramakrishna ... Well, Ramakrishna himself was an ignorant, unlettered rustic according to the story. or into a Yogi for that matter, even by the Divine. If he were, they would say "O, it was latent in him." ... training can use. You will say greater scientific power and wider knowledge is not a change of consciousness. Very well, but there are Rama and Ramakrishna. Rama spoke always from the thinking intelligence, the common property of developed men; Ramakrishna spoke constantly from a swift and luminous spiritual intuition. Can you tell me which is the greater? the Avatar recognised by all India? or the... s of the overmind and the lightninglike subtleties and swiftnesses of the intuition. There! what do you think of that? However!! More seriously, I have not stated that any Muthu has equalled Ramakrishna and I quite admit that Muthu here in ipsa persona has no chance of performing that feat. I have not said that anyone here can be Sri Aurobindo or the Mother—I have explained what I meant when I ...
... learns from Sri Ramakrishna is the les-son of a positive secularism, a catholic respect for the variety of religious experience. Once touched by the spirit of Sri Page 328 Ramakrishna, no intellectual can accept the small minded-ness of religious sectarianism, the ignoble agenda of com-munalism, the destructive and divisive politics of casteism. Sri Ramakrishna was truly catholic... the modern Indian intellectual is likely to derive inspiration from both. No modern intellectual with a spiritual cast of mind can escape the influence of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda and their disciples. Sri Ramakrishna represented a high point in Indian spirituality, the quintessential moment, the culmination of over five thousand years of experiment with Godliness in India. The remarkable... But the poetry of the Vedic hymns and of the Upanishadic utterances convinced Tagore that the world ought not to be denied or negated. So Tagore engaged with Maya . The doctrine of Maya , as Ramakrishna Parama-hamsa has pointed out, has two sides to it. On the one hand Maya does mean illusion, the not-self, the false, the transient, whose evil influence on human beings we are daily witness to ...
... away, the life-force and the embodiment in matter; for that can only be done by the supermind power and by no other. You appeal to the Vaishnava-Tantric traditions, to Chaitanya, Ramprasad, Ramakrishna. I know something about them and, if I did not try to repeat them, it is because I do not find in them the solution, the reconciliation I am seeking. Your quotation from Ramprasad 1 does not assist... were not made part of the theory of the relations. I do not think they formed a regular and authorised part of the relations of the bhaktas to Chaitanya or of the disciples at Dakshineswar towards Ramakrishna. On the contrary, the relation of the disciple to the Guru in the Guruv ā da is supposed always to be that of worship, respect, a complete happy confidence, an unquestioning acceptance of the... Divine have; but as to the modalities of this divine meeting, it does not carry us much farther. In any case, my object is a realisation on the physical plane and I cannot consent merely to repeat Ramakrishna. I seem to remember too that for a long time he was withdrawn into himself, all his life was not spent with his disciples! He got his siddhi first in retirement and when he came out and received ...
... come. At that moment Sudhira 4 came and clasped me.' Henceforth Mrinalini began to frequent the Ramakrishna Ashram, escorted by Sudhira." Sri Aurobindo was in that epoch the undisputed leader in the mind of the people. Mrinalini recounts: "So when we visited the girls' school of the Ramakrishna Mission all the girls came out to see me. You don't know what an embarrassing situation I had to face... somewhat like Sri Ramakrishna keeping his wife Sarada Devi with him after he had attained his siddhi. If that is so, how are we to understand Sri Aurobindo's earlier statement that marriage becomes a thing of the past when the husband takes up yoga? Would it mean that though the wife lives with the husband, the basis of the relationship is entirely spiritual as in the case of Sri Ramakrishna? We cannot find... to a Calcutta Brahmo Girls' School for studies and there contracted a life-long friendship with one Sudhira Bose whose brother belonged to Sri Aurobindo's revolutionary party and later joined the Ramakrishna Mission as a sannyasi. Girish Chandra Bose, a very intimate friend of Mrinalini's father, almost like an elder brother, used to look after Mrinalini in Calcutta. He was the Principal of a famous ...
... evasion of the difficulty. They state very strongly that a servant of the Asram, like Muthu, for example, cannot be changed into a Ramakrishna, or a Yogi for that matter, even by the Divine. If he were, they would say "O, it was latent in him". Well, Ramakrishna himself was an ignorant, unlettered rustic according to the story. Another point, one can't say categorically and absolutely that... training can use. You will say greater scientific power and wider knowledge is not a change of consciousness. Very well, but there are Rama and Ramakrishna. Rama spoke always from the thinking intelligence, the common property of developed men; Ramakrishna spoke constantly from a swift and luminous spiritual intuition. Can you tell me which is the greater? the Avatar recognised by all India? or the... s of the overmind and the lightninglike subtleties and swiftnesses of the intuition. There! what do you think of that? However!! More seriously. I have not stated that any Muthu has equalled Ramakrishna and I quite admit that Muthu here in ipsa persona has no chance of performing that feat. I have not said that anyone here can be Sri Aurobindo or the Mother—I have pointed out what I meant when ...
... : Tagore never spoke at any time about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda except recently when he wrote a very ordinary poem on Ramakrishna during his centenary. He used to tell girls that Ramakrishna used very often to deride women saying "Kamini Kanchan" are the roots of bondage and still women worshipped him. Sri Aurobindo : I understand that Ramakrishna used to say "Kama Kanchana". When the division... from Sadhaks and did not get the same result. I thought, perhaps, I was not able to open myself to you. Sri Aurobindo : That is called simple faith, or as some call it, "blind faith." When Ramakrishna was asked about faith, he said, "all faith is blind otherwise there is no faith." He was quite right. Disciple : Is it because there is something in the nature of environmental influence that... Disciple : Not only easy but like a baby we want to be carried about. Is it possible? Sri Aurobido: Yes, but one has to be a baby – and a genuine baby. Disciple : Ramakrishna has said a Yogi need not be always like a drawn sword. Sri Aurobindo : When did he say that and what did he mean by that? A Yogi has always to be vigilant, especially in the early part of ...
... may have had on the matter, the dream did not make him yield a whit in his love and adoration of the Son of Mary." 1 How could it when the dream went against the experience of his master Ramakrishna? Once Ramakrishna had a most vivid vision of Jesus, a figure of great beauty and holiness who embraced him and disappeared into his body, causing an ecstatic trance. Later he asked his disciples what the... Bible anywhere; but born a Jew, he must have been very fair in complexion with long eyes and aquiline nose to be sure." Ramakrishna answered: "But I saw that the tip of his nose was a little flat; I don't know why I saw him like that." 2 If we have trust in so great a Yogi as Ramakrishna, we cannot ever be sceptical about Jesus' historicity. That small unusual touch about the nose seems to render the vision... References 1. The Life of Swami Vivekananda by his Eastern and Western Disciples (Almora: Advaita Ashram, 1949), p. 458. 2. Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master by Swami Saradananda, translated by Swami Jagadananda (Mylapore, Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1956), p. 296. 3. For recent Catholic and Protestant opinion, see the Roman Catholic priest Raymond E. Brown's book, The Virginal ...
... can use. You will say greater scientific power and wider knowledge is not a change of consciousness. Very well, but there are Rama and Ramakrishna. Rama spoke always from Page 498 the thinking intelligence, the common property of developed men; Ramakrishna spoke constantly from a swift and luminous spiritual intuition. Can you tell me which is the greater? the Avatar recognised by all India... regard him only as the prophet, the instrument, the Vibhuti. Christ realised himself as the Son who is one with the Father—he must therefore be an aṁśa avatāra , a partial incarnation. Ramakrishna He [ Ramakrishna ] never wrote an autobiography. What he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly quite as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya. Page 501 Augustus... that rate all religious founders would be Avatars—Joseph Smith (I think that is his name) of the Mormons, St. Francis of Assisi, Calvin, Loyola and a host of others as well as Christ, Chaitanya or Ramakrishna. For faith, miracles, Bijoy Goswami, another occasion. I wanted to say this much more about Rama—which is still only a hint and is not the thing I was going to write about the general principle ...
... powerful than speech & discussion. Remember also that we derive from Ramakrishna. For myself it was Ramakrishna who personally came & first turned me to this Yoga. Vivekananda in the Alipore jail gave me the foundations of that knowledge which is the basis of our sadhana. The error of the Mission is to keep too much to the forms of Ramakrishna & Vivekananda & not keep themselves open for new outpourings of... clearer knowledge of the results you speak of over there; for my drishti is not yet sufficiently free from obstruction for me to know all that I need to know at this stage. What you say about the Ramakrishna Mission is, I dare say, true to a certain extent. Do not oppose that movement or enter into any conflict with it; whatever has to be done, I shall do spiritually, for God in these matters especially... of their spirit,—the error of all "Churches" and organised religious bodies. I do not think they will escape from it, so long as their "Holy Mother" is with them. She represents now the Shakti of Ramakrishna so far as it was manifested in his life. When I say do not enter into conflict with them, I really mean "do not enter conflict with her." Let her fulfil her mission, keeping always ours intact and ...
... 1972 Venkatachalam, Pandit Kota, Chronology of Kāshmir Reconsidered Venkateswaran, C. S.. "The Ethics of the Purānas", The Cultural Heritage of India (Sri Ramakrishna Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta, 1962), II Venkatraman, R., Indian Archaeology: A Survey (NS ENNES Publications, Madurai, 1985) Vidyabhusana, M. S. C, In Journal of the Royal... , India as known to Pānini (Lucknow, 1953) "Bhuvana Kośa Janapadas of Bharatvarsha", Purāna ( Varanasi), V, No.1 "Yāska and Pānini" The Cultural Heritage of India (Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta, 1958), Vol.I Aitareya Brāhmana, IV, V, VII, VIII Aiyangar, K. V. Rangaswami, "The Samavartana of Snana (The end of Studentship)", Prof. K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar... 1949, II The Indo-Greeks (Oxford, 1957) Narang, Jaya Chandra, "The Regional Structure of India in Relation to Language and History", The Cultural Heritage of India (Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta, 1958), Vol. I Page 614 New American Encyclopedia (New York, 1945) "Precession of the Equinoxes" and "Solstices" Olmstead, T., History of ...
... this man will keep his head erect." This proved true. Once Ramakrishna Paramahansa was called and was asked questions. But he kept silent for a long time. Then while going he said, "Make a temple, make a temple ( Mandir karo )." At that time the idea of independence for India was dominant and so all believed that Ramakrishna had given his consent to the "Bhawani Mandir" scheme. But the ... October of this year. She had identified herself with the political ideology of Vivekananda. She had an ardent aspiration for India's freedom. She had ultimately to sever her connection with the Ramakrishna Mission on account of her political activity. The relation between Sister Nivedita and Sri Aurobindo is not well known and many conjectures and rumours have appeared Page 53 ... Perish. What is it that so many thousands of holy men, Sadhus and Sannyasis, have preached to us silently by their lives? What was the message that radiated from the personality of Bhagawan Ramakrishna Paramhansa? What was it that formed the kernel of the eloquence with which the lion-like heart of Vivekananda sought to shake the world? It is this, that in every one of these three hundred ...
... past of India. Brahmo Samaj (with its later variations), Arya Samaj, Prarthana Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission, Theosophical Society are among these syntheses, each with its own secret of power and its own circle of influence. The greatest of these was undoubtedly the stupendous spiritual phenomenon of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, followed by the global ministry of his great disciple, Vivekananda, resulting... Persuaded the inert black quietude And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God. Bankim Chandra, who was born two years after Ramakrishna, inaugurated the literary renaissance and gave India the reviving mantra, Bande Mataram; and twenty years after Ramakrishna (who was to restore spiritual sovereignty to India), there was born in 1856, in Maharashtra, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Lokamanya who... Rammohan was — and Ranade himself has been called a modern Rishi by V.S. Srinivasa Sastri. What an inspiring calendar of modern Rishis: Rammohan, Keshab Chunder Sen, Debendranath Tagore, Vidyasagar, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Narayana Guru, Dayanand, Bankim Chandra, Ranade, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Subramania Bharati, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo: these are among the ...
... prevent me from answering mental questions. On my own showing, if it is necessary for the divine purpose, it has to be done. Ramakrishna himself whom you quote for the futility of asking questions answered thousands of questions, I believe. But the answers must be such as Ramakrishna gave and such as I try to give, answers from a higher spiritual experience, from a deeper source of knowledge and not lu... greater consciousness which, starting from an electron, can build up a world and, using "a tangle of ganglia", can make them the base here for the works of the Mind and Spirit in Matter, produce a Ramakrishna, or a Napoleon, or a Shakespeare. Is the life of a great poet, either, made up only of magnificent and important things? How many "trivial" things had to be dealt with and done before there could ...
... ss till it becomes an established force there. 29 July 1933 The spiritual work of Krishna, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and others achieved nothing permanent. Whose work? So far as bringing in spiritual forces goes, I suppose their work was fairly successful. I am not aware that Ramakrishna or any other of those you speak of wanted to change the earth consciousness—they were concerned to... principle there which will transform those who can receive and embody it. 16 December 1936 Page 285 Descent and the Supramental Yoga Was there not anything like descents of peace in Ramakrishna or Chaitanya? It seems like they had intense realisations and visions and depths of Samadhi, but we do not read of their having descents of peace. Perhaps their realisations brought with them the ...
... about the past and the future spiritual development and Sri Aurobindo's mentioning certain names: "I have had no inspirations from the sadhana of Bejoy Goswami, though a good deal at one time from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. My remarks simply meant that I regard the spiritual history of mankind and specially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines... transformation, it is at best a preliminary step towards it provided it is done not in the moral way by mental self-control but in the spiritual way. Sainthood is not my object. I do not know how far Ramakrishna had gone towards the transformation as I conceive it; the metaphors you quote contain nothing precise with which I can compare my own experience or my own intuitions about the change. According to... of the glorious vari-visioned Upanishads and of the Gita's vast as well as supple and diversely convergent synthesis, not to mention the medieval saints and devotees and the marvellous modern Ramakrishna. When you wrote your book you had no idea of Sri Aurobindo, but what could be known was enough to prevent the "superior" self-congratulatory variety of Christianity from breaking out here and there ...
... half of the 19th century and where Sri Ramakrishna came as the temple priest. Sri Ramakrishna's lilaprasanga, as his great biographer, Swami Saradananda, characterises his life, was played out mostly inside the compound of that temple. The Belur Math was inspired by Swami Vivekananda, his foremost disciple, who also founded the order named after him, the Ramakrishna Mission. The Mission was a wholly new... s samadhi has many visitors, who bow before his image and visit his room upstairs. The shrine is immaculately clean and there is daily worship conducted there by the designated priests of the Ramakrishna Order. Sri Aurobindo's samadhi is even farther away, in Pondicherry, in South India. You can reach it from Madras by taking a bus or a taxi. Inside a fairly unostentatious French-style ...
... wife Annapoornadevi passed away — all in quick succession. At this time Pantulu was already a follower and admirer of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda. He had shaved clean his head and went about with a large Vivekananda-type turban and attended lectures at Ramakrishna Samaj. When he walked along the streets, children used to shout, “There goes Swami Vivekananda.” Now, after the three... scholar. By training and profession he was an engineer, but his mind was not to be fenced in in that field only. It ranged far and wide in the fields of Sanskrit, Telugu and English literature (of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo). He translated many works of Sri Aurobindo into Telugu and started the magazine Arka in that language (printed in our Ashram Press even today). He had read ...
... irresistible songs I could not go all the way with him in decrying religious ardour, having already at thirteen come under the influence of two direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa: Swami Brahmananda, the founder of Ramakrishna Mission, and "Sri M" the famous chronicler of the great Messiah. I cannot here possibly enlarge any more on my father's great though some-what enigmatic personality —... had, in his day. Nevertheless they did not, in the last resort, throw away the baby along with the bath water. That was the reason why my father had nothing but approval for my adoration of Sri Ramakrishna even when he satirized the degenerate ritualism of superstitious Hindus. The point I want to make is that, when all is said and done, there is something in the submerged depths of the authentic ...
... inevitable – on the way – not because they are helps, but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. I do not suppose Ramakrishna or Vivekananda would have recommended the incidents you allude to as an example for others to follow – they would surely have said that faith, fortitude, perseverance were the better way. That... bad moments and they would never have dreamed of giving up the Yoga or the aspiration for the Divine on the ground that they were unfit and not meant for the realisation. At any rate Ramakrishna told the story of Narada and the ascetic Yogi and the Vaishnava bhakta with approval of its moral. I put it in my own language but keep the substance. Narada on his way to Vaikuntha met a Yogi... hold up the bhakta as an example for I myself insist on the realisation in this life and not after six or a lakh of births more. But the point of these stories is in the moral and surely when Ramakrishna told it, he was not ignorant that there was a sunlit path of Yoga! He even seems to say that it is the quicker way as well as the better! You are quite mistaken in thinking that the possibility ...
... water, and making his brother drink it. He had met the great yogi Swami Brahmananda of the Ganga Math in Chandod and been impressed. In England he had already been familiar with the writings of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Vivekananda. Maybe he would find in yoga some resource to help realize his political ideals? I wanted Yoga to help me in my political work, for inspiration and power and capacity.... from Lele,’ 6 he wrote of himself. This does not mean that he did not receive help from other, most often non-material sources. One of these, as mentioned in Sri Aurobindo’s personal notes, was Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, who had died in 1886, and another was Vivekananda. ‘[Vivekananda] visited me for fifteen days in Alipore Jail and, until I could grasp the whole thing, he went on teaching me and impressed... would not leave me until he had put it all into my head,’ 7 Sri Aurobindo later confided to some of his disciples. Swami Vivekananda, that pillar of strength and the spiritual crown-prince of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, had died in 1902, six years earlier. However, Aurobindo’s highest mentors, his true and abiding instructors, were Sri Krishna and, ultimately, the Great Mother. Once put upon the path ...
... very propitious development towards the coming together of religions; this development is related to the colossal experiment carried out by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836 -1886). This experiment was an experiment in yoga, and the methods that Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa followed in this experiment were yogic. He practiced in a quick succession methods after methods, and taking recourse to the yogic... be united by admitting the truths of all religions in the light of the yogic experiences by which their truths can be verified. Happily, Swami Vivekananda, the great and heroic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, became a potent vehicle of the message of the unity of religions. This message, when uttered publicly in the first Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, was so refreshing and ...
... when he met Sri Ramakrishna, he did not ask the question whether he believed in God or not, or whether he could provide any intellectual proof. He simply asked the question: "Have you seen God?" and he was seized by Sri Ramakrishna, when the latter told him, "Yes. I see him more vividly than I see you." Since that important encounter between Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna, many young people ...
... surrendered unconditionally. Disciple : I now remember how Girish Chandra Ghosh some days before his death, said that though Ramakrishna had asked him to leave the burden of his Sadhana to him, yet Girish found he had not been able to transfer his burden to Ramakrishna. Sri Aurobindo : But the idea in India is that yoga is a work of abhyāsa , – constant practice. How can one man ... to receive the Force and many other things. It is not as simple as many people imagine – that the Guru gives and the disciple takes. Disciple : Is it not true that of all the disciples of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda got the greatest benefit ? Disciple : You mean spiritual benefit ? Sri Aurobindo ( after a pause ) : Well, it is very doubtful; evidently he was the strongest of them all ...
... understand the utility of going into Samadhi to escape from pain. Ramakrishna once said to Keshav Chandra Sen, when the former was seriously ill, that his body was breaking up under the stress of his spiritual development. But there is no necessity of having a disease for the sake of spiritual development. Disciple : If Ramakrishna had had the will he would have prevented the disease? Sri Aurobindo... establishment in me would be a part of it. It would make its descent possible in others also. Disciple : We hear that great Siddhas used to cure the sickness of others by mere touch, Ramakrishna gave even yogic experience by a touch. Sri Aurobindo : There are different kinds of powers by which these things are done; they are miracles. But the power to perform miracles is not n ...
... also cases where people leave the vital to do as it likes. You know the story of the Vedantin and Ramakrishna. The Vedantin came to the Math with a concubine. Ramakrishna asked why he was moving about with her. He replied, "What does it matter? Everything is Maya." "Then I spit on your Vedanta," Ramakrishna exclaimed. SATYENDRA: There are many Yogis with this consciousness, who live in the world and ...
... some points here and there and says that I am a remarkable man, etc. I wonder whether these people have understood the book. The other reviewer of the Ramakrishna Mission also gives the impression that they follow the old conventional ways. But Ramakrishna did not proclaim any system of thinking. They follow Vivekananda, perhaps. PURANI: Vivekananda does not seem to have succeeded as a philosopher.... His writings on Yoga are forceful. He made an attempt at writing philosophy and said that all philosophies are on the way to the Truth but only Shankara's reaches the final goal. PURANI: The Ramakrishna Mission doesn't have any outstanding thinker. SRI AUROBINDO: Its people are good at the exposition of old ideas. Abhedananda had some power. PURANI: Probably the whole speech of Chamberlain ...
... difficult than that. "You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But something puzzles me, as Shankara's stupendous activity of karma puzzles me in the apostle of inaction! — you see you are not the only puzzled person in the world! Ramakrishna also gave the image of the jar which ceased gurgling when it was full. Well, but Ramakrishna spent the last few years of his life in talking about... about Page 139 the Divine and receiving disciples — was that not action, not work? Did Ramakrishna become a half-full jar after being a full one or was he never full? Did he get far away from God and so begin work? Or had he reached a condition in which he was bound neither to rajasic work and mental prattling nor to inactivity and silence, but could do, from the divine realisation, the... my ideas about things, why do they ask me? "My remarks about being puzzled were, by the way, mere Socratic irony. Of course I am not in the least puzzled by the case either of Shankara or of Ramakrishna. "The difficulty you feel or any sadhaka feels about sadhana is not really a question of meditation versus bhakti versus works; it is a difficulty of the attitude to be taken, the approach ...
... Carts from the Tigris to the Severn", in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 17 (3). Cleator, P.E., Lost Languages (Mentor, New York, 1959). The Cultural Heritage of India (Calcutta, Ramakrishna Mission, 1937; 1958). Dales, G.R., in South Asian Archaeology, ed. H. Norman (London, 1973). "The Decline of the Harappāns", in Scientific American (May 1966). " The Mythical... "Language and Literature", in The Vedic Age, ed. R.C. Majumdar and A.D. Pusalker (Allen & Unwin, London, 1952). " The Origin of the Indo-Aryans", in The Cultural Heritage of India, Vol. I (Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta, 1958). Giles, P., "The Aryans", in The Cambridge History of India (1922). Gimbutas, Marija, "Accounting for a Great Change", in Times Literary Supplement... D. Pusalker (Allen & Unwin, London, 1952). "Editors' Prefaces", "Interrelation of Culture between India and the Outside World before Asoka", in The Cultural Heritage of India Vol. I (Calcutta, Ramakrishna Mission, 1958). jt. ed., The Age of Imperial Unity, ed. R.C. Majumdar and A.D. Pusalker (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1954). The Vedic Age, ed. R.C. Majumdar and A.D. Pusalker (Allen ...
... father found rich nourishment in the school and at the young age of fourteen I had imbibed the inspiring influence of men like Swami Ramatirtha, Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Inspired by the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, at the age of sixteen I started the practice of meditation. During the long school vacation, I would stay on in the boarding house and day after day pore over the book... mental communion with friends and sending messages to distant friends and calling them over to me. Thus the seed sown by my father sprouted into a plant and bore some fragrant flowers. Since Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were no longer alive to guide me in my newly awakened spiritual quest, I started, even while in the D. N. High School at Anand, looking for a guru who would help me to realize the... mind ever prone to doubt and filled me with the ambition to cultivate strength of mind and spirit. When, after repeated readings of the teachings of Swami Ramatirtha, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, I started practising meditation, my mind would often sink into total silence and remain in that condition for many hours. Man is a slave of his nature, prakriti . The awakened soul ...
... normal person ought to know. Perhaps Ramakrishna would not consider it to be ignorance so long as the person is turned towards the Divine? But it is an unnecessary ignorance not to know elementary mathematics. To be able to explain Conversations and Prayers is very good, but I don't see why it should exclude the other. If one has a realisation like Ramakrishna, that is another matter altogether... one fixes oneself firmly in the spiritual consciousness why one should not speak and act between men and women without the least reference to sex. 2 December 1933 Can we not justify Buddha, Ramakrishna and others who advocated isolation from women? After all, is it not essentially the same principle here, because if vital relations are debarred, nothing remains except a simple exchange of words... vital and deeper than the vital—then only you can use the Page 712 vital aright. Buddha was for Nirvana and what is the use of having relations with anybody if you are bound for Nirvana? Ramakrishna insisted on isolation during the period when a man is spiritually raw—he did not object to it when he became ripe and no longer a slave of sex. 26 January 1935 Do not receive X in your own ...
... progress in the seven constituent units of NCERT covering all the regions of the country. *Recently on recommendations of NCERT Department of Education, MHRD has declared prominent NGO's like Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education (RIMSE) Mysore, Sri Aurobindo Education Society, New Delhi, Chinmoy Mission, Prajapita Brahma Kumaris lswariya Viswa Vidyalaya, Santi Kunj, Hardwar, Ke... Some institutions have already developed professional programmes in teacher education in which value education has been incorporated in the curriculum and have been conducting such courses. The Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education (RIMSE), Mysore, has been conducting a value oriented B.Ed, course for over 25 years. There are two challenges that may have to be faced in providing... Business Management Accounting and Finance, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning , Prasanthinilayam, Andhra Pradesh, 1999, p.266. 9.Swami Prabhavananda, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Madras, 1985,pp.89-92. 10.Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth, Navajivan Publishing House, Abmedabad, 1956. 11.Yassin Shankar, Education, Human Values and Ethics: Imperatives ...
... an experiment, you'll see - but have faith. I remember an anecdote. You know Sri Ramakrishna had a great disciple, Vivekananda, and he was very fond of him. But Vivekananda was a doubter; he could not blindly accept what Ramakrishna preached. He would say all the time, "I do not believe all you say," and Ramakrishna would say, "I see the Divine Mother, I touch Her, I talk with Her." "I don't believe... 305 scientist. You must give me the proof - the proof of the pudding lies in the eating! Then, one day, Ramakrishna lost his temper and said, "Then, sala, 306 why do you come to me?" and began to abuse him. And Vivekananda gave a reply, "I come to you because I love you." Then Ramakrishna forgot all his anger and hugged him, embraced him. That is what love is. We have only to love the Divine ...
... work a spirit not intended by Ramakrishna? SRI AUROBINDO: In what way? NIRODBARAN: He spoke of service to humanity. SRI AUROBINDO: But was that Ramakrishna's idea which Vivekananda followed? Did Ramakrishna ask him to do service to humanity and did Vivekananda bring into this work what was not intended by his Master? NIRODBARAN: As far as I remember, Ramakrishna spoke of loka hita, "the good... Gita also asks us to work for the good of the world. Loka hita can be done in many ways. PURANI: So far as I know, Ramakrishna didn't say anything about service of humanity. The phrase daridra narayana—"God the poor"—was Vivekananda's. It seems not all the disciples of Ramakrishna were agreeable to the idea. But some submitted, saying, "Vivekananda should know best." SATYENDRA: Even from those ...
... repeated failures to remain physically awake on the summits of realisation. Swami Saradananda, one of the closest direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and the writer of his authoritative biography, is reporting: "In how simple terms the Thakur [i.e. Sri Ramakrishna] used to explain to us these abstruse truths of spiritual life: " 'Well, something rises from my feet and climbs towards the... d into a waking Samadhi and its spiritual gains made manifest and active even in our waking existence. 1 Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna Lila-Prasanga (Gurubhava, Purvardha), pp. 64-66. (Italics ours) 2 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 101. 3 The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 506. (Italics ours) Page 76 ... cannot expect to have the realisation of the Supreme! In our innocence we could not understand at that time that out of sheer love for us the Thakur was attempting the impossible!" 1 Sri Ramakrishna himself in his inimitable style emphasised on more than one occasion this fact of the inability of our mind-consciousness to retain its 'power of conscious discernment and defining experience' ...
... reply to DK: "... You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But something puzzles me, as Shankara's stupendous activity of karma puzzles me in the apostle of inaction! - you see you are not the only puzzled person in the world. Ramakrishna also gave the image of the jar which ceased Page 324 gurgling when it was full. Well, but Ramakrishna spent the last few years of his life in talking... talking about the Divine and receiving disciples - was that not action, not work? Did Ramakrishna become a half-full jar after being a full one or was he never full? Did he get far away from God and so begin work?... "I do not know why you drag in humanitarianism, Subhas's activism, philanthropical services, etc.... I never thought that the Congress politics or feeding the poor or writing beautiful... attain the highest and welcome us there.... "My remarks about being puzzled were, by the way, mere Socratic irony. Of course I am not in the least puzzled by the case either of Shankara or of Ramakrishna...." 10 (8)It happened once that one of Sri Aurobindo's disciples on whom he had lavished his love declined to change and deserted. A year later this man wrote to Dilip Kumar flaunting not ...
... leave off his external activities. But that he must decide by referring to his inner being. As to leaving everything for God I do not know what Ramakrishna may have meant. But I want him to understand that he ought not to decide by what Ramakrishna said, or what I say, but by what he feels within his own beings, in the inmost depth of his being. What I feel is that A has mental ideas about... power. There are no limits to its capacities. There are authentic cases of men effecting such cures without themselves being conscious of the psychic force working through them. Disciple : Ramakrishna felt the blows given to a bullock and there were marks of the stripes on his body. Is this action due to the kind of extended sense of which Dr. Joules speaks ? Sri Aurobindo : Yes. That... The relevant points in it are here reproduced. Alameda, California 18th April 1900 After all, Joe, I am only a boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the banyan at Dakshineshwar. That is my true nature, doing good and so forth are all superimpositions. Now I again hear the voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking ...
... appellation for daughter-in-law) in consideration of the fact 1. Sri Saradamoni Devi, wife of Sri Ramakrishna. Page 125 that the Holy Mother regarded Sri Aurobindo as her son. "Mrinalini desired at one time to receive diksha from one of the Sannyasins of the Ramakrishna Mission. Her father wrote to Sri Aurobindo for the necessary permission but the latter in reply advised... Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Bomb Case, who after his acquittal at the trial , turned a Sannyasin1 and joined 1. Taking the name of Swami Prajnananda. Page 122 the Ramakrishna Mission. Miss Sudhira too joined the same Mission and worked as a teacher of the Sister Nivedita School, of which, after Sister Christine left for America shortly before the war, she became the head... movement nor in any of the reforms associated with that movement. The whole religious bent of the later years of her life was in the direction of the Hindu revival movement inspired by Paramhansa Ramakrishna and his great disciple Swami Vivekananda. "There was no relationship, nor even acquaintance between the Boses and the Ghose family, except that Mrinalini's father once came in contact with ...
... from answering mental questions. On my own showing, if it is necessary for the divine purpose, it has to be done. Ramakrishna himself whom you quote for the futility of asking questions Page 475 answered thousands of questions, I believe. But the answers must be such as Ramakrishna gave and such as I try to give, answers from a higher spiritual experience, from a deeper source of knowledge... we can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him; Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of him who was Rama and who was Krishna being within him. But Chaitanya's case is peculiar; for according to the accounts he ordinarily felt and declared... related about the appearance of Krishna in him from time to time is accepted, these outbursts of the splendour of the Divine Being are among the most remarkable in the story of the Avatar. As for Ramakrishna, the manifestation in him was not so intense but more many-sided and fortunately there can be no doubt about the authenticity of the details of his talk and actions since they have been recorded ...
... more difficult than all. You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But one thing puzzles me, as Shankara's stupendous activity of karma puzzles me in the apostle of inaction—you see you are not the only puzzled person in the world. Ramakrishna also gave the image of the jar which ceased gurgling when it was full. Well, but Ramakrishna spent the last years of his life in talking about the Divine... Divine and receiving disciples—that was not action, not work? Did Ramakrishna become a half-full jar after being a full one or was he never full? Did he get far away from God and so begin a work? Or had he reached a condition in which he was bound neither to rajasic work and mental prattling nor to inactivity and silence, but could do from the divine realisation the divine work and speak from the inner ...
... If it was the shock of sheer spirituality in the figure of Ramakrishna that gave birth to Indian Nationalism by kindling in the nation a consciousness of its own typical genius, we should do well to guard against satisfaction with any lesser type of nationalist aspiration. The type truly in consonance with the cathartic shock from Ramakrishna is summed up in the famous cry of Bankim's song, Bande Mataram... attractive veil of westernisation fell from the eyes, the feebleness of the country's decadence went out of the limbs and India knew what she was and grasped the essential energy of her own self. Ramakrishna, the illiterate man from the temple of conventional Kali-worship, was a veritable colossus of mystical experience: in him direct and immediate realisation of the Divine Being reached an intensity... analytic mind, a highly cultured master of system and organisation, a richly endowed physical nature, shows that India moves instinctively to grip earth no less than heaven. At least the intention of Ramakrishna was to reshape through Vivekananda the whole of the country's life in the light of God-realisation. But by embodying in his own figure a stark spirituality, as it were, he performed the catharsis ...
... same creative Force which his intellect riddled with argument. He was a most zealous devotee of Ramakrishna as an Incarnation - that is to say, of a real manifestation of the Supreme Essence without that Essence's ceasing to be supreme for a moment. For him to look upon the Divine Mother and upon Ramakrishna as illusions to be renounced would have been to make a mockery of his own holiest feelings. And... did overstress it because of a certain division between his deeply dedicated heart and his powerful yet not untroubled intellect. The most momentous event in his life was the great act of Ramakrishna, a little before Ramakrishna's own death, which endowed Vivekananda with the divine energy to carry out his mission on earth. "I have become a fakir," cried the Master after imparting to the young... and at the same time the tragic puzzlement of one whose intellect discovered not the master-key to life's riddle. A quintessence of the Vivekananda who inherited the world-enlightening mission of Ramakrishna in a mind avid of immurement in the illimitable Formless where no questions arise, this lyric which we may well regard as one of the treasures of English poetry makes the Divine Being utter to him ...
... cannot continually remain in Samadhi, 1 Swami Nikhilananda (Tr.), The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 95. (Italics ours) 2 Ibid., p. 174. Page 59 in the consciousness of the Supreme Truth; 'one cannot remain in bh ā va for long', 1 as Sri Ramakrishna would say. So long as the body exists, one is perforce brought down 2 from the absorbed state of... kalpakotiśatairapi 4 Punarāvṛttirahitaṁ kaivalyaṁ pratipadyate. ( Shankara , Vākyavṛtti., 53) Page 58 undertaken after attaining to Self-Knowledge. In our day, Sri Ramakrishna is very much explicit on this particular point. Thus he says: "Suicide is a heinous sin, undoubtedly. A man who kills himself must return again and again to this world and suffer its agony... indifference by all, especially since our normal waking physical consciousness does not seem to have the spiritual capability of ever mirroring the highest or the deepest realisation. Is it not Sri Ramakrishna who cited his own case to declare: "Sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni: it is not good to keep the voice on 'ni', it is not possible to keep it there very long. I shall keep it on the next lower note" ...
... Hindi translation), Gita Press, 1969, Gorakhpur, Reprint. Jain, Hiralal, Literature of Jainism, in cultural history of India, Ramakrishna Mission institute of culture, 1978, Calcutta, Vol. V. Katopanisad (text with English translation), Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1973, Madras, XI Edition. Kenopanishad (with Śānkara-bhāsya) (text with Hindi translation), Gita Press, 1969, Gorakhpur,... Press, Gorakhpur, 1932. Śankaracharya, Brahmasūtra Bhāsyam, Nimaysagar Press, Bombay. Śankarā, Drg-drsya-viveka, Sri Ramakrishna Ashram, Mysore, 1970. Śankarā, Mahendra Nath, The Bhagwad Gitā: Its Early Commentaries, in Cultural History of India, Ramakrishna Mission institute of culture, 1962, Calcutta, Vol. II. Sharma, B.N.K., History of the Dvaita School, Motilal Banarasi Dass ...
... But it is not enough. It is easy enough, especially for Indian youths, to adore him and do him worship. What is more difficult is to know and understand his Master, Sri Ramakrishna. And he who does not know and understand Sri Ramakrishna cannot know and understand Swami Vivekananda wel1. In any case, you will agree that anyone cannot be admitted to the Math just like that. You pay us a few visits, let... each other better, then perhaps we might decide something." "But I have no intention of going back," I said. "On that I am determined." Debabrata Basu and Sachin Sen had already joined the Ramakrishna Mission before I came. Both of them had been with me in Alipore Jail among the accused in the Bomb case. Page 384 Let me here in parenthesis note a few things about Debabrata... s in the inner worlds. He had a sister, Sudhira, who was also well-known to us, for in spite of her being a woman she too had shared in her brother's work as a revolutionary. On his joining the Ramakrishna Mission, Debabrata Basu was given the name of Prajnananda. He has written a book in Bengali, Bharater Sadhana (The Spiritual Heritage of India ), which is well-known to select circles. I ...
... dramatist. But he was addicted to drinking. He used to come sometimes drunk to Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna did not care. He used to come, fall at his feet, sit there and say he Page 199 was hopeless, he was a sinner, he was very bad. "Yes, of course. You can change if you want to change," said Sri Ramakrishna. "But you are there, why don't you help me;" asked Girish. "Yes, if you allow... allow me to help you, then I shall help you." So he said, "Take up my burden." Sri Ramakrishna replied, "All right, if you give me your burden, I will take it up." Then when Girishchandra was on his deathbed, he told his people: "He told me to give my burden to him, but I was not able to give it." So you see it is not easy to give oneself. Q: This flow of evolution, this emergence through crisis ...
... s, an epitaph, a loyalist address and an official statement. The description given of the work of the Ramakrishna Mission is admirable and touching, but such deeds we take as a matter of course and the least we can expect from those whose Page 620 lives have been shaped by Ramakrishna and Vivekananda; it would be surprising if those who have touched the hem of the garments of divinity should... ineffective any actual or possible centre of strength around which it is remotely possible for the national self-consciousness to crystallize. Hence the alarm and suspicion which a movement like the Ramakrishna Mission, utterly divorced from politics as it is, awakes in the rulers. "Here are men , here are people who can feel work and dare for their suffering countrymen. If this manhood should prove catching ...
... and drives to action; the quality of action and passion and struggle impelled by desire and instinct; the force of kinesis. Rajas is one of the three Gunas or modes of Nature. Ramakrishna —Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836-1886), a spiritual teacher of modem India. rasa — taste, liking, pure taste of enjoyment; the response of the mind, the vital feeling and the sense to a certain... little wishes of all kinds, etc. Vital mind — see mind. Page 418 Vivekananda, Swami —monastic name of Narendranath Dutta (1863-1902), the most famous disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and one of the great spiritual teachers of modern India. Yajnavalkya —a famous Rishi who figures prominently in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Yoga — 1. joining, union; union with ...
... a progressive self-giving. It is, in fact, the principle of sadhana that I myself followed and it is the Page 90 central part of Yoga as I envisage it. It is, I suppose what Sri Ramakrishna meant by the method of the baby cat in his image.* But all cannot follow that at once: it takes time for them to arrive at it — it grows most when the mind and the vital fall quiet. "What I meant... reliance that it will be done.' "That is the attitude into which one must grow: for certainly it cannot be made perfect at once — mental and vital movements _________________________ * Sri Ramakrishna said that the baby monkey clings to its mother whereas the baby cat lets itself be carried by its mother in a spirit of utter surrender and trust. Page 91 cut across — but if one... straining and tension can do nothing; in the end they prevail for some result or another, but with difficulty, delay, struggle, strong upheavals of the Force breaking through inspite of all. Sri Ramakrishna himself began by pulling and straining and got his result, but at the cost of a tremendous and perilous upsetting; afterwards he took the quiet psychic way Page 102 whenever he wanted ...
... deeply stirring beautiful story with an encouraging, positive ending, she asked.) It was a Bengali film, Rani Rasmani, about the rich widow of that name and Ramakrishna Paramhamsa. In 1847, this lady had the Kali temple built where Ramakrishna passed his later years in adoration of Kali, the Mother. The temple is still a much visited place of pilgrimage. The Mother saw all films at the Playground... way, very persistently, very assiduously and, in a certain measure, very efficaciously,’ she said in July 1957. 3 The film gave a vivid picture of the religious life, perhaps as lived by Ramakrishna Paramhamsa at the highest and purest level. But even to him, one of the precursors of the New Age, religion, even in its most unselfish and ecstatic devotion, could not but be directed towards a ...
... early twenties and again in Paris in 1927. Tota Purl: A wandering monk hailing from Punjab met Sri Ramakrishna towards the end of 1864. Sri Ramakrishna Page 294 practised sadhana of Adwaita Vedanta under his guidance. He was astonished to see that Sri Ramakrishna attained 'Nirvikalpa' Samadhi in three days only while he could not get it in forty years of sadhana. ...
... man to this remarkable ascetic admired by Ramakrishna and revered by Vivekananda. Even Ramakrishna himself had habits of speech about which Vivekananda in a letter to his gurubhais rates them for translating these portions as it would make a very bad impression on his English readers. But would these English readers have been justified in denouncing Ramakrishna on that account as an unspiritual man or ...
... experience gained in samadhi cannot be prolonged into the waking state. Ramakrishna had the siddhi himself before he began giving to others—so had Buddha. I don't know about the others [ Vivekananda, Ramatirtha, Ramdas, Mahavir, Shankara ]. By perfection of course is meant siddhi in one's own path—realisation. Ramakrishna always put that as a rule that one should not become a teacher to others until... in sadhana and cannot be interpreted in a general and absolute sense; for in that sense it is hard for it to be true. All difficulties disappearing in a minute? Well, Vivekananda had the grace of Ramakrishna from the beginning, but I think his difficulty of doubt lasted for some time and to the end of his life the difficulty of the control of anger was there—making him say that all that was good in him ...
... transformation, it is at best a preliminary step towards it provided it is done not in the moral way by mental self-control but in the spiritual way. Sainthood is not my object. I do not know how far Ramakrishna had gone towards the transformation as I conceive it; the metaphors you quote contain nothing precise with which I can compare my own experience or my own intuitions about the change. According to... Attempt at Physical Transformation Sri Krishna never set out to arrive at any physical transformation, so anything of the kind could not be expected in his case. Neither Buddha nor Shankara nor Ramakrishna had any idea of transforming the body. Their aim was spiritual mukti and nothing else. Krishna taught Arjuna to do liberated works, but he never spoke of any physical transformation. I do not... Himalayas, it is another world in another plane of consciousness and substance. Whatever the story may mean, therefore, it has nothing to do with the question of physical transformation on earth. Ramakrishna himself never thought of transformation or tried for it. All he wanted was bhakti for the Mother and along with that he received whatever knowledge she gave him and did whatever she made him do. ...
... Early Visions and Experiences When Ramakrishna was doing sadhana, Mother was on earth physically for the first eight years of her childhood, from 1878 Page 35 to 1886. Did he know that Mother had come down? He must have had some vision at least of her coming, but we do not read anywhere definitely about it. And when Ramakrishna must have been intensely calling Mother, she must... must have felt something at that age. In Mother's childhood's visions she saw myself whom she knew as "Krishna"—she did not see Ramakrishna. It was not necessary that he should have a vision of her coming down as he was not thinking of the future nor consciously preparing for it. I don't think he had the idea of any incarnation of the Mother. 11 July 1935 The Mother is not a disciple of ...
... agreement with an 'advanced' Sadhak) Ramakrishna as a spiritual pygmy if I had not become past astonishment in these matters.... Is it necessary for me to say that I have never thought and cannot have said anything of the kind, since I have at least some faint sense of spiritual values? The passage you have quoted is my considered estimate of Sri Ramakrishna." 4 Yes, we may thus cite Sri... and "Sri Krishna": "Sri Krishna never set out to arrive at any physical transformation, so anything of the kind could not be expected in his case. "Neither Buddha nor Shankara nor Ramakrishna had any idea of transforming the body. Their aim was spiritual mukti and nothing else. Krishna taught Arjuna to be liberated in works, but he never spoke of any physical transformation.. ...
... sense-organs appear to be awake as ever.... He who has transcended the ego-sense and does not get involved in action is indeed a Jivanmukta whether he is active or not." 2 Now from Sri Ramakrishna: "He who has attained this knowledge of Brahman is a Jivanmukta, liberated while living in the body. He rightly understands that the Atman and the body are two separate things.... These two are... Cf. "Brahmavid brahma eva bhavati" ("one who knows the Divine becomes the Divine"). 2 Yoga-V ā si ṣṭ ha (Utpatti-Prakara ṇ a), Sarga 9, Sls. 4,6,7,9. 3 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Advaita Ashram, Almora), p. 695. Page 94 Finally a long excerpt from Swami Vivekananda: "...He has reached the perfection which the Advaitist wants to attain; and at that... exhausted; but future births are no longer possible. The wheel moves so long as the impulse that has set it in motion lasts. Then it comes to a stop.' " (Italics ours) (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 431) "The ultimate liberation [from the chain of births] is attained with the dawning of the Knowledge itself." ("jñānasamakālamu- ktaḥ kaivalyaṁ yāti" : Sheshacharya, Paramārthasāra ...
... like Vivekananda are said to come down from a higher plane for a specific work in the world. Is that possible? NIRODBARAN: Ramakrishna called him an Ishwarakoti. SRI AUROBINDO: There is a plane of liberation from which beings can come down and perhaps that is what Ramakrishna meant by souls that are Ishwarakoti or Nityamukta—those that are eternally liberated and can go up and down the ladder of... am waiting for the great deliverer. "' Siva, O Siva, carry my boat to the other shore.' "After all, Joe, I am only the boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the Banyan at Dakshineswar. That is my true nature; works and activities, doing good and so forth are all superimpositions. Now I again hear his voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul ...
... others who don't do that and bear the pain. NIRODBARAN: Ramakrishna was one such. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Yogis can go into Samadhi and put an end to the Samskara. But I don't see the utility of going into Samadhi to escape from pain. On the other hand, when one decides to bear a disease, it seems to me in a way an acceptance of it. Ramakrishna once, when he was seriously ill, said to Keshab Sen that... that his body was breaking up under the stress of his spiritual development. But spiritual development need not always lead to disease. NIRODBARAN: If Ramakrishna had so willed it, he could have prevented the disease. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh yes, but he didn't believe in using his will to cure his disease or in praying to the Divine for a cure. NIRODBARAN: It is said that he got his cancer because ...
... the dynamic movement of one's nature; in other words one is no longer acting from the ordinary or even the enlightened human consciousness and its ignorance. NIRODBARAN: Couldn't people like Ramakrishna, who have attained to the Divine consciousness and been living in and acting from it, be said to have transformed their nature? He didn't act from a human motive or from egoism or selfishness. ... which everything is based on the Truth-Consciousness; the whole instrumentality is that. One lives in that and acts from that; one has it both in its static and dynamic aspects. It is said that Ramakrishna had a cold while travelling in a train. Somebody asked him to put his head out the window and his cold would be cured. He did that. NIRODBARAN: He was quite childlike in many such matters. ... MANILAL: There may be sadhaks here who act from the spiritual consciousness. SRI AUROBINDO: Who? Nirod? (Laughter) DR. MANILAL: Yes, Nirod and Anilbaran, etc. (Laughter) PURANI: What Ramakrishna and others did came at most from the intuitive consciousness. They were open to that plane and got inspiration for action from those levels. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, their static consciousness may ...
... it true that nowadays you’re sunk in the writings of Sri Aurobindo?” Nishikanto replied that Sri Aurobindo’s works were read not only by him but by many in Santiniketan and he added that books on Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and other saints have been read by him. Years later Tagore admitted that when he had heard of Nishikanto reading Sri Aurobindo’s works he had realized that Nishikanto would go out of... bunched together… The poems, meant to be recited or sung, are written supposedly in the ‘Kirtan’ style. They are mainly eulogies on Sri Krishna. But the writer also extols other great souls, like Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Vivekananda, Sri Gourango, etc… In Nishikanto’s poems Krishna is not shown as a mythical god but as a real being… For himself it was a fulfilment devoutly to be wished. One could... letter to Dilip Kumar giving him the permission to record his song He’s caught, the Elusive on the gramophone and expressed his happiness on the fact that the sale proceeds of the records would go to Ramakrishna Mission. The last sunset 20 May 1973. Nishikanto was lying on his bed and looking at the sun setting in the west. When Aparna asked him how he was feeling, he replied: “The exterior co ...
... very propitious development towards the coming together of religions; this development is related to the colossal experiment carried out by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836-1886). This experiment was an experiment in yoga, and the methods that Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa followed in this experiment were yogic. He practiced in a quick succession, methods after methods, and taking recourse to the yogic... admitting the truths of all religions in the light of the yogic experiences by which their truths can be verified. Happily, Swami Vivekananda, the great and heroic disciple page - 73 of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, became a potent vehicle of the message of the unity of religions. This message, when uttered publicly in the first Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, was so refreshing and ...
... to remove the Mughal yoke. But he did not take to political organisation as his own work-he only prepared the ground and Shivaji organised the politic, activity. Was Ramdas an escapist ? Ramakrishna after a long and arduous life of Tapasya. gives out to the world that the sincere practice of every religion leads to the same experience—can he be called a escapist ? Does he not serve the highest... highest need of mankind by giving to it a great truth ? If a culture worth the name of " Human Culture " is to arise some day in future it can only be on the basis of the truth announced by Ramakrishna. And what about his being a living example of the attainment of profound knowledge by other more direct methods of inner culture than those that are in vogue? Sometimes, it is forgotten that rushing... It is also used for individual purposes outside the scope of the Ashram and the practice of yoga; but that, of course, is silently done and mainly by a spiritual. action." ( 13-3-1944 )16 Ramakrishna gave birth to the neo-spirituality in India by freeing it from all external forms and stressing "experience" as the acid test. On the basis of his experience—call it realisation—he declared the unity ...
... seemed to have so completely mastered the intellect and the sensibility of the average educated Indian, and although the rot had been arrested somewhat by the stupendous spiritual phenomenon of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, still a great deal remained to be done. The paramount need was a movement of regeneration and a return to sanity, strength and national self-respect. But how was this movement to be... remarkable for certain predictions which came true and statements of fact which also proved to be true although unknown to the persons concerned or any one else present". 24 On another occasion, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was called, and after a long silence his spirit seems to have said (as recorded by Barin), "Mandir gado! Mandir Page 192 gado ! (Make a temple! Make a temple!)"... covers and confines us - as if in a tomb. And it will be death indeed if we cannot - if we will not - cast this shroud aside and spring into life and action. Have seers blest and mighty prophets like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda occurred in vain? Don't we remember Vivekananda's ringing exhortation: My India, arise! Where is your vital force?... If any nation attempts to throw off its national vitality ...
... has in a greater degree than other races the yet undeveloped faculty of direct knowledge, latent in humanity and now to be evolved, which is above reason and imagination, the faculty which in Sri Ramakrishna, the supreme outcome of the race, dispensed with education and commanded any knowledge he desired easily and divinely. It is a faculty which now works irregularly in humanity, unrecognised and confused... the accomplishment Page 376 in philosophy of Shankara in a short life of thirty-two years and dwarfed by the universal mastery of all possible spiritual knowledge and experience of Sri Ramakrishna in our own era. These instances are not so common as the others, because pure creative genius is not common; but in Europe they are, with a single modern exception, non-existent. The highest creative ...
... call of the Divine within. I cannot think that the Gita would solve such an inner situation by sending Buddha back to his wife and father and the government of the Sakya State, or would direct a Ramakrishna to become a Pundit in a vernacular school and disinterestedly teach little boys their lessons, or bind down a Vivekananda to support his family and for that to follow dispassionately the law or medicine... disinterested performance of duties but the following of the divine life, the abandonment of all dharmas, sarvadharmān , to take refuge in the Supreme alone, and the divine activity of a Buddha, a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda is perfectly in consonance with this teaching. Nay, although the Gita prefers action to inaction, it does not rule out the renunciation of works, but accepts it as one of the ways ...
... instructions of this kind. It is only those who have been accepted into his own path of Yoga to whom he gives spiritual guidance. Suggest to him that as he is a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna, he would find his natural guides in the Ramakrishna Mission. 4 February 1931 You can write to him that Sri Aurobindo does not intervene by giving instructions in the Yoga of anybody except his own disciples. His own ...
... 80, 174 propaganda, 196 psychoanalyst is, 197-198,218 psychology, 198 Puranas , 69 , 96, loolln), IOS, 110 R Rajagopalachari, Chakravarti, 166, 237-238(fn) Rama, 238 Ramakrishna, 76 , 102 Ramakrishna Mission, 112 Ramayana, 98(fn) Ramdas. 46 Ramprasad, 146 Rao, S. R. , 101(fn) rationalism , 55 , 85, 140 reason, 1,85,201 -202 reform sure formers, 89-90 religion, 49 , 101 ...
... Scriptures nor in archaeology. It is safe to predict that future archaeological findings will further confirm the essential continuity of Indian civilization. Page 101 Thus said Ramakrishna and thus said Vivekananda. Yes, but let me know also the truths which the Avatar cast not forth into speech and the prophet has omitted from his teachings. There will always be more in God than the... away old ideas, and turn their faces resolutely to the future. But they cannot do this, if they merely copy European politics or go on eternally reproducing Buddhistic asceticism. I am afraid the Ramakrishna Mission with all its good intentions is only going to give us Shankaracharya and Buddhistic humanitarianism. But that is not the goal to which the world is moving. January, 1915 Charity ...
... × A Bengali film, Rani Rasmani , which describes the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Rani Rasmani, a rich, very intelligent and religious Bengali widow, who in 1847 built the temple of Kali at Dakshineshwar (Bengal) where Sri Ramakrishna lived and worshipped Kali. × ...
... positive divine fulfilment in the increasing manifestation of Sachchidananda. As to the impossibility of return [ to the earth ], that is a knotty question. A divine being can always return—as Ramakrishna said, the Ishwarakoti can at will ascend or descend the stair between Birth and Immortality. For the others, it is probable that they may rest for a relative infinity of time, śāśvatīḥ samāḥ , ... rebirth, but to establish that one is such a one reborn, a deeper experience is necessary, not a mere mental intuition which may easily be an error. Ideas of this kind about Vivekananda and Ramakrishna are ideas of the mind to which the vital strongly attaches itself—the truth of the past lives cannot be discovered in that way. These mental ideas are not true. You must wait for direct knowledge ...
... the Self; life and what one does in life do not matter. Have you not read of the Yogi who came with his concubine and Ramakrishna asked him, "Why do you live like that?" He answered, "All is Maya, so it does not matter what I do so long as I know the Brahman." It is true Ramakrishna replied, "I spit on your Vedanta", but logically the Yogi had a case. For if all life and action are Maya and only the ...
... minds that the practice of Yoga is inimical to the health of the body and tends to have a bad effect of one kind or another and even finally leads to a premature or an early dropping of the body. Ramakrishna seems to have held the view, if we can judge from his remarks about the connection between Keshav Sen's progress in spirituality and the illness which undermined him, that one was the result and... the view, since they have the Yoga Shakti at their disposal if they choose to use it, that the Yogi falls ill and dies not because of but in spite of his Yoga. At any rate, I don't believe that Ramakrishna (or any other Yogi) fell ill because of his trances; there is nothing to show that he ever suffered in that way after a trance. I think it is said somewhere or he himself said that the cancer in ...
... not at all unnatural that the anger brought back peace and harmony: 2 for this anger was a form of loyalty to the Divine and that put you into touch with your psychic consciousness again. Sri Ramakrishna was quite right about anger. The hostile powers are proof against gentleness and sweetness and non-resistance and soul-force, but a current of righteous anger often sends them flying. Vindictiveness... wrote that he grew angry when he read some false statements about Sri Aurobindo made by a journalist and that his anger relieved him of a slight depression. He was reminded of a remark made by Sri Ramakrishna: "The ripus (passions) too can help in the spiritual life provided you know the secret of the game: for instance, anger may help you if you turn it against all who are hostile to the Divine."—Ed ...
... details, what is created. 157) Thus said Ramakrishna and thus said Vivekananda. Yes, but let me know also the truths which the Avatar cast not forth into speech and the prophet has omitted from his teachings. There will always be more in God than the thought of man has ever conceived or the tongue of man has ever uttered. 158) What was Ramakrishna? God manifest in a human being; but behind there ...
... the month was over and I returned home, I would not rejoin regular school. He agreed. At the end of the month, I stopped going to school but continued in the abhyasagriha . Somehow, a copy of Ramakrishna-Kathamrita came into my hands at this time and I devoured it avidly. I lost interest in everything. But I retained my interest in the akhada [gymnasium] which was popular in our town and where... Swaminarayan cult after retiring from politics. I learnt that the instructions were such that Haribhai could go his own way helped by them. Kanti and I went to Haribhai's house on the day of Ramakrishna Jayanti. We meditated there. Our desire to see Sri Aurobindo increased so much that I wrote to my aunt Motibai (my father's sister) about it. She had loved me very much from my childhood and I felt ...
... them together with the students and the adult Ashramites. Thus she had recently been watching a Bengali film, Rani Rasmani , about the rich widow who built the Kali temple in Dakshineshwar for Ramakrishna Paramhansa. This film, unexpectedly, had become the occasion of a powerful experience. (“For people who believe that some things are important and other things are not, that there are activities... developed spiritual persons, even extending to the emission of an enveloping aura and there has been recorded an initial phenomenon of this kind in the life of so great a spiritual personality as Ramakrishna. But these things have been either conceptual only or rare and occasional and for the most part the body has not been regarded as possessed of spiritual possibility or capable of transformation … ...
... can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as such al- though with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him. Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of Him who was Rama and who was Krishna, being within him. But Chaitanya's case is peculiar; for according to the accounts he ordinarily felt and declared... appearance of Krishna in him from time to time is accepted, these outbursts of the splendour of the Divine Being are among the most remarkable Page 192 in the story of the Avatar. As for Ramakrishna, the manifestation in him was not so intense but more many-sided and fortunately there can be no doubt about the authenticity of details of his talk and actions since they have been recorded ...
... To show to the world that Ramprasad is Kali's rightful son, Come what may, I shall eat Thee up—Thee and Thy retinue— Or lose my life attempting it." 1 It is the same mood that Sri Ramakrishna expresses when he refers to one of his experiences in the following terms: "Oh, what a state of mind I passed through! I would open my mouth, touching, as it were, heaven and the nether... with the divine origin, all suffering disappears." (The Mother, Bulletin, Vol. IX, No. 2, p. 59). 1 Swami Nikhilananda's translation. 2 Swami Nikhilananda (Trans.), The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 527. 3 Taittiriya Upanishad, III. 10. Page 244 Upanishadic Rishis sing forth again and again in eulogy of the principle of Food in terms ringing with profoundly ...
... minds that the practice of yoga is inimical to the health of the body and tends to have a bad effect of one kind or another and even finally leads to a premature or an early dropping of the body. Ramakrishna seems to have held the view, if we can judge from his remarks about the connection between Keshav Sen’s 42 progress in spirituality and the illness which undermined him, that one was the result... the view, since they have the Yoga-Shakti at their disposal if they choose to use it, that the yogi falls ill and dies not because of but in spite of his yoga. At any rate, I don’t believe that Ramakrishna (or any other yogi) fell ill because of his trances; there is nothing to show that he ever suffered in that way after a trance. I think it is said somewhere or he himself said that the cancer in ...
... tour after his triumphal appearance at the first World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. She travelled with him to Calcutta in 1898. Swami Vivekananda initiated her into the newly formed Ramakrishna Mission and renamed her Nivedita. From then on she worked with the burning intensity of her love for India and with all her might for the resurgence of the country. She never hid her convictions... others he participated in for his amusement. He soon discovered that most messages originate from the subconscious and others from invisible and untrustworthy little entities. Once the ‘spirit of Ramakrishna’ told them to ‘build a temple.’ Subsequently, and mainly on Barin’s insistence, Aurobindo wrote the pamphlet Bhawani Mandir. (‘Mandir’ means temple, and Bhawani, like Kali and Durga, is a warlike ...
... development in the Ashram. One can see some of his best works — from his early period to his last works in the marbling technique — in the book Champaklal as an Artist. One interesting work, Sri Ramakrishna with the image of Mother Kali in the background, is included here; this unfinished painting was made before Champaklal joined the Ashram. The Mother gave titles to many of his marbling paintings... patience, persistence and goodwill in printing the book. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Roshan Pondicherry - 605 002 1929: The Mother setting out for an evening drive Sri Ramakrishna with the image of Mother Kali Painting by Champaklal Nirodbaran and Champaklal Part V Talks and Interviews with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother During the 1920s Sri Aurobindo ...
... greater consciousness which, starting from an electron, can build up a world and, using "a tangle of ganglia," can make them the base here for the works of the Mind and Spirit in Matter, produce a Ramakrishna, or a Napoleon, or a Shakespeare. Is the life of a great poet either made up only of magnificent and important things? How many "trivial" things had to be dealt with and done before there could be... surprised her more was, she said, that Horace, a moment later, brought along Hector, 2 the Trojan King ____________________ 1. Girish Ghose, a Bengali dramatist and actor, disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. 2. Trojan warrior, son of Priam and Hecuba, brother of Paris and Cassandra (who was loved by Apollo). Hector was killed by Achilles, who dragged his body three times round the walls of Troy ...
... call of the Divine within. I cannot think that the Gita would solve such an inner situation by sending Buddha back to his wife and father and the government of the Sakya State, or would direct a Ramakrishna to become a Pundit in a vernacular school and disinterestedly teach little boys their lessons, or bind down a Vivekananda to support his family and for that to follow dispassionately the law or medicine... disinterested performance of duties but the following of the divine life, the abandonment of all dharmas, sarvadharman, to take refuge in the Supreme alone, and the divine activity of a Buddha, a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda is perfectly in consonance with this teaching. Nay, although the Gita prefers action to inaction, it does not rule out the renunciation of works, but accepts it as one of the ways ...
... January 1898. For some time she lived with two American ladies who were also Vivekananda's disciples. They stayed at Belur, a few miles from Calcutta, in a cottage belonging to the monks of the Ramakrishna order. The Swami came to the cottage every morning. He would speak to the three women about his ideals and his work. He would talk to them about India and her people. He told them stories about... school work. She now decided to lend support to other causes as well, for the national movement in favour of political independence was rapidly growing. For this purpose she resigned from the Ramakrishna mission and plunged into the nationalist struggle. If an unjust law was passed by an Indian Council or Assembly, she was the first to speak against it. She was not afraid of the British Government ...
... m." (Yogavasishtha, III; 95; 3) Meaning thereby: "There is no hill, no sky, no sea nor any heaven where you can take refuge and escape the consequences of your actions." Sri Ramakrishna, the sage of Dakshineshwara, also referred to this inexorable law of reaping the consequences of one's actions (karmaphala-bhoga) in his own inimitable style. Let us listen to his narration: ... Mathur Biswas]: he indulged in many types of sinful acts in his youth; the result was that he had to suffer a lot before his death due to the attack of many virulent illnesses. (Vide Kumar Nandy, Ramakrishna-Kathasara) Nor should one seek false consolation from an illusory hope that if one commits a misdeed in secrecy outside the possible knowledge of other persons, one can perhaps escape the ...
... The Practice of the Integral Yoga XXV The conquest over the Hostile Forces Sri Ramakrishna, the Saint of Dakshineswara, speaks at one place in course of his autobiographical narration: "Do you know, how many things I used to see when I would go into meditation? One day while I was meditating under a Bilva tree, the Evil Being came to me and... them in course of his sadhana. But what is this strange story of some disembodied supraphysical beings coming to confuse the sadhaka? Is it at all true to fact?" But this is not peculiar to Ramakrishna alone. When we go through the lives of past Yogis and mystics of various ages and countries and read the accounts of their periods of sadhana, we come across similar statements and narrations. Have ...
... as the via royal to the supreme spiritual experience. 1 2 The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 381. 3 The Life Divine, pp. 162-63. Page 116 Thus we find Sri Ramakrishna declaring: "The Knowledge of Brahman cannot be attained except through the annulment of Mind. A Guru told his disciple, 'Give me your mind and I shall give you knowledge.' " 1 The Rajarshi... until our vitality transfigured ceases in the end to be the limited life-force which now supports mind and body and becomes a figure of the all-blissful conscious force of 1 Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathasar, p. 296. 2 Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha Rāmāyaṇam, V.9. 3 Ibid., IV. 35. 18. 4 Ibid. 5 Yoga ś ikhopani ṣ ad, 6.60. Page 117 Sachchidananda ...
... waiting for the great deliverer. "Shiva, O Shiva, carry my boat to the other shore. "After all, I am only the boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the Banyan at Dakshineswar. That is my true nature; works and activities, doing good and so forth are all superimpositions. Now I again hear his voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul... strange, in the wonderland, I come — a spectator, no more an actor." 1 Are then actions and creations such great binding elements as to be obligatorily left out at the end? Did not Sri Ramakrishna give the image of a pregnant woman whose work-load diminishes day by day? But the difficulty experienced by a spiritual seeker in guarding the peace of the silent Self while engaged in ...
... V Renunciation in the integral yoga Traditionally speaking, the life of an authentic spiritual person is always conceived of as a life of renunciation. In our times Sri Ramakrishna, the Saint of Dakshineswar, never tired of stressing the importance of tyāga or renunciation. Also, the quintessence of Krishna's teaching in the Gita lies in the process of entire renunciation... Indeed, it cannot be denied that renunciation is absolutely essential for the building up of a life of sadhana and for the acquisition of any realisation worth the name in the spiritual Path. Sri Ramakrishna referred to this essentiality when he spoke in his simple way: "Renunciation is necessary. If something is covering a certain other thing, you have to remove the first thing in order to perceive ...
... activity developing ideas from all things read, seen or experienced. That is not training, it is natural growth. An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge? What then about Ramakrishna? Do you mean to say that the Page 68 majority of the sadhaks here who have not learned logic and are ignorant of philosophy will never get Knowledge? But what... developed intellect certainly? Is there not a world of difference between an intellectual man and an unintellectual one expressing the Knowledge? Expression is another matter, but Ramakrishna was an uneducated non-intellectual man, yet his expression of knowledge was so perfect that the biggest intellectuals bowed down before it. I never heard that learning logic was necessary ...
... descent of Ananda. In sheer joy, I could have embraced the earth itself, Ramakrishna is said to have gone into ecstasy at the sight of clouds. My ecstasy, if you will excuse my impudence, was of the same kind. It is Ananda in the mind and vital. No apology necessary. The Ananda is the same for everyone, whether Ramakrishna or another. To relieve myself in some way of this rapture, I wanted ...
... superbly' rich in muscular movements. By his side, Ramakrishna would appear quite tame—inactive, "introvert": fewer physical displacements or muscular exercises marked his life. And yet, ask anyone who is in touch with the inner life of these great souls, he will tell you, Vivekananda is only a spark from the mighty and concentrated Energy that Ramakrishna was. What is this spiritual or Yogic Energy ...
... in the days immediately after death. The Spirit comes in dreams and visions also. Usually, in ordinary cases it is for a short time, but in certain cases it may be much longer. Disciple : Ramakrishna used to appear at many places. Hriday, his nephew, asked him to be present at the time of waving of light-arati – at the Durga Puja which he did in his village far from Calcutta. He invariably saw... What is the use of knowing all details ? Even God does not know everything directly; he manages the affair by his deputies. Disciple : People have an attraction for miracles and siddhis, Ramakrishna used to relate a story about these siddhis. A man had attained prakamya – that is to say the power to obtain whatever he wished. One day he just got the fear : "Suppose a tiger comes!" The tiger ...
... conflicting things from people and didn't get the same result. I thought perhaps I couldn't open myself to you. SRI AUROBINDO: Yours was what is known as simple faith. Some call it blind faith. When Ramakrishna was asked the nature of faith, he replied, "All faith is blind; otherwise it is not faith." And he was quite right. DR. MANILAL: Is it because there is something in our nature or in the surrounding... want an easy path? DR. MANILAL: More than an easy path; we want to be carried about like a baby. Not possible, Sir? SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? But you have to be a genuine baby! NIRODBARAN: Ramakrishna has said that one need not be like a drawn bow. SRI AUROBINDO: Where has he said that? A Yogi has to be always vigilant, especially in the early part of his sadhana, otherwise all he has gained ...
... superbly rich in muscular movements. By his side, Ramakrishna would appear quite tame – inactive, "introvert": fewer physical displacements or muscular exercises marked his life. And yet, ask anyone who is in touch with the inner life of these great souls, he will tell you, Vivekananda is only a spark from the mighty and concentrated Energy that Ramakrishna was. What is this spiritual or Yogic Energy ...
... of the Gunas. That is why Ramakrishna said about a visiting Sannyasi that he was tamasic Narayana, God inert. But when another Vedantin came along and brought a concubine with him, Ramkrishna could not keep to the same viewpoint. He asked the Vedantin, "Why do you keep a concubine?" The Vedantin replied, "Everything is Maya. So what does it matter what I do?" Ramakrishna said, "Then I spit on your ...
... learning Bengali & Sanskrit, 50; as Professor, 52ff; on Oxford & Cambridge, 52,53; on the "cultured Bengali", 55; A. B. dark, on, 55; 'New Lamps for Old', 56ff, 184, 190, 281; on Bankim, 57ff, 281; on Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, 60; beginnings of revolutionary activity, 62ff, 188ff, 281; and Sister Nivedita, 62-3, 338ff; early spiritual experiences, 64-5, 385-7; beginnings of Yoga, 64, 68,273-4,282,384; marriage... 511 Rehman, Mujibur, 282fn, 713 Rai, Lajpat, 201, 227, 234, 235, 237, 262, 264, 267, 270ff, 324, 406fn, 528, 529, 534,727 Rajagopalachari, C., 231, 531, 533,706,707 Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, 16,19, 25, 48, 60, 188, 192, 193, 195, 197, 211, 278, 557-58 Ramalinga Swami, 60 Ramamurti's ("the modern Bhima Sen"), 276, 300-01 Ramana Maharshi, 16 ...
... small library grew up as everyone in our ward had a few books with him. Most books in the library were religious — the Gita, the Upanishads, the works of Vivekananda, the life and conversations of Ramakrishna, the Puranas, hymns, spiritual songs, etc. Among other volumes were the works of Bankim, patriotic songs, books on European philosophy, history and literature. A few of the men practised spiritual... God’s name learnt to practise some spiritual discipline and realising the grace of the most Gracious became steeped in joy. Those boys achieved in a few months what Yogis take a long time to attain. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa once said, “What you are seeing now is really nothing — such a flood of spirituality is coming into this land that even boys will attain realisation after three days’ Sadhana.” To see ...
... Page 100 of groups or families of souls. One such group, it is said, gathered round the personality of Sri Chaitanya, and another round Sri Ramakrishna, who had seen it in vision before it came to him physically. Sri Ramakrishna would often say in regard to a sadhaka or yogi that he belonged to this house or that, meaning, evidently, this line or that of the manifesting divine Co ...
... influence afterwards in my life." Sri Aurobindo always acknowledged the role played by Ramakrishna and Vivekananda in his life, saying how, at one time, he had received inspiration from the sadhana of Rama- Page 489 krishna and Vivekananda. "For myself," he wrote in 1913, "it was Ramakrishna who personally came and first turned me to this Yoga. Vivekananda in the Alipore Jail gave ...
... indicated to him "the lines from which the future spiritual development had most directly to proceed, not staying but passing on." Among them, as we had occasion to see, it was in the life of Ramakrishna Paramahansa 1 that the message of Hinduism was summed up. But was the message understood? "The work that was begun at Dakshineshwar is far from finished, it is not even understood," penned Sri Aurobindo... Mechanician, the Yantri, mending & testing His machine & self-revelation as that of the God of Truth & Love, began definitely to be worked out from 18 th October, when the third & last message from Sri Ramakrishna was received. The first message was in Baroda, the 'Arabindo, mandir karo, mandir karo,' 2 & the parable of the snake Pravriti devouring herself. The second was given in Shanker Chetti's house ...
... stages in the acquisition of universal experience and completeness, all gurus imperfect channels or incarnations of the one and only Teacher, all ishtas and Avatars to be God Himself. That is what Ramakrishna taught by His life and sadhana and therefore is He the Avatar of the age, the One who prepares the future of humanity. But there is a danger of turning Him into the guru of a sect, the incarnate... sects and Churches and worship God only. 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 that Ramakrishna came, not to impose a new bondage. Therefore was Vivekananda His Apostle to the Gentiles, a man who in all things asserted freedom. The soul of Hinduism languishes in an unfit body. Break the mould ...
... An Epilogue A remarkable epilogue to an equally remarkable story of a more remarkable man. In the past (in Ashram) Pavitra-da was often addressed by many here as Ramakrishna. I gather that a portion of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa’s being had incarnated in him. It would seem once possessed by Kali, always possessed by Her. Who could have seen into this past life of Pavitra-da’s? Only one ...
... Satprem’s Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness has had tremendous outreach and George Van Vrekhem’s Beyond the Human Species is also widely read in the West. The teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Aurobindo and other influences from the East have been enormously beneficial for the West. They are breaking down the great divisions and narrowness that existed between the two cultures... ranting and screaming. He checked with his guru in New Delhi and found that one syllable in the mantra was mispronounced. From this mistake had come a violent reaction in him. Afterwards he went to Ramakrishna Mission and ultimately to Mother and Sri Aurobindo. When he next came to see me he said, “What is the best thing for me?” I told him to repeat Sri Aurobindo’s name and then all would be okay. This ...
... only in some cases the higher can be evolved out of it. But out of the lowest the highest cannot certainly come and even the psychic is hardly possible. What Ramakrishna had in his mind Sri Aurobindo cannot say, but he thinks Ramakrishna dreaded marriage from the point of view of the ascetic life. If one's ideal is to renounce the world he has to avoid woman, she being like wealth and ambition, one ...
... only in some cases the higher can be evolved out of it. But out of the lowest the highest cannot certainly .come and even the psychic is hardly possible. What Ramakrishna had in his mind Sri Aurobindo cannot say, but he thinks Ramakrishna dreaded marriage from the point of view of the ascetic life. If one's ideal is to renounce the world, he has to avoid woman, she being like wealth and ambition, ...
... greatness or divinity to Krishna because he was driven by superior armaments from Mathura to the farthest end of India or because he was wounded by an arrow in the heel and died of it, or to Ramakrishna because he suffered and died from cancer. You wrote the other day blaming somebody for losing faith in the Mother for exterior reasons such as her inability to save Tyagesan – even Krishna could... In fact here also there is some misconception. Continual personal contact does not necessarily bring out the action of the Force. Page 161 Hriday had that personal contact with Ramakrishna and the opportunity of personal service to him, but he received nothing except on one occasion and then he could not contain the Force and the realisation which the Master put into him. The feeling ...
... such publicity. But I, in my turn, having an equal, almost congenital, aversion to being gagged, had to fight for my raison d'etre. So I used to quote for his edification the great simile of Sri Ramakrishna : 'There are two types of men : one goes to a mango grove and comes back happy but keeps his own counsel; the other comes back and directs all and sundry to the matchless orchard." I belong to... inner being about spiritual things. Krishnaprem means the same thing when he says that faith is the light sent down by the higher to the lower personality. As for the epithet 'blind' used by Sri Ramakrishna, it means, as I said, not ignorantly credulous, but untroubled by the questionings of the intellect and unshaken by outward appearances of fact; e.g. one has faith in the Divine even though the fact ...
... confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him. Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of Him who was Rama and who was Krishna, being with him. But Chaitanya's case is peculiar; for according to accounts he ordinarily felt and declared himself... related about the appearance of Krishna in him from time to time is accepted, these outbursts of the splendour of the Divine Being are among the most remarkable in the story of the Avatar. As for Sri Ramakrishna, the manifestation in him was not so intense but more many-sided and fortunately there can be no doubt about the authenticity of details of his talk and actions since they have been recorded from ...
... can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him; Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of Him who was Rama and who was Krishna being within him. But Chaitanya’s case is peculiar; for according to the accounts he ordinarily felt and declared... about the appearance of Krishna in him from time to time is accepted, these outbursts of the splendour of the Divine Being are among the most remarkable in the story of the Avatar. As for Sri Ramakrishna, the manifestation in him was not so intense but more many-sided and fortunately there can be no doubt about the authenticity of details of his talk and actions since they have been recorded from ...
... in turn had nothing loud about it. The Mother bestowed a lot of attention on him and it was reported that the consciousness which had manifested through Jesus. Chaitanya and, most recently, Ramakrishna — three examples par excellence of the psychic being's love-light within the context of the old-world spirituality which put its goal in the Beyond — had taken Pavitra as its channel for the... mentioned begins: 8.30 p.m. N read an article in Asia, an American paper, to Sri Aurobindo on himself and Yoga. It was written by Swami Nikhilananda. N: It is surprising that a Ramakrishna Mission Yogi should write on you. Sri Aurobindo: It is Nishtha who arranged for its publication. He was a friend of hers before she came here. It is peculiar how they give an American ...
... and then for Pondicherry, the capital of French India. The other figure is Sri Ramakrishna of our own time with his manifold sadhana having a tremendous central motive-force in what Sri Aurobindo has called the psychic being, the soul in the inmost heart, and stressed as the greatest mover in his own Yoga - Sri Ramakrishna who after his death appeared to Sri Aurobindo on three occasions in connection ...
... confidence in the Divine and a progressive self-giving. It is in fact the principle of sadhana that I myself followed and it is the central part of the Yoga as I envisage it. It is, I suppose, what Ramakrishna meant by the method of the baby cat in his image. But all cannot follow that at once; it takes time for them to arrive at it—it grows most when the mind and vital fall quiet. What I meant by surrender... allow the Divine Force to act supporting it with its complete adhesion at every step, but otherwise remaining still and quiet. This last condition which resembles the baby cat attitude spoken of by Ramakrishna, is difficult to have. Those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their thought and will in all they do, find it difficult to still the activity and adopt the quietude of mental self-giving ...
... develop their divine strength ( Brahmatej ) to use it for divine purposes. Once attained they pour it in a stream of divine knowledge or divine love over the world; such were Shankaracharya and Ramakrishna. Sometimes it is the sorrows & miseries of the world that find them in ease & felicity and drive them out, as Buddha & Christ were driven out, to seek light for the ignorant Page 197 ... mind so changed that if his wife had been living, he would have lived with her in the world as one in the world; an idea shocking to priestly & learnèd orthodoxy, but natural to the Jivanmukta. Sri Ramakrishna, when he had attained identity with the Lord, could not indeed return to the world as a householder or bear the touch of worldly things,—for he was the incarnation of utter Bhakti,—but he took as ...
... mere tributaries of the old Rishis. This very Shankara who seems to us a giant, had only a fragment of their knowledge. Buddha wandered away on a bypath of their universal kingdom. In our own day Ramakrishna lived in his being and concretised Page 80 in his talk, Vivekananda threw out into brilliance of many-sided thought and eloquent speech the essence of ancient Veda. The Veda was the beginning... experiences. But the Indian mental atmosphere tends always, by a return upon that which is most vital in it, to bring out great souls who, like Buddha, like Chaitanya, like Nanak, like Ramdas, like Ramakrishna, belong to no school, owe their knowledge to no spiritual preceptor, but go back to the Source of all within themselves and emerge from it with some perfectly realised truth of the eternal and universal ...
... of a lower plane. Page 18 An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge? What then about Ramakrishna? Do you mean to say that the majority of the sadhaks here who have not learned logic and are ignorant of philosophy will never get Knowledge? Ramakrishna was an uneducated, non-intellectual man, yet his expression of knowledge was so perfect that the biggest intellects ...
... she was there as a State guest. Khaserao and myself went to receive her at the station. [Sri Aurobindo had talks with Nivedita about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.] I do not remember Nivedita speaking to me on spiritual subjects or about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. We spoke of politics and other subjects. On the way from the station to the town she cried out against the ugliness of the College ...
... both cases it is the action of the Grace of the Mother that alone can effect a transformation of the Vibhuti [ p. 35 ]. I would like to know the difference. Take for example, Christ, Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Confucius, Zarathustra, Buddha, Shankara, Mohammed, Alexander, Napoleon—among these well-known figures which are Vibhutis of the Mother and which are Vibhutis of the Ishwara? And what about the... the Parameshwara. It is important to remember the distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatar or lose balance like Hridaya with Ramakrishna" [pp. 15-16]. Can the Jivatman status be realised before vital egoism is abolished? One can get the knowledge or perception in the higher mind "I am That" while the vital is still untransformed ...
... retirement after the supramental descent? That will be decided after the descent. 23 September 1935 [SWAMI SAMBUDDHANANDA:] In connection with the celebration of the Birth Centenary of Sri Ramakrishna, a Parliament of Religions will be held in Calcutta from the 1st to 7th March, 1937. It is the unanimous and seriously considered view of the organisers that nobody in India today is in a more a... but for practical reasons. In fact here also there is some misconception. Continual personal contact does not necessarily bring out the action of the Force. Hriday had that personal contact with Ramakrishna and the opportunity of personal service to him, but he received nothing except on one occasion and then he could not contain the Force and the realisation which the Master put into him. The feeling ...
... cases is to see that it is the right experience, the right voice or vision—for it is possible for a false guidance to come as it did with X and Y . These things [ the seeing of Buddha, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Shankaracharya in vision ] are the result of past thoughts and influences. They are of various kinds—sometimes merely thought-forms created by one's own thought-force to act as a vehicle... these forms as a support for their work through the individual,—but sometimes one is actually in communion with that which had the name and form and personality Page 104 of Buddha or Ramakrishna or Vivekananda or Shankara. It is not necessary to have an element akin to these personalities—a thought, an aspiration, a formation of the mind or vital are enough to create the connection—it ...
... here from abroad. X is a man with a trained Page 306 intellect; he must be left to see for himself and judge. He has a great respect for the Ramakrishna Mission as the creation of Vivekananda and the continuer of the work of Ramakrishna and for Europeans like him these metaphysical differences of opinion—for so he would regard them—are of no importance,—it is the opportunity for a spiritual ...
... understand and does not care to understand my processes. He has ideas of his own, does not want peace or equality or surrender or anything else, wants only Krishna and bhakti. He has read things in Ramakrishna and elsewhere as to how to do it, insists on following that. Rejects all suggestions I can make as unpracticable. Erects a sadhana of violent meditation, japa, prayer—for these are the traditional... dearer to the Divine than others. Besides Krishna and Arjuna, we have the instance of Buddha and Ananda. There is also St. John, the beloved disciple. Then again, Vivekananda was dearer to Ramakrishna than other disciples. Chaitanya showered his grace on Madhai and Jagai, but were they closer to him than Nitai? But he had love for them (তাই বলে কি প্রেম দিব না ?). Some say that because ...
... all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mothers' milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that. In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it Page 4 must hold firm, otherwise if it loses... picture; they jump about and cry and laugh and sing, in a fit of devotion, as they say. But in reality such people do not live in the Divine. They live largely in the vital world. You say that even Ramakrishna had periods of emotional excitement and would go about with hands uplifted, singing and dancing? The truth of the matter is this. The movement in the inner being may be perfect; but it puts you in ...
... disparities, to act as if all Were equal there or to try and make all equal. It is like Hridaya, the nephew of Ramakrishna, Who when he got the touch from Rama-krishna began to shout, â¬SRamakrishna, you are the Brahman and I too am the Brahman; there is no difference between us", till Ramakrishna, as he refused to be quiet, had to withdraw the power. Or like the disciple who refused to listen to the Mahout ...
... Aphorism - 157, 158 157—Thus said Ramakrishna and thus said Vivekananda. Yes, but let me know also the truths which the Avatar cast not forth into speech and the prophet has omitted from his teachings. There will always be more in God than the thought of man has ever conceived or the tongue of man has ever uttered. 158—What was Ramakrishna? God manifest in a human being; but behind there ...
... separate: the center of activity is here or there depending upon what you have to do. As for the latest experience, 1 I can't say for sure that no one has ever had it, because someone like Ramakrishna, individuals like that, could have had it. But I am not sure, for when I had this experience (not of the divine Presence, which I had already felt in the cells for a long time, but the experience... that, it's SOMETHING ELSE. It is MATTER BECOMING THE DIVINE. And it really came with the feeling that this thing was happening for the first time upon earth. It is difficult to say for sure, but Ramakrishna died of cancer, and now that I have had the experience, I know in an ABSOLUTE way that this is impossible. If he had decided to go because the Divine wanted him to go, it would have been an orderly ...
... act seems to have many levels of significance. On the most 1. Ibid., p. 702. 2."Regional Structure of India in Relation to Language and History", The Cultural Heritage of India (Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta, 1958), Vol. I, p. 47. 3 Pargiter, op. cit., p. Page 85 apparent, the idea which is prominent is rightly said by Patil 1 to be "that the king must provide... the Purānic results and the rift threatens 1.Pusalker, Studies in the Epics and Purānas of India, p. 64. 2. "The Early History of Vaisnavism", The Cultural Heritage of India (Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta 1956), Vol. IV, p. 142. Page 95 to invalidate our conclusions, by means of Purānic comparisons, in favour of Chandragupta I. One may put up the defence ...
... ured depth: Ramakrishna's. Sri Aurobindo Page 42 has an affinity, in the basic message, with the Rig Veda, the early Upanishads, the Gita and the gospel of Ramakrishna, though he brings in addition to the manner of the seer or the poet or the pragmatist a fully formed philosophical expression which can compare quite well with any in the past. The affinity I... destroyed his ego and surrendered his self to the Divine? Why should his use of them point to any egoistic motive? All Yogis use personal pronouns for themselves - from the Vedic Rishis down to Ramakrishna. Such using is at times absolutely necessary for intercourse in the world of men. Besides, why do you confine the "I" to the ego? The ego is a particular formation in ignorant Nature; but behind ...
... he could not have commanded Vivekananda to do humanitarian work. NIRODBARAN: Anilbaran says the idea of service of humanity is Christian and was brought in by Vivekananda on his own. I am told Ramakrishna asked him to do more Tapasya, achieve greater Yogic realisation. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know exactly what Yogic realisation he had. I have read many books about him but couldn't gather a precise... biography of him doesn't give any definite information. PURANI: People say he did a lot of Tapasya at the time he was a parivrajaka, a wandering Yogi. SRI AUROBINDO: Was it this kind of Tapasya Ramakrishna meant? SATYENDRA: Vivekananda had a sort of Nirvanic experience. He has himself mentioned something about it. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that experience is the only one definitely known. PURANI: ...
... the Being. Not that it has no value or reality, but the Presence can be felt impersonal as well as personal. SATYENDRA: I suppose he has the same idea as Ramakrishna once had. SRI AUROBINDO: What was that? SATYENDRA: When Ramakrishna wanted to go into the Nirvikalpa Samadhi the form of Kali used to come and intervene. So he took an inner sword, as it were, and clove the form in two, and then ...
... Or it would be the nature of their own being that would go on with its movements to exhaust the Karma. SATYENDRA: Unless after liberation one becomes entirely passive as did Ramakrishna— SRI AUROBINDO: Even Ramakrishna used to pray, "Give me whatever you like but not lust." So he kept a preference there. Among the saints, there is the egoism of the Bhakta. Besides, one may say that the ego-sense ...
... Evening Talks must have realised that Sri Aurobindo was not a world-averse Yogi lost in rapturous silence of the Brahman like the Maharshi, nor talked, when he did, mostly of spiritual matters as did Ramakrishna. In fact our talks covered a vast range of subjects, they had almost a global dimension. We wondered at his enormous knowledge in so many fields. Considering the shortness of the period during which... slipped down and brought to our view the body of a human godhead. But he would put on the robe of silence again; yet both the visions had their unfailing charm and grandeur. The talks of Sri Ramakrishna come naturally to our mind in comparison. Their spirit is perhaps the same, the lightness and vivacity too are there, but his talks were restricted in scope, while all life being yoga for us, no ...
... A: Very fine. There is great joy here. I have to go away soon today, for many are waiting for me. Q: Who were you in your last birth? A: Swami Brahmananda [the first President of the Ramakrishna Mission] whom Ramakrishna used to call 'Rakhal'. Q: What is your mother doing now? A: Mother wants to go out for a walk with me; therefore, she is calling me. Bye! Papa, see you another time." Etc. Readers ...
... didn't write a word on K! I wanted you to clear out the possibility of the Force as a cause... Bunkum about Force. Obviously if a man goes into trance while standing or walking, he may fall down,—Ramakrishna had often to be held up when he went off suddenly while standing. But it doesn't produce results like that. I don't believe he is such a mighty sadhak as to go off into nirvikalpa samadhi 158 ... content with these affections? Why does he intend to come here for Yoga? That is another X. ... If human affections were everything or occupy such a big place in life, why did Buddha and Ramakrishna leave the world? How does Sri Aurobindo leave everything? How do patriots die unknown, unnamed, for their country? Because they can look beyond their small self to a bigger self or to the Self ...
... and they like different things according to their different tastes, isn't it so? That reminds me of a story told by none other than Sri Ramakrishna. He said - I don't swear that every word is true, but the essence is there. You know Ramakrishna was a very witty avatar - but then, all avatars are witty! So the story goes like this: There was, once, a sankirtan patha in some holy place ...
... accepting the impurity of the disciple and the consequences he has to suffer, such as disease, we can know from the example of Sri Ramakrishna. The origin of the malignant disease that had attacked him was the close contact and intimacy with his disciples. Sri Ramakrishna himself has said so. And it is because of the incidence of this disease that the atheist, the wiseacre foolishly say, "God incurs ...
... unique. Page 28 As late as yesterday it was Sri Ramakrishna who came to enrich the spiritual inheritance of India by including in it all religions, showing by his experience that God - the same God - can be found and reached through all religions. The unity of all religions is truly the message that Sri Ramakrishna brought to India and to the world. It was left to another son ...
... : Temporary occupation by the Higher Consciousness is quite possible. But I do not see the use if the Avatar has to make himself recognised like this by declarations or self-advertisements. Ramakrishna said this and I think everybody who had a great Spiritual Power has also said it sometime or other. There is nothing impossible in it. Such temporary occupation Chaitanya also had and in that state... movement of forces it is already intended but is not evident. In the movement of forces the decision to accept the Supermind is not there. 6-11-1926 Disciple : It is reported that Ramakrishna used to say about Vivekananda that he was an amsa – portion – of Shiva. What is the Truth in that ? Sri Aurobindo : There is some Truth in it. Each of these Gods has, so to say, his own group ...
... Prabartak Samgha and Motilal Roy. 26 April. A letter from Bepin Chandra Pal to Sri Aurobindo about poetry. 27 April. Remarks on a letter of Lele to Natwarlal Bharatia. 28 April. Talk about the Ramakrishna Mission in America and about spirituality and the external world; suggestions about sadhana. 30 April. A letter from the Arunchala Mission of Bengal. 2 May. Talk on the Prabartak Samgha. ... has always been foreign to me . . . . But by anger I do not mean the Rudra Bhava which I have had a few times." ¹ When asked: "Is Rudra Bhava something like the story of the snake related by Ramakrishna where the snake was asked to raise its hood – an appearance of anger – to keep off harmful people?", Sri Aurobindo replied: "Not at all. It is something genuine – a violent severity against something ...
... embodiment of that decision of the national soul, an epitome of its past manifold achievements and a harbinger of the great synthesis that was preparing in the womb of the approaching future, came Sri Ramakrishna. Four things in his illustrious life stand out with a remarkable significance. First, his coming to live very near the most modernised, that is to say, westernised, metropolis of the country. He... its turn, and the life, and, last, the physical consciousness. The downward curve seems to be complete now, and there are indications that the upward; has already begun. The synthesis that Sri Ramakrishna foresaw, foreshadowed and foretold, a mightier synthesis than even that of the Gitâ , seems to be the destined means of the integral perfection aspired after by the progressive mind of modern man ...
... Aurobindo’s followers. I conclude this homage to Sudhir-da with my heartfelt love and gratitude for him. Sudhir-da – A Chosen One PARICHAND ( In-charge of Ashram Garden Service ) As Sri Ramakrishna gave a call to some young souls and they responded to it for the Mother’s work, so must have gone out a call from Sri Aurobindo to the first few pioneers who gathered around him for the Mother’s... answered, “Do not stop me please. I know my fighting days are over, but nothing can change my attitude. At least I am capable of dying, if not of fighting back.” Can you forget such a personality? Ramakrishna once said, of the God-intoxicated dervishes of India, “The Bauls came, they sang, they danced and they departed, but none understood them.” At the time of the joint manifestation of the Mother ...
... Agenda is my gift to those who love me.” It is clear enough, isn’t it? Were Peter and Paul the disciples of Christ, or of the Vatican? Was Vivekananda the disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Page 301 or of the Ramakrishna Mission ? Was Marx a disciple of the Kremlin? Blast them! They killed Mother, and now they want to whitewash it. Well, we are on trial in order to denounce them publicly. ...
... call! Nay more: he had found his "Cave of Tapasya" in Pondicherry, and there he would remain. And so firm was his resolution that he would not come out of his seclusion even to preside over the Ramakrishna Paramahamsa centenary celebrations in 1936. Although he had cut his connection with politics, once at the time of the Cripps mission (as mentioned earlier) he did intervene, but without... for this transformation, I might go; you will have to fulfil our Yoga of supramental descent and transformation." 69 In his letter of 7 December 1949, Sri Aurobindo explained why, unlike Sri Ramakrishna who wouldn't use spiritual force for preserving the body, he was not unwilling to maintain the body "in good health and condition as an instrument or physical basis" for Yoga sādhanā . In his reported ...
... Towarnicki: And it all happened in the flash of a look? It lasted, I don't know, four seconds.... Four seconds. And I never forgot it. Towarnicki: As when Swami Vivekananda met Ramakrishna for the first time. It lasted a fraction of a second. It's a recognition, you see. That's exactly it. It isn't that you discover something different; you suddenly recognize something. It's... Do you know Kali?" I look at Mother without a word, with a slight smile. And Mother starts taking on Kali's appearance – that terrible appearance, you know. A Power that anybody who... (you know Ramakrishna, who worshipped Kali?), well, anybody would have been crushed by that Force, that Power. But, I don't know, I am Mother's child, so I just stood there, looking at her. After some time, Mother ...
... the hero just behind, while in later times the most striking feature is the long uninterrupted chain from Buddha and Mahavira to Ramanuja, Chaitanya, Nanak, Ramdas and Tukaram and beyond them to Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and Dayananda. But there have been also the remarkable achievements of statesmen and rulers, from the first dawn of ascertainable history which comes in with the striking figures ...
... Punjab founded itself on a fresh interpretation of the truth of the Veda and an attempt to apply old Vedic principles of life to modern conditions. The movement associated with the great names of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda has been a very wide synthesis of past religious motives and spiritual experience topped by a reaffirmation of the old asceticism and monasticism, but with new living strands in it ...
... corresponding environment. 4 10 March 1912 Notes for a Meeting What a true meeting should be. Mr. Ber talked to us last Friday about mantras. 2 kinds of masters according to Ramakrishna: The master who gives the mantra and who is thus an indirect means of spiritualisation. The master who has had the deep experience of divine union and who by his presence alone transmits s ...
... an incarnated being has a very weak physical body; in this case isn't his body an obstacle to his work upon earth? An incarnated being? Whom do you call an incarnated being? For example, Ramakrishna or some others... Page 75 Oh! Oh, oh, but I don't understand your question very well. The present being, whatever it may be, and whoever may be within it, always has a psychic being ...
... its motive. [Earth from Dakshineshwar was found in Sri Aurobindo's room when the police searched his house in May 1908.] The earth was brought to me by a young man connected with the Ramakrishna Mission and I kept it; it was there in my room when the police came to arrest me. The case commenced before the Alipore Magistrate's Court on the 19th May, 1908 and continued intermittently ...
... without it no true transformation is possible. 5 July 1937 Transformation If you find time to answer my letter, do at least remember my chief questions: (1) whether in Vaishnavism and Ramakrishna ism there wasn't partial transformation at least, and (2) does Page 152 not any light of realisation, if it is to be lasting, presuppose some transformation of the ādhāra in order that ...
... change comes soon after marriage." Perfectly natural—they marry before the change—then the change comes and the marriage belongs to the past self, not to the new one. "The wives of Buddha and Ramakrishna felt proud when they were deserted." Then what's the harm? "If married life is an obstacle to spirituality, then they might as well not marry." Page 228 No doubt. But then when ...
... foundation of life in which all works have to be done not for the self but for the Divine. 31 December 1934 Humanitarian work of this kind is outside the scope of the Asram; it is not as in Ramakrishna mission. We avoid public work and activities and confine ourselves to the sole spiritual work of the Asram itself. To do otherwise would be to disperse energy on the ordinary levels instead of c ...
... house most of the time he was at Baroda. There was no such discussion of problems; Sri Aurobindo took no interest in philosophy at all at that time; he was interested in the sayings and life of Ramakrishna and the utterances and writings of Vivekananda, but that was almost all with regard to spiritual life; he had inner experiences, from the time he stepped on to the shores of India, but did not associate ...
... to fame. The real editors or writers of Yugantar (for there was no declared editor) were Barin, Upen Banerji (also a subeditor of the Bande Mataram) and Debabrata Bose who subsequently joined the Ramakrishna Mission (being acquitted in the Alipur case) and was [ ] 2 prominent among the Sannyasis at Almora and as a writer in the Mission's journals. Upen and Debabrata were masters of Bengali prose and ...
... is a mistake to think that he exercised any influence on me. I had gone in England far Page 45 beyond his stock of ideas which belonged to an earlier period. He never spoke to me of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. [His meetings with his grandfather were for political purposes.] This is not correct. In these visits he was not concerned with politics. It was some years afterwards ...
... the Parameshwara. It is important to remember the distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatar or lose balance like Hridaya with Ramakrishna". (P. 16) Does this imply that the Jivatman status in which "it presides over the dynamics of manifestation" can be realised before the vital egoism is abolished? One can get the knowledge ...
... enters St. Paul's School, London, in 1884, and King's College, Cambridge, in 1890. 1885,Dec -First session of the Indian National Congress at Bombay. 1886,Aug. 16 -Sri Ramakrishna passes away. 1892,August - Sri Aurobindo passes the I.C.S.; he does not appear at a riding test and is disqualified. 1893,Feb. 6 - Lands at Bombay and soon joins the ...
... the path of meditation, concentration, of withdrawal from life and action. This was the one most practised in the old yogas. Or else, the path of devotion and love, like that of Chaitanya or Ramakrishna. Page 43 This book [Part One of The Synthesis of Yoga ] is entirely about the yoga of works, of action, that is to say, the finding of union with the Divine in action and work, and in ...
... seest a picture, then thou wilt smile at the wonders of physical Science as the playthings of babies. This is the continuation of what we were saying before about those who want to "see". Ramakrishna is supposed to have said to Vivekananda, "You can see the Lord just as you see me and hear His voice just as you hear mine." Some people understood this as an announcement that the Lord was on earth ...
... 540—God's negations are as useful to us as His affirmations. It is He who as the Atheist denies His own existence for the better perfecting of human knowledge. It is not enough to see God in Christ and Ramakrishna and hear His words, we must see Him and hear Him also in Huxley and Haeckel. All mental ways of knowing the Divine are incomplete and insufficient, even if we accept them all. Only a knowledge ...
... command to do it,—unless the Avatar descends and leads. She will follow a Buddha or a Mohammad wherever he will lead her, because he is to her either God himself, or his servant,—because as Sri Ramakrishna would have put it, she saw the chapras . It was a little of that daemonic, volcanic, elemental thing in the heart of the Indian which Lord Curzon lashed into life in 1905. But the awakening was ...
... What Christianity taught dimly, Hinduism made plain to the intellect in Vedanta. When India remembers the teaching she received from Shankaracharya, Ramanuja and Madhva, when she realises what Sri Ramakrishna came to reveal, then she will rise. Her very life is Vedanta. If anyone thinks that we are merely intellectual beings, he is not a Hindu. Hinduism leaves the glorification of intellectuality to ...
... psychic and spiritual experience. Love, Joy and Experience Your supposition [ that one cannot love the Divine until one experiences him ] conflicts with the experience of many sadhaks. I think Ramakrishna indicated somewhere that the love and joy and ardour of seeking was much more intense than that of fulfilment. I don't agree, but that shows at least that intense love is possible before realisation ...
... it affirms the possibility of living free in the Divine (in Me, it says) and acting in the world as the Jivanmukta. It is this latter kind of salvation on which it lays the greatest emphasis. So Ramakrishna put the "divine souls" (Ishwarakoti) who can descend the ladder as well as ascend it higher than the ordinary Jivas (Jivakoti) who, once having ascended, have not the strength to descend again for ...
... as well as one's own—that is why it is recommended not to take Page 51 disciples unless and until one is siddha and even then only if one receives the Divine authority to do it—what Ramakrishna called getting the cāprās . Secondly, there is the danger of egoism—when one is free from that, then the objection no longer holds. There is a separate question and that is the telling of one's ...
... developed spiritual persons, even extending to the emission of an enveloping aura and there has been recorded an initial phenomenon of this kind in the life of so great a spiritual personality as Ramakrishna. But these things have been either conceptual only or rare and occasional and for the most part the body has not been regarded as possessed of spiritual possibility or capable of transformation. ...
... . Significant colour, supposed by intellectual criticism to be symbolic but there is more than that, is a frequent element in mystic vision; I may mention the powerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna went up into the higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of Vivekananda. At least, the fact that these poems have appealed so strongly to your friend's mind may perhaps be taken by ...
... the Parameshwara. It is important to remember this distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatara or lose balance like Hriday with Ramakrishna. The Surrender of the Central Being The central being is that on which all the others depend. If it makes its surrender, that is, renounces its separate fulfilment in order to be an instrument ...
... the inner being about spiritual things. Krishnaprem means the same thing when he says that faith is the light sent down by the higher to the lower personality. As for the epithet "blind" used by Ramakrishna, it means as I said, not ignorantly credulous, but untroubled by the questionings of the intellect and unshaken by outward appearances of fact. E.g. one has faith in the Divine even though the fact ...
... Chapter I Occult Knowledge Occultism and the Supraphysical [ Occultism: ] The knowledge and right use of the hidden forces of Nature. What did he himself [ Ramakrishna ] say about it—that it was the sins of his disciples which constituted the cancer. There is a physical aspect to things and there is an occult supraphysical aspect—one need not get in the way of ...
... said that suicide can under any circumstances lead to Nirvana; the death spoken of is a natural or a Yogic death with the mind concentrated with faith and absorption in the Divine. I am sure that Ramakrishna Page 750 also never meant such a thing as that anyone dying under any circumstances would have his last wish satisfied. There is no escape by that kind of exit. I do not know either how ...
... greater consciousness which, starting from an electron, can build up a world and, using a "tangle of ganglia", can make them the base here for the works of the Mind and Spirit in Matter, produce a Ramakrishna, or a Napoleon, or a Shakespeare. Is the life of a great poet, either, made up only of magnificent and important things? How many "trivial" things had to be dealt with and done before there could ...
... and straining and tension can do nothing; in the end they prevail for some result or another, but with difficulty, delay, struggle, strong upheavals of the Force breaking through in spite of all. Ramakrishna himself began by pulling and straining and got his result but at the cost of a tremendous and perilous upsetting; afterwards he took the quiet psychic way whenever he wanted a result and got it with ...
... they do in anticipation of the stroke of death and the body they leave is no intrinsically incorruptible substance but generally the seat of some disease or other - cancer of the throat in Ramakrishna, asthma and diabetes in Vivekananda, blood-poisoning in Dayananda. Even that champion hathayogi, Pavhari Baba, whom Vivekananda was at times sorely tempted by his own ailments to consult and ...
... declares that he Page 160 has not completed his realisation. Could one think that Sri Aurobindo had to spend forty years in nearly attaining what Buddha attained in five years, Ramakrishna in almost as few and Raman Maharshi in about the same or even less? Sri Aurobindo would then be not the greatest Yogi of our day but the greatest dunce of the divine life! Surely it is clear that ...
... supra-rational which renders them the most beautifully potent, the most widely practicable. Gandhi, whose name dominates most pacifist thinking, was not a mystic in the real sense in which Ramakrishna or Vivekananda, Raman Maharsi or Sri Aurobindo is, yet whatever intensity of fellow-feeling and unselfish behaviour he brought was born directly of his fervent faith in a God who was to him the perfect ...
... one would be satisfied even if there were no such spiritual inspiration in the country as breathed and lived in a Vasishtha or a Yajnavalkya, a Chaitanya or a Mirabai, a Tukaram or a Tulsidas, a Ramakrishna or a Vivekananda - provided there were no scheduled classes! One may inquire what sort of life would there be on earth without the rishis, the saints, the mystics, the yogis. Man would be just a ...
... deification. It must lead to a final degeneration of the circle of his readers and students to a new religious sect with new arbitrary dogmas and a new form of worship. A repetition of the fate of Sri Ramakrishna and "the Holy Mother"! Good service to his memory would be a shortened edition of his books, freed from unnecessary repetitions, provided with annotations for the benefit of readers not familiar ...
... heart-strings of the poet in them. To write with spiritual intensity is not always to be a great Yogi. If the lines that are mantric were pointers to the poet's realisation, he would out-halo Ramakrishna and dwarf Vivekananda's sagehood. Do you know that these lines derive from the dizziest pinnacles of the over-world? They flow, if not from the top of Shiva's shadowless head, then at least from ...
... the sick. That was the flowering out of the Hindu religion. That was what Swami Vivekananda preached. That was what Aswini Kumar Dutta strove to bring into organised existence. That was what the Ramakrishna Mission, the Little Brothers of the Poor at Barisal tried to effect. This was the third way in which the new association established itself, the third seed of union, the third stream of tendency ...
... Amrita— Moses, Brihaspati, Hermes, Michael Angelo, Rudra, Pythagoras. Bijoy Child Krishna, St Jean, Kartikeya, child Vishnu Barin Nefdi. Apollo-Aryaman St Hilaire— Ramakrishna—(The Four) Kshitish Narada—Bach-Isaie Kanai Sukadeva—One of the Vital Four Tirupati One of the Vital Four Purani Trita. The Angel of Peace—One of the Vital Four Anilbaran ...
... start with the will and finish with the body. There is no need of Asana, Pranayama, Kumbhaka, Chittasuddhi, or anything else preparatory or preliminary if one starts with the will. That was what Sri Ramakrishna came to show so far as Yoga is concerned. "Do the Shakti Upasana first," he said, "get Shakti and she will give you Sat." Will and Shakti are the first means necessary to the Yogin. That was why ...
... great intellectuality and sincerity. Returning Eastwards, where only their right practice has been understood, the lives of our saints northern and southern are full of the record of Siddhis. Sri Ramakrishna, whose authority is quoted against Page 15 them, not only made inward use of them but manifested them with no inconsiderable frequency in His lila. I see nothing in this long record immoral ...
... philosopher, saint or Avatar. Remember then that realisation & experience are alone of essential importance. What Shankara argued or Vivekananda conceived intellectually about existence or even what Ramakrishna stated from his multitudinous and varied realisation, is only of value to you so far as you [are] moved by God to accept and renew it in your own experience. The opinions of thinkers & saints ...
... national mind and there is no reason why there should not be a yet more perfect synthesis in the future. It is such a synthesis, embracing all life and action in its scope, that the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have been preparing. What is dimly beginning now is a repetition on a wider stage of what happened once before in India, more rapidly but to smaller issues, when the Buddha lived ...
... which could dissolve Marxist Materialism Page 13 and Western Pragmatism at one burning blow. A Buddha, if Nehru could meet him in the flesh, might do it; so too might a Ramakrishna or a Viveka-nanda; and at this very moment Raman Maharshi can and, more than all of them, Sri Aurobindo. For, like Nehru himself, Sri Aurobindo was educated in the West and has assimilated all ...
... of something deeper was expressing itself, something of intuitive knowledge, so he could not bring himself to engage in mental questioning. This event led him to begin reading Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna. In this period he went to another yogi, Yogi Devji, who taught him some breathing exercises. The yogi went about the room touching people on the top of the head and Amal felt a powerful electrical ...
... revered and soon became widespread throughout the land. How old were you when you first discovered Sri Aurobindo? I did not discover Sri Aurobindo right away. At age fifteen I began to read Sri Ramakrishna and books on other Indian saints and mystics. Later on in my search my father discovered Sri Aurobindo and gave me some of his books to read. I was still teaching then at Sophia College, but first ...
... also acts secretly against the trend of a superficial modernism. At one period — in the nineteenth century — India passed through the grave danger of getting its true genius obscured. Then arose Ramakrishna in a stark nudity of fundamental Indianness — illiterate, childlike, clear of all Europeanised trappings and modernised refinements. He began a new cycle of the Eternal in time for the old race. ...
... Mother explained the same thing I found it perfectly natural. Nowadays I can understand such things easily, without making any effort. One day I saw Mother asking a sadhak not to read books on Sri Ramakrishna. It reminded me of my father's words which I had not properly understood; on the contrary they had surprised me. But this time I understood because Mother explained it through experience. To avoid ...
... sont-elles point conformes a ce que je suis?» 6 (15.10.1917) I don’t think I would have continued the prayopavesan. The idea came from a remark ofVivekananda who said to Sri Ma (Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrital “bhagahaner janye prayopabesan korte, teman ichchhe hochchhe koi? (Korbo Master Mahashay ?) Kintu jodi rakhte na pari? “ [Shall I start the fast unto death ? (Shall I start Master ...
... saint or Avatar. Remember then that realisation and 18 experience are alone of essential importance. What Shankara argued or Vivekananda conceived intellectually about existence or even what Ramakrishna stated from his multitudinous and varied realisation, is only of value to you so far as you [are] moved by God to accept and renew it in your own experience. The opinions of thinkers and saints and ...
... with politics and journalism, and especially during his year-long incarceration in Alipore Jail. According to his own report he, like Mirra, received help from beings on the occult levels: from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda – both then deceased – and throughout from the Great Mother and Sri Krishna, who dictated to him the programme for his yogic development. Aurobindo considered Pondicherry his “cave ...
... Vibhutis may be counted: Veda Vyasa, Hatshepsut, Moses, Pericles, Socrates, Alexander, Confucius, Lao Tse, Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Mohammed, Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon, Shankara, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and undoubtedly many more in all times and climes. All of them were concretely aware that they had a specific, superhuman mission to fulfil and so they did. It should be noted that ...
... lonely man of God receives every time he gives humanity a "crown"? † So why regret? One might as well regret the impotence of the senses to contemplate interstellar space or — in the words of Sri Ramakrishna — of the "doll of salt" to plumb the ocean. The hiatus between a seer-poet and mediocrity is, if anything, greater. That is why they never once "woke up when He came and sat close to them" — to exploit ...
... many another who cannot love or feel for others. The very fact that you are stirred so much by the loftiest sentiments whether of poets like Tagore or atheists like Russell or great Yogis like Sri Ramakrishna shows that the Divine values move you to your depths, no matter who advocates them. Never mind what the atheists or the artists say when they claim that they love the human. For their loves and ideas ...
... long tussle my friend had with the irrepressible doubter his sojourn in the West had set up in him strangely side by side with the spontaneous devotee that was part of him from his boyhood in post-Ramakrishna Bengal and that I who was not a Hindu by race but a Parsi and a resident Page xv not of Bengal but of Gujarat could hardly expect, for all my heart's faith, to find ready-made in ...
... The day before the Mother had been present in the Playground at the projection of a Bengali film on the life of Rani Rasmani, the rich widow who in 1847 built the Kali Temple at Dakshineshwar for Ramakrishna Paramhansa. ‘It seems strange that something so new, so special, and I might say so unexpected [i.e. her experience], should happen during a film show … I have always noticed that it is the unexpected ...
... precisely at that moment and so got the chance to hire a young man with the capabilities of Aurobindo Ghose, an ICS trainee, for 200 rupees per month. Swami Vivekananda, the great disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, travelled to the West in 1893; in the beginning of the same year, Aurobindo Ghose sailed on the SS Carthage back to his motherland after an absence of thirteen years. His father had ...
... on God's good earth: "But I do not understand how all that can prevent me from answering mental questions. On my own showing, if it is necessary for the Divine purpose it has to be done, Sri Ramakrishna himself answered thousands of questions, I believe. But the answers must be such as he gave and such as I try to give answers from a higher spiritual experience, from a deeper source of knowledge ...
... to the depth. The truth of things lies in depth behind the surface. All spiritual efforts have been to lead this creation to the Origin that is, the Creator. Many do not know that both Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Vivekananda helped Sri Aurobindo to this Yoga by their Occult Presence. He has himself testified to this truth. Go on reading the Gita and the Gospels^Light will come. One should ...
... × Vivekananda describes the beginning of a somewhat similar experience: "In the twinkling of an eye he (Ramakrishna) placed his right foot on my body. The touch at once gave rise to a novel experience within me. With my eyes open I saw that the walls and everything in the room, whirled rapidly and vanished into ...
... Zohar) That Intelligence is God within us; by that men are gods and their humanity neighbours divinity. (Hermes) Man is divine so long as he is in communion with the Eternal. (Ramakrishna) Deck thyself now with majesty and excellence and array thyself with glory and beauty. (Job) Thou belongest to the divine world. (Baha Ullah) The race of man is divine. (Pythagoras) ...
... where you are not. Your attraction for the Ashram life comes from the fact that you are far away from it. As soon as you would be back here you would feel restless again and the urge to run away. As Ramakrishna said, it is better to be far away from the Guru and constantly think of him rather than to remain near the Guru and think only of the world's enjoyments. When you will have risen above this condition ...
... though She knew me, was near me, was aware of my existence! A relationship, something.... Well, that would change everything! If I could say to myself: close your eyes and you will see Her—like Ramakrishna, for example, he had that kind of relationship. I don't know, my whole life would be changed, I would feel linked to SOMETHING. It wouldn't just be silence, silence, silence.... But all that ...
... unceremonious act as a test of my Yogic equanimity. In the early days there was a good deal of talk about past births. The being who had been behind Jesus, Chaitanya and, most recently, Ramakrishna was said to be behind Pavitra now. St. Paul and Vivekananda were seen in the background of Anilbaran. In connection with Nolini we heard of Roman Virgil and the late-renaissance French poet Ronsard ...
... that, don't worry!" ( Mother laughs ) He said that very nicely. ( Soon afterwards. The context in which Mother made the following remark has been forgotten. ) Page 101 It seems Ramakrishna told Vivekananda, "You can see the Lord just as you see me and hear His voice just as you hear my voice." Some people took this as a declaration that the Lord was on earth in the flesh (!) I said ...
... relevance in the spiritual life, 7, 8 self-realization, 21 silence, 24, 25 spiritual path, 43, 44 time, 25, 26 true self, 79 witness consciousness state, 67-76 Sri Ramakrishna, 27, 28 on spiritual path, 42, 43 stillness, 100, 101 śuddhi, 120 surrender, concept of, 52, 55, 63, 105-111, 121 T Tao Teh Ching, 44 tapasya, 28 teachings ...
... Significant colour, supposed by intellectual criticism to be symbolic but there is more than that, is a frequent element in mystic vision; I may mention the powerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna went up into the higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of Vivekananda. At least, the fact that these poems have appealed so strongly to your friend's mind may perhaps be taken ...
... images of gods was known to the Rigveda, are points on which no certain conclusions can be 11. Ibid., pp. 268-69. 12."Proto-Indian Culture", The Cultural Heritage of India (The Ramakrishna Mission, Old Edition, Calcutta 1937), III, pp. 57-8. Page 41 reached." 13 Thus, at the worst, there is indecision, but the Rigveda's door can never be closed on any account against ...
... Rigveda was composed in the Upper Ganges-Jumna doab and plain. 26. "Cultural Interrelation between India and the Outside World before Asoka", The Cultural Heritage of India (The Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta, 1958), I, p. 144. Page 471 The Rigveda holds the Sarasvati especially sacred, and als< knows the Sarayu, the river of Oudh. 27 In justification of ...
... Purani burst into tears and pledged unfailing co-operation. In the early days there was a good deal of talk about past births. The being who had been behind Jesus, Chaitanya and, most recently, Ramakrishna was said to be behind Pavitra now. St. Paul and Vivekananda were seen in the background of Anilbaran. In connection with Nolini we heard of Roman Virgil and the late-renaissance French poet Ronsard ...
... fully cured?" "Do you need to consult a doctor or not?" "Okay I shall ask the Mother." In all matters big or small we used to often hear him say, "I shall ask the Mother." We were reminded of Sri Ramakrishna who always said, "I shall ask the Mother." If you want to know about Karmayoga, sit for a while in Amrita's room. I am talking not of Karma, but Karmayoga. Without any fatigue or strain and without ...
... can choose, [laughter] So it cannot be captured through thought. Allow the paradox to be there. And allow the contradictions to be there, and look beyond. They are all perspectives. DALAL: Ramakrishna spoke about two attitudes on the spiritual path—the baby-cat attitude and the baby monkey attitude. The baby cat simply lies there on the ground and lets its mother Page 42 carry ...
... also Conscious being; Purusha and Prakriti Purusha and Prakriti, 96-107, 345- 47; see also Purusha; Prakriti Rajas, 108, 110-15 passim changed into tapas, 118 Ramakrishna, 229 Realisation, meaning of, 171 spiritual and supramental, 171 Reason, and spiritual truths, see Intellect, and spiritual truths Rejection, and suppression ...
... Which explains why an infinite compassion doles out the power of Love in tiny homeopathic doses to our as yet poorly baked humanity. The all-inclusive cosmic love of a spiritual athlete like Sri Ramakrishna explains the well- known story of his crying out in pain when he saw a cart-driver beating his bullock, and found himself with bleeding lash marks on his own back. After Savitri united ...
... Part I — Recollections and Diary Notes Champaklal Speaks Fulfilments In my boyhood days whenever I read and thought about Sri Ramakrishna I felt a strong wish that I must be always close to a great spiritual personality like him. I had heard of Sri Aurobindo at that time but always discounted the possibility of closeness to him as I thought he was rather ...
... both of them. The same thing can be said about the Tantra, and many other yogic developments, such as we find in Sri Chaitanya, and even up to the present day, in the mighty yogic endeavour of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, and in the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Like every science, Vedic science of Yoga has continued to develop, and it is in that background that we can confidently put forward the Vedic ...
... pregnant with a power to fulfil the mission of the work that had started in the third stage. Great and flaming pioneers appeared, Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833), Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), Swami Vivekananda (1862 -1902), - to name just a few of them, and through their work the entire country was electrified not only spiritually but even socially and politically. India ...
... also a radical solution which can be applied, if so willed, on a very vast scale for the deliverance of humanity. The renascent spirituality of India from Maharshi Dayananda Saraswati to Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Page 109 Vivekananda and to Sri Aurobindo has two important concerns. The first concern is to stress dynamic spirituality as opposed to ascetic spirituality which limits itself ...
... this division illustrates how the Indian history of yoga has been developing complexity into divisions and divisions into fresh synthesis; and in the last decades of the nineteenth century, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda developed a new synthesis of yoga. This synthesis provided a new impetus to the theme of the unity of religions and to the development of the knowledge that opened up important ...
... reaffirmation of all that was Indian as also impulsion to fresh creativity in the field of spirituality, literature, poetry and art. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Tagore, on the one hand, and Dayananda, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, on the other, gave a new impetus not only to a new awakening but also to creation of new forms of culture on the basis of the original motive and power of the Indian spirituality ...
... India is rising once again, we find among the leaders of the renascent spiritual India a definitive turn, with a greater richness and fullness, to a new integrality, such as what we find in Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Aurobindo. We have now in our own times the development of spirituality that found itself on the special emphasis on synthesis and dynamic manifestation of the Spirit in life on the earth ...
... rate all religious founders would be Avatars — Joseph Smith (I think that is his name) of the Mormons, St. Francis of Assisi, Calvin, Loyola and a host of others as well as Christ, Chaitanya or Ramakrishna. For faith, miracles, Bejoy Goswami, another occasion. I wanted to say this much more about Rama — which is still only a hint and is not the thing I was going to write about the general principle ...
... Karma Yoga, Jnana Page 576 Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, where the final emphasis is laid on bhakti as a supreme motivation of Karma Yoga and crown of Jnana Yoga. In recent times, Sri Ramakrishna synthesised various systems of Yoga as also inner practices of different religions like Christianity and Islam into a large synthesis. Swami Vivekananda expounded the concept of synthesis of Yoga ...
... inner Teacher. Need for inner aspiration in the student. The right attitude towards time: to do everything as quickly and as perfectly as possible. Study of great personalities: Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda (a detailed study). Exercises to be recommended: Reflections on: Scientific and philosophical methods of knowledge. Can science and philosophy explain the ...
... to figure henceforth not only as great poets and artists or heroes of thought and action, but as our typical heroes and exemplars of spirituality. Not Buddha, not Christ, Chaitanya, St. Francis, Ramakrishna; these are either semi-barbaric Orientals or touched by the feminine insanity of an Oriental religion. The impression made on an Indian mind resembles the reaction that a cultured intellectual might ...
... Teacher. 3. Need for inner aspiration in the student. 4. The right attitude towards time: to do everything as quickly and perfectly as possible. 5. Study of great personalities: Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekaananda (a detailed study). III. Exercises to be recommended: Reflections on: 1. Scientific and philosophical methods of knowledge. 2. Can science and philosophy ...
... centuries of decline, these examples have not been numerous, but since our country became renascent in the immediate past, we have begun to cherish an aspiration to multiply such teachers as were Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo. Not long ago, efforts were made to create nurseries of new types of teachers who could spread knowledge as spontaneously as flowers spread their fragrance. ...
... change comes soon after marriage." Perfectly natural—they marry before the change—then the change comes and the marriage belongs to the past self, not to the new one. "The wives of Buddha and Ramakrishna felt proud when they were deserted." Then what's the harm? "If married life is an obstacle to spirituality, then they might as well not marry." No doubt. But then when they marry, there ...
... was suffering from and all its consequences, but he was always cheerful. Is it humanly possible? Whether he was well or ill, nothing affected him, he was above circumstances. He reminds me of Sri Ramakrishna, who had cancer of the throat but still talked and worked. His was the spirit that ruled over matter and mastered it. Like his Master, he fought for every inch of the ground. Though apparently ...
... You can, by your common sense, know what Japan would have done if the whole country lay prostrate - they'd have wanted nothing better than that! Here is a story of non-violence that Sri Ramakrishna used to tell: One day, a sadhu 39 was passing through a wood and he met a venomous serpent that would bite any passerby - the serpent had no respect for anybody! When the sadhu came, he was ...
... understand and does not care to understand my processes. He has ideas of his own, does not want peace or equality or surrender or anything else, wants only Krishna and bhakti. He has read things in Ramakrishna and elsewhere as to how to do it, insists on following that. Rejects all suggestions I can make as unpracticable. Erects a sadhana of violent meditation, japa, prayer—for these are the traditional ...
... people here seem to want to keep it. Or they say it is too strong for them, they can't help it! Dr. Sicar once told me, after that stove incident, that this Asram lacks "fraternity", while the Ramakrishna Mission is ideal in that way. I am afraid not. When I was in Calcutta it was already a battlefield and even in the post-civil-war period one hears distressing things about it. It is the same ...
... as if we were discussing somebody else! And His whole body was glowing with a light which is not found on land or sea! A Golden Child! Some of you are familiar with the golden moments when Sri Ramakrishna would behave like a child. Those who have read his Kathamrito 292 have found how he too, in one of those childlike moods, 292 A book in Bengali, now translated into English, describing ...
... marriage." [S.A.:] Perfectly natural - they marry before the change - then the change comes and the marriage belongs to the past self, not to the new one. [N:] "The wives of Buddha and Ramakrishna felt proud when they were deserted." [S.A.:] Then what's the harm? [N:] "If married life is an obstacle to spirituality, then they might as well not marry." [S.A.:] No doubt - quite ...
... all fields of Indian life, culture, society and religion. One of the most important personalities who contributed to this awakening was Swami Vivekananda. After the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna, he toured all over India as a parivrajak and got a first-hand view of the condition in which India was at that time. He made a great impression wherever he went; but it was in South India that ...
... conditions in jail. I used to try and sing with him in unison and-even managed to learn a few of his songs. This was my first acquisition in jail. After his release from jail, Sachin joined the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur Math and died at a rather early age. Of about the same age was Sushil, the famous Sushil Sen whom the Presidency Magistrate Kingsford had sentenced to be whipped. Let me relate ...
... Institution. Page 331 Banerji too was there; he won the Ishan Scholarship in his B.A. examination and was ultimately given the name of Swami Raghavananda or Sitapati Maharaj at the Ramakrishna Mission. These more or less .made up the list of the "good" boys. Among the "bad" ones was Indranath Nandi, a son of Colonel Nandi of the Indian Medical Service. Let me recount some of his exploits ...
... Page 263 form a unit, a nucleus, of the new creation that the Avatar initiates. The twelve apostles of Christ are famous. Chaitanya too had his group of Parshadas; nearer to us Ramakrishna with his Vivekananda-group, is familiar to us all. But the greatest of them all was Sri Krishna who came down with a whole bevy of 16000 1 Gopikas – divine powers, emanations – Matrikas – to ...
... exercises marked his life. And yet, ask anyone who is in touch with the inner life of these great souls, he will tell you, Vivekananda is only a spark from the mighty and concentrated Energy that Ramakrishna was. What is this spiritual or Yogic Energy? Ordinary people, people with a modern mind, would concede at the most that there are two kinds of activity: (1) real activity—physical action ...
... fundamentally to hasten the evolutionary process and to complete it; he takes the human form to raise humanity to divinity. The fact and the nature of the process have been well exemplified in Sri Ramakrishna who, it is said, took up successively different lines of spiritual discipline and by a supreme and sovereign force of concentration achieved realisation in each line in the course of a few days what ...
... a chance arrow; and Arjuna, the peerless hero of Kurukshetra, Krishna's favourite, had to see days when he could not even lift his own bow with which he once played havoc. And in our own days, a Ramakrishna, who could cure souls could not cure his own cancer. This is the "tears of things"—spoken of by a great poet—the tragedy that is lodged in the hearts of things. There runs a pessimistic vein ...
... were solely to reach the highest summit, the point beyond, the transcendent God and settle there, any one line would be quite sufficient for the purpose. And even if several or all were tried, as Ramakrishna did, that would be only to prove the fact and to encourage each and everyone to pursue his own path and not get discouraged if others did not subscribe to it or even denied it. At the most it ...
... Panis, 272 Paraclete, 23 Parasurama, 148 Parvati, 152, 154 Pondicherry , 11n., 12 Pulastya, 149 RADHA, 307 Ramakrishna, 106 Ramprasad, 159-61 Raoutu,283 Ravana, 148 Reminiscences, 11 Richard, King, 59 Roy, Dilip, 189 Rudras, the, 144-5 ...
... twenty two have gone out and even of these three who will stay or difficult to say. It is the same everywhere. They go to school grow up and then leave. I knew quite a few top-rung work of the Ramakrishna Mission. They too faced the same problem. In order to retain the boys they went on upgrading the educational system, by increasing the number of courses a by using new systems of teaching. But ...
... Smritis. Disciple : It is a belief that a bath in the Ganges purifies a man. Is there any truth in it ? Sri Aurobindo : In that way everything does some good. Disciple : Ramakrishna used to say about the bath in Ganges that when you are taking the bath your sin hangs on the nearest tree and as soon as you are out it catches you and sticks to you again ! Sri Aurobindo : ...
... come times in Page 318 the Sadhana when the mind gets depressed, and the higher Presence is veiled, the knowledge obscured. At that time it is the aspiration and the faith – what Ramakrishna balls "blind faith" – that supports one. That faith is not really speaking "blind". It is the memory of the soul. If faith is .necessary to Couẻ out a disease, much more is it necessary to bring ...
... On this side of the temple of Jagannath. SRI AUROBINDO: Hindu temples are usually not big. Whom do they worship at Ramakrishna's temple? PURANI: I think there is a life-size photograph of Ramakrishna and the sign OM somewhere. SRI AUROBINDO: That is Vivekananda's creed. PURANI: Yes, but I am not sure of the details. SRI AUROBINDO: In Ramakrishna's temple there ought to be at least an ...
... ever dynamic: the spiritual soul, even when it appears passive and inert, is most active not merely in the subtle psychological domain, but also in the material field. To the gross pragmatic eye Ramakrishna, for example, appears as a less dynamic personality, a less strong and heroic, if not positively weaker Page 395 character than Vivekananda. Well, that is only face-value reading ...
... everybody to do this Yoga. SATYENDRA: They believe that Buddha or Shankara will have to be born again to do it. SRI AUROBINDO: I don't say that they won't be reborn, but there is no compulsion. As Ramakrishna said, the Ishwarakoti can go up and down as he chooses. It is therefore wrong to suppose that this Yoga is for everybody. SATYENDRA: Your effort may also end in becoming a religion, wanting to ...
... a system initiated perhaps by still earlier legislators and builders of Indian polity. Mussolini of twentieth century Italy is in no way related to Cato or Julius Caesar of ancient Rome, but Sri Ramakrishna or Sri Aurobindo is a direct descendant of the Vedic Rishis. What is the cause of this 'strange longevity or stability that India or China enjoys? Whence this capacity to renew life, to rejuvenate ...
... and even her cultural life was brought to stagnation and very near to decomposition, this undying Fire in her secret heart was ever alight and called in the inevitable rebirth and rejuvenation. Ramakrishna, with Vivekananda as his emanation in life dynamic and material, symbolises this great secret of India's evolution. The promise that the Divine held out in the Gila to Bharata's descendant ...
... control or change my nature, she said, "At least you have the aspiration to change, so many don’t even have that. As long as you have it, there is the possibility that some day you will succeed. As Ramakrishna said, the mother surrounds the child with toys and it keeps playing until it needs only the mother and starts crying for her…." Another experience of Amma is connected with teaching. Satyakarma’s ...
... to the end. PURANI: "He would freely relate how he stayed in the air in meditation." SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! That legend seems to be going to last. PURANI: "I heard from his lips that Ramakrishna sat before him consoling him when he was arrested at Grey Street." SRI AUROBINDO: When? That is another story. PURANI: "He would relate how the hard iron bars of the prison felt soft like butter ...
... NIRODBARAN:Was he a Nationalist? SRI AUROBINDO: Good Lord! He was my fellow-worker and also took part in the Secret Society. Then there were others, like Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya. The influence of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda worked from. behind. The Movement and the Secret Society became so formidable that in any other country with a political past they would have led to something like the French Revolution ...
... an imitation of Eton. SRI AUROBINDO: But Eton has no dome. PURANI: It is a combination of modern with ancient architecure. SRI AUROBINDO: At any rate it is the ugliest dome possible. Ramakrishna Mission was a little afraid of Nivedita's political activities and asked her to keep them separate from its work. PURANI: What about her yogic achievements? SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know. Whenever ...
... work, action! NIRODBARAN: The Calcutta people, the organisers of the celebration, want to know where in your writings you have referred to him. I read in one book your saying that the work begun Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Bejoy Goswami hasn't been finished. Jayantilal was telling me that you have said somewhere that Goswami couldn't give to others what he had received. SRI AUROBINDO: Where have ...
... same place as Gandhi. SRI AUROBINDO: Which place? Wardha? (Laughter) PURANI: He means he would have had the same influence. SRI AUROBINDO: That's a different matter. He doesn't speak of Ramakrishna? PURANI: No, he speaks of Vivekananda. SRI AUROBINDO: What was at work was Ramakrishna's inspiration. SATYENDRA: The idea of starting Yoga courses is rather funny. SRI AUROBINDO: They ...
... his physical and other minor needs, to be near him, even to amuse him by our talk and presence. That was our Yoga. What better way could there be than to serve personally the Guru, the Divine? Sri Ramakrishna had said to his nephew Hriday, "Serve me and you will get all you want." We had no particular want till then and all our heart was offered to him in utter dedication. It is gratifying for us to remember ...
... Pharaohs, the, 264 Pindar, 278n - Olympian Odes, 278n Plato, 201, 297 Poseidon, 383 Prahlad, 183 Pururavas, 390-1 RADHA, 134-5, 183, 297 Rakshasa, 250 Ramakrishna, 85n, 379 Russia, 196 SAHARA, 141, 313 Sankhya, 182, 186, 279 Sarama, 330 Saraswati, 189 Sati, 184 Satyavan, 242-6 Savitri, 242-6, 252-3, 307 Shakespeare, 228, 386 ...
... The crescent moon, like a necklet . . . Was it your mouth, was it your eye? O my far one! RAMAKRISHNA PRASAD CHATTOPADHYAYA A FIRE-FLY IS THIS MIND A fire-fly is this mind, Now it flares, now it fades; It must cross the darkness ...
... type of Ashram that trained people for here and now, and not only for the hereafter. In their different ways Gurudev Tagore at Shantiniketan, Gandhiji at Sabarmati and Shevagram, and in many of the Ramakrishna Mission centres, the challenges of everyday life were not ignored, although the Divine Presence was always assumed and Divine Protection was always hoped for. Page 571 The Ashram ...
... to meet. 1912-14 Translates (from English) parts of Buddhist texts, the Amritabindu, Kaivalya and Isha Vasya Upanishads, the Narada Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita and some of the sayings of Sri Ramakrishna. 1912 May 7 Speaks of the work to be done: To become conscious of and unite with the Divine Presence; to realise the higher planes of consciousness and 'put the earth in connection with one ...
... sometimes posed why Sri Aurobindo married at all, if he had no intention of leading what passes for "normal" family life. There have been others too, for example Gautama Siddhartha and Confucius and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. If there was to be a "change" soon afterwards, why did they marry Page 211 at all in the first instance? Answering the correspondent who ventured to put this question ...
... energy, the evening-time from which, according to the Indian idea of the cycles, a new age has to start." Inherent in the reawakening was this promise of a new age. Bengal, in the person of Ramakrishna Parama-hansa (1833-86), rediscovered the spiritual fountain of India. This discovery was taken to the West by his disciple Swami Vivekananda (1862-1902). The newly emancipated Indian mind ...
... has said, "knowingly or unknowingly, I have been what the Lord wanted me to be, i I have done what the Lord wanted me to do. That alone matters." Siddhartha, Jesus, Mahomed, Nanak, Ramakrishna; Andal, Teresa, Juliana, Rabia, Mira these were men and women no doubt, and yet a divinity hedged them round, they surpassed our familiar categories of thought and feeling, and ceasing to be merely ...
... blossoms painted by the Mother The main Ashram building in 1950 (as seen from the Ashram Post office terrace) Dada told us one day: A couple of sannyasis from the Ramakrishna Mission used to come to our Berhampur-house in my childhood. They would stay for a few days. One of them was Tapanand Maharaj. He had had all kinds of experiences in his life. In the earlier part ...
... eating of it. When one has attained the Reality there is complete Page 14 revaluation of life. For instance, before he attains it man is ignorant, when he attains it he knows. Ramakrishna Parama-hansa, an unlettered villager who could not sign his name even in Bengali language, when he attains That he has a knowledge which is far more than any university scholar. So that which ...
... then all its movement towards the Divine cannot but be instinct with love and delight. An ecstatic bhakti is the very breath of its life and the secret of all its realisation and fulfilment. Sri Ramakrishna brings out the essential truth of bhakti when he says in his inimitable, homely imagery, "Knowledge is like a man and bhakti like a woman. Knowledge has entry only up to the drawing room of God ...
... appears divinely transfigured, his normal consciousness of the devotee of God being eclipsed and swallowed up Page 355 in the all-mastering consciousness of the Supreme Being. Sri Ramakrishna on his mystic journey through the higher planes to the highest transcendence of saccidānanda identifies himself successively with the planes of Power and Light and Bliss to such an extent that ...
... agent of redemption and divine realisation. It is said to be ahaitukī actuated by no ostensible reason; and its action is irresistible and infallible. Ramanuja, Vallabhacharya, Chaitanya and Ramakrishna lay a preponderant stress on the divine Grace. Christianity can be called a religion of Grace, so much in its essence, it hinges upon it. "No man can come to Me unless the Father draw him" is remarkably ...
... In other words, does the ego completely fade out of the individual nature, or does it persist even when the soul is in command ? With the blunt, disarming candour, characteristic of him, Sri Ramakrishna says, "If the obstinate ego would not go, well, let it then remain as a servant of God." The implication is unmistakable that the ego does not altogether disappear out of the nature of the liberated ...
... What a contrast the God-filled life presents to the harsh discords and gnawing cares of the ordinary human life ! What a poignant and illuminating contrast the life of a Buddha or a Christ or a Ramakrishna presents to the life of a Napoleon or a Bacon, a Voltaire or a Schopenhauer ? An untroubled peace and tranquillity, a calm and comprehensive vision of the Truth and its manifold working, and a ...
... thoughts and ideas, his views and convictions, his predilections ¹ The Mother by Sri Aurobindo. Page 109 and prepossessions, his mental principles and rules, and become, as Sri Ramakrishna became, a simple child of the Mother, open only to Her inspiration and intuition But if one could do that, the result would be what » has always been in the case of all sincere spiritual seekers ...
... what our people did in the past – the Indian way is to do things but not to make it a rule of life. They do certain things to get rid of the obstructing Sanskara. Disciple : That is what Ramakrishna did – going and sweeping the quarters of the untouchables – to get rid of the Sanskara of the Brahmin and his feeling of superiority. He did it as a part and process of sadhana. Sri Aurobindo ...
... ...The only conclusion is that there is nothing to be done. The only conclusion is that this country is doomed. Vivekananda's great intellect readily submitted to something far greater in Ramakrishna. Brahmatej was greater than kshatratej, soul-force could defy the might of the mightiest. Programmes too - Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education - were not everything. What, then, was the ...
... ascendency and castigated unreservedly India's "decadent" civilisation. On the other hand, the reform movements of the nineteenth century and the spiritual phenomenon of Page 492 Ramakrishna and his disciple Vivekananda's sensational appearance at Chicago gave the needed break, opened the world's eyes to the persisting vitality of India's spiritual culture, and there was no reason to ...
... y at a lump of clay kept in a cardboard box. Perhaps it was a new kind of explosive! Actually the earth had been brought to Sri Aurobindo from Dakshineshwar by a young man connected with the Ramakrishna Mission, and Sri Aurobindo had preserved it. Other rooms were also searched, and all kinds of things were seized. A bicycle, an iron safe - they were bodily removed. At long last, the search ...
... intellectuality, eloquence, personality or religious force than had Swami Vivekananda or that a single Theosophist has yet showed him or herself to be as mighty and pure a spirit as the Paramhansa Ramakrishna. There are Indian Yogins who have a finer and more accurate psychical knowledge than the best that can be found in the books of the Theosophists. Some even of the less advanced have given me proofs ...
... Mechanician, the Yantri, mending & testing His machine & self-revelation as that of the God of Truth & Love, began definitely to be worked out from 18ṭḥ October, when the third & last message from Sri Ramakrishna was received. The first message was in Baroda, the "Arabindo, mandir karo, mandir karo", & the parable of the snake Pravritti devouring herself. The second was given in Shankar Chetti's house soon ...
... whole world for its acceptance. Of this supreme offer a life recently lived in an obscure corner of the earth seems to me to be the very incarnation & illuminating symbol,—the life of the Paramhansa Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar. Not for any body of teachings that he left behind, not for any restricted type of living, peculiar system of ethics or religious panacea for the ills of existence,—but because it ...
... to figure henceforth not only as great poets and artists or heroes of thought and action, but as our typical heroes and exemplars of spirituality. Not Buddha, not Christ, Chaitanya, St. Francis, Ramakrishna; these are either semi-barbaric Orientals or touched by the feminine insanity of an oriental religion. The impression made on an Indian mind resembles the reaction that a cultured intellectual might ...
... of his true soul and become a mystic. SEEING GOD When the young Narendra, who later made a name on three continents as Swami Vivekananda, met the God-intoxicated Ramakrishna, the first question he shot at him was: "Sir, have you seen God?" A crude question for the awed religionist and a naive one for the abstract thinker, but typically Indian in its approach to the Unknown ...
... starts and false starts. Delays and T.C.s were of no great consequence. He crossed the holy rivers Godavari and Krishna spending a day or two at each place, and made it to Madras. He put up at the Ramakrishna Mutt in Mylapore. As there was time, he bypassed Pondicherry and went to Madurai and Rameshwaram with the intention of reaching Kanyakumari to see the beautiful form of the Mother. He could not make ...
... sadhu?”) All that we know is that he was pretty old when he departed. Poornananda left home at 16 and joined the Vedanta Ashram, a creation of Swami Abhedananda who was a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and a co-disciple of Swami Vivekananda. He was initiated along with four other youngsters. It was a cold winter night. They had to start on the right note — strip and dip in the cold ...
... literature, in combination with Mesopotamian 7. Pusalker, A.D., "Interrelation of Culture between India and the Outside World before Asoka", The Cultural Heritage of India , Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission, 1958. Page 158 sources, who the authors were of the Harappa Culture?" (KPI: 64) And these were known as Mlechchhas both to the Indians and in the Mesopotamian ...
... defend themselves! Splendid! That Hinduism, unlike Buddhism or Christianity or Mohammedanism, has respectfully given rightful place to all of them is concretely proved if one visits a Sri Ramakrishna Temple. The main prayer hall always displays pictures of Christ, Buddha, Nanak, Zarathushtra, etc. Christmas eve celebration, introduced by Swami Vivekananda in the late 1880's, still continues at ...
... which echoes the view of Keith, Mookerji elsewhere explains: "A part of the 25."Cultural Interrelation between India and the Outside World before Asoka", The Cultural Heritage of India (The Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta, 1958), I, p. 144. 26.Op. dr., I, pp. 182-3. Page 15 Rigveda, the hymns to Ushas, recalls the splendours of dawn in the Punjāb, but a larger part refers to ...
... How did you eventually come to the Ashram to live? My father was a reader of philosophy. He collected books on spirituality and philosophy. He had plenty of free time in India and read Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana Maharshi. Soon he discovered Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine. While in Calcutta, he went to the Sri Aurobindo Bhavan and met Rajen-da and Madan-da, who settled later in the Ashram ...
... Examples from History The educated man. of today with his thinking mind would tend to ask the question whether visions can be real. We have heard of great saints like Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and such supreme spiritual personalities as Sri Aurobindo, who had “seen God face to face” or “talked with Him” and had the divine experience. Arjuna had to be granted ...
... asking for a boon of children to perpetuate his race. But the Mother's presence changes the equations. It has always been so. We know of Swami Vivekananda as the youngster Naren being advised by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to go and pray to Mother Kali for alleviating his (Naren's) poverty as the family was in dire straights: 29 Savitri, p. 315. Page 196 At nine o'clock ...
... together. That was the cause of the depressed track in the floor.) The room was quite simple — there were one chair and a table with a typewriter on it. There was also, I remember, a photo of Sri Ramakrishna in the room. Four or five months earlier in the same year (1920), the Mother had come from Japan to stay here permanently. She was staying in a house close to the sea-beach. Daily, at about 4 ...
... mention it here only to emphasize how he responds to one's aspiration—as I said earlier, since childhood I had aspired for the same intimacy with my Guru that Vivekananda had experienced! with Sri Ramakrishna. That was the fulfilment of my aspiration. Even now, in an ever increasing measure, Sri Aurobindo is showering his infinite Grace; its boundless action is felt everywhere and anywhere. Though ...
... lover of light) Sri Aurobindo [ST] Kanishtha (The youngest) Ananda Umachigi The Mother [ST] Kim Babu Lakshman Reddy's son 23.10.59 The Mother [ST] Komal (Delicate) Ramakrishna Jain's daughter 20.11.60 The Mother [ST] Lalita (Beauty of refinement and harmony. This is the idea underlying the word. It is also the name of one of the companions of Radha.) [ST] ...
... the thing done, they go on in spite of disappointment, failure, disproof, denial because of something in them that tells them that this is the truth, the thing that must be followed and done. Ramakrishna even went so far as to say, when asked Page 202 whether blind faith was not wrong, that blind faith was the only kind to have, for faith is either blind or it is not faith but something ...
... Word of spiritual Power and Realisation, the Word that effects transformation in his soul and spirit. The initiation by the Guru can even be by putting his hand on the head of the disciple, as Ramakrishna did in the case of Vivekananda. It can be the invisible Presence which can touch the aspirant, Page 11 enter into his consciousness and lead him on the path. Even in his external ...
... ambassador and propagate the best of India to the western world. The Mother gave her consent and blessed Dilip and Indira for this tour. Dadaji talked about his Master Sri Aurobindo and on Sri Ramakrishna besides music and culture. We see that Sri Aurobindo’s Force continued to work through his beloved disciple, even after 1950, not only in his personal life but round the world in ever-increasing ...
... happening always – the mountebank Gurus hoodwinking credulous disciples who would believe anything of such gurus. That was why I had sworn never to accept a guru unless he was of the eminence of Sri Ramakrishna. That is why I came to you, only to learn however, from you and Mother that any guru will do if the disciple is sincere because through the guru the latter opened to the Divine. I was very sorry ...
... documentary support. The start of this contact – the fourth enrichment of the West by the Eastern spirit according to Sri Aurobindo – may be taken to be 1893, the year Vivekananda was sent to the USA by Ramakrishna Paramhansa in order to participate in the Congress of World Religions at Chicago. “No one could have imagined then that a Hindu monk would make converts in London and Chicago or that a Vedantic temple ...
... philosopher, saint or Avatar. Remember then that realisation and experience are alone of essential importance . What Shankara argued or Vivekananda conceived intellectually about existence or even what Ramakrishna stated from his multitudinous and varied realisation, is only of value to you so far as you [are] moved by God to accept and renew it in your own experience. The opinions of thinkers and saints and ...
... is at best an intellectual seeking — not an urgent need of the central being.’ Having gone back to Calcutta, Dilip sought acceptance as a disciple from Swami Abhedananda, a direct disciple of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa. ‘But a friend of mine, a quondam disciple of Sri Aurobindo, intervened at the psychological moment and took me to consult a friend of his, a Yogi with remarkable occult powers. It was ...
... from service to Truth. 31 Mirra also met many travellers on the circuit of what would now be called ‘New Age’ communication and propaganda. After Swami Vivekananda, sent on a mission by Ramakrishna Paramhansa, had in 1893 so impressively opened the doors of the West for Eastern religions and spirituality, many visitors from the East followed in his footsteps. Conditions in the West, briefly ...
... ____________________ 1. A well-known critic of Indian art of the times. 2. French for "What do you say?" Page 110 I send you three poems—parables rather, all from Sri Ramakrishna. I have written in all eighteen. The others will follow. Some comfort this at least. But I have had to write so many letters today over this mess!... Quite annoyed, truly! Have worked all ...
... Significant colour, supposed by intellectual criticism to be symbolic but there is more than that, is a frequent element in mystic vision; I may mention the powerful and vivid vision in which Ramakrishna went up into the higher planes and saw the mystic truth behind the birth of Vivekananda..." Now a final observation. Mr. Ezekiel generalises his case against Sri Aurobindo so as to cover ...
... others who share this opinion. I am sure everybody will acclaim with one voice that there can be no other Ashram more modern than this one. Place it side by side with Raman Maharshi's Ashram or Sri Ramakrishna Mission — our modernity will be too patent a fact. Take the Mother playing tennis, for example. Annie Besant's Messiah, Krishnamurti, too, started playing tennis. Or take Sri Aurobindo's correspondence ...
... will-power and fellow-feeling. The moral life in itself is a fine thing, but it cannot be compared in greatness to the mystical life - the Life of a Krishna, a Buddha, a Christ, a Teresa of Avila, a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda, a Ramana Maharshi. Nor can we deny that nothing short of the mystical life, the Yogic spirituality, is the beau ideal of the Upanishads and the Gita, the vibrant luminous essence ...
... "that Sri Aurobindo was married away by his family as is the custom in India, but that he didn't really want it and never touched his wife". As you comment, it is as if she were writing about Sri Ramakrishna and his marriage. Sri Aurobindo's situation was different. Nirodbaran once asked him why he had married when his destiny was spiritual. Nirodbaran made the pathetic remark with other cases in mind: ...
... Flemish city". The second aspect of my touch of depth-on-depth with you emerges from the quick transition I made from my Christ-coloured student-days to the period of profound fascination by Ramakrishna and Vivekananda who served as a passage to the still wider call of Sri Aurobindo. This call with its "integral" earth-accepting Yoga conjured up as its background the age of the Rigveda when first ...
... seeing our eyes twinkle carefree and our lips curve happily as a prelude to a burst of Laughter. This devastating gaiety rises from the heart and is made possible by the second of the two attitudes Ramakrishna mentioned: the baby-cat's attitude as dinstinguished from the baby-monkey's. The baby-cat surrenders itself to its mother's mouth in a state of happy abandon while the baby-monkey makes an effort ...
... time but with one's consciousness on the surface. The true measure of a man is the quality of his consciousness. One may even do next to nothing outwardly and yet be the acme of humanity. What did Ramakrishna or Ramana" Maharshi do by way of physical productivity? But this does not imply that doing things is set at a discount. It is assumed that one is doing something: only, we do not get the true measure ...
... figure of spiritual history - the Upani-shadic Yajnavalkya compassing the Self of selves, the Plotinus of "the flight of the alone to the Alone", the wide-searching Eckhart, the manifold adept Ramakrishna or, best of all, our own day's Master of the Integral Yoga that would divinise all earth-life: Sri Aurobindo. With the name of Sri Aurobindo I may appropriately close this mystic-minded ...
... of the Future Poetry. I will quote just two of Amal's poems which appealed to me powerfully. The first, This Errant Life, is the yearning of every Bhakta. We recall the great Sri Ramakrishna saying: "I don't want to be sugar, I want to eat sugar." We stand on human feet, and it is as humans that we seek to know the Divine. Not merely to know Him, but if possible to see Him, touch ...
... the Upanishads and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in seed. In this development the recent spiritual history of India is a very important stage and the names I mentioned [ Ramakrishna and Vivekananda ] had a special prominence in my thought at the time—they seemed to me to indicate the lines from which the future spiritual development had most directly to proceed, not staying ...
... they go on in spite of disappointment, failure, disproof, denial, because of something Page 92 in them that tells them that this is the truth, the thing that must be followed and done. Ramakrishna even went so far as to say, when asked whether blind faith was not wrong, that blind faith was the only kind to have, for faith is either blind or it is not faith but something else—reasoned inference ...
... omniscient Divine to the generality of a law that governs Nature. Thus it is said in the Upanishads of Krishna, son of Devaki, that he received a word of the Rishi Ghora and had the knowledge. So Ramakrishna, having attained by his own internal effort the central illumination, accepted several teachers in the different paths of Yoga, but always showed in the manner and swiftness Page 54 of ...
... to say nothing of the waste of labour implied in so cumbrous a process. Sometimes, indeed, Hathayoga and Rajayoga are thus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, 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 ...
... ( last in sukshma ) 16 October 1912 Ananda intensified. Utthapana increased. Adhogati beaten down. Health to emerge Page 104 18 October 1912 "Cn R.K" [Communication from Ramakrishna] Make complete sannyasa of Karma Make complete sannyasa of thought Make complete sannyasa of feeling— This is my last utterance. Standing orders. From Me. B.A. 2 To believe ...
... rising, just as mental activity and physical motion are the natural action of man's ordinary life. All the ancient Rishis used these powers, all great Avatars and Yogins and vibhutis from Christ to Ramakrishna have used them; nor is there any great man with the divine power at all manifest in him who does not use them continually in an imperfect form without knowing clearly what are these supreme faculties ...
... scientific basis and a principle of unbroken continuity; we may find the earliest hymns of the Veda linked in identity of psychological experience to the modern utterances of Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna. Meanwhile the theory I have suggested of the relations of Veda to Vedanta receives, I contend, from these Vedic indications a certain character of actuality. But I have to leave aside for the ...
... useful to us as His affirmations. It is He who as the Atheist denies His own existence for the better Page 498 perfecting of human knowledge. It is not enough to see God in Christ & Ramakrishna & hear His words, we must see Him and hear Him also in Huxley & Haeckel. 540) Canst thou see God in thy torturer & slayer even in thy moment of death or thy hours of torture? Canst thou see Him ...
... themselves and their spiritual knowledge to mankind and in their intense love for humanity imparting something of their power to the world. Such were Buddha, Christ, Mahomed, Chaitanya, such have been Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. It is still the orthodox view that the experiences of Yoga must not be revealed to the uninitiated. But a new era dawns upon us in which the old laws must be modified Already the ...
... A Way, Not a Religion I have no time to read books usually. I seldom had and none at all now. I have had no inspirations from the sadhana of Bejoy Goswami, though a good deal at one time from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. My remarks simply meant that I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines ...
... deep upsurge of devotion towards her. It is this I have hungered for, and so long as I feel this bhakti I feel as though I have little else to desire. Grant that I may have the ahaitukī bhakti. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that the desire for bhakti is not a desire at all. So I trust I am not making any bargain by desiring it—as bhakti is of the essence of the Divine, to ask for it must be legitimate, no ...
... to know. This is the true account of what happened according to Sri Aurobindo's own statement. The new story now told that Devabrata Bose and Sri Aurobindo both asked to be admitted into the Ramakrishna Mission and Devabrata was accepted but Swami Brahmananda refused to accept Sri Aurobindo is another myth. Sri Aurobindo never even dreamed of taking Sannyas or of entering into any established order ...
... private sympathisers. Therefore Sri Aurobindo's publications cannot be given free, they are sold and the proceeds counted among the available resources just as is the case with the publications of the Ramakrishna Mission. 19 September 1936 Page 73 × Sri Aurobindo was asked to write an article about what the world ...
... Upanishads and these raised in me a strong enthusiasm and I tried later to translate some of them. The other strong intellectual influence [that] came in India in early life were the sayings of Ramakrishna and the writings and speeches of Vivekananda, but this was a first introduction to Indian spiritual experience and not as philosophy. They did not, however, carry me to the practice of Yoga: their ...
... Swadeshi Jug , Girijashankar cited a letter written to him by Swami Sundarananda of the Udbodhan office, in which Sundarananda claimed that Sri Aurobindo visited Saradamani Devi, the widow of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, on his way to Chandernagore in 1910. This and other parts of Girijashankar's articles were shown to Sri Aurobindo, who on 15 Page 562 December 1944 replied ...
... Goswami ]—he seems to have been brilliant but rather chaotic. All that is different from the supramental. Then take the vital of the Paramhansas. It is said their vital behaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like something inert (cf. Page 414 Jadabharata). Well, there is nothing supramental in all that. So? One can be a fit instrument for the Divine ...
... in both cases it is the action of the Grace of the Mother that alone can effect a transformation of the Vibhuti [p. 16]. I would like to know the difference. Take for example Christ, Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Confucius, Zarathustra, Buddha, Shankara, Mohammed, Alexander, Napoleon—among these well-known figures, which are Vibhutis of the Mother and which are Vibhutis of the Ishwara? And what about the ...
... × "Self-Control" , Words of Long Ago. × Sri Ramakrishna used to say that a disciple can choose one of two attitudes: the passive trust of the baby cat which lets itself be carried by its mother (this is the way of surrender, the surest) and the active ...
... Divine love? Is the human an obstacle to the Divine love? Or is not rather the capacity for human love an index to the capacity for Divine love? Have not great spiritual figures, such as Christ, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, been remarkably loving and affectionate by nature? Love is one of the great universal forces; it exists by itself and its movement is free and independent of the objects in which ...
... the Parameshwara. It is important to remember the distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatar or lose balance like Hridaya with Ramakrishna. * The Spirit is the Atman, Brahman, Essential Divine. When the One Divine manifests its ever inherent multiplicity, this essential Self or Atman becomes for that manifestation the ...
... identification, place it where you want it, and then hold on there until you get a result. It will come very fast if you are master of your power of identification. Yes, it will come very quickly. Ramakrishna used to say that the time could vary between three days, three hours and three minutes. Three days for very slow people, three hours for those who were a little swifter, three minutes for those who ...
... the Parameshwara. It is important to remember the distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatar or lose balance like Hridaya with Ramakrishna. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga The Spirit is the Atman, Brahman, Essential Divine. When the One Divine manifests its ever inherent multiplicity ...
... all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mothers' milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that. In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its grip, it falls ...
... Aurobindo Ashram, where I thought I would only pass through, but there is a certain something here which attracts me strongly, and I think I have had enough of travelling around. I intend to go to Ramakrishna Mutt at Ootacamund, since I informed them of my visit, but will come back here as early as possible. Everything here is wonderful and spellbinding. One who sees beyond the surface panes might well ...
... beginning.... But then, what does he mean when he says, "When I knew that God was a woman"! (Nolini:) He always used to say that Krishna and Kali were one Page 110 and the same being. Ramakrishna, too, once became a woman: God was Krishna and he became a woman; for a long time he had that impression. Naturally, for me, the answer is this sense of humor! ( Mother laughs ) (Satprem:) ...
... to be caught are more clearly seen than elsewhere and the "wings" on which the soul has to "aspire" towards them have never been quite folded in the land where even in our materialistic times a Ramakrishna could arise, tripping like a haloed child with a spontaneous intensity of heart into all the known courts of heaven, a Vivekananda could come like "a lion of the Vedanta" spreading with his own ...
... means of will-power and fellow-feeling. The moral life in itself can be a fine thing, but it cannot be compared in greatness to the mystical life - the life of a Krishna, a Chaitanya, a Mirabai, a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda. Nor can we deny that it is the mystical life, the Yogic spirituality, that is the aim and ideal of the Upanishads and the Gita, the vibrant luminous essence of India's ancient wisdom ...
... Upanishads, the Gita and the world's other scriptures. If we are to run down those seers and later mystics like St. Francis and St. Teresa, Rumi and Baha-ullah, Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharshi as deluded fools, we needs must keep away from Sri Aurobindo. But all these mystics were, in a high sense, empiricists, practical masters ...
... and, in his works of literary criticism, illustrated their peculiar seeing, verbal quality and expressive rhythm. Not finding any knowledge of these "planes" in Gopi Krishna, Vivekananda or even Ramakrishna, Nair finds fault with Sri Aurobindo's statements that the Gita "does not bring forward the idea of the higher planes and the supramental Truth-Consciousness..." 5 Similarly, not understanding what ...
... comes to abide always in a state of drowsiness, not merely in its figurative aspect but in a very much real and tangible way (nityaṁ nidrāluriva lak ṣ yate). And has not, in our own time, Sri Ramakrishna declared that the vital-physical demeanour of a Paramahansa becomes like that of an immature child (vālavat) or of a madman (unmattavat) or of a demon (piśācavat) or, in the extreme case ...
... lack of understanding. What we do not understand, we deny or decry. This is human nature. In order to understand Krishna you should attain to the level of! his .consciousness as Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Vivekananda and as others have done, then only you know what he is and why the is adored, worshipped, and revered by millions all over the world throughout the thousands of years. He delivered ...
... Essence Of Life You have asked me—"What is the truth of life ?" This question has been answered long back by our ancient sages and the modern ones like Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and others who have not only an intellectual apprehension of what life is but a true, real and concrete realisation of it in the truth of the Spirit, Atman of which ...
... of your own bat, and even Tota Puri, Ramakrishna's teacher in Adwaita, was after thirty years of sadhana far from his goal, so much so that he went off to the Ganges to drown himself there—only Ramakrishna and Kali interfered in a miraculous way; that at least is the story. The Buddhist Church, however, as distinguished from the uncompromising theory of the thing, proved weak and admitted সরনম্ ...
... course not—but it is yours, not any Avatar's. Jatakas tell us that in every life small or great. Buddha's frontal consciousness was always above the level of others. Jatakas are legends. Ramakrishna and Chaitanya began yoga in their cradle, it seems. Did they? I know nothing about it; but if they told you that! Any how one died by drowning and the other of a cancer. I don't know if Avatars ...
... third channel of contact. That is quite sufficient to help him to a contact if he has the faith and the Yogic stress in him. And I do not understand either, how a married man—married not like Ramakrishna I mean,—gets all these experiences so easily. Why not? A married man can get experiences, especially if he is not gross or over-sexy by nature. But if he follows this Yoga, he will have to drop ...
... cases to put this kind of pressure,—it depends on the case and the nature. Another thing that hurt me was K's revolt. How could he say such things against you when he broke with X aver you and Ramakrishna? My dear Sir, these fits are periodical with K—it is only the remarks against myself that were new. Ever since he came here, he has been announcing from time to time his departure. He came ...
... dearer to the Divine than others. Besides Krishna and Arjuna, we have the instance of Buddha and Ananda. There is also St. John, the beloved disciple. Then again, Vivekananda was dearer to Ramakrishna than the other disciples. Chaitanya showered his grace on Madhai and Jagai, but were they closer to him than Nitai? But he had love for them (তাই বলে কি প্রেম দিব না?). 96 Some say that ...
... is their grievance? PURANI: They say we are not doing anything for the country or for humanity. SRI AUROBINDO: Since when has the Ashram been expected to do such things? NIRODBARAN: The Ramakrishna Mission and Gandhi's Ashram are doing social or political work. SRI AUROBINDO: Gandhi's Ashram is not an Ashram for spirituality. It is a group of people gathered to be trained in some work or ...
... become cosmic, even though you speak of yourself as "I", it is not "I". The ordinary "I"-ness disappears, and the mental, vital and physical look like representatives of that new consciousness. Ramakrishna speaks of this state as "the form of ego left for action". When you reach the Supermind, you become not only cosmic but also what is beyond the universe—the transcendental—and there you have ind ...
... the spirit prophesied that when everybody had deserted us a man who was present there—meaning Tilak—would stand by us. This also came true. On another occasion a spirit purporting to be that of Ramakrishna came and simply said, "Build a temple." At that time we were planning to build a temple for political Sannyasis and call it Bhawani Mandir. We thought he meant that, but later I understood it as ...
... I can say is that there are more people in America interested in these things than in Europe. In Europe also their numbers are increasing now. NIRODBARAN: But America is much taken up by the Ramakrishna Mission. One Bengali too has been a success. Somebody else from near Bombay made at one time a great name in Europe by his prophecies, but afterwards plenty of people started calling him a swindler ...
... 1939 Talks with Sri Aurobindo 23 NOVEMBER 1939 DR. MANILAL: Where can the souls of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda be? Have they taken birth again? SRI AUROBINDO: You have to enquire at the Foreign Office of the World. (Laughter) DR. MANILAL: You said Vivekananda came to you in jail. SRI AUROBINDO: When he came he could not yet have taken birth ...
... Shankara to correct what the first Shankara said and that I am explaining either what he meant but didn't say or what he said but didn't mean. NIRODBARAN: Isn't that what Avatars do? If we accept Ramakrishna as an Avatar, we have his saying that the body is an iron cage and now you as an Avatar are saying that it is a golden temple! SRI AUROBINDO: Not quite. I say that it is an instrument of the Spirit ...
... Guru, the experiences stopped and the Guru said, "The Devil has caught hold of you." SRI AUROBINDO: "I"? I don't remember. (After a while) Yes, I remember now. It was about a Sannyasi in the Ramakrishna Mission. DR. MANILAL: Lele also said something like that to you. And you said you would then surrender to the Devil. SRI AUROBINDO: That was a different matter. I didn't say that to him. I ...
... association with Sri Krishna, Ananda's with Buddha, St. Paul's with Jesus Christ, and similar ones of others; in our modern days, associations of Vivekananda, particularly, and of his friends with Ramakrishna, and lastly, in our present time, here, of Pranab-da and Vasudha-ben 263 with the Mother. Our association too belongs to that class, that category, but I won't say that it is of the same stature ...
... Ramana Maharshi got excited and angry and began to shout. This man also says he became angry. SRI AUROBINDO: Angry? PURANI: Yes, Brunton too has said that he gets angry. SRI AUROBINDO: Ramakrishna also used to get angry, for that matter. PURANI: He says that in Gandhi's Ashram there is no caste. SRI AUROBINDO: And why does he say that the Maharshi was jealous because he criticised him ...
... (Sri Aurobindo said this laughing.) SATYENDRA: The Life Divine has come out at the right time then. NIRODBARAN: Your books have a good sale. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, not only my books; the Ramakrishna Mission books also are selling well now. NIRODBARAN: But according to this astrologer the supramental race is still far away. SATYENDRA (smiling) : I told you so. PURANI: He doesn't speak ...
... 1938 8:30p.m. Nrodbaran read an article in Asia, an American paper, to Sri Aurobindo on himself and his Yoga. It was written by Swami Nikhilananda. NIRODBARAN: It is surprising that a Ramakrishna Mission Yogi should write on you. SRI AUROBINDO: It is, Nishtha (Miss Margaret Wilson) who arranged for its publication. He was a friend of hers before she came here. It is peculiar how they give ...
... to come into clash with other lines and loyalties, nay more, to be in positive harmony with them, is a problem which has not been really solved. It was solved, perhaps, in the consciousness of a Ramakrishna, a few individuals here and there, but it has always remained a source of conflict and disharmony in the general mind even in the field of spirituality. The clash of spiritual or religious loyalties ...
... 288, 336-7, 339-40, 345-6, 392 -A God's Labour, 278 -Savitri, 270n -The Life Divine, 392n -Who, 341n Sri Krishna, 80, 83, 243, 384, 391 Sri Ramakrishna, 57, 161, 239, 385, 395 St. Augustine, 150 St. Bartholomews, 52 St. Bernard, 150 St. Francis, 150, 164 St. Peter, 382 St. Teresa, 150 St.. ...
... institutions on such organised scale are not many. For, at the head of a spiritual institution there must be a self-realised man, the Guru or the Teacher who is very rare and difficult to find. A Ramakrishna-Vivekananda or a Sri Aurobindo appears once in many centuries to lead the benighted humanity to the path of Dharma or righteousness—though we are fortunate that in course of less than a century these ...
... be glad for it. My love and blessings are and will always be with you. My mother had sent all my things, including the marble idol of Radha which I used to worship. Also lots of books: Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, some sanskrit books, Gandhi, Tagore, Saratchandra Chatterji, Kakasaheb Kalelkar, K.M. Munshi, the poets Kalapi, Meghani and other great men and women. There were two books I cherished ...
... although initially a necessary instrument for the realisation of our spiritual destiny (śarīramādyaṁ khalu dhar-masādhanam), may be allowed to disintegrate once that goal is achieved. (Cf. Sri Ramakrishna: "Take out the thorn with the help of a thorn"; and Yoga-Vasishtha: "Renounce that with which you renounce" (yena tyajasi taṁ tyaja). But this can by no means be our attitude to the ...
... call of the Divine within. I cannot think that the Gita would solve such an inner situation by sending Buddha back to his wife and father and the government of the Sakya State, or would direct a Ramakrishna to become a Pundit in a vernacular school and disinterestedly teach little boys their lessons, or bind down a Vivekananda to support his family and for that to follow dispassionately the law or medicine ...
... the hills. For even in 1938 Dr. Mahendra Sircar, a distinguished philosopher on a visit to the Ashram, commented after a "stove incident" that Sri Aurobindo's Ashram lacked "fraternity", while the Ramakrishna Mission was ideal in that way. When Nirod-baran reported this complaint to his Guru, Sri Aurobindo replied: "I am afraid not. When I was in Calcutta it was already a battle-field and even ...
... Ayurvedic oil used for insanity, composed of thirteen herbs and barks. Madhyam literally means "middle". Page 166 More seriously. I have not stated that any Muthu has equalled Ramakrishna and I quite admit that Muthu here in ipsa persona has no chance of performing that feat. I have not said that anyone here can be Sri Aurobindo or the Mother - I have pointed out what I meant when ...
... movements of my heart and mind be directed to you in a ceaseless stream."-"Tvayi me ananyavisayā matir madhupate asakrt / ratim udvahatād addhā gangevaugham udanvati." (1.8.42) Did not Sri Ramakrishna give the analogy of a man suffering from an acute toothache? He may engage himself in all sorts of activities during his daily round but yet at every moment he has the background awareness of the ...
... realisation of the Ultimate Reality. Profound passages from great thinkers like Plato can ignite in the students the fires of the inner soul. The stories such as those of relationship between Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda can convince that search for God is not submission to dogma but a relentless process of questioning and of finding. Passages from the writings of great scientists such as those ...
... 3. Need for inner aspiration in the student. 4. The right attitude towards time: to do everything as quickly and perfectly as possible. 5. Study of great personalities: Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda (a detailed study). III. Exercises to be recommended: Reflections on: 1. Scientific and philosophical methods of knowledge. 2. Can science and ...
... (ii) War of Independence of 1857 (iii) Rani Lakshmibai, Nanasaheb and Tope IX (i) Renaissance in India and struggle for Freedom (ii) Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Dayananda, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda (iii) Birth of Indian National Congress (iv) The first demand. The Moderates: Ferozshah Mehta, Ranade and Gokhale (v) The demand of the Nationalists: Swarajya as the ...
... creative action, and insistence on collective forms of life. The reassertion came through the Page 29 works of the great personalities like Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, who filled India with a new vision and power both for the spiritual awakening and national prosperity. The new nationalist spirit was at once spiritual and social in character ...
... pregnant with a power to fulfil the mission of the work that had started in the third stage. Great and flaming pioneers appeared, Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833), Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), Swami Vivekananda (1862 -1902), — to name just a few of them, — and through their work the entire country was electrified not only spiritually but even socially and politically. India ...
... synthesis but a confusion. At the same time, he shows that successive practice of each of them in turn would not be easy in the short span of our human life, even though in an exceptional example of Sri Ramakrishna one sees "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 ...
... Significance of Indian Yoga Bibliography Altekar, A.S., Education in Ancient India, Indian book Shop, 1934, Banares. Cultural Heritage of India, The Ramakrishna Mission, Institute of Culture, 1982, Calcutta, Vol. 6. Dandekar, R.N., Vedic Bibliography, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1986, Poona, 4 Vols. Das Gupta, S.N., A History of Indian ...
... and students need to explore the claim that while God's reality can be undeniably established by the light of Reason, there is also a greater light in the effulgence of which God can be, as Sri Ramakrishna told Swami Vivekananda, seen, possessed and known by constant living with Him. It is hoped that this monograph will serve as a friend of the students who are seriously gripped with the question of ...
... Page 70 again, we find among the leaders of the renascent spiritual India a definitive turn, with a greater richness and fullness, to a new integrality, such as what we find in Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Aurobindo. We have now in our own times the development of spirituality that found itself on the special emphasis on synthesis and dynamic manifestation of the Spirit in life on the earth ...
... course of the history of the development of yoga, it has been discovered that each of the major religions is based upon yogic experience, and even in recent times the yogic quest undertaken by Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, as also by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, has verified the yogic truths of religions like Buddhism and Jainism as also Christianity and Islam and others, and they have been ...
... generally recognised to be the first of these pioneers and he was followed by many other great men such as Dwarkanath Tagore, his son Debendranath, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Dayanand Saraswati, Sri Ramakrishna, Keshav Chandra Sen, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Swami Vivekananda, Balgangadhar Tilak , Rabindranath Tagore, and others. The list is by no means exhaustive and I have given the names of only those ...
... I will then follow him.' He told us afterwards that since he was in a constant state of meditation in works, repose, sleep, there was no need for regular, fixed hours of meditation. So too Sri Ramakrishna says, 'One who is uttering the name of Kali at all the three sandhyas, where is his need for fixed hours of worship?' Indeed, in the course of only a few months, Sri Aurobindo had gone far beyond ...
... existence of God. The fact of a material world to which our instruments are accorded does not disprove the existence of less material worlds which certain subtler instruments can show to us. But Ramakrishna was an Avatar, Sir! An Avatar to be attacked and given insufferable pains! Why should he not? Why on earth limit the possibilities of an Avatar? Last night L called Dr. Becharlal for tympanites ...
... doesn't occur at his age. Mother's suggestion about worms is very good. SRI AUROBINDO: Bunkum about Force. Obviously if a man goes into trance while standing or walking, he may fall down—Ramakrishna had often to be held up when he went off suddenly while standing. But it doesn't produce results like that. I don't believe he is such a mighty sadhak as to go off into nirvikalpa samadhi for several ...
... opinion. So from this proof, I am sure everybody will acclaim with one voice that there can be no other Ashram more modern than this one. Place it side by side with Raman Maharshi's Ashram or Sri Ramakrishna Mission—our modernity will be too patent a fact. Take the Mother playing tennis, for example. And yet, when Annie Besant's Messiah, Krishnamurti, started playing Page 110 tennis, we ...
... now reprinted by Sri Mira Trust, Pondicherry under its new title. Preface There is a common belief that yogis and saints are grave and reserved by nature. They have no sense of humour. Sri Ramakrishna was probably the first among them who is known to have shattered this false notion. Sri Aurobindo was revered and accepted as a great yogi, philosopher and poet, but was considered to be dry and ...
... figures bawled out, in Hindi, "Chup reh, sala!" 71 (Laughter) I am sorry to use unparliamentary language in front of the ladies. But has it not been sanctified by no lesser a person than Sri Ramakrishna? 72 So I have that authority, please remember that. Then the other fellows understood what these murderers, these rogues were about to do, and one of them said, "Chale jao, jaldi!" 73 I simply ...
... near us ?" See the sacrifice! Even now it's not very easy to be near the Mother, and if she were completely supramentalised? Even Nolini-da would have had to run away! ( Laughter) Ramakrishna had cancer due to the ills of his disciples, so what about Her? She has to swallow all that and become like 'Neela Kantha'. 31 31Sanskrit for 'Blue-throated' - referring to Lord Shiva, who ...
... Vivekananda, if I remember rightly, and Nivedita too perhaps have said what a fine life it would have been to pass one’s days sitting at the feet of Sharada Devi, the Page 75 Mother of the Ramakrishna Ashram, instead of spending all one’s energy in useless hectic activities! A moment’s mood, it may be, but the truth of the feeling is unmistakable. I was trying to learn French, but was still ...
... that at all, it was far removed from my mind." So she came to Calcutta, joined college and lived there. But somehow she began to frequent the temple at Dakshineshwar, now well-known because of Sri Ramakrishna, and she used to spend quite a lot of time over there. That's how things went on - studies, on one hand, and visits to Ramakrishna's temple, on the other. She was a graduate and was preparing for ...
... the confluence is a massive, historic red stone fort built by Akbar. Like Haridwar, Varanasi is also a temple town of India. However, it is difficult to describe Varanasi. As Shri Ramakrishna once said, "One may as well try to draw a map of the universe as attempt to describe Varanasi in words." As old as any currently inhabited city on earth, it was already well known in the days of ...
... and even her cultural life was brought to stagnation and very near to decomposition, this undying Fire in her secret heart was ever alight and called in the inevitable rebirth and rejuvenation. Ramakrishna, with Vivekananda as his emanation in life dynamic and material, symbolises this great secret of India's evolution. The promise that the Divine held out in the Gita to Bharata's descendant finds ...
... Divine, the life of a god, it means that you become a god, not only realise the utmost human perfection possible as man but surpass man's humanity and call in and embody divinity. You may remember Ramakrishna making a distinction between two kinds of perfect human beings – one he calls Jivakoti, that is to say, human creatures who have the capacity to attain the final liberation. Usually, these humans ...
... ion, meditation, their deep experience or realisation; and when they return they put on their robe again which has not changed in the meanwhile, even might have become more dirty 1 Sri Ramakrishna used to tell a story in this connection. When asked about the purificatory virtue of a dip in the Holy Ganges he answered that the sins leave you as soon as you are about to enter the waters, but ...
... Pondicherry, 17 Pradyurnana,44,207 Prudhomme, Sully, 320 Puranas , the, 46 Pyramid, the, 200 Pythagoras, 180 RACINE, 210 Raghus, the, 214 Rakshasas, 46 Rama, 58 Ramakrishna, 116, 128, 141, 160, 243, 247,383 Raphael, 210 Ravana, 58 Ravel, 427 Red Sea, 324 Ribhus, the, 208 Rome, 199,421 Rudra, 160, 163, 208 Russell, Bertrand, 56 Russo-Japanese ...
... almost all the time; but if by chance they are disturbed in their meditation by someone calling them or making noise, they fly into a rage, shout and abuse the whole world; they become ¹ Sri Ramakrishna used to tell a story in this connection. When asked about the purificatory virtue of a dip in the Holy Ganges he answered that the sins leave you as soon as you are about to enter the waters, but ...
... part in the battle of life – for it is then that you can act as God's agent or instrument. If you have to take to the field of actual battle you must first receive God's commission (chaprash – as Ramakrishna called it), even as Arjuna did. Page 385 ...
... through an inner invocation – there is usually a whole ceremony in this connection – if the priest is someone having the power Page 382 of evocation, then the thing succeeds (what Ramakrishna did in the Kali temple). But generally priests are people with the commonest ideas and the most traditional training and education; when they think of the gods they give them attributes and appearances ...
... Gupta - Vol. 4 The Sorrows of God THE Son of Man – the Avatar – suffers with and suffers for the suffering humanity. The Christ with his cross, Ramakrishna with his cancer, Socrates with the hemlock creeping up and benumbing his limbs and Mohammed being hunted from place to place are familiar and poignant pictures. "Verily, verily, the foxes have their ...
... not an uncommon phenomenon. Many of the Christian saints (Saint Francis of Assisi, for example) are reported to have borne on their body the marks – the stigmata of crucifixion of Christ's body; Ramakrishna, too, it is said, once showed marks of scourging on his back when a boy was whipped in his presence. All this means that the physical body is not man's sole means of action in the physical world ...
... were solely to reach the highest summit, the point beyond, the transcendent God and settle there, anyone line would be quite sufficient for the purpose. And even if several or all were tried, as Ramakrishna did, that would be only to prove the fact and to encourage each and everyone to pursue his own path and not get discouraged if others did not subscribe to it or even denied it. At the most it would ...
... lives of great personalities associated with these religions, or various systems of yoga such as Rama, Krishna, Buddha Mahavira, Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed, Guru Nanak, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. What is called psychology of religion and spirituality could also be studied at least at the elementary level, and here the emphasis could be on the study ...
... the modern Page 85 period of Indian history. It was at the beginning of this period that there arose a galaxy of great personalities like Raja Rammohun Roy and Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, who filled India with a new breath and sowed the seeds not only of a new spiritual awakening but also of social and political awakening. The great Indian fighters of India's ...
... intellectual arguments will crumble to pieces, and rational conviction will be replaced by emotional persuasion. Then the fear of death will rise in all its fury, as in the analogy given by the saint Ramakrishna: You may teach your pet bird to chant all the holy names of the Lord and it may indeed do so with ease at normal times, but when a cat pounces upon it and tries to wring its neck, the only cry that ...
... does not fight, the very build of his consciousness prevents him from wounding and hurting; he has no enemy; even if he is attacked or killed, he does not raise his arm to protect himself (although Ramakrishna would prescribe even for him a modified or mollified mode of resisting the evil, hissing at least if not biting). The Biblical injunction, we know, Page 68 is to present the other ...
... not the aim Page 211 of Bengal. The power of Delight of the Divine is inherent in the heart of Bengal. We find Rammohan, the worshipper of Shakti, at the dawn of modern Bengal. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were also the worshippers of Shakti. Howsoever Vedanta may have influenced them, the worship of Shakti was very dear to their hearts. And in a different field, what Jagadish Chandra ...
... every day Ramchandra Majumdar, Biren Ghosh and Saurin Bose (a brother-in-law of Sri Aurobindo) who came with us to Pondicherry and stayed here for some years. A frequent visitor was Ganen Maharaj of Ramakrishna Mission who acted as the link with Sister Nivedita. There were a few others who came once in a while. Sri Aurobindo had his own novel method of education. It did not proceed by the clock, nor according ...
... undisturbed. This point about selecting a "seat" occurs in the story of all great spiritual aspirants and in all the disciplines. The Tantriks had need of their "seat of five skulls", pañcamundi. Ramakrishna had his pañcavati, the grove of five sacred trees. But why this insistence on five? Perhaps the number stood for the five main elements in man and the five worlds that constitute the universe, ...
... mud of the ordinary world, and it took her a lot of time and trouble to rub and scrub and clean the dross upon the body, to make it shine as before. You may remember here in this connection the Ramakrishna story about the sinners who go to the Ganges for a bath to purify themselves; they leave their sins on the shore or their sins leave them as they get into the Ganges water, but the sins wait for ...
... modest way, our youthful minds' thoughts and feelings. When people needed help or when they were in difficulty, we tried to assist as much as possible. For occasions like Gangs puja, the Ramakrishna Mission celebrations in Berhampur various meetings and gatherings, charity-shows, exhibitions we were requested for voluntary work and our boys performed their tasks to the best of their ability ...
... now called a 'public charitable trust'. 'But, Dada, my question is: do we, as we are a charitable trust, engage ourselves in any charitable work? Like the Bharat Sevashram Sangh, the Ramakrishna Mission, etc. Bringing relief to people, to the sick, the poor, constructing schools, colleges, hospitals, etc'. Yes, you are right about that. We don't do any charitable work of that kind ...
... undisturbed. This point about selecting a "seat" occurs in the story of all great spiritual aspirants and in all the disciplines. The Tantriks had need of their "seat of five skulls", pañcamundī . Ramakrishna had his pañcavatī the grove of five banyans. But why this insistence on five? Perhaps the number stood for the five main elements in man and the five worlds that constitute the universe,—what ...
... as Principal B. M. Sen. 1 Sitapati Baneiji too was there; he won the Ishan Scholarship in his B.A. examination and was ultimately given the name Swami Raghavananda or Sitapati Maharaj at the Ramakrishna Mission. These more or less made up the list of the "good" boys. Among the "bad" ones was Indranath 1 I cannot now exactly recall if Bhupati Mohan had been at the Presidency College right ...
... it is paralleled by the accomplishment in philosophy of Shankara in a short life of thirty-two years and dwarfed by the universal mastery of all possible spiritual knowledge and experience of Sri Ramakrishna in our own era. These instances are not so common as the others, because pure creative genius is not common; but in Europe they are, with a single modern exception, non-existent. The highest creative ...
... day Ramchandra Majum-dar, Biren Ghosh and Saurin Bose (a brother-in-law of Sri Aurobindo) who came with us to Pondicherry and stayed here many long years. A frequent visitor was Ganen Tagore of Ramakrishna Mission who acted as the link with Sister Nivedita. There were a few others who came once in a while. Sri Aurobindo had his own novel method of education. It did not proceed by the clock, nor ...
... doped worldings, but of the serious seekers of the Spirit. A glorious future looms before mankind, and the Earth has a most magnificent rôle to play in it. The prophecies of many seers and saints—Ramakrishna, Ramalingam, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, to name only a representative few—about the birth of powerful Yogins in India and a general spiritual renaissance in humanity only confirm and substantiate ...
... the midst of material opulence. Buddha had to pay heavily for his initial, immoderate austerities, and was forced to relinquish them in favour of a sane method of moderation : the golden mean; Sri Ramakrishna, after a pretty long spell of physical neglect and ascetic practices, had to pray to the Mother (Kali) to let him live a life of easeful sweetness, and not to turn him into a desiccated ascetic. ...
... Purani, A.B. 20,27,316,370, 371 Quiller-couch, Sir Arthur 377 Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli 25 Rai, Lala Lajpat 10 Rajagopalachari, C (Rajaji) 17,25 Rajnarain 40 Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Sri 4 Ramayana 45, 56, 160, 330, 336, 341, 375, 418-420,445,447,458,461 Read, Herbert 267,306,383 Reddy,C.R.9,16,17 Richard, Paul ...
... see in the case of some Yogis. Disciple : Can one have these things in him when there is complete union with the Divine? Sri Aurobindo : What is the "complete union"? For instance, Ramakrishna asked the Divine Mother not to send him "Kama" – sex-impulse – and he succeeded, but all cases are not like that. It is quite possible to reject something centrally and totally – that is to say ...
... plastered over. About Tilak, when questioned, the spirit said : "He will be the man who will remain with the head unbent when the work will be on trial and others will bow." Then we called Ramakrishna He did not say anything. Only at the end he said : "Mandir gado" – "build a temple", which we at that time interpreted as starting Mandirs – temples – for political Sanyasis, but which I later ...
... Ramakrishna's hut which was brought by Sri Aurobindo, was with him when he was arrested. Here is what Sri Aurobindo says about it: "The earth was brought to me by a young man connected with the Ramakrishna Mission and I kept it; it was there in my room when the police came to arrest me." ¹ Many members of the secret society were simultaneously arrested: Barin, Ulaskar Dutt, Indra Bhushan, Upendra ...
... 1956, p. 4. 201. Arya, July 1918. 202. Savitri, pp. 824-5. 203. ibid.,p.826. 204. ibid., p. 3. 205. Max Muller, Rammohan to Ramakrishna, p. 29. 206. See Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, pp. 227-8, and p. 230. 207. On the Veda, p. 336. 208. Sri Aurohindo, (Tr. from the original Bengali by Niranjan) ...
... Lion," "My true child," "My most faithful child," "A part of myself." Ever since his childhood, Champaklal had sincerely aspired to live constantly in the Divine presence of someone like Sri Ramakrishna. In his own words, his aspiration was "truly fulfilled in a number of ways." Sincere aspiration, even when not expressed in words, can evoke the Divine Grace. Champaklal's life is a Page xv ...
... become Cosmic even though you speak of your self as "I" it is not the "I," – the ego, the "I-ness" disappears and the mental, vital and the physical appear as representatives of that Consciousness. Ramakrishna speaks of that state as the form of ego left for action. When you reach the Supermind you become not only Cosmic but something beyond the Universe – Transcendental, and there is indivisibility of ...
... path of tapasya is arduous. Here you rely solely upon yourself, you proceed by your own strength.... The other path, the path of surrender, is safe and sure.... In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its grip, it falls ...
... so on - engineer the great result we have in mind. Even an example like that of the Paramahamsa isn't meant to be imitated by everybody as a recipe of Yogic versatility: 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 ...
... "Guest House", and is well preserved. Sri Aurobindo had two rooms on the first floor, and he used to have evening talks with his disciples in the veranda in front of one of his rooms. A portrait of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in a state of trance among his disciples used to adorn Sri Aurobindo's table. Among the frequent visitors to the Guest House was Subramania Bharati, the greatest of modem Tamil poets ...
... Childhood, Boyhood and Youth I The district of Hooghly in West Bengal — the district that has given to Bengal and to India two such world-famous figures as Raja Rammohan Roy and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa — can almost be called the cradle of the Bengali or even of the Indian renaissance.* Konnagar is a thickly populated area, almost a small town, in the Hooghly district; situated on ...
... Confucius, Minamoto Sanetomo, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Epictetus, Lao-Tse, Leibnitz, Hermes, Schopenhauer, Sadi, Asvaghosha, Rumi, Spinoza, Bahaaullah, Omar Khayyam, Pythagoras, Kant, Firdausi, Ramakrishna, Vivek ananda , Pasteur, Giordano Bruno and Antoine the Healer. It is a fascinating mosaic of the choicest quotations meant to inform, instruct and inspire at once. All the time the agitated ...
... some corner, if only in one single being in the world. A new world begins with one. And one particular day, after the showing of the weekly film at the Playground—a very beautiful Indian film on Ramakrishna and Hindu religious devotion, on the meaning of the gods in life and that "supreme" something all these gods are the image of, and that song of the soul, behind everything, everywhere (in brief, ...
... spirituality, and a strong, almost compelling centripetal magnetism. But that is a truncated achievement in which the soul wins its freedom by an escape and an evasion of its God-given mission. Sri Ramakrishna had the wisdom to nip this tendency in ¹. Letter of Sri Aurobindo, - Vol. 1. Page 164 Vivekânanda as soon as he perceived it, and turn him towards the fulfilment of his ...
... golden and adorable anachronism, hardly real amidst our concrete structures and civilized savagery; it has been touched in the depths of the heart, stammered out by Saint Francis of Assisi or Sri Ramakrishna. But then the world goes on, and we all know that the last word belongs to the bomb and to the triumph of the latest democratic hero, who will soon join another one under the same layer of inanity ...
... It is impossible to measure the pioneering work done by them. For, no one before Mother and Sri Aurobindo had even thought of it. The preceding spiritual Masters —like Buddha, Shankara, Ramakrishna —had no idea of transforming the body, "their aim was spiritual mukti and nothing else." Sri Aurobindo did not find a ready-made integral method, he had to develop it. "If I had [found it], I should ...
... expressed to Dr. Ghose the wish to found a chatuspathi, where Sanskrit grammar, poetry, laws and philosophy are specially taught. Page 102 of the best in its day. On 20 September 1884 Ramakrishna Paramahansa went there to see a play on Sri Chaitanya, and blessed the actress who played the leading role. He also blessed the author-cum-director, Girish Chandra Ghose (1844-1912), who then became ...
... young men, join in their talks or teach them languages, like French. Nolini began straight away with Moliere's L'Avare. Nolini and Moni and Bejoy were the permanent residents. Ganen Maharaj, of Ramakrishna Mission, was a frequent visitor. Biren Ghosh, Saurin Bose and Ramchandra Majumdar turned up almost daily. Amar Chatterji, Hem Sen and several others came once in a while. Almost every evening Sri ...
... Perish What is it that so many thousands of holy men, Sadhus and Sannyasis, have preached to us silently by their lives ? What was the message that radiated from the personality of Bhaga-wan Ramakrishna Paramahansa? What was it that formed the kernel of the eloquence with which the lion-like heart of Vivek-ananda sought to shake the world? It is this, that in every one of these three hundred millions ...
... right hand she strikes the Enemy with a cudgel, and with her left hand she pulls out the tongue of the Enemy. "On another occasion," Sri Aurobindo went on, "a spirit purporting to be that of Ramakrishna came and simply said, 'Build a temple.' At that time we were planning to build a temple for political Sannyasis and call it Bhawani Mandir. We Page 251 thought he meant that, but ...
... intimidated. Then he admired the courage of Chaitanya. So charmed was the Kazi by young Chaitanya that he himself ended up taking part in the sankirtan. Is it 'immoral' to resist evil? Sri Ramakrishna Parama-hamsa, after telling a story to his disciples, gave its moral: "You must hiss at wicked people. You must frighten them lest they should do you harm." Who says resistance to evil is ' ...
... Movement were either yogis or disciples of yogis - men like Monoranjan Guha Thakurta, the disciple of Bejoy Goswami . ... Then there were others , like Brahma Bandhab Upadhyay. The influence of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda worked from behind." The genius of the Bengali race had, all of a sudden, burst into full bloom. Its main flowering was in the field of literature. A many-faceted literature which ...
... indescribable, and we would like the readers to plunge into this sweetness and intensity by reading these poems. We have included here some extracts, which describe some of Sri Chaitanya's and Sri Ramakrishna's experiences of Sri Krishna and Radha, which bring to us the living and continuing reality of Sri Krishna's consciousness. The poems of Surdas have been taken from J.S. Hawley's translations, of ...
... have the full vision of the truth, you must yourself realise and establish it in yourself, in your inner being as well as your outer personality. Then only you will have secured full authority (Ramakrishna's chaprash , badge) to make and unmake. If you have not the needed authority, then you must obey implicitly one who possesses the authority. This is a counsel of perfection, one might say, ...
... told him that I have never been used to such treatment. The jailer pacified the whole group and said while going, "we have all to bear our cross." Disciple : Is Rudra Bhava something like Ramakrishna's story about the snake, where anger is to be shown without really feeling it. Sri Aurobindo : Not at all. It is something genuine, a violent severity against something very wrong. e.g. the ...
... secret” he told me in 1949, Mother Anandamayi said a few years back: “He is transparent like a glass almirah.” An eminent writer and thinker said to me in Los Angeles: “When I read Sri Ramakrishna’s life I wondered how a man so childlike and so guileless could talk of the highest wisdom. After meeting Sri Roy I know it is possible.” Indira Devi 1994-95 Written on the occasion ...
... whole group and said while going, "We have each to bear our cross." But by this anger I don't mean the Rudrabhava which I have experienced a few times NIRODBARAN: Is Rudrabhava something like Ramakrishna's snake story? SRI AUROBINDO: Not at all. It is not at all a show of anger. It is something genuine—a violent severity against something very wrong. Anger one knows by its feeling and sensation ...
... on M's opinion on your philosophy. How can he compare your Yoga with Ramakrishna's! Yet he is considered as an authority on your yogic philosophy! Sri Aurobindo: In a way he is, i.e. he is an authority on his own ideas about my yogic philosophy. But from whom can you expect more than that? 56 (38)NB: Even Sri Ramakrishna's baby-cat type of sadhak has to make a decisive movement of surrender... - if it were it would not be a baby-cat. (It is the baby-monkey trying to become a baby cat who does that.) But you have evidently so great a knowledge of spiritual things (surpassing mine and Ramakrishna's) that I can only bow my head and pass humbly on to people with less knowledge. 57 (39)NB: If anybody can do the baby-cat surrender at a stroke, is it not because his "unfinished curve" in ...
... secret of sadhana 1 simply pointed out that that was the most effective way if one could get the things done by the Power behind, did not rule out mental effort so long as one could not do that. Ramakrishna's way of putting it was the image of the baby monkey and baby cat; I have only said the same thing in other words; both are permissible methods, only one is more easily effective. Any method sincerely ...
... lives in only one pursuit — self-realisation? Is it really such a long process? It is not a long process? The whole life and several lives more are often not enough to achieve it. Ramakrishna's guru took 30 years to arrive and even then he did not claim that he had realised it. Page 275 In his book "A Search in Secret India", Paul Brunton writes about "The ...
... that there are many doors by which one can pass into the Page 432 realisation of the Absolute (Parabrahman) and Nirvana is one of them, but by no means the only one. You may remember Ramakrishna's saying that the Jivakoti can ascend the stairs, but not return, while the Ishwarakoti can ascend and descend at will. If that is so, the Jivakoti might be those who describe only the curve from ...
... Afterwards, He knew from whom the anger had come and entered into Him, from whom it was passed on to Him. [Reading from Talks with Sri Aurobindo, 26]: N: Is Rudrabhava something like Ramakrishna's snake-story? Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. It is not at all a show of anger. It is something genuine - a violent severity against something very wrong. Anger one knows by its feeling and sensation ...
... and give teachings? SRI AUROBINDO: Why not? That is the traditional experience from ancient times. Any number of Gurus give initiation after their death. NIRODBARAN: You once spoke about Ramakrishna's and Vivekananda's influence in your life. Was it this you meant? SRI AUROBINDO: No. I referred to the influence of their words and books when I returned from England to Baroda. Their influence ...
... much they have made out of it? People from Bombay used to ask me if the price of cotton would go up, about race horses and about their lost children. What is the use of knowing all that? You know Ramakrishna's story of the Sanyasi's crossing the river. He said it was a Siddhi worth half an anna! Of course if necessary one can know these things, in a way, but I am not occupied with these sort of things ...
... activity you can hardly do unless you feel like singing. That is why I had to trouble you. I hope this will continue. I am working quite [a] lot at revising a French translation of Sri Ramakrishna's sayings by a Swiss lady—given me by Herbert. 79 So my poetry had to stop what with singing and revising. A week later I hope to start poetry again. I feel well and tranquil enough in... became them in life so much as their leaving it." (I quote the idea from memory.) Even the Kasmandas didn't dare so much, what ? P.S. Whatever you may say. Guru, I respond still with Sri Ramakrishna's ideology, "To ask the Divine to cure this cage of flesh and bone! fie!" I was reading even the other day his prayer, " Mā erā tomār kāchhe ese ki nā prārthanā kare «rog bhālo karo»—bhakti dāo... letter at all from me. So that is that. I have been praying a lot for a little real inner surrender of late. Yesterday I did much japa, etc, and prayed. My work too (with Herbert re. Sri Ramakrishna's sayings of which the French translation I had to compare with the original Bengali) is finished today. He asked what would be the equivalent of vairagya in French. The translator had written ...
... of Sri Aurobindo. Their contact with Sri Aurobindo had always been through her, and they had ¹ Savitri,, Book VI, Canto II. Page 380 come to realise the truth of Sri Ramakrishna's dictum that the key to the abode of Brahman is with the Mother, and that none can enter there unless She, in her Grace, opens the door. Wearied out by the inner struggle, they had reposed and ...
... towards the perfection that had attracted them to the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Their contact with Sri Aurobindo had always been through her, and they had come to realise the truth of Sri Ramakrishna's dictum that the key to the abode of Brahman is with the Mother, and that none can enter there unless She, in her Grace,, opens the door. Wearied out by the inner struggle, they had reposed and ...
... Please read C's letter regarding M.S.'s opinion on your philosophy. But I don't understand how a man who is supposed to be an authority on your Yogic philosophy can compare your Yoga with Ramakrishna's! In a way he is, i.e. he is an authority on his own ideas about my Yogic philosophy. But from whom can you expect more than that? Yes, but he is an authority on my philosophy, not on my Yoga... Is not Grace something that comes down unconditionally? It does not depend on conditions—which is rather a different thing from an unconditional surrender to any and every sadhak. Even Ramakrishna's baby cat type of sadhak has to make a decisive movement of surrender and compel the rest of the being to obedience, which, let me tell you, Sir, is the most difficult thing on earth. I never... that—if it were it would not be a baby cat. (It is the baby monkey trying to become a baby cat who does that.) But you have evidently so great a knowledge of spiritual things (surpassing mine and Ramakrishna's) that I can only bow my head and pass humbly on to people with less knowledge. If anybody can do the baby cat surrender at a stroke, it is not because his "unfinished curve" in the past life ...
... spiritual experience except that of the mere vairagis and make the choice of the spiritual life itself (Nirvana seekers excepted) quite inexplicable. Your arguments are not convincing. What have Ramakrishna's excesses or the fluctuations of Vivekananda's vital receptivity between exaltation and depression or Chaitanya's viraha to do with the question in issue? These are difficulties Page 377 ...
... vital and a physical element in beauty and even in these there is an "inner" beauty, a certain charm, a flame in the object. Page 248 Disciple : It is said that Sri Ramakrishna's body had a glow which he used to hide from men by covering his body. Can one say it was inner beauty? Sri Aurobindo : It may be the light of the Spirit; that is not beauty. There are ...
... cannot understand, once it is perceived & understood, how we can accept any other rendering. I have already discussed the relations of Indra, Surya & the Mountain of our graded ascent in being—Sri Ramakrishna’s staircase to the Sad Brahman. The far vision is the unlimited knowledge acquired in Mahas, in the wide supra-rational movement of our consciousness as opposed to the contracted rational or infrarational ...
... Gurudev's letter to me — resist "the change from the human to the divine consciousness " in order to be able to defend our "right to sorrow and suffering". I was reminded again and again of Sri Ramakrishna's simile about the camel which even when its mouth bled from munching "prickly grass" would persist in bunching the same thorns and no others. In other words, I Page 65 insisted, as ...
... Fire") and Sahana ("In Horis Aeternum"). 26. Dilip had sent to Sri Aurobindo a, passage (in French) from The Confessions of St. Augustine. 27. Nag Mahashoy: a householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna's. 28. Mayavadin: one for whom the world is an illusion. 29. The following passages within brackets have been omitted from the version published in the Centenary Edition (1972), 30 ...
... this is a thing that can be cancelled if one can have sufficient faith and inner strength and openness and receive the spiritual force. 1 27 June 1935 Perhaps I might say a word about Ramakrishna's attitude with regard to the body. He seems always to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise it for preserving the body or curing its ailments or taking care for it. Other Yogis—I ...
... have said also that there are many doors by which one can pass into the realisation of the Absolute (Parabrahman) and Nirvana is one of them, but by no means the only one. You may remember Ramakrishna’s saying that the Jivakoti [a human being who, once immersed in God cannot return] can ascend the stairs, but not return, while the Ishwarakoti [a divine human being] can ascend and descend ...
... of true mystical experience of any type it would be absurd to imply that Buddha's supreme equanimity and compassion are possible without his ego-annulling and desire-destroying Nirvana or Ramakrishna's intensely radiant nature and healing atmosphere can be acquired without his rapturous realisation of the omni-present Divine Mother. Qualities of the soul reach their acmes only through the ...
... inkling of true mystical experience of any type it would be absurd to imply that Buddha's supreme equanimity and compassion are possible without his ego-annulling and desire-destroying Nirvana or Ramakrishna's intensely radiant nature and healing atmosphere can be acquired without his rapturous realisation of the omnipresent Divine Mother. Qualities of the soul reach their acmes only through the soul's ...
... spiritual force to preserve health or cure physical ailments. I had asked him in my letter, among other things, how far he undersigned Sri Ramakrishna's condemnation of utilisation of spiritual force to keep the body in health. "I might say a word about Sri Ramakrishna's attitude with regard to the body," he wrote. "He seems to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise it for preserving ...
... Christ's gospel of the purity and perfection of mankind, Mahomed's gospel of perfect submission, self-surrender and servitude to God, Chaitanya's gospel of the perfect love and joy of God in man, Ramakrishna's gospel of the unity of all religions and the divinity of God in man, and, gathering all these streams into one mighty river, one purifying and redeeming Ganges, pour it over the death-in-life of ...
... I have said also that there are many doors by which one can pass into the realisation of the Absolute (Parabrahman), and Nirvana is one of them, but by no means the only one. You may remember Ramakrishna's saying that the Jivakoti can ascend the stairs, but not return, while the Ishwarakoti can ascend and descend at will. If that is so, the Jivakoti might be those who describe only the curve from ...
... engaged in was yogic in character, a few words about yoga may be helpful. To render it into the simplest terms, yoga means union, union with God, the Divine. To see Him, to be with Him and, in Sri Ramakrishna's words, to be able to speak to Him — this is our life's highest aim and purpose. All the ways and practices which lead to this union, are called paths of yoga. Many indeed are the ways and the means ...
... a vital and a physical element in beauty and even in these there is an "inner" beauty, a certain charm, a flame in the object. Page 253 Disciple : It is said that Sri Ramakrishna's body had a glow which he used to hide from men by covering his body. Can one say it was inner beauty? Sri Aurobindo : It may be the light of the Spirit; that is not beauty. There are many ...
... are again making a general sweeping rule out of your own standpoint. Love and ardour of seeking with the same or increased intensity without any big experience may be possible in cases like Ramakrishna's who from boyhood used to fall into trance even at the sight of blue clouds, reminding him of Krishna. Even then isn't it said that many times he resolved to drown himself in the Ganges because the ...
... thing. Infinite possibilities, sir, in the play of Forces.) Even if it can't be wrong, its efficacy will vary with the power of the communicant. For instance there will be a difference between Ramakrishna's and Vivekananda's Force, and therefore in the resultant effectivity or ineffectivity. Naturally. What I want to know is whether the Force, applied or directed, is always the right Force ...
... replied, "After the Darshan his faith got shaken and he could not get it back." Cancer of the throat is a scourge; one cannot eat, drink or speak; breathing becomes difficult. Let us remember Sri Ramakrishna's classical example. To keep a steady faith needs a heroic will which how many can have? Besides, the family surroundings also were not very congenial. I remember Nishikanto, a sadhak-poet, who ...
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