O auspiciousness of all auspicious things.

O door of all actions.

O refuge.

Three-eyed-one.

O spouse of Shiva,

O Narayani.

I bow down to thee.

I bow down to thee.

Panchavati

One day while Sri Ramakrishna was in the garden picking flowers, a boat pulled up at the Bakulghat embankment and a Bhairavi stepped out.

Sri Ramakrishna hurried to Hriday and with excitement said, ‘There is a Brahmani who has stepped out of a boat at the ghat. Ask her to come to me.’

Hriday was perturbed, ‘Master, a woman? You want me to bring a woman to you? Who is she? Does she know you? Why should she come?’

Sri Ramakrishna, unable to conceal his tears, replied, ‘O Hridu. This is no ordinary woman. Something tells me she has been sent to me. Tell her Sri Ramakrishna asks for her. And she will come.’

Hriday followed the order and brought the Bhairavi to Sri Ramakrishna. Excited and happy, she seemed to recognize Sri Ramakrishna and said, ‘Ah my child! Here you are at last. I knew you lived on the banks of the Ganga. I’ve been searching for you so long.’

To which Sri Ramakrishna shyly asked, ‘But how did you know about me, Mother?’

‘The Divine Mother told me,’ she replied, ‘I was to find and instruct three great beings striving for her blessings. I met two in the East. And today I have found you!’

Sri Ramakrishna fell at the Bhairavi’s feet and said:

O Mother, I have so much to tell you. So much I need to know. What are these things happening to me? Haladhari says I’m insane. My body burns so I have to stand in water for hours to cool it. Am I going mad as they say? Can an intense yearning for God cause this?

The Bhairavi raised him up, smiled and said:

My son, this whole world is mad. Some are mad for wealth, some for pleasure, some for fame. Some for gold, for husbands, for wives or for little trifles. Mad for every foolish thing except God. And they understand only their own madness. When a man is mad after gold they have a fellow feeling for him, as lunatics think that only lunatics are sane. But if a man is mad after the Beloved, after the Lord, they think he has gone crazy. That is why they call you mad. But yours is the right kind of madness. Blessed is the man upon whom such madness descends.

The Brahmani took Sri Ramakrishna to Panchavati. She opened her bag of books and spread them: Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagvata. Quoting from the texts, the Brahmani told Sri Ramakrishna that when a powerful surge of divine emotions floods a human life, the gross body, unable to contain them, is often shattered by the stress. The burning pain in his body was a sign of an extremely rare state of mahabhava, the most exalted love of God, such as that experienced by the great Chaitanya and Radha of Vrindavan for Sri Krishna.

This pain, she said, could be relieved with sandalwood paste and flowers … For Sri Ramakrishna it was a revelation that texts, centuries old, should catalogue his experiences so precisely and matter-of-factly. It was a vindication beyond anything he might have imagined, that he was on the right path, an ancient and well-travelled way that eventually led him inevitably to a blessed union with God.

Once, Bhairavi Brahmani, as she came to be called in the context of her association with Ramakrishna, cooked some food as a part of her worship and offered it to the statue of Lord Rama. Closing her eyes she then went into samadhi. At that time Sri Ramakrishna, who wandered in the premises of Dakshineswar in a state of bliss, walked up to the statue, picked up the offering made by Brahmani and ate it with his eyes closed. Brahmani opened her eyes and watched without moving. At this juncture, Sri Ramakrishna came out of samadhi and realized what he had done.

He became completely distraught and said, ‘Mother, why do I do these things? I don’t know why I do these things. Here I am walking around asleep and I eat the offering you have made to Lord Rama.’

Bhairavi softly replied, ‘My child, in eating this offering to Lord Rama, you have confirmed what was revealed to me in samadhi. Within you dwells an avatar of Ishwar who will soon be revealed to the world. You have only eaten what is your due.’

Sri Ramakrishna who was still feeling guilty was amazed by her reply and said, ‘What are you saying, Mother!’

Bhairavi Brahmani picked up the idol of Lord Rama and worshipfully consigned it to the Ganga. The idol had fulfilled its purpose. The divinity that Bhairavi Brahmani, a nun of the Vaishnavite Shakti community of Jessore, had so tirelessly worshipped in stone had now appeared to her in the flesh.

Bhairavi was especially versed in tantric and yogic rites. From now on she brought all her spiritual powers to nurture the high intensity she glimpsed in Sri Ramakrishna. The attitude she spontaneously adopted towards her young charge was that of Mother Yasodha to her son Krishna in vatsalya bhava.

She guided Sri Ramakrishna methodically, meticulously and consciously – over past lives – by new routes to the same peaks of spiritual vision he had stumbled upon by the sheer intensity of his yearning. Central to tantra is learning to treat attraction and revulsion equally, with indifference. She took him through tantric sadhanas that revealed the divinity in ordinary objects and energies in the physical world, through the three modes of tantric worship – the animal, the heroic and the divine. And step by step through the awakening of the kundalini.

The term kundalini has been much used and much misunderstood. According to Hindu physiology, there is a great store of spiritual energy, the power of impulsion towards the godhead accumulated in past lives, coiled like a serpent at the base of the spine. This energy remains unmanifest in those who remain in bondage. When it is awakened, it leads man to a direct knowledge of the supreme consciousness that resides in the fontanelle at the top of the head, for this supreme consciousness always reaches out to the coiled power at the base of the spine.

Later, Sri Ramakrishna explained it succinctly, from his own experience.

According to the tantric scriptures, the ultimate reality is chit (consciousness), which is identical to sat (being) and ananda (bliss). This ultimate reality or satchitananda is identical with the Vedic teachings. While man is identical to this reality, under the influence of maya or illusion, he has lost his true self. He has lost his identity between a world of subject and object and this error is solely responsible for his bondage and suffering. Therefore, the goal of spiritual discipline is the rediscovery of his true identity with the divine reality.

In order to achieve the goal of uniting the soul with the divine spirit, the Vedanta prescribes an austere method of discrimination and renunciation. This is very tough to follow, and, therefore, only a few individuals who are endowed with sharp intelligence and unshakeable will power can follow it to its very end. However, tantra does take into consideration the natural weakness of human beings – their lower appetites as well as their love for the concrete. It combines philosophy with rituals, meditation with ceremonies and renunciation with enjoyment. The underlying purpose of the entire process is to gradually train the aspirant to meditate on his identity with the divine spirit.

While the common man’s aim is to enjoy the material objects of the world that come his way, the rules are different for those who resolve to tread a different and difficult path and to unite with the divine consciousness. Though tantra bids these individuals to enjoy the objects of the material world, it also preaches that they discover in every object, the presence of God. Mystical rites are performed and slowly the objects that they so desired earlier become spiritualized and this attraction is transformed into the love of God. Thus the very bonds of man are turned into treasures. The same poison that kills is transmuted into the elixir of life. Mere outward renunciation is not necessary because the ultimate aim of tantra is to sublimate bhoga or enjoyment into yoga or union with consciousness. According to this philosophy, the world with all its manifestations is nothing but the sport of Shiva and shakti, the absolute and its inscrutable power.

The discipline of tantra is graded to suit aspirants or students of all degrees. Exercises are prescribed for people with animal, heroic and divine outlooks. Certain rites require the presence of members of the opposite sex. Here, the student learns to look on woman as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Mother of the universe. The very basis of tantra is the glorification of woman. Every part of a woman’s body is to be regarded as a divine manifestation. But the rites are extremely dangerous and an aspirant must always seek the help of a qualified guru. An unworthy devotee may lose his foothold and fall into a pit of depravity.

According to the tantra system, shakti is the creative force in the universe. Shiva, the absolute, is more or less a passive principle. However, separating shakti and Shiva is as impossible as separating fire’s power to burn from fire itself. Shakti contains the universe in its womb, and therefore, is considered to be the Divine Mother. All women are Her symbols and Kali is just one of Her several forms. Meditation on Kali is the central discipline of the tantra system. While meditating, the aspirant at first regards himself as one with the Absolute and then thinks that out of that impersonal consciousness emerge two entities, namely, his own self and the living form of the Goddess. He then projects the Goddess into the tangible image before him and worships it as the Divine Mother.

Sri Ramakrishna practised the disciplines of tantra and accepted Brahmani as his guru at the bidding of the Divine Mother. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies at Panchavati. He was often overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and went into samadhi. In that state, evil ceased to exist and everything appeared as lila or the sport of Shiva and shakti. Every object that he beheld manifested the power and beauty of the Mother. The whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with chit and ananda.

Once, while he was in samadhi, he saw a vision of the ultimate cause of the universe in the form of a huge luminous triangle that kept giving birth, every moment, to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the animate shabda, the great sound Om, which echoes in the infinite sounds of the universe. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man omnipotent. But Sri Ramakrishna spurned these as valueless to the development of the spirit. He saw a vision of the divine maya, the inscrutable power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained and into which it is finally absorbed. He saw this form of maya in an exquisitely beautiful woman about to become a mother, who emerged from the Ganga and approached Panchavati slowly. Then she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible form, seized the child by her jaws and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the water of the Ganga.

However, Sri Ramakrishna’s most remarkable experience during this period of tantra sadhana was the awakening of the kundalini shakti, the serpent power. He actually saw the power, at first lying asleep at the base of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses to the sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus at the top of the head. He also noticed that as the kundalini went up, the different lotuses bloomed. This phenomenon was accompanied by different movements of the kundalini in the form of a fish, bird, monkey, etc. The awakening of the kundalini is considered to be the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Shiva in the sahasrara ending in samadhi, is the consummation of the tantric disciplines.

As long as the mind is attached to the world, immersed in passion, lust and greed, with no higher ambition to achieve something greater, or there is no vision, the kundalini shakti remains in the lower centres of the spine – those on the same plane as the rectum, the genitals and the navel. When the mind learns to dwell at the level of the heart, man experiences his first spiritual awakening and sees light and joy all around him. When the kundalini reaches the fifth centre – that is at the throat level, a man ceases to speak about anything but God. The sixth centre is situated at the forehead, between the eyebrows. And when the mind reaches this centre, the man gets a divine vision, though a trace of the ego remains. Finally, when the mind reaches the seventh centre, man goes into samadhi. He becomes a knower of Brahman, united with Brahman. What he experiences then cannot be described in mere words.

It becomes only too clear at which level most of us dwell … Many spiritual aspirants at high levels of their spiritual quest develop psychic powers. There are reportedly eight, including the power of healing, of materializing objects, of shedding light from one’s body … The ability to create miracles has a magnetism that few can deny, and the ensuing vanity becomes an obstacle to enlightenment. Sri Ramakrishna, however, quickly learned the folly of using those powers developed as a result of his austerities.

Once, Sri Ramakrishna and Hriday were walking towards the Kali temple when Sri Ramakrishna told Hriday with wonder, ‘I hear the sound of the Universe. Om!’

Hriday said that he should tell Bhairavi Brahmani about this. To which Sri Ramakrishna replied, ‘She said it might happen. Anahata dhvani … I can hear the Universal Soul.’

After completing the tantric sadhana, Sri Ramakrishna followed Brahmani in the disciplines of Vaishnavism. The Vaishnavas are worshippers of Vishnu, the all-pervading, the Supreme God, who is also known as Hari and Narayana. Of Vishnu’s various incarnations, the two with the largest number of followers are Rama and Krishna.

Vaishnavism is exclusively a religion of bhakti. Bhakti is intense love of God, attachment to Him alone; it is of the nature of bliss and bestows immortality and liberation upon the lover. God, according to Vaishnavism, cannot be realized through logic or reason; and without bhakti, all penances, austerities and titles are futile. Man cannot realize God by self-exertion alone. For the vision of God His grace is absolutely necessary and this grace is felt by the pure in heart. The mind is to be purified through bhakti. The pure mind then remains forever immersed in the ecstasy of God-vision. It is the cultivation of this divine love that is the chief concern of the Vaishnava religion.

In order to develop the devotee’s love for God, Vaishnavism humanizes God. God is then regarded as the devotee’s parent, master, friend, child, husband or even beloved, where each succeeding relationship represents an intensification of love. These bhavas or attitudes towards God are known as shanta, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya and madhura. The various characters in Hindu mythology, for example, the rishis of the Vedas, Hanuman, the cowherd boys of Vrindavan, Rama’s mother Kausalya and Radhika who was Krishna’s beloved, exhibited, respectively, the most perfect examples of these forms. In the ascending scale, God’s glory is gradually forgotten and the devotee realizes more and more the intimacy of divine communion. Finally, the devotee regards himself as the mistress of his beloved, and no artificial barrier remains to separate him from his ideal. No social or moral obligation can bind his soaring spirit. He experiences perfect union with his Lord. Unlike the Vedantist who strives to transcend all varieties of the subject-object relationship, a Vaishnavite wishes to retain both his own individuality and the personality of God. To him, God is not an intangible absolute, but Purushottama, i.e. the Supreme Person.

As Sri Ramakrishna moved around the temple premises after his austere sadhanas, which weredirected and supervised by Brahmani, his physical body began to look different and as he walked by, people made all kinds of remarks. For example, ‘How beautiful the madman looks today,’ or ‘It’s as though golden beams are coming out of him. How can that be?’

When Sri Ramakrishna overheard these comments, he said, ‘Mother, they are charmed by my outer beauty. But do they see the beauty of You who dwell within? Take it away, Mother, this superficial gloss.’

While meditating, Sri Ramakrishna once saw a vision that he would have many disciples and some would be fair-skinned. When he told Mathur Babu about his vision, he did not even imagine what the coming years would have in store for them.

The Kali temple of Dakshineswar became a favourite resort of devotees and sadhus. Some of them were Paramahamsas, Great Swans that swim freely and joyously upon the waves of the world without being in any way stained by them. Sri Ramakrishna described them as children, seeing everything filled with consciousness, irrespective of whether they were relatives or strangers, seeing Brahman in everything and everybody.

Dakshineswar was home to many seekers of God and one incident was memorably witnessed by Sri Ramakrishna and Hriday. A filthy sadhu in a longoti, covered in dust, hair matted, blissfully danced and sang about how beautiful the world was and about the creation of Parabrahman in all his glory.

While dancing, the sadhu saw a garbage pile of discarded leaf plates and sat down, blissfully happy to eat the leftovers. Just then a dog also came to eat from the same garbage and the sadhu put his arm around the dog and both ate the same food. Hriday was disgusted and Sri Ramakrishna was surprised. He told Hriday that he was not an ordinary lunatic. He was possessed of God. To him the waters in a ditch were the same as the waters of the Ganga.

Later, Sri Ramakrishna found the Vaishnava monk sitting under a tree with a book and a pot of water. He seemed to be reading something very thoughtfully. Sri Ramakrishna approached the monk and respectfully asked him to show him what he was reading so reverentially. To Sri Ramakrishna’s surprise, the sadhu showed him page after page of the book with just ‘Rama O Rama’ written on each of them. The monk asked Sri Ramakrishna what was the use of reading a whole lot of books. God could be found in the origin of the four Vedas and the eighteen Puranas. And His name equalled Him. So he was satisfied with His name alone.

Around the year 1864, there came another wandering Vaishnava monk, Jatadhari, whose deity was Rama and who always carried along with him a metal image of Rama in his boyhood. Jatadhari showed tender affection towards the image, which resembled Kausalya’s love for her divine son, Rama. He went around with food in his hand, fed the image and often scolded it and said: ‘Bad boy! You disappeared again! You are shameless. Now eat!’ Jatadhari treated him like a mother treats a spoilt child, sometimes cajoling, chiding and sometimes requesting Ramlala to behave and sometimes holding firm. As a result of lifelong spiritual practice, he had actually found the presence of his idol in this icon. Ramlala was no longer merely an image made of metal, but a living God to him. He devoted himself to nursing, bathing and feeding Rama, played with Him and even took Him for a walk. And he found that the image responded to his love and tender care. It was evident that Jatadhari shared a unique relationship with the image of Ramlala.

The subtle mind acts eternally on the gross body and the body on the mind. One person’s body and mind act on another. There is a relation between the body and mind of the whole world. The spiritual moods of loving God create changes in both mind and body.

At this stage, Brahmani guided Sri Ramakrishna, the ardent God lover, through the five moods of loving God, at which she was adept. The simplest devotional attitude is shanta bhava – the dualistic attitude of the worshipper to the worshipped – of the created to the creator. It is a love that does not resemble any human relationship. Sri Ramakrishna worshipped Ma Kali in shanta bhava. In enacting Hanuman, the devotee of Lord Rama, Sri Ramakrishna experienced dasya bhava, the mood of the child to his parent or a servant to his master. Bhairavi directed him into experiencing sakhya bhava, the love of the friend – as the love of the shepherds for Lord Krishna. Now with Jatadhari’s Ramlala, Sri Ramakrishna experienced vatsalya bhava, the love of the parent for the child.

He observed Jatadhari’s relationship with Ramlala with great love and interest. Once, when Jatadhari was annoyed with Ramlala he got up and walked off in a huff. Completely absorbed, Sri Ramakrishna’s attention was riveted on the image. He picked it up, set it on his lap, looked at it in adoration, admonished it and said: ‘You are a naughty one! Now go and call him back and eat a little.’ Then Sri Ramakrishna set the image back on the floor. Jatadhari returned after some time and said, ‘Will you come to me now? All right. Don’t come … don’t come.’

It was then that Sri Ramakrishna requested Jatadhari, ‘Father, help me realize Ramlala as you have realized him. I see you surrounded by the bliss of His loving presence. Teach me, Oh Jatadhari, the secret mantra.’

Jatadhari, very peeved, said, ‘But see, He neglects me now as never before. He wants to be with you!’ Turning to the image he said, ‘You do whatever you feel like. You have no feelings. You’re unkind; you left your parents and went into the forest. Your father died of a broken heart.’ He then picked up the image and left. But now, Jatadhari’s ritual of feeding Ramlala was unsuccessful. He turned away to ladle out the food from the pot. On turning back he found the image had vanished. He sighed, sat back in tears and stared at the place where the icon had been. A light emanated from the vacant spot. Jatadhari was overwhelmed. Just then Sri Ramakrishna entered. Jatadhari fell at his feet and spoke with deep emotion:

Ramlala revealed Himself to me. He has told me that He will not leave you. It fills me with joy to see Him happy playing with you. I will leave Him here with you and go my way.

Some days later, Jatadhari requested Sri Ramakrishna to keep the image and bade him adieu with tearful eyes. He declared that Ramlala had fulfilled his innermost prayer and he now had no need of any form of formal worship. A few days later, Sri Ramakrishna was blessed by Ramlala with a vision of Ramachandra, whereby he realized that the Rama of the Ramayana, the son of Dasaratha, pervaded the whole universe as spirit and consciousness. Sri Ramakrishna realized that He is its creator, sustainer and destroyer. He is the transcendental Brahman, without form or attribute or name.

Vedanta teaches that there is no reality other than Brahman. Name, form, as we know them in the physical world, are merely illusions that must be overcome before Brahman can be known. The ego says, ‘I am’ therefore ‘I am other than Brahman’. ‘I am’ is physically expressed as ‘I have a body’. And from the body idea spring two others, mutually exclusive: I am a man, I am a woman. If a devotee can convince himself as belonging to the other sex, he is on the way to overcoming sex distinction – he will know the distinction is not absolute.

Sri Ramakrishna now devoted himself to scaling the most inaccessible and dizzy heights of dualistic worship, namely, the complete union with Sri Krishna as the beloved of the heart. He regarded himself as one of the gopis of Vrindavan, longing for her divine beloved. In his pursuit of love he forgot all about food and drink. He wept bitterly day and night. The yearning turned into a mad frenzy; for the divine Krishna began to play the same old tricks with him that He had played with the gopis. He teased and taunted, occasionally revealed Himself, but always kept a distance. Sri Ramakrishna’s anguish brought back the old physical symptoms; the burning sensation while blood oozed out of the pores of his body, loosened the joints and brought his physiological functions to a complete halt.

The Vaishnava scriptures advise devotees to propitiate Radha and obtain her grace in order to realize Sri Krishna. So, the tortured devotee now turned his prayer towards Radha. In order to obtain her grace, Sri Ramakrishna requested Mathur to get him a woman’s dress and jewellery. Only then did Sri Ramakrishna begin his new sadhana. Mathur got him a Benarasi sari, a gauzy dupatta, a gharara and a choli. Sri Ramakrishna admired the clothes, dressed himself as a woman in the sari, gave a coy look, minced his steps and fanned himself with a chamara.

Much to the amusement of the people, Sri Ramakrishna behaved like a woman, combed the hair of other women, gathered flowers, wore anklets and went about like a wealthy matron joining the other women when he entered the temple. Mathur, who was on the side reserved for men, was not able to recognize Sri Ramakrishna. When he did he was astonished.

And finally in madhura bhava, Sri Ramakrishna, always literal, always exact, unmindful of the opinions of others or scandals ensuing, enacted the role of Radha the milkmaid, whose love for Sri Krishna is unparalleled conjugal love, the culmination of the pancha bhavas, the bhava that encompasses all others.

As Radha, Sri Ramakrishna beat his head on the ground, wept and said, ‘I cannot realize Radha, I cannot realize the love that Radha felt for Sri Krishna. The pain, the pain is unbearable. Oh, the pain of passion unfulfilled!’

Bhairavi consoled him and said, ‘My son, this is the pain of separation from Brahman, from the Godhead. Your passion is the passion for reunion. Be patient, you are meant for union.’ And then, after six months of sadhana, it happened. Sri Krishna revealed himself and fulfilled the longings of Sri Ramakrishna’s soul. He experienced the joy of union and the agony of his soul vanished in the glorious realization of his beloved. He had obliterated sex distinction in his body. He had attained madhura bhava.

Some may feel Sri Ramakrishna’s search for madhura bhava was unbecoming for a man. However, a vedantin knows that through long habit all thoughts are converted into samskaras. Obliterating the distinction between bodies brings us closer to the one undivided Supreme. All five bhavas, or moods of love, are subtle and purified forms of those mundane relations by which human beings are bound to each other in their daily lives. In practising bhavas they understand, jivas can find their way to the Divine.

One day Sri Ramakrishna was seated with eyes closed and a devotee sat opposite him with a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Sri Ramakrishna opened his eyes and saw a light emerging from a particular spot. An image of Krishna appeared in the light. Filled with wonder and happiness, Sri Ramakrishna saw that the light passed from Krishna’s toe to the Bhagavad Gita and towards himself. As the light held the image of Sri Krishna, the book and the devotee in a triangle, Sri Ramakrishna perceived that God, his devotees and the scriptures, although they appeared to be distinct entities, were actually one.

He was now at the end of this phase of his sadhanas, and unknown to himself, Sri Ramakrishna was ready for union and for teachings in advaita – non-duality that leads to union with the Absolute.

If Sri Ramakrishna was indeed the divine manifest in human form, why did he need to be put through the sadhanas to experience that final unity with God? At first Mathur was inclined to mistrust Brahmani Bhairavi who took up so much of Sri Ramakrishna’s time and taught him delicate and questionable tantric practices. Mathur thought to himself: ‘Can such a beautiful woman be as pure as she seems?’

One day, as Mathur walked by the Kali temple, he mocked Bhairavi who came out of the temple: ‘Well, Bhairavi, where is your Bhairava?’ Bhairavi stopped, looked steadily at Mathur and pointed to the image of Shiva in the Kali temple. Mathur, still unconvinced, said, ‘Ah, but that Bhairava is only stone! It doesn’t move.’ Bhairavi drew herself up and majestically replied: ‘Why should I have become a Bhairavi if I cannot move the immovable?’ Ashamed, Mathur walked away.

Mathur was bemused by Sri Ramakrishna and saw in him flashes of divinity. But he did not even suggest anything further for that would have opened the way to the young man becoming even more irresponsible. Mathur was chagrined when Bhairavi Brahmani not only maintained loudly that Sri Ramakrishna was an avatar, a reincarnation of the Lord Vishnu – as were Sri Rama and Sri Krishna – but she was ready to defend it formally, in debate with the most learned pandits.

Mathur, in two minds after he experienced Sri Ramakrishna’s different facets, doubtfully told Bhairavi: ‘The scriptures say there are only ten incarnations. Nine have already come, one, Kalki, is yet to come.’ To which Bhairavi replied with marked certainty: ‘Why? The Bhagavata records twenty-four and leaves space for many more.’

Mathur was not truly convinced with Bhairavi’s reply. At her suggestion, a conference of eminent scholars was arranged to debate the matter.

Two famous pandits of the era were invited – Vaishnavacharan, the leader of the Vaishnava society, and Gauri. Vaishnavacharan arrived first with a distinguished company of scholars and devotees. Like a proud mother, Brahmani proclaimed her view before the great scholar and supported it with quotations from the scriptures. As the pandits discussed the deep theological question, Sri Ramakrishna was completely indifferent to everything that went on around him. He sat in their midst like a child, immersed in his own thoughts. Sometimes he smiled or chewed spice from a pouch. He even nudged Vaishnavacharan once and said: ‘Look here, sometimes I feel like this too.’ Finally, Vaishnavacharan arose and declared himself in total agreement with Brahmani. He declared that Sri Ramakrishna had undoubtedly experienced mahabhava and that it was the certain sign of the rare manifestation of God in a man. The people assembled there, especially the officers of the temple garden, were dumbstruck. Very innocently Sri Ramakrishna told Mathur: ‘Just fancy, he too says so! Well, I am glad to learn that after all it is not a disease.’

A few days later, Pandit Gauri arrived, another round of meetings was held and he, too, agreed with the views of Brahmani and Vaishnavacharan. To Sri Ramakrishna’s remark that Vaishnavacharan had declared him to be an avatar, Gauri replied, ‘Is that all he has said about you? Then he has said very little. I am fully convinced that you are that mine of spiritual power, only a small fraction of which descends to earth from time to time, in the form of an incarnation.’

‘Ah!’ said Sri Ramakrishna with a smile, ‘you seem to have quite outbid Vaishnavacharan in this matter. What have you found in me that makes you entertain such an idea?’

Gauri replied, ‘I feel it in my heart and I have the scriptures on my side. I am ready to prove it to anyone who wishes to challenge me.’

‘Well,’ Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘it is you who says so, but believe me, I know nothing about it.’

Thus, the insane priest was, by verdict of the great scholars of the day, proclaimed a divine incarnation. His visions were not the result of an overheated brain; they had precedents in spiritual history. But how did the proclamation affect Sri Ramakrishna himself? He remained the simple child that he had been since the first day of his life. Years later when two of his disciples openly spoke of him as a divine incarnation and the matter was reported to him, he said with a touch of sarcasm, ‘Do they think they will enhance my glory that way? One of them is a stage actor and the other a physician. What do they know about incarnation? Why, years ago, pandits like Gauri and Vaishnavacharan declared me to be an avatar. They were great scholars and knew what they said. But that did not make any change in my mind.’

Divinity was ascribed to many spiritual leaders of all eras by wise men who had no idea or knowledge about what these great souls endured to attain enlightenment. Even Jesus Christ was ascribed divinity after his crucifixion. This is both an irony and paradox of life.

Sri Ramakrishna was a learner all his life. He was often found quoting this proverb to his disciples: ‘Friend, as long as I live I learn.’ When the excitement created by Brahmani’s declaration was over, he decided to set himself the task of practising spiritual disciplines according to the traditional methods laid down in the tantra and Vaishnava scriptures. He pursued his spiritual ideal according to the promptings of his guru and set foot on mystic, traditional highways. All those who believed that Sri Ramakrishna was a madman agreed to accept the fact that he was not what their limited minds could comprehend.

A saint or jivan mukta is human, he is driven to be reborn by his history of actions to complete the cycles of karma by a virtuous life, and thereby evolve closer to the Godhead. He is still influenced by illusion, of matter, of maya, the game of Mother Kali. An avatar, however, has no karma that drives him. He is reborn as an act of grace for the good of humanity lost in adharma. When he reaches maturity he realizes his goal in life – to attain the Godhead, re-establish virtue, and show others the way. Although an avatar must, as he is born in human form, struggle against the spiritual blindness and ignorance that besets us all, he is ultimately the master of maya. A saint has little power to liberate others, an avatar does this by a touch, a glance, a word. What was Sri Ramakrishna? Was he an avatar? Or merely a saint? It depends on the quality of your belief.

Indian sages have said that God has three hundred million faces, each a symbol of a divine attribute. So many that it is not possible to know them all in a thousand lifetimes. Sri Ramakrishna, the devoted lover of God, now knew many attributes of the divine. He was intimately acquainted with Hanuman, Radha, Sita, Krishna, Rama, Kali, Shiva …

Yet something obscure still drove him on, some sense that his realizations, while wondrous, were yet incomplete. What more? He could not say. Nor could Brahmani who watched over her charge with such pure vatsalya devotion.

One day, yet another incident occurred. A well-built, supremely confident, handsome, tall and almost naked man arrived in Dakshineswar carrying a shining brass pot. His name was Totapuri and he arrived at the temple garden towards the end of 1864. Perhaps he was born in Punjab, where he was the head of a monastery and claimed to be the leader of seven hundred sannyasis. Totapuri was an advaitin, a naga monk versed in the theory and practice of Vedanta or non-dualism. After forty years of strict sadhana, he had achieved nirvikalpa samadhi, the highest level of spiritual attainment, where all the varied and multiple forms of the universe merge into the Eternal, the Immensity without a name, the Absolute. He looked upon the world as an illusion. He regarded the gods and goddesses of dualistic worship to be mere fantasies of the deluded mind. According to him, prayers, ceremonies, rites and rituals had nothing to do with true religion and he was utterly indifferent to them. Exercising self-exertion and unshakeable will power, he had liberated himself from attachments of the senses. He had practised austere discipline on the banks of the sacred Narmada for four decades, and had finally realized his identity with the Absolute. Since then he roamed the world as an unfettered soul, a lion free from the cage. Clad in a loincloth, he spent his days under the canopy of the sky, in storm and sunshine, feeding his body on the slender pittance of alms. He visited the estuaries of the Ganga. On his return journey along the bank of the sacred river, he stopped at Dakshineswar, led by the inscrutable Divine Will.

Unlike Brahmani, Totapuri received no messages from God. He was not looking for anyone. Now, everything material seemed unreal to him. The world was empty of substance, the more he saw of it the less real its fleeting images became. His face was devoid of expression as if he was totally disinterested.

Sri Ramakrishna sang at the time when Totapuri arrived. Making his way through the people straight to Sri Ramakrishna, Totapuri abruptly said, ‘My son, I see in you a soul that has travelled already far along the path of truth. If you wish it, I will help you reach the next stage. I will teach you Vedanta.’

Sri Ramakrishna looked at him, stood up in delight and said, ‘Vedanta? Oh yes … Ah, but I don’t know. I will have to ask Mother. She knows all.’

Totapuri, not knowing which mother Sri Ramakrishna meant, replied in an amused way, ‘Very well, ask her. I am not here for long.’ Sri Ramakrishna walked straight towards the Kali temple, returned after a conversation with the Mother and said happily and naively, ‘Mother said She has brought you here for the very purpose of teaching me non-dualism.’

Totapuri sternly told his newly acquired student that before he studied the truth of Vedanta, he would have to take sannyas. ‘Are you prepared?’

Sri Ramakrishna readily agreed and said, ‘I am. But I want to spare my old mother who will be very hurt if I become a wandering monk!’ Amused, Totapuri replied, ‘Then I will take you through the rituals in secrecy.’

Sitting around a small dhuni fire with Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna’s head was shaved off, a tuft of hair was thrown into the fire along with the sacred thread. Then Totapuri handed an ochre robe to Sri Ramakrishna. Wearing his new robe, Sri Ramakrishna sat in front of Totapuri ready to take initiation from his new master. He prostrated himself before him and took the oath of an aspiring sannyasi: ‘I give up this moment the desire of attaining the bliss and other worlds. All beings of the universe will be free from fear on my account.’

Totapuri began his instructions:

Nirguna, Nirakara Brahman is the only reality. The one substance, ever pure, eternally awakened, ever free, unlimited by time, space and causation. Maya divides the One into names and forms, but Brahman is indivisible … Give up this unreal world of maya. Break the iron cage of name and form and leap out like a lion. The world of name and form will vanish into nothing. Dive deep into the reality of your atman, existing only in your innermost Self. Let your puny ego merge into Cosmic Consciousness, where it will cease to function. And you will know Satchitananda. You will merge into Brahman in nirvikalpa samadhi.

He then recited certain vows and Sri Ramakrishna repeated what he said:

I will merge into the Brahman.

May the truth of the supreme Brahman reach me.

May the truth of the supreme Brahman reach me.

May the sweet bliss of the One, Undivided, Eternal,

manifest itself in me.

May the sweet bliss of the One, Undivided, Eternal,

manifest itself in me.

O Supreme Self who has the power to reveal Brahman

consciousness in all his children, may I your child and

servant be an object of special compassion.

O Supreme Self, who has the power to reveal Brahman

consciousness in all his children, may I your child and

servant be an object of special compassion.

Totapuri continued, ‘Get rid of those intruding webs of maya – dive deep into the atman, into Paramatman. Get rid of all thoughts by steeling your mind. Say “not this’’, and as another thought comes up, say “not this … neti, neti … Brahman is not this”.’

Once, when Sri Ramakrishna was in deep meditation he saw a light that emanated in the space ahead. The objects in the hut merged into Ma Kali. Totapuri entered, examined his student and frowned. Sri Ramakrishna opened his eyes and said, ‘I see the Mother. Always, I see the forms of the Mother. No, no. I cannot stop my Mind and dive into the Self beyond.’

Totapuri got very excited and said, ‘Why not? Why not? It must be done!’

Sri Ramakrishna pleaded with him, ‘I cannot make my mind free from matter. I must see the many glories of the Mother.’

Totapuri replied fiercely, ‘No! I say you must get past her. She is maya. It must be done!’

Totapuri looked around and found a piece of broken glass, picked it up, pierced the point between Sri Ramakrishna’s eyebrows with it and said, ‘Collect the mind here – at this point.’ Once again, Sri Ramakrishna closed his eyes and saw light emanating in the space ahead. He saw Ma Kali’s image as it dissolved in an oval nimbus of light.

Almost wailing now, Sri Ramakrishna spoke, ‘Even from this form must I free my mind?’ And answered his own question with determination, ‘Yes, Yes, this too I must do.’ But the form remained and he whispered, almost afraid, ‘Neti, neti … not this … Let my knowledge be a sword … not this.’ Then he saw that a glass sword cut the luminous image of the Goddess in two. There was a swirl of colour and form which disappeared into waves.

Totapuri examined Sri Ramakrishna carefully and slowly got up. Leaving him in that state of being, he settled himself for meditation under a tree. Hriday came to him and said, ‘Forgive the intrusion, Master, but Sri Ramakrishna has not eaten for three days.’

Totapuri replied, ‘No, no. Do not disturb him. I will see to him myself.’ He entered the hut and found Sri Ramakrishna in the same position with a calm and serene face. He put a finger under Sri Ramakrishna’s nose and his hand on his throat. Then he pushed Sri Ramakrishna, who had become like a stone. Totapuri was joyous and could not believe what had happened and said in amazement, ‘This is a miracle! It took me forty years of austere sadhana to accomplish this. He has done it in three days! This is indeed nirvikalpa samadhi, a Divine Miracle.’

Some years earlier, Sri Ramakrishna’s impulse to end his own life by the ceremonial sword of Kali had effectively rent the veil of normalcy and the incomparable form of Kali in savikalpa samadhi, the highest ecstasy in the realm of form, had flooded his consciousness. For a moment he had gone beyond form to experience the formless ocean of consciousness, Brahman without beginning or end that filled the universe with compassion and love. But he had been unable to remain united with the ultimate – the personal form of Brahman. Now, taking up the sword and slaying that which was dearest to him – the beloved image of Mother Kali, Sri Ramakrishna soared again beyond the known.

This time the break was more radical. In putting the Mother, on whom he so depended, to the sword, Sri Ramakrishna severed life’s last tenuous thread to striving and desire. His senses and mind stopped functioning. Only the faint consciousness of ‘I’ repeated itself in rythmic monotony for a time, and soon even that ceased. What remained was existence alone. Sri Ramakrishna had in rapturous ecstasy become one with the Brahman. He gazed no longer at the face of the Absolute, but from it.

Totapuri was chanting ‘Om … Om … Hari Om … Hari Om … Hari Om’ when Sri Ramakrishna opened his eyes and smiled. Witnessing his students’ progress, Totapuri’s face beamed with joy. Sri Ramakrishna, after unlocking his joints, prostrated in front of Totapuri who picked him up, embraced him with tears in his eyes and admiringly said, ‘I usually do not stay more than three days in any one place, but now I do not know when I shall leave.’

Totapuri was possessed of many good samskaras. He suffered from no vagaries of the mind; he believed in self-effort and selfreliance as determining factors in a man’s life. His independent temperament inclined him towards spiritual discrimination rather than devotion. Logically, he was forced to accept the existence of Kali as the Mother of duality, of the variety of the universe and the source of the fruits of action – karma, but he did not feel the need to approach Her with love and submission. The idols of Kali and Krishna were to him just clay and metal. He was sure that Sri Ramakrishna would give up his superstitious, dualistic worship once he began to practise non-dualistic sadhana. But achieving advaitic nirvikalpa samadhi did not stop Sri Ramakrishna from continuing his dvaitic devotion to Kali and Krishna, Ram and Radha.

The ways of the Divine Mother seem to be strange. Sri Ramakrishna’s so-called teachers, who helped him move from the realm of matter to that of spirit, taught the intricacies of their science to the best of their knowledge, but they too learnt some of their greatest lessons from their stellar pupil, which no austere spiritual training would have given them.

One evening, as Sri Ramakrishna was chanting and clapping his hands singing, ‘Hari bol, Hari bol … Hari is Guru … Guru is Hari … the mind is Krishna, prana is Krishna, knowledge is Krishna, meditation is Krishna …,’ Totapuri mocked him and said derisively, ‘What? Are you making chappatis?’ Sri Ramakrishna laughed and replied, ‘Shame on you! You compare taking the name of God with making chappatis?’

Totapuri, who thought his student was swaying from his path, answered with a frown, ‘You have been united with the Absolute, yet you continue to worship the Absolute as though he were the other. You seem to accept the world where people of lower evolution need images and attributes to worship! Do you forget that Brahman is the One and all others merely manifestations of maya. Maya can have no power over an enlightened soul.’

Sri Ramakrishna smiled and carried on. Just then a gardener approached the dhuni and began to light his hookah (a traditional smoking pipe). Irritated at the intrusion, Totapuri admonished him, ‘What impertinence! Are you working for a temple or a rest house? How dare you defile the sacred fire?’ He raised his hand to beat the servant with a pair of tongs. Seeing this, Sri Ramakrishna laughed. This surprised Totapuri who asked, ‘What? You laugh at his insolence?’

Sri Ramakrishna’s response was profound, ‘Were you not just telling me that Brahman alone is real and everything in the universe is merely its manifestation? Yet the next moment you forget all and are ready to beat one of Brahman’s manifestations. I laugh, Master, not at the servant’s insolence, but on seeing the irresistible power of maya!’

Totapuri was stunned. Staring at his pupil he replied with humbleness, ‘Yes, you are right. I forgot Brahman in my anger. Passion is indeed a dangerous enemy. I shall never give way to anger again.’

Sri Ramakrishna laughed gently and said, ‘Good. But that is not the point I was making.’

Totapuri had no idea of the struggles of ordinary men in the toil of passion and desire. Having led an austere life throughout, he laughed at the idea of a man being led astray by his senses. He was convinced that the world was mayaand man only had to fight maya and denounce it, for it to vanish forever. A born non-dualist, he had no faith in the concept of a personal God. He did not believe in the terrible aspect of Kali, much less in Her benign aspect. Music and the chanting of God’s holy name made no sense to him. He ridiculed the spending of emotion on the worship of a personal God. He had a strong constitution and had little experience of the physical ills that beset most. He owned little, stayed nowhere longer than a few days. Eschewing material comforts he slept outdoors under the sky all round the year. His belief in the non-reality of maya made him scorn his body.

One day Sri Ramakrishna went to Totapuri, who was meditating, and sat quietly next to him. When Totapuri opened his eyes, Sri Ramakrishna asked, ‘You have reached the ultimate … why must you meditate regularly, like a novice?’ Totapuri picked up his shining brass pot and haughtily answered, ‘Do you see how this sparkles? Suppose I were not to polish it every day? Would it not lose its lustre?’ To which Sri Ramakrishna gently replied. ‘Not if it were gold.’

It was time for the tables to turn. One day Totapuri suddenly clutched his stomach and seemed to be in pain. Sri Ramakrishna asked him with concern if he was unwell. Totapuri replied quite unconcernedly, ‘Just stomach cramps. A strong mind rises above pain. Pain cannot be a deterrent – it is only an aspect of maya. Vedanta teaches us it is the mind that creates the body’s ills. Great is the mastery of the mind over the body.’

Sri Ramakrishna smilingly said, ‘Then why is your body out of control?’

Totapuri tried to smile with difficulty and said, ‘It will pass. I do not remember experiencing pain before this.’

Totapuri clutched his stomach and lay down and Sri Ramakrishna hurried away to fetch Hriday and a vaidya. The vaidya squatted and felt Totapuri’s pulse. Totapuri roughly protested and said he didn’t need medication. Hriday then told him that he suffered from dysentery – owing to the climate. The pain was unbearable. Totapuri gritted his teeth and said, ‘When I start losing that control, no physical pain will be able to bind me.’

The perplexed Hriday asked, ‘I do not understand, Master?’

Totapuri very confidently stated, ‘I will have no further use for this body.’

Sri Ramakrishna then told him, ‘To discard your own body is to retard your spiritual development.’ Totapuri explained that he had achieved nirvikalpa, so ‘the purpose of my body is fulfilled. I may do with my body as I wish.’

The vaidya watched all this. He took Sri Ramakrishna aside and told him that Totapuri’s condition looked very bad. ‘He is remarkable. Anyone else would have howled like a hyena with all that pain.’

It was a moonlit night. Totapuri lay with a thin cloth covering him and groaned in pain. He finally got up and headed to the Ganga. ‘Since I am not my body, I will associate with it no more. Better to end its pathetic existence in the Ganga. I’ve achieved nirvikalpa.’

Totapuri descended into the ghat, waded into the water and walked on, then looked at the water in astonishment and said, ‘The water? What’s happening? I’m always knee deep no matter how far into the river I go! How is this possible?’ He looked around at the horizon. ‘Where are the ships? Drowned in the sand? What a mysterious play of the Lord. I cannot even drown!’

Totapuri looked down and then up. At eye level he saw an effulgence in front of him. The effulgence spread and out of it came Mother Kali. The image spread over the water, the banks, trees and Totapuri saw himself transformed from pain to wonder. He began to sob like a child and said, ‘Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother! Mother the Unthinkable Power! Mother is Land and Mother is Water. The body is Mother. The mind is Mother. Illness is Mother and health is Mother. Knowledge is Mother and ignorance is Mother. Everything I see and hear and imagine is Mother. She makes the nay and She makes the yea. O Mother Maya. As long as one is in the body one is not free from Her. Mother Kali, Shakti. How long have I deluded myself that I am the master of my destiny? Now you have shown me I am helpless in the face of the overwhelming forces of maya. I have thought the mind to be omnipotent. How wrong I have been. Shiva Shakti are One!’

After this experience, Totapuri waded back to the shore and returned to his sheet and brass pot. After that eventful night he was a calmer and a less haughty person. Then Sri Ramakrishna came up to him and said, ‘You look well, Master.’

Totapuri related all that had happened and said, ‘This disease has been a friend to me, Sri Ramakrishna. Last night I realized Brahman and maya are one. Brahman and shakti are one like fire and heat! To discriminate between the unseen power and the medium of its manifestation is self-deception. Ah, how ignorant I have been all these years. I thought my intellect, my will and good health made me a sovereign of all I surveyed. Now I know the Mother sent me here for two purposes: to teach you and to learn from you. Now I know why I have not been able to leave.’

Totapuri prostrated himself in front of the image of Kali inside the temple and prepared to leave. He embraced his pupil and left with a peaceful face.

Totapuri came for a few days but he stayed eleven months. He came with the hauteur of the jnana yogi, the blind spot of the intellectual. Born out of his knowledge of the One, the unity beneath the diversity of the universe, attained by will power and intellectual discrimination. He enabled his unexpected pupil to remain in the highest form of samadhi – Vedanta advaitic non-dualistic nirvikalpa samadhi, and left ennobled by his contact with a simple, uneducated temple priest, who taught him the necessity of devotion, and the humility to respect the multiple creations of the One.

Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware like his guru, that the world was an illusory appearance, instead of slighting maya like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He was all love and reverence for maya, and perceived in it a mysterious and majestic expression of divinity. To him maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman – what he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also found here below and everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the divine immanence.

Maya, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial divine energy or shakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the supreme Brahman than the power of burning can be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws from it. She spins it as a spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, and with the atman of yoga. She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme mistress of cosmic play and all objects – animate and inanimate – move by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa samadhi are under Her jurisdiction, as long as they live on the relative plane of consciousness.

Thus, after attaining nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized mayain an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The transcendental itself broke through the immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operated in the relative world in two ways, and he termed them avidyamaya and vidyamaya. Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty. It sustains the world on the lower planes. It is responsible for man’s cycle of birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion, etc. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes from avidyamaya; and he then becomes mayatita, that is, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and she stands beyond them both. She is like the sun, bringing into existence and shining through, standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes and conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.

The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute, but to remain in bhavamukha, that is, on the threshold of relative consciousness and tread the thin line between the Absolute and the relative. He was to keep himself at the ‘sixth centre’ of tantra, from which he could see, not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across this thin dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the ocean of absolute unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the personal and the impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.

Sri Ramakrishna, who embodies the highest aspiration of the path of devotion, went through the sadhanas, seeking an experience of non-duality under the tutelage of Totapuri. If Totapuri left Dakshineswar mellowed by the awareness that truth is not one- sided and is greater than any theory created by the intellect, Sri Ramakrishna’s horizons had also broadened since his contact with the Absolute. The experience of nirvikalpa samadhi had stirred him more deeply than he could have imagined. Now he lived continuously in its shadow, as though some powerful undertow dragged him relentlessly towards the very centre of consciousness. And he was not inclined to resist.

Sri Ramakrishna resolved to drink deeply of the uninterrupted bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi. His already fragile interest in earthly life collapsed: food, sleep, ritual, love, hate, light, darkness, everything fell away for six timeless months. Ordinarily a yogi can remain in nirvikalpa samadhi for twenty-one days, after which the physical organism quietly falls away like an autumn leaf. And the jiva, the individual soul, dies never to be reborn, merged forever with the eternal in the vast ocean of consciousness.

Sri Ramakrishna remained in nirvikalpa samadhi without food or water. To the common man, who cannot distinguish between the spiritual and the profane, he looked like a dead man. After Haladhari, Akshay, a young, handsome, graceful boy of seventeen, was appointed priest of the Kali temple. He was Sri Ramakrishna’s beloved nephew and was well-versed in scriptures since his childhood. Akshay was given the charge of looking after Sri Ramakrishna’s needs.

Strangely, different people came into Sri Ramakrishna’s life at different points of time to look after his physical and spiritual needs. They also left just as mysteriously as they came. Though some left their mortal coil, others just disappeared into thin air. Now it was Akshay’s term to become custodian of Sri Ramakrishna’s physical body. He was very worried and concerned about his uncle and ran from pillar to post seeking help from holy men who visited the Dakshineswar temple regularly. One day, Akshay went up to a sadhu visiting Dakshineswar at that time, and said, ‘Maharaj, my uncle has been in samadhi for ten days and he has not eaten a morsel. He is not breathing … it is as if he is made of stone. The sadhu simply replied, ‘I know,’ rose and entered the hut where Sri Ramakrishna was meditating. Sri Ramakrishna was still in nirvikalpa samadhi and Bhairavi sat near him surrounded by religious texts. Hriday also stood there and Bhairavi said with concern to Hriday: ‘I told him not to have anything to do with that naked fakir!’

Meanwhile, the sadhu went up to Sri Ramakrishna, felt his shoulder and prodded his fingers in his chest. Anxiously Akshay asked, ‘Can you do something?’ The sadhu nodded and said, ‘I know the state.’ He looked around, found a thin stick and beat him, gently at first and then more forcefully. Sri Ramakrishna took a long rattling breath while Hriday tried to stop the sadhu. He could not bear to see his uncle being beaten. But Brahmani held Hriday back so that the sadhu could achieve what he had set out to do. The sadhu then turned to Akshay and said, ‘Arrange for some light, liquid food.’

Thakur’s room

Akshay hurried out and returned with a platter. The sadhu gently put a little of it into Sri Ramakrishna’s mouth. Some of it got in and the body breathed painfully, the rest fell on his chest. Slowly the sadhu fed him, morsel by morsel.

It was a heroic struggle for six months. Whenever Sri Ramakrishna stirred even slightly into external awareness, the devoted sadhu thrust food and water down his mouth. At other times he beat his charge vigorously, till he had attained enough consciousness to be force-fed. Miraculously the tenuous flame of life flickered on. It was not until a severe bout of dysentery forced his attention back to his body, that Sri Ramakrishna re-entered the physical world again. Then the sadhu, who had providentially turned up and helped the Master regain his foothold, disappeared just as mysteriously without a trace.

Sri Ramakrishna was now gaunt and weak. Though he walked up and down, his face was impassive and the eyes far away. For him life and death had become equally unimportant. But for us it is crucial that he survived. Had he crossed the bridge, as no doubt he yearned to do at that time, he would have died leaving behind a faded memory of just another Indian holy man. There would have been no disciples, no flood of inspired teachings. One of the greatest legacies of the world’s spiritual heritage would not have materialized. The living example that nourished and inspired Indians for a century and revealed the greatness of India’s spiritual culture to the world would have evaporated without a trace.

Perhaps, he felt the needs of generations yet unborn, the needs of a world seemingly abandoned by God … and this forcibly drew him out of that radiant, nightless world, back into our uncertain world of shadows, darkness and light.

From this time on, Sri Ramakrishna began to seek the company of devotees and holy men. He had gone through the storm and stress of spiritual disciplines and mystic visions. Now, he realized an inner calmness and appeared to others as a normal person. But he could not bear the company of worldly people or listen to their talk. Fortunately, the holy atmosphere of Dakshineswar temple and Mathur’s liberality attracted monks and holy men from all parts of the country.

Sadhus of all denominations – monists and dualists, Vaishnavas and Vedantists, saktas and worshippers of Rama – flocked there in ever-increasing numbers. Ascetics and visionaries came seeking Sri Ramakrishna’s advice. Vaishnavas had come during the period of his Vaishnava sadhana, and tantrics when he practised the tantric disciplines. Vedantists began to arrive after the departure of Totapuri.

In Sri Ramakrishna’s room, where he was recovering from dysentery, the Vedantists engaged in scriptural discussions. Forgetting his own physical suffering, Sri Ramakrishna solved their doubts by referring directly to his own experiences. Many of the visitors were genuine spiritual souls, the unseen pillars of Hinduism, and their spiritual lives were quickened in no small measure, by the sage of Dakshineswar.

Sri Ramakrishna, in turn, learnt from them the ways and conduct of holy men, which he subsequently narrated to his devotees and disciples. At his request, Mathur Babu provided him with large stores of foodstuff, clothes and other necessities for distribution among the wandering monks.

Though he had not read books, Sri Ramakrishna possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of different religions and religious philosophies. This he had acquired by coming in contact with innumerable holy men and scholars. He also had a unique power of assimilation. With the help of meditation he made this knowledge a part of his being. Once, when a disciple asked him about the source of his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge, he replied, ‘I have made a garland of their knowledge, wearing it round my neck, and I have given it as an offering at the feet of the Mother.’

Sri Ramakrishna would say that when the flower blooms, bees come to it for honey of their own accord. Many souls began to visit Dakshineswar to satisfy their spiritual hunger. He, the devotee and aspirant, became the Master. Gauri, the great scholar who was one of the first to proclaim Sri Ramakrishna an incarnation of God, paid the Master a visit in 1870 and with his blessings renounced the world. Narayan Shastri, another great pandit who had mastered the six systems of Hindu philosophy and had been offered the lucrative post of Court pandit by the Maharaja of Jaipur, met the master and recognized him to be the one who had realized those ideals in life, which he himself had encountered merely in books. Sri Ramakrishna initiated different people into different spiritual disciplines according to their needs and desires.

But this was not exactly what Sri Ramakrishna’s heart was yearning for. His life was guided and guarded at every step by the Divine Mother. Sri Ramakrishna returned from his pinnacle of ecstatic knowledge to a world disinterested in what he had to reveal. Yearning to share his vision with those who might understand, his spiritual children, Sri Ramakrishna grew ever lonelier. But the great Mother had yet more sadhanas in store for him, before his disciples would arrive.

At Dakshineswar people of other faiths were welcomed. But till now, Sri Ramakrishna’s attention had been absorbed by the images and attributes of the faith in which he was born. Govinda Rai, a Kshatriya, was a seeker of Truth. He had studied many religions and had finally become a Sufi. Sri Ramakrishna met Govinda Rai very warmly and asked him, ‘My brother, what does Islam teach?’ Govinda Rai replied that there is only one God. That He has created man and between men there is no high or low, only universal brotherhood. And Muhammad was the Prophet sent to tell us of the word of God.

Sri Ramakrishna, greatly interested, said, ‘Tell me about the Prophet.’ To which Govinda Rai replied, ‘Allah sent prophets to interpret Him to man. There were many prophets before Muhammad – Moses and Jesus.’

Sri Ramakrishna responded like a child, ‘Indeed! Avatars?’ And Govinda Rai explained that Prophet Muhammad came at a time when man’s mind had evolved so much that he was fully able to comprehend the divine reality.

Sri Ramakrishna, with childlike enthusiasm, pleaded, ‘I also want to experience this divine reality … will you initiate me into the practice of Islam?’

Govinda Rai, momentarily astonished and speechless, replied, ‘Yes I … I will be most happy to do so! There is a strict regimen – there is great emphasis on regular prayers.’

The God-loving if not God-mad Sri Ramakrishna needed no incentive to allow himself another form of sadhana and he eagerly said, ‘Teach me all that, brother … teach me.’

Ready for this new form of sadhana, Ramakrishna dressed himself like a Muslim with a prayer cap and carried his rosary beads with him. The teacher, Govinda Rai, led the prayer and Sri Ramakrishna implicitly followed him: Allah Ho Akbar! Allah Ho Akbar! Allah Ho Akbar! Allah Ho Akbar!

This new practice was absolutely sacrilegious for the people at Dakshineswar. Hriday went to Akshay, who had silently watched the whole ritual and said, ‘Are you following in your mad uncle’s footsteps – going to Panchavati?’

Akshay, offended by this disrespect, replied, ‘He’s not mad – don’t call him mad.’ Hriday continued to be nasty and said, ‘Then what is he doing “Allah Allah” all day and night?’ Stung further, Akshay mocked, ‘Why do you say “Ma Kali Ma Kali” all day and night?’

Hriday turned away, muttering in disgust, ‘I should have known better than to say anything to you. But I’m warning you, he’s leaving the temple – he’s packing up to go to the mosque and live there.’ And he left the place in disgust. Soon, the news of Sri Ramakrishna’s new venture reached Mathur, who worriedly said, ‘Here’s another scandal! People are laughing again. But this time there’s also anger. Why can’t he just practise the sadhanas without making a display wearing Muslim clothes! How difficult it is to protect your uncle! Now he tells me he wants to eat beef!’

Sri Ramakrishna observed the diet of the Muslims, sang qawwalis, grew a small beard on his chin, sat on a mat dressed like a Sufi saint and did his sadhana. The people around him watched helplessly and could do nothing to stop him, though it angered them immensely. After a few days of intense practice, Sri Ramakrishna saw a light in front of him and a man in a long robe and flowing beard appeared. Sri Ramakrishna seemed to recognize him and in a state of bliss said, ‘Ya Muhammad! Ya Allah! Ya Muhammad! Ya Allah!’

In later years, Sri Ramakrishna spoke about this incident: ‘I recited Islamic prayers five times a day, and felt disinclined to even see the forms of Hindu gods and goddesses, much less worship them. I spent three days in this mood. Then I experienced the form of Muhammad the Prophet, just as I had experienced Lord Rama and Sri Krishna. He merged into the formless Consciousness of Allah who is also Ishwar and Ma Kali.’

Well-intentioned liberals would like to believe there is no difference between religions and races. But there is a very big difference – on the surface, in the world of dualistic reality. Unity, as Sri Ramakrishna discovered through his own intimate experience, can only be found by going deep into the underlying non-duality of the all-projecting Universal Consciousness that manifests as Ishwar or Ma Kali, and also as Allah. Here, he experienced the dualistic vision of the Prophet merging into the non-dualistic one.

Sri Ramakrishna accepted the divinity of Buddha and pointed out the similarity between his teachings and those of the Upanishads. He also had great respect for the Tirthankara, who founded Jainism, and for the ten Gurus of Sikhism. But he did not speak of them as divine incarnations. He was heard saying that the Gurus of Sikhism were the reincarnations of King Janaka of ancient India. In his room at Dakshineswar he kept a small statue of Tirthankara Mahavira and a picture of Christ, before which incense was burnt every morning and evening.

Without being formally initiated into their doctrines, Sri Ramakrishna realized the ideals of religions other than Hinduism. He did not need to follow any doctrine. All barriers were removed by his overwhelming love of God. So he became a master who could speak with authority on the ideas and ideals of various religions of the world:

I have practised all religions – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity – and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have found that it is the same God towards whom all are directing their steps, although along different paths. You must try out all beliefs and traverse these different routes once. Whichever way I turn, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Shiva and bears the name of the optimal energy, Jesus, and Allah as well – the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats. At one, the Hindus fill their pitchers with water and call it jal, but it is also called pani and water. The substance is one with different names, and everyone seeks the same substance; only climate, temperament and name create the minute differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.

As clouds gathered over the Bengal skies, Mathur, fearful of the Master’s health that always failed in the monsoons, dispatched him to Kamarpukur for the season.

In 1867, Sri Ramakrishna returned to his village to recuperate from the effect of his austerities. The peaceful countryside, the simple and artless companions of his boyhood, and the pure air did him a lot of good. The villagers were happy to get back their playful, frank, witty, kind-hearted and truthful Gadadhar, though they did not fail to notice the great change that had come over him during his years in Calcutta. His wife, Sarada Devi, now fourteen years old, soon arrived at Kamarpukur. Her spiritual development was far beyond her age and she was able to understand her husband’s state of mind immediately. She became eager to learn about God from him and live with him as his attendant. The Master accepted her cheerfully both as his disciple and as his spiritual companion. Referring to the experiences of those few days, she once said, ‘I used to feel always as if a pitcher full of bliss was placed in my heart. The joy was indescribable.’

Sri Ramakrishna was very warmly received in his village. As he and Hriday got off the bullock cart a man greeted him affectionately saying, ‘Oh Gadai! Gadadhar! So you still remember us.’ Then a little boy ran up to Sri Ramakrishna, embraced him and ran back in excitement announcing, ‘Rameshwar da, Gadadhar da has come!’

The women of the village whose ears were full with gossip from Dakshineswar about Sri Ramakrishna’s bizarre behaviour, talked among themselves: ‘Is he as mad as they say? Let’s go and see what he looks like.’

After alighting from the cart, Sri Ramakrishna, Bhairavi Brahmani and Hriday walked towards Sri Ramakrishna’s childhood caretaker Dhani’s home. Dhani the old maid, sitting in a veranda, still had a charming smile despite losing most of her teeth. Sri Ramakrishna and Hriday walked up to Dhani and greeted her. Unable to recognize them, Dhani asked who they were. Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Dhani Ma, you will know who in a minute. Bring out all the sweets in the house.’ And indeed she knew him and said, ‘Oh. It is Gadai!’ And Sri Ramakrishna teasingly replied, ‘What a way to greet me!’

Holy Mother

Dhani, who was also a victim of all the gossip, said, ‘Come nearer Gadai … let me look at you properly.’ She felt his arms and face and said, ‘You look quite sane to me.’ Sri Ramakrishna promptly and affectionately responded, ‘How can anyone brought up by you be sane?’ Dhani, still stroking his arms, asked, ‘Is it true that you dress as a woman and go around crying “Hari Hari”?’ Sri Ramakrishna gave an affirmative reply and Dhani continued with her queries, ‘Is it true that you say Musalmani beads and chant “Allah”?’

‘Yes,’ was the reply. Dhani gasped and looked at him shocked while Bhairavi Brahmani asked with annoyance. ‘Do you jump around on trees like a monkey?’ When Sri Ramakrishna said yes, yet again, Dhani was most puzzled. So Sri Ramakrishna asked, ‘Hindu or Muslim, man or woman, monkey or human being … isn’t it the same Brahman everywhere? As many faiths, as many paths … What is there so shocking about it, Dhani Ma?’

Dhani was astonished; she stared at him and said, ‘You always did exactly what you wanted, Gadai.’ And Sri Ramakrishna replied, ‘All right … I am going to sing loud enough to bring Shiva himself down from Mount Kailash!’

Slowly, the courtyard filled up with village folk and people who came to see Sri Ramakrishna about whom they had heard the most absurd stories. As they watched, they changed their attitude, and their expressions of disapproval and vexation slowly became those of peace and adoration. Sri Ramakrishna settled down in the house of Rameshwar, his old family home, while they all celebrated his homecoming. During a conversation, Rameshwar asked, ‘How is Akshay shaping?’ Immediately Sri Ramakrishna assured him that he was a very devoted priest. ‘After all, we are of the same blood aren’t we?’

Rameshwar then enquired, ‘And Mother? Is she well?’ Sri Ramakrishna answered that Mother would not leave the ghat of the Ganga anymore. ‘I could not force her.’ Hriday, looking appreciatively at Ramakrishna, interrupted, ‘One thing you have to acknowledge, he is a worthy son. He spends time with her every day – every day when he is normal, that is …’

Brahmani, whose anger brewed by the minute compounded with a frustration that people were unable to see what she could, said it was not for ordinary people to judge the mental states of avatars. ‘Leave it to them to talk about themselves.’

Every moment, every event and every happening seemed to be planned by the Divine Mother. All that happened in Sri Ramakrishna’s life had a larger significance and one such event was to take place again. Saradamani, his wife, arrived with two male escorts, unannounced. Rameshwar’s wife greeted her with joy and surprise and said, ‘Oh Gadai, it’s Saradamani. Come and see your wife, Gadadhar.’ Sri Ramakrishna eagerly came out of the hut, followed by Rameshwar, to see Saradamani who bent and touched his feet. He helped her up and said, ‘My wife! How she has grown! Give them all water! Give them something to eat!’

There was a lot of excitement in the house as each one went about in their efforts to make the guests comfortable. Sri Ramakrishna escorted Saradamani into the house and looked at her tenderly as at a child. Slowly, Saradamani got to know her new home and helped Rameshwar’s wife with the household chores. One day Sri Ramakrishna called her while she was in the midst of some work and said, ‘It is well that you help with the household chores, but your first duty will always be to God.’ Saradamani meekly replied, ‘I never miss my puja.’ Indulgently but seriously, Sri Ramakrishna told her, ‘That is good, but God must be forever in your heart. The image is only a means. Brahmani is my guru, so you must respect her as your mother-in-law. When I am not here, Prasanna, Dharamadas Laha’s daughter, will guide you.’

Sri Ramakrishna instructed his young wife meticulously. While holding on to the ideal of detachment from the world on the one hand, he trained her carefully in the arts of household management on the other. Hours of inspired outpourings on God and devotion alternated with earthly instructions on how to shop for vegetables, trim a lamp, sweep the floor, receive guests. The madman of God now revealed a surprising peasant’s shrewdness and practicality that was to be the underlying strain, as the seeker of God began his metamorphosis into the teacher of men. The natural pathway of Sarada’s spirit, he saw, led not through restless strivings and passionate ecstasies, but through a quiet, purposeful dutifulness and attention to detail.

Taught and lectured by Sri Ramakrishna, Saradamani on one occasion fell asleep during a discourse. Prasanna was also there and tried to wake her up. Sri Ramakrishna gently told her, ‘No, Prasanna, don’t wake her.’ Prasanna replied that she would be missing such priceless words. To which Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘No, no. If she listens to everything I say, she will not stay on earth. She will unfold her wings and fly away.’

All along Bhairavi Brahmani watched Sri Ramakrishna and his wife Saradamani. She was not able to digest the idea of their mutual bonding, which grew stronger by the day. One day while Saradamani gave Sri Ramakrishna a glass of water, Bhairavi entered and burst out with the anger she had held within her for so many days. Speaking directly to Sri Ramakrishna, she said, ‘I do not approve of your seeing so much of Sarada.’ Sri Ramakrishna, surprised at this outburst, replied, ‘I’m grooming her into spirituality, Mother. She is such a young girl.’ And Bhairavi said, ‘That is my worry. She is not only young but also pretty.’ Sri Ramakrishna tried to reason with Bhairavi, ‘Mother, you put me through so many tantric sadhanas with you. It is you who taught me to treat both attraction and repulsion in the same way.’

But Bhairavi wasn’t appeased. She retorted, ‘That was another matter. That was me. This is she. I have said what I had to say.’

Sri Ramakrishna, in a conciliatory way, told her, ‘Totapuri used to say, “He alone is firmly established in the knowledge of Brahman who can keep intact his renunciation and discrimination even while living with his wife”.’ The further infuriated Bhairavi responded, ‘Totapuri! All he can offer is dry knowledge.’ Saradamani, who watched all this, was chased away by the angry Brahmani.

Whether due to jealousy or protectiveness Brahmani disliked anyone who was close to Sri Ramakrishna. For although she was such an evolved spirit, she was a dvaitin, a dualist, unable to understand or trust advaita. She detested Totapuri and instinctively disliked Saradamani. Every day, slowly, the stage was set for the final denouement, but when it came it was a fracas too minor to recount.

As we have observed, every stage of Sri Ramakrishna’s life had significance, every act led to another turn in the drama of his life, which the Divine Mother had so carefully directed. One day, a person called Srinivas came for lunch. After the meal he said, ‘Aah! I always eat so much at your house, Rameshwar da,’ and reached out to pick up the leaf that served as a plate. Immediately Bhairavi said, ‘Stop. Leave it. We do the cleaning ourselves.’ Srinivas, surprised and embarrassed, left the leaf where it was and proceeded to wash his hands. Then a woman from the neighbourhood said sharply, ‘He is not a Brahmin, we cannot clean up after him!’ Bhairavi, equally stubborn, replied: ‘But in his devotion to God he is higher than many Brahmins.’ The neighbour insisted that it was the custom in their village. Bhairavi still angry, argued, ‘Don’t tell me your customs! Is devotion to be counted for nothing? Is love of the Divine not to be treated with respect?’ The fight got steadily more serious with Hriday also joining in. Rameshwar’s wife, who was distressed by this, tried to stop the quarrel. But Bhairavi was adamant, ‘I am going to clean his plate right now.’ Amidst all this noise Sri Ramakrishna pleaded with Hriday and Bhairavi not to quarrel. Hriday told Bhairavi authoritatively, ‘If you do, we will not allow you to remain inside the house.’ This shocked everybody, Rameshwar was stunned, and Bhairavi Brahmani, offended and outraged, left the house and walked away.

Saradamani and Rameshwar’s wife begged Bhairavi not to leave. Unheeding, she went and sat under a banyan tree to meditate. Meanwhile, Saradamani anxiously asked Sri Ramakrishna whether she would come back. Sri Ramakrishna who knew Hriday had made a grave mistake said he did not know and added, ‘Here everyone is always right! But she is my Guruma. She can do anything and we must give her love and respect.’ Again Sarada asked, ‘But she will come back, won’t she?’ Sri Ramakrishna just looked at her tenderly, acknowledging the anxiety and concern she felt on Bhairavi’s departure.

Before she left, Bhairavi returned to put sandal paste, flowers and vermilion on Sri Ramakrishna. Prostrating at his feet, she said, ‘Forgive me. I have erred in staying too long. A sannyasin and water must forever move on. That is the only way to keep pure.’ Then Bhairavi picked up her things and left without looking back.

Sarada, unable to contain herself, ran after her, fell at her feet and asked Bhairavi to bless her. Moved by this gesture, Bhairavi said, ‘Bless you my child, bless you.’

Sri Ramakrishna’s journey through human sadhana had surfed through both the dvaita and the advaita – the dual and the nondual. In Bengal to this day, the festival of Durga stirs every soul deeply. A vast cottage industry flourishes months before the festival, as clay images of Goddess Durga are made in the hundreds of thousands. To be worshipped with deep devotion for five days – only to be immersed thereafter in the Ganga, the nearest lake or stream. The reason for this ritual is not as mysterious as it seems; it is an exercise in understanding the essential source of divinity, the transience of material form.

Before the image of Durga is worshipped, the worshipper must transfer the divine presence from within his or her own heart into the image. After five days of prayer, the divine presence must be withdrawn from the image and reinstalled in the worshipper’s heart.

Once, during Durga Puja, Sri Ramakrishna visited Mathur’s house where the deity was being worshipped. After the scheduled puja days the deity was picked up with all due formality and ceremoniously offered to the Ganga. At this point, Mathur grabbed the arms of the carriers, tried to stop them and cried out in grief, ‘No! No! She is the Goddess. You cannot drown the Mother!’

The attendants resisted but Mathur became violent. So they left the image and went to call Sri Ramakrishna as even Mathur’s wife, Jagadamba, was unable to resolve the crisis. In Mathur’s heart the image and the divine presence had merged. He threatened everyone against removing the image and became bloodthirsty. His household members feared that he too had become like his protégé, Sri Ramakrishna, and gone quite mad.

Meanwhile, one of the attendants returned with Sri Ramakrishna, who went up to Mathur and put his hand on his shoulder. Mathur still in a manic phase began to calm down when he saw Sri Ramakrishna. Rubbing Mathur’s chest he said, ‘What are you afraid of? Do you really think the Mother will leave you just because her image is immersed in the Ganga? Can a mother ever leave her child? She is within your heart.’

‘Master, enlighten me with your touch,’ Mathur had often begged Sri Ramakrishna. ‘Show me what you see. I want to experience your ecstasy.’ To which Sri Ramakrishna always replied, ‘This ecstasy is not to be taken lightly, Mathur Babu. Be patient, keep your life balanced between devotion and worldly obligations for that is your dharma.’ But Mathur always persisted. Eventually, Sri Ramakrishna said he would ask the Mother her opinion in the matter. Now with his touch, Mathur could experience the ecstasy he had longed for.

However, some days later, Mathur urgently sent for Sri Ramakrishna. When he arrived, Mathur staggered up to him, with flushed eyes red from weeping, feverishly fell at his feet and said, ‘Baba, I am beaten. I have been in deep concentration for three days! I cannot think of my business however hard I try. Everything is going wrong.’ Sri Ramakrishna gently and teasingly replied, ‘But you begged me for ecstasy.’ And Mathur pleaded, ‘I know I did. But please, take back this ecstasy of yours; it suits only you. I didn’t realize I would be so possessed by this … spirit that I would have to take every step and do everything just as it told me, twenty-fours hours a day.’ Sri Ramakrishna rubbed Mathur’s chest with his hand. As Mathur began to recover he smiled and said, ‘Now I begin to feel my normal self again.’

The relationship of the worldly Mathur and the saintly Sri Ramakrishna was made up of strange alternations. At times, Mathur treated Sri Ramakrishna, many years his junior, like a revered spiritual father; at others, like an irresponsible boy. But Mathur, wealthy almost beyond count, always gave generously to Sri Ramakrishna, anything his heart could want. This was usually nothing, since money made no sense to him. But there were times when Sri Ramakrishna tried Mathur’s generosity to the limits.

On 27 January 1868, Mathur, his wife Jagadamba, Hriday and Sri Ramakrishna set out from Howrah station in Calcutta, on a pilgrimage to some revered holy sites. The ever-ebullient Mathur organized the sojourn in royal style, reserving several coaches on the train for his party and attendants.

The first stop was at the Shiva temple at Deogarh. Here Sri Ramakrishna, overcome by the poverty of the villagers, demanded of Mathur: ‘Give each person a piece of cloth, one meal and oil for their heads. After all,’ he said, ‘you’re the keeper of Mother’s estates.’

He overruled Mathur’s appalled protestations about the cost of the journey, and that one man could not feed and clothe so many. ‘These people have no one to look after them,’ Sri Ramakrishna cried like a child. ‘If you don’t help them, even this little bit, I will not go with you to this Benares of yours, I will stay here and look after them.’ Mathur acquiesced perforce, and sent for vast supplies from Calcutta.

In making this pilgrimage, Sri Ramakrishna traversed two distinct landscapes: the literal geography of temples, villages, forests, plains, wheat and rice fields … the landscape of the senses and the parallel, glorious dreamscape of the mind, of legend, myth and metaphor. The gap between the two can be confusing and painful; nowhere more so than in Benares where self-renouncing yogis and searchers of the spirit can be found along with hordes of pompous pilgrims, scheming priests, avaricious merchants, rumour and gossip.

At Mathurnath’s Benares home, while listening to an endless conversation on profit and loss, Sri Ramakrishna cried out in anguish: ‘Where have you brought me, Mother. I was better off in Dakshineswar.’

Then one day, he experienced the subtle essence of the city below its surface, bathed in a golden radiance of the spirit.

While at Benares, Sri Ramakrishna went to meet Trailanga Swami, the celebrated monk whom he later declared to be a real Paramahamsa, a veritable image of Shiva. Mathur told Sri Ramakrishna that Trailanga Swami never spoke, to which Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘The truth is not found by these hypnotic words. The truth is found in silence.’ Mathur also told Sri Ramakrishna about the incident when the British government had locked him up several times for roaming around naked in Benares. Hriday added, ‘They think it is civilized to wear pants and coats even in the heat!’ Sri Ramakrishna completing the story, said, ‘I heard he was found asleep on the roof each time and the door was still locked.’

On reaching there, they found the three-hundred-pound, naked, bearded muni lying comfortably in the blazing midday sun. Seeing his size, Mathur said, ‘How can the British possibly understand that, Baba!’ Sri Ramakrishna fell at Trailanga Swami’s feet and asked, ‘Muni, I have a question to ask of you. Will you favour me with a response? Be it without words.’ Trailanga Swami only nodded and the question was the eternal one to which there seem few answers: He asked, ‘Is God one or many?’ The muni made gestures with his hands, which Sri Ramakrishna interpreted and explained on his behalf. ‘When man is in samadhi, he knows Brahman is one; when man is in normal consciousness aware of “I” and “you”, Brahman is many.’ He paused, turned to Hriday and continued, ‘In Trailanga muni, Hriday, you see a true knower of Brahman.’

The pilgrims moved on to Allahabad where the party bathed in the holy confluence of the Ganga, Jamuna and Saraswati rivers, and then arrived at Vrindavan, where Lord Krishna lived as a child. Here, Sri Ramakrishna was in a state of continuous ecstatic excitement. He observed the cowherds, birds and gardens. ‘Where is Krishna,’ he cried, ‘why can I not see him? Everything here is blessed by his presence. But where is He ?’

It was here that he met the holy Ganga Mai, a devotee of Radha, reputed to be the reincarnation of one of Radha’s handmaidens. Ganga Mai recognized in Sri Ramakrishna a reincarnation of Radha herself! And the two became as intimate as two friends at school. Sri Ramakrishna declared he would live the rest of his life in Vrindavan with his new friend … till he remembered his old mother living alone in the music tower, in Dakshineswar.

In the fifteenth century, Bengal had produced another God-mad saint, Sri Chaitanya. Much like Sri Ramakrishna, he also danced gleefully, in sudden spontaneity, to the heat of mahabhava coursing through him. His body needed to be cooled with sandal paste to facilitate his insights and visions. Sri Chaitanya was the founder of a Vaishnavite sect that believed he was an avatar of Lord Vishnu and that even after death, after attaining mahasamadhi, he would occupy his earthly seat in his subtle body. He was most revered, most holy.

In Vrindavan, a big hall had been built around the seat of Chaitanya where devotees sat and sang devotional songs. When Sri Ramakrishna entered the hall he went into samadhi. Suddenly he moved forward through the devotees and jumped on to Chaitanya’s seat with his hands raised saying, ‘Hari bol, Hari bol.’ For a moment the devotees were shocked, but soon joined him chanting ‘Hari bol’. Some devotees praised him, ‘Here is the incarnation of Sri Chaitanya. Victory to the Divine Lord.’ While others criticized, ‘This is sacrilegious. We must report this. How can any man, however saintly, presume to dance on Sri Chaitanya’s seat? We did invite him. But not to desecrate the seat of Lord Vishnu’s avatar.’

Meanwhile, the devotees reported this bizarre behaviour to the resident priest, Babaji Bhagawan Das, who scolded some devotees at the time, ‘If you carry on this way, I will personally confiscate your beads.’ Suddenly, Babaji felt that he was unable to continue and said, ‘It seems to me some great soul is nearby.’ By then the message about a mad man sitting on Sri Chaitanya’s seat reached him and he said, ‘I don’t know what this world is coming to – some mad man dances on Sri Chaitanya’s seat and all you buffoons do nothing about it!’ Turning to a devotee he admonished, ‘I will throw you out of the Vaishnavite community, you fool.’ Just then Hriday went up to Babaji and said, ‘Babaji, my uncle loses himself in the name of God and has been doing so for a long time now. He has come to visit you.’ Babaji looked at him eagerly and asked, ‘Yes? I had the feeling … Tell me about him? Where do you come from?’

Just then Sri Ramakrishna shyly entered the doorway, swathed from head to foot in a white sheet and quietly sat at the back. Hriday with naive curiosity continued, ‘Babaji, why do you use beads? You have attained enlightenment; you no longer need them.’ He replied absentmindedly, ‘This is true I don’t need them. But since my disciples always do what I do, I must set an example or else they will go astray.’

Sri Ramakrishna who sat silently in the audience had enough of all this and got up saying, inspirationally and impersonally, ‘How is it you are so egotistic even now? Is that how you think of yourself? You think you’ll teach the people? That you’ll expel them from your community? You think you can decide when you’ll give up telling your beads? Who made you a teacher? Do you think you can teach the world unless the Lord who made it allows you?’

At first Babaji frowned and Mathur got worried, but gradually a clear understanding dawned and he answered humbly, ‘No one has spoken to me this way for many years; I am surrounded by sycophants. You are right, Master; I have lost my way. I knew a great soul was nearby, and I was right.’ Delighted, Babaji fell at Sri Ramakrishna’s feet. ‘I am honoured, Master, that you should come to see me … Now I see you are the incarnation of Sri Chaitanya.’ Sri Ramakrishna raised him by his shoulders and embraced him.

From 1868 to 1871, Sri Ramakrishna travelled incessantly, learning about the spiritual and physical conditions of the people, about their religious ideas and visiting holy places. Those with spiritual powers visit sacred places not to take, but to replenish them with the same spiritual powers that the masses draw daily from them.

In this period, he not only visited the holy places of the Hindus in Calcutta and its surrounding areas, but also those of the Christians such as the Holy Trinity Church on Ram Mohan Sarani, and the Methodist Church on Surendra Bannerjee Road; and those of the Muslims such as the Garatollah Masjid on Chittaranjan Avenue in Calcutta and the Mallapura Masjid near Dakshineswar. The Eden Gardens, Fort William, the Asiatic Society Museum and the Alipore Zoo were not off his itinerary – life did not exist only in the realms of the spirit!

Death is the inevitable end of our physical lives, our final destination, and our unavoidable final truth. Yet we deny it for we are knitted into our bodies, entwined in our relations with our kin; we suffer grief and loss; given the choice we would live, if we could, forever, bound inextricably into our material manifestations close to our families and friends.

Of all his relatives, Akshay was the closest to Sri Ramakrishna. The son of his eldest brother Ramkumar, the priest of the Kali temple after Haladhari, a young man of a charming, open, sunny disposition. However, Akshay became terminally ill. He was looked after by Mathur, his grandmother Chandra Devi and Sri Ramakrishna himself. At his deathbed, Ramakrishna recalled all that happened while Akshay was around. The way he dressed Akshay as the child Krishna, the way he used to chant prayers in Kamarpukur and the way he and an unknown sadhu looked after Sri Ramakrishna in his nirvikalpa samadhi. This was another mysterious plan of the Divine Mother. Akshay was needed at a particular time in Sri Ramakrishna’s life and now that need was no longer there. His future needs involved other people who were all ready or would soon be designated.

As Sri Ramakrishna and Chandra Devi sat by Akshay’s deathbed, Chandra Devi sorrowfully said, ‘He only just got married.’ Sri Ramakrishna added, ‘Send for a doctor. What else can we do?’ He paused, then said, ‘He will die anyway.’ These words shocked everybody and Sri Ramakrishna himself realized what he had said and shook his head. As he watched his beloved nephew die, Sri Ramakrishna told Akshay to say ‘Ganga Narayana, Om Rama’. Akshay tried, but died before he could complete it. Suddenly, Ramakrishna began to laugh. He danced with joy. Shocking everybody he said, ‘Oh! The sword is removed from the sheath. The sheath disintegrates, but the sword is eternal. Glory to Mother Kali, the creator of sheaths. Glory to Brahma who is the sword. How great is Brahman, the fire. How great is Kali, the fire’s heat. How great is Kali, Mother of illusion.’

Yet, the next day, Sri Ramakrishna, who had been able to distance himself into the abstract at the death of his most beloved nephew, wept as though his heart was breaking. He spoke movingly about his grief:

Akshay died before my very eyes. But it did not affect me in the least. As I stood by and watched him die, it felt like a sword being drawn from its scabbard. I enjoyed the scene and laughed and sang and danced over it. They removed the body and cremated it. But the next day as I stood there (pointing towards the southeast veranda of his room), I felt a racking pain for Akshay’s loss, as if somebody was wringing my heart like a wet towel. I wondered at the experience and thought that the Mother was teaching me a lesson. I was not much concerned even with my own body – much less with the mortal remains of a relative’s. But if such was my pain at the loss of a nephew; how much more must be the grief of the other members of the family at the loss of their near and dear ones?

When Mathur Babu fell ill a few years later, Sri Ramakrishna did not visit him even once. But he knew the moment, ‘Mathur was lifted into the Chariot of the Divine Mother and his spirit went to the sphere of the Devi.’ Sri Ramakrishna was his oldest friend in his celestial body, all the while helping him on his last journey.

A rigid, one-dimensional man may be inflexible in his striving but a human saint is not. Holiness was not a one-sided development for Sri Ramakrishna, but a psychic whole. He was too human to embrace divinity at the expense of his humanity, too divine to act as the common maya-driven man.

Though he both laughed and cried at the death of a beloved nephew, yet there was no doubt he was more comfortable with laughter. Tears he said were a lesson from the Divine Mother on how the world suffered in the bondage of family life. Of all things that tied a man to earth, the bonds of family seemed to him the most intractable, keeping him from the knowledge of his true nature.

The sage knows we come into this world alone and leave it alone, and in addition, face all intervening trials essentially alone. Whether on some distant mountain peak or in a crowd, we are ever alone. And it is in the depths of solitude that true spiritual values are found, not in the marketplaces of the world. We confuse aloneness with loneliness, and instead of embracing our essential separation, as creative and sacred, we try to escape from it into ‘I’ and ‘Mine’. ‘This is my father, my mother, my kin, my country. My identity and fortunes are dependent on them.’ In this clinging we believe we are safe. We need not find our own way. We are absolved of responsibility.

‘Mother, let me remain in contact with men,’ was Sri Ramakrishna’s fervent prayer to Kali. ‘Don’t turn me into a dried- up ascetic. Don’t allow my love to be swallowed up in the fires of inhuman wisdom.’

Attaining nirvikalpa samadhi, union with the eternal, what Hindus call Brahman and Islam calls Allah, had not slaked Sri Ramakrishna’s devotional yearnings. But he had seen when passing through Dakshineswar, the results of dwelling excessively on the Infinite: desiccated sadhus like ghouls with glowing eyes, empty gourds rattling in the cosmic winds, indifferent to man.

One day a most unexpected visitor arrived at the gates of Dakshineswar, unannounced. It was Saradamani, Sri Ramakrishna’s eighteen-year-old wife, along with her father. She arrived in a palanquin in a poor state of health. Life without love was inconceivable to Sri Ramakrishna: love for Brahman, the Eternal Ocean of Consciousness, for Ishwar, who is also Kali, the Divine Mother of all existence, love for man, the flesh and blood embodiment of Kali. Love was the very air he breathed.

Yet he told his devotees later, ‘Do your duties, but keep your mind on God. Live with your wife and children, father and mother – and serve them. Treat them as though they are very dear to you, but know in your heart they do not belong to you.’

Sri Ramakrishna was meditating in his room when Sarada and her father came into the room. He got up instantly, helped Sarada lie on the bed, fussed over her, smoothening the pillow, making her comfortable, for she was very exhausted after the journey. Love without possessiveness? Surely a contradiction in terms? But Sri Ramakrishna demonstrated that spiritual detachment did not rule out genuine warmth and sharing. It allowed for a love that was essentially impersonal and disinterested – and for that purer, less selfish and more abundantly fruitful by virtue of this detachment.

When Saradamani was stricken with fever, Sri Ramakrishna looked after her with Hriday’s help, and fed her like a child. Four years after her husband returned to Dakshineswar from Kamarpukur, Saradamani, tired of waiting to be summoned to his side, had to take the initiative. There was incessant gossip about his insanity. But remembering the gentle, considerate man who had instructed her so carefully on prayer and behaviour, she refused to believe the rumours.

With Sri Ramakrishna’s loving care, food and rest, Sarada slowly gained strength. One day Sri Ramakrishna sat by her side and said, ‘If only Mathur was alive he could have looked after you.’ Sarada shyly replied, ‘I don’t need anyone else. You’re looking after me so well.’

Why, it may be asked, if Sri Ramakrishna was so pleased to see his wife, had he done nothing to bring her to him? No answer can be found by applying our own standards to his actions. Sri Ramakrishna had so given himself to the will of God that it was impossible for him to make decisions beyond one minute to the next. He abhorred planning. Once, the story goes, he asked Hriday about a calf he was carrying. ‘I’m taking it home,’ Hriday said, ‘to fatten it, so that one day it will be strong enough for the plough.’ Sri Ramakrishna was so horrified he fainted. ‘See how worldly men hoard for the future,’ he cried, ‘they have so little trust in God. Ah! This is maya!’ Sri Ramakrishna believed Sarada’s arrival was an indication from the Mother that they should be together. It would be his sadhana of purity.

During the next eighteen months, Sri Ramakrishna and Sarada lived together in the closest intimacy, often sleeping on the same bed. When Sarada spoke of this period in her life she described it as one of continuous ecstasy – sexless, spiritual ecstasy. Such a relationship is so unthinkable for most of us that we must take it on trust.

One day, as she sat on the ground massaging Sri Ramakrishna’s feet, Sarada looked up at him and said, ‘Master?’ Sri Ramakrishna who was in a reverie opened his eyes and asked, ‘Yes, what is it?’ Sarada, lowering her eyes, replied, ‘How … how do you think of me?’ Sri Ramakrishna came back from his reverie, focussed and said, ‘Think of you?’ He paused, then not without difficulty replied, ‘The same Mother who is in the temple … The same Mother who gave birth to me, and now lives in the nahabat. That same Mother is rubbing my feet. I see you as a form of the blissful Mother Divine.’ Sarada stopped massaging, shocked by what he had said. One night, when she was asleep, Sri Ramakrishna who lay next to her woke up, watched her and then said to himself:

This, O mind, is a female body. Men look at it as an object of enjoyment, something to be prized, and they die for enjoying it. But if one possesses this body, one must remain confined within the flesh; one cannot realize God as Satchitananda. Do not, O mind, harbour one thought within and a contrary attitude without. Tell the truth whether you want the body of this woman or do you want God? If you want the body, here it is before you. Have it.

He reached out to touch her, recoiled, sat up and went into samadhi.

The choice the Master gave himself, he also offered in all fairness to his wife. ‘I have learned to look on every woman as Mother,’ he told her. ‘That is the only idea I can have about you. But if you wish to draw me into the world as I am married to you, then I am at your service.’

However, Sarada assured him that the prospect of renouncing their spiritual intimacy and living together as ordinary man and wife was unthinkable.

Years later, the Master reflected, ‘If she had not been pure, if she had lost self-control – who knows? Perhaps my own self-control would have given way, and I would have become sex-conscious. After I was married, I implored the Divine Mother to keep Sarada’s consciousness absolutely free from lust. Now after living with Sarada all that time, I knew the Mother had granted my prayer.’

Sarada Devi’s greatest contribution to mankind, it might be said, was Sri Ramakrishna himself!

Once, Sarada who had otherwise accepted a life of celibacy, hesitatingly and unhappily told Sri Ramakrishna, ‘I only sometimes think … I will … never have children of my own.’ Sri Ramakrishna assured her and said, ‘Look here, you will be Mother not to five or six, but to hundreds of thousands. The world will call you Mother … That is what you were born for.’ Sarada looked up at him with surprise and disbelief, but slowly settled down as understanding dawned on her.

‘I have a human body,’ Sri Ramakrishna told his disciples later. ‘If I were to say, “I have conquered lust”, it would be said in pride, and I would fall. I accept the existence of lust without shame and guilt. And let it pass. As I do so many disturbing behaviours of the body …’

Sri Ramakrishna did not hold that sex is sinful – sexuality is part of maya as is any manifestation of nature. In tantra, which Sri Ramakrishna had practised intimately under the guidance of Brahmani, sex is sacred, symbolic of the union of Shiva and Shakti, Spirit and Matter, from which the universe in its multitudinous variations is born. But sex thrives in duality, the sense of separation and incompleteness that is diametrically opposed to the consciousness of union that is the touchstone of the spiritual.

Having fallen into incompletion, man hungers for a union that will make him whole. But the promise of union through sex is a mirage. Energies burned out without attaining the goal of completion through sex, we then begin to search beyond the physical for a deeper meaning. Science, philosophy, art – civilization itself, are products of this groping search for light.

Sri Ramakrishna knew that an attempt to gain fulfilment at the level of the body or of the mind alone is futile. Mind and body are themselves only fragments of a vaster, more awesome whole that we sense only fleetingly at the edges of consciousness. We call this feeling of completion God, or the Divine Mother, or eternity, or infinity, or Allah. And man knows that nothing short of this union will satisfy the deepest yearnings of his soul.

Once, late at night, Sri Ramakrishna was in his room in deep samadhi. Sarada suddenly awakened and found him sitting soundless and still. Seeing his stillness, she got worried and tried to shake him.

Unable to move him she went to the door and called out to Hriday. Hriday came in and chanted mantras in Sri Ramakrishna’s ears till he opened his eyes. Sarada was relieved. The next morning Sarada told Sri Ramakrishna, ‘I could not move you, Master. You were in samadhi so long. Longer than usual. Last night I was so frightened.’

Sri Ramakrishna answered gently, ‘I cannot control my samadhi. And you should sleep undisturbed. Perhaps it is best if you sleep in the nahabat, above, with Mother.’

Chandra Devi, Sri Ramakrishna’s mother, who had moved into the cramped room on the first floor of the Music Tower, was only too glad to have her daughter-in-law live below. Sarada, who believed with a certain verisimilitude, as Hindu women of the time were taught, that her husband was God, lived there each time she visited Dakshineswar. She prepared meals for Sri Ramakrishna’s delicate stomach and nourished her own spiritual evolution.

The holy fire of God-inebriation had burned in Sri Ramakrishna for twelve years and kept him engaged in practices of spiritual moods without rest. He had long ago sacrificed all desirable things of the world: wealth, honour, fame … his heart, mind, intellect, memory. The only thing that remained was the desire to see the Mother of the universe. This too he sacrificed.

A few months after Sarada Devi’s arrival, on the night of the new moon reserved for the worship of Kali, Sri Ramakrishna placed on the seat the living image – Saradamani herself – instead of an image of the deity, and thereby symbolically elevated all Indian women to the pedestal of their former glory.

As part of the ritual of the Shodasi Puja, Sri Ramakrishna called out to Sarada who opened her eyes with difficulty, stood up with the help of the priest and came forward. Sri Ramakrishna took her by the hand, sat her on the pedestal, sprinkled holy water from a pitcher and chanted, ‘O Lady, Mother Tripurasundari, O Mistress of all Power. Open the door to perfection. Purify the body of this woman. Manifest yourself in her and be beneficent.’ Sri Ramakrishna performed nyasa of mantras. He made sixteen ritual offerings including earth, ether, fire and water and put food in Sarada’s mouth.

The worshipper and the worshipped went into a deep samadhi and their souls united in the transcendental plane. After several hours, Sri Ramakrishna came down to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the great Goddess, and surrendered – at the feet of the living image – himself, his rosary, the fruit of his lifelong sadhana and said:

O auspiciousness of all auspicious things.
O door of all actions.
O refuge.
Three-eyed-one.
O spouse of Shiva,
O Narayani.
I bow down to thee.
I bow down to thee.

In tantra this is known as the Sodashi Puja, the adoration of the Divine Virgin – a rarely performed tantric ritual.

Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad: ‘O Lord, Thou art the woman, Thou art the man; Thou art the boy, Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches; Thou pervades the universe in its multiple forms.’

Sri Ramakrishna admitted the great value of marriage in man’s spiritual evolution, and by adhering to his monastic vows he demonstrated the imperative necessity of self-control, purity and continence, in the realization of God. By his unique relationship with his wife, he proved that husband and wife can live together as spiritual companions. Thus, life is a synthesis of the ways of life of a householder and a monk.

Eight years later, in November 1874, Sri Ramakrishna was seized with an irresistible desire to learn more about the Christian religion. Therefore, soon after Sarada left for Kamarpukur, Sri Ramakrishna visited a neighbour, Shambhucharan Mallick. Gregarious, well read, devout and generous, he had virtually taken over from Mathur, as provider of Sri Ramakrishna’s physical needs. Shambhucharan was catholic in his tastes – he read all the religious treatises with equal enthusiasm, and read excerpts from the Bible to his Master.

Sri Ramakrishna became fascinated by the life and teachings of Jesus. One day while he was seated in the parlour of Mallick’s garden house at Dakshineswar, his eyes became fixed on a painting of the Madonna and Child. He watched it intently and was unable to tear his eyes away from it. Gradually, he became overwhelmed with emotion. The figures in the picture took on life, and the rays of light emanating from them entered his soul. The effect of this experience was stronger than that of the vision of Muhammad. In dismay he cried out, ‘O Mother! What are you doing to me?’ And breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Jesus Christ possessed his soul.

For three days he did not set foot inside the Kali temple. On the fourth afternoon, while he was meditating in Panchavati, he saw a tall fair man – serene, handsome, with a slightly semitic nose and light coloured eyes, dressed in a long white robe, coming gracefully towards him. A voice rang out in the depths of Sri Ramakrishna’s soul: ‘Behold the Christ, who shed His heart’s blood for the redemption of the world, who suffered a sea of anguish for love of man. It is He, the Master Yogi, who is in eternal union with God. It is Jesus, love incarnate.’ The Son of Man embraced the Son of the Divine Mother and merged in Him. Sri Ramakrishna realized his identity with Christ, as he had already realized his identity with Kali, Rama, Hanuman, Radha, Krishna and Brahman with attributes. Thus he experienced the truth that Christianity too, was a path leading to God-consciousness. Till the last moment of his life, he believed that Christ was an incarnation of God. But Christ, for him, was not the only incarnation; there were others – Buddha, Krishna and many others.

Eight years after engaging in the sadhanas of the Islamic faith, just as unexpectedly, Sri Ramakrishna experienced the dvaitic form of Christ – as he had Muhammad and Ma Kali – dissolve into the advaitic source of all creation as he went again into nirvikalpa samadhi.

All paths he declared later in his most illuminating and inspired lectures, lead to the same source. He said this with complete conviction. His devotions led him to an experience of the Buddha and Jain Mahavira as avatars, of the sage-king Janaka and the Sikh Gurus.

One day the news arrived from Kamarpukur that yet another relative had died. Sri Ramakrishna conveyed the news to his mother with tearful eyes, ‘Mother, Rameshwar Dada died in Kamarpukur. Ramlal took Rameshwar Dada’s ashes to Calcutta and scattered them in the Ganga.’ Chandra Devi, herself old and fragile, told Sri Ramakrishna, ‘My heart is wrenched, and my son … my second son … has gone to his Divine Mother.’ She then turned to Sri Ramakrishna and consoled him, ‘Don’t weep, Gadai. What is the use of grieving? This world is transitory. Everyone passes out of it some day …’ Sri Ramakrishna was surprised by her words. He smiled and touched her feet, saying, ‘Of what use is it to assume a human body if its purpose of attaining God is not achieved. The Divine Mother has tuned you to a high pitch like a finely tuned instrument, my Mother, so worldly sorrows cannot touch you any more. I am no longer anxious about you.’

Three years later, Chandra Devi herself died at the age of ninety-four. As a sannyasi, whose life was based on the assertion that the world and all its changes are unreal, Sri Ramakrishna was unable to take part in religious ceremonies related to birth, marriage and death. But ever torn between humanity and divinity, Sri Ramakrishna felt guilty that he had not honoured his mother by the ritual proper to a son. So he tried to perform the tarpana after the funeral rites were over.

Along with the pandit, Sri Ramakrishna began to perform his mother’s death rituals. Every time the pandit tried to pour some water into Sri Ramakrishna’s cupped hands, they trembled and the water trickled down. This was repeated again and again. Sri Ramakrishna felt very unhappy and cried out, ‘O Divine Mother, what have you done to me? I cannot even offer tarpana to my mother’s departed spirit. O Mother forgive me.’

The pandit, seeing his dismay, told Sri Ramakrishna, ‘My son, do not reproach yourself. The scriptures state that when a man has reached a high level of spiritual development, his actions drop off and he is unable to fulfil the prescribed rituals, even if he earnestly wants to. There is no sin in this.’

This state perhaps marked the climax of Sri Ramakrishna’s sadhana, the period of his spiritual discipline. As a result of his long and difficult journey, he had arrived at insights and realizations; conclusions regarding himself and spirituality in general that could now be more formally ascribed to him and represented much that he would articulate himself.

He was an incarnation of God, a person whose spiritual experiences were for the benefit of humanity. An ordinary man struggles his entire life to realize one or two facets of God, but Sri Ramakrishna had, within a few years, realized God in all His facets. Second, he knew that he had always been a free soul and that the various disciplines which he passed through were not necessary for his own liberation, but solely for the benefit of others. Thus, the terms liberation and bondage were not applicable to him. As long as there are human beings who consider themselves bound, God must come down to earth as an incarnation to free them from bondage. Third, he came to foresee the time of his death. His words came true in the future. He also arrived at some conclusions regarding spirituality.

He was firmly convinced that all religions are true. Every system of doctrine represents a path to God. He had followed all the main paths and all had led him to the same goal. He was the first religious prophet in recorded history to preach the harmony of religions.

Second, he perceived the three great schools of thought – known as Dualism, Qualified Non-dualism and Absolute Non-dualism – that is, Dvaita, Visishtadvaita, and Advaita – to represent the three stages in man’s progress towards the attainment of ultimate reality. They were not contradictory but complementary and suited to different temperaments. For the ordinary man with a strong attachment to the senses, a dualistic form of religion, prescribing a certain amount of material support like music and other symbols, is useful. A man of God-realization transcends the idea of worldly duties, but the ordinary mortal must perform his duties, striving to remain unattached and simultaneously surrendering the results to God. The mind can comprehend and describe the range of thought and experience up to the Visishtadvaita, but no further. Advaita, the last stage in spiritual experience, is something to be felt in samadhi only, for it transcends mind and speech. From that point, the Absolute and its manifestation, both are equally real. Everything is essentially spirit; the difference is only in form.

Third, Sri Ramakrishna realized the wish of the Divine Mother – that through him She wanted to found an Order, comprising those who would uphold the universal doctrines illustrated in his life.

Fourth, his spiritual insight told him that those who were living their last birth on the mortal plane of existence and those who had sincerely called the Lord even once in their lives would eventually come to him.

During this period, Sri Ramakrishna suffered several bereavements. The first was the death of his nephew Akshay. In 1871, Mathur died, and about five years later Shambhucharan Mallick – who, after Mathur’s death, took care of Sri Ramakrishna’s physical comfort. In 1873, his elder brother Rameshwar passed away, and in 1876, his beloved mother. These bereavements left their imprint on Sri Ramakrishna’s tender human heart, albeit he realized the immortality of the soul and the illusoriness of birth and death.

In March 1875, about a year before the death of his mother, Sri Ramakrishna met the Brahmo Samaj leader Keshab Chandra Sen, who was to inspire and impact Vivekananda’s search. The meeting was a momentous event for both. Here for the first time, Sri Ramakrishna came into contact with a worthy representative of modern India.

Another phase of Sri Ramakrishna’s life was born. Every event opened out to a new one. Till now, the world knew Sri Ramakrishna as a crazy man with all kinds of visions and experiences to which only he was testimony. What relevance these experiences had was yet to be seen. Sri Ramakrishna now looked forward to his spiritual children. In anticipation he said, ‘O my children, where are you? Come! Why haven’t you come yet? My soul is wrung out like a wet towel waiting for you. Mother, you told me that my devotees would come … Why have they not come Mother? What will this life have been worth if they do not come? What will my life have been worth then?’

Sri Ramakrishna walking towards Kali temple.
(Sketch by Nandlal Bose)