| This simple statement – the eternal principle
of Hinduism and Vedanta - is the essence of the life of
Sri Ramakrishna and permeates his practices and teachings.
It is all the more remarkable for Sri Ramakrishna was
born at a time when India’s intellectuals aped its
foreign rulers, when her religion was being cast aside
by so-called rational thinking, when the onslaught of
materialism seemed insurmountable.
It was, as the Bhagavad-Gita says, a time ripe for
the advent of an avatar.
Thus, on the 18th of February 1836, in Kamarpukur,
a small village near Kolkatta, India, a child was born
to a poor but pious couple. He was named Gadadhar. The
world would know him as Sri Ramakrishna.
As a child, Sri Ramakrishna liked serving visiting
sadhus and listening to their spiritual discourses more
than he liked formal schooling. At age six, seeing a
flight of white cranes against a backdrop of dark clouds,
he experienced his first divine ecstasy.
His love for God deepened. By 1855, as chief priest
of Mother Kali’s Temple in Dakshineswar, his days
were spent in worship and singing devotional songs;
nights were plunged in meditation; sleep was altogether
abandoned.
So intense was Sri Ramakrishna’s yearning for
a living vision of Mother Kali that when overcome by
the thought of not seeing Her in this very lifetime,
he glanced on Her sword in the temple and seized it
with a view to ending his life.
“Suddenly, the blessed Mother revealed Herself.
I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of consciousness.”(The
Gospel page no.14,the first vision of Kali) The shining
waves rushed at Sri Ramakrishna. He collapsed unconscious.
But, within, felt a flow of steady, undiluted bliss.
Later, Sri Ramakrishna would teach the world a simple
path to God-realization: “Cry to the Lord with
an intensely yearning heart and you will certainly see
him.”(Gospel page No.83, Master Mahashay’s
second visit to Dakshineswar. – Feb.1882)
At that time, however, his frequent God-intoxicated
state lead to behavior the worldly-minded reported as
signs of insanity. Its remedy, his relatives in Kamarpukur
thought, lay in marriage.
Accordingly, a bride was chosen from Jayrambati, a
neighbouring village. Her name was Saradamani. She was
just five. So, as was common in the India of that era,
the marriage duly performed was more a betrothal. The
young bride remained in the village while Sri Ramakrishna
returned to Mother Kali’s Temple.
However, at no point, not even when Saradamani (who
in the future would be referred to as both Sri Sarada
Devi and the Holy Mother by devotees) came as a young
woman of eighteen to Dakshineswar to look after Sri
Ramakrishna who was still viewed insane, did they live
the usual worldly married life.
Quite the contrary, Sri Ramakrishna instructed her
in every aspect of spiritual life. In keeping with his
complete dedication to God-realization, he worshiped
her as Shodashi – another form of Mother Kali.
Both went into samadhi. As ever, they soared above the
worldly plane.
He perceives clearly that women are but so many aspects
of the Divine Mother. He worships them all as the Mother
Herself. (Gospel page No.168.)
Sri Ramakrishna’s total absorption with and in
God impelled him to test the reality of all the different
aspects of Mother Kali, the God he worshipped.
Guided by a series of gurus who initiated him in the
various paths described in the Hindu scriptures, Sri
Ramakrishna realized God through each. Then following
the paths of Islam and Christianity experienced the
same realization. He illustrated this truth with a simple
dictum: Yato mat, tato path - as many faiths, so many
paths.
|
