Śrī Rāmakrishṇa Paramahaṃsa Samadhi - August 16

Aug 16, 2012

Today is the Mahāsamādhi day of Śrī Rāmakrishṇa Paramahaṃsa. It is about such masters that the Geeta says:
बहूनां जन्मनामन्ते ज्ञानवान्मां प्रपद्यते |
वासुदेवः सर्वमिति स महात्मा सुदुर्लभः ||७-१९|| 
bahuunaa.n janmanaamante GYaanavaanmaaM prapadyate .
vaasudevaH sarvamiti sa mahaatmaa sudurlabhaH .. 7\-19..
At the end of many births the wise man comes to Me, realising that all this is Vasudeva (the innermost Self) ; such a great soul (MAHATMA) is very hard to find.

Spiritual seekers for generations have been inspired by the "Gospel of Śrī Rāmakrishṇa". I was thrilled when I discovered that the Ramakrishna Mission itself has made the Gospel available as an e-book, free to anyone who wants to read it, besides having the book for sale in their centres throughout the world. The Gospel contains an introduction by Swāmi Nikhilānanda, which is really a short but beautiful biography of Śrī Rāmakrishṇa.

Śrī Rāmakrishṇa's parables sparkle like precious gems in the Gospel. Here is a story that I love:

"One night a fisherman went into a garden and cast his net into the lake in order to steal some fish. The owner heard him and surrounded him with his servants. They brought lighted torches and began to search for him. In the mean time the fisherman smeared his body with ashes and sat under a tree, pretending to be a holy man. The owner and his men searched a great deal but could not find the thief. All they saw was a holy man covered with ashes, meditating under a tree. The next day the news spread in the neighbourhood that a great sage was staying in the garden. People gathered there and saluted him with offerings of fruit, flowers, and sweets. Many also offered silver and copper coins. 'How strange!' thought the fisherman. 'I am not a genuine holy man, and still people show such devotion to me. I shall certainly realize God if I become a true sadhu. There is no doubt about it.'
"If a mere pretence of religious life can bring such spiritual awakening, you can imagine the effect of real sadhana. In that state you will surely realize what is real and what is unreal. God alone is real, and the world is illusory."

 What effect did Śrī Rāmakrishṇa have? Of course, most people know that he was the spiritual master of Swāmi Vivekānanda and hence the Paramaguru of hundreds of monks in the Ramakrishna order. For this post, I like this quote, also from Swāmi Nikhilānanda's introduction.

Pratāp Chandra Mazumdār, the right-hand man of Keshab and an accomplished Brāhmo preacher in Europe and America, bitterly criticized Sri Ramakrishna's use of uncultured language and also his austere attitude toward his wife. But he could not escape the spell of the Master's personality. In the course of an article about Sri Ramakrishna, Pratāp wrote in the "Theistic Quarterly Review": "What is there in common between him and me? I, a Europeanized, civilized, self-centered, semi-sceptical, so-called educated reasoner, and he, a poor, illiterate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I, who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller, and a whole host of European scholars and divines? … And it is not I only, but dozens like me, who do the same. … He worships Śiva, he worships Kāli, he worships Rāmā, he worships Krishna, and is a confirmed advocate of Vedāntic doctrines. … He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted Meditator on the perfections of the One Formless, Absolute, Infinite Deity. … His religion is ecstasy, his worship means transcendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with a permanent fire and fever of a strange faith and feeling. … So long as he is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sublime precepts of purity, unworldliness, spirituality, and inebriation in the love of God. … He, by his childlike bhakti, by his strong conceptions of an ever-ready Motherhood, helped to unfold it [God as our Mother] in our minds wonderfully. … By associating with him we learnt to realize better the divine attributes as scattered over the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of mythological India, the gods of the Purānās."

 My humble prostrations to the incomparable Śrī Rāmakrishṇa Paramahaṃsa.

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post