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His awestruck contemporaries called Ramakrishna the PARAMAHANSA, (Ramakrishna the
Supreme Swan) as a tribute to his ability to constantly live in an exalted atmosphere
of holiness. The swan is reputed in Indian mythology to be able to separate milk
from the water in which it has been mixed, a talent which shows it to be very delicate
in its discrimination, and not satisfied with anything but the best. People of great
spiritual realization are thus called swans, but Ramakrishna was of a class all
by himself. His great disciple,
Swami Vivekananda, whom the master himself declared to be one of the
incarnations of the Brahma-rishis, stated that nobody had ever seen all the facets
to Ramakrishna. Shri Aurobindo,
not known for any false modesty about himself, once blandly proclaimed that the
earth would not be able to bear such a descent of holiness as Ramakrishna represented
for another 500 years. His first guru, Bhairavi Brahmani, declared he was an avatar
and vigorously combated all the devils' advocates who were not willing to concede
her point, which had scriptural sanction too. The common western reaction to this
man has been the unwearying phrase, 'the Christ-like Ramakrishna.' Anybody who sets
off such reactions in people was something very special indeed.
Yet so otherworldly seems to have been his life that his best biographer, the Nobel
Prize winning Romain Rolland had no option but to "begin my story as if it were
a fable." For Ramakrishna lived at a pitch of saintliness and holiness that is almost
impossible and it really seems better placed in a fable rather than in the mid-nineteenth
century. He was born on February 18, 1836 to pious Brahmin parents who thought their
childbearing days were over. Gadhadhar - the macebearer, (an epithet of Vishnu)
was his first name but it soon became Ramakrishna in the easy manner of the times.
Kamarpukur in old Bengal was the end of nowhere and the opportunities for education,
even for a brahmin boy, were limited. Ramakrishna was barely literate all his life.
At the age of six however he had a satori like experience that forever stayed with
him. A flight of cranes moving across a tropical storm cloud was so beautiful a spectacle
that he literally fainted away into an ecstatic state. All his life he was prone
to go into these divine trances at the least aesthetic trigger.
The child was fortunate he was growing up in India where such things are still common
and not a matter for serious concern. Anywhere else he would have been classified
as being in serious need of counseling or therapy. In the simple outlook of the
village these trances marked him out as special and he was the general pet of all
the women. His brother Ramkumar sent for the free spirited boy to stay with him
in Calcutta in 1852. The two brothers found employment as the temple priests at
the Dakshineshwar Kali shrine, owned by the Rani Rashmoni. In 1856 Ramakrishna became
the sole priest to the temple when his brother died. Kali is never an easy goddess
to worship but she had something special planned for this nondescript young man.
By the time she was through with him, he had almost lost his life and his sanity
but he had become a spiritual giant.
The fact of the matter was that for the young man the image of Kali had literally
come alive for him, (a prime example of a daimonic manifestation) and then, suddenly
abruptly had shut him out. Even today this would be regarded as madness by the more
unimaginative, but fortunately times have changed and the reality of a spiritual
crisis is not any less important because 'it is all in the mind.' That is where
it should be anyway. This cosmic shut out was actually the only he would give up
his ingrained brahmanic prejudices. He learnt the hard way that God has no patience
with exclusivity and even less for prejudices that discriminate between human beings.
The more he opened up the closer he felt to god until the day he even cast away
his sacred thread, that last vestige of Brahmanical superiority. In an incident
much beloved of all his biographers he decided that enough was enough and charged
into the shrine resolved to kill himself before the unresponsive goddess. Colin
Wilson in his book The Outsider has given the psychological take on this
episode and it is worth pursuing. At that moment he had a vast spiritual experience
wherein all natural boundaries dissolved before him and he was in the presence of
a Pure Bliss, an All-embracing Consciousness. Somehow he realized that this was
the real Mother.
From that moment on he never lost the blessed feeling that comes by being in constant
touch with God. So intimate was his bond that he was known to get quite angry if
he had been calling on His divine Mother and she was tardy in responding. In one
famous incident, depicted by the calendar makers in Bengal even today, he lost his
temper and told Kali in succinct, rasping words what he thought of her appearance,
behavior and general outlook on life before resigning in a huff from his position
as her priest. The Mother had to hasten after him and coax him back, exactly as
one would a petulant favorite child. From an Indian point of view this is not blasphemy,
this indicates a high degree of identification with the divine. Just the presence
of Ramakrishna was enough to invoke religious visions and experiences in other people,
so strong was his aura in those days. He also developed a disconcerting ability
to read people's thoughts as though they were transparent glass and of not staying
his scorn if he discerned impious and filthy minds. He was also, for all practical
purposes, as close to mad as made no difference. Ramakrishna himself used to wonder
how he had escaped madness during those days.
His alarmed family took refuge in that ancient panacea of India - marriage! What
should have been a disaster turned out to be a miracle. When the child bride, Sharada
grew up and went to meet her peculiar husband, she instantly recognized him as a
great soul and accepted him as her guru. Their marriage never had a sexual element
in it, strange as it may sound, but Sharada Ma became a realized soul in her own
light. It was light that was overshadowed by her husband's cosmic brilliance and
the world fame of Vivekananda, but she was in no wise any less a liberated soul.
Back in Dakshineshwar help was finally at hand. Ramakrishna had gone as far as natural
genius could take him and he needed gurus. As always no sooner was a genuine need
manifested than the gurus began to appear. In this special case the gurus found themselves
being impelled out of their secluded lives by some forceful will. They alone had
the quality to help and they had to play their part whether they wished to or no.
His first Guru was a Brahmin sanyyasin lady called the Bhairavi Brahmani. She was
a formidable spiritual force, a scholar and intellectual, both extremely rare at
the time for women. At first glance she acknowledged Ramakrishna as her spiritual
son. She put him though the entire courses of spiritual exercises that she knew
and to her amazement, and soon enough consternation, this young man took to them
like a duck to water. She codified and structured his spiritual experiences in the
light of the holy texts, and she instructed him in proper diet so that he was not
always at the mercy of whatever spiritual tempest arose within him.
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