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. continue>> Archive