Section I Sri Ramakrishna with Devotees Chapter I Sri Ramakrishna dances with devotees in the joy of ecstatic love at Balaram’s house It is about 8 or 9 p.m., seven days after the Dolayatra. Thakur is surrounded by Ram, Manomohan, Rakhal, Nityagopal and other devotees. They are all inebriated with chanting the name of God. Some of the devotees are in a state of ecstasy. In such a state, Nityagopal’s chest has turned red. When they all sit down, M. salutes Thakur. He sees that Rakhal is lying down overwhelmed with ecstasy and unaware of the outside world. Thakur, putting his hand on Rakhal’s chest, says, “Peace, peace.” It is the second time Rakhal has experienced ecstasy. He lives with his father in Calcutta and goes to Dakshineswar from time to time to visit Thakur. At the present time he is a student in Vidyasagar’s school in Shyampukur. Thakur had said to M. in Dakshineswar, “I will visit Balaram’s house in Calcutta. Please go there.” That is why M. has come to see him. It is Saturday, 11 March 1882, 28th of Falgun, the seventh day of the dark fortnight of Chaitra. Thakur has come to Balaram’s house at his invitation. The devotees sit for prasad on the verandah while Balaram stands humbly to serve them. He doesn’t act like the master of the house. 2 Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita – V, Section I M. has only recently begun to visit Sri Ramakrishna. He has not yet talked to the devotees, only with Narendra at Dakshineswar. Harmony of religions A few days later, Sri Ramakrishna had been sitting absorbed on the steps of the Shiva temples. It was about four or five o’clock. M. was seated near him. A short while ago, Thakur had rested on his bedspread on the floor in his room. Nobody was yet living there to attend to his needs and he has been greatly inconvenienced since Hriday’s departure. When M. came from Calcutta to see him, he talked to him while he walked to the Shiva temples. Sitting on a step of the Shiva temple opposite the temple of Sri Radhakanta, Thakur suddenly went into ecstasy at the sight of the temple. He begins to talk to the Mother of the Universe. He says, “Mother, everybody says his watch gives the correct time. Christians, Brahmos, Hindus, Muslims, all of them say, ‘Only our religion is true.’ But Mother, nobody’s watch is right. Who can really know You? But if someone calls on You with a longing heart, You can be reached, by Your grace, by any path. Mother, how do Christians call on You in church? Please show me once. But Mother, what will people say if I enter a Church? Maybe it will result in a hullabaloo; maybe I won’t be allowed to enter the Kali temple again. So please let me see from the door of the church.” 11 March – 2 April 1882 3 Thakur enjoys devotional music with devotees – love of Rakhal – ‘the wine of divine love’ On another day [in March 1882] Thakur is sitting on the smaller cot in his room. He is a picture of joy with a smiling face. M. comes in with Kalikrishna. 1 Kalikrishna did not know where he was being taken by his friend. The friend [M.] had only said to him, “Come with me if you want to go to a grog shop. There’s a huge pitcher of wine there.” When they reached Thakur and M. had saluted him, he told Thakur everything he had said to his friend. Thakur laughs. He says, “The bliss of devotional music and the bliss of Brahman are wine indeed – the wine of love for God. The aim of life is to develop intense love of God. Indeed, love for God is the essence. It is extremely difficult to know God through knowledge and reasoning.” Saying this, Thakur begins to sing: Who can know what Kali is? Even the six philosophies cannot reveal Her. The yogi meditates on Her from the Muladhara to the Sahasrara, As She sports with Kala – two swans amid a wilderness of lotuses. Like Om, the source of all, Kali is the inner self of the yogi who delights in the Self. She dwells in every living creature, of Her own will and just as She pleases. 1. Kalikrishna later became the main professor of Sanskrit and history at Vidyasagar’s College. 4 Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita – V, Section I Kala, eternity – he alone knows the meaning of Kali, time; who else but he can know Her as She truly is? The universe and all living beings rest in the Mother’s womb, and you presume to know Her vastness? Says Prasad, to think that you can know Her is as laughable as trying to swim across the sea. My mind understands, but alas my heart does not! Though but a dwarf, it aspires to catch the moon. Sri Ramakrishna says again, “The aim of life is to love God – the way the cowherd boys and milkmaids of Vrindavan loved Sri Krishna. When Sri Krishna went to Mathura, the cowherd boys wandered around weeping in sorrow at being separated from him.” Saying this, Thakur gazes upward and sings: I have just seen a new cowherd boy. He holds the branch of a young tree and in his arms he holds a new-born calf. Says he, where is brother Kanai? But he only mutters ‘K’ – unable to utter the complete word, Kanai. And his eyes are filled with tears. Hearing this song full of love from Thakur, M.’s eyes become filled with tears. Chapter II Sri Ramakrishna at a devotee’s house – at Prankrishna’s home Today Sri Ramakrishna has come to Calcutta. He is sitting with devotees in the parlour on the first floor of Prankrishna Mukherji’s Shyampukur house, having just eaten a meal with the devotees. It is Sunday, 2 April 1882, the 14 th day of the bright fortnight of 11 March – 2 April 1882 5 Chaitra, the time between 1 and 2 in the afternoon. Captain lives in the same neighborhood and Thakur wants to go to his house after resting at Prankrishna’s. Then he wants to visit Keshab Sen in his house called the Lily Cottage., Prankrishna is sitting in his parlour. Ram, Manomohan, Kedar, Surendra, Girindra (Surendra’s brother), Rakhal, Balaram, M. and other devotees are present. Some gentlemen of the neighborhood and other invited guests are also there. They are all anxious to hear what Thakur has to say. Thakur: “God and His glory. This world is certainly His glory. But seeing His splendour and glory, people forget everything else. They don’t look for Him who is the master of all these riches. Everybody wants to enjoy ‘lust and gold’ – but there are more problems than enjoyment. The world is like a whirlpool of Vishalakshi. Once a boat is caught in it, nothing can save it. Or it’s like a thorny bush. You pull yourself out of one thorn and get entangled with another. Once you enter a labyrinth, it’s difficult to find the way out of it. A man becomes scorched in the world of lust and gold.” A Devotee: “So what’s the way out?” The way: holy company and prayer Sri Ramakrishna: “There is a way: holy company and prayer. “Unless you go to a doctor, you can’t be cured. One day of holy company is not enough. It is always necessary, because the disease is chronic. Without going to a doctor, you don’t know how to diagnose 6 Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita – V, Section I the problem. You have to be with the doctor, here there and everywhere. Only then can you understand if it is phlegm or bile.” The Devotee: “How is holy company useful?” Sri Ramakrishna: “Association with the holy develops fondness for God, it generates love for Him. Unless you can develop yearning for God, you won’t achieve anything. By keeping the company of holy people, the heart becomes restless for God. It’s like feeling constantly worried when somebody at home is ill, worrying how the patient can be cured. This yearning should be like a person out of work who is running around from one office to another in the search of a job. If he’s told there’s no vacancy in the office, he goes again the next day to ask if one has occurred. “There is another way: praying with a sincere heart. He is your own. You have to say to Him, ‘Please reveal yourself to me, grant me Your vision. Why have you given birth to me?’ Sikh devotees said to me that God is kind. I said to them, ‘Why should I call Him kind? He has created us. What wonder is there that He is kind to us?’ What kindness is there in parents’ bringing up their children? He has to do it, so we should make demands on Him. He is our own father, our own mother. If the son wants his inheritance and begins to fast for it, his parents release it three years early. Again, when a boy entreats his mother for money, ‘Mother, I fall at your feet. Please give me money,’ the mother has to comply with his wishes. Seeing his insistence, she tosses a few coins at him. 11 March – 2 April 1882 7 “There is another benefit of holy company: only the thought of what is Real comes to mind – what is Real, what is eternal, that is, God.