CHAPTER X.

THE DAKSHINESWAR TEMPLE—APRIL, 1883

Come, friend, let us once more go to visit Sri Ramakrishna in the Temple of Dakshineswar. There we shall see his joyous play with the devotees and his continuous spiritual transports. We shall see how he sometimes plunges into Samadhi, and sometimes loses himself in the intoxicating bliss of singing the praise of the Lord, and, at other times, how he converses with the devotees like an ordinary man. His blessed lips utter naught but the words of God; and his mind ever soars in the highest regions of the Divine, and each breath that he breathes is consecrated by the holy name of the Mother. His are verily the winsome ways of a little child. Like a little child's, his mind also is free from even the slightest trace of egoism, completely unattached as he is to the world, blissful, simple and generous. His one theme is that God alone is real and all else is evanescent,—mere two days' existence. Come, friend, let us go on a pilgrimage to that love-intoxicated child and great Yogi, who roams alone on the shores of the infinite ocean of spirituality, which has revealed the secrets of its inmost depths to his blessed vision and sent him mad with love.

It is the morning of Sunday, the 8th of April, 1883, the first day of the bright half of the month of Chaitra. Look! there he is sitting like a child in his room, with Rakhal, a boy disciple, close by him.

M. prostrates himself before the Master. Ramlal is present in the room. In a short while, Kishori and a few other devotees arrive, and next comes Manilal, an old Brahmo, and makes his obeisance. He is a merchant and has recently been to Benares, where he owns a firm.

Sri Ramakrishna asks him, "You went to Benares; did you visit any Sadhus there?"

Manilal: Yes, sir, I visited Trailanga Swami and Bhaskarananda.

Sri Ramakrishna: How did you find them? Tell me.

Manilal: Yes, sir, Trailanga Swami is still living in the same house, that temple by the Benimadhav on the Manikarnika Ghaut. They say, his spiritual condition was more exalted before. Then he could perform many miracles, but he has come down a good deal.

Sri Ramakrishna: These are only the slanders of the worldly.

Manilal: Bhaskarananda mixes with every one. He is not like Trailanga Swami, always silent.

Sri Ramakrishna: Did you have any talk with Bhaskarananda?

Manilal: Yes, sir, a long one. One of our topics was 'virtue and vice'. He said, 'Do not walk in the path of sin; give up evil thoughts: God wants all this of man. And always perform such works as can bring you merit.'

Sri Ramakrishna: Yes, these are all right for those who aim at worldly prosperity. But those who are 'awake,' who have come to know that God alone is real and all else is transient, have quite different ways. They know that God alone is the 'doer,' none else.

Self-surrender to God—the higher path.

"They who have regained their spiritual awareness never fall into error. They have not to take pains to shun evil; for they are so full of the love of God that whatever actions they do are right and proper. They know that it is not they who perform those actions, but that it is God, and they are His servants. They are the machine, He is the driver of the machine; they do as He makes them do, they speak as He makes them speak and they live as He makes them live!

"Those who are awake have gone beyond both good and evil. They see that God is doing everything. There was in a certain place a monastery, the inmates of which used to go out daily to beg alms. One day a monk went out to beg his daily food and came upon a zemindar beating a man very severely. The Sadhu was very tender-hearted, so he intervened and asked the landlord to desist. But the zemindar was so enraged by that time that he poured forth all his wrath on the Sadhu and beat him until he fell down prostrate and senseless. Word was brought to the monastery that one of the brothers had been severely beaten by a landlord; so the monks ran to where he was still lying unconcious, and carried him to the Math and laid him down on a bed. And they sat round his unconscious body with sad hearts and began to fan him. Then one of them suggested that milk should be poured into his mouth little by little. After some time, these doses of milk revived him and he opened his eyes and looked about him. At that, some one, to make sure that his senses were properly restored and he recognised his brothers, shouted in his ear, 'Brother, who is he that is pouring milk into your mouth?' The monk faintly replied, 'Brother, He that beat me, even He is now pouring milk into my mouth.'

"Until one has realised God, one cannot reach that state."

Manilal: That is a very exalted state of which you speak. I talked on such topics with Bhaskarananda.

Sri Ramakrishna: Does he live in any house?

Manilal: Yes, with certain people.

Sri Ramakrishna: How old is he?

Manilal: About fifty-five years.

Sri Ramakrishna: What else did you ask him?

Manilal: I asked him about the means of attaining Bhakti. He said, 'Take His name. Repeat the name of Rama.

Sri Ramakrishna: That is very nice!

II.

Worship in the Kali temple, the Vishnu temple and the twelve Siva temples is over and in a little while, the bell rings for the Bhogarati. It is the month of Chaitra, and now, at noon, the sun has become very hot. A breeze is blowing from the south. The tide has set in, and the waters of the Ganges are flowing back northward. After his dinner, the Master is enjoying a little rest.

Rakhal comes from the neighbourhood of Basirhat, where people suffer severely from drought during the summer.

Sri Ramakrishna says to Manilal, "Rakhal told me that in his district people suffer very much for want of water. Why not dig a tank there? It will prove a great benefit to many. (Smilingly) You have a mint of money—what will you do with so much? But I am told the oil-man caste is extremely parsimonious."

At this, the Master and the devotees burst out laughing.

And Manilal is indeed parsimonious.^* He has a garden house at Baranagore, where he often passes some days in solitude, and it is during that time that he pays his visits to Sri Ramakrishna. But although he is not lacking in money, he never hires an entire carriage to go over to Baranagore. He reaches Sovabazar in a tram-car; there he engages one seat in a carriage to go to Baranagore; in this way he arrives at his garden house. He lives at Sinduriapatti in Calcutta, and it is in his house that the local Brahmo Samaj have their prayers. On the occasion of its annual festival, he invites a large number of devotees and also Sri Ramakrishna. . . . . . .

^* In later years, he made a generous gift of Rs. 25,000: for the maintenance of poor students.

Manilal does not make any immediate reply to this reference to his racial characteristic. But in course of conversation, he remarks casually, "Sir, you spoke of a certain tank. You might simply have expressed your wish. Why allude to 'oilman' and all that?"

Some of the devotees have been laughing in their sleeves. On hearing Manilal, the Master also laughs out.

III.

After some time, a few Brahmo devotees arrive from Calcutta. The room is already crowded. The Master is sitting on his small cot, facing to the north, child-like, with a smile on his face. He now cheerfully engages in a conversation with the Brahmo devotees.

Sri Ramakrishna: You talk glibly of love. But is it such a trifle? Chaitanyadev indeed realised love. Love has two signs. First, you will forget the world, its very memory will be wiped off your mind.

The secret of love.

"So intense is your love for Him that you become dead to all consciousness of the outside world. Chaitanyadev 'sees Brindavan in forests and the Jamuna in the sea!' Secondly, you will lose all affection for your body which you once so fondly loved. This identification of self with the body will go, once for all.

"You cannot have love till you have seen God.

"There are signs by which you can know if a man has realised God. God-vision is not far from him in whom love has manifested its glories.

"And what are these glories? Discrimination, dispassion, kindness, service of holy men and love of their company, chanting the name and praise of God, truthfulness and such other virtues.

"When these signs of love become manifest in a man, you can truly say that presently he will see the Lord. The condition of a servant's household clearly indicates whether his master has really condescended to visit it. The grounds are first cleared of weeds, the house is tidied up and the floor is swept. And presently the master himself sends carpets, cushions, pipes and smoking bowls and other costly furniture. And when the neighbours see those articles arriving, they are convinced that the master himself will shortly follow."

A Devotee: Sir, should I first practise discrimination to attain self-control?

The easiest way to gain self-control.

Sri Ramakrishna: Yes, there is such a path, the path of discrimination. But through the path of devotion, the subtle senses come readily and naturally under control, and easily too. Carnal pleasures become more and more insipid as love divine grows in your heart. Can the pleasures of the body attract husband and wife on the day that their child has died?

Devotee: But I have not learnt to love Him!

Sri Ramakrishna: Take His name constantly. This will cleanse away all sin; and lust, anger, and all desire for the pleasures of the body will vanish.

Devotee: But I do not find delight in His name!

Sri Ramakrishna: Then pray to Him with a yearning heart that He may teach you to relish His name. Undoubtedly He will grant your prayer.

With this the Master bursts into a song with his celestial voice, sending out the agonised prayers of his loving heart to the Mother, invoking Her grace for the suffering humanity:

"O Mother, I blame none. It is I who dug for the water which now threatens to drown me.

"I sank the well in the holy land with the spade of my passions and the dark waters of death came forth and filled the well.

"I tremble at my impending fate, for I myself have proved my own enemy. I see no way to check the rising waters and I am in despair.

"The waters of death are rising; lo, they have reached my chest. I know not how to escape this watery grave. O Mother, Thou art my only hope, O save me by Thy gracious look!"

And then another song describing man as suffering from a delirious fever and showing how delight in Her name is the only remedy for that fever.

His name,—the cure for life's fitful fever.

Sri Ramakrishna: 'I find no delight in Thy name!' If a delirious patient loses all taste for food, despair of his life. But if he relishes food even slightly, you may hope for him. So I say, find joy in His name. Take His name: Durga, Krishna, Siva—any name will do. And if you daily feel a greater attraction and a greater joy, for taking His name you need fear no more; the delirium must get cured and His grace will surely descend on you!

Sincerity,—the measure of spiritual gain.

"As is your purpose and inclination, so is your gain. One day two friends were going along a street when they found in a certain place an assembly of men listening to a discourse on the Bhagavatam. One of them said, 'Come, friend, let us hear the discourse.' But the other peeped in for a minute, and went away and entered a house of ill-fame. But when he had stayed there for some time, he felt a great disgust and said to himself, 'Fie on me! My friend is listening to the holy words of God, and here am I in this disgusting place!' The other friend, who was hearing the Bhagavatam, had begun to regret his presence there thinking, 'What a fool I am to have been listening to the gibberish of this fellow, while my friend has been passing all this time in joy and merriment!' So when they died, he who attended the discourse on the Bhagavatam was taken to hell by the messengers of 'Yama' and he who had been to the house of the harlot was taken to heaven by the messengers of Vishnu.

"Verily the Lord sees the heart of man, not what he does or where he lives! 'Janardana^* looks into man's motives.'

"When the 'Kartabhajas'^† initiate their disciples into the mantra, they say, 'Now mantor;^‡ that is to say, Now it all depends on thy mind.' They say, 'He who has the right mind finds the right path and also achieves the right goal.'

"Hanuman leaped over the sea simply through the strength of his mind. He had the strong faith that 'I am the servant of Rama; I have uttered His name; what can I not do?'

^* One of the names of Vishnu

^† The Kartabhajas are a minor sect of Hinduism

‡ It is a pun on the word mantra, which is pronounced in colloquial Bengali as mantor and means 'a sacred formula' and 'thy mind.'

"As long as there is ego, there is ignorance. There cannot be any Liberation for you as long as your egoism remains.

The barrier of egoism.

"The cow cries 'hamma,' 'hamma,' and the goat cries 'ma,' 'ma,' therefore they have no end of suffering. Butchers kill them; shoes and tom-toms are made of their skin, but that is not the last of their misery. In Hindustani, 'hum' and 'ma' both mean 'I,' and it is because the cow and the goat cry 'I,' 'I,' that they suffer so terribly. Next, the cotton-carder makes bow-strings of their intestines; and then only, in the hands of the cotton-carder, do they learn to say 'tuhu,' tuhu,'—'thou,' 'thou,' and they are saved and their suffering ends.

"'O God, Thou art the doer, not I,'—this is Knowledge.

"Be lowly and humble, only thus can you rise. The lark builds its nest on the ground, but it soars high up in the sky. You cannot grow corn on the high land. The land must be low in order that water may accumulate, and then only can you grow your corn.

"You must take a little pains to keep the company of the good.—Worldly concerns always abide at home, and the disease is perpetual. The bird utters 'Rama,' 'Rama,' only when it is chained to its perch; but when it flies off to the forest, it screams and screeches again.

'Light thy lamp!'

"Money alone cannot make a nobleman. One of the signs of a nobleman's home is that all the rooms are illumined. The poor cannot afford to buy oil for so many lights. Likewise this temple of the body must not be left unillumined,—the lamp of Knowledge should be lighted therein. 'Light the lamp of Knowledge in thy chamber and behold the Face of Brahmamayee!'

"Every one can attain Knowledge, for every individual soul is connected with the Universal Soul. The gas pipe is laid in every house, through which comes the supply of gas from the Gas Company. Apply to the authorities, and they will make every arrangement for supplying gas to you, and your house will be lighted. They have their office at Sealdah. [All laugh.]

"The man who has attained spiritual consciousness is known by certain marks and symptoms. He never loves to hear or speak anything but the words of God, even as the lark cries for the water of the clouds, although the seven seas, the Ganges, the Jumna and other rivers are all full of water;—it will never drink any other water even if the agony of thirst pierces its heart!"

IV.

Requested by the Master, Ramlal and a Brahmin officer of the temple are singing:

"Abide, O Lord, O Lover of Devotion, in the Brindavan of my Heart and my Devotion shall be Thy beloved Radha. My Body shall be the Home of Nanda, where Thou shalt find in my Affection Thy mother Yashomati, and in my Desire for Salvation, Thy Shepherdess.

"Lift up, O Lord, the Mount Govardhana of my Sin and destroy Kamsa's Demons,—my six Passions. And play Thy Flute of Grace, charming the Cow of my Mind, and ever flourish in the Pasture-land of my Life!

"My Love shall flow as Jamuna's Stream, beside which my Hope shall grow as the Peepul tree. Do Thou ever dwell under it in Thy infinite mercy to Thy servant! And if naught but the Cowherd's love can hold Thee in Braja, then Dasharathi shall be Thy Cowherd; O Lord, let him be Thy servant!"

Again:

"Have you seen the Dark One, with flute in hand and a charming smile lighting his lips, illumining the worlds with the lustre of his beauty? I have seen him, and now the dark hue of the summer cloud has lost its charms for me.

"The yellow garment that clings round his comely limbs far outshines the lightning in its dazzling splendour. And a wreath of wild flowers adorns his lotus-bosom and swings gently, kissing his blessed feet.

'Lo, there he stands, the moon of Nanda's race, shining like myriad moons and flooding Jamuna's bank with his light divine, to steal the maidens' hearts and lure them from their hearth and home!"

They sing again:

"My mind was hovering like a kite in the firmament of the Mother's hallowed feet, when came a gust of sin's foul wind and struck it down to earth.

"Maya disturbed its even balance by weighing down on one side and I could fly the kite no more. It became entangled in the string of love for wife and children and was rent in twain.

"It lost its crest of knowledge and fell down when I flew it up. How could it fly indeed, deprived of its head? Its six companions^* therefore won the race

"I wore the ties of love of its free will; but when the play began it lost its head. Nareshchandra rues this game of smiles and tears; it were better, he thinks, had he not come at all!"

^* See footnote, Chapter VII.

And then follows another song which says that 'love is a tiger.'

Sri Ramakrishna: Verily as the tiger devours animals, so does 'the tiger of love' eat up lust, anger and other passions. If once you learn to love God, your passions naturally vanish. And this state the Gopis attained through their love of Krishna!

"Love can also be likened to collyrium. Said Srimati, 'Dear friends, everywhere I see Krishna!' The friends replied, 'You have applied the collyrium of love to your eyes, therefore you see him everywhere.' They say that if you prepare collyrium by burning the brains of a frog and paint your eyes with it, you will see snakes all around.

"Those who are forever engrossed in Kamini-Kanchana and do not think of God for a moment are the 'bound ones.' What great deed can you expect of them? They are like a crow-pecked mango which you can neither offer to the Deity, nor, eat yourself without hesitation.

The plight of the bound ones.

"These bound ones,—the worldly people,—are like unto the caterpillars shut up within their cocoons. The caterpillars can, if they like, pierce a hole through and come out. But they have not the heart to forsake a house which they have built themselves. And the end is death.

"But 'the liberated ones' are never swayed by Kamini-Kanchana. There are some caterpillars that bore their way out of their cocoons. But they are very rare indeed!

"There are 'Sadhana-siddhas' and 'Kripa-siddhas;' that is to say, those that attain perfection through endeavour and practice and those that attain it through the grace of the Lord. Some have to raise their crops by means of laborious irrigation, while others have their fields inundated by the rains and are saved from all the troubles of irrigation.

Kripa-siddha and Nitya-siddha

"The Kripa-siddhas are exempted from all the labour and troubles of Sadhana, though they are very few indeed. So also the Nitya-siddhas, the ever-perfect ones, are exempt,—they are born in every life with an innate knowledge of the Self, even as a spring obstructed by the merest accident gushes forth the moment a workman happens to clear its outlet. When men see the first manifestation of their love and devotion, they are filled with a great amazement, and they exclaim, 'Oh! where was all this devotion, dispassion and love concealed?'"

The Master's talk turns on love,—the love of the Gopis. Ramlal sings:

"Thou art my all in all, O Lord! In Thee I live and have my being, and I have none but Thee to call my own.

"Thou art my joy and peace, my hope and help. Thou art my wealth and strength and my knowledge and wisdom. Thou art my home and my comfort, my kindred and my friend

"Thou art my present and my future; Thou art my heaven and my salvation Thou art my Scriptures and Commandments, my guide and my Kalpataru; and Thou art my infinite happiness.

"Thou art the way and Thou art the end. Thou art my creator, my protector and my God. Thou art the chastising father, the loving mother, O Lord, Thou art my helmsman in the sea of the world!"

Sri Ramakrishna: Ah, how beautiful! 'Thou art my all in all!' When Akrura came to take away Sri Krishna, the Gopis said to Srimati, 'Radha, he has come to rob thee of thy all in all.' Such love! Such yearning for God!

And Ramlal sings again:

"Hold not, hold not the chariot wheel,—does the wheel drive the car? Lo, the Lord who has contrived the world has contrived this plot!"

Hearing the song, the Master loses himself in deep Samadhi. He is sitting in the same posture with folded hands as we see him in the picture, calm and still, only tears of joy are trickling down from the outer corners of his eyes.

After a long time, the Master partly regains his normal mood. But he is talking with Him whom he sees in the depths of Samadhi. A few words reach the ears of the devotees.

The Master says: "Thou art I and I am Thou! Thou eatest, Thou—I—eatest! . . . Nicely indeed Thou art acting!

"What is this confusion? I see Thee on all sides.

"O Krishna, friend of the lowly! O Lord of my soul! O Govinda!"

These last ejaculations are scarcely out of his lips when he merges again into Samadhi. An intense silence prevails in the room, and the devotees gaze on, unsatiated, at this Godman of infinite divine moods.

Lost in Samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna is sitting on the small cot. The devotees are sitting around him. Sj. Adhar Sen and a few of his friends have come to see the Master. Adhar is a Deputy Magistrate, about thirty years old, and this is his first visit to the Master. His friend, Saradacharan, a pensioned officer of the Government and lately a Deputy Inspector of Schools, is disconsolate owing to the passing away of his eldest son. So Adhar, who has himself long cherished the desire of seeing Sri Ramakrishna has brought the bereaved father to Dakshineswar. Saradacharan has been practising Sadhana for a long time.

Samadhi has broken. Sri Ramakrishna finds that the whole assembly is intently looking at him. He says: "The spiritual awareness of the worldly shines out on very rare occasions, like the flame of a lamp, nay, a ray of the sun, passing through a chink in the wall. They take the name of the Lord, but their heart is not in it, just as children utter God's name in oaths which they have learnt from the quarrels of their aunts.

"They have no determination; they do not care whether they fail or succeed. Suppose they are sinking a well for water: the moment they come upon a layer of stone, they lose heart; or perhaps they find a thick stratum of sand,—there they stop. But must they not dig on where they have begun? Only then can they hope to get water!

"As a man sows, so he reaps. On this there is this song:

"'O Mother, I blame none. It is I who dug for the water which now threatens to drown me.

"'I sank the well in holy land with the spade of my passions and the dark waters of death came forth and filled the well.

"'I tremble at my impending fate, for I myself have proved to be my own enemy. I see no way to check the rising waters, and I am in despair.

"'The waters of death are rising, lo, they have reached my chest: I know not how to escape this watery grave. O Mother, Thou art my only hope; O save me by Thy gracious look!'"

"'I' and 'mine'—this is ignorance. If you reason, you will find that what you call 'I' is nothing else than the Atman. Think whether you are body, bone or flesh, or any other thing. You will see that you are none of them,—you have no determining attributes.

Knowledge is sameness.

"'This is gold,' 'that is brass'—this discrimination is ignorance. But 'all is gold,'—this is Knowledge.

"When one realises God, he ceases to discriminate. But there are some who have seen the Lord and still continue to discriminate; and there are others who, after realising Him, live as His Bhakta, taking His name and singing His praise.

"How long does the baby cry? So long as it is not given a suck at the mother's breast. When nursed it instantly ceases to cry, and in great joy drinks its mother's milk. But it is true that sometimes in course of drinking it sports and smiles.

"It is He Who has become all this. But in man He manifests Himself the most. And whoever possesses the pure nature of the child, and laughs and cries, and dances and sings, in him the Lord Himself is present."

The Master forms the acquaintance of Adhar, who speaks to him of his friend's bereavement. The Master sings:

"To arms! To arms! O man,—Death invades thy home in battle-array!

"O mount thy Devotion's car, with Wisdom's quiver strapped: and stringing thy tongue with Love's mighty string, aim, O aim the shaft divine of Mother's Holy Name!

"Away with cars and fighters! I'll tell thee the unfailing fatal skill,—O make thy battle-field on Ganga's holy bank!"

'Fight Death!'

And then he says: "What can you do? Prepare for this Death. It has penetrated into your household; you will have to fight it with the weapon of His holy name. He alone is the doer. I say: 'Mother, I do as thou makest me do; I say as thou makest me say; I am the machine, thou art the driver; I am the house, thou art the mistress; I am the engine, thou art the engineer.'

"Give Her the power of attorney. You need not fear any mishap if you rely on a good man. Let Her will be done!

"And there always will be grief.—It is like a son,—born of one's own self. When Ravana fell in battle, Lakshmana ran to him and found that every bone in his body was pierced through and through. And he exclaimed to his brother, 'O Rama, how deadly are your arrows! There is no part of his body which has not been pierced by them.' Rama replied, 'Brother, these holes which you find in his bones are not made by my arrows. Grief has pierced them; these holes testify to his heavy afflictions.'

"But all these worldly affairs are transient. Home and wife and children,—they last only for a day. The palm-tree alone is true,—why lament if one or two fruits drop down?

"These are the things which God is doing: He creates, He preserves, and He destroys. Death there is; and in the hour of Dissolution all will be destroyed,—nothing will survive. Only the seeds thereof will the Mother gather up to be again sown when the time comes for a new creation, even as the housewife has her pot of miscellanies, where she stores various grain-seeds in bags."

VI.

Sri Ramakrishna is standing in the north-eastern veranda, talking to Adhar. He says: "You are a Duputy Magistrate. But this position also is due to the grace of God. Do not forget Him.

Preparations for the inevitable hour

"And know, too, that all will walk down the same path one day.^* It is only a 'two days' stay in this world. The world is the place of action, where you have been brought to work, even as a man comes on business from his country home to Calcutta.

"You must take some pains by way of Sadhana; the Karmas must be speedily worked out. When the smiths melt gold, they blow with bellows, fan and pipe all together to make the fire blaze high; and only when the gold has been dissolved do they ask for a smoke. All this time they have been sweating on the brow, but they can get a chance to smoke only after they have done.

"You must be very firm in your determination if you want to practise Sadhana,—you must make a strong resolve!

"The seed of His holy name is very powerful. It destroys ignorance. The seed is so soft and its sprout is so tender, yet it shoots up through the hard earth!

^* Adhar Sen died eighteen months after this conversation. When Sri Ramakrishna received this sad news, he wept bitterly and long to the Mother. Adhar was extremely devoted to the Master, and the Master also looked upon him as his own.

"The mind becomes completely distracted if you live long among Kamini-Kanchana. You must be very careful. Those who have renounced the world have not much to fear. Those who have sincerely renounced always keep themselves aloof from Kamini-Kanchana, and therefore, if they practise Sadhana, can fix their mind continually in the Lord. They are like unto the bee that sits only on flowers and drinks honey only. But the man of the world, living among Kamini-Kanchana, may set his mind on the Lord sometimes, but it is also attracted by Kamini-Kanchana, just as a fly that sits on sweetmeats, turns again to sores and filth.

"Keep your mind ever fixed on the Lord. In the beginning you must struggle a little, after-wards you will enjoy your pension!"