Master's childlike mood

Rakhal , M., Harish, and other devotees were in the room.

MASTER (to Bhavanath): “To love an Incarnation of God- that is enough.

Sri Ramakrishna began to sing, asuming the attitude of the gopis:

O Krishna! You are the Soul of my soul…

I am not going home, O friend, For there it is hard for me to chant my Krishna’s name…

O Friend, that day I stood at my door as You were going to the woods…

“When Krishna suddenly disappeared in the act of dancing and playing with gopis, they were beside themselves with grief. Looking at tree, they said:

‘O tree, you must be a great hermit. You must have seen Krishna. Otherwise, why do you stand there motionless, as if absorbed in samādhi?’ Looking at the earth covered with green grass, they said” ‘O earth, you must have seen Kirshna. Otherwise, why does your hair stand on end? you must have enjoyed the thrill of His touch.’

Looking at the madhavi creeper, they said, ‘O madhavi, give us back our Madhava!’

The gopis were intoxicated with ecstatic love for Krishna. Akrura came to Vrindāvan to take Krishna and Balarama to Mathura. When they mounted the chariot, the gopis clung to the wheels. They would not let the chariot move.”

Saying this, Sri Ramakrishna sang, assuming the attitude of Akrura: Hold not, hold not the chariot’s wheels! Is it the wheels that make it move? The Mover of its wheels is Krishna, By whose will the worlds are moved….

MASTER: " ‘Is it the wheels that make it move?’ ‘By whose will the worlds are moved.’ ‘The driver moves the chariot at His Master’s bidding.’ I feel deeply touched by these lines."

Sunday, December 23, 1883

At 9am Sri Ramakrishna was seated on the southwest porch of his room, with Rakhal , Lātu, M., Harish, and some other devotees. M. had now been nine days with the Master at Dakshineswar. Earlier in the morning Manomohan had arrived from Konnagar on this way to Calcutta. Hazra, too, was present.

A Vaishnava was singging. Referring to one of the songs, Sri Ramakrishna said: “I didn’t enjoy that song very much. The songs of the earlier writers seem to me to have more of the right spirit. Once I sang for Nangta at the Panchavati: ‘To arms! To arms, O man! Death storms your house in battle array.’ I sang another: ‘O Mother, I have no one else to blame: Alas! I sink in the well these very hands have dug.’

“Nangta, the Vedantist, was a man of profound knowledge. The song moved him to tears though he didn’t understand its meaning. Padmalochan also wept when I sang the songs of Ramprasad about the Divine Mother. And he was truly a great pundit.”

After the midday meal Sri Ramakrishna rested a few minutes in his room. M. was sitting on the floor. The Master was delighted to hear the music that was being played in the nahabat. He then explained to M. that Brahman alone has become the universe and all living beings.

MASTER: “Referring to a certain place, someone once said to me: ‘Nobody sings the name of God there. It has no holy atmosphere.’ No sooner did he say this than I perceived that it was God alone who had become all living beings. They appeared as countless bubbles, or reflections in the Ocean of Satchidananda.

“Again, I find sometimes that living beings are like so many pills made of Indivisible Consciousness. Once I was on my way to Burdwan from Kamarpukur. At one place I ran to the meadow to see how living beings are sustained. I saw ants crawling there. It appeared to me that every place was filled with Consciousness.”

Hazra entered the room and sat on the floor.

MASTER: “Again, I perceive that living beings are like different flowers with various layers of petals. They are also revealed to me as bubbles, some big, some small.”

Master’s childlike mood

While describing in this way the vision of different divine forms, the Master went into an ecstatic state and said, “I have become! I am here!” Uttering these words he went into samādhi. His body was motionless. He remained in that state a long time and then gradually regained partial consciousness of the world. He began to laugh like a boy and pace the room. His eyes radiated bliss as if he had seen a wondrous vision. His gaze was not fixed on any particular object, and his face beamed with joy. Still pacing the room, the Master said: “I saw the paramahamsa who stayed under the banyan tree walking thus with just such a smile. Am I too in that state of mind?”

He sat on the small couch and engaged in conversation with the Divine Mother.

MASTER: “I don’t even care to know. Mother, may I have pure love for Thy Lotus Feet!

(To M.) “One attains this state immediately after freeing oneself of all grief and desire.

(To the Divine Mother) “Mother, Thou hast done away with my worship. Please see, Mother, that I don’t give up all desire. Mother, the paramahamsa is but a child. Doesn’t a child need a mother? Therefore Thou art the Mother and I am the child. How can the child live without the Mother?”

Sri Ramakrishna was talking to the Divine Mother in a voice that would have melted even a stone. Again he addressed Her, saying: “mere knowledge of Advaita! I spit on it! Thou doest exist as long as Thou dost keep the ego in me. The paramahamsa is but a child. Doesn’t a child need a mother?”

M. sat there speechless and looked at the divine manifestation in the Master. He said to himself: “The Master is an ocean of mercy that knows no motive. He has kept himself in the state of a paramahamsa that he might, as teacher, awaken the spiritual consciousness of myself and other earnest souls.”

M. further thought: “The Master says, ‘Advaita-Chaitanya-Nitayananda’; that is to say, through the knowledge of the Non-dual Brahman one attains Consciousness and enjoys Eternal Bliss. The master has not only attained the knowledge of non-duality but is in a state of Eternal Bliss.

He is always drunk with ecstatic love for the Mother of the With folded hands Hazara looked at the Master and said every now and they:“How blessed you are! How blessed you are!”

MASTER (to Hazra): “But you have hardly any faith; you simply live here to add to the play, like Jatila and Kutila.”

In the afternoon M. paced the temple garden alone. He was deeply absorbed in the thought of the Master and was pondering the Master’s words concerning the attainment of the exalted state of the paramahamsa, after the elimination of grief and desire. M. said to himself: “Who is this Sri Ramakrishna, acting as my teacher? Has God embodied Himself for our welfare? The master himself says that none but an Incarnation can come down to the phenomenal plane from the state of nirvikalpa samādhi.”