Master's Impatience

Sunday, February 24, 1884

Sri Ramakrishna was resting in his room after his midday meal, and Mani Mallick was sitting on the floor beside him, when M. arrived. M. saluted the Master and sat down beside Mani. The Master’s injured arm was bandaged.

MASTER (to M.): “How did you come?”

M: “I came as far as Alambazar in a carriage and from there I walked.”

MANILAL: “Oh, he is so hot!”

MASTER (with a smile): “This makes me think that all these are not mere fancies of my brain. Otherwise why should these ‘Englishmen’ take so much trouble to come here?”

Sri Ramakrishna began to talk to them about his health and his injured arm.

MASTER: “Now and then I become impatient about my arm. I show it to this or that man and ask him whether I shall get well again. That makes Rākhāl angry. He doesn’t understand my mood. Now and then I say to myself, ‘Let him go away.’ Again I say to the Mother: ‘Mother, where will he go? Why should he burn himself in the frying-pan of the world?’

“This childlike impatience of mine is nothing new. I used to ask Mathur Babu to feel my pulse and tell me whether I was ill.

“Well, where then is my faith in God? Once I was going to Kamarpukur in a bullock-cart, when several persons came up to the cart with clubs in their hands. They looked like highwaymen. I began to chant the names of the gods. Sometimes I repeated the names of Rāma and Durga, and some times ‘Om Tat Sat’, so that in case one failed another would work.

(To M.) “Can you tell me why I am so impatient?”

M: “Your mind, sir, is always absorbed in samādhi. You have kept a fraction of it on your body for the welfare of the devotees. Therefore you feel impatient now and then for your body’s safety.”

MASTER: “That is true. A little of the mind is attached to the body. It wants to enjoy the love of God and the company of the devotees.”

Mani Mallick told the Master about an exhibition that was being held in Calcutta. He described a beautiful image of Yaśoda with the Baby Krishna on her lap. Sri Ramakrishna’s eyes filled with tears. On hearing about Yaśoda, the embodiment of maternal love, his spiritual consciousness was kindled and he wept.

MANILAL: “If you were not unwell, you could visit the exhibition in the Maidan.”

MASTER (to M. and the others): “I shan’t be able to see everything even if I go. Perhaps my eyes will fall on some certain thing and I shall become unconscious. Then I shall not be able to see the rest. I was taken to the Zoological Garden. I Went into samādhi at the sight of the lion, for the carrier of the Mother awakened in my mind the consciousness of the Mother Herself.

In that state who could see the other animals? I had to return home after seeing only the lion. Hence Jadu Mallick’s mother first suggested that I should go to the exhibition and then said I should not.”

Mani Mallick, about sixty-five years old, had been a member of the Brahmo Samaj for many years, and Sri Ramakrishna gave him instruction that would agree with his mood.

MASTER: “Pundit Jaynarayan had very liberal views. I visited him once and liked his attitude. But his sons wore high boots. He told me he intended to go to Benares and live there, and at last he carried out his intention; for later on he did live in Benares and die there. When one grows old one should retire, like Jaynarayan, and devote oneself to the thought of God. What do you say?”

MANILAL: “True, sir. I don’t relish the worries and troubles of the world.”

MASTER: “Gauri used to worship his wife with offerings of flowers. All women are manifestations of the Divine Mother. (To Manilal) Please tell them that little story of yours.”

MANILAL (smiling): “Once several men were crossing the Ganges in a boat. One of them, a pundit, was making a great display of his erudition, saying that he had studied various books-the Vedas, the Vedānta, and the six systems of philosophy. He asked a fellow passenger, ‘Do you know the Vedānta?’ ‘No, revered sir.’ ‘The Samkhya and the Patanjala?’

‘No, revered sir.’ ‘Have you read no philosophy whatsoever?’ ‘No, revered sir.’

The pundit was talking in this vain way and the passenger sitting in silence, when a great storm arose and the boat was about to sink. The passenger said to the pundit, ‘Sir, can you swim?’ ‘No’, replied the pundit. The passenger said, ‘I don’t know the Samkhya or the Patanjala, but I can swim.’

MASTER (smiling): “What will a man gain by knowing many scriptures? The one thing needful is to know how to cross the river of the world. God alone is real, and all else illusory.

While Arjuna was aiming his arrow at the eye of the bird, Drona asked him: ‘What do you see? Do you see these kings?’ ‘No, sir’, replied Arjuna. ‘Do you ‘See me’?’ ‘No.’ ‘The tree?’

‘No.’ ‘The bird on the tree?’ ‘No.’ ‘What do you see then?’ ‘Only the eye of the bird.’

“He who sees only the eye of the bird can hit the mark. He alone is clever who sees that God is real and all else is illusory. What need have I of other information? Hanuman once remarked: ‘I don’t know anything about the phase of the moon or the position of the stars.

I only contemplate Rāma.’

(To M.) “Please buy a few fans for our use here.

(To Manilal) “Look here, pay a visit to his [meaning M.’s] father. The sight of a devotee will inspire you.

(To M.) “Since my arm was injured a deep change has come over me. I now delight only in the Naralila, the human manifestation of God. Nitya and Lila. The Nitya is the Indivisible Satchidananda, and the Lila, or Sport, takes various forms, such as the Lila as God, the Lila as the deities, the Lila as man, and the Lila as the universe. “Vaishnavcharan. used to say that one has attained Perfect Knowledge if one believes in God sporting as man. I wouldn’t adopt it then. But now I realize that he was right.

Vaishnavcharan liked pictures of man expressing tenderness and love.

(To Manilal) “It is God Himself who is sporting in the form of man. It is He alone, who has become Mani Mallick. The Sikhs teach: ‘Thou art Satchidananda.’ “Now and then man catches a glimpse of his real Self and becomes speechless with wonder.

At such times he swims in an ocean of joy. It is like suddenly meeting a dear relative. (To M.) The other day as I was coming here in a carriage, I felt like that at the sight of Baburam. When Śiva realizes His own Self, He dances about in joy exclaiming, ‘What am I!

“The same thing has been described in the Adhyātma Rāmāyana. Nārada said, ‘O Rāma, all men are Thy forms, and it is Sita who has become all women.’ On looking at the actors in the Ramlila, I felt that Narayana Himself had taken these human forms. The genuine and the imitation appeared to be the same. “Why do people worship virgins? All women are so many forms of the Divine Mother.

But Her manifestation is greatest in pure-souled virgins.

(To M.) “Why do I become impatient when I am ill? Because the Mother has placed me in the state of a child. The child depends entirely on its mother. The child of the maidservant, when he quarrels with the child of the master, says, ‘I shall tell my mother.’

“I was taken to Radhabazar to be photographed. It had been arranged that I should go to Rajendra Mitra’s house that day. I heard that Keshab would be there. I planned to tell them certain things, but I forgot it all when I went to Radhabazar. I said: ‘O Mother,

Thou wilt speak. What shall I say?’

“I have not the nature of a Jnāni. He considers himself great. He says, ‘What? How can I be ill?’

Koar Singh once said to me, ‘You still worry about your body.’ But it is my nature to believe that my Mother knows everything. It was She who would speak at Rajendra Mitra’s house. Hers are the only effective words. One ray of light from the Goddess of Wisdom stuns a thousand scholars. “The Mother has kept me in the state of a bhakta, a vijnāni.

That is why I joke with Rākhāl and the others. Had I been in the condition of a Jnāni I couldn’t do that.

In this state I realize that it is the Mother alone who has become everything. I see Her everywhere. In the Kāli temple I found that the Mother Herself had become everything-even the wicked, even the brother of Bhagavat Pundit.

Once I was about to scold Ramlal’s mother, but I had to restrain myself. I saw her to be a form of the Divine Mother. I worship virgins because I see in them the Divine Mother.

My wife strokes my feet, but I salute her afterwards.

You salute me by touching my feet. But had Hriday been here, who would have dared to touch them? He wouldn’t have allowed anyone to do it. I have to return your salutes because the Mother has placed me in a state in which I see God in everything.

You see, one cannot exclude even a wicked person. A tulsi-leaf, however dry or small, can be used for worship in the temple.”