Advice To Pundit Shashadhar
7 minutes • 1319 words
Table of contents
SRI RAMAKRISHNA was in his room at 4PM, sitting on a mat spread on the floor.
Pundit Shashadhar and a few devotees were with him sitting on the mat.
Surendra, Baburam, M., Harish, Lātu, Hazra, and others were present.
He had met Pundit Shashadhar 6 days before in Calcutta. The latter, a follower of the path of jnāna, now came to visit the Master.
Bhudar Chattopadhyaya and his elder brother, the pundit’s hosts, were with him.
Nature of Brahman and Glories of Kāli
Ramakrishna (on jnana)
“Nityā and Lila are the 2 aspects of one and the same Reality.
He who is the Indivisible Satchidananda has assumed different forms for the sake of His Lila.”
As he described the nature of the Ultimate Reality the Master every now and then became unconscious in samādhi. While he talked he was intoxicated with spiritual fervour.
He said to the pundit: “My dear sir, Brahman is immutalble and immovable, like Mount Sumeru. But He who is ‘immovable’ can also ‘move’.”
The Master was in ecstasy. He began to sing in his melodious voice:
Who is there that can understand what Mother Kāli is? Even the six darsanas are powerless to reveal Her. . . . He went on: Is Mother merely a simple woman, born as others are born? Only by chanting Her holy name Does Śiva survive the deadly poison. She it is who creates the worlds, She who preserves and destroys, With a mere wink of Her wondrous eyes; She holds the universe in Her womb. Seeking a shelter at Her feet, the gods themselves feel safe; And Mahadeva, God of Gods, Lies prostrate underneath Her feet. Again he sang: Is Mother only Śiva’s wife? To Her must needs bow down The all-destroying King of Death! 511Naked She roams about the world, slaying Her demon foes, Or stands erect on Śiva’s breast. Her feet upon Her Husband’s form! What a strange wife She makes! My Mother’s play, declares Prasad, shatters all rules and laws: Strive hard for purity, O mind, And understand my Mother’s ways. And again: I drink no ordinary wine, but Wine of Everlasting Bliss, As I repeat my Mother Kāli’s name; It so intoxicates my mind that people take me to be drunk! . . .
And again:
Can everyone have the vision of Syama? Is Kāli’s treasure for everyone? Oh, what a pity my foolish mind will not see what is true!
Even with all His penances, rarely does Śiva Himself behold The mind-bewitching sight of Mother Syama’s crimson feet.
To him who meditates on Her the riches of heaven are poor
If Syama casts Her glance on him, he swims in Eternal Bliss.
The prince of yogis, the king of the gods, meditate on Her feet in vain
Yet worthless kamalakanta yearns for the Mother’s blessed feet! The Master’s ecstatic mood gradually relaxed. He stopped singing and sat in silence. After a while he got up and sat on the small couch. Pundit Shashadhar was charmed with his singing. Very humbly he said to Sri Ramakrishna, “Are you going to sing anymore?” A little later the Master sang again: High in the heaven of the Mother’s feet, my mind was soaring like a kite,
When came a blast of sin’s rough wind that drove it swiftly toward the earth. . . . Then he sang: Once for all, this time, I have thoroughly understood; From One who knows it well, I have learnt the secret of bhava. A man has come to me from a country where there is no night, And now I cannot distinguish day from night any longer; Rituals and devotions have all grown profitless for me. My sleep is broken; how can I slumber any more? For now I am wide awake in the sleeplessness of yoga. O Divine Mother, made one with Thee in yoga-sleep at last, My slumber I have lulled asleep for evermore. 512I bow my head, says Prasad, before desire and liberation; Knowing the secret that Kāli is one with the highest Brahman, I have discarded, once for all, both righteousness and sin. Sri Ramakrishna continued: I have surrendered my soul at the fearless feet of the Mother; Am I afraid of Death any more? Unto the tuft of hair on my head. Is tied the almighty mantra, Mother Kāli’s name. My body I have sold in the market-place of the world And with it have bought Sri Durga’s name. As Sri Ramakrishna sang the line, “And with it have bought Sri Durga’s name”, the tears flowed from Pundit Shashadhar’s eyes. The Master went on with the song: Deep within my heart I have planted the name of Kāli, The Wish-fulfilling Tree of heaven; When Yama, King of Death, appears, To him I shall open my heart and show it growing there. I have cast out from me my six unflagging foes;4 Ready am I to sail life’s sea, Crying, “To Durga, victory!” Again he sang: Dwell, O mind, within yourself; Enter no other’s home. If you but seek there, you will find All you are searching for. . . . And again: Though I am never loath to grant salvation, I hesitate indeed to grant pure love. Whoever wins pure love surpasses all; He is adored by men; He triumphs over the three worlds. . . . Mere study of scriptures is futile The pundit had studied the Vedas and the other scriptures. He loved to discuss philosophy. The Master, seated on the couch, cast his benign look on the pundit and gave him counsel through parables. MASTER (to the pundit): “There are many scriptures like the Vedas. But one cannot realize God without austerity and spiritual discipline. ‘God cannot be found in the six systems, the Vedas, or the Tantra.’ “But one should learn the contents of the scriptures and then act according to their injunctions. A man lost a letter. He couldn’t remember where he had left it. He began to 513search for it with a lamp. After two or three people had searched, the letter was at last found. The message in the letter was: ‘Please send us five seers of sandesh and a piece of wearing-cloth.’ The man read it and then threw the letter away. There was no further need of it; now all he had to do was to buy the five seers of sandesh and the piece of cloth.
“Better than reading is hearing, and better than hearing is seeing. One understands the scriptures better by hearing them from the lips of the guru or of a holy man. Then one doesn’t have to think about their non-essential part.
Hanuman said: ‘Brother, I don’t know much about the phase of the moon or the position of the stars. I just contemplate Rāma.’
“But seeing is far better than hearing. Then all doubts disappear. It is true that many things are recorded in the scriptures; but all these are useless without the direct realization of God, without devotion to His Lotus Feet, without purity of heart. The almanac forecasts the rainfall of the year. But not a drop of water will you get by squeezing the almanac. No, not even one drop.
“How long should one reason about the texts of the scriptures? So long as one does not have direct realization of God. How long does the bee buzz about? As long as it is not sitting on a flower. No sooner does it light on a flower and begin to sip honey than it keeps quiet.
One may talk even after the realization of God.
But then one talks only of God and of Divine Bliss. It is like a drunkard’s crying, ‘Victory to the Divine Mother!’ He can hardly say anything else on account of his drunkenness.
You can notice, too, that a bee makes an indistinct humming sound after having sipped the honey from a flower.