Brahman and Śakti

Monday, August 10

It was dawn. The Master was chanting the name of the Divine Mother. He went to the porch west of his room and looked at the Ganges; then he stopped in front of the pictures of different gods and goddesses in the room and bowed to them. The devotees left their beds, saluted Sri Ramakrishna, and went out. The Master was talking to a devotee in the Panchavati. The latter had dreamt of Chaitanyadeva.

MASTER (in an ecstatic mood): “Ah me! Ah me!”

DEVOTEE: “But, sir, it was only a dream.”

MASTER: “Is a dream a small thing?”

The Master’s voice was choked. His eyes were filled with tears. Sri Ramakrishna was told of a devotee who had divine visions even while he was awake. The Master said: “I am not surprised. Narendra, too, sees forms of God nowadays.“Mahimacharan went to one of the Śiva temples to the west of the courtyard and chanted hymns from the Vedas. He was alone.

It was eight o’clock in the morning. M. bathed in the Ganges and came to Sri Ramakrishna. The brahmani who was grief-stricken on account of her daughter’s death also entered the room.

The Master asked the brahmani to give M. some prasad to eat.

BRAHMANI: “Please eat something yourself first; then he will eat.

MASTER (to M.): “Take some prasad of Jagannath first and then eat.”

After eating the prasad, M. went to the Śiva temples and saluted the Deity. Then he returned to the Master’s room and saluted him. He was ready to go to Calcutta.

MASTER (tenderly): “Go home safely. You have to attend to your duties.”

Tuesday, August 11

Sri Ramakrishna was in his room at the temple garden. He had been observing silence since eight o’clock in the morning. Did he know the fatal nature of his illness? At his silence the Holy Mother wept. Rakhal and Lātu also wept. The brahmani widow from Baghbazar arrived. She too was weeping at this strange mood of the Master. Now and then the devotees asked him whether he would remain silent for good. The Master answered them in the negative, by a sign.

At 3pm, Narayan arrived. Sri Ramakrishna said to him, “The Divine Mother will bless you,” Narayan told the other devotees that the Master had spoken to him. A heavy weight was lifted from their breasts. They all came into the Master’s room and sat on the floor.

MASTER (to the devotees): “The Mother showed me that all this is verily māyā. She alone is real, and all else is the splendour of Her māyā.

“Another thing was revealed to me. I found out how far the different devotees have progressed.”

DEVOTEES: “Please tell us about it.”

MASTER: “I came to know about all these devotees: Nityagopal, Rakhal, Narayan?

Purna, Mahima Chakravarty, and the others.”

Sunday, August 16, 1885

The news of Sri Ramakrishna’s illness had been reported to the devotees in Calcutta.

They thought it was just a sore in his throat. Many devotees arrived at Dakshineswar to visit him. Among them were Girish, Ram, Nityagopal, Mahima, Kishori, and Pundit Shashadhar.Sri Ramakrishna was in his usual happy mood. He was talking to the devotees.

MASTER: “I cannot tell the Mother about my illness. I feel ashamed to talk of it.”

GIRISH: “God will cure you.”

RAM: “Yes, you will be all right.”

MASTER (smiling): “Yes, give me your blessing.”

(All laugh.)

Girish was a recent visitor to Dakshineswar. The Master said to him: “You have so many duties to perform. You have to face so many troubles. Come here only three times more.

(To Shashadhar) “Please tell us something about the Ādyāśakti .”

SHASHADHAR: “What do I know, sir?”

MASTER (smiling): “A certain man had great respect for another man. The second man asked him to bring him a little fire for his tobacco. He answered humbly, ‘Sir, am I fit to carry your fire?’ He didn’t bring the fire.”

(All laugh.)

SHASHADHAR: “The Primal Power alone is both the instrumental and the material cause of the universe. It is She who has created the universe and its living beings; further, She Herself has become all these. To give an example: the spider, as the instrumental cause, makes the web and, as the material cause, brings the web out of its own body.”

Brahman and Śakti

MASTER: “It is also stated that He who is Purusha is also Prakriti; He who is Brahman is also Śakti. He is called Purusha or Brahman when He is inactive, that is to say, when He ceases to create, preserve, or destroy; and He is called Śakti or Prakriti when He engages in those activities. But He who is Brahman is none other than Śakti; He who is Purusha has verily become Prakriti. Water is water whether it moves or is still. A snake is a snake whether it wriggles along or stays still and coiled up.

“What Brahman is cannot be described. Speech stops there. In the kirtan the singers at first sing: ‘My Nitai dances like a mata hati.’ As they become more and more ecstatic, they can hardly utter the whole sentence. They sing only: ‘Hati! Hati!’ As their mood deepens they sing only: ‘Ha! Ha!’ At last they cannot sing even that; they become completely unconscious.”

As the Master spoke these words, he himself became transfixed in samādhi. He was standing.

Regaining consciousness of the world, he said, “That which is beyond both kshara and akshara cannot be described.”

The devotees sat in silence.MASTER: “You cannot go into samādhi as long as your worldly experiences are not finished, or as long as you have duties to perform. (To Shashadhar) “God is now making you perform such duties as delivering lectures. You must do these things now. You will have peace when your duties are finished. After completing her household duties, the mistress of the family goes for her bath. She will not come back then even if you shout after her.”