Superphysics
Different Classes Of Devotees And The Great Visions
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Different classes of devotees and The great visions
(To M.) “When God assumes a human body for the sake of His devotees, many of His devotees accompany Him to this earth. Some of them belong to the inner circle, some to the outer circle, and some become the suppliers of His physical needs.
“I experienced one of my first ecstasies when I was 10 years old, as I was going through a meadow to the shrine of Viśālākśi. What a vision! I became completely unconscious of the outer world.
“I was 22 when the Divine Mother one day asked me in the Kāli temple, ‘Do you want to be Akshara?’ I didn’t know what the word meant. I asked Haladhāri about it. He said, ‘Kshara means jiva, living being; Akshara means Paramatman, the Supreme Soul.’
“At the hour of the evening worship in the Kāli temple I would climb to the roof of the kuthi and cry out: ‘O devotees, where are you all? Come to me soon! I shall die of the company of worldly people!’ I told all this to the ‘Englishmen’. They said it was all an illusion of my mind. ‘Perhaps it is’, I said to myself, and became calm. But now it is all coming true; the devotees are coming.
Five suppliers of the Master’s needs
“The Divine Mother also showed me in a vision the five suppliers of my needs; first, Mathur Babu, and second, Sambhu Mallick, whom I had not then met. I had a vision of a fair-skinned man with a cap on his head. Many days later, when I first met Sambhu, I recalled that vision; 1 realized that it was he whom I had seen in that ecstatic state. I haven’t yet found out the three other suppliers of my wants.
But they were all of a fair complexion. Surendra looks like one of them.
“When I attained this” state of God-Consciousness, a person exactly resembling myself thoroughly shook my Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna nerves. He licked with his tongue each of the lotuses of the six centres, and those drooping lotuses at once turned their faces upward. And at last the Sahasrara lotus became full-blown.
Master’s foreseeing of the coming of devotees
“The Divine Mother used to reveal to me the nature of the devotees before their coming.
I saw with these two eyes-not in a trance-the kirtan party of Chaitanya going from the banyan-tree to the bakul-tree in the Panchavati. I saw Balarām in the procession andalso, I think, yourself [meaning M.]. Chuni’s spiritual consciousness and yours, too, have been awakened by frequent visits to me. In a vision I saw that Śaśi and Sarat had been among the followers of Christ.
“Under the banyan-tree in the Panchavati I had a vision of a child. Hriday said to me,
‘Then a son will soon be born to you.’ I said to him:
‘But I regard all women as mother. How can I have a son?’ That child is Rākhāl .
“I said to the Divine Mother, ‘O Mother, since You have placed me in this condition, provide me with a rich man. That is why Mathur served me for fourteen years. And in how many different ways! At my request he arranged a special store-room for the sādhus. He provided me with carriage and palanquin. And whatever I asked him to give to anyone, he gave. The Brahmani identified him with Prataprudra.
“Vijay had a vision of this form [meaning himself]. How do you account for it? Vijay said to me, ‘I touched it exactly as I am touching you now.’ “Lātu counted thirty-one devotees in all. That’s not many. But a few more are becoming devotees through Vijay and Kedār. “It was revealed to me in a vision that during my last days I should have to live on pudding. During my present illness my wife was one day feeding me with pudding. I burst into tears and said, ‘Is this my living on pudding near the end, and so painfully?’ " Monday, January 4 1886 It was the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight of the moon. At four o’clock in the afternoon Sri Ramakrishna was sitting in his room. He told M. that Ram Chatterji had come from the Kāli temple at Dakshineswar to inquire about his health. He asked M. whether it was now very cold at the temple garden.
Master and Narendra
Narendra arrived. Now and then the Master looked at him and smiled. It appeared to M. that that day the Master’s love for his beloved disciple was boundless. He indicated to M. by a sign that Narendra had wept. Then he remained quiet. Again he indicated that Narendra had cried all the way from home. No one spoke. Narendra broke the silence.
NARENDRA: “I have been thinking of going there today.” MASTER: “Where?” NARENDRA: “To Dakshineswar. I intend to light a fire under the bel-tree and meditate.“MASTER: “No, the authorities of the powder-magazine will not allow it. The Panchavati is a nice place. Many sādhus have practised japa and meditation there. But it is very cold there. The place is dark, too.”
Again for a few moments all sat in silence.
MASTER (to Narendra, smiling): “Won’t you continue your studies?” NARENDRA (looking at the Master and M.): “I shall feel greatly relieved if I find a medicine that will make me forget all I have studied.” The elder Gopal, who was also in the room, said, “I shall accompany Narendra.” Kalipada Ghosh had brought a box of grapes for Sri Ramakrishna; it lay beside the Master. The Master gave Narendra a few and poured the rest on the floor for the devotees to pick up.
Narendra’s yearning for God
It was evening. Narendra was sitting in a room downstairs. He was smoking and describing to M. the yearning of his soul. No one else was with them. NARENDRA: “I was meditating here last Saturday when suddenly I felt a peculiar sensation in my heart.”
M: “It was the awakening of the Kundalini.”
NARENDRA: “Probably it was. I clearly perceived the Ida and the Pingala nerves. I asked Hazra to feel my chest. Yesterday I saw him [meaning the Master] upstairs and told him about it. I said to him: ‘All the others have had their realization; please give me some.
All have succeeded; shall I alone remain unsatisfied?’ "
M: “What did he say to you?”
NARENDRA: “He said: ‘Why don’t you settle your family affairs first and then come to me? You will get everything. What do you want?’ I replied, ‘It is my desire to remain absorbed in samādhi continually for three or four days, only once in a while coming down to the sense plane to eat a little food.’
Thereupon he said to me: ‘You are a very small-minded person. There is a state higher even than that. “All that exists art Thou” -it is you who sing that song.’”
M: “Yes, he always says that after coming down from samādhi one sees that it is God Himself who has become the universe, the living beings, and all that exists. The Isvarakotis alone can attain that state. An ordinary man can at the most attain samādhi; but he cannot come down from that state.”
NARENDRA: “He [the Master] said: ‘Settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will attain a state higher than samādhi.’ I went home this morning. My people scoldedme, saying: ‘Why do you wander about like a vagabond? Your law examination is near at hand and you are not paying any attention to your studies. You wander about aimlessly.’”
M: “Did your mother say anything?”
NARENDRA: “No. She was very eager to feed me. She gave me venison. I ate a little, though I didn’t feel like eating meat.”
M: “And then?”
NARENDRA: “I went to my study at my grandmother’s. As I tried to read I was seized with a great fear, as if studying were a terrible thing. My heart struggled within me. I burst into tears: I never wept so bitterly in my life. I left my books and ran away. I ran along the streets. My shoes slipped from my feet-I didn’t know where. I ran past a haystack and got hay all over me. I kept on running along the road to Cossipore.”
Narendra remained silent a few minutes and then resumed.
NARENDRA: “Since reading the Viveka Chudāmani I have felt very much depressed. In it Sankaracharya says that only through great tapasya and good fortune does one acquire these three things: a human birth, the desire for liberation, and refuge with a great soul. I said to myself: ‘I have surely gained all these three. As a result of great tapasya I have been born a human being; through great liberation; and through great tapasya , again, I have the desire for tapasya I have secured the companionship of such a great soul.’ "
His intense dispassion
NARENDRA: “I have no more taste for the world. I do not relish the company of those who live in the world-of course, with the exception of one or two devotees.” Narendra became silent again. A fire of intense renunciation was burning within him. His soul was restless for the vision of God. He resumed the conversation.
NARENDRA (to M.): “You have found peace, but my soul is restless. You are blessed indeed.”
M. did not reply, but sat in silence. He said to himself, “Sri Ramakrishna said that one must pant and pine for God; only then may one have the vision of Him.” Immediately after dusk M. went upstairs. He found Sri Ramakrishna asleep.
It was about nine o’clock in the evening. Niranjan and Śaśi were sitting near the Master.
He was awake. Every now and then he talked of Narendra.MASTER: “How wonderful Narendra’s state of mind is! You see, this very Narendra did not believe in the forms of God. And now you see how his soul is panting for God!
You know that story of the man who asked his guru how God could be realized. The guru said to him: ‘Come with me. I shall show you how one can realize God.’ Saying this, he took the disciple to a lake and held his head under the water. After a short time he released the disciple and asked him, ‘How did you feel?’ ‘I was dying for a breath of air!’ said the disciple.
“When the soul longs and yearns for God like that, then you will know that you do not have long to wait for His vision. The rosy colour on the eastern horizon shows that the sun will soon rise.”
This day Sri Ramakrishna’s illness was worse. In spite of much suffering he said many things about Narendra-though mostly by means of signs. At night Narendra left for Dakshineswar. It was very dark, being the night of the new moon. He was accompanied by one or two devotees. M. spent the night at the Cossipore garden. He dreamt that he was seated in an assembly of sannyāsis.
