Kāli and Māyā

Sri Ramakrishna, like his guru Totapuri, knew that the world is illusory. But instead of slighting Māyā, like an orthodox monist, he acknowledged its power in the relative life.

He was all love and reverence for Māyā, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him Māyā itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman.

What he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also found here below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms.

This garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence.

Māyā, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kāli, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial Divine Energy, Śakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it.

She spins it as the spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedānta, and with the Ātman of Yoga.

As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa Samādhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the relative plane.

Thus, after Nirvikalpa Samādhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized Māyā in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kāli vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother.

Māyā became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that Māyā operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these “Avidyā–Māyā” and “Vidyā–Māyā”.

Avidyā–Māyā represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man’s birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But Vidyā–Māyā is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyā–Māyā elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of Vidyā– Māyā the devotee rids himself of Avidyā–Māyā; he then becomes Māyātita , free of Māyā. The two aspects of Māyā are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kāli; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.

The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain in Bhāva–mukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the “sixth centre” of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line.

Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.

Totāpuri’s Lesson

From Sri Ramakrishna Totāpuri had to learn the significance of Kāli, the Great Fact of the relative world, and of Māyā, Her indescribable Power.

One day, while they were lively discussing Vedānta, a temple garden servant came and took a coal from the sacred fire that had been lit by Totapuri. He wanted it to light his tobacco.

Totāpuri flew into a rage and was about to beat the man. Sri Ramakrishna rocked with laughter.

Totāpuri was embarrassed. About this time Totāpuri was suddenly laid up with a severe attack of dysentery and found it impossible to meditate.

One night the pain became excruciating. He could no longer concentrate on Brahman. The body stood in the way. He became incensed with its demands.

A free soul, he did not at all care for the body. So he determined to drown it in the Ganges. Thereupon he walked into the river.

But, lo! He walks to the other bank. Is there not enough water in the Ganges? Standing dumbfounded on the other bank he looks back across the water. The trees, the temples, the houses, are silhouetted against the sky. Suddenly, in one dazzling moment, he sees on all sides the presence of the Divine Mother. She is in everything; She is everything.

She is in the water; She is on land. She is the body; She is the mind. She is pain; She is comfort. She is knowledge; She is ignorance. She is life; She is death. She is everything that one sees, hears, or imagines. She turns “yea” into “nay”, and “nay” into “yea”.

Without Her grace no embodied being can go beyond Her realm. Man has no free will. He is not even free to die. Yet, again, beyond the body and mind She resides in Her Transcendental Absolute aspect. She is the Brahman that Totāpuri had been worshipping all his life.

Totāpuri returned to Dakshineśwar and spent the remaining hours of the night meditating on the Divine Mother. In the morning he went to the Kāli temple with Sri Ramakrishna and prostrated himself before the image of the Mother. He now realized why he had spent 11 months at Dakshineśwar. Bidding farewell to the disciple, he continued on his way, enlightened.

Sri Ramakrishna later described the significance of Totāpuri’s lessons: “When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive - neither creating nor preserving nor destroying -, I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active - creating, preserving, and destroying -, I call Him Śakti or Māyā or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one.”

After Totāpuri left, Sri Ramakrishna remained for 6 months in a state of absolute identity with Brahman.

His body would not have survived but for the kindly attention of a monk who happened to be at Dakshineśwar at that time and who somehow realized that for the good of humanity Sri Ramakrishna’s body must be preserved.

He tried various means, even physical violence, to bring back Sri Ramakrishna’s soul to his body. This would result in fleeting moments of consciousness when he would push a few morsels of food down Sri Ramakrishna’s throat. Presently Sri Ramakrishna received the command of the Divine Mother to remain on the threshold of relative consciousness.

Soon thereafter he was afflicted with a serious attack of dysentery. Day and night the pain tortured him, and his mind gradually came down to the physical plane.

Company of Holy Men and Devotees

From now on Sri Ramakrishna began to seek the company of devotees and holy men. He had gone through the storm and stress of spiritual disciplines and visions. Now he realized an inner calmness and appeared to others as a normal person. But he could not bear the company of worldly people or listen to their talk.

Fortunately, the holy atmosphere of Dakshineśwar and the liberality of Mathur attracted monks and holy men from all over India.

Sādhus of all denominations - monists and dualists, Vaishnavas and Vedāntists, Śāktās and worshippers of Rāmā - flocked there in ever increasing numbers.

Ascetics and visionaries came to seek Sri Ramakrishna’s advice.

Vaishnavas had come during the period of his Vaishnava sādhana, and Tāntriks when he practised the disciplines of Tantra.

Vedāntists began to arrive after Totāpuri left. In room of Sri Ramakrishna, who was then in bed with dysentery, the Vedāntists engaged in scriptural discussions, and, forgetting his own physical suffering, he solved their doubts by referring directly to his own experiences.

Many of the visitors were genuine spiritual souls, the unseen pillars of Hinduism, and their spiritual lives were quickened in no small measure by the sage of Dakshineśwar. Sri Ramakrishna in turn learnt from them anecdotes concerning the ways and the conduct of holy men, which he subsequently narrated to his devotees and disciples. At his request Mathur provided him with large stores of foodstuffs, clothes, and so forth, for distribution among the wandering monks.

Sri Ramakrishna had not read books, yet he possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of religions and religious philosophies. This he acquired from his contacts with innumerable holy men and scholars. He had a unique power of assimilation; through meditation he made this knowledge a part of his being. Once, when he was asked by a disciple about the source of his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge, he replied:

“I have not read; but I have heard the learned. I have made a garland of their knowledge, wearing it round my neck, and I have given it as an offering at the feet of the Mother.”

Sri Ramakrishna used to say that when the flower blooms the bees come to it for honey of their own accord. Now many souls began to visit Dakshineśwar to satisfy their spiritual hunger. He, the devotee and aspirant, became the Master. Gauri, the great scholar who had been one of the first to proclaim Sri Ramakrishna an Incarnation of God, paid the Master a visit in 1870 and with the Master’s blessings renounced the world.

Nārāyan Śāstri, another great pundit, who had mastered the six systems of Hindu philosophy and had been offered a lucrative post by the Maharaja of Jaipur, met the Master and recognized in him one who had realized in life those ideals which he himself had encountered merely in books. Sri Ramakrishna initiated Nārāyan Śastri, at his earnest request, into the life of sannyās. Pundit Padmalochan, the court pundit of the Maharaja of Burdwan, well known for his scholarship in both the Vedānta and the Nyāya systems of philosophy, accepted the Master as an Incarnation of God.

Krishnakishore, a Vedantist scholar, became devoted to the Master. And there arrived Viśwanāth Upādhyāya, who was to become a favourite devotee; Sri Ramakrishna always addressed him as “Captain”. He was a high officer of the King of Nepal and had received the title of Colonel in recognition of his merit. A scholar of the Gita, the Bhāgavata, and the Vedānta philosophy, he daily performed the worship of his Chosen Deity with great devotion. “I have read the Vedas and the other scriptures”, he said.

“I have also met a good many monks and devotees in different places. But it is in Sri Ramakrishna’s presence that my spiritual yearnings have been fulfilled. To me he seems to be the embodiment of the truths of the scriptures.”

The Knowledge of Brahman in nirvikalpa Samādhi had convinced Sri Ramakrishna that the gods of the different religions are but so many readings of the Absolute, and that the Ultimate Reality could never be expressed by human tongue. He understood that all religions lead their devotees by differing paths to one and the same goal. Now he became eager to explore some of the alien religions; for with him understanding meant actual experience.