Relation with His Wife

In 1872, Sāradā Devi first visited her husband at Dakshineśwar. Four years earlier she had seen him at Kāmārpukur and had tasted the bliss of his divine company.

Since then she had become even more gentle, tender, introspective, serious, and unselfish.

She had heard many rumours about her husband’s insanity. People had shown her pity in her misfortune. The more she thought, the more she felt that her duty was to be with him, giving him, in whatever measure she could, a wife’s devoted service. She was now eighteen years old.

Accompanied by her father, she arrived at Dakshineśwar, having come on foot the distance of eighty miles. She had had an attack of fever on the way. When she arrived at the temple garden the Master said sorrowfully: “Ah! You have come too late. My Mathur is no longer here to look after you.”

Mathur had passed away the previous year.

The Master took up the duty of instructing his young wife. This included everything from housekeeping to the Knowledge of Brahman. He taught her how to trim a lamp, how to behave toward people according to their differing temperaments, and how to conduct herself before visitors. He instructed her in the mysteries of spiritual life - prayer, meditation, japa, deep contemplation, and Samādhi.

The first lesson that Sāradā Devi received was: “God is everybody’s Beloved, just as the moon is dear to every child.

Everyone has the same right to pray to Him. Out of His grace He reveals Himself to all who call upon Him.

You too will see Him if you but pray to Him.”

Totāpuri, coming to know of the Master’s marriage, had once remarked: “What does it matter? He alone is firmly established in the Knowledge of Brahman who can adhere to his spirit of discrimination and renunciation even while living with his wife. He alone has attained the supreme illumination who can look on man and woman alike as Brahman. A man with the idea of sex may be a good aspirant, but he is still far from the goal.”

Sri Ramakrishna and his wife lived together at Dakshineśwar, but their minds always soared above the worldly plane. A few months after Sāradā Devi’s arrival Sri Ramakrishna arranged, on an auspicious day, a special worship of Kāli, the Divine Mother. Instead of 49an image of the Deity, he placed on the seat the living image, Sāradā Devi herself.

The worshipper and the worshipped went into deep Samādhi and in the transcendental plane their souls were united. After several hours Sri Ramakrishna came down again to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the Great Goddess, and surrendered, at the feet of the living image, himself, his rosary, and the fruit of his life-long sādhana. This is known in Tantra as the Shodasi Puja, the “Adoration of Woman”. Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad:

“O Lord, Thou art the woman, Thou art the man; Thou art the boy, Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches. Thou pervadest the universe in its multiple forms.”

By his marriage Sri Ramakrishna admitted the great value of marriage in man’s spiritual evolution, and by adhering to his monastic vows he demonstrated the imperative necessity of self-control, purity, and continence, in the realization of God.

By his unique spiritual relationship with his wife he proved that husband and wife can live together as spiritual companions. Thus his life is a synthesis of the ways of life of the householder and the monk.

The “Ego” of the Master

In the nirvikalpa Samādhi Sri Ramakrishna had realized that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. By keeping his mind six months on the plane of the non-dual Brahman, he had attained to the state of the Vijnani, the Knower of Truth in a special and very rich sense, who sees Brahman not only in himself and in the transcendental Absolute, but in everything of the world.

In this state of Vijnāna, sometimes, bereft of body-consciousness, he would regard himself as one with Brahman; sometimes, conscious of the dual world, he would regard himself as God’s devotee, servant, or child.

In order to enable the Master to work for the welfare of humanity, the Divine Mother had kept in him a trace of ego, which he described - according to his mood - as the “ego of Knowledge”, the “ego of Devotion”, the “ego of a child”, or the “ego of a servant”.

In any case this ego of the Master, consumed by the fire of the Knowledge of Brahman, was an appearance only, like a burnt string. He often referred to this ego as the “ripe ego” in contrast with the ego of the bound soul, which he described as the “unripe” or “green” ego.

The ego of the bound soul identifies itself with the body, relatives, possessions, and the world; but the “ripe ego”, illumined by Divine Knowledge, knows the body, relatives, possessions, and the world to be unreal and establishes a relationship of love with God alone.

Through this “ripe ego” Sri Ramakrishna dealt with the world and his wife. One day, while stroking his feet, Sāradā Devi asked the Master, “What do you think of me?” Quick came the answer: “The Mother who is worshipped in the temple is the mother who has given birth to my body and is now living in the Nahabat, and it is She again who is stroking my feet at this moment. Indeed, I always look on you as the personification of the Blissful Mother Kāli.”

Sāradā Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: “I have no words to describe my wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. Under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in Samādhi. This would continue throughout the night.

There was such an 50extraordinary divine presence in him that now and then I would shake with fear and wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered that I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go ninto Samādhi - for it might happen at any moment -, and so he asked me to sleep in the Nahabat.”

This is the end of Sri Ramakrishna’s sādhana, the period of his spiritual discipline.

Summary of the Master’s Spiritual Experiences

As a result of his supersensuous experiences he reached certain conclusions regarding himself and spirituality in general. His conclusions about himself may be summarised as follows:

First, he was an Incarnation of God, a specially commissioned person, whose spiritual experiences were for the benefit of humanity. Whereas it takes an ordinary man a whole life’s struggle to realize one or two phases of God, he had in a few years realized God in all His phases. Second, he knew that he had always been a free soul, that the various disciplines through which he had passed were really not necessary for his own liberation but were solely for the benefit of others. Thus the terms liberation and bondage were not applicable to him. As long as there are beings who consider themselves bound, God must come down to earth as an Incarnation to free them from bondage, just as a magistrate must visit any part of his district in which there is trouble. Third, he came to foresee the time of his death. His words with respect to this matter were literally fulfilled. About spirituality in general the following were his conclusions : First, he was firmly convinced that all religions are true, that every doctrinal system represents a path to God. He had followed all the main paths and all had led him to the same goal. He was the first religious prophet recorded in history to preach the harmony of religions. Second, the three great systems of thought known as Dualism, Qualified Non-dualism, and Absolute Non-dualism - Dvaita, Visishtādvaita, and Advaita - he perceived to represent three stages in man’s progress toward the Ultimate Reality. They were not contradictory but complementary and suited to different temperaments. For the ordinary man with strong attachment to the senses, a dualistic form of religion, prescribing a certain amount of material support, such as music and other symbols, is useful. A man of God-realization transcends the idea of worldly duties, but the ordinary mortal must perform his duties, striving to be unattached and to surrender the results to God. The mind can comprehend and describe the range of thought and experience up to the Viśiśtādvaita, and no further. The Advaita, the last word in spiritual experience, is something to be felt in Samādhi, for it transcends mind and speech. From the highest standpoint, the Absolute and Its manifestation are equally real - the Lord’s Name, His 51Abode, and the Lord Himself are of the same spiritual Essence. Everything is Spirit, the difference being only in form. Third, Sri Ramakrishna realized the wish of the Divine Mother that through him She should found a new Order, consisting of those who would uphold the universal doctrines illustrated in his life. Fourth, his spiritual insight told him that those who were having their last birth on the mortal plane of existence and those who had sincerely called on the Lord even once in their lives must come to him.

During this period Sri Ramakrishna suffered several bereavements. The first was the death of a nephew named, Akshay. After the young man’s death Sri Ramakrishna said:

“Akshay died before my very eyes. But it did not affect me in the least. I stood by and watched a man die. It was like a sword being drawn from its scabbard. I enjoyed the scene, and laughed and sang and danced over it. They removed the body and cremated it. But the next day as I stood there (pointing to the southeast verandah of his room), I felt a racking pain for the loss of Akshay, as if somebody were squeezing my heart like a wet towel. I wondered at it and thought that the Mother was teaching me a lesson. I was not much concerned even with my own body - much less with a relative. But if such was my pain at the loss of a nephew, how much more must be the grief of the householders at the loss of their near and dear ones!” In 1871 Mathur died, and some five years later Śambhu Mallick - who, after Mathur’s passing away, had taken care of the Master’s comfort.

In 1873 died his elder brother Rāmeśwar, and in 1876, his beloved mother.

These bereavements left their imprint on the tender human heart of Sri Ramakrishna albeit he had realized the immortality of the soul and the illusoriness of birth and death.