Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

Because the meandering river of Uncle’s sadhana has taken another strange turn of late. In his desire to perfect his worship in the divine mood of the lover ( madhura bhava ), Uncle has decided to focus all of his attention on his beloved Krishna. And the best way to love Krishna, Uncle says, is by imitating the behavior of his most ardent admirer, Radha. And so this is what Uncle does.

Uncle has lately transformed himself into a woman to offer his love to his most dearly beloved. And Mathur Baba is there to indulge Uncle in all of his desires in this regard. Having thrown away the shawl in complete disgust, Uncle has now permitted Mathur Baba to buy him the most glorious sari s and bodices and jewels and the most expensive handmade wig, and Uncle dresses up in them at every opportunity and behaves exactly as a woman would. This has caused great consternation at the temple, where people mutter that such behavior — such luxury —is inappropriate to a man who has renounced all connections to the material world. But Uncle and Mathur don’t care a jot. Everything about Uncle has now become feminine — his voice, his walk, his laugh, his interests, his conversation. I — Hridayram — am now serving a woman. This makes me feel very uncomfortable. I have lately taken a wife, and it is hard to explain all this to her. She is frightened of Uncle, and she is frustrated that I am spending so much time in his service, and in the service of his mother, too. When will I ever get around to serving her , she wonders?

Uncle now spends much of his average day in the company of women. Recently he moved into the women’s apartments in Mathur Baba’s Janbazar home and has become one of the family. The other women accept him completely as one of their own. At times even I have trouble recognizing Uncle as he moves among them.

Uncle still loves to make ornate flower arrangements and to decorate the Radha-Govinda image at the temple with them. He also prays to the Goddess that she will permit him to have Krishna as his “spiritual husband.” Perhaps the Goddess is jealous of losing her favorite child’s exclusive attention (in the way a Mother can sometimes be jealous of sharing her favorite son with a new daughter-in-law), because for some reason this part of Uncle’s sadhana is unbearably slow, and Uncle is becoming perfectly disconsolate. He is lovelorn. It is so strong, this loneliness of Uncle’s, that it has started to remind me of many years ago when Uncle first pined for the love of the Divine Mother. He is refusing his food. He cannot sleep. That burning sensation is back once more. He moans and wails and claws at his clothes. But he does so in a most beguiling and feminine manner. Uncle cries like a girl. He says that the bones in his body seem all disconnected with unrequited love. He finds it difficult to move. He is disjointed. He can hardly walk, only just totter around and then swoon.

I have a new wife at home and suddenly it feels as though I have a new wife here at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. But she is a bad wife. The worst wife. She is a mad wife. She is perfectly demented.

Oh, how am I possibly to make sense of Uncle’s sadhana ? How many different courses can this unpredictable river run? How many ways can one man hope to see God? Why is Uncle not simply contented with all of the great bounty he has earned so far? How can Uncle choose to put us through such torture just when it finally seems like things are starting to go so well for us all? I wish I could understand it! I just wish I could make some sense — however small — of the great and most perplexing mystery of Uncle!

“Why practice so hard? [ you may ask? ]

I must live an austere life

As an example!”

[ duh! ]

…

“If you undertake

A fraction of what I do

Then you will see God!”

“Keep focused on God.

And public opinion?

Ha! Just spit on it!”

A chapter of accidents:

(Oh, all right. Let’s just call it “a page or two of accidents.”)

1865 (approximately)

Sri Ramakrishna enters a sudden and unexpected state of ecstasy and inadvertently topples into a smoldering pan of charcoal. He has to be pulled out, still unconscious. His hand is badly burned and it takes several months to heal.

Sometime later …

In the middle of the night Sri Ramakrishna is suddenly possessed by the idea that he is Radha and goes to the Rani’s beautiful flower gardens to pick roses for her beloved Krishna. While so doing he unexpectedly enters samadhi (ecstasy). He is eventually found by a watchman, still unconscious, tangled up in the bushes, bruised, and covered in scratches.

Sometime later …

While walking to the Kali Temple, Sri Ramakrishna enters a sudden and unexpected state of ecstasy and collapses to the ground, his arm badly twisted under the deadweight of his torso. The arm is broken. The guru is very confused when he eventually regains consciousness. His wrist is carefully bandaged, but the saint persists in pulling the bandages off and wailing like a toddler. He can’t understand this injury. Why would the Goddess allow something so dreadful to happen to her faithful servant? He walks around, showing his broken wrist to anyone who will take an interest, and — much to his long-suffering devotee’s consternation — plaintively asks if they know how to cure it. He remains for what seems like an inordinately long duration in the mood of an utterly forlorn and betrayed infant.

Sometime later …

One morning everyone suddenly realizes that Sri Ramakrishna is missing in action. A search party is sent out, but the guru is not found. Ramakrishna’s wife, Sarada Devi, flies into a terrible panic. She is convinced that Sri Ramakrishna has entered an unexpected state of ecstasy while standing by one of the temple ghat s and has fallen into the Ganga and drowned.

People are growing increasingly convinced of this, and are, quite naturally, deeply traumatized, when the saint is finally discovered in the dense thicket beyond the panchavati , cheerfully meditating under a spiky bush, the bottom of his tender feet cut to ribbons by thorns.

And all too often …

Visits to the museum, the circus, the theater, the park, et cetera are destroyed when the excited Paramahamsa inadvertently enters a state of ecstasy and has to be carried — limp and insensible — back to his hired carriage and promptly driven home. Everything reminds the Paramahamsa of God. God sends the Paramahamsa into ecstasy.

Sometimes the guru feels the odd moment of pique that the Goddess is always so determined to cut short his measure of earthly enjoyment. It’s so irritating that he never makes it as far as the giraffe enclosure at the zoo because the lion always calls to his mind an image of the Goddess Durga (often depicted in Hindu art riding a lion as her steed), and then …

Ooops! There he goes! Quickly! Catch him, Hriday!

Aw. Just when everyone was starting to have themselves a little bit of fun, horrid old God felt the need to elbow his way in and spoil it all.

:(

Samadhi:

We call it a gift …

But when you think about it,

Isn’t it a curse?

1864. Several pages of lost and quite badly water-damaged jottings by an amateur anthropologist:

… of two Bengali Hindoos and their curious activities at the Dakshineswar “Kali” Temple during the course of several weeks in the summer of 1864. While my Hindi is excellent, I’m afraid that my Bengali is — at best — rudimentary, and both subjects are fluent in