Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

And the Mother is never wrong. Akshay died in his twenty-first year. He had been most kind to me after the recent passing of my wife, and now he, too, was gone. I wept many bitter tears for Akshay, but for as many tears as I wept, Uncle equaled my great quantity, and indeed he surpassed them, with many tears of his own — tears of laughing ecstasy.

I wonder if Uncle would laugh so heartily if his loyal Hridayram passed away? Who can tell? I try my hardest to push these dark thoughts from my mind — because who have I left now but Uncle? And it should be remembered that Uncle is a model of detachment. It was ever thus. Uncle cares only for God and nothing else. Perhaps I should try and follow Uncle’s good example and seek God instead of earthly pleasures? Perhaps Uncle has cleverly trodden the wisest and the safest path all along? Worldly attachments are fleeting and painful! Who better than Uncle to teach me — by his words and his example — how best I may protect myself?

Uncle sees God in everything: in the pretty smile of a young girl and in the wide grin of a rotting corpse. They are all the same to Uncle.

Although after poor Akshay died in the kuthi , Uncle wasted no time in moving out of his room there and into another on the edge of the main courtyard with two verandahs and a view of the Ganga. He insists that this new room of his is much better than his former one. It is a good room, there is no doubt. And perhaps it is only wishful thinking on my part, but I can’t help suspecting that the kuthi reminds Uncle of his beloved Akshay, and the thought of still being there without him pains him more than he cares to admit.

Ah. Perhaps Uncle’s enviable sense of detachment isn’t quite so perfect as he thinks it is after all?

In summary

Sri Ramakrishna, he say :

“If you feel longing (i) ,

And a sense of devotion (ii) ,

Then you will see God.”

He also say :

“The different faiths

Are nothing more than mere paths—

They are not the goal.”

1886, deep winter. The Cossipore garden house

Swami Ramakrishnananda, a leading monk of the Ramakrishna Order, is given the guru ’s name when the order is formed after the guru ’s death in tribute to how loyally he served him during his final year of life. On more than one occasion the future Swami has rushed outside in the middle of the night in the freezing cold wearing only a thin cloth to perform some necessary (and probably rather sordid and degrading) service for the terminally ill guru . Sri Ramakrishna is skeletally thin and weak. He can do nothing for himself.

When the future Swami returns to the room he finds that the emaciated guru has somehow climbed out of bed and crawled on his belly across the dusty floor, and is reaching up a wasted arm to grab something off a hook. The future Swami is naturally both horrified and incensed. “What on earth are you doing?” he demands, finding it impossible to disguise the exasperation in his voice. “It’s much too cold to be out of bed!”

The panting guru slowly turns, and, with an immense effort, holds out his own dressing gown (a thick shawl), which he has somehow managed to pull from the hook. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you being cold,” he croaks. “Please. Please . Take this.”

The future Swami tearfully receives the cloth, but later gives it away, feeling himself utterly unworthy of such an extraordinary gift.

“He brought me to the

banqueting house,

And his banner over me was

love.

Sustain me with cakes of

raisins,

Refresh me with apples,

For I am lovesick.…”

—Song of Solomon 2:4–5

“Secular topics

Will sometimes be introduced,” [ the guru shamefacedly confesses ]

“To make people smile.”

:)

Ten slightly irrelevant answers to nine slightly irrelevant questions you didn’t even know you’d asked about the Divine Mother, Sri Sarada Devi:

1. Sri Sarada Devi is not a terribly good cook. Because of his sensitive stomach, Sri Ramakrishna (for the vast majority of his adult life) can only ever eat very plain, bland foods (oh, and sweets; lovely, sticky, creamy sweets — plenty of those). Nothing too spicy, nothing too oily, in other words. The saint’s niece Lakshmi’s mother is an excellent cook and sometimes prepares dishes for him when he’s visiting Kamarpukur. Sri Ramakrishna is known to eat Lakshmi’s mother’s food and to announce delightedly, “Whoever cooked this is a specialist!”—but then, when he samples something Sarada Devi has prepared for him, to snort drolly and mutter, “And whoever cooked this? Hah! A quack!”

2. Sri Sarada Devi is painfully shy and modest. She will usually only ever converse with the guru ’s disciples by whispering her responses to a close female companion. She will rarely appear in public, and if she does, she is often veiled.

3. When Sri Ramakrishna loses his voice toward the end of his life he usually indicates that he is talking about his wife, Sarada, by dint of making a small, circular gesture close to his nose (a visual reference to her nose ring).

4. Sri Ramakrishna’s grueling twelve-year period of sadhana is generally accepted as having come to its conclusion (or at least to the end of its most difficult and challenging phase — the guru never really stops his spiritual journeying; in 1873, he will embrace Christianity) with the worship of Shodasi in 1872. A few months earlier, the Holy Mother (Sri Sarada Devi), then only eighteen years of age, arrives at Kamarpukur with her father and some women of her village on the pretext of attending a festival in Calcutta and bathing in the Ganga. In reality, though, her aim is to see her husband after a long four-year gap.

The Holy Mother’s life in her native village has not been easy over the past few years. She is known as “the madman’s wife” and is universally held as a figure of pity and ridicule. During the course of her lengthy journey to Calcutta, Sri Sarada Devi falls ill, and when she arrives at the Kali Temple a concerned Sri Ramakrishna sets up a bed (a separate bed) in his own room for her. But after a short interval Sri Ramakrishna (now officially a monk — although he never wears the ocher cloth) decides to challenge himself — as a part of his sadhana —by sharing his own bed with his young and attractive wife without submitting to lust or to temptation (during the course of their twenty-seven-year-long marriage their relationship remains happy and unconsummated).

In June 1872, during a special festival at the Kali Temple, Sri Ramakrishna makes all of the necessary preparations in his room for an important “mystery” worship. This worship (it soon transpires) is the worship of Shodasi , an aspect of the Goddess Durga, the Queen of Queens, a sixteen-year-old girl who represents the sixteen different types of desire. The teenage Sarada is led into Ramakrishna’s room and is placed on a chair and worshipped there (sixteen objects are offered, water is liberally splashed, mantra s are chanted) in a lengthy and ornate ritual. After several hours the worshipper and the worshipped become completely identified with the Devi in a mutual state of samadhi , and from this time forth Sri Ramakrishna believes — or professes — Sri Sarada Devi to be a living incarnation of the Goddess.

5. Sri Sarada Devi’s needs are few. For the vast portion of her married life she dwells (separate from her husband) in a tiny storeroom at the base of the nahabat , a tower built by the Rani for musical performances. Because of her immense modesty she surrounds the base of the tower in grass screens. Whenever anything interesting is happening in Sri Ramakrishna’s room (which lies a stone’s throw away) he flings open his door so that she might hear, and she secretly observes unfolding events through a small spy hole which she has painstakingly cut into the straw matting.