Avatara - Story of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Sarvapriyananda
Avatara - Story of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Sarvapriyananda
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Sri
Ramakrishna
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Oh opening avatar over Ishtar Ramakrishna yachty Namaha Jana neem saranam daivam Ramakrishnan jagad guru Bandhu but meter you should talk Rinna mommy mo na ma Cherie Yeti Raja yoga V Cohn and the surah such Itsuka so Rupa Goswami neat Abedini call Indy for LA Kamali Madhav Enoch read errata Brahm Han and animist opium Satguru Luca no yoga you went and dream on and us Johnny we each of our shadow
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Sri
Ramakrishna
Sri Ramakrishna or the holy mother are others such religious festivities in our order according to the traditional Indian calendar which is a lunar calendar so sometimes the not sometimes almost always the dates do not coincide with the English calendar but this year it's an interesting coincidence that yesterday was the birthday of
Sri Ramakrishna according to the Indian calendar and today is actually the birthday of Sudama Krishna according to the English calendar 18th February so it's just about the same and per self perfect today we shall talk about and meditate upon what Christopher Isherwood called the story of a phenomenon
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Sri
Ramakrishna
Sri Ramakrishna's life avatar, not the movie we will pick up the story in Dakshina sure the Kali temple which is on the outskirts of Calcutta to the northern part of Calcutta and Sri Ramakrishna who was born in a remote village Kamar poker not so remote these days he had come to Dakshina sure to Calcutta along with his elder brother Ram Kumar having lost their father at a very very young age it was Ram Kumar who the elder brother who had to take care of the family and he struggled to make ends meet in order to earn some money he had come to Calcutta started a Sanskrit school at all Sanskrit school in Jama poker in Calcutta and he had got
Ramakrishna his younger brother to help him he found that Ramakrishna was not particularly interested in his studies in a school in the little a village so he thought that maybe if Rama Krishna would come with him to Calcutta then Ram Kumar the elder brother he thought he could guide him in his studies and help him to make something of his life by the way even the name
Ramakrishna is a bit shrouded in mystery because we really do not know who gave him that name one theory goes that because his family was devoted to Rama his elder brothers were after all, called Ram Kumar and Ramesh were so probably it's quite possible that his father gave him the name Ram Krishna so Ram Kumar Rameshwar
Ramakrishna has a certain plausibility to it but unfortunately, we don't see that name being used at all in his childhood days nobody ever called him
Ramakrishna his name was God odd hurt chucked off at a god other another theory is that when he became a monk he was initiated into the monastic order by his guru by his Vedanta guru Totapuri so the tradition is to give a new name after get being initiated into the vows of monasticism possibly Totapuri would have named him
Ramakrishna puri maybe that's why we more of that later why that's why we are all in that same tradition so we are all monks of the puri lineage that's also a possibility but there's no way of confirming that anyhow we shall continue to call him
Ramakrishna he comes to duction issuer with his elder the brother who is now the priest of Kali the temple had been established in the 1840s by Ronnie Roschmani rani literally means a queen in Indian languages she was not quite a queen but very very regal in her competence in managing her family's estates we were very rich very powerful very devoted Ronnie Raj money and her son-in-law motor not be shot so multiple Babu was the son-in-law of Ronnie rush money and she depended a great deal on matter Babu to manage the estates and so he was also a very competent person a powerful person strong-willed man of great strong character both of them was immediately fascinated by the young at that time
Ramakrishna was in his late teens, he was born in 1836 so when he came in the early 1850s to Calcutta he was in his late teens so they are fascinated by this young priest Ram Kumar was the priest of Kali for a time being and
Ramakrishna was asked to assist him Ramakrishna immediately said that he was deeply interested in spiritual life he would have loved to assist in the temple but his problem was which was a lifelong the problem he would have nothing to do with you know jewelry money wealth and the image of Kali those of you have seen it induction issue it's so small about three feet high and but very beautiful image and decked with gold ornaments
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Sri
Ramakrishna
So Ramakrishna didn't want any part of that by this time his nephew reader Rama who was to play such a big role in his life in subsequent life he had come from there village and he also got employment in the duction age for kali temple rather ram was an interesting character he was nephew but he was only about four years younger than Ramakrishna he loved
Ramakrishna and it was a kind of a very possessive kind of love but he served Ramakrishna he's I'll take care of the jewels don't worry he had no qualms about such things so that's how
Sri Ramakrishna got introduced to mother Kali who became his lifelong object of adoration and worship ram Kumar died I think it was around 1856 probably and he had played a very central role in
Ramakrishna's life because having lost his father at a young age it was he looked up to Rama Kumari so losing Ram Kumar was again like losing his father all over again and he sought refuge straightaway in mother Kali so he became the priest of Kali and he would spend all his waking hours as long as the temple was open the temple opens and closes at particular hours so as long as the temple was open he would stay in the temple he would perform his worship devotedly for long hours and even outside the worship hours he would sit in the temple he would meditate he would pray he would sit there looking longingly at mother Kali his attitude was that is it only an image isn't it real he's God as God actually exists and can I see God and he would pray and cry to them to the mother that you have shown yourself to great devotees like Ram Prasad and others won't you show yourself to me you see at this point one might wonder why does someone like
Sri Ramakrishna whom we worship as an avatar an incarnation of God why does three Ramakrishna have to perform sadhana spiritual practice and try to see God if he is himself an incarnation of God the whole purpose of an incarnation is to show us the way to God is to confirm for us for Humanity once again in our period in history that religion is true that spirituality is a fact and that God can be realized God can be experienced and this realization of God experience of God is the purpose of human life and to do that
Sri Ramakrishna had to go through all of this was it play-acting the opinion is divided on this there is the traditional Hindu view is an incarnation of God is always aware of his or her divine nature but there's another view Swami solid Ananda the biographer of Shri Ramakrishna who wrote Sri Ramakrishna the great master he says one should not discount the human side of an Avatara it's not play-acting when God comes in a human form God also takes on human attributes so that the urge to experience God the struggle the despair the joys and the ecstasy's all of which we would experience ourselves those also the Incarnation experiences in full measure otherwise if it is just play-acting it would not be convincing for us
Sri Ramakrishna himself would tell this story about three friends you know who was going on a journey and there was a high wall and they didn't know what was on the other side of the wall and with great difficulty one of them climbed on top of the wall and looked on the other side and burst out in laughter and in joy and jumped on the other side the other two were mystified what happened the second one climbed up and saw something in his face beamed and delight and cried out in joy and jumped over on the other side the third one thought what's going on what's there on the other side what's so wonderful and he climbed over and he saw this march of joy festivities wonderful going on on the other side and he too was about to join there you know to jump over the other side but then he thought what about all the poor people in our village those who are suffering the drab lives full of struggle and strife who will give them the good news so instead of jumping on the other side he turned around and he went back to call people and show them the way that's the Katara that's the world teacher so sue
Ramakrishna had to go through that he would disappear in they were forests on the near the temple garden they were forests and him would go in there to meditate even the temple was closed at night he would spend his nights in prayer and meditation and read I who would serve his uncle with great devotion he was curious he was very possessive so he was curious where is this guy going and so he would follow him and he was surprised who goes into the jungle at this hour in the night to scare
Ramakrishna sometimes from the lurking in the forest he would throw stones to scare Ramakrishna had to no effect one day to his I mean who scandalized to discover that Ramakrishna was sitting in under a tree and meditating he had thrown away his the cloth he was sitting stark naked and meditating even the sacred the thread which a Brahmin wears which is never supposed to discard
Sri Ramakrishna has thrown that aside also which is very scandalous for a conservative Brahmin in those days and reader scold it is uncle what are you doing you will lose status in society why do you throw all this aside and Salama Krishna
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Sri
Ramakrishna
said
this is the only way to meditate you have to cast aside all bondages
of the world the three bondages he would mention in Bengali he had a
way of rhyming and puns which are sometimes very difficult to
translate it was very effective in Bengali actually Lok Jagran avoid
pin-tucked annoy so shame hatred and fear these three prevent you
from realizing God in religion in religious life so these are the
three things you must give up in religious life shame are being a
fear of being embarrassed what are my friends going to say it's you are you're not cool anymore you become a religious nutso
that shame or that fear of being embarrassed in society not
being cool anymore that's very much there even now it's always been
there you see most people would like to be religious but only to
that to the extent that it is fashionable to be so so in modern
society for example in the modern West not so much in the United
States but maybe in Western Europe it's not at all fashionable to be
religious so the words to be fashionable you have to show that you
are not religious in any kind of way maybe a little new agency would be
all right but that's all so it's always being that way just as an
aside we all know the famous biography of
Sri Ramakrishna which Christopher Isherwood wrote inspired by swami prabhavananda his his guru, so it's classic many people, have been introduced in the English-speaking world to Rama Rama Krishna and these days especially through Isha woods work but many people do not know that the sacrifice that he undertook to write that because I have read the reviews are written here in New York I think New York Times Review of Books aside I don't know which one in the top newspapers reviews and the tone of the reviews was disapproving that it's a good book but why does such a promising author a part of the fashionable set you know why does he have to become involved in some obscure Eastern cult and things like that you know it's like the people are disappointed in him he could have done better than that's their feeling so it sure would have to go through that you know he knew that this is what's going to come in his career if he does that so shame modesty is all kind of a fear of being humiliated
Ramakrishna said you have to give up all that if you really want to be absorbed in God Sri Ramakrishna would always do it practically whatever he understood theoretically philosophically would actually translate it into practice, we know the famous story of him throwing coins and dirt into the river again in Bengali it rhymes taka Marty Marty taka which means taka means these are our money and mati means earth, not our clay and he says they are equally worthless and that the idea and so to to to imbibe that he would throw you take handfuls of both and throw them into the river somebody wrote that this is too much it's good to understand and good to be detached not to be possessive about money but why do you actually have to throw away money into the river and someone recently humorously said oh you didn't understand
Ramakrishna he actually knew that one-day earth land would be more more valuable than money so he was pointing it out to us that he should invest in land and nothing anyway so he would literally do that to overcome the pride of caste which does not make too much the sense in modern Manhattan today but which was very very powerful in say the 19th century India he actually went to a sweepers house in in the washroom in the bathroom of the Super's house he cleaned the latrine with his matted hair in order to overcome any kind of feeling of superiority or disgust so he would literally do it what he understood that all is same that we are all equal that we are all manifestations of one reality he would actually take it down to physical practice we know how the story been an incredible story of how he literally stormed gods heaven I want to see God I want to see my divine mother he would cry and weep and at sunset, on the banks of the Ganges this was a common sight in those days to see the new young priests weeping bitterly, mother, another day has gone the Sun is setting on another day and I still have not seen you and people and in the temple garden would think that this poor boy has come from the village maybe he's missing his mother his elder brother died and maybe he's missing his the mother that's why the poor kid is crying but he was crying for the mother of the universe he would pray he would meditate long hours whole nights in meditation he said that one day the pain was so much in his heart he gives an example in India people use thin towel it's called gamma thin towels for wiping their bodies after a bath and then they wring it out during the water out so he says as people ring at wet towel to wring out the water I felt somebody was wringing my heart so much pain in my heart because I could not see God I could not see the Divine Mother and it was unbearable he was in the temple at that time and he went and caught hold of the sword of mother Kali which was there he said I was planning to cut off my head and there's no way I would go on living with this pain and then he had the first great vision and the first vision as he saw suddenly waves of light of luminosity all around rushing towards him and then they all crashed upon him he that was his description afterward and he lost outward consciousness now this samadhi completely becoming oblivious to the world outside many years later dr. Mahindra nursery car would actually medically examine him he would go into this samadhi almost number of times every day something that a religious practitioner a yogi would try to attain lifelong would be happy to attain once in their life
Ramakrishna would experience that daily a number of times so one-day dr. Minard Sarkar many many years later towards the end of his life actually examined him and found there was no pulse that there was no heartbeat the breath had stopped like a dead body and yet he was beaming with joy and so it's not a condition of unconsciousness it's not a condition of falling asleep or being comatose but it's a condition of just the opposite of intense absorption it's like when you are tremendously concentrated you're not aware of your surroundings imagine taking that many more steps deeper so you become completely absorbed in God in spiritual awareness and even lose consciousness of your body and it has physiological effects on the body also the body as it where stops often the description is of
Sri Ramakrishna in Samadhi is like a picture like standing there like a picture it was an intense awareness one sign of that is sometimes in Keaton in ecstatic singing and playing of music
Sri Ramakrishna would go into Samadhi and he would seem to be oblivious of the world but if someone missed a beat or if someone sang off tune he would come back to awareness with with a shudder which means it was a deep absorption a complete awareness not unawareness it's like a highly trained musician who's performing and if there is a slight thing it's not relevant by it I remember this is a person who went to learn best in classical music and him writes about his teacher that when we first went the teacher played something of Mozart I think himself and then he played a recording of a great master playing the same piece and he asked us do you see the difference do you hear the difference most of us said no it sounds good you played it well and the recording is also wonderful and then though this teacher he says he told us if you cannot tell the difference then you go and there are other honorable professions but this classical music is not for you so exactly like that intensely tuned awareness after this
Sri Ramakrishna spent both became even more involved like a madman Muhtar Babu the son-in-law he told his mother-in-law Durrani rush money that we have a wonderful priest very soon the divine mother is going to be awakened in Bengali jagrata and will be awakened here in this temple but to most others heed this new the young priest seemed to be crazy they thought he was mad he would sit therein meditation in the worship which might take 40 minutes or one hour it would take two hours or three hours or four hours he would sit put the flower on his head and sit and go into Samadhi the food which was to be offered ritualistically you sprinkle water on it a turd uttered the mantras he would do all that but sometimes he would take the food and take it to the image as if he's going to feed the image with his own hands it's a mother eat sometimes she would say mother oh you will not eat until I eat so he would take some of the food which was to be offered to the deity which is sacrilegious to the horror of the other people who were who were watching the worship once there was a cat which entered the temple and he looked at the cat and said mother you have come in this form today would you like to eat something and he offered the food which was meant for the deity to the cat he later said I saw the divine mother in the form of the cat I saw a book on cats in one of our libraries many years ago or 20 years ago and the book was dedicated to
Ramakrishna I guess that's why it was in our library this lady a Western lady she had written the book and so the dedication mentioned how
Sri Ramakrishna saw the divine mother in a cat but afterward the rest of the book is just about cats not about Ramakrishna or the diamond method but so this is how it went he would sing and dance he would hold the hands of the deity and dance he would laugh with the Divine Mother he would check her under a chin like this and he would talk to her to the amazement and also be will development of people around him read I who served him he said in those days I would be bewildered by my uncle I never go into the temple and the worship
Sri Ramakrishna which Christopher Isherwood wrote inspired by swami prabhavananda his his guru, so it's classic many people, have been introduced in the English-speaking world to Rama Rama Krishna and these days especially through Isha woods work but many people do not know that the sacrifice that he undertook to write that because I have read the reviews are written here in New York I think New York Times Review of Books aside I don't know which one in the top newspapers reviews and the tone of the reviews was disapproving that it's a good book but why does such a promising author a part of the fashionable set you know why does he have to become involved in some obscure Eastern cult and things like that you know it's like the people are disappointed in him he could have done better than that's their feeling so it sure would have to go through that you know he knew that this is what's going to come in his career if he does that so shame modesty is all kind of a fear of being humiliated
Ramakrishna said you have to give up all that if you really want to be absorbed in God Sri Ramakrishna would always do it practically whatever he understood theoretically philosophically would actually translate it into practice, we know the famous story of him throwing coins and dirt into the river again in Bengali it rhymes taka Marty Marty taka which means taka means these are our money and mati means earth, not our clay and he says they are equally worthless and that the idea and so to to to imbibe that he would throw you take handfuls of both and throw them into the river somebody wrote that this is too much it's good to understand and good to be detached not to be possessive about money but why do you actually have to throw away money into the river and someone recently humorously said oh you didn't understand
Ramakrishna he actually knew that one-day earth land would be more more valuable than money so he was pointing it out to us that he should invest in land and nothing anyway so he would literally do that to overcome the pride of caste which does not make too much the sense in modern Manhattan today but which was very very powerful in say the 19th century India he actually went to a sweepers house in in the washroom in the bathroom of the Super's house he cleaned the latrine with his matted hair in order to overcome any kind of feeling of superiority or disgust so he would literally do it what he understood that all is same that we are all equal that we are all manifestations of one reality he would actually take it down to physical practice we know how the story been an incredible story of how he literally stormed gods heaven I want to see God I want to see my divine mother he would cry and weep and at sunset, on the banks of the Ganges this was a common sight in those days to see the new young priests weeping bitterly, mother, another day has gone the Sun is setting on another day and I still have not seen you and people and in the temple garden would think that this poor boy has come from the village maybe he's missing his mother his elder brother died and maybe he's missing his the mother that's why the poor kid is crying but he was crying for the mother of the universe he would pray he would meditate long hours whole nights in meditation he said that one day the pain was so much in his heart he gives an example in India people use thin towel it's called gamma thin towels for wiping their bodies after a bath and then they wring it out during the water out so he says as people ring at wet towel to wring out the water I felt somebody was wringing my heart so much pain in my heart because I could not see God I could not see the Divine Mother and it was unbearable he was in the temple at that time and he went and caught hold of the sword of mother Kali which was there he said I was planning to cut off my head and there's no way I would go on living with this pain and then he had the first great vision and the first vision as he saw suddenly waves of light of luminosity all around rushing towards him and then they all crashed upon him he that was his description afterward and he lost outward consciousness now this samadhi completely becoming oblivious to the world outside many years later dr. Mahindra nursery car would actually medically examine him he would go into this samadhi almost number of times every day something that a religious practitioner a yogi would try to attain lifelong would be happy to attain once in their life
Ramakrishna would experience that daily a number of times so one-day dr. Minard Sarkar many many years later towards the end of his life actually examined him and found there was no pulse that there was no heartbeat the breath had stopped like a dead body and yet he was beaming with joy and so it's not a condition of unconsciousness it's not a condition of falling asleep or being comatose but it's a condition of just the opposite of intense absorption it's like when you are tremendously concentrated you're not aware of your surroundings imagine taking that many more steps deeper so you become completely absorbed in God in spiritual awareness and even lose consciousness of your body and it has physiological effects on the body also the body as it where stops often the description is of
Sri Ramakrishna in Samadhi is like a picture like standing there like a picture it was an intense awareness one sign of that is sometimes in Keaton in ecstatic singing and playing of music
Sri Ramakrishna would go into Samadhi and he would seem to be oblivious of the world but if someone missed a beat or if someone sang off tune he would come back to awareness with with a shudder which means it was a deep absorption a complete awareness not unawareness it's like a highly trained musician who's performing and if there is a slight thing it's not relevant by it I remember this is a person who went to learn best in classical music and him writes about his teacher that when we first went the teacher played something of Mozart I think himself and then he played a recording of a great master playing the same piece and he asked us do you see the difference do you hear the difference most of us said no it sounds good you played it well and the recording is also wonderful and then though this teacher he says he told us if you cannot tell the difference then you go and there are other honorable professions but this classical music is not for you so exactly like that intensely tuned awareness after this
Sri Ramakrishna spent both became even more involved like a madman Muhtar Babu the son-in-law he told his mother-in-law Durrani rush money that we have a wonderful priest very soon the divine mother is going to be awakened in Bengali jagrata and will be awakened here in this temple but to most others heed this new the young priest seemed to be crazy they thought he was mad he would sit therein meditation in the worship which might take 40 minutes or one hour it would take two hours or three hours or four hours he would sit put the flower on his head and sit and go into Samadhi the food which was to be offered ritualistically you sprinkle water on it a turd uttered the mantras he would do all that but sometimes he would take the food and take it to the image as if he's going to feed the image with his own hands it's a mother eat sometimes she would say mother oh you will not eat until I eat so he would take some of the food which was to be offered to the deity which is sacrilegious to the horror of the other people who were who were watching the worship once there was a cat which entered the temple and he looked at the cat and said mother you have come in this form today would you like to eat something and he offered the food which was meant for the deity to the cat he later said I saw the divine mother in the form of the cat I saw a book on cats in one of our libraries many years ago or 20 years ago and the book was dedicated to
Ramakrishna I guess that's why it was in our library this lady a Western lady she had written the book and so the dedication mentioned how
Sri Ramakrishna saw the divine mother in a cat but afterward the rest of the book is just about cats not about Ramakrishna or the diamond method but so this is how it went he would sing and dance he would hold the hands of the deity and dance he would laugh with the Divine Mother he would check her under a chin like this and he would talk to her to the amazement and also be will development of people around him read I who served him he said in those days I would be bewildered by my uncle I never go into the temple and the worship
was
going on a kind of fear would seize me that of an unseen presence in
the temple the very temple vibrated with a bit an unseen presence it
was all inspiring and he said realizes the hair on my body would
stand on end when I was close to him and yet when I was away
from Sudama Krishna reader I said I thought I used to think uncle was
mad what's he doing and this is such a nice position yes God as a
priest of a big temple and he's going to lose these people who think
he's crazy and they'll toss him out you know I think he was also
afraid he would lose his job too and he was caution his uncle to be
careful not to do these things and in this way time went on you.
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