Sri Ramakrishna Life and Message

SRI RAMAKRISHNA

LIFE AND MESSAGE

Original Hindi by

Swami Vijnanananda

Translated by

Prof. Arun Kumar Biswas

Edited by

Swami Vimohananda

William Page

(PUBLICATION HOUSE OF RAMAKRISHNA MATH)

5 DEHI ENTALLY ROAD • KOLKATA 700 014

Published by

The Adhyaksha

Advaita Ashrama

P.O. Mayavati, Dt. Champawat

Uttarakhand - 262524, India

from its Publication Department, Kolkata

Email: mail@advaitaashrama.org

Website: www.advaitaashrama.org

© All Rights Reserved

First Print Edition, February 2018

First Ebook Edition, July 2018

ISBN 978-81-7505-428-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-81-7505-891-0 (Ebook)

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Sri Ramakrishna’s life embodies the various stages of the spiritual struggle of human beings, as well as the fulfilment of that struggle. Thus the study of his life reassures us of the attainability of spiritual goals even at this time, when leading an idealistic life seems almost impossible.

Of all the accounts of the life of Sri Ramakrishna, those written by his disciples who knew and lived with him are the most reliable. Sri Sri Ramakrishna Leelaprasanga, a biography written by Swami Saradananda, a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, is considered the most authentic. Swami Vijnanananda, another monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, also wrote a biography entitled Paramahamsa Charit in Bengali and then had it translated into Hindi. This was first published in 1904 as Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Aur Unke Upadesh. The fourth edition was published in 1964 by Ramakrishna Math, Allahabad, and the book was renamed Paramahamsa Charit. After being out of print for many years, this Hindi book was republished in 1994 by Ramakrishna Math, Nagpur, and they still publish it. This book has the distinction of being the first Hindi biography of Sri Ramakrishna, as well as the only Hindi biography to be written by one of his disciples.

Professor Arun Kumar Biswas, an engineer with multifarious talents, translated the original Hindi book into English and also made valuable additions to it by including the reminiscences of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Vijnanananda, as well as a short biography of Swami Vijnanananda, and an analysis of Paramahamsa Charit and its history. This English edition was published in 1994 by Sujan Publications, Kolkata. After the first edition, the book went out of print. Considering the importance of this work, Advaita Ashrama decided to bring out a revised edition of it.

Swami Atmasthananda, the 15th President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, and a disciple of Swami Vijnanananda, had graciously written the foreword to this book.

Swami Vimohananda of Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata, has edited the text, and re-translated where necessary.

William Page, of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Association of Thailand, has put us under a great debt of gratitude by meticulously going through the whole manuscript and giving it a final shape.

We are grateful to Arvind Nevatia for going through the final proofs.

We hope that this book will inspire readers to assimilate Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings in their daily lives.

—PUBLISHER

FEBRUARY 2018

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1

Chapter 1 Swami Vijnanananda: A Short Biography

Chapter 2 Reminiscences of Sri Ramakrishna

Chapter 3 Paramahamsa Charit: Its Background and Specialities

Early Writings on Sri Ramakrishna

Part 2

Sri Ramakrishna : Life

Introduction

Sri Ramakrishna : Life

Kamarpukur: The holy birthplace

Parents of Sri Ramakrishna

Birth of Sri Ramakrishna

Childhood of Sri Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna’s early youth

Later part of Sri Ramakrishna’s youth

Sri Ramakrishna becomes well-known

Sri Ramakrishna’s childlike simplicity

Feminine mood of Sri Ramakrishna

Masculine mood of Sri Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna in a state of divine intoxication

The piśācha-like state of Sri Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna and gold (wealth)

Sri Ramakrishna and women

The humble Sri Ramakrishna

The compassionate Sri Ramakrishna

The loving Sri Ramakrishna

The superhuman qualities of Sri Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna: The source of the incarnations of God

Part 3

Teaching of Sri Ramakrishna

The existence of God

God is One

The diverse manifestations of God

All religions are paths to reach God

God with and without form

The Nature of Brahman

God: manifest and unmanifest

Māyā and Brahman

Brahman cannot be expressed in words

Brahman: with and without attributes

Jīva (the created) and Iśvara (the Creator)

The relationship between the individual and the cosmic Soul

Relationship between man and God

Earnestness to realise God

The search for God

How to see God?

God’s name

Who has seen God?

God reveals Himself

God only wants devotion

God’s descent into the human heart

The vision of God

Those who have seen God, do not commit evil

One who realises God cannot remain attached to worldly objects

Knowledge and devotion

Image worship

The omnipresence of God

Salvation

God in human beings

God sends the guru and the Avatāra

The Avatāra’s power of giving salvation

Many kinds of Avatāras

The Avatāra and realised souls

Different types of realised souls (Siddha Purushas)

Mahātmās (great souls)

A liberated soul is unattached

A Mahātmā has only a trace of ego

Preaching by a liberated soul

Preaching by a bound soul

God is the source of all knowledge

A prophet is not recognised in his birthplace

God manifests Himself in saints

Holy company

The Guru

One guru is enough

A disciple should not find fault with his guru

The guru helps in spiritual development

A monk

Spiritual energy

Knowledge, devotion, and love

Follow your own path

Don’t hate other religions

Don’t engage in fruitless debates

Rituals

Religious sects

It is easy to preach religion but difficult to practise it

Man is born with two kinds of tendencies

Children have a natural inclination towards God

Desires are obstacles

Desires make one deceitful

The heart of the wicked

Minds attached to passion and wealth

Worldly persons do not change easily

Preaching by householders

A householder’s mind

Householders want worldly pleasures

How should householders worship God?

How to control the senses?

Knowledge liberates

First realise God and then serve the world

Spiritual aspirants should avoid worldly persons

Avoid the company of the wicked

Spiritual aspirants should live alone

Only the pure mind comprehends God

A truly spiritual person

An Ascetic

Monks: true and false

Different States of Mind

Purity of heart leads to spirituality

The power of the mind

Discrimination and renunciation

Reading religious texts

Knowledge and ignorance

The captivating power of māyā (illusion)

The body is transient

On eating and drinking

Wealth and possessions

Praise and blame

Forgiveness and tolerance

The ego

An egoist thinks: ‘I am the doer’

‘I’ as the Lord’s servant

Can the ego be completely destroyed?

Everything belongs to God

Caste distinctions

Unity in diversity

How to overcome human weakness?

Friendship among devotees

A devotee’s devotion never wanes

God’s name and devotion

Spiritual efforts

Śraddhā and bhakti

Humility

Pride and vanity

God’s grace

Perseverance

Imbibe childlike simplicity

Truthfulness

Complete dependence upon God

The power of tears

Bhakti is like the continuous flow of oil

Concentration of mind

Meditation

Samādhi

Should spiritual aspirants wear special clothes?

The perfect soul

Knowledge of the Self

Īśvara

Parables and Anecdotes

Go Forward

Follow one path with faith and determination

Eat mangoes, don’t count them

The ‘detached’ householder

A true jnānī

Concentration

Understand before you preach

The bane of dogmatism

Follow one path faithfully

Dream and reality

Charity to the undeserving

Worldly people

Signs of vairāgya

Divine Mother in all women

Bhakti

Attachment to the world

‘I’ and ‘Thou’

All religions are true

Vanity

The ocean of Satchidānanda

The message of the new Avatāra

It is difficult to recognise a saint

Keep your mind pure till the end

Be concerned with God and not His creation

The allurement of māyā

The Lord

Jnāna and bhakti against māyā

Hatha Yoga and Kartābhaja

Human nature

Dogmatism

Three paces of sādhanā

A jnānī and a bhakta

A child cries for its mother

The spirit of the Gītā

Absence of vanity in the Master

The call of the devotee

The best devotee

The fate of the greedy

Who is your own?

Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1886)

FOREWORD

‘The nectar of thy sin-effacing utterances brings life and hope to those scorched by misery. They are extolled by wise sages and the mere listening to them would bestow auspiciousness on all. They confer every prosperity. Those who spread them in the world are verily magnanimous, as they distribute what is completely satisfying to the listeners.’

—Srimad Bhāgavata

With a view to spreading the life-giving message of Sri Ramakrishna to the large number of his Hindi-speaking devotees, Revered Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj, one of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, in 1904, penned Paramahamsa Charit , the first Hindi biography of Sri Ramakrishna by one who had known him. Therefore, it has a great historical value.

For many years, this valuable book was not known to the devotees and was also out of print. But in 1994, Professor Arun Kumar Biswas, with the help of his wife Smt. Sulekha Biswas, took great efforts to translate this book from original Hindi into English for the English-speaking devotees and admirers. The title was Swami Vijnanananda and His Paramahamsa Charita published by Sujan Publication, Kolkata. As in the original Hindi version, the readers will find the classification of the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna into relevant categories extremely useful and it will help them to draw appropriate inspiration, as and when needed.

I am happy to know that Advaita Ashrama has now taken up the responsibility of thoroughly editing and publishing this English edition under the new title Sri Ramakrishna: Life and Message. May it prove to be a perennial source of inspiration to the ever-growing number of English speaking devotees and admirers, who otherwise would not have been able to read it.

SWAMI ATMASTHANANDA

PRESIDENT

RAMAKRISHNA MATH

& RAMAKRISHNA MISSION

BELUR MATH

31 MARCH 2012

SRI ANNAPURNA PUJA

INTRODUCTION

We have derived great pleasure working on the life of Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (1868–1938), one of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886), and on the disciple’s famous treatise (1904) on his Master: Paramahamsa Charit . It is sincerely hoped that the readers might appreciate not only the first-ever translation of the Hindi treatise, but also the substantial number of annotations. Of special importance are the biographical details on the engineer-cum-saint who became the fourth President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (1937–1938), and his intimate reminiscences of Sri Ramakrishna, provided in Chapters 1 and 2 respectively.

In his famous essay Kavye Upekshita, Rabindranath Tagore discussed how the character of Urmilā (Lakshman’s wife) was ignored in the epic Rāmāyana. It is a sad truth that the Paramahamsa Charit of Swami Vijnanananda has been similarly overlooked in the deliberations on the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature. Those who ignored this gem, have done so out of their ignorance. Otherwise, we would not have come across a comment from a very knowledgeable author that ‘Swami Vijnanananda translated into Hindi Sureshchandra Dutta’s Bengali book on Sri Ramakrishna.’

Swami Vijnanananda wrote his treatise on Sri Ramakrishna chiefly on the basis of his own recollections, and consulted several publications available around 1900, Sureshchandra’s book being one of them. Paramahamsa Charit (1904) was the first Hindi biography of Sri Ramakrishna written by any of his monastic disciples. This remains the only original book in Hindi on Sri Ramakrishna written by one who had seen him. Swami Vijnanananda was probably the first author to categorize Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings, and to relate some of them, through valuable footnotes, with the scriptures in Hindi and Sanskrit.

We have tried our best to bring out the background and special features of Paramahamsa Charit in Chapter 3 of this volume as well as through the notes and references given at the end of the said chapter and after the unabridged translation of the treatise. Unless otherwise mentioned, the footnotes had been originally provided by Swami Vijnanananda. We have not rendered a word-by-word translation of the Hindi text, the language of which is outmoded and needs extensive editing.

A few knowledgeable persons were not sure about the utility of our work. But fortunately, Revered Swamis Hiranmayananda, Harshananda, Apurvananda and the Publication Departments of Advaita Ashrama and Udbodhan thought otherwise, and gave us unstinting support and encouragement. The revered monks of Advaita Ashrama suggested many editorial corrections throughout the manuscript. The responsibility for the errors which may still remain, is however solely mine.

My wife Sulekha rendered invaluable help to me in translating difficult passages. We do consider it a very special privilege to have taken up this project. We pray to Sri Ramakrishna and the Holy Mother that this book may provide some inspiration to the devotees.

ARUN KUMAR BISWAS

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

KANPUR

VAIKUNTHA

CHATURDASHI

2016

CHAPTER 1

SWAMI VIJNANANANDA

A Short Biography

This book is a translation of the classical work in Hindi Paramahamsa Charit , (1) which is a biography of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Its illustrious author, Revered Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (1868–1938), was one of Sri Ramakrishna’s monastic disciples and the fourth President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (1937–1938). Before we present the first ever translation of the Paramahamsa Charit (with annotations) to the readers, it is necessary to begin with a short biographical note on Swami Vijnanananda and then delineate the background in which the classical work was compiled.

Once Swami Vivekananda remarked, ‘Know each of those who are here [Swamiji’s brother disciples] to be of great spiritual power.... know them to be part of the spiritual body of Sri Ramakrishna, who was the embodiment of infinite religious ideas.... Sri Ramakrishna was a wonderful gardener. Therefore, he has made a bouquet of different flowers and formed his Order.’ (2) Vijnanananda was indeed a flower of the Divine. He was the first amongst the monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna to compile Sri Ramakrishna’s biography and his spiritual messages under categorised headings. This compilation was the first ever in Hindi. As his name implies, the Swami possessed specialised knowledge in material science and engineering as well as in spiritual science. He utilised his professional competence in serving the Order as an architect and engineer, and his spiritual attainments to spread the message of Sri Ramakrishna. Therefore, a brief biography, compiled on the basis of existing literature (3–14) (mostly in Bengali), may be presented in the hope that some scholar will endeavour to write a full-length biography of the Swami at a later date.

Swami Vijnanananda (1868–1938)

Early days, the Master and the movement

Before adopting monastic life, Swami Vijnanananda was known as Hariprasanna Chattopadhyay. He was born in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, on 30 October 1868. His father, Taraknath Chattopadhyay, worked in the commissariat of the British Government, served in different places outside West Bengal, and died in 1881 at Quetta during the Second Afghan War. Hariprasanna received his early education at Varanasi (1877–78), where Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj) was his fellow student in the Bengalitola High School. When his father left for Quetta, the rest of the family—Hariprasanna, his brother, four sisters, and their mother, Nakuleshwari Devi, had to shift to the paternal house in Belgharia, which is situated near Dakshineshwar in West Bengal. Hariprasanna saw Sri Ramakrishna for the first time in Belgharia, on Monday, 15 September 1879.(*) The details of his several meetings with Sri Ramakrishna between 1879 and 1886 will be provided in the next chapter.

Studying in the Calcutta Hare School as a student, daily commuting from Belgharia, Hariprasanna passed the Entrance Examination in 1882, scoring first division marks. He entered St. Xavier’s College in 1883 and passed the F.A. Examination in 1885 with great distinction, standing twenty-first amongst all the candidates. The translator of this book found in the Goethals Library, St. Xavier’s College, the handwritten College Register maintained by Father Hosten, in which Hariprasanna’s name was entered as one of the most successful students. Reverend Father Eugene Lafont of the College, who was a famous physicist and astronomer, taught Hariprasanna and his fellow students, such as Swami Saradananda (the other famous biographer of Sri Ramakrishna), Ramananda Chatterjee, the famous editor of Modern Review, and Major Bamandas Basu.

The early part of 1883 heralded the turning point in Hariprasanna’s life. On 18 February 1883, he had the opportunity of meeting Sri Ramakrishna, again at Belgharia, in Dewan Govinda Mukherjee’s house. The Master’s soaring spiritual personality left a permanent impression on his pure adolescent mind. Hariprasanna was very meticulous in his studies as well as in the brahminical rites, such as recitation of the Gāyatrī mantra. His uncle Yogindranath used to practise yoga.

With the requisite spiritual yearning, Hariprasanna visited Dakshineshwar for the first time on 8 June 1883. In his words, he ‘knocked at Sri Ramakrishna’s door and the door was opened’. Many years later, Hariprasanna (then Swami Vijnanananda) described what he saw, heard, and learnt during his visits to Dakshineshwar.

Hariprasanna kept himself engrossed in his studies, since he had to support his family, which was like a rudderless boat after the death of his father in 1881. Besides, his family members did not like that Hariprasanna should frequently visit the ‘mad brahmin of Dakshineshwar’. This explains why Hariprasanna’s meetings with Sri Ramakrishna during 1883-1886 were very few in number, probably less than twelve. His name was rarely mentioned in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (by M.) or in other contemporary accounts.

Hariprasanna could not be a member of the inner circle of young devotees who nursed Sri Ramakrishna during his terminal disease of cancer, because in 1885, when Sri Ramakrishna’s disease was just detected, it had been decided by the elders in Hariprasanna’s family that he should pursue higher studies in Patna. Did the elders deliberately remove Hariprasanna from Sri Ramakrishna’s orbit? If it was a deliberate move on their part, it worked only at the physical level. Hariprasanna always remained Sri Ramakrishna’s devotee. While his brother disciples thought that he was lost to the Ramakrishna Movement forever, (15) he formally joined the Movement a decade later and made a great impact. Hariprasanna’s spiritual pursuit constantly went on behind closed doors and very few could know anything more about it than what he himself disclosed. The Master used to ask about him during his terminal illness at Cossipore, and on the day of his mahāsamādhi projected his physical apparition in front of his dear Hariprasanna studying far away in Patna.

After his graduation from Patna, Hariprasanna proceeded to Pune for his civil engineering education. He stood second in the L.C.E. examination in 1892. Thereafter, he served as district engineer at various places such as Gazipur, Etawah, Bulandshahar, Meerut, etc., during the period 1892–1896. During these years, he rendered professional services for the construction of roads, irrigation canals, etc., entertained and served his brother disciples who visited him, (16) and sent most of his income either to his family or to the Ramakrishna Math.

Spurning all marriage proposals, he pursued his spiritual practices in privacy. He was waiting for the day when his younger brother would be capable of maintaining the family and the Ramakrishna Movement would come out of financial difficulties. That opportunity arose when Swami Vivekananda decided to return to India after his triumphant tour of the West. Hariprasanna had received visions of Sri Ramakrishna and the Divine Mother beckoning him to renounce the world, (17) and he immediately rushed to Alambazar Math in 1896 to embrace the monastic life. One year later, Swami Vivekananda wrote to Sister Nivedita (20 June 1897) about this heroic deed of Hariprasanna: ‘Renunciation is in our blood. One of my boys in training has been an executive engineer, in charge of a district. That means a very big position here. He gave it up