Professional Documents
Culture Documents
was apathetic about his studies and remained practically illiterate all his life
,
but his innate spiritual tendencies found expression through devotional songs
and the company of wandering monks, who fired his boyish imagination by the
stories of their spiritual adventures. At the age of six he experienced a spirit
ual
ecstasy while watching a flight of snow-white cranes against a black sky
overcast with rain-clouds. He began to go into trances as he meditated on gods
and goddesses. His father's death, which left the family in straitened
circumstances, deepened his spiritual mood. And so, though at the age of sixteen
he joined his brother in Calcutta, he refused to go on there with his studies; f
or,
as he remarked, he was simply not interested in an education whose sole
purpose was to earn mere bread and butter. He felt a deep longing for the
realization of God.
The floodgate of Ramakrishna's emotion burst all bounds when he took up the
duties of a priest in the Kali temple of Dakshineswar, where the Deity was
worshipped as the Divine Mother. Ignorant of the scriptures and of the
intricacies of ritual, Ramakrishna poured his whole soul into prayer, which ofte
n
took the form of devotional songs. Food, sleep, and other physical needs were
completely forgotten in an all-consuming passion for the vision of God. His
nights were spent in contemplation in the neighbouring woods. Doubt sometimes
alternated with hope; but an inner certainty and the testimony of the illumined
saints sustained him in his darkest hours of despair. Formal worship or the
mere sight of the image did not satisfy his inquiring mind; for he felt that a
figure of stone could not be the bestower of peace and immortality. Behind the
image there must be the real Spirit, which he was determined to behold. This
was not an easy task. For a long time the Spirit played with him a teasing game
of hide-and-seek, but at last it yielded to the demand of love on the part of th
e
young devotee. When he felt the direct presence of the Divine Mother,
Ramakrishna dropped unconscious to the floor, experiencing within himself a
constant flow of bliss.
This foretaste of what was to follow made him God-intoxicated, and whetted his
appetite for further experience. He wished to see God uninterruptedly, with eyes
open as well as closed. He therefore abandoned himself recklessly to the practic
e
of various extreme spiritual disciplines. To remove from his mind the least trac
e
of the arrogance of his high brahmin caste, he used to clean stealthily the latr
ine
at a pariah's house. Through a stern process of discrimination he effaced all
sense of distinction between gold and clay. Purity became the very breath of his
nostrils, and he could not regard a woman, even in a dream, in any other way
except as his own mother or the Mother of the universe. For years his eyelids di
d
not touch each other in sleep. And he was finally thought to be insane.
Indeed, the stress of his spiritual practice soon told upon Ramakrishna's delica
te
body and he returned to Kamarpukur to recover his health. His relatives and old
friends saw a marked change in his nature; for the gay boy had been
transformed into a contemplative young man whose vision was directed to
something on a distant horizon. His mother proposed marriage, and finding in
this the will of the Divine Mother, Ramakrishna consented. He even indicated
where the girl was to be found, namely, in the village of Jayrambati, only three
miles away. Here lived the little Saradamani, a girl of five, who was in many
respects very different from the other girls of her age. The child would pray to
God to make her character as fragrant as the tuberose. Later, at Dakshineswar,
she prayed to God to make her purer than the full moon, which, pure as it was,
showed a few dark spots. The marriage was celebrated and Ramakrishna,
participating, regarded the whole affair as fun or a new excitement.
In a short while he came back to Dakshineswar and plunged again into the
stormy life of religious experimentation. His mother, his newly married wife, an
d
his relatives were forgotten. Now, however, his spiritual disciplines took a new
course.