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Monday, January 1, 1883
At 8am, Sri Ramakrishna was seated on a mat spread on the floor of his room at Dakshineswar.
Since it was a cold day, he had wrapped his body in his moleskin shawl. Prankrishna and M. were seated in front of him. Rakhal, too, was in the room.
Prankrishna was a high government official and lived in Calcutta. Since he had had no offspring by his first wife, with her permission he had married a second time.
By the second wife he had a son. Because he was rather stout, the Master addressed him now and then as “the fat brahmin”. He had great respect for Sri Ramakrishna.
Though a householder, Prankrishna studied the Vedanta and had been heard to say: “Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. I am He.” The Master used to say to him: “In the Kaliyuga the life of a man depends on food. The path of devotion prescribed by Narada is best for this age.”
A devotee had brought a basket of jilipi for the Master, which the latter kept by his side.
Eating a bit of the sweets, he said to Prankrishna with a smile: “You see, I chant the name of the Divine Mother; so I get all these good things to eat. (Laughter.) But She doesn’t give such fruits as gourd or pumpkin. She bestows the fruit of Amrita, Immortality-knowledge, love, discrimination, renunciation, and so forth.”
A boy six or seven years old entered the room. The Master himself became like a child.
He covered the contents of the basket with the palm or his hand, as a child does to conceal sweets from another child lest the latter should snatch them. Then he put the basket aside.
Suddenly the Master went into samādhi and sat thus a long time. His body was transfixed, his eyes wide open and unwinking, his breathing hardly perceptible. After a long time he drew a deep breath, indicating his return to the world of sense.
Vision of Divine Mother
(to Prankrishna): “My Divine Mother is not only formless, She has forms as well.
One can see Her forms. One can behold Her incomparable beauty through feeling and love. The Mother reveals Herself to Her devotees in different forms.
“I saw Her yesterday. She was clad in a seamless ochre-coloured garment, and She talked with me.
“She came to me another day as a Mussalman girl six or seven years old. She had a tilak on her forehead and was naked. She walked with me, joking and frisking like a child.
“At Hriday’s house I had a vision of Gauranga. He wore a black-bordered cloth.
“Haladhāri used to say that God is beyond both Being and Non-being. I told the Mother about it and asked Her, ‘Then is the divine form an illusion?’ The Divine Mother appeared to me in the form of Rati’s mother and said, ‘Do thou remain in Bhāva ’ I repeated this to Haladhāri.
Now and then I forget Her command and suffer. Once I broke my teeth because I didn’t remain in bhava. So I shall remain in bhava unless I receive a revelation from heaven or have a direct experience to the contrary. I shall follow the path of love.
But why should I ask you about it? There is Someone within me who does all these things through me. At times I used to remain in a mood of Godhood and would enjoy no peace of mind unless I was being worshipped.
“I am the machine and God is the Operator. I act as He makes me act. I speak as He makes me speak. Keep your raft, says Ramprasad, afloat on the sea of life, Drifting up with the flood-tide, drifting down with the ebb.
“It is like the cast-off leaf before a gale; sometimes it is blown to a good place and sometimes into the gutter, according to the direction of the wind.
“As the weaver said in the story: ‘The robbery was committed by the will of Rama, I was arrested by the police by the will of Rama, and again, by the will of Rama, I was set free.’
“Hanuman once said to Rama: ‘O Rama, I have taken refuge in Thee. Bless me that I may have pure devotion to Thy Lotus Feet and that I may not be caught in the spell of Thy world-bewitching maya.’
“Once a dying bullfrog said to Rama: ‘O Rama, when caught by a snake I cry for Your protection. But now I am about to die, struck by Your arrow. Hence I am silent.’
God’s nature like that of a child
“I used to see God directly with these very eyes, just as I see you. Now I see divine visions in trance.
“After realizing God a man becomes like a child. One acquires the nature of the object one meditates upon. The nature of God is like that of a child. As a child builds up his toy house and then breaks it down, so God acts while creating, preserving, and destroying the universe.
As the child is not under the control of any guna, so God is beyond the three gunas-sattva, rajas, and tamas. That is why paramahamsas keep five or ten children with them, that they may assume their nature.
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