CHAPTER:5; Part-I
There have been people who have expressed
sympathy for the Holy Mother on account of what they consider the barrenness of
her married life. For did not the very greatness of her husband stand in the
way of her experiencing the substance of matrimonial life, and what is more,
the greatest privilege of a woman, namely, motherhood? Indeed, her own mother, Syamasundari
remarked in the hearing of Sri Ramakrishna, 'My Sarada has been married to a
lunatic. She will never know the happiness of being addressed as
"mother".' At this Sri Ramakrishna remarked, 'Well, mother, you need
not worry about that. Your daughter will have so many children that she will be
tired of being addressed day and night as "Mother".'
THE FIERY ORDEAL
It
is in the stress of circumstances that a truly great man reveals the strength
of his character. Imagine the reaction of a lifelong ascetic when he is
suddenly confronted with his young wife, who has come with the definite purpose
of meeting him and, possibly, of asserting her claim over him. If he were a
stern ascetic, he would shun her; if not, he would gradually succumb to her
influence. Sri Ramakrishna did neither. His reactions had a uniqueness of their
own. It has already been mentioned that he received her cordially, but what
followed was even more remarkable. He decided to avail himself of his wife's
presence at Dakshineswar to do two things - first, to fulfil his foremost duty
to her as a husband, namely, to educate her in the high ideals of life for
which he stood, and secondly, to subject his own mind to a crucial test in
point of same-sightedness and freedom from lower instincts. Of these, the first
was a long and subtle process of spiritual education, which will be described
elsewhere. As for the second, Sri Ramakrishna, on meeting his wife, remembered
the precious advice he had been given by his master,Totapuri,
when he knew that his disciple was married.
A wife, he said, presented no danger to one,
if one were really established in Brahman. He whose mental purity was based
upon a strong sense of distinction between the sexes, was no doubt a good
aspirant, but the realization of Brahman was still far away from him. For a
true seer of Brahman would see no difference between man and woman, and his
purity of behaviour would be based, not on a sense of moral conflict, but on
this supersensuous perception of unity. So Sri Ramakrishna felt that the
presence of his wife at Dakshineswar was for him an opportunity to test his own
attainment in this respect. He was a radical by temperament, and when an idea
entered his mind, he felt he must carry it out at once. So unlike an ordinary
ascetic he allowed his wife to be by his side and serve him to her heart's
content. Not only that, for about six months of her stay at Dakshineswar, he
permitted her even to sleep with him in the same room.
This was, indeed, a fiery ordeal for any
youthful ascetic, but not for Sri Ramakrishna. His discriminating mind could
not be caught in any worldly snare. The nature of this test and the reactions
of his mind to it are best described in the eloquent words of Swami
Saradananda, the disciple and biographer of Sri Ramakrishna. He writes: 'One
day, seeing the Holy Mother sleeping by his side, the Master discriminated
within himself: "O mind, this is what the world calls the body of a woman.
Men wistfully run after it. But one who goes after it remains enmeshed in
body-consciousness, and cannot attain God. Now, O my mind, be not insincere - ay
not one thing outside and have another idea in the heart. Tell me, do you want
this woman's body, or do you want the Lord? If the first, here it is in front
of you, and you are free to have it." Discriminating in this way, he was
about to touch the Holy Mother, when his mind recoiled so violently that he was
absorbed in Samadhi for the whole night! Next morning the name of the Lord had
to be uttered long in his ears before his mind came to the sense plane.'
This will give one an idea of the kind of
conjugal life that the Holy Mother had with her saintly husband. To complete
the picture of it, another incident quite characteristic of Sri Ramakrishna may
be mentioned here. One day his youthful wife was massaging his feet. She put
him a straight question. 'How do you look upon me?' she asked. And Sri
Ramakrishna replied, 'The Mother who is the Deity in the temple, the mother who
gave birth to me and now, resides in the Nahabat - even she is now massaging my
feet. I look upon you in that light - as the embodiment of Motherhood.' These
are, indeed, puzzling words for the sense-bound mind of man, but they were only
a commonplace in the mouth of Sri Ramakrishna, the true worshipper of the
Universal Mother.
 |
| Mother Syamasundari |
SOURCE: SRI SARADA DEVI, THE HOLY MOTHER
by
Srimat Swami Tapasyanandaji
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