VIII – One with the Absolute

limits of time, space, and causation. When a seeker is merged in the beatitude of Samadhi, he does not perceive time and space, nor name and form-the products of inscrutable Maya. Pierce through the maze of name and form and rush out of it like a lion. Dive deep in the search for the Self and be firmly established in It through Samadhi.’ Totapuri thus tried that day to help Sri Ramakrishna to fix his mind firmly on the Absolute. We describe it in Sri Ramakrishna’s own words: ‘After the initiation’ the naked one’… asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive into the Atman (Self)….I had no difficulty in withdrawing the mind from all other objects except one, the all too familiar form of the Blissful Mother-radiant and of the essence of Pure Consciousness – which appeared before me as a living Reality preventing me from passing beyond the realm of name and form. ‘In despair I said to ìthe naked one’, ‘It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with the Atman’. He grew excited and sharply said, ‘What! you canít do it! But you have to!î He cast his eyes around, and finding a piece of glass he took it up and pressing the point between my eyebrows said, ‘Concentrate the mind on this point.’ Then with astern determination I again sat to meditate, and as soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and severed it in to two.

(Sri Ramakrishna used to refer to Totapuri as Nyangta, i.e. the naked one.)

There remained no more obstruction to my mind, which at once soared beyond the relative plane, and I lost myself in Samadhi!’

Totapuri sat for a long time, silently watching his disciple. Finding him perfectly motionless, he locked the door and went out of the room. Three days passed, and still there was no call. In utter surprise Totapuri opened the door and found Sri Ramakrishna sitting in the very same position in which he had left him. With breathless wonder Totapuri stood before this august spectacle. ‘Is it really true?’ he said to himself, ‘Is it possible that this man has attained in the course of a single day that which it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve?’ Impelled by doubt, he made a searching examination. In joyous bewilderment he cried out, ‘Great God, it is nothing short of a miracle!’ It was undoubtedly a case of Nirvikalpa Samadhi – the culmination of the Advaita practice! Totapuri immediately took steps to bring the mind of Sri Ramakrishna down to the world of phenomena. Little by little he came to the consciousness of the outside universe. He opened his eyes and saw his Guru looking at him with tenderness and admiration. The Guru answered the worthy disciple’s prostration by locking him in a warm embrace.

Totapuri usually did not stay at any one place for more than three days. But he wished to establish his wonderful new disciple firmly on the lofty pinnacle of Advaita. So he remained eleven months in the garden of Dakshineswar. During this time Totapuri also under went some mental transformation. We have seen how he looked upon Sri Ramakrishna’s praying to the Divine Mother as a superstition. But circumstances compelled Totapuri to believe in the existence of the Divine Mother. Before he left Dakshineswar he realized that Brahman and Shakti are one and the same thing-the two aspects of the same entity.

After Totapuri had left Dakshineswar, the Master was determined to remain in a state of absolute identity with Brahman, far above all subjective and objective experiences. He remained in that state for six months. Referring to this period of his life the Master used to say: ‘For six months at a stretch I remained in that state whence ordinary men can never returnóthe body falling off after three weeks like a sere leaf. I was not conscious of day and night. Flies would enter my mouth and nostrils just as they do in a dead body, but I did not feel them. The hair became matted with accretions of dust. There was no chance for the body to survive, it would certainly have perished but for the kind ministrations of a monk who was present at Dakshineswar at the time….He would bring food regularly to me…and as soon as he found me to be a little conscious, he would press some food into my mouth, only a bit of which reached my stomach. Six months passed in this way. At last I received the Mother’s command, ‘Remain on the threshold of relative consciousness for the sake of humanity.’ Then I was laid up with a terrible attack of dysentery….It went on for six months. Thus only did the mind gradually come down to a lower level and to the consciousness of the body….’