Some years ago, after it became evident that millions of British citizens suffered from loneliness, the British Government worked on identifying and measuring loneliness and assessing its social impact. The situation is same in all societies and the Covid pandemic has given a new dimension to this issue. In this context, this article, which is an abridged translation from the original Bengali writing, engages with an interesting question of whether an incarnation of God would also experience loneliness! And if so, what would it be like?
As the Novel Coronavirus is playing its destructive dance across continents, the primary focus is on, ‘How to survive?’ Another question which is becoming equally serious is ‘How to overcome loneliness?’ Especially those who are unaccustomed to being quarantined, are finding their lonesome existence increasingly unbearable. Many have fallen prey to anxiety and depression prone to hearing, as it were, the footsteps of death in their moments of loneliness. Psychologists are of the opinion that even when this pandemic storm ceases to rage, the resumption of a normal, healthy mental life would be a great challenge for the current generation.
Against this backdrop, an attempt is made here to understand another kind of loneliness, which we may call a divine ‘aloneness’, as witnessed in the life of Sri Ramakrishna.
Whenever an avatara descends on earth, an indescribable loneliness awaits him. The reason being that ‘the domain beyond mind’ from where He descends, is made of stuff so exquisitely pure that its very nature is in sharp contradistinction with this world of ours. This is also the reason why those for whose sake he descends, fail to recognise him or understand him. The intensity and extensity of a Man-God’s loneliness far exceeds what is commonly experienced by a human being.
Can we have an inkling of the extraordinariness of this intensity? For an answer we can turn to Sri Ramakrishna’s own utterances as recorded in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
7 March, 1885. Sri Ramakrishna was in the grip of divine restlessness as he went about searching for renouncers of ‘lust and gold’. But to no avail! Resignedly, as it were, he told Mahendranath Gupta or M., the recorder of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna: “I have been seeking one who has totally renounced lust and greed. When I find a young man, I think that perhaps he will live with me; but everyone raises some objection or other.”1
The pages of the Gospel are replete with such moving pictures. On 19 October 1884, we find Sri Ramakrishna attending the meeting of the Brahmo Samaj at Sinthi. Rather disappointed with the part of the Samaj’s worship that eulogized power and wealth of God, he urged the devotees to delve deep into the divine ocean of love. Ironically, he could figure out in an instant that none of those present there could grasp the essence of his advice. With a touch of pathos, he thought aloud, “To whom am I saying these words? Who will believe me?”
The unique feature of Sri Ramakrishna avatara is the effortless ease with which he moved between Nitya, the transcendental and Leela, the phenomenal. While in Nitya, he would be immersed in transcendental bliss. In this state there is not the slightest trace of duality. In other words, while in Nitya, Sri Ramakrishna was utterly oblivious of the multiplicity of name and form, characteristic of the world of phenomena. But as part of his Leela, when he became conscious of the phenomenal world, it would appear to him as the ‘land-unknown’ because there was none who could give him the company he sought.
That he had to walk a solitary path in his earthly Leela was not unknown to Sri Ramakrishna. It is not difficult to read an unspoken feeling of impending loneliness in the extraordinary plea that Sri Ramakrishna, in one of his visions, as a divine child made to ‘the sage of the eternal abode’ Swami Vivekananda: “I am going down. You too must go with me.”2
From the human perspective, Sri Ramakrishna’s life-story might well appear as a sad narrative of a long aloneness. In his childhood, when he was known as Gadadhar, with a unique power of discernment he understood that people are invariably drawn towards sense enjoyments and a mad pursuit of wealth, name and fame and consequently suffer unending miseries. One wonders if these keen observations convinced Gadadhar once and for all that “there’s no room in this sordid world for thee.”
For an avatara, the pull of the transcendental is too strong to be kept in abeyance for long. During the Shivaratri festival at Pyne’s house, and also on his way to the temple of Vishalakshi Devi, Gadadhar could not help hearkening to the call of the ‘land unknown’. On both the occasions he plunged into a deep meditative awareness. But what a pity! None could understand, let alone appreciate, such sudden manifestations of Godconsciousness in him. As his well-wishers, they assumed that he was possessed by some evil spirit and accordingly prayed to God for his well-being!
By keeping his promise of accepting Dhani, the ironsmith’s widow, as his bhikshamata or alms-giving godmother during the sacred-thread investiture ceremony, Gadadhar held aloft the inviolability of Truth. But this amounted to completely disregarding society’s ironclad-strictures. His family and friends could not make sense of his unusual behavior. Although the issue was resolved through the intervention of Dharmadas Laha, the local landlord and family friend, everyone censured Gadadhar.
After the untimely passing away of his father, Gadadhar befriended loneliness in yet another sense. The flames of sorrow were burning unceasingly underneath his calm exterior. But the people of Kamarpukur only witnessed the joyous and carefree Gadadhar at Manik Raja’s mango grove and at Bhutir-khal cremation ground, without being able to peep into the loneliness in his heart! Nor could his elder brother Ramkumar fathom him. When Gadadhar was about 17 years old, Ramkumar brought him to Kolkata and asked him to seriously take up formal studies. But Gadadhar only replied, “I do not want to learn, the art of ‘bundling rice and plantain’. What I do want is to have that which produces right knowledge and enables man truly to achieve the aim of his life”3. Ramkumar failed to understand that these words were coming from the depths of his little brother’s heart.
His nephew Hridayram, who served him day and night, too failed to understand Sri Ramakrishna. He could not make any sense of his uncle’s unusual behaviour. Mathur Babu, the son-in-law of Rani Rashmoni, the owner of the Dakshineswar temple, was fascinated by the Shiva idol hand-crafted by Gadadhar. But when sent for, ‘the younger Bhattacharya’—as Gadadhar was referred to —refused to meet Mathur Babu because he feared he would be asked to accept the temple priest’s job. To Hriday, who was desperately looking for a job, this disinclination to be involved with any worldly affairs was an unsolvable mystery.
Eventually, Gadadhar became the priest at the temple of Bhavataraini. Divinely inspired, he plunged into intense sadhana at the Panchavati, the temple garden. Disrobing himself without any sense of embarrassment, he delved deep into the inner recesses of his self. Hriday was sure that his uncle had gone mad. When asked to explain his conduct, Gadadhar replied, “What do you know? Thus freed from all ties, one should practise meditation.”4 Hriday’s response was only a growing bewilderment and annoyance.
As his sadhana ripened, Sri Ramakrishna effortlessly transitioned into the boundless realm of pure devotion from the narrow confines of ritualistic devotion. Hriday, to his consternation, saw his uncle touch the offerings of flowers and bilva leaves to his head, his chest and then after stroking it all over his body, offer it at the feet of the goddess! He even found his uncle, in a state of divine absorption, eating the cooked food etc., before offering it to the Divine Mother. Again, at other times he watched the divine priest lying down at night on the bed meant for the Goddess.
And to Hriday’s dismay, these unusual mannerisms did not remain unnoticed for long. Seeing Sri Ramakrishna’s activities becoming increasingly unconventional and unpredictable, the enraged temple employees concluded that either he had gone mad or was under the spell of some evil spirit. They unanimously concluded, “The Bhattacharya is sure to be dismissed this time; as soon as the [Mathur] Babu comes, he will expel him. Giving offence to the gods! How long will they put up with it?”5 Well, even if God sanctions, men surely will not! The Brahmin community of Dakshineswar of that time had neither the capacity nor the inclination to understand Sri Ramakrishna.
Alas! No one understood the God-crazed Sri Ramakrishna and he continued to be without a companion!
As evening descended on the bank of the Ganga and the blowing of the conch shell was heard all around, Sri Ramakrishna, seized with sorrow that another day had gone in vain, would throw himself violently on the ground crying, ‘Mother, Thou hast not shown Thyself to me even yet.”6 The people around him commented, “He has got colic pain and that is why he is crying so much.”7
What to say of the general public, even Rani Rashmoni, identified by Sri Ramakrishna himself as one of the eight companions of the Divine Mother, misinterpreted his agony. On Mathur’s instigation, the younger Bhattacharya was sent to the house of pleasure. Their idea was that this would reduce his God-absorption and with his celibacy broken, he would be brought back to normal life. But that was not be. Sri Ramakrishna threw cold water on their plan when he addressed the courtesan as mother and fell at her feet!
Coming to know of his divine excesses, his mother Chandramoni Devi summoned him back to Kamarpukur. Even there, Gadadhar was found to repeatedly cry his heart out uttering ‘Maa’, ‘Maa’. Seeing that, the village elders sagely concluded that he was possessed by an evil spirit.
The deprecatory appellation ‘madcap’ became the adornment of his person—equally during the early, middle, and later phase of his life.
At the later phase of Sri Ramakrishna’s life came Shivanath Shastri, the much acclaimed preceptor of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. After frequenting him, Shivanath heedlessly declared: “Sri Ramakrishna is half-crazy, afflicted with neurotic ailments.” Once when meeting Shivanath, Sri Ramakrishna came down on him with a rapier-like observation: “You think day and night of bricks, wood, earth, money and all sorts of material things and yet consider yourself to be of sound mind, while I—who meditate day and night on God, whose consciousness makes the whole universe conscious—you consider to be ignorant and unconscious. A fine piece of reasoning! What sort of intellect you have?”8
When Sri Ramakrishna returned to Dakshineswar and resumed his sadhana, there appeared Bhairavi Brahmani. For the first time, it seemed as though a denizen from his own land had arrived at last— one having the cure for all his agonies. Under her guidance, Sri Ramakrishna completed the Tantric-sadhana with full glory. His avatarahood was established indisputably amongst the learned society.
As the realm of spiritual visions was of easy access to Bhairavi, she rightly recognised the jewel in the form of Sri Ramakrishna. But it is one thing to recognise an avatara and quite a different thing to know with certainty the acts of the greatest among them!
When Sri Ramakrishna broke the shackles of dualism and began to tread on the path of monism with his Advaitic teacher Totapuri, Bhairavi remonstrated: “My child, don’t visit him often; don’t mix much with him. His path is dry and austere. All your ardent affection and intense love for God will vanish if you mix with him.”9 But her objections went unheeded.
Sri Ramakrishna’s life became the ground of harmony of knowledge and devotion. In his quest for fullness, an unwavering Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya free from all earthly ties, became Ramakrishna Puri in the serene hours of one immaculate dawn.
But Bhairavi was not the lone exception. None of the gurus who came to Sri Ramakrishna could see the entire breadth of the Ganga from its origin to its outlet. Some had seen the origin Gomukh, some Bhagirathi in Kolkata, while others the coast adjoining the Ganga Sagar.
The flower blossomed; a swarm of bees swarmed to it. But who can drink the nectar if the tongue is not yet ready to taste it?
Sri Ramakrishna could not stand the presence of materialistic people. Yet in this phase of his life at Dakshineswar he had to associate with people like the occult-mongering Pratap Chandra Hazra, and the fame-seeking Mahimacharan; people who could neither feel the blessedness of Sri Ramakrishna’s company nor make their own presence joyful to him!
The people of Kolkata failed to recognise the glory of renunciation. And neither could Mathur. After consulting Hriday, Mathur once wanted to legally handover the ownership of an entire ‘taluka’ to Sri Ramakrishna. Coming to know about this, ‘the king of renunciation’ ran like one mad to beat him saying, “Ah, you wretch, you want to make a worldly man of me!”10
Tormented by the agony of being companionless, he cried from the roof top of his Temple residence, “Come, my children! Oh, where are you? I cannot bear to live without you.”11 His all-renouncing disciple-companions then started coming one by one.
Came Narendra— the incarnation of ‘Nara’— the perfected Manhood. Sri Ramakrishna saw in a vision, a streak of light coming all the way from Kashi to Kolkata. He was thus assured that he at last had found a man from the land of true radiance where darkness dare not peep.
The river met the sea. One wonders if the river, at the mergence with the sea, could recognise its sea-nature. One is perhaps led to a slightly contrasting answer as per Swami Premananda’s account. Baburam, the future Swami Premananda, had come to Dakshineswar accompanied by another devotee. This was Baburam’s first visit and night-stay at Dakshineswar. He was suddenly awakened around midnight. He saw Sri Ramakrishna appearing before them just as a little boy and in a sobbing voice ask, “Look here, as I have not seen Narendra for a long time, I feel as if my whole soul is being forcibly wrung like a wet towel; please ask him to come once and see me. He is a person of pure Sattva, he is Narayana Himself; I cannot have peace of mind if I don’t see him now and then.”12 This repeated throughout the night. What earnestness! Seeing this terrible pang of separation Baburam reflected, “How wonderful is his love! And how hard-hearted that person must be for whom his longing is so devastating and behaviour so pathetic!”13
Along with his brother-disciples like Yogen, Niranjan and others, Narendranath had repeatedly put his guru to test. Later, Narendra declared in no uncertain terms: “It was the Master alone who knew how to love and he did love, while others of the world but feign love for the satisfaction of their self-interest.”14
But there was a time-gap between Narendra’s first acquaintance with Sri Ramakrishna and his ascension to this deep faith. In the meantime, Sri Ramakrishna’s mind often quivered like a boat in the ebb and flow of hope and despair. Once, when Naren planned to go away as a wandering sannyasi without informing anyone, Sri Ramakrishna divined it and sang to him with tears in his eyes, “I am afraid to speak/ And am afraid not to speak. / The doubt arises in my mind/ Lest I should lose you”. Again, anxious to prevent Naren from going back to his eternal abode, before fulfilling his mission on earth, Sri Ramakrishna prayed to the Divine Mother of the Universe, “Mother, bind him with your Maya.”
At Cossipore, the ‘thousand-petalledlotus’ Naren sought Nirvikalpa Samadhi from Sri Ramakrishna. But the king of samadhi reprimanded him: “Shame on you! You are asking for such an insignificant thing. I thought that you would be like a big banyan tree, and that thousands of people would rest in your shade. But now I see that you are seeking your own liberation.”15 We can read in these words a sense of fear that Naren may not fulfill his mission, which was to preach to the world the unvoiced ideas of Sri Ramakrishna.
Sri Ramakrishna’s joy of being surrounded by pure souls was matched only by his anxiety for their spiritual growth or the fear of losing their company. He intensely prayed for their spiritual good, and yet their minds occasionally succumbed to skepticism, and some like Purno and Bhavanath even became ensnared by the world. This fun-play of joyanxiety went on till the last moments of his life. Finally, when Naren too doubted his avatarhood, the Parthasarathi of this age as if blowing his Panchajanya, declared, “O my Naren, are you not yet convinced? He who was Rama, He who was Krishna, He Himself is now Ramakrishna in this body: not in your Vedantic sense [according to which each soul is potentially divine], but actually so.”16
Just as in the matter of the true nature of Sri Ramakrishna’s being, there was no less confusion regarding the essence of his message too. Sri Ramakrishna himself knew that none had recognised him, none could grasp his words, and no one was ready to delve into the ocean of his true being.
When he was staying at the Shyampukur house, afflicted with the throat cancer, Ramchandra Datta and some other devotees joyfully participated in kirtans, dancing merrily and rejoicing in devotional songs. The spirit of contemplation was overshadowed by sentimentalism. These devotees came to regard contortions of the body, losing consciousness etc., as the yardstick of spiritual growth. Sri Ramakrishna smiled to himself when he said, “Oh Ram, you understood just the opposite!”
Later, at Cossipore when the cancer was in an advanced stage, Pandit Shashadhar Tarkachudamani, a famous religious preacher who had great love and respect for Sri Ramakrishna, one day requested “Sir, if you put your mind on your throat a little, your cancer will surely be cured.”17 Sri Ramakrishna replied, “How can the mind that I have already offered to the Lord be diverted again to this body of flesh and blood?”18 The pandit had failed to understand Sri Ramakrishna’s state of awareness.
Though from the worldly perspective Sri Ramakrishna’s loneliness may appear to partake of the element of agony, it must be kept in mind that deep within, Sri Ramakrishna had realised the impermanence of the space-time bound universe. Never did he feel the least worldly attraction for any person or object.
On 29 September 1884 the third day of Durga Puja, we find Sri Ramakrishna in an ecstatic mood in the company of his devotees at Dakshineswar. Replying to a question, Sri Ramakrishna said, “Must I waste my mind, which should be given to God, on useless things? I say: ‘O Mother, I don’t want Narendra, Bhavanath, Rakhal or anybody. I seek Thee alone! What shall I do with man? …. When I attain God, I shall attain everything.’”19
Why then did he have an unearthly affection for Narendra, Bhavanath, Rakhal and others? The answer is given by Sri Ramakrishna himself: “The reason is this; these are all pure in heart. Lust and gold have not yet touched them. If they apply their minds to God, they will be able to realize Him.”20
Unable to understand the spirit behind Sri Ramakrishna’s divine love for him, Naren once cautioned his guru that he might have to suffer the fate of King Bharata, who was trapped by his affection for a deer. Sri Ramakrishna took this warning straight to his Divine Mother and returned with a relieved smile, “I don’t take your words seriously; Mother has said that I feel attracted towards you because I see Narayana in you; I’ll not even look at your face the day I shall not feel His presence in you.”21
In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Mahendranath has described a wonderful late evening scene that captures the essence of this discussion. He writes: “In the dim light the Master, all alone, was pacing the hall, rejoicing in the Self as the lion lives and roams alone in the forest.”22
Because Sri Ramakrishna is desireless and rooted in the Self, his ‘aloneness’ has the nectar of true companionship, and it acts as the unfailing pointer for us to transcend from selfcenteredness to unity, from finite to infinite, and from sorrow to absolute bliss.
References:
1) The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. [hereafter Gospel]. Mahendra Nath Gupta. Trans. Swami Nikhilananda. Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2012, 716-717
2) The Life of Swami Vivekananda. [hereafter Life]. By His Eastern and Western Disciples. Mayavati: Advaita Ashrama, 2016, 1:81
3) Sri Ramakrishna The Great Master. [hereafter Great Master]. Swami Saradananda. Trans. Swami Jagadananda. Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2008, p.148
4) Ibid., pp.185
5) Ibid., p. 199
6) Ibid., p. 216
7) Ibid., p.216
8) Sri Ramakrishna On Himself. Compiler: Dr. Mohit Ranjan Das. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2014, p.136
9) Great Master. p.668
10) Ibid., p. 342
11) Gospel. p. 46
12) Great Master. p.1058
13) Ibid. p.1058
14) Ibid., p. 1153
15) God Lived With Them [ hereafter God Lived]. Swami Chetanananda. St. Louis: Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 1997, p.36
16) Life. p.1.183
17) God Lived. p.454
18) Ibid., p.454
19) Gospel. p. 572
20) Great Master. p.874
21) Ibid. pp.875-876
22) Gospel. p.92
Source : Vedanta Kesari, August, 2020
