Life
WHEN HEART CALLS HEART
We have followed the Mother’s doings as she moved about busily within the precincts of the Nahabat contented with glimpses of the Master from afar. That self-content with her work and association with the Master was only one side of her life, and not a very important one. She lived at Dakshineswar only for serving the Master meticulously, any personal benefit being only incidental and never her main objective. If that were not so, her mind would some day or other revolt against the monotonous drudgery and the rigid routine of the Nahabat, and would search for an escape from it. The remedy was not quite beyond her reach; for at Dakshineswar itself, not far away, there was the house built by Shambhu Babu, and none at the temple premises could object seriously if she chose to relax herself a little from the shackles with which she voluntarily bound herself. But we are not concerned here with a discussion of the possible means of the Mother’s personal happiness; we want to delineate the kinds of service that she rendered primarily to the Master, and incidentally to his devotees as well. With this side of her life we are already partly acquainted, and we shall get more evidence of it as we proceed. We shall confine our attention mainly to the period beginning with the coming of the devotees and ending with the final illness of the Master.
Prior to the Mother’s arrival at Dakshineswar and her dedication to the service of the Master, life was rather uneventful with him But when towards the end of his austerity his power of digestion suffered, the Mother came upon the scene as if through divine direction, Hridaya left the temple premises, and the Master’s health improved as a result of the most devoted service of the Mother,—all these factors made the Master depend more and more on her. If she happened to go anywhere, the childlike Master felt helpless, and would become extremely anxious to bring her back. Such solicitude on the part of one who was ever absorbed in spiritual experience, may appear enigmatic to many; but from the Mother’s point of view we easily realize that her service was so successful that it could rivet on her the attention of the mightiest spiritual giant that history has witnessed. The Mother massaged the Master’s feet even as does Lakshmi sitting at Lord Narayana’s feet; before bath she rubbed oil on his person; and prepared nourishing and palatable dishes for him according to his taste and condition of health. In short, she then forgot herself in him. And it was not perhaps possible even for a detached mind like that of Sri Ramakrishna’s to be oblivious of such consecrated service, instances of which, as also of the Master’s dependence on her, are numerous.
The Master had a weak liver. So the Mother cooked for him soups and curries that were easily digestible. Now, according to Hindu custom, a wife may not do so during certain days when her person is considered impure. During those few days the Master ate whatever came to him as prasada from the Kali temple and suffered as a consequence.
So he asked the Mother one day, ‘Look here, dear, my trouble has increased because you did not cook my food during these days. Why didn’t you do so?’ The Mother explained, ‘Women can’t cook for anybody during the days of their impurity.’ ‘Who says, they can’t?’ asked the Master, ‘Do it for me, you won’t incur any sin thereby. Would you explain, which part of your body is impure—skin, flesh, bone, or marrow? Know that purity and impurity reside in the mind; there’s nothing impure outside.’ After that the Mother always cooked for him The Master, highly delighted at this, said, ‘See, my dear, how healthy is my body by taking your dishes. ’
Another account of this service the devotees heard from the Mother. Once Kaviraj1 Gangaprasad Sen of Kumartoli, Calcutta, was called in to cure the Master of an ailment. The Kaviraj asked the patient to give up water altogether during the treatment. Childlike as the Master was, he went on asking everybody, ‘Well, dear, shall I be able to manage without drinking water?’ The Mother said to him encouragingly, ‘Most assuredly you will.’ Still the Master said, by way of caution, ‘Water has to be wiped off even the pomegranate seeds. Try if you can. ’ The Mother assured him, ‘Well, that depends on how Mother Kali will have it. By Her grace I shall try my utmost.’ Then he resolved to give up water. The Mother offered him plenty of milk daily and increased the quantity gradually without his being aware of it. The milkman who came to the temple-garden gave her the extra milk left unsold, and said, ‘If I leave the milk there, those people will carry it home after it has been offered to Kali, and will give it to all kinds of people; whereas, if I leave it here, he (the Master) will drink it. ’ In exchange he got from the Mother all kinds of sweets and other things that lay at hand. The devotees used to bring those things plentifully, and so there was no dearth. She then condensed the milk to two or three pints by boiling. When the Master asked her, ‘How much milk is there?’ she referred only to the thickened milk and said, ‘How much, indeed? It may be two or two and a half pints.’ Not convinced, the Master would say, ‘No, why then is there that thick layer of cream?’ The Mother nevertheless coaxed him to drink the whole quantity. One day Golap-Ma was present at the meal time and the Master asked her, ‘Well, my dear, what is the quantity of milk there?’ Golap-Ma, unaware of the purpose behind the question gave out the quantity of the unboiled milk. Startled at this, the Master said, ‘Ah, such a lot of milk! That’s why I get indigestion. Call her, call her!’ The Mother came and the Master inquired again, ‘How much is the milk?’ The Mother gave her usual reply. But the Master persisted, ‘Why then Golap does speak of there being so much?’ Unabashed, the Mother explained, ‘Golap knows nothing. What does Golap know of our measurement here? How can Golap know how much a pot contains?’ The matter ended there that day. But on another occasion the Master again inquired of Golap-Ma and she said, ‘One bowlful of milk from here and another from the Kali temple.’ The Master started and said, ‘Ah, what a quantity! Call her; ask her.’ As soon as the Mother entered, the Master inquired, ‘How much milk does the bowl contain —how many quarts and pints?’ The Mother replied, ‘I know nothing of quarts or pints. Who indeed cares for so much calculation?’ The Master pleaded, ‘Can any one digest so much? As it is, I shall have indigestion.’ And, in fact, he had it that afternoon, so that he had to forgo his evening meal. The Mother gave him only a cup of sago. Noticing the action of the Master’s thoughts and beliefs on his body, fully established in truth as he was, Golap-Ma told the Mother regretfully, ‘Mother, you ought to have warned me. For, his meal is spoiled.’ The Mother explained, ‘A white lie for feeding one has nothing bad in it. I feed him by cajoling him thus.’ That is to say, the Mother’s attention was fixed not so much on formal veracity as on the improvement of the Master’s health; and as a matter of fact, she found that he was putting on weight by drinking milk in plenty.
A word or two may be necessary by way of explanation for people who are wedded to a mere meticulous observance of conventional standards. When the Mother asked the Master not to be insistent about ascertaining the exact quantity of milk, she was, perhaps, following his own line of thought. Once the cashier of the temple paid the Master less than his monthly allowance through some mistake. When the Mother heard of it she suggested that it might be rectified by bringing it to the notice of that officer, at which the Master simply said, ‘Bah! bah! To think that I should calculate!’ In the present case too, the Mother, perhaps, wanted to defeat the Master through his own psychological approach in order to make him drink the milk. Secondly, when we are discussing this topic, there flashes before our mind’s eye the picture of a mother coaxing some dear, specially helpless, unthinking children, to take wholesome food. What a lot of irrelevant talk and fanciful stories they indulge in for feeding their dear little ones! In such cases no one dares charge them with lying or prevarication, nor does such a preposterous idea cross the mind. And what is morality after all? There is nothing absolute about it. We pronounce something good after referring it to a certain background for a comparative study. The rose is not all good, it has its thorns. And yet the blooming flower with captivating fragrance and with dew drops on the soft petals that reflect the morning light, makes us oblivious of its drawbacks and thus leaves only a sweet memory which is ever a source of delight. The loving words of mothers and other dear ones too are only a source of comfort and happiness and their memory also is equally charming. The Holy Mother did not end with mere endearing words; she used to press the rice with her hands to make the quantity appear less, so that the mere sight of it might not scare the Master. So long as the Master’s mother was alive, he used to go to her and eat his food sitting before her. But, later on, the food was carried to his room by the Mother.
Whatever the motive of the Holy Mother might have been, her devotion to the Master’s service often came into conflict with his naturally high-toned morality and un-compromising practical veracity; for though the two hearts beat in unison, they had to express their feelings through complex human media. And yet such apparent disharmony produced certain remarkable situations which were full of deep import for others. We have noticed how the truthful Master suffered physically on coming to learn that he had been taking more milk than he thought he was actually doing, though as a matter of fact the diet had been improving his health all the time. We adduce another instance of this kind.
One day the Master saw that the pouch in which were kept for him some digestive spices to chew at will, was empty, and he went to the Mother to get some. The Mother handed over to him a pinch of aniseeds and jowan (lovage, ptychotis Coptica) and gave him a little more in a packet of paper saying, ‘Take this.’ He took it and started for his room; but as a man of renunciation he had vowed not to stock anything for the future. Hence this slight infringement had an adverse effect on him Some unknown force carried him to the southern Nahabat on the Ganges. Not finding the way to his room, but rather the river in full tide, he said, ‘Mother, should I drown myself, should I?’ That was in the early days of the
Mother’s life at Dakshineswar. She was in a predicament for, being extremely shy, she could not rush to his rescue, nor could she stand quiet. Just then a brahmin of the temple happened to pass that way, with whose help she called in Hridaya and had the Master taken to his room. We should ponder a little to realize how difficult it was to serve this god-man. While men have their own methods of being pleased, and the gods have their hymns and worship, in the case of God in human form such as was the Master it seemed as if only a divine woman like the Holy Mother could meet all his requirements.
Though the Mother made the service of the Master the one goal of her life, she did not deprive others of the privilege; on the contrary, when occasion demanded, she made way for others, though such forced separation from the Master meant insufferable desolation for her. She used to carry his food to his room at night. But once the Master asked Golap-Ma to do so. From that day on, the Mother entrusted Golap-Ma with the task. The Mother could hitherto meet the Master at least once in a day; but the new arrangement deprived her of that opportunity. Golap-Ma’s nature was such that, though she was a spiritual soul of a high order and had intense devotion for both the Master and the Mother, she could not understand the feelings of others but was led by her own sentiments, and this to such an extent that, even when she meant no harm but rather tried to do a good turn to others, she in fact hurt people’s feelings. Once she said to the Mother, ‘Mother,
Manomohan’s mother1 was complaining: “He (the Master) is very ascetic, and yet the Mother wears these ear-rings and other ornaments. Does that look nice? Defeated by worldly wisdom, the Mother laid away that very day all her ornaments except a pair of bangles. When next day Yogin-Ma came and argued against such false sentimentality, she put on one or two pieces, but she never again wore all of them; for, soon after the Master developed cancer in his throat, so that her mind could no longer think of personal adornment. Be that as it may, let us return to the topic of serving food. Golap-Ma used to be with the Master long after evening, sometimes she returned to the Nahabat at ten o’clock. This caused much inconvenience to the Mother; for she had to keep watch over the food in the verandah of the Nahabat. One night the Master heard her saying, ‘It doesn’t matter if a cat or a dog eats the food; I can’t go on watching it. ’ He realized the difficulty of the Mother and warned Golap-Ma. But she followed her own line of thought and said, ‘No, Mother loves me very much and addresses me as she would her own daughter. ’ It was not strange, therefore, that it took a woman of her temperament quite a long time to understand the feelings of the Mother and to entrust the duty to her again. For this long period the Mother kept her misery all to herself, remaining content with the glimpses she had of him from afar.
Absolutely selfless though this extraordinary service was, not all could appreciate it. Not only that, but it gave rise to jealousy in the hearts of worldlings, which at times found expression in words, and hence such ignorant criticism did not totally escape the Mother’s ears. Once a woman asked her bluntly, ‘Why do you go to the Master?’ The innocent Holy Mother took others’ words at their surface value; moreover she ever tried not to be a cause of annoyance to others. Thus with a view to composing others’ minds, she often invited unnecessary mortification on herself, and this she bore without a murmur. In the present case she readily understood that the woman sought an opportunity of serving the Master, and accordingly she refrained from her part of the work for some time. Those were painful days, for she had then nothing more than fleeting glimpses of the Master as he passed at nightfall by her door on his way to the jhau (tamarisk) grove in the north; and at times that privilege too was denied.
Nonetheless, life at Dakshineswar rolled on merrily; but Fate would not however allow this. In June 1885, there were symptoms of the Master’s throat trouble which the doctors later diagnosed as cancer. The devotees realized that the disease could not be treated properly unless he was removed to Calcutta where alone proper medical care would be available. The Master, having consented, was taken to a rented house in Durgacharan Mukherji Street, in the Baghbazar area of the city. But the sight of the house repelled the Master who left immediately for Balaram Babu’s house; for being used to the open spaces of the temple-garden on the wide river, he could not be persuaded to squeeze himself into those dingy rooms. Within a week another house was rented in Shyampukur Street, and the Master took his residence there in the beginning
of October.1 He was placed under the care of the well-known Homoeopath, Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar.
The Mother continued her desolate life at Dakshineswar. Sri Ramakrishna was not there, the opportunities of service had disappeared, and she was constantly put in mind of the evil prognostics the Master had made about his passing away. Four years before the cancer the Master had told her, ‘When I eat indiscriminately from everybody’s hand, spend the night in Calcutta, and partake of my food after offering part of it to someone, you will know that my last day is approaching.’ Before the disease began, these omens had been coming true one by one. The Master had been going to various houses on invitation and partaking of all food except cooked rice served by all kinds of people; he had been spending nights now and then at Balaram Babu’s house in Calcutta; and when Narendranath (Swami Vivekananda) once failed to visit Dakshineswar for a long time on account of some alimentary trouble, the Master had him brought there and made him partake of some portion of the soup and rice cooked for himself, the remaining portion of which he himself took afterwards. When the Mother objected and wanted to cook again, the Master said that he felt no hesitation in partaking of food of which a portion had been offered earlier to Narendra, and that the Mother need not apprehend any evil consequences or cook again. The Mother observed all this. But when the Divine Dispenser turns the wheel of fortune at His pleasure, others, though aware of the consequences and the remedy, can only watch and shed helpless tears. We can well realize how extremely forlorn the Mother felt at Dakshineswar when the Master was not there; we can understand that now and again the hard question was agitating her mind, ‘Well, then, is he intent on ending his play here?’ But who can believe an unpleasant truth? And even if there were no truth in the omens, what could she after all do in that helpless state? When the beloved disciples of the Master, with his own approval, made the arrangement for his cure, what else could the Mother do but silently smart under that ordeal? But her affliction was not to last long.
Soon after the Master was at Shyampukur, it became clear to the devotees that, side by side with medicines and personal attendance, there must be adequate arrangement for preparing diet. The young disciples could serve but not cook. And so the only way out of the difficulty was to bring the Mother there. But then, there was another insoluble problem. The house had no inner apartment for women; it really formed the outer apartment of a bigger house belonging to one Gokulchandra Bhattacharya. The devotees were at a loss to think how the Mother could live there; and remembering her preference for extreme seclusion, many doubted whether she would come at all. The Mother, who avoided being seen by anybody in spite of her long residence at the Nahabat, could not be expected to get over this habit of privacy all of a sudden and live and move freely among men. And yet they had no alternative. Consequently the matter had to be put before the Master and his opinion sought. He too reminded them of the Mother’s habit and said, ‘Will she be able to come and live here? Anyway, you may try. If she agrees to come after knowing everything, let her do so.’ The Master and his devotees based their misgivings on what they had known of the Holy Mothex’s temperament, but they forgot her wonderful power of adapting her life to the necessities of circumstances and her readiness to sacrifice all comfort and privacy for the sake of the Master. And as a matter of fact, as soon as the call came, she moved on to Shyampukur with alacrity and took up her duties there.
The house, No. 55, stands on the northern side of Shyampukur Street which stretches from east to west. As one entered the gate northward one found on either side a platform for sitting and a paved terrace. Further ahead on the right side were the stairs leading to the first floor and in front a courtyard, on the eastern side of which there were two or three small rooms. Going up, one found on the right a long room extending north and south, which was allotted to visitors. And on the left was the passage leading to the rooms. The first door that one came across, as one proceeded along the passage, led to the big room in which the Master lived. It had verandahs on north and south, and on the west two small rooms, one of which was the bedroom of the Holy Mother and the other of the devotees. On the eastern side of the passage to the Master’s room was a staircase leading to the roof; and by the side of the door opening to the roof was a covered quadrangular terrace, where the Mother cooked for the Master and spent the whole day.
In that house there was only one place where bathing was possible and all had to bathe there. The Mother would finish her ablutions at three o’clock in the morning and go up the terrace on the second floor. When the diet for the Master was ready, she would send word downstairs through Gopal-dada (or Gopal-da) or Latu, and the visitors would then be asked to go out so that she might come down and feed the Master; or if that was not possible the young devotees would carry the food downstairs. The Mother would rest herself on the terrace at noon; and when all were asleep, she would come down to her own bedroom at about eleven o’clock at night. There she would sleep up to 2 a.m This was her heavy and exacting routine for days on end in the service of the Master. But the wonder of it is that, though hers was the most important part of the nursing, she carried on her work so silently in an unseen corner that not even the regular visitors suspected her presence.
After about two and a half months at Shyampukur, the doctor found that the Master’s disease was increasing rather than decreasing, and he advised that he should be taken to some spacious garden house outside the city. Accordingly the devotees hired the premises No. 90,
Cossipore Road, from Gopalchandra Ghosh; and the Master, along with the Mother and the young disciples, shifted there on the 11th December, 1885. The garden house lay on the eastern side of the Cossipore Road which runs northward from Calcutta. Almost at the middle of the northern boundary wall of the garden there were some three or four small rooms meant as kitchen and store. In front of these, on the other side of the garden path, stood a two-storeyed dwelling house which had four rooms on the ground floor and two upstairs. Of the lower rooms, the one in the middle was like a hall. North of this were two small rooms side by side, the western one of which had a wooden staircase leading up to the rooms above, and the eastern one was the Mother’s bedroom. The big hall, which extended east and west, and the room on the south of it, which had a small verandah on the east, were used by the devotees as bedrooms and sitting rooms. Over the hall there was another big room of equal dimensions, where the Master lived. South of this was an open terrace with a parapet all around where the Master sometimes sat or strolled. North of this was the roof over the stairs, and a room over the Mother’s of equal size which was used for the Master’s convenience or as a bedroom for some young devotees on duty.
Needless to say that the Mother felt more happy here inasmuch as she could serve the Master while not being hampered by as many constraints as before. The young devotees too continued to attend on the Master, and their number gradually swelled. Thus the malady of the Master became an occasion for the crystallization of the future Ramakrishna Order, at the centre of which naturally sat the Holy Mother as the presiding deity. Here, too, her daily routine remained almost the same; the slight changes that were made were for making it more convenient for the Master. Here also she cooked the usual things. If any special diet had to be prepared, Gopal-da or some one else with whom she could talk freely learnt the process from the physician and duly instructed her. A little before noon and a short while after evening, she carried the food to the Master and returned to her own room when his meal was over. At this time Lakshmi Devi was brought there to help her in the work and keep company. Besides, the women devotees who came to visit the Master spent some time or lived with the Mother for a day or two. It is not known exactly when Lakshmi Devi came there; it is also doubtful if the women devotees visited the Master frequently enough or if they stayed for any considerable period. The following incidents rather go to show that usually the Mother had no one to assist her even in an emergency.
The distance between successive steps of the wooden staircase mentioned earlier was so great that it required some effort even for healthy people to negotiate the ascent, while for weaker people it was a task. One day as the Mother was going up with a bowl containing four pints of milk, her head reeled and she fell down, thus spilling the milk and spraining her ankle. Stunned by the fall she lay on the ground; then Baburam (Swami Premananda) who happened to be there, lifted her up. The ankle became swollen, making it impossible for her to climb the steps. The Master was pained to hear of the mishap; moreover as he depended on her for many things, he became not a little nervous. But he was always noted for his good humour, so that his anxiety and sympathy found expression in words that made the young devotees forget their sorrow for the time being. He started by saying to Babu ram, ‘Now that matters have come to such a pass, Baburam, what will turn up next? What about my food? Who will feed me?’ The Master was then given rice paste to eat, and the Mother cooked and fed him with it. She wore a big nose-ring (nath) at that time. Hence the Master put his hand to his nose and circling a finger round in imitation of the ring, told Baburam with a gesture: ‘O Baburam, can you carry in a basket on your head that person who is such and such?’ That made Narendra and Baburam laugh until their sides almost split. Three days later, when the swelling on the ankle had subsided a little, the young devotees helped her to limp up the steps; during these three days Golap-Ma, who was brought there for the purpose, prepared the rice paste and fed the Master; for the Master did not accept cooked rice from any nonbrahmin.
When the Master was completely bed-ridden at Cossipore, the young devotees on attendance planned one evening to drink the juice collected in an earthen pitcher by tapping a date palm at the southern boundary of the garden. The Master knew nothing of this. At the appointed hour, Niranjan (Swami Niranjanananda) and others proceeded towards the tree in a group. Just then the Mother suddenly noticed the Master darting down like an arrow. Startled at this, she thought, ‘Is that possible at all? How can one, who has to be helped even to change sides on his bed, rush down like that?’ And yet she could not totally disbelieve her eyes. Accordingly she had to go to his room to be sure of the matter; but he was not there, the room was empty. In great consternation she searched for him here and there, but failing to find him, went to her own room with extreme confusion and apprehension in her mind. After a while she saw him darting up as swiftly as he had gone down. To satisfy her curiosity she asked the Master, about it later and he said, ‘Did you indeed notice that? The boys who have come here are all young. They were proceeding merrily to drink the juice of a date palm in the garden. I saw that there was a black cobra there which is so ferocious that it would have bitten them all. The boys did not know this. So I went there by a different route to drive it away; and I told it, “Don’t enter here again.”’ He warned her not to divulge this to others. The Mother was overwhelmed by these happenings.
From a minor incident we can have an idea of how respectfully the young devotees looked on the Mother even in those early days. The Master once said to them, ‘I have a desire to eat the food you get by begging.’ At this Narendra and others leaped with joy. But before they started on their mission they decided that the first person to be approached should be the Holy Mother. And when they begged her, she dropped
full sixteen annas1 into their begging pot. Thus in every undertaking they sought her blessing; and she, too, had the sweetest and kindest of words for them If the young men became upset at the continuous emaciation of the Master’s body, it was she who consoled and encouraged them, and when any problem about the Master’s service cropped up, her advice helped them to solve it. In fact, behind everything there were the loving, spoken words, the blissful, unseen hands of the Holy Mother which put life into every heart.
1. A physician who treats in accordance with the old Indian system of medicines called Ayurveda or science of life.
1. Manomohan Mitra and his mother were devotees of the Master. Rakhal married Manomohan’s sister before he renounced the world and became Swami Brahmananda.
1. The Lilaprasanga Divyabhava (p. 257) puts it as the beginning of September. But in the Bengali Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna, he is found to be present at Dakshineswar on the 24th September, and at Shyampukur on the 18th October. So we put it as the beginning of October 1885.
1. Sixteen annas make one rupee and the full moon is supposed to consist of sixteen digits, whence sixteen stands for fullness or superabundance. By giving sixteen annas, the Mother signified her bestowing on them all that they could wish for.
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