The Cauliflower (26 page)

Ah. Perhaps Uncle's enviable sense of detachment isn't quite so perfect as he thinks it is after all?

In summary

Sri Ramakrishna, he say
:

“If you feel
longing (i)
,

And a sense of
devotion (ii)
,

Then you will see God.”

He also say
:

“The different faiths

Are nothing more than mere paths—

They are not the goal.”

1886, deep winter. The Cossipore garden house

Swami Ramakrishnananda, a leading monk of the Ramakrishna Order, is given the
guru
's name when the order is formed after the
guru
's death in tribute to how loyally he served him during his final year of life. On more than one occasion the future Swami has rushed outside in the middle of the night in the freezing cold wearing only a thin cloth to perform some necessary (and probably rather sordid and degrading) service for the terminally ill
guru
. Sri Ramakrishna is skeletally thin and weak. He can do nothing for himself.

When the future Swami returns to the room he finds that the emaciated
guru
has somehow climbed out of bed and crawled on his belly across the dusty floor, and is reaching up a wasted arm to grab something off a hook. The future Swami is naturally both horrified and incensed. “What on earth are you doing?” he demands, finding it impossible to disguise the exasperation in his voice. “It's much too cold to be out of bed!”

The panting
guru
slowly turns, and, with an immense effort, holds out his own dressing gown (a thick shawl), which he has somehow managed to pull from the hook. “I couldn't bear the thought of you being cold,” he croaks. “Please.
Please
. Take this.”

The future Swami tearfully receives the cloth, but later gives it away, feeling himself utterly unworthy of such an extraordinary gift.

“He brought me to the

    banqueting house,

And his banner over me was

    love.

Sustain me with cakes of

    raisins,

Refresh me with apples,

For I am lovesick.…”

                     
—Song of Solomon 2:4–5

“Secular topics

Will sometimes be introduced,”     [
the guru shamefacedly confesses
]

“To make people smile.”

:)

Ten slightly irrelevant answers to nine slightly irrelevant questions you didn't even know you'd asked about the Divine Mother, Sri Sarada Devi:

1. Sri Sarada Devi is not a terribly good cook. Because of his sensitive stomach, Sri Ramakrishna (for the vast majority of his adult life) can only ever eat very plain, bland foods (oh, and sweets; lovely, sticky, creamy sweets—plenty of those). Nothing too spicy, nothing too oily, in other words. The saint's niece Lakshmi's mother is an excellent cook and sometimes prepares dishes for him when he's visiting Kamarpukur. Sri Ramakrishna is known to eat Lakshmi's mother's food and to announce delightedly, “Whoever cooked this is a specialist!”—but then, when he samples something Sarada Devi has prepared for him, to snort drolly and mutter, “And whoever cooked this?
Hah!
A quack!”

2. Sri Sarada Devi is painfully shy and modest. She will usually only ever converse with the
guru
's disciples by whispering her responses to a close female companion. She will rarely appear in public, and if she does, she is often veiled.

3. When Sri Ramakrishna loses his voice toward the end of his life he usually indicates that he is talking about his wife, Sarada, by dint of making a small, circular gesture close to his nose (a visual reference to her nose ring).

4. Sri Ramakrishna's grueling twelve-year period of
sadhana
is generally accepted as having come to its conclusion (or at least to the end of its most difficult and challenging phase—the
guru
never really stops his spiritual journeying; in 1873, he will embrace Christianity) with the worship of
Shodasi
in 1872. A few months earlier, the Holy Mother (Sri Sarada Devi), then only eighteen years of age, arrives at Kamarpukur with her father and some women of her village on the pretext of attending a festival in Calcutta and bathing in the Ganga. In reality, though, her aim is to see her husband after a long four-year gap.

The Holy Mother's life in her native village has not been easy over the past few years. She is known as “the madman's wife” and is universally held as a figure of pity and ridicule. During the course of her lengthy journey to Calcutta, Sri Sarada Devi falls ill, and when she arrives at the Kali Temple a concerned Sri Ramakrishna sets up a bed (a separate bed) in his own room for her. But after a short interval Sri Ramakrishna (now officially a monk—although he never wears the ocher cloth) decides to challenge himself—as a part of his
sadhana
—by sharing his own bed with his young and attractive wife without submitting to lust or to temptation (during the course of their twenty-seven-year-long marriage their relationship remains happy and unconsummated).

In June 1872, during a special festival at the Kali Temple, Sri Ramakrishna makes all of the necessary preparations in his room for an important “mystery” worship. This worship (it soon transpires) is the worship of
Shodasi
, an aspect of the Goddess Durga, the Queen of Queens, a sixteen-year-old girl who represents the sixteen different types of desire. The teenage Sarada is led into Ramakrishna's room and is placed on a chair and worshipped there (sixteen objects are offered, water is liberally splashed,
mantra
s are chanted) in a lengthy and ornate ritual. After several hours the worshipper and the worshipped become completely identified with the Devi in a mutual state of
samadhi
, and from this time forth Sri Ramakrishna believes—or professes—Sri Sarada Devi to be a living incarnation of the Goddess.

5. Sri Sarada Devi's needs are few. For the vast portion of her married life she dwells (separate from her husband) in a tiny storeroom at the base of the
nahabat
, a tower built by the Rani for musical performances. Because of her immense modesty she surrounds the base of the tower in grass screens. Whenever anything interesting is happening in Sri Ramakrishna's room (which lies a stone's throw away) he flings open his door so that she might hear, and she secretly observes unfolding events through a small spy hole which she has painstakingly cut into the straw matting.

6. After several months of sharing Sri Ramakrishna's room with him it transpires that Sri Sarada Devi is getting very little sleep because of her husband's frightening and erratic nighttime activities. Sometimes the saint will descend into
nirvikalpa samadhi
as he lies next to her in bed and she becomes fearful that he is actually dead. She tries to revive him but is often unable to do so and is forced to call on Hriday for assistance. On discovering how anxious this is making her, Sri Ramakrishna suggests that his wife go and stay with his aged mother in the tiny
nahabat
, where at least she can be expected to garner herself a few hours of undisturbed sleep.

But not too many, obviously, or he'll fill a jug in the river and soak her mattress with the contents.

7. The
guru
's niece Lakshmi (who is ten years Sarada's junior) is the Holy Mother's constant companion. Lakshmi has learned the basics of reading in her home village, and Sri Ramakrishna (although virtually illiterate himself and a despiser of “knowledge”) encourages her to teach these to the Holy Mother. Once they have been mastered, he hires a student in Calcutta to raise them both to an even higher standard of literacy.

8. Sri Ramakrishna has a devotee called Golap Sundari, generally known as Golap Ma. She is a widow who has also lost her two children (her son as a boy and her daughter as a young woman). When the
guru
hears Golap Ma's sad story he cheerfully informs her that she is actually very lucky, because God always helps those who have no one else to turn to. He then instantly cures her of her overwhelming burden of grief with a quick, light touch.

Later on he tells the Holy Mother that in the future, when he's gone, Golap Ma will be her permanent companion. And so—aside from a difficult year in 1887–88 when the Holy Mother returns to a life of loneliness and penury in Kamarpukur—it eventually transpires. Golap Ma does in fact become the Holy Mother's ferocious, self-appointed guard dog. The Holy Mother depends on her completely. She nervously holds Golap Ma's hand climbing in and out of carriages, and when appearing in public makes a habit of always humbly walking several paces behind her.

Golap Ma is tall and stern and very traditional, with a high-pitched voice and a slightly tactless manner. She regularly offends people without really meaning to, and the furious disciples often ask the
guru
to reprimand her, but he never will—at least, not in person. He finds Golap Ma much easier and more receptive to his discipline in her dreams.

Golap Ma dedicates her entire life to the service of others. The Holy Mother tells a story about a trip they take together to Vrindaban. In Krishna's temple a stir is caused during the
arati
when a baby defecates on the tiles. Everyone is horrified, and they shake their heads and tut disapprovingly, but it is Golap Ma who—without a word—tears a strip off her own
sari
and quietly and uncomplainingly cleans it up.

Of course, there are several women devotees who, over the years, serve Sri Sarada Devi with incredible kindness and humor and devotion, but Golap Ma is her rock. She indignantly protects the Holy Mother from insensitive devotees who sometimes pester her. She runs the Holy Mother's household with an extraordinary meticulousness and efficiency. Like the
guru
she loves (although it's questionable whether she actually loves the Holy Mother still more), she abhors any kind of pointless waste. Every household scrap is carefully disposed of or recycled—food leftovers are given to the cows, bits of orange peel are dried in the sun and then used as fuel. Even the stalks of the betel leaves are neatly put aside and fed to the guinea pigs (who adore them).

9. Sri Sarada Devi is a difficult individual to pin down—so quiet, so unconfident, so obliging, so self-effacing. It's often easiest to get a sense of her through her relationships with others. Toward the end of her life, on a visit to Varanasi, the Holy Mother is sitting with Golap Ma and a small group of friends when a woman approaches (having heard that the Holy Mother is
in
situ
) hoping for an introduction. She apprehends the group and is initially unable to tell which of them is Sri Sarada Devi. Because Golap Ma is tall and stern-looking, with an authoritative air, she initially holds out a hand to her. Golap Ma says nothing, merely points, stony-faced, to Sri Sarada Devi. The woman turns, slightly embarrassed, and offers her hand to Sri Sarada Devi. Sri Sarada Devi, not missing a beat, silently points back to Golap Ma. The woman turns, perplexed, to Golap Ma. Golap Ma points, scowling ferociously, to Sri Sarada Devi. Quick as you like, Sarada points, eyes twinkling, to Golap Ma. And so it continues, until Golap Ma eventually snaps, bellowing at the terrified woman, “What's wrong with you?! Are you
completely
incapable of telling the difference between a human face and a divine one?!”

10. On their final trip to Varanasi together, talk between Golap Ma and Sri Sarada Devi turns to liberation in death (to die in this ancient city is a promise of liberation) and Golap Ma, after some thought, looks Sri Sarada Devi square in the eye and passionately declares, “Liberation? What's the point in that? I don't
want
liberation. I want
you
!”

Aw
.

Although …

“But what foolishness!”

[
Sri Sarada Devi retorts
,

scandalized
—
quite ruining

the lovely, sisterly atmosphere
]

“Don't you know that the Master

is
liberation?”

Remember this? From earlier?

“If given the choice,

I love to see God's
lila

As a human being.”

“I sleep, but my heart

    is awake;

It is the voice of my beloved!

He knocks, saying,

‘Open for me, my sister, my

    love,

My dove, my perfect one;

For my head is covered with dew,

My locks with the drops of the night.'”

                     
—Song of Solomon 5:2

1881, approximately, at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. The Master's room. The Slacker approaches the Master.

Lazy Truth Seeker (
exasperated
):
“My life is so busy. Finding God is so difficult. And prayer and
japa
take up so much valuable time. Perhaps you might like to give me some experience of God directly?”

Sri Ramakrishna (
closing his eyes with a sigh and entering into samadhi
):
“Oh Mother! This person won't do anything for himself! What now? Am I to be expected to make curd from milk, then butter from curd, then to plop the butter directly into his mouth?!”

15th August 1886

Bring out your hankies. No. Put them away again. No. Bring out your hankies. No. Put them …

Aaaargh!

The is-he-or-isn't-he death of Sri Ramakrishna

My oh my, what an extraordinary scene …

It is late at night. Let us imagine a beautiful but waning moon hanging loosely upon—almost in danger of falling from—its inky peg of sky. This moon reflects a thin silver path into the mysterious and still-inkier holy river below. The Ganga seems restive. She sighs. The stooping willows try their best to comfort her by lightly dragging the feathery tips of their branches across her sacred, puckering brow. But the river will not be mollified.