Daily Reading 133. Swamiji gives some profound insights into the all-encompassing nature of Sri Ramakrisha.

Taken from Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

After Sri Ramakrishna passed away in Calcutta [Kolkata], one of his devotees was living in the south. It appears that this man was afraid of a Tantric practitioner who had some supernatural powers. But actually Master’s devotee was irritating the Tantric man and would start him off [i.e. annoy him] every day and in the night he would sit down and pray to Sri Ramakrishna. In the morning he would get up again, and during the day he would start him [the Tantric adept] off [yet] again. This went on for a couple of years.

Then he went to visit the Holy Mother [Sri Sarada Devi]. She said to him, ‘You must stop it.’ And he asked, ‘What must I stop?’ She said, ‘You must stop irritating other people. Do you think Sri Ramakrishna has got nothing else to do but sit down and protect you?’ So do not underestimate Sri Ramakrishna – whatever you desire, he is the wish-fulfilling root itself. The wish-fulfilling tree is a tree, it can dry off [up] and lose power. But this is the root that gives power to those trees and branches and leaves. So make no mistake.

Sri Sarada Devi said: One day I sat and prayed to Master [Sri Ramakrishna] about the disciples, ‘Those are your children, your sannyasin [monastic] sons. They have no shelter – no place to sleep. Please give them a place where they can stay.’
Swamiji: That is how these great Maths and Centres have sprung up and the devotees have made progress.

It is not for nothing that Sri Ramakrishna is known as the embodiment of all the deities of the past, present and the future. You may not understand the term ‘the future’ but in our scriptures, in the Devi Mahatmyam and the Bhagavatam, it already describes which Avatars [Incarnations] God will take in the future, what form the Lord will come in. So in the future, God Himself will have to come. What I am trying to say is, do not under-estimate Sri Ramakrishna.

Towards the end of his physical life Sri Ramakrishna was suffering from [throat] cancer. God in human form suffers too, Christ suffered too. If Christ did not suffer, then we would not know how to suffer. He suffered and taught us how to become above suffering. How? By relying on God Himself. That is what the Lord taught us. And Sri Ramakrishna is like that too. One day when Master was suffering from cancer, he could hardly speak and he was dozing. For a few moments the Master went off to sleep, so the devotees, who were looking after him, decided to go and have a little rest in the garden. They sat under the trees here and there and chatted.

The Holy Mother [Sri Sarada Devi] also went out of Master’s room. She waited a half hour or so and decided to go back and see if Master was awake or if he needed anything. When she entered his room, she found the sick Ramakrishna walking fast from the back door and getting back on his bed. She was very surprised and said, ‘Just now you were very sick, you could not walk, you could not drink anything. What were you doing outside?’ Master said to her, ‘Shh, shh, don’t tell anybody about it. Do you see where the boys are seated? There was a big snake there, and the snake would have harmed my children and I just went to chase it away.’

Swamiji chants Sri Ramakrishna’s mantra: OM eym sarva deva devi swaroopaaya sri ramakrishnaaya namah. [Meaning: I salute Sri Ramakrishna, who embodies the Consciousness of all the gods and goddesses.] We call Sri Ramakrishna the Embodiment, the Consciousness. The Consciousness of all the deities, embodied in the body called Sri Ramakrishna. He represents the past, present and future. Embodiments of God from the past, like Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Christ and Buddha are now embodied in Sri Ramakrishna for the present and the future. Thus Sri Ramakrishna is the embodiment of God for all times. Do not think that I am being fanatical. This is the Truth.

The day before yesterday I said to a devotee, ‘If this Sri Ramakrishna cannot help you, if you find he is not fulfilling your prayers, and if you are sincere, then take him and throw him out.’

Why should I worship a paralysed God? I want a God that is living. The Lord can fulfill our wishes and at the same time guide us in such a way that our minds become purified, and guide us so we know who we are: I and my Father are One.

Swami Vivekananda said, ‘I do not want to speak about the Master [Sri Ramakrishna] – because in speaking about him I may belittle him.’ One day one of Master’s disciples asked Swami Vivekananda, ‘What do you think Sri Ramakrishna is?’ He responded by asking his gurubhais and fellow devotees, ‘First tell me what you think Master is?’ One said, ‘He is Krishna.’ Another said, ‘He is Brahma.’ And another said, ‘He is Hanumanji because for six months he lived shelter-less among the trees.’ Christ’s devotee said, ‘I think he is Christ because I see all Christ’s qualities in him.’ Another said, ‘I think he is Allah because he is full of mercy, love, truth.’

Then Swami Vivekananda kept quiet, thinking deep in his heart, and they noticed tears falling from his eyes. Again they asked him what he thought. Swami Vivekananda calmly replied, ‘I think that he is that, which you all say he is, and even more than that. All these that you mentioned come from him. How can I talk of him? What can I say?‘

Madhvacharya came and gave you the secret of dvaita [dualism]. Ramanujacharya came and gave you the secret of Vishishtadvaita [qualified non-dualism]. Adi Shankaracharya and gave you Advaita [monism or non-dualism]. But when Sri Ramakrishna came he put all these in one. And even he said, ‘Beyond this, only the person who has travelled these paths, realised these paths, knows that path and knows all.’ The others only told of the path they knew, and the other paths were unknown them. To Master [Sri Ramakrishna] everything is natural.

Master’s going into and coming out of samadhi [superconsciousness] means that he is Relative, he is [also] Absolute, and even more than that. Sri Ramakrishna never believed in minus [subtraction], he believed in addition. Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Minus is not yoga, joining together is yoga.’ When asked about the validity of different religions Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘All of these are the different aspects of God.’

What Master is, he himself knows. One must be him [God-realised] to know what he knows. So please do not undermine yourself by thinking: ‘Master is only telling us about God.’ Yes, he is telling you the highest, but he can also give you the relative. Hari Om Tat Sat.

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These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to those with him at the time.