Talks Excerpt 453. Swamiji uses an opium incident from Sri Ramakrishna’s life to impress ‘meticulous’ truthfulness upon us.

From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.

An example of just how deeply the spirit of truthfulness was ingrained in Sri Ramakrishna’s nature, and how the Divine Mother protected him from the least deviation from truth, was provided by the following opium incident.

Shambhu Charan Mallik had a dispensary [pharmacy] for the poor in his garden. Learning that Sri Ramakrishna was suffering from diarrhoea, he advised him to take a few doses of opium [used in those days to treat many different ailments] and had offered to give Sri Ramakrishna some.

Sri Ramakrishna accepted, but in the course of the conversation both forgot about it. After taking leave the Master walked a few steps and then he remembered the opium. Coming back, he found that Shambhu was very busy. Not wishing to trouble him, Sri Ramakrishna took a little opium from one of the dispensary assistants and again set out for the Kali Temple.

If you have no faith you won’t understand this – you’ll just say, ‘Well this is one of those things.’ But it’s not like that. To his surprise Master found that although he was perfectly familiar with the locality, he kept straying onto the wrong path. Casting his eyes behind, he could plainly see the path leading back to Shambhu’s garden, but the way ahead was not clear. Wondering, he started again for the Dakshineswar Temple, carefully noting the way. And again he became confused. He could not find the right path and at the same time felt a backward pull.

After a repeated struggle, it suddenly dawned on Master that Shambhu had asked him to take the opium from him and not from his agent, who had no right to give anything without Shambhu’s permission. Now this took place in Sri Ramakrishna’s sadhana period so don’t come and ask me, ‘If he’s ‘all-knowing’ why didn’t he know that?’ No, this was the sadhana period. So he was in that state of mind. [These wonderful lilas are great lessons for all of us and are no doubt intended to guide us, step by step.]

Master might have been guilty of falsehood and ‘theft’ if the Divine Mother had not deterred him. So he threw the package back through a window calling out as he did so, ‘Look, I am returning the opium.’ Now, as he set out again, he could clearly see the way. There was no spell over his mind and he safely reached the Temple.

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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 an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.