Swami Vivekananda                           

Taken from an article written by Protap Chunder Mazoomdar, which appeared in the Theistic Quarterly Review, October, 1879.

PARAMHAMSA SRIMAT RAMAKRISHNA

MY mind is still floating in the luminous atmosphere which that wonderful man diffuses around him whenever and wherever he goes. My mind is not yet dis­enchanted of the mysterious and indefinable pathos which he pours into it whenever he meets me. What is there in common be­tween him and me? I, a Europeanized, civ­ilized, self-centered, semi-skeptical, so-called educated reasoner, and he a poor, illiter­ate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller, and a whole host of European scholars and divines? I who am an ardent disciple and follower of Christ, a friend and admirer of liberal-minded Christian mis­sionaries and preachers, a devoted adherent and worker of the rationalistic Brahmo-Somaj—why should I be spellbound to hear him? And it is not I only, but dozens like me who do the same. He has been inter­viewed and examined by many, crowds pour in to visit and talk with him. Some of our clever intellectual fools have found nothing in him, some of the contemptuous Christian missionaries would call him an im­postor, or a self-deluded enthusiast. I have weighed their objections well, and what I write now I write deliberately.

The Hindu saint is a man under forty. He is a Brahmin by caste, he is well-formed in body naturally, but the dreadful austeri­ties through which his character has de­veloped appear to have disordered his sys­tem.    Yet, in the midst of this emaciation his face retains a fullness, a child-like tenderness, a profound visible humbleness, an unspeakable sweetness of expression and a smile that I have seen on no other face that I can remember. A Hindu saint is always particular about his externals. He wears the gurua cloth, eats according to strict forms, refuses to have intercourse with men, and is a rigid observer of caste. He is al­ways proud and professes secret wisdom. He is always guruji, a universal counsellor and a dispenser of charms. This man is singularly devoid of such claims. His dress and diet do not differ from those of other men except in the general negligence he shows towards both, and as to caste, he openly breaks it every day. He most vehe­mently repudiates the title of guru, or teacher, he shows impatient displeasure at any exceptional honor which people try to pay to him, and emphatically disclaims the knowledge of secrets and mysteries.    He protests against being lionized, and openly shows his strong dislike to be visited and praised by the curious. The society of the worldly-minded and carnally-inclined he carefully shuns. He has nothing extraor­dinary about him. His religion is his only recommendation. And what is his religion? It is orthodox Hinduism, but Hinduism of a strange type. Ramakrishna Paramhamsa (for that is the name of this saint), is the worshipper of no particular Hindu god. He is not a Shivaite, he is not a Shakta, he is not a Vaishnava, he is not a Vedantist. Yet he is all these. He worships Shiva, he worships Kali, he worships Rama, he wor­ships Krishna , and is a confirmed advocate of Vedantist doctrines. He accepts all the doctrines, all the embodiments, usages, and devotional practices of every religious cult. Each in turn is infallible to him.   He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted

meditator of the perfections of the one form­less, infinite Deity whom he terms, "Ak-handa Sach-chiddnanda," ("Indivisible Exis­tence-Knowledge-Bliss.") His religion, un­like the religion of ordinary Hindu sadhus, does not mean too much dogma, or con­troversial proficiency, or the outward wor­ship with flowers and sandal-wood; incense and offering. His religion means ecstasy, his worship means transcendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with the permanent fire and fever of a strange faith and feeling. His conversation is a ceaseless breaking forth of this inward fire and lasts long hours. While his interloc­utors are weary, he, though outwardly feeble, is as fresh as ever. He merges into rapturous ecstasy and outward uncon­sciousness often during the day, oftenest in conversation when he speaks of his favorite

spiritual experiences, or hears any striking response to them. But how is it possible that he has such a fervent regard for all the Hindu deities together? What is the se­cret of his singular eclecticism? To him each of these deities is a force, an incarnated principle tending to reveal the supreme re­lation of the soul to that eternal and formless Being Who is unchangeable in His blessedness and the Light of Wisdom.

Take for instance Shiva. The saint views and realizes Shiva as the incarnation of contemplativeness and Yoga. Forgetful of all worldly care and concern, merged and ab­sorbed in Samadhi, in the meditation of the ineffable perfections of the supreme Brah­man, insensible to pain and privation, toil and loneliness, ever joyful in the blessed­ness of Divine communion, calm, silent, se­rene, immovable like the Himalayas where his abode is, Mahadeva is the ideal of all con­templative and  self-absorbed men. The venomous serpents of evil and worldliness coil around his beatified form but cannot hurt him. The presence of death surrounds him in various forms of dread and danger, but cannot daunt him. Shiva takes upon himself the burdens and cares of all the world, and swallows the deadliest poison to confer immortality upon others, Shiva re­nounces all wealth and enjoyment for the benefit of others, makes his faithful wife the companion of his austerities and solitude, and takes the ashes and the tiger skin as his only ornaments. Shiva is the god of the Yogis. And this good man, while expati­ating on the attributes of Shiva, would be immersed in the sublimity of his ideal, and become entranced, and remain unconscious for a long time.

Then, perhaps, he would talk of Krishna , whom he realizes as the incarnation of love. " Behold," he says, "the countenance of Krishna as represented popularly. Does it resemble a man's face, or a woman's? Is there a shadow of sensuality in it; is there a hair of masculine coarseness? It is a tender female face that Krishna has; in it is the fullness of boyish delicacy and girlish grace. By his affectionateness, many sided and multiform, he won the hearts of men and women to the religion of Bhakti (Devotion). That Divine love can take the form ol every sanctified human relation is the great mis­sion of Krishna to prove. As a loving child monopolizing all the loudness of the hearts of aged parents; as a loving companion and friend attracting the profoundest loyalty and affection of men and brethren; as an admired and adored master, the sweetness and tenderness of whose teaching and whose affectionate persuasions converted girls and women to the self-consecration of a heartfelt piety, Krishna, the beauty and depth of whose character remain still be­yond the reach of men's appreciation, intro­duced the religion of love into Hindustan. Then the good man would say how for long years he dressed himself as a cowherd, or a milkmaid, to be able to realize the expe­riences of that form of piety in which the human soul was like a faithful wife, and a loyal friend to the loving Spirit who is our Lord and only friend. Krishna is the in­carnation of Bhakti. Then in the intensity of that burning love of God which is in his simple heart, the devotee's form and feat­ures suddenly grow stiff and motionless, un­consciousness overtakes him, bis eyes lose their sight, and tears trickle down his fixed, pale, but smiling face. There is a tran­scendent sense and meaning in that uncon­sciousness. What he perceives and enjoys in his soul when he has lost all outward per­ception who can say?  Who will fathom the depth of that insensibility which the love of God produces? But that he sees some­thing, hears, and enjoys when he is dead to all the outward world there is no doubt. If not, why should he, in the midst of that un­consciousness, burst into floods of tears and break out into prayers, songs and utter­ances the force and pathos of which pierce through the hardest heart, and bring tears to eyes that never before wept under the in­fluence of religion?

Anon he would begin to talk of Kali, whom he addresses as his mother. She is the incarnation of the Shakti, or power of God as displayed in the character and in­fluence of woman. Kali is the female prin­ciple in the nature of the Deity. She tyran­nizes over all tyrants. She brings down her husband low upon the ground, and places her foot upon his bosom.   She charms and conquers all beings.   Yet she is the mother of creation. Her tremendous power is a guarantee that she can save and protect her children, those that come to her as their mother, and ask the shelter of her feet. Her motherly solicitude excites the tenderest filial affection in the hearts of her devotees, and the inspiration of Ramprasad Sen which expressed itself in the most wonder­ful songs of filial piety ever sung, bears strange testimony to the reality and effect­iveness of the worship of Kali. The adora­tion of Shakti (which literally means Force) is, according to our saint, a child-like, whole-souled, rapturous self-consecration to the motherhood of God as represented by the power and influence of woman. Woman, therefore, has long been re­nounced by our friend in every material and carnal relation. He has a wife but has never associated with her. Woman, he says, is unconquerable by man except by him who looks up to her as a son. Woman fascinates and keeps the whole world from the love of God. The highest and holiest saints have been brought back to carnality and sin by the nameless power of woman. The absolute conquest of lust has been his lifelong ambition. For long years, there­fore, he says, he made the utmost efforts to be delivered from the influence of woman. His heart-rending supplications and prayers for such deliverance, sometimes uttered aloud in his retreat on the river-side, brought crowds of people who bitterly cried when he cried, and could not help blessing him and wishing him success with their whole hearts.

He has successfully escaped the evil of carnality which he dreaded. His Mother to whom he prayed, that is the goddess Kali, made him recognize every woman as her incarnation, so that he now honors each

member of the other sex as his mother. He bows his head to the ground before women, and before little girls; he has in­sisted upon worshipping not a few of them as a son might worship his mother. The purity of his thoughts and relations to­wards women is most unique and instruc­tive. It is the opposite of the European idea. It is an attitude essentially, tradition­ally, gloriously national. Yes, a Hindu can honor woman.

"My fther," says the Paramltamsa, "was a worshipper of Rama. I, too, have accepted the Ramayat covenant. When I think of the piety of my father, the flowers with which he used to worship his favorite god bloom again in my heart and fill it with Divine fragrance." Rama the truthful and dutiful son, the good and faithful husband, the just and fatherly king, the staunch and affectionate friend, is regarded by him with the love and profound loyalty of a devoted servant. As a master the privilege of whose service is sufficient reward to the favored, faithful servant, as a master in whose dear and matchless service the laying down of life is a delightful duty, as a master who has wholly enslaved the body and soul of his adoring slave, the contemplation of whose holy and glorious worth transcends every thought of remuneration and return, is Rama viewed by Ramakrishna. Hanuman, the renowned follower of Rama, is to him a model of a faithful servitor, a being who was devoted to his master's cause, inspired by such unworldly love and honor, such superhuman faithfulness as scorned alike death and danger, or hope of reward. So the other sin which he spent his life to be free from, is the love of money. The sight of money fills him with strange dread. His avoidance of women and wealth is the

whole secret of his matchless moral char­acter. For a long time he practised a sin­gular discipline. He took in one hand a piece of gold and in the other a lump of earth. He would then look at both, re­peatedly calling the gold earth, and the earth gold, and then shuffling the contents of one hand into the other, he would keep up the process until he lost all sense of the difference between the gold and the earth. His ideal of service is absolute unworldliness and freedom from the desire of gain. He loves and serves Rama because Rama is the best and most loving master. The serv­ice of the true saint is the service of the purest affection and most unselfish loyalty. Some of the songs he sings expressive of this touching devotedness are exceedingly pathetic, and show how very negligent we often are.  Nor is his reverence confined within Hinduism. For long days he subjected himself to various disciplines to realize the Mohammedan idea of an all-powerful Allah. He let his beard grow, he fed himself on Mos­lem diet, he continually repeated sentences from the Koran. His reverence for Christ is deep and genuine. He bows his head at the name of Jesus, honors the doctrine of his sonship, and we believe he once or twice attended Christian places of worship. These ideas at all events show the catholic religious culture of this great Hindu saint. Each form of worship that we have tried to indicate above is to the Paramhamsa a living and most enthusiastic principle of personal religion, and the accounts of dis­cipline and exercise through which he has arrived at his present state of devotional eclectism are most wonderful, although they cannot be published. He never writes anything, seldom argues, he never attempts to instruct, he is continually pouring out his soul in a rhapsody of spiritual utter­ances, he sings wonderfully, and makes ob­servations of singular wisdom. He uncon­sciously throws a flood of marvelous light upon the obscurest passages of the Puranic Shastras, and brings out the fundamental principles of the popular Hindu faith with a philosophical clearness which strangely contrasts itself with his simple and illiterate life. These incarnations, he says, are but the forces (Shakti) and dispensations (Lila) of the eternally wise and blessed Akhanda Sachehidananda who never can be changed or formulated, who is one endless and ever­lasting ocean of light, truth and joy.

If all his utterances could be recorded they would form a volume of strange and wonderful wisdom. If all his observations on men and things could be reproduced, people might think that the days of prophecy, of primeval, unlearned wisdom had re­turned. But it is most difficult to render his sayings in English.

A living evidence of the depth and sweet­ness of Hindu religion is this good and holy man. He has wholly controlled his flesh. It is full of soul, full of the reality of re­ligion, full of joy, full of blessed purity. As a Siddha Hindu ascetic he is a witness of the falsehood and emptiness of the world. His witness appeals to the profoundest heart of every Hindu. He has no other thought, no other occupation, no other re­lation, no other friend in his humble life than his God. That God is more than sufficient for him. His spotless holiness, his deep unspeakable blessedness, his un­studied, endless wisdom, his childlike peacefulness and affection towards all men, his consuming, all-absorbing love for God are his only reward. And may he long con­tinue to enjoy that reward! Our own ideal of religious life is different, but so long as he is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sublime pre­cepts of purity, unworldliness, spirituality and inebriation in the love of God.