Shree Ramakrishna’s Gospel

Book Review: The gospel of Shree Ramakrishna

This is the perfect book for the intellectual and the confused spiritual seeker. For it has a one point direction: from the head to the heart. Where it leaves you, singing and dancing,  within and without.

The Gospel of Shree Ramakrishna is a big book, in fact it is two fat volumes. With a book this big, the first impulse is to open it in the middle somewhere and start reading. Not a good idea. This story deserves to be read from the beginning, for that is where the punch is.

M., or Mahendranath Gupta, the author, was a learned man, or so he thought. On his first visit to the Master, he is deeply charmed by the eloquence in Ramakrishna’s words. ‘He must be well read,’ is M.’s response. He is shocked that the Master hasn’t read a single book in his life.

But the taste of bliss in his gut brings him back to Dakshineshwar the next morning, when the Master is getting shaved.

The second meeting is more intimate, with a one to one conversation.

Sri Ramakrishna: Are you married?

M: Yes Sir.

Sri Ramakrishna (with a shudder): Oh, Ramlal! Alas, he is married!

Like one guilty of a terrible offence, M. sat motionless, his eyes on the ground. He thought, ‘Is it such a wicked thing to be married?’

The Master(continues): ‘Have you any children?’

M. this time could hear the beating of his own heart.

M. (whispers in a trembling voice): ‘Yes, sir, I have children.’

Very sadly, Sri Ramakrishna says,

‘Ah me! He even has children!’

Thus rebuked, M. sat speechless. His pride had received a blow. After a few minutes, the Master looked at him kindly and said,

‘You see, you have certain good signs. I know them by looking at a person’s face. Tell me, what king of person is your wife? Has she spiritual attributes, or is she under the power of avidya?’

M.: She is alright. But I am afraid she is ignorant.

Master: (with evident displeasure) And you are a man of knowledge?

M had yet to learn the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. He was under the impression, as we all are, that you get knowledge from books and schools. Later he learnt from the Master that to know God is knowledge and to not know him is ignorance.

This is an excerpt from the first chapter of the book, when M. meets the master. There is hardly any reference to M at all after this. M simply records everything as he saw and heard as he sat quietly at Sri Ramakrishna’s feet.

Sri Ramakrishna is basically oriented towards the devotional aspect of spirituality. However, he does not prescribe rituals of devotion. What he prescribes is an intense yearning for God. ‘Cry to God with all your heart and you shall surely see him.’

This one sentence, if taken to heart, can be extremely cathartic in nature. ‘Crying to God’, done on a regular basis, can turn the mind within. It can also become a hotline to the Maker.

When he meets someone for the first time, the master asks, ‘So do you believe in God with form or do you believe in the formless aspect of God?’ The utter simplicity and clarity in this question reveals the understanding of Sri Ramakrishna: he is the embodiment of the meeting of Gyana and Bhakti.

This book is a witness to the happening of another saint, Swami Vivekananda. Ramakrishna displays more than a simple affection for Narendra, the Guru literally pines for his disciple.

After all, he has a big job to do there: passing on the legacy of the inner spirit of India.

What I didn’t like about the book:

Ramakrishna was guileless; he lacked the sophistication of the city dweller. He is supposed to have used a lot of off-color jokes which were edited out of the English version. Somehow this goes against the spirit of the book, which is basically the complete flow of the master’s words, unedited, even by the master himself.

What I liked about the book:

There is story about Swami Vivekananda and the mother Kali. After the demise of his father, Swamiji was facing a very rough patch at home. He was jobless and the kitchen fire was out. Sri Ramakrishna advised him to go to the Mother’s temple and ask for her help. She who runs the universe will surely give him a job, some stable income to feed his family.

Instead of asking for the vitamin M, all Swamiji could ask for were devotion and knowledge. Again and again he went, each time he forgot. Finally he realised that the master was playing a trick on him. He was teaching him that the only things worth asking from the Goddess, were spiritual.

I feel that Sri Ramkrishna’s blessings work like this trick in this book. Once you get hooked to it, the rose tint enters your eyes. Life is not the same again.

The biography of Paramhamsa Nithyananda Vol 1

Nithyananda

(Glimpses from the biography of Paramhamsa Nithyananda) Vol 1

Review :

This is a biography of a contemporary spiritual teacher, Swami Nithyananda. It spans the period between his birth to when he was seventeen years old and left his home to take up the wondering life. In today’s age, seventeen is a time when youngsters are all geared up to study for a lucrative career. But Nithyananda took the vow of not touching money and embarked alone on the coolest trip possible, a barefoot pilgrimage across India.

We all know the value and the power of money. It is the one thing we strive for, almost all our life. In all honesty, education and choice of career, has but one guiding spirit: the goddess of wealth. And not without reason, it is money that comes in handy, it is the obvious solution for most of life’s struggles.

Then why and how do some people consciously give it all up, where does the trust in existence, the sheer guts to face hunger day in and day out, stem from? The most hyped example of running away for enlightenment is of course that of the Buddha. He made the mistake of marrying and then the seeking took over.

Closer home, we have life-stories of masters like Shirdi Sai Baba, but his pre-Shirdi days are shrouded in mystery. Ramana Maharishi, while giving us a sketch of the events that led up to his death experience (read enlightenment), was too silent a sage to provide us with juicy details. Which is why, a childhood re-lived, of a popular enlightened master is a rare treat.

The smartest move this soul made was to be born in a place so holy, that no one interfered with his spiritual progress: Tiruvannamalai, the town in Tamil Nadu which has the biggest temple in Asia, and lies in the shadow of the mountain, Arunachala. The mountain is referred to as a spiritual incubator.

When he was a child, Nithyananda began as an artist. He sculpted idols of gods and goddesses with clay. And, like the other saints of yesterday, the child insisted that his clay idols eat the food he offered them. After three days of fasting, one idol compiled!

How does a three year old boy get a Guru? The Guru seeks the evolved soul and bribes him with candies. Nithyanandas parents are the coolest couple one can hope to parent a weird child. When the neighbor complains that she saw the kid sitting in the graveyard, the mother nonchalantly says, ‘So what? He is not disturbing you, is he?’

Somehow the boy goes through school and enrolls into a mechanical college. Unlike other youngsters, his favorite pastime is meditation, pranayama, all that. When a roommate asks him why he is wasting his time, Nithyananda replies, ‘You will know when you stand in line for my darshan one day.’

The climax of the narrative is when he asks his mother if he can leave home, without any plans to return.

The flow is deep and reflective; the book seems to be written by a devotee of the Swami.

What I didn’t like about the book:

At each stage, there is an explanation and a justification about that which is not scientifically accepted, which was not really necessary.  A straight account of the story, I feel, might have made a bigger impact.

What I liked about the book:

The book ends rather abruptly, when the seventeen year old leaves his home town. Somehow this serves as an ignition point that awakens a keen interest in the wondering life. In your imagination, the book doesn’t end, because a journey has just begun…

{ Published by Life Bliss Foundation, ISBN 193436414-2 }