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Who was Sri Sarada Devi (Holy Mother)?
No greatness
has sprung up and got reared and even flowered in greater obscurity and
silence than that of Sarada Devi. She was born in the obscure village
of Jayrambati in West Bengal, India, on 22 December 1853. Her advent coincided
with the brightening of the family fortunes of her poor but pious parents,
who enfolded her in tender love and care. Even as a child she was active
and hardworking, and helped her mother in her household chores. She was
hardly six when she was betrothed to Sri Ramakrishna who was then twenty-three
and who was passing through the stormy period of his spiritual sadhanas
and realizations. Through this betrothal, little Sarada entered into the
current of the life of one who, in his God-intoxication passed most of
his life in divine ecstasies and visions, and the rest in soulstirring
conversations with earnest souls, conveying a message of radiant spirituality
to the modern world. It was a
strange marriage; for it remained unconsummated in the physical plane,
but found its spiritual consummation in a union of souls on the occasion
of the Shodashi-puja in 1872. This was the culminating act of Sri Ramakrishna's
spiritual sadhanas when he worshipped the Divine Mother of the universe
in the person of his wife, at the end of which the worshipped and the
worshipper entered into deep Samadhi and realized their spiritual identity.
Thenceforth they became as one soul functioning in two bodies, and Sarada
Devi assumed her equal role in the fulfillment of the mission of Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna himself recognized the spiritual eminence of Sri Sarada Devi. Unlike the general run of spiritual aspirants who forsake all worldly connections on entering the religious life, for which there is the sanction of religious law and custom behind them, Sri Ramakrishna welcomed Sarada Devi to his side when she, coming of age, came to claim her rights over him.
It is a deeply
moving episode in their lives, which helps to reveal the stuff of both.
Sri Ramakrishna was in Dakshineswar, passing through storms of spiritual
moods and experiences; except on the two occasions of his brief visits
to his native village, he had not met his wedded wife these twelve long
years and seemed apparently to have forgotten her. Sarada Devi,
now about eighteen, entered his room late at night after an arduous journey
from her native village in the company of her father. She had her fears
in her heart proceeding from the gossip she had heard in her village about
the deranged condition of her husband's mind, and her own knowledge of
his utter indifference to worldly concerns. But Sri Ramakrishna, though
a bit surprised at her sudden arrival, welcomed her very cordially, and
accommodated her in his own room for facility of her medical attention,
and arranged for the medical care of her body which had been ravaged by
illness and fatigue during the long trek. She found in him the same loving
divine husband whom she had known during his previous visits to the village.
When she had settled down, Sri Ramakrishna one day addressed her thus:
'As for me, the Mother has shown me that she resides in every woman, and
so I have learned to look upon every woman as Mother. That is the one
idea I can have about you; but if you wish to drag me into the world,
as I have been married to you, I am at your service.'
To this challenging
question of her divine husband, Sarada Devi gave a straightforward answer:
'Why should I desire to drag your mind down to the worldly plane? I have
come only to help you in your chosen path. I desire only to live with
you and serve you and to learn of you.' This reply of his pure and spotless wife pleased Sri Ramakrishna immensely and he experienced a great accession of spiritual strength. His mission in the world of calling humanity back to an awareness of its inborn divine nature is not to be a lonely struggle; he recognized in Sarada Devi a companion in this noble mission; and within a year of her arrival, he verified the truth of this exalted view of his wife through the Shodashi-puja experience referred to above.
out of the
divine will. The immense store of spiritual energy-divine Shakti-which
was generated by the sadhanas of Sri Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi contains
the promise of the spiritual poverty in the midst of abundant material
wealth. Sri Ramakrishna
passed away in 1886. Sarada Devi was thirty-three at that time. Having
lived in a non-physical plane of relationship with her husband, she did
not experience the feeling of widowhood at his death. To her he continued
to be a living reality to the end of her days. And for the next thirty-four
years she lived a life, complex in its roles and varied in its riches,
and withal silent and sweet, that gained for her the endearing title of
'Sri Ma', 'the Holy Mother', by which she is known ever since. The Holy Mother was called upon to be the spiritual guide of the monks of the Ramakrishna Order constituted initially of Sri Ramakrishna's direct disciples under the leadership of Swami Vivekananda, and to be the guru of an ever-increasing circle of spiritually hungry men and women. Her spiritual eminence and the divine power of the personality enabled her to fulfill this mighty role with ease and naturalness. But it was in the role of a household woman, in the midst of her own family circle consisting of her worldly-minded brothers, sisters-in-law, and their children, that the Holy Mother manifested a unique facet of her character and personality. It is this
aspect of her personality that provides a shining example of practical
spirituality capable of inspiring all men and women. The nun shone through
the householder, and both through the heart of an all-loving mother. Far
from shunning a distracting world, she embraced it and enfolded it in
her love. And in the midst of a thousand distractions, she preserved the
naturalness of her personality.
Verification
is the proof of a theory or a claim. The test of life alone proves the
genuineness of a moral virtue or a spiritual value; virtues are tested
more in ill-fortune than in good fortune. To maintain poise and grace
in good weather is easy enough; but it is only bad weather that tests
their genuineness. The calmness, poise, and grace, and the spirit of unobstructed
love and self-effacing service, which Sarada Devi expressed in her day-to-day
life in the context of a highly distracting environment of sheer worldliness,
proclaims the supremely uplifting power of godliness and spirituality.
The possession of the power by a man or woman makes him or her pure and
holy. The expression of this power in life is love. Sarada Devi was the
very personification of this purity, holiness, and love which is the meaning
of the ideal of motherhood at its highest and best. This power lies embedded
in the heart of very woman. An ordinary woman captures in her life only
a fraction of this ideal by which she shines in her loving kindness and
holiness. A merely biological function becomes elevated through the infilling
of a spiritual value. But this spiritual value shone in its fullness,
even outside the biological context, in the personality of the Holy Mother,
demonstrating thereby the ideal in its pure form. Out of the abundance
of her heart Sarada Devi gave of her love to one and all without any distinction
and, by so doing, justified the endearing epithet of 'the Holy Mother'.
Herself out
of the ordinary in all basic values of character and personality, but
hiding these under the mantle of the simple and the ordinary in social
and physical make-up, the Holy Mother eludes the grasp of ordinary minds,
but reveals her true form to all seekers of basic values. Did not Sri
Ramakrishna say of her: 'She is Sarasvati, the goddess of Wisdom, come
to give spiritual knowledge to humanity'? And had she not also said of
herself: 'Sri Ramakrishna has left me to manifest the ideal of divine
Motherhood'? In her life and in her teachings she has left a balm for suffering humanity in search of light and peace. Her love knew no distinctions of sex, creed, or race. It emboldened and uplifted the Muslim labourer Amzad as much as the sannyasin Saradananda, the gifted Sister Nivedita as much as the simple 'mother of Annapurna'.
The Holy
Mother's deathbed advice to the latter is typical of her universal personality
and depth of insight. To the 'mother of Annapurna' sorrowing at the thought
of the Holy Mother's imminent passing away, she spoke these words of uplifting
consolation and strength: If you want
peace of mind, do not look for faults in others. Rather look out to discover
your own weakness. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one here
is an alien or a stranger, my child. The whole world is your own. Let me conclude
this tribute with the beautiful Sanskrit verse composed by Swami Abhedananda,
a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, in praise of the Holy Mother's pure
nobility: Whose character
is all pure and whose life is similarly pure; who is the embodiment of
purity divine, that shining goddess I salute again and again. Swami
Ranganathanandaji |
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