M. IN THE MATH, TEMPLE AND KHADI
EXHIBITION
1.
Morton School. Four in the evening. M. is sitting in the verandah on the second level. Antevasi is close to him. Dr. Bakshi has arrived by his car. He offers pranam to M. Antevasi whispers to the Doctor, "M. has the desire to witness the Khadi exhibition. Just ask him if he likes to go." M. agrees. Today it is Monday, 15 September 1924, 30th Bhadra 1331 (B.Y.), the second day of the dark fortnight, 15 Dandas / 34 Palas.
The exhibition is being held in the Mirzapur Park. M. goes there accompanied by Dr. Bakshi and Jagabandhu. He meets Ganen brahmachari near the western gate of the park. Ganen takes M. inside and shows him all.
There is a tent to the south of the park. Various kinds of spinning wheels can be seen there. To the east, there are three more tents. In the first tent to the south, there is a loom. The second one is the shop of the organization. In the third tent, one can see yarn and cloth brought from different centres.
M. sees all this with the curiosity of a child. M. has great praise for the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi. The spinning wheel provides cloth to the poor to cover his body. Even if the cloth is ordinary, it brings some income. The greatest gain of the spinning wheel is that it supports the mind. Itf keeps the mind engaged in work. Otherwise, the ordinary man feels confused. He becomes addicted to laziness. It has an another advantage — it concentrates the mind. Because of all these reasons M. has all praise for Gandhi Maharaj. Though the spinning wheel looks a ridiculous object in the modern machine age, it helps man to attain his humanness. So M. is in favour of Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of the spinning wheel and the khadi, who has resurrected this ancient India’s machine — the spinning wheel.
Courtyard of the Morton School. It is seven in the evening. M. has come back from the Khadi exhibition. The devotees bring four benches and place them to make a square. M. sits down on the eastern bench. He has bhaktas on his three sides — the Elder Jiten, Jagabandhu, the Younger Romesh, Vinay’s younger brother Prabhas and others. Abhay Babu, Vijay Krishna Goswami’s disciple, is also there. Hardly have they exchanged a few words when it suddenly begins to rain in torrents as the clouds have burst.
They all rise and go to the verandah on the second level to take their seats on the benches in front of the staircase, facing towards south. To the left of Abhay Babu is M. To the left of M. is the Elder Jiten and others.
Abhay Babu is an old man of quiet disposition. He sings a song at M.’s behest. It is followed by three songs sung by M. All the songs are Thakur’s.
Song — O Mother, the bewitcher of Hara, You have enchanted the whole world…
Song — When shall I be lost in samadhi...
Song — The name of Radha…
M. begins to converse now.
M. (to the bhaktas) – Samadhi means that now one has no more need of it (the world). Without attaining samadhi one cannot rid oneself of it. So long as one lives, there is the world. Samadhi means to give it up and be one with God. Then there is no longer the world. While one lives on a slightly lower level one has to accept the world. And when one accepts the world, one accepts everything in it. One cannot then say that it (the world) is nothing.
"But how does one gain samadhi? It is possible only by His grace. By merely striving for it, one cannot attain samadhi. Thus God’s grace is necessary. It is only then that sincere effort is made with perseverance. It is only then that there is a possibility of the dawn of grace. One cannot say that grace is bound to come. Who can say it? Is he the master of this world? If he is not how can he assert it? All one can say is that we have to follow this path because the rishis and the avataras went through it.
"Since samadhi is not attained, what to do then? There are all kinds of forces working in the world. So many of them are benevolent while the others are malevolent. Thakur taught us to take the good ones. To live with all these — company of sadhus, service to sadhus and singing the name and glories of God. So he said, ‘Hold God with one hand and work in the world with the other. When the time is ripe you will be able to hold Him with both hands.’ The company of sadhus is only the way to holding Him with one hand. Without His grace it is not possible to rid oneself of the world, to attain samadhi. In this state, one should live in the splendour of sattvaguna — of bhakti, bhakta, association with sadhus, japa, dhyana, puja and reading of holy books, all these.
"Thakur has made the bhaktas’ path still easier. He said, ‘Hold me, meditate on me. Just by knowing who I am and who you are will lead you to success. You will not have to do so much.’ Knowing me, that is I am God, that I have come as avatara and that you are my children dependent on me. You will not have to think too much then. It is like a lifeboat in a boundless sea of the world."
M. (to a bhakta) – The awakening results from the combination of two things — one external and the other internal. Which one can you give up? Both of these two constitute life.
It has started raining. Conversation has also ended. The Amherst Street is full of water. M. is worried how to make Abhay Babu reach his home in the Sukia Street. It is decided that he should be sent by a rickshaw. Now it is difficult to get a rickshaw. One of the bhaktas goes out. He brings two rickshaws from the Harrison Road, while he himself gets wet. Abhay Babu goes by one of them, accompanied by the Younger Romesh. M. has instructed the Younger Romesh to see to it that Abhay Babu has reached inside his home before he leaves for his house. Jiten Babu goes by the other rickshaw. Prabhas stays behind with Jagabandhu in the Morton School taking his meals in the mess in front.
2.
Mirzapur Park. It is about five in the afternoon. M. sees the Khadi exhibition today again. This movement is very dear to M. Yesterday too, he was there. But today he has walked down to it daringly. He is accompanied by Antevasi. He sees everything very keenly. Different kinds of khadi — yarn and cloth of various colours — have been brought from different places of Bengal.
It appears from M.’s disposition that behind his curiosity has awakened as if some ancient deep emotion on seeing the exhibition. He likes to visualize the shape of the ancient Bharat — the Bharat of the rishis. Sometimes his imaginative mind wanders in the Bharat of the Puranas. Kanava Muni’s ashrama described by Kalidasa is a very favourite and holy resting place for M. He not only enjoys its sweet description himself, drowning it in nectar, but he also makes the bhaktas partake its sweetness. He generally visits this tapovana fragrant with the smoke of yajnas moving about in the chariot of his mind. Sometimes he gets absorbed in meditation along with the meditating vegetation in the still atmosphere of the tapovana. Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna has brought him to this earth along with his divine power of imagination — to enable him to write the immortal scripture of Kathamrita, like Veda Vyasa, and to sing the praises and glories of the Lord day and night like Narada. A new life is being injected in India and the world with the Ganga of the Kathamrita, written by him. Many a time M. says, "Just visualize this image of the ancient Bharata — the rishis absorbed everywhere in meditation. They take fruits and roots growing in the forest to sustain life. And then, the ordinary man almost turning into a sannyasi by what he learns from the life of the rishis even though living in the household. The kings serve the rishis as their obedient servants, while they are all rajarishis. Like the rishis, they make the ancient ideal of Bharat enter at every level of the society — that the highest aim of human life is to realize God. The ordinary man earning his livelihood by simple farming, and the splendour of divinity prevailing at every level of the society."
Abhyam sattvasamshuddhi jnanayoga vyavasthitih,
Danam damah cha yajnah cha svashyayah tapah arjavam.
(Gita 16:1)
[Fearlessness, purity of heart, steadfastness in knowledge and yoga, almsgiving, control of the senses, yajna, study of scriptures, austerity and straight forwardness.]
The Bharat of M.’s imagination is disturbed nowadays. No food grains, no cloth, no education and no house. Mahatma Gandhi is engaged in bringing back the ancient serene Bharat in a modern way. All genius men, mahatmas and the great of the land are supporting him in this holy resolve. So M. repeatedly visits this great yajna of the spinning wheel and Khadi founded by Gandhiji, with the offering of hope, assurance and prayers. This exhibition of the spinning wheel is the Triveni (holy confluence of the three sacred rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati) of the India’s past and present. Accepting his pain of old age, he has come today to this sacred conjunction to have a holy dip. Numerous groups of men are spinning the wheel quietly. M. also has the darshan of this great yajna without speaking. Imagination and reality, both are manifest in M.’s eyes and face.
M. returns on foot by the eastern footpath of the Amherst street. He comes and stands at the turning of the Harrison Road. He has to cross to the other side. A person seated on the footpath is selling the monthly magazine Basumati. Antevasi says, "This is the Basumati." M. says, "Yes, it contains my article." The newspaperman asks, "Who is he?" Antevasi tells him, "He is M., the writer of the Kathamrita." He offers him pranam folding his hands. This number of the magazine contains — Sri Ramakrishna’s avatarahood and his teaching to Swami Vivekananda that to carry out sadhana with women as partners is a dirty path.
The courtyard of the Morton School. M. is seated on a bench facing west. On all three sides of him are seated the devotees. It is about seven in the evening. The devotees have already been waiting for M. He had gone to the Mirzapur Park to witness the Khadi exhibition. Dr. Bakshi comes by his car. He (M.) again wants to go out today. He says, "It would be nice if we once visit the Vivekananda Society."
M. often says, "I wish to witness all the scenes together — what different people are doing for the Lord and how do they call on Him in different parts of the city of Calcutta."
Today again M. goes out by car with Doctor Bakshi and Jagabandhu. To start with, he offers pranams to Mother Kali of Thanthania. The car is parked on the footpath in the Cornwalis Street. M. gets into the car. A middle-aged gentleman comes and very devotedly prostrates himself before M. to offer him pranam — in a most humble manner. Neither M. nor the devotees recognize him.
The Vivekananda Society is situated at 72, Cornwalis Street on the eastern footpath. Climbing up to the second level, M. goes directly into the Thakur’s shrine and offers his pranam by prostrating on the ground. Swami Ramananda, the head of the ashrama, coming to know of it takes M. with him to the parlour and offers him seat on an inclined bedroll. He shows him all respect and gives him a warm welcome.
M. is seated near the western door facing east. Vishreshwar Mukherji, a devotee, comes and offers him pranam. They go and stand in the verandah, while they talk. In front is the Cornwalis Street. M. sees the library. Going beyond the Thakur’s shrine he again goes to take his seat in the sitting room to the north. Soon the arati of Thakur starts. Sitting in that very room M. witnesses the arati. When it ends he takes some prasad and departs. He has been here only for half an hour.
The car goes towards the South through the Cornwalis Street. It reaches the Dand’s hostel to the north of the Cornwalis square. M. says, "Shall we go to the GodiaGaudia Math again? Let us listen to the reading of Chaitanya Charitamrita. (Thinking for a while) Have we been able to give up all? Have we been able to give up the Brahmo bhaktas? Why should we then give them up? We must accept all. Angularities will always be there. Should that be the reason to give them up? All are calling upon Him — the same one God."
The car is going through the Beadon Street. It stops at the GodiaGaudia Math — on the western footpath of the southern crossing. M. enters the math on foot. Why did he stop the car from reaching in front of the math? One must come with humility to have darshan of the deity and sadhus; it seems that it is to teach this to the bhaktas he has taken up this bhava (mood). Has he gone to the GodiaGaudia Math for the third time to teach by example that one should take all (every religion), and that everybody is calling on Him, the same one God?
Going into the parlour, today too M. occupies the seat on the cotton carpet facing west, in front of the almirah on the eastern wall, as he did yesterday. But the room is warm today because the door of the room has been shut. M. feels very uncomfortable due to airlessness. The north-eastern door of the room has been shut and women are made to sit close to it. Staying there just for five minutes M. comes out with the bhaktas. Some of them request him to stay there a little longer. A person accompanying the women is an agent. He says, "Why have you allowed them to leave in the midst of the ladies?" Another person says, "But that’s why we asked him to stay on a little longer." That is the only one door to go out of the room. Kirtan is going on in the room today.
M. has not enjoyed himself today as he did yesterday. Yesterday the sadhus had together performed the arati first. Then they offered their salutations and heard the Bhagavata. The attendance today is mixed. That’s why, the yesterday’s bhava (fervour) is not present today. On the one hand it is hot, on the other the bhava is different. It is for these two reasons that M. had left.
Coming out M. stands there in the open breeze. A person comes and says to the Doctor, "We are very happy to see you today along with M. If you have any questions to ask, please do so from Prabhu." That person is a devotee of this ashrama, known to the Doctor.
While walking, M. talks to a sadhu. Reaching the ashrama press, both of them stand there and talk for a few moments. It is’s all about the ashrama — the daily routine of the ashrama, the books published so far and so on. M. comes to know from the same sadhu that Chaitanya Charitamrita is going to hbe read after some time later. It is to hear this that M. has come today. But since it is to take some time more, he leaves.
3.
The car stops in front of the Morton School. M. and Antevasi alight from it. And the Doctor leaves for his home in Cossipore. It is about half past eight.
Not finding M. there the devotees wait for him, down in the courtyard — in the square made with benches. M. sits down on the eastern bench and faces west. In front of him is the road. The devotees are sitting on three sides of M. in front of him — the Elder Jiten, Balai, the Younger Nalini, the Younger Romesh, Jagabandhu and so on.
Soon arrives Nath Babu, the old Brahmo devotee. M. makes him sit close to himself with utmost consideration. He is above eighty but his body is stronger than that of M. He was Keshab Babu’s attendant. He saw Thakur several times with him. He begins to talk as he takes his seat.
Nath (to M.) – I have a complaint. I went to see Mahesh Bhattacharya in Belur. He was then residing in a house to the north of the math. A sannyasi came and asked me to visit the Thakur’s shrine and have his darshan. I said, ‘But why? What shall I see in Thakur’s shrine? They just worship an image there. One offers eight annas or a rupee, and offers one’s namaskar, just that.’?
(With a great surprise, force fully) "I say Mahendra Babu, they have made our Paramahansa Mahashay as God. So many rasagullas (a sweetmeat) I have taken from his hands! How much love I received from him! Can I forget it? Now I see that making God of him they have placed his image on the altar. I say, what have they done at last to our Paramahansa Mahashay!"
M. (lovingly) – As you say, some eight images have been placed together in one room — that of the Buddha, Gandhi, Sri Ramakrishna and others. Why have they done so? It is Bbecause, you people like to see them. That too is like this. They worship him with the same feeling. You do it with this feeling,. They have that.
"Don’t you remember, Paramahansa used to say, ‘Every stomach can not digest pulao (fried rice).’ You people are men of pulao (devotees of the formless God)."
The old Nath Babu is fully satisfied and leaves laughing.
M. (to the bhaktas, laughing) – Why should anybody reason with them? Thakur used to silence people like this.
"They cannot take away Thakur’s love [from their mind]. He (Thakur) treated them as an equal, you see. That’s why he spoke like it. His is the feeling of a friend. Thakur used to say, ‘As is one’s feeling, so is one’s gain.’ It’s enough if one has love for Him. This is the real thing. Thakur would say so many times, ‘The essential thing is the ecstatic love of Sachchidananda.’
"He used to say particularly to these men of the Brahmo Samaj, ‘Whichever way you may eat the sugared bread, it will taste sweet — whether you eat it straight or at an angle.’ Thakur has so many kinds of bhaktas. Many are becoming his bhaktas, many more will become in future. Can we know them all?
"Aha, blessed are these people! How much they have seen him! How much love they have received from him! May be they do not know that he was God come down in a human body in Dakshineswar. But he knows that these people have given him their love. Thakur himself said, ‘If you take chili unknowingly, you will still feel its pungency.’ This is exactly like that. Everybody cannot feel the same way [about Him], they cannot do so. Whichever way He manifests Himself to a person, he can only feel that. There are various kinds of receptacles. Even so if He wills a small receptacle can become a big one.
"And then there are all kinds of bhaktas — the visiting bhaktas, the bhaktas of the outer circle, the bhaktas of inner circle and so on. The bhaktas of inner circle have taken him as God — that is how they felt about him. Is it their own choice? He revealed himself to them like that. He gave these people the power to recognize him. So they say, ‘He is God.’ They proclaim freely, ‘He who is Akhanda (Indivisible) Sachchidananda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute), beyond mind and speech, whose praises are sung by the Vedas, He who creates, preserves and dissolves has now come as a man three and a half cubits tall.’ How could they recognize him, tell me? He came this time hiding himself with so many coverings. Rama, Krishna and Chaitanya had worldly splendour. But in him there was only sweetness. Externally he was a humble brahmin, a priest on six rupees a month, indigent, the members of his family had not enough to eat and, inflicted with malaria. Besides, he would sometimes roam about naked like a mad man, holding a long pole in his hand. And add to it, he would make a tale of cloth and frisk about with it like Hanuman. Who has the power to know him with so many veils?
"He had recognized himself and to whom he reveals recognizes him. It is no cleverness on the part of anybody. Even those gopis (milkmaids) to whom Thakur would bow to offer pranam and about whom he used to say that even a grain of the love they had could turn the man upside down, even they could not recognize him at first. The second time too they could not recognize him. They thought that Krishna was their beloved. In the first rasa (dance with Krishna), every gopi finding Krishna as her beloved one, felt proud that she was the best among other women because Krishna was her most beloved one. But Sri Krishna was dancing with every gopi at the same time. However, the fun part of it iswas that every gopi thought she alone had got Krishna as her husband and that none else had him. When she felt this pride Krishna disappeared at once. Then she realized that Sri Krishna was not only her husband but the husband of the whole world. It was by his touch that they gained this knowledge. Earlier they were not able to know him. Later on, when they cried and cried, their pride vanished and in the second rasa they had his darshan. They recognized him fully that he was her husband, and the husband of the world, that he was her master and the master of the world.
"Are these Brahmo bhaktas small men? They have seen the Lord in a human body, they have touched him, talked to him. Nobody can say that since they are not at one with us, they are men of no import. The Mother cooks for everybody what suits his digestion. They couldn’t digest more than that. If you put more in the stomach it would burst, put it too much it would snap. Arjuna was such an eligible devotee, of such a high order yet he could not bear (Lord Krishna’s Universal Form). He began to tremble. His head began to spin. Then the Lord assumed his normal looks and Arjuna was normal.
"The devotees began to tremble when Thakur too showed them his real Self. Then he resumed his human form — becoming a brahmin priest. The devotees were amazed.
"They are indeed blessed who received his love, who gave him their love, who saw him, touched him and talked to him — all such men are worthy of our salutations. These Brahmo bhaktas are also worthy of our namaskar. Reason? They received Thakur’s love in whatever mood it may have been."
Morton School, Calcutta
Tuesday, 16 September 1924
31st Bhadra, 1331 (B.Y.)
The third day of the dark fortnight
6 Dandas / 57 Palas.