Nine Miracles.......continued

RAMLAL

4. In this story we come to a more familiar name and a more earthy miracle. Ramlal was the Master's nephew, son of Rameshwar, the second elder brother. As an attendant of the Master, rather than as a Priest in the Kali Temple, Ramlal figures very prominently in Ramakrishna literature. As a 'sevak' he stands second in importance only to Hriday. 

We know how very fond Shri Ramakrishna was of devotional music and how if the Master said to a visitor, " Here, listen to a song" the lucky one was indeed going to receive something extraordinary. For example, Mani Mallik. In Leelaprasanga, Sharadananda tells us how Mallik came straight from the cremation ground on the day he lost his son and how the insufferable grief was assuaged by Thakur by the gift of a song beginning with: 'To arms; To arms; O Man; Death storms your home in battle array'.

And he also loved to listen to songs. If he thirsted as a 'chataka' bird for Naren, it must have been, atleast partly, for the songs that Naren sang for him. Many eminent musicians of the day visited Shri Ramakrishna from time to time and sang themselves into immortality in the pages of the Kathamrita. But they were not available at odd hours or on call. The only person so available was, Yes, Ramlal. But Ramlal could not sing! Hence this story.

Let us see how Ramlal's son Harihar Chatterjee narrates this in his all to short Memoirs. 

"Thakur's love for singing songs about the Divine Mother was matched only by his eagerness to listen to such songs sung by others. He used to feel the absence of one who could sing to him whenever he wanted to hear songs."

"The only person who was a constant companion of Thakur was my revered father.That was why Thakur one day appealed to the Mother: " How nice it would be, if you would unlock Ram's voice". 

" And what a surprise! My father who could not sing at all, got the gift of an extremely melodious voice from the Mother who thus responded to the sincere prayer of Thakur". 

" One day Ramakrishnadeva asked my father to sing. They sat on the verandah to the east of his room and my revered father began with this song:

Come and see my Queen,

Shiva's golden Kashi;

How shall I describe Kashi

With my one tongue?

It is difficult to do so

With even a hundred tongues;

Our son-in-law is no more

A pauper, etc.

"Thakur's joy knew no bounds after listening to the song, and he said, "Go and fetch you aunt".

" After Sarada Devi came from the nahabat, Thakur said, " Ram will sing. I wanted you to listen; so I called you."

"Ramlal would sing! one who could not even ennuciate his words properly!"

" So, she said 'How is that? He cannot even pronounce his words fully, how can he possibly sing?'

" Thakur said, 'Don't you worry about that I have fixed up all that speaking to Mother!'"

" Sri Ma was indeed happy to listen to the song then sung by my father and said, 'For Thakur nothing is impossible!'."

Yes, the memoirs are available. In the bookstall of Harihar Chatterjee's son, on the eastern Verandah adjacent to the Master's room at Dakshineshwar.

KALI

5. After listening to stories about the not so well known, it is now time to turn to one of the Giants Kaliprasad Chandra. A child of the Master who came to him at the early age of seventeen and became famous as Swami Abhedananda. One of the 'Pundits' of the Order, he is the only one on record to have ever worsted the great Vivekananda in an argument! Known as 'Kali-tapasvi' in the inner circle, he was also the bard of Mother Sarada and has gifted to the world and humanity the wonderful hymn to her. His narration of an incident witnessed by him and specifically categorized by him as a miraculous act of the Master is of special significance in the present context.

The incident took place in April 1885 shortly after the onset of the throat affliction which later developed into cancer. As the discomfort was persisting, Shri Ramakrishna accepting the suggestion of Golap-Ma (a woman devotee who was the 'antaranga' of Shri Shri Ma), decided to go to Calcutta to consult an eminent physicain, Dr. Durgacharan. One day early in the morning he started for Calcutta by boat accompanied by Golap-ma, Latu ( later Swami Adbhutananda) and Kaliprasad. After getting off the boat they proceeded by horse carriage to Beadon Square area and consulted the doctor and got the prescription for medicines etc. The party then moved to Ahiritola Ghat to board a boat for the return trip. It was about half-past two in the afternoon and no one had had any food till then. ( Before resuming the narrative by Kaliprasad, we should note that the Master did not even touch money. Latu was the penniless attendant of the Master and young Kaliprasad was equally penniless.) Now to quote Kali; 

" I noticed that Paramahansadev was extremely hungry. He asked the boatman to anchor the boat at the Pramanik Ghat at Boranagar. The local market place was quite near the Ghat and he asked me to buy some snacks from the sweetmeat shop. There was only one anna (one sixteenth of a rupee) left with Golap-ma. I took it and quickly went to the market and brought back in a paper bag some 'Chana murki' ( a kind of dry sweetmeat of the size of puffed rice.) and handed over the packet to Paramahansadev. he eat up the entire quantity with apparent relish, threw away the crumpled bag into the water, washed his hands, collected water in his cupped hands from the river (Ganga) and drank several mouthfuls. Then he belched audibly. The three of us who had accompanied him  were also extremely hungry and surely Paramhansadev knew it well; but he had consumed the entire quantity of sweets without offering any share to any one of us. But the surprising denouement was that as soon as he belched our hunger went away and as we looked at each other, Paramahansadev started laughing.  During the rest of the journey to Dakshineshwar he made merry, cutting jokes as if he was a young lad! After the boat stopped at the Ghat of the Kali Temple at Dakshineshwar we all got down and the three of us compared notes about the sudden satisfaction of our hunger and came to the conclusion that we had been privileged  to witness an act of miracle or of use of supernatural powers by the Master. It was on that day that I really understood, by the grace of the Master, the significance of Lord Krishna's 'Leela' of a similar nature, and the truth of the Sanskrit adage 'Tasmin tusta jaga tusta" ('When thou art satisfied, so is the entire Universe')."

'Shri Krishna's Leela' obviously refers to the incident in the Mahabharata where Draupadi's problem of feeding a thousand hungry disciples of the proverbially angry Sage Durbasa was solved by Lord Krishna by expressing, through a loud belch, satisfaction of his hunger after swallowing only a single particle of rice. Durbasa and his disciples had to beat a hasty retreat as they were no longer in a position to partake of the lunch for which they had arrived without prior notice. 

SANYAL (I)

6.Now, another story of the 'Tasmin tuste jaga tusta' variety; Again a first person narration of a witness of unquestioned trustworthiness. His name is Baikunthanath Sanyal who without being in the select band of Sanyasi disciples, was very near indeed to the inner circle. He has achieved fame in the pages of the Leelaprasanga as an important witness of many events throwing light on the unique relationship and his alter-ego, Naren, including Thakur's response to Naren's acceptance of Mother Kali. That was the night when Naren, prompted by Thakur, went thrice to Bhabatarini to ask for material prosperity for his family but ended up each time by seeking knowledge, renunciation and devotion. Next morning sanyal appeared on the scene when Naren was still sleeping, after having sung the whole night the 'Shyama Sangeet', taught by Thakur,  and found Thakur almost beside himself with joy because Naren had 'accepted the Mother'. Later that day Thakur allowed him to become a witness of his declaration that he and Naren were 'non-different'. Sanyal is also author of 'Shri Shri Ramakrishna Leelamrita' from which I am reproducing the story;

Tasmin Tuste Jagat Tripta:

"The unfathomable acts of one whose nature,  thought cannot unravel, would naturally be beyond comprehension by human intellect; therefore who he would bless with his grace and in what manner is also beyond our imagination. He himself had told me that we had come to him because he had pined for us and had, as the hour struck for the evening arati for the Mother of the Universe, repeatedly cried aloud in anguish,  ' Do come, where ever you may be!' and so saying he had often showered endearments on me. But came a day when the same Master acted in a very strange way. After being saluted by this eternal slave (that day) he not only did not, as was his wont, give me prasad along with sweet words of endearment, but also appeared not even to know me. Undaunted and propping up my failing spirits with hope, I kept waiting. But as the day lengthened and gradually drew to a close, my mental suffering was compounded by gnawing hunger in the belly. It was at this time that the Master suddenly said aloud, ''I am hungry'', and then took out from a receptacle in the wall some sweets wrapped up in a paper bag and sat down to eat them. The gnawing hunger within made me think that he would surely not consume the whole lot and that I would get a share as prasad. Being denied even that I was really annoyed but realised that there was nothing that I could do about it! After consuming each individual sweetmeat, he made a ball of the paper packet, threw it aside with a childish expletive, "get lost!" and then for the first time that day talked to me, "Hey lad, get me a little water to drink". After drinking the water he said," Now I am fully satisfied". Wonder of wonders! at that precise moment my intense hunger just vanished and I also was fully satisfied. If I had not been a personal witness to this divine act the story of Lord Krishna satisfying Sage Durbasa and his disciples by expressing full satisfaction after eating only a minute morsel of food served by Draupadi, would have continued to remain only  a fable, for me."

Perhaps Thakur played out these two acts before three of intimate devotees (Adbhutananda, Abhedananda and Baikunthanath) as an advance hint of the formal declaration ( which came a year or so later) to Naren to the effect that " The famous person who has roared out the message of the Gita (in those days of old) has (in the age of our's) been born as Ramakrishna.