And I No Longer Hold These Positive

Sentiments About This RK Order Nor It's

Figureheads Nor It's Teachers For Very

GOOD Reasons. I May Quill An Article

Or Blog About This Topic Here On

AuthorsDen. ~::~

~*~ This is a comment by "The Vedanta Keshari" magazine editor about this article written by Shivani Sannyasini:

" 'Sri Ramakrishna's Tapasya is still going on even now and will continue for many more ages for the spiritual evolution of all beings,' says Shivani of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Temple, Carmichael USA, in the following article, every sentence of which breathes the spirit of devotion, love and strength of conviction in the Divine that descended on earth as Sri Ramakrishna. Shivani is a member of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Temple in
Carmichael, California, USA."

 

 

~*~*~*~ Sri Ramakrishna Is The 
Master Tapasvin ~*~*~*~

by  Shivani Sannyasini

 

   This article states some my thoughts about Sri Ramakrishna and is inspired by His life, teachings, grace, and my association with His Holy Order. The ideas expressed herein indicate a bit of what has drawn me to Him.

Lord Sri Ramakrishna is the Master Tapasvin. The twelve year period of His spiritual Sadhana at the Dakshineswar Temple ravaged His mind, body and soul, and left Him in a permanent state of unparalled Illumination and with a profoundly lucid comprehension all scriptural texts and spiritual paths. The whole gamut of all possible spiritual moods and experience became His. And yet, this does not complete the story of His Sadhana. Sri Ramakrishna's Tapasya, to my mind, is still going on even now and will continue for many more ages for the spiritual evolution of all beings.

   Speaking from the conviction that Lord Sri Ramakrishna is the Avatar of this age, the Absolute Brahman Itself, His devotee knows that He is really unaffected, actually even untouched by His fiery Tapas of cosmic proportions. It is His Play. Sri Ramakrishna oftentime stated: 'Brahman and Shakti are One.' The substratum of both inaction and action is the indivisible Brahman. Naught else exists other than That. All appearance or phenomenal experience are His Magic Show ~ His Play.

   The Vedic scriptures boldly proclaim that Brahman is the Real ~ the only Reality. The Avatara is none other than that Brahman. Lord Sri Ramakrishna being that Brahman must also be the only true Reality. He must even be the conscious Reality within us. But alas! A dense cloud of ignorance has
engulfed us. The clinging residue of aeons~long selfish desire and action, the yearning for only the objects and sensations obtainable in the Magic Show ~ this has blinded and bound us. Something primordial from the core of our being cries out in tired anguish for freedom, peace, bliss, unchanging beatitude, Truth!

   Lord Sri Ramakrishna joyfully hears our anguished cry. Why joyfully? Joyfully because He knows that the time is ripe for His tired and frantic child to run to Him and attain to spiritual fulfillment. The child has become aware that the illusory toys will never give security, peace or joy; nor escape from fear suffering and death. Now, being supremely disgusted with the pain of it all, with heart panting after the Infinite, the child years for immortal Bliss. Favourable conditions arise. The spiritual preceptor appears and the conscious resolve for Freedom is made. The urge for Sadhana is born!

   From whom does this urge originate which impells us to do Sadhana? With a mind and intellect embedded in the sticky web of aeons~long carefully woven karmas impressions and samskaras, steeped in dark ignorance and composed of it, what can we know of proper Sadhana?

   By whom is Sadhana performed? Sadhana is a Divine movement. The Divine alone is capable of a Divine movement. The egoistic sense of doership is a vain imagination of a hypnotized intellect. All Consciousness, all reality, belongs to the Paramatman which is non~dual, alone existing. Only Truth can stimulate Truth to reveal Its treasure~house of Ambrosia Immortal.

   Simply stated, it is the Lord Himself, the Supreme Tapasvin, who from within, works from behind the veil of our mind and ego. It is He who performs our Sadhana. Our nervous system, body, mind, ego, heart, our very pores will have to undergo complete purification and be saturated in the nectarous Bliss of Brahman. If we are eager to become One with the Pure Brahman, eschewed of all Karmas and desire, who but the Lord could know the process and accomplish it? Lord Sri Ramakrishna is the Master Tapasvin and His dearest task is to perform Tapas deep within our heart and Illumine it. Our task is to cultivate ardent sincerity to the core, self~surrender and faith. Faith in Brahman, our True Self. Faith in
what the Hindu Vedas~Scriptures proclaim, and Faith in the words of the Illumined Teachers. 

   Ahimsa towards all beings, renunciation of desire and calm dispassion towards the parade of internal and external phenomena are the primary virtues and the marks of earnest sincerity.

   Lord Sri Ramakrishna's bite is that of a Cobra and not of a garden snake. His bite injects a sweet pain of yearning for the Divine, which in time must reach its fulfillment. But there is a saying that if a person somehow has ingested some poison and then goes on repeating with belief: 'There is no poison in me! There is no poison in me!' the poison may mysteriously disappear from that person's system. Such is the power of suggestion! Likewise, a devotee may have come to Sri Ramakrishna and have been bitten by Him. But, if the mind of the devotee is prone to doubt and repeatedly indulges in the thoughts: 'I am such a sinner! I have done such and such! My mind is a hopeless case! Brahman cannot possibly be in me! I am doomed!' ~ the mind in this case is giving precedence to the reality of its impurities over that of the Reality of Brahman. Such a mind is in a war of competition with the Sadhana of the Lord of Truth within, and it perpetuates the dense veil which the Lord is yearning to rend. But alas! In varying hues, each of us is burdened with such a mind.

   This Pearl is of great price and cannot be had without a fiery struggle, suffering, and sacrifice. Everyone struggles, suffers, and sacrifices for fickle transitory worldly ends. Can we not endure a little such hardship for the permanent attainment of Infinite Immortal Bliss? The luke~warm or half~hearted spirit was never entertained by Sri Ramakrishna during His Sadhana at Dakshineswar. Likewise, His Sadhana within the heart of His devotee is never without zeal; if it seems to be so, then we may know that we are cherishing too much resistance. The popular saying 'Let go, and let God' is a very good one. Our Heart~Flame should rise erect, alert and ready to receive His Divine Movement, as does the Fire~God Agni rise erect to receive reverent oblations.

   Ardent love for the Divine with clear~hearted trust and prayful simplicity is a delicacy most satisfying to Lord Sri Ramakrishna. He lovingly responds to our prayers. He will bestow upon us the ability to concentrate on His Truth. When we sit for Japa and Meditation we can tell ourselves: 'Lord Sri Ramakrishna is meditating in me. He will conduct this meditation.' We should believe this. We can also remember that the great and mighty Atman within us, is none other than He ~ effulgent with splendour, luminous with the pure clarity of a transparent crystal, a conscious sphere devoid of circumference and replete with Bliss ~ in whom all worlds are but an illusory speck. Lord Sri Ramakrishna is that Immortal Atman within us.

   Lord Sri Ramakrishna is the God of Love. Anyone who reads His life story with a devoted and concentrated mind cannot help but find this to be true . During His exquisite terrestrial sojourn at the Dakshineswar Temple we find him always the God~Intoxicated Child, mad with love for His Divine Mother Kali. He recognized Her in whatever form or dress She chose to appear. The bee of His mind was always intoxicated with bliss, enraptured in ecstasy, or drunk with deep Samadhi. The waves of His Divine Consciousness affected the environment about Him. The air, trees, temple buildings, roads, grass, flowers ~ everything pulsated sweetly with an aliveness, seeming to be conscious and full of a strange unearthly peace.

   His love was such that when His destined devotees had yet failed to come He would writhe in agony. At night sleep would not come. He would climb to the Temple roof and stand there with hands raised to the sky, sobbing. He would cry out loudly: 'Oh! Where are you all! Come to me!' His Divine compassion could not be checked. The very depths of His boundless Heart were shaken with an urgent call to all jivas sufffering in ignorance, His children. He yearned to bestow the choicest spiritual gifts freely upon His children. He longed to whisper sweetly into the ear of each devotee: 'I am here. Have no more fear,' sending a thrill of ecstasy through His child.

   Lord Sri Ramakrishna knew why He had come, and His divine mission was coursing through His veins. His children came. None can resist such a Call. Sri Ramakrishna, mad with love, beamed with joy and poured His radiant purity, His ecstatic love and His illumined knowledge into the devoted and hungry lotus~heart of each humble disciple until the lotus fully blossomed in the perfection of Divine Illumination.

   The Divine Play as enacted by Lord Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar has awakened everything to a greater spiritual receptivity and will continue to do so for a very long time. Lord Sri Ramakrishna is calling to us with the same Love~Call and is eager to pour into us His Love~Gift of Spiritual Illumination.

   We are immensely fortunate to have before us the Shining Jewel of the Ramakrishna Order and its rapid expansion throughout the world, making easy of access the life and teachings of Lord Sri Ramakrishna, the message of the Upanishads and the help of Illumined Teachers.

 

~*~  ShiVaNi  SaNnYaSiNi ~*~



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