Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Swami Vivekananda Sharada Mata
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the great 19th century Saint and a staunch devotee of Kali Mata, was born in a village in the present day West Bengal to a pious Brahmin family. His birth name was Gadadhar. Though he had married Ma Sarada Devi, but he treated her like the holy mother Ma Kali Devi, and showered great affection on her. Due to his high spiritual interest, though some people treated him as a mad man, but shortly everyone in his village began to realise his supremacy, and highly honoured him.
Some of the incidents from the life of Ramakrishna are as follows:-
1. During the time of serving as a priest in the Radhakantha Temple, Ramakrishna never considered the Krishna deity as mere idol, but considered it in the form of real Krishna itself. While doing Krishna puja, Guru Ramakrishna would forget about the outside world, and he used to concentrate his entire attention on worshipping Lord Krishna only.
2. Ramakrishna has also performed puja in the Dakshineswar Kali Temple as the Chief Priest. After knowing about proper puja procedure, Ma Kali has become the beloved deity of Ramakrishna. While adorning flowers to the deity of Ma Kali Devi, he would never consider the deity as an idol, but he would consider it as the Original Ma Kali itself. He also converse with Ma Kali in an affectionate manner, and similarly Ma Kali also would take the shape of human form and would converse with him. Sometimes Ramakrishna used to sit on the lap of Ma Kali Devi and used to see her face for a long time. Ma Kali used to gently rub the body of her divine son Ramakrishna, in order to remove the tiredness from his body, and this practice was continued for many days, and through that, Bhagavan Ramakrishna had attained great spiritual enlightenment.
3. Due to his staunch Bhakti on Ma Kali, sometimes Ramakrishna used to laugh unnecessarily, used to dance, sing songs on her, and sometimes he used to roam around the temple in naked form, and on seeing his strange appearance, the people around him, used to consider him as a mad person.
4. Ramakrishna would never think about his physical appearance and about the opinion of others. He used to perform meditation for a long time even during nights, and most of the nights he didn’t sleep, since his entire mind was thinking only about Ma Kali.
5. In course of time, people at Dakshineswar began to realise about his supremacy and honoured him properly. He also showed kindness on everybody, and he used to sort out most of the problems of the devotees by worshipping Ma Kali Devi.
6. It is also believed that Lord Rama had interacted with Ramakrishna for a few days, in the form of a child, and he also had food from the great saint on his own hands.
7. It is also believed that Bhagavan Ramakrishna is an aspect of the almighty, since during the time of pregnancy his mother had realized that a bright light was entering into her womb, and at that time, her face was shined very brightly.
“OM SRI RAMAKRISHNAYA NAMAHA”
WRITTEN BY
R.HARISHANKAR