Introduction - Sayings collected from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

On his fourth visit to Sri Ramakrishna, M., the author of this book, found Sri Ramakrishna in his room surrounded by a group of young men. As soon as M. came in the room, the Master laughed and said to them, 'There! He has come again'. Then he explained the cause of his laughter: 'A man once fed a peacock a pill of opium at four o'clock in the afternoon. The next day, exactly at that time, the peacock came back. It had felt the intoxication of the drug and returned just in time to have another dose.' For the remaining five years of the Master's lifetime, M. returned for dose after dose of this divine intoxicant -- direct association with God Incarnate -- and then shared it freely with other seekers of God in the form of this most beautiful book. At the beginning of each volume of the Bengali Gospel, he has quoted a verse from the Gopika Geetam of the Srimad Bhagavatam:

As other Incarnations of God have had someone to witness or collect their teachings, perhaps M. was this same great soul born
	again for that purpose. The great teachers of the world keep religion alive. They teach with the authority of direct experience and transmit power to their disciples, who in turn spread their teachings among humanity. Sri Ramakrishna commissioned M. to carry his message, just as he commissioned Swami Vivekananda. At the Cossipore garden house, the Master wrote on a piece of paper, 'Naren [Vivekananda]
will teach people'. When the young man objected, the Master told him, 'Your very bones will do it.' Regarding M., Sri Ramakrishna once said in an ecstatic mood, addressing the Divine Mother: 'Mother, why have you given him only kala [a small part] of power? Oh, I see. That will be sufficient for your work.'

Indeed, after he had been visiting the Master for some time, M. felt the urge to renounce family life and become a monk. But Sri Ramakrishna had set out a different path for him and discouraged him from this idea, saying: 'You are well established in God already. Is it good to give up all?' Another day he said: 'God binds the Bhagavata pundit to the world with one tie; otherwise, who would remain to explain the sacred book? He keeps the pundit bound for the good of men. That is why the Divine Mother has kept you in the world.'

When one of Sri Ramakrishna's devotees asked M. to show him his diary, M. refused, saying, 'I am writing it for myself, not for others'. Whenever he would get a little extra time during his work as a teacher, he would retire to a solitary room on the roof to read his diary and reflect and meditate on the words of the Master. Once, speaking of the origin of the Gospel, M. said: 'I was involved in worldly activities, bound to my work, and could not visit the Master whenever I wished. Therefore I used to note down his words in order to think about them in the intervals before I met him again, so that the impressions made on my mind might not be overlaid by the stress of worldly work and responsibilities. It was thus for my own benefit that I first made the notes, so that I might realize his teachings more perfectly'.

Like M., Tarak, who later became Swami Shivananda, once started to make notes of the Master's teachings and conversations, but Sri Ramakrishna forbade him to do so, and Tarak threw all of his notes into the Ganga. The job of recorder was earmarked for M. From the Gospel it seems that sometimes the Master would not begin an important discussion without M. being present. And again, the Master sometimes asked M. to repeat to him what he had said, and if M. had not understood it correctly, he would clarify the meaning for him. (See the entry in the Gospel's dated November 9, 1884.)

M. was gifted with artistic ability and an accurate memory, which enabled him to faithfully recreate in writing what he had seen and heard. The scenes in the Gospel are so vividly depicted, that it is as if the reader is being transported to the very time and place and is watching and listening to the Master and his devotees. M. had been influenced by the writing of medieval Sanskrit poets such as Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti and had imbibed the contemplative spirit and serene atmosphere of the hermitages of ancient India through them. His own poetic nature can be seen in the descriptive passes in the Gospel, such as the following:

Aldous Huxley wrote in the foreword to the English translation of the Gospel, 'Making good use of his natural gifts and of the circumstances in which he found himself, M. produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography'. One can challenge the historicity of Christ, Buddha, or Krishna, but no one can challenge the historicity of Sri Ramakrishna. His conversations are meticulously documented according to place, persons, time, day, month, and year, and have come directly from M.'s diary. He himself said: 'My account is not a collection from other sources. I recorded, whatever I heard with my own ears from the Master's lips and whatever I saw of his life with my own eyes'. He wrote at the beginning of each volume of the Bengali edition that there are three kinds of information about Sri Ramakrishna: The first is recorded by the person who observed it on the same day as it happened; the second is recorded by the observer but at a later time; and the third is also recorded at a later time, but by someone who heard it from someone else. The Gospel belongs to the first category. M. would struggle to make his account accurate, for he once said: 'Sometimes I meditated on one scene over a thousand times. Sometimes I had to wait for a word of the Master to come to mind as a chataka bird waits for a drop of rainwater to fall'.

Although tautology is a weakness in logic, it is not a weakness in the scriptures. The scriptures will reiterate the same truth in different ways so that it penetrates into us. M. was once asked to remove some of the repetitions from the Gospel, but he replied: 'I cannot do that. Sri Ramakrishna told the same parable to different people. If I remove a particular section, the train of the conversation will be broken. Moreover, you won't be able to see the effect of the Gospel in a particular person's life. You see, sometimes the brilliance of a diamond is enhanced by changing its setting. Putting it on the dusty ground gives one effect, and putting it on a green lawn will give another. But putting it in a blue velvet casket will give the most brilliant effect of all. The same is true of the words in the Gospel'.

M. was reticent about himself even in the Gospel. His family name was Mahendra Nath Gupta, but he referred himself always impersonally, using names such as Mani, Manimohan, Master, a devote, an Englishman (meaning an English-educated person), a servant, or, most often, M. (in Bengali, Sri Ma). Among Sri Ramakrishna's immediate circle of devotees, he was known as Master Mahashay, respected teacher, but since the publishing of the Gospel, he has come to be known almost universally as M.

After the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna, the other disciples asked M. to publish his diary, but he was reluctant to do so. However, one day he read some of his notes to Sri Sarada Devi, the spiritual consort of Sri Ramakrishna, and she approved of them. M. regarded this as a divine sanction. In 1897 he published two pamphlets in English under the title The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. A few years later, the Gospel was published in its original Bengali language in five volumes as Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita (Volume I was published in 1902, Volume II in 1904, Volume III in 1908, Volume IV in 1910, and Volume V in 1932). This was then translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and published in one volume in 1942. Swami Vivekananda wrote to M. in response to the earliest publications: 'You have hit Ramakrishna in the right point. Few, alas, few understand him!' The move is quite original and never was the life of a great teacher brought before the public untarnished by the writer's mind, as you are doing. The language also is beyond all praise -- so fresh, so pointed and withal so plain and easy... I now understand why none of us attempted his life before. It has been reserved for you -- this great work. He is with you evidently... The Socratic dialogues are Plato all over. You are entirely hidden.'

In the eye of the lover, every detail of his beloved's life and activities is important. So it is with the devotee of God. He has intense interest in all things, places, and persons associated with God's manifestation on earth. He takes great pleasure in visiting or hearing about such places, because they make the Lord more real to him. To the devotees of Sri Ramakrishna, every spot at Dakshineswar is sacred. M. would sometimes accompany the devotees to the temple garden and would point out places where special conversations, meetings, or incidents had taken place. He was never tired of narrating those stories. In the first volume of the Bengal Gospel and in the first English edition, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, volume I (published by Ramakrishna Math, Madras), M. has left a short description of the Dakshineswar temple garden for future pilgrims, pointing out the places they should see: the bel tala, where the Master practiced Tantra; the pine grove; the Panchavati, a sacred grove of five trees (banyan, peepul, neem, amalaki, and bel); the madhavi-lata plant, which was planted by the Master; the meditation room, where the Master practiced Vedantic sadhana; the goose tank; the bakultala ghat; the nahabat, where Sri Sarada Devi lived; the chandni-ghat, where the Master used to bathe; the flower garden; the Kali temple; the nat-mandir, or theatre hall; the office rooms and guest rooms; the twelve Shiva temples; the Radha-Krishna temple; the new image of Krishna and also the old one with the broken leg, which was repaired by the Master; the southern, northern, and semi-circular western verandahs around the Master's room; the room itself, where he lived for sixteen years; the gazi pond; the gazitala, where the Master practiced Islam; the main gate, the back gate; and the orchard.

Once a devotee told M. that he planned to visit Dakshineswar. M. told him to prepare himself for the visit. Then, suddenly in an inspired mood, M. said: 'When you see Dakshineswar, you will have an idea of what Sri Ramakrishna' surroundings were like. The temple garden was the backdrop for divine scenes. At Dakshineswar you will see the bel tree under which the Master practiced great Tantric sadhanas. There is the Panchavati, where he went through many spiritual exercises. You will also see the Master's room. When you enter his room, visualize the Master seated with his disciples and talking to them on divine subjects. We always found the Master absorbed in spiritual moods. Sometimes he would be in samadhi. Sometimes he would be singing and dancing. At other times he would be talking to the Divine Mother. We were fortunate enough to see a man who actually talked to the Divine Mother. We were fortunate enough to see a man whose experiences form, as it were, a living Veda. It is the revelations of such people that we have to rely upon, not our "ounce of reason". For the intellect cannot go far in spiritual matters; it has been weighed and found wanting. Christ said to his disciples, "I speak of things which I have seen with my own eyes; and yet you believe me not". One has to put one's faith in the words of a man of realization. When you go to the temple, you must purify yourself and strip yourself of all sensuality. Only the pure in heart can see God. You must also open yourself to the Master's presence and influence. This pilgrimage to Dakshineswar will help you a good deal in progression towards God-realization'.

On another occasion M. advised: 'One should see everything connected with the Master in detail. For example, in the Master's room there are cots, a jar containing Ganga water, pictures of gods and goddesses - Kali, Krishna, Rama, Chaitanya and his kirtan party, Dhruva, Prahlad, Christ extending his hand to the drowning Peter, and a white marble image of Buddha, which was given to him by Queen Katyayani, the wife of Lalababu. There was a picture of the goddess of learning on the western wall. Whenever a new person would come, the Master would look at the picture and pray, "Mother, I am an unlettered person. Please sit on my tongue", and then he would speak to him. If a person can imprint these divine sights on his mind, he will have deep meditations, and even sitting at home he can live at Dakshineswar with the Master'.

M. made a wonderful comment about Dakshineswar: 'The spiritual fire is blazing intensely there, and whoever goes there will be purified. The body does not burn, but mental impurities are consumed in no time. Then a man can attain immortality. God himself, in a physical form, lived there for thirty years! One can tangibly feel the spirituality at Dakshineswar'.

There is a beautiful verse in the Sri Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita: Adyapiha sei lila kare gora rai, kono kono bhagyavane dekhibare pai. 'Chaitanya is still performing his divine play; only the fortunate ones can see it'. Sri Ramakrishna's divine presence is still at Dakshineswar, and the temple garden is not much different today than the way it was during his lifetime. But until we are able to see the eternal play of the Master at Dakshineswar, like the fortunate ones who see the play of Chaitanya, we are indebted to M. for his devoted firsthand account of what took place.

Once Miss Josephine MacLeod asked M., 'What was your experience of Sri Ramakrishna?' M. replied: 'He was always conscious of God. He was never separated from that state, and we saw him twenty-four hours a day. This is not possible for an ordinary God-realized man, but only when God incarnates in a human body. He declared that in his body Satchidananda had descended on earth. One day he told me, "Christ, Chaitanyadeva, and I are one and the same entity". When he thus revealed his real nature to us, we would feel bewildered and wonder, "Is this the temple priest or God himself speaking?" '

M.: 'He told us, "The Mother of the Universe speaks through my lips". He spoke from inspiration. One several occasions he said, "I am an illiterate man, but Mother pushes heaps of knowledge to me from behind" '.

Sri Ramakrishna had asked M. to work for the Divine Mother, and he did so for fifty years. Even though his health was delicate, he never gave up working. Swami Nityatmananda wrote of a touching incident in his memoirs: 'I was responsible for the printing of the Kathamrita [the Bengali Gospel] while it was at the printer's, but I had many things to do and was unable to finish the proofreading in time. At one o'clock at night I saw a light in M.'s room. I entered and found he was reading the proofs of the Gospel by a kerosene lantern. He was not well at all, and moreover, as he was working at an odd hour, his eyes were watering. I was pained at this. I lovingly chastised him and he replied with affection: "People are finding peace by reading this book, the Master's immortal message. It is inevitable that the body will meet its end, so it is better that it is used for spreading peace to others. We are in the world and have utterly experienced how much pain is there, yet I have forgotten that pain through The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. I am hurrying so that the book may come out soon". Indeed, M. died while the last portion of the last volume was at the press. He was born to write and teach The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna'.

On June 4, 1932, M. left his body in full consciousness. He breathed his last saying this prayer, 'Mother -- Guru Deva -- take me up in thy arms'. The Mother took her child up in her arms and the curtain fell.

When M. would talk about Sri Ramakrishna, he would have no body-consciousness. It seemed as though his soul was trying its utmost to break out of its cage of name and form, trying to encompass the Infinite. His love and devotion for Sri Ramakrishna was so great, it would spread to those who heard him speak. One day in an inspired mood, M. was trying to describe his Master. He said:

After trying to describe the Master in many ways, he said that all these similes were inadequate. The Infinite cannot be expressed in words.

M. offered his life at the feet of his guru and attained eternal life, and through his great life's work, The Gospel of Ramakrishna, he has been immortalized.

(The above has been abridged and slightly adapted from the beautiful book "They Lived With God" - by Swami Chetanananda, published by the Advaita Ashrama)