Writer, Singer, Musician, College English professor A review by Ben Evans
Before getting this book, the only information I had encountered about Ramakrishna was several exceptionally reverent passages from a work by Swami Vivekananda.?The Swami praises Ramakrishna as a manifestation of God such as
Ramakrishna and His Disciples
A review by Ben Evans
Before getting this book, the only information I had encountered about Ramakrishna was several exceptionally reverent passages from a work by Swami Vivekananda.?The Swami praises Ramakrishna as a manifestation of God such as
That was a level of praise I had never heard Vivekananda use except when he spoke of God the unmanifested.?At the time, I didn’t know that Vivekananda was one of Ramakrishna’s disciples, but that fact—the outward relationship of teacher and student seen by the world—doesn’t really account for the love between the two, as this book shows.?If there is any message in this unique and powerful biographical work offered by Sister Devamata, it is that God is alive, radiant, whole, and--let us not forget--beyond prediction.?Vivekananda’s love for the Master preceded his becoming Ramakrishna’s devotee, just as our own love for God is already within us, so that when we become aware of it, everything is not just brand new, but somehow inexplicably familiar too.?This aliveness outshining all convention and expectation is the feeling and the “message” of Sri Ramakrishna and His Disciples.?
Sister Devamata takes us from Ramakrishna’s childhood through his earthly passing, mixing quotations and paraphrasing from various firsthand sources to give us an inspiring vision of a boy uncommonly drawn to God and eventually getting so absorbed as to become known as the ‘illumined soul’ of Dakshineswar.?Sister Devamata gathered her material from many sources, but her main source was ‘Sasi,’ otherwise known as Ramakrishnananda, another of Ramakrishna’s close circle of devotees.
No book can give us a complete picture of God, but this book, in its uniqueness and humbleness, gives us a strong suggestion.?The effect of reading it proves Ramakrishnananda’s statement in the book’s forward true: “We might talk of Ramakrishna for days and days together and still he would rise up before us as absolutely new. So unfathomable is he!”?Attempting to “review” this book has that effect as well.?While it is loosely chronological, the book’s spirit renders the “facts” of Ramakrishna’s life and associations hard to remember.
Prominent, however, is the Master’s intense, seemingly insane quest to know God.?We have scenes of his staying alone for days and nights with nothing to eat or drink, and we have his crying out loud, his bodily sacrifice to the Eternal.?He carries on conversations with “nothing” and appears to the orthodox Hindus as mad.?Only because a select few noticed the divinity was he able to be housed and sheltered while the fullness of God within him unfolded.?
Beyond all else, the book certainly upholds his teachings, but the warmth and uniqueness come in how Sister Devamata has woven these into the various scraps of narrative given her by those who knew him.?What emerges is powerful teaching with real-life illustration, filtered through the loving memories of those closest to Ramakrishna.?We are taken to the physical place where the Master’s body is left behind, and we are taken into the minds and feelings, even the doubts and sufferings of those who were near him when he passed.?This feeds our need for a sensual bridge, sometimes, to that which is too fine for the senses; Ramakrishna becomes in the Sister’s pages nearly a real person for us, as he was for his devotees, rather than another collection of distilled teachings.?What follows are some scenes that show what I mean:
·???????????????????????????????? At one point, while Ramakrishna is traveling with one of his disciples in the wild desert country, they are approached by bandits, sure to cause serious damage.?The Master’s travel companion relates that while he himself was terrified at the bandits’ approach, Ramakrishna showed no concern.?Just as the bandits were within a certain distance, Ramakrishna apparently let out a sound so loud, powerful and strange—such that it seemed to come from all the surroundings and not just from his throat—that the bandits became terrified and rode away.
·???????????????????????????????? A man with an opium addiction comes for help, although it is widely known that this addiction is impossible to deal with.?Ramakrishna gives him a technique whereby the addict can share his drug with God, and in that sharing God eventually takes over the man’s life and the addiction is gone.
·???????????????????????????????? Narendra (Vivekananda) is identified as the greatest skeptic, but upon his first two meetings with Ramakrishna he is transformed into an intense devotee.?Vivekananda’s experience is described as follows: ‘Guru Maharaj [Ramakrishna] leaned over and touched his [Vivekananda’s] heart through the front of his shirt which was unbuttoned.?Naren [Vivekananda] told me afterwards: “The walls of the room began to recede and disappear.?Then, the river and all
·???????????????????????????????? Breaking through yet more pat ideas about devotion, we witness Ramakrishna’s idea on diet: ‘His own attitude of mind towards diet he voiced in these words spoken to a group of disciples: “The person who eats meat and keeps his or her mind firmly fixed on God is a vegetarian.?The person who takes nothing but vegetable food and keeps his or her mind turned towards selfish concerns and his or her worldly affairs is a meat-eater.’”
One might think, given the title of Sister Devamata’s book, that it only deals with Ramakrishna’s life and the lives of his disciples, but the book, representing the experience that the real spirit can’t be contained, follows Ramakrishna’s reach into the business and arts communities of Calcutta, the local families touched by him, his exchanges of influence with other religious leaders and even other religions, as well as his relationships with his wife and his own various teachers.?The result is a rich vision of the reality of enlightenment, a testament to God’s ever-transcendent unfolding across all manmade boundaries and expectations.?The reader feels brought into the memory of an authentic community surrounding a human fountain of God.?Nothing is what you think it should be.?Everything is the Mystery.?And if we expected the Master to refer to God as “He,” we come to know that Ramakrishna most often used “Mother” or “The Mother” or “My Mother” to refer to God.?
In an age like ours, saturated with male-dominated, mind-dominated interests, “The Mother,” Sister Devamata, and Ramakrishna invite you into their home with Sri Ramakrishna and His Disciples.?Why don’t you have a bite to eat, take a nap, and come to listen to the Mother speak through her son?
You can order Ramakrishna and His Disciples by Sister Devamata from
Vedanta Centre: 781-383-0940?