- ‘As Long as I Live So Long Do I Learn.’
- “You Only See Their Present Life”
- Tears During Prayer or Meditation
- “I Spit Upon Lust and Gold”
- “Look, Here is The Living Shiva.”
- How Can Brahman Incarnate Himself as Man?
- Form to Formless
- ‘Soham! Soham!’
- Testing Sri Ramakrishna
- Highest Ideal is to Love and Serve Human Beings
- “I Don’t Care for Nirvana”
- “I Am Your Son in This Life”
- “You Have Many Things to Do Here”
- ‘For The Good of Many and The Welfare of All’
- Did You Come Here Only to Sleep?
- I Want to See God in All Beings
- The Master and Swamiji Are Really One
- Father’s Spiritual Blessing
Gangadhar was so compassionate that he once gave his own shirt to a poor classmate whose shirt was torn. Without telling his parents, he would secretly give food to beggars. He was a strong moralist and always helped his wayward friends.
On another occasion, Gangadhar went to Dakshineswar and found that the Master was in samadhi. When he came down to normal consciousness, he spoke of God-vision and Self-realization, saying: “One’s own Chosen Deity is one’s own Self. The Chosen Deity and the Atman are identical. The vision of the Chosen Deity is equivalent to Self-knowledge.”
Gangadhar started for Tibet with a trader, but partway into the journey, the trader pointed in the direction of the Thuling Monastery and went his own way. It was an arduous journey, and before he could reach the monastery Gangadhar fell unconscious on the ice. The next morning a monk happened to find him and carried him to the monastery. The lamas warmed him, thus saving his life. They discovered in Gangadhar the signs of a monk with unbroken chastity. When they saw the picture of Sri Ramakrishna that he carried with him, one lama asked: “Who is he? These eyes do not belong to an ordinary human being. This person must be a Buddha.”
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On his way back from Kailas he stopped at the Chekra village and became the guest of a rich gypsy. One day his host saw the picture of Ramakrishna next to Gangadhar’s bed; as soon as he touched it, he lost outer consciousness. He asked Gangadhar: “Where did you get this picture? Please give it to me. I shall worship him every day. He is the veritable Buddha. Otherwise why did I become overwhelmed upon touching his picture. An ordinary human being cannot have such a facial expression.”
Akhandananda stopped at Agra on his way to Vrindaban, the playground of Krishna. At Agra he met a Sufi who knew the Koran by heart. Akhandananda asked him, “What have you achieved from your lifelong sadhana?” The Sufi replied: “If you put a lemon in salt, it becomes saturated with salt; likewise I am saturated in God. This I have realized.”
Akhandananda went to Ajmere and there met Mr. Williams, a Christian devotee of the Master. Akhandananda wrote: “He considered Sri Ramakrishna an incarnation of Christ. He told me about his meeting with the Master: ‘During my first visit with him, the Master spread a mat for me and another for himself. He said, “Look here, the two mats are an inch apart.” “Two mats may be apart,” I said, “but there is no distance between our hearts.”’” The Master instructed Mr. Williams at that time; he later went to the Himalayas to practise sadhana and there he passed away.
Akhandananda’s gigantic heart cried for the poor, the destitute, and the sick. One day, when he was on his way to bathe in the Ganges, he found an old woman suffering from cholera. He cleaned her unconscious body, changed her clothing, and then sent her to the hospital.
The doers of good always encounter obstacles, but God gives them patience, perseverance, and strength. The more the current of a river is obstructed, the more vigorously it flows. Some selfish, rich people of Sargachi village could not bear Akhandananda’s popularity. They put pressure on him to leave the place; they wrote adversely to Vivekananda about him; they even brought a legal suit against him. Swamiji said to him, “Don’t be upset listening to public criticism.” It is said: “Criticisms are like ornaments to a pioneer.”
Once somebody asked the swami: “On whom shall I meditate first — the form of the guru or the form of the Ishta [Chosen Deity]? Where shall I concentrate?” Akhandananda replied: “Sri Ramakrishna is the guru and he is the Ishta. There is no first or second about it. The heart is the best place for concentration. Think that you are seeing him face to face. He is seated in your heart. Those who are initiated can think of their own guru in the beginning if it helps them. There is no hard and fast rule. The only thing needful is constant recollectedness of the Lord.”57 Another time a devotee asked him if he had seen God. Akhandananda humbly replied, “Yes, while I was in the Himalayas, I saw God face to face.”