One day Harinath (Swami Turiyananda) arrived at Dakshineswar when the Master was having his dinner. He saw that a number of bowls containing various cooked items were placed before him. Harinath thought that this kind of luxurious eating was unbecoming to a holy man. The Master said at once: “Well, the tendency of my mind is always towards the Infinite. It is by such rajasic devices that I hold it down to the lower planes. Otherwise I could not talk with you.” Harinath was dumbfounded.
Similar Incident from the Life of Swami Vivekananda
Miss Waldo herself told me of this experience as her own. Romain Rolland tells it of another disciple. Both can be true. The incident could easily repeat itself.
Miss Waldo had had wide experience of teachers. She had sat at the feet of many during her long pursuit of truth, but sooner or later they had all fallen short in some way. Now the fear was in her heart that this new Hindu Swami might prove wanting. She was always watching for a sign of weakness. It came. She and the Swami were together in a New York drawing-room. The New York Swami Vivekananda knew was very different from the New York of today. The streets then were lined with monotonous blocks of brown stone houses, one so completely like every other that a visiting artist of note once asked: “How do you know when you are at home? You could as well be in the house next door.”
Each of these narrow, but deep houses held on the first floor a long narrow drawing-room, with high folding-doors at one end, two large windows at the other, and between them a mirror reaching from floor to ceiling. This mirror seemed to fascinate the Swami. He stood before it again and again, gazing at himself intently. In between he walked up and down the room, lost in thought. Miss Waldo’s eyes followed him anxiously. “Now the bubble is going to burst,” she thought. “He is full of personal vanity.” Suddenly he turned to her and said: “Ellen, it is the strangest thing, I cannot remember how I look. I look and look at myself in the glass, but the moment I turn away I forget completely what I look like.”
On 21 September 1884 Ramakrishna went to the Star Theatre to see the play Chaitanya Lila (The Divine Play of Sri Chaitanya). Swami Premananda recalled: “Before we left Dakshineswar, he said to me: ‘Look, if I go into samadhi there, people will turn towards me and there will be a commotion. If you see me on the verge of samadhi, talk to me about various other things.’ But when he went to the theatre he could not stop going into samadhi, even though he tried. I began to repeat the name of God, and slowly he came round. Such experiences of bhava [ecstasy], mahabhava [great ecstasy], and samadhi were natural with him. He had to struggle hard in order to hold his mind down to the normal plane.” (Source: God Lived with Them)
Once Sri Ramakrishna stood on the semicircular veranda and called, “O maya, please come.” Gauri-ma was astonished and asked the Master why he was calling for maya. Then he explained that the natural tendency of his mind was to soar to a very high realm, and it was hard to bring it down. He was calling for maya so that his mind would stay in a lower plane, making it possible for him to help his disciples. This shows what love the Master had for them. (Source: They Lived with God)
After illumination only compassion motivates the mind of a jivanmukta, one who is free while living. Shivananda struggled to keep his mind on the relative plane so that he could help others. Swami Ashokananda wrote: “During the day he would have many things scattered over his bed. Though his assortment varied, it would contain something like the following: a stick, a musical instrument, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, the Gita, the Chandi, Sanskrit texts and Bengali folk tales, as well as books that were plentifully illustrated. At times he might playfully shake the stick at the attendants, or finger the musical instrument, and very often he read. The monks did not at first understand why he wanted his bed cluttered with so many things, but one day he said: ‘My mind wants to rush towards the Absolute all the time. That is why I am trying with all these trifling diversions to hold my mind down. Just as a mother gives her child toys to keep it engaged, so I am also trying by various means to make my mind forget the Absolute.’” (Source: They Lived with God)
The natural inclination of extraordinary aspirants such as Sri Ramakrishna is to remain in nirvikalpa samadhi.
From ancient times to the present day, the spiritual history of the world has recorded a few individuals whose natural abode was the state of samadhi. However, for the good of humanity they forced themselves to remain confined for some time to the plane of the external world. The more we study the history of Sri Ramakrishna’s sadhana, the better we will understand that he belongs in that category. If the reader does not have that impression while reading this book, the author is at fault. The Master told us repeatedly: “I force myself to hold on to one or two trivial desires in order to keep my mind in this world for your sake. Otherwise, its natural tendency is to remain united to and identified with the indivisible One.” (Source: Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play)
One day a trustee, a disciple of Swamiji, asked him (Swami Brahmananda): “Maharaj, why do you make such difficulty about attending the meetings?” The swami answered: “Look, the whole world appears shadowlike to me. It is very difficult for me to come and attend to all these details.”
While living in Kamarpukur, the Master often spent evenings talking to Sarada and her companions for hours about spiritual matters and his own inner experiences. He also entertained them with stories and jokes. Tired after a whole day of housework, the teenaged Sarada would fall asleep on the floor. Her companions would try to awaken her, saying: “You are asleep! You are missing such priceless words.” At that, Ramakrishna would say: “No, don’t wake her up. If she listens to everything I say, she will not stay on this earth. She will unfold her wings and fly away.” (Source: Sri Sarada Devi and Her Divine Play)