When he was in the eighth grade he started to keep a diary, and the following entries show his religious nature: “I got up in the morning and prostrated before my parents.” “As usual, on my way to school I saluted Mother Kali and Mother Shitala.” The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna ultimately originated from this habit of keeping a diary, and M. himself commented about his great work, “I was an apprentice for fifteen years.”
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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 one kala [a small part] of power? Oh, I see. That will be sufficient for Your work.”
Once Sri Ramakrishna remarked about M., “This man has no ego.” Where there is ego there is no God, and where there is God there is no ego. Sri Ramakrishna had effaced M.’s ego forever, and thus he became a perfect instrument in the hands of the Master.
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 got 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, (later Swami Shivananda) once started to make notes of the Master’s teachings and conversations. However, Sri Ramakrishna forbade him to do so, so Tarak threw all of his notes into the Ganges. The job of recorder was earmarked for M. From the Gospel it seems that sometimes the Master would not begin an important discussion unless M. was 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 dated 9 November 1884.)
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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.”43 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. M. 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.”44 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. struggled 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.”
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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.
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Swami Vivekananda wrote to M. in response to the earliest publications: “You have hit Ramakrishna in the right point. Few, alas, few understand him!” And in another letter he said: “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.”
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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 1:00 a.m. 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 4 June 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.
Whenever M. talked 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 were so great, they would spread to those who heard him speak. One day in an inspired mood, M. was trying to describe his Master. He said:
“The Master was like a five-year-old boy always running to meet his Mother.
“The Master was like a beautiful flower whose nature was to bloom and spread its fragrance.
“The Master was like a bonfire from which other lamps were lighted.
“The Master was like a celestial vina always absorbed in singing the glory of the Divine Mother.
“The Master was like a big fish joyfully swimming in calm, clear, blue waters, the Ocean of Satchidananda. “The Master was like a bird which had lost its nest in a storm and then, perched on the threshold of the Infinite, was joyfully moving between the two realms, singing the glory of the Infinite.”
After trying to describe the Master in many ways, he said that all these similies 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 Sri Ramakrishna, he has been immortalized. (Source: They Lived with God)