MY MASTER

SWAMIJI'S  TIME  J K  SIVAN 

                                                                  MY MASTER

          

Whenever my  master wanted to do anything he never confined himself to fine theories, but would enter into the practice immediately; 

We see many persons talking the most wonderfully fine things about charity , equality, the rights of other people and all that, but it is only in theory. I was so fortunate as to find in my master, the  one who was able to carry theory into practice. He had the most wonderful faculty of carrying everything into practice which he thought was right. Now, there was a family of  down trodden people, branded untouchables in those days, living near the place. These  poor people numbered several millions in the whole of India. . Now my Master would go to  such a low caste person's house and ask  him to  allow  cleaning of his house.  Whereas it was the  business of the downtrodden to clean the streets of the cities and to keep houses clean, he cannot enter the house by the front door; by the back door he enters; and as soon as he has gone, the whole place over which he has passed is sprinkled with and made holy by a little Gangâ water. It was unfortunately the dirty custom we had.

By birth the Brahmin stands for holiness and yet  this brahmin, my Master, asked the other man, to allow him to do the  menial services in the house of the  otherman.

The downtrodden man would not accept the request out of respect of my Master, belonging to the high claste.   So   in the dead of night, when all were sleeping, Ramakrishna my master, would enter the house. He had long hair, and with his hair he would wipe the place, saying, "Oh, my Mother, make me the servant of the untouchlable poor man, make me feel that I am even lower than this poor man." 

''They worship Me best who worship My worshippers.''  (என் பக்தனை நேசிப்பவன், அவனுக்கு  சேவை செய்பவன்   என்னை நேசிப்பவன் எனக்கு சேவை செய்பவன் ஆவான்)    These are all My children and your privilege is to serve them" — is the teaching of Hindu scriptures. There were various other preparations which would take a long time to relate, and I want to give you just a sketch of  my master's life. For years he thus educated himself. One of the Sâdhanâs was to root out the sex idea. Soul has no sex, it is neither male nor female. It is only in the body that sex exists, and the man who desires to reach the spirit cannot at the same time hold to sex distinctions. Having been born in a masculine body, this man wanted to bring the feminine idea into everything. He began to think that he was a woman, he dressed like a woman, spoke like a woman, gave up the occupations of men, and lived in the household among the women of a good family, until, after years of this discipline, his mind became changed, and he entirely forgot the idea of sex; thus the whole view of life became changed to him. We hear in the West about worshipping woman, but this is usually for her youth and beauty. This man meant by worshipping woman, that to him every woman's face was that of the Blissful Mother, and nothing but that. 

I myself have seen this man standing before those women whom society would not touch, and falling at their feet bathed in tears, saying, "Mother, in one form Thou art in the street, and in another form Thou art the universe. I salute Thee, Mother, I salute Thee." Think of the blessedness of that life from which all carnality has vanished, which can look upon every woman with that love and reverence when every woman's face becomes transfigured, and only the face of the Divine Mother, the Blissful One, the Protectress of the human race, shines upon it! That is what we want. Do you mean to say that the divinity back of a woman can ever be cheated? It never was and never will be, It always asserts itself. Unfailingly it detects fraud, it detects hypocrisy, unerringly it feels the warmth of truth, the light of spirituality, the holiness of purity. Such purity is absolutely necessary if real spirituality is to be attained. This rigorous, unsullied purity came into the life of that man.

 All the struggles which we have in our lives were past for him. His hard-earned jewels of spirituality, for which he had given threequarters of his life, were now ready to be given to humanity, and then began his mission. His teaching and preaching were peculiar. In our country a teacher is a most highly venerated person, he is regarded as God Himself. We have not even the same respect for our father and mother. Father and mother give us our body, but the teacher shows us the way to salvation. We are his children, we are born in the spiritual line of the teacher. All Hindus come to pay respect to an extraordinary teacher, they crowd around him. And here was such a teacher, but the teacher had no thought whether he was to be respected or not, he had not the least idea that he was a great teacher, he thought that it was Mother who was doing everything and not he.