THE MASTER. A COMBINATION OF HUMANITY AND DIVINITY

Indeed, there are three words which prick me to the core: (1) Guru (spiritual preceptor), (2) Karta (doer of action), and (3) Baba (father). God is the only Guru. My Divine Mother is the sole doer of actions, I am only an instrument in Her hands. I feel myself always to be Her child.

About his meeting with a celebrated Pandit, the Master said : " When I heard that the Pandit was coming to see me, I got frightened. For I am not even conscious of the cloth I am wearing. I had no idea of what I should reply when he talked with me. To the Mother I said: Apart from Thee I do not know anything—these scriptures and other matters.' So I told the people here: You all sit here. I shall feel encouraged by your presence.' When the Pandit actually came, I still continued to have a little fear. I sat quiet, gazing at him and listening to him. Just then I saw the Mother revealing to me the whole of the Pandit's mind. What is the good of reading the scriptures if one has no discrimination and dispassion ? There (pointing to his own body) I felt something creeping up to the head. All my fear was gone and I ceased to be conscious of

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myself. I raised my face, and words began to flow from my mouth. I felt as if somebody was replenishing my thoughts as they were spoken out. At Kamarpukur when people measured grain, one person would be pushing the grain forward as another measured it. It was like that. I myself did not know what all I spoke. When I regained my external consciousness a little, I saw the Pandit weeping and his body wet with tears. I experienced such states now and then. Keshab sent me word that he would take me on a cruise along the Ganges, and that a European missionary and tourist named Mr. Cook would be accompanying us. Hearing this, I began to go to the casuarina tree again and again (i.e, answer the calls of Nature out of nervousness). Afterwards they came, and I got into the steamer. Soon a change came over me. What all did I say then! All these people (pointing to the devotees) said that I gave excellent instructions. But I knew nothing about that."

The one who is within me is doing all this through me. At times I used to get the mood of Godhood —I would never be pacified unless worshipped. I am the instrument and He is the wielder. I do as He makes me do, I speak as He makes me speak.

Girish Chandra Ghosh, even after having given his ‘power-of-attorney’¹ to the Master, felt restless thinking over the power of the evil tendencies acquired by him in his past life. At this the Master said : You fellow, is it a water snake that has caught you ? No, it is a poisonous one. Even if you go home running, you will have to die. Don't you see that? When a water snake catches a frog, it dies only after croaking many times. Sometimes it may escape, too. But if it is a poisonous snake, the frog dies with one or two croaks. Even if it escapes, it hops a short distance and dies in its hole. The same is the case with one who has come here.

1 This is a term which the Master was wont to use to express complete self-surrender

One day, while a disciple was shampooing his feet, the Master said referring to this act of service, This has a deep significance. Then placing his hand on his own heart, he said, " If there is anything (Divine) in it, then (by this act of service) ignorance and Avidya will vanish once for all." And then he added with a serious look: " There is no outsider here. That day I had a vision. Harish was near me then. I saw Sachchidananda coming out of the sheath (i.e., his body). Having come out He said: ' I incarnate in every age.' I thought I was delirious. So I kept quiet. Then I heard that He was even saying: Even Chaitanya worshipped Sakti.

During his illness the Master said to his devotees one day: " Here (i.e., within himself) there are two persons. One is the Divine Mother—the other person is Her devotee. It is the latter who is now taken ill ... The Lord comes with His disciples as a Divine Incarnation. He takes a human body. His disciples go back with Him to the Divine Mother. A band of Bauls (singing mendicants) comes into a house all on a sudden. They chant. the ' name of the Lord and dance with joy. That done, they leave the house at once. As abrupt in going as in coming ! And the people know them not I"

A Combination of Humanity and Divinity

I realise that the three are of the same substance—the block for sacrifice, the victim to be sacrificed, and he who immolates the victim of the sacrifice.

In his last days, while lying seriously ill, the Master asked Narendra : " Well, what do you think is the nature of my feelings? "

Narendra: Why, Sir, you are everything I A hero who has cut his way to the Reality with the sword of discrimination and with a strength which the world cannot give ! You have the feeling of a Sakhi (lady friend) too—Love unspeakable, the ecstasy of Divine love which is called up by the Divine Lover alone. You are a hero, Sakhrand everything else in your yearning for the Lord.

The Master had all his feelings stirred up. He laid his hands upon the heart and said, addressing Narendra and other disciples: "I see—I realise—that all things, every conceivable thing—comes out of this !

A couple of days before the Master s passing away, when six months of suffering from the dreadful disease of cancer in the throat had already reduced him to a mere skeleton, Narendra, the disciple (the future Swami Vivekananda), felt a curious inclination to test the Master s oft-repeated assertion of his being an Incarnation. So he said to himself: " If in the midst of this dreadful physical pain he can declare his Godhead, then I shall believe him to be true." Strange to say, the moment this thought flashed in his mind, the Master summoned all his energy and said distinctly: " He who was Rama and Krishna is now Ramakrishna in this body—but not in your Vedantic sense.'