Bhaktisandesam / Have you seen God?

[Guest guest]

Hari Om

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Vivekananda meets Ramakrishna

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'I, I am God', 'Yes, all is God,'

peals back Heaven's deathless call.

~ Sri Aurobindo in Savitri (Book-6/Canto-2)

 

More than a century ago an adolescent boy of Calcutta, Narendra Nath

Dutta was obsessed with the idea of seeing God. He was firmly

grounded in the works of occidental philosophers, but none could

fulfil his cherished aspiration. His search took him to the ghats of

Ganges where atop an anchored barge sat the leader of Sadharan Brahmo

Samaj, Maharshi Devendra Nath Tagore, a Guru in spiritual matters,

father of the poet Tagore. But the 'Great Seer' was taken aback by

Narendra's question - 'Sir, have you seen God?' - and tried to

assuage him by saying that his eyes resembled that of a yogi, and

that he should spiritually prosper by meditation.

 

 

 

Disappointed and desperate the young man one day, along with his

friends, went to meet Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, a somewhat

eccentric priest of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar in Calcutta. At

the first opportunity Narendra put him the same question - " Sir, have

you seen God? " But this practically illiterate priest, unlike the

erudite Maharshi, replied in rural dialect without mincing words -

" Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you.

I have talked with him more intimately than I am talking to you. But

my child, who wants to see God! People shed jugs of tears for money,

wife and children. But if they weep for God for only one day they

would surely see Him. "

 

 

Narendra intuitively knew that here was a genuine man to whom God was

a living reality and not at all a philosophical concept or an

intellectual pastime. As we know it was under the ecclesiastical

tutelage of Sri Ramakrishna (1836-86) that Narendra Nath Dutta

graduated into a full-blossomed spiritual soul, later to be known as

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902).

 

According to Vivekananda, " My master was not learned but learning

personified. " This inhibition of highest spiritual knowledge comes

not from cramming spiritual texts but from attaining direct

realisation of Divinity through various paths prescribed by the

spiritual masters of yore. The boldness of 'Sanatan Dharma' we call

Hinduism is that it emphasises nothing short of direct perception of

Truth as the goal of human life.

 

The sage in Upanishad proclaims unequivocally " I know this great

Person who is resplendent like the sun, and beyond darkness. By

knowing him alone one can transcend death, there exists no other path

(alternative) " . So it is by a first-hand perception of this effulgent

truth - 'Satchit Ananda' (Existence-Consciousness-Delight) - whose

amaranthine visage according to scriptures is covered with a lid of

gold and one can cleave into the supreme secret of All-being which is

also All-becoming. There lies the validity of religion in particular

and life in general.

 

~ Contributed by Soma Brahma

 

 

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Jai Shree Krishna !