Guest guest Posted August 19, 2005 Report Share Posted August 19, 2005 MY REMINISCENCES OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA by Bhavatarani The following reminiscence of Sri Ramakrishna is by his last living disciple. Its touching candor, combined with the revelation of a most extraordinary experience, provides us with a unique addition to the relatively small treasury of writings about Ramakrishna by his household disciples. The author was only a young girl of eight when she first met Sri Ramakrishna, but this meeting and the few to follow changed her entire life. The mother of Bhavatarini was a relative of Sri Ramakrishna, and it was Ramakrishna himself who arranged the marriage of Bhavatarini to one of his lay disciples—another relative—Upendranath Mukherji. (It was this same Upendranath in whose pressroom Latu Maharaj slept for several months.) Upendranath was very poor, but he hoped that through the grace of Sri Ramakrishna he would be able to amass a fortune. He later did, becoming a wealthy publisher in Calcutta. Upendranath died in 1915. According the last report, Bhavatarini is in Benares, still hale and hearty at age 94. Since the death of her husband, she has lived the life of a sannyasini [Hindu nun]. Even at this advanced age, she leads an extremely austere life, her only food being some milk and bananas, which she takes at night after performing the worship and first offering the food to Sri Ramakrishna. Her son passed away more than a decade ago, as well as a grandson. The following reminiscence was recorded in Bangalore, India on July 26, 1955 soon after the evening worship at the Ramakrishna Ashram. Swami Yatiswarananda, who was head of the Ashrama at that time, translated them into English from Bengali. These reminiscenses were published in the September-October, 1968 edition of Vedanta and the West. The entire article can be read at: http://vedanta.org/reading/monthly/articles/2005/8.reminis_ramakrishna.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 24, 2005 Report Share Posted August 24, 2005 Chicago August 24, 2005 Dear Udayashankarji: I was touched to read your posting " My Reminiscences of Sri Ramakrishna " by Bhavatarani, the last living diciple of Thakur. In fact, my wife Hasu and I had a good fortune to have a darshan of Bhavatarani Ma when we came for a pilgrimage of Varanasi in 1972. We indeed treasure the experience and I have written my reminiscences in two WHSW (WIDER HORIZONS Weekly) columns, " The lady who saw Sri Ramakrishna: The unforgettable pages from my life, " and " My unforgettable seven days: 1 " posted on the web site of the WHSW on 10/25/04 and 10/27/04 respectively. I beleive that the another name of Bhavatarani Ma was Basumati Ma. --Girish (of SRKP & WHSW) (SRKP is acronym for Sri RamaKrishna Parivar. WHSW is acronym for WIDER HORIZONS Weekly). <snip> previous message.. Pls Girishbhai delete earlier messages..jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 26, 2005 Report Share Posted August 26, 2005 Dear All, For the past several years since I joined this group, I have found Jay requesting, praying, insisting, repeating.......that WE DELETE EARLIER MESSAGES when replying to a message and yet we do not heed his request ! I think it is high time we listened to him. Jay's patience with us is really admirable ! Warm regards, Debajit Snip> I had to delete previous message on this too! jay : ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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