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Ramakrishna Paramhansa Sadhanas
Osho:
There is another episode in Ramakrishna's life.... He did the sadhanas, the
spiritual practices, of all religions. He is the only person in the history
of mankind who tried to attain the truth through paths of all religions.
Ordinarily a person reaches by one path. When you have reached the summit of
the mountain, who bothers about other paths? Do you walk the other trails up
it then? Who cares? -- you have reached. The trail you came on, you came on;
what's the use of walking all the others? But Ramakrishna reached to the
summit of the mountain again and again, then descended.
He climbed by a second path, then by a third path. He is the first person
who practiced the sadhanas of all religions and attained to the same peak
through all religions. Many have talked about synthesis -- Ramakrishna
is the first to create a science of synthesis. Many people have said that
all religions are true, but it has just been talk. Ramakrishna made it a
reality. He gave it the strength of experience, he proved it with his life.
When he was doing Islamic sadhana he became a real Muslim fakir. He forgot
Ramakrishna and began chanting, "Allahoo... Allahoo."
He began listening to the verses of the Koran and lived right on the steps
of the mosque. If he came near a temple he didn't even lift his eyes, let
alone bow in greeting. He had forgotten about Kali. In Bengal there is
a sect, the sakhis. When Ramakrishna practiced the sadhana of the Sakhi
sect.... The Sakhis believe that God alone is male, everyone else is female
-- Krishna is God, everyone one else is his sakhi, his girlfriend -- so in
the Sakhi tradition men also consider themselves women. But what happened in
Ramakrishna's life had never happened in the life of any follower of the
Sakhi tradition. A man can believe on the surface he is a woman, but he
remains a man inside, he knows that he is a man.
Members of the Sakhi sect take an idol of Krishna to bed with them -- this
is their husband. But what difference does it make? But when
Ramakrishna did this sadhana something unprecedented happened -- scientists
too will be surprised that such a thing happened.... He did the sadhana of
the Sakhis for six months and after three months his breasts started to
swell, his voice changed, he began walking like a woman, and his voice
became sweet like a woman's. His breasts were growing, becoming the breasts
of a woman's; the male structure of his body began to change.
Ramakrishna Paramhansa Marriage and worship
of Ma
Osho:
I am reminded of Ramakrishna. He was uneducated, and you will not find
another misfit like him. Yet this country has accepted him as one of the
incarnations of God. When he was nine years old he had an experience
of deep meditation. He was not looking for it. He was just a boy coming back
from the field to his home, and just on the way there was a lake, a
beautiful lake. It was sunset time and there were black clouds in the sky.
The rains were just to come. And as he came by the side of the lake, a line
of white cranes, who must have been sitting on the bank of the lake, were
disturbed by his coming. They flew across the black clouds.
The white crane is snow white, and twelve or fifteen cranes in a line,
moving across the black clouds... and the sunset on the lake, spreading gold
all over. The beauty of the moment was such that Ramakrishna could not
contain it; he fell into unconsciousness. It was too much for his conscious
mind, just to say that "It is beautiful" and go home. When he was not
home, people went in search. His father said, "He left the field before me."
They looked around the lake and they found him unconscious -- but with such
a joy on his face. When he came back to consciousness, the first words he
said were, "I have known life for the first time. Up to now I have been
unconscious; these few hours I was CONSCIOUS."
The parents became afraid -- any parents would have become afraid -- that
this boy was showing symptoms which could lead him to becoming a sannyasin,
a seeker. And for centuries parents have thought, and thought rightly, that
it would be good to arrange a marriage. The woman will put him right.
They were afraid: perhaps he will say no. But when his father asked, "Would
you like to be married?" he said, "Great! I have seen many marriages in
town; it is such a joy, riding on the horse like a king." The father
thought, "He does not understand what marriage is, he has simply seen the
marriage processions. But it is good he is ready."
So they found a beautiful girl in a nearby place, and when he was going
there -- it was summertime -- to see the girl, his mother put three rupees
in his pocket, she told him, "If you need, you use them, but there is no
need to waste them. We are poor people." And this is the way in India,
which still persists over almost ninety percent of India: you can see the
girl only as a glimpse. She will come and serve tea -- and that is the
moment when you see her for few seconds -- and she is gone. Sharda,
who was going to become his wife, came to put some sweets in his plate when
they were taking their breakfast. He said to his father, "My god, the girl
is so beautiful!"
He took out the three rupees and put them at her feet, and touched her feet
and said, "Mother, you are one in millions. I am going to marry you."
The father said, "Idiot! First you call her `mother,' touch her feet... and
you have put your offering also, three rupees. And you are going to marry
her?" Even the girl's parents became a little afraid, because this boy
seems to be a little crazy. But Ramakrishna said, "I don't see any problem
in it. She is so beautiful, that's why I touched her feet. Beauty should be
respected. And she is so motherly; you can see it even from her face. That's
why I called her `mother'. Every girl is going to be a mother, so why you
are freaking out?
And I have decided that if I am going to marry anyone, this girl is the one;
otherwise I will remain unmarried." Both the families managed,
convinced each other that he is not mad or anything, just a little off, land
a little eccentric, but he is not harmful. He does things which should not
be done, but he never harms anybody. They were married and the first
night Ramakrishna said to Sharda, "It is private, don't say it to anybody; I
have accepted you as my mother. Let the whole world think you are my wife. I
know you are my mother, you know I am your son. And this is going to be our
relationship." And this remained their relationship their whole life.
But rather than being criticized he is being respected for this strange
relationship. His wife is his mother, and there was never any husband and
wife relationship between them. There are so many stories of
unfitness.... One sudra queen -- she was a queen, but by the Hindu caste
system she was the lowest untouchable -- made a very beautiful temple on the
banks of Ganges near Calcutta, in Dakshineshwar. No brahmin was ready to be
a priest in her temple. The temple made by a sudra, by an untouchable, had
also become untouchable; and the god inside had also become untouchable.
In the whole of Bengal, only Ramakrishna, when he heard it, said, "This is a
perfectly good chance." He went to the queen and said, "I am ready to be the
priest" -- and he was a high caste brahmin. She said, "Have you
thought about it? Your society may discard you, expel you." He said,
"I don't have any society. And what does it matter if they expel me, if they
make me an outcaste? I am not dependent on anyone. I am going to be the
priest in this temple." And he was expelled, condemned.
People tried to persuade him, "If you leave this job we can give you a
better job in a high-caste Hindu temple. You will get more money." But he
said, "It is not a question of money. I love the temple, I love the place, I
love the silence surrounding it, the trees... and I love the goddess inside
the temple." He was expelled, but he never cared about it. Even his
family stopped visiting him -- because they would be expelled -- and they
told him that he could not come back home. He said, "It is perfectly okay."
And his worshiping was so strange: sometimes he would worship from morning
till evening, dancing and singing madly.
People would come and go, and sometimes he would lock the temple and would
not open it for a few days. It was reported to Rashmani, the queen: "What
kind of priest have you found? Every priest worships for half an hour at the
most. This man seems to be mad: when he worships, then time stops; then he
goes on dancing and singing from morning till evening. And sometimes, which
is absolutely sacrilegious, he locks the temple. Neither does he worship,
nor does he allow anybody else to enter!"
The queen called him and said, "Ramakrishna, what kind of worship is this?"
He said, "Who says it is worship? It is a love affair. And in a love affair
it is natural: sometimes I get angry, sometimes she gets angry." He is
talking about the goddess of the temple. "And when I get angry I lock the
door and I say, `Now live for three days, four days, without food, without
worship, and you will come to your senses.'" Rashmani said, "But we
have never heard of this kind of worship!" Ramakrishna said, "There
has never been a priest like Ramakrishna." In the temples, when
priests worship, the food is presented to the god or the goddess and then it
is distributed. And Ramakrishna would spoil it completely.
First he would taste everything inside the temple. Before offering it to the
goddess, he would taste everything, and then he will offer it. Again he was
called: "You are doing something very wrong. It has never been done."
He said, "I am not concerned whether it has been done or not. I know only
one thing: my mother used to taste everything, and then she would give it to
me. If it was really delicious, she would give; if it was not she would
prepare it again.
And if my mother can do that for me... I cannot give anything to the goddess
without knowing whether it is worth eating or not." Rashmani must have
been a very intelligent woman to tolerate this misfit man. Instead of
condemning him, people started coming to pay respect to him. His love for
the goddess was so genuine, although it was not ritualistic. And anything
genuine cannot be a ritual.
Source: from Osho Book "The
Mahageeta volume1"
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"Ramakrishna
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"Ramakrishna Paramhansa
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"Ramakrishna Paramhansa
Parables"
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