Ramakrishna Paramahamsar

Generally disciples go in search of Guru. Ramakrishna Paramahamsar’s life teaches us the fact that if a disciple is well deserved; he need not wander searching the Guru. Guru himself will reach out to the disciple.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsar had many disciples who drew the energy from Him for themselves just like households draw electricity for their houses from the power house. Then there was also this great disciple who acted as a Sun light, shedding all the energy he obtained from his Guru to the mankind. Ramakrishna Paramahamsar gave away all the divine energy to everyone.

Just like a mother cow goes in search of its calf, Ramakrishna Paramahamsar was in search of Vivekanandar. Ramakrishna Paramahamsar as a Guru to the Vivekanandar , transformed Vivekanandar into a genius, who later represented India at World Parliament of religions and inspired the entire audience through his great speech about India’s heritage, culture and Hinduism. Vivekananda become a great person through the graceful nurturing by Ramakrishna Paramahamsar.

Ramakrishna & Vivekananda Mutts act as a role model in providing services to the mankind. Ramakrishna Mutts have been providing great assistance during various disasters through their branches all over the world , The difficulty of some of these assistance programs was too daunting to be accomplished by even Government agencies.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsar surrendered his body, belongings, spiritual benefits everything to Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda too surrendered his education, fame, wisdom everything to the feet of his Guru, Paramahamsar and established all charity organizations in the name of the Guru.

Generally parents gift their wealth, property, gold jewellery etc. to their children. However Ramakrishna Paramahamsar gave off all his spiritual power in entirety to Vivekananda. That speaks about his greatness.

Swami Vivekanandar

R. Ganapathy mentioned the following in the biography of Ramakrishnar.

“The one who questioned , realized and experienced the answer himself. At that very moment Narendranathan was gone and Swami Vivekanandar was born.”

Just like a very small seed becomes a great tree using sunlight and water , Swami Vivekanandar grew up like a great saint under the eminent guidance of Bhagawan Ramakrishnar.

Swami Vivekanandar reached out to Ramakrishnar in a desire to see and experience God. But in turn, he completely immersed himself with Ramakrishnar. This is just like a doll made of salt entered sea to find out the depth of the sea. Once it entered sea, it was completely dissolved and become part of the sea itself, completely acquiring the properties of the sea.

Swami Vivekanandar toured across the various parts of India. He also provided services in various states of the country. He had strong belief that youth should pave the foundation for the growth of India. He channelized the youth’s energy in a right direction to help the growth of the country.

Once Swami Vivekanandar visited Jaipur. There was a dance program arranged for the King of Jaipur in the palace. Swami Vivekanandar was invited as a chief guest to that program. Swami declined that invitation mentioning that a saint should not participate in a dance program by a woman dancer. The dancer was in deep sorrow and wrote and sang a poem. The poem highlighted the message ‘it is customary in our country to treat a saint like a God and offer service to him. God does not discriminate between genders”. Swami Vivekanandar heard her voice and visualized the dancer in the form of the great Mother he is worshipping. He also realized the incident as a drama played by the Almighty to create a completely bias less mental state within him. He fell at the dancer’s feet and sought apologies.

Sheeradi Saibaba

Shirdi Saibaba popularly known as Baba lived in a place called Shirdi in Nasik district in the state of Maharashtra. There is no information about his parents, original name. He has become a familiar personality in the society at the age of sixteen.

A disciple came in search of Baba. He had requested Baba to come to his house as a guest and have food. Baba has kindly accepted the disciple’s invitation and agreed to visit to his house. The disciple was taking his Guru, Baba to his house. On the way, they were passing through some paddy fields. They could hear a groaning sound of a frog. The disciple enquired about the sound. Baba replied that that sound is from a frog which is struggling in the grip of a snake. The frog is

neither completely swallowed by the snake nor could come out of the snake’s grip. He also mentioned that the frog was experiencing the effect of bad deeds from the earlier birth. The disciple requested Baba to explain about the fight between frog and snake in detail.

Baba explained that the frog and snake were human beings and had done lot of bad deeds in their earlier births. Even though they took birth as a humans ( which is one of the rarest kind) , in their previous births, because of their bad deeds , they were born as frog & snake in this birth. The disciple was curious and enquired about the details of bad deed they had committed which had put themselves in the current state of anguish.

Baba and the disciple went to the place where the snake and frog were there. Baba asked the snake, “ Veerabadarappa, your enemy did not feel sorry for his mistakes even after he was born as a frog, neither you did realize your mistake in this birth as a snake. How many more births would you people continue your enmity?” On hearing these words, the snake released the frog ; the frog and the snake went to their respective place.

Baba then explained the history from their previous birth.

There was an ancient Siva temple nearby to the place where Baba was living. The devotees from the village wanted to renovate the temple. They had formed a group to execute this task. They selected one of the richest persons in that village as a head of the group. They thought this rich man would not have desire for money. They handed over the money collected for the renovation work to him. However this man dwindled most of the amount and spent too little money towards the renovation. Hence the renovation work was happening at a very slow pace. People used to collect money again and again and would give him to expedite the work. However he continued to misuse the public money.

One day, Lord Siva appeared in the dream of the wife of rich man. The Almighty asked her to do the temple renovation on her own money. When she mentioned about the dream to her husband, he just asked her to ignore about the dream. The renovation work was not complete.

Again Lord Siva appeared in the dream of the woman and asked her to complete the temple renovation at her own expense. This time the woman told her husband that she would sell all the golden articles given by her parents and spend that money towards the renovation. The rich man told that he himself would buy the golden articles. He fixed a price of one thousand gold coins for the articles. He also mentioned that they could donate a land worth of thousand gold coins in lieu of the

gold coins to the temple. He then transferred the ownership of a barren land that was pledged with him by a poor lady named Dubaki to the temple. After a while, the rich man’s house was attacked by a thunderstorm ; he and his wife died. Dubaki also died. Even at the deathbed, she had continued her enmity with the rich man.

In the subsequent birth, the rich man was born as a poor Brahmin known as Veerabadarappa at Madura. His wife was born as a child to the temple priest and she was named as Gowri. Dubaki was born as a male and he was known as Chenna basavappa The temple priest and her daughter Gowri had become true devotees of Baba and offered their services to Him.

Veerabadarappa came to Sheeradi. He was married to Gowri. The barren land which was given to the temple was sold for few millions ,Gowri had become the owner of the land. Since in the last birth, she had given her jewels to the temple, she become the owner of the same land in this birth and received the amount from the sale of the land

Veerabadarappa did not had any right on the land and hence the money. He always used to scold his wife and Baba. Gowri prayed to Baba to pardon his husband’s mistakes.

Lord Siva appeared in her dream and asked her to spend the entire amount from the sale of the land to herself & the temple renovation. He also told her that she could hand over the entire responsibility to Baba. Since the property originally belonged to Dubaki, who is now born as Chenna basavappa, Baba ensured that portion of the amount is also given to Chenna basavappa.

One day Chenna basavappa and Veerabadarappa fought themselves again. Their enmity continued in this birth too. Veerabadarappa threatened Chenna basavappa that he would kill Chenna basavappa.

Chenna basavappa reached out to Baba and requested to save him from Veerabadarappa. He had pleaded just to protect himself. He never sought Guru’s help to get rid of the bad qualities within him. Even though both of them had a chance to be with the Guru, they never attempted to nurture good qualities within themselves. Later they both died.

The story teaches us the following message

Even if we live in the same time as our spiritual Guru and be with him, if we continue to create commotion, fight among ourselves, do not get rid of our bad deeds , our spiritual journey will not be successful.

Even if we had a bad past history, if the Guru promises to protect us, he would fulfil it at any cost.