The Cauliflower (28 page)

Uncle lightly touched my shoulder with his hand, and as soon as I felt the light pressure of his fingers all the light and the joy abandoned me completely. I was back to my former self once more. But the contrast between these two states was so extreme. The joy had been so violent. And now the dullness that replaced it was unendurable.

“Why have you made me dull, Uncle?” I wept. “Why have you taken my joy away from me?”

Uncle looked apologetic and almost sad. “I haven't taken it away forever, Hriday,” he said, “You will get it back when you are better prepared for it.” And then he shook his head and added, “To make so much fuss about a little bit of ecstasy! I experience such moods all day, every day. How would it be if I behaved as you just have?”

I will not call Uncle a hypocrite, but have I not stood by and watched Uncle behave like a madman throughout the long years of his own
sadhana
? Have I not watched him fall to the ground screaming and rub his face in the dirt, crying, “Mother! Mother!” Have I not scowled but said nothing as he crouched naked in a tree, urinating freely, producing the ear-splitting cries of a monkey? Have I not indulged and supported a million such extremities from Uncle? And now? To have my joy taken away after a single incident? Is this not too harsh?

Of course, I heard what Uncle told me, but in truth I did not listen to him. In the weeks that followed I secretly continued on with my austerities. Then late one night, feeling myself possessed by a powerful spiritual urge, I walked to the
panchavati
, sat myself down on Uncle's special meditation seat, and began to pray there. Yet within only a few brief seconds of closing my eyes they sprang wide open again. What horror was this? I felt as if I had been covered in flaming charcoal—as if a pan of hot fat had been poured over my whole miserable body.

I screamed in shock and in fear and in agony. The pain was unendurable! Mere seconds later I saw Uncle running toward me. “What are you doing, Hriday?” he demanded. “I am burning, Uncle!” I cried, almost insensible with the pain. “I am burning! I am scorching—from my head to my feet! Help me! Help me!”

Uncle reached out his hand and he lightly touched my chest and instantly the pain was gone. I fell from the seat. I was shivering with shock. Uncle stood before me, shaking his head, “Why are you persisting with this, Hridayram?” he asked, quite forlornly. “Did I not tell you that serving me would be enough?”

Oh yes. Uncle did tell me. But was serving Uncle enough for poor Mathur Baba? Did serving Uncle so faithfully release Mathur Baba from the wretched cycle of death and rebirth?

I have learned my lesson. What other choice is there? My hands are now tied. I am bound to Uncle. I have accepted my place. I am resigned to it. So I continue to serve Uncle faithfully. But there is a shadow fallen across my heart. And there are voices that whisper to me, that taunt me—resentful voices, ambitious voices.

Sometimes I quietly ponder that conversation between Uncle and Mathur Baba, and how Mathur Baba thought Uncle was simply toying with Hridayram. How Uncle said that I would experience bliss and then return to my former self again. Uncle has many powers. I have witnessed his use of them. But why would Uncle, who loves Hridayram so dearly, use these powers to end Hridayram's bliss? Is Uncle only being self-serving? Does Uncle not think there is room enough in the Dakshineswar Kali Temple for two
paramahamsa
s?

These are dark imaginings. And I must be careful of them. Because Uncle has the power to read the thoughts of others. Uncle looks into people's minds and sees everything hidden there, as if he is idly peering at the contents of a glass case.

So I serve Uncle as dutifully as I can, although all of my former habits and simple pleasures seem dry and tiresome to me now. What is the point in anything? Mathur Baba has gone, and with him all assurance of worldly comfort and happiness.

Ah, but my life winds on. I have taken a new wife. I have earned enough money over recent years to build a new worship hall in my home village. I am still a priest at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. I have purchased a cow. And of course there is Uncle. There is always Uncle. Oh, surely that must be enough?

Approximately twelve years later. The struggling guru asks Ma Kali why he shouldn't be cured of his throat cancer:

A momentous development: 6th November 1885, at Syampukur (Sri Ramakrishna's temporary residence in Calcutta), on the day of the Kali Puja

The Master has asked his devotees to make the necessary arrangements for the Divine Mother to be celebrated. That evening, the devotees bring numerous delightful offerings to the Master's second-floor room. What a spread! A plethora of ripened fruits and colorful, creamy sweets and bowls of fragrant rice pudding (baked with coconut milk and cardamom and rosewater and vanilla); plates bearing sandalwood paste and
vilwa
leaves and burning cones of aromatic incense; mounds of flowers—especially generous quantities of Kali's favorite giant trumpet-shaped hibiscus, with its sumptuously long yellow stamen poking and arching—quite indecently—from the midst of its gaping scarlet maw. All these are brought and respectfully presented before the beaming
guru
, who is smartly attired in a new wearing cloth, and has been experiencing (quite involuntarily) a heightened state of almost perpetual ecstasy throughout the entire day thus far. There are about thirty people present. The mood is joyful and harmonious.

The
arati
commences. But something is not quite right. There is no image of the Goddess in the room. Sri Ramakrishna sits amid the offerings and tells the devotees to sit quietly with him and to meditate for a while. Time passes. (
Aaaauuuuummmm!
) And more time passes (
Aaaauuuummmmm!
). And still more time passes (
Hmmm?
). How much time? We cannot say. Then the
guru
quietly turns to Girish Chandra Ghosh and murmurs, “It is the Divine Mother's day.”

Girish—who is an artist, and emotional by nature—is suddenly overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling (hysteria? mindless compulsion? love?) and finds himself frantically grabbing garlands of flowers and tossing them at the
guru
's feet (“I do not know what took hold of me,” he says afterwards). All the while, Girish is crying (accompanied by an equally fervent Ram Chandra Datta), “
Jai
Sri Ramakrishna!
Jai
Sri Ramakrishna!
Jai
Sri Ramakrishna!”

The remaining devotees, inspired by their example, then promptly follow suit, proffering a rich abundance of other objects to their beloved
guru
. One devotee prostrates himself before the Master, pushing his head against his feet.

“
Jai
Ma!” the devotees chant, “
Jai
Ma!” (Victory to the Mother!)

Sri Ramakrishna instantly falls into a state of deep
samadhi
. He is facing north. He is holding his arms out as Ma Kali does in her sacred images—the fingers of one hand indicating fearlessness, the other granting boons. He seems to have no body consciousness, and his skin … ah, his legendary, golden skin … it
glows
.

The devotees are mesmerized by the
guru
. They are in awe. They are transfixed. They are speechless. After a lengthy duration, furtive glances are exchanged, throats are nervously cleared, and then they quietly commence—with hushed and reverential voices—the singing of hymns. It's as if the Divine Mother herself is now inhabiting the
guru
. God is here, in this very room. She is he. He is she. They are one.

Extraordinary, eh? But let's shift our focus, just for a moment, from these curious activities joyfully unfolding in a slightly threadbare Calcuttan sitting room, to some other places in the world (Really? There are
other
places?), where, that same month, the Serbian army will occupy Bulgaria, Gottlieb Daimler will present the world with his first motorcycle, Pope Leo XIII will publish an important but slightly drab encyclical entitled
Immortale Dei
(about the delicate balance of relations between church and state), and a meteor shower will be caught on camera for the first time.

Click!

Ten days earlier, Johannes Brahms—a composer, who, like Sri Ramakrishna, is both a traditionalist and an innovator (“Such a man, such a fine soul,” gasps Antonin Dvořák, “and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!”)—will premiere his final symphony, No. 4 in E Minor. He will conduct it himself, in Meiningen, central Germany, probably wearing a cheap suit, with no socks, and his giant beard shockingly unkempt. Brahms's dear friend Hans von Bülow, on hearing the first movement of this new symphony on piano, will exclaim, “For the whole movement I had the feeling that I was being given a beating by two incredibly intelligent people.”

And so it must be this, this orchestrated beating—but what else? —that serves as the emotional soundtrack to the curiously smooth and strangely inevitable but still oddly faltering and clumsy transition of Sri Ramakrishna from man into God. We see the scene before us, once removed, through a series of tiny glass slides with added color (blotches of yellow and red and green, applied with a possibly overgenerous brush). Ah, here is the
guru
entering the room.… Here is a close-up of his beaming face. Here is a group of passionate devotees.… Here—goodness gracious!—the next slide … a devotee collapsed in a clumsy heap, insensible with devotion, against a wall.…

The ardent opening notes of Brahms's passionate Fourth Symphony—the sweep of violins and the violas, the cellos—these notes, newly hatched, just born, are spinning across the stratosphere: in the next slide the devotees are pelting the Incarnation with handfuls of giant hibiscus. What rhythmic instability the Brahms is conjuring up…! How fragmented the melody! How devastating the descending sequence!… Look at that! It's the
guru
's feet.… Oh! And that! The curious arrangement of his golden fingers …

How ludicrously sincere and focused this music is—how utterly romantic, how ridiculously overwrought. Our hearts are beating so violently. The fragrance of the flowers, the warmth of the incense, the glow of the full moon. The flutes … the clarinets …

And in the midst of all our sudden excitement (our perspiring hands, our trembling breathlessness), the little wooden box of precious slides goes cascading down onto the floor, disgorging its contents. We drop to our knees. Our hands pat around blindly to retrieve the slides. The floor is so dusty—the edge of an old Turkish rug, frayed and curling, an old drawing pin, a mothball, a spider's web, the badly sanded floorboards splintering into the pads of our tender, exploring fingers … Oh, but what joy! Eh? What drama! What mystery! What seriousness! What obviousness! What silliness! What … what
fun
!

Five minutes later
 …

Sorry, but I—Did something … something quite
significant
actually just happen there?

“Like an apple tree among the

    trees of the woods,

So is my beloved among the

    sons.

I sat down in his shade with

    great delight,

And his fruit was sweet to my taste.…”

                     
—Song of Solomon 2:3

Remember how Sri Ramakrishna once said:

“The use of these words:

‘
Guru
', ‘Father,' or ‘Master'

Pricks my flesh like thorns!”

Hmmn
. So if those words simply won't do, then … then how about … uh … how about: “Incarnation”?

Might that possibly suffice?

“When the lamp is lit

No invitation is sent,

But moths come in swarms.”

Aw. Lighten up a little, will you?

“You're in the orchard!

Why waste your time counting leaves?

Eat fruit! Be happy!”

 

Chowringee,

Calcutta

12th July 1879

My dear Dr. Wainwright,

I trust that this letter finds you in excellent health. I am very well. Papa—as I'm sure you can imagine—is positively blooming. He spends every waking minute at the Indian Museum cataloging and displaying his precious and beloved artifacts. I wish I could give you a more complete description of Mr. Walter Granville's new building, but suffice to say that it is handsome, well aired, and generously proportioned. Papa never stops singing its praises (although it would be difficult to imagine worse or more cramped environs than those dreadful rented rooms in South Kensington!). He says that he feels “the pure and adventurous spirit of Warren Hastings” constantly guiding him. In fact, after a late supper on Thursday evening he even went so far as to lecture poor, darling Celeste (who is currently indisposed and surviving only by gnawing listlessly upon thin strips of sugarcane and drinking copious quantities of double-boiled water) on “the ancient primacy of the Brahmanical writings…”!

Of course, I immediately thought of you and raised a wry smile. Indeed, this small exchange was—in all probability—the spur that turned my thoughts to your many hilarious stories about the several weeks you spent observing the curious antics of your eccentric golden-skinned Brahmin “Truth-seeker” at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, and—still further—resolved me to visit these now legendary premises to try and meet with the infamous “guru” for myself.