Dedicated to Sri Sarada Devi

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"Holy Mother" painted by Swami Tadatmananda

Used courtesy of the Vedanta Society of Southern California

http://www.vedanta.org




Dedicated to Sri Sarada Devi
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Aids to our development

Tom has written that the Dakshineswar Kali Temple is off limits to Westerners. This has not not been the case for a long time, if ever. (I think there may have been a time, earlier.)

I am a Westerner in a wheelchair and was blessed to go to Dakshineshwar in 1991. It was especially wonderful because Usha (Elizabeth Harding) had already made her video of Dakshineshwar. I had seen it, so the images were familiar, but there was I, in the picture. I was there!

To see the tiny Nahabat where Mother lived... To gaze at Mother Kali... To be in Thakur's room, be on the circular porch where he touched Swamiji, to see the holy images on the walls that he saluted each day....

I can go on and on, blessed to spend the morning there, guided by two nuns from Sri Sarada Math, one of whom was from America.

A Mother Kali has come from Dakshineswar to the United States, personally carried to America by the head priest of the Dakshineswar Temple, a descendent from Sri Ramakrishna's family. She has been installed and awakened in Laguna Beach, California. Eacb year, Sri Haradhan Chakraborti, lifelong priest at the Dakshineswar Kali temple, and Sri Pranab Ghosal his assistant, come to Laguna Beach to do a special, two-day puja for Mother Kali.

And now, the beauty of it all! This special puja takes place, not in a temple, but at a rented school! Mother's shrine is brought to the school which has been transformed into a "temple". Devotees serve Mother and the priests in preparing and carrying out the puja. I am certain basic rules of puja preparation are observed, but this is a very wonderful affair, attended by devotees from all groups and traditions.

To see the priests so at home in this thoroughly "unothodox" setting and so intent on serving Ma and her children is truly beautiful. Before bringing our Kali Ma, they had never been outside Calcutta.

One day, during one of their first visits, the priests came to our center. A group of us devotees were present, with Swami Atmarupananda, an American Swami. We had tea together. The priests talked about how everything is holy, not just the Temple grounds. One priest held up a bag of crackers laying on the table, saying "This is holy."

You can visit Kali Mandir online at http://www.kalimandir.org

Earlier I was trying to write another email about Mother and customs and the role of "rules." Telling about Dakshineswar seemed to serve better.

You see, there had been some question about whether my wheelchair would be allowed. In fact, I was sent to India with a whole list of "cautions", many related to my disability. I don't mean to shock anyone, but I'm disabled by cerebral palsy and I drool. This was to cause many potential problems because of Hindu customs and "rules" about cleanliness. We were advised, for example, to try to avoid eating in front of anyone.

Now, that was IMPOSSIBLE! A guest is served as a divine visitor. Everywhere we were served something. And Nancy and I found very quickly that our tries to avoid eating caused more distress than and accidental spilllage.

I can tell you that "rules' were set aside without hesitation again and again, not indiscriminantly but because they could not be observed in my case. This is an important point, I think. There was never a disregard for customs on our parts.. Rather, the practices were understood by others as impractical or inappropriate.

The important thing to remember from a Hindu perspective is that however elaborate or simple rules and customs are, they are secondary to our own inner perspective. The scriptures declare that all "injunctions" fall away from the knower of Btahman. Even the scriptures themselves are meaninless for such a one.

From the Vedantic view, all is sacred -- all is Divine manifestation. It is WE who do not see this. WE make distinctions, and then we enter in. We mis-take the distinction as "real" and attach ourselves to them.

So long as we are subject to this mis-take, we must in a sense embrace the distinctions we make. But we must do this in a way that helps us overcome our attachments and misconceptions, step-by-step. Or we pull up the chain of our bondage link-by-link, Sri Ramakrisshna says. The "rules' in Hindu culture have always been ultimately considered as aids to us, for our development, rather than as ends in and of themselves.

Now, this doesn't mean that, being human and in bondage, there are not Hindus who place customs and rules above all else. This has and does happen, no doubt often. Each in their own way, Sri Ramakrishna, Mother, and Swamiji each sought to restore the right understanding. Human nature forgets. However, what is unique about Vedanta, hence Hinduism (as its cultural expression in India) is that this basic understanding exists at the highest level of spiritual truth. It is always the case that as one advances spiritually they become more and more open and accepting and rules lose their importance. Hinduism differs from other non-Eastern traditions, however. In these traditions, spiritual seekers, saints, and mystics usually find themselves "at odds" with religious authorities for breaking free from the prescribed injunctions and perceptions.

I think that we have pretty much forgotten or failed to understand the importance of guidelines in the West because the "important ones" have often been imposed upon us. We learn to impose rules upon ourselves (and to rebelliously cast them aside) without understanding that they can serve us as invaluable aids in reaching our goals, especially our higher goals.

What am I wanting to say? It is good to try to understand the principles behind the practices of other cultures, especially since our own experiences and perceptions are likely NOT to understand.

However, in the case of holy persons, such as Jesus, Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Saraada Devi.... the meaning goes beyond culture understanding. Yes, cultural understanding is an important aspect, but the message and purpose is to lead us past and or through cultural/spiritual practices, to higher Truth. The "rures" getting us there are secondary aids to this mission.

i suppose what I am trying to say is, it isn't so much whether Mother wore jewelry or did not -- although she did, and Srii Ramakrishna himself had gold bracelets made for her, replacing the borrowed ones he had used at the time of their marriage. What is significant is the spiritual principle she is trying to convey.

Similiarly, Sri Ramakrishna did not say that no one should have anything gold, but rather that we need to be aware of our tendency towards greed and be aware that certain objects, such as gold, stimulate greed in us. His own goal, the goal given in the Bhagavad Gita, was to realize there was no difference between a so-called precious metal or stone and a clump of dirt. Worldly values make us see one as more valuable, and thus stimulate desire. Once one is past this, nothing can be seen as "bad".

For Sri Ramakrishna to deny Mother -- whom he looked upon as the Divine Mother herself -- gold bracelets because of a phase in in his own spiritual journey would have been strange. As he himself said, Mother was more pure than he, free from any such desires.

Location: San Diego, California, USA

Re: Aids to our development

Dear Sister Jayanti,

What an amazing and wonderful story you have related.

I'm not at all surprised, that devotees would be
treated with love and respect at the Dakshineswar
Kali Temple. I guess, that I was referring to the average tourist, who may be motivated by curiosity, rather than by respectful understanding and devotion.

Sri Ramakrishna may have arranged for Mother's
gold jewellry, but he certainly never 'handled' either the money to pay for it; nor the gold objects themselves. Simply touching these things would cause Him the pain of an electric shock.

There is an old saying, that when God closes a window, He opens a door. In your case, Sister Jayanti, we can see the Truth in that time-honoured maxim.

Being severely disabled, has enabled you to forgo
consciousness of the body, allowing concentration on the higher spiritual thoughts....and we are indeed benefitting today from that situation.

Om Shanthi Om

Location: http://www.angelfire.com/ma/saradamani/

Re: Aids to our development

Sister Jayanti,
Thank you so much for this sharing. How beautifully you color the rich teachings of our Mother and Master. Such a gift in your disclosure.
You really have a gift in your words. You have blessed me today.

Location: New Bern, NC