Re: Painting of Madonna and Child in Jadu Mallick's parlor (TLWG)
Sri Ramakrishna was himself an actor, artist, singer, and held the arts in high regard. In Vedanta there is not the split between "sacred" and "profane" because all is projected from/infused with the Divine.
What makes the seeming split is our own inability to SEE the Divine in everything. Hence, for Ramakrishna "worldly" was what tended to drag one's mind into more attachment. He taught different things to each disciple based on their individual natures -- but held that through the arts anyone may glimpse the Divine. Excellence in any aspect was, to him, a pure manifestation of Divinity, and he would enter into samadhi. He was taken to the zoo and fell into samadhi at the sight of the lion and had to return home. He later explained that he had beheld God in this "king of beasts".
And this is the very significance of the Madonna and Child painting he saw hanging in Jadu Mallick's parlor. Perhaps we may say it was not an "ordinary samadhi' for Sri Ramakrishna, as if samadhi is ordinary? At any rate, it was with and through the sight of this painting that he experienced Jesus to be an incarnation of God and realized Christianity as a path to God realization.
Re: Painting of Madonna and Child in Jadu Mallick's parlor (TLWG)
Through the dedicated efforts of Swami Lokeswarananda, the actual painting is now preserved with/by the Vedanta Society of Northern California. He told me the story while I was in India, twenty years ago this month.
I understand it is kept safely out of view, being brought out sometimes for special occasions. This has been true of other relics of Ramakrishna, Swamiji, and Mother. A pipe of Swami's used to be left out at Vivekananda House in Pasadena until a part of it was discovered missing. It has since been kept safely locked away. I suspect that one does not mean to be destructive, but instead may be caught up in their love for a holy person. The sad fact is that such unrestrained devotion robs future devotees the same opportunity to be in the presence of such holy items.
