28-04-2016 Thursday
Holy Mother By Swami Nikhilananda: 101
In The March of Events – 13
Gauri-Ma was twenty-five years old when she first visited Sri Ramakrishna. At that time Sarada Devi was twenty-nine. Born in 1857, near Calcutta, she showed a strong desire for the spiritual life and a great attachment to the Hindu gods and goddesses even when very young. She entered a Christian missionary school but was repelled by the anti-Hindu attitude of the authorities. In the meantime she learnt by heart many Sanskrit hymns and came to know the Sanskrit language well, with a smattering of English and Persian. At the age of ten Gauri-Ma was initiated into spiritual life by a brahmin and accepted as her spiritual ideal Sri Krishna, whom she worshipped in a stone emblem called Damodar. This emblem remained her lifelong companion and object of worship. Her widowed mother, alarmed at her detachment from the world, arranged her marriage. When Gauri-ma came to know about it she remarked: ‘I will marry only Him who is immortal’ – evidently meaning that she would marry Sri Krishna. On the eve of her marriage she ran away. Inflamed by her passion to realize God, Gauri-Ma left home at the age of eighteen and travelled in the company of religious mendicants to various holy places, her sole possessions being a few sacred books and the stone emblem of Krishna hanging from her neck in a small bag. When, after seven years, she came to Sri Ramakrishna, he at once accepted her as one of his disciples.
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Holy Mother - Being the Life of Sri Sarada Devi Wife of Sri Ramakrishna And Helpmate in his Mission By Swami Nikhilananda p: 67
