The Cauliflower (23 page)

2)    Around two years earlier

Mathur's wife, the Rani's daughter Jagadamba, is struck down with a severe case of dysentery. After several weeks of intensive treatment her doctors declare that there is nothing more they can do for her. Utterly desperate, Mathur comes to see Sri Ramakrishna and asks him if he can help. Of course, Sri Ramakrishna will never countenance the idea of using his so-called “occult powers” unless the Mother wills it. But the case of Jagadamba is slightly different, as Mathur cogently explains.… His vast inheritance, it transpires, is
entirely dependent
on the survival of his wife (who is the actual heir to the Rani's immense estate). If Jagadamba dies, Mathur makes clear, not only will he—Mathur—lose all his money, but he will also lose his controlling interest in the Kali Temple.

Ah, what is a poor
guru
to do under such circumstances? Suddenly (quite miraculously) the saint's tender heart is filled with compassion. “Don't worry,” he assures Mathur, “your wife will be cured.”

By the time Mathur Nath Biswas reaches home that night, Jagadamba is already commencing her miraculous recovery.

And the Master? The very moment Jagadamba's health starts to improve, Sri Ramakrishna is struck down with a chronic case of dysentery himself. It torments him for six months. He suffers quite dreadfully.

The Mother does have a rather dark sense of humor.

3)    1865, or thereabouts

During Sri Ramakrishna's practice of
madhura bhava
(or the sweet/conjugal mood) Mathur holds a spectacular five-day festival at his magnificent home in Janbazar for the
Durga
Puja
. Such is Mathur's enjoyment of this festival that, as it draws to its natural climax—as the magnificent image of Durga is to be taken and immersed in the Ganga—Mathur becomes overwhelmed by a spirit of childish petulance and suddenly refuses—point-blank—to say the final prayer.

He has a monumental public meltdown and (certainly not for the first time in his life) behaves like a toddler who has devoured rather more red sweets than is entirely good for him. He is completely overstimulated. He will not stand for the festival to be done with and for the prevailing mood of celebration and communion and extravagance and blissfulness to be brought to an end. He becomes utterly hysterical and threatens bloodshed—or worse—if anyone tries to take the image away from him. He begins to guard it, ferociously. Mathur's wife, Jagadamba, and several other people try their best to talk some sense into him, but Mathur refuses to be altered from his course. This festival will go on forever (d'you hear?), or he will not be held responsible for the consequences!

Eventually Jagadamba—in total desperation—calls on Sri Ramakrishna.

Sri Ramakrishna goes to see Mathur and asks him why he will not let the priest immerse the image. Mathur says that he loves the Mother too much and that he cannot bear to be separated from her, so the worship must simply continue on indefinitely. Like an overwrought and (let's face it) overindulged teenage girl, Mathur—at this precise moment in time—simply cannot live without the Mother.

Sri Ramakrishna listens attentively to Mathur and then smiles (who better than he to understand such spiritual and emotional excesses?).

“What does it matter if the image is taken to the river?” he murmurs, lightly rubbing Mathur's chest as he speaks. “Surely this”—his hand rests over Mathur's frantically beating heart—“is where the Mother truly dwells?”

Mathur is immediately calmed by the
guru
's touch and promptly allows (much to everyone's abundant relief) the image to be taken away and immersed.

4)    14th of July 1871

On this day, at 5:00 p.m., Mathur Nath Biswas, Sri Ramakrishna's most loving and generous benefactor (aside from the Divine Mother herself, of course) breathes his last following a vicious attack of typhoid fever. During his brief illness, Mathur's beloved
guru
, Sri Ramakrishna, never pays him a visit (perhaps because typhoid is contagious). The
guru
sends Hriday, his nephew, to Mathur's home each day (or perhaps Hriday goes of his own volition) for regular updates on Mathur's progress. The day that Mathur dies, Sri Ramakrishna enters a long period of
samadhi
in the late afternoon. When he emerges from it he tells his nephew that Mathur has passed away at five o'clock. This fact is duly confirmed a short while later. When people—years after—ask the
guru
if Mathur (in exchange for his extraordinary fifteen years of service to the
avatar
) escaped the dreaded burden of rebirth, the
guru
merely mutters that when he died Mathur “still had a taste for enjoyment.”

Earthly attachments, it seems, are a serious long-term stumbling block to eternal bliss (no matter how great and generous and heartfelt your service).

Uh
 …

So that's a resounding “no,” in other words.

5)    1869, or thereabouts

Mathur develops a giant abscess (its location is undisclosed—but creative license dictates that we imagine it pulsating, ominously, on the cheek of one buttock) and is forced to stay in bed for many weeks. During this time he constantly begs for Sri Ramakrishna to pay him a visit, but the hard-hearted
guru
simply ignores his requests. Messenger after messenger is haughtily informed by the
guru
that he has no power to cure the abscess, so there is simply no point in him visiting Mathur. The plaintive requests continue to roll in until eventually (probably under pressure from Hriday) a grumpy Sri Ramakrishna goes to visit his richest and most generous devotee. Mathur, in evident agony, delighted to see the Master, reaches out a hand from his sickbed and whispers, “You have come! Please, will you give me a little of the dust off your feet?”

Sri Ramakrishna gazes down at him suspiciously. “Why?” he snarks. “Will it cure your abscess?”

Mathur is mortified. “I have a doctor to cure my abscess, Father,” he insists. “I want the dust off your feet simply to guide me through the ocean of
maya
.”

At this, the reluctant
guru
enters a state of ecstasy and Mathur is finally able to place his head onto the
guru
's feet and receive his blessing.

He recovers shortly after.

Sri Ramakrishna has many visions of God in many different forms, but ultimately …

“If given the choice,

I love to see God's
lila

As a human being.”

1867, at Kamarpukur

There have been so many dreadful arguments over recent days that poor Uncle has become quite exhausted with it all. This tense atmosphere is not good for Uncle. He has returned to his home village to recuperate after an especially exhausting phase of his
sadhana
combined with the aftereffects of the severe case of dysentery which Uncle says he took upon himself voluntarily in exchange for the life of Mathur Baba's wife, Jagadamba.

Some of the tension has been between Uncle's wife, Sarada, and the
Brahmini
. Uncle's wife—still a young girl, but with a most obliging and modest nature—has come from her father's village to visit us and Uncle is delighting in teaching her many valuable spiritual and domestic lessons. Uncle is, of course, most particular about how a home should be run, and how a person should deal with neighbors, and what is the best kind of cloth or bowl. I know, to my cost, that Uncle is just as fastidious concerning his domestic affairs as he is with regard to his spiritual life. And Sarada is very happy to learn from her husband. She is a most serious and receptive pupil.

But the
Brahmini
seems to feel that Uncle is wasting his time with such piddling preoccupations, that Uncle should be turning his mind to higher issues.

Sarada would never be so forward as to direct a word of criticism toward someone so lofty and wise and clever as the
Brahmini
, but it is plain for all eyes to see that a war of sorts is being fought between the women of the house over the ownership of Uncle. And everyone must take a side—apart from Uncle himself, of course, whose mind is far too elevated to dwell upon such petty matters.

The
Brahmini
is strong meat—especially in the eyes of the local women, who are honest but simple creatures by and large. They follow caste and other rules and traditions most ferociously. The
Brahmini
is an independent spirit, however, and she is accustomed to living freely and unself-consciously, with only her heart as her guide.

Well, everything came to a head when a villager of lower caste came to visit Uncle and was provided with a meal. Caste rules dictate that this man should clear away his own dish after eating, but the
Brahmini
—who was perhaps a little too eager to show off her powerful position in Uncle's household—simply took the dish away herself. Of course, at the temple such behavior may be tolerated, but not here in Uncle's village. Immense distress was caused by the
Brahmini
's behavior, and all of the women were in a terrible flap about it. Did the
Brahmini
care about this? Not at all! She thought the women were being small-minded and ridiculous. The women were profoundly injured by the
Brahmini
's attitude. Eventually I was obliged to step in on behalf of the women, and I'm sad to confess that a great store of ill feeling that had been festering for many years between myself and the
Brahmini
was now brought out into the light. The
Brahmini
accused Hridayram of being ignorant and controlling—of exploiting Uncle for his own selfish gain. Hridayram accused the
Brahmini
of identical crimes. A dreadful atmosphere was thereby created. And these arguments continued to bubble and to fester until, thoroughly tired and exasperated, Hridayram was eventually forced to draw Uncle's attention to them so that he might use his wisdom and his authority to calm things down a little. Uncle was most upset that such a bad atmosphere had been generated by something so small and insignificant as the casual removal of a dish, but instead of rounding on Hridayram—or the women of his house—he turned and told the
Brahmini
that her behavior had been inappropriate. The
Brahmini
did not take this criticism seriously at first. She thought Uncle was just joking. But more fool the
Brahmini
, because anyone who is truly close to Uncle knows that while he himself has thrown off the burden of caste as a part of his
sadhana
, he by no means advocates such behavior in others less far advanced in their spiritual journeys than himself. Quite the opposite, in fact. Uncle holds that in order to move past the constricting burdens of social and caste rules, we must first obey them with great diligence and understand their significance. He could see why these rules served an important purpose in the spiritual lives of the village women. For all his many eccentricities, Uncle has never been a believer in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The
Brahmini
is of course accustomed to playing the role of mother with Uncle (indeed, with us all), but in this instance Uncle would not play his accustomed role of child. He did not back down with her, and so she soon became very angry with him. It was sad to see. She felt betrayed by Uncle, and confused. But then she went off on her own and considered the situation very deeply for a while. She realized—much to her horror—that she had broken her own golden rule and had become much too attached to Uncle. In her desire to teach and nurture him she had forgotten her own path, her real calling—that of a true renunciant, a
sannyasin
.

So it was with many tears and some embarrassment and regret that she decided to leave Uncle and move on. In a matter of hours she was gone. All of the tension instantly left the household.

Uncle loves the
Brahmini
, but in truth I think he had already outgrown her. After completing his
sadhana
of the
madhura bhava
and having been granted extraordinary visions of first Radha and then his beloved Krishna, Uncle's mind had now finally begun to turn toward the ultimate
sadhana
—the non-dual discipline of the
Vedanta
. The goal of
sayujya
, of bodylessness, of
nirvana
.

For anyone familiar with Uncle's immense attachment to the Divine Mother this might seem to be a controversial decision by Uncle. How might he possibly hope to step beyond the Goddess who is the beginning and the end of all his spiritual aspirations? Ah, who may hope to answer this question? Not a worm such as I! Although Uncle's tastes are notoriously catholic. Like a child, he is naturally most curious and promiscuous. Yet did the Mother not dwell at the very core of his heart and soul? Was the Mother not the very roots of the green and sprouting tree of Uncle?

At around this time two important people arrived at the Kali Temple. The first was Uncle's beloved nephew Akshay—the son of Uncle's brother Ramkumar—who came to the temple to take the place of Haladhari. Akshay is most beloved by us all, and, like Uncle, a great spiritual aspirant. The second person to come was an itinerant
paramahamsa
who Uncle simply called Tota Puri, or the Naked One. Tota Puri was a tall, gaunt, and severe-faced mendicant with long and matted hair. He had been wandering for who may guess how long from his home in central India through to Bengal, traveling from temple to temple to teach and to share his great spiritual wisdom. He remained in no place for more than three days before he moved on. Tota Puri—as a serious practitioner of the non-dual discipline—had no time at all for idol worship, which (like others of this disposition) he held in great contempt. On one occasion when watching Uncle clapping his hands and chanting the Mother's name, as was his wont, Tota Puri sharply demanded, “Ha! Are you fashioning
chapati
s that you clap your hands like this?!” To a refined mind such as Tota Puri's, one may only hope to see
Isvara
(the indivisible
Brahman
united with its power) through the path of the intellect—by a calculated act of the will.