How Sri Ramakrishna Saw Jesus Merge Into His Body-2

How Sri Ramakrishna Saw Jesus Merge Into His Body-2

Sri Ramakrishna’s Vision of Christ
The year was 1874 and Sri Ramakrishna was then 38 years of age. Towards the end of that year, sometime during the month of November, Sri Ramakrishna felt a great urge to learn the truth about Christianity.

He began to listen to readings from the Bible, by Sambhu Charan Mallick, a devotee of his from Calcutta. Becoming intensely fascinated by the life and teachings of Jesus, Sri Ramakrishna longed to gain a vision of God through the Christian path.

Scarcely had this desire arisen in his mind, when it was fulfilled it in a most marvelous way. The event happened at the garden house of Jadunath Mallick, which was situated to the south of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar. Sri Ramakrishna used to go there now and then for a walk. As Swami Saradananda narrates in his book, Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master (pages 414 to 416):

Jadunath and his mother had great devotion to the Master (Sri Ramakrishna) from the time they first had seen him. Therefore, even if they were not present in the garden at the time of the Master’s walk there, the officers would open the door of the parlour and ask him to sit and rest there for some time.

There were some good pictures hanging on the walls of that room. One of those pictures was that of the child Jesus in his mother’s lap.

The Master used to say that he sat one day in that parlour and was looking intently at that picture and thinking of the extraordinary life of Jesus, when he felt that the picture came to life, and effulgent rays of light, coming out from the bodies of the Mother and the Child, entered into his heart and changed radically all the ideas of his mind!

On finding that all the inborn Hindu impressions disappeared into a secluded corner of his mind and that different ones arose in it, he tried in various ways to control himself and prayed earnestly to the divine Mother (Kali), “What strange changes art Thou bringing about in me, Mother?” But nothing availed.

Rising with a great force, the waves of those impressions completely submerged the Hindu ideas in his mind. His love and devotion to the Devas (Gods) and Devis (Goddesses) vanished, and in their stead, a great faith in and reverence for Jesus and his religion occupied his mind, and began to show him Christian padrees (priests) offering incense and light before the image of Jesus in the Church and to reveal to him the eagerness of their hearts as is seen in their earnest prayers.

The Master came back to Dakshineswar temple and remained constantly absorbed in the meditation of those inner happenings. He forgot altogether to go to the temple of the divine Mother (Kali) and pay obeisance to Her. The waves of those ideas had mastery over his mind in that manner for three days.

At last, when the third day was about to close, the Master saw, while walking under the Panchavati (grove of 5 sacred trees), that a marvellous god-man of very fair complexion was coming towards him, looking steadfastly at him.

As soon as the Master saw that person, he knew that he was a foreigner. He saw that his long eyes had produced a wonderful beauty in his face, and the tip of his nose, though a little flat, did not at all impair that beauty. The Master was charmed to see the extraordinary divine expression of that handsome face, and wondered who he was.

Very soon the person approached him and from the bottom of the Master’s pure heart came out with a ringing sound, the words, “Jesus! Jesus the Christ, the great Yogi, the loving Son of God, one with the Father, who gave his heart’s blood and put up with endless torture in order to deliver men from sorrow and misery!”

Jesus, the god-man, then embraced the Master and disappeared into his body and the Master entered into ecstasy (Bhav Samadhi), lost normal consciousness and remained identified for some time with the Omnipresent Brahman (God, the Ocean of Consciousness) with attributes.
- Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master by Swami Saradananda (pages 414 to 416).

Om Namah Shivay