TOTAPURI
Totapuri arrived at the Dakshineswar temple garden toward the end of
1864. Perhaps born in the Punjab, he was the head of a monastery in that
province of India and claimed leadership of seven hundred sannyasis.
Trained from early youth in the disciplines of the Advaita Vedanta, he
looked upon the world as an illusion. The gods and goddesses of the dualistic
worship were to him mere fantasies of the deluded mind. Prayers, ceremonies,
rites, and rituals had nothing to do with true religion, and about
these he was utterly indifferent. Exercising self-exertion and unshakable
will-power, he had liberated himself from attachment to the sense-objects
of the relative universe. For forty years he had practised austere discipline
on the bank of the sacred Narmada and had finally realized his identity
with the Absolute. Thenceforward he roamed in the world as an unfettered
soul, a lion free from the cage. Clad in a loin-cloth, he spent his days under
the canopy of the sky alike in storm and sunshine, feeding his body on the
slender pittance of alms. He had been visiting the estuary of the Ganges.
On his return journey along the bank of the sacred river, led by the
inscrutable Divine Will, he stopped at Dakshineswar.
Totapuri, discovering at once that Sri Ramakrishna was prepared to be a
student of Vedanta, asked to initiate him into its mysteries. With the
permission of the Divine Mother, Sri Ramakrishna agreed to the proposal. But
Totapuri explained that only a sannyasi could receive the teaching of
Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna agreed to renounce the world, but with the
stipulation that the ceremony of his initiation into the monastic order be
performed in secret, to spare the feelings of his old mother, who had been
living with him at Dakshineswar.
On the appointed day, in the small hours of the morning, a fire was
lighted in the Panchavati. Totapuri and Sri Ramakrishna sat before it. The
flame played on their faces. "Ramakrishna was a small brown man with a
short beard and beautiful eyes, long dark eyes, full of light, obliquely set and
slightly veiled, never very wide open, but seeing half-closed a great distance
both outwardly and inwardly. His mouth was open over his white teeth in a
bewitching smile, at once affectionate and mischievous. Of medium height,
he was thin to emaciation and extremely delicate. His temperament was
high-strung, for he was supersensitive to all the winds of joy and sorrow,
both moral and physical. He was indeed a living reflection of all that
happened before the mirror of his eyes, a two-sided mirror, turned both out and
in." (Romain Rolland, Prophets of the New India, pp. 38-9.)
Facing him, the other rose like a rock. He was very tall and robust, a
sturdy and tough oak. His constitution and mind were of iron. He was the
strong leader of men.
In the burning flame before him Sri Ramakrishna performed the rituals
of destroying his attachment to relatives, friends, body, mind, sense-organs,
ego, and the world. The leaping flame swallowed it all, making the initiate
free and pure. The sacred thread and the tuft of hair were consigned to the
fire, completing his severance from caste, sex, and society. Last of all he
burnt in that fire, with all that is holy as his witness, his desire for
enjoyment here and hereafter. He uttered the sacred mantras giving assurance of
safety and fearlessness to all beings, who were only manifestations of his
own Self. The rites completed, the disciple received from the guru the
loin-cloth and ochre robe, the emblems of his new life.
The teacher and the disciple repaired to the meditation room near by.
Totapuri began to impart to Sri Ramakrishna the great truths of Vedanta.
"Brahman", he said, "is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever
free, beyond the limits of time, space, and causation. Though apparently
divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, that
enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and
undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not
perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever
is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house
of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive
deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi. You will find the
world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving
in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman,
Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute." Quoting the Upanishad, Totapuri
said: "That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows
another. What is shallow is worthless and can never give real felicity. But
the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know
another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one
attains the Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which
shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject?"
Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the
relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the
Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it
impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe.
"After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event,
"Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta
and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive
deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether
cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned
state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world.
But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment
of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living
reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great
Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In
despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the
unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited
and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes
around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my
eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with
stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of
the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword
and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared
beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three
days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible
that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous
practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the
help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative
plane.
Totapuri, a monk of the most orthodox type, never stayed at a place more
than three days. But he remained at Dakshineswar eleven months. He too
had something to learn.
Totapuri had no idea of the struggles of ordinary men in the toils of
passion and desire. Having maintained all through life the guilelessness of
a child, he laughed at the idea of a man's being led astray by the senses. He
was convinced that the world was maya and had only to be denounced to
vanish for ever. A born non-dualist, he had no faith in a Personal God. He
did not believe in the terrible aspect of Kali, much less in Her benign
aspect. Music and the chanting of God's holy name were to him only so
much nonsense. He ridiculed the spending of emotion on the worship of a
Personal God.