Gopaler Ma
Gopaler Ma | |
---|---|
গোপালের মা | |
Calcutta ,
British India | |
Nationality | Indian |
Other names | Kamarhatir Brahmani |
Citizenship | India |
Occupation | Housewife |
Known for | Spiritual devotion |
Gopaler Ma (translation: Mother of Gopala, an epithet for
Early life
Aghoremani Devi was born of a Brahmin family in the year 1822 in the village called Kamarhati near Calcutta. According to the then prevailing customs, she was married when she was only nine years old but became a widow soon after her marriage, even before her marriage was consummated, when she was only fourteen years of age.[3] As a widow she stayed in the house of Nilmadhav Bandopadhyaya, her brother, who was a priest in the temple of Krishna in Kamarhati.[4] She was initiated into the spiritual life by the family guru of her husband's family and had the child Krishna as her personal deity. While frequenting the temple she was acquainted with the wife of Govinda Chandra Dutta, the proprietress, who provided her with a small room in the temple garden on the bank of the river
Meeting Sri Ramakrishna
She first met
Divine visions and ecstasies
One night, in the spring of 1885, while performing her usual spiritual practices, Gopaler Ma had a vision of Sri Ramakrishna which changed into that of a ten-month-old baby. In her ecstatic state she perceived that the baby boy, whom she called as Gopala, was acting like her child, playing with her and demanding food and attention from her.[4] She went to meet Sri Ramakrishna the very next day, in whom she saw the embodiment of her divine vision and whom she regarded as her child Gopala. According to the eyewitness account, she was mad with a divine ecstasy and joy. She fed Sri Ramakrishna, who was also in an ecstatic mood. She stayed in Dakshineswar that day and went back home in the evening. She had the uninterrupted vision of the chosen ideal for some more time. The baby Krishna played, threw tantrums and went everywhere that she went. The visions went on for two months.[7] There were distinct changes in her behavioral pattern, as she became restless for the visions when the initial frenzy had subsided.[7] Sri Ramakrishna finally told her that she attained the goal of her spiritual practices. After that, her divine visions ceased.[5]
Divine visions explained
The divine visions of Gopaler Ma, which are similar in nature to visions and ecstasies of the mystics around the world,[8] irrespective of their religious affiliations, have been explained in an account of Gopaler Ma, that the rational explanation for such divine visions are that there are finer states of consciousness, which are breached when the mind is pure and tranquil. With the degree of purity achieved by Gopaler Ma through her spiritual practices, she could enter into that realm of super consciousness available only to the mystics around the world. In this realm of mystical experience, verbal expression, mental cognition, and intellectual reasoning do not function. The only consciousness is the direct consciousness of God.[7]
Relationship as a devotee
Once when she had accepted some gifts from a devotee family of Balaram Bose, Sri Ramakrishna had rebuked her, maintaining that renunciation is the greatest virtue of a devotee.[4] Sri Ramakrishna also fed her and Narendranath Dutta (later Swami Vivekananda) with the offerings from certain sections of the devotees which he did not consider as fit for eating for other devotees, because he considered her to be pure enough to partake those offerings.[4]
Gopaler Ma, upon advice from Sri Ramakrishna, shared her visions with
Gopaler Ma maintained a very close relationship with Sri Ramakrishna till the latter left his mortal coils in 1886. She also had a very close relationship with the Holy Mother
Aftermath
After the passing away of
She even had a vision of Sri Ramkrishna during the Rathayatra festival of Lord Jagannath in Mahesh, when she saw her chosen ideal in the chariot, in the idol of Lord Jagannath and in the surrounding crowd.[4]
She entertained the American friends and disciples of
She considered herself as a Sanyasini nun during the last ten or twelve years before she died and always wore an ochre cloth, the symbol of renunciation in Hinduism.
Contributions
Aghoremani Devi was a householder disciple, but was a famous name in the Ramakrishna Order and had a very important role to play in the early history of the Ramakrishna movement. The stories of her divine visions and her unique spiritual practices, her purity and consequent enlightenment, was a source of inspiration to many devotees in the order. She was very close to Sister Nivedita and despite being an orthodox Brahmin widow, her liberal behavior against the prevailing dogmas of the society helped the movement, esp. its foreign adherents, to gain universal acceptance among the orthodox Hindu community.
Before she died, she bequeathed her only possessions, a photograph of Sri Ramakrishna, and about two hundred rupees, to Belur Math, for the service of the God.[4]
Religious outlook
Aghoremani Devi was a strict orthodox Hindu according to the customs. She was conservative and was extremely meticulous about preserving the purity of her life and ideals.
References
- ^ a b "story of Gopaler Ma at RKM Nagpur". Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
- ^ Great Swan, Meetings with Sri Ramakrishna, by Lex Hixon, Motilal Banarsidass, 1995, Chapter: Introduction to Indian Edition
- ^ a b c "Life of Gopaler Ma". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Ramakrishna, the Great Master, by Swami Saradananda, translated by Swami Jagadananda, Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, 1952, page 747
- ^ a b c Gopaler Ma, Belur Math site
- ^ Gopaler Ma, boldsky article
- ^ a b c d e f They Lived with God, by Swami Chetanananda
- ^ ecstasies of mystics
- ^ a b Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
- ^ Sri Sri mayer Katha (Bengali) (Reminiscences of the Holy Mother), Udbodhan Publishers
- ^ a b Nivedita, the Dedicated, by Lizelle Reymond, John Day Company, 1953, page 113
- ^ Article by C.S Ramakrishnan on boldsky
External sources
- They Lived with God, by Swami Chetanananda, published by Vedanta Society of St. Louis
- Death of Gopaler Ma
- Gopaler Ma – Biography Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine [this link is hacked; it is taking me to some other website - Aug 2020]