Source: TW
Understanding Sadhana through the Life of Sri Ramakrishna: The Experience of God Realization through Tantric Sadhana — IV
PRAVRAJIKA VIVEKAPRANA
Sri Ramakrishna had moved on to the level of Vishishtha Advaita, where he got a little bit of help from gurus. The first guru was Bhairavi Brahmani.
Sri Ramakrishna, by his own desire to realize the various forms of God, practised the well-known ways of reaching out to the realization of God. But because of the physical and mental symptoms that he developed everyone around him thought that he had gone mad. And therefore there was great anguish in the hearts of those who knew him and loved him, to cure him. They were trying to find out remedies to get him out of his “God madness”. This phenomenon also was not unknown in India. … Bhairavi Brahmani tried to convince him that he was not suffering from any disease. But because others would not believe this, he would cry and keep running to the Mother and ask her why she was putting him through this.
The Bhairavi felt that he had to be taken through a course of disciplines that are written of in the books, so that by those disciplines he can see the results for himself, and is convinced that what he has is not a disease but it is the result of his tapasya. So what was this next level? This was the Tantric tapasya.
Thus the Master took the hint from the Universal Mother, forgot everything else and merged himself in Tantric sadhana and the learned and masterly Brahmani took endless pains to collect, from various parts of the country, things specifically necessary for particular rites and give the Master instructions regarding their application at the time of sadhana. The skulls of five dead beings, including that of a man, were brought from somewhere far away from the River Ganga, and two altars propitious for Tantric sadhana were constructed; one under the vilva tree, situated at the northern boundary of the Temple garden, and the other under the Panchavati, planted by the Master himself. Sitting on either of these skull seats, according to need, the Master spent his time in japa, meditation, etc. This extraordinary sadhaka and his guide were not conscious for a few months how days and nights slipped by. The Master used to say:
In the day time, the Brahmani went to places far away from the Temple garden and collected and brought various rare articles prescribed by the Tantras. Placing them either under the vilva tree or under the Panchavati at night, she called me, taught me how to make use of those things and helped me in the performance of the worship of the Divine Mother, according to the prescribed rules with their aid, asking me at last to merge in japa and meditation. I acted accordingly, but I had to perform almost no japa because hardly had I turned the rosary once that I merged completely in samadhi, and realized the result proper to those rites, there was thus no limit to my visions and experiences, all very extraordinary. The Brahmani made me undertake, one by one, all the disciplines prescribed in the 64 main tantras. All difficult to accomplish in trying to practice which, most of the sadhakas go astray. But I got through them all, successfully, by the Mother’s Grace.
On one occasion I saw that the Brahmani had brought at night, nobody knew from where, a beautiful woman in the prime of her youth, and said to me, “my child worship her as the Devi.” When the worship was finished she said, “My child sit on her lap and perform Japa.” I was seized with fear and wept piteously and said, “Oh Mother, Mother of the Universe, what is this command that thou givest to me, one who has taken absolute refuge in Thee?” But as soon as I said so, I felt that I was possessed by some unknown power and an extraordinary strength filled my heart. And no sooner as I, uttering the mantras, sat on the lap of the woman, like one hypnotised, unaware of what I was doing that I merged completely in samadhi. When I regained consciousness I saw the Brahmani waiting on me and trying to bring me back to normal consciousness. She said, “the rite has been completed my child, Others restrain themselves with very great difficulty under such circumstances and then finish the rite with nominal japa for a very short time only, but you lost all consciousness and were in deep samadhi.” When I heard this I became reassured and started saluting the Mother again and again with a grateful heart for enabling me to pass that ordeal, unscathed.
On another occasion I saw that the Brahmani cooked fish, in the skull of a dead body, and performed tarpan (an offering), she also made me do that and asked me to take that fish. I did as I was asked and felt no aversion, whatsoever. But on the day when the Brahmani brought a piece of rotten human flesh, and asked me to touch it with my tongue, after tarpan, I was shaken by aversion, and said, “can it be done?” So questioned, she said, “what is there my child, just see how I do it.” Saying so, she put a portion of it into her own mouth and said, “aversion should not be entertained”, and placed again a little bit of it before me. When I saw her do so, the idea of the terrible Chandika form of the universal Mother was inspired in my mind and repeatedly uttering Mother I entered into bhava samadhi then there was no aversion, when the Brahmani put it into my mouth.
Sri Ramakrishna The Great Master, Vol. 1, pp.226-227
In Sri Ramakrishna’s words (in continuation of the description of his Tantric Sadhana), “…I remember the day when I was able, by the Grace of the Mother, to view with perfect equanimity, the supreme pleasure of a pair of lovers, seeing nothing in it but the blissful sport of the Divine. The mind instead of descending even to the neighbourhood of ordinary human feelings, soared higher and higher, merging at last in deep samadhi. After regaining normal consciousness, I heard the Brahmani say, ‘You have reached the desired end of a very difficult Tantric Sadhana and become established in the Divine mood. This is the ultimate sadhana of the heroic mode of worship.’”