Osho narrates this beautiful incident from Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa’s life and I felt this was a message for me from my master. This story is narrated in a series of discourses that have been compiled into “The Osho Upanishad”.
To read the entire transcript please click here – From Information to Transformation.
“….I am reminded of a beautiful incident in the life of Ramakrishna’s wife, Sharda Devi.
Ramakrishna died, but before dying he told Sharda, “Remember, I have been here always and I will be here always, so don’t think of yourself as a widow. Only my body is going to die – but you are married to me, not to my body.“
In India, when a husband dies – and particularly in Bengal it is more severe for the woman, for the wife – her head is shaved… because half of the beauty of a woman is in her hair. She cannot wear any colored clothes; only white is allowed. She cannot use any ornaments, particularly the glass bangles that are used by married women. When the husband dies, she has to break her glass bangles.
Just by the way, I have to inform you why the glass bangles have been chosen as a symbol of marriage: because here in this life, everything is just like glass – breakable, easily breakable.
And when the husband dies, she has to break her bangles on the floor. They need to be made of glass, not of metal, not of gold.
But Ramakrishna prohibited her: “In spite of the whole tradition, I prohibit you. Continue the way you have lived with me. I have loved your food, your sweets. Every day, prepare my food, my sweets; and sit just the way you used to sit before me while I was eating. One day I will be coming.”
Ramakrishna died.
Everybody tried to convince Sharda, “Don’t be mad, don’t go against the tradition. Ramakrishna was always half mad, and it seems that before death he has lost his mind completely!”
But Sharda said, “I am not married to the tradition, not married to the convention – I am married to this beautiful half-madman and I am going to follow him.” She did not cry. She continued using ornaments, glass bangles, colored clothes; she did not shave her hair.
People said, “We used to think Ramakrishna was mad; this Sharda is even more mad. She is a widow, and she is behaving as if she is newly married.”
And she would prepare the food with the same enthusiasm, and would bring it to Ramakrishna’s room and sit in front of him with a small fan in her hands, as she used to sit – as for thousands of years in the East, wives have sat with a fan, so that no fly or anything can sit on the food.
And people said, “You are mad. There is nobody there.”
And twice every day the ritual was repeated, and she lived many years.
Whenever she was asked she said, “Whatever happens… I know he is going to come one day.” Such patience.
I reminded you of this incident because your fulfillment, your enlightenment, is waiting with infinite patience, for millions of years. One day you are bound to come.
Ramakrishna may come, may not come, but one day you will be sitting under a bodhi tree, enlightened – that is guaranteed. That is intrinsic to your nature. It all depends on you: you can be lazy and you can reach to your own bodhi tree in many, many lives’ time. You can be total, your intensity can make you an arrow, and you can move with the speed of light.
And certainly enlightenment is nothing but your becoming light, your inner being becoming light.
Perhaps you are aware that the physicists say that if anything moves with the speed of light, it becomes light – because the speed is so great that the friction creates fire. The thing is burned, there is only light. The material disappears, only immaterial light remains.
Enlightenment is the experience of an explosion of light within you.
Perhaps your desire to be enlightened is moving with the speed of light, like an arrow, so that your very desire, your very longing becomes a flame, an explosion of light. There is nobody who becomes enlightened, there is only enlightenment. There is only a tremendous sunrise within you.
Chetna, you cannot borrow the experience from somebody else, but you can have the experience.”
The above excerpt is very special because it also has my Sannyas name – Chetna. Swami Chaitanya Keerti had named me Ma Anand Chetna, and another Sannyasin named Chetna seems to have asked the question on my behalf !!! Yes, it could be a coincidence, but it’s a loaded coincidence as far as I am concerned.
The Universe is constantly messaging and every such coincidence is proof of that… we live in a mystical interconnected world, despite what the newspapers say.
Thank You Master.
p.s – Krishnan, I wait patiently. I know you are around. ❤️
Disclaimer – I post excerpts from Osho’s books and discourses and sometimes share his quotes. In most of the posts, the link to the full audio or full transcript is given. Osho is the Master, and to understand him, please listen to him or read his books. These excerpts are my limited interpretations with my limited understanding. Nothing original and I could be totally off the mark. The highlights and italics/bold font is also done by me.