Merry Christmas

” Day after day, O lord of my life, shall I stand before thee face to face. With folded hands, O lord of all worlds, shall I stand before thee face to face.

Under thy great sky in solitude and silence, with humble heart shall I stand before thee face to face.

In this laborious world of thine, tumultuous with toil and with struggle, among hurrying crowds shall I stand before thee face to face.

And when my work shall be done in this world , O kings , alone and speechless shall I stand before thee face to face. ” – Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore . 76 No Song .

JESUS AS SEEN BY SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

We, Indian regard Jesus Christ as son of God. Hindus worship Sri Krishna as God, not the son of God. There’s a similarly in sound when we pronounce both the words – Krishna and Krista. However , we know Jesus as a Prophet like Muhammad and Sree Ramkrishna. Thakur Sree Ramkrishna used to listen Bible. He has been practiced all the rituals of Christianity for three days like Islamic rituals. Even Swami Vivekananda’s life has to be seen similar to Jesus Christ.

Mother Teresa served the downtrodden people of slums for a long time in Kolkata . When she was awarded Nobel peace prize for her selfless service to mankind , that special evening she recited a line of a poem when she was asked, “ What is your message in this joyful day?” She replied in Bengali with soft voice : ” Jibe prem kare jei Jan , Sei jan sebiche iswar .( He/she who loves jiba , he/she serves to God).

Having heard it, we became surprised! Woh !This is the utterance of Swami Vivekananda . One Catholic Saint is uttering this very familiar lines in this joyous moment. Then it’s seemed that all the faces of crowd are becoming blurred and a very known vibrant face is drifting before my eyes.

Obviously, we notice a similarity between the two spiritual godfather. And we find a deep connection of Swami Vivekananda’s life with Jesus and Christianity. Narendra Nath’s magnanimous father, Biswanath Dutta used to read egarly Bible. Narendra Nath was a vigorous reader from his childhood days. He has read Ramayana Mahabharata, Bhagabat and also listened the stories of all these books from his mother and grandmother in his childhood days. Perhaps he might read the Bible also .

Narendra Nath was admitted to Presidency College in 1880 . He had to leave this college after one year because of malaria – attack. Having cured he took admission in General Assembly College( now Scottish Church College and in 1884 he became graduate from there. That time it’s a provision to read Bible as compulsory subject. So I think he reads it in between the two lines. Secondly, he was a student of philosophy. So it’s natural for a student of philosophy to read the life and religion of Jesus Christ.

Being learnt from his college Principal Hesty Saheb during discussion of state of trance in the poem”Excursion” that a priest of Dakhineshwar has experienced such a state of trance, Narendra Nath visited several times before initiation of monkhood. He came to know about Sree Ramkrishna deeply. Guru Sree Ramkrishna says to his desciples that he is Chaitanya Abotar. And also says that how a divine light from Christ has been entered into his body.

JESUS & SRI RAMKRISHNA

To Swami Vivekananda (then Narendra Nath) , Sri Ramakrishna is an Indian Christ , or the younger brother of Christ.

Since 1881 – 1886 , during this period Naren’s mind has been changed. He has become urnest devoteee of His master, Sri Ramakrishna. Not only that, He is being enriched with the spiritual advices of Master came very nearer to Him. He has been realised that Sri Ramakrishna is an incarnation of Rama , Krishna and also of Sri Chaitanya.

Here I will tell two incidents which we see in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. First one took place in 1885 , 31 October. Sri M dipicted the picture in the book as he listened to and learnt that day from Sri Ramakrishna and His devotees.

It’s about 11 am in the morning. .. He was talking to Christian devotee named Mishra. Mishra was born of a Christian family in northwestern India…. He was thirty five years old. Though clad in European dress he wore the ochre of a Sannyasi under his foreign clothes. Two of his brothers had died on the day fixed for the marriage of one of them , and on that very day Mishra had renounced the world.

Mishra: ” Jesus is not the son of Mary , Jesus is God himself. ( To the devotees) Now he ( pointing to Sri Ramakrishna) is as you see him him again. He is God himself. You are not able to recognize him. I have seen him before, in vision, though I see him now directly with my eyes. I saw a garden where he was seated on a raised seat . Another person was seated on the ground, but he was not so far advanced.”

Master: ” Do you see visions ?

Mishra: ” Sir , even when I lived at home I used to see light. Then I had a vision of Jesus. How can I describe that beauty ? How significant is the beauty of a woman compared with that beauty !”

After a while Misra took off his trousers and showed the devotees the Gerua loin – cloth that he wore underneath. …

As he uttered these words he went into samadhi. He stood facing the West. Regaining partial consciousness , he fixed his gaze on Misra and began to laugh . Still in an ecstatic mood, he shook hand with him and laughed again . Taking him by the hands , he said , ” You will get what you are seeking .”

Misra: ( With folded hands) ” Since that day I have surrendered to you my mind , soul , and body .”

Sri Ramakrishna was laughing , still in an ecstatic mood.

Sri M thought : Is Sri Ramakrishna and Jesus same !

Paul Brunton, in his book ‘ A search in Secret India ‘ writes about Sri M’s realization about Jesus in Sri Ramakrishna.

He asked Sri M : How do you come to know about Jesus Christ and Bible so profoundly and meteculously, when he has listened discussion of Bible from ‘M . Having heard it, ‘M replied with gentle voice: We have been staying in a same room with Him. We see Christ in Him like other incarnations.

Brunton became astonished listening it. Naren too realized the same about Jesus in Sri Ramakrishna.

Now I will give a pen picture of the second incident. It took place in the very first Math ( monk center) in Taki’s Munshi’s home. In a reminiscences, we see that there is a picture of Jesus with other incarnations hanging on the wall of a room in this Math . It’s a picture of crusified Jesus.

Sri ‘M informed that there continued meditation, Japa ( counting secret spiritual mantra), Bhajan & Kirtana along with discussion of spiritual scripts. They used to read and discuss about Sri Ramakrishna, Acharya Shankara, Ramanuja and Jesus Christ.

There’s another incident which took place after 2/3 months of inception of Math. Swamiji’s Gurubhai, Babulal mother’s Matangini Devi requested her son to return home and spend there in Autpur some days along with Naren . When this news exposed , then all of his guru – brothers became companion and reached at Autpur. There they took outh that they would lead a life of renunciation. One evening they fumigated the incense – pot and sat around all the brothers in meditation. After the end of it , Naren began to discuss about the life of Jesus Christ. Specially , it’s the incident of Jesus renunciation. He also mentioned that they would spread in the world as an apostle the life of Sri Ramakrishna and His Gospel.

To be continued