Our Master

THE PILGRIMAGE TO ETERNITY – I
The Master had decided to shape himself as the Model Householder, the Adarsha Grihi. He would leave an example of Ideal Living and show how life ought to be lived by us. The Vedic ideal he would live and hold up. So for the most part the Master was living with his guru at Digsui, that being the Vedic ideal. The care of the family rested on his sister’s husband Sri Keshab Lal Bandopadhyaya, his sister and mother. It was they who managed the affairs at home, making it possible for him to pursue his ideal with single-minded devotion. The simple, pious, saintly Bandopadhyay was a man in a million. The greater part of the day he spent in Japa and meditation, chanting of the Name and daily worship of Braja Nath and Mahavir, this latter God too having come some how to be a member of the family. Essentially unworldly – minded, he had given up his career as a medical practitioner and set up a school, for a time, which too he closed subsequently, to be able to give himself up to a predominantly spiritual life. An adept in the management of domestic affairs, he relieved the Master of that portion of his responsibility. The Master’s sister too was a saintly lady with a rare knack of making every body her own; she had a capacity for affection and her profound religiosity revealed itself in a spirit of total dependence on Braja Nath. The Name of Kali she recalled at every step. “Kali-Kali-Kali” — used to be always on her lips. Want was acute in the family, for the only member that might earn was the Master and he was averse to earning altogether. He took to the traditional duties of a Brahmana as laid down in the Shastras. Worship for self and others, study, charity, making, but not taking, gifts : these were his occupation and none of these can ever be lucrative. Our Master Sadananda Chakrabarti Want was rife and starvation stared them in the face, but nothing could perturb either the family or the Master. His mother and sister had to work enormously hard and they did it smilingly. When fodder would be scarce, they would get down into water, collect weeds, and mow grass and fetch it home. When their own food went out, they would fast cheerfully with the children. Yet they would not press the Master to seek an employment and maintain the family. Nor could the Master conceive of the idea. For the idea was alien to the Shastras and therefore to the Master. The Master and his family owned Braja Nath as the Lord and Agent and themselves as his instruments and servants. So the care or worry was Braja nath’s, the duty theirs. Even the little Shaila, the Master’s youngest sister, was cast in the same heroic mould as the rest of the family. But was there not another distinguished member, Mother Siddheswari, who on her arrival at Braja Nath’s house, changed into Kamala? Siddheswari of Digsui flowered overnight into Mother Kamala of Dumurdaha. But it was the name alone that changed, the quiet heroic soul remained the same. She was there too but entirely in the back-ground, as became an ideal Hindu wife. So completely did she merge herself in the family that the chronicle of the family might forget to mention her name, just as a list of the things contained in a room might omit the air that insensibly lapped it. So Braja Nath’s family left him free to live his life. All credit to them for this good sense and magnanimity. All glory to them for having thus been a sharer in his epic struggle for the redemption of mankind. And what a life was the Master’s at Digsui! Rising in the very carly hours of the morning, taking his bath as early with ‘Ram, Ram’ for ever on the lips, cooking his own food and subsisting on a morsel of sundried rice boiled in water, with neither condiment nor any other dish to make it palatable, worship, japa and meditation, all at the appointed hour, study of the sacred texts, chanting of the name, serving the guru, is a loyal menial; these were among the Master’s daily duties. Taking lessons from the guru and learning them carefully too formed part of the routine, but what claimed top priority with him was attending to the big and small affairs in the guru’s household. At seed — and harvest time he would be in the fields. You would find him driving a bullock cart, to bring the guru’s paddy home, with a copy of ‘Vedanta Sar’ in hand. That book in his hand attracted the guru’s notice and one day he asked, “Pray, what’s that book in your hand?” “Vedanta Sar” (“the Essence of the Vedanta)” was the reply. And the guru humorously observed, “This indeed is unalloyed Vedantic work!” The Master thus made himself indispensable to the family of his guru whose children doted on him, the girl Kutai as well as the boy Sankar. They loved him quite as much as they feared and respected him. He would not hesitate to punish them, when punishment was called for. His sense of duty was too keen to connive at their lapses. But he would not beat them. He had his own way of correcting them. He would take them to the wood and leave them ther tied to a stump. He was affectionate without being Indulgent and so deep was the children’s attachment to him that it was a shock for them to learn , years later, that he was not his guru’s brother.It was Sankar who first discovered it.The Master called his guru ‘Dada’, elder brother, and the children called him ‘Kakamoni’, dear uncle. But the intelligent Sankar chanced one day to discover that while his father was a Mukhopadhyaya, his ‘Kakamoni’ was a Chattopadhyaya. How could that be?Was it not usual for brothers to have the same surname!Unable to solve the problem, he called upon his mother to explain.So complete was the Master’s identification with his guru’s family that the little boy could not suspect that they were not actuaaly brothers. Even more significant than this warmth and intimacy was the Master’s anxiety to improve his guru’s assets. Himself the least worldlyminded of men (did he not set his own stack of straw in fire when he was only a boy? That by the way was a symbolic act.) he looked unsolicited into the material interests of his guru and sought to better them to the best of his capacity. Nibaran and Pakuri had each mortgaged lands (we mean paddy fields) to the guru. One day they both came at different hours and said that they were anxious to dispose of the lands. They requested the guru to purchase the lands. But how could the guru afford to? Not having the means, he had to decline. But the Master who listened to the conversation, intervened and spoke to the parties concerned. He sent them away, saying, “”Yes, we will purchase your lands.”
“Where may you get the money?” asked the guru, but the Master assured him, “You need n’t worry. I shall manage.” And he did manage. He wrote to Nibaran Babu of Krishnapur asking for a loan and taking care to sign a hand-note or legal document himself. Nibaran Babu sent the hand note back and advanced the loan gladly. Thus would the Master serve his guru and procured for him what he had not as well as secured what he had. Thus did he fulfil the words of the Gita : “Tesam nityabhiyuktanam Yogaksemam vahamy aham.” One little incident perhaps would be sufficient to show the depth of his devotion to the guru. It was in the Bengali year 1334, somewhere about 1928. The guru performed (or rather had it performed through the agency of Tulsi Charan Bhattacharyya of Pagri) a special form of Sraddha ceremony called “Mansastaka Sraddha”, which required meat to be offerd as oblation to the deceased. He offered venison on the occasion
and casually remarked, “How it would please me if you partook of venison today.” And the Master at once agreed. Since 1918 he had given up eating fish and meat; yet to please his guru he took venison that day. No wonder that the guru should love the Master so deeply. And indeed he loved the Master better than any body else on earth. If ever the Master had been away on business and did not come in time, the guru, who was so cold and detached in relation to others, would be waiting anxiously outside the door or pacing up and down until the Master’s return. Bereavement after bereavement assailed him but loss of son or daughter or son-inlaw or friend could not affiect him in the least. But separation from the Master he could not brook; even a slight delay in his return unnerved him. Indeed in devotion to guru the Master has had no equal, Even today he wears his guru’s wooden sandals right on his breast. Yet, surprisingly enough, when the guru offered his daily worship to Vishnu and Siva, the Master distinctly felt on each occasion that the flowers and sandal paste offered to the deities fell at his own feet! If by nothing else, by sheer devotion to guru, could the Master attain to the summit. But of course the Master did not rest there. Apart from worship of his guru he practised so many other austerities, each by itself capable of accomplishing fulfilment. Think, for example, of his devotion to mother. How he worshiped her, and still does, literally as the Goddess in human form. Even to-day you find him going round her with folded hands and lying prostrate at her feet three times a day. This is Pradakshin and P r a n a m , Circumambulation and Prostration. Even today he worships her and offers flowers at her feet and dips her toe in water and drinks it, which is called Charan-amrita. One great message of the Master to the world is that if a son worships his father and mother and looks upon them literally as jagat pita and jagat mata, as the supreme Father and the Supreme Mother, if he serves and adores them in this spirit, that in itself would be enough to bring Consummation at his door, he need not perform any other austerities; he need not seek to attain God, God comes to him on His own initiative and meets him and talks to him and confers boon on him. Such a son, says the Master, need not solicit God : God solicits him. And this is by no means an exaggeration. The Master means what he says; he means every word of it in literal fact. He loves Truth too well to exaggerate it. Talking of the Master’d devotion to his Mother, one remembers how often, when his Mauna, his period of silence has extended beyond his mother’s desire, she has been to him and induced him to break his vow. Her presence has been enough to make him alter his decision. In 1953 the Master had been in Mauna for barely four months when his mother went to him, all the way from Dumurdaha to Onkareshwar and the day following her arrival he broke his silence and made himself available to all. While, during Mauna, nobody has admittance to him, the mother’s case is different. He is prepared to relax any rule for her sake. When in November 1953 he fell ill at Memari, he did not hesitate to use quilt and pillow and bed sheet, contrary to his own principle and practice, contrary also to the rules of a mendicant’s life; he did it all for the sake of his mothe. Since she desired, the rules were given the go by. If, by nothing else, by simple devotion to the Mother, could the Master attain to his consummation. Look again at the way the Master took to the Name. Over and above that uttering of ‘Ram Ram’ every passing moment, he chanted the Name in that supreme combination, that Mantra of Mantras : Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. He would chant it aloud by himself and in the company of others. He would chant it in any odd hour and place, for long, long hours. He formed associations of men who would regularly chant the Name together at home and sacred shrines and walk the streets singing it aloud. In the Bengali year 1327, in November 1920, he founded Braja Nath Samity. He himself pared off split bamboos for the flags to be used by the party. Jogin Babu of Dumurdaha asked him what is was for. The Master said that a band of men singing the name would be formed. The gentleman asked, “Who would be the head?” The Master replied, “Braja Nath”. The answer impressed the gentleman. “Then your association would grow” he commented.