Worship Of Sri Ramakrishna Pdf 25
Vaniria Setser
She has recently purchased her new home and planning to do the house warming. While she is at getting things sorted for her new home someone advised her not to keep broken images in the altar or the new home as it is considered inauspicious!! She was torn between her love for Baba and this thought put in by someone was disturbing her. She was unable to decide what to do?? What is right? This was her dilemma and hence the call to me!! I am not any expert, authority or knowledgeable in all these ritualistic practices. However, since she was expecting some solace from me, I silently prayed Baba within to guide. I told her about my lack of knowledge but with what little inner guidance I got I answered her.
I first told her it was all about faith, love and surrender. If one has strong belief and surrender in the Guru then there should be no hesitation or thought like this. If it even once occurs in the mind otherwise; like having negative thoughts about keeping a broken idol just treating it as something inanimate then it should be put right away in an appropriate manner by leaving it in the sea like Ganapati visarjan.
Image worship is based on principle of love. The reason for spiritual injunction against brokenimage is to prevent disrespect to the deity. Sri Ramakrishna could look into the heart of a person and saw that Rani was not guided by any disrespect but love. The main point is not to follow the spiritual injunctions mechanically rather understand the spirit behind it.
The Divine is worshipped daily in the form of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada
Devi and Swami Vivekananda in each of our temples. This puja may also be referred to as noon worship. The one who performs the worship, the pujari, is most often a nun or monk. However, monastic vows are not a prerequisite for performing puja. Many householders offer worship in their homes every day,
but this is not possible, nor is it expected, of everyone. The public is welcome to observe daily puja. It is an excellent time to sit in the temple for meditation. Here are the steps to a simple daily puja, courtesy of Swami Tyagananda of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in Boston, MA.
After a brief meditation, the worshipper begins the arati by lighting wicks in a special holder. These wicks are made of cotton dipped in melted ghee (clarified butter). The lights symbolize the light of Brahman (the Godhead). They also symbolize fire, one of the five elements that comprise the universe.
The worshipper rings the bell continuously with the left hand, symbolizing the mystic sound OM, which eternally reverberates throughout the universe. With the right hand, the worshipper waves the light clockwise before the pictures of Ramakrishna, Jesus and Buddha, thus offering fire back to the Lord.
The second offering is water, which is contained in a conch shell. Water is another element comprising the universe. The conch is waved in a circular motion before the holy pictures, and is then poured into an offering bowl.
The third offering is a cloth, which symbolizes the element space. Cloth covers the body as space envelops all creation. The fourth offering is a flower, symbolizing the element earth. The last of the offerings is the chamara (a fan made of yak tail), which symbolizes the element air as it is gracefully waved before the holy pictures.
"I have practised all religions - Hinduism, Islam, Christianity - and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have found that it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion - Hindus, Mohammedans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well - the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several Ghats. At one, the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ' Jal ' ; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ' pani '. At a third the Christians call it ' water '. Can we imagine that it is not ' Jal ' , but only ' pani ' or ' water '? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him."
Born in Kamarpukur, Bengal Presidency, India, Ramakrishna was the fourth and youngest child of his parents. He encountered several religious experiences starting from his childhood, and later began his career, at age twenty, as a temple priest at the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple in Calcutta. The devotional temperament of Ramakrishna coupled with his intense religious practices at the temple premises led him to experience various spiritual visions. Soon a few religious teachers visited Ramakrishna and assured him the sanctity of his visions. In 1859, in accordance with then prevailing customs, Ramakrishna was married to Sarada Devi, a marriage that was never consummated.
Tota Puri, a vedanta monk, initiated Ramakrishna into sannyasa in 1865. Ramakrishna later gained widespread acclaim amongst the temple visiting public as a guru, attracting to him social leaders, elites, and common people alike. Although initially reluctant to consider himself a guru, he eventually taught his disciples and founded the monastic Ramakrishna Order.[8] Ramakrishna died due to throat cancer on the night of 15 August 1886.[9] After his demise, his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda popularized his ideas in India and the West.[10]
Ramakrishna was born on 18 February 1836,[11] in the village of Kamarpukur, in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, India, in a very poor and pious Bengali Brahmin family.[12] He was the fourth and the youngest child of his parents, father Khudiram Chattopadhyaya, born in 1775, and mother Chandramani Devi, born in 1791. The couples first son Ramkumar is said to have born in 1805, a daughter Katyayani five years later, and a second son Rameswar in 1826.[13]
Chandramani Devi was Khudiram's second wife. His first wife died young. Khudiram had ancestral property in the Dere Village of present day West Bengal, India. An unscrupulous landlord, Ramananda Roy, who was angry with Khudiram for refusing to commit perjury, brought a false petition against him in the court and took possession of his ancestral property. Bereft of all property, Khudiram and Chandramani Devi moved to Kamarpukur where a friend, Sukhlal Goswami, gifted them one Bigha and ten Chataks of land for their maintenance.[14][better source needed]
The parents of Ramakrishna are said to have experienced supernatural incidents and visions regarding his birth. In Gaya, his father Khudiram had a dream in which Bhagavan Gadadhara (a form of lord Vishnu) told him that he would be born as his son. Chandramani Devi is said to have had a vision of light entering her womb from the lingam in Yogider Shiv mandir.[15][16] In another vision following Ramakrishna's birth, his mother saw a strange tall person lying in the bed instead of the baby Ramakrishna.[17][better source needed]
Around the age of six or seven, Ramakrishna experienced his first moment of spiritual trance. One morning while walking along the narrow ridges of a paddy field, eating some puffed rice from a small basket, he came across the sight of a flock of milky white cranes flying against the backdrop of a heavy rain laden black clouds, which soon engulfed the entire sky. The ensuing sight was so beautiful that he was absorbed into it and lost all his outer consciousness, before falling down with the rice scattered all over. People nearby who saw this came to his rescue and carried him home.[21]
Ramakrishna was sent to the village school where he learned to read and write, but had an aversion towards arithmetic and didn't progress beyond simple addition, multiplication and division. He read the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and other religious books with devotion. He observed the scholars and found that they were only interested in acquiring wealth and contrasted this with his father's standards of detachment and righteous conduct.[25] He later lost interest in this "bread-winning education".[21] He instead became proficient in making images, acting and painting. When he was fourteen years old, he started a drama group with some of his friends and left school to pursue it.[25] Ramakrishna had practically no formal education and spoke ungrammatical imperfect Bengali with a rustic accent.[26][27][28][29]
Ramakrishna's father died in 1843, a loss which he felt very strongly and made him reticent.[32] He would visit the nearby cremation ground alone to practice spiritual disciplines there.[21] At this stage the family responsibilities fell on his elder brother, Ramkumar, who was about thirty-one years older than him.[33] When Ramakrishna was in his teens, the family's financial position worsened, Ramkumar then started a Sanskrit school in Calcutta (Jhama pukur lane), whilst also serving as a priest there. In 1852, Ramakrishna moved to Calcutta along with his brother to assist him with the priestly work.[34]
With great delight the Rani bought a large piece of land on the banks of Hooghly river at Dakshineswar and started the construction of a nine-spired temple where pilgrims could congregate to catch a glimpse of the Goddess. However for being born into a Cāsi kaivarta family, she was deemed unworthy by the local Brahmins to make food offerings to Kali.[35] It was her heart's desire to offer prasada to Kali, and if she did so going against the norms of the Brahmanical society of the time, the devotees would no longer visit that temple, nor would a Brahmin priest officiate there. To find a scriptural solution to her problem, the Rani sought written opinions of various pandits from different parts of the country. However, none of the opinions were in her favor.[41] When all hope was seemingly lost, she received a letter from Ramkumar, who assured her that the scriptural principles would be observed intact if she made a gift of the property to a Brahmin, who could then install the deity and make arrangements for food offerings. No blemish would then be incurred by those who partook the prasada there.[42] She readily agreed to these conditions, displaying savviness in working around the rigidities of caste while adhering to its restrictions.[35]
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