Month: February 2021

23/02/2021

Jai Ramakrishna

     (Today is the auspicious birth-day of Swami Trigunatitanandaji Maharaj. May he bless us all with Bhakti.)
    Swami Trigunatita was born into an aristocratic family of Calcutta in 1865. His pre-monastic name was Sarada Prasanna Mitra. His parents believed that Sarada was born to them through the grace of the Divine Mother, so they named their child after Her. He was brilliant at school, and the family looked forward to raising a scholarly and successful son.
  A simple gold watch, however, was to indirectly change his life. Sarada lost the watch, which he greatly treasured, during the second day of his entrance examinations at Calcutta University. The loss so upset him that he performed poorly and passed in the second division only. He grieved for weeks over his low marks.
  Like a number of other disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, Sarada was a student at the Metropolitan Institution, whose headmaster was Mahendranath Gupta, (“M”), the author of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. 
“M” felt a deep affection for Sarada. Although he knew that the boy had been spoiled by his parents and was acting childishly, his keen intuitive sense alerted him to Sarada’s deeper and greater potential. So instead of scolding him, he took the boy to Sri Ramakrishna. 
Sarada immediately felt drawn to the Master. Thereafter, he visited Dakshineswar regularly.
  Also like the other disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, Sarada was strongly religious as a child. His father, who was a great devotee, encouraged him in his yearnings. Sarada read the scriptures regularly, and when only a young boy memorized more than a hundred Sanskrit hymns.
His meeting with Sri Ramakrishna quickened even more this spiritual precociousness.
  Sarada’s birth into a proud family had caused him to regard all physical work as menial.
One hot day, Ramakrishna requested Sarada to fetch some water and wash his feet. The boy flushed with embarrassment, for several of his friends were present and they were looking at him intently. Ramakrishna repeated the request and Sarada had no other choice but to obey.
He said later that this incident broke his pride and began his education in the spirit of service…