Sri Sarada Devi

Sarada Devi was born on Thursday, December 22, 1853. Her father, too, had a portent of an unusual birth. Nodding off after lunch one day, he dreamt that a beautiful young girl wearing precious ornaments, hugged him affectionately. When he asked who she was, she said in a soft, musical voice, 8220;You see, I have come to your family.8221; Sarada was 8216;married8217; at the age of five to Ramakrishna, a 23-year-old from nearby Kamarpukur. At 18, his elder brother Ramkumar had taken him to Kolkata, where he was appointed Mother Kali8217;s priest at the famous Dakshineswar temple built by Rani Rashmoni. It is almost impossible for most people to relate to Sarada Devi8217;s trials, the denial of every normal womanly comfort: her husband8217;s enforced celibacy, the stuffy little room at Dakshineswar where she spent years and years of her life with a door so low that she banged her head each time she forgot to duck. If too many visitors thronged about, she could not even see her husband for up to two months, though his room was 75 feet south of hers. Conditioned by the Hindu ideal of all-sacrificing womanhood, she was happy listening humbly from afar to Ramakrishna8217;s bhajans.

But elders in their 70s and 80s affirm that such was the mindset of those times that young married couples forswore physical pleasure to concentrate on serving causes. Gandhiji, Prabhavati-Jayaprakash Narayan she died, alas, of uterine cancer. But people who genuinely sublimated their sexual energy into spiritual energy glowed with 8216;tejas8217; reportedly, the late Bharata Natyam teacher, Guru Muthukumaran Pillai, a few acharyas and sadhvis. Just so, Sister Nivedita wrote of the 8220;tremendous dynamic power8221; that emanated from Sarada Devi. Sarada Devi advised, 8220;Let me tell you how to love all equally. Do not demand anything of those you love.8221; And of Sri Ramakrishna she said, 8220;The chief characteristic of the Master8217;s sadhana is renunciation. Has anyone ever seen such natural renunciation?8221; Her legacy, the Ramakrishna Mission, is such a splendid organisation even in its eighth decade of seva, that we can only say 8216;Jai Ma8217;.

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