Ramakrishna Meets Trailanga Swami: What Really Happened?

[00:00:01]When I read on Trailanga Swami, I was truly astonished. He's said to have lived for more than 250 years.

[00:00:09]He was known to do impossible miracles.

[00:00:12]Like he would just sit on the surface of Ganga for hours, sit on burning stone without any effect, drink poison like it was ordinary water.

[00:00:22]It is said that he had mastered all the Siddhis, so he could do things which any normal human being would find actually impossible.

[00:00:32]Whereas Ramakrishna was a mystic from Bengal.

[00:00:35]He was known to have seen Goddess Kali in real human form. He would talk to her. He could see her on a daily basis.

[00:00:45]Ramakrishna had practiced all the major religions such as Islam, Christianity, the deepest disciplines of Hinduism like Tantra, Vedanta, and Vaishnavism. And at the end of all this, he said that God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true.

[00:01:05]But this video is on the famous incident when Ramakrishna actually met the walking [music] Shiva of Varanasi, the great Trailanga Swami, and what transpired between them.

[00:01:18]I really found the manner of interaction between these two great saints very insightful. So, please watch on.

[00:01:30]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> This famous trip to Kashi happened somewhere around 1868 and it was organized by Mathur Babu who was Sri Ramakrishna's patron.

[00:02:17]There were almost 125 people who traveled together including Sri Ramakrishna's nephew Hriday who will become one of the most prime witnesses to everything that followed.

[00:02:30]In Kashi, Mathur Babu had rented two houses where this pilgrimage party lived. Every morning Sri Ramakrishna used to go to the Vishwanath Temple often going into ecstasy even before he got inside the door.

[00:02:46]But there was someone else also that Ramakrishna had come to find.

[00:02:55]Trailanga Swami in those times was staying mostly at the Manikarnika Ghat.

[00:03:01]Those who have been to Varanasi know that Manikarnika is the burning heart where cremations happen 24 hours. Smoke, fire, the smell of sandalwood and ash.

[00:03:15]The stones are really burning in that heat and Trailanga Swami would just sit on those burning stones the whole day without [music] any impact.

[00:03:27]One day Sri Ramakrishna and Hriday walked over to meet the saint.

[00:03:32]And when Trailanga Swami saw Ramakrishna approaching, something really interesting [music] happened. Something that not at all can be expected of Trailanga Swami.

[00:03:43]>> [music] >> Swamiji was known to shun any persons who tried to approach him. He was very private and would hardly talk or meet anyone.

[00:03:53]>> [music and snorts] >> But when he saw Sri Ramakrishna approaching, he gestured Ramakrishna to sit near him. And then he placed his personal snuff box in front of him.

[00:04:04]This I [music] felt was quite significant. When Trailanga Swami must have seen Ramakrishna, he would have probably instantly known about his divinity, about his purity, and hence welcomed him in his own style. Beckoning him affectionately to sit near him and even giving his own snuff box, something he had never done to anyone else. These were basically a gesture of regard for Sri Ramakrishna. [music] It has been written that since Trailanga Swami was under a vow of silence, these two great saints never spoke verbally, but through signs and gestures. [music] At some point Sri Ramakrishna asked him, "Is God one or many?" And Trailanga Swami replied through a gesture, "In samadhi, when you are in that deepest [music] state of absorption, God is one.

[00:05:02]But when you are conscious of this world, of me, of you, of names and forms, >> [music] >> he appears as many."

[00:05:11]When I read that, honestly, I've never heard a cleaner answer to that question.

[00:05:17]Because it doesn't take a side. It says both are true depending on where we are standing. The argument of one God versus many gods is a conversation happening entirely within our ordinary consciousness. Go deep enough and the argument really dissolves and becomes meaningless.

[00:05:40]Ramakrishna visited Trailanga Swami not just once, but several times. But I couldn't find the details of the conversations. Maybe those were not fully recorded well.

[00:05:53]Also, it has been documented that on [music] the invitation of Sri Ramakrishna, Trailanga Swami, who would otherwise never take any invitation, visited Mathur Babu's residence in Kashi.

[00:06:06]It is recorded that Sri Ramakrishna >> [music] >> fed him sweet rice pudding, what is called payesh in Bengali, with his own very hands. Just imagine, a Bengali mystic all the way from Calcutta [music] makes payesh and feeds the embodiment of Shiva himself the rice pudding by his own bare hands. This tells me [music] that Trailanga Swami held Ramakrishna in great regards.

[00:06:37]At this point, I'd like to narrate two very [music] vivid and interesting stories regarding this meeting, which I keep finding [music] on the net and in various websites, but I just could not locate either of them in the primary sources being the biographies [music] by Swami Saradananda or Mahendranath Gupta.

[00:06:59]The first story says [music] that during one of Ramakrishna's visits, Trailanga Swami urinated and then used that urine to sprinkle on a idol [music] of goddess Kali and then looked around and said, "What exactly is the difference between this and Ganga water?"

[00:07:20]The idea is that for someone who has truly gone beyond the idea of pure [music] and impure, for whom everything is equally the body of the divine, [music] there is genuinely no difference.

[00:07:33]That is the real teaching.

[00:07:37]But here is what I keep wondering.

[00:07:40]Ramakrishna's relationship [music] with the goddess Kali was the most tender thing in his life. She wasn't a symbol.

[00:07:48][music] She was his mother.

[00:07:51]Why would a saint of Trailanga Swami's realization [music] choose to do something that would hurt this man?

[00:07:58]>> [music] >> What was the point? Was he testing Sri Ramakrishna? Showing him something specific? I genuinely don't know and I can't find this in the documented account [music] of their meeting.

[00:08:11]Please do let me know in the comments what [music] you think must have been the reason. I'm actually very curious.

[00:08:19]The second [music] story which is very popular on the net is that during one of the visits Sri Ramakrishna [music] mentions to Trailanga Swami that he hasn't been able to [music] visit the Kashi Vishwanath Temple yet and time was running out. [music] He sighs and turns to leave and when he looks back, Trailanga Swami is [music] gone and standing there instead is Lord Vishwanath himself.

[00:08:48]Now, what I can really read and find [music] is that Ramakrishna did have a powerful vision of Shiva in Varanasi.

[00:08:57]Saradananda does record such an incident in his book Sri Ramakrishna the great master. [music] Ramakrishna saw a luminous figure with matted hair moving silently from funeral pyre to funeral pyre whispering the mantra of liberation [music] into the ears of the dying.

[00:09:20]That actually happened or rather Ramakrishna experienced [music] it and Hriday witnessed this state.

[00:09:28]And Ramakrishna absolutely did call Trailanga Swami the living image of Shiva, the vehicle [music] through which universal Lord was manifesting.

[00:09:40]So, the core of this story, [music] seeing the divine in Trailanga Swami, that is indeed documented. But, the specific scene where Trailanga Swami physically transforms [music] into Vishwanath the moment Ramakrishna turns around, that is not in the primary account.

[00:09:59]My feeling is that the tradition took something real >> [music] >> and shaped it into a more dramatic scene.

[00:10:07]So, the insight is real. Maybe the exact story is just a way of retelling.

[00:10:19]After he returned back to Calcutta, Sri [music] Ramakrishna talked about Trailanga Swami many a times. He said, "I saw the universal Lord himself [music] was using his body as a vehicle of manifestation.

[00:10:35]He was in an exalted state of knowledge.

[00:10:38]>> [music] >> There was no body consciousness in him."

[00:10:43]So, here is what I think [music] about these two great saints when I put all together.

[00:10:49]Trailanga Swami reached something vast, real, undeniable.

[00:10:55]The impossible powers of Trailanga Swami cannot [music] have been just a rumor.

[00:11:01]Too many independent people from completely [music] different backgrounds witnessed these powers. He had a small circle of disciples. His [music] teachings exist mainly through his biographer Uma Charan Mukhopadhyay.

[00:11:17]And I sometimes wonder, what if he had [music] spoken more?

[00:11:22]What if there was a Trailanga Swami mutt today, a proper institution, [music] his teachings studied the way Vedanta is studied?

[00:11:31]That [music] could have existed, but that wasn't what he chose or perhaps it wasn't what he was.

[00:11:39]He showed the world what complete [music] absorption looks like and then he stayed [music] absorbed.

[00:11:48]Ramakrishna was something else.

[00:11:51]Just [music] as real, just as extraordinary, but turned outward. He taught everyone who came [music] to him, householders, monks, intellectuals, the simple and the learned.

[00:12:06]He said the easiest path to God is [music] through love, the love a child has for its mother.

[00:12:14]Before he died, he passed on his powers [music] to Sri Vivekananda and Vivekananda, through this divine [music] energy, built the Ramakrishna Mission, which today runs hospitals, schools, disaster [music] relief across the world.

[00:12:31]I have deep respect for both these saints, genuine respect.

[00:12:37]But when I read that Sri Ramakrishna walked to Manikarnika Ghat, not once, but several [music] times, that he fed this great silent Avadhuta [music] rice pudding with his own hands, that he called him the illumination [music] of all Varanasi, I feel I understand something [music] about what he thought real greatness was.

[00:13:01]Greatness recognizes greatness, even when it looks completely different from itself.

[00:13:09]Thank you so much for being part of this journey. Please do subscribe and join us so that you never miss any of my [music] upcoming videos. There's so much more waiting for us to discover.