Divine Mother Sree Rama Devi (A Life Sketch)

 

Among the nations of the world, Bharat has always been acclaimed as the land of spirituality. The backbone of Indian culture and social life is religion. Our genius has received nourishment from mystic experience. The search for God has been the dominant passion. In the patterns of family life, in religious observances, in the venerated traditions and even in arts and literature that have flourished in this land, one can see the pervading influence of spirituality.

God-men are the embodiments of religion. They affirm truth by their very existence. They personify divine qualities. They are the living scriptures and the moving temples of divinity. They have stamped their personality on the life and culture of the ages. Their names ring down the corridor of history. They are the beacon lights to humanity.

Sree Rama Devi, Divine Mother as She is widely known, had Her birth in a devout family of Gowda Saraswat Brahmins in Mangalore, South Kanara district of Karnataka State on 4th March 1911. Her parents were Sri Gopalakrishna Shenoy and Sree Sreedevi. The Kudpi family had earned a reputation for consistent devotion to Goddess Durga for more than three generations. Deeply religious by nature, Sri Gopalakrishna Shenoy's devotion to his chosen deity was in the form of an ardent seeking of the direct vision of Goddess Durga. For him, Goddess Durga was a living reality to whom he turned for guidance and protection in life's trying situations. A man of truth and righteousness, he, in his unwavering adherence to truth, had to bear heavy monetary losses but he earned the esteem of his fellowmen and the peace of a mind at ease.

Worship and meditation in the early hours of the day formed part of his religious devotion. When his quest became intense and absorbing, his mind naturally became averse to mundane things and secular duties. This sign of dispassion struck a note of fear in the simple mind of Sreedevi. She took recourse to prayer, the only weapon in the armoury of the devout, to ward off the alarming trend in her husband's disposition.

Rapt in meditation, in that higher discipline of yogic sadhana, Gopalakrishna Shenoy had one day a wonderful experience. He beheld a supernatural light descending from above, the splendour of which absorbed his medi-tating mind. He fell into a state of self-oblivion. On waking up, the young aspirant experienced an inward transformation. A new vision dawned on him. He became conscious of his spiritual strength. Along with it came his old zeal and ardour for performance of his several obligations and duties of home-life.

Soon afterwards Sreedevi conceived. The period of pregnancy was attended with strange experiences for Sreedevi. She lived in unbroken remembrance of God. Various divine visions came to her in sleep. Her soul longed for holy communion. Prayer and listening to the glories of God became her sole interest. Her face be-came effulgent, reflecting the state of inner purification. When the husband and wife thus attained the serenity of pure minds, the former through aspiration and medita-tion, and the latter through resignation and prayer, they became vehicles for divine dispensation.

Child Prodigy

Thus in the set up of pious domesticity was born. Sree Rama Devi as the fifth child of Her parents. One uncommon trait that was noticed in the child was that the baby never cried after the birth. A beatific smile played on the tiny lips. Right from infancy, She revealed her spiritual nature. A famous astrologer who cast the horoscope of the child, predicted that she would become, in the fullness of time, an object of universal adoration. The child grew as the darling of the entire family, delight-ing everybody with gestures and prattlings. Women in the neighbourhood who took the child in their arms, experienced a rare joy and a sense of divine fulfilment. The child became a beloved darling of many.

Even from childhood, Sree Rama Devi revealed Her divine nature. She could understand the mystic import of the vedic manthras recited in Her presence. When an event of death plunged everybody in the household into the depth of grief and frustration, She consoled her grief-stricken mother by explaining to her the immortal nature of the Atman, the evanescence of life and the futility of grief over the inevitable event. This short sermon of wisdom, containing the summarised message of the Bhagavad Gita, surprised the father and opened up before his vision a facet of the child's divinity.
Moods of self-absorption came to Her now and then even though She was buoyant and playful in nature. She heard supraphysical sounds and often fell into mystic raptures. Holy scenes of saints and celestial sages in meditation being blessed by Her tiny hands thrilled and astonished the child. In visions She would see Herself riding a lion and engaging in fight with demons. The significance of these strange visions dawned on Her only later in life.

The father noticed the uncommon traits in the child with wonder. Gazing upon Her was a sort of meditation for him. Whenever he lost temper a mere glance of the child's loving eyes was sufficient to calm his mind. The child had a great fascination for Her father's shrine. She would move about freely in the shrine with a joyous expression on Her face as if She was familiar with the living presence there. She would rejoice in collecting flowers from the garden and in assisting Her father in his worship.

Throughout the worship which used to last for more than two hours daily, She would sit by Her father with eyes closed. On a particular day, Gopalakrishna Shenoy finished his pooja when an amazing sight greeted his eyes. He saw the child seated in the imposing posture of a Yogini in samadhi, with a halo round Her face. He tried to wake Her up, but could not. After several hours the child opened Her eyes. The glow of those innocent eyes bespoke of an other-worldly experience. When asked by the father, the child narrated Her experience as follows: "Papa, as usual, when I closed my eyes at the time of your worship, a powerful light engulfed me today.
I saw my body assuming the form of a Goddess. The flowers which you were offering at your puja to the feet of the Goddess were actually falling at my feet."

Dazed and overpowered by emotion, the devout father, perceiving the divinity of the child, prostrated before the child. Thus, Mother Rama Devi, in Her fourth year, received the homage of worship from Her beloved father himself, an event hard to be found recorded in recent times.

Mysticism was inborn in the child. Her mind, steeped in divine love, had access to the raptures of God's saguna form. Father used to take the little girl into the various temples in the locality. Everywhere She used to experience divine ecstasy. Temple precincts exercised a profound influence on Her contemplative nature. The lovely idols in the shrines would transform themselves before Her eyes into living images of smiling divinities. Thus She saw with open eyes the deities of Hindu pantheon Rama, Krishna, Siva and Ganapathy, even in Her childhood. In Her innocence She was taking it for granted that all would be witnessing such visions. These visions came to Her of their own accord, without any effort, on Her part. Her mind, always in meditative mood, drank deep the nectar of God-love at the approach of a temple or a shrine and often plunged into ecstasies.

As She grew up in that atmosphere of love and regard by all, Her heart expanded into immeasurable dimensions. The very sight of man's misery moved Her to tears. Heart-rending scenes of poverty and sickness made Her weep bitterly in silence. Prayers arose from that guileless heart ceaselessly for the well-being of the sufferers. She would enter into sympathetic communion with the lowly and the lost who often visited Her home. She would talk to them and listen to their tales of grief and of misery. Her silent mind was incessantly engaged in seeking a remedy of life's ills. She had the conscious-ness of a higher mission in life, for which She prepared Herself in a way unknown to others.

A dual personality as it were, abided in Her. She was the personified ideal of dharma, obedient, humble to Her the core, and silently dedicated to the Divine. reverence and love to Her parents and teachers almost bordered on worship. But at the same time, the World Teacher manifested in Her at times. To the brothers. elder and younger, and to the classmates in the school where She received education and at times even to Her mother, She spoke words expressing the dormant wisdom of the World Teacher. Though soft and love-soaked, Her words carried a tone of spiritual authority. She appeared to be the apostle of divine harmony. She was the mediator between opposing camps among Her playmates. To the quarrelsome boys and girls, She would give the sweet name of Rama, God of Her heart, and make them engage themselves in congregational chant. She was the beloved of Her teachers whom She looked upon as embodiments of the Divine.

Her educational career ended with a pass in the fifth standard in a primary school. As in the case of Sri Rama-krishna Paramahansa, She was perhaps destined to reveal
the supremacy of spiritual enlightenment over man's scholastic attainments and intellectual powers. But though She came out of the school, She was yet in a larger school of Nature. Her enquiring mind learned truths from every thing in nature. Sun symbolised the divine knowledge: the sky, the infinitude of the Atman; the mountains, the majesty of self-abidance; the ocean, the tranquil heart of universal love; the earth, the model of endurance. For long hours, with vacant and unwinking gaze, She would remain immersed in the contemplation of the infinite.

Marital Life and Sadhana

At the age of 14, She entered marital life. The wedding was decided upon in accordance with the divine guidance which Her father received in a dream. It was revealed to him through the agency of a saintly personage in dream that his daughter was the Divine Mother Herself in disguise, that She had made Her advent as the Jagat Guru, that She had chosen Her husband and accepted the order of wedded life in order to reveal the glory of garhasthya and to reinstate the tenets of Sanatana Dharma. Accordingly. Sri Krishna Bhagat, a landlord of Tellicherry in the North Malabar, Kerala, who later came to be called by thousands of devotees as Shri Bhagawan, became Her husband. The occasion of wedding itself was attended with a series of exalted mystic experiences for Mother. She beheld in a state of higher consciousness, Her own divine form and also the divine realm. The spiritual significance of Garhasthya was clearly revealed to Her.
For Mother Rama Devi, the wedding ceremony and marital relationship were verily an initiation into the deeper life of intense God-quest. Driven by yearning and dispassion, Mother blended in Herself two worlds: a world of wifely devotion, domestic duties and social responsibilities, and the other, a world of intimate communion with Gad. In the community of seers and sagely personages, Mother Rama Devi shines as a unique figure, who could combine the intimacy of home with the intensity of God-love with a rare charm hitherto not re-corded in the history of spiritual seeking. Her husband, whom She used to address as 'Deva' and who is no more with us in embodiment, has testified that never even once during Her God-intoxicated states and divine bhavas had She failed in the performance of Her domestic duties. This ecstatic abandon to svadharma even in the midst of yogic pursuit, is a revealing aspect of Her superhuman personality. Her marital life was a total dedication at the altar of pathibhakti. From the day of Her wedding, Sree Ramachandra, Her chosen deity, became identified with Her husband. Husband's word was law for Her. His service was propitiation. Her life of austere simpli-city, purity, life-long brahmacharia, pathivrathya and pathibhakti, was a saga of self-sacrifice. In this modern age, when an alien civilization of rank materialistic outlook and sense-enjoyment has almost come to prevail, Divine Mother Rama Devi rose before the society as an archangel of purity revealing the glory of India's venerat-ed womanhood. Her presence reminds us that the culture of Sita and Savitri, Arundhati and Anasuya, Gargi and Maitreyi, is not extinct in this land.

Contact with Mother in course of time brought about a marvellous transformation in Shri Bhagawan. The divinity of Mother was fully revealed to him. His attitude became one of total surrender. The wife emerged atlast as the Mother and adorable deity: the husband accepted the position of a devotee and a child. That was the glorious consummation of that unique marital life. Shri Bhagawan lived, till his samadhi at a ripe age, in uninterrupted peace, with his illumined mind resting in contemplation on Mother, thus illustrating the miracle of Mother's divine power and evidencing his own wonderful devotion.

Mystic Experiences

Mother practised several yogas under the unerring guidance of Her own intuition and reached the highest peak of realization. Her mind reached the heart of reality in nirvikalpa samadhi. A few days before this great self-conquest, She was blessed with numerous supramental visions of the past Avatars of God, the great founder leaders of various religions. She saw Jesus Christ, Bhagawan Buddha, Sri Chaitanyadeva, Sri Rama-krishna Paramahansa, the Trinity of Hindu Gods, Bhoomi Devi, the celestial sages, Swami Vivekananda and also various divine abodes. Emerging from Nirvi-kalpa Samadhi, She had the face-to-face vision of Sree Ramachandra.

The crowning glory of spiritual experience was Her experience of the Motherhood of God. In a state of super-conscious identity, Mother had the mystic experience that She was Divine Mother Lalitambika. This experience lifted a veil which She had put on for the sake of divine play. She now became established in the constant consciousness of universal Motherhood. The whole universe was found bathed in the glory of love. The human race, the celestial beings, the divinities, all became Her children. She became the mother of all. Thus, rooted in the wisdom of Brahman and possessed of the attributes of universal motherhood, Mother Rama Devi, from the privacy of home, emerged into the position of World Teacher, with a new message and showing a new path for the suffering humanity.

Even after the highest spiritual experience, Mother Rama Devi was reluctant to let others know of Her attainments and divine nature. But none can hide a lighted lamp under a bushel. None can prevent the distant bees from swarming round the full-bloomed lotus. So it was that about 30 years ago, Her holy ministry of compassion started for the regeneration of humanity and for reinstatement of religion. Since then She has been shedding a lustre the enchantment of which has been steadily growing. Countless are the people whose entire lives have been changed by coming into contact with Her loving personality.

Teaching

Mother's teaching is based on purest intuition and direct experience of the absolute. Her own life illustrates Her teaching. Because of such intimate God-experience and exemplary life, Her teaching has both freshness and force and it goes deep into the hearts of Her devotees. The teaching has timeless validity and universality of application. The flow and power of Her soul-stirring discourses and inspiring writings reveal to us the profundity of Her wisdom.

According to Mother, God-realization is possible of attainment in any order of life, provided the seeker has an appropriate mental equipment and a Sadguru to guide him. All through Her teaching one finds a special message to the householders, and the busy men of the world. Negative isolations and life-fleeing seclusions are not necessarily to be resorted to for the vision of God. The purity of heart alone begets the vision of the supreme.

In Mother's teaching the central theme is home as the abode of quest and the ashram of peace. Quite naturally, the householders, the spouses united in pursuit of dharma, receive Her primary attention. Mother up-holds the sanctity of marital relationship and Garhasthya dharma and exhorts the spouses to unitedly strive for God-vision with intense yearning and inward detachment. With Her grace, according to Her gospel, the Grihasthas have the singular privilege of attaining enlightenment and to shine as custodians of spiritual power.

Adherence to Truth and reverence for virtue and strict observance of dharma constitute features of a true life committed to spirituality. By habitual contemplation, detachment should be achieved in the midst of worldly affinities. Duties should be attended to with conscious-ness of the Atman or remembrance of God. Faith in God and devotion to Him, alone will give one the courage, strength and spiritual insight with which to solve the problems of life and to advance in the path of sadhana. Devotional link with God is all-important.
Mother's spiritual initiation, teaching and grace enable Her devotees to live in the world unattach-ed. Attachment, not association, is to be discarded.

What is required is not change in the social order, but a change in the individual perspective. The note under-lying the teaching is not illusionism, but ecstatic participation in life with integral consciousness of the divine. Her advent has thrown open the gates of divine mercy for all to enter the realm of freedom. In Her exhortations, the path of dharma is clearly defined. Her message inspires righteous living. To the resigned ones who look up to Her for guidance and grace, She is ever the inspiring presence and the saviour.

Silence and samadhi alike, are modes of Her teach-ing. When She opens Her eyes there will always be a loving smile. Dignity of presence distinguishes Her from the rest. In Her, divinity and humanity both shine as two facets of perfection glowing with love. Hers is a reign of love, the love which is shared by God and man alike, which is the bridge whereby mankind and the deity reach each other.

Though Mother Rama Devi does not give any im-portance to the possession of occult powers, miracles do happen around Her solely by the spontaneity of Her divine compassion. Experiences of numerous sadhakas testify to the fact that Mother has the power to intervene in their lives and save them from crisis and calamity. Faith has been a boon from Her bounty to Her devotees. Several temples and shrines have been dedicated to Her, where Mother's own sacred vigrahas are being worshipped. All these proclaim the honoured status accorded to Her in the hearts of thousands.
Mother's disciples form a line as it were of pilgrims on their way to a sacred shrine, panting for Her darshan and yearning for the vision of higher life. Their lives are being shaped by Her mysterious force, mystic ministry and magnificent personality. Being Mother, there is in Her a rare appreciation of the problems of women and a special sympathy for them. The hope of the nation is in the rising generation of women. Woman is the queen of home. Through observance of dharma and adhyatmic sadhana, she can ascend the peak of yoga and attain to her glory that is her birthright. She can exert a profound influence in shaping the destiny of human society Spiritualized homes are the real ashrams which can bring in an era of peace and prosperity to the nation. Inspiring is Mother's prophecy of the world to come when dharma will glow in womanhood, making life richer and fuller in the mastery over self and in the supremacy of the spirit.