A God-intoxicated man: Nag Mahashay

Part I

Tributes to Nag Mahashay

> He is verily a blazing fire!

> — Swami Vivekananda

> Only by seeing Nag Mahashay can one understand to what spiritual height a man can attain through the Grace of our Lord. In self-control and renunciation he is by far our superior.

> — Swami Brahmananda

> By constant beating, Nag Mahashay had the head of his ego completely broken. It was unable to raise its hood any more.

> — Girish Chandra Ghosh

> Mahamaya fell into a great difficulty in trying to ensnare two persons: Naren and Nag Mahashay. As She tried to capture Naren, he became bigger and bigger and at last so big that all Her fetters fell short and She had to give up Her task as hopeless. And when She attempted Her trick on Nag Mahashay, he began to make himself smaller and smaller and at last reduced himself to such a degree of smallness that he easily escaped through the meshes of Her snares.

Introduction

The first meeting with Sri Ramakrishna

One day Suresh said to Nag Mahashay, "I believe in the impersonal aspect of God and you believe in the personal aspect of God. Since you are so deeply interested in the personal God, I would like to bring you to see someone who has either realised God or who has attained to a very, very lofty state of consciousness. He is living just near Calcutta, at Dakshineshwar."

So Suresh and Nag Mahashay went to see Sri Ramakrishna for the first time. When they entered Sri Ramakrishna's room, Suresh just folded his hands and greeted the Master. Unfortunately, humility was sadly lacking. Nag Mahashay behaved in an altogether different way. At the very sight of Sri Ramakrishna, he fell prostrate before the Master and wanted to take the dust of his feet. But Sri Ramakrishna withdrew his legs and did not allow Nag Mahashay to touch his feet.

The poor fellow was cut to the quick. He said to himself, "I am not worthy of touching his feet. He knows how impure I am. He has realised God; he is a man of infinite compassion. For him not to allow me to touch his feet means that my entire being is all impurity. Now I have to make myself pure in my thought, in my speech and in each action. In everything that I undertake, I have to be pure, pure, pure. Then I am sure one day he will allow me to touch his feet."

Although Nag Mahashay was extremely sad that he was not allowed to touch Sri Ramakrishna's feet, in a matter of a few minutes he found that his sadness was replaced by a feeling of tremendous love and admiration for Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna asked the two friends a few questions and then asked them to go and meditate in the Panchavati, where he had attained his own spiritual perfection. They meditated there for half an hour and returned to Sri Ramakrishna, who then showed them all the temples at Dakshineshwar. They saw the twelve temples dedicated to Lord Shiva, and the temple to Lord Vishnu. Finally, they came to Mother Kali's temple.

Sri Ramakrishna fell down at the Feet of Mother Kali's statue and with utmost devotion he started worshipping the Mother. Nag Mahashay saw that the Master had entered into a state of divine ecstasy. Nag Mahashay also showed tremendous devotion to the Mother, but his friend only observed everything in silence.

Performing service for the Master

Married not once, but twice

Sri Ramakrishna asked, "Why? Why?"

The disciple explained, "The first time, it was to a young girl of eleven, and then she died in a year or two. I was so happy and relieved. It was all against my will to be married. To please my father I did it. Then I was so happy that God took her. My father wanted me to marry a second time. Again, it was dead against my will. I fought and fought to be allowed to remain free from worldly bondage. Day and night we argued. I pleaded with my father. I said, 'I want to be spiritual. I want to give my life to God. Already you brought bondage into my life once. Now God, out of His boundless Compassion, has removed this bondage. Why must I suffer again?'

"But my father would not listen. He wanted grandchildren. He felt that if I did not continue his lineage, then Heaven's door would be closed to him; God would not be pleased with him. He said to me, 'Do you want to prove that I am a liar? I have already selected a bride for you and I have given her family my word that you will marry her. I have promised them.'

"When I did not respond, my father became very angry. He said, 'I am cursing you. You will never be successful in any sphere of life.' But I would not give in. I said to him, 'No harm, I am ready. I accept your curse. I am not going to get married again.'

"Then one day it happened that I came home from work and I found my father in his room weeping bitterly. I asked him the reason for his sorrow. He only said, 'You have to know why I am crying.'

"I knew that I could not prolong my father's misery any longer. I said to him, 'I do know why you are crying. I wish to tell you that I am giving up my religion; I am giving up my spirituality; I am giving up God to please you, since that is what will make you happy. It is up to God whether He forgives me or not. I cannot bear to see you weeping. You have shown me infinite affection since my very birth. How can I displease you? I will get married.'

Sri Ramakrishna's compassionate reply

"How can it be possible?" asked the disciple. "How can a householder's life and God go together?"

The Master said, "It is quite possible. In your case, I can clearly see that you will be able to do it."

"Please tell me how!" begged the disciple.

Sri Ramakrishna then told him, "Kindly try to be in the company of sadhus, religious people, as often as possible."

"How can I find them? Where will I find them?" asked Nag Mahashay.

Sri Ramakrishna replied, "You do not have to go and find them. They will come to you. I am sure that wherever you are, they are bound to come to you. Religious people, sadhus and mendicants, will all flock to you."

Maintaining the loftiest height

Sri Ramakrishna told him, "No, you have pleased him enough. You do not have to have children."

The disciple said, "Then I shall practise celibacy."

So Nag Mahashay would not go near his wife. He used to feel shy and he would avoid her. Many, many nights he used to climb up a tree and spend the whole night there because he was afraid of temptation. He said, "This is the only way I can conquer temptation."

The kind-hearted homeopath

Once it happened that a very poor man developed a high fever and all kinds of ailments. Nag Mahashay went to his house to help him. He found the man shivering violently and so he took off his own shawl and wrapped it around the man. Then he gave the man some homeopathic medicine and massaged him with utmost love and concern. He spent two or three hours in this poor man's home. His fee for house calls was only three rupees, but in this case, as in many others, he did not even ask the man to pay him.

When Nag Mahashay returned home, he was shivering because he no longer had his shawl. His father insulted him mercilessly because of his impractical attitude. His father said, "What are you doing? You give free food; you give free medicine. Now you are giving your own clothes! You do not keep enough money to support yourself or your wife."

His father used to buy new shawls for Nag Mahashay — only to have them given away by his son. The father finally said, "It is a hopeless case! Only God can take care of you. My earthly reason is of no avail."

The foolish, quack homeopath

So he sent for Nag Mahashay, who came and gave him a remedy. In two or three days, it became obvious that the patient was improving, and in a month's time he was completely cured. The rich man wanted to give Nag Mahashay 300 rupees, but Nag Mahashay said, "You have already paid my fee of 20 rupees. Why should I take this?"

The rich man insisted, "But 300 rupees is nothing for me. You have saved my life and I want to show you my gratitude."

Then Nag Mahashay's father began insulting him, as usual, and tried to force him to take the money.

Finally, in front of everyone, Nag Mahashay started shedding tears. Looking up with folded hands, he prayed aloud, "O God, You have really forsaken me. If I become rich, then I will not think of You. This is just a tricky plan to test me. If I take the money, I will no longer think of You. Only by remaining poor will I be able to think of You at every moment. No, I will not accept this money under any circumstances."

The Master's suffering

One day Sri Ramakrishna said to Nag Mahashay's friend Suresh, "Ask your doctor-friend to come and see me. He has not been here for a long time."

So Nag Mahashay went to Cossipore. Sri Ramakrishna said to him, "Now, Doctor, cure me!"

Nag Mahashay immediately wanted to use medicine and so forth. He even thought of trying to draw the disease from Sri Ramakrishna's body into his own.

The Master's impossible request

Only five or six days before Sri Ramakrishna left the body, he wanted to eat a particular fruit called 'amalaki'. Indian doctors give utmost importance to that fruit. It is almost like a cure-all. It is quite small in size. I used to like it so much; it quenches your thirst.

When Sri Ramakrishna expressed his desire to eat amalaki, the fruit was out of season. The disciples who were present told Sri Ramakrishna that it was useless to even look for it because it was out of season. But Nag Mahashay said, "Since Master has said it, definitely somewhere it will be available. Whatever he says cannot be false."

Fanatical devotion or true devotion?

Nag Mahashay listened to his Master and went downstairs. Then he realised that it was Ekadasi — the eleventh day of the new moon, which is a day of fasting. So Nag Mahashay would not touch any food.

Shashi went and reported to Sri Ramakrishna, "He is not going to eat today."

Sri Ramakrishna said, "Go and ask him the reason why he does not want to eat."

After a few moments, Shashi came back and said to Sri Ramakrishna, "He is telling me that today is Ekadasi. He will eat only if the food is blessed by you."

"Then bring it, bring it," said Sri Ramakrishna. "I will bless it."

So Shashi held the banana leaf plate with the food before Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramakrishna took a little from each dish and touched it with his tongue to sanctify it. Nag Mahashay was so happy that his Master had blessed the food. He took it as prasad and ate voraciously. When he had finished the meal, he also ate the banana leaf on which it had been served. His spiritual brothers said to him, "What are you doing? How can you eat a banana leaf?"

Nag Mahashay replied, "Why not? It has the same taste. The Master touched it. To me, it is as delicious as the food itself."

After that time, whenever the disciples served Nag Mahashay prasad on leaves, they used to watch him very carefully. As soon as he had finished eating, they used to snatch away the banana leaf before he could eat it. Or they used to give him his food deliberately on a proper plate so that he could not devour the plate. And whenever they offered him any fruit, they used to take out the seeds and pits so that he would not eat them also. For, if anything was given to him as prasad, he would not leave any portion of it because he felt it was a blessingful gift from his Master.

The Hunger strike

Mahatma Gandhi did this kind of thing from time to time for political reasons. He would say to Nehru or other leaders, "If you do not listen to me, I will die. I will refuse to eat."

Nag Mahashay's action was in a different mode. It was purely on a spiritual level, so it was something infinitely higher and deeper, although it borders on craziness. Sri Ramakrishna would not have asked him to do this. Sri Ramakrishna would have definitely told Nag Mahashay that after his passing he must eat. But Nag Mahashay's sincere, genuine devotion was always mixed with so-called outer craziness.

For about four days, Nag Mahashay took neither food nor drink. News reached Naren and he went with Gangadhar and Hari, two of Sri Ramakrishna's other disciples, to see Nag Mahashay. They found him living in utter poverty. His room was untidy; his hair was dishevelled and his clothes were not washed. He was lying down on a cot which was half broken.

Naren said to him, "Today we have come here to eat. You must feed us."

Then Nag Mahashay got up and went to the market. He bought food and prepared a meal for his fellow brothers. Naren said, "Now here we are three, so we will need four plates altogether."

"Oh no," said Nag Mahashay, "I am not going to eat."

"All right," said Naren, "then we shall eat. We are hungry. You give us three plates."

The three guests ate and then Naren again pleaded with Nag Mahashay, "Now you eat, you eat."

Again the disciple said, "I am not going to eat. I have not realised God, so why should I feed this body? I cannot bear the loss of the Master."

Then Naren announced, "If you do not take your food, I am not going to leave your house. Here I will stay permanently."

Do not criticise the Master

Nag Mahashay could not restrain himself. He said to this gentleman, "If you utter one more word, I shall throw you out of this place!"

The man was quite tall and stout. Physically he was much stronger than Nag Mahashay. Once more he began criticising Sri Ramakrishna mercilessly. Nag Mahashay grabbed a pair of sandals and started thrashing the guest. He said, "I begged you to leave this place, but you would not go. You dared to speak ill of my Master. This is what you deserve!"

Needless to say, the gentleman beat a hasty retreat.

When Girish Chandra Ghosh came to hear of this incident, he said to Nag Mahashay, "You never wear sandals. Where then did you get a pair of sandals to beat this poor fellow?"

"I simply removed them from his own feet," replied Nag Mahashay.

"Nag Mahashay is verily a hooded Naga!" was Girish's comment.

There were two ways Sri Ramakrishna used to advise his disciples to deal with somebody who was criticising their Master. If that person was physically, vitally and mentally stronger than the disciple, he used to tell the disciple to think of the person as an insect, not as a human being. In Bengali, lok means human being and pok means insect, so you can easily substitute pok for lok. Sri Ramakrishna would say, "Just think of them as pok. Then you will not have to take them seriously." ¹

But if somebody who was physically, vitally and mentally weak began criticising the Master, Sri Ramakrishna would say to his disciples, "How do you allow yourselves to keep quiet at that time? If somebody speaks ill of your Master, it is the greatest sin for you to hear it. Do you not read the shastras?"

In our Indian scriptures, it is written that if you hear somebody speaking ill of your Master and you do not rise to his defence, then you are committing the greatest sin.

God alone knows which one is the right attitude. In my own case, I have told my disciples that if somebody speaks ill of me, they must never take the side of physical violence-never, never! Of all the Himalayan blunders you can make, physical violence is absolutely the worst. Only pray to the Supreme to illumine that person. Let each human being take his own time to realise the Truth.

The Devotion-magnet

The examination

The Master said to him, "Why do you not have any proper clothes? Why do you not bathe? Why are you so untidy? Can you not see yourself? Is this the sign of a spiritual man — living in poverty and remaining dirty and filthy?"

Poor Nag Mahashay could not say anything because this was such a great spiritual Master. He knew that Naren and others did not behave the way he himself behaved. They were properly dressed and so forth. He hung his head low.

Then the Master said to him, "I know whose disciple you are. You are Sri Ramakrishna's disciple. So what can you expect! He was insane and you are also behaving like him. Like Master, like disciple. It is easy to see that you are Ramakrishna's disciple."

There were many devotees of this Master present, but they all knew that he was teasing. Nag Mahashay was so sad and upset. He did not dare to say or do anything outwardly, but he took an oath that he would never visit that Master again.

Thakur is calling

In a flash, the disciple realised that Nag Mahashay was talking about his passing and the disciple began crying and crying. He said, "How can you leave us? We will be motherless and fatherless." All the disciples joined in. They were completely heartbroken.

Part II — Questions and answers

Question: If Nag Mahashay was so devoted, why did he not realise God?

Again, Nag Mahashay will reach the goal long before others because of his speed. When Bill Rodgers is finishing a marathon, I am only at the halfway mark. Similarly, Nag Mahashay will arrive at the goal with his lightning speed.

Question: Does Mother Earth become proud when someone realises God?

Question: Is it possible to have inner devotion without being outwardly crazy, or do the two always have to go together?

Question: Can you speak about the ego in connection with Nag Mahashay and Swami Vivekananda?

Similarly, there are different types of vital. Look at Swami Vivekananda's vital! How much dynamic power he had! Did he use it for destruction? Never, never. Again, the vital of Julius Caesar and Napoleon was of a different type. Their vital had more of the destructive quality.

When Vivekananda came to Chicago, his dynamic vital embraced the whole world. In his very first speech, he began, "Sisters and Brothers of America." After those words, he was unable to continue for two full minutes because of the enthusiastic cheering and clapping of the audience. Immediately, Vivekananda had spread the feeling that we are all sisters and brothers. He showed the seekers of the West that he came to embrace them, not to conquer them. And, as a result, he conquered their hearts, because his words came from the very depths of his soul.

True, we use the terms 'sister' and 'brother' at every moment, but do we have the same genuine feeling as Vivekananda? In comparison to him, we are all frauds. We do not have the same genuine feeling as Vivekananda had when we use those terms. For us, it is like saying, "Ladies and gentlemen." It is simply a form of address. When Vivekananda said, "Sisters and Brothers of America," it was based on his dynamic, all-embracing vital.

Girish Ghose said something most significant about Swami Vivekananda and Nag Mahashay. He said that on the strength of humility, one person can become smaller than the smallest. Again, another person, on the strength of his oneness with the Highest, can become larger than the largest. In the case of Nag Mahashay, Girish Ghose said that he made his ego small, smaller, smallest — so that there was no ego left. Then he was able to blend with everybody.

In the case of Vivekananda, he opened his ego and made it large, larger, largest. He said, "I am one with God the Absolute, with Lord Shiva. I am Brahman." If an ordinary person dares to make such a statement, people will throw bricks at him. But when someone of Vivekananda's spiritual height says it, it is absolutely true. Vivekananda's ego was so vast. He expanded his ego and then he went beyond it. That is why there was no ego there. Vivekananda sang the song of the Beyond, and he himself went beyond and beyond and beyond. Nothing could bind him.

Nag Mahashay became so small, like a tiny molecule, and that is why nobody could bind him. Nobody can even see a molecule. And in Swami Vivekananda's case, nobody could bind him because he was so vast. He broke the net of maya, of illusion, and then he escaped. Nag Mahashay became so small that the net could no longer hold him. He was able to slip through the gaps between the knots of the net.

Notes

Sri Ramakrishna's disciples: Naren, Swami Vivekananda; Shashi, Swami Ramakrishnananda ; Hari (nath), Swami Turiyananda;

Thakur (Lord): Another name for Sri Ramakrishna.

Panchavati: A sacred grove of five trees (banyan, pipal, ashoka, amalaki and bel) which was planted by Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineshwar (panch = five). Sri Ramakrishna used to go there to meditate, especially at night.

Prasad: Food that has been sanctified by offering it to the Divine.