Sri Ramakrishna meeting with Bhairavi Brahmani
One morning in 1861 Sri Ramakrishna was plucking flowers in the garden of Dakshineswar when he saw a country- boat coming towards the smaller bathing ghat of the temple. A middle-aged, beautiful Bhairavi Sannyasini with long disheveled hair stepped out of the boat. Though nearly forty years of age, she looked much younger. Sri Ramakrishna calling Hriday asked him to bring her from the Chandni (the roofed court which is the main entrance to the temple compound) to his presence.
As soon as the Bhairavi met Sri Ramakrishna, she burst into tears of joy and surprise and said in a tender voice, ‘My son, you are here! I have been searching for you so long, and now I have found you’.
‘How could you know about me, mother?’ asked Sri Ramakrishna. 
She replied, ‘Through the grace of the Divine Mother I had come to know that I was to meet three of you. Two (Chandra and Girija) I have already met in East Bengal, and today I have found you’. She spoke with emotion, as though she had found her long-lost treasure at last.
Sri Ramakrishna too was visibly moved. After a while she told all about herself. She was born in a Brahmin family in the District of Jessore (Bengal), and was well versed in Vaishnava and Tantrika literature. She was a Vaishnava devotee of a high order. Her intense spiritual practices had bestowed on her wonderful realizations, which prompted her to find out a suitable aspirant to whom she could deliver all her attainments for his spiritual illumination.
Sri Ramakrishna, like a boy, sat close by her and opened his heart to this Bhairavi, Yogeshwari by name, and related to her every incident of his Sadhana. He further said that people looked upon him as insane, because his actions differed so widely from those of the common run of men. Full of motherly tenderness, she consoled him again and again: ‘Who calls you mad, my son? This is not insanity. Your state is what is called Mahabhava (extraordinary state of religious ecstasy) in the Shastras. Sri Radha experienced this state and so did Sri Gauranga. All these are recorded in the texts of the Bhakti (devotion) schools. I shall show you from books that whoever has sincerely yearned for God has experienced this state, and every one doing so must pass through it’.
These words reassured Sri Ramakrishna. The relation of mother and son which sprang up between them from their very first meeting deepened as they became better acquainted.
After some time the Bhairavi Brahmani fixed her abode at Ariadaha, a couple of miles north of the Dakshineswar temple. From there she used to come almost daily and instruct her God-intoxicated spiritual child. Every day she saw him go into a trance as they talked on spiritual matters, and she observed a strange similarity between the life of Sri Chaitanya and that of Sri Ramakrishna. Another incident happening at this time confirmed her belief that the Lord was incarnated again in the person of Sri Ramakrishna.
Sri Ramakrishna had been suffering for a long time from a burning sensation all over his body. Though experts and laymen all ascribed this malady to some internal disorder, the Brahmani found quite a different cause for it. She diagnosed it as the effect of his strong yearning for God. On scriptural authority, she prescribed a curious remedy. The patient had only to wear a garland of fragrant flowers and paint his body with sandal paste. Great was the astonishment when under this treatment Sri Ramakrishna completely recovered in three days.
from Swami Tejasanandaji’s life of Sri Ramakrishna
The life and teaching of an avatara are non-different. Every single, simple incident in the lives of the incarnations are messages for the world–they are the standards which humanity shall follow. Incidents in the lives of great masters have deep meaning and significance. Even after thousands of years, every Hindu home respectfully studies the lives of Sri Rama and Mother Sita, the life of Sri Krishna, and so on.
The Holy Trio, Sri Ramakrishna, Mother and Swamiji, have come for the good of the whole world for all time. Simple incidents from their lives are pathfinders.
Mrs Devika Sharma shall bring us an incident to enrich our lives every month.
Mrs Devika Sharma
is the Contributing Editor of this Page