Swami Brahmananda

One day Swami Brahmanandaji Maharaj asked me to look  at the almanac and find an auspicious date for his  departure from Madras. As I did so, I could not  help smiling. Maharaj noticed this and asked me  why l was amused. I replied “Well, Maharaj, you  always go through this routine whenever you plan to go anywhere, but then you suddenly make up your  mind to lcave on some other day.”   At this Maharaj said ‘Do you think I do anything  according to my own will? The devotees insist upon  fixing some date for my going, so to avoid constant  pestering, I fix a tentative date. But I do not move or do anything until I know the will of the Lord.”  “Do you mean to say,” I asked, “that you are always guided by the will of God? ‘   Maharaj said: “Yes.”

Myself: “Well, Maharaj, I too may think or feel  that I am doing the will of God, when actually I  am only following my own inclinations, and attributing them to God’s will. Isn’t that what you do?”  Maharaj: “No, my child, it is not the same.”  Myself:  “Then do you mean to say that you actually see God and talk to him directly and know his  will?”   Maharaj, “Yes, I wait until I know his will directly  and he tells me what I should do.”   Myself, “For everything you do?”  Maharaj: “Yes, for everything I do I have the  direct guidance of God.”   Myself:  “And do you accept only those disciples he wants you to accept?”   Maharaj: “Yes.”

After this talk with him I began to find some meaning in his peculiar way of behaviour. For example, whenever any of us would ask his advice, he would say “Wait My brain is not working today,” or  “My stomach is upset. I’ll answer tomorrow.” Sometimes many tomorrows would pass before the disciple got any definite answer. But when Maharaj did  finally speak, there was always a special power behind  his words: “How does he know the will of God? Does he go into samadhi every time before he knows it ?” This  was the thought that continually crossed my mind.  But, not daring to ask him, I waited, hoping somehow to get an answer. Then, one day, I was discussing with another disciple the spiritual visions of  “Gopal’s Mother,” a woman disciple of Sn Ramakrishna. She had been given this name because she  used to see Gopal, the boy Krishna, playing with  her, walking beside her, and calling her mother.   Many of her visions arc recorded by Swamt  Saradinanda in his life of Sri Ramahrishna I expressed my opinion that these visions of ‘Gopal’s  Motlicr’ belonged to the transcendental plane, and  that I did not believe she had actually seen Sri Krishna with her bodily eyes. Maharaj, who was sitting in his room, overheard me. He came out and  said rather sarcastically, “Ah! So you are omniscient!”   “But Maharaj,” I asked him, “how can one see God in  the external world, with bodily eyes?”   Maharaj then explained that a man who has attained samadhi and reached the transcendental  plane receives divine sight. He can then see God  with closed eyes in the superconsciousness of samadhi, and also with open eyes while fully conscious of the external world. Maharaj added that, to an enlightened man, there is no longer any line of division bctween matter and Spirit. “What you see as  matter is really Brahman.”   In the Upanishads we read that “a knower of/  Brahman becomes Brahman.” What is it that attracts people to a man of God? Young and old, boys  and girls, men, women and children, saints and  sinners— all felt an indefinable attraction to Maharaj even if they did not in the least understand what was meant by “a knower of Brahman”.