After the death of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the disciples of the great sage had to face severe hardship. There was no money and no roof over their heads. Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna’s foremost disciple, struggled even to afford a place where he could consecrate the sacred ashes and relics of his guru.
It was only after many years had passed, when Swami Vivekananda had returned from a successful trip to America, and had become world-famous, it was only then that Swami Vivekananda was able to gather the financial help to establish the Belur Math and enshrine the holy relics of Sri Ramakrishna there.
Prior to this Indians did not take the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna seriously and thus offered them very little financial or other help. In those initial days of penury and hardship, Holy Mother Sarada Ma’s heart would break seeing the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna endure such extreme difficulties. But she was soon blessed with the following 2 visions, assuring her that the work of Sri Ramakrishna would not stop, and that resources would come, so that his dear disciples could flood the world with his teachings. And today we can see how prophetic these visions of hers have been.
First Vision Assuring the Spread of Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings
Once the Holy Mother Sarada Ma was at Kamarpukur. This was after the passing of Sri Ramakrishna. One day she saw Sri Ramakrishna coming from the direction of Bhuti’s canal followed by Naren (Swami Vivekananda), Baburam, Rakhal and other devotees.
All of a sudden there sprang from the Master’s feet a stream of water which flowed in front of him in waves. She immediately plucked flowers and offered handfuls of them in the stream.
This symbolic vision of Holy Mother Sarada Ma has already come true as the Ramakrishna Mission, established by Swami Vivekananda has poured forth into the world, the immense stream of spiritual truths that were taught by Sri Ramakrishna.
Second Vision Assuring Wide-Spread Dissemination
Once, on a full moon night, as Sarada Ma was sitting above the steps leading to the Ganga river in Nilambar Mukherjee’s garden house, she saw all of a sudden, Sri Ramakrishna climbing down the stairs and getting down into the Ganga when his whole body dissolved into its waters.
There then appeared Narendra (Swami Vivekananda) who took that water in his hands and started sprinkling it on innumerable people with the cry ‘Glory unto Ramakrishna’, and they became at once liberated. To her mind, this was symbolic of the wide dissemination in future of the spiritual power ushered in by the Master.
The vision indicated to Sarada Ma the great redemptive role the Ramakrishna Mission had to play, in the future. Swami Vivekananda too corroborated this vision when he made a prophetic declaration on the occasion of the consecration of Belur Math: ‘The power that will have its rise from here will flood the whole world…’ This prophecy of both Sarada Ma and Swami Vivekananda is today in the process of being fulfilled.
The above 2 excerpts have been taken from an article titled:”Early History of the Ramakrishna Sangha”, which appeared in the Prabuddha Bharata Magazine in December 1986. While this particular issue of the Prabuddha Bharata Magazine is not available online, other issues are. To read these more recent issues click here.
“He who has really prayed to the Master (Sri Ramakrishna), even once, has nothing to fear. There is great complexity in this creation. The Master does one thing through one man and another thing through another person. Oh, it is so inscrutable!”
– Holy Mother Sarada Ma
