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The child-wife
was also of intensely religious temperament. When she was 18 years old, for the first time
she entered Ramakrishna's room at Dakshineswar. 'The meeting of the husband and the wife
was an experience for the world. In the words of Swami Gambhirananda "With
trepidation she entered the Master’s room at Dakshineswar. But Shri Ramakrishna
received her with great love, and even allowed her to share his bed. For had not his
teacher Tota Puri told him that a man's
knowledge of Brahman could bast is tested in the presence of his wife? But he had to be
sure about his wife's attitude. So he asked her, "well, my dear, have you come to
drag me down to the worldly level?" Her prompt reply was "Oh, No have come to
help you in your chosen path."
On another day,
while stroking his feet, she asked him, "How do you regard me?" And he replied,
"The same Mother that is in the (Kali) temple, gave birth to this body and now lives
at the music tower, and she, again. is stroking my feet." Thus the two souls lived in
holy companionship for some time, till on the new-moon night of June 5, 1872, he
worshipped her formally as the Mother of the universe, and at the end of it offered the
fruits of all his spiritual endeavors, as also his rosary, at her feet. Shri Sarada Devi,
whom we shall now refer to as the Holy Mother or Sri Ma as she came afterwards to be
called, accepted all this adoration in a mood of divine absorption, and the Master too had
entered deep Samadhi. The two souls now discovered a new meaning of their wedlock in
a perpetual union on the spiritual plane, from which they never descended to the level of
the flesh."5
Today Saradamoni is commonly known as Sri Ma and has been
an inspiration and ideal to Indian womanhood.
5 History of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission by
Swami Gambhirananda, Advaita Ashrama, Calcutta, Pp. 18-19.
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