Fill Space With Your Lion's Roar

"The Great Swan, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, abides in a sacred garden dedicated to Goddess Kali, Great Mother of the Universe. Hidden within the perennially ancient realm of India, he lives peacefully, roaming and dancing through twenty acres of consecrated land along the Ganges River, just north of modern Calcutta. He converses for hours on end with his spiritual friends, who remain fascinated by the luminous flow of words and silences. Shall we visit these hallowed grounds to meet with the Great Swan? Ramakrishna teaches that the closer one comes to Mother Ganga, the river of transcendent peace, the more one experiences Her delicious tranquillity, Her subtle coolness that alleviates disease, suffering, and anxiety.

As we now approach Dakshineswar Garden, we begin to intone spontaneously SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI—peace, peace, peace. May the perfect peace of knowing the one Presence permeate us, through and through, pervading all space and illuminating conscious beings everywhere! Arriving at the impressive main gate of the Temple Garden along the dusty highway from the conventional world, the crowded city of Calcutta, we proceed directly to the chamber of Ramakrishna, moving through exalted architecture and beside abundantly flowering gardens—a natural offering of the earth to the sublime Wisdom Goddess enshrined here.

Even the nine domes of the Kali Temple seem to bloom from this rich, sacred soil. The Paramahamsa’s room is always open. He cherishes no sense of separate, private, personal space. We find him seated comfortably on a common wood-frame bed facing east, his wonderful eyes gazing into the perpetual dawn of Divine Wisdom. Smiling with delight, experiencing only the innate bliss of primordial awareness, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is conversing with his friends about Divine Reality—its play as the universe, its compassionate manifestation through various traditional religious forms, its nature as formless radiance that shines at the heart of every conscious being, and its essence that can never be touched by speech or mind. This is the sage’s only subject of conversation, yet his approach to it is constantly new and unpredictable.

Welcoming and treating all visitors as messengers from his Divine Beloved, or even as direct manifestations of the Beloved, Ramakrishna talks and laughs with them—communing as well in radiant silence—for more than twenty hours every day. He feasts with these forms of his Beloved, dances and sings with them, rests with them on white cloths spread over the cool stone floor during the heat of the afternoon, keeps vigil with them at the mystic midnight hour, worships with them in the Temple of the Universal Mother, withdrawing alone to the pine grove only to answer the call of nature. In the delicate early morning light and again at twilight, the Paramahamsa burns incense in his room, bowing humbly and devotedly before sacred images and symbols from the diverse religious traditions of humanity. After chanting various beautiful Divine Names in a melodious voice and dancing gracefully, he sits at ease in his natural state of total illumination, radiating a mother’s tender concern for all conscious beings, with whom he identifies his own being constantly and completely. His blessed wife,

Mother Sarada, who lives almost invisibly in the small music pavilion just north of the Master’s room, has experienced her husband’s blissful presence even in the ants that abound in the Temple Garden. She treats all sentient beings with loving respect, for to her they manifest the indivisible Consciousness that she and Ramakrishna simply call Ma, Mother. At this Temple Garden of the Great Goddess, a timeless festival is blossoming, night and day, around these enlightened twin souls, Ramakrishna and Sarada. Ramakrishna’s room is immediately familiar to us. Even our childhood homes seem strange and foreign by comparison. This mysterious chamber of the Great Swan, though physically small, appears vast to the eyes of the heart—a palace of the highest realization, a paradise of ecstasy where the Paramahamsa ceaselessly sings:

Become drunk, O mind, with the wine of bliss. Fall upon the sacred earth weeping and chanting the holy Name. Fill space with your lion’s roar, whirling round and round, both arms raised high, giving away the mahamantra to all conscious beings. Transform limited desire into the radiance of Krishna, and swim night and day in the wild sea of rapture. The universe is now submerged beneath waves of ecstatic love...

My dear friends, when you hear one of the glorious Divine Names—be it Allah, Tara, Krishna, or whichever revealed Name is closest to your heart—if tears of ecstasy come spontaneously to your eyes or if the sensation of weeping springs forth secretly in your heart, if your skin tingles and your breath catches, this is authentic confirmation that you are awakening. Then you no longer need to emphasize religious ceremonies or contemplative exercises, because what they exist to generate will remain constantly vibrant in the depth of your awareness. You will not have to renounce the formalities of religion. Formality of every kind will simply disappear from your being. The beautiful Divine Names will become your breath, heartbeat, sustenance, and joy—whether or not you are receiving sacraments or engaging in disciplines. Even the Divine Name most intimate to you will eventually disappear, and you will commune directly with the One Reality, which precedes and which emanates all names and forms. You will experience then only a subtle resonance or a delicate radiance. The world of conventional thought and perception will either disappear entirely or become transparent to Divine Light.

Beloved companions, consider how the process of awakening matures. During early phases, the practices one engages in are more elaborate, the passages one chants from the scriptures more extensive. Gradually yet inexorably, one is drawn into the living heart of worship. Simplification and intensification occur. Finally, the practice of religion merges into the source of religion. One abides blissfully in the supreme Source, even as this infinite fountain continues to flow with all the precious sacraments, all the powerful forms of worship and meditation ever revealed to humankind."

-- Lex Hixon, The Great Swan