The enclosed teaching has been taken from the book: How to Live With God: In the Company of Ramakrishna, by Swami Chetanananda (Ch 7: “Dakshineswar: An Object of Meditation”, “Two Sweet Memories”, p. 225).
Ramlal, the nephew of Sri Ramakrishna, recalled:
I was young at the time, and it was winter. The Master used to go for a walk in the morning, covering himself with a shawl and wearing a cap on his head. I used to cut a twig for the Master, that he used as a toothbrush. We would go to the main road through the northeast gate of the temple garden and then walk up to Barrackpore Trunk Road, which was broad and straight.
Standing on the road one day, the Master said: “Look, this broad and straight road is like the mind of a sadhu. It is not crooked”.
One could see the pinnacle of the temple from that road. As he looked at the curved structure of the temple’s pinnacle one day, the Master said: “The temple is overflowing with joy, because the Divine Mother is in its inner sanctuary. The temple is having goose bumps out of joy”.
The Master said so many wonderful things. On our way back, he would stop in our [Ramlal’s] house near the temple garden to inquire about the family members and their welfare.
Sometimes he would say: “Give me some puffed rice. Let me have my breakfast here”. Afterwards, he would slowly return to the temple.
MORAL: Through this incident of Sri Ramkrishna we can draw a wonderful conclusion – which is that the real temple for God has to be built within, in our heart. It is there that the Divine Mother truly resides. The outside temple of brick and mortar, is only to inspire us to build this real and everlasting inner temple. Such an inner temple can be built only when we cleanse our inner nature and make it pure, and free from all crookedness and cunningness. Such a pure inner temple had been built by Sri Ramakrishna for the Divine Mother Kali. His entire life was a testimony to that.
~ Pulkit Mathur
