Embracing Transcendence

This experience transported Ramakrishna into one of the highest meditative states a human being can achieve. He experienced the living reality of Brahman, the all-pervading essence of awareness that exists beyond thought. Ramakrishna became so firmly grounded in this transcendent state when Naren challenged him to show him God, the master was able to transmit the actual experience of divine being to the unsuspecting young man.

Let me hasten to make a point here, so you don't get the wrong impression. Unlike Naren, precious few of us go to meet a guru and find ourselves thrown into the highest mystical states. Most of us spend quite a few years performing spiritual practices before we get to a point where we can receive the guru's transmission.

Ramakrishna later explained that Naren was in fact a very highly evolved soul who had selflessly entered the physical plane to serve humanity. His European training temporarily led him away from his innate spirituality. All Ramakrishna had to do to put him back on track was "reawaken" a cosmic state of awareness Naren had already achieved in previous existences!

You will understand Hinduism if you can grasp this concept: There is only Supreme Reality, called Brahman- But Brahman has two modes, nirguna and saguna. Nirguna means without qualities. Saguna means with qualities. Nirguna Brahman is the transcendent Supreme Being contacted only in the highest states of meditation. Saguna Brahman is God or Goddess as we know and love 

Him or Her. This is the deity we can picture in our minds. The one who helps our problems and saves us in emergencies. The one whose loving embrace we feel in prayer.

Try understanding it this way. If  Physicist was called in to describe you, she would list the fields of matter and energy that constitute your body. It would be a very impersonal description . But if a psychologist was given the same job, he would list your many personality characteristics. Some yogis in very deep meditation experience God as an impersonal absolute. Others, whose awareness is focused at another plane, experience God as a loving, caring personality.

It's that elephant again. One blind man has it by the tail. The other is running his fingers over its flapping ear !