Bhairavi Brahmani, whose story this is, was one of Sri Ramakrishna’s teachers. She initiated him into the Tantric disciplines, and was the first to recognize him as an incarnation of God.
Humility is the ability to do whatever the Universe asks—no matter how small, or perhaps more importantly, how big—perfectly, and without ownership.
When you teach, a tidal wave of light and knowledge flows through your form. It is the most obvious thing that it is not you/your personal form. Like Rama said about teaching us, “It’s not even me.”
“All troubles cease when the ‘I’ dies.”—Sri Ramakrishna
That moment, I’ll never forget it. I was stepping out of the boat, onto the temple ghat, trying not to get my feet wet, when I felt you directly in my heart. Suddenly, I knew you were there—the one I’d been searching for. I’d seen that I’d teach you and two others. I’d found them, but you, I’d been searching for you for so long.
You felt it too. Seeing me step out of the boat, our hearts touched and sang. You sent for me, and thus we began. You shared your spiritual experiences and concerns, the moments when you’d lose consciousness and act in ways others considered madness. I assured you that you weren’t crazy. I knew the only “madness” you had was love of God. Indeed, I recognized your condition to be the same as that of Holy Radha and Sri Chaitanya.
I guided you through the Tantras, and never has a student moved so fast. You mastered each one in days instead of years, indeed lifetimes. I began to understand that you were no mere mortal, but an incarnation of God! I arranged the greatest pandits of our time to come debate you, to confirm you were an avatar. Those inclined to think you were crazy welcomed this idea. They thought the denial would curb your irresponsible behavior, but instead they were shocked when the pandits wouldn’t even debate you, so obvious was your divinity.
In your company, and in this role, I was in bliss. I never thought it would end. But then came another. Another teacher to take you where you needed to go. Tota Puri initiated you into Vedanta, and demanded you go into nirvikalpa samadhi. He pushed you past your protestation—that you couldn’t go beyond the Divine Mother—and into nirvikalpa samadhi you went, for three days straight, then for months on end.
Instead of being happy for you, I was jealous—jealous to no longer be the one guiding you. When Tota Puri arrived, I warned you that his path was dry and austere, and discouraged you from spending time with him. I couldn’t see that you needed the sadhana of nirvikalpa samadhi because I myself hadn’t traveled there yet. And in my jealousy, all that had been bright devolved into something small and hard. I told others seeking your guidance, “What could he tell you—it was I who opened his eyes!” And that summed up my entire problem—I thought I was the one teaching you, when all along it was always the Lineage of Enlightenment.
Later, when I tried to understand where I went astray, I saw my blindspot was around ego—I didn’t think I had one! Because I didn’t have the normal human ego—the desires for money, sex, and relationship or the aversion to pain and suffering—I wasn’t wary of my ego. All I was interested in was God. But the truth is, I had some ego around my spirituality. From a young age, I knew I was extraordinary. I was more spiritual than others and I had deep meditations and seeings that most people couldn’t even imagine. I knew too that my teaching was significant—the Divine Mother herself had shown me I would teach you and the two others—and that made me feel special. Then when I became your guru, and the tremendous light and power of the Lineage flowed through my form, that little bit of ego blossomed as I took credit for it all. I didn’t understand I was just the vessel the Divine was using. I thought it was me. I had done so much sadhana, why wouldn’t it be me? I thought all that light was just what happens as you get more and more advanced. Only later did I understand that when you’re truly advanced, there is no ownership of the light, because there is no you to own it.
You never had to learn this lesson, telling us again and again that it wasn’t you who was teaching or indeed doing anything, saying, “I am the machine and God is the Operator. I act as He makes me act. I speak as He makes me speak.”
Finally, my jealousy and self-righteousness got too out of hand. The final straw was a petty argument with your attendant where I doubled down on the correctness of my spiritual view, and everyone wanted me out and away. Through your grace, I saw the error of my ways and that I needed to leave your empowered environment where I was harming myself and others. I came to you and begged your forgiveness— and in that dissolution of pride, some space opened to receive the teaching I needed most. You showed me that I’m not my advanced spiritual knowledge, not my spiritual teachings, not my mind at all. Neither am I my pride, nor am I any of my mistakes. You showed me I am no thing at all. I am enlightenment itself.
In my last days, we met again. You visited me while on pilgrimage and we traveled together to Vrindaban. How sweet that was, how kind of you. The last threads of identification as a “spiritual teacher,” nay as anyone in particular, finally dissolved in your presence. What grace. My last words, just a few days later, as I left the form, “Guru Sri Ramakrishna, Guru Sri Ramakrishna, Guru Sri Ramakrishna.”
Enlightenment Fan Fiction 