Dear devotee,
This is not a piece of information that I have unearthed but has rather been brought to my notice by consistent posts by devotees and followers of Swami Nirmalananda over facebook. They have provided documentary evidence in their pages on Swami Niramalananda. Kindly peruse through these pages and draw your own conclusions. However, my standpoint is clear. I am but a recorder of facts brought to my notice and cannot judge their veracity as such. I am an ardent devotee of Sri Ramakrishna and his Divine Sangha and I feel happy to be given proof of Nirmalanandaji being the 17th direct disciple of Thakur. This does not in any way make me less devoted to Thakur's Mission, rather I feel a fuller sense of joy to behold a 17th disciple. You are like anyone else at liberty to study facts for yourself and accept or reject them as your faculties direct you to. You may also read biographical studies of Swami Nirmalananda and there you may find all the facts as the devotees of Nirmalanandaji have presented. Then you may compare notes with the Belur Math versions of the aforesaid matter and everything ought to be crystal-clear if you read with a discerning eye. However, do not be hasty in judgement as you will then miss the mark and do a grave injustice to the Cause either way. As for myself, I am in no way claiming infallibility in judging the case and I will happily stand rectified either way for I am a devotee of both the Belur Math and Swami Nirmalanandaji who I personally, having perused evidence in books and over facebook, hold as being the 17th venerable disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and as such, despite his expulsion from the Mother Order, an integral part of Sri Ramakrishna's Mission whose principal but not sole custodian, in my opinion, is the Belur Math. To me Thakur is self-fulfilled and these aberrations do not affect him or his Belur Math or his Tulsi(Swami Nirmalananda). I here lay down my pen in reverential prostrations to all the monks and devotees on either side of the fence who may have had or may be having major differences of opinion, nay, even evidence if it so be, regarding the facts of the case as to the identity of Swami Nirmalananda as being or as not being Sri Ramakrishna's direct disciple. Myself am inclined and happy to believe in his discipleship though, for it gives me greater fullness of feeling for Thakur's spiritual greatness in the light of Nirmalanandaji's sterling achievements for the Mission in South India as also because I find it hard to believe that a person who had seen Thakur at Dakshineswar and been an ascetic at Baranagar Math was not a direct disciple of Thakur. It has been posited by detractors that he was Swamiji's first monastic disciple and therefore not Thakur's disciple. Now, consider these cases: Swami Yogananda, Swami Trigunatitananda and Master Mahashay Mahendranath Gupta (M) were all initiated disciples of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi but are regarded, nonetheless, as Sri Ramakrishna's direct disciples although as it is plainly evident that technically they were not so unless, of course, the canvas of discipleship is extended to include proximity with the spiritual preceptor and receiving his grace by not solely verbal initiation but by touch, glance and wish or will of the spiritual master as well, especially, one as powerful as an Avatar who can liberate any soul in a trice by a mere wish. So, there you see, there are very obvious anomalies that have existed right from the beginning of the Ramakrishna Movement which are hard to fathom but delicious for a historian to delve in and make a study of and, perchance, arrive at a startling discovery of a spiritual principle that lies in wait in the womb of posterity. There is obviously the imperative of the immediate, the call of the microcosm, but there is also the higher call of the progressive evolution of the human spirit that beckons us on to the golden harvest of the harmony of forces, the integration of all divergences and the realization of the oneness of all the verities and all the anomalies of life. Jai Ramakrishna!
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