A compilation original and authentic of the photographs of the 17 direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna along with the Master and Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi with Swami Nirmalananda right-hand most in the lowest row beside Swami Vijnanananda is now no more in vogue. This compilation, it is learnt from reliable sources, was organized by Jnan Maharaj of hallowed memory and was advertised in the Prabuddha Bharata. A sidelight here of some moment, Jnan Maharaj was Swami Vivekananda's disciple and remained a Brahmachari lifelong somewhat akin to Sister Nivedita, another disciple of Swamiji, who remained a Brahmacharini throughout her tumultuous life. And, whether it is the truth or a travesty of it, Swami Nirmalananda has also been claimed by some sections as being a disciple of Swamiji and not of Thakur. To add fuel to the feud of Nirmalanandaji's discipleship, it has been posited that Nirmalanandaji had himself claimed to have been Swamiji's first disciple. Be it as it may, for truth concealed will ever self-reveal in the fullness of time, it is significant though that nowadays one does not see Nirmalanandji's photograph along with the photographs of Thakur's other monastic direct disciples as in the early days of the Movement, an omission which is so glaring only after one has learnt the truth of the matter that he was indeed the Master's 17th venerable monastic disciple as is evident from the compilation of photographs under consideration here as also from an overwhelming amount of documented evidence.
In the late 1920s and mid 1930s trouble shot within the ranks of the Mission over administrative issues of certain centres leading to lengthy legal wranglings which resulted in a splinter-group led by Swami Nirmalananda seceding from the Math and Mission. It was a dark day for the Mission of the Prophet of Harmony who had striven lifelong to bring about the harmony of disparate sectarian forces through his supernal love and sublime spirituality. His apostle extraordinaire Swami Vivekananda had laid down his life in his bid to establish spiritual fraternity among the peoples of the world and had knit up his brethren at Baranagar, Alambazar and Belur into a cohesive unit bonded in fraternal love.
But the Master used to say that the Divine Play is never fulfilled without the interplay of opposing forces, Jatila and Kutila. He used to quite savour situations that smacked of such opposition in innocence as in the case of Hazra who played the devil right under his nose. But when things turned sinister as in the late 20s and mid 30s of the last century with the Mission of the Master threatening to split into two, what was his response? He sat impassive witnessing the drama of his phenomenal play even as his children, armed in truth as they understood, battled it out in law-courts to settle the dispute of disrepute. It was a sad, sad day for the youngest of the spiritual Orders of the world which was destined to bring about a golden age of harmony and truth in this much-molested world. Each side had its argument as is always the case in a dispute and battled tooth and nail to set justice right, and when the dust had settled, brothers had separated. Ah, what a horrendous blow to the hearts of Shivananda, Akhandananda, Vijnanananda, Abhedananda and Nirmalananda as they witnessed the foul play of Maya undoing their lives' attainments of brotherly love and unity of purpose. Aged as they all were, one wonders how great must have been the pain and sense of devastation in their mother-hearts and the feeling of utter desolation of Nirmalanandaji as he stood alone among the ruins of a lifelong of sterling attainments that had galvanized the Movement of the Master south of the Vindhyas. It was a case of material malajdustment of souls supernally pure, spirits free and buoyant, dedicated to the Cause of the Master whose fractions they all were. How such things come to pass among Brahmajnanis is beyond the comprehension of ordinary souls like us who hasten to judge in folly even Apostles of God! That Prarabdha Karma is the explanation is also hard to digest as the eternal companions of the Master are perhaps free souls who are beyond karmic bonds, or, is it that some of the direct disciples were in their last terrestrial life who had been attracted by the Master towards himself to enact his divine play and who were in fact carrying the baggage of past karma? A like statement one comes across in Swami Abhedananda's autobiographical study 'Amar Jeebon Katha' where he says that Thakur had told him that he was in his last terrestrial life. Which then boils down to the fact that some of the Master's direct disciples were his eternal playmates and were ever-free souls (Nityasiddhas / Ishwarkotis) without any karmic baggage whatsoever, some others were perfected seers of the past who had been attracted by the Master to help enact his divine play who also were free of earthly contamination and immune from the snares of Maya while a third and last set of direct disciples were those that were in their last terrestrial life and had by good karma attained to proximity with him but who by the very same laws were carrying their prarabdha karma with them whose malefic influence they were not wholly immune from. These are but surmises that are facile and hold not much ground in explaining the anomaly of the case under consideration and are being posited merely out of a sense of bewilderment at the sequence of events from the late 20s to this day. Why was there a legal battle between illumined sages over such a trifling thing as executive control of a few monasteries? Could not an amicable solution be arrived at? Would such a thing come to pass if the great Swami Vivekananda or Swami Brahmananda had been alive? Did not Swamiji himself show his displeasure at the breakaway tendency of a brother disciple from the early days of the Movement? Did he not always exhort his brother disciples to stay together bonded in fraternal love and in their supreme love for the Master? Did he not give them so much love that they rediscovered the Master as incarnate in their beloved leader? Was Swamiji ever culpable of neglecting his spiritual brothers out of the renunciate's supreme aspiration for spiritual freedom? Did he not ever remember his Master's exhortation,"I leave these boys, Naren, in your care. See to it that they stay together and devote their lives to God."? And did not the young Narendranath act as foster father to these lads who had none but him to look up to and the memory of their departed Master to hold on to for even the Holy Mother was then recovering from her great bereavement? When one reflects on this supreme bond of love that held the Apostles of the Master together in the early days at Baranagar, Alambazar and Belur one wonders how such a fratricidal battle over earthly property or even ideals could ever break out between them. It is baffling, disconcerting, devastating to behold a Spiritual Order idolized by one entering into legal wranglings over matters material. But then everything has its flip side and a spiritual organization also has its material element for it functions within the parametric bounds of the material world in so far as its welfare activities are concerned and allied institutions necessarily involve transactions which are fraught with material contamination in the slightest degree which in troubled times can assume gigantic proportions and derail even the most secure of spiritual movements. Such has been the experience of history from Buddhistic times and seems to be the lot of all spiritual movements as if in fulfilment of a natural scheme of things. This unholy wedlock of the spiritual and the material is the progenitor of all worldly good and is the root cause of the associated evil as well. Yet, this is the only way the world may function, itself being a curious admixture of truth and untruth.
From the standpoint of the interest of the Order though and with it the supposed well-being of the Movement, the cohesion of the Mother Church is paramount and necessitates scalpel-precision surgical operations eliminating nefarious elements to preserve the sanctity and wholesomeness of the Order. The great Swami Vivekananda had deliberated on the relative merits of organizing his Master's Movement with his famous pronouncement:,"To organize or not to organize? If I organize, the spirit will diminish. If I do not organize, the message will not spread." On another occasion he had written,"Organization breeds new evils." And yet, the Swami had gone ahead with the mandate of his divine Master as he understood it, that is to keep his brother disciples together as a spiritual fraternity, by founding the Divine Sangha which he pronounced to be the vast visible form of Sri Ramakrishna. A Rishi's apprehensions are always founded in the envisioning of the future course of events and cannot falsify. Sarat Chandra Chakrabarty, a lay disciple of Swamiji, in conversation with him had once asked him if in the future succeeding generations of disciples of the Master might part ways on account of their many differences of opinion, perspective and interpretation of ideals. Here, I may add a sidelight that after the Mahasamadhi of the Master, there was a dispute over the possession of his earthly relics between the lay disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and his monastic disciples and much unpleasantness thereof so much so that the bereaved widow of the departed sage, Sri Sarada Devi, bemoaned to her associate and confidant Golap Ma,"Look at them Golap. The man of gold has gone away and they are bickering over his ashes." It was Narendranath then who had drawn the attention of the young eagles of Ramakrishna to his catholic principles of life and living and had urged them to attend to following in the Master's footsteps and to live the 'life'. Now, in response to Sarat Chandra Chakrabarty's query, the great Vivekananda had said that Sri Ramakrishna was the mighty sun of spirituality and each of his devotees was viewing him through his particular coloured filter which, though in the lifetime of the direct disciples and associates of Thakur was unlikely to cause a rift in the Order, would nonetheless in the tide of times result in the formation of sects.
Well, there it was. Vivekananda, Sarada Devi and Brahmananda had held the Order together by their supernal love and spiritual altitude but once they were gone the scenario began to change. Swami Abhedananda, on his return to India after propagating the Vedanta for 25 years in the West, founded the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math which later became a separate legal entity. But there was no love lost between brothers. It seemed expedient at the time that Abhedananda should move from Belur Math to his own establishment at Calcutta. He continued in his capacity as Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission lifelong, but understandably, on account of his being President of his own Order, the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, he was passed over for the post of President of the parent body, the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, even when all but he of the monastic disciples of the Master had passed away and the mantle of Presidency passed into the hands of Swamis Suddhananda and Virajananda successively who were not direct disciples of the Master.
And then, as mentioned earlier, in the late 1920s and mid 1930s the ugly episodes of claims and counter-claims to property and executive control of branch centres surfaced in Calcutta and Bangalore which threatened to split the Mission. Ramakrishna watched as the mute witness as his children fought it out in his name in law-courts when an amicable solution could not be reached through dialogue and deliberation. Eventually, the dispute was settled by the Mission's solicitors in the Calcutta case and by the law-court in the Bangalore case. Consequently, Brahmachari Ganendranath of the Udbodhan Office in Calcutta withdrew from the Order and Swami Nirmalananda did likewise in Bangalore. A whole host of devotees and quite a large number of monks also quit the Order in response. Some of them continued their loyal association with Swami Nirmalananda, some others established their own Maths while the rest returned to the Mother Order. Thus, a saga ended ironically on the eve of the Centenary of Ramakrishna when the world converged on to Belur and Calcutta for celebration of the advent of the Prophet of Harmony. Ramakrishna's Mission had tided over the crisis and was still whole although the Mission of Ramakrishna had now expanded its base amid trials and tribulations leading to the founding of new Orders, or shall we philosophically say, distributaries of the eternal Mother Order founded anew in this Age by Ramakrishna-Vivekananda?
Jai Ramakrishna! Jai Ma! Jai Swamiji! Jai Maharaj!
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