The industry of Swami Ramakrishnananda (Shashi Maharaj) and Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj) galvanized South India and paved the way for the resurrection of spirituality in this ancient seat of the Acharyas. Swami Ramakrishnananda was sent by Swami Vivekananda to take charge of propagation of the message of Ramakrishna in Southern India and he became a seminal force there in re-establishing the flagging spirit of the Vedanta Dharma. Orthodox as he was in the conducting of spiritual observances with meticulousness in the performance of rituals his hallmark, Swamiji thought that he would be the minister best suited to deal with the orthodoxy of the brahmanical South as he attempted to open up their minds to the catholicity of the message of the Arya rishis (Aryan seers). Swami Nirmalananda succeeded Shashi Maharaj as the minister who sent a current of dynamism throbbing through South India, setting up a number of Ramakrishna Ashramas and so, spreading the sublime message of the Master.
Shashi Maharaj was in the early days of Baranagar Math the cornerstone of the fledgling spiritual fraternity comprising Ramakrishna's children. He was the pivot about which revolved the monastery's activities. Ever vigilant about offering worshipful service to the Master, Shashi Maharaj in effect initiated the tradition of ceremonial worship in the Order.
Once the Bengali novelist, the great Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay asked Shashi Maharaj why he engaged himself so much in the ritualistic worship of God. Maharaj said that he derived much pleasure from his ceremonial service to Thakur which was why he engaged in such activity. On being further queried if such external worship was then the highest form of spiritual adoration, the Swami replied that envisioning God everywhere was verily the highest form of spiritual adoration. The stage lower to it was meditation which stood just above the level of prayer and repetition of the Divine Name of the Lord. Lowest stood external ritualistic worship. The intrigued novelist pressed on with the query then as to why Shashi Maharaj performed external worship of the Lord with such elaborate modes and means. The sage then indirectly replied that external worship it seemed to be to the casual observer but in so doing the sincere devotee was so absorbed in it that it was but an outflow of his heart's spiritual ardour for his beloved divine, every breath pulsating with the Divine Name, tears of love trickling down the edges of the eyes, and flowers, leaves and water being offered out of a profusion of devotion cascading the banks of the soul without any contamination of material motivation. The above interaction between the sage and the savant took place in Rangoon in the month of March,1905 in the year of the Partition of Bengal when Sarat Babu was stationed in Rangoon and Shashi Maharaj had gone to the Burmese city on a five-day visit.
Another incident, a rather sad one, was an interaction of Shashi Maharaj with a being from the other side of the curtain, one for whom the terrestrial drama had just drawn to a close. It was 10 minutes past 9 in the evening and Shashi Maharaj was seated in meditation in Madras (Chennai) when he saw a radiant being appear before his meditative consciousness and say," Shashi, Shashi, I have spat out the body." The apparition disappeared soon after. Who was he that Shashi Maharaj envisioned? It was Swamiji, moments after giving up his body at Belur Math near Calcutta (Kolkata). Such was the bond between brothers of the spirit, the apostles of Ramakrishna, that in life and in death they were inseparable, bonded as they were in their divine Master. Shashi Maharaj lived on for another 9 years to fulfil the mission Swamiji had entrusted him with, that of quickening the spiritual current of the southern mass of India.
Nirmalananda Swami was no less a carrier of Swamiji's charge. He succeeded Ramakrishnanandaji after the latter's demise in 1911 in bringing spiritual succour to the people of the southern peninsula. He established a number of monasteries in Kerala and did yeoman's service in bringing neo-Vedanta to the doorstep of all and sundry. His dynamic personality and inexhaustible energy furthered the cause of the spread of the Master's message and the Vedanta as suited to the times throughout South India and even beyond the borders of India in Brooklyn (USA) and Burma (now Myanmar). He also preached in erstwhile East Bengal (now Bangladesh). Swami Nirmalananda was veritably a man possessed with divine fervour, his inspiration being incessantly fuelled by his intense love for his Guru Sri Ramakrishna and for his beloved brother disciple Swami Vivekananda who, incidentally, held out Nirmalananda as a model of a monk for the other disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Swamiji was effusive in his praise of Tulsi's (Nirmalananda's) enterprise and his untiring efforts to live the life and carry the message of the Master to the masses.
When the earthquake in 1892 shook the very foundations of Kolkata, and the Alambazar Math where the disciples of Ramakrishna were housed was tottering, all ran downstairs to the ground floor save one who rushed to the shrine to take the image (photograph) of Ramakrishna in his arms, enfolding it to save it from harm’s way. This valorous soul was Nirmalananda who loved Thakur dearer than life itself.
Such then were Shashi and Tulsi of Thakur, souls sublime, lives consecrated to the cause of the Master, whose ethereal devotion laid the foundation of the Ramakrishna Mission south of the Vindhyas and kindled the fire of Advaita Vedanta once more in the very land of its birth. Ramakrishnananda and Nirmalananda remain vibrant in the very breath of devotees in the Deccan, in the pulse of the people of the southern peninsula where their work is slowly spreading wings to engulf the whole landmass in the inspirational waves emanating from Ramakrishna, their divine Guru, God-incarnate, who has not forsaken us. Jai Ramakrishna!
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