THERE IS NO DEATH

THERE IS NO DEATH

 

"Was Baba living because he had the body, and was He dead because He left it? No, Baba is ever alive, for He transcends both life and death. He who loved Him once whole-heartedly gets response from Him at any time and at any place. He is always by our side and will take any form and appear before the devout Bhakta and satisfy him" – Sri Sai Satcharita, Ch. XXXIII.

 

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa passed away on the night of 15^th August, 1883. His many devotees and the thousands of people who revered him, felt bereft, inconsolable.

 

His wife, Sharadamani, who was regarded as 'Ma', the holy mother, felt that she had become a widow. According to prevailing customs and conventions, she could not continue to wear bangles on her arms. So she decided to remove them immediately.

 

Sharadamani had first put on the ivory bangles when she was married to Ramakrishna as a child bride. The bangles had remained on her wrists all these years. Now she found that they would not come off, no matter how hard she tried.

 

Finally in her grief, she decided that she would have to break them. She took a heavy hammer and was about to strike at her stubborn bangles when she heard a voice, "Sharada, Sharadha, what are you doing?"

 

It was the voice of Sri Ramakrishna, the voice she knew and loved so well!!

 

"I have not died, Sharada," the voice continued. "I have but moved from one room to another!"

 

One of humanity's greatest illusions is that death is the end of life, when actually it is only a movement from one room to another