Behaviour of the ‘knower’ of Brahman

In the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita there are a series of slokas which describe the nature of a Sthitaprajna or a man of steady wisdom. Actually here Sri Krishna in answer to Arjuna’s question, ‘how a man of true realization behaves’, describes elaborately the qualities of the knower of Brahman. The words of wisdom found in the scriptures derive their authority from the lives of the men of realization. Sri Ramakrishna was a true knower of Brahman. Several incidents of his life testify to this fact. At one point of time in his life he could not walk over grass because he literally saw them throbbing with consciousness. On another occasion he was standing on the bank of river Ganges. In the middle of the river two boatmen were fighting with each other. One landed a heavy blow on the back of the other. Instantaneously, Sri Ramakrishna, who was standing perhaps more than 100 yards away, shrieked in pain. Hearing his cry of agony his nephew and attendant Shri Hriday ran to the site and was shocked to see that someone had landed a heavy blow on his uncle’s back. There was a deep scar on Sri Ramakrishna’s back. Hriday became very angry and repeatedly asked Sri Ramakrishna as to who landed such a heavy blow on his back. But, Sri Ramakrishna was speechless. His mind was in such a state of oneness that he was identified with the entire universe. Vedanta says that there is only one universal consciousness which is called Chaitanya or Brahman and all the multiplicity that we see are only illusions. Although the two boatmen were fighting at quite a distance from where Sri Ramakrishna was standing, yet the moment he turned his mind towards them, immediately he had become one with them and hence the blow landed by one boatman on the other virtually manifested as a mark on the back of Sri Ramakrishna. But, only a true knower of Brahman can understand the experience of another.