One of my favorite saints, Mahendranath Gupta (aka Master Mahashaya, or just “M”), is among the true spiritual giants of Calcutta. His fame comes from diaries detailing meetings with the great Bengali mystic Sri Ramakrishna, later published under the modest penname “M”. His support for the fledgling Ramakrishna Order, the first Hindu organization active in the West, is less well known. M also had a major influence on Paramahansa Yogananda's spiritual development. Thus M's life and writing underlies the two most significant early currents of Hinduism in America. His own considerable spiritual greatness is like a veiled mystery, with only a few glimpses vouchsafed the seeker.
Mahendranath Gupta, from a group photo taken shortly after Sri Ramakrishna's passing. M was in his early to mid-30s. (Ramakrishna Mission, Puri, Orissa)
Mahendranath Gupta (1854-1932) was born in Calcutta to a prosperous middle class family. He received an excellent education which led to a degree from Presidency College in 1874. Mahendranath taught English, psychology and economics at the college level. At the time he met Sri Ramakrishna, Mahendranath was headmaster at a school founded by the famed Bengali educator/reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Contact with Vidyasgar, and Mahendranath's marriage to a relative of Keshab Chandra Sen, a leader in the spiritually progressive Bramho Samaj, assured Mahendranath of a place among Calcutta's educated elite.
But all was not well for Mahendranath. Following his beloved mother's death, his extended family tore itself apart in vicious domestic strife. Contemplating suicide, Mahendranath was persuaded by a friend to visit the Dakshineshwar temple complex across the Ganges in February 1882. It was here that he first met Sri Ramakrishna, and was totally charmed by the holy man’s simple but powerful faith.
The Dakshineshwar Kali Temple near Calcutta in 1865. Sri Ramakrishna served as a priest here briefly until he was sacked for unorthodox behavior during worship. He was given a room on the grounds as a "resident holy man" by the temple manager. It was near this building that M met the Master in 1882. (Photo by Samuel Bourne, from Wikipedia Commons)
On his next visit M (which I shall call him from this point forward) and the Master got into a brief argument when M suggested that “ignorant” people were wrong to worship clay images as Gods, and that they should be instructed to see the images as symbols. Sri Ramakrishna sharply rebuked M with “That’s the hobby of you Calcutta people — giving lectures and bringing others to the light. Nobody ever considers how to get the light themselves . . . He who is the Lord of the Universe will teach everyone.” Sri Ramakrishna won the argument, leaving M's ego totally crushed, but he saw the Master’s point. From that moment onward, M lived with the deepest humility. This was the first, and last, argument between M and his guru.
On his third visit, M saw Sri Ramakrishna in a samadhi trance for the first time. Any doubts about the Master’s holiness disappeared, and M became one of Sri Ramakrishna’s closest disciples. Sri Ramakrishna considered M to be the last disciple of his "inner circle", and claimed to have seen him in an earlier prophetic vision.
After each visit with Sri Ramakrishna, M would record his experiences in a journal, often after deep meditation on the events to recall as many details as possible. The Master was well aware of M's journaling, and stopped another disciple from keeping a similar diary, saying this was M's special task. M's remarkable diaries spanned the period from February 1882 to April 1886. Toward the end of this time Sri Ramakrishna began to suffer from the throat cancer that would eventually take his earthly life. M stopped writing his diaries, as the Master's final months were too painful for him to record. Sri Ramakrishna “left his body” on 15 August 1886, and descriptions of his last days were set down by others.
Following the Master’s death, many of Sri Ramakrishna’s closest disciples renounced the world, forming what would eventually become the well-respected Ramakrishna Order. As a householder with a wife and family, M could not become a monk, though he frequently worshipped and meditated with the monastic brothers. In his personal life, he lived as close to Hindu monastic ideals as possible, cooking his own simple food, doing his own laundry, acting as a servant to all, and most importantly, seeing himself as the Divine Mother's child.
Originally M had no plans to publish his diaries. He saw them as tools for his personal meditation and devotion. A few excerpts were presented in various Bengali spiritual magazines or issued as pamphlets. The head of the Ramakrishna Order, the great Swami Vivekananda, urged M to publish the complete diaries to spread the Master's teachings. Eventually M edited and released five Bengali-language volumes under the title Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, beginning in 1897. The final volume was published shortly after M’s passing in 1932. Swami Nikhilananda later edited and translated the complete work into English, first published in 1942 as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. The massive book is still in print! [I have the 11th printing, having worn out an older edition.]
To support his family, M continued his work as an educator. He purchased the Morton Institution in 1905, a private boys’ school. When the school outgrew its original location, he bought another building at 50 Amherst Street, where M also maintained a modest personal apartment. He was happiest sitting in his rooftop garden, living like a rishi of old, meditating on the Divine Mother or talking to others about the Master. By coincidence (or maybe by Divine design), this building had earlier been home to Mukunda Lal Ghosh (later known as Swami Paramahansa Yogananda), and was where his mother died from cholera.
This house at 50 Amherst Street, Calcutta, was hallowed by the presence of Master Mahasaya and the future Swami Paramahansa Yogananda. M's rooms were on the top floor. (Becoming Yogananda web site, www.yoganandasindia.com. Used by permission.)
M had a major effect upon the teenage Mukunda, who called him Master Mahashaya (as M was also known to his Morton Institute students). They became fast friends, and frequently meditated together. Both focused their devotion upon the Divine Mother. No doubt M filled Mukunda with tales of Sri Ramakrishna’s life and teachings, his favorite conversational topic.
M’s own spiritual greatness can be glimpsed in Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 9, “The Blissful Devotee and His Cosmic Romance”. Paramahansa Yogananda relates several miracles granted by the Divine Mother which he and M shared, followed by M giving Mukunda his first spiritual ecstasy. Sadly, beyond the usual flowery praise Swami Yogananda bestows on all the various saints who guided him, the rest of the chapter tells us little more about M.
M during his later years, probably taken at the Dakshineswar temple's panchavati, a meditation grove where he had frequently listened to Sri Ramakrishna's teachings. (Photo from Wikipedia Commons.)
In his last year M was in very poor health, often wracked by horrid nerve pains. Throughout the spring of 1932, M worked as best as he could to prepare Part 5 of his diaries for publication, as Swami Vivekananda had charged him to do. Despite his pain, M kept writing, and finished editing the proofs just a few days before his passing.
M “left his body” on 4 June 1932 at 5:30 in the morning. His last words were, “Gurudeva, Mother, take me up in your arms.”
