Phalaharini Kali Puja is a religious occasion dedicated
to goddess Kali and is observed on the new moon night of Jyeshtha in the Bengal
and Hindu calendar. On this day, special puja rituals are performed in Bengal
and in other Eastern parts of the country. In the famous Dakshineswar Kali
Temple, Phalaharini Kali Puja begins at 9.00 pm and continues well past 1.00
am.
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| Sri Ramakrishna's Shodashi Puja |
It is said that Mother Kali, being pleased with worship
offered on this day, will destroy the effects of karma causing future births.
On this day, Sri Ramakrishna performed the Shodashi Puja, worship to Sri Sarada
Devi invoking the Divine Mother in her as ever forgiving and gracious.
IT WAS THE 5th of June, 1872*, the day for the special
worship of Phalaharini-Kali, or the Deity as Mother Kali destroying the effects
of the past deeds of beings. The Kali temple of Dakshineswar was en fete with
ceremonial decorations. By night, when the worship of the Divine Mother was to
take place, a good crowd had gathered in the temple, and everywhere there was
singing and excitement characteristic of temple festivities.
The doors of the Master's room remained closed. The noisy
crowd had not invaded its precincts; for people were busy with many things
outside, and besides, the Master had not yet become very widely known. Within
the room, too, preparations were being made for the Master to perform the
worship of the Divine Mother that day. A boy named Dinu, a distant nephew of
his, brought the Bilva leaves, while Hriday made the necessary arrangements for
the rite. The Master had asked the Holy Mother beforehand to be present in the
room at the time of worship. At 9 p.m. she arrived. The others had by that time
finished the arrangements and left the room, leaving the Master and the Holy
Mother alone within.
Now the worship began. The Master sat near the western
door of his room facing the east. After he had finished the purification of
materials and other preliminary ceremonies, he beckoned to the Holy Mother to
take her place on the seat set apart for the Deity. It was a low stool with
ritualistic drawings on it, kept towards the right of the worshipper, and she
sat on it facing the west. She was already in a mood of spiritual fervour, and
obeyed the Master's directions as one under hypnosis. The Master now sprinkled
her several times with holy water, and then addressed the following prayer of
invocation; 'O Divine Mother, Thou eternal Virgin, the mistress of all powers
and the abode of all beauty, deign to unlock for me the gate of perfection.
Sanctifying the body and mind of this woman, do Thou manifest Thyself through
her and do what is auspicious.'
Then he identified the Holy Mother with the Deity through
the ceremony of Nyasa, which consists in touching the different parts of the
body with appropriate Mantras and identifying them in mind with the different
parts of the Deity. After that, he offered her worship with sixteen items, as
one does before the divine image. In the course of it he applied red paint to
the sides of her soles, put the vermilion mark on her forehead, dressed her
with a new cloth, and placed a little of sweets and betel-leaf in her mouth.
Knowing that she was naturally of a very bashful disposition, a disciple once
asked her whether she did not feel any hesitation or shyness when the Master
did all this to her. She replied, 'No. I saw him, no doubt, doing all this, but
I had no inclination to utter a word even.'
In fact, all through the worship the Holy Mother was in a
state of semi-absorption, and at the close of it, in deep Samadhi. The Master,
too, was in an ecstatic mood while doing the worship, and by the time it came
to an end, he also was absorbed in Samadhi. Thus in that transcendental union
of the spirit, the worshipper and the worshipped realized their identity of
being as Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.
A long time passed in that state of spiritual absorption.
It was only when the second watch of the night had fairly advanced that the
Master regained a little of physical consciousness. Then he resigned himself
completely to the Divine Mother, and in a supreme act of consecration, offered
to the Deity manifest before him, the fruits of his austerities, his rosary,
himself and everything that was his. He then uttered the following Mantra: 'O
Goddess, I prostrate myself before Thee again and again-before Thee, eternal
consort of Siva, the three-eyed, the golden-hued, the indwelling Spirit in all,
the giver of refuge, the accomplisher of every end, and the most auspicious
among all auspicious objects.'
The worship (Note:The
form of worship Sri Ramakrishna performed is technically called Shodasi Puja.
The term requires a little explanation. It does not mean, as is sometimes
interpreted, 'the worship of a girl of sixteen.' For the matter of that, the
Holy Mother was eighteen or more at the time of this worship. It really means
the worship of the Divine Mother as Shodasi - the third of the ten Mahavidyas
known as Kali, Tara, Shodasi, Bhuvanesvari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati,
Bagala, Matangi and Kamala. The Divine Mother is called Shodasi in this aspect
probably because she is conceived as a wonderfully beautiful girl always aged sixteen.
In this worship one can use as the emblem of worship either a picture, a
pitcher, an earthen image, a Yantra (ie a ritualistic drawing), or a young
woman) was now over. Towards the close of it Hriday came into the room.
After regaining normal consciousness, the Holy Mother saluted the Master
mentally, and walked away to her room in the Nahabat.
The significance of this great rite on the lives of these
two souls can hardly be over-estimated. For Sri Ramakrishna it signified the
final triumph of the spirit over the body, the destruction of all that is
animal in man, the recognition of Divinity even where the ordinary man is least
disposed to see it. It marked the successful conclusion of his spiritual
strivings, and his establishment of the status of a divine man.
In the life of the Holy Mother, too, it had a
significance of equal importance. It symbolized her participation in Sri
Ramakrishna's life in a twofold sense. It has already been stated how the
Master, at the very time of his marriage, gave a powerful stimulus to his
wife's spiritual growth by the prayer he addressed to the Divine Mother. That
had brought about a gradual transformation in her, obliterating from her mind
even the last vestiges of the lower nature, so that when she again reappeared
in the concluding act of the drama of his spiritual endeavours, he found in her
a fitting partner in life, well-matched with him in every respect. And so by
the performance of that great rite, in which he surrendered all his spiritual
practices and their fruits before the Deity whom he identified with the Holy
Mother, he virtually made her a participant of all his austerities and
spiritual attainments. It is sometimes asked why the Mother did not perform
various forms of devotional practices like the Master. The answer to this
apparently puzzling question is to be found in the Shodasi Puja, by virtue of
which the Holy Mother became a full sharer in the spiritual glory of the
Master. Indeed, as we shall see, she did practise a good deal of austerities
afterwards, but they were not so for mental purification or for spiritual
attainment; they were mainly intended as an example to others or for the benefit
of her disciples. To use an analogy of the Master, she resembles in this
respect the type of plant that bears fruits first, and then the flowers. As the
spiritual counterpart of the great world-teacher Sri Ramakrishna, she had no
need to re-enact the same scenes of the one common drama which they were
together staging before mankind. She had other parts to play by way of
fulfilling and supplementing the Master's work.
In another sense also the Shodasi Puja is a landmark in
her life. It made her a vital part of Sri Ramakrishna's mission. In that rite
the Master invoked in her the presence of the Divine Mother-the same Supreme
Energy that was manifesting Itself through his own personality. Henceforth,
just as in the case of the Master, her body and mind became the venue of
expression for that Energy. Her future actions were all, therefore, devoid of
any personal object, but meant to fulfil the great mission that was being
worked out through the Master. She and the Master could henceforth be described
as two bodies actuated by the same spirit - the Divine Mother. As we shall see,
for the rest of her life she helped the Master in his work through personal
service. After his passing away, his mantle fell on her, and through a long
period of spiritual ministry she fulfilled what he had left unfinished.
* Regarding
the exact date of this event there are two versions. The Holy Mother arrived at
Dakshineswar for the first time in March, 1872. According to the version of
Swami Saradananda in his biography of Sri Ramakrishna, the worship took place
about one year after this, ie on the Phalaharini-Kali Puja of 1873, the date of
it being 25th May. In the Bengali book entitled Mayer Katha, V 01.2, the Holy
Mother is reported to have said that it took place about a month and a half
after her arrival at Dakshineswar. In that case it would be on the occasion of
the Phalaharini Kali Puja of June, 1872.
Click here to listen "
Significance of Sri Ramakrishna's Sodashi Puja" by Swami Prasannatmananda of the Vedanta Scoiety of Berkeley
SOURCE: saradadevi.info
