of the room and uttering in a heart-rending voice! "Lord, you have taken away my Baburam!" I could hardly restrain my tears.
Golap-Ma was also seriously ill with blood dysentery. She was almost on her death-bed.
31st July, 1918
It was half past seven in the evening. The Holy Mother was seated in the shrine room. This day, too, her conversation turned on the late Swami Premananda. She said, "My child, in the body of Baburam there was neither flesh nor blood after his last illness. It was a mere skeleton." Chandra Babu came to the room and joined in our talk. He told the Mother that some devotees gave sandal-wood, butter, flowers, incense, etc., worth four or five hundred rupees for the cremation of the Swami's body. The Mother remarked, "Their money is, indeed, blessed. They have spent it for a devotee of God. God has given them abundantly and will give them more." Chandra Babu left the room.
"Listen, my child," she continued, "however spiritual a man may be, he must pay the tax for the use of the body to the last farthing.
1 But the difference between a great soul and an ordinary man is this: The latter weeps while leaving this body, whereas the former laughs. Death seems to him a mere play.
"Ah, my dear Baburam came to Sri Ramakrishna while he was a mere boy. Sri Ramakrishna used to make great fun with the boys. Naren (Swami Vivekananda) and Baburam would roll on the ground with side-splitting laughter. While living in the Cossipore garden, I was once climbing the steps, carrying a pitcher with five pounds of milk. I felt giddy and the milk spilt on the ground. My heels were dislocated. Naren and Baburam came running there and took care of me. There was a great inflammation of the feet. Sri Ramakrishna heard of the accident and said to Baburam, 'Well, Baburam, it is a nice mess I am now in. Who will cook my food? Who will feed me now?' He was then ill with cancer in the throat and lived only on farina pudding. I used to make it and feed him in his room in the upper storey of the house. I had, then, a ring on my nose. Sri Ramakrishna touched his nose and made the sign of the ring by describing a circle with his finger, in order to
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1 i.e undergo suffering and death incidental to the embodied state