Ram begins his confessions with long subjective descriptions of his inner state before he met the Paramahamsa. He was a "slave" to woman as Lover (kamini), he tells us. His eyes and ears were always ready for a beautiful woman, despite the fact that such attachments brought him no peace.2 When he met Ramakrishna, however, he learned to "seat" such Lovers in "the Place of the Mother" (matrsthana).3 The disciple, in other words, was following his Master in trying to look upon all women as embodiments of the Goddess as Mother. As with the Master himself, but for very different reasons, such a psychological method seems to have only partially worked for the disciple. Ram admits that, like the castrated bull that still turns its head at every passing cow, he still struggles with "the Beast state" (pasubhava).4

Ramakrishna initially refused to visit Ram at his home. It was then, Ram tells us, that his wounded pride led him to begin introducing himself as "the disciple of the Paramahamsa." It was then also, he goes on, that he began to develop complicated interpretations of Ramakrishna's teachings,5 interpretations that would later develop into a series of books on the metaphysics of his Master's teachings. When Ramakrishna finally does decide to visit the disciple's home, Ram is so overwhelmed by the expense of it all--the saint would bring as many as two hundred disciples with him, all of whom had to be fed and entertained--that the whole incident leaves him quite upset and spiritually empty. Ram confesses to his readers that, even though he would agree to such visits outwardly, deep down he was much too worried about paying for everything to experience any joy or devotion. He then slips into a rather bizarre metaphor, perhaps drawn from his own practice as a medical doctor. Just as doctors get a perverse bliss out of cutting off people's arms and legs, he tells us, so all of the disciples sing and experience bliss at the expense of another, namely, him. Ram tries his best to cover up and forget the financial pain of such violent and unwanted amputations, but he cannot.6 He felt used.

These financial troubles, coupled with his gnawing atheism, eventually put poor Ram in a state of excessive "anxious desire" (vyakulata), a potent state that soon manifested itself, as Ramakrishna himself promised, in a series of dreams and lucid visions and, finally, in a conversion. The dream came first. In the dream Ram was arising out of the waters of a familiar bathing pond. Ramakrishna approached him, gave him a mantra, and said, "After each bath, when you are half-dressed, recite this one hundred times." Ram awoke and, tingling from the excitement of it all, rushed to Dakshineshwar to tell Ramakrishna everything. The saint blessed him, assuring the dreamer that to receive such a mantra in a dream is a very auspicious thing. Unfortunately, however, Ram's atheism did not go away, since he could not shake the conviction, born of his Western education, that dreams are simply distortions of the brain produced by excessive thinking and overly active digestive processes. Ram was sophisticated enough to see the source of the problem: he was operating with a conditioned ontology radically different from that of his Master's. In the Introduction of his book, Ram had claimed that such conditionings (samskara) and the atheism that they had produced in him were transformed in the presence of his Master into a deep faith and a heart-felt devotion.7 In the midst of the story, however, he is not so certain: "This conditioning--could it be pushed away by the words of the Paramahamsa?" he asks in pain, not at all sure of the outcome.8 The dream was significant, but cursed by the ontological limitations of his own Western education, Ram could only see a stomach ache where, from another perpective, a new identity was being sonically self-created as it arose, half-formed, out of the chaotic but creative waters. Ram, it seems, was caught between two conflicting symbolic worlds and was unable, at least at this point in time, to bridge them in any convincing way. The half-dressed dream figure, despite Ram's Western assumptions, would however know the light of day, and, as we shall see shortly, it would arise out of its unconscious waters through the very mantra it received in the dream.

But the dream, though impressive and ultimately fruitful, did not immediately resolve Ram's problems. Indeed, in some ways it made things worse, for whereas before Ram could always sink into the pleasures of his sexual fantasies when he sought relief from his sufferings, now such a strategy proved impotent. As much as he tried to imagine a beautiful woman, he tells us, he could not do so.9 The springs of his sexual fantasies had mysteriously dried up. From another perspective perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they had simply "gone under," for it was not long before another imaginal figure appeared to Ram, no doubt given form by the very energies that had once sparked his sexual fantasies.

One morning, at about eleven o'clock, Ram and a friend were walking along the shore of a pond (note the presence of water again) discussing their problems when a dark-skinned person suddenly appeared, grinned at them and said sweetly, "Why are you anxious? Relax."10 When the two looked again, the mysterious person was gone. Ram marvels at the event: two people had both seen the same thing at the same time in broad daylight, and then it had just vanished.11 Whatever the nature of the experience--we might be tempted to call it a shared lucid or waking dream--the event had profound effects on the psychological state of the struggling disciple. He now knew "hints of bliss," erupted into peals of laughter and could not keep back waves of weeping. After a half hour of laughing and crying, he would collapse exhausted, his clothes soaked in tears.12 The strange dark-skinned figure had released something in Ram.

Inspired by such emotionally moving experiences, Ram now wanted to renounce the world, but Ramakrishna would have none of it. The world is a sharkpool, the saint explained, with the big fish eating the little fish: why would anyone want to abandon the "fort" of a home for that? Besides, Ramakrishna objected again, "where will your wife and children go?"13 Ram took this hard. He writes of the "door of pain" being reopened and his mind again sunk in an "ocean of anxiety."14 Ram begs Ramakrishna to reconsider, but the saint will have none of it, pointing out that it is all "God's will." After Ram presses again, the Paramahamsa angrily tells him to collect his things and leave if he cannot accept his situation. Struck by these "cruel words," Ram begins to contemplate suicide but then remembers that Ramakrishna had taught him that "a person perfected in a dream (svapnasiddha) is truly fortunate." This gave Ram new courage. He began to chant his dream mantra outside Ramakrishna's door late into the night. At some point, the saint emerged from his room, approached Ram and commanded him to serve the disciples (i.e., to pay their expenses). The desire to commit suicide was now gone, Ram tells us, but unfortunately the problem of the money was not: "There the problem was again! Who can serve the disciples? That's expensive." After struggling one last time with the financial consequences of his devotion to Ramakrishna, Ram finally admits that he has tried in vain to throw the Paramahamsa onto someone else's shoulders without ever considering why he was so rich. Now he knew: to serve the disciples.15

Ram's confessions end with the events of a dark stormy night. It was ten o'clock. As the thunder rumbled in the sky, Ramakrishna turned to Ram and, "like a lightning bolt," pierced his heart with a simple question: "What do you want?" the saint repeated twice. Ram mentally goes through the usual list with his readers--money, power, knowledge of God--and finally decides that he does not know: "Lord! I don't know what I should want! I've thought many times that I can't understand what I'll attain with you. Please tell me what I should attain." Ramakrishna asks Ram to return his dream mantra to him, for "there is no more need to chant or perform austerities." The saint then extends his right big toe, touches Ram's head, and utters an ecstatic command: "If you still have any desire to see, give it to me, and when you come bring a little something worth a few pennies." Ram closes his confessions by telling his readers that since this experience and his decision to support the disciples he has known peace. He has been freed from the illusion that he can accomplish anything on his own.16

A half-dressed, half-formed Ram had received a mantra from his Master in a dream. He had now consciously given the mantra back. He had renounced, not the world, but his will and his illusions. In effect, he had stepped out of the unconscious waters of the dream to take on a new conscious identity. He was now fully clothed, fully formed. The being hinted at in the dream had been "perfected" in the light of day.

2 Ibid., 125.

3 Ibid., 126.

4 Ibid. Ram also discusses his "slavery" to gold, but, as in the teachings of Ramakrishna, such a topic does not receive near the attention that woman as Mother and Lover merits.

5 Ibid., 127.

6 Ibid., 127-128.

7 Ibid., "Introduction," 2.

8 Ibid., 131.

9 Ibid.

10 This command strangely resembles the "Remain in bhavamukha" command of Ramakrishna's life. In Tantric fashion, as if the world were already perfect, both assure their recipients to remain as they are and not to worry--all is well, whether they know it or not.

11 Ibid., 132.

12 Ibid., 133.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., 137.

15 Ibid., 138.

16 Ibid., 142-143.