Shri Ramakrishna used to refer to half a dozen among his disciples as Ishwarakotis and Nityasiddhas (divine and ever free souls), and to this select group belonged Swami Premananda. A saint of angelic beauty and sweetness, he occupies a place of great eminence among the children of Shri Ramakrishna.
Swami Premananda, known as Baburam in his pre-monastic days, was born in the village of Antpur, Bengal. Both his parents belonged to well-to-do and influential families of the village and were of devout disposition. Baburam’s elder sister was married to Balaram Basu of Calcutta, a pious lay-devotee of Shri Ramakrishna. Baburam had a natural slant towards spirituality. Renunciation spoke through the broken accents of his childhood. He loved to associate with holy men from the period of his adolescence.
Passing out of the village school, Baburam came to Calcutta for higher studies. On joining the Metropolitan Institution, he had the privilege of having Mahendra Nath Gupta, later the celebrated author of the Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna, as his headmaster and Rakhal (Swami Brahmananda) as his classmate. It was the latter who was instrumental in taking Baburam to Shri Ramakrishna. His first visit became a prelude to a closer association with the Master, whose great love, purity and holiness drew Baburam nearer to him as days went by. In the personality of Shri Ramakrishna he discovered the realization of the highest ideals of life.
Baburam was just twenty when he met the Master. His character was untouched by the least blemish of the world. Indeed to the end of his days he maintained a childlike innocence and was unaware of the common erring ways of humanity. Shri Ramakrishna divined his absolute purity and held him high in his estimation. He would say, “Baburam is pure to his very marrow. No impure thought can ever cross his mind and body.”
Owing to his absolute purity Baburam was deemed a fit attendant for Shri Ramakrishna, who liked to have him about. As a little child needs constant care and protection so does a parahamsa, an illumined soul, who frequently goes in and out of samadhi. In this God-intoxicated state, the parahamsa is completely oblivious of his body and surroundings; as a result, he is subject to the risk of accidental injury. The parahamsa’s body is extremely precious because it is God’s instrument to benefit humanity. The inner group of disciples of the Master began to come from 1879; from that time onward they began to take personal care of him. The compassionate Master tied his disciples with a cord of love, and kept a strict vigil on their spiritual training. When the Master fell ill and was brought to Cossipore for treatment, Baburam served him whole-heartedly. After the Master passed away Baburam joined the monastery at Baranagore. He along with his brother-disciples embraced the monastic life and became ‘Swami Premananda’. Swamiji gave Baburam the name of “Premananda” meaning “bliss of divine love” as he thought it conformed to the remark of the Master that Shri Radha herself, the Goddess of divine Love, was partially incarnated in him.
Swami Premananda, or Baburam Maharaj as he was popularly called, spent most of his life in the monasteries at Baranagore, Alambazar and Belur taking care of worship, internal management and training of the new monastic recruits. He taught the monks practical Vedanta: how to blend work and worship in daily life. True religion means the manifestation of the perfection within. Swami Premananda insisted on this perfection in every action. He encouraged the monks to practice all the four yogas – karma, jnana, bhakti, and raja – according to the ideals of Swami Vivekananda. He taught more through the example of his life than through his words. From early morning till he went to bed, he spent his time whole-heartedly serving the Master - whose presence was as real to him as anyone around him, the monks, and the devotees. Swami Premananda’s life depicts how a person acts, behaves, and lives in this world after God-realization. His heart swells with love and compassion for people’s suffering, and he acts without any ulterior motive or selfishness. Work turns into worship for him.
The father is reflected in the son. Some of Shri Ramakrishna’s disciples specially recalled some aspects of the infinite excellences of the Master. Swami Premananda mirrored more than anyone else the Master’s all-consuming love for all. Love sees no faults. Monks, householders, devotees, visitors, and guests, all felt the tenderness of his affection and came to regard him as the “Mother of the Math”. Like an indulgent mother, he sheltered under his protecting wings even those whose perverse ways had alienated them from society. Many a young man was reformed by his golden touch. He was an embodiment of love, humility, patience, forbearance, forgiveness and service. Devoid of any trace of pride and egotism, he felt himself to be an instrument in the hands of the Master. His lofty spiritual vision had clothed the world with a divine light from which evil had taken its flight. Swami Premananda was anxious above everything else that the devotees should grow spiritually. He would snatch a few moments from his crowded hours in order to kindle the fire of devotion to God and infuse into their hearts a spirit of detachment. Swami Premananda was loved and honoured by all because in life and talk he was full of the Master. All his work was a form of worship to the Master.
Swami Premananda had free access to the Holy Mother. She was very fond of him, and Swami Premananda was very devoted to her. His face actually glowed when he spoke about the Holy Mother. He once said that those who differentiated between her and the Master would never make any spiritual progress; she and the Master were like the two sides of the same coin. In the course of a discussion at Belur Math he said to the devotees: “We have seen that she had a much greater capacity than the Master. She was the embodiment of Power, and how well she controlled it! Shri Ramakrishna could not do so, though he tried. His power became manifest through his frequent ecstasies, which were seen by all. The Mother repeatedly experienced samadhi, but others did not know of it. What a wonderful self-control she exercised!”
During the last part of his life he went on several tours of different parts of Bengal, especially East Bengal (present Bangladesh), preaching the universal message of the Master. Wherever he went, thousands of people, young and old, Hindus and Muslims, were attracted to him, and cried when he left. Swami Premananda was an illumined soul and was beyond caste, creed and religious sect. Everywhere he went he inspired the youth to be useful to the society by voluntary service.
Concern for the devotees did not leave him even during his fatal illness. He sincerely believed, “The service of the devotee is the worship of God.” A couple of days before he passed away, he called to his side a Sannyasin who looked after the management of the Math during his absence and asked him in a voice tender with emotion, “Could you possibly do one thing?” The Sannyasin replied, “Anything, sir.” “Will you be able to serve the devotees?” was the question he met with. “Yes, sir, I promise I shall do it”, was the reply. “Remember, let there be no negligence towards the devotees!” entreated Swami Premananda. It was his last wish. Swami Premananda’s blissful all-consuming love for all came to an end when he left them and flew away into the Infinite on two powerful wings: renunciation and love. When the news of his passing away reached Holy Mother in Udbodhan, she cried bitterly. Swami Brahmanada cried like a child and then remarked, “Belur Math has lost its mother.” Mahendra Nath Gupta said, “Shri Ramakrishna’s love aspect has disappeared.”
Premananda’s whole life was one of complete self-surrender. Behind every action was the subtle presence of Shri Ramakrishna. Not even for a moment throughout his life was the serenity of his faith beclouded. As in health, so also in illness, he would ever repeat, “The grace of the Master is the only support”. Like all men who have soared to the empyrean heights of spiritual realizations, he was reticent about his own experiences. It is not for ordinary mortals, whose gaze is fixed on the procession of phenomena, to measure the heights of spirituality he attained. Only a jeweler can appraise a diamond. Shri Ramakrishna used to refer to him as a jewel-casket.
