Saradananda's sacrifice²

One day, a long time after Sri Ramakrishna had left the body, his consort, Sarada Devi, was going to her parents’ home. She was traveling by bullock cart. One of Ramakrishna’s dearest disciples, Saradananda, was accompanying the Holy Mother. The road was full of holes, rocks and all kinds of obstructions. Quite a few times the wheels fell into the holes, and the jerk of the bullock cart increased tenfold each time this happened. The disciple felt miserable because Sarada Devi was not feeling well and she was trying to rest. But the road was so narrow that the driver could not avoid the holes.

Towards evening, Saradananda saw a very big hole in the distance. The Holy Mother was sleeping, and the disciple thought that if the cart had to pass over this hole, the Holy Mother would definitely be awakened and might even be hurt. Saradananda asked the driver to go very slowly, saying he would meet them on the road after a while. Then he ran to the spot where the hole was and lay down, filling it with his own body. Because it was dark and they were using an Indian lantern, the old driver could not see that the disciple lay down in the hole so that his back was level with the road.

When the bullock cart came near the hole, the driver saw the body in the road and screamed. The Holy Mother was aroused and asked what happened.

The driver got furious. “Look at what this man was doing! He was lying down on the road. How could I go on?”

The disciple said, “You fool, I did all this so that our Divine Mother could sleep, and now you have screamed and awakened her. If the wheels had fallen into the hole, there would have been a serious jerk and she could have got hurt.”

The Holy Mother blessed Saradananda, “I am so proud that I have a disciple like you. How many disciples are there on earth who would do this kind of thing for their spiritual Masters and Divine Mothers?”