Ramakrishna’s First Samadhi: The Story of the Flying Herons

It is said that Ramakrishna entered his first samadhi when he was only six. He was walking near a hill, along the narrow ridge between the fields. Green fields stretched all around. The morning sun had risen, and behind him a line of dark clouds rested in the sky.

As he walked, a flock of white herons sitting in a field heard his footsteps and rose into the air. A perfect line of birds took flight. Behind them the dark clouds, before them the morning sun, below them the green earth — and that single sweep of white wings against the dark sky carried him inward. Ramakrishna closed his eyes and fell into samadhi.

Later, when people asked him, he would say that even deep prayer and worship could not give him the vastness that those flying herons had given him that day.

You may ask, “Can samadhi arise from a line of birds?”
We too have seen herons, clouds, hills.

But one who has never tasted the poetry of life will never understand Ramakrishna’s experience.

~ Translated from Nirvan Upanishad by Osho (Hindi Discourse), Discourse 2

----