The Divine Gardener knows how to deal with you.

Sri Ramakrishna (smiling to Keshab): “You are ill; well, there is a deep meaning in that. There has passed through your body many a deep devotional feeling, that searches the Lord: your illness bears witness to those feelings. Of the havoc done by them to the system, one can form no idea at the time they arise.

A ship goes past over the Ganges, but nobody attends to it. A little while after, big waves are seen, beating upon the bank and sometimes washing away portions of it.

An elephant, entering into a hut, soon makes it totter and at last pulls it down. The love for the Lord is like the elephant in its greatness. It very often pulls down the frail house of clay called the “human body”.

When a house is set on fire, some of the things inside are first burnt up; then the house is taken up as a whole by the fire and burnt. Much the same thing comes to pass, when God is seen. The fire of God-vision first burns up the various passions — lust, anger, etc., then the false ego, which says: “I am the doer (Lord)”; and lastly, the whole house, viz., the body.

You may think: “Let the Lord’s will be done”. But, no, the physician does not leave the patient, until he is perfectly cured. Your name has been entered as a patient in the hospital-books, and you cannot get away, till you are seen cured by the physician in charge (the doctor Saheb). Why did you suffer your name to be so entered? (Laughter.) …

Everything is ordered by Her will. Thou doest Thy will alone, О Mother Divine! Thou doest Thy own work, but foolish man takes all the credit to himself, saying: “It is I, who have done it!”

The gardener knows well how to deal with the common rose and also with the rose bussora, which is of a superior type. As for the latter, he clears the soil round about its roots to give it the benefit of the night dew. The dew adds freshness and strength to the plant. It may be that the same is the case with you. The Divine Gardener knows how to deal with you. He digs round about you to the very roots, to the end that the dew of His inspiration shall fall on you and you shall be purer, stronger than before, and your work even greater and more abiding than ever”.

(Mahendra Nath Gupta “The Condensed Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna: M’s own English Version”, RK Math Madras, Section V 1883, Ch. II “With Keshab Sen At Lily Cottege”, pp. 150-1)