Rani Rashmani, who built the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple near Kolkata, was not only wealthy but also a very generous-hearted person. She had great respect for monks and during her time many wandering monks would come and stay at Dakshineshwar and enjoy her hospitality. Sri Ramakrishna, who had a keen eye for identifying spiritually elevated souls, would often share his observations with others. One day he said, “Once a Vedantic monk came here. He used to dance at the sight of a cloud. He would go into an ecstasy of joy over a rain-storm. He would get very angry if, anyone went near him when he meditated. One day I came to him while he was meditating, and that made him very cross. He discriminated constantly, ‘Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory.’ Since the appearance of diversity is due to maya, he walked about with a prism from a chandelier in his hand. One sees different colours through the prism; in reality there is no such thing as colour. Likewise, nothing exists, in reality, except Brahman. But there is an appearance of the manifold because of maya, egoism. He would not look at an object more than once, lest he should be deluded by maya and attachment. He would discriminate, while taking his bath, at the sight of birds flying in the sky. He knew grammar. He stayed here for three days. One day he heard the sound of a flute near the embankment and said that a man who had realized Brahman would go into samādhi at such a sound.”
Thus he would say that a true Paramahamsa is absolutely guileless like a child, face beaming with laughter and eyes swimming in joy. Because he has no body consciousness, he is not even bothered about wearing clothes. Such a Paramahamsa alone knows what unalloyed joy is. He is firmly established in the knowledge that Brahman alone is real and the world is unreal.