It was the spring of 1885. One morning at 3:00 a.m. Gopal-ma started to practise her japa as usual. After finishing the japa she began pranayama and was about to offer the result of the japa to her Chosen Deity when she noticed that Sri Ramakrishna was seated at her left with his right fist clenched. Startled, she wondered:
“What is this? How did he come here at this odd hour?” As she later described it: I looked at him in amazement and thought, “How did he come here?” Meanwhile Gopala [as she called Sri Ramakrishna] kept on smiling sweetly. As I took courage and grasped his left hand, Sri Ramakrishna’s form disappeared and in place of it appeared the real Gopala —a big child ten months old. His beauty and look beggar description! He crawled towards me and, raising one hand, said, “Mother, give me butter.” This overwhelming experience bewildered me. I cried out so loudly that if there had been men around they would have assembled there. With tearful eyes I said: “My son, I am a poor, helpless widow. What shall I feed you? Where shall I get butter and cream, my child?” But Gopala did not listen to me. “Give me something to eat,” he kept on saying. What could I do? Sobbing, I got up and brought some dry coconut balls from the hanging basket. Placing them in his hand, I said: “Gopala, my darling, I offer you this wretched thing, but don’t give me such a poor thing in return.”
I could not perform japa at all that day. Gopala sat on my lap, snatched away my rosary, jumped on my shoulders, and moved around the room. At daybreak I rushed to Dakshineswar like a crazy woman. Gopala also accompanied me, resting his head on my shoulder. I distinctly saw Gopala’s two tiny, rosy feet hanging over my bosom.
When Gopal-ma arrived at Dakshineswar, a woman devotee was present. Her words vividly describe that meeting with the Master:
I was then cleaning the Master’s room. It was seven or half past seven in the morning. In the meantime I heard somebody calling, “Gopala, Gopala” from outside. The voice was familiar to me. I looked and found it was Gopal-ma. She entered through the eastern door like an intoxicated person, with dishevelled hair, staring eyes, and the end of her cloth trailing on the ground. She was completely oblivious of her surroundings. Sri Ramakrishna was then seated on his small cot.
I was dumbfounded seeing Gopal-ma in that condition. The Master, in the meantime, entered into an ecstatic mood. Gopal-ma sat beside him and he, like a child, sat on her lap. Tears were flowing profusely from her eyes. She fed the Master with cream, butter, and sweets which she had brought with her. I was astounded, for never before had I seen the Master touching a woman in a state of ecstasy. After some time the Master regained his normal consciousness and went back to his cot. But Gopal-ma could not control her exuberant emotion. In a rapturous mood she began to dance around the room, repeating, “Brahma is dancing and Vishnu is dancing.” Watching her ecstasy the Master said to me with a smile, “Look, she is engulfed in bliss. Her mind is now in the abode of Gopala.”
Gopal-ma’s ecstasy was boundless. Her vision, conversation, and play with her beloved Gopala continued: “Here is Gopala in my arms. Now he enters into you [pointing to Sri Ramakrishna]. There, he comes out again. Come, my child, come to your wretched mother.” Thus she became convinced that Sri Ramakrishna was none other than her Gopala.
Only a mystic understands the language and behaviour of another mystic. Sri Ramakrishna was happy to see her ecstasy, but in order to calm her, he began to stroke her chest and feed her with delicacies. Even while eating, Gopal-ma said in an ecstatic mood: “Gopala, my darling, your wretched mother has led a life of dire poverty. She had to make her living by spinning and selling sacred thread. Is that why you are taking special care of her today?” From this time on Aghoremani Devi was known as Gopal-ma. (Source: They Lived with God)