A BREIF LIFE OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA (part 2)

 

  At the feet of Sri Ramakrishna

    As a youth, Narendranath’s leonine beauty was matched by his great courage. He had the build of an athlete, a resonant voice, and a brilliant intellect. He distinguished himself in athletics, philosophy, music, and among his colleagues was the undisputed leader. At college, he studied and absorbed western thoughts, and this implanted a spirit of critical inquiry in his mind. His inborn tendency towards spirituality and his respect for ancient religious traditions and beliefs, on the one side, and his argumentative nature, coupled with his sharp intellect, on the other, were now at war with each other. In this predicament, he tried to find comfort in the Brahmo Samaj, the popular socio-religious movement of the time. The Brahmo Samaj believed in a formless God, deprecated the worship of idols, and addressed itself to various forms of social reforms. Narendranath also met prominent religious leaders, but could not get a convincing answer from them to his questions about the existence of God. This only accentuated his spiritual restlessness.

          At this critical juncture, he remembered the words of his Professor,

William Hastie, who had mentioned that a saint lived at Dakshineswar, just outside Calcutta, who experienced the ecstasy described by Wordsworth in his poem, “The Excursion”. His cousin Ramachandra Datta also induced him to visit that saint. Thus came about, in 1881, the historic meeting of these two great souls, the prophet of modern India and the carrier of his message.

Narendranath asked: ‘Have you seen God?’ Sir

Ramakrishna answered his question in the affirmative: ‘yes, I have seen him just as I see you here, only more intensively’. At last, here was one who could assure him from his own experience that God existed. His doubt was dispelled. The disciple’s training had begun.

         While Sri Ramakrishna tested him in so many ways, Narendranath, in turn, tested Sri Ramakrishna in order to ascertain the truth of his spiritual assertions. At one stage, after the passing away of his father in 1884, Narendranath’s family suffered many troubles and privations. At the suggestion of his master, Narendranath tried to pray to mother Kali at Dakshineswar for the alleviation of his family’s distress. He found, however, that although his need was for wealth, he could pray only for knowledge and devotion.

Gradually, Narendranath surrendered himself to the master. And Sri Ramakrishna, with infinite patience, calmed and rebellious spirit of his young disciple and led him forth from doubt to certainty and from anguish to spiritual bliss. But, more than Sri Ramakrishna’s spiritual guidance and support, it was his love which conquered young Narendranath, love which the disciple reciprocated in full measure.

           With Sri Ramakrishna’s illness and his removal to Kashipore, on the outskirts of Calcutta, for treatment, began Narendranath’s final training under his guru. It was a time remarkable for the intense spiritual fire which burned within him and which expressed itself through various intense practices. The Mater utilized the opportunity to bring his young disciples under the leadership of Narendranath. And when Naren asked that he might be absorbed in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, or dinarily regarded as the highest spiritual experience, the master admonished him saying: ‘Shame on you! I thought you would grow, like a huge banyan, sheltering thousands now I see you seek your own liberation’.

 All the same, Narendranath had the much coveted realization, after which the master said that the key to this would thenceforth remain in his keeping and the door would not be opened till Narendra had finished the task for which he had taken birth. Three or four days before his mahasamadhi, Sri Ramakrishna transmitted to Narendranath his own power and told him: ‘by the force of the power transmitted by me, great things will be done by you; only after that will you go to whence you came’.

After the passing away of the master in august 1886, many of the young disciples gathered together in an old dilapidated house at Baranagore under the leadership of Narendranath. 

Here, in the midst of a life of intense austerity and spiritual practices, the foundation of the Ramakrishna brotherhood was laid. It was during these days that Narendranath, along with many of his brother disciples, went to Antpur; and there on Christmas Eve (1886), sitting round a huge fire in the open, they took the vow of sannyasa. The days at Baranagore were full of great joy, study, and spiritual practices. But the call of the wandering life of the sannyasin was now felt by most the monks. And Narendranath, too, towards the close of 1888, began to take temporary excursions away from the Math.