After The Death of Ramakrishna

Monday, February 21, 1887

Narendra, Rākhāl, Niranjan, Sarat, Śaśi, Kāli, Baburam, Tārak, and Sarada Prasanna were living in the monastery. All day the members had been fasting in observance of the Sivaratri. Sarat, Kāli, Niranjan, and Sarada were planning to go to Puri, the following Saturday, on a pilgrimage to the sacred Jagannath. Jogin and Lātu were at Vrindāvan and had not yet seen the new place.

Narendra had gone to Calcutta that morning to look after a lawsuit in which his family had been involved since the death of his father. At 9am, M. arrived at the Math.

Tārak saw him and began to sing in praise of Śiva, Rākhāl joining him: There Śiva dances, striking both His cheeks; and they resound, Ba-ba-bom!

Dimi-dimi-dimi! sounds His drum; a garland of skulls from His neck is hanging!

In His matted locks the Ganges hisses; fire shoots from His mighty trident!

Round His waist a serpent glitters, and on His brow the moon Is shining!

Rākhāl and Tārak danced as they sang. Narendra had recently composed the song.

Śaśi finished the morning worship in the shrine. Sarat then sang about Śiva to the accompaniment of the Tānpura.

Narendra had just arrived from Calcutta. He had not yet taken his bath. Kāli asked him, “What about the lawsuit?” “Why should you bother about it?” Narendra replied sharply.Renunciation of “woman and gold”

Narendra was smoking and talking to M. and the others. He said: “Nothing can be achieved in spiritual life without the renunciation of ‘woman and gold’. ‘Woman’ is the doorway to hell. All people are under the control of women. The cases of Śiva and Krishna are quite different. Śiva turned His Consort into His servant.

Sri Krishna led a house-holder’s life. But how unattached He was! How quickly He renounced Vrindāvan and the gopis!”

RĀKHĀL: “And how He renounced Dwaraka, too, where He was king!”

Narendra took his bath in the Ganges and returned to the monastery. He carried his wet cloth and towel in his hand. Sarada prostrated himself before Narendra. He too had been fasting on account of the Sivaratri. He was going to the Ganges for his bath. Narendra entered the worship room and prostrated himself before the picture of Sri Ramakrishna, who was daily worshipped there as the Deity. For a few minutes he was absorbed in meditation.

The devotees assembled in a room and began to converse. The talk turned to Bhavanāth. Narendra said, “People like him live like worms in the world.”

Śiva festival at the Math

It was afternoon. Arrangements were being made to worship Śiva in the evening. Leaves of the bel-tree were gathered for the worship. Bel-wood was chopped for the homa.

In the evening Śaśi, who was in charge of the worship at the monastery, burnt incense before the pictures of the various gods and goddesses.

The worship of Śiva was to take place under the bel-tree in the monastery compound.

The Deity was to be worshipped four times, during the four watches of the night. The brothers assembled under the bel-tree. Bhupati and M. were present also. One of the young members of the Math was in charge of the worship. Kāli was reading from the Gitā. Now and then he argued with Narendra.

KĀLI: “I alone am everything. I create, preserve, and destroy.”

NARENDRA: “How is it possible for me to create? Another power creates through me.

Our various actions-even our thoughts-are caused by that power.”

M. (to himself): “The Master used to say: ‘As long as a man feels that it is he who meditates, he is under the jurisdiction of the Ādyāśakti . Śakti must be acknowledged.’”

Kāli reflected in silence a few moments and then said: “The actions you are talking about are illusory. There is not even any such thing as thought. The very idea of these things makes me laugh.”

NARENDRA: “The ‘I’ that is implied in ‘I am He’ is not this ego. It is that which remains after one eliminates mind, body, and so on.“After completing the recital of the Gitā, Kāli chanted, “Śāntih! Śāntih! Śāntih!”

Narendra and the other devotees stood up and circled round and round the tree, singing and dancing. Now and then they chanted in chorus: “Śiva Guru! Śiva Guru!”

It was midnight, the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight of the moon. Pitch darkness filled all the quarters. Men, birds, and animals were all hushed into silence. The young sannyāsis were clad in Gerruā robes. The words “Śiva Guru”, chanted in their full-throated voices, rose into the infinite sky like the rumblings of rain-clouds and disappeared in the Indivisible Satchidananda.

The worship was over. The sun, about to rise, was painting the eastern horizon crimson.

In this sacred twilight, the conjunction of night and day, the holy Brahmamuhurta, the young worshippers finished their baths in the Ganges.

It was morning. The devotees went to the shrine room, prostrated themselves before the Deity, and gradually assembled in the big hall. Narendra was clad in a new ochre cloth.

The bright orange colour of his apparel blended with the celestial lustre of his face and body, every pore of which radiated a divine light. His countenance was filled with fiery brilliance and yet touched with the tenderness of love. He appeared to all as a bubble that had risen up in the Ocean of Absolute Existence and Bliss and assumed a human body to help in the propagation of his Master’s message. All eyes were fixed on him.

Narendra was then just 24 years old, the very age at which the great Chaitanya had renounced the world.

Balarām had sent fruit and sweets to the monastery for the devotees’ breakfast. Rākhāl, Narendra, and a few others partook of the refreshments. After eating one or two morsels some of them cried out, “Blessed indeed is Balarām!” All laughed.

Narendra now began to joke like a child.

He was imitating Sri Ramakrishna. He put a sweet into his mouth and stood still, as if in samādhi. His eyes remained unwinking. A devotee stepped forward and pretended to hold him up by the hand lest he should drop to the ground.

Narendra closed his eyes. A few minutes later, with the sweetmeat still in his mouth, he opened his eyes and drawled out, “I–am–all–right.” All laughed loudly. Refreshments were now given to everyone. M. looked on at this wonderful mart of happiness.

The devotees shouted joyfully, “Jai Guru Mahārāj”!

Monday, March 25, 1887

M. arrived at the Baranagore Math with Devendra to visit his brother disciples and spend the night in the monastery. The previous week he had spent three days at the Math. He was very eager to observe the spirit of intense renunciation of these young men.

Śaśi lit the lamp in the worship room and chanted the name of God. Next he burnt incense before all the pictures of gods and goddesses in the various rooms. The evening service began.

Śaśi conducted the worship. The members of the Math, with M. and Devendra, stood with folded hands and sang the hymn of the Ārati.

Narendra’s reminiscences of the Master

After the worship, Narendra recalled to M. his various meetings with Sri Ramakrishna.

NARENDRA: “One day, during one of my early visits, the Master in an ecstatic mood said to me, ‘You have come!’ ‘How amazing!’ I said to myself. ‘It is as if he had known me a long time.’ Then he said to me, ‘Do you ever see light?’ I replied: ‘Yes, sir. Before I fall asleep I feel something like a light revolving near my forehead.’ "

M: “Do you see it even now?”

NARENDRA:“I used to see it frequently. In Jadu Mallick’s garden house the Master one day touched me and muttered something to himself. I became unconscious. The effect of the touch lingered with me a month, like an intoxication. “When he heard that a proposal had been made about my marriage, he wept, holding the feet of the image of Kāli. With tears in his eyes he prayed to the Divine Mother: ‘O Mother, please upset the whole thing! Don’t let Narendra be drowned.’

“After my father’s death my mother and my brothers were starving. When the Master met Annada Guha one day, he said to him: ‘Narendra’s father has died. His family is in a state of great privation. It would be good if his friends helped him now with money.’

“After Annada had left I scolded him. I said, ‘Why did you say all those things to him?’

Thus rebuked, he wept and said, ‘Alas! for your sake I could beg from door to door.’ “He tamed us by his love. Don’t you think so?”

M: “There is not the slightest doubt about it. His love was utterly unselfish.”

NARENDRA: “One day when I was alone with him he said something to me. Nobody else was present. Please don’t repeat it to anyone here,” M: “No, I shall not. What did he say?” NARENDRA: “He said: ‘It is not possible for me to exercise occult powers; but I shall do so through you. What do you say?’ ‘No,’ I replied, ‘you can’t do that.’ “I used to laugh at his words. You must have heard all these things from him. I told him that his visions of God were all hallucinations of his mind.“He said to me: ‘I used to climb to the roof of the kuthi and cry: “O devotees, where are you all? Come to me, O devotees! I am about to die. I shall certainly die if I do not see you.” And the Divine Mother told me, “The devotees will come.” You see, everything is turning out to be true.’ “What else could I say? I kept quiet. “One day he closed the door of his room and said to Devendra Babu and Girish Babu, referring to me, ‘He will not keep his body if he is told who he is.’” M: “Yes, we have heard that. Many a time he repeated the same thing to us, too. Once you came to know about your true Self in nirvikalpa samādhi at the Cossipore garden house. Isn’t that true?” NARENDRA: “Yes. In that experience I felt that I had no body. I could see only my face. The Master was in the upstairs room. I had that experience downstairs. I was weeping. I said, ‘What has happened to me?’ The elder Gopal went to the Master’s room and said, ‘Narendra is crying.’ “When I saw the Master he said to me: ‘Now you have known. But I am going to keep the key with me.’

“I said to him, ‘What is it that happened to me?’

“Turning to the devotees, he said: ‘He will not keep his body if he knows who he is. But I have put a veil over his eyes.’

“One day he said to me, ‘You can see Krishna in your heart if you want.’ I replied, ‘I don’t believe in Krishna or any such nonsense!’ (Both M. and Narendra laugh.) Narendra’s foreknowledge of things

“I have noticed a peculiar thing. Some men, objects, or places make me feel as if I had seen them before, in a previous birth. They appear familiar to me. One day I went to Sarat’s house in Calcutta, on Amherst Street. Immediately I said to Sarat: ‘This house seems familiar to me. It seems to me that I have known the rooms, the passages, and the rest of the house for many, many days.

“I used to follow my own whims in everything I did. The Master never interfered. You know that I became a member of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj.”

M: “Yes, I know that.”

NARENDRA: “The Master knew that women attended the meetings of the Brahmo Samaj.

A man cannot meditate with women sitting in front of him; therefore he criticized the meditation of the Brahmo Samaj. But he didn’t object to my going there. But one day he said to me, ‘Don’t tell Rākhāl about your being a member of the Brahmo Samaj, or he too will feel like becoming one.’“M: “You have greater strength of mind. That is why the Master didn’t prevent your going to the Samaj.”

NARENDRA: “I have attained my present state of mind as a result of much suffering and pain. You have not passed through any such suffering. I now realize that without trials and tribulations one cannot resign oneself to God and depend on Him absolutely.

Narendra’s ego

“Well, X- is so modest and humble! He is totally self-effacing. Can you tell me how I can develop humility?”

M: “Speaking about your ego, the Master said, ‘Whose ego is it?’”

NARENDRA: “What did he mean?”

M: “A friend one day said to Rādhika: ‘You are egotistic. That is why you insulted Krishna.’ Whereupon another friend said to the first: ‘Yes, Rādhika is egotistic, no doubt.

But whose ego is it?’ What she meant was that Radha was egotistic because she regarded Krishna as her Lord. It was Krishna Himself who kept that ego in Radha.

“What the Master meant was that it is God alone who has kept this ego in you, so that He may accomplish many things through you.

NARENDRA: “But my ego loudly proclaims to all that I have no suffering.”

M. (smiling): “You may loudly proclaim it, if that be your sweet will.”

The conversation turned to other devotees.

NARENDRA: “The Master said about Vijay Goswami, ‘He is knocking at the door.’ "

M: “That is to say, he has not yet entered the room. At Syampukur Vijay said to the Master, ‘I saw you at Dāccā in this tangible form, in this very body.’ You were there too.”

NARENDRA: “Devendra Babu and Ram Babu want to renounce the World. They are trying hard. Ram Babu told me privately that he would give up the world after 2 years.”

M: “After two years? After making provision for his children?”

NARENDRA: “Besides, he will rent his present house and buy a small house. Other relatives will arrange his daughter’s marriage.”