Narendra's longing for God-vision

Monday, May 9, 1887

The next morning M. was sitting alone under a tree in the garden. He said to himself:

Sri Ramakrishna has made the brothers of the monastery renounce ‘woman and gold’.

Ah, how eager they are to realize God! This place has become a veritable Vaikuntha, and the brothers living here are embodiments of Narayana. It is not many days since the Master passed away; that is why all the ideas and ideals he stood for are there, almost intact. ‘The same Ayodhya-only Rāma is not there.’ The Master has made these brothers renounce their homes. Why has he kept a few in the world? Is there no way of liberation for them?"

From a room upstairs Narendra saw M. sitting alone under the tree. He came down and said with a smile, “Hello, M.! What are you doing?”

After a little conversation M. said to him: “Ah, you have such a sweet voice. Please sing a hymn.”

Narendra sang the following hymn to Śiva, in which the devotee prays for forgiveness for his sins: Even before I saw the light of this world, my sins from previous births, Through which I passed because of desire for the fruit of my deeds, Punished me as I lay in my mother’s womb. There I was boiled in the midst of filthy things: Who can describe the pain that afflicts the child in its mother’s womb? Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. In childhood my suffering never came to an end; My body was covered with filth and I craved for my mother’s breasts. Over my body and limbs I had no control;I was pursued by troublesome flies and mosquitoes; Day and night I cried with the pain of many an ailment, forgetting Thee, O Sankara! Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. In youth the venomous snakes of sound, sight, taste, touch, and smell, Bit into my vitals and slew my discrimination; I was engrossed in the pleasures of wealth, sons, and a youthful wife. Alas! my heart, bereft of the thought of Śiva, Was filled with arrogance and pride. Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. Now in old age my senses have lost the power of proper judging and acting; My body, though still not wholly bereft of life, Is weak and senile from many afflictions, from sins and illnesses and bereavements; But even now my mind, instead of meditating on Śiva, Runs after vain desires and hollow delusions. Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. The duties laid down in the smriti-perilous and abstruse-are now beyond me; How can I speak of the Vedic injunctions for brahmins, as means for attaining Brahman? Never yet have I rightly grasped, through discrimination, The meaning of hearing the scriptures from the guru and reasoning on his instruction; How then can I speak of reflecting on Truth without interruption? Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. Not even once have I finished my bath before sunrise and brought from the Ganges Water to bathe Thy holy image; Never, from the deep woods, have I brought the sacred vilwa leaves for Thy worship; Nor have I gathered full-blown lotuses from the lakes, Nor ever arranged the lights and the incense for worshipping Thee. Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. I have not bathed Thine image with milk and honey, with butter and other oblations;I have not decked it with fragrant sandal-paste; I have not worshipped Thee with golden flowers, with incense, with camphor- flame and savoury offerings. Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. I have not made rich gifts to the brahmins, cherishing in my heart, O Mahadeva, Thy sacred form; I have not made in the sacred fire the million oblations of butter, Repeating the holy mantra given to me by my guru; Never have I done penance along the Ganges with japa and study of the Vedas. Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. I have not sat in the lotus posture, nor have I ever controlled The Prāna along the Sushumna, repeating the syllable Om; Never have I suppressed the turbulent waves of my mind, nor merged the self- effulgent Om In the ever shining Witness-Consciousness, whose nature is that of the highest Brahman; Nor have I, in samādhi, meditated on Sankara, who dwells in every form as the Inner Guide. Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. Never, O Śiva! have I seen Thee, the Pure, the Unattached, the Naked One, Beyond the three Gunās, free from delusion and darkness, absorbed in meditation, And ever aware of the true nature of the world; Nor, with a longing heart, have I meditated on Thine auspicious and sin-destroying form. Therefore, O Śiva! O Mahadeva! O Sambhu! forgive me, I pray, for my transgressions. O mind, to gain liberation, concentrate wholly on Śiva, The sole Reality underlying the worlds, the Giver of good; Whose head is illumined by the crescent moon and in whose hair the Ganges is hidden; Whose fire-darting eyes consumed the god of earthly love; whose throat and ears are decked with snakes; Whose upper garment is a comely elephant-skin. Of what avail are all the other rituals? O mind, of what avail are wealth or horses, elephants or a kingdom? Of what avail the body or a house?Know all these to be but momentary and quickly shun them; Worship Śiva, as your guru instructs you, for the attaining of Self Knowledge. Day by day does man come nearer to death; His youth wears away; the day that is gone never returns. Almighty Time devours everything; Fickle as lightning is the goddess of fortune. O Śiva! O Giver of shelter to those that come to Thee for refuge! Protect me, who have taken refuge at Thy feet. I salute the ever auspicious Śiva, the Home of Peace, Who sits in the lotus posture; who has five mouths and three eyes; Who holds in both His hands weapons and gong and drum; Who is bedecked with many an ornament; Whose skin is clear as crystal; who is Parvati’s Lord. I salute the self-effulgent Guru of the gods, the Lord of Uma; I salute the Cause of the Universe; I salute the Lord of beasts, adorned with snakes; I salute Śiva, whose three eyes shine like the sun, the moon, and fire; I salute the Beloved of Krishna; I salute Sankara, who bestows boons on His devotees and gives them shelter; I salute the auspicious Śiva. O Śiva! White is Thy body, covered with ashes; white shine Thy teeth when Thou smilest! White is the skull Thou holdest in Thy hand; white is Thy club, which threatens the wicked! White is the bull on which Thou ridest; white are the rings that hang from Thine ears! White appear Thy matted locks, covered with the form of the Ganges; White shines the moon on Thy forehead! May He who is all white, all pure, bestow on me the treasure of forgiveness for my transgressions! O Śiva, forgive all the sins that I have committed With hands or feet, with words or body, with ears or eyes, with mind or heart; Forgive my sins, those past and those that are yet to come! Victory unto Śiva, the Ocean of Compassion, the Great God, the Abode of Blessedness! After the hymn Narendra and M. talked again. NARENDRA: “You may speak of leading a detached life in the world, and all that, but you will not attain anything unless you renounce ‘woman and gold’. Don’t you feel disgusted with your wife’s body?Fools enjoy the contact of the body, filled with filth, peopled with worms, foul of smell by nature, made of flesh, blood, bone, and marrow; but the wise shun it. “Vain is the life of a person who does not take delight in the teachings of Vedānta and drink the Nectar of Divine Bliss. Listen to a song.” Narendra sang: O man, abandon your delusion! Cast aside your wicked counsels! Know the Lord and free yourself from earthly suffering! For a few days’ pleasure only, you have quite forgotten Him Who is the Comrade of your soul. Alas, what mockery! “No liberation is possible for a man unless he puts on the loin-cloth of a sannyāsi. The world must be renounced.” Narendra sang from the Five Stanzas on the glory of the monk’s loin cloth: Roaming ever in the grove of Vedānta, Ever pleased with his beggar’s morsel Ever walking with heart free from sorrow, Blest indeed is the wearer of the loin-cloth. . . . Continuing, Narendra said: “Why should a man be entangled in worldliness? Why should he be ensnared by māyā? What is man’s real nature? He is the blessed Śiva, the Embodiment of Bliss and Spirit.” He sang Sankaracharya’s Six Stanzas on Nirvāna: Om. I am neither mind, intelligence, ego, nor chitta, Neither ears nor tongue nor the senses of smell and sight; Nor am I ether, earth, fire, water, or air: I am Pure Knowledge and Bliss: I am Śiva! I am Śiva! . . Narendra recited another hymn, the Eight Stanzas on the glory of Krishna: I am consumed with false desires and wrapped in the sleep of lust: Save me, O Madhusudana! Thou art my only Refuge, Lord! I have no other salvation. I am entrapped in the mire of sin: O Madhusudana, redeem me!I am ensnared in the net of love for children, wife, and home: Save me, O Madhusudana! I am without devotion, helpless, smitten by wrong desire, Afflicted with grief and misery: O Madhusudana, redeem me! Lord, I have neither master nor place of shelter to call my own: Save me, O Madhusudana! Utterly wearied out am I by all this going and coming Along the endless road of life: O Madhusudana, redeem me! From this hard and unavailing journey through life and death, Save me, O Madhusudana! Many the births that I have seen in many a bodily form, And painful it is in the mother’s womb: O Madhusudana, redeem me! To Thee I come for salvation out of the cycle of existence: Save me, O Madhusudana! For I am terrified alike of old age and of death: I come to Thee for shelter, Lord! O Madhusudana, redeem me! Never a good deed have I done, but many have been my sins: Save me, O Madhusudana! Headlong have I fallen into the mire of worldliness; Countless the births I have endured: O Madhusudana, redeem me! I have lorded it over men but happiness is not there: Save me, O Madhusudana! What my words have promised, my deeds have never carried out; Lord, I am full of wretchedness: O Madhusudana, redeem me! If as a man or a woman I must be born again and again- Save me, O Madhusudana!- May my devotion be unswerving to Thy feet, O Lord! From the delusion of this world, O Madhusudana, redeem me! M. remained spellbound as he listened to these hymns sung by Narendra. He said to himself: “How intense Narendra’s dispassion is! This is how he has infused the spirit ofdispassion into the hearts of the other brothers of the monastery. The very contact with them awakens in the hearts of the Master’s householder devotees the desire for renunciation of ‘woman and gold’. Ah, how blessed are these all-renouncing brothers! Why has the Master kept us few in the world? Will he show us a way? Will he give us the spirit of renunciation, or will he delude us with worldliness?” After the meal all were resting. The elder Gopal was copying some songs. Niranjan was on a visit to his mother. Sarat, Baburam, and Kāli were in Puri. Narendra, with one or two brothers, left for Calcutta. He had to see to his lawsuit. He was going to return in the evening; the brothers could not bear his absence. About Rabindra In the afternoon Rabindra arrived, looking like a mad person. He was barefoot and had only half of his black-bordered cloth round his waist. His eyeballs were rolling like a madman’s. All asked him anxiously what the matter was. “Let me recover my breath!” he said. “I shall tell you everything presently. I am certainly not going back home; I shall stay at this very place with you all. She is certainly a traitor! Let me tell you something, friends. For her sake I gave up my habit of drinking, which I had indulged for five years. I have not taken a drop for the last eight months. And she is a traitor!” The brothers of the Math said: “Be calm, please! How did you come?” RABINDRA: “I have come barefoot all the way from Calcutta.” The brothers asked him where he had lost the other half of his cloth. RABINDRA: “When I was leaving her place she began to pull at my cloth. That is how half of it was torn off.”

The brothers told him to bathe in the Ganges and cool off; then they would hear his story.

Rabindra belonged to a respectable kayastha family of Calcutta. He was 20 years old. He had first met Sri Ramakrishna at the Dakshineswar temple and had received his special blessing. On one occasion he had spent three nights with the Master. His disposition was very sweet and tender, and the Master had loved him dearly. Once he had said to Rabindra: “You will have to wait some time; you have to go through a few more experiences. Nothing can be done now. You see, the police can’t do much just when the robbers attack a house. When the plundering is almost over, the police make their arrests.”

Rabindra had many virtues. He was devoted to God and to service of the poor. He had many spiritual qualities. But he had walked into the snare of a prostitute. Now, suddenly, he had discovered that the woman was being unfaithful to him. Therefore he had come to the Math in this dishevelled state, resolved not to go back to the world.A devotee accompanied Rabindra to the Ganges. It was his inmost desire that Rabindra’s spiritual consciousness should be awakened in the company of these holy men. When Rabindra finished his bath, the devotee took him to the adjacent cremation ground, showed him the corpses lying about, and said: “The brothers of the Math come here every now and then to meditate on God. It is a good place for meditation. Here one sees clearly that the world is impermanent.” Rabindra sat down in the cremation ground to meditate. But he could not meditate long; his mind was restless. Rabindra and the devotee returned to the Math. They went to the worship room to salute the Deity. The devotee said to him, “The brothers of the Math meditate in this room.” Rabindra sat there to meditate, but could not meditate long there either. DEVOTEE: “How do you feel? Is your mind very restless? Is that why you have got up from your seat? Perhaps you could not concentrate well.”

RABINDRA: “I am sure I shall not go back to the world. But the mind is restless.”

M. and Rabindra were talking. No one else was present. M. was telling him stories from the life of Buddha. At that time, the members of the Math regularly read the lives of Buddha and Chaitanya. M. said to Rabindra that Buddha’s spiritual consciousness was first awakened by hearing a song of some heavenly maidens.

M. sang the song:

We moan for rest, alas! but rest can never find; We know not whence we come, nor where we float away.

Time and again we tread this round of smiles and tears; In vain we pine to know whither our pathway leads,

Why we play this empty play. . . .

That night Narendra, Tārak, and Harish returned from Calcutta. They said, “Oh, what a big meal we had!” They had been entertained by a devotee in Calcutta.

The members of the monastery assembled in the room of the “Dānās”. Narendra heard

Rabindra’s story. He sang by way of giving instruction to him:

O man, abandon your delusion! Cast aside your wicked counsels!

Know the Lord and free yourself from earthly suffering!

For a few days’ pleasure only, you have quite forgotten Him Who is the Comrade of your soul. Alas, what mockery!

Narendra sang again:Drinking the Bliss of Hari from the cup of prema, Sādhu, be intoxicated! . . .

A few minutes later the brothers went to Kāli Tapasvi’s room. Girish Ghosh had just sent two of his new books to the monastery: the Life of Buddha and the Life of Chaitanya.

Since the founding of the new Math Śaśi had devoted himself heart and soul to the worship and service of the Master. All were amazed at his devotion. Just as he had tended Sri Ramakrishna’s physical body during his illness, so now, with the same unswerving zeal, he worshipped the Master in the shrine room. A member of the monastery was reading aloud from the lives of Buddha and Chaitanya.

He was a little sarcastic while reading Chaitanya’s life. Narendra snatched the book from his hand and said, “That is how you spoil a good thing!”

Narendra read the chapter describing how Chaitanya gave his love to all, from the brahmin to the pariah.

A BROTHER: “I say that one person cannot give love to another person.”

NARENDRA: “But the Master gave it to me.”

BROTHER: “Well, are you sure you have it?”

NARENDRA: “What can you understand about love? You belong to the servant class. All of you must serve me and massage my feet. Don’t flatter yourselves by thinking you have understood everything. Now go and prepare a smoke for me.”

All laughed.

THE BROTHER: “I surely will not.”

M. (to himself): “Sri Ramakrishna has transmitted mettle to all the brothers of the Math.

It is no monopoly of Narendra’s. Is it possible to renounce ‘woman and gold’ without this inner fire?”

May 10, 1887

It was Tuesday, a very auspicious day for the worship of the Divine the Mother.

Arrangements were being made for Her special worship at the monastery.

M. was going to the Ganges to take his bath. Rabindra was walking alone on the roof. He heard Narendra singing the Six Stanzas on Nirvāna: Death or fear I have none, nor any distinction of caste;

Neither father nor mother nor even a birth have I; Neither friend nor comrade, neither disciple nor guru: I am Pure Knowledge and Bliss: I am Śiva! I am Śiva!

I have no form or fancy; the All-pervading am I;Everywhere I exist, yet I am beyond the senses;

Neither salvation am I, nor anything that may be known:

I am Pure Knowledge and Bliss: I am Śiva! I am Śiva!

Rabindra went to the Ganges to take his bath. Presently he returned to the monastery clad in his wet cloth.

Narendra said to M. in a whisper: “He has bathed in the Ganges. It would be good to initiate him now into sannyās.”

Both Narendra and M. smiled.

Prasanna asked Rabindra to change his wet cloth and gave him a dry Gerruā cloth.

Narendra said to M., “Now he is going to put on the cloth of renunciation.”

M. (with a smile): “What kind of renunciation?”

NARENDRA: “Why, the renunciation of ‘woman and gold’.”

Rabindra put on the ochre cloth and entered Kāli Tapasvi’s room to meditate.