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About this time Narendra was urged by his father to marry, and an opportunitysoon presented itself. A wealthy man, whose daughter Narendra was asked toaccept as his bride, offered to defray his expenses for higher studies in Englandso that he might qualify himself for the much coveted Indian Civil Service.Narendra refused. Other proposals of similar nature produced no differentresult. Apparently it was not his destiny to lead a householder's life.From boyhood Narendra had shown a passion for purity. Whenever his warmand youthful nature tempted him to walk into a questionable adventure, he washeld back by an unseen hand. His mother had taught him the value of chastityand had made him observe it as a matter of honour, in loyalty to herself and thefamily tradition. But purity to Narendra was not a negative virtue, a mereabstention from carnal pleasures. To be pure, he felt, was to conserve an intensespiritual force that would later manifest itself in all the noble aspirations oflife.He regarded himself as a brahmacharin, a celibate student of the Hindutradition, who worked hard, prized ascetic disciplines, held holy things inreverence, and enjoyed clean words, thoughts, and acts. For according to theHindu scriptures, a man, by means of purity, which is the greatest of all virtues,can experience the subtlest spiritual perceptions. In Naren it accounts for thegreat power of concentration, memory, and insight, and for his indomitablemental energy and physical stamina.

In his youth Narendra used to see every night two visions, utterly dissimilar innature, before falling asleep. One was that of a worldly man with anaccomplished wife and children, enjoying wealth, luxuries, fame, and socialposition; the other, that of a sannyasin, a wandering monk, bereft of earthlysecurity and devoted to the contemplation of God. Narendra felt that he had thepower to realize either of these ideals; but when his mind reflected on theirrespective virtues, he was inevitably drawn to the life of renunciation. Theglamour of the world would fade and disappear. His deeper self instinctivelychose the austere path.For a time the congregational prayers and the devotional songs of the BrahmoSamaj exhilarated Narendra's mind, but soon he found that they did not givehim any real spiritual experience. He wanted to realize God, the goal of religion,

and so felt the imperative need of being instructed by a man who had seen God.In his eagerness he went to Devendranath, the venerable leader of the BrahmoSamaj, and asked him, even before the latter had uttered a word, 'Sir, have youseen God?'Devendranath was embarrassed and replied: 'My boy, you have the eyes of ayogi. You should practise meditation.'The youth was disappointed and felt that this teacher was not the man to helphim in his spiritual struggle. But he received no better answer from the leadersof other religious sects. Then he remembered having heard the name ofRamakrishna Paramahamsa from Professor Hastie, who while lecturing hisclass on Wordsworth's poem The Excursion, had spoken of trances, remarkingthat such religious ecstasies were the result of purity and concentration. He had

said, further, that an exalted experience of this kind was a rare phenomenon,especially in modern times. 'I have known,' he had said, 'only one person whohas realized that blessed state, and he is Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar. Youwill understand trances if you visit the saint.'Narendra had also heard about Sri Ramakrishna from a relative, RamchandraDatta, who was one of the foremost householder disciples of the Master.Learning of Narendra's unwillingness to marry and ascribing it to his desire tolead a spiritual life, Ramchandra had said to him, 'If you really want to cultivatespirituality, then visit Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar.'

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Narendra met Ramakrishna for the first time in November 1881 at the house ofthe Master's devotee Surendranath Mitra, the young man having been invitedthere to entertain the visitors with his melodious music. The Paramahamsa wasmuch impressed by his sincerity and devotion, and after a few inquiries askedhim to visit him at Dakshineswar. Narendra accepted. He wished to learn ifRamakrishna was the man to help him in his spiritual quest.AT THE FEET OF RAMAKRISHNARamakrishna, the God-man of modern times, was born on February 18, 1836, inthe little village of Kamarpukur, in the district of Hooghly in Bengal. Howdifferent were his upbringing and the environment of his boyhood from those ofNarendranath, who was to become, later, the bearer and interpreter of hismessage! Ramakrishna's parents, belonging to the brahmin caste, were poor,pious, and devoted to the traditions of their ancient religion. Full of fun andinnocent joys, the fair child, with flowing hair and a sweet, musical voice, grewup in a simple countryside of rice-fields, cows, and banyan and mango trees. Hewas apathetic about his studies and remained practically illiterate all his life,but his innate spiritual tendencies found expression through devotional songsand the company of wandering monks, who fired his boyish imagination by thestories of their spiritual adventures. At the age of six he experienced a spiritualecstasy while watching a flight of snow-white cranes against a black skyovercast with rain-clouds. He began to go into trances as he meditated on gods

and goddesses. His father's death, which left the family in straitenedcircumstances, deepened his spiritual mood. And so, though at the age of sixteenhe joined his brother in Calcutta, he refused to go on there with his studies; for,as he remarked, he was simply not interested in an education whose solepurpose was to earn mere bread and butter. He felt a deep longing for therealization of God.The floodgate of Ramakrishna's emotion burst all bounds when he took up theduties of a priest in the Kali temple of Dakshineswar, where the Deity wasworshipped as the Divine Mother. Ignorant of the scriptures and of theintricacies of ritual, Ramakrishna poured his whole soul into prayer, which oftentook the form of devotional songs. Food, sleep, and other physical needs were

completely forgotten in an all-consuming passion for the vision of God. Hisnights were spent in contemplation in the neighbouring woods. Doubt sometimesalternated with hope; but an inner certainty and the testimony of the illuminedsaints sustained him in his darkest hours of despair. Formal worship or themere sight of the image did not satisfy his inquiring mind; for he felt that afigure of stone could not be the bestower of peace and immortality. Behind theimage there must be the real Spirit, which he was determined to behold. Thiswas not an easy task. For a long time the Spirit played with him a teasing gameof hide-and-seek, but at last it yielded to the demand of love on the part of theyoung devotee. When he felt the direct presence of the Divine Mother,Ramakrishna dropped unconscious to the floor, experiencing within himself aconstant flow of bliss.

This foretaste of what was to follow made him God-intoxicated, and whetted hisappetite for further experience. He wished to see God uninterruptedly, with eyesopen as well as closed. He therefore abandoned himself recklessly to the practiceof various extreme spiritual disciplines. To remove from his mind the least traceof the arrogance of his high brahmin caste, he used to clean stealthily the latrineat a pariah's house. Through a stern process of discrimination he effaced allsense of distinction between gold and clay. Purity became the very breath of his

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nostrils, and he could not regard a woman, even in a dream, in any other wayexcept as his own mother or the Mother of the universe. For years his eyelids didnot touch each other in sleep. And he was finally thought to be insane.Indeed, the stress of his spiritual practice soon told upon Ramakrishna's delicatebody and he returned to Kamarpukur to recover his health. His relatives and oldfriends saw a marked change in his nature; for the gay boy had beentransformed into a contemplative young man whose vision was directed tosomething on a distant horizon. His mother proposed marriage, and finding inthis the will of the Divine Mother, Ramakrishna consented. He even indicatedwhere the girl was to be found, namely, in the village of Jayrambati, only threemiles away. Here lived the little Saradamani, a girl of five, who was in manyrespects very different from the other girls of her age. The child would pray toGod to make her character as fragrant as the tuberose. Later, at Dakshineswar,she prayed to God to make her purer than the full moon, which, pure as it was,showed a few dark spots. The marriage was celebrated and Ramakrishna,participating, regarded the whole affair as fun or a new excitement.In a short while he came back to Dakshineswar and plunged again into thestormy life of religious experimentation. His mother, his newly married wife, andhis relatives were forgotten. Now, however, his spiritual disciplines took a newcourse. He wanted to follow the time-honoured paths of the Hindu religion underthe guidance of competent teachers, and they came to him one by one, nobody

knew from where. One was a woman, under whom he practised the disciplines ofTantra and of the Vaishnava faith and achieved the highest result in anincredibly short time. It was she who diagnosed his physical malady as themanifestation of deep spiritual emotions and described his apparent insanity asthe result of an agonizing love for God; he was immediately relieved. It was she,moreover, who first declared him to be an Incarnation of God, and she provedher statement before an assembly of theologians by scriptural evidence. Underanother teacher, the monk Jatadhari, Ramakrishna delved into the mysteries ofRama worship and experienced Rama's visible presence. Further, he communedwith God through the divine relationships of Father, Mother, Friend, andBeloved. By an austere sannyasin named Totapuri, he was initiated into themonastic life, and in three days he realized his complete oneness with Brahman,

the undifferentiated Absolute, which is the culmination of man's spiritualendeavour. Totapuri himself had had to struggle for forty years to realize thisidentity.