Among the Master's disciples, Tarak, Latu, and
the elder Gopal had already cut off their relationship
with their families. The young disciples whom Sri
Ramakrishna had destined for the monastic life were in need of a
shelter. The Master had asked Naren to see to it that they
should not become householders. Naren vividly remembered
the Master's dying words: 'Naren, take care of the boys.'
The householder devotees, moreover, wanted to meet,
from time to time, at a place where they could talk about
the Master. They longed for the company of the
young disciples who had totally dedicated their lives to
the realization of God. But who would bear the expenses of
a house where the young disciples could live? How
would they be provided with food and the basic necessaries
of life?
All these problems were solved by the generosity
of Surendranath Mitra, the beloved householder disciple
of Sri Ramakrishna. He came forward to pay the expenses
of new quarters for the Master's homeless disciples. A
house was rented at Baranagore, midway between Calcutta
and Dakshineswar. Dreary and dilapidated, it was a
building that had the reputation of being haunted by evil
spirits. The young disciples were happy to take refuge in it
from the turmoil of Calcutta. This Baranagore Math, as the
new monastery was called, became the first headquarters of the
monks of the Ramakrishna Order.1
Its centre was the shrine room, where the copper vessel containing the
sacred
ashes of the Master was daily worshipped as his visible
presence.2
Narendranath devoted himself heart and soul to
the training of the young brother disciples. He spent the
day-time at home, supervising a lawsuit that was pending
in the court and looking after certain other family affairs;
but during the evenings and nights he was always with
his brothers at the monastery, exhorting them to
practise spiritual disciplines. His presence was a source of
unfailing delight and inspiration to all.
The future career of the youths began to take
shape during these early days at Baranagore. The
following incident hastened the process. At the invitation of
the mother of Baburam, one of the disciples, they all went
to the village of Antpur to spend a few days away from
the austerities of Baranagore. Here they realized,
more intensely than ever before, a common goal of life, a
sense of brotherhood and unity integrating their minds
and hearts. Their consecrated souls were like pearls in a
necklace held together by the thread of
Ramakrishna's teachings. They saw in one another a reservoir of
spiritual power, and the vision intensified their mutual love
and respect. Narendra, describing to them the glories of
the monastic life, asked them to give up the glamour
of academic studies and the physical world, and all felt
in their hearts the ground swell of the spirit of
renunciation. This reached its height one night when they were
sitting for meditation around a fire, in the fashion of Hindu
monks. The stars sparkled overhead and the stillness was
unbroken except for the crackling of the firewood. Suddenly
Naren opened his eyes and began, with an apostolic fervour,
to narrate to the brother disciples the life of Christ.
He exhorted them to live like Christ, who had had no place
'to lay his head.' Inflamed by a new passion, the
youths, making God and the sacred fire their witness, vowed
to become monks.3
When they had returned to their rooms
in a happy mood, someone found out that it was
Christmas Eve, and all felt doubly blest. It is no wonder that the
monks of the Ramakrishna Order have always cherished a
high veneration for Jesus of Nazareth.
The young disciples, after their return to
Baranagore, finally renounced home and became permanent inmates
of the monastery. And what a life of austerity they
lived there! They forgot their food when absorbed in
meditation, worship, study, or devotional music. At such times
Sashi, who had constituted himself their caretaker,
literally dragged them to the dining-room. The privations
they suffered during this period form a wonderful saga
of spiritual discipline. Often there would be no food at
all, and on such occasions they spent day and night in
prayer and meditation. Sometimes there would be only rice,
with no salt for flavouring; but nobody cared. They lived
for months on boiled rice, salt, and bitter herbs. Not
even demons could have stood such hardship. Each had
two pieces of loin-cloth, and there were some regular
clothes that were worn, by turns, when anyone had to go out.
They slept on straw mats spread on the hard floor. A few pictures
of saints, gods, and goddesses hung on the walls, and
some musical instruments lay here and there. The
library contained about a hundred books.
But Narendra did not want the brother disciples to
be pain-hugging, cross-grained ascetics. They should
broaden their outlook by assimilating the thought-currents of
the world. He examined with them the histories of
different countries and various philosophical systems. Aristotle
and Plato, Kant and Hegel, together with Sankaracharya
and Buddha, Ramanuja and Madhva, Chaitanya and Nimbarka, were
thoroughly discussed. The Hindu
philosophical systems of Jnana, Bhakti, Yoga, and Karma,
each received a due share of attention, and their
apparent contradictions were reconciled in the light of Sri
Ramakrishna's teachings and experiences. The dryness
of discussion was relieved by devotional music. There
were many moments, too, when the inmates indulged in
light-hearted and witty talk, and Narendra's bons
mots on such occasions always convulsed them with laughter.
But
he would never let them forget the goal of the monastic
life: the complete control of the lower nature, and the
realization of God.
'During those days,' one of the inmates of
the monastery said, 'he worked like a madman. Early in
the morning, while it was still dark, he would rise from
bed and wake up the others, singing, "Awake, arise, all
who would drink of the Divine Nectar!" And long after
midnight he and his brother disciples would still be sitting on
the roof of the monastery building, absorbed in religious
songs. The neighbours protested, but to no avail. Pandits
came and argued. He was never for one moment idle, never dull.'
Yet the brother complained that they could not realize
even a fraction of what Ramakrishna had taught.
Some of the householder devotees of the
Master, however, did not approve of the austerities of the
young men, and one of them teasingly inquired if they had
realized God by giving up the world. 'What do you
mean?' Narendra said furiously. 'Suppose we have not
realized God; must we then return to the life of the senses
and deprave our higher nature?'
Soon the youth of the Baranagore monastery
became restless for the life of the wandering monk with no
other possessions except staff and begging-bowl. Thus
they would learn self-surrender to God, detachment, and
inner serenity. They remembered the Hindu proverb that
the monk who constantly moves on, remains pure, like
water that flows. They wanted to visit the holy places and
thus give an impetus to their spiritual life.
Narendra, too, wished to enjoy the peace of
solitude. He wanted to test his own inner strength as well as
teach others not to depend upon him always. Some of the
brother disciples had already gone away from the monastery
when he began his wanderings. The first were in the nature
of temporary excursions; he had to return to Baranagore
in response to the appeal of the inmates of the
monastery. But finally in 1890, when he struck out again — without
a name and with only a staff and begging-bowl — he
was swallowed in the immensity of India and the dust of
the vast subcontinent completely engulfed him. When
rediscovered by his brother monks he was no longer
the unknown Naren, but the Swami Vivekananda who
had made history in Chicago in 1893.
In order to satisfy his wanderlust, Narendra went
to Varanasi, considered the holiest place in India — a
city sanctified from time out of mind by the association
of monks and devotees. Here have come prophets
like Buddha, Sankaracharya, and Chaitanya, to receive, as
it were, the commandment of God to preach their
messages. The Ganga charges the atmosphere with a rare
holiness. Narendra felt uplifted by the spirit of renunciation
and devotion that pervades this sacred place. He visited
the temples and paid his respects to such holy men as
Trailanga Swami, who lived on the bank of the Ganga
constantly absorbed in meditation, and Swami Bhaskarananda,
who annoyed Naren by expressing doubt as to the
possibility of a man's total conquest of the temptation of 'woman'
and 'gold.'4
With his own eyes Naren had seen the life of
Sri Ramakrishna, who had completely subdued his
lower nature.
In Varanasi, one day, hotly pursued by a troop
of monkeys, he was running away when a monk called
to him: 'Face the brutes.' He stopped and looked defiantly
at the ugly beasts. They quickly disappeared. Later, as
a preacher, he sometimes used this experience to exhort
people to face the dangers and vicissitudes of life and
not run away from them.
After a few days Naren returned to Baranagore
and plunged into meditation, study, and religious
discourses. From this time he began to feel a vague premonition of
his future mission. He often asked himself if such truths of
the Vedanta philosophy as the divinity of the soul and the
unity of existence should remain imprisoned in the
worm-eaten pages of the scriptures to furnish a pastime for
erudite scholars or to be enjoyed only by solitary monks in
caves and the depths of the wilderness; did they not have
any significance for the average man struggling with
life's problems? Must the common man, because of his
ignorance of the scriptures, be shut out from the light of Vedanta?
Narendra spoke to his brother disciples about
the necessity of preaching the strength-giving message of
the Vedanta philosophy to one and all, and especially to
the downtrodden masses. But these monks were eager for
their own salvation, and protested. Naren said to them
angrily: 'All are preaching. What they do unconsciously, I will
do consciously. Ay, even if you, my brother monks, stand
in my way, I will go to the pariahs and preach in the
lowest slums.'
After remaining at Baranagore a short while,
Naren set out again for Varanasi, where he met the Sanskrit
scholar Pramadadas Mitra. These two felt for each other a
mutual respect and affection, and they discussed, both orally
and through letters, the social customs of the Hindus
and abstruse passages of the scriptures. Next he
visited Ayodhya, the ancient capital of Rama, the hero of
the Ramayana. Lucknow, a city of gardens and
palaces created
by the Moslem Nawabs, filled his mind with the
glorious memories of Islamic rule, and the sight of the Taj Mahal
in Agra brought tears to his eyes. In Vrindavan he
recalled the many incidents of Krishna's life and was deeply moved.
While on his way to Vrindavan, trudging barefoot
and penniless, Naren saw a man seated by the
roadside enjoying a smoke. He asked the stranger to give him a
puff from his tobacco bowl, but the man was an
untouchable and shrank from such an act; for it was
considered sacrilegious by Hindu society. Naren continued on his
way, but said to himself suddenly: 'What a shame! The whole
of my life I have contemplated the non-duality of the
soul, and now I am thrown into the whirlpool of the
caste-system. How difficult it is to get over innate tendencies!'
He returned to the untouchable, begged him to lend him
his smoking-pipe, and in spite of the remonstrances of the
low-caste man, enjoyed a hearty smoke and went on
to Vrindavan.
Next we find Naren at the railroad station of
Hathras, on his way to the sacred pilgrimage centre of Hardwar
in the foothills of the Himalayas. The station-master,
Sarat Chandra Gupta, was fascinated at the very first sight
of him. 'I followed the two diabolical eyes,' he
said
later. Narendra accepted Sarat as a disciple and called him
'the child of my spirit', At Hathras he discussed with
visitors the doctrines of Hinduism and entertained them
with music, and then one day confided to Sarat that he
must move on. 'My son,' he said, 'I have a great mission to
fulfil and I am in despair at the smallness of my power. My
guru asked me to dedicate my life to the regeneration of
my motherland. Spirituality has fallen to a low ebb and
starvation stalks the land. India must become
dynamic again and earn the respect of the world through
her spiritual power.'
Sarat immediately renounced the world and
accompanied Narendra from Hathras to Hardwar. The two
then went on to Hrishikesh, on the bank of the Ganga
several miles north of Hardwar, where they found
themselves among monks of various sects, who were
practising meditation and austerities. Presently Sarat fell ill and
his companion took him back to Hathras for treatment.
But Naren, too, had been attacked with malaria fever
at Hrishikesh. He now made his way to the
Baranagore monastery.
Naren had now seen northern India, the
Aryavarta, the sacred land of the Aryans, where the spiritual
culture of India had originated and developed. The main
stream of this ancient Indian culture, issuing from the Vedas
and the Upanishads and branching off into the Puranas
and the Tantras, was subsequently enriched by
contributions from such foreign peoples as the Saks, the Huns, the
Greeks, the Pathans, and the Moguls. Thus India developed
a unique civilization based upon the ideal of unity
in diversity. Some of the foreign elements were
entirely absorbed into the traditional Hindu consciousness;
others, though flavoured by the ancient thought of the
land, retained their individuality. Realizing the spiritual
unity of India and Asia, Narendra discovered the
distinctive characteristics of Oriental civilization: renunciation of
the finite and communion with the Infinite.
But the stagnant life of the Indian masses, for which
he chiefly blamed the priests and the landlords, saddened his
heart. Naren found that his country's downfall had not
been caused by religion. On the contrary, as long as India
had clung to her religious ideals, the country had over
flowed with material prosperity. But the enjoyment of power for
a long time had corrupted the priests. The people at large
were debarred from true knowledge of religion, and the
Vedas, the source of the Hindu culture, were completely
forgotten, especially in Bengal. Moreover, the caste-system, which
had originally been devised to emphasize the organic unity
of Hindu society, was now petrified. Its real purpose had
been to protect the weak from the ruthless competition of
the strong and to vindicate the supremacy of spiritual
knowledge over the power of military weapons, wealth,
and organized labour; but now it was sapping the vitality of
the masses. Narendra wanted to throw open the
man-making wisdom of the Vedas to all, and thus bring about the
regeneration of his motherland. He therefore encouraged
his brothers at the Barangaore monastery to study the
grammar of Panini, without which one could not acquire
first-hand knowledge of the Vedas.
The spirit of democracy and equality in
Islam appealed to Naren's mind and he wanted to create a
new India with Vedantic brain and Moslem body. Further,
the idea began to dawn in his mind that the material
conditions of the masses could not be improved without
the knowledge of science and technology as developed in
the West. He was already dreaming of building a bridge
to join the East and the West. But the true leadership of
India would have to spring from the soil of the country.
Again and again he recalled that Sri Ramakrishna had been
a genuine product of the Indian soil, and he realized that
India would regain her unity and solidarity through
the understanding of the Master's spiritual experiences.
Naren again became restless to 'do something',
but what, he did not know. He wanted to run away from
his relatives since he could not bear the sight of their
poverty. He was eager to forget the world through
meditation. During the last part of December 1889, therefore, he
again struck out from the Baranagore monastery and turned
his face towards Varanasi. 'My idea,' he wrote to a friend,
'is to live in Varanasi for some time and to watch
how Viswanath and Annapurna deal out my lot. I have
resolved either to realize my ideal or to lay down my life in
the effort — so help me Lord of Varanasi!'
On his way to Varanasi he heard that Swami
Yogananda, one of his brother disciples, was lying ill
in Allahabad and decided to proceed there immediately.
In Allahabad he met a Moslem saint, 'every line and curve
of whose face showed that he was a paramahamsa.' Next
he went to Ghazipur and there he came to know the
saint Pavhari Baba, the 'air-eating holy man.'
Pavhari Baba was born near Varanasi of
brahmin parents. In his youth he had mastered many branches
of Hindu philosophy. Later he renounced the world, led
an austere life, practised the disciplines of Yoga and
Vedanta, and travelled over the whole of India. At last he settled
in Ghazipur, where he built an underground hermitage
on the bank of the Ganga and spent most of his time
in meditation. He lived on practically nothing and so
was given by the people the sobriquet of the 'air-eating
holy man'; all were impressed by his humility and spirit
of service. Once he was bitten by a cobra and said while
suffering terrible pain, 'Oh, he was a messenger from
my Beloved!' Another day, a dog ran off with his bread and
he followed, praying humbly, 'Please wait, my Lord; let
me butter the bread for you.' Often he would give away
his meagre food to beggars or wandering monks, and
starve. Pavhari Baba had heard of Sri Ramakrishna, held him
in high respect as a Divine Incarnation, and kept in his
room a photograph of the Master. People from far and
near visited the Baba, and when not engaged in meditation
he would talk to them from behind a wall. For several
days before his death he remained indoors. Then, one day,
people noticed smoke issuing from his underground cell with
the smell of burning flesh. It was discovered that the
saint, having come to realize the approaching end of his
earthly life, had offered his body as the last oblation to the Lord,
in an act of supreme sacrifice.
Narendra, at the time of his meeting Pavhari
Baba, was suffering from the sever pain of lumbago, and this
had made it almost impossible for him either to move about
or to sit in meditation. Further, he was mentally
distressed, for he had heard of the illness of Abhedananda, another
of his brother disciples, who was living at Hrishikesh.
'You know not, sir,' he wrote to a friend, 'that I am a very
soft-natured man in spite of the stern Vedantic views I
hold. And this proves to be my undoing. For however I may
try to think only of my own good, I begin, in spite of
myself, to think of other people's interests.' Narendra wished
to forget the world and his own body through the practice
of Yoga, and went for instruction to Pavhari Baba,
intending to make the saint his guru. But the Baba, with
characteristic humility, put him off from day to day.
One night when Naren was lying in bed thinking
of Pavhari Baba, Sri Ramakrishna appeared to him and
stood silently near the door, looking intently into his eyes.
The vision was repeated for twenty-one days.
Narendra understood. He reproached himself bitterly for his lack
of complete faith in Sri Ramakrishna. Now, at last, he
was convinced, he wrote to a friend: 'Ramakrishna has no
peer. Nowhere else in the world exists such
unprecedented perfection, such wonderful kindness to all, such
intense sympathy for men in bondage.' Tearfully he recalled
how Sri Ramakrishna had never left unfulfilled a single
prayer of his, how he had forgiven his offences by the million
and removed his afflictions.
But as long as Naren lived he cherished
sincere affection and reverence for Pavhari Baba, and
he remembered particularly two of his instructions. One
of these was: 'Live in the house of your teacher like a
cow,' which emphasizes the spirit of service and humility in
the relationship between the teacher and the disciple.
The second instruction of the Baba was: 'Regard spiritual
discipline in the same way as you regard the
goal,'which means that an aspirant should not differentiate
between cause and effect.
Narendranath again breathed peace and plunged
into meditation. After a few days he went to Varanasi,
where he learnt of the serious illness of Balaram Bose, one of
the foremost lay disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. At Ghazipur
he had heard that Surendranath Mitra, another lay
disciple of the Master, was dying. He was overwhelmed with
grief, and to Pramadadas, who expressed his surprise at the
sight of a sannyasin indulging in a human emotion, he said:
'Please do not talk that way. We are not dry monks. Do
you think that because a man has renounced the world he
is devoid of all feeling?'
He came to Calcutta to be at the bedside of
Balaram, who passed away on May 13. Surendra Mitra died on
May 25. But Naren steadied his nerves, and in addition to
the practice of his own prayer and meditation, devoted
himself again to the guidance of his brother disciples. Some
time during this period he conceived the idea of building
a permanent temple to preserve the relics of Sri Ramakrishna.
From his letters and conversations one can gain
some idea of the great storm that was raging in Naren's
soul during this period. He clearly saw to what an extent
the educated Hindus had come under the spell of
the materialistic ideas of the West. He despised
sterile imitation. But he was also aware of the great ideas
that formed the basis of European civilization. He told
his friends that in India the salvation of the individual
was the accepted goal, whereas in the West it was the uplift
of the people, without distinction of caste or creed.
Whatever was achieved there was shared by the common
man; freedom of spirit manifested itself in the common
good and in the advancement of all men by the united efforts
of all. He wanted to introduce this healthy factor into
the Indian consciousness.
Yet he was consumed by his own soul's hunger
to remain absorbed in samadhi. He felt at this time a
spiritual unrest like that which he had experienced at the
Cossipore garden house during the last days of Sri
Ramakrishna's earthly existence. The outside world had no attraction
for him. But another factor, perhaps unknown to him, was
working within him. Perfect from his birth, he did not
need spiritual disciplines for his own liberation.
Whatever disciplines he practised were for the purpose of
removing the veil that concealed, for the time being, his true
divine nature and mission in the world. Even before his birth,
the Lord had chosen him as His instrument to help Him in
the spiritual redemption of humanity.
Now Naren began to be aware that his life was to
be quite different from that of a religious recluse: he was
to work for the good of the people. Every time he wanted
to taste for himself the bliss of samadhi, he would hear
the piteous moans of the teeming millions of India, victims
of poverty and ignorance. Must they, Naren asked
himself, for ever grovel in the dust and live like brutes? Who
would be their saviour?
He began, also, to feel the inner agony of the
outwardly happy people of the West, whose spiritual vitality
was being undermined by the mechanistic and
materialistic conception of life encouraged by the sudden
development of the physical sciences. Europe, he saw, was sitting on
the crater of a smouldering volcano, and any moment
Western culture might be shattered by its fiery eruption.
The suffering of man, whether in the East or in the West,
hurt his tender soul. The message of Vedanta, which
proclaimed the divinity of the soul and the oneness of existence,
he began to realize, could alone bind up and heal the
wounds of India and the world. But what could he, a lad of
twenty-five, do? The task was gigantic. He talked about it with
his brother disciples, but received scant encouragement.
He was determined to work alone if no other help
was forthcoming.
Narendra felt cramped in the monastery at
Baranagore and lost interest in its petty responsibilities. The
whole world now beckoned him to work. Hence, one day in
1890, he left the monastery again with the same old
determination never to return. He would go to the Himalayas
and bury himself in the depths of his own thought. To a
brother disciple he declared, 'I shall not return until I gain
such realization that my very touch will transform a man.'
He prayed to the Holy Mother that he might not return
before attaining the highest Knowledge, and she blessed him
in the name of Sri Ramakrishna. Then she asked whether
he would not like to take leave of his earthly mother.
'Mother,' Naren replied, 'you are my only mother.'
Accompanied by Swami Akhandananda, Naren
left Calcutta and set out for Northern India. The two
followed the course of the Ganga, their first halting-place
being Bhagalpur. To one of the people who came to visit him
there Naren said that whatever of the ancient Aryan
knowledge, intellect, and genius remained, could be found mostly
in those parts of the country that lay near the banks of
the Ganga. The farther one departed from the river, the
less one saw of that culture. This fact, he believed,
explained the greatness of the Ganga as sung in the Hindu
scriptures. He further observed: 'The epithet "mild Hindu"
instead of being a word of reproach, ought really to point to
our glory, as expressing greatness of character. For see
how much moral and spiritual advancement and how
much development of the qualities of love and compassion
have to be acquired before one can get rid of the brutish force
of one's nature, which impels a man to slaughter his
brother men for self-aggrandizement!'
He spent a few days in Varanasi and left the city
with the prophetic words: 'When I return here the next time,
I shall burst upon society like a bomb-shell, and it will
follow me like a dog.'
After visiting one or two places, Naren and
Akhandananda arrived at Nainital, their destination being
the sacred Badrikashrama, in the heart of the Himalayas.
They decided to travel the whole way on foot, and also not
to touch money. Near Almora under an old peepul tree
by the side of a stream, they spent many hours in
meditation. Naren had a deep spiritual experience, which he thus
jotted down in his note-book:
In the beginning was the Word, etc.
The microcosm and the macrocosm are built
on the same plan. Just as the individual soul is
encased in a living body, so is the Universal Soul, in the
living prakriti (nature), the objective universe. Kali
is embracing Siva. This is not a fancy. This covering
of the one (Soul) by the other (nature) is analogous
to the relation between an idea and the word
expressing it. They are one and the same, and it is only by a
mental abstraction that one can distinguish them. Thought
is impossible without words. Therefore in the
beginning was the Word, etc.
This dual aspect of the Universal Soul is
eternal. So what we perceive or feel is the combination of
the Eternally Formed and the Eternally Formless.
Thus Naren realized, in the depths of meditation,
the oneness of the universe and man, who is a universe
in miniature. He realized that, all that exists in the universe
also exists in the body, and further, that the whole
universe exists in the atom.
Several other brother disciples joined Naren. But
they could not go to Badrikashrama since the road was
closed by Government order on account of famine. They
visited different holy places, lived on alms, studied the
scriptures, and meditated. At this time, the sad news arrived of
the suicide of one of Naren's sisters under tragic
conditions, and reflecting on the plight of Hindu women in the
cruel present-day society, he thought that he would be a
criminal if he remained an indifferent spectator of such
social injustice.
Naren proceeded to Hrishikesh, a beautiful valley
at the foot of the Himalayas, which is surrounded by
hills and almost encircled by the Ganga. From an
immemorial past this sacred spot has been frequented by monks
and ascetics. After a few days, however, Naren fell seriously
ill and his friends despaired of his life. When he
was convalescent he was removed to Meerut. There he met
a number of his brother disciples and together they
pursued the study of the scriptures, practised prayer and
meditation, and sang devotional songs, creating in Meerut a
miniature Baranagore monastery.
After a stay of five months Naren became
restless, hankering again for his wandering life; but he desired
to be alone this time and break the chain of attachment
to his brother disciples. He wanted to reflect deeply
about his future course of action, of which now and then he
was getting glimpses. From his wanderings in the
Himalayas he had become convinced that the Divine Spirit
would not allow him to seal himself within the four walls of a
cave. Every time he had thought to do so, he had
been thrown out, as it were, by a powerful force. The
degradation of the Indian masses and the spiritual sickness
of people everywhere were summoning him to a new
line of action, whose outer shape was not yet quite clear
to him.
In the later part of January 1891, Naren bade
farewell to his brother disciples and set out for Delhi, assuming
the name of Swami Vividishananda. He wished to
travel without being recognized. He wanted the dust of India
to cover up his footprints. It was his desire to remain
an unknown sannyasin, among the thousands of others
seen in the country's thoroughfares, market-places,
deserts, forests, and caves. But the fires of the Spirit that burnt
in his eyes, and his aristocratic bearing, marked him as
a prince among men despite all his disguises.
In Delhi, Naren visited the palaces, mosques,
and tombs. All around the modern city he saw a vast ruin
of extinct empires dating from the prehistoric days of
the Mahabharata, revealing the transitoriness of
material achievements. But gay and lively Delhi also revealed
to him the deathless nature of the Hindu spirit.
Some of his brother disciples from Meerut came
to the city and accidentally discovered their beloved
leader. Naren was angry. He said to them: 'Brethren I told
you that I desired to be left alone. I asked you not to follow
me. This I repeat once more. I must not be followed. I
shall presently leave Delhi. No one must try to know
my whereabouts. I shall sever all old associations.
Wherever the Spirit leads, there I shall wander. It matters not
whether I wander about in a forest or in a desert, on a lonely
mountain or in a populous city. I am off. Let everyone
strive to realize his goal according to his lights.'
Narendra proceeded towards historic
Rajputana, repeating the words of the Sutta-nipata:
Go forward without a path,
Fearing nothing, caring for nothing,
Wandering alone, like the rhinoceros!
Even as a lion, not trembling at noises,
Even as the wind, not caught in a net,
Even as the lotus leaf, untainted by water,
Do thou wander alone, like the rhinoceros!
Several factors have been pointed out as
influencing Naren's life and giving shape to his future message:
the holy association of Sri Ramakrishna, his own
knowledge of Eastern and Western cultures, and his
spiritual experiences. To these another must be added:
the understanding of India gained through his
wanderings. This new understanding constituted a unique
education for Naren. Here, the great book of life taught him
more than the printed words of the libraries.
He mixed with all — today sleeping with pariahs
in their huts and tomorrow conversing on equal terms
with Maharajas, Prime Ministers, orthodox pandits, and
liberal college professors. Thus he was brought into contact
with their joys and sorrows, hopes and frustrations.
He witnessed the tragedy of present-day India and
also reflected on its remedy. The cry of the people of India,
the God struggling in humanity, and the anxiety of
men everywhere to grasp a hand for aid, moved him deeply.
In the course of his travels Naren came to know how he could
make himself a channel of the Divine Spirit in the
service of mankind.
During these wandering days he both learnt
and taught. The Hindus he asked to go back to the eternal
truths of their religion, hearken to the message of the
Upanishads, respect temples and religious symbols, and take pride
in their birth in the holy land of India. He wanted them
to avoid both the outmoded orthodoxy still advocated
by fanatical leaders, and the misguided rationalism of
the Westernized reformers. He was struck by the
essential cultural unity of India in spite of the endless diversity
of form. And the people who came to know him saw in
him the conscience of India, her unity, and her destiny.
As already noted, Narendranath while travelling
in India often changed his name to avoid recognition. It
will not be improper to call him, from this point of his life,
by the monastic title of 'Swami,' or the more affectionate
and respectful appellation of 'Swamiji.'
In Alwar, where Swamiji arrived one morning in
the beginning of February 1891, he was cordially received
by Hindus and Moslems alike. To a Moslem scholar he
said: 'There is one thing very remarkable about the Koran.
Even to this day it exists as it was recorded eleven hundred
years ago. The book has retained its original purity and is
free from interpolation.'
He had a sharp exchange of words with the
Maharaja, who was Westernized in his outlook. To the latter's
question as to why the Swami, an able-bodied young man
and evidently a scholar, was leading a vagabond's life,
the Swami retorted, 'Tell me why you constantly spend
your time in the company of Westerners and go out on shooting
excursions, neglecting your royal duties.' The
Maharaja said, 'I cannot say why, but, no doubt, because I like
to.' 'Well,' the Swami exclaimed, 'for that very reason I
wander about as a monk.'
Next, the Maharaja ridiculed the worship of
images, which to him were nothing but figures of stone, clay,
or metal. The Swami tried in vain to explain to him
that Hindus worshipped God alone, using the images
as symbols. The Prince was not convinced. Thereupon
the Swami asked the Prime Minister to take down a picture
of the Maharaja, hanging on the wall, and spit on it.
Everyone present was horror-struck at this effrontery. The
Swami turned to the Prince and said that though the picture
was not the Maharaja himself, in flesh and blood, yet
it reminded everyone of his person and thus was held in
high respect; likewise the image brought to the devotee's
mind the presence of the Deity and was therefore helpful
for concentration, especially at the beginning of his
spiritual life. The Maharaja apologized to Swamiji for his rudeness.
The Swami exhorted the people of Alwar to study
the eternal truths of Hinduism, especially to cultivate
the knowledge of Sanskrit, side by side with Western
science. He also encouraged them to read Indian history, which
he remarked should be written by Indians following
the scientific method of the West. European historians
dwelt mainly on the decadent period of Indian culture.
In Jaipur the Swami devoted himself to the study
of Sanskrit grammar, and in Ajmer he recalled the
magnificence of the Hindu and Moslem rules. At Mount Abu
he gazed in wonder at the Jain temple of Dilwara, which it
has been said, was begun by titans and finished by jewellers.
There he accepted the hospitality of a Moslem official.
To his scandalized Hindu friends the Swami said that he
was, as a sannyasin belonging to the highest order
of paramahamsas, above all rules of caste. His conduct in dining
with Moslems, he further said, was not in conflict with
the teachings of the scriptures, though it might be frowned
upon by the narrow-minded leaders of Hindu society.
At Mount Abu the Swami met the Maharaja of
Khetri, who later became one of his devoted disciples. The
latter asked the Swami for the boon of a male heir and
obtained his blessing.
Next we see the Swami travelling in Gujarat
and Kathiawar in Western India. In Ahmedabad he
refreshed his knowledge of Jainism. Kathiawar, containing a
large number of places sacred both to the Hindus and the to
Jains, was mostly ruled by Hindu Maharaja, who received
the Swami with respect. To Babu Haridas Viharidas, the
Prime Minister of the Moslem state of Junagad, he
emphasized the need of preaching the message of Hinduism
throughout the world. He spent eleven months in Porbandar
and especially enjoyed the company of the Prime
Minister, Pandit Sankar Pandurang, a great Sanskrit scholar who
was engaged in the translation of the Vedas. Impressed by
the Swami's intellectuality and originality, the pandit
said: 'Swamiji, I am afraid you cannot do much in this
country. Few will appreciate you here. You ought to go to the
West, where people will understand you and your work.
Surely you can give to the Western people your
enlightening interpretation of Hinduism.'
The Swami was pleased to hear these words,
which coincided with something he had been feeling within. The
Prime Minister encouraged the Swami to continue his
study of the French language since it might be useful to him
in his future work.
During this period the Swami was extremely
restless. He felt within him a boundless energy seeking
channels for expression. The regeneration of India was
uppermost in his mind. A reawakened India could, in her turn,
help the world at large. The sight of the pettiness,
jealousy, disunion, ignorance, and poverty among the Hindus
filled his mind with great anguish. But he had no patience
with the Westernized reformers, who had lost their contact
with the soul of the country. He thoroughly disapproved
of their method of social, religious, and political
reform through imitation of the West. He wanted the Hindus
to cultivate self-confidence. Appreciation of India's
spiritual culture by the prosperous and powerful West, he
thought, might give the Hindus confidence in their own
heritage. He prayed to the Lord for guidance. He became
friendly with the Hindu Maharajas who ruled over one-fifth
of the country and whose influence was great over
millions of people. Through them he wanted to introduce
social reforms, improved methods of education, and
other measures for the physical and cultural benefit of
the people. The Swami felt that in this way his dream
of India's regeneration would be realized with
comparative ease.
After spending a few days in Baroda, the Swami
came to Khandwa in Central India. Here he dropped the
first hint of his willingness to participate in the Parliament
of Religions to be held shortly in Chicago. He had heard
of this Parliament either in Junagad or Porbandar.
After visiting Bombay, Poona, and Kolhapur,
the Swami arrived at Belgaum. In Bombay he had
accidentally met Swami Abhedananda and in the course of a
talk had said to him, 'Brother, such a great power has
grown within me that sometimes I feel that my whole body
will burst.'
All through this wandering life he exchanged
ideas with people in all stations and stages of life and
impressed everyone with his earnestness, eloquence, gentleness,
and vast knowledge of India and Western culture. Many of
the ideas he expressed at this time were later repeated in
his public lectures in America and India. But the
thought nearest to his heart concerned the poor and
ignorant villagers, victims of social injustice: how to improve
the sanitary condition of the villages, introduce
scientific methods of agriculture, and procure pure water for
daily drinking; how to free the peasants from their illiteracy
and ignorance, how to give back to them their lost
confidence. Problems like these tormented him day and night.
He remembered vividly the words of Sri Ramakrishna
that religion was not meant for 'empty stomachs.'
To his hypochondriac disciple Haripada he gave
the following sound advice: 'What is the use of thinking
always of disease? Keep cheerful, lead a religious life,
cherish elevating thoughts, be merry, but never indulge in
pleasures which tax the body or for which you will feel
remorse afterwards; then all will be well. And as regards death,
what does it matter if people like you and me die? That will
not make the earth deviate from its axis! We should not
consider ourselves so important as to think that the world
cannot move on without us.'
When he mentioned to Haripada his desire to
proceed to America, the disciple was delighted and wanted to
raise money for the purpose, but the Swami said to him that
he would not think about it until after making his
pilgrimage to Rameswaram and worshipping the Deity there.
From Belgaum the Swami went to Bangalore in
the State of Mysore, which was ruled by a Hindu
Maharaja. The Maharaja's Prime Minister described the young
monk as 'a majestic personality and a divine force destined
to leave his mark on the history of his country.' The
Maharaja, too, was impressed by his 'brilliance of thought, charm
of character, wide learning, and penetrating religious
insight.' He kept the Swami as his guest in the palace.
One day, in front of his high officials, the
Maharaja asked the Swami, 'Swamiji, what do you think of
my courtiers?'
'Well,' came the bold reply, 'I think Your Highness
has a very good heart, but you are unfortunately
surrounded by courtiers who are generally flatterers. Courtiers are
the same everywhere.'
'But,' the Maharaja protested, 'my Prime Minster
is not such. He is intelligent and trustworthy.'
'But, Your Highness, Prime Minister is "one who
robs the Maharaja and pays the Political Agent."'
The Prince changed the subject and
afterwards warned the Swami to be more discreet in expressing
his opinion of the officials in a Native State; otherwise
those unscrupulous people might even poison him. But
the Swami burst out: 'What! Do you think an honest
sannyasin is afraid of speaking the truth, even though it may
cost him his very life? Suppose your own son asks me about
my opinion of yourself; do you think I shall attribute
to you all sorts of virtues which I am quite sure you do
not possess? I can never tell a lie.'
The Swami addressed a meeting of Sanskrit
scholars and gained their applause for his knowledge of
Vedanta. He surprised an Austrian musician at the Prince's
court with his knowledge of Western music. He discussed
with the Maharaja his plan of going to America, but when
the latter came forward with an offer to pay his expenses
for the trip, he declined to make a final decision before
visiting Rameswaram. Perhaps he was not yet quite sure of
God's will in the matter. When pressed by the Maharaja and
the Prime Minister to accept some gifts, the costlier the
better, the Swami took a tobacco pipe from the one and a
cigar from the other.
Now the Swami turned his steps towards
picturesque Malabar. At Trivandrum, the capital of Travancore,
he moved in the company of college professors, state
officials, and in general among the educated people of the city.
They found him equally at ease whether discussing Spencer
or Sankaracharya, Shakespeare or Kalidasa, Darwin
or Patanjali, Jewish history or Aryan civilization. He
pointed out to them the limitations of the physical sciences and
the failure of Western psychology to understand the
superconscious aspect of human nature.
Orthodox brahmins regarded with abhorrence
the habit of eating animal food. The Swami courageously
told them about the eating of beef by the brahmins in
Vedic times. One day, asked about what he considered the
most glorious period of Indian history, the Swami
mentioned the Vedic period, when 'five brahmins used to polish off
one cow.' He advocated animal food for the Hindus if
they were to cope at all with the rest of the world in the
present reign of power and find a place among the other
great nations, whether within or outside the British Empire.
An educated person of Travancore said about
him: 'Sublimity and simplicity were written boldly on
his features. A clean heart, a pure and austere life, an
open mind, a liberal spirit, wide outlook, and broad
sympathy were the outstanding characteristics of the Swami.'
From Trivandrum the Swami went to
Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin), which is the southernmost tip of
India and from there he moved up to Rameswaram. At Rameswaram the Swami
met Bhaskara Setupati, the
Raja of Ramnad, who later became one of his ardent
disciples. He discussed with the Prince many of his ideas
regarding the education of the Indian masses and the
improvement of their agricultural conditions. The Raja urged the
Swami to represent India at the Parliament of Religions in
Chicago and promised to help him in his venture.