Sri Ramakrishna’s power to see through the past, present and future of an aspirant who came to him, and also his visions regarding Narendranath, had revealed to him whoNaren was and what was his mission on the earth. He verified these visions and conclusions on Naren’s third visit to Dakshineswar. Sri Ramakrishna on that occasion took him to the adjacent garden of Jadu Mallik and in the course of conversation entered into a
trance. In this state the Master touched Narendra. Narendra, in spite of his best efforts to remain unaffected by the touch, instantly lost all out-ward consciousness, as on the previous occasion. Sri Ramakrishna put him several questions when he was in that
condition and learnt many things which confirmed his visions and findings about Naren’s antecedents. Then onwards Sri Ramakrishna started training him in the path of Advaitic knowledge. But Narendra was not to submit easily. His inquiring and analytical intellect could not accept anything as true unless he experienced it himself or it stood the test of reason. So when the Master requested him — with a view to familiarise him — to read
aloud some passages from such Advaitic treatises as the Ashtavakra Samhita, he revolted saying, ‘It is blasphemous, for there is no difference between such philosophy and atheism.
There is no greater sin in the world than to think myself identical with the Creator. . . The sages who wrote such things must have been insane.’ Sri Ramakrishna was amused at this outspoken comment of his disciple. He argued with him that no one could place a limitation on God, that he should be such and such and not anything else, but to no purpose. Narendra continued to criticize such ideas for some time more. One day Sri Ramakrishna, having failed to convince his disciple by argument about the truth of Advaitic realizations, touched him in an ecstatic mood. There was an immediate change in the disciple’s vision. He saw with his eyes open that there was nothing else in the univers but God. He kept his vision to himself to see how long it would last. When he went home and sat for food he saw that the plate, the food, the server, all was God; on the streets the cab, the horse and himself, he found were made of the same stuff. This experience continued for some days and with it came to him the conviction about the truths of Advaita philosophy, which no amount of argument could have been able to bring. That was the mode of Sri Ramakrishna’s teaching.
Sri Ramakrishna was, however, careful to enlarge the disciple’s vision regarding
other faiths and paths. Even the path considered most indecent and vulgar, Sri Ramakrishna
said, was a path if there was a real and intense longing for God. One day while Narendra
was condemning certain practices of some sects Sri Ramakrishna gently told him, ‘My boy,
a mansion has many entrances. Some of them no doubt are dirty like the scavenger’s
entrance to a house. It is really desirable to enter the house by the front door.’ Naren
thereafter was never seen to condemn any sect. By these gentle methods Sri Ramakrishna
helped to wipe out bigotry and puritanism from the disciple’s mind.
It was never the procedure with Sri Ramakrishna to force his own views on the
disciples. He allowed them to grow naturally, helping them in their own path. Naren once
felt it difficult to go beyond the body idea and approached the Master for the remedy. How
the Master helped Naren to overcome this impediment we shall learn from Narendranath
himself: ‘On another occasion I felt great difficulty in totally forgetting my body during
meditation and concentrating the mind wholly on the ideal. I went to him for counsel, and
he gave me the very instruction which he himself had received from Totapuri while practising
Samadhi at the time of his Vedantic Sadhana. He sharply pressed between my two
eyebrows with his finger nail and said, “Now concentrate your mind on this painful sensation!”
As a result I found I could concentrate easily on that sensation as long as I liked,
and during that period I completely forgot the consciousness of the other parts of my body,
not to speak of their causing any distraction in the way of my meditation.’
Narendra with his keen intellect, weighed the Master’s words in a balance, as it
were, criticized and tested them before accepting them. At the same time he could go deep
into their meaning. We shall narrate a solitary instance which has a pertinent bearing on our
theme. One day Sri Ramakrishna was discussing the tenets of the Vaishnavas. He
recounted them to his devotees: relish for the name of God, compassion for all living
creatures and service to the devotees of God. He related at some length what the meaning
of the first tenet was, but coming to speak about compassion he was thrown into Samadhi.
Returning to a semi-conscious state he said to himself, ‘Compassion to creatures! Compassion
to creatures! Thou fool. An insignificant worm crawling on earth, thou to show
compassion to others! Who art thou to show compassion! No it cannot be. It is not compassion
for others but rather service to man, recognising him to be the veritable manifestation
of God.’
Coming out of the room, Naren said to his young friends, ‘I have discovered a
strange light in those wonderful words of the Master. How beautifully has he reconciled the
ideal of Bhakti with the knowledge of the Vedanta, generally interpreted as hard, austere
and inimical to human sentiments and emotions! What a grand, natural and sweet
synthesis!’ For a long time did he explain the meaning of those words and in the end said,
‘If it is the will of God, the day will soon come when I shall proclaim this grand truth
before the world at large. I shall make it the common property of all’. Thus did the Master
prepare his disciple for the propagation of Vedanta.
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