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.