Swami Vivekananda was seventeen years of age when he first heard about and met Ramakrishna. Upon meeting Sri Ramakrishna, he immediately recognized his future messenger. Ramakrishna grasped Swami Vivekananda and said, "Ah! You have come so late. How unkind of you to keep me waiting so long! My ears are almost seared listening to the cheap talk of worldly people. Oh how I have been yearning to unburden my mind to one who will understand my thought! Lord, I know you are the ancient sage, Nara, the incarnation of Narayana (Vishnu), born on earth to remove the miseries of mankind." The only problem was that Vivekananda, being so left brain and young in His training, looked at Ramakrishna as crazy!
Vivekananda was a sincere seeker of God, and on His next visit to Ramakrishna, he asked Him if He had ever seen God. This was a question He had asked many different spiritual teachers, but no one had answered in the positive. When Ramakrishna was asked, He said, "Yes, I have seen God. I see Him as I see you here, only more clearly. God can be seen. One can talk to Him. But the problem is, what people care for God. People shed torrents of tears for their wives, children, wealth, and property, but who weeps for the vision of God? If one cries sincerely for God, one can surely see Him." Vivekananda was amazed.
During his second visit, Ramakrishna, in an ecstatic state of meditation, put his foot on Vivekananda’s body and, with his eyes open, the walls, room, temple and garden began to disappear in the void. Vivekananda thought He was dying. He cried out, "What are you doing to me? I have my parents, brothers, and sisters at home." Ramakrishna laughed and said, "All right, everything will happen in due time."
On his third visit, Ramakrishna touched Him on His third eye and Vivekananda lost consciousness. Ramakrishna asked Vivekananda questions in this trance state, about his purpose and mission, and the answers Vivekananda gave just confirmed what Ramakrishna already knew.
Ramakrishna told the other disciples that Vivekananda had attained perfection even before his birth. Ramakrishna had a vision about Vivekananda and Himself which I would like to quote from Swami Nikhilanananda’s book, "Vivekananda, a Biography".
"Absorbed, one day, in samadhi, Ramakrishna had found that His mind was soaring high, going beyond the physical universe of the sun, moon, stars, and passing into the subtle region of ideas. As it continued to ascend, the forms of Gods and Goddesses were left behind, and it crossed the luminous barrier separating the phenomenal universe from the absolute, entering finally the transcendental realm.
There Ramakrishna saw seven venerable sages absorbed in meditation. These, he thought, must have surpassed even the Gods and Goddesses in wisdom and holiness, and as He was admiring their unique spirituality He saw a portion of the undifferentiated absolute become congealed, as it were, and take the form of a Divine child. Clamoring upon the lap of one of the sages and gently clasping his neck with his soft arms, the child whispered something in His ear, and at this magic touch the sage awoke from meditation.
He fixed his half open eyes upon the wondrous child, who said, in great joy: "I am going down to earth. Won’t you come with me?" With a benign look, the sage expressed assent and returned in deep spiritual ecstasy. Rama Krishna was amazed to observe that a tiny portion of the sage, however, descended to earth, taking the form of light, which struck the house in Calcutta where Vivekananda’s family lived. When He saw Vivekananda for the first time, He at once recognized Him as the incarnation of the sage. He also admitted that the Divine child who brought about the descent of the Rishi was none other than Himself."
For five years Vivekananda tested Ramakrishna, not being able to let go of His left brain education, to see fully the realization that Ramakrishna had achieved. Ramakrishna never asked Vivekananda to let go of his reason, for this was part of His greatest gift and greatest curse. In Djwhal Khul’s terminology, Ramakrishna was the mystic, and Vivekananda more the occultist and teacher.
Ramakrishna had great love for Vivekananda even though Viveka-nanda was quite disrespectful in the early stages of their relationship. One time Ramakrishna asked the Divine Mother in meditation about this disrespect and the Divine Mother said, "Why do you care about what he says? In a short time He will accept your every word as true." Vivekananda was continuing his college education and visiting Ramakrishna on a regular basis. Ramakrishna kept a close watch on Vivekananda’s practice of discrimination, detachment, self control, and regular meditation.
On one occasion Ramakrishna was going to transfer many of His spiritual powers to Vivekananda. Vivekananda asked if it would help Him to realize God. Ramakrishna said no, but that it would help Him in His future work as a spiritual teacher. Vivekananda replied, "Let me realize God first, and then I shall perhaps know whether or not I want supernatural powers. If I accept them now, I may forget God, make selfish use of them and thus come to grief." Ramakrishna was greatly pleased with His disciple’s reply. Vivekananda did long for an experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi and had asked Ramakrishna many times for His help in achieving this exalted state of enlightenment. Ramakrishna insisted that He had to be patient and keep up His spiritual practices. One particular night Vivekananda was meditating when he felt a light burning at the back of His head. The light grew in intensity and finally burst. Vivekananda fell unconscious. When He awoke, he could only feel His head and not the rest of His body. He was consumed in an ineffable peace. Ramakrishna later said, "Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this realization, like the jewels locked in a box, will be hidden away from you and kept in my custody. I will keep the key with me. Only after you have fulfilled your mission on this earth will the box be unlocked, and you will know everything as you have known now."
Ramakrishna predicted that Swami Vivekananda would shake the world with his spiritual powers. Ramakrishna, like Himself, did not want Vivekananda to stay in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, before His task in the world was complete.
Vivekananda was almost an extension of Ramakrishna. It was almost like Ramakrishna was going to complete His mission through the teaching abilities of Vivekananda. They were each opposites or maybe a better word is compliments of each other. Ramakrishna, with the great mystic and experiential powers, and Vivekananda with the education and left brain teaching abilities that Ramakrishna was never trained in. They drank from the same well.
On Ramakrishna’s death bed, Ramakrishna took hold of Him and passed an electrical current into His body. Vivekananda lost outer consciousness. When He awoke He found Ramakrishna crying, and Ramakrishna said to Him: "Oh Naren, Today I have given you everything I possess. Now I am no more that a fakir (renunciate), a penniless beggar. By the powers I have transmitted to you, you will accomplish great things in the world, and not until then will you return to the source whence you have come." Vivekananda had become a channel for Ramakrishna’s powers and spokesperson for His message. Two days before Ramakrishna died, Vivekananda was standing before Ramakrishna’s dying physical body. He then had a doubt in His mind whether Ramakrishna was truly an incarnation of god. (Doubting Thomas). He said to Himself in his mind, that He would accept Ramakrishna as an incarnation of God of, on the threshold of death, if Ramakrishna would declare Himself to be so.
Vivekananda never spoke this thought out loud. Ramakrishna turned to Him and said, "O my Naren, are you still not convinced? He who, in the past was born as Rama and Krishna is now living in this very body as Ramakrishna." Ramakrishna had affirmed that He was one with the Vishnu aspect of God, in the Hindu trinity. Rama and Krishna were also incarnations of Vishnu. Vivekananda was convinced.
After Ramakrishna’s physical death, Vivekananda became the spiritual teacher for Ramakrishna’s order of disciples that still exists to this day. Vivekananda traveled throughout India and was then guided to America to attend a great meeting of the "parliament of religions" in Chicago.
Through many trials and tribulations, Swami Vivekananda made it to the Parliamentary Convocation of the World’s Religions and spoke a number of times. His talks were an immediate success, and He was the star of the entire Convocation. The New York Herald wrote, "He is undoubtedly the greatest fixture in the Parliament of Religions. After hearing Him, we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this learned nation." Swami Vivekananda was only thirty years old.
Swami Vivekananda was the first Eastern Master to come to the United States and spread the Hindu teaching. Integral to this teaching was the Hindu belief that all
- Western nations’ concern for the masses.
- The high culture of the women in America.
- The power of organization of the West.
- At the material prosperity of the West.
Swami Vivekananda traveled throughout India and was hailed as a prophet of modern India. He also gave Himself to training Eastern and Western disciples so they could carry on His work. Swami’s health began to disintegrate because of hard He was pushing Himself. He made one last return trip to the West to see how the teachings of Vedanta, which He had started, were spreading.
RSS 2.0