Vivekananda – Pt 2

I’m not going to insert a long introduction on this one as it’s already a very long post. To catch up with where we’re at, I definitely recommend reading Part One as it covers Narendra’s childhood and early education.

Last we left off, we were beginning to discuss the two “factions” that were competing for Narendra’s spiritual attention. Let’s jump back in on that point, shall we?

Brahmo Samaj

The first is the Bhramo Samaj. They were first started in 1828 in Calcutta, and as such had considerable sway in the way that Narendra would have experienced the divine, despite his mother’s polytheistic Hindu faith. He had a few dealings with them during his time in college, though he never rose to any prominence within the organization.

The Bhramo Samaj practices Bhramoism, which is a monotheistic reformationist movement that started sometime during the Bengal Renaissance in the 18^th century. In particular, they take some cues from both Islamic and Christian faiths in that they worship a singular male-aligned deity (Bhrama) and reject idol worship – including rejecting prophets, messiahs, gurus, or avatars. They prioritize knowledge and autonomous truth finding over dogma, ritual, and scriptural authority. At the same time, they invite the possibility of sin, heaven and hell, and the concept of salvation as worthy areas of examination.

There is plenty to admire about the ideals the Bhramo Samaj champion. It is also entirely possible that this is where Narendra came into contact with the Christian and Islamic ideas that Nikhilananda tends to ascribe to him, as we have no other records of him studying those topics in depth. All we do know is that he attended meetings of the Samaj and often spoke with the leader, Devendranath Tagore, about subjects relating to God.

We also know, thanks to Chattopadhyaya’s work, that Narendra had aspirations to be someone of importance within the Samaj. It was well known and Narendra was a decently gifted musician, and so that was how he attempted to approach becoming a more prominent member of the group. It ultimately didn’t work out as someone more talented was taken up as their preferred artist.

Nikhilananda, on the other hand, tells a different story. In it, Narendra is questioning his faith and goes to Devendranath for council. Devendranath told him to meditate on the subject and find out for himself, but this was apparently not the answer Narendra was hoping to hear. Dissatisfied with the answer he was given, Narendra spends time asking other holy men for their answer and ends up walking away from each of them just as dissatisfied as before. Eventually he remembers Ramakrishna and goes to seek him out for an answer.

That, essentially, is the extent of Narendra’s involvement with the Bhramo Samaj.

Ramakrishna

We now have to take a slight detour.

In order to truly understand Narendra’s relationship with Ramakrishna, we need to discuss who Ramakrishna was. It’s easy to say that he was Narendra’s guru, but there is a lot to their relationship and to how Ramakrishna became such a prominent religious figure.

Ramakrishna was born in 1836 in Kamarpukar. He was already a part of a deeply religious brahmin family, so it was natural that he would take up the family tradition and continue it on. As with all of the births we’ve discussed this far, Ramakrishna’s was also full of visions and visitations by deities. He was the last of four children.

By the age of 7, Ramakrishna had his first spiritual experience: upon seeing several white cranes flying against dark rain-heavy clouds over a rice field, he collapsed into a trace. These trances where Ramakrishna would suddenly collapse were very common and continued through-out his life. It has been speculated that Ramakrishna actually suffered from a seizure disorder, given the reported symptoms he had, but at the time it was usually ascribed to him entering a deep samadhi.

Unfortunately, sometime while he was 7, his father would pass away. He was very shaken up by this and would visit the cremation grounds to practice his spirituality. His brother, Ramkumar, took over the responsibilities of his father until the family’s financial situation got worse. Ramkumar then opened a school in Calcutta while continuing his duties as a priest. At the age of 16, Ramakrishna moved to Calcutta and continued on his religious trainings there with his brother.

This is where Rani Rasmani enters the picture. She was a well-off woman with four daughters and about 20-acres of land to build upon. As a devoted follower of Kali, she had a portion of the land developed into a temple while the rest became temple-gardens. There is quite a bit to this story as well, but it’s best to not get lost in the weeds here.

In 1855, the Dakshineswar Temple was opened. Ramkumar was the head priest of the temple and Ramakrishna, despite previous objections to Ramkumar’s appointment, stayed on in order to learn from his brother. After about a year of practice, Ramakrishna would be appointed to the position of priest. Shortly thereafter, Ramkumar would suddenly pass.

Which brings us to the vision of Kali. Ramakrishna was desperate to meet his Mother. Longed to have a vision of Her.

The process started slowly. At first, it was just meditating at night in front of the Kali statue, completely nude. It then progressed to singing and praying, begging for a vision from Her. Then he gave up food and sleep, dedicating as many hours as possible outside of his priestly duties to trying to receive a vision of Kali. Eventually he was engaged in around the clock worship.

At the height of his worship, and in a delirious sleep and food deprived state, he grabbed one of the swords that were hung as decoration to Kali. Planning to end his life with it, he was suddenly overcome with a vision and fell unconscious to the floor. From then on, Ramakrishna was devoted to Kali and never left Dakshineswar Temple. This whole ordeal drew those who sought similar enlightenment to the temple and all but ensured that he would become a prominent religious figure.

Thanks to this ordeal, and rumors that were spread about it, Ramakrishna’s actual mother decided that he must get married as she felt he was losing his grip on sanity. At the age of 5 – compared to Ramakrishna’s 23 – Saradamani Mukhopadhyaya was married to Ramakrishna. She is commonly known as Sarada Devi and is considered an avatar in her own right. They never had any children nor consummated the marriage, but Sarada Devi did become a devout follower of her husband and continued his teachings after his death.

Meeting Ramakrishna

With this background knowledge, we can finally turn back to when Narendra met Ramakrishna.

This is another one of those complex stories that no one is fully able to corroborate. Once again, we have the popularized story of Nikhilananda versus the research of Chattopadhyaya.

In Nikhilananda’s version it is William Hastie who first introduces the two, in a round about way. During a lecture on Wordsworth’s poem The Excursion, Hastie mentions that if any students want to see the true meaning of the word “trance” in action, they should visit Ramakrishna in Dakshineswar. Narendra and some classmates went one day, watched him worship, and then took off. Neither Ramakrishna nor Narendra point to this as their first meeting, but Nikhilananda seems to consider it the moment Narendra first became intrigued by Ramakrishna.

There is another point where the two met that largely gets glossed over as well. This happened at a dinner party right before Narendra’s F.A exams and Ramakrishna was giving a lecture at this dinner. Ramakrishna, when he was finished, asked Narendra to sing for him and – being so impressed with his singing talents – then extended an invitation for Narendra to come visit him in Dakshineswar. Once again, neither Ramakrishna nor Narendra ever mentioned this meeting and it was only discovered much later in records.

The story that both of them seem to agree on as their first meeting is, technically, they’re second meeting. Narendra and a couple of friends went to visit Dakshineswar. Once there, Ramakrishna touches Narendra and somehow magically almost transports him to another realm. According to Nikhilananda, Ramakrishna apparently puts Narendra in an unconscious state and asks him a bunch of questions. He then makes this proclamation that Narendra was already perfected before showing up in this life.

Nkihilananda then goes on to describe a vision that Ramakrishna had in which he was a Divine Child who asked a great sage to come to earth. In this vision, the sage agreed to be reincarnated and that sage just so happened to take the form of a light that fell onto Narendra’s home and became Narendra.

It’s all so magical, isn’t it? How Nikhilananda knew exactly what vision Ramakrishna saw, I don’t know. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda would have been long dead by the time Nikhilananda ever put pen to paper, so it’s been speculated that these stories are once again repeated from sources that wrote about things well after Vivekananda’s death.

Narendra’s brother, Mahendranath, does tell a somewhat similar story, just without the bit about visions and Divine Children. How does he know? He was one of the two people who accompanied Narendra to Dakshineswar.

The other was a great-uncle named Ramchandra. He was Bhuvansewari’s maternal uncle, was practically raised by her, and was also the same age as Narendra. Ramchandra had previously visited Ramakrishna due to some family deaths, so he convinced both Mahendranath and Narendra to visit the temple with him. According to Mahendranath, Narendra would only agree to go if he got sweets after the visit.

So, the three of them go to Dakshineswar to visit Ramakrishna. There, according to Mahendranath, Ramakrishna acts very oddly and begins to speak to Narendra as if he has known Narendra his whole life. He begins praising him and, in my opinion, love bombing him. Narendra is deeply uncomfortable with the situations, tries to get away, but not before Ramakrishna can touch him and send him into a trance. Eventually, Narendra recovers from this and is quite shaken, so the group leaves.

There’s also yet another account of this “first meeting” that makes no mention of visions at all. In this version, Narendra is still heavily praised in between Ramakrishna giving lectures and singing religious songs. Narendra visits on two consecutive days in March before disappearing for seven months and coming back once to visit in October. This story was provided by one of Narendra’s brother monks, Mahendranath Gupta – I will be referring to him as M.G from here on.

M.G was, ostensibly, Ramakrishna’s scribe. He recorded all of the comings and goings of the temple, along with what was discussed and by whom. If you know anything of the Buddha’s relationship with Ananda, it would be fair to say that M.G was the Ananda to Ramakrishna’s Buddha. Everything he recorded during this time is preserved in the Kathamrita, which I unfortunately did not have direct access to, but Chattopadhyaya has reproduced bits in his writing.

Living with Ramakrishna

Once again, I have to remind everyone that we have two very different versions of events when it comes to how Narendra joined Ramakrishna and eventually founded the Ramakrishna Math. We’ll start with Nikhilananda’s version before moving into Chattopadhyaya’s research.

According to Nikhilananda

If you couldn’t guess my bias already, let me lay it out plainly: Nikhilananda’s “biography” annoys me. There is very little in the way of facts. What facts are presented are heavily embellished with fantastical tales written as if Nikhilananda had been there. In some instances he clearly writes as if he were inside Narendra’s mind and knew exactly what he was thinking.

The time he spent with Ramakrishna is no exception to this. It becomes an issue here because it heavily obscures the timeline of events. There’s also a number of meetings that Nikhilananda claims happened, but for which we have no recordings of. A lot of what he writes can be summed up with “source: trust me, bro.”

It’s important to note here that while all of these supposed meetings were happening, Narendra was still in college. Though earlier we showed that he was a mediocre student at best – and particularly one who didn’t seem to prioritize studying – he still would’ve been busy or engaged with things other than Ramakrishna. Most of the meetings that Nikhilananda talks about are not ones that happened at Dakshineswar, but are instead private meetings where Ramakrishna would leave the temple just to see Narendra.

The way that Nikhilananda paints the situation between Ramakrishna and Narendra is somewhat unsettling. Ramakrishna pursues Narendra almost relentlessly, pining away for him when Narendra doesn’t come around. This is why he, or someone else acting on his behalf, would go and plead with Narendra to visit or force a visit on Narendra. Nikhilananda describes their relationship as one with an unhealthy lack of boundaries and paints Ramakrishna as someone obsessed with a person who doesn’t want them.

Nikhilananda briefly mentions that Ramakrishna and Narendra didn’t always see eye-to-eye on issues. This doesn’t seem to bother Ramakrishna much. He prays to the Mother to turn Narenda’s mind and then continues to show up when he’s been told he’s unwanted.

There is exactly one fight where Ramakrishna apparently gives Narendra the cold shoulder. Why? Nikhilananda just says that Ramakrishna was testing him.

Despite this treatment, Narendra continued to show up at the temple. A month went by without a word between the two. Eventually, Ramakrishna deigns to speak to Narendra and asks him why he keeps coming to Dakshineswar if he’s just being ignored. Narendra, according to Nikhilananda, tells Ramakrishna that he “loves [him] and wants to see [him]” and does not “come to hear [his] words.” This pleases Ramakrishna so much that he immediately forgets everything, embraces Narendra, and then praises Narendra for passing this test he was just put through unknowingly.

Perhaps it’s just my bias showing, but if Nikhilananda’s accounts are in any way true, he paints a very unhealthy dynamic between the two of them.

This back and forth wouldn’t last much longer, however. Shortly after graduating, Viswanath would pass away unexpectedly. As Narendra was the oldest male in the house, it naturally fell to him to take care of the rest of the family.

As I mentioned in the previous section, Viswanath had many creditors that were ready to rip the ancestral lands away from the family in order to pay off their debts. It’s largely unclear what actually happened to the family at this point. Nikhilananda never mentions it and I wasn’t able to find a copy of Mahendranath’s recollections, so there’s plenty of room to speculate about what might have happened.

One thing I do know is that Nikhilananda immediately begins portraying this period of Narendra’s life as being one of sudden and extreme hardship. He describes Narendra going to classes barefoot and hungry. Of Narendra being propositioned to do immoral things for money, like sex work and thievery. At every turn his faith is being tested.

With no prospects and even his very devout Hindu mother turning against Bhrama, we are led to Narendra’s ultimate test. Does he still believe in God? After a long tirade against God and the futility of prayer, Narendra passes out on the streets – rain-soaked, hungry, and sleep-deprived from having been out begging for days. In this terrible state, he ends up having a vision and upon waking in the morning he is determined to renounce the world and serve Bhrama.

Oh, and miracle of miracles! Ramakrishna is also going to be in Calcutta that day!

The two of them meet up to discuss Narendra’s future. Ramakrishna convinces Narendra to stay in the world while Ramakrishna is alive. Then, by another miracle, Narendra manages to find a job that would allow him some meager earnings to keep things afloat.

It’s still not enough for the creditors though. Narendra goes to Ramakrishna and asks for more advice, to which Ramakrishna instructs him to go to the Kali temple and pray for money for his family. There’s an undertone to this conversation that Ramakrishna is annoyed with Narendra for being so concerned about worldly things. Nardendra, for his part, thinks this over and does go to the temple.

There, instead of praying for the financial security of his family, Narendra has a change of heart and asks Kali for wisdom. He returns to Ramakrishna and explains what happened, to which Ramakrishna once again encourages him to go to the temple and try again. Narendra does this two more times and each time fails to pray for his family and instead asks for spiritual wisdom. When Ramakrishna learns about this he is overjoyed that Narendra finally seems willing to let go of the worldly life, so he tells Narendra that he will pray that his family is taken care of.

Narendra then becomes a Kali devotee and has a breakthrough about Her. Yet, strangely, he never mentions Her ever again. Presumably because people wouldn’t understand, at least according to Nikhilananda’s recounting that’s why.

Nikhilananda then presents us with a brief character arc montage. In it, Narendra realizes that, through recognizing the hardship his family is in, everyone in India is truly suffering. We’re also told that Narendra gave up all these lofty ambitions he had in order to stay with Ramakrishna, though they had never been discussed before. It’s also told to us that Narendra had to struggle to re-learn Hinduism, fighting against his rationalist tendencies that were trained in him from college.

All through this time, Ramakrishna’s obsession with Narendra grows. We see him get away with things without being rebuked for them. He is constantly being praised and exalted by Ramakrishna. Whenever Ramakrishna compares disciples, Narendra is always the best and most favored.

Then things take a turn. It’s only about a year after Narendra’s father’s death that it’s discovered that Ramakrishna is suffering from throat cancer. There is a lot of upset among the group, obviously, and a lot of rationalizing how this could happen when Ramakrishna is such a holy person. Narendra ends up ruffling some feathers by stating that Ramakrishna may be holy but that his body is still human and therefore susceptible to human disease.

With the cancer revealed and Ramakrishna’s health on the decline, a power vacuum begins to open up and opportunists try to fill it. Ramakrishna ends up largely sticking to his chambers as he gets weaker and the elder household followers, smelling an opportunity, began trying to entice the devotees away from Ramakrishna. Good Guy Narendra essentially calls them all greedy frauds, which convinces enough of the devotees to stay away from those claiming they were suddenly experiencing spiritual gifts.

Though it should come as no surprise that all through this Ramakrishna is preparing Narendra to take things over. This means that Narendra spends a lot of time with Ramakrishna in meditation and having spiritual awakening after spiritual awakening. As Ramakrishna nears the end of his life, he begins inducting a few of the disciples and turns teaching over to Narendra.

One night Narendra finally asks Ramakrishna if he is God. To no one else but Narendra, Ramakrishna declares himself an incarnation of Rama and Krishna, effectively stating that he is indeed a god. Narendra accepts this without question. Within a few days of this declaration, Ramakrishna passes.

According to Nikhilananda, at any rate.

Chattopadhayaya’s Research

One of the big advantages of Chattopadhyaya’s work is that it’s largely based off of Mahendranath Gupta’s (M.G) recordings of his time with Ramakrishna. Chattopadhyaya points out that many of the stories of people having known Narendra/Vivekananda were brought to light during the 50^th anniversary of Vivekananda’s death. He sets out, in his work, to correct a lot of those stories by pointing out the inconsistencies of these stories by using as many historical accounts as possible. Again, the vast majority of Narendra’s time with Ramakrishna comes from the records of M.G.

Based on M.G’s writings, a completely different set of events with Narendra and Ramakrishna took place. The first meeting? A lot less touchy and a lot less filled with spiritual visions. Largely, according to the records, Ramakrishna told some religious stories, they all sang some songs, and he praises Narendra for a lot of minor things. Narendra visits twice on consecutive days in March 1881 before disappearing until around October of that year.

After this point, Narendra is mostly missing through the first half of 1882. In M.G’s notes, he does note that Ramakrishna continues to talk about and seemingly obsess over when Narendra will come back. It isn’t until August that Narendra does finally return to the temple.

This meeting is largely uneventful as well, when compared with all the times Nikhilananda describes. At this meeting, Narendra sings some songs at Ramakrishna’s request before Ramakrishna slips into a trance mid-song. Some time goes by, everyone disperses, and Narendra heads outside with another devotee to discuss philosophy.

When Ramakrishna comes back to reality, he gives a small talk before heading out to where Narendra is having a debate with the other devotee. Narendra makes a quip, in English, about how learned ignorance is the end of philosophy and the beginning of religion. Ramakrishna, who doesn’t speak English, is confused while everyone else laughs along with Narendra. At the end of this visit, according to M.G, Ramakrishna admits that Narendra rarely visits and that it’s probably for the best since Ramakrishna gets so overwhelmed in his presence.

There is then a two year gap between visits. It isn’t until a few days after Narendra’s father dies that he reappears at Dakshineswar. This is also when rumors of Narendra getting married in order to secure money for the family manage to reach Ramakrishna, along with when Narendra begins reading about atheist thought. Learning all this, Ramakrishna’s attitude towards Narendra completely changes; far less praise happens and there’s an increase in scolding in their interactions.

One thing that I want to mention here, this is the extent of the major interactions between Ramakrishna and Narendra during 1881 to 1884. In total, according to M.G’s records, it appears that Narendra visited Ramakrishna 33 times – the majority of which take place closer to Ramakrishna’s death in 1886. Additionally, M.G never records Ramakrishna visiting Narendra in Calcutta.

A lot of the interactions between the two of them feature Narendra being incredibly sassy either towards the devotees or Ramakrishna. In the records, it’s noted that Ramakrishna admits that he doesn’t enjoy Narendra arguing and debating with the other devotees. In fact, sometime in 1885, the two have a disagreement where Ramakrishna essentially says that he doesn’t believe anything that Narendra says. This is the first time that we see Ramakrishna talking down to Narendra.

It’s important, I think, to remember that Ramakrishna was not a learned person – he did not know how to read and largely knew the Vedas by memory only. It’s my theory that Ramakrishna felt largely inadequate when confronted with Narendra’s ideas. Especially when it comes to his teachings being challenged as he’s trying to teach the other devotees.

All of that changes when Ramakrishna is diagnosed with cancer in the early part of 1886.

Ramakrishna goes back to praising Narendra all the time. Narendra, for his part, begins backing up Ramakrishna’s ideas and even defending them to any detractors. He also does continue to keep the devotees together and takes over some of Ramakrishna’s teaching duties during this time while he couldn’t speak. They decided to move him from the temple at Dakshineswar to a more humble home in Cossipore.

There isn’t really much to say about Ramakrishna’s death. It was a slow decline that weakened him over the course of the year. Several recordings talk about how Narendra and then others attended him, fed him, and kept him company through his remaining days. Before he could pass in August, Ramakrishna even presented the ocher robes of a monastic to each of the devotees, marking their transition from devotee to monkhood. Unfortunately he would pass before they could take the monastic vows and complete the ritual that usually accompanies the offering of robes.

After Ramakrishna’s passing, the remaining group were at a loss. They couldn’t afford the 80rupees a month to remain in Cossipore but they also couldn’t return to the Dakshineswar temple, as none of them were to be priests for the temple. At the advice of a lay follower, the new monastics leave Cossipore for Baranagore.

Brief side-note: all of these locations are within Kolkata. Think of these places more like neighborhoods in a very large city.

Surendranath Mitra – a lay follower who knew Ramakrishna before he passed – sets them up with this much smaller home in Baranagore. At first it was rather difficult for them to survive. Though Surendranath had provided them with enough to finance a place to live, they still were reliant on others for their food. Given that they were the new monastics in the area and hadn’t established themselves yet, donations were scarce and for a few months they went without enough to eat.

Eventually, Narendra realizes that they never were properly given their vows. He gathers everyone on Christmas Eve, holds a small fire outside, and they all take their vows. This is also when they would take their monastic names…but Narendra had trouble sticking to just one.

I wont get too much into the various names that Narendra took until he became known as Vivekananda. He does, initially, decide to go by Swami Vivekananda, but in his travels around India he does adopt another couple of names briefly. When they become relevant I will bring them up, but from now forward I will be referring to Narendra by his monastic name – Vivekananda.

In those early days of the Baranagore Math, Vivekananda makes the newly minted monastics study a variety of other topics and religions. Things go on for awhile until Vivekananda begins to get restless. In fact, most of the monastics begin to get restless and they decide they want to take a turn being wandering monks.

So, in 1890, that’s exactly what Vivekananda does.

That is where we’ll pick up the story next time. Vivekananda spends a good few years wandering around India, with and without his fellow monks. He meets some interesting characters along the way and makes friends with some powerful people who ultimately help him get to the World Parliament of Religions.

It’s a meandering tale and, once again, we have two differing versions of things to try and reconcile. Until then, however, stay safe and sane out there!