Prophets of the new India by Romain Rolland

Prophets of the new India

Romain Rolland

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

OP 1HE

NEW INDIA

BY

ROMAIN ROLLAND

TRANSLATED BY

E. F. MALCOLM-SMITH

CASSELL AND COMPANY LTD.

LONDON, TO* MELBOURNE AND SYDNEY

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

translation of this work by Romain Rolland was

undertaken in the first instance for the Indian

Edition, which is being published by the Advaita Ashrama,

Mayavati, Himalayas, for circulation in India, Ceylon and

the Federated Malay States. The present Edition is

substantially the same as the Indian Edition so far as the

text is concerned, but it contains additional notes for the

greater enlightenment of Western readers.

The Translator desires to express her sense of the impos-

sibility of doing justice to the exquisite style of the Author's

French. At the Author's request she has, therefore, sought

to give as literal a translation of his thought as possible,

and style has been a secondary consideration. The bulk

of the text has been submitted to the Author's sister, to

whom the work is dedicated, and to Swami Ashokananda,

the Indian Editor, for purposes of correction before being

cast in its final form. The Translator desires to express

publicly her deep sense of obligation to those two helpers

for their unfailing and unwearied assistance.

Too little is known of Indian thought in the West. May

others share the experience of the Translator, and discover

through these pages that the great thinkers of the earth

are essentially brothers. Conditions may differ widely at

the foot or up the slopes of the mountains, but above are

" the shining tablelands, to which our God Himself is moon

and sun." From those pure heights the divisions that part

mankind are no longer discernible.

E. F. M.-S.

AHMEDABAD,

INDIA,

February, 1930.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

IN writing this book I have had constant recourse to

the advice of the Ramakrishna Mission, which has

been kind enough to place all the requisite documents at

my disposal. In particular I owe a great deal to the present

venerable head of the Belur Math and Superior of the Order,

Swami Shivananda, who has been good enough to give me

his precious personal memories of the Master ; to his pious

direct disciple and Evangelist, Mahendra Nath Gupta,

whose name is modestly concealed behind the simple initial

M ; to the young and religious savant, Boshi Sen, a disciple

of Sir J. C. Bose and a devotee of Vivekananda, who with

her permission communicated to me the unpublished

Memoirs of Sister Christine, she who with Sister Nivedita

was the most intimate of Vivekananda's Western disciples ;

to Miss Josephine MacLeod, who was an active and devoted

friend of the great Swami ; above all to the editor of the

Review, Prabuddha Bharata, Swami Ashokananda, who

has never wearied of my unwearied questions, but has

answered them with the most precise erudition. It was he

who gave me the most complete information with regard

to the actual position of the Ramakrishna Mission.

I must also express my gratitude to Mr. Dhan Gopal

Mukerji, who first revealed Ramakrishna's existence to me,

and to my faithful friead, Dr. Kalidas Nag, who has more

than once advised and instructed me.

May I have made the best use of so many excellent guides

for the service of the India which is dear to us and of the

human Spirit !

R. R.

December, 1928.

vu

CONTENTS

PAGE

To Mv EASTERN READERS xi

To MY WESTERN READERS ...... xiii

BOOK I

RAMAKRISHNA

PRELUDE ........ 3

I THE GOSPEL OF CHILDHOOD ..... 7

II KALI THE MOTHER ....... 13

III THE Two GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE ; THE BHARAVI

BRAHAMI AND TOTAPURI 25

IV IDENTITY WITH THE ABSOLUTE .... 41

V THE RETURN TO MAN ...... 53

VI THE BUILDERS OF UNITY, RAM MOHUN ROY, DEVEN-

DRANATH TAGORE, KESHAB CHUNDER SEN, DAYAN-

ANDA ........ 67

VII RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA . 112

VIII THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES 132

IX THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN . . . 144

X NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE . . . .170

XI THE SWAN SONG 193

XII THE RIVER RE-ENTERS THE SEA .... 201

EPILOGUE TO BOOK I 217

RAMAKRISHNA BIBLIOGRAPHY ..... 223

ICONOGRAPHY ........ 227

BOOK II

VIVEKANANDA

PART I

THE LIFE OF VIVEKANANDA

PRELUDE 231

I THE PARIVRAJAKA : THE CALL OF THE EARTH TO THB

SOUL 235

ix

CONTENTS

PAGE

II THE PILGRIM OF INDIA . . . ... .246

III THE GREAT JOURNEY TO THE WEST AND THE PAR-

LIAMENT OF RELIGIONS ..... 256

IV AMERICA AT THE TIME OF VIVBKANANDA'S FIRST

VISIT. THE ANGLO-SAXON FORERUNNERS OF THE

SPIRIT OF ASIA : EMERSON, THOREAU, WALT

WHITMAN 267

V THE PREACHING IN AMERICA ..... 286

VI THE MEETING OF INDIA AND EUROPE . . . 299

VII THE RETURN TO INDIA . . . . . .314

VIII THE FOUNDING OF THE RAMAKRISHNA MISSION. . 325

IX THE SECOND JOURNEY TO THE WEST . . .351

X THE DEPARTURE 358

PART II

THE UNIVERSAL GOSPEL OF VIVEKANANDA

I MAYA AND THE MARCH TOWARDS FREEDOM . . 369

II THE GREAT PATHS (THE YOGAS) .... 380

1. Karma-yoga ....... 385

2. Bhakti-yoga 395

3. Raja-yoga 405

4. Jnana-yoga ....... 418

III SCIENCE, THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION . . . 437

IV CIVITAS DEI : THE CITY OF MANKIND . . . 457

V CAVE CANEM ! 469

CONCLUSION ........ 481

PART III

I THE RAMAKRISHNA MATH AND MISSION . . . 485

II THE AWAKENING OF INDIA AFTER VIVEKANANDA,

RABINDRANATH TAGORE AND AUROBINDO GHOSE. 497

APPENDICES : c

I CONCERNING MYSTIC INTROVERSION AND ITS SCIENTIFIC

VALUE FOR THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE REAL . 509

II ON THE HELLENIC-CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM OF THE FIRST

CENTURIES, AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO HINDU

MYSTICISM : PLOTINUS OF ALEXANDRIA AND DENIS

THE AREOPAGITE 520

TO MY EASTERN READERS

" Greeting to the feet of the Jnanin ! Greeting to the feet of

the Bhakta ! Greeting to the devout who believe in the formless

God I Greeting to those who believe in a God with form I Greet-

ing to the men of old who knew Brahman 1 Greeting to the modern

knowers of Truth. ..."

(Ramakrishna, October 28, 1882.)

I MUST beg my Indian readers to view with indulgence

the mistakes I may have made. In spite of all the

enthusiasm I have brought to my task, it is impossible for

a man of the West to interpret men of Asia with their

thousand years' experience of thought ; for such an inter-

pretation must often be erroneous. The only thing to

which I can testify is the sincerity which has led me to

make a pious attempt to enter into all forms of life.

At the same time I must confess that I have not abdicated

one iota of my free judgment as a man of the West. I

respect the faith of all and very often I love it. But I never

subscribe to it. Ramakrishna lies very near to my heart

because I see in him a man and not an " Incarnation/' as

he appears to his disciples. In accordance with the Vedan-

tists I do not need to enclose God within the bounds of a

privileged man in order to admit that the Divine dwells

within the soul and that the soul dwells in everything

that Atman is Brahman : although it knows it not ; that

view is a form of nationalism of spirit and I cannot accept

it. I see God in all that exists. I see Him ,as completely

in the least fragment as in the fthole Cosmos. There is no

difference of essence. And power is universally infinite ;

that which lies hidden in an atom, if one only knew it,

could blow up a whole world. The only difference is that

it is more or less concentrated in the heart of a conscience,

1 This book is to appear in India and Europe at the same time.

Xi

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

in an ego, or in a unit of energy, an ion. The very greatest

of men is only a clearer reflection of the Sun which gleams

in each drop of dew.

That is why I can never make that sacred gulf so pleasing

to the devout, between the heroes of the soul and the

thousands of their obscure companions past and present.

And neither more nor less than I isolate Christ and Buddha,

do I isolate Ramakrishna and Vivekananda from the great

army of the Spirit marching on in their own time. I shall

try in the course of this book to do justice to those person-

alities of genius, who during the last century have sprung

up in reawakened India, reviving the ancient energies of

their country and bringing about a springtime of thought

within her borders. The work of each one was creative

and each one collected round him a band of faithful souls

who formed themselves into a church and unconsciously

looked upon that church as a temple of the one or of the

greatest God.

At this distance from their differences I refuse to see the

dust of battle ; at this distance the hedges between the

fields melt into an immense expanse. I can only see the

same river, a majestic " chemin qui marchc " in the words

of our Pascal. And it is because Ramakrishna more fully

than any other man not only conceived, but realized in

himself the total Unity of this river of God, open to all

rivers and all streams, that I have given him my love ;

and I have drawn a little of his sacred water to slake the

great thirst of the world.

But I shall not remain leaning at the edge of the river.

I shall continue my march with the stream right to the sea.

Leaving behind at each winding of the river where death

has cried " Halt I " to one of qur leaders the kneeling

company of the faithful, I shall go with the stream and

pay homage to it from the source to the estuary. Holy is

the source, holy is the course, holy is the estuary. And

we shall embrace within the river and its tributaries small .

and great and in the Ocean itself the whole moving mass

of the living God.

R. R.

VlLLENEUVE,

Christmas, 1928.

xii

MY WESTERN READERS

I HAVE dedicated my whole life to the reconciliation of

mankind. I have striven to bring it about among the

peoples of Europe, especially between those two great

Western peoples who are brethren and yet enemies. For

the last ten years I have been attempting the same task

for the West and the East. I also desire to reconcile, if it

is possible, the two antithetical forms of spirit for which

the West and the East are wrongly supposed to stand

reason and faith or perhaps it would be more accurate to

say, the diverse forms of reason and of faith ; for the West

and the East share them both almost equally although few

suspect it.

In our days an absurd separation has been made between

these two halves of the soul, and it is presumed that they

are incompatible. The only incompatibility lies in the

narrowness of view which those who erroneously claim to

be their representatives share in common.

On the one hand, those who call themselves religious shut

themselves up within the four walls of their chapel and not

only refuse to come out (as they have a right to do) but

they would deny to all outside those four walls the right

to live, if they could. On the other hand, the freethinkers,

who are for the most part without any religious sense at

all (as they have a rigfet to be), too often consider it their

mission in life to fight against religious souls and in turn

deny their right to exist. The result is the futile spectacle

of a systematic attempt to destroy religion on the part of

men who do not perceive that they are attacking something

which they do not understand. A discussion of religion

based solely on historical or pseudo-historical texts, rendered

sterile by time and covered with lichen, is of no avail. As

well explain the fact of inner psychological life by the

dissection of the physical organs through which it flows.

xiii

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

The confusion created by our rationalists be.tween the out-

ward expression and the power of thought seems to me as

illusory as the confusion common to the religions of past

ages of identifying magic powers with the words, the syllables

or the letters whereby they are expressed.

The first qualification for knowing, judging, and if desir-

able condemning a religion or religions, is to have made

experiments for oneself in the fact of religious consciousness.

Even those who have followed a religious vocation are not

all qualified to speak on the subject ; for, if they are sincere,

they will recognize that the fact of religious consciousness

and the profession of religion are two different things.

Many very honourable priests are believers by obedience

or from interested or indolent motives, and have either

never felt the need of religious experience or have shrunk

from gaining it because they lack sufficient strength of

character. As against these may be set many souls who

are, or who believe they are, free from all religious belief,

but who in reality live immersed in a state of super-rational

consciousness, which they term Socialism, Communism,

Humanitarianism, Nationalism and even Rationalism. It

is the quality of thought and not its object which determines

its source and allows us to decide whether or not it emanates

from religion. If it turns fearlessly towards the search for

truth at all costs with single-minded sincerity prepared for

any sacrifice, I should call it religious ; for it presupposes

faith in an end to human effort higher than the life of the

individual, at times higher than the life of existing society,

and even higher than the life of humanity as a whole.

Scepticism itself when it proceeds from vigorous natures

true to the core, when it is an expression of strength and

not of weakness, joins in the marcji of the Grand Army of

the religious Soul.

On the other hand, thousands of cowardly believers,

clerical and lay, within the churches have no right to

wear the colours of religion. They do not believe because

they choose to believe, but wallow in the stable where

they were born in front of mangers full of the grain of

comfortable beliefs upon which all they have to do is to

ruminate.

The tragic words used of Christ that He will be in agony

xiv

TO MY WESTERN READERS

to the end of .the world 1 are well known. I myself do

not believe in one personal God, least of all in a God of

Sorrow only. But I believe that in all that exists, including

joy and sorrow and with them all forms of life, in mankind,

and in men and in the Universe, the only God is He who is

a perpetual birth. The Creation takes place anew every

instant. Religion is never accomplished. It is a ceaseless

action and the will to strive the outpouring of a spring,

never a stagnant pond.

I belong to a land of rivers. I love them as if they were

living creatures, and I understand why my ancestors offered

them oblations of wine and milk. Now of all rivers the

most sacred is that which gushes out eternally from the

depths of the soul, from its rocks and sands and glaciers.

Therein lies primeval Force and that is what I call religion.

Everything belongs to this river of the Soul, flowing from

the dark unplumbed reservoir of our being down the inevit-

able slope to the Ocean of the conscious, realized and

mastered Being. And just as the water condenses and rises

in vapour from the sea to the clouds of the sky to fill again

the reservoir of the rivers, the cycles of creation proceed

in uninterrupted succession. From the source to the sea,

from the sea to the source everything consists of the same

Energy, of the Being without beginning and without end.

It matters not to me whether the Being be called God (and

which God ?) or Force (and what Force ?). It may equally

be called Matter, but what manner of matter is it when it

includes the forces of the Spirit ? Words, words, nothing

but words ! Unity, living and not abstract, is the essence

of it all. And it is that which I adore, and it is that which

the great believers and the great agnostics, who carry it

within them consciously or unconsciously, alike adore.

* * *

To her, to the Great Goddess, the invisible, the immanent,

who gathers in her golden arms the multiform, multicoloured

sheaf of polyphony to Unity I dedicate this new work.

1% r&v dlaytg&rrwv xcMforrp '

1 Pascal: Penstts* Le mysttrt d* Jtsus ; " J6sus sera en agonie

jusqu'a la fin du monde : il ne faut pas dormir pendant ce temps-la."

1 " The moot beautiful harmony, composed of discords/' (Hera-

clitus of Ephesus.)

XV b

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

For a century in new India Unity has been the target for

the arrows of all archers. Fiery personalities throughout

this century have sprung from her sacred earth, a veritable

Ganges of peoples and thought. Whatever may be the

differences between them their goal is ever the same

human unity through God. And through all the changes of

workmen Unity itself has expanded and gained in precision.

From first to last this great movement has been one of

co-operation on a footing of complete equality between the

West and the East, between the powers of reason and those

not of faith in the sense of blind acceptance, a sense it

has gained in servile ages among exhausted races but of

vital and penetrating intuition : the eye in the forehead of

the Cyclops which completes but does not cancel the other

two.

From this magnificent procession of spiritual heroes whom

we shall survey later 8 I have chosen two men, who have

won my regard because with incomparable charm and power

they have realized this splendid symphony of the Universal

Soul. They are, if one may say so, its Mozart and its

Beethoven Pater Seraphicus and Jove the Thunderer

Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. -

The subject of this book is threefold and yet one. It

comprises the story of two extraordinary lives one half

legendary, the other a veritable epic unfolded before us

in our own time, and the account of a lofty system of thought,

at once religious and philosophic, moral and social, with its

message for modern humanity from the depths of India's

past.

Although (as you will see for yourselves) the pathetic

interest, the charming poetry, the grace and Homeric

grandeur of these two lives are sufficient to explain why I

have spent two years of my own in exploring and tracing

their course in order to show them to you, it was not the

curiosity of an explorer tjiat prompted me to undertake

the journey.

1 See Chapter VI of this volume the Builders of Unity. (Ram

Mohun Roy, Devendranath Tagore, Keshab Chunder Sen, Daya-

nanda.) Cf. also " India on the March " (Revue Europe, December

15, 1928), where I have found a place for our great contemporary,

Aurobindo Chose, of whom I shall speak again at the end of this

volume.

xvi

TO MY WESTERN READERS

I am no dilettante and I do not bring to jaded readers

the opportunity to lose themselves, but rather to find them-

selves to find their true selves, naked and without the

mask of falsehood. My companions have ever been men

with just that object in view, whether living or dead, and

the limits of centuries or of races mean little to me. There

is neither East nor West for the naked soul ; such things

are merely its trappings. The whole world is its home.

And as its home is each one of us, it belongs to all of us.

Perhaps I may be excused if I put myself for a brief

space upon the stage in order to explain the source of inner

thought that has given birth to this work. I do this only

by way of example, for I am not an exceptional man. I

am one of the people of France. I know that I represent

thousands of Westerners, who have neither the means nor

the time to express themselves. Whenever one of us speaks

from the depths of his heart in order to free his own self,

his voice liberates at the same time thousands of silent

voices. Then listen, not to my voice, but to the echo of

theirs.

I was born and spent the first fourteen years of my life

in a part ofj central France where my family had been

established for centuries. Our line is purely French and

Catholic without any foreign admixture. And the early

environment wherein I was sealed until my arrival in Paris

about 1880 was an old district of the Nivernais where

nothing from the outside world was allowed to penetrate

within its charmed circle.

So in this closed vase modelled from the clay of Gaul

with its flaxen blue sky and its rivers I discovered all the

colours of the universe during my childhood. When staff

in hand in later years I scoured the roads of thought, I

found nothing that was strange in any country. All the

aspects of mind that I found or felt were in their origin the

same as mine. Outside experience merely brought me the

realization of my own mind, the states of which I had

noted but to which I had no key. Neither Shakespeare

nor Beethoven nor Tolstoy nor Rome, the master that

nurtured me, ever revealed anything to me except the

" Open Sesame " of my subterranean city, my Herculaneum,

sleeping under its lava. And I am convinced that it sleeps

xvii

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

in the depths of many of those around us. , But they are

ignorant of its existence just as I was. Few venture beyond

the first stage of excavation, which their own practical

common sense has shown them to be necessary for their

daily use, and they economize their needs like those masters

who forged first the royal and then the Jacobin unity of

France. I admire the structure. A historian by profession,

I see in it one of the masterpieces of human effort enlightened

by the spirit. " Aere perennius . . ." 4 But according to

the old legend which demanded that if a work was to endure

a living body should be immured in the walls, our master

architects have entombed in their mortar thousands of

warm human souls. They can no longer be seen beneath

the marble facing and the Roman cement. But I cam hear

them 1 And whoever listens will hear them as I do under

the noble liturgy of " classic " thought. The Mass cele-

brated on the High Altar takes no heed of them. But the

faithful, the docile and inattentive crowd kneeling and

standing at the given signal, ruminate in their dreams upon

quite different herbs of St. John. 6 France is rich in souls.

But she hides them as an old peasant woman hides her

money.

I have just rediscovered the key of the lost staircase

leading to some of these proscribed souls. The staircase

in the wall, spiral like the coils of a serpent, winds from

the subterranean depths of the Ego to the high terraces

crowned by the stars. But nothing that I saw there was

unknown country. I had seen it all before and I knew it

well but I did not know where I had seen it before. More

than once I had recited from memory, though imperfectly,

the lesson of thought learned at some former time (but from

whom ? One of my very ancien^ selves. . . .). Now I

re-read it, every word clear and complete, in the book of

life held out to me by the illiterate genius who knew all

its pages by heart Ramakrishna.

In my turn I present him to you, not as a new book but

as a very old one, which you have all tried to spell out

(though many stopped short at the alphabet). Eventually

4 Horace : " More lasting than brass."

On the Feast of St. John all kinds of herbs are sold in the fairs,

having so-called magic properties.

xviii

TO MY WESTERN READERS

it is always the same book but the writing varies. The

eye usually remains fixed on the cover and does not pierce

to the core.

It is always the same Book. It is always the same Man

the Son of Man, the Eternal, Our Son, Our God reborn.

With each return he reveals himself a little more fully, and

more enriched by the universe.

Allowing for differences of country and of time Rama-

krishna is the younger brother of our Christ.

We can show, if we choose, and as freethinking exegesists

are trying to do to-day, that the whole doctrine of Christ

was current before him in the Oriental soul seeded by the

thinkers of Chaldea, Egypt, Athens and Ionia. But we

can never stop the person of Christ, whether real or legendary

(they are merely two orders of the same reality fl ), from

prevailing, and rightly so, in the history of mankind over

the personality of a Plato. It is a monumental and neces-

sary creation of the Soul of humanity. It is its most

beautiful fruit belonging to one of its autumns. The same

tree has produced, according to the same law of nature, the

life and the legend. They are both made of the same living

body and are the emanation of its look, its breadth and its

moisture.

I am bringing to Europe, as yet unaware of it, the fruit

of a new autumn, a new message of the Soul, the symphony

The attitude of religious Indians with regard to legend is a

curious and critical one akin to faith. It is very remarkable that

the historic existence of the personalities they worship as Gods is

almost a matter of indifference at all events quite secondary. So

long as they axe spiritually true their objective reality matters little.

Ramakrishna, the greatest of believers, said : " Those who have

been able to conceive of such ideas ought to be able to be those

ideas themselves." And Vivekananda who doubted the objective

existence of Krishna and also of Christ (that of Krishna more than

that of Christ), declared :

" But to-day Krishna is the most perfect of the Avatars.**

And he worshipped him. (Cf. Sfster Nivedita : Notes of some

Wanderings with the Swami Vivekananda.)

Truly religious souls recognize the living God just as much in

the stamp with which He has marked the brains of a people as in

the reality of an Incarnation. They are two equal realities in the

eyes of a great believer, for whom everything that is real is God.

And he can never quite make up his mind which of the two is the

more imposing the creation of a people or the creation of an age.

xix

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

of India, bearing the name of Ramakrishna. It can be

shown (and we shall not fail to point out) that this sym-

phony, like those of our classical masters, is built up of a

hundred different musical elements emanating from the

past. But the sovereign personality concentrating in him-

self the diversity of these elements and fashioning them

into a royal harmony is always the one who gives his name

to the work, though it contain within itself the labour of

generations. And with his victorious sign he marks a new

era.

The man whose image I here evoke was the consummation

of two thousand years of the spiritual life of three hundred

million people. Although he has been dead forty years 7

his soul animates modern India. He was no hero of action

like Gandhi, no genius in art or thought like Goethe or

Tagore. He was a little village Brahmin of Bengal, whose

outer life was set in a limited frame without striking incident,

outside the political and social activities of his time. 8 But

his inner life embraced the whole multiplicity of men and

Gods. It was a part of the very source of Energy, the

divine Sakti, of whom Vidyapati, 8 the old poet of Mithila,

and Ramprasad of Bengal sing.

Very few go back to the source. The little peasant of

Bengal by listening to the message of his heart found his

way to the inner Sea. And there he was wedded to it, thus

bearing out the words of the Upanishads : 10

T In 1886. He was fifty years old. His great disciple, Vive-

kananda, died in 1902 at the age of thirty-nine. It should never

be forgotten how recently they lived. We have seen the same suns,

and the same raft of time has borne us.

The life of Vivekananda was quite different, for he traversed

the Old and the New Worlds. t

" Show Thyself, O goddess with the thick tresses ! . . . Thou

art one and many, Thou containest the thousands and Thou fillest

the field of battle with the enemy ! . . ." (Hymn to the Goddess

of Energy, Sakti.) *

M Taittiriya Upanishad.

According to the Vedanta, when Brahman the Absolute became

endowed with qualities and began to evolve the living universe,

He became Himself the first evolution, the first-born of Being,

which is the Essence of all things visible and invisible. He who

speaks thus is supposed to have attained complete identity with

Him.

XX

TO MY WESTERN READERS

" I am more ancient than the radiant Gods. I am the

first-born of the Being. I am the artery of Immortality."

It is my desire to bring the sound of the beating of that

artery to the ears of fever-stricken Europe, which has

murdered sleep. I wish to wet its lips with the blood of

Immortality.

R. R.

Christmas, 1928.

xxi

Book I

RAMAKRISHNA

PRELUDE

I SHALL begin my story as if it were a fable. But it is

an extraordinary fact that this ancient legend, belong-

ing apparently to the realm of mythology, is in reality the

account of men who were living yesterday, our neighbours

in the " century," and that people alive to-day have seen

them with their own eyes. l I have received glowing testi-

mony at their hands. I have talked with some among them,

who were the companions of this mystic being of the Man-

Gods and I can vouch for their sincerity. Moreover, these

eye-witnesses are not the simple fishermen of the Gospel

story ; some are real thinkers, learned in European thought

and disciplined in its strict school. And yet they speak as

men of three thousand years ago.

The co-existence in one and the same brain in this our

twentieth century of scientific reason and the visionary

spirit of ancient times, when, as in the Greek age, gods and

goddesses shared the bed and the board of mortal man, or

as in the age of Galilee, when against the pale summer sky

the heavenly winged messenger was seen, bringing the

Annunciation to a Virgin, who bent meekly under the gift

this is what our wise men cannot imagine ; they are no

longer mad enough. And indeed, therein lies the real

miracle, the richness of this world that they do not know

how to enjoy. The majority of European thinkers shut

1 At the date when this book was being written (the autumn

of 1928) the following direct disciples and eye-witnesses of Rama-

kriahna were still living i

Swami Shivananda, the Abbot of the central Math (monastery)

at Belur near Calcutta and the President of the Ramakrishna

Math and Mission ; Sw. Abhedananda ; Sw. Akhandananda ; Sw.

Ninnalananda ; Sw. Vijnanananda ; Sw. Subhodananda ; Mahendra

Nath Gupta, editor of Discourses with the Master under the title

" The Gospel of Ramakrishna " ; Raxnlal Chattezji, Ramakrishna's

nephew, not to mention lay disciples, whom it is difficult to trace.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

themselves up on their own particular floor of the house of

mankind; and although this floor may be stored with

libraries containing the history of the other floors inhabited

in the past, the rest of the house seems to them to be unin-

habited, and they never hear from the floors above or below

them the footsteps of their neighbours. In the concert of

the world the orchestra is made up of all the centuries past

and present, and they all play at the same time ; but each

has his eyes fixed upon his own stand and on the conductor's

baton ; he hears nothing but his own instrument.

But let us listen to the whole splendid harmony of the

present, wherein the past dreams and the future aspirations

of all races and all ages are blended. For those who have

ears to hear every second contains the song of humanity

from the first-born to the last to die, unfolding like jasmine

round the wheel of the ages. There is no need to decipher

papyrus in order to trace the road traversed by the thoughts

of men. The thoughts of a thousand years are all around

us. Nothing is obliterated. Listen 1 but listen with your

ears. Let books be silent 1 They talk too much. . . .

If there is one place on the face of the earth where all

the dreams of living men have found a home from the very

earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it

is India. Her unique privilege, as Earth 2 has shown with

great clearness, has been that of a great elder sister, whose

spiritual development, an autonomous flower continuously

growing throughout the Methuselah-long life of the peoples,

has never been interrupted. For more than thirty centuries

the tree of Vision, with all its thousand branches and their

millions of twigs, has sprung from that torrid land, the

burning womb of the gods. It renews itself tirelessly,

showing no signs of decay ; all kinds of fruit ripen upon

its boughs at the same time ; side by side are found all

kinds of gods from the most savage to the highest to the

formless God, the Unnanjeable, the Boundless One. . . .

Always the same tree.

And the substance and thought of its interlaced branches,

through which the same sap runs, have been so closely knit

together, that from root to topmost twig the whole tree is

vibrant, like the mast of the great ship of the Earth, and

1 A. Earth : The Religions of India, 1879.

PRELUDE

it sings one great symphony, composed of the thousand

voices and the thousand faiths of mankind. Its polyphony,

discordant and confused at first to unaccustomed ears,

discovers to the trained ear its secret hierarchy and great

hidden form. Moreover, those who have once heard it can

no longer be satisfied with the rude and artificial order

imposed amid desolation by Western reason and its faith

or faiths, all equally tyrannical and mutually contradictory.

What doth it profit a man to reign over a world for the most

part enslaved, debased or destroyed ? Better to reign over

life, comprehended, reverenced and embraced as one great

whole, wherein he must learn how to co-ordinate its opposing

forces in an exact equilibrium.

This is the supreme knowledge we can learn from " Uni-

verse Souls," and it is some beautiful examples of such

souls that I wish to depict. The secret of their mastery

and their serenity is not that of the " lilies of the field,

arrayed in glory, who toil not, neither do they spin." They

weave the clothes for those who go naked. They have spun

the thread of Ariadne to guide us through the mazes of the

labyrinth. We have only to hold the length of their thread

in our hands to find the right path, the path which rises

from the vast morasses of the soul inhabited by primitive

gods stuck fast in the mire, to the peaks crowned by the

outspread wings of heaven nrav tiUWJQ* the intangible

Spirit.

And in the life of Ramakrishna, the Man-Gods, I am

about to relate the life of this Jacob's ladder, whereon the

twofold unbroken line of the Divine in man ascends and

descends between heaven and earth.

8 Empedocles, "the Titan Ether/'

THE GOSPEL OF CHILDHOOD l

AT Kamarkupur, one of the conical villages of Bengal,

set in the midst of palm trees, pools and rice fields,

lived an old orthodox Brahmin couple, called Chattopad-

hyaya. They were very poor and very pious, devotees of

the cult of the heroic and virtuous Rama. The father, a man

as upright as the men of old, had been despoiled of all he

possessed, because he had refused to bear false witness to

the advantage of the great landowner, who was his neigh-

1 Note. I must warn my European readers that in describing

this childhood, I have abstained from using my critical faculties

(though they keep watch on the threshold). I have become simply

the voice of the legend, the flute under the fingers of Krishna. For

the present we need not concern ourselves with the objective reality

of facts, but only with the subjective reality of living impressions.

To undo the web of Penelope is an idle task. I am concerned

rather with the dream fashioned under the fingers of a good work-

man. A great master of learning has set us an example in this.

Max Miiller, a faithful adherent of the critical methods of the West,

and at the same time a respecter of other forms of thought, took

down from the lips of Vivekananda an account of the life of the

Paramahamsa and faithfully reproduced it in his precious little

book, (a) For he maintained that what he calls the " dialogue or

dialectic process," used to describe events seen and experienced by

contemporaries, a process, which is a kind of inversion of reality

by credible and live witn&ses, is one of the indispensable elements

of history. All knowledge of reality is an inversion through the

mind and the senses. Hence all sincere inversion is reality. Critical

reason must later evaluate the degree and angle of the vision, and

must always take into account the reflection given in the distorting

mirror of the mind.

(a) Max Miiiler : Ramakriskna, His Ufa and Sayings, 1898.

A Paramahamsa is a great bird which flies high, literally, the

Indian goose, although it bears no resemblance to the European

species. The name is often used for a saint or sage, and is com*

monly coupled with that of Sri Ramakrishna.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

bour. He received a visitation from the Gods. Although

he was then sixty years of age he went on q, pilgrimage to

Gaya, where is an imprint of the foot of the Lord Vishnu. 8

The Lord appeared to him during the night, and said, " I

am about to be reborn for the salvation of the world."

About the same time in Kamarkupur his wife, Chandra-

mani, dreamt that she had been possessed by a God. In

the temple opposite her cottage the divine image of Shiva

quickened to life under her eyes. A ray of light penetrated

to the depths of her being. Under the storm Chandramani

was overthrown and fainted. When the prey of the God

came to herself, she had conceived. Her husband on his

return found her transfigured. She heard voices ; she

carried a God. 8

The child, whom the world was to know as Ramakrishna,

was born on February 18, 1836. But the gay name with

the tripping cadences of a bell that he bore in childhood

was Gadadhar. He was a little boy full of fun and life,

mischievous and charming, with a feminine grace he pre-

served to the end of his life. Nobody imagined himself

least of all what infinite spaces, what tremendous depths

lay hidden in the little body of this laughing child. They

were revealed to him when he was six years old. One day

in June or July (1842), he was sauntering along with a meal

as small as a bird's of a little puffed rice carried in a fold

of his garment. He was going to the fields.

" I was following a narrow path between the rice fields.

I raised my eyes to the sky as I munched my rice. I saw

a great black cloud spreading rapidly until it covered the

heavens. Suddenly at the dge of the cloud a flight of

snow-white cranes passed over my head. The contrast was

so beautiful that my spirit wandered far away. I lost con-

sciousness and fell to the ground. The puffed rice was

scattered. Somebody picked me up and carried me home

in his arms. An access of Joy and emotion overcame me.

. . . This was the first time that I was seized with ecstasy."

He was destined thus to pass half his life.

Even in this first ecstasy the real character of the divine

1 Buddha is now regarded by the people as one of the numerous

Incarnations of Vishnu.

1 Indian legends tell of more than one " Immaculate Conception."

THE GOSPEL OF CHILDHOOD

impress on the soul of the child can be seen. Artistic

emotion, a passionate instinct for the beautiful, was the

first channel bringing him into contact with God. There

are as we shall see many other paths along which revela-

tion may come, either love of a dear one, or thought, or

self-mastery, br honest and disinterested labour, of com-

passion or meditation. He came to know them all, but

the most immediate and natural with him was delight in

the beautiful face of God which he saw in all that he looked

upon. He was a born artist. In this how greatly he differs

from that other great soul, the Mahatma of India, whose

European evangelist I have already become Gandhi, the

man without art, the man without visions, who does not

even desire them, who mistrusts them rather the man who

lives in God through reasoned action, as is inevitable in a

born leader of the people. The path of Ramakrishna is a

far more dangerous one, but it leads further ; from the

precipices skirted by it limitless horizons open out. It is

the way of love.

It is the way made peculiarly their own by his Bengal

countrymen, a race of artists and lover poets. Its inspired

guide had been the ecstatic lover of Krishna, Chaitanya,

and its most exquisite music the delicious songs of Chandidas

and Vidyapati. 4 These seraphic masters, the scented

flowers of their soil, have impregnated it with their fragrance

4 Chaitanya (1485-1553), the descendant of a family of Bengal

Brahmins, after having achieved a great reputation as a theological

and Sanskrit scholar, shook off the dust of the old religion with its

paralysing formalism. He went out into the highways to preach

a tiew gospel of love founded on mystic union with God. It was

open to all men and women of all religions and all castes as

brothers, and even to those without caste ; Musulmans, Hindus,

beggars, pariahs, thieves, prostitutes, all came together to listen to

his burning message and went away purified and strengthened.

An extraordinary " Awakening " was heralded during the course

of a century by the songs of a series of wonderful poets. The

most exquisite of these singers was t^handidas, the poor priest of

a ruined temple in Bengal, the lover of a young peasant girl, whom

he hymned in mystic form in a number of immortal little poems.

Nothing in the treasury of our European lieder can surpass the

touching beauty of these divine elegies. Vidyapati, the aristocrat,

whose inspiration was a Queen, attained by refined art to the

natural perfection of the simple Chandidas, but his key is a more

joyful one. (My earnest desire is to see some real Western poet

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

so that Bengal has been intoxicated with it for centuries.

The soul of the little Ramakrishna was ma,de of the same

substance ; it was flesh of their flesh, and he was looked

upon as a flowering branch of the tree of Chaitanya. 6

The lover of divine beauty, the artistic genius as yet

unaware of itself, appears again in a later ecstasy. One

night during the festival of Shiva this child of eight years

old, a passionate lover of music and poetry, a skilful modeller

of images and the leader of a small dramatic troupe of boys

of his own age, was taking the part of Shiva in the sacred

representation ; suddenly his being was possessed by his

hero ; tears of joy coursed down his little cheeks ; he lost

himself in the glory of God ; he was transported like Gany-

mede by the Eagle carrying the thunderbolt he was thought

to be dead. . . .

From that time the ecstasies became more frequent. In

Europe the case would have been foredoomed and the child

would have been placed in a lunatic asylum under a daily

douche of psycho-therapy. Conscientiously day by day the

flame would have been quenched. The magic lantern would

transplanting these songs into our rose garden. There they would

bloom afresh in every loving heart.)

Chaitanya's disciples spread throughout Bengal. They went

from village to village, singing and dancing to a new form of music

called Kirtana, the wandering Bride, the Human Soul, seeking the

Divine Love. The Ganges boatmen and the peasants took up this

dream of the Awakened Sleeper, and his melodious echoes still fill

the sovereign art of Tagore, especially in the Gardener and the

Gitanjali. The feet of the child Ramakrishna moved to the rhythm

of these Kirtanas. He drank the milk of this Vaishnavite music,

and it is true to say that he himself became its masterpiece, his

own life its most beautiful poem.

A letter from Ramakrishna's learned disciple, the author of the

Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Mahendra^Nath Gupta, has cleared up

certain points with regard to this question.

Ramakrishna knew the great Vaishnavite poets, but it appears

that his knowledge was gleaned mainly from popular adaptations

used in the performances of the native theatres, called jatras, such

as the one wherein as a child he played the part of Shiva. He

was inspired by Chaitanya especially after 1858, and ended by

identifying himself with him. In one of his first interviews with

the young Naren (Vivekananda) he scandalized the young man by

saying to him that he had been Chaitanya in a previous Incarna-

tion. He did a great deal to revive Chaitanya's mystic meaning,

which had been forgotten in Bengal.

THE GOSPEL OF CHILDHOOD

have been no more ! " The candle is dead." 6 Sometimes

the child also dies. Even in India, where the centuries have

seen a constant procession of such magic lanterns, anxiety

was felt, and his father and mother, although accustomed

to the visitation of gods, regarded the child's transports

with fear. But apart from these crises, he enjoyed perfect

health and was not at all supernormal in spite of his many

gifts. His ingenious fingers fashioned gods from clay, the

heroic legends blossomed in his mind ; he sang divinely

the pastoral airs of Sri Krishna ; and sometimes his pre-

cocious intellect took part in the discussions of learned men

whom he astonished as Jesus had astonished the Jewish

doctors. But this boy with his clear skin, beautiful flowing

locks, attractive smile, charming voice and independent

spirit, who played truant from school and who lived as free

as air, remained a child to the end of his life, like the little

Mozart. Until he was thirteen he was adored and petted

by the women and girls. They recognized in him some-

thing of their own femininity ; for he had so far assimilated

their nature that one of his childish dreams, cradled as he

was in the legend of Krishna and the Gopis, was to be

reborn as a little widow, a lover of Krishna, who would be

visited by him in her home. This was but one of the

innumerable incarnations he imagined. Instinctively this

Protean soul took on instantly each of the beings whom he

saw or imagined. No man is entirely void of this magic

plasticity. One of its inferior manifestations is that of a

mimic, who copies attitude and facial expressions ; its

highest (if such an expression may be used) is that of the

God who plays for Himself the Comedy of the Universe.

It is always the sign of art and love. Thus was foreshadowed

the marvellous power manifested later by Ramakrishna a

genius for espousing all the souls in the world.

His father died when he was seven years old. The next

few years were difficult ones for the family, for they had

no resources. The eldest son, Ramkumar, 7 went to Calcutta

and opened a school there. He sent for his younger brother,

now an adolescent, in 1852, but the latter, filled with the

Allusion to the well-known French folksong : " Au dair de la

lune."

f Ramakrishna was the fourth of five children.

II

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

urge of his inner life and quite undisciplined, refused to

learn. .

At that time there was a rich woman, named Rani Ras-

mani, belonging to an inferior caste. At Dakshineswar on

the Eastern bank of the Ganges, some four miles from

Calcutta, she founded a temple to the Great Goddess, the

Divine Mother, Kali. She had considerable difficulty in

finding a Brahmin to serve as its priest. Strangely enough

religious India with its veneration for monks, Sadhus, and

seers, has little respect for the paid office of priest. The

temples are not, as in Europe, the body and the heart of

God, the shrines of His daily renewed sacrifice. They are

the praiseworthy foundations of the rich, who hope thereby

to gain credit with the Divinity. True religion is a private

affair ; its temple is each individual soul. In this case,

moreover, the founder of the temple was a Sudra, an addi-

tional disqualification for any Brahmin who undertook the

charge. Ramkumar resigned himself to it in 1855 > but

his young brother, who was very strict in all questions

relating to caste, was only reconciled to the idea with very

great difficulty. Little by little, however, his repugnance

was overcome, and when in the following year his eldest

brother died, Ramakrishna decided to take his place.

II

KALI THE MOTHER

r I ^HE young priest of Kali was twenty years old. He

JL did not know what a terrible mistress he had elected

to serve. As a purring tigress that fascinates her prey,

she was to feed upon him, playing with him while ten long

enchanted years passed beneath Her gleaming pupils. He

lived in the temple alone with Her, but at the centre of

a whirling cyclone. For the burning breath of a crowd of

visionaries blew like the monsoon its eddies of dust through

the door of the temple. Thither came countless pilgrims,

monks, sadhus, fakirs, Hindus and Musulmans a congrega-

tion of the madmen of God. 1

The temple was a vast building with five domes crowned

with spires. It was reached by aft open terrace above the

Ganges between a double row of twelve small domed temples

to Shiva. On the other side of a great rectangular paved

court arose another vast temple to Krishna and Radha

next to that of Kali. 2 ^The whole symbolic world was

represented the Trinity of the Nature Mother (Kali), the

Absolute (Shiva), and Love (Radhakanta : Krishna, Radha),

1 There were the madmen of the Book, controlled by the single

word, O M. There were those who danced and were convulsed

with laughter, crying Bravo to the Illusion of the world. There

were naked men living witn the dogs on beggars' scraps, who no

longer distinguished between one form and another and were at-

tached to nothing. There were the mystic and drunken bands of

Tantrikas. Young KaTnalrrih"a observed them all (he was to

describe them later, not without humour) with a watchful and

anxious eye, and a mixture of repulsion and fascination. (Of. Life

of

* The temple is still in existence. Ramakrishna's room at the

north-west corner of the court, adjacent to the series of the twelve

temples of Shiva, has a semi-circular verandah, its roof supported

by columns, looking on to the Ganges on the west. A great liall

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

the Arch spanning heaven and earth. But Kali was the

sovereign deity.

Within the temple She dwelt, a basalt figure, dressed

in sumptuous Benares tissue, the Queen of the world and

of the Gods. She was dancing upon the outstretched body

of Shiva. In Her two arms on the left She held a sword

and a severed head, on the right She offered gifts and

beckoned, " Come ! Fear not ! . . ." She was Nature, the

destroyer and the creator. Nay, She was something greater

still for those who had ears to hear. She was the Universal

Mother, " my Mother, the all-powerful, who reveals Herself

to Her children under different aspects and Divine Incarna-

tions," the visible God, who leads the elect to the invisible

God, " and if it so please Her, She takes away the last

trace of the ego from all created beings and absorbs it

into the consciousness of the Absolute, the undifferentiated

God. Thanks to Her the finite ego loses itself in the

illimitable Ego Atman Brahman." 8

But the young priest of twenty was still far from reaching

the core where aU reality was fused even by the indirect

ways of the intellect. The only reality, divine or human,

accessible to him as yet, was that which he could see, hear

and touch. In this he was no different from the majority

of his people. That which is most striking to European

believers, to Protestant Christians even more than to

Catholic, is the intense concreteness of religious vision

experienced by Indian believers. *

When later Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna, " Have

you seen God ? " he replied, " I see Him, as I see you,

only far more intensely," meaning^hot in the impersonal

and abstract sense, although he practised that as well.

And it is by no means the privilege of a few inspired

for music and sacred representations opened on to the great court.

On either side there were guest-rooms, with kitchens for visitors

and for the Gods. To the wtst lay a beautiful shady garden and

ponds on the north and the east. It was carefully cultivated and

full of flowers and scents. Beyond the garden can be seen the

group of five sacred trees, planted at the deeire of Ramakrishna.

They became famous under the name of the Panchavati. There

he spent his days in meditation and prayer to the Mother, Below

murmured the Ganges.

KALI THE MOTHER

persons. Every sincere Hindu devotee attains this point

with ease, so overflowing and so fresh is the source of

creative life in them even to-day. One of our friends

went to the temple with a young princess of Nepal, a beauti-

ful, intelligent and educated girl. She left her to pray for

a long time in the intoxicating silence of the incense-filled

dimness, lighted only with a single lamp. When the young

Princess came out, she said, very quietly,

" I have seen Rama. . . ."

How then could Ramakrishna have escaped seeing " the

Mother with the dark blue skin " ? She, the Visible One,

was the Incarnation of the forces of Nature and of the

Divine in the form of a woman, who has intercourse with

mortal men Kali. Within Her temple She enveloped him

in the scent of Her body, wound him in Her arms and

entangled him in Her hair. She was no lay figure with

a fixed smile, whose food consisted of litanies. She lived,

breathed, arose from Her couch, ate, walked, lay down

again.

The service of the temple docilely followed the rhythm

of her days. Every morning at dawn the peals of little

bells chimed, the lights were swung. In the music-room

the flutes played the sacred hymn to the accompaniment

of drums and cymbals. The Mother awoke. From the

garden, embowered in jasmine and roses, garlands were

gathered for Her adornment. At nine in the morning music

summoned to worship and to it came the Mother. At

noon She was escorted to rest on Her silver bed during

the heat of the day to the strains of more music. 4 It

greeted her at six in the evening when She reappeared.

It played again to the accompaniment of brandished torches

at sundown for evening ^orship ; and conches sounded and

little bells tinkled ceaselessly until finally at nine in the

evening it heralded the hour for repose when the Mother

slept. *

And the priest was associated with all the intimate acts

of the day. He dressed and undressed Her, he offered Her

flowers and food. He was one of the attendants when

the Queen arose and went to bed. How could his hands,

his eyes, his heart be otherwise than gradually impregnated

4 At the north-west corner of the temple.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

with Her flesh? The very first touch left the sting of

Kali in his fingers and united them for ever.

But after She had left Her sting in him She fled, and

withheld Herself from him. Having pierced him with Her

love, the wasp had concealed Herself in Her stone sheath,

and all his efforts failed to bring Her to life again. Passion

for the dumb Goddess consumed him. To touch Her, to

embrace Her, to win one sign of life from Her, one look,

one sigh, one smile, became the sole object of his existence.

He flung himself down in the wild jungle-like part of the

garden, meditating and praying. He tore off all his clothes,

even to the sacred cord, which no Brahman ever lays aside ;

but love for the Mother had revealed to him that no man

can contemplate God unless he has shed all his prejudices.

Like a lost child in tears he besought the Mother to show

Herself to him. Every day spent in vain effort increased

his distraction, and he lost all control over himself. In

despair he writhed oil the ground in front of visitors, and

became an object of pity, of mockery, even of scandal ;

but he cared for none of these things. Only one thing

mattered. He knew that he was on the verge of extreme

happiness nothing but a thin partition, which he was,

nevertheless, powerless to break down, separated him from

it. He knew nothing of the science of directed ecstasy, as

minutely noted and codified by religious India for centuries

past with all the minutiae of a double Faculty of Medicine

and Theology, and so he wandered haphazard, driven by

a blind delirium. As his exaltation was entirely undirected,

he ran considerable danger of extinction. Death lies in

wait for the imprudent Yogin, whose path traverses the

very edge of the abyss. He is described by those who saw

him in those days of bewilderment, JLS having face and breast

reddened by the afflux of blood, his eyes filled with tears and

his body shaken with spasms. He was at the limit of physical

endurance. When such ^ point has been reached, there is

nothing but descent into the darkness of apoplexy or vision. .

The partition was suddenly removed and he saw !

Let him speak for himself. 6 His voice rings in our ears

' For this description I have used three separate accounts given

by Ramakrishna himself. They all tell the same story, but each

enriches the other with several details.

KALI THE MOTHER

with the accents of our own " madmen of God," our great

seers of Europe.

" One day I was torn with intolerable anguish. My heart

seemed to be wrung as a damp cloth might be wrung. . . .

I was wracked with pain. A terrible frenzy seized me at

the thought that I might never be granted the blessing

of this Divine vision. I thought if that were so, then

enough of this life ! A sword was hanging in the sanctuary

of Kali. My eye fell upon it and an idea flashed through

my brain like a flash of lightning ' The sword ! It will

help me to end it.' I rushed up to it, and seized it like

a madman. . . . And lo ! the whole scene, doors, windows,

the temple itself, vanished. ... It seemed as if nothing

existed any more. Instead I saw an ocean of the Spirit,

boundless, dazzling. In whatever direction I looked great

luminous waves were rising. They bore down upon me

with a loud roar, as if to swallow me up. In an instant

they were upon me, they broke over me, they engulfed me.

I was suffocated. I lost consciousness 6 and I fell. . . . How

I passed that day and the next I know not. Round me

rolled an ocean of ineffable joy. And in the depths of my

being I was conscious of the presence of the Divine Mother." 7

It is noticeable that in this beautiful description there

is no mention of the Divine Mother until the end ; she

was merged in the Ocean. The disciples who afterwards

quoted his exact words, asked him whether he had really

seen the Divine form. " He did not say, but on coming

to himself from his ecstasy he murmured in a plaintive

tone, ' Mother ! . . . Mother ! ' "

My own view, if I may be pardoned the presumption,

is that he saw nothing, but that he was aware of Her all-

* The exact text reads, " I lost all natural consciousness." This

detail is important, for the rest of the story shows that a higher

consciousness, that of the inner world, was on the other hand most

keenly perceptive. *

7 Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master, Vol. II, by Swami Sara-

dananda, published by the Ramakrishna Math of Mylapore, Madras,

1920. Saradananda, who died in 1927, was on terms of intimacy

with Ramakrishna and likewise possessed one of the loftiest reli-

gious and philosophical minds in India. His biography, unfortun-

ately unfinished, is at once the most interesting and the most

reliable.

17 c

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

permeating presence. He called the Ocean by her name.

His experience was like a dream, to give a lesser example,

wherein without the slightest feeling of incongruity, the

mind attaches the name of the being filling its thoughts

to quite a different form ; the object of our love is in every-

thing ; all forms are but its cloak. On the shores of that

sea which rolled down upon Ramakrishna, I see immedi-

ately the form of St. Theresa of Avila. She also felt herself

engulfed in the infinite until the scruples of her Christian

faith and the stern admonitions of her watchful directors

led her against her own convictions to confine God within

the form of the Son of Man. 8

But Ramakrishna the lover had not to struggle against

the bent of his heart. On the contrary it led him from

the formless to the form of his Beloved. He wished it

to ; for once he had seen and possessed it for an instant,

he could not live without it. From that day onward he

would have ceased to exist if he had not constantly renewed

the fiery vision. Without it the world was dead, and living

men as nothing but vain shadows, painted figures upon a

screen.

It was also at a moment of extreme lassitude that Theresa

perceived, like a sudden inflooding, the invasion of the Invisible ;

just such a sea engulfed her. Later on the hard scruples of Sal-

cedo and Gaspard Daza forced her, at the cost of considerable

suffering, to confine the Infinite within the finite bounds of the

body of Christ.

Further, the ecstasy in Ramakrishna's case followed the normal

course of such revelations, as was only natural. Cf. the full col-

lection of documents, gathered together by Starbuck under the title,

The Psychology of Religion, a collection used by William James.

Almost always it comes about that when effort has been exhausted

the spirit attains through anguish. The despair crushing the old

self is the door leading to the new.

Again it is a remarkable fact that the great vision often mani-

fests itself through " photisms " (luminous phenomena) and by an

oceanic flood. Cf. pp. 215-16, William James, Religious Experience,

giving the beautiful account'of President Finney's vision :

" ' Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love

. . .' These waves came over me, and over me, and over me, one

after the other, until I recollect I cried out, ' I shall die if these

waves continue to pass over me/ I said, ' Lord, I cannot bear

any more ' ; yet I had no fear of death."

Cf . also the magnificent account of the great mystic as observed

and described by Th. Flournoy.

KALI THE MOTHER

But nobody. faces the illimitable with impunity. The

shock of the first encounter was so violent that his whole

being remained in a shuddering state. He only saw those

around him through a veil of drifting mist, of dissolving

waves of silver shot with sparks of fire. He could no

longer control his eyes, his body, or his mind; another

will guided them, and he passed through some terrible

hours. He prayed the Mother to come to his aid.

Then suddenly he understood. He was possessed by the

Mother. He ceased to resist. " Fiat voluntas tual . . ."

She filled him. And out of the mists little by little the

material form of the Goddess emerged, first a hand, then

Her breath, Her voice, finally Her whole person. Here

is one of the marvellous visions of the poet, among a hundred

others.

It was evening. The rites were over for the day. The

Mother was supposed to be asleep, and he had returned

to his room outside the temple above the Ganges. But

he could not sleep. He listened. ... He heard Her get

up ; She went up to the upper story of the temple with

the joy of a young girl. As She walked the rings of Her

anklets rang. He wondered if he were dreaming. His

heart hammered in his breast. He went out into the court

and raised his head. There he saw Her with unbound

hair on the balcony of the first floor, watching the Ganges

flow through the beautiful night down to the distant lights

of Calcutta. . . .

From that moment his days and nights were passed in

the continual presence of his Beloved. Their intercourse

was uninterrupted like the flow of the river. Eventually

he was identified with Her, and gradually the radiance of

his inner vision became outwardly manifest. Other people

seeing him, saw what he saw. Through his body as through

a window appeared the bodies of the Gods. Mathur Babu,

the son-in-law of the foundress of the temple and the master

of the place, was sitting one day in his room opposite

Ramakrishna's. Unobserved he watched him pacing up

and down upon his balcony. Suddenly he uttered a cry,

for he saw him alternately in the form of Shiva as he walked

in one direction, and of the Mother as he turned and walked

in the opposite direction.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

To most people his madness of love was a -crying scandal.

He was no longer capable of performing the temple rites.

In the midst of the ritual acts he was seized with fits of

unconsciousness, sudden collapses and petrifactions, when

he lost the control of the use of his joints and stiffened

into a statue. At other times he permitted himself the

strangest familiarities with the Goddess. 9 His functions

remained in a state of suspension. He never closed his

eyes. He no longer ate. If a nephew who was present

had not looked after his most pressing needs, he would

have died. Such a condition brought those evils in its

train, from which our Western visionaries have also suffered.

Minute drops of blood oozed through his skin. His whole

body seemed on fire. His spirit was a furnace, whose

leaping flames were the Gods. After a period when he

saw the Gods in the persons about him (in a prostitute

he saw Sita ; in a young Englishman standing upright

cross-legged against a tree, he saw Krishna), he became

the Gods himself. He was Kali, he was Rama, he was

Radha, the lover of Krishna, 10 he was Sita, he was the

great monkey, Hanuman ! u Without insisting on detail,

I have no intention of passing lightly over these deliriums

of a soul with neither check nor pilot, given over to the

f He no longer showed any consideration for his patrons, whose

exemplary fidelity consistently defended him against all attack.

One day when the rich devotee, the foundress, Rani Rasmani, was

praying with her mind elsewhere, Ramakrishna discerned the

frivolous objects passing through her thoughts, and publicly re-

buked her. Those present were greatly excited, but Rasmani her-

self remained calm. She nobly considered that it was the Mother,

who had rebuked her.

10 Later he was the gopi (milkmaid), Krishna's lover, for six

months.

11 The process of these realizations is interesting. He became

the person of Rama by stages, through the people who served Rama,

beginning with the humblest, Hanuman. Then in reward, as he

himself believed, Sita appearea to him. This was his first complete

vision with his eyes open. All his succeeding visions came by the

same successive stages. First he saw the figures outside himself \

then they vanished within himself, finally he became them himself.

This ardent creative act is striking, but was natural to one of his

astounding plastic genius. As soon as he visualized a thought, his

vision became incarnate. Imagine living within the innermost being

of a Shakespeare, while he was producing a film.

2O

KALI THE MOTHER

furious v^aves of his passion, to the insatiable voracity of

a wolf, ravening for the Gods. Later they had their revenge

and preyed upon him in their turn. I have no intention

of deceiving my Western reader. He is at liberty, just as

I was myself, 12 to judge whether the madman of God ought

to have been put in a strait jacket or not. We have good

ground for such an opinion, for even in India men of the

greatest sanctity held that view when they saw him. At

the time he submitted patiently to be examined by doctors

and followed their vain prescriptions, and later, when he

looked back over the past and sounded the depths of the

abyss from which he had escaped, he himself could not

understand why his reason, and even life itself, had not

foundered.

But the extraordinary thing for us, and the only thing

that matters, is that, instead of foundering, they rounded

the Cape of Storms victoriously. Nay, this period of

hallucination appears to have been a necessary stage whence

his spirit was to rise in the fullness of joyous and harmonious

power to mighty realizations for the benefit of humanity.

Here is a subject of research tempting to great physicians

both of the body and of the mind. There is no difficulty

in proving the apparent destruction of his whole mental

structure, and the disintegration of its elements. But how

were they reassembled into a synthetic entity of the highest

order? How was this ruined building restored to a still

greater edifice and by nothing but will power ? As we

shall see by the sequel, Ramakrishna became master alike

of his madness and of his reason, of Gods and of men.

At times he would open the floodgates of the deeps of

his soul, at others would conduct with his disciples smiling

dialogues, in the mannsr of a modern Socrates, full of

ironic wisdom and penetrating good sense.

But in 1858 at the time of the facts related here, Rama-

krishna had not yet achieved tke mastery. He had still

a long way to go. And if I have anticipated somewhat

11 1 will not deny the fact that when I had reached this point

in my researches, I shut up the book. Probably I should not have

opened it again for a long time, if I had not known by certain

indications what heights of wisdom he was to attain in the later

years of his life.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

the end of his life, I have done so to warn the European

reader against his first judgment, which was also my own.

Patience 1 The ways of the spirit are disconcerting. Let

us await the end !

* * *

In truth at this period the tramp of God went about

like a blind man with closed eyes and without a guide.

Instead of keeping to the path, he forced his way through

the briars of the hedges and fell into the ditches. Never-

theless he advanced ; each time that he fell he picked

himself up again and went on his way.

Do not imagine that he was proud or obstinate. He

was the most simple of men. If you had told him that

his condition was a disease, he would have asked you to

prescribe a remedy, and he would not have refused to try

any cure.

For a time he was sent back to his home at Kamar-

pukur. His mother wished him to be married, hoping that

marriage would cure him of his divine enchantment. He

made no demur ; indeed, he showed an innocent pleasure

at the thought. But what a strange marriage it was, not

much more real (less real, indeed, in spirit) than his union

with the Goddess ! His bride (1859) was a child of five

years old. I feel, as I write, what a shock this will be

to my Western reader. I do not wish to spare him. Child-

marriage is an Indian custom, and one which has most

often roused the indignation of Europe and America. The

virtuous Miss Mayo has recently raised its flag, though

rather a tattered one ; for the best minds of India, the

Brahmo Samaj, Tagore, Gandhi, 18 have for long condemned

the practice, although it is usually more of a formality

11 Gandhi, who knows too much about child-marriage (for he

was one of those children who has kept throughout his life the

burning confusion of his precocious experiences), is particularly

virulent against this abuse.* Nevertheless, he recognizes that in

exceptional cases among chosen souls, who are loyal and religious,

a mutual engagement dating from infancy may have very pure

and beneficent results. It removes all other temptations common

to the unhealthy preoccupations of adolescence, and it gives to the

union a quality of holy comradeship. It is well known what an

admirable companion the little child, whose fate was joined to his,

has been for Gandhi during the difficult course of his life.

KALI THE MOTHER

than a reality-Tchild-marriage being generally nothing more

than a simple religious ceremony, akin to a Western betrothal

remaining unconsummated until after puberty. In the case

of Ramakrishna, making it doubly revolting in the eyes

of Miss Mayo, the union was between a little girl of five

and a man of twenty-three ! But peace to scandalized

minds ! It was a union of souls and remained uncon-

summated a Christian marriage so-called in the days of

the Early Church and later it became a beautiful thing.

A tree must be judged by its fruits, and in this case the

fruits were of God, pure and not carnal love. Little Sara-

damani 14 was to become the chaste sister of a big friend

who venerated her, the immaculate companion of his trials

and of his faith, the firm and serene soul, whom the disciples

associated with his sanctity as the Holy Mother. 1 *

For the time being the little girl returned according

to custom to the house of her parents after the ceremony

of marriage had been performed, and did not see her husband

again for the long period of eight or nine years, while her

husband, who seemed to have regained some measure of

calm at his mother's house, returned to his temple.

But Kali was waiting for him. Hardly had he crossed

the threshold than divine delirium in its most violent

form was rekindled. Like Hercules in a Nessus shirt, he

was a living funeral pyre. The legion of Gods swooped

upon him like a whirlwind. He was torn in pieces. He

was divided against himself. His madness returned tenfold.

He saw demoniac creatures emerging from him, first a

black figure representing sin ; then a sannyasin, who slew

sin like an archangel. (Are we in India or a thousand

years ago in some Christian monastery of the West ?) He

remained motionless, patching these manifestations issue

from him. Horror paralysed his limbs. Once again for

long periods 16 at a time his eyes refused to close. He

felt madness approaching and terrified, he appealed to the

14 Her family name was Mukhopadhyaya. Afterwards she was

known by the name of Saradadevi.

11 So she has been called. The Indian of good family has always

had this exquisite custom of giving the name " Mother " to all

womanhood, however much younger than himself.

16 He claims for six years.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Mother. The vision of Kali was his only hope of survival.

Two years went by in this orgy of mental intoxication

and despair. 17

At length help came.

17 In 1861 his protectress, Rani Rasmani, died. Fortunately her

son-in-law, Mathur Babu, remained devoted to him.

Ill

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE ; THE BHARAVI

BRAHAMI AND TOTAPURI

UP to this point he had been swimming alone at the

mercy of chance in an uncharted and boundless

stream with its roaring rapids and whirlpools of the soul.

He was on the verge of exhaustion, when two beings appeared

on the scene, who held his head above water, and who taught

him how to use its currents in order to cross the stream.

The age-long history of the spirit of India is the history

of a countless throng marching ever to the conquest of

supreme Reality. All the great peoples of the world,

wittingly or unwittingly, have the same fundamental aim ;

they belong to the conquerors who age by age go up to

assault the Reality of which they form a part, and which

lures them on to strive and climb ; sometimes they fall

out exhausted, then with recovered breath they mount

undaunted until they have conquered or been overcome.

But each one does not see the same face of Reality. It

is like a great fortified city beleaguered on different sides

by different armies who are not in alliance. Each army

has its own tactics and weapons to solve its own problems

of attack and assault. Our Western races l storm the

bastions, the outer works. They desire to overcome the

physical forces of Naturft, to make her laws their own,

1 In order to explain my meaning I am obliged to use the doubt-

ful terms, West and East. But I hope that wise readers will dis-

tinguish, as I do, many divisions of Mie West. For us the East

in its ordinary sense means the Near East, the Semitic East, which

in my sense of the word is further in spirit from India than some

parts of the West, Slav, Germanic or Nordic. At this place in

the story I am using the term West to indicate the march to the

West of the great European races and those on the other side of

the Atlantic, who have detached themselves from the common

Indo-European stock.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

so that they may construct weapons therefrom for gaining

the inner citadel, and forcing the whole fortress to capitulate.

India proceeds along different lines. She goes straight to

the centre, to the Commander-in-Chief of the unseen General

Headquarters ; for the Reality she seeks is transcendental.

But let us be careful not to put Western " realism " in

opposition to Indian "idealism." Both are "realisms."

Indians are essentially realists in that they are not easily

contented with abstractions, and that they attain their ideal

by the self-chosen means of enjoyment and sensual posses-

sion. They must see, hear, taste and touch ideas. Both

in sensual richness and in their extraordinary imaginative

power they are far in advance of the West. 2 How then can

we reject their evidence in the name of Western reason ?

Reason, in our eyes, is an impersonal and objective path

open to all men. But is reason really objective ? To what

degree is it true in particular instances ? Has it no personal

limits ? Again, has it been carefully noted that the " reali-

zations " of the Hindu mind, which seems to us ultra-

subjective, are nothing of the kind in India, where they are

the logical result of scientific methods and of careful experi-

ment, tested throughout the centuries and duly recorded ?

Each great religious visionary is able to show his disciples

the way by which without a shadow of doubt they too may

attain the same visions. Surely both methods, the Eastern

and the Western, merit an almost equal measure of scientific

doubt and provisional trust. To the truly scientific mind

of to-day a widely generalized mistake, if it be sincere, is

a relative truth. If the vision is false, the important thing

to be discovered is wherein lies the fallacy, and then to

allow it other premises to lead on to the higher reality

beyond it.

The common belief of India, whether clearly defined or

vaguely felt, is that nothing exists save in and through the

1 1 am far from denying to Indian thinkers a capacity for intel-

lectual concentration in the Absolute ; but even the " Formless "

of the Advaita Vedanta is embraced to a certain extent by their

burning intuition. Even if the " Formless " is without attributes

and beyond vision, is it so certain that it is beyond some form

of mysterious touch ? Is not revelation itself a kind of terrible

contact ?

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE

universal Spirit,, the one and indivisible : Brahman. 8 The

diverse images of everything contained in the universe had

their birth in Him, and the reality of the universe is derived

from the same universal Spirit, whose conception it is.

Individual spirits, we who form an integral and organic part

of the Cosmic Spirit, see the idea of the multiform and

changing universe, and we attribute an independent reality

to it. Until we have achieved knowledge of the one Brah-

man, we are bewildered by Maya, Illusion, which has no

beginning and is outside time ; and so we take what is

nothing but an incessant stream of passing images, spring-

ing from the invisible source, the One Reality, 4 to be the

permanent reality.

Hence we must escape from the stream of Illusion, rolling

all round us, and like trout that leap over all barriers and

scale waterfalls, we must go back to the source. Such is

our unavoidable destiny, but it leads to salvation. Sadhana

is the name given to this painful but heroic and magnificent

struggle. The Sadhakas are they who wage it. Their small

legion, renewed from age to age, is recruited from the fear-

less souls ; for they have to submit to a system of appli-

cation and rough discipline having the sanction of age-long

experiment behind them. Two ways or weapons 6 are open

to them, both needing long application and constant practice.

The first is the way of " Not this ! Not this ! " 6 which

may be called the way of Knowledge by radical negation

" Everything is Brahman, all the various objects, both coarse

and refined. Everything exists only in Brahman, the one and

indivisible/ ' Shastras.

4 I have taken this brief summary of thought from the masterly

exposition of Swami Saradananda at the beginning of his Sri Rama-

krishna, the Great Master.

There are many others which I shall discuss in the second part

of this work, when I study the philosophic and religious thought of

Vivekananda. There I shall find room for a long exposition of the

Yoga principle of India.

Neti (not this) is the name givem to Brahman himself by the

authors of the Upanishads. Cf. the work of the Christian mystic,

St. Denis, the Areopagite : Treatise on Mystic Theology, Chapter V,

where he says that the supreme author of intelligible things is

absolutely nothing that can be conceived by the understanding.

There the master theologian collects on one page all the negatives

in order to define God. (The Works of St. Denis the Areopagite,

trans, and ed. by Mgr. Darboy, new edition, 1887, pp. 285-86.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

or the weapon of the Jnanin ; the second is the way of

" This 1 This 1 " which may be called the way of Know-

ledge by progressive affirmation, or the weapon of the

Bhakta. The first relies solely on intellectual knowledge,

and has always rejected everything, either real or apparent,

outside it, proceeding with strained resolutions and eyes

fixed on the supreme goal. The second is the way of love.

The love of the Well-Beloved (whose form varies as it

becomes more pure) gradually leads to the renunciation of

all else. The way of Jnana is that of the absolute or im-

personal God. The way of Bhakti is that of the personal

God at least its pilgrims linger long on the way before

finally rejoining the pilgrim of Jnana.

The way of Bhakti was the way the blind instinct of

Ramakrishna had unconsciously adopted from the first.

But he knew nothing of its windings and lurking ambushes.

It was true that a complete Itinerary from Paris to Jeru-

salem 7 existed, wherein the whole course from the starting

point to the winning post was carefully mapped out, con-

taining all the accidents of the way, the mountains and the

gradients, the dangerous corners and the stopping places,

carefully arranged in advance and wisely distributed. But

the runner of Kamarpukur knew nothing of it. He went

where his wild heart and his legs carried him ; and at last,

exhausted by his superhuman efforts, without guidance or

assistance, maddened with solitude in the depths of the

forest, he had moments when he gave himself up for lost.

He had almost reached the last rough halting place, when

help came to him through a woman.

One day from his terrace he was watching the boats with

their multi-coloured sails darting to and fro upon the

Ganges, when he saw one put in at the foot of his terrace.

A woman came up the steps. She was tall and beautiful,

with long unbound hair and wearing the saffron robe of a

Sannyasin* She was between thirty-five and forty, but

7 Allusion to the name of a famous book by Chateaubriand.

8 A Sannyasin, according to Max Miiller's definition, is a person

who has left everything and renounced all worldly desire. The

definition of the Bhagavadgita is, " One who neither hates *nor loves

anything." The lady in question had not yet attained this state

of divine indifference, as we shall see later.

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE

she looked younger. Ramakrishna was struck with her

appearance and sent for her. She came. As soon as she

saw him, she burst into tears and said,

" My son, I have been looking for you for a long time." 9

She was a Brahmin of a noble Bengal family, a devotee

of Vishnu, 10 highly educated and very learned in holy texts,

especially in the Bhakti Scriptures. She said she was look-

ing for the man inspired by God, whose existence had been

revealed to her by the Spirit, and that she had been entrusted

with a message for him. Without further introduction and

without even discovering her name (she was never known

by any other than that of the Bhairavi Brahmani, the

Brahmin nun) the relations of mother and son were estab-

lished there and then between the holy woman and the

priest of Kali. Ramakrishna confided in her as a child

might have done and told her all the tortured experiences

of his life in God, of his Sadhana, together with the misery

of his bodily and mental sufferings. He told her that many

thought him mad, and asked her humbly and anxiously

whether they were right. The Bhairavi , having heard all

his confessions, comforted him with maternal tenderness,

and told him to have no fear, for he had certainly reached

one of the highest states of the Sadhana as described in the

Bhakti texts by his own unguided efforts. His sufferings

were simply the measure of his ascent. She looked after

his bodily welfare and enlightened his mind. She made

him in broad daylight go back over the road of knowledge,

which he had already traversed alone and blindfold in the

This encounter with the simple charm of a story from the Arabian

Nights, has roused doubts in the mind of European historians. They

are inclined to see in this episode, as does Max Miiller, a symbol

of the psychic evolution of ilamakrishna. But the personality of

his instructress during the six years she remained with him contains

too many individual traits (and not always to her credit), for there

to be any doubt that she was a real woman, with all a woman's

weaknesses. *

10 The Vaishnavite cult was essentially a cult of love. Rama-

krishna belonged to a Vaishnava family.

Vishnu, the ancient sun god, established his sovereignty over the

whole world by his incarnations, the chief being Krishna and Rama.

(Cf. Barth, op. cit., pp. 100 et seqq.) Both these divinities appear in

the name of the hero of this story, while he was himself saluted later

in his life as a new incarnation, an Avatara, God and man.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

night. By instinct alone Ramakrishna had obtained in the

course of several years " realizations " which mystic science

had taken centuries to achieve ; but he could not become

truly their master until he had been shown the way whereby

he had achieved them.

The Bhakta, whose knowledge is derived through love,

begins by accepting one form of God as his chosen ideal,

as Ramakrishna the Divine Mother. For a long time he

is absorbed in this one love. At first he cannot attain the

object of his devotion, but gradually he comes to see, touch

and converse with it. From that moment the slightest

concentration is enough to make him feel the living presence

of his Lord. As he believes that his Lord is in everything,

in all forms, he soon begins to perceive other forms of Gods

emanating from his own Beloved. This divine polymor-

phism peoples his vision. Eventually he is so filled with

its music that there is no room in him for anything else,

and the material world disappears. This is called the

Savikala Samadhi or state of superconscious ecstasy,

wherein the spirit still clings to the inner world of thought, and

enjoys the sentiment of its own life with God. But when

one idea has taken possession of the soul, all other ideas

fade and die away, and his soul is very near its final end,

the Nirvikalpa Samadhi the final union with Brahman.

It is not far to that cessation of thought wherein at last

absolute Unity is realized by complete renunciation. 11

Ramakrishna had travelled along three quarters of this

spiritual pilgrimage as a blind man. 12 The Bhairavi, whom

he adopted as his spiritual mother, as his Guru or teacher,

11 1 am still depending for this explanation on the treatise of

Sw. Saradananda. (Cf. Ruysbroeck : De ornatu spiritalium nup-

tiarwn : " Go forth 1 It is God wko speaks. . . . He speaks

through the darkness to the spirit and the spirit sinks and slips

away. It must lose itself in the sacred gloom, where bliss delivers

man from himself, so that he never finds himself again according

to human ideas. In the abyss where love gives the fire of death,

I see the dawn of eternal life. . . . By the virtue of this immense

love we possess the joy of dying to ourselves and of bursting from

our prison house, to be lost in the ocean of the Essence and in the

burning darkness/' III, i, 2, and 4, and passim, trans. Ernest

Hello.)

11 But his nature had held him back on the last mile of the way,

at the cross roads where man takes leave of the personal God and of

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE

showed him all its phases and their import. Having herself

practised religious exercises, she was conversant with the

roads of knowledge, and so she made him try all the roads

of the Sadhana in turn and methodically according to the

rules of the Holy Books, even the most dangerous ones,

the Tantras, which expose the sense and spirit to all the

disturbances of the flesh and the imagination, so that these

may be overcome. But the path skirts the precipices of

degradation and madness, and more than one who has

ventured upon it has never returned. 18 Ramakrishna the

pure, however, came back as pure as he started out, and

tempered as steel.

He was now in possession of all forms of union with God

by love " the nineteen attitudes/ 1 or different emotions

of the soul in the presence of its Lord, such as the relations

of a servant and his master, a son and his mother, a friend,

a lover, a husband, etc. He had invested all sides of the

Divine citadel ; and the man who had conquered God

partook of His nature.

His initiator recognized in him an Incarnation of the

Divinity. She accordingly called a meeting at Dakshines-

war and after learned discussion by the Pandits, the Bhairavi

insisted that the theological authorities should give public

recognition to the new Avatar a.

Then his fame began to spread. People came from afar

to see the wonderful man, who had succeeded, not only in

one Sadhana, but in all. The ascetics, who by one road

or another were straining towards God monks, sages,

his love. His spiritual mother, the Bhairavi, did not try to urge

him beyond them. They both instinctively shrank from the blind

vision, from the last abyss, the Impersonal.

1S The greatest Hindu thinker of to-day, Aurobindo Ghose, of whom

I shall speak in the second part of this work, has rehabilitated

the way of Tantra, which had become discredited on account of

the licentious misuse of certain of its methods. While castigating

these, he has vindicated its original sense, and he has shown its

grandeur. Contrary to the other Vedic Yoga whoso Lord is the

Purusha (the conscious soul) and Knowledge the aim, the Lord of

the Tantra is Prakriti (Energy the soul of Nature) and its end the

fullness of possession. Instead of fleeing from Nature, the Tantra

faces and seizes her. It is Dionysias as opposed to Apollyon. It

is of some importance to note that Ramakrishna, alone of all Indian

Yogin, united in himself the two complementary aspects.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Sadkus, visionaries all came to seek his advice and to be

instructed by him, who now sat at the cross-roads and

dominated them. Their accounts speak of the fascination

produced by the appearance of the man who had come back

not, as Dante, from Hell but as a pearl-fisher from the

deep sea of the golden radiance of his body burnt and

purified so long in the fires of ecstasy. 14 But to the end

of his life he remained the most simple of men without a

trace of pride ; for he was too intoxicated with God to

consider himself, and was preoccupied much less with what

he had already achieved than with what was still to do.

He disliked all mention of his being an Avatara, and when

he had arrived at the point that everybody else, even the

Bhairavi, his guide, took to be the summit, he looked up

to the rest of the ascent, the last steep arete. And he was

obliged to climb to the very top.

But for this last ascent the old guides were not sufficient.

And so his spiritual mother, who had jealously cherished

him for three years, had, like so many other mothers, the

pain of seeing her son, once dependent on her milk, escape

her to follow a higher command from another master with

a sterner and more virile voice.

* * *

Towards the end of 1854 J us ^ a ^ the moment when Rama-

krishna had achieved his conquest of the personal God, the

messenger of the impersonal God, ignorant as yet of his

mission, arrived at Dakshineswar. This was Tota Puri (the

naked man) an extraordinary Vedantic ascetic, a wander-

ing monk, who had reached the ultimate revelation after

forty years of preparation a liberated soul, who looked

with impersonal gaze upon the phanton of this world with

complete indifference.

For a long time Ramakrishna, not without anguish, had

felt prowling round him the formless God and the inhuman,

the superhuman indifference of His Missi Dominici those

Paramahamsas from the ratified heights, detached for ever

from all things, terrible ascetics denuded of body and spirit,

14 The Yogins of India constantly note this effect of the great

ecstasy caused by an afflux of blood. As we shall see later, Rama-

krishna could tell as soon as he saw the breast of a religious man,

whom he was visiting, whether or no he had passed through the

fire of God.

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE

despoiled of the heart's last treasure : the diamond of love

of the divine. During the early days of his stay at Dak-

shineswar he had felt the terrible fascination of these living

corpses ; and he had wept with terror at the idea that he

too might have to come to a similar condition. Imagine

what it must have cost a nature such as I have described

that of this madman of love, this born lover and artist. 15

He needed to see, to touch, to consume the object of his

love, and he remained unsatisfied until he had embraced

the living form, had bathed in it as in a river, and had

espoused the divine mould and all its beauties. Such a

man was to be forced to abandon the home of his heart and

sink body and soul in the formless and the abstract ! Such

a train of thought must have been more painful and more

alien to his nature than it would be to one of our Western

scientists.

But he could not escape it. His very terror fascinated

him like the eyes of a snake. Dizzy though he was at the

contemplation of the heights, he who had reached the peaks

was obliged to go on to the very end. The explorer of the

continent of the Gods could not stop until he had reached

the source of the mysterious Nile.

I have said already that the formless God lay in wait for

him with all his terror and attraction. But Ramakrishna

did not go to Him. Tota Puri came to fetch the lover of

Kali.

He saw him first without being seen as he was passing

by ; for he could not stay longer than three days in one

place. Seated on one of the steps of the temple, the young

priest, 16 was lost in the happiness of his hidden vision.

Tota Puri was struck by it.

41 My son," he said, " I see that you have already travelled

far along the way of truth. If you so wish it, I can help

you to reach the next stage. I will teach you the Vedanta"

Ramakrishna, with an innocent simplicity that made even

the stern ascetic smile, replied that he must first ask leave

11 It is a remarkable fact that Ramakrishna, though

gifted for poetry and the arts, had no taste for mathematics. Vive-

kananda's mind was of a different order. Though not less artistic

he knew and loved the sciences.

lf He was then twenty-eight years old.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

of the Mother (Kali). She gave Her permission, and he

then put himself with humble and complete confidence

under the guidance of his divine teacher.

But first he had to submit to the test of " Initiation."

The first condition was to renounce all his privileges and

insignia, the Brahmin cord and the dignity of priest. These

things were nothing to him ; but he had also to renounce

his affections and the illusions whereby he had hitherto

lived the personal God and the entire harvest of the fruit

of his love and sacrifice here and elsewhere, now and for

ever. Naked as the earth he had symbolically to conduct

his own funeral service. He had to bury the last remains

of his ego his heart. Then only could he reclothe himself

in the saffron robe of a Sannyasin, the emblem of his new

life. Tota Puri now began to teach him the cardinal virtues

of the Advaita Vedanta, 17 the Brahman one and undiffer-

entiated, and how to dive deep in search of the ego, so that

its identity with Brahman might be realized and that it

might be firmly established in Him through Samadhi

(ecstasy).

It would be a mistake to think that it was easy even for

17 The Advaita " without second " is the strictest and most

abstract form of the Vedanta. It first appeared in the ninth century

A.D., and its most famous exponent in the eleventh century

Sankara, of whom I shall have more to say later. It was absolute

Non-Dualism. Nothing but one unique Reality existed to the

exclusion of every other. Its name was immaterial, God, the

Infinite, the Absolute, Brahman-Atman, etc. : for this Reality did

not possess a single attribute to assist in its definition. To every

attempt at definition Sankara, like Dems the Areopagite, had only

one answer " No ! No 1 " Everything which has the appearance

of existence, the world of our mind and senses, is nothing but the

Absolute under a false conception (^vidya). Under the influence

of Avidya, which Sankara and his school found it very difficult

to explain clearly, Brahman adopts names and forms, which are

nothing but non-existence. The only existence beneath this flood

of " ego " phantoms is tb^true Self, the Paramatman, the One.

Good works are powerless to help in its realization, although they

perhaps help to bring about a propitious atmosphere from whence

Consciousness may emerge. But Consciousness alone and direct

can deliver and save the soul (Mukti). Hence the yv&dt aearrov

(Know thyself) of the Greeks, is opposed, as has been shown, to

the " See the Self and be the Self" of the great Indian Vedantists.

. . . Tat tvam asi (Thou art that).

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE

one who had gone through all the other stages of ecstasy,

to find the key to the narrow door leading to the last. His

own account deserves to be reproduced, for it belongs not

only to the sacred texts of India, but to the Archives of

the West, wherein are preserved all the documents relating

to the revelations of the science of the Spirit.

" The naked man, Tota Puri, taught me to detach my

mind from all objects and to plunge it into the heart of

the Atman. But despite all my efforts, I could not cross

the realm of name and form and lead my spirit to the

Unconditional state. I had no difficulty in detaching my

mind from all objects with the one exception of the too

familiar form of the radiant Mother, 18 the essence of pure

knowledge, who appeared before me as a living reality.

She barred the way to the beyond. I tried on several

occasions to concentrate my mind on the precepts of the

Adviata Vedanta ; but each time the form of the Mother

intervened. I said to Tota Puri in despair, ' It is no good.

I shall never succeed in lifting my spirit to the " uncon-

ditional " state and find myself face to face with the Atman/

He replied severely, ' What ! You say you cannot ? You

must I ' Looking about him, he found a piece of glass. He

took it and stuck the point between my eyes, saying, ' Con-

centrate your mind on that point/ Then I began to

meditate with all my might, and as soon as the gracious

form of the Divine Mother appeared, I used my discrimin-

ation as a sword, 19 and I clove Her in two. The last barrier

fell and my spirit immediately precipitated itself beyond

the plane of ' conditional ' things, and I lost myself in the

Samadhi"

The door of the Inaccessible was only forced with great

strain and infinite suffering. But hardly had Ramakrishna

crossed the threshold than he attained the last stage the

Nirvikalpa Satnadhi wherein subject and object alike

disappeared. >

" Always Kali, the Beloved.

lf This is not a case of the clumsy auto-hypnotism of the hen,

who falls into a catalepsy along a chalk line in the sun (thus I read

the disrespectful thought of my Western reader). The action of

mind described by Ramakrishna was an effort of severe concentra-

tion, which excluded nothing, but which involved keen and critical

analysis.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

" The Universe was extinguished. Space itself was no

more. At first the shadows of ideas floated in the obscure

depths of the mind. Monotonously a feeble consciousness

of the Ego went on ticking. Then that stopped too. Noth-

ing remained but Existence. The soul was lost in Self.

Dualism was blotted out. Finite and Infinite space were as

one. Beyond word, beyond thought, he attained Brahman/ '

In one day he had realized what it had taken Tota Puri

forty years to attain. The ascetic was astounded by the

experience he had provoked, and regarded with awe the

body of Ramakrishna, rigid as a corpse for days on end,

radiating the sovereign serenity of the spirit, which has

reached the end of all knowledge.

Tota Puri ought only to have stayed three days. He

remained eleven months for intercourse with the disciple

who had outstripped his master. Their parts were now

reversed. The young bird came down from a higher region

of the sky, whence he had seen beyond the loftiest circle

of hills. His dilated pupils carried a wider vision than the

sharp narrow eyes of the old " naga." 20 The eagle taught

the serpent in his turn.

This did not come about without considerable opposition.

Let us put the two seers face to face.

Ramakrishna was a small brown man with a short beard

and beautiful eyes, " long dark eyes, full of light, obliquely

set and slightly veiled, 81 never very wide open, but seeing

half-closed a great distance both outwardly and inwardly.

His mouth was half open over his white teeth in a bewitch-

ing smile, 22 at once affectionate and mischievous. Of

medium height, he was thin to emaciation and extremely

delicate. 28 His temperament was exceptionally highly

strung, for he was super-sensitivfc to all the winds of joy

and sorrow, both moral and physical. He was indeed a

living reflection of all that happened before the mirror of

his eyes, a two-sided minror turned both out and in. His

unique plastic power allowed his spirit instantaneously to

10 The name of the sect to which Tota Purf belonged. Naga

also means snake.

11 Mukerji.

11 Mahendra Nath Gupta.

if In the journeys he took afterwards with Mathur Babu he

became tired at once. He could not walk and had to be carried.

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE

shape itself according to that of others without, however,

losing its ovmfeste Burg,** the immutable and infinite centre

of endless nobility. " His speech was Bengali of a homely

kind . . . with a slight though delightful stammer; but

his words held men enthralled by the wealth of spiritual

experience, the inexhaustible store of simile and metaphor,

the unequalled powers of observation, the bright and subtle

humour, the wonderful catholicity of sympathy and the

ceaseless flow of wisdom. 26

Facing this Ganges with its depths and its reflections,

its liquid surface and its currents, its windings and meanders

and the millions of beings it bore and nourished, the other

rose like the Rock of Gibraltar. He was very tall and

robust, with magnificent physique, resolute and indestruct-

ible a rock with the profile of a lion. His constitution

and mind were of iron. He had never known illness or

suffering, and regarded them with smiling contempt. He

was the strong leader of men. Before adopting a wander-

ing life he had been the sovereign head of a monastery of

seven hundred monks in the Punjab. He was a master of

disciplinary method which petrified as argil the flesh and

the spirit of men. 26 It never entered his head that any-

thing could check his sovereign will passion, danger, the

storms of the senses, or the magic force of Divine Illusion,

which raises the tumultuous waves of existence. To him

Maya was something non-existent, a void, a lie, which only

required to be denounced to vanish for ever. To Rama-

krishna Maya itself was God, for everything was God. It

too was one face of Brahman. Moreover when he had

14 That is from the moment when he had succeeded in uniting

all the threads of the groups of forms and destinies in their centre,

Brahman. Until then he hail been taken by each in turn.

11 The last touches of this portrait are taken from the memory

of an eyewitness still living, Magendranath Gupta. (Cf . Prabuddha

Bharata, March, 1927, and The Modern Review, May, 1927.)

* The educational psycho-physiolog^ of our day should interest

itself in the methods used in the exercise of meditation ; first com-

fortable seats, then harder and harder ones, then the bare ground,

while at the same time clothing and food are gradually reduced

until a state of nakedness and extreme privation is reached. After

this initiation the novices are scattered to wander through the

country, first with companions and then alone until the last ties

binding them to the outside world have been completely severed.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

reached the summit after the stormy ascent, Ramakrishna

forgot nothing of the anguish, the transports, the accidents

of the climb. The most insignificant pictures of his journey

remained in his memory, registered according to their kind,

each in its own time and place in the wonderful panorama

of peaks. But what was there for the " naked man " to

store up in his memory ? His mind was like himself, void

of emotions and loves " a brain of porphyry," as an Italian

described the greatest painter of Umbria. 27 This marble

tablet needed to be carved by the chisel of fruitful suffering ;

and so it came about.

In spite of his great intellect, he did not understand that

love could be one of the paths leading to God. He chal-

lenged the experience of Ramakrishna and poured scorn on

prayers said aloud, and on all external manifestations, such

as music, hymns and religious dances. When he saw

Ramakrishna at the close of the day beginning his repetition

of the names of God to the accompaniment of clapping of

hands, he asked with a derisive smile, " Are you making

bread ? "

But in spite of himself the charm began to work within

him. Certain hymns sung in his companion's melodious

voice moved him, so that hidden tears came into his eyes.

The insidious and enervating climate of Bengal also affected

this Punjabi, although he tried to ignore it. His relaxed

energy could no longer keep such rigorous control over his

emotions. There are contradictions, often unobserved by

their owners, even in the strongest minds. This scorner

of cults had the weakness to adore a symbol in the shape

of fire ; for he always kept a lighted one near him. One

day a servant came to remove some brands, and Tota Puri

protested against such disrespect* Ramakrishna laughed,

as only he knew how to laugh, with the gaiety of a child.

" Look, look," he cried. " You also have succumbed to

the irresistible power oi*Maya \ "

Tota Puri was dumbfounded. Had he really submitted

to the yoke of Illusion without being aware of it ? Illness

too made his proud spirit realize its limitations. Several

months in Bengal brought on a violent attack of dysentery.

17 Pietro Pemgino, the master of Raphael. The judgment is

Vasari's.

THE TWO GUIDES TO KNOWLEDGE

He ought to have gone away, but this would have been

running away from evil and sorrow. He grew obstinate.

" I will not give in to my body ! " The trouble increased,

and his spirit could no longer abstract itself. He submitted

to treatment, but it was of no avail. The sickness grew

more virulent with every dawn like a shadow gradually

overcasting the day, and became so overwhelming that the

ascetic could no longer concentrate his mind on Brahman.

He was roused to fury by this evidence of decay, by his

body, and went down to the Ganges to sacrifice it. But

an invisible hand restrained him. When he had entered

the stream he had no longer either the will or the power

to drown himself. He came back utterly dismayed. He

had experienced the power of Maya. It existed every-

where, in life, in death, in the heart of pain, the Divine

Mother ! He passed the night alone in meditation. When

morning dawned he was a changed man. He acknowledged

before Ramakrishna that Brahman and Shakti 28 or Maya

are one and the same Being. The Divine Mother was

appeased and delivered him from his illness. He bade

farewell to the disciple who had become his master, and

went on his way, an enlightened man. 29

Afterwards Ramakrishna summed up in these words the

double experience of Tota Puri.

" When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive, neither

creating, nor preserving, nor destroying, I call him Brah-

man or Purusha, the impersonal God. When I think of

Him as active, creating, preserving, destroying, I call Him

Shakti or Maya or Prakriti,* the personal God. But the

distinction between them does not mean a difference. The

personal and the impersonal are the same Being, in the

same way as milk and ks whiteness, or the diamond and

its lustre, or the serpent and its undulations. It is impos-

i Shakti means Divine Energy, the radiance of Brahman.

M The departure of Tota Puri took fJlace towards the end of 1865.

It is possible that it was he who gave to the son of Khudiram the

famous name of Ramakrishna that he bears to-day, when he initiated

him as a Sannyasin. (Cf. Saradananda : Sadhaka Bhava, p. 285.

Note I.)

Prakriti is " Energy, the Soul of Nature, the power of the will

to act in the Universe." (Definition of Aurobindo Ghose, who puts

it in opposition to the " silent and inactive Purusha")

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

able to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine

Mother and Brahman are one." 31

91 Compare this text with another, less known but still more

striking, showing what should be our judgment of the impassioned

cult of JRamakrishna for Kali, and the profound sense of Unity

underlying this apparent idolatry.

" Kali is none other than He whom you call Brahman. Kali is

Primitive Energy (Shakti). When it is inactive we call it Brahman

(literally : we call That . . .). But when it has the function of

creating, preserving or destroying, we call That Shakti or Kali.

He whom you call Brahman, She whom I call Kali, are no more

different from each other than fire and its action of burning. If

you think of the one, you automatically think of the other. To

accept Kali is to accept Brahman. To accept Brahman is to accept

Kali. Brahman and His power are identical. That is what I call

Shakti or Kali."

(Conversations of Ramakrishna with Naren (Vivekananda) and

Mahendra Nath Gupta, on the subject of the theories of Sankara

and of Ramanuja published in the Vedanta Kesari, November, 1916.)

IV

IDENTITY WITH THE ABSOLUTE

THIS great thought was by no means new. The spirit,

of India had been nourished upon it for centuries

and in their course it had been constantly moulded, kneaded,

and rolled out by Vedantic philosophy. It had been the

subject of interminable discussions between the two great

Vedantic schools, that of Sankara the pure Advaita school

and the Ramanuja or Visistadviata school (qualified

monism). 1 The first, the absolute non-Dualist, considers

the Universe unreal and the Absolute the only reality;

the second, relatively non-Dualist, recognizes Brahman as

1 It is impossible to give here a full explanation of the deep and

often complicated system of Vedantic metaphysics. But it may

be useful to give a brief summary of the two principal systems.

Sankara, the greatest name in Indian philosophy, lived in the

second half of the eighth century A.D. He was the genius of the

Brahmanic spirit working in antagonism to the Buddhist, although

it was not free from traces of the latter. He professed absolute

Monism, the unique reality of Brahman- Atman, the " without

second " (Advaita), the only Substance, one can hardly say the

only Cause, since its apparent effects the visible world and indi-

vidual souls are nothing but phenomenal illusory modifications.

It is useless to seek, as do the Buddhists, for the conquest of the

Absolute in stages, since all motion of the individual spirit is equal

to zero. It is in one movement that the veil can and ought to fall

in order to allow the Unity to shine forth. Formidable though

this abyss of the One is wherein the world disappears, it has had an

unparalleled fascination for the spirit of India, whose mirror is

Sankara. *

But only a select band of thinkers can fully realize this Himalayan

ideal of an impersonal Absolute. The individual soul yearns to

vindicate its reality. After the undivided triumph of the teaching

of Sankara throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, religious revolt

raised its standard in the eleventh century in the Tamil. It spread

to Kashmir and thence to Southern India, where it found an undis-

puted leader in Ramanuja, the pontiff or saint (Alvar) of the patri-

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

we nibble at Its outer shell, but there is a- point of fusion

when It takes us again into Its great mouth and absorbs

us into Itself. But before that point of fusion is reached

where was the salt doll ? Where do the ants come from ?

In the case of the worker under the lamp, saintly hermit

or forger, where is his home, where is the object he reads

and his eyesight itself ?

Ramaknshna tells us that even the inspired Holy Scrip-

tures have all been more or less defiled because they have

passed through human mouths. But is the defilement

real ? (For it presupposes the purity, the Brahman.)

Where do the lips and the mouth exist, which have eaten

some portions of Divine food ?

The "Differentiated," although it is "without attach-

ments," must then be some part of the " Undifferentiated "

especially since " attachment " in the last resort, " union

between the ' Undifferentiated ' and the ' Differentiated '

is, to use Ramakrishna's own words, " the real object of

the Vedanta." *

In fact Ramaknshna 5 distinguishes two distinct planes

and stages of vision : that under the sign of Maya, which

creates the reality of the " differentiated " universe, and

the super-vision of perfect contemplation (Samadhi) wherein

one instant's contact with the Infinite is sufficient to make

the Illusion of all " differentiated " egos, our own and

other men's, disappear immediately. But Ramakrishna

expressly maintains that it is absurd to pretend that the

world is unreal so long as we form part of it, and receive

from it for the maintenance of our own identity, the

4 It is to be noted in passing how the metaphysics of the Advaitic

Absolute are akin to the doctrines of the pre-Socratian Greeks

to the doctrine of the " Indeterminate " of Anaximander of Ionia

for instance, wherein he laid down that all things have been produced

by separation to the doctrine of the One without Second of Xeno-

phanes and the Eleates, who* exclude all movement, all change, all

future, all multiplicity as nothing but Illusion. There is much

research still to be done before the unbroken chain of thought

linking the first pioneers of Hellenic philosophy to those of India

is re-established.

For this I rely upon the Interviews of 1882, when he was near

the end of his life and which therefore contain the essence of his

thought.

IDENTITY WITH THE ABSOLUTE

unquenchable conviction (although hidden in our own lan-

tern) of its reality. Even the saint who comes down from

Samadhi (ecstasy) to the plane of ordinary life is forced

to return to the envelope of his " differentiated " ego,

however attenuated and purified. He is flung back into

the world of relativity. " So far as his ego is relatively

real to him, so far will this world also be real ; but when

his ego has been purified, he sees the whole world of

phenomena as the manifold manifestation of the Absolute

to the senses."

Maya will then appear under its true colours, at once

truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance (Vidya and

Avidya), everything that leads to God, and everything

that does not lead to Him. Therefore it is.

And his assertion has the personal value of a St. Thomas

the Apostle, who has both seen and touched, when he

bears witness to these Vijnanis, these men of super-

knowledge who win the privilege of " realizing " in this

life the personal and the impersonal God for he was one

himself.

They have seen God both outwardly and inwardly. He

has revealed Himself to them. The personal God has

told them, " I am the Absolute. I am the origin of

' differentiation/ " In the essence of Divine Energy

radiating from the Absolute they have perceived the very

principle differentiating the supreme Atman and the

universe, that which is alike in the Absolute God and in

Maya. Maya, Shakti, Prakriti, Nature is no Illusion. To

the purified ego She is the manifestation of the supreme

Atman, the august sower of living souls and of the

universe.

From that moment everything became plain. The

visionary hurled back from the gulf on fire with Brahman,

discovered with rapture that on the brink the Divine

Mother, his Beloved, was awaiting him. And he saw

Her now with new eyes, for he had grasped her deep

significance, Her identity with the Absolute. She was

the Absolute manifesting Herself to men, the Impersonal

made man or rather woman. 6 She was the source of all

In India the personal God is conceived also as a female principle :

Prakriti, Shakti.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Incarnations, the Divine Intercessor between the Infinite

and the finite. 7

Then Ramakrishna intoned the Canticle of the Divine

Mother.

" Yea ! My Divine Mother is none other than the

Absolute. She is at the same time the One and the Many,

and beyond the One and the Many. My Divine Mother

says, ' I am the Mother of the Universe, I am the Brahman

of the Vedanta, I am the Atman of the Upanishads. It is

I, Brahman, who created differentiation. Good and bad

works alike obey me. The Law of Karma 8 in truth exists ;

but it is I who am the Lawgiver. It is I who make and

unmake laws. I order all Karma, good and bad. Come

to Me ! Either through Love (Bhakti), through Knowledge

T Compare the part of the Son in Christian mysticism.

" Effulgence of my glory, Son Beloved (It is God who speaks)

Son, in whose face invisible is beheld

Visibly, what by Deity I am,

And in whose hand what by decree I do,

Second Omnipotence I . . ."

(Milton, Paradise Lost, VI, 680.)

This might have been said by Ramakrishna with the exception

perhaps of the word " second," which makes the expression sub-

ordinate to the Supreme Will creating it. But both of them are

the same Omnipotence. The God of Milton, like the Brahman of

Ramakrishna, being the Absolute, not manifest, could not act ;

He wished and it was the Son who was the Creator God, the acting

God (as was the Mother in the case of Ramakrishna). The Son is

the Word, He speaks, He dies, He is born, He is made manifest.

The Absolute is the invisible God.

" Fountain of light, Thyself invisible. . . ."

(Paradise Lost, III, 374.)

He is impalpable and inconceivable. He is immovable and

nevertheless omnipresent ; for he is im all things :

" The Filial Power arrived, and sat him down

With his great Father ; for he also went

Invisible, yet stayed (such privilege

Hath Omnipresence) . . ."

(Paradise Lost, VII, 588.)

(Cf. Denis Saurat : Milton and Material Christianity in England,

1928.) The similarity of the mysticisms is obvious and natural.

Both had their origin in the East, and both came from the same

human brain with its limited operation.

1 Action the generating power of successive existences.

IDENTITY WITH THE ABSOLUTE

(Jnana) or through Action (Karma), for all lead to God.

I will lead you through this world, the Ocean of action.

And if you wish it, I will give you the knowledge of the

Absolute as well. You cannot escape from Me. Even

those who have realized the Absolute in Samadki return to

Me at My will/ My Divine Mother is the primordial

Divine Energy. She is omnipresent. She is both the

outside and the inside of visible phenomena. She is the

parent of the world, and the world carries Her in its heart.

She is the Spider and the world is the web She has spun.

The Spider draws the thread out of Herself and then winds

it round Herself. My Mother is at the same time the

container and the contained. 9 She is the shell, but She is

also the kernel/ 1

The elements of this ardent Credo are borrowed from

the ancient sources of India. Ramakrishna and his fol-

lowers never claimed that the thought was new. 10 The

Master's genius was of another order. He roused from

lethargy the Gods slumbering in thought and made them

incarnate. He awoke the springs in the " sleeping wood " n

and warmed them with the heat of his magic personality.

And so this ardent Credo is his own in its accent and its

transport, in its rhythm and melody, in its song of passionate

love. 12

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, according to M., a son of the

Lord and a disciple. (In the Life of Vivekananda, last edition,

1922-24.)

10 On the contrary their tendency was to deny the fact, even

when they might have claimed originality. The great religious

minds of modern India, and, I believe, of all other countries, have

this in common, that their very power lies in the assurance that

their truth is a very ancient one, and eternal verity, the Verity.

Dayananda, the stern founder of the Arya Samaj, was very angry

if new ideas were attributed to him.

11 An allusion to the title of the well-known fairy story, " The

Sleeping Beauty."

(The French title is : La Belle au Bois Dormant, and its literal

translation is : the Beauty in the Sleeping Wood. TRANSLATOR.)

11 It must not be forgotten that its poetic and musical elements

are in part borrowed from the popular treasures of Bengal. We have

seen (p. 9) how his mind had been impregnated with the classical

Vaishnavite poets through their adaptations in the jatras or popular

theatrical representations. He often sung a hymn from the works

of Kabir, but his mind was also stored with the works of more

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Listen closely to it, for it is a magnificent. song, illimitable

and yet harmonious. It is not confined within the form

of any poetic measure, but it falls of itself into an ordered

beauty and delight. Adoration of the Absolute is united

without effort to the passionate love of Maya. Let us keep

in our ears its cry of love until we can measure its depth

later by listening to Vivekananda. The great fighter,

caught in the toils of Maya, tried to break them, and he

and she were constantly at war. Such a state was com-

pletely foreign to Ramakrishna. He was at war with

nothing. He loved his enemy as a lover, and nothing

could resist his charm. His enemy ended by loving him.

Maya enfolded him in Her arms. Their lips met. Armide

had found her Renaud. 18 The Circe who bewitched crowds

of other suitors became for him the Ariadne who led Theseus

by the hand through the mazes of the labyrinth. Illusion,

the all-powerful, who hoods the eyes of the falcon, unhooded

Ramakrishna's and threw him from Her wrist into the

wide regions of the air. Maya is the Mother 14 who reveals

recent poets and musicians. (Cf. The Gospel of Ramakrishna.) One

of the oldest and one for whom he seems to have had a particular

affection was Rama Prasad, a poet of the eighteenth century.

Ramakrishna constantly quoted and sang his sacred hymns to the

Divine Mother. It was to Prasad that Ramakrishna owed some of

his most striking metaphors (that of the flying kite, for example,

mentioned later) and some characteristic traits of the Mother (the

mischievous twinkle in the corner of Her eye, when She made use

of Illusion to bewilder the child She loved).

Among the other poet-musicians mentioned in the Gospel I note

the names of Kamalakanta, a pandit of the beginning of the nine-

teenth century, a devotee of the Mother ; Nareschandra, belonging

to the same period, also a devotee of Kali ; Kubir, a Bengal Vaish-

navite saint of the same epoch, author of popular songs ; and among

the more recent, Premdas (his real name was Trailokya Sannyal) a

disciple of Keshab, author of songs, which often owed their inspira-

tion to the improvisations of Ramakrishna, and Girish Chandra

Ghosh, the great dramatist, who became Ramakrishna's disciple

(songs from his plays, Chailanya-lila, Buddha-charity, etc.).

11 Allusion to the characters of Torquato Tasso's poem, Jerusalem

Delivered.

14 Or the " eldest sister." Elsewhere Ramakrishna said to Keshab

Chundra Sen, " Maya is created by the Divine Mother, as forming

part of her plan of the universe." The Mother plays with the world.

The world is Her toy. " She le ~

lets slip the flying kite of the soul,

held by the string of illusion " (October, 1882).

IDENTITY WITH THE ABSOLUTE

Herself to Her children through the various forms of Her

splendour and by Divine Incarnations. With Her love,

with the fire of Her heart (Bhakti) She moulds the sheath

of the ego so well that it becomes no more than " something

that has length but no breadth/' a line, a point, which melts

under the magic fingers of this subtle refiner into Brahman.

So praised be the fingers and the water ! Praised be

the face and the veil ! All things are God. God is in all

things. He is in the shadow as well as in the light. Inspired

by the English " Mortalists " of the seventeenth century, 16

Hugo said that the Sun is only the shadow of God. 16

Ramakrishna would have said that the shadow is also light.

But it is because like all true Indian thinkers he believes

in nothing that he has not first " realized " throughout his

entire being that his thought has the breath of life. The

" conception " of the idea regains with him its plain

and carnal meaning. To believe is to embrace, and after

the embrace to treasure within oneself the ripening fruit.

When a Ramakrishna has once known the grasp of such

truths, they do not remain within him as ideas. They

quicken into life ; and fertilized by his Credo, they flourish

and come to fruition in an orchard of " realizations," no

longer abstract and isolated, but clearly defined and having

a practical bearing on everyday life for the satisfaction of

the hunger of men. He will find the Divine Flesh, which

he has tasted and which is the substance of the universe

again, the same, at all tables and all religions. And he

will share the food of immortality in a Lord's Supper, not

with twelve apostles, but with all starving souls with the

universe.

* * *

After the departure ofr Tota Puri towards the end of

1865 Ramakrishna remained for more than six months

within the magic circle, the circle of fire, and prolonged

his identity with the Absolute until the limit of physical

endurance had been reached. For six months, if such a

statement is credible, he remained in a state of cataleptic

1 Denis Saurat : Milton and Christian Materialism in England,

p. 52.

Cf. Milton, " Dark with excessive light thy skirts appear."

(Paradise Lost, III, 374.)

49 E

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

ecstasy, recalling the descriptions given of the fakirs of

old the body, deserted by the spirit like an empty house,

given over to destructive forces. If it had not been for a

nephew, who watched over the masterless body and

nourished its forces, he would have died. 17 It was impossible

to go further in ecstatic union with the " formless." It is,

moreover, the extreme period of this long Yogic trance

which is likely to puzzle, nay, to irritate my French readers,

who are used to treading on firm earth, and have not

experienced the shocks of spiritual fires for a long time.

Patience for a little while longer 1 We shall come down

from the Mount of Sinai down among men.

Ramakrishna himself recognized afterwards that he had

been tempting Providence and that it was a miracle that

he had ever returned. He was careful to warn his disciples

against submitting to any such test. He even forbade it

to Vivekananda, on the ground that it was a form of

pleasure forbidden to those noble souls, whose duty it was

to sacrifice their own happiness to the service of others. 18

17 It is said that a monk who happened to come to Dakshineswar

at that time, seeing him on the point of breathing his last, recalled

his escaping life with blows.

The great disciple, Saradananda, the most learned in Hindu

metaphysics, and more deeply versed in the intellectual make-up of

his Master than any who came near Ramakrishna, has described

this Nirvikalpa Samadhi, this great ecstasy of six months, as a

state where the consciousness of the ego disappeared completely,

coming back now and again very gently, just veiling the perfect

" realization." According to Saradananda, Ramakrishna would

perceive in these moments of semi-consciousness the order of the

Cosmic Spirit (or we may style it, the obscure recall and tyranny

of the vital force) " which forced him to remain in the Bhavamukha."

It said in effect, " Do not lose complete consciousness of the ego,

and do not identify thyself with the*transcendental Absolute, but

realize that the Cosmic ego, wherein are born the infinite modes of

the universe, is within thee ; at every moment of thy life, see and

do good in the world."

And so it was during the descent from this long Samadhi that

Ramakrishna came to " realize " his divine mission, not perhaps in

a single day or suddenly, but gradually. In any case it would be

in the first half of 1866.

11 How much more then did he dissuade ordinary men from it ;

for those whose bed in life is a narrow one, would have been sub-

merged by its torrents to their own hurt and the hurt of the com-

munity. The way he cured his Sancho Panza, his young nephew,

IDENTITY WITH THE ABSOLUTE

When young Naren 19 importuned him to open to him the

Niroikalpa Samadhi the terrible door leading to the gulf

of the Absolute Ramakrishna refused with anger, he,

who never lost his temper and who was always careful

not to hurt the feelings of his beloved son. " Shame on

you ! " he cried, " I thought you were to be the great

banyan tree giving shelter to thousands of tired souls.

Instead you are selfishly seeking your own well-being.

Let these little things alone, my child. How can you be

satisfied with so one-sided an ideal ? You might be all-

sided. Enjoy the Lord in all ways ! " (By this he meant

both in contemplation and in action, so that he might translate

the highest knowledge into the highest service of mankind.)

Naren wept, humiliated and heartbroken with the duty

of renunciation. He acknowledged that the Master's

severity was just, but to the end of his life he carried a

sick longing in his heart for the Abysmal God, although

he devoted that life with humility, hardihood and courage

to the service of man.

the faithful and matter of fact Hridoy, and his rich patron, Mathur

Babu, of their longing for the forbidden fruits of ecstasy, shows a

humour and good sense worthy of Cervantes.

Hridoy, a good soul and devoted to his uncle but of the earth

earthy, desired to share his uncle's fame. He thought he had a

family right to benefit from the spiritual advantages of Rama-

krishna. He had no patience with the latter 's disinterestedness.

In vain his uncle tried to dissuade him from experimenting in

ecstasy. The other persisted, with the result that his brain became

completely disordered and he had attacks of convulsions and scream-

ing. " Oh Mother," cried Ramakrishna, " dull the sense of this

idiot 1 " Hridoy fell to the ground and overwhelmed his uncle

with reproaches. " What have you done, uncle ? I shall never

experience these ineffable joys again." Ramakrishna maliciously

let him alone to do as he pleased. Hridoy was soon visited by

frightful visions and was obliged to ask his uncle to deliver him.

The same experience befell the rich Mathur Babu. He longed

for Ramakrishna to procure the Samadhi for him. Ramakrishna

refused for a long time, but at last he said, " Very well, so be it,

my friend." As a result of the coveted Samadhi, Mathur Babu

lost all interest and sense in business. This was more than he

had bargained for ; he became very anxious, and wished to go no

further in the matter, so he besought Ramakrishna to remove

ecstasy from him for ever. Ramakrishna smiled and cured him.

19 Narendranath Dutt, the real name of the man who was after-

wards called Vivekananda.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

But we must remember that at the point we have reached

in our story, Ramakrishna had not yet finished his Lehrjahre,

his apprenticeship. It is also noteworthy that his life's

experience was won at his own risk and expense, and not

by common experience, as is partly at least the case with

most of us.

His recovery was not due to his own merits or his own

desire. He said that the Mother recalled him to a sense

of his human duties by physical suffering. He was gradu-

ally forced back from the Nirvikalpa Samadhi by a violent

attack of dysentery, which lasted for six months.

Both physical and moral suffering attached him to the

earth. A monk, who knew him, 20 has said that during

the first days of his return from ecstasy to the bosom of

identity, he howled with pain when he saw two boatmen

quarrelling angrily. He came to identify himself with the

sorrows of the whole world, however impure and murderous

they might be, until his heart was scored with scars. But

he knew that even the differences leading to strife among

men are the daughters of the same Mother ; that the

" Omnipotent Differentiation " is the face of God Himself ;

that he must love God in all sorts and conditions of men,

however antagonistic and hostile, and in all forms of

thought controlling their existence and often setting them

at variance the one with the other. Above all he must

love God in all their Gods.

In short he recognized that all religions lead by different

paths to the same God. Hence he was eager to explore

them all ; for with him comprehension meant existence

and action.

* (Cf. D. G. Mukerji : The Face of Silence.)

THE RETURN TO MAN

THE first path to be explored was the religion of Islam.

He was hardly convalescent when he started out

upon it at the end of 1866.

From his temple he saw many Musulman fakirs passing

by ; for the large-hearted patron of Dakshineswar, Rani

Rasmani, a nouvclle riche of a debased caste, in the breadth

of her piety had desired rooms to be reserved in her

foundation for passing guests of all religions. In this way

Ramakrishna saw a humble Musulman, Govinda Rai,

absorbed in his prayers, and perceived through the outward

shell of his prostrate body that this man through Islam had

also " realized " God. He asked Govinda Rai to initiate

him, and for several days the priest of Kali renounced and

forgot his own Gods completely. He did not worship them,

he did not even think about them. He lived outside the

temple precincts, he repeated the name of Allah, he wore

the robes of a Musulman and was ready imagine the

sacrilege to eat of forbidden food, even of the sacred animal,

the cow ! His master and patron, Mathur Babu, was hor-

rified and begged him to desist. In secret he had food pre-

pared for Ramakrishna by a Brahmin under the direction

of a Musulman in order to save him from defilement. The

complete surrender of himself to another realm of thought

resulted as always in the spiritual voyage of this passionate

artist, in a visual materialization of the idea. A radiant

personage with grave countenance and white beard appeared

to him (thus he had probably visualized the prophet). He

drew near and lost himself in him. Ramakrishna realized

the Musulman God, " the Brahman with attributes.' 1 Thence

he passed into the " Brahman without attributes/' The

river of Islam had led him back to the Ocean.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

His expositors have later interpreted this experience,

following as it did immediately upon his great ecstasy in

the Absolute, in a very important sense for India, that

Musulmans and Hindus, her enemy sons, can only be re-

united on the basis of the Advaita, the formless God. The

Ramakrishna Mission has since raised a sanctuary to Him

in the depths of the Himalayas, as the corner-stone of the

immense and composite edifice of all religions.

Seven years later (I am grouping the facts for the sake

of clearness) an experience of the same order led Ramakrishna

to " realize " Christianity. Somewhere about November,

1874, a certain Mallik, a Hindu of Calcutta, with a garden

near Dakshineswar, read the Bible to him. For the first

time Ramakrishna met Christ. Shortly afterwards the

Word was made flesh. The life of Jesus secretly pervaded

him. One day when he was sitting in the room of a friend,

a rich Hindu, he saw on the wall a picture representing the

Madonna and Child. The figure became alive. Then the

expected came to pass according to the invariable order of

the spirit ; the holy visions came close to him and entered

into him so that his whole being was impregnated with

them. This time the inflowing was much more powerful

than in the case of Islam. It covered his entire soul,

breaking down all barriers. Hindu ideas were swept away.

In terror Ramakrishna, struggling in the midst of the waves,

cried out, " Oh Mother, what are you doing ? Help me ! "

It was in vain. The tidal race swept everything before it.

The spirit of the Hindu was changed. He had no room

for anything but Christ. For several days he was filled by

Christian thought and Christian love. He no longer thought

of going to the temple. Then one afternoon in the grove

of Dakshineswar he saw coining towards him a person with

beautiful large eyes and a serene regard. Although he

did not know who it was, he succumbed to the charm of

his unknown guest. He drew near and a voice sang in

the depths of Ramakrishna's soul,

" Behold the Christ, who shed his heart's blood for the

redemption of the world, who suffered a sea of anguish

for love of men. It is He, the master Yogin, who is in

eternal union with God. It is Jesus, Love incarnate."

The Son of Man embraced the seer of India, the son of

THE RETURN TO MAN

the Mother, and absorbed him into Himself. Ramakrishna

was lost in ecstasy. Once again he realized union with

Brahmin. Then gradually he came down to earth, but

from that time he believed in the Divinity of Jesus Christ,

the Incarnate God. 1 But for him Christ was not the only

Incarnation. Buddha and Krishna were others.

At this point I can imagine our uncompromising Chris-

tians, body-guards of their one God, raising their eyebrows

haughtily, and saying,

" But what did he know of our God ? This was a vision,

a figment of the imagination. This was too easy, for he

knew nothing of the doctrine."

He did in truth know very little, but he was a Bhakta,

who believed through love. He did not claim to possess

the knowledge of the Jnanins, who believed through the

intellect. But when the bow is firmly held, does not each

of the two arrows reach the same target ? And do not

both roads meet for the man who journeys to the very end ?

Vivekananda, Ramakrishna's great and learned disciple, said

of him,

" Outwardly he was Bhakta but inwardly Jnanin.* At

a certain pitch of intensity great love comprehends and great

intellect forces the retreats of the heart. Moreover it is

surely not for Christians to deny the power of love. It

was love that made the humble fishermen of Galilee the

chosen disciples of their God and the founders of his Church.

And to whom did the risen Christ first appear but to the re-

pentant sinner, whose only claim to the privilege lay in the

1 He used the title very sparingly, however. He had a great

veneration for saintly men, such as the Tirthankaras (the founders

of the Jain religion), and the ten Sikh Gurus, but without believ-

ing that they were Incarnations. In his own home amongst his

Divine pictures was one of Christ, and he burnt incense before it

morning and evening. Later it came to pass that Indian Christians

recognized in him a direct manifestation of the Christ and went

into ecstasy before him.

1 And Vivekananda added, " But with me it is quite the con-

trary." Another very great religious thinker of India, also a highly

intellectual man, more deeply imbued with European thought than

any of his contemporaries, Keshab Chunder Sen, had the noble

humility to sit at the feet of the Bhakta, whose intuition of heart

enlightened for Him the spirit underlying the letter.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

tears of love wherewith she had washed the feet of Christ

and dried them with her hair ? ' '

Lastly, knowledge does not consist in the number of books

a man has read. In Ramakrishna's India, as in the India

of old, culture is largely transmitted orally, and Ramakrishna

gained during the course of his life through intercourse with

thousands of monks, pilgrims, pandits, and all sorts of men

preoccupied with religious problems, an encyclopaedic know-

ledge of religion and religious philosophy, a knowledge

constantly deepened by meditation. 3 " One day a disciple

wondering at his knowledge asked him, ' How were you

able to master all past knowledge ? ' And Ramakrishna

answered, ' I have not read, I have heard the learned. I

have made a garland of their knowledge wearing it round

my neck, and I have given it as an offering at the feet of

the Mother/ "

He could say to his disciples,

" I have practised all religions, Hinduism, Islam, Chris-

tianity, and I have also followed the paths of the different

Hindu sects. ... I have found that it is the same God

towards whom all are directing their steps, though along

different paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all

the different ways once. 4 Wherever I look I see men

quarrelling in the name of religion Hindus, Mohammedans,

Brahmins, Vaishnavas and the rest, but they never reflect

that He who is called Krishna is also called Shiva, and

bears the name of Primitive Energy, Jesus and Allah as

well the same Rama with a thousand names. The tank

has several ghats (flights of steps). At one Hindus draw

water in pitchers, and call it jal ; at another Musulmans

draw water in leathern bottles, and call it pani ; at a third

Christians, and call it water. Gan we imagine that the

water is not jal, but only pani or water 1 How ridiculous !

The substance is One under different names and everyone

is seeking the same Substance ; nothing but climate, tem-

* Ramakrishna understood Sanskrit though he could not speak

it. He said, " In my childhood I could gather all that the Sadhus

were reading in the house of a neighbouring family, even though it

is true that the sense of individual words escaped me. If a pandit

spoke in Sanskrit I understood him, but I could not speak it my-

self." Gospel, II, 17.

4 Gospel of Ramakrishna, II, 17.

THE RETURN TO MAN

perament and name vary. 5 Let each man foUow his own

path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God,

peace be unto him ! He will surely realize Him."

The period after 1867 added nothing vital to Ramakrishna's

inner store, 6 but he learnt to use what he had treasured.

His revelations were brought into contact with the outside

world and his spiritual conquests were confronted with the

achievements of other human experience and he realized

more fully the unique prize that had been awarded him.

It was during these years that he came to a knowledge of

his mission among men and his present duty of action.

He resembles the Little Poor Man of Assisi in many ways

both moral and physical. He too was the tender brother

of everything that lives and dies, and had drunk so deep

of the milk of loving kindness that he could not be satisfied

with a happiness he could not share with others. On the

threshold of his deepest ecstasies he prayed to the Mother

as She was drawing him to Herself,

" Oh Mother, let me remain in contact with men ! Do

not make me a dried-up ascetic ! "

And the Mother, as She drew him back to the shores of

life from the depths of the Ocean, replied (half consciously

he heard Her voice),

" Stay on the threshold of relative consciousness for the

love of humanity." 7

And so he returned to the world of men and his first

experience was a bath of warm and simple humanity. In

May, 1867, sti U much enfeebled by the crises he had passed

through, he went to rest for six or seven months in his own

countryside of Kamarpukur after an absence of eight years. 8

*Ibid., II, 248.

6 Except for his Christian* experience, which I have described

in the previous pages in its logical place, though it belongs chrono-

logically to the year 1874.

7 From that time he resisted all temptation to seek an ecstatic

death and avoided its dangers. He refused to run the risk of cer-

tain dangerous emotions, such as the sight of a holy place, Gaya,

in 1868, because it was too full of memories and he knew that he

would not be able to bring his spirit back to the plane of ordinary

life. He had received the order from within to stay in the world

of everyday things in order to help others.

The Bhairavi Brahmani accompanied him, but the experiences

of the journey do not rebound to her credit. This eminent woman's

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

He gave himself up with the joy of a chilcj to the familiar

cordiality of the good people of the village, happy at the

sight of their little Gandahar, whose strange fame had

reached them and made them rather anxious. And these

simple peasants were nearer by their very simplicity to the

profundity of his beliefs than the doctors of the towns and

the devotees of the temples.

During this visit he learned to know his child wife. Sarada

Devi was now fourteen years old. She lived with her parents,

but she came to Kamarpukur when she knew her husband

had arrived. The spiritual development of the little wife

with her pure heart was greater than her age, and she

understood at once her husband's mission and the part of

pious affection and tender disinterestedness she was to play

in it. She recognized him as her guide and put herself at

his service.

Ramakrishna has at times been blamed, and very coarsely

blamed, fl for having sacrificed her. She herself never showed

any trace of it ; she irradiated peace and serenity throughout

her life on all who came in contact with her. Moreover, there

is a fact, which has never before been revealed except by

Vivekananda, that Ramakrishna himself was gravely aware

of his responsibility and offered his wife the greatest sacrifice

of which he was capable if she demanded it his mission.

" I have learnt/' he said to her, " to look upon every

woman as Mother. That is the only idea I can have about

character was not equal to her intelligence, and her meditations

had not raised her above human weaknesses. Having taught Rama-

krishna and revealed him to himself, she claimed proprietory rights

over him. She had already suffered from the ascendancy of Tota

Puri, and she could not bear to see him re-absorbed in the atmo-

sphere of his birthplace, monopolized by his old companions to

whom she was a stranger, without ctremony. Moreover the pres-

ence of his young wife, humble and sweet though she was, troubled

her and she had not the tact to hide it. After some painful scenes,

which did not make her more amiable, she recognized her weakness.

She begged Ramakrishna's pardon and left him for ever. He met

her again for the last time in Benares, whither she had retired to

spend the remainder of her days in a strict search for truth. She

died shortly afterwards.

9 This was especially the case from certain Brahmo Samajists,

who were irritated by Ramakrishna's ascendancy over their leader,

Keshab Chunder Sen, and they could not forgive him his wide

popularity.

THE RETURN TO MAN

you. But if you wish to draw me into the world (of Illusion) ,

as I have been married to you, I am at your service." 10

Here was something entirely new in the spirit of India.

Hindu tradition lays down that a religious life ipso facto

frees a man from every other obligation. Ramakrishna

had more humanity and recognized that his wife had binding

rights over him. She was, however, magnanimous enough

to renounce them, and encouraged him in his mission. But

Vivekananda specifically declares that it was " by consent

of his wife " that he was free to follow the life of his choice.

Touched by her innocence and self-sacrifice, Ramakrishna

took upon himself the part of an elder brother. He devoted

himself patiently during the months they were together to

her education as a diligent wife and good manager. He

had a great deal of practical common sense curiously at

variance with his mystic nature. The peasant's son had been

brought up in a good school and no detail of domestic or rural

life was alien to him. All who knew him remarked on the order

and cleanliness of his house, in which respect the Little Poor

Man of God might have taught his disciples, drawn though

they were from the intellectual and upper middle classes.

He returned to Dakshineswar at the end of 1867, and in

the course of the following year made several pilgrimages

with Mathur Babu, his patron and the master of his temple.

In the early months of 1868 he saw Shiva's city, Benares,

and Allahabad at the sacred junction of the Ganges and

the Jumna, and Brindaban, the very home of legend and

of the Song of Songs, the scene of the Romancero pastoral

of Krishna. His transports, his intoxication may be

imagined. When he crossed the Ganges before Benares,

" the city of God " seemed to him not built of stone, but

like a heavenly Jerusalem, " a condensed mass of spiritu-

ality/ 1 On the cremating fields of the holy city he saw

Shiva and His white body and tawny matted locks and

the Divine Mother bending over the funeral pyres and

granting salvation unto the dead. When twilight fell on

the banks of the Jumna, he met the herdsmen leading their

cattle home, and he was carried away with emotion, and

ran shouting, " Krishna ! Where is Krishna ? "

" Vivekananda : My Master. Vol. IV of his Complete Works,

3rd edition, 1923, p. 169,

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

But if he did not see the God Himself, he met something

else in the course of his travels of greater importance and

deeper meaning for us of the West he discovered the face

of human suffering. Up to that time he had lived in a state

of ecstatic hypnosis within the gilded shell of his sanctuary,

and the hair of Kali had hidden it from him. When he

arrived at Deoghar with his rich companion, he saw its

almost naked inhabitants, the Santhals, emaciated and dying

of hunger : for a terrible famine was ravaging the land.

He told Mathur Babu that he must feed these unfortunates.

Mathur Babu objected that he was not rich enough to

support the misery of the whole world. Ramakrishna

thereupon sat down among the poor creatures and wept,

declaring that he would not move from thence, but would

share their fate. Croesus was obliged to submit and to do

the will of his poor priest.

During the summer of 1870 Mathur made the mistake of

taking him in the course of another journey to one of his

estates at the time of the payment of dues. The harvests

had failed for two years running and the tenants were

reduced to extreme misery. Ramakrishna told Mathur to

remit their dues, to distribute help to them and to give

them a sumptuous feast. Mathur Babu protested but Rama-

krishna was inexorable.

" You are only the steward of the Mother/' he said to

the rich proprietor. " They are the Mother's tenants. You

must spend the Mother's money. When they are suffering,

how can you refuse to help them ? You must do so."

Mathur Babu had to give in.

These things should not be allowed to fall into oblivion.

Swami Shivananda, the present head of the Ramakrishna

Order (the Ramakrishna Math ad Mission), one of the first

apostles and a direct disciple of the Master, has des-

cribed the following scene, which he saw with his own

eyes.

One day at Dakshineswar, while he was in a condition

of super-consciousness, Ramakrishna said,

" Maya is Shiva (all living beings are God). 11 Who then

11 On another occasion he said, " God is in all men, but all men

are not in God : that is the reason why they suffer/ 1 (Sri Rama-

krishna' s Teachings, I, 297.)

THE RETURN TO MAN

dare talk of showing mercy to them ? Not mercy, but

service, service for man must be regarded as God 1 "

Vivekananda was present . When he heard those pregnant

words, he said to Shivananda,

" I have heard a great saying to-day. I will proclaim

the living truth to the world/'

And Swami Shivananda added,

" If anyone asks for the foundation of the innumerable

acts of service done by the Ramakrishna Mission since then,

he will find it there/' 12

* * *

About this time several deaths left the mark of Sorrow's

cruel, yet brotherly fingers upon Ramakrishna. Though

a man lost in God, who regarded departure from this life

as a return to endless bliss, he was seen on the occasion

of the death of a young friend and nephew to laugh for

joy and to sing his deliverance. 13 But the day after his

death he was suddenly assailed by the most terrible anguish.

His heart was broken, he could hardly breathe and he

thought,

" Oh God ! Oh God ! If it is thus with me, how they

must suffer, those who lose their loved ones, their children ! "

And the Mother bestowed upon him the duty and the

power of administering the balm of faith to mourners.

" Those who did not see it," Swami Shivananda wrote

to me, " cannot imagine to what extent this man, so

detached from the world, was constantly occupied in

listening to the story of their worldly tribulations, poured

out to him by men and women alike, and in lightening

their burdens. We saw innumerable examples of it, and

there may be some householders still living, who call down

blessings upon him for Mis infinite pity and his ardent

11 Ramakrishna set the example of the most humble service.

He, a Brahmin, went to a pariah's house and asked permission to

clean it. The pariah, overcome by the proposal, a criminal one in

the eyes of an orthodox Hindu, which might have exposed his

visitor and himself to the worst reprisals, refused to allow it. So

Ramakrishna went to his house at night when all were asleep and

wiped the floor with his long hair. He prayed, " Oh Mother, make

me the servant of the pariah ! " (Vivekananda, My Master.)

19 At that moment he had the vision of a sword drawn from

the scabbard.

6l

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

attempts to relieve the sufferings of men. One day in

1883 Mani Mallick, a rich and distinguished old man, lost

his son and came to Ramakrishna with a broken heart.

He entered so deeply into the old man's sorrow that it

almost seemed as if he were the bereaved father, and his

sorrow surpassed Mallick's. Some time passed thus.

Suddenly Ramakrishna began to sing."

But not an elegy, not a funeral oration. He sang a

heroic song, the story of the fight of the soul with death.

" To arms ! To arms ! Oh Man, death invades thy

home in battle array. Get up into the chariot of faith,

and arm thyself with the quiver of wisdom. Draw the

mighty bow of love and hurl, hurl the divine arrow, the

holy name of the Mother ! " 14

" And," concluded Shivananda, " I remember how the

father's grief was assuaged by it. This song gave him

back his courage, calmed his sorrow and brought him

peace/'

As I describe this scene my thoughts go back to our

own Beethoven, who without saying a word came and

sat down at the piano and consoled a bereaved mother

with his music.

This divine communion with living, loving, suffering

humanity was to be expressed in a passionate, but pure

and pious symbol. When in 1872 his wife came to him

at Dakshineswar for the first time, 16 the tenderness of

14 I give a fragment of this song from the Gospel of Ramakrishna.

The scene was by no means unique. Ramakrishna consoled more

than one mourner with more than one song. But its heroic character

always remained the same.

In the Life of Ramakrishna (pp. 652-53) the account is rather

different. Ramakrishna listened to tne broken-hearted father ; he

said nothing but passed into a state of semi-consciousness. Sud-

denly he began to sing the battle hymn with energetic gestures

and a radiant face. Then he became normal again and talked

affectionately to the unhappy man and consoled him.

D. G. Mukerji also describes the same scene as Swami Shiva-

nanda and with his usual art. But he was not an eye-witness,

while Shivananda and the author of the GospM were.

11 She stayed with him from March, 1872, to November, 1873,

from April, 1874, to September, 1875, again in 1882 and finally in

1884, when she remained with him until the end. The story of

her first journey to rejoin her husband, when she was in bad health,

THE RETURN TO MAN

Ramakrishna, a tenderness compounded of religious respect

purged of all trace of desire and sensual disturbance,

recognized the Goddess under her veil, and he made a

solemn avowel of it. One night in May, when everything

had been prepared for worship, he made Sarada Devi sit

in the seat of Kali, and as a priest he accomplished the

ritual ceremonies, the Shorashi Puja, 16 the adoration of

womanhood. Both of them were in a condition of semi-

conscious or super-conscious ecstasy. When he came to

himself he hailed his companion as the Divine Mother.

In his eyes She was incarnate in the living symbol of

immaculate humanity. 17

* * *

His conception of God, then, was one which grew by

degrees, from the idea of the God who is omnipresent and

in whom everything is absorbed, like a sun fusing every-

thing in itself, to the warm feeling that all things are God,

like so many little suns, in each of which He is present and

active. Both, it is true, contain the same idea, but the

second reverses the first, so that not only from the highest

to the lowest, but from the lowest to the highest, there is

a twofold chain joining without a break the one Being to

all living Beings. Thus man becomes sacred.

Two years before his death, April 5, 1884, he said, " I

can now realize the change that has taken place in me.

A long time ago Vaishnav Charan told me that when I

could see God in man, I should have attained the per-

and bravely accomplished with much fatigue and no little danger,

is one of the most touching chapters in the life of Ramakrishna.

(See Note I at the end of the volume a charming adventure, the

meeting of Sarada Devi with the brigands.) No less extraordinary

was her first stay of twenty Inonths and the common life led by

the two mystics, both equally chaste and equally passionate.

lf A Tantric ceremony.

17 The sole witness of this strange scene was the priest from the

neighbouring temple of Vishnu.

Ramakrishna's cult of womanhood did not limit itself to his

blameless wife. Ha recognized the Mother even in the most de-

graded prostitutes. 1 " I myself have seen this man standing before

these women," said Vivekananda, " and falling on his knees at

their feet, bathed in tears, saying ' Mother, in one form Thou art

in the street and in another form Thou art the universe. I salute

Thee, Mother. I salute Thee/ " (My Master.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

fection of knowledge. At the present moment I see that

it is He who moves under a diversity of forms sometimes

as a pious man, sometimes as a hypocrite, sometimes even

as a criminal. So I say, ' Narayana in the pious man,

Narayana in the hypocrite, Narayana in the criminal and

the libertine.' " 18

I must take up again the course of his life, so that my

readers may not lose the thread of the story, and that

they may know in advance where the river is flowing

despite its immense meanders, and windings, at times

seeming to dissipate itself in numerous channels, and at

others appearing to turn back on its course.

I take it up again at a point round about 1874 when

the full cycle of religious experience had been achieved,

and when, as he says himself, he had plucked the three

beautiful fruits of the tree of Knowledge Compassion,

Devotion 19 and Renunciation. 20

During the same period his interviews with the eminent

men of Bengal had made him aware of the inadequacy

of their knowledge and of the great starving void awaiting

him in the soul of India. He never ceased to make use of

all the sources within his reach for adding to his knowledge,

from the religious or the learned, from the poor or the

18 Life of Ramakrishna, p. 543. Narayana is a certain aspect

of Brahmin or Purusha, the supreme Soul, who brings forth gods

and men. (Cf . Paul Masson-Oursel : Outline of the History of Indian

Philosophy, p. 105.)

lf The word Devotion, the term sanctioned by the European

translations of Hindu mysticism, is quite inadequate to express

the sentiment of a passionate gift of self implied in it. The true

meaning of the old word ought to be revived, as it was used in

Christian mysticism, for that gives its exact parallel, viz. Dedica-

tion. (Cf. Ruysbroeck, Of Inward Dedication.) "If we wish to

belong to God through inward dedication, we shall feel in the depth

of our wills and in the depth of our love what may be called the

welling up of a living spring, which will rise to eternal life." (De

septem custodiis libellus, trans. E. Hello.)

What Hindu Bhakta is there who will fail to recognize himself

in the act of " dedication " described here by the Flemish priest

of the fourteenth century ?

10 " Compassion, Devotion and Renunciation are the glorious

fruits of knowledge." (Interviews of Ramakrishna with the cele-

brated pandit, Vidya-Sagar, August 5, 1882. Cf. Life of Rama-

krishna, p. 526.)

6 4

THE RETURN TO MAN

rich, from wandering pilgrims or pillars of science and

society. Personal pride was quite alien to him ; he was

instead rather inclined to think that each " seeker after

truth" had received some special enlightenment, which

he himself had missed, and he was anxious to pick up the

crumbs that fell from their table. He therefore sought

them out wherever they might be found without consider-

ing how he might be received. 21

At this point it is necessary to give the European reader

a brief summary of the great movement stirring in the

soul of India for the past sixty years. Too little is heard

of this mighty reawakening, although the centenary of

one of its most memorable dates, the foundation of the

Brahmo Samaj, was celebrated in India this very year

(1928). Humanity as a whole ought to have joined with

India to commemorate its genial founder ; for despite all

obstacles he had the will and the courage to inaugurate

co-operation between the East and the West on a basis

of equality, and between the forces of reason and the

power of faith. He did not understand faith to mean a

11 1 have already pointed out that in his temple he had the daily

opportunity of talking to the faithful of all sorts and all sects.

From the moment when the Bhairavi Brahmani had announced

that he was a man visited of God, that he was perhaps an Incar-

nation, people came to see him from far and near. Thus between

1868 and 1871 he saw many famous personalities, such as the great

Bengali poet, a convert to Christianity, Michael Madhusadan Dutt,

and the masters of Vedantic learning like the pandits Narayan

Shastri and Padma Lochan. In 1872 he met Visvanath Upadhyaya

and Dayananda, the founder of the Arya Samaj, of whom I shall

speak in the next chapter. It has not been possible for me to

ascertain precisely the date of his visit to Devendranath Tagore.

The Hindu authorities do not agree upon this point. It cannot

have been later than 1869-70. The Tagores give 1864-65 as the

approximate date. The authorized biographer of Ramakrishna

(Mahendra Nath Gupta) ascribes it to 1863 on the ground that

Ramakrishna gave it to be understood that in the course of this

visit he sa>w Keshab Chunder Sen officiating in the pulpit of the

Arya Samaj. Keshab was only the minister of the Samaj from

1862 to 1865 ; and there are several reasons why Ramakrishna

could not have made the journey in 1864-65. At all events it was

in 1875 that he visited Keshab after he had become the head of

the new reformed Brahmo Samaj, and it is from that year that

their relations of cordial friendship date.

65 F

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

blind acceptance, as it has degenerated into among down-

trodden races, but rather a living and seeing intuition.

I speak of Ram Mohun Roy. 22

II As a general picture I recommend the recent work of K. T.

Paul : The British Connection with India, 1927, London, Student

Christian Movement, which traces with a sure hand the evolution

of the national movement and the Hindu religious movements

during the last century. K. T. Paul, an Indian Christian and the

friend of Gandhi, a great and impartial mind filled with the thought

alike of the East and of the West, unites in this work the historical

precision of Europe and its science of facts with the science of the

soul, a peculiarly Indian science.

(Cf . the panoramic sketch, which I published in the Paris review,

Europe, December 15, 1928, " India in Movement/')

In its number of October, 1928, the Indian review, Prabuddha

Bharata, published a very interesting paper of Swami Nikhilananda,

which he had previously read in August, 1928, to the Convention

of Religions at the Centenary of the Brahmo Samaj, on " The Pro-

of Religion during the last Hundred Years " (in India).

VI

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY, RAM MOHUN ROY, DEVENDRANATH

TAGORE, KESHAB CHUNDER SEN, DAYANANDA

RAM MOHUN ROY, an extraordinary man who ushered

in a new era in the spiritual history of the ancient

continent, was the first really cosmopolitan type in India.

During his life of less than sixty years (1774-1833) he

assimilated all kinds of thought from the Himalayan myths

of ancient Asia to the scientific reason of modern Europe. 1

He belonged to a great aristocratic Bengal family,*

bearing the hereditary title of Roy, and he was brought

up at the court of the Great Mogul, where the official

language was Persian. As a child he learnt Arabic in the

Patna schools and read the works of Aristotle and Euclid

in that language. Thus besides being an orthodox Brahmin

1 Fat the life and works of this great forerunner, see Raja Ram

Mohun Roy, his Writings and Speeches, 1925, Natesan, Madras,

whose interest is marred by chronological inexactitude ; and the

excellent pamphlet of Ramananda Chatterjee : Ram Mohun Roy

and Modern India, 1918, The Modern Review Office, Calcutta.

These works are based in part on the biography written by Miss

Sophia Dobson Collett, who knew him personally.

(Cf. N. C. Ganguly, fragments of an important volume bearing

on Roy, published in September, 1928, by The Modern Review of

Calcutta in a series entitled *' The Builders of India.")

Manilal C. Parekh : Rajarshi Ram Mohun Roy, 1927, Oriental

Christ House, Rajkot, Bombay, and Professor Dhirendranath Chpw-

dhuri : " Ram Mohun Roy, the Devotee," The Modern Review,

October, 1928.

This year, the centenary of the foundation of the Brahmo Samaj,

gave rise in India to the publication of many studies of Ram Mohun

Roy.

For the Brahmo Samaj, the church founded by Roy, see Siva

Math Sastry : History of the Brahmo Samaj, 2 vols., 1911, Calcutta.

1 His family came originally from Murehidabad, He was born

at Burdwan in Lower Bengal

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

by birth 8 he was nurtured in Islamic culture. He did not

discover the works of Hindu theology until he began to

study Sanskrit between the ages of fourteen and sixteen

at Benares. His Hindu biographers maintain that this was

his second birth ; but it is quite conceivable that he had no

need of the Vedanta to imbibe a monotheistic faith. Contact

with Islam would have implanted it in him from infancy,

and the sciences and practice of Hindu mysticism only re-

inforced the indelible influence of Sufism, whose burning

breath had impregnated his being from his earliest years. 4

The ardour of his combative genius, mettlesome as a

young war horse, led him when he was sixteen to enter

upon a bitter struggle, destined to last as long as life itself,

against idolatry. He published a book in Persian with a

preface in Arabic attacking orthodox Hinduism. His out-

raged father thereupon drove him from home. For four

years he travelled in the interior of India and Thibet,

studying Buddhism without growing to love it, and risking

death from Lamaist fanaticism. At the age of twenty the

prodigal son was recalled by his father and returned home.

In a vain attempt to attach him to the world he was married,

but no cage could contain such a bird.

When he was twenty-four he began to learn English, as

well as Hebrew, Greek and Latin. He made the acquaint-

ance of Europeans and learnt their laws and their forms of

government. As a result he suddenly cast aside his

* On his father's side his family was Viashnavite.

4 The intuitive power and mystic enlightenment of his nature

have been somewhat obscured, especially in the West, by his repu-

tation as a man of vigorous reasoning power and as a social re-

former fighting against the mortal and deadly prejudices of his

people. But the mystic side of his^ genius has been brought to

the fore again by Dhirendranath Chowdhuri. The freedom of his

intellect would not have been so valuable if it had not been based

upon devotional elements equally profound and varied. From in-

fancy he appears to have given himself up to certain practices

of Yogist meditation, even to Tantric practices, which he later

repudiated, concentrating for days on the name or on one attribute

of God, repeating the word until the Spirit manifested its presence

(the exercise of Purascharana), taking the vows of Brahmachariya

(chastity) and silence, practising the mystic exercises of Sufism,

more satisfying than the Bhakti of Bengal, which he found too

sentimental for his proud taste. But his firm reason and will never

resigned their functions. They governed his emotions.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

prejudice against the English and made common cause

with them. In the higher interests of his people he won

their confidence and took them as allies. He had dis-

covered that only by depending on Europe could he hope

to struggle for the regeneration of India. Once more he

began his violent polemics against barbarous customs such

as Sati, the burning of widows. 6 This raised a storm of

opposition culminating in his definite expulsion from his

family in 1799 at the instance of the Brahmins. A few

years later even his mother and his wives, his nearest and

dearest, refused to live with him. He spent a dozen hard

and courageous years, abandoned by all except one or

two Scottish friends. After accepting a post as tax-

collector, he gradually rose until he became the ministerial

chief of the district.

After his father's death he was reconciled to his own

people and inherited considerable property. The Emperor

of Delhi made him a Rajah, and he had a palace and sump-

tuous gardens in Calcutta. There he lived in the state of

a great lord, giving magnificent receptions in the oriental

style with troups of musicians and dancers. His portrait is

preserved for us in the Bristol Museum. It reveals a face

of great masculine beauty and delicacy with large brown

eyes. He is wearing a flat turban like a crown, and a shawl

is draped over a robe of Franciscan brown. 6 Although he

lived as a Prince of the Arabian Nights, he did not allow

it to interfere with his ardent study of the Hindu Scriptures

or his campaign for restoring the pure spirit of the Vedas.

To this end he translated them into Bengali and English

and wrote commentaries upon them. He went even further.

Side by side with the Upanishads and the Sutras, he made

a close study of the Christian Testaments. It is said that

he was the first high caste Hindu to study the teachings of

Christ. After the Gospels he published in 1820 a book on

It is said that in 1811 he was present at the burning of a young

sister-in-law, and that the horror of the sacrifice, heightened by the

struggles of the victim, upset him completely, so that he had no

peace until he had freed the land from such crimes.

He had adopted Mohammedan costume. In vain he tried later

to impose it at the meetings of the Brahmo Samaj. In dress he

possessed an aesthetic taste and hygienic sense of cleanliness and

comfort, which belonged rather to Islam than to Hinduism.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

the Precepts of Jesus, a Guide to Peace and Happiness.

About 1826 for some time he became a member of a Uni-

tarian Society, founded by one of his European friends, the

Protestant minister Adam, who secretly flattered himself

that he had converted Roy to Christianity, so that he might

become its great apostle to the Indians. But Roy was no

more to be chained to orthodox Christianity than to ortho-

dox Hinduism, although he believed that he had discovered

its real meaning. He remained an independent theist,

essentially a rationalist and moralist. He extracted from

Christianity its ethical system, but he rejected the Divinity

of Christ, just as he rejected the Hindu Incarnations. As

a passionate Unitarian he attacked the Trinity no less than

polytheism ; hence both Brahmins and missionaries were

united in enmity against him.

But he was not the man to be troubled on that account.

As all other churches were closed to him 7 he opened one

for himself and for the free believers of the universe. It

was preceded by the founding of the Atmiya Sabha (the

Society of Friends) in 1815 for the worship of God, the One

and Invisible. In 1827 he had published a pamphlet on

the Gayatri, supposed to be the most ancient theistic

formula of the Hindus. Eventually in 1828 his chief friends,

among whom was Tagore, gathered at his house and founded

a Unitarian Association, destined subsequently to have a

startling career in India, under the name of the Brahmo

Samaj 8 (Adi Brahmo Samaj), the House of God. It was

dedicated to the " worship and adoration of the Eternal,

Unsearchable and Immutable Being, who is the Author

and Preserver of the Universe." He was to be worshipped

" not under or by any other name, designation or title

peculiarly used for and applied* to any other particular

7 With the exception of the excellent Adam's Unitarian Church,

which was not in a prosperous condition.

The name of Brahmo Samaj appears erroneously for the first

tune in the deed of purchase of land whereon the Unitarian temple

was built in 1829.

Its first meeting was held on August 25, 1828. Every Satur-

day from seven to nine recitations of the Vedas, readings from

the Upaniahads, sermons on Vedic texts, the singing of hymns

mostly composed by Roy himself and accompanied musically by

a Mohammedan, took place.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

Being or Beings by any man or set of men whatever." The

church was to be closed to none. Ram Mohun Roy wished

that his Brahmo Samaj should be a universal house of

prayer, open to all men without distinction of colour, caste,

nation or religion. In the deed of gift he laid down that

no religion " shall be reviled or slightly or contemptuously

spoken of or alluded to." The cult was to encourage " the

promotion of the contemplation of the Author and Preserver

of the Universe " and " of charity, morality, piety, bene-

volence, virtue and the strengthening the bonds of union

between men of all religious persuasions and creeds."

Roy then wished to found a universal religion, and his

disciples and admirers voluntarily called it " Universalism."

But I cannot accept this term in its full and literal mean-

ing ; for Roy excluded from it all forms of polytheism from

the highest to the lowest. The man who wishes to regard

without prejudice religious realities at the present day must

take into account that polytheism, from its highest expres-

sion in the Three in One of the Christian Trinity to its most

debased, holds sway over two-thirds at least of mankind.

Roy calls himself correctly a " Hindu Unitarian," and did

not hesitate to borrow from the two great Unitarian religions,

Islam and Christianity. 9 But he defended himself stren-

uously against the reproach of " eclecticism," and his

disciples are agreed on that point. He held that doctrine

ought to rest on original synthetic analysis, sounding the

depths of religious experience. It is not then to be con-

founded with the monism of the Vedanta nor with Christian

unitarianism. The theism of Roy claims to rest on two

poles, the " absolute " Vedanta and the Encyclopaedic

thought of the eighteenth century in the Formless God

and Reason. *

It was not easy to define and it was still less easy to

realize after he had gone ; for it implied a rare harmony

of critical intelligence and faith going as far as the enlighten-

ment of a noble mysticism consistently controlled and

dominated by reason. Royally constituted physically and

morally, he was able to attain the heights of contemplation

Rain Mohun Roy's Hindu Unitarianism is nearer to the Bible

than the doctrines of his immediate successors at the head of the

Bnthmo Samaj, especially Devendranath Tagore.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

without losing for an instant the balance of his everyday

life or interrupting his daily course ; he was protected

against and disdainfully avoided the emotional excess to

which the Bhaktas of Bengal were a prey. 10 It was not

until we reach Aurobindo Ghose a century later that we

find the same aristocratic freedom of diverse powers linked

to the highest type of mind. It was not easily communic-

able and in fact proved impossible to communicate intact.

Noble and pure though the successors of Ram Mohun Roy

were, they changed his doctrine out of all recognition.

Nevertheless the Constitution of the Brahmo Samaj the

Magna Carta Dei which included such part as could be

understood and assimilated by his successors, founded a

new era in India and Asia and a century has merely proved

the grandeur of its conception.

Roy emphasized its other practical aspect in his vigorous

campaigns for social reform, 11 supported by the English

10 (Cf. Dhirendranath Chowdhuri : " Ram Mohun Roy, the

Devotee," The Modern Review, October, 1928 :)

..." the Raja would be frequently found absorbed (in Brahma-

samadhi), all his distractions notwithstanding. . . . For the Raja

Samadhi is not an abnormal physiological change of the body that

can be effected at will, not unconsciousness generated as in sound

sleep, but the highly spiritual culture of perceiving Brahmin in

all and the habit of surrendering the self to the higher self.

Atmasakshatkar to him was not to deny the existence of the world

. . . but to perceive God in every bit of perception . . . Ram

Mohun was pre-eminently a Sadhaka. . . . Though a Vedantist

in every pulse of his being, he did not fail to perceive that the

Upanishads were not sufficient to satisfy the Bhakti hankerings of

the soul, nor was he able to side with the Bhakti cult of Bengal.

. . . But he hoped that the needs of Bhakti would be met by

the Sufis. . . ."

11 We cannot attempt to give here a full list of his innumerable

reforms or attempted reforms. Let \t suffice to mention among

the chief Sati (the burning of widows), which he proved to be

contrary to the sacred texts and which he persuaded the British

Government to forbid in 1829 and his campaign against polygamy

his attempts to secure the remarriage of widows, inter-caste mar-

riage, Indian unity, friendship between Hindus and Musulmans,

Hindu education, which he wished to model on the same scientific

lines as Europe and for which he wrote in Bengali numerous text-

books on Geography, Astronomy, Geometry, Grammar, etc., the

education of women based on the example of ancient India, liberty

of thought and of the Press, legal reforms, political equality, etc.

In 1821 he founded a Bengali newspaper, the father of the native

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

administration, more liberal and more intelligent than that

of to-day. 12 There was nothing parochial about his pat-

riotism. He cared for nothing but liberty and civil and

religious progress. Far from desiring the expulsion of

England from India, he wished her to be established there

in such a way that her blood, her gold and her thought

would intermingle with the Indian, and not as a blood-

sucking ghoul leave her exhausted. He went so far as

to wish his people to adopt English as their universal lan-

guage, to make Indian Western socially and then to achieve

independence and enlighten the rest of Asia. His news-

papers were impassioned in the cause of liberty on behalf

of all the nations of the world Ireland, Naples crushed

under reaction, revolutionary France in the July Days of

1830. But this loyal partisan of co-operation with England

could speak frankly to her, and he did not conceal his

intention of breaking with her if his great hopes of her as

a leader in the advancement of his people were not realized.

Towards the end of 1830 the Emperor of Delhi sent him

as his ambassador to England ; for Roy wished to be present

Press of India, a Persian paper, another paper called the Ved Mandir

for the study of Vedic science. Moreover, India owes to him her

first modern Hindu college and free schools, and ten years after

his death the first school for women in Calcutta (1843).

11 The recent blunders of the Indian Government and the legiti-

mate desire of India to free herself from it, the spirit of brutal

and narrow pride of which Lord Curzon as Viceroy was the most

striking type, and the spirit of narrow and vainglorious incompre-

hension reflected in literature in the works of Kipling, ought not to

allow the moral debt which India owes to the British administra-

tion to be forgotten. Without her aid the social awakening of

India during the nineteenth century would have been impossible,

and the same is true of her un^ty through the language of her con-

querors. Not to mention the admirable work of the Englishmen

who rediscovered Sanskrit from William James to William Carey

and Wilson, there were the superior merits of the great Governor-

Generals of the first days of the conquest the disinterestedness of

Clive, the high intelligence of Warren Hastings, who wrote (who

remembers the fact now ?) " that the writings of Indian philoso-

phers would survive when British dominion in India should have

long since ceased to exist.

Ram Mohun Roy would never have been able to make headway

against the violence of fanatical Brahmins nor to realize certain of

his most pressing social reforms without the friendship and support

of the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

at the debate in the Commons for the renewal of the Charter

of the East India Company. He arrived in April, 1831,

and was warmly received at Liverpool, at Manchester, at

London and at Court. He made many illustrious friends,

Bentham among their number, paid a short visit to France,

and then died of brain fever at Bristol on September 27,

1833, where he is buried. His epitaph runs :

" A conscientious and steadfast believer in the Unity of

Godhead : he consecrated his life with entire devotion to

the worship " or to use the language of Europe, its mean-

ing being the same, " of Human Unity."

This man of gigantic personality, whose name to our

shame is not inscribed in the Pantheon of Europe as well

as of Asia, sank his ploughshare in the soil of India and

sixty years of labour left her transformed. A great writer

of Sanskrit, Bengali, Arabic, Persian and English, the father

of modern Bengali prose, the author of celebrated hymns,

poems, sermons, philosophic treatises and political contro-

versial writings of all kinds, he sowed his thoughts and his

passion broadcast. And out of the earth of Bengal has

come forth the harvest a harvest and works and men.

* * *

The poet's grandfather, Dvarakanath Tagore, a friend of

Ram Mohun Roy, was the chief supporter of the Brahmo

Samaj after the latter's death ; 18 Rabindranath's father,

Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), Roy's second successor

after the interregnum of Ramchandra Vidyabagish, was the

man who really organized the Brahmo Samaj. This noble

figure, aureoled in history with the name of Saint (Maharshi)

bestowed upon him by his people, merits some attempt at

a short description. 14

He had the physical and spiritual beauty, the high intd-

11 Dvarakanath, like Roy, died during a journey to England

in 1846. This double death in the West is a sign of the current

carrying towards Europe the first pilots of the Brahmo Samaj.

14 Devendranath left an autobiography in Bengali (translated

into English by Satyendranath Tagore and Indiri Devi, 1909, Cal-

cutta), which gives the story of the long pilgrimage of his inner

life from the depths of illusion and superstition to the Spirit of

the Living God, and is in reality the religious Journal of his soul.

(Of. an excellent little article by M. Dugard in Feuilks de I'Inde,

ist volume, 1928, C. A. H6gman, editor, Boulogne-sur-Seine.)

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

lect, the moral purity, the aristocratic perfection, which he

bequeathed to his children ; moreover, he possessed the

same deep and warm poetic sensibility.

Born at Calcutta, the eldest son of a rich family, brought

up in orthodox traditions, his adolescence was exposed to

the seductions of the world and the snares of pleasure, from

which he was rescued by a visitation of death to his home.

But he was to pass through a long moral crisis before he

reached the threshold of religious space. It is characteristic

that his decisive advances were always the result of poetic

emotions roused by some accidental happening : the wind

that carried to him the name of Hari (Vishnu), chanted to

a dying man on a night of full moon on the banks of the

Ganges ; or the words of a boatman during a storm " Be

not afraid ! Forward ! " or again the wind that blew a

torn page of Sanskrit to his feet, whereon were written

words from the Upanishads, which seemed to him the voice

of God " Leave all and follow Him ! Enjoy His inexpres-

sible riches. ..."

In 1839 with his brothers and sisters and several friends

he founded a Society for the propagation of the truths in

which they believed. Three years later he joined the

Brahmo Samaj and became its leading spirit. It was he

who built up its faith and ritual. He organized its regular

worship, founded a school of theology for the training of

ministers, preached himself and in 1848 wrote in Sanskrit

the Brahmo Dharma, " a theistic manual of religion and

ethics for the edification of the faithful." 15 He himself

considered that it was inspired. 16 The source of his inspir-

1 An English translation has just been published by H. Chundra

Sarkar. The Brahmo Dharma has had a large circulation in India,

where it has been translated into different dialects.

" It was the Truth of God that penetrated my heart. These

living truths came down into my heart from Him who is the Life

and .the Light and the Truth." (Devendranath.) He dictated the

first part in three hours, and the whole of the treatise was pro-

duced " in the language of the Upanishads like a river ; spiritual

truths flowed through my mind by His grace. 1 ' The danger with

this process of inspired legislation, the natural expression of a man

of Devendranath's temperament, is that, on the one hand, his

Brahmo Samaj maintained that " Truth is th.e only eternal and

imperishable scripture " and did not recognize any other holy book

as scripture, and, on the other, that Ttuth rested on the authority

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

ation, of quite a different order from that- of Ram Mohun

Roy, was almost entirely the Upanishads but subjected to

a free interpretation. 17 Devendranath afterwards laid down

the four articles of faith of the Brahmo Samaj :

1. In the beginning was nothing. The One Supreme

Being alone existed. He created the universe.

2. He alone is the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Good-

ness and Power, Eternal and Omnipresent, the One without

second.

3. Our salvation depends on belief in Him and in His

worship in this world and the next.

4. Belief consists in loving Him and doing His will.

The faith of the Brahmo Samaj then is a faith in a One

God, who created the universe out of nothing, and who is

characterized essentially by the Spirit of Kindness, and

whose absolute adoration is necessary for the salvation of

man in the next world.

I have, no means of judging whether this is as purely

Hindu a conception as Devendranath thought it was. But

it is interesting to note that the Tagore family belong to

a community of Brahmins called Pirilis, or chief Ministers,

as posts occupied by its members under the Musulman

regime. In a sense they were put outside caste by their

relations with Mohammedans ; 18 it is, however, perhaps

not too much to say that the persistent rigour of their

theism has been due to this influence. From Dvarakanath

to Rabindranath they have been the implacable enemies of

all forms of idolatry. 19

According to K. T. Paul, Devendranath had to wage a

of this inner outpouring which had issued in the last resort from

several of the Hindu Scriptures, chosen and commented upon in a

preconceived sense.

1T Devendranath's attitude to the Holy Books was not always

consistent. Between 1844 and 1846 at Benares he seems to have

considered that the Vedas were infallible, but later after 1847 he

abandoned fills idea and individual inspiration gained the upper hand.

" (Cf. Manjulal Dave : The Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, 1927.)

" Over the door of Shantiniketan, the home of the Tagores, an

inscription runs : " In this place no image is to be adored." But

it goes on to add : " And no man's faith is to be despised."

Islamic influences in the infancy of Ram Mohun Roy as well

must always be borne in mind in considering the penetration of

the Indian spirit with the current of monotheism.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

prolonged struggle, on the one hand against the practices

of orthodox Hinduism, and, on the other, against Christian

propaganda which sought to gain a footing in the Brahmo

Samaj. The need for defence led him to surround the

citadel with a fortification of firm and right principles as

picket posts. The bridge was raised between it and the

two extremes of Indian religion polytheism, which Deven-

dranath strictly prohibited, 20 and the absolute monism of

Sankara ; for the Brahmo Burg was the stronghold of the

great Dualism of the One and personal God and Human

Reason, to whom God has granted the power and the right

to interpret the Scriptures. I have already pointed out

that in Devendranath's case and still more that of his

successors, Reason had a tendency to be confused with

religious inspiration. About 1860 from the depths of an

eighteen months' retreat in the Himalayas near the Simla

Hills he produced a garland of solitary meditation. 21 These

10 To such a degree that at his father's death in 1846 the eldest

son, whose business it was to arrange the funeral ceremonies, re-

fused to bow to family tradition because it included idolatrous rites.

The scandal was so great that his family and friends broke with

him. I must not linger over the years of noble trial which followed.

Devendranath devoted himself to the crushing task of paying back

his father's creditors in full and of meeting all the engagements

made by his prodigality ; for he died heavily in debt.

11 His young son, Rabindranath, accompanied him.

I love to associate with the magnificent memories of this im-

passioned retreat in the Himalayas, the wonderful appeal later

addressed by Rabindranath to the " Shepherd of the peoples."

" Ruler of peoples' minds and builder of India's destiny. Thy

name rises in the sky from summits of the Himalayas and Vindhyas,

flows in the stream of the Ganges and is sung by the surging sea.

" In Thy name wake Punjab and Sind, Maratha and Gujrat,

Dravid, Utval and Vanga. They gather at Thy feet asking for

Thy blessing and singing Thy* victory.

" Victory to Thee, Giver of good to all people, Victory to Thee,

Builder of India's destiny.

" yhere sounds Thy call and they come before

Hindus and Buddhists, the Jains and Sikhs, the

mans and Christians. The East and the West

love at Thy shrine.

" Victory to Thee who makest one the min^

" Victory to Thee, Builder of India's destifl

Call to the Fatherland.)

In point of fact Rabindranath profited

given to the primitive Brahmo Samaj by

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

thoughts were later expanded into improvised sermons

deeply moving to his Calcutta public. Further he bestowed

upon the Brahmo Samaj a new liturgy inspired by the

Upanishads and impregnated with an ardent and pure

spirituality.

A short time after his return from the Himalayas in 1862

he adopted as his coadjutor Keshab Chunder Sen, a young

man of twenty-three, who was destined to surpass him and

to provoke a schism, or rather a series of schisms in the

Brahmo Samaj.

This man, 22 who only lived from 1838 to 1884, irresolute,

restless but at the same time inspired, was the chief per-

sonality to influence the Brahmo Samaj during the second

half of the nineteenth century. He enriched and renewed

it to such an extent that he endangered its very existence.

He was the representative of a different class and gener-

ation much more deeply impregnated with Western influ-

ences. Instead of being a great aristocrat like Roy and

Devendranath, he belonged to the liberal and distinguished

middle class of Bengal, who were in constant intellectual

touch with Europe. He belonged to the sub-caste of

physicians. His grandfather, a remarkable man, the native

11 For Keshab Chunder Sen, see

1. Pandit Gour Govindo Roy : Nine volumes have appeared of

a biography in Bengali.

2. Pratap Chunder Mozoomdar (his chief disciple and successor) :

The Faith and Progress of the Brahmo Samaj, 1882, Calcutta. Aims

and Principles of Keshab Ch. Sen, 1889, Calcutta.

3. Promotho Loll Sen : Keshab Chunder Sen, a Study, 1902, new

edition, 1915, Calcutta.

4. T. L. Vaswami : Sri Keshab Ch. Sen t a Social Mystic, 1916,

Calcutta.

5. B. Mozoomdar (President of the Keshab Mission Society) :

Professor Max Mutter on Ramakrishna ; the world on Keshab Ch.

Sen t 1900, Calcutta.

6. Manila! C. Parekh : Brahmarshi Keshab Ch. Sen, 1926, Rajkot,

Oriental: Christ House.

(This work by an Indian Christian disciple is the only one to

show clearly Keshab's Christianity. It was at first tentative, but

gradually took possession of him more and more definitely and

completely.)

7* Keshab Chunder Sen : A Voice from the Himalayas, a collec-

tion oithe lectures delivered by Keshab at Simla in 1868, preceded

by an iatro^ /v *^** T*V Simla.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

secretary of the Asiatic Society, had control over the publi-

cation of all the editions of books published in Hindustani.

He was left an orphan at an early age, and was brought

up in an English School. It was this that made him so

different from his two predecessors ; for he never knew

Sanskrit and very soon broke away from the popular forms

of the Hindu religion. 28 Christ had touched him, and it

was to be his mission in life to introduce him into the

Brahmo Samaj, and into the heart of a group of the best

minds in India. When he died The India Christian Herald

said of him : " The Christian Church mourns the death of

its greatest ally. Christians looked upon him as God's

messenger, sent to awake India to the spirit of Christ.

Thanks to him hatred of Christ died out/'

This last statement is not quite correct ; for we shall see

to what point Keshab himself had to suffer as the champion

of Christ. The real significance of his life has been obscured

by most of the men who have spoken of him even within

the Brahmo Samaj ; for they were offended by the heresy

of their chief and tried to hide it. He himself only revealed

it by degrees, so that it is through documents written as

long as twenty years before his death that we learn from

his own lips that his life had been influenced from his youth

up by three great Christian visitants, John the Baptist,

Christ and St. Paul. 24 Moreover in a serious confidential

11 It is only natural that in spite of this fact he never lost

the religious temperament peculiar to his race. Pratap Chunder

Mozoomdar in the course of a conversation in 1884 with Rama-

krishna related the mystic childhood of Keshab. (The Gospel of Sri

Ramakrishna.) He was early " marked by non-attachment to the

things of this world " and absorbed in inward concentration and

contemplation. " He was even subject to fits of loss of conscious-

ness due to excess of devotiofl." He later applied the forms of

Hindu religious " devotion " to non-Hindu religious objects. And

the " Vaishnavited " form of Christianity he adopted was accom-

panied by a constant study of Yoga.

14 Easter, 1879 ; Lecture : India Asks, Who is Christ ?

"... My Christ, my sweet Christ, the brightest jewel of my

heart, the necklace of my soul for twenty years have I cherished

Him in this my miserable heart. 1 '

January, 1879 ; Lecture : Am I an Inspired Prophet ?

" What was it that made me so singular in the earlier years of

my life ? Providence brought me into the presence of three very

singular persons in those days. They were among my soul's earliest

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

letter to his intimate disciple, Pratap Chunder Mozoomdar, 26

a letter of primary importance passed over in silence by

non-Christian Brahmos, he shows us how he was waiting

until the time was ripe to make public avowal of his faith

in Christ. The double life Keshab led for so long, was partly

caused by the duality of his own character, compounded

as it was of the diverse and incompatible elements of the

East and the West, which were in constant conflict with

each other. Hence it is very difficult for the historian to

make an impartial study ; Hindu biographers, in nearly

every case hotly partizans, have done nothing to lighten

his task. 26 He was introduced to the Brahmo Samaj by

acquaintances. I met three stately figures, heavenly, majestic, and

full of divine radiance. . . . (The first) John the Baptist was

seen going about in the wilderness of India, saying, ' Repent ye,

for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand/ ... I fell down at the

feet of John the Baptist. ... He passed away, and then came

another prophet far greater than he, the prophet of Nazareth.

... ' Take no thought for the morrow/ These words of Jesus

found a lasting lodgment in my heart. Hardly had Jesus finished

his words, when came another prophet, and that was the travelled

ambassador of Christ, the strong, heroic and valiant Apostle Paul.

. . . And his words (relating to chastity) came upon me like a

burning fire at a most critical period of my life."

It should be added that he had gained a knowledge of the New

Testament at the English College, for a chaplain used to read it

to the young people, translating it from the Greek.

15 In this letter, whereon the exact date does not appear, but

which it is safe to assume was written to Mozoomdar directly after

his famous lecture in 1866 on " Jesus Christ, Europe and Asia,"

Keshab explained himself thus :

"... I have my own ideas about Christ, but I am not bound

to give them out in due form, until the altered circumstances of

the country gradually develop them out of my mind. Jesus is

identical with self-sacrifice, and as He lived and preached in the

fullness of time, so must He be in -ftini preached in the fullness of

time ... I am, therefore, patiently waiting that I may grow with

the age and the nation and that the spirit of Christ's sacrifice may

grow therewith." (Cf. Manilal C. Parekh : op. cit. t pp. 29-31.)

" Tfie author does not attempt to hide his grudge against these

historians ; for nearly all of them seem to consider history as a

mass of "material wherein one is at liberty to choose only those

facts which serve to plead a personal cause, and systematically to

ignore the rest. (This is apart from the superb indifference to

scientific exactitude, which characterizes all Hindu historians : it

is a miracle if a few dates can be gleaned here and there : even

when they do appear they have been scattered with such careless

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

Devendranath T.agore's son, a student of the same college,

and during the early days of his admission, young Keshab

was surrounded with love. He became the darling of

Devendranath and of the young members of the Brahmo

Samaj, who felt themselves drawn into closer contact with

him than with the noble Devendranath, dwelling in spite

of himself in Olympian isolation as the result of his breeding

and idealism. 27 Keshab had a social sense and wished to

rouse the same feeling throughout India. A hyper-indi-

vidualist by nature and doubtless just because this was the

case, 28 he early in life recognized that part of the evils of

his country arose out of this same hyper-individualism, and

that India needed to acquire a new moral conscience. " Let

all souls be socialized and realize their unity with the people,

the visible community/ 1 This conception, uniting 29 the

hand that it is impossible to rely upon them.) This short disser-

tation on Keshab's personality and its development has had to be

rewritten three times, after the discovery of essential points, either

omitted or twisted out of all recognition by his accredited Indian

biographers.

87 " Devendranath was too preoccupied by his personal relation-

ship to God to feel more than moderately the call of social responsi-

bilities." From a letter of a friend of the Tagores.

18 His chief disciple, Pratap Chunder Mozoomdar, said that he

constantly struggled against the flights of his mystic nature, and

that " he always succeeded in containing them " (a fact which is

not altogether true) ; "for the great object of his life was to bring

religion within the reach of heads of families/' in other words to

re-establish it in ordinary e very-day life. This was one of the

sources of those contradictions in his character, which compro-

mised his work. He attempted to reconcile the irreconcilable

the mystic upspringing natural to him, and the canalization of

the divine stream for the moral and social service of the com-

munity Theocentrism and anthropocentrism, to use the language

of Western mysticism as analysed by the able Henri Br6mond.

Both of them, moreover, in the case of Keshab existed in the

highest degree. But his rich nature, too plastic, too perpetually

receptive to all spiritual foods offered for the satisfaction of his

appetite, which was greater than his faculty for absorption, made

him a living contradiction. It is said that while at College he

played the part of Hamlet in a performance of Shakespeare's play.

In point of fact he remained the young prince of Denmark to the

end of his life.

In theory at least. In practice Keshab never succeeded in

touching the masses. His thought was too impregnated with

elements alien to the thought of India.

8l G

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

each one of whom was charged with his own special message,

and was to be accepted without special attachment to any

single one. He threw open his Church to men of all countries

and all ages, and introduced for the first time extracts

from the Bible, the Koran, the Zend Avesta 86 into

the manual of devotional lessons for the use of the

Brahmo Samaj. But far from dying down, feeling ran

higher.

Keshab was not the man to be unmoved by it. His

sensitive and defenceless heart suffered more than most

from disaffection. Public misunderstanding, the desertion

of his companions, heavy material difficulties, and over

and above all the torments of his own conscience, perhaps

even doubts as to his mission added to " a very lively

sense of weakness, of sin and of repentance " peculiarly

his own as distinct from most of the other religious spirits

of Hinduism, 86 resulted in a devastating crisis of soul, which

lasted throughout 1867. He was alone with his grief, with-

out any outside help, alone with God. But God spoke to

him, so that the religious experience of that year when

he was racked by conflicting emotions, as he daily officiated

as divine priest by himself in his house, led to a complete

transformation not only in his ideas but in their expression.

Up till then he had been the chief among religious intellec-

tuals, a moralist, a stranger to sentimental effusions, which

had been repellent to him ; but now he was flooded by a

torrent of emotion love and tears and gave himself up

to it in rapture.

This was the dawn of a new era for the Brahmo Samaj.

* This manual, called the Slokasangraha (1866), though a great

deal larger than Devendranath's, never had such a wide circulation

in India as the Brahmo Dharma. Nevertheless Keshab followed the

true tradition of Roy when he said that " the harmony of religions

was the real mission of the Brahmo Samaj. 1 '

11 It was P. C. Mozoomdar who noted in him this " sense of

sin " so curiously at variance with the spirit of Devendranath as

well as Ramakrishna and above all of Vivekananda. We shall see

later that Vivekananda denounced it as evidence of a weak dis-

position, a real mental malady, for which be threw the blame on

Christianity. The state of mind that Keshab systematically cul-

tivated culminated in a sermon delivered in 1881 : We Apostles of

the New Dispensation, where he likened himself to Judas much to

the scandal of his hearers.

8 4

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

The mysticism 'of the great Bhakta, Chiatanya, and the

Sankirtans were introduced within its walls. From morning

till night there were prayers and hymns accompanied by

Vaishnavite musical instruments, and feasts of God ; 37 and

Keshab officiated at them all, his face bathed in tears he,

who, it was said, had never wept. The wave of emotion

spread. Keshab's sincerity, his spirit of universal com-

prehension and his care for the public weal brought him

the sympathy alike of the best minds of India and England,

including the Viceroy. His journey to England in 1870

was a triumphal progress. The enthusiasm he roused was

equal to that inspired by Kossuth. During his six months'

stay 88 he addressed seventy meetings of 40,000 persons

and fascinated his audiences by the simplicity of his English

and by his musical voice. He was compared to Gladstone.

He was greeted as the spiritual ally of the West, the Evan-

gelist of Christ in the East. In all good faith both sides

were labouring under delusions, destined to be dissipated

during the following years, not without a naive deception

of the English. For Keshab remained deeply Indian at

heart and was not to be enrolled in the ranks of European

Christianity. On the other hand, he thought he could

enroll it. India and the Brahmo Samaj profited from the

good disposition of the government. 89 In its reconstituted

form, it spread in all directions, to Simla, Bombay, Lahore,

Lucknow, Monghyr, etc. A mission tour undertaken by

Keshab across India in 1873 with the object of bringing

about unity among the brothers and sisters of the new

faith, a tour which was the forerunner of the great voyage

of exploration undertaken twenty years later by Vivekan-

17 It is noticeable that on Ijjiis occasion there was no question

of Christ. The Bhakti of Chaitanya is another aspect of Keshab's

religion. " Thus/' wrote P. C. Mozoomdar, " Keshab stood at the

threshold of his independent career with the shadow of Jesus on

the one hand, and the shadow of Chaitanya on the other." His

enemies took account of it in 1884 when some of them reported

maliciously to Ramakrishna that Keshab had claimed to be " a

partial incarnation of Christ and Chaitanya."

11 He came to know Gladstone, Stuart Mill, Max Miiller, Francis

Newman, Dean Stanley, etc., personally.

* Especially in the case of several reforms, among them a legis-

lative one directly concerning the Brahmo Samaj the legal recog-

nition of Brahmo marriages.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

anda in the guise of a wandering Sannyasin. The tour

opened up new horizons and he believed that he had found

the key to popular polytheism, so repugnant to the Brahmo

Samaj, and that he could make an alliance between it and

pure theism. But to this union, realized spontaneously by

Ramakrishna at the same time, Keshab brought a spirit

of intellectual compromise. He was obliged to convince

himself (he failed to convince the polytheists) that their

gods were at bottom nothing but the names of different

attributes of the one God.

" Their (Hindu) idolatry," he wrote in The Sunday

Mirror, " is nothing but the worship of divine attributes

materialized. If the material shape is given up, what

remains is a beautiful allegory. . . . We have found out

that every idol worshipped by the Hindu represents an

attribute of God, and that each attribute is called by a

peculiar name. The believer in the New Dispensation is

required to worship God as the possessor of all those

attributes, represented by the Hindu as innumerable, or

three hundred and thirty millions. To believe in an

undivided Deity, without reference to the aspects of his

nature, is to believe in an abstract God, and it would lead

us to practical rationalism and infidelity. If we are to

worship Him in all His manifestations, we shall name one

attribute Lakshmi, another Saraswati, another Mahadeva,

etc., etc. . . ."

This meant a great step forward in religious compre-

hension, embracing as it did the greater part of mankind.

But it never came to anything because Keshab intended

that his Theism should have all the real power and poly-

theism was to receive nothing but outward honour. On

the other hand, he avoided Advaitism, absolute Monism,

which has always been forbidden to the Brahmo. The result

was that religious reason sat on the fence separating the

two camps of the two extreme faiths. The prevailing

situation was not an exact equilibrium of rest and the

position in which Keshab insisted on placing himself could

not be a permanent one. For he believed that he was

called by God to dictate His new revealed law, the New

Dispensation, from thence. He began to proclaim it in

40 August i, 1880 : " The Philosophy of Idol worship."

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

1875, 41 the year when his relations with Ramakrishna

began.

Like so many self-appointed legislators, he found it

difficult to establish law and order in his own mind, especially

as he wished his legislation to be all embracing and to

include Christ and Brahman, the Gospels and Yoga, religion

and reason. Ramakrishna reached the same point in all

simplicity through his heart, and made no attempt to fence

his discovery within a body of doctrine and precept ; he

was content to show the way, to set the example, to give

the impetus. Keshab adopted at the same time the methods

of an intellectual European at the head of a school of

comparative religion and the methods of inspired persons

of India and America Bhakti in tears, Revivals and public

confessions.

He gave to each of his favourite disciples a different

form of religion to study 42 and Yoga to practise. 48 His

skill as a teacher was shown in choosing for each disciple

the one best adapted to his individual character. He

himself oscillated between two advisors, both equally dear

to him the living example of Ramakrishna to whom he

41 In the Lecture : " Behold the Light of Heaven in India."

4> Each of his four chosen disciples dedicated himself to a life-

long study of one of the four great religions, and in some cases was

absorbed into the subject of his study : Upadhyaya Gour Govindo

Roy was given Hinduism and produced a monumental work, a

Sanskrit commentary on the Gita and a life of Sri Krishna : Sadhu

Aghore Nath studied Buddhism, and wrote a life of Buddha in

Bengali, following in his footsteps until he was cut off in the prime

of a saintly life : Bhai Girish Chunder Sen devoted himself to Islam,

translated the Koran and wrote a life of Mahomet and several other

works in Arabic and Persian. Finally Pratap Chunder Mozoomdar

studied Christianity and published a book called The Oriental Christ.

He was so impregnated with its spiritual atmosphere that real

Indian Christians such as Manilal C. Parekh, sprang from the school

of thought he founded.

4i After January i, 1875, when he inaugurated the new method

of spiritual development usually called the Dispensation, he varied

the paths of the soul (Yogas) according to the character of his

disciples, recommending Bhakti to some, Jnana to others, Raja to

others. The different forms of devotion were linked together by

the different names or attributes of God. (Cf. P. C. Mozoomdar.)

I shall return to this point in the second part of this volume when

I study Hindu mysticism and the different kinds of Yoga.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

went for guidance in ecstasy, and the precepts of the Christian

faith as practised by an Anglican monk, who later became

a Roman Catholic, Luke Rivington. Moreover he could

never choose between the life of God and the life of the

world, and with disarming sincerity he maintained that

the one was not necessarily harmful to the other. 44

But the confusion of his mind wronged him and reacted

on the Brahmo Samaj, all the more because he was a man

" of the most transparent sincerity/' 46 who neglected the

most elementary precautions to conceal the changeableness

and heterogeneity of his nature. The result was a new

schism in the Brahmo Samaj in 1878, and Keshab found

himself the butt of violent attacks from his own people,

who accused him of having betrayed his principles. 46 The

majority of his friends deserted him and so he fell fatally

into the hands of the few faithful ones that remained

Ramakrishna and Father Luke Rivington. Moreover this

new trial reopened the door to a whole flood of professions

of the Christian faith, which became more and more explicit

and in accordance with the deepest metaphysics of Christi-

anity. Thus in the lecture " Am I an Inspired Prophet ? "

(January, 1879), he described his childish visions of John

the Baptist, Christ and St. Paul ; in " India asks, Who

is Christ ? " (Easter, 1879), he announced to India the

coming of " the Bridegroom . . . my Christ, my sweet

Christ, born of God and man 1 '; 47 and in "Does God

44 His well-wishers, such as Ramakrishna, did not fail to remark

with a touch of malice that this saintly man left his affairs in good

order and a rich house, etc., when he died. Keshab did not renounce

the pleasures of society, he took an active part in amusements and

played in the dramas acted in his house. (Cf. The Gospel of Sri

Ramakrishna, April, 1884.) But Ramakrishna never doubted his

sincerity. It was unimpeachable. He only regretted that such a

religious and gifted man should remain half-way to God instead

of giving himself entirely to Him.

41 Promotho Loll Sen : op. cit.

4i The occasion was a domestic one, the marriage of his daughter

before the age established by the law of the Brahmo Samaj to a

Maharaja. But here again, as in the schism with Devendranath,

the real cause was hidden. A third Brahmo Samaj was founded,

the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, more narrow and definitely anti-

Christian.

4T " My Master Jesus . . . Young men of India . . . Believe

and remember . . . He will come to you as self-surrender, as

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

Manifest Himself Alone ? " he showed the son sitting on

the right hand of the Father. 48

All these pronouncements, however, did not hinder him

from dictating at the same time from the heights of the

Himalayas his famous Epistle to Indian Brethren (1880)

for the jubilee of the Brahmo Samaj, announcing in a

pontifical tone " Urbi et Orbi," 49 the Message entrusted

to him by God, the New Dispensation. One might believe

that the words came out of the Bible :

" Hearken, Oh Hindustan, the Lord your God is one."

So begins the Epistle to the Indian Brethren.

" Jehovah the great spirit, whose clouds thunder ' I am/

whom the heavens and the earth declare/' (ibid.)

" I write this epistle to you, dear and beloved friends,

in the spirit and after the manner of St. Paul, however

unworthy I am of his honoured Master. . . . (ibid.)

But he adds,

" Paul wrote full of faith in Christ. As a theist I write

to you this, my humble epistle, at the feet, not of one

prophet only, but of all the prophets in heaven and earth,

living or dead. . . /'

For he claimed to be the fulfilment of Christ the fore-

runner.

" The New Dispensation is the prophecy of Christ ful-

filled. . , . The Omnipotent speaks to-day to our country

as formerly he did to other nations. . . /' 50

At this moment he even believed that he was formed

of the same stuff as the Spirit of God.

ascetism, as Yoga . . . The Bridegroom cometh . . . Let India,

beloved India, be dressed in all her jewellery."

Again Keshab declared in his articles in the Indian Mirror,

11 What the Brahmo Samaj aid to clear the moral character of

Christ more than twelve years ago, it does with respect to His

divinity at the present day." (April 20, 1879.) There were no

half measures about this. Christ was God.

And again, " The Mosaic dispensation only ? Perhaps the Hindu

dispensation also. In India He will fulfil the Hindu dispensation."

4i This lecture followed and completed another : God- Vision in

the nineteenth century, wherein Keshab in his homage to science,

is a forerunner of Vivekananda, who has joined heaven and earth.

41 Urbi et OrWthat is to say, the City (Rome) and the world

(like the Roman Pope).

Cf. sermon : " Behold the Light of Heaven in India " (1875).

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

" The Spirit of God and my inner self are knit together.

If you have seen me, you have seen Him. . . ."

What then does the Omnipotent, whose voice he is,

have to declare ? What " new Love, new Hope, new Joy

does he bring ? " (" How sweet is this new Evangel. 11 )

This is what Jehovah as God of India dictates to the

new Moses :

" The infinite Spirit, whom no eye hath seen, and no

ear hath heard, is your God, and you should have none

other God. There are two false gods, raised by men of

India in opposition to the All Highest the Divinity which

ignorant hands have fashioned, and the divinity which the

vain dreams of intellectuals have imagined are alike the

enemy of our Lord. 61 You must abjure them both. . . .

Do not adore either dead matter, or dead men, or dead

abstractions. . . . Adore the living Spirit, who sees with-

out eyes. . . . The communion of the soul with God and

with the departed saints shall be your true heaven, and

you must have none other. ... In the spiritual exaltation

of the soul find the joy and the holiness of heaven. . . .

Your heaven is not far away ; it is within you. You

must honour and love all the ancients of the human family

prophets, saints, martyrs, sages, apostles, missionaries,

philanthropists of all ages and all countries without caste

prejudice. Let not the holy men of India monopolize your

affection and your homage : Render to all prophets the

devotion and universal affection that is their due. . . .

Every good and great man is the personification of some

special element of Truth and Divine Goodness. Sit humbly

at the feet of all heavenly messengers. . . . Let their

blood be your blood, their flesh your flesh : . . . Live in

them and they will live in you* for ever."

Nothing more noble can be imagined. This is the very

highest expression of universal theism ; and it comes very

close to the free theism of Europe without any forced act

il The first divinity condemned is easy to define, the idols of

wood, metal and stone. The second is further defined by " the

unseen idols of modern scepticism, abstractions, unconscious evolu-

tion, blind protoplasm, etc." This, then, is scientific or rational or

Advaitist intellectualism. But Keshab was far from condemning

real science as is shown by his lecture on The Vision of God in the

Nineteenth Century. (1879.)

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

of allegiance to* revealed religion. It opens its arms to

all the purified spirits of the whole earth, past, present

and future ; for the Gospel of Keshab does not claim to

be the final word of the revelation. " The Indian Scriptures

are not closed. 52 New chapters are added every year. . . .

Go ever further in the love and the knowledge of God : . . .

What the Lord will reveal to us in ten years' time who

can say, except Himself ? "

But how is this free and broad theism with its serene

and assured tone to be reconciled to his abasement at

the feet of Christ in the previous year ? 58

" I must tell you . . . that I am connected with Jesus'

Gospel, and occupy a prominent place in it. I am the

prodigal son of whom Christ spoke and I am trying to

return to my Father in a penitent spirit. Nay, I will say

more for the satisfaction and edification of my opponents.

... I am Judas, that vile man who betrayed Jesus . . .

the veritable Judas who sinned against the truth. And

Jesus lodges in my heart : . . ."

The overwhelming effect of such a public confession on

those members of the Brahmo Samaj, who had followed

their chief up to that point, 54 may be imagined.

But Keshab was still debating with himself. He pro-

fessed Christ but he denied that he was a " Christian." 65

He tried to unite Christ to Socrates and to Chiatanya in

a strange way by thinking of each of them as a part of

81 A favourite idea of Vivekananda may be recognized therein.

" In the sermon : " We, the Apostles of the New Dispensation "

(1881).

44 That is why their writings about Keshab are very careful (as

far as I know) to make no mention of such an avowal.

55 " Honour Christ but nevejr be ' Christian ' in the popular accep-

tation of the term. . . . Christ is not Christianity . . . Let it be

your ambition to outgrow the popular types of narrow Christian

faith and merge in the vastness of Christ " :

In an article of the same period called " Other Sheep have I."

" We belong to no Christian sect. We disclaim the Christian

name. Did the immediate disciples of Christ call themselves Chris-

tian ? . . . Whoso believes in God and accepts Christ as the Son

of God has fellowship with Christ in the Lord. . . . Hear his

words' And other sheep I have. 1 We, the Gentiles of the New

Dispensation, are the other sheep. The shepherd knows us ...

Christ has found us and accepted us. ... That is enough. Is

any Christian greater than Christ ? "

9*

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

his body or of his mind. 66 Nevertheless he instituted the

sacramental ceremonies of Christianity in his Samaj, adapt-

ing them to Indian usage. On March 6, 1881, he celebrated

the Blessed Sacrament with rice and water instead of bread

and wine, 57 and three months later the sacrament of bap-

tism, wherein Keshab himself set the example, glorifying

the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Finally in 1882 he took the decisive step. The Christian

Trinity, of all Christian mysteries, has always been the

greatest stumbling block for Asia, and an object of repulsion

or derision. 58 Keshab not only accepted and adopted it,

but extolled it with gladness 69 and was enlightened by

it. This mystery seemed to him, and certainly not without

reason, to be the keystone of the arch of Christian meta-

physics, the supreme conception of the universe . . . " the

treasury in which lies the accumulated wealth of the world's

sacred literature all that is precious in philosophy, theology,

and poetry (of all humanity) . . . the loftiest expression

of the world's religious consciousness. . . ." He defines the

three Persons very exactly, I believe, from an orthodox

point of view. 60 Did anything still separate him from

Christianity ?

56 " The Lord Jesus is my will, Socrates my head, Chaitanya my

heart, the Hindu Rishi my soul and the philanthropic Howard my

right hand/'

57 Keshab read a verse from St. Luke, and he prayed " that the

Holy Spirit might turn their grossly material substance into sancti-

fying spiritual forces so that upon entering our system they might

be assimilated to it as the flesh and blood of all the saints in Christ

Jesus."

61 The reason for this is obscure as regards Vedantic India ; for

she also has her Trinity, and Keshab rightly made it approach

the Christian Trinity : " Sat, Chit, Ananda " (Being, Knowledge,

Happiness, which Keshab translated by Truth, Wisdom and Joy),

the three in one : Satchidananda.

In a lecture of 1882 : " That Marvellous Mystery, the Trinity."

" Here you have the complete triangular figure of the Trinity.

The apex is the very God Jehovah. . . . From Him comes down

the Son . . . and touches one end of the base of humanity . . .

and then by the power of the Holy Ghost drags up degenerate

humanity to himself. Divinity coming down to humanity is the

Son, Divinity carrying humanity to heaven is the Holy Ghost ; this

is the whole philosophy of salvation. The Creator, the Exemplar,

and the Sanctifier, I am, I love, I save ; the Still God, the Journey-

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

Only one thing but it was a world in itself his own mes-

sage, the Indian Dispensation. He could never bring him-

self to renounce it. He indeed adopted Christ, but Christ in

His turn had to adopt India and the Theism of Keshab.

" Begone, idolatry : Preachers of idol-worship, adieu."

(This apostrophe was addressed to the West.) Christ is

the eternal word. " As sleeping Logos Christ lived poten-

tially in the Father's bosom, long, long before he came

into this world of ours. ' ' He appeared before his physical life

in Greece and Rome, in Egypt and in India, in the poets

of the Rig- Veda, as well as in Confucius and Sakya-Muni ;

and the role of this Indian apostle of the New Dispen-

sation was to proclaim his true and universal meaning.

For after the Son came the Spirit, and " this Church of

the New Dispensation ... is altogether an institution

of the Holy Spirit " and completes the Old and the New

Testaments.

And so no part of this Himalayan theism was lost in

spite of rude shocks from above and below, which might

well have undermined its citadel. By a violent effort of

thought, Keshab achieved the incorporation of Christ within

it, and covered his own New Dispensation with the name

of Christ, believing that he was called to reveal the real

meaning of Christ to Western Christianity.

This was the avowed object of Keshab's last message

before his death, Asia's message to Europe (1883). " Sec-

tarian and carnal Europe, put up into the scabbard the

ing God, the Returning God . . ." Keshab. (Cf. the treatises of

classical Catholic mysticism.)

" The action whereby the Father engenders the Son is well ex-

plained by the term issuing or coming out . . . Exivi a Patre. The

Holy Spirit is produced by th% return way. ... It is the divine

way and subsists in God whereby God returns to himself. ... In

the same way we come out of God by the creation, which is attri-

buted to the Father by the Son, we return to him by grace, which

is the attribute of the Holy Spirit."

(P. Claude Sequenot : Conduite d'Oraison . . . 1634, quoted

by Henri Br&nond : La Metaphysique des Saints, I, pp. 116-

Surprising though it may seem, Keshab knew the Berullian or

Salesian philosophy of prayer. In a note of June 30, 1881, on the

renunciation of John the Baptist, he quotes letters of Francis de

Sales to Madame de Chantal.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

sword of your narrow faith : Abjure it and join the true

Catholic and universal Church in the name of Christ the

Son of God. . . ."

" Christian Europe has not understood one half of Christ's

words. She has comprehended that Christ and God are

one, but not that Christ and humanity are one. That is

the great mystery, which the New Dispensation reveals to

the world : not only the reconciliation of Man with God ;

but the reconciliation of man with man : . . . Asia says

to Europe, ' Sister, Be one in Christ : . . . All that is

good and true and beautiful the meekness of Hindu Asia,

the truthfulness of the Musulman and the charity of the

Buddhist all that is holy is of Christ.

And the new Pope of the new Rome in Asia intones

the beautiful Song of Atonement. 61

But he was a real Pope, and the unity of reconciled

mankind had to be according to his doctrine ; in order

to defend it he always kept the thunderbolt in his hand,

and he refused all compromise on the subject of the uni-

theistic principle The Unity of God.

" Science is one. The Church is one/'

His disciple, Mozoomdar, makes him use the denuncia-

tory words of Christ, but more violently.

" There is only one way. There is no back door into

heaven. He who enters not by the front door is a thief

and a robber."

This is the antithesis of the smiling words of kindness

uttered by Ramakrishna. 62

l " And the new song of Atonement is sung with enthusiasm

by millions of voices, representing all the various languages of the

world, millions of souls, each dressed in its national garb of piety

and righteousness, glowing in an infinite and complete variety of

colours, shall dance round and round the Father's throne, and

peace and joy shall reign for ever."

" One day when the young Naren (Vivekananda) denounced

certain religious sects with his customary impatience, because their

practices roused his furious disgust, Ramakrishna looked at him

tenderly and said, " My boy, there is a back door to every house.

Why should not one have the liberty to enter into a house by that

if one chooses to ? But, of course, I agree with you that the front

entrance is the best."

And the biographer of Ramakrishna adds that these simple words

" modified his Puritanical view of life, which he as a Brahmo had

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

The innate need of Unitarian discipline which does not

tally with religious universalism, and often unwittingly

merges into spiritual imperialism, led Keshab at the end

of his life to lay down the code of the New Samhita 68

(September 2, 1883), containing what he calls " the national

law of the Aryans of the New Church in India . . . God's

moral law adapted to the peculiar needs and character of

reformed Hindus, and based upon their national instincts

and traditions." It contains in effect a national Unitarian-

ism One God, one scripture, one baptism, one marriage

a whole code of injunctions for the family, for the home,

for business, for study, for amusement, for charity, for

relationships, etc. But his code is a purely abstract one

for an Indian that had not yet come into existence, and

whose advent is doubtful.

Was he himself sure that it would ever come ? The

entire edifice of voluntary reason rested on uncertain

foundations, on a nature divided between East and West.

When illness came 64 the cement was loosened. To whom

was his soul to belong, Christ or Kali ? On his death-bed

Ramakrishna, Devendranath his old master to whom he

was now reconciled, and the Bishop of Calcutta all visited

him. On January i, 1884, he went out for the last time

to consecrate a new sanctuary to the Divine Mother, but

on January 8 his death-bed was enveloped in the words

of a hymn sung at his own request by one of his disciples

about Christ's agony in Gethsemane.

It was impossible for a nation of simple souls to find

their way amid such a constant mental oscillation. But

it makes Keshab nearer and more appealing to us, who

can study his most intimate thoughts and can see the

mental torture accompanying it. It is also true, that the

kind and penetrating vision of Ramakrishna understood

better than anybody else the hidden tragedy of a being

exhausting itself in searching after God, whose body was

held. Sri Ramakrishna taught Naren how to regard mankind in

the more generous and truer light of weakness and of strength (and

not of sin or virtue) ." (Life of Vivekananda, Vol. I, Chapter XLVII.)

" Samhita means collection or miscellany.

Diabetes, one of the scourges of Bengal, of which Vivekananda

also died.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

the prey of the unseen God. 68 But has, a born leader

any right, even if he keeps his anguish to himself, to yield

to such oscillations in his very last hours ? They were

his legacy to the Brahmo Samaj ; and though they enriched

its spirit they weakened its authority in India for a long

time, if not for ever. We may well ask with Max Muller 66

whether the logical outcome of this theism was not to be

found in Christianity ; and that is exactly what Keshab's

friends and enemies felt immediately after his death.

His obsequies united in common grief the official repre-

sentatives of the best minds both of England and of Western-

ized India. " He was the chain of union between Europe

and India ; " and the chain once broken, could not be

resoldered. None of the subsequent moral and religious

leaders of India have so sincerely given their adherence

to the heart and spirit of the thought and the God of the

West. 67 Hence Max Muller could write, " India has lost

her greatest son." But the Indian Press, while unanimous

* I shall have more to say about the last touching visit of Rama-

krishna to Keshab and the profound words he poured out like balm

on the hidden wounds of the dying man.

61 Max Muller in 1900 asked Pratap Chunder Mozoomdar who

had taken Keshab's place at the head of the Brahmo Samaj and

who shared the " Christocentric " ideas of his master, why the

Brahmo did not frankly adopt the name Christian and did not

organize itself as a national Church of Christ. The idea found a

response in P. C. Mozoomdar himself and a group of his young

disciples. One of them, Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya, deserves a

special study, for he has left a great memory. He passed from

the Church of the New Dispensation to the Anglican and eventually

to the Roman Catholic Communion. Another is Manilal C. Parekh,

the biographer of Keshab, also a convert to Christianity. Both

are convinced that if Keshab had lived several years longer he

would have entered the Roman Church. Manilal Parekh says

" that he was a Protestant in principle and a Catholic in practice

. . . Christian in spirit, inclining to Monatism " (faith in the supremacy

of the Holy Spirit). " For myself I believe that Keshab was one

of those who would have remained at the threshold of the half-open

door. But it was fatal that his successors opened the door wide."

T The Indian Empire saluted in hiir " the best product of English

education and Christian civilization in India. 1 ' And The Hindu

Patriot, " the noble product of the education and the culture of the

West/'

From the Indian point of view such praise was its own con-

demnation.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

in acclaiming his genius, was forced to admit that " the

number of his disciples was not in accordance with his

desert/ 1 68

He was in fact too far away from the deep-seated soul

of his people. He wished to raise them all at once to the

pure heights of his intellect, which had been itself nourished

by the idealism and the Christ of Europe. In social matters

none of his predecessors, with the exception of Roy, had

done so much for her progress ; but he ran counter to the

rising tide of national consciousness, then feverishly awaken-

ing. Against him were the three hundred million gods of

India and three hundred million living beings in whom they

were incarnate the whole vast jungle of human dreams

wherein his Western outlook made him miss the track and

the scent. He invited them to lose themselves in his Indian

Christ, but his invitation remained unanswered. They did

not even seem to have heard it.

Indian religious thought raised a purely Indian Samaj

against Keshab's Brahmo Samaj and against all attempts

at Westernization, even during his lifetime, and at its head

was apersonalityof the highest order, Dayananda Sarasvaty 69

'1824-83).

This man with the nature of a lion is one of those whom

Europe is too apt to forget when she judges India, but whom

she will probably be forced to remember to her cost ; for

he was that rare combination, a thinker of action 70 with a

genius for leadership, like Vivekananda after him.

11 The Hindu Patriot. In 1921 the total number of the members

of the three Brahmo Samaj as was not more than 6,400 (of which

4,000 were in Bengal, Assam and Behar-Orissa), a minute number

in comparison to the members of the Arya Samaj, of which I shall

speak later, or of the new ^ects purely mystical, such as the

Radhasvami-Satsang.

M His real name, abandoned by himself, was Mulshanker.

Sarasvaty was the surname of his Guru, whom he regarded as his

true father. For Dayananda's life it is necessary to consult the

classical book of Lajput Rai (the great nationalist Indian leader) :

and The Arya Samaj, with an introduction by Sidney Webb (Long-

mans, Green and Co., London, 19*5)-

70 But although the energy of the two men, the immense power

of their preaching and their irresistible attraction for the masses

were equal, in Vivekananda's case there was the additional fascina-

tion of profundity of soul, the desire for pure contemplation, the

97 H

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

While all the religious leaders of whom we have already

spoken and shall speak in the future were and are from

Bengal, Dayananda came from quite a different land, the

one which half a century later gave birth to Gandhi the

north-west coast of the Arabian Sea. He was born in

Gujarat at Morvi in the state of Kathiawar, of a rich family

belonging to the highest grade of Brahmins, 71 no less versed

in Vedic learning than in mundane affairs, both political

and commercial. His father took part in the Govern-

ment of the little native state. He was rigidly orthodox

according to the letter of the law, with a stern domineering

character, and this last to his sorrow he passed on to his

son.

As a child Dayananda was therefore brought up under

the strictest Brahmin rule, and at the age of eight was

invested with the sacred thread and all the severe moral

obligations entailed by this privilege rigorously enforced

by his family. 72 It seemed as if he was to become a pillar

of orthodoxy in his turn, but instead he became the Samson,

who pulled down the pillars of the temple ; a striking

example among a hundred others of the vanity of human

effort, when it imagines that it is possible by a superimposed

education to fashion the mind of the rising generation

and so dispose of the future. The most certain result is

revolt.

That of Dayananda is worth recording. When he was

fourteen his father took him to the temple to celebrate the

great festival of Shiva. He had to pass the night after a

strict fast in pious vigil and prayer. The rest of the faithful

went to sleep. The young boy alone resisted its spell.

Suddenly he saw a mouse nibbling the offerings to the

God and running over Shiva's bofly. It was enough. There

is no doubt about moral revolt in the heart of a child. In a

bent of the inner being towards constant flights against which

the necessity for action had always to struggle. Dayananda did

not know this tragic division of soul. Nevertheless he was all that

was required for the task he had to accomplish.

T1 Samavedi, the highest order of Brahmins in the Veda.

Tt The vows of Brahmacharya, chastity, purity, poverty through-

out student life, and the obligation to recite the Vedas daily, and

to live according to a whole system of regular and very strict

rites.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

second his faith in the idol was shattered for the rest of his

life. He left the temple, went home alone through the

night, and thenceforward refused to participate 78 in the

religious rites.

It marked the beginning of a terrible struggle between

father and son. Both were of an unbending and autocratic

will which barred the door to any mutual concession. At

nineteen Dayananda ran away from home to escape from

a forced marriage. He was caught and imprisoned. He

fled again, this time for ever (1845). He never saw his

father again.

For fifteen years this son of a rich Brahmin, despoiled

of everything and subsisting on alms, wandered as a Sadhu

clad in the saffron robe along the roads of India. This

again seems like a first edition of Vivekananda's life and

his pilgrimage as a young man over the length and breadth

of Hindustan. Like him Dayananda went in search of

learned men, ascetics, studying here philosophy, there the

Vedas, learning the theory and practice of Yoga. Like him

he visited almost all the holy places of India and took part

in religious debates. Like him he suffered, he braved

fatigue, insult and danger, and this contact with the body

of his fatherland lasted four times longer than Vivekananda's

experience. In contradistinction to the latter, however,

Dayananda remained far from the human masses through

which he passed, for the simple reason that he spoke nothing

but Sanskrit throughout this period. He was indeed what

Vivekananda would have been if he had not encountered

Ramakrishna and if his high aristocratic and Puritan pride

had not been curbed by the indulgent kindness and rare

spirit of comprehension of this most human of Gurus.

Dayananda did not see, did flot wish to see, anything round

him but superstition and ignorance, spiritual laxity, degrad-

ing prejudices and the millions of idols he abominated. At

length, about 1860, he found at Mathura an old Guru even

more implacable than himself in his condemnation of all

weakness and his hatred of superstition, a Sannyasin blind

from infancy and from the age of eleven quite alone in the

world, a learned man, a terrible man, Swami Virjananda

Ti At the present time this night is kept as a festival by the Arya

Samaj.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Saraswaty . Dayananda put himself under bis ' ' discipline " 74

which in its old literal seventeenth century sense scarred his

flesh as well as his spirit. Dayananda served this untamable

and indomitable man for two and a half years as his pupil.

It is therefore mere justice to remember that his subsequent

course of action was simply the fulfilment of the will of the

stern blind man, whose surname he adopted, casting his

own to oblivion. When they separated Vir j ananda extracted

from him the promise that he would consecrate his life to

the annihilation of the heresies that had crept into the

Puranic faith, to re-establish the ancient religious methods

of the age before Buddha, and to disseminate the truth.

Dayananda immediately began to preach in Northern

India, but unlike the benign men of God who open all heaven

before the eyes of their hearers, he was a hero of the Iliad

or of the Gita with the athletic strength of a Hercules, 76

who thundered against all forms of thought other than his

own, the only true one. He was so successful that in five

years Northern India was completely changed. During

these five years his life was attempted four or five times

sometimes by poison. Once a fanatic threw a cobra at

his face in the name of Shiva, but he caught it and crushed

it. It was impossible to get the better of him ; for he

possessed an unrivalled knowledge of Sanskrit and the

Vedas, 76 while the burning vehemence of his words brought

his adversaries to naught. They likened him to a flood.

Never since Sankara had such a prophet of Vedism appeared.

The orthodox Brahmins, completely everwhelmed, appealed

from him to Benares, their Rome. Dayananda went there

fearlessly, and undertook in November, 1869, a Homeric

contest. Before millions of assailants, all eager to bring

him to his knees, he argued f of hours together alone against

74 Discipline in the ecclesiastical language of an earlier age meant

not only supervision, but the instrument used by ascetics to scourge

themselves.

T His exploits have become legendary. He stopped with one

hand a carriage with two runaway horses. He tore the naked

sword out of an adversary's hand and broke it in two, etc. His

thunderous voice could make itself heard above any tumult.

7 * " A very learned Sanskrit scholar/' is the opinion of a man,

himself a master of exegesis of the Hindu Scriptures, Aurobindo

Ghose. (Cf. Arya Review, No. 4, Pondicherry, November 15, 1914,

" The Secret of the Veda.")

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

three hundred pandits the whole front line and the reserve

of Hindu orthodoxy. 77 He proved that the Vedanta as

practised was diametrically opposed to the primitive Vedas.

He claimed that he was going back to the true Word, the

pure Law of two thousand years earlier. They had not

the patience to hear him out. He was hooted down and

excommunicated. A void was created round him, but

the echo of such a combat in the style of the Mahabharata

spread throughout the country, so that his name became

famous over the whole of India.

At Calcutta, where he stayed from December 15, 1872,

to April 15, 1873, Ramakrishna met him. He was also

cordially received by the Brahmo Samaj Keshab and his

people voluntarily shut their eyes to the differences existing

between them ; they saw in him a rough ally in their crusade

against orthodox prejudices and the millions of gods. But

Dayananda was not a man to come to an understanding

with religious philosophers imbued with Western ideas.

His national Indian Theism, its steel faith forged from the

pure metal of the Vedas alone, had nothing in common with

theirs, tinged as it was with modern doubt, which denied

the infallibility of the Vedas and the doctrine of trans-

migration. 78 He broke with them 79 the richer for the

encounter, for he owed them 80 the very simple suggestion,

77 A Christian missionary present at this tournament has left an

excellent and impartial account of it, reproduced by Lajput Rai

in his book. (Christian Intelligence, Calcutta, March, 1870.)

78 These two, according to Lajput Rai, himself affiliated to the

Arya Samaj, are " the two cardinal principles which distinguish

the Arya Samaj from the Brahmo Samaj."

It must be remembered that twenty years before Dayananda

(1844-46), Devendranath had ajso been tempted by the faith in

the infallibility of the Vedas, but that he had renounced it in favour

of direct and personal union with God. He was, it is said, of all

the chiefs of the Brahmo Samaj the one nearest to Dayananda.

But agreement was impossible. Devendranath, whose ideal was

peace and harmony, could have no real sympathy with this perpetual

warrior, armed with hard dogmatism and applying methods of pure

scholasticism to the most modern social conflicts.

79 In 1877 a last attempt was made to find a basis of agreement

between the religious leaders and their divergent doctrines. Keshab

and Dayananda met again, but agreement was impossible, since

Dayananda would yield nothing.

io To Babu Keshab Chunder Sen.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

whose practical value had not struck him' before, that his

propaganda would be of little effect unless it was delivered

in the language of the people. He went to Bombay, where

shortly afterwards his sect, following the example of the

Brahmo Samaj but with a better genius of organization,

proceeded to take root in the social life of India. On April

10, 1875, he founded at Bombay his first Arya Samaj, or

Association of the Aryans of India, the pure Indians, the

descendants of the old conquering race of the Indus and the

Ganges. And it was exactly in those districts that it took

root most strongly. From 1877, the year when its principles

were definitely laid down at Lahore, to 1883, Dayananda

spread a close network over Northern India, Rajputana,

Gujarat, the United Provinces of Agra and Oude, and above

all in the Punjab, which remained his chosen land. Prac-

tically the whole of India was affected. The only Province

where his influence failed to make itself felt was Madras. 81

He fell, struck down in his prime, by an assassin. The

concubine of a Maharajah, whom the stern prophet had

denounced, poisoned him. He died at Ajmer on October

30, 1883.

But his work pursued its uninterrupted and triumphant

course. From 40,000 in 1891 the number of its members

rose to 100,000 in 1901, to 243,000 in 1911, and to 468,000

in 1921. 82 Some of the most important Hindu personalities,

politicians and Maharajahs, belonged to it. Its spontaneous

and impassioned success in contrast to the slight reverbera-

tions of Keshab's Brahmo Samaj, shows the degree to which

Dayananda's stern teachings corresponded to the thought

of his country and to the first stirrings of Indian nationalism,

to which he contributed. ^

It may perhaps be useful to remind Europe of the reasons

at the bottom of this national awakening, now in full flood.

Westernization was going too far, and was not always

revealed by its best side. Intellectually it had become

rather a frivolous attitude of mind, which did away with

1 This is all the more striking since it was in Madras that Vive-

kananda found his most ardent and best organized disciples.

11 Of whom 223,000 are in the Punjab and Delhi, 205,000 in the

United Provinces, 223,000 in Kashmir, 4,500 in Behar. In short, it

is the expression of Northern India and one of its most energetic

elements.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

the need for independence of thought, and transplanted

young intelligences from their proper environment, teaching

them to despise the genius of their irace. The instinct for

self-preservation revolted. Dayananda's generation had

watched, as he had done, not without anxiety, suffering,

and irritation, the gradual infiltration into the veins of India

of superficial European rationalism on the one hand, whose

ironic arrogance understood nothing of the depths of the

Indian spirit, and on the other hand, of a Christianity, which

when it entered family life fulfilled only too well Christ's

prophecy : " That He had come to bring division between

father and son. ..."

It is certainly not for us to depreciate Christian influences.

I am a Catholic by birth, and as such have known the taste

of Christ's blood and enjoyed the storehouse of profound

life, revealed in the books and in the lives of great Christians,

although I am outside all exclusive forms of church and

religion. Hence I do not dream of subordinating such a

faith to any other faith whatsoever ; when the soul has

reached a certain pitch ocumen mentis 8S it can go no

further. Unfortunately the religion of one country does not

always work upon alien races through its best elements.

Too often questions of human pride are intermingled with

the desire for earthly conquest, and, provided victory is

attained, the view is too often held that the end justifies the

means. I will go further and say that, even in its highest

presentation, it is very rare that one religion takes possession

of the spirit of another race in its deepest essence at the final

pitch of the soul, of which I have just spoken. It does so

rather by aspects, very significant no doubt, but secondary

in importance. Those of us who have pored over the won-

derful system of Christiaif metaphysics and sounded their

depths, know what infinite spaces they offer to the soaring

wings of the spirit, and that the Divine Cosmos they present

of the Being and the Love cleaving to Him is no whit less

vast or less sublime than the conception of the Vedantic

Infinite. But if a Keshab caught a glimpse of this, a Keshab

was an exception among his people, and it would seem that

To use the phrase of Richard de Saint-Victor and Western

mystics to Francois de Sales. (Cf. Henri Br&nond : The Meta-

physics of the Saints.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Christianity is very rarely manifested to Hindus under this

aspect. It is presented to them rather as a code of ethics,

of practical action, as love in action, if such a term is per-

missible, and though this is a very important aspect it is not

the greatest. 84 It is a remarkable fact that the most notable

conversions have taken place in the ranks of active and

energetic personalities rather than in those of deep spiritual

contemplation of men capable of heroic flights of soul. 85

. Whether this is true or not, and it provides an ample theme

for discussion, it is a historic fact that when Dayananda's

mind was in process of being formed, the highest religious

spirit of India had been so weakened that the religious spirit

of Europe threatened to extinguish its feeble flame without

the satisfaction of substituting its own. The Brahmo Samaj

was troubled by it, but was itself willy-nilly stamped with

Western Christianity. Ram Mohun Roy's starting point

had been Protestant Unitarian. Devendranath, although he

denied it, had not the strength to prevent its intrusion into

the Samaj, when he yielded the ascendancy to Keshab,

already three parts given over to it. As early as 1880 one

of Keshab's critics 86 could say that " those who believe in

him have lost the name of theists, because they lean more

and more towards Christianity." However precisely the

position of the third Brahmo Samaj (the Sadharan Brahmo

Samaj detached from Keshab) had been defined as against

Indian Christianity, Indian public opinion could feel no con-

fidence in a church undermined by two successive schisms

within the space of half a century, and threatened, as we

14 1 myself independently and intuitively belong to the side of

Salesian Theocentrism, as represented by M. Henri Bremond in a

recent polemic against the religious moralism or anti-mysticism of

M. 1'Abbe Vincent. (Cf. op cit., Vol. I, pp. 26-47.)

' The Sadhu Sundar Singh, whose name is well-known in Europe

among Protestants, is a good example. A Punjab Sikh, the son

of a Sirdar and brother of a commander in the army, this intrepid

man delighted in seeking and braving martyrdom in Tibet, where

he found traces of other Christian martyrs belonging to the two

warlike races, the Sikhs and the Afghans. (Cf . Max Schaerer :

Sadhu Sunday Singh, 1922, Zurich.) To judge of him from this

pamphlet, it would appear that in speaking of the other religions

of India, he had never penetrated to the core of their thought.

" Cf. Frank Lillington : The Brahmo and the Arya in their relations

to Christianity, 1901.

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

have seen, during the next half century with complete

absorption in Christianity.

The enthusiastic reception accorded to the thunderous

champion of the Vedas, a Vedist belonging to a great race

and penetrated with the sacred writings of ancient India

and with her heroic spirit, is then easily explained. He

alone hurled the defiance of India against her invaders.

Dayananda declared war on Christianity and his heavy

massive sword cleft it asunder with scant reference to the

scope or exactitude of his blows. He put it to the test of

a vengeful, unjust and injurious criticism, which fastened

upon each separate verse of the Bible and was blind and

deaf to its real, its religious, and even its literal meaning

(for he read the Bible in a Hindi translation and in a hurry).

His slashing commentaries, 87 reminiscent of Voltaire and his

Dictionnaire Philosophique,ha.ve unfortunately remained the

arsenal for the spiteful anti-Christianity of certain modern

Hindus. 88 Nevertheless, as Glasnapp rightly remarks, they

are of paramount interest for European Christianity, which

ought to know what is the image of itself as presented by

its Asiatic adversaries.

Dayananda had no greater regard for the Koran and the

Puranas, and trampled underfoot the body of Brahman

orthodoxy. He had no pity for any of his fellow country-

men, past or present, who had contributed in any way to

the thousand year decadence of India, at one time the mis-

tress of the world. 89 He was a ruthless critic of all who,

according to him, had falsified or profaned the true Vedic

7 Contained in his great work, written in Hindi, Satyartha-

Prakash (The Torch of Truth).

Notably the neo-Buddhists^for, difficult though it is to believe

the beautiful name of Buddha, originally symbolizing the spirit of

detachment and universal peace, is well on the way in these days

to become the standard of an aggressive propaganda having scant

respect for other beliefs.

i His panorama of Indian History is an interesting one, a kind

of impassioned Discourse of Universal History, to allude to a cele-

brated work of Bossuet of the seventeenth century. It traces the

origin of humanity and the domination of India over the entire

globe (including America and the Oceanic Islands ; for according

to him, the Nagas (serpents) and the infernal spirits of the legends

are the people of the Antipodes ; just so the struggles with the

Asuras and the Rakshasas mean the wars with the Assyrians and

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

religion. 90 He was a Luther fighting against his own misled

and misguided Church of Rome ; 81 and his first care was

to throw open the wells of the holy books, so that for the

first time his people could come to them and drink for them-

selves. He translated and wrote commentaries on the Vedas

in the vernacular 9a it was in truth an epoch-making date

for India when a Brahmin not only acknowledged that all

human beings have the right to know the Vedas, whose

study had been previously prohibited by orthodox Brahmans,

but insisted that their study and propaganda was the duty

of every Arya. 98

the negroids). Dayananda replaces the whole of Mythology upon

the earth. He dates all the misfortunes of India and the ruin of

the great spirit of the Vedas to the wars of ten times a Hundred

Years, sung by the Mahabharata, wherein heroic India destroyed

herself. . . . He is filled with hatred, not only against the materia-

lism which resulted, but against Jainism, the suborner. For him

Sankara was the glorious though unfortunate hero of the first war

of Hindu independence in the realm of the soul. He wished to

break the bonds of heresy, but he failed. He died by assassination

in the midst of his campaigns for freedom, but he himself remained

caught by Jainistic decoys, particularly by Maya, which inspired

in Dayananda no dreamer of dreams but a man firmly implanted

in the soil of reality an invincible repugnance.

o He called all idolatry a sin, and considered that divine incarna-

tions were absurd and sacrilegious.

91 He scourged the Brahmins with the name of " Popes."

fl Between 1876 and 1883 he directed a whole train of Pandits.

He wrote in Sanskrit and the pandits translated into the dialects.

He alone, however, translated the original text. His translation,

which he had no time to revise, is always preceded by a grammatical

and etymological analysis of each verse, followed by a commentary

explaining the general sense.

Article III of the Ten Principles of Lahore (1877) " The

Vedas are the book of true knowledge. The first duty of every Arya

is to learn them and to teach them."

By a strange accident Dayananda concluded a political alliance

lasting several years (1879-81) with a Western community, destined

for a great work, the Theosophical Society, on the basis of his

vindication of the Vedas against the rising flood of Christianity.

The Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 in the South of

India by a Russian, Mme. Blavatsky, and an American, Colonel

Olcptt, and had the great merit of stimulating the Hindus to study

their sacred Texts, especially the Gita and the Upanishads, six

volumes of which Colonel Olcott published in Sanskrit. It also

headed the movement for the establishment of Indian schools,

especially in Ceylon, and even dared to open schools for " untouch-

106

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

It is true that his translation was an interpretation, and

that there is much to criticize with regard to accuracy' 94 as

well as with regard to the rigidity of the dogmas and prin-

ciples he drew from the text, the absolute infallibility claimed

for the one book, which according to him had emanated

direct from the "pre-human" or superhuman Divinity,

his denials from which there was no appeal, his implacable

condemnations, his theism of action, his credo of battle, 95

and finally his national God. 98

But in default of outpourings of the heart and the calm

ables." It therefore contributed to the national, religious, and social

awakening of India ; and Dayananda seemed about to make common

cause with it. But when the Society took him at his word and

offered him its regular co-operation, he refused its offer, thereby

taking away from the Theosophical Society all chance of spiritual

dominion over India. It has since played a secondary part, but

has been useful from the social point of view, if the establishment

in 1889 of the Central Hindu College at Benares is to be attributed

to the influence of Mrs. Besant. The Anglo-American element,

preponderant in its strange mixture of East and West, has twisted

in a curious way the vast and liberal system of Hindu metaphysics

by its spirit of noble but limited pragmatism. Further, it must be

added that it has given itself a kind of pontifical and infallible

authority, allowing of no appeal, which though veiled is none the

less implacable, and has appeared in this light to independent minds

such as that of Vivekananda, who, as we shall see, on his return

from America categorically denounced it.

On this subject there is an article by G. E. Monod Heraen, written

in its favour : " An Indo-European Influence, the Theosophical

Society " (Feuilles de I'lnde, No. i, Paris, 1928), and a brilliant,

comprehensive, and malicious chapter by Count H. Von Keyserling

in hifc Travel Diary of a Philosopher, 1918.

4 But not his passionate loyalty, which remains proof against

all attack. The extreme difficulty of the task must also be taken

into consideration at a time^yhen a knowledge of the philosophy

of the Vedas was much rarer in India than at the present time.

* Among rules to be followed as set down at the end of his

Satyartha Prakash, Dayananda orders : " Seek to combat, to

humiliate, to destroy the wicked, even the rulers of the world, the

men in power. Seek constantly to sap the power of the unjust

and to strengthen that of the just even at the cost of terrible

sufferings, of death itself, which no man should seek to avoid."

" The Samaj will glorify, pray to and unite with the One and

only God, as shown by the Vedas. . . . The conception of God

and the objects of the Universe is founded solely on the teachings

of the Veda and the other true Shastras," which he enumerated.

It is, however, curious (so strong was the current of the age,

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

sun of the spirit, bathing the nations of men 1 and their gods

in its effulgence, in default of the warm poetry radiating

from the entire being of a Ramakrishna or the grandiose

poetic style of a Vivekananda, Dayananda transfused into

the languid body of India his own formidable energy, his

certainty, his lion's blood. His words rang with heroic

power. He reminded the secular passivity of a people, too

prone to bow to fate, that the soul is free and that action

is the generator of destiny. 97 He set the example of a

setting at all cost towards unity) that Dayananda's nationalism

like the unitarianism of Roy and Keshab had universal pretensions.

" The well-being of humanity as a whole ought to be the objective

of the Samaj." (Principles of the first Arya Samaj of 1875.)

" The primary object of the Samaj is to do good to the whole world

by bettering the physical, spiritual and social condition of humanity."

(Principles of the Arya Samaj of Lahore, revised in 1875.)

" I believe in a religion based on universal principles and embracing

all that has been accepted as truth by humanity and that will

continue to be obeyed in the ages to come. This is what I call

religion : Eternal primitive Religion (for it is above the hostility of

human beliefs). . . . That alone which is worthy to be believed by

all men and in all ages, I hold as acceptable." (Satyartha Prakash.)

Like all impassioned believers, but in perfect good faith, he con-

founds the conception of the eternal and universal " Truth," which

he claimed to serve, with that of the faith he decreed. He was

careful to submit the criterion of truth to five preliminary tests,

the first two in conformity with the teachings of the Vedas and to

the definitions he had laid down concerning the nature of God and

His attributes. How could he doubt his right to impose the Vedas

upon humanity as a whole, when he started by decreeing that they

contained, as Aurobindo Ghose says, " an integral revelation of

religious truth, both ethical and scientific ? According to birri the

Vedic gods were nothing but impersonations describing the one

Divinity, and names of his powers, such as we see them in the works

of Nature. True knowledge of the meaning of the Vedas corresponds

then to the knowledge of scientific ^truths discovered by modern

research." (Aurobindo Ghose : " The Secret of the Veda," Arya

Review, No. 4, November 15, 1914, Pondicherry.)

Dayananda's national exegesis of Vedism let loose a flood of

pamphlets, whose object was to restore and reawaken the philo-

sophies, cults, rites and practices of ancient India. There was a

passionate reaction of antique ideals against the ideas of the West.

(Cf. Prdbuddha Bharata, November, 1928.)

7 " An energetic and active life is preferable to the acceptance

of the decrees of destiny. Destiny is the outcome of deeds. Deeds

are the creators of destiny. Virtuous activity is superior to passive

resignation. . . ."

" The soul is a free agent, free to act as it pleases. But it depends

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

complete clearance of all the encumbering growth of privilege

and prejudice by a series of hatchet blows. If his meta-

physics were dry and obscure, 98 if his theology was narrow

and in my opinion retrograde, his social activities and

practices were of intrepid boldness. With regard to questions

of fact he went further than the Brahmo Samaj, and even

further than the Ramakrishna Mission ventures to-day.

His creation, the Arya Samaj, postulates in principle equal

justice for all men and all nations, together with equality

of the sexes. It repudiates a hereditary caste system, and

only recognizes professions or guilds, suitable to the com-

plimentary aptitudes of men in society ; religion was to

have no part in these divisions, but only the service of the

state, which assesses the tasks to be performed. The state

alone, if it considers it for the good of the community, can

raise or degrade a man from one caste to another by way

of reward or punishment. Dayananda wished every man

to have the opportunity to acquire as much knowledge as

would enable him to raise himself in the social scale as high

as he was able. Above all he would not tolerate the abomin-

able injustice of the existence of untouchables, and nobody

has been a more ardent champion of their outraged rights.

They were admitted to the Arya Samaj on a basis of equality ;

for the Aryas are not a caste. " The Aryas are all men of

superior principles ; and the Dasyas are they who lead a

life of wickedness and sin."

Dayananda was no less generous and no less bold in his

crusade to improve the condition of women, a deplorable

one in India. He revolted against the abuses from which

they suffered, recalling that in the heroic age they occupied

on the grace of God for the enjoyment of the fruit of its actions."

(Satyartha Prakash.) *

98 Dayananda distinguishes, it seems, three eternal substances

God, the Soul and Prakriti, the material cause of the universe.

God and the Soul are two distinct entities : they have attributes

which are not interchangeable and each accomplishes certain

functions. They are, however, inseparable. The Creation, the

essential exercise of Divine energy, is accomplished over primordial

elements, which it combines and orders. The terrestrial bondage

of the soul is caused by ignorance. Salvation is emancipation from

error and the attainment of the freedom of God. But it is only for

a time, at the end of which the soul retakes another body . . . etc."

(Ibid., passim.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

in the home and in society a position at least equal to men.

They ought to have equal education," according to him,

and supreme control in marriage over household matters

including the finances. Dayananda in fact claimed equal

rights in marriage for men and women, and though he

regarded marriage as indissoluble, he admitted the re-

marriage of widows, and went so far as to envisage a tem-

porary union for women as well as for men for the purpose

of having children, if none had resulted from marriage.

Lastly the Arya Samaj', whose eighth principle was " to

diffuse knowledge and dissipate ignorance," has played a

great part in the education of India. Especially in the

Punjab and the United Provinces it has founded a host of

schools for girls and boys. Their laborious hives are grouped

round two model establishments : 10 the Dayananda Anglo-

Vedic College of Lahore and the Gurukula of Kangri, national

bulwarks of Hindu education, which seek to resuscitate the

energies of the race and to use at the same time the intellectual

and technical conquests of the West. 101

To these let us add philanthropic activities, such as orphan-

ages, workshops for boys and girls, homes for widows, and

great works of social service at the time of public calamities,

epidemics, famine, etc., and it is obvious that the Arya

Samaj is the rival of the future Ramakrishna Mission. 102

ff In marriage the minimum age was to be sixteen for girls and

twenty-five for boys. Dayananda was resolutely opposed to infant

marriage.

100 This was our information ten years ago at the date of the

publication of Lajput Rai's book. From that date the educational

movement has probably continued to expand.

lil The Dayananda Anglo-Vedic College of Lahore, opened in

1886, combines instruction in Sanskrit, Hindi, Persian, English,

Oriental and European Philosophy History, Political Economy,

Science, arts and crafts. The Gurukula is a school founded in

1902, where the children take the vow of poverty, chastity and

obedience for sixteen years. Its object is to reform Aryan character

by Hindu Philosophic and literary culture, vivified by moral energy.

There is also a great college for girls in the Punjab, where feminine

subjects and domestic economy are united to intellectual studies

and the knowledge of three languages, Sanskrit, Hindu and English.

101 It would appear that in this respect Vivekananda and his

disciples have outstripped him. The first activities of social service

noted by Lajput Rai as undertaken by the Arya Samaj, were help

in the famine of 1897-98. From 1894 onwards one of Vivekananda's

THE BUILDERS OF UNITY

I have said enough about this rough Sannyasin with the

soul of a leader, to show how great an uplifter of the peoples

he was in fact the most vigorous force of the immediate

and present action in India at the moment of the rebirth

and reawakening of the national consciousness. His Arya

Samaj, whether he wished it or no, 108 prepared the way in

1905 for the revolt of Bengal to which we shall allude again.

He was one of the most ardent prophets of reconstruction

and of national organization. I feel that it was he who

kept the Vigil ; but his strength was also his weakness. His

purpose in life was action and its object his nation. For a

people lacking the vision of wider horizons the accomplish-

ment of the action and the creation of the nation might

perhaps be enough. But not for India before her will still

lie the universe.

monks, Ajhandananda, devoted himself to works of social service.

In 1897 part of the Ramakrishna Mission was mobilized against

famine and malaria, and the following year against the plague.

108 He forbade it in public ; he always claimed to be non-political

and non-anti-British. But the British Government judged differ-

ently. The Arya Samaj found itself compromised by the activity

of its members. It was one of them, Lajput Rai, whose arrest

provoked the most serious risings of 1907-08. And it should be

recalled here that the same Lajput Rai, the nationalist hero of

India, constantly imprisoned, exiled, persecuted, recently died at

Lahore (December, 1928) as the result of a collision with the British

police during demonstrations in favour of Indian political inde-

pendence.

Ill

VII

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

SUCH then were the great shepherds of the people, the

king-pastors of India, at the moment when the star

of Ramakrishna appeared in cloudless glory above the

mountains. l

Naturally he could not have known the first of these

four men, the forerunner, Ram Mohun Roy, but he knew

the other three personally. He first visited them, urged

by that overwhelming thirst for God, which made him

always ask himself Are there no more of His wells, which

these have found and from which I have not drunk ? But

his practised eye judged them at sight. His critical faculties

were never abrogated. As he leant over them to taste

1 1 have only mentioned the greatest. There were many others.

India has never lacked messengers of God, founders of sects or

religions, and they were continually appearing throughout the

period. In the recent treatise by Helmuth von Glasenapp : Re-

ligidse Reformbewegungen in heutigen Indien (1928, Leipzig, J. C.

Hinrich, Morgenland collection), there is an account of the two most

curious : the Atheistic Church of the Superman, the Dev-Samaj,

and the Mystical Church of the Divine Sound (or Word), the Radhas-

vami-Satsang. The question is of the mysterious word which stands

for the Almighty Being (and which is no longer the famous Vedic M

delegated to an inferior place) the Divine Sound that vibrates

through the Universe the spoken *narmony, whence is derived the

" Music of the Spheres " (to quote the old language of Greco-Roman

antiquity). It is to be found under rather a different form in the

mysticism of the Maitrayani Upanishad. They are not included

here because they belong to rather a later date. The Dev-Samaj,

though founded in 1887 by Shiva Narayana Agnihotra, only adopted

the name " Superhuman " atheism after 1894 ; and its violent

struggle against God, fought in the name of reason, morality and

science, by a " Superman," the Dev-Guru (the founder in person),

whose initial step was to make himself the object of worship, is to-day

in full swing. As for the Radhasvami-Satsang, founded by a trinity

of successive, but indistinguishable holy Gurus, whose deaths

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

them with thirsty devotion, he often laughed mischievously,

and rose with the words that his own were better. He was

not the man to be dazzled by outward show, glory or

eloquence. His veiled eye did not blink unless the light

he sought, the face of God Himself, shone from the depths.

They could penetrate through the walls of the body as

through a window-pane and searched the very heart with

eager curiosity. But what they found there sometimes

provoked a sudden quiet outburst of hilarity untinged with

malice from this indiscreet visitor.

The story of his visit to the imposing Devendranath

Tagore, as told by himself, is a titbit of comedy, wherein

the critical humour and the disrespectful respect of the

"little brother" towards the great pontiff, the "King

Janaka," have free play.

" Is it possible/' a questioner asked him one day, 2 " to

reconcile the world and God ? What do you think of

Maharshi Devendranath Tagore ? "

Ramakrishna repeated softly, " Devendranath Tagore . . .

Devendranath . . . Devendra . . ." and he bowed several

times. Then he said,

" Do you know what he is ? Once upon a time there

occurred in 1878, 1898 and 1907 respectively, it is only since the

end of the last century that their doctrine has become firmly estab-

lished. We need not therefore take it into consideration in this

account. The seat of the Dev-Samaj is at Lahore, and almost all

its adherents are in the Punjab. The two chief centres of the

Radhasvami-Satsang are Allahabad and Agra. Hence it is to be

noted that both belong to Northern India. Glasenapp says nothing

of the appearance of new religions in Southern India, but they were

no less numerous. Such was the religion of the great Guru, Sri

Narayana, whose beneficent spiritual activity was exercised for more

than forty years in the state of Tjravancore over some million f aithf ul

souls (he has just died in 1928). His doctrine was impregnated with

monist metaphysics of Sankara, but tended to practical action

showing very marked differences from Bengal mysticism whose

Bhakta effusions filled him with mistrust. He preached, if one may

say so, a Jnanin of action, a great intellectual religion, having a very

lively sense of the people and their social needs. It has greatly

contributed to the uplifting of the oppressed classes in Southern

India and its activities have in a measure been allied to those of

Gandhi. (Cf. articles by his disciple, P. Natarajan, in the Sufi

Quarterly, Geneva, December, 1928, and the following months.)

1 Keshab Chunder Sen. The conversation is reported by an eye-

witness, A. Kumar Dutt. (Life of Ramakrishna.)

113 *

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

was a man, whose custom it was to celebrate the feast of

Durga Puja with great pomp. Goats were sacrificed from

morning till night. After some years the sacrifice lost its

brilliancy. Somebody asked the man why it was so greatly

reduced, and the man replied, ' I have lost my teeth now ! '

" And so," continued the irreverent story-teller, "it is

quite natural that Devendranath should practise meditation

at his advanced age/ 1 8

He paused. ... " But," he added, bowing once more,

" he is undoubtedly a very illustrious man. . . ."

Then he recounted his visit. 4

" At first when I saw him, I thought him rather proud.

Oh ! It was natural ! He was overwhelmed by so many

good things : nobility, prestige, riches. . . . Suddenly I

found myself in the state when I can see through a man.

8 It must be admitted that Ramakrishna's irony did Devendranath

a grave injustice. It did not take into account, probably through

ignorance, the absolute disinterestedness of the Maharshi and his

years of noble and difficult sacrifice. In this I see the attitude of a

man of the people to a great aristocrat.

Another account, given by Sashi Bhusan Ghosh in his Memoirs

written in Bengali (pp. 245-47), lessens the irony without diminishing

the penetration of Ramakrishna, so that justice is better done to

the royal idealist.

Ramakrishna said that he was introduced to Devendranath with

the words, " Here is a mad man of God 1 " " Devendranath seemed

to me to be concentrated upon his own ego, but why should he not

have been so concentrated, when he enjoyed so much knowledge,

renown, riches and unanimous respect ? But I discovered that

Yoga and bhoga (material enjoyment) ran side by side in his life. . . .

I said to him, ' You are a true Janaka in this age of sin. Janaka

was wont to see both sides at once. So you have kept your soul

for God, while your body moves in the material world. That is

why I have come to see you. Tell me something about God !' ..."

4 Rabindranath Tagore was thfti four years old. Ramakrishna

was introduced by his patron, Mathur Babu, who had been a fellow

student of Devendranath. A curious detail of the visit may interest

our European psycho- physiologists. Hardly were the introductions

over than Ramakrishna asked Devendranath to undress and show

him his chest. Devendranath complied without showing much

astonishment. The colour of the skin was scarlet, and Ramakrishna

examined it. This persistent redness of the breast is a peculiar

sign of the practice of certain Yoga. Ramakrishna never omitted

to examine the breast of his disciples, their breathing capacity, and

the soundness of their circulation before allowing or forbidding them

to undertake exercises of great concentration.

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

Then I consider the greatest, the richest, the most learned

men as straw, if I do not see God. . . . And a laugh

escaped me ... for I discovered that this man at the

same time enjoyed the world and led a religious life. He

had many children, all young. So in spite of his being a

great Jnanin, he had to reconcile himself to the world.

I said to him, ' You are the King Janaka of our day/ 6

He belonged to the world and yet he attained the highest

realizations. You are in the world, but your spirit rests

on the heights of God. Tell me something of Him 1 "

Devendranath recited to him some beautiful passages

from the Veda, 6 and the interview proceeded on a tone of

familiar courtesy. Devendranath was much struck by the

fire in the eyes of his visitor, and he invited Ramakrishna

to a feast for the next day. But he begged him to " cover

his body a little/' if he wished to be present : for the little

pilgrim had not put himself to the trouble of dressing up.

Ramakrishna replied with wicked good fellowship that he

could not be depended upon ; he was as he was, and would

come as he was. So they parted very good friends. But

early the next morning a very polite note came from the

great aristocrat, begging him not to put himself to any

trouble. And that was the end. With one caressing

stroke of the paw aristocracy remained aloof, secure in its

paradise of idealism.

Dayananda was summed up, judged and condemned

as of less worth still. It must be admitted that when the

two men met at the end of 1873, the Arya Samaj had not

yet been founded and the reformer was still in the midst

of his career. When Ramakrishna examined him, 7 he

5 Janaka, the King of Videha and Mithila, the foster-father of Sita.

" This universe is to be likened to a candelabra. And each one

of us is a bulb. If we do not burn the whole candelabra becomes

dark. God has created man to celebrate His glory. . . ."

In Sashi's account Ramakrishna made this naive reflection :

" It is strange 1 While I was meditating in the Panchavati (the

grove of Dakshineswar), I also saw an image like a candelabra . . .

Devendranath must really be a very profound man I "

7 He recognized in him also this characteristic redness of the

breast. During one of Ramakrishna's interviews as noted by

Mahendra Nath Gupta (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna) on November

28, 1883, a singular statement with regard to Dayananda is attributed

to Ramakrishna. He had heard that Dayananda, burning to

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

found in him " a little power," by which he meant, " real

contact with the Divine." But the tortured and torturing

character, the bellicose athleticism of the champion of the

Vedas, his feverish insistence that he alone was in the

right, and therefore had the right to impose his will, were

all blots on his mission in Ramakrishna's eyes. He saw

him day and night disputing concerning the Scriptures,

twisting their meaning, and striving at all costs to found

a new sect. But such preoccupation with personal and

worldly success sullied the true love of God, and so he

turned away from Dayananda.

His relations with Keshab Chunder Sen were of quite a dif-

ferent order. They were intimate, affectionate, and lasting.

Before speaking of them I must express regret that the

disciples of the two masters have left us such prejudiced

accounts. Each side has been at considerable pains to

" vassalize " the other man of God in favour of its own

saint. Ramakrishna's disciples still speak of Keshab with

sympathetic regard, and thank him for the homage he

yielded to the Paramahamsa. But some of Keshab's

disciples cannot forgive Ramakrishna for the ascendancy,

real or apparent, he exercised over their master ; hence in

order to deny that any such influence could have existed,

they have reverted to the plan of raising between them

insurmountable barriers of thought ; they scornfully mis-

represent Ramakrishna's true worth, and their harmful

spite is also directed against the man who preached his

Gospel, and made it victorious, Vivekananda. 8

But having read certain beautiful and fresh pages by

measure himself against Keshab Chunder Sen on the subject of his

Vedic Gods, in whom Keshab did ot believe, cried out, " The Lord

has done so many things 1 Can He not also have made the Gods ? "

This was not in accordance with the views publicly professed by

Dayananda, the implacable enemy of polytheism. Was Dayananda's

exclamation inexactly reported to Ramakrishna, or did it refer, not

to the Gods, but to the Vedic sacrificial fire, which Dayananda

believed in on the ground of faith in the infallible Vedas ? I cannot '

explain this apparent contradiction.

I have in mind chiefly the pamphlet of B. Mozoomdar : Professor

Max M&Uer on Ramakrishna ; The World on K. Chunder Sen, 1900,

Calcutta. (Cf. Chapter II, " Absurd Inventions and Reports made

to Max Mftller by the Disciples of Ramakrishna " ; Chapter III,

" Differences between the Two Doctrines " ; and above all the

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

Keshab, wherein the ideas and actions of Vivekananda

are distinctly foreshadowed, I can well understand that the

Brahmos chafe under the silence and oblivion into which

the Ramakrishna has allowed them to fall. So far as lies

in my power, I shall try to amend this injustice ; for I

believe it to be unwitting. But certain Brahmos could not

worse uphold Keshab's memory than by confining him

within their own narrow limits and by putting in the shade

the disinterested affection felt by Keshab for Ramakrishna.

In the whole of Keshab's life, so worthy of respect and

affection, there is nothing more deservedly dear to us than

the attitude of respect and affection adopted from the first

by this great man at the height of his fame and climax

of his thought, and maintained until the end, towards the

Little Poor Man of Dakshineswar, then either obscure or

misrepresented. The more the Brahmos attempt, their

pride hurt by the familiarities of the " madman of God "

with the prince of intellectuals, to extract from the writings

of Keshab proud denunciations of disordered ecstasy, such

as they attribute to Ramakrishna, 9 the more striking is the

contrast of Keshab's actual relations to Ramakrishna.

insulting Chapter V, " Concerning Vivekananda, the Informant of

Max Miiller," which does not scruple to join forces with some Anglo-

American clergymen, lacerated by the thunderous religious polemics

of the great Swami.)

Cf. B. Mozoomdar, op. cit., Chapter II. In his treatise on Yoga

Keshab says : " Knowledge and Bhakti are interchangeable terms.

Bhakti is only possible in those who have knowledge, an unknowing

Bhakta is an impossibility. ' ' But this does not condemn the religious

ecstasies of Ramakrishna ; for first it would be necessary to prove

that a higher form of knowledge was not contained therein. It

merely marks the different character of Keshab's contemplations ;

for him the highest condition consisted in a union of mind with the

Eternal, wherein practical intelligence was not obscured in the midst

of the manifold occupations of life, society and the home. Keshab's

views were in accordance with the spiritual traditions of the Brahmo

Samaj. Further, in Chapter III, Mozoomdar quotes Keshab as

saying, " Fie a hundred times to the Yogin, if he abandons everything

for the love of Yoga ! . . . It is a sin to abandon those whom

God has given us to cherish." He claims to find in these words a

reference to Ramakrishna as having neglected his duties towards

his wife. But it is untrue to say that he neglected them. Not only

did he love his wife with a profound and pure love, but he knew

how to inspire her with a love, which for her was a source of peace

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

If it is true that Keshab, unlike most of the religious

men of India, never took a Guru, an intermediary between

himself and the Divinity, 10 so that nobody has the right

to say that he was a disciple of Ramakrishna, as is claimed

by the Ramakrishnites his generous spirit was ever ready

to appreciate greatness, and his love of truth was too pure

for vanity to have any part in it. Hence this teacher was

ever ready to learn, 11 and said of himself, " I am a born

disciple ... all objects are my masters. I learn from

everything/ 1 ia How then can he have failed to learn

from the Man of God ?

During the early months of 1875 Keshab happened to

be with his disciples at a villa near Dakshineswar. Rama-

krishna went to visit him 1S with the words,

" I hear you have seen a vision of God, I have come to

find out what it is."

and happiness. I have already shown how seriously he took his

responsibility to her, and that he did not allow his disciples to give

up duties they had already contracted to old parents, to wife or

children dependent upon them in order to follow him.

10 " From the beginning of my religious life," he wrote, " I have

been ever wont to receive instruction from Thee, my God. ..."

11 1 have been happy to find the same point of view that I have

adopted, in the beautiful book illumined by the faith of Manilal

C. Parekh, a Christian disciple of Keshab (Brahmarshi Keshab Ch.

Sen, 1926, Oriental Christ House, Rajkot, Bombay). Manilal C.

Parekh clearly recognizes that Keshab owed much to Ramakrishna,

probably more than Ramakrishna owed to him. But, like myself,

he sees in it another reason for admiring the largeness of his spirit

and greatness of his heart.

11 But he says also : " God has implanted in me the power to

aspire to the good qualities of every man."

11 He had noticed him as early as 1865, when young Keshab

was Devendranath's lieutenant a the head of the Adi Brahmo

Samaj. Keshab's face had struck him. It was not the kind that

is easily forgotten. Keshab was tall, his face oval, " his complexion

clear like that of an Italian " (Mukerji). But if his spirit, like his

face, was tinged by the tender sun of the West, the depths of his

soul remained Indian. Ramakrishna, watching him as he meditated,

was not mistaken. " On the platform of the Brahmo Samaj several

people were meditating," he says of his visit in 1865. " * n the

centre of the group was Keshab lost in contemplation ; he was

as motionless as a piece of wood. He was then quite a young

man ; but it was at ;his bait that the fish was nibbling . . ." (a

familiar metaphor meaning that God was responding to his appeal

alone).

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

Thereupon he began to sing a famous hymn to Kali,

and in the midst of it he fell into an ecstasy. Even for

Hindus this was an extraordinary sight ; but Keshab, who,

as we have seen, was sufficiently suspicious of such rather

morbid manifestations of devotion, would hardly have

been struck by it, if, on coming out of Samadhi at the

instance of his nephew, 14 Ramakrishna had not forthwith

launched into a flood of magnificent words regarding the

One and Infinite God. His ironic good sense appeared

even in this inspired outpouring, and it struck Keshab

very forcibly. He charged his disciples to observe it.

After a short time he had no doubt that he was dealing

with an exceptional personality, and in his turn went to

seek it out. They became friends. He invited Rama-

krishna to the ceremonies of his Brahmo Samaj ; and used

to come to take him from his temple for excursions on the

Ganges ; and since his generous soul was obliged to share

his discoveries with others, he spoke everywhere of Rama-

krishna, in his sermons, and in his writings for journals

and reviews, both in English and in the native languages.

His own fame was put at Ramakrishna's disposal and it

was through Keshab that his reputation, until then unknown

to the popular religious masses with a few exceptions,

spread in a short time to the intellectual middle-class

circles of Bengal and beyond.

The modesty shown by the noble Keshab, the illustrious

chief of the Brahmo Samaj, rich in learning and prestige,

in bowing down before this unknown man, ignorant of

book learning and of Sanskrit, who could hardly read and

who wrote with difficulty, is truly admirable. But Rama-

krishna's penetration confounded him and he sat at his

feet as a disciple.

But this is not to say that Keshab was the disciple of

Ramakrishna, as is claimed by some over-zealous followers

14 For the interest of European science, it is to be noted that

the only method of recalling Ramakrishna from his ecstatic trances

was to pronounce in his ear such or such a name of the Lord, or

some Mantra (form of prayer), differing according to the degree

and the form of the ecstasy. The character of psychic concentration

was then very marked ; and it was impossible to speak of any

initial physiological disorder; the spirit always remained in full

control,

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

of the latter. It is not true that any one of his essential

ideas was derived from him ; for they were already formed

when he met Ramakrishna for the first time. We have

seen that after 1862 he began to conceive of the harmony

of religions and their original unity. He said in 1863 :

" All truths are common to all, for all are of God. Truth

is no more European than Asiatic, no more yours than

mine." In 1869 in the course of a lecture on the future

church, he visualized all religions as a vast symphony,

wherein each one, while keeping its distinctive character,

the tone of its instrument, the register of its voice, united

to praise God the Father and Man the Brother in one

universal anthem. On the other hand, it is false to claim

that Keshab needed Ramakrishna's help to arrive at his

conception of the Mother a conception common to all

ages in India, as that of the Father in the West. Rama-

krishna did not create it. The hymns of Ramprasad,

stored within his memory, sing Her in all keys. The idea

of God's maternity had been incorporated in the Brahmo

Samaj during the pontificate of Devendranath. Keshab's

disciples have no difficulty in citing invocations to the

Mother all through the work of their Master. 16

Undoubtedly the twin ideas of the Divine Mother and

the brotherhood of Her worshippers were beautiful ones,

whatever the forms of their ritual and means of expression,

and, as ideas, they were already possessed by Keshab and

revivified by his sincere faith. But it was another thing

to find them alive and vital in a Ramakrishna ! The

Little Poor Man was not troubled by theories ; he simply

was. He was the communion of the Gods with believers ;

he was the Mother and Her lover ; he saw Her ; She was

seen through him ; She coulfl be touched. What a dis-

16 1862 ; when Keshab was still the minister of the Adi Brahmo

Samaj of Devendranath, a hymn was sung, " Sitting on the knees

of the Mother."

1866 ; Manual of the Brahmo Samaj : " O Divine Mother, bind

me by thy mercy. ... O Mother, come, draw near 1 "

1875 : " Happy am 1 1 I have been merged in the heart of the

Mother, I am now among her children ; the Mother dances with

her children. . . ."

(But before this last date the meeting of Keshab and Ramakrishna

had taken place. Cf. B. Mozoomdar, op. cit., Chapter III.)

I2O

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

covery this genius of heart, who communicated to those

coming into contact ^ith him the warm breath of the

Goddess and the shelter of Her beautiful arms, was to

Keshab, and how deeply he must have felt its impact :

for he too was a Bhakta, a believer through love : 16

" The sweet, simple, charming and childlike nature of

Ramakrishna coloured the Yoga of Keshab and his immacu-

late conception of religion/' wrote Chiranjib Sarma, one of

his biographers.

And one of the missionaries of Keshab's church, Babu

Girish Chundra Sen, 17 wrote,

" It was from Ramakrishna that Keshab received the

idea of invoking God by the sweet name of Mother with

the simplicity of a child. . . ." 18

Only the last quotation needs comment ; for we have

shown that Keshab did not wait for Ramakrishna before

invoking the Mother. Ramakrishna, however, brought him

a renewal of love and immediate certitude, the heart of

a child. Hence it was not the discovery of the " New

Dispensation " that Keshab began to preach in the same

year, 1875, that his path crossed Ramakrishna's, 19 but

16 Promotho Loll Sen says that he communed daily with God.

" Let prayer be your chief preoccupation 1 Pray ardently and

without ceasing, alone and together, let it be the alpha and omega

of your life 1 "

17 " The Life and Teachings of the Paramahamsa Ramakrishna,"

Article in the Dharmatatawa.

18 Babu Chirish Chundra Sen and Chiranjib Sarma, quoted by

the Ramakrishnites in support of their thesis, certainly exaggerated

the influence of Ramakrishna on Keshab's Brahmo Samaj. Those

who try to prove too much lay themselves open to suspicion. To

write like Chiranjib Sarma that " The worship of God as Mother

was due to Ramakrishna/' is^a contradiction of the facts. It is

quite enough to say that Ramakrishna's example developed it in

the Brahmo Samaj. The Brahmo cult was rather hard " The

shadow of Ramakrishna," to use a simile of Babu Girish Ch. Sen,

" softened it."

" Nevertheless Pratap Chandra Mozoomdar, in his sympathetic

life of Keshab, admits that the meeting with Ramakrishna, without

altering the essentially theistic character of the New Dispensation,

led Keshab to present it in a more conciliatory and easily accessible

form.

Ramakrishna " had gathered the essential conceptions of Hindu

polytheism into an original structure of eclectic spirituality. . . .

This strange eclecticism suggested to Keshab's appreciative mind

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

rather an irresistible outpouring of faith and joy which

made him cry his message to the world.

Ramakrishna was a wonderful stimulant for the Brahmos,

a tongue of flame dancing at Pentecost over the heads of

the apostles, burning and enlightening them. He was at

once their sincere friend and their judge, who spared neither

his affection nor his mischievous criticism.

When he first visited the Brahmo Samaj his penetrating

and amused glance had seen through the rather conven-

tional devotion of its excellent members. According to

his own humorous account, 20

" The leader said : ' Let us communicate with Him/

I thought, ' They will now go into the inner world and

stay a long time/ Hardly had a few minutes passed when

they all opened their eyes. I was astonished. Can any-

one find Him after so slight a meditation ? After it was

all over, when we were alone, I spoke to Keshab about it :

' I watched all your congregation communing with their

eyes shut. Do you know what it reminded me of ? Some-

times at Dakshineswar I have seen under the trees a flock

of monkeys sitting, stiff and looking the very picture of

innocence. . . . They were thinking and planning their

campaign of robbing certain gardens of fruits, roots, and

other edibles ... in a few moments. The communing

that your followers did with God to-day is no more serious ! "

In a ritual hymn of the Brahmo Samaj this verse occurs :

" Think of Him and worship Him at every instant of

the day ! " Ramakrishna stopped the singer, and said,

" You should alter the verse into ' Pray to Him and

worship Him only twice a day.' Say what you really do.

Why tell fibs to the Infinite ? "

the thought of broadening the spiritual structure ol his own move-

ment. . . The Hindu conceptions of the Divine attributes spon-

taneously recommended themselves as beautiful and true, and also

as the surest means of making his faith intelligible and acceptable in

the land. Of course he kept the simple universal basis of theism

intact." But Mozoomdar adds with regret that such a presentation

of theism with a multiplicity of Divine attributes has since been

exploited in favour of popular idolatry.

M Cf. Dhan Gopal Mukerji : The Face of Silence, 1926. (Sara-

dananda gives a similar account in his chapter on the Brahmo

Samaj and Ramakrishna.)

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

The Brahmo Samaj of Keshab, while it extolled faith,

did so in a purposely stilted, abstract and solemn tone,

reminiscent of the Anglican. It seemed to be always on

guard against any suspicion of idolatry. 21 Ramakrishna

took a mischievous delight in accusing it, not without

justice, of mild idolatry. One day he heard Keshab in

prayer enumerating all the perfections of the Lord.

''Why do you give these statistics?" he asked him.

" Does a son say to his father, ' O my father, you possess

so many houses, so many gardens, so many horses, etc. ' ?

It is natural for a father to put his resources at the disposal

of his son. If you think of Him and His gifts as something

extraordinary, you can never be intimate with Him, you

cannot draw near to Him. Do not think of Him as if He

were far away from you. . . . Think of Him as your

nearest : Then He will reveal Himself to you. . . . Do

you not see that if you go into an ecstasy over His attributes,

you become an idolater ? " 22

Keshab protested against this attack on a sensitive point ;

he declared that he hated idolatry, that the God he wor-

shipped was a formless God. Ramakrishna answered

quietly,

" God is with form and without form. Images and other

symbols are just as valid as your attributes. And these

attributes are no different from idolatry, but are merely

hard and petrified forms of it."

And again,

" You wish to be strict and partial. . . . For myself I

have a burning desire to worship the Lord in as many

ways as I can; nevertheless my heart's desire has never

11 Here is a type of Brahmo prayer, quoted in the Gospel of Sri

Ramakrishna : " Om ! Thou art our Father, Give us knowledge !

Do not destroy us ! " " Om ! Brahman : Truth : Knowledge : In-

finite : He is Bliss and Immortality : He shines : He is Peace : He

is the Good : He is the One : " "We bow before Thee, O Supreme

Being, O First Great Cause : . . . We bow before Thee, O Light

of Knowledge, O Support of all the worlds : " " From the unreal

lead us to the real : From darkness lead us to light : From death

lead us to Immortality : Reach us through and through our self :

And ever more protect us, O Thou Terrible, by Thy Sweet com-

passionate Face : "

" Life of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 365 and Mukerji.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

been satisfied. I long to worship with offerings of flowers

and fruits, to repeat His holy name in solitude, to meditate

upon Him, to sing His hymns, to dance in the joy of the

Lord : . . . Those who believe that God is without form

attain Him just as well as those who believe He has form.

The only two essentials are faith and self-surrender. . . ." as

I can copy the colourless words, but I cannot communi-

cate the real presence, the radiance of person, the tone of

voice, the look in the eyes and the captivating smile.

Nobody who came in contact with them could resist them.

It was above all his living certitude that impressed the

onlookers ; for with him words were not, as with others,

a loose and ornamental robe, hiding as much as they claimed

to reveal of the unfathomable depths of life ; with him the

depths of life blossomed, and God, Who for the majority

even of religious men, is a frame of thought drawing an

impenetrable veil across " The Unknown Masterpiece/ 1 24

was to be seen in him ; for as he spoke he lost himself in

God, like a bather who dives and reappears dripping after

a moment, bringing with him the smell of seaweed, the

taste of the salt of the ocean. Who can rid himself of

its tang ? The scientific spirit of the West can indeed

analyse it. But whatever its elements, its synthetic reality

was never in doubt. The greatest sceptic can touch the

diver as he returns from the depths of the Dream, and

catch some reflection of submarine flora in his eyes. Keshab

and several of his disciples were intoxicated with it.

The strange dialogues of this Indian Plato, delivered on

Keshab's yacht as it went up and down the Ganges, 26

deserve to be read. Their narrator, afterwards Rama-

krishna's evangelist, was the first to be astonished that

such a meeting could have c?>me about tfetween such

opposite types of mind. What common fcround could

there be between the man of God and the man of the

world, the great intellectual, the Anglomaniac Keshab,

Mukerji.

M Allusion to a celebrated novel of Balzac.

" Two of them are to be found in an account by M. (Mahendra

Nath Gupta), the author of the Gospel of Ramakrishna, dated

Octobe* 27, 1882. Another witness, Nagendranath Gupta, gives

an account of another interview in 1881. (Cf. The Modern Review,

Calcutta, May, 1927.)

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

whose reason condemned the Gods? Keshab's disciples

pressed round the two sages at the porthole of the cabin,

like a swarm of flies. And as the honey of his words began

to flow from Ramakrishna's lips, the flies were drowned in

its sweetness.

"It is now more than forty-five years ago that this

happened and yet almost everything that the Paramahamsa

said is indelibly impressed on my memory. I have never

heard any other man speak as he did. ... As he spoke

he would draw a little closer to Keshab until part of his

body was unconsciously resting on Keshab's lap, but

Keshab sat perfectly still and made no movement to with-

draw himself."

Ramakrishna looked with affectionate intensity on the

faces surrounding him, and described their moral character

one by one, as delineated in their features, first the eyes,

then the forehead, the nose, the teeth, and the ears ; for

they formed a language to which he had the key. As he

spoke with his sweet and attractive stammer he came to

the subject of the Nirakara Brahman, the formless God.

" He repeated the word Nirakara two or three times and

then quietly passed into Samadhi as the diver slips into

fathomless deep. . . . We watched him intently. The

whole body relaxed and then became slightly rigid. There

was no twitching of the muscles or nerves, no movement

of any limb. Both his hands lay in his lap with the fingers

lightly interlocked. The sitting posture of the body was

easy but absolutely motionless. The face was slightly tilted

up and in repose. The eyes were nearly but not wholly

closed. The eyeballs were not turned up or otherwise

deflected, but they were fi^ed. . . . The lips were parted

in a beatific and indescribable smile, disclosing the gleam

of the white teeth. There was something in that wonderful

smile which no photograph was ever able to reproduce/ 1 M

He was recalled to the world by the singing of a hymn.

" He opened his eyes and looked around him as if

16 Nagendranath Gupta.

In another ecstasy, the one described by M,

to the Mother : " O Mother, they are all fastened

They are not free : is it possible to loose them "

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

in a strange place. The music stopped. The Paramahamsa

looking at us said, ' Who are these people ? ' And then he

vigorously slapped the top of his head several times, and

cried out, ' Go down, go down : ' . . . The Paramahamsa

became fully conscious and sang in a pleasant voice (a hymn

of Kali). 1 '

He sang the identity of the Divine Mother with the

Absolute. He sang the joy of the flying kite of the soul,

launched by the Mother while She keeps it attached to Her

by the string of Illusion. 27

" The world is the Mother's plaything. It is Her pleasure

to let slip from Illusion one or two flying kites among the

thousands. It is Her sport. She says to the human soul

in confidence with a wink of the eye : ' Go and live in the

world until I tell you to do something else . . . .' "

And in imitation of Her he turned to the disciples of

Keshab with an indulgent irony that made them laugh.

" You are in the world. Stay there : It is not for you

to abandon it. You are very well as you are, pure gold

and alloy, sugar and treacle. . . . We sometimes play a

game in which one must gain seventeen points to win. I

have passed the limit and I have lost. But you clever

people, who have not won enough points, can still continue

to play. ... In truth it matters little if you live in the

family or in the world, so long as you do not lose contact

with God/ 1

And it was in the course of these monologues, wherein

observation and ecstasy, mocking common sense and highest

speculation were so wonderfully blended, that the Parama-

hamsa produced his beautiful parables, quoted above, of

the Divine Tank with several ghats (steps) and of Kali,

the Spider. He had too keen sense of reality, he saw too

clearly to the very bottom of his listeners, to imagine that

he could raise them to the heights of his own liberated soul.

He measured their wisdom and their capacity, and he asked

17 The metaphor of the flying kite is to be found, as we have

Seen, in a hymn of Ramprasad, which Ramakrishna loved to sing :

" The Divine Mother and the Liberated Soul/ 1 It is also used in

a hymn of Nareschandra quoted in the Gospel. Nearly all the

metaphors, particularly that of the diver to the depths of the Ocean

of Life, are 'used again and again with variations in the poetic and

musical folklore of Bengal from the fifteenth century onwards.

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

nothing of them beyond their capability, but he asked for

the whole of that : above all he communicated to Keshab

and his disciples the spirit of life, the creative breath,

coupled with a wide and intellectual tolerance, which

recognized the truth in quite diverse points of view, pre-

viously considered by them to be irreconcilable. He freed

their intellectual limbs, petrified within the groove of reason,

and made them supple. He tore them from their abstract

discussions. " Live, love and create : " and blood again

flowed through their veins.

" To create is to be like God/' he said to Keshab, who

was then spending himself in endless and fruitless polemics.

" When you yourself are filled with the essence of existence,

all that you say will come true. Poets in all ages have

praised truth and virtue. But does that make their readers

virtuous or truthful ? When a man despoiled of self comes

among us, his acts are the very pulses of the heart of virtue ;

all that he does to others makes even their most humdrum

dreams greater, so that all they touch becomes true and

pure ; they become the father of reality. 28 And what he

creates never dies. That is what I expect of you. Make

the dogs of invective keep quiet. Let the elephant of

Being sound the clarion trumpet of his benediction over all

living things : You possess this power. Are you going to

use it, or are you going to waste this brief span called life in

fighting other peoples ? " 29

Keshab listened to his advice and took deep root in this

warm living earth, bathed in the sap emanating from the

Universal Being. Ramakrishna made him fed that no

" Cf . Gandhi, who was averse to all religious propaganda by

word or writing. When he waS asked, " How then can we share

our experience with others ? " he replied, " Our spiritual experiences

are necessarily shared and communicated whether we suspect it

or not, but by our lives and our examples, not by our words, which

are a very inadequate vehicle. Spiritual experiences are deeper

than thought itself. By the very fact that we live, spiritual experi-

ence will overflow. But if you deliberately set yourself to share

your spiritual experience with another, you raise an intellectual

barrier between you/' (Discussions at the Council of the Federation

of International Fellowship, Satyagraha Ashram, Sabannati,

January 15, 1928.)

11 Mukerji.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

particle of this sap was ever lost, even in the most humble

plant of human thought. His mind was sympathetically

reopened to all other forms of faith, even to certain outward

practices, which he had avoided.

He was to be seen invoking by their names Shiva, Shakti,

Sarasvaty, Lakshmi, Hari, identifying God's attributes with

them. For two years he was absorbed in each of the great

religious types, the heroic incarnations of the Spirit : Jesus,

Buddha, Shaitanya, each representing one side of the Great

Mirror. He sought to assimilate them each in turn, so that

through their synthesis he might realize the universal ideal.

During his last illness he was especially drawn to that form

of Bhakti most familiar to Ramakrishna a passionate love

of the Mother. Keshab's disciples told Ramakrishna, when

he came to see him during his last days on earth, that " a

great change had taken place/' " Often we find him talk-

ing to the Divine Mother, waiting for Her and weeping."

And Ramakrishna, enraptured by this news, fell into an

ecstasy. There is nothing more touching in the whole

account of this supreme interview 80 than the appearance

of the dying Keshab, shaken by a mortal cough, holding

on to the walls, supporting himself by the furniture, coming

to cast himself at the feet of Ramakrishna. The latter was

still half plunged in ecstasy, and was talking to himself.

Keshab was silent, drinking in the mysterious words that

seemed to come from the Mother Herself. They explained

to him with ruthless but consoling tranquillity, the deep

meaning of his sufferings and his approaching death. 81

10 (Gospel of Ramakrishna, I, Section V, Chapters I and II.)

It was on November 28, 1883, at the close of the day that Rama-

krishna entered the house of Keslyib with several of his disciples.

11 Ramakrishna, hardly awakened from ecstasy, looked round at

the drawing-room full of beautiful furniture and mirrors. Then he

smiled and spoke to himself : " Yes, all these things have had their

uses some time ago ; but now they serve no purpose. . . . You

are here, Mother. How beautiful you are : . . ." At this moment

Keshab entered and fell at Ramakrishna's feet. " Here I am," he

said. Ramakrishna looked at him without seeming to recognize

him clearly, and continued his monologue about the Mother and

human life. Between the two men not a word was spoken about

Keshab's health, although it was the object of the visit. It was

not until after some time that Ramakrishna uttered the words I

quote here.

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

With what deep insight Ramakrishna understood the hidden

confusion of this life of faith and restless love :

" You are ill," he said sweetly. " There is a profound

meaning in that. Through your body have passed many

deep waves of devotion seeking for the Lord. Your illness

bears witness to these emotions. It is impossible to tell

what damage they do to the organisms at the time they

are produced. A boat passes along the Ganges without

attracting attention. But some time afterwards a great

wave, displaced by its passage, dashes against the bank

and washes away part of it. When the fire of the Divine

Vision enters the frail house of the body, it first burns the

passions, then the false ego, and at last it consumes every-

thing. . . . You have not yet reached the end. . . . Why

did you allow your name to be inscribed on the registers

of the Lord's hospital ? You will never be allowed to come

out until the word ' Healed ' is written across them."

He then invoked the gracious parable of the Divine

gardener digging round the roots of a precious rose tree,

so that it might drink the night dew. 32

" Illness digs round the roots of your being."

Keshab listened in silence and smiled ; for it was Rama-

krishna's smile that shed a light of mysterious serenity into

the funeral darkness of the house and into the sufferings

of the sick man. Ramakrishna did not adopt a solemn tone

until Keshab, exhausted, was about to leave him. Then

he suggested to the dying man that he ought not to live

so much in the inner room with the women and children,

but alone with God.

And it is said that in his deep agony, Keshab's last words

were, " Mother : . . . Mother : . . ." 88

11 " The Gardener knows how to treat the common rose, and how

to treat the rose of Bassora. He loosens the earth round her roots,

so that she may benefit from the night dew. The dew gives strength

and freshness to the rose. It is even so with you. The Divine

Gardener knows how to treat you. He digs round you right down

to the roots, so that His dew may fall upon you, that you may

become purer and your work greater and more enduring." (Gospel

of Ramakrishna, Vol. I, Section V, Chapter II.)

11 The repercussion of some of Ramakrishna's words, spoken

during his last interview with Keshab, on the latter's last thoughts,

have, I think, never before been noticed.

Ramakrishna spoke to him for a long time about the Mother

129 K

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

It is so easy to understand how this great idealist, who

believed in God, Reason, Goodness, Justice and Truth,

should have discovered during these tragic days that he

was too far away from the High God, the Unattainable

God, and that he needed to draw near to Him and to touch

Him with the dust of Ramakrishna's feet, to see Him and

hear Him through Ramakrishna, and find refreshment for

his fever. Such is an expression of universal experience.

But it is just this for which some of Keshab's proud disciples

cannot forgive Ramakrishna. On the other hand, I must

beg the Ramakrishnites not to make too much of it, but

rather let them follow the example of their sweet Master.

When Keshab had just left him after this last interview

here described, Ramakrishna spoke modestly and with

admiration of Keshab's greatness, which had won the

respect both of a social and intellectual Mite and of simple

believers like himself. And he continued to show his esteem

for the Brahmo Samaj. 84 The best of the Brahmos have

and said, " She watches over Her children. . . . She knows how

to obtain true freedom and knowledge for them. . . . The child

knows nothing. . . Its Mother knows everything. . . . All is

ordered according to Her will. You fulfil Your own will, O Divine

Mother, and accomplish Your own work. The foolish man says,

' It is I, who have accomplished.' "

Moreover, when Keshab in the midst of his own sufferings was

consoling his real, his mortal mother, who had given him life, he

said, " The Supreme Mother sends everything for my good. She

plays with me, turning sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other."

4 In 1878 after the fresh schisms within the Brahmo Samaj,

Ramakrishna remained faithful to Keshab when he was deserted

by a section of his disciples. But he refused to make any distinction

between the three separate branches of the Brahmo Samaj, joining

them all alike in prayer. The Gospel of Ramakrishna has recorded

several of these visits, in particular one of October 28, 1882, when

he was invited and was present at the annual festival of Keshab's

Brahmo Samaj. He was eagerly surrounded and questioned on

religious problems, and replied with his usual breadth of spirit.

He took part in the Songs (the song of Kabir), and in the sacred

dances. When he retired he saluted all forms of devotion, ending

up with homage to the Brahmo Samaj : " Salutations to the feet

of the Jnanin : Salutations to the feet of the Bhakta : Salutations

to the devout who believe in God with form : Salutations to the

devout who believe in a God without form : Salutations to the

ancient knowers of Brahmin : Salutations to the modern knowers

of the Brahmo Samaj."

The other two branches of the Brahmo Samaj showed him far

RAMAKRISHNA AND THE KING-SHEPHERDS OF INDIA

held him in veneration in their turn, 85 and have known

how to profit from their intercourse with him. His influence

widened their understanding and their heart and did more

than anybody else's to bring them into line in people's

estimation with the best thought of India, which the first

influx of the scientific knowledge of the West, badly assimi-

lated, had threatened to alienate.

One example will suffice ; his great disciple, Vivekan-

anda, came from the ranks of the Brahmo Samaj and from

the most bigoted, at least for a time, of iconoclasts in the

name of Western reason against Hindu tradition, which

later he learnt to respect and defend. The true thought

of the West has lost nothing through this Hindu awakening.

The thought of the East is now independent, and hence-

forth union can be effected between equal and free person-

alities, instead of the one being subjugated by the other,

and one of the two Civilizations being assassinated by the

other.

less regard. The most recent, the Sadharan Samaj, owed him a

grudge on account of his influence over Keshab. At the Adi Brahmo

Samaj of Devendranath he was doubtless regarded as belonging to

a lower level. At one visit which he paid to it (May 2, 1883), and

which Rabindranath Tagore may perhaps remember, since he was

present as a lad, his reception was hardly courteous. (Cf. Gospel

of Ramakrishna.)

86 Especially Keshab's successor, Pratap Chandra Mozoomdar,

and Vijaya Krishna Gosvani, who later on separated himself from

the Brahmo Samaj. The greater composer and singer of Keshab's

Samaj, Trailokya Nath Sanyal, maintains that many of his most

beautiful songs were inspired by the ecstasies of Ramakrishna.

VIII

THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES

IT is easy to see what India gained from the meeting of

Ramakrishna and the Brahmo Samaj. 1 His own gain

is less obvious, but no less definite. For the first time he

found himself brought into personal contact with the

educated middle class of his country, and through them

with the pioneers of progress and Western ideas. He had

previously known practically nothing of their mentality.

He was not a man to react like a strict and narrow devotee

who hastens to put up the shutters of his cell. On the

contrary he flung them wide open. He was too human,

too insatiably curious, too greedy for the fruit of the tree

of life not to taste these new fruits to the full. His long

searching glance insinuated itself, like a creeper through the

chinks of the house, and studied all the different habitations

of the same Host, and all the different spirits dwelling

therein, and in order to understand them better, he identified

himself with them. He grasped their limitations (as well

as their significance), and proportioned to each nature its

own vision of life and individual duty. He never dreamed

of imposing either vision or action alien to his proper nature

on any man. He, to whom renunciation both then and

always, so far as he was personally concerned, was the first

and last word of truth, discovered that most men would

have none of it and he was neither astonished nor saddened

by the discovery. The differences men busied themselves

in raising between them, like hedges, seemed to him nothing

but bushes all flowering in the same field and giving variety

to the scene. 1 He loved them all. He could see the goal

1 See previous chapter.

f Somebody once asked him what difference there was between

THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES

and the path assigned to each one of them, and pointed out

to each the road he was to follow. When he spoke to an

individual one of the things most astonishing to the on-

lookers was the way he instantaneously adapted just that

individual's particular turn of phrase and method of express-

ing his thoughts. This was not mere versatility. His spirit

kept firm control of the steering wheel, and if he led men

to another point of the bank, it was always the bank of

God. He helped them unawares to land by their own

power. Because he believed that all nature was of God,

he felt that it was his duty to guide each nature along its

own lines so that it might attain its fullest development.

The realization that he possessed this gift of spiritual guid-

ance came upon him without his own volition. A Western

proverb, adopted as its motto by the Italian Renaissance,

claims that Vouloir c'est pouvoir. This is the bragging of

youth with everything still to do. A more mature man,

who is not so easily satisfied with words, but who lays

emphasis on deeds, reverses the motto so that it reads :

" Pouvoir c'esi vouloir."

Ramakrishna suddenly perceived the power within him

and the call of the world for its use. The ascendancy he

exercised over some of the best minds in India revealed the

weaknesses and needs of these intellectuals, their unsatisfied

aspirations, the inadequacy of the answers they gained

from science, and the necessity for his intervention. The

Brahmo Samaj showed him what strength of organization,

what beauty existed in a spiritual group uniting young

souls round an elder brother so that they tendered a

basket of love as a joint offering to their Beloved, the

Mother. 9

The immediate result was that his mission, hitherto

undefined, became crystallized ; it concentrated first in a

glowing nucleus of conscious thought wherein decision was

centred, and then passed into action.

First of all he saw in their entirety his own relations with

the Brahmos and the other Hindus. " No very great one/ 1 he re-

plied. In a concert of hautboys one holds on the same note while

the others weave variations beneath it. The Brahmos always come

back to the same note, the formless aspect of God. But the Hindus

play his different aspects.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

God. He saw that this God within him 8 could not be

satisfied with personal salvation, as was the case with other

Sadhakas, 4 but required of him the love and service of

mankind. 5 His spiritual struggles, his ecstasies, his realiza-

tions were not to be only for his own profit.

" Sic vos non vobts. . . ." fl

They were meant rather to prepare the way for human

development, for a new era of spiritual realization. Other

men had the right to aspire to and hope for liberation, but

not he. He could not count on that. From century to

century he was obliged to go to the help of mankind when-

ever they were in danger. 7

And here is the rallying cry, the word of salvation that

he was to carry to the men of his day. 8

i. All religions are true in their essence and in the sincere

faith of their believers. The revelation of this universal

truth, whereat Ramakrishna had arrived by common sense

Ramakrishna admitted at this point what the Bhairavi Brah-

mani had been the first to proclaim that he was a Divine Incar-

nation. But he disliked to talk about it, and could not bear it to

be mentioned in front of him. In general, praise was disagreeable

to him. He was much more prone to refuse in public all spiritual

privileges to the dissatisfaction of some of his followers, who would

have liked a share in them. His conviction lay in an inward act,

a secret light, which he never paraded. I would ask my Western

readers a question that may shock them whether the passionate

conviction of a mission which imposes thought and action upon our

great men is not vaguely akin to exactly some such intuition, some

fullness of Being transcending the limits of personality ? What

does it matter by what name it is called ?

4 Sadhana is the practice of spiritual contemplation leading to

one form of Realization. Sadhaka is one dedicated to this practice.

The word " service " inscribed by Ramakriihna's disciples

above their mission was not explicitly pronounced by the Master.

But his whole doctrine of love working for others to the limits

of personal sacrifice is in essence the doctrine of service. Service,

as Swami Ashokananda has well shown, is its motive force (cf.

Prabuddha Bharata, Almora, February, 1928, " The Origin of Swami

Vivekananda's Doctrine of Service "). We shall return to this

question later.

A frequently quoted verse of Virgil, meaning : " You work,

but not for yourself."

T As a curious fact I note here that Ramakrishna said, pointing

to the north-west, that after two hundred years he would be re-

incarnated there (Russia).

Life of Ramakrishna, pp. 342-47.

THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES

as much as by intuition, was the special object of his coming

upon the earth.

2. The three great orders of metaphysical thought :

Dualism, "Qualified" Monism and absolute Monism, are

the stages on the way to supreme truth. They are not

contradictory, but rather are complimentary the one to the

other. Each is the perspective offered to the mental stand-

point of one order of individuals. For the masses, who are

attracted through the senses, a dualistic form of religion

with ceremonies, music, images and symbols is useful. The

pure intellect can arrive at qualified Monism ; it knows that

there is a beyond ; but it cannot realize it. Realization

belongs to another order, the Advaita, the inexplicable, the

formless Absolute, of which the discipline of Yoga gives a

foretaste. It surpasses the logical means of word and spirit.

It is the last word of " Realization/ 1 It is Identity with

the One Reality.

3. To this scale of thought there is naturally a correspond-

ing scale of duties. The ordinary man lives in the world

and can and does fulfil his duties there, striving with affec-

tionate zeal but without attachment to self, just as a good

servant takes care of a house, although he is quite aware

that the house is not his. By purity and love he is to

achieve liberation from his desires. But only step by step

with patience and modesty.

" Undertake only those tasks that are within the range

of your thoughts and purified dreams. Do not flatter

yourself that you can do big things, but fulfil duties as

small in size as your self-renunciation to God. Then as

your renunciation and purity grow (and things of the soul

grow very quickly) they will pay their way across the

material world and shed thSir light upon other men, just

as the Ganges, having cut its channel through the hard

rocks of the Himalayas, waters millions of places with its

beneficence." 9

" Do not be in a hurry, but progress each at his own

pace : You are sure to arrive at your destination, so there

is no need to run : but you must not stop : ' Religion is a

path which leads to God, but a path is not a house.' . . .

' And will it be a long one ? ' ' That depends. It is the

Cf. D. G. Mukerji, op. cit.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

same for all. But some march for a longer time and the

end draws near. . . .' "

" The potter dries his pots in the sun. Some are already

baked, others not. The cattle pass on and tread them under

foot. (Then comes death.) . . . The potter picks up the

pots again and if one is not quite baked he replaces it on

the wheel ; he does not let it go. But when the sun of God

has completed your baking, the potter leaves the remains,

now of no further use on the plane of Maya, except for one

or two finished vessels to serve as models for humanity." 10

Ramakrishna was one such, and his mission was to seek

those who were a stage behind him X1 and with them, in

fulfilment of the Mother's will, to found a new order of

men, who would transmit his message and teach to the

world his word of truth containing all the others. This

word was "Universal" the Union and Unity of all the

aspects of God, of all the transports of love and knowledge,

of all forms of humanity. Until then nobody had sought

to realize more than one aspect of the Being. All must be

realized. That was the duty of the present day. And the

man who fulfilled it by identifying himself with each and

all of his living brethren, taking unto himself their eyes,

their senses, their brain and heart, was the pilot and the

guide for the needs of the new age. 12

No sooner had he perceived this vision than he was afire

with the desire to realize it. 18 Like a bird-charmer he flung

10 Interview with Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, December 6, 1884.

11 He said : " To those who are in their last birth."

11 Cf. Swami Ashokananda, loc. cit.

11 It was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna about 1863 that many

faithful and pure-hearted souls would come to him. (Cf. Life of

Ramakrishna, p. 203.) But Rarn^krishna had hardily given it a

thought before 1866. According to Saradananda, it was at the

end of the long Samadhi of that year that a violent desire for his

future disciples came upon him. Every evening he prayed for their

advent with loud cries. The climax of this crisis was towards the

end of the next six years (1866-72), which further period was neces-

sary for Ramakrishna to reach the height of his powers as a teacher,

and to understand the spiritual condition of the India of his age.

Towards the close of this period, in a vision his future disciples

appeared to him. (Cf. Life of Vivekananda, I, 360.) He first began

to preach at the end of 1874 or the beginning of 1875, when he

made Keshab's acquaintance. His preaching may be considered to

fall within the period of twelve years, from 1874 to August, 1886.

THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES

a passionate appeal into the air to other winged spirits

to come and group themselves round his dovecote. The

time was ripe. He could wait no longer. He must collect

his covey round him. Night and day the thought of

these beloved companions possessed him. He cried in his

heart. . . .

" My ardent desire knew no bounds. That very day for

good or ill I had to realize it. I no longer listened to what

was said round me. ... They filled my mind. I could

see them. I decided in advance what I should say to this

one and that one. ... By the end of the day the thought

of them weighed upon me. . . . Another day had gone

and still they had not come ! . . . The clocks struck, the

conches sounded. I went up to the roof in the fading

light and with bleeding heart cried aloud, ' Come my chil-

dren : Where are you ? I cannot live without you. . . .'

I loved them more than mother, friend or lover ; I desired

them ; I was dying in their absence."

This mighty cry of the soul soared up into the night like

the sacred serpent ; and its attraction was exerted over

the winged spirits. From all directions, without under-

standing what command or what power constrained them,

they felt themselves drawn, as if caught by an invisible

thread ; they circled, they approached and soon, one after

another they arrived.

The first disciples to present themselves (this was in 1879)

were two middle class intellectuals from Calcutta. They

were cousins : the one a medical student at the Calcutta

Medical College, an absolute materialist and atheist : Ram-

chandra Dutt ; the other married and the head of a family :

Manomohan Mitra. Some lines in a Brahmo Samaj journal

mentioning Ramakrishna Iiad attracted their attention.

They came and they were conquered. They did not

renounce the world and Ramakrishna did nothing to detach

them from it ; but the extraordinary man captivated them

by his charm and his character. It was they who brought

him his two greatest disciples the one who became the

first abbot of the Ramakrishna Order, under the name of

Brahmananda (Rakhal Chandra Ghosh), and he whose

genius was to enlighten India and the whole world under

the name of Vivekananda (Narendranath Dutt).

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Before considering the chief personalities, here is a short

list of the best known of the men, who between the years

1879 and 1885 14 grouped themselves round Ramakrishna,

together with some indication of their birth and profession

as far as it is possible to draw up :

1879 : i and 2. Doctor Ramchandra Dutt and his cousin,

Manomohan Mitra ;

3. Latu, Ramchandra's servant, of low birth from

Behar, later known by the monastic name of

Adbhutananda ;

4. Surendranath Mitra, a rich employee of an English

trading house, a householder and member of the

Brahmo Samaj ;

1881 : 5. Rakhal Chandra Ghosh, son of a Zemindar

(landed proprietor), later the first abbot of the

Order under the name of Brahmananda ;

6. Gopal the elder, a paper merchant (later

Advaitananda) ;

7. Narendranath Dutt, a young intellectual, belong-

ing to a Kshatriya family (later Vivekananda) ;

1882 : 8. Mahendra Nath Gupta, the principal of the

Vidyasagyr High School at Shambazar, Calcutta,

who has since written the Gospel of Sri Rama-

krishna under the pseudonym M., and who, unless

I am mistaken, directs the school he founded,

the Morton Institution.

9. Tarak Nath Ghoshal, the son of a lawyer, a

member of the Brahmo Samaj, the present abbot

of the Order under the name of Shivananda ;

10. Jogendra Nath Chaudhury, a Brahmin of Dak-

shmeswar belonging to an aristocratic family

(later Yogananda).

1883 : ii. Sasibhurshan (later Ramakrishnananda) ;

12. Saratchandra Chakravarti (later Saradananda),

the Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission for

more than a quarter of a century and the great

biographer of Ramakrishna, both Brahmins of

Calcutta and members of the Brahmo Samaj ;

14 According to Saradananda, all Ramakrishna's disciples arrived

before the end of 1884, and most of them between the middle of

1883 and the middle of 1884.

THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES

13. Kaliprasad Chandra, the son of a professor of

English (later Abhedananda) ;

14. Narinath Chattopadhyaya, a Brahmin (later

Turiyananda) ;

15. Hariprasanna Chatterjee, a student (Vijnanan-

anda) ;

16. Gangadhar Ghatak, a young student of fourteen

(later Akhandananda) ;

17. Girish Chandra Ghosh, a great actor and drama-

tist, the founder of the modern Bengal theatre,

director of the Star Theatre at Calcutta ;

1885 : 18. Subodh Ghosh, a student of seventeen, the son

of a founder of the temple of Kali at Calcutta

(later Subodhananda).

I have not been able to find the exact dates

for the entrance of the following :

19. The rich proprietor, Balaram Bose, a mature and

exceedingly pious man, whose gifts helped in the

foundation of the Order ;

20. The young spiritualistic medium, Nitya Niranjan

Sen, whom Ramakrishna rescued by main force

from occult beliefs, 16 and who was later Niran-

janananda ;

21. Devendra Mazundar, a mature, married man, an

employee of a Zemindar and brother of the Bengal

poet, Surendranath ;

22. Baburam Gosh, a student about twenty years

of age (later Premananda) ;

23. Tulasi Charan Dutt, a student of eighteen (later

Nirmalananda) .

It can be seen that with the exception of the poor servant,

Latu, the majority belonged to the liberal professions, to

the Brahmin aristocracy or to the rich middle class of

Bengal. They were either young men or in the prime of

life, and several had been fashioned by the Brahmo Samaj.

But I have only mentioned those who joined Ramakrishna

strictly and who were the exponents of his thought.

15 " If you always think of ghosts, you will become a ghost. If

you think of God, you will be God. t Choose : "

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

An ever shifting crowd of all classes and all castes inun-

dated him with its restless movement. They came jumbled

together, Maharajahs and beggars, journalists and pandits,

artists and devotees, Brahmos, Christians and Moham-

medans, men of faith, men of action and business, old men,

women and children. Often they journeyed from afar to

question him, and there was no rest for him day or night.

For twenty hours out of the twenty-four he replied to all

comers. Although his weakened health failed under the

strain, he refused nobody, but gave out to all alike his

sympathy, his enlightenment, and that strange power of

soul, which, even if he did not speak a word, gripped 18

the hearts of his visitors and left them transformed for days.

He won the respect of all sincere believers, and gladly

received men of different faiths so that they might discuss

their diversities before him and he might reconcile them.

But this to him was only one of the factors making for

harmony. He desired something infinitely greater than the

reconciliation of warring creeds that man as a whole should

understand, sympathize with and love the rest of mankind

that he should identify himself with the life of humanity.

For, since Divinity is inherent in every man, every life for

him was a religion, and should so become for all. And the

more we love mankind, however diverse, the nearer we are

to God. 17 It was unnecessary to seek Him in temples, or

to call upon Him for miracles and revelations. He was

here, everywhere, every second. We could see Him, we

could touch Him, for He was our brother, our friend, our

enemy, our very self. And it was because this omnipresent

God flowed from the soul of Ramakrishna, because his light

illumined, quietly and imperceptibly, the crowd surround-

ing him, that men felt themselves, without understanding

why, uplifted and strengthened.

He said to his disciples,

" We must build on different foundations from the makers

lf " The force of a tiger," was the term used by certain wit-

nesses of the gentle master, thus associating in a striking metaphor

a savage impression of vital power and freedom of soul.

17 " Are you seeking God ? Then seek Him in man : The Divinity

ii manifest in man more than in any other object " (Gospel of Sri

Ramakrishna, p. 350).

THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES

of religions. We must live an inner life so intense that it

becomes a Being. The Being will give birth to innumerable

torches of truth. . . . Rivers flow because their parent,

the mountain, remains immovable. . . . Let us raise a

mountain of God in the midst of humanity. It matters

little where and when. When it has been raised, it will

continue to pour forth rivers of light and compassion over

mankind for ever." 18

There was then no question of founding or of expounding

a new creed :

" Mother/' Premananda heard him pray, " do not let me

become famous by leading those who believe in beliefs to

me : Do not expound beliefs through my voice/' 19

And he warned his disciples against any kind of Rama-

krishnaism.

Above all things there must be no barriers.

" A river has no need of barriers. If it dams itself up

it stagnates and becomes foul/'

Rather the gates must be flung wide open, the gates of

oneself and of other people so that all-conquering Unity

might be created. This was to be the real part for his

chosen disciples by their common effort they were to

" recreate the Being who was to nourish the men and

women of the centuries to be."

Their part was to be an active one, demanding great gifts

and the wide tolerance of spirit and heart. Nobody must

stint himself, but give himself wholly.

That is why, although all men, without exception, were

called into the Divine community, he showed himself very

strict in the choice of his disciples ; for they were the way,

whereon the feet of humanity was to march. He claimed

that it was not he, but the Mother, who chose them. 20 But

18 D. G. Mukerji, op. cit.

19 Once when he was urged to define God, he replied, " And if

I were to give you a definition of God, what would you do with

it ? Use it as an article of faith in order to found a new religion

in my name ? I did not come into the world to begin a new cult :

Ah 1 No 1 "

And on another occasion, " Do not look for religion : be religion."

10 " I did not choose them. The Divine Mother led them to me.

She made me examine them. At night I meditate ; the veil falls

and reveals them to me. You can then see the ego of a man or a

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

was the Mother any different from the entity we carry in

the depths of ourselves ? This entity in the case of those,

who, like Ramakrishna, have acquired the exceptional power

of keeping intact an intense solitary concentration in the

midst of a life passed in the midst of an innumerable throng,

possesses antennae, which infallibly seek out the inner man.

At the most furtive contact they sound the depths, the

capacities and the weaknesses, the virtues and the vices,

things obscure even to the person under observation, that

which is and that which will be. Ordinary men are apt to

call in question the reality of this gift of intuitive vision,

which reaches from the present into the future. But it is

neither more nor less outside the limits of nature than the

vibrations of the rod of the " Diviner " on the surface of

the earth revealing the water beneath.

Ramakrishna was a wonderful wand in the hand of the

Mother. Extraordinary tales are told of his physical and

spiritual hypersensitiveness. Towards the end of his life

such was his horror of riches that he could no longer touch

gold without being burnt. 21 It is also maintained that the

mere touch of an impure person gave him physical pain

analogous to the bite of a cobra. 22

woman as through a glass case ... I satisfy myself concerning the

character of my disciples before I initiate them."

What man of intuition can fail to recognize this method of thought,

the use of this inward eye opening under lowered lids in the lonely

centre of the spirit on the still warm spoils of the world, captured

by the lure of the senses ? Only the mode of expression varies

and the intensity of the eye.

11 Vivekananda relates, " Even when he was sleeping, if I touched

him with a piece of money, his hand would become bent and his

whole body would become as if it were paralysed. 1 ' (My Master.)

11 In illustration of this legendary trait : One day when in the

kindness of his heart he had consented to touch a man, who,

though outwardly without reproach was inwardly defiled, and who

insisted that Ramakrishna should enroll him among his disciples,

Ramakrishna howled with pain. He said to the man sorrowfully

and kindly, " The touch of divine bliss has become in you a cobra's

poison. It is not in this life, my son : " and continued under his

breath, " Your liberation."

A thousand other instances of this hypersensitiveness might be

related. A blow given to a man in the street by a furious enemy

left its physical mark on the flesh of Ramakrishna. His nephew

saw his back red and inflamed at the sight of a man whose back

was scored with the whip. And Girish Chandra Ghosh, whose

THE CALL OF THE DISCIPLES

At sight he could read the soul of those who approached

him, and so, if he accepted them as his disciples, it was

with full knowledge. 28 He discovered in a hardly formed

adolescent with character scarcely developed the exact task

for which he had been born. Sometimes he discovered a

great destiny, suspected least of all by the person concerned.

Perhaps he helped such destiny to be born by announcing

it. This great moulder of souls cast with his fingers of fire

the bronze of Vivekananda as well as the delicate and tender

wax of Yogananda or Brahmananda. A curious fact is

that the most resolute to resist him, were bound sooner or

later to yield to the spiritual election he had made. They

then brought as much passion into play in submitting to

him as they had formerly used in withstanding him. He

had the power of divining, seizing and keeping those spirits

fore-ordained for his mission, and it would appear that the

hawk eye of the Paramahamsa was never mistaken.

witness is unimpeachable, has certified to the fact of his stigmata.

This spiritual contact with all forms of life made him at one even

with animals and plants. It has been said of him, that he felt a

brutal step upon the earth as it were upon his own heart.

11 He did not blindly depend upon his own intuition. He visited

the tutors of his young disciples, he learnt all about them and

studied them in meditation. With a remarkable and scrupulous

attention he noted their physiological characteristics of respiration,

sleep and even digestion. He held that they were of considerable

importance in confirming his diagnosis of their spiritual faculties

and destiny.

IX

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

IT is possible to divide the train of great souls, with which

he surrounds himself, into two classes : a third order, 1

as it were of men and women, who remained serving God

in the world and the chosen band of apostles.

Let us first consider the former : for these disciples or

listeners belonging to the second (third Order) illustrate the

spirit of broad " catholicity " animating Ramakrishna, and

to what an extent his religion took into account, for others

as well as for himself, the common duties of humanity.

He did not ask men of goodwill to leave all and follow

him. On the contrary he was careful to refrain from say-

ing, " Forsake all to seek salvation 1 " to those already

caught by worldly ties, such as married people and fathers

of families.

He forbade his disciples to sacrifice the legitimate rights

of others " just because you, my son, wish to become a

holy man." Personal salvation was mere selfishness in too

many cases, and therefore resulted in a worse death of the

soul.

"... We owe a debt to the gods. We owe a debt to

parents. We owe a debt to ojir wives. ... No work can

be satisfactorily concluded until the debt to parents at least

has been paid. . . . Harish gave up his wife and lives

here. But if his wife had not been provided for, I should

have called him a wicked fellow. . . . There are those

who are constantly quoting scripture, but their deeds and

their words do not tally. Rama Prasana says that Manu

ordered that Sadhus should be served. And his old mother

1 Third Order : It was the name given by St. Francis of Assisi*

to a half lay, half religious order to which pious people living in

the world could (and can still) belong.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

was dying of hunger and was obliged to beg for what she

needed : . . . That enrages me : Not even a depraved

mother ought to be deserted. ... So long as parents

remain in want the practice of devotion avails nothing. 2

" The brother of S. came here for several days. He had

left his wife and his children in the care of his brother-in-

law. I rebuked him severely. . . . Was it not criminal

to leave his home, when he had so many children to bring

up ? Was it for strangers to feed them and be troubled

with them ? It was a scandal : . . . I told him to go and

look for work. ..."

" You should bring up your children, provide for your

wife, and put by what is necessary for her to live upon

after your death. If you do not do so you are heartless ;

and a man without compassion is not worthy of the name

of man." 8

" I tell people that they must fulfil their duties in the

world as well as think about God. I do not ask them to

renounce all (smiling). The other day in the course of a

lecture, Keshab said, ' O God, grant that we may be plunged

in the river of Devotion and attain the Ocean of Satchi-

dananda (Being, Knowledge, Eternal Felicity) : ' The

women were present sitting behind a screen. I showed

them to Keshab and said, ' If you are all plunged in at once,

what will be their fate ? . . . So you must come out of

the water from time to time ; immerse yourselves and

come out alternately : ' Keshab and the others began to

laugh. . . ." 4

1 Gospel of Ramakrishna, II, 251 et seq. The Ramakrishna Mis-

sion has followed the teachings of the Master. It does not admit

anyone to the monastic life unless his family voluntarily renounce

him. For they hold that a man* who flees from worldly responsi-

bility is too weak to be exposed to the heavier responsibility of

God's service. (Cf. Mukerji.)

Life of Ramakrishna, p. 587.

* The Gospel, II. 266.

The peasant's son knew much more about the necessities of

existence than the rich Keshab, and that there is more merit if a

poor workman finds a place for one single thought of God during

the day, than if he consecrated hours to religious offices like an

idle devotee.

" One day (here is one of his pregnant and piquant parables)

Narada thought that he was the most pious of men. The Lord

145 L

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

" Your duty as a married man is to live with your wife

as brother and sister as soon as one or two children have

been born, and to pray to God that you may be granted

the power to live a perfect spiritual life exercising self-

control." 6

" Undoubtedly a man, who has once tasted the bliss of

God, finds the world insipid. To lead a religious life in the

world is to stay in a room with only a feeble ray of light.

Those who are used to the open air cannot live in prison. 6

But, if you live in a house, you have duties to perform.

Learn in accomplishing them always to enjoy the ray of

light. Do not lose a particle of it, and never lose touch

with it ; when you are at work, use only one of your hands,

and let the other touch the feet of the Lord. When your

work is suspended, take His feet in both your hands and

put them over your heart ! . . . 7 What will you gain, if

you renounce the world ? Family life is a fortress for you.

Moreover, he who has attained knowledge, is always free.

It is only the lunatic who says, ' I am enchained/ that

ends by being so. ... The mind is all in all. If it is free,

you are free. Whether in the forest or in the world I am

not enchained. I am the son of God, the King of kings.

Who then dare put me in chains ? . . ."

So he offered each one the means of freedom to drink

from an inner spring, to share the joy of universal Existence,

which is God, contained within each and every individual,

without going against his own nature, without mutilating

it or " forcing "it, and above all without wronging one

told him to go and see a peasant who was more pious than he.

He went. The peasant invoked the name of Hari when he got

up and when he went to bed ; the rest of the day he worked in the

fields. Narada did not understand. Then the Lord told him to

take a cup filled to the brim with oil and to cany it round the

town without spilling a drop. Narada obeyed. When he came

back without having spilt a drop, the Lord asked, ' How many

times did you think of Me ? ' ' Lord, how could I think of you ?

My mind was concentrated on the cup of oil.' Thus the Lord made

Narada understand how great was the peasant's devotion, who, in

spite of his work, did not forget to call upon His name. 11 (Sri

Ramakrishna's Teachings, I, 45.)

'Gospel, I, 403.

Interview with Trailokya Nath Sanyal.

T Interview with Keshab and his disciples, 1882.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

hair of the head of anyone dependent upon him. Far

from forbidding a man to feel legitimate affection, he showed

it to be a means of enlightenment, a peaceful canal with

beautiful reflections, leading the pure and the simple to

God. Here is a charming example :

The daughter of one of his disciples (Manila! Mallik)

was troubled. She told him sorrowfully that when she

prayed she could not concentrate. Ramakrishna asked

her :

" What do you love best in the world ? "

She replied that it was her brother's little child.

" Very well," answered the affectionate Master, " fix

your thoughts upon him/'

She did so and through the little boy she grew in devotion

to the child Krishna. 8

How I love this flower of tenderness in him ! What deep

significance it has ! Each one of us, be his heart as dark

as night, has the divine spark in the most humble impulse

of true love. There is nobody quite destitute of a tiny

lamp, just enough to light up his path. And all ways are

good ways even the bad ones, 9 and each individual destiny,

provided that every man follows his own with loyal sincerity.

8 Here is another anecdote of the same kind :

A good grandmother grew old, and wished to adopt a religious

life at Brindaban. Ramakrishna dissuaded her, on the ground that

she loved her granddaughter too much and that her meditations

would be troubled by thoughts of her. He added :

" All the good you could expect from living at Brindaban will

come of its own accord to you, if you cultivate your sweet affection

for your granddaughter in the thought that she is Sri Radhika

Herself. Fondle her just as much as you are wont ; feed and dress

her to your heart's content but^ always think to yourself that in

those acts you are offering your worship to the goddess of

Brindaban/' (Sri Ramakrishna' s Teachings, par. 70.)

And so live your life and love your dear ones in innocence and

peace ! This means that you see God under their veil and give

Him thanks. , ,

" The vital point is your ardent desire for truth, whatever be

the path you follow. God knows the secrets of your heart ; and

it matters little if you take the wrong path, so long as you are sincere.

He Himself will lead you back to the right path It is well-known

that no road is perfect. Each person believes that his watch goes

well, but in truth none knows the correct time. But that does not

hinder people's work/ 1 (Life of Sri Ramaknshna, p. 647.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

The rest is God's business. Have confidence then and go

forward !

Therefore live your life and love your loved ones in all

innocence and peace ; all you have to do is to see God

under their dear shapes and give thoughts to Him.

And how deeply and indulgently Ramakrishna's maternal

eye penetrated and understood, so that he knew how to

guide the troubled souls of the most lost of his children,

is shown in a story worthy of the Franciscan legends of his

relations with the comedian, Girish Chunder Ghosh.

This great actor and dramatist was a Bohemian and a

debauchee, a rebel against God, although his genius enabled

him on occasions to write beautiful religious works. 10 But

he regarded such writings as a game. He did not realize

a fact that struck Ramakrishna at the first glance, that he

himself was the plaything of God.

He heard people talk of the Paramahamasa, and was

curious to see him, as he might have been curious to see

a freak in a circus. At their first meeting he was drunk

and he insulted him. Ramakrishna in a calm and bantering

tone said to him,

" At least you might drink to God ; Perhaps He drinks

as well. . . ."

The drunkard, his mouth agape, exclaimed,

" How do you know ? "

" If He did not drink, how could He have created this

topsy-turvy world ? "

Girish remained in stupefied silence. When he had gone,

Ramakrishna said quietly to his astounded disciples :

" That man is a great devotee u of God/ 1

At his own invitation he went to see Girish act in his

Calcutta theatre. 12 Girish w4s vain and looked for com-

pliments. But Ramakrishna said to him,

" My son, you suffer from a crooked soul."

10 Some of them have been translated from Bengali into English.

He is regarded as one of the greatest Bengali dramatists.

11 " Devotee " is used here, as elsewhere in this book, as mean-

ing, devoted to God, one who has given himself wholly to God.

11 Towards the end of 1884. He was present at one of the first

performances of Chaitanya-lila and in 1885 he saw performances of

four or five other plays of Girish, in particular the dramatized life

of Buddha.

I 4 8

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

Girish was furious and loaded him with insults. Rama-

krishna blessed him and went away. The next day Girish

came to beg his pardon, and became a disciple of Rama-

krishna. But he could not give up drinking. Ramakrishna

never asked him to do so, with the result that eventually

Girish broke the habit ; for Ramakrishna had strengthened

his resolution by allowing him to feel that he was absolutely

free.

But this was not enough. Ramakrishna told him that

to refrain from doing evil was too negative a virtue ; he

must draw near to God. Girish found this impossible, for

he had never been able to submit to discipline. In despair

he said that he would prefer suicide to meditation and

prayer.

" I am not asking you for much," Ramakrishna replied.

" Just one prayer before you eat, and one prayer before

you go to bed. Can you not do it ? "

" No ; I hate routine. I cannot pray or meditate. I

cannot even think of God for a second/'

" Good/ 1 replied Ramakrishna. " Well, if you really

desire to see the Lord, but if at the same time you will

not take a single step towards Him, will you make me

your proxy ? I will do your praying for you, while you

will lead your own life. But take care ; you must promise

me to live from henceforth absolutely at the Lord's mercy/'

Girish accepted his suggestion without fully realizing the

consequences. His life was no longer under the control of

his own will, but at the mercy of inner forces, like a leaf

in the wind, or like a kitten whose mother can carry it

equally well on to a king's bed as a dustheap. 18 He had

to accept this condition without demur, and it was not

easy. Girish struggled loyally, but once he was driven to

say,

" Yes, I will do it."

" What is that ? " Ramakrishna cried sternly. " You

have no longer the will to do or not to do. Remember,

* " Like a cat " (Marjari) is the classical simile of the Bhakti.

The cat saves its kittens by carrying them inert. Certain sects

of Southern India conceive thus of salvation. They believe it is

accomplished exclusively by God. (Cf . Paul Masson-Oursel : Sketch

of the History of Indian Philosophy, p. 247.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

I am your proxy. Your behaviour is according to the

will of the Lord within you. I pray for you ; but my

prayers will avail nothing unless you abandon all initiative."

Girish submitted, and the result of this discipline was

that after a time he attained self-surrender to the impersonal

Self ; he was conquered by God.

But he did not renounce his profession as dramatist

and actor, and Ramakrishna never desired it. Instead he

purified it. He had been the first to introduce women

on to the Bengal stage, and now he rescued many unfor-

tunate girls from misery and uplifted them. Afterwards

he took them to Ramakrishna's monastery. He became

one of the most religious followers of the Master, one of

the greatest of his householder disciples. Notwithstanding

his freedom of speech and caustic humour, he was respected

and venerated after the Master's death by the monastic

disciples.

As he was dying, he said,

" The folly of matter is a terrible veil. Take it away

from my eyes, Ramakrishna ! " 14

And so, his religious sense, a sixth sense more highly

developed in him than any of the others, revealed to Rama-

krishna those among the passers-by, who were predestined

for a divine sowing, those in whom God was sleeping.

One glance, one gesture, was enough to awaken it. Nearly

all the disciples yielded to him at the first meeting, the

vibrations of their inner being whether they wished to

do so or not. He scrutinized them through and through.

Other men had only their own salvation to find, but the

true disciples were to be leaders and have the charge of

other souls. That was why* when they were recruited,

they were, as I have said, subjected to physical 16 and moral

examination, followed after their admission by a paternal

and ever watchful discipline.

He preferred them young, sometimes very young, hardly

14 1 have followed the narrative of D. G. Mukerji in this account.

11 He was very particular about perfect health. The chief dis-

ciples, Vivekananda, Brahmananda, Saradananda, Turiyananda,

etc., seem to have been of athletic build, tall and broad, and pos-

sessing rare physical strength. I repeat that he was always careful

to examine the tongue, the chest, the working of the organs, before

sanctioning the exercises of intensive meditation.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

adolescent, 16 and unmarried, " not yet caught in the net

of desire, nor entrapped by riches, free from ties. . . ."

If, like Brahmananda, they were married, he examined

the wife as well, and satisfied himself that she would help

and not hinder her young husband in his mission. In

general the disciples of this unlettered man were well-

educated and knew at least one foreign language in addition

to Sanskrit. But this was not an essential ; the example

of Latu is significant, although it may be said that he was

the exception to prove the rule. A humble and ignorant

servant, a peasant of Behar and a stranger to Bengal, he

was awakened to eternal life by one glance from Rama-

krishna, for he possessed unwittingly the same genius of

heart as the Master. 17

" Many of us," said Swami Turiyananda, " had to go

through the muddy waters of knowledge before we attained

God, but Latu jumped over them, like Hanuman."

* * *

What did Ramakrishna teach his disciples ? Vivekan-

anda has emphasized the originality of his methods, especially

in the India of his day ; since then some of his educational

principles have been adopted and systematized by the new

schools of Europe. Up to that time in India the word of

the master was law. A Guru exacted from his Chelas (pupils)

a deeper respect than that paid to parents. Ramakrishna

would have none of it. He put himself on a level with

his young disciples. He was their companion, their brother ;

he talked familiarly with tlapji and without any trace of

superiority. The advice he gave them was not his own*

It came from the Mother through his lips. "What has

1 Turiyananda was fourteen yws old, Subodhananda seventeen.

17 Few lives of saints are more moving than that of this boy

servant of a householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who came

by boat up the Ganges on behalf of his master to lay an offering

at Ramakrishna's feet. Their glances met. Two days later Latu

came and gave himself to the Master a gift for life. He was so

completely emptied of self that he feared, even when he was doing

good, lest he should be caught again in the trap of self-love or of

routine ; he was only reassured when he felt himself fused in the

goodness of God. This illiterate man understood the profound

language of music. When he was dying, " Spitting his body " to

use his own rude expression, he cried in ecstasy, " I hear the sound

of a flute. At last I am going to His meeting-place."

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

it to do with me ? " Moreover, words are mere accessories ;

they are not instruction. True instruction does not consist

in inculcating doctrine 18 but in " communicating/' But

what is to be communicated ? A man's self ? Not even

that, or rather something more than that the One self.

Or we may describe it as the condition of inward abundance,

of vital and digested riches called " Spirituality/' And

this is to be communicated " as a flower might be given/'

in the same way that a good gardener dispenses the sun

and the sheltering shade to the budding souls entrusted

to him, so that they may blossom and exhale their spiritual

perfume. That is all. The rest comes from within them.

" When the lotus is full blown, the bees come and collect

the honey. Let the lotus of character expand naturally."

Still less was there any question of imposing his own

ideas upon them. There was to be no established Credo ;

I have already quoted his words :

" Mother do not expound beliefs through my voice ; "

And ritual even less ;

" God cannot be won by a system of ritual," but only

by love and sincerity.

There were no fruitless discussions on metaphysics and

theology ;

" I do not like argument. God is above the powers of

reason. I see that all which exists is God. Then of what

avail to reason ? . . . Go into the garden, eat the sacred

mangoes and go out again ; You do not go in to count

the leaves on the mango tree. So why waste time in

disputes about reincarnation or idolatry ? " 19

What then did matter ? Personal experience. Experi-

ment first and then believe yi God. Belief ought not to

precede but to follow religious experience. If it comes

first, it is inconsistent.

Nevertheless Ramakrishna presupposed his own belief

that God is in everything, that He is everything, and that

1 " Do not trouble yourselves with doctrine ; It is the Essence

of existence in each man, which counts ; and this is spirituality.

You must acquire it."

According to Vivekananda the principle of his teaching was,

" First form character, first earn spirituality, and results will come

of themselves." (My Master.)

19 Cf. The Gospel, passim.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

it therefore follows that whoever opens his eyes and looks

around him will of necessity end by meeting Him. This

union with God was such a deep and constant 20 reality

in his case that he did not feel any need to prove it, and

he would never have dreamt of imposing it upon others.

He was too certain that every sane and sincere seeker

would arrive at it by himself, and through himself alone.

His sole care was to make his disciples sane and sincere.

But who can gauge the moral influence of such a being

wholly impregnated with God ? It is obvious that his

tranquil and constant vision was intermingled with his

flesh, like the scent of pines in autumn honey, and hence

it would percolate over the tongues of his young and starving

disciples, who drank in eagerly his gestures and his move-

ments. But he himself had no suspicion of it. He left

them free, so he believed. He believed that God was

simply spreading His perfume through his substance, like

thyme when the wind blows over it. The thyme makes no

effort to convince you. All you have to do is to smell its

fresh scent.

This then was the essential part of Ramakrishna's dis-

cipline. A man must have and keep his body, senses and

spirit honest and pure, unspotted, unworn, as young as

Adam.

To achieve this the first rule was continence.

This rule, which our anti-clerics of the West claim with

ingenuous ignorance to be a monopoly of the Church of

Rome, and against which they are never tired of launching

their old and blunted arrows, is as old as the world

(though if the whole world had applied it rigorously it

would obviously never have Jived to grow old). All great

10 It even reached the pitch of hallucination ;

" Do you know what I see ? I see Him in all things. Man and

the other creatures seem to me like miniature figures clothed in

flesh ; and it is the Lord within them that moves head and feet

and hands. Once I had this Vision : One Substance alone had

taken all the forms of the Cosmos and all living creatures a wax

house, with garden, men, cows, all of wax nothing but wax "

(Gospel, I, 437.)

" One day it was revealed to me that everything is Pure Spirit ;

the temple vessels, the altar, men, beasts all pure Spirit ; and

like a madman I began to rain flowers over everything. Every-

thing that I saw, I worshipped. . . ."

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

mystics and the majority of great idealists, the giants

among the creators of the spirit, have clearly and instinc-

tively realized what formidable power of concentrated soul,

of accumulated creative energy, is generated by a renuncia-

tion of the organic and psychic expenditure of sexuality.

Even such free thinkers in matters of faith, and such sensu-

alists as Beethoven, Balzac and Flaubert, have felt this.

" Let me keep it for a higher purpose " (for God and

creative art), Beethoven cried one day when he had repulsed

the appeal of carnal passion. For a still stronger reason

the impassioned of God cannot bear any division of them-

selves ; for they know that their God will refuse to visit

them in a house cumbered and soiled with desire. (Not

only is the act called in question but the thought even

more so.) It is not enough to practise sexual continence

if concupiscence is hidden in the secrets of the heart ;

for this would be impotence another sin rather than

freedom. The rule is inflexible for Hindu Sannyasin ; and

the spiritual guides as different as the tender, serene, almost

feminine Ramakrishna and the masculine, ardent and pas-

sionate Vivekananda, a torch of passion shaken by all

winds that blow, allowed no compromise.

" Absolute continence must be practised, if God is to

be realized. If a man remains absolutely continent for

twelve years, he achieves superhuman power. A new nerve

develops in him, called " the nerve of intelligence." He

can remember everything and know everything. Renuncia-

tion of Kamini-Kanchana (woman and gold) is essential." n

Poverty, chastity, the mystic marriage of St. Francis.

The prescriptions of Churches and Sacred Books are super-

fluous ; for kindred spirits of Jhe East and the West have

arrived at the same conclusions and the same results.

Generally speaking the man who dedicates himself to the

inner life (whether it be called Christ, Shiva, or Krishna,

or the pure idea of thought and art) " must have absolute

empire over his senses." fl

But that is not enough. Those (and they are in the

11 Gospel of Ramakrishna, II, 223 et seq. t I, 252 et seq. The ques-

tion is there treated by the Master in frank and open terms without

any false modesty.

11 Gospel of Ramakrishna, II, 223.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

majority) who have to remain in contact with the world

and to work in it, must exercise the same " empire " over

the object of their work and the intellectual passions that

feed it. They must take care not to become the slaves

of any activity, however noble, to which they may be

devoted. 23

" You cannot escape work, because nature (Prakriti)

drives you to it. That being so, let all work be done as

it should be done ! Then if it is done without attachment

it leads to God, and is a means to attain the end and

the end is God."

" Without attachment " does not imply without con-

science, or zeal of love of good work, but only with dis-

interestedness.

" To work without attachment is to work without the

hope of reward or the fear of punishment, either in this

world or in any other. . . ."

But Ramakrishna was too human not to know that

such an ideal is very rarely attained by frail humanity.

" To work without attachment is extremely difficult,

especially in our days, and can only be realized by a chosen

few. ..."

But it is a common duty to aspire at least to such detach-

ment, and fervent prayer and true charity are aids to it.

But stop ; the word charity is an equivocal one. Charity

and philanthropy are usually classed as synonyms. Rama-

krishna evinced a curious mistrust of the latter, unsurpassed

by any of our Western satirists such as Dickens or Mirabeau,

and he unmasked with laugh or insult the hypocrisy of

certain " philanthropists," although he ran the risk of

shocking many good people. ,More than once Ramakrishna

told his faithful followers to be on their guard against

ostentatious philanthropy. His intuition of the secret work-

11 High disinterestedness with regard to their work has been

shown by some of the most beautiful artists and proudest Chris-

tian savants of the West even in the sceptical eighteenth century.

I have admired it in men as proud as Gluck and Handel, as sensually

human as Hasse and Mozart ; each showed complete indifference

to the fate of their work after their death, leaving it, like Racine,

to die in the full flood of creative power. I venture to say that

no man has been able to achieve greatness unless he has attained

to this height.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

ings of the heart led him to discover only too often in the

activities and professions of charitable faith nothing but

egoism, vanity, a desire for glory, or merely a barren agita-

tion, which, without real love behind it, seeks to kill the

boredom of life ; when it throws its mite to misery it is

in reality trying to rid itself of its own haunting troubled

vision rather than to help the unfortunate. To the good

Mallik, who spoke to him about founding hospitals and

relief works, he said,

" Yes, but only on condition that you remain ' detached '

(that is to say entirely disinterested) in doing good/ 1

He was almost carried away when he talked with worldly

men, such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the novelist,

or with the manager of a newspaper (the Hindu Patriot),

of so little account did he hold the intentions, the depth

of soul and above all the acts of those, whose mouth is

full of good works roads and works of public utility, etc.

He denied that a single real or durable good could emerge

from corrupt souls. First then men must purge themselves

of their egoism, and not till that has been accomplished

can they work usefully for the world.

In order to elucidate Ramakrishna's attitude in this

connection, I have asked many questions of the most

authoritative of his still living disciples, those who represent

his doctrine Swami Shivananda and Swami Ashokananda,

and they have been at great pains to answer me. But

in spite of some isolated instances, quoted above, attesting

to the active philanthropy of Ramakrishna, they have not

been able to prove that well-doing by works occupied any

essential place in his teaching. This would be a grave

charge (I say it in all loyalty), from the Western point of

view which puts deeds before intentions, and the good of

others before individual salvation, if we did not remember,

first, that Ramakrishna repudiated the egoism of individual

salvation just as much as philanthropy without disinterested

love, and, next, that his object was to light the lamp of

charity in every heart.

What then is the difference between charity and self-

love ? t4 Charity is the love emanating from us, not

14 " Self-Love," it goes without saying, is used in its classical

meaning of " Love of Self."

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

limited in its application to self, family, sect, and country.

Therefore a charity, which raises and leads men to God, 25

is to be cultivated.

For Ramakrishna charity meant nothing less than the

love of God in all men; for God is incarnate in man. 26

Nobody can truly love man, and hence nobody can help

him unless he loves the God in him. And the corollary

also holds good : nobody can really know God unless he

has seen Him in every man. 27

This is what the Abbot of the Order, Shivananda, the

man whose task is to represent the true spirit of Rama-

krishna in these days, wrote to me M lines whose spiritual

sense will be familiar to the readers of Pascal :

" You appear to conceive some distinction between the

realization of the Divinity in man and the consciousness

of universal suffering with regard to motives for service.

It seems to me that these are merely two aspects of the

same state of mind and not two different ones. It is only

by realizing the Divinity inherent in man that we can

truly grasp the depths of his misery ; for not till then

will his condition of spiritual servitude, and his lack of

perfection and divine happiness appeal to our conscience as

almost tangible evidence. It is the sad feeling of contrast

between the Divinity in man and his present ignorant

state with all the suffering it entails that pricks the heart

to serve mankind. Without the realization of this Divine

Spirit in himself and in others true sympathy, true love,

true service are impossible. That is why Sri Ramakrishna

wished his disciples to attain Self-realization. Otherwise

they could not consecrate themselves profitably to the

service of humanity/' 29

"Gospel of Ramakrishna, I, 261.

** " You are seeking God ? Very well, look for Him in man ;

The Divinity manifests itself in man more than in any other object.

In truth God is everything ; but his power is more or less mani-

fest in other objects. God incarnate in man is the most manifest

power of God in the flesh. . . . Man is the greatest manifestation

of God." (Gospel, I, 350.)

17 " The attainment of perfect knowledge is to see God in every

man." (Ibid., Vol. II.)

" December 7, 1927.

19 And again Swami Ashokananda wrote : " Service originates

from love and sympathy in the ordinary plane. But . . . when

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

But meanwhile humanity is suffering, humanity is dying,

abandoned. Is it to be left without help ? Certainly

not. For that which Ramakrishna never accomplished,

which in fact he never could have accomplished within

the bounds of his Karma and the limited horizon of his

life (a life even then drawing to its close), he left to his

greatest disciple, the heir of his word, Vivekananda to

the man, whom indeed it was his particular mission to

summon from the ranks of mankind to come to mankind's

rescue. To him, almost in spite of himself, he entrusted

the task of working in the world and of " alleviating the

misery of the humble and the poor.' 1 80

And Vivekananda brought a devouring passion and

energy of action to it ; for his was a nature cast in a very

different mould from his master's, one unable to wait a

single day, a single hour before coming to the help of misery.

He suffered it in his own flesh. It haunted him. It wrung

from him cries of despair. He did not possess the strange

serenity wherein, during his last years, the spirit of Rama-

krishna floated that disembodied spirit that had pene-

trated into the redoubtable sphere of a Beyond where

good and evil were not : " The Absolute is without attach-

ment to the good as well as to the evil. It is like the light

of a lamp. You can with its help read the Holy Scriptures,

but you can equally well commit forgery by the same

light. . . . Whatever the sin, the evil or the misery we

find in the world, they are only misery, evil or sin in relation

to us. The Absolute is above and beyond. Its sun lights

the evil as well as the good. 31 I am afraid that you must

accept the facts of the universe as they are. It is not

we learn to look upon suffering humanity as only God in different

forms, we find that the consciousness of the Divine in men is the

motive of service, and such service becomes a potent means of God-

realization/' (Prabuddha Bharata, February, 1928.) Dare I say

that it seems to me still more beautiful, still purer and higher to

love and to serve the " suffering " without any thought of the " Divine "

simply because it is suffering, and that forgetfulness of the Divine

is perhaps nearer to the Divine than perpetual preoccupation with

it, since it does not allow of the maintenance of any trace of " attach-

ment " in the sense implied by Ramakrishna ?

* The beautiful episode of 1886 will appear later, as it was told

to me by Swami Shivananda, an eye-witness.

M Gospel, I, 6, 87.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

given to man to penetrate clearly the ways of the Lord. 82

I see and I realize that all three are of the same substance

the victim of the sacrifice, the block and the executioner.

. . . Ah, what a vision." 8S

Yes, the vision has a tragic grandeur akin to the ocean.

And it is good that all visible souls should plunge into it

and renew their strength from time to time. It was well

that at the bottom of his tender heart Ramakrishna kept

its sovereign roaring and salt tang. But it is not for

ordinary mortals. They run the risk of being maddened

or petrified by terror. Their weakness is not fitted to

achieve the synthesis of the Absolute and the Ego. In

order that their vital spark may not be extinguished, " the

wand of the ego imposed upon the ocean of Satchidananda

(Being, Knowledge, Happiness) must be preserved/' It

may be no more than " a line traced upon the water/'

but " if you take it away, nothing remains but the one

undivided Ocean." 34 So keep it as a protection against

vertigo. God himself has allowed this semblance to support

the stumbling steps of His children. They are none the

less His. To those who asked Ramakrishna anxiously,

" Lord, you speak to us of those who realize the Unity :

' I am He ' ... But what of those who cannot do so,

those who say : ' Thou art not me. I seek Thee/ What

becomes of them ? " He replied with a reassuring smile,

" There is no difference : whether you call Him ' Thou '

or call Him ' I am He. 1 Men that realize Him through

' Thou ' have a very lovely relation with Him. It is very

much like that of an old trusted servant with his Master.

As they both grow old, the Master leans and depends on

his friend the servant, more and more. . . . The Master

consults his servant regarding every serious matter that

he wishes to undertake. One day ... the Master takes

him by the hand, then seats him on his own august seat.

The servant is embarrassed and . . . says, ' What are you

doing, my Lord ? ' But the Master holds him on the

throne next to Himself saying, ' You are the same as I,

my Beloved.' " *

Ramakrishna could always adapt his thought to the

Gospel, I, 101. ' Ibid., I, 437- i4 && IL

" Cf. Mukerji, op. cit., p. 161.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

range of vision of each individual disciple ; and far from

destroying the fragile equilibrium of the human spirit, he

was careful to establish it by delicately graduating the

proportion of the elements constituting it. He could be

seen changing his method according to each temperament

to such an extent that he sometimes seemed to hold con-

tradictory views. He counselled energy to the angelic

Yogananda, whose excessive good nature led him into error.

" A devotee ought not to be a fool."

He scolded him severely for not knowing how to defend

himself. But he vehemently enjoined the violent Niran-

janananda, ever ready to march against an enemy or to

attack anyone who had insulted him, to cultivate a mild

and forgiving spirit in face of injury. In the disciples

" of the heroic type," he tolerated certain weaknesses, which

he denied to the weaker ones, because the former could

not be permanently affected by them. With unerring tact

he knew how to calculate the force of reaction in each

being.

It might have been expected that a man who lived in

constant contact with the Absolute beyond the norm con-

trolling the course of ordinary life, would have been incapable

of understanding and guiding the thousand nuances of daily

action. But the contrary was true in the case of Rama-

krishna. His freedom from the chains of Illusion removed

in the first instance the blinkers of all his prejudices, fanati-

cism and narrowness of heart and mind. And as there

was no longer any impediment to his free and frank regard,

he judged all things and all men with laughing good sense.

One of his Socratic discussions would have surprised a

hearer of to-day. They are often nearer to Montaigne and

Erasmus than to the Galilean. Their ironic turn, their

gay humour have a refreshing effect. The ardent atmo-

sphere of Bengal must have doubled their appeal to young

brains, always ready to be carried away. I will here give

two piquant examples of them ; the parables of the Elephant

and the Serpent. In the former Ramakrishna with divert-

ing irony warned his disciples against the two opposite

extremes of violence and absolute non-resistance. In the

latter he seems to be treating himself ironically ; he had

perceived the dangers of amoralism and of indifference to

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

action, which tend to give young heads the sun-stroke of

the omnipresent God, and he banteringly gauged the degree

of His presence in us and our surroundings, and the hier-

archy of his forms and laws.

The Elephant

" Once upon a time there lived in a certain forest a holy

man, who had a great number of disciples. One day he

taught them as follows : ' God/ he said, ' is in everything.

Therefore we ought to bow our heads in adoration before

every single object in the world/ It happened that one

of his disciples had gone to collect wood for the sacrificial

fire. Suddenly he heard a shout : ' Scatter ; Scatter : A

mad elephant is coming ; ' Immediately they all fled,

except one, who reasoned thus : ' The elephant is God in

one form ; why then should I run away ? ' So he stayed

where he was, he bowed to the elephant as the Lord, and

began to sing his praises. The elephant-driver yelled :

' Save yourself ! Save yourself ! . . / But the disciple

would not move a single step. The elephant seized him

in its trunk and flung him a great distance. The unfortunate

man remained motionless, stunned, bruised and bleeding.

When his Master heard what had happened he ran to his

assistance with the others. They carried him into the house

and cared for his wounds. When he recovered consciousness

they asked him : ' Why did you not save yourself when

you heard the elephant-driver shout ? ' The young man

replied, ' Our Master had just taught us that God reveals

Himself in every living creature. I thought of the elephant

as God, and so I did not want to leave the place/ Then

the Guru said to him, ' My son, it was true that it was an

elephant God who appeared ; But did not the elephant-

driver God tell you to seek shelter ? It is quite true that

God reveals Himself in all things, but if He is manifest in

the elephant, is He not just as much manifest in the elephant-

driver if not more ? Tell me then why you paid no

attention to his warning. . . / " 86

And here is the substance of a mischievous conversation

of the Master with the youthful Vivekananda :

"Gospel, I, 56.

161 M

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

The Serpent

The Master (smiling) : " What think you, Narendra ? 87

People who live in the world often express themselves

very bitterly with regard to those who live in God. When

an elephant goes his way along the highroad, a crowd of

curs and other animals always run after him, yapping and

snapping at his heels. But he takes no notice and proceeds

along his own undeviating way. Suppose, my child, people

speak evil of you behind your back, what would you do ? "

Narendra (scornfully) : "I should regard them as the

curs in the street barking at my heels/'

The Master (laughing) : " No, my child, you must never

go as far as that. Remember that God dwells in all things

animate and inanimate. So all things deserve our respect.

. . . The only thing that we can do in our intercourse

with men, is to take care that we consort with the good

and avoid the society of the wicked. It is true that God

is even in the tiger. But it does not follow that we ought

to put our arms round his neck and press him to our heart."

(The disciples laughed.)

Narendra : " Must one then remain quiet, if rogues insult

one ? "

The Master : " Once upon a time there was a field

wherein herd boys watched over their cattle. In the

same field lived a terrible and poisonous serpent. One

day a holy man happened to pass by. The children ran

to him and cried : ' Holy man, do not go that way. Beware

of the serpent/ ' My children/ said the holy man, ' I am

not afraid of your serpent. I know the Mantras which

will keep me safe from all harm/ So saying, he continued

his way. . . . The serpeitf saw him and came towards

him raising his hood. The holy man murmured a charm,

and the serpent fell at his feet as powerless as an earth-

worm. ' Well/ said the holy man, ' Why do you behave

thus, doing evil to others ? I am going to give you a

Sacred name (that of God) to repeat, and you will learn

to love God : in the end you will see Him ; and the desire

to do evil will leave you/ He whispered the Sacred Name

in the serpent's ear. The serpent bowed and said, ' O

17 1 would remind the reader that Narendra or Narenwas^the real

name of Vivekananda.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

Master, what must I do to be saved ? ' ' Repeat the Sacred

Name/ said the holy man, ' and do no ill to any living

creature ; I shall come again to see how you have been

behaving/ And so saying, the holy man departed. . . .

Days went by. The little herd boys noticed that the

serpent did not bite. They threw stones at it. It remained

as quiet and inoffensive as an earthworm. One of the

little wretches took it by the tail, waved it round his head

and then threw it against the stones several times. The

serpent vomited blood and was left for dead. During the

night he came to himself ; slowly, slowly he dragged himself

to his hole ; his body was broken in pieces. After several

days he was nothing but a skeleton ; it took him so much

time before he could drag himself out to look for food.

For fear of the children he only went out at night. From

the time of his initiation by the Brahmin he had stopped

doing evil to any creature. As well as he could he tried

to live on leaves and other wisps. The holy man returned.

He looked everywhere in order to find the serpent. The

children told him that he was dead. The Brahmin was

astonished ; he knew that the name of the Lord, which

the serpent repeated, had the spiritual power to make

death impossible before the problem of life had been solved,

that is to say, before God had been seen. He recommenced

his search, and called the serpent several times by name.

The serpent came out of his hole, and bowed to his teacher.

The following dialogue took place.

The Holy Man : Well, how are you ?

The Serpent : Thank you, Master. By the grace of God

I am very well.

The Holy Man : How is it^ then, that you are nothing

but skin and bone ? What has happened to you ?

The Serpent : O Master, in obedience to your command

I tried not to harm any living creature. I have been

living on leaves and other scraps. And so it is possible

that I have grown thinner.

The Holy Man : I fear that it is not simply a change

of diet that has brought you to this state. There must

have been something else. Tell me 1

The Serpent: Ah; ... perhaps ... yes ... Icansee

what it was without a doubt. One day the little herd boys

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

treated me rather badly. They took me by the tail, and

banged me against the stones several times very hard.

Poor children ! They had no idea of the change that had

taken place in me. How were they to know that I would

not bite anyone ?

The Holy Man : But what madness ! what madness !

you must be an idiot not to know to stop your enemies

from ill-treating you thus. . . . What I forbade you to

do was to bite any of God's creatures. But why did you

not hiss at those who wanted to kill you, so as to frighten

them? . . ."

And Ramakrishna looked at his disciples with a twinkle

in his eye :

" So raise your hood. . . . But do not bite ; . . . A

man living in society, particularly if he is a citizen and

the father of a family, ought to pretend to resist evil in

order to defend himself. But he must at the same time

be very careful not to return evil for evil."

I will not vouch for the practical and moral excellence

of this last receipt, which savours rather of " Si vis pacem,

para bellum ; " a fallacy this generation has been obliged

to expose, to its cost. But I will preserve the mocking

smile of this spiritual story-teller, so reminiscent of La

Fontaine. We must necessarily also consider Ramakrishna's

method as at bottom a means to re-establish equilibrium

in the ship of action, swinging perilously and driven by

opposing winds from one bank to another, by interposing

a common-sense view between the two extremes.

It is obvious that he practised and professed " Ahimsa "

(hurt nothing) quite as much as Gandhi. He specifically

proclaimed it, not only with regard to man but all living

creatures. 88

ai Here is another sheaf of beautiful stories :

First this admirable parable : " God in Everything ' (Gospel, II,

129).

" Once upon a time there was a monastery, whose inmates went

out every day to beg. One day a monk, having issued forth to

seek food, found a Zemindar (rural proprietor) beating a poor man

very severely. . . . He interfered. . . . The Zemindar in a furious

rage turned his anger against the monk and beat him until he lost

consciousness. The other monks, warned of what had happened,

came running up ; they found him lying on the ground, carried

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

But he was more of a humorist and more versatile than

Gandhi, never anxious to lay down one definite rule, but

weighing in one glance the pros and cons of a question. The

result was that this passionate lover of the Absolute possessed

in the world of Maya a very fine sense of the golden mean,

and although, like the Mother, he flung up kite souls into

the vault of heaven, he always brought them back to earth

by the string of common sense if the hour had not yet come

for them to fly away.

He made them remain in the world so that they might

teach it ; but first they had to be taught themselves

him gently to the Math (Monastery) and laid him upon his bed.

Sitting round him sadly they fanned him, and one gently poured

a little milk into his mouth. After a time he came to himself,

opened his eyes and looked around him. One of them, anxious to

know if he recognized his brethren, cried in his ear, ' Brother, who

poured the milk into your mouth ? ' The monk replied in a faint

voice, ' Brother, He who beat me, He Himself poured the milk

into my mouth. . . .' "

And this anecdote (Life of Ramakrishna, p. 620) :

" Young Kali used to go fishing. The Master asked him, ' Why

are you so cruel ? ' Kali replied, ' I am not doing anything wrong.

We are all Atman and Atman is immortal, so I do not really kill

the fishes/ The Master said to him, ' My dear child, you deceive

yourself. A man of realization (that is to say, one who realizes the

Divinity in himself) can never be cruel to others. It is a physical

impossibility. He could not even think of it. . . .' "

(Cf. Life of Ramakrishna, p. 417 ; Gospel, II, 204. Ramakrishna

himself reached such a point that he was unwilling to pick the

flowers for the offerings of worship.)

Finally, this moving scene was enacted, as has been recorded by

Swami Saradananda :

" One day (in 1884) Ramakrishna was talking to his disciples.

He was explaining to them the essential principles of the Vaish-

navite religion, of which one is ' Kindness to all creatures/ ' This

Universe belongs to Krishna. Know this in the depth of your

being, and be kind to all creatures. Kind to all creatures/ he

repeated ajid passed into Samadhi (ecstasy). Coming to himself,

he murmured, ' Kind to all creatures . . . Kind ? . . . Are you

not ashamed, insignificant insect ? How can you show pity to

God's creatures ? Who are you to show mercy ? . . . No, No.

Mercy is impossible. Serve them as if they were Shiva ; . '

" Thereupon Naren (Vivekananda), as he went out -^

others, expounded to them the deep meaning of these WOE

they had only half understood. He interpreted them ff _

of the doctrine of Service, which reconciled the high Mftf4f God

with beneficent activity/'

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

they had to gain an exact knowledge of their own nature,

and the natures of others round them and the Divine Essence

permeating them all ; most of them only attained it by

laborious, gradual and constant progress ; for this knowledge

had to be won by their own efforts, although doubtless they

could call upon the paternal help of the Guru ; but the will

of the Guru was never substituted for their own ; he was

only there to help them to find their bearings. With a few

exceptions he refused to interfere 89 in order to modify their

will during the first stages, when they were the builders of

t9 In general, but not always, he refused to do so. (Further on

you will read of his conquest of Vivekananda ; but then, the pos-

session of that royal prey was vital ; moreover, Vivekananda was

of a stature to defend himself, as will be seen.) But even when

Ramakrishna wished to leave his disciples their freedom, was he

always able to do so ? He possessed curious and formidable powers

of Yoga. He used them as little as possible, for he detested occult

methods, and was absolutely opposed to " miracles " ; he did not

think that they were impossible, but that they were useless and

even harmful. He showed the same repugnance to them as Christ ;

so-called supernatural powers seemed to him a hindrance in the

path of spiritual perfection, which ought to be the natural fruit of

the heart. But was he always sufficiently master of such powers

not to use them ? Tulasi (Nirmalananda) had not yet met him

and was waiting on a verandah ; he saw a man pass by absorbed,

with uncertain gait. This man (it was Ramakrishna) gave him one

glance without stopping. Tulasi felt a sort of creeping sensation

in his bosom and remained paralysed for a moment. Tarak (Shiva-

nanda) was facing Ramakrishna, motionless and silent ; the Master's

look fell upon him ; Tarak dissolved in tears and trembled through-

out his members. At his first visit Kaliprasad (Abhedananda)

touched Ramakrishna, and was immediately flooded with a wave

of energy.

At other times the Master seemed deliberately to provoke the

awakening of inner forces. He* would help the disciples when he

saw the efforts they were making of their own free wills. So when

he saw Latu (Adbhutananda) exhausting himself by great devotion,

he prayed the Mother to grant him the fruit of his pious desire ;

and several days afterwards, Latu passed into ecstasy during his

meditation. When Subodh (Subodhananda) visited him for the

second time, he touched his breast, saying " Awake, Mother, awake 1

and wrote with his finger on his tongue ; Subodh felt a torrent of

light rising from his inner self to his brain : the forms of Gods and

Goddesses passed like lightning and faded into the infinite ; he lost

all sense of personal identity, but was recalled almost at once by

Ramakrishna, who was himself surprised at the violence of his re-

action. Little Gangadhar (Akhandananda) was led into the temple

1 66

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

their own development. He merely nourished them with

his inner sun, and so increased their energy tenfold. In

general it was during the last stage of their upward ascent,

when they had manfully attained the bliss of the stage at

the top of the slope by their own independent efforts. Then

the Master often agreed to bestow the final shock of illumin-

ation. A little thing was sufficient, a word, a look, a touch,

like the lightning of Grace, which never fell except into

prepared souls on heights already attained. No new know-

of Kali by the Master, who said to him, " Behold, the living Shiva "

and Gangadhar saw Him.

But the reader must beware lest he labour under a misappre-

hension. The Master never tried to impose on the disciples visions

or thoughts which were not already there ; he sought rather to

awaken them. To intellectual natures he was the first to advise

against research for visual realizations. When Baburam (Prema-

nanda), whom he loved, begged him to procure ecstasy for him,

the Divine Mother warned Ramakrishna that Baburam was destined

to have Jnana (knowledge) and not Bhava (emotional absorption in

God). He asked the man, who was to be one of his greatest intel-

lectual disciples (Saratchandra-Saradananda), " How would you like

to realize God ? What visions do you have when you meditate ? "

Saratchandra replied, " I do not care for visions. I do not imagine

any particular form of God when I meditate. I imagine Him mani-

fested in all creatures upon earth. Ramakrishna smiled and said,

" But that is the last word in spirituality. You cannot attain to it

at first." Saratchandra replied, " I cannot be content with less. 11

Even in the case of the most sensitive, visual realization was only

a stage through which they had to pass. Abhedananda, after hav-

ing seen Gods and Goddesses in meditation, one day saw all the

forms blending into one luminous image. Ramakrishna told him

that for the future he would have no more visions ; he had passed

that stage. And in fact from that day Abhedananda had nothing

but ideas of the infinite and of immensity, finally reaching the im-

personal Brahmin. When Sri JJamakrishna heard another per-

suading Baburam to obtain special powers from the Master, Rama-

krishna called Baburam to his side and said reproachfully, " What

more can you ask me for ? Is not all that I have yours ? All

that I have won in the way of realization is for you. Here is the

key, open and take everything."

But he added to the Vedantist, Harinath (Turiyananda), If

you think you can find God better away from me, then go ! My

one desire is that you should raise yourselves above the misery of

the world and enjoy divine beatitude."

And so in a thousand ways he used all his influence to direct

these young souls in their true religious sense, so that they might

develop their own true and highest individuality. He never dreamt

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

ledge was revealed, 40 but everything that they had known

before, all the store of knowledge that they had slowly

amassed, became in a flash tangible life and living reality.

" At that point you realize that all things live, like your

own self, in God. You become the will-power and the

conscience of all that is. Your will becomes that of the

whole universe. . . ." 41

of annexing them. He gave himself to them. He never said to

them, and never thought, " You ought to give yourselves to me."

Herein lies one of the main differences between his guidance and

that of Christ.

(For the above cf. Life of Ramakrishna, pp. 475, 488, 600, 604,

606, 615, etc.)

I have thought it necessary to emphasize for the Western reader

this curious aspect of personal action exercised by Ramakrishna

over those round him, without giving it the importance it obtains in

the East. I hold the same opinion as Saratchandra (Saradananda)

in this connection. " We must have more. We cannot be satis-

fied with less." That which the eyes could see counted for little

compared to the evidence manifested to the spirit.

40 Disciples who have passed through these experiences and

several of the most intellectual are still alive attest that there

was not the slightest suggestion of hypnotic power, which violates

the will by imposing conditions upon it from an alien conscious-

ness. It was rather of the nature of a tonic, a stimulant. Under

its impulsion men obtained a clearer vision of their own ideals.

The present Abbot of the order, Swami Shivananda, wrote to me :

" Ramakrishna had the power to raise others to the greatest

heights of consciousness by transmitting to them the energy of his

own spirituality. He did it either by the power of his thought or

by his touch. Many of us had the privilege of being taken to

higher planes of spiritual consciousness according to our capacity.

It was neither hypnotism, nor a condition of deep sleep. I myself

had the privilege of attaining this high spiritual consciousness three

times through his touch and by his will. I still live to bear direct

witness to his tremendous spiritual power."

Let the learned men of Europe who are preoccupied by the

problems of mystic psycho-analysis, put themselves in touch with

these living witnesses while there is yet time ; I myself, I repeat,

have little curiosity about such phenomena, whose subjective

reality is not in doubt, and I believe it my duty to describe them ;

for they are hedged about by all possible guarantees of good faith

and analytical intelligence. I am more interested in the fact of

great religious intuition, in that which continues to be rather than

in that which has been, in that which is or which can be always

in all beings rather in that which is the privilege of a few.

41 It is to be understood that this means that we espouse the

will of the universe, and not that we impose our will upon it.

THE MASTER AND HIS CHILDREN

This realization was the last stage, for beyond this tem-

porary revelation lay the supreme realization, the absolute

Identity, obtained in the Nirvikalpa Samadhi (the Highest

Ecstasy). But that was reserved for men who had achieved

their mission in life ; it was the ultimate and forbidden joy ;

for from it there is no return except in a few exceptional

cases like that of Ramakrishna himself. In spite of the

prayers of his disciples, he was loath to let them taste of it ;

they had not yet won the right. He knew only too well

that such " Salt dolls" 42 would no sooner touch the first

waves of that Ocean than they would be absorbed in it.

He who is desirous of attaining Identity with Unique Reality

only receives a return ticket by a miracle.

The disciples therefore had to remain in this world at

the stage before the final, wherein identification with all

reality takes place. 43 Properly speaking it is stage of

illumination, to which we can all aspire and to which we

have the power to attain by ourselves and to guide others

to a similar attainment.

And what do we, the free spirits of the West, who have

realized the unity of living beings through reason or love,

do that is different from this ? Is it not the constant aim

of our own efforts, the passion inspiring us, the profound

faith whereby we live and are carried over the bloody waters

of hatred between men without soiling so much as the soles

of our feet ? Is it not the one object of our desire and our

profound conviction that sooner or later it will come to

pass the unity of all nations, races and religions ? And

are we not in this, although ignorant of it, the disciples of

Ramakrishna ?

41 Cf. the parable already quoted, Note 3, p. 43.

48 " The world is the field of action where man is put to work--

just as men come from their country houses to business in Calcutta."

(Gospel, II, 147.)

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

BUT among the Indian disciples of the Upper Room,

all of whom, as I shall show, later distinguished them-

selves by faith and works, there was one exceptional disciple,

whom Ramakrishna treated in an exceptional way. He

had chosen him at the very first glance before the young

man so much as knew him, on account of what he was and

what he might become a spiritual leader of humanity

Narendranath Dutt, Vivekananda.

The Paramahamsa with his intuitive genius for souls, for

whom time was not, and who could discern in the twinkling

of an eye the whole flood of the future, believed that he had

seen the great disciple in the womb of the elect before he

met him in the flesh.

I will give here an account of his beautiful vision. Doubt-

less I could try to explain it by ordinary methods as well

as any of our psychologists, but such explanation is im-

material. We know that a mighty vision creates and

produces that which it has seen. In a deeper sense the

prophets of the hereafter have been the real creators of

what was not yet, but which was trembling on the verge

of being. The torrent formiijg the remarkable destiny of

Vivekananda would have been lost in the bowels of the

earth, if Ramakrishna's glance had not, as with one blow

of an axe, split the rock barring its way, so that through

the breach thus made the river of his soul could flow.

" One day I found that my mind was soaring high in

Samadhi along a luminous path. It soon transcended the

stellar universe and entered the subtler region of ideas.

As it ascended higher and higher, I found on both sides of

the way ideal forms of gods and goddesses. The mind

then reached the outer limits of that region, where a luminous

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

barrier separated the sphere of relative existence from that

of the Absolute. Crossing that barrier, the mind entered

the transcendental realm, where no corporeal being was

visible. Even the gods dared not peep into that sublime

realm, and were content to keep their seats far below. But

the next moment I saw seven venerable sages seated there

in Samadhi. It occurred to me that these sages must have

surpassed not only men but even the gods in knowledge

and holiness, in renunciation and love. Lost in admiration,

I was reflecting on their greatness, when I saw a portion of

that undifferentiated luminous region condense into the

form of a divine child. The child came to one of the sages,

tenderly clasped his neck with his lovely arms, and addressing

him in a sweet voice, tried to drag his mind down from the

state of Samadhi. That magic touch roused the sage from

the superconscious state, and he fixed his half-open eyes

upon the wonderful child. His beaming countenance showed

that the child must have been the treasure of his heart.

In great joy the strange child spoke to him, ' I am going

down. You too must go with me/ The sage remained

mute but his tender look expressed his assent. As he kept

gazing at the child, he was again immersed in Samadhi.

I was surprised to find that a fragment of his body and

mind was descending to earth in the form of a bright light.

No sooner had I seen Narendra than I recognized him to be

that sage. 1 ' *

The seer does not say who was the child, but we can guess.

Indeed he himself avowed to the disciples 2 that it was he.

Certainly he remained throughout his life the Bambino, 8

whose lips drank the milk of the Mother, and who only left

Our Lady's arms for an instant, in order to fulfil his destiny

the destiny, according to his own definition, of sending

into the world a man better fitted than himself to guide

mankind and to take over the command of the army.

His judgment was a sound one. He needed a strong body,

arms to turn over the earth, legs to journey over it, a body-

guard of workers and the head to command them, in addition

to his great heart charged with love for the whole world.

*Life of Ramakrishna, p. 438. Saradanayda.

1 A personification of the type so familiar to students of Italian

art.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

That his burning faith made realization spring from the

soil not only proves his foresight and the strength of his

desire, but that the soil of Bengal was prepared and feverishly

awaiting his call. Vivekananda was projected into the

" century " by the childbirth of Nature herself ; for the

time of parturition had arrived for that form of spirit.

Ramakrishna is also to be commended for seeing at once

in this wayward, tormented and storm-tossed adolescent,

as Narendra then was, the future leader, exactly the Evan-

gelist he was expecting.

The story of their early meetings deserves to be told in

its entirety. The reader will then feel the same attraction

that Naren in spite of himself experienced, and which, in

spite of himself, united him to the Master who had chosen

him.

But let us first draw the portrait of this young genius at

the moment when his meteor entered and was absorbed in

the orbit of Ramakrishna. 4

He was a member of a great aristocratic Kshatriya family,

and his whole life showed the stamp of that warrior caste.

He was born on January 12, 1863, at Calcutta. His mother

was a highly educated woman of regal majesty, whose heroic

spirit had been nurtured on the great Hindu epics. 6 His

father, who led an ostentatious and restless life, showed an

independence of spirit almost Voltairean in quality, like

4 In this account I am following the great biography, The Life

of the Swami Vivekananda by his Eastern and Western disciples,

Advaita Ashrama, Himalayas, 4 vols.

To it I have added some precious details furnished by Sara-

dananda in his biography of Ramakrishna, and by the noble Ameri-

can disciple of Vivekananda, Sister Christine, whose unpublished

memoirs were kindly lent to me.

1 The influence of this woman over her son, Vivekananda, must

never be forgotten. He was a difficult child to bring up and gave

her much trouble, but until the day of his death he kept a tender

regard for her. In America at the end of 1894 ne rendered her

public homage ; in his lectures in praise of Indian womanhood he

often spoke of her, extolling her self-mastery, her piety, her high

character. " It is my Mother/' he said, " who has been the constant

inspiration of my life and work."

From Sister Christine's unpublished Memoirs, we learn some

characteristic details of his two parents, which she gleaned in the

course of private conversations with Vivekananda in America.

From his mother, his proud little mother, he inherited his royal

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

that of a great French seigneur of the eighteenth century,

and an indifference to caste, due at once to his large senti-

ment of humanity and to the smiling consciousness of his

own superiority. But the grandfather, a rich and cultured

man, had abandoned wife and children, a high position,

fortune and society at the age of twenty-five to retire into

" the forest " and become a Sannyasin ; and from that day

had never been seen ; . . .

His childhood and boyhood were those of a young artist

prince of the Renaissance. 6 He was gifted with a multi-

plicity of talents, and cultivated them all. He had a leonine

beauty coupled to the lithe grace of a fawn. The possessor

of physical courage and the build of an athlete, he was a

past master in all physical exercises. He could box, swim,

row, and had a passion for horses. He was the favourite

of youth and the arbiter of fashion. He danced the great

religious dances with consummate art, and had a delightful

voice, which later was to charm the ear of Ramakrishna.

He studied vocal and instrumental music for four or five

years under famous Hindu and Musulman professors. He

wrote tunes and published a documented Essay on the

science and philosophy of Indian music. Indeed he was

everywhere regarded as a musical authority. For him music

was always the gate of the temple, 7 the vestibule of the

palace of the Most High. At college he was distinguished

for his brilliant intellect, embracing with equal zest the

sciences, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and Indian

bearing and many of his intellectual faculties, his extraordinary

memory, and moral purity.

To his father he owed his intelligence, his artistic sense, his

compassion. This noble India?, who belonged to the generation

flooded by the tide of Western positivism, had lost his faith. He

treated it as if it were all superstition. He admired the poetry of

Hafiz and the Bible as works of art. He said a curious thing^to

his son, when he showed him the two Christian Testaments. " If

there is a religion, it would be in this book/' But he did not be-

lieve in the soul or in a future life. He was generous to the point

of prodigality, and seemed to be given over to a smiling and worldly

scepticism. But in reality he suffered deeply from life ; and when

he heard of the youthful follies of his son, he said, " This world is

so terrible, let him forget it if he can."

That is to say, of the Italian Renaissance.

7 The temple of the Goddess Sarasvati, the patron of the arts.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

and Western languages. He read the English and Sanskrit

poets. He devoured the historical works of Green and

Gibbon. He was fired by the French Revolution and

Napoleon. From his childhood up he practised, like so

many Indian children, the habit of meditation. At night

he used to pore over the Imitation of Jesus Christ and the

Vedanta. He loved philosophic discussions. It was this

mania for argument, criticism, " discrimination/' that later

won for him the name of Vivekananda. He tried to weld

Hellenic beauty and Indo-Germanic thought into one har-

monious whole. But to his universalism, which attained the

standards of Leonardo and Alberti with its spiritual empire

over life in all forms, was added the crown of a religious

soul and absolute purity. This beautiful ephebe, to whom

all the good things of life and its pleasures were offered,

though free and passionate, imposed upon himself a rigorous

chastity. Without being tied to any sect, before he had

adopted any Credo, he had already the feeling, the profound

reason for which I shall show later, that purity of body

and soul is a spiritual force, whose fire penetrates into every

aspect of life, but is extinguished by the slightest defilement.

Moreover, he was overshadowed by a great destiny, and

though he was as yet unaware of its direction, he wished

to be worthy of it and to realize it.

The result of such a multiplicity of gifts and contending

passions made him live for many years in great turmoil of

soul before his personality became fixed. Between the ages

of seventeen and twenty-one (from 1880 to the end of 1884)

he went through a series of intellectual crises increasing in

intensity until religious certainty finally put an end to them.

He was first moved by reading Stuart Mill's Essays on

Religion, which caused his fir*st optimistic surface theism,

gleaned in fashionable Brahmo Samajist circles, to crumble

away. The face of Evil in nature appeared to him, and

he revolted against it. But he was powerless to prevent

the intrusion of bored disillusion and antique Melancholy 8

A reference to the famous engraving of Albrecht Durer, Melan-

choly, representing a desponding archangel, sitting in the midst of

the chaos of science. The sense of melancholy is above the ordinary

and signifies a soul, saddened and wearied by its vain intellectual

researches.

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

(in the sense of Albrecht Diirer). In vain he tried to adopt

the theories of Herbert Spencer, with whom he corresponded. 9

He asked the older students in his college classes for counsel,

in particular Brajendra Nath Seal. 10 To him he confided

his scepticism and begged him to guide him in his search

for the truth. It was to Seal that he owed his reading of

Shelley and that he bathed his burning soul in the aerial

waves of the poet's pantheism. 11 His young mentor then

wished to enrol him in the service of the God of Reason

the Parabrahman a conception particularly his own.

Brajendra's rationalism was of a peculiar kind in that it

claimed to be an amalgamation of the pure monism of the

Vedanta, the Hegelian dialect of the Absolute idea, and

the gospel of the French Revolution : Liberty, Equality,

Fraternity. He believed that the principle of individualism

was " the evil " and Universal Reason " the good." It was

then essential that pure reason should be manifested ; this

was the great modern problem, and Brajendra thought to

solve it by Revolution. His revolutionary and imperial

rationalism appealed to some sides of Narendra's domineer-

ing nature. But the latter's tumultuous personality was

not to be confined within such limits. Although his intellect

9 Spencer was astonished, so it is said, by his daring criticisms,

and admired the precociousness of his philosophic intellect. Accord-

ing to Saradananda, Naren pursued the study of Western philosophy

between his first examination in 1881 and that of 1884 correspond-

ing to our licentiate's degree. He had then read Descartes, Hume,

Kant, Fichte, Spinoza, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Auguste Comte and

Darwin. But it seems to me that he can only have read them

superficially from general treatises and that he did not study their

actual works. He also followed a course of medicine, studying

the physiology of the brain an(^ nervous system. " The analytic

and scientific method of the West had conquered him, and

he wished to apply it to the study of Hindu religious ideas."

(Saradananda.)

10 This man of great intellect, at present the Vice-Chancellor of

the University of Mysore and one of the most solid and erudite

philosophers in India, has related his reminiscences of the young

Vivekananda in an article written for the Prabuddha Bharata of

1907, and reproduced in the Life of the Swami Vivekananda, Vol. I,

pp. 172-77. Although at college he was in the class above Vive-

kananda, the latter was a little his senior.

11 He also read Wordsworth, of all English poets the one who

seems most akin to the poets of the Far East.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

certainly wished to accept (or impose) the sovereignty of

universal reason and to make the foundation of morality

an imperious negation of individualism, his life would not

agree. He was too intoxicated with the beauty of the world

and its passions. An attempt to deprive him of it was like

condemning a young beast of prey to vegetarianism. His

melancholy and anguish redoubled. It was mockery to

offer him a diet of immanent Reason, a bloodless God.

Being a real Hindu for whom life is the first attribute, if not

the very essence of truth, he needed the living revelation,

the realization of the Absolute, God made man some holy

Guru, who could say to him, " I have seen Him. I have

touched Him. I have been Him." Nevertheless, his intel-

lect, nurtured as it had been in European thought, and the

critical spirit inherited from his father, revolted against

this aspiration of his heart and senses, as will be seen in

his first reactions against Ramakrishna.

He was, like all young Bengal intellectuals of his time,

drawn by the pure light of Keshab Chunder Sen. It was

then at its height and Naren envied it ; he could have

wished to be Keshab. He was naturally in sympathy with

his New Order, and joined it. His name was enrolled on

the list of members of the new Brahmo Samaj. 12 The

Ramakrishna Mission has since maintained that he could

not have been entirely in accord with the spirit of categorical

reform held by this Samaj, which ran counter to even the

most respectable prejudices of orthodox Hinduism. But I

am inclined to disagree with them. The reckless character

of young Naren would have delighted in wholesale destruction

and he was not the man to reproach his new companions

for iconoclasm. It was only later, and in great part owing

to Ramakrishna's influence, that he came to conceive of and

profess respect for even antiquated beliefs and customs,

provided they were in accordance with long tradition and

11 His name remained on the list a long time after he had be-

come the Swami Vivekananda, and he told his disciples that he

had never withdrawn it. When he was asked in later years, " Do

you attack the Brahmo Samaj ? " he answered, " Not at all." He

considered this society to be a high form of Hinduism. (Cf. Life

of the Swami Vivekananda, Vol. I, Chapter 38, devoted to the

Brahmo Samaj.)

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

deeply assimilated into the substance of the nation. 18 But

I am convinced that this did not come to pass without a

struggle ; and it is partly this, which explains his first recoil

of intellectual mistrust from Ramakrishna. For the time

being, however, he had joined the movement of young Brah-

mos in Bengal for the education and unity of the Indian

masses without distinction of caste, race or religion. Some

of them attacked orthodox Hinduism even more bitterly

than did the Christian missionaries ; but it was fatal that

Naren's free and living intelligence should have quickly

realized the unintelligent narrowness of such critics, who

were not free from crossgrained fanaticism, and that his

spirit no less than his national pride should have been

wounded by them. He would not subscribe to the abdica-

tion of Indian wisdom before the badly assimilated know-

ledge of the West. Nevertheless he continued to attend

the meeting of the Brahmo Samaj, but in his heart he was

not at rest.

He next imposed upon himself the life of an ascetic, living

in a dark, damp room, lying on the ground upon a quilt

with books everywhere, making tea on the floor, reading

and meditating day and night. He suffered excruciating

and stabbing pains in his head, but he did not achieve the

reconciliation of the conflicting passions of his nature, whose

struggles lasted even into his troubled sleep.

" From my youth up/' he relates, " every night just as

I fell asleep two dreams took shape. In one I saw myself

among the great ones of the earth, the possessor of riches,

honours, power and glory ; and I felt that the capacity to

attain all these was in me. But the next instant I saw

myself renouncing all worldly things, dressed in a simple

loin-cloth, living on alms, sloping at the foot of a tree ;

and I thought that I was capable also of living thus, like

the Rishis of old. Of these two pictures the second took

the upper hand and I felt that only thus could a man attain

1J In the maturity of his powers he often insisted on this point,

that his own message was npt a negation but fulfilment of true

Hindu thought. He was a partisan of radical reforms, but he held

that they should be carried out by conservative methods. (Ibid.)

These are practically the very words of Keshab : " To preach

Hindu conservatism in a liberal spirit." (Indian Empire, 1884.)

177 N

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

supreme bliss. . . . And I fell asleep in the foretaste of

that bliss. . . . And each night it was renewed. . . ," 14

Such was he at the moment when he went to meet the

Master, who was to govern the rest of his life. In the great

city where India and Europe meet, he had made the round

of the great religious individualities ; 16 but he had returned

unsatisfied. He sought in vain, tested, rejected. He

wandered. . . .

* * *

He was eighteen and preparing for his first University

Examination. In November, 1880, in the house of a friend,

Surendranath Mitra, a rich publican converted to the Indian

Christ, during a small festivity at which Naren had sung a

beautiful religious hymn, the "falcon's eyes" of Rama-

krishna for the first time pierced to the depths of his

unsatisfied soul, and fixed his choice upon it. 16 He asked

Naren to come to see him at Dakshineswar.

The young man arrived with a band of thoughtless and

frivolous friends. He came in and sat down, heedless of

his surroundings, without seeming to see or hear anything,

wrapt in his own thoughts. Ramakrishna, who was watch-

ing him, asked him to sing. Naren obe3'ed, and his song

had such a pathetic tone that the Master, like Naren, a

passionate lover of music, passed into an ecstasy. Here I

will leave Naren to speak for himself :

" After I had sung he suddenly got up, and taking me

by the hand, led me on to the north verandah, and closed

the door behind us. We were alone. Nobody could see

us. ... To my great surprise he began to weep for joy.

He held me by the hand and addressed me very tenderly,

as if I were somebody he had known familiarly for a long

time. He said, ' Ah ! You Lave come so late. Why have

you been so unkind as to make me wait so long ? My ears

14 Extracts from the last volume of the Biography of Rama-

krishna (Divya Bhava) by Saradananda, Chapter III.

lf It is said that his last attempt had been with Devendranath

Tagore, who recognized his great gifts.

19 Ramakrishna said later : "I saw no attention to the body, no

vanity, no attachment to outward things in him. And in his eyes :

... It seemed that some power possessed the interior of hia soul.

. . . And I thought, ' How is it possible that such a man can live

in Calcutta ?'..."

J 7 8

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

are tired df hearing the futile words of other men. Oh !

how I have longed to pour out my spirit into the breast of

somebody fitted to receive my inner experiences 1 . . .' He

continued thus sobbing the while. Then standing before

me with his hands together he said, ' Lord, I know that

you are the ancient sage Nara, the incarnation of Narajana, 17

reborn on the earth to take away the misery of humanity/ 18

I was amazed. ' What have I come to see ? ' I thought.

' He ought to be put in a strait jacket ! Why, I am the

son of Viswanath Dutt. How dare he speak thus to me. .

But I remained outwardly unmoved and let him talk. He

took my hand again and said, ' Promise me that you will

come to see me again alone, and soon !'..."

Naren promised in order to free himself from his strange

host, but he vowed within himself never to return. They went

back to the common drawing-room, where they found the

others. Naren sat down apart and watched the personage.

He could not find anything strange in his ways or in his

words ; nothing but an inner logic, which he felt was the

fruit of a profound life of absolute renunciation and a

striking sincerity. He heard him say (and these words were

an answer to his own nocturnal strivings) :

" God can be realized. One can see Him and speak to

Him as I speak to and see you. But who takes the trouble

to do so ? People will shed tears for a wife, children or

possessions. But who weeps for the love of God ? Yet if

a man weep sincerely for Him, He will manifest Himself to

him." "

17 A certain aspect of Brahman, the cosmic Man, the great

Hypostasis. (Cf. Paul Masson-Oursel, op. cit., p. 105 et passim.)

1 So in the first words of his delirium he settled for Vivekananda

the duty of social service, to which he was to devote his life, and

which distinguishes him from all the other " seers " of India.

1 Another account given by Vivekananda in his Lecture, My

Master (cf. also Life of the Swami Vivekananda, Vol. I, p. 212) says

that it was he himself who directly addressed Ramakrishna and

asked him the eternal question, that he had been taking feverishly

round from sage to sage : " Sir, have you seen God ? " and that

Ramakrishna replied, " Yes, my son. I have seen God. I do see

Him, just as I see you before me. Only I see the Lord in a much

more intense sense, and I can show Him to you."

It is probable that this dialogue took place at a later date, after

Vivekananda had become familiar with Ramakrishna.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

And to the speaker himself it was obvious that these were

no idle words, but that he had proved their truth. Naren

could not reconcile the picture before his eyes of this simple

and serene sage with the amazing scene he had just witnessed.

He said to himself, " He is a monomaniac, but he is not with-

out greatness. He may be mad, but he is worthy of respect."

He left Dakshineswar in much confusion of thought, and if

he had been asked at that moment what were to be his

relations with Ramakrishna, he would doubtless have replied

that they would remain as they were.

But the strange vision " worked " upon him.

A month later he returned on foot to Dakshineswar.

" I found him alone sitting on his small bed. He was

glad to see me, and called me affectionately to sit near him

on one side of the bed. But a moment later I saw him

convulsed with some emotion. His eyes were fixed upon

me, he muttered under his breath, and drew slowly nearer.

I thought he was going to make some eccentric remark as

on the previous occasion. But before I could stop him, he

had placed his right foot on my body. The contact was

terrible. With my eyes open I saw the walls and everything

in the room whirling and vanishing into nothingness. . . .

The whole universe and my own individuality were at the

same time almost lost in a nameless void, which swallowed

up everything that is. I was terrified, and believed I was

face to face with death. I could not stop myself from

crying out, ' What are you doing ? I have parents at

home. . . .' Then he began to laugh, and passing his hand

over my breast, he said ' All is well. Let us leave it at

that for the moment ! It will come, all in good time.' He

had no sooner said these wordcS than the strange phenomena

disappeared. I came to myself again, and everything, both

outside and in, was as before."

I have written down this astonishing account without

indulging in futile comment. Whatever the Western reader

may think, he cannot help being struck by the power of

hallucination in these Indian souls, recalling that of Shakes-

peare's passionate visionaries. It may, however, be noted

in passing that the visionary in this case was anything but

a weak, credulous and uncritical spirit. He revolted against

his own vision. His strong personality, scenting danger,

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

was violently antipathetic to all hypnotic action ; and he

asked himself at first if he had not been the victim of some

kind of mesmerism. But he had no symptoms of it. Still

trembling from the tornado that had swept over him, he

remained on his guard. But after this one great shock the

rest of the visit was quite normal. Ramakrishna treated

his visitor with simple and familiar kindness as if nothing

had happened.

At his third visit, probably a week later, Naren was on

the defensive with all his critical faculties on the alert. Sri

Ramakrishna that day took him to an adjacent garden.

After strolling for some time they took their seats in the

parlour. Soon the Master fell into a trance and as Narendra

watched, he was suddenly touched by him. Narendra

immediately lost all outward consciousness. When he came

to himself after a while, he saw Ramakrishna looking at

him, and stroking his chest.

In after days the Master told his disciples :

" I asked him several questions while he was in that state.

I asked him about his antecedents and whereabouts, his

mission in this world and the duration of his mortal life.

He dived deep into himself and gave fitting answers to my

questions. They only confirmed what I had seen and inferred

about him. These things shall be a secret, but I came to

know that he was a sage who had attained perfection, a past

master in meditation, and that the day he learned his real

nature, he would give up the body by an act of will. . . ." 20

But at the time Ramakrishna told him nothing of all this,

although he treated him in the light of his special knowledge,

and Naren had a privileged place among the disciples.

But Naren had not yet accepted the title of disciple. He

did not want to be the disciple of anyone. He was struck by

the incomprehensible power of Ramakrishna. It attracted

him, as a magnet attracts iron, but he himself was made of

stern metal. His reason would not submit to domination.

If in his recent relations with the rationalist Brajendra Seal

it had been his heart that strove against his intellect,

now his intellect mistrusted his heart. He was resolved to

maintain his independence, and to accept nothing from the

Master except what could be rigorously controlled by his

10 Life of Sri Ramakrishna, pp. 439 et seq.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

own reason. The uncritical faith of the others roused his

contempt.

No stranger relations can be imagined than those now

established between the young man and the old Guru. 21

Naren detested all forms of sentimental piety, such as tears

or anything that savoured of the effeminate. Naren

questioned everything. He never allowed his reason to

abdicate for a single instant. He alone weighed all Rama-

krishna's words, he alone doubted. Far from being shocked,

Ramakrishna loved him the better for it. Before meeting

Naren he had been heard to pray,

" O Mother, send me someone to doubt my ' realizations.' "

The Mother granted his prayer. Naren denied the Hindu

gods, but at the same time he rejected Advaitism, which he

termed atheism. 22 He openly mocked the injunctions of

the Hindu Scriptures. He said to Ramakrishna,

" Even if millions of men called you God, if I had not

proved it for myself, I would never do so/'

Ramakrishna laughingly approved, and said to his disciples,

" Do not accept anything because I say so. Test every-

thing for yourselves."

The keen criticism of Naren, and his passionate arguments

filled him with joy. He had a profound respect for his

brilliant intellectual sincerity with its tireless quest for the

truth ; he regarded it as a manifestation of Shivaic power,

which would finally overcome all illusion. He said,

" Look, look ; what power of penetration ! He is a

raging fire consuming all impurities. Maha-maya, 23 Herself

cannot come nearer to him than ten feet ! She is held back

by the glory She has imparted to him."

And Naren's knowledge called him such intense joy that

it sometimes melted into ecstasy.

But at other times the old Master was hurt by his sharp

criticism, delivered as it was without any consideration for

others. Naren said to his face,

11 Naren lived for five years with Ramakrishna, at the same

time keeping a home of his own at Calcutta. He went to Dak-

shineswar once or twice a week, and sometimes spent four or five

days on end with the Master. If he stayed away for a week, Rama-

krishna sent for him.

11 This was the attitude of the Brahmo Samaj.

" That is to say, Maya the great the Great Illusion the Mother.

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

" How do you know that your realizations are not the

creations of your sick brain, mere hallucinations ? "

And Ramakrishna in his trouble would go away, and

humbly seek comfort of the Mother, who consoled him with

the words,

" Patience ! Soon Naren's eyes will be opened."

Sometimes when the everlasting discussions between Naren

and the disciples wearied him, 24 he would pray,

" O Mother, give Naren a little of Your Illusion ! " so

that the fever of his intellect might be somewhat assuaged,

and his heart might touch God.

But the tortured spirit of Vivekananda cried out,

" I do not desire God. I desire peace that is to say,

absolute truth, absolute knowledge, absolute infinitude."

He did not see that such a wish overstepped the bounds

of reason and showed the imperious unreasonableness of his

heart. It was impossible to satisfy his mind with the proof

of God. Indian fashion, he maintained :

" If God is real, it is possible to realize Him."

But he gradually discovered that the man of ecstasy,

whom he had at first believed to be swayed entirely by the

promptings of his heart, was infinitely more master than

he was himself in the realm of the intellect. Later he was

to say of Ramakrishna,

" Outwardly he was all Bhakta, 26 but inwardly all

Jnanin. . . , 26 I am the exact opposite."

But before he came to make such a statement, and before

he had yielded of his own free will his proud independence

into the Master's hands, he both sought him and fled from

him ; and between the two there was a reciprocal game of

passionate attraction and secret struggle. The brutal frank-

ness of Naren, his lack of consideration for all things that

he mistrusted, the implacable war he declared against all

charlatanism, and his proud indifference to the opinion of

14 He said of these discussions, " Water poured into an empty

vessel makes a bubbling noise, but when the vessel is full, no sound

is heard. The man who has not found God is full of vain disputa-

tion about the existence and attitude of Godhead. But he who has

seen Him, enjoys the Divine bliss in silence. 1 '

16 Those who believe through love.

Those who know through the intellect.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

others, drew down upon him enmity and slander, which he

was too proud to heed. 27

Ramakrishna never allowed them to be said in his

presence ; for he was sure of Naren. He said that the

young man was of the purest gold and that no taint of this

world could sully him. 28 His only fear was lest so admirable

an intellect might lose its way, and the multiplicity of

powers striving within him might be put to a bad use, such

as the founding of a new sect or of a new party, instead of

being consecrated to the work of union and unity. He had

a passionate affection for Naren, but his anxious or tender

manifestations of it, if Naren stayed away for any length

of time, both embarrassed and irritated the latter. Rama-

krishna himself was ashamed of them, but he could not help

himself. He infuriated Naren by his excessive praise, as

when he publicly placed the recognized fame of Keshab

below the problematical fame of this young man, who had

as yet accomplished nothing. He went to look for him in

the streets of Calcutta, and even in the temple of the Sad-

haran Brahmo Samaj, 29 where his unexpected entry during

17 Saradananda, who was later one of his friends and most devoted

followers, and who has written the best account of his relations with

Ramakrishna, admits that he was himself ill-disposed towards Naren,

when he met hitn for the first time at the house of a mutual friend.

Naren came in, well dressed and well groomed, with a disdainful

air ; he sat down humming a Hindu song to himself, and began

to smoke without appearing to care for any of the others present.

But he took part in the discussion that followed about contemporary

literature, and suddenly revealed the greatness of his aesthetic and

moral sense, as well as his predilection for Ramakrishna, the only

man, he said, whom he had found realizing his inner ideal in this

life without any compromise. (f. the chapter, Vivekananda and

Ramakrishna in the last volume of the great Biography of Rama-

krishna by Saradananda : Divya Bhava.)

11 Far from shaking Naren's faith in himself, he encouraged it.

He gave him privileges over the other disciples ; for instance, he

allowed him to touch all kinds of impure food, saying that for such

as he such matters were immaterial.

11 The branch of the Brahmo Samaj that had broken away from

Keshab. It was the most uncompromising from the national Hindu

point of view ; and it is noteworthy that Naren was then a mem-

ber of it. Ramakrishna had unwittingly many enemies among its

members, who bore him a grudge for the influence he exercised over

Keshab.

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

a service provoked a scandal and roused much scornful

criticism. Naren, mortified and touched at the same time,

spoke harshly to him in order to rid himself of this pursuit.

He told him that no man ought to allow himself to be

infatuated by another, that if Ramakrishna loved him too

much he would forfeit his own spiritual greatness and sink

to his level. The simple and pure Ramakrishna listened

to him fearfully, and then went to ask the Mother's advice.

But he returned comforted.

" Ah, wretch ! " he said to Naren, " I will not listen to

you. The Mother has told me that I love you because in

you I see the Lord. If the day comes when I can no longer

see Him, I shall not be able to bear the sight of you."

Soon their parts were reversed. A time came when

Naren's presence was received by Ramakrishna with com-

plete indifference. He did not appear to notice him but

occupied himself with the others. This went on for several

weeks. Nevertheless Naren always came patiently back.

Ramakrishna asked him why, since he no longer spoke to

him, and Naren replied,

" It is not just your words that attract me. I love you

and need to see you."

The Master's spirit gradually took possession of the rebel

disciple. In vain the latter ridiculed Ramakrishna' s beliefs,

especially the two extremes : the cult of images, and faith

in an Absolute Unity the fascination of God worked

slowly.

" Why do you come here, if you do not want to acknow-

ledge my Mother ? " Ramakrishna asked him.

" Must I acknowledge Her, if I come ? " replied Naren.

" Well," said the Master, J" several days hence you will

not only accept Her, but you will weep at the mention of

Her name." 80

80 Brajendra Seal has confessed the stupefaction caused by the

sight of Narendra the iconoclast, jthe hater of superstitions and idols,

worshipping before Kali and Her priest. He condemned him merci-

lessly, until the day when curiosity urged him to visit Dakshine-

swar. He spent an afternoon there and came away in a state of

moral and physical astonishment. All his preconceived ideas were

wavering. Without understanding it, he was subjugated by the

atmosphere which seemed to emanate from the person of Rama-

krishna. It may be interesting to trace the unpremeditated reaction

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

It was the same when Ramakrishna wanted to open the

doors of Advaitist Vedantism, of identity with the Absolute,

to Naren. Naren rejected the idea as blasphemy and mad-

ness. He did not let any chance go by of ridiculing it ;

and one day he and one of the other disciples jeered and

gave vent to side-splitting laughter at its extravagance.

" This jug," they said, " is God . . . and these flies are

God. . . ." From the adjoining room Ramakrishna heard

the laughter of the great children. He came in quietly in

a semi-conscious state, and touched Naren. 81 Again a

of a great intellectual and rationalist thinker, a man high in his

University, who to this day has kept his independent judgment.

" I watched with intense interest the transformation that went

on under my eyes. The attitude of a young and rampant Vedantist

cum Hegelian cum Revolutionary like myself towards the

cult of religious ecstasy and Kali- Worship may be easily imagined ;

and the spectacle of a born iconoclast and freethinker like Vive-

kananda, a creative and dominating intelligence, a tamer of souls,

himself caught in the meshes of what appeared to me an uncouth,

supernatural mysticism, was a riddle which my philosophy of the

Pure Reason could scarcely read at the time. . . .

" (For pathological curiosity) at last I went ... to Dakshine-

swar, to see and hear Vivekananda's Master, and spent the greater

part of a long summer day in the shady and peaceful solitudes of

the Temple garden, returning as the sun set amidst the whirl and

rush and roar and the awful gloom of a blinding thunderstorm, with

a sense of bewilderment as well moral as physical, and a lurking

perception of the truth that the law orders the apparently irregular

and grotesque, that sense even in its errors is only incipient Reason

and that faith in a saving Power db extra is but the dim reflex of

an original act of self-determination. And a significant confirma-

tion of all this came in the subsequent life-history of Vivekananda,

who, after he had found the firm assurance he sought in the saving

Grace and Power of his Master, went about preaching and teach-

ing the creed of the Universal Mao, and the absolute and inalienable

sovereignty of the Self."

(Article of Brajendranath Seal, published in Prabuddha Bharata,

1907, and reproduced in the Life of the Swami Vivekananda, I, 177.)

11 For scientific men, who study psycho-physiological problems,

it is noteworthy that these " touches," which provoked in the sub-

jects concerned immediate experience of changed conditions, were

nearly always (if not always) produced when Ramakrishna was in

a state of semi-consciousness or of complete hypnosis. There was

therefore nothing in them analogous to calculated action of the

will independent of the energies governed by it. It might almost

be described as a forced descent of another into the abyss he had

first descended himself.

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

spiritual tornado swept him. All at once everything was

changed in Naren's eyes. He saw with amazement that

nothing existed but God. He went back to his house. All

that he saw, touched, ate, was God. ... He stopped

doing anything, intoxicated by Universal Force. His

parents became anxious and thought he was ill. He

remained in this condition for some days. Then the dream

vanished. But its remembrance remained with Naren as

a foretaste of the Advaitis state, and he never afterwards

allowed himself to deny its existence.

He then passed through a series of mystic storms. He

repeated " Shiva . . . Shiva/' like a madman. Rama-

krishna looked on with compassionate understanding.

" Yes, I remained for twelve years in that condition."

But his leonine nature, which leapt in great bounds from

ironic denial to illumination, would never have undergone

a lasting transformation, if the citadel had not been mined

from within and not from without. The rough scourge of

sorrow came suddenly to whip him out of his comfortable

doubt, and the luxury of intellectualism on which he prided

himself, and brought him face to face with the tragic problem

of evil and existence.

At the beginning of 1884 his careless and prodigal father

died, suddenly carried off by a heart attack, and the family

found itself faced with ruin. There were six or seven

mouths to feed, and a swarm of creditors. From that day

onwards Naren tasted misery, knew the vain search for

employment and the denial of friends. He has told his

distress in pages that are among the most poignant of

confessions. 82

" I almost died of hunger. Barefoot I wandered from

office to office, repulsed on all sides. I gained experience

of human sympathy. This was my first contact with the

realities of life. I discovered that she had no room for the

weak, the poor, the deserted. Those who several days

before would have been proud to help me, turned away

their faces, although they possessed the means to do so.

The world seemed to me to be the creation of a devil. One

burning day, when I could hardly stand upon my feet, I

11 This account is taken from the Life of Sri Ramakrishna, pp.

428 et seq.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

sat down in the shade of a monument. Several friends

were there, and one began to sing a hymn about the abundant

grace of God. It was like a blow aimed deliberately at

my head. I thought of the pitiable condition of my mother

and brothers, and cried, ' Stop singing that song 1 Such

fantasies may sound pleasantly in the ears of those who are

born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and whose parents

are not at home dying of hunger. Oh yes, there was a

time when I too thought like that ! But now that I am

faced with all the cruelty of life, it rings in my ears like

deadly mockery/ My friend was hurt. He could not make

allowance for my terrible distress. More than once, when

I saw that there was not enough food to go round at home,

I went out, telling my mother that I was invited elsewhere,

and I fasted. My rich friends sometimes asked me to go

to their houses to sing, but practically not a single one of

them showed any curiosity about my misfortunes ; and I

kept them to myself. . . ."

Throughout this period he continued to pray to God

every morning. One day his mother heard him, and, her

piety severely shaken by too great misfortune, said to

him,

" Fool, be quiet ! You have made yourself hoarse with

praying to God from your childhood up. And what has

He done for you ? . . ."

Then he in his turn was filled with anger against God.

Why did He not answer his anguished appeals ? Why did

He allow so much suffering on the earth ? And the bitter

words of the Pandit Vidyasagar came into his mind :

" If God is good and gracious, why then do millions of

people die for want of a few morsels of food ? " 8S

" The Pandit Vidyasagar (Iswara Chandra, 1820-91) was a social

reformer, the director of the Sanskrit College at Calcutta, and knew

Ramakrishna. His memory is held in veneration less for his great

learning than for his love of humanity. He was the impotent wit-

ness of the famine in 1864 with its more than 100,000 victims, which

made him reject God, and devote himself wholly to the service of

man. Vivekananda in 1898 spoke of him with hushed respect and

without a word of blame during a journey in Kashmir, as was noted

down by Sister Nivedita in her account of conversations with the

Swami. (Notes of some Wanderings with the Swami Vivehananda,

Calcutta, Udbodhan Office, Calcutta.)

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

A furious revolt arose to heaven. He declared war upon

God.

He had never been able to conceal his thoughts and now

he spoke openly against God. He proved that He was either

non-existent or evil. His reputation as an atheist became

established, and as is the practice of devout people, unmen-

tionable motives were adduced for his unbelief, and his

habits were maligned. Such dishonesty hardened him, and

he took a sombre delight in boasting publicly that in such

a depraved world a victim, as he was, of the persecutions

of fortune had every right to seek momentary respite in

whatever pleasure he might find ; and that if he, Narendra,

decided that such means were efficacious, he should certainly

not shrink from using them for fear of anybody. To some

of Ramakrishna's disciples who offered their pious remon-

strances, he replied that only a coward believed in God

through fear. And he drove them away. At the same time

the idea that Ramakrishna might blame him like the rest

troubled him. Then his pride revolted. " What does it

matter ? If a man's reputation rests on such slender

foundations, I do not care. I spurn it under foot ; . . ."

All judged him lost except Ramakrishna in his retreat at

Dakshineswar, and he kept his confidence in Naren ; 84 but

he was waiting for the psychological moment. He knew

that Naren's salvation could only come from him.

The summer passed. Naren continued his harassing

search for a means of livelihood. One evening when he

had eaten nothing, he sank down, exhausted and wet

through, by the side of the road in front of a house. The

delirium of fever raged in his prostrate body. Suddenly it

seemed as if the folds enveloping his soul were rent asunder,

and there was light. 86 All nis past doubts were auto-

matically solved. He could say truly :

" I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived. ..."

* 4 Afterwards Vivekananda said, " Ramakrishna was the only one

who had unswerving faith in me. Even my mother and my brothers

were not capable of it. His unshakable confidence joined me to

him for ever. He alone knew the meaning of love."

" Revelation caine always by the same mechanical process at

the exact moment when the limit of vitality had been reached, and

the last reserves of the will to struggle exhausted.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

His mind and body were at rest. He went in and spent

the night in meditation. In the morning his mind was

made up. He had decided to renounce the world as his

grandfather had done, and he fixed a day when this definite

vow was to be accomplished.

Now on that very day Ramakrishna, all unknowing, came

to Calcutta, and begged Naren to come back with him for

the night to Dakshineswar. Naren tried in vain to escape ;

but he was obliged to follow the Master. That night shut

up in his room with him, Ramakrishna began to sing, and

his beautiful chant brought tears to the eyes of the young

disciple ; for he realized that the Master had divined his

purpose. Ramakrishna said to him,

" I know that you cannot remain in the world. But for

my sake, stay in it as long as I live/'

Naren went back home. He had found some work in a

translation office and in a solicitor's office, but he had no

permanent employment, so that the fate of his family was

never assured from one day to the next. He asked Rama-

krishna to pray for him and his.

" My child," said Ramakrishna, " I cannot offer up those

prayers. Why do you not do so yourself ? "

Naren went into the temple of the Mother. He was in

a state of exalted fervour ; a flood of love and faith coursed

through him. But when he returned and Ramakrishna

asked if he had prayed, Naren realized that he had forgotten

to ask for the alleviation of his misery. Ramakrishna told

him to go back. He returned a second time and a third

time. No sooner did he enter the temple than the purpose

of his prayers faded before his eyes. At the third attempt

indeed he remembered what he had come to ask, but he

was overcome with shame. " What pitiful interests they

were, for which to importune the Mother " ; He prayed

instead,

" Mother, I need nothing save to know and to believe."

From that day a new life began for him. He knew and

believed, and his faith, born, like that of Goethe's old

harpist, 16 in misery, never forgot the taste of bread soaked

in tears, nor his suffering brethren who had shared the

" An allusion to some of Goethe's most beautiful Lieder in Wil-

helxn Meister.

NAREN, THE BELOVED DISCIPLE

crumbs. One sublime cry proclaimed his faith to the

world :

" The only God in whom I believe, is the sum total of

all souls, and above all I believe in my God the wicked,

my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races. ..."

The Galilean had conquered. 87 The tender Master of

Bengal had broken the resistance of his bride. Rama-

krishna in future had no more submissive son than the

great Kshatriya, who was born to command. So complete

did their union become, that at times they seemed to be

identified with each other. It was necessary to exercise a

moderating influence over this transported soul, that did

not know what it meant to give by halves. Ramakrishna

knew the dangers it ran. Its rough and tumultuous course

leapt beyond the bounds of reason from knowledge to love,

from the absolute need for meditation to the absolute need

for action. It yearned to embrace everything at once.

During the last days of Ramakrishna's life we shall often

see Naren urging the Master to allow him the highest super-

conscious revelation, the great ecstasy, from which there is

no return, the Nirvikalpa Samadhi ; but Ramakrishna

emphatically refused him.

One day, Swami Shivananda told me, he was present in

the garden of Cossipore, near Calcutta, when Naren really

attained this state. " Seeing him unconscious, his body as

cold as that of a corpse, we ran in great agitation to the

Master and told him what had happened. The Master

showed no anxiety ; he merely smiled and said, ' Very

well/ and then relapsed into silence. Naren returned to

outward consciousness and came to the Master. The

Master said to him, ' Well, now do you understand ? This

(the highest realization) will* henceforward remain under

lock and key. You have the Mother's work to do. When

it is finished, She will undo the lock/ Naren replied,

' Master, I was happy in Samadhi. In my infinite joy I

had forgotten the world. I beseech you to let me remain

in that state ' ; ' For shame/ cried the Master. ' How can

you ask such things ? I thought you were a vast receptacle

of life, and here you wish to stay absorbed in personal joy

87 The cry of the Emperor Julian as he was dying, after having

fought in vain against Christ.

IQI

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

like an ordinary man ; . . . This realization will become

so natural to you, thanks to the Mother, that in your normal

state you will realize the Unique Divinity in all beings ;

you will do great things in the world ; you will bring spiritual

consciousness to men, and assuage the misery of the humble

and the poor."

He had discerned the part for which Vivekananda was

cast, and against his will he forced him to play it.

" Ordinary souls/' he said, " fear to assume the respon-

sibility of instructing the world. A worthless piece of wood

can only just manage to float, and if a bird settles on it

immediately it sinks. But Naren is different. He is like

the great tree trunks, bearing men and beasts upon the

bosom of the Ganges." 88

He had marked on the giant's forehead the sign of St.

Christopher the carrier of men.

18 Gospel of Ramakrishna, II, 42.

XI

THE SWAN SONG

FROM 1881 onwards Ramakrishna lived at Dakshineswar

surrounded by disciples, who loved him as a father,

lulled by the sweet murmur of the Ganges. The eternal

song of the river, turning and flowing northwards with the

incoming tide at noon, was the undercurrent of his beautiful

companionship. And it mingled at dawn and sunset with

the chime of bells, the ringing of conches, the melody of

the flute (rasunchauki), the clashing of cymbals and the

temple hymns, that punctuated the days of -the gods and

goddesses. 1 The intoxicating perfume of the sacred garden

was borne like incense on the breeze. Between the columns

of the semicircular verandah with its sheltering awning,

1 The book containing the conversations (The Gospel of Sri

Ramakrishna) recalls at every turn the setting and the atmosphere.

Before daybreak the bells softly announced the service of matins.

The lights were kindled. In the hall of music the morning hymns

were played by flutes accompanied by drums and cymbals. The

east was not yet red before flowers had already been gathered in

the garden as an offering to the Gods. The disciples, who had

spent the night with the Master, meditated as they sat near the

edge of his bed. Ramakrishna got up and walked about naked,

singing in his sweet voice ; he tenderly communed with the Mother.

Then all the instruments played their symphony in concert. The

disciples performed their ablution! ; then returned to find the Master

on the verandah ; and the conversations continued overlooking the

Ganges.

At noon the bells announced the end of worship in the temples

of Kali and Vishnu and the twelve temples of Shiva. The sun

burned down. The breeze blew from the south, the tide rose.

After a meal the Master took a short rest and then the conversa-

tions began again.

At night the temple lamplighter kindled the lamps. One lamp

burned in a corner of Ramakrishna's room where he sat absorbed.

The music of conches and the temple bells announced the evening

service. Under a full moon the conversations continued.

193 O

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

sails, multicoloured like a swarm of butterflies, could be

seen passing along the river, the image of Eternity.

But the precincts of the sanctuary were throbbing with

the ceaseless waves of a different human river pilgrims,

worshippers, pandits, 2 religious and curious persons of all

sorts and conditions from the great neighbouring city or

other parts of India crowding to see and overwhelm with

questions the mysterious man, who yet did not consider

himself any way remarkable. He always answered them

in his charming patois with unwearied patience and that

air of familiar good grace which, without losing contact

with the deep realities, allowed nothing to go unobserved

in the scenes and the everyday people passing before him.

He could both play the child and judge as the sage. This

perfect, laughing, loving, penetrating spontaneity, to which

nothing human was alien, was the chief secret of his charm.

In truth such a hermit was very different from those of

our Christian world I If he sought out and absorbed

sorrow, it disappeared with him ; nothing morose or austere

could grow in his soil. The great purifier of men who could

free the soul from its swaddling clothes and wash away all

stain, making a saint of a Girish by his indulgent smile and

his piercing and serene glance, would not admit into the

air of the beautiful garden of Dakshineswar, redolent of

the scent of roses and jasmine, the morbid idea of shameful

sin veiling its nakedness by an eternal preoccupation with

itself. He said :

" Certain Christians and Brahmos see in a sense of sin

the sum total of religion. Their ideal of a devout man is

one who prays, ' O Lord, I am a sinner ! 8 Deign to pardon

my sins 1 . . / They forget that a sense of sin is a sign

1 It was at this time (1882) that Ramakrishna went to visit the

Pandit Vidyasagar. Their conversations have been recorded.

1 What would he have said if he had known the Oratorian of

the seventeenth century, Francis de Clugny (1637-94), whom the

Abbe Brmond has revived for us. He revels in a state of sin,

and has no other purpose in life than to develop his " Mystic of

Sinners " in three books reeking of sin, yet written in perfect inno-

cence, (i. The Devotion of Sinners by a Sinner. 2. The Manual

of Sinners by a Sinner. 3. Concerning the Prayers of Sinners by

a Sinner.)

Cf. Henri Br6mond : La MStaphysique des saints, I, 279 et seq*

THE SWAN SONG

of the first and the lowest step of spiritual development.

They do not take the force of habit into consideration. If

you say, ' I am a sinner/ eternally, you will remain a sinner

to all eternity. . . . You ought rather to repeat, ' I am

not bound, I am not bound. . . . Who can bind me ? I

am the son of God, the King of Kings. . . / Make your

will work and you will be free ! The idiot who repeats

without stopping, ' I am a slave, 1 ends by really becoming

a slave. The miserable man, who repeats tirelessly, ' I am

a sinner/ really becomes a sinner. But that man is free

who says, ' I am free from the bondage of the world. I

am free. Is not the Lord our Father ? . . / Bondage is

of the mind, but freedom is also of the mind. . . ." 4

He let the wind of his joy and freedom blow on all around

him. And languid souls, oppressed by the weight of the

tropical sky, unfolded again their faded leaves. He com-

forted the weariest with the words, " The rains will come.

Patience ! You will become green again/'

It was the home of freed souls those who were and

those who would be time does not count in India. The

Sunday receptions often partook of the nature of little

festivals, Sankirtans, and on ordinary days his interviews

with his disciples never took the form of doctrinal instruc-

tion. Doctrine was immaterial. The only essential was

practice suited to each spirit, to each occasion of life with

the object of drawing out the essence of life in each man,

while he exercised full liberty of spirit. All means were

good ; inward concentration as well as the free play of the

intellect, brief ecstasies as well as rich parables, laughing

stories and even the observation of the comedy of the

universe by sharp and mocking eyes.

The Master is sitting on his little bed and listening to the

confidences of the disciples. He shares in their intimate

cares and family affairs ; he affectionately prods the resigned

Yogananda, curbs the impetuous Vivekananda, and mocks

the superstitious ghosts of Niranjanananda. He loves to

race these young runaway colts against each other. Then

4 The Gospel, I, 293 and 178.

He repeats this great saying, which I should like to inscribe on

the heart of all believers : " God can never appear where there is

shame, hatred or fear." (Sri Ramakrishna's Teachings, I, par. 316.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

he will fling into the confusion of impassioned argument

just the pregnant and mischievous remark that will enlighten

them and bring them back at a walking pace. Without

seeming to use the reins he knows how to restore to the

golden mean those who go too far and those who do not

go far enough, how to awaken the slumbering spirit and

how to restrain excess of zeal. His eyes can rest with

tenderness on the pure face of his St. John, Premananda

(Baburam), one of those whom he classes with the " Nitya-

siddhas " those who are pure and perfect before their

birth 6 and have no need of instruction or sparkle with

irony when faced with exaggerated Puritanism.

" Too much concentration on ceremonial purity becomes

a plague. People afflicted with this disease have no time

to think of man or God."

He kept the neophytes from the useless and dangerous

practices of the Raja Yoga. 6 What point was there in

risking life and health when all that was necessary was to

open the eyes and heart in order to meet God at every

step ?

" Arjuna invoked Sri Krishna as the Absolute. . . .

Krishna said to him, ' Come for a while and see what I am

like/ He led him to a certain spot and asked him, ' What

do you see ? ' 'A great tree/ said Arjuna, ' with bunches

of berries hanging from it/ ' No, my friend/ said Sri

Krishna. ' Draw near and look closer ; these are not

blackberries but innumerable Sri Krishnas. . . ." 7

And was there any need for pilgrimages to holy places ?

"It is the sanctity of men that makes the sanctity of

5 To this group of the elect Narendra, Rakhal and Bhavanath

also belonged (Gospel, I, 238). ft is noteworthy that their particu-

lar type of spirit had nothing to do with their selection. Baburam

was a foreordained Jnanin and not a Bhakta.

Cf. Saradananda : Ramakrishna said to his disciples, " These

practices are no longer for this iron age of Kali, when human beings

are very feeble and short-lived. They have no time to run such

grave risks. And it is no longer necessary. The sole objects of

these practices is concentration of mind ; and this is easily attained

by all who meditate with piety. The grace of the Lord has made

the way of realization easy. It is only necessary to carry back to

Him that power of love, which we pour out on the beings surround-

ing us." (A freely condensed translation.)

f Gospel, II, 16.

THE SWAN SONG

places. Otherwise how can a place purify a man? God

is everywhere. God is in us. Life and the Universe are

His Dream/'

But while with his clever fingers he embroidered apo-

logues 8 upon this everlasting theme, the little peasant of

Kamarpukur, who united in himself the two natures of

Martha and Mary, knew how to recall his disciples to

practical life and humble domestic details ; he did not allow

idleness, uncleanness nor disorder, and in these respects he

could teach the sons of the great middle classes ; he himself

set the example, scouring his house and garden.

Nothing escaped his eyes. He dreamed, he saw, he acted,

and his gay wisdom always kept the gift of childlike laughter.

This is how he amused himself by mimicking worldlings and

false zealots.

" The Master imitated a Kirtani (a professional singer of

religious hymns, to the great amusement of the disciples.

The Kirtani and her troupe made their entrance into the

assembly. She was richly dressed and held a coloured

handkerchief in her hand. If some venerable gentleman

came in she greeted him as she sang, and said to him, ' Please

come in ! ' And she would raise her sari on her arms to

show the ornaments adorning it. The Master's mimicry

made the disciples roar with laughter. Paltu rolled upon

the ground. The Master said, smiling at him, ' What a

child ! Paltu, do not go and tell your father. The slight

esteem in which he holds me would vanish entirely. He

has become an Englishman pure and simple ! ' . . ."

Here are some other types as he described them,

"There are people/' said Ramakrishna, "who never

8 Here is one beautiful example among many others :

11 A woodcutter went to sleep and dreamed. A friend woke him

up. ' Ah ! ' said the woodcutter, ' why did you disturb me ? I

had become a great king, the father of seven children. My sons

were accomplished in war and the arts. I was enthroned and

occupied with affairs of state. Why did you shatter this happy

world ? '

The friend replied, ' What harm have I done ? It was only a

dream.'

' You do not understand/ the woodcutter answered. ' To be a

king in a dream is as true as being a woodcutter. If to be a wood-

cutter is real, to be a king in a dream is real also. 1 " (Gospel, II, 235.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

want to chatter so badly as at daily worship. But being

forbidden to speak, they gesticulate and grimace with closed

lips : ' Euh ! Euh ! Bring me this. . . . Pass me that.

. . . Chut ! Chut ! . . .' One is telling his beads, but

while so engaged he sees the fishmonger, and while his beads

slip through his fingers he has shown him the fish he wants.

... A woman went to bathe in the sacred waters of the

Ganges. She ought to have been thinking about God, but

this is what she was gossiping : ' What jewels are they

offering your son ? . . . Such and such a person is ill. ...

Such and such a person has gone to see his fiancee. . . .

And do you think the dowry will be a large one ? . . .

Harish adores me, he cannot do without me for a single

hour. ... I have not been able to come for a long time ;

the engagement of so-and-so's daughter has taken place and

I have been so busy ! and ta, ta, ta. . . / She came to

bathe in the sacred waters, but she thinks of anything but

that. . . ."

And at that point as his glance fell upon one of his

audience, he passed into Samadhi. 9

When he returned again to earth he resumed the thread

of his interrupted discourse without a break, or else sang

one of his beautiful songs to the Mother " with the blue

skin" or to dark Krishna the Beloved. 10

" Oh, the sound of the smooth flute played in the wood

yonder ! I come ! I come ! I must. . . . My Beloved

with the dark skin awaits me. ... O my friends, say,

will you not come with me ? ... My Beloved ! . . . I

fear that to you he is nothing but a name, a sound void of

meaning. . . . But to me he is my heart, my soul, my

life ! . . ."

" Plunge, plunge, plunge in the depths, O my soul !

Plunge into the Ocean of Beauty ! . . . Go and search the

regions deeper than the depths of the seas ! Thou wilt

attain the jewel, the treasure of Prema (Divine Love). In

thy heart is the Brindaban (the legendary home) of the God

of Love. Go and seek, go and seek, go and seek 1 And

thou shalt find. Then the lamp of knowledge will burn

Gospel, II, 285-86.

10 These colours had a symbolic sense for Ramakrishna. The

dark blue of the Mother brought the depths of the sky to his mind.

THE SWAN SONG

inextinguishably. Who is this being that steers a boat over

the earth over the earth over the solid earth ? . . ."

" Companion of the Absolute, O Mother, Thou art plunged

in the bliss of Play. . . . The wine of joy intoxicates.

Thy feet reel, but never lose their balance. The Absolute,

Thy husband, is lying at Thy side, motionless. Thou

drawest Him to Thy breast, and loseth all control of Thy-

self. The Universe trembles beneath Thy feet. Madness

is in Thine eyes and in the eyes of Thy husband. ... In

truth the world is a thing of joy. ... O my Mother with

the blue skin ! . . ." "

His song shares in the wine of love intoxicating the

Mother.

" One of his glances," Vivekananda once said, " could

change a whole life."

And he spoke from experience, this Naren, who had

upheld his philosophic doubts in passionate revolt against

Ramakrishna, until he felt them melting in his constant

fire and avowed himself vanquished. He had proved the

truth of what Ramakrishna had told him : that " living

faith may be given and received in a tangible fashion and

more truly than anything else in the world." Rama-

krishna's certainty was so gentle yet so strong that the most

brutal denials of these young people made him smile ; he

was so certain that they would disappear like morning mist

before the midday sun. When Kaliprasad assailed him

with a torrent of denials, he said,

" My son, do you believe in God ? "

"No."

" Do you believe in religion ? "

" No, nor in the Vedas, nor in any scripture. I do not

believe in anything spiritual."

The Master indulgently replied,

" My son, if you had said that to any other Guru, what

would have happened to you ? But go in peace 1 Others

have passed through these trials before you. Look at

Naren ! He believes. Your doubts will also be enlightened.

You will believe."

And Kaliprasad later became the holy apostle, Abhe-

dananda,

11 Gospel, passim.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Many university men, sceptics and agnostics, were similarly

touched by this little man, who said the simplest things in

his peasants' language, but whose inner light pierced to the

depths of the soul. There was no need for his visitors to

confess themselves.

" The eyes," he said, " are the windows of the soul/ 1

He read through them at the first glance. In the midst

of a crowd he could go straight to a bashful visitor, who

was hiding from him, and put his finger on his doubt, his

anxiety, his secret wound. He never preached. There was

no soul-searching or sadness. Just a word, a smile, the

touch of his hand, communicated a nameless peace, a

happiness for which men yearned. It is said that a young

man on whom his glance rested stayed for more than a

year in an ecstasy, wherein he did nothing but repeat :

"Lord! Lord! My well-beloved ! My well-beloved 1 "

The Master forgave everything, for he believed in infinite

Kindness. If he saw that some of those who asked his

help were not fortunate enough to attain the God, whom

they sought, in this life, he desired to communicate to them

at least a foretaste of bliss.

No word with him was only a word ; it was an act, a

reality.

He said,

" Do not speak of love for your brother ! Realize it !

Do not argue about doctrine and religion. There is only

one. All rivers flow to the ocean. Flow and let others

flow too ! The great stream carves out for itself according

to the slope of its journey according to race, time and

temperament its own distinct bed. But it is all the same

water. . . . Go. . . . Flow on towards the Ocean ! . . ."

The force of his joyously flowing stream communicated

itself to all souls. He was the power, he was the slope, he

was the current ; and the other streams and brooks ran

towards his river. He was the Ganges itself.

XII

THE RIVER RE-ENTERS THE SEA

HE was nearing the Ocean. The end was approaching.

His feeble body was almost daily consumed in the

fire of ecstasy and worn out by his constant gift of himself

to the starving crowds. Sometimes like a sulky child he

complained to the Mother of the flood of visitors devouring

him day and night. In his humorous way he said to Her : x

" Why do you bring hither all these people, who are like

milk diluted with five times its own quantity of water ?

My eyes are destroyed with blowing the fire to dry up the

water ! My health is gone. It is beyond my strength.

Do it Yourself, if You want it done. This (pointing to his

body) is nothing but a burst drum, and if You go on beat-

ing it day in and day out, how long do you think it will

last ? " *

But he never turned anybody away. He said :

" Let me be condemned to be born over and over again,

even in the form of a dog, if so I can be of help to a single

soul ! "

And again :

" I will give up twenty thousand such bodies to help one

man. It is glorious to help aven one. man ! " 8

He even reproached himself for his ecstasies, because they

took time that might otherwise have been given to others.

" O Mother, stop me from enjoying them ! Let me stay

in my normal state, so that I can be of more use in the

world."

1 1 am quite sure that some of our good believers of the Middle

Ages, such as the men of the people in Picardy and Burgundy,

must sometimes have said the same thing.

1 Life of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 694.

* Vivekananda : My Master.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

During his last days when his disciples protected him in

spite of himself from the importunity of devotees, he said :

" How I suffer because no one needs my help to-day ! " 4

His great friend, the illustrious chief of the Brahmo

Samaj, Keshab Chunder Sen, preceded him in death. He

died in 1884. With tears in his eyes, Ramakrishna said of

him shortly before his death that " the rose tree is to be

transplanted because the gardener wants beautiful roses of

him/'

Afterwards he said :

" Half of me has perished/'

But the other half, if it is possible to use such an expres-

sion, was the humble people. He was as easy of access to

them, if not more so, as to the most learned ; and among

the familiar friends of his last years he counted, in the same

category as the disciples so dear to his heart, simple people,

madinen of God. Such a one was old Gopaler Ma, whose

simple story is worthy of a place among the Franciscan

legends :

An old woman of sixty, widowed while still a girl, 6 she

had dedicated herself to the Lord. The hunger of her

unassuaged maternal love had made her for thirty years

adopt the child Krishna, Gopala, as her own, until it had

become a harmless mania. No sooner had she met Rama-

krishna than his God-filled glance made little Gopala issue

from her. The warm compassion of the Master, which

made the hidden desires and sorrows of those who came

near him his own, lent inspiration to the unsatisfied dream

of the childless mother, and he put the God Child into her

arms. From that moment the little Gopala never left the

mother, who had adopted him. Henceforward she did not

pray ; she had no need to pray, for she lived in unbroken

communion with her God. She threw her rosary into the

river and spent her days prattling with the Child. This

state lasted two months and then was mitigated ; the Child

only appeared in moments of meditation. But the old

4 Mukerji, loc. cit.

8 For the benefit of my Western readers I would remind them

that Hindu religious law strictly forbids the remarriage of widows,

and that against this oppressive rule many of the great Hindu re-

ligious and social reformers have been ceaselessly striving for the

last hundred years.

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woman's heart was filled with happiness, and Ramakrishna

tenderly regarded her joy. But his ever present sense of

fun made him ask the old woman to tell her story to the

haughty Naren, so proud of his critical reason, who held

such visions to be stupid and morbid illusions. The old

woman quite simply interrupted her maternal chatter, and

made Naren her judge :

" Sir/ 1 she said to him, " I am only a poor ignorant

woman. I do not rightly understand things. You are

learned. Tell me, do you think it is true ? "

Naren, deeply moved, answered :

" Yes, mother, it is quite true."

* * *

It was in 1884 that Ramakrishna's health took a serious

turn. While he was in a trance he dislocated his left arm

and it was very painful. A great change took place in him.

He divided his infirm body and his wandering soul into

two. He no longer spoke of " I." He was no longer " me."

He called himself " This." 6 The sick man more intensely

than before perceived, " Lila . . . the Play . . . The God

who disports Himself in men. ..." The man roughly

seized his real self and then fell into silent amazement ; his

joy knew no bounds, as if he had suddenly and unexpectedly

met one of his dear ones. ... " When Shiva saw his real

self he cried, ' Such am I ! Such am I ! ' and danced for

joy."

In April the following year his throat became inflamed.

Overstrain from constant talking and the dangerous Sam-

adhis, which made blood flow in his throat, certainly had

something to do with it. 7 The doctors he consulted forbade

8 From the unpublished Memoirs of Ramakrishnananda, who

nursed him during his last months. Cf. Sister Devamata : Sri

Ramakrishna and his Disciples. (These notes have been communi-

cated to me in manuscript.)

7 But there was more in it than this. Like some famous Chris*

tian mystics (a) he healed others by taking their ills upon himself.

In a vision his body appeared to him covered with sores, the sins

of others : " He took upon himself the Karma of others. 11 And to

this fact he owed his last illness. He had become the scapegoat

of humanity.

The idea of suffering the ills of others in his own body, and thus

relieving them when a certain degree of sanctity has been attained,

is a very old one in India ; and Swami Ashokananda, whom I have

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

both speech and ecstasy, but he paid no attention to them.

At a great Vaishnava religious festival he spent himself

questioned on the subject, has given me some striking illustra-

tions from the Holy Books from the Mahabharata (Adi Parva,

Chapter 84, and Shanti Parva, Chapter 261) from the sayings of

Buddha, and the life of Chaitanya in the fifteenth century. All

spiritual personages do not possess this power. It only belongs

theologically to the Avataras (Incarnations) and to the chosen

souls, their attendants. Neither pious men nor saints possess it,

even after they have attained divine realizations, although popular

superstition falsely attributes it to them in these days, and simple

people may often be seen approaching Sannyasins and Sadhus (as

also happened to Jesus) in the hope of unloading upon them their

physical and spiritual ills. It is still a common belief in India.

One of its consequences is the so-called Guruvada. If a spiritual

person accepts a disciple, not only does he give him spiritual in-

struction, but he takes upon himself everything that might be an

obstacle in his disciple's Karma all his sins. The Guru then has

to suffer for the Karmas of his disciples, for nobody can cancel a

single Karma ; it is merely transferred to another. Swami Asho-

kananda has added this to show to what point the belief of expia-

tion by proxy is enrooted in the spirit of the best minds in India

to-day. " It is not just a theory with us. We have seen examples

of it, as when the immediate disciples of Ramakrishna suffered for

having thus taken upon themselves the evils of others, either in

their capacity as Gurus or by the effect of simple touch. They

have often spoken of their sufferings on this account."

(a) In particular St. Lydwine, who was charged with the physical

sufferings of others, St. Marguerita Maria, who took upon herself

the sufferings of souls in Purgatory, St. Catherine of Siena and

Marie de Vallees, who prayed for the pains of hell in order to save

other souls from falling into them, and St. Vincent de Paul, who

was deprived of his faith for seven years in order to give faith to

an unbeliever.

Such sacrifices by proxy are in conformity with pure Christian

Catholic doctrine, which considers humanity as the mystic body of

Christ. Christ Himself set the example. The prophet Isaiah, who

realized the Messiah in advance (liii. 45), said, " He hath borne our

griefs and carried our sorrows. ... He was wounded for our trans-

gressions. . . . The chastisement of our peace was upon him and

with his stripes we are healed." The Sacrifice of the Cross has

always been considered by the Catholic Church as the one complete

and universal expiation. Thus between ancient India and Judea

of the Prophets and of Christ there is the same kindred thought,

born of the universal urge of the soul and belonging to the most

profound depths of human nature. Cf. also the familiar words of

Christ, when He instituted the Lord's Supper. " This is my blood

. . . which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (St. Matthew

xxvi. 28.)

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without measure, and in return the disease grew worse. It

became practically impossible for him to eat. Nevertheless

he continued to receive those who came to him day and

night. Then one night he had haemorrhage of the throat.

The doctors diagnosed cancer. His chief disciples persuaded

him to put himself for a time under the care of Dr. Mahendra

Lai Sarkar of Calcutta. In September, 1885, a small house

was rented where Ramakrishna's wife found a corner for

herself so that she might supervise his regime. The most

faithful disciples watched during the night. The majority

of them were poor, and they mortgaged, borrowed or pawned

their effects in order to pay the expenses of the Master's

illness an effort that cemented their union. Dr. Sarkar

was a rationalist, who did not share the religious views of

Ramakrishna, and told him so frankly. But the more he

came to know his patient, the deeper did his respect for

him become, until he treated him for nothing. He came

to see him three times a day and spent hours with him 8

(which, it may be observed in passing, was perhaps not the

best way to make him better). He said to him :

" I love you so dearly because of your devotion to truth.

You never deviate by a hair's breadth from what you believe

to be true. ... Do not imagine that I am flattering you.

If my father was in the wrong I should tell him so/'

But he openly censured the religious adoration rendered

to him by the disciples.

" To say that the Infinite came down to earth in the form

of a man is the ruin of all religions/ 1

Ramakrishna maintained an amused silence, but the

disciples grew animated in these discussions, which only

served to increase their mutual esteem ; their faith in their

Master, whom suffering seemed to illuminate, was strength-

ened. They tried to understand why such a trial was

imposed upon him, and divided into groups holding different

views. The most exalted, headed by Girish the redeemed

sinner, declared that the Master himself had willed his

He was present during several ecstasies and studied them from

a medical point of view. A study of his notes would be of great

interest for European science. It is known that a stethoscopic

examination of the heart and the condition of the eyes during

Samadhi show all the symptoms of the condition of death.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

illness, so that he might establish round him the communion

of apostles. The rationalists with Naren as their mouth-

piece admitted that the Master's body was subject to the

laws of nature like other men's. But they all recognized

the Divine presence in the dying man ; and on the day of

the great annual festival of Kali, of which Ramakrishna to

their surprise made no mention, but spent it absorbed in

ecstasy, they realized that the Mother was dwelling within

him. 9 The exaltation excited by this belief had its dangers,

the chief of them being an access of convulsive sentimen-

talism. They had or pretended to have visions and

ecstasies with laughter, song and tears. Naren then showed

for the first time the vigour of his reason and his will. He

treated them with contempt. He told them that " the

Master's ecstasies had been bought by a life of heroic

austerity and desperate conflict for the sake of knowledge ;

that their effusions were nothing but the vapourings of sick

imaginations when they were not lies. Those who were

ill ought to take more care of themselves ! Let them eat

more and so react against spasms which were worthy only

of ridiculous females ! And let them beware ! Of those

who encouraged a religion of ostentatious emotion eighty

per cent became scoundrels and fifteen per cent lunatics."

His words acted like a cold douche. They were ashamed

Among the crowds wishing to see the inspired man, there came

on October 31, 1885, a Christian from Northern India, Prabhudayal

Misra. He had an interview with Ramakrishna, which gives a

typical example of the spirit of synthesis enveloping in its accom-

modating atmosphere the confessions of men holding seemingly

contradictory views, when they have been filtered through the

Indian soul. This Indian Christian found it quite possible to be-

lieve at the same time in Christ a and Ramakrishna ! People were

present during the following conversation :

The Christian : It is the Lord, who shines through all creatures.

Ramakrishna : The Lord is one, but He is called by a thousand

names.

The Christian : Jesus is not simply the Son of Mary ; He is

God Himself. (And then he turned to the disciples and pointed to

Ramakrishna.) And this is a man whom you see before you ; but at

times he is none other than God Himself, and you do not recognize

Him."

At the end of the interview Ramakrishna told him that his long-

ing for God would be fulfilled. And the Christian made him the

gift of himself.

2O6

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and the majority humbly confessed that their ecstasies were

shams. Naren's action did not stop there. He gathered

these young people together and imposed upon them a virile

discipline. In their need for action he advised them to

devote themselves to some definite object. The young

lion's cub began to assert himself in those days as the future

sovereign of the Order, although he himself was not free

from his own difficulties and struggles. For him these days

marked the crisis of despair, when he had to make the final

choice between the conflicting forces of his nature harrow-

ing days, fruitful days, preparing the soul for harvest.

Ramakrishna grew worse. Dr. Sarkar advised his

removal from Calcutta to the country. Towards the

middle of December, 1885, he was taken to a house in the

suburbs in the midst of the beautiful gardens of Cossipore,

and there he spent the last eight months of his mortal life.

Twelve of his young chosen disciples never left him until

the end. 10 Naren directed their activities and their prayers.

They begged the Master to join with them in praying for

his recovery, and the visit of a Pandit, who shared their

faith, gave them an opportunity to renew their entreaties.

" The Scriptures/' said the Pandit to Ramakrishna,

" declare that saints like you can cure yourselves by an

effort of will."

' ' My spirit has been given to God once and for all. Would

you have me ask it back ? "

His disciples reproached him for not wishing to be restored

to health.

" Do you think my sufferings are voluntary ? I wish to

recover, but that depends on the Mother."

" Then pray to Her."

" It is easy for you to say that, but I cannot speak the

words."

Naren begged.

" For our sakes 1 "

" Very well," said the Master sweetly. " I will try what

I can do."

10 Narendra, Rakhal, Baburam, Niranjan, Yogin, Latu, Tarek,

the two Gopals, Kali, Sasi, and Sarat. Ramakrishna said that his

illness had divided the disciples for him into those of the " Inner

Circle (Antaranya) and those of the Outer Circle (Bahiranga).' 1

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

They left him alone for several hours. When they

returned the Master said,

" I said to her, ' Mother, I can eat nothing because of

my suffering. Make it possible for me to eat a little ! '

She pointed you all out to me and said, ' What ! Thou

canst eat through all these mouths ! ' I was ashamed and

could not utter another word."

Several days later he said, 11

"My teaching is almost finished. I cannot instruct

people any longer ; for I see the whole world is filled with

the Lord. 12 So I ask myself, ' Whom can I teach ? ' "

On January i, 1886, he felt better and walked a few

steps in the garden. There he blessed his disciples. 18 The

effects of his blessing manifested themselves in different

ways in silent ecstasy or in loquacious transports of joy.

But all were agreed that they received as it were an electric

shock, an access of power, so that each one realized his

chosen ideal at a bound. (The distinguishing characteristic

of Ramakrishna as a religious chief was always that he did

not communicate a precise faith, but the energy necessary

for faith ; he played the part, if I may say so, of a mighty

spiritual dynamo.) In their abounding joy the disciples in

the garden whom the Master had blessed, called to those

in the house to come and share the bliss of his benediction.

In this connection an incident took place that might have

come from the Christian Gospel the humble Latu and

Sarat the Brahmin were taking advantage of the Master's

absence to clean his room and make his bed. They heard

the calls and saw the whole scene from above ; but they

continued their task of love, thus renouncing their share of

joy.

Naren also remained Unsatisfied. His father's loss,

worldly cares and the fever in his own heart consumed him.

He saw the fulfilment of all the others and felt himself

abandoned. There had been no response to his anguish,

no comforting ray to cheer him. He begged Ramakrishna

to allow him to relieve his misery by several days of

11 On December 23, 1885, according to M. (Mahendra Nath Gupta),

who noted it down in his Gospel, II, 354.

Literally, " All is Rama."

11 Each received an appropriate benediction, so it is said.

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Samadhi ; but the Master rebuked him severely (he kept

his indulgence for those from whom he expected least) and

reproached him for such " base thoughts." He must make

some arrangement for his family and then his troubles would

be at an end and he would receive everything. Naren wept

like a lost sheep, and fled through Calcutta and the fields,

covered with dust and the straw of a stack into which he

had run he groaned, he was consumed with desire for the

inaccessible, and his soul knew no rest. Ramakrishna,

tenderly and pityingly, watched his wild course from afar ;

he knew quite well that before the divine prey could be

brought down panting, he would have to pick up the scent.

He felt that Naren's condition was remarkable, for in spite

of boasting his unbelief, he was homesick for the Infinite.

He knew him to be blessed among men in proportion as he

was proven. He softly caressed Naren's face before the

other disciples. He recognized in him all the signs of

Bhakta knowledge through love. The Bhaktas, unlike

the Jnanins (believers. through knowledge of the mind), do

not seelc liberation. They must be born and reborn for the

good of humanity ; for they are made for the love and the

service of mankind. So long as an atom of desire remains

they will be reincarnated. When all desires are torn from

the heart of mankind then at last they will attain Mukti

(liberation). But the Bhaktas never aspire to it themselves.

And that is why the loving Master, whose heart was the

home of all living beings, and who could never forget them,

always had a preference for the Bhaktas, of whom the

greatest was Naren. 14

He did not hide the fact that he regarded him as his

heir. He said to him one day,

14 " The Jnanin rejects Maya. Maya is like a veil (which he dis-

pels). Look, when I hold this handkerchief in front of the lamp,

you can no longer see its light." Then the Master held the hand-

kerchief between him and the disciples and said, " Now you can no

longer behold my face."

" The Bhakta does not reject Maya. He worships Mahamaya

(the Great Illusion). He gives himself to Her and prays, ' Mother,

get out of my way 1 Only so can I hope to realize Brahmin.' "

" The Jnanin denies the three states, the waking state, the dream

and the deep sleep ; the Bhakta accepts all three."

So Ramakrishna's tenderness, his natural preference, was for

those who accepted everything, even Illusion, who affirmed and

20g P

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

" I leave these young people in your charge. Busy

yourself in developing their spirituality/'

And in preparation for a monastic life he ordered them

to beg their food from door to door without distinction of

caste. Towards the end of March he gave them the saffron

robe, the sign of the Sannyasin, and some kind of monastic

initiation.

The proud Naren set the example of renunciation. But

it was with great difficulty that he abdicated his spiritual

pride. The devil would have offered him in vain (as to

Jesus) the kingdoms of this world, but he would soon have

found a chink in his armour if he had proposed sovereignty

of soul to him. One day, in order to test his spiritual power,

Naren told his companion, Kaliprasad, to touch him while

he was in a state of meditation. Kali did so and immediately

fell into the same state. Ramakrishna heard of it and

rebuked Naren severely for casting his seed into the ground

for a frivolous object, and he categorically condemned the

transmission of ideas from one to the other. To attempt

anything against complete freedom of spirit was anathema.

You should help others, but you must not substitute your

thought for theirs.

A little time afterwards Naren, while meditating, had the

sensation of a light shining behind his head. Suddenly he

lost consciousness and was absorbed into the Absolute. He

had fallen into the depths of the terrible Nirvikalpa Samadhi,

which he had sought for so long, and which Ramakrishna

had refused to allow him. When, after a long time, he

returned to himself, it seemed to him that he no longer had

loved everything, who denied nothing, since Evil and Illusion itself

are of God.

" It is not good to say from the very first, ' I see the Impersonal

God.' Everything I see men, women, animals, flowers, trees is

God.' 1

The image of the veil to which Maya is compared is also given

at other times in the form of the beautiful parable of Sita and

Rama :

" Rama, Lakshmana his brother and Sita were walking in the

forest. Rama went first, then Sita, then Lakshmana. Sita was be-

tween the two brothers and so prevented Lakshmana from seeing

Rama ; but knowing how this made him suffer, in her tenderness

and kindness, she sometimes leaned to one side so that he could

see his brother."

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a body, but that he was nothing but a face, and he cried

out, " Where is my body ? " The other disciples were

terrified and ran to the Master, but Ramakrishna said

calmly,

" Very well, let him stay like that for a time 1 He has

worried me long enough/'

When Naren again came down to earth he was bathed

in ineffable peace. He approached the Master. Rama-

krishna said to him,

" Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this

revelation will remain under lock and key, and I shall keep

the key. When you have accomplished the Mother's work

you will find this treasure again/'

And he advised him what to do for his health during the

succeeding days.

The nearer he drew to his end, the more detached he

became. He spread his serene heaven over the disciple's

sorrow. The Gospel, written practically at the bedside of

the dying man, records the harmonious murmurs of his soul

like a stream in the night amid the heavy silence of the

apostles, while in the moonlight the branches of the trees

in the garden rustled gently, shaken by the warm breeze

of the south. To his friends, his loved ones, who were

inconsolable at the thought of his loss, 15 he said in a half

whisper,

" Radha said to Krishna, ' O Beloved, dwell in my heart

and do not come again in your human form ! ' But soon

15 Naren's passionate soul found it more difficult than the others

to suppress his revolt against the law of suffering. (Cf. his dialogue

of April 22 with Hirananda.)

" The plan of this world is diabolical. I could have created a

better world. Our only refuge is the faith that it is I who can do

everything."

To which the gentle Hirananda replied,

" That is more easy to say than to realize." And he added

piously,

" Thou (God) art everything. Not I, but Thou."

But the proud and headstrong Naren repeated,

" Thou art I and I am Thou. There is nothing else but I."

Ramakrishna listened in silence, smiling indulgently, and said

pointing to Naren,

" He is moving about carrying as it were a naked sword in his

hand."

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

she languished for the sight of the human form of her

Beloved. But the will of the Lord had to be fulfilled and

Krishna did not appear in human form for a long time. . . .

The Lord came and was incarnate in man. Then he returned

with his disciples le to the Divine Mother."

Rakhal exclaimed, " Do not go away until we do ! "

Ramakrishna smiled tenderly and said,

" A troop of Bauls 17 suddenly entered a house ; they

sang God's name and danced for joy. Then they left the

house as suddenly as they had entered it and the owners

did not know who they were. ..."

He sighed.

" Sometimes I pray that the Lord will grant that I should

no more be sent into this world."

But he went on at once,

" He (God) reclothes Himself with the human form for

love of those pure souls who love the Lord." And he

looked at Naren with ineffable affection.

On the gth of April Ramakrishna said, looking at

the fan, which he was waving to and fro in the hot

night,

" Just as I see this fan I am holding in front of me I

have seen God. . . . And I see . . ." he spoke quite

low, laying his hand on Naren's and asked, " What did I

say ? "

Naren replied, " I did not hear distinctly."

Ramakrishna then indicated by signs that He, God, and

his own self were one.

" Yes," said Naren, " I am He."

" Only a line intervenes for the enjoyment of bliss,"

said the Master.

" But," said the disciple, " the great remain in the world

even after they have realized their liberation. They keep

their own ego and its sufferings so that they may fulfil the

salvation of humanity."

There was absolute silence and then the Master spoke

again,

"In Hindu belief each Avatara (Incarnation) is accompanied to

earth by a train of elect souls, his disciples.

17 A Hindu sect, intoxicated with God, who have renounced the

world.

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" The roof 18 is within a man's sight, but it is very difficult

to reach it ... but he who has reached it can let down a

rope and pull others up to him upon the roof."

This was one of the days when he realized in full the

identity of all within the One Being ; when he saw that

" all three were the same substance the victim, the block

and the executioner/' and he cried in a feeble voice, " My

God, what a vision ! " He fainted with emotion, but when

he came to himself he said, " I am well. I have never been

so well. 1 ' 19 Those who know how terrible was the disease

from which he died (cancer of the throat) marvelled at the

loving and kindly smile that never left him. If the glorious

death upon the Cross was denied to this man, who is the

Christ to his Indian followers, his bed of agony was no less

a Cross. 20 And yet he could say,

" Only the body suffers. When the spirit is united to

God, it can feel no pain."

And again,

" Let the body and its sufferings occupy themselves with

each other. Thou, my spirit, remain in bliss. Now I and

my Divine Mother are one for ever. 11 21

18 The metaphor of the roof is often used in Ramakrishna's

sayings.

" Divine Incarnations can always achieve knowledge of the Abso-

lute in Samadhi. At the same tune they can come down from the

heights into human guise so that they love the Lord as father or

mother, etc. . . . When they say, ' Not this I Not this 1 ' they

leave the steps behind them one after the other until they reach

the roof. And then they say, ' This is it I ' But soon they discover

that the steps are made of the same materials, of bricks and mor-

tar as the roof. Then they can ascend and descend resting some-

times on the roof, sometimes on the steps of the staircase. The

roof represents the Absolute, the %teps the world of phenomena."

(Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, I, 324.)

19 Ramakrishnananda, the disciple who nursed him, said, " He

never lost his cheerfulness. He always said he was well and happy."

(From his unpublished Memoirs.)

10 The Swami Ashokananda has written to me that the photo-

graph taken of Ramakrishna directly after his death and of which

there is a copy in the Madras monastery, cannot be reproduced, so

terribly was the body wasted and ravaged by the disease. The

sight is unbearable.

11 Two days before his death in answer to Naren's unspoken

desire to drag from him the avowal he was so loath to make, Rama-

krishna said,

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

Three or four days before his death he called Naren and

asked to be left alone with him. He looked lovingly upon

him and passed into an ecstasy. It enveloped Naren in its

folds. When he came back from the shadows, he saw

Ramakrishna in tears. The Master said to him,

" To-day I have given you my all and am now only a

poor fakir, possessing nothing. By this power you will do

immense good in the world and not until it is accomplished

will you return/' 22

From that moment all his powers were transferred to

Naren. The Master and the disciples were one.

Sunday, August 15, 1886. . . . The last day.

In the afternoon he still had the almost miraculous

" He who was Rama and who was Krishna is now Ramakrishna

in this body lying here."

But he added,

" Not in your Vedantic sense." (That is to say, not merely in the

sense of identity with the Absolute, but in the sense of Incarnation.)

I am naturally not going to discuss the Hindu belief in the

Avataras. Beliefs cannot be discussed and this one is of the same

order as the Christian belief in the God-man. But what I want

to remove from the mind of the Western reader is the idea that

there was any feeling of monstrous pride on the part of those who

believed that within them was the presence of God, like the simple

Ramakrishna. At other times as when a faithful follower (in 1884)

said to him, " When I see you I see God," he rebuked him. " Never

say that. The wave is part of the Ganges, the Ganges is not part

of the wave." (Gospel, II, 181.) Cf. " The Avataras are to Brah-

min what the waves are to the Ocean." (From Sri Ramakrishna' s

Teachings, p. 362.) Ramakrishna considered that he was the habi-

tation of God, who played within him hidden beneath the veil of

his corruptible body. " A Divine Incarnation is hard to compre-

hend it is the play of the Infinite on the finite." (Ibid., 369.)

Only whereas the Divine Visitor in most men, even " in the saints

manifests Himself only in part like honey in a flower . . . you suck

the flower and get a little honey ... in the Incarnation it is all

honey." (Ibid., 367.) It is all one, for " the Avatar is always one

and the same, appearing now here, now there, under different

faces and names Krishna, Christ, etc. . . ." (Ibid., 357.) And

the name of Christ ought to remind us of another moral aspect,

which is always part of an Incarnation. The words " flower,"

" honey, 11 " joy " should not lead us astray. There is always the

element of Divine sacrifice, as in the case of Christ, when God

becomes incarnate. (Ibid. t 358.)

II " To the Absolute " is to be understood.

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energy to talk for two hours to his disciples 28 in spite of

his martyred throat. At nightfall he became unconscious.

They believed him to be dead, but towards midnight he

revived. Leaning against five or six pillows supported by

the body of the humble disciple, Ramakrishnananda, he

talked up to the last moment with Naren, the beloved

disciple, and gave him his last counsel in a low voice. Then

in ringing tones he cried three times the name of his life's

Beloved, Kali, the Divine Mother, and lay back. The final

ecstasy began. He remained in it until half an hour before

noon, when he died. 24 In his own words of faith, " He had

passed from one room to the other."

And his disciples cried,

" Victory ! " 26

18 On the subject of Yoga.

84 According to the witness of Sarkar. Cf. the unpublished

Memoirs of Ramakrishnananda.

" On that last night Ramakrishna was talking with us to the

very last. . . . He was sitting up against five or six pillows, which

were supported by my body, and at the same time I was fanning

(him). . . . Narendra took his feet and began to rub them and

Ramakrishna was talking to him, telling him what he must do.

' Take care of these boys/ he repeated again and again. . . . Then

he asked to lie down. Suddenly at one o'clock he fell towards one

side ; there was a low sound in his throat. . . . Narendra quickly

laid his feet on the quilt and ran downstairs as if he could not

bear it. A doctor . . . who was feeling his pulse saw that it had

stopped. . . . We all believed that it was only Samadhi."

I have also consulted the manuscript copy of Sister Devamata :

Sri Ramakrishna and his Disciples, and the Memoirs of Sarada Devi,

Ramakrishna's wife.

15 Literally, " Victory to Baghavan Ramakrishna," as they car-

ried him to the place of cremation, where his body was burned

the same evening.

EPILOGUE TO BOOK I

THE man himself was no more. His spirit had departed

to travel along the path of collective life in the

veins of humanity.

The fellowship of apostles began at once ; for the young

disciples, the witnesses of his last months, found it impos-

sible to return to the world. They were without resources.

But four married disciples Balaram Bose to whom Rama-

krishna's relics were entrusted for the time being, Suren-

dranath Mitra, Mohendranath Gupta and Girish Chandra

Ghosh, the converted comedian, encouraged them and

helped them to found a home. Surendranath Mitra con-

tributed money for the rent of a half-ruined house at Baran-

agore near the Ganges. This became the first Math or

monastery of disciples. A dozen or more gathered there

under monastic cognomens which have hidden their real

names from posterity. He who had been Naren, he who

was and is for all time Vivekananda, 1 put himself at their

head by common consent. He was the most energetic, the

most vital, the most intelligent and the Master himself

had nominated him. The others were tempted to shut

themselves up in solitude and to allow themselves to be

buried beneath an intoxicating stupor of memory and of

grief ; but the great disciple t who knew better than they,

all the fascination but at the same time the danger of such

a course, devoted himself to their instruction. He was like

a tornado of fire in the midst of these hermits ; he roused

them from their sorrow and ecstasy ; he forced them to

learn the thoughts of the outside world ; he flooded them

with the refreshing rain of his vast intellect ; he made them

taste of all the branches of the tree of knowledge com-

parative religion, science, history, sociology ; for he wished

1 This was the name he adopted several years later. In Book II

I trace its origin.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

them to gain a universal perspective ; he led them to

fruitful discussion without ceasing for a single instant to

maintain the sacred fire.

It was at the symbolic season of Christmas, 1886, that

the act giving birth to the Men of God was signed and

sealed. The story is an arresting one, for it contains the

thrill of an unforeseen encounter in the night between the

" Beau Dieu " 2 of the West and the Word of India.

They were assembled at Antpur in the house of the

mother of one of the disciples (Baburam).

" It was late in the evening when the monks gathered

together before the fire. Huge logs of wood were brought

by them and ignited ; and soon a raging flame burned

upwards, making the darkness beautiful by contrast. And

overhead was the canopy of the Indian night, and all around

was the ineffable peace of the rural stillness. Meditation

began, continuing for a long time. Then a break was made

and the Leader (Vivekananda) filled the silence with the

story of the Lord Jesus. 3 From the very beginning, from

the wondrous mystery of birth it commenced. The monks

were raised into beatitude with the Virgin Mary when the

Saviour's coming was announced to her. . . . The monks

lived with Jesus during the days of His childhood ; they

were with Him in the Flight into Egypt. They were with

Him in the Temple surrounded by the Jewish Pandits

hearing and answering their questions. They were with

Him at the time when He gathered His first disciples,

and they adored Him as they adored their own Master. 4

The many points of similarity in thought and action as

well as the relationship with the disciples, between Christ

and Ramakrishna, forcibly brought to their minds the

old days of ecstasy with their Master. The words of

Christ the Redeemer rang upon their ears as familiar

sayings."

And the story of the Passion, of the Crucifixion, threw

1 So the French people call a celebrated statue of Christ on the

portal of the Gothic cathedral of Amiens.

Vivekananda had a passionate regard for Christ, whose divinity

Ramakrishna, as we have seen, had acknowledged.

4 Of two among them, Sasibhushan (Ramakrishnananda) and

Saratchandra (Saradananda) Ramakrishna had said that they had

been the disciples of Christ in a former life.

EPILOGUE TO BOOK I

them into the depths of meditation. Through Naren's

eloquence they had been admitted to the apostolic circle

where Paul preached the Gospel. The fire of Pentecost

consumed their souls in the peace of the Bengal village ;

and the mingled names of Christ and of Ramakrishna stole

upon the night air.

Then Vivekananda appealed to the monks. He besought

them to become Christs in their turn, to work for the redemp-

tion of the world, to renounce all as Jesus had done and to

realize God. Standing before the wood fire, their faces

reddened by the leaping flames, the crackling of the logs

the only sound that broke the stillness of their thoughts,

they solemnly took the vows of everlasting Sannyasa, each

before his fellows and all in the sight of God.

And it was not until that moment when all had been

accomplished that the monks remembered that that very

night was Christmas Eve. 6

A beautiful symbol of profound significance heralding the

Nativity of a new Day of God. . . .

But Europe must not be misled when she reads this story.

This was no return to Jordan. Rather it was the confluence

of the Jordan and the Ganges. The two united streams

flowed together along their wider river bed.

From its very inception the new Order had in it some-

thing that was unique. Not only did it contain within

itself the energy of faith both of the East and of the West,

not only did it unite an encyclopaedic study of the sciences

and religious meditation, but in it the ideal of contemplation

was wedded to the ideal of human service. From the first

Ramakrishna's spiritual sons were not allowed to shut

themselves up within the wa^ls of a monastery. One after

the other they went out to wander through the world as

mendicant monks. Only one, Ramakrishnananda (Sasibhu-

shan), the guardian of the relics, remained in the dovecote

whither the birds of passage returned from time to time for

rest. During the last months of the Master's life the humble

ideal of Martha had been adopted Dienen . . . Dienen

to serve (the word of Parsifal). They practised it in their

service for the suffering Master, in the service of the bodies

of those whose spirit was engrossed in the service of

8 The Life of the Swami Vivekananda, Vol. II.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

God, and in service to the praying brethren. This was

the Master's own way of " realization/' and the aged

Tolstoy would have said that he had chosen the better

part.

But each had his own part to play, for each unconsciously

through the very bent of his nature represented one phase

or one aspect of the multiform personality of Ramakrishna.

When they were assembled together he was there in his

entirety.

Their mighty spokesman, Vivekananda, on behalf of them

all was to spread throughout the world the World of him,

who, he claimed, was the living synthesis of all the spiritual

forces of India.

"I ... had the great good fortune to sit at the feet of

one, . . . whose life, a thousand-fold more than whose

teaching was a living commentary on the texts of the

Upanishads, was in fact the spirit of the Upanishads living

in human form . . . the harmony of all the diverse thought

of India. . . . 6 India has been rich in thinkers and sages.

. . . The one had a great head (Sankara), the other a large

heart (Ramanuja), and the time was ripe for one to be born,

the embodiment of both this head and heart . . . who in

one body would have the brilliant intellect of Sankara and

the wonderfully expansive infinite heart of Chaitanya ; one

who would see in every sect the same spirit working, the

same God ; one who would see God in every being, one

whose heart would weep for the poor, the weak, for the

outcast, for the downtrodden, for everyone in this world,

inside India or outside India ; and at the same time whose

grand brilliant intellect would conceive of such noble

thoughts as would harmonize 4 all conflicting sects . . . and

bring a marvellous harmony, the universal religion >f head

and heart into existence ; such a man was born. . . . The

time was ripe, it was necessary that such a man should be

born, and he came ; and the most wonderful part of it was,

that his life's work was just near a city which was full of

Western thought, a city which had run mad after these

occidental ideas, a city which had become more Europeanized

than any other city in India. There he lived without any

f Speeches at Calcutta and Madras : " The Vedanta in All its

Phases/' and " The Sages of India."

EPILOGUE TO BOOK I

book-learning whatever ; this great intellect never learnt

even to write his own name, but the most brilliant graduates

of our university found in him an intellectual giant 7 . . .

the sage for the time, one whose teaching is just now, in

the present time, most beneficial. ... If I have told you

one word of truth it was his and his alone, and if I have

told you many things which were not correct . . . they

were all mine, and on me is the responsibility."

Thus at the feet of the simple Ramakrishna the most

intellectual, the most imperious, the most justifiably proud

of all the great religious spirits of modern India humbled

himself. He was the St. Paul of this Messiah of Bengal.

He founded his Church and his doctrine. He travelled

throughout the world and was the aqueduct akin to those

arches that span the Roman Campagna, along which the

waters of the spirit have flowed from India to Europe 8

7 The greatest philosophical and religious mind of the India of

to-day, Aurobindo Ghose, a man unattached to any particular school

of thought, has paid a brilliant tribute to Ramakrishna's genius,

throwing into prominence the exceptional multiplicity of his spiritual

powers and the still more exceptional soul directing them :

" In a recent and unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna

Paramahamsa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving

straight to the divine realization, taking as it were, the kingdom of

heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after

another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible

rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the

realization and possession of God by the power of love, by the

extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the

spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example

cannot be generalized. Its object also was special and temporal,

to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master soul

the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world

long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labour-

ing, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth

and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme

experience. To know, be, and possess the divine is the one thing

needful and it includes or leads up to all the rest ... all the rest

that the divine Will chooses for us, all necessary form and mani-

festation, will be added." (" The Synthesis of Yoga," Arya Review,

Pondicherry, No. 5, December 15, 1914.)

In this way the essential significance of the personality and life

of Ramakrishna has been realized by the master metaphysician of

India to-day.

Mother Europe and her brood of the Americas. 4

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

and from Europe back to India, joining scientific reason to

Vedantic faith and the past to the future.

It is this Journey of the soul that I intend to trace in

future pages. Up to now I have led European thought to

the distant countries of religious mythology, whose wide-

spreading tree, the giant banyan, too often considered by

the West to be dried up and withered, continues to shoot

out great flowering branches. I shall then lead it back by

unsuspected paths to its home where modern reason sits

enthroned. And it will discover at the end of the journey

that between one country and another the gulf of centuries

dividing them is, when subjected to " wireless " of free

understanding, no wider than a hair's breadth and the

space of a second.

R. R.

Christmas, 1928.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I . The chief source for the history of Ramakrishna is the great

Biography, compiled from the accounts of his disciples and

published by the Swami Madhavananda :

Life of Sri Ramakrishna, compiled from various authentic sources,

one volume of 765 pages in the edition of the Advaita Ashrama

(the intellectual centre of the Order), Mayavati, Almora, Hima-

layas, 1925. (Himalayan Series, No. XLVII.)

It is prefaced with a short introduction by Gandhi, which I

feel it is of interest to reproduce :

" The story of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's life is a story

of religion in practice. His life enables us to see God face to

face. No one can read the story of his life without being con-

vinced that God alone is real and that all else is an illusion. Rama-

krishna was a living embodiment of godliness. His sayings are

not those of a mere learned man, but they are pages from the

Book of Life. They are revelations of his own experience. They

therefore leave on the reader an impression which he cannot

resist. In this age of scepticism Ramakrishna presents an

example of a bright and loving faith which gives solace to thou-

sands of men and women who would otherwise have remained

without spiritual light. Ramakrishna's life was an object lesson

in Ahimsa. His love knew no limits geographical or otherwise.

May his divine love be an inspiration to all who read the fol-

lowing pages.

M. K. GANDHI.

SABARMATI,

MARGSHEERSH, KRISHNA I,

Vikram Samvati, 1891."

As is shown by an editorial note this work is Abased on the

labours of Swami Saradananda, a direct disciple of the Master

and the Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission for more than a

quarter of a century ; on those of Ramchandra Dutt and of

Akshay Kumar Sen, both of them disciples of Ramaicrishna ; on

memories collected by Priyanath Sinha (ah* as Gurudas Varman),

a disciple of Vivekananda ; on the Discourses of the Master

taken down by Mahendra Nath Gupta.

This compilation is valuable because of the religious care which

has been taken to collect in it literally all the documents at first

hand, which had been scattered abroad. But it is inconvenient

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

because they are presented without any arrangement and with-

out criticism. And the lack (up to the present) of an alpha-

betical index makes research into it very difficult.

2. Of much greater value from the point of view of arrangement

and reason is the work of Swami Saradananda. It consists of

five volumes written in Bengali, which, however, do not give a

consecutive and full account of the life. The story, unfortunately

interrupted by the death of Saradananda in 1927, stops short at

the point when Ramakrishna during his last illness was moved

to the gardens of Cossipore, and therefore the last months are

missing. The work is also incomplete with regard to Rama-

krishna's disciples, with one or two exceptions, the most note-

worthy being Vivekananda.

The title of the series in Bengali is :

Sri Ramakrishna-lila-prasanga (Discourse on the lila (the play)

of Ramakrishna).

The titles of the five volumes in Bengali are as follows :

I and II. Gurubhave (Sri Ramakrishna as Guru or master).

III. Valya-jivana (The Youth of Ramakrishna).

IV. Sadhakabhava (Ramakrishna as Sadhaka).

V. Divyabhava (Ramakrishna in his divine form).

Only two volumes have appeared in English ; the first written

by Saradananda himself ; the second translated from the original

Bengali.

Some of the other chapters from the Bengali work have been

published in the Reviews of the Ramakrishna Order, Prabuddha

Bharata (hi particular the relations of Ramakrishna with Vive-

kananda), and in another English magazine.

Saradananda planned this work in the form of an exposition

of the various aspects of his life without presenting it in the

form of a consecutive narrative. The first two volumes in

Bengali were written according to this plan. Then Saradananda

changed it to the form of an ordinary biography. The third

volume is devoted to the youth, the fourth to the years when

Ramakrishna was practising his Sadhana ; it takes us to the

end of this exercise and to the first relations with the Brahmo

Samaj, where the part played by Ramakrishna as a teacher (but

not yet as a religious manifestation) is brought out. The fifth

volume describes the Master in the midst of his disciples and

the beginning of his illness. At this point he saw the death of

the " Holy Mother " (Ramakrishna's wife), and then that of

Swami Brahmananda, who, with Vivekananda, had been the

favourite disciple and the first Abbot of the Order. He was so

overwhelmed with grief that he abandoned his written work and

gave himself up wholly to meditation.

Incomplete though the work remains, it is excellent for the

subject. Saradananda is an authority both as a philosopher

and as an historian. His books are rich in metaphysical sketches,

which place the spiritual apr^earance of Ramakrishna exactly in

its place in the rich procession of Hindu thought.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

If variations appear between the Bengali work of Saradananda

and the Life of Sri Ramakrishna (No. i), which is the collective work

of the Ramakrishna Order, the latter must be given the prefer-

ence (according to the evidence I have received from Swami

Ashokananda), for it was drawn up with Saradananda's help

after his own work.

3. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (according to M., a son of the

Lord and disciple), or the Ideal Man for India and the World,

2 volumes, Madras, published by the Ramakrishna Math, 1897

(preceded by two approving letters of Vivekananda), 2nd Edition,

1911. (New Editions in 1922-24.) *

This Gospel of Ramakrishna is as valuable as the great Bio-

graphy (No. i), for it is the faithful account of M. (Mahendra

Nath Gupta, the head of an educational establishment at Cal-

cutta) of the Discourses with the Master, either his own or those

which he actually heard from the summer of 1882 for the next

four years. Their exactitude is almost stenographic. A good

alphabetical index makes it possible to find one's way among

the diversity of subjects treated in the course of the days.

4. The Life of the Swami Vivekananda, by his Eastern and Western

Disciples, the Advaita Ashrama, Himalayas, the semi-centenary

birthday memorial edition, in three volumes, 8 published by the

Swami Virajananda from the Prabuddha Bharata Office, Advaita

Ashrama, Mayavati, Almora, Himalayas. Volumes I and II,

1914 ; Volume III, 1915 ; Volume IV, 1918.

This great life of Ramakrishna's chief disciple has not only

a capital interest for its own history, but for that of his Master,

since it embodies his own direct memories.

It is also useful to consult the Complete Works of Swami Vive-

kananda, in 7 volumes. He often speaks of his Master with pious

gratitude. He dedicated to him in particular a celebrated lec-

ture in New York published under the title : My Master t in

Volume IV of the Complete Works.

5. Sri Ramakrishna' s Teachings, 2 small volumes, 1916 and 1920

(Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati).

These are a collection of thoughts delivered during the various

Discourses of the Master, in particular in the Gospel of Sri Rama*

krishna, and arranged in methodical order. It is especially

valuable as a little practical volume. It appeared piecemeal in

the Review of the Order, the Prabuddha Bharata, and in other

Indian Reviews between 1900 and 1913. A German edition is

at the moment being prepared.

1 To my great regret the only two volumes of the Gospel, which

I could procure, were of two different editions : the first volume

belonged to the 4th edition of 1924, the second volume to the first

of 1922. But it may be presumed that in so short an interval the

arrangement and style differed but little.

1 In reality there are four and not three volumes in this publi-

cation.

225 Q

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

6. Words of the Master (Selected Precepts of Sri Ramakrishna), com-

piled by Swami Brahmananda, 1924 (Udbodhan Office, Bagh-

bazar, Calcutta).

Another small anthology, chiefly interesting on account of the

personality of the anthologist.

7. Ramakrishna, his Life and Sayings, by Max Miiller (Longmans,

Green and Co.), ist edition, 1898, new edition, 1923.

Max Miiller knew Vivekananda personally in England ; and

he asked him to give him a complete account of the life of his

Master. His small work is therefore based on first-hand evidence ;

and he uses it with his broad and clear critical spirit, in which

are allied the scientific exegesis of the West and a generous

understanding of all forms of thought.

8. The Face of Silence, by Dhan Gopal Mukerji (New York, E. P.

Button and Co.), 1926.

This work, which is of exceptional value as a work of art, is

a brilliant evocation of the figure of the Master in the atmo-

sphere of the India of his time. Mukerji has consulted all the

principal documents. He has also interviewed several of the

eminent personalities of the Ramakrishna Mission, who knew the

Master, in particular Swami Turiyananda, and he has used the

Memoirs of Swami Premananda, one of Ramakrishna's dearest

disciples. The Ramakrishna Mission has not taken in very good

part the liberties due at times to the lively imagination of the

artist in the reported words ; and it has issued a warning against

some of its " theological " interpretations, whose character seem

of too personal a nature. For my own part I can never forget

that it is to the perusal of this beautiful book that I owe my

first knowledge of Ramakrishna and the impetus leading me to

undertake this work. I here record my gratitude. With extra-

ordinary talent and tact Mukerji in this book has chosen and

put in the limelight those features in Ramakrishna's personality

which will most attract the spirit of Europe and America with-

out shocking it. I have felt it necessary to go beyond his pre-

cautions and to cite documents exactly without allowing myself

to " embroider " them.

9. It is useful to consult the Reviews of the Ramakrishna Order,

which have published and still continue to publish studies and

unpublished memories of the Master and his disciples chiefly

Prabuddha Bharata and The Vedanta Kesari.

I said at the outset how much I owe to the good counsels

and the information of the Ramakrishna Mission, which has

tirelessly put at my disposal its documents and replied to my

questions. I can only repeat my thanks.

R. R.

ICONOGRAPHY

There are only three pictures of Ramakrishna which appear to

be authentic :

1. One published in the great Biography in English, published by

the Advaita Ashrama (p. 262). Ramakrishna was taken to a

photographer and involved in a spiritual conversation in the

course of which he fell into the Samadhi. A photograph was

then taken and when Ramakrishna saw it afterwards he made

the remark that it represented an exalted condition of yoga.

2. One published in Volume IV of the Complete Works of Swami

Vivekananda, p. 150.

3. One which I hope to publish sent to me by Swami Ashokananda.

It was taken during a Kirtan (religious dances and songs) in

which he was taking part with ecstatic joy.

The portrait in colours reproduced as the frontispiece of the big

Biography was painted by an Austrian artist, but not from the

living model. The disciples considered that it was very like him

except that it was too highly coloured.

NOTE

SARADADEVI AND THE BRIGANDS

In order to join her husband Saradadevi had often to cross the

plain between Kamarpukur and Dakshineswar on foot, and at that

time it was infested with bands of brigands, worshippers of Kali.

One day she was returning to Dakshineswar in the company of

several others. She was so tired when night fell that she could

not keep up with the rest of the little band and dropped behind.

Soon they were lost to view and she found herself alone in com-

plete darkness at the beginning of the dangerous plain. At that

moment she saw a swarthy man coming towards her. He was big

and strong and carried a club or* his shoulder ; he was followed

by another figure. She saw that there was no possibility of escape

and remained motionless. The man came up to her and said in

a rough voice,

11 What are you doing here at this time of night ? "

She answered him,

" Father, my companions left me behind and I have lost myself.

Will you be so kind as to take me to them ? Your son-in-law

dwells in the temple of Kali at Dakshineswar. I am going to him.

If you will take me as fax as that, he will be most grateful to you."

At that moment the other figure came up. Saradadevi realized

with relief that it was the man's wife. She took her by the hand

and said,

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

" Mother, I am your daughter Sarada. I am lost here and all

alone. My companions have deserted me. Fortunately you and

my father turned up 1 Otherwise I do not know what I should

have done."

Her simple ways, her absolute trust, and her sweet words touched

the hearts of the man and woman. They belonged to the lowest

caste ; but they forgot everything and treated Sarada as their

daughter. She was tired. They would not allow her to continue

her journey ; they made her sleep at a shop in the neighbouring

village. The woman took off her own clothes in order to make a

bed for her. The man brought her some puffed rice that he had

bought at the shop. They watched over her as if they had been

indeed her parents all night, and in the morning they took her as

far as Tarakeswar, where they begged her to rest. The woman

said to her husband,

" My daughter did not have much to eat yesterday. Go and

fetch some fish and vegetables for her from the bazaar. She must

have better food to-day."

While the man had gone to fetch them, Sarada's companions

came back to look for her. She introduced her Bagdi 1 parents to

them, and said,

" I do not know what I should have done, if they had not come

to the rescue."

" When we separated,' 1 so she told afterwards, " this single night

had made us so dear to one another that I wept for grief when

I said good-bye to them. I made them promise to come to

Dakshineswar to see me. They followed us for some time. The

woman picked a few green peas growing at the side of the road

and wrapped them in a fold of my sari, and said ' Mother Sarada,

to-night when you eat your puffed rice take these with it.' ...

They came to see me several times at Dakshineswar and brought

me different presents. ' He ' a behaved towards them as if he

were their son-in-law, and treated them with great affection and

respect. . . . But although my Dacoit father was so good and

simple, I suspect that he had more than once committed acts of

brigandage. ..."

Adapted from the Modern Review, June, 1927.

1 A low caste.

* " He," that is to say, " my husband." An orthodox Hindu

wife must never name her husband.

Book II

VIVEKANANDA

" Never forget the glory of human nature ! We are the greatest

God. . . . Christs and Buddhas are but waves on the boundless

Ocean which / am."

Vivekananda in America, 1896.

Part I

THE LIFE OF VIVEKANANDA

PRELUDE

THE great disciple whose task it was to take up the

spiritual heritage of Ramakrishna and disseminate

the grain of his thought throughout the world, was both

physically and morally his direct antithesis.

The Seraphic Master had spent his whole life at the

feet of the Divine Beloved, the Mother the Living God.

He had been dedicated to Her from infancy ; before he

had attained self-consciousness he had the consciousness

that he loved Her. And although, in order to rejoin her,

he had been condemned to years of torment, that was

after the manner of a knight errant the sole object of whose

trials was to make him worthy of the object of his chaste

and religious love. She alone was at the end of all the

interlacing paths in the forest. She alone, the multiple

God, among the thousands of Faces. And when he had

reached her, he found that he had learned to recognize

all those other faces, and to love them in Her, so that

with Her he embraced the whole world. The rest of his

life had been spent in the serene fullness of this cosmic

Joy, whose revelation Beethoven and Schiller have sung

for the West. 1

But he realized it more fully than our tragic heroes.

Joy appeared to Beethoven only as a gleam of bJue through

the chaos of conflicting clouds, while the Paramahamsa

the Indian swan rested his great white wing on the sapphire

lake of eternity beyond the veil of tumultuous days.

1 Reference to Beethoven's IXth (Choral) Symphony, which ends

with a setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy. Translator's Note.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

It was not given to his proudest disciples to emulate

him. The greatest of them, the spirit with the widest

wings Vivekananda could only attain his heights by

sudden flights amid tempests which remind me over and

over again of Beethoven. Even in moments of rest upon

its bosom the sails of his ship were filled with every wind

that blew. Earthly cries, the suffering of the age, fluttered

round him like a flight of famished gulls. The passions

of strength (never of weakness) were striving within his

lion's heart. He was energy personified, and action was

his message to men. For him as for Beethoven it was

the root of all the virtues. He went so far in his aversion

to passivity, whose secular yoke weighs so heavily on the

patient bovine brow of the East, as to say :

" Above all, be strong ! Be manly ! I have a respect

even for one who is wicked, so long as he is manly and

strong; for his strength will make him some day give

up his wickedness, or even give up all works for selfish

ends, and will thus eventually bring him into the

Truth/ 1 *

His athletic form was the opposite of the fragile and

tender, yet wiry, body of Ramakrishna. He was tall (five

feet, eight and a half inches), 8 square shouldered, broad

chested, stout, rather heavily built ; his arms were muscular

and trained to all kinds of sports. He had an olive com-

plexion, a full face, vast forehead, strong jaw, 4 a pair of

magnificent eyes, large, dark and rather prominent with

heavy lids, whose shape recalled the classic comparison to

a lotus leaf. Nothing escaped the magic of his glance,

capable equally of embracing in its irresistible charm or

of sparkling with wit, irony, or kindness, of losing itself

in ecstasy, or of plunging imperiously to the very depths

of consciousness and of withering with its fury. But his

pre-eminent characteristic was kingliness. He was a born

1 1891. To his Alwar disciples in Rajputana.

He weighed 170 pounds. In the Phrenological Journal of New

York (reproduced in Volume II of the Life of Vivekananda) the

exact measurements may be found that were taken at the time of

his first journeys in America.

4 His jaw was more Tartar than Hindu. Vivekananda boasted

of his Tartar ancestors, and he loved to say that in India " the

Tartar is the wine of the race."

PRELUDE

king and nobody ever came near him either in India or

America without paying homage to his majesty.

When this quite unknown young man of twenty-nine

appeared in Chicago at the inaugural meeting of the Parlia-

ment of Religions, opened in September, 1893, by Cardinal

Gibbons, all his fellow members were forgotten in his com-

manding presence. His strength and beauty, the grace

and dignity of his bearing, the dark light of his eyes, his

imposing appearance, and from the moment he began to

speak, the splendid music of his rich deep 6 voice enthralled

the vast audience of American Anglo-Saxons, previously

prejudiced against him on account of his colour. The

thought of this warrior-prophet 6 of India left a deep mark

upon the United States. 7

It was impossible to imagine him in the second place.

Wherever he went he was the first. Even his master

Ramakrishna in a vision which I have related, represented

himself with regard to his beloved disciple, as a child beside

a great Rishi. It was in vain that Vivekananda refused

to accept such homage, judging himself severely and humili-

ating himself, everybody at sight recognized in him the

leader, the anointed of God, the man marked with the

stamp of the power to command. A traveller who crossed

his path without knowing who he was in the Himalayas,

stopped in amazement and cried, " Shiva. . . ." 8

It was as if his chosen God had imprinted His name

upon his forehead.

But this same forehead was weather-beaten like a crag

by the four winds of the spirit. He very rarely realized

the calm air, the limpid spaces of thought, whereon Rama-

6 He had a beautiful voice like a violoncello (so Miss Josephine

MacLeod told me), grave without violent contrasts but with deep

vibrations that filled both hall and hearts. Once his audience

was held he could make it sink to an intense piano piercing his

heaxers to the soul. Emma Calve, who knew him, described it

as " an admirable baritone, having the vibrations of a Chinese

gong."

6 He belonged to the Kayastha class, a sub-caste of warriors.

7 The Ramakrishna Mission, after its introduction by him, spread

rapidly, and he found among Americans several of his most devoted

disciples.

8 Related by Dhan Gopal Mukerji.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

krishna's smile hovered. His super-powerful body 9 and

too vast brain were the predestined battlefield for all

the shocks of his storm-tossed soul. The present and the

past, the East and the West, dream and action, struggled

for supremacy. He knew and could achieve too much to

be able to establish harmony by renouncing one part of

his nature, or one part of truth. The synthesis of his

great opposing forces took years of struggle, consuming

his courage and his very life. Battle and life for him were

synonymous. 10 And his days were numbered. Sixteen

years passed between Ramakrishna's death and that of

his great disciple . . . years of conflagration . . . He was

less than forty years of age when the athlete lay stretched

upon the pyre. . . .

But the flame of that pyre is still alight to-day. From

his ashes, like those of the Phoenix of old, has sprung

the magic bird faith in her unity and in the Great Message,

brooded over from Vedic times by the dreaming spirit of

an ancient people the message for which they must render

account to the rest of mankind.

Although marked very early by the first attacks of diabetes,

the poison from which he died. This Hercules had death always

sitting by his side.

10 Did he not define life : " The tendency of the unfoldment

and development of a being under circumstances tending to press

it down." (April, 1891 : Interview with the Maharaja of Khetri.)

THE PARIVRAJAKA : THE CALL OF THE EARTH TO THE

WANDERING SOUL

AFTER Christmas night, 1886, the vigil of Barana-

gore, where the New Communion of Apostles was

founded amid tears of love in memory of the lost Master

many months and years elapsed before the work was

begun that translated Ramakrishna's thought into living

action.

There was the bridge to be built and they could not

at first make up their minds to build it. The only one

with the necessary energy and constructive genius, Naren x

1 1 would remind the reader that his real name was Narendra-

nath Dutt. He did not adopt the name of Vivekananda until the

moment of his departure for America in 1893.

I have consulted the Ramakrishna Mission on this subject.

Swami Ashokananda has been good enough to put at my disposal

all the results of a profound research. According to the decisive

witness of one of Vivekananda J s most important monastic disciples,

the Swami Suddhananda, the present Secretary of the R.M., Rama-

krishna always used his name Narendra, or more shortly, Naren.

Although he had made Sannyasins of certain of his disciples it was

never according to the usual forms and he never gave them monastic

names. He had indeed given Naren the cognomen of Kamalaksha

(lotus eyed) ; but Naren dropped it immediately. During his first

journeys in India he appeared under different names, in order to

conceal his identity. Sometimes he was the Swami Vividishananda,

sometimes Satchidananda. Again on the eve of his departure for

America, when he went to ask Colonel Olcutt, then President of

the Theosophical Society, for letters of introduction to America, it

was under the name of Satchinananda that Colonel Olcutt knew

him, and instead of recommending him to his friends in America,

warned them against him. (Olcutt's letter to Sharmapala, in

America, has been read by Suddhananda.) It was his great friend,

the Maharajah of Khetri, who suggested the name Vivekananda to

him at the moment when he was stepping on board the boat to

go to America. The choice of the name was inspired by an illusion

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

himself hesitated. He, even more uncertain than them all,

was torn between dream and action. Before he raised the

arch which was to span the two banks, it was necessary

for him to know and to explore the other bank : the real

world of India and the present day. But nothing as yet

was clear : his coming mission burnt dimly in the feverish

heart of this young man of destiny whose years only num-

bered twenty-three. The task was so heavy, so vast, so

complex 1 How could it be accomplished even in spirit ?

And when and where was it to be begun ? In anguish he

put off the decisive moment. But was he able to prevent

its impassioned discussion in the secret depths of his mind ?

It pursued him, every night from his adolescence, not

consciously but subconsciously through the ardent and con-

flicting instincts of his nature with all its conflicting desires

the Desire to have, to conquer, to dominate the earth,

the Desire to renounce all earthly things in order to possess

God. 8

The struggle was constantly renewed throughout his life.

This warrior and conqueror wanted to have everything,

both God and the world to dominate everything to

renounce everything. The superfluity of powers striving

within his Roman athlete body and Imperator brain con-

tended for mastery. But this very excess of force made

it impossible for him to confine his torrential waters within

any bed save that of the river of God and complete self-

surrender to the Unity. How was this contest between

pride and imperious love, between his two great desires,

rival and sovereign brothers, to be decided ?

There was a third element, which Naren himself had

not foreseen, but which the prophetic eye of Ramakrishna

had discerned from afar. At a time when the others were

showing anxiety or mistrust with regard to this young

man, in whom such tumultuous forces were at work, the

Master had declared :

" The day when Naren comes in contact with suffering

to the " power of discrimination " possessed by the Swami. Naren

-accepted it, perhaps provisionally, but he could never have changed

it wen if he had wanted to : for within a few months the name

had acquired an Indo- American celebrity.

* Cf . the story told by Naren of his spiritual conflicts in previous

THE PARIVRAJAKA

and misery, the pride of his character will melt into a

mood of infinite compassion. His strong faith in himself

will be an instrument to re-establish in discouraged souls

the confidence and faith they have lost. And the freedom

of his conduct, based on mighty self-mastery, will shine

brightly in the eyes of others, as a manifestation of the

true liberty of the Ego." 8

This meeting with suffering and human misery not

only vague and general but definite misery, misery close

at hand, the misery of his people, the misery of India

was to be the flint upon the steel whence a spark would

fly to set the whole soul on fire. And with this as its foun-

dation stone, pride, ambition and love, faith, science and

action, all his powers and all his desires were thrown into

the mission of Human Service and united into one single

flame : "A religion which will give us faith in ourselves,

a national self-respect, and the power to feed and educate

the poor and relieve the misery around us ... If you

want to find God, serve man ! " 4

But consciousness of his mission only came and took

possession of him after years of direct experience, wherein

he saw with his own eyes, and touched with his own hands

the miserable and glorious body of humanity his mother

India in all her tragic nakedness.

We shall accompany him throughout the pilgrimage of

his Wander jahre.*

The first months, the first year at Baranagore were

devoted to the mutual edification of the disciples. As yet

not one of them was prepared to preach to men. They

desired to concentrate on the search for mystic realization ;

and the delights of the inner life made them turn away

1 That is to say, the one Divine Being. (Quoted from the work

of Saradananda : Divya Bhana.)

* The Life of Vivekananda, Vol. II, Chapter LXXIII. Conver-

sations before 1893.

N.B. The Life of Vivekananda to which I shall constantly refer

in the course of this book, is the classic work in India in four

volumes, published by the Advaita Ashram of Mayavati, under the

title : The Life of the Swami Vivekananda, by his

Western Disciples. 1914-18.

8 This, as is well known, is the title of a book

Wander Years of Wilhelm Meister. (WaiiderjaJir^y^jj^y means

wander years. TRANSLATOR.)

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

their eyes from outside. Naren, who shared their longing

for the Infinite, but who realized how dangerous for the

passive soul was this elementary attraction, which acts

like gravity on a falling stone Naren with whom dream

itself was action would not allow them to be torpidly

engulfed in meditation. He made this period of conventual

seclusion a hive of laborious education, a High School of

the spirit. The superiority of his genius and his knowledge

had from the first given him a tacit but definite guidance

over his companions, although many of them were older

than he. Had not the last words of the Master when he

took leave of them, been to Naren,

" Take care of these boys ! " . . . 6

Naren resolutely undertook the conduct of this young

seminary, and did not permit it to indulge in the idleness

of God. He kept its members ever on the alert, he harried

their minds without any pity ; he read them the great

books of human thought, he explained to them the evolution

of the universal mind, he forced them to dry and impassioned

discussion of all the great philosophical and religious prob-

lems, he led them indefatigably towards the wide horizons

of boundless Truth, which surpass all the limits of schools

and races, and embrace and unify all particular truths. 7

This synthesis of spirit fulfilled the promise of Rama-

krishna's message of love. The unseen Master presided

6 " Memoirs of the Disciple Ramakrishnananda " of the last

moments of Ramakrishna, recently published in Messages from the

East in the United States. (See Chapter XII of Book I.)

f In this panorama of all the heroic and divine thoughts of human-

ity, we must again notice the place of honour which seems to have

been given to Christ and the Gospels. These Hindu monks kept

Good Friday, and they sang the Canticles of St. Francis. Naren,

who could never read the immortal story of the Crucifixion with-

out tears, spoke to them of the Christian saints, the founders of the

Western Orders. The Imitation of Jesus Christ was their bedside

book together with the Bhagavadgita. Nevertheless there was

never for a moment any question of enrolling themselves within

the Church of Christ. They were and remain complete and un-

compromising Vedantic Advaitists. But they incorporate in their

faith all the faiths of the world. The waters of Jordan mingle

with their Ganges. If any westerner waxes indignant at the abuse

he sees in this connexion, we would ask him whether the mingling

of the waters of the Tibur with the river of Palestine is any

better.

THE PARIVRAJAKA

over their meetings. They were able to place their in-

tellectual labours at the service of his universal heart.

But it is not in the nature of the religious Indian, not-

withstanding Europe's belief in Asiatic immobility, to

remain, like a French bourgeois, shut up in one place.

Even those who practise contemplation have in their blood

the secular instinct of wandering through the universe with-

out fixed abode, without ties, independent and strangers

wherever they go. This tendency to become a wandering

monk, known in Hindu religious life by the special name

of Parivrajaka, soon spurred some of the brethren of Baran-

agore. From the moment of union the whole group had

never assembled in its entirety. Two of its chiefs, Yogan-

anda and Latu, were not present at the Christmas con-

secration of 1886. Others followed Ramakrishna's widow

to Brindaban. Others, like the young Saradananda, sud-

denly disappeared, without saying where they were going.

Naren, in spite of his anxiety to maintain the ties uniting

the brotherhood, was himself tormented with the same

desire to escape. How could this migratory need of the

soul, this longing to lose itself in the Ocean of the air,

like a carrier pigeon that stifles beneath the roof of the

dovecote, be reconciled to the necessary fixity of a naissant

Order ? It was arranged that a portion at least of the

group should always remain at Baranagore, while the other

brethren followed the " Call of the Forest. " And one of

them one only Sasi (Soshi), never quitted the hearth.

He was the faithful guardian of the Math, the immobile

axis, the coping stone of the dovecote, whereto the vaga-

bond wings returned. . . . 8

Naren resisted the call topflight for two years. Apart

8 1 have said above that Ramakrishna the free, differing in this

respect from other Gurus, had not in the case of his disciples, car-

ried out the ceremony of initiation in its usual forms. This was

later a subject of reproach to Vivekananda. Naren and his com-

panions supplemented it themselves about 1888 or 1889 by carrying

it to the Viraja Homa, the traditional ceremony of Sannyasa at the

monastery of Baranagore. Swami Ashokananda has also told me

that another kind of Sannyasa is recognized in India, as superior

to the formal Sannyasa consecrated in the usual way. He who

feels a strong detachment from life and an intense thirst for God,

can take the Sannyasa alone, even without any formal initiation.

This was doubtless the case with the free monks of Baranagore.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

from short visits he remained at Baranagore until 1888.

Then he left suddenly, not at first alone, but with one

companion, and intense though his desire to escape, for

two and a half years he always returned if he was recalled

by his brethren, or by some unforeseen event. Then he

was seized by the sacred madness to escape ; the longing

suppressed for five years burst all bounds. In 1891, alone,

without a companion, without a name, staff and bowl in

hand as an unknown beggar, he was swallowed up for

years in the immensity of India.

But a hidden logic directed his distracted course. The

immortal words : " Thou wouldest not have looked for

Me if thou hadst not found Me " 9 were never so true as

for those souls possessed by the hidden God, who struggle

with Him in order to drag from Him the secret of the

mission with which they are charged.

Naren had no doubt that a mission awaited him ; his

power, his genius spoke within him, and the fever of the

age, the misery of the time, and the mute appeal rising

all around him from oppressed India, the tragic contrast

between the august grandeur of her ancient might of her

unfulfilled destiny, and the degradation of the country

betrayed by her children, the anguish of death and resur-

rection, of despair and love, devoured his heart. But what

was his mission to be ? Who was to dictate it to him ?

The holy Master was dead, without having defined it for

him. And among the living, was any 10 capable of en-

lightening his path ? God alone. Let Him then speak.

Why was He silent ? Why did He refuse to answer ?

Naren went to find Him.

Pascal.

10 There was only one : a holy man, revered by the wisest in

India, Pavhari Baba of Ghazipur. This great hermit, born of

Brahmin parents at Benares, and very learned, knowing all Indian

religions, and philosophies, the Dravidian languages and ancient

Bengali, who had travelled in all countries, had retired into soli-

tude and practised the strictest asceticism. The tranquillity of his

intrepid soul, his heroic humility, which had taught itself to look

the most terrible realities in the face with a calm smile, and which

made him say in the midst of cruel sufferings caused by the bite

of a cobra that " it was a message from his Beloved " fascinated

the highest spirits of India. He had been visited by Keshab Chun-

dar Sen ; and even during the life of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda

THE PARIVRAJAKA

He suddenly left Calcutta in 1888 and went through

Benares, Dayodia, Lucknow, Agra, Brindaban, Northern

India and the Himalayas. Nothing is known of this journey

or of the subsequent ones Naren kept the secret of his

religious experiences except from the Memoirs of the

Brethren who met him or accompanied him. 11 In 1888

during the first of these pilgrimages after he had left Brinda-

ban at Hatras, a small railway station, he quite uninten-

tionally made his first disciple a man one minute a complete

stranger, the next impelled by the attraction of his glance

to leave all and follow him, and who remained faithful

unto death : Sarat Chendra Gupta (who took the name

of Sadananda). 12 They went about in the guise of beggars,

had been to him (Pavhari recognized Ramakrishna's sanctity).

Naren saw him again during the period of uncertainty following

Ramakrishna's death ; he visited him daily, and was on the verge

of becoming his follower, and demanding initiation of him. This

torment of soul lasted several weeks ; he was torn between the

two mystic appeals of Ramakrishna and Pavhari Baba. The latter

would have satisfied his passion for the Divine gulf, wherein the

individual soul renounces itself, and is entirely absorbed with no

thought of return. And he would have appeased the remorse,

always gnawing at Naren's heart, for turning from the world and

social service ; for he professed the faith that the spirit can help

others, even without the help of the body, and that the most intense

action is that of the most intense concentration. What religious

spirit has not heard this voice with its deadly attraction ? Naren

was for twenty-one days within an ace of yielding. But for twenty-

one nights the vision of Ramakrishna came to draw him back.

Finally after an inner struggle of the utmost intensity, whose vicissi-

tudes he has constantly refused to reveal, he made his choice for

ever. He chose the service of God in man.

11 Saradananda, Brahmananda, Premananda, Yogananda, Yuri-

yananda, especially Akhandananda, who was with him the longest.

11 In her Unpublished Memoirs, which have been shown to me,

Sister Christine, Vivekananda's great American disciple, has left a

precious account of this episode and the attractive personality of

Sadananda, gleaned from Vivekananda's confidences to her.

Sadananda was the young station master of Hatras. He saw

Naren arrive at the station dying of hunger. He was captivated

by his glance. " I followed two diabolical eyes," he said later.

He made hirn come into his house ; and when his guest departed

he followed him for life.

Both young men were artists and poets. But, unlike his Master,

with Sadananda the intellect held a secondary place, although he

was well educated (he had studied Persian and been influenced

241 R

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

often repulsed, at times almost dying of hunger and thirst,

with no regard for caste and willing to smoke even the

pipe of the pariah. Sadananda fell ill, and Naren carried

him on his shoulders through dangerous jungles. Then he

in turn fell ill and they were obliged to return to Calcutta.

This very first journey had brought ancient India vividly

before his eyes, eternal India, the India of the Vedas, with

its race of heroes and gods, clothed in the glory of legend

and history, Aryans, Moghuls and Dravidians, all one. 18

At the first impact he realized the spiritual unity of India

by Sufism). Like him he had a very vivid sense of beauty and

enjoyed the delights of Nature and of the countryside. None re-

mained more devoted to Vivekananda. He was impregnated with

the being of the Master ; he had only to close his eyes, to meditate

on his features and gestures to be immediately filled with the pro-

fundities of his thought. Vivekananda described him as " the child

of my spirit." Without having known Ramakrishna, he was by

nature nearer to him than any of the others ; and episodes in his

life recall that of the Paramahamsa as well as of several of our

saints of the Golden Legend : he saw a buffalo being beaten :

immediately the marks of the whip appeared upon his body ; he

cared for the lepers, worshipping them as God ; for the whole of

one night he held a man burning with smallpox against his body

to refresh his fever. More than any other of the future disciples

he had the democratic spirit (due partly, according to Sister Chris-

tine, to Mohammedan influence). He was one of the first of the

Mission to organize a corps of scavengers during the plague. He

loved the Untouchables and shared their life. He was adored by

young people. During his last illness a devoted band, who called

themselves Sadananda's dogs, watched over him with passionate

devotion ; they had left all for him, just as he had left all for Vive-

kananda. He did not allow the usual relations of disciples and

Guru to be established between them ; he was their companion.

" I can only do one thing for you," he said to them. " That is to

take you to the Swamiji." Although he could at times be severe

he was always bubbling over with joy as his chosen name shows

and he transmitted this joy to them. They ever hold him in loving

memory.

My readers will pardon this long note, which breaks the thread

of the story to a certain extent. The preservation for pious hearts

of the West of this " little flower " of India whose culling we owe

to Sister Christine, full as it is of Franciscan grace, seemed to me

more important than the exigencies of literary composition.

11 The revelation of Moghul grandeur at Agra reduced him to

tears. At Dayodia he re-lived the story of the Ramayana, and at

Brindaban the childhood of Krishna. In the retreats of the Hima-

layas he meditated on the Vedas.

THE PARIVRAJAKA

and Asia and he communicated this discovery to the

brethren of Baranagore.

From his second journey in 1889 to Ghazipur, he seems

to have brought back some intuition of the Gospel of

Humanity, which the new democracies of the West were

writing unconsciously and blindly. He told his brethren

how " in the West the ancient ideal of divine right, which

had formerly been the appanage of one single being, had

gradually been recognized as the property of all without

distinction of class, and that the human spirit had thus

come to a perception of the divinity of Nature and of

Unity." He saw and immediately proclaimed the necessity

of introducing into India the same ideas which had been

tried by America and Europe with such happy results.

Thus from the first he exhibited that liberality and greatness

of spirit, which seeks and desires the common good, the

spiritual progress of all men by the united efforts of all

men.

The short journeys that followed in 1889 and 1890 to

Allahabad and Ghazipur, still further enlightened this

universal conception. During his interviews at Ghazipur

he can be seen travelling towards the synthesis of Hindu

faith and modern science, of the ideas of the Vedanta

and the social realizations of the present day, of the pure

Spirit and the innumerable Gods which are the " Lower

ideas " of all religions and are necessary for human weakness ;

for they are all true in their quality of phantoms of know-

ledge, various methods and diverse stages in the development

of the human spirit, which climbs slowly towards the summit

of its being.

These were as yet nothing 'but flashes, rough sketches

of his future. But they were all being stored up and

fermenting in his brain. A prodigious force was rising in

this young man within the narrow bounds of his convent

at Baranagore, of the daily round prescribed by duty and

even of communion with his friends. It could no longer

be contained. He was forced to break the ties that bound

him, to cast off his chains, his way of life, his name, his

body all that was Naren and to remake with the help

of different ones another self wherein the giant which had

grown up could breathe freely to be born again. This

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

rebirth was to be Vivekananda. He was like a Gargantua

rending asunder the swathing bands that were throttling

him. ... It can no longer be described as the religious

Call of the pilgrim, who bids farewell to his brother men in

order to follow God ! This young athlete, reduced to the

point of death by his unused powers, was driven forth by

a vital instinct and betrayed into the brutal speech over

which his pious disciples have drawn a veil. He said at

Benares :

" I am going away ; but I shall never come back until

I can burst on society like a bomb, and make it follow me

like a dog."

We know how he himself vanquished these redoubtable

demons, and turned them to the service of the humble in

supreme humility, but we nevertheless rejoice at the con-

templation of the savage forces of pride and ambition which

suffocated him. For he suffered from that excess of power

which insists on domination and within him there was a

Napoleon.

He accordingly broke loose at the beginning of July, 1890,

this time for years, from the dear home of Baranagore,

which he had founded, from the spiritual nest whereon

Ramakrishna himself was brooding. His wings swept him

away. He went first to ask for the blessing of the " Holy

Mother" (Ramakrishna's widow) 14 for his long journey.

He desired to cut himself free from all ties and to go into

retreat in the Himalayas. But of all good things solitude

(the treasure ! and terror of gregarious souls !) is the most

difficult to achieve. Parents, friends, all would deny it.

(Tolstoy knew this and could never attain it until the death-

bed of Astapovo . . .) Social life makes a thousand claims

14 Saradadevi, the good and simple woman, who -survived

Ramakrishna by more than forty years, and Vivekananda by more

than twenty, beloved and revered by all, kept the Master's sentiments

with regard to the great disciple. One day Miss MacLeod (who

told me the story) said to Saradadevi : " Your husband had the

better part ; he stayed in India among his own people : that must

have been all joy for him. The Mission of the Swami (Vivekananda)

was much more difficult : he had a heroic part to play." " Yes/'

Saradadevi replied simply. " Swami Vivekananda was the greater.

Ramakrishna always said that he was the body and Vivekananda

the head." I have quoted this remark, not because I share the

the same view, but to show Ramakrishna's modesty.

THE PARIVRAJAKA

on those who flee it. And how much more when the fugitive

is still a young prisoner ! Naren discovered this to his cost.

And also at the cost of those who loved him ! His brother

monks were bent upon following him. He was obliged to

break with them almost brutally. 15 Even so the tragic

world would not allow him to forget it. The death of a

sister found him in his solitude. The pitiful victim of a

cruel society, she reminded him of the sacrificial fate of the

Hindu woman and the sad problems of the life of his people

which made it criminal for him to remain a disinterested

spectator. By a chain of circumstances, which might be

accounted fore-ordained, he was constantly torn from his

Beato Solitude, Sola Beatitudo at the very moment when he

thought he had at last attained it, and thrown back from

the silent Himalayas to the plains filled with the noise and

lust of mankind. As the result of these mental agitations

added to fatigue, and privation, he had two serious illnesses

at Srinagar and at Meerut at the foot of the Himalayas on

the Ganges ; he almost died of diphtheria. The extreme

weakness which followed made it still more difficult for him

to achieve his great solitary journey.

Nevertheless that journey was accomplished. If he was

to die it should be on the way, and on his own way the

way revealed to him by his God ! In February, 1891, in

spite of his friends, he left Delhi alone. This was the

great departure. Like a diver he plunged into the Ocean

of India, and the Ocean of India covered his tracks. Among

its flotsam and jetsam he was nothing more than one name-

less Sannyasin in saffron robe among a thousand others.

But the fires of genius burned in his eyes. He was a prince

despite all disguise.

16 Akhadananda accompanied him to the Himalayas ; he there

fell ill. At Almora Naren found Saradananda and Tripananda. A

little later Turiyananda. They attached themselves to him. He

left them at Meerut near the end of January, 1891 ; their anxious

affection followed him to Delhi. His anger was kindled and he

ordered them to leave him.

II

THE PILGRIM OF INDIA

HIS great journey of two years through India, and

then of three years round the world (was this his

original intention ?), was the adequate reply of his instinct

to the double exigencies of his nature : independence and

service. He wandered, free from plan, caste, home, con-

stantly alone with God. And there was no single hour of

his life when he was not brought into contact with the

sorrows, the desires, the abuses, the misery and the fever-

ishness of living men, rich and poor, in town and field ;

he became one with their lives ; the great Book of Life

revealed to him what all the books in the libraries could

not have done (for after all they are only collections), which

even Ramakrishna's ardent love had only been able to see

dimly as in a dream the tragic face of the present day,

the God struggling in humanity the cry of the peoples

of India and of the world for help and the heroic duty

of the new Oedipus, whose task is to deliver Thebes from

the talons of the Sphinx, or to perish with Thebes.

Wander jahre. Lehrjahre. 1 What a unique education!

. . . He was not only the humble little brother, who slept

in stables or on the pallets of beggars, but he was on a

footing of equality with ev'ery man, to-day an insulted

beggar sheltered by pariahs, to-morrow the guest of princes,

conversing on equal terms with Prime Ministers and Mahara-

jahs, the brother of the oppressed bending over their misery,

then probing the luxury of the great, awakening care for

the public weal in their torpid hearts. He was as con-

versant with the knowledge of the pandits as with the

problems of industrial and rural economy whereby the life

of the people is controlled, ever teaching, ever learning,

1 " Years of travel." " Years of apprenticeship." (Goethe.)

THE PILGRIM OF INDIA

gradually making himself the Conscience of India, its Unity

and its Destiny. All of them were incarnate in him, and

the world saw them in Vivekananda.

His itinerary led him through Rajputana, Alwar (February

to March, 1891), Jaipur, Ajmer, Khetri, Ahmedabad and

Kathiawar (end of September), Junagath and Gujerat,

Porbandar (a stay of between eight and nine months),

Dvaraka, Palitana the city of temples close to the gulf of

Khambhat, the state of Baroda, Khandwa, Poona, Bel-

gaum (October, 1892), Bangalore in the state of Mysore,

Cochin, Malabar, the state of Travancore, Trivandrur,

Madura. . . . He travelled to Cape Comorin, the extreme

point of the immense pyramid, where is the Benares of

Southern India, Rameswaram, the Rome of the Ramayana,

and beyond to Kanyakumari, the sanctuary of the Great

Goddess (end of 1892).

From North to South the ancient land of India was full

of gods ; yet the unbroken chain of their countless arms

formed only one God. He realized their unity of flesh and

spirit. He realized it also in communion with the living

of all castes and those outside caste. And he taught them

to realize it. He took mutual understanding from the one

to the other, to strong spirits, to the intellectuals obsessed

with the abstract, he preached respect for images, and idol

Gods, to young men the duty of studying the grand old

books of the past ; the Vedas, the Puranas, the ancient

annals, and still more the people of to-day to all a re-

ligious love for Mother India and a passion to dedicate

themselves to her redemption.

He received no less than he gave. His vast spirit never

for a single day failed to jviden its knowledge a and its

experience, and it assimilated all the rivers of thought

scattered and buried in the soil of India, for their source

seemed identical to him. As far removed from the blind

devotion of the orthodox, who were engulfed in the muddy

stench of stagnant water, as from the paltry rationalism

1 At Khetri he became the pupil of the foremost Sanskrit gram-

marian of the time. At Ahmedabad he completed his knowledge

of Mohammedan and Jain culture. At Porbandar he stayed three-

quarters of a year, in spite of his vow as a wandering monk, to

perfect his philosophical and Sanskrit studies with pandit sages ;

he worked with Trigunakita, who translated the Vedas.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

of the reformers of the Brahmo Samaj, who with the best

intentions were busied in drying up the mystic fountains

of hidden energy, Vivekananda wished to preserve and to

harmonize them all by draining the whole entangled reser-

voir of the waters of a whole continent possessed by a

deeply religious soul.

He desired more than this. (Nobody with impunity can

be the contemporary of the great engineers who cut a

passage between oceans, and willy nilly, rejoin the hands

of continents !) everywhere he carried with him the

Imitation of Christ, and side by side with the Bhagavad,

he spread the thought of Jesus ; 8 and he urged young people

to study the science of the West. 4

But the widening of his mind was not only in the realm

of ideas. A revolution took place in his moral vision with

regard to other men and his relations with them. If ever

there was pride in a young man, coupled to intellectual

intolerance, the contempt of the aristocrat for all that fell

below his high ideal of purity, it was present in the young

Narendra :

" At twenty years of age (it is he himself speaking) I was

the most unsympathetic, uncompromising fanatic ; I would

not walk on the footpath on the theatre side of the streets

in Calcutta/' 6

During the first months of his pilgrimage when he was

with the Maharajah of Khetri near Jaipur (April, 1891), a

little dancer gave him all unwittingly a lesson in humility.

When she appeared the scornful monk rose to go out. The

prince begged him to remain. The little dancer sang :

" O Lord, look not upon my evil qualities ! Thy name,

1 But he was merciless towards the intolerance of the mission-

aries, and never forgave them for it. The Christ whom he preached,

opened His arms to all.

4 During the beginning of his great journey at Alwar in Rajpu-

tana (February to March, 1891), when he was hurt by the lack of

a spirit of precision, of exactitude and of scientific criticism in

Indian history. He set up the example of the West in opposition

to it. He wished India to be inspired with its methods, so that a

young school of Hindu historians might arise to devote themselves

to resuscitating India's past. " That would be real national educa-

tion; and thus a true national spirit would be awakened."

1 Letter of July 6, 1896. He added, "At 33 I can live in the

same house with prostitutes.' 1

THE PILGRIM OF INDIA

Lord, is Same-sightedness. Make of us both the same

Brahman ! One piece or iron is in the image in the temple,

and another the knife in the hand of the butcher. But

when they touch the philosopher's stone both alike turn

into gold. So, Lord, look not upon my evil qualities ! Thy

name, Lord, is Same-sightedness ! . . .

" One drop of water is in the sacred Jumna and another

is foul in the ditch by the roadside. But when they fall

into the Ganges both alike become holy. So, Lord, do not

look upon my evil qualities. Thy name, Lord, is Same-

sightedness. . . ." 6

Naren was completely overwhelmed. The confident

faith expressed in the humble song affected him for life.

Many years later he recalled it with emotion.

One by one his prejudices disappeared, even those which

he had considered to be most deeply rooted. In the Hima-

layas he lived among Thibetan races, who practise polyandry.

He was the guest of a family of six brothers, who shared

the same wife ; and in his neophytic zeal he tried to show

them their immorality. But it was they who were scan-

dalized by his lessons ; " What selfishness ! " they said.

" To wish to keep one woman all to oneself ! . . ." Truth

at the bottom of the mountain and error at the top . . .

He realized the relativity of virtue at least of those virtues

having the greatest traditional sanction. Moreover a

transcendental irony, as in the case of Pascal, taught him

to broaden his moral conception when he judged of good

and evil in a race or in an age, according to the standards

of that race or that age.

Again he kept company with thieves of the most degraded

caste, and came to recognize even in highway robbers

" Sinners who were potential saints." 7 Everywhere he

shared the privations and the insults of the oppressed

classes. In Central India he lived with a family of outcast

sweepers. Amid such lowly people who cower at the feet

of society he found spiritual treasures, while their misery

choked him. He could not bear it. He sobbed,

" O my country 1 O my country 1 ..."

* The poem of a Vaishnavite saint : Suradas.

T He met a thief who had plundered his holy Guru, Pavhari Baba,

and then touched with repentance had become a monk.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

when he learnt from the papers that a man had died of

hunger at Calcutta. He asked himself as he beat his

chest :

" What have we done, we so-called men of God, the

Sannyasins, what have we done for the masses ? "

He recalled Ramakrishna's rough words.

" Religion is not for empty bellies."

And waxing impatient with the intellectual speculations

of an egoistic faith, he made it the first duty of religion

" to care for the poor and to raise them." He imposed

this duty on the rich, on officials, and on princes :

" Is there none among you who can give a life for the

service of others ? Let the study of the Vedanta, and the

practice of meditation, be left over to the future life ! Let

this body be consecrated to the service of others ! And

then I shall know that you have not come to me in vain." 8

On a future day his pathetic accents were to sound this

sublime utterance :

" May I be born and reborn again and suffer a thousand

miseries if only I am able to worship the only God in whom

I believe, the sum-total of all souls, and above all, my God

the wicked, my God the afflicted, my God the poor of all

the races 1 ..."

At this date, 1892, it was the misery under his eyes, the

misery of India, which filled his mind to the exclusion of

every other thought. It pursued him, like a tiger following

its prey, from the North to the South in his flight across

India. It consumed him during sleepless nights. At Cape

Comorin it caught and held him in its jaws. On that

occasion he abandoned body and soul to it. He dedicated

his life to the unhappy m^ses.

But how could he help them ? He had no money and

time was pressing, and the princely gifts of one or two

Maharajas or the offerings of several groups of well-wishers

could only nourish a thousandth part of the most urgent

needs. Before India woke up from her ataraxy and

organized herself for the common good, the ruin of India

would be consummated. He lifted up his eyes to the ocean,

to the land beyond the seas. He must appeal to the whole

The notation of these words belongs to a later date. But the

sentiment that inspired them belongs to this time.

THE PILGRIM OF INDIA

world. The whole world had need of India. The health

of India, the death of India was its concern as well. Could

her immense spiritual reserves be allowed to be destroyed

as so many others had been, Egypt and Chaldaea, which

long afterwards men struggled to exhume when nothing

was left but debris, their soul being dead for ever ? . . .

An appeal from India to Europe and to America began to

take shape in the mind of the solitary thinker. It was at

the end of 1891 between Junagad and Porbandar that he

appears to have thought of it for the first time. At Por-

bandar, where he began to learn French, a pandit advised

him to go to the West, where his thought would be better

understood than in his own country :

" Go and take it by storm and then return ! "

At Khanwa in the early autumn of 1892 he heard of a

Parliament of Religions to be held during the following

year at Chicago, and his first idea was how he might take

part in it. At the same time he did not allow himself to

take any steps toward the realization of this project and

he refused to accept subscriptions for the purpose, until he

had achieved the vow of his great pilgrimage round India.

At Bangalore towards the end of October he specifically

declared to the Maharajah his intention of going to ask the

West " for the means to ameliorate the material condition

of India/' and to take it in exchange the Gospel of the

Vedanta. At the end of 1892 his mind was made up.

At that moment he found himself at the " land's end"

of India, at the extreme southern point where Hanuman

the Monkey God made his fabulous leap. But Vivekananda

was a man as we are and could not follow the ways of demi-

Gods. He had traversed th^ vast land of India upon the

soles of his feet. For two years his body had been in

constant contact with its great body ; he had suffered from

hunger, from thirst, from murderous nature and insulting

man ; when he arrived at Cape Comorin he was exhausted,

but, having no money to pay for a boat to take him to the

end of his pilgrimage, to the Holy of Holies, Kanyakumari,

he flung himself into the sea, and swam across the shark-

infested strait. At last his task was at an end, and then,

looking back as from the top of a mountain, he embraced

the whole of the India he had just traversed, and the world

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

of thought that had beset him during his long wanderings.

For two years he had lived as in a seething cauldron, con-

sumed with a fever ; he had carried " a soul on fire/ 1 he

was a " tempest." 9 Like criminals of old who suffered

the torture of water, he felt himself submerged by the

torrents of energy he had accumulated, the walls of his

being were crumbling beneath their flood. . . ." 10 And

when he stopped on the terrace of the tower he had just

climbed at the very edge of the earth with the panorama

of the world spread before his eyes, the blood pounded in

his ears like the sea at his feet ; he almost fell. It was the

supreme assault of the gods striving within him. When

the struggle was over, his first battle had been won. He

had seen the path he was to follow. His mission was chosen.

He swam back to the continent of India. From the

opposite coast he went northwards. On foot by Ramnad

and Pondicherry he came to Madras. And there in the

first weeks of 1893, he publicly proclaimed his wish to

conduct a Mission in the West. 11 His fame, contrary to

his own desire, had already spread abroad : he was besieged

by visitors in this intellectual and vital city where he stayed

on two occasions, and it was in Madras that he founded

his first group of devoted disciples, who dedicated them-

selves to him and who never left him ; after his departure

they continued to support him with their letters and their

faith ; and he, from countries far away, kept his direction

over them. His burning love for India awakened passionate

echoes in their hearts, and by their enthusiasm the strength

of his own conviction was increased tenfold. He preached

against all seeking after personal salvation. It was rather

public salvation that ought t(j be sought, the regeneration of

the mother country, the resurrection of the spiritual powers

of India and their diffusion throughout the universe. . . .

" The time is ripe. The faith of the Rishis must become

dynamic. It must come forth of itself."

f It was Abhedananda, who, meeting him in October, 1893, in

the state of Baroda, described him thus.

10 " I feel a mighty power ! It is as if I were about to blaze

forth. There are so many powers in me ! It appears to me as if

I could revolutionize the world."

11 This was the title of a lecture he delivered at Hyderabad in

February, 1893 " My Mission to the West."

THE PILGRIM OF INDIA

Nabobs and bankers offered him money for his journey

overseas, but he refused it. He asked the disciples who

were collecting subscriptions to appeal rather to the middle

classes : for

" I am going on behalf of the people and the poor."

As he had done at the beginning of his pilgrimage he

asked the blessing of the Holy Mother for the more distant

journey. And she sent him Ramakrishna's as well, for he

had delivered it to her for the beloved disciple in a dream.

It does not appear that he had written to his spiritual

brethren at Baranagore : (doubtless he thought that their

contemplative souls, used to the warmth of the nest, would

be terrified at the thought of social service and evangelizing

journeys in the countries of the Gentiles ; such ideas dis-

turbed the pious calm of souls who were pre-occupied with

their own salvation without troubling about others). But

chance decreed that almost on the eve of his departure at

Mount Abu station, near Bombay, he met two of them,

Brahmananda and Turiyananda ; and he told them with

pathetic passion, whose percussions reached Baranagore, 12

the imperious call of suffering India which forced him

to go:

" I have now travelled all over India . . . But alas ! it

was agony to me, my brothers, to see with my own eyes the

terrible poverty and misery of the masses, and I could not

restrain my tears ! It is now my firm conviction that it

is futile to preach religion amongst them without first trying

to remove their poverty and their sufferings. It is for this

reason to find more means for the salvation of the poor

of India that I am now going to America/' 13

11 It does not seem, however, that the monks of Baranagore were

tempted to follow his example. Even on his triumphal return from

America, they found it difficult to yield to his arguments for sub-

ordinating and even sacrificing, if need arose, the contemplative life

to social service. Only one, Akhandananda (Gangadhar), moved

by the words Brahmananda and Turiyananda had brought back,

went during 1894 to open schools at Khetri and to work at the

education of the masses.

11 These words quoted in the great Life of Vivekananda are

completed by Turiyananda's Reminiscences, which Swami Jnane-

swarananda took down and published in the Morning Star in

January 31, 1926 :

Brahmananda and Turiyananda were withdrawn on Mount Abu,

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

He went to Khetri, where his friend the Maharajah gave

him his Diwan (Prime Minister) to escort him to Bombay,

where he embarked. At the moment of departure he put

where they were practising a very strict " Tapasya " (practice of

meditation and asceticism). They did not expect to meet Naren.

They had seen him at Abu Rd. Station several weeks before his

departure. Naren told them his plans, his hesitations, and his

conviction that the Parliament of Religions was willed by God to

prepare his success. Turiyananda recalled each one of his words

and the tone of his voice :

" Hari Bhai," Naren cried, his face red with his rising blood, " I

cannot understand your so-called religion 1 . . ."

With a profound expression of sadness and intense emotion

through all his being, he pressed a trembling hand upon his heart

and added :

" But my heart has grown much, much larger, and I have

learnt to feel (the sufferings of others). Believe me I feel it very

sadly 1 "

His voice was choked with feeling. He was silent. Tears

streamed down his cheeks.

Turiyananda, in giving this account, was himself deeply moved,

and his eyes filled with tears :

" You can imagine," he said, " what went through my spirit

when I heard these pathetic words and saw the majestic sadness

of the Swamiji. ' Are these not/ I thought, ' the very words and

feelings of the Buddha/ And I remember that a long time before

when he had gone to Buddha Gaya to meditate under the Boddhi

tree, he had had a vision of the Lord Buddha, who entered into his

body ... I could clearly see that the whole suffering of humanity

had penetrated his palpitating heart. Nobody, continued Turiya-

nanda with passion, nobody could understand Vivekananda unless

he saw at least a fraction of the volcanic feelings which were in

him.

Turiyananda told of another scene of the same kind, at which

he was present after Vivekananda had come back from America

probably in the house of Balaram at Baghazar (Calcutta) :

" I had gone to see him and I found him pacing the verandah

like a caged lion. He was deep in thought and did not notice my

presence. . . . He began to hum under his breath the celebrated

and pathetic song of Mirabhai. And the tears welled up in his

eyes. He stopped and leaned against the balustrade, and hid his

face in his two palms. His voice became more distinct and he sang,

repeating several times :

" Oh, nobody understands my sorrow I "

And again :

" Only he who suffers knows the anguish of sorrow I . . ."

His voice pierced me through and through like an arrow. I

could not understand the cause of his affliction. . . . Then sud-

denly, I understood. It was his rending sympathy which made

THE PILGRIM OF INDIA

on, with the robe of red silk and ochre turban, the name

of Vivekananda, which he was about to impose upon the

world. 14

him often shed tears of burning blood. And the world would never

have known it . . ."

But addressing his listeners, Turiyananda said :

" Do you think that these tears of blood were shed in vain ?

No 1 Each one of these tears, shed for his country, every inflamed

whisper of his mighty heart, gave birth to troops of heroes, who

will shake the world with their thoughts and their deeds/'

14 I have noted on pages 4 and 4-b the origin of this name, which

was given him by the Maharajah. During his journey in India, he

bore so many different names that, just as he desired, he usually

passed by unobserved. Many of those who met him had no sus-

picion of his identity. It was so at Poona in October, 1892 ; Tilak,

the famous savant and Hindu political leader, took him at first for

a wandering monk of no importance and began by being ironical;

then, struck with his replies revealing his great mind and know-

ledge, he received him into his house for ten days without ever

knowing his real name. It was only later when the newspapers

brought him from America the echoes of the triumph of Viveka-

nanda, and a description of the conqueror, that he recognized the

anonymous guest who had dwelt beneath his roof.

Ill

THE GREAT JOURNEY TO THE WEST AND THE

PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS

journey was in truth an astonishing adventure.

The young Swami went into it at random and with

his eyes shut. He had heard vaguely of a Parliament of

Religions to be opened some day somewhere in America ;

and he decided to go to it although neither he, nor his

disciples nor his Indian friends, students, pandits, ministers

or Maharajahs had taken any trouble to find out about it.

He knew nothing, neither the exact date, nor the conditions

of admission. He did not take a single credential with him.

He went straight ahead with complete assurance, as if it

was enough for him to present himself at the right time

God's time. And although the Maharajah of Khetri had

taken his ticket on the boat for him, and despite his protests

had provided him with a beautiful robe, which was to

fascinate American idlers no less than his eloquence, neither

he nor anybody else had considered the climatic conditions

and customs : he froze on the boat when he arrived in

Canada in his costume of Indian pomp and ceremony.

He left Bombay on May 31, 1893, and went by way of

Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, Hongkong, and then visited

Canton and Nagasaki. Thece he went on foot to Yokohama,

seeing Osaka, Kioto and Tokyo. Everywhere, in China as

in Japan, his attention was attracted by all that might

confirm his hypothesis his conviction alike of the religious

influence of ancient India over the Empires of the Far East

and of the spiritual unity of Asia. 1 At the same time the

1 He was struck when he visited the Chinese temples, conse-

crated by the first Buddhist Emperor, to find Sanskrit manuscripts

written in Bengal characters. He noticed the same in Japan in

the temples inscriptions of mantras (sacred texts) in Sanskrit in

ancient Bengal characters.

THE GREAT JOURNEY TO THE WEST

thought of the ills from which his country was suffering

never left him ; and the sight of the progress achieved by

Japan reopened the wound.

He went from Yokohama to Vancouver ; thence by train

he found himself towards the middle of July in a state of

bewilderment at Chicago. The whole way was strewn with

his feathers, for he was a marked prey for the fleecer : he

could be seen from afar ! At first like a great child he

wandered gazing, mouth agape, in the world's fair, the

Universal Exhibition of Chicago. Everything was new to

him and both surprised and stupefied him. He had never

imagined the power, the riches, the inventive genius of this

Western world. Being of a stronger vitality and more

sensitive to the appeal of force than a Tagore or a Gandhi,

who were oppressed by the frenzy of movement and noise,

by the whole European-American (especially American)

mechanism, Vivekananda was at his ease in it, at least at

first ; he succumbed to its exciting intoxication, and his

first feeling was of juvenile acceptance ; his admiration

knew no bounds. For twelve days he filled his eager eyes

with this new world. Then he bethought himself to go to

the Enquiry Bureau of the Parliament of Religions . . .

What a shock ! He found out that the Parliament did not

open until after the first of September and that it was too

late for the registration of delegates moreover, that no

registration would be accepted without official references.

He had none, he was unknown, without credentials from

any known group ; and his purse was nearly empty ; it

would not allow him to wait until the opening of the

Congress ... He was overwhelmed. He cabled his

distress to friends in Madras so that some official religious

society might make him a grant. But official societies

do not pardon independence, which has had the audacity

to leave their ranks. The chief of this society sent the

reply :

" Let the devil die of cold ! " 2

The devil neither died nor gave up ! He threw himself

upon fate, and instead of hoarding in inaction the few

dollars remaining to him, he spent them in visiting Boston.

Fate helped him. Fate always helps those who know how

1 More is said of this later.

257 S

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

to help themselves. A Vivekananda never passed any-

where unnoticed but fascinated even while he was unknown.

In the Boston train, his appearance and conversation struck

a fellow traveller, a rich Massachusetts lady who questioned

him and then interested herself in him, invited him to her house,

introduced him to the Hellenist, J. H. Wright, professor at

Harvard : the latter was at once struck by the genius of

this young Hindu and put himself entirely at his disposal ;

he insisted that Vivekananda should represent Hinduism

at the Parliament of Religions and wrote to the President

of the Committee. He offered the penniless pilgrim a rail-

way ticket to Chicago, and letters of recommendation to

the Commission for finding lodgings. In short, all his

difficulties were removed.

Vivekananda returned to Chicago. The train arrived

late ; and the dazed young man, who had lost the address

of the Committee, did not know where to go. Nobody

would deign to instruct a coloured man. He saw a big

empty box in a corner of the station, and slept in it. In

the morning he went to discover the way, begging from

door to door as a Sannyasin. But he was in a city that

knows, Panurge-like, a thousand and one ways of making

money except one, the way of St. Francis, the vagrancy

of God. It must be added that he found himself in a

purely German-speaking district where nobody understood

him ; they treated him as a negro and shut the door in his

face. After having wandered for a long time, he sat down

exhausted in the street. He was remarked from a window

opposite and asked whether he were not a delegate to the

Parliament of Religions. He was invited in ; and once

more fate found for him o^e who was later numbered

amongst his most faithful American followers. 8 When he

had rested he was taken to the Parliament, and he remained

during its sessions in the house of his rescuer.

His adventurous journey, which had almost ended dis-

astrously, brought him on this occasion into port, but not

for rest. Action called him, for now that fate had done its

worst it had to give place to resolution ! The unknown of

yesterday, the beggar, the man despised for his colour by

a mob wherein the dregs of more than half a dozen of the

Mrs. Hale.

THE GREAT JOURNEY TO THE WEST

peoples of the world meet at the first glance was to impose

his sovereign genius.

On Monday, September n, 1893, the first session of the

Parliament was opened. In the centre presided Cardinal

Gibbons. Round him to the right and left were grouped

the Oriental delegates : Protap Chunder Mazoomdar, 4 the

chief of the Brahmosamaj, an old friend of Vivekananda,

representing with Nagarkar of Bombay the Indian theists,

Bharmapala, representing the Buddhists of Ceylon ; Gandhi, 6

representing the Jains ; Chakravati, representing with

Annie Besant the Theosophical Society. But amongst them

all it was the young man who represented nothing, and

everything the man belonging to no sect but rather to

India as a whole, who drew the glance of the thousand

present. 6 His fascinating face, his noble stature and the

gorgeous apparel 7 which heightened the effect of this

apparition from a legendary world hid his own emotion.

He made no secret of it. It was the first time that he had

had to speak before such an assembly ; and as the delegates,

presented one by one, had to announce themselves in public

in a brief harangue, Vivekananda let his turn go by hour

after hour until the end of the day. 8

But then his speech was like a tongue of flame. Among

the grey wastes of cold dissertation it fired the souls of the

listening throng. Hardly had he pronounced the very

simple opening words :

" Sisters and brothers of America ! . . ."

than some of them got up in their places and applauded.

He wondered whether he really spoke of his own volition.

He was certainly the first to cast off the formalism of the

Congress and to speak to the masses in the language for

4 See p. 78.

5 Naturally this was not the same as our M. K. Gandhi, who

about that time was landing in South Africa. But his family had

intimate relations with the Jains and it may well have been that

the Gandhi of the Parliament of Religions was a distant connexion.

The American Press testified the truth of this.

7 His red robe drawn in at the waist by an orange cord, his

great yellow turban, accentuated the raven black of his hair, his

olive complexion, his dark eyes, his red lips. (Description of the

papers.)

8 Let us add that the improvident one had prepared nothing,

while the others read from a written text.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

which they were waiting. Silence fell again. He greeted

the youngest of the nations in the name of the most ancient

monastic order in the world the Vedic order of Sannyasins.

He presented Hinduism as the mother of religions, who had

taught them the double precept :

" Accept and understand one another ! "

He quoted two beautiful passages from the sacred books :

" Whoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I

reach him."

" All men are struggling through paths which in the end

lead to Me."

Each of the other orators had spoken of his God, of the

God of his sect. He he alone spoke of all their Gods,

and embraced them all in the universal Being. It was the

breath of Ramakrishna, breaking down the barriers through

the mouth of his great disciple. The Parliament of Religions

gave the young orator an ovation.

During the ensuing days he spoke again ten or eleven

times. 9 Each time he repeated with new arguments but

with the same force of conviction his thesis of a universal

Religion without limit of time or space, uniting the whole

Credo of the human spirit, from the enslaved fetishism of

the savage to the most liberal creative affirmations of

modern science. He harmonized them into a magnificent

9 Both at the plenary sessions of the Parliament and at the

scientific sections which were affiliated to it. His principal disser-

tations were on the following subjects :

1. " Why we disagree." (He there denounced the insularity of

different religious points of view, which is the source of

fanaticism.)

2. " Religion not the crying need of India." (But bread. An

appeal for help for all^his people who were dying.)

3. September 22. " Vedantic Philosophy."

4. September 23. " Orthodox Hinduism and Modern Religions

of India."

5. September 25. " The Essence of the Hindu Religion."

6. September 26. " Buddhism, the fulfilment of Hinduism."

And four other Lectures.

But the most famous discourses were :

11. September 19. The most famous Paper on Hinduism,

although he was its sole universal representative at the

Congress without distinction of sect. We shall return to

it later when we examine Vivekananda's thought.

12. September 27. Address at the Final Session of the Congress.

THE GREAT JOURNEY TO THE WEST

synthesis, which far from extinguishing the hope of a single

one, helped all hopes to grow and flourish according to their

own proper nature. 10 There was to be no other dogma but

the divinity inherent in man and his capacity for indefinite

evolution.

" Offer such a religion and all the nations will follow you.

Asoka's council u was a council of the Buddhist faith.

Akbar's, 12 though more to the purpose, was only a parlour

meeting. It was reserved for America to proclaim to all

quarters of the globe that the Lord is in every religion.

"May he who is the Brahmin of the Hindus, the Ahura

Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists,

the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the

Christians, give strength to you. . . , 18 The Christian is

not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a

Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate

the spirit of the others and yet preserve its individuality

and grow according to its own law of growth . . . The

Parliament of Religions . . . has proved . . . that holiness,

purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of

any church in the world, and that every system has produced

men and women of the most exalted character . . . Upon

the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite

of ... resistance : ' Help and Not Fight.' ' Assimilation

and not Destruction/ ' Harmony and Peace and Not

Dissension. 1 " "

The effect of these powerful words was immense. Over

the heads of the official representatives of the Parliament,

they were addressed to all, and appealed to outside thought.

Vivekananda's fame at once spread abroad ; and India as

a whole benefited. The American Press recognized him :

10 But the young Hinduist, convinced in spite of himself of the

superiority of his own ideal, presented Hinduism in its essentials,

but rejuvenated and purified of its degenerate parts, as the universal

religion of which he spoke.

11 The Council of Patalipura, to which the Emperor Asoka con-

voked the Buddhists about 253 B.C.

11 The great Moghul Emperor of the sixteenth century (1556-

1605), who, abjuring Islam, tried to found with the agreement of

the Hindus, Jains, Musulmans, Parsis, and even Christians, eclectic

rationalism, which was to become an imperial religion.

11 Paper on Hinduism. (September 19.)

14 Address at the Final Session. (September 27.)

26l

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

"He is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament

of Religions. After hearing him, we feel how foolish it is

to send missionaries to this learned nation." 16

It can be imagined that such an avowal did not sound

sweetly in the ears of Christian missionaries, and Vive-

kananda's success roused bitter rancour amongst them,

which did not stop short of the use of the most dishonourable

weapons. It sharpened no less the jealousy of certain

Hindu representatives, who saw themselves put in the

shade by this " wandering monk, 11 without title or ties.

Theosophy in particular, which Vivekananda did not spare,

never forgave him. 16

What did he think of his victory ? He wept over it.

The wandering monk saw that his free solitary life with

God was at an end. Is there any truly religious soul who

does not sympathize with his regrets? He had himself

desired it ... or rather he had been desired by the un-

known force, that had dictated his mission . . . But there

was always the other inner voice, which said to him :

" Renounce ! Live in God ! " He never could satisfy the

one without partially denying the other. Hence the periodic

crises traversed by this stormy genius, and the torments,

which, apparently contradictory but really logical, can never

be understood by single-minded spirits, by those who,

having only one thought in their heads, make of their

poverty an obligatory virtue, and who call the mighty

and pathetic struggling towards harmony of souls too richly

11 The New York Herald. The Boston Evening Post stated that

he was " the great favourite of the Parliament." It was only neces-

sary for him to cross the platform to be greeted with acclamations.

And the only way of keeping tne public at the meetings, for their

attention often wearied, was to announce that Vivekananda would

speak at the end.

li In an address at Madras on his return from America, " My

Plan of Campaign," Vivekananda unmasked all those who had

attacked him, and told the Theosophical Society sharply what he

thought of them. See further, Note at the end of the Volume,

where we shall give the text and treat of the question of Viveka-

nanda's relations with the Theosophists. The reader may also con-

sult the Account of the Journey of a Philosopher, by Count Keyserling,

the chapter on Adyar, the Headquarters in India of the Theosophical

Society, where the spirit of the society is impregnated with singular

narrowness of view.

THE GREAT JOURNEY TO THE WEST

endowed, either confusion or duplicity. Vivekananda was

and will always be the butt of such malevolent interpre-

tations which his high pride made no attempt to excuse.

But his complexities at this [time were not only of the

spirit. They were inherent in the situation itself. After

as before success (and perhaps even more so) his task was

a difficult one. Having nearly succumbed to poverty, he

was now in danger of being overwhelmed by riches. Ameri-

can snobbery threw itself upon him, and, in its first flush,

threatened to smother him with its luxury and vanities.

Vivekananda grew almost physically sick from this excess

of money. At night in his bedroom he gave vent to cries

of despair, and rolled on the ground when he thought of

the people who were dying of hunger.

" O Mother/' he groaned, " What have I to do with

fame when my people are lying in misery ! . . ."

In order to serve the cause of his unfortunate India

and to free himself from the tutelage of his rich protectors,

he accepted the offer of a Lecture Bureau for a tour of the

United States : The East and Middle West, Chicago, Iowa,

Desmoines, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Detroit, Boston, Cam-

bridge, Baltimore, Washington, New York, etc. But this

proved a risky method ; for it was a mistake to imagine

that he, like so many other lecturers, was going to buy

applause and dollars by burning incense under the nose

of the American public.

His first feeling of attraction and admiration for the

formidable power of the young republic had faded. Vive-

kananda almost at once fell foul of the brutality, the

inhumanity, the littleness of spirit, the narrow fanaticism,

the monumental ignorance, the crushing incomprehension,

so frank and sure of itself tfith regard to all who thought,

who believed, who regarded life differently from the paragon

nation of the human race . . . And he had no patience.

He hid nothing. He stigmatized the vices and crimes of

Western civilization, with its characteristics of violence,

pillage, and destruction. Once when he was to speak at

Boston on a beautiful religious subject particularly dear

to him, 17 he felt such repulsion at sight of the audience,

the artificial and cruel crowd of men of affairs and of the

17 Ramakrishnsu

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

world, that he refused to yield them the key of his sanctuary,

and brusquely changing the subject, he inveighed furiously

against a civilization represented by such foxes and wolves.

. . , 18 The scandal was terrific. Hundreds noisily left the

hall, and the Press was furious.

He was especially bitter against false Christianity and

religious hypocrisy.

" With all your brag and boasting where has your Christi-

anity succeeded without the sword ? Yours is a religion

preached in the name of luxury. It is all hypocrisy that

I have heard in this country. All this prosperity, all this

from Christ ! Those who call upon Christ care for nothing

but to amass riches ! Christ would not find a stone on

which to lay His head among you . . . You are not

Christians. Return to Christ ! . . ."

An explosion of anger was the answer to this scornful

lesson, and from that moment he had always at his heels

a band of clergymen, who followed him with invective

and accusation, even going so far as to spread infamous

calumnies of his life and behaviour in America and India. 19

No less shameful was the action of certain Hindu representa-

tives of rival societies, who were offended by Vivekananda's

glory, and did not scruple to spread the base charges started

by malevolent missionaries. And in their turn, the Christian

missionaries used the weapons provided by the jealous

Hindus, 20 and denounced the free Sannyasin in India with

11 1 have heard a similar scene related about a great Hindu poet,

whom we venerate. He was invited to the United States to address

a meeting on the subject of a work very near to his heart. But

when he saw the audience, who were prepared to subscribe to it, he

was so revolted at the sight that he attacked them and their stifling

material civilization. Hence he himself destroyed the work whose

success seemed assured.

lf It goes without saying that they produced the classic accusa-

tion of Anglo-Saxon countries, seduction 1 In order to stop the

false rumour spread by a vulgar-minded clergyman, that he had

wronged a servant dismissed by the Governor of Michigan, letters

of public denial (March, 1895) were necessary from the Governor's

wife, testifying to the moral dignity of Vivekananda. But no denials

ever repair the damage done by unscrupulous lies.

10 Some of the Brahmos treated as blasphemy certain of Vive-

kananda's expositions of Vedantism in America : his " pretensions

to divinity " (that is to, say to the divinity of the human soul),

THE GREAT JOURNEY TO THE WEST

almost comic zeal because in America he no longer kept

to the strict regime prescribed by orthodox Hinduism. 21

Vivekananda with disgust saw the scum of the rancorous

wave raised by the devotees returning to him from India

in the frightened letters of his disciples. And with what

scorn he flung it back in the face of those who had be-

spattered him with it ! 22

A letter from one of his American disciples, Swami

Kripananda, 28 depicts in retrospect his tribulations in the

United States.

" This hotbed of pseudo-religious monstrosities, devoured

by a morbid thirst for the abnormal, for the occult, for the

exceptional whence a senseless credulity leads to the

his " denial of sin " (which came to him from Ramakrishna), his

" evolutionism/' his " Western ideas introduced into Hinduism,"

etc. (cf. B. Mozoomdar in a pamphlet on Vivekananda, the informer

of Max Miiller). He had against him a curious alliance of Pro-

testant missionaries, of Theosophists, and some members of the

Brahmo Samaj.

11 The chief charge was that he had eaten beef. He made no

secret of it. He hated bigotry which believes that it is acquitted

in respect of morality and God, when it has observed certain prac-

tices, holding their non-observance as a cardinal sin. He held

nothing inviolable save his two vows of poverty and chastity. For

the rest with much common sense he held that a man should follow

as far as possible the customs of the country in which he was living.

11 To the scandalized remonstrances of Indian devotees, horrified

to hear that their Swami ate impure food at the table of infidels,

he retorted :

" Do you mean to say I am born to live and die one of those

caste-ridden, superstitious, merciless, hypocritical, atheistic cowards

that you only find amongst the educated Hindus ? I hate cowardice.

I will have nothing to do with cowards ... I belong to India just

as much as to the world ; no humbugabout that . . . What country

has any special claim upon me ? Am I any nation's slave ? . . .

I see a greater Power than man, or God, or devil at my back. I

require nobody's help. I have been all my life helping others. ..."

(Letter written from Paris, September 9, 1895, to his Indian

disciples.)

18 Kripananda was the name taken by Leon Lansberg, at his

initiation. He was a Russian Jew by birth, a naturalized American

citizen, and part owner of a big New York journal, and was one

of the first Western disciples accepted by Vivekananda. I shall

speak of him later.

The letter, of which I give a summary, was written in 1895 in

the Madras Journal, The Brahmavadin.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

dissemination of hundreds of societies : goblins, ghosts,

mahatmas, false prophets this refuge for aliens of all

colours was an abominable place to Vivekananda. He

felt himself obliged at the outset to cleanse this Augean

stable."

He committed to the devil the idlers, buffoons, fishers

in troubled waters, gulls, who thronged to his first lectures.

He was immediately the recipient of offers of association,

promises, threats, and blackmailing letters from intriguers,

busybodies, and religious charlatans. It is needless to

state their effect on a character such as his. He would

not tolerate the slightest domination. He rejected every

alliance of one sect against another. And more than once

he embraced the opportunity to engage in a public struggle

without quarter against " combinations " wishing to use

him for their own ends.

For the honour of America it must be said here and

now that his moral intransigeance, his virile idealism, his

dauntless loyality attracted to him from all sides a chosen

band of defenders and admirers, a group of whom were

to form his first Western disciples and the most active

agents in his work for human regeneration.

IV

AMERICA AT THE TIME OF VIVEKANANDA'S FIRST VISIT.

THE ANGLO-SAXON FORERUNNERS OF THE SPIRIT

OF ASIA : EMERSON, THOREAU, WALT

WHITMAN

IT would be a matter of deep interest to know exactly

how far the American spirit had been impregnated,

directly or indirectly, by the infiltration of Hindu thought

during the nineteenth century : for there can be no doubt

that it has contributed to the strange moral and religious

mentality of the modern United States which Europe has

so much difficulty in understanding, with its astonishing

mixture of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism, Yankee optimism of

action, pragmatism, " scientism," and pseudo-Vedantism.

I do not know whether any historian will be found to occupy

himself seriously with the question. It is nevertheless a

psychological problem of the first order, intimately connected

with the history of our civilization. I do not possess the

means for its solution, but at least I can indicate certain

elements in it.

It would seem that one of the chief people to introduce

Hindu thought into the United States was Emerson, 1 and

that Emerson in so doing had been deeply influenced by

Thoreau.

He was predisposed to such influences ; from 1830

onwards they began to appear in his Journal, wherein

he noted references to Hindu religious texts. His famous

lecture, which created a scandal at the time, given in 1838

at the University of Harvard, expressed belief in the divine

in man akin to the concept of the soul, Atman Brahman.

1 The article of a Hindu Brahmachundra Maitra, entitled " Emer-

son from an Indian point of view," in the Harvard Theological

Review of 1911 was mentioned to me in this connexion. But I

have not been able to study it.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

It is here that he attached a strictly moral or moralist

interpretation to it, his own mark and that of his race.

But its fulfilment was the ecstatic realization of a veritable

yoga of " justice/ 1 conceived in the double sense of moral

good and cosmic equilibrium and uniting at one and the same

time Karma (action), bhakti (love), and jnana (wisdom). 2

Emerson exercised little method either in his reading or

writing ; and Cabot, in his Memoir of him, tells us that

he was easily satisfied with extracts and quotations and

did not consult the authorities as a whole. But Thoreau

was a great reader ; and between 1837 an( i 1862 he was

Emerson's neighbour. In July, 1846, Emerson notes that

Thoreau had been reading to him extracts from his Week

on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Now this work

(section, Monday) is an enthusiastic eulogy of the Gita,

and of the great poems and philosophies of India. Thoreau

suggested "A joint Bible" of the Asiatic Scriptures,

" Chinese, Hindus, Persians, Hebrews, to carry to the ends

of the earth." And he took for his motto, Ex Oriente Lux. 9

1 " If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God : the safety

of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter into

that man with justice . . . For all beings proceed out of this same

spirit, which is differently named love, justice, temperance, in its

different applications, just as the ocean receives different names

on the several shores which it washes . . . The perception of this

law of laws awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the

religious sentiment, and which makes our highest happiness. Won-

derful is its power to charm and to command. It is a mountain

air ... It makes the sky and the hills sublime, and the silent

song of the stars is it. . . ."

(Address to the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge

(U.S.A.), July 15, 1838.)

8 Thoreau gives his sources : a French translation of the Gita,

whose author must be Burnouf, although he does not mention him,

published in 1840, and more important, the English translation of

Charles Wilkins of which an edition had just appeared in 1846 with

a preface of Warren Hastings. I have said that this great man

(Hastings), the conqueror, although he governed India, submitted

to and publicly avowed the spiritual domination of the land of the

Vedas. In 1786 he " recommended " a translation of the Bhaga-

vadgita to the President of the East India Company, and wrote a

preface to it. I have quoted from Thoreau himself in an earlier

chapter, the magnificent witness of Warren Hastings, where he

declares that " the writers of the Indian philosophies will sur-

vive when the British dominion in India shall long have ceased to

AMERICA AT THE TIME OF VIVEKANANDA'S FIRST VISIT

It may be imagined that such suggestions were not

thrown away upon Emerson, and that the ardent Asiatism

of Thoreau extended to him.

It was at the same time that the " Transcendental Club "

he had founded was in full swing ; and after 1850, the

Dial, its quarterly, which he edited with the American

Hypatia, Margaret Fuller, published translations from the

Oriental languages. The emotion produced in him by

Indian thought must have been very strong for him to

write in 1856 such a deeply pedantic poem as his beautiful

Brahma. 4

It must be taken into consideration that New England

was passing through a crisis of spiritual renaissance and

intoxicating idealism, corresponding (though composed of

very different elements, less cultivated, more robust, and

infinitely nearer to nature) to the idealistic flame of Europe

before 1848. 6 The anarchic Brookfarm of George Ripley

exist, and when the sources which it yielded of wealth and power

are lost to remembrance. " Thoreau also mentions other Hindu

works, such as the Shakuntala of Kalidas, and speaks enthusiastically

of Manu, whom he knew through the translations of William Jones.

His Week's Journey, written from 1839 onwards, was published in

1849.

I owe these details to Miss Ethel Sidewick, who was kind enough

to look them up for me with the learned help of the Master of

Balliol College and a Professor Goddard of Swarthmore College

(Pennsylvania). I here make grateful acknowledgment to them for

their valuable help.

4 It may please the reader to study it here :

If the old stayer think he stays

Or if the stainer think he is stain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass^ind turn again.

My friends Waldo Frank and Van Wyck Brooks have given me

some important details. In 1854 the Englishman, Thomas Chol-

mondeley, the nephew of the great Bishop, Reginald Heber, visited

Concord and became the friend of the whole intellectual colony.

On his return to England, he sent Thoreau a collection of Oriental

classics in forty-four volumes. Thoreau said that it was practically

impossible to find any of these works in America. It may justly

be thought that Emerson's poem, Brahma, was the flower of the

tree which had just drunk deep of this flood of Indian thought.

* This is only one example among a thousand others of the syn-

chronism of the human Soul in its most diverse ethnic expressions

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

(between 1840 and 1847), ^ e feverish assembly of the

Friends of Universal Progress at Boston in 1840, brought

together in one group men and women of all opinions and

professions, all fired with primitive energy, and aspiring to

shake off the shackles of past lies without knowing what

truth to adopt ; for no human society can live unless it

has persuaded itself that it possesses the Truth ! 6

Alas ! the Truth espoused by America during the sub-

sequent half century bears no resemblance to the generous

expectation of the honeymoon ! Truth was not ripe, still

less those who wished to pluck it. Its failure was, however,

by no means due to lack of noble ideals and great ideas,

but they were all too mixed and too hastily digested without

time for them to be healthily assimilated. The nervous

shocks, produced by the grave political and social upheavals

after the war of Secession, the morbid haste which has

developed into the frantic rhythm of modern civilization,

have thrown the American spirit off its balance for a long

time. It is, however, not difficult to trace during the

second half of the century the seeds sown by the free

pioneers of Concord, Emerson and Thoreau. But from their

which has often led me to think, as I have studied history, of

the different branches of one same tree, mutually sharing the same

changing seasons. The conviction has slowly ripened in my mind

until it is now firmly established that all the laws governing the

particular evolution of peoples, nations, classes and their struggles

are subordinate to greater cosmic laws controlling the general

evolution of humanity.

6 John Morley, in his critical Essay on Emerson, has painted a

charming picture of this hour of intellectual intoxication of this

" madness of enthusiasm/' as Shaftesbury called it, which from

1820 to 1848 turned the heads of New England.

Harold D. Carey, in a recent Article in the Bookman (February,

1929) devoted chiefly to this strange Brookfarm, has shown the

revolutionary character of its spiritual and social movement and

the impression of " Bolshevism " which it produced on the minds

of the governing classes and on middle-class opinion. It was an

unchaining of terrifying and troublous furies. Especially did they

turn against Emerson, and accuse him of being chiefly responsible

for the spirit of revolt. Our generation has all too soon forgotten

the very brave part played by Emerson and his friends. Thoreau

and Theodore Parker at the same time publicly flagellated legal

lies, and protested against the nascent monster of imperialism in

affairs (on the occasion of the war engineered by the American

Government against Mexico in 1847).

AMERICA AT THE TIME OF VIVEKANANDA'S FIRST VISIT

grain what strange bread has been kneaded by the followers

of the "mind cure" and of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy!

Both of them have used, more or less wittingly, Indian

elements strained through the idealism of Emerson. 7 But

7 William James said of the " mind cure " : " It is made up of

the following elements : the four Gospels, the idealism of Berkeley

and Emerson, spiritism with its law of the radical evolution of

souls through their successive lives, optimistic and vulgar evolu-

tionism, and the religions of India/'

Charles Baudouin adds that after 1875 the influence of the

French hypnotic schools was superimposed. He notes that in re-

turn Cou6 had profited by it, for he learnt English especially to

make the acquaintance of the vulgarized mysticism of America and

has developed from it its simplest, most rational and positivist

expression.

But it is necessary to go back to the magnetism of Mesmer at

the beginning of the eighteenth century for the common source and

further to the elements making up this powerful and enigmatic

personality (cf . Pierre Janet : Meditations psychologiqties, Vol. I,

Alcan, 1919).

As for Christian Science, it is enough to mention the little lexicon

of philosophic and religious terms added by Mrs. Eddy to her Bible,

Science and Health, in order to see the likeness of certain of its

fundamental ideas to those of Hindu Vedantism :

" Me or I. The divine principle. The Spirit, the soul . . .

Eternal Mind. There is only one ME or US, only one Principle

or Mind, which governs all things . . . Everything reflects or re-

fracts in God's Creation one unique Mind ; and everything which

does not reflect this unique mind is false and a cheat. . . ."

" God. The great I AM . . . Principle, Spirit, Soul, Life, Truth,

love, all substance, intelligence."

It would appear that Mrs. Eddy did not wish to acknowledge

their origin. She has been silent on that point in the new editions

of her book. But in the first she quoted from Vedantic philosophy.

The Swami Abhedananda, a disciple of Ramakrishna, has related

that the 24th edition of Science a#d Health contained a chapter,

now suppressed, which began with four Vedantic quotations. In

the same chapter Mrs. Eddy quoted the Bhagavadgita, from the

translation of Charles Wilkins, published in London in 1785 and in

New York in 1867. These quotations were later omitted from the

book : only one or two veiled allusions can be found to Indian

thought. This attempt at dissimulation for the sake of the un-

warned reader is a clumsy confession of its importance. (Cf. an

article by Madeleine R. Harding in the Prabuddha Bharata Review,

March, 1928.)

Lastly, analogies to Indian thought are still more striking in the

most important treatises on the Mind cure by Horatio W. Dresser,

Henry Wood, and R. W. Trine. But as they date from the end of

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

they have reduced them to the dead level of a utilitarianism

looking only to the immediate profit, of a kind of mystic

hygiene, resting on a prodigious credulity which gives to

Christian Science 8 its proud pseudo-scientific aspect and

its pseudo-Christianity.

One trait common to these doctrines is the vulgar

optimism, which resolves the problem of evil by a simple

denial, or rather by its omission. " Evil does not exist.

Then, let us turn away our eyes ! " . . . Such an intellectual

attitude in all its native simplicity was too often that of

Emerson. He omitted as often as possible from his subjects

those of illness or death. He hated the shades. " Respect

the light ! " But it was the respect of fear. His eyes

were feeble and so he began by putting the sun under a

shade. In this he was only too closely followed by his

fellow-countrymen. Perhaps it is not too much to say

that such optimism was necessary for action, but I have

no great faith in the energy of a man or of a people, which

rests on conditions contrary to the Natura Rerum. I prefer

Margaret Fuller's saying, " I accept the universe/' But

whether one accepts it or not, the first essential is to see

it and to see it as a whole ! We shall soon hear Vive-

kananda saying to his English disciples : " Learn to recog-

nize the Mother, in Evil, Terror, Sorrow, Denial as well

as in Sweetness, and in Joy/' Similarly the smiling Rama-

krishna from the depths of his dream of love and bliss,

could see and remind the complaisant preachers of a " good

God" that Goodness was not enough to define the Force

which daily sacrificed thousands of innocents. 9 Therein

lies the capital difference separating India from heroic

the century, that is to say after the death of Vivekananda, they

may well have owed much to the teachings of the latter. They

agree on all points with the rules of concentration and with the

faith behind it. The French reader will find some characteristic

extracts in the Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

(Pages in French edition are 80-102.)

8 It is to be remarked that this name, Christian Science, had

already been used by a precursor of Mrs. Eddy, Dr. Quimby, who

several years before her (about 1863) had laid down a similar doc-

trine under the name of Christ Science, Christian Science, Divine

Science, the Science of Health. Quimby's manuscripts, recently

published, establish his influence over Mrs. Eddy.

f See later, p. 346.

AMERICA AT THE TIME OF VIVEKANANDA'S FIRST VISIT

Greece and Anglo-Saxon optimism. They look Reality in

the face, whether they embrace it as in India or struggle

against it and try to subdue it as in Greece ; but with

them action never impinges on the domain of Knowledge as

in America, where Knowledge has been domesticated in

the service of action and wears a livery with gold-braided

cap bearing the name : Pragmatism. 10 It is easily under-

stood that a Vivekananda would not like such trappings,

concealing as they did puny and degraded bastards of his

glorious free and sovereign Vedantism of India. 11

But overtopping this herd of living men there was a

dead giant, 12 whose shade was a thousand times warmer

than such pale reflections of the Sun of Being seen through

10 In weakened post-war Europe these same moral characteristics

have unfortunately the tendency to be established : and the worst

feature of this moral slackness is that it is accompanied with false

bragging which flatters itself on its realism amd virility.

11 At the time of his first stay in the United States, the Meta-

physical College of Massachusetts, opened by Mrs. Eddy at Boston,

where she taught in seven years more than four thousand pupils,

was temporarily closed (in October, 1889) in order to allow the

foundress, " Pastor Emeritus of the first Church of Christ Scientist/'

to write her new Science and Health, which was published in 1891.

The College reopened under her presidency in 1899.

The Mind Cure was flourishing, and produced the New Thought,

which is to Christian Science what rationalistic Protestantism is to

orthodox Catholicism.

The Theosophical Society, of which one of the two founders,

Colonel Olcott (in 1875), was an American, worked vigorously in

India and elsewhere. His action, as I have said, now and then

came up against that of Vivekananda.

I have only mentioned here the three chief currents then stirring

the religious subconsciousncss of America, together with " revival-

ism " (the religion of revivals), also leading to abandonment to sub-

conscious forces while Myers was evolving (between 1886 and 1905)

the scientific spirit theory of knowledge and the subconscious life.

A crater in eruption. Mud and fire.

12 Besides Whitman, who was already dead, there was another,

no less great, who had no less affinity to the spirit of India : Edgar

Allen Poe : his Eureka, published in 1848, showed thought closely

akin to that of the Upanishads. Some people, such as Waldo

Frank, believe that he must in the course of his wanderings (it is

practically certain that he visited Russia in his early youth) have

come in contact with Indian mysticism. But Eureka did not affect

contemporary thought. Even though Whitman for a time colla-

borated with Poe (in the Broadway Journal and in the Democratic

273 T

OF tHE NEW INDIA

their cold methodist window panes. He stood before Vive-

kananda and held out his great hand to him . . . How

was it that he did not take it ? ... Or rather (for we

know that later in India Vivekananda read his Leaves of

Grass) how is it that Vivekananda's chroniclers, however

careless and ill-informed, have managed to leave this capital

event out of their story ? the meeting of the Indian Ambas-

sador of the Atman Brahman with the epic singer of Myself

Walt Whitman !

He had just died on March 26, 1892, the previous year,

near Camden, the workman's suburb of Philadelphia. The

triumphant memory of his obsequies not pagan as they

have been described, but exactly in the spirit of Indian

universalism, 18 were still reverberating. Vivekananda saw

more than one of Whitman's intimates coming to him ;

he was even joined in friendship to him who had bidden

the last farewell to the poet, 14 the famous agnostic and

materialist author, Robert Ingersoll. 16 He more than once

Review), it is certain that he never made an intimate of Poe, that

he never fathomed his thought, that he in fact felt an instinctive

antipathy for him, and that it was only with an effort that he made

a tardy recognition of his greatness. (In 1875, at the age of 56,

he went to Baltimore for the inauguration of a monument to Poe.)

Poe remained an isolated figure in his age.

11 Between each discourse some great saying was read from the

Bible of humanity : " Here are the words of Confucius, of Gautama

Buddha, of Jesus Christ, of the Koran, of Isaiah, of John, of the

Zend Avesta, of Plato ..."

14 In this farewell speech Ingersoll celebrated the poet who had

sung the splendid Psalm of Life and tribute of thanks to the mother

in response to her kiss and her embrace. Ingersoll thought of

Nature as " the Mother." Whitman's poems are full of Her, and

there she is sometimes Nature, f " the great, savage, silent Mother,

accepting all," sometimes America, " the redoubtable Mother, the

great Mother, thou Mother with equal children." But whatever

may be the mighty entity to which the word is attached, it always

represents a conception of a sovereign Being, and their deep tones

recall the conception of India ; they are always attached to the

visible God, whereon all living beings depend.

16 The great Life of Vivekananda, published by his disciples, has

very briefly noticed several of these interviews, merely remarking

about them that they show that Vivekananda had the entrte into

the freest and most advanced circles of American thought. Inger-

soll in the course of one discussion, warned Vivekananda in a friendly

way to be prudent. He revealed to him the hidden fanaticism of

AMERICA AT THE TIME OF VIVEKANANDA'S FIRST VISIT

argued with him in friendly fashion, so it is impossible

that he should not have heard of Whitman.

However famous this great man may be through the

many works that have been devoted to him in all lands,

it is necessary for me to give here a short account of his

religious thought ; for that is the side of his work that

has come least into the limelight and at the same time

it is the kernel.

There is nothing hidden in the meaning of his thought.

The good Whitman does not veil his nakedness. His faith

appears best of all in Leaves of Grass, and is especially

concentrated in one great poem which has been thrown

too much into the shade by his Song of Myself, but which

must be replaced in the front rank where Whitman himself

placed it, at the head of his own definitive edition, immedi-

ately following the Inscriptions, namely his Starting from

Paumanok. 16

What does he say there ?

" I inaugurate a religion . . .

" ... I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky

are for religion's sake . . .

" Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of

a greater religion . . .

" I sing ...

" For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third

one rising inclusive and more resplendent. The great-

ness of Love and of Democracy, and the greatness of

religion . . ."

(Why then have the first two " greatnesses/' which are

of an inferior order, generally eclipsed the first, which

America, not as yet stamped out. Forty years before, he said, an

Indian Vedantist would have run the risk of being burnt alive, and

still more recently of being stoned.

16 Paumanok does not appear in the first three editions (1855,

1856, and 1 860-61). It is not included until the fourth (1867),

where it is placed at the beginning of the volume. But in the first

edition of the Leaves of Grass, as my friend Lucien Price pointed

out to me, the Song of Myself opens on page i ; and in its primi-

tive, much shorter, much starker and more virile form, it produces

a striking impression : everything that is vital and heroic in the

Great Message is to be found in it, condensed with flaming clarity.

Cf . William Sloane Kennedy : The Fight of a Book in the World.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

embraces and dominates them, in the minds of Whitman's

commentators ?)

What was this religion which so filled his heart that

he meditated spreading it abroad throughout all lands by

means of lectures, in spite of the little taste he had for

speaking in public ? 17 It is summed up and contained

in one word, which rings in the ears wonderfully like Indian

music ; the word Identity. It fills the whole work. It is

to be found in almost all his poems. 18

Identity with all forms of life at every instant ; the

immediateness of realized Unity ; and the certainty of

Eternity for every second, for every atom of Existence.

How had Whitman come by this faith ?

Certainly by enlightenment, by some blow he had ex-

perienced, by illumination, probably arising from some

17 He thought of it before and after the publication of his

poems.

18 Starting from Paumanok, Song of Myself, Calamus, Crossing

Brooklyn Ferry, A Song of Joys, Drum Taps, To Think of Time,

etc.

The word can be used to mean two rather different things : (i)

the more usual : an immediate perception of Unity ; (2) the per-

manence of the Ego throughout the eternal journey and its meta-

morphoses. It seems to me that it is this latter meaning that

predominates in his years of illness and old age.

If I was about to make a complete study of Whitman here, it

would be necessary to trace the evolution of his thought (without

however losing sight of its essential unity, under the blows of life,

from which he suffered much more than his publicly confessed

optimism would lead one to believe. (Cf . in the collection : Whis-

pers Divine of Heavenly Death, his Hours of Despair. Then the

invincible spirit insufficiently nourished by life is restored by death.

Then the " known " life is completed by the Unknown. Then

" day " brings new light to " ^on-day." Cf. To Think of Time :

Night on the Prairies. And his ear is opened to other " music "

that his " ignorance " had not previously recognized. Finally the

dead are more alive than the living, " haply the <5nly living, only

real." (Pensive and Faltering.)

" I do not think that Life provides for all ... But I believe

Heavenly Death provides for all." (Assurances.)

" I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the not-

day exhibited . . . Oh 1 I see how that Life cannot exhibit all to me

as the day cannot I see that I am to wait for what will be ex-

hibited by death." (Night on the Prairies), etc.

But the foundation of the faith : Identity, the solely existent

eternity, never varied.

AMERICA AT THE TIME OF VIVEKANANDA'S FIRST VISIT

spiritual crisis a short time after he had reached his thirtieth

year and experienced the emotions aroused by his journey

to New Orleans, 19 of which little is known.

It is improbable that it was any reading of Indian thought

that touched him. When Thoreau in November, 1856,

came to tell him that his Leaves of Grass (first appeared

in July, 1855, then a second edition in the summer of

1856) recalled to his mind the great oriental poems and

to ask if he knew them. Whitman replied with a cate-

gorical " No ! " and there is no reason to doubt his word.

He read little, certainly very few books ; he did not like

libraries and men brought up upon them. To the very

end of his life he does not seem to have had any curiosity

to verify the similarity between his thought and that of

Asia obvious to the little circle of Concord. The extreme

vagueness of the expressions used every time that he intro-

duced a glimpse of India into his Homeric enumerations

is the best guarantee of his ignorance. 20

It is then all the more interesting to discover how

he could without going beyond himself a 100 per cent

American self all unwittingly link up with Vedantic

thought. (For its kinship did not escape any of the Emer-

son group, beginning with Emerson himself, whose genial

quip is not sufficiently famous : " Leaves of Grass seem

to be a mixture of the Bhagavadgita and the New York

Herald:')

The starting-point with Whitman was in the profundities

19 Cf. Bucke : Walt Whitman.

* Once or twice he mentions Maya (Calamus : " The basis of all

metaphysics "), avatar (Song of Farewell) and nirvana (Sands of

Seventy Years: Twilight), but in the way of an illiterate: "mist,

nirvana, repose and night, forgetf illness."

The Passage to India, whose title has a symbolic and quite un-

expected sense, does not furnish him with anything more precise

about Indian thought than the poor verse :

" Old occult Brahma, interminably far back the tender and junior

Buddha. . . ."

What he says of the Hindu and of India is still poorer in Greeting

to the World.

The only piece whose inspiration seems to have come from an

Asiatic source is in the last collection of his seventy-second year :

Good-bye my Fancy I (1891), the Persian Lesson, where he makes

mention of Sufi. And there is no need for him to go to Persia to

hear these very banal truths.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA

of his own race, in his own religious line paradoxical though

it may seem. His paternal family belonged to the Quaker

Left, grouped round a free believer, Elias Hicks, to whom

at the end of his life Whitman dedicated a pamphlet : He

was a great religious individualist, free from all church and

all credo, who made religion consist entirely of inner illumin-

ation, "the secret silent ecstasy/' 21

Such a moral disposition in Whitman was bound to

bring about from his childhood a habit of mystic con-

centration, having no precise object but filtering never-

theless through all the emotions of life. The young man's

peculiar genius did the rest. His nature possessed a kind

of voracious receptivity, which made him not only, like

ordinary men, glean from the vine above of the spectacle

of the universe, some grains of pleasure or pain, but in-

stantaneously incorporate himself with each object that he

saw. He has described this rare disposition in the admir-

able poem : Autumn Rivulets.

" There was a child went forth . . .

And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part

of th