round the Swami. Ill as he looked, there was none probably who suspected how near
the end had come. Yet visits were paid and farewells exchanged that it had needed
voyages half round the world to make.'
More and more the Swami was seen to free himself from all responsibilities, leaving
the work to other hands. 'How often,' he said, 'does a man ruin his disciples by
remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their
leader leave them, for without his absence they cannot develop themselves.' 'Plants,' he
had said some time before, 'always remain small under a big tree.' Yet the near and
dear ones thought that he would certainly live three or four years more.
He refused to express any opinion on the question of the day. 'I can no more enter into
outside affairs,' he said; 'I am already on the way.' On another occasion he said: 'You
may be right; but I cannot enter any more into these matters. I am going down into
death.' News of the world met with but a far-away rejoinder from him.
On May 15, 1902, he wrote to Miss MacLeod, perhaps for the last time: 'I am
somewhat better, but of course far from what I expected. A great idea of quiet has
come upon me. I am going to retire for good — no more work for me. If possible, I
will revert to my old days of begging. All blessings attend you, Joe; you have been a
good angel to me.'
But it was difficult for him to give up what had been dearer to him than his life: the
work. On the last Sunday before the end he said to one of his disciples: 'You know the
work is always my weak point. When I think that might come to an end, I am all
undone.' He could easily withdraw from weakness and attachment, but the work still
retained its power to move him.
Sri Ramakrishna and the Divine Mother preoccupied his mind. He acted as if he were
the child of the Mother or the boy playing at the feet of Sri Ramakrishna at
Dakshineswar. He said, 'A great tapasya and meditation has come upon me, and I am
making ready for death.'
His disciples and spiritual brothers were worried to see his contemplative mood. They
remembered the words of Sri Ramakrishna that Naren, after his mission was
completed, would merge for ever into samadhi, and that he would refuse to live in his
physical body if he realized who he was. A brother monk asked him one day, quite
casually, 'Do you know yet who you are?' The unexpected reply, 'Yes, I now know!'
awed into silence everyone present. No further question was asked. All remembered
the story of the great nirvikalpa samadhi of Naren's youth, and how, when it was over,
Sri Ramakrishna had said: 'Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this
realization, like the jewel locked in a box, will be hidden away from you and kept in
my custody. I will keep the key with me. Only after you have fulfilled your mission on
this earth will the box be unlocked, and you will know everything as you have known
now.'
They also remembered that in the cave of Amarnath, in the summer of 1898, he had