Ramlal, who was a sort of caretaker of the Master, had accompanied him, and with his
help Sri Ramakrishna climbed a few steps. Narendra appeared at the head of the stair,
and at the very sight of him Sri Ramakrishna exclaimed, 'Naren, my beloved!' and went
into ecstasy. With considerable difficulty Naren and Ramlal helped him to finish
climbing the steps, and as he entered the room the Master fell into deep samadhi. A
fellow student who was with Naren at the time and did not know anything of religious
trances, asked Naren in bewilderment, 'Who is this man?'
'Never mind,' replied Naren. 'You had better go home now.'
Naren often said that the 'Old Man,' meaning Ramakrishna, bound the disciple for ever
to him by his love. 'What do worldly men,' he remarked, 'know about love? They only
make a show of it. The Master alone loves us genuinely.' Naren, in return, bore a deep
love for Sri Ramakrishna, though he seldom expressed it in words. He took delight in
criticizing the Master's spiritual experiences as evidences of a lack of self-control. He
made fun of his worship of Kali.
'Why do you come here,' Sri Ramakrishna once asked him, 'if you do not accept Kali,
my Mother?'
'Bah! Must I accept Her,' Naren retorted, 'simply because I come to see you? I come to
you because I love you.'
'All right,' said the Master, 'ere long you will not only accept my blessed Mother, but
weep in Her name.'
Turning to his other disciples, he said: 'This boy has no faith in the forms of God and
tells me that my visions are pure imagination. But he is a fine lad of pure mind. He
does not accept anything without direct evidence. He has studied much and cultivated
great discrimination. He has fine judgement.'
TRAINING OF THE DISCIPLE
It is hard to say when Naren actually accepted Sri Ramakrishna as his guru. As far as
the master was concerned, the spiritual relationship was established at the first meeting
at Dakshineswar, when he had touched Naren, stirring him to his inner depths. From
that moment he had implicit faith in the disciple and bore him a great love. But he
encouraged Naren in the independence of his thinking. The love and faith of the Master
acted as a restraint upon the impetuous youth and became his strong shield against the
temptations of the world. By gradual steps the disciple was then led from doubt to
certainty, and from anguish of mind to the bliss of the Spirit. This, however, was not an
easy attainment.
Sri Ramakrishna, perfect teacher that he was, never laid down identical disciplines for