moved.
While on his way to Vrindavan, trudging barefoot and penniless, Naren saw a man
seated by the roadside enjoying a smoke. He asked the stranger to give him a puff from
his tobacco bowl, but the man was an untouchable and shrank from such an act; for it
was considered sacrilegious by Hindu society. Naren continued on his way, but said to
himself suddenly: 'What a shame! The whole of my life I have contemplated the non-
duality of the soul, and now I am thrown into the whirlpool of the caste-system. How
difficult it is to get over innate tendencies!' He returned to the untouchable, begged him
to lend him his smoking-pipe, and in spite of the remonstrances of the low-caste man,
enjoyed a hearty smoke and went on to Vrindavan.
Next we find Naren at the railroad station of Hathras, on his way to the sacred
pilgrimage centre of Hardwar in the foothills of the Himalayas. The station-master,
Sarat Chandra Gupta, was fascinated at the very first sight of him. 'I followed the two
diabolical eyes,' he said later. Narendra accepted Sarat as a disciple and called him 'the
child of my spirit', At Hathras he discussed with visitors the doctrines of Hinduism and
entertained them with music, and then one day confided to Sarat that he must move on.
'My son,' he said, 'I have a great mission to fulfil and I am in despair at the smallness of
my power. My guru asked me to dedicate my life to the regeneration of my
motherland. Spirituality has fallen to a low ebb and starvation stalks the land. India
must become dynamic again and earn the respect of the world through her spiritual
power.'
Sarat immediately renounced the world and accompanied Narendra from Hathras to
Hardwar. The two then went on to Hrishikesh, on the bank of the Ganga several miles
north of Hardwar, where they found themselves among monks of various sects, who
were practising meditation and austerities. Presently Sarat fell ill and his companion
took him back to Hathras for treatment. But Naren, too, had been attacked with malaria
fever at Hrishikesh. He now made his way to the Baranagore monastery.
Naren had now seen northern India, the Aryavarta, the sacred land of the Aryans,
where the spiritual culture of India had originated and developed. The main stream of
this ancient Indian culture, issuing from the Vedas and the Upanishads and branching
off into the Puranas and the Tantras, was subsequently enriched by contributions from
such foreign peoples as the Saks, the Huns, the Greeks, the Pathans, and the Moguls.
Thus India developed a unique civilization based upon the ideal of unity in diversity.
Some of the foreign elements were entirely absorbed into the traditional Hindu
consciousness; others, though flavoured by the ancient thought of the land, retained
their individuality. Realizing the spiritual unity of India and Asia, Narendra discovered
the distinctive characteristics of Oriental civilization: renunciation of the finite and
communion with the Infinite.
But the stagnant life of the Indian masses, for which he chiefly blamed the priests and
the landlords, saddened his heart. Naren found that his country's downfall had not been
caused by religion. On the contrary, as long as India had clung to her religious ideals,
the country had over flowed with material prosperity. But the enjoyment of power for a