BIOGRAPHY OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

your salvation is secured and Sri Ramakrishna will come at the final hour andtake you by the hand to the highest heaven! Study, public preaching, and doinghumanitarian works are, according to you, maya, because he said to someone,"Seek and find God first; doing good to the world is a presumption!" As if God issuch an easy thing to be achieved! As if He is such a fool as to make Himself aplaything in the hands of an imbecile!'You think you have understood Sri Ramakrishna better than myself! You thinkjnana is dry knowledge to be attained by a desert path, killing out the tenderestfaculties of the heart! Your bhakti is sentimental nonsense which makes oneimpotent. You want to preach Sri Ramakrishna as you have understood him,which is mighty little! Hands off! Who cares for your Ramakrishna? Who caresfor your bhakti and mukti? Who cares what your scriptures say? I will go into athousand hells cheerfully if I can rouse my countrymen, immersed in tamas, tostand on their own feet and be men inspired with the spirit of karma-yoga. I amnot a follower of Ramakrishna or anyone, but of him only who serves and helpsothers without caring for his own bhakti and mukti!'The Swami's voice was choked with emotion, his body shook, and his eyesflashed fire. Quickly he went to the next room. A few moments later some of hisbrother disciples entered the room and found him absorbed in meditation, tearsflowing from his half-closed eyes. After nearly an hour the Swami got up, washedhis face, and joined his spiritual brothers in the drawing-room. His features stillshowed traces of the violent storm through which he had just passed; but he hadrecovered his calmness. He said to them softly:'When a man attains bhakti, his heart and nerves become so soft and delicatethat he cannot bear even the touch of a flower!...I cannot think or talk of SriRamakrishna long without being overwhelmed. So I am always trying to bindmyself with the iron chains of jnana, for still my work for my motherland isunfinished and my message to the world not fully delivered. So as soon as I findthat those feelings of bhakti are trying to come up and sweep me off my feet, Igive a hard knock to them and make myself firm and adamant by bringing upaustere jnana. Oh, I have work to do! I am a slave of Ramakrishna, who left hiswork to be done by me and will not give me rest till I have finished it. And oh,how shall I speak of him? Oh, his love for me!'He was again about to enter into an ecstatic mood, when Swami Yogananda andthe others changed the conversation, took him on the roof for a stroll, and triedto divert his mind by small talk. They felt that Vivekananda's inmost soul hadbeen aroused, and they remembered the Master's saying that the day Narenknew who he was, he would not live in this body. So from that day the brotherdisciples did not again criticize the Swami's method, knowing fully well that theMaster alone was working through him.