One day in November, 1881, Narendranath met Ramakrishna at the house of Surendranath Mitra who was a devotee of Ramakrishna. Narendra sang a devotional song on the occasion hearing which the Master passed into samadhi (a state of superconscious ecstasy).
A month later in December, 1881, Narendra along with a few friends visited the Paramahamsa at Dakshineshwar. On being seated in the saint's room, almost without any delay he shot at him pointblank the question, "Sir, have you seen God?" Ramakrishna instantly responded, "Yes, I have seen God. I see Him just as I see you here, only more clearly, in a much more intense sense." This unexpected affirmation stunned Narendra even as he kept marvelling at the old man's matchless renunciation and purity of character.
Later, during the course of conversation, Ramakrishna led him to the enclosed north-eastern veranda and fed him sweets with his own hands, lamenting all the while that Narendra had so delayed in meeting him and addressing him as the perfected sage Nara of antiquity and as Lord Narayana who had incarnated on earth out of compassion for suffering humanity. As he thus reverenced Narendra, Ramakrishna started shedding copious tears. The lad, completely shaken by such emotional effusions, became desperate to free himself from the seemingly mesmeric hold of this strange monomaniac. Later, when they both returned to the sage's room where Narendra's friends awaited him, Ramakrishna behaved just like a normal human being, a complete transformation of behavioural state again which utterly baffled the young man's understanding. Confused and in a quandary, caught in the cross-currents of alternate reverence and indignation at such erratic behaviour, Narendranath returned home undecided in his mind on the mental status of the sage and determined himself to investigate further to come to conclusions.
Written by Sugata Bose
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