How did Sree Ramakrishna Paramahamsa become Narendra's spiritual guru
Answers
Explanation:
Swami Nikhilananda writes in his introduction to 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna':
In a state of mental conflict and torture of soul, Narendra (Swami Vivekananda) came to Sri Ramakrishna (Sri RK) at Dakshineswar. He was then eighteen years of age and had been in college two years. He entered the Master's room accompanied by some light-hearted friends. At Sri RK's request he sang a few songs, pouring his whole soul into them, and the Master went into Samadhi. A few moments later Sri RK suddenly left his seat, took Narendra by the hand, and led him to the screened verandah north of his room. They were alone. Addressing Narendra most tenderly, as if he were a friend of long acquaintance, the Master said: "Ah! You have come very late. Why have you been so unkind as to make me wait all these days? My ears are tired of hearing the futile words of worldly men. Oh, how I have longed to pour my spirit into the heart of someone fitted to receive my message!" .. Then, standing before Narendra with folded hands, he addressed him as Narayana, born on earth to remove the misery of humanity. .... Narendra was startled,"What is this I have come to see?" he said to himself. "He must be stark mad. Why, I am the son of Viswanath Dutta. How dare he speak this way to me?"
... In answer to Narendra's question, "Sir, have you seen God?" the Master said: "Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you." .... Narendra was amazed. These words he could not doubt. This was the first time he had ever heard a man saying that he had seen God. But he could not reconcile these words of the Master with the scene that had taken place on the verandah only a few moments before. He concluded that Sri RK was a monomaniac, and returned home rather puzzled in mind.
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything around him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself.
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. ....
A few more meetings completely removed from Narendra's mind the last traces of the notion that Sri RK might be a monomaniac or wily hypnotist. ...
..Narendra, because of his Brahmo upbringing, considered it wholly blasphemous to look on man as one with his Creator. One day at the temple garden he laughingly said to a friend: "How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd." Sri RK came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too that the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. When he walked in the street, he saw that the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. ..... It took him a number of days to recover his normal self. He had a foretaste of the great experiences yet to come and realized that the words of the Vedanta were true.
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Introduction by Swami Nikhilananda