Swami Shivapadananda on Swami Vivekananda’s experience of the Vishvaroop
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
Selected from Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji.
Day 467
After the first few visits to Master [Sri Ramakrishna] the young Naren [Swami Vivekananda's premonastic name] had a similar experience to Arjuna. He went to see Sri Ramakrishna and the Master touched him. He went into an ecstatic mood. He became fearful and said to Master, "Oh, what are you doing to me? I am fearful, I am going to lose my individuality. I have got my mother and my father …." Then Sri Ramakrishna said, "All right, let it wait a little," and master brought him out of it. There was another time too when Swami Vivekananda visited Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna touched him with his leg and he felt the whole world reeling. He became blissful – then he became fearful.
He wanted the test but when the test was given it was as if the container was not yet ready to contain it. The blissful and the fearful were both there. Swami Vivekananda said that for almost three days he found this state existed everywhere. When he walked on the road he wanted to go and embrace the cars. The cars did not know that he was looking at God. He would have been knocked over but the people pulled him out of the road. He looked at his mother and to him his mother looked like Sri Ramakrishna. When he took his food he said, "Ah, Sri Ramakrishna." He saw the Vishvaroopa [Universal, Cosmic consciousness] was one: Sri Ramakrishna. Then he prayed for this experience to go down because he could not manage it. He was not yet ready and slowly Sri Ramakrishna withdrew it. Later on this fearful Swami Vivekananda preached fearlessness.
Sri Ramakrishna said to him, "This gift is given to you. But until you are ready and until you have finished my work, I have got the key. Later I'll open the treasure-house for you. Then you will not be fearful. Instead, just like a moth rushing to the light, you will want to rush off willingly, naturally."
There are unnatural ways of trying to make yourself rush into it but all sadhanas and prayers in the life of Swami Vivekananda prepared him to keep his state as natural as possible.
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Reference websites: Ramakrishna Math & Mission, Ramakrishna Centre of Southern Africa, Sri Ramakrishna Dham