Chapter (অধ্যায়): IV THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA AND THE ORDER OF RAMAKRISHNA PAGE-54Page: 54 of 336
Sri Ramakrishna and his great disciple. The Swami had now been back with them for thirteen or fourteen months only, and scarcely yet had they recovered from their first pleasure and surprise. Before that he had been practically lost to them for some six years. It was true that of late he had corresponded with them freely, and that for no time had they been, long, altogether off his track. And yet, when his first success in America had been heard of, most of his brethren had had only their confidence in the great mission foretold by his Master, to tell them that it was he.
Those who have witnessed here or there some great life of asceticism, will recognise a mood of passionate longing to lose one's own identity, to be united with the lowliest and most hidden things, to go forth from amongst men, and be no more remembered by them, as an element in the impulse of renunciation. This it is which explains, as I think, the long silence and seclusion in caves; the garb of mud and ashes, so often worn as a man wanders from forest to forest, and village to village; and a thousand other features of this type of religion, which to the Western onlooker might seem inexplicable. This mood would seem to have been much with the Swami in the early years after the passing of his Master. And again and again he must have left the little band of brethren, in the hope never to be heard of more. Once he was brought back from such an expedition by the community itself, who