Post 52: SWAMI VIVEKANANDA BIOGRAPHY OF A MIGHTY SAINT - By Prabhu Datta & Venu Murthy Naren used to have a strange experience right from his childhood days. Many times, when he would meet some body, in the case of many people, he would feel that he had already met them somewhere. Though, it would be his first meeting with them. He would feel like this when he would visit certain places also. He would feel, “I know this house. I have come here already.” At such times he would describe each and every room of the house even before entering it! Naren described this phenomenon in these words once, “from my very childhood, whenever I came in contact with a particular object, a person, or a place, it would sometimes seem as if I were already acquainted with it. I would try to recollect when I had seen them, but could not bring it to mind. Nonetheless, I was convinced that I had seen it before. This happened quite too often. One day, I was discussing various topics with my friends at a friend’s home. Someone told something during the conversation. Immediately a thought flashed in my mind that sometime in the past, in this very house, I had had the same discussion with these friends, and on that occasion too this person had said the same thing. I had talked with these friends on that topic and the discussion had taken the very same turn. But I could not ascertain when actually I had had such a discussion with them. Such incidents happened very often.” One such incident happened when Naren went to his guru bhai, brother disciple, Sarat Chandra Chakravarty’s house just after a few years time. Naren was eighteen years of age at that time. Sarat described this incident as follows, “it was during the winter of 1884. I was well acquainted with Naren by then. I went to Naren’s house at Gaur Mohan Mukherjee Street on that day a little before noon and stayed with him till late at night. My cousin Shashi Bhushan too was with us. “I remember that the evening melted in to darkness so deep that we could not see each other. But I felt that it was not necessary to see physically. Because, Naren’s fiery spiritual feelings expressed through his inspiring words penetrated my heart, creating a divine intoxication that left me reeling. I felt as though the real world we had perceived so long had disappeared into a dream. …. I did not notice how the time passed, but suddenly I heard the bell strike nine. Reluctantly, me and my cousin Shashi Bhushan prepared to take leave of Naren, but Naren said, “let us go together. I will accompany you for a short distance,” “As we walked we began discussing a similar topic, which absorbed us until we reached our home in Champatala. I realized that it was not right for us to have Naren come with us such a long distance. So I invited him into our home. Naren entered the house. As soon as he kept one step inside, he suddenly stood still in wonder! He exclaimed, “Sharat, I have seen your house before! It’s amazing! I am familiar with its corridors, rooms and everything in your house! Right now I can describe every room in your house without having to see!” “I too was surprised, because this was the first time he had entered our house. I gave him some refreshment. Then me and my cousin accompanied him back to his home, and then we all three returned to our home again immersed in Naren’s conversation. When Naren once more entered our house this time, he suddenly stood still, and told again: “I have seen this house before! It’s amazing! I’m familiar with its corridors, rooms and everything!” Later swami Vivekananda remarked like this about these happenings: “It now seems to me that before I was born I have somehow had seen in my visions, as we see in motion pictures, the people and things I would have to come in contact with in this life. Those memories arise in my mind from time to time.” Throughout Swami Vivekananda’s life such recollections of familiarity were happening. This also helped him to easily recognise people who were born to help him whenever he met any of them.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 22:54:26 +0000
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