Jai Ramakrishna
Today is the auspicious Janma-Tithi of Swami Vivekananda. On this sacred day may he inspire and guide us all with Bhakti.
(Below are some of the most inspiring incidents in the life of Swami Vivekananda.)
We find yet another incident narrated by the Swami. This is how it is related in The Life of Swami Vivekananda, by His Eastern and Western Disciples :
Speaking to Girish Babu of the experience of his Parivrajaka days, the Swami told of an event of a more pleasant character, which took place in Khetri.
To use the Swami’s own words:-
In the course of my wanderings I was in a certain place where people came to me in crowds and asked for instructions. Though it seems almost unbelievable, people came and made me talk for three days and nights without giving me a moment’s rest. They did not even ask me whether I had eaten.
On the third night when all the visitors had left, a low caste poor man came up to me and said,
‘Swamiji—I am much pained to see that you have not had any food these three days. You must be very tired and hungry. Indeed, 1 have noticed that you have not even taken a glass of water’.
I thought that the Lord Himself had come in the form of this low caste man to test me.
I asked, ‘Can you give me something to eat’.
The man said, ‘Swamiji, my heart is yearning to give you food, but how can you eat chapatis baked by my hands ! If you allow me— I shall be most glad to bring flour, utensils and other things and you may cook them yourself.’
At that time, according to the monastic rules, I did not touch fire. So I said to him ‘You had better given me chapatis cooked by you. I will gladly take them.’
Hearing this the man shrank in fear; he was a subject of the Maharaja of Khetri and was afraid that if the latter came to hear that he, a cobbler had given Chapatis to a Sanyasin, he would be severely dealt with and possibly banished from the State.
I told him, however, that he need not fear and that the Maharaja would not punish him. He did not believe me but out of the kindness of his heart, even though he feared the consequence, he brought me the cooked food.
I doubted at that time whether it would have been more palatable if Indra, the king of the Devas, should have held a cup of nectar in a golden basin before me. I shed tears of love and gratitude and thought ‘thousands of such largehearted men live in lowly huts and we despise them as low caste and untouchables!
When I became acquainted with the Maharaja I told him the noble act of this man.
Accordingly, within a few days the latter was called to the presence of the Prince.
Frightened beyond words, the man came shaking all over, thinking that some dire punishment was to be inflicted on him.
But the Maharaja praised him and put him beyond all want.
The grateful Maharaja was so gracious to this cobbler for the small mercy he showed to his friend, philosopher and guide, which he considered so great as to reward him by giving him a suitable Jagir which could alone ‘put him beyond all want.’
