As none of the householder devotees was rich enough to bear the expenses single-handed, at times the faith of the boys wavered, and they wondered where the money to meet the expenses was to come from. They feared that they might even have to give way to their families and return home. Whenever this happened some fresh proof of Shri Ramakrishna's divinity would be given them. Then they would reproach themselves saying, "Why this baseless apprehension, this anxiety about funds? The Master himself will provide the means." The devotees were convinced that any service rendered to him would conduce to their spiritual welfare, and they looked on his illness as an opportunity to serve the Guru, each according to his capacity. So the householders resolved to spend money in the service of the Master, and the boys gave themselves in personal service. All were caught up in an enthusiasm which was stimulated and strengthened by Shri Ramakrishna's revelation of spirituality. Many who were unable to go to Dakshineswar to see him found the opportunity at Shyampukur.

Naturally, there was much speculation among the devotees as to the reason for the Master's illness. Some ascribed it to the will of the Divine Mother: they held that it was necessary for the fulfillment of some unknown purpose. Others thought that it was self imposed, as the Master was a divine Incar-nation, for the good of mankind. A third group concluded that as birth, disease, decay and death are inevitable phases of human life, the disease of the Master was a perfectly natural phenomenon, and that it was foolish to seek a supernatural explanation for it. At the same time these last were willing to sacrifice everything in the Master's service and to mould their lives in the light of the lofty spiritual ideal set before them by him. It hardly needs saying that Narendranath was the leader of the last group: it consisted mostly of young men reading in schools and colleges. Though the various groups of devotees regarded the Master differently as an Incarnation of God, or as a superman, or as a man of God-all of them were convinced beyond doubt that the goal of life would be realized if they could follow his example and render him service.

Naren was not a fanatic. Yet he had to admit that the loving, suffering human person whom he saw before him, could be, and often actually was, transformed the next moment into a divine person. In Shri Ramakrishna the human and the divine, he began to see, were inseparable. He came to see religion as consisting in realistic efforts for the conquest of human limitations and as the achievement of that conquest. He saw this lived before him daily by Shri Ramakrishna. In the face of it, belief was neither here nor there: attaining to the same conquest and realization was the thing that mattered. Sitting thus at the feet of the Master, Naren read in him the essential meaning of the Vedas and the Upanishads.

The Master, knowing that he was approaching the end of his mortal existence, was all the more eager to kindle in his young disciples a burning desire for the realization of God. Since this can only be attained by reducing to ashes all attachment to lust and gold, his utterances at Shyampukur were replete with the spirit of renunciation. Besides spiritual teaching, Shri Ramakrishna also gave his disciples the strength to follow the teaching. His own life, the force of his utterances, his communion with divine realities, and the ease with which he passed into the highest Samadhi all these were as a great Light drawing them on to a glorious spiritual consciousness. Coming at a time when Naren was being buffeted on all sides, the Master's teaching sank deep into his heart to remain there for ever, a beacon light to show him the way through the wilderness of illusion.

When Doctor Mahendralal Sarkar, the Master's attending physician, met Naren, he was delighted with his conversation and invited him to dinner. Later when the doctor heard Naren sing at Shyampukur, he was so pleased that he embraced and blessed him. He said to Shri Ramakrishna, "I am very glad to see that it is boys like him who come here for religious instruction. Naren is a real gem, fit to shine in any sphere of life." The Master replied, "They say that the fiery appeal of Advaita Goswami brought about the incarnation of Shri Gauranga at Nadia. Similarly everything that you see here [meaning his own advent] is on account of him [Narendra-nath]."

Of all the disciples of the Master, Naren, though young, possessed the most penetrating intellect, as was shown by his power of discrimination and comprehensive outlook on life. This was one of the qualities that made him their natural leader, competent to chide as well as to guide, as will be seen from what follows.

While association with Shri Ramakrishna and wholehearted service to him gave the devotees increased faith and devotion, they were unwittingly walking on a dangerous road. The emotions of the boys were stirred by the tragic picture unfolding before their eyes. To the more sentimental among them, these emotions were insidiously replacing the sterner ideals of renunciation and self restraint which are the bed rock of spirituality. Emotion is good in its place, but it is not the goal and too much indulgence in it might even cause one to miss the object to be attained. Of course, there were some reasons for their taking this mistaken view of spirituality. The mind naturally seeks the line of least resistance, trying to make a compromise between God and the world, between renunciation and enjoyment. Few realize their contrary natures; most are satisfied with a partial success in spiritual matters. Shri Ramakrishna, knowing this, tested newcomers to see if their idea was of a comfortable religion, one that would not interfere with the satisfaction of their worldly desires. In such cases he never gave the entire spiritual truth but contented himself with imparting as much as they would find easy to accept and assimilate. This entailed individual training. Of course, his instruction to house holders was different from that given to his young boys not yet contaminated by the world. His general instructions were still different. There we find him saying, "In this KaliYuga the only way to cultivate spirituality is by chanting the name of the Lord and following the path of devotion as marked out by the sage Narada." The devotees however, did not realize the full, significance of this, that Narada taught complete renunciation of the world by a gradual process, through love of God.

Another cause of the devotees' error seems to have been their lack of comprehension of the significance of Shri Ramakrishna's life. They would see the Master weep and dance before he became lost in Samadhi; but his emotion, unlike theirs, had as its background a life of austerity and renunciation, and was evidence of strength rather than weakness. The situation took a new turn when Girishchandra Ghose arrived on the scene. Girish openly proclaimed the Master to be an Incarnation of God, and he tried to induce everyone to share his conviction. This proved nearly fatal to some of the disciples. Girish's case was unique; but there were others, with none of his sincerity, who went about declaring that, like Girish, they had given Shri Ramakrishna the "power of attorney" in spiritual matters and had therefore no need of any discipline. Girish was soon supported in his view by Ramchandra Datta, who declared the Master to be the Incarnation of Shri Krishna and Shri Gauranga. Encouraged by Girish's public announcement, Ramchandra busied himself with working out an Incarnation theory of his own, and even went so far as to assign to different devotees the roles they had so he said played with these Incarnations. Those who displayed the greatest amount of sentiment were, in his estimation, spiritually the highest.

Narendranath was the first to realize the dangers of the path the devotees were taking. He tried to warn the young ones of the danger by saying; "The sentimentalism that does not produce a permanent change in human life, that makes man eager to realize God at one moment but does not give him power to desist from seeking lust and gold at the next, has no depth in it, and is therefore of little value in life. Though under its influence some may shed tears and experience horripilation and other bodily changes, or even a temporary withdrawal of normal consciousness, it is, I am perfectly convinced, the result of nervous weakness, A man should by all means eat nutritious food and take the help of a physician if he cannot suppress his feelings through the exercise of his will, There is much of artificiality in those bodily changes and absence of normal consciousness. As our control over ourselves grows firmer, our sentiments become deeper and more genuine. It is only in the lives of rare persons that spiritual sentiments become so powerful as to assume the form of tidal waves, overflowing even a firm dam of control, and become manifest as bodily changes and temporary cessation of normal consciousness. Foolish men cannot understand this and reverse the process: depth of spiritual sentiments, they think, is the result of those bodily changes and that loss of consciousness; so they make efforts to produce those effects in themselves. That intention and effort of theirs gradually develop into a habit and weaken their nerves increasingly as days pass by, so that in the course of time those changes come on them at the slightest experience of sentiment. In the end they become insane or afflicted with a chronic malady by indulging freely in them. In trying to practise religion, eighty per cent of people turn charlatans and about fifteen per cent become mad; only the remaining five attain the immediate knowledge of the infinite Truth, and are blessed. Hence beware!"

That Naren was right became evident when it transpired later that some of those emotional outbursts had been carefully rehearsed at home; others were simply imitation. More and better food, and sustained efforts at self control, proved sufficient medicine in most cases. But where these methods failed, Naren would make that person the butt of ridicule. He hated the weakness that permitted the surrender of straightforwardness and discrimination. He placed positive ideals before the young disciples and appealed to their innate strength. He would gather them together and through songs of renunciation and devotion would help them keep their minds surcharged with the ideals of austerity and of dispassion for the things of the world. Or he would narrate in glowing colours soul stirring incidents from the life of the Master to illustrate his profound love of God. Sometimes he revealed the Master's glory in a way that amazed the disciples. At other times he would quote passages from the Imitation of Christ and say, "The life of anybody who truly loves the Lord will be perfectly moulded in His pattern. Therefore, whether we truly love the Master or not will be proved by this fact." He reminded the devotees of the Master's saying, "First tie the nondual knowledge in the corner of your cloth; then do whatever you like." He explained to them that the Master's emotional intoxication had that knowledge as its basis, and exhorted them to make efforts to attain the nondual knowledge first.

Doctor Mahendralal Sarkar, the leading homoeopath of Calcutta, agreed to treat him. Naren organized the nursing; the Holy Mother came from Dakshineswar to do the cooking. Naren's love for the Master, his self-sacrifice and enthusiasm, influenced the other disciples, and they all resolved to devote themselves to the service of their spiritual guide and to the realization of God. They forgot studies and home. Their parents and guardians began to intervene; and, but for the zeal and encouragement of Naren, it would have been almost impossible for them to have continued the course they were intent on.

Matters were brought to a head by Vijaykrishna Goswami, the noted Brahmo preacher, who, though not a disciple of the Master, had had a vision of him as he sat in meditation in his room in Dacca. He lost no time in going to see the Master (on October 25, 1885) to tell him, "I have travelled all over the country and met many spiritual persons; but I have found none like you. Here is the full amount1 of sixteen annas, whereas at other places I have found but two, three or four annas at most. I saw you at Dacca in a vision and I have no doubt about you. People do not understand you because you are so easy of access. You live very near to Calcutta. The mere wish takes us to you; there is no difficulty of conveyance. Therefore we cannot properly estimate your value. But had you been seated on the summit of a high mountain, the journey to which would mean much trouble and hardship, then we should have regarded you in a different light. Now we think that if such a very spiritual man lives near us, how much greater must be the spirituality of those who live far off! That is why we roam hither and thither in quest of spirituality instead of coming to see you."

It is not surprising that Vijay's presence at Shyampukur should have caused the smouldering embers to burst into flame. Belief in the Master as a divine Incarnation spread among the devotees like wild fire. Some of them waited eagerly for miraculous manifestations of Shri Ramakrishna’s power; others would fall into partial trances accompanied by convulsions on hearing devotional music or the like.

Narendranath, however, did not look on Shri Ramakrishna either as an Incarnation of God, or as an ordinary being. One day (October 27, 1885) in reply to certain criticisms of Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar, Narendranath said, "We think of him [meaning the Master] as a person who is like God: Do you know, sir, what it is like? There is a point between the vegetable creation and the animal creation where it is very difficult to determine whether a particular thing is a vegetable or an animal. Likewise, there is a stage between the man-world and the God-world where it is extremely hard to say whether a person is man or God." He concluded by saying, "I do not say that he is God. What I am saying is that he is a Godlike man. Hence we offer him worship."

While Naren was thus engaged in his own spiritual pursuit and in shaping the character of his young brother-disciples, the condition of the Master was going from bad to worse. Medicines proved of no avail. Dr. Mahendralal thought that it might be due to the foul air of Calcutta and advised removal to some garden-house in the suburbs. After a search the garden house belonging to Gopalchandra Ghosh at Cossipore was hired at eighty rupees a month. On the afternoon of December 11, 1885, the Master was moved to the new place where he felt much refreshed on account of its pleasing surroundings, clean air, and seclusion.