Swami Vivekananda - A Biography by Swami Nikhilananda

One day, after a futile search for a job, he sat down, weary and footsore, in the big park
of Calcutta in the shadow of the Ochterlony monument. There some friends joined him
and one of them sang a song, perhaps to console him, describing God's abundant grace.
Bitterly Naren said: 'Will you please stop that song? Such fancies are, no doubt,
pleasing to those who are born with silver spoons in their mouths. Yes, there was a
time when I, too, thought like that. But today these ideas appear to me a mockery.'
The friends were bewildered.
One morning, as usual, Naren left his bed repeating God's name, and was about to go
out in search of work after seeking divine blessings. His mother heard the prayer and
said bitterly: 'Hush, you fool! You have been crying yourself hoarse for God since your
childhood. Tell me what has God done for you?' Evidently the crushing poverty at
home was too much for the pious mother.
These words stung Naren to the quick. A doubt crept into his mind about God's
existence and His Providence.
It was not in Naren's nature to hide his feelings. He argued before his friends and the
devotees of Sri Ramakrishna about God's non-existence and the futility of prayer even
if God existed. His over-zealous friends thought he had become an atheist and ascribed
to him many unmentionable crimes, which he had supposedly committed to forget his
misery. Some of the devotees of the Master shared these views. Narendra was angry
and mortified to think that they could believe him to have sunk so low. He became
hardened and justified drinking and the other dubious pleasures resorted to by
miserable people for a respite from their suffering. He said, further, that he himself
would not hesitate to follow such a course if he were assured of its efficacy. Openly
asserting that only cowards believed in God for fear of hell-fire, he argued the
possibility of God's non-existence and quoted Western philosophers in support of his
position. And when the devotees of the Master became convinced that he was
hopelessly lost, he felt a sort of inner satisfaction.
A garbled report of the matter reached Sri Ramakrishna, and Narendra thought that
perhaps the Master, too, doubted his moral integrity. The very idea revived his anger.
'Never mind,' he said to himself. 'If good or bad opinion of a man rests on such flimsy
grounds, I don't care.'
But Narendra was mistaken. For one day Bhavanath, a devotee of the master and an
intimate friend of Narendra, cast aspersions on the latter's character, and the Master
said angrily: 'Stop, you fool! The Mother has told me that it is simply not true. I shan't
look at your face if you speak to me again that way.'
The fact was that Narendra could not, in his heart of hearts, disbelieve in God. He
remembered the spiritual visions of his own boyhood and many others that he had
experienced in the company of the Master. Inwardly he longed to understand God and
His ways. And one day he gained this understanding. It happened in the following way: