Morton School. Ground floor. The Sunday satprasanga (spiritual talk) meeting is over. M. sends Shanti for Antevasi. Antevasi has gone to the mess that is on the other side of the road. It is half past nine in the morning.

The third part of the Kathamrita is under print. Proof pages 185 to 200 have been received. Antevasi reads the proofs along with Shanti. At eleven o’clock Antevasi enters M.’s staircase room with the proofs. M. is seated on the cot facing west.

M. gives many copies of the Kathamrita part two to Antevasi. They are not complete. So, some extra forms had to be printed. Antevasi adds the missing pages to the book. He is seated to the south of M.’s bed on a bench. This job ends at two o’clock.

Antevasi enters his tin cabin on the roof to take rest. Soon after comes the bookbinder. Antevasi takes him and enters M.’s room again. M. says, "Kindly keep a record of the missing forms and of how many each is missing."

It is 6 p.m. A student from the Presidency College comes in. He is a student of the second year. He lives in Bhattapara. M. comes to the roof, asks him to wait for a while and goes down to the second level to have a wash. Soon after comes in Suren Ganguly holding a packet of dhup (incense) in his hands. Whenever he comes, he brings some dhup.

A few moments earlier M. has sent Dilchanda, the helper, to ask the boy to come downstairs and meet M. Antevasi has understood that possibly M. is going out somewhere or going to have a stroll on the road. So, he goes downstairs taking all of them with him.

M. is standing on the footpath outside the gate with the devotees when the Doctor and Vinay reach there by car. The Doctor says, "We have been to the GodiaGaudia Math yesterday."

M. walks towards the south on the eastern footpath of the Amherst Street along with devotees. He now stands on the turning of the Machhua Bazaar. He says, "Lets go to the GodiaGaudia Math today so that we may have darshan of ‘Prabhu’ again." This is what is decided. He comes back and gets into the car in front of the Morton School. He asks Surendra Ganguly, "Have you been to the GodiaGaudia Math? If not, you may go there once." He asks the student, "Do you know some Lalit Roy Mahashay in Bhattapara?" The boy says, "Yes, Ssir." M. says, "Please convey may namaskar to him and come here again." The student says, "Yes, Ssir" and then he leaves.

M. takes the back seat of the car to the right and the Doctor sits to the left. Vinay is with the driver, Jagabandhu sits behind on the baby seat in front of M. The car goes via Maniktala and stops at the gate of Pareshnath Temple, the place of pilgrimage of Jains, in front of the GodiaGaudia Math. Raja Badri Das has built this temple and has spent a lot on it.

M. enters from the south. Now turning towards the west he goes towards the temple. To his right there is a stone idol of a child. He looks at it and says, "Oh, it is so beautiful!" Now taking off his shoes below, he goes up the steps of the temple and comes to the verandah. There is whitech marble all around.

Inside the temple to the east there is the marble idol of Pareshnath. M. folds his hands and standing in front of it offer his pranams. Then he has its darshan through the southern window on the side of the path of circumambulation. Coming in front of the idol he prostrates himself to offer his pranam. It appears that this obeisance is for the teaching of the ‘Englishmen’ bhaktas. ‘To teach religious life to others by one’s own conduct’ — this is the eternal way of the spiritually great.

Coming down the steps M. walks towards the south. Just at the right hand turning there stands a boy 14 or 15 years old. As soon as he sees M. and the bhaktas he offers pranam by touching their feet. Antevasi tells that the boy is the student of the Morton School in class three (The seventh class of today), Malay Das his name. M. talks to him affectionately, "Don’t you go to the GodiaGaudia Math?" The boy replies, "Recently there were celebrations, I went then." M. says again, "So you only go on celebrations? You should visit sometimes also otherwise?"

M. walks towards the east. Seeing a stone sculpture he says, "All these are foreign made images." Entering the first path in the middle of the left garden he sees another stone idol — that of the gatekeeper. It as if guards the temple and the garden day and night. Proceeding a little Antevasi says, "There you see Raja Badri Das’s statue." M. stands close to it to watch it.

Then M. comes to the pukur (tank) walking straight from the northern side. He is to go to the second temple after going round the pukur from the north side. This too is a Jain temple. In the north-eastern corner of the garden, boys and girls are playing so happily. Seeing this M. says, "Good, here they also let the people play." M. sees many plants and creepers in flower pots in the north-eastern corner of the garden. Says he, "Do they give out carbon at night, Doctor Babu?" The Doctor says, "Carbon dioxide." M. goes near the gate but he finds it closed. So, he takes a detour and comes out on the road from the southern side.

There is another garden to the east with a temple in it. M. enters this garden. He asks Jagabandhu, "What are these small cluster of rooms to the right and left?" Jagabandhu replies, "They are all rest houses for the pilgrims. One can also cook and eat here. The rooms to the right are for men and those in the left for women." "Where did you see people eating the other day?" M. asks further. Jagabandhu says, "Just here, in the rooms towards the right." M. asks, "Were they only Bengalis?" Jagabandhu says, "Yes Sir, they were only Bengalis."

M. enters the temple by the northern steps. It is a very high building. Here the lotus feet of the Guru are worshipped. The bhaktas join M. in offering pranam by lying prostrate on the ground. They utter indistinctly, "Gurudeva, Gurudeva, Sri Guru!" A few moments later, M. comes down from the south- east corner. In front of him is the temple guard. He folds his hands and devotedly offers pranams to M. He has a Rajasthani turban on his head. He is one-eyed and some fifty years old. Antevasi asks him, "Brother can we go in?" "No Sir," the guard says.

Everybody puts on the shoes on coming down. Then they all walk starting from the bank of the tank via the last western path, first to the north and then to the east. M. leads followed by Jagabandhu. The Doctor and Vinay follow them.

The second temple., its plinth is very high. M. is tired so he sits below the steps on a bench. After some time, standing below the steps, he tries to have darshan of the idol. But he does not succeed. So he says to the bhaktas, "Please go, go and have darshan." M. sits below and meditates on God. When the devotees return, he says, "I shall try to see?" Saying so, he begins to climb the vertical ladder slowly holding the railing and facing west. Jagabandhu, the Doctor and Vinay climb again with M.

This temple also faces east. M. stands in the verandah in front of the idol and offers his pranam. Jagabandhu says, "Please come in." M. enters the Nnata Mmandir and standing very near the idol has its darshan. This too is a Jain temple. Here too, the idol is that of Tirthankar Pareshnath Mahavira. It is a white marble idol but naked. On the wall there is an electric light.

There is a donation box near the doorway. Two workers are seated on both sides of the entrance. The priest is to the south and an Oriya gardener to the north. Some account is being settled. The priest has a book in his hand. While he wais entering, the gardener says by a sign of his hand, "Stand here and have darshan — in front of the donation box?"

M. comes down the steps. He prostrates himself to offer pranam below the steps.

A devotee wonders, why he offers pranam again and again lying prostrate on the ground, old and tired as he is.? Is it for the teaching of the devotees that he is inflicting so much bodily pain upon himself? However M.’s face does not show it. I see that here also it is exactly the same sweet and, joyful emotion full of love playing on his face, while he is before Bhavatarini in Dakshineswar or while he is offering pranams in Thakur’s living room. Does he see Sri Ramakrishna, the symbol of Sachchidananda, in Mahavira also?

M. walks toward the gate. On both sides of the gate there are brick benches. M. sits facing west on the bench of the eastern side on the southern part of it. On the northern part of this bench is seated Jagabandhu. On the western bench sits Doctor Kartik Bakshi facing east on its southern portion and Vinay sits on its northern part.

M. is tired but is full of joy. It appears as if he is immersed in the sea of the love of Sri Ramakrishna. He says slowly to a bhakta, "Thakur has given me such spectacles that everybody appears to be my own. Where is a stranger? Who is a stranger? All of them are He. He is the Indivisible Sachchidananda. And again He is both the creature and the world. And it is He who comes as man in every age. Now He has come to Dakshineswar. Who has the capacity to recognize Him? It is by his grace that he has made his real Self reveal to the devotees. The devotees are speechless on seeing him. His is a blinding light. On the one hand, he is a man, a priest and then naked. And on the other — Sachchidananda. Seeing this aspect one likes nothing else. The reason, one sees him in all these. That is why, he has brought us here. All these are his different manifestations. That’s why, it looks so much as one’s own."

GodiaGaudia Math. The car is standing in front of the southern gate. A Vaishnava sadhu switches on the ‘door light’. The Doctor coming out of the car first opens the gate. M. comes out of the car holding a packet of dhup (incense) in his hand. This incense has been given to him earlier by Suren Ganguli. M. enters the outer room by the southern door. He gives the packet to the sadhu who has switched on the light, saying, "Please offer it to Gauranga." Then he has the darshan of Sri Gauranga, standing in the gallery in front, having come out of the western door from the north of that room. Seeing a big crowd there M. moves to the right and peeps from time to time to have darshan of the deity.

The idol of Sri Gauranga is one yard tall. It is made of wood and painted beautifully. Earlier one day, it had been in clad in rajavesha (finery). Those clothes are not there today. The arati is going to be performed. It is half past seven in the evening. A brahmachari is the priest. The arati is performed to begin with incense, water from the conch-shell, then with the chanvar (hand fan made of yak hair), five lights and incensed flowers — one after the other. Two khols (tomtom like musical instrument) and a number of pairs of cymbals are played upon. One player of the khol, overwhelmed with emotion, plays on the khol in various ways. As the arati aends, M. and the devotees prostrate on the ground to offer pranam.

M. is desirous of seeing the founder of the math. A sadhu asks him to wait a little. M. goes into the room and sits down on the cotton carpet. The sadhus and the brahmacharis read verses of salutation. It is warm inside the room. M. begins to perspire.

In the beginning a hymn of praise to Chaitanya Deva is recited, followed by the traditional pranam to the Guru. Then they recite the verses of Narottam Dass. Jagabandhu and Vinay go to arrange for the darshan of Prabhu. A sadhu takes M. and the devotees with him to the second level.

The living room of Prabhu is so beautiful and decorative. It has a door to the west. To the south there is another door for going up the roof. There are two windows on the eastern side of the room and one on the north, but they are closed. The walls of the room are plastered blue. The room is lit bright with electric light.

On the table to the east there are books, a looking glass and a match box. Nearby there is an expensive cushioned chair. To the north of the room there is the bed of Prabhu with a mattress and an expensive hand woven mat of straw over it. Over the bedstead hangs a mosquito net. On the bedroll there is a round pillow, and also a pillow to the west. To the west of the bed there is a switch near the door. A calendar of the Bhagavata press of Nadia is hanging against the wall. Above there is a ceiling fan. The floor of the room is covered with a cotton carpet with a telephone on it. In front of the bedroll, there is a small expensive carpet. ‘Prabhu’ is sitting on it facing south. Close to his hand there is an electric table lamp, and Chaitanya Charitamrita and other holy books have artistically been placed east-west to his right hand. A pen, an ink pot and other writing material are also there near the hand. Behind him, under the table there is a bundle of mattress and other items of the bedding.

Prabhu has his head shaven. In his hand, he is holding a bag of Harinam [containing the rosary]. On his forehead, he has a holy mark made with sandalwood paste and round his neck a five stringed garland of tulasi. The garland is almost black. On the body, he has a ‘pavnai’ banian. The sacred thread round his neck is visible though the banian. The dhoti is ochre coloured. He has also tied ochre coloured piece of cloth to the left shoulder bringing it up through the right armpit.

He is thin but tall. He has a dark complexion. He is over fifty. He has no teeth in his upper jaw. He is telling his beads as he sits on the carpet.

M. and the devotees first offer their pranam to Prabhu by folding their hands followed by prostrating on the ground. M. sits in front of Prabhu in the middle of western and southern door. Prabhu responds by folding his hands to offer them namaskar. Vinay and the Doctor sit close to the western door facing north. And Jagabandhu sits to the right of M. In front of the southern door, an elderly man is seen sitting with his head shaven. To his east there is a young man of fair complexion. He is thirty. He has a wristwatch and a silk shirt on his body. And at the eastern door stands a fat Vaishnava devotee. He is above forty. His face is round. The sacred thread is going round his belly. He is also bholding a Harinam bag. In front of him to the south of the table sits a young brahmachari. He also has a shaven head with a tuft of hair on the crown. He has rolled gold spectacle on his eyes. He is very fair. The sacred thread is shining on his belly. All are quiet. They are engaged in Brahman. They have the Harinam bag in the hand and are mentally performing japa. To the south of the table, there is a young brahmachari. He also has rolled gold spectacle over his eyes. Many sadhus and bhaktas stand outside the door. They are all curious to hear the spiritual dialogue with the writer of the Kathamrita. Now the conversation starts.

One of the inmates of the ashrama gives so many reports and other literature on the math to M. Having offered them pranam, he accepts them.

Prabhu tells the beads of the rosary held in his hand. His lips move and in between he also talks.

Today he feels like giving some comments — on GodiaGaudia Vaishnava way of thinking.

Prabhu talks very much in the language of the sadhus. His pronouncement is very clear. As the air passes between his teeth, his pronunciation sometimes becomes defective. He is quite well read. In between, he recites slokas. Sometimes a very simple and easy idea falls into the jungle of words and becomes obscure.

Prabhu’s ideas on determining the principle continue from seven thirty in the evening to quarter to nine. Sometimes he talks in a very inspired manner. In between when he forgets a sloka he asks the devotees sitting near him. They bring them it up.

Having recited a sloka he explains it.

Prabhu recites another sloka of Prabodhananda.

The current of dialogue stops. Prabhu tells the beads. A good result of japa is visible. Even when discussing very exciting topics the face of Prabhu bears the natural mood.

M. and the devotees rise and come out. The householder devotee with a wristwatch stands outside talking to M.

M. comes down the stairs with the devotees. He goes out. Peeping through the western door of the outer room, he sees a sadhu sitting on the floor and reading out the Bhagavata. He is 27 or 28, fair in complexion and graduated in B.A. All other sadhus seated in front are listening to him. Some of them are in gerua clothes and others in white. All of them have shaven head, with a tuft of hair on the crown and are wearing the sacred thread. They are holding the bag of string of beads. Their lips are moving. Both japa and listening to the Bhagavata go on simultaneously. It is very inspiring.

M. has come out. A number of sadhus living in the math and the bhaktas come out with M. to bid goodbye.

M. takes his seat in the car along with the bhaktas. Joining his hands, he again offers namaskar to the sadhus and bhaktas.

The car starts. M. is feeling very much out of sorts — old as he is. He feels somewhat normal in the open. He says, ""Baba, this conversation has heated my head. The pundits perhaps always do so. I had the desire to have the darshan. Can one get everything? One should take as much of honey as it is available at a place. Aha, my mind was so inspired with Chaitanya Deva on seeing them — [as though] he is absorbed in Hari’s name in Puri along with the bhaktas! This is our principle gain."

The car moves. Along with it the mind of a devotee is also moving. He is thinking, "Sri Ramakrishna had seen M. in the singing party of Chaitanya with his physical eyes. And then hearing him read out the Chaitanya Bhagavata he had said, "‘I have recognized who you are.’" And he had added, "‘You are a member of the inner circle, a person belonging to this place — of the some substance as father and son. You will have to do a little of the Mother’s work. You will have to narrate the Bhagavata to the people.’" And then he said, "‘Sachchidananda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Abso-lute) has come into this body. Christ, Chaitanya and I are one.’" And he also said, "‘Mother, you granted him a kala of Your Shakti! Well, it will be enough to do Your work (of teaching humanity).’" How many scholars have become sadhus with the help of M.! How many knowers of scriptures have got the essence! What was M.’s aim in visiting GodiaGaudia Math today?! To realize the bhava (mood) of Chaitanya Deva is his right by virtue of his karma. Is this perfected devotee of Chaitanya moving the lower dice instead of the higher one — a humble way of teaching humanity?"