In the third week of January 1887, disciples of Sri Ramakrishna took their final monastic vows by performing the traditional viraja homa (fire ceremony) in front of the Master’s picture. Rakhal became Swami Brahmananda. Shortly after this, his father went to the monastery to persuade him to return home. But he calmly and firmly said to his father: “Why do you take so much trouble to come to me? I am quite happy here. Now bless me that I may forget you and you may forget me.”
Cutting off all family ties and attachments, Brahmananda became so absorbed in japam and meditation that he almost forgot the world. In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, M. recorded a conversation he had had with Brahmananda in the Baranagore Monastery:
Rakhal (earnestly): “M., let us practise sadhana [spiritual disciplines]! We have renounced home for good. When someone says, ‘You have not realized God by renouncing home; then why all this fuss?’, Narendra gives a good retort. He says, ‘Because we could not attain Ram, must we live with Shyam and beget children?’ Ah! Every now and then Narendra says nice things.”
M.: “What you say is right. I see that you too have become restless for God.”
Rakhal: “M., how can I describe the state of my mind? Today at noontime I felt great yearning for the Narmada [a holy river in Central India, favoured by ascetics]… . Many people think that it is enough not to look at the face of a woman. But what will you gain merely by turning your eyes to the ground at the sight of a woman? Narendra put it very well last night, when he said: ‘Woman exists for a man as long as he has lust. Free from lust, one sees no difference between man and woman.’”
M.: “How true it is! Children do not see the difference between man and woman.”
Rakhal: “Therefore I say that we must practise spiritual discipline. How can one attain Knowledge without going beyond maya?” (Source: God Lived with Them)