If Holy Mother was in Calcutta, Premananda would always ask her permission to go anywhere to lecture. In 1914 Premananda was invited to speak during the Ramakrishna festival at Malda, North Bengal. He came with the devotees to Udbodhan to receive the Mother’s permission, but she refused it because Premananda had been sick only a fortnight before. When the devotees again importuned Holy Mother about the trip, she asked Premananda if he wanted to go. He replied with great emotion: “What do I know, Mother? I shall carry out your order. If you ask me to jump into fire, I will jump; if you ask me to plunge into water, I will plunge; if you ask me to enter into hell, I will enter. What do I know? Your word is final.” At last Holy Mother gave him permission, but she asked him to return soon. To the devotees she said: “You see, they are all great souls. Their bodies are channels for doing good to the world. Look after their physical comfort and ease.” (Source: God Lived with Them)
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On one occasion Premananda was ready to go to East Bengal, and the devotees were waiting for him in the boat at Belur ghat. They were supposed to take the train from Calcutta, and then take a steamer. Premananda went to the shrine to get the Master’s permission. A monk who happened to be there heard Premananda talking to the Master, but he didn’t hear the Master’s response. At last Premananda said, “All right, Master, I shall not go.” He then came downstairs and told the devotees that he would not go that day. The devotees were disappointed; but the newspaper later reported that the steamer he was supposed to take from Goalanda to Dhaka had been sunk by a cyclone. (Source: God Lived with Them)
Just then a man entered the room and told the Master that Hriday was waiting to see him in Jadu Mallick’s garden, near the gate.
The Master said to the devotees: “I shall have to see Hriday. Please don’t leave the room.” He put on his slippers and went toward the east gate of the temple garden, M. accompanying him. The road through the garden was covered with red brick-dust. The manager of the temple, who was standing on the road, saluted Sri Ramakrishna. The Master passed the north entrance of the temple compound, where the bearded sentries sat. On his left he passed the kuthi, the building used by the proprietors of the temple. Then he walked on down the road which was lined on both sides with flowering trees, passing the reservoir on his right, and went outside the temple garden. He found Hriday waiting for him near the gate of Jadu Mallick’s garden.
At the sight of the Master, Hriday, who had been standing there with folded hands, prostrated himself before him. When the Master told him to get up, he rose and began to cry like a child. How strange! Tears also appeared in the Master’s eyes. He wiped them away with his hands. Hriday had made him suffer endless agonies, yet the Master wept for him.
MASTER: “Why are you here now?”
HRIDAY (weeping): “I have come to see you. To whom else shall I tell my sorrows?”
Sri Ramakrishna smiled and said to him by way of consolation: “One cannot avoid such sorrows in the world. Pleasure and pain are inevitable in worldly life. (Pointing to M.) That is why they come here now and then. They get peace of mind by hearing about God. What is your trouble?”
HRIDAY (weeping): “I am deprived of your company and so I suffer.”
MASTER: “Why, was it not you who said to me, ‘You follow your ideal and let me follow mine’?”
HRIDAY: “Yes, I did say that. But what did I know?”
MASTER: “I shall say good-bye to you now. Come another day and we shall talk together. Today is Sunday and many people have come to see me. They are waiting in my room. Have you had a good crop in the country?”
HRIDAY: “”It isn’t bad.”
MASTER: “Let me say good-bye. Come another day.”
Hriday again prostrated himself before the Master, who started back to his room with M.
MASTER (to M.): “He tormented me as much as he served me. When my stomach trouble had reduced my body to a couple of bones and I couldn’t eat anything, he said to me one day: ‘Look at me — how well I eat! You’ve just taken a fancy that you can’t eat.’ Again he said: ‘You are a fool! If I weren’t living with you, where would your profession of holiness be?’ One day he tormented me so much that I stood on the embankment ready to give up my body by jumping into the Ganges, which was then at flood-tide.”
M. became speechless at these words of the Master. For such a man he had shed tears a few minutes before!
MASTER (to M.): “Well, he served me a great deal; then why should he have fallen on such evil days? He took care of me like a parent bringing up a child. As for me, I would remain unconscious of the world day and night. Besides, I was ill for a long time. I was completely at his mercy.”
M. did not know how to answer Sri Ramakrishna; so he kept silent. (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)