While the Master was lying ill at the Cossipore garden house, I (Mahendra Nath Gupta) was working as headmaster of Vidyasagar’s Shyampukur high school. I visited the Master quite often, and as a result I could not pay sufficient attention to the activities of the school. The students’ test scores suffered a little. Vidyasagar was displeased with this and said to me, “You are visiting Sri Ramakrishna too much, so the results of the examinations were not good.” I immediately resigned my job and informed the Master. He said three times, “You did the right thing.” He knew that I did not have any savings and that I might starve, but still he said that I had done the right thing. Whatever one does for God is the right thing to do. First serve God and then the world.
When I quit that job I was worried about how I would feed my children. Within fifteen days I got another job. A teacher of the Hindu School was on leave, and the headmaster of that school appointed me in his place, saying that the post was likely to be permanent. Even then I was worried. Another day I was abstractedly pacing back and forth on the veranda when I heard someone calling me from downstairs. I went down and found a messenger who gave me a letter from Surendra Nath Banerjee requesting me to visit him. When I met him, he said to me: “I hear you have given up your job. Why don’t you work in our college?” So I joined Ripon College [now Surendra Nath College] as a professor and worked there for five years. (Source: Ramakrishna as We Saw Him)
In this way, three or four time he gave up the job that gave him the wherewithal to support the family either for upholding principles or for practising spiritual sadhanas in holy places, without any consideration of the possible dire worldly consequences; but he was always able to get over these difficulties somehow, and the interests of his family never suffered. In spite of his disregard for worldly goods, he was, towards the later part of his life, in a fairly flourishing condition as the proprietor of the Morton School which he developed into a noted educational institution in the city. The Lord has said in the Bhagavad-Gita (BG 9.22) that in the case of those who think of nothing except Him, He himself would take up all their material and spiritual responsibilities. M. was an example of the truth of the Lord’s promise. (Source: Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita Centenary Memorial)