Vishwanath Datta (the Swami's father)
He was of the opinion that growing children needed to be well fed; otherwise their brains would not develop properly; thus he spared no expense in providing good and nourishing food for his children. He thought it was not necessary to leave behind an enormous patrimony; for if money were spent in giving his sons a taste for a high standard of living, a good education, and healthy bodies, in due course they would be compelled to make suitable arrangements for themselves-and would be able to do so. But if, on the other hand, they were to inherit much wealth, they would remain indolent and would squander all the money.
Naren's father traveled to central and northern India in connection with his work. In 1877, when Naren was fourteen years old, his father went to Raipur in the Central Provinces. Knowing that he would have to live there for an extended time, his father, Vishwanath, had his family brought there shortly thereafter. Raipur was not connected by railway then; travelers had to go by slow-moving bullock-carts for more than two weeks through the dense forests of central India.
Naren, as the eldest son, was responsible for the manly duty of protecting and guarding his family as they journeyed there.
He recalled an experience he had while traveling on the bullock cart:
What I saw and felt when going through the forest has for ever remained firmly imprinted in my memory, particularly a certain event of one day. We had to travel by the foot of the Vindhya mountains that day. The peaks of the ranges on both sides of the road rose very high in the sky; various kinds of trees and creepers bending under the weight of fruits and flowers produced wonderful beauty on the mountainsides. Birds of various colours, flying from tree to tree, filled the quarters with sweet notes. I saw all these and felt an extraordinary peace in my mind. The slow-moving bullock-carts arrived at a place where two mountain peaks, coming forward as though in love, locked themselves in an embrace over the narrow forest path. Observing carefully below the meeting-points I saw that there was a very big cleft from the crest to the foot of the mountain on one side of the path; and filling that cleft, there was hanging in it an enormous honeycomb, the result of the bees labour for ages. Filled with wonder, as I was pondering over the beginning and the end of that kingdom of bees, my mind became so much absorbed in the thought of the infinite power of God, the Controller of the three worlds, that I completely lost my consciousness of the external world for some time. I do not remember how long I was lying in the bullock-cart in that condition. When I regained normal consciousness, I found that we had crossed that place and come far away. As I was alone in the cart, no one could know anything about it.
- Edited by Frank Parlato Jr.