Akhandananda then started towards Behrampur, the district town of Murshidabad. He stopped for one night at Bhabta village. In the morning, when he was about to leave, he heard a voice say: “Where will you go? You have many things to do here.” He heard the voice thrice, so did not proceed further. A teacher of the Bhabta school invited the swami to attend the Annapurna (the goddess of food) worship in Mahula, an adjacent village. While there, he fervently prayed to the Mother to save the lives of the poor people. Akhandananda was then offered a room in the temple complex, and thought deeply about his future plans. He began giving classes on the Gita to the villagers, and they fed him.
One day Akhandananda was invited by a brahmin for lunch; but in the morning when he learned that a farmer’s family had been starving for two days, he began to cry to the Master, closing the door of his room. The host waited outside for a long time. At last the swami came out and said that he would accept his food provided he would send some food to this poor family. The host then agreed.
Akhandananda later wrote: “I carried a picture of Sri Ramakrishna with me. Every day after my bath in the Ganges, I would offer some flowers before it and pray to the Master with tears for the famine-stricken people. Thus I prayed every morning and evening. One day there was a response. I heard the Master’s voice say: ‘Wait and see what happens.’”
On 15 May 1897 Akhandananda started famine relief work in Mahula and several other villages in the Murshidabad district. It was the first organized relief work of the Ramakrishna Mission which had been started by Swami Vivekananda on 1 May 1897 in Calcutta. Akhandananda wrote letters to his brother disciples in Calcutta and Madras requesting financial help. He wrote in detail about the tragic scenes of the dying people. The response was immediate: Swamiji sent two monks to help him. Seeing the appeal for relief in the newspapers, the Mahabodhi Society and some generous people of Madras and Calcutta sent money to him. Mr. E. V. Levinge, the district magistrate, and Mr. Panton, the district judge, also came forward to assist in Akhandananda’s relief operation.
On 15 June 1897 Vivekananda wrote to him from Almora: “I am getting detailed reports of you and getting more and more delighted. It is that sort of work which can conquer the world… . Work, work, work, even unto death! Those that are weak must make themselves great workers, great heroes — never mind money, it will drop from the heavens… . It is the heart, the heart that conquers, not the brain. Books and learning, yoga and meditation and illumination — all are but dust compared with love. It is love that gives you the supernatural powers, love that gives you bhakti [devotion], love that gives illumination, and love, again, that leads to emancipation. This indeed is worship, worship of the Lord in the human tabernacle.”
Swamiji’s letter increased Akhandananda’s spirit of service a thousandfold. He later reminisced: “I read his letters over and over again and gained fresh strength within me. Mantram vā sādhayeyam shariram vā pātayeyam — I shall either carry out my purpose or lay down my body — this mantram filled my heart. Oh, into what a current of activity did I then submerge myself!”
Akhandananda’s activities were so vast and far-ranging that it is almost impossible to record all of them. One day there was an earthquake, which was soon followed by an outbreak of cholera. The more Providence tested him, the more he continued his relief work. Akhandananda eventually opened an orphanage and started a school for the children. He nursed the sick, and taught the villagers the basics of hygiene. He also continued his preaching and distributed the Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna among the villagers. (Source: God Lived with Them)
Akhandananda wrote to Swamiji, who was then in America, mentioning the relief work. On 21 February 1900 Swamiji replied from California: “I am very glad to receive your letter and go through the details of news. Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power. It is not in the brain but in the heart that the Atman, possessed of knowledge, power, and activity, has Its seat. ‘The nerves of the heart are a hundred and one.’ The chief nervecentre near the heart, called the sympathetic ganglia, is where the Atman has Its citadel. The more heart you will be able to manifest, the greater will be the victory you achieve.” (Source: God Lived with Them)