Once in Belur Math a young monk asked Brahmananda: “Maharaj, does Sri Ramakrishna exist even now?”
Maharaj answered: “I see you have lost your mind. Having renounced hearth and home, why are we leading such a life? He exists always. Pray to him day and night for his vision. He will dispel all your doubts and will make you understand his true nature.”
“Do you see the Master nowadays?”
“Yes,” replied Maharaj, “I see him whenever he shows himself out of his mercy. Anyone who has his grace can see him. But how many people have that love and longing to see him?” (Source: God Lived with Them)
Once Boshi Sen, a young devotee, said to Brahmananda, “Maharaj, you are miserly.” “Why do you say so?” asked the swami. “Because you have the power to give the experience of God to others, but you are withholding it.” Maharaj gravely said, “Who wants God?”
After becoming president of the Ramakrishna Order, Brahmananda began to initiate people, but was very selective. He strongly believed that the disciple and the guru must know and evaluate each other before initiation. Sometimes people had to wait many years before receiving initiation from him. There were three known reasons that prevented him from initiating indiscriminately. First, he followed the injunction of the scriptures, “Don’t make too many disciples.” Second, he remembered what the Master had said to Keshab Sen: “Why don’t you study their nature? Is there any good in making anybody and everybody a disciple?” Third, many times after giving initiation he would become ill, as he had absorbed the disciples’ sins.
However, Holy Mother asked Brahmananda to give initiation to more people, since she alone could not handle all the aspiring devotees. In 1916 Maharaj went to the Minerva Theatre to see a drama about Ramanuja, the exponent of qualified nondualistic Vedanta. The play portrayed how after Ramanuja’s initiation, his guru told him that whoever repeated the mantram would be liberated, but were he to divulge it to anyone, he himself would go to hell. The largehearted Ramanuja immediately went to a crowded place and shouted: “I have just received a mantram from my teacher, and whoever repeats this will attain liberation. Here it is, take it!” This particular scene moved Maharaj and he shed tears. From then on he became more liberal in giving initiation. ….
“Once Maharaj said to a devotee: ‘When you meditate, you should imagine that God is standing before you like the mythical wish-fulfilling tree.’ Another day he said to the same devotee: ‘At the time of meditation you should imagine that you are in mid-ocean; on all sides there are mountain-high waves, and God is standing before you ready to help you.’ In Madras, while I accompanied him on a walk, Maharaj said to me, ‘Just do one thing: always try to remember God. I also do that.’” (Source: God Lived with Them)