Hunger for God made young Shashi restless. Keshab inspired him immensely but could not fully satiate his spiritual hunger. One day in October 1883, Shashi, Sharat, and some of their friends went to Dakshineswar to visit Sri Ramakrishna. They found the Master seated on his small couch. He received the boys with a smile and asked them to sit on a mat on the floor. He then asked their names and where they lived, and was pleased to know that they belonged to Keshab’s Brahmo Samaj.
At first sight Sri Ramakrishna recognized Shashi and Sharat as his own. Sensing their spirit of renunciation, the Master said: “Bricks and tiles, if burnt with the trademark on them, retain those marks forever. Similarly, you should enter the world after advancing a little in the path of spirituality. Then you will not sink in the mire of worldliness. But nowadays parents get their boys married while quite young, and thus pave the way to their ruin. The boys come out of school to find themselves fathers of several children. So they run hither and thither in search of a job to maintain the family. With great difficulty perhaps they find one, but are hard pressed to feed so many mouths with that small income. They become naturally anxious to earn money and therefore find little time to think of God.”
“Then, sir, is it wrong to marry? Is it against the will of God?” asked one of the boys. The Master asked him to take a certain book down from the shelf and directed him to read a particular passage that quoted Christ’s opinion of marriage: “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb; there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive.” The Master then asked him to read Saint Paul: “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”
Someone interrupted, saying: “Do you mean to say, sir, that marriage is against the will of God? And how can His creation go on if people cease to marry?” Sri Ramakrishna smiled and said: “Don’t worry about that. Those who wish to marry are at perfect liberty to do so. What I said just now was between ourselves. I speak on what I have got to say; you take as much of it as you like and no more.”
Sri Ramakrishna asked Shashi whether he believed in God with form or without form. Shashi replied frankly, “I am not certain about the very existence of God, so I am not able to speak one way or the other!” This simple and direct reply pleased the Master very much. When the boys took leave of him, the Master said to Shashi, “Please come again and alone.”