Swami Vivekananda's Childhood

As a kid, Narendra( his real name),   was always daring, never willing to accept things at face value. There  was believed to be a tree, haunted by a spirit, and no one would go near  it. Once when Naren was playing with his friends, he began to climb  that "haunted tree", his friends warned him not to do so,saying there  was a spirit in it. And Naren replied "If there was really a spirit on  the tree, it would have killed me long time back". His fearless  attitude, tendency not to take anything on face value, was ingrained  from his childhood.


The influence of Sree Ramakrishna Paramahansa in moulding and guiding the character  of Swami Vivekananda, is well  known. Though Vivekananda, revered  Ramakrishna, he never accepted his  teachings at face value, he always questioned him, debated with him, and  it was for this reason that he was the latter's favorite disciple. Once  Ramakrishna claimed that he was so allergic to money, he could never  really bear even it's touch. In order to test him, Swami Vivekananda  placed a coin under his mattress. When Ramakrishna sat on it, he began  to experience a stinging pain, grew restless and started to cry out. He  raised the mattress and saw the coin, demanded to know who put it there.  Vivekanands claimed he did it just to test Ramakrishna's claim, the  latter was pleased "You are right Naren, never believe anything blindly,  test it".