Karma yoga is inscrutable. It is a wonderful path for purifying the mind; but if it is not performed in the right spirit, it breeds ego, power struggles, bickering, and dissension. In Varanasi the Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama and the Home of Service are located side by side; some untrained monks of both centres formed rival groups and started to quarrel among themselves. Turiyananda and Saradananda tried to reconcile their differences but failed. Brahmananda was then at Bhubaneswar. When he was informed of the situation, he replied: “Don’t do anything. I am coming to see for myself.”
On 20 January 1921 Brahmananda arrived at Varanasi. The novices were scared to death, thinking that the swami would punish them, or at least call some meetings. He did not call any meeting or raise any question regarding work or quarrels. He simply announced that all the monks from both centres would have to meditate with him in the morning and evening, and that there would be devotional singing and questions and answers after meditation. Thus a few days passed. Then, on Swamiji’s birthday he initiated forty members of the ashramas into sannyasa and brahmacharya. He lifted their minds to such a high level that they forgot all their friction. One of the ringleaders was so inspired that he left for the Himalayas to perform austerities. Peace returned to both centres.
Seeing that Brahmananda had won the battle without a fight, Saradananda complimented him: “It would be proper for you to be a king rather than a monk. Where both Turiyananda and I could not figure out the solution, how easily you solved this crucial problem!” A disciple of Brahmananda wrote in his reminiscences:
Maharaj had the power to change the atmosphere of a place and to make it vibrate with his spirituality. In his company he could make everybody roll with laughter, and then suddenly, when he became silent, the place would be surcharged with a divine presence. Swami Turiyananda once remarked that Maharaj used to create such an atmosphere around himself that everyone present would be filled with some of his spiritual mood. Many people used to come to Maharaj for the purpose of seeking advice about their problems. But once they were near him they felt no necessity to ask for any solution. Problems solved themselves in his presence, and people would forget themselves, their egoism, temporal pleasure and pain, and be filled with intense divine bliss.
During this last visit to Varanasi Brahmananda gave nine spiritual discourses to the monks, which are invaluable for seekers of God. The spiritual teachings of Brahmananda from 1897 to 1922 were first published in Bengali as Dharma-prasange Swami Brahmananda, and have been fully translated into English as A Guide to Spiritual Life. This book is a classic in practical Vedanta literature. (Source: God Lived with Them)