If you want to forget the world, go to see M.
He knows how to remove worldly desires from
the mind and instill the thought of God there.

People flocked to M. and he would talk to them only about God.

From his childhood M. had religious and mystical inclinations. When he was five years old he used to climb to the roof of his house to gaze at the vastnesss of the sky or stand there during the monsoon and experience the torrential rains. He was a brilliant student. After graduating from college, he took up the profession of a teacher. He served as headmaster at several schools in Calcutta. He was an excellent teacher, well versed in both Eastern and Western philosophy, as well as in history, literature, astronomy, and science. Moreover, he had studied the New Testament so thoroughly that he could quote many passages from memory.

When he met Sri Ramakrishna he was at the verge of giving up his life. Frustrated with the blows of life, he was about to commit suicide. It was then that one of his friends introduced him to Sri Ramakrishna. This changed the course of his life and he became one of the foremost apostles of Sri Ramakrishna. He later said to the devotees: 'After meeting Sri Ramakrishna, I completely forgot my past. His towering personality and spiritual magnetism erased my sad memories.'

Sri Ramakrishna's love and affection captivated M.'s mind and he practised spiritual disciplines under his guidance enthusiastically. Once the Master found him meditating and said: 'You will get results very soon. If you practise a little, then someone will come forward to help you... The time is ripe for you.'

Simultaneously with his spiritual practices, M. was unknowingly carrying out a great mission, viz. jotting down the events and conversations that took place during his meetings with the Master. When one of Sri Ramakrishna's devotees asked M. to show him his diary, M. refused saying, 'I am writing it for myself, not for others.' Whenever he would get a little extra time during his work as a teacher, he would retire to a solitary room on the roof to read his diary and reflect and meditate on the words of the Master. It was thus for his own benefit that he made the notes, 'so that I might realize his teachings more perfectly'.

However, in later years, he had to comply with the requests of his friends and devotees to publish his diary. Thus came into existence The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. 'Making good use of his natural gifts and of the circumstances in which he found himself, M. produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography,' wrote Aldous Huxley.

In 1905 M. started living in a solitary room on the roof of the school building, and there he would meet the monks and devotees who came to see him. One of the monks who visited him reminisced thus: '...sitting under the canopy of heaven of the roof-garden, sorrounded by shrubs and plants, himself sitting in their midst like a rishi of old, the stars and planets in their courses beckoning us to things infinite and sublime, he would speak to us of the mystery of God and his love, and of the yearning that would rise in the human heart to solve the eternal riddle, as exemplified in the life of his Master.'

He became a source of inspiration to all monks and householders who came in contact with him. Due to his influence many renounced the world and became monks. He breathed his last praying, 'Mother, Gurudeva, take me up in thy arms.'