When Swami Vivekananda first went to Sri Ramakrishna he had been going to the Brahmo Samaj and considered it blasphemous to look upon man as one with God. At this time Sri Ramakrishna asked Narendranath (Swami Vivekananda) to read to him from the Ashtavakra Samhita in order to teach him the Vedantic truths. Naren did not agree with the idea expressed there, that everything was Brahman. In fact he made fun of it. Once in the temple garden he scornfully said to a friend: ‘How can this be? This jug is God, this cup is God and we too are God: nothing can be more preposterous!’ He just did not believe it. Sri Ramakrishna heard what he said and came out of his room and touched him.
Narendranath immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. This was not just a momentary experience. He lived in this experience for days. Wherever he looked, all was God. When he walked in the street, he saw that the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. He could hardly function in his daily business. When the intensity of the vision lessened a little, he saw the world as a dream. It took him a number of days to recover his normal state of mind. He experienced directly even at this early time in his spiritual life the fact that everything was indeed Brah man, the living Truth of Vedanta. All this is verily Brahman.