That Naredranath Dutta (later to become Swami Vivekananda) went around asking “Have you seen God?” is itself a problem, though understandable for someone to so ask who has not understood who or what is God.
But, what is deeply problematic and utterly incomprehensible is for Ramakrishna Paramahansa to answer that question of Narendra when he met him, by saying, “Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you.”
Thereby, Ramakrishna Paramahansa endorsed what was already in Narendra’s mind, the split between man and God, between God and this world.
Now, one way of addressing this conundrum is to say that Ramakrishna was answering the questioner (Narendra) and not the question, hence he resorted to Dvaita because he probably felt Advaita would not be understood by the young Narendra at that point in time.
Fair enough.
But, this shows how so much confusion is set up in one’s mind in the initial stages in spirituality/religion, and how we have to be lucky to extricate ourselves from this morass.
I would assume that the better thing for Ramakrishna would have been to have had a Socratic dialogue with Narendra, and asked him questions like, “Who or what do you think is God?” and “If you have not seen God before, how will you recognize him when he appears before you?”, “What criteria are there to test if someone you think is God is indeed God?” (a move that Descartes makes), etc.
And at the age when Narendra met Ramakrishna he was already attending the University and was probably at the same age as some of these greats of Western philosophy such as Descartes who were indeed asking far deeper questions than Narendra and discovering far deeper truths about reality than what Ramakrishna was trying to teach Narendra at that time.
Wel, well…WHATEVER!
Know Thyself 