ABSTRACT
The entire process of changing one’s orientation from that of a lay person to an ‘inmate’ (as monastic inmates refer to themselves) is associated with the English word ‘adjusting’. ‘Adjusting’ is a word used throughout the Order to refer to a specific set of attitudes and behaviour that set members of the Ramakrishna Order apart from others: including lay devotees. Adjusting involves a process which commences with arrival at a branch of the Order, and is not completed before saṃnyāsa is granted. Indeed, those who ‘cannot adjust’ will not be given either the vows of brahmacārya or saṃnyāsa on schedule or perhaps at all. So important is this concept, that I shall proceed to describe it in great detail, tracing its course over the ten years of candidature which precede full admission into the Order.
