He was known to have laid the foundation stone of Shri Ramakrishna Temple at Belur Math, which was designed by Vijnanananda.

He and his first wife Vamasundari Devi, the mother of Tarak, provided free board and lodging to twenty-five to thirty poor students.

After completing his school studies, Tarak took up a job with Mackinnon Mackenzie in Calcutta to help his father.

A few days later he went to Dakshineswar to visit Kali Temple; from then he began to practise intense prayer and meditation under Ramakrishna's guidance.

His father could not afford a dowry for the marriage of his sister, as was usual; Tarak therefore agreed to marry a daughter of the prospective bridegroom's family.

In Cossipore, Tarak joined with others including Narendranath Dutta, later known as Swami Vivekananda, to serve Ramakrishna.

After the death of Ramakrishna in 1886, the small group of direct disciples who decided to embrace monastic life gathered round in a dilapidated house in Baranagar; Tarak was one of the first to settle there.

He went to Almora, where he was acquainted with a local rich man, Lala Badrilal Shah, an admirer of Ramakrishna's disciples.

In 1899 Shivananda, upon request from Vivekananda, helped in organising relief efforts when plague broke out in Calcutta.

There is a dormitory named, in his honour, Shivananda Dham in Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Deoghar.

[3] In 1924 and 1927 he went on two long tours to the South, and established the Ramakrishna Math in Ootakamund and then later in Bombay and Nagpur.

Tarak was married in his teens but, with the consent of his young wife, he lived an absolutely celibate life.