PREFACE

Volume One of The Life of Swami Vivekananda (Revised and

Enlarged Fifth Edition) was released to the public on Swami
Vivekananda's birthday in January 1980. Now, within the short period
of two years, we are happy to publish Volume Two, in which the story
of Swamiji's life and activities in India and abroad is continued.
As mentioned in the Preface to Volume One, much published as
well as unpublished material has come to our hands in the past five
decades, particularly relating to Swamiji's life and work during his two
visits to the West. For this the chief source has been Marie Louise
Burke's two painstaking research voumes: Swami Vivekananda in
AmericaNew Discoveries and Swami Vivekananda: His Second Visit
to the WestNew Discoveries, both published by us. She has also
supplied in a substantial way valuable material from her hitherto
unpublished archives to the enrichment of this edition. We are deeply
indebted to her for her ready response and help.
We wish to take this opportunity to repeat our gratitude to Mrs.
Gertrude Emerson Sen of Almora and Shri Sankari Prasad Basu of the
University of Calcutta for providing us with invaluable material in their
possession, hitherto unpublished. Several persons, monastic and lay,
have extended their helping hand in the preparation of this edition, for
which we remain grateful to each and every one of them.
This volume also contains a Glossary, a Bibliography, an Index, and
a few illustrations, which enhance the usefulness of the book. It is our
fond hope that this volume also will be received with warmth by the
admirers, followers, and students of Swamiji, as its predecessor
(Volume One) has been in the past two years.
8 August 1981 Publisher
Mayavati

THE BEGINNING OF AMERICAN WORK

In the last days of January 1895, Swami Vivekananda established
himself in lodgings at 54 West 33rd Street in the city of New York. It

was a poor and unfashionable neighbourhood, but he was tired and

disgusted with the fame he had acquired, and he felt that the interest
he had awakened was not what he wanted; to his mind it was too
superficial. He desired earnest-minded followers whom he could teach
freely, while living in a place of his own. Thus he announced that he
would hold classes free of charge in his own quarters. Many came,
some from curiosity, others in earnest sincerity, "to learn the ancient
teachings of India and the all-embracing character of its philosophy...
and, above all, to hear the constant lessons of the Swami on worldwide universal toleration". Miss Sarah Ellen Waldo of Brooklyn, who
became one of the Swami's foremost disciples, writes as follows,
taking up the thread of her narrative, from the time of his lectures
before the Brooklyn Ethical Association.
A few of those who had heard him in Brooklyn now began to go to
the place where he lived in New York. It was just an ordinary room on
the second floor of a lodging house. The classes grew with astonishing
rapidity, and as the little room filled to overflowing it became very
picturesque. The Swami himself sat on the floor and most of his
audience likewise. The marble-topped dresser, the arms of the sofa
and even the corner wash-stand helped to furnish seats for the
constantly increasing numbers. The door was left open and the
overflow filled the hall and sat on the stairs. And those first classes!
How intensely interesting they were! Who that was privileged to
attend them can ever forget them! The Swami so dignified yet so
simple, so gravely earnest, so eloquent, and the close ranks of
students, forgetting all inconveniences, hanging breathless on his every
word!
It was a fit beginning for a movement that has since grown to such
grand proportions. In this unpretentious way did Swami Vivekananda
inaugurate the work of teaching Vedanta philosophy in New York. The
Swami gave his services free as air. The rent was paid by voluntary
subscriptions; and when these were found insufficient, the Swami
hired a hall and gave secular lectures on India and devoted the
proceeds to the maintenance of the classes. He said that Hindu
teachers of religion felt it to be their duty to support their classes and

the students too, if they were unable to care for themselves, and the
teachers would willingly make any sacrifice they possibly could to
assist a needy disciple.
The classes began in February1 1895, and lasted until June; but,
long before that time they had outgrown their small beginnings and
had removed downstairs to occupy an entire parlour floor and
extension. The classes were held nearly every morning [from eleven to
one o'clock] and on several evenings in every week. Some Sunday
lectures were also given, and there were question classes to help
those to whom the teaching was so new and strange that they were
desirous to have an opportunity for more extended explanation.
It is touching to find the Swami teaching Americans in the fashion
of the ancient gurus. Though many who attended his classes had
ample money, he would charge no fees for teaching. Religion, to his
mind, should, be given free, for it is something not to be bartered but
realized. In addition to his regular classes, visitors flocked to him
constantly, some treating him with great personal reverence, others
scrutinizing his character and his theories; still others were newspaper
reporters and editors of magazines, interested in his name and
teachings. The Swami now felt that he was carrying on his message
slowly, perhaps, but surely and on right footing.
As we have seen in an earlier chapter, he had grown tired of
moving here and there, spreading his message, over a wide area; he
had wanted for many months to teach and give intensive training to a

According to her reminiscences, Josephine MacLcod attended the Swami's class for
the first time on January 29, 1895. (See Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda, 1964,
p. 233.)

select few". Now at last he was able to do so. Formerly, he had stood
in the limelight of public attention, and to a superficial-minded person
that might have spelled success. But the Swami knew better, for he
had the sannyasi's instinct for sounding the reality and true worth of
things. Others in his position might never have ventured to break with
the lecture bureau and thereby incur financial loss; nor would they
have readily abandoned the surroundings and invitations of persons of
wealth and social position for the simple and yet intense life that he
deemed necessary for giving 'his message. Indeed, he far preferred his
simple fare to the most sumptuous of meals, though seldom did he
lack the opportunity to dine out. "I am doing well," he wrote to Mrs.
Hale on February 18, "only some of these big dinners kept me late and
I returned home at 2 o'clock in the morning several days. Tonight I am
going to one of these. This will be the last of its kind. So much keeping
up the night is not good for me.... Between [the] Swells and
Delmonico's [an Epicurean restaurant of New York] and Waldorf
[Hotel] dinners my health was going to be injured. So I quickly turned a
thorough vegetarian to avoid all invitations." Bean soup and barley
rice, cooked in his poor quarters was, by choice, the Swami's general
diet. "I am very happy now," he had written to Mrs. Bull a few days
earlier. "Between Mr. Landsberg [later Swami Kripananda] and me, we
cook some rice and lentils or barley and quietly cat it, and write
something or read or receive visits from poor people who want to
learn something, and thus I feel I am more a sannyasin now than I ever
was in America."
Trusting in Truth and in God, knowing that he was being guided,
he now worked strenuously on. He gave his whole time to teaching by
means of talks and lectures, and regularly every day he trained some
chosen followers to quiet the mind in the silence of meditation.
Teaching his students how to meditate, he would himself drift into the
meditative state, often so deeply that he could not readily be brought
back to normal consciousness, and one by one his students would steal
quietly away. When the Swami emerged from such states, he would
feel impatient with himself, for he desired that the teacher should be
uppermost in him, rather than the yogi; he tried hard therefore to

avoid such incidents. While meditating privately with one or two, he

would instruct them how to bring him back by uttering a Mantra or a
divine name should he be carried by the force of meditation into
Samadhi. Often he would he found singing Sanskrit hymns in gentle
tones, or murmuring to himself some of the great verses of the Vedas
and the Upanishads. He literally radiated spirituality. Indeed, the same
atmosphere of ecstasy and insight that hovered about the Master at
Dakshineswar now hovered about the Swami in these strange
surroundings in a far-off land. An atmosphere of benediction, of peace,
of power, and of inexpressible luminosity was felt by all who came to
his classes.
It is interesting to read the description of the Swami written by an
Edger G. Beall, M.D. for the Phrenological Journal of New York. The
following is an extract from the article, which was reproduced in part
in the Indian Mirror of October 5, 1895:
Swami Vivekananda is in many respects an excellent specimen of
his race. He is five feet eight and a half inches in height and weighs one
hundred and seventy pounds. His head measures twenty one and
three-fourths inches in circumference by fourteen from car to car
across the top. He is thus very well proportioned as regards both body
and brain. His instincts are too feminine to be compatible with much
conjugal sentiment. Indeed, he says himself that he never had the
slightest feeling of love for any woman. As he is opposed to war and
teaches a religion of unmixed gentleness, we should expect his head to
the narrow in the region of the cars at the scat of combativeness and
destructiveness, and such is the case. The same deficiency is much
marked in the diameters a little farther up at secretiveness and
acquisitiveness. He dismisses the whole subject of finance and
ownership by saying that he has no property and does not want to be
bothered with any. While such sentiment sounds odd to American
cars, it must be confessed that his face, at least, shows more marks of
contentment than the visages of Russell Sage, Hetty Green, and many
others of our multi-millionaires.
Firmness and conscientiousness are fully developed. Benevolence
is quite conspicuous. Music is well indicated in the width of the

temples. The prominent eyes betoken superior memory of words and

explain much of the eloquence he has displayed in his lectures. The
upper forehead is well developed at causality and in comparison to
which is added a fine endowment of suavity and sense of human
nature. Summing up the organization, it will be seem that kindness,
sympathy, and philosophical intelligence, with ambition to achieve
success in the direction of higher educational work are his
predominant characteristics. Being a graduate of the Calcutta
University, he speaks English almost as perfectly as if he were a native
of England. If he does no more than continue the development of that
splendid spirit of charity which was displayed at the World's Fair, his
mission among us will certainly prove eminently successful.
The Swami's New York classes, held during the first part of 1895,
dealt largely with Raja-yoga and Jnana-yoga. Through Raja-yoga he
taught the students the path of practical spiritualityhow to acquire
inner control of the senses, how to still the mind, how to subordinate
sense impulses to reason, in short, how to spiritualize the whole
personality. He held regular classes in which he taught the students to
concentrate the mind; for meditation, he held, was the key to
spirituality. The Swami himself spent long hours in meditation, sitting
cross-legged on the floor in yogi fashion. He was indeed pre-eminently
fitted to teach the practices of meditation. Having lived in a constant
atmosphere of spiritual austerity with his Master, having practised
many forms of meditations under his guidance, his life a "roaring fire of
spirituality", and his mind informed with all the details and intricacies
of the different states of meditation, he was qualified to know the
tendency of each disciple and to develop each according to his special
tendencies, giving each a special ideal and a special form of
meditation. Thus, under his systematic and always inspired guidance,
the students undertook physical and spiritual exercises by which
equilibrium of body and mind could be established. They learnt how to
overcome physical consciousness and to discover divinity within; they
learnt that religion was not a question of belief but of practice and
realization.

In order that they might achieve success and avoid physical and
mental disorderseven insanityin the practice of Raja-yoga, the
Swami enjoined his students to lead absolutely pure lives and to cat
simple, Sattvika food. Thus his classes took on the aspect of monastic
gatherings, permitting the highest flights of philosophy and of spiritual
recollectedness. He warned his students against the occult, pointing
out that psychic powers were impediments to real spiritual progress
and only diverted one from the right path. Indeed, he was vehement in
his denunciation of sects or persons who subordinated spirituality to
the acquirement of such powers. He knew that a man becomes divine
if he strives to be so; for this reason he said, following the manner of
his own Master, "Seek only after one thing, and that, God!"
But inspired teacher though he wasa prophet whose utterances
were themselves scriptures, as the passage of time was amply to
prove, he yet did not forsake the age-old Indian tradition in which all
valid preaching is firmly laid on the foundation of the authentic
Sanskrit scriptures. Thus, as he settled down in New York for a season
of intensive teaching, he felt the need of books unavailable in America.
Earlier, he had sent to India for the necessary volumes and expected
them to arrive by mid-February of 1895. "Sister Isabelle has sent me
the French books and the Calcutta pamphlets have arrived "he wrote
to Mrs. Hale on February 18, "but the big Sanskrit books ought to
come. I want them badly." And in the same letter: "Kindly tell baby to
send me a little Sanskrit book which came from India. I forgot to bring
it over." The Swami waited impatiently; but it was not until May that
almost all scriptures he needed for his classes, as well as for his own
pleasure, arrived in New York. "I have plenty of books now to read
from India," he wrote to Mrs. Hale on May 16, "and I will be quite
engaged this summer.... A large package of books also I expect soon
the original Upanishads; there is no duty on them."
Apart from the purely academic and psychological character of his
teaching of both Jnana- and Raja-yoga, the Swami was a man who put
into practice what he preached. He was a scientist and a mystic in one.
As a mystic, his mind constantly concerned itself with super-mundane
realities. He was always solving problems of thought in relation to the

vision of the soul. And here in the West, as the Teacher, he spoke as he
did because he felt and had realized what his voice gave forth so
eloquently; whatever he taught he said that he had himself seen. And
his scientific turn of mind gave him a deep insight into the psychology
and rationale of yoga exercises; he was therefore a careful analyzer of
his own exercises as well as those of his disciples. His counsel was to
test everything by reason.
While his more intimate disciples were concerned with the
spiritual rather than the academic side of religious study, his
description of the anatomy of the nervous system and of its relation to
the brain, his statements about the relation between states of mind
and nervous changes drew the attention of a number of noted
American physicians and physiologists, several of whom championed
his theories, avowing that though his statements were bold, they
contained ideas concerning the functions of the body which were
worthy of careful investigation. His claim that meditation brought
about the extension and development of human faculties and
produced supernormal experiences, hitherto classified as miraculous
phenomena, interested the foremost American psychologists,
particularly Professor William James of Harvard University.
Aside from holding daily classes at his quarters on Thirty third
Street, the Swami occasionally spoke to small gatherings elsewhere. In
February of 1895, for instance, he was invited to hold classes at the
home of a Miss Corbin, the daughter of Mr. Austin Corbin, a wealthy
and socially prominent railway magnate. "Here is a very rich railway
gentleman called Mr. Corbin," he wrote to Mrs. Hale on February 18:
"His only daughter, Miss Corbin, is very much interested in me. And
though she is one of the leaders of the 400, she is very intellectual and
spiritual too in a way.... Behind her parlour she has a long arbour with
all sorts of palms and seats and electric light. There I will have a little
class next week of a score of long-pockets." But these classes, which
the Swami held on Sundays in Miss Corbin's conservatory, lasted less
than a month. He cared nothing for rich or poor; he cared only for
earnestness in those who attended his classes, and this quality he
found, perhaps, more prominent in those who came to his own poor

quarters than in the "long-pockets" who came to Miss Corbin's. In any

case, the Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull on March 21: "I went to Miss
Corbin's last Saturday [March 16] and told her that I would not be able
to come to hold classes any more. Was it ever in the history of the
world that any great work was done by the rich? It is the heart and
brain that do it ever and ever and not the purse." It is probable that
the Swami held other classes outside his rooms. On April 10 he wrote
to Mr. Francis Leggett, regretting an invitation for the following day:
"Tomorrow I have a class at Miss Andrews at 40 W. 9th Street.... Miss
Andrews came to tell me that she cannot by any means stop the class
tomorrow or even give notice to the members who are about fifty or
sixty in number."
In addition to his classes, the Swami, as has been seen, sometimes
gave public lectures in New York. At first, these were given, as he
wrote to Mrs. Bull, in large downstairs rooms of the lodging house. In
February and March, he lectured twice on "The Vedanta Philosophy" at
the home of a Mrs. A. L. Barber at 871 Fifth Avenue. These two
lectures, (to which the Swami referred in a letter as "the Barbar House
lectures") constituted parts of a heterogeneous lecture series given
under the auspices of Mrs. Ole Bull and were more or less private and
invitational. He spoke also before public gatherings, notably before the
People's Church in New York (known also as the Dixon Society), whose
progressive leader, the Reverend Thomas Dixon, had recently resigned
from an orthodox Baptist pastorate to establish his own independent
church "on a broad and popular platform".
The Swami was also invited to lecture before the Metaphysical
Society at Hartford, Conn.; he accepted, and spoke on "Soul and God"
on March 8. Of this lecture the Hartford Daily Times wrote: His lectures
are more in consonance with those of Christ than those of many socalled Christians. His broad charity takes in all religions and all nations.
The simplicity of his talk last night was charming.
In May, and perhaps also in April, the Swami lectured in the Motts
Memorial Building, a small hall at 64 Madison Avenue, New York. Only
two titles of these talks are at present known The Science of Religion
and The Rationale of Yoga The Swami no doubt gave other public

lectures during the first part of 1895. I have a good many lectures
planned ahead in New York, which I hope to deliver by and by, he
wrote to Mrs. Hale on February 18. But unfortunately, we have at
present no exact records or notes of any of his talks, private or public,
delivered during this period. Yet his lectures and classes lived vividly in
the memories of those' who heard them. Miss Laura Glenn, who in
later years was to be known as Sister Devamata, recalled in her article
Memories of India and Indians her first hearing of Swami
Vivekananda. The time was probably the spring of 1895:
One day, as I was walking up Madison Avenue, I saw in the
window of the Hall of the Universal Brotherhood a modest sign saying:
"Next Sunday at 3 p.m. Swami Vivekananda will speak here on 'What Is
Vedanta?' and the following Sunday on 'What Is Yoga?'" I reached the
hall twenty minutes before the hour. It was already over half full. It
was not large, howevera long, narrow room with a single aisle and
benches reaching from it to the wall; a low platform holding reading
desk and chair at the far end; and a flight of stairs at the back. The hall
was on the second storey and these stairs gave the only way of access
to itaudience and speaker both had to make use of them. By the
time three o'clock had arrived, hall, stairs, window-sills, and railings, all
were crowded to their utmost capacity. Many even were standing
below, hoping to catch a faint echo of the words spoken in the hall
above.
A sudden hush, a quiet step on the stairs and Swami Vivekananda
passed in stately erectness up the aisle to the platform. He began to
speak; and memory, time, place, people, all melted away. Nothing was
left but a voice ringing through the void. It was as if a gate had swung
open and I had passed out on a road leading to limitless attainment.
The end of it was not visible; but the promise of what would be shone
through the thought and flashed through the personality of the one
who gave it. He stood thereprophet of infinitude.
The silence of an empty hall recalled me to myself. Everyone was
gone except the Swami and two others standing near the platform. I
learned later that they were Mr. and Mrs. Goodyear, ardent disciples

of the Swami. Mr. Goodyear made the announcements at the

meetings.
Indeed, to his listeners it would often seem as if the veils that
blind the spiritual vision were rent, and the Swami would stand before
them a veritable knower of the Self.
Another person who wrote of the profound impact of his lectures
of this period was the well-known author and poet Ella Wheeler
Wilcox. Referring to her meeting with the Swami in an early month of
1895, she wrote as follows in the New York American of May 26, 1907:
Twelve years ago I chanced one evening to hear that a certain
teacher of philosophy from India, a man named Vivekananda, was to
lecture a block from my home in New York.
We went out of curiosity (the man whose name I bear and I), and
before we had been ten minutes in the audience, we felt ourselves
lifted up into an atmosphere so rarefied, so vital, so wonderful, that we
sat spellbound and almost breathless, to the end of the lecture.
When it was over we went out with new courage, new hope, new
strength, new faith, to meet life's daily vicissitudes. "This is the
philosophy, this is the idea of God, the religion which I have been
seeking," said the man. And for months afterwards he went with me to
hear Swami Vivekananda explain the old religion and. to gather from
his wonderful mind jewels of truth and thoughts of helpfulness and
strength. It was that terrible winter of financial disasters, when banks
failed and stocks went down like broken balloons and businessmen
walked through the dark valleys of despair and the whole world
seemed topsyturvyjust such an era as we are again approaching.
Sometimes after sleepless nights of worry and anxiety, the man would
go with me to hear the Swami lecture, and then he would come out
into the winter gloom and walk down the street smiling and say, "It is
all right. There is nothing to worry over." And I would go back to my
own duties and pleasures with the same uplifted sense of soul and
enlarged vision.
When any philosophy, any religion, can do this for human beings
in this age of stress and strain, and when, added to that, it intensifies

their faith in God and increases their sympathies for their kind and
gives them a confident joy in the thought of other lives to come, it is
good and great religion.
The flow of life in the Western world interested the Swami; when
his hours were not employed in meditation, in private or class
teaching, in lecturing, or in replying to various correspondents, they
were consumed in the pursuit of secular knowledge, which he
absorbed and turned to spiritual account.
Thus day after day, living in the midst of the turbulent metropolis
of New York, he was in a constant atmosphere of intense
recollectedness and deep intellectual work. That he maintained the
meditative habit throughout his Western life was remarkable, for
disturbances were innumerable. Yet one sees him in his New York
retreat, in the morning or the evening quiet, or at dead of night
meditating. And apart from his meditation practices and meditative
states, he was often lost to the outer world. His face often took on that
far-off look, showing his mind withdrawn from all mortal concerns and
merged in the thought of the Absolute. While those about him would
be talking vivaciously, it would be noticed that his eyes would grow
fixed, his breath would come slower and slower till there would be a
pause, and their, a gradual return to consciousness of his environment.
It is said of him:
His friends knew these things and provided for them. If he walked
into the house to pay a call and forgot to speak, or if he was found in a
room, in silence, no one disturbed him, though he would sometimes
rise and render assistance to an intruder, without breaking the train of
thought. Thus his interest lay within, and not without. To the scale and
range of his thought his conversation was of course our only clue.
As time went on, the Swami found himself winning, to a greater
and still greater extent, the confidence, the respect, and even the
reverence of large numbers of people in America. Many of these
devoted themselves heart and soul to his work and became his
followers in a definite sense, while a number of liberal-minded
Christian clergymen greatly admired him and stood behind his cause.

Yet, in spite of the appreciation of the beauty of his character and of

the grandeur of his mission and teachings, the path before the Swami
was never a smooth one. With his great veneration for Jesus the Christ,
which all who knew him were aware of, it is almost unbelievable that
he was continuously persecuted by sectarian and bigoted Christians,
who, not satisfied with criticizing his work and philosophy, made
attacks upon his character. In the last chapter we have seen how
virulent were the Swami's detractors and how they were subdued only
by the public recognition in India of his Western work. But though his
critics became powerless to harm him, they never entirely abandoned
their efforts to do so. For instance, we have seen that in the early part
of 1895 the Brooklyn followers of Ramabai, the Christianized Hindu
social reformer, publicly denounced the Swami because of his denial
that the Hindus regularly mistreated their child widows. But if the
Swami was never without his detractors, he was also never without his
defendersthose who recognized his intellectual and spiritual genius,
his impeccable purity. It had been, for example, Dr. Lewis G. Janes,
President of the Brooklyn Ethical Association, who had championed
him against the ladies of the Ramabai Circle, using his pen as his lance
in strong and telling letters to the editors of the leading Brooklyn
newspapers.
Even before settling in New York, the Swami had, of course, made
ardent admirers and disciples of many distinguished persons. It was his
earnest desire to initiate a few as sannyasis and to train them so that
they would be fitted to carry on his American work in his absence. Two
had already become "his proclaimed disciples", though they had not as
yet received actual initiation into Sannyasa. These were Madame
Marie Louise (whose last name is not known) and Leon Landsberg, the
latter of whom lived for about two and a half months with the Swami
in his New York quarters on West Thirty-third Street, helping him with
the organizational aspect of his work. The description of these two
followers of the Swami is best given in the New York Herald a few
months after they received Sannyasa in the summer of 1895. To quote
from the paper:

The Swami Abhayananda is a Frenchwoman, but naturalized and

twenty-five years resident of New York. She has a curious history. For a
quarter of a century she has been known to liberal circles as a
materialist, socialist.... Twelve months ago she was a prominent
member of the Manhattan Liberal Club. Then she was known in the
press and on the platform as Mme Marie Louise, a fearless,
progressive, advanced woman, whose boast it was that she was always
in the forefront of the battle and ahead of her times.
The second disciple is also an enthusiast. With that skill which
Vivekananda shows in all his dealings with men, the Hindu has chosen
his first disciples well. The Swami Kripananda, before he was taken into
the circle and took the vows of poverty and chastity, was a newspaper
man, employed on the staff of one of the most prominent New York
papers. By birth he is a Russian Jew, named Leon Landsberg, and, if it
were known, his life history is probably as interesting as that of Swami
Abhayananda.
Among the many people who were devoted to the Swami's
teachings at this time were Mrs. Ole Bull of Cambridge, whom we met
in the preceding chapter, Dr. Allan Day, Miss S. Ellen Waldo, Miss Mary
Phillips, Professor Wyman, Professor John Henry Wright, a Dr. Street,
who was later to take the vows of Sannyasa from the Swami and be
known as Swami Yogananda, and many clergymen and other laymen of
note. Mr. Francis Leggett, Mrs. Sturges (later Mrs. Francis Leggett), and
Miss Josephine MacLeod, well-known society people of New York,
were numbered among his most intimate friends and helped him in
various ways. Dr. and Mrs. Egbert Guernsey, at whose house in the
Fifth Avenue the Swami often stayed, looked upon him as a son. The
Austin Corbins were also among his followers, as was the
internationally famous singer, Emma Thursby. The members of the
Dixon Society before which, as we have seen above, he was invited
many times to lecture, became champions of his ideas.
In the second week of April the Swami went on invitation to Mr.
Leggett's country home; Ridgely Manor on the Hudson River in New
York State, for about two weeks. The trip did him good; he enjoyed the
countryside and the mountains, and Mr. Leggett's large estate. On his

return to New York, he was surprised to find that Mr. Landsberg, who
had been staying with him, had left without leaving any information
behind. About this the Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull: "Poor Landsberg has
gone from this house. Neither has he left one his address. May the
Lord bless Landsberg wherever he goes! He is one of the few sincere
souls I have had the privilege in this life to come across." The Swami
also wrote to Miss Mary Hale on April 22, "Landsberg has gone away to
live in some other place, so I am left alone. I am living mostly on nuts
and fruits, and find it very nice and healthy too." Mr. Landsberg,
however, was to reappear later at the Thousand Island Park, where he
was initiated into Sannyasa by the compassionate Swami, and named
Kripananda.
With the exception of this vacation in April, his classes continued
steadily from the end of January through the month of May. "The
classes are going on with a boom," he wrote to Mrs. Hale on April 26,
almost every day I have one and they are packed full." But from a
financial point of view, the work was not at all successful. Indeed, it
hardly could have been, for, as was said earlier, the Swami charged
nothing for the classes in his rooms, and although some of his
followers were wealthy, most were poor and could make only few and
small contributions, barely enough to maintain the classes themselves.
The money earned from his public lectures, moreover, was meagre, for
the lectures had "to go through so many hands". The rent of a hall, for
instance, took a large toll. "Financially, the winter's work was no
success at all," he wrote to Mrs. Hale on May 16 towards the close of
the season. "I could barely keep myself up. But spiritually [it] was very
great." And the Swami's students, poor though they were, came
forward to keep the classes going. "My pupils have come round me
with help," he wrote to Mrs. Bull in May, "and the classes will go on
nicely now no doubt." He was happy that it was so. "I was so glad at it,
because teaching has become a part of my life, as necessary to my life
as eating or breathing."
The spiritual aspect of his work was, of course, the Swami's main
concern. He could readily have commanded a large following had he
wanted, but his greatest endeavour during this period was the training

of those deeply earnest souls on whom he could count to carry on his

work. This was the year of his hardest work and highest hopes in this
direction. He went to the very heart of things in his efforts to make at
least a few 'men and women see his vision and become free. He did
not believe in external, success; he was truly ready to wait even for
centuries.
His immediate hope, however, was to break down religious
sectarianism and superstition, to do away with spiritual dependence,
and to place before men the truths of the Advaita Vedantatruths
which make one stand on one's own feet, afraid of nothing, desirous of
nothing, indifferent to the blows of fate. He wanted each individual to
realize the One Reality, both within as the immeasurable Self, and
without as the divine oneness of all life.
The Swami was also eager to spread the ideals underlying the
highest spiritual realizations of all religions, making of each Saviour and
World-teacher a refulgent torchlight of truth. He himself could worship
at all altars, seeing the same light within the forms of every religious
belief. His personality was literally saturated with all great ideals and
his spirituality was of unlimited richness, the treasures of which he
freely distributed.
He deplored the narrowness of creedal religions. "My Master used
to say that these names as Hindu, Christian, etc., stand as great bars to
all brotherly feelings between man and man," he wrote to Mrs. Bull in
a letter dated March 21, 1895. He further wrote:
We must try to break them down first. They have lost all their
good powers and now only stand as baneful influences under whose
black magic even the best of us behave like demons. Well, we will have
to work hard and must succeed. That is why I desire so much to have a
centre. Organization has its faults, no doubt, but without that nothing
can be done. And here, I am afraid, I will have to differ from youthat
no one ever succeeded in keeping society in good humour and at the
same time did great works. One must work as the dictate comes from
within, and then if it is right and good, society is bound to veer round,
perhaps centuries after one is dead and gone. We must plunge heart

and soul and body into the work. And until we be ready to sacrifice
everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see
the Light.
As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the Swami already had
a centre, but the Vedanta Society that he had founded in New York in
November of 1894 was still a bare nucleus, a committee of his friends,
who attempted to help him in various ways. He evidently hoped it
would grow into a full-fledged, though loosely organized, society to
represent his universal and unifying teachingsand later on it was
indeed to do so. In the mean while, however, the Swami, living and
working in the freedom of the true sannyasi, ready to sacrifice
everything, even his life, for his cause, did not easily suffer any attempt
to restrict his independence of action. He found that some of his
helpers, devoted and well meaning as they might be, interfered in his
method of carrying out his work. Perhaps some stilted Boston lady
would ask him he who had shaken the very soul of the Parliament of
Religions and was a born teacher of mento take elocution lessons!
Another would worry him about how to organize; another would say:
Swami, you must do so and so; you must live in better surroundings,
you must fashionable in order to reach and influence society people;
or another: you must pacify the Christian ministers. At all this the
Swami would become fierce with indignation and exclaim, "Why
should I be bound down by all this nonsense!" He would come out with
words of power, revealing the stuff he was made of. In a letter dated
February 1, 1895, he wrote to Mary Hale:
Dream no more! Oh, dream no more, my soul! In one word I have
a message to give, I have no time to be sweet to the world, and every
attempt at sweetness makes me a hypocrite. I will die a thousand
deaths rather than lead a jelly-fish existence and yield to every
requirement of this foolish world, no matter whether it be my own
country or a foreign country. You are mistaken, utterly mistaken if you
think I have a work, as Mrs. Bull thinks; I have no work under or
beyond the sun. I have a message, and I will give it after my own
fashion. I will neither Hinduize my message, nor Christianize it, nor
make it any "ize" in the world. I will only my-ize it and that is all.

Liberty, Mukti, is all my religion, and everything that tries to curb it, I
will avoid by fight or flight. Pooh! I try to pacify the priests! Sister, do
not take this amiss. But you are babies and babies must submit to be
taught. You have not yet drunk of that fountain which makes "reason
unreason, mortal immortal, this world a zero, and of man a God".
Come out if you can of this network of foolishness they call this world.
Then I will call you indeed brave and free. If you cannot, cheer those
that dare dash this false God, society, to the ground and trample on its
unmitigated hypocrisy; if you cannot cheer them, pray be silent, but do
not try to drag down again into the mire with such false nonsense as
compromise and becoming nice and sweet.
I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare with its
churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces
and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter
hollowness beneath, and above all, its sanctified shopkeeping. What!
measure my soul according to what the bond-slaves of the world say?
Pooh! Sister, you do not know the sannyasin. "He stands on the heads
of the Vedas!" say the Vedas, because he is free from churches and
sects and religions and prophets and books and all of that ilk!
Such words show the Swami's spirit: bent on giving his message,
bent on working for the world, not according to its terms but in his
own light. In a letter to Mrs. Bull, he wrote on April 11, 1895:
Miss Hamlin wants me to be introduced to the "right kind of
people". This is the second edition of the "hold yourself steady"
business, I am afraid. The only "right sort of people" are those whom
the Lord sendsthat is what I understand in my life's experience. They
alone can and will help me. As for the rest, Lord bless them in a mass
and save me from them!
He went on to say that even though he lived in poor quarters, the
right kind of people did come to him, even she who had criticized him.
Then he launched into an eloquent appeal to Lord Shiva, in which he
dedicated himself entirely to the will of the Lord, writing in anguish
and burning love: "Lord, since a child I have taken refuge in Thee. Thou
wilt be with me in the tropics or at the poles, on the tops of mountains

or in the depth of oceans.. Thou wilt never leave me, never.... And
may I never, never seek for help from any being but Thee." And a few
days later he writes, "The less help from man, the more from the
Lord." And again, three days later. "It is the duty of a teacher always to
turn out the 'right sort' from the most unrighteous sort of persons....
Through the mercy of Ramakrishna my instinct 'sizes up' almost
infallibly a human face as soon as I see it...."
Dissatisfied with those who mistook what he meant by the term
"organization" and who did not catch his spirit, thinking, perhaps, that
he wanted to "make a success" of his work, he wrote in this regard to
his Western disciple Swami Abhayananda in the autumn of 1895:
We have no organization, nor want to build any. Each one is quite
independent to teach, quite free to preach whatever he or she likes.
If you have the spirit within, you will never fail to attract others....
Individuality is my motto. I have no ambition beyond training
individuals. I know very little; that little I teach without reserve; where
I am ignorant I confess it as such... I am a sannyasin. As such I hold
myself as a servant, not as a master in this world.
And he adds that whether people love him or hate him, they all
alike are welcome. He says that he seeks no help, nor rejects any, that
he has no right to he helped and that if he is helped by others it is their
mercy. He avers that when he became a sannyasi, he did so with his
whole' mind welcoming anything, even starvation and the utmost
misery.
Gradually his disciples came to understand his ideal. Possessed
with the Western consciousness of the necessity of external
organization, it took some time for them to see that what he desired
was a spiritual rather than a temporal organization, a union of noble,
pure, persevering, and energetic souls, bent on personal realization
and moved to work by a genuine interest in and love for humanity: He
carried on his work in this spirit, resolutely rejecting interference.
By the month of June 1895, the Swami began to feel himself
wearing out. His work had been exceedingly strenuous; lecturing both
privately and publicly, and always at a tension, he had become

exhausted; his nerves were racked, his brain tired, his whole body
overtaxed. He longed for a brief period. Of rest and recuperation. But
personally, he was satisfied. His message was being kindly received,
and he had a few hundred followers, many of whom he had never
seen. In his rushing hither and thither over the United States the
previous year, he had everywhere sown his ideas. Though it might be
that he received no credit for them, he saw that they were being
echoed from pulpits and rostrums, and he was satisfied that the ideals
of the Sanatana Dharma were spreading and percolating through the
whole thought-world of America. On July 9, 1895, he wrote to the Raja
of Khetri: "I have planted a seed in this country; it is already a plant,
and I expect it to be a tree very soon. I have got a few hundred
followers. I shall make several sannyasins, and then I go to India,
leaving the work to them. The more the Christian priests oppose me,
the more I am determined to leave a permanent mark on their
country."
To have impressed the American nation with a new thought, to
have propagated new ideas among those who were bred and brought
up in a different ideal of life and religion, had been no easy task. And
to have done so within two years was all the more wonderful. The
Swami had, no doubt, the Divine Power behind him; he had intense
sincerity, great ability, and unwearying perseverance. Above all, he had
Realization. That was the secret.
Having almost exhausted himself by the uninterrupted work of
class and public lecturing, the Swami in the beginning of June 1895',
accepted the invitation of Mr. Francis Leggett to his fishing lodge,
Camp Percy, beside a lake in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
There he rested for nearly two weeks, reading the Gita and meditating
alone for hours together in the silence of leafy birch and maple woods.
"This is one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen," he wrote to
Mrs. Bull on June 7. "Imagine a lake, surrounded with hills covered
with a huge forest, with nobody but ourselves. So lovely, so quiet, so
restful! And you may imagine how glad I am to be here after the bustle
of cities. It gives me a new lease of life to be here.... I will meditate by
the hours and days here and be all alone to myself. The very idea is

ennobling." His one idea was to he in communion with the Highest,

and indeed this was a time for him of profound experience. The story
was later told by Miss Josephine MacLeod, who, with her widowed
sister, Mrs. William Sturges, was also a guest of Mr. Leggett, that one
day a workman found the Swami lying on the shore of the laketo all
appearances dead. Rushing to the spot, Mr. Leggett and the two
women did everything in their power to rouse him. Failing, they were
about to give up, when signs of life appeared, and gradually he
returned to normal. The Swami had presumably entered into Samadhi.
It is little wonder that he came forth from the solitude of Camp Percy a
veritable avalanche of spirituality, ready to make his disciples realize
many forms of Truth at but a glance, a touch, or wish.
Before he had left for Camp Percy, his students had expressed
their eagerness for him to return at once to New York and continue his
work of teaching. But being too tired, he had demurred at prolonging
his classes through the hot summer months. Many of his students,
moreover, had arranged to leave the city for seaside or mountain
resorts.
The problem, however, solved itself. One of his New York students
owned a small cottage at Thousand Island Park, a village situated on
Wellesley Island, the second largest island in the Thousand Island
group of the St. Lawrence River. She offered the use of the cottage to
the Swami and as many students as it would accommodate. This plan
appealed to him, and he agreed to join the students there after his
brief visit to Camp Percy in New Hampshire. (And this he was to do, as
it turned out, on June 18.) He said that those who were willing to put
aside all other interests and devote themselves to studying the
Vedanta, travelling more than three hundred miles to a suitable spot,
were the ones really in earnest; he would recognize them as disciples.
He did not expect many would take so much trouble, but if any
responded, he would do his share in helping them on the path. And
indeed the classes he was to hold at Thousand Island Park would
outshine in spiritual inspiration even those he had held in New York.
But it should be mentioned here that other students of Swamiji's,
though less fortunate, were also earnest; for to their credit they

continued to hold the New York class by themselves. He was much

pleased by it. "Our class in New York is going on," he was to write
to.Betty Sturges on July 29, "they have bravely carried it on, although I
was not there."
On May 28 the Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull, telling her that he had
an invitation to speak at a Parliament of Religions at Toronto, Canada.
"I will go there", he said, "from Thousand Island Park and return...."
The trip would not have been a long one, Toronto being on the north
shore of Lake Ontario, some hundred and fifty miles from the effluence
of the St. Lawrence River, where the Thousand Islands were clustered.
The invitation, however, was later cancelled. On July 13 the Swami was
to write to Mrs. Bull from Thousand Island ]Park: "The Toronto affair
has fallen through, because the clergymen objected to a heathen.
There is one invitation from the Christian Union of Oak Beach [a small
resort town near New York City]. I do not know whether I will go there.
As I intend to go to Chicago in August, I ought to give to the people
here all the time I can." For this same reason, the Swami declined an
invitation to visit the Greenacre Conferences that summer. He wished
to devote all the time he could to those loyal and deeply earnest
students who would follow him to the retreat at Thousand Island Park.
In an earlier letter to Mrs. Bull, he had written on April 25: "I want to
manufacture a few 'yogis' out of the materials of the classes, and a
busy fair like Greenacre is the last place for that, and it [Thousand
Islands] is quite out of the way, and none of the curiosity seekers will
dare go there."
It should not be thought, however, that Swamiji did not consider
the "busy fair" of Greenacre a worthwhile undertaking, deserving of
encouragement and support. With characteristic magnanimity, he had
written to Mrs. Bull on February 14, 1895. "How can I express my
gratitude to you for what you have already done for me and my work,
and my eternal gratitude to you for your offering to do something
more this year. But I sincerely believe that you ought to turn all your
help to Miss Farmer's Greenacre work this year. India can wait as she is
waiting centuries and an immediate work at hand should always have
the preference."

Feeling that a special sanctuary should he prepared for the

Thousand Island Park retreat, Miss Dutcher, the student to whom the
cottage belonged, built as a love offering to her Teacher a new wing
that was nearly as large as the original cottage2. The house was ideally
situated on high ground, overlooking a wide sweep of the beautiful
'river with many of its far-famed Thousand Islands. The town of
Clayton could be dimly discerned on the New York shore, while the
Canadian shore bounded the view to the north. The cottage stood on
the side of a hill, which on the north and west sloped down abruptly
towards the river and a little inlet that lay like a small lake behind the
house. The house was literally "built upon a rock", and huge boulders
lay all around it. The new wing stood on the steep slope of the rock like
a great lantern tower with windows on three sides, three storeys deep
at the back, and only two in front. The lowest room was occupied by
one of the students. The one over it opened out of the main part of the
house by several doors, and being large and convenient became the
classroom, where for hours each day the Swami gave the students
informal instructions. Over this room was the one devoted exclusively
to the use of the Swami. In order that it might be perfectly secluded,
Miss Dutcher had supplied it with a separate outside staircase,
although there was also a door opening upon the second-storey piazza.
This upstairs piazza played an important part in the lives of the
students, as all the Swami's evening talks were given here. Wide,
roomy, and roofed over, it extended along the south and west sides of

We are indebted to Miss Waldo for her charming description of Thousand Island
Park and of the Swami's sojourn there. The following narrative is based on her
reminiscences

the cottage. Miss Dutcher had the west side carefully screened off by a
partition, so that none of the strangers, who frequently visited the
piazza to see the magnificent view it commanded, could intrude upon
their privacy. Every day, immediately after the evening meal, they all
repaired to the upper piazza and awaited the coming of the Swami.
Nor had they long to wait, for hardly had they assembled than the
door of his room would open and he would quickly step out and take
his accustomed scat by his door. There every evening the beloved
Teacher would commune with the disciples who sat silent in the
darkness, eagerly drinking in his inspired words. The place was a
veritable sanctuary3. At their feet, like a sea, waved the leaves of the
treetops, for the entire place was surrounded by thick woods. Not one
house of the large village could be seen; it was as if they were in the
heart of some dense forest, miles away from the haunts of men.
Beyond the trees spread the wide expanse of the St. Lawrence, dotted
here and there with islands, some of which gleamed bright with the
lights of hotels and boarding houses. All these were so far away that
they seemed more like a pictured scene than a reality. Not a human
sound penetrated their seclusion; they heard but the murmur of the
insects, the sweet songs of the birds, or the gentle sighing of the wind
through the leaves. Part of the time the scene was illumined by the

Miss Dutcher's cottage, sanctified by the Swami's stay, was acquired by the
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre of New York in December 1947 and extensively
restored without interfering with the original design. It is now used as a summer
retreat by the Swamis of the Ramakrishna Order and the students of Vedanta. It has
been dedicated as "Vivekananda Cottage", and Swami Vivekananda's room has been
set apart as a shrine for the devotions of the retreatants.

soft rays of the moon, and her face was mirrored in the shining waters
beneath. The Swami always spent two hours with them and more
often much longer. One glorious night, when the moon was about full,
he talked to them until it set below the western horizon, apparently as
unconscious as were his listeners of the lapse of time.
In this scene of enchantment, "the world forgetting, by the world
forgot", the devoted students spent seven blessed weeks with their
beloved Teacher, listening to his words of inspiration. Speaking of the
Swami and his stay Miss S. E. Waldo, one of the students, writes:
To those who were fortunate enough to be there with the Swami,
those were weeks of ever-hallowed memory, so fraught were they
with unusual opportunity for spiritual growth. No words can describe
what that blissful period meant (and still means) to the devoted little
band who followed the Swami from New York to the island in the St.
Lawrence, who daily served him with joy and listened to him with
heartfelt thankfulness. His whole heart was in his work, and he taught
like one inspired.
Of these talks it was not possible to take notes. They are
preserved only in the hearts of the hearers. None of us can ever forget
the sense of up lift, the intense spiritual life of those hallowed hours.
The Swami poured out all his heart at those times his own struggles
were enacted again before us; the very spirit of his master seemed to
speak through his lips, to satisfy all doubts, to answer all questioning,
to soothe every fear. Many times the Swami seemed hardly conscious
of our presence, and then we almost held our breath for fear of
disturbing him and checking the flow of his thoughts. He would rise
from his seat and pace up and down the narrow limits of the piazza,
pouring forth a perfect torrent of eloquence.
The Swami did not appear to address us directly, but rather
seemed to be speaking to himself in words of fire, as it were, so
intense were they, and so convincing, burning into the very hearts of
his listeners, never to be forgotten.
Never was he more gentle, more lovable than during these hours.
It may have been much like the way his own great Master taught his

disciples, just allowing them to listen to the outpourings of his own

spirit in communion with himself.
It was a perpetual inspiration to live with a man like, Swami
Vivekananda. From morning till night it was ever the same, we lived in
a constant atmosphere of intense spirituality. Often playful and funloving, full of merry jest and quick repartee, he was never for a
moment far from the dominating note of his life. Everything could
furnish a text or an illustration, and in a moment we would find
ourselves swept from amusing tales of Hindu mythology to the
deepest philosophy. The Swami had an inexhaustible fund of
mythological lore, and surely no race is more abundantly supplied with
myths than those ancient Aryans. He loved to tell them to us, and we
were delighted to listen; for he never failed to point out the reality
hidden under myth and story and to draw from it valuable spiritual
lessons. Never had fortunate students greater cause to congratulate
themselves on having so gifted a Teacher!
Those ideas were new and strange to us, and we were slow in
assimilating them, but the Swami's patience never flagged, his
enthusiasm never waned. In the afternoons he talked to us more
informally, and we took usually a long walk.
By a singular coincidence just twelve students followed the Swami
to Thousand Island Park, and he told us that he accepted us as real
disciples and that was why he so constantly and freely taught us, giving
us his best. All the twelve were not together at once, ten being the
largest number present at any one time. Two of our number
subsequently became sannyasins....
The ceremony of initiation was impressive from its extreme
simplicity. A small altar fire, beautiful flowers and the earnest words of
the Teacher alone marked it as different from our daily lessons. It took
place at sunrise of a beautiful summer day and the scene still lives
fresh in our memories....
On the occasion of the consecration of the second sannyasin, the
Swami initiated five of us as Brahmacharinis.

It was decided, when they went to Thousand Island Park, that they
would live as a community, each doing his or her share of the
housework in order that no alien presence should mar the serenity of
the household. The Swami himself was an accomplished cook and
often prepared for them delicious dishes.
Every morning, just as soon as the various tasks were over (and
often before), the Swami called the students together in the large
parlour that served as a classroom and began to teach. Each day he
took up some special subject, or expounded from some sacred book,
such as the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, or the Vedanta-Sutras of
Vyasa.
In these morning lessons the point of view presented was
sometimes that of pure dualism as represented by Madhva, while on
another day it was that of the qualified non-dualism taught by
Ramanuja, known as Vishishtadvaita. Most frequently, however, the
monistic commentary of Shankara was taken up, but because of his
subtlety he was more difficult to understand. So to the end Ramanuja
remained the favourite among the students.
Sometimes the Swami took up the Bhakti-Sutras of Narada. They
are a short exposition of devotion to God, which gives one some
conception of the lofty Hindu ideal of real, all-absorbing love for the
Lord, love that literally possesses the devotee to the exclusion of every
other thought.
In these talks the Swami for the first time spoke to them at length
about Shri Ramakrishna, of his daily life with the Master and of his
struggles with his own tendency to unbelief, which at times drew tears
from his Master.
As the days and weeks passed by, the students began to really
understand and grasp the meaning of what they had heard, and they
gladly accepted the teaching. Every one of the students there received
initiation by Mantra at the hands of the Swami, thus becoming his
disciples, the Swami assuming towards them the position of the guru.
Mrs. Funke speaking of her delightful experience at Thousand
Island Park writes as follows:

We [she and Miss Christine Greenstidel] had no chance to meet

him in a personal way at the time [during his first visit to Detroit], but
we listened and pondered in our hearts over all that we heard him say,
resolving to find him sometime, somewhere, even if we had to go
across the world to do it. We lost trace of him completely for one year
and a half and thought that probably he had returned to India, but one
afternoon we were told by a friend that he was still in this country and
that he was spending the summer at Thousand Island Park. We started
the next morning, resolved to seek him out and ask him to teach us.
At last after a weary search we found him. We were feeling very
much frightened at our temerity in thus intruding upon his privacy, but
he had lighted a fire in our souls that could not be quenched. We must
know more of this wonderful man and his teaching. It was a dark and
rainy night, and we were weary after our long journey, but we could
not rest until we had seen him face to face. Would he accept us? And if
he did not, what then could we do? It suddenly seemed to us that it
might be a foolish thing to go several hundred miles to find a man who
did not even know of our existence, but we plodded on up the hill in
the rain and darkness, with a man we had hired to show us the way
with his lantern. Speaking of this in after years, our guru would refer to
us as "my disciples, who travelled hundreds of miles to find me, and
they came in the night and in the rain." We had thought of what to say
to him, but ' when we realized that we had really found him, we
instantly forgot all our fine speeches, and one of us blurted out, "We
come from Detroit and Mrs. P. sent us to you." The other said, "We
have come to you just as we would go to Jesus if He were still on the
earth and ask Him to teach us." He looked at us so kindly and said
gently, "If only I possessed the power of the Christ to set you free
now!" He stood for a moment looking thoughtful and then turning to
his hostess who was standing near, said, "These ladies are from
Detroit, please show them upstairs and allow them to spend the
evening with us." We remained until late listening to the Master who
paid no more attention to us, but as we bade them all goodnight we
were told to come the next morning at nine o'clock we arrived
promptly, and to our great joy were accepted by the Master and were

cordially invited to become members of the household. In a letter to a

friend at this time she writes:
So here we arein the very house with Vivekananda, listening to
him from 8 o'clock in the morning until late at night. Even in my
wildest dreams I could not imagine anything so wonderful, so perfect.
To be with Vivekananda! To he accepted by him!
Oh, the sublime teaching of Vivekananda! No nonsense, no talk of
"astrals", "imps", but God, Jesus, Buddha. I feel that I shall never be
quite the same again for I have caught a glimpse of the Real.
Just think what it means to listen to a Vivekananda at every meal,
lessons each morning and the nights on the porch, the eternal stars
shining like "patines of bright gold"! In the afternoon, we take long
walks, and the Swami literally, and so simply, finds "books in the
running brooks, sermons in stones, and good (God) in every- thing."
And this same Swami is so merry and fun-loving. We just go mad at
times.
Later we have been soaring on the Heights, since I last wrote you.
Swami tells us to forget that there is any Detroit for the present that is,
to allow no personal thoughts to occupy our minds while taking this
instruction. We are taught to see God in everything from the blade of
grass to maneven in the diabolical man".
Really, it is almost impossible to find time to write here. We put up
with some inconveniences as it is so crowded. There is no time to
relax, to rest, for we feel the time is all too short as the Swami leaves
soon for England. We scarcely take time to array ourselves properly, so
afraid are we of losing some of the precious jewels. His words are like
jewels, and all that he says fits together like a wonderfully beautiful
mosaic. In his talks he may go ever so far afield, but always he comes
back to the one fundamental, vital thing"Find God! Nothing else
matters."
1 especially like Miss Waldo and Miss Ellis, although the whole
household is interesting, some unique characters- One, a Dr. Wight of
Cambridge [of New York], a very cultured man, creates much
merriment at times. He becomes so absorbed in the teaching that he,

invariably at the end of each discourse, ends up with asking Swamiji,

"Well, Swami, it all amounts to this in the end, doesn't it? I am
Brahman; I am the Absolute." If you could only see Swami's indulgent
smile and hear him answer so gently, "Yes, Dockie, you are Brahman,
you are the Absolute, in the real essence of your being." Later, when
the learned doctor comes to the table a trifle late, Swami, with the
utmost gravity but with a merry twinkle in his eyes, will say, "Here
comes Brahman" or "Here is the Absolute."
Swamiji's fun-making is of the merry type. Sometimes he will say,
"Now I am going to cook for you!" He is a wonderful cook and delights
in serving the "brithrin". The food he prepares is delicious but for
"yours truly' too hot with various spices; but I made up my mind to eat
it if it strangled me, which it nearly did. If a Vivekananda can cook for
me, I guess the least I can do is to eat it. Bless him!
At such times we have a whirlwind of fun. Swamiji will stand on
the floor with a white napkin draped over his arm a la waiter on the
dining cars, and will intone in perfect imitation their call for dinner
Last call for' the dining 222. Dinner served." Irresistibly funny, And
then, at table such gales of laughter over some quip or jest, for he
unfailingly discovers the little idiosyncrasies of each onebut never
sarcasm or malicejust fun.
Since my last letter to you when I told you of Swamiji's capacity for
merriment, so many little things have occurred to make one we how
varied are the aspects of Vivekananda. We are trying to take notes of
all that he says, but I find myself lost in listening and forget the notes.
His voice is wondrously beautiful. One might well lose oneself in its
divine music. However, dear Miss Waldo is taking very full notes of the
lessons, and in that way they will be preserved.
Some good fairy must have presided at our birthChristine's and
mine. We do not, as yet, know much of Karma and reincarnation, but
we are beginning to see that both are involved in our being brought
into touch with Swamiji.
Sometimes I ask him rather daring questions, for I am so anxious
to know just how he would react under certain conditions. He takes it

so kindly when I in my impulsive way sometimes rush in where angels

fear to tread. Once he said to someone, "Mrs. Funke rests me, she is so
naive." Wasn't that dear of him?
One evening, when it was raining and we were all sitting in the
living room, the Swami was talking about pure womanhood and told us
the story of Sita. How he can tell a story! You see it and all the
characters become real. I found myself wondering just how some of
the beautiful society queens of the West would appear to him
especially those versed in the art of allurementand before I took
time to think, out popped the question and immediately I was covered
with confusion. The Swami, however, looked at me calmly with his big,
serious eyes and gravely replied, "If the most beautiful woman in the
world were to look at me in an immodest or unwomanly way, she
would immediately turn into a hideous, green frog, and one does not,
of course, admire frogs!"..., Vow he has closed the class for the
morning, and he has turned to me, "Mrs. Funke, tell me a funny story.
We are going to part soon, and we must talk funny things, isn't it?"
We take long walks every afternoon, and our favourite walk is
back of the cottage down a hill and then a rustic path to the river....
Sometimes we stop several times and sit around on the grass and
listen to Swami's wonderful talks. A bird, a flower, a butterfly, will start
him off, and he will tell us stories from the Vedas or recite Indian
poetry....
Recalling those wonderful days at Thousand Island Park, Miss
Christine Greenstidel (later Sister Christine) wrote of them at some
length. Her memoirs read in part:
All that winter [in New York] the work went on, and when the
season came to an end, early in the summer, this devoted group was
not willing to have the teaching discontinued. One of them owned a
house in Thousand Island Park on the St. Lawrence River, and a
proposal was made to the teacher that they all spend the summer
there. He consented, much touched by their earnestness. He wrote to
one of his friends that he wanted to manufacture a few yogis out of
the materials of the classes. He felt that his work was now really

started and that those who joined him at Thousand Islands were really
disciples....
Early in June three or four were gathered at Thousand Island Park
with him and the teaching began without delay. We came on Saturday,
July 6, 1895. Swami Vivekananda had planned to initiate several of
those already there on Monday. "I don't know you well enough yet to
feel sure that you are ready for initiation," he said on Sunday
afternoon. Then he added rather shyly, I have a power which I seldom
use the power of reading the mind. If you will permit me, I should like
to read your mind, as I wish to initiate you with the others tomorrow."
We assented joyfully. Evidently he was satisfied with the result of the
reading, for the next day, together with several others, he gave us a
Mantra and made us his disciples. Afterwards, questioned as to what
he saw while he was reading our minds he told us a little. He saw that
we should be faithful and that we should make progress in our spiritual
life. He described something of what he saw, without giving the
interpretation of every picture. In one case, scene after scene passed
before his mental vision which meant that there would be extensive
travel apparently in Oriental countries. He described the very houses in
which we should live, the people who should surround us, the
influences that would affect our lives. We questioned him about this.
He told us it could be acquired by anyone. The method was simple at
least in the telling. First, think of spacevast, blue, extending
everywhere. In time, as one meditates upon this space intently,
pictures appear. These must be interpreted. Sometimes one sees the
pictures but does not know the interpretation. He saw that one of us
would be indissolubly connected with India. Important as well as minor
events were for us nearly all of which have come to pass. In this
reading, the quality of the personality was revealed the mettle, the
capacity, the character. Having passed this test, there can be no selfdepreciation, no lack of faith in one's self. Every momentary doubt is
replaced by a serene assurance. Has the personality not received the
stamp of approval from the one being in the world...?
Of the wonderful weeks that followed, it is difficult to write. Only
if one's mind were lifted to that high state of consciousness in which

we lived for the time, could we hope to recapture the experience. We

were filled with joy. We did not know at that time that we were living
in his radiance. On the wings of inspiration, he carried us to the height
which was his natural abode. He himself, speaking of it later, said that
he was at his best in Thousand Islands. Then he felt that he had found
the channel through which his message might be spread, the way to
fulfil his mission, for the guru had found his own disciples. His first
overwhelming desire was to show us the path to Mukti, to set us free.
"Ah", he said with touching pathos, "If I could only set you free with a
touch!" His second object, not so apparent perhaps, but always in the
undercurrent, was to train this group to carry on the work in America.
On his own little veranda, overlooking the treetops and the beautiful
St. Lawrence, he often called upon us to make speeches. It was a trying
ordeal. Each in turn was called upon to make an attempt. There was no
escape. At these intimate evening gatherings often he soared to the
greatest height as the night advanced. What if it was two o'clock in the
morning? What if we had watched the moon rise and set? Time and
space had vanished for us.
There was nothing set or formal about these nights on the upper
veranda. He sat in his large chair at the end, near his door. Sometimes
he went into a deep meditation. At such times we too meditated or sat
in profound silence. Often it lasted for hours and one after the other
slipped away. For we knew that after this he would not feel inclined to
speak or again the meditation would be short, and he would
encourage us to ask questions afterwards, often calling on one of us to
answer. No matter how far wrong these answers were, he let us
flounder about until we were near the truth; and then in a few words,
he would clear up the difficulty. This was his invariable method in
teaching. He knew how to stimulate the mind of the learner and make
it do its own thinking. Did we go to him for confirmation of a new idea
or point of view and begin, "I see it is thus and so", his "Yes?" with an
upper inflection always sent us back for further thought. Again we
would come with a more clarified understanding and again the "Yes?"
stimulated us to further thought, perhaps after the third time when
the capacity for further thought along that particular line was reached,

he would point out the erroran error usually due to something in our
Western mode of thought. And so he trained us with such patience,
such benignity. It was like a benediction.
It was a strange groupthese people whom he had gathered
around him that summer at Thousand Islands. No wonder the
shopkeeper, to whom we went for direction upon our arrival, said,
"Yes, there are some queer people living up on the hill, among whom is
a foreign-looking gentleman." There were three friends who had come
to the Swami's New York classes togetherMiss S. E. Waldo, Miss Ruth
Ellis, and Doctor Wight. For thirty years, they had attended every
lecture on philosophy that they had heard of, but had never found
anything that even remotely approached this. So Doctor Wight gravely
assured us, the newcomers....
... We in our retirement seldom saw anyone except now and then
someone who came for the view. The conditions were ideal for our
purpose. One could not have believed that such a spot could be found
in America. What great ideas were voiced there! What an atmosphere
was created, what power was generated! There the Teacher reached
some of his loftiest flights, there he showed us his heart and mind. We
saw ideas unfold and flower. We saw the evolution of plans which
grew into institutions in the years that followed. It was blessed
experiencean experience which made Miss Waldo exclaim, "What
have we ever done to deserve this?" And so we all felt.
The original plan was that they should live as a community,
without servants, each doing a share of the work. Nearly all of them
were unaccustomed to housework and found it uncongenial. The
result was amusing; as time went on, it threatened to become
disastrous. Some of us who had just been reading the story of Brook
Farm felt that we saw it re-enacted before our eyes. No wonder
Emerson refused to join that community of transcendentalists! His
serenity was evidently bought at a price. Some could only wash dishes.
One whose work was to cut the bread, groaned and 'all but wept
whenever she attempted the task. It is curious how character is tested
its these, little things. Weaknesses which might have been hidden for a
lifetime in ordinary intercourse, were exposed in a day of this

community life. It was interesting. With Swamiji the effect was quite
different. Although only one among them was younger than himself,
he seemed like a father or rather like a mother in patience and
gentleness. When the tension became too great, he would say with the
utmost sweetness, "Today, I shall cook for you." To this Landsberg
would ejaculate in an aside, "Heaven save us!" By way of explanation
he said that in New York when Swamiji cooked, he, Landsberg, would
tear his hair, because it meant that afterwards every dish in the house
required washing. After several unhappy experiences in the
community housekeeping, an outsider was engaged for help, and one
or two of the more capable ones undertook certain responsibilities,
and we had peace.
But once the necessary work was over and we had gathered in the
class room, the atmosphere was changed. There never was a
disturbing element within those walls. It seemed as if we had left the
body and the bodily consciousness outside. We sat in a semicircle and
waited. Which gate to the Eternal would be opened for us today?
What heavenly vision should meet our eyes? There was always the
thrill of adventure. The Undiscovered Country, the Sorrowless Land
opened up new vistas of hope and beauty. Even so, our expectations
were always exceeded. Vivekananda's flights carried us with him to
supernal heights. Whatever degree of realization may or may not have
come to us since, one thing we can never forget: We saw the Promised
Land. We, too, were taken to the top of Pisgah and the sorrow and
trials of this world have never been quite real since.
... When he saw how deep the impression was which he had
made, he would say with a smile, "The cobra has bitten you. You
cannot escape." Or sometimes, "I have caught you in my net. You can
never get out."
Miss Dutcher, our hostess, was a conscientious little woman, a
devout Methodist. How she ever came to be associated with such a
group as gathered in her house that summer would have been a
mystery to anyone who did not know the power of Swami
Vivekananda to attract and hold sincere souls. But having once seen
and heard him, what could one do but follow? Was he not the

Incarnation of the Divine, the Divine which lures man on until he finds
himself again in his lost kingdom? But the road was hard and often
terrifying to one still bound by conventions and orthodoxy in religion.
All her ideals, her values of life, her concepts of religion were, it
seemed to her, destroyed. In reality, they were only modified.
Sometimes she did not appear for two or three days. "Don't you see,"
Swami said, "this is not an ordinary illness? It is the reaction of the
body against the chaos that is going on in her mind. She cannot bear
it." The most violent attack came one day after a timid protest on her
part against something he had said in the class. "The idea of duty is the
midday sun of misery scorching the very soul," he had said. "Is it not
our duty," she began, but got no farther. For once that great free soul
broke all bounds in his rebellion against the idea that anyone should
dare bind with fetters the soul of man. Miss Dutcher was not seen for
some days. And so the process of education went on. It was not
difficult if one's devotion to the guru was great enough, for then, like
the snake, one dropped the old and put on the new. But where the old
prejudices and conventions were stronger than one's faith, it was a
terrifying, almost a devastating process.
For the first time we understood why all religions begin with
ethics. For without truth, non-injury, continence, non-stealing,
cleanliness, austerity, there can be no spirituality....
ContinenceChastity: This subject always stirred him deeply.
Walking up and down the room, getting more and more excited, he
would stop before someone as if there were no one else in the room.
"Don't you see," he would say eagerly, "there is a reason why chastity
is insisted on in all monastic orders? Spiritual giants are produced only
where the vow of chastity is observed. Don't you see there must be a
reason? The Roman Catholic Church has produced great saints, St.
Francis of Assisi, Ignatius Loyola, St. Teresa, the two Catherines and
many others. The Protestant Church has produced no one of spiritual
rank equal to them. There is a connection between great spirituality
and chastity. The explanation is that these men and women have
through prayer and meditation transmuted the most powerful force in
the body into spiritual energy. In India this is well understood and yogis

do it consciously. The force so transmuted is called Ojas and is stored

up in the brain. It has been lifted from the lowest centre of the
Kundalini - the Muladhara - to the highest." To us who listened, the
words came to our remembrance: "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all
men unto me."
... How touchingly earnest Swami Vivekananda was as he
proposed this subject. He seemed to plead with us, as if to beg us to
act upon this teaching as something most precious. More, we could
not be the disciples he required if we were not established in this. He
demanded a conscious transmutation. "The man who has no temper
has nothing to control," he said. "I want a few, five or six, who are in
the flower of their youth."...
It is needless to repeat the formal teaching, the great central idea.
These one can read for oneself. But there was something else, an
influence, an atmosphere charged with the desire to escape from
bondagecall it what you willthat can never be put into words, and
yet was more powerful than any words. It was this which made us
realize that we were blessed beyond words. To hear him say, "This
indecent clinging to life", drew aside the curtain for us into the region
beyond life and death, and planted in our hearts the desire for that
glorious freedom. We saw a soul struggling to escape the meshes of
Maya, one to whom the body was an intolerable bondage, not only a
limitation but a degrading humiliation. Azad, Azad, the Free, he
cried, pacing up and down like a caged lion. Yes, like the lion in the
cage who found the bars not of iron but of bamboo. "Let us not be
caught this time," would be his refrain another day....
We seemed to be in a different world. The end to be attained was
FreedomFreedom from the bondage in which Maya has caught us, in
which Maya has enmeshed all mankind. Sooner or later the
opportunity to escape will to all. Ours had come. For during these days
every aspiration, every desire, every struggle was directed towards this
one purposeconsciously by our Teacher, blindly, unconsciously by us,
following the influence he created Wednesday, June 19, marked the
beginning of the regular teaching given daily by the Swami to his group
of disciples at Thousand island Park. He came on this first morning with

the Bible in his hand and opened it at the Book of John, saying that
since the students were all Christians, it was proper that he should
begin with the Christian scriptures.
Though not all the talks of the Swami during his stay at Thousand
Island Park were written down, some were, and these have been
embodied in the book known as Inspired Talks. It is to Miss Waldo that
the followers of the Swami are indebted for these immortal words, and
the title of the book was well chosen, for those talks were inspired
indeed. The Swami threw light upon all manner of subjects, historical
and philosophical, spiritual and temporal. It was as if the contents of
his nature were pouring themselves forth as a grand revelation of the
many-sidedness of the Eternal Truth. Certainly the seven weeks at
Thousand Island Park were one of the freest and the greatest periods
in the Swami's life. He was there in the uninterrupted stillness of the
island retreat, in an atmosphere similar to that in which his Master had
lived and taught in the Dakshineswar days of old. There he walked in
the woods or along the river; there he happily studied the huge
Sanskrit tomes that he had earlier sent for to India. And there on the
banks of the St. Lawrence, in a mood of supreme ecstasy, he one day
entered while meditating into Nirvikalpa Samadhi as he had done in
the days of blessed 'memory at Cossipore. Though at the time he
spoke of it to no one, he reckoned this experience as one of the most
exalted in his life. The whirlwind of spiritual rhapsody and ecstasy that
had swept the souls of devotees in Dakshineswar on the bank of the
Ganga, swept here anew the souls of other devotees in the island
retreat of the beautiful St. Lawrence River, and the spirit of the Master
and the realization of the Swami burned constantly in vast, ignorancedestroying flames.
In a letter dated August 1895 to Alasinga Perumal, he wrote, in the
glory of his realizations at Thousand Island Park: "I am free, my bonds
are cut, what care I whether this body goes or does not go?... I have a
truth to teach, 1, the child of God. And he that gave me the truth will
send me fellow-workers from the earth's bravest and best." Now and
then the MONK in him would come out in protest against his
surroundings and distraction. His poem "The Song of the Sannyasin",

considered by some to be his masterpiece, was written in such a state

of protest and spiritual fervour. He had received a letter criticizing his
determination to work among the people instead among the rich. As
we have seen earlier, the Swami had long since rebuffed such attempts
to interfere with his work, but just as the sight of a butterfly or a
flower was occasion for an exalted discourse, so the slightest attempt
to bind him down to the dictates of society could arouse in him the
lion of renunciation and call forth a grand roar of freedom, "One
afternoon," Mrs. Funke wrote, "when he had been telling us of the
glory of renunciation, of the joy and freedom of those of the ochre
robe, he suddenly left us and in a short time he had written his 'Song
of the Sannyasin', a very passion of sacrifice and renunciation." The
Swami sent the poem by return mail in reply to the letter that had
evoked it. Three verses selected from that great song afford an insight
into the ardour and the power.of his spirit of sannyasa and the
profundity of his realization:
Strike off thy! fetters! Bonds that bind thee down,
Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore;
Love, hategood badand all the dual throng
Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free;
For fetters though of gold, are not less strong to bind;
Then off with them, sannyasin bold! Say
Om Tat Sat, Om!
Heed then no more how body lives or goes,
Its task is done. Let Karma float it down;
Let one put garlands on, another kick
This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be
Where praiser, praisedblamer, blamedare one.
Thus be thou calm, sannyasin bold! Say
"Om Tat Sat, Om!"
Few only know the Truth. The rest will hate
And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed.

Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help

Them out of darkness, Maya's veil. Without
The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go
Beyond them both, sannyasin bold! Say
Om Tat Sat, Om! 4
With August 6, 1895, ended the Swami's inspired talks and divine
companionship at that blessed island in the St. Lawrence. On the
following day he left for New York. In the letter written by Mrs. Funke
that we have quoted from earlier, she wrote of that last day:
Wednesday, August 7th. Alas, he has departed! Swamiji left this
evening at 9 o'clock on the steamer for Clayton where he will take a
train for New York and from there sail for England.
The last day has been a very wonderful and precious one. This
morning there was no class. He asked C. [Christine] and me to take a
walk as he wished to be alone with us. (The others had been with him

When the original manuscript of the poem, written in pencil, surfaced

at the cottage at Thousand Island Park in September of 1955, it was
found that on the back of the third page was written in Swami
Vivekananda's hand. "To His Highness the Maharaja Bahadoor of
Khetri." When sending the poem to Alasinga Perumal, the Swami
wrote to him on July 30, 1895, "'The Song of the Sannyasin' is my first
contribution to your journal." The poem was first published in the
September 28,1895 issue of the Brahmavadin (1:2).

all summer, and he felt we should have a last talk.) We went up a hill
about half a mile away. All was woods and solitude. Finally he selected
a low-branched tree, and we sat under the low-spreading branches.
Instead of the expected talk, he suddenly said, "Now we will meditate.
We shall he like Buddha under the Bo Tree." He seemed to turn to
bronze, so still was he. Then a thunder-storm came up, and it poured.
He never noticed it. I raised my umbrella and protected him as much
as possible. Completely absorbed in his meditation, he was oblivious of
everything. Soon we heard shouts in the distance. The others had
come out after us with raincoats and umbrellas. Swamiji looked around
regretfully, for we had to go, and said, "Once more am I in Calcutta in
the rains."
He was so tender and sweet all this last day. As the steamer
rounded the bend in the river he boyishly and joyously waved his hat
to us in farewell and he had departed indeed.
And while leaving the islands he said, "I bless these Thousand
Islands".
The Swami had been exhausted when he had left New York at the
end of the season's work. Yet after barely two weeks' rest at Camp
Percy, he had once again entered upon the strenuous task of continual
teaching. Again he gave utterly of himself, letting no moment of his
attention lapse from the instruction and training of these students who
had come to the retreat, though most of them were novices on the
spiritual path, new to its psychological demands and trials; and none
were his own countrymen. And yet they were all his own; for all
mankind had become his own. "What little can be done for my
brethren [brother-disciples] and my work is all the help I want from
you now," he wrote to Mrs. Bull from Thousand Island Park in
connection with the help she had been giving his family. "Now for the
world that gave me this bodythe country that gave me the ideas, and
humanity which allows me to be one of them. The older I grow, the
more I see behind the idea of the Hindus that man is the greatest of all
beings." And it was to mannot to any particular individual or
nationthat he gave himself.

But despite the Swami's overflowing, impersonal love for all

humanity, despite his monistic vision and intense spirit of renunciation,
he never failed in deep personal tenderness and affection for his
friends. Even in his most exalted moods lie was intensely human. In his
correspondence with Mrs. Hale one finds him endlessly anxious over
the delayed arrival in Chicago of the shawls, mats, carpets, Rudraksha
beads, and so on sent by the Raja of Khetri and the Dewanji of
Junagadh as gifts for his devoted friends. "Why do you not write to me
about the duty if you had to pay it," he wrote to Mrs. Hale from
Thousand Island Park, when a bundle from India finally came. "I insist
upon paying it myself. The Raja's things seem to come very quick. I am
so glad too [as] I will have something to present to Mrs. Bagley, Mrs.
Bull, etc."
The Swami had given himself tirelessly to the teaching of his
students, and it is small wonder that when his work at Thousand Island
Park came to a close, he was again exhausted. One indication of this is
that he slept soundly through the night on the train journey back to
New York, even though at one point the engine was derailed. "I did not
know anything of it," he wrote to Christine Greenstidel, on August 9
from New York. How dead asleep with exhaustion he must have been;
for the derailing of an engine could not have been a silent or smooth
event! "After the hard work at the Thousand Islands, I am taking a few
days quiet and preparation for my departure," he wrote to Mrs. Bull on
the same day. The Swami's departure was, of course, for Paris with Mr.
Leggett and thence on to England for strenuous preaching work.
Though his body seemed exhausted, he went on and on, serving
humanity, as his Master had long before ordained and as his universal,
unending love now demanded.

THE FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND

Having finished his great work of training and initiating disciples at
Thousand Island Park, the Swami returned to New York on August 8,
1895, and prepared to sail for France and thence to England, where his
long-held idea of carrying his message to the English people was to be
fulfilled. The Swami's first known invitation to visit England had come

to him from Miss F. Henrietta Mller, who in 1893 had spoken at the
Theosophical Congress at the Parliament of Religions, and met the
Swami there. In the latter part of 1894, her adopted son, Akshoy
Kumar Ghosh, who, it so happened, was a disciple of the Swami's,
extended an invitation to him on behalf of Miss Mller to visit London
and there he her house-guest. On October 27, 1894, the Swami wrote
from Washington, D.C. to Alasinga Perumal, "Akshoy Kumar is in
London. He sent a beautiful invitation from London to come to Miss
Mller's. And I hope I am going in January or February next." As we
know, however, it was not until later that the Swami left America.
Meanwhile, a second invitation had come to him from Mr. E. T.
Sturdy, an Englishman and erstwhile Theosophist, who had lived for a
time in India. While undertaking religious austerities at Almora, a hill
station in the Himalayas, Mr. Sturdy had become intimately known to
Swami Shivananda, and had heard from him about his brother-disciple,
Swami Vivekananda. Returning to England, Mr. Sturdy had begun in
March of 1895 to correspond with the Swami, who was then in New
York. Learning from Miss Mller that she had invited the Swami to
London and that he was coming, Mr. Sturdy also sent his own cordial
invitation, urging the Swami to visit England and he his guest. He
assured him that London was a great field for his work. Around this
time, Mr. Francis Leggett invited the Swami to accompany him on a
voyage to Paris, where he and his fiance, Besse MacLeod Sturges,
were to be married.
The Swami's response to these invitations was characteristic. On
July 7, 1895, he wrote to Mr. Leggett: "Since leaving Percy, I have
invitations to come over to London from unexpected quarters, and
that I look forward to with great expectations. I do not want to lose
this opportunity of working in London. And so your invitation, coupled
with the London one, is, I know, a divine call for further work."
On August 17 he and Mr. L, Eeggett sailed from New York.by S. S.
Touraine, reaching] Paris on the twenty-fourth after a delightful trip.
The ocean voyage rested his nerves and brain, which had been
exhausted by his strenuous work of nearly two years in America.
During his stay of more than a fortnight in Paris, he acquired in his

wonted way as much information as possible, asking, studying,

observing. Mrs. Sturges and her sister, Miss MacLeod, both of whom
knew Paris well, conducted him on various tours of the city, taking him
to its museums, churches, cathedrals, and art galleries. He was pleased
to note how artistic instincts were highly developed in the French
nation. The tomb of Napoleon and other memorials of that great man,
which were scattered everywhere in Paris, filled him with admiration.
He was introduced to some of the enlightened friends of his
companions and discoursed with them on themes that ranged from
the most learned of studies to the highest of spiritual subjects. They
became his friends and enjoyed his company, for in himself he
combined the historian, philosopher, wit, and engaging
conversationalist.
But though the Swami had come to Paris for recreation, thoughts
of his work and mission were never far from his mind. Just before
sailing from America he had received a letter from his disciples in India,
warning him that missionary activity was strong against him in his
native land and that articles and pamphlets were appearing, criticizing
his life, his teaching, and his conduct. Evidently the missionaries had
been criticizing his eating habits in the West, and some orthodox
Hindus, as well as some members of the Brahmo Samaj, who had read
such criticism had become opposed to him and had attacked him in
strong terms. Naturally he was vexed. On September 9, the day before
his departure for London, he wrote to Alasinga from Paris:
1 am surprised you take the missionaries' nonsense so seriously...
If the people in India want me to keep strictly to my Hindu diet, please
tell them to send me a cook and money enough to keep him. This silly
bossism without a mite of real help makes me laugh. On the other
hand, if the missionaries tell you that I have ever broken the two great
vows of the sannyasinchastity and povertytell them that they are
big liars....
As for me, mind you, I stand at nobody's dictation. I know my
mission in life, and no chauvinism about me; I belong as much to the
world as to India, no humbug about that.... What country has any
special claim on me? Am I any nation's slave?

... I see a greater Power than man, or God, or devil, at my back. I

require nobody's help. I have spent all my life helping others....
Do you mean to say I am born to live and die one of those casteridden, superstitious, merciless, hypocritical, atheistic cowards, that
you find only amongst the educated Hindus? I hate cowardice. I will
have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense. I do not believe
in any politics. God and truth are the only politics in the world,
everything else is trash....
This letter shows the Swami as the true sannyasi, free and
fearless. He was like another prophet scourging the Pharisees of his
own land. Being of little minds, some of the Swami's-countrymen even
allowed themselves to take seriously the slanderous statements of
those who worked against him with a view to breaking the backbone
of the burgeoning Hindu renaissance. Indeed, by this time Christian
missionary activity in India against him had reached a high pitch. But
he was a strong man, and he could be a strong adversary when
necessary. He had to be; for otherwise his religion, his people, his
name, and his teachings would have been discredited by malicious
opponents. He had literally to fight his way for recognition.
And when his character was attacked, he was, for the sake of his
teaching, unequivocal in his replies. Sometimes, however, he felt like a
child and would weep in solitude, praying to the Mother for protection
and for help. On one occasion, during his early days in America, he was
actually seen in tears, reading a baseless assertion against his
character. When asked.why he wept, he had replied, "Oh! How deep is
the wickedness of the world and to what lengths men go, in the name
of religion, to cast aspersion upon another worker in God's vineyard!"
Now he was bound for England! He was with both expectations
and apprehension. He had often dreamed of visiting the great
metropolis of London, particularly to preach Hinduism; yet he
wondered how the British public would receive him a Hindu
belonging to a subject race, come to preach to them his religion, which
they had known of only in misrepresented forms from unsympathetic
critics. Later on, this uncertainty would give place to wonder and

gratification at his singular and immediate success. Meanwhile, the

very sight of London thrilled him. He was received by friends, among
them Mr. Sturdy and Miss Henrietta Mller. At first he stayed as a
guest at Miss Mller's place at Juan Duff House, Regent Street,
Cambridge. After a few days, he moved to Mr. Sturdy's house at High
View, Caversham, Reading, some thirty-six miles by rail southwest of
London. "Mr. Sturdy", the Swami wrote to a brother-monk, "is a very
nice gentleman, a staunch Vedantist, and understands a smattering of
Sanskrit."
The Swami lived with Mr. and Mrs. Sturdy in the ancient town of
Reading for six weeks. During this time he paid visits to every place of
historic or artistic interest; he held long philosophical discussions with
his host, helped him to study Sanskrit and to translate the Narada
Bhakti Sutras into English and write a commentary on them.
The Swami spent September and most of October living quietly in
Reading. I have not done any visible work yet he wrote to Mrs. Bull on
September 24, The London Season is not open yet. Then again Mr.
Sturdy wants to go slowlyand build on a sure foundation rather than
make a good deal of noise for nothing. So we are slowly moving on....
So far it is all right, waiting for the next wave. Avoid not and seek
notwait for what the Lord sends, is my motto.
From the very beginning he was surprised to find that the English
people received him warmly and gladly. His comment on this is all too
revealing of the treatment he had been accorded in America by some
Americans and earlier in India by some of the British. I have found
already several retired Generals from India, he wrote in early
September from Reading; they were very civil and polite to me. That
wonderful knowledge of the Americans that identifies every black man
with the Negro is entirely absent here, and nobody even stares at me
in the street. I am very much more at home here than anywhere out of
India. And at a later date, January 6, 1896: The English people
received me with open arms and I have very much toned down my
ideas about the English race.... Some of the best men of England
belong to the English Church and some of the highest in position and
fame became my truest friends.

It was not until October that one or two of the Swamis newly
made friends arranged for him to give. a public lecture in London on
the evening of the twenty-second at Prince's Hall in Piccadilly, Mr.
Sturdy bearing the major part of the expenses. The lecture, entitled
"Self-Knowledge", was a tremendous success. Men he rose to speak,
he faced a large gathering of people, representing all walks of life and
comprising some of the best thinkers in London. "He electrified the
audience by his grand and powerful oratory", one listener wrote. And
the next morning the journals were filled with complimentary
comments. The Standard wrote:
Since the days of Ram Mohan Roy, with the single exception of
Keshab Chandra Sen, there has not appeared on an English platform a
more interesting Indian figure than the Hindu who lectured in Prince's
Hall.... In the course of his lecture, he made some remorselessly
disparaging criticism on the work that factories, engines, and other
inventions and books were doing for man, compared with half-a-dozen
words spoken by Buddha or Jesus. The lecture was evidently quite
extemporaneous, and was delivered in a pleasing voice free from any
kind of hesitation.
The London Daily Chronicle wrote:
Vivekananda, the popular Hindu monk, whose physiognomy bore
the most striking resemblance to the classic face of Buddha,
denounced our commercial prosperity, our bloody wars, and our
religious intolerance, declaring that at such a price the mild Hindu
would have none of our vaunted civilization.
After an interview with the Swami, one of the correspondents of
the Westminster Gazette wrote the following under the title "An
Indian Yogi in London":
... The Swami Vivekananda is a striking figure with his turban (or
mitre-shaped cap) and his calm but kindly features.... His face lights up
like that of a child, it is so simple, straightforward and honest.
During the course of a long discussion, the Swami told this
interviewer why he had renounced the world and adopted the
sannyasis life. He mentioned the name of his Master, and said that he

had come to organize no sect, to teach no sectarian doctrine, but to

give the general outline of the universal principles of the Vedanta and
to let each apply them to his own concrete forms. "I am the exponent
of no occult societies," he said, "nor do I believe that good can come of
such bodies. Truth stands on its own authority, and truth can bear the
light of day.... I propound a philosophy which can serve as a basis to
every possible religious system in the world, and my attitude towards
all of them is one of extreme sympathymy teaching is antagonistic to
none. I direct my attention to the individual, to make him strong, to
teach him that he himself is divine, and I call upon men to make
themselves conscious of this divinity within." The correspondent of the
Westminster Gazette wrote of the Swami's ideals and of his success in
America and concluded by re-marking, "I then took my leave from one
of the most original of men that I have had the honour of meeting."
Thus, after the Swami's London lecture, the public were informed of
his status and his teachings, and scores gathered at his quarters,
seeking instruction, or desiring to satisfy their curiosity.
It was a novel and, satisfying experience for the Swami to have the
English people endorse his teaching and his character by this
demonstration of enthusiasm. And though his stay in London extended
hardly more than a month from his lecture at Prince's Hall, it was
during this time that he laid a strong foundation for future work and
made a deep and lasting impression upon those whom he met. Indeed,
his teaching work in England began with this London lecture of
October 22.
According to a letter the Swami wrote to India towards the end of
October, he intended to give a parlour talk around this time in the
Chelsea residence of the Reverend H. R. Haweis, the well-known and
highly popular cannon of St. James's, Marylebone, who had heard him
speak at the Parliament of Religions in 1893 and who greatly admired
him. The Swami also held a number of class talks during the last week
of October at a Mr. Chemier's and sometime during this same month
spoke in Maidenhead, a town some twenty miles west of London,
where Miss Henrietta Mller had arranged a lecture for him. On

October 29 he took lodgings of his own for a month in London at 80

(now 61) Oakley Street, Chelsea.
"I had eight classes a week apart from public lectures," the Swami
wrote later on in regard to this period, "and they (his classes) were so
crowded that a good many people, even ladies of high rank, sat on the
floor and did not think anything of it." In addition to his classes, the
Swami now and then lectured at clubs, societies, and private drawingrooms. We learn, for instance, that on November 5 he spoke on
"Indian Philosophy and Western Society" at the Balloon Society, to a
select group of scientists from various fields, all of whom were men of
erudition and culture and held in common an interest in aeronautics.
Probably reporting on this same lecture the Indian Mirror of December
1, 1895, wrote in part:
At the weekly meeting of the Balloon Society, an address on "Man
and Society in the Light of Vedanta" was given by Swami
Vivekananda.... He said that religion was the most wonderful factor in
the social organism. If knowledge was the highest gain that science
could give, what could be greater than knowledge of God, of the soul,
of man's own nature, which was given by the study of religion? It was
not only impossible that there should he one religion for the whole
world, but it would be dangerous. If the whole of religious thought was
at the same level, it would be death to religious thought; variety was
its life. There were four types of religion(1) the worker [active], (2)
the emotional, (3) the mystical, and (4) the philosophical. Each man
unfortunately became so wedded to his own type that he had no eyes
to see what existed in the world. He struggled to make others of the
same type. That religion would be perfect which gave scope to all the
different characters. The Vedanta religion took in all, and each could
choose what his nature required.
On November 10, the Swami spoke on "The Basis of Vedanta
Morality" before the Ethical Society of Moncure Conway at South Place
Chapel. Mr. Conway, an American, had been a well-known Unitarian
minister and an active abolitionist in the United States. He was also the
author of many novels, biographies, and articles. Under his long and
brilliant leadership, the South Place Chapel, where, Keshab Chandra

Sen had had his first London hearing, had out-distanced even
Unitarianism in its liberal outlook and had become a centre of adult
education.
Indeed, the Swami worked day in and day out, even as he had in
New York, without respite, giving his whole spirit to those who came to
him to be taught. His circle of influence steadily increased. Not only did
Mr. Sturdy introduce him to many people and immensely assist him in
forming his classes, but Miss MacLeod and the Leggetts, who were
now in London, brought many others to meet him and helped him to
widely propagate the Vedanta teachings
Among the early visitors to the Swami's Oakley Street classrooms
was Lady Isabel Margesson, who was a strong advocate of social and
educational reform and Secretary of the forward-looking Sesame Club.
One Sunday afternoon in November she invited the Swami to speak at
her home at 63 St. George's Road (now St. George's Drive) to a chosen
few of her friends. Among these, it so happened, was Miss Margaret
Noble-later known as Sister Nivedita. Miss Noble was struck by the
breadth of the Swami's religious culture and the intellectual freshness
of his philosophical outlook, as also by the fact that "his call was
sounded in the name of that which was strongest and finest, and was
not in any way dependent on the meaner elements in man." Both
before she met him and for some time after, Miss Noble was highly
interested in educational work. She was the Principal of a school of her
own, and was one of the outstanding members of the Sesame Club,
which had been founded for the furtherance of educational reform.
She moved in quiet but distinguished intellectual circles and was
deeply interested in all modern trends and thought. Miss Noble
carefully weighed the Swami's words and at first found some difficulty
in accepting his views. But this in his eyes was a sign of the power of
true penetration, for he knew that though she might at first hesitate,
when once she accepted his ideas there would be no more ardent
champion of them than she. It required many months, she herself
confesses, for her to accept the Swami's philosophy in toto.
Her description of her first meeting with the Swami at' the home
of Lady Isabel Margesson is charming. She writes:

Even in far-away London indeed, the first time I saw him, the
occasion must have stirred in his mind, as it does in mine, recalling it
now, a host of associations connected with his own sun-steeped land.
The time was a cold Sunday afternoon in November, and the place, it is
true, a Westend drawing-room. But he was seated, facing a half-circle
of listeners, with the fire on the hearth behind him, and as he
answered question after question, breaking now and then into the
chanting of some Sanskrit text in illustration of his reply, the scene
must have appeared to him, while twilight passed into darkness, only
as a curious variant upon the Indian garden, or on the group of hearers
gathered at sundown round the sadhu who sits beside the well, or
under the tree outside the village-bounds. Never again in England did I
see the Swami as a teacher, in such simple fashion. Later, he was
always lecturing, or the questions he answered were put with
formality by members of larger audiences. Only this first time we were
but fifteen or sixteen guests, intimate friends many of us, and he sat
amongst us, in his crimson robe and girdle, as one bringing us news
from a far land, with a curious habit of saying now and again "Shiva!
Shiva!" and wearing that look of 'mingled gentleness and loftiness, that
one sees on the faces of those who live much in meditation, that look,
perhaps, that Raphael has painted for us, on the brow of the Sistine,
Child.
That afternoon is now ten years ago, and fragments only of the
talk come back to me. But never to be forgotten are the Sanskrit verses
that he chanted for us, in those wonderful Eastern tones, at once so
reminiscent of, and yet so different from, the Gregorian music of our
own churches.
Miss Noble's virtual acceptance of discipleship can best be
described in her own words:
It is difficult at this point to be sufficiently explicit. The time came,
before the Swami left England [end of November 1895], when I
addressed him as "Master". I had recognized the heroic fibre of the
man, and desired to make myself the servant of his love for his own
people. But it was his character to which I had thus done obeisance. As
a religious teacher, I saw that although he had a system of thought to

offer, nothing in that system would claim him for a moment, if he

found that truth led elsewhere. And to the extent this recognition
implies, I became his disciple. For the rest, I studied his teaching
sufficiently to become convinced of its coherence, but never, till I had
had experiences that authenticated them, did I inwardly cast my lot
with the final justification of things he came to say. Nor did I at that
time, though deeply attracted by his personality, dream of the
immense distance which I was afterwards to see, as between his
development and that of any other thinker or man of genius whom I
could name.
In the many talks and private lectures the Swami gave in
aristocratic houses and before several clubs during his first stay in
London, he invariably discoursed on the important tenets of the Hindu
faith, and especially of the Vedanta philosophy. As in America, so here
in London, he found himself besieged with questions of all sorts, and
invariably he was the same brilliant master of repartee and the same
profound spiritual teacher. Instead of using the word "faith" he would
emphasize the word "realization", and speaking of sects, he quoted an
Indian proverb, "It is well to be born in a church, but it is terrible to die
there." He dwelt on the infinite power of man. And he declared that
the one message of all religions lay in the call to renunciation. On the
question of his own position as a wandering teacher, he explained the
Indian diffidence with regard to religious organisation, or as someone
expressed it, "with regard to a faith that ends in a church". He
prophesied that certain religious developments then much in vogue in
the West would speedily die, owing to love of money. And he declared
that "Man proceeds from truth to truth, and not from error to truth."
The lectures and talks of the Swami were sometimes thrilling and
always illuminating. It might be the tense expression of his face or the
sudden light of insight in his eyes, or an overpowering consciousness of
higher things revealed in a spontaneous and brilliant remark, or the
fact that one lost sight entirely of his physical personality in his glowing
and fervid portrayal of the beyond-body outlookit might be one or
all of' such characteristics that carried the audiences off their feet..
Probably no other instance sets forth his eloquence and spirit more

clearly than that which occurred in a Westend drawing-room where he

lectured one evening to a highly cultured audience, composed mostly
of fashionable young mothers. He was speaking on the greatness of
the path of love, showing to what heights of selflessness it leads and
how it draws out the very best faculties of the soul. In elucidating his
remarks, he said, "Suppose a tiger should suddenly appear before you
in the street. How terror-stricken you would be and how eager to fly
for your very lives! But"his tone changed, and his face of a sudden
lighted up with that strength and fearlessness which the 'spiritual fire
alone endows in fullest measure"suppose there were a baby in the
path of the tiger! Where would your place be then? At the mouth of
the tigerany one of you1 am sure of it." His hearers were carried
away by this splendid remark, at once a compliment to the possibilities
within them and a challenge charged with the power of arousing their
very highest spiritual nature. It was such characteristics as these his
immense personal magnetism, his directness, his lucidity, his vision
which gave convincing' force to his utterances and bound indissolubly
to himself large groups of the very finest and the most devout
disciples. The remarkable way in which he classified religious ideas, the
great breadth of his intellectual and spiritual culture, the newness and
profundity of his ideas, the great ethical import attached to all he said,
and, finally, his strength, manliness, and fearlessness of spirit, each and
all of these were bound to create an indelible impression. Indeed, in
some instances an intellectual upheaval would be created by his
profound remarks on the metaphysics of the Vedanta, and many of his
hearers admitted that it had never before fallen to their lot to meet
with a thinker who in one short hour was able to express all that was
very highest in the way of religious thought and to present new ideas
so varied and yet so harmonious that they could form the basis of a
broad and all-inclusive spiritual life.
Thus in the Swami's first visit to London was laid an unshakable
foundation for any future work he might find fit to initiate. At first he
had thought his visit to England would be "just to probe a little", but he
soon found that his work there was not experimental but immensely
and practically successful beyond all expectation. The press had

welcomed and heralded his ideas; some of the most select clubs of the
city, as well as some leaders of its prominent clerical institutions had
invited him to lecture and had received him with marked admiration.
He was moving in the best circles of English society, and members of
the nobility were glad to reckon him as their friend. This acceptance of
himself and of his teachings completely revolutionized his ideas of
English men and women. In America he had found that the public was
most enthusiastic and responsive in taking up new ideas; but in
England he discovered that though his hearers were more conservative
in their declarations of acceptance and praise, they were all the more
fervent and staunch, once they had convinced themselves of the worth
of a teacher and his.ideas. Before he left London to return to America
and take up the thread of work there, he had the joyous satisfaction of
being able to count many men and women as his sincere friends and
earnest supporters. By November 18 he could write to a disciple in
Madras:
In England my work is really splendid.... Bands and bands conic
and I have no room for so many; so they squat on the floor, ladies and
all.... I shall have to go away next week, and they are so sorry. Some
think my work here will be hurt a little if I go away so soon. I do not
think so. I do not depend on men or things. The Lord alone I depend
upon and He works through me.
... I am really tired from incessant work. Any other Hindu would
have died if he had to work as hard as I have to.... I want to go to India
for a long rest.....
A correspondent of a daily journal, who attended the class
lectures of the Swami, writes.
It is indeed a rare sight to see some of the most fashionable ladies
in London seated on the floor cross-legged. of course, for want of
chairs, listening with all the Bhakti of an Indian chela [disciple] towards
his guru. The love and sympathy for India that the Swami is creating in
the minds of the English-speaking race is sure to be a tower of strength
for the progress of India.

In the very midst of his English work, however, the Swami was
receiving many letters, saying that the opportunity for American work.
was on the increase, and begging him to return to America for the sake
of his disciples there. His English friends, on the other hand, were
urging him to remain and to settle permanently in London.
Having himself witnessed its success, Swami Vivekananda was
perfectly aware of the importance of his work in England and
cherished a fervent faith in its possibilities. His message had found a
permanent place in the hearts of the people; he had gained a worker
like Mr. E. T. Sturdy; and Miss Margaret Noble had expressed leanings
to the cause. The.interest evinced by many others also filled him with
the hope of getting greater help for the work in his Motherland. Yet he
could not contemplate staying longer in England to the neglect of
America.
The Swami, moreover, was hoping for a helping hand from India.
As early as September 24 he had written to his brother-disciples, to
send a competent monk for the work in England. This he had done
partly at the request of Mr. Sturdy, who not only wanted to continue in
the Swami's absence, but knew that he would need the help of a
Sanskrit scholar in translating the Hindu scriptures. In writing to India,
the Swami first asked for Swami Ramakrishnananda, a learned and
staunch disciple of Shri Ramakrishna. But when medical advice went
counter to this proposalfor Swami Ramakrishnananda was then
suffering from a severe skin diseasehe asked insistently for either
Swami Abhedananda, or Swami Saradananda, or Swami
Trigunatitananda, forwarding money for travel expenses and giving
detailed instructions regarding dress, passage, and so on. As late as
November 18 the Swami expected Swami Saradananda to arrive in
London before he himself set sail for America. But he was
disappointed; for one reason or another, his brother-disciple could not
come until the following year. Thus before he left London, the Swami
advised those of his followers who were particularly interested in his
teachings to form themselves into a group and to meet regularly to
read the Bhagavad-Gita and other Hindu scriptures, and he promised
to return to England the following summer to continue his work.

On November 27 the Swami sailed on the R.M.S. Britannic. He was

gratified with what he said the Lord had accomplished through him,
and with renewed enthusiasm he now turned his face again to his
ardent followers in America. A rich Boston lady had promised to
support his work throughout the coming winter in New York, and
everything seemed bright and prosperous.
Writing to the Brahmavadin in February 1896, Mr. Sturdy said of
the Swami's visit to England:
The visit of the Swami Vivekananda to England has demonstrated
that there exists a thoughtful, educated body of people here, which
has only. to be found and properly approached, to benefit very largely
from the life-giving stream of Indian thought....
... Again, from pulpit utterances, making reference to Swami
Vivekananda's expositions here, it was not difficult to see how,
through him, some of the more open-minded of the Western clergy,
who were fortunate enough to make application, to their own system
of religion, of pure Vedanta teachings.... Swami Vivekananda's classes
drew together considerable numbers from the various ranks of English
life. The great majority of these, carried away with them a clear
conviction of his capacity as a teacher. Upon his return to America, in
order to keep together the introductory work thus accomplished,
classes were set on foot for the reading and study of the BhagavadGita and other kindred subjects.... These classes continue.... No
introduction is needed.... No society is formed, or will be formed, nor is
any money consideration accepted....
The Swami's success was due to his great art of presenting the
supreme insight he possessed. The above writer expressed it well
when he wrote of him as "a yogi coming with love in his heart and the
tradition of ages in his memory...... In the course of a single interview
the Swami would often present to the audience a series of new ideas
for the basis of a broad and all-inclusive spiritual life.
All felt that they were verify in the presence of an apostle with a
message, one who was by no means, as are so many religious teachers,
merely the propounder of philosophical titbits and intellectual

sophistries. They were irresistibly drawn to pay obeisance to the

overwhelming character of the man before them. To them he was the
herald of advanced ideas, claiming as he did that all religions were true
in a very real sense, though they were not true in so far as they drew
lines of demarcation and exclusiveness. Though some there were who
at first hesitated in accepting his teaching in full, they ended by calling
the Swami Master.

ESTABLISHING THE AMERICAN WORK

During Swami Vivekananda's absence from America of nearly four
months, his work had continued as best it could without him, carried
on and even spread to some extent by his disciples. The following
report, published in the Brahmavadin of January 18, 1896, gives Swami
Kripananda's account of its progress.
While our beloved Swami Vivekananda was away in England
disseminating his sublime teaching with well-deserved success, the
seed of truth sown in America did not die away as many were afraid it
would in the absence of the Master, but developed and is now
beginning to ripen its beautiful fruit. His followers continued his work
eagerly, holding regular well-attended meetings, in which they
endeavoured to enlighten each other on the difficult questions of
Vedanta philosophy, urged one another to make the moral lessons it
inculcates a living reality in their daily lives, and, by expanding the
circle of its followers, awakened a widespread interest in, and love of,
the Hindu people from whom this divine philosophy emanated. Some
of the Swami's disciples who, following the example of their great
sannyasin teacher, had renounced the world in order to devote
themselves entirely to the service of their fellow-men, carried the
Swami's message to other cities, and, as our people after a long period
of religious indifference and crude materialism are beginning to thirst
after spiritual truth, found a ready hearing and succeeded in forming
new centres for the propagation of the doctrine of love to God and of
universal brotherhood of man. Such independent circles were formed
at Buffalo (New York), and Detroit (Michigan), and other cities of the

Union where earnest truth-seeking men and women are carrying on

the work with a devotion and zeal worthy of our great cause.
The renouncing disciples of the Swami mentioned in the above
report were Madame Marie Louise and Leon Landsberg, to both of
whom he had given Sannyasa at Thousand Island Park and who were
thenceforth known, respectively, as Swami Abhayananda and Swami
Kripananda. Both tried in their own enthusiastic ways to keep the
message of Vedanta a living force until the Swami returned. Miss S.
Ellen Waldo, the devoted follower of the Swami, also played her role in
keeping the inspiration of the movement alive, though it would not
appear that she engaged herself in any preaching work until October of
1896, when the Swami authorized her to do so.
Swami Vivekananda arrived at New York on Friday, December 6,
1895, in excellent health and spirits, not withstanding the seasickness
he had suffered during the voyage. His visit to England and his
energetic work there, though a strenuous experience, had been most
pleasant. Together with Swami Kripananda, he now made his
headquarters at 228 West Thirty-ninth Street, a lodging house, where
the latter had been living and holding classes during November. The
Swami and his disciple occupied two spacious rooms, which could
accommodate as many as one hundred and fifty people, and which
were used for the Swami's regular scriptural classes. Later on, as will
be seen, halls of larger capacity were rented for his Sunday lectures.
The lady referred to in the previous chapter who had promised
him financial help for his winter work was hindered in giving it. But he
did not depend on men and external things for his success. Almost at
once he set himself to the task of teaching, taking as his subjects, even
as he had done the previous season, the four YogasKarma, Bhakti,
Raja, and Jnana. After starting his classes on the evening of December
9,.he worked incessantly until the Christmas holidays, regularly holding
two classes daily. In addition, he carried on a voluminous
correspondence; dictated his commentary on Patanjali's Yoga-Sutras,
which was embodied in his famous work Raja-Yoga; and granted many
private interviews. He also wrote some articles on Bhakti for the
Brahmavadin.

The disciples of the Swami were eager from the first to have his
extempore lectures and class talks recorded as he made little effort to
preserve his own teachings. Therefore in December of 1895 the officebearers of the New York Vedanta Society, which the Swami had
founded the previous year, engaged a stenographer to take down his
lectures. But it was found that due to a lack of familiarity with the
subject he was unable to keep up with the Swami's flow of words.
Another was engaged with the same result. Finally, a young man
named Josiah J. Goodwin, who had recently come to New York from
England, offered himself for the work. His credentials were excellent.
Besides having been a court reporter, he had had eleven years of
journalistic training and experience in editing three news-papers. He
was engaged, and the result was remarkable: he transcribed exactly all
the Swami's utterances. Further, although he had been a man of the
world, with a variegated experience, he forsook the worldly life and all
worldly pursuits almost from the moment his eyes fell upon the
Swami. The Swami told him many incidents of his past, and this
created such a moral revolution in him that his whole life was changed.
He became a most ardent disciple, even to the point of attending to
the Swami's personal needs. He would work day and night over the
lectures, taking them down stenographically and then typing them the
same day, in order to hand over the manuscripts to the newspapers for
publication and to be prepared for the same work on the following
day. Goodwin's transcripts also served the Brahmavadin in far-off
India. "Herewith I send some advance sheets on Bhakti and one lecture
on Karma", the Swami wrote to Alasinga Perumal on December 20.
"They have engaged a stenographer now to take down all the talks in
my classes. So you will have plenty of material [for the magazine]
now." The Swami prized "My faithful Goodwin", as he was wont to
speak of him, and Goodwin accompanied him wherever he went,
visiting Detroit and Boston when he went to those cities in the spring
of 1896 and later following him to England and even to India. Without
his tireless work, much of the Swami's thought and teachings would
have been lost to us; for the Swami was comparatively little given to
writing.

Towards the end of December of 1895 the Swami took advantage

of the Christmas holidays and the invitation of his friends Mr. and Mrs.
Francis Leggett, to make a ten-day visit to Ridgely1 Manor," their
country estate in Ulster County, New York. Returning from there he at
once commenced in New York a series of stirring free Sunday
afternoon lectures at Hardman Hall, beginning on January 5 with "The
Claims of Religion: Its Truth and Utility". On the following three
Sundays the Swami's subjects were "The Ideal of a Universal Religion",
January 12; "The Cosmos: the Macrocosm", January I 9; and "The
Cosmos, the Microcosm", January 26. In addition, he lectured on the
evening of January 12 before the Metaphysical Society in Brooklyn,
taking as his subject "Immortality". In January he also lectured before
the People's Church in New York. On the last day of the month he
spoke in Hartford, Connecticut, on "The Ideal of a Universal Religion".
Besides giving these public lectures, all of which drew crowds of
highly appreciative listeners, the Swami continued to hold his twicedaily classes at his lodgings on Thirty-ninth Street, adding now to his
classes on the Yogas a series of seven classes on "Sankhya and the
Vedanta". He continued as well the dictation of his free translation and
running commentary on Patanjali's yoga-Sutras.
The manner in which he wrote this commentary is of exceeding
interest. His staunch disciple Miss Sarah Ellen Waldo of Brooklyn, who

Recent study has established that the Swami spent the Christmas
holidays of 1895 at Ridgely Manor, leaving New York on Christmas Eve,
rather than as a guest of Mrs. Ole Bull at Cambridge, Massachusetts, as
has been previously though

came to New York everyday to cook, keep house, and act as all-round
secretary for the Swami, was his amanuensis. She says:
It was inspiring to see the Swami as he dictated to me the
contents of the work. In delivering his commentaries on the Sutras, he
would leave me waiting while he entered deep states of meditation or
self-contemplation, to emerge therefrom with some luminous
interpretation. I had always to keep the pen dipped in the ink. He
might be absorbed for long periods of time and then suddenly his
silence would be broken by some eager expression or some long
deliberate teaching.
The attendance at the Swami's daily classes was increasing beyond
all expectations, as was the attendance at his public lectures, which
were replete at this time with the deepest philosophical insight as well
as extraordinary outbursts of devotion, revealing his nature as
essentially a combination of the Jnani and the Bhakta, the saint and
true mystic in one. Often there was not even standing room in
Hardman Hall when he spoke there. Indeed, both his lectures and
classes were arousing an enormous wave of enthusiasm. Reporting on
January 19, 1896, on the character of the Swami's work the New York
Herald, the leading paper of the city, said:
Swami Vivekananda is a name to conjure with in certain circles of
New York society todayand those not the least wealthy or
intellectual. It is borne by a dusky gentleman from India, who for the
last twelve months has been making name and fame for himself in this
metropolis by the propagation of certain forms of Oriental religion,
philosophy and practice. Last winter his 'campaign centred in the
reception-room of a prominent hotel on Fifth Avenue. Having gained
for his teaching and himself a certain vogue in society, he now aims to
reach the common people and for that reason is giving a series of free
lectures on Sunday afternoons at Hardman Hall.
Sufficient success has attended the efforts of Swami
Vivekananda.... Of his early life he never speaks, save to talk in a
general way about the great Master who taught him the doctrines and
practices he is now trying to introduce in this country.

... His manner is undoubtedly attractive, and he is possessed of a

large amount of personal magnetism. One has but to glance at the
grave, attentive faces of the men and women who attend his classes to
be convinced that it is not the man's subject alone that attracts and
holds his disciples....
After giving a description of the Swami and his work in the United
States, the New York Herald continued as follows:
When I visited one of the Swami's classes recently, I found present
a well-dressed audience of intellectual appearance. Doctors and
lawyers, professional men and society ladies were among those in the
room.
Swami Vivekananda sat in the centre, clad in an ochre-coloured
robe. The Hindu had his audience divided on either side of him and
there were between fifty and a hundred persons present. The class
was on Karma-Yoga....
Following the lecture or instruction, the Swami held an informal
reception, and the magnetism of the man was shown by the eager
manner in which those who had been listening to him hastened to
shake hands or begged for the favour of an introduction. But
concerning himself the Swami will not say more than is absolutely
necessary. Contrary to the claim made by his pupils, he declares that
he has come to this country alone and not as officially representing any
order of Hindu monks. He belongs to the sannyasins, he will say, and is
hence free to travel without losing his caste....
We should pause here to remind the reader that the Swami's
success in America had not been easily come by. The way had been
exceedingly hard, and the obstacles he had to face were enormous
keeping him constantly on edge. While it is true that on the East Coast
the antagonism towards him was by no means as concerted or bigoted
as it had been in the Midwest, he nevertheless everywhere
encountered the weighty opposition of sheer ignorance. Some idea of
the difficulties may be gleaned from a letter written from New York to
the Brahmavadin on January 12, 1896, by Swami Kripananda. The
letter is quoted here at some length to show the Swami's mettle:

The wonderful success, which the Swami Vivekananda achieved in

spreading the religious and the philosophical ideas of the Hindus in
America, may lead one to the erroneous conclusion that this happy
result was due to a coincidence of favourable circumstances, rather
than to his extraordinary ability. It is only by studying the fin de sicle
condition of our country, by taking cognisance of the antagonistic
forces that had to be coped with, and considering the numerous
difficulties to be overcome in this attempt, that we come to fully
appreciate the grandeur of the work accomplished, and to realize that
the great success accompanying it, is solely due to the personality of
the Teacher, to his extraordinary moral, intellectual, and spiritual
endowments, and to his exceptional energy and will-power.
It is true that, on the occasion of the Parliament of Religions at
Chicago, many Indians succeeded in calling the attention of the world
to the light from the East, and caused a wave to pass over our country;
but this wave would have died away as quickly as it had come, without
leaving any lasting effect, had it not been for the efforts of this one
man who unremittingly persisted in grafting the Hindu religious ideas
on Western materialism and never rested until his work was crowned
with success.
At the time the American mind was coated with thick layers of'
superstition and bigotry that had come down from olden times, and
there was no humbug, no charlatanry, no imposition which had not left
there an impress extremely difficult to eradicate. The Americans are a
receptive nation. That is why the country is a hotbed of all kinds of
religious and irreligious monstrosities. There is no theory so absurd, no
doctrine so irrational, no claim so extravagant, no fraud so
transparent, but can find their numerous believers and a ready market.
This morbid craving for the abnormal - the occult, the sensational, has
practically brought about a revival of the Middle Ages. To satisfy this
craving, to feed the credulity of the people, hundreds of societies and
sects are born for the salvation of the world and to enable the
prophets to pocket $25 to $100 initiation fees. Hobgoblins, spooks,
Mahatmas, and new prophets were rising every day. In this bedlam of
religious cranks, in this devil's kitchen of fraud, imposture, and

knavery, the Swami appeared to teach the lofty religion of the Vedas,
the profound philosophy of the Vedanta, the sublime wisdom of the
ancient Rishis. The most unfavourable environment for such a task!
Before even starting this great mission, it was necessary to first
perform the Herculean labour of cleansing this Augean stable of
imposture, superstition, and bigotry, a task sufficient to discourage the
bravest heart, to dispirit the most powerful will. But the Swami was
not the man to be deterred by difficulties. Poor and friendless, with no
other support than God and his love for mankind, he set patiently to
work, determined not to give up until the message he had to deliver
would reach the hearts of truth-seeking men and women.
In the beginning crowds of people flocked to his lectures,
consisting partly of curiosity-seekers, partly of the representatives of
the cranky and fraudulent elements mentioned before, who thought
that they had found in the Swami a Proper tool to forward their
interests. Most of the latter type of persons tried to induce him to
embrace their cause, first by promises of support, and then by threats
of injuring him if he refused to ally himself with them. But they were all
grievously disappointed. For the first time they had met with a man
who could be neither bought nor frightened"the sickle had bit on a
stone", as the Polish proverb says. To all these propositions his only
answer was, "I stand for Truth. Truth will never ally itself with
falsehood. Even if all the world should be against me,. Truth must
prevail in, the end." He denounced fraud and superstition in whatever
guise they appeared, and all those untrue and erratic existences hid
themselves, like bats at the approach of daylight, in their haunts
before this apostle of Truth.
The methods and tactics of the Christian missionaries are well
known. They would have liked to have the Swami preach Christianity
as they understood it, but "It could not, should not be", as runs the
refrain of the German folksong. Indifferent to the filthy stories they set
in circulation about him, he peacefully continued to preach God and
Love and Truth, and their gossip had only advertised his lectures, and
gained him the sympathy of all fair-minded people....

A worthier antagonist, though not commensurate with his

strength, he had to meet in another class of people, the so-called Freethinkers, embracing the atheists, materialists, agnostics, rationalists,
and all those who, on principle, are averse to anything that savours of
religion. They thought that this Hindu monk was an easy match for
them, and that all his theology would be crushed under the weight of
Western civilization, Western philosophy, and Western science. So
sure were they of their triumph, that they invited him, in New York, to
lecture before their society, anxious to show to their numerous
followers how easily religious claims could be refuted by the powerful
arguments of their logic and pure reasoning. I shall never forget that
memorable evening when the Swami appeared single-handed to face
the forces of materialism, arrayed in their heaviest armour of law, and
reason, and logic, and common sense, of matter, and force, and
heredity, and all the stock phrases calculated to awe and terrify the
ignorant. Imagine their surprise and consternation when they found
that, far from being intimidated by these big words, he proved himself
a master in wielding their own weapons, and as familiar with the
arguments of materialism as with those of the Advaita philosophy. He
showed them that their much-vaunted Western civilization consisted
principally in the development of the art to destroy their fellow-men,
that their Western science could not answer the most vital questions
of life and being, that their immutable laws, so much talked of, had no
outside existence apart from the human mind, that the very idea of
matter was a metaphysical conception, and that it was the muchdespised metaphysics upon which ultimately rested the very basis of
their materialism. With an irresistible logic he demonstrated that their
knowledge proved itself incorrect, not by comparison with knowledge
which is true, but by the very laws upon which it depends for its basis;
that pure reasoning could not help admitting its own limitations and
pointed to something beyond reason; and that rationalism when
carried to its last consequences must ultimately land us at a something
which is above matter, above force, above sense, above thought and
even consciousness, and of which all these are but manifestations.

The powerful effect of this lecture could be seen on the following

day, when numbers of the materialistic camp came to sit at the feet of
the Hindu monk, and listened to his sublime utterances on God and
religion.
Thus the Swami gathered around himself, from among the most
heterogeneous classes of society, a large and ever-increasing following
of sincere men and women animated with the only desire to pursue
truth for truth's own sake.
This is a delineation of the negative side of the Swami's work. He
had first to clear the ground and lay a deep Foundation for the grand
edifice to he built.
It should be mentioned here that the Swami did not fully approve
of the publication of the above letter in the Brahmavadin of February
15, 1896; for its critical tone was not one that he held or encouraged.
In March of 1896 he wrote to Alasinga, who was publishing the
magazine:
A letter you published from Kripananda in the Brahmavadin was
rather unfortunate.
Kripananda is smarting under the blows the Christians have given
him and that sort of letter is vulgar,' pitching into everybody. It is not in
accord with the tone of the Brahmavadin. So in future when
Kripananda writes, tone down everything that is an attack upon any
sect, however cranky or crude. Nothing which is against any sect, good
or bad, should get into the Brahmavadin. Of course, we must not show
active sympathy with frauds.
The Brahmavadin was one of the Swami's important works that he
had initiated and directed from America. After he had started his work
in New York in the beginning of 1895, he had constantly urged his
disciples in Madras to launch a magazine on Vedantic lines. He had
helped them to undertake this project by sending them enough money
from the proceeds of his secular lectures, and thus the magazine called
Brahmavadin had come into existence in the September of 1895.
So widely had the Swami's fame as a public lecturer spread in New
Yorkhe was called the "lightning orator"that it was deemed wise

to rent Madison Square Garden, on the corner of Madison Avenue and

Twenty-sixth Street, a huge hall with a seating capacity of over fifteen
hundred, for his second series of Sunday lectures, which he gave in
February. The subjects of this series were "Bhakti-Yoga", February 9;
"The Real and the Apparent Man", February 16; and "My Master, Shri
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa", February 23.
During this month of February the Swami spoke on invitation
before a crowded audience at the Ethical Association of Brooklyn,
taking as his subject "The Hindu Conception of God: the Atman".
Describing the Swami's personality at this time, Helen Huntington
wrote on March 2, 1896, to the Brahmavadin, from Brooklyn:
.... But it has pleased God to send to us out of India a spiritual
guidea teacher whose sublime philosophy is slowly and surely
permeating the ethical atmosphere of our country; a man of
extraordinary power and purity, who has demonstrated to us a very
high plane of spiritual living, a religion of universal, unfailing charity,
self-renunciation, and the purest sentiments conceivable by the
human intellect. The Swami Vivekananda has preached to us a religion
that knows no bonds of creeds and dogmas, is uplifting, purifying,
infinitely comforting, and altogether without blemish-based on the
love of God and man and on absolute chastity....
Swami Vivekananda has made many friends outside the circle of
his followers; he has met all phases of society on equal terms of
friendship and brotherhood; his classes and lectures have been
attended by the most intellectual people and advanced thinkers of our
cities; and his influence has already grown into a deep, strong undercurrent of spiritual awakening. No praise or blame has moved
him to either approbation or expostulation; neither money nor
position has influenced or prejudiced him. Towards demonstrations of
undue favouritism, he has invariably maintained a priestly attitude.of
inattention, checking foolish advances with a dignity impossible to
resist, blaming not any but wrong-doers and evil-thinkers,
exhorting.only to purity and right living. He is altogether such a man as
"kings delight to honour".

In a letter dated February 19, 1896, to the Brahmavadin, Swami

Kripananda described the influence exercised by the Swami during this
period as follows:
Since my last letter (of January 31) an immense amount of work
has been accomplished by our beloved teacher in the furtherance of
our great cause. The wide interest awakened by his teaching is shown
in the ever-increasing number of those who attend the class lessons
and the large crowds that come to hear his public Sunday lectures....
... The strong current of religious thought sent out in his lectures
and writings, the powerful impetus given by his teachings to the
pursuit of truth without regard to inherited superstitions and
prejudices, though working silently and unconsciously, is exercising a
beneficial and lasting effect on the popular mind and so becoming.an
important factor in the spiritual uplifting of society. Its most palpable
manifestation is shown in the growing demand for Vedantic literature
and the frequent use of Sanskrit terms by people from whom one
would least expect to hear them. Atman, Purusha, Prakriti, Moksha,
and similar expressions have acquired full citizen-ship, and the names
of Shankaracharya and Ramanuja are becoming with many almost as
familiar as Huxley and Spencer. The public libraries are running after
everything that has reference to India; the books of Max Mller,
Colebrooke, Deussen, Burnouf, and of all the authors that have ever
written in English on Hindu philosophy, find a ready sale; and even the
dry and tiresome Schopenhauer, on account of his Vedantic
background, is being studied with great eagerness.
People are quick to appreciate the grandeur and beauty of a
system which, equally as a philosophy and a religion, appeals to the
heart as well as to the reason, and satisfies all the religious cravings of
human nature; especially so, when it is being expounded by one who,
Eke our teacher with his wonderful oratory, is able to rouse at will the
dormant love of the divinely sublime in the human soul, and with his
sharp and irrefutable logic to easily convince the most stubborn mind
of the most scientific matter-of-fact man. No wonder, therefore, that
this interest in Hindu thought is to be met with among an classes of
society....

Yes, many famous philosophers and scientists, and the very best of
New York's social representatives attended the Swami's lectures or
came to his rooms to see him and went away filled with a new spiritual
vision and a luminous insight. T'hc great electrical scientist, Nicola
Tesla, hearing the Swami's of the Sankhya philosophy, was much
interested in its cosmogony and its rational theories of the Kalpas
(cycles), Prana, and Akasha, to which, he said, modern exposition
science might well look for the solution of cosmological problems. He
told the Swami that he thought he could prove them mathematically.
The Swami wrote on February 13, 1896, to E. T. Sturdy: "Mr. Tesla was
charmed to hear about the Vedantic Prana and Akasha and the Kalpas.
which according to him are the only theories modern science can
entertain. Now both Akasha and Prana again are produced from the
cosmic Mahat, the Universal Mind, the Brahma or Ishvara. Mr. Tesla
things he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are
reducible to potential energy. I am to go and see him next week, to get
this new mathematical demonstration. In that case, the Vedantic
cosmology will be placed on the surest of foundations...."
It was at this time that Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French
actress, the "Divine Sarah", as she was called, also sought an interview
with the Swami and expressed her admiration and intense interest in
the sublime teachings of the philosophy he so eloquently and truly
represented. Among other people of note whom the Swami met and
with whom he conversed were, of course, many liberal Christian
clergymen. The well-known and influential Dr. Lyman Abbott, for
instance, invited him to lunch more than once, and the two must have
talked at length together. Dr. Abbott was pastor of the fashionable
Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn and editor-in-chief of the
Outlook, then an important and widely read periodical. Through the
Swami's contact with such people his message spread out in ever
widening circles, unbeknown even to him.
In a letter dated February 17 he wrote to his friends in India that
he had succeeded in rousing the very heart of American civilization.
This was literally true; thousands of all classes had not only heard his
message, but had actually proclaimed themselves as his disciples.

Many, moreover, expressed a strong desire to be initiated by him into

Brahmacharya. Thus his desire of reaching the people was fulfilled.
On Thursday, February 20 several young men and women took
Mantras, and on the preceding Thursday, the 13th, Dr. Street, a devout
disciple, was initiated by the Swami as a sannyasi, with the name of
Yogananda. The impressive ceremony was performed in the presence
of the other sannyasi and Brahmachari disciples. The fact that the
Swami had made three sannyasis within one year, that three persons
representing learning, position, and culture should have abandoned
the world and the worldly life, taking the vows of chastity and poverty
and obedience, showed how he had brought home, to some at least in
that land of worldly enjoyment, a strong conviction of the necessity of
renunciation as the only means of realizing the Truth. This fact was
rightly regarded as "one of the most marvellous evidences of the
Swami's powerful influence of good" over those who came into
personal contact with him. Indeed, so many were the men and women
in America who had come under the Swami's beneficent influence and
who called him "Master" that Swami Kripananda concludes his letter
to the Brahmavadin, quoted above, by saying in a half-humorous way:
By the by, India had better at once make clear her title to the
ownership of the Swami. They are about to write his biography for the
national Encyclopaedia of the United States of America, thus making of
him an American citizen. The time may come when, even as seven
cities disputed with each other for the honour of having given birth to
Homer, seven countries may claim our Master as theirs, and thus rob
India of the honour of producing one of the noblest of her children.
The Swami closed his public lectures at Madison Square Garden on
February 23 with an inspired lecture on "My Master", which has
become famous as a masterpiece of eloquence and as a glorious
tribute to Shri Ramakrishna. By this time the Swami had concluded his
class lectures on Karma-Yoga, Raja-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga and Jnana-Yoga.
The first two of these class-series were, by the labours of Mr. Goodwin,
ready for publication and were shortly to come out in book form,
constituting two of the Swami's great works, Karma-Yoga and RajaYoga. On the whole, the American journals received and reviewed

these books favourably, and they attained a wide circulation, Raja-yoga

arousing considerable discussion among the psychologists and
physiologists of some of the leading universities. Bhakti-Yoga was soon
to be published in India, and, in addition, several of the Swami's
Sunday lectures, which were later to form a part of his book, JnanaYoga, had already appeared in pamphlet form.
Aside from creating a great legacy of literature during this season
in New York, the Swami had recognized the fledgling Vedanta Society,
into a more definite form, establishing within it an Executive
Committee to handle all business matters, such as the management of
lectures and classes, the publishing and distributing of his books, and
the keeping of accounts. Although the Society did not open a
membership roll until later, its officers were dedicated to carrying on
organized work and to forwarding the study and propagation of
Vedanta. It invited members of all religious creeds and organizations to
become students of Vedanta without a change of faith; Toleration and
acceptance of all religions were its watchwords and described its
general character. The Swami made Mr. Francis H. Leggett, one of the
wealthy and influential residents of the city, the President of the
Vedanta Society. For Secretary, he chose Miss Mary Phillips, a lady
prominent in many circles of charitable, and intellectual work. The
other offices were held by the Swami's initiated disciples. And among
those who counted themselves as eager workers in his cause at this
time were Miss Waldo, Mrs. Arthur Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Walter
Goodyear, and Miss Emma Thursby, the famous singer.
One of the Swami's main purposes in organizing his classes into a
society, besides carrying on the spiritual work he had commenced, was
to bring about an interchange of ideals and ideas between the East and
the West. He wanted to create centres of vital and continual
communication between the two worlds and to make "open doors, as
it were, through which the East and the West could pass freely back
and forth, without a feeling of strangeness, as from one home to
another." The officers and close friends of the Society had been urging
upon him the advisability of sending for one of his brother-disciples to
conduct his classes and work in general during, his absence, and

indeed he already had in mind the plan of bringing some of his

brothers from India to teach and preach in the West. As has been seen
in the previous chapter, when he was in England, he had written to
Swami Saradananda that he desired him to come, but for one reason
or another his departure had been delayed. Swami Saradananda,
however, finally sailed from Calcutta late in February, and in the first
part of April arrived in England, where he was to be the guest of Mr. E.
T. Sturdy. Later in July 1896 he would come to America. In the
meanwhile the Swami, impatient for workers from India,. had tried to
enlist a lay disciple from Madras. On November 18, 1895 he had
written to Alasinga: "I have sent for a sannyasi from Calcutta to leave
him in London. I want one more for America. Can't you send a strong
fellow from Madras? Of course, I will pay everything.... I want my own
man. Guru-bhakti is the foundation of all spiritual development." But
this attempt had not borne fruit.
The Swami also wanted some of his American and English disciples
to go to India to teach and preach there. In America it would be a
religious teaching; and in India it would be a practical teaching, a
message of science, industry, economics, applied sociology,
organization and co-operation. Day and night the Swami pondered on
the ways and means of reconciling these two great worlds-the East and
the West; and in a form of prophetic vision, he would often tell his
American followers that the time would come when the lines of
demarcation, both in thought and in ideal, between the two would be
obliterated.
This reconciliation between these two worlds needed a basis. In
the Swami's view, Vedanta was, of course, that basis, particularly in its
most broad and all-inclusive interpretation, which the Swami had
"read", as he once said, in the great life of Shri Ramakrishna, who "had
never a word of condemnation for any". The Master had opened the
doors to all people in all ways of life. In his inspired mood at Thousand
Island Park the Swami had spoken about this. "Ramakrishna came to
teach the religion of today, constructive, not destructive. He had to go
afresh to Nature to ask for facts, and he got scientific religion, which
never says 'believe', but 'see'; 'I see, and you too can see.' Use the

same means and you will reach the same vision. God will come to
everyone, harmony is within the reach of all...
The world needed to receive these ideas, "the new lights for this
day" in all their freshness and, abundance. This message had to reach
the people of all lands, and for this purpose, as the Swami said, some
"self-adjusting organization is the great need of our time." This was the
motive that actuated him, the practical Vedantist, to organize his New
York work all the sooner. New York being the metropolis of America,
and London being the metropolis of England, he knew that if he could
leave organized societies in both these cities, the work of acquainting
the whole English-speaking Western world with his message would in
time become a definite possibility. With this object in view, he not only
founded a Vedanta Society, but was also training such of his disciples
as he could depend upon. Thus upon Miss S. E. Waldo, who became
known as "Sister Haridasi", the Swami later on conferred spiritual
powers and authority, saying that she alone, of all others, was best
able to preach Vedanta. Then, too, he had been carefully training
Swamis Kripananda, Abhayananda, Yogananda, and a number of
Brahmacharis to have an intimate and learned acquaintance with the
Vedanta philosophy in its threefold aspects. And there were those of
his disciples who were achieving true insight into his message. Upon all
these he was relying to further the cause of the Vedanta during his
intended absence in England and subsequently in India.
Having finished his work in New York on February 23 with his
public lecture "My Master", the Swami left on Tuesday, March 3 for
Detroit, where he had been invited to hold classes. Two years earlier
he had drawn crowds to his lectures in Detroit and had been the
subject of prolonged and heated controversy in the newspapers. And
when he arrived in Detroit this time, he found that a similar
controversy had been revived in the Press.
He had many good friends in the city, among them Mrs. John
Bagley, his erstwhile hostess. (Unfortunately Mrs. Bagley was not in
town during his present visit; nor was he ever to see her again, for two
years later she passed away.) The Swami remained in Detroit for about
two weeks, during which short time he held twenty-two classes. In

addition, he gave three public lectures, speaking twice on Wednesday,

March 4 morning and evening, on "The Ideal of a Universal Religion",
and on Sunday, March 15 on "India's Message to the World". Of this
period Mrs. Mary Funke writes:
... He was accompanied by his stenographer, the faithful Goodwin.
They occupied a suite of rooms at The Richelieu, a small family hotel,
and had the use of the large drawing-room for class work and lectures.
The room was not large enough to accommodate the crowds and to
our great regret many were turned away. The room, as also the hall,
staircase and library were literally packed. At that time he was all
Bhakti-the love of God was a hunger and a thirst with him. A kind of
divine madness seemed to take possession of him, as if his heart would
burst with longing for the Beloved Mother.
His last public appearance in Detroit was at the temple Beth-El of
which the Rabbi Louis Grossman, an ardent admirer of the Swami was
the pastor. It was Sunday evening, and so great was the crowd that we
almost feared a panic. There was a solid line reaching far out into the
street and hundreds were turned away. Vivekananda held the large
audience spellbound, his subjects being "India's Message to the West",
and "The Ideal of a Universal Religion". He gave us a most brilliant and
masterly discourse. Never had I seen the Master look as he looked that
night. There was something in his beauty not of earth. It was as if the
spirit had almost burst the bonds of flesh, and it was then that I first
saw a foreshadowing of the end. He was much exhausted from years
of overwork, and it was even then to be seen that he was not long for
this world. I tried to close my eyes to it, but in my heart I knew the
truth. He had needed rest but felt that he must go on.
Of the Swami's success in Detroit, another disciple wrote in the
Brahmavadin of April 25, 1896.
... In spite of the many attacks of the missionaries, his classes and
public lectures were attended to overcrowding. Rabbi Grossman
proffered the use of the temple Beth-El, which could not hold the great
crowd, so that hundreds of people had to leave without hearing the
great Hindu preacher. The Rabbi, in other respects too, proved his

liberality and great friendship for the Swami by taking up his defence
against the attacks of the clergymen in the newspapers. His
introduction of the Swami in the temple was one grand eulogy of the
Hindus and Hinduism....
"The attacks of the clergymen in the newspapers", mentioned
above, had reference to a newspaper battle that was raging between
the Swami's detractors-specifically a diehard antagonistic Christian
missionary - and his ardent supporters. This heated newspaper
controversy gave so much publicity to the Swami's presence in Detroit
that his classes, originally intended only for earnest students of
Vedanta, were at the beginning packed with strangers and curiosity
seekers. All but a few of the Swami's friends were crowded out. To
remedy the situation, three of his classes during his stay in Detroit
were opened to the public; the rest were kept private. It was in order
to give rejoinder to those who attacked him that the Swami delivered
his third and last public lecture in Detroit on Sunday, March 15. His
subject, as we have seen, was "India's Message to the World".
Our next glimpse of the Swami reveals him in Boston, where he
worked for nearly two weeks in the second half of March 1896. During
this period, one of the most remarkable incidents of his whole mission
took place; we find him speaking before the professors and students of
the Graduate Philosophical Club of Harvard University. According to a
report appearing in the Brahmavadin, April 25, 1896, this engagement,
together with other lectures and classes in Boston, were "arranged by
one of his followers, a noble lady and an enthusiastic adherent of the
Vedanta philosophy." The reference is, of course, to Mrs. Bull. Early in
the year the arrangements had already been under way. "I have
received your letter," the Swami had written to Mrs. Bull in the first
part of January, "and also another from the Secretary of the Harvard
Metaphysical Club." These letters no doubt requested him to speak at
Harvard; for on January 15 we find a Mr, John P. Fox writing to Mrs.
Bull: "I had a note from Vivekananda Monday [January 13], saying he
expects to come to Boston in March or perhaps in February and will he
only too glad to speak to the students. It will he not before the Harvard
Religious Union, but the Graduate Philosophical Club the most

philosophical organization at Harvard so that the audience will he

the best the University can afford." The audience was, indeed, the
best, intellectually speaking, that America could afford, for the Harvard
Graduate Philosophical Club was then one of the foremost intellectual
bodies in the world, numbering among its members such distinguished
thinkers as George H. Palmer, William James, Josiah Royce, Hugo
Munsterberg, and the then young George Santayana. The Swami had
accepted the invitation, and on March 25 he spoke before the Club on
"The Vedanta Philosophy". It was a trying experience for him to speak
before this great critical gathering, but he was at his best, and his
interpretation of his philosophy created an indelible impression on the
minds of the professors and excited the most hearty commendation.
Indeed, they offered him the chair of Eastern Philosophy in the
University. But he could not accept this as he was a sannyasi.
In the introduction to the pamphlet entitled "Vedanta
Philosophy", which embodied the Swami's address, together with a
record of his answers to questions during the discussion that followed,
the Reverend C. C. Everett, D.D., LL.D., Dean of the Harvard Divinity
School, writes:
... Vivekananda has created a high degree of interest in himself
and his work. Them are indeed few departments of study more
attractive than the Hindu thought. It is a rare pleasure to see a form of
belief that to most seems so far away and unreal as the Vedanta
system, represented by an actually living and extremely intelligent
believer. This system is not to be regarded merely. as a curiosity, as a
speculative vagary. Hegel said that Spinozism is the necessary
beginning of all philosophizing. This can be said even more
emphatically of the Vedanta system. We Occidentals busy ourselves
with the manifold. We can, however have no understanding of the
manifold, if we have no sense of the One in which the manifold exists.
The reality of the One is the truth which the East may well teach us;
and we owe a debt of gratitude to Vivekananda that he has taught this
lesson so effectively.
The Swami's answers to the Harvard Graduate Philosophical Club
were full of penetrating wit, eloquence, and philosophical freshness

and vitality. In his address he had given a remarkably clear exposition

of the cosmology and general principles of the Vedanta, showing the
points of reconciliation between the theories of science and those of
the Vedanta concerning matter and force. He then answered questions
asked in a critical spirit pertaining to the influence of Hindu philosophy
on the Stoic philosophy of the Greeks, to caste, to the relation
between Advaita and Dvaita, to the theory of the Absolute, and to the
contrast between self-hypnotism and Raja-Yoga. Speaking of the last,
the Swami remarked that Oriental psychology was infinitely more
thorough than Occidental; it asserts that man is already hypnotized
and that yoga is an effort at de-hypnotization of self He said: "It is the
Advaitist alone that does not care to he hypnotized. His is the only
system that more or less understands that hypnotism comes with
every form of dualism. But the Advaitist says, throw away even the
universe, throw away even your own body and mind and let nothing
remain, in order to get rid of hypnotism perfectly...." Asked about the
yoga powers, the Swami replied that the highest form of yoga power
manifested itself in a Vedanta character and in the continuous
perception of divinity, as exemplified in the instance of the yogi
Pavhari Baba. "He was bitten by a cobra," the Swami related, "and...
fell down on the ground. In the evening he revived, and when asked
what had happened he said, 'A messenger came from my Beloved.' All
hatred and anger and jealousy had been burned out of this man.
Nothing could make him react; he was infinite love. That is the real
yogi." Hi. added that the highest spiritual power embodied itself in a
demonstration of spiritual freedom and in a constant accession of
spiritual vision and insight, Nirvikalpa Samadhi being the climax
thereof. When asked by the professors, "What is the Vedantic idea of
civilization?" the Swami answered that true civilization was the
manifestation of the divinity within man, and that that land was the
most civilized wherein the highest ideals were made practical.
Prior to this famous lecture at the Harvard University the Swami
gave two afternoon talks to a group of Harvard students at Mrs. Bull's
house in Cambridge on March 22 and 24. He also spoke at the
prestigious and social-reform-conscious Twentieth Century Club in the

afternoon of March 28, on "The Vedanta: Its Practical Bearing; How It

Differs from Other Philosophies".
In Boston, the Swami was one of the distinguished guests of the
Procopeia Club, a metaphysical society of high standing. He delivered
five public lectures at this Club before large audiences, on the evenings
of March 21, 23, 26, 27, and 28. His subjects were respectively: "The
Science of Work", "Devotion", "The Ideal of a Universal Religion",
"Realization or the Ultimate of Religion", and "The Upanishads". "The
Ideal of a Universal Religion" was one of his most favourite subjects on
which he spoke almost in every city and town he visited. It was a title
that encompassed one of his basic teachings-the fundamental unity of
all religions and the necessity for variety in religious expression and
practice. He pointed out that if a universal religion could ever exist, it
must be a religion of principles whose background should be Advaita
and which should vary according to the individual temperaments of
nations and personalities.
The Harvard professors, and, indeed, all those who came into
contact with him, found that Swami Vivekananda's philosophy was
more highly moral and emotional than purely intellectual. True, it
included logic and philosophical form, but in its essential nature it was
religion, holding up realization and spiritual freedom as its aim. His
Harvard experience was only one of many hundreds; wherever he
went, whenever he taught, he was always confronted with a host of
questions, and his answers, being always extempore, kept him
constantly on the intellectual qui vive. Whatever the question asked,
his answer invariably related it to his own actual realization. In all his
teaching in America and, for that matter, in England, the Swami's main
theme is found to be that of the Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy of
Infinite Oneness. In the Advaita, he taught, there is no dependence, all
manifoldness is lost, all fear is blotted out, and only light shines forththe Light of the self-manifesting Soul. Human personality is
transfigured in the revelation of Pure Divinity.
Let us quote here excerpts from the Boston Evening Transcript of
March 30, for that journal noted the Swami's activities during his stay
in Boston and gave a summary, of the lectures delivered there:

The Swami Vivekananda has, during the past few days, conducted
a most successful work in connection with the Procopeia. During this
time he has given four class lectures for the Club itself, with constant
audiences of between four and five hundred people, at the Allen
Gymnasium, 44 St. Botolph Street; two at the house of Mrs. Ole Bull in
Cambridge; and one before the professors and graduate students of
the philosophical department of Harvard University.
... One of his lectures during the week has been, "The Ideal of a
Universal Religion".... The Swami is not a preacher of theory. If there is
any one feature of the Vedanta philosophy, which he propounds,
which appears especially refreshing, it is its intense capability of
practical demonstration. We have become almost wedded to the idea
that religion is a sublime theory which can [not] he brought into
practice and made tangible for us only in another life, but the Swami
shows us the folly of this. In preaching the Divinity of Man he
inculcates a spirit of strength into us which will have none of those
barriers between this life and actual realization of the sublime that, to
the ordinary man, appear as insurmountable.
Quoting the sum and substance of the Swami's lectures during the
month of March on Karma-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, and the one on the
Vedanta philosophy before Harvard University, the journal concludes
with the following brief resume of his lecture on Raja-Yoga at Boston:
In discussing Raja-Yoga, the psychological way to union with God,
the Swami expanded upon the power to which the mind can attain
through concentration, both in reference to the physical and the
spiritual world. It is the one method that we have in all knowledge.
From the lowest to the highest, from the smallest worm to the highest
sage, they have to 'use this one method. The astronomer uses it in
order to discover the mysteries of the skies, the chemist in his
laboratory, the professor in his chair. This is the one call, the one
knock, which opens the gates of nature and lets out the floods of light.
This is the one key, the only power concentration. In the present
state of our bodies we are so much distracted, the mind is frittering
away its energies upon a hundred sorts of things. By scientific control
of the forces which work the body this can be done, and its ultimate

effect is realization. Religion cannot consist of talk. It only becomes

religion when it becomes tangible, and until we strive to feel that of
which we talk so much, we are no better than agnostics, for the latter
are sincere and we are not.
The Twentieth Century Club had the Swami as their guest on
Saturday [March 28], and heard an address from him on the "Practical
Side of the Vedanta Philosophy". During his stay in Boston the Swami
of course saw many of his old friends, among them 'Professor John
Henry Wright, with whom he had a long talk on the afternoon of
March 27. The Swami recounted his many experiences since last
meeting the Professor, speaking as a son to a proud father; for, as the
Swami had once written, he had been the first man to stand as his
friend in America. The Professor was delighted to see the Swami again.
To his wife he wrote: "He [the Swami] is become so much gentler, and
wiser, and sweeter. Indeed, he is most charming.... [He] has evidently
swept Professor James off his feet. Miss Sibbens told me this evening
that he [Professor William James] was going in to Boston to hear his
talk at every opportunity."
From Boston the Swami travelled on March 30 to Chicago, the city
of his first triumph in the Western world. Here he now held a number
of successful classes, arranged by his friends. He remained in Chicago
about two weeks, and then on April 11, returned to New York. There
he worked on his Harvard lecture on the Vedanta Philosophy, which
was going to be printed, adding explanatory notes to it. On April 13 he
gave a brief talk to the students of the Vedanta Society on, "The Chief
Principles of Vedanta and Its Prospects in America".
More and more as time had gone on during his stay in the West,
the Swami found it necessary to systematize his religious ideas. To do
so, he felt he would necessarily have to reorganize the entire Hindu
philosophical thought and group its distinctive features around the
leading tenets of the Hindu religious systems, thus making it more
intelligible to Western minds. He wanted to bring out, according to
different schools of Vedanta, the ideas of the soul, God, and the final
goal; the relation of matter and force, the Vedantic conception of
cosmology and evolution, and how some of the most wonderful

discoveries of modern science were "only rediscoveries of what had

been found ages ago". He also intended to draw up a classification of
the Upanishads according to the passages which have a distinct
bearing on the Advaita, the Vishishtadvaita, and the Dvaita
conceptions, in order to show how all of them can he reconciled. He
planned to write a book, carefully working out all these ideas in a
definite form. That he had long had this in mind is shown by a letter he
had written to Alasinga Perumal on May 6 of 1895, in which he had
said:
Now I will tell you my discovery. All of religion is contained in the
Vedanta, that is, in the three stages of the Vedanta philosophy, the
Dvaita. the Vishishtadvaita and Advaita; one comes after the other.
These are the three stages of spiritual growth in man. Every one is
necessary. This is the essential of religion: The Vedanta, applied to the
various ethnic customs and creeds of India, is Hinduism. The first stage,
i.e. Dvaita, applied to the ideas of the ethnic groups of Europe, is
Christianity; as applied to the Semitic groups, Mohammedanism. The
Advaita, as applied in its yoga-perception form, is Buddhism etc. Now
by religion is meant the Vedanta; the applications must vary according
to the different needs, surroundings, and other circumstances of
different nations. You will find that, although the philosophy is the
same, the Shaktas, Shaivas, etc. apply it each to their own special cult
and forms. Now, in your journal write article after article on these
three systems, showing their harmony as one following after the other,
and at the same time, keeping off the ceremonial forms altogether.
That is, preach the philosophy, the spiritual part, and let people suit it
to their own forms. I wish to write a book on this subject, therefore I
wanted the three Bhashyas [commentaries]...
Again in May of 1895 he had written to Mrs. Bull: "The different
books on Vedanta are now being sent over to me from India. I expect
to write a book in English on the Vedanta philosophy in its three
stages, when I am at Thousand Islands...." As we saw in the preceding
chapter, in the early part of 1895 he had been writing for the VedantaSutras with the Bhashyas of all sects.

But, his first, immediate task was, he felt, to remodel the Indian
thought-forms they contained along lines acceptable to the modern
intellect of the West. Writing to Alasinga on February 17, 1896 he
expressed this desire:
To put the Hindu ideas into English and then make out of dry
philosophy and intricate mythology and queer startling psychology, a
religion which shall be easy, simple, popular, and at the same time
meet the requirements of the highest mindsis a task which only
those can understand who have attempted it. The abstract Advaita
must become livingpoeticin everyday life; out of hopelessly
intricate mythology. must come concrete moral forms; and out of
bewildering yogism must come the most scientific and practical
psychology and all this must be put into a form so that a child may
grasp it. That is my life's work. The Lord only knows how far I shall
succeed. To work we have the right, not to the, fruits thereof. It is hard
work, my boy, hard work!
Yes, the task the Swami had set for himself was Herculean; but
certainly he succeeded in a large measure. Although his teachings were
firmly based on Vedantic scriptures, they were remarkably clear and
modern in their expression. Whensoever he made comments in his
classes upon the Vedas or other Hindu scriptures, he threw a whole
world of light and revelation upon the texts. Such was the case also in
his many public lectures during this fruitful and intensive season of his
work in America.
Indeed, the Swami's experience in the West and his constant
meditation on, and study of, religious matters drew out of him
surprisingly original observations upon Indian philosophy, which
culminated in his bringing about later in India itself a thorough
restatement of Indian ideas. And it may be said without dispute that in
a special sense he was the first of Indian philosophers to show that
Hindu spiritual ideas were truly scientific as well. Further, it was he
alone who pointed out the philosophical truths behind the Puranic and
mythological forms of Hinduism.

The Swami's health was not good during his stay in Chicago, and
by the time he returned to New York in mid April of 1896, he was
physically worn out. He had worked to the point of exhaustion. Indeed,
sometimes, after he had made a railway journey, it seemed for days as
though the wheels of the train revolved with their noise in his brain;
and though his head was always clear, at times he grew exceedingly
nervous. The strain of the years of his Sadhana in the East and teaching
in the West had been too much for him. His friends who knew that he
had given himself wholly and unstintedly for the good of those who
made his message the gospel of their lives, could not help seeing the
cost to his body. As Mrs. Funke had noted in Detroit, "it was even then
to he seen that he was not long for this world." And, as a matter of
fact, slowly but surely his body was failing. He himself was aware that
it could hardly bear such long continuing and excessive strain, and in a
number of letters of this period he made reference to this fact. On
March 23, 1896 he wrote from Boston to Alasinga Perumal: "I am going
to England next month. I am afraid I have worked too much; my nerves
are almost shattered by this long continued work. I don't want you to
sympathize, but only I write this so that you may not expect much from
me now. Work on, the best way you can. I have very little hope of
being able to do great things now. I am glad, however, that a good deal
of literature has been created by taking down stenographic notes of
my lectures. Four books are ready.... Well, I am satisfied that I have
tried my best to do good, and shall have a clear conscience when I
retire from work and sit down in a cave."
But "born as a sacrifice to the Mother" as he was, retiring from
work and sitting down in a cave was never to be his lot. Indeed, he only
worked harder than ever. In the spring of 1896 letters had come
pouring in to him, beseeching him to come to England again and to
systematize the work he had initiated there. He felt the urgent need of
doing so, and thus on April 15 at 12 noon, he sailed on the White Star
Line's S.S. Germanic for England, there to take up another season of
strenuous teaching. "A number of us went to see him off," Sister
Haridasi wrote in a letter to a friend, "and as long as the eye could

follow, he waved an orange scarf to us, in response to those we waved

to him."
Though he had been in a constant whirlwind of work during his
visit in America, Swami Vivekananda had delighted in hours of leisure
when he could throw off his burden of teaching and preaching. At such
times he would enjoy himself like a child. The giving of his message
was, for him, the giving of his life's blood, and thus in hours of mental
and physical weariness nothing interested him more than to "talk
nonsense" and be amused. He would take up a copy of Punch or some
other comic paper and laugh till the tears rolled from his eyes. He
demanded diversion of mind because he knew his tendency to drift
into serious moods of thought, and those who loved him were glad at
heart when they saw him joyous as a child at play.
He heartily enjoyed a good story. He never forgot any such told to
him and would tell it himself to the amusement of others when
occasion arose. A few may here be told. A lady whose husband was a
friend of the Swami and who took him for his first sleigh ride came to
know him closely when she and the Swami were guests of Mrs. Bagley
at Annisquam in August of 1894. She writes to Sister Nivedita:
We were friends at once.... He lectured only once at Annisquam. It
was his holiday time.... He used to turn to me and say, "Tell me a
story." I remember he was greatly amused by a tale about a Chinaman
who had been arrested for stealing pork and who, in reply to the
justice who remarked that he thought Chinamen did not eat pork, said,
"Oh! Me Melican man now. Me, sir, me steal, me cat pork, me
everything." How often I have beard Vivekananda say, sotto voce, "Me
Melican man". These things would seem trifling to anyone who does
not know the Swami as you do. But nothing which concerned him
could seem trivial or of poor report to you I am sure.
1 had lived for three years on a [Red] Indian, Reservation in
Canada. The Swami was never tired of listening to anecdotes about the
Red men. One I remember amused him greatly. An Indian whose wife
had just died came to the parsonage for some nails for her coffin.
While waiting he asked my cook if she would marry him! Naturally she

was very indignant, and in reply to her sorrowful refusal the man only
said, "Wait, you see." The following Sunday much to our amusement
he came and sat upon one of the gate posts.
He had a feather stuck jauntily in his hat, and hair oil, of which he
had been most prodigal, was trickling down his checks. It happened
that the Swami was giving sittings for his portrait just then, and we
went to the studio to see how the portrait was progressing just as I
entered, the Studio, a little oil ran down the cheek of the portrait, and
the Swami seeing it said, "Getting ready to marry the cook!"... Knowing
the Swami as you did, you must have realized what an exquisite sense
of humour he had....
But of all stories there were two which he relished most and which
sent him into fits of laughter: one was of a new Christian missionary to
a cannibal tribe, and the other of the "darky" clergyman, preaching on
"Creation". As to the former: There was once a Christian missionary
newly arrived in a far-off island inhabited by cannibals. He proceeded
to the chief of the place and asked him, "Well, how did you like my
predecessor?" The reply was, "He was delicious." And as for the
"darky" preacher: He was shouting out, "Yo' see, God was makin'
Adam, and he was makin' 'im out o' mud. And when he got 'im made,
he stuck 'im up agin a fence to dry. An' then." "Hold on dere,
preacher," suddenly cried out a learned listener. "What about dat dere
fence? Who make dat fence?" The preacher replied sharply, "Now you
listen 'ere, Sam Jones, don' you be gwine to ask dem questions.
Youse'll smash up all theology."
Great souls are not always serious. This power of complete
relaxation was as much a part of the Swami's greatness as were his
intellectual powers and spiritual realizations. One would like to know
the personal temperament, the personal incident, the human side of a
teacher as well as his words of revelation. Those who live in the
personal environment of great men love them for their human
qualities, and it was so with the disciples and admirers of Swami
Vivekananda. They made every effort to divert his mind and found that
the diversion made him deliver his message all the clearer. Several of
his most intimate friends, persons of positions and wealth in the

Western world, understood his need for rest and recreation, and
invited him to spend short holidays at their residences. There he was
allowed absolute personal freedom. Did he desire to talk, they would
listen with rapt attention. Did he desire to sing the song of his own
land, he could do so freely. If he sat in silent abstraction they left him
to his mood. There were times when he would break the silence of
days in a rhapsody of divine eloquence, and then again he would talk
on matters that required no mental concentration. After giving some
lecture that throbbed with spiritual power and realization, he would
often dance in glee saying, "Thank God, it is over!" He would come
down unexpectedly from the mountaintops of insight to the levels of
childlike simplicity in a moment.
With those in the West with whom he was particularly free, he
would say frankly whatever came into his mind. He called them
oftentimes by familiar names, as he did Mr. and Mrs. Hale, whom he
styled "Father Pope" and "Mother Church"; another he called "Yum" or
"Jojo", and so on. When his friends prepared some delicious recipe he
would look pleadingly at it, his eyes beaming with joyand then he
would eat with his fingers as he was wont to do in India, saying that he
liked to do so and that he enjoyed it more that way. At first it was
shocking to the Westerners, but when they understood, it gave them
pleasure to let him have his own way. They would be specially amused
when in the privacy of their homes he would take off his collar and
throw off the boots which made him uncomfortable and slip his feet
into a pair of house-slippers, and as to starched cuffs, they were an
abomination in his eyes. The sannyasi nature in him would resent at
times all conventions and etiquette. His indifference to money was
characteristic. It is told by his American disciples how he would often
look with dread upon money he had received from friends for his own
use and would give it away freely to the poor or to those in need. Or it
might be that he would immediately purchase presents for his friends
and disciples, as was the case at Thousand Island Park when he was
given a handsome purse at the end of his class work. The whole sum
was spent in this way.

The Swami demanded personal freedom on all occasions; if he did

not receive it, he shook himself free. He could not tolerate to be
patronized, and when a certain woman of wealth endeavoured to
make him do as she desired in matters of plans and arrangements, he
disrupted them all. She would be irritated for the time being and then
later say of him laughingly and lovingly, "At the last moment he upsets
all my plans for him. He must have his own way. He is just like a mad
bull in a chinashop." While he would go to any length in matters of
service or loyalty, he never allowed anyone to compel him to do
anything. And he certainly displayed wonderful patience with some
who attempted to manage his work, for in spite of personal irritation
he believed them to be instruments of the Lord in the furthering of His
cause. Otherwise, his first impulse would be to throw them overboard.
He could not tolerate restraint.
There were times when he would say, "Oh! The body is a terrible
bondage!" or "How I wish that I could hide myself for ever!" and it
would seem to all as though the spirit in him were chained in agony to
the fetters of the flesh. Such moments often came to him, as for
example, when he wrote his poems "My Play Is Done" and "The Song
of the Sannyasin"; and here and there in scores of his letters this divine
restlessness is evident. To cite his words from a letter dated January
25, 1896 to Mrs. Bull:
I have a notebook which has travelled with me all over the world. I
find therein these words written seven years ago: "Now to seek a
corner and lay myself down to die!" Yet all this Karma remained. I hope
I have worked it out.
It appears like a hallucination that I was in these childish dreams of
doing this and doing that. I am getting out of them.... Perhaps these
mad desires were necessary to bring me over to this country. And I
thank the Lord for the experience.
When his disciples found him in such moods, they feared that the
hour of deliverance might come suddenly and the body drop. So they
rejoiced to see him in his lighter moods.

An illustrative incident of the Swami's human side as told by one

of his disciples took place in the city of Detroit. On a certain occasion
he went to the house of one of his admirers and, with that unique
sense of freedom and frankness which was his, asked to he allowed to
cook an Indian meal. The request was immediately granted, and then,
to the amusement of everyone present, he gathered from his pockets
some score or more of tiny packets filled with finely ground
condiments and spices. These had been sent all the way from India,
and wherever he went these packets went with him. At one time, one
of his choicest and most prized possessions was a bottle of chutney
some gentleman had thoughtfully sent him from Madras. His Western
disciples delighted to have him cook his own dishes in their kitchens.
They helped also in this,' and thus time would pass by in merriment
and making new experiments. He would make the dishes so hot with
spices that they were not palatable to Western taste, and many times
the preparations took so long that when the food was ready to be
served the party was literally ravenous. Then there would he much talk
and laughter, and he would take the keenest delight in seeing how the
Western tongue stood the hot-spiced dishes of distant India. They
were, no doubt, soothing to his high-strung temperament and tired
nerves, but certainly not "good for his liver" as he insisted they were.
This human side of the Swami bound his disciples to him in deep
human love.
Nothing he enjoyed so much at times as to be seated cozily near a
fire in winter-time and plunge into reminiscences of his early days. Or
he would spend the morning or evening in reading comic papers and
magazines from cover to cover. As for the newspapers, he betrayed
the reporter's instinct by reading only the headlines. Such things were
his diversion; but at any moment the saint and prophet in him might
emerge. One disciple who could not understand him at first, having
been in his presence only in his times of recreation, was one day
suddenly made conscious of the Swami's true nature. The Swami was
enjoying himself heartily, but when the disciple asked him a question
concerning religion, his countenance instantly changed; fun gave place
to the revelation of the highest spiritual truths. "It seemed", the

disciple later said, "as though the Swami had of a sudden cast aside the
layer of that consciousness in which he had been enjoying himself and
made me aware of other layers behind the network of changing
personality." But it was more than the power to transfigure his
consciousness suddenly from fun to holiness and Jnana that he
manifested. He was actually possessed of a dual consciousness. While
he might he playing, as it were, on the surface of his personality, one
was made aware at the same moment of the mighty flow of the
immense depths beneath.
As may be readily imagined, there were many aspects of the
Swami's personality and teachings during his stay in America, prior to
his second visit to England, which must remain unknown for ever.
According to his disciples: "Each hour of the day there would be some
new idea, some new human sweetness, some illuminating thought on
the vastness of the soul and, the divinity of man, some new, boundless
hope, some startling original plan that, would radiate from his
personality." One disciple said, "Simply to walk on the city streets with
him meant to be translated to marvellous worlds of thought or power
suddenly from the sheerest fun." Still another records, "He always
made one feel that he was all spirit and not body, and this in spite of
the fact that his magnificent physical frame irresistibly attracted the
attention of everyone." All his friends recognized in him "a grand
Seigneur", as Mrs. Francis Leggett so aptly remarked. This lady also
said, "In all my experience I have met but two celebrated personages
that could make one feel perfectly at case without themselves for an
instant losing their own dignityone the German Emperor, the other,
Swami Vivekananda." Truly he was, as the American papers spoke of
him, "the Lordly Monk". And on occasions, this innate majesty of the
Swami could assume almost super-human proportions. In the words of
a disciple..
It would be impossible for me to describe the overwhelming force
of Swamiji's presence. He could rivet attention upon himself: and when
he spoke in all seriousness and intensity though it seems wellnigh
incredible there were some among his hearers who were literally
exhausted. The subtlety of his thoughts and arguments swept them off

their feet. In one case I know of a man who was forced to rest in bed
for three days as the result of a nervous shock received by a discussion
with the Swami. His personality was at once awe-inspiring and sublime.
He had the faculty of literally annihilating one if he so chose.
On many an occasion he would draw out one who differed from
him only to bewilder and confuse him. And yet those who were thus
"prostrated by that radiant power" were the very ones who attested
most to his sweetness. They said, he was a marvellous combination of
sweetness and irresistible force, verify a child and a prophet in one".
Many are the descriptions of his ideas and personality at this period;
indeed, if they all were recorded they would of themselves constitute a
complete volume.
All through his American work the Swami's mind was full of plans.
From the first it was his intention, when he had once gained a learned
and extensive hearing and established his mission on solid basis, to
found a "Temple Universal", as he styled it, wherein should
congregate, in harmony, all the religious sects of the world,
worshipping but one symbol, "OM", which represents the Absolute.
But his intense, all-absorbing work in founding his own Vedanta
movement prevented him from carrying out this noble ideal. Still
another plan, about which he had written to Mrs. Bull in the beginning
of the year 1895, was to purchase land in the Catskill Mountains to the
extent of one hundred and eight acres, where his students could go for
Sadhana during summer holidays and build camps or cottages as they
liked, until permanent buildings could be erected. He said that he
would himself contribute the funds to buy the land.
Since we have related in an earlier chapter and in some detail the
slanders that were heaped upon the Swami by self-seeking and
malicious people, we should mention here that by 1896 most of his
detractors had been silenced and his reputation as a religious teacher
of absolute purity and unparalleled integrity had been established.
True, now and then he was still attacked but he well knew that be had
little cause to feel either himself or his work seriously harmed. Indeed,
the only occasion during this period that he was really incensed was
when photograph of his Master was printed in one of the leading

papers of Detroit, together with slurring comments upon his

appearance and upon Hinduism and Hindu yogis in general. Then he
was heard to exclaim, "Oh! This is BLASPHEMY!" In striking contrast to
such unpleasantness, reports of his teaching and of its influence came
pouring in from every quarter. He was reverenced and loved by some
of the finest minds in the land, and prominent men and women in all
fields of thought scientists, artists, philosophersrespected him.
Even before his public reception at Harvard University in 1896 he had,
as we have seen earlier, been received privately in September of 1894
by some members of the University faculty and by many of the
graduate students philosophy. Following close upon this, Columbia
University offered him the chair of Sanskrit, but being a sannyasi, this
honour he declined.
It was at this time that the Swami met the distinguished Professor,
William James of Harvard at dinner at the residence of Mrs. Ole Bull.
After dinner the Swami and the Professor drew together in earnest and
subdued conversation. It was midnight when they rose from their long
discourse. Eager to know the result of the meeting of these two great
minds, Mrs. Bull asked "Well, Swami how did you like Professor
James? He replied, in a sort of abstracted way, "A very nice man, a
very nice man!" laying emphasis on the word nice. The next day the
Swami handed a letter to Mrs. Bull with the casual remark, "You may
be interested in this." Mrs. Bull read and to her amazement saw that
Professor James, in inviting the Swami to meet him at his own
residence for dinner a few days had addressed him as "Master". The
tribute Professor Jamess regard for the Swami is evinced, on many
occasions, in his writings, ad he speaks of him deferentially as "that
paragon of Vedantists", in connection with monistic mysticism in his
book Pragmatism. He also quotes from the Swami's Raja-yoga and
Jnana-Yoga in the Varieties o[ Religious Experience. In his celebrated
essay, "The Energies of Man", he speaks of a university professor who
underwent the Raja-Yoga practices as a cure for nervous disorders, and
who received thereby not only physical benefits, but intellectual and
spiritual illumination as well. There were many who believed that in

this essay Professor James was describing his own experiences of the
Raja-Yoga practices as instructed by the Swami.
Indeed, the Swami never sought fame and honour; on the
contrary, his fearless utterance of truth often alienated that general
approval for which so many public workers slave, and to win which
they sacrifice their true views and principles. World Teacher that he
was, he never hesitated to speak openly to the Americans of what he
felt were the drawbacks of their civilization. It so happened that he
once spoke in Boston before a large audience gathered to hear him on
"My Master". Full of the fire of renunciation, when he saw before him
the audience composed, for the most part, of worldly-minded men and
women lacking in spiritual sympathy and earnestness, he felt that it
would be a desecration to speak to them of his understanding of, and
his real feelings of devotion for, Shri Ramakrishna. So, instead, he
launched out on a terrible denunciation of the vulgar physical and
materialistic ideas which underlay the whole of Western civilization.
Hundreds of people left the hall abruptly, but in no way affected, he
went on to the end. The next morning the papers were filled with
varying reportssome highly favourable, others severely critical in
their analysis of what he had said, but all commenting on his
fearlessness, sincerity, and frankness. When he himself read the report
of his lecture, he was stung with remorse. He wept bitterly for having
denounced others and said. "My Master could not see the evil side of a
man. He had nothing but love even for his worst vilifiers. It is nothing
short of sacrilege on my part to abuse others and wound their feelings
while speaking about my Master. Really, I have not understood Shri
Ramakrishna and am totally unfit to speak about him!" But that he
ever denounced American women, as some of his bitter antagonists
have said. is a gross libel. The Swami's own words live to testify to his
high opinion of them and to his sincere gratitude for the uniform
kindness they had shown him.
It was inevitable that the Swami had enemies, for his purpose was
not to placate world-thought but to lift it, and in this purpose he never
temporized. In less than two and a half years of work in the United
States, he had made a profound and indelible impression on the

American mind; he had broken the back of the malignant and deeprooted bigotry that had existed toward India and Hinduism; he had
spread his Master's message throughout a large part of the nation; he
had set thousands of people thinking; he had given them the courage
to break loose from old, meaningless forms of religion; and he had
enabled them to discover the harmonizing essence of religion itself in
the eternal truths of Vedanta. He had devoted his concentrated and
illumined thought to the formulation of those truths, so that the
modern Western mind could grasp them and adapt them to its
scientific and rationalistic culture; he had taken endless pains to teach
a few disciples with great intensity as well as to sow his message
liberally over the land. He had bestowed upon hundreds, perhaps
thousands, the in-comparable and invaluable gift of spiritual
awakening, and he had left behind a distilled legacy of literature that
has today taken its place among the great religious works of the world.
As time goes on, more and more details of Swami Vivekananda's
life and work during his first visit to the West are being discovered, and
perhaps dozens of his lectures, 'now unknown, will some day come to
light. But whether or not research uncovers every detail of his days
during this period, the substance of his work in America was not, and
never can be, lost; on the contrary, it has become a dynamic spiritual
heritage of the nation. Surveying the history of his work, one sees the
Swami moving through the West as some mighty and resplendent
light. A Plato in thought, a modern Savonarola in his fearless
outspokenness, adored as a Master and as a Prophet, he moved
among his disciples as some great Bodhisattva. Some looked upon him
as a Rishi of the Upanishads, some as a Shankaracharya, others even as
a Buddha, or a Christ, and all regarded him as the embodiment of
Highest Consciousness, as one speaking with authority, having realized
the Divinity he preached. His hands raised in continual benediction, his
voce murmuring or thundering the Gospel of Vedanta, his face
beaming with love and goodwill, Swami Vivekananda lives in the
memory of America as the man with message, one who walked with
God.

BACK TO LONDON I
On April 15, 1896 Swami Vivekananda sailed from New York for
Liverpool on the S.S. Germanic of the White Star Line. From Liverpool
he travelled to Reading, for he was again to be the guest of Mr. Edward
T. Sturdy. The journey had been uneventful; he wrote, shortly after his
arrival, to Mary Hale on April 20: "The voyage has been pleasant and
no sickness this time. I gave myself treatment to avoid it. I made quite
a little run through Ireland and some of the Old English towns, and
now am once more in Reading amidst Brahman and Maya and Jiva, the
individual and the universal soul, etc. The other monk is here; he is one
of the nicest of men I see, and is quite a learned monk too. We are
busy editing books now. Nothing of importance happened on the way.
It was dull, monotonous, and prosaic as my life."
The "other monk" was Swami Saradananda. As we have seen in an
earlier chapter, the Swami had been trying for several months to
persuade one or another of his brother-disciples to come from India in
order to assist him in the Western work. Hence it gave him great joy to
find Swami Saradananda awaiting him in Reading, particularly since he
had seen none of his brother-disciples for about three years. Swami
Saradananda brought all the news from India and told about the
monastery in Alambazar and about each of its members. Swami
Vivekananda, in turn, communicated his many plans to his brother
monk, who was lost in wonder at his indefatigable energy and
apostolic fervour. The information the Swami received from Swami
Saradananda about the Alambazar Math made him think that the
procedure of work at the newly founded monastery deserved his
greater attention. Thus on April 27, he wrote from Reading at length to
his brother-disciples in India, giving them detailed instructions in
regard to running the Math along practical and organizational lines.
But of these instructions, which pertain to his Indian work and his everpresent concern with its beginning and development, we shall see
later.
It would not appear that the Swami stayed in Reading for more
than a week or so. To facilitate his work, Mr. Sturdy had rented Lady

Isabel Margesson's house at 63 St. George's Road, in Southwest

London. Here the Swami made his home, together with Swami
Saradananda, Mr. Josiah J. Goodwin, his devoted disciple, who had
taken the vow of a Brahmachari and served him as secretary and
personal attendant, Mr. John P. Fox, whom he had known in America,
and the Swami's younger brother, Mahendranath Datta, who had
reached London earlier for the purpose of higher education. Mr. Sturdy
also came occasionally and stayed. In addition Miss Henrietta Mller,
who shared the expenses of maintaining this establishment, had sublet
a number of rooms under the same roof. In early May, Swamiji wrote
to Mary Hale. "We have a whole house to ourselves, you know, this
time. It is small but convenient, and in London they do not cost so
much as in America.... Some old friends are here, and Miss MacLeod
came over from the Continent. She is good as gold, and as kind as ever.
We have a nice little family, in the house, with another monk from
India. Poor man! a typical Hindu with nothing of that pluck and go
which I have, he is always dreamy and gentle and sweet! That won't
do. I will try to put a little activity into him. I have had two classes
already they will go on for four or five months and after that to India
I go."
Before starting his London work, the Swami spent a few days,
along with Swami Saradananda, at Miss Mller's home at Towers
Lodge in Pinkney's Green, Maidenhead, a municipal borough on the
Thames, twelve miles northeast of Reading. It was probably during one
such visit outside of London in the English countryside that an incident
occurred which shows his courage in the face of danger. As he was
walking with Miss Mller and an English friend across some fields, a
mad bull came tearing towards them. In the words of Sister Nivedita:
The Englishman frankly ran, and reached the other side of the bill
in safety. The woman ran as far as she could, and then sank to the
ground, incapable of further effort. Seeing this, and unable to aid her,
the Swami thinking "So this is the end, after all" took up his stand
in front of her, with folded arms. He told afterwards how his mind was
occupied with a mathematical calculation, as to how far the bull would

be able to throw. But the animal suddenly stopped, a few paces off,
and then raising his head, retreated sullenly.
A like courage though he himself was far from thinking of these
incidents had shown itself, in his early youth, when he quietly
stepped up to a runaway horse, and caught it, in the streets of
Calcutta, thus saving the life of the woman who occupied the carriage
behind.
By the end of the first week in May the Swami had settled down at
63 St. George's Road. He had already prepared the working field in
London. He was now ready for the hard labour that he knew would be
necessary to meet the earnestness of many seekers of truth not
only those with whom he had already become acquainted the previous
year and who now welcomed him back most eagerly, but those whom
he would newly come to know. On May 7 he began holding classes in
his quarters, and in a short time the fame of his personality and
utterances spread far and wide. New people sought his acquaintance
and visited him among them, many persons of distinction. He talked
to them of the philosophies of India and their relation to modern life
and explained to them the various forms of yoga. And soon there
gathered around him a number of men and women who desired to
study seriously the problems of human existence in the light of Eastern
wisdom.
From May 7 to July 16 the Swami regularly held five classes a week
two on Tuesdays at 11.30 a.m. and 8.30 p.m., two on Thursdays at
the same hours, and one on Friday evenings at 8.30, the last of which
was a particularly instructive question- and-answer class. In addition,
he received visitors on Friday afternoons. In his first series of class
lectures he dealt mainly with the history of the Aryan race, its
development, its religious advance, and the diffusion of its religious
influence. Following this, he held classes on Jnana-Yoga, the path of
Knowledge. He also gave a course of lessons on Raja-Yoga and a series
of discourses on Bhakti-Yoga, many of which were recorded by Mr.
Goodwin. At first, the attendance at the Swami's classes was not as
large as had been expected, considering its over-flowing size at the
close of the previous season, but slowly and steadily it grew, until

within a month the Swami could write to Mary Hale' "The classes are
very big." And to Mrs. Bull on June 5, "My classes are going on
splendidly."
On the afternoon of Sunday, June 7 the Swami opened a series of
three Sunday lectures in Royal Institute of Painters in water-colours
the large lecture hall of also known as Prince Hall, at 191 Piccadilly. The
subjects of this series were "The Necessity of Religion" (June 7), "A
Universal Religion" June 14), and "The Real and the Apparent Man"
(June 21). These three lectures, shorthand reports of which were taken
down by Goodwin, proved a great success, and another course was at
once arranged. The lectures of this second Sunday afternoon series
were "Bhakti-Yoga" (June 28), "Renunciation" (July 5), and
"Realization" (July 12).
But the Swami's many classes, his six Sunday lectures, and his
uncounted private interviews did not by any means cover the whole of
the work he was doing in England. He lectured also in many drawingrooms and at several well-known clubs. One of the first of the lectures
he gave on invitation was at the Sesame Club, where on May 12, he
delivered an address on "Education". Swami Saradananda, writing to
the Brahmavadin of June 6, said:
Swami Vivekananda has made a good beginning here. A large
number of people attend his classes regularly and the lectures are
most interesting. Canon Haweis, one of the leaders of the Anglican
Church, came the other day and was much interested. He had seen the
Swami before at the Chicago Fair, and loved him from that time. On
Thursday [Tuesday] last the Swami lectured on "Education" at the
Sesame Club. It is an important club organized by women for the
education of their sex. In this he dealt with the old educational systems
of India, pointed out clearly and impressively that the sole aim of the
system was "man-making" and not cramming, and compared it with
the present system.
On June 10 the Swami delivered an address on "The Hindu Idea of
Soul" at the residence of Mrs. John Biddulph Martin, at 17 Hyde Park
Gate in South Kensington, London. Mrs. Biddulph Martin, the former

Victoria Woodhull, was an American by birth; thus the lecture given in

her home was attended by many of her countrymen. "There were also
present", wrote the London American of June 13, 1896, "some
members of the Royal Household, but these were strictly incognito"
On July 9 at the invitation of Annie Besant, the Swami spoke at the
Theosophists' Blavatsky Lodge in Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, a
district of London, choosing "Bhakti-Yoga" as his subject. He also spoke
at the Notting Hill Gate residence of a Mrs. Hunt, as well as at
Wimbledon, where a good deal of helpful discussion followed the
lecture. Several other meetings of a similar nature were arranged. The
Swami was also warmly received at the residence of Canon Basil
Wilberforce at Westminster, and a reception was held there in his
honour, at which many distinguished ladies and gentlemen took part.
In his reminiscences of the Swami's visit to London, Mr. Erie
Hammond writes of a lecture on "Education", that the Swami delivered
on short notice at the Sesame, Club. This was the first lecture of the
Swami's that Mr. Hammond had attended it was, indeed, his first
sight of him. He writes in part:
... Most of those present were, we discovered, schoolmasters and
schoolmistresses, tutors and the like. The subject announced for
lecture (sic) was "Education". Soon he, Swamiji, appeared. He had
little, if any, notice and his speech could not have been in any wise
prepared. Yet, then, as always, he proved himself more than equal to
the occasion. Collected, calm, self-possessed, he stood forward. A
Hindu, primed in heart and tongue with Hindu lore and Hindu faith,
backed by the prestige of an ancient civilization and culture which
inspired him! It was a novel sight, a memorable experience. His dark
skin, his deep glowing eyes, even his costume, attracted and
fascinated. Above all, eloquence acclaimed him, the eloquence of
inspiration. Again, his surprising command of the English language
delighted and held his audience, an audience it must be remembered
which consisted largely, as we have said, of men and women whose
profession it was to teach English students their mother-tongue and
through the medium of that tongue instruct them in other branches of
knowledge. More, Swamiji soon showed that he was equally versed in

history and political economy. He stood among these people on their

own ground. Without fear, beseeching no favour, he dealt them blow
upon blow enforcing the Hindu principle that the teacher who taught
for the money-making was a traitor to the highest and deepest truth.
"Education is an integral part of religion, and neither one nor the other
should be bought nor sold." His words, rapier-like, pierced the armour
of scholastic convention; yet no bitterness spoilt his speech. This
Hindu, cultured, gracious with his notable smile that disarmed unkindly
criticism, held his own and made his mark. He had come, sent by the
spirit of Shri Ramakrishna, to make that mark; and he had succeeded
at the first attempt. The idea that teachers should work with their
pupils for love, and not for the love of lucre, not even for the love of
livelihood.
Discussion followed, climatic and other reasons for charges for
teaching were set forth, but Swamiji maintained his position.
Such then was our first meeting with him; a meeting which
resulted in, reverent friendship, in genuine admiration and in most
grateful remembrance.
In another reminiscence of the Swami, Mr. Eric Hammond
describes what appears to have been another lecture. Where and
when it was given is not clear, but the event was particularly
memorable. Mr. Hammond wrote:
On his arrival in London, Swami Vivekananda was welcomed in the
quiet, thoughtful, semi-calculating way to which Londoners generally
habituate themselves. Perhaps the missionary, everywhere, is met 'by
an atmosphere not exactly antagonistic, but, at the best, doubtful.
That Swamiji recognized this element of doubt and of wonderment is
certain, and it is certain too, that his winning personality cleared a way
through it and found glad welcome in many hearts.
Clubs, societies, drawing-rooms opened their doors to him. Sets of
students grouped themselves together in this quarter and that, and
heard him at appointed intervals. His hearers, hearing him, longed to
hear further.

At one of these meetings, at the close of his address, a whitehaired and well-known philosopher said to the Swami, "You have
spoken splendidly, sir, and I thank you heartily, but you have told us
nothing new." The lecturer's sonorous tones rang through the room in
reply: "Sir, I have told you the Truth. That, the Truth, is as old as the
immemorial hills, as old as humanity, as old as the Creation, as old as
the Great God. If I have told it in such words as will make you think,
make you live up to your thinking, do I not do well in telling it?" The
murmur of "Hear!" "Hear!" and the louder clapping of hands showed
how completely the Swami had carried his audience with him. One
lady present on that occasion, and on many more, said.. "I have
attended church services regularly all my life. Their monotony and lack
of vitality had made them barren and distasteful. I went to them
because others went and one hates to be peculiar. Since I heard the
Swami, light has flooded into religion. It is real; it lives; it has a new
glad meaning and is altogether transformed for me."
"I will tell you how I came to know the Truth," continued the
Swami, and in the telling they learned something of the earth-life of
Shri Ramakrishna; the sublime simplicity of his character; his
indefatigable search for Truth in this religious phase and that; his
discovery and his fine proclamation of it.. "Where I am, there the Truth
is!"
"I found Truth," said the Swami, "because I had it in my heart
already. Do not deceive yourselves. Do not imagine you will find it in
one creed or in another creed. It is within you. Your creed will not give
it to you, you must give it to your creed. Men and priests give it various
names. They bid you believe one thing and another thing. Listen: You
have it within yourself, this pearl of great price. That which exists is
one. Listen: Thou art That!
From first to last of this address he dwelt on the message of his
Master, Shri Ramakrishna. He had, he said, not one little word of his
own to utter, not one infinitesimal thought of his own to unfold.
Everything, every single thing, all he was himself, all he could be to us,
all he might be to the world, came from that single source; from the
pure soul, from the illimitable inspiration who, seated "there in my

beloved India, had solved the tremendous secret and bestowed the
solution broadcast, ungrudgingly, with divine prodigality."
In passages of exquisite eloquence he dilated upon Shri
Ramakrishna. Self was utterly forgotten, altogether ignored: "I am
what I am, and what I am is always due to him, whatever in me or in
my words is good and true and eternal came to me from his mouth, his
heart, his soul. Shri Ramakrishna is the spring of this phase of the
earth's religious life, of its impulses and its activities. If I can show the
world one glimpse of my Master, I shall not live in vain."
One cannot read the above eloquent tribute of the Swami to his
Master without noting a beautiful phase of his character how even
in the midst of his triumphs, when he was himself hailed on all sides as
Master, he again and again pointed out in all humility that he was only
a disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, at whose feet he had learned
everything, that the credit for his teaching was due not to himself but
to his Master. Indeed, only a true disciple can he a true master.
The Indian students resident in London naturally looked to the
Swami for guidance. He endeared himself to them all by making them
feel quite at home with him and helping them in various ways. And so
when a social conference of Indians in Great Britain and Ireland was
held on Saturday, July 18 under the auspices of the London Hindu
Association, at Montague Mansion, Museum Street, W.C., it was the
Swami who was asked to preside. The subject of the discourse was
"The Hindus and Their Needs". During his talk, at which many English
ladies and gentlemen were also present, the Swami appealed to the
young Hindus to give up European dress and manners on their return
to India and to mingle with the people in an effort to help them. He
strongly denounced caste restrictions and spoke eloquently on the
position of Hindu women.
One of the memorable events during the Swami's stay in London
was his meeting with the celebrated Orientalist, Professor Max Mller
of Oxford University. By invitation, the Swami visited Professor Mller
at his residence in Oxford on May 28. Of that pleasant experience the
Swami himself wrote to the Brahmavadin, on June 6, 1896:

... What an extraordinary man is Professor Max Mller! I paid a

visit to him a few days ago. I should say that I went to pay my respects
to him, for whosoever loves Shri Ramakrishna, whatever be his or her
sect, or creed, or nationality, my visit to that person I hold as a
pilgrimage....
The Professor was first induced to inquire about the power
behind, which led to sudden and momentous changes in the life of the
late Keshab Chandra Sen, the great Brahmo leader; and since then, he
has been an earnest student and admirer of the life and teachings of
Shri Ramakrishna. "Ramakrishna is worshipped by thousands today,
Professor," I said. "To whom else shall worship be accorded, if not to
such?" was his answer. The Professor was kindness itself, and asked
Mr. Sturdy and myself to lunch with him. He showed us several
colleges in Oxford, and the Bodleian Library. He also accompanied us
to the railway station, and all this he did because, as he said, "It is not
every day one meets with a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa."
The visit was really a revelation to me. That nice little house, its
setting of a beautiful garden, the silver-headed sage, with a face calm
and benign, and forehead smooth as a child's in spite of seventy
winters, and every line in that face speaking of a deep-seated mine of
spirituality somewhere behind; that noble wife, the helpmate of his life
through his long and arduous task of exciting interest, over-riding
opposition and contempt, and at last creating respect for the thoughts
of the sages of ancient India the trees, the flowers, the calmness,
and the clear skyall these sent me back in imagination to the glorious
days of ancient India, the days of our Brahmarshis and Rajarshis, the
days of the great Vanaprasthas, the days of Arundhatis and Vasishthas.
It was neither the philologist nor the scholar that I saw, but a soul
that is every day realizing its oneness with the Brahman, a heart, that is
every moment expanding to reach oneness with the Universal....
... And what love he bears towards India! I wish I had a hundredth
part of that love for my own motherland. Endued with an
extraordinary, and, at the same time, an intensely active mind, he has
lived and moved in the world of Indian thought for fifty years or more,

and watched the sharp interchange of light and shade in the

interminable forest of Sanskrit literature with deep interest and
heartfelt love, till they have all sunk into his very soul and coloured his
whole being. Max Mller is a Vedantist of Vedantists....
"When are you coming to India? Every heart there would welcome
one who has done so much to place the thoughts of their ancestors in
the true light," I said. The face of the aged sage brightened up - there
was almost a tear in his eye, a gentle nodding of the head, and slowly
the words came out. "I would not return then; you would have to
cremate me there." Further questions seemed an unwarrantable
intrusion into realms wherein are stored the holy secrets of man's
heart.
This letter was written by the Swami shortly after the Professor
had completed an article on Shri Ramakrishna entitled "A Real
Mahatman". The article, which appeared in the August 1896 issue of
the Nineteenth Century, had been written out of information and
material gathered from India. Now, in the enthusiasm with which the
Swami had inspired him, Professor Mller was eager to know more
about the Master and asked, "What are you doing to make him known
to the world?" He said that he would be glad to write a larger and
fuller account of his life and teaching, provided more facts and details
were given to him. The Swami at once commissioned Swami
Saradananda to communicate with India and to collect as much as
possible of the sayings of Shri Ramakrishna and the facts concerning
his life. This was done;.and the Professor set to work embodying them
in a book that was, published under the title Ramakrishna: His Life and
Sayings. This volume, which contains a number of the Master's sayings,
breathes a fervid devotional and yet critical spirit and has aided
materially in giving the Swami's mission a firmer hold on the Englishspeaking world. He and the Professor were frequent correspondents
and fast friends; only in matters of philosophical criticism did they
sometimes differ.
As the success of the London work took clearer shape, the Swami
felt that a sannyasi was needed to stay in London permanently. At the
same time, however, the work in America could not be neglected; it,

too, required the guidance and inspiration of a resident sannyasi.

Perhaps this is why the Swami decided to send Swami Saradananda to
America at the end of June and to request Swami Abhedananda to
come from India for the work in London. On June 24 he wrote to
Swami Ramakrishnananda: "Sharat [Swami Saradananda] starts for
America tomorrow. The work here is coming to a head. We have
already got funds to start a London centre. Next month I go to
Switzerland to pass a month or two there, then I shall return to
London. What will be the good of my going home? This London is the
hub of the world. The heart of India is here. How can I leave without
laying a sure foundation here? Nonsense! For the present I shall have
Kali [Swami Abhedananda] here, tell him to be ready. Let him start as
soon as he receives my letter. Organization is strength, and obedience
is its hidden secret."
The Swami was in the highest of spiritual moods during his stay in
London. Often he was all radiance and ecstasy, showering infinite love
and sympathy on everyone and every-thing. Nothing better illustrates
this than the following letter dated July 6, 1896, which he wrote to Mr.
Francis H. Leggett, addressing him affectionately as "Frankincense":
... Things are going on with me very well on this side of the
Atlantic.
The Sunday lectures were quite successful, so were the classes.
The season has ended, and I too am thoroughly exhausted. I am going
to make a tour in Switzerland with Miss Mller....
... Well, the work is growing silently yet surely in England. Almost
every other man or woman came to me and talked about the work.
This British Empire with all its drawbacks is the greatest machine that
ever existed for the dissemination of ideas. I mean to put my ideas in
the centre of this machine, and they will spread all over the world. Of
course, all great work is slow and the difficulties are too many,
especially as we Hindus are the conquered race. Yet that is the very
reason why it is bound to work; for spiritual ideals have always come
from the downtrodden. Jews overwhelmed the Roman Empire with
their spiritual ideals. You will be pleased to know that I am also

learning my lessons every day in patience and, above all, in sympathy. I

think I am beginning to see the Divine, even inside the haughty AngloIndians. I think I am slowly approaching to that state when I would be
able to love the very Devil himself, if there were any.
At twenty I was the most unsympathetic, uncompromising fanatic;
I would not walk on the footpath on the theatre-side of the streets in
Calcutta. At thirty-three I can live in the same house with prostitutes
and never would think of saying a word of reproach to them. Is it
degenerate? Or is it that I am broadening out into that Universal Love
which is the Lord himself? Again, I have heard that if one does not see
the evil around one, one cannot do good work one lapses into a sort
of fatalism. I do not see that. On the other hand, my power of work is
immensely increasing and becoming immensely effective. Some days I
get into a sort of ecstasy. I feel that I must bless every one, everything,
love and embrace everything, and I do see that evil is a delusion. I am
in one of these moods now, dear Francis, and am actually shedding
tears of joy at the thought of your and Mrs. Leggett's love and kindness
to me. I bless the day I was born. I have had so much of kindness and
love here; and that Love Infinite that brought me into being, has
guarded every one of my actions good or bad (don't be frightened). For
what am 1, what was I ever but a tool in His hands, for whose service I
have given up everything my beloved ones, my joy, my life? He is my
playful darling, I am His playfellow. There is neither rhyme nor reason
in the Universe! What reason binds Him? He the Playful One is playing
these tears and laughters over all parts of the play! Great fun, great
fun, as Joe says.
It is a funny world and the funniest chap you ever saw is He the
Beloved Infinite! Fun, is it not? Brotherhood or playmatehooda
school of romping children let out to play in this playground of the
world! Isn't it? Whom to praise, whom to blame, it is all His play! They
want explanations, but how can you explain. Him? He is brainless, nor
has He any reason. He is fooling us with little brains and reason, but
this time He won't find me napping.

I have learnt a thing or two: beyond, beyond reason and learning

and talking is the feeling, the "Love", the "Beloved". Aye, sake [Saki],
fill up the cup and we will be mad.
Yours ever in madness,
Vivekananda
Here one has Swami Vivekananda himself. As he speaks of his
beloved Lord, we see him in a mood akin to the ecstasy of Saint Francis
of Assisi or bordering on that divine madness which possessed the
Sufis of old.
But to return to the Swami's work, the reader will remember that
during his previous visit in England he had devoted a good deal of his
time to helping Mr. Sturdy in his translation of the Narada-Sutras on
Bhakti-Yoga. The book, which contained commentaries by the Swami,
was published in April of 1896 and was deservedly popular. As has
been mentioned in the last chapter, three of the Swami's great works
were published this same year: in America, Karma-Yoga, which
consisted of eight of his New York class talks on that subject, had been
brought out in February; in London, his New York classes on Raja-Yoga,
together with his translation of and commentary on Patanjali's Yoga
Aphorisms, were published in July under the title Raja-Yoga by
Longmans, Green, and Company. This last mentioned work did not
appear without some preliminary difficulty between Swamiji's English
and American followers regarding copyrights and so on. "So much
redtape about printing a little book!" the Swami wrote in exasperation
to Mrs. Bull on May 8. But soon the trouble was resolved, and the first
English edition of Raja-.Yoga came out on July 13, 1896. In Madras, the
Swami's New York classes on Bhakti-Yoga were to he brought out in
book form by September of the same year.
Before proceeding to evaluate the Swami's work in London, we
may present here information and certain incidents of his life as
recorded by his younger brother Mahendranath Datta in his Bengali
work Londane Vivekananda ("Swami Vivekananda in London").
Mahendranath had arrived in London, perhaps in the second week of
April 1896, a few days earlier than his illustrious elder brother. When

the Swami came to live in the rented house at 63 St. George Road,
Mahendranath shifted, as we have seen, to the same house. He had
ample opportunity therefore of observing the Swami at close quarters;
added to this, he had a penchant for noting down interesting small
details, such as are normally ignored by hagiographers.
Mahendranath had come to London to study law. But the Swami
did not approve of this. In a letter dated June 5, 1896 to Mrs. Bull he
explained why, and incidentally through this letter he not only evinced
how powerfully he himself was influenced by his Master's teachings,
but also how he combined with his devotion to his guru his advanced
ideas for the material betterment of India. In this letter he wrote:
You know my brother Mohin is here in London for the last two
months. He intends to become a barrister. He has also a liking, he says,
for electrical engineering.
Now I do not like anyone of my blood would become a lawyer
although my father was one. My Master was against it, and I believe
that family is sure to come to grief where there are several lawyers.
Secondly the country is full of lawyers, the universities turn them
[out] by hundreds with the uniform result that they starve. Again, what
my nation wants is pluck and scientific genius. So I intend him to be an
electrician. Even if he fails in life, still I will have the satisfaction that he
strove to become great and really useful to his country.
There are good schools for training electricians here no doubt. But
in America alone there is that something in the air which brings out
whatever is best in everyone. So I want him to go to America and be
put under some good electricians and try his venture. The Raja of
Khetri will send him some money. I have 300 with me, I can give him
the whole of it. You promised me 100 a year. I do not want it. I want
my brother to be daring hold and struggle to cut a new path for
himself and his nation.... Pluck is what my nation wants and scientific
education....
Meanwhile, Mahendranath was noting down his observations. We
learn from him, for instance, how bad the Swami's health was during
this period of hard work. One day after lunch the Swami was seated on

his reclining chair, thinking or meditating. Suddenly his face reflected a

sensation of pain. After a while he exhaled his breath and said to Fox:
"Well, Fox, I was feeling intense pain in my heart; it was about to stop
functioning. My father died of a heart attack. That is the disease of my
lineage."
Another incident recorded by Mahendranath gives one a glimpse
into the Swami's thoughts. One day when he was again reclining on his
chair, he suddenly sat up straight and said to Fox: "Saint Paul was an
educated religious fanatic; I am also an educated religious fanatic and
want to create a band of scholar fanatics. You will notice that those
who are mere religious fanatics they are of no use; it is only a brain
disease which is very harmful. But when a scholar turns into a religious
fanatic, he accomplishes a lot. Paul was a scholar-fanatic; so he could
reverse the course of Greek philosophy and Roman civilization."
On a different occasion he said to Sturdy: "Vedanta teaches the
basic philosophy of all religions; this philosophy is no monopoly of any
particular religion. This is why Vedanta will become the universal
religion; convert it into universal treasure. The Vedanta must not
remain as the closed preserve of a group of narrow-minded people."
Mahendranath related how, on the one hand, the Swami used to
mix with the high-born nobility, was invited even by a duke for dinner,
and how, on the other hand, he would mingle with the common
people as one of their very own. They used to tell him tales of their
weal and woe and at times seek his counsel without any of that
hesitation commonly felt in regard to aliens. He would become just like
one of them.
The London lectures of the Swami were very popular. But there
are cranks in every country, and England was no exception. One might
number among her eccentrics some Englishmen who had returned
home after serving in India and who thenceforth were ostentatiously
discourteous to Indians. In this connection, Mahendranath relates an
unpleasant incident that occurred one evening at a lecture-meeting.
The Swami had just started a profound and inspiring lecture on
Raja-Yoga. Goodwin was making himself ready to take notes; Swami

Saradananda, Sturdy, Fox, and Mahendranath were seated on the sofa

at the other end of the hall. The Swami had hardly spoken for five
minutes, when a retired Anglo-Indian shouted from the audience with
great derision, "Oh, thank you!" Many startled listeners turned toward
the man but said nothing, for they were more interested in listening to
the lecture. When the heckler repeated the same kind jeering remark
at intervals, the audience became visibly annoyed, but the Swami went
on speaking unperturbed, without wasting even a glance at him.
Presently he assumed the role of critic. When the Swami eulogized the
Buddha, he railed against the Buddha. Again, when the Swami claimed
that even at the time of his speaking there were in India monks who
had attained to high spiritual states, the man declared them to be
thieves and burglars. Sturdy and Goodwin became furious, but they
could do nothing to stop the man, for the Swami went on without so
much as a look at him. But a limit finally came. Somehow the heckler
thought the speaker must be a Bengali Babu, and he tauntingly
announced that during the Sepoy Mutiny the English had saved the
Bengalis. And now, at last, the Swami turned towards him, his benign
face grown fearful. For more than half an hour he went on cogently
citing history, exposing the record of the English people's oppression
and evil deeds in various countries of the world. One could not have
thought of a more powerful and convincing impeachment, under the
impact of which the man openly wept and this so profusely that his
three handkerchiefs became soaked with his tears.
Now, turning to the audience, the Swami said in a calm and
soothing voice, "Now I come to Pratyahara and Dharana." And he
gravely took up his topic where he had left off, as though there had
been no disturbance or excitement in the hall.
After the lecture was over the audience rose and greeted him,
saying: "Swami, you have taught us a grand lesson in forbearance.
Should anyone have insulted us in this manner, we could not have
withstood it at all. You are a saint. You are a truly great man."
The Swami worked indefatigably in these days in London, even
more so than during his previous visit. If he formed no society or
organization, it was not because he did not want his England work to

take definite and permanent form. On the contrary, it was because he

wanted its early stages to be slow, quiet, and sure; he wanted to build
on firm and lasting foundations, attracting to his movement strong,
serious, and intellectual men and women who would carry it on along
the lines lie was laying down. "Mr. Sturdy and I want to get a few of
the best, say, strong and intelligent men in England to form a society,
and therefore we must proceed slowly,", he had written to Mrs. Bull
from Reading in September of 1895. "We must take care not to be run
over with 'fads' from the first." And to Christine Greenstidel on
October 4 of the same year, "All great things must of necessity be
slow." The results of the Swami's formally unorganized, but by no
means haphazard, work were satisfying to him. "The work in England
bids fair to be much better and deeper than in the U.S.," he wrote to
Mrs. Hale on July 7, 1896. "And here in London is the heart of India
also." And again, three months later to his American disciple Miss
Waldo, "My European work in fact is becoming more satisfactory to
me than any other work, and it tells immensely on India."
The Swami's one concern, the central motive that flamed through
his words and drove him to tireless activity, to endless giving of himself
and of his light to others, was his desire to awaken all humanity to its
own godhood, to free men every- where from the bondage of
ignorance. This ideal he expressed in an inspired and inspiring letter to
Miss Margaret Noble she who was to become Sister Nivedita. His
letter, written from St. George's Road, was dated June 7, 1896 the day
he opened his public lectures. It is given here in full:
My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words and that is: to
preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in
every moment of life.
This world is in chains of superstition. I pity the oppressed,
whether man or woman, and I pity more the oppressors.
One idea that I see clear as daylight is that misery is caused by
ignorance and nothing else. Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in
the past has been the law, it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth's
bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of

many, for the welfare of all. Buddhas by the hundred are necessary
with eternal love and pity.
Religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries. What the
world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is
one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like
thunderbolt.
It is no superstition with you, I am sure, you have the making in
you of a world-mover, and others will also come. Bold words and
bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great ones! The world
is burning with misery. Can you sleep? Let us call and call till the
sleeping gods awake, till the God within answers to the call. What
more is in life? What greater work? The details come to me as I go. I
never make plans. Plans grow and work themselves. I only say, awake,
awake!
The Swamis ideas, burning with selfless love, themselves told like
the thunderbolt. And it is small wonder that hundreds were caught up
in the grandeur and freshness of the thought he sent forth. Many
distinguished Anglican clergymen, intellectuals, as well as society
people were captivated, until it seemed as if some great movement
was about to be born in his name. Yet because no formal organization
to carry on his work came into being in London during his lifetime, it is
hard to gauge the true import of his work: there are no records or
statistics, no membership rolls or ledgers. It is only through the
uncharted spreading of his influence that his work in England can be
understood and evaluated, but this spreading, we know, was extensive
and its effect lasting and profound.
But even apart from the overall public significance of the Swami's
London work, his second visit is memorable; for during it he gathered
to his fold some of the most diligent and heroic workers and helpers in
his cause. During his previous visit he had, it is true, made
acquaintances, which had ripened into friendship with such talented
people as Miss Henrietta Mller, Mr. Edward T. Sturdy, and Miss
Margaret Noble, but now these people became his disciples ready to
sacrifice everything for him and his cause. To this group were added

Captain and Mrs. James Henry Sevier, of whom we shall often have
occasion to speak later. Captain Sevier, a retired army officer, and his
wife, Charlotte, met the Swami soon after the start of his public
lectures in June of 1896. Both of them were earnest students of
religion and had sought for the highest truth in various sects and
creeds, but none of these had satisfied the yearning of their souls.
They were disappointed with the forms and theological dogmas that
passed under the name of religion. Having heard from a friend that an
"Indian yogi" was going to hold classes on Eastern philosophy, it was
with expectant hearts that they came to listen to the exposition of a
new religion. What was the surprise of the devoted couple to find, on
comparing notes, that when hearing the Swami they had each felt
intuitively and simultaneously: "This is the man and this is the
philosophy that we have been seeking in vain all through our life!",
What appealed to them most was the Advaita philosophy; but the
personality of the Swami also captivated them. The very first time they
met him in private, he addressed Mrs. Sevier as "Mother" and asked
her, "Would you not like to come to India? I will give you of my best
realizations." from that day forward they looked upon him not only as
their guru but as their own son. Thus was established a relationship
that was to bring forth fruit of inestimable value in the fulfilment of
one of the Swami's great missions in the West. Indeed, he held his
disciples Miss Noble (Sister Nivedita) and Captain and Mrs. Sevier as
the fairest flowers of his work in England.
One might also say that J. J. Goodwin was an English disciple of the
Swami's, for although his initiation and early training had taken place
in New York, he was a native of England, and his loyal service was as
invaluable to the Swami in London as it had been in America. Goodwin
was of service also to the Swami's brother-disciple. Sailing from
England on June' 25 he accompanied Swami Saradananda to the
United States, where, at the repeated requests of the American
students, Swami Vivekananda had sent him. Goodwin introduced
Swami Saradananda to the Vedanta students in New York and Boston
and helped him to find his way about the bustling cities of the New
World. As for the preaching work that Swami Saradananda was to

undertake on the East Coast, he was well prepared, having learned the
art of presenting Vedanta to Western audiences through the example
and instruction of his great brother-disciple.
July marked the end of the lecture season in London, and the
Swami's classes were drawing to a close. As though to insure that he
would be with them the following season, the members of the class
readily subscribed to a fund for his autumn lectures. As we have seen
earlier, the Swami had written on June 24 to Swami
Ramakrishnananda, "The work here is coming to a head. We have
already got funds to start a London Centre." Now, on July 8, he wrote
to Mrs. Bull: "The English people are very generous. In three minutes
time the other evening, my class raised 150 for the new quarters for
next autumn's work. They would have given 500 on the spot if
wanted, but we want to go slow, and not rush into undue expense."
The Swami now accepted the invitation of three of his more
intimate friends for a tour and a holiday on the Continent. Those who
planned the Swami's holiday and accompanied him on his tour were
Captain and Mrs. Sevier and Miss Henrietta Mller. For some time they
had been urging the Swami to rest, for they felt that he could not
endure much longer the strenuous exertion and strain of his work.
Then, too, it being the holiday season, many of his students and
admirers were leaving London for seaside or mountain resorts. The
Swami was "as delighted as a child" at the prospect. He was
particularly eager to visit Switzerland. When the idea of a trip to the
Alps had been suggested, the Swami had joyfully exclaimed, "Oh, I long
to see the snows and wander on the mountain paths! Above all, I must
cross a glacier."
In the 1890s a trip to Switzerland was not the simple matter it is
today. Much time, money, and physical exertion were required to visit
that land of marvellous scenery, hazardous mountain ascents, deep
snows, glacier crossings, and expensive resorts. Conveyances were
primitive, and the roads were generally poor. Muleback, funicular,
dandies, and horse-drawn stage-coaches were the usual methods of
travel. Indeed the trip was like an adventure of sightseeing in some
remote and strange land. All told, the journey was to last for nearly

nine weeks. After visiting Switzerland, the party was to tour the old
cities of Germany and then to return via Amsterdam to London.
On the morning of the departure the Swami was all excitement.
He had unburdened himself of the very thought of responsibilities.
Several of his London friends formed a farewell party; but there was no
sadness in this farewell, as the Swami was to return within two months
or so. At eleven o'clock on the morning of Sunday, July I 9, he and his
companions left London with the best wishes of all his students and
disciples. At Dover, the party took passage to Calais, crossing the
English Channel, which, though often choppy, chanced on this occasion
to be comparatively calm. In order to break the long train ride between
Calais and Geneva the travellers spent the night in Paris, and on the
following day resumed their journey, arriving in excellent spirits at
Geneva. The hotel in which they found accommodations overlooked
the beautiful and peaceful Lake Leman. The cool, invigorating air, the
intense blue of the waters, the sky, and the fields, the picturesqueness
of the houses, and the novelty of things about him deeply appealed to
the Swami.
Though somewhat tired from the long journey, he was impatient,
after a brief rest, to be out of doors. Accompanied by his friends, he
spent the greater part of the day at a national exhibition of Swiss
products and industries, which was being held that summer in Geneva.
He was exceedingly interested in the local arts and crafts, particularly
the celebrated wood-carvings. But the most fascinating feature of the
whole exhibition, to the Swami's happy mind, was a large, captive
balloon. As soon as he saw it, he exclaimed, "Oh, we must go up in the
balloon!" The idea of floating in the air took possession of him, and
until sunset, when the balloon was to ascend, he was as impatient as a
boy. Mr. Sevier was also eager to take the balloon ride, but Mrs. Sevier
preferred terra firma. The Swami Would hear nothing of her
objections, and finally she acquiesced; whereupon they entered the
balloon. Up up up! The day was perfect, the sunset gorgeous.
There was not the slightest sensation of unpleasantness, for the
balloon sailed steadily and smoothly in the evening air. They all
enjoyed the experience immensely and were regretful when they

found the balloon descending to its base. The Swami was eager to go
up again, but other interests intervened, and after taking dinner at a
near-by restaurant, they returned to the hotel, carrying with them as
souvenirs of their aerial experience photographs taken of themselves
on the exhibition grounds immediately after the balloon had made its
descent. The Swami was seen therein with his smiling face.
(Unfortunately, these photographs are not today available.)
Geneva is a great bathing-resort, and the Swami bathed twice in
one of the spacious bath houses or protected swimming pools formed
in the Lake Lman.
At the far end of the lake, some forty miles away, stands the Castle
of Chillon, made famous by Lord Byron's poem "The Prisoner of
Chillon", which tells of the long imprisonment there of a Swiss patriot.
A visit to this romantic and picturesque spot ended the party's sojourn
in the historic city. The travellers had originally intended to remain
longer, but the programme was suddenly changed, and we next find
them fifty-six miles southeast in the far-famed resort of Chamonix in
southeast France.
Now as the party approached Chamonix the grand spectacle of
Mont Blanc opened up to view, presenting a sight which the Swami
said he had not enjoyed even in the Himalayas. "This is really
wonderful!" he cried out. "Here we are actually in the midst of the
snows l" "In India", he said, "the snow is so far distant that one walks
and climbs for days and days to come near it. But then, the Alps are
mere hills compared with those mighty peaks that tower on the
borders of Tibet." "Yet," he continued, this is beautiful! Come! Let us
make the ascent of Mont Blanc!" But the guides told them that only
skilled mountaineers should attempt such a feat. This was a
disappointment to him, but as he gazed through the, telescope and
saw the appallingly steep ascents, he granted that to climb them would
be impracticable. However, he was bent on crossing a gla1cier at all
costs. Without this, he felt, his visit to the Alps would be incomplete.
Fortunately, the famous Mer-de-Glace, also in France, was within easy
reach. Accordingly, several days later the party travelled on muleback
to the village whence the passage over the glacier begins. The actual

expedition was not so pleasant as the Swami had anticipated. It was

difficult to keep his footing. Every now and then he would pause to
gaze down the deep crevasses, or to admire the beautiful tints of
green that were everywhere to be seen. When the glacier proper is
crossed, a very steep ascent must be climbed to reach the village
above. It was here that the Swami suffered from vertigo for the first
time in his life; his foot slipped more than once, and he was glad when
he reached the little chalet at the summit without accident and 'was
restored by a cup of refreshingly hot coffee.
Observing the characteristics of the peasantry, the Swami
remarked to his friends: "Why, these people in many of their manners
and in their costumes remind me of the peasants in the hills of the
Himalayas! Those long baskets that they carry on their backs are
exactly like those used in the mountainous districts of my country." It
was in these Himalayas of Europe that the Swami spoke to those who
were to be the founders of the Advaita Ashrama and to dedicate their
lives to it, of his cherished dream of establishing a monastery in the
heart of his own beloved Himalayas. Even before starting 'on this tour
he had written from London to the Hale sisters: "I am going with three
English friends to the Swiss Hills. Later on, towards the end. of winter, I
expect to go to India with some English friends who are going to live in
my monastery there, which by the by, is in the air yet. It is struggling to
materialize somewhere in the Himalayas." Now in the Alpine snows he
cried. "Oh, I long for such a monastery where I can retire from the
labours of my life and pass the rest of my days in meditation. It will be
a centre for work and meditation, where my Indian and Western
disciples can live together. I shall train them as workers, the former to
go out as preachers of Vedanta to the West, and the latter to devote
their lives to the good of India." A thought, something akin to a vision,
also crossed the minds of the Seviers; and the Captain, speaking for
himself and his wife, exclaimed, "We must have such a monastery!" At
the time, it seemed only a passing remark, but as the months went by,
those words spoken in the midst of the Alps were seen to have been
prophetic. So deep had the idea sunk into the hearts of these two

disciples that within three years the Swami's great desire was fulfilled
through their practical help and co-operation.
From Chamonix, the travellers made a four-day mountainous trek
to the village of Little St. Bernard. High above the village rises a pass,
on the crest of which stood a hospice of Augustinian monks. At Little
St. Bernard the Swami was shown a litter of Saint Bernard pups, offsprings of the famous dogs bred and trained at the hospice. Forgetting
that the dogs could not stand a tropical climate, the Swami in his
enthusiasm exclaimed, "I want one of those puppies to take with me to
India!" Fortunately for a Saint Bernard puppy would certainly have
perished even before reaching India all the dogs had been sold.
Later they visited the resort of Zermatt, one of the beauty-spots of
Switzerland, set in the midst of glaciers and high mountains, including
Monte Rosa, the famous Matterhorn, and Gornergrat. Here they
hoped to climb the Gornergrat in. order to secure the view of the
Matterhorn, but of the party only Captain Sevier succeeded in reaching
the summit, the air being too rarefied for the others.
At the request of Miss Mller, the party next travelled to the little
Swiss village of Saas-Fee in the Upper Rhone valley, where they made a
sojourn of nearly two weeks. The Swami was at his best in this village
nestling in the Alps. On all sides rose snow-capped peaks; all about was
the silence and the peace of village life. No rude note of worldliness
crept in. It was here that he enjoyed some of the most luminous
spiritual moments of his life. He seemed far, far away from all worldly
concerns. He was not even the Teacher, but the silent, meditating
monk of old. Many times as he walked on the mountain paths or stood
on some great elevation, the longing and the freedom and the
supreme insight of the monastic life were imprinted on his face, and
his companions seemed to be caught up with him in a world of
meditation and peace.
His mood was reflected also in his letters of that period. To Mrs.
Bull he wrote on July 25: "I am travelling in the most lonely nooks and
corners of Switzerland. I want to forget the world entirely at least for
the next two months and practise hard. That is my rest." And a week or

so later, on August 5, he wrote to Christine Greenstidel from Saas-Fee:

"I am in Switzerland constantly on the move getting a much needed
rest. It is a miniature Himalayas and has the same effect of raising the
mind up to the Self and driving away all earthly feelings and ties. I
am intensely enjoying it. I feel so uplifted. I cannot write, but I wish
you will have the same forever where your feet do not want as it
were to touch the material earth. When the soul finds itself floating as
it were in an ocean of spirituality."
The Swami seems, indeed, to have left this world behind. On
August 8 he wrote to J. J. Goodwin from Switzerland: "The whole world
is a mere child's play preaching, teaching, and all included. 'Know
him to be the sannyasin who neither hates nor desires.' And what is
there to be desired in this little mud-puddle of a world with its everrecurring misery, disease, and death?... This rest eternal, peaceful
rest 1 am catching a glimpse of now in this beautiful spot. 'Having
once known that the Atman alone, and nothing else, exists, desiring
what, or for whose desire, shall you suffer misery about the body?' I
feel as if I had my share of experience in what they call 'work'. I am
finished. I am longing now to get out." And on August 23 from Lucerne
he wrote to Mrs. Bull: "I think I have worked enough 1 am now
going to retire. I have sent for another man [Swami Abhedananda]
from India who will join me next month. I have begun the work; let
others work it out.... I am getting ready to depart to return no more to
this hell, this world. Even its religions and variety are beginning to pall
(on) me. May Mother gather me soon to Herself never to come back
any more. These works and doing good etc. are, just a little exercise to
cleanse the mind, I have enough of it. This world will be world ever and
always. What we are, so we see it. Who works? Whose work? There is
no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call world neither I nor
Thou nor you, it is all He the Lord, all one."
One of those who were with him in the wondrous sojourn at SaasFee said: "There seemed to be a great light about him and a great
stillness and peace. Never have I seen the Swami to such advantage.
He seemed to communicate spirituality by a look or with a touch. One

could almost read his thoughts which were of the highest, so

transfigured had his personality become!"
This quiet life at Saas-Fee completely restored the Swami. There
was only one incident of a slightly disturbing character. He had been
walking one morning with his friends, reciting and translating passages
from the Upanishads, creating in the Alps an Indian atmosphere, when,
lost in reverent contemplation, he had gradually dropped behind.
'After a short time, they saw him approaching rapidly, calling out in
great excitement, "I have' been saved by the grace of the Lord!"
Catching up with them he explained. "I was walking along, planting my
alpenstock firmly on the ground. Suddenly it broke through into a deep
crevice and I almost fell over the precipice. Certainly it was only a
miracle that saved me!" His friends were greatly agitated when they
heard this and congratulated themselves and the Swami on his
marvellous escape. Thenceforth they took special care never again to
leave him alone.
On the way home, there was a little mountain chapel. As the
Swami saw it,' he said quietly, "Do let us offer some flowers at the feet
of the Virgin!" His face shone with great tenderness and he went forth,
one of the party accompanying him, and gathered some Alpine
flowers. "Offer them at the feet of the Virgin", he said to Mrs. Sevier,
"as a token of my gratitude and devotion." And with a strange note of
religious certainty, he added, "For She also is the Mother." He would
have offered them himself, but feared that his not being a Christian
might cause trouble.
At this out-of-the-way village of Saas-Fee the Swami received a
letter that changed the course of his continental tour. This was an
invitation from the well-known German Orientalist, Paul Deussen,
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kiel. The Professor had
been studying the Swami's lectures and utterances and had found in
him an original thinker and a spiritual genius. Deeply interested in the
Vedanta philosophy and having recently returned from India, he
naturally desired to meet the Swami and to discuss philosophical
questions with him. He had written to the Swami's London address,
cordially inviting him and Mr. Sturdy to visit him at his residence in

Kiel, and his letter had been forwarded to Saas-Fee. Though, as it

turned out, Sturdy was unable to accept the Professor's invitation, the
Swami did so. "Miss Mller telegraphed to Prof. Deussen last night," he
wrote to Sturdy in a postscript to a letter dated August 8; "the reply
came this morning, 9th August., welcoming me; I am to he in Kiel at
Deussen's on the 10th September. Where will you meet me? At Kiel?
Miss Mller goes to England from Switzerland. I am going with the
Seviers to Kiel. I will be there on the 10th September" The Swami's
travelling companions insisted, however, that before visiting Kiel he
complete his Swiss tour, and they arranged that he also see something
of Germany on the way.
From Saas-Fee the party travelled to Lucerne, which has one of
the most beautiful settings of any town in Switzerland. There they
visited all the near-by places of interest. With the exception of Mr.
Sevier, all made the ascent of Mount Rigi by the mountain railway a
fascinating experience, the view from the summit commanding one, of
the finest snow vistas in the world. Among other things the Swami saw
in Lucerne was the Lion Monument, the main feature of which is a
dying lion hewn from live sandstone from a model by the famous
Thorwaldsen and so reflected in the pool as to give a strange and
majestic effect. He also passed through the two covered wooden
bridges across the Reuss, one of which is ornamented with, painted
panels illustrating the history of Switzerland, and the other with
paintings depicting the "Dance of Death". He visited the museum of
Lucerne as well as the historic cathedral which contains the
seventeenth-century organ with the celebrated "Vox Humana". He was
much interested in this tone produced by a special stop and
resembling in every respect the voice of a man. Indeed, on hearing it
he thought that it was actually a human voice. One day the travellers
went by steamer across the beautiful Lake Lucerne and were charmed
with the scenery on its shores. When he saw the chapel dedicated to
William Tell, he recalled the career of that great patriot. The Swami not
only saw many pleasing and historic spots in Lucerne, he was also able
to find there the hottest chillies he had ever eaten in the West. The

vendor was astounded to see him eat them raw and that with
evident gusto, remarking the while, "Haven't you anything hotter?"
Urgent business compelled Miss Mller to leave the party at
Lucerne, and the Swami, restless to proceed on, bade farewell to his
disciple and journeyed with Captain and Mrs. Sevier to Schaffhausen,
where the Rhine Falls are seen at their best. From Schaffhausen the
three tourists crossed into Germany, travelling by rail to Heidelberg,
where they stopped for two days. The city of Heidelberg is the site of
one of the greatest and oldest German universities; founded in 1386, it
is world-famous not only for its high academic standing but for its old
world romance and charm as well. Visiting the university the Swami
saw from the general character of the curriculum what splendid
opportunities for education the students enjoyed and was much
impressed by the great culture of the Germans. The party also visited
the castle above Heidelberg and there saw the famous Great Tun, the
largest wine cask in the world, having a capacity of 49,000 gallons.
Then on to Coblenz, where a halt was made for the night. On the next
day they boarded a steamer to journey down the Rhine as far as the
city of Cologne. During the sixty-mile trip the Swami was enchanted
with the charming scenery and in his imagination peopled the old
castles on the heights along the river with characters from German folk
tales. At Cologne, where the party spent several days, the, Swami
attended Mass at the vast cathedral and marvelled at its magnificent
Gothic architecture, its rich art treasures and tapestries.
Captain and Mrs. Sevier had planned to take their guest from
Cologne direct to Kiel, but he was eager to see the city of Berlin.
Anxious to please him, his hosts made a long detour, intending to visit
not only Berlin, but Dresden as well. En route the Swami was struck
with the general prosperity of the country and with the large number
of its cities built in modern style. Berlin, with its wide streets, fine
monuments, and beautiful parks, made him compare it favourably
even with Paris. As for the ubiquitous German soldiery, he remarked,
"What fine bearing and military appearance they have!" During their
three days' stay in the city the Swami's friends took him to every place
of historic or intellectual importance, in all of which he was interested.

Indeed, the Swami had appreciation for everything. As Mrs. Sevier was
to write: "Every phase of human activity, and every department of
knowledge had interest for Swamiji, and his mental attitude of
cheerfulness and kindness, combined with his fine intelligence and
personal charm, made him the most delightful of travelling
companions."
When the Swami was informed that their next destination was
Dresden, he hesitated, saying, "Professor Deussen will be expecting us.
We must not delay any longer." Accordingly the party proceeded to
Kiel, arriving on September 8. A very interesting account of this visit
was recorded by Mrs. Sevier, who, together with her husband, was
also invited to be a guest of the Deussen family. Mrs. Sevier's account,
as published in September 1905 in Prabuddha Bharata, is given here in
part:
.. My recollection of Kiel, a town in Germany, which is beautifully
situated on the Baltic, is bright with agreeable memories of a pleasant
day spent in the society of Dr. Paul Deussen, Professor of Philosophy in
the University there a man of rare philosophical grasp, standing
foremost in the rank of European Sanskrit scholars on hearing that the
Swami had arrived at the hotel, the Professor immediately sent a note
requesting his company at breakfast on the following day, courteously
including my husband and myself in the invitation. Punctually at 10
o'clock the next morning we presented ourselves at his house, and
were ushered into the library where we received a cordial reception
from Dr. and Mrs. Deussen who were expecting us. After a few
preliminary inquiries regarding the travels and plans of Swamiji, I
noticed the Professor directing his eyes to some volumes lying open on
the table, and with a scholar's appreciation of learning, he soon turned
the conversation on books.... He considered the system of the Vedanta
as founded on the Upanishads and Vedanta-Sutras, with
Shankaracharya's commentaries, some of the most majestic structures
and valuable products of the genius of man in his search for Truth, and
that the highest and purest morality is the immediate consequence of
the Vedanta....

It seems, the Professor added, that a movement is being made

back towards the fountain-head of spirituality, a movement that will in
the future, probably make India, the spiritual leader of the nations, the
highest and greatest spiritual influence on earth.
The Swami interested himself in some translations Dr. Deussen
was making, and a discussion arose on the precise significance and
correct understanding of various obscure passages. The former
pointed out that clearness of definition was of primary, and elegance
of diction of very secondary, importance. The vigorous and lucid
interpretations given by the Oriental exegetist with such firmness of
conviction, and yet such delicacy of perception, eventually quite won
over the German savant.
On two occasions, we prepared to take leave, but to this our kind
host and hostess strongly objected, insisting that we must remain to
dinner, and later on, join in a festivity to be held in honour of their
daughter's fourth birthday. We could not but accept their warmhearted and generous hospitality, and it was very charming to watch
the little Erica, amongst much chat and merriment, dispensing tea and
cakes to her youthful guests. Dr. and Mrs. Deussen were unfailing in
their entertainment of us, and we were favoured with a fascinating
and animated account of their tour in India. Especially, they enjoyed
old India, so rich in its historical associations. They discoursed on the
Great Mother Ganga reverenced by all, and in whose sacred waters,
thousands of people take their daily bath; on the motley crowds that
surge all day long in the large cities situated on her banks, where
hundreds of temples, shrines, and mosques testify to the ancient
civilization and the old-world religions of Brahma, Buddha, and
Mohammed; and where the children of the Orient look out upon the
world with eyes that regard things in a totally different light to those of
the Occidental races. We realized how thoroughly the Professor and
his wife appreciated the fine sympathies and instincts so indissolubly
connected with our ideas of things Indian. For cities are like human
beings, with souls and temperaments of their own, and the soul of a
city will reveal itself only to him who loves with a far-sighted emotion.
In the bazaars they noted the old arts and crafts of Hindusthan still

being plied, as they have been handed down from generation to

generation. In the open street, they saw the barber shaving his clients
and the worshipper praying with folded hands without fear or shame
before his fellow-men. But there is a terrible poverty in India, of which
the beggars who await you at every temple and street corner are but
too genuine a sign. One of the first gestures learnt by the children of
the poor is to hold out their hands for alms.
These and much more they told us, and of the never-to-beforgotten kindness of the Indians towards their German visitors.
However, the happiest day must come to an end, and it now only
remains for me to close this trifling sketch, expressing the delight we
experienced in seeing a philosopher happily surrounded by a peaceful
home with wife and child, honour, and contentment, as well as many
congenial friends. The friendship so well begun was further cemented
by the companionship of our host on our return to England. The
journey was enlivened by much brilliant conversation on the part of
our philosophers, accompanied by kindly attentions, which never
ceased whilst we were together.
At some time during that day spent with the Deussens, the
Professor found the Swami turning over the pages of a poetical work.
He spoke to him', but got no response. When the Swami came to know
of it, he apologized, saying that he had been so absorbed in reading
that he had not heard him. The Professor was not satisfied with this
explanation until, in the course of conversation, the Swami quoted and
interpreted verses from the book. Dr. Deussen was dumbfounded, and
like the Raja of Khetri, asked him how he could accomplish such a feat
of memory. Thereupon the conversation turned upon the subject of
concentration as practised by the Indian yogi. From his personal
knowledge the Swami said that the yogi could attain such perfection in
concentration that in that state he would he unaware of it, even if a
piece of burning charcoal were placed on his body.
At this time an exhibition was being held in Kiel, which Dr.
Deussen insisted that the Swami visit and to which he offered to take
him. So immediately after tea the Swami's party accompanied their
host to the exhibition, where some time was spent in studying the

various arts and industries of Germany. After taking light refreshments,

they returned to the Swami's hotel. The Professor suggested that he
see the objects of interest in and about the city, and it was decided
that on the next day they would all make an excursion to some of the
outlying districts, notably the harbour of Kiel, opened only a few days
previously by the Kaiser.
About six weeks had been spent in holiday touring, and the Swami
felt that he could now take up his London work again with renewed
vigour. Accordingly, he asked Captain and Mrs. Sevier to make plans to
return immediately. Dr. Deussen had hoped that the Swami would
prolong his visit, so that he could discuss many philosophical matters
with him in the quiet retreat of his own residence, where his treasureroom of books would have added much to the interest of their talks.
He tried to induce the Swami to remain if only for a few days, but
when he was told that the Swami was anxious to put his work on a
solid basis before returning to India, he understood and said: "Well,
then, Swami, I shall meet you in Hamburg5," and thence, via Holland,
we shall both journey' to London, where I hope to spend many happy
hours with you."
Leaving Kiel, the Swami and the Seviers made Hamburg their next
stopping place. Here they visited, among other places of interest, the
famous Zoological Gardens. After a day in Hamburg, the party, with its
additional member, Professor Deussen, travelled to Bremen, and
thence, on September 12, went on to Amsterdam, where they spent
three days sight-seeing and visiting art galleries and museums. The
crossing of the North Sea from Amsterdam to Harwich was a most

According to another view the meeting took place in Bremen, not in Hamburg

unpleasant voyage. Fortunately, it was soon over, and the travellers

landed on September 17, 1896.

BACK TO LONDON 2
Once again the Swami was on English shores. He accompanied
Captain and Mrs. Sevier to their home in Hampstead, a borough of
London; while Professor Deussen made his home with friends in St.
John's Wood, also a section of the city. After his vacation of almost
exactly two months (from July 19 to September 17), the Swami's
health was, much improved, and he could again meet the demands of
his work with energy and enthusiasm.
After a few days' stay with the Seviers in Hampstead, he moved to
Airlie Lodge, Ridgeway Gardens, the residence of Miss Henrietta Mller
and there commenced his work. Within the first two weeks of his stay
he gave two drawing-room lectures, at the first of which a Mr. J. F.
Schwann presided, and the audience, composed mainly of society
women, crowded the room. The Swami spoke on "Vedanta as a Factor
in Civilization". The lecture was a great success and was followed. by
the opening of regular Monday afternoon classes in Wimbledon, in
which the Swami gave both private and general instructions, teaching
many people the principles of Raja-Yoga and the practices of
meditation.
In London the Swami's weekday classes-were resumed on
Thursday, October 8, and were now held in a large room at 39 Victoria
Street, one of the best thoroughfares in London, which had been
engaged by Mr. Sturdy in order to afford the general public an
opportunity of attending. As we have seen earlier, the members of the
Swami's summer class had subscribed to the rent for such autumn
quarters. The room had ample accommodation; it could scat two
hundred and had facilities for a small library.
Around the second week of October, the Swami, his brotherdisciple Swami Abhedananda, who had just arrived from India at his
urgent call, and J. J. Goodwin, now returned from America, moved into
a roomy nearby flat at 14 Greycoat Gardens, Westminster, which had

been taken for them by Captain and Mrs. Sevier. Swami Abhedananda
had come to London to help in the work, and the Swami now did all in
his power to impress him with the responsibilities of his new life. Day
after day he trained his young brother-disciple; for he was thinking of
sailing for India at the end of the year and was therefore eager to leave
behind someone fitted both spiritually and intellectually to carry on
the work. At this time the Swami was also writing to his Indian disciples
giving them instructions on various subjects and keeping them
informed of the progress of his London work, which was growing
apace. He was hopeful and enthusiastic, stating that, with twenty
earnest-minded and capable preachers of Vedanta, he could convert
the West in as many years. He realized the vast importance of his
Western work in its influence on the Indian public. "One blow struck
outside India", he wrote, "is equal to a hundred thousand struck
within." Professor Deussen often visited the Swami, discussing with
him the principles of the Vedanta and gaining from him much clearer
insight into the whole body of Vedantic thought. lie was in agreement
with the Swami when the latter pointed out to him that the difficulty
for the Western mind in thoroughly understanding Vedanta
metaphysics lay in the fact that the Western philosopher was apt to
regard Indian idealism through the lens of preconceived ideas. And as
he came to know the Swami more intimately, he understood that one
must become de-Occidentalized, as it were, in order to master the
spirit of Indian philosophical systems, for these were not so much
systems of logic as methods of spiritual vision. For two weeks, during
his stay in London, the Professor saw the Swami daily. At the same
time Professor Max Mller of Oxford was also in communication with
him. "He [Professor Deussen] is a very good friend," the Swami wrote
to Mrs. Bull on October 8, "and so is Prof Max Mller. They will do all
they can to help our movement."
From Switzerland the Swami had written on August 6, 1896, to an
Indian disciple, "There is a big London work waiting for me next
month," and so it proved to be. The most notable feature of his work
during the months of October and November was his delivery of the

message of the Vedanta in both its most practical and its highest
metaphysical aspects.
His London classes, which he held on Tuesday and Thursday
mornings and Wednesday evenings, were for the most part devoted to
the exposition of the philosophical portions of the Vedanta 'known as
Jnana-Yoga. He opened his lecture course with a masterly exposition of
that most abstruse subject, the Vedantic doctrine of Maya, to explain
which confounded not only the best Sanskrit scholars of the West but
puzzled even the ancient philosophers of his own land. In fact, the
burden of all his subsequent lectures in London was the definition and
explanation of Maya. How successfully he achieved this most difficult
task will be seen by everyone who carefully studies his lectures on
"Maya and Illusion", "Maya and the Evolution of the Conception of
God", "Maya and Freedom", and "The Absolute and Manifestation". In
his other lectures delivered during the period which followed, such as
"God in Every- thing", "Realization", "Unity in Diversity", "The Freedom
of the Soul", and the last series of four lectures known as "Practical
Vedanta", one sees the Swami full of the luminous theme of Advaita
that there is but One Infinite Existence, Sat-Chit-Ananda, ExistenceKnowledge-Bliss Absolute. Sat-Chit-Ananda, he taught, is the
innermost nature of man, and, as such, the soul of man is, in essence,
eternally free and divine, all manifestations being but Its varying
expressions. No better exposition of a rationalistic religion upon
which, the Swami believed, depended the salvation of Europe could
be conceived than these unique presentations of the highest truth.
Extraordinarily equipped as he was to clothe the greatest metaphysical
truths in a poetic language of wonderful profundity, he made the dizzy
heights of Advaita appear like a land rich with the verdure of noblest
human aspiration and fragrant with flowers of the finest emotions. All
his lectures were delivered on the spur of the moment, without the
least preparation, but the tremendous power of his personality behind
his utterances made every word fall like a thunderbolt upon his
audience. In one of his lectures on Maya he rose to such heights of
feeling that his whole audience was transported, so much so that they
lost all sense of personality, being merged, as it were, in the

consciousness of the Highest for the time being. In such moments as

these, his hearers admitted, a teacher can transmit his realization even
by a spoken word.
In a letter dated October 24 to Miss Mary Phillips, Goodwin wrote,
"The Swami is giving magnificent lectures in London now. He has
benefited greatly by his rest." Nor, as time passed, was that benefit
lost. Nearly a month later, Goodwin informed Mrs. Bull: "The Swami's
lectures seem to he better and better every time. His lecture on
Wednesday evening was a plea for the Vedanta in an entirely new way,
which he has just recently thought out. It was really superb." The
reference was to the last lecture in the series entitled "Practical
Vedanta", delivered on November 18. Goodwin continued:
The theme was really this: (1) That theological religion has in every
case received its hardest blows from science. But religion as explained
through the Vedanta is a combination of religion and science-religion
becomes synonymous with science, and carries science to limits which
science, from the physical or external basis alone, cannot reach. (2)
That the idea of the Personal God is in itself and by itself irrational, but
when explained by the Vedanta as the highest conception of the
Impersonal, it becomes both rational and scientific. (3) That religion
becomes scientific through the Vedanta, in that it is explained from
itself, and not from outside. In other words the nature of a thing is
explainable from its own nature only.
Aside from his Victoria Street lectures the Swami often spoke on
invitation in private drawing-rooms, in fashionable clubs, and to other
select audiences in London and Oxford. As he had done earlier in the
year, he spoke before various intellectual societies; on (October 20, for
instance, he spoke at London's Sesame Club, some of whose members
became his ardent followers. On four Sundays in November and the
first Sunday in December, he lectured at the Unitarian Church in West
Croyen at the invitation of its well-known minister, the Reverend John
Page Hopps. and, as we have seen, he held regular Monday classes in
Wimbledon.

Among many other persons of culture and enlightenment with

whom the Swami came in contact were Frederic W. H. Myers, the
author of several important psychological works and one of the
founders of the Society for Psychical Research; the famous
nonconformist minister, Moncure D. Conway; the Positivist and peace
advocate, Dr. Stanton Coit; the Reverend Charles Voysey; Edward
Carpenter, the author of Towards Democracy; and Canon Hugh R.
Haweis. Not only many well-known nonconformist clergymen, such as
the Reverend Mr. Haweis and Moncure D. Conway, but also high
clerics of the Church of England were deeply impressed with the
Swami's teachings. He could well write to Mrs. Bull on October 8, 1896,
"Things are working very favourably here in England; that is a great
gain. The work is not only popular but respectable." His teachings
were, indeed, appreciated by the most orthodox. He made a friend, for
instance, of Canon Basil Wilberforce, who, as we have seen earlier,
received him at his residence in Westminster with great cordiality and
marked attention, and who became a keen student of the Vedanta
philosophy. On several occasions the Swami attended services at the
Anglican Church and there listened to sermons the ideas of which were
characteristic of the advanced religious thought he had himself
propagated. He attended other lectures as well on subjects that were
of interest to him. We learn, for example, from a letter written to Mrs.
Bull by J. J. Goodwin on November 11, 1896, that the Swami "heard a
lecture at the Royal Asiatic Society yesterday on Tao. I had told him...
that Taoism was an offshoot of Vedantism.... There is, the Swami says,
distinct evidence of Vedanta's missionary enterprise long before the
advent of Buddha."
At this time the Swami's long-cherished desire to write was again
pressing forward for fulfilment. He was now, as he wrote to Alasinga in
October of 1896, "busy writing something big on the Vedanta
philosophy". And even as he had earlier written to India from America
for Sanskrit books, he was now requesting "passages from the various
Vedas bearing on Vedanta in its threefold aspect. According to another
view the meeting took place in Bremen, not in Hamburg Vedas bearing
on the Vedanta in its threefold aspect". "It would be a pity", he wrote

in this letter, "to leave the West without leaving something of the
philosophy in book form." Although the Swami was unable to write a
systematized statement of his philosophy in book form before leaving
the West, it was a satisfaction to him to see that there was a great
demand for his published lectures and class lessons, especially his RajaYoga, the first edition of which had been sold out in October. There
were standing orders for several hundred copies, when the second
edition went to press in November. But the idea of writing books on
Hindu philosophy never left him, and even as late as January 1901,
when he went to Mayavati, he told his disciples that he was seriously
thinking of retiring from public life to devote the rest of his days to
writing books in a secluded spot and he said he could think of no
other place more suitable for this than Mayavati.
.Besides giving numerous private interviews, holding many classes
a week, often lecturing publicly, and constantly writing, the Swami was
still paying attention to his work in India. Indeed, shortly after his
arrival in England in April of 1896, we find him writing a long letter,
addressed to Swami Ramakrishnananda, in which he gave instructions
to all his brother-disciples in regard to running the Alambazar Math on
organizational lines. Swami Saradananda, having just arrived from
India, had given him news of the Math, and the Swami had perhaps
felt that the Indian work was being conducted in too traditional a way;
it had to he given a more practical orientation in order to accord with
the spirit of the age. In the introduction o is letter dated. April 27, 1896
he wrote:
... Let me write something for you all. It is not for gaining personal
authority that I do this, but for your good and for fulfilling the purpose
for which the Lord came. He gave me the charge of you all, and you
shall contribute to the great. well-being of the world-though most of
you are not yet aware of it; this is the special reason of my writing to
you. It will be a great pity if any feeling of jealousy, or egotism gain
ground amongst you. Is it possible for those to establish cordial
relations on earth who cannot cordially live with one another for any
length of time P No doubt it is an evil to be bound by laws, but it is
necessary at the immature stage to be guided by rules; in other words,

as the Master used to say that the sapling must he hedged round, and
so on. Secondly, it is quite natural for idle minds to indulge in gossip,
and faction-mongering, and so forth. Hence I jot down the following
hints. If you follow them, you will undoubtedly prosper, but if you
don't do so, then there is a danger of all our labours coming to naught.
After writing about the management of the Math and giving ten
directive principles for the purpose, he gave some broad rules for the
following departments in the Math: (1) Study, (2) Propaganda, and (3)
Religious Practice. Then, after some "general remarks" and some
directions about the "office-bearers", he pointedly wrote:
If you consider it wise to be guided by my ideas and if you follow
these rules, then I shall supply you all necessary funds.... Moreover,
please show this letter to Gauri-Ma, Yogin-Ma, and others, and
through them establish a Women's Math. Let Gauri-Ma be the
President there for one year, and so on. But none of you shall he
allowed to visit the place. They will manage their own affairs. They will
not have to work at your dictation. I shall supply all necessary expenses
for that work also.
In an earlier chapter we have shown how deeply occupied the
Swami was with his Indian work, even while he was in the midst of
hard, concentrated, and important work in America. A study of the
above letter is evidence that in England he was still thinking of the
great work that was to take place in India, that he was, indeed, now
organizing and guiding it in great detail, having already set it in motion
through the power of his written words. Nor was he writing to his
brother-disciples alone. Even as he had written from America to his
disciples in Madras, he was now writing to them from England, telling
them that they must learn to stand on their own feet, must he filled
with his enthusiasm, and must spread the new light all over India.
From Switzerland he had written to them on August 6: "Do not be
afraid. Great things are going to be done, my children. Take heart.... In
the winter I am going back to India and will try to set things on their
feet there. Work on, brave hearts, fail not no saying nay; work on
the Lord is behind the work.... Mahashakti is with you...." And in India

the work was being pushed on by the Swami's disciples. The

Brahmavadin was disseminating his ideas broadcast, and instilling into
the hearts of the people the great ideas of Hinduism. In addition,
Prabuddha Bharata, an English-language monthly, was started in
Madras in July 1896, under his inspiration and direction. The magazine
was intended to be a journal devoted to religion and philosophy,
seeking to do for young students what was already being done so
successfully for more advanced students by the Brahmavadin. In this
same connection the Swami wrote in August to his Madras disciple
who was bringing out Prabuddha Bharata. "When you have succeeded
in this paper, start vernacular ones on the same lines in Tamil, Telegu,
Canarese [Kannada], etc. We must reach the masses."
One of the events in London that satisfied the Swami immensely
was the success of the maiden speech of Swami Abhedananda, whom
he had designated to speak in his stead at the Christ Theosophical
Society in Bloomsbury Square, on October 27. The newly arrived monk
gave an excellent address on the. general character of the Vedanta
teaching, and the Swami was delighted to see that he possessed not
only spiritual fervour, but the makings of a good speaker. A description
of this occasion, written by Mr. Eric Hammond, reads:
Some disappointment awaited those that had gathered that
afternoon. It was announced that Swamiji did not intend to speak, and
Swami Abhedananda would address them instead.
An overwhelming joy was noticeable in the Swami in his scholar's
success. joy compelled him to put at least some of itself into words
that rang with delight unalloyed. It was the joy of a spiritual father over
the achievement of a well-beloved son, a successful and brilliant
student. The Master was more than content to have effaced himself in
order that his Brother's opportunity should be altogether unhindered.
The whole impression had in it a glowing beauty quite indescribable. It
was as though the Master thought and knew his thought to be true:
"Even if I perish on this plane, my message will be sounded through
these dear lips and the world will hear it...... He remarked that this was
the first appearance of his dear Brother and pupil, as an Englishspeaking lecturer before an English audience, and he pulsated with

pure pleasure at the applause that followed the remark. His

selflessness throughout the episode burnt itself into one's deepest
memory.
At this time the Swami was also filled with joy to hear frequently,
chiefly through newspaper cuttings, of Swami Saradananda's
immediate success and constantly growing influence in America, and
was happy to hear from private letters that the students' expectations
of their new teacher were being fully satisfied. As we have seen, he
had sent his brother-disciple to America at the end of June in the
company of J. Goodwin. The sweet and gentle personality of the new
teacher and his masterly exposition of Hinduism had at once drawn to
him large numbers of men and women, "who were attracted to the
Vedanta by the other Swami's [Swami Vivekananda's] eloquence and
example, but who had not had sufficient opportunity for personal
contact to become, what one would call, established in it." Soon after
his arrival he had been invited to be one of the teachers in the
Greenacre Conference of Comparative Religions, held in connection
with the Greenacre Summer School, where Swami Vivekananda had
spoken and held classes in August of 1894. Swami Saradananda began
his work there with a lecture on Vedanta and held classes in Raja-,
Bhakti-, and Karma-Yoga under the large pine, known as the "Swami's
Pine", which had served as a canopy and open air pulpit for Swami
Vivekananda two years earlier. After the close of the two-months
Conference, Swami Saradananda spent the remainder of 1896
primarily in Cambridge, Massachusetts, delivering lectures for the
Cambridge Conferences, where the teachings of various religions were
ably represented. On October 25 he lectured in Brooklyn, New York,
and on the 28th of that month he opened the work of the New York
Vedanta Society for the season of 1896-97, announcing that Miss Sarah
Ellen Waldo would conduct the classes in Vedanta philosophy through
November and December. Everywhere the Swami made friends,
winning their love and esteem, and, as the reports of his work at this
time clearly testify, he was making an impression on the East Coast.
From January of 1897 he was to divide his time between the Vedanta
Society of New York and the Cambridge Conferences.

During the time Swami Saradananda was working in Cambridge,

the New York Vedanta Society was without an authorized teacher.
Accordingly, Swami Vivekananda wrote to Miss Sarah Ellen Waldo from
London on October 8:
... Why do you not begin to teach? Begin boldly Mother will give
you all power thousands will come to you. Plunge in. No clinging to
this fellow or that. Wherever Shri Ramakrishna's children boldly come
out, He is with them.... I will be a thousand times more pleased to see
one of you start than any number of Hindus scoring success in America
even one of my brethren. "Man wants victory from everywhere, but
defeat from his own children." I will begin from today sending out
powerful thoughts to you all. Make a blaze, make a blaze.
To the Swami's joy, Miss Waldo organized weekly classes in the
New York Vedanta Society during the last two months of 1896 and
conducted them with great credit. Her first class, in which she gave a
lucid exposition of the mission of Vedanta in relation to Christianity
and other religions of the world, was held on November 11. The New
York Daily Tribune commented upon this occasion as follows:
Miss Ellen Waldo's first lecture of a series of lectures on Vedanta
philosophy was listened to last evening by a large gathering of students
at the home of Miss Mary Phillips, No. 19 West Thirty-Eighth St. Miss
Waldo is regarded by Swami Vivekananda, who began teaching in this
country, as one of the ablest pupils. It was at his earnest request that
she consented to carry on the work, and this first effort before a class
of her own had, therefore, a peculiar interest for all who were looking
into the study of Eastern theories.
From London the Swami kept in close touch through Mrs. Bull,
Miss Waldo, and others with the progress of the Vedanta work in
America. That he was anxious for it to shape itself into a definite
movement with a dynamic core of its own, rather than to be solely a
diffused influence on the religious and intellectual thought of the time
is clearly evidenced by the following lines he wrote to Mrs. Bull on
October 8, in connection with the work of Swami Saradananda:
"Although I am in all sympathy with the various branches of religious

and social work, I find that specification of work is absolutely

necessary. Our special branch is to preach Vedanta. Helping in other
work should be subordinate to that one ideal. I hope you will inculcate
this into the mind of S. [Swami Saradananda] very strongly." The
Swami wanted the then existing Vedanta groups in the United States
particularly those in New York and Boston to receive attention
from his brother-disciple. "Can not Saradananda work at both places,
i.e. both Boston and New York?" he wrote to Mrs. Bull in the same
letter of October 8. "I will be very glad if that is possible; for New York
is not to he neglected." Not only was the Swami eager for each group
to grow into a strong centre in which the Vedanta philosophy would be
taught and studied and from which it would spread in ever-widening
circles, he hoped also that a strong sense of unity between the
members of these independent and scattered centres would develop.
He envisioned a magazine, edited and published in America, as a
means of communication and mutual assistance between them. As
early as June 4, 1896, Goodwin had written from London to Mrs. Bull:
"The Swami recognizes with me that I am really wasting time here, and
could do much more good in America. He has spoken two or three
times of his wish that we had a magazine in the States to keep our
people together and assist others in the study of the Vedanta. I have
thought over the matter carefully... I propose to make it an eighty page
magazine." It would appear that, even in the early days of the Vedanta
movement in America, the Swami foresaw a united body of men and
women inspired by, and dedicated to, a great ideal. And, indeed,
although no Vedanta magazine was forthcoming at that time in the
United States, the Vedanta movement, which had gathered
undeterrable momentum under his leadership, continued in his
absence to grow, "its people" held together by a common enthusiasm
and aspiration.
That the interest in the Vedanta philosophy had gone on steadily
increasing since the Swami had left America for England and that he
was remembered with love and gratitude by his students is made clear
by the following letter written to the editor of the Brahmavadin by
Helen P. Huntington on. October 14, 1896 from Gainesville, Georgia:

I am sure you will he glad to know that the peaceable fruits of

Swami Vivekananda's teachings have been all the while increasing; his
influence is like sunshineso quiet, so potent, and far-reaching. It will
always be a marvel to us that an Oriental could take such a firm hold
on us Occidentals, trained as we have been by long habits of thought
and education to opposing views.... Our interest is not of the noisy
effervescent quality often incited by passing fads; today it is stronger
and deeper than ever before, and all of the Swami's followers
endeavour earnestly to spread the truth according to the various
opportunities afforded to them some quietly within domestic
circles, others more prominently, as the case may be. And who is able
to estimate the measure of man's silent influence?...
Even down here, a thousand miles or more from the scene of the
Swami's work, I hear mention of his name.... I hope the time is not far
distant when the Vedanta will be as well known here as in New York
City....
It is impossible not to wish for Swami Vivekananda's return to our
midst, as he has endeared himself so deeply to all of us. As he said of
his guru, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, "His presence was a blessing to
everyone, saint and sinner", so was his own life among us; for he
influenced us to better living and brotherly kindness to all men....
Such letters added to the Swami's confidence that the work in
America would not suffer by his absence. His friends and disciples,
moreover, corresponded with him regularly, and he saw from the tone
in which they addressed him that they were heart and soul for the
Vedanta movement.
During the month of October 1896 the Swami's mind turned more
and more towards India. He had been thinking for some time of
returning there and had mentioned it to a few of his more intimate
friends, particularly to Captain and Ms. Sevier. But there was nothing
definite, his remarks being made only in passing. He had written also in
a tentative way to Mrs., Bull concerning his intention. In reply he
received a letter asking if he would be willing to accept a large sum of
money with which to further his work in India, especially with regard

to the founding of a permanent monastery as the headquarters of the

brotherhood in Calcutta. The Swami replied a week before his sailing
for India, to the effect that he was profoundly grateful for her
generous offer, but that he did not feel at the time that he should
encumber himself with such responsibilities; he wished to commence
his Indian work on a small scale, and until he had found his bearings he
could not accept her kindness. He promised, however, to write details
from India. Around the same time a few of the Swami's friends in
London also offered to contribute to the construction and
maintenance of a permanent monastery.
The Swami's English friends contributed as well to another cause
that was close to the Swami's heart. In November and December of
1896 India was struck by famine, brought on by the failure of the
monsoon and the consequent failure of the autumn crops. The London
papers were full of headlines and reports of the wide-spread disaster,
which was threatening to become increasingly severe. The Swami's
heart could not but have been wrung to read these accounts. He
himself sent what money he could towards relict On November 14, Mr.
Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull: "Ale Swami is interesting himself a good
deal in the Indian famine. He has sent a subscription towards relief to
the Indian Mirror, and a lady here, a Miss (Emmeline) Souter, who is a
most generous supporter, has just given him a large sum of money for
the same purpose. Thus even from the West the Swami was not only
organizing the Ramakrishna Order, but was actually making the first
token gesture in the famine relief work that the Order was to
undertake on an increasingly large scale in the future.
On November 21, 1896 the Cambridge "Indian Majlis" gave a
complimentary dinner at the University Arms Hotel to Prince
Ranjitsinghji and Mr. Atul Chandra Chatterjee, two distinguished Indian
students. The Swami was invited to attend the dinner and was called
upon to respond to the toast of "India". The report of the Swami's talk
in the Indian Mirror of December 16, 1896, ran thus:
Swami Vivekananda rose next to respond amidst loud and
deafening cheers. The Swami began by saying that he did not know
exactly why he should he chosen to respond to the toast, unless it be

for the reason that he in physical bulk bore striking resemblance to the
national animal of India (laughter). He desired to congratulate the
guests of the evening and he took the statement which the Chairman
had made that Mr. Chatterjee was going to correct the mistake of past
historians of India, to he literally true. For out of the past the future
must come, and he knew no greater and more permanent foundation
for the future than a true knowledge of what had preceded before.
The present is the effect of the infinity of causes which represent the
past. They had many things to learn from the Europeans but their past,
the glory of India which had passed away, should constitute even a still
greater source, of inspiration and instruction. Things rise and things
decay, there is rise and fall everywhere in the world. And though India
is fallen today she will assuredly rise again (loud cheers). There was a
time when India produced great philosophers and still greater
prophets and preachers. The memory of those days ought to fill them
with hope and confidence. This was not the first time in the history of
India that they were so low. Periods of depression and degradation
had occurred before this, but India has always triumphed in the long
run and so would she once again in the future.
It was after one of the class lectures in the second week of
November that the Swami called Mrs. Sevier aside and asked her quite
suddenly to purchase four tickets immediately for the most convenient
steamer from Naples, as he desired to shorten the sea-voyage by
travelling to Naples via the Continent. This came as a surprise to her,
even though she knew the Swami intended sailing. That same day the
Seviers secured berths for the Swami, Goodwin, and themselves on a
new steamer of the North German Lloyd, which was to leave Naples
for Ceylon on December 30. Subsequently, however, they were
transferred to the S.S. Prinz Regent Luitpold, as the new steamer was
not ready to sail.
The Swami at once wrote to his Madras followers on November 16
informing them of his coming, stating casually that he wanted to
establish two centres, one in Calcutta, the other in Madras, and that
Mr. and Mrs. Sevier intended founding a Himalayan centre. He added:
"We will begin work with these three centres; and later on, we will get

to Bombay and Allahabad. And from these points, if the Lord is

pleased, we will invade not only India, but send bands of preachers to
every country in the world." The Swami's vision in regard to his mission
was, indeed., not confined to India, America, and England. It seems
clear from a number of references in. his letters of this period, as well
as in the letters of his friends, that he was thinking on a global scale,
wanting to visit and preach in Russia, Japan, and China. Though he had
moments in which his feet barely touched this earth and during which
he declared, "Now I am sure my part of the work is done, and I have no
more interest in Vedanta or any philosophy in the world or the work
itself," the divine power within him, through which his mission was
being accomplished, drove him forward, filling him with ever-renewed
enthusiasm and vigour. His work was by no means done! Nor was
there any limit to his concept of its scope. "He intends to arrange
lectures in Japan and China on his way back [from India] to the States,"
Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull on November 14 of 1896. And a few weeks
earlier he had informed her that the Swami was "quite anxious to go
[to Russia] " if a hearing could be arranged there.
His mind was full of plans, and he discussed them enthusiastically
with Captain and Mrs. Sevier, particularly those for India. He seemed
to he consumed with the desire to deliver his message to his
motherland, and his disciples in their turn anticipated great results.
Making up their minds to renounce the world to lea d the Vanaprastha
life and dedicate themselves to the furtherance of the Swami's
mission, and to the practical realization of those of his teachings that
they had made their own, they made quick preparations to settle their
domestic affairs. In a short time they had disposed of their belongings,
consisting, among other things, of ornaments, pictures, books, and
furniture, and, true disciples that they were, handed over to their guru
the entire proceeds of the sale. Having closed their Hampstead flat,
they took temporary rooms elsewhere and were ready to start
whensoever the Swami wished. His devoted disciple, Goodwin, was
also to accompany him. Miss Mller, with her lady-companion Miss
Bell, was preparing to follow him at a later date. In his plans of work in
India the Swami, as a true patriot, did not forget the women of his own

land. Simultaneously with his idea of founding the three monastic

centres for the training of young men as preachers, he had thought of
starting an institution for the education of girls on national lines,
producing not only ideal wives and mothers, but Brahmacharinis
working for the betterment of the woman-hood of the country. The
Swami had inspired Miss Mller with the idea of being of service to the
women of India, and she had gladly promised to support the proposed
educational institution for Hindu girls. He had also in mind to bring
Miss Margaret Noble to India in due time to put her in charge of his
intended work for women. Thus from all points of view the prospects
of launching a successful campaign in India seemed bright with
promise, and the Swami was transported withjoy at seeing that the
dearest dream of his life rejuvenation of his motherland was
going to be fulfilled at last.
The Swami's last lecture given on Thursday, December 10, 1896 on
Advaita Vedanta was the fitting culmination of the whole series, as it
speaks the final word on the highest stage of realization. Though
himself a firm Advaitin, he did, not limit his teachings to the Advaitic
approach. His preaching was comprehensive, for his listeners were
necessarily of all temperaments and inclinations, requiring various
paths along which to pursue their spiritual quest. In regard to this
closing lecture, one of the Swami's followers pointed out:
The subject was the Advaita Vedanta, or that one of the three
views taken by the Vedanta system which maintains the Non-duality of
what is Real and Permanent in an otherwise eternally changing
universe. Those who attended the summer lectures on the Dvaita and
Vishishtadvaita or the Dual and Non-dual-with-a-distinction aspects,
will remember with what zeal the Swami entered into that side, in
which Bhakti, love, and devotion find their fullest scope, as contrasted
with Jnana or Knowledge, which has been emphasized in the series
now concluded. Knowledge however does not imply dry
intellectualism, against which the Swami has continually spoken, and
to draw a line of complete demarcation between knowledge and love
would he impossible.

Reporting on this last lecture of the Swami's and also commenting

on his influence in London, the special correspondent to the Indian
Mirror wrote on December 14 as follows:
The last lecture on the Advaita philosophy was given by the Swami
Vivekananda to a crowded audience, which was anxious not to lose
this last opportunity of hearing him for some time to come, on Tuesday
[Thursday], December 10, 1896. The regularity with which these
thoughtful people have attended the Swami's lectures in London is an
indication of the serious attention which they have given to the whole
of the present Vedanta exposition an exposition which, in the hands
of a personality which many have learned to very deeply respect and
others to love, finds an application to every phase of Western life, as
well as to that of Eastern life, where its first presentment was made. It
is this liberal and wise interpretation, which has brought people of
varying shades of opinion, including several of the clergy of the Church
of England, to group themselves together in an effort to make the
Swami's teaching as widely known as possible....
A deep spiritual teaching is not likely to move rapidly at first, but
steadily the Eastern thought is being more and more understood
through an army of conscientious and industrious translators, and a
teacher like the Swami Vivekananda comes and gives a living force to
this lore, wrapped up in books, and also adjusts discrepancies. Yet,
notwithstanding all that has been done by various scholars the
majority, probably, of those people who certainly may be called
refined and educated, who have attended the Swami's lectures, have
now had their attention called for the first time to the great treasures
of Universal Thought and Wisdom, which India holds through the ages
in trust, as it were, for the world.... If the Swami Vivekananda's work
here may he called a missionary effort, it may he contrasted with most
of the other missionary efforts of the day by its not having produced
any bitterness, by its not having given rise to a single instance of illfeeling or sectarianism. The reason of this is simple, and great is its
strength. The Swami is not a sectarian; he is the promoter of Religion,
not of one religion only. The exponents of single points in the vast field
of religion can find nothing in him to fight....

When his English students came to know that the Swami was to
leave in the middle of December, they were filled with sadness. It was
decided that a farewell reception be held in his honour. The chief
organizer of this final meeting was that indefatigable worker, E. T.
Sturdy, who, with Goodwin, drew up the farewell address and sent
invitations to all of the Swami's friends and followers.
On December 13 the final Sunday before the Swami's departure
from London, the gathering at the Royal Society of Painters in WaterColours, in Piccadilly, where the meeting was held, was enormous.
Scores of people from all parts of the city, and some even from the
distant suburbs, poured into the hall, until there was hardly standingroom. Swami Abhedananda was there. He had now made a place for
himself in the large metropolis, and it was to him that the gathering
unconsciously turned for solace on this day of loss. The Swami's heart
was full when he entered the hall amidst a stillness which spoke
eloquently of the bond between him and his London followers. Mr. Eric
Hammond describes this farewell gathering in the following words:
It was Sunday in London, when shops were shut, business at a
standstill, and the city streets silenced for a while from some at least of
the rattle and the rumble of their heavier traffic. Londoners wore their
Sunday clothing, their Sunday bearing and manner, and grey, subdued,
and semi-silent folk wended their way to church and chapel. This
afternoon the friends of Swamiji were to say "Goodbye" to him whose
coming had meant so much to them. In the hall of meeting, dedicated
to the use of the artists, paintings hung upon the walls:
palms, flowers, and ferns decorated the platform from which
Swamiji would utter his final speech in England's great metropolis to
the British people. All sorts and conditions of men were there, but all
alike were filled by one' desire: to see him, to hear him, even it may be,
to touch his garment once again.
On the platform musicians and singers at stated intervals
"discoursed sweet sounds". Speeches illustrating the esteem and
affection which Swamiji had won, were made by men and by women.
Salvoes of applause punctuated and followed them. Many were silent,

tongue-tied, and sad at heart. Tears were very near to some eyes. Grey
and gloom without were intensified and deepened by grey and gloom
within. One form, one figure, fought and triumphed over sorrow;
arrayed in garments, glistering as of amber, Swamiji passed among, the
people like a living shaft of sunshine.
"Yes, Yes," he said, "We shall meet again; we shall."
The Chairman of the meeting., Mr. E. T. Sturdy, presented the
following address to the Swami:
The students of the Vedanta philosophy in London, under your
remarkably able instruction, feel that they would be lacking in their
duty and privilege if they failed to record their warm and heartfelt
appreciation of the noble and unselfish work you have set yourself to
do, and of the great help you have been to them in their study of
Religion.
We feel the very deepest regret that you are so soon to leave
England, but we should not be true students of the very beautiful
philosophy you have taught us to regard so highly, if we did not
recognize that [...] claims upon your work from our brothers
and.sisters in India. That you may prosper very greatly in that work is
the united prayer of all, who have come under the elevating influence
of your teaching, and no less of your personal attributes. which, as
living example of the Vedanta, we recognize as the most helpful
encouragement to us, one and all, to become real lovers of God in
practice as well as in theory.
We look forward with great interest and keen anticipation to your
speedy return to this country, but at the same time we feel real
pleasure that India, which you have taught us to regard in an
altogether new light, and, we should like to add, to love, is to share
with us the generous service which you are giving to the world.
In conclusion, we would specially beg of you to convey our loving
sympathy to the. Indian people, and to accept from us our assurance
that we regard their cause as ours, realizing as we do from you, that
we are all one in God.

The Swami was much moved, and replied 'in terms of great
endearment and glowing spiritual fervour. He pointed out the fact that
history repeats itself, and that Christianity had been rendered possible
only 'by the Roman Peace. "He perhaps meant", comments Sister
Nivedita, "that there would yet he seen a great army of Indian
preachers in the West, reaping the harvest he had sown so well, and
making ready in their turn new harvests, for the distant reaping of the
future." But ringing out above all his public utterances at the time of
his departure was that triumphant statement he made to Mr.
Hammond: "I may even find it good to get out of this body, to throw it
off like a disused garment. But I shall never cease preaching and
helping mankind until all shall come to know the Highest Truth." And it
is remarkable how, here and there, ever since his death, persons who
had never seen him in his lifetime, are now feeling his spiritualizing
influence by communing with him through the great utterances he left
behind'
To those who heard them, the effect of those utterances was
tremendous. The manner and matter of his exposition of the Vedanta
philosophy revealed to them an entirely new and encouraging view of
life and of the eternal substratum beneath it. Sister Nivedita wrote:
To not a few of us the words of Swami Vivekananda came as living
water to men perishing of thirst. Many of us have been conscious for
years past of that growing uncertainty and despair, with regard to
Religion, which has beset the intellectual life of Europe for half a
century. Belief in the dogmas of Christianity has become impossible to
us, and we had no tool, such as we now hold, by which to cut away the
doctrinal shell from the kernel of Reality, in our faith. To these, the
Vedanta has given intellectual confirmation and philosophical
expression of their own mistrusted intuitions. "The people that walked
in darkness have seen a great light."...
... It was the Swami's "I am God" that came as something always
known, only never said before.... Yet again, it was the Unity of Man
that was the touch needed to rationalize all previous experiences and
give logical sanction to the thirst for absolute service never boldly

avowed in the past. Some by one gate, and some by another, we have
all entered into a great heritage and we. know it....
During his stay in England, both before and after his visit to the
Continent, the Swami himself was pleased with the results of his work
in London. To one of his closest American friends lie wrote (almost in a
mood of prophecy concerning the future character and success of his
mission' ) that he believed in the power of the English to assimilate
great ideas; that though the process of assimilation might be slow, it
would be all the more sure and abiding. He often spoke of the hold the
Vedanta would eventually have in England and believed that the time
would come when distinguished ecclesiastics of the Church of England,
imbued with the truth and the idealism of the Vedanta, would form a
liberal community within that Church itself, supporting the universality
of religion, both in vision and in practice.
Before his departure for India, he wrote on November 20 to the
Hale sisters in America:
The work in London has been a roaring success. The English are
not so bright as the Americans, but once you touch their heart, it is
yours for ever. Slowly have I won success, and is it not remarkable that
by six months' work altogether I should have a steady class of about
one hundred and twenty persons, apart from public lectures? Here
everyone means work the practical Englishman. Captain and Mrs.
Sevier and Mr. Goodwin are going to India with me to work and spend
their own money on it! There are scores here ready to do the same.
men and women of position, ready to give up everything for the idea
once they feel convinced! And last, though not least, the help in the
shape of money to start my "work" in India has come and more will
follow. My ideas about the English have been revolutionized. I now
understand why the Lord has blessed them above all other races. They
are steady, sincere to the backbone, with great depths of feelingonly
with a crust of stoicism on the surface; if that is broken, you have your
man.
Speaking of the secret of the Swami's "roaring success" in England
and America, J. J. Goodwin wrote:

The readiness of so many men and women in the West to accept

the teachings of the Swami Vivekananda was due more to the Swami's
practical side than even to his unique eloquence and the grandeur of
the philosophy he propounded. They found in him the living example
of his own theories, and were ready to follow him, because they
believed that a philosophy which had produced such a one, could, if
they followed his example, do much also for them.
But though everywhere in the West the Swami had created a deep
and abiding impression, his work in England was particularly
satisfactory to him. About this lie commented in his famous "Reply to
the Address of Welcome in Calcutta", delivered on February 28, 1897:
My work in England has been more satisfactory to me than my
work in America. The hold, brave, and steady Englishman,... if he has
once an idea put into his brain, it never comes out, and the immense
practicality and energy of the race makes it sprout up and immediately
bear fruit. It is not so in any other country. That immense practicality,
that immense vitality of the race, you do not see anywhere else. There
is less of imagination, but more of work, and who knows the wellspring, the mainspring, of the English heart? How much imagination
and feeling is there! They are a nation of heroes; they are the true
Kshatriyas; their education is to hide their feelings and never to show
them. From their childhood they have been educated up to that.... But
with all this heroic superstructure, behind this covering of the fighter,
there is a deep spring of feeling in the English heart. If you once know
how to reach it, if you get there, if you have personal contact and mix
with him, he will open his heart, he is your friend for ever, he is your
servant. Therefore, in my opinion, my work in England has been more
satisfactory than anywhere else....
In this same Calcutta lecture the Swami made a bold confession
and declared:
No one ever landed on English soil with more hatred in his heart
for a race than I did for the English, and on this platform are
present.English friends who can bear witness to the fact; but the more
I lived among them, and saw how the machine was working, the

English national life, and mixed with them, I found where the
heartbeat of the nation was, and the more I loved them. There is none
among you here present, my brothers, who loves the English people
more than I do now.
On December 16 the Swami and Captain and Mrs. Sevier left
London for the Continent, where they intended to visit some of the
important cities of Italy. Goodwin was to sail from Southampton to
meet them at Naples. Several intimate friends were at the London
railway station to see them off. On that day of farewell E. T. Sturdy
expressed the feeling of many of his fellow-disciples, when he penned
the following lines in a letter to a friend in America:
Swami Vivekananda left today.... He had a magnificent reception
in the Galleries of the Royal Institute of Painters in water-colours.
There were about five hundred people there, and a good many friends
were away from London. His influence has sunk very deep into many
hearts. We are going straight ahead with his work. His brother Swamiji,
a nice, attractive, ascetic-minded young man will help me in this....
Your presumption is correct. I am heavy-hearted today at the loss
of the noblest friend and the purest teacher I have met in this
incarnation. I must have stored some exceptional merit in the past to
receive such a blessing now. What I longed for all my life I have found
in the Swami.
Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal, a celebrated Indian publicist, speaking of
the impression which Swami Vivekananda left in England, wrote from
London to the Indian Mirror of February 15, 1899:
Some people in India think that very little fruit has come of the
lectures that Swami Vivekananda delivered in England, and that his
friends and admirers exaggerate his work. But on coming here I see
that he has exerted a marked influence everywhere. In many parts of
England I have met with men who deeply regard and venerate
Vivekananda. Though I do not belong to his sect, and though it is true
that I have differences of opinion with him, I must say that
Vivekananda has opened the eyes of a great many here and broadened

their hearts. Owing to his teaching, most people here now believe
firmly that wonderful spiritual truths lie hidden in the ancient Hindu
scriptures. Not only has he brought about this feeling, but he has
succeeded in establishing a golden relation between England and
India. From what I quoted on "Vivekanandism" from The Dead Pulpit
by Mr. Haweis, you have clearly understood that, owing to the spread
of Vivekananda's doctrines, many hundreds of people have seceded
from Christianity. And how deep and extensive his work has been in
this country will readily appear from the following incident.
Yesterday evening I was going to visit a friend in the southern part
of London. I lost my way and was looking from the corner of a street
thinking in which direction I should go, when a lady accompanied by a
boy came to me, with the intention, it seemed, of showing me the
way.... She said to me, "Sir, perhaps you are looking to find your way.
May I help you?"... She showed me my way and said, "From certain
papers I learned that you were coming to London. At the very first
sight of you I was telling my son, "Look, there is the Swami
Vivekananda." As I had to catch the train in a hurry, I had no time to
tell her that I was not Vivekananda, and was compelled to go off
speedily. However, I was really surprised to see that the lady possessed
such great veneration for Vivekananda, even before she knew him
personally. I felt highly gratified at the agreeable incident, and thanked
my Gerua [ochre] turban which had given me so much honour. Besides
the incident, I have seen here many educated English gentlemen who
have come to revere India and who listen eagerly to any religious or
spiritual truths, if they belong to India.
Certainly there never acted a greater force to produce a
sympathetic relation and co-operation between the Eastern and
Western worlds than that wielded by the Swami, his brother-disciples,
and his disciples.

TOWARDS INDIA
Now London was left behind. It was as if a great burden had
suddenly dropped from the Swami's shoulders. He was well satisfied

with his work in England; he had planted there the seed of his Master's
message and power, and, as he had earlier written in connection with
his work in America, he knew without doubt that "wherever the seed
of His power will find its way, there it will fructify be it today or in a
hundred years." He rejoiced that he was free again. He had, moreover,
the satisfaction of knowing that his Western work was in the able
hands of his brother-disciples Swamis Saradananda and Abhedananda.
"Now I have but one thought and that is India," he said to Captain and
Mrs. Sevier. "I am looking forward to India to India!" On the eve of
his departure an English friend asked, "Swami, how do you like now
your motherland after four years' experience of the luxurious, glorious,
powerful West?" His significant reply was: "India I loved before I came
away. Now the very dust of India has become, holy to me, the very air
is now to me holy; it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the
Tirtha l"
The party travelled directly to Milan, via Dover, Calais, and Mont
Cenis. During the journey the Swami, who was in his happiest mood,
made the long hours pass rapidly. His mind was full of plans for his
country and of thoughts of the crowded hours of public life he would
probably have on reaching there. His companions entered heartily into
his enthusiastic moods and plans of work, for they too were eagerly
anticipating their Indian experience and entertained high hopes of
what they might be able to do in helping the Swami establish the
proposed Ashrama in the Himalayas. Railroad travel generally fatigued
him, but on this occasion he seemed to enjoy it. He was like a boy,
pleased with everything and keenly observant of everything on the
way, and he made the journey a delight.
Across France and into Italy, the train travelled on, and at last the
party reached Milan. The Swami and his companions took
accommodations at a hotel close to the Duomo of Milan in order to
visit frequently this celebrated cathedral. This was the Swami's first
experience in Italy; he saw many of Milan's great works of art and was
particularly impressed with Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper". The
party next visited Pisa, famous for its leaning tower, its cathedral, the
Campo Santo, and its baptistery. In Milan and Pisa the Swami admired

the rich marble work, which in Pisa, notably, is of both black and white.
From Pisa they came to Florence. Its situation on the Arno and its
surrounding of picturesque hills makes Florence a beautiful city, apart
from its many art treasures and places of architectural and historic
interest. The three travellers visited the renowned museums and art
galleries, heard the history of Savonarola narrated, and took drives in
the parks.
Here the Swami had a particularly pleasant experience. As he was
driving in one of the parks, he met Mr. and Mrs. George Hale, who, as
the reader will recall, had been his intimate friends in America, and
whose Chicago residence he had made his home for some time. They
were touring in Italy and knew nothing of his presence in Florence.
Thus it was for all three a most agreeable surprise. The Swami spent
some hours with them in lively reminiscences and told them his plans
for his life and work in India.
As the train left Florence for Rome, the Swami was full of emotion,
for of all cities in Europe he wanted most to see Rome. From the days
of his college life, when he had become acquainted with the events
and personalities of Roman history, he had often lived in imagination
there. Rome, to his mind, like 'Delhi, was one of the ancient centres of
the world Delhi, the Eastern, Rome, the Western. Long before he
arrived in Rome, he had been discussing with his companions the
glories of the ancient Roman world, and before the minds of his
hearers there arose in all its historic splendour the glorious pageant of
past emperors. And there were other things besides the ruins of the
imperial city.. there was the ecclesiastical Rome medieval and
modern and there was the fabulous Renaissance Rome of
architecture, painting, and sculpture. When the train drew into the
city, there was none happier than he.
To judge from a letter the Swami wrote from Florence, the party
reached Rome on the night of December 21 and put up at the Hotel
Continental. They spent one week in the historic city and each day
visited new places of interest. Before Mrs. Sevier had left London, Miss
MacLeod had given her the address of Miss Edwards, who was well
known in English circles in Rome. With her was staying Miss Alberta

Sturges, a niece of Miss MacLeod, already known to the Swami. Both

these ladies joined him and Captain and Mrs. Sevier in several of their
excursions in and about the city. Miss Edwards became a warm
admirer of the Swami and was especially taken with the idealism of his
philosophy and with his immense knowledge of Roman history and of
human culture in general.
Among other places of beauty and historic importance, they
visited many ruins of the ancient city the palaces of the Caesars, the
Forum of Romanum, the Forum of Trajan, the Palatine Hill, the public
baths of the ancient Romans, the Capitoline Hill, and the Colosseum,
the last of which they revisited on a cool, clear evening to gaze at its
silent grandeur in moonlight. At the Forum of Trajan, once adorned
with most imposing buildings and now covered with relies of its former
majesty, the Swami closely examined Trajan's Pillar, the most
beautiful. column in Rome. Its marble shaft together with its base,
stands 125 feet high, and its spiralling bas-reliefs, which depict Trajan's
conquest of Dacia, contain over 2,000 human figures. He saw also the
Triumphal Arch of Titus on the Summa Sacra Via, which was erected in
A.D. 81 to commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem and which is in a
good state of preservation. Nor to be overlooked was the Temple of
Vesta, one of the oldest and most revered, in which had been kept the
sacred shield and sacred fire, always tended by the Vestal Virgins, her
priestesses.6 In addition to sightseeing in the city,

In this account of the Swami's visit in Rome we have drawn freely

from Mrs. Sevier's reminiscences "Round about Rome with Swami
Vivekananda", as published in Prabuddha Bharata of July and August
1910.

Captain and Mrs. Sevier took the Swami on many pleasant drives
on those beautiful old Roman highways, notably the Appian Way,
permeated with a sense of history and antiquity, through country
deserted except for a few shepherds with their flocks.
Viewing the ruins of Rome the Swami was very quiet at first, but.
the more one watched him, the more convinced one became of the
interest that lay behind his outward calm. He was thinking of the Rome
of long ago the Rome of wide-flung imperial might, which it
expressed in architectural forms, marvellous for their size and beauty.
As he went from place to place, he began to voice his observations,
mingling with them such a wealth of knowledge of history and
architecture that a glamour was thrown around the ancient
monuments. His talk went flowing on as he traced the rise of the
imperial idea under the Roman Empire, when in the heyday of its
power the world seemed to lie conquered at its feet, and he described
its decline, when the people and their rulers were alike corrupt. Thus
he resurrected the inhabitants, the culture, and the events of the great
past, and those who were with him remarked, "This is wonderful,
Swami! You seem to know every stone in Rome!" And through his
luminous consciousness and historical knowledge, they saw the whole
meaning of Roman influence on our modern world.
Everything the Swami saw in Rome greatly interested him, and he
was always absorbed, as it were, in its many-phased past. But he was
especially interested in Christian Rome: he walked through its early
catacombs; he visited the splendid palaces, churches, and basilicas of
its medieval period; he was impressed with the immense Vatican, its
chapels, and its magnificent Renaissance art treasures; he pondered
over the wonderful organizing genius and missionary spirit of
Christianity, as exhibited in Roman Catholicism. And beneath the vast
dome of St. Peter's, before the shrines of the Apostles, he entered, in
the silence of meditation, into that apostolic world in which Saint Paul
preached and Saint Peter inspired the followers of Christ. One who

stood near him, when he was studying the vast interior and the
architectural glories, protested at the evident discrepancy between the
religious spirit and such enormous pomp. "Swami," she said, "what do
you think of this grand extravagance, for such it is? Why such a great
outlay of expense for ceremonial and church splendours when millions
are starving?" The Swami at once replied: "What! Can one offer too
much to God! Through all this pomp the people are brought to an
understanding of the power of a character like Christ, who, though
Himself possessed of nothing, has by the supreme character of his
personality inspired to such an extent the, artistic imagination of
mankind. But we must always remember", he added, "that external
practices have value only as aids to the development of internal purity.
If they have ceased to express life, crush them out without mercy."
But on Christmas Day, when he attended the imposing ceremony
of High Mass at St. Peter's with Captain and Mrs. Sevier, he seemed
after a time to be restless and whispered to them, "Why all this
pageantry and ostentatious show? Can. it be possible that the Church
that practises such display, pomp, and gorgeous ceremonial is really
the follower of the lowly Jesus who had nowhere to lay His head?" He
could not help drawing a contrast between these splendours of the
outward religious form at St. Peter's and the great spirit of Sannyasa
which Christ had taught.
But the Christ spirit filled the air of Rome that Christmastide, and
the Swami was caught up into it; many times he spoke touchingly of
the Christ Child, comparing the stories of His birth with that of the
beautiful Indian Christ Child, Shri Krishna. On Christmas Eve, the party
visited the church of 8. Maria di Ara Coeli on Capitoline Hill, which is
noted for its Santissimo Bambino. (figure of the Holy Infant), which the
faithful believe has miraculous curative powers. A festival is.held in
honour of the Bambino from Christmas Day to Epiphany, and the
streets outside the church had the appearance of a fair, with their lines
of stalls, filled with sweets and toys, fruits and cakes, and cheap
pictures of the Bambino. The Swami was amused and said, it reminded
him of a Mela (religious fair) in India. The Seviers steered their way

through the throng, and helped him to select various articles and to
buy cakes and sweets which, it turned out, were not delectable.
But one cannot follow the Swami everywhere in Rome! Much
must be left to the imagination of the reader if he would really enter
into the world of the Swami's happiness in that city. He must know the
overall charm of Rome and the beauty of its days and nights, when the
weather is perfect in the winter time. He must know of Roman history
and much of the Italian art that fills the many museums and churches.
He must make himself one with the religious spirit of this citadel of
Christianity. He must sense in the catacombs the dauntless, burning
faith of the early Christians. He must see the grandeur and pomp of
the ecclesiastic service and appreciate its significance. Then, too, he
must know the Swami. The solemnity of Rome and the solemnity of his
own personality mingled in a strange and glorious harmony in the
minds of his companions. And in his comparisons between the Roman
and the Indian world, they had intellectual illumination as gratifying as
the study of Rome's immortal works of art and beauty, with which
their days and his were filled.
When the party left Rome, however, the Swami was not sad, for
he realized that each day was bringing him nearer to the desired event
the departure for India. The next move was to Naples, where the
party was to embark. Several days remained before the day of sailing,
giving them an opportunity to see Naples and its famous environs. A
day was spent in visiting Vesuvius, the party ascending by the funicular
railway to the crater, from which a mass of stones was obligingly
thrown up into the air as they watched! Another day was devoted to
visiting Pompeii, and the Swami was charmed with all he saw there. He
was especially interested in a recently excavated house, in which
frescoes, fountains, and statues had been left exactly as they had been
found, rather than being removed to the National Museum at Naples.
This Museum and the Naples Aquarium also attracted the attention of
the party. But what most concerned them was the arrival of the ship
from Southampton, which would bring Mr. Goodwin to join the party
and then carry them all to India. When finally it came, the Swami was

beside himself with joy and exclaimed, "Now, at last, it will be India
my India!"
The steamer, the Prinz Regent Luitpold, sailed from Naples on
December 30, 1896, and was to reach Colombo on January 15, 1897.
There were many days on the ocean, at least some of which were
exceedingly rough. In a letter dated January 3, 1897 the Swami wrote
from board ship: "We are nearing Port Said after four days of frightfully
bad sailing from Naples. The ship is rolling as hard as she can, and you
must pardon my scrawls under such circumstances. From Suez begins
Asia. Once again Asia. What am I ? Asiatic, European, or American? I
feel a curious medley of personalities in me." Throughout the voyage
the Swami was in, excellent spirits, and despite the rough
Mediterranean seas, which for a day or two gave him discomfort, he
enrolled in some shipboard tournaments.. He was greatly benefited by
the rest.
Because of a certain incident, this voyage was most memorable.
One night, shortly after he had retired, the Swami had a phenomenal
dream, which made a profound impression upon his mind, so much so
that he frequently spoke of it in after years.7 He dreamed that a

Among those who directly beard about the dream from the Swami,
two persons-Sister Nivedita and Surendranath Sen-left on record what
he had separately told them. Sister Nivedita's record appears in her
book The Master As I Saw Him. Surendranath Sen's record from his
private diary has been published in volume five of The Complete Works
of Swami Vivekananda. These two accounts, though basically the
same, are not identical in all details. In the narration given here an

bearded old man, venerable and Rishi-like in appearance, stood before

him and said, "Observe well this place that I show to you. You are now
in the island of Crete. This is the land in which Christianity began." The
Swami then heard him say, "Do ye come and effect our restoration; I
am one of that ancient order of Theraputtas (Therapeutae) which had
its origin in the teachings of the Indian Rishis." And he added another
word which escaped the Swami's memory. Sister Nivedita wrote, "It is
my own belief that the other word was 'Essene'. But alas, I cannot
remember the Sanskrit derivation!" The word Therapeutae
unmistakably means "sons or disciples of the Theras," from thera, an
elder among the Buddhist monks, and putra, which in Sanskrit means
"son". The old man concluded: "The truths and ideals preached by us
have been given out by the Christians as taught by Jesus; but for the
matter of that, there was no such personality by the name of Jesus
ever born. Various evidences testifying to this fact will be brought to
light by excavating here." "By excavating which place can those proof
and relics you speak of be found?" the Swami asked. And the hoaryheaded one, pointing to a locality in the vicinity of Turkey, said, "See
here." The Swami woke and at once rushed to the deck to ascertain
the ship's whereabouts. He met a ship's officer turning in from his
watch. "What is the time?" he asked him. "Midnight", he was told.
"And where are we?" "Just fifty miles off Crete!"
In seeking a subjective cause for the Swami's dream, one must
take into account that during the voyage, in conversations concerning
religious subjects, Christianity was now and then in the foreground.
Further, during his travels in Catholic Europe he was often startled to
find the identity of Christianity and Hinduism in ceremonial details. In
the language of Sister Nivedita:
The Blessed Sacrament appeared to him to be only, an elaboration
of the Vedic Prasadam. The priestly tonsure reminded him of the
attempt has been made to include all the details from these two
authentic sources.

shaven head of the Indian monk; and when he came across a picture of
Justinian receiving, the Law from two shaven monks, he felt that he
had found the origin of the tonsure. He could not but remember that,
even before Buddhism, India had had monks and nuns, and that
Europe had taken her orders from the Thebaid. Hindu ritual had its
lights, its incense and its music. Even the sign of the cross, as he saw it
practised, reminded him of the touching of different parts of the body,
in certain kinds of meditation. And the culmination of these series of
observations was reached, when he entered some cathedral and found
it furnished with an insufficient number of chairs and no pews! Then,
at last, he was really at home. Henceforth he could not believe that
Christianity was foreign.
But while the Swami's vivid dream on board ship may have had a
subjective cause, it nevertheless set him thinking about the historicity
of Jesus Christ, about which he had never before entertained any
doubt. Now he saw that the Acts of the Apostles might be an older
record than the Gospels themselves, and that views of the
Therapeutae and those of the sect of the Nazarene might have
commingled, thus conferring upon Christianity both a philosophy and a
personality. But while these speculations could not be offered as
evidence in support of this theory of the origin and history of
Christianity, lie knew that in Alexandria there had been a meeting of
Indian, Greek, and Egyptian elements, which had contributed
considerably towards the moulding of Christianity. It is said that the
Swami wrote to a friend in England, an archaeologist, about his dream
and asked him to find out if there was any truth in it. It was some time
after the Swami's death that an item appeared in the Statesman of
Calcutta, stating that some Englishmen in the course of excavations in
Crete had come across records containing wonderful revelations of the
origin of Christianity.
But whatever doubts the Swami may have had on the matter, the
dream did not make him yield a whit in his love and adoration of the
Son of Mary. There was the instance when a Western disciple
requested him to give his blessings to a picture of the Sistine
Madonna; he touched the feet of the Divine Child instead. There was

also the instance when he turned upon another and exclaimed with
fire in his eyes, "Madam, had I lived in Palestine in the days of Jesus of
Nazareth, I would have washed His feet, not with my tears but with my
heart's blood!"
The Swami had an unpleasant experience with two of his fellow
passengers on his way to India between Aden and Colombo. They were
Christian missionaries who insisted on discussing the contrast between
Hinduism and Christianity. Their methods of argument were most
offensive; when they were beaten at every point, they lost their
temper, became virulent and abused the Hindus and their religion. The
Swami stood it as long as he could; then walking close to one of the
speakers he suddenly seized him quietly but firmly by the collar and
said half-humorously, half-grimly, "If you abuse my religion again, I'll
throw you overboard!" The frightened missionary "shook in his boots"
and said under his breath, "Let me go, sir, I'll never do it again!" From
that time on he was most obsequious to the Swami on all occasions
and endeavoured to remedy his misbehaviour by exceeding kindness.
Later, during the course of a conversation in Calcutta with a
disciple, the Swami alluded to this singular incident. He had been
pointing out that religion should be the basis for united action, and
that true feeling for one's religion should bring about the manly spirit
so much needed in India. It was then that he mentioned the incident
and asked the disciple, My dear Sinha, if anybody insulted your
mother, what would you do? "I would fall upon him, sir, and teach
him a good lesson!" "Well said! But now if you had the same positive
feeling for your own religion, the true Mother of our country, you
could never bear, to see any Hindu brother converted into a Christian.
Nevertheless, you see this occurring every day, yet you are quite
indifferent. Where is your faith! Where is your patriotism! Every day
Christian missionaries abuse Hinduism to your face, and yet how many
are there amongst you who will stand up in its defence? Whose blood
boils with righteous indignation at the fact?"
A contrast to the unpleasant experience aboard ship occurred
earlier at Aden. While visiting places of interest at this port, the party
drove three miles inland to the huge reservoirs used for the storage of

rain water. Espying a man at a distance busily engaged in smoking a

hookah, the Swami left his English disciples and walked rapidly towards
him. He was highly delighted at seeing an Indian face again. Addressing
him as "Brother", he entered into conversation with him. The man
happened to be a Hindusthani betel-leaf seller. Drawing near, the
Swami's friends were greatly amused, when they heard him say
boyishly to the stranger, "Brother, do give me your pipe," and to see
him puffing away at it with great glee. Captain Sevier then made merry
with him by saying, "Now we see! It was this that made you run away
from us so abruptly!" The Swami had not had a hookah smoke for
years. When the man learned who his guest was, he fell at his feet.
Speaking of this incident the Swami's companions said: "The
shopkeeper could not have resisted him, for he had such an endearing
way about him when asking for anything that he was simply
irresistible. We shall never forget that ingenuous look on his face,
when he said with childlike sweetness, 'Brother, do give me your pipe!'
Nothing further of interest occurred on the voyage, except an
event such as always sensational to travellers at sea. Signals of distress
were sighted some distance from the Coast of Malabar, sent by a
coasting-vessel that had been becalmed. It was discovered that the
ship was without food or water, and its Captain requested immediate
help. The Captain of the Prinz Regent Luitpold signalled back; the
steamer slowed down; a boat was sent from the ship in distress and
was fitted by the steamer with the needed supplies.
In the early morning of January 15, the coast of Ceylon could be
seen in the distance. It was a beautiful sight in the roseate hues of the
rising sun. Gradually the harbour of Colombo with its majestic cocoa

palms and its yellow-sanded beach came into view. This was India,8
and the Swami was beside himself with excitement. But he was totally
unaware that he was going to meet representatives of various religious
sects and social bodies who had come to welcome him home. Some
months earlier the Swami had casually written of his intended return,
and the news had spread rapidly through his disciples in South India
and had been flashed to distant Ceylon. Soon all India knew of it. In
many cities of the South the inhabitants were making ready to receive
him with unprecedented honour and to offer him addresses of
welcome. Swami Niranjanananda, one of his brother-disciples, had
come to Ceylon to meet him; others were on the way; and in Madras
and Calcutta there was great excitement over his expected arrival. Ever
since his celebrated address at the Parliament of Religions the Indian
newspapers had been often filled with his praises, and now numerous
telegrams of invitation and congratulation awaited him in Colombo. He
was to find that he had become India's "national hero", and that his
jubilant welcome in Ceylon was to be the first public ovation in a grand
march of triumph from Colombo in the far south to Almora in the
distant north.

TRIUMPHAL MARCH THROUGH CEYLON AND SOUTH INDIA

The homecoming of Swami Vivekananda was a notable event in
the history of modern India, for it was a united India that rose to do
him honour. Looming as he did upon the national horizon as the
Prophet and Apostle of a re-interpreted and re-invigorated Hinduism,
Vivekananda was the Man of the Hour and the Harbinger of a New Era.

In those days, Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, was a part of British India.

No wonder, therefore, that his home-coming was keenly awaited by

millions of his fellow-countrymen. For more than three years the
people of India had been aware that the Swami was, with marked
success, presenting and interpreting Hinduism to the Western nations.
All India looked to him as to some mighty Acharya of old, born again to
revivify the Eternal Religion, and to carry her banner through the
civilized world. New forces had come into play in India ever since his
triumph at the Parliament of Religions. Through study of the Swami's
lectures and utterances, the eyes of educated Indians had been
opened to the hidden treasures of their religion. They had come to see
more and more how Vedanta alone could claim to be a universal
religion. The Swami, they had discovered, was a man of powers and
spiritual realizations. As a true patriot he had made a deep study of his
country's complex problems. Many, among the educated, were eager
to see him and hear his message. They had accepted him as the torchbearer of the Indian nation.
When it was known that Swami Vivekananda had left Europe for
India, committees were formed in the large cities to organize his
reception. Two of his brother-disciples went south to meet him: Swami
Niranjanananda met him when he landed at Colombo, and Swami
Shivananda met him at Madurai. Others, disciples of the Swami
himself, made their way from Bengal and the northern provinces to
Madras, and awaited his arrival there. Newspapers and journals
throughout the country commenced a series of editorials praising him
and his work. This further aroused the nation's expectancy.
The Swami was in ignorance of these preparations in his honour.
Indeed, from Goodwin's letter of November 14, 1896, it appears that
he was distinctly doubtful about the reception that he would have in
conservative India. In this letter Goodwin writes to Mrs. Ole Bull: "The
Swami is feeling very uncertain as to the way in which he will be
received in India, and expects to get the cold shoulder to a great
extent, in which case he says that he will consider his proper course to
he to revisit America and England after a short rest merely, in India. He
intends to arrange lectures in Japan and China on his way back to the
States. "

During the voyage the Swami spent his time quietly in meditation,
or in discoursing on the history of nations, or in resting. His
conversation was much taken up with drawing comparisons and with
reflecting on his experiences in Western lands. While he had been in
the West, his mind had been habitually occupied with world history,
with the relation of India to the world, and vice versa, and with the
problems and destiny of India herself. More and more the spirit of an
awakened national consciousness had stirred in him. In his letters he
had tried to fire his brother-disciples and his own disciples with his
enthusiasm. He had written to them of the means of awakening this
national consciousness, and of how to set the Indian work in motion.
Besides the general reflections mentioned above, the Swami was
always turning over in his mind, both when in the West and now on
board the Prinz Regent Luitpold, plans for the reanimation and
reorganization of the Indian Dharma. We get a glimpse of one of his
plans from Goodwin's letter of November 20, 1896 to Mrs. Ole Bull: "I
wonder if I can tell you of the Swami's biggest project in India.... It is
the building of the Monastery in Calcutta as a training ground for
Vedanta teachers.. Miss Mller... has offered him 200 per annum
towards its maintenance. Miss Souter, a wealthy lady here who has
done an immense lot for him in a very quiet and unostentatious way, is
giving him 1000, Mr. Sturdy 500, and he has himself about 200
towards it. I am also writing to Miss MacLeod about this."
Many months before this time of his return to India, when in
Detroit, the Swami was talking with some disciples about the
difficulties he had met with in presenting Hinduism to Christian
audiences, and was telling them how he had spent himself in creating,
in the West, a reverence for India's spiritual and intellectual
contributions to the world. Suddenly, as he was speaking, his body
began to shake with emotion, and he cried out: "India must listen to
me! I shall shake India to her foundations. I shall send an electric thrill
through her national veins. Wait! You shall see how India will receive
me. It is India, my own India, that knows truly how to appreciate that
which I have given so freely here, and with my life's blood, as the spirit
of Vedanta. India will receive me in triumph." As we are about to see,

his fervent words were prophetic. Those who heard him realized that it
was not recognition for himself that he was seeking, but recognition
for what he felt must become the gospel of all nations, namely, India's
gospel, the gospel of the Vedas and Vedanta.
The story of Swami Vivekananda's reception by his fellowcountrymen can be conveniently told in the words of eye-witnesses,
such as Goodwin, and by quoting from newspaper reports. This is how
the Colombo reception was reported by the local paper Ceylon
Independent.
The fifteenth of January [1897] will be a memorable day in the
annals of the Hindu Community of Colombo, being the day on which
the Swami Vivekananda, a teacher of wonderful abilities and
attainments, a member of the most sacred Hindu spiritual Order, the
sannyasins of India, was welcomed by them. His visit is an epochmaking one, heralding the dawn of an unprecedented spiritual activity.
As the day was closing and the night approached, when the
auspicious and sacred hour of "Sandhya" noted by the Hindu Shastras
as the best suited for devotion came round as the harbinger of the
coming great events of the day, the sage of noble figure, of sedate
countenance with large, luminous eyes, arrived, dressed in the orange
garb of a sannyasin, accompanied by the Swami Niranjanananda and
others.... No words can describe the feelings of the vast masses and
their expressions of love, when they saw the steam launch bearing the
sage, steaming towards the jetty.... The din and clamour of shouts and
hand-clapping drowned even the noise of the breaking waves. The
Hon. Mr. P. Coomaraswamy stepped forward, followed by his brother,
and received the Swami garlanding him with a beautiful jasmine
wreath. Then came a rush.... No amount of physical force could hold
back the great multitude.... At the entrance to Barnes Street, a
handsome triumphal arch formed of branches, leaves, and cocoanut
flowers bore a motto of welcome to the Swami. All too soon the
splendid pair of horses that awaited his landing in front of the G. O. H.
carried away the Swami to the pandal in Barnes Street. Every available
carriage was in use and hundreds of pedestrians wended their way to
the triumphal pandal which was decorated with palms, evergreens,

etc. There the Swami, alighting from the carriage, walked in procession
attended with due Hindu honours the flag, the sacred umbrella, the
spreading of the white cloth, etc. An Indian band played select airs. A
host of persons joined the procession at Barnes Street, and then,
together with the Swami, marched on to another beautiful and artistic
pandal in front of the bungalow prepared for his temporary residence
in Cinnamon Gardens. Both sides of the road leading from the first
pandal to the second, a distance of a quarter of a mile, were lined with
arches festooned with palm leaves. As soon as the Swami" entered the
second pandal, a beautiful artificial lotus flower unfolded its petals and
out flew a bird. These charming decorations went unnoticed, for all
eyes were on the Swami. In their struggle to see him, some of the
decorations were destroyed. The sage and his disciples took their seats
amidst a shower of flowers. After silence was restored, a musician
played a charming air on his violin; then the sacred Tamil hymns, the
"Thevaram", two thousand years old, were sung; a Sanskrit hymn
composed especially in the Swami's honour was also intoned. The Hon.
Mr. P. Coomaraswamy, stepping forward, bowed to the Swami in
oriental fashion and then read an address of welcome on behalf of the
Hindus.
The Swami rose amidst deafening cheers and responded to the
address in an eloquent and impressive style, peculiarly his own. The
huge audience were carried away by his words, simple and plain
though they were.
In the course of his reply he pointed out that the demonstration
had not been made in honour of a great politician, or a great soldier, or
a millionaire. "The spirituality of the Hindus", he said, "is revealed by
the princely reception which they have given to a begging sannyasin."
He was not a general, not a prince, not a wealthy man, yet men great
in the transitory possessions of the world and much respected, had
come to honour him, a poor sannyasin. "This", he said, "is one of the
highest expressions of spirituality." He urged the necessity of making
religion the backbone of the national life, if the nation was to live; and
disclaimed any personal character in the welcome he had received,
insisting that it was but the recognition of a principle.

The Swami then entered the house. Here another garland was
placed around his neck, and he was escorted to a scat. The people who
had taken part in the formal proceedings of the meeting were standing
outside and were unwilling to disperse. Finding that many were
waiting to see him again, Swamiji came out and after the manner of
sannyasins he saluted and blessed them all.
The Overland Ceylon Observer of January 16, 1897 had the
following:
Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu delegate, who proceeded to
Chicago to represent the Hindus at the Parliament of Religions, and
who had spent his time since in America and Europe, arrived here last
evening by the Prinz Regent Luitpold. He was accompanied by three
American and European converts. The Hindus of Colombo mustered in
strong numbers at the jetty to give him a welcome. Several leading
Hindus went on board and brought him ashore in a steam launch and
on landing at the jetty [he] was received by the Hindus headed by the
Hon. P. Coomaraswamy and Mr. P. Arunachalam. The Swami and his
companions were driven then to the Cinnamon Gardens, the Hindus
following in carriages. At the turn to Barnes Street a pandal had been
put up. Here the Swami alighted and was taken in procession with
Hindu flags, music, and torch lights along Barnes Street to the
residence of Mr. Ratnasabapathy, which has been placed at his
disposal during his stay here. On arrival here, after the singing of a
Hindu song said to be 3,000 years old, the Hon.
P. Coomaraswamy read and presented an address from the Hindu
Community according him a hearty welcome. The Swami replied at
length extolling the principles of their religion and how it had
flourished from days immemorial, etc.
This is how Goodwin, writing on January 22, 1897, described their
reception at Colombo to Mrs. Bull:
We reached Colombo at 4 o'clock on Friday, January 15, and
caught sight of a steam launch coming out with a sannyasi on board,
who proved to be Swami Niranjanananda. There were also with him
Mr. T. G. Harrison (an English Buddhist) and three native gentlemen

(Tamil Hindus). It took us a long time to put ashore, but when we did,
we found a dense crowd waiting, who cheered the Swami vociferously.
The Swami then entered a carriage drawn by two horses, and with
coachman and syces in gorgeous crimson livery. With him sat Hon. Mr.
P. Coomaraswamy, member of the Legislative Council, and Mrs. Sevier.
Mr. Sevier and I followed in another carriage. We drove slowly through
the city to the Cinnamon Gardens. There, in Barnes St., a new house,
never before occupied, was placed at our disposal. I say "our" because
the Colombo Reception Committee, or Sabba [Sabha], included us in
everything done for the Swami. The road leading up to the house for a
quarter of a mile was beautifully decorated with palm branches, and
with, at either end, a very beautify triumphal arch of bamboo, and the
words "Welcome to Swami Vivekananda". Flags and banners were
everywhere. I should tell you that the procession was headed by the
native band, tomtoms, etc., and the sacred umbrellas and banners
brought out only when a god or idol is in procession, were also used.
At the house an address was presented by Mr. Coomaraswamy and the
Swami briefly replied. Then we had dinner and rest. All the meals were
of native dishes... A sannyasin is supposed to identify himself with
Shiva, and in that sense becomes Shiva himself. The Swami is
worshipped therefore as God Himself (and I may add that I myself
consider that they are perfectly right). On the Saturday [January 16]
evening the Swami lectured to a crowded audience. The report I have
sent you. I did it myself, because the reporters here made an awful
mess of it, but you will see that they made lots of mistakes in setting it
up.... On Sunday the Swami went to the temple to be worshipped. We
drove through the City and in the Tamil street had to stop at nearly
fifty houses while the inhabitants (Hindus) placed garlands of flowers
round the Swami's neck, mostly tuberose and jasmine, and sprinkled
him with rose-water, also giving him fruit or bouquets of flowers. Then
we reached the gate of the temple. We all got out and a procession
was formed, headed by their band, all of us marching barefoot round
the outside of the temple, but all the time within the temple precincts.
I had to stay just outside of the temple, as Europeans are not allowed
within, but I could see all that went on. As soon as the Swami entered,

accompanied by the largest crowd ever seen at the temple, the people
shouted, "Jai Jai Mahadeva All hail highest Deva", clapped their
hands and cheered to the echo. More garlands and rose-water were
given him, and he was offered sandalwood paste with which to touch
the forehead between two eyes (representing the psychic eye). I may
mention, if you will pardon me, two things relating to myself which
interested me very much. The people here, especially the intelligent
classes, are very much pleased at seeing the Swami bring with him
some English disciples. The consequence has been that the Seviers and
1, but particularly myself, have come in for an enormous amount of
attention. We are always sprinkled with rose-water and given
sandalwood. One man wanted me to be photographed with the Swami
so that he might worship me with Swamiji.... Then again, outside the
temple, I had a huge crowd round me, staring at me, and asking all
sorts of questions about me.
On Monday the pilgrimage continued and in the evening the
Swami lectured again...
During the Swami's stay at Colombo the bungalow, which lie
occupied (from that time named "Vivekananda Lodge"), was
incessantly thronged by visitors. It became, indeed, a place of
pilgrimage, the honour and respect shown to the Swami being
undreamt-of by those who are unaccustomed to the religious
demonstrativeness of the East. Among the visitors were men of all
stations in life, from high officials in Ceylon to the poorest of the poor.
One incident may be mentioned. A poor woman, who was evidently in
distress, came to see the Swami, bearing in her hand the customary
offering of fruits. Her husband had left her in order that he might be
undisturbed in his search for God. The woman wanted to know more
about God, so that she could follow in his footsteps. The Swami
advised her to read the Bhagavad-Gita, and pointed out to her that the
best way for one in her station was the proper fulfilment of household
duties. Her reply was significant. "I can read it, Swamiji," she said, "but
what good will that do me if I cannot understand it and feet it?" This
simple woman's knowledge of the truth that religion does not lie in the

study of books was part of that fund of spiritual understanding to he

found even among the poor and apparently uneducated of the East.
On the evening of the 16th the Swami gave a stirring address in
the Floral Hall to an overflowing audience. The subject of this first
public lecture in the East was "India, the Holy Land". The following day,
Sunday, was again spent in receiving visitors until the evening, when
the Swami paid the visit to the Shiva temple (at Kochchikade)
mentioned in Goodwin's letter just quoted. After worshipping the Lord
and having a short conversation with the priests of the temple and
others who had assembled there, he returned to his bungalow. There
he found a number of Brahmins with whom he conversed until half
past two the following morning.
On Monday, January 18, the Swami paid a visit to Mr. Chelliah,
whose house was artistically decorated for his reception. Hearing that
the monk was coming, thousands of people were waiting for him. As
his carriage drew near, the cheering grew more and more, and
garlands and loose flowers were showered on him. He was seated in a
place specially prepared for him, and sacred Ganga-water was
sprinkled over him. The Swami then distributed sacramental ashes
which all received with gladness. A picture of his own Master,
Bhagavan Shri Ramakrishna, having caught his eye, he at once got up
and with great reverence made obeisance to it. He partook of light
refreshments, and expressed joy at finding that the house had pictures
of saints. The occasion concluded with a few sacred songs.
That evening the Swami delivered a second lecture to another
large audience, this time in the Public Hall of Colombo. As he stood on
the platform in the gerua-coloured garb and turban of a sannyasi, with
his well-built figure and with face radiating intelligence and spirituality,
he made a striking sight. The audience was treated to a lucid
exposition of the Advaita doctrine. His central theme was that of a
universal religion based on the Vedas. In the course of his lecture the
Swami noticed that many Indians were wearing European dress. He
was evidently annoyed; and feeling it his duty, he cautioned them
against slavish imitation. European dress, he said, did not suit
Orientals. Not that he recommended any form of dress in particular:

rather, it was his countrymen's unintelligent aping of foreign ways that

called forth his criticism.
The Swami's original intention had been to take a steamer direct
from Colombo to Madras; but so many telegrams poured in, begging
him to visit towns in Ceylon and South India, even if only to pass
through them, that he was induced to alter his plans and make the
journey overland. On the morning of the 19th he left Colombo for
Kandy by a special railway saloon. At Kandy station a large crowd
awaited him with an Indian band and the temple insignia, to take him
in procession to a bungalow where he could rest. When the cheering
had subsided, an address of welcome was read. The Swami's reply was
brief After rest and a visit to places of interest, the journey was
resumed.
On Wednesday morning, January 20, a coach-ride of two hundred
miles began. It was to take them to Jaffna, at the northern tip of
Ceylon, through country outstanding for the beauty of its vegetation. A
few miles beyond Dambool (Dambulla), one of the front wheels of the
coach broke in half, causing a stop of three hours by the roadside.
Fortunately the wheel was not smashed entirely, or the carriage would
have overturned, since the horses were going at a gallop. After a long
wait, only one bullock-cart could be secured from a distant village. In it
Mrs. Sevier was put, with all the luggage. The Swami and his
companions had to walk several miles before they could get other
bullock-carts. They spent the night in the carts and, passing through
Kanahari and Tinpani, reached Anuradhapuram some eight hours late.
About this trouble-beset journey Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Ole Bull
on January 22, 1897 as follows:
On Tuesday [January 19] morning at 7.30 we left for Kandy,
reaching there at 11.20 through marvellous scenery. At Kandy another
address was presented and the Swami was feted; there was again a
procession etc. In the afternoon we drove round to a Buddhist temple
(in company with the Buddhist leader there), and round the lake. We
left at 6.20 for Matala [Matale], sleeping there the night at the resthouse, a beautifully quiet spot. In the morning [Wednesday, January

201 we left by "coach", which was really a brake, for Anuradhapuram,

seventy miles away. We went all right as far as Dambool, passing
through pepper trees, fruit trees of all kinds (bread, jack, bananas,
coconut, etc.) through irrigated lands which reminded me of Patanjali's
aphorism Evolution, or the manifestation of God is by the infilling of
nature. Then we saw buffaloes, jungle birds of wonderful colour, and
colour indeed everywhere. Well and justly has Ceylon been termed the
world's brightest and choicest gem. At Dambool we had breakfast, and
then proceeded with our journey. The first stage was all right, but then
one of the pair of horses was a jibber and refused the hills. After
ourselves pushing the carriage up half a dozen, the coachman sent the
horses going at hand to hand gallop which ended in a bolt, and in the
middle of this the front wheel broke in half. There we were, four miles
from a house, stranded. If the wheel had not held good (or rather the
spokes), we must almost surely have been killed. For three hours we
were camped out by the side of the road, in the heat of the afternoon,
waiting for a bullock-cart. This came at 5 and we went on to Kakariawa
[Kekirawa]. Here we dined and at 10.30 at night, with great difficulty,
got hold of a second bullock-cart. In this we started on a twenty-eight
mile ride. The details of this I need not give you. Suffice it that any
discomfort conceivable came in our way. I walked eighteen miles of
the journey, from preference, and being hardy suffered nothing.
Neither the two Swamis, beyond lack of sleep; but Mr. and Mrs. Sevier
were completely knocked up and, indeed, have not yet recovered. We
reached Anuradhapuram at 10 a.m., the Swami was received, and we
slept. We went round the place in the evening and this morning
[January 22] the Swami, Mrs. Sevier, and I went to offer reverence to
the sacred Bo tree, 2,000 years old, and a shoot of the original Bo tree
at Buddha Gaya. I send you a leaf of it....
Anuradhapuram is a marvellous place. Two thousand years ago it
was larger than London is now, but the Tamils invaded it, famine
ensued, the population deserted it, and it became a dead city. The
ruins extend for many miles, and include palaces, temples, Dagobhas
(monuments of solid brickwork and enormous size built to conceal
jewels etc.). Very wonderful.... The Swami lectures here this afternoon.

I also had an interesting experience. About thirty Hindus, mostly

Brahmins, came to me to he told about the Swami and his work, and
about his philosophy, and for an hour I was engaged in true sannyasin
fashion under a Bodhi tree....
Under the shade of the sacred Bo tree the Swami gave a short
address to a crowd of two to three thousand people. As he proceeded,
interpreters translated his words into Tamil and Sinhalese. The subject
was "Worship". He exhorted his hearers to give practical effect to the
teachings of the Vedas, rather than pay attention to mere empty
worship. When the Swami had got thus far, a large crowd of fanatical
Buddhists, Bhikshus, and householders men, women, and children
gathered round him and created such a noise by beating drums,
gongs, cans, and so forth, in order to stop the lecture, that he was
obliged to conclude abruptly. There might have been a serious clash
between the Hindus and Buddhists. had the Swami not urged the
Hindus to practise restraint, although they had been provoked. This led
him to speak of the harmony of the various religions. In this stronghold
of Buddhism, he urged that He who is worshipped as Shiva, as Vishnu,
as Buddha, or under any other name, is one and the same; and that
there is thus need, not only of tolerance among, but also of sympathy
between, the followers of the different creeds.
The distance from Anuradhapuram to Jaffna is one hundred and
twenty miles. As the road and the horses were equally bad, the
journey was troublesome, and saved from being sheer penance only by
the scenic beauty. On two successive nights they had no sleep. The
reception of the Swami with all honour at Vavoniya (Vavuniya), and the
presentation of an address, made a welcome break. After the Swami
had replied briefly, the journey continued through the jungles of
Ceylon to Jaffna.
There was a reception of an informal nature early the following
morning at Elephant Pass, where a bridge connects Ceylon with the
island of Jaffna. Twelve miles from Jaffna town the Swami was met by
many of the leading Hindu citizens, and a procession of carriages
accompanied him for the remainder of the distance. Every street in the
town, nay every house, was decorated in his honour. The scene, in the

evening, when the Swami was driven in a torchlight procession to a

large pandal erected at the Hindu College, was impressive. All along
the route there was intense enthusiasm. At least ten to fifteen
thousand people must have accompanied him. A local newspaper, the
Hindu Organ, gave this report on February 3, 1897, of the Swami's visit
to Jaffna:
It was arranged by the Reception Committee that the Swami was
to be received privately at Uppar [Upar] on Sunday morning by a
deputation of seven members, and that the public demonstration in
the town in his honour should be reserved for the evening. But it was
found that one hundred persons, the elite of the Hindu society, were
collected at Uppar anxiously awaiting his arrival on Sunday morning.
Till 9 a.m. the coach with the distinguished monk and party
accompanying him did not make its appearance. It was then resolved
to go ahead another five miles and wait at Chavakachari
[Chavakachcheri]. No sooner had that place been reached than the
Swami and his party arrived by the mail coach. A procession was then
formed to drive to the town, with the Swami. his Gurubhai, Swami
Niranjanananda, and Mr. (advocate) Nagalingam in the first carriage
a landau drawn by a pair and the rest following in twenty carriages.
It was 11.30 a.m., when the procession reached the town by the
Central Road. In spite of the short time at the disposal of the
Committee, grand preparation had been made to accord the Swami a
fitting reception at the Hindu College in the evening. A magnificent
pandal had been put up in front of the institution and most tastefully
decorated. The whole way from the town to the College a distance
of about two miles was festooned and illuminated, more especially
that part of the route from the Grand Bazaar. Hundreds of banana
palms were planted on both sides of the road, and bunting and flags
adorned the whole route. The scene was exceedingly picturesque, and
great enthusiasm prevailed among the people. Thousands from all
parts of the Island came to the city to get a glimpse of the renowned
monk, and gathered all along the route to give him welcome. From 6
p.m. to 12 p.m., the Jaffna Kangesantura Road, as far as the Hindu
College, was impassable for carts and carriages. The torchlight

procession, which started at 8.30 p.m., attended with Indian music,

was unprecedentedly imposing. It is estimated that more than fifteen
thousand persons, all on foot, took part in it. The whole distance of
two miles was so densely crowded that it looked like a sea of heads,
yet perfect order prevailed from start to finish. At the gate of almost
every house on both sides of the road throughout the entire distance,
were placed Niraikudam and lamps, the inhabitants expressing in this
manner the highest honours that could he offered, according to the
Hindu idea, to a great sannyasin. The Swami alighted from the carriage
and worshipped at the Sivan and Kathiresan temples where he was
garlanded by the temple priests. Along the way also, many garlands
were offered him by the local residents, so that when he reached the
College at 10 p.m., he was most beautiful to look upon. The pandal was
crammed even hours before the Swami arrived. Hundreds were
outside seeking admission. People of all denominations had come,
Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and Mohammedans. At the entrance to
the pandal the Swami was received by Mr. S. Chellappa Pillai, retired
Chief Justice of Travancore, who conducted him to a raised dais and
garlanded him.
An address of welcome was then read, to which the Swami replied
in a most eloquent way for about an hour. In the evening of the day
following at 7 p.m., he spoke at the Hindu College, on Vedantism for
one hour and forty minutes. There were present about four thousand
persons composed of the elite of Jaffna society, and one and all were
electrified with the Swami's stirring words. Following the lecture, Mr.
Sevier at the request of the audience addressed the assembly
explaining why he had accepted Hinduism and why he had come to
India with the Swami.
With this second address at the Hindu College at Jaffna, the
Swami's visit to what is now Sri Lanka came to a close. At every place
he visited, he was asked to send teachers of the Order to preach the
gospel of Shri Ramakrishna. And from those towns in the interior
which he had not visited, telegrams and letters poured in, begging him
to pay them a short visit; but he had to refuse for want of time.
Besides, he was tired.

"He would have been killed with kindness," as one of his

companions remarked, "if he had stayed longer in Ceylon."
At the Swami's request arrangements were made to convey him
and his party immediately to his native land. With the weather
favourable, the voyage of about fifty miles was delightful. On Tuesday,
January 26, about 3 p.m., the steamer carrying the Swami and his
European disciples arrived in Pamban Roads. The Swami had been
invited by the Raja of Ramnad to Rameswaram, and was about to land
and proceed to that place when he heard that the Raja was coming in
person to meet him at Pamban. On the Raja's arrival, the Swami and
party transferred from the vessel in which they had come to the state
boat. As soon as he entered it, the Raja and all his staff prostrated
themselves before him. The meeting between the prince and the monk
was a touching one. The Swami feelingly said that, as the Raja had
been one of the first to conceive the idea of his going to the West, and
had encouraged and helped him to do so, it was apt that he should
meet the Raja first on returning to Indian soil. When the state-boat
reached the shore, he was given a tremendous ovation by the people
of Pamban. Under a decorated pandal, an address of welcome was
read and presented to him. The Raja added to this a brief personal
welcome which was remarkable for its depth of feeling. Then the
Swami gave a short reply, pointing out that the backbone of the Indian
national life was neither politics nor military power, neither
commercial supremacy nor mechanical genius, but religion and religion
alone; that it was this that India alone could give to the world. He
concluded by thanking the people of Pamban for their kind reception,
and expressed his gratitude to the Raja of Ramnad for all that he had
done for him.
The meeting over, the Swami was seated in the state-carriage and
driven towards the Raj bungalow, the Raja himself walking with his
court officials. Then, at the Raja's command, the horses were
unharnessed, and the people, with the Raja himself, drew the statecarriage through the town. For three days the Swami remained at
Pamban, to everybody's delight. On the day following his arrival he
paid a visit to the great temple of Rameswaram. He recalled his visit

there five years before, when, as an unknown sannyasi, footsore and

weary, he had gone there and with that had brought to a close his
pilgrimage through India. He was touched to think how different were
the circumstances under which he now visited it. As the state-carriage,
with the Swami in it, neared the temple, it was met by a procession
which included elephants, camels, and horses. The temple insignia
were brought out, and, to the accompaniment of the traditional music,
those honours that the Hindu accords to a Mahatma were accorded to
him. The temple jewels were shown to him and his disciples; and after
they had been conducted through the building and shown its
architectural wonders particularly the galleries supported by a
thousand pillars the Swami was asked to address the people who
had assembled.
Standing there on the sacred ground of that famous temple of
Shiva, he spoke on the significance of a place of pilgrimage, and on the
essential nature of worship, charging his eager listeners, and through
them all his co-religionists, to worship Shiva not in images alone, but in
the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased. S. Nagalingam Pillai
translated his words into Tamil. The Raja of Ramnad was beside
himself with the spirit of the occasion, and the very next day fed and
clothed thousands of poor people. To mark the place where the Swami
first set foot on Indian soil after his triumph in the West, the Raja
planned to erect a victory monument, forty feet in height, bearing the
following inscription:
Satyameva jayate
The monument erected by Bhaskara Sethupathi, the Raja of
Ramnad, marks the sacred spot, where His Holiness Swami
Vivekananda's blessed feet first trod on Indian soil, together with the
Swami's English disciples, on His Holiness's return from the Western
Hemisphere, where glorious and unprecedented success attended His
Holiness's philanthropic labours to spread the religion of the Vedanta.
January 27, 1897
The Indian Mirror, on February 7, gave this report of the Swami's
reception at Pamban and Rameswaram:

As intimated to us by a telegram from Jaffna, Swami Vivekananda,

accompanied by Swami Niranjanananda, My. and Mrs. Sevier, Mr.
Goodwin, and Mr. Harrison of Ceylon, arrived here [Pamban] about 3
p.m., by a special vessel chartered for the purpose. On the arrival of
the vessel, a few respectable gentlemen of the place went on board
the vessel, and, after ministering to the needs of the party, requested
Swami Vivekananda to defer landing till 5 o'clock as the Rajah of
Ramnad was expected to arrive to receive him. Punctual to the hour,
the Rajah arrived in a nice, neatly decorated boat, specially prepared
for the occasion, and reached the vessel in which Swami Vivekananda
was, and landed him amidst much acclamation. At the landing place,
there was a grand pandal erected, and a temporary jetty was put up,
an immense crowd having gathered there. Swami Vivekananda was
conducted to a beautiful platform in the pandal by the Rajah, who,
after delivering a speech of welcome, asked Mr. Nagalingam Pillai,
Agent, C.S.S. Co., to read the address of welcome on behalf of the
public. That being done, Swami Vivekananda made a suitable reply, the
whole of which was taken down in shorthand by the reporters of the
Madras and Madura [now Madurai] newspapers. Then a grand
procession was formed, and the landau, on which the Swami and party
were seated, was drawn by men, the Rajah of Ramnad being the
foremost, and marched to the bungalow belonging to the Rajah, which
was intended for the residence of the Swami. On Wednesday [January
27], Swami Vivekananda and party inspected the temple at
Rameswaram. On leaving the same, he gave a bit of advice to the
immense crowd there in English, which was interpreted to the public.
Even that was recorded verbatim by reporters. On Thursday,
thousands of poor people were fed and cloths were freely distributed
'by the Rajah of Ramnad in honour of the Swami's visit to the Island. By
the order of the Rajah. a tower of about forty feet is to be erected on
the place where the Swami first put his sacred foot on the soil of His
Highness's territory, and [a] slab to be affixed to the same. The Swami
left this place for Ramnad via Tiruppullam in a boat belonging to the
Rajah at 4 a.m. on Friday [January 291 and will probably arrive at
Ramnad at 6 p.m....

The short trip from Pamban to the mainland was made in the early
morning and breakfast taken in one of the rest-houses provided by the
Raja for wayfarers. At Tiruppullam [Tiruppalani?] an informal reception
was given to the Swami. It was almost evening when Ramnad came in
sight. The journey from the coast proper was made by bullock-cart; but
on nearing Ramnad the Swami and party entered the state-boat, which
bore them across one of those large tanks that abound in South India.
Thus the reception at Ramnad took place on the shore of a lake,
heightening the dramatic effect of the occasion. The Raja, it goes
without saying, took the leading part in the ceremony of welcome, and
introduced the Swami to the elite of Ramnad.
The firing of cannon announced to the waiting thousands the
arrival of the Swami. At the time of landing, and during the procession,
rockets shot into the air. There was rejoicing everywhere. The Swami
was driven in the state-carriage, accompanied by a bodyguard
commanded by the Raja's brother, while the Raja himself, on foot,
directed the procession. Torches flared on either side of the road. Both
Indian and European music added life to the already lively proceedings.
"See the Conquering Hero Comes" was played on landing, and as the
Swami approached the state capital proper. When half the distance
had been covered, he alighted at the request of the Raja and took his
seat in the state-palanquin. Attended with all pomp, he reached the
Shankara Villa.
After a short rest, he was led into the audience hall where many
had gathered to hear his reply to their welcome. As he entered, the
hall resounded with shouts of triumph and joy. The Raja opened the
meeting with a speech in high praise of the Swami. His brother, Raja
Dinakara Sethupathi, then read the address of welcome, which was
presented in a massive, gold casket of exquisite workmanship.
The Swami began his reply with words that have taken their place
in the history of India. To hear them spoken in his thrilling voice is not
given to us, but even to read them, they have a thrilling quality:
The longest night seems to be passing away, the sorest trouble
seems to be coming to an end at last, the seeming corpse appears to

be awaking and a voice is coming to us away back where history and

even tradition fails to peep into the gloom of the past, coming down
from there, reflected as it were from peak to peak of the infinite
Himalaya of knowledge, and of love, and of work, India, this motherland of ours a voice is coming unto us, gentle, firm, and yet
unmistakable in its utterances, and is gaining volume as days pass by,
and behold, the sleeper is awakening! Like a breeze from the
Himalayas, it is bringing life into the almost dead bones and muscles,
the lethargy is passing away, and only the blind cannot see, or the
perverted will not see, that she is awakening, this motherland of ours,
from her deep long sleep. None can resist her any more; never is she
going to sleep any more; no outward powers can hold her back any
more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet.
Your Highness, and gentlemen of Ramnad, accept my heartfelt
thanks....
Each nation, he said, has its own part to play in the harmony of
nations. Spirituality is the special strength of India. Let her be true to
that, and a glorious future lies before her.
In closing the proceedings, the Raja announced that the Swami's
visit would be commemorated by a public subscription to the Madras
Famine Relief Fund.
About the Pamban, Rameswaram, and Ramnad receptions, J.
Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull on January 31 as follows:
At Pamban, our first place in India, the Rajah of Ramnad received
him in person, prostrating himself at the Swami's feet, weeping for
pure joy and afterwards helping to drag the Swami's carriage in place
of horses. Here also an address was presented. During the three days
we went to Rameswaram, one of the largest and holiest temples in
India. Here also the Swami addressed the large crowd, in the temple. I
should also add that he was taken to the temple in a procession of
elephants, camels, horses, etc. At Ramnad the rejoicing was
tremendous.... The cheering and shouting of "Hara Hara Mahadev"
was terrific. It made us very proud of our Swami, and we realized what

he is to India. Everyone says that his work in the West has caused a
tremendous Spiritual revival....
At Ramnad there were, as usual, many who came to meet the
Swami personally. In the Christian Missionary School, lent for the
purpose, he gave a lecture. And he attended a durbar at the palace
held in his honour. The durbar hall was brilliantly lighted, and the
Raja's own band playing. Here he received further addresses in Tamil
and Sanskrit to which he replied. During the course of the function he
conferred on the Raja the title "Rajarshi", meaning that the Raja was
both a ruler (Raja) and a sage (Rishi). At the latter's request the Swami
gave a short address into a phonograph on the need of Shakti-worship
in India.
Following this visit to the palace on Sunday evening (January 31),
the Swami and party set out on their journey northwards at midnight.
Paramakkudi (or Paramagudi), reached by coach, was the first
stopping place. A demonstration on a large scale had been organized,
thousands following the Swami in procession. In his reply to their
address of welcome, he spoke in forceful words of the materialism of
the West and the spirituality of India. While not unappreciative of
Western materialism within the limits of its proper reference, he gave
this warning: "The whole of Western civilization will crumble to pieces
in the next fifty years if there is no spiritual foundation." With two
World Wars falling within the fifty years of which he spoke, who will
say that his words were wide of the mark!
At Manamadurai, where the next halt was made, the Swami was
taken in procession to a huge pandal under which, amid deafening
shouts of enthusiasm, an address of welcome from the people of that
place and of neighbouring Shivaganga was read. To the contention,
expressed in it, that Western materialism had nearly swamped Indian
religious convictions, the Swami replied that if that was so, a good deal
of the fault lay with Indians themselves. He went on to speak about
their kitchen religion and cooking-pot God.
Again the journey was resumed. It was one long triumphal
progress. At Madurai, the ancient city of learning and temples and

royal memories, the Swami was accommodated in the bungalow of the

Raja of Ramnad. An address of welcome was presented to him in a
velvet casket. In his reply he spoke of the religious revival going on in
India. She had to steer a course between the fanaticism of orthodoxy
and the soullessness of Europe-inspired. social reform. She had to
distinguish between essentials and non-essentials in finding her true
course.
.Three weeks of continuous travelling, ovations, and speaking had
told on him physically, but the vigour of his mind and spirit was
unimpaired. Though, in some of the places he visited, he was not
physically fit enough to deliver speeches and receive visitors at all
times of the day, he waived all consideration of his body and was equal
to the main demands of the occasion. Such tremendous enthusiasm
centring on religion, as this was, gladdened his heart and led him to
hope great things from his people in the future.
While in Madurai the Swami paid a visit to the Minakshi temple.
He was received with great respect, spoke with the temple priests, and
referred enthusiastically to the architecture and sculpture of the
temple. The temple jewels were brought out and shown to him and his
Western disciples. The Indian Mirror dated February 11 reported his
visit to Madurai thus:
Madura, 3rd February: The Swami Vivekananda and party arrived
at half-past ten yesterday. They were received by the public with
temple Stalangam. In the afternoon, the Swami answered questions on
Hindu philosophy. He visited the temple whence he drove to the
College, where he received a public address and replied to it. The
audience numbered upwards of two thousand. The Swami said, India
has a mission, namely, that of spreading spirituality through the world.
It is as impossible for Hindus to cast aside scores of centuries of
spiritual training as for the Europeans to leave their few centuries of
growth. When its Europeanization was complete, India will die as a
nation.... Distinguish the permanent in Hinduism from the accidental,
then India's mission in the world will he fulfilled. The Swami left at
night. He stays at Kumbakonam today.

On the evening of February 2, the Swami entrained for

Kumbakonam. Swami Shivananda, his brother-disciple, was now with
him on his. journey from Madurai northwards. All along the way at
each station where the train stopped, crowds of people had gathered
to welcome him with intense enthusiasm. Even small villages sent
representatives. Garlands of flowers and addresses of welcome were
presented, and the people pressed about the train to have a glimpse of
their hero. The Swami replied to their addresses in a few words. He
regretted that time did not permit a short stay with them. At
Trichinopoly (now Tiruchirapalli), at four in the morning, there were
over a thousand people on the platform to present him with an
address. The Council of the National High School, Trichinopoly, and
also the student population of the city, presented addresses. His
replies had to he brief. At Tanjore (or Thanjavur), another large
demonstration had. been arranged.
When the Swami was received at Kumbakonam, the people's
rejoicing knew no bounds. The Hindu community and, separately, the
Hindu students of the town, presented addresses of welcome. In reply
the Swami spoke on "The Mission of the Vedanta". It was the first of
those full-length calls to the nation, still unique in Indian history:
unrivalled for their quality of thought, intensity of passion, and beauty
of rhetoric.
The Swami remained in Kumbakonam three days, so that he could
to some extent get rested in anticipation of the heavy work known to
be awaiting him in Madras. During these days, a deputation led by K. S.
Krishnamachari and S. M. Raja Ram waited on him at the Nilgiri Hall
one morning. They tendered a memorial, signed by some 750 students
of Trichinopoly, requesting him to stay at least a day or two in their
midst. The Swami replied as follows:
Gentlemen, I have received your address with great pleasure and
sincerely thank you for the kind expressions contained therein.
I much regret, however, that time effectually prevents my paying
even a short visit to Trichinopoly at present. In the autumn, however, I
propose making a lecture tour throughout India, and you may rely

upon it that I shall then not fail to include Trichinopoly in the

programme.
Again thanking you and with my blessings to all.
Sincerely yours,
Vivekananda
An incident took place at Kumbakonam which has recently come
to light. It will be remembered that, when the Swami was in Madras in
1893, he dreamt that his mother had died. He became anxious on that
account. Alasinga and Manmathanath Bhattacharya took him to a man
called Govinda Chetti, who had power over ghosts. This man relieved
the Swami of anxiety by assuring him that his mother was alive and
well. That was four years ago. Now, when the Swami was being
welcomed by the people of Kumbakonam, he recognized Govinda
Chetti in the crowd, and asked him to meet him later. When the ghost
charmer came, the Swami said: "I know you have psychic power. It has
given you money and honour; but from the spiritual point of view, are
you not where you started? Has your mind progressed towards God?"
The man replied, "No, it has not progressed." Then the Swami said to
him: "If that has not happened, what have you gained by this psychic.
power? Once you taste the bliss of God, you will see that all, these
things are nothing." Saying this the Swami embraced him. To
everybody's astonishment, the man's psychic powers disappeared
from that day, and in their place came tremendous hankering for God,
as a result of which he renounced the world.
On the way from Kumbakonam to Madras the Swami met with the
same enthusiastic welcome. At Mayavaram (Mayuram) people
gathered in large numbers, filling the whole of the station platform. A
committee headed by D. Natesa Aiyer presented him with an address;
and C. Venkata Row Sahib, the District Munsiff, garlanded him. In
thanking those assembled, the Swami humbly said that he had only
done what the Lord had commissioned him to do. He had not done
anything great, and anybody else would have done better. Yet he was
pleased to see that even his modest labours were being gratefully

appreciated. After a short talk with the Munsiff, he was borne on his
way amid exultant shouts of "Jai Swami Vivekananda Maharajji ki jai!"
An incident which speaks volumes for the adoration that the
Swami had aroused in the hearts of the millions of South India, took
place at a small railway station some miles from Madras. Many people
had assembled there to get a glimpse of the "Great Teacher" and pay
their homage to him. The train, a "through" train, was not to stop at
that station. The crowds importuned the station master to flag the
train to a stop, if only for a few minutes, but to no avail. At last, seeing
the train coming in the distance, hundreds of people lay flat on the
railway line, determined to stop the train. The station master was in a
panic. However, the train came to a halt. People crowded round the
Swami's carriage, sending forth shouts of triumph in his honour. Visibly
moved by this expression of feeling, he appeared before them for a
few moments. He thanked them with all his heart, and extended his
hands in blessing.

RECEPTION IN MADRAS
Great enthusiasm prevailed in Madras and its environs for weeks
over the home-coming of Swami Vivekananda. A Vivekananda
Reception Committee was organized some time in the fist week of
January, with the Hon'ble Justice Subrahmanya Iyer as head. Many
prominent persons of the city, such as Sir V. Bhashyam Iyengar, V.
Krishnaswami Iyer, V. C. Seshachariar, Prof. M. Rangachariar, ' Prof. K.
Sundararama Iyer, Dr. Nanjunda Rao, P. R. Sundara Iyer, were its active
workers, in addition to Alasinga Perumal, Balaji Rao, P. Singaravelu
Mudaliar, and other disciples of the Swami. The Committee prepared
two or three leaflets for distribution throughout the city: the object
was to give the people sonic account of the Swami's preaching work in
the West. Subscriptions were raised and large-scale preparations made
to receive him. For days in advance, the Madras papers carried
editorials about him and announced the programme of welcoming
him. The railway station and streets were lavishly decorated, and
seventeen triumphal arches erected. Mottoes were blazoned on all
sides: "Long Live the Venerable Vivekananda!" "Hail, Servant of God!"

"Hail, Servant of all Great Sages of the Past!" "Hearty Greetings of

Awakened India!" "Greetings to the Swami Vivekananda!" "Hail,
Harbinger of Peace!" "Hail, Shri Ramakrishna's Worthy Son!"
"Welcome, Prince of Men!" And in Sanskrit: "Ekam Sad Vipra Bahudha
Vadanti!" The route selected was from Egmore Railway Station,
through Chintadripet and Napier Park, into Mount Road, then along
Pycrofts' Road and Beach Road to Castle Kernan, formerly called the
Ice House and now, since the Vivekananda Centenary (1963), called
"Vivekananda House". One floor of this palatial building had been put
at the Swami's disposal during his stay in Madras by its owner, Biligiri
Iyengar.
The day before the Swami arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Sevier,
accompanied by Mr. Harrison, a Ceylonese Buddhist, arrived at
Madras, were met at the station, and taken to Castle Kernan. The same
evening a public reception was arranged for them, which was attended
by Col. Olcott, among others. On this occasion Col. Olcott told Prof. K.
Sundararama Iyer that he was a warm friend and sincere admirer of
the Swami.
On the eve of the Swami's arrival the Madras Times had this to
say:
For the past few weeks the Hindu public of Madras have been
most anxiously expecting the arrival of Swami Vivekananda, the great
Hindu Monk of world-wide fame. At the present moment his name is
on everybody's lips. In the schools, in the colleges, in the High Court,
on the Marina, and in the streets and bazaars of Madras, hundreds of
eager persons may be seen asking everybody, "When will the Swami
Vivekananda come?" Large numbers of students from the mofussil,
who have come up for the university examinations, are staying here
awaiting the Swami, and increasing their hostelry bills, despite the
urgent call of their parents to return home immediately for the
holidays. From, the nature of the receptions received elsewhere in this
Presidency, from the preparations being made here, from the
triumphal arches erected at Castle Kernan, where the "Prophet" is to
be lodged at the cost of the Hindu public, and from the interest taken
in the movement by the leading Hindu gentlemen of this city, like the

Hon. Mr. justice Subrahmanya Iyer, there is no doubt that the Swami
will have a grand reception. It was Madras that first recognized the
superior merits of the Swami and equipped him for his journey to
Chicago. Madras will now have again the honour of welcoming the
undoubtedly great man who has done so much to raise the prestige of
his motherland. Four years ago when the Swami came here, he was
practically an obscure individual. In an unknown bungalow at St.
Thome he spent some two months holding conversations on religious
topics and teaching and instructing all comers who cared to listen to
him. Even then a few educated young men with a "keener eye"
predicted that there was something in the man, a power that would
lift him above all others, and pre-eminently enable him to be the
leader of men. These young men who were then despised as
"misguided enthusiasts", "dreamy revivalists", have now the supreme
satisfaction of seeing "their Swami", as they loved to Call him return to
them with a great European and American fame. The mission of the
Swami is, essentially, spiritual.... Whatever differences of opinion
followers of other creeds may have with him... few will venture, to
deny that the Swami has done yeoman service to hi. country in
opening the eyes of the Western world to "the good in the Hindu". He
will always be remembered as the:first Hindu sannyasin who dared to
cross the sea to carry to the West the message of what he believes in
as a religious peace....
In 1892, when he visited Trivandrum the Swami met Prof. M.
Rangacharya. This gentleman now had a post at the Kumbakonam
College. From Kumbakonam he travelled to Madras with the Swami. At
Chingleput, some thirty-six miles from Madras, representatives of the
Madras Mail and The Hindu boarded the train. lie interview that they
reported as having had with the Swami was in fact the report of a
series of questions asked by Prof. Rangacharya and answered by the
Swami: these representatives simply took down what was said. The
interview attracted wide attention, for in the course of it the Swami
had some candid words to say about the "Missionaries" and "Churchy
women" who had done their best to defame him in America.

When the train bringing the hero-monk steamed into Egmore

Station, Madras, on the morning of February 6, 1897, there were
thundering shouts of applause. The enthusiasm shown was
unprecedented in the history of Madras. An account of the Swami's
entrance into the city can be conveniently given in the words of one of
the leading papers:
Due to previous information widely disseminated that Swami
Vivekananda would arrive at Madras this morning by the South Indian
Railway, the Hindus of Madras, of all ages and of all ranks, including
young children in primary schools, grown-up students in colleges,
merchants, pleaders and judges, people of all shades and varieties, and
in some instances, even women, turned up to welcome the Swami on
his return from his successful mission in the West. The railway station
at Egmore, being the first place of landing in Madras, had been well
fitted up by the Reception Committee who had organized the splendid
reception in his honour. Admission to the platform was regulated by
tickets rendered necessary by the limited space in the interior of the
station; the whole platform was full. In this gathering all the familiar
figures in Madras public life could be seen. The train steamed in at
about 7.30 a.m., and as soon as it came to a standstill in front of the
south platform, the crowds cheered lustily and clapped their hands,
while a native band struck up a lively air. The members of the
Reception Committee received the Swami on alighting. The Swami was
accompanied by his Gurubhais [brother-monks], the Swamis
Niranjanananda and Shivananda, and by his European disciple Mr. J. J.
Goodwin. On being conducted to the dais, he was met by Captain and
Mrs. J. H. Sevier, who had arrived on the previous day with Mr. and
Mrs. T. G. Harrison, Buddhists from Colombo and admirers of the
Swami. The procession then wended its way along the platform,
towards the entrance, amidst deafening cheers and clapping of hands,
the band leading. At the portico, introductions were made. The Swami
was garlanded as the band struck up a beautiful tune. After conversing
with those present for a few minutes, he entered a carriage and pair
that was in waiting, accompanied by the Hon. Mr. justice Subrahmanya
Iyer and his Gurubhais, and drove off to Castle Kernan, the residence

of Mr. Biligiri Iyengar, Attorney, where he will reside during his stay in
Madras. The Egmore Station was decorated with flags, Palm leaves and
foliage plants, and red baize was spread on the platform. The "Way
Out" gate had a triumphal arch with the words, "Welcome to the
Swami Vivekananda". Passing out of the compound, the crowds surged
still denser and denser, and at every move, the carriage had to halt
repeatedly to enable the people to make offerings to the Swami. In
most instances the offerings were in the Hindu style, the presentation
of fruits and cocoanuts, something in the nature of an offering to a god
in a temple. There was a perpetual shower of flowers at every point on
the route and under the "Welcome" arches which spanned the whole
route of the procession from the station to the Ice-House, along the
Napier Park, via Chintadripet, thence turning on the Mount Road
opposite the Government House, wending thence along the Wallaja
Road, the Chepauk and finally across the Pycrofts' Road to the South
Beach. During the progress of the procession along the route
described, the receptions accorded to the Swami at the several places
of halt were no less than royal ovations. The decorations and the
inscriptions on the arches were expressive of the profoundest respect
and esteem and the universal rejoicing of the local Hindu Community
and also of their appreciation of his services to Hinduism. The Swami
halted opposite the City Stables in an open pandal and there received
addresses with the usual formalities of garlanding.
Speaking of the intense enthusiasm that characterized the
reception, one must not omit to notice a humble contribution from a
venerable-looking old lady, who pushed her way to the Swami's
carriage through the dense crowds, in order to see him, that she might
thereby be enabled, according to her belief, to wash off her sins as she
regarded him as an Incarnation of Sambandha Moorthy [a Shaiva saint
of Tamil Nadu]. We make special mention of this to show with what
feeling of piety and devotion His Holiness was received this morning,
and, indeed, in Chintadripet and elsewhere, camphor offerings were
made to him, and at the place where he is encamped, the ladies of the
household received him with Arati, or the ceremony of waving lights,
incense, and flowers as before an image of God. The procession had

necessarily to be slow, very slow indeed, on account of the halts made

to receive the offerings, and so the Swami did not arrive at Castle
Kernan until half past nine, his carriage being in the meanwhile
dragged by the students who unharnessed the horses at the turn to
the Beach and pulled it with great enthusiasm. Arrived at the Castle
Kernan, Mr. Krishnamachariar, B.A., B.L., High Court Vakil, read a
Sanskrit address on behalf of the Madras Vidvanmanoranjini Sabha.
This was followed by a Canarese [Kannada] address. At the close of this
ceremony, Mr. justice Subrahmanya Iyer asked the gathering to
disperse in order to let the Swami rest after the fatigue of his journey,
which was done. The Swami was installed in one of the magnificent
chambers in the upper storey of the Castle Kernan.
Never since its earliest days has Madras witnessed such an
enthusiastic reception accorded to anyone, European or Indian. Of all
the official receptions that were ever held in Madras, none could equal
the one given to Swami Vivekananda. Such an ovation has not been
witnessed in Madras within the memory of the oldest man, and we
dare say that the scenes of today will remain for ever in the memory of
the present generation.
After the Swami had taken food and had a short rest, Professors K.
Sundararama Iyer and M. Rangacharya met him to arrange a
programme for his stay in Madras. The Swami asked them to arrange
the programme between themselves and simply inform him of the
subjects he was to speak on. It was settled that his first appearance
would be in order to reply to the main address of welcome, that of the
Vivekananda Reception Committee presented on behalf of the people
of Madras. Afterwards there were to be four public lectures devoted to
his message to the world and to India, and to the means of building up
a national spiritual life in India suited to altered conditions. The
following subjects were chosen: (1) "My Plan of Campaign", (2) "The
Sages of India", (3) "Vedanta in its Application to Indian Life", (4) "The
Future of India". At Alasinga's request, the Swami also consented to
deliver a lecture at the Triplicane Literary Society on "The Work Before
Us"; and there were to be two morning sessions at the Castle when
people could put questions to him.

This gives little idea of how arduous and fully occupied a time the
Swami's stay in Madras was for him. For the people, it was a Navaratri,
a nine-days' festival; but it brought the Swami's body almost to
collapse. Addresses of welcome were presented to him from the
moment he alighted from the train: in all, twenty-four, in five different
languages. The Raja of Khetri, devoted disciple of the Swami, sent his
Private Secretary, Munshi Jagmohanlal, all the way to Madras to
present an address of welcome on his behalf. From the first day to the
last of his visit he was besieged at all hours by visitors of all classes and
of both sexes. Many women of respectable families came to Castle
Kernan as if they were visiting a temple. Their devotional feeling
reached its climax when they gained admission and prostrated
themselves before the Swami as if he were an avatar or Acharya
revisiting the scene of his labours. There were crowds constantly
waiting in front of the Castle at all hours of the day and even after
dark. Prof. Sundararama Iyer writes:
It had gone forth that he was an avatar of Sambandha Swami [a
Shaiva saint], and the idea was taken up everywhere with absolute
truthfulness by the common people. Whenever a glimpse of him was
caught, as he passed to and fro in the Castle grounds or as he was
getting into his coach on his way to one of the meetings, they
prostrated en masse before him. The scene on such occasions was as
impressive as it was unusual, emphasizing as it did that in the heart of
the nation was a deep reverence for renunciation of the world's
vanities and its unsubstantial fleeting attachments; that it still
regarded it to be the sole means to the attainment of the lotus feet of
the Supreme and the resulting liberation from the miseries in the
material universe.
Not long after his arrival in Madras, the Swami was requested by
some of his followers there to sing. He sang one of Jayadeva's songs in
a voice and in a Raga (tune) different from any ever heard in that part
of the country. "The impression then received", writes Prof.
Sundararama Iyer, "is one never to be effaced, and the Swami revealed
himself to us in one of the lighter aspects of his complex nature."

K. S. Ramaswami Sastri, son of the Prof. Sundararama Iyer just

quoted, who had met the Swami in 1892, met him again during this
visit to Madras. In his reminiscences he writes:
The difference that I noticed between Vivekananda of 1892 and
Vivekananda of 1897 was what struck me most. In 1892 he looked like
one who had a tryst with destiny and was not quite sure when or
where or how he was to keep that tryst. But in 1897 he looked like one
who had kept that tryst with destiny, who clearly knew his mission,
and who was confident about its fulfilment. He walked with steady and
unfaltering steps and went along his predestined path, issuing
commands and being sure of loyal obedience.
We shall now give a more or less chronological account of the
Swami's activities in Madras, so far as it can he reconstructed from the
reminiscences of Prof. Sundararama Iyer and C. Ramanujachari,
published in Vedanta Kesari, and from newspaper reports and other
sources.
On Saturday, February 6, the day of the Swami's arrival, there was
a large gathering at Castle Kernan in the evening. The Indian Mirror, a
Calcutta paper which carried excerpts from Madras papers, gave this
account of the scene at Castle Kernan, with special reference to
February 6 and the early morning gathering on the 7th:
Castle Kernan, where Swami Vivekananda is lodged, presented a
picturesque scene on Saturday evening [February 6]. The Castle, itself
is beautifully decorated and fitted up for the reception of Swami and
party.... Two magnificent pandals have been put up, one at the
entrance, which is intended to serve a purely ornamental purpose, and
another in the compound, which serves the purpose of a meeting hall,
where the Swami patiently undergoes the severe cross-examination to
which he is subjected on the technicalities and subtleties of the
Vedanta. A large number of gentlemen waited upon the Swami at the
pandal that evening, when an acrostic poem in Sanskrit in honour of
the Swami was read by Mr. R. Sivasankara Pandiaji. The Swami then
offered to answer any questions that might be put to him. Some one

set the ball rolling by asking the Swami to point out the difference
between karma and fatalism....
Mr. P. L. Narasu, B.A., then heckled the Swami on the essential
tenets of the Vedanta. A most interesting passage-at-arms then
followed, the Swami dealing with his interrogator's various points with
admirable lucidity, force, and aptness....
In the same issue of the Indian Mirror is another report which
would seem to relate to a session between 7.30 and 9 a.m. on the
following morning, Sunday the 7th:
Nearly two hundred persons assembled this morning... at Castle
Kernan to question Swami Vivekananda on various topics of interest.
Some asked him to explain the difference between "mind" and
matter", some wished to know whether God had a human shape. The
Swami patiently and courteously answered all his questioners....
The same day, the 7th, had been appointed for the Swami to
receive the main Madras address of welcome. About 4 p.m. he set out
from Castle Kernan. It was a day of high expectations for everyone.
Over ten thousand people had assembled in and around the Victoria
Hall. The scene in front of it, and along the roads and by-ways leading
to it, defied description. The carriage taking the Swami and his party
could scarcely pass; so dense was the crowd. As they alighted, there
were loud cries of "Open-air meeting" from the vast throng that had
assembled. The arrangement was that the address would he presented
in the hall. This, of course, was filled to capacity. With great difficulty
the Swami made his way to the platform. Sir Bhashyam Iyengar was
already in the chair; and the Swami took the seat by his side. Among
those present were the Hon'ble Justice Subrahmanya Iyer, the Hon'ble
Subba Rao Puntulu, the Hon'ble P. Rajarathna Moodeliar, Col. H. 5.
Olcott, Parthasarathy Iyengar, and others. Addresses were presented
to the Swami by the Vivekananda Reception Committee, the Vaidika
Vidvat Katha Prasanga Sabha, the Raja of Khetri, and the Madras Social
Reform Association. The Reception Committee's address was read by
M. 0. Parthasarathy Iyengar.

Meanwhile, loud and continuous shouts of "Open-air meeting"

from outside interrupted the proceedings within. The Swami's heart
was touched; he felt that he could not disappoint the countless, eager
young men assembled outside. He suddenly burst out, saying, "I am a
man of the people. They are all outside. I must go and meet them",
and rushed from the hall. As soon as he appeared outside, thundering
applause broke forth. Then there was a regular stampede. Since no
arrangements had been made for him to address the people in the
open air, he got on a landau and tried to speak from that. The noise
was so deafening that he could not make himself heard. So he climbed
into the coachman's seat, and spoke "in Gita fashion", as he put it. He
had in mind, of course, Shri Krishna's delivering his message in a
chariot ages before.
"Man proposes and God disposes", he began. "It was arranged
that I should address you in accidental fashion; but it was ordained by
the Lord that I should address you in Gita-fashion, standing in a
chariot." Each nation, he said, has one particular groove which is its
own. For India, that is religion. India has taken the side of renunciation;
for without renunciation how can there be religion? The rest of the
world has taken the side of enjoyment. Which side is to survive? The
melting away of the nations that had enjoyment as their ideal, and the
survival of India with renunciation and love as her ideals, show that
India has been right. He went on to tell his hearers that he was
intensely pleased with their enthusiasm: only let them "keep it up"; let
them give him all the help he required, "to do great things for India".
At this stage the, crowd became so unmanageable that the Swami
could not make himself heard. He finally said, "You have seen me
today: you will hear me some other day." And it was true that, though
there was disappointment at the sudden termination of the meeting,
those who had come had had the satisfaction of having seen the
Swami.
After this abortive meeting, the Reception Committee, with the
consent of the Swami, decided that, as it was impossible to control the
big crowd, admission to his remaining lectures should be regulated by

tickets to be issued on payment. To this effect they made the following

announcement in the papers:
The following is the programme of Swami Vivekananda's Madras
lectures
Tuesday [February 91 at 5.30 p.m. -My Plan of Campaign
Thursday [February 11] do -The Sages of India
Saturday [February 13] do -The Vedanta in Its Practical
Application to the Problems of Indian Life
Admission will he by tickets to be had of Messrs Srinivasa
Varadachari and Co. Rates of admission: Rs. 2 for the platform and Re.
1 for the Hall. The proceeds will be devoted to further the work of the
Swami in India. Arrangements are also being made for an open-air
lecture on the 14th instant, the subject being "The Future of India".
Particulars of time and place, etc., regarding this lecture will be duly
notified.
Some incidents which occurred on Monday, February 8, the day
following the mammoth meeting, are recorded by Prof. Sundararama
Iyer:
At about noon, Prof. P. Lakshmi Narasu whom I have always
esteemed as a gentleman of great learning and high character came
to the Castle, accompanied by the late Mr. N. K. Ramaswamy Iyer. Mr.
Lakshmi Narasu was a student of science and an avowed Buddhist, but
I did not know who his companion was. The latter gentleman I learnt
was the publisher, and the former the editor and the leading (or even
the sole) contributor to a journal which was appearing somewhat
irregularly and abandoned after a few issues had been published,
called 'The Awakener of India.... These two visitors of the Swami were
evidently of opinion that his mission and labours in America and the
propaganda work started in Madras at his instance by the publication
of the Brahmavadin and Prabuddha Bharata [Awakened India] had yet
had no effect in imparting a new impulse of activity, and India still
remained sunk as deep as ever in her lethargic slumber of ages. Their
own Awakened of India, however, was, [according to them] on the
whole, a bright and rousing performance while it lasted.... As I entered

the room, his companion, whom we all knew well during his
subsequent career, was saying, "We want, Swami, to have a free talk
on various problems of philosophy and religion, especially on the
Vedanta to which we have strong objections...." I took my seat, when
the Swami called me to his side. Soon he said, with his usual smile
lightening up his face, "Here is my friend, Sundararaman; he has been
a Vedantist all his life, and he will meet all your arguments. You can
refer to him." This greatly enraged N. K. Ramaswami Iyer who turned
to me with eyes betokening scorn, if not contempt, and then turned
once more to the Swami, "We have come here to meet you, and not
any other person." The Swami did not reply, of course. Meanwhile,
other persons and topics turned up....
In the afternoon of the same day, a deputation of Shaivites from
Tiruppattur, armed with a sheet of questions on Advaita doctrine, met
the Swami. Knowing that he was an Advaitin, they had come, or
perhaps had been sent, to beard the lion in his den. Their first question
was: "How does the Unmanifested become the manifest?" Like a bolt
from the blue came the Swami's reply: "Questions of how, why, or
wherefore relate to the manifested world, and not to the
Unmanifested, which is above all change and causation, and therefore
above all relation to the changing universe.... The question, therefore,
is not one which can be reasonably put. Put a proper question... and I
will answer." The reply simply paralysed the questioners. They found
that they were face to face with a master who could not be trapped in
a game of dialectics, and before whom it were better to bow down in
humility. Their questions were forgotten. As Prof. Sundararama Iyer
says, they felt the wand of the magician. The enchanting power of the
Swami's personality stole over their minds and hearts. This lion of
Vedanta and master of dialectics began to speak to those present in
captivating tones of tenderness. The gist of what he said was: "The
best way to serve and to seek God is to serve the needy, to feed the
hungry, to console the stricken, to help the fallen and friendless, to
attend and serve those who are ill and require service." After listening
to the Swami's passionate plea for service to humanity, the deputation

left. Their faces showed that their hearts had been touched, and that
for them a new light had been thrown on life.
On the morning of Tuesday, February 9, the Swami visited the
Triplicane Literary Society at the request of its members. An address of
welcome was read by T. V. Seshagiri Iyer, Vice-President, in which the
Swami's attention was drawn to the fact that previous to his departure
for America his first public appearance had been in the hall of the
Society. It was because of that that the citizens of Madras had been
able to value the Swami at his true worth. After thanking the Society
for having afforded him the opportunity of making himself known to
the people of Madras in 1893, he went on to say that the power of
originality once possessed by the Hindus had been lost, and that they
were now concerning themselves with details of dress, food, and other
trifles.
We have been making ourselves smaller and smaller, he said, and
dissociating ourselves from the rest of the world. We have to give up
the idea that we are the people of the world. We have much to learn
from other nations, and much to give. What India has to give, and has
been giving through the ages, silently, imperceptibly, is the gift of
wisdom and spirituality. "Slowly they (the Western nations) are finding
out that what they want is spirituality to preserve them as nations....
Heroic souls are wanted to help the spread of truth... to disseminate
the great truths of Vedanta.... The whole of the Western world is on a
volcano which may burst tomorrow.... We must go out, we must
conquer the world through our spirituality and philosophy.... What I
mean by the conquest of the world... is the sending out of life-giving
principles...." The glory of the Vedanta is that it does not depend on a
person, or persons: it is based on principles. Hence, if there is any
religion that can lay claim to universality, it is the Vedanta. We must
stick to the essentials, avoid mystery-mongering, and purge away our
many superstitions. The subject of this talk was "The Work Before Us".
Although no notice had been given of it in the press, a very large crowd
thronged the Society's premises.
That evening in the Victoria Hall, the Swami gave the first of his
four public lectures: "My Plan of Campaign". Before hand, he told Prof.

Sundararama Iyer and others that he intended "to be out once for all"
with the truth of what the Theosophical Society had done for him in
the West. Col. Olcott, he learned, had been claiming that the
Theosophical Society had paved the way for him in America; but in
fact, at every turn, he said, they "tried to cry me down". When some
friends and supporters tried to dissuade the Swami from making any
reference to his detractors, especially to the Theosophical Society, he
was inexorable. For three years he had kept quiet, but now it was time
that people knew the facts. "There is a report going around", he said in
the lecture, "that the Theosophists helped the little achievement of
mine in America and England. I have to tell you plainly that every word
of it is wrong, every word of it is untrue." He placed the main facts of
the matter before his audience. Then he referred to the "Christian
missionaries" in America and to Pratapchandra Mazoomdar of the
Brahmo Samaj, who had done all they could to injure him.
Needless to say, these disclosures had repercussions, in the press
and in other ways. From this time on, the Hon'ble Justice Subrahmanya
Iyer, Chairman of the Reception Committee and devoted to the Swami,
broke off his connection, for he was a prominent member of the
Theosophical Society. About this plain-speaking in public the Swami
wrote to Swami Brahmananda on February 12 as follows:
The Theosophists and others wanted to intimidate me. Therefore I
had to give them a bit of my mind. You know they persecuted me all
the time in America, because I did not join them. They wanted to begin
it here. So I had to clear my position. If that displeases any of my
Calcutta friends, "God help them". You need not be afraid, I do not
work alone, but He is always with me. What could I do otherwise?
Coming back to the lecture, the Swami next had something to say
about the reformers: "They want to reform only in little bits. I want
root-and-branch reform. Where we differ is in the method. Theirs is
the method of destruction; mine is that of construction. I do not
believe in reform; I believe in growth...." To dictate to society which
way it shall move is to put oneself in the position of God. But who
knows, and who dares say which way society shall move ? "Feed the
national life with the fuel it wants, but the growth is its own; none can

dictate its growth to it. Evils are plentiful in our society, but so are
there evils in every other society." Every uneducated globe-trotting
foreigner can give a harangue on the evils in Hindu society, "but he is
the friend of mankind who finds a way out of the difficulty". "The
history of the world teaches us that wherever there have been
fanatical reforms, the only result has been that they have defeated
their own ends."
This was the Swami's position vis--vis the reformers, some of
whom, as he said, "try to intimidate me to join" their societies. Then he
takes up arms against those who say that idolatry is wrong. "I once
thought so, and to pay the penalty of that I had to learn my lesson
sitting at the feet of a man who realized everything through idols; I
allude to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. If such Ramakrishna
Paramahamsas are produced by idol-worship, what will you have
the reformers' creed or any number of idols?... Take a thousand idols
more if you can produce Ramakrishna Paramahamsas through idolworship...."
After clearing the ground he comes to his plan: "My plan is to
follow the ideas of the great ancient Masters." Since every
improvement in India requires first of all an upheaval in religion, the
first work that demands our attentions that the most wonderful truths
confined in our Upanishads be "brought out from the possession of
selected bodies of people, and scattered broadcast all over the land....
And that diffusion... must go out all over the world." Then he makes
the points he had made in "The Work Before Us", about a give-andtake between India and the West.
"My plan is to start institutions in India, to train our young men as
preachers of the truths of our scriptures, in India and outside India.
Men, men, these are wanted" sincere to the backbone. "A hundred
such and the world becomes revolutionized." He describes what his
ideal of patriotism is, and concludes: "This national ship... my friends...
has been ferrying millions and millions of souls across the waters of
life. For scores of shining centuries it has been plying.... But today,
perhaps through your own fault, this boat... has sprung a leak; and

would you therefore curse it?... Let us go and stop the holes. Let us
gladly do it with our hearts' blood...."
On the evening of Wednesday, February 10, the Swami attended
an at-home held in his honour at the premises of the Social Reform
Association, in Black Town,. A handsome fan was presented to him as a
memento of his visit. In his conversation with the members, he gave
little or no encouragement to the revolutionary views entertained by
the societys leaders, but admitted the need for social reforms, such
as the removal of untouchability, the restoration and rearrangement of
the caste system so as to recover its ancient rationale, and so on.
On the morning of Thursday, February 11, the Swami went on
invitation to the house of Dr Subrahmanya Iyer, in Luz Church Road.
Prof. Sundararama Iyer, who was present, writes:
We met in the room upstairs, and the Swami explained to us his
plans for a vast religious reformation and revival in India which would
serve to bring Hindus, Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists, and all
under a common flag of brotherly union and serve as a star of hope
and harmony, and a ceaseless incentive to the striving by men of all
creeds and colours after a common goal of national aspiration. He
wanted a new sort and style of temple with a hall in the front
containing statues of the sages and prophets of all great religions, and
behind it an inner precinct containing a pillar with the letter (or letters)
Om inscribed on it and underneath the open sky....
On the evening of Thursday, February 11, the Swami delivered his
second public lecture, "The Sages of India", in the Victoria Hall. The
place was crowded to capacity. The Hon'ble N. Subba Rao was in the
chair. Among those present were H. Beauchamp, Editor of the Madras
Mail, the Hon'ble Subrahmanya Iyer, Raja Sir S. Ramaswamy
Moodeliar, and others. The Swami first drew attention to the
distinction that Hinduism makes between two grades of truth taught in
two grades of scripture. The Shrutis, consisting of the Vedas, teach
eternal truths; the Smritis, consisting of the codes of Manu and others,
and of the Puranas and Tantras, teach contingent truths appropriate to
particular circumstances. The impersonal principles taught by the

Shrutis stand on their own foundation of truth, without dependence

on reasoning or on the authority of any person or persons. But it was
always recognized that the majority of mankind must have a Personal
God to worship, and spiritual personalities to inspire them. The Smritis
give ample scope for this.
The knowledge which the Vedas declare comes through being a
Rishi (sage). But the state of Rishi is not limited to the past. Indeed, the
Swami says, "until each one of you has become a Rishi and come face
to face with spiritual facts, religious life has not begun for you."
"Religion is not in books... nor in dogmas.... It is being and
becoming...."
Of the world-moving sages and great Incarnations, Rama and
Krishna are worshipped the most in India. Rama... the embodiment of
truth, of morality, was the ideal son, ideal husband, ideal father, ideal
king. But, cries the Swami in the fervour of his thought, "there may
have been several Ramas, perhaps, but never more than one Sita! She
is the very type of the true Indian woman... and here she stands these
thousands of years, commanding the worship of every man, woman,
and child... this glorious Sita.... She is, there in the blood of every Hindu
man and Woman...."
Then came Shri Krishnaof the Gopis, and of the Gita. To have
that love for God that the Gopis had, that is the goal. As to the Gita,
"no better commentary on the Vedas has been written or can be
written". Shri Krishna was the great teacher of harmony. But that did
not prevent a long period of conflict, especially between the king and
priests. "And from the topmost crest of the wave that deluged India for
nearly a thousand years, we see another glorious figure, and that was
our Gautama Shakyamuni [the Buddha]." But Buddhism in its turn
became degraded. Then "the marvellous boy Shankaracharya arose".
He showed that "the real essence of Buddhism and that of Vedanta are
not very different". Then came Ramanuja, he of great heart who felt
for the downtrodden.
Coming down to the present age, "the time was ripe for one to be
born," he said, "who in one body would have the brilliant intellect of

Shankar and the wonderfully expansive, infinite heart of Chaitanya....

Such a man was born, and I had the good fortune to sit at his feet for
years.... He was a strange man, this Shri Ramakrishn. Paramahamsa...
the fulfilment of the Indian sages, the sage for the time.... If I have told
you one word of truth, it was his and his alone...."
On Friday morning, February 12, the pandal at the Castle was full
to overflowing, when the Swami took his seat on the platform. There
came a young European lady' of high intelligence, who put to him
various questions on Vedanta. The Swami's resources of knowledge
and exposition were fully brought out to the wonder of all present. The
lady thanked the Swami, told him that she would be leaving for London
to resume her social work in its slums, and hoped that it would be her
great privilege to meet him again. As she left, the Swami rose,
advanced a few steps to see that a way was made for her, and
remained standing while she bowed and retired. In the afternoon she
returned with her father, who was engaged in Christian missionary
work in Madras. She sought and obtained for him an interview which
lasted nearly an hour. On being asked by Prof. Sundararama Iyer how
he found the strength for such incessant activity, the Swami said,
"Spiritual work never tires one in India."
On the same day a Vaishnava pandit, speaking in Sanskrit, raised a
difficult point in the Vedanta for discussion. The Swami patiently
listened to the pandit, then turned to the audience and said in English
that he did not care to waste time in fruitless wrangling over doctrinal
details of no practical value. The pandit then asked the Swami to say
clearly whether he was an Advaitin or a Dvaitin. The Swami replied in
English: "Tell the pandit that so long as I have this body I am a Dualist,
but not afterwards. This incarnation of mine is to help to put an end to
useless and mischievous quarrels and puzzles which only distract the
mind, and make men weary of life, and even turn them into sceptics
and atheists." The pandit then said in Tamil, "The Swami's statement is
really an avowal that he is an Advaitin." The Swami rejoined, "Let it be
so." The matter was then dropped.
In the afternoon of the day of which we are speaking, the 12th,
about 4.30 p.m., the Swami and friends visited the Hindu Theological

High School of Madras. First, two boys conversed with one another in
Sanskrit on Arya Dharma. Then the President-Founder, Brahmasri R.
Sivasankara Pandiyaji, read an address on behalf of the trustees,
teachers, and boys, of the school. The Swami congratulated the
President-Founder on his noble endeavours. He exhorted the public to
encourage the school in every way, and wished for similar institutions
to come up all over India. The Hindu Moral Association also presented
an address.
In the evening, the Swami presided at the annual meeting of the
Madras Chennapuri Annadana Samajam, held in Pachaiyappa's Hall.
After the usual proceedings the Swami spoke a few words on charity.
The Hindu custom in the practice of charity, he said, was superior to
the legislated methods of other nations. Charity should be done to
everyone in need, without distinction of caste or creed. The receiver
was for the time being the representative of God Himself, and he who
gave was merely a worshipper.
On the evening of Saturday, February 13, the Swami addressed a
very large audience in Pachaiyappa's Hall on "The Vedanta in Its
Application to Indian Life". He said that Hindu religion is a collection of
various religions, of various ideas, of various ceremonials and forms, all
gathered together almost without a name, and without a church, and
without an organization. The only point where all the sects agree is
that they all believe in the Vedas. No man can he called a Hindu who
does not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas. The Vedanta
covers Dualism, Qualified Monism, and Monism or Advaita, and even
takes in part of Buddhism and Jainism too. "It was given to me," said
the Swami," to live with a man who was as ardent a dualist as he was
an Advaitist, as ardent a Bhakta as he was a Jnani." "And living with
this man first put it into my head to understand the Upanishads and
the texts of the scriptures from an independent and better basis than
by blindly following the commentators.... I came to the conclusion that
these texts are not at all contradictory... but wonderfully harmonious,
one idea leading up to the other."
The Swami tells his countrymen: "You have talked of reforms... for
the past hundred years; but when it comes to practice, you are not to

be found anywhere.... And what is the cause?... the only cause is that
you are weak...; your body is weak, your mind is weak, you have no
faith in yourselves.... Who will give you strength? Let me tell you,
strength, strength is what we want." Where shall we get it from? From
the Upanishads. This is the great practical application of the
Upanishads, that they give us strength. They tell us that we are
essentially Spirit omnipotent and omniscient. "If the fisherman
thinks that he is the Spirit, he will be a better fisherman; if the student
thinks that he is the Spirit, he will be a better student." From this faith
in the truth about ourselves, strength will come and fear will go;
freedom will come and privilege will go. "Liberty is the first condition
of growth. It is wrong, a thousand times wrong, if any one of you dares
to say, 'I will work out the salvation of this woman or child.' I am asked
again and again, what I think of the widow problem and what I think of
the woman question. Let me answer once for all am I a widow that
you ask me that nonsense? Am I a woman that you ask me that
question... ?... Are you the Lord God that you should rule over every
widow and every woman? Hands off! They will solve their own
problems. Oh tyrants, attempting to think that you can do anything for
any one!... Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You
cannot help anyone, you can only serve.... Do it only as worship. I
should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and
worship them......
Prof. Sundararama Iyer relates an amusing incident that happened
during the lecture just summarized. Among those on the platform was
G. Subrahmanya Iyer, who was later to become editor of The Hindu. At
one point, particularly addressing the students in the audiences, the
Swami said: "First of all, our young men must be strong. Religion will
come afterwards. Be strong, my young friends;... You will be nearer to
Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita.... You will
understand the Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little
stronger...... Even while the Swami was speaking, Subrahmanya Iyer
exclaimed in Tamil to those near him, "I have said the same thing
often, but none would give ear. The Swami says it now, and you all
cheer!"

The same evening, after the lecture, the Swami attended an

entertainment given in his honour by L. Govindas, at Patters Gardens,
Royapettah. The large gathering included quite a few Europeans. After
addresses had been read, there was a recital by two well-known
musicians. The Swami was presented with ochre-coloured silk cloths,
garlanded, and served with refreshments.
On Sunday evening, February 14, the Swami gave his last public
lecture in Madras, on "The Future of India". Over three thousand
people had assembled in the Harmston Circus Pavilion to hear him. The
Hon'ble N. Subba Rao Puntulu was in the chair. Prof. Sundararama Iyer
says: "I never saw a more crowded scene or a more enthusiastic
audience. The Swami's oratory was at its best. He seemed like a lion
traversing the platform to and fro. The roar of his voice reverberated
everywhere, and with telling effect." That there was something special
about this lecture, and that the Swami's voice had a special power on
this occasion, is also suggested by C. Ramanujachari's words: "That was
a wonderful lecture and Swamiji's voice was heard throughout
distinctly, even in the corners. Those were days when there were no
loudspeakers. The effect of that speech was thrilling."
The Swami begins "The Future of India" with one of the most
rousing of his lecture openings: "This is the ancient land where wisdom
made its home before it went into any other country.... Here is the
same India whose soil has been trodden by the feet of the greatest
sages that ever lived.... This is the land whence, like tidal waves,
spirituality and philosophy have again and again rushed out and
deluged the world...... He reminds his audience of their country's past
greatness so that they may have the right understanding and strength
to "build an India yet greater than what she has been".
"The problems of India are more complicated... than the problems
in any other country.... The one common ground that we have", in this
conglomeration of differing elements which make up India, "is our
sacred tradition, our religion. That is the only common ground, and
upon that we shall have to build.... Therefore, the first plank in the
making of a future India... is this unification of religion.... The Indian
mind is first religious, then anything else. So this is to be strengthened,

and how to do it?... My idea is first of all to bring out the gems of
spirituality that are stored up in our books... and let them be the
common property of all . Great Masters did try to do this in the past;
but because they did not spread the knowledge of Sanskrit at the same
time, their successes were short-lived. "It is culture" in this case
Sanskrit culture "that withstands shocks," the shocks of history
"not a simple mass of knowledge.... Teach the masses in the
vernaculars, give them ideas; they will get information: but something
more is necessary; give them culture." The only way for the lower
castes to raise their condition permanently and without conflict is for
them to appropriate the culture of the higher. "The solution is not by
bringing down the higher, but by raising the lower up to the level of
the higher. And that is the line of work that is found in all our books...."
The aim must be to raise all to Brahmin-hood. It is the duty of the
Brahmins to "work hard to raise the Indian people by teaching them
what they know, by giving out the culture that they have accumulated
for centuries."
"To make a great future India, the whole secret lies in
organization, accumulation of power, co-ordination of wills." Our
dissensions must stop. "For the next fifty years this alone shall be our
keynote this, our great Mother India. Let all other vain gods
disappear for the time from our minds.... What is needed is...
purification of the heart. And how does this come? The first of all
worship is the worship of the Virat of those all around us.... And the
first gods we have to worship are our countrymen. These we have to
worship, instead of being jealous of each other and fighting each
other."
In concluding, the Swami speaks briefly of his plans for work in
Madras. But he introduces this with some of his most telling utterances
on education. "We [Indians] must have a hold on the spiritual and
secular education of the nation. Do you understand that?... Till then
there is no salvation for the race. The education that you are getting
now has some good points, but... it is not a man-making education....
Fifty years of such education has not produced one original man in the

three Presidencies.... Education is not the amount of information that

is put into your brain....
We must have life-building, man-making, character-making,
assimilation of ideas."
As to details, one thing that is needed here in Madras is a nonsectarian temple for Hindus. Connected with the temple "there should
be an institution to train teachers who must go about preaching
religion and giving secular education to our people.... You may ask,
where is the money?" Money must comebecause I want it. But
"where are the men? That is the question. Young men of Madras, my
hope is in you.... Rouse yourselves. There are greater works to be
done than aspiring to be lawyers and picking quarrels and such things.
A far greater work is this sacrifice of yourselves for the.. welfare of
humanity...."
Meanwhile the Swami was receiving letters from his Western
disciples and from the Vedanta Societies in America and England,
informing him of the progress of the work and congratulating him on
his successful preaching there. He received also addresses or
appreciative communications from societies or other groups of
admirers in the West. That from the member of the Cambridge
Conferences was signed by some of the most distinguished minds in
the history of American thought. It ran as follows:
To Swami Vivekananda, India
Dear Friend and Brother,
As members of the Cambridge Conferences, devoted to
comparative study in Ethics, Philosophy, and Religion, it gives us great
pleasure to recognize the value of your able expositions of the
Philosophy and Religion of Vedanta in America and the interest
created thereby among thinking people. We believe such expositions
as have been given by yourself and your co-labourer.. the Swami
Saradananda, have more than mere speculative interest and utility,
that they are of great ethical value in cementing the ties of friendship
and brother-hood between distant peoples, and in helping us to realize

that solidarity of human relationships and interests which has been

affirmed by all the great religions of the world.
We earnestly hope that your work in India may be blessed in
further promoting this noble end, and that you may return to us again
with assurances of fraternal regard from our distant brothers of the
great. Aryan Family, and the ripe wisdom that comes from reflection
and added experience and further contact with the life and thought of
your people.
In view of the large opportunity for effective work presented in
these Conferences, we should be glad to know something of your own
plans for the coming year, and whether we may anticipate your
presence with us again as a teacher. It is our hope that you will be able
to return to us, in which event we can assure you the cordial greetings
of old friends and the certainty of continued and increasing interest in
your work.
We remain,
Cordially and Fraternally yours,
LEWIS G. JANES, D.D., Director J. E. LOUGH
C. C. EVERETT, D.D. A. O. LOVEJOY
WILLIAM JAMES RACHEL KENT TAYLOR
JOHN H. WRIGHT SARA C. BULL
JOIAH ROYCE JOHN P. FOX
Dr. Janes was Ex-President of the Brooklyn Ethical Association.
Prof. G. C. Everett was Dean of Harvard Divinity School. Prof. William
James, of Harvard University, was one of the leading psychologists and
philosophers of his time. Prof. J. H. Wright was Professor of Greek,
Harvard University. It will be remembered that he helped the Swami
secure credentials for the Parliament of Religions. Prof. Royce,
Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University, was an eminent
metaphysician. He admitted that he owed much to the Swami.
Professors Lough and Taylor were Presidents of the Harvard Graduate
Philosophical Association and of the Radcliff Philosophical Club

respectively. Mrs. Bull was the promoter of the Cambridge

Conferences, and one of the foremost women in America and Norway.
Mr. Fox was the acting honorary secretary of the Cambridge
Conferences.
Another letter, equally appreciative, was received from the
Brooklyn Ethical Association. It was addressed, "To our Indian Brethren
of the Great Aryan Family", and bore the signatures of E. Sidney
Sampson, President, and Lewis G. Janes, Ex-President, of the
Association. Copies of this address were printed and widely circulated
in Madras to an eager public.
A letter also addressed to "Our Indian Brethren" was received
from Miss Mary Phillips, the Secretary of the Vedanta Society of New
York. It read:
Dear Friends:
The Western Aryans send cordial greeting to the Aryans of India.
We, in New York, who have been so fortunate as to hear the
Vedanta Philosophy taught by the Swami Vivekananda, are desirous of
expressing to you in some small measure our grateful recognition of
his services to us.
He came, a stranger, unheralded, but, by the force of his magnetic
eloquence, and the purity of his personal character, he commanded
the attention and interest of thousands, and attracted their minds to
the study of a subject almost entirely unknown to them. Here. in New
York, where he taught and lectured for two seasons, the impression he
produced is so deep that we hope and trust it will extend until the
Vedanta Philosophy shall take permanent root among us, and its
comprehensive and tolerant teachings shall find lodgement in hearts,
and expression in the lives of large numbers of our people. We who
came into more immediate contact with him, are deeply grateful for
the noble work he did among us, for the unselfish and self-sacrificing
efforts he made in our behalf; and we will try to the best of our ability
to establish on a lasting basis the study of the Vedanta Philosophy and
to promote the growth of knowledge concerning it.

We wish to extend to you, his fellow-countrymen, our heartfelt

sympathy in your present afflictions, with an earnest hope that a way
may be found to lighten them.
May the Swami Vivekananda's work among his own people be
blessed a thousandfold, and meet with the fullest measure of success.
Should he return to us in the years to come, he will receive a most
cordial welcome. He has made us feel that we are all of one kin, and all
expressions of that One Existence which is the background of the
Universe.
Mary A. Philips
Secretary
Still another address of greeting was sent to Swami Vivekananda,
signed by forty-two of his especial friends at Detroit. It reads:
From this far-away city, in a land, old yet young, ruled by a people
who are a part of the ancient Aryan race, the mother of nations, we
send to you in your native country India, the conservator of the
wisdom of the agesour warmest love and sincerest appreciation of
the message you brought to us. We, Western Aryans, have been so
long separated from our Eastern brothers that we had almost
forgotten our identity of origin, until you came and, with beautiful
presence and matchless eloquence, rekindled within our hearts the
knowledge that we of America and you of India are one.
May God be with you! May blessings attend you! May All-Love and
All-Wisdom guide you!
Om Tat Sat Om!
One piece of news from New York that particularly pleased the
Swami was that about the welcome given to Swami Saradananda, his
brother-disciple, by the Vedanta Society there, on January 16 at the
New Century Hall. Dr. E. G. Da spoke as follows at the meeting:
Among the audience I recognize the faces of many who gathered
to hear the sublime teachings of the Vedanta from the lips of the gifted
and well-beloved Master, Vivekananda, and of many who mourned

when their friend and teacher left, and who earnestly long for his
return. I wish to assure you that his mantle has fallen on worthy
shoulders in the person of the Swami Saradananda who will now teach
the Vedanta studies among us. I am sure that I voice your sentiments
when I say that we are ready to extend to him the love and loyalty we
had for his predecessor. Let us extend to the new Swami a hearty
welcome.
Almost from the commencement of his visit to Madras the Swami
was being pressed by his disciples and admirers to remain in the city
and open a centre there. The topic was broached on his return to
Castle Kernan from the abortive Sunday meeting. S. Subrahmanya Iyer
and others were all seated round the Swami, discussing future action
in Madras.
That night the Swami definitely promised to send one of his
brother-disciples as his representative. Out of fun he remarked, "I will
send you a Swami who will not smoke and who will be more orthodox
than the orthodox people here." He meant Swami Ramakrishnananda,
who was sent in March 1897.
The Swami received invitations to visit other cities in India. He was
invited to Poona [now Pune] by B. G. Tilak; but he wrote to Swami
Brahmananda on February 12: "I had to give up invitations from Poona
and other places on account of bad health. I am very much pulled
down by hard work and heat." The Swami wanted rest. He was pining
for the Himalayas. So he decided to leave directly for Calcutta by
steamer.
On Monday February 15, he embarked on S.S. Mombasa of the
B.1.N.S. Company. A Shamiana (a canopy) had been put up on the
harbour pier, which had been beautifully decorated, and Messrs Binny
and Co. had arranged for a farewell gathering. The Swami reached the
pier at 7.30 a.m. and was conducted to the Shamiana, where some
leading citizens had assembled to say goodbye to him. A group of
merchants of the Arya-Vaishya caste (known as Komatis) met him and
presented an address of thanks for his services to the holy motherland.
At 8 a.m. he entered one of the pier carriages and was pushed along to

the T-end, where he was met by the Reception Committee and other
friends. On alighting, he was garlanded, and then the Hon'ble Subba
Rao, of Rajahmundry, on behalf of everybody present, wished the
Swami godspeed and a safe voyage. The Swami bowed in
acknowledgement, and said that his silence would best express his
feelings. He proceeded to embark amidst deafening cheers from those
assembled on the pier and from the crowds on the beach. Among
those who boarded the steamer and remained with the Swami until it
sailed, was Prof. Sundararama Iyer. He begged the favour of a
moment's interview apart to ask, "Swami, tell me if, indeed, you have
done lasting good by your mission to such materialistic people as the
Americans and others in the West." He replied, "Not much. I hope that
here and there I have sown a seed which in time may grow and benefit
some at least." The second question was, "Shall we see you again, and
will you continue your Mission work in South India?" He replied, "Have
no doubt about that. I shall take some rest in the Himalayan region,
and then burst on the country everywhere like an avalanche."
The Swami's triumphal march through South India, and especially
the lectures he delivered in Madras, aroused the latent energies of the
Indian nation, or rather, began the process of arousal. As we have
seen, he reminded Indians of their greatness, and of their weaknesses
as well. He pointed to their glorious heritage, told them of their still
more glorious destiny, and charged them to fulfil it. He gave them a
national consciousness and a national pride.

BACK TO BENGAL
The whole of Bengal had been alive with enthusiasm ever since
the news flashed that Swami Vivekananda had landed in India. Calcutta
in particular was following with intense interest the Swamis triumphal
progress from Colombo to Madras, and attentive to reports of his
utterances. Save for some jarring notes, faint and feeble, raised against
the Swami by a few Calcutta papers prompted by sectarianism, rigid
orthodoxy, or jealousy, all Bengali hearts throbbed with affectionate
and patriotic pride at the thought that they were going to welcome
home one who, born and bred among them, had raised their name in

the estimation of the whole civilized world. In the last week of January
1897 a preliminary meeting was called at the residence of Raja Benoy
Krishna Deb Bahadur to organize an influential Reception Committee
to accord a fitting reception to the Swami on his return to Calcutta and
to present him with an address of welcome. On that occasion it was
resolved to hold a public meeting and to open a subscription list to
meet tile expenses of the reception. His Highness the Maharaja of
Darbhanga kindly consented to be President of the Reception
Committee. The five Vice-Presidents were persons of very high
standing, and among those on the Committee were quite a few who
were, or subsequently became, famous. Babu Narendranath Sen,
Editor of the Indian mirror, was appointed Honorary Secretary, and
Babu Hirendranath Dutta, Honorary Assistant Secretary.
The Swami too was eagerly looking forward to his return to the
city of his birth. The sea voyage from Madras was a boon to his tired
nerves, for the continuous ovations, public speaking, and talking to
visitors, had worn him out. It was to be free from all this that he
decided to travel by ship instead of train. Before leaving Madras some
of his admirers had a large number of coconuts taken on board, the
milk to be drunk by the Swamion the doctor's orders. Mrs. Sevier, on
seeing such a quantity of coconuts, asked, "Swamiji, is this a cargo boat
that they are loading so many coconuts on board?" He, much amused,
replied, "why no, not at all! They are my coconuts! A doctor as advised
me to drink coconut-milk instead of water. During the voyage he
shared them with the Captain and his fellow-passengers.
On the ship some American. missionaries deplored the Swamis
English disciples leaving Christianity for Vedanta. They expressed the
hope that the latter would return to "the true faith, and even offered
prayers that their hearts might be turned back to Christ. In this
connection Swami Shivananda who travelled with the Swami, said
later: "The English disciples and we all were with him [the Swami] then.
On the steamer, a lot of religious discussion took place for some days
with the English [American?] missionaries. The missionaries learnt
many things from the Swami. The deck of the steamer was

transformed into a lecturing place. Whenever Swamiji used to talk,

most of the passengers would come to the deck to hear him."
When the steamer sailed up the Hooghly, the Swami pointed out
to his disciples all the places of interest that he knew so well, as the
places associated with his early youth and manhood.
'The Reception Committee in Calcutta had been busy making
elaborate preparations for the Swami's arrival following news of his
departure from Madras. The route from Sealdah railway station to
Ripon College in Harrison Road (now Mahatma Gandhi Road), half a
mile long, was colourfully festooned on both sides. A triumphal arch,
surmounted by a Nahabatkhana, was put up on Circular Road, just
outside the station, having on it the words "Hail, Swamiji". Another
arch, with "Jai Ramakrishna", spanned Harrison Road; and a third, with
"Welcome" on it, was put up in front of Ripon College. Two persons
had been 'sent by the Reception Committee to meet the Swami and
party when the ship anchored off Budge Budge, and inform them of
the reception programme.
S.S. Mombasa reached Budge Budge at night, and early the
following morning, Friday, February 19, the Swami boarded a special
train for Sealdah. He was accompanied by Swamis Shivananda and
Niranjanananda, Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, Goodwin and four or five of his
Madrasi disciples, including the editors of the Brahmavadin and
Prabuddha Bharata. Sealdah Station had a festive appearance. A crowd
of about 20,000,consisting of men of all ages and stations of life, were
gathered there from early morning. As they waited, many of them
were reading copies of the farewell addresses of the Swami's New York
and London students, which were distributed. The verandas and roof
terraces of the houses along the road were crowded with men,
women, and children. Many sannyasis in their ochre robes were also in
the crowd at the station. Some of them were brother-disciples of the
Swami. It was, indeed, a grand spectacle, the like of which had not
been seen there before. The Indian Mirror's report of the reception ran
as follows:

Precisely at half-past seven the special train conveying the Swami

and his few European and Indian friends, steamed onto the platform.
There was a great enthusiasm displayed on all sides, and everybody
was anxious to get near him to have a look of the "hero" of the day.
There was a great rush on the spacious platform and one could with
difficulty keep his place.... Triumphal arches were erected in many
places and Nahabats were playing the sweet Indian music on the top of
the triumphal arches; and the station and the road leading from it to
the Ripon College was decorated with garlands and festoons. There
was music too. In a splendid carriage-and-four there was a concert
playing select tunes and several Sankirtana parties were there [in the
crowd]. As soon as the Swami alighted from the train the members of
the Reception Committee, headed by Babu Narendranath Sen, stepped
forward and conducted the Swami to a phaeton. A European lady and
a gentleman, who accompanied the Swami, were escorted to the
carriage. The Swami and his friends and disciples were garlanded and
were heartily cheered when the phaeton slowly drove amidst the
cheers of the enthusiastic throng, followed by music and the
Sankirtana parties. There was a stream of carriages following the
Swami's carriage, and the Swami was heartily cheered throughout the
passage.
The Hon'ble Charu Chunder Mitter conducted the Swami and his
friends to the Ripon College, where several respectable gentlemen
followed them. There was a peculiar smile in the beaming countenance
of the Swami, and his picturesque orange cloth fitted him admirably.
He modestly bowed to the crowd, when they saluted him, and
throughout evinced a simple and touching recognition of the
unprecedented reception. At quarter to 8, he was escorted to the
Ripon College and the crowd there was so great that it was impossible
to get into the Hall. The Hon'ble Ananda Charlu and several
respectable gentlemen were there.... In the spacious tent-yard of the
Ripon College, the Swami and his friends were seated and the whole
assembly cheered him heartily. Everybody expected the Swami to
make a grand speech, but the Swami was evidently moved by the
genuine and hearty reception of his countrymen, and, in a few chosen

words, thanked the assembly for welcoming him in such a grand

manner. The Swami and his friends were then conducted by Babu
Pashupatinath Bose, and they were entertained... at his house in
Baghbazar. The Swami's European friends would reside in Babu
Gopallal Seal's garden-house in Cossipore. The Swami, we understand,
will return to his old Math in Baranagar [actually Alambazar].
The Statesman and Friend of India and other papers reported that
some of the young men in the welcoming crowd unyoked the horses of
the Swami's carriage and drew it themselves along the whole way to
Ripon College.
The Statesman also reported that there was a great rush at the
gates of Ripon College, and remarked on the absence of police
arrangements. The welcome at the College was of an informal nature,
the Reception Committee having decided to postpone the public
reception for a week, so as to give the people of Calcutta a more
favourable opportunity of hearing the Swami. After a short time,
therefore, he and his party left for Baghbazar, where they had been
invited to a banquet by Babu Pashupatinath Bose, at his palatial
residence. At four in the afternoon the Swami and his Western
disciples were driven to what was known as Seals' Garden. It was the
river-side mansion of Gopallal Seal in Cossipore, and had been offered
to the Swami and his friends for their temporary residence.
The Swami's brother-disciples had made their own preparations to
receive him ceremonially at the Alambazar Math. Swami
Akhandananda relates: "Swamiji was brought by a special train from
Budge Budge to Calcutta [by the Reception Committee].
Ramakrishnananda and myself stayed at the Math, and for his
reception stood up a cut plantain tree, kept a pitcher full of water with
a mango stem and leaves set in it, and hung a small festoon of mango
leaves at the Math entrance.... In the evening he came to the Math.
We two took him inside and gave him a hearty welcome."
At the Seals' mansion, every day and at all hours of the day, an
unending stream of people came to pay their respects and hear his
exposition of the Vedanta. The nights he spent at the Math, then at

Alambazar. Telegrams of congratulation and welcome, and also

invitations from various towns, came pouring in. This receiving and
speaking to countless visitors, and the constant strenuous discussion
on difficult matters, was a great strain on the Swami. He had no rest.
Yet in his heart he was glad to find such a sincere spirit of enquiry and
such religious zeal among his own people; consequently he was ever
ready to welcome them, solve their religious difficulties, and point out
to them their duty to themselves and to their country.
The presentation of the address of welcome to the Swami had
been announced in the press for Sunday, February 28, at 4 p.m.
Admission was by free ticket, to be obtained in advance. When the
time came, the palatial residence of the late Raja Sir Radhakant Deb
Bahadur, at Sobhabazar, was crowded to its utmost capacity. Some
four thousand people had gathered in its spacious quadrangle, in the
wings and passages leading to it, and on the verandas surrounding it.
From the list of some of those present, published in the Indian Mirror,
it is safe to say that the Swami was welcomed by one of the most
distinguished audiences that had ever assembled in what, at that time,
was the capital of the British Empire in India. Owing to a previous
engagement, the Maharaja of Darbhanga was not present. In his
absence, Raja Benoy Krishna Deb Bahadur was voted to the chair. He
said:
We are here, gentlemen, to present an address of welcome to
Swami Vivekananda a man in a million, verily, a Prince among men.
We all know, gentlemen, what valuable services he has rendered to his
countrymen in foreign lands, quite unaided and alone, and contending
against insuperable difficulties.... The success of his mission in America
and in England has endeared him to every Hindu heart, and has done
far more than anything else to quicken the national instinct in us.
Gentlemen, the Swami's missionary expedition has raised us in the
estimation of foreign people, nay, he has recovered some lost ground
for usand, like a conquering hero, he is returning to us after a
glorious campaign, and it is meet that we should give him a hearty
welcome home....

The Chairman then read out the address of welcome which was
being presented to the Swami in a silver casket. The Swami, in his turn,
replied in a speech that has become famous as a masterpiece of
oratory and patriotism. It marked him out as the "Prophet of Modern
India". The reports that appeared in the press give no idea of the
substance of the speech. We shall therefore summarize the main
points the Swami made, giving more attention to those that he had not
previously made in his lectures in the South:
"I come before you, my brothers," said the Swami, "not as a
sannyasi, not as a preacher, but as the same Calcutta boy that you
used to know. The Parliament of Religions was a great affair, no doubt,
but that was only an opening. My mission was really to the great,
warm-hearted American people themselves, and our thanks for its
success must go to them. Our thanks must also go to the people of
England." "No one ever landed on English soil with more hatred in his
heart for a race than I did for the English...; but the more I lived among
them,... the more I loved them.... My work in England has been more
satisfactory to me than my Work in America...." The difficulties that
arise between us and the English are mostly due to misunderstanding:
"We do not know them, they do not know us.... Neither are they to
ridicule our manners and customs, nor we theirs."
In the address of welcome, tribute had been paid to Shri
Ramakrishna. Referring to this the Swami said, "Brothers, You have
touched another chord in my heart, the deepest of all, and that is the
mention of my teacher, my master, my hero, my ideal, my God in life
Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa...." Again, as in Madras, the Swami
insists that all that is good in what he has done is Ramakrishna's; all
that is defective is his own. "Yes, my friends, the world has yet to know
that man... at whose feet I have learnt everything.... The highest ideal
in our scriptures is the impersonal, and would to God every one of us
here were high enough to realize that impersonal ideal; but, as that
cannot be, it is absolutely necessary for the vast majority... to have a
personal ideal; and no nation can rise... without enthusiastically
coming under the banner of one of these great ideals of life.... [In
India] Our heroes must be spiritual. Such a hero has been given to us in

the person of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. If this nation wants to rise,

take my word for it, it will have to rally enthusiastically round this
name......
This leads him on to the point he had repeatedly made in the
South: "The sign of life is expansion; we must go out, expand, show
life, or degrade, fester, and die." "India must conquer the world.... This
must be our eternal foreign policy, preaching the truths of our Shastras
[scriptures] to the nations of the world." Not only will this reduce our
quarrelling at home, but these truths are something that we can give
to the world. "The secret of life is to give and take. Are we to take
always, to sit at the feet of the Westerners to learn everything, even
religion?" We can learn many things from the West; but the world is
waiting for the treasure of our spirituality: we have that to teach them.
"Therefore we must go out, exchange our spirituality for anything they
have to give us.... If you want to become equal with the Englishman or
the American, you will have to teach as well as learn.. Young men of
Calcutta, arise, awake, for the time is propitious.... My conviction is
that from the Youth of Bengal will come the power which will raise
India once more to her proper spiritual place." What we want is
Shraddha. It is faith in ourselves that we want. "Have this Shraddha,
and everything else is bound to follow."
During this last week of February the Swami was invited to the
house of Priyanath Mukhopadhyaya, a devotee of Shri Ramakrishna,
living in Baghbazar. On this occasion Sharatchandra Chakravarty, who
hailed from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and used to visit Nag
Mahashaya, the saintly householder disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, was
introduced to the Swami. After Sharatchandra had prostrated himself,
the Swami spoke to him in Sanskrit, asking how Nag Mahashaya was.
Later, taking him to a small room, the Swami recited this memorable
verse from Vivekachudamani of Shankaracharya: "O wise one, fear not:
you have not to perish. Means there are for crossing the ocean of this
round of birth and death. I shall show you the same way by which holy
men of renunciation have crossed this ocean."
Sharatchandra was an orthodox Vedantin. The Swami therefore
asked him to read Vivekachudamani. The verse that the Swami had

recited set him thinking. It is not surprising that in time Sharatchandra

became the Swami's disciple. He is of special interest to us, because it
is his records, published in Bengali, that provide some of the material
for this account of the Swami's life in Bengal after his return from the
West. These records have been translated into English and published in
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda.
It was at the same house, on the same day, that the Swami told
Babu Narendranath Sen Editor of the Indian Mirror, that his preaching
of Vedanta in the West had convinced him that all methods of raising
the Motherland, such as politics, were but secondary to the need for
her to cling to her scriptures and follow their injunctions. Afterwards
the Swami conversed with a preacher of the Cow Protection Society.
Their conversation, which is given below, brings out in bold relief the
Swami's love for his fellow-men.
The Swami: "What is the object of your Society?"
Preacher: "We protect the mother-cows of our country from the
hands of the butcher. Cow-infirmaries have been founded in some
places where the diseased, decrepit mother-cows, or those bought
from the butchers are provided for."
The Swami: "That is very good indeed. What is the source of your
income?"
Preacher: "The work of the Society is carried on only by gifts kindly
made by great men like you."
The Swami: "What amount of money have you now laid by?"
Preacher: "The Marwari traders' community are the chief
supporters of this work. They have given a big amount for this good
cause."
The Swami: "A terrible famine has now broken out in Central India.
The Indian Government has published a death-roll of nine lakhs of
starved people. Has your Society done anything to render help in this
time of famine?"
Preacher: "We do not help during famine or other distress. This
Society has been established only for the protection of mother-cows."

The Swami: "During a famine, when lakhs of people, your own

brothers and sisters, have fallen into the jaws of death, you have not
thought it your duty, though having the means, to help them in that
terrible calamity with food!"
Preacher: "No. This famine broke out as a result of men's Karma,
their sins. It is a case of 'like Karma like fruit'."
Hearing the words of the preacher, sparks of fire, as it were,
gleamed in the Swami's large eyes; his face became flushed. But he
suppressed his feelings and said: "Those associations which do not feel
sympathy for men and, even seeing their own brothers dying from
starvation, do not give them a handful of rice to save their lives, while
giving away piles of food to save birds and beasts, I have not the least
sympathy for, and I do not believe that society derives any good from
them. If you make a plea of Karma by saying that men die through
their Karma, then it becomes a settled fact that it is useless to try or
struggle for anything in this world; and your work for the protection of
animals is no exception. With regard to your cause also, it can he said:
the mother-cows through their own Karma fall into the hands of
butchers and die, and we need not do anything in the matter."
The preacher was a little abashed and said "Yes, what you say is
true, but the Shastras say that the cow is our mother."
The Swami smilingly, said: "Yes, that the cow is our mother, I
understand: who else could give birth to such accomplished children?"
The up-country preacher did not speak further on the subject;
perhaps he could not understand the point of the Swami's poignant
ridicule. He told Swamiji that he was begging something of him for the
objects of the Society.
Swamiji: "I am a sannyasi, a fakir. Where shall I find money enough
to help you? But if ever I get money in my possession, I shall first spend
that in the service of man. Man is first to be saved; he must be given
food, education, and spirituality. If any money is left after attending to
all these, then only will something be given to your society."
At these words the preacher went away, after saluting the Swami.
Then the latter began to speak to us: "What words, these, forsooth! He

says that men are dying by reason of their Karma, so what avails it to
do them any kindness? This is decisive proof that the country has gone
to rack and ruin! Do you see how much the Karma theory of your
Hinduism has been abused? Those who are men and yet have no
feeling in the heart for man, well, are such to be counted men at all?"
While speaking these words, the Swami's whole body seemed to shake
with anguish and grief.
On Thursday, March 4, at 6 p.m. the Swami lectured at the Star
Theatre on "The Vedanta in All Its Phases". Admission was by ticket, to
control the crowd. The Indian Mirror of March 7 reports that "the hall
was filled with a select and respectable audience", and that the lecture
was "heard with rapt attention": "The speech, which was a
masterpiece of oratorical art, kept the whole audience spellbound...."
Babu Narendranath Sen was in the chair.
After another of his magnificent beginnings the Swami declares:
"In India,... in spite of all these jarring sects... by authority, the basis of
all these systems has... been the Upanishads, the Vedanta. Whether
you are a dualist,... an Advaitist, or a Vishishtadvaitist,... or whatever
you may call yourself, there stand behind you as authority.... the
Upanishads.... Thus the Vedanta, whether we know it or not, has
penetrated all the sects in India, and what we call Hinduism... has been
throughout interpenetrated by the influence of the Vedanta." But
among these sects there are many apparent contradictions. The time
requires that a better interpretation than any in the past be given of
the underlying harmony of the Upanishadic texts. Such an
interpretation needs showing both in India and to the world at large.
"This is my mission in life, to show that the Vedantic schools are not
contradictory, that they all... fulfil each other, and one... is the
stepping-stone to the other, until the goal, the Advaita,... is reached."
After a digression on the sublime poetry of the Upanishads, the
Swami comes back to their primal authority. They are impersonal both
in the context of their teaching and in the reason of their authority; yet
they say nothing against the worship of personalities: on the contrary
they are "broad... enough to embrace all the personalities that the
world has yet produced, and all that are yet to come". The very fact

that the Vedas are not historical, the very fact that they are not the
product of some person at some time, is a fact in favour of their truth.
Therein lies the difference between the scriptures of the Christians or
the Buddhists and ours; theirs are all Puranas... because they deal
with historical events and persons. So far as the scriptures of other
religions do not contradict the Vedas, they are acceptable to the Hindu
and have the authority of Puranas.
There are certain doctrines common to all the different sects of
India, the Swami continues. First, that of rebirth. Second, they all agree
in their psychology. The great difference between Western and Indian
psychology is that in the former the mind is the soul: in Indian
teaching, the mind is only the instrument of the soul or Jivatman. All
Indian sects agree that this Jivatman has no beginning: it always
existed. And they all agree that "everything is in the soul. There is no
inspiration, but, properly speaking, expiration. All powers and all purity
and all greatness everything is in the soul...." Again, all the sects of
Hinduism believe in God, though their ideas of God differ. They all
believe in the Personal God as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the
Universe; but the Advaitists believe in what might be called PersonalImpersonal God.
After strong words on the subjects of pure food and of Vamachara
Tantra, the Swami comes back to the Vedanta vis--vis Western
thought: "This is the challenge [that India has thrown to the world]
that this world is a delusion, that it is all Maya.... Again and again
nations are springing up trying... to disprove it...." But they, the
believers in enjoyment, die, while we, the believers in Maya, live. For
them, "Samsara [the world-process] is greater than salvation." But for
us, renunciation is the very beginning of religion and morality. By
renunciation alone immortality is reached: that is the dictate of the
Indian books.... Renunciation, that is the flag, the banner of India,
floating over the world, the one undying thought that India sends again
and again as a warning to dying races.... Ay, Hindus, let not your hold
of that banner go. Hold it aloft. Even if you are weak, and cannot
renounce, do not lower the ideal.... Do not.... be hypocrites, torturing
texts, and making specious arguments....

"Another ideal very common in all our sects... [is] that religion is to
be realized...." The teaching passes from guru to disciple. In Bengal
there is a peculiar custom of hereditary guruship. But we do not want
that. "What can they teach if they have no realization? When I was a
boy here, in this city of Calcutta, I used to go from place to place in
search of religion, and everywhere I asked the lecturer....'Have you
seen God?' The man was taken aback at the idea of seeing God; and
the only man who told me, 'I have', was Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa......
The Swami concludes by reverting to and emphasizing the
harmony that is the background of all the Hindu sects. Almost all our
pandits hold, he says, that "either the Advaitist will be true, or the
Vishishtadvaitist will be true, or the Dvaitist will be true...." Then came
one whose life showed that they are all true and necessary namely,
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
On Sunday, March 7, 1897, the birth anniversary of Shri
Ramakrishna was as usual celebrated at the Kali temple at
Dakshineswar. The fact that Swami Vivekananda himself was to take
part, drew large crowds there. Accompanied by some of his brothermonks, the Swami reached the temple-garden about 9 in the morning.
He was barefooted, dressed in a long Alkhalla, and wore an ochrecoloured turban. The great multitude, catching sight of him, cried out
the names "Ramakrishna" and "Vivekananda" repeatedly. Eager to see
him and take the dust of his feet they thronged about him and
followed him wherever he went. After a while, he repaired to the
temple of the Mother. There before the image he prostrated himself in
adoration, in company with the swarming crowd. As though on a
pilgrimage, and accompanied by his European disciples, he visited the
places of interest in the temple-grounds, including, of course, Shri
Ramakrishna's room. Many Sankirtana parties were everywhere
singing and dancing in the name of the Lord. Around the Panchavati,
devotees of the Master had gathered. Among them the Swami singled
out Girishchandra Ghosh. Comparing the time when the Master was
alive, with the present time, he said, "Well, what a difference between
those days and these!" "I know that," replied the great dramatist, and

then, quoting a famous passage from one of the epics, he said, "but
there still arises the desire to see more." The Swami then tamed his
steps in the direction of the Bilva tree, another scene of the austerities
of Shri Ramakrishna.
The huge crowd called on the Swami repeatedly to speak to them
of his Master. He made an effort to speak, but his voice was drowned
in the tumult. Seeing that it was impossible to make himself heard, he
gave up the attempt and mingled with the crowd for some time. In the
afternoon, when the crowd had thinned, he returned to the Alambazar
Math with a brother-disciple and one of his own disciples. On the way
he spoke to the latter of the need of religious festivals for the masses,
who are not interested in abstract ideas of Truth.
Though the Swami made his headquarters at the Seals' mansion
and the Alambazar Math, he frequently visited one or another devotee
of Shri Ramakrishna. He was entertained by princes in the city, and
also by the most humble of people. Daily, large numbers, drawn from
all ranks and callings, came to the Seals' Garden: some out of curiosity,
some thirsting for knowledge, and some to test the Swami's learning
and powers. The questioners were invariably charmed with his
knowledge and interpretation of the Shastras, and even great masters
of philosophy and university professors were amazed at his genius. But
his heart was with the educated, unmarried youths. With them he was
never tired of speaking. He was consumed with the desire to infuse his
own spirit into them. He wanted to train the more energetic and
serious among them, so that they would devote their lives to their own
salvation and to the good of the world. He did not speak to them on
spiritual topics only; nor was he too generous in praising them. He
deplored their physical weakness, denounced early marriage, reproved
them for their lack of faith in themselves and their traditional culture
and ideals. But all this was done with such unmistakable love and
kindness that they became staunch disciples and followers. Some of
these young men have left records of incidents and conversations that
took place at the Seals' Garden at this time. We shall draw on these
records to fill out our ideas of the Swami's vision and teaching.

Certain followers of the Krishna cult in Bengal, under the mistaken

impression that in his zeal for Vedanta the Swami had not presented to
the Western world that aspect of Hinduism known as Vaishnavism, had
tried during his absence in the West to make the most of this in order
to belittle his mission in the eyes of his countrymen. But the Swami's
own words gave the lie to this slander. For instance, in the course of a
talk on the Vaishnava faith with one of its followers he said: "Babaji,
once I gave a lecture in America on Shri Krishna. It made such all
impression on a young and beautiful woman, heiress to immense
wealth, that she renounced everything and retired to a solitary island,
where she passed her days absorbed in meditation on Shri Krishna."
Speaking of renunciation in connection with this subject he said, "Slow
but sure degradation creeps into those sects which do not practise and
preach the spirit of renunciation." One day the Swami was talking with
a young man who lived at the Bengal Theosophical Society. The latter
said, "Swamiji, I frequent various sects but cannot decide what is
Truth." The Swami replied in a most affectionate way, "My boy, you
need have no fear; I was also once in the same state. Tell me what
instructions the people of different faiths have given you and how you
have followed their instructions." The youth replied that a learned
preacher of the Theosophical Society, Bhavani Shankar by name, had
clearly convinced him of the truth and utility of image-worship, and
that he had accordingly done Puja and Japa for a long time with great
devotion; but that lie had not been able to find peace. Then someone
had advised him to try to make the mind void at the time of
meditation. He had struggled hard to do so, but still the mind had not
become calm and controlled. "Sir," said the young man, "still I sit in
meditation, shutting the door of my room, and closing my eyes as long
as I can; but I cannot find peace of mind. Can you show me the way?"
"My boy," said the Swami in a voice full of sympathy, "if you take
my word, you will first of all have to open the door of your room and
look around instead of closing your eyes. There are hundreds of poor
and helpless people in the neighbourhood of your house; them you
have to serve to the best of your ability. He who is ill and has no one to
look after him, for him you will have to get medicine and diet and

nurse him; he who has nothing to cat, you Will have to feed him; he
who is ignorant, you will have to teach him, well-educated as you are.
My advice to you is that, if you want peace of mind, you have to serve
others in this way as well as you can." The questioner began to argue:
"But suppose, sir, that in going to nurse a patient I myself fall ill
through loss of sleep and irregular meals, as well as through other
irregularities..." Ale Swami replied rather sharply: "Why, boy, from
your words and manner it is evident to everyone present here, that
people like you, who are so mindful of their own bodily comfort, will
never go out of their way or risk their health to nurse the sick."
Another day, in the course of a conversation, Mahendranath
Gupta, a disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, asked: "You talk of service,
charity and doing good to the world: those are, after all, in the domain
of Maya. When, according to Vedanta, the goal of man is the
attainment of Mukti by breaking all the bondage of Maya, what is the
use of preaching things which keep the mind on mundane matters?"
Without a moments hesitation the Swami replied, "Is not the idea of
Mukti also in the domain of Maya? Does not the Vedanta teach that
the Atman is ever free? What is striving for Mukti to the Atman, then?"
With the nation at his feet, with name and fame and money
heaped on him, Swami Vivekananda was the same simple sannyasi as
before, untouched by pride and conceit. One day, the nephew of Shri
Ramakrishna, Shri Ramlal Chattopadhyaya, or Ramlal Dada as he was
endearingly called by the Brotherhood, came to see him. The Swami at
once got up and offered Ramlal Dada his chair. Ramlal Dada, out of
humility, and disconcerted at taking the Swami's chair in the presence
of visitors, asked him to resume his seat, but to no avail. After much
persuasion the Swami succeeded in making him sit in the chair, while
he himself strolled about the room saying quietly, "Guruvat
Guruputreshu": "One should treat the relations of the guru with the
same honour as one would treat the guru himself." This incident was a
lesson in Gurubhakti (devotion to the spiritual teacher) to those who
witnessed it.
The Swami's moods varied with the nature of his visitors.
Someone knowing his regard for The Imitation of Christ, referred to

the humility taught in that work, and observed that spiritual progress
was impossible unless one thought of oneself as the lowest of the low.
The Swami exclaimed: "Why should we think ourselves low, and
reproach ourselves? Where is darkness for us! We are verily the sons
of Light! We live and move and have our being in the Light which
lighteth the whole universe!"
Once, while discoursing on the conquest of lust, the Swami
recalled a personal experience. It shows to what lengths he himself
had gone rather than submit to the lower nature. "In the days of my
youth," he said, "once I was so much troubled with a fit of passion that
I became terribly vexed with myself, and in my rage sat upon a pot of
burning charcoal that was near by. It "took many days to heal the
wound."
An enquirer one day asked the Swami about the difference
between an Incarnation and a liberated soul. Without giving a direct
answer to the question, he said: "My conclusion is that liberation is the
highest stage. When I used to roam about all over India in my Sadhana
stage, I passed days and days in solitary caves in meditation, and many
a time decided to starve myself to death, because I could not attain
Mukti. Now I have no desire for Mukti. I do not care for it so long as
one single individual in the universe remains without attaining it."
These words of unbounded love for all beings remind one of a
similar utterance of the Buddha. But it must be remembered that both
these teachers of humanity spoke thus after they had attained
illumination. Only Prophets and Saviours of mankind can snap their
fingers at Mukti in that manner. Here lies the difference between an
ordinary liberated soul and an Incarnation. The latter, though he has
Mukti in the palm of his hand, as it were, refuses to be merged in the
Reality, but lives for the good of others, to lead them to the highest
state.
Talking one day to a disciple he said:
It is rebellion against Nature, struggle for self-preservation, that
differentiates Spirit from Matter. Where there is life, there is struggle,
there is the manifestation of the Spirit. Read the history of all nations,

and you will find that that is the Law. It is only this nation which drifts
with Nature. You are more dead than alive. You are in a hypnotized
state. For the last thousand years or more, you are told that you are
weak, you are nobodies, you are good for nothing, and so on, and you
have come to believe yourselves such. This body of mine was also born
and bred on Indian soil, but I have never for a moment allowed such
baneful ideas to enter my mind. I had tremendous faith in myself. It is
because of that, by the grace of the Lord, that those who look down
upon us as weak and low, regard me as their teacher. If you have the
same faith in yourselves as I had, if you can believe that in you is
infinite power, unbounded wisdom, indomitable energy, if you can
rouse that power in yourselves, you will be like me, you will do
wonders. You will say, "Where is that strength in us to be able to think
like that, and where are the teachers to tell us not of weakness but of
strength, and to rouse in us that faith?" It is to teach you that and to
show you the way by my life that I have come to you. From me you
must learn and realize that truth, and then go from town to town, from
village to village, from door to door, and scatter the idea broadcast. Go
and tell every Indian, "Arise, awake and dream no more. Rouse
yourself and manifest the Divinity within." There is no want, there is no
misery, that you cannot remove by the consciousness of the power of
the Spirit within. Believe in these words and you will be omnipotent.
One day at the Seals' Garden, a group of Gujarati pandits, well
versed in the Vedas and the Darshanas, came to discuss the scriptures
with the Swami. Thinking that, as a result of his sojourn in the West, he
would have lost fluency in Sanskrit, they spoke to him in that language.
He replied in a calm way to their vehement arguments, speaking the
purest Sanskrit. Once he erred, using "Asti" for "Svasti". At this trifling
mistake the pandits laughed aloud, making much of it. The Swami
corrected himself at once, saying, "I am the servant of the pandits.
May they allow this mistake to be overlooked!"
The main topic of their discussion was the respective positions of
the Purva and Uttara Mimamsas. The Swami upheld the superiority of
the Uttara Mimamsa with such power of logic and language that the
pandits had to admit the pre-eminence of the jnana-kanda. As they

left, they remarked to a group of the Swami's admirers that though,

perhaps, he had not a thorough mastery of Sanskrit grammar, he was
undoubtedly a seer of the inmost spirit of the Shastras, over which he
had an Extraordinary command. "In discussion he is unique," they said,
"and the way he summarizes his ideas and refutes those of his
opponents is wonderful. His intellectual gifts are marvellous."
When the pandits had gone, the Swami, referring to their bad
manners, remarked that in the West such conduct would not be
tolerated. "Civilized society in the West", he said, takes the spirit of an
argument and never seeks to pick holes in the language of an
opponent, or put to one side the subject-matter in order to make fun
over a grammatical mistake. Our pandits lose sight of the spirit of the
Dharma in quibbling over the letter of it. They fight over the husks and,
blinded by argumentativeness, do not look for the kernel within."
While the discussion with the pandits was going on, Swami
Ramakrishnananda was seen sitting apart in meditation, counting his
beads. He was praying with his whole heart, he said later, so that his
beloved brother-disciple might come out victorious.
On another occasion, some people came to ask the Swami about
Pranayama. After replying to questions put by other visitors, he began
to speak on Pranayama without being asked. From three in the
afternoon until seven in the evening, the discourse continued. It was
evident to all present that what the Swami had put in his book RajaYoga was only a very small part of his knowledge of Yoga; and
secondly, that his knowledge was not mere book-learning, but came
from realization. What astounded these visitors most, however, was
that the Swami should have known that they had come to ask about
Pranayama, and have answered their questions without being told
them. Subsequently, when a disciple asked about it the Swami replied,
"Similar incidents have happened many times in the West, and people
have often asked me how I could know the questions that were
agitating their minds." The talk then drifted to thought-reading, the
remembrance of past births, and various other Yoga "powers". One of
the party asked him outright, "Well, Swamiji, do you know your own
past births?" Instantly he answered, "Yes, I do." But when they pressed

him to reveal his past, he said, "I can know them. I do know them. But I
prefer not to say anything in the matter."
One evening he was seated with Swami Premananda, conversing
in an ordinary way, when suddenly he became silent. After a while he
said, "Did you see anything?" His brother-disciple replied in the
negative. Then he said that he had just seen a ghost, his head severed
from his body. The ghost begged the Swami, with an agonized look, to
relieve him of his misery. On enquiry it was found that in that gardenhouse, many years before, a Brahmin who used to lend money at high
rates of interest, had had his throat cut by a debtor, and that his body
had been thrown into the Ganga. On other occasions also the Swami
was visited by disembodied spirits. He would raise his heart in prayer
for their deliverance and give them his blessing.
The monastery, as we have noted, was then at Alambazar, near
Dakshineswar. As might be expected, the joy of the monks, at having
their "beloved Naren" with them again, was intense. The days spent
with the Master, and their experiences of the wandering life, were
recalled; and the Swami entertained them with incidents and
experiences of his life in the West. He freed them of some of their
social inhibitions, and gradually overcame their objections to
associating with Westerners. In time he had the satisfaction of seeing
his brother-disciples regard his disciples from overseas as real brothers
and sisters.
We get glimpses of the Swami's life at the Math during this period
from the reminiscences of Swamis Akhandananda and Virajananda,
who were living there. Swami Akhandananda says:
People of various kinds would come to see the Swami at the
garden-house [of Gopallal Seal]. Swamiji would come to the Math
daily, stay with us at night, and go to the garden again next morning.
The first thing the Swami did after coming to the Math this time
was to give us some lessons in hygiene for the sake of our health. He
asked us whether the water was boiled and filtered before drinking.
Then we showed him our filter.

He taught us some exercises according to the Delsarte method.

For some days these Delsarte exercises were practised at the Math.
Another significant thing that can be mentioned is that, in spite of
staying in the West for about three years, and Constantly talking and
lecturing in the English language, he [the Swami], after returning
home, would chant the Gita-Govinda verses, and become
intoxicated....
The three Madrasi devotees and Goodwin mostly stayed at the
Math. The Madrasis would cook separately.... Goodwin and Kidi used
to cat with us. Goodwin would dance and sing like a small child. It was
very sweet to hear him sing "Shankara Shiva Vyom Vyom Bhola...."
Swami Virajananda, a disciple of the Swami, says:
At that time the colour of Swamiji's body was fair. There was a
brilliant lustre on his face.... During the day Swamiji used to be at
Gopallal Seal's house at Cossipore, and in the evening he used to walk
the whole distance to the Math with his friends and disciples. After
coming to the Math, he would remove his clothing and wear only a
loin-cloth. Sometimes if it was too late at night, he would spend the
night at the Seals house. There, many people would come to see and
talk with Swamiji; and when he came to the Math, there was also no
end of talking. He used to tell stories, and relate incidents in his life, or
make fun with his brother-disciples.
... Goodwin and the Madrasi disciples always remained with the
Swami. Goodwin used to serve the Swami day and night. Oh, what a
Wonderful spirit of service he had!...
Mrs. Sevier used to serve Swamiji at the Seals' house. Swamiji
would take his lunch and afternoon tea there. Mr. and Mrs. Sevier
came to the Math as well, once or twice. Niranjan Maharaj and Gopal
junior used to entertain them then.... Mr. Turnbull of Chicago had
come to India long before Swamiji's return to India. He stayed in
Calcutta and would visit the Math frequently.... After Swamiji had
come to Calcutta, Mr. Turnbull would often see him....

From 8 to 9 in the morning there would be a Gita or Upanishad

class, or a question-answer class. All the Brahmacharis and sannyasis
used to attend it....
Among the Swami's triumphs was the conversion of his brotherdisciples from an individualistic idea of religious life to one in which
concern for others and service to them occupied a prominent place.
Up to this time the ideal of the monks of the Math had been to strive
for their own Self-realization and Mukti by means of meditation and
severe penance, and by remaining as much as possible aloof from the
world. This was, according to the prevailing Hindu idea, sanctioned by
tradition according to the sages since Vedic times. But with the return
of the Swami a new order of things was inaugurated. He reproved
themas he had again and again in his letters from the Westfor
their lack of faith in themselves and in the mission of their Master, for
their failure to organize themselves into an active body, and for their
neglect of teaching and preaching. Each on of them was a spiritual lion,
he told them, capable of moving the world if he but unfolded his latent
power. The time demanded that they carry the new light to others,
that they themselves show by their example how to serve the poor,
the helpless, and the diseased, seeing God in them, and that they
inspire people to do the same. The mission of his life, he said, was to
create an order of Sannyasis in India who would dedicate their lives for
others.
The conception and scheme of life he proposed, though inspiring,
was too revolutionary for them to accept at once. How could they, at
another's bidding, all of a sudden, change the ideal to which they had
given their lives for one which apparently went against their nature
and training? But who could resist the Swami? He overwhelmed them
by the power of his intellect and by his insight into the significance of
the teaching and life of Shri Ramakrishna, no less than by the burning
love that lay behind his passionate appeals to them. He interpreted his
Master's message in a new light, showing them that their supreme
duty lay in carrying on the Master's mission. They were to raise the
condition of the masses through service, and bring about a religious
renewal by scattering the life-giving ideas of the Master over the

world. That was the mission entrusted to them under his, the Swami's,
leadership by Shri Ramakrishna. Preoccupation with their own
liberation, he pointed out, was unworthy of the favoured disciples of a
divine Incarnation: had not their Mukti already been assured by the
fact of that discipleship? They were to rouse themselves and awaken
others.
In the faith that the voice of their Leader was the voice of the
Master, the brother-disciples finally acquiesced. They prepared
themselves to do anything and go anywhere at the Swami's bidding,
for the good of their fellow-beings.
As one of the first fruits of this self-abandonment, one whose
whole life and soul had been merged in the unremitting ritual worship
of the Master for about twelve years, and who in his devotion to that
duty had not left the Math even for a day namely, Swami
Ramakrishnananda went to Madras at the Swami's behest, to open
a centre for the teaching of the Vedanta in South India. Swamis
Saradananda and Abhedananda had already gone to the West to help
the Swami in the work there. And in the same spirit Swami
Akhandananda went to Murshidabad District to start famine relief
work. It is to Akhandananda's credit that this impulse to be of service
had seized him first among the brother-disciples, as early as 1894,
when he was at Khetri. He at that time sought approval of his intention
to open schools for the poor. The other brother-monks now also made
themselves ready to take up any teaching, preaching, and
philanthropic work launched by the Swami in India and abroad. As a
result there came into existence, with the co-operation of his monastic
brothers and disciples the Ashramas, Sevashramas (Homes of Service),
and, in times of epidemic, famine, and natural catastrophe, relief
centres.
At this time the Swami was much occupied with plans for an
Ashrama in the Himalayas, plans for the removal of the Math to a
permanent and healthy site on the bank of the Ganga, and plans for
the founding of an organization (later known as the Ramakrishna
Mission) that would provide training for his disciples and instruction
for the many people who came to him, and would serve the people

through charitable activities. Furthermore, his thoughts were also with

his two brother-monks in America and England. He was receiving many
letter asking his advice and for his speedy return to the West, where
still larger opportunities were opening up for him.
These and other demands on the Swami's attention, together with
the activities after his arrival in Calcutta that we have been describing,
were, in the heat of the plains, too much for him. He was advised by
doctors to take complete rest at once. The Calcutta Reception
Committee had expected him to deliver a series of lectures in Calcutta.
Everybody was therefore disappointed when Babu Narendranath Sen,
while making the concluding remarks after the Star Theatre lecture on
March 4, announced: The health of Swami Vivekananda will not
permit him to deliver more lectures in Calcutta for the present.... It is
absolutely necessary, therefore, that he should have a little rest for a
time; and with this object in view, he intends to proceed to Darjeeling
on Monday *March 8+ next.
Knowing that it would be better to follow the doctors' advice, the
Swami for the time being left off work in Calcutta and dropped plans
for visits to other parts of India. On March 8 he went to Darjeeling,
where Mr. and Mrs. Sevier had already gone. He was accompanied by
Swamis Brahmananda, Trigunatita, Turiyananda, and Jnanananda, and
by Baba Girishchandra Ghosh, Goodwin, Dr. Turnbull, Alasinga
Perumal, G. G. Narasimhacharya, and Singaravelu Mudaliar. The three
last-named were the devoted Madrasi disciples who had come with
him from Madras to Calcutta and had been living at the Math. In
Darjeeling all became the guests of Mr. and Mrs. M. N. Banerjee. The
Maharaja of Burdwan, who revered the Swami greatly, placed a
portion of his residence, known as "Rose Bank", at the Swami's
disposal.
On March 16 Goodwin wrote to Swami Saradananda: The Swami
has been quite knocked up by this and his previous work, and the
doctor says he is suffering from diabetes. He must have six months
absolute brain rest, and strict dieting. The Calcutta reception was
good, and at the presentation of the address there were 5,000 present,
and some thousands turned away. There were 60,000 at the [Shri

Ramakrishnas+ anniversary at Dakshineswar [on March 7], and the

Swami made me make a speech to goodness knows how many people.
Fortunately, there was much noise so that nobody could hear what a
fool I made of myself.
The Swami now gave himself up to complete rest, walking on the
mountain paths, visiting a Buddhist monastery in the neighbourhood,
rejoicing to be in the Himalayas, conversing with friends, and spending
hours in meditation.
While the Swami was the guest of M. N. Banerjee, two incidents
occurred which give a glimpse of his yoga powers. There was then
living with the family one Motilal Mukherjee, who later became Swami
Sachchidananda. He was suffering from high fever with delirium. The
Swami out of sympathy just touched his head: the fever subsided at
once, and the patient became normal. This same person was a Bhakta
of the emotional type. Often, during Sankirtana, he fell into emotional
states in which he would weep and groan and roll on the ground,
beating his hands and feet on it. The Swami touched him over the
heart one day. From then on, the whole religious disposition of the
man was changed, and he became an Advaitin devoting himself to
Jnana-Yoga! Needless to say, he was no longer subject to abnormal
states.
On March 16 the Swami received a telegram from the Raja of
Khetri saying that he was on his way to meet him. On the morning of
March 18 the Raja, with his retinue, reached Calcutta. Swamis
Shivananda and Trigunatita, from the Alambazar Math, and a large
crowd of Marwari and Hindusthani gentry, together with some
prominent Bengalis, received him at Howrah Station. The Swamis
welcomed the Raja in traditional style by presenting him with a
coconut, paddy, and Durva grass [Doob grassCynodon Dactylon]. The
Raja was taken in procession to the palatial mansion of Rai Shew Box
Bogla, where he was accommodated.
The Swami was informed of the Raja's arrival and he returned to
Calcutta on March 21 by the Darjeeling Mail. It reached Sealdah
Station at 10.45 a.m. The Raja had sent two persons to receive the

Swami in advance at Barrackpore, and himself went to Sealdah,

accompanied by the Nawab of Loharu, Rai Shew Box Bogla Bahadur,
and others. A huge crowd, most of them Marwaris, had assembled at
the station. As soon as the train came to a halt, the Raja went into the
first-class compartment in which the Swami was travelling, and
prostrated before him. Then he washed the Swami's feet and
garlanded him. When the Swami came out of the train, he was
introduced to the Nawab of Loharu, and others. The Raja then
presented him with an address of welcome. Afterwards, the Swami
was taken in procession to the Seth's house, where the Raja was
staying.
After a bath the Swami joined the durbar of the Raja, and was
offered presents by the Seths and other Marwari businessmen who
had assembled there. In the afternoon the Raja, accompanied by the
Swami, visited the Kali temple at Dakshineswar, and on their way back
went to the Alambazar Math. The Raja prostrated before Shri
Ramakrishna in the shrine there, and then knelt on a mattress in the
hall, before the Swami. His simple dress and humble behaviour
impressed the monks. On the Swami's orders special offerings were
made to Shri Ramakrishna that day and the Raja was sumptuously
regaled. The Swami had a long talk with him on the mission of
Hinduism. At night the Swami accompanied the Raja to where the
latter was staying and spent the night there. Next day he returned to
the Math. On March 23 he left for Darjeeling to resume his period of
rest, and the Raja left Calcutta on the 26th.
At the beginning of May Raja Ajit Singh and several other Indian
Princes intended to go to England to attend the Diamond jubilee
Celebrations of Queen Victoria. The Raja tried hard to induce the
Swami to go with him, but the doctors would not hear of his
undertaking any physical or mental labour just then. Though at times
he felt somewhat vigorous and strong, generally speaking his health
was very poor. He was cautioned not to exert himself even to the
extent of reading, and, above all, was not to engage in any deep or
serious thought. About his health the Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull on
March 26 (1897): "The demonstrations and national jubilations over

me are over, at least I had to cut them short as my health broke

completely down. The result of this steady work in the West and the
tremendous work of a month in India upon the Bengali constitution is
'diabetes'. It is a hereditary foe and is destined to carry me off at best
in a few years' time. Eating only meat and drinking no water seems to
be the only way to prolong life, and, above all, perfect rest for the
brain. I am giving my brain the needed rest in Darjeeling from where I
am writing you now."
From Goodwin's letter of March 30 to Mrs. Bull, it appears that
Darjeeling was doing the Swami some good. He wrote: "The Swami
suffered somewhat from his enforced visit again to the heat of
Calcutta, but Darjeeling is doing him immense good. We have though
to use almost coercion to prevent him from working again. A month
has tired him of idleness."
Indeed, for Swamiji to be idle was worse than death. Even at
Darjeeling, where he was expected to take complete rest, he could not
but feel for the downtrodden masses of India. On April 3 he wrote to
Margaret Noble (later Sister Nivedita), who was then in England
helping Swami Abhedananda in his Vedanta work:
I have just found a bit of important work for you to do, on behalf
of the downtrodden masses of Indian.
The gentleman, I take the liberty of introducing to you, is in
England on behalf of the Tiyas, a plebeian caste in the native state of
Malabar. You will realize from this gentleman what an amount of
tyranny there is over these poor people, simply because of their caste.
The Indian Government has refused to interfere, on ground of
non-interference in the internal administration of a native state. The
only hope of these people is the English Parliament. Do kindly
everything in your power to help this matter being brought before the
British public. Besides feeling for the suffering millions of India, the
Swami was worried day and night about establishing the organization
that, as already mentioned, he intended to establish. At Darjeeling he
discussed this with Swami Brahmananda and other brother-disciples. It
was with the intention of fixing up some-thing in this matter that he

had taken Babu Girishchandra Ghosh there. They prepared a tentative

plan, with the hope of finalizing it later in Calcutta.
At Darjeeling Swamiji once said to Swamiji Turiyananda, "I shall
revolutionize the monastic Order." Turiyananda said later, "Swamiji
has given a new shape to the traditional Order of sannyasis, according
to the need of the age."
From Swami Brahmananda's letter of April 26 we learn that the
Swami and his party left for Calcutta on April 28. On May 2 the Indian
Mirror reported: "Swami Vivekananda arrived from Darjeeling on
Wednesday last with his disciples. Owing to the scorching weather it is
not likely that the Swami will be able to deliver a lecture at a time
when most of our leaders are absent from Calcutta...... He remained
only a week in Calcutta, to supervise and settle some important
matters: he then left for Almora in the interest of his health.
The Swami was happier at the monastery than anywhere else.
There he could be free among his beloved brother-monks and devoted
disciples. At this time several educated young men joined the Math as
a result of hearing the Swami's inspiring words on Vairagya
(dispassion). Whenever he was at the Math, he gave them instruction,
and held classes for them on the Bhagavad-Gita and the Vedanta. Even
during the years of his absence, four young men had joined and were
leading the life of Brahmacharya. They were anxious to he initiated
into Sannyasa by the Swami himself. For several years they had lived
under the supervision of the older members of the monastery; and the
Swami, knowing that they were worthy, consented to make them his
own disciples. The older monks raised serious objections with respect
to one of the four, because of his past life. This roused the Swami to
reply: "What is this! If we shrink from sinners, who else will save them?
Besides, the very fact that a person has taken refuge in the Math in his
desire to lead a better life, shows that his intentions are good, and we
must help him. And even if he is bad and perverted, and you cannot
change his character, why, then, have you taken the ochre cloth? Why
have you assumed the role of teachers?"

On the day previous to their initiation into Sannyasa, the Swami

spoke of the glory of renunciation, his eyes emitting fire, as it were,
and his words infusing strength into the young men. His discourse is
too long to be given here in full; but his concluding words were:
"Remember, for the salvation of his own soul, and for the good and
happiness of the many, the sannyasi is born in the world. To sacrifice
his life for others, to alleviate the misery of millions rending the air
with their cries, to wipe away the tears from the eyes of the widow, to
console the heart of the bereaved mother, to provide the ignorant and
depressed masses with the ways and means for the struggle for
existence, and enable them to stand on their own feet, to preach
broadcast the teachings of the Shastras to one and all without
distinction for their material and spiritual welfare, to rouse the
sleeping lion of Brahman in the hearts of all beings by the diffusion of
the light of Knowledge for this the sannyasi is born in the world!"
And turning to his brother-monks he exclaimed: "Remember, it is for
the consummation of this purpose in life that we have taken birth; and
we shall lay down our lives for it. Arise, awake, and arouse and awaken
others; fulfil your mission in life, and you will reach the highest Goal!"
"You must renounce everything," he continued to the candidates
for Sannyasa; "you must not seek pleasure or comfort for yourself. All
attachment will have to be cut and cast aside. You must look upon lust
and gold as poison, name and fame as the vilest filth, glory as a terrible
hell, pride of birth or position as sinful as drinking wine. Being the
teacher of your fellow-men and devoted to the Self within, you will
have to live to attain freedom and for the good of the world. Can you
strive with your whole soul to do these things? Take this path only
after serious reflection. There is yet time to return to the old fife. Are
you ready to obey my orders implicitly? If I ask you to face a tiger or a
venomous snake; if I ask you to jump into the Ganga and catch a
crocodile; if I want to sell you to work the rest of your life in A teagarden in Assam as coolies; or if I order you to starve yourselves to
death, or burn yourselves in a slow fire, thinking it will be for your
good are you ready to obey me instantly?"

The four Brahmacharis signed their assent by bowing their heads

in silence. He then initiated them into Sannyasa, naming them Swamis
Virajananda, Nirbhayananda, Prakashananda, and Nityananda. Of
these the first-named had joined the Math in 1891, the next two, much
later, and the last, who was much older even than the Swami, had just
done so. The initiation ceremony was impressive and delighted the
Swami more than the huge ovations that he had been receiving in his
honour.
Another initiation ceremony took place at Alambazar Math in the
first week of May, when the Swami gave Mantras to Sharatchandra
Chakravarty and Sudhir. The latter, who had joined the monastery in
April that year, was now named Brahmachari Shuddhananda by the
Swami. The Swami's talks on renunciation had so inspired him that he
could no more stay at home; and leaving his college studies, he had
joined the monastery. To Sharat the Swami said: "Arouse Shraddha in
yourself and in your countrymen! Like Nachiketa, go to Yama's door if
necessary, to know the Truth for the salvation of your soul, for the
solution of the mystery of life and death! If going into the jaws of
death helps you gain the Truth, you have to do that fearlessly. All fear
is death; you have to go beyond it. Be fearless, be ready from today to
lay down your life to attain Moksha (liberation) and for the good of
others. Otherwise what is the use of bearing this burden of flesh and
bones? Being initiated into the fiery Mantra of absolute renunciation
for the sake of the Lord, give away your body for the good of the
world, as the sage Dadhichi did when the Devas came and told him
that the demon Vritra could not be killed with any other weapon but a
thunderbolt made of his bones!"
Of these happy days Shuddhananda said later:
It was the end of April 1897. Only five days ago I had left home to
live with the sannyasis of the Alambazar Math. Swamis Premananda,
Nirmalananda, and Subodhananda were then living there. Swamiji
presently came back after his visit to Darjeeling. Along with him there
were Swami Brahmananda, Swami Yogananda, and his Madrasi
disciples, Alasinga, Kidi, G. G., and others.

Swami Nityananda, only a few days before, took Sannyasa from

Swamiji. He spoke to Swamiji one day about the need for a systematic
training for the Math, as a large number of young men had at that time
joined the Math to lead a life of renunciation. Swamiji readily agreed
to the suggestion and asked him to gather all the inmates who all
assembled in the hall. "Let some one be writing as I dictate", said
Swamiji. No one seemed to be prepared to come forward, and finally
the task fell on me. It might be said in passing that at that time, with
the inmates of the Math, literary education was out of favour, the
prevailing notion being that to realize God by Sadhana and Bhajana
was the goal, while literary knowledge, even though it might bring a
little fame and name, was really useless for a Sadhaka (aspirant). Only
in the case of those who are chosen by God to carry His mission or
message was the need for literary training recognized.... Swamiji
before dictating the rules remarked as follows: "Look here, we are
going to make rules, no doubt; but we must remember the main object
thereof. Our main object is to transcend all rules and regulations. We
have naturally some bad tendencies which are to be changed by
observing good rules and regulations; and finally we have to go beyond
all these even, just as we remove one thorn by another and throw both
of them away." The course of discipline and routine decided upon was
of this kind:
Both morning and evening should he devoted to meditation, while
the afternoons after a short rest should he utilized for individual
studies, and in the evenings one particular religious book should be
read and expounded. It was also provided that each member would
take physical exercise both morning and evening. Another rule was to
the effect that no intoxicant save tobacco should he allowed. Having
dictated the rules, Swamiji asked me to make a fair copy of the rules
and instructed me that I should put all the rules in the positive form...
These rules and regulations have, with little alteration,taken
permanent form as the Rules and Regulations of the Ramakrishna
Math, Belur.
Sometime in the first week of May the Swami paid a visit to the
Mahakali Pathashala of the Tapasvini Mata, at Chorebagan. At the end

of his visit he wrote in the institution's Visitors' Book: "Have great

pleasure in witnessing to the good work, inaugurated in our city by
'Mataji'. The move appears to me to be in the right direction and
deserves the support of all who desire to see their daughters educated
on national. lines."
Sharatchandra was with the Swami that day. On their way back to
Baghbazar the latter spoke about women's education as follows:
Religion, arts, science, housekeeping, cooking, sewing, hygiene
the simple essential points in these subjects ought to be taught to our
women. It is not good to let them touch novels and fiction. The
Mahakali Pathashala is to a great extent moving in the right direction.
But only teaching rites of worship won't do; their education must be an
eye-opener in all matters. Ideal characters must always be presented
before the girls to imbue them with a devotion to lofty principles of
selflessness. The noble examples of Sita, Savitri, Damayanti, Lilavati,
Khana, and Mira should be inspired to mould their own lives in the
light of these.
Whenever the Swami came to Calcutta, he stayed for a short time
at Balarambabu's house in Baghbazar, where he and the monastic
members of the Order always met with warm hospitality. On such
occasions devotees and visitors from all parts of the city gathered
there.
We have already noted the Swami's intention to start an
organization for service on all levels from the spiritual to the material
service in which monks, devotees, and general public would cooperate. Accordingly, on his return from Darjeeling he called a meeting
of all the monastic and lay disciples of Shri Ramakrishna. It took place
at 3 p.m., on Saturday, May 1, 1897, at Balarambabu's house. When
all, had assembled, the Swami opened the meeting with the following
words in Bengali:
From my travels in various countries I have come to the conclusion
that without organization nothing great and permanent can be done.
But in a country like India, at our present stage of development, it does
not seem to me well advised to start an organization on a democratic

basis in which every member has an equal voice, and decisions are
arrived at by a majority of the votes of the community. With the West
the case is different.... Among us also, when with the spread of
education we learn to sacrifice, to stand above our individual interests
and concerns, for the good of the community or the nation at large,
then it will be possible to work on a democratic basis. Taking this into
consideration, we should have for our organization at present a
Director whose orders everyone should obey. Then, in the fullness of
time, it will be guided by the opinion and consent of the members.
This Association will bear the name of him in whose name we have
become sannyasis; him, taking whom as your ideal you are leading the
householder life in the field of activity this Samsara (this world) ;
him whose holy name, and the influence of whose unique life and
teachings, have within twelve years of his demise spread in such an
unthought-of way both in the East and the West. Let this Sangha
(Organization) therefore be named the Ramakrishna Mission. We are
but the servants of the Master. May you all help in this work!
The proposal was enthusiastically supported by all the
householder disciples. There was discussion about the future method
of work. In this meeting on May 1 the Ramakrishna Mission Association
was established, and at a second meeting on May 5 resolutions were
passed laying down the main principles by which the movement was to
be guided, and its aims and objects. As originally drawn up, these were
as follows:
This Association (Sangha) shall be known as the Ramakrishna
Mission.
The aim of the Sangha is to preach those truths which Shri
Ramakrishna has, for the good of humanity, preached and
demonstrated by practical application in his own life, and to help
others to put these truths into practice in their lives for their temporal,
mental, and spiritual advancement.
The duty of the Mission is to conduct in the right spirit the
activities of the movement inaugurated by Shri Ramakrishna for the
establishment of fellowship among the followers of different religions,

knowing them all to be so many forms only of one undying Eternal

Religion.
Its Methods of Action are:
(a) To train men so as to make them competent to teach such
knowledge or sciences as are conducive to the material and spiritual
welfare of the masses;
(b) to promote and encourage arts and industries; and
(c) to introduce and spread among the people in general
Vedantic and other religious ideas in the way in which they were
elucidated in the life of Shri Ramakrishna.
Indian Work Department:
The activities of the Mission should he directed to the
establishment of' Maths and Ashramas in different parts of India for
the training of sannyasis and such of the householders as may be
willing to devote their lives to educate others, and to the finding of the
means by which they would be enabled to educate the people, by
going about from one province to another.
Its work in the Foreign Department should be to send trained
members of the Order to countries outside India to start centres there
for the preaching of Vedanta in order to bring about a closer relation
and better understanding between India and foreign countries.
The aims and ideals of the Mission being purely spiritual and
humanitarian, it shall have no connection with politics.
Anyone who believes in the mission of Shri Ramakrishna, or who
sympathizes or is willing to co-operate with the above-mentioned aims
and objects of the Association, is eligible for membership.
After the resolutions had been passed, office-bearers were
appointed. The Swami himself became the General President, and
made Swami Brahmananda and Swami Yogananda, President and VicePresident respectively, of the Calcutta centre.
Narendranath Mitra, a disciple of the Master and a solicitor, was
appointed Secretary; Dr. Shashibhushan Ghosh and Sharatchandra
Sarkar, Under-secretaries; and Sharatchandra Chakravarty, Reader of

Scriptures. It was also decided that meetings would be held at

Balarambabu's house every Sunday afternoon, when the Gita,
Upanishads, or other Vedanta scriptures would be recited or read,
expositions would be given, papers read, and lectures delivered. The
subjects would be chosen by the President.
When the meeting had broken up and most of the lay members
had departed, the Swami said to Swami Yogananda: "So the work has
now begun in this way. Let us see how it succeeds, by the will of Shri
Ramakrishna."
Swami Yogananda: "You are doing these things by Western
methods. Would you say that Shri Ramakrishna left us any such
instructions?"
The Swami: "How do you know that these methods are not in
keeping with his ideas? Shri Ramakrishna was the embodiment of
infinite ideas: do you want to shut him up in your own limits? I shall
break those limits and scatter his ideas broadcast all over the world.
He never instructed me to introduce worship of him, and so forth. The
methods of spiritual practice, concentration and meditation, and the
other higher ideals of religion that he taught those we must realize
and teach to all men. Infinite are the ideas and infinite are the paths
that lead to the Goal. I was not born to create a new sect in this world,
too full of sects already. Blessed are we that we have found refuge at
the feet of our Master. It is our duty to give the ideas entrusted to us
freely to the whole world."
Swami Yogananda did not dissent, and so the Swami continued:
"Time and again I have received in this life marks of his grace. He
himself is at my back and is making me do all these things in these
ways. When I used to lie under a tree, exhausted, smitten with hunger;
when I had not a strip of cloth even to tie my Kaupina (loin-cloth) with;
when I had resolved to travel round the world penniless; even then,
through his grace, I received help in every way. Then again, when
people in crowds jostled with one another in the streets of Chicago to
have sight of this Vivekananda, I was able, through his blessings, to
digest without difficulty all that honour, a hundredth part of which

would have turned the head of any other man. By the will of the Lord,
victory has been mine everywhere. Now I intend to do something for
this country. Do you all give up doubts and misgivings and help me in
my work; and you will see how, by his grace, wonders will be
accomplished."
Swami Yogananda: "Whatever you will, shall come about. We are
always ready to follow your leading. I clearly see that the Master is
working through you. Still, I confess, doubts do sometimes arise in the
mind, for, as we saw it, his method of doing things was so different;
and so I am led to ask myself whether we are not straying from Shri
Ramakrishna's teachings."
The Swami: "The thing is this: Shri Ramakrishna is far greater than
his disciples understand him to be. He is the embodiment of infinite
spiritual ideas capable of development in infinite ways. Even if one can
find a limit to the knowledge of Brahman, one cannot measure the
unfathomable depths of our Master's mind! One gracious glance of his
eyes can create a hundred thousand Vivekanandas at this instant! But
if this time he chooses, instead, to work through me, making me his
instrument, I can only bow to his will."
It was the Swami, among all the disciples of Shri Ramakrishna, who
saw in the Master not a person only, but a principle, not the apostle of
realization and renunciation only, but that of service to humanity in
the spirit of worship also. Did not the Master renounce the bliss of
Brahman to be of service to mankind? Did he not treat all beings as
Narayanas (divinities) every moment of his life? Who among his
disciples had not seen his unhappiness at the sight of poverty and
misery, and his touching solicitude over their relief? True, this phase of
the Master's personality was overshadowed by the sublimity of his
illumination, by his superconscious flights, and by his utterances of
wonderful power and charm, exhorting all to seek the Highest. It was
left to the genius of Swami Vivekananda to interpret Shri
Ramakrishna's life and teaching from all angles. It was left to this his
greatest disciple to bring out and emphasize the human side of his
Master's nature and message, and to clear away the misconception
that prevailed in the minds of many, that Renunciation and Service

were conflicting ideals which could not be combined without

detriment to one or the other. And it is to the Swami's glory that he
gave shape to these divine impulses by founding the Ramakrishna
Mission. Renunciation and Service are, according to him, the twofold
National Ideal of modern India. The institution that he started was to
practise and preach this Ideal in its national and international aspects.
On another occasion, after that of the above conversation with
Swami Yogananda, when the Swami was staying at Balarambabu's
house, he was talking in a light mood with some of his brother-monks
and with some lay disciples of the Master. At such times he would be
full of wit and jokes. Swami Adbhutananda was taking him to task for
not preaching the ideas of Shri Ramakrishna, and was challenging him
to prove how his plans could be reconciled with the latter's teachings.
Shri Ramakrishna insisted, above all, on Bhakti and on the practice of
Sadhana for the realization of God; while the Swami, Adbhutananda
pointed out, was constantly urging them to go about preaching, and
serving the poor and the diseased those things that turned the mind
outward, which was the great impediment to Sadhana. Then again, the
Swami's idea of starting Maths and Homes of Service for the public
good, his ideas of organization and of patriotism, which were
undoubtedly Western in conception, his efforts to create a new type of
sannyasi with a broader ideal of renunciation, and other ideas similar
in spirit, were incompatible with Shri Ramakrishna's ideal of
renunciation and would surely have been repudiated by him. The
Swami at first took these observations of Swami Adbhutananda lightly
and retorted jokingly, saying: "What do you know? You are an ignorant
man. You are indeed a fit disciple of Shri Ramakrishna! Like guru like
chela! Your education ended with 'Ka', the first letter of the
alphabet,like that of Prahlada. Being reminded by 'Ka' of Krishna, he
could not proceed further. You are Bhaktas, in other words,
sentimental fools! What do you understand of religion? You are
babies. You are only good at praying with folded hands: 'O Lord! how
beautiful Your nose is, how sweet Your eyes are', and such nonsense.
And you think your salvation is secured, that Shri Ramakrishna will
come at the final hour and take you up by the hand to the highest

heaven! Study, public preaching, and doing humanitarian works are,

according to you, Maya, because Shri Ramakrishna did not do them
himself, because he said to someone, 'Seek and find God first; doing
good to the world is presumptuous!' As if God-realization is such an
easy thing to achieve! As if He is such a fool as to make himself a
plaything in the hands of an imbecile!"
Swami Adbhutananda later told a devotee: "I was stunned to hear
all these things; and when some other brother-monk tried to say
something, taking up the thread of our talk, Vivekananda grew more
and more serious, and thundered on."
The Swami now said: "You think you understand Shri Ramakrishna
better than myself! You think jnana is dry knowledge to he attained by
a desert path, killing out the tenderest faculties of the heart. Your
Bhakti is sentimental nonsense which makes one impotent. You want
to preach Ramakrishna as you have understood him, which is mighty
little. Hands off! Who cares for your Ramakrishna? Who cares for your
Bhakti and Mukti? Who cares what the scriptures say? I will go to hell
cheerfully a thousand times, if I can rouse my countrymen, immersed
in Tamas (inertia), and make them stand on their own feet and be
Men, inspired with the spirit of Karma-Yoga. I am not a follower of
Ramakrishna or any one; I am a follower of him only who carries out
my plans! I am not a servant of Ramakrishna or any one, but of him
only who serves and helps others, without caring for his own Mukti."
The Swami's voice became choked, his frame shook with intense
emotion. He could not contain himself any longer. Tears streamed
from his eyes. In a flash he was on his feet and ran from the room to
his sleeping apartment. His brother-disciples were seized with fear and
repented of their criticisms spoken to him in that strain. A few of them
went to his room some minutes later. Entering quietly, they found him
sitting in meditation, his body stiff, tears flowing from his half-closed
eyes, and body-hair standing on end. It seemed to them that he was
absorbed in Bhava-samadhi. After nearly an hour he rose, washed his
face, and came out to those waiting in the sitting-room. The
atmosphere was tense. At length the Swami broke the silence saying:
"When one attains Bhakti, one's heart and nerves become so soft and

delicate that they cannot bear even the touch of a flower! Do you
know that I cannot even read a novel nowadays! I cannot think or talk
of Shri Ramakrishna long, without being overwhelmed. So I am trying
and trying always to keep down the rush of Bhakti welling within me. I
am trying to bind and bind myself with the iron chain of jnana, for still
my work to my motherland is unfinished, and my message to the world
not yet fully delivered. So, as soon as I find that Bhakti feelings are
coming up to sweep me off my feet, I give them a hard knock and
make myself adamant by bringing up austere jnana. Oh, I have work to
do! I am a slave of Ramakrishna, who left his work to be done by me,
and will not give me rest till I have finished it! And, oh, how shall I
speak of him! Oh, his love for me!"
Swami Yogananda and others, fearing a return of his devotional
fervour, asked him whether he would not like an evening stroll on the
roof, since it was so warm in the room. They took him up there and
diverted his mind with ordinary conversation, till it was far into the
night, and he was his normal self again.
This incident is significant, exposing as it does the depth of the
Swami's Bhakti. It also gives an idea of the cost at which his service to
others was done. His brother-monks ever sought to prevent such
tempestuous outbursts, for these would bring him closer to awareness
of his real nature. They had been warned that when he knew that, he
would tear off all mortal bonds and in Mahasamadhi soar into the
Supreme Consciousness of Brahman. Reflecting on such occasions in
the Swami's life as that above related, one of the greatest of his
brother-monks said: "You see, the Master has brought us all into this
world to keep his [the Swami's] mind diverted to external matters and
to his various plans of work, so that he may live long enough to fulfil
our Master's mission. Otherwise, he may fly off at any time to the
sphere of Nirvikalpa Samadhi."
So profound and convincing was the impression created by this
incident, that no protest was afterwards made against his plans and
methods of work. It was as though the atmosphere had been heavy
with clouds of doubt, which from time to time broke in storms of
conflicting ideals, and had now cleared. Everyone realized as never

before that the Master was at the back of Vivekananda, working

through him.
The first general meeting of the members of the Ramakrishna
Mission Association was held on Sunday, May 9,1897, at
Balarambabu's house, with Swami Brahmananda presiding. For the
first three years the Association held its meetings there, in Baghbazar.
Whenever the Swami was in Calcutta, he attended and, to the delight
of all present, spoke and sang.
For some time the preaching and philanthropic work was carried
on through this Association. In 1899, however, the Swami moved the
Math to Belur, and, in 1901, by Deed of Trust, made over its
management to Trustees. The main objects of the Math were the
training of monks for Self- realization and for service of the world in all
possible ways. Soon after this, the Ramakrishna Mission Association
ceased to function as an independent organization, and the Math
authorities carried on the activities conducted by it.
In the course of time, as the scope of the Math's activities and its
responsibilities grew, it was felt that, for the sake of efficiency, and to
have a legal status, there should be a separate organization known as
the Ramakrishna Mission. Accordingly, in 1909, a society named the
Ramakrishna Mission was registered under Act XXI of 1860. The law
required certain changes in the rules and regulations of the Mission
Association; but most of these changes related to matters of
administration. The principles and objects as originally laid down by
the Swami remained the same. The management of the Ramakrishna
Mission was vested in a Governing Body consisting of the Trustees of
the Belur Math for the time being. The Mission was established and
registered so that the purely Math activities, namely, the training and
maintenance of a band of sannyasis to carry on religious work, could
be kept distinct from the charitable activities which the Mission was to
organize.
In due course, branch Maths sprang up in different parts of the
country. These branch Maths and the Math at Belur have, from their
inception, been parts of a single organization. The Ramakrishna

Mission extended its activities also, and the various institutions that
had already been started in different parts of India were gradually
incorporated into the Ramakrishna Mission. New centres were also
started.
Though the Ramakrishna Mission and the Ramakrishna Math with
their respective centres are distinct institutions, there is close
association between them, since the Governing Body of the Mission
consists of the Trustees of the Math, and the principal workers of the
Mission are monks of the Math. Both have their headquarters at Belur
Math; but their funds and accounts are separate.

IN NORTH INDIA1
At this time the Swami was full of plans, but his health was giving
him trouble. He was advised by his doctors and brother-monks to start
as soon as possible for the dry and cool climate of Almora. Swamiji had
written to Mary Hale from Darjeeling on April 28,1897: "... I was
already exhausted by hard work in England; and this tremendous
exertion in the heat of southern India prostrated me completely. I had
of course to give up the idea of visiting other parts of India and fly up
to the nearest hill station, Darjeeling. Now I feel much better, and a
month more in Almora would complete the cure." Evidently the stay at
Darjeeling did him some good. On May 5 he wrote to Mrs. Bull: "I have
been to Darjeeling... to recuperate my shattered health. I am very
much better now. The disease disappeared altogether in Darjeeling. I
am going to Almora tomorrow, another hill station, to perfect this
improvement." The Swami had received repeated invitations from the
residents of Almora to visit them; so he left Calcutta on Thursday, May
6 with some of his brother-monks and disciples.
Swami Shivananda, Goodwin, and Miss Mller were already in
Almora by this time. Miss Mller had left England after the Swami's
departure; and Goodwin's letters show that she had reached Calcutta
in the second week of March 1897, and from there had gone to Dehra
Dun, on her way to Almora. On April 14 Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull
from Dehra Dun; "A week or ten days ago I left the Swami at

Darjeeling.... and at his wish, returned to Calcutta, where Swami

Shivananda joined us, and we came here. During the week we are
going on to Almora with Miss Mller, who is here at present...." From
this letter it is also known that Swami Niranjanananda was then at
Almora.
According to the report of the journey published in the
Brahmavadin of May 22, 1897, the Swami halted at Lucknow for one
night, and then went to Kathgodam, which he reached on May 9. He
was met there by several Almora admirers and Goodwin, who had
come to receive him. The party reached Lodea (near Almora) on the
afternoon of May 1 1, and were received by a large crowd waiting to
escort the Swami on the final pact of his journey. At their request the
Swami mounted a horse handsomely trapped, and headed a
procession into Almora town. When the bazaar was reached, the
crowd was so dense that there was difficulty in leading the Swami's
horse through. Scores of Hindu ladies from windows and housetops
showered flowers and rice on the Swami as he passed below. In the
town centre, a section of the bazaar street, with decorated cloth
stretched from side to side to form the roof, had been turned into a
pandal, able to hold about three thousand people. This was decorated
with banners, and with festoons of flowers; and every house displayed
lights so that the town was a blaze of light. Music played, the crowd
cheered, and the entire scene was a memorable one even for those
who had accompanied the Swami on his journey right up from
Colombo.
Naturally, with four or five thousand people crowding inside and
outside the pandal, and enthusiasm running high, the formal
proceedings of the welcome had to be brief. Pandit Jwala Dutta Joshi
first read the Reception Committee's address of welcome in Hindi.
Pandit Hari Ram Pande followed with an address from the Swami's
host, Lala Badri Sah; and another Pandit read an address in Sanskrit.
The Swami replied briefly. He touched feelingly on the spiritualizing
influence that the Himalayas had exerted on Indian thought. He
himself had longed from his youth to pass his days in their midst.
Though he knew that he would not be able to do so as he had dreamt,

still he prayed that his last days would he spent in the Himalayas. At
the very sight of those mountains, he said, all the ferment of work that
had been going on in his brain for years quieted down, and his mind
reverted to the one eternal theme which the Himalayas stand for
renunciation.
Again the Swami was busy. Whole days passed in discoursing on
religion with his many visitors. In spite of this, his health gradually
improved. Among those who accompanied the Swami to Almora, or
met him there, or accompanied him later on his journeys through
North India, were Swamis Yogananda, Shivananda, Niranjanananda,
Adbhutananda, Achyutananda, Vijnanananda, Sadananda, the elderly
Sachchidananda, Shuddhananda, Brahmachari Krishnalal, and J. J.
Goodwin.
About the Swami's stay at Almora, Goodwin wrote to Miss
MacLeod on May 18: "He [the Swami] finds Almora too hot, and,
indeed, it seems to have got hot since he came up here. So this
afternoon we are leaving for Dewaldhar, twenty miles from here
further into the hills, and after two or three days there, go to Pindri
(Pindari) Glacier, and shall probably live for some time just at its foot....
On his journey here the Swami, who brought with him three other
Swamis, stayed one day at Lucknow, on account of poor health of one
of them, and although unofficial and unprepared received a genuine
welcome. He has this week received requests from three Rajas to visit
their territories and themselves......
On May 23 Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull from Dewaldhar: I wish I
could paint in words the beauties of this place, in which we are now
living for a time, but I am quite sure I could not. It is twenty-one miles
further into the heart of the Himalayas than Almora, and a really
secluded place. Chiranjeelal, the proprietor, is a relative of the Almora
people [Lala Badri Sah],... In this time he has got cleared about 300
acres of it [jungle], but has laid it out with really marvellous art,
planted it with fruit trees, built bungalows, and other buildings, not
one of which is inartistic, tanks, etc.... It is distinctly cooler than
Almora.... The Swami benefited in one day, and is maintaining the
improvement......

The Swami himself, writing to his Calcutta doctor, Shashibhushan

Ghosh, on May 29, said:
Your letter and two bottles containing medicines were duly
received. I have begun from last evening a trial of your medicines.
Hope the combination will have a better effect than the one alone.
I began to take a lot of exercise on horseback, both morning and
evening. Since that I am much better indeed.... In Darjeeling I always
felt that I was not the same man. Here, I feel that I have no disease
whatsoever, but there is one marked change. I never in my life could
sleep as soon as I got into bed. I must toss at least for two, hours. Only
from Madras to Darjeeling (during the first month) I would sleep as
soon as my head touched the pillow. That ready disposition to sleep is
gone now entirely, and my old tossing habit and feeling hot after the
evening meal have come back.... On the whole my own feeling is one
of revival of great strength and cheerfulness, and a feeling of
exuberant health, only I am afraid I am getting fat on a too much milk
diet.... I am very glad to learn of the success of the meetings of the
Ramakrishna Mission, at Calcutta....
On June 20 Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull: The Swami is again in
Almora and seems now to be quite recovered from his indisposition.
Alasinga Perumal and Prof. Rangacharya (of the Brahmavadin) have
also been here, mainly because they wished to visit Badri Narayan, and
it was their presence which brought Swamiji up from Dewaldhar.... The
rainy season has set in here now, and has lessened the heat a good
deal, quite a relief after five solid months is of heat, nearly six months.
There was a disastrous earthquake in India a week ago, extending from
Simla in the West to Assam, down through as far as Madras.... The old
Math [at Alambazar] has also been severely handled......
Though Swamiji's body was now rested, his mind had not taken
rest. He was constantly occupied with some subject or other.
Furthermore, he would receive pressing letters from scholars or
disciples asking for the solution of some philosophical or scriptural
problem. Besides replying to these, sometimes with a masterly
commentary on a text, he was writing to his brother-monks, Mary

Hale, Margaret Noble, and others in an intensity of spiritual fervour.

With the service of the people done by Akhandananda in Murshidabad
District, he was delighted. To this brother he wrote on June 15:
Accept a hundred thousand embraces and blessings from me.... Work,
work, work, even unto death.... It is the heart, the heart that conquers,
not the brain. Books and learning, yoga and meditation and
illumination all are but dust compared with love.... This indeed is
worship, worship of the Lord in the human tabernacle......
Even at Almora the Swami was not to be left in peace by his
vilifiers. Since his landing on Indian soil, with unprecedented ovations
and homage from the nation as a whole, a persistent campaign,
misrepresenting his work and influence, and attacking his character,
had been conducted, chiefly by certain American Missions in India and
at home. Their aim was to hinder his work in the States during his
absence, and to check the religious revival which his triumphal
progress through South India had aroused. The campaign intensified
with the return of Dr. J. H. Barrows to the United States on May 10.
This American pastor, it will be remembered, had been Chairman of
the General Committee of the World Parliament of Religions in 1893.
He had come out to India on a three-month lecture tour, from
December 15, 1896 to March 15, 1897. Even while in India, lecturing in
Calcutta, Poona, Madras, and other cities, he had made no secret of his
antipathy to the Swami. The spate of defamatory and misrepresenting
newspaper cuttings that now reached the Swami at Almora were the
sequel of Dr. Barrows' return home. As in the past the Swami treated
them with indifference. A few quotations from the Swami's letters, and
from those of friends who stood up for him, will explain matters
sufficiently.
On October 28, 1896 the Swami had written from London to the
Editor of the Indian Mirror:
Dear Sir, I gather from your esteemed journal that Dr. Barrows,
the late Chairman of the Chicago Parliament of Religions, is coming
over to India to deliver a series of lectures, connected with Christianity.

Dr. Barrows was the ablest lieutenant Mr. C. Bonney could have
selected to carry out successfully his great plan of the Congresses at
the World's Fair, and it is now a matter of history how one of these
Congresses scored a unique distinction, under the leadership of Dr.
Barrows.
It was the great courage, untiring industry, unruffled patience, and
never-failing courtesy of Dr. Barrows that made the Parliament a grand
success.
India, its people, and their thoughts have been brought more
prominently before the world than it ever was by that wonderful
gathering at Chicago, and that national benefit we certainly owe to Dr.
Barrows more than to any other man at that meeting.
Moreover, he comes to us in the sacred name of religion, in the
name of one of the great teachers of mankind, and I am sure, his
exposition of the system of the Prophet of Nazareth would be
extremely liberal and elevating. The Christ-power this man intends to
bring to India is not the intolerant, dominant, superior, with heart full
of contempt for everything else but its own self, but that of a brother
who craves for a brother's place as a co-worker of the various powers,
already working in India.
Above all, we must remember that the gratitude and hospitality
are the peculiar characteristics of Indian humanity, and, as such, I
would beg my countrymen to behave in such a manner that this
stranger from the other side of the globe may find that, in the midst of
all misery, our poverty and degradation, the heart beats as warm as of
yore, when the "wealth of Ind" was the proverb of nations, and India
was the land of the "Aryas".
Yours obediently,
Vivekananda
This letter was published in the Indian Mirror on November 19,
1896. An editorial comment on it appeared in the Mahratta of Poona
(Pune) on November 29, 1896, in the Brahmavadin of December 5,

1896, in the Harvest Field of January 1897, and in other leading papers
of India at different times.
On the day that the Swami wrote to the Indian Mirror, he wrote
as follows to Alasinga: "I have sent a little note to the Indian Mirror
today about Dr. Barrows and how he should be welcomed. You also
write some good words of welcome for him in the Brahmavadin." The
disciple acted on the Swami's suggestion: indeed, as we learn from
Prof. K. Sundararama Iyer's reminiscences, he went so far as to include
Dr. Barrows, along with Col. Olcott, in an informal reception committee
that he (Alasinga) first organized for welcoming the Swami to Madras.
In spite of these courtesies, Dr. Barrows was not courteous to the
Swami. The Swami must have been offended by some of Dr. Barrows'
statements, for in his lecture at Kumbakonam he said: "You have also
heard, quite within recent times, the claims put forward by Dr.
Barrows, a great friend of mine, that Christianity is the only universal
religion." The Swami. again mentioned him while speaking at Madras
on "My plan of Campaign": "Today I read that my friend Dr. Barrows
says that in three hundred years Christianity overthrew the Roman and
Greek religious influences. That is not the word of a man who has seen
Europe, and Greece, and Rome. The influence of Roman and Greek
religion is all there, even in Protestant countries...
The Swami did not say anything harmful to the mission of Dr.
Barrows; and, in deference to the Swami's request, the Christian
preacher was given a cordial reception in India. However, as is clear
from the following report in the Mahratta of Poona, published on
February 7, 1897, the discordant note in Dr. Barrows' speeches did not
go unnoticed:
Dr. Barrows comes to us as a friend of our Swami Vivekananda.
The venerable Swami's word of recommendation had preceded Dr.
Barrows to this land; and we were bound in duty to show him every
attention....
We do not however wish to find any fault with Dr. Barrows as a
preacher of his own religion.... But what we fear is that the Doctor's
aspirations are not so narrow. He is not content with the present

extent of Christendom; and like his aggressive trans-Altantic secular

brother, he will be satisfied with nothing less than a world-wide
empire. We do not think this ambition, modest as it is, will succeed....
Similar reports appeared in the Kesari of Poona in February 1897,
in the Gujarati on February 14 and 21, and in other papers. Evidently
Indians sized up Dr. Barrows.
As early as January 30, 1897, the Swami had written from Ramnad
to Mary Hale: "I wrote a letter to my people from London to receive
Dr. Barrows kindly. They accorded him a big reception, but it was not
my fault that he could not make any impression there. The Calcutta
people are a hard-headed lot! Now Barrows thinks a world of me, I
hear! Such is the world."
Even though the Swami was reading in Indian newspapers, and
hearing reports of Dr. Barrows' discourteous speeches, he did not
cease to be courteous to him. When Dr. Barrows reached Madras on
February 13, 1897, the Swami had himself arranged for his warm
reception there. About this he was to write to Mary Hale on March 2,
1898: "By the by, I learnt afterwards that Dr. Barrows arrived in
Madras next day and was very much chagrined at not finding me as he
expected, though I helped getting up an address for him and arranged
for his reception. Poor man, he little knew I was at death's door then."
It was unfortunate that Dr. Barrows did not meet the Swami in
Madras; but he found the Swami's signature on the address of
welcome that was presented to him. At Madras, in contrast to Calcutta
and Poona, Dr. Barrows was quite cordial in his speech. But this does
not mean that the canker was not in him; for, the very evening (May
10) that he landed in California, he was reported as having made
remarks to the representative of the Chronicle, which, according to
that paper, "would make that Indian personage's [i.e. the Swami's]
ears tingle if he could hear them". Here are some excerpts:
The Swami arrived in Madras one week ahead of me, but he did
not call upon me to renew our acquaintanceship. Instead he hurriedly
left Madras the day after I arrived. All that the Chronicle credited him
with saying about the women of America is true, and knowing that he

had been telling lies he avoided me. There is one thing I want to
correct however. The Swami has not lost caste through his conduct. It
transpires that he never was a Brahmin. He belongs to the Shudra
caste, the lowest of the respectable castes in India. All that he has said
about American women and American institutions disgusted some of
the Hindus I met. They came to me and declared that he did not
represent or preach their faith.
What I particularly object to in Vivekananda is his ridiculous and
exaggerated statement about the influence of Hindu speakers in
England and America. He is a man of brilliant and pleasant qualities,
but he seems to have lost his head. I could never tell whether to take
him seriously or not. He struck me as being a Hindu Mark Twain.
He is a man of genius and has some following, though only
temporary.
Goodwin, who was with the Swami all through the early months of
his return to India, is reported by the Brahmavadin (July 31, 1897) as
saying:
... An English journalist, who has accompanied the Swami during
the whole of his stay in India, says that in no speech, in no interview,
and, as far as he knows, in no conversation, has a single word fallen
from him derogatory to American women. On the contrary he has lost
no opportunity of speaking of their generosity and kindness to him,
and of their sincerity in the search for truth. The other charge is
equally untrue. When asked about his mission, the Swami has
repeatedly avoided answering at all, and, when pressed to talk on the
subject, has spoken with a modesty which would well become some of
those who appear to be seeking notoriety at his expense. Those who
know the Swami will readily understand how ridiculous is a charge of
ingratitude as made against him.
Mrs. Sara C. Bull (also Ole Bull), writing in defence of the Swami to
Dr. Lewis G. Janes on June 7, says:
Thank you for the California clipping. Since Dr. Barrows so
unqualifiedly denounces Vivekananda as a liar and for that reason
charges him with intent to avoid him at Madras, I regret, for his own

good, that Dr. Barrows should have omitted all mention of the Swami
Vivekananda's widely circulated letters of welcome urging upon the
Hindus, whatever their views of Dr. Barrows' message concerning their
and his own religion might be, to offer a hospitality of thought and
greeting worthy of the kindness extended to the Eastern delegates at
Chicago by Dr. Barrows and Mr. Bonney. Those letters circulated at the
time when the Indian nation was preparing a welcome unprecedented
for warmth and enthusiasm to the monk, contrast markedly with Dr.
Barrows' recent utterances in California, on his own home-coming,
concerning Vivekananda, and bring the two men before the Indian
public for their judgement....
It may be added in this connection, that Vivekananda was wearied
to the extreme and was threatened with a breakdown in health from
the first to the last of his public receptions on Indian soil, and, finally,
by command of his physician obliged to forgo more fatigue and take
absolute rest for some months' time. Vivekananda having been my
guest, attacks concerning him are sent to me, and I know that for two
years previous to his return to India the Swami was quoted both here
and there as having denounced American women at different points in
India, showing that he has a double or that his opponents pass on, as
does Dr. Barrows, sentiments deemed for his utterance, omitting the
sum and substance of what he has uttered again and again. The dry
humour of American pleasantries not infrequently used by gentlemen,
but unsafe for any foreigner, occasionally tempt the monk with his rare
facility in the use of English, to a misplaced and out-of-taste quotation,
while it is also true that his habitual self-control is under strong
provocation sometimes lost; but a fair opponent he is and, I can testify,
to even unfair and untruthful detractors. With the power held in
common with great preachers and artists to draw to himself emotional
men and women, it is to his credit that he may sometimes use harsh
characterization rather than permit a blind following to himself.
The homes open to the Swami Vivekananda in the United States
would honour any man. His friends will agree with Dr. Barrows that he
has genius, not for geniality alone, but for intellectual power and the
modesty of the true scholar, that will guard him from egotism and

vanity. He deals as few can with agnosticism and atheism, and gives
earnest students a philosophical analysis that establishes religion,
embracing the sectarian religions, and in spirituality he has the
childlikeness of spirit that will make him the loving servant of his
people.
It is always painful to encounter workers rightly devoted to
sectarian interests and service, indulging in the present rule of habitual
asperities and quick distrust rather than looking for points of contact. I
send you quotations from the Swami's letters to India and here, giving
in reply Vivekananda's sober opinions to the points of attack as made
by Dr. Clerk, Dr. Barrows, and others. Pray use them or my own
estimate as you deem fit.
PS. The allusion to Vivekananda's exaggerated statement of his
Western work and Mission is as mistaken as Dr. Barrows' suggestion
that he has only a temporary influence. Vivekananda returns not
Europeanized, and the urgent calls to be filled as soon as his health
permits are evidence of this. I believe him as one to welcome all true
religious workers there.
The German schools, the English Orientalists, and our own
Emerson testify to the fact that it is literally true that Vedantic thought
pervades the Western thought of today, and it is in this sense only that
Vivekananda could mean that thousands in the West are Vedantists
a philosophy able to include sectarians.
The Swami's attitude in the face of attacks on him in the American
and Indian press is best shown by a few quotations from his letters.
Writing to Mrs. Bull on February 25, 1897, he says: "I have not a
moment to die, as they say. What with processions and tom-tomings
and various other methods of reception all over the country I am
nearly dead.... On the other hand, the country is full of persons jealous
and pitiless who would leave no stone unturned to pull my work to
pieces. But as you know well, the more the opposition the more is the
demon in me roused."
About the failure of Dr. Barrows' mission to India the Swami writes
to Mary Hale on April 28:

Dr. Barrows has reached America by this time, I hope. Poor man!
He came here to preach the most bigoted Christianity, with the usual
result that nobody listened to him. Of course they received him very
kindly, but it was my letter that did that. I could not put brains into
him! Moreover, he seems to be a queer sort of man. I hear that he was
angry at the national rejoicings over my home-coming. You ought to
have sent a brainier man anyway, for the Parliament of Religions has
been made a farce of to the Hindu mind by Dr. Barrows. On
metaphysical lines no nation on earth can hold a candle to the Hindu;
and curiously, all those that come over here from Christian lands to
preach, have that one antiquated foolishness of an argument that the
Christians are powerful and rich and the Hindus are not, ergo
Christianity, is better than Hinduism, to which the Hindu very aptly
retorts that that is the very reason why Hinduism is a religion and
Christianity is not; because, in this beastly world, it is blackguardism
and that alone that prospers; virtue always suffers. It seems, however
advanced the Western nations are in scientific culture, they are mere
babies in metaphysical and spiritual education. Material science can
only give worldly prosperity, whilst spiritual science is for eternal life. If
there be no eternal life, still the enjoyment of spiritual thoughts as
ideals is keener and makes a man happier, whilst the foolery of
materialism leads to competition and undue ambition and ultimate
death, individual and national.
... Do you know Dr. Colston Turnbull of Chicago? He came here a
few weeks before I reached India. He seems to have had a great liking
for me, with the result that Hindu people all liked him very much.
... I am going to grow a big beard, now that my hair is turning grey.
It gives a venerable appearance and saves one from American scandalmongers. O thou white hairs, how much thou canst conceal! All glory
unto thee, hallelujah!
On June 3 he writes to Christine Greenstidel in a mood of
dispassion:
As for myself, I am quite content. I have roused a good many of
our people and that was all I wanted. Let things have their course and

Karma its sway. I have no bonds here below. I have seen life, and it is
all self-life is for self, love for self, honour for self, everything for self. I
look back and scarcely find any action that I have done for self-even
my wicked deeds were not for self. So, Christina, I am content. Not
that I feel I have done anything especially good or great, but the world
is so little, life so mean a thing, existence so, so servile, that I wonder
and smile that human beings, rational souls, should be running after
the selfso mean and detestable a prize!
This is the truth. We are caught in a trap, and the sooner one gets
out, the better for one. I have seen the truth, let the body float up or
down who cares!
I was born for the life of the scholar retired, quiet, poring over
my books. But the Mother dispenses otherwise. Yet the tendency is
there.
On July 9, in a combative spirit, under extreme provocation, he
writes to Mary Hale, who has become uneasy that the repeated
attacks on him in the American press may injure his cause:
... I had also a lot of cuttings from different American papers
fearfully criticizing my utterances about American women and
furnishing me with the strange news that I had been outcasted As if I
had any caste to lose, being a sannyasin!
Not only no caste has been lost, but it has considerably shattered
the opposition to sea-voyage, my going to the West. If I should have to
be outcasted, I would have to be done so with half the ruling princes of
India and almost all of educated India. On the other hand, the leading
Raja of the caste, to which I belonged before my entering the Order,
publicly got up a banquet in my honour, at which were most of the big
bugs of that caste. The sannyasins, on the other hand, may not dine
with any one in India as beneath the dignity of Gods to dine with mere
mortals, as they are Narayanas, while the others are mere men. And,
dear Mary, these feet have been washed and wiped and worshipped
by the descendants of a hundred kings, and there has been a progress
through the country which none ever commanded in India.

It will suffice to say that the police were necessary to keep order if
I ventured out into the streets! That is outcasting indeed! Of course,
that took the starch out of the Missoos [the Swami's name for
missionaries], and who are they here? Nobodies. We are in blissful
ignorance of their existence all the time. I had in a lecture said
something about the Missoos and the origin of that species, except the
English Churchmen, and in that connection I had to refer to the very
churchy women of America and their power of inventing scandals. This
the Missoos are parading as an attack on American women en masse
to undo my work there, as they well know that anything said against
themselves will rather please the U. S. public. My dear Mary,
supposing I had said all sorts of fearful things against the "Yanks",
would that be paying off a millionth part of what they say of our
mothers and sisters? "Neptune's waters" would be perfectly useless to
wash off the hatred the Christian "Yanks" of both sexes bear to us,
"heathens of India"; and what harm have we done them? Let the
"Yanks" learn to be patient under criticism and then criticize others. It
is a well-known psychological fact that those who are ever ready to
abuse others cannot bear the slightest touch of criticism themselves.
Then again, what do I owe them? Except your family, Mrs. Bagley, the
Leggetts, and a few other kind persons, who else has been kind to me?
Who came forward to help me work out my ideas? I had to work till I
am at death's door and had to spend nearly the whole of my best
energies in America, so that they might learn to be broader and more
spiritual! In England I worked only six months. There was not a breath
of scandal save one, and that was the working of an American woman
which greatly relieved my English friends; not only no attacks, but
many of the best English Church clergymen became my firm friends,
and without asking, I got much help for my work and I am sure to get
much more. There is a society watching my work and getting help for
it, and four highly respected persons followed me to India to help my
work, braving everything, and dozens were ready, and the next time I
go, hundreds will be!
Dear, dear Mary, do not be afraid for me.... The world is big, very
big, and there must be some place for me, even if the "Yankees rage".

Anyhow, I am quite satisfied with my work. I never planned anything. I

have taken things as they came. Only one idea was burning in my brain
to start the machine for elevating the Indian masses, and that I have
succeeded in doing to a certain extent. It would have made your heart
glad to see how my boys are working in the midst of famine and
disease and misery, nursing by the mat-bed of the cholera-stricken
Pariah and feeding the starving Chandala, and the Lord sends help to
me, and to them all. "What are men?" He is with me, the Beloved, as
He was when I was in America, in England, when I was roaming about
unknown from place to place in India. What do I care about what they
talk the babies they do not know any better. What! I, who have
realized the Spirit and the vanity of all earthly nonsense, to be swerved
from my path by babies' prattle! Do I look like that?
I had to talk a lot about myself because I owed that to you. I feel
my task is done at best, three or four years more of life is left. I have
lost all wish for my salvation. I never wanted earthly enjoyments. I
must see my machine in strong working order, and then knowing for
certain that I have put in a lever for the good of humanity, in India at
least, which no power can drive back, I will sleep without caring what
will be next. And may I be born again and again and suffer thousands
of miseries, so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only
God I believe in, the sum total of all souls and, above all, my God the
wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all
species, is the especial object of my worship.
"He Who is the high and the low, the saint and the sinner, the God
and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the knowable, the real, the
omnipresent; break all other idols!" "In Whom there is neither past life
nor future birth, nor death, nor going, nor coming, in Whom we always
have been and always will be one, Him worship; break all other idols!"
My time is short. I have got to unbreast whatever I have to say,
without caring if it smarts some or irritates others. Therefore, my dear
Mary, do not be frightened at whatever drops from my lips, for the
Power behind me is not Vivekananda but He, the Lord, and He knows
best. If I have to please the world, that will be injuring the world; the
voice of the majority is wrong, seeing that they govern and make the

sad state of the world. Every new thought must create opposition in
the civilized, a polite sneer; in the savage, vulgar howls and filthy
scandals.
Even these earthworms must stand up erect. Even children must
see light.... A hundred waves of prosperity, have come and gone over
my country. We have learnt the lesson which no child can yet
understand. It is vanity. This hideous world of Maya. Renounce and be
happy. Give up the ideas of sex and possessions. There is no other
bond. Marriage and sex and money are the only living devils. All
earthly love proceeds from the body. No sex, no possessions; as these
fall off, the eyes open to spiritual vision. The soul regains its own
infinite power....
That the Swami's criticism of a few fanatical "churchy women" was
quite unrelated to his attitude to American women as a whole, is
clearly shown in a letter that he wrote in 1894 to the Raja of Khetri:
"It is not the building that makes the Home, but it is the wife that
makes it," says a Sanskrit poet, and how true it is! The roof that affords
you shelter from heat and cold and rain is not to be judged by the
pillars that support it, the finest Corinthian columns though they be,
but by the real spirit-pillar who is the centre the real support of the
home the woman. judged by that standard, the American home will
not suffer in comparison with any home in the world.
I have heard many stories about the American home; of liberty
running into licence, of unwomanly women, smashing under their feet
all the peace and happiness of the home life in their mad liberty-dance,
and much nonsense of that type. And now after a year's experience of
the American homes, of American women, how utterly false and
erroneous that sort of judgement appears! American women! A
hundred lives would not be sufficient to pay my deep debt of gratitude
to you! I have not words enough to express my gratitude to you. The
Oriental hyperbole alone expresses the depth of Oriental gratitude: "If
the Indian Ocean were an inkstand, the highest mountain of the
Himalayas the pen, the earth the scroll, and time itself the writer, still
it will not express any gratitude to you!"

Last year I came to this country in summer, a wandering preacher

of a far distant country, without name, fame, wealth, or learning to
recommend mefriendless, helpless, almost in a state of destitution
and American women befriended me, gave me shelter and food,
took me to their homes and treated me as their own son, their own
brother. They remained my friends even when their own priests were
trying to persuade them to give up the "dangerous Heathen", even
when day after day their best friends had told them not to stand by
this "unknown foreigner, maybe, of dangerous character". But they are
better judges of character and soul, they, the noble-minded, the
unselfish, the pure; for it is the pure mirror which catches the
reflection.
And how many beautiful homes I have seen, how many mothers
whose purity of character, whose unselfish love for their children are
beyond expression, how many daughters and maidens "pure as the
icicle on Diana's temple" and withal with much culture, education, and
spirituality in the highest sense! Is America then full of only wingless
angels in the shape of women? There is good and bad everywhere,
true; but a nation is not to be judged by its weaklings called the
wicked, as they are only the weeds which lag behind, but by the good,
the noble, and the pure, who indicate the national life current flowing
clear and vigorous.
Do you judge of an apple tree and the taste of its fruits by the
unripe, undeveloped, worm-eaten ones that strew the grounds, large
even though their number be sometimes? If there is one ripe,
developed apple, that one would indicate the powers, the possibility,
and the purpose of the apple tree, and not the hundreds that could not
grow.
And then the modern American women I admire their broad
and liberal minds. I have seen many liberal and broadminded men too
in this country, some even in the narrowest churches; but here is the
difference there is danger with the men to become broad at the
cost of religion, at the cost of spirituality women broaden out in
sympathy with everything that is good everywhere without losing a bit
of their own religion. They intuitively know that it is a question of

positivity and not negativity, a question of addition and not

subtraction. They are every day becoming aware of the fact that it is
the affirmative and positive side of everything that shall be stored up,
and that this very act of accumulating the affirmative and positive, and
therefore soul-building forces of nature, is what destroys the negative
and destructive elements in the world....
The above letter gives the keynote of so many letters that the
Swami wrote on the subject of American womanhood and allied
matters. Goodwin's letter to Mrs. Bull, written from Almora on June 28
(1897), will serve as a fitting conclusion to the discussion of this
particular controversy, since he was an eye-witness throughout:
We have just seen reports from Chicago and Detroit papers which
give a lecture by Dr. Barrows, and contributions from our old friends
the Revs. Mr. Thoburn and Mr. Clerk. In these it is stated that Swamiji
has lost no opportunity, since he returned to India, of abusing and
belittling American women. Now, we do not wish to reply to these
papers, but you have so many opportunities of meeting
representatives of American women that I can do no harm in
acquainting you with the absolute facts, and leaving them in your
hands. I have been present at every single lecture given by Swamiji in
India and Ceylon. I have also been present at every single interview
granted to a newspaperman. Further, I have not missed one single
report of any utterance of his in any paper. With this opportunity of
knowing the actual facts I can assure you that any statement of a single
word from Swamiji derogatory to American women is a malicious
fabrication. On the contrary, I am becoming almost weary, if that be
possible, of hearing him speak in the most glowing terms of the
American women, and only a week or two ago he said, "If I have to
come back again as woman I must and will come as an American
woman."
It is further charged against Swamiji that he ran away from Madras
in order to avoid Dr. Barrows, thus showing gross ingratitude. Dr.
Barrows has yet, apparently, to learn that, but for an open letter which
Swamiji wrote to India before his own and the Doctor's [Barrows']
arrival there, not a single Hindu would have moved to see, let alone to

welcome Dr. Barrows, barring of course native Christians. Moreover,

the Madras missionaries, through the Rev. Mr. Kellett, invited Swamiji
to sign an address of welcome to the Doctor [Barrows], and on the
strength of the Swami's signature obtained a number of other Hindu
signatories. Swamiji's plans for Madras were settled, even to the date
of leaving, before he reached Madras, and before he had the least idea
that the Doctor was expected there. The Doctor arrived on a Saturday
[February 13] evening, while Swamiji was delivering a lecture, and the
Swami gave a further lecture the following afternoon, in addition to
receiving several hundred, almost amounting to a thousand, visitors in
the morning and evening; and we had to leave for the steamer at 5 on
the Monday morning. The Swami moreover made not a single remark
prejudicial to Dr. Barrows which is another Chicago statement
and only once referred to him in a lecture, and then to criticize, in a
spirit which anyone who cares or cared to read the report of his speech
will admit to be thoroughly fair and temperate, on the extravagant
claim of Dr. Barrows on behalf of Christianity as the only universal
religion. If Dr. Barrows is unable to accept criticism in a proper spirit,
he has no right to pose as a preacher or teacher. Beyond this not a
single word was said prejudicial to the Doctor, and certainly nothing
prejudicial to him personally and any reception he might secure.
Surely, Christianity must have fallen to a very low ebb if its selfconstituted leader in America, Dr. Barrows, descends to deliberate lies
in order to bolster his cause. Apart from which, is it quite honest on
the part of Dr. Barrows, a Unitarian, to come to India as a pillar of
Christianity? This seems to me somewhat paradoxical. Here he told
another deliberate lie (in Madras) stating at a meeting of the Triplicane
Literary Society that he invited Swamiji to lunch with him in Chicago;
and when asked what he would have, Swamiji replied that he would
prefer beef, and would always choose beef, where a number of meats
were to be had. Is Swamiji a lunatic to make a public statement like
this, even if he felt it? As a matter of fact, he took what was offered
him and did not know till long after that he had eaten beef...
This was not the only unpleasant controversy in which the Swami
was involved: two more, which received attention in the columns of

some of the leading Indian newspapers of Calcutta and Madras

particularly, will now he mentioned. Needless to say, his disciples and
friends were at the time distressed over them.
The Swami we have had instances enough stood for truth.
He was not in the habit of flattering people. Shri Ramakrishna had
described him as "an open sword". In his lecture "My Plan of
Campaign" at Madras, he not only spoke about the unfriendly
behaviour of the Theosophists in America and India, but also exposed
the doings of the Brahmos, of some orthodox Hindus, and of certain
Christians, against him. Nor did he spare the reform societies of
Madras. His criticism of the Theosophists wounded the feelings of
admirers like the Hon'ble Subrahmanya Iyer, President of the
Reception Committee of Madras, Col. Olcott, Narendranath Sen, Editor
of the Indian Mirror and Hon. Secretary of the Calcutta Reception
Committee, and some of his Western friends. His criticism of Buddhism
offended the feelings of his friend H. Dharmapala and others. And
orthodox Hindus were constantly on the offensive, trying to ensnare
him in scriptural discussions, or finding fault with him in the press. The
Bangabasi, a Bengali. p4per of Calcutta, took the lead by falsely
asserting that the Swami was a Shudra and therefore not entitled to
Sannyasa, that he had crossed the ocean (Kalapani) and therefore had
forfeited his Dharma; and so on. It was this paper, too, that created a
row over the visit of the Swami and. the Raja of Khetri to the
Dakshineswar Kali temple in, March 1897. It did its best to give him a
bad name, but to no effect.
About this time Dharmapala was in America and may have spoken
to Dr. Janes in connection with the Swami's derogatory remarks on
Buddhism. As a result, and hearing also about the Swami's criticism of
the Theosophists, Dr. Janes seems to have been somewhat perturbed,
and spoke of the matter to Mrs. Bull. Gathering this from a letter that
he received from Dr. Janes, the Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull as follows on
May 5,1897:
I had a very kind letter from Dr. Janes in which he points out my
remarks about degraded Buddhism. You also write that Mr.
Dharmapala is very wroth about it. Mr. Dharmapala is a good man and

I love him, but it would be entirely wrong for him to go into fits over
things Indian. I am perfectly convinced that what they call Modern
Hinduism with all its ugliness is only stranded Buddhism. Let the
Hindus understand this clearly and then it would be easier for them to
reject it without murmur. As for the ancient form which Buddha
preached, I have the greatest respect as well as for his person. And you
wel1 know that we Hindus worship Him as an Incarnation. Neither is
the Buddhism of Ceylon any good. My visit to Ceylon has entirely
disillusioned me; and the only living people there are the Hindus. The
Buddhists are all mock Europeanizedeven Mr. Dharmapala and his
father had European names, which they have changed since. And the
only respect the Buddhists pay to their great tenet of non-killing is by
opening butcher's stalls in every place! And the priests encourage this!
The ideal Buddhism I once thought would yet do much good. But I
have given up that idea entirely and I clearly see the reasons why
Buddhism was driven out of India; and we will only be too glad if the
Ceylonese carry off the remnant of that religion with its hideous idols
and licentious rites.
About the Theosophists you must remember first that in India
Theosophists and Buddhists are non-entities. They may print a few
papers and make a lot of splash and try to catch occidental ears; but I
do not know if there are two Buddhists in India of Hindu birth and 200
Theosophists.
1 was one man in America, another here. Here the whole nation is
looking upon me as their authority; there I was a much reviled
preacher. Here Princes drew my carriages; there I would not be
admitted to a decent hotel. My utterances here therefore must be for
the good of the race, my people however unpleasant it might
appear to a few. Acceptance, love, toleration for everything sincere
and honest, but never for hypocrisy. The Theosophists tried to fawn
and flatter me as I am "the authority" now in India, and therefore it
was necessary for me to stop my work giving any sanction to their
humbugs by a few bold decisive words; and the thing is done, I am very
glad. If my health had permitted, I would have cleared India by this
time of these upstart humbugs, at least tried my best. From what I

have seen my sympathy is rather more for the English church

missionaries in India than either the Theo [Theosophists] or the
Buddhists...... There is absolutely no hope for Buddhism in India.... Let
me again tell you that India is already Ramakrishna's and for a purified
Hinduism. Theosophists, Buddhists, Christians, and such ilk may bring
money and start papers by the hundreds, but the effect on us is zero
absolute. The only Christian missionary that had a welcome was Dr.
Barrows and that was on account of my letter! I do not think I have
time to write separately to Dr. Janes. He has been uniformly kind to
me.
To turn now from this unsavoury topic, we have already noted
that the Swami was elated because one of his brother-monks was
relieving hundreds of people in the famine-stricken district of
Murshidabad in Bengal. On his wanderings, this brother-monk Swami
Akhandananda had been deeply moved to see the widespread distress
in the villages there. Though penniless he at once decided to do
something about it. Hearing of this, Vivekananda had sent two of his
disciples, Swami Nityananda and Brahmachari Sureshwarananda, to
help Akhandananda in the work. He had also immediately started a
fund to which contributions came chiefly from Calcutta, Varanasi and
Madras and from the Mahabodhi Society. Swami Akhandananda
managed the relief work so well that the District Magistrate of
Murshidabad who administered the Government Relief fund,
remarked, I have been able to relieve myself of all responsibilities
with regard to the villages covered by the Swami.
Other things that delighted the Swami at this time were to learn of
the success of the meetings of the Ramakrishna Mission in Calcutta,
and to hear that Swami Ramakrishnananda was carrying on Vedanta
work in and about Madras with his characteristic zeal. Arriving there at
the end of March 1897, this stalwart had impressed people by his
character and activities. He had delivered a series of lectures on the
lives of the Prophets; had lectured on the Vedanta; and had given
classes on the Upanishads and Gita.
The Swami sent Swami Shivananda from Almora to Ceylon, in
response to the request of the Hindu community there; and he sent

Goodwin to Madras to start a paper there, and to help Alasinga with

the Brahmavadin in order to enlarge the scope of its teaching and to
increase its circulation.
At this time the Swami had a mind to start two newspapers of his
own. On July 10 he wrote to Miss MacLcod, "Goodwin has gone to
work in Madras on a paper to be started there soon." This refers to the
paper that the Swami wanted to put out in English. That the Swami
also intended to start a paper in Bengali, we know from Goodwin's
letter of June 28, to Mrs. Bull: "It seems probable that I shall not return
to the West at all. One of the Swamiji's ideas is to have a newspaper of
his own in Calcutta (in Bengali) and another in Madras (in English). He
has told Alasinga Perumal to establish this latter, and insists upon my
being appointed Editor...." But the Swami's idea did not materialize,
and Goodwin's services were devoted to the Brahmavadin alone for
some time.
The Swami was also delighted to learn about the progress of
Swami Saradananda's work in America. But the news from England
given him by Mr. Sturdy was not good: the response to Swami
Abhedananda's preaching had not been satisfactory. By the end of July
1897, Abhedananda had to close his centre in London, and, according
to Sturdys direction, he sailed for America to take up the New York
work. This he did in August.
When the Swami's stay at Almora was drawing to a close, his
friends began talking about a lecture. The English residents of the town
also expressed their wish to hear the Swami, and invite him to the
English Club. Two lectures were therefore arranged for the general
public, and one for members of the English Club and some other
prominent people of Almora. The two public lectures, of which one
was to he in Hindi and another in English, were given in the Zilla
School. The subject of the Hindi lecture, on July 27, was "Vedic
Teaching in Theory and Practice". Though not considering himself
proficient in Hindi, the Swami did well in the lecture, drawing
admiration from educated members of the audience for the masterly
way in which he handled that language. The lecture at the English Club,
given on July 28, was attended by all the English residents in the

station. Col. Pulley of the Gurkhas was in the Chair. The Swami gave
them a short historical sketch of the rise of the worship of the tribal
God and its spread through the conquest of other tribes. Then
followed a brief account of the Vedas: their nature, character and
teaching. Next he spoke of the soul and compared the Western
method which seeks the solution of vital and religious mysteries in the
outside world, with the Eastern method, which finding no answer
outside, turns its enquiry within. As he described the relation of the
soul to God, its aspiration, and its real unity with God, he reached the
climax of his talk. It was one of' those occasions when his power as a
spiritual teacher was plainly manifest. "For some time," writes Miss F.
Henrietta Mller, an eyewitness, "it seemed as though the Teacher, his
words, his audience, and the spirit pervading them all, were one. No
longer was there any consciousness of 'I' and 'Thou', of 'This' or 'That.
The different units collected there, were for the time being lost and
merged in the spiritual radiance which emanated so powerfully from
the great Teacher and held them all, more than spellbound."
The lecture in English for the public was given on July 31. It was
attended by an educated audience of about four hundred. They
listened with breathless interest, and with obvious pride in the
eloquence and learning of their celebrated fellow-countryman.
At Almora the Swami heard from' Mr. Sturdy about Margaret
Noble's wish to come to India in order to help the Swami in his work.
On July 29 he wrote to Miss Noble:
A letter from Sturdy reached me yesterday, informing me that you
are determined to come to India and see things with your own eyes. I
replied to that yesterday, but what I learned from Miss Mller about
your plans, make this further note necessary, and it is better that it
should be direct.
Let me tell you frankly that I am convinced that you have a great
future in the work for India. What was wanted was not a man but a
woman, a real lioness, to work for the Indian women especially.
India cannot yet produce great women, she must borrow them
from other nations. Your education, sincerity, purity, immense love,

determination, and, above all, the Celtic blood make you just the
woman wanted.
Yet the difficulties are many. You cannot form any idea of the
misery, the superstition, and the slavery that are here. You will be in
the midst of a mass of half-naked men and women, with quaint ideas,
of caste and isolation, shunning the white skin through fear or hatred,
and hated by them intensely. On the other hand, you will be looked by
the whites as a crank and every one of your movements will be
watched with suspicion.
Then the climate is fearfully hot, our winter in most places being
like your summer, and in the south it is always blazing.
Not one European comfort is to be had in places out of the cities.
If, in spite of all this, you dare venture into the work, you are welcome,
hundred times welcome....
You must think well before you plunge in; and after work, if you
fai1 in this or get disgusted, on my part I promise you, I will stand by
you unto death whether you work for India or not, whether you give
up Vedanta or remain in it.... Again, I must give you a bit of warning.
You must stand on your own feet and not be under the wings of Miss
Mller or anybody else....
In response to the Swami's call, Margaret Noble came to India in
the early part of 1898.

IN NORTH INDIA 2
After a stay of about twelve weeks in Almora, the Swami had to
some extent regained his health, though a complete recovery it was
not. But health or no, his mission in India, and the delivery of his
message, called for unflagging activity; and we next find him moving
from one province to another, teaching privately, preaching publicly,
and consolidating the work. He had pressing invitations to visit various
places in the Punjab and in Kashmir.
On August 2 the Swami left Almora, and on the way to Kathgodam
he halted at Bhimtal for a day on account of fever. At Bareilly, reached
on August 9, a Reception Committee gave him a warm welcome, and

took him and his party to their club-house, where arrangements had
been made for their stay. The house probably belonged to one
Priyanathbabu. He had hardly arrived when he again had an attack of
fever. In Bareilly he remained four days, and, though ill all the time, did
much religious discoursing. On the morning of the 10th he visited the
Arya Samaj Orphanage. The next day, he conversed with a gathering of
students on the need of a students' society that would carry into effect
his ideas on practical Vedanta and would work for others. As a result,
such a society was formed then and there. That day, after the midday
meal, the Swami told Swami Achyutananda, a monk of the Arya Samaj,
that he (Vivekananda) would live only five or six years more. This
prophecy, though not taken seriously at the time, came true, for he left
his body five years later, on July 4, 1902.
On the morning of August 12 he held religious discussions,
although he was unwell. His fever increased after taking food at
midday, but towards evening he felt better. He again discoursed on
religion to visitors. That night he left by train for Ambala Cantonment,
which was reached early next morning.
At the station he was received by a large number of people, and
taken in a horse-carriage to a bungalow that had been arranged for his
stay. Here he met Mr. and Mrs. Sevier. They had been at Simla for
some three months, following their stay with the Swami at Darjeeling.
At Ambala he had religious talks daily at all hours with many people of
different creeds Muslim, Brahmo, Arya Samajist, and Hindu on
scriptural and other matters. On the morning of the 16th, at the
request of a professor of the Lahore College who wanted a record of
the Swami's voice, he gave a short lecture into a phonograph. In the
evening, though unwell, he gave an impressive lecture lasting an hour
and a half before a select and appreciative gathering. As ever, at this
time, he sought to inject into the minds of his hearers his plans for the
regeneration of the Motherland. He did not leave Ambala without
visiting, on the morning of August 19, the Hindu-Muslim School, an
institution which interested him, because it was symbolic of the spirit
of unity between the two great Indian communities. The Swami
received many invitations from various places, but he was so

weakened by the fever that he had contracted on the way down from
Almora that he was unable to accept any of them.
At Ambala the Swami heard from Mrs. Bull and Miss Josephine
MacLeod that they wished to come to India. He wrote to Mrs. Bull on
August 19:
I received your last note yesterday. . I had also a letter from Miss
MacLeod stating that she and you are coming to India. I of course will
be very glad to see you in India, only, you ought to know from the first,
that India is [the] dirtiest and unhealthiest hole in the world, with
scarcely any European comforts except in the big capitals.
I learn from England that Sturdy is sending Abhedananda to New
York. It seems that the English work is impossible without me....
If Saradananda wants to come, he may; and I am sure he will be of
very good service to me just now in organizing the work, now that my
health is so broken.
There is a young English lady, Miss Margaret Noble, very eager to
come to India to learn the state of things, so that she may do some
work when she is back home. I have written to her to accompany you
in case you come via London....
Accordingly, Mrs. Bull and Miss MacLeod, along with Swami
Saradananda, came to India in early 1898.
On August 20 the Swami and his party, with Mr. and Mrs. Sevier
included, reached Amritsar. Here also he was received at the station
with honour. But he remained at Amritsar for only four or five hours,
at the house of Mr. Todor Mall, Barrister-at-law. His deteriorating
health made it imperative for him to retire without delay to
Dharmsala, a delightful hill-station nearby. He went there with Mr. and
Mrs. Sevier, and stayed for about seven or eight days. Except for
meeting a few casual visitors, he spent the time quietly, as the guest of
Bakshi Sohanlal, a pleader of the Chief Court of the Punjab.
When the Swami felt better, he decided to return to the plains for
the spreading of his ideas. Back at Amritsar for two days, he had
religious discussions with Rai Mulraj and other leading Arya Samajists.
On August 31 he left for Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan). Many people

had gathered to give him a reception, and arrangements had been

made for him to stay; but he left immediately for Murree (Pakistan) in
company with the Seviers and his party, again in search of health. On
September 2 he reached Murree, where he was the guest of Mr
Hansraj, a noted pleader. He was frequently invited to give public
lectures, but the state of his health prevented his doing so. However,
on invitation he visited the houses of some Bengali residents of the
place and sang devotional songs at their request. In addition, several
talks on religious subjects were given when he spoke about his ideas
and plans for work in India.
The Swami's stay in Murree was brief. There were reasons enough
why he should go on a short visit to Kashmir. Mr. and Mrs. Sevier had
gone to Murree with the intention of accompanying him there; but
they were compelled to remain behind, because Mr. Sevier suddenly
fell ill. The day before the Swami left, a letter reached him from Mr.
Sevier with this news. Eight hundred rupees in notes were enclosed for
the expenses of the Swami's journey. The time was seven in the
evening. The Swami turned to a friend and said with an anxious look,
"What shall I do with so much money, Jogesh? We are fakirs; we are
sure to spend it all if it is with us. Let me take, only half the sum; I think
that ought to be sufficient for me and the brother-monks and disciples
with me." Saying this he went to see Mr. Sevier and persuaded him to
take back half the money.
Leaving Murree on September 6 the Swami and party reached
Baramula by tonga on the 8th. From there he started at once for
Srinagar by boat. He arrived on the 10th, and was the guest of Justice
Rishibar Mukhopadhyaya. Here the Swami my was literally besieged by
visitors. On the third day after his arrival he paid an informal visit to
the palace of the Maharaja. He was received with distinction by two of
the higher officials. One of' them, Dr. Mitra, informed him that on the
next day Raja Rama Singh, the brother of the Maharaja, would he
pleased to see him. As the Maharaja was then at Jammu, the Swami
did not meet him.
On the morning of September 14 Raja Rama Singh received the
Swami with marked cordiality and honour, seating him on a' chair, and

himself sitting with officials on the floor. The interview lasted two
hours. Matters of religion, and the problem of improving the condition
of the poor, were discussed. The Raja was deeply impressed, and
voiced his desire to help the Swami in carrying out his plan of work.
Until his return to Murree, early in the first week of October, the
Swami was busy filling many engagements, private and public, and
visiting the places of historic interest with which Kashmir abounds.
Sadhus, pandits, students, officials of high rank, and scores of others
went to meet him. Whenever he was free, he retired to the houseboat
that the Wazir (prime minister) of Raja Amar Singh had placed at his
disposal. The Wazir himself became an ardent admirer of the Swami.
The latter was often invited by the nobility to dine at their houses; and
on one of these occasions he discoursed to a large assembly of
Brahmins and pandits. He made excursions by boat to nearby places,
visited the bazaars, or listened to singing and instrumental music. On
September 20 he went by houseboat to Pampur, and on the 22nd to
Islamabad (Anantnag), where he saw the historic temple of Bijbehara.
Next day he went on foot to Martand. He stayed at the rest-house for
pilgrims, and discoursed to a large gathering of priests. The following
morning he set out for Achabal. On the way, at Avantipur, he was
shown a temple, which legend relates to Pandava times. Its sculptures
drew his admiration. In his view the temple was more than two
thousand years old.
The Swami slowly made his way back from Srinagar, travelling by
boat from the Wular Lake to Baramula, The delightful climate of
Kashmir and his free outdoor life there had restored him, and he felt
some of his former vigour.
Returning to Murree on October 8, he was joyfully received by the
Bengali and Punjabi residents, and by Mr. and Mrs. Sevier. The Swami
was alternately the guest of the latter, and of Nibaranbabu, at whose
house he received numerous visitors and had many discussions. On the
evening of October 14 an address of welcome was presented to him on
behalf of the Bengali and Punjabi residents of Murree. In reply the
Swami gave a talk which delighted the audience immensely.

On October 16 morning the Swami left for Rawalpindi by tonga,

and arrived there by five in the evening. He was welcomed by some
people of note. They followed him to the house of Mr. Hansraj, where
he was very pleased to meet and talk with Swami Prakashananda of
the Arya Samaj. Justice Narayan Das, Mr. Bhaktaram, barrister, and
many other educated gentlemen were also present.
On Sunday October 17 he delivered a lecture to a large audience
in the beautiful garden of Sardar Sujan Singh, who acted as chairman
of the meeting. For two hours the Swami discoursed lucidly on
Hinduism, supporting his arguments with quotations from the Vedas.
An English disciple who was present says: "Swamiji, sometimes
strolling in the course of his lecture, as was his wont, and sometimes
leaning against a pillar decorated with foliage, wreaths, and flowers,
and himself wearing a beautiful wreath of flowers on his head and a
garland round his neck, looked in his flowing saffron-coloured robe and
sash, like a Greek god. Moreover, as a background to this, the
audience, mostly sitting on the lawn, turbaned and cross-legged, with
the sun setting in the distance, made altogether a wondrously
picturesque scene."
One catches a glimpse of the intense activity of the Swami at this
time, and, indeed, during most of the time of his public ministration
while on tour, from an entry in the diary of Swami Achyutananda, a
devoted companion:
17th October. In the morning, Swamiji talked on religious subjects
with the visitors at Mr. Hansraj's house. Then he went to the
Cantonment to keep an invitation to dinner at Nimaibabu's house,
where he talked on religious subjects with the Bengali gentlemen
assembled there. He returned from there about 3 p.m. After a short
rest he went to Mr. Sujan Singh's garden to deliver a lecture on
Hinduism.... Returning from there he instructed a gentleman in the
secret of performing Sadhanas. At night he went to supper at Mr.
Bhaktaram's house in the company of Justice Narayan Das, Swami
Prakashananda, Mr. Hansraj, and others. From there he returned
home at 10 p.m., and talked with some of his disciples on matters
religious, until three o'clock in the morning.

On October 18 in the course of conversation with leading

residents of Rawalpindi, among whom was Swami Prakashananda, he
gave a most satisfactory suggestion for resolving the antagonism
between the Arya Samaj and the Muslims. He several times visited the
Kali temple; received and entertained many visitors from different
provinces; and gave several religious talks.
On the day he was to leave Rawalpindi, when he was talking with
visitors after the midday meal, one of his brother-monks brought a
phaeton for him and said that a Bengali gentleman was ill and that he
earnestly wanted to see the Swami. The latter was ready to go at once.
With him went Swami Prakashananda and a few others. The man put
five questions to the Swami and said that, if he did not receive
satisfactory answers to them, he would become an atheist. The Swami
took each question, one by one, carefully thrashed them out, and gave
his conclusions on them in such a way that the gentleman was fully
convinced.
On the night of October 20 the Swami was off again, this time to
Jammu in response to an invitation from the Maharaja of Kashmir. He
reached Jammu next day at noon, was received officially at the station,
and was informed that he was a guest of the State. That evening he
visited the Maharaja's library, and on the following day had a long talk
with Babu Maheshchandra Bhattacharya, a State officer, on the subject
of establishing a monastery somewhere in Kashmir.
On the 22nd the Swami had a long interview with the Maharaja.
Two of the Maharaja's brothers and some principal officers of the
State were also present. In the course of the conversation he stressed
the foolishness of adhering to meaningless customs and outward
observances, and traced the nation's servitude of the last seven
hundred years to this and to misconceiving the true religious ideals.
"By committing what is real sin, such as adultery and so, forth," he
pointed out, one is not outcasted these days; now, all sin, all offence
against society, relates to food only! The Swami then defended his
sea voyage with his usual vigour, and pointed out that without
travelling in foreign countries real education was not gained. Finally he
dwelt on the importance of preaching Vedanta in Europe and America,

and spoke of his own mission and plan of work in India. He concluded:
"I deem it a great good fortune if, by doing good to my country, I have
to go to hell!" The Maharaja and others were highly pleased with the
interview, which lasted for nearly four hours. Later in the day the
Swami paid a visit to the junior Raja, who received him with similar
honour.
On the next day he gave a public lecture. It pleased the Maharaja
so much that he was asked to give another the next day. Further, the
desire was expressed that he remain at least ten or twelve days and
address meetings every other day. On the 24th he was taken round the
municipal power-station. He also had discussions on religious subjects.
In these he referred to the Arya Samaj, pointing out its shortcomings
to Swami Achyutananda in a friendly spirit. He deplored the
backwardness of the Punjabis in knowledge. That afternoon, as desired
by the Maharaja, he lectured to a large audience. For two hours he
spoke on the scriptures from the Vedas to the Puranas, and then on
the way of devotion. He paid a visit to the library, and that evening saw
the illumination of the city, it being the night of the Diwali festival. The
next three days were devoted mostly to receiving visitors. In talks with
them he gave out many profound ideas relating to religion and social
ethics. During this tour the Swami spoke and lectured mostly in Hindi.
The power and life that he put into the Hindi language was so
extraordinary that the Maharaja of Kashmir requested him to write a
few papers in that language. This he did, and they were greatly
appreciated. On October 28 the Swami heard from Mr. Sevier that he
and his wife were in Lahore (now in Pakistan), being well looked after
by a Punjabi gentleman.
On October 29 the Swami paid a final visit to the Maharaja and
informed him of his proposed departure for Sialkot (now in Pakistan),
from where a deputation had come on October 23 with a pressing
invitation. The Maharaja bade farewell to the Swami with regret,
requesting him to be his guest whenever he visited Jammu or Kashmir.
From Jammu the Swami and his party reached Sialkot on Sunday
morning, October 31. He was warmly received and taken to
accommodation arranged in the residence of Lala Mulchand, a pleader.

That evening he spoke on "Religion" in English. After the lecture he

gave a summary of it in Hindi for those who did not know English. Next
day several prominent people came to interview him, with whom he
discussed various matters of religion. Many women also used to come
to see him at Sialkot; among them were two sannyasinis. On seeing
these nuns, the Swami expressed the desire that a school for girls be
started. His suggestion was gladly taken up, and a committee was
formed for this purpose. He said that the girls should be trained by
women teachers only. How women qualified for this work were to be
procured needed consideration.
He thought that here might he a way of solving the problem of the
maintenance of Hindu widows. At Sialkot he delivered another lecture,
this time on "Bhakti", and in Hindi.
On Friday afternoon, November 5, the Swami and party arrived in
Lahore. He was welcomed at the station by residents of the city, and
taken to the palace of Raja Dhyan Singh. Here he conversed with
visitors, and after his meal he went to stay at the house of Shri
Nagendranath Gupta, Editor of the Tribune. The Arya Samajists also
gave him a welcome. Lala Hansaraj, President of the Dayananda AngloVedic College, often had talks with the Swami. Daily, in the morning for
two hours and in the afternoon for an hour and a half, about two
hundred Bengali and Punjabi residents of Lahore would gather at the
palace of Raja Dhyan Singh to meet the Swami and discuss religious
matters. One day he was praising a certain person at length. On
hearing it all, one of those with him said, "But Swamiji, that gentleman
has no respect for you!" The Swami at once replied, "Is it necessary to
respect me in order to become a good man?" The questioner was
taken aback at these words.
The Swami gave three public lectures in Lahore. J. J. Goodwin
writes of them as follows:
... On Friday evening [November 51, he [the Swami] lectured in the
large courtyard of the old palace on "The Problem Before Us". The
numbers present were large and the space available was altogether
too small to accommodate all who came to hear, and the necessity for

disappointing many, at one time threatened to prevent the holding of

the meeting at all. After at least two thousand had been refused
admission, there still remained fully four thousand, who listened to an
excellent discourse. On the following Tuesday [November g], another
large crowd gathered in the pandal of Prof. Bose's Bengal Circus, to
hear the Swami's lecture on Bhakti [in Hindi].
The third lecture, on the following Friday [November 12] evening,
was a triumphant success. The arrangements, this time entirely made
by students of the four Lahore Colleges, were exceedingly good, and
the audience, without being inconveniently large, was in every sense
representative. The subject for the evening was Vedanta, and the
Swami for over two hours gave, even for him, a masterly exposition of
the monistic philosophy and religion of India. The manner in which, at
the outset, he traced the psychological and cosmological ideas on
which religion in India is founded, was marvellously clear, and his
insistence that Advaita is alone able to meet the attacks not only of
science but also of Buddhism and agnosticism against religious and
transcendental ideas, was conveyed in definite language and was full
of convincing power. From beginning to end the lecture preached
strength belief in man in order that belief in God might follow
and every word of perhaps the finest lecture the Swami has given in
India was itself full of strength.... The lecture created great enthusiasm,
and the Swami found it in no way difficult to induce a number of
students, who were his constant attendants while in Lahore, to take
steps to put it into practice. In fact, he held a meeting for students, at
which, after hearing his suggestions, an association was formed, purely
non-sectarian in character, the work of which, as it gradually unfolded,
should be, to help the poor and where possible by searching them
out in every district of the town to nurse the sick poor, and to give
night education to the ignorant poor....
The first of the lectures just mentioned is printed in the Complete
Works under the title "The Common Bases of Hinduism". The Swami's
opening phrases, and his first words to the people of the Punjab, can
be said to have expressed not only his, but all India's, gratitude,
respect, and admiration for the "heroic" Punjab, which had first to

bear the brunt of all inroads and invasions into India. "This is the land
which is held to be the holiest even in holy Aryavarta", he began; and
went on to recount some of the Punjab's glories. "I stand before you,"
he said, "not as a teacher,... but as one who has come from the last to
exchange words of greeting with the brothers of the west, to compare
notes.... Here am I trying to understand on what ground we may
always remain brothers.....Here I am trying to propose to you
something of constructive work and not destructive. For criticism the
days are past, and we are waiting for constructive work...." After taking
up the points of agreement among all the religious sects of India, he
ended with a few words on how religion was to be made dynamic.
The Swami's third lecture, published as "The Vedanta", brings out
the rationality of Advaita, as Goodwin says. Towards the end the
Swami moves on to its practical relevance. "What is the gain [of
adopting Advaita] ?" he asks: "It is strength.... I may be a little bubble,
and you may be a wave mountain-high, but know that for both of us
the infinite ocean is the background, the infinite Brahman is our
magazine of power and strength, and we can draw as much as we
like.... Believe therefore in yourselves...." Not only does Advaita give
strength, but it alone provides a rational ground for morality and love.
"But one defect which lay in the Advaita was its being worked out so
long on the spiritual plane only...; now the time has come when you
have to make it practical.... Therefore, young men of Lahore, raise
once more that mighty banner of Advaita, for on no other ground can
you have that wonderful love, until you see that the same Lord is
present everywhere. Unfurl that banner of love!..." After hearing this
stirring peroration, it is not surprising that a youth organization was
formed to serve the poor as manifestations of Narayana.
An open-air party was given in honour of the Swami on Sunday
evening, November 14, on the lawn of Lahore Town Hall. It was
attended by many prominent people. Another day, the Swami was
invited by the Sikhs of the "Shuddhi Sabha". He appreciated their work
of accepting back into the Sikh faith those Sikhs who had been
converted to Islam. The Swami's non-sectarian outlook was especially
evident at Lahore. Though he was pressed by a certain community of

orthodox Hindus to preach openly against the Arya Samajists, he would

not acquiesce in their wishes. However, he did consent to speak on the
Shraddha ceremony, in which the Arya Samajists do not believe; but in
his talk he in no way attacked them. Some of the leading members of
the rival parties were present. The Swami discussed the necessity of
the Hindu rite of Shraddha, and defended it in a dignified manner
against the attacks of those Arya Samajists who came forward, to
argue with him. In tracing the origin of this time-honoured institution,
he said that spirit-worship was the beginning of Hindu religion. At first
the Hindu used to invoke the spirits of their departed ancestors in
some man, and then worship them in him and offer food. By and by it
was found that the men who acted as mediums for the disembodied
spirits afterwards suffered very much physically. So an effigy of grass
(Kushaputtali) was substituted, and, after invoking the spirits of their
departed ancestors in it, people offered worship and Pindas (rice balls).
The Vedic invocation of the gods for worship and sacrifice, he pointed
out, was a development of this spirit-worship.
The Swami's mission in the Punjab was, pre-eminently, to establish
harmony and peace in place of the discord and rivalry that existed
between the Arya Samajists, who stood for a reinterpreted Hinduism,
and the Sanatanists, who represented orthodox Hinduism. He
succeeded in bringing this about for the time being at least; and each
side vied with the other in showing regard for him. Both flocked to
listen to his words. Indeed, so generous was the attitude that he
showed towards the Arya Samajists, and so respectful was theirs
towards him, that for some days the rumour persisted that several of
the leading Arya Samajists even wanted the Swami to become the
head of the Arya Samaj. Here, as at Rawalpindi, he suggested a method
for rooting out the antagonism between this sect and the Muslims.
In one conversation the Swami deplored the lack of emotion in the
Punjabis, remarking that the land of the five rivers was rather a dry
place spiritually, and that people should be made responsive to the
affective side of religion by cultivating Bhakti. He thought that the
introduction of Shri Chaitanya's Sankirtana, as it was in vogue among
the Vaishnavas of Bengal, would be desirable. A proposal was made by

some of the Punjabi gentlemen that there should be a public

Sankirtana procession, but in the end the idea had to be given up.
It was at Lahore that the Swami met Mr. Tirtha Ram Goswami,
then a professor of mathematics at one of the Lahore colleges. Some
time later, this gentleman took Sannyasa and the name Swami Ram
Tirtha. He preached Vedanta in India and America, gained a
considerable following, and became widely known. It was under his
guidance that the college students of Lahore helped to arrange for the
Swami's lectures there. He personally admired the Swami immensely,
and invited him and his disciples, including Goodwin, to dine at his
residence. After dinner the Swami sang a song which begins: "Jahan
Ram Wahan Kam Nahin, Jahan Kam Tahan Nahin Ram." Translated, the
song runs: "Where God-consciousness is, there no desire is; where
desire is, there no God-consciousness is." Tirtha Ram himself writes:
"His melodious voice made the meaning of the song thrill through the
hearts of those present." He placed his library at the Swami's disposal,
but of the numerous volumes in it, the latter chose only Leaves of
Grass by Walt Whitman whom he used to call "the Sannyasin of
America".
One evening the Swami, accompanied by his brother-monks,
Tirtha Ram, and a number of young men, was walking along the road.
The party broke into several groups. "In the last group," according to
Swami Ram Tirtha, in a letter written at a later date from Darjeeling,
"in answer to a question, I was explaining: 'An ideal Mahatma is one
who has lost all sense of separate personality and lives as the Self of
all. When the air in any region absorbs enough of the solar heat, it
becomes rarefied and rises higher. The air from different regions then
rushes in to occupy this vacuum, thus setting the whole atmosphere in
motion. So does a Mahatma marvellously infuse life and spirit into a
nation through self-reform.' The Swami's group happening to be silent
at the time, he overheard this part of our conversation and stopped
suddenly and emphatically remarked, 'Such was my guru,
Paramahamsa Ramakrishna Deva.' "
The relationship between the Swami and Tirtha Ram was most
amicable, and the latter presented the Swami with a gold watch before

he left. The Swami kindly accepted it, but put it back in Tirtha Ram's
pocket, saying, "Very well, friend, I shall wear it here, in this pocket."
Tirtha Ram gave his impressions of the Swami, and wrote about
his visit to Lahore, in a letter to Pandit Din Dayal Vyakhyana
Vachaspati, dated November 16, 1897. It runs as follows:
Shri Maharaj Ji,
Pranam. After ten days stay here, Swami Vivekanandaji left [for
Dehra Dun] yesterday. Here three lectures were delivered [by him] in
English. Swamiji was the guest of the Sanatan Dharma Sabha. He
stayed at the Haveli [Palace] of Raja Dhyan Singh.... The subject of the
fist lecture was "Principles Common to All Hindus"....
The second lecture was on "Bhakti".... The third lecture was on
"Vedanta". It lasted for full two and a half hours. The listeners were so
deeply engrossed, and it created such an atmosphere, that all idea of
time and space was lost. At times, one required absolute realization of
oneness between oneself and the cosmic Atman. It struck at the roots
of ego and pride in self. In short, it was such a grand success as is
seldom seen. Whoever heard this lecture [listeners were in large
number], for all of them whether Englishmen, Christians, or
Muslims, or Arya Samajists, or Brahmo Samajistsit proved an eyeopener. The principal and other European professors of the Mission
College were also highly benefited.
There were public lectures, no doubt, but Swamiji's knowledge is
not reflected so truly in lectures as in his conversations. I listened to his
talks with leaders of Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj in private. He
answered their questions in such a devastating manner, and presented
before them such a picture of their principles, that they returned
completely downfaced. And the beauty lies in the fact that he never
uttered a single word which could offend their feelings. In a very short
time, he got them to admit the baselessness of their own principles....
Swamiji supported well the Puranas, Shrddha [ceremony] and MurtiPuja [idol worship] in public. Swamiji is a good Pandit also. He
remembers a large number of Shrutis by heart. He has studied
Shankara-Bhashya, Shri-Bhashya, and Madhva- Bhashya on Shariraka

Sutras. He is going to read the Anu-Bhashya, of Vallabhacharya. He has

a mastery over Sankhya and Yoga. Of Bhagavad-Gita, he is a great
exponent. And he sings most melodiously....
(Your) servant,
Ram
A touching incident occurred at Lahore, when Motilal Bose, a
boyhood neighbour and playmate of the Swami, and now the owner of
Professor Bose's Circus, came to meet him. He was awe-struck at the
reverence which hundreds were paying to him. Feeling a little
embarrassed, he approached the Swami with the question, "How shall
I address you now, as Naren or as Swamiji?" The Swami replied, "Have
you gone mad, Moti? Don't you know that I am the same Naren and
you are the same Moti?" And, indeed, it was the same with every one
of his former comrades and class-mates who met him in the days of his
glory, after his return from the West: they noticed not the slightest
change in his ways and behaviour. To quote one instance among many,
Upendrababu, another class-mate, to whom, when studying in
Presidency College, Calcutta, the Swami had prophesied his own future
greatness, came to meet him at Balarambabu's house: when the
Swami saw him enter the room, he stood up and with outstretched
arms embraced him warmly.
It was chiefly the state of the Swami's health that made him leave
Lahore for Dehra Dun, after ten days of strenuous work. The return to
the plains had caused a relapse of the illness that had taken him to the
Himalayas, and he was consequently forced to postpone the
completion of his lecture tour.
At Dehra Dun the Swami wished to lead a rather secluded life
because of his health; but once people came to know of him, they
began coming in large numbers; and he, for his part, talked with them
on religious matters. Another reason for going to Dehra Dun, as also to
Dharmsala and Kashmir, was to find a suitable plot of land for Mr. and
Mrs. Sevier to buy, where an Ashrama could be started for the training
of the Brahmacharis; but no suitable plot could he found there.

At Dehra Dun, gathering his disciples about him, the Swami would
hold a class on Ramanuja's commentary on the Brahma- Sutras. This
class continued for the rest of the tour. Later on even on the way to
Khetri, after they had rested from the journey and had had their bath
and meal, he would call them and begin the class. He also held classes
on the Sankhya philosophy, and appointed Swami Achyutananda to
teach it in his presence. Sometimes, when Swami Achyutananda, a
learned Sanskrit scholar, could not make out the meaning of the text,
the Swami would in a few words explain it clearly.
On Friday, November 26, the Swami and his party left Dehra Dun
for Saharanpur, on the way to Rajputana (now Rajasthan). Here he
stayed with Bankubiharibabu, a pleader, who welcomed him and put
him up at his house. The people of the town pressed the Swami to give
a lecture, but he, being in a hurry to go to Rajputana, declined. While
at Dehra Dun, he received repeated invitations from Khetri. The Raja of
that State was exceedingly eager to give his subjects an opportunity of
becoming acquainted with the Swami's ideas. Besides, he personally
wished to see his guru, and had sent a messenger all the way to Dehra
Dun to bring him.
From Saharanpur the Swami went to Delhi, where he was the
guest of Natakrishna, a man of humble position, whom he had met at
Hathras during his wandering days. Wealthy people pressed him to be
their guest, but he preferred to remain with his old friend. Natakrishna
once asked the Swami: "I am practising Gayatri Japam and Sandhya for
the last five or six months, but not getting any light." The Swami said,
"Call on the Lord in your own language, instead of chanting the hymns
in Sanskrit, which you don't understand." Then he explained the
meaning of the Gayatri Mantra. A professor of a nearby college visited
the Swami often, and through him a small meeting was arranged,
where the Swami answered questions. In addition, he held religious
discussions, at which many distinguished people were present.
Together with Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, his brother-monks, and
disciples, he visited all the monuments and ruins associated with the
past glory of the Mogul emperors, which are scattered round Delhi
within a few miles' radius. One who accompanied him says: "He

vivified the past before us. Indeed, we forgot the present in the past
and lived with dead emperors and mighty kings of old."
On December 1 the Swami left for Khetri via Alwar, where he
wished to meet his old friends and disciples. At Rewari station the Raja
of Khetri had sent people to receive him and bring him to Khetri by
palanquin by a short route. They had come with many camels, horses,
carriages, and so on, to take the party to Khetri; but the Swami did not
want to go by the direct route, because he had already planned a visit
to Alwar.
At Alwar he was accorded a grand reception. He and his party
were lodged in one of the residences belonging to the Maharaja. It had
been secured for the purpose by the Swami's followers in Alwar. The
Maharaja was at the time unavoidably absent from the State, but the
Swami had interviews with the principal officials. However, the chief
attraction of his visit lay in meeting once again his intimate friends and
disciples with whom he had passed many a day during his wandering
life. His present visit was full of touching incidents that revealed the
true sannyasi he was. For instance, at the railway station, when the
reception ceremony was going on and he was surrounded by
prominent people, he caught sight of one of his poor but devoted
disciples, dressed in an ordinary way and standing at a distance.
Without caring for the formalities of the reception or for etiquette, the
Swami called out, "Ramasnehi! Ramasnehi!" for that was the man's
name and, having had him brought before him through the crowd of
notables, enquired about his welfare and that of his other friends, and
talked with him freely as of old. Something similar happened in
Madras. During the triumphal procession there, the Swami, seated in
his carriage of honour, saw Swami Sadananda standing among the
huge crowd. He at once shouted out: "Come Sadananda! Come, my
boy!" And he made this disciple sit with him in the same carriage.
Among the invitations to dinner that he accepted during his short
stay in Alwar, was one to the house of an old woman who had
entertained the Swami to Bhlksha on his former visit. But in this case,
he invited himself by sending word that he longed for some of the
thick Chapatis (unleavened bread) that he had had from her hands

years ago. She was filled with joy to receive his message; and when she
was serving her guests, she said to the Swami, "Poor as I am, where
shall I get delicacies to give you, my son, however much I may wish to!"
He relished the simple meal, saying to his disciples more than once,
"Look here! How devout, how motherly, this old woman is! How
Sattvic are these thick Chapatis that she herself has made I" Knowing
her poverty, and unknown to her, he thrust a hundred rupee note into
the hand of the guardian of the house.
After staying a few days at Alwar the Swami went on to Jaipur,
where he stayed at the Khetri House of the Raja. The Swami told those
with him that, when he had come there as a wandering monk, the
cook of the House would give him four Chapatis a day, most unwillingly
and with a sour face, and now I am using the Raja's own bed to sleep
on, and so many people are at my service with folded hands. See the
difference! It is true that it is the status of the man that is worshipped,
O King not the body, nor the Atman within.
On December 9 the party started their ninety-mile journey to
Khetri across the desert. Some were mounted on horseback, some on
camels, and some went by bullock-cart. On the way, whenever a
resting-place was reached, the Vedanta class would start., At other
times the Swami would tell them stories.
Raja Ajit Singh, accompanied by Munshi Jagamohanlal, came to
Babai, about twelve miles from Khetri, to receive the Swami. About
four in the afternoon the party started for Khetri. The Raja and the
Swami sat in the State Victoria, with Jagmohanlal in the front scat.
When they reached the outskirts of Khetri town, the Swami was
welcomed by the offering of Arati (waving light) on behalf of the
townspeople. They then continued on their way in a procession to the
Temple Palace. That reached, the chief priest offered Arati to the
Swami, and a sum of twenty rupees. Others also offered Pranami.
From the Temple Palace, the Swami, along with the Raja, went to the
meeting-place of the reception over a red carpet spread in his honour.
There he received presents from some of the Raja's subjects, while the
court musician played. At the reception, as is customary on such
occasions, the Raja was presented with five trayfuls of gold mohurs,

the greater part of which he gave to educational institutions in his

State. Then Munshi Jagmohanlal rose and presented an address to the
Swami.
The Swami made a speech in reply, and Thakur Rambux Singh
followed with another. Then the Raja replied to the address presented
to him by his people on the occasion of his return from the West after
attending the Silver jubilee Celebrations in honour of Queen Victoria.
After the speeches were over, the audience was entertained with vocal
music. Then a dinner was given to the 250 or so guests who were
present. At 8 p.m. the Swami was taken to the tank to witness a
firework display. The entire tank and other places were lit up by
earthen lamps. At this time, it seems, the Swami was not too well. He
wrote to Christine Greenstidel from Khetri on December 13: I am all
right except a bad cold last few days owing to exposure and travel in
the desert......
Swami Sadananda sent a report of the Swami's Khetri visit to the
Brahmavadin. After describing the events just mentioned, he
continued:
... On December 17, there was an assemblage in the school
premises where both the Raja and the Swami were given numerous
addresses from different committees. The Ramakrishna Mission,
Calcutta, the Education Department, Khetri, and the local Young Men's
Debating Club, were among those who presented addresses to the
Raja. Then many short poems, some of them especially composed in
honour of the Raja, were recited by the young boys of the school.
Swamiji distributed the prizes to the meritorious students at the
request of the President, the Raja. The Raja made a brief reply to the
addresses presented to him, thanking especially the Ramakrishna
Mission, for the Chief of the Mission was present there.... After- wards,
Swamiji delivered a brief speech with his usual fluency, in which he
thanked the Raja and spoke of him highly, saying that what little he
had done for the improvement of India was done through the Raja's
instrumentality.

On December 20 the Swami gave a lecture on "Vedantism" in the

hall of the Raja's bungalow, in which he was lodged with his disciples.
The audience consisted of the notables of the place. Some European
ladies and gentlemen were also present. The Swami spoke for more
than an hour and a half about ancient civilizations the Greek and the
Aryan. He then traced the influence of Indian thought on Europe, in
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and the Egyptian neo-Platonists, and
showed how it even entered Spain, Germany, and other European
countries in different periods of history down to our own time. He
discussed the Vedas and the Vedic mythology and explained the
different ideas and stages of worship found there. Behind them all as
background, he pointed out, stood the idea, "Ekam Sad Vipra Bahudha
Vadanti", "That which exists is one: sages call It variously." Unlike the
Greeks, the Aryans, not satisfied with external nature, turned to the
Inner Self and solved the problem of life by Self-realization. The Swami
then passed on to the Dualistic, Qualified-monistic, and Advaitic
doctrines, and showed how they stood reconciled when regarded as
steps leading to Advaita the last step being "Tat Tvam Asi", "Thou
art that." He deplored the method of text-torturing, which even the
greatest commentators were guilty of Ramanuja had distorted the
Advaita texts of the Upanishads, and Shankara had done the same with
the Dvaita texts. The Swami regretted that in modern India "the people
are neither Hindus, nor Vedantins; they are merely 'don't touchists':
the kitchen is their temple, and cooking-pots their objects of worship.
This state of things must go. The sooner it is given up, the better for
our religion. Let the Upanishads shine in their glory, and at the same
time let not quarrels exist among the different sects."
The Swami had to rest in the middle of his speech, so exhausted
was he. The audience waited until he was able to resume. He spoke for
another half-hour. Knowledge, he explained, was the finding of unity in
diversity. The highest point in each science was reached when the
unity underlying the variety was found; and this was as true in physical
science as in spiritual. The Swami closed with a tribute to the Raja,
who, as a true Kshatriya, had assisted him so materially in spreading

the Eternal Truths of Hinduism in the West. The lecture made a lasting
impression on the people of Khetri.
At Khetri, work was both pleasure and rest for the Swami. Besides
lecturing and attending public functions in his honour, he spent the
time riding, and in sight-seeing with his companions and his royal
disciple. One day when he and the Raja were out riding, an incident
occurred which shows the true Kshatriya spirit of the Raja. As they
passed along, a narrow path overhung by the branches of trees and
prickly shrubs, the Raja held aside a branch of one of the shrubs for the
Swami. After a while the Swami noticed the Raja's hand bleeding
profusely, and found that the wound had been caused by holding the
thorny branch aside for him to pass. When he expostulated, the Raja
laughed the matter off, and said, "Well, Swamiji, it has always been the
duty of Kshatriyas to protect Dharma." After some moments of silence
the Swami rejoined, "Perhaps you are right."
Before the Swami left Khetri, the Raja gave him three thousand
rupees. This sum was sent to the Math in the charge of Swamis
Sadananda and Sachchidananda (senior). On the afternoon of
December 21 the Swami set out for Jaipur in a victoria, accompanied
by the Raja. They halted for the night at Babai, and reached Jaipur on
December 24. Here a meeting was arranged in the garden of Seth
Govindadas on December 27 evening. About five hundred people were
present, and the Raja was in the chair. From Jaipur the Swami sent all
his disciples back to the Math at Belur, excepting Brahmachari
Krishnalal, whom he kept as his attendant. On January 1, 1898, the
Swami left Jaipur for Ajmer. The Raja and Munshi Jagmohanlal saw him
off at the station.
Next the Swami is seen passing rapidly through Kishangarh, Ajmer,
Jodhpur, and Indore, on his way to Khandwa. At Jodhpur he was the
guest of the Dewan, Raja Sir Pratap Singh, for about ten days. At each
of the places named above, he was met at the station by enthusiastic
crowds, and entertained by distinguished people, to whom he
communicated his ideas. But he was by no means well, despite the fact
that from jodhpur he wrote to Christine Greenstidel on January 4: "I
am still travelling in season and out of season. Lecturing some, working

a good deal.... I am quite well and strong... I am going to Calcutta in a

few days where I intend to be the rest of this cold weather. Next
summer I start for England or America most probably."
From jodhpur the Swami went to Khandwa, where he was the
guest of Babu Haridas Chatterjee, a pleader who had known him
previously. He was here, to use that gentleman's words, "restless with
high fever"; but, as a result of the care of his host, he soon recovered.
Many people came to see him and talk with him on a variety of
subjects. During his discourses he used to lay stress on the steadiness
of character of the British. He would say that if India was to rise, help
and co-operation of a solid nature could be expected from England and
England alone.
After a stay of about a week the Swami left Khandwa for Calcutta.
The night before he left, his host pressed him for initiation. He firmly
held the Swami's feet and implored him to give him a Mantra; but the
latter did not do so, saying that he did not care to make disciples and
raise the banner of religious or social guru-ship. However, he advised
his host to remember the simple truth, so often repeated, that man
can do what man has done. "Man's constitution", he said, "embodies
divine omnipotence, and this should he realized and set up as the
model of all human action."
The Swami must have had reasons of his own for not fulfilling the
earnest and pious desire of his kind host, for it is a fact that he made
disciples before and after this occasion, though not without thoroughly
studying their personalities. As always with a true teacher, he gave
instructions to different people according to their nature and
tendencies. To one he would speak of Bhakti, to another of jnana, as
the highest ideal; but along with this he would insist that each should
stand on his own legs and rely on himself if he wanted to bring to
fruition the highest possibilities of his nature.
While the Swami was at Khetri, he had received invitations from
the Thakore Saheb of Limbdi, and from the Raja of Chhatarpur, in
Bundelkhand. The Swami also wished to visit Karachi to see disciples of
his who had gone there, and Kathiawar too. Leaving Khandwa he went

as far as Ratlam junction, but owing to indifferent health he was forced

to give up the idea of extending his preaching tour to Sindh, Gujarat,
Kathiawar, Baroda, and other places, from where telegrams and letters
of invitation had poured in on him. He decided to return at once to
Calcutta, and there combine rest and work. On the way, he met with a
most enthusiastic reception at Jabalpur station.
The return to Calcutta now was to be almost the finish of the
Swami's lecture campaign in India. In the course of it he had outlined
his plans for the resuscitation of the Dharma. He had made clear to the
nation the points on which they were in agreement and on which they
could build a future even more glorious than their past. He had shown
them the value and significance of the culture that they had inherited
from their ancestors a culture in comparison with which any other,
past or present, paled into insignificance. Indian nationalism was to be
based on the nation's great past, but new things had also to he
assimilated in the process of growth. Her heritage from the past, he
pointed out, was essentially a religious one. The main current of Indian
life had always flowed in the channel of religion, and from this the
nation's needs in all departments of life had been supplied. More than
once religion had come to the rescue of secular life. The fundamental
problem in India was therefore to organize the country round the
spiritual ideal. By religion he meant the eternal principles taught by the
scriptures, not local customs and superstitions. These latter were
growths that required weeding out. Above all, the nation depended on
the character and qualities of its individual members. On the strength
of its individuals depended the strength of the nation. So each person
who desired the good of the nation as a whole, should try, whatever
his walk of life, to build up his character by developing courage,
strength, self-respect, and love and service for others.
To the young men especially, he held out renunciation and service
as the highest ideals.
In Calcutta, other aspects of his mission were to keep him
engaged: notably the training of his disciples and the moulding of their
characters, so as to enable them to carry into practice his plans for the
regeneration of India.

LIFE AT THE MATH

The next period of the Swami's life in India, from the third week of
January to October 1898, comprises his stay in Calcutta and at the
Math, and an extended sojourn in the Himalayas: first, a stay at
Darjeeling; then at Naini Tal and Almora; and afterwards in Kashmir.
These were days of travelling and of training, particularly the training
of Western disciples and admirers. They had come to India to see for
themselves the land of their Master's birth, and to make closer contact
with him and his countrymen.
Having left Jaipur on January 1, and with a stay of about eighteen
days at jodhpur and Khandwa, the Swami must have reached Calcutta
not earlier than the beginning of the fourth week of January. On March
30 he left Calcutta for Darjeeling. On May 3 he was once more in
Calcutta, which he again left on May 11 for Almora, in company with
some of his brother-monks, and some of his disciples, Eastern and
Western. He was at Almora till June 10. On June 20 he and his party
were in Kashmir, where they remained till about the middle of
October. Returning to the plains, he came with his Western disciples as
far as Lahore. From there he travelled direct to Calcutta, which he
reached on October 18. This is a summary of the Swami's movements
in the months now to be described.
Of his stay in Calcutta, the story is one of continuous
engagements. The Math diary records his varied activities and
occupations. He would be constantly engaged in visiting devotees, in
receiving visitors either at the Math or at Balarambabu's house, or in
replying to letters and in other writing work; but the training of the
sannyasis and Brahmacharis formed the most important part of his
work during this period. He would spend hours with them in
meditation, devotional singing, study, or in relating the experiences of
the various stages of yoga and spiritual insight. He took regular classes
on the scriptures and would often speak on the Upanishads, the Gita,
the material sciences, and the history of nations, or answer questions
from members of the Math, throwing new light on the problems
raised.

On January 28 Miss Margaret Noble (later Sister Nivedita) arrived

in Calcutta via Madras by S. S. Mombasa. The Swami was at the dock to
receive her. They were meeting after a break of thirteen months. In
Miss Mller's absence she put up for a few days with a friend at 49
Park Street. Miss Mller returned to Calcutta from Almora on February
7, and the next day she and Margaret Noble went to see the Swami at
the Math. On February 10 they started searching for a house. They
found one at 34 Beniapukur Road, where they moved soon afterwards.
Miss Noble, inspired by the Swami's ideas and determined to
serve India, had given up her associations in England and started for
India on January 5. She intended to found, jointly with Miss Mller, an
institution for the education of Indian women. On February 10 she
wrote to a friend: "Today, however, we [Miss Mller and Miss Noble]
have been out house-hunting, and for the first time we have come to a
clear consideration of plans and activities, outside the merely personal
range.... Now as to the work here: the Swami's great care now is the
establishment of a monastic college for the training of young men for
the work of educationnot only in India, but also in the West."
It was with gladness that the Swami welcomed Miss Noble to
India. From now on, by giving them a definite training, he made every
effort to develop a deep and comprehensive understanding of Hindu
culture in the minds of his Western followers. It came about, however,
that this training was not confined to them, for, through the able pen
of Sister Nivedita, the ideas they received were passed on to numerous
readers of both West and East. Through her writings also, some of the
more learned aspects of the Swami's message to India as a whole were
scattered broadcast. Thus while teaching the small group of his
Western disciples, the Swami was at the same time speaking to an
immense audience; and the ideas communicated in these days were,
through Sister Nivedita, to act as a powerful impetus to the
development of a national consciousness.
Among the many functions in which the Swami took part at this
time, that of the consecration of the shrine in the newly-built house of
Babu Navagopal Ghosh, in Ramakrishnapore, Howrah, is notable. That
householder devotee of Shri Ramakrishna had invited the Swami,

accompanied by all the sannyasis and Brahmacharis of the Math to

perform the installation ceremony of Shri Ramakrishna's image. His joy
knew no bounds when the Swami consented. On February 6, the
auspicious full-moon day, the Swami with all the monks arrived by
boats at the Ramakrishnapore Ghat. A Sankirtana procession was
started. Many devotees joined in as it made its way through the
streets. The enthusiasm was tremendous. About the Swami's neck
hung a Khol (drum) on which he accompanied a Bengali song relating
to the infant Ramakrishna which begins: "Dukhini Brahmani Kole Ke
Shuyechhe Alo Kare". Translated, the song runs: "Lying on the lap of
the poor Brahmana's spouse, who art Thou, O Radiant One?" The
Swami himself led the chorus. Hundreds of people crowded the streets
to see him as he passed. When they found him dressed in simple ochre
cloth like other sannyasis, and going barefoot through the streets,
singing, and playing the drum, they cheered him heartily, impressed
with his humble yet regal bearing. It was hard for them to believe that
this was he who had unfurled the banner of Vedanta in the West.
Arrived at the host's residence, the Swami and his party were
received with reverence, amid the blowing of conchs and beating of
gongs. After a while he was taken to the worship-room. It had a marble
floor and was beautifully fitted. On the throne was a picture in
porcelain of Shri Ramakrishna. The Swami was delighted with the room
and the arrangements for worship. The lady of the house, on being
congratulated by him, said with great humility that she and her family
were too poor and unworthy to serve the Lord properly. She asked the
Swami to bless them. He replied: "Dear mother, our Lord never in his
life lived in such a marble-floored room. Born in a rustic, thatched hut,
he spent his days in the simplest way. And", he added in his witty way,
"if he does not live here, with all these services of devoted hearts, I do
not know where else he will!"
Then, having covered himself with ashes, the Swami sat on the
worshipper's seat and invoked the presence of Shri Ramakrishna, while
his disciple, Swami Prakashananda, recited the prescribed Mantras. It
was on this occasion that the Swami initiated the use of the special
"Salutation to Shri Ramakrishna". Sitting before the image in

meditation after it had been ceremonially installed, he composed the

following Sanskrit verse:
Sthapakay cha dharmasya Sarvadharma Svarupine
Avatara Varishtay Ramakrishnaya te namah.
"Salutation to Thee, O Ramakrishna, the Reinstator of Religion, the
Embodiment of all Religions, the Greatest of all Incarnations!"
Day after day the members of the Order were trained by the
Swami, until his ideas became their very own. In the perspective of his
vision they saw religious life in a new light and interpreted monastic
ideals in original ways. Under his inspiration the desire came upon
some to practise intense spiritual disciplines and austerities, upon
others to serve the sick and the poor, upon still others to spread ideas
among the people. All were saturated with his spirit and patriotism.
He, at this time, was a blazing fire of thought and soul. The Vedanta,
the ideals of the Gita, and of the different Hindu sects, were the
constant subjects of discussion and practice. But in the foreground at
all times was the teaching of the Master. The Baranagore days were
often lived again: the same fire, the same intellectual brilliance, the
same spiritual fervour.
In March 1898 the Swami bought a piece of land, over seven acres
in extent, together with a building, on the west bank of the Ganga at
Belur, and almost opposite the Baranagore bathing ghat. An
agreement had been entered into on February 3, and on March 4 the
plot was actually secured. The purchase price of Rs. 39,000 was given
by Miss F. Henrietta Mller. She. as we already know, was a devoted
friend and admirer of the Swami. She had met him both in America
and England, on his first visit to the West; and it was she who, together
with Mr. and Mrs. Sevier and Mr. E. T. Sturdy, met the expenses of his
work in England. Though possessed of ample means, she was of an
ascetic bent of mind. Being also liberal and spiritual in her outlook, she
found in the Swami's personality and teaching the essentials needed
for the spiritual quest. Once, she even decided to give up the world;
but the Swami persuaded her not to do so: rather, to help the world as
much as she could, by remaining in it and living a selfless life.

There was much work to be done on the newly-bought property.

Fortunately, Hariprasanna, the disciple of the Master, had by then
resigned his post as an Executive Engineer in the service of the NorthWestern Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) Government, and had joined
the monastery as a Brahmachari. In August 1899 he took the vows of
monasticism and was named Swami Vijnanananda. The supervision of
the building work naturally devolved on him, while Swami
Advaitananda assisted him by supervising the preparatory work such
as the levelling of the ground. This was uneven, since the area had
formerly been used as a sort of dockyard for the repair of small craft.
There was a one-storey building for dwelling purposes, with two rooms
on the northern side and another on the southern, connected by a
veranda opening on the Ganga. For servants there was also a separate
block. The place was scarcely habitable. Swami Vijnanananda's task
was to remodel the main building by adding some more rooms above,
as well as one on the southern side. Another building, with a couple of
rooms above to serve as a shrine and prayer-hall, and with a kitchen,
store, and refectory below, had to be completed before the monastery
could he moved there. All this took a year. A handsome contribution
from Mrs. Bull made the building of the shrine possible, and also
enabled the Swami to make an endowment for the monastery. Her
help put the monastery on a sound financial basis, much to the
Swami's relief. The total expenditure, and the amount of the
endowment, came to more than Rs. 100,000. The monastery came to
be known as the Belur Math.
Mrs. Ole Bull, as we have seen, had met the Swami at the
beginning of his American work and had assisted him in a large way
financially. She was well known in America for her philanthropy, her
culture, and her social position as the wife of the celebrated violinist of
that name. The Swami had often been her guest at Cambridge, near
Boston, Massachusetts, and had been the chief attraction on many
occasions at her salons, to which she used to invite some of the most
distinguished scholars of the day.
The purchase of this site at Belur, on the bank of the Ganga, was in
a way the fulfilment of the Swami's prophecy; for, long before he went

to the West, he said to some of his brother-disciples, while standing on

the Baranagore ghat, and when there was yet no thought of buying a
site for the monastery, "Something tells me that our permanent Math
will be in this neighbourhood across the river." Though the property
was acquired at the beginning of 1898, it did not become the
permanent headquarters of the monks until January 1899. From every
point of view the purchase was a success. That the monastery was on
the other side of the river, and four miles by road from the centre of
the metropolis, made it slightly secluded.
On February 13, 1898, the Math was moved from Alambazar to
Nilambar Mukherjee's garden-house on the west bank of the Ganga, in
the village of Belur. This was necessary for two reasons: first, the old
building at Alambazar had received an "awful shaking" from the great
earthquake of June 12, 1897, and had been damaged; second, and
more pressingly, there was the need to be near the newly-purchased
plot. The garden-house to which the monks moved was about a
furlong away.
On February 14 Swami Saradananda, accompanied by Mrs. Bull
and Josephine MacLeod, arrived in Calcutta. Swami Saradananda had
come back at the Swami's call, to share the responsibility of running
the new organization. He had handed over charge of the Vedanta
Society of New York to Swami Abhedananda in August 1897. The
Western ladies had come with him to see India. For some time they
stayed in a hotel in Calcutta. A day or two after their arrival they went
to see the Swami, who was living in the temporary monastery at
Nilambar Mukherjee's garden-house. When he took them to the new
site, they saw the old riverside house empty. They said to him, "Swami,
can't we use this house?" "It is not in order", he answered. "But we
shall put it in order", they said. The Swami gave them permission to do
so. At their expense the small house was repaired, whitewashed, and
furnished. In the early part of March, Mrs. Bull and Miss MacLeod
occupied it. Later, Margaret Noble joined them as their guest till they
all left for Kashmir. About their stay here by the Ganga, Josephine
MacLeod wrote later: "We stayed there quite two months. It was
perhaps the most beautiful time we ever had with Swamiji. He came

every morning for early tea which he used to take under the great
mango tree.... He would bring all those who came to visit him, to see
what a charming home we had made of this house he had thought
unhabitable...."
The Swami was astonished to see their capacity for adjustment at
the riverside cottage for it was no more than a cottage. On March 11
he wrote to Christine Greenstidel:
Mrs. Bull of Boston and Miss MacLeod of New York are now in
India. We have changed our Math from the old nasty house to a house
on the banks of the Ganga. This is much more healthy and beautiful.
We have also a good piece of land very near on the same side where
Mrs. Bull and Miss MacLeod are putting up now. It is wonderful how
they accommodate themselves to our Indian life of privation and
hardship; my, these yanks can do anything. After the luxuries of Boston
and New York to be quite content and happy in this wretched little
house!! We intend to travel a bit together in Kashmir, and then I come
to America with them, and am sure to get a hearty welcome from my
friends..... Of course I cannot undergo the same amount of work as
before ... I will do a little work and a good deal of rest.... This time I
will quietly come and quietly go away, seeing only old friends, and no
noise...
The Swami would spend hours daily with his Western disciples in
their riverside cottage. Under the trees beside it, he would reveal the
Indian world to them its history, its folklore, its caste-system, and its
customs. The ideals and realities of the Indian religions were
interpreted to them in such a vivid, poetic, and dramatic way, said one
of his hearers, that India herself became, as it were, "the last and
noblest of tail Puranas, uttering itself through his lips". But whatever
the subject of his conversation, "it ended always on the note of the
Infinite". He showed no mercy to his Western disciples in their wrong
notions and prepossessions with regard to India. He would soften
nothing in Hinduism that might at first sight be difficult or repellent to
the Western mind; he would rather put before them such things in
their extreme form, and induce them to enter into the spirit and catch
the meaning of what was difficult or repellent. The chief difficulty for

the Western disciples was, as might be expected, understanding the

Hindu religious ideals and forms of worship, and the Hindu outlook on
life. The Swami would speak for hours, making every effort of mind
and putting his whole heart into the endeavour to elucidate these
matters. Carried along by his enthusiasm, these disciples from the
West caught glimpses of the background to which the Hindu thought
symbols, so strange to them, pointed. They learned the great ideals
and watchwords of the Indian striving till these became their own.
Truly, in the Swami, East and West were made one; and in the end his
Eastern and Western disciples were able to mingle freely in thought
and life. But the distance to be travelled was great. The process that
the journey involved called for self-effacement on certain levels of the
personality. For the Western disciples to acquire consciously the
culture that the Indian disciples had grown up in, a far-reaching
reorientation was necessary and the guidance of a master mind. The
Swami was infinitely patient. He did not show the slightest irritation at
interruptions in the, flow of his conversation, however frequent and
irrelevant they might be, for he knew the difficulties.
The training of those Western disciples of his who came to India
was a matter of deep concern to Swami Vivekananda, both as a
spiritual teacher and as a Hindu of broad vision. He was alive to the
responsibility that rested on him. He knew that for them, coming into
close contact with Indians in their homes, coming to know their styles
of dress, food, and thought, and having first-hand experience of the
deficiencies of the land judged by materialistic standards he knew
that all this would be a test of their faith in the Vedanta and of their
power to fathom the Hindu view of life, which he was endeavouring to
elucidate for them. But he did not know, perhaps, that the strangest
revelation to them was he himself. In the West they had known him as
a religious messenger, an apostle of Hinduism, with the mission of
voicing the spiritual message, the eternal wisdom, that had been
inherited from India's past. His only motive was the liberation of
mankind from ignorance and the promotion of brotherly feeling
between the different faiths and nations of the world. In India,
however, they found him more of a patriot, a worker for the

regeneration of his motherland, with all the fret and torment of a lion
caught in a cage. Thwarted, just when his power had reached its full,
not by the many obstacles that lay in the path of achieving his purpose,
but by failing health, he was prone to despair. But shaking off despair
like a hero, he made a superhuman effort to see his task through.
Forced as he was to live a comparatively retired life, he put his whole
soul into the making of workers to carry out his plans and embody his
ideas. Among the Western disciples there was one in particular of
whom he had great hopes, and to her his discourses were mainly
directed. If he had done no more during this period than clear the way
for the transformation of Miss Margaret Noble into Sister Nivedita, he
could not be said to have spent the time in vain.
He regarded the coming to India of his Western disciples as a test
and experiment. Had they all turned against him he would not have for
one moment allowed himself to think unkindly of them. To Margaret
Noble he had written, on the eve of her departure from London: "I will
stand by you unto death whether you work for India or not, whether
you give up Vedanta or remain in it. The tusks of the elephant come
out, but they never go back. So are the words of a man never
retracted." And what father loved his children with a greater love than
did he his disciples!
The Math at Nilambar Mukherjee's garden-house was full by the
time of the Shivaratri (Night of Shiva) festival. This precedes by three
days the birth anniversary of Shri Ramakrishna. Swami Saradananda
had returned from America; Swami Shivananda had come back from
his Vedanta work in Ceylon, and Swami Trigunatita from Dinajpur, after
finishing his famine relief work there. The Swami was highly pleased
with the work of all of them. He congratulated Swami Brahmananda on
the success of the Ramakrishna Mission under his guidance, and Swami
Turiyananda for having, in his absence, trained the young sannyasis
and Brahmacharis of the Math. At the suggestion of the Swami, the
young sannyasis and Brahmacharis prepared, during the afternoon of
the Shivaratri day, thanksgiving addresses in English to every one of
the senior Swamis, and these were read out to them at a gathering of
the Brotherhood held at the Math. The Swami was in the chair. He

called upon his brother-monks to reply by turn to the addresses. After

Swami Turiyananda had spoken, the Swami remarked, "He has the
oratorical voice." Before he himself rose to speak, he said: "It is very
difficult to address a parlour meeting. Before a large gathering it is
easy to forget oneself in the subject of the discourse, and hence one is
able to carry the audience, with him. But this is not possible when only
a few men are present. However, let me try." He proceeded to counsel
his monastic brothers and his disciples with regard to the line of action
they should adopt, both in its individual and community aspect.
The actual birth anniversary ceremony (Tithi-puja) of Shri
Ramakrishna, as distinct from its public celebration, took place at the
monastery this year on February 22 under the supervision of the
Swami himself. Swami Shuddhananda acted as the chief priest for the
special worship that was offered to; Shri Ramakrishna. At the time of
the evening Aratrika (waving of light) "Khandana-bhavabandhana...", a
song newly composed by the Swami, was sung. It is now sung daily in
the Ashramas of the Order where formal worship is performed.
For this occasion the Swami ordered a lot of sacred threads to be
brought to the monastery. As one after another of the lay disciples of
Shri Ramakrishna or of himself came, he let it be known that those of
them who were not Brahmanas, but belonged to the other two twiceborn castes, were on that day to he invested with the sacred thread.
To his Brahmana disciple Sharatchandra Chakravarti, whom he
appointed to perform the ceremony, he said: "The children of our Lord
are, indeed, Brahmanas. Besides, the Vedas themselves say that every
one of the twice-born castes has the right to be invested with the
sacred thread. They have no doubt become Vratyas, that is, fallen from
their own ritualistic rights, but by performing the ceremony of
expiation they are entitled to their own original caste rights again. This
is the birthday of Shri Ramakrishna. Everyone will be purified by taking
his name. Therefore this is the best occasion to give the Bhaktas the
sacred thread. Give all those who come the appropriate Gayatri
Mantra according as they are Kshatriyas or Vaishyas. All these must be
gradually raised to the status of the Brahmana. All Hindus are brothers.
It is we Hindus who have degraded some of our brothers by saying for

centuries, 'We won't touch you! We won't touch you!' No wonder the
whole country is reduced to the verge of humiliation, cowardice, and
stupidity! You must raise them by preaching to them the gospel of
hope and cheer. Say to them, 'You are men like ourselves; you have
the same rights that we have.'
As a result, more than fifty devotees on that day received the
Gayatri Mantra and the sacred thread, after having bathed in the
Ganga and bowed down before the image of Shri Ramakrishna. No
doubt this procedure was at variance with the orthodox view; but the
Swami was determined to impress his ideas boldly on the public by
practical means. The initiates were naturally ridiculed by their
neighbours, who said that these devotees had raised themselves to the
status of the twice-born.
Though the Swami was bold in his attack on contemporary
orthodoxy, he did not usually advocate drastic reforms. He was in
favour of reforms that were a constructive growth from what was
potential in the tradition. The reforms that he purposed therefore
conformed to and fulfilled the Shastras (scriptures). He penetrated into
the spirit and meaning of the Shastras and adapted them to the needs
of the time, for the good of the race and its religion. He was in favour
of having the time-honoured religious institutions and ceremonies
strictly observed by the Order. Thus, at the time of the Shivaratri
festival, he was pained to find that no one at the Math had fasted, as is
the custom among devout Hindus.
After the Upanayana (sacred-thread) ceremony mentioned above,
the sannyasis of the monastery, joining mirth with devotion, seized
upon the Swami and arrayed him as Shiva. They put shell (according to
some, bone) ear-rings in his ears, covered his body with snow-white
ashes, placed on his head a mass of matted hair that reached to his
knees, put bracelets on his arms, and round his neck hung a long
rosary of large Rudraksha beads in three rows. In his left hand they
placed the symbolic trident. Then they smeared their own bodies with
ashes. "The unspeakable beauty of that form of the Swami dressed as
Shiva", writes Sharatchandra Chakravarti, "cannot he described; it is
something which has to be seen, to be realized. All present declared

afterwards that they felt as if Shiva Himself, of youthful, ascetic form,

was before them. And the Swami, with the sannyasis seated round him
like so many Bhairavas (the traditional attendant of the Great God),
seemed to have brought the exalted atmosphere of Kailasa into the
precincts of the Math." The Swami sang a hymn to Shri Rama, and,
inebriated with the Lord's name, went on saying again and again,
"Rama, Rama, Shri Rama, Rama!" He was as one entranced in the Shiva
nature. The sublimity of his facial expression was heightened a
hundredfold. His eyes were half shut; he was seated in Padmasana
(lotus posture), while one hand played on the Tanpura (a stringed
musical instrument). The whole gathering of monks and devotees was
caught up in, and thrilled with, religious ecstasy. Everyone seemed as
though intoxicated with draughts of the nectar of the name of Rama
issuing from the Swami's lips. For more than half an hour intense
stillness prevailed and all sat motionless.
The chanting ended, the Swami sang a song in an ecstatic mood.
Then Swami Saradananda followed with "The Hymn of Creation",
composed by the Swami, who accompanied him on the drum. Some of
the favourite songs of Shri Ramakrishna were also sung. Then, on the
spur of the moment, the Swami removed the symbolic decorations on
himself and put them on Girishbabu after smearing Girish's body with
ashes. Finally the Swami robed him in a Gerua (ochre) cloth, with the
remark: "Paramahamsa Deva used to say that G. C. has a little of the
Bhairava in him. Ay, there is no difference between him and
ourselves!" This brought tears to the eyes of the great dramatist.
When asked by the Swami to speak of Shri Ramakrishna to the
assembled devotees, Girishbabu could only say, after a long silence, his
voice choked with emotion: "What shall I say of our all-merciful Lord! I
feel that it is by his infinite grace that he has given even an unworthy
person like me the privilege of sitting on the same seat with such pure
souls as you, who have renounced Kamini-Kanchana (Lust and Gold)
even from boyhood!"
After this the Swami briefly addressed those who had received the
sacred thread, asking them to repeat the Gayatri daily at least one
hundred times. In the meantime Swami Akhandananda arrived at the

Math from his orphanage in Murshidabad. Referring to him the Swami

said, "Look, what a great Karma-Yogi he is! Without fear, caring for
neither life nor death, how he is working with one-pointed devotion
for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many!" This led the
Swami to speak at length on Karma-Yoga, of how the realization of the
Self could be attained by devotedly working for others without
attachment, seeing the Self in all. Then he sang a beautiful Bengali
song relating to the infant Ramakrishna, composed by Girishbabu
("Dukhini Brahmani Kole"). These lines occur in the song:
Lying on the lap of the poor Brahmana's spouse,
Who art Thou, 0 Radiant One?
Who art Thou, 0 Digambara (Naked One),
come to the humble cottage-room?
Grieved at the world's sore afflictions,
Hast Thou come with Thy heart bleeding for it?
This year, 1898, the public celebration of Shri Ramakrishna's birth
anniversary posed a problem. The festival had been started by
Surendranath Mitra and other devotees in 1881, while the Master was
still alive, and had been celebrated annually at Dakshineswar. It had
continued each year since then, and had given everybody an
opportunity to gather in one place for a shared purpose, with brotherly
feelings. But in 1898 the Trustees of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar
raised the objection that the place would be defiled if the foreign
disciples of the Swami attended the festival. Under these
circumstances the monks would have preferred to have had the
celebrations on the newly-acquired ground of the Math itself; but this
was too uneven for the purpose. Ultimately the sixty-fifth birth
anniversary of Shri Ramakrishna was celebrated on Sunday, February
27, at the Radha Ramanji Thakurbari of Purnachandra Daw. This was at
Bally, on the same bank of the Ganga as Belur, but slightly up the river.

Arrangements were made for steamers to ply between Calcutta and

the Thakurbari Ghat; and the celebration took place with its usual
impressiveness and fervour. The Indian Mirror gave a report of it on
March 3: "Last Sunday [February 27] Lower Bengal witnessed a Hindu
religious festival, the importance, grandeur and solemnity of which
could better be imagined than described.... Swami Vivekananda, who
being pressed by the crowd, delivered a short address suited for the
occasion, with his fascinating appearance and charming lustrous eyes,
always drew a great multitude of people around him......
An English lady who witnessed the festival wrote in the
Brahmavadin of March 16, 1898:
We landed at the garden and Thakurbari of Babu Purnachandra
Daw, at Bally, where the festival... was being held. So dense was the
crowd that it was a matter of considerable difficulty to pilot our way
through them to the garden-house, where we could add our
congratulations to the Swami Vivekananda's letters and telegrams, and
be presented also to the host of the day....
In Another part of the grounds, the monks, attended by their
Brahmin cook, were busily engaged in feeding the people.... Hundreds
of poor recipients sat on the grounds in rows to enjoy the simple fare
consisting of curried-rice, some vegetable, and a couple of
sweetmeats, served on dried leaves which was being distributed....
But the great attraction was a shrine on a little height where a sort of
altar had been erected before the portrait of Shri Ramakrishna....
During these days the Swami made only a few public appearances
in Calcutta. One of them was on the evening of March 11, when he
presided over a meeting arranged under the auspices of the
Ramakrishna Mission at the Star Theatre. The speaker was Margaret
Noble, and her subject "The Influence of Indian Spiritual Thought in
England". Introducing her to the audience, the Swami called her
"another gift of England to India" the others being Mrs. Besant and
Miss Mller, all of whom, he said, had consecrated their lives to the
good of India. In the course of her talk, Miss Noble said: "... You have
the ingenuity of six thousand years of conservatism. But yours is the

conservatism of a people who have through that long period been able
to preserve the greatest spiritual treasures for the world, and it is for
this reason that I have come to India to serve her with our burning
passion for service...."
When she had finished, the Swami called on Mrs. Ole Bull and
Miss Henrietta Mller to say a few words. Mrs. Bull said that the
literature of India had become a living one to Western minds, and that
the works of Swami Vivekananda especially had become household
books of the Americans. Miss Mller was hailed with applause when
she addressed the audience as "My dear friends and fellowcountrymen". She and the other Western disciples of the Swami felt,
she said, that in coming to India they had come to their home a
home not only of spiritual enlightenment and religious wisdom, but
the dwelling- place of their own kindred.
The Swami was so delighted with the lecture of Margaret Noble
that he wrote to her on March 16: "It appears to me that the platform
is the great field where you will be of great help to me, apart from your
educational plans."
Another of the Swami's engagements in Calcutta was on March
18, when he presided over a public meeting at the Emerald Theatre.
That evening Swami Saradananda spoke on "Our Mission in America".
Admission was by free ticket. The Indian Mirror report of the lecture
ran as follows:
Swami Saradananda delivered a most interesting and, at the same
time, a most instructive lecture on "Hindu Mission in America" on the
stage of the Emerald Theatre last evening before a very large,
intelligent, and appreciative audience under the presidency of Swami
Vivekananda and in the presence of Miss Noble, Miss [sic] Bull, Babu
Mohini Mohan Chatterji, Dr. J. C. Bose, and the Hon'ble Rai A. Charlu
Bahadur of Madras. The President introduced the speaker as one who
was taught and moved about here, and who made a short sojourn in
America, the land discovered by Columbus, and before him by the
Chinese and ages before them by the Scandinavians.... After the
concluding speech of the President, the meeting dissolved.

About these two lectures the Swami wrote to Swami

Ramakrishnananda that same month: "Miss Noble is really an
acquisition. She will soon surpass Mrs. Besant as a speaker, I am
sure.... We had two public lectures in Calcutta, one from Miss Noble
and the other from our Sharat [Saradananda]. Both of them did very
well indeed; there was great enthusiasm, which shows that the
Calcutta public has not forgotten us." [Then came a memorable day for
Margaret Noble-the day of her first initiation. She had come to stay as
the guest of Mrs. Ole Bull and Miss MacLeod in the new Math
compound. On the morning of March 25 the Christian Feast of the
Annunciation, the Swami went to the cottage that they were
occupying and brought them to the temporary Math in Nilambarbabu's
garden-house. There, he took Miss Noble to the shrine-room. First, he
taught her the worship of Shiva; then, he went through a simple ritual
of initiation. She was made a Brahmacharini and given the name
"Nivedita", meaning one who is dedicated a name most
appropriate for one who had resolved to dedicate her life to the
service of India and to the Swami's work. 'This, as we have already
noted, was Margaret Noble's resolve. It was to be as Sister Nivedita
that she became widely known in India and abroad.
After the ceremony, the Western disciples were taken upstairs.
The Swami put on the ashes, bone ear-rings, and matted locks of a
Shiva-yogi, and then sang for them and played Indian music for an hour
or so. The ideal he put before those whom he made his own, and the
spirit in which the dedication ceremony was conducted, can to some
extent he gathered from the Sister's words:
May one of them never forget a certain day of consecration, in the
chapel at the monastery, when, as the opening step in a lifetime, so to
speak, he first taught her to perform the worship of Shiva, and then
made the whole culminate in an offering of flowers at the feet of the
Buddha! "Go thou," he said, as if addressing, in one person each
separate soul that would ever come to him for guidance, "and follow
Him who was born and gave His life for others five hundred times
before He attained the vision of the Buddha!"

This ceremony was a significant event for Margaret Noble.

Another event that was a sign of the increasing contact between West
and East fostered by the Swami, was the receiving of his Western
women disciples by the Holy Mother, the spouse of Bhagavan Shri
Ramakrishna, and an orthodox Brahmana lady. The meeting was a
touching one. She addressed her visitors as "My children". Afterwards,
they brought back with them to their cottage for a few hours an aged
lady, Gopaler Ma, who had been regarded by Shri Ramakrishna as
Mother in a special sense. They won over this most orthodox of
Brahmana widows, even to eating with them and a week later, to living
with them for three days.
Another event at this time was the initiation into Sannyasa of
Swamis Swarupananda and Sureshwarananda on March 29. The
former, on his third or fourth visit to the Math, was so deeply
impressed with the long conversation he had with the Swami that then
and there he decided to give up the world and lead the life of practical
spirituality under the Swami's guidance. The friends who had
accompanied him were startled when he asked them to carry the news
to his relatives that he did not mean to return home again a
decision to which he firmly adhered. For several years he had been
thinking on the problems of life and death, of how he could break the
dream, as it were, and be of service to the world. Though he had been
married in his youth, he had eschewed marital relations. Living a life of
strict Brahmacharya under his parental roof, he was consumed with
the desire to help his brother-men. On meeting the Swami it took him
no time to see, as he said in later years, that joining the Order would
provide him with the best opportunity of putting into effect his own
ideas, which coincided with those of the Swami. He said as much to the
latter, who exultantly told a brother-disciple, "We have made an
acquisition today!" Much later he said to a friend, "To get an efficient
worker like Swarupananda is of greater gain than receiving thousands
of gold coins." Such was the Swami's faith in this highly-qualified
disciple that, in contrast with the general practice of the Order, he was
initiated into Sannyasa after only a few days' stay at the Math. Within
a few months he was made editor of the magazine Prabuddha Bharata;

and when Advaita Ashrama was founded by the Swami in the

Himalayas in the early part of the following year, he was made its
President. All this shows his guru's great confidence in him.
Among the many distinguished visitors who met the Swami at this
time was the Buddhist missionary, Anagarika Dharmapala. He had
come to see Mrs. Ole Bull, then living in the old cottage on the
recently-purchased Math grounds, and had stopped first at the
monastery to ask the Swami to accompany him. It was raining in
torrents. After waiting for an hour the Swami and Dharmapala, with a
few others, decided to start. Their way lay across very uneven and
muddy ground, particularly in the compound of the new Math, which
was being levelled. Drenched with rain, his feet slipping in the mud,
the Swami enjoyed himself like a boy, shouting with laughter and
merriment. Dharmapala was the only one who was not bare-footed. At
one place his foot sank so deep in the mud that he could not extricate
himself. The Swami, seeing his plight, lent his shoulder for support and,
putting his arm round the visitor's waist, helped him out. Both,
laughing, walked linked together the rest of the way.
On reaching the cottage, all went to wash their feet. When the
Swami saw Dharmapala take a pitcher of water for that purpose, he
seized it from him, saying, "You are my guest, and I must have the
privilege of serving you!" With these words he was about to wash his
guest's feet when there was a loud protest from Dharmapala. In India,
to wash another's feet is considered an act of the humblest service. All
those who witnessed the scene were amazed at the Swami's humility.
With Margaret Nobel's arrival in Calcutta, the task of training her
to be of service to her adopted land exercised the Swami's mind.
Within a couple of days of her arrival, he had arranged with
Mahendranath Gupta, the disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, that he should
teach her Bengali. In his talks with her and the others at the riverside
cottage at Belur, he instilled into her mind the Indian consciousness,
for he felt that a European who was to work in his cause for India
should do so in the Indian way, strictly observing Hindu customs,
manners, and etiquette, even to the detail. He demanded that such a
person adopt the food, clothes, language, and general habits of

Hindus. Bearing in mind that Nivedita was to take charge of the

education of Hindu women, he held up before her as a model the life
of Brahmacharya led by the orthodox Brahmana widow: only, he
enlarged the scope of her activities by substituting selfless service
rendered to the Indian people for loving service to the family. "You
have to set yourself", he said to her, "to Hinduize your thoughts, your
needs, your conceptions, and your habits. Your life, internal and
external, has to become all that an orthodox Brahmana
Brahmacharini's ought to be. The method will come to you, if only you
desire it sufficiently. But you have to forget your own past and to cause
it to be forgotten. You have to lose even its memory." Such a line of
self-discipline was regarded as the best means of assimilating the new
consciousness aimed at. The Swami even insisted that feelings and
prejudices that might appear crude to her, must be reverently
approached and studied, not ignored or despised. "We shall speak to
all men", he said, "in terms of their own orthodoxy!"
The Swami was defiant in the defence of his people's culture. He
was ready to beat down mercilessly any other than a live and openminded interest in everything connected with the peoples of his land,
and thundered against the least hint of patronizing. He would turn
upon the Western disciples if they found fault without justification. He
demanded that India be viewed in a spiritual perspective. He refuted
any notion of his country's being effete. Only a youthful nation, he
often said, could so readily have assimilated the ideas of a foreign
culture, as India had done. He showed them that, seen in the light of
her ideals and standards, she was young, vital, and full of potentiality.
In her religious vision she was one. He enabled them to see that India's
culture was incomparable, having been developed through thousands
of years of experimentation till it had attained the highest level ever
reached by humanity: consequently, it possessed an unparalleled
stability and strength.
He disclosed to them the why of every Indian custom. They were
able to see that, though poor, India was clean; that, in a land where
religion was identified with renunciation, it was natural that poverty
should be honoured; and that here poverty was not associated with

vice, as it so often was in the West. To the Swami, all that was Indian
was sacred and wonderful. Later on, as he moved with his disciples
from city to city and province to province, he would recount to them
the glories and beauties of the land. He was anxious that his Western
disciples make an impartial study of Indian problems. They were not to
see the glories only, but to have also a clear understanding of the
problems, and to bring the ideals and methods of Western science and
civilization to bear on the task of finding solutions. Often he contrasted
East with West, bringing out the merits and defects of the civilizations
of the world. Above all, he gave them the spirit of India, initiated them
into its values, and demonstrated its worth.
In order to bind his Eastern and Western disciples together, the
Swami would, on occasion, do something strikingly unorthodox before
a large number of his own people: for instance, by calling his Western
disciples true Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, and eating or drinking after
them, or eating in public food that they had cooked for him, and even
making his brother-monks do the same, he gave them a social standing
unacceptable to the orthodox Hindu. In contravening longstanding
traditions when there was need to do so, he showed his indifference to
criticism and his fearless sincerity. His aim was to make his disciples
one in a real brotherhood. In this way he united the ends of the earth,
as it were, and brought together people of diverse temperaments.
It hardly needs saying that in this training of Western disciples the
Swami took into consideration their own tendencies and aspirations,
for to go against them would have been to court disaster. Moreover it
was not his way to interfere with the liberty of his disciples. He left
them free to observe, to gain experience, even at the cost of making
mistakes. Sometimes, however, he imposed on them long periods of
restraint. "Struggle to realize yourselves", he would say, "without a
trace of emotion!" Or in talking of future work he would say: "Mind!
No loaves and fishes! No glamour of the world! All this must be cut
out. It must be rooted out. It is sentimentality the overflow of the
senses. It comes to you in colour, sight, sound, and associations. Cut if
off. Learn to hate it. It is utter poison!"

The period of the Swami's intensive training of his Western

disciples extended over nearly the whole of 1898. It was filled with
humorous as well as solemn hours. Certainly it was an arduous task for
him. For them, of course, there were inconveniences and difficulties
enough in getting used to Indian manners and food. Blunders were
made, but the Swami would always set matters right. The training
shaped their lives irrevocably, and made them apostles, on a personal
level, and some Also on the public level, of the greatness of Hinduism
and India. All alike instinctively followed out the passionate request
that he made to one who had asked, "Swamiji, how can I best help
you?" "Love India!" had been his answer.
To what extent the Swami's vision translated itself, through his
talks and personality, into the sensibilities and attitudes of his Western
disciples, is clear from Sister Nivedita's own words, written at the
year's end, after they had been to the Himalayas and Kashmir with the
Swami:
Beautiful have been the days of this year. In them the Ideal has
become the Real. First, in our riverside cottage at Belur; then, in the
Himalayas, at Naini Tal and Almora; afterwards, wandering here and
there through Kashmir; everywhere have come hours never to be
forgotten, words that will echo through our lives for ever, and once at
least, a glimpse of the Beatific Vision.
It has been all play.
We have seen a love that would be one with the humblest and
most ignorant, seeing the world for the moment through his eyes, as if
criticism were not; we have laughed over the colossal caprice of
genius; we have warmed ourselves at heroic fires; and we have been
present, as it were, at the awakening of the Holy Child.
But there has been nothing grim or serious about any of these
things. Pain has come close to all of us. Solemn anniversaries have
been and gone. But sorrow was lifted into a golden light, where it was
made radiant, and did not destroy.
Fain, if I could, would I describe our journeys. Even as I write, I see
the irises in bloom at Baramulla; the young rice beneath the poplars at

Islamabad; starlight scenes in Himalayan forests; and the royal

beauties of Delhi and the Taj. One longs to attempt some memorial of
these. It would be worse than useless. Not, then, in words, but in the
light of memory, they are enshrined for ever, together with the kindly
and gentle folk who dwell among them, and whom we trust always to
have left the gladder for our coming.
We have learnt something of the mood in which new faiths are
born, and of the Persons who inspire such faiths. For we have been
with one who drew all men to him listening to all, feeling with all,
and refusing none. We have known a humility that wiped out all
littleness, a renunciation that would die for scorn of oppression and
pity of the oppressed, a love that would bless even the oncoming feet
of torture and of death. We have joined hands with that woman who
washed the feet of the Lord with her tears, and wiped them with the
hairs of her head. We have lacked, not the occasion, but her
passionate unconsciousness of self.
Seated under a tree in the garden of dead emperors, there came
to us a vision of all the rich and splendid things of Earth, offering
themselves as a shrine for the great of soul. The storied windowsof
cathedrals, and the jewelled thrones of kings, the banners of great
captains, and the vestments of the priests, the pageants of cities, and
the retreats of the proud all came, and all were rejected.
In the garments of the beggar, despised by the alien, worshipped
by the people, we have seen him; and only the bread of toil, the
shelter of cottage-roofs, and the common road across the cornfields
seem real enough for the background to this life.... Amongst his own,
the ignorant loved him as much as scholars and statesmen. The
boatmen watched the river, in his absence, for his return, and servants
disputed with guests to do him service. And through it all, the veil of
playfulness was never dropped. "They played with the Lord," and
instinctively they knew it.
To those who have known such hours, life is richer and sweeter;
and in the long nights, even the wind in the palm-trees seems to cry
"Mahadeva! Mahadeva! Mahadeva!"

On March 30 the Swami left for Darjeeling with Swami

Nirbhayananda and Babu Nityagopal Bose. There he was the guest of
Shri M. N. Banerji, pleader, with whom he had stayed the previous
year. Once more he gave himself full freedom, enjoying his rest in
every possible way. So far as he could, he followed the instruction of
his physicians not to think on any serious subject. On April 3, at the
request of some of the residents, he gave a lecture on Hinduism in
Darjeeling Hindu Public Hall, with Shri A. C. Bose, Deputy Magistrate, in
the chair. He spoke for nearly two hours. As usual the audience was
spellbound. Next day the Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull, then in Calcutta:
I am afraid, you are getting roasted down there in the heat of
Calcutta. Here it is nice and cool... My health was not bad at Calcutta,
here it is the same...
I gave a little lecture to the Hindus here yesterday, and I told them
all their defects purposely, and with their permission. I hope it will
make them howl.
Miss Mller has taken a bungalow here and she is coming on
Wednesday [April 6]. I do not know whether Miss Noble is coming with
her....
Miss Mller, with Swami Akhandananda, reached Darjeeling on
April 7 to have the company of the Swami. They stayed separately in a
bungalow called "Rose Bank", where Mr. and Mrs. Sevier had stayed
the preceding year. It was about a mile and a half from where the
Swami was staying. Daily, in the morning, he used to go to "Rose Bank"
for coffee. After spending two or three hours there, he would return to
his place with Swami Akhandananda. After lunch and the noon rest,
Akhandananda would return to "Rose Bank".
On Easter Sunday, 1898, Sister Nivedita wrote in reply to Swami
Akhandananda, at Darjeeling: "I was so much relieved to know that the
Rev. Mother [Miss Mller and Miss Bell had borne the journey well.
How lovely that the King [Swami Vivekananda] had gone off to see the
snow. Of course, I am sorry for you, for I am sure you were looking
forward to meeting him, but he loves the snow so much!"

While at Darjeeling the Swami went to Sandukphu [3634 m] and

other places, to see the snow. He was then in good health; but on his
return to Darjeeling he first had an attack of fever, and then, after
recovering from, that, had a cough and cold. On April 18 he wrote to
Miss MacLeod, "I was down with fever brought upon, perhaps, by
excessive mountain climbing and the bad health in the station. I am
better today..."
When the Swami was only partially restored to health, news
reached him of the outbreak of plague in Calcutta. When he heard the
news, his health and mood changed for the worse. Recalling what
happened, Swami Akhandananda said:
Swamiji had been such a jolly person. Suddenly one morning I
found that he had become serious. The whole day he did not eat
anything, nor did he talk with anybody. The doctor was immediately
called, but could not diagnose the disease. He [the Swami] sat the
whole day with his head on a pillow. Then I heard that in Calcutta
three-fourths of the population had left the metropolis owing to the
plague epidemic. That's why Swamiji had become so serious. The
Swami said at that time, "We have to serve them, even though we are
required to sell everything. We were only wandering monks living
under a tree. We shall stay under a tree."
On May 3 the Swami reached Calcutta, although his, health was
not good. He thought that he might be of help to his people. They
were terror-stricken by the plague and dismayed by the plague
regulations. It was as if a storm were about to burst over Calcutta.
People were fleeing in panic. Troops were called to quell riots. The
Swami grasped the gravity of the situation at once. On the day of his
arrival at the Math he drafted a plague manifesto in Bengali and in
Hindi. He wanted to start relief operations immediately to help the
afflicted. When a brother-monk asked him, "Swamiji, where will the
funds come from?", he replied with a sudden fierceness of decision:
"Why, we shall sell the newly-bought Math grounds, if necessary! We
are sannyasis; we must be ready to sleep under the trees and live on
daily Bhiksha [alms] as we did before. What! Should we care for Math
and possessions when by disposing of them we could relieve

thousands suffering before our eyes!" Fortunately, this extreme Step

was not necessary, for he soon received promises of ample funds for
his immediate work. It was settled that an extensive plot of ground
should be rented at once, on which segregation camps would be set up
in compliance with the Governments plague regulations. Plague
patients would be accommodated and nursed in such a manner that
Hindu norms and customs would not be disregarded. Workers came in
numbers to Co-operate with the Swamis disciples. He instructed them
to teach sanitation and to themselves clean the lanes and houses of
the areas to which they were sent. The relief that this service afforded
the plague patients was immense, and the measures adopted by the
Swami gave the people confidence. The work endeared him to them.
They saw that he was in truth a practical Vedantin, for he applied the
metaphysical doctrines of the Vedanta to the relief of want and
affliction among his fellow-men.

TRAINING OF THE DISCIPLES AT ALMORA

The Swami remained in Calcutta until the possibility of an
epidemic had passed and the stringent plague regulations had been
withdrawn. Plans for a journey to the Himalayas with his Western
disciples were already on foot. Mr. and Mrs. Sevier had taken up
residence in Almora. After a tour of India, following a sojourn at Simla,
they had been asking the Swami to go there. Accordingly, on the
evening of May 11, a large party left for Almora. From Howrah station
to Kathgodam, it took them two nights and a day in the train. At
Kathgodam, the rail terminus, they changed to carriages and dandies
for Naini Tal, a gay hill-station by the side of a lake, and the summer
quarters of the Provincial Government. From there it was another
thirty-two miles to Almora. In the party were Swamis Turiyananda,
Niranjanananda, Sadananda, and Swarupananda, Mrs. Bull, Mrs.
Patterson, wife of the American Consul-General in Calcutta, Sister
Nivedita, and Miss Josephine MacLeod. Mrs. Patterson, it may be
mentioned, had befriended the Swami once, during the early days of
his preaching in America. She had taken him into her home on hearing
with indignation that he had been refused admittance to the hotels of

the city because of his colour. Since then she had become the Swami's
friend and admirer. When she heard of this proposed journey, she at
once joined the party without caring that she might be compromising
herself in the eyes of the official world of Calcutta.
Throughout the journey from Calcutta to Naini Tal the Swami's
historic consciousness and love of country were much in evidence,
with the result that it was a delightful and instructive experience for
his companions. With passionate enthusiasm he would introduce them
to each matter of interest, one by one, as the train reached the scene
of its relevance. The greatness of Patna and of Varanasi, later the
splendours of the old Nawab courts of Lucknow, were each described
with such ardour and absorption that his listeners felt that they were
in the presence of one who had lived, and still had his being, in his
country's past. There was not a city that he did not look on with
tenderness, and whose history he did not know. When traversing the
Terai, he made them feet that the very earth beneath them was that
on which the Buddha had passed the days of his youth and
renunciation in search of the highest truth. The gorgeous peacocks
that now and then flew past, would lend occasion for a graphic
account of the invincible Rajputs. The sight of an elephant or train of
camels would elicit tales of ancient battles or of caravans of merchants
and their merchandise, or of the pomp of bygone Rajas or the Mogul
court. Then again, there were accounts of famines and pestilences. The
long stretches of the plains, with their fields, farms, and villages, would
evoke thoughts on the communal system of agriculture, or on the daily
life of the farm housewife, or on the hospitality that peasant folk
offered to sadhus. In the telling of these last his eyes would glisten and
voice falter as the memory of his own days of wandering over the face
of India stirred. It had been his pleasure then to reach some village
compound at dusk and watch the cows' home-coming. The piety of the
Hindu on the banks of the Ganga, and the piety of the Mussulman
kneeling in prayer at the appointed hours, were in his eyes equally
Indian and of equal worth.
In word-pictures the Swami would lovingly paint the broad rivers,
far-stretching forests, and massive mountains all of them vital

elements in the culture of his people. The baked soil of the plains, the
hot sands of the desert, and the dried river-beds, each had its message
for him. The attentiveness of his Western disciples, who hung on his
every word, stirred the Swami to draw on his knowledge and love of
India and from them fashion his poetic descriptions. He showed his
listeners how, in India, culture, custom, and religion were one. The
burning-ghat, with the attendant thought of a dead body as a thing
impure, because cast off by the soul; the use of the right hand for
eating, worship, and the counting of beads during Japa; the nun-like
life of the Hindu widow and her round of fasts, vigils, and other
austerities; the respect for parents as gods incarnate; the Varnashrama
Dharma; the appointed hours of religious service and meditation for
the Brahmana caste; the twofold ideal of renunciation and realization
represented by the sannyasi; the temple that each Hindu home is; the
idea of the Ishta (Chosen Ideal); the Vedic chanting by Brahmana
children in the temple courtyards of Varanasi and the South; the
Muslim's kneeling in prayer wherever the time of prayer might find
him; the spirit of equality and fraternity observed among the followers
of the Prophet all these, the Swami would say, were facets of the
culture of his land.
The disciples, hearing his portrayals, the poetic or the more
philosophical, could now feel the full truth of what he had said to an
English friend on leaving the West, and what he had repeated in his
reply to the welcome address in Calcutta: "India I loved before I came
away: now the very dust of India has become holy to me; the very air is
now to me holy; it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the
Tirtha."
The party reached Naini Tal on May 13. The Swami halted there to
see his disciple, the Raja of Khetri, then staying in the hills. He was
received on arrival by a large gathering of people. They set him on a
hill pony and scattered flowers and palms in his path, as was done
before Christ when he went into Jerusalem. The Swami enjoyed
introducing his Western disciples to the Raja. Then he left them alone
for three days, to stay in a hotel. The Western disciples, too, gave him
full freedom, and took care not to make themselves a burden on him.

After three days he sent for them and welcomed them at his place of
residence.
It was at Naini Tal on this visit that the Swami met a Muslim who
was an Advaita Vedantist at heart. His name was Mohammed Sarfaraz
Hussain. Struck by the personality and extraordinary spiritual power of
the Swami, he exclaimed: "Swamiji, if in after-times any claim you as
an Avatara, a special Incarnation of the Godhead, remember that I, a
Mohammedan, am the first!" The gentleman became greatly attached
to the Swami, and from then on counted himself one of his disciples,
under the name Mohammedananda. Replying to a letter of his, the
Swami was to write to him from Almora on June 10, the same year!
Whether we call it Vedantism or any ism, the truth is that
Advaitism is the last word of religion and thought, and the only
position from which one can look upon all religions and sects with love.
I believe it is the religion of the future enlightened humanity.... I am
firmly persuaded that without the help of practical Islam, theories of
Vedantism, however fine and wonderful they may be, are entirely
valueless to the vast mass of mankind.... For our own motherland a
junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam Vedanta
brain and Islam body is the only hope....
The Swami had several talks at Naini Tal with distinguished
residents. In one of these he spoke of the illustrious Raja Rammohun
Roy, of his foresight and breadth of vision, eloquently drawing
attention to the three dominant notes of this great pioneer's message:
his acknowledgement of the Vedanta, his patriotism, and his
acceptance of the Hindu and the Muslim on an equal footing. It could
almost be said that these were the dominant features of his own
message at least as far as India was concerned.
In another of these talks he spoke of the ignorance about religion
to be found among the working-classes in the West. He related an
amusing story in this connection: "Once a bishop went to visit a mine.
He addressed the labourers and tried to teach them the grand truths
of the Bible. In conclusion, he asked, 'Do you know Christ?' One of
them responded, 'Well, what is his number?' Poor fellow, he thought

that, if the bishop would tell him Christ's number, he could find him
among the gang of working-men," The Swami continued: "Unlike the
Asiatics, the Westerners are not deeply spiritual. Religious thoughts do
not permeate the masses.... The immorality prevalent amongst
Western peoples would strike an Indian visiting London or New York.
Hyde Park in London shows in broad daylight scenes which would repel
an Asiatic, however degraded he might be. The lower classes in the
West are not only ignorant of their scriptures and immoral, but are
also rude and vulgar. One day as I was passing through the streets of
London, in my Eastern garb, the driver of a coal-cart, noticing the
strangeness of my dress, hurled a lump of coal at me. Fortunately it
passed by my car without hurting me."
At Naini Tal he met Jogeshchandra Datta, whom he had known in
his school-days at the Metropolitan Institution, and had seen the
previous year at Murree. Jogeshbabu thought it desirable that funds
should he raised so that Indian graduates could he sent to England to
study for the Civil Service: on their return they might be of help to
India. But the Swami had no use for the idea: "Nothing of the kind!
They would, mostly, turn outlandish in their ideas and prefer to
associate, on their return, with the Europeans. Of that you may he
sure! They would live for themselves and copy European dress, diet,
manners, and everything else, and forget the cause of their own
country." And when he came to speak of the apathy of Indians for the
material improvement of their country, and of their lack of enterprise,
especially in the industrial field, he wept' with. anguish. Seeing the
tears running down his face, the audience was moved. Jogeshbabu
writes: "I shall never forget that scene in my life! He was a Tyagi, he
had renounced the world, and yet India was in the inmost depth of his
soul. India was his love, he felt and wept for India, he died for India.
India throbbed in his breast, beat in his pulses, in short, was
inseparably bound up with his very life...."
During his stay in Naini Tal, an incident occurred which revealed
the humanity of the Swami's heart. While on a visit to the temple of
the Mother, the Western women-disciples happened to enter into
conversation in broken language with two nautch-girls. In their

simplicity and ignorance the Westerners took them for respectable

women. The dancing-girls enquired where they could find the Swami;
and on their way home they came to where he was staying. They
begged to he admitted to his presence, so as to receive his blessings.
The Swami refused to have them turned away. This immediately
caused a storm of disapproval among his listeners, but he ignored it
and allowed them to come to him. He blessed the women and spoke
to them such words of power, full of kindness and with no trace of
reproach, that the hearts of all present were touched.
Sister Nivedita recalls that it was perhaps on this occasion that the
Swami first told them the story of the nautch-girl of Khetri. He had
been annoyed at the invitation to watch her dance. When he had been
prevailed upon to attend the performance, she sang:
Oh Lord, look not upon my evil qualities!
Thy name, O Lord, is Same-Sightedness....
And then, Nivedita writes, reproducing her Master's own account,
the scales fell from his eyes: he saw that all are indeed one, and he
condemned no more. We have already recorded this incident more
fully.
Leaving Naini Tal for Almora late in the afternoon on Monday,
May 16, the Swami and his party were overtaken by night on their way
through dense forest. On and on they went, following the track down
into deep gullies and up again, and round the shoulders of projecting
hillsides. They were preceded by torches and lanterns to keep off bears
and tigers. Eventually they reached a quaintly-placed dak bungalow
under a canopy of great trees. The Swami was all along full of fun, and
fascinated by the poetry of the weird "night scenes". Always attentive
to the comfort of guests and companions, he saw to their needs and
himself supervised the cooking. This last was a favourite pastime of his.
The beauty of the scenery enchanted the Western disciples as they
made their way along the winding hill paths. On May 17 (according to
the Mayavati diary, on May 16), the party reached Almora.
At Almora, the Swami, his brother-disciples, and his sannyasi
disciples were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, at Thompson House.

His Western disciples stayed nearby in what is now called Oakley

House. (From the return addresses given on Sister Nivedita's letters of
this time, it seems that it was then known as "the Old and New House"
or "the Old Mess".)
After rising early and taking a walk with his brother-disciples, the
Swami would go to the house of Mrs. Bull and her guests. Having
breakfasted with them, he would converse for some hours on all
conceivable subjects. It was here especially that Sister Nivedita, who
had come to be regarded by the Indian people as the Swami's spiritual
daughter, received her training at the hands of her Master. It was a
training that revealed his greatness, and also the difficulties and
struggle that confront the European mind as it endeavours to identify
itself with Indian ideals and Indian culture. Between Master and
disciple a conflict of personalities developed. The Sister's mental out
look was aggressively Occidental and intensely British. Consequently,
almost all along the line of contact between her mind and her
Master's, areas of difference came to light; and the Swami, because he
wanted to infuse into her his own passionate love of India, did not
spare her. Of this period of trial Nivedita writes some years later as
follows:
But with Almora, it seemed as if a going-to-school had
commenced, and just as schooling is often disagreeable to the taught,
so here, though it cost infinite pain, the blindness of a half-view must
be done away. A mind must be brought to change its centre of gravity.
It was never more than this; never the dictating of opinion or creed;
never more than emancipation from partiality. Even at the end of the
terrible experience, when this method, as regarded race and country,
was renounced, never to be taken up systematically again, the Swami
did not call for any confession of faith, any declaration of new opinion.
He dropped the whole question. His listener went free. But he had
revealed a different standpoint in thought and feeling, so completely
and so strongly as to make it impossible for her to rest, until later, by
her own labours, she had arrived at a view in which both these partial
presentments stood rationalized and accounted for.... But at the same
time they were a veritable lion in the path, and remained so until she

had grasped the folly of allowing anything whatever to obscure to her

the personality that was here revealing itself... In every case it had
been some ideal of the past that had raised a barrier to the movement
of her sympathy, and surely it is always so. It is the worships of one era
which forge the fetters of the next.
These morning talks at Almora then took the form of assaults
upon deep-rooted preconceptions, social, literary, and artistic, or of
long comparisons of Indian and European history and sentiments,
often containing extended observations of very great value. One
characteristic of the Swami was the habit of attacking the abuses of a
country or society openly and vigorously when he was in its midst,
whereas, after he had left it, it would often seem as if nothing but its
virtues were remembered by him. He was always testing his disciples,
and the manner of these particular discourses was probably adopted in
order to put to the proof the courage and sincerity of one who was
both woman and European.
The Swami's daily tussles with the Sister resulted in the gradual
Hinduizing, or better, Indianizing, of her outlook. He, however,
appreciated this hesitation on her part to accept ideas that were
foreign to her. Once he comforted her by letting her know that he
himself had had a five years' fight before accepting some of his own
Master's ideas. How this clash of attitudes and sensibilities came to an
end in peace, is best told in the Sister's own words:
And then a time came when one of the older ladies of our party,
thinking perhaps that such intensity of pain inflicted might easily go
too far, interceded kindly and gravely with the Swami. He listened
silently and went away. At evening, however, he returned, and finding
us together in the veranda, he turned to her and said, with the
simplicity of a child, "You were right. There must be a change. I am
going away into the forests to he alone; and when I come back, I shall
bring peace. " Then he turned and saw that above us the moon was
new, and a sudden exaltation came into his voice as he said, "See! The
Mohammedans think much of the new moon. Let us also with the new
moon begin a new life!" As the words ended, he lifted his hands and
blessed, with silent depths of blessing, his most rebellious disciple, by

this time kneeling before him.... It was assuredly a moment of

wonderful sweetness of reconciliation. But such a moment may heal a
wound. It cannot restore an illusion that has been broken into
fragments. And I have told its story, only that I may touch upon its
sequel. Long long ago, Shri Ramakrishna had told his disciples that the
day would come when his beloved "Naren" would manifest his own
great gift of bestowing knowledge with a touch. That evening, at
Almora, I proved the truth of this prophecy.
For alone, in meditation, I found myself gazing deep into an
Infinite Good, to the recognition of which no egoistic reasoning had led
me. I learnt, too, on the physical plane, the simple everyday reality of
the experience related in the Hindu books on religious psychology. And
I understood, for the first time, that the greatest teachers may destroy
in us a personal relation, only in order to bestow the Impersonal Vision
in its place.
The Swami's teachings and discussions of these days, though
meant in the first instance for his Western disciples, subsequently
proved to be of great value to his own countrymen. His thought took in
all angles of vision, and through him the light of the Supreme
Realization was thrown on vital aspects of human wisdom. Some of
these morning talks at Almora were recorded by Sister Nivedita and
are to he found in her Notes of Some Wanderings with Swami
Vivekananda. We can hardly do better than give some extracts:
The fist morning, the talk was that of the central ideals of
civilization: in the West, truth; in the East, chastity. He justified Hindu
marriage-customs, as springing from the pursuit of this ideal, and from
the woman's need of protection, in combination. And he traced out
the relation of the whole subject to the philosophy of the Absolute.
Another morning he began by observing that as there were four
main castes Brahmana, Kshatriya, Bunea [Vaishya], Shudra so
there were four great national functions, the religious or priestly,
fulfilled by the Hindus; the military, by the Roman Empire; the
mercantile, by England today; and the democratic, by America in the
future. And here he launched off into a glowing prophetic forecast of

how America would yet solve the problems of the Shudra the
problems of freedom and co-operation and turned to relate to a
non-American listener, the generosity of the arrangements which that
people had attempted to make for their aborigines.
Again, it would be an eager risumie of the history of India or of
the Moguls whose greatness never wearied him. Every now and then,
throughout the summer, he would break out into descriptions of Delhi
and Agra. Once he described the Taj as "a dimness, and again a
dimness, and there a grave!" Another time, he spoke of Shah Jehan,
and then, with a burst of enthusiasm: "Ah! He was the glory of his line!
A feeling for, and discrimination of beauty that are unparalleled in
history. And an artist himself ! I have seen a manuscript illuminated by
him, which is one of the art-treasures of India. What a genius!" Oftener
still, it was Akbar of whom he would tell, almost with tears in his voice,
and a passion easier to understand, beside that undomed tomb, open
to sun and wind, the grave of Secundra at Agra.
But all the more universal forms of human feeling were open to
the Master. In one mood he talked of China as if she were the
treasure-house of the world, and told us of the thrill with which he saw
inscriptions in old Bengali (Kutil?) characters, over the doors of Chinese
temples. Few things could be more eloquent of the vagueness of
Western ideas regarding Oriental peoples than the fact that one of his
listeners alleged untruthfulness as a notorious quality of that race. As a
matter of fact the Chinese are famous in the United States, where they
are known as businessmen, for their remarkable commercial integrity,
developed to a point far beyond that of the Western requirement of
the written word. So the objection was an instance of
misrepresentation, which, though disgraceful, is nevertheless too
common. But in any case the Swami would have none of it.
Untruthfulness! Social rigidity! What were these, except very, very
relative terms? And as to untruthfulness in particular, could
commercial life, or social life, or any other form of co-operation go on
for a day, if men did not trust men? Untruthfulness as a necessity of
etiquette? And how was that different from the Western idea? Is the

Englishman always glad and always sorry at the proper place? But
there is still a difference of degree? Perhaps but only of degree!
Or he might wander as far afield as Italy, greatest of the countries
of Europe, land or religion and of art; alike of imperial organization and
of Mazzini; mother of ideas, of culture, and of freedom!
One day it was Shivaji and the Mahrattas and the years
wanderings as a sannyasi, that won him home to Raigarh. And to this
day, said Swami, authority in India dreads the sannyasi, lest he
conceals beneath his yellow garb another Shivaji.
Often the enquiry, who and what are the Aryans? absorbed his
attention; and, holding that their origin was complex, he would tell us
how in Switzerland he had felt himself to be in China, so alike were the
types. He believed too that the same was true of some parts of
Norway. Then there were scraps of information about countries of
physiognomies, an impassioned tale of Hungarian scholar, who traced
the Huns to Tibet, and lies buried in Darjeeling and so on....
Sometimes the Swami would deal with the rift between Brahmins
and Kshatriyas, painting the whole history of India as a struggle
between the two, and showing that the latter had always embodied
the rising, fetter-destroying impulses of the nation. He could give
excellent reason too for the faith that was in him that the Kayasthas of
modern Bengal represented the pre-Mauryan Kshatriyas. He would
portray the two opposing types of culture, the one classical, intensive,
and saturated with an ever-deepening sense of tradition and custom;
the other, defiant, impulsive, and liberal in its outlook. It was part of a
deep-lying law of the historic development that Rama, Krishna, and
Buddha had all arisen in the kingly, and not in the priestly caste. And in
this paradoxical moment, Buddhism was reduced to a caste-smashing
formula"a religion invented by the Kshatriyas" as a crushing
rejoinder to Brahminism!
That was a great hour indeed, when he spoke of Buddha; for,
catching a word that seemed to identify him with its anti-Brahminical
spirit, an uncomprehending listener said, "Why, Swami, I did not know
that you were a Buddhist!" "Madam," he said rounding on her, his

whole face aglow with the inspiration of that name: "I am the servant
of the servants of the servants of Buddha. Who was there ever like
Him? the Lord who never performed one action for Himself
with a heart that embraced the whole world! So full of pity that He
prince and monk would give His life to save a little goat! So loving
that He sacrificed Himself to the hunger of a tigress! to the
hospitality of a pariah and blessed him ! And He came into my room
when I was a boy and I fell at His feet! For I knew it was the Lord
Himself!"
Many times he spoke of Buddha in this fashion, sometimes at
Belur and sometimes afterwards. And once he told us the story of
Ambapali, the beautiful courtesan who feasted Him, in words that
recalled the revolt of Rossetti's great half-sonnet of Mary Magdalene:
O loose me! Seest thou not my Bridegroom's face,
That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss,
My hair, my tears, He craves today: And oh!
What words can tell what other day and place
Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His?
He needs me, calls me, loves me, let me go?
But national feeling did not have it all its own way. For one
morning when the chasm seemed to be widest, there was a long talk
on Bhakti the perfect identity with the Beloved that the devotion of
Raya Ramananda, the Bengali nobleman who was a contemporary of
Chaitanya, so beautifully illustrates:
Four eyes met. There were changes in two souls.
And now I cannot remember whether he is a man
And I a woman, or he a woman and I a man!
All I know is, there were two, Love came, and there is one!
It was that same morning that he talked of the Babists of Persia
in their era of martyrdomof the woman who inspired and the man
who worshipped and worked. And doubtless then he expatiated on
that theory of his somewhat quaint and surprising to unaccustomed
minds, not so much for the matter of the statement, as for the

explicitness of the expressionof the greatness and goodness of the

young, who can love without seeking personal expression for their
love, and their high potentiality.
Another day coming at sunrise when the snows could be seen,
dawn lighted, from the garden, it was Shiva and Uma on whom he
dwelt; and that was Shiva, up there, the white snow-peaks, and the
light that fell upon Him was the Mother of the World! For a thought on
which at this time he was dwelling much was that God is the Universe
not within it, or outside it, and not the universe God or the image of
God but He it, and the All.
Sometimes all through the summer he would sit for hours telling
us stories, those cradle-tales of Hinduism, whose function is not at all
that of our nursery fictions, but much more, like the man-making
myths of the old Hellenic world. Best of all these I thought was the
story of Shuka, and we looked on the Shiva-mountains and the bleak
scenery of Almora the evening we heard it for the first time.
Shuka, the typical Paramahamsa, refused to be born for fifteen
years, because he knew that his birth would mean his mother's death.
Then his father appealed to Uma, the Divine Mother. She was
perpetually tearing down the veil of Maya before the hidden Saint, and
Vyasa pleaded that She should cease this, or his son would never come
to birth. Uma consented, for one moment only, and that moment the
child was born. He came forth a young man, sixteen years of age,
unclothed, and went straight forward, knowing neither his father nor
his mother, straight on, followed by Vyasa. Then, coming round a
mountain-pass his body melted away from him, because it was not
different from the universe, and his father following and crying, "O my
son! O my son!" was answered only by the echo, "Om! Om! Om!"
among the rocks. Then Shuka resumed his body, and came to his
father to get knowledge from him. But Vyasa found that he had none
for him, and sent him to Janaka, king of Mithila, the father of Sita, if
perchance he might have some to give. Three days he sat outside the
royal gates, unheeded, without a change of expression or of look. The
fourth day he was suddenly admitted to the king's presence with clat.
Still there was no change.

Then as a test, the powerful sage who was the king's prime
minister translated himself into a beautiful woman, so beautiful that
every one present had to turn away from the sight of her, and none
dared speak. But Shuka went up to her and drew her to sit beside him
on his mat, while he talked to her of God.
Then the minister turned to Janaka saying, "Know, O King, if you
seek the greatest man on earth, this is he!"
"There is little more told of the life of Shuka. He is the ideal
Paramahamsa. To him alone amongst men was it given to drink a
handful of the waters of that One Undivided Ocean of Sat-ChitAnanda-Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss Absolute! Most saints die,
having heard only the thunder of Its waves upon the shore. A few gain
the vision and still fewer, taste of It. But he drank of the Sea of
Bliss!"
Shuka was indeed the Swami's saint. He was the type, to him, of
that highest realization to which life and the world are merely play.
Long after, we learned how Shri Ramakrishna had spoken of him in his
boyhood as, "My Shuka". And never can I forget the look, as of' one
gazing far into depths of joy, with which he once stood and quoted the
words of Shiva, in praise of the deep spiritual significance of the
Bhagavad-Gita, and of the greatness of Shuka "I know (the real
meaning of the teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita), and Shuka knows, and
perhaps Vyasa knows a little!"
Another day in Almora the Swami talked of the great humanizing
lives that had arisen in Bengal, at the long inrolling wash of the first
wave of modern consciousness on the ancient shores of Hindu culture.
Of Rammohun Roy we had already heard from him at Naini Tal. And
now of the Pandit Vidyasagar he exclaimed, "There is not a man of my
age in Northern India, on whom his shadow has not fallen!" It was a
great joy to him to remember that these men and Shri Ramakrishna
had all been born within a few miles of each other.
The Swami introduced Vidyasagar to us now as "the hero of
widow remarriage, and of the abolition of polygamy". But his favourite
story about him was of that day when he went home from the

Legislative Council, pondering over the question of whether or not to

adopt English dress on such occasions. Suddenly someone came up to
a fat Mogul who was proceeding homewards in a leisurely and
pompous fashion, in front of him, with the news, "Sir, your house is on
fire!" The Mogul went neither faster nor slower for this information,
and presently the messenger contrived to express a discreet
astonishment, whereupon his master turned on him angrily. "Wretch!"
he said, "Am I to abandon the gait of my ancestors, because a few
sticks happen to be burning?" And Vidyasagar walking behind,
determined to stick to the chuddar, dhoti, and sandals, not even
adopting coat and slippers.
The picture of Vidyasagar going into retreat for a month for the
study of the Shastras, when his mother had suggested to him the
remarriage of child-widows, was very forcible. "He came out of his
retirement of opinion that they were not against such remarriage, and
he obtained the signatures of the pandits that they agreed in this
opinion. Then the action of certain native princes led the pandits to
abandon their own signatures, so that, had the Government not
determined to assist the movement, it could not have been carried
"And now", added the Swami, "the difficulty has an economic rather
than a social basis."
We could believe that a man who was able to discredit polygamy
by moral force alone, was "intensely spiritual". And it was wonderful
indeed to realize the Indian indifference to a formal creed, when we
heard how this giant was driven by the famine of 1864 when
140,000 people died of hunger and disease to have nothing more to
do with God, and become entirely agnostic in thought.
With this man, as one of the educators of Bengal, the Swami
coupled the name of David Hare, the old Scotsman and atheist to
whom the clergy of Calcutta refused Christian burial. He died of
nursing an old pupil through cholera. So his own boys carried his dead
body and buried it in a swamp, and made the grave a place of
pilgrimage. That place has now become College Square, the
educational centre, and his school is now within the University. And to
this day, Calcutta students make pilgrimage to the tomb.

On this day we took advantage of the natural turn of the

conversation to cross-question the Swami as to the possible influence
that Christianity might have exerted over himself. He was much
amused to hear that such a statement had been hazarded, and told us
with much pride of his only contact with missionary influences, in the
person of his old Scotch master, Mr. Hastie. This hot-headed, old man
lived on nothing, and regarded his room as his boys' home as much as
his own. It was he who had first sent the Swami to Shri Ramakrishna;
and, towards the end of his stay in India, he used to say, "Yes, my boy,
you were right, you were right! It is true that all is God!" "I am
proud of him!" cried the Swami, "but I don't think you could say that
he had Christianized me much!" It appeared, indeed, that he had only
been his pupil for some six months, having attended college so
irregularly that the Presidency College refused to send him up for his
degree, though he undertook to pass!
We heard charming stories, too, on less serious subjects. There
was the lodging-house in an American city, for instance, where he had
had to cook his own food, and where he would meet, in the course of
operations, "an actress who ate roast turkey every day, and a husband
and wife who lived by making ghosts". And when the Swami
remonstrated, with the husband, and tried to persuade him to give up
deceiving people, saying "You ought not to do this!" the wife would
come up behind, and say eagerly, "Yes Sir! That's just what I tell him;
for he makes all the ghosts, and Mrs. Williams takes all the money.
He told us also of a young engineer, an educated man, who, at a
spiritualistic gathering, when the fat Mrs. Williams appeared from
behind the screen as his thin mother, exclaimed "Mother dear, how
you have grown in the spirit-world!"
"At this," said the Swami, "my heart broke, for I thought there
could be no hope for the man." But never at a loss, he told the story of
a Russian painter, who was ordered to paint the picture of a peasant's
dead father, the only description given being, "Man! Don't I tell you he
had a wart on his nose?" When at last, therefore, the painter had
made a portrait of some stray peasant, and affixed a large wart to the
nose, the picture was declared to be ready, and the son was told to

come and see it. He stood in front of it, greatly overcome, and said,
"Father! Father! How changed you are since I saw you last!" After this,
the young engineer would never speak to the Swami again, which
showed at least that he could see the point of a story. But at this, the
Hindu monk was genuinely astonished....
June 9th. This Thursday morning there was a talk on Krishna. It
was characteristic of the Swami's mind, and characteristic also of the
Hindu culture from which he had sprung, that he could lend himself to
the enjoyment and portrayal of an idea one day, that the next would
see submitted to a pitiless analysis and left slain upon the field. He was
a sharer to the full in the belief of his people that, provided an idea
was spiritually true and consistent, it mattered very little about its
objective actuality. And this mode of thought had first been suggested
to him, in his boyhood, by his own Master. He had mentioned some
doubt as to the authenticity of a certain religious history. "What!" said
Shri Ramakrishna, "do you not then think those who could conceive
such ideas must have been the thing itself?"
The existence of Krishna, then like that of Christ, he often told us,
"in the general way" he doubted. Buddha and Mohammed alone,
amongst religious teachers, had been fortunate enough to have
enemies as well as friends, so that their historical careers were
beyond dispute. As for Krishna, he was the most shadowy of all. "A
poet, a cowherd, a great ruler, a warrior, and a sage had all perhaps
been merged in one beautiful figure, holding the Gita in his hand."
But today, Krishna was "the most perfect of the Avataras". And a
wonderful picture followed, of the charioteer who reined in his horses,
while he surveyed the field of battle and in one brief glance noted the
disposition of the forces, at the same moment that he commenced to
utter to his royal pupil the deep spiritual truths of the Gita.
... And the Swami was fond of a statement... that the Krishnaworshippers of India had exhausted the possibilities of the romantic
motive in lyric poetry.
June 10th. It was our last afternoon at Almora that we heard the
story of the fatal illness of Shri Ramakrishna. Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar

had been called in, and had pronounced the disease to be cancer of
the throat, leaving the young disciples with many warnings as to its
infectious nature. Half an hour later, "Naren", as he then was, came in
and found them huddled together, discussing the dangers of the case.
He listened to what they had been told, and then, looking down, saw
at his feet the cup of gruel that had been partly taken by Shri
Ramakrishna and which must have contained in it the germs of the
fatal discharges of mucus and pus, as it came out in his baffled
attempts to swallow the thing, on account of the stricture of the foodpassage in the throat. He picked it up, and drank from it, before them
all. Never was the infection of cancer mentioned amongst the disciples
again.
The Swami met many residents of Almora, and also some noted
people from other parts of India who had gone there to spend the
summer months. To all of them he gave religious instruction. He met
Mrs. Annie Besant twice. She was staying at the house of Shri G. N.
Chakravarty, son-in-law of Shri Gaganbabu of Ghazipur, with whom the
Swami had stayed as a wandering monk. The wife of Shri Chakravarty,
who already knew the Swami, invited him to tea one day. This was the
first occasion on which he met Mrs. Besant. They had a long
conversation with each other. During the course of it Mrs. Besant
appealed to the Swami for friendship between her organization and
his, all over the world. Their second meeting was on May 20, when she
was invited to the Swami's place of residence for tea.
At Almora the police were watching the Swami's movements. His
association with the Western disciples may have set them guessing;
Especially his association with Nivedita, who had earlier had some
connection with the Irish revolution. In her letter of May 22 to Mrs.
Eric Hammond, she wrote:
One of the monks has had a warning this morning that the police
are watching the Swami, through spiesof course, we know this in a
general way but this brings it pretty close, and I cannot help
attaching some importance to it, though the Swami laughs. The
Government must be mad or at least will prove so if he is interfered
with. That would be the torch to carry fire through the country and I

the most loyal Englishwoman that ever breathed in this country... will
be the first to light up. You could not imagine what race-hatred means,
living in England. Manliness seems a barrier to nothing three white
women travelling with the Swami and other "natives" lay
themselves and their friends open to horrid insults mais nous
changerons tout cela [but we will change all that].
Though full of fun at times, the Swami often spoke of the torture
of life, and would enter into a meditative mood. A strange longing for
quiet took hold of him. On Wednesday, May 25, he left the circle of
friends and disciples, and retired to Shiyadevi, some distance from
Almora. There he was in the silence of the forests for ten hours each
day. However, on returning to his tent in the evening, he found a
number of people seeking him even there; so he returned to Almora
on Saturday. But he was radiant, for he had proved to himself that he
could be again "the old-time sannyasi, able to go barefoot, and endure
heat, cold, and scanty fare, unspoilt by the West". On the following
Monday, May 30, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, the Swami left
Almora for a week, partly in search of seclusion, and partly on
business, in connection with the possible purchase of an estate for his
monastery. But this possibility came to nothing.
Soon after he reached Almora the Swami was pained to hear from
Christine Greenstidel of the demise of his admirer and friend Mrs.
Bagley. On May 20 he wrote in reply:
I hope to start a home on the Himalayas somewhere near Almora
for my Western friends very soon. I will work between Calcutta and the
Himalayas. I am tired of trudging about at any rate, and just want a
real rest and repose; would I found it sooner.
Don't you work yourself out, dear Christina. Take a long long rest.
Duty has no end, and the world is extremely selfish.
... I am so sorry to learn of the death of Mrs. Bagley. She was a
good friend....
Now, on returning to Almora on Sunday evening, June 5, the
Swami met with two heavy blows: news of the death of Pavhari Baba,

whom, as he had once said, he loved "second only to Shri

Ramakrishna"; and news of the death of his dear disciple J. J. Goodwin.
Our last mention of Mr. Goodwin was of his being with the Swami
at Lahore in November 1897, from where he had sent a report of the
Swami's activities to the Brahmavadin. As we know, he had been sent
to Madras in July 1897 from Almora with the idea of starting a daily
paper in English, and also to help Alasinga with the Brahmavadin work:
but destiny had arranged otherwise. His letters tell the story. On
September 16, 1897, he wrote to Mrs. Bull. "I have joined the staff of
the Mail. They asked me to several times, and as they allow me perfect
liberty to make the Swami's work my first interest, and as, also, it will
enable me to keep myself here, and help my mother out, I joined. My
sister is being married and my mother will join me, as she will not care
to remain at home under the new conditions...... On May 5, 1898, he
wrote to Miss MacLeod from Garden View, Ootacamund, South India:
When I came to India, I need not say what my feelings were with
regard to Swamiji, but I have been here sixteen months, and I have
completely come round to your point of view. I will do anything for him
[the Swami] personally, but I simply do not care a pin for anything else.
If I do any of his work, it will be merely because he wishes it. Partly for
this reason, I am for the present really out of the work altogether. I
also felt that, recognising as I did that I could do absolutely nothing to
help, although I really tried in Madras, it was wrong to remain a
burden on him or his, and for that reason I formed [joined] the Mail.... I
have not seen the Swami since last November.
I realize more and more every day that the Swami is not a Hindu
as Hindus go; because everything must he judged by the sum total,
and the sum total of India is meanness, and petty scheming, and not
religion....
On June 3 a telegram was received by the Western disciples at
Almora: "Goodwin died last night at Ootacamund." He had died of
enteric fever on June 2; but the news was not broken to the Swami till
the morning of Monday, June 6, when he went early to Mrs. Bull's
bungalow. Taking the loss calmly, he sat down and talked quietly with

his Western disciples. That morning he was full of Bhakti and of how it
must pass through asceticism if it is to be out of the reach of the sweet
snares of personality.
"What is this idea of Bhakti without renunciation?" he said. "It is
most pernicious!" And standing there for an hour or more, he talked of
the awful self-discipline that one must impose on oneself, if one would
indeed be unattached, of the requisite nakedness of selfish motives,
and of the danger that at any moment the most flowerlike soul might
have its petals soiled with the grosser stains of life. He told the story of
an Indian nun who was asked when a man could be certain of safety on
this road, and who sent back, for answer, a little plate of ashes. For the
fight against passion was long and fierce, and at any moment the
conqueror might become the conquered.
And as he talked, it seemed that this banner of renunciation was
the flag of a great victory, that poverty and self-mastery were the only
fit raiment for the soul that would wed the Eternal Bridegroom, and
that life was a long opportunity for giving, and the thing not taken
away from us was to he mourned as lost....
But the Swami's tender heart was indeed afflicted by the loss of a
loving disciple who had served him for so long with the warmest
devotion. At the time of hearing the news, he had remarked: "Now my
right hand is gone. My loss is incalculable." And as the hours passed, he
"complained of the weakness that brought the image of his most
faithful disciple constantly to his mind. It was no more manly, he
protested, to be thus ridden by one's memory, than to retain the
characteristics of the fish or the do. Man must conquer this illusion,
and know that the dead are here beside us and with us, as much as
ever. It is their absence and separation that are a myth. And then he
would break out again with some bitter utterance against the folly of
imagining Personal Will to guide the universe. 'As if', he exclaimed, 'it
would not be one's right and duty to fight such a God and slay Him, for
killing Goodwin! And Goodwin, if he had lived, could have done so
much!' And in India one was free to recognize this as the most
religious, because the most unflinchingly truthful, mood of all!"

He took away a few faulty lines of someone's writing and brought

back a beautiful little poem, Requiescat in Pace, in which nothing of
the original was left. This was sent to Goodwin's widowed mother, as
his memorial of her son, along with a short letter:
Speed forth, O Soul! upon thy star-strewn path;
Speed, blissful one! where thought is ever free,
Where time and space no longer mist the view,
Eternal peace and blessings be with thee!
Thy service true, complete thy sacrifice,
Thy home the heart of love transcendent find;
Remembrance sweet, that kills all space and time,
Like altar roses fill they place behind!
Thy bonds are broke, thy quest in bliss is found;
And one with That which comes as Death and Life;
Thou helpful one! unselfish e'er on earth,
Ahead! still help with love this world of strife!
The debt of gratitude I owe him can never be repaid and those
who think they have been helped by any thought of mine, ought to
know that almost every word of it was published through the untiring
and most unselfish exertions of Mr. Goodwin. In him I have lost a
friend true as steel, a disciple of never-failing devotion, a worker who
knew not what tiring was, and the world is less rich by one of those
few who are horn, as it were, to live only for others.
Of Pavhari Baba's death, the Swami had learnt directly, by letter.
This had been waiting for him on his return to Almora on Sunday June
5. When he met the Western disciples in the evening of that day,
which was the day before the news of Goodwin's death was given to
him, they saw darkness hanging over his face. He broke his silence by
saying, "I have just received a letter that says, 'Pavhari Baba has
completed all his sacrifices with the sacrifice of his own body. He has

burnt himself in his sacrificial fire.' "Someone asked, "Wasn't that

wrong?" The Swami replied, "How can I tell? He was too great a man
for me to judge. He knew himself what he was doing."
Another rude shock that the Swami had received since coming to
Almora, was caused by the death of B. R. Rajam Iyer, Editor of
Prabuddha Bharata, then published from Madras. Rajam Iyer was a
gifted young man of twenty-six when he died. He was a true Vedantist
and an ardent admirer. of the Swami. Following his death in May 1898,
the magazine had ceased publication after the June issue. The Swami
had always had a special affection for it, managed as it was by his
Madrasi disciples at his behest. He now wished to revive it with the
help of Mr. and Mrs. Sevier and Swami Swarupananda. He said to Mr.
Sevier: "Sevier, you said you would work for the good of India. The
climate of Bengal will not suit you. So why don't you stay somewhere
near Almora and undertake to conduct Prabuddha Bharata? The
journal has got over three thousand subscribers. It was first printed on
my advice, and has gradually become a notable instrument for the
dissemination of Vedantic knowledge. I don't wish that it should be
discontinued. And I am giving you a capable editor. Swami
Swarupananda has particular experience in that line, and with the help
of yourself and Swami Turiyananda, he will easily be able to run it."
It was agreed that the Prabuddha Bharata office should be
transferred from Madras to "Thomson House", the rented house at
Almora where Mr. and Mrs. Sevier had been staying. The printingpress and materials were brought up from Calcutta, and the first issue
from the Almora office was published in August 1898, under the
editorship of Swami Swarupananda. Mr. Sevier acted as manager. He
also met all the initial expenses in connection with the purchase and
transport of the hand-press, the type, paper, and other things needed.
Up at Almora, as also many a time before, the Swami spoke of his
intention of starting papers in English and in the regional languages, to
be conducted by his brother-disciples and his own disciples. More and
more he felt the need for them, in conjunction with public preaching,
monastic centres, and Homes of Service, as means of giving India his
Master's teaching and his own message. We have mentioned more

than once that he thought of bringing out a daily paper, and had sent J.
J. Goodwin to Madras partly for that purpose. The importance that he
attached to the publication of journals, and the personal interest he
took in it, is evident from his correspondence earlier in 1898. In March
he wrote to Swami Ramakrishnananda from the Math, Belur:
The Dawn can manage with 200 subscribers to come out regularly
on Rs. 40/- an issue expenditure. This is a great fact to know. The P. B.
[Prabuddha Bharata] seems to be very disorganized; try best to
organize it. Poor Alasinga, I am sorry for him. Only thing I can do is to
make him entirely free for a year so that he may devote all his energy
to Brahmavadin work. Tell him not to worry; I have him always in
mind, poor child; his devotion I can never repay....
On April 23 the Swami wrote to Swami Brahmananda from
Darjeeling about a projected Calcutta journal: "Nityagopal says,
managing an English magazine will not cost much. So let us first get
this one out, and we shall see to the Bengali magazine afterwards. All
these points will have to be discussed. Is Yogen willing to shoulder the
responsibility of running the paper?..."
Although this Calcutta plan of the Swami's did not materialize, he
at least could leave Almora with the satisfaction of knowing that
Prabuddha Bharata, or Awakened India, would be published from
there as soon as the arrangements that he had made could be put into
effect. When he reached Srinagar, he sent, for the first number of the
revived magazine, a poem "To the Awakened India", calling on
Prabuddha Bharata to resume its march, and to speak its stirring
words, "till Truth, and Truth alone, in all its glory shines".
Some time in May or June, while the Swami was staying at Almora
with Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, Aswinikumar Datta, the saintly patriot of
Bengal, visited the town in the course of his travels. Aswinibabu
learned from his cook that a strange Bengali sadhu was staying in the
town, who spoke English, rode horses, and moved about in a lordly
style. From the papers he already knew that the Swami was then
staying at Almora, and therefore had no difficulty in identifying the
strange sadhu as the warrior-monk Vivekananda. He accordingly went

out to find the "Hindu Warrior". Nobody could tell him the
whereabouts of "Swami Vivekananda"; but when he enquired about
the "Bengali sadhu", a passer-by said, "You mean the riding sadhu?
There he is, coming on horseback! That is his house, sir." Aswinibabu
saw from a distance that as soon as the ochre-robed sannyasi reached
the bungalow-gate, an Englishman came and led the horse to the door,
where the Swami dismounted and went in.
A little while after, Aswinibabu went into the compound and
enquired at the door, "Is Naren Datta here?" A young monk answered
in disgust, "No sir, there is no Naren Datta here. He died long ago.
There is only Swami Vivekananda." Aswinibabu said that he did not
want Swami Vivekananda, but Paramahamsa Deva's Narendra. This
conversation reached the Swami's cars. He sent for the disciple and
asked what the matter was. The young monk said, "A gentleman is
enquiring about Naren Datta Paramahamsa's Narendra. I told him
that he died long ago, but that he might see Swami Vivekananda." The
Swami exclaimed, "Oh what have you done! Just show him in."
Aswinibabu was accordingly asked in. He found the Swami seated in an
easy chair. On seeing Aswinibabu, the Swami stood up and greeted
him cordially. Aswinibabu said, "The Master once asked me to speak to
his dear Narendra; but Narendra could not speak with me much on
that occasion. Fourteen years have passed by: I meet him again. The
Master's words cannot he in vain." The Swami sincerely regretted not
having been able to have a long talk with him on the first occasion. This
astonished Aswinibabu, for he had scarcely expected that the Swami
would remember him and a few minutes' conversation held so long
ago.
When Aswinibabu addressed him as "Swamiji", the Swami
interrupted him, saying, "How is that? When did I become a 'Swami' to
you? I am still the same Narendra. The name by which the Master used
to call me is a priceless treasure. Call me by that name."
Aswinibabu: "You have travelled over the world and inspired
millions of hearts with spirituality. Can you tell me which way lies
India's salvation?"

The Swami: "I have nothing more to tell you than what you heard
from the Master that religion is the very essence of our being, that
all reforms must come through it to be acceptable to the masses. To
do otherwise is as impracticable as pushing the Ganga back to its
source in the Himalayas and making it flow in a new channel."
A: "But have you no faith in what [the Indian National] Congress
doing?"
S: "No, I have not. But, of course, something is better than
nothing, and it is good to give the sleeping nation a shove from all
sides to wake it up. Can you tell me what Congress has been doing for
the masses? Do you think merely passing a few resolutions will bring
you freedom? I have no faith in that. The masses must be awakened
first. Let them have full meals, and they will work out their own
salvation. If Congress does anything for them, it has my sympathy. The
virtues of Englishmen should also be assimilated."
A: "Is it any particular creed you mean by 'religion'?"
S: "Did the Master preach any particular creed? But he has spoken
of the Vedanta as an all-comprehensive and synthetic religion.
Therefore I also preach it. But the essence of my religion is strength.
The religion that does not infuse strength into the heart, is no religion
to me, be it of the Upanishads, the Gita or the Bhagavata. Strength is
religion, and nothing is greater than strength."
A: "Please tell me what I should do."
S: "I understand that you are engaged in some educational work.
That is real work. A great power is working in you, and the gift of
knowledge is a great one. But see that a man-making education
spreads among the masses. The next thing is the building up of
character. Make your students' character as strong as a thunderbolt.
Of the bones of the Bengali youths shall be made the thunderbolt that
shall destroy India's thraldom. Can you give me a few fit boys? A nice
shake I can give to the world then.
"And wherever you hear the Radha-Krishna songs going on, use
the whip right and left. The whole nation is going to rack and ruin!
People with no self-control indulging in such songs! Even the slightest

impurity is a great hindrance to the understanding of these high ideals.

Is it a joke? We have long sung and danced: no harm if there is a lull for
a time. In the meanwhile let the country wax strong.
"And go to the untouchables, the cobblers, the sweepers, and
others of their kind, and tell them, 'You are the Soul of the nation. In
you lies infinite energy, which can revolutionize the world. Stand up,
shake off your shackles, and the whole world will wonder at you.' Go
and found schools among them, and invest them with the 'sacred
thread'."
Since it was the Swami's breakfast time, Aswinibabu rose to take
leave. But before going, he asked the Swami, "Is it true that when the
Madras Brahmins called you a Shudra who had no right to preach the
Vedas, you said, 'If I am a Shudra, Ye, the Brahmins of Madras are the
Pariahs of the Pariahs'?"
S: "Yes."
A: "Was it becoming of you, a religious teacher and a man of selfcontrol, to retort like that?"
S: "Who says so? I never said I was right. The impudence of these
people made me lose my temper, and the words came out. What could
I do? But I do not justify them."
At this, Aswinibabu embraced the Swami and said, "Today you rise
higher than ever in my estimation. Now I realize why you are a worldconqueror and why the Master loved you so much!"
To return to events following Goodwin's death, the Swami now
grew restless, and impatient to be away and alone. He no longer
wished to remain where the news of it had reached him, where letters
were received and constantly had to be written, with the result that his
wound was kept open. It was decided to spend some time in Kashmir.
On June 11 (1898), therefore, with the women disciples who had come
with him from Calcutta, he left Almora for Kashmir. They went as
guests of Mrs. Ole Bull.

IN KASHMIR: AMARNATH AND KSHIR-BHAVANI

The journey down to the plains, through hills covered with almost
tropical forest, was delightful. On the way the Swami pointed out a
certain hillside which, so legend had it, was inhabited by a race of
centaurs. He himself had once seen a phantom of such kind before
ever hearing of the legend. On June 12 the party reached the
enchanting lake Bhim Tal, overlooking which they rested. In his talk
that afternoon the Swami translated some Vedic verses of great
beauty, and also some songs of Surdas and other poet devotees.
Before giving the English translation he chanted, in his intense, poetic
way, each line in the original. The Rudra-prayer he rendered thus:
From the unreal, lead us to the Real.
From darkness, lead us unto Light.
From death, lead us to Immortality.
Reach us through and through our self.
And evermore protect us O Thou Terrible!
From ignorance, by Thy sweet compassionate Face.
The verses invoking peace and blessing were rendered:
The blissful winds are sweet to us.
The seas are showering bliss on us.
May the corn in our fields bring bliss to us!
May the plants and herbs bring bliss to us!
May the cattle give us bliss!
O Father in Heaven, be Thou blissful unto us!
The very dust of the earth is full of bliss.
It is all bliss, all bliss, all bliss.
The party reached Kathgodam from Almora after two and a half
days. The hills, and the pine and deodar forests, were left behind. They

took train for the Punjab, which was reached on June 14. Passing
through Ludhiana, Lahore, and across the Doab, they arrived at
Rawalpindi. From Rawalpindi they went by tonga to Murree, reaching
on June 15, where they stayed for three days. Sister Nivedita recalls:
Here the Swami came to the conclusion that any effort which he
might make to induce the orthodox to accept a European as a fellowdisciple, or in the direction of woman's education, had better be made
in Bengal. The distrust of the foreigner was too strong in Punjab, to
admit of work succeeding there. He was much occupied by this
question, from time to time, and would sometimes remark on the
paradox presented by the Bengali combination of political antagonism
to the English, and readiness to love and trust.
Starting on June 18 the party made their way to Srinagar, partly by
tonga and partly by boat. One of them was ill; so they had to stop on
the first day after going the short distance to Dulai, where the first dak
bungalow was, across the border. They were now in the valley of the
Jhelum. Most of that afternoon they had to remain indoors on account
of a storm. Nivedita writes:
A new chapter was opened at Dulai, in our knowledge of
Hinduism, for the Swami told us, gravely and frankly, of its modern
abuses, and spoke of his own uncompromising hostility to those evil
practices which pass under the name of Vamachara. This shows that
the Swami kept nothing back from his Western disciples when
instructing them about his motherland. He told them the worst about
his people and their creeds, as well as the best. And he did not hesitate
to denounce when denunciation was called for.
On June 19 the party resumed their journey to Baramula by tonga.
The route took them along the rapidly-ascending ravine of the Jhelum,
which cuts a narrow twisting passage through the hills. The Westerners
took turns to drive with the Swami in his tonga. On the way he was in a
reminiscent mood. Speaking of Brahmavidya, the Realization of the
Absolute, and of how love conquers evil, he related the story of one of
his classmates, who subsequently became a rich man. This person was
suffering from a disease that baffled the doctors. Naturally, he lost

hope of recovery and zest for life, and turned to religion and thoughts
of dispassion. Hearing that the Swami had become a monk and an
adept in yoga, he sent for him, begging him to come, if only once. The
Swami did so; and as he sat at the patient's bedside, there came to
mind the Upanishadic text: "Him the Brahmana conquers, who thinks
that he is separate from the Brahmana. Him the Kshatriya conquers,
who thinks that he is separate from the Kshatriya. And him the
universe conquers, who thinks that he is separate from the universe."
Curiously, this acted like a charm on the sick man. The effect was
miraculous. He grasped the theme with only the recitation of the
passage, felt new strength in the body, and made a quick recovery.
"And so," said the Swami, "though I often say strange things and angry
things, yet remember that in my heart I never seriously mean to
preach anything but love. All these things will come right, if only we
realize that we love each other."
Readers will remember the fascination that Shiva had for the
Swami during his childhood. As he grew older his love for Shiva, the
Lord of monks and yogis, deepened. And now, in the Himalayas, the
abode of the Great God, the thought of Him was uppermost in the
Swami's mind. To his disciples he spoke of the Puranic conception of
the oneness of Shiva and His consort, Uma, under the guise of halfman and half-woman. It represented the junction of two great streams
of thought, Monasticism and Mother-worship; or it represented the
vision of truth where renunciation through philosophy and supreme
love become inseparable. And "he understood, he said, for the first
time this summer, the meaning of the nature-story that made the
Ganga fall on the head of the Great God, and wander in and out
amongst His matted locks, before she found an outlet on the plains
below. He had searched long, he said, for the words that the rivers and
waterfalls uttered, amongst the mountains, before he had realized that
it was the eternal cry 'Vyom! Vyom! Hara!' 'Yes!' he said of Shiva one
day, 'He is the Great God, calm, beautiful, and silent; and I am His great
worshipper'."
On the 19th evening the party stopped at the Uri dak bungalow
and in the twilight, they all walked in the meadows and through the

bazaar. They were charmed with the place. A little mud fortress
overhung the footpath as it swept into a great open theatre of field
and hill. Along the road, above the river, lay the bazaar. They returned
to the dak bungalow by a path across the fields, past cottage gardens
where roses bloomed. The next day, driving through the most
beautiful part of the pass, with cathedral-like rocks and an old ruined
temple of the Sun, the party reached Baramula.
As they entered further into Kashmir, the Swami's mind was filled
with the legends of the Kashmiris. The Vale of Kashmir had once been
a lake; and it is related that at this point where the party were entering
the Vale, the Divine Boar pierced the mountains with his tusks, and let
the Jhelum go through. From the scenic point of view alone, the
journey was fascinating. Groups of singing peasants; pilgrims and
monks wending their way along tortuous paths to sacred shrines; irises
in bloom on every hillside; green fields; valleys ringed round with
snow-clad mountains; the poplars in the neighbourhood of Islamabad
(now Anantnag); and the immense chenar trees to be seen everywhere
all these made pictures never to be forgotten.
No matter where he travelled, the Swami would try to identify
himself with the people and adopt some of their habits. So here in
Kashmir one finds him drinking Kashmiri tea from a samovar and
eating the local jam after the fashion of the people. Since he had
brought no attendants with him, he had to look to every detail himself,
and make all the arrangements, such as hiring the Dungas
(houseboats) and so forth. But here at Baramula he had immediately
fallen in with a man who, on hearing his name, had undertaken to
attend to the whole business, and had sent him back free of
responsibility. About four in the afternoon the party started for
Srinagar in three houseboats. Next day they found themselves in a
beautiful valley, with snow-peaks all round. This is known as the Vale
of Kashmir, though it might more accurately be described as the Vale
of Srinagar. Sometimes their course lay through large green tangles of
lotus leaves, with here and there a flower or two. On each side
stretched green fields. "The whole was", Sister Nivedita writes, "a
symphony in blue and green and white, so exquisitely pure and vivid

that for a while the response of the soul to its beauty was almost
pain!"
On the next day of their journey far up the Jhelum river, when the
boats were moored near a village, the Swami took his companions out
for a long walk across the fields. He turned into a farmyard in order to
introduce them to a woman of whose faith and self-assurance he had
spoken not only in conversation, but even in one of his speeches in
Calcutta. In that farmyard they found, seated under a tree, a
handsome elderly woman. She was spinning wool, while round her,
helping her, were her two daughters-in-law and their children. The
Swami had called at this farm the previous year to beg a glass of water.
After drinking, he had asked her in a mild tone, "And what religion is
yours, mother?" "Thank God, sir," the woman had said, with triumph in
her voice, "by the mercy of the Lord, I am a Mussulman!" On the
present occasion the Swami was warmly welcomed by the whole
family, and every courtesy was shown to his friends.
On one of these walks Sister Nivedita complained to the Swami of
the abandonment of feeling that she had seen at the Kalighat temple
in Calcutta. "Why do they kiss the ground before the image?" she
asked. The Swami became very quiet, and then said, "Is it not the same
thing to kiss the ground before that image, as to kiss the ground before
these mountains ?"
After two to three days they reached Srinagar, the capital of
Kashmir. They collected their long-accumulated mail and decided on
the programme of their holiday. They thought it better to see the
country first and afterwards to make a retreat.
The period from June 22 to July 15 was spent in houseboats on the
Jhelum, in and about Srinagar. It was an unparalleled educational
experience for the Swami's companions. Many excursions were made;
and many were the discussions. Sometimes the Swami became so
interested in these latter that he forgot all thought of food. The topics
were various: for instance, the different religious periods through
which Kashmir had passed, with special attention given to the period
under Kanishka; the morality of Buddhism and the religious

imperialism of Ashoka; and again the history of Shiva-worship. One day

he spoke of the conquests of Chenghis Khan, of whom he said, "He was
not a vulgar aggressor." The Swami compared him with Napoleon and
Alexander, saying that Chenghis Khan, like these other two, "was
inspired with the thought of unity; he wanted to unify his world".
Those three were perhaps one soul, "manifesting itself in three
different conquests", in the same way that one Soul might have come
again and again as Krishna, Buddha, and Christ, to bring about the
unity of man in God ', in the world of religious realities. Often the talk
would be on the Gita, "that wonderful poem, without one note in it of
weakness or unmanliness".
The transfer of Prabuddha Bharata from Madras to Almora was
much in the Swami's thoughts. During this period in Srinagar, as
already mentioned, he composed the poem "To the Awakened India"
and sent it to Swami Swarupananda for the first resumed number.
Sister Nivedita relates: "One afternoon he brought to us, as we sat
together, a paper on which he had 'tried to write a letter, but it would
come this way!' " (i.e. in the form of a poem).
On June 26 the Swami suddenly felt a longing to leave the party
and go to a quiet place all alone. But not knowing that this was his
intention, the party followed him to the Coloured Springs, called KshirBhavani (or Kheer Bhawani). It was said to be the first time that
Christian or Muslim had set foot there. The irony of the occasion was
that the Muslim boatman would not allow them to land with shoes on;
"so thoroughly Hinduistic", says Nivedita,, "is the Mohammedanism of
Kashmir, with its forty Rishis, and pilgrimages made fasting, to their
[i.e. the Hindus'] shrines".
Whenever the Swami felt a desire for solitude, he would break
away from the little company to roam about alone. When he returned,
he would be radiant from his contact with the Source of all Knowledge.
After such occasions he would say now and again, "It is a sin even to
think of the body"; or, "It is wrong to manifest power!" Or again,
"Things do not grow better. They remain as they were, and we grow
better, by the changes we make in them." He was constantly
interpreting human life as an expression of God. Life in society seemed

to him to be agony, so antagonistic was it to the pursuit of what he

held to be most worthwhile. He was often haunted by the old-time
monk's longing for quiet and self-effacement. Speaking of these days
Sister Nivedita writes.
The life of the silent ashen-clad wanderer, or the bidden hermit,
he thought of, it would now and then seem, as the lover might think of
the beloved. At no time would it have surprised us, had someone told
us that today or tomorrow he would be gone for ever, that we were
now listening to his voice for the last time. He, and necessarily we, in
all that depended on him, were as straws carried on the Ganga of the
Eternal Will. At any moment It might reveal Itself to him as Silence. At
any moment life in the world might end for him.
This plan-less-ness was not an accident. Never can I forget the
disgust with which he turned on myself once, a couple of years later,
when I had offered him some piece of worldly wisdom regarding his
own answer to a letter which he had brought for me to see. "Plans!
Plans!" he exclaimed in indignation. "That is why you Western people
can never create a religion! If any of you ever did, it was only a few
Catholic saints, who had no plans. Religion was never, never preached
by planners!"
Living in the shadow of that great life burning with passion for the
Highest, the Western pilgrims could understand that the Swami's own
plan-less-ness resulted from his knowledge, and that solitude and
silence were the best means of self-development. Nivedita writes that
nothing better illustrated, to the Swami's mind, "the difference
between Eastern and Western methods of thought, than the European
idea that a man could not live alone for twenty years and remain quite
sane, taken side by side with the Indian notion that till a man had been
alone for twenty years, he could not be regarded as perfectly himself"
Among the local excursions that the Swami made with his disciples
was that on July 29 to the small, massively built Shiva temple that
stands atop the Shankaracharya Hill. This hill is also known as the Takti-Suleiman, and rises a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain.
The famous floating gardens can be seen below, for miles around. The

beauty and extensive sweep of the scene drew from the Swami the
exclamation. "Look, what genius the Hindu shows in placing his
temples! He always chooses a grand scenic effect! See, the Takt
commands the whole of Kashmir. The rock of Hari Parvat rises red out
of blue water, like a lion couchant, crowned. And the temple of
Martand has the valley at its feet!" Then he launched into a lengthy
discourse on the Hindu's innate love of nature which showed itself in
his choice of sites for temples, hermitages, and monuments.
Ready for fun as the Swami usually was, he postponed a
contemplated journey to organize for his American friends a surprise
celebration of the Fourth of July, their national festival. Taking the one
non-American member of the party into his confidence, he went out
late on the afternoon of July 3 and in great excitement brought back a
Brahmana tailor. He asked his English disciple to explain to the man
how to make a replica of the American flag. The stars and stripes were
crudely represented on a piece of cotton cloth. This was nailed to the
head of the dining-room boat, where an early tea was arranged, and
surrounded with branches of the evergreens. As his own special
contribution to the occasion, he wrote a poem that was read aloud by
way of greeting. It was entitled "To the Fourth of July", and can be
interpreted as a passionate utterance of his own longing for the Final
Freedom in the Infinite. Time was to prove that it had been penned in
a prophetic vein; for, four years later, on that very day, his shackles of
work broken, he entered in "Springing joy" into the Final Freedom,
concerning which he had written.
This celebration took place during an excursion from Srinagar to
the Dal Lake, where they visited the Shalimar Bagh with its Noor Mahal
and the Nishat Bagh, two beautiful gardens, one laid out by the Mogul
emperor Jehangir, and the other by his brother-in-law, as summer
residences.
On July 5, in the evening, the Swami was pained to notice that one
of the group was counting the cherry-stones left on her plate, to see
when she would be married. He, evidently, took the play seriously; for
next morning when he joined the group, he was charged with passion
for the ideal of renunciation. Carried away by his mood, he spoke with

uncompromising scorn against those who sought to glorify the

householder's life. "Is it so easy", he asked, "to be a Janaka ? To sit on a
throne absolutely unattached? Caring nothing for wealth or fame, for
wife or child? One after another in the West has told me that he had
reached this. To them I could only say, 'Such great men are not born in
India! ' Then, taking up the other side of the matter, he said: "Never
forget to say to yourself, and to teach to your children: 'As is the
difference between a firefly and the blazing sun, between a little pond
and the infinite ocean, between a mustard seed and the mountain of
Meru, such is the difference between the householder and the
sannyasi!' Everything is fraught with fear: renunciation alone is
fearless. Blessed he even the fraudulent sadhus and those who have
failed to keep their vows, inasmuch as they also have witnessed to the
ideal, and so are in some degree the cause of the success of others !"
He pointed out that had it not been for the ochre robe, that is to say
monasticism, luxury and worldliness would have robbed man of all his
manliness.
A desire for quiet and peace seemed to grow more and more upon
the Swami in these days; and the absence of two of his American
disciples on a short visit to Gulmarg he took to be an opportunity to
carry out his design. Without revealing his plans he made preparations
for a pilgrimage to the famous Shiva shrine of Amarnath by way of
Sonamarg. On July 10 he left, penniless and alone. On the 15th he
returned, having found that route impracticable because the summer
heat had melted some of the glaciers.
The next day, or the day after, in speaking of Bhakti, of Shiva and
Uma, and of Radha and Krishna, he became so absorbed that he paid
no heed to repeated calls for breakfast. He responded at last,
reluctantly, saying, "When one has all this Bhakti, what does one want
with food?"
On July 19 the whole party started for Islamabad (Anantnag) by
boat. On the first afternoon they sought out and found the quaint old
Temple of Pandrethan (derived from Puranadhishthana meaning "old
capital"), sunken in a scum-covered pond within a wood, by the side of
the Jhelum. This is four and a half miles to the Southeast of Srinagar.

The temple is a small cell, with four doorways opening to the cardinal
points. Externally, it is a tapering pyramid supported on four-pierced
pedestal. Its top is truncated to give root-hold to a bush. Inside it, the
Swami introduced his companions to Indian archaeology and
architecture. He drew their attention to the interior decorations, with
their sun-medallion, and to the fine sculpture, in low relief, of male
and female figures intertwined with serpents. Among the outside
sculptures is a fine one of the Buddha, standing with hands uplifted, in
one of the trefoil arches of the eastern doorway. And there is a muchdefaced frieze, showing a seated woman and a tree. This evidently
represents Maya Devi, the Buddha's mother. The temple is built of
grey limestone, and dated from the tenth century A.D. "To the Swami",
writes Sister Nivedita, "the place was delightfully suggestive", and she
adds:
It was a direct memorial of Buddhism, representing one of the
four religious periods into which he had already divided the history of
Kashmir: (1) Tree and Snake-worship, from which dated all the names
of the springs ending in Nag, as Veernag, and so on; (2) Buddhism; (3)
Hinduism, in the form of Sun-worship; and (4) Mohammedanism.
Sculpture, he told us, was the characteristic art of Buddhism, and the
sun-medallion, or lotus, one of its commonest ornaments. The figures
with the serpents referred to pre-Buddhism....
It was sunset when the party returned to their boats. That silent
shrine in the woods, and the presence of the Buddha, must have
moved the Swami deeply, for, that evening, his mind overflowed with
historical comparisons. He spoke, for instance, of the points of
similarity between the Vedic and the Roman Catholic ritual, holding
the latter to have been derived from the former through Buddhism,
which was only an offshoot of Hinduism, and "was entirely within
Hinduism !" "Vedic ritual", he pointed out, "has its Mass, the offering
of food to God, your Blessed Sacrament, our Prasada. Only it is offered
sitting, not kneeling, as is common in hot countries. They kneel in
Tibet. Then, too, Vedic ritual has its lights, incense, music." When it
was suggested that Hinduism had no Common Prayer, he flashed out:
"No! and neither had Christianity! That is pure Protestantism, and

Protestantism took it from the Mohammedans perhaps through

Moorish influence. Mohammedanism is the only religion that has
completely broken down the idea of the priest. The leader of prayer
stands with his back to the people, and only the reading of the Koran
may take place from the pulpit. Protestantism is an approach to this."
"Even the tonsure", he continued, "existed in India, in the shaven
head.... The monk and nun both existed in pre-Buddhistic Hinduism.
Europe gets her orders from the Thebaid."
Almost the whole of Christianity, he believed, was Aryan: "Indian
and Egyptian ideas met at Alexandria, and went forth to the world
tinctured with Judaism and Hellenism, as Christianity." The historicity
of Jesus, he said, he had in a way doubted since the significant dream
that he had had while on board ship off Crete. However, "two things
stand out as personal living touches in the life of Christ: the woman
taken in adultery the most beautiful story in literature and the
woman at the well. How strangely true is this last to Indian life! A
woman, coming to draw water, finds, seated at the well-side, a yellowclad monk. He asks her for water. Then he teaches her, and does a
little mind-reading, and so on. Only, in an Indian story, when she went
to call the Villagers, the monk would have taken his chance, and fled to
the forest!"
Of the early figures of Christianity he remarked that only of Saint
Paul could history be sure, "and he was not an eyewitness, and
according to his own showing was capable of Jesuitry 'by all means
save souls' isn't it?" He preferred Strauss to Renan, whose "life of
Jesus is mere froth", and felt that the Acts and Epistles were older than
the Gospels. Saint Paul's greatness lay in galvanizing into life an
obscure Nazarene sect of great antiquity, which "furnished the mythic
personality as a centre of worship". He thought that Rabbi Hillel was
probably responsible for the teachings of Jesus. "The Resurrection, of
course," he said, "is simply spring cremation. Only the rich Greeks and
Romans had had cremation anyway, and the new sun-myth would only
stop it amongst the few."

"But Buddha !" the Swami continued; "Buddha! Surely he was the
greatest man who ever lived. He never drew a breath for himself.
Above all, he never claimed worship. He said, 'Buddha is not a man,
but a state. I have found the door. Enter, all of you! '
With regard to the Swami's views on early Christianity, it is worth
noting that they were in substantial accord with those of such eminent
Christian scholars of that time as Mr. J. M. Robertson, Dr. A. Drews,
and Prof. W. B. Smith.
Moving up the river, and enjoying the scenery, the party came
next day (July 20) to the ruins of the two great temples of Avantipur.
The river here is broad, shallow, and clear. The Swami, with Nivedita
and another of his Western disciples, walked across the fields and
along the bank, for about three miles. Discoursing on the sense of sin
as current among the Egyptian, Semitic, and Aryan races, he pointed
out that though it appears in the Vedas, it quickly disappears, while the
Egyptians and Semites cling to it as one of the main planks of their
religious ideas. The Devil, in the Vedic conception, is the Lord of Anger;
with the Buddhists he is Mara, the Lord of Lust. "But while Satan is the
Hamlet of the Bible, in the Hindu scriptures the Lord of Anger never
divides Creation. He always represents defilement, never duality."
With Zoroaster, who was a reformer of some old religion that must
have been Vedantic, Ormuzd and Ahriman were not supreme; they
were only manifestations of the Supreme. In India, righteousness and
sin Vidya and Avidya have both to be transcended to reach the
highest truth.
On these walks the conversation often drifted to his mother-land
and her future. "In order to strengthen the national life," he said, "we
must reinforce the current of that life itself along the line of its own
culture and ideals. For instance, Buddha preached renunciation, and
India heard. Yet within a thousand years, she had reached her highest
point of national prosperity. The national life in India has renunciation
as its source. Its highest ideals are service and Mukti."
That whole afternoon and night the Swami lay ill in his boat. But
next day (July 21), when the party landed at the temple of Bijbehara,

then already thronged with Amarnath pilgrims, he was able to join

them for a little while. After visiting the temple, they left for Islamabad
(Anantnag), which was reached on the afternoon of July 22.
At Islamabad, in the evening, when two of the group, whose boat
was moored at a distance joined the others, they found them sitting
round the Swami on the grass in an apple orchard and, as Nivedita
says, he was "engaged in the rarest of rare happenings" a talk of a
personal nature. Picking up two pebbles, he said, "Whenever death
approaches me, all weakness vanishes. I have neither fear, nor doubt,
nor thought of the external. I simply busy myself making ready to die. I
am as hard as that" and the stones struck one another in his hand
for I have touched the feet of God! Then he went on to tell them
some remarkable episodes in his wandering life. The talk came to an
end abruptly, when a child with a badly-cut hand was brought to him
by the villagers. He himself bathed the wound with water and applied
the ashes of a piece of calico to stop the bleeding.
On the 23rd morning the party went to see the ruins of Martand.
"It had been a wonderful old building evidently more abbey than
temple in a wonderful position," writes Nivedita; "and its great
interest lay in the obvious, agglomeration of styles and periods in
which it had grown up."
"From all these hours, the day before and the day after,"
continues the Sister, "fragments of (the Swami's) talk come back to
me":
"No nation, not Greek or another, has ever carried patriotism so
far as the Japanese. They don't talk, they act give up all for country.
There are noblemen now living in Japan who gave up their political
privileges and powers to create the unity of the empire. And not one
traitor could be found in the Japanese war. Think of that!"
"The sannyasin who thinks of gold, to desire it, commits suicide."
"With the Hindus, marriage is not for individual happiness, but for the
welfare of the nation and the caste."
"You are so morbid, you Westerners! You worship sorrow! All
through your country I found that. Social life in the West is like a peal

of laughter, but underneath, it is a wail. It ends in a sob. The fun and

frivolity are all on the surface; really, it is full of tragic intensity.. Here,
it is sad and gloomy on the outside, but underneath are carelessness
and merriment."
"A leader is not made in one life. He has to be born for it. For the
difficulty is not in organization and making plans; the test, the real test
of a leader lies in holding widely different people together, along the
line of their common sympathies. And this can only be done
unconsciously, never by trying."
But the Swami was not the philosopher or the teacher all the time.
He could be gay as well as grave, full of fun and humorous stories a
phenomenon that had shocked some of the clerics and church
ministers when he was in the West. Some had even told him to his
face, "Swami, you are a religious preacher. You should not give
yourself up to laughter and frivolity like common folk. Such conduct
does not befit you." But his reply had been: "We are children of Bliss
and Light! Why should we be sombre and morose?"
On July 25 the party went on to Achabal through scenery of
exquisite beauty. They roamed about the gardens of Jehangir, says
Nivedita, bathed in a still pool opposite the Pathan Khan's Zen ana,
took their lunch in the first garden, and in the afternoon rode down to
Islamabad (Anantnag).
At Achabal the Swami announced to his companions during the
open-air lunch, his intention of going to Amarnath with the two or
three thousand pilgrims then en route for that shrine. As a special
privilege Sister Nivedita was allowed to join him on the pilgrimage, so
that she, as a future worker, might have a direct knowledge and insight
into that time-honoured religious institution of his country. It was
settled that his other Western disciples would accompany the party as
far as Pahalgam and there wait for the Swami's return. Accordingly,
they returned to the boats that evening and prepared for the journey.
Next afternoon, July 26, a start was made for Bhavan (Martand, also
called Matan) the first stopping-place on the way to Amarnath.

The Swami was full of enthusiasm for the pilgrimage, and lived
mostly on one meal a day, seeking no company much, save of sadhus.
On July 27 they halted for the night at Bhavan. The place had been
transformed into a village fair, but with a religious touch and centring
on the sacred springs. When Mrs. Bull and Nivedita approached the
Swami's tent, they found him surrounded by a crowd of Hindi-speaking
sadhus who were plying him with questions.
They reached Pahalgam on July 28 and camped at the foot of an
arrow-shaped ravine, beside the roaring torrents of the Lidder. They
remained the whole of the next day (the 29th) at Pahalgam, a village of
shepherds, in order to observe Ekadashi.
The annual pilgrimage of thousands of devotees to the faraway
Cave of Amarnath, situated in a glacial gorge of the Western
Himalayas, through some of the finest scenery in the world, has a
fascination of its own. One is struck with wonder at the quiet and
orderly way in which a canvas town springs up with incredible rapidity
at every halting-place, with its tents of various colours, shapes, and
sizes; with its bazaars and broad thoroughfares running through the
middle and all vanishing as quickly at dawn the next morning, when
the whole army of cheerful pilgrims sets out on the march again. The
glow of countless cooking fires; the ash-smeared sadhus under their
large Gerua umbrellas with shafts stuck in the ground, some
discussing, others meditating, before their Dhuni-fires; the sannyasis of
many orders in their distinctive garbs; the devout faces of the men,
women, and children from all parts of the country in their own styles
of dress; the torches flickering at night; the blowing of conchs and
horns; the singing of hymns and chanting of prayers in chorus all
these combined to convey an impression of the overmastering passion
of the Indians for religion.
Taught as he was by Shri Ramakrishna, the Swami, in common
with his fellow-disciples, would zealously observe those customs and
rules of conduct that had become consecrated through the ages by the
faith of millions. Thus while conducting religious worship, or initiating a
disciple into Sannyasa, he would see that all the necessary materials
were satisfactory in every detail and had been made ready; and he

would see that the offering and the chanting of Mantras were done
strictly in accordance with scriptural injunctions. While on pilgrimage
he would do everything in the same devout way as the most simpleminded woman about him. He would bathe in the holy waters, offer
flowers, fruits, and sweets to the object of worship before breaking his
fast, make obeisance by prostrating himself on the ground, tell his
beads, make ritual circumambulation, and the rest. It was the Swami's
habit to make himself one with everybody in the observance of
customs and rites. And so, on this pilgrimage he was to be found
practising austerities with zeal and devotion, eating one meal a day,
cooked in the orthodox fashion, seeking solitude and silence as far as
was possible, telling his beads, and devoting much time to meditation
in his tent.
On the hundreds of monks taking part, the Swami's influence was
tremendous, though at first he encountered strong opposition from
the more orthodox of them, because of the presence of his foreign
disciples. When their tents were pitched too near the pilgrims' camp,
the sadhus clamoured for their removal to a greater distance. The
Swami treated their complaints with scorn, till a Naga sadhu came up
to him and said meekly, "Swamiji, you have the power, but you ought
not to manifest it!" The Swami understood, and on the next morning
(29th) the party's tents were moved up to a lovely knoll, at the head of
the camp, where they had the rushing Lidder in front of them, and
pine-covered mountains beyond. That afternoon the Swami took
Nivedita round the camp to be blessed which really meant, says the
latter, to distribute alms.
Throughout the rest of the journey, at every halt, the Swami's tent
was besieged by scores of monks seeking knowledge from him. Many
of them could not understand his broad, liberal views on religious
matters, and his love and sympathy for Islam. The Muslim Tahsildar,
the state-official in charge of the pilgrimage, and his subordinates,
were so attracted to the Swami that they attended his talks daily, and
afterwards entreated him to initiate them. Sister Nivedita also, by her
amiable manners, soon became a general favourite with the pilgrims
and received from them "endless touching little kindnesses".

On July 30, after breakfast, the Swami and those with him left for
Chandanwari, where they camped on the edge of a ravine. It rained all
afternoon. Next day, just after Chandanwari, there is an ice-bridge,
which the Swami insisted on Nivedita's crossing on foot, this being her
first experience of such a thing. A steep climb towards Pishu Ghati
followed, and then a long walk on a narrow path that twisted round
the mountain-side. Above the tree-line, where they were now, the
ground was carpeted with edelweiss and many other kinds of flowers.
The path passed above Sheshnag, a lake fed by two small glaciers.
Nivedita writes of its "sulky water". That is how its green water
appeared to her. At last they camped (July 31) at Wavjan, at a height of
12,500 ft. All afternoon and evening the coolies had to forage for
juniper, to use for the camp fires. The Tahsildar's, the Swami's, and
Nivedita's tents were pitched close together, and a large fire was
lighted in front of them; but it did not burn well.
Next day (Aug. 1), after crossing the Mahagunus Top, a pass at
14,500 feet, they reached Panchtarani, the "Place of the Five Streams",
at the same height as Wavjan. The cold there, says Nivedita, was dry
and exhilarating. In front of their camp was a dry river-bed, all gravel,
and through this ran the five streams, in all of which the pilgrim was to
bathe, going from one to the other in wet clothes. Heedful to observe
every rite of the pilgrimage, the Swami fulfilled the law to the letter in
this matter, escaping the observation of his spiritual daughter in doing
so.
On August 2, the day of Amarnath itself, there was first a steep
climb, followed by a descent, where one false step would have meant
death. Then they walked along a glacier till they reached a flowing
stream. In this the pilgrims bathed, before entering the cave after a
short, stiff ascent. The Swami had fallen behind, perhaps intentionally,
so as to be alone with his thoughts. He came up, sent his waiting
disciple on ahead, and bathed in the stream. When he reached the
cave, his whole frame was shaking with emotion. The cave itself, says
Nivedita, was "large enough to hold a cathedral, and the great iceShiva in a niche of deepest shadow, seemed as if throned on its own
base". His body covered with ashes, his face aflame with devotion to

Shiva, the Swami entered the shrine itself, nude except for a loin-cloth,
and prostrated in adoration before the Lord. A song of praise from a
hundred throats resounded in the cave, and the shining purity of the
great ice-Linga overpowered him. He almost swooned with emotion. A
profound mystical experience came to him, of which he never spoke,
beyond saying that Shiva Himself had appeared before him, and that
he (the Swami) had been granted the grace of Amarnath, the Lord of
Immortality, namely not to die until he himself should choose to do so.
The reader will see a connection between this experience and the
words of Shri Ramakrishna, regarding this disciple of his: "When he
(Naren) realizes who and what he is, he will no longer remain in the
body!" By this grant of the boon of Amarnath, writes Nivedita,
"possibly, was defeated or fulfilled that presentiment which had
haunted him from childhood, that he would meet with death in a
Shiva-temple amongst the mountains". As a result of all this, the
Swami's physical condition was permanently affected. We do not know
whether the intensity of his mystical experience was the cause or
whether it was the combination of freezing cold, excessive physical
exertion, and lack of oxygen; or both. A doctor later on said of this
Amarnath experience: "Swamiji, it was almost death! Your heart ought
naturally to have stopped beating. It has undergone a permanent
enlargement instead."
Never had the Swami, in visiting a holy place, felt such spiritual
exaltation. Afterwards he said to his European disciple, "The image was
the Lord Himself. It was all worship there. I never have been to
anything so beautiful, so inspiring! Later on, in the circle of his
brother-disciples and own disciples, he said dreamily: "I can well
imagine how this cave was first discovered. A party of shepherds, one
summer day, must have lost their flocks and wandered in here in
search of them. What must have been their feeling as they found
themselves unexpectedly before this unmelting ice-Linga, white like
camphor, with the vault itself dripping offerings of water over it for
centuries, unseen of mortal eyes! Then when they came home, they
whispered to the other shepherds in the valleys how they had
suddenly come upon Mahadeva!" Be that as it may, for the Swami this

was truly so: he entered the cave and came face to face with the Lord!
And if Amarnath was an awesome experience for him, more so than
Amarnath was the Swami to Sister Nivedita: so saturated had he
become with the Presence of the Great God that for days after he
could speak of nothing else. Shiva was all in all: Shiva, the Eternal One,
the Great Monk, rapt in meditation, aloof from the world.
On the journey back to Pahalgam the party passed the celebrated
Lake of Death. Into this, one year, some forty pilgrims had been swept
by an avalanche, started, it is believed, by the volume of their
chanting. The Swami and some of the pilgrims took a short cut by
following a narrow sheep-path that led down the face of a steep cliff.
At Pahalgam, there was joy when he again met his other Western
disciples. He talked, says Nivedita, "of Shiva, and the Cave and the
great verge of vision".
From Pahalgam the Swami and party returned to Islamabad
(Anantnag), and from there by boat to Srinagar, which they reached on
August 8. On August 7 Nivedita wrote to Mrs. Eric Hammond, a friend:
We are on our way down to Srinagar, and I have a boat to myself,
for the Consul's wife [Mrs. Patterson has just left us to join her
husband. Over there is Swami's boat, and just behind Mrs. Bull and
Miss MacLeod's where we have been lunching (our first meal we have
about 6, lunch about 12, and our last at 5 or 6). The river is like glass,
and slight breeze meets us in our leisurely progress. It is like heaven. A
few weeks hence all this will be over...
And now I must tell you something that will startle you I have
been away up in the Himalayas for a week 18,000 feet high I
went with the Swami to see the glaciersso much anyone may know.
The rest you may not tell. It was a pilgrimage really to the Caves of
Amarnath, where he was anxious to dedicate me to Shiva.... and he did
dedicate me to Shiva.
The party remained in Srinagar till September 30. During this
period the Swami frequently went off in his boat by himself and
remained for days in solitude. His desire for meditation and reflection
became more and more pronounced. Nevertheless, he continued to

instruct his disciples about India and his own ideas, dwelling in
particular upon "the inclusiveness of his conception of the country and
its religions", of his own longing to make Hinduism active and
aggressive, a missionary faith, without its present "don't touchism",
and of the necessity of blending the highest meditative life with the
most active and practice. To be "as deep as the ocean and as broad as
the sky", he said, quoting his Master, was the ideal. "Shri
Ramakrishna", he continued, "was alive to the depths of his being, yet
on the outer plane he was perfectly active and capable."
When a choice had to be made between meditative detachment
and active involvement, the Swami expressed himself variously. For
instance, at Almora, when asked, "Sir, what should we do when we see
the strong oppress the weak?" he had replied: "Why, thrash the
strong, of course!" His questioner, says Nivedita, had been "a certain
elderly man with a face full of amiable weakness". On another
occasion, in a similar context of discussion, he said: "Even forgiveness,
if weak and passive, is not good: to fight is better. Forgive when you
can bring legions of angels to an easy victory.... The world is a
battlefield, fight your way out." Somebody else asked him, "Swamiji,
ought one to die in defence of right, or ought one to learn never to
react?" "I am for no reaction," replied the Swami slowly, and then after
a long pause, added, " for sannyasis. Self-defence for the
householder!"
In Kashmir the Swami and his party were treated with marked
consideration by the Maharaja; and during his stay various high
officials visited the Swami's houseboat to receive religious instruction
and to converse with him on general topics. The Swami had come at
the invitation of the Maharaja, to choose a piece of land for the
establishment of a monastery and a Sanskrit college. There was a
beautiful spot by the riverside that was used as a camping-ground by
Europeans. The Swami chose this, and the Maharaja, approving of his
choice, expressed his willingness to give it to him for his educational
scheme. Some time after the return from Amarnath, the Western
disciples, caught up in the Swami's prevailing meditative mood, were
keen to practise meditation in silence and solitude. The Swami

encouraged them, and suggested that they go and live in tents on the
proposed Math ground, adding that it was auspicious, according to the
Hindu idea, for a new homestead to be blessed by women. And thus a
"women's Math", as it were, was established there; and the Swami,
occasionally making a short visit, would talk to them of realizing his
dream of service rendered "by the people, for the people, as a joy to
the worker and to the served".
It was a disappointment to the Swami, therefore, when about the
middle of September, he heard that official discussion of the use for a
monastery and Sanskrit college, of the site that he had chosen, had
been twice vetoed by the Resident. Though this news temporarily
depressed him, he came to see, after much reflection, that for various
reasons Kashmir, or for that matter any native State, would not be a
suitable place in which to try the experiment of bringing his Indian
followers into contact with his Western, and vice versa. He realized
that Bengal was far more suitable for any educational work for India
than the distant State of Kashmir. Moreover, Calcutta, at that time the
metropolis, was the intellectual centre of the country. Besides, so far
as having a monastery in a cool climate was concerned, that project
had been taken up in earnest by his disciples, Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, who
were on the lookout for a suitable tract of land in the hills of Kumaon.
The Swami accepted the obstacles that had come in his path,
therefore, asthe will of the Mother, and felt that they were for the
best.
On August 20 the Swami went to Dal Lake at the earnest invitation
of Mr. and Mrs. Patterson, the American Consul-General and his wife,
He was their guest for a couple of days. Then he rejoined the party of
his disciples, who had gone to the so-called "new Math", which we
have just mentioned, and had his boat moored close by for a few days,
till he left for Ganderbal.
We get glimpses of the Swami's life during the period now being
described, from some of his and Sister Nivedita's letters. On August 27
the Swami wrote to Christine Greenstidel:

It is a lazy life I am leading for the last two months floating

leisurely in a boat, which is also my home, up and down the beautiful
Jhelum, through the most gorgeous scenery God's world can afford in
nature's own park, where the air, earth, land, grass, plants, trees,
mountain, snows, and the human form all express on the outside at
least the beauty of the Lord; with almost no possessions scarcely a
pen or an inkstand even, snatching up a meal wherever and whenever
convenient: the very ideal of a Rip Van Winkle.... I have been told by
one who has been the personal God to me that I am to come once
more yet.... Do not work yourself out. It is no use; always remember
"Duty is the midday sun whose fierce rays are burning the very vitals of
humanity." It is necessary for a time as a discipline; beyond that it is a
morbid disease....
On August 28 the Swami wrote to Mary Hale: "I have been away a
few days. Now I am going to join the ladies. The party then goes to a
nice quiet spot behind a hill, in a forest, through which a murmuring
stream flows, to have meditation deep and long under the deodars
cross-legged a la Buddha. This will be for a month or so, when by that
time our good work will have spent its power and we shall fall down
from this paradise to earth again..."
On September 2 and 3 Nivedita wrote to a friend:
We are going off early tomorrow morning fifty miles up the river,
then a camp in a forest, with the King [the Swami], for meditation. In a
fortnight's time we shall leave Kashmir... [September 3]: We are
camping here on a piece of ground that the Maharajah wants to give
the Swami for a Sanskrit School. Well, the missionaries have been
stirring up such attacks on the King that it is very very doubtful that the
Resident will consent to the disposal of the land...
He has been away again on one of his lonely journeys. He always
comes back from them so gentle and kind and yet witty and so glad to
be with us all again! It is most delightful. You see, this summer has
meant three months of perfect peace. and friendship, and he will
always remember it, so I hope.... When I reach Calcutta, I am to stay
with Sarada [the Holy Mother] till I find a house....

On September 17 the Swami wrote to the Raja of Khetri: "I have

been very ill here for two weeks. Now getting better.... I am going
down by the middle of October...."
On the same day he wrote to his disciple Haripada Mitra:
Recently my health was very bad, and so I have been delayed,
otherwise I had intended to leave for Punjab this week. The doctor had
advised me not to go to the plains at the present time, as it is very hot
there. Perhaps I may reach Karachi by about the last week of October.
Now I am doing somewhat well.... I shall probably visit Kutch, Bhuj,
Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Limbdi, and Baroda and then proceed to
Calcutta. My present plan is to go to America via China and Japan in
November or December, but it is all in the hands of the Lord....
From Nivedita's diary it is known that on September 3, the Swami
left for Achabal again, via Islamabad (Anantnag), reaching there on
September 5. On the 10th he went to visit the temple at Martand
again; but he had to return to Srinagar on the 11th on account of
illness.
Following the pilgrimage to Amarnath, the Swami's devotion
became concentrated on the Mother. The strength that comes of
meditation on the Great God was now replaced by the devotion that a
child has for his mother. It was touching to see him worship, as Uma,
the four-year-old daughter of his Muslim boatman. The songs of
Ramprasad were constantly on his lips. He once told his disciples,
during these days, that "wherever he turned, he was conscious of the
Presence of the Mother, as if She were a person in the room". He felt
that it was She, or his own Master, "whose hands are clasped upon my
own and who leads me as though I were a child". And now, through his
intensity of devotion, everything in the life of his companions became
associated with the Mother, as it had been before with Shiva.
Gradually the Swami's absorption become more and more intense
and he bitterly "complained of the malady of thought, which would
consume a man, leaving him no time for sleep or rest, and would often
become as insistent as a human voice". One evening in the second
week of September he had an experience, which can be compared only

perhaps to that which he had had in the Dakshineswar temple-garden

years ago, when, at the bidding of Shri Ramakrishna, he had gone to
pray to the Mother to be relieved of the great strain of poverty that
was upon him then.
He had gone in his boat to a solitary place. The only person whom
he allowed to visit him was a certain Brahmo doctor who had become
devotedly attached to him during his sojourn in Kashmir that summer,
and who went regularly to inquire about his daily needs. When the
doctor found him lost in thought, or in meditation, he would leave
quietly without disturbing him. The Swami's consciousness seethed
with thought and love of the Mother. His mind was tuned to its highest
pitch. Revelation must come.
One evening, as we have said, it came. He had centred "his whole
attention on the dark, the painful, and the inscrutable in the world,
with the determination to reach, by this particular road, the One
behind phenomena" for such was his conception of the Mother.
Outside all was stillness; but within him a world-destroying tempest
raged. In the exaltation of his vision he wrote "Kali the Mother", one of
his best-known poems. In it a glimpse of his vision of the tumult of the
universe is given, pictured as the mad joy of the Mother's Dance. Filled
with the sublime experience, he wrote to the last word: the pen fell
from his hand: and he dropped to the floor, losing consciousness, while
his soul soared into Bhava-samadi. The man who had swayed
thousands in the West, who had roused the consciousness of India, lay
as if dead, in a swoon of ecstasy and awe!
The Swami now gave himself to constant explanations of the
worship of the Mother, and calling upon Her. He would say, quoting
the Psalmist, "Though Thou slay me, yet will I trust in Thee," or "It is a
mistake to hold that with all men pleasure is the motive. Quite as
many are born to seek pain. There can be bliss in torture, too. Let us
worship the Terror for its own sake." Again, "Learn to recognize the
Mother as instinctively in evil, terror, sorrow, and annihilation as in
that which makes for sweetness and joy!" Or "True, they garland Thee
with skulls, but shrink back in fright, and call Thee, 'O All-merciful
One'!" "Only by the worship of the Terrible, can the Terrible itself be

overcome and immortality gained. Meditate on death! Meditate on

death! Worship the Terrible, the Terrible, the Terrible! And the Mother
Herself is Brahman! Even Her curse.is a blessing. The heart must
become a cremation-ground, pride, selfishness, and desire all burnt
into ashes. Then, and then alone, will the Mother come!" She is
"Herself time, change, and ceaseless energy". Sister Nivedita writes:
And as he spoke, the underlying egoism of worship that is devoted
to the kind God, to Providence, the consoling Divinity, without a heart
for God in the earthquake, or God in the volcano, overwhelmed the
listener. One saw that such worship was at bottom, as the Hindu calls
it, merely "shopkeeping", and one realized the infinitely greater
boldness and truth of the teaching that God manifests through evil as
well as through good. One saw that the true attitude for the mind and
will that are not to be baffled by the personal self, was in fact the
determination, in the stern words of the Swami Vivekananda, "to seek
death not life, to hurl oneself upon the sword's point, to become one
with the Terrible for evermore!"
And often, now and later, in moments of severe illness or pain, he
would be heard to exclaim, "She is the organ! She is the pain! And She
is the giver of pain! Kali! Kali! Kali!" In all of his instructions at this time
he would say: "There must be no fear. No begging, but demanding
demanding the Highest! The true devotees of the Mother are as hard
as adamant and as fearless as lions. They are not the least upset if the
whole universe suddenly crumbles into dust at their feet! Make Her
listen to you. None of that cringing to Mother! Remember!" "She is allpowerful; She can make heroes even out of stones!"
The Mother is present, he would say, wherever there is no fear,
wherever there is renunciation or self-forgetfulness, where-ever there
is the vision that "everything that one touches is pain". Again, when
the cup of life is bitterest, then, naturally, the child-soul turns to
Mother for relief and support. And in the meditation on the skull and
cross-bones of the Western mystic, he saw a dim reflection of the
universal aspect of Mother-worship. His idea of the Divine
Motherhood, the Power behind all manifestation, was as poetic as it
was impersonal.

Following the experience related above, the Swami retired

abruptly on September 30 to the Coloured Springs of Kshir- Bhavani (or
Kheer Bhawani), leaving strict instructions that no one was to follow
him. It was not until October 6 that he returned. Before this famous
shrine of the Mother he daily performed Homa, and worshipped Her
with offerings of Kshira or Kheer (thickened milk) made from one
maund of milk, rice, and almonds. He told his beads like any humble
pilgrim; and, as a special Sadhana, every morning he worshipped a
Brahmin pandit's little daughter as Uma Kumari, the Divine Virgin. He
began to practise the sternest austerities. It seemed as though he
would tear off all the veils that had come upon his soul through years
of work and thought, and again be a child before the Divine Mother.
Even though Her caresses might give pain to the body they would give
illumination and freedom to the soul. All thought of Leader, Worker, or
Teacher was gone. He was now only the monk, in all the nakedness of
pure Sannyasa.
When he returned to Srinagar, he appeared before his disciples a
transfigured presence, writes Nivedita. He entered their houseboat, his
hands raised in benediction; then he placed some marigolds that he
had offered to the Mother, on the head of each of them. "No more
'Hari Om!' It is all 'Mother' now!" he said, sitting down. "All my
patriotism is gone. Everything is gone. Now it is only 'Mother! Mother!'
I have been very wrong. Mother said to me: 'What, even if unbelievers
should enter my temples, and defile My images! What is that to you ?
Do you protect Me ? Or do I protect you ?' So there is no more
patriotism. I am only a little child!"
One day at Kshir-Bhavani he had been pondering over the
ruination and desecration of the temple wrought by the Muslim
invaders. Distressed at heart he thought: "How could the people have
permitted such sacrilege without offering strenuous resistance! If I
were here then, I would never have allowed such things. I would have
laid down my life to protect the Mother." It was then that he had
heard the Mother speaking as above. The disciples sat silent, aweinspired. They could not speak, "so tense was the spot with something
that stilled thought". "I may not tell you more now; it is not in order",

he said gently, adding, before he left, " but spiritually, spiritually, I

was not bound down!"
Though he was again with his disciples, they saw little of him. For
hours he would walk in the woods beside the river, absorbed within
himself, so much so that he would not even notice his companions on
the roof of their houseboat. One day he appeared before them with
shaven head, dressed as the simplest sannyasi, and with a look of
unapproachable austereness on his face. Reciting from his own poem
"Kali the Mother", he interrupted himself to say, "It all came true,
every word of it; and I have proved it, for I have hugged the Form of
Death!" And here and there, the details of the austerity, fasting, and
self-renunciation that he had practised at Kshir-Bhavani, and the
revelations that had come to him, were touched upon in his remarks.
In his meditation on the Terrible, in the dark hours of the nights at
Kshir-Bhavani, there were other visions that he confided only to one or
two of his brother-disciples. They were too sacred to make known to
anyone else.
At this same shrine, in the course of worship one day, the Swami
was brooding with pain on the dilapidated condition of the temple. He
wished in his heart that he were able to build a new one there in its
place, just as he wished to build monasteries and temples elsewhere,
especially a temple to Shri Ramakrishna in the new Math at Belur. He
was startled in his ruminations by the voice of the Mother Herself,
saying to him, "My child! if I so wish I can have innumerable temples
and magnificent monastic centres. I can even this moment raise a
seven-storeyed golden temple on this very spot." "Since I heard that
Divine Voice," said the Swami to a disciple in Calcutta much later, "I
have ceased making any more plans. Let these things be as Mother
wills!"
During these days, the Swami also had an experience of a
disquieting nature. He spoke later of it as "a crisis" in his life. A disciple
of a Muslim fakir used to come to the Swami occasionally, attracted by
his personality. Hearing one day that this man was suffering from fever
and severe headache, the Swami, out of compassion, touched him on
the head with his fingers. Surprisingly, the man's ailments left him.

After that he became very devoted to the Swami, and came to him
oftener than before. But the man's guru, the fakir, when he heard of
this, became bitterly jealous of the Swami. Afraid lest his disciple
forsake him, the fakir spoke ill of the Swami and warned his disciple
not to see him. Finding that his words had no effect, he grew angry and
abusive. In a spirit of revenge, and perhaps also to convince his disciple
of his own greater psychic power, he threatened to use charms against
the Swami. He prophesied that the latter would vomit and feel giddy
before he left Kashmir. This actually came about, and the Swami was
precipitated into great perplexity of mind and fury, not against the
fakir but against himself and his Master. He thought: "What good is
Shri Ramakrishna to me? What good are all my realizations and my
preaching of Vedanta and of the omnipotence of the Soul within, when
I myself could not save myself from the diabolical powers of a black
magician?" This experience exercised his mind so much that even
when he reached Calcutta three weeks later, it continued to agitate
him, and he told the Holy Mother, who happened to be there at the
time, all about it.
Josephine MacLeod, who was one of the Swami's party, gives a
lively account of this visit to Kashmir in her reminiscences of the
Swami. The details given by her go to fill in the account given above.
She writes:
We left Almora on the twentieth [eleventh] of June for Kashmir.
By train to Rawalpindi, where we got tongas with three horses abreast
to drive us the two hundred miles up into Kashmir. There were relays
of horses every five miles, so that we dashed through on top of this
beautiful road, as perfect then as any road the Romans ever made.
Then to Baramula where we got four native houseboats. These boats
called Dungas are about seventy feet long and broad enough to have
two single beds in them and a corridor between, covered with a
matting house; so wherever we wanted a window we only had to roll
up the matting. The whole roof could be lifted in the daytime, and thus
we lived in the open, yet knew there was always a roof over our heads.
We had four of these Dungas, one for Mrs. Bull and me, one for Mrs.
Patterson and Sister Nivedita, and one for Swami and one of his

monks. Then a dining-room boat where we all met to have our meals.
We stayed in Kashmir four months, the first three in these simple little
boats until after September, when it got so cold, we took an ordinary
houseboat with fire-places and there enjoyed the warmth of a real
house. Sister Nivedita has written a good deal of the talks we had
there. Swami would get up about half past five in the morning, and
seeing him smoking and talking with the boatmen, we would get up
too. Then there would be those long walks for a couple of hours until
the sun came up warm; Swami talking about India, what its purpose in
life was, what Mohammedanism had done and what it had not done.
He talked, immersed in the history of India and in the architecture and
in the habits of the people, and we walked on through fields of forgetme-nots burning into pink and blue blossoms, way above our heads.
Baramula is something like Venice. So many of the streets are
canals. We had our own little private boat in which we went to and
from the mainland. But the merchants would come in small crafts all
about our boats. We did most of our shopping over the rails of the
boat. Each of our boats cost thirty rupees a month, which included the
boatmen who fed themselves. The boatmen consisted of father,
mother, son, daughter, and tiny children. They had their own little
place at the end of the boat, and many a time we begged them for a
taste of their food, the aroma being so delicious. The manner of
travelling in these boats is that the boat is punted up the river or it is
dragged, the boatmen walking along the shore, or it is rowed. There is
nothing extra to pay regardless of how one is navigated. When we
wanted to move up the Jhelum river to some of the lakes, we would
tell our servants the night before; they would get in supplies of food
including ducks or chickens, vegetables, eggs, butter, fruits, and milk.
In the morning, when we awakened, we would feel the boat moving
along, gliding so imperceptibly that we were scarcely conscious of the
motion. Our servant who had walked ahead would then have a
delicious meal waiting for us. This he made over a little trough long
enough and narrow enough to hold three pans, one containing soup,
one meat, and the other rice. The dexterity of these people was a
wonder and something we never got over. As a chicken is not

considered clean food by the orthodox Hindus, we never told the

people we intended to eat the chickens we bought. But when we went
up the river, the lower part of the boat held half a dozen clucking
chickens. The pandits who could come to visit Swami would hear them
and look around for them. Swami, who knew they were hidden
underneath, had a twinkle in his eye, but he would never give us away.
Then the pandits would say, "But Swami, why do you have to do with
these ladies? They are mlechchhas. They are untouchables." Then the
Westerners would come to us and say, "But don't you see ? Swami is
not treating you with respect. He meets you without his turban." So we
had great fun laughing at the idiosyncrasies of each other's civilization.
Swamiji then sent for Swami Saradananda to come and travel with
us, to show us the sights of India Lahore, Delhi, Agra, Kurukshetra,
and so on, Swami going straight down to Calcutta....
To return to our narrative, preparations were now made to go to
the plains. The Swami had already sent a telegram to Swami
Saradananda in August, inviting him to come to Kashmir. The idea was
that he would accompany the Western disciples, who would be seeing
some places of interest, in northern India. In September the Swami had
also sent a telegram to Swami Sadananda, asking him to come and
meet him at Lahore (now in Pakistan), in order to accompany him
wherever he might go from there. Swami Saradananda left Calcutta on
September 27. He met the Swami, then very ill, at Srinagar. When the
Swami felt better through the care of his brother-disciples, the whole
party left by boat for Baramula.
The river trip was noteworthy only for the extreme silence of the
Swami, who preferred to be almost entirely by himself. He walked
alone by the riverside, mornings and evenings. He looked so ill and
worn out that his companions feared a breakdown. Sister Nivedita
writes: "The physical ebb of the great experience through which he
had just passed for even suffering becomes impossible, when a
given point of weariness is reached; and similarly, the body refuses to
harbour a certain intensity of the spiritual life for an indefinite period!
was leaving him, doubtless, more exhausted, than he himself

suspected. All this contributed, one imagines, to a feeling that none of

us knew for how long a time we might now be parting."
Sometimes he would sing, or would translate snatches of
devotional poetry always to the Mother. He spoke of the future once,
very casually. There was nothing to be desired for him but the life of
the wanderer, in silence and nudity, on the banks of the Ganga. He
would have nothing. "Swamiji was dead and gone", writes Nivedita,
representing the Swami's present mood and attitude: "Who was he
that he should feel responsible for teaching the world? It was all fuss
and vanity. The Mother had no need of him, but only he of Her. Even
work, when one had seen this, was nothing but illusion." An overmastering love enveloped him. He believed now in nothing but love
love so intense that it would be impossible for even the bitterest of
enemies to resist it. To continue in the words of Sister Nivedita:
1 can give no idea of the vastness of which all this was utterance
as if no blow, to any in the world, could pass and leave our Master's
heart untouched; as if no pain, even to that of death, could elicit
anything but love and blessing.
He told us the story of Vasishtha and Vishwamitra; of Vasishtha's
hundred descendants slain; and the sage left alone, landless and
helpless, to live out his life. Then he pictured the hut standing in the
moonlight, amongst the trees and Vasishtha and his wife within. He is
poring intently over some precious page, written by his great rival,
when she draws near and hangs over him for a moment, saying, "Look,
how bright is the moon tonight!" And he, without looking up, "But ten
thousand times brighter, my love, is the intellect of Vishwamitra!"
All forgotten! the deaths of his hundred children, his own wrongs,
and his sufferings, and his heart lost in admiration of the genius of his
foe! Such, said the Swami, should he our love also, like that of
Vasishtha for Vishwamitra, without the slightest tinge of personal
memory.
The party reached Baramula on October 11. The Western disciples
planned to wait there for some days, and then go sightseeing to such
places as Lahore, Delhi, Agra, and so on. The Swami started for

Rawalpindi and Lahore, leaving the Western disciples in the care of

Swami Saradananda. Sister Nivedita describes the leave-taking as
follows:
And so he went. We allservants and boat-people, friends and
disciples, parents and children accompanied him to the tonga on the
roadside to say goodbye. One sturdy little figure, the four-year-old
daughter of his chief boatman, whose devotion to him we had long
noted, trotted determinedly at his side with a tray of fruit for his
journey on her black head and stood smiling farewell as he drove
away. And we, not less deeply touched than this little child, but
infinitely less unselfish in our grown-up complexity of thought and
emotion, knew not when we should look upon his face again, yet failed
not to realize that we had that day lived through hours, within whose
radiance all our future would be passed.
On October 13 Nivedita wrote to her friend:
He [the Swami] left us yesterday, and we may see him again at
Lahore, or not till we reach Calcutta. A fortnight ago he went away,
alone, and it is about eight days since he came back, like one
transfigured and inspired. I cannot tell you about it. It is too great for
words. My pen would have to learn to whisper.
He simply talks, like a child, of "the Mother but his soul and his
voice are those of a God. The mingled solemnity and exhilaration of his
presence have made me retire to the farthest corner, and just worship
in silence all the time. "We have seen the birth of stars, we have learnt
one of the meanings." It has just been the nearness of one who had
seen God, and whose eyes even now are full of the vision.
To him at this moment "doing good" seems horrible. "Only the
Mother" does anything. "Patriotism is a mistake. Everything is a
mistake" he said when he came home. "It is all Mother... All men are
good. Only we cannot reach all.... I am never going to teach any more.
Who am 1, that I should teach anyone?"...
We have been living and breathing in the sunshine of the great
religious ideals all these months, and GOD has been more real to us
than common men. And in those last hours of yesterday morning, we

held our breath and did not dare to stir, while he sang to the Mother
and talked to us. He is all love now. There is not an impatient word,
even for the wrongdoer or the oppressor; it is all peace and selfsacrifice and rapture. "Swamiji is dead and gone" were the last words I
heard him say....
On reaching Lahore, the Swami wrote to the Raja of Khetri, on
October 16: "This year I suffered much in Kashmir and am now
recovered and going to Calcutta direct today. For the last ten years or
so I have not seen the Puja of Shri Durga in Bengal which is the great
affair there. I hope this year to be present. The Western friends will
come to see Jaipur in a week or two.... I leave instructions with my
brother Saradananda to write to Munshiji before they start for
Jaipur......
Sister Nivedita, however, did not want to go to Jaipur, for she was
anxious to return to Calcutta to start work. About her tour programme
she had written to her friend on September 18, "In about seven or
eight days I go off 'All by my lone' to Calcutta, examining on the way
Lahore, Delhi, Agra, and Benares (Varanasi). Once in Calcutta, I hope to
be at work and won't I work!"
Swami Sadananda met the Swami at Lahore, having left Almora on
September 25. On October 16 the Swami and this sannyasi disciple of
his left Lahore by train for Calcutta.

CONSECRATION OF THE MATH: ITS SCOPE, AND IDEALS

The Swami and his disciple reached the monastery, still Nilambar
Mukherjee's house at Belur, on October 18 (1898). The Swami's
unexpected appearance made his brother-monks and disciples happy;
but their joy was mingled with pain to see how pale and ill he looked.
Though they had not been informed of his sudden departure from
Kashmir, news of his movements there had often reached the Math
through Niveditas letters, which were read out at class meetings.
Swami Brahmananda then the Head of the Math, felt very
concerned about the Swami's health. The Swami often suffered from
hard breathing of an asthmatic nature. No sooner had he reached the

Math than he became bedridden. He did not leave his bed from
morning till afternoon, and seldom talked with anybody. Hearing of his
illness, devotees started gathering at the Math. Girishchandra Ghosh
also came. He was astonished to find that the Swami had left his bed
and was walking downstairs. Surprised, he asked the Swami, %40h,
what is this, Swamiji? Why have you come downstairs? I heard that
you had become seriously ill." In fun the Swami said. "You see, when I
close my eyes to sleep, I see Raja's [Brahmananda's] face full of anxiety
for me. I am walking now, so that he will feel happy. He wants to make
me a patient. As a matter of fact I am all right." But afterwards he
appreciated Brahmananda's administration of the Math, and said, "I
have been stunned to see Raja's work. How nicely he is running the
Math. About him Shri Ramakrishna used to say, 'He can run a
kingdom.'
Two or three days later, Sharatchandra Chakravarty, the disciple of
the Swami, came to the Math. On seeing him Swami Brahmananda
said to him, "Since returning from Kashmir, Swamiji does not speak to
anybody; he sits in one place rapt in thought. You go to him and by
conversation try to draw his mind a little towards ordinary matters."
On entering the Swami's room, the disciple found him sitting
cross-legged, facing the East, apparently in total abstraction. Seeing
the disciple he only said, "You have come, my son? Please take your
seat", and lapsed into silence. The disciple, seeing the Swami's left eye
red, asked, "How is it that your eye is red?" "That is nothing", said the
Swami, and was again silent. When even after a long time the Swami
had not spoken the disciple touched his feet and said, "Won't you tell
me what you saw at Amarnath?" By the disciple's action, the intensity
of the Swami's mood was broken a little, and his attention was
diverted slightly outwards. He said, "Since visiting Amarnath, I feel as
though Shiva were sitting on my head for twenty-four hours a day and
will not come down." The disciple listened in speechless wonder.
The Swami further said: "I underwent great religious austerities at
Amarnath and then in the temple of Kshir-Bhavani. On the way to
Amarnath, I made a very steep ascent on the mountain. Pilgrims do not
generally travel by that path. But the determination came upon me

that I must go by that path, and so I did. The exertion of the strenuous
ascent has told on my body. The cold there is so biting that you feel it
like pinpricks.... I entered the cave with only my loin-cloth on and my
body smeared with ashes; I did not then feel any cold or heat. But
when I came out of the temple, I was numb with cold...."
The disciple then questioned him about the legend of the white
pigeons that are said to live in the cave of Amarnath. It is told that the
sight of them on leaving the shrine signifies the granting of a desire
and heightens the merit of the pilgrimage. "Yes, Yes! I know!" the
Swami replied; "I saw three or four white pigeons, but I could not be
sure whether they belonged to the cave or lived in the adjoining hills."
He spoke of the divine Voice that he had heard at the temple of
Kshir-Bhavani. When the disciple sought to explain it away by
suggesting that it might be a wholly subjective experience, the echo of
intensely powerful thoughts with no objective reality, he gravely
remarked: "Whether it be from within yourself, or from some external
agency, if you hear with your own ear, exactly as you are hearing my
words, a voice not connected with any form speaking to you from the
skies, will you doubt its reality?"
Later on, the disciple asked the Swami if he had ever seen ghosts
and spirits. He replied that the spirit of one of his relations had
appeared to him now and then, bringing news of far-off places. "But",
he said, "on enquiry I found that her words were not always true. In a
place of pilgrimage I prayed for her emancipation, and since then I
have not seen that spirit again."
In his letter of October 25 to Christine Greenstidel, the Swami
wrote of his, health as follows:
My health again failed badly. I had therefore to leave Kashmir in
haste and come to Calcutta. The doctors say I ought not go tramping in
winter. This is such a disappointment, you know! However I am coming
to the U.S. this summer.... I am getting better every day and then
the long months before I can start for U.S. Never mind, "Mother"
knows what is best for us. She will show the way. I am now in Bhakti.
As I am growing old, Bhakti is taking the place of Jnana....

The Swami was suffering from asthma at that time. On October

27, at the request of some of the monks, he had his chest examined by
the well-known specialist, Dr. R. L., Dutt. In consultation with some
other doctors Dr. Dutt gave the opinion that the Swami must be
careful of himself. A clot of blood was found to have formed in his left
eye, possibly due to intense concentration. The monks constantly
made efforts to keep him from going into the deeper states of
meditation, fearing that the Great and Final Meditation might come
upon him at any time, and that he might throw off the body like a
worn-out garment. So abstracted was his mind from outward things in
these days, that often he would not hear the answers to questions that
he himself had asked.
Notwithstanding his failing health the Swami resumed his old life
with the monks. Hours were spent in religious converse; questionclasses were held; the scriptures were read and commented upon; and
he took up seriously the training of the Math members. He instituted
regulations and monastic discipline with spiritual and intellectual work
for certain hours of the day. On the day of his arrival he thrilled his
hearers by reading, with his characteristic eloquence and depth of
feeling, the three poems that he had written in Kashmir. Every word of
them, as uttered by him, seemed ensouled with his own realizations.
On October 19 and 20 he performed the Homa rite. The next three
days were given over to the great religious festival of Durga Puja, when
many lay disciples of the Order gathered at the Math. On the 24th
Swami Turiyananda arrived from Almora. Everything was now centring,
as it were, in the monastery, and the devotional fervour of the
Baranagore days seemed to shine forth anew.
Among the members who had joined the monastery, both before
and during the Swami's absence, were those who later became Swamis
Vimalananda, Bodhananda, Kalyanananda, and Somananda. The first
two had joined when the Math was at Alambazar, and the others at
Nilambarbabu's garden-house. These, with the other disciples, had
followed courses of study on the Vedas, Hindu theology, and even
material science. But still more important, of course, were the worship
of the Master and the hours spent in meditation and devotion.

From November 1 on, the Swami's place of residence alternated

between the monastery and Balarambabu's house in Baghbazar,
Calcutta, where he was obliged to stay for the sake of treatment. But
he did not allow his illness to prevent him from meeting the many
people who flocked to him for instruction. About these days one of his
disciples writes:
A gathering was an everyday occurrence when Swamiji used to
stay in Calcutta. At every hour of the day, from early morning till eight
or nine at night, men would flock to him. This naturally occasioned
much irregularity in his meals; so, his brother-disciples and friends,
desiring to put a stop to this state of things, strongly advised him not
to receive visitors except at appointed hours. But the loving heart of
Swamiji, who was ever ready to go to any length to help others, was so
melted with compassion at the sight of the thirst for religion in the
people, that in spite of ill health he did not comply with any request of
the kind. His only reply was, "They take so much trouble to come,
walking all the way from their homes; and can I, sitting here, not speak
a few words to them, merely because I risk my health a little?"
The Swami at that time was an embodiment of love. His heart
went out to everybody. His grace descended on all, saints and sinners
alike. The misery of the world afflicted him terribly. Perhaps he also
knew that the time of his passing away was approaching; so he could
not deny anybody his blessings. As a result, many persons who led
indifferent lives were initiated by him into the mysteries of spirituality.
Soon a whisper went round the Math that the Swami was not a proper
judge of a man's inner propensities, that he could easily be satisfied
with a few words of praise; otherwise, how could he give his blessings
to men of such worldly inclinations? This disparaging talk particularly
pained a certain disciple, and one day, as the Swami was taking his
evening stroll in the Math compound, he approached and said,
"Swamiji, I have something to ask you." "Yes", said the Swami without
turning his head. Then the disciple said: "Much talk is going round the
Math that you cannot properly discriminate a right person from a
wrong one. You bestow your grace upon everybody without looking
into his previous life or inner propensities. As a result we find some of

your disciples leading an indifferent life even after receiving your

blessings." The Swami suddenly turned towards the disciple and
exclaimed, with emotion: "My boy, do you say that I do not know a
man? What! when I see a man I not only find out the working of his
inner self, but even get a glimpse of his previous life. I know what is
going on in his sub-conscious mind: even he does not know it. But
then, do you know why I bless such people? The poor souls have
knocked at every gate to get a little peace of mind; but they have been
refused everywhere. They have come to me at last. If I, too, refuse
them, they will have nothing else to fall back upon. So I do not
discriminate. Oh, they are so afflicted! The world is so full of miseries!"
These words could very well have been spoken by the Swami's
Master also Shri Ramakrishna!
In the meantime Sister Nivedita, eager to return to Calcutta and
begin her work, left the company of the American ladies, and reached
Calcutta on November 1, via Varanasi. From the station she went
straight to the Swami, who was then at Balarambabu's house. The Holy
Mother was also living in Calcutta at that time in a house nearby in
Baghbazar. The Swami received his disciple warmly and arranged for
her stay at the Holy Mother's house till she could find a place for
herself. The Mother had no objection whatever, for she had already
taken Nivedita into her heart; but some of the orthodox members of
Mother's household felt inconvenienced. However, she did not have to
stay there for long. After a week or so a house was found for Nivedita
at 16 Bosepara Lane, where she happily lived till she left for the West
in June 1899. All the same, whenever possible, she would spend the
afternoons and, in the hot weather, the nights with the Holy Mother
and the women devotees at their residence, I6/2 Bosepara Lane.
On November 5 the Swami received at the Math Shri Rishibar
Mukherjee, the Chief justice, and Shri Nilambar Mukherjee, the Prime
Minister of Kashmir. On the following day Mrs. Ole Bull and Miss
MacLeod, accompanied by Swami Saradananda, reached Calcutta after
a tour of some of the historic cities of northern India. This time they
could not stay in the cottage that they had previously occupied, since
arrangements were being made to shift the Math to its new grounds,

on which the cottage stood. For some days they lived with Nivedita at
16 Bosepara Lane; then they found a house for themselves at Bally, on
the West Bank of the Ganga, about two miles north of the Belur Math.
It was during their stay with Nivedita that Mrs. Ole Bull requested the
Holy Mother to allow her photograph to be taken. Mrs. Bull said,
"Mother, I wish to take your photograph to America and worship it."
Only after being repeatedly requested did the Mother consent. When
the photographer came, she cast down her eyes and went into trance.
That was the first photo taken of the Mother. After she had regained
the normal state, another was taken. And a third was taken with
Nivedita facing her.
On November 12, the day before the Kali Puja, the Holy Mother,
accompanied by a number of women devotees, visited the site where
the Ramakrishna Order was shortly going to have its headquarters. The
Swami had invited the Western disciples also. All the monks were
present, and elaborate arrangements had been made for worship. The
picture of the Master worshipped in the Math had been taken to the
new site; and the Holy Mother had brought her own picture of the
Master. With special worship she blessed the place. In the afternoon
she with her party, and also the Swami, with Swamis Brahmananda
and Saradananda, returned to Calcutta. The Swami had requested
them to take part in the ceremonial opening of Sister Nivedita's girls'
school, in Baghbazar. This took place next morning, on the day of Kali
Puja. After worshipping Shri Ramakrishna, the Holy Mother prayed that
the blessing of the Great Mother of the Universe might he upon the
school, and that the girls that it trained might be ideal girls. Of this
blessing Sister Nivedita herself has written: "I cannot imagine a
grander omen than her blessing, spoken over the educated Hindu
womanhood of the future."
From his first meeting with Sister Nivedita, the Swami had
discussed with her at great length the situation of Indian women, his
ideas for the improvement of their condition, and his plans for the
education of Hindu girls. She had been known as an educationist and
educator in England, and she had come to India expressly to be of
service to the women of India. It had been assumed during her stay,

first in Calcutta and then at Almora, and later during her wanderings
with the Swami in Kashmir, that at the first opportunity, she would
open a girls' school in Calcutta, so as "to make some educational
discovery, which would be qualitatively true and universally applicable
to the work of the modern education of Indian women" at large. The
Swami, when in Calcutta, saw her frequently and gave her additional
insight into the Indian consciousness and into the nature of the work
that she had assumed. This insight she sought to embody in her book,
The Web of Indian Life. At the Holy Mother's residence she came in
touch with several orthodox women who were well versed in the epics,
dramas, and religious teaching of Hinduism women whose lives
testified to the truth of the values and realizations of Hinduism. This
was of special advantage to her. She herself lived the life of a Hindu
Brahmacharini and soon became altogether Hinduized.
The opening of her school marks the beginning of Sister Nivedita's
work in India. The Swami showed keen interest in it. He gave her full
liberty in the working out of her ideas. She could be free from
collaborators if she chose. Above all, she could, if she wished, give her
work "a definite religious colour" or even make it sectarian; but he
added knowingly, "You wish through a sect to rise beyond all sects."
Eventually it should include all sects, not only within, but outside,
Hinduism. The Swami once told her, "If amidst their new task the
Indian women of the future would only remember now and then to
say, 'Shiva! Shiva!', it would he sufficient worship." And indicating his
idea of what a worker in the cause of womanhood should be like, he
once said to the Sister, "Yes, you have faith, but you have not that
burning enthusiasm that you need! You should be consumed with
energy." Then he blessed her; and, it will be right to say, she did indeed
become "a consuming energy" in that cause.
The Swami did all he could to make the life, that Nivedita had
adopted, easier. Sometimes he would ask her to eat with him; he
would then prepare special dishes for her, and make her to take them
in his presence, for he knew that she was then practising austerities,
such as living on a spare diet of milk and fruit, and sleeping on a bare
board. He would now and then ask her to cook delicacies for him, so

that she too might partake of them. He would also make others eat a
little of the food cooked by her, thus breaking down to a great extent
the iron barriers of orthodoxy among his own people with regard to
her.
He made every effort to have her accepted by Hindu society, and
was always ready to listen to her views in a discussion. As for his own
orthodox disciples, he was constantly breaking the bonds of the
meaningless among the age-old customs and traditions in which they
had been brought up. He sometimes tested their loyalty by asking
them to take, as his Prasada, food forbidden by orthodoxy.
A letter that the Swami received at this time from Sir Jamsetji
Tata, of Bombay, is worth reproducing. The Swami had met this wellknown millionaire-philanthropist in Japan. In July 1893 they were
fellow-passengers from Yokohama to Vancouver on board the C.P.R.
steamer Empress of India, and also on the journey from Vancouver to
Chicago by Canadian Pacific Railway. While in Japan the Swami had
been impressed by the industrial development of the country, and had
hoped for a similar development in India. He wrote to the Raja of
Khetri and to Alasinga Perumal of Madras to this effect. Probably he
spoke in the same way to Sir Jamsetji during their journey. Having
some acquaintance with the Swami's views, the latter evidently felt
sure that his present scheme would interest the Swami. His letter ran
as follows:
Dear Swami Vivekananda,
I trust, you remember me as a fellow-traveller on your voyage
from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall at this moment your views
on the growth of the ascetic spirit in India, and the duty, not of
destroying, but of diverting it into useful channels.
1 recall these ideas in connection with my scheme of Research
Institute of Science for India, of which you have doubtless heard or
read. It seems to me that no better use can he made of the ascetic.
spirit than the establishment of monasteries or residential halls for
men dominated by this spirit, where they should live with ordinary
decency, and devote their lives to the cultivation of sciences natural

and humanistic. I am of opinion that, if such a crusade in favour of an

asceticism of this kind were undertaken by a competent leader, it
would greatly help asceticism, science, and the good name of our
common country; and I know not who would make a more fitting
general of such a campaign than Vivekananda. Do you think you would
care to apply yourself to the mission of galvanizing into life our ancient
traditions in this respect? Perhaps, you had better begin with a fiery
pamphlet rousing our people in this matter. I should cheerfully defray
all the expenses of publication.
With kind regards, I am, dear Swami,
23rd November, 1898. Yours faithfully,
Esplanade House, Bombay. JAMSETJI N. TATA.
We do not know what the Swami wrote in reply, but we can safely
assume that he expressed his appreciation of the scheme. Incidentally,
while speaking of Sir Jamsetji Tata, it is interesting to note what he
once told Sister Nivedita: when the Swami was in Japan, everyone who
saw him was struck by his likeness to the Buddha.
Then came the day of the consecration of the Ramakrishna Math
Friday, December 9. The consecration of the grounds had been
performed long before, early in March that year (1898). On this later
occasion the Swami himself performed all the rites, helped by his
brother-disciples and his own disciples. The ceremony was an
impressive one. After bathing in the Ganga, the Swami put on a new
ochre cloth, entered the shrine-room, and sat in meditation on the
worshipper's seat. He then worshipped the relics of Shri Ramakrishna
with the utmost veneration, covering them with heaps of flowers and
Bilva leaves. Again he became absorbed in meditation. Swami
Premananda and the other monks stood at the door watching him do
the worship.
Afterwards a procession of the whole brotherhood was formed. It
wended its way along the bank of the Ganga, from Nilambar
Mukherjee's garden-house to the new site. The Swami led, carrying on
his right shoulder the urn containing the remains of Shri Ramakrishna.

The blowing of conchs and beating of gongs sounded across the river.
On the way the Swami said to a disciple: "The Master once told me, 'I
will go and live wherever it will be your pleasure to take me, carrying
me on your shoulders be it under a tree or in the humblest cottage!'
With faith in that gracious promise I myself am now carrying him to the
site of our future Math. Know for certain, my boy, that so long as his
name inspires his followers with his ideals of purity, holiness, and
loving spirit of charity to all men, even so long shall he, the Master,
sanctify the place with his hallowed presence." When they came in
sight of the new Math, the Swami spoke of the glorious future that he
felt it was to have: "It will be a centre in which will be recognized and
practised a grand harmony of all creeds and faiths, as exemplified in
the life of Shri Ramakrishna; and only ideas of religion in its universal
aspect will be preached. From this centre of universal toleration will go
forth the shining message of goodwill and peace and harmony to
deluge the whole world." He warned them of the danger of sects in
time arising within its fold.
Laying the sacred urn on the special seat spread on the Math
grounds, the Swami and all the others prostrated themselves in fervent
salutation before it. After the solemn rites of worship he lit the
sacrificial fire and performed the Viraja Homa, at which only the
sannyasis of the Order could be present. Having himself cooked the
Payasanna (sweetened milk-rice) with the help of his sannyasi
brethren, he offered it to the Master. This brought the consecration
ceremony to a close. The Swami then addressed the gathering as
follows: "Do you all, my brothers, pray to the Lord with all your heart
and soul, that He, the Divine Incarnation of the age, may bless this
place with His hallowed Presence for ever and ever, and make it a
unique centre a Punya-kshetra (holy place)of the harmony of all
the different religions and sects, for the good of the Many, for the
happiness of the Many!" All, with folded palms, responded by joining
in in prayer to the Lord. Then the return procession began.
Sharatchandra, the Swami's disciple, on the order of his guru, carried
the urn on his head.

This day was a memorable one in the history of the Ramakrishna

Order. The very atmosphere vibrated with spirituality. The Swami was
jubilant, ecstatic. Now, he felt, a formidable task had been
accomplished: that of finding a site and the means for the
establishment of a temple for the Master and of a monastery the
whole to serve as the headquarters of a monastic order dedicated to
the practice and propagation of the Master's teachings. He said: "By
the will of the Lord is established today His Dharmakshetra. Today I
feel free from the weight of the responsibility which I have carried with
me for twelve long years. And now a vision comes to my mind! This
Math shall become a great centre of learning and spiritual practices.
Pious householders will erect houses for themselves on the grounds
round this future religious university and live there, with the sannyasis
in the centre. To the South, the followers of the Lord from England and
America will come and make their abode!" Turning to a disciple, he
asked triumphantly, "What do you think of it?" The disciple
respectfully expressed the doubt that this "most excellent piece of
fancy" would ever materialize. "Fancy, do you say!" the Swami cried
out "Hear me, O you of little faith ! Time will fulfil all my expectations. I
am now only laying the foundation, as it were. Great things will come
later on. I shall do my share of the task; and I shall instil into you all the
various ideas that you will in the future have to work out. The highest
principles and ideals of religion have not only to be studied and
comprehended, but brought into the practical field of life. Do you
understand?"
A few days later, the same disciple had the privilege of hearing
some of the Swami's ideas on the scope and ideals of the Math, and on
the regulations and disciplines that he wished to be observed there in
the future. The disciple's record of what he heard gives a glimpse of
the Swami's schemes for a national education and for philanthropic
work in his own country. Some extracts will be of interest.
As he was walking to and fro on the grounds of the new Math he
said, pointing to an old cottage:
There will be the place for the sadhus to live in. This Math will he
the central institution for the practice of religion and the cultivation of

knowledge. The spiritual force emanating from here will permeate the
whole world, turning the currents of men's activities and aspirations
into new channels. From here will be disseminated ideals harmonizing
jnana, Bhakti, Yoga, and Karma. The time will come, when by the mere
will of the sannyasis of this Math, life will vibrate into the deadened
souls of men. All these visions are rising before me.
On that land to the south will be the Temple of Learning, modelled
after the manner of our ancient Tols. In it will be taught Grammar,
Philosophy, Arts, Science, Literature, Rhetoric, Hindu Codes of Law,
Scriptures, and English. There the young Brahmacharis will live and
study the Shastras. The Math will provide them with food, clothing,
etc. After five years' training these Brahmacharis will be at liberty to
return to their homes and lead the householder's life; or, if they prefer,
they may take the vow of Sannyasa with the sanction of the Superiors
of the Math. If any of these Brahmacharis are found to be disorderly or
of bad character, the Math authorities will have the power to turn
them out. Here boys will be taught irrespective of caste or creed. But
those who would like to observe the orthodox customs of their
respective castes and creeds, will have to arrange for their food and so
forth separately. They will attend only the classes in common with the
rest. The authorities shall keep a strict watch on their character too.
No one will be entitled to admission into the monastic order who has
not received his training here. Thus, in the course of time, the Math
work will be conducted wholly with a personnel drawn from them.
Disciple: Then, sir, you mean to re-introduce the old Gurukula
system in the country?
Swamiji: Why, assuredly, yes! There is no scope whatever in the
modern system of education for the unfoldment of the Brahmavidya.
The old institution of Brahmacharya must be established anew. But its
foundation must he laid on a broad basis, and many changes and
modifications suited to the needs of the times will have to be
introduced into it, of which I shall tell you later on.
That plot of land adjoining ours in the south should be acquired in
time. There will be the Annasatra or a Feeding Home of the Math in

the name of Shri Ramakrishna, where proper arrangements will be

made for serving food to those who are really poor and needy,
regarding them as forms of Narayana. The scope of its work will be
regulated according to the funds at its disposal; it may even be started
with two or three people. Enthusiastic Brahmacharis will have to be
trained to conduct this Annasatra. They themselves should find means
for its support, even by begging from door to door. The Math will not
be allowed to lend any pecuniary aid to it. When the Brahmacharis
have completed their five years' training in this Home of Service in that
way, then only they will have the right of admission into the Temple of
Learning branch of the monastery. Thus after ten years of training in
all, they will be entitled to enter the Sannyasa Ashrama after due
initiation by the Math authorities of course, if they have a mind to
become sannyasis, and if the latter find them fit for it. But the
President of the Math may, in the case of some specially gifted
Brahmachari, waive this rule and give Sannyasa at any time in spite of
this rule. You see I have all these ideas in my head.
Disciple: Sir, what is the object of establishing these three
separate branches in the Math?
Swamiji: Don't you see? There should be, first, Annadana, or the
giving of food and other necessaries of physical life; next, Vidyadana,
or the imparting of intellectual knowledge; and, last of all, Jnanadana,
or the conferring of spiritual knowledge. The harmonizing of these
three aspects that conduce to the making of Man, must be the sole
duty of the Math. By devoting themselves to the work of the Annasatra
in the manner indicated, the idea of working for others by practical
means, and that of serving humanity in the spirit of worship, will he
firmly implanted in the minds of, the Brahmacharis. This will gradually
purify their minds, leading to the development of Sattvic thoughts and
aspirations. And such alone are capable of receiving and retaining the
Apara and the Para Vidya (the secular and the supreme knowledge)
and thus of becoming eligible for Sannyasa....
Disciple: Sir, your words encourage me to learn something more of
your ideas about the Annasatras and Sevashramas.

Swamiji: There should be well-ventilated rooms in these homes, in

each of which two or three of the poor or the diseased will live. They
should have comfortable bedding and clean clothes. There should be a
doctor for them who will come and see them once or twice a week, or
as often as convenient. The Sevashrama will he a department of the
Annasatra, in which the diseased will be nursed and well taken care of.
In time, as funds permit, a big kitchen will he built, and any number of
hungry people will be fed at all times of the day to their hearts'
content. None shall be refused under any circumstances. The watergruel strained off from the cooked rice, draining into the Ganga, will
turn its water white ! Oh, how glad at heart I shall be to see an
Annasatra working on such a grand scale here !
Speaking thus the Swami stood for a while gazing dreamily at the
Ganga, as if fathoming the future to see the sight that he had just
visualized. He broke his rumination to say affectionately to the disciple:
Who knows when the sleeping lion will be roused in one or other
of you! If the Mother but kindles in the soul of any one of you a spark
of Her divine power, hundreds of such Annasatras will he opened all
over the country. Know this that jnana, Bhakti, and Shakti are already
in every living being. It is only the difference in the degree of their
manifestation that makes one great and another small. It is as if a
curtain were drawn between us and that perfection. When that is
removed, the whole of Nature is at our feet. Then, whatever we want,
whatever we will, will come to pass.
If the Lord wills, we shall make this Math a great centre of
harmony. Our Lord is the visible embodiment of the perfect harmony
of all ideals. His throne will remain unshaken in the world of spirituality
if we keep alive that ideal of harmony here. We must see to it that
people of all sects and creeds, from the Brahmana down to the
Chandala, will find on coming here their respective ideals manifested.
The other day when we installed the image of Shri Ramakrishna on the
grounds of this Math, I saw his ideas emanating from here and flooding
the whole universe with their radiance! I for one am doing and shall do
my best to elucidate his broad ideas to all people; you all also do the
same. What avails the mere reading of Vedanta? We have to exemplify

the truth of the pure Advaita in practical life. This Advaitavada has so
long been kept hidden in the forests and mountain-caves. It has been
given to me to bring it out from seclusion and scatter it broadcast
before the workaday world and society. The sound of the Advaita
drum must resound in every hearth and home, in meadows and
groves, over hills and plains. Come all of you to my assistance and set
yourselves to work.
Disciple: But, sir, my mind inclines rather to realize the Advaita
state through meditation than to manifest it in action.
Swamiji: Why! What is the use of remaining always stupefied in
Jadasamadhi? Under the inspiration of Advaita why not sometimes
dance like Shiva, and sometimes remain immersed in
Superconsciousness? Who enjoys a delicacy more he who eats it all
by himself, or he who shares it with others? Granted that by realizing
the Atman in meditation you attain Mukti, but what is that to the
world? We have to take the whole universe with us to Mukti! We shall
start a conflagration in Mahamaya's dominion. Then only you will he
established in the Eternal Truth. Oh, what can compare with that Bliss,
immeasurable, "infinite as the skies"! In that state you will be
speechless, carried beyond yourself, by seeing your own Self in every
being that breathes, and in every atom of the universe. When you
realize this, you cannot live in this world without treating everyone
with exceeding love and compassion. This indeed is practical Vedanta.
Although the new Math was consecrated, and Shri Ramakrishna
ceremonially installed there, on December 9, 1898, as related above, it
was not until January 2, 1899, that the Math was finally moved from
Nilambar Mukherjee's garden-house. But from December 9 several of
the monks lived on the new Math grounds. The reason for the delay in
moving the whole Math to the new place was that the alterations and
additions to the existing quarters had not been completed. This work
was begun in April 1898, but though it was pushed through with all
speed, it was not completed until the beginning of 1899. An entire
upper storey, with a veranda facing the Ganga, had to he built, and so
also the building to accommodate the shrine of Shri Ramakrishna and
the dining-hall of the monks.

Some time during his stay at Balarambabu's house, perhaps before

his departure for Deoghar, the Swami, along with Swami Yogananda,
Sharatchandra Chakravarty, and Sister Nivedita, went to see the
Calcutta Zoological Gardens. The Superintendent, Rai Bahadur
Ramabrahma Sanyal, hearing of his intended visit, received him and his
party at the entrance, and showed them all the animal-houses. The
Swami wanted to see the feeding of the lions and tigers. This was done
on the order of the Superintendent. The snakes interested him, and he
entered into a long discussion on the evolution of reptiles. Next it was
the monkeys. On seeing the almost human members of this species, he
was sometimes heard to address them in a curious way, saying, "Well,
how did you get into that body? What frightful Karma in the past has
brought you here?"
After light refreshments a long conversation ensued. The
Superintendent was a student of botany and zoology, and held
strongly to the Darwinian theory of evolution. But the Swami, though
admitting Darwin's theory to be sound to a certain extent, preferred to
it Patanjali's more comprehensive theory of "filling-in of nature",
which, he showed, more satisfactorily explained evolution. He pointed
out that Patanjali, unlike the Western philosophers, did not put
forward "struggle for existence", "survival of the fittest", and "natural
selection" as causes of the evolution of one species into another.
However important struggle and competition may be in evolution in
the lower orders of nature, they are, the Swami held, retarding rather
than aiding factors in the development of human character. Perfection,
according to the ancient Hindu sages, is man's real nature: only, it is
prevented from manifestation by certain obstacles; and as these are
removed, so it manifests itself more fully. It is through education and
culture, through meditation and concentration, and, above all, through
renunciation and sacrifice, that the obstacles are removed. Thus the
competitive struggle over sex and food, he maintained, does not apply
to the human plane on its higher levels. The sages, on the contrary,
struggled to grow above nature, to conquer animal instinct, to go
beyond even the sense of progress, and to merge human nature in the
Divine.

The Superintendent, much pleased, exclaimed: ``Swamiji, that is a

wonderful theory! We need in India at the present time more men like
you, versed in Eastern and Western philosophy, to point out to our
educated community their one-sidedness and to correct their fallacies
and confusions." The same evening the Swami explained more clearly
and elaborately his theory of evolution with special reference to the
needs of modern India, to a group of friends and visitors, at
Balarambabu's house.
To summarize what he said: Darwin's theory is applicable to the
animal and vegetable kingdoms, but not to the human kingdom where
reason and knowledge are highly developed. In the saints and ideal
men we find no trace of struggle whatever, and no tendency to rise
higher or grow stronger by the destruction of others. There we find
sacrifice instead. The more a person can sacrifice the greater he is. The
struggle of a rational man is with his internal nature. The more he
succeeds in controlling his mind the greater he is. On being
questioned, "Why then do you emphasize so much the need for our
physical improvement?" the Swami thundered:
Are you men? You are no better than animals, satisfied with
eating, sleeping, and propagating, and haunted by fear! If you had not
had in you a little rationality, you would have become quadrupeds by
this time! Devoid of self-respect, you are full of jealousy among
yourselves, and have made yourselves objects of contempt to
foreigners! Throw aside your vain bragging, your theories, and so forth,
and reflect calmly on the doings and dealings of your everyday life.
Because you are governed by animal nature, I teach you to seek
success first in the struggle for existence, and to attend to the building
up of your physique, so that you may be able to wrestle all the better
with your mind. The physically weak, I say again and again, are unfit for
the realization of the Self! When once the mind is controlled and man
is the master of his self, it does not matter whether the body is strong
or not, for then he is not dominated by it.
Sleep rarely visited the Swami at this time. His disease kept his
brain constantly active, and at frequent intervals during the night he

would be awake. He therefore very much desired rest, as is evident

from the following incident:
There was to be an eclipse of the sun. He was at Balarambabu's
house, and had just eaten a meal cooked by a disciple, who was now
rubbing the Swami's feet gently. The sound of conchs and the ringing
of bells were heard, announcing the beginning of the eclipse. "Well,"
said the Swami, "the eclipse of the sun has begun. Let me have a nap."
Later, when the sky had become quite dark, he remarked, "Isn't it an
eclipse indeed!" Then he turned over to sleep. Some time after, he got
up and said to the disciple attending on him: "They say a man is
rewarded a hundredfold in what he desires or does during an eclipse. I
thought that, if I could sleep soundly now for a little, I should get good
sleep in the future; but it was not to be. I have slept for about fifteen
minutes only. The Divine Mother has not blessed this body with sound
sleep."
As we have already seen, the Swami had for some time wished for
a Bengali paper or journal to be started in Calcutta. On account of
many difficulties that had not yet been done.
On July 17, 1898 he had written to Swami Brahmananda from
Srinagar: "My opinion regarding what you have written about Sarada is
only that it is difficult to make a magazine in Bengali paying; but if all of
you together canvass subscribers from door to door, it may he
possible. In this matter do as you all decide. Poor Sarada has already
been disappointed once."
After the American ladies had returned to Calcutta from their tour
in North India, Miss MacLeod gave what money she could to the
Swami, who immediately passed it on so that the publication of the
Udbodhan, a fortnightly journal in Bengali, could commence. In her
reminiscences Josephine MacLeod writes: "Mrs. Bull had given several
thousand dollars to found the monastery. I having very little, it took
me some years to have eight hundred dollars. One day I said to
Swam... 'Here is a little money you may be able to use.' He said, 'What?
What?' I said, 'Yes.' 'How much?' he asked. And I said, 'Eight hundred
dollars'. Instantly he turned to Swami Trigunatita and said, 'There, go

and buy your press.' He bought the press which started the Udbodhan,
the Bengali magazine published by the Ramakrishna Mission."
A press was bought and, to the delight of the Swami, the journal
made its appearance on January 14, 1899. Swami Trigunatitananda
had volunteered to be its editor and manager. With him were a few
Brahmacharis to help. The Swami gave directions about the conduct of
the magazine. Nothing but positive ideas for the physical, mental, and
spiritual improvement of the race should have a place in it. Instead of
criticizing and finding fault with the thoughts and aspirations of
mankind as embodied in its literature, philosophy, poetry, arts, and so
forth, ancient and modern, it should point out how they can be made
more conducive to progress. It should never attack or seek to destroy
any one's faith. The highest doctrines of the Vedas and Vedanta should
be presented to the people in the simplest way, so that by diffusing
true culture and knowledge it might in time be able to raise the
Chandala to Brahmana status. It should stand for universal harmony as
preached by Shri Ramakrishna, and scatter abroad his ideals of love,
purity, and renunciation. With untiring zeal and perseverance, and
wonderful self-denial, Swami Trigunatita laboured for the success of
the journal. As the Swami remarked, only an unselfish sannyasi could
do such heroic work.
A glimpse of the Swami's frame of mind, at the time of which we
are writing, is given in his letter of December 15 to Christine
Greenstidel: "Never was a man more bound by Karma on all sides as I
am and never one tried more to be free. What guided me most do you
think, the head or the heart? The 'Mother' is our guide. Whatever
happens or will happen will be under her ordination."
On December 16 the Swami announced to the monks that he
would go for a short change to Baidyanath (Deoghar), and that, later
on, probably in the summer, he would again visit Europe and America.
On the I9th, attended by Harendranath, a Brahmachari disciple, he left
for Baidyanath, where he was the guest of Babu Priyanath Mukherjee.
He occupied himself in private studies, writing letters, and in spending
long hours walking. He remained alone much of the time. Removed
from public activities and organizational responsibilities, his mind

tended to meditative absorption, however much he tried to rest it. On

the whole, his health was bad; and here, for a time, there were
complications. An acute form of asthma set in, causing him severe
discomfort. In one attack he was almost suffocated; and those who
stood about him feared that the time had come for him to leave his
body.
While staying at the house of the same gentleman, the Swami and
Swami Niranjanananda were out for a walk one day. They found a man
lying helpless on the roadside, in the cold of winter, suffering from
acute dysentery. The man had only a rag on, and that too was soiled;
and he was crying with pain. The Swami wondered how he could help
him: he himself was only a guest. How could he take such a patient to
his host's house without the latter's consent? But he must do
something at any cost! With the help of Niranjanananda he raised the
suffering man to his feet. By supporting him the two monks brought
him slowly to the house. There, they cleaned and clothed him, and
applied hot fomentations. They nursed the sick man back to recovery.
The host, instead of being vexed, was lost in admiration, and realized
that the heart of Vivekananda was as great as his intellect.
During the Swamis absence from Calcutta, the Holy Mother
visited the new monastery on December 20th. On January 2, 1899 the
Math was finally moved entirely from Nilambar Mukherjees gardenhouse to its present quarters.

AMONGST HIS OWN PEOPLE 1

Swamiji had gone to Baidyanath, Deoghar, thinking that the
climate there might do him some good; but the result was otherwise.
On December 29,1898 he had written to Mrs. Bull: "You know already
my inability to accompany you. I cannot gather strength enough to
accompany you. The cold in the lungs continues, and that is just what
makes me unfit for travel. On the whole I hope to improve here." But
alas! his hope was soon shattered, for by the second week of January
1899 his illness had taken a serious turn, and he had to wire Swamis
Saradananda and Sadananda to come to Deoghar. Accordingly they left

Calcutta on January 17 to attend the Swami. Soon after reaching there

Swami Saradananda wrote to Josephine MacLeod on January 19: "I had
to run down here two days ago, for the Swami has been suffering from
the same kind of difficulty of breathing, and sent a telegram. I will
return to Calcutta with him as soon as he feels equal to it. He is much
better now, and we hope he will be himself again in a few more days."
At Deoghar the Swami received letters almost daily from the
Math, giving him news of its activities and members. He must have
been happy to learn of the Holy Mother's visit there and to the
residence of Mrs. Ole Bull at Bally, on December 20. On Christmas Day
some of the monks were invited by Mrs. Ole Bull and Miss MacLeod to
their house. On December 30 the American ladies were entertained by
the monks at the Math before their leaving for America. On January 2,
1899 as we have said, the Math was transferred to the new site for
good. Sister Nivedita was invited to give talks twice a week to the
Brahmacharis there on such subjects as physiology, botany, the arts
including painting, and the kindergarten system.
In spite of his illness, the Swami was active. The letter that he
wrote from Deoghar on January 3, 1899 to Mrinalini Bose, one of his
Bengali lady-disciples, reveals his many sidedness. We find him here as
a sociologist giving his views on the origin of customs, and on widowmarriage, liberty, and other matters. It reads in part:
Some very important questions have been raised in your letter....
(1) Rishi, Muni, or God none has the power to force an
institution on society. When the needs of the times press hard on it,
society adopts certain customs for self-preservation. Rishis have only
recorded those customs. As a man often resorts even to such means as
are good for immediate self-protection, but which are very injurious in
the future, so also, society not infrequently saves itself for the time
being, but these immediate means, which contributed to its
preservation, turn out to be terrible in the long run.
For example, take the prohibition of widow-marriage in our
country. Don't think that Rishis or wicked men introduced the law
pertaining to it. Notwithstanding the desire of men to keep women

completely under their control, they never could succeed in

introducing those laws without betaking themselves to the aid of a
social necessity of the time. Of this custom two points should be
specially observed:
(a) Widow-marriage takes place among the lower classes.
(b) Among the higher classes the number of women is greater
than that of men.
Now, if it be the rule to marry every girl, it is difficult enough to
get one husband apiece; then how to get, by and by, two or three for
each? Therefore has society put one party under disadvantage, i.e. it
does not let her have a second husband, who has had one; if it did, one
maid would have to go without a husband. On the other hand, widowmarriage obtains in communities having a greater number of men than
women, as in their case the objection stated above does not exist. It is
becoming more and more difficult in the West too for unmarried girls
to get husbands.
Similar is the case with the caste system, and other social customs.
So, if it be necessary to change any social custom, the necessity
underlying it should be found out first of all; and by altering it, the
custom will die of itself. Otherwise, no good will be done by
condemnation or praise.
(2) Now the question is: Is it for the good of the public at large that
social rules are framed, or society is formed? Many reply to this in the
affirmative; some again may hold that it is not so. Some men, being
comparatively powerful, slowly bring all others under their control,
and by stratagem, force, or adroitness, gain their own objects. If this
be true, what can be the meaning of the statement that there is
danger in giving liberty to the ignorant? What, again, is the meaning of
liberty?
Liberty does not certainly mean the absence of obstacles in the
path of misappropriation of wealth etc., by you and me, but it is our
natural right to be allowed to use our own body, intelligence, or wealth
according to our will, without doing any harm to others; and all the
members of a society ought to have the same opportunity for

obtaining wealth, education, or knowledge. The second question is:

Those who say that if the ignorant and the poor be given liberty, i.e.
full right to their body, wealth, etc., and if their children have the same
opportunity to better their condition and acquire knowledge like those
of the rich and highly situated, they would be perverse do they say
this for the good of the society, or blinded by their selfishness? In
England, too, I have heard, "Who will serve us, if the lower classes get
education?"
For the luxury of a handful of the rich, let millions of men and
women remain submerged in the heu of want and abysmal depth of
ignorance, for, if they get wealth and education, society will be upset!
Who constitute society? The millions, or you, I, and a few others of
the upper classes?
Again, even if the latter be true, what ground is there for our
vanity that we lead others? Are we omniscient? "Uddhared Atmana
Atmanam"Raise self by self." Let each one work out his own
salvation. It is freedom in every way, i.e. advance towards Mukti is the
worthiest gain of man. To advance towards freedom physical,
mental, and spiritual and help others to do so, is the supreme prize
of man. Those social rules which stand in the way of the unfoldment of
this freedom are injurious, and steps should be taken to destroy them
speedily. Those institutions should he encouraged by which men
advance in the path of freedom....
Swamiji returned from Baidyanath to Calcutta with Swami
Saradananda on the night of January 22. Next morning Nivedita went
to see him at his call. About her visit she wrote to Miss MacLeod on
January 23: "I returned from an hour with the King [the Swami] who
came last night and sent for me at eight, morning. He was divine,
looking splendid though he told me that he stood three nights battling
for breath, but full of plans. I never saw him in such a mood before.
Saradananda and I are to carry on a Crusade and enthuse Calcutta with
lectures in theatres...." On the 25th Swami Saradananda also wrote to
Miss MacLeod about the Swami: "Well, my last was from Baidyanath,
and I told you how the Prophet [the Swami] was very ill with the same

kind of attack as he used to have at Belur. He suffered dreadfully

poor child! but is much better nowonly feeling weak. We took him
back to Calcutta as soon as the fit was over and he could move easily
about...."
On the following day the Swami himself wrote from Baghbazar,
Calcutta, to Christine Greenstidel: "The fact is, I was once more in the
vale of death. The old diabetes has now disappeared. In its place has
come what some doctors call asthma, others dyspepsia owing to
nervous prostration. However it is a most worrying disease, giving one
the sensation of suffocation sometimes for days. I am best only in
Calcutta. So I am here for rest and quiet and low diet. If I get well by
March, I am going to start for Europe. Mrs. Bull and others are gone.
Sorry I could not accompany them." And on February 2 he wrote to
Josephine MacLeod:
Neither did the change at Baidyanath do me any good. I nearly
died there, was suffocating for eight days and nights. I was brought
back to Calcutta more dead than alive, and here I am struggling to get
back to life again. Dr. Sarkar is treating me now....
... I have suffered mentally and physically all my life, but Mother's
kindness has been immense. The joy and blessings I had infinitely more
than I deserve. And I am struggling not to fail Mother, but that She will
always find me fighting, and my last breath will be on the battlefield.
In addition to physical illness, the Swami also had to suffer at this
time from the shock caused by the defection of his formerly-devoted
admirer, Miss F. Henrietta Mller. He must have known about it in the
early part of December, if not before, from Nivedita or Miss MacLeod.
From Nivedita's letter to Miss MacLeod, dated December 7, it is known
that Miss Mller wanted to meet the Swami on December 6, but could
not do so. In this letter Nivedita writes: "Miss Mller came yesterday
Wednesday and stayed four hours on purpose to see Swami, as
she afterwards acknowledged.... She has thrown everything overboard.
Shri Ramakrishna, Swami, Meditation, University [Universality?] of
Religions, everything. She does not hesitate to say that Hinduism is
Eroticism to the core, and that its truths have been 'kept from her'. By

whom? 'Oh, names are useless', she answers. All, meditation included,
is 'dirty'. She is now a Bible Christian of a virulent type, and tending
towards millennialism.... I spoke of Swami. 'Oh, you won't love him
long!' she answered gaily 'Divine Master'!"
On December 25, 1898, the Indian Social Reformer published this
news item: "To our Christian brethren we beg to offer a Christmas
present in the shape of the news, which we have just received from
the most authentic source, that Miss Mller has completely severed
her connection with Swami Vivekananda's movement to spread
Hinduism, and that she has returned to her Christian faith...." Miss
Mller had also written a letter to the Statesman of Calcutta. A reply to
it appeared in the Indian Mirror.
When Swami Saradananda went to Baidyanath to bring the Swami
back, the latter already knew what had happened. On January 19
Saradananda wrote all about it from Baidyanath to Miss MacLeod,
then on her way to England:
Poor Miss Mller has sailed for her home Tuesday [actually on
Wednesday, January 18] last, perhaps to " her fortune there as none
will appear here to ask her precious hand and as I with my efforts
could not be quick enough in demanding! Well, I thought of seeing her
to say goodbye; but the report of her last visit with Nivedita made me
withdraw. Then I thought of writing a letter on behalf of the Math, and
I wrote it too; but Nivedita thought it too sentimental. Then we
concluded by letting Nivedita write a few lines for us and send
Kalikrishna with it and a few roses and fruits and nuts. I do not know if
it has been carried out or not, for I hastened here for the Swami. A few
opinions of Miss Mller will interest and enlighten even yourself if you
deign to lend your ear.
First. The Swami tried for some occult power, or organization, or
something humbug, and he failed miserably, and all other occult
teachers in India predicted it. Hence her love for the Swami has
withered and dropped like a dried flower as in the case of Akshaya
[Ghosh, the boy whom she had adopted].

Second. We are a nation of black magicians; we mesmerize food

and so on, and we have practised that on our dear Granny [Mrs. Bull]
and Yum [Miss MacLeod], hence your devotion and love.
Third. It is her sacred duty to go around in England and elsewhere
and enlighten people of these bright experiences.
Fourth No salvation for Swami or us, unless we become Christians
as herself, who, the Swami says, has never been baptized. Now ponder
over these, and be miserable forever, thou awfully deceived lady....
Nivedita gave an account of her last meeting with Miss Mller to
Miss MacLeod in her letter of January 23, 1899: "On Wednesday
[January 18] I saw Miss Mller off. On Saturday [January 14] I lunched
with Salzers. One or two nasty touches about Swami [by Miss Mller].
About money, I replied with definite statement that first sum bought
Math land (it is well to have tangible things to show), and second was
refused, and so on. When the word 'deceived' was used of Swami in
quotation from Miss Mller, I simply gave a sharp warning not to
repeat it, and so on."
Though the Swami must have felt very bad on hearing all this, he
knew the lady well. Changing her religious affiliation and making
declarations in the press was not a new thing for her. Back in July 1895,
on the 16th, she had announced in the Madras Mail: "I am leaving the
Theosophical Society." It was after this that she had become a follower
of the Swami in England. But the Madras Mail and the Mahabodhi
Journal had long back discerned her nature. The former had
prophesied as follows in its issue of September 30, 1895: "... If India
cannot spontaneously produce champions for herself, this
manufacture of them by eccentric lady faddists is not likely to do the
country much good. Miss Mller, we fear, is doomed to sustain a very
complete and bitter disappointment." And the latter, the Mahabodhi
Journal, in its November-December 1895 issue, had stated: "It will
require thousand births yet for Miss Mller to be reborn the meanest
Hindu woman, when her real womanly culture will begin under the
thraldom, should the Lord be pleased to grant it to her, of the 'Brahmin
priest'."

In addition to the causes for Miss Mller's leaving the Swami that
Swami Saradananda mentioned, the Swami himself knew that there
was the reason of his illness, which was the main reason. On
September 14, 1899 the Swami would be writing to Mr. Sturdy from
Ridgely Manor: "Mrs. Jonson is of opinion that no spiritual person
ought to be ill.... That was Miss Mllers reason for leaving me, my
illness. They may be perfectly right, for aught I know and you too
but I am what I am."
And on June 20, 1900 the Swami was to write from New York
about Miss Mller to Christine Greenstidel:
Well, Mother seems to be kind again and the wheel is slowly rising
up. Did you hear of my friend Miss Mller? Well, she left me in India
and they say tried to injure me in England. This morning I get a letter
from her that she is coming to the States and wants to see me
badly! Her defection was a great blow to me as I loved her so much,
and she was a great helper and worker. She has plenty of this world's
goods and brains, but like myself she now and then gets into violent
nervous fits. Now, of course, there is good excuse for her agenone
for me. She wants to come by the end of June. I, of course, want her to
come earlier. So I wrote her just now....
It is not known to date whether or not they met in the States; but
it is clear that she had climbed down somewhat within a couple of
years of her defection. The Swami's words in his letter to Nivedita,
written on November 12, 1901, from Belur Math, also imply this: "By
the by, Miss Mller is here in Calcutta. She wrote a letter to
Akhandananda, with whom she has been in regular correspondence, to
the care of the Math. So I sent some flowers and fruits, and a letter of
welcome, to her hotel. I have not had a reply yet." By the beginning of
February 1899 the Swami was feeling better. Once more he was at the
task of training his brother-monks and disciples. This, it hardly needs
saying, was something that he was always busy with, either manifestly
or tacitly. Now it would be that they should cook for him himself an
excellent cook. Or again, that they should carry out some other order
precisely and promptly. In his demands he was most exacting, so that
they might learn attentiveness and accuracy. Following the example of

Pavhari Baba, they were to concentrate on and do to perfection even

the simplest acts of life. The Swami once said: "He who knows how
even to fill a Chillum of tobacco properly, knows also how to meditate.
And he who cannot cook well, cannot be a perfect sannyasi. Unless
cooking is performed with a pure mind and concentration, the food is
not palatable." Or, he would train some of the disciples to be
preachers. They had to stand up and speak extempore before him and
a group of sannyasis and house-holders. Sometimes, they would be
nervous, but he would insist, and tell them of the advice that Shri
Ramakrishna had once given him for overcoming diffidence. "Think",
said Shri Ramakrishna, "of the men before you as worms, as the old
proverb runs." Once warmed to their subject, the disciples would
speak fluently, on the Upanishads, or on Jnana or Bhakti, or again on
the need of Shraddha, renunciation, and so forth. The Swami would
encourage them with cheers, or with "Well done!" at the end of a
speech. Of Swami Shuddhananda he said, "In time he will be an
excellent speaker!" On another occasion being pleased with a piece of
work done by the same Swami, he said, quoting the Bible, "You are the
beloved son in whom I am pleased." It was the Swami's habit, in order
to give encouragement, to extol to the highest even the smallest merit
of his followers.
In keeping with this habit of the Swami was his capacity to make
all who were about him great, and equal to brave or dare anything.
Success or failure on their part would elicit from him nothing but
approbation and encouragement; for he judged his brothers and
disciples not by their achievements but by the spirit in which they
engaged in action. Enough that they had dared and done their best! He
would, so to speak, throw them into water beyond their depth, to
make them learn to swim. He had infinite faith in the possibilities of
the human soul, and would inspire his followers with a fire and
eloquence that were irresistible. They were as capable of inspiration as
he himself, he told them. An atom of goodness in a disciple he would
see as a mountain, and mountains of faults and failings he would ' see
as atoms! In such a relationship, every word spoken, every thought,
every deed attempted or accomplished, every purpose understood,

and even those misunderstood, became charged with power and the
means of extended vision. Such was the spirit in the Math in those
days.
The affairs of the Math were capably organized by Swami
Saradananda, who had been called back from America for that
purpose. Even 'though the Swami knew that Saradananda was very
useful in the States, he thought it of greater importance and more
urgent to have the work of the headquarters organized, and some of
the younger members trained as preachers, by one who was
acquainted with Western methods of organization, and with Western
needs and temperament. Besides, he knew that the work in America
would not suffer. for Swami Abhedananda was working there with
untiring zeal and surprising success. Since his arrival at the Math in the
beginning of February 1898, Swami Saradananda had given himself to
his task with great devotion. Everything went like clockwork and with
great enthusiasm. Question-classes, and classes for the study of
Sanskrit and of Eastern and Western philosophies were conducted
regularly by him and by Swami Turiyananda; and meditation classes
were held daily. The business side of running the Math was entrusted
to the younger members. This was done at the instance of the Swami.
He held that unless they were given freedom of decision in their
sphere, with responsibilities to shoulder, they would never learn to
stand on their own feet and work wholeheartedly for the cause. They
formed themselves into a body and elected a superintendent from
among themselves every month. He was responsible for seeing that
the daily duties were properly carried out and the needs of the Math
attended to. On the principle of division of labour the superintendent
assigned to each fellow-disciple his duties, had a reserve force to meet
emergencies, and allowed some by turn to devote themselves entirely
to spiritual practices and austerities. He had to see that all work was
done properly and in time, that everything was kept neat, clean, and in
its place, that the sick were taken care of, and so on. It was a delight to
the Swami to see, both before he left Calcutta in the early part of 1898
and again after he returned in October, that the organization of the
Math was so satisfactory.

The Swami is seen in these days pre-eminently as a monastic

leader and as the builder of a monastic order. He was constantly
teaching his disciples the ideals and practice of the monastic life.
Gathering them together whenever the mood came upon him, he
would instruct them in the duties of their life, impress upon them the
responsibilities of the great vow that they had taken, and put before
them its glories and possibilities. He would often say, "Brahmacharya
should he like a burning fire within the veins!" Or, "Remember, the
ideal is the freedom of the soul and service to all." The life of Sannyasa
meant, to him, renunciation of the personal for the sake of the
universal good, till the personal was merged in the impersonal. He so
brought ideals to life and showed them to he practical, that they could
never afterwards be passed off as abstractions. He held that nothing
was impossible for one who had faith in himself. He would point out:
The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith
in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do
anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest
infinite power. As soon as a man loses faith in himself, death comes.
Believe first in yourself, and then in God. A handful of strong men
will move the world. We need a heart to feel, a brain to conceive, and
a strong arm to do the work. Buddha gave himself for the animals.
Make yourselves fit agents to work. But it is God who works, not you.
One man contains within him the whole universe. One particle of
matter has all the energy of the universe at its back. In a conflict
between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.
In one of the gatherings of disciples the talk drifted to
Adhikarivada, or the doctrine of special rights and privileges. The
Swami spoke in unmeasured terms against it and the evils that have
resulted from it. He said that the highest truths should be given to one
and all alike, without making distinction. His disciples should he bold
enough to give out the truth unequivocally and fearlessly, without
caring for the prevailing customs of the people and of the country. He
cried out:

No compromise! No whitewashing! No covering of corpses with

flowers!... This attempt at compromise proceeds from arrant, downright cowardice. Be bold! My children should he brave, above all. Not
the least compromise on any account. Preach the highest truths
broadcast. Do not be afraid of losing your respect, or of causing
unhappy friction. Rest assured that if you serve Truth in spite of
temptations to forsake It, you will attain a heavenly strength, in the
face of which men will quail to speak before you things that you do not
believe to he true. People will he convinced by what you say to them if
you can strictly serve Truth for fourteen years continually, without
swerving from It. Thus you will confer the greatest blessing on the
masses, unshackle their bonds, and uplift the whole nation.
Or quoting Bhartrihari he would exclaim: "Let sages praise thee or
the world blame thee. Let fortune itself come, or let poverty and rags
stare thee in the face. One day eat the herbs of the forest for food; and
the next day, partake of a banquet of fifty courses. Looking neither to
the right nor to the left, journey thou on!"
Again and again he would say that only a great monk can be a
great worker. "Only the unimpassioned and unattached do most for
the world", he would say: "Who can claim to be a greater worker than
Buddha or Christ?" In the Swami's eyes there was no work that was
secular. All work was sacred. All work was worship. "We must combine
the practicality and the culture of the finest citizenship with the love of
poverty, the purity, and the thorough renunciation that characterize
the true monk, and the man of God!"
In discussing the kinds of service that the monks should take up,
he would mention the feeding of the poor, relief in times of famine,
nursing the sick, supervising sanitation in epidemic-infected towns,
founding orphanages and hospitals and centres of education and
training all of which have since become elements in the work and
life of the monks of the Ramakrishna Order. In the monastery itself,
besides leading the spiritual and intellectual life, they were also to
acquaint themselves, theoretically and practically, with music,
gardening, the keeping of animals, and so forth. And he himself,
setting an example, would often experiment in the sinking of a well, or

in baking, or some other form of cookery, or he would teach them

choral singing. He would insist on physical exercise, saying: "I want
sappers and miners in the army of religion! So, boys, set yourselves to
the task of training your muscles! For ascetics, mortification is all right!
For workers, well-developed bodies, muscles of iron, and nerves of
steel!" Study, also, was required in order that the monks might,
through learning, develop well-reasoned judgement on the social and
spiritual needs of the time and their mutual adjustment, and on the
best way of bringing about an exchange of the highest ideals between
East and West.
The Swami was never tired of impressing upon the minds of his
monastic disciples that renunciation with unbroken Brahmacharya was
the only key to Illumination, to the realization of the Highest. The life
of the monk was a continuous struggle, a war with the internal nature.
This being so, the monk must practise intense Tapasya (spiritual
disciplines and austerities), self-control, and concentration, if he
aspired to victory. Nothing pleased him so much as to see someone of
them devoting himself to austerities and meditation in solitude. Once
he turned fiercely upon someone, who had put to him a worldly
question, with the remark, "Go and perform Tapasya for some time in
order to purify your mind, and then you will not ask such perverse
questions!"
The Swami insisted that in their preparatory stage his disciples
must submit themselves to strict discipline, and scrupulously observe
the regulations about food and the other external restrictions enjoined
on the Brahmacharis. On the night of December 16, before he left for
Baidyanath, he held a long meeting at the monastery, in which he gave
instructions to the younger members concerning the regulation of
food, and particularly about eating sparingly at night. Knowing the
importance of the action of food on the mind, he said, "Without
control over food the control of the mind is impossible. Over-eating
causes much evil. Both body and mind are ruined by over-eating!" In
their present state of spiritual development they were not to eat food
touched by non-Hindus; they were to have Nishtha (steadfast devotion
to their own Ideal) without being narrow-minded and bigoted; and

they were to keep firmly to the life of Brahmacharya. But if at any time
they should find themselves unable to adhere to the high ideals and
rigorous discipline of Sannyasa, they were to be free to return to the
householder's life. This was much more desirable and manly than
leading a hypocritical life, and bringing degradation on themselves and
disgrace to the Order. They were to rise early, meditate, perform their
religious duties systematically, and be particularly mindful of Tapasya.
They should take special care of their health, he punctual as to the
time of meals, and be attentive to other matters of personal necessity.
Their conversation at all times should he on religious subjects. As in
Western monasteries, they were not even to read news-papers during
a certain period of their training. They were not to mix freely with
householders. On this point, one day in May 1899, he charged them in
a fever of monastic passion:
The men of the world should have no voice in the affairs of the
Math. The sannyasi should have nothing to do with the rich; his duty is
with the poor. He should treat the poor with loving care, and serve
them joyfully with all his might. To pay respects to the rich and hang
on them for support has been the bane of all the monastic
communities of our country. A true sannyasi should scrupulously avoid
that. Such conduct becomes a public woman rather than one who
professes to have renounced the world. How should a man, immersed
in Kama-Kanchana (lust and gold), become a true devotee of one
whose central ideal was the renunciation of Kama-Kanchana? Shri
Ramakrishna wept and prayed to the Divine Mother to send him such a
one to talk with as would not have in him the slightest tinge of KamaKanchana, for he would say, "My lips burn when I talk with the worldlyminded." He also used to say that he could not even bear the touch of
the worldly-minded and the impure. That King of sannyasis can never
be preached by men of the world. The latter can never be perfectly
sincere, for they cannot but have some selfish motives to serve. If God
incarnates Himself as a householder, I can never believe Him to be
sincere. When a householder takes the position of the leader of a
religious sect, he begins to serve his own interests in the name of
principle, hiding the former in the garb of the latter, and the result is

that the sect becomes in time rotten to the core. All religious
movements headed by householders have shared the same fate.
Without renunciation religion can never stand.
After his return from Baidyanath the Swami framed certain rules
for his young disciples in order to guard them from the least touch of
worldliness or contact with worldly-minded people. The latter should
not, out of familiarity, be allowed to sit or lie on the sadhus' beds; nor
should they sit at meals with the sadhus; and so on. To a disciple he
said:
Nowadays I feel a sort of disagreeable smell of lust in the bodies
and clothes of worldly people. I had read of it in the Shastras, and now
I find why it is that men of purity and renunciation cannot bear the
touch or the association of the worldly-minded. With right rigour and
wisdom the Shastras enjoin Brahmacharis to remain absolutely aloof
not only from women but even from those who associate with women.
When the Brahmacharis become firmly established in the ideals of
Sannyasa, there is no harm in their mixing with house-holders.
He would not allow the younger members of the Math to live even
in the Holy Mother's retreat in Calcutta, for the purpose of serving
herher whom he adored as he adored Shri Ramakrishna-just
because it was like a women's Math where women-devotees lived and
where many ladies came to pay their respects to the Holy Mother and
to be taught by her.
There was the instance of his rating a young Brahmachari of
blameless character, whom he found there after returning from
Kashmir, and of his appointing an aged but energetic disciple in the
latter's place.
It hardly needs saying that the Swami was not a hater of
householders or of women. He was by no means blind to the virtues
and ideals of the householder's life, and he counted among his best
friends men and women who were householders, and whose lives he
held up as exemplary even to his monastic followers. He would often
say: "I understand the greatness of the ideal householder, full of the
yearning to protect and serve, eager to earn righteously and spend

benevolently and ever striving to order his life after a spiritual ideal.
Marriage may be the path, in fact, the only path, for certain souls, but
he who has adopted the monastic life should know that everything in
the world is fraught with fear. Renunciation alone can make one
fearless. My boys, you must appropriate the greatness of the
householder's ideal.
"Our ideal of service to the world must be like that of the
householder as taught in the parable of the birds. On seeing that two
weary travellers, who had come beneath the forest tree in which they
rested, had nothing to eat, the birds cast themselves into the fire
lighted by the travellers in order to furnish them with food, because
they thought that it was their duty as householders to do so." In this
way he infused into the members of the Order a spirit in which the
highest service was made one with the highest meditation.
Sometimes in a mood of remonstrance he would exclaim: "Say,
what work shall I do in your country? Everyone here wants to lead, and
none to obey! In the doing of great works, the commands of the leader
have to be iimplicily obeyed. If my brother-disciples tell me now that I
have to pass the rest of my life in cleansing the drain of the Math,
know, for certain, that I shall obey that order without a word of
protest. He only can he a great commander who knows how to obey,
without a word of murmur, that which is for the general good." One is
reminded of how the founders of the Western monastic orders had
demanded of members the same readiness and utter selfabandonment in obedience. The will of the individual had to he
trained; only in that way, the Swami held, could the strength of a
monastic organization be maintained.
The Swami was sometimes tempted to give way to despair and
think his life a failure, since there did not come to him "two thousand
enthusiastic youths" to be trained as sannyasi workers ready to give
their lives for the spiritual regeneration of their motherland, and
"three hundred million rupees"; for, he used to say, with these at his
command he could solve all of India's problems and set her on her
feet. "However," he said, "I will do the very best myself, and infuse my
spirit in others to continue the work. No rest for me! I shall die in

harness! I love action! Life is a battle, and one must always be in

action, to use a military phrase. Let me live and die in action!"
One evening while pacing to and fro, restless with the greatness of
his thought, he suddenly stopped and exclaimed to a sannyasi disciple:
"Listen, my boy! Shri Ramakrishna came and gave his life for the world;
I also will sacrifice my life; you also, everyone of you, should do the
same. All these works are only a beginning. Believe me, from the
shedding of our life-blood will arise gigantic heroes and warriors of
God, who will I revolutionize the whole world!" And he would often
charge his disciples with the words: "Never forget, service to the world
and the realization of God are the ideals of the monk! Stick to them!
The monastic is the most immediate of paths! Between the monk and
his God there are no idols! 'The sannyasi stands on the head of the
Vedas!' say the Vedas; for he is free from churches and sects and
religions and prophets and scriptures! He is the visible God on earth!
Remember this, and go thou thy way, sannyasi bold, carrying the
banner of renunciation the banner of peace, of freedom, of
blessedness."
When the Swami returned to Calcutta from Deoghar (Baidyanath),
he lived sometimes at the new monastery and sometimes at
Balarambabu's house. Though his health was still poor, he came with
new plans and an invigorated spirit. Baidyanath had done him some
good in that it had rested him. The day after his return he held a
meeting of his brother-monks, telling them that they must now be
prepared to go forth, as the followers of the Buddha did, and preach
the gospel of Shri Ramakrishna to the people of India. The same day he
called Swamis Virajananda and Prakashananda, his disciples, and
instructed them to proceed at once to Dacca in East Bengal (now
Bangladesh). The first of these two humbly protested, saying, "Swamiji,
what shall I preach? I know nothing!" "Then go and preach that!"
exclaimed the Swami: "That in itself is a great message!" But the
disciple, still unconvinced, prayed that he might be allowed to practise
further spiritual disciplines and attain Realization first, for his own
salvation. At that the Swami thundered, "You will go to hell if you seek
your own salvation! Seek the salvation of others if you want to reach

the Highest! Kill out the desire for personal Mukti!, That is the greatest
of all spiritual disciplines." And he added sweetly: "Work, my children,
work with your whole heart and soul! That is the thing. Mind not the
fruits of work. What if you go to hell itself working for others? That is
better than winning heaven through self-sought salvation!" Afterwards
he called these two disciples and with them went into the worshiproom of the monastery. The three sat in meditation, in which the
Swami became absorbed. Then he solemnly said, "Now I shall infuse
my Shakti, my Power, into you! The Lord Himself shall be at your
back!" That whole day he was most loving to these two disciples, and
gave them private instruction concerning what they should preach and
what Mantras they should give to those who desired to be initiated.
Thus blessed by their guru, they left for Dacca on February 4. The
Swami also commissioned two of his brother-disciples, Swamis
Saradananda and Turiyananda, to preach in Gujarat; and they set out
on their journey three days later.
It was the Swami's desire that the Vedas and other scriptures
should be studied at the Math. From the time the monastery was
moved to Nilambar Mukherjee's garden-house, he had started, with
the help of his brother-disciples, regular classes on the Vedas, the
Upanishads, the Vedanta-Sutras, the Gita, the Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, and had himself taught for a time Panini's Ashtadhyayi.
Now he occupied himself with a comprehensive study of Sanskrit
scriptures and literature. And in these days he composed his two great
Sanskrit poems on Shri Ramakrishna, one of which is now daily sung
during Arati, the evening service, at the Ramakrishna monasteries.
Many came from far and near to see the Swami. Constant
discussion on religion and philosophy, and on how to bring about
material improvement and a national regeneration, went on, as had
happened in the days when the Swami made Seals Garden his
headquarters for meeting people. But the most memorable visit was
that of Nag Mahashaya, who came all the way from his distant villagehome at Deobhog in the District of Dacca, to the new Math. It was like
the coming together of two great forces, one representing the highest
type of the ancient householder's ideal, and the other, the ideal of a

new type of monasticism: one mad with God-intoxication, the other

intoxicated with the mission of bringing out the Divine in man; but
both one in their inward Sannyasa and Realization.
After saluting each other Nag Mahashaya exclaimed, "Jai Shankara
Blessed am I to see before me the living Shiva!" and remained standing
before the Swami with folded hands. On being asked about his health
he said, "What is the use of inquiring about a worthless lump of flesh
and bones! I feel full of bliss at seeing Shiva Himself!" With these
words he fell prostrate before the Swami, who at once raised him up.
The Upanishad class was then in progress. The Swami said to his
disciples, "Let the class be stopped. Come and see Nag Mahashaya."
When all had seated themselves round the great devotee, the Swami
said, "Look! He is a householder, but he has no consciousness of
whether he has a body or not, of whether the universe exists or not!
He is always absorbed in the thought of God! He is a living example of
what man becomes when he attains Supreme Bhakti." Turning to Nag
Mahashaya he requested him to tell them something of Shri
Ramakrishna, but he with his characteristic humility replied: "What
shall I say! I am too unworthy to speak of Him! I have only come to
purify myself by the sight of Mahavira, who, in the Divine play (Lila) of
the Lord in His incarnation as Shri Ramakrishna, is the Lord's
complement. Victory be to Him! Victory be to Him!" The Swami
remarked, "You have truly known what our Master was; we are only
beating about the bush!" Whereupon Nag Mahashaya broke forth in
protest: "Pray, do not speak such meaningless words. You are the
shadow of Shri Ramakrishna. He and you are the obverse and the
reverse of the same coin! Let him see who has the eyes to see!"
After some talk the Swami said to him, "It would he so good if you
would come and live at the Math. These boys will have a living
example before them to mould their lives after." The great Bhakta
replied in a mood of resignation: "I once asked the Master's permission
to give up the world. He said, 'Live in the world.' So I am following his
command, and come occasionally to be blessed by the sight of you all,
his children." Then the following dialogue ensued:

The Swami: "Now my only wish is to awaken the country. This

great giantess is as if sleeping, having lost all faith in her own strength
sleeping, dead to all outward appearance. If we can awaken her
once more to the consciousness of her infinite strength in the
Sanatana Dharma [Eternal Religion], then our Lord and we will not
have been born in vain. Only that one desire remains; Mukti and the
like seem like trash beside it! Do bless me that I may succeed."
Nag Mahashaya: "The Lord is ever blessing you. Who can check
your will? Your will and His are one. jai Ramakrishna!"
The Swami. "Oh, if only I had had a strong body, so needful for
work! See how, since my coming back to India, my health is impaired,
frustrating all my plans of work! In Europe and America I was so well."
Nag Mahashaya: "Living in a body, as the Master used to say, one
has to pay taxes in the shape of disease and affliction. But yours is a
chest of gold sovereigns, and so it has to be guarded with vigilant care.
Alas, who will do that! Who will understand what it means to the
world!"
The Swami: "Everyone in the Math looks after me with great love
and care."
Nag Mahashaya: "Blessed are they that serve you, for thus they
are doing good not only to themselves but to the world at large,
whether they understand it or not!"
It is impossible to describe the manner and spirit in which Nag
Mahashaya spoke these words in appreciation of the Swami. To those
who never knew Nag Mahashaya, they may appear fulsome and
theatrical even blasphemous ; but anyone who knew that godly
soul will recognize them as coming from his deepest conviction. Those
present at this meeting found it difficult to check tears of emotion; for
Nag Mahashaya had the power of breathing the tenderest feelings and
most vibrant thoughts into the souls of his hearers, by means of a few
simple words, or even by a mere look.
The four preachers sent out by the Swami did excellent work in
the cities they visited. Everywhere they found opportunities for the
spread of the gospel of Shri Ramakrishna, which appealed directly to

all hearts, mainly because of its simplicity and directness. Swamis

Virajananda and Prakashananda started, at the earnest desire of the
citizens of Dacca, a branch of the Ramakrishna Mission there. Swamis
Saradananda and Turiyananda, who left Calcutta on February 7, made
a tour of towns in Kathiawar. They were enthusiastically welcomed by
the Swami's devoted admirers, whom they found everywhere. By their
lectures and talks on Vedanta the Swamis created a profound
impression on the minds of people in that distant province. After three
months of preaching and teaching, these four monks returned to the
monastery at the call of the Swami who rejoiced to hear of their
success.

AMONGST HIS OWN PEOPLE 2

It will be interesting to note how the movement started by the
Swami was being carried on by his co-workers in India and abroad. At
the time of which we are speaking, namely, the close of the last
century, four features are found chiefly to characterize the
movement's activities: firstly, the preaching of Vedanta by individual
sannyasis of the Order; secondly, the founding of monastic centres;
thirdly, the starting of temporary centres for the relief of distress in
times of famine, plague, etc.; and fourthly, the establishment of homes
for orphans.
To recapitulate, the main events had been: the inauguration of the
Ramakrishna Mission in Calcutta; the establishment of the permanent
headquarters of the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math and its
organization on a solid basis there; the starting of the centre in Madras
by Swami Ramakrishnananda and his preaching and teaching there;
the opening of the girls' school by Sister Nivedita in Calcutta; the
sending of preachers to Gujarat and East Bengal (now Bangladesh);
and the Vedanta work carried on by Swamis Saradananda and
Abhedananda in England and America. There were also the famine
relief operations conducted by Swami Akhandananda in Murshidabad
District in 1897, and the public sanitation work in connection with the
1898 Calcutta plague epidemic.

The Ramakrishna Mission held its weekly meetings in Calcutta

throughout 1897. Under its auspices public meetings were also held
frequently, at which Sister Nivedita and Swami Saradananda often
delivered lectures. Swami Ramakrishnananda delivered lectures, and
conducted as many as eleven classes a week, in different parts of
Madras city, under the auspices of various societies. He also visited
other cities of the Madras Presidency (now divided into Tamil Nadu
and Andhra Pradesh) to carry on Vedanta work there.
About the middle of 1897 the Swami deputed Swami Shivananda
to work in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), in response to an appeal for a teacher
made to him by the chief Hindu communities while he was there.
Besides arousing an interest in the Vedanta philosophy among the
Tamils and the Sinhalese in Ceylon, Swami Shivananda opened classes
for the teaching of Raja-Yoga and the Gita. The latter of these was
attended by several Europeans also. One of them, Mrs. Pickett, to
whom he gave the name Hari-Priya, was specially trained by him to
teach Vedanta to Europeans. He sent her to Australia and New Zealand
to prepare the way for a teacher of the Vedanta there. She made a
tour of both countries, interested some earnest students, and opened
classes in Adelaide and South Victoria, and in Nelson, New Zealand.
The idea and need of having a monastery in a cool, secluded region of
the Himalayas, where East and West could meet on an equal footing of
love and unity of purpose, exchange with each other their own highest
ideals, and practise the Advaita teaching were much in the Swami's
thought. He had written to a friend that this monastery must be about
7,000 feet above sea-level, since he did not want to make it too
difficult for his Western disciples coming to work for his cause in India,
by forcing on them the Indian mode of living in the fiery heat of the
plains. On his tours he had himself looked for a suitable site in the hills
in and about Dharmsala, Murree, Srinagar, Dehra Dun and the town of
Almora, but had found nothing to answer satisfactorily to his purpose.
When he went to Kashmir, he left the matter in the hands of Mr. and
Mrs. Sevier. With Swami Swarupananda they made a tour into the
interior of Almora District. In the course of an extensive and diligent
search they came on the beautiful estate of Mayavati with its thickly

wooded hills spread over an area ranging from 6,000 to 7,000 feet
elevation, the Ashrama being at 6,400 feet. It was fifty miles east of
Almora and commanded a magnificent view of the snow ranges. They
decided at once that it was the spot for starting the proposed Advaita
Ashrama and having a permanent home for Prabuddha Bharata. The
purchase was promptly made and they established it as their retreat
on March 19, 1899 the day on which the birth anniversary of Shri
Ramakrishna was publicly celebrated that year. The Advaita Ashrama
was founded with the full-hearted blessings of the Swami and under
his guidance. The press was moved there forthwith.
In certain respects the Advaita Ashrama is unique among the
institutions started under the inspiration of the Swami. The following
lines, which he wrote to the joint-founders of the Ashrama, set forth
its ideal and principles:
In Whom is the Universe, Who is in the Universe, Who is the
Universe; in Whom is the Soul, Who is in the Soul, Who is the Soul of
man; knowing Him, and therefore the Universe, as our Self, alone
extinguishes all fear, brings an end to misery and leads to infinite
freedom. Wherever there has been expansion in love or progress in
well-being of individuals or numbers, it has been through the
perception, realization, and the practicalization of the Eternal Truth
The Oneness of All Beings. "Dependence is misery. Independence is
happiness." The Advaita is the only system which gives unto man
complete possession of himself, takes off all dependence and its
associated superstitions, thus making us brave to suffer, brave to do,
and in the long run attain to Absolute Freedom.
Hitherto it has not been possible to preach this Noble Truth
entirely free from the settings of dualistic weakness; this alone, we are
convinced, explains why it has not been more operative and useful to
mankind at large.
To give this ONE TRUTH a freer and fuller scope in elevating the
lives of individuals and leavening the mass of mankind, we start this
Advaita Ashrama on the Himalayan heights, the land of its first
expiration.

Here it is hoped to keep Advaita free from all superstitions and

weakening contaminations. Here will be taught and practised nothing
but the Doctrine of Unity, pure and simple, and though in entire
sympathy with all other systems, this Ashrama is dedicated to Advaita
and Advaita alone.
In this Ashrama there is no external worship of God by means of
images, pictures, or symbols, nor any religious ceremony or ritual,
except the Viraja Homa not even the worship of Shri Ramakrishna,
which is central in the life of the other monastic centres of the
Ramakrishna Order.
Before he left on his second visit to the West, the Swami, in
response to a request, agreed to send four of his disciples to help in
the work of the Ashrama. Within a week of his departure, Swamis
Sachchidananda (senior), Virajananda, and Vimalananda, and
Brahmachari Harendranath, left Belur Math to take up enthusiastically
their new duties. These were mainly the construction of a building for
the monks, road-making, agricultural work, and helping in the
publication of the journal.
Like the above-mentioned institutions, the three magazines that
had been started either under the auspices of or under the direct
control and guidance of the Swami and conducted by his brotherdisciples and his own disciples, did a large amount of educational work
in India and abroad. These magazines were the Brahmavadin of
Madras, Prabuddha Bharata of Almora and subsequently Mayavati,
and Udbodhan of Calcutta. They spread far and wide the teachings and
ideas of Shri Ramakrishna and the Swami. They made known,
vindicated, and interpreted the thoughts and ideals of the ancient
Indian sages and philosophers. They published reports of the activities
of the members of the Order, and also brought out their writings and
lectures.
Turning now to the Vedanta movement in the West, Swami
Abhedananda, as we saw, after holding classes for some ten months in
London, had to leave for America in the latter part of July 1897, in
response to urgent and repeated calls from the Vedanta Society of

New York for a Swami to take charge of that centre. Though the classes
that he had been conducting in London had to be temporarily
suspended, the work there was never at a standstill. The disciples of
the Swami and other students interested in the Vedanta continued to
meet in small groups. They helped each other and themselves by
readings, talks, and discussions, with unabated zeal, looking forward to
Swami Vivekananda's return to them at no distant date.
It is hardly possible to give here a full account of the widespread
preaching done by Swamis Saradananda, Abhedananda, and
Abhayananda in America. These teachers of the Vedanta carried their
message through many of the more important States, making their
headquarters in Boston, New York, and Chicago. The press often
carried editorials expressing appreciation of their lectures and their
personal qualities.
Swami Saradananda, as previously mentioned, was called back by
the Swami for the sake of the Indian work. He left New York for India
on January 12, 1898, after about two years of steady preaching work.
Swami Abhedananda visited many cities of the U.S.A., delivering
lectures and holding classes. He then established himself in New York
where he opened regular classes on yoga and meditation. The growth
in interest could be seen from the increasing size of the audiences of
educated people, many of them members of churches, and some of
them people of standing in public life. He met representative
personalities in the worlds of art, science, and religion. One liberal and
enlightened New York clergyman went so far as to distribute this
Swami's lecture programmes among his congregation, advising them
to go and listen to him. Swami Abhedananda delivered eighty-six
lectures in Mott's Memorial Hall alone. Several of the best papers and
journals of New York State published accounts of his teaching and of
himself.
On Easter Sunday 1899, Swami Abhedananda initiated four
Brahmacharis. During the summer he visited Worcester, Boston,
Cambridge, and other places in New England, and met able and
influential persons: for instance, Mr. Edison, the inventor; Joseph

Jefferson, the famous actor; William Dean Howells, the novelist; and
professors in Cornell, Iowa, Yale, and other universities.
No less active was Swami Abhayananda. After preaching the
Vedanta in different parts of the United States for nearly two years
with her characteristic zeal and energy, she went to Chicago in 1897.
Within four weeks of commencing work there, men and women of
education and social standing had gathered round her. They urged her
to establish herself in Chicago. She accordingly founded the Advaita
Society there.
Thus the seeds sown by Swami Vivekananda on American soil
were growing vigorously as the days passed, striking roots in the heart
of the nation. "It will be impossible to tell", wrote a contemporary,
"how many will look back in after years to the teachings of the Swamis
as a turning point in their lives." In the six years' interval between his
first landing in America in 1893 and his 1899 visit, the growing
influence of Oriental philosophy in America could be discerned in
several directions, not least in the rise of "New Thought" societies. The
principles and practices of the Vedanta were to be found set forth
under many names and in various ways. So, when the Swami left the
shores of India the second time for the West, he did it with the
consciousness of a bright prospect opening up before the work that he
had set in motion. Though his visit was chiefly in search of health, he
was again to find himself in a vortex of intense activity, for preaching
and teaching were his very life.
Let us also take note of the humanitarian works undertaken by the
Order in the service of suffering India, starting with Bengal as a
nucleus.
Swami Akhandananda, fired by the words of the Leader, did much
educational work in Khetri in 1894. Through his activities the number
on the roll of the local school increased immensely and the quality of
teaching also improved. At that time the system of slavery obtained in
Rajputana (now Rajasthan). Through Swami Akhandananda's efforts
many slave boys were freed and arrangements were made for their
education. But his activities were not confined to the town. Going from

village to village he established five Lower Primary Schools. Shortly

after, on the advice of Swami Vivekananda and on being satisfied with
the uniform progress of these schools, the Raja of Khetri sanctioned
from the revenue of his State an additional annual grant of five
thousand rupees for the education department. The local Sanskrit
School was also, through Swami Akhandananda's effort, converted into
a Vedic School for teaching the Yajur-Veda. Some time after, in 1895,
Akhandananda went to Nathdwara in Udaipur State for a brief stay.
There, after much labour, he succeeded in starting a Middle English
School, and with the help of a Bengali youth managed to conduct it for
a time. In Alwar and other States in Rajputana he established
associations of a cultural nature, but in which matters concerning the
welfare of the people were also discussed.
Mention has already been made of the famine relief done by
Swami Akhandananda in Murshidabad District. This led to another
form of service, for, moved by the helpless condition of deserted
children in the famine affected villages, Akhandananda conceived the
idea of starting an orphanage. He began work with two little orphans
in August 1897, at Mahula, the centre of his relief work. At the
beginning of 1899 the orphanage was moved to Sargachhi. The
number of boys increased gradually as days passed. Besides feeding,
nursing, and housing them, he made arrangements for their education
practical, intellectual, moral, and spiritualso that they might help
themselves and be helpful to others. In short, he set about making
men of them, in the full sense of the word. Within two years of
starting, he had made, with the limited funds at his disposal,
arrangements for the teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic in
elementary English and in the vernacular. Orphans of any creed and
caste were welcome, and they were given full freedom to keep to their
respective faiths and religious practices. Swami Akhandananda was, as
the years went by, to push on boldly with his self-imposed task,
struggling with difficulties and hardships, his health eventually to he
shattered under the strain. Suffice it to say that, if Swami Vivekananda
was, among the Brotherhood, the moving spirit of the ideal of service

to fellow-men, it was Swami Akhandananda who was the first and

foremost to take it up and carry it out into practice.
Another famine relief centre was opened in August 1897 at
Dinajpur, where several deaths had occurred from starvation. Swami
Trigunatita managed it on a plan similar to that followed at
Murshidabad. Within two months, he had extended help to some
eighty-four villages. As a result of his untiring and disinterested
services the Government allowed him, as it had Swami Akhandananda,
to buy rice at a much reduced price. The following extract from the
official Report shows how Swami Trigunatita's work was appreciated
by the Government:
I cannot close my report without referring to the good work done
by Swami Trigunatita, a member of the Ramakrishna Mission.... Here
the Swami took up his abode in great discomfort, and distributed rice
gratis to deserving cases. He made every endeavour to arrive at the
truth, and as far as he was able, made personal enquiries into the
cases. He subsequently gave some relief in Dinajpur town itself... Relief
was given irrespective of caste and creed.... I would add that the
Swami managed the whole work himself without the assistance of
myself or any one else....
At the termination of the work a public meeting was convened on
December 3, 1897, by the leading residents of Dinajpur, to present an
address of thanks to Swami Trigunatita. The President thanked the
Swami and said among other things:
I fully realize the Swami's good and disinterested work. He had
nothing to bind him to this district. His only object was to do good to
mankind.... He did not depend on the officials for help, neither did he
work in opposition to them. 1'he Swami did everything himself and
with his own hands. This is the secret of success in Self-Government.
Self-Government consists in having work done and not having
meetings only.... If we had more such men, I must say, we shall have
more Self-Government.... I am glad to preside at this meeting, because
though it is a small beginning, yet it is a beginning of self-help in the
right line. If there is the germ, it may grow up in time.

After the President had read the address of thanks, Swami

Trigunatita rose and spoke eloquently in reply for two hours, dealing
with the cause and remedy of famine. His lecture was much
appreciated.
A third relief centre was opened at Deoghar by Swami
Virajananda, about the same time and on the same lines as the others.
Besides these, centres of relief were also opened at Dakshineswar and
in Calcutta. Friends and disciples of the Swamis in England and America
were so moved by reports of the people's distress that they convened
meetings and sent liberal donations for the famine relief work.
It will be remembered that when bubonic plague broke out in
Calcutta in May 1898, and when those who had residences of their
own in the villages were fleeing the city, it was a sannyasi, namely, the
Swami, who thought of the welfare of those who had no alternative
homes in the country and had therefore to remain in Calcutta. It was
he who devised a scheme for dealing with the situation. When, in the
following year, plague again appeared in Calcutta, the Ramakrishna
Mission plague service was promptly instituted on March 31, under the
Swami's instructions. It did a considerable amount of work in a wellorganized way. He himself went to live in the slums to put heart into
the people and encourage the workers. The management of the
service was placed in the hands of Sister Nivedita as Secretary and
Swami Sadananda as officer- in-chief. Swamis Shivananda, Nityananda,
and Atmananda acted as assistants. Bustees (quarters of the poor) in
four areas of the city were cleared of cart-loads of filth and
accumulated matter and thoroughly disinfected under the direct
supervision of the Swamis.
On the occasion of Sister Nivedita's address, "The Plague and the
Duty of the Students", delivered at a public meeting held in the Classic
Theatre Hall on April 22, Swami Vivekananda spoke stirring words from
the chair. As a result fifteen students volunteered for service. They
were formed into a band for door-to-door inspection of huts in
selected Bustees, for the distribution of literature on sanitation, and
for giving counsel. They met on Sundays at the Ramakrishna Mission to

submit reports of their work to Sister Nivedita, and to receive

instructions from her, until the epidemic subsided.
Another institution that grew in public favour and, after the
Swami's return from the West, into a national festival, was the
celebration of the birth anniversary of Shri Ramakrishna. In addition to
having a religious significance, the festival became the occasion for the
feeding of thousands of poor people wherever the Order was
established.
This, in brief, is the record of public service done in the two and a
half years following the founding of the Ramakrishna Mission. The
value of the service is not to he gauged so much by actual amount of
work done, considerable though that was, as by the spirit of service,
fellowship, and co-operation infused into others to thrive and grow in
their lives and actions.
In those days when famine raged with all its attendant suffering,
the Swami's dominant thought was for the victims. The cry of the
distressed seemed to transfix his heart. All who heard him talk at that
time about the ways of alleviating the lot of the people, were amazed
by the intensity of his sympathy for his countrymen.
To return now to the months immediately preceding the Swami's
second visit to the West, there are a number of happenings yet to
record. It will be simpler to do so without following a strictly
chronological order.
The intensity of the Swami's compassion for the distressed has just
been mentioned. There were occasions when pandits, who had come
to discuss matters of theology and philosophy, found these matters
swept aside in the floodtide of his compassion, and what to them
seemed mundane matters formed almost the entire subject of
discussion. For instance, possibly about this time, but perhaps even as
early as April 1897, Pandit Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar, the respected
Editor of Hitavadi, came to see the Swami with two friends. Learning
that one of them came from the Punjab, the Swami entered into
conversation with him on the needs of that province, especially about
the scarcity of food there, and how that had to be met. The talk drifted

to the duty of the upper classes to provide the poor with education
and to the subject of the betterment of their material and social
conditions generally. Before taking leave the Punjabi visitor
courteously expressed his regret as follows: "Sir, with great
expectations of hearing various teachings on religion we came to see
you. But unfortunately our conversation turned on commonplace
matters. The day has passed in vain!" The Swami at once became grave
and said, "Sir, so long as even a dog of my country remains without
food, to feed and take care of him is my religion, and anything else is
either non-religion or false religion!" All three visitors were struck
dumb by the Swami's reply. Years after his passing away, Pandit
Deuskar, when relating the incident, said that those words burnt into
his soul and made him realize, as he had never done before, what true
patriotism was.
On another occasion a pandit of northern India came to argue
with the Swami on the Vedanta. The latter was then much depressed
at his helplessness in coping with the wide-spread famine. Without
giving the pandit any opportunity to discuss the scriptures, he said,
"Panditji, first of all try to ameliorate the terrible distress that is
prevailing everywhere, to still the heart - rending cry of your hungry
countrymen for a morsel of food; after that come to me to have a
debate on the Vedanta. To stake one's whole life and soul to save
thousands who are dying of starvation this is the essence of the
religion of the Vedanta!"
"Verily, the austerities and self-tortures of the Hatha-Yoga", so
someone was to say, "pale into insignificance before the higher and
nobler way shown to us by the great Swami Vivekananda this laying
down of our lives as a sacrifice on the altar of humanity."
On February 13, Sister Nivedita delivered a lecture at the Albert
Hall, Calcutta, on "Kali and Her Worship", with Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar
in the chair. She wrote down before-hand what she intended to say
and showed it to the Swami for his approval. Prominent people of
Calcutta attended, and the hall was crammed to capacity. Dr. Sarkar,
however, spoke against Kali-worship, and criticized Nivedita for
preaching in favour of superstitions that educated Indians were trying

to remove. Then an unbalanced devotee of Shri Ramakrishna and a

lover of Kali "got up and amidst tremendous excitement" called the
chairman, among other things, an "old devil". There was a sort of
verbal free fight. The chairman remained silent, and Nivedita
intervened to restore order. The lecture made such a good impression
that the managers of the famous Kalighat temple invited her to speak
at the temple, again on Kali-worship. Nivedita consulted the Swami
about accepting the invitation, and when he consented, she spoke
there on May. 28.
Sometime in the second week of February 1899, the Swami
suddenly decided, to go to Madras with Swami Sadananda on February
14; and if the four days' sea trip agreed with him, to continue on to
England. He also had a mind to take Nivedita with him; but to this
Sadananda objected: so she was to stay behind. But soon afterwards
the Swami changed his plan, since the treatment that he was
undergoing would be interrupted. He did not want to interrupt it a
second time. He did not want to interrupt it a second time. He decided
to stay for a month more, and then if possible start for the West.
As early as December 16 (1898), the Swami had given out his
intention of going to the West. Owing to ill health he had had to
postpone his departure; and now, as we have just seen, he had to
postpone it again. As a matter of fact he had wished to go earlier in
May 1898 with the Raja of Khetri; but the doctors had not allowed him
to go. Nor did his health permit him to go with Mrs. Bull and Miss
MacLeod in January 1899. Nevertheless, it remained his intention to
go, both for the sake of his health and to see how his work in England
and America was going on.
An achievement of the Vedanta work in England had been the
publication by Longmans, Green and Company, London, of
Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings, by F. Max Mller. As we have
already seen, the Swami's efforts were behind this book to some
extent, and his brother-disciples had assisted the author by supplying
materials. Reviews of the book appeared in prominent papers of India
in January 1899. On March 16 (1899) the Swami wrote to Mary Hale,

"Did you come across Max Mller's new book. Ramakrishna: His Life
and Sayings? If you have not, do, and let mother see it."
In the latter part of February the Swami and Sister Nivedita went
to see Shri Devendranath Tagore at his ancestral home, where he was
staying in a secluded room on the roof. Previously, on February 14,
Nivedita had gone there alone and Shri Tagore had expressed his
desire to see the Swami. When she conveyed his message to the
Swami, the latter said, "Of course I'll go, and you can go with me, and
fix a day as soon as you please." Nivedita fixed the earliest Sunday
morning (most probably February 19) and went with the Swami. About
this visit she wrote to Miss MacLeod on February 23, 1899:
We were shown up, one or two of the family accompanying.
Swami went forward and said "Pranam", and I made it, offering a
couple of roses. The old man gave me his little blessing first and then
he told Swami to sit down, and for about ten minutes he went on
making a kind of charge to him in Bengali. Then he paused and waited,
and Swamiji very humbly asked for his blessing. It was given, and with
the same salutation as before we came downstairs. Then Swami would
have gone at once, but that was not our plan. And he came into the
drawing room where Miss Tagore came to see him and the family
assembled by degrees, rather the men of it. He refused tea, but
suggested its being brought to me. Then he accepted a pipe, and all
these little things prolonged the talk till ten o'clock. Of course,
Symbolism, especially Kali-Symbolism was the subject.
Once Sarala Ghoshal, a grand-daughter of Devendranath Tagore
and Editor of Bharati, heard that the Swami could cook very well, and
asked Sister Nivedita about it. Coming to know of this, the Swami
insisted them both to dine one day at the Math, and himself prepared
some of the dishes. In the course of a talk with the ladies he asked
Nivedita to prepare a Chillum of tobacco for him, as he would do any
of his Indian disciples. The Sister at once got up and went to do it most
gladly, regarding it as a privilege to serve her Master. When the ladies
had gone, the Swami said to his brother-monks that he had asked that
service of Nivedita, only because he had been told that there was a
feeling among some of the educated in Bengal that he had secured and

held his Western disciples through flattering them and pandering to

their tastes.
During the early summer of 1899 the Swami's health was again
bad. The zemindars of Narail, his admirers, placed at his disposal a
Bazra, or houseboat, so that he might spend the mornings and
evenings in the fresh air on the Ganga. Often he would spend the time
in meditation, seated on the roof. At other times he would be like a
great child, "cheerfulness in his face, softness in his looks, abstraction
in his mood, careless about his person and his clothes, and every
movement bespeaking mastery over the senses". Generally it would be
northward in the direction of Dakshineswar that the Swami's boat
would drift; and in the twilight stillness, or later in the evening, he
would frequently plunge into deep thought. After a whole day's
teaching and. discoursing to his own disciples and to all those who
flocked to him from Calcutta, these evening trips were a real
recreation for him.
On March 11 (1899), having been asked by the Editor of
Prabuddha Bharata to interview the Swami, Sister Nivedita went to the
Math about 8 p.m. in a houseboat. She was told that the Swami would
meet her at the boat. It was, therefore, moored at the Math
embankment, and their conversation took place on the roof of the
boat. The subject was "the question of converts to Hinduism". When
the interview was over, the Swami said to Nivedita: "I say, Margot, I
have been thinking for days about that line of least resistance. And it is
a bare fallacy! It is a comparative thing. As for me, I am never going to
think of it again. The history of the world is the history of a few earnest
men, and when one man is in earnest the world must just come to his
feet. I am NOT going to water down my ideals. I am going to dictate
terms."
Earlier in this chapter the Swami's efforts at training some of his
disciples to be preachers, confident of themselves, were noted. With a
view to coaching Nivedita in confidence, and in unconcern about public
criticism, he repeated to her, as he repeated to them, the advice that
Shri Ramakrishna had given him. In this connection she wrote to Miss
MacLeod on March 16. I forgot to tell you that he said Ramakrishna

always said, 'Lok Na Pok: 'Men are worms', and when he was in
Chicago [in 1894], he had a vision. He was lying on the floor 'half dead'
from anxiety and privation apparently and Shri Ramakrishna came into
the room and touched him and said, 'Hut! Get up man! Lok Na Pok!'
That I think was all that I forgot.
Health or no health, the Swami was most active at this time, and
always ready to help others. Under medical advice he had to desist
from public lecturing. But he attended a lecture given by Sister
Nivedita on February 26, on "The Young India Movement"; and he was
the central figure at the Sunday meetings of the Ramakrishna Mission.
On April 22 he presided over the meeting in the Classic Theatre, when
Sister Nivedita spoke to students on "The Plague and the Duties of
Students". On several occasions he accepted invitations to dinner
parties given in his honour at the residences of noted Calcutta citizens.
They were delighted with the talks he gave on those occasions. On
April 26 he went into Calcutta and gave a talk in Hindi to his Gujarati
disciples of Baghbazar.
Sometime in the last week of February 1899, a telegram reached
the Swami that Swami Abhayananda, his American disciple, was
arriving in Bombay on February 24. He telegraphed her back to go on
to Madras first and lecture there, since the public celebration at Belur
of the birth anniversary of Shri Ramakrishna was fixed for March 19. As
desired by the Swami, the people of Bombay and Madras accorded her
a fitting welcome in their respective cities. In Bombay she delivered an
address in the Gaiety Theatre on February 27, with Mr. Justice Ranade
presiding. She said:
Brothers and Sisters of India! I bring with me the greetings of the
people of Chicago in particular and of America in general. I have come
to you in order to study your religion and your national customs, in
order to know whether the rumours we have received are true or
false. I come to see and investigate for myself in order that I may study
the teachings of Vedanta in America and see truly that it is the
outcome of the minds of great noble people.
The Mahratta of Poona wrote about her on March 5:

One of his *Swami Vivekanandas+ disciples, drawn to India by the

coming anniversary festival of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa at Calcutta,
is an American lady journalist bearing the garb and name of a Hindu
sannyasi, Swami Abhayananda, who was admitted into the spiritual
order... by Swami Vivekananda, when he was last in America. An
American lady in the garb of a Hindu sannyasi is a romantic fact no
doubt.... She is no longer a theoretical convert,... but an actual
sannyasi who comes here to pay her respects to the memory of her
grand-guru [Shri Ramakrishna]... Swami Abhayananda is no
insignificant woman, nor has she embraced Hinduism without carefully
studying the Vedas and the Upanishads.... She has been striving in her
own way to spread the light she has received....
From Bombay Abhayananda went to Madras on March 4, and was
presented with an address of welcome by an Association of Young
Men. She replied to this address on the following day in Pachaiyappa's
Hall; and was later interviewed by a representative of the Madras Mail.
She reached Calcutta on March 17 evening, and was given a grand
reception by the Ramakrishna Mission at Balarambabu's house (57
Bosepara Lane) on the following day. She took part in the birth
anniversary celebrations of Shri Ramakrishna, held that year at Belur
Math, and gave an address. This was the first time that the celebration
was held there. Sankirtan parties added to the general fervour. About
20,000 people were given consecrated food.
Abhayananda gave three lectures to large audiences at the Classic
Theatre, in Calcutta, and later left with Swami Virajananda for Dacca
on April 5. At Dacca she was given a fine reception on April 7 at
Northbrook Hall by the people there. On the same day she delivered
an address under the presidency of Rai Kaliprasanna Ghosh Bahadur at
the same Hall. She delivered a second lecture at the Ramakrishna
Mission, Dacca on April 14, and a third at the Jagannath College on the
same day. She gave two more lectures on "Vedanta in the West" at the
house of Mohin Das. About her, a reporter wrote. "Swami
Abhayananda, the American Sannyasin initiated by the illustrious
Swami Vivekananda, was invited by the Ramakrishna Mission [Dacca],
under the patronage of the Hindu community at large.... The Swami

was in our midst for about two weeks.... More than once she appeared
in public to join the Hari Sankirtana with an Indian sari on, a bag of
Tulasi beads in hand, uttering 'Haribol', and a garland of Rudraksha
round her neck......
From Dacca Swami Abhayananda went to Mymensingh and
Barisal, from where she returned alone to Calcutta. She remained in
Calcutta till the beginning of June. This was her visit to India in outline.
Of her personality and of her attitude towards the Swami and the
Order, we catch glimpses from the letters that Sister Nivedita wrote to
Miss MacLeod during this period. About Abhayananda, Nivedita had
written:
March 23: Abhayananda arrived on Friday evening. A crowd of
about forty persons assisted Brahmananda and myself to receive her at
Howrah. And she proceeded to "receive" these on Saturday [March 18]
evening at 57 Ramkanta Bose's Lane. Swami came in here the first
thing on Friday morning and reproached me with the fact that the
house was not a zenana. So only Sadananda enters it now. Hence
Abhayananda was happy.
On Sunday we went to the Birthday. There she told me that she
did not feel in the least at home here and it seems she told Swami
that she "could not live with that lady [Nivedita]" she was simply
crazy. You imagine how glad Sadananda and I were that her things had
to be removed to Narendranath Mitter's house on Sunday evening,
and we have not seen her since.
March 30: Swami Abhayananda came in during this [the initiation
ceremony of Nivedita on March 25]. And we both stayed and breakfasted with the monks. Afterwards we did not get away till about 5....
She is very funny. She did not care to listen to all he [the Swami] said
but went off with a book, fretted because she could not get away,
and so on, and inveighed against eating on the floor and with fingers in
his presence.
She does not really love Swami I think, and she says my love is very
foolish and emotional.... Such greatness, such sweetness, such
humility, as I see in him [the Swami] towards her, I could not have

imagined. "I was a fool", he said to her, about his Samadhi in the New
York class a teacher has no right to let himself go into trance, and
she calls that the best lesson he ever gave her! She accepts the
statement you see !
1 nipped off a week of duty to Abhayananda on Tuesday by taking
her to breakfast at the Great Eastern and then driving about
Calcutta.... She is to lecture on Friday in a theatre.... Abhayananda has
been grumbling that all the monks are my slaves!!!!!!
April 5: Abhayananda is starting for Dacca today. I refused to go
when she came,., and she does not know that I was asked.... For three
days she has been lecturing to large audiences here on Karma and
Sacrifice, and so on. It is awful.... She is so rude, raving about the
dirtiness and inconvenience of Hindu homes in the presence of her
host and hostess, and abusing the monks for their inattention to her...
April 9: He [the Swami], asked after "the old lady". She is in Dacca,
but no news.
May 8: Saradananda was just back in time to smooth the ruffled
plumes of Abhayananda who came back from Dacca, sore about
money and Kalikrishna's conduct, and not scrupling to say dreadful
things of Swamiji.
May 9: My heart misgives me about Abhayananda. Saradananda
writes that. she did not go to the Math on Sunday.... She says people
brought her money in Dacca and Kalikrishna absorbed it all, and that
she was simply being "run" by "Swami and Co.", for their own benefit.
May 24: My home is to be given up on the 5th June.... Of course
you know all about the reactions of discipleship and so on; but Sarola
[Ghoshal ?] is difficult to understand. She paraphrases Abhayananda's
disloyal criticism by saying, "Abhayananda says she came to India to
learn Vedanta, but she has only succeeded in seeing Vivekananda
dancing before the picture of Ramakrishna." She [Sarola] imagined that
criticism is perfectly justified. I think I showed her how utterly absurd it
was.
May 31: Abhayananda is still at the old place, and even the
Mother [Holy Mother] asked me when she would go.... Mitters are

tired of her, say she is always angry and that they cannot afford it....
She is utterly inconsiderate about the expenses and pays for nothing
herself.
June 7: On Thursday or Friday [June 1 or 2] night last, Saradananda
and Brahmananda came under my window, and Saradananda said, "Do
you know that Abhayananda left for America this morning?"
She went early in the morning, and the tender heart of
Saradananda was greatly moved, because she went in tears. We
concocted a warm telegram, which Swami sent to Bombay, but I really
don't think I need write her at Chicago.... I had not been to see her for
ten days or so; but the heat made it impossible.... Swami says, he did
wrong to organize the demonstrations in Bombay and Madras for her
and then let her drop to Calcutta.... She will be the Paramahamsa of a
new sect in her own mind. However, I think this also should be
welcomed.
Sometime in the second week of March, 1899, Nivedita requested
the Swami to make her "a member for life" on Saturday, March 25,
which was exactly a year after her first initiation. To this he consented,
saying that he had done the same for two novices of the Math
recently. What made Nivedita ask the Swami for this, we do not know
for sure; but it is likely that it was owing to the spirit of renunciation
that was growing in her as a result of the Swami's training. The arrival
of Swami Abhayananda in India may perhaps have made Nivedita more
conscious of her own status, and so could have had something to do
with her request. She may have felt that the time was ripe, and that
the Swami would have no objection to making her a sannyasini. Over
some small matter on Ramakrishna's birth anniversary, Swami
Abhayananda had snubbed her, saying that she "did not belong to the
Order was not a sannyasini". This offensive remark could well have
added fuel to the fire.
But the Swami had his own idea of what should be done. On
March 25, 1899, he initiated Nivedita as a Naishthika Brahmacharini,
and not as a sannyasini. About the ceremony Nivedita wrote to Miss
MacLeod on March 30:

I reached the Math at 8 and went to the Chapel. There we sat on

the floor and till the flowers came for worship, the King [the Swami]
talked to me of Buddha. He said the Jataka Birth-stories meant that
after giving up his life for others five hundred times a man could
become the Buddha of the Blessed Vision. Wasn't that a beautiful note
to strike just then? Then they brought things, and he taught me to
make puja at last, you see, chatting [chanting?] so sweetly all the time
and explaining it all. I have kept for you the little white flower that he
gave me to put on my head. Afterwards I got him to touch it with the
fire-ashes for you, and the little pink spot is sandal-paste. The
whiteness is all burnt away I see. Outside I have put a little line about
which I read a poem yesterday. It seemed to me such a beautiful type
of the Master. "I am the Gabriel that stand (..) in the presence of
God." Puja ended with the salutation to an Avatar, which unfortunately
I cannot quite remember. When I had decorated the shrine with
flowers, he said, "And now give some to my Buddha. No one else here
likes him but me." When the Puja was over, we went downstairs to
make the Fire Sacrifice.
Before the fire and in the presence of the monks, Nivedita took
the vows of lifelong celibacy, obedience, and poverty. Offerings were
made to Fire and invocations chanted, as part of the ceremony After it
was over Nivedita prostrated before the Swami and he marked her
forehead with ashes. The ceremony was completed with the chanting
of the appropriate Mantras by a monk. Nivedita stayed at the Math
that day, and after the midday meal the Swami gave her a Rudrakshamala a rosary of sacred seeds. From then on she wore a white robe
and the rosary.
That Nivedita had been made a Naishthika Brahmacharini, and not
a sannyasini, was quite understandably a disappointment to her. This is
evident from her letters to Mrs. Bull and Miss MacLeod. The former
she wrote on March 26: "I fancy, he made me a Brahmacharini for life
partly for the sake of reviving the old order of Naishthika
Brahmacharini, and partly because I am not really ready for anything
higher in his eyes." This was of course her own explanation. And to
Miss MacLeod she wrote on March 30: "However, I do not want to go

on like this, but to you must let myself go. I am only a Brahmacharini,
not a Swami!" She had not yet spoken about the matter to the Swami.
But an opportunity presented itself on April 23, when she went to the
Math. She asked the Swami at last, "What perfection could I strive for
in order to be worthy of being a sannyasini?" The Swami put an end to
this aspiration of hers for good by saying, "You just keep as you are!"
She never raised the question again.
March 28 that year was a sad day for the Ramakrishna
brotherhood, for on that day Swami Yogananda, one of the direct
monastic disciples of Shri Ramakrishna, passed away. He had been
seriously ill for some time. The Swami's sorrowful comment was: "One
of the bricks of our building has given way." A prominent householder
disciple of the Master, Ramachandra Datta, had passed away
somewhat earlier, on December 17, 1898. Ever since the Master's
demise, Rambabu had been leading a pious life in his Yogodyana at
Kankurgachi.
We learn from a letter of Sister Nivedita that at this time, in the
spring of 1898, the Seviers wanted the Swami to go up to Mayavati to
give them spiritual initiation. She wrote on March 26: "The Seviers
want him [the Swami] to come to their new place and initiate them;
and as he. dreads the mountains and is anxious to do it, I think perhaps
he will go to Lucknow and do it for them. Won't that be lovely for them
?... The Seviers' address now is Mayavati via Almora." Again on April 11
Nivedita wrote to her friends: "I asked him about going to the Seviers
as he had promised, and he said he was not going then he said in a
very secret way, 'People think so much of themselves, Margot. Harry
[Mr Sevier] thinks it dreadful to come to Lucknow or Benares with his
neuralgia, but I have another attack, I cannot stand it. My chest is
always sore all over with neuralgia, and I have never once lost that
ache on the left side, since I was ill. Thus, unfortunately for Mr. Sevier,
his wish was not fulfilled, since he passed away in October 1900, while
the Swami was in the West.
As we have seen, it had been the Swami's intention at least since
December 1898 to go to the West again. Now Mahananda Kaviraj, the
physician who had been treating him since his return from Baidyanath,

advised a sea voyage for the sake of his health preferably by cargo
vessel, which would take a longer time. In the light of this advice
Swami Brahmananda and other brother-monks of the Swami urged
him to start at once, since his health was in a critical state. On April 11
he himself wrote to Christine Greenstidel about his health as follows:
My complaint, I do not know what. Some say asthma, others
nervous weakness of the heart brought on by overstrain. Anyhow, last
two months the terrible fits of suffocation, which used to remain for
days, have not come. Yet unlike other asthmatic people I feel a little
weakness in the heart always. Whatever it be, dyspepsia certainly has
a great deal to do with it, I am sure. It depends upon the state of my
stomach. The summer this year, strange to say, is bringing me round
gradually, and I feel capable of absorbing more heat than ever.... A sea
voyage will he very good indeed, and also just now my conscience is
free, having started some work for the plague in Calcutta.... Anyhow,
this summer I am sure to be in England, unless something unforeseen
happens to retard it. Are you coming to England this summer? Can
you, for a trip? It will be such a pleasure to see you.... There you will
see the old England, and 1, the best thing on Earth.... but you will
scarcely recognize me when you see me again, I have grown so old
grey and decrepit. Two years of suffering has taken away twenty years
of my age. Well, but the Soul changeth not. Does it? It is there, the
same mad-cap Atman. Mad upon one idea, intent and intense.
Although the sea voyage to the West was now definitely decided
on, the date of sailing had to be postponed, because Swamis
Saradananda and Turiyananda were still in Kathiawar, where they had
gone for preaching work. The Swami wished to hand over the affairs of
the Math to Swami Saradananda, and to take Swami Turiyananda with
him to the West. They eventually returned to the Math on May 3, at
the Swamiji's call.
Swami Turiyananda, being a man of meditation, was averse to
public life. Since long the Swami had been trying to persuade him to
come out into the arena of work, but in vain. At last, one day in the
summer of 1897, while they were at Darjeeling, when all argument had
failed, and Turiyananda had been modestly insisting that public

preaching was not in his line, the Swami put his arms round the neck of
his brother-monk, laid his head on the latter's chest, and said,
weeping: "Dear Haribhai, don't you see, I have been laying down. my
life, inch by inch, to fulfil the mission of our Master, till I am on the
verge of death! Can you merely look on and not come to my help by
relieving me of a part of my great burden?" Turiyananda was
overpowered by this moving appeal, such was the love he bore the
Swami. All his hesitation vanished in minutes, and then and there he
pledged to do unflinchingly whatever the Swami would bid him do.
Since then he had been sharing the responsibilities of the work with his
brother-monks. As we have seen, he went to Kathiawar to preach
Vedanta and collect funds. On his return from there, when the Swami
asked him to accompany him to the West as a teacher of Vedanta, he
took it as the will of the Mother and resigned himself to the task
without a word of protest. (According to another version, when the
Swami asked him to accompany him to the West, Turiyananda
protested vehemently; but, when the Swami appealed to him as above
related, he submitted.)
Swami Turiyananda was held in great love and reverence by the
brotherhood for his austere life of Brahmacharya from his very
boyhood, for his spirit of burning renunciation, and for his highly
developed spiritual nature. Versed in Sanskrit and an adept in
meditation, he had from the days of the Alambazar Math trained the
younger members of the monastery by holding classes and talks and,
above all, by his exemplary life. When the Swami asked him to go to
America, he expressed the desire to take with him some standard
Vedantic works in Sanskrit. The Swami exclaimed: "Oh, of learning and
books, they have had enough! They have seen the Kshatriya power;
now I want to show them the Brahmana!" He meant that in himself the
people of the West had seen the combative and protective spirit. as
manifest in his own vigorous defence of the Sanatana Dharma; and
now the time had come for them to have before them the example of
a man of meditation who had been born and bred in the best
traditions and rigorous disciplines of Brahmanhood.

Till the middle of May, nothing had been decided about Nivedita's
going to England, even though the Swami had, in February, suggested
it to her for two reasons. In the first place her sister had written her a
reproachful letter, saying that she was broken down with strain and
worry, and asking how she would be able to marry. About this Nivedita
had written to Miss MacLeod on January 30, 1899: "It seems that she
[Nivedita's sister] will probably want to marry this year but with a
school on her hands, and that in its present state, she would have to
go on indefinitely. This cannot be. I only know one reply.... If she wants
to marry and there is no other outlook, 1 must simply go home and
take my old place over."
Secondly, before Nivedita told the Swami, in the first week of
February, about her sister, he had told her that she must return to
England, because there was no money with which she could carry on
her work in India. He had. as we know, already taken steps in an effort
to remedy this situation by sending two of his disciples to East Bengal
and two of his brother monks to Gujarat to collect funds; and he
had asked others to do the same. When Nivedita heard this about
going to England from the Swami. she told him about her sister's
letter just mentioned. The Swami said to her, "Then you have no
alternative. Start this month. The emergency is sufficient reason."
Nivedita said in reply, "Let me go on till September on what I have, and
work as if there were no chance of being called home. Then let us face
the situation again." To this the Swami agreed.
In the third week of May, Nivedita heard from Josephine MacLeod,
who suggested that she (Nivedita) go to England. Nivedita was
overjoyed. She went to the Swami on May 20 and told him that her
school was a waste of time. He in turn told her that she should go back
to Europe and bring money for her proposed "Home for Widows and
Girls". The following day she wrote to Miss MacLeod:
I thought how funny that Yum (Miss MacLeod) really rules us all,
even at this distance! Swami suggested the same thing the other day,
for Nim's [Nivedita's sister's] wedding, and I would not listen; and you
speak and it is done.... Of course, it [the school] is only a waste of time
in one sense.... Just when a girl grows exquisite, she marries, and I can

do no more for her. If I could go round to zenanas, of course, and teach

English to the ladies, it would be a great thing, but I am only one
person, and my time, what with school and sanitation and writing, is
quite full.... My place is to train Educational Missionaries, and for that I
must have their whole lives in my hand.... So it may be that this is the
answer, and that I am to try my fate in England.... For one thing, Miss
Mller will pay for me to go to England now, but I don't in the least
trust her to send me back.
By the second week of May, Sister Nivedita had bought two firstclass tickets for Swamis Vivekananda and Turiyananda on B.I.S.N.
Company's S.S. Golconda, due to sail on June 20. Then the Swami told
her to get one more first-class ticket on the same steamer, for herself.
Nivedita forbade Miss MacLeod to tell any of her (Nivedita's) family of
her impending arrival in England. She informed Mr. Sturdy that the
Swami was going to England and asked him to arrange lodgings. But
Mr. Sturdy did not react favourably, so ultimately she had to make
arrangements for the Swamis in Wimbledon, with the help of her
sister. She also sent information to Miss Mller.
The Swami had thought out a plan for Nivedita. She wrote about it
to Miss MacLeod on June 7, 1899, as follows:
He [the Swami] talks of taking me to America and setting me to
lecture under a bureau, and so earn money we shall need. How glad I
should be! Of course, I cannot tell whether his idea that I should be
popular would be fulfilled. I should just love to do it, however, I might
go to the same towns where Ramabai had been and lecture there.
Wouldn't that be fun? If, in addition, I could form a huge society, each
member of which in England, America, and India should contribute a
minimum of one penny or two cents or one anna per annum that
would be grand. The work would never want money. Such are the
plans that occur to me. You will sit in judgement of them. I believe in
tiny subscriptions to work done for the people, "by the people, as a joy
to the maker and the user".
It was now settled that they would sail for America via England,
where they would stay for a few days. For more than a month prior to

the day of departure, the monastery swarmed with devotees and

visitors. Up to the last moment the Swami was busy teaching and
giving instruction. His voice would now and then be heard, singing
devotional songs and pouring his whole soul into them. In his own
heart there was evidently no sense of separation arising from his
intended departure. On the day before their leaving, photographs
were taken of the Swami and of Turiyananda separately. Two group
photographs were also taken.
On June 17 the Swami went on invitation to the house of Master
Mahashaya (Mahendranath Gupta, the recorder of The Gospel of Shri
Ramakrishna) along with others. On that day he also visited Sir
Jatindramohan Tagore, who had invited him to dinner. This gentleman
had found the Swami's Raja-Yoga most interesting, and had expressed
his earnest desire to learn more on the subject in a private interview.
Sometime in the second week of June, Nivedita left her house at
16 Bosepara Lane and moved to the Holy Mother's residence at 8
Bosepara Lane (Baghbazar), where she lived till she left for the West.
On June 18 evening she went to the Math, where a tea-party was given
in her honour and a bouquet of seven roses presented to her by the
"younger members of the Math". They also read out a farewell address
to her. She was accompanied by Swami Sadananda and Mr.
Mohinimohan Chatterji. From the Math they went to Dakshineswar,
where Nivedita spent her time till late in the evening in prayer and
meditation. When they returned to the Mother's residence, it was
raining heavily; but Nivedita had the satisfaction of having surrendered
fully to the Divine Will.
On the night of June 19 a farewell meeting was held at Belur
Math. The members of the monastery presented addresses to the
Swami and Swami Turiyananda. Swami Akhandananda had come with
four orphans from Mahula to see the Swami off. Swami Saradananda
opened the meeting with a short speech; Swamis Akhandananda and
Trigunatita also made short speeches. Swami Turiyananda gave a
fitting reply; after which the Swami made a fiery speech on "Sannyasa:
Its Ideal and Practice". In it he insisted that the sannyasi is to love
death; that is to say, he is to hold his life as a sacrifice to the welfare of

the world. Then all his actions will be performed selflessly, for the good
of others. Too high an ideal, the Swami said, is wrong. That was the
trouble with the Buddhist and Jain reformers. On the other hand, an
insufficiently high ideal is also wrong. The two extremes must be
avoided. "You must try to combine in your life immense idealism with
immense practicality. You must be prepared to go into deep
meditation now, and the next moment you must be ready to go and
cultivate these fields [pointing to the meadows of the Math]. You must
he prepared to explain the intricacies of the Shastras now, and the
next moment to go and sell the produce of the fields in the market...."
They must remember that the aim of the monastery is man-making.
They themselves must be Rishis. "The true man is he who is strong as
strength itself and yet possesses a woman's heart." They must have a
deep regard for their Sangha (the Order) and be obedient. Having
given them this final instruction the Swami gazed lovingly on them as a
father on his children, and blessed them.
On the day of departure the Holy Mother gave a sumptuous feast
to the Swami, Swami Turiyananda, and all her sannyasi children of the
Math, at her Calcutta house. After receiving the Mother's blessings,
they left for Princep Ghat about 3 p.m. by coach. Many friends had
assembled at the ghat to bid them a farewell. The Swami was in good
spirits and urged them all to be of good cheer. Needless to say, a
feeling of sadness descended on everyone as the time of final leavetaking drew near, though they knew that the Swami would always be
with them in their hearts. At the ghat the passengers had to go
through a strict examination by the port medical officers. This was
because of the recent plague epidemic. The launch came about 5 p.m.
and the Swamis and Sister Nivedita got into it. They were to travel first
class, while Swami Saradananda's brother, who was accompanying
them, had a second-class ticket. When the launch was leaving, those
assembled could not check their tears. All of them simultaneously
prostrated on the ghat in farewell salutation to the Swami. The
onlookers were stunned to see it. So long as the Swami and party were
in sight, the group of monks devotees, and friends waved their hands
or handkerchiefs.

HALF-WAY ACROSS THE WORLD

On June 20, 1899 the Swami boarded the S.S. Golconda at the
Calcutta port on the Hooghly River and was off for the West,
accompanied by Swami Turiyananda and Sister Nivedita. Satishchandra
Chakravarty, Swami Saradananda's brother, who was on his way to
Boston, also travelled by the same ship.
Fortunately, the Swami wrote his travelogue of this voyage in a
series of articles entitled "Parivrajaka" for the Udbodhan, the newly
started Bengali journal of the Ramakrishna Order. By reading the book
either in the original Bengali or in its English translation entitled
Memoirs o European Travel, appearing in volume seven of The
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, one can learn a wealth of
detail, the like of which is not found from the Swami's own pen in
regard to any other period of his life. In following him over rough seas
and placid waters, we shall draw heavily from this source, not
hesitating at times to quote informative and interesting passages; for
in reading the Swami's own description, the reader will feel, as it were,
the immediacy of his presence.
The Hooghly's sandbanks and shoals near the entrance of
Diamond Harbour make the passage of seagoing vessels hazardous and
slow. Only at high tide and during the daytime can the pilot, with great
care, safely steer his ship; at no other times will he venture it. Because
of this, the Golconda took two days to clear the river and sail free.
After riding exceedingly rough seas for more than two days and
nights in the Bay of Bengal, the ship touched at Madras. The news of
the Swami's coming had been telegraphed ahead, but due to the
prevalence of plague in Calcutta, the Indian passengers were not
allowed to go ashore. And the whole city thus suffered a keen
disappointment. A correspondent of the Madras Hindu speaking of the
arrival of the ship there and the eagerness of the citizens to entertain
the Swami, as they had done before, wrote:
On Sunday morning the pier was crowded with an eager throng of
spectators anxious to see the Swami Vivekananda, who was on his way

to England by the S.S. Golconda. But to their disappointment they

were told that the vessel having arrived from Calcutta, an infected
port, was under quarantine, and that the Swami would not be allowed
to land. The numerous people who had gathered together, of all ranks
and ages, had therefore to go away considerably vexed.
Some there were who determined to have a glimpse at least of
the Swami, and with that view they went in boats alongside the vessel,
from whose deck the Swami was accorded a distant but cheerful
welcome by his friends and admirers. Some days before, a public
meeting was held in Castle Kernan under the presidency of Hon'ble Mr.
P. Ananda Charlu, at which it was resolved to address Government
praying that the Swami Vivekananda be permitted to land at Madras,
and stop there for a few hours before embarking again. Message after
message was despatched to the Blue Heights, but the Swami's friends
and admirers got only some vague replies, but no sanction was wired
to the Port Health Officer and the result was that the Health Officer
could not allow him to land....
The Swami wrote in his memoirs:
In the night of the 24th June, our ship reached Madras: Getting up
from bed in the morning, I found that we were within the enclosed
space of the Madras harbour. Within the harbour the water was still,
but without, towering waves were roaring, which occasionally dashing
against the harbour-wall were shooting up fifteen to twenty feet high
into the air and breaking in a mass of foam. In front lay the well-known
Strand Road of Madras. Two European Police Inspectors, a Jamadar of
Madras, and a dozen Constables boarded our ship and told me with
great courtesy that "natives" were not allowed to land on the shore,
but the Europeans were. A "native", whoever he might be, was of such
dirty habits that there was every chance of his carrying plague germs
about; but the Madrasis had asked for a special permit for me, which
they might obtain. By degrees the friends of Madras began to come
near our vessel on boats in small groups. As all contact was strictly
forbidden, we could only speak from the ship, keeping some space
between. I found all my friendsAlasinga, Biligiri, Narasimhachary, Dr.
Nanjunda Rao, Kidi, and others on the boats. Basketfuls of mangoes,

plantains, cocoanuts, cooked rice-and-curd, and heaps of sweet and

salt delicacies, etc. began to come in. Gradually the crowd thickened
men, women, and children in boats everywhere. I found also Mr.
Chamier, my English friend who had come out to Madras as a barristerat-law. Ramakrishnananda and Nirbhayananda made some trips near
to the ship. They insisted on staying on the boat the whole day in the
hot sun and I had to remonstrate with them, when they gave up the
idea. And as the news of my not being permitted to land got abroad,
the crowd of boats began to increase still more. I, too, began to feel
exhaustion from leaning against the railings too long. Then I bade
farewell to my Madrasi friends and entered my cabin. Alasinga got no
opportunity to consult me about the Brahmavadin and the Madras
work; so he was going to accompany me to Colombo. The ship left the
harbour in the evening, when I heard a great shout, and peeping
through the cabin-window, I found that about a thousand men,
women, and children of Madras, who had been sitting on the harbourwalls, gave this farewell shout when the ship started. On a joyous
occasion the people of Madras also, like the Bengalis, make the
peculiar sound with the tongue known as the Hulu.
"That rising and heaving of waves which had commenced from the
mouth of the Ganga," the Swami continued, "began to increase as we
advanced, and after we had left Madras it increased still more."
Indeed, in its passage from Madras to Colombo the ship rolled and
pitched heavily. Many of the passengers suffered from seasickness,
including, at the beginning of the voyage, Swami Turiyananda, though
he soon recovered. Worse off were two Bengali boys, one of whom
was certain he would die. The Swamis consoled him, assuring him
with difficulty that seasickness was a common and passing matter,
never fatal. And when the boys could once again endure the thought
of food, the Swami gave them a lion's share of the abundance of fruits,
sweets, and rice-and-curd that had been heaped upon him by the
people of Madras.
One person among the passengers, who was unaffected by the
monsoon seas, was Alasinga Perumal, who had hurriedly bought a
ticket and boarded the ship in Madras. His head shaven, except for a

tuft in the centre, a conspicuous caste mark on his forehead, barefoot,

and wearing a dhoti in South Indian style, he would now and then stroll
on the heaving deck, eating the popped rice and fried peas that he had
brought with him "so that his caste", as the Swami wrote, would
remain intact. Notwithstanding the rigidity of Alasinga's orthodoxy,
the Swami viewed it as a hallmark of his character. "One rarely finds a
man like our Alasinga in this world," he wrote in his memoirs, "one
so unselfish, so hard-working, and devoted to his guru, and such an
obedient disciple is indeed very rare on earth. "
On the morning of June 28, after three days and two nights, the
ship finally reached Colombo. Of their day's halt there the Swami
wrote:
Our Colombo friends had procured a permit for our landing, so we
landed and met our friends there. Sir [actually Hon'ble Mr. P.]
Coomaraswarmy is the foremost man among the Hindus: his wife is an
English lady, and his son is barefooted and wears the sacred ashes on
his forehead. Mr. Arunachalam and other friends came to meet me.
After a long time I partook of Mulagutanni and the king-cocoanut. They
put some green cocoanuts into my cabin. I met Mrs. Higgins and visited
her boarding school for Buddhist girls. I also visited the monastery and
school of our old acquaintance, the Countess of Canovara.
The Countess of Canovara, an American woman, who, as the
Swami wrote, "wears a Gerua cloth after the mode of the Bengali sari,"
had visited Calcutta a few months earlier. She had started fifteen
schools in Ceylon [now Sri Lanka], including one orphanage and one
industrial school. Nivedita, who cherished the aspiration of becoming
an educational missionary, was much impressed to see what she had
accomplished.
In a letter of July 5 to Miss MacLeod, Nivedita wrote of the festive
farewell reception given to the Swami at the last house he visited on
his way back to Golconda:
Last of all, driving down to the quay, we had to enter a house
where we were met outside by drums, fifes, and tom-toms. Inside a
dense crowd, and fruit on a table. Oh what a crowd! And how they

looked at Swami!... He pointed to his European clothes, but it made no

difference. He was their Avatar, just the same. Then he took a small
fruit, and sipped milk.... And then as he turned to go, you should have
heard the shout, "Praise to Shiva, the Lord of Parvati! Hail!" it was
deafening, and you should have seen the crowd in the street when we
got out! And the crowd on the landing stage! There came our first host
and hostess back to see us off with endless presents, the hostess, Lady
Coomaraswamy, was an English woman, her husband a Madrasi Hindu,
such a fine man! And there that quiet Europeanized-looking member
of the Government stood, and three times called aloud the praise of
Shiva, and then three times "Swami Vivekanandaji Ki Namaskar!"
["Salutation to Swami Vivekananda"]. While the crowd cheered. we
steamed away to the Golconda...
Alasinga returned to Madras from Colombo. And the Golconda left
Colombo on the evening of Wednesday, June 28, on a long voyage
from "the Land of Renunciation to the Land of Enjoyment of the
World". The Swami wrote in his memoirs:
Now we have to encounter the full monsoon conditions. The more
our ship is advancing, the more is the storm increasing, and the louder
is the wind howling there is incessant rain, and enveloping darkness;
huge waves are dashing on the ship's deck with a terrible noise, so that
it is impossible to stay on the deck. The dining table has been divided
into small squares by means of wood partitions, placed lengthwise and
breadthwise, called fiddle, out of which the food articles are jumping
up. The ship is creaking, as if it were going to break to pieces. The
Captain says, "Well, this year's monsoon seems to be unusually
rough......Amid such conditions, you must remember, the work for
your Udbodhan [writing the "Memoirs of European Travel"] is going on
to a certain extent....
Near the island of Socotra [a little over 450 miles east of Aden],
the monsoon was at its worst. The Captain remarked that this was the
centre of the monsoon, and that, if we could pass this, we should
gradually reach calmer waters. And so we did. And this nightmare also
ended.

It was indeed a long nightmare, for the Golconda took ten days
instead of the usual six to sail from Colombo to Aden. At the latter
port, which was reached on the evening of July 8, not only was no
cargo allowed into the ship, but no one, white or black, was allowed
ashore. However, there were not many things worth seeing at Aden,
and the travellers were content to remain on board.
During the voyage the Swami passed his time in reading, or writing
for the Bengali magazine of the Order, or talking to Nivedita or his
brother-disciple. He took due precautions for his health, and told
Swami Turiyananda that in order to keep fit he proposed to take daily
physical exercise and that, if he ever failed, to remind him. Swami
Turiyananda willingly agreed. For a few days the Swami regularly
exercised, but thereafter, being absorbed in talk, he would forget and
would say to Swami Turiyananda, when the latter would remind him:
"Not today. I am keeping quite well on board, and I am now talking to
Nivedita. She is a foreigner and has left her country. to learn about
these things from me. She is very intelligent, and I feel great joy in
talking to her."
As had been anticipated, the sea voyage greatly improved the
Swami's health daily exercise or no. While sailing through the gulf of
Suez, he wrote to Christine Greenstidel on July 14, 1899:
I was so bad in health that in India my heart went wrong all the
way. What with mountain climbing, bathing in glacier water, and
nervous prostration. I used to get terrible fits the last lasting about
seven days and nights all the time I was suffocating and had to stand
up.
This trip has almost made a new man of me. I feel much better
and, if this continues, hope to be quite strong before I reach America.
Although he was not aware of it when he wrote this letter, the
Swami was to meet Christine Greenstidel weeks before he would reach
America. She and Mrs. Funke were already in London, having come to
meet him in response to his urging in a letter written from India on
April 11, 1899. Not until the Golconda touched at Marseilles was he to
learn from a cable that they had indeed come.

The long ocean voyage appears to have been not only physically
beneficial to the Swami, but mentally relaxing as well. Reading his
Memoirs of European Travel, a good part of which he wrote on board
ship, one gets the impression that the author was on an open-ended
vacation without any serious business on hand or in view. His vast fund
of knowledge, his wide-ranged information, his detailed observation of
his immediate surroundings poured through his pen in a most
entertaining manner, sparkling with wit and fun. Indeed, this unique
production, which unfortunately loses in translation much of its native
spirit and humour, shows that, if the Swami had wished, he could have
been the Mark Twain of Bengali literature.
But if the Swami seems to have been in a relaxed vacation mood
during the voyage, one also finds that his mind was occasionally
engaged in serious thought about the work that lay ahead. On July 14,
he wrote from Port Said to Mr. E. T. Sturdy:
... As you know sure, I shall not have many friends staying now in
London, and Miss MacLeod is so desirous I should come. A stay in
England under the circumstances is not advisable. Moreover, I do not
have much life left. At least I must go on with that supposition. I mean,
if anything has to be done in America, it is high time we bring our
scattered influence in America to a head if not organize regularly.
Then I shall be free to return to England in a few months and work
with a will till I return to India.
I think you are absolutely wanted to gather up, as it were, the
American work. If you can, therefore, you ought to come over with
me....
In case you cannot come to America, I ought to go, ought I not?
After touching at Naples, the ship called at Marseilles. And on
Monday morning, July 31, 1899, the Swami was in London.
For, Swami Turiyananda and Sister Nivedita the association with
the Swami during the voyage was an education and a veritable spiritual
feast. The Sister regarded it as a pilgrimage, and recorded in her diary
some of the striking conversations of the Swami, as well as some of her
own impressions. Later on, she presented these memoirs in her book

The Master As I Saw Him. Since they show the Swami in varying
moods, they are of absorbing interest to students of his life; thus we
need make no apology for giving the following quotations from them.
Writes the Sister:
From the beginning of the voyage to the end, the flow of thought
and story went on. One never knew what moment would see the flash
of intuition, and hear the ringing utterance of some fresh truth. It was
while we sat chatting in the River on the first afternoon that he
suddenly exclaimed, "Yes, the older I grow, the more everything seems
to me to lie in manliness. This is my new gospel. Do even evil like a
man! Be wicked, if 3,ou must, on a great scale!" And these words link
themselves in my memory with those of another day, when I had been
reminding him of the rareness of criminality in India. And he turned on
me, full of sorrowful protest. "Would to God, it were otherwise in my
land!" he said, "for this is verify the virtuousness of death!" Stories of
the Shivaratri, or Dark Night of Shiva, of Prithvi Rai, of the judgementseat of Vikramaditya, of Buddha and Yashodhara, and a thousand more
were constantly coming up. And a noticeable point was that one never
heard the same thing twice. There was the perpetual study of' caste;
the constant examination and restatement of ideas; the talk of work,
past, present, and future; and, above all, the vindication of Humanity,
never weakened, always rising to new heights of defence of' the
undefended, of chivalry for the weak....
I cannot forget his indignation when he heard some European
reference to cannibalism, as if it were a normal part of the life in some
societies. "'That is not true!" he said, when he had heard to the end.
"No nation ever ate human flesh, save as a religious sacrifice, or in war,
out of revenge. Don't you see? That is not the way of gregarious
animals! It would cut at the roots of social life!" Kropotkin's great work
on "Mutual Aid" had not yet appeared, when these words were said. It
was his love of Humanity, and his instinct on behalf of each in his own
place, that gave to the Swami so clear an insight.
Again he talked of religious impulse. "Sex-love and creation!" he
cried, "These are at the root of most religions. And these in India are
called Vaishnavism, and in the West, Christianity. How few have dared

to worship Death or Kali! Let us worship Death! Let us embrace the

Terrible, because it is terrible; not asking that it be toned down. Let us
take misery, for misery's own sake!"
As we came to the place where the river-water met the ocean, the
Swami explained how it was the great reverence of Hindus for the
ocean, forbidding them to defile it by crossing it, that had made such
journeys equal to outcasting for so many centuries. Then, as the ship
crossed the line, touching the sea for the first time, he chanted,
"Namah Shivaya! Namah Shivaya!... "
He was talking again of the fact that he who would be great must
suffer, and how some were fated to see every joy of the senses turn to
ashes, and he said, "The whole of life is only a swan-song.... "
Now he would answer a question, with infinite patience, and again
he would play with historic and literary speculations. Again and again
his mind would return to the Buddhist period, as the crux of a real
understanding of Indian history.
"The three cycles of Buddhism", he said one day, "were five
hundred years of the Law, five hundred years of images, and five
hundred years of Tantras. You must not imagine that there was ever a
religion in India called Buddhism, with temples and priests of its own
order! Nothing of the sort. It was always within Hinduism. Only at one
time the influence of Buddha was paramount, and this made the.
nation monastic.... "
And he drifted on to talk about the Soma plant, picturing how, for
a thousand years after the Himalayan period, it was annually received
in Indian villages as if it were a king, the people going out to meet it on
a given day, and bringing it in rejoicing. And now it cannot even be
identified!...
"Yes, Buddha was right! It must be cause and effect in Karma. This
individuality cannot but be an illusion!" It was the next morning, and I
had supposed him to be dozing in his chair, when he suddenly
exclaimed'. "Why! the memory of one life is like millions of years of
confinement, and they want to wake up the memory of many lives!
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!"

"I have just been talking to Turiyananda about conservative and

liberal ideas," he said as he met me on deck before breakfast one
morning, and straightway plunged into the subject.
"The conservative's whole ideal is submission. Your ideal is
struggle. Consequently, it is we who enjoy life, and never you! You are
always striving to change yours to something better, and before a
millionth part of the change is carried out, you die. The Western ideal
is, to be doing: the Eastern to be suffering. The perfect life would be a
wonderful harmony between doing and suffering. But that can never
be.
"In our system it is accepted that a man can never have all he
desires. Life is subjected to many restraints. This is ugly, yet it brings
out points of light and strength. Our liberals see only the ugliness, and
try to throw it off. But they substitute something quite as bad, and the
new custom takes as long as the old, for us to work to its centres of
strength.
"Will is not strengthened by change. It is weakened and enslaved
by it. But we must be always absorbing. Will grows stronger by
absorption. And consciously or unconsciously, will is the one thing in
the world that we admire. Suttee is great in the eyes of the whole
world, because of the will that it manifests.
"It is selfishness that we must seek to eliminate! I find that
whenever I have made a mistake in my life, it has always been because
self entered into the calculation. Where self has not been involved, my
judgement had gone straight to the mark.
"Without this self, there would have been no religious system. If
man had not wanted anything for himself, do you think he would have
had all this praying and worship? Why! he would never have thought
of God at all, except perhaps for a little praise now and then, at the
sight of a beautiful landscape or something. And that is the only
attitude there ought to be. All praise and thanks. If only we were rid of
self!"
"You are quite wrong," he said again, "when you think that
fighting is a sign of growth. It is not so at all. Absorption is the sign.

Hinduism is the very genius of absorption. We have never cared for

fighting. Of course, we struck a blow now and then, in defence of our
homes! That was right. But we never cared for fighting for its own
sake. Everyone had to learn that. So let these races of new-comers
whirl on! They'll all be taken into Hinduism in the end!"
He never thought of his Mother-Church or his Motherland except
as dominant; and again and again, when thinking of definite schemes,
he would ejaculate, in his whimsical way, "Yes, it is true! If European
men or women are to work in India, it must be under the black man!"
He brooded much over the national achievement. "Well! Well!" he
would say, "We have done one thing that no other people ever did. We
have converted a whole nation to one or two ideas. Non- beef-eating,
for instance. Not one Hindu eats beef. No, no!" turning sharply
round "it is not at all like European non-cat- eating; for beef was
formerly the food of the country!"
We were discussing a certain opponent of his own, and I
suggested that he was guilty of putting his sect above his country.
"That is Asiatic," retorted the Swami warmly, "and it is grand! Only he
had not the brain to conceive, nor the patience to wait!" and then he
went off into a musing on Kali....
"I love terror for its own sake," he went on, "despair for its own
sake, misery for its own sake. Fight always. Fight and fight on, though
always in defeat. That's the ideal. That's the ideal."
"The totality of all souls, not the human alone," he said once, "is
the Personal God. The will of the Totality nothing can resist. It is what
we know as Law. And this is what we mean by Shiva and Kali and so
on."
It was dark when we approached Sicily, and against the sunset sky,
Etna was in slight eruption. As we entered the Straits of Messina, the
moon rose, and I walked up and down the deck beside the Swami,
while he dwelt on the fact that beauty is not external, but already in
the mind. On one side frowned the dark crags of the Italian coast, on
the other, the island was touched with silver light. "Messina must
thank me!" he said. "It is I who give her all her beauty!"

Then he talked of the fever of longing to reach God that had

wakened in him as a boy, and of how he would begin repeating a text
before sunrise, and remain all day repeating it, without stirring. He was
trying here to explain the idea of Tapasya, in answer to my questions,
and he spoke of the old way of lighting four fires, and sitting in the
midst, hour after hour, with the sun overhead, reining in the mind.
"Worship the terrible!" he ended, "Worship Death! All else is vain. All
struggle is vain. That is the last lesson. Yet this is not the coward's love
of death, not the love of the weak, or the suicide. It is the welcome of
the strong man, who has sounded everything to its depths, and knows
that there is no alternative."
Often during the voyage the Swami talked of those saints whom
he had known personally. Paramount was Shri Ramakrishna, of whom
he told, among many other things, how with but a touch he could
impart the highest insight, as instanced by the lad who, after being
touched by the Master's hand, never spoke during the remaining ten
years of his life, save to say, "My Beloved! My Beloved!" And he told
also of a certain woman to whom the Master had offered salutation in
the name of the Mother, throwing flowers on her feet and burning
incense before her, and who had passed immediately into the deepest
Samadhi, from which it had been most difficult to recall her. Two or
three hours elapsed before she awoke from ecstasy, and, as Sister
Nivedita narrates:
None had the forethought to make a single enquiry as to her name
or abode. She never came again. Thus her memory became like some
beautiful legend treasured in the Order as witness to the worship of
Shri Ramakrishna for gracious and noble wifehood and motherhood.
Had he not said of this woman, "a fragment of the eternal
Madonnahood"?... "Was it a joke", the Swami said, "that Shri
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa should touch a life? Of course, he made
new men and women of those who came to him, even in these fleeting
contacts!"

And then he would tell story after story of different disciples. How
one came, and came again, and struggled to understand. And
suddenly, to this one he turned and said, "Go away now, and make
some money! Then come again!" And that man today was succeeding
in the world, but the old love was proving itself ever alight.
The Swami spoke with great feeling of Nag Mahashaya, who had
paid him a visit in Calcutta only a few weeks before his departure. Nag
Mahashaya, he said again and again, was "one of the greatest of the
works of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa". He related how on one occasion
he had cut down the supporting pole of his cottage, in order to make
the fire to cook food for a guest.
Speaking of the modern saints of India, such as Pavhari Baba,
Trailanga Swami, Raghunath Das, and others, as also of those of
ancient times,
... his whole soul went to the interpretation of each, as he rose
before him, and it would have been impossible at any moment for the
listener to think of any other as higher....
Raghunath Das had been dead two months, when the Swami
reached his Ashrama. He had been a soldier originally in the British
service, and as an outpost sentinel was faithful and good, and much
beloved by his officers. One night, however, he heard a Ram-Ram
party. He tried to do his duty, but "Jay Bolo Ramachandra Ki Jai!"
maddened him. He threw away his arms and uniform, and joined the
worship.
This went on for some time, till reports came to the Colonel. He
sent for Raghunath Das, and asked him whether these were true, and
if he knew the penalty. Yes, he knew it. It was to be shot. "Well," said
the Colonel, "go away this time, and I shall repeat it to no one. This
once I forgive you. But if the same thing happens again, you must
suffer the penalty."
That night, however, the sentinel heard again the Ram-Ram party.
He did his best, but it was irresistible. At last he, threw all to the winds,
and joined the worshippers till morning. Meanwhile, however, the
Colonel's trust in Raghunath Das had been so great, that he found it

difficult to believe anything against him, even on his own confession.

So in the course of the night, he visited the outpost, to see for himself.
Now, Raghunath Das was in his place, and exchanged the word with
him three times. Then, being reassured, the Colonel turned in, and
went to sleep.
In the morning appeared Raghunath Das to report himself and
surrender his arms. But the report was not accepted, for the Colonel
told him what he had himself seen and heard. Thunderstruck, the man
insisted by some means on retiring from the service. Rama it was who
had done this for His servant. Henceforth, in very truth, he would serve
no other.
"He became a Vairagi", said the Swami, "on the banks of the
Saraswati. People thought him ignorant, but I knew his power, Daily he
would feed thousands. Then would come the grain-seller, after a while,
with his bill. 'H'm!' Raghunath Das would say, 'A thousand rupees you
say? Let me see. It is a month, I think, since I have received anything.
This will come, I fancy, tomorrow.' And it always came...."
And then, perhaps came the story of Sibi Rana. "Ah, Yes!"
exclaimed the teller, as he ended, "these are the stories that are deep
in our nation's heart ! Never forget that the sannyasin takes two vows,
one to realize the truth, and one to help the world, and that the most
stringent of stringent requirements is that he should renounce any
thought of heaven!"
One day the talk drifted to the question of what becomes of those,
who failed to keep their vows. Quoting the memorable verses of the
Gita on the point:
First, he explained how everything, short of the absolute control of
mind, word, and deed, was but "the sowing of wild oats". Then, he told
how the religious who failed would sometimes be born again to a
throne, "there to sow his wild oats", in gratifying the particular desire
which had led to his downfall. "A memory of the religious habit", he
said, "often haunts the throne." For one of the signs of greatness was
held to be the persistence of a faint memory. Akbar had had this
memory. He thought of himself as a Brahmachari who had failed in his

vows. But he would be born again, in more favourable surroundings,

and that time he would succeed. And then there came one of those
personal glimpses which occurred so seldom with our Master. Carried
away by the talk of memory, he lifted the visor for a moment, on his
own soul. "And whatever you may think", he said, turning to me
suddenly, and addressing me by name, "1 have such a memory !"...
His voice sank into silence, and we sat looking out over the starlit
sea. Then he took up the thread again.. "As I grow older, I find that I
look more and more for greatness in little things. I want to know what
a great man eats and wears, and how he speaks to his servants. I want
to find a Sir Philip Sidney greatness! Few men would remember the
thirst of others, even in the moment of death.
"But anyone will be great in a great position! Even the coward will
grow brave in the glare of the footlights. The world looks on. Whose
heart will not throb? Whose pulse will not quicken, till he can do his
best? More and more the true greatness seems to me that of the
worm, doing its duty silently, steadily, from moment to moment, and
hour to hour."
How many points on the map have received a new beauty in my
eyes, from the conversations they recall! As we passed up the coast of
Italy, we talked of the Church. As we went through the Straits of
Bonifacio, and sat looking at the south coast of Corsica, he spoke in a
hushed voice of "this land of the birth of the warlord", and wandered
far afield, to talk of the strength of Robespierre, or to touch on Victor
Hugo's contempt for Napoleon III, with his 'Et tu Napoleon ?"
As I came on deck, on the morning of our passing through the
Straits of Gibraltar, he met me with the words, "Have you seen them?
Have you seen them? Landing there and crying, 'Din! Din! The Faith!
The Faith!"' And for half-an-hour I was swept away into his
dramatization of the Moorish invasions of Spain.
Or again, on a Sunday evening, he would sit and talk of Buddha,
putting new life into the customary historical recital of bare facts, and
interpreting the Great Renunciation as it had appeared to him who
made it.

But his talks were not all entertaining, nor even all educational.
Every now and then he would return, with consuming eagerness, to
the great purpose of his life. And when he did this, I listened with an
anxious mind, striving to treasure up each word that he let fall. For I
knew that here I was but the transmitter, but the bridge, between him
and that countless host of his own people, who would yet arise, and
seek to make good his dreams.
One of these occasions came on a certain evening, as we neared
Aden. I had asked him, in the morning, to tell me, in broad outline,
what he felt to be the points of difference between his own schemes
for the good of India, and those preached by others. It was impossible
to draw him out on this subject. On the contrary, he expressed
appreciation of certain personal characteristics and lines of conduct,
adopted by some of the leaders of other schools, and I regarded the
question as dismissed. Suddenly, in the evening, he returned to the
subject of his own accord.
"I disagree with all those", he said, "who are giving their
superstitions back to my people. Like the Egyptologist's interest in
Egypt, it is easy to feel an interest in India that is purely selfish. One
may desire to see again the India of one's books, one's studies, one's
dreams. My hope is to see again the strong points of that India,
reinforced by the strong points of this age, only in a natural way. The
new state of things must be a growth from within.
"So I preach only the Upanishads. If you look, you will find that I
have never quoted anything but the Upanishads. And of the
Upanishads, it is only that one idea strength. The quintessence of
Vedas and Vedanta and all, lies in that one word. Buddha's teaching
was of Non-resistance or Non-injury. But I think this is a better way of
teaching the same thing. For behind that Non-injury lay a dreadful
weakness. It is weakness that conceives the idea of resistance. I do not
think of punishing or escaping from a drop of sea-spray. It is nothing to
me. Yet to the mosquito it would be serious. Now, I will make all injury
like that. Strength and fearlessness. My own ideal is that giant of a
saint whom they killed in the Mutiny, and who broke silence, when
stabbed to the heart, to say, 'And thou also art He!'

"But you may ask, what is the place of Ramakrishna in this

scheme? He is the method, that wonderful unconscious method! He
did not understand himself. He knew nothing of England, or the
English, save that they were queer folk over the sea. But he lived that
great life; and I read the meaning. Never a word of condemnation for
any! Once I had been attacking one of our sects of Diabolists. I had
been raving on for three hours and he had listened quietly. 'Well, well!'
said the old man as I finished, 'perhaps every house may have a back
door. Who knows!'
"Hitherto the great fault of our Indian religion has lain in its
knowing only two words Renunciation and Mukti. Only Mukti here!
Nothing for the householders! But these are the very people whom I
want to help. For, are not all souls of the same quality? Is not the goal
of all the same?
"And so strength must come to the nation through education." I
thought at the time, and I think increasingly as I consider it, that this
one talk of my Master had been well worth the whole voyage, to have
heard....
The Swami was constantly preoccupied with the thought of
Hinduism as a whole, and this fact found recurring expression in
references to Vaishnavism....
He loved to dwell on the spectacle of the historical emergence of
Hinduism. He sought constantly for the great force behind the
evolution of any given phenomenon. Where was the thinker behind
the founder of a religion? And where, on the other hand, was the heart
to complete the thought? Buddha had received his philosophy of the
five categories form, feeling, sensation, motion, knowledge from
Kapila. But Buddha had brought the love that made the philosophy
live. Of no one of these, Kapila had said, can anything be declared. For
each is not. It but was, and is gone. Each is but the ripple on the water.
Know, O man! thou art the sea!
Krishna, in his turn, as the preacher and creative centre of popular
Hinduism, awoke in the Swami a feeling which was scarcely second to
his passionate, personal adoration of Buddha. Compared to His many-

sidedness, the Sannyasa of Buddha was almost a weakness. How

wonderful was the Gita!... How strong! But besides this, there was the
beauty of it. The Gita, after the Buddhist writings, was such a relief!
Buddha had constantly said, "I am for the People!" And they had
crushed, in his name, the vanity of art and learning. The great mistake
committed by Buddhism lay in the destruction of the old.
For the Buddhist books were torture to read. Having been written
for the ignorant, one would find only one or two thoughts in a huge
volume. (The Dhammapada he placed, however, on a level with the
Gita.) It was to meet the need thus roused, that the Puranas were
intended. There had been only one mind in India that had foreseen this
need, that of Krishna, probably the greatest man who ever lived. He
recognized at once the need of the People, and the desirability of
preserving all that had already been gained. Nor are the Gopi story and
the Gita (which speaks again and again of women and Shudras) the
only forms in which he reached the masses. For the whole
Mahabharata is his, carried out by his worshippers; and it begins with
the declaration that it is for the People.
"Thus is created a religion that ends in the worship of Vishnu, as
the preservation and enjoyment of life, leading to the realization of
God. Our last movement, Chaitanyaism, you remember, was for
enjoyment. (The Swami was characterizing the doctrine here; he was
not speaking of the unsurpassed personal asceticism of Chaitanya.) At
the same time Jainism represents the other extreme, the slow
destruction of the body by self-torture. Hence Buddhism, you see, is
reformed Jainism, and this is the real meaning of Buddha's leaving the
company of the five ascetics. In India, in every age, there is a cycle of
sects, which represents every gradation of physical practice, from the
extreme of self-torture to the extreme of excess. And during the same
period will always be developed a metaphysical cycle, which
represents the realization of God as taking place by every gradation of
means, from that of using the senses as an instrument, to that of the
annihilation of the senses. Thus Hinduism always consists, as it were,
of two counterspirals, complementing each other, round a single axis.

"Yes! Vaishnavism says: It is all right! This tremendous love for

father, for mother, for brother, husband, or child! It is all right, if only
you will think that Krishna is the child, and when you give him food,
that you are feeding Krishna! This was the cry of Chaitanya. 'Worship
God through the senses!' as against that Vedantic cry, 'Control the
senses! Suppress the senses!'
"At the present moment, we may see three different positions of
the national religion. the Orthodox, the Arya Samaj, and Brahmo
Samaj. The orthodox covers the ground taken by the Vedic Hindus of
the Mahabharata epoch. The Arya Samaj corresponds with Jainism,
and the Brahmo Samaj with the Buddhists.
I see that India is a young and living organism. Europe also is
young and living. Neither has arrived at such a stage of development
that we can safely criticize its institutions. They are two great
experiments, neither of which is yet complete. In India, we have social
communism, with the light of Advaita that is, spiritual individualism
playing on and around it; in Europe, you are socially individualists,
but your thought is dualistic, which is spiritual communism. Thus one
consists of social institutions hedged in by individualistic thought, while
the other is made up of individualist institutions within the hedge of
communistic thought.
"Now we must help the Indian experiment as it is. Movements
which do not attempt to help things as they are, are from that point of
view, no good. In Europe, for instance, I respect marriage as highly as
non-marriage. Never forget that a man is made great and perfect as
much by his faults as by his virtues. So we must not seek to rob a
nation of its character, even if it could be proved that the character
was all faults."
His mind was extraordinarily clear on the subject of what he
meant by individualism. How often has he said to me, "You do not yet
understand India! We Indians are Man-worshippers, after all! Our God
is man!" He meant here the great individual man, the man of selfrealization Buddha, Krishna, the guru, the Mahapurusha. But on
another occasion, using the same word in an entirely different sense,

he said: "This idea of man-worship (that is to say, the worship of the

manhood which exists in any man, in all men, apart from their
individual achievement of thought or character, humanity) exists in
nucleus in India, but it has never been expanded. You must develop it.
Make poetry, make art, of it. Establish the worship of the feet of
beggars, as you had it in Medieval Europe. Make man-worshippers."
He was equally clear, again, about the value of the image. "You
may always say", he said, "that the image is God. The error you have to
avoid, is to think God the image." He was appealed to, on one
occasion, to condemn. the fetishism of the Hottentot. I do not know,
he answered, "what fetishism is!"
A lurid picture was hastily put before him of the object alternately
worshipped, beaten, and thanked. I do that!" he exclaimed. "Don't you
see," he went on, a moment later, in hot resentment of injustice done
to the lowly and absent, "don't you see that there is no fetishism? Oh,
your hearts are steeled, that you cannot see that the child is right! The
child sees persons everywhere. Knowledge robs us of the child's vision.
But at last, through higher knowledge, we win back to it. He connects a
living power with rocks, sticks, trees, and the rest. And is there not a
living Power behind them? It is symbolism, not fetishism I Can you not
see?"
But while every sincere ejaculation was thus sacred to him, he
never forgot for a moment the importance of the philosophy of
Hinduism. And he would throw perpetual flashes of poetry into the
illustration of such arguments as are known to lawyers. How lovingly
he would dwell upon the Mimamsaka philosophy! With what pride he
would remind the listener that, according to Hindu Savants, "the whole
universe is only the meaning of words. After the word comes the thing.
Therefore, the idea is all!" And indeed, as he expounded it, the daring
of the Mimamsaka argument, the fearlessness of its admissions, and
the firmness of its inferences, appeared as the very glory of
Hinduism.... One day he told of Satyabhama's sacrifice, and how the
word "Krishna", written on a piece of paper, and thrown into the
balances, made Krishna himself, on the otherside, kick the beam.
"Orthodox Hinduism", he began, "makes Shruti, the sound, everything.

The thing is but a feeble manifestation of the pre-existing and eternal

idea. So the name of God is everything: God Himself is merely the
objectification of that idea in the eternal mind. Your own name is
infinitely more perfect than the person, you! The name of God is
greater than God. Guard you your speech!" Surely there has never
been another religious system so fearless of truth ! As he talked, one
saw that the whole turned on the unspoken conviction, self-apparent
to the Oriental mind, that religion is not a creed, but an experience; a
process, as the Swami himself has elsewhere said, of being and
becoming. If it be true that this process leads inevitably from the
apprehension of the manifold to the realization of the One, then it
must also be true that everything is in the mind, and that the material
is nothing more than the concretizing of ideas. Thus the Greek
philosophy of Plato is included within the Hindu philosophy of the
Mimamsakas, and a doctrine that sounds merely empiric on the lips of
Europe finds reason and necessity, on those of India. In the same way,
as one declaring a truth self-evident he explained on one occasion, "I
would not worship even the Greek gods, for they were separate from
humanity! Only those should be worshipped who are like ourselves,
but greater. The difference between the gods. and me must be a
difference only of degree.".
But his references to philosophy did not by any means always
consist of these epicurean titbits. He was merciless, as a rule, in the
demand for intellectual effort, and would hold a group of unlearned
listeners through an analysis of early systems, for a couple of hours at
a stretch, without suspecting them of weariness or difficulty....
Nor would Western speculations pass forgotten in this great
restoration of the path the race had come by. For his was a mind which
saw only the seeking, pursuing enquiry of man, making no arbitrary
distinction as between ancient and modern....
In this way, he would run over all six systems of Hindu philosophy,
analysing, comparing, reconciling one with the other, and showing
their points of difference from Buddhism. Thus he dwelt long and
minutely on the Vaisheshika and the Nyaya philosophy in particular,

side by side with those of the Vedanta and of Kant. He concluded by

saying:
One set of persons, you see, gives priority to the external
manifestation, the other to the internal ideal. Which is prior, the bird
to the egg, or the egg to the bird! Does the oil hold the cup, or the cup
the oil? This is a problem of which there is no solution. Give it up!
Escape from Maya!
But the Swami was not occupied all the time with problems; free
from the cares of public life, he was jovial and often gave himself up to
fun and merriment with his brother-monk and his disciple. So passed
the time until the Golconda arrived at Tilbury Dock in London after a
voyage of forty-two days. It being summertime, most of the Swami's
London disciples and friends were out of town. Thus, while crowds had
seen him off in December of 1896, he had known that only a few
would be on hand to welcome him back. Those few were Nivedita's
mother and sister, a Miss Paston, and his American disciples, Christine
Greenstidel and Mary Funke, the last two of whom, as we have seen,
had come all the way from Detroit to meet him. Describing his
appearance, Mrs. Funke said, "He had grown very slim and looked like
a boy. He was so happy to find that the voyage had brought back some
of the old strength and vigour."
Conspicuous by his absence at the dock was Mr. E. T. Sturdy.
Before arriving in England the Swami had received word from his old
friend that he had gone off to Wales and thus could not receive the
two Swamis in London, where he now lived. This must surely have
come as a disappointment to the Swami, but at first it was perhaps no
more than that. As time went on, however, disappointment turned to
painful surprise and shock. The Swami's letter written to Sturdy from
Port Said indicates that he had taken for granted that Sturdy's loyalty
to and enthusiasm for the work was intact and reliable. But it was soon
to become apparent that such was not the case.
During the Swami's fortnight in England, Sturdy did manage to
come in from Wales for three days. But face to face with his guru he
could not unburden his mind. Only later did the unwholesome, and

surely unhappy thoughts, he was harbouring explode in acrimonious

letters to the Swami, bitterly denouncing his way of preaching and
living. Not-withstanding Sturdy's insulting insolence, the Swami
brought the chain of this incredible correspondence to a close with the
remark. "That India still lives, Sturdy [that] India of un-dying love
of everlasting faithfulness the unchangeable, not only in manners
and customs, but also in love, in faith, in friendship. And 1, the least of
that India's child, love you, Sturdy, with Indian love, and would any day
give up a thousand bodies to help you out of this delusion."
Mr. Sturdy was not the only erstwhile supporter of the Swami's
cause whose change of heart was conspicuous. Miss Henrietta Mller
had returned from India early in 1899, full of rancour. Towards the
close of her visit in India she had advertised in the Press the severance
of her connection with the Swami's movement and her return to the
Christian faith. After coming back to England she spread various false
reports against the Swami and did not, of course, welcome him to her
Wimbledon home. Such betrayals hurt the Swami deeply. Almost a
year later, in a letter dated June 20, 1900, he was to write to Christine
Greenstidel from New York: "Did you hear of my friend Miss Mller?
Well, she left me in India and they say tried to injure me in
England... Her defection was a great blow to me as I loved her so
much and she was a great helper and worker." Another of the Swami's
erstwhile English followers whose ardour had cooled was Mrs. AshtonJonson. She was of the opinion that a spiritual person should not fall
physically illan opinion riot uncommon among certain religious
groups of that period. Knowing of the Swami's illness, her enthusiasm
for his cause noticeably declined. She, however, came to see the
Swami one day with Sturdy. These defections, on top of Sturdy's
strange behaviour., undoubtedly gave the Swami some rude shocks.
"The London work seems to fall to pieces," he later wrote to, Christine
on September 2, 1899, after leaving England. "The friends over there
are all shaky, even Sturdy." Yet, despite such blows and,
disappointments, the Swami's radiance was undimmed, its light and
power felt by everyone who came in close touch with him.

From Sister Nivedita's letters of this period we learn that the

Swami stayed the first day in London, and the next morning went to
the suburb of Wimbledon. There Nivedita's sister found rooms for him
in a lodging house, known as the Lymes, which was about a fifteen
minutes' walk from the Nobles' residence. It was a quiet place, where
the Swami was in perfect peace.
Though he was in good health when he landed, he began suffering
again, off and on, and continued to take needed rest. This being the
holiday season, when many people had left the city, the Swami did no
public work during his stay. Indeed, the only loyal friends he saw, out
of the crowds that had flocked around him in 1896, were Emmeline
Souter and Max Gysic.
It was during this period that the members of the Noble
household came in intimate contact with the Swami for the first time.
They all loved and revered him deeply and, to the delight and wonder
of Nivedita, used to pay respects to him by kneeling at his feet. He
would hold them all spellbound by his illuminating talks. striking a
responsive chord in every heart. Even Nivedita's younger sister May,
who was shortly to be married (becoming Mrs. Mary Wilson), felt
strongly tempted to follow him, giving her life in his service as had her
elder sister. Nivedita's younger brother, Richmond, still in his teens,
saw in the Swami a Christ-like person. In later years he wrote of him:
That my sister should have obeyed his call was nothing wonderful,
for I myself saw Swamiji, and I know his power. One had only to. see
and hear Swamiji and to say to oneself, "Behold the man!" One knew
he spoke truth, for he spoke with authority, and not as a scholar or as a
priest. Swamiji brought certainty with him, he gave assurance, and
confidence to the inquirer. This I think was what he did for my sister,
and it was the certainty which led her to obey the call fearlessly, and,
once having obeyed without hesitation, she never had cause to regret.
Nivedita's mother, Mrs. Samuel Richmond Noble (Mary), found in
the Swami a son who needed her care. Indeed, she looked upon him as
her own, and when Miss Mller's canards against him reached her

cars, she felt humiliated, as she said, to the verge of tears by such
treatment of him.
On August 16, in response to the many invitations which
constantly reached him from America, the Swami, accompanied by
Swami Turiyananda and the two American disciples, travelled by train
to Glasgow. And from there, on August 17, they set sail on the S.S.
Numidian for America. Of the voyage across the Atlantic Mrs. Funke
wrote:
... These were ten never-to-be-forgotten days spent on the ocean.
Reading and exposition of the Gita occupied every morning, also
reciting and translating poems and stories from the Sanskrit and
chanting old Vedic hymns. The sea was smooth and at night the
moonlight was entrancing. Those were wonderful evenings; the
Master paced up and down the deck, a majestic figure in the moonlight, stopping now and then to speak to us of the beauties of Nature.
And if all this Maya is so beautiful, think of the wondrous beauty
of the Reality behind it! he would exclaim.
One especially fine evening when the moon was at the full and
softly mellow and golden, a night of mystery and enchantment, he
stood silently for a long time drinking in the beauty of the scene.
Suddenly he turned to us and said, Why recite poetry when there,
pointing to sea and sky, is the very essence of poetry?
We reached New York all too soon, feeling that we never could be
grateful enough for those blessed, intimate ten days with the guru.

SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA 1

On the morning of Monday, August 28, 1899, the S.S. Numidian
docked at New York, and once again, after an absence of almost three
and a half years, Swami Vivekananda set foot on American soil. In New
York, as in London, it was the off-season; thus that very afternoon,
after visiting the town house of his old friends Mr. and Mrs. Francis
Leggett, the Swami and his brother-disciple Swami Turiyananda went
with them by train to Ridgely, their beautiful country home in the
Hudson River Valley some ninety miles from New York. "He was tired

and ill-looking," Miss Maud Stumm, a guest at Ridgely and one of those
who had come to meet his ship, was to write later on. But clearly he
was in good spirits, for she added: "He was carrying most carefully a
big bottle wrapped in papers that were torn and ragged; this precious
bottle, which he refused to relinquish before reaching Binnewater,
contained a kind of saucelike curry, brought thus by hand from India.
'For Jo!' he said." "Jo" was, of course, Miss Josephine MacLeod, who
was a member of the Ridgely household.
In the serene atmosphere of this large, wide-lawned country
estate, five miles from the Hudson and some twelve to twenty miles
from the beautiful Catskill Mountains, the Swami waited, as Sister
Nivedita was to write, "for the leading that he confidently expected, to
show him where his next effort was to lie." Together with Swami
Turiyananda and, a little later, Swami Abhedananda, he was assigned a
large guest cottage, a short walk from the commodious and hospitable
"Manor". At the latter, there was always the congenial companionship
of their hosts and fellow guests; while, whenever they wanted it, the
Swamis had the privacy and silence of the.cottage, known thereafter
as "Swamiji's Cottage", by virtue of its most honoured occupant.
The household was a large one. In addition to Mr. and Mrs.
Leggett and Miss MacLeod, there were Alberta and Hollister Sturges,
the grown-up children of Mrs. Leggett by a former marriage; there was
the Whitmarsh family, the head of which Mr. Theodore Whitmarsh,
was a nephew of Mr. Leggett; there were Maud Stumm and other
more or less permanent guests, and many temporary guests who
visited Ridgely for varying periods during the Swami's ten-weeks' stay
there. Sister Nivedita arrived from London on September 20 and
stayed on until the Swami himself left in early November. Mrs. Ole Bull
and her daughter Olea came on October 7, also to stay until
November. Then, for shorter visits, there came the two McKindley
sisters, Isabelle and Harriet, from Chicago, whom the Swami delighted
to see again; there was Miss Ellen Waldo, his disciple from New York;
Mrs. Florence Milward Adams from Chicago, and Miss Florence
Guernsey, the daughter of the Swami's close friend Dr. Egbert
Guernsey of New York. And to hasten the natural improvement of his

health, a Dr. Helmer, a famous New York osteopath, was brought to

Ridgely by Mr. and Mrs. Leggett to diagnose his illness and to treat
him. Others came and went, some staying a day, some a week or
more.
One of the guests the Swami must have been especially happy to
see was his brother-disciple Swami Abhedananda, whom he had left in
London in December of 1896. Swami Abhedananda had come to
America in August of 1897, and had there been conducting the work of
the Vedanta Society of New York with great success. He had been
lecturing at the Greenacre School of Comparative Religions in Maine
when Swami Vivekananda had arrived in New York, and thus had been
unable to greet his beloved brother until September 8, when, at the
Swami's call, he came to Ridgely. There he stayed about ten days, and
it was with much satisfaction that the Swami learned from him about
the progress of the American work and the New York Vedanta Society's
recent move to its first permanent quarters at 146 East Fifty-fifth
Street. On October 15 these "Vedanta Society Rooms" were formally
opened by Swami Abhedananda, and from the twenty-second of that
month he held regular classes there.
By mid September the Swami's health was noticeably improving.
"An American Brahmacharini" wrote about him at this time:
It is already three weeks since Swami Vivekananda and Swami
Turiyananda reached America from England. Swami Vivekananda is
rapidly recovering from all indisposition, and for the gain made in
health during the voyage from India to England, is daily adding
renewed vigour. The few chosen ones, who have heard the Swami in
easy home-talks since his arrival, are deeply impressed with the great
message of truth he bears a larger and fuller prophecy and vision
than any he has yet given to the East or West....
As early as September 2 the Swami himself wrote to Christine: "I
had the family doctor of the Leggetts to come and see me. He is also of
opinion that there is nothing [wrong] with my heart, except a little
nervous tremor, and that will pass away with proper dieting. I am

almost a vegetarian now, except I eat a bit of fish now and then, as the
doctor says. No meat whatsoever, and I am doing splendid."
The Swami's occupations at Ridgely were light and varied. "I am
writing a book on 'India and her people'," he wrote to Mary Hale in
early September, " a short chatty simple something. Again I am
going to learn French." Sometimes he tried his hand at golf, walked in
the countryside, or learned to draw under the tutelage of Maud
Stumm, "toiling over his crayons", she wrote, "with as single a mind
and heart as if that were his vocation." Or, again, he obligingly sat for
his portrait by this same artist-teacher. But of greatest delight to those
around him were the long summer-evening hours of "easy home-talks"
when he spoke to his friends of "his great message of truth", while.
they listened spellbound. Thus cared for by loving friends, he rested in
this country retreat, his presence a constant joy and inspiration to his
hosts, their family, and their other guests. By November 1 he could
write to Christine, "I am very strong and healthy now and feel strong
like a lion, ready to take up any work again." And less than a week
later, on November 7, he left for New York, his days of rest over.
Meanwhile, Swami Turiyananda had left Ridgely around the end of
October for Montclair, a town in New Jersey twenty miles from New
York city. Here, work opened for him in the form of classes for children
in the home of Mrs. F. Wheeler, an ardent student of Vedanta, where
Swami Saradananda had earlier stayed and preached. In addition, the
newly arrived Swami visited New York once a week to hold another
class for children, teaching them by means of stories and readings from
the Hitopadesha and other books of Indian wisdom. He also talked to
and meditated with the New York students, and was later to
participate fully in the New York work of Swami Abhedananda, holding
classes and giving the regular lectures of the Society in the latter's
absence from the city. In December 1899 Swami Turiyananda went to
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he did much valuable work. On
December 10 he read a paper on "Shankaracharya" before the
Cambridge Conferences, an annual course of lectures given by wellknown speakers, conducted by Dr. Lewis Janes, and sponsored by Mrs.
Ole Bull. Swami Turiyananda's lecture, the first he had ever given, was

attended by professors of Harvard University and many other learned

men, all of whom spoke highly of it.
The first appearance of Swami Vivekananda at the new quarters of
the New York Vedanta Society was on the evening of Tuesday,
November 7, the day of his arrival in New York. In the words of a letter
appearing in the Brahmavadin of February 1900, he "was urged to take
charge of the meeting.... Swami Abhedananda introducing [him] in
words of love and reverence as the founder of the present Vedanta
work in New York and the pioneer and prophet of Vedanta philosophy
in America. Swami Vivekananda presided and gave the evening to
questions and answers."
The Vedanta Society that Swami Vivekananda had founded in New
York in November of 1894 had been steadily growing and was now
flourishing under the able leadership of Swami Abhedananda, who had
taken charge in August of 1897. Through his many lectures both within
the Society and on far-flung lecture tours, Swami Abhedananda was
exerting a strong influence; indeed the movement Swami Vivekananda
had begun in America was taking firm root. "Two years of patient,
persistent, loving service has established Vedanta in a consecrated
body of earnest students who are devoted to the continuance of the
work," wrote a New York student in the Brahmavadin of September
1899. Nor was the impact of the Vedanta movement noticed only by
its own followers. The general public recognized it as "a growingly
important factor in the thought-movement of the day", and the
Vedanta philosophy had become a topic for earnest discussion in
intellectual and religious circles particularly, among serious religious
groups that were exploring new avenues of spiritual search. The Swami
was, of course, delighted to see the progress that had been made in his
absence.
On the 10th of November he was given a public reception in the
Library of the Society, and, needless to say, many of his old friends and
disciples came to meet their beloved teacher, overjoyed to have him
among them once again, if only for a brief time. Also present were a
large number' of men and women who had been attracted by his name
or his books, first published in 1896, and who wished to meet him

personally. An address of welcome was presented to him by some of

his old friends, in reply to which he made it clear that his heart was
overflowing with love and goodwill towards them.
One of Swami Abhedananda's students, Brahmachari Gurudas,
afterwards known as Swami Atulananda, was present at this reception.
In his memoirs, entitled With the Swamis in America, he recorded his
impressions of the evening:
During the short period Swamiji stayed in New York, there was
great rejoicing at the Vedanta Home. Swamiji did not give any public
lectures, but he attended the classes and meetings at the Vedanta
Home, and there he gave short talks and answered questions.
A public reception was given to him at the Home, and his former
friends and students gathered in large numbers to meet their beloved
teacher again. It was a very happy gathering. Others were also present
who had long desired to meet the great Swami of whom they had
heard so much.
Though public, the reception was informal. The Swami had a smile,
a joke, or kind word for every one of his old friends. Part of the time he
was seated on the floor, in the Indian fashion, some of his friends
following his example. There was much talking and laughing, and the
Swami showed by a gesture or a remark that he had nowise forgotten
his old students....
Swamiji was so simple in his behaviour, so like one of the crowd
that he did not impress so much when I first saw him. There was
nothing about his ways that would mark him as the lion of New York
society as so often he had been. Simple in dress and behaviour, he was
just like one of us. He did not put himself aside on a pedestal as is so
often the case with lionized personages. He walked about the room,
sat on the floor, laughed, joked, chatted nothing formal. Of course, I
had noticed his magnificent, brilliant eyes, his beautiful features and
majestic bearing, for these were parts of him that no circumstance
could hide. But when I saw him for a few minutes standing on a
platform surrounded by others, it flashed into my mind: "What a giant,
what strength, what manliness, what a personality! Every one near him

looks so insignificant compared with him." It came to me almost as a

shock; it seemed to startle me. What was it that gave Swamiji this
distinction? Was it his height? No, there were gentlemen there taller
than he was. Was it his build? No, there were near him some very fine
specimens of American manhood. It seemed to be more in the
expression of the face than anything else. Was it his purity? What was
it? I could not analyse it. I remembered what had been said of Lord
Buddha, "a lion amongst men". I felt that Swamiji had unlimited
power, that he could move heaven and earth if he willed it. This was
my strongest and lasting impression of him.
But while the Swami's power was indeed immeasurable and aweinspiring, he had no wish to use it to influence others; on the contrary,
he avoided doing so. It was at one of his class talks during this period in
New York that, becoming aware of his power over his listeners, he
instantly stopped and left the room. There was no more lecturing that
night, and everyone went away greatly disappointed. When a friend
later asked him why he had broken off his lecture just when his
audience was becoming absorbed in it, he replied, lie had felt that the
minds of his listeners were becoming like soft clay in his hands; he had
the power to give them any shape he wished. To do so, however, was
against his philosophy; he wanted everyone to grow according to his or
her own natural bent. So he had stopped.
Though the students were disappointed and puzzled that evening,
they had opportunities of seeing and hearing the Swami on many
other occasions during his two weeks' stay in New York. He often came
to the Society's headquarters; he held question-and-answer classes at
the weekly meetings (regularly held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings
and Saturday mornings); he came also at other times to talk informally
to them. To answer their questions was one of his quickest and most
effective methods of handling their spiritual or philosophical
difficulties. But his answers, though always illuminating, were often
unexpected, and sometimes unsettling to the questioners. Such a reply
was recorded by Brahmachari Gurudas in an article appearing in the
Prabuddha Bharata of April 1918:

[At the Swami's question classes] everyone was invited to ask any
question he wished. So one evening, an old church-lady asked him why
he never spoke of sin. There came a look of surprise on Swamiji's face.
"But, madam," he said, "blessed are my sins. Through sin, I have
learned virtue. It is my sins, as much as my virtues, that have made me
what I am today. And now I am the preacher of virtue. Why do you
dwell on the weak side of man's nature? Don't you know that the
greatest blackguard often has some virtue that is wanting in the saint?
There is only one power, and that power manifests both as good and
as evil. God and the devil are the same river with the water flowing in
opposite directions."
The lady was horrified, but others understood. And then the
Swami began to speak of the divinity that resides in every man; how
the soul is perfect, eternal and immortal; the Atman resides in every
... Here was hope, here was strength, every man can become
divine, by realizing his own divinity. Do you see what an immense
consolation Swamiji's teaching was to those that had searched, but
had not yet found; those who had knocked, but unto whom it had not
yet been opened ? To them, Swamiji came as a Saviour. He came to
the door of their own hearts and knocked. And blessed are they who
opened the door to receive the flow of benediction that came with his
presence.
Even in the midst of his multifarious activities, the Swami would,
now and then, get a glimpse of a strange foreboding regarding his life
on this mortal plane. One day he said to Swami Abhedananda, "Well,
brother, my days are numbered. I shall live only for three or four years
at the most." The brother-disciple replied, "You must not talk like that,
Swamiji. You are fast recovering your health. If you stay here for some
time, you will be completely restored to your former strength and
vigour. Besides, we have got so much work to do. It has only begun."
But the Swami replied significantly: "You do not understand me,
brother. I feel that I am growing very big. My self is expanding so much
that at times I feel as if this body could not contain me any more. I am
about to burst. Surely, this cage of flesh and blood cannot hold me for
many days more."

The East Coast, with its constant bustle and increasing cold, was
doing the Swami's physical condition little good. Thus after a stay of a
week or so at the Leggetts' house at 21 West Thirty-fourth Street, he
moved to the home of his old friends Dr. and Mrs. Egbert Guernsey,
now at 108 West Fifty-ninth Street. "The doctor", he said, "wants to
watch me and cure me." In addition, Dr. Helmer, the osteopath who
had treated him at Ridgely, also treated him in New York. But despite
the co-ordinated care of these two eminent doctors, the Swami
developed a bad cold and fever. Possibly, causes other than the
inclement weather of New York affected the state of his health. The
emotional shock of an unexpected encounter with Swami Kripananda,
who earlier had betrayed him, together with a bitter letter of
recrimination and dissension he had received around this time from
Mr. Sturdy, could not have left his highly sensitive body unaffected. As
his own best diagnostician, the Swami wrote from New York to a
disciple, "On the whole, I don't think there is any cause for anxiety
about my body. This sort of nervous body is just the instrument to play
great music at times and at times to moan in darkness."
It had been the Swami's intention to spend the winter at Mrs.
Bull's home in Cambridge, but quite suddenly, his plans changed.
"Circumstances have so fallen", he wrote to Christine Greenstidel on
November 21 from New York, "that I have to start for California
tomorrow. It is for my physical benefit too, as the doctor says I had
better be off where the severe winter of the North cannot reach. Well
thus my plans are made and marred." So it happened that after a
fortnight's stay in New York, during which he paid visits to a few
neighbouring towns, the Swami left on November 22 for California.
At the earnest request of his devoted friends and admirers in
Chicago, the Swami stopped over in that city for a week (from
November 23 to November 30), staying with the Hale family, now at 52
Walton Place. In this city, where he had often lived, lectured, and held
classes during his first visit in America, he had uncounted friends and
disciples, and, of course, he now saw many of them. Among his old
acquaintances thus renewed was Mme Emma Calv6, whom he first
met in Chicago a few years before and who, as it happened, was again

in the city with the Metropolitan Opera Company. Sister Nivedita was
also in Chicago at this time, having come there directly from Ridgely
early in November in her effort to raise money for her proposed Home
and School for Widows and Girls in Calcutta.
The Swami made new friends also, and it was a great delight to
him to find how many people, just by reading his books, had been
attracted to his teachings and had developed not only an
understanding of spiritual ideas, but a great reverence for India and
Indian culture. During this week he visited several outlying suburbs,
where he was entertained at dinner or at receptions by various
distinguished persons, and no doubt he dined often with his friends in
Chicago. On Monday, November 27, he gave a parlour talk at the
Walton Place flat, to which friends both old and new were invited.
Unfortunately, no record remains of what he said on this occasion or
of what his subject was.
But the Swami's week in Chicago was not entirely devoted to
meeting and talking with people. He spent also quiet, relaxed times
with the Hale family, reading, perhaps listening to the cousins play
duets on their two pianos, and, now and then, making recordings for
them by talking into the big, flaring megaphone of one of Thomas
Edison's primitive phonograph machines. What became of the wax
cylinders or disks that bore the impress of the Swami's voice is not at
present known.
This pleasant interlude in the Swami's westward journey came to a
close on November 30, 1899. On that evening he entrained for Los
Angeles on the Santa Fe's California Express, and, though he may not
have planned it so, he was on his way to a new and important phase of
his world mission. He was not to return to New York until June 7 of the
following year.
The Swami arrived in Los Angeles in the early afternoon of
December 3. Here he was to be the guest of Mrs. S. K. Blodgett, at
whose house Miss MacLeod had come from Ridgely in the early part of
October 1899, in order to nurse her brother, who lay there fatally ill.
Although Taylor MacLeod had died early in November, Miss MacLeod

had stayed on and, at Mrs. Blodgett's request, had urged the Swami to
come. He had concurred, thinking, perhaps, more of his work than of
his health. In fact, as Miss MacLeod had left Ridgely, the Swami blessed
her in Sanskrit and then called out as she drove off: "Get up some
classes and I will come." This was the first intimation that after months
of rest he once again felt impelled to carry his message to wider fields.
And, indeed, his going to California was to open one of the momentous
chapters of his life. Though he came unobtrusively, without
announcing a new programme, and though he seemed physically
incapable of doing hard work any longer, one marvels to witness him
again rising to the awe-inspiring heights of his ministry with his wonted
power, ever devoted to doing "Mother's work" as commissioned by his
Master.
Before coming to stay with Mrs. Blodgett, the Swami, together
with Miss MacLeod, first spent a week at the home of a Miss Spencer,
who became one of his fervent disciples. Not much is known as to who
this Miss Spencer was, except that she had spent the foregoing ten
years nursing her blind and dying mother which may reveal a
character of self-sacrifice and devotion. While in her home, the Swami
was wont to sit on the floor beside the aged and dying lady, and at
Miss Spencer's question why he seemed so interested in her mother,
he told her that death, like birth, was a mystery; when the b6dy
approaches dissolution, the sense activities are stilled as the soul
gradually passes to the life beyond. This state, so sad and repulsive to a
mind limited to external appearances, was to the Swami's spiritual
insight pregnant with interest and significance.
But during these days the Swami surely did other things besides sit
with the aged Mrs. Spencer. Miss MacLeod, for instance, must have
introduced him to her newly made friends, who had been eagerly
looking forward to his arrival in their city. Indeed, the Swami soon
found himself surrounded by many people to whom his religious
writings were already well known, and who were anxious to see him
and to hear him lecture. Among them was a Mr. Bernhard R.
Baumgardt, Secretary of the Southern California Academy of Sciences,
and a versatile man of many talents and accomplishments. He took

deep interest in the Swami and his work. and arranged for his first
lecture in Los Angeles, engaging for the purpose Blanchard Hall, the
best in the city, on the evening of Friday, December 8.
The Swami's lecture that evening was entitled "The Vedanta
Philosophy or Hinduism as a Religion" and was attended by more than
six hundred people, all of whom, as we learn from one who was
present, were "enchanted". Sitting enthralled among them were three
women who were to play important roles in the service of the Swami's
ministry on the West Coast, both during his visit there and
subsequently. These were the Mead sisters of South Pasadena: Mrs.
Carrie Mead Wyckoff, Mrs. Alice Mead Hansbrough, and Miss Helen
Mead.
The Swami delivered his second lecture in Los Angeles on the
evening of Tuesday, December 12, at Unity Church, under the auspices
of the Southern California Academy of Sciences. Over a thousand
people attended, and the lecture, entitled "The Cosmos, or the Vedic
Conception of the Universe", was a great success, creating a demand
for more. The Swami himself, his health now improved, was eager to
work and to teach. By this time he had no doubt moved from Miss
Spencer's home to Mrs. Blodgett's small house at 921 West Twentyfirst Street. Mrs. Blodgett, a widow, whom the Swami described to
Mary Hale as "fat, old, extremely witty... and very motherly", had
attended the Parliament of Religions in Chicago six years earlier, and
had there heard him give his first talk to the American people. In
Chicago she had acquired a large coloured poster of him, which she
had hung in her Los Angeles home, never dreaming that the great
Swami himself would one day be her guest.
It was on the day following the second of the Swami's lectures that
two of the Mead sisters Mrs. Hansbrough and Helen Mead came
to pay him a friendly call. During the course of the conversation the
Swami offered to hold a class if the sisters cared to make the
arrangements. Delighted at this proposal the Mead sisters wasted no
time in arranging for a series of three classes to be held in the
Blanchard Building on the evenings of December 19, 21 and 22. Thus

the way opened for the Swami to set forth on a season of steady
teaching on the Pacific Coast.
The first class of the series, which was entitled as a whole "Applied
Psychology", was held not in the main auditorium of the building, but
in the three studio rooms that opened one into the other. This
arrangement could not accommodate the audience which numbered
between one hundred and fifty and two hundred. The second and
third classes, therefore, were moved to the chapel of the Los Angeles
Home of Truth a religious society of "New Thought" persuasion at
the suggestion of its director, Mr. J. Ransome Bransby.
This led almost inevitably to further classes at the Home of Truth,
many of whose members were completely won over by the Swami's
simple manner, his great intellectuality, and, above all, his towering
spirituality. During the last week of December he held a series of six
classes at the "Home", entitled as a series "The Mind and Its Powers".
The individual titles of five of these classes are now known to us: On
Christmas Day he spoke on "Christ's Message to the World"; the title of
his class of December 26 was not announced, but those held from
December 27 to 30 were, respectively: "Theory of Concentration",
"Practice
of
Concentration",
"Spiritual
Breathing",
and
"Reincarnation".9

l' Since it has been said in earlier editions that the Swami spent nearly
a month at the Home of Truth in Los Angeles and gave several public
lectures there with audiences of more than a thousand, it should be
noted here that newly ascertained facts pertaining to the Swami's visit
in Los Angeles make it highly improbable that he stayed at the Home of
Truth for more than a few days, if at all. As for the talks he gave there,

Many of the members of the "Home" became the Swami's ardent

followers. Describing his work there, the leader of the Los Angeles
"Home" wrote in part in the magazine Unity for February 1900:
... Hindu missionaries are not among us to convert us to a better
religion than what Christ gave us, but rather in the name of religion
itself, to show us that there is in reality but one Religion, and that we
can do no better than to put into practice what we profess to believe.
We had eight lectures at the Home by the Swami Vivekananda, and all
were intensely interesting.... There is combined in the Swami
Vivekananda the learning of a university-president, the dignity of an
archbishop, with the grace and winsomeness of a free and natural
child. Getting upon the platform without a moment's preparation, he
would soon be in the midst of his subject, sometimes becoming almost
tragic as his mind would wander from deep meta- physics to the
prevailing conditions in Christian countries of today, whose people go
and seek to reform the Filipinos with the sword in one hand and the
Bible in the other, or in South Africa allow children of the same Father
to cut each other to pieces In contrast to this condition of things, he
described what took place during the last great famine in India where
men would die of starvation beside their. cattle (cows) rather than
stretch forth a hand to kill....
The Swami, as always, gave his message straight. He neither sugarcoated it nor watered it down. Nor did he have the "closed fist of the
preacher" in which was reserved the choicest teachings for the elect
few. Swami Vivekananda wholeheartedly believed in the saving power
of the highest truth. And he believed that man, any man, should
always be taught that truth. Therefore he admonished: Never forget
the glory of man! To give man only the highest and the best to
remember his glory, never to patronize him, never to temporize or
compromise that was perhaps his way of carrying out what he had
learnt early in life from his Master:' "Jiva is Shiva". To his listeners, who
to the best of our knowledge, they have all been mentioned in the
present accounted. Ed.

were not committed to doctrinal teachings of the Church, his message

brought abiding light and refreshing inspiration. Those whose very
thought process was conditioned by doctrinal teachings were stunned
by his amazing message of simple truths. Who could withstand the
impact of such teachings without being affected one way or the other,
when, in his lecture "Hints on Practical Spirituality", he uttered the
following words?:
... We should look upon man in the most charitable light. It is not
so easy to be good. What are you but mere machines until you are
free? Should you be proud because you are good? Certainly not. You
are good because you cannot help it. Another is bad because he
cannot help it. If you were in his position, who knows what you would
have been? The woman in the street, or the thief in the jail, is the
Christ that is being sacrificed that you may be a good man. Such is the
law of balance. All the thieves and the murderers, all the unjust, the
weakest, the wickedest, the devils, they are all my Christ! I owe a
worship to the God Christ and to the demon Christ ! That is my
doctrine, I cannot help it. My salutation goes to the feet of the good,
the saintly, and to the feet of the wicked and the devilish! They are all
my teachers, all are my spiritual fathers, all are my Saviours. I may
curse one and yet benefit by his failings; I may bless another and
benefit by his good deeds. This is as true as that I stand here. I have to
sneer at the woman walking in the street, because society wants it.
She, my Saviour, she, whose street-walking is the cause of the chastity
of other women! Think of that. Think, men and women, of this
question in your mind. It is a truth a bare, bold truth! As I see more
of the world, see more of men and women, this conviction grows
stronger. Whom shall I blame? Whom shall I praise? Both sides of the
shield must be seen.
Although many members of the Home of Truth were won over to
the Swami, there were metaphysicians, both within the "Home" and
outside it, who were thoroughly disturbed by his ultra radical teachings
that stopped nowhere between God and man. Even Mr. Bransby, who
was close to the Swami in the beginning of his ministry on the West
Coast, could finally stand it no longer. "Swami," he one day asked

tauntingly, "if. all things are one, what is the difference between a
cabbage and a man?" Sharp came the Swami's reply, "Stick a knife into
your leg, and you will see the line of demarcation."
"The missionaries were not the only ones who opposed Swamiji,"
Mrs. Hansbrough recalled, "There were many teachers of metaphysics
and many pseudo-teachers who resented him or maliciously
condemned him, either because he was so far superior to them or
because he exposed their shallowness and 'spoiled their business' by
teaching true metaphysics."
Nor did the Swami merely lecture on "true metaphysics" or
religious verities; he gave spiritual light as though showering his
audience with it. To those with eyes to see, he himself seemed a
veritable embodiment of that light. It was probably of his Christmas
Day lecture at the Home of Truth, "Christ's Message to the World",
that Miss MacLeod wrote: "Swami lectured a great number of times at
the Home of Truth and in various halls, but perhaps the most
outstanding lecture I ever heard was his talk on "Jesus of Nazareth",
when he seemed to radiate a white light from head to foot, so lost was
he in the wonder and the power of Christ. I was so impressed with this
obvious halo that I did not speak to him on the way back for fear of
interrupting, as I thought, the great thoughts that were still in his mind.
Suddenly he said to me, 'I know how it is done.' I said, 'How what is
done?' 'How they make mulligatawny soup! They put a bay leaf in it,'
he told me. That utter lack of self-consciousness, of self-importance,
was perhaps one of his outstanding characteristics."
There was always joy in his company, the childlike nature of the
Paramahamsa continually revealing itself. His Los Angeles hostess, Mrs.
Blodgett, who had opportunity to know him in relaxed and informal
hours, reminisced in a letter of September 2, 1902 to Miss MacLeod:
... I knew him personally but a short time, yet in that short time I
could but see in a hundred ways the child side of Swamiji's character,
which was a constant appeal to the Mother quality in all good women.
He depended upon those near him in a way which brought him very
near to one's heart.... He would come home from a lecture where he

was compelled to break away from his audience, so eagerly would they
gather around him come rushing into the kitchen like a boy released
from school, with, "Now we will cook". The prophet and sage would
disappear to reveal the child side or simplicity of character.
Wherever the Swami went in the West, he was sought after not
only as a great religious teacher, but as an extraordinary personality,
one who could bring life to any gathering and brightness to any
household. Although, in 1900, Los Angeles was not a large and cultured
city compared with the cities of the East Coast, the Swami was no
doubt lavishly entertained from time to time. We know, for instance,
that in December of 1899 he spent a week or so with the Stimsons, a
wealthy family, to whom Mrs. Blodgett had introduced him and who
lived in a mansion on the fashionable Figueroa Street. We know also
that on December 23, a morning reception was held for him by a Mrs.
Caroline M. Severance, to which she invited 9 Ca number of 'advanced'
women to meet him". Mrs. Severance was not a stranger to the
Swami; she had, indeed, attended one of his first lectures in America
his talk delivered in Salem, Massachusetts, in the days before the
Parliament of Religions.
At the beginning of the year 1900, Swamiji moved his classes from
the Home of Truth, from whose platform he did not feel free to speak
critically of metaphysical teachings, to Payne's Hall, a secular
auditorium situated in the heart of town. His classes there were held
on the mornings of January 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 at ten o'clock, but only the
titles of the classes of January 4 and 5 are known; they were
respectively: "What Brings Success" and "We Ourselves". This first
week of the year was a full one for the Swami. In addition to these
morning classes, he gave two evening lectures in the auditorium of the
Blanchard Building. The first, delivered on Tuesday, January 2, was
entitled "India and Its People" (or "The People of India"), and the
second, delivered on Saturday, January 6, "The History of India".
On the afternoon of Sunday, January 7, the Swami delivered at
Payne's Hall to a packed and overflowing house what is today one of
his best known lectures of that period: "Christ's Message to the
World". The lecture, unique in being his only published lecture on

Christ, fully reveals his profound reverence for the highest Christian
ideal as embodied in and empowered by the Christ. "It does not matter
at all," he said, "whether the New Testament was written within five
hundred years of his birth, nor does it matter even, how much of that
life is true. But there is something behind it, something we want to
imitate.... There must have been a nucleus, a tremendous
manifestation of spiritual power and of that we are speaking. It
stands there." The following evening, January 8, the Swami
commenced his second class on "Applied Psychology" with the title
"The Powers of the Mind". As far as is known, this was his last public
lecture in the city of Los Angeles. It is possible, however, that he spoke
there often to private gatherings in the homes of his friends. We know,
for instance, that he held a morning class on January 12 at Mrs.
Blodgett's.
In January of 1900 the Swami moved to the nearby town of South
Pasadena, becoming the guest of the three Mead sisters, all of whom
had been attending his Los Angeles lectures and classes, and had
become his devoted friends and helpers. Although there is evidence
that the Swami was a guest of others during this period, staying, for
instance, for a time at the home of a Mrs. J. C. Newton in South
Pasadena, and spending a few days in January at Mrs. Blodgett's in Los
Angeles, he remained for the most part at the Meads' home until mid
February, lecturing in Pasadena almost every day. His health had by
now improved. "I am physically much better now than I have been for
months," he had written to Christine as early as December 9. "The
weakness of the heart is nearly gone. The dyspepsia is also much
better and very little. I can walk miles now without feeling it in the
heart. If this continues, I expect to have a new lease on life." And about
three weeks later, on December 27: "I don't think I have anything with
the kidneys or the heart. The whole thing was about indigestion, and it
is now nearly cured. A month more and I will be strong like a lion
and hardy like a mule."
The Swami's work in Pasadena started with a lecture in the small
theatre of the then famous and luxurious Green Hotel on the morning
of Monday, January 15. His subject was "Bhakti Yoga or the Religion of

Love". On the mornings of January 17 and 19 he also lectured at the

Green Hotel, but apart from the fact that his lectures there (unlike
those given elsewhere) were free of charge, we have little information
about them. Even the titles of the second and third lectures are
unknown.
The largest number of the Swami's Pasadena lectures were
delivered at the Shakespeare Club, one of the most prominent
women's clubs of Southern California. Here in the last two weeks of
January and the first three days of February he gave at least twelve
talks, covering a wide range of topics. Included among his subjects
were "Women of India" (January 18), "Persian Art" (January 20), "The
Ideal of a Universal Religion" (January 22), "The Science of Yoga"
(January 25), "My Life and Mission" (January 27), "The Aryan Race"
(January 30), "Buddhistic India" (February 2), and "The Great Teachers
of the World" (February 3). He also gave a number of talks on the epics
and legends of ancient India, namely, "Religious Legends" (January 16),
which may have included "The Story of Jada Bharata" and "The Story of
Prahlada"; "The Ramayana" (January 31), and "The Mahabharata"
(February 1). On Sunday, January 28, he spoke at the Universalist
Church on "The Universal Religion". With the exception, perhaps, of
"Persian Art", which the Swami gave at a. reception held for him by the
ladies of the Shakespeare Club, the lectures mentioned above were
open to everyone, and as many of them were announced in the Los
Angeles, as well as the Pasadena, newspapers, the attendance was not
limited to the local public.
Although the Swami seems to have lectured almost every day in
the latter part of January, he felt dissatisfied with the amount of work
he was doing. "I am not working hard right now," he wrote to Christine
on January 24, "because I cannot get work enough. The first boom is
over and people do not want to pay. I am thinking of going to San
Francisco that is a new field. I am tired of working completely and
have lost the zest for work that I had before." In this letter, written
from Mrs. Blodgett's cottage in Los Angeles, to which he had evidently
returned for a time, one sees him in a mood of fatigue and resignation

 but it was a mood that drew from him only words of strength and
encouragement:
1 am afraid... what rest and peace I seek for will never come. But
"Mother" does good to others through meat least some to my native
land and it is easier to be reconciled to one's fate as a sacrifice. We are
all sacrifices, each his own way. The great worship is going on no
one can see its meaning, except it is a great sacrifice. Those that are
willing, escape a lot of pain. Those who resist are broken into
submission and suffer more. I am now determined to be a willing
one.... I have no news to tell happy I am not of course I am not
born to be happy nor do I care for it now I am so used to the
other side. To work am I born and I will till I drop down. I am
content now that is all.... Cheer up, Christina. This world has no time
for despondence, none for weakness. One must be strong or pass out.
This is the law.
Indeed, if the Swami had "lost the zest for work", there was no
evidence of it in his lectures. They were as vigorous, as powerful, and
as stirring as any he had given during his earlier mission in the West.
Many of them were taken down in shorthand and have come to us
with their eloquence intact. Some were unique in subject-matter,
particularly those delivered in Pasadena, namely, "Women of India",
"My Life and Mission", or "The Great Teachers of the World". Let us
quote here a passage or two from this last, which was one of his most
striking. The Swami said:
These great Teachers are the living Gods on this earth. Whom else
should we worship? I try to get an idea of God in my mind, and I find
what a false little thing I conceive; it would be a sin to worship that
God. I open my eyes and look at the actual life of these great ones of
the earth. They are higher than any conception of God that I could ever
form. For, what conception of mercy could a man like me form who
would go after a man if he steals anything from me and send him to
jail? And what can be my highest idea of forgiveness? Nothing beyond
myself. Which of you can jump out of your own bodies? Which of you
can jump out of your own minds? Not one of you. What idea of divine
love can you form except what you actually love? What we have never

experienced, we can form no idea of. So, all my best attempts at

forming an idea of God would fail in every case. And here are plain
facts, and not idealism actual facts of love, of mercy, of purity, of
which I can have no conception even. What wonder that I should fall at
the feet of these men and worship them as God? And what else can
anyone do? I should like to see the man who can do anything else,
however much he may talk. Talking is not actuality. Talking about God
and the Impersonal, and this and that, is all very good; but these man
Gods are the real Gods of all nations and A races. These divine men
have been worshipped and will be worshipped so long as man is man.
Therein is our faith, therein is our hope, of a reality. Of what avail is a
mere mystical principle!
The purpose and intent of what I have to say to you is this, that I
have found it possible in my life to worship all of them, and to be ready
for all that are yet to come. A mother recognizes her son in any dress
in which he may appear before her; and if one does not do so, I am
sure she is not the mother of that man. Now, as regards those of you
that think that you understand Truth and Divinity and God in only one
Prophet in the world, and not in any other, naturally, the conclusion
which I draw is that you do not understand Divinity in anybody; you
have simply swallowed words and identified yourself with one sect,
just as you would in party politics, as a matter of opinion; but that is no
religion at all....
Will other and greater Prophets come? Certainly they will come in
this world. But do not look forward to that. I should better like that
each one of you became a Prophet of this real new testament, which is
made up of all the old testaments. Take all the old messages,
supplement them with your own realizations, and become a Prophet
unto others. Each one of these Teachers has been great; each has left
something for us; they have been our Gods. We salute them, we are
their servants; and, all the same, we salute ourselves; for if they have
been Prophets and children of God, we also are the same. They
reached their perfection, and we are going to attain ours now.
Remember the words of Jesus: "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"
This very moment let everyone of us make a staunch resolution: "I will

become a Prophet, I will become a messenger of Light, I will become a

child of God, nay, I will become a God!"
Aside from lecturing in Pasadena the Swami often held small
outdoor classes for a number of interested students, generally
choosing a hilltop near the Mead's house for his class-room. The
weather, happily, was warm and sunny, and proved to be most
salutary for him, and despite his almost daily work he lived a relaxed
life reading, strolling in the garden, writing. He was, for instance,
jotting down at this time some Hindu legends for Sister Nivedita's use;
also he wrote for her, his now famous poem, "Who Knows How
Mother Plays?" Sometimes he joined in long talks with his disciples and
friends, and would now and then accompany them on picnic parties
and outings.
The people of southern California were excursion-loving, and the
Swami's hosts were no exception. Thus he was persuaded during his
stay in Pasadena to make excursions here and there. There may not,
however, have been many of these, for as Mrs. Hansbrough
reminisced, he did not particularly care for sightseeing. "Once when
we were up on the range of hills not far from our house," she relates,
"my sister Helen was calling his attention to different views. 'Niece
Helen,' said the Swami, 'don't show me sights; I have seen the
Himalayas! I would not go ten steps to see sights; but I would go a
thousand miles to see a [great] human being!' "
In the second weekend of January, he made the trip up Mount
Lowe, a high peak of the San Gabriel Range that rose just northwest of
Pasadena. He was accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Baumgardt, Miss
MacLeod, and Mrs. Leggett, the last of whom had come to Los Angeles
in early January. Part way up the mountain, the party stayed overnight
at the then famous hotel called Echo Mountain House, where, on the
morning of Sunday, January 14, the Swami gave a talk. That same day,
he and his party proceeded to the summit of Mount Lowe via the
tortuous but scenic Mount Lowe Railroad, and that evening, the
excursion complete, they returned home.

Two days later, the Swami, accompanied by Miss MacLeod and

Mrs. Leggett, made a round trip by train to Redlands, a small town
some seventy miles east of Los Angeles, renowned for its natural
scenic beauty and its extensive landscaped park. They had lunch there
at the Casa Loma Hotel and returned to Pasadena in time for the
Swami to give a lecture at the Shakespeare Club.
In the Mead household, which consisted of seven members, there
were two children: Ralph, Mrs. Wyckoff's seventeen-year-old son, and
Dorothy, Mrs. Hansbrough's four-year-old daughter. The Swami
became an intimate friend of both. On those rare days when he had no
morning class, he would play in the back garden with Dorothy and her
young friends, giving himself to ring-around-the-rosy and similar
games. While he was no doubt as happy as his little playmates,
enjoying the games for the reasonless reasons of a child, he liked also
to observe the ways and thoughts of the children, and was interested
in their early education. "He used to like to talk with them," Mrs.
Hansbrough recounted, "and would ask them many questions about
their activities: why they played this game or that, and so on. He was
much interested in the problem of child-training, and we often
discussed it. He did not believe in punishment. It had never helped
him, he said, and added,'1 would never do anything to make a child
afraid.' Sometimes the Swami would sit with the children in a shed in
the back garden and look at their picture books. He particularly
enjoyed his old favourites Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the
Looking Glass.
Ralph loved the Swami and always tried to serve him in whatever
way he could. He would shine his shoes, fetch tobacco from upstairs
for his pipe, and do other little things that the Swami asked of him.
Often they talked together. "Can you see your own eyes?" the Swami
asked Ralph one day. Ralph answered that he could not, except in a
mirror. "God is like that," the Swami told him. "He is as close as your
own, eyes. He is your own even though you can't see Him."
The Swami had his own spontaneous way of dispelling any feeling
on the part of those with whom he lived that he was a superior being.
But while the elder members of the Mead family felt fully at ease with

him, they could not, at the same time, help feeling "as if Christ himself
were in their midst". His great presence and his talks could charge the
very air with a spiritual atmosphere; his oceanlike compassion could
absorb and dispel the burdens and pains of those who came close to
him.
The three Mead sisters, whose brother was a Los Angeles banker,
were well connected in southern California, and helped the Swami in
every way possible. Mrs. Hansbrough, particularly, was instrumental in
arranging classes for him and would go to any length to be of service to
him. She was, indeed, to act as his secretary and, for a time, his
housekeeper during his coming stay in northern California.
In his lectures and classes during this period the Swami laid great
emphasis on practical Vedanta and yoga. He wanted to make available
to all men and women the means of gaining complete control over
their minds and thereby to be free. Indeed, one of his key teachings
during this period was "Get hold of yourself!" Consistently, for he
wanted to preach a "man-making" religion, he did not baby his
listeners. When he felt that some home truths would do his audience
good, he never hesitated to speak them out with the tremendous force
of his personality, irrespective of the effect his frankness might have
on his audience. Shri Ramakrishna had long before described him as an
unsheathed sword. He had never become sheathed. Indeed, there
were not a few occasions during his Pasadena lectures when he would
aim sharp thrusts at unjust and ill-informed critics of tested Indian
institutions and traditions, or when he would scold the West for its
shallow and self-destructive arrogance. "One evening as we were going
home after a lecture he asked me how I liked it," Mrs. Hansbrough
reminisced. "He had been very outspoken that evening in criticism of
the West, and I said that I had enjoyed the lecture, but feared that he
sometimes antagonized his audiences. He smiled as if that meant
nothing to him. 'Madam,' he said, 'I have cleared whole halls in New
York. "
There is no known record of anyone having stalked out indignantly
from the Swami's lectures in Los Angeles or Pasadena. But inevitably
he made enemies who, even as in his first visit in America, took

recourse to scandal-mongering, though not to the same virulent

degree. He was not disturbed. One morning at the Mead's house a
rumour of scandal about him was being discussed by a few of his
devoted followers. He was walking slowly up and down the room;
finally he said, "Well, what I am, is written on my brow. If you can read
it, you are blessed. If you cannot, the loss is yours, not mine."
As far as is known, the Swami's lecturing work in southern
California came to a close with "The Great Teachers of the World",
which he gave on February 3 at the Pasadena Shakespeare Club. He
had given now, from December 8 to February 3, at least thirty-eight
formal lectures and class talks, to say nothing of his private talks in the
homes of his friends and his picnic-classes on a hilltop in South
Pasadena. During this period Vedanta Societies were formed in Los
Angeles and Pasadena by groups of his ardent followers, the inaugural
meeting of the Pasadena Society taking place in the Shakespeare Club.
The Swami hoped that the establishment of such Vedanta societies
might start a two-way current of aid between India and America:
spiritual help flowing from East to West, financial help from West to
East.
At present, very little is known of how the Swami spent his time
during the remaining three weeks that he stayed in the southern part
of California. His letters during this period give us little exact
information. It is known, however, that on February 6 the Swami
visited what was then called the Throop Polytechnic Institute and
Manual Training School, and was much interested in the practical
training given to both boys and girls. This visit of the Swami to the
Throop Institute is of particular interest, for the small school, which in
1900 was one of the few of its kind in the United States, was to grow
into the now famous and extensive California Institute of Technology.

SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA 2

As the Swami's health improved during his stay in Los Angeles, he
began to think of extending his work and his mission further afield. The
Pacific Coast, he discovered, was a fertile ground for the reception of

Vedantic ideals. Indeed, as early as the last days of December of 1899

he had been thinking of lecturing in San Francisco and off and on had
discussed the idea with his intimate friends, notably Mrs. Hansbrough.
No definite plans were made however, until as though to emphasize
the need to carry his ministry to the north a letter arrived from the
Reverend Benjamin Fay Mills, inviting him to speak on February 25
before the Congress of Religions that was to be held at the First
Unitarian Church in Oakland, a city across the Bay from San Francisco.
The Swami accepted Mr. Mill's invitation, deciding, as well, to work
independently in San Francisco. Mrs. Hansbrough went on as advance
agent and arranged for his stay at the Pine Street Home of Truth, one
of the two "Homes" in the city. She also made arrangements for his
first lecture. Thus the Swami, who arrived in San Francisco on the
evening of February 22, started his work in the northern part of the
state, as he had in the south on his own, free of outside
management or sponsorship. His first lecture, delivered on the evening
of February 23 at San Francisco's Golden Gate Hall, was entitled "The
Ideal of a Universal Religion".
It was not, however, until two days later, when the Swami spoke
in Oakland before the Congress of Religions that his presence in the
area became widely known. The Reverend B. Fay Mills, then pastor of
Oakland's First Unitarian Church and organizer of this local Congress of
Religions, did not know of the Swami by hearsay only. Mr. Mills had
himself spoken before the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893; and
had there heard the Swami speak. He had been impressed; indeed, he
was to say later to Mrs. Hansbrough of the Swami, "This man altered
my life". Nor was he without the expectation that Swami Vivekananda
would draw large crowds. He was not to be disappointed. The
Congress of Religions, which was held during the months of January
and February of 1900, and whose programme consisted of eight
Sunday evening lectures, each delivered by a representative of a
different religious point of view, created much interest among
intellectual and religious circles. All the lectures were well attended.
But on the evening of Sunday, February 25, when Swami Vivekananda
was scheduled to speak on "The Claims of Hinduism on the Modern

World", an unprecedented crowd poured into the Unitarian Church.

The large auditorium and its adjoining hall were filled, and hundreds
were turned away for lack of room. In the audience were many
prominent California clergymen who later had the opportunity to meet
him and to exchange ideas with him. Two years later, lecturing in San
Francisco on "The Hindu Way of Salvation", Mr. Mills spoke of the
Swami in terms of highest praise, describing him as "a man of gigantic
intellect, indeed, one to whom our greatest university professors were
as mere children."
The Swami was invited to give a second lecture at Oakland's First
Unitarian Church on the evening of February 28. Entitled "Vedanta and
Christianity", it drew as large and enthusiastic a crowd as had the first.
Referring to the reception twice accorded him, he wrote to Mrs. Bull
on March 4: "The people here have been prepared by my writings
beforehand and they come in big crowds.... Rev. Benjamin Fay Mills
invited me to Oakland and gave me big crowds to preach to. He and
his, wife have been reading my works and keeping track of my
movements all the time. My health is about the same; do not find
much difference; it is improving, perhaps, but very imperceptibly. I can
use my voice, however, to make 3,000 people hear me as I did twice in
Oakland and get good sleep too after two hours of speaking."
There were no doubt hundreds among the thousands who heard
the Swami speak in Oakland who had ears to hear that they were
listening to no ordinary lecturer. The reaction of one such listener is on
record. Returning home from the Swami's lecture of February 28, Mr.
Thomas Allan declared to his startled wife that he had just heard "not a
man, but a God!" and he became thenceforth an ardent Vedantin.
Indeed, so great was the Swami's attraction in Oakland that in the
month of March he delivered on popular demand two series of three
paid lectures. Both series, which were given in Wendte Hall, a smaller
auditorium of the same Unitarian Church, again drew large crowds.
The first series consisted of three lectures dealing with the Vedanta
philosophy, and were entitled: "The Laws of Life and Death", "The
Reality and the Shadow", and "The Way to Salvation". These were
given respectively on the evenings of March 7, 8, and 12. The first of

these lectures created a sensation among the church-going populace

of Oakland, for during the course of it the Swami had said, "Not how to
go to heaven, but how one can stop going to heaven this is the
object of the search of the Hindu"! It was a concept totally new to
Christianity, and, as the papers said the following day: "Swami
Vivekananda... Has Set Oaklanders Thinking." The second series of
three lectures dealt with India's customs, culture, and ideals. Delivered
respectively on the Monday evenings of March 19, 26, and April 2, the
lectures were entitled "The Manners and Customs of India", "The Arts
and Sciences in India", and "The Ideals of India". Here, too, his voice
was like a fresh wind sweeping through old ways of thought. Even as
during his first visit to America the Swami took time and care to
present a true picture of India's culture and ideals, uprooting from his
listeners' minds the old, distorted images and attitudes that could
block their reception of his country's great spiritual gifts. It must be
noted, however, that, if the Swami spoke of India for a purpose, he
also simply liked to talk about his country and to narrate the wonderful
Indian stories, so rich with life and so imbued with and illustrative of
high moral and spiritual ideals and his audience never tired of
listening, for he was a story teller par excellence. This second Wendte
Hall series completed the Swami's work in Oakland. He had given eight
lectures in all at the Unitarian Church, each time travelling to and fro
by ferry across San Francisco Bay, accompanied by a number of his
newly made and devoted followers.
Meanwhile, he had been working steadily and successfully in San
Francisco. Early in March, he had moved from the Pine Street Home of
Truth, where he had felt crowded and not free to live and teach as he
pleased, to a friend's at 1502 Jones Street. Here he had not been
comfortable either. Therefore, Mrs. Hansbrough and Mrs. Benjamin
Aspinall, who with her husband was director of the "Home", had found
and rented for a month a large upstairs flat for him at 1719 Turk
Street, where he could be independent, hold classes, receive visitors,
give individual instruction where, in short, he could live in every
respect as he wished. Mrs. Hansbrough, together with Mrs. Aspinall,
also moved to these roomy quarters, serving him faithfully as

secretary, housekeeper, cook, press agent, and general keeper-ofaccounts. On March 17 he wrote to Mrs. Leggett, "Mrs. Hansbrough,
the second of the three [Mead] sisters is here, and she is working,
working, working to help me. Lord bless their hearts." Indeed,
wherever the Swami went in the West, there seemed to be hands and
hearts ready to help him. As he himself once said to Mrs. Hansbrough,
"The Mother dropped me in a strange world, among a strange people
who do not understand me, and whom I do not understand. But the
longer I stay here, I have come to feel that some of the people in the
West whom I have met belong to me, and they also are here to serve
the work assigned to me." Mrs. Benjamin Aspinall was among those
who did all she could to serve the Swami. "Even if you had lived on the
highest mountain," he was to say to her later on, "you would have had
to come down to take care of me."
During most of March and the first week or so of April, the Swami
held classes daily, and often twice daily, in the two adjoining parlours
of the Turk Street flat. Here he settled down to teaching the practice of
meditation to those who would pursue such spiritual training with
serious intent.
It was, indeed, not until the Swami had moved into the Turk Street
flat on March 9, deciding to remain for at least a month more in San
Francisco, that his work assumed a definite and distinctive character.
Theretofore, it had a more or less general nature; that is to say, he
gave his listeners a wide view of his overall message, teaching the
harmony of religions, giving a broad survey of the principles of the
Vedanta philosophy, and presenting, as in Oakland, a picture of Indian
culture that was in outline, colour, and meaning faithful to fact. As we
have seen, his first lecture in San Francisco had been "The Ideal of a
Universal Religion". His second lecture, delivered on Sunday, March 4,
also at Golden Gate Hall, had been entitled "The Science of Religion".
And on March 5, 6, and 9, at the Red Men's Building on Post Street, he
had given a series of three lectures on India, entitled respectively,
"India and Its People", "Arts and Sciences in India", and "Ideals of
India".

Thenceforth, the Swami's San Francisco lectures markedly

assumed the emphasis that distinguishes the main body of his work on
the Pacific Coast. Noticeably, he stressed the need for man to stand on
his own feet, to be a light unto himself, to realize and to utilize to the
full his own divine power. More consistently and strongly than ever
before, he emphasized the essential divinity of man. It was as though
he wanted to impress the principles of Advaita Vedanta indelibly on
the new era of civilization that was then struggling into birth
throughout the world.
While living and holding classes at the Turk Street flat, the Swami
also delivered three evening lectures a week in the Red Men's Building
in downtown San Francisco and on Sunday afternoons gave a series of
five public lectures in Union Square Hall, which was also centrally
located. The subjects of his Sunday lectures were: "Christ's Message to
the World" (March 11), "Buddha's Message to the World" (March 18),
"Mohammed" (March 25), "Krishna and His Message" (April 1), and "Is
Vedanta the Future Religion?". The last named lecture, given on April
8, was one of his most stirring and provocative. We may quote from it
here at some length, for it epitomized much of his teaching on the
Pacific Coast, where, as said above, he again and again stressed the
need for monistic Vedanta in the modern world. Yet he well recognized
that while Vedanta was the answer to present-day problems, it was
not an easy answer, thus he questioned its universal acceptance:
In this country [America] the king has entered every one of you.
You are all kings in this country. So with the religion of Vedanta. You
are all Gods. One God is not sufficient. You are all Gods, says the
Vedanta.
This makes Vedanta very difficult. It does not teach the old idea of
God at all. In place of that God who sat above the clouds and managed
the affairs of the world without asking our permission, who created us
out of nothing, just because He liked it, and made us undergo all this
misery, just because He liked it, Vedanta teaches the God that is in
everyone, has become everyone and everything. His majesty the king
has gone from this country; the Kingdom of Heaven went from
Vedanta hundreds of years ago.... There is a chance of Vedanta

becoming the religion of your country because of democracy. But it

can become so only if you can and do clearly understand it, if you
become real men and women, not people with vague ideas and
superstitions in your brains, and if you want to be truly spiritual, since
Vedanta is concerned only with spirituality....
These are what Vedanta has not to give. No book. No man to be
singled out from the rest of mankind"You are worms, and we are the
Lord God!" none of that. If you are the Lord God, I also am the Lord
God. So Vedanta knows no sin. There are mistakes, but no sin; and in
the long run everything is going to be all right. No Satan none of this
nonsense. Vedanta believes in only one sin, only one in the world, and
it is this: the moment you think you are a sinner, or anybody is a
sinner, that is sin. From, that follows every other mistake, or what is
usually called sin. There have been many mistakes in our lives. But we
are going on. Glory be unto us that we have made mistakes! Take a
long look at your past life. If your present condition is good, it has been
caused by all the past mistakes as well as successes. Glory be unto
success! Glory be unto mistakes! Do not look back upon what has been
done. Go ahead!...
No book, no person, no Personal God. All these must go. Again,
the senses must go. We cannot be bound to the senses. At present we
are tied down like persons dying of cold in the glaciers. They feel
such a strong desire to sleep, and when their friends try to wake them,
warning them of death, they say, "Let me die, I want to sleep." We all
cling to the little things of the senses, even if we are ruined thereby:
we forget there are much greater things.
In March and April, all the Swami's evening lectures were given in
Washington Hall in the Red Men's Building. These he delivered in
groups, or series, of three. The six lectures of the first two series, given
during the second and third weeks of March were entitled: "The Mind.
Its Powers and Possibilities" (March 13), "Mind Culture" (March 15),
"Concentration" (March 16), "Nature and Man" (March 20), "The Soul
and God" (March 23), and "The Goal" (March 27). On March 29, April
3, and April 5, he delivered his. third series in the Red Men's Building.
The three lectures were entitled: "The Science of Breathing",

"Meditation", and "Practical Religion: Breathing and Meditation". In

addition, he gave an evening lecture on March 30, whose title was
"Discipleship".
In San Francisco, as elsewhere, the Swami's towering and benign
personality stood before his listeners as irrefutable proof of his
message. There he was a man who was himself Godlike, who clearly
had realized what he preached, and who could transport others into
that same divine awareness. Whether his health was good or bad
made no difference to this power of his. So friendly and simple was the
Swami that those who were close to him sometimes forgot his gigantic
dimensions. Reminders, however, would flash out. Mr. Thomas Allan,
whose first experience of him had convinced him that he had heard
"not a man, but a God", soon became his close follower and an usher
at his lectures. He was again to be awed by a sudden awareness that
the Swami was far bigger than life. "It was when I introduced him at [a
Sunday] lecture", he later recalled, "that I felt like a pigmy and saw him
as an immense giant. After this experience I could not bring myself to
stand beside him again, but always thereafter made my introduction
from the foot of the platform."
During his lectures the Swami had the power to break down the
dams of orthodox thinking, behind which the mind had been long held
captive and had grown stagnant. He often said things outrageous to
conventional doctrine, each sentence like a charge of dynamite to blast
the walls of some blind belief and liberate the soul. His utterances
carried a tremendous voltage. "Once before beginning his lecture,"
Mrs. Allan related, "he looked out at the audience for a moment and
then said: 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached!' It was
like an electric shock!"
But after a powerful and soaring evening lecture in San Francisco,
during which he would have delivered many an electric shock, the
Swami would go with a small group of his followers to some nearby
restaurant for supper or a dish of ice cream, becoming again the
merry, fully approachable, and loving friend a friend unfailingly to
all.

While most of the Swami's lectures and classes in San Francisco

were devoted to teaching the paths, both in theory and practice of
Jnana-Yoga and Raja-Yoga, making them accessible to and compatible
with the modern Western mind, temperament, and way of life, he also
laid due emphasis on the devotional aspect of Vedanta. Towards the
end of his stay in San Francisco, he gave a series of three lectures on
Bhakti- Yoga, also at the Red Men's Building, on April 9, 10, and 12. The
titles were respectively, "Worshipper and Worshipped", "Formal
Worship", and "Divine Love". At the beginning of this lecture series, he
said:
We have been taking up the more analytical side of human nature.
In this course we [shall) study the emotional side.... The former deals
with man as unlimited being, [as] principle, the latter with man as
limited being.... One gets hold of us, takes us up to the heights where
our lungs almost burst. We cannot breathe [in] that atmosphere. The
other leaves us where we are and tries to see the objects of life, [takes
the limited] view.... Both are necessary. A bird cannot fly with only one
wing....
What we want is to see the man who is harmoniously developed...
great in heart, great in mind, [great in deed].... We want the man
whose heart feels intensely the miseries and sorrows of the world....
And [we want] the man who not only can feel, but can find the
meaning of things, who delves deeply into the heart of nature and
understanding. [We want] the man who will not even stop there, [but]
who wants to work out [the feeling and meaning by actual deeds].
Such a combination of head, heart, and hand is what we want.... Why
not [have] the giant who is equally active, equally knowing, and equally
loving? Is it impossible? Certainly not. This is the man of the future, of
whom there are [only a] few at present. [The number of such will
increase] until the whole world is humanized.
In addition to lecturing in downtown San Francisco, the Swami
spoke at least once at the Pine Street Home of Truth and also at the
Home of Truth on California Street. Although we have very little
information regarding these talks, it is known that the latter took place
before April 8.

With the Swami's series on Bhakti-Yoga in Washington Hall of the

Red Men's Building, his public lectures in San Francisco came to a
close. One finds, however, that on April 14, he gave an additional,
semi-public lecture in a small hall of the same building, also on the
subject of Bhakti-Yoga. After the lecture was over, a meeting was held
in an adjoining room to inaugurate the Vedanta Society of San
Francisco.
During his stay in California the Swami's health continued to
improve. Though in San Francisco he worked continuously, he also
found time to go on outings during the day, sometimes to Golden Gate
Park, to the Beach, or to, San Francisco's famed Chinatown, which was
in those days barely westernized. He and Mrs. Hansbrough, Mrs.
Aspinall, and others would travel here and there by means of San
Francisco's cable cars, which left no area of the city inaccessible. Or he
would simply rest in the Turk Street flat, reading, writing or receiving
visitors. One now finds the sense of deep peace, which was to mark his
last years on earth, beginning to pervade his letters to his more
intimate friends and disciples. "... The seed must die underground to
come up as the tree," he wrote to Sister Nivedita on March 28. "The
last two years were the underground rotting. I never had a struggle in
the jaws of death, but it meant a tremendous upheaval of the whole
life. One such brought me to Ramakrishna, another sent me to the
U.S., this has been the greatest of all. It is gone I am so calm that it
astonishes me sometimes!!"
But in this mood of increasing calm the Swami's lectures and
classes remained extraordinarily dynamic, and his power of attraction
was as strong as ever. Many men and women of San Francisco and
Oakland became his close followers, attending all his lectures on both
sides of the Bay and becoming, as well, students of his classes at his
flat. One of these, a Mr. Frank Rhodehamel, was later to write his
reminiscences of those unforgettable weeks, giving us an intimate and
delightful picture of the great Swami during this fruitful period of his
mission. Mr. Rhodehamel wrote:
It is now more than ten years since the Swami Vivekananda
lectured to California audiences; it seems but yesterday. It was here as

elsewhere; the audiences were his from the outset and remained his
to the end. They were swept along on the current of his thought
without resistance. Many there were who did not want to resist:
whose pleasure and novelty it was to have light thrown into the hidden
recesses of their minds by the proximity of a luminous personality.
There were a few who would have resisted if they could, but whose
powers of resistance were neutralized by the irresistible logic, acumen,
and childlike simplicity of the Great Teacher. Indeed, there were a few
who arose to demur. But who resumed their seats either in smiling
acquiescence or in bewildered impotency.
The Swamiji's personality impressed itself on the mind with visual
intensity. The speaking eyes, the wealth of facial expression, and
gesticulation; the wondrous Sanskrit chanting, sonorous, melodious,
impressing one with the sense of mystic potency; the translations
following in smiling confidenceall these, set off 'by the spectacular
apparel of the Hindu sannyasin who can forget them?
As a lecturer he was unique. never referring to notes, as most
lecturers do; and though he repeated many discourses on request,
they were never mere repetitions. He seemed to be giving something
of himself, to be speaking from a super-experience. The most abstruse
points of the Vedanta were retrieved from the domain of mere
speculation by a vital something which seemed to emanate from him.
His utterances were dynamic and constructive: arousing thought and
directing it into synthetic process. Thus he was not only a lecturer but
a Teacher of the highest order as well.
He encouraged the asking of questions at the conclusion of every
lecture, and would go to any length to make his questioners
understand. On one occasion, after persistent queries by a number of
persons, it occurred to someone that they were plying the Swami too
insistently with questions, and he remarked to that effect. "Ask all the
questions you likethe more the better", was the Swami's goodnatured reply. "That is what I am here for, and I won't leave you till you
understand." The applause was so prolonged that he was obliged to
wait till it subsided before he could continue. At times he literally
startled people into belief by his answers. To the question, after a

lecture on Reincarnation, "Swami, do you remember your past life?"

he answered quickly and seriously, "Yes, clearly, even when I was a
little boy."
Quick and, when necessary, sharp at repartee, he met all
opposition with the utmost good nature and even enjoyment. His
business was to make his hearers understand, and he succeeded as,
perhaps, no other lecturer on abstruse subjects ever did. To popularize
abstractions, to place them within the mental grasp of even very
ordinary intellects, was his achievement. He reached them all. "In
India," he said, "they tell me that I ought not to teach Advaita Vedanta
to the people at large. But I say that I can make even a child
understand it. You cannot begin too early to teach the highest spiritual
truths."
Once at the conclusion of a lecture he thus announced his next
lecture: "Tomorrow night I shall lecture on 'The Mind: Its Powers and
Possibilities'. Come to hear me. I have something to say to you, I shall
do a little bomb-throwing." Here he glanced smilingly over the
audience, and then with a wave of his hand added, "Come on! It will do
you good." The next night there was barely standing-room. He kept his
word. Bombs were thrown, and he, of all people, knew how to throw
them with telling effect. In this lecture he devoted considerable time
to the subject of chastity as a means of strengthening the mind. As a
practice to develop purity, he expounded the theory of looking upon
every woman as one's mother. When he had presented the idea, he
paused and, as though in response to inarticulate questionings from
the audience, said: "O yes, this is a theory. I stand up here to tell you
about this beautiful theory; but, when I think of my own mother, I
know that to me she is different to any other woman. There is a
difference. We cannot deny it. But we see this difference, because we
think of ourselves as bodies. This theory is to be fully realized in
meditation. These truths are first to be heard, then to be meditated
upon."
He held purity to be for the householder as well as for the monk,
and laid great stress on that point. "The other day, a young Hindu
came to see me," he said. "He has been living in this country for about

two years, and suffering from ill-health for some time. In the course of
our talk, he said that the theory of chastity must be all wrong because
the doctors in this country had advised him against it. They told him
that it was against the law of nature. I told him to go back to India,
where he belonged, and to listen to the teachings of his ancestors, who
had practised chastity for thousands of years." Then turning a face
puckered into an expression of unutterable disgust, he thundered:
"You doctors in this country, who hold that chastity is against the law
of nature, don't know what you are talking about. You don't know the
meaning of the word purity. You are beasts! beasts! I say, with the
morals of a tomcat, if that is the best you have to say on that subject!"
Here he glanced defiantly over the audience, challenging opposition by
his very glance. No voice was raised, though there were several
physicians present.
Bombs were thrown in all of his lectures. Audiences were jolted
out of hereditary ruts, and New Thought students, so-called, were
subjected to scathing though constructive criticisms without mercy.
Smilingly, he would announce the most stupendous Vedantic
conceptions so opposed to Christian theologic dogma; then pause an
instant how many, many times, and with such winsome effect!
with his teeth pressed over his lower lip as though with bated breath
observing the result. Imagine, if you can, greater violence done to the
traditional teachings of Christendom than by his fiery injunction,
"Don't repent! Don't repent!... Spit, if you must, but go on! Don't hold
yourselves down by repenting! Throw off the load of sin, if there is
such a thing, by knowing your true selves The Pure! The Ever Free!...
That man alone is blasphemous who tells you that you are sinners...."
And again, "This world is a superstition. We are hypnotized into
believing it real. The process of salvation is the process of dehypnotization.... This universe is just the play of the Lordthat is all. It
is all just for fun. There can be no reason for His doing anything. Know
the Lord if you would understand His play. Be His play-fellow, and He
will tell you all.... And to you, who are philosophers, I say that to ask
for a reason for the existence of the universe is illogical, because it
implies limitation in God, which you do not admit." Then he entered

into one of his wonderful expositions of the salient features of the

Advaita Vedanta.
In the questions which usually followed a talk on this subject,
there was almost sure to be the question: "But, Swami, what will
become of one's individuality when one realizes one's oneness with
God?" He would laugh at this question, and playfully ridicule it. He
would say, "You people in this country are so afraid of losing your in-divid-u-al-I-ties," drawing out the word in laughing mockery. "Why, you
are not individuals yet. When you know God, you will be. When you
realize your whole nature, you will attain your true individualities, not
before. In knowing God you cannot lose anything worth having....
There is another thing I am constantly hearing in this country and that
is that we should "live in harmony with nature!" "Har-mo-ny with
nature", he ridiculed. "Why, don't you know that all the progress ever
made in the world was made by fighting nature, by conquering nature?
There never has been an exception. Trees live in harmony with nature.
Perfect harmony there; no opposition thereand no progress. We are
to resist nature at every point if we are to make any progress.
Something funny happens and nature says cry', and we cry "
"But," interposed an old lady in the audience, "it would be very
hard to mourn for those we love, and I think we would be very hardhearted if we did not mourn." "O yes, Madam," he replied, "it is hard,
no doubt. But what of that? All great accomplishments are hard.
Nothing worthwhile comes easy. But don't lower the ideal because it is
difficult to attain. Hold the banner of freedom aloft! You do not weep,
Madam, because you want to, but because nature forces you. When
nature says, 'Weep!' say 'No! I shall not weep!' Strength! Strength!
Strength! say that to yourself day and night. You are the Strong! The
Pure! The Free! No weakness in you; no sin; no misery!"
Such statements, vitalized by his tremendous personality, placed
him in the same class with the world's greatest spiritual teachers.
During these lectures, one was suspended in a spiritual firmament by
the proximity of a Soul to whom the world was really a joke, and to
whom Consciousness, super-cosmic, was the One and only Reality.

The Swami was blessed with an irrepressible sense of humour,

which enlivened his lectures and classes, and at times relieved the
tenseness of embarrassing situations. Observe his parry to the
question incredulously hurled at him at the close of a lecture which
culminated in an impassioned outburst on the glory of GodConsciousness: "Swami, have you seen God?" "What!" he returned, his
face lighting up with a happy smile, "Do I look like it a big fat man
like me?"
On another occasion while he was expounding Advaita, an old
man, sitting in the front row, arose deliberately, and with a look which
said as plainly as words, "Let me get out of this place in hurry,"
'hobbled down the aisle and out of the hall, pounding the floor with his
cane at every step. The Swami apparently enjoyed the situation, for
amusement overspread his features as he paused to watch him. The
attention of the audience was divided between the Swami, smiling,
fun-loving, and the disgusted old man who had had enough of him.
The whimsical, playful side of the Swami's character would break
out at any moment. Certain Theosophic and New Thought students
were interested primarily in occult phenomena. One such asked,
"Swami, have you ever seen an elemental?" "O yes, we have them in
India for breakfast," was the quick reply. Nor did he hesitate to joke
about his own personality. At one time when looking at some works of
art the Swami, surveying a painting of some corpulent monks,
remarked, "Spiritual men are fat. See, how fat I am!" Again, speaking
about the power of prophecy in the saints he said, "Once when I was a
little boy playing in the streets, a sage passing by put his hand on my
head and said, 'My boy, you will be a great man some day.' And now
see where I am!" At this little conceit his face fairly beamed with fun.
There was nothing egotistical in such statements. His simple fun-loving
nature carried his hearers along with him in the spirit of his joke. At
another time: "The Christian idea of hell is not at all terrifying to me. I
have read Dante's Inferno three times, but I must say that I find
nothing terrible in it. There are many kinds of Hindu hells. When a
glutton dies, for instance, he is surrounded by great quantities of the
very best kinds of food. He has a stomach a thousand miles long, and a

mouth as small as a pin-head! Think of that!" During this lecture he got

very warm owing to the poor ventilation. On leaving the hall after the
lecture, he was met by a chill blast of north wind. Gathering his coat
tightly about him he said vehemently, "Well, if this isn't hell, I don't
know what is."
Dilating on the life of the sannyasin as compared to that of the
householder he said, "Someone asked me if I was ever married." Here
he paused to glance smilingly over the audience. A multitudinous titter
was the response. Then the smile giving place to a look of horror, he
continued: "Why, I wouldn't be married for anything. It is the devil's
own game." Here he paused as though to give his words effect. Then
raising his hand to check the audible appreciation that had begun, he
went on with a quite serious expression over-spreading his features,
"There is one thing, however, that I have against the monastic system,
and that is" (another pause) "that it takes the best men away
from the community." He did not attempt to stem the outburst that
followed. He had his little joke and enjoyed it. On another occasion,
while speaking seriously, he suddenly broke out in merriment, "As
soon as a man gets a little sense he dies. He begins by having a big
stomach which sticks out farther than his head. When he gains
wisdom, his stomach disappears and his head becomes prominent.
Then he dies."
The Swami's assimilation of the world's maturest religious thought
and his consummate power in expounding it, contrasted curiously with
his youthful appearance, and much conjecture was rife as to his age.
He must have known this, for he availed himself of an opportunity to
have a little fun on this point at the expense of the audience. Alluding
to his own age, which was apropos of the subject, he said, "I am only
" (breathless pause, anticipation) "of a few years", he added
mischievously. A sigh of disappointment ran over the audience. The
Swami looked on waiting for the applause, which he knew was ready
to break out. He enjoyed his own jokes as much as did the audience.
Once he laughed outright at some particularly pointed joke which he
just told. The house was in an uproar at once. The joke is irretrievably
lost. What a pity! During his series of lectures on The Ideals of India,

the fact was disclosed that he was a wonderful story-teller. Here,

perhaps, he was at his best. He gave life to the ancient tales by telling
them in his inimitable fashion, the subject giving full play to his
unsurpassed power of interpretation, and to that wealth of facial
expression which was his greatest personal charm. "I love to tell these
stories," he said. "They are the life of India. I have heard them since
babyhood. I never get tired of telling them."
The Swami commanded reverence when he revealed himself at
times to his audience in one of those wonderful waves of
transcendental feeling which he did not try to check. As when he said,
"All faces are dear to me.... As it is possible to 'see Helen in an Ethiop's
face', so we must learn to see the Lord in all. All, even the very worst,
are Mother's children. The universe, good and bad, is but the play of
the Lord."
In private interviews he was the ideal host, entering into
conversation, argument, or story-telling, not only without restraint,
but with apparent enjoyment. His personal appearance on my first
interview was a pleasurable shock from which I have never fully
recovered. He had on a long grey dressing gown, and was sitting crosslegged on a chair, smoking a pipe, his long hair falling in wild disarray
over his features. As I advanced, he extended a cordial hand and bade
me be seated. Memory delivers but fragments of those interviews.
What remains vivid is the contact with the great sannyasin the
impressions and impetus received which refuses to be less than the
greatest experience in life.
Speaking of spiritual training for the mind he said, "The less you
read the better. What are books but the vomitings of other men's
minds? Why fill your mind with a load of stuff you will have to get rid
of? Read the Gita and other good works on Vedanta. That is all you
need." Then again: "The present system of education is all wrong. The
mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Control of
the mind should be taught first. If I had my education to get over again,
and had any voice in the matter, I would learn to master my mind first,
and then gather facts, if I wanted them. It takes people a long time to
learn things, because they can't concentrate their minds at will.... It

took three readings for me to memorize Macaulay's History of England,

while my mother memorized any sacred book in only one reading....
People are always suffering because they can't control their minds. To
give an illustration, though a rather crude one: A man has trouble with
his wife. She leaves him and goes with other men. She's a terror! But,
poor fellow, he can't take his mind away from her, and so he suffers."
1 asked him to explain why the practice of begging, common
among religious mendicants, was not opposed to renunciation. He
replied: "It is a question of the mind. If the mind anticipates, and is
affected by the results that is bad, no doubt. The giving and
receiving of alms should be free; otherwise it is not renunciation. If you
should put a hundred dollars on that table for me, and should expect
me to thank you for it, you could take it away again, I would not touch
it. My living was provided for before I came here, before I was born. I
have no concern about it. Whatever belongs to a man he will get. It
was ready for him before he was born."
To the question: "What do you think about the Immaculate
Conception of Jesus?" he replied, "That is an old claim. There have
been many in India who have claimed that. I don't know anything
about it. But for my part, I am glad that I had a natural father and
mother." "But isn't such a theory opposed to the law of nature?" I
ventured. "What is nature to the Lord? It is all His play," he replied as
he knocked the ash from his pipe against the heel of his slipper,
regardless of the carpeted floor. Then blowing through the stem to
clear it, he continued, "We are slaves of nature. The Lord is the Master
of nature. He can do as He pleases. He can take one or a dozen bodies
at a time, if He chooses, and in any way He chooses. How can we limit
Him?"
After answering at length various questions about Raja-Yoga, lie
concluded with a friendly smile, "But why bother about Raja-Yoga?
There are other ways."
This interview was continued fifteen minutes beyond the time set
for a class on Raja-Yoga to be held in the front room of the house. We
were interrupted by the lady in charge of affairs, rushing into the room

and exclaiming, "Why, Swami! You have forgotten all about the Yoga
class. It is fifteen minutes past time now, and the room is full of
people." The Swami rose hastily to his feet, exclaiming to me, "Oh,
excuse me! We will now go to the front room." I walked through the
hall to the front room. He went through his bedroom, which was
between the room we had been sitting in and the front room. Before I
was seated, he emerged from his room with his hair (which I have said
was in a state of wild disorder) neatly combed, and attired in his
sannyasin robe! Not more than one minute had elapsed from the time
he started from his room with dishevelled hair and in lounging attire,
till he came leisurely out into the front room ready to lecture. Speed
and precision of action were evidently at his command. It was difficult
at times, however, to persuade him to stir beyond the pace he had set
for himself. When late for a lecture, for instance, it was sometimes
impossible to induce him to hurry for the street car. In response to
entreaties to hurry, he would drawl, "Why do you hurry me? If we
don't catch that car, we will catch the next."
At these yoga classes one came closer to the man and teacher
than was possible in the lecture hall. The contact was more personal
and the influence more direct. The embodiment of holiness, simplicity,
and wisdom, he seemed speaking with incisive power, and drawing
one's mind more to God and renunciation than to proficiency in RajaYoga practices.
After delivering a short lecture, he would scat himself cross-legged
on the divan and direct in meditation such of the audience as
remained for that purpose. His talk was on Raja-Yoga, and the practical
instruction on simple breathing exercises. He said in part. "You must
learn to sit correctly; then to breathe correctly. This develops
concentration; then comes meditation.... When practising breathing,
think of your body as luminous..... Try to look down the spinal cord
from the base of the brain to the base of the spine. Imagine that you
are looking through the hollow Sushumna to the Kundalini rising
upward to the brain.... Have patience. Great patience is necessary."
Such as voiced doubts and fears, he reassured by his, "I am with
you now. Try to have a little faith in me." One was moved by his

persuasive power when he said: "We learn to meditate that we may be

able to think of the Lord. Raja-Yoga is only the means to that end. The
great Patanjali, author of the Raja-Yoga, never missed an opportunity
to impress that idea upon his students. Now is the time for you who
are young. Don't wait till you are old before you think of the Lord, for
then you will not be able to think of Him. The power to think of the
Lord is developed when you are young."
Seated cross-legged on the divan, clothed in his sannyasin garb,
with hands held one within the other on his lap, and with his eyes
apparently closed, he might have been a statue in bronze, so
immovable was he. A yogi, indeed! Awake only to transcendental
thought, he was the ideal, compelling veneration, love, and devotion.
In the second week of April, the Swami closed his classes at the
Turk Street flat, and on Wednesday, April 11, moved from San
Francisco to Alameda, a small town near Oakland. Here he stayed until
May 2 at the Alameda Home of Truth, which occupied a large Victorian
house, surrounded by luxurious gardens and orchards. Before moving
to Alameda, the Swami had already lectured several times there; thus
the town was not new to him, nor was he unknown to its inhabitants.
In the last week of March he had lectured at least once on Raja-Yoga at
the residence of a Mrs. George H. Perry before a group of women
whose purpose was "to study the art of living and to apply it to the
service of humanity." Although the Swami had planned to give a series
of three lectures before this group, it is not certain that he delivered
more than one, the title of which was "Mind Its Powers and
Possibilities". In addition, he had given a series of three evening
lectures at Tucker Hall in Alameda on the evenings of April 4, 6, and 11.
These were entitled respectively. "The Influence of Surroundings on
the Development of Religion", 'The Formation of God Ideas", and
"Man's Ultimate Destiny".
During his stay in Alameda the Swami gave another series of three
lectures at Tucker Hall on the evenings of April 13, 16, and 18. Having
sketched the philosophical background in his first Alameda lecture
series, he now devoted the second to a study of Raja-Yoga, again laying
emphasis, as in Los Angeles and San Francisco, on the method of

realizing the ideal the science of "how to control the mind so that it
is not thrown out of balance, into wave-forms" and thereby to reveal
the substance within. The titles of these three lectures were,
respectively, "Raja-Yoga", "Concentration and Breathing", and "The
Practice of Religion". In this same week the Swami lectured twice at
the Alameda Home of Truth.
Often during his leisure hours he also spoke informally at the
Home to small, intimate groups of students, sometimes entertaining
them with jokes and stories. But though he was generally full of mirth
and childlike sweetness and freedom, there was always the undertone
of serious states of mind, which could be called forth in a moment by
some chance remark or question. Then he would talk with glowing
words on spiritual matters or give counsel that would afford lasting
peace to a troubled heart or permanently alter the direction of a life.
Sometimes he would give a sudden shaking to a solidified habit of
thought or a complacement outlook. On the evening of Easter Sunday,
for instance, when a small group had gathered on the wide porch of
the Home, he spoke of renunciation and discipleship and of the
disciple's willing and total surrender to the guru an idea then
startling, if not repellent, to the West. "If you want to be my disciple,"
he said, "and I tell you to go to the mouth of the cannon, you must do
it without question." At another time, in the dining room of the Home,
he spoke to a small group so inspiringly that hours passed uncounted.
From morning until late afternoon no one moved, so caught up were
they in the world of living spirituality that he opened before them. Of
other such talks a member of the Home of Truth once reminisced: "For
hours the Swami would go on and on, and the listeners fearing to
interrupt the flow of his spiritual outpouring dared not stir. With bated
breath they would sit and listen. They were carried off their feet, as it
were, by his eloquence, they felt as if they were soaring in a higher
sphere; they were entranced. And only after the Swami was silent
would they feel themselves tied again to this mundane existence."
The Swami was, indeed, living in a higher sphere during his stay in
Alameda, and it would seem that the more he worked, the more
exalted he became. Throughout his Western experience one notices

in his letters, in his words from the platform, or in his private

conversation the longing for the Absolute. But at Alameda, when his
work probably weighed heaviest on him physically, and his mind was
tired from the strain, one finds him writing a letter to Miss MacLeod
that is a very passion of longing to break all bonds, an intense desire
for the Supreme Isolation, a yearning for that ecstasy which he had so
often known in Dakshineswar in days long past. This letter, dated April
18, 1900, reads:
... Work is always difficult. Pray for me, that my work stops for
ever, and my whole soul be asorbed in Mother. Her work, She
knows....
I am well, very well mentally. I feel the rest of the soul more than
that of the body. The battles are lost and won! I have bundled my
things, and am waiting for the Great Deliverer.
Shiva, O Shiva, carry my boat to the other shore! After all, I am
only the boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the
wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the Banyan [tree] at
Dakshineswar. That is my true nature; works and activities, doing good
and so forth are all superimpositions.
Now I again hear his voice, the same old voice thrilling my soul.
Bonds are breaking, love dying, work becoming tasteless; the glamour
is off life. Now only the voice of the Master calling! "I come, Lord, I
come." "Let the dead bury the dead; follow thou Me!" "I come, my
beloved Lord, I come!"
Yes, I come! Nirvana is before me! I feel it at times, the same
infinite ocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath.
1 am glad I was born, glad I suffered so, glad I did make big
blunders, glad to enter Peace. I leave none bound; I take no bonds.
Whether this body will fall and release me, or I enter into Freedom in
the body the old man is gone, gone for ever, never to come back
again!
The guide, the guru, the leader, the teacher, has passed away;
the boy, the student, the servant is left behind....

The sweetest moments of my life have been when I was drifting. I

am drifting again with the bright, warm sun ahead, and masses of
vegetation around and in the heat everything is so still, so calm
and I am drifting, languidly, in the warm heart of the river! I dare not
make a splash with my hands or feet, for fear of breaking the
wonderful stillness stillness that makes you feel sure it is an illusion!
Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality,
behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst for power!
Now they are vanishing and I drift. I come, Mother, I come, in Thy
warm bosom floating wheresoever Thou takest mein the voiceless, in the strange, in the wonderland. I come, a spectator, no more an
actor!
Oh, it is so calm! My thoughts seem to come from a great, great
distance in the interior of my own heart. They seem like faint, distant
whispers, and peace is upon every thingsweet, sweet peace like
that one feels for a few moments just before falling into sleep, when
things are seen and felt like shadows without fear, without love,
without emotion peace that one feels alone, surrounded with
statues and pictures! I come, Lord, I come.
The world is, but not beautiful nor ugly, but as sensations, without
exciting any emotion! Oh, the blessedness of it! Everything is good and
beautiful, for things are all losing their relative proportions to me
my body among the first. Om That Existence! On the day the Swami
wrote this letter April 18, 1900, he delivered at Tucker Hall,
Alameda, his last public lecture in California entitled, as has been
seen above, "The Practice of Religion". Thus the main body of the
Swami's work on the Pacific Coast came to a close. For four and a half
months he had taught strenuously and continuously, giving lectures
and holding classes almost daily and with full vigour. In all, his lectures
and classes in California numbered well over. one hundred; and, in
addition, as we have seen, he often talked informally to small groups
and gave unnumbered private interviews. Fortunately, many of the
Swami's lectures of his California visit were taken down in shorthand
and have come down to us intact. In San Francisco and Alameda this
invaluable service was performed, it so happened, by a young woman

named Ida Ansell, who attended a large number of the Swami's

lectures on both sides of the San Francisco Bay and who providentially
took these opportunities to practise a rusty shorthand. Miss Ansell
transcribed her notes in later years, and in 1963 they were
incorporated in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, thus
making available to the general public a large and important part of
the Swami's work during his second visit to the West.
It may be said that the Swami had worked in California to excess.
No wonder then, that although his health improved markedly for a
time and, as he wrote in a letter of this period, his mind was never
clearer than in these days, the end of April found him physically
exhausted. He required rest, and thus his lectures in Alameda finished,
he decided to accept an invitation to spend some time at a small
private camp in Marin County, north of San Francisco. "I ought to have
started [for Chicago] today," he wrote to Mary Hale on April 23, "but
circumstances so happened that I cannot forgo the temptation to be in
a camp under the huge redwood trees of California before I leave.... I
start tomorrow to the woods." As it happened, the Swami, prevented
from leaving Alameda by a severe setback in his health, did not arrive
at the camp in the woods until May 2. Here in this quiet and beautiful
spot in an area generally known as Camp Taylor, he spent a little over
two weeks, resting, taking long walks in the open country, cooking
chapatis on the bank of the stream that flowed by, holding informal
classes for the friends who accompanied him Mrs. Hansbrough, Mrs.
Aspinall, Miss Ida Ansell, and othersand meditating under the
towering redwoods. Of the Swami's first night at the Camp, Miss Ansell
reminisced.
1 close my eyes and see him standing there in the soft blackness
with sparks from the blazing log fire flying through it and a day-old
moon above. He was weary after a long lecture season, but relaxed
and happy to be there. "We end life in the forest," he said, "as we
begin it, but with a world of experience between the two states." Later
after a short talk, when we were about to have the usual meditation,
he said, "You may meditate on whatever you like, but I shall meditate

on the heart of a lion. That gives strength." The bliss and power and
peace of the meditation that followed could never be described.
The story is told that once while in a small town on the banks of a
river in America, the Swami chanced to meet a party of young men
who were shooting vainly from a bridge at eggshells bobbing on the
current of a small stream. These shells were loosely strung together
with a string, at one end of which was a small stone that served as an
anchor. The Swami watched them, smiling at their failure. One of the
young men noticed this and challenged him to try his hand at the
game, assuring him that it was not so easy as it looked. Then the
Swami took a gun and successively hit about a dozen shells! They were
astonished and thought he must be a practised hand. But he assured
them he had never handled a gun before and explained that the secret
of his success lay in the concentration of the mind. Could not this
incident have taken place at Camp Taylor, where a bridge indeed
crossed a small stream?
When the Swami returned on May 16 or 17 to San Francisco, after
two weeks or so in the country, he was not yet restored to health; thus
it was thought advisable that he stop at the residence of his disciple Dr.
Milburn H. Logan, at 770 Oak Street, there to be under constant
medical observation and care. A Dr. William Forster also attended him.
For a week, the Swami's poor health prevented him from lecturing, but
on Thursday evening, May 24, he delivered an address on the
Bhagavad-Gita before a regular weekly meeting of the San Francisco
Vedanta Society at Dr. Logan's downtown offices at 6 Geary Street, and
on May 26, 28, and 29 he gave a series of three semi public lectures on
"The Gita" at the residence of Dr. Logan.
These were stirring talks; the theme of spiritual self-reliance that
had been predominant throughout the Swami's mission, sounded forth
in unmistakable tones. Even as Shri Krishna had exhorted Arjuna to
"Stand up and fight", so the Swami exhorted his listeners and
through them the modern world to be strong, to assert the divinity
of the Self:

Stand up and fight! Not one step back, that is the idea.... Fight it
out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the spheres! Let the
whole world stand against us! Death means only a change of garment.
What of it? Thus fight! You gain nothing by becoming cowards....
Taking a step backward, you do not avoid any misfortune. You have
cried to all the gods in the world. Has misery ceased? The masses in
India cry to sixty million gods, and still die like dogs. Where are these
gods?... The gods come to help you when you have succeeded. So
what is the use? Die game.... This bending the knee to superstitions,
this selling yourself to your own mind, does not befit you, my soul. You
are infinite, deathless, birthless. Because you are infinite spirit, it does
not befit you to be a slave.... Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight! Die if
you must. There is none to help you. You are all the world. Who can
help you?
By May of 1900 the Swami found his California work prospering. In
the Vedanta Societies of Los Angeles and Pasadena, meetings were
being held regularly by his students, and he had received many letters
begging him to return, but this had been impossible as his work in the
northern part of the state had absorbed all his attention. Informal
study groups had been formed in Oakland and Alameda, and, as has
been seen earlier, on the evening of April 14, 1900, the Swami had
founded a formal Vedanta Society in San Francisco.
Among the Swami's more intimate friends and disciples during this
period of his ministry in California were some who were to remain lifelong followers of his teachings and supporters of his work. Notable
among them were Mrs. Carrie Mead Wyckoff (of Los Angeles), Mrs.
Alice Mead Hansbrough, Ida Ansell, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Allan, Mrs.
Benjamin Aspinall, Dr. M. H. Logan, Mr. Carl F. Petersen, and Mr. Albert
S. Wollberg, the last three of whom were respectively the President,
Vice-President, and Secretary of the Vedanta Society of San Francisco.
Towards the latter part of Swami Vivekananda's stay in California,
he received a pressing invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Francis Leggett,
then in London, to join them in Paris in July. He had also been invited
by M. Gerald Nobel and the Foreign Delegates' Committee of the
Congress of the History of Religions, which was to be held in

September in conjunction with the Paris Exposition of 1900, to lecture

before that distinguished assembly. He accepted those invitations. but
he thought it best to spend several weeks in New York before sailing to
Europe. Therefore, on the evening of May 29, after his last lecture at
Dr. Logan's house, he bade farewell to his disciples and friends,
promising to send in the near future "a most spiritual Swami by name
of Swami Turiyananda" as the head of the Vedanta movement in
California. On the following day, May 30, he boarded the Southern
Pacific's Overland Limited at the Oakland mole, and was on his way to
the East Coast.
The Swami broke the fatiguing railway journey across the
continent with a stop of four days at Chicago, where he visited several
of his old friends. Arriving in New York on June 7, he took up his
residence at the Vedanta Society, which now occupied a four-story
house at 102 East Fifty-eighth Street, and here received many of his
disciples and admirers,
The Swami was much pleased with the progress of the Vedanta
Society under Swami Abhedananda. Although the young Society had
undergone a tremor or two in its internal affairs, it had now settled
down into a period of harmonious expansion. Mr. Leggett had resigned
the presidentship in the spring of 1900 in favour of Dr. Herschell C.
Parker of Columbia University, who had been unanimously elected to
replace him. A membership roll had been opened thereby increasing
the Society's funds, and an entire house had been rented for its
headquarters. Among the honorary members of the Society at this
time were the Reverend Dr. R. Heber Newton and Charles R. Lanman,
Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University. In addition, many men of
note were in sympathy with the Swami's work, with the Vedanta
philosophy, and with Indian culture in general. To name a few, there
were Professor Seth Low, the President of Columbia University,
Professor A. V. W. Jackson, also of Columbia University, Professor
Thomas R. Price and E. Engalsmann of the College of the City of New
York, and Professors Richard Botthiel, N. M. Butler, N. A. McLouth, E.
G. Sihler, Calvin Thomas, and A. Cohn of the New York University.

It being the hot summer season when many city dwellers had fled
to the mountains or seashore, the Swami did not undertake an
extensive lecturing programme. He wanted, moreover, to be quiet
devoting his time chiefly to teaching and to conversations with his old
friends and students. During the month of June 1900, he lectured only
four times at the Vedanta Society rooms on successive Sundays and
held Gita classes on four Saturday mornings. In the June report of the
Assistant Secretary of the Society one reads:
... On June 7, Swami Vivekananda came to New York from
California and stayed in the Vedanta Society Rooms, 102 E. 58th St.,
with Swami Turiyananda and Swami Abhedananda. At that time Sister
Nivedita was also in the city, and she was present at most of the
meetings.
On the following Saturday, June 9, Swami Vivekananda conducted
the morning class on the Bhagavad-Gita, relieving Swami Turiyananda,
who usually taught the class. On Sunday morning, June 10, Swami
Vivekananda lectured in the Vedanta Society Rooms on the subject of
"Vedanta Philosophy". The rooms were filled to their utmost capacity
with students and old friends of the Swami. A reception was given to
him on the following Friday evening [actually, on Tuesday, June 12],
thus giving an opportunity to old friends to meet him once more; and
many students, who had long wished to meet the renowned author of
Raja-.Yoga, were made happy by a few kind words and a grasp of the
Master's hand. He spoke on the object of the Vedanta Society, and of
the work in America.
The next morning, Saturday, June 16, he also took charge of the
[Gita] class and [on Sunday, June 17] lectured on "What is Religion?"
Sister Nivedita spoke in the evening on "The Ideals of Hindu Women",
giving a most beautiful and sympathetic account of their simple life
and purity of thought. The women students, who were always eager to
hear of the everyday life and thought of their Hindu sisters, especially
enjoyed this talk. The Sister Nivedita was pleased at this interest, and
answered many questions giving a clearer idea of life in India to most
than they had ever known.

On June 23, Swami Vivekananda conducted the Gita class, and on

Sunday, June 24, he lectured on "The Mother-worship". In the evening
Sister Nivedita spoke again on "The Ancient Arts of India". Her talk was
most entertaining, because of her familiarity with the subject. Her visit
and conversation were very instructive....
Swami Vivekananda conducted the [Gita] class on the morning of
June 30, and the next morning, Sunday, July 1, lectured on the "Source
of Religion". As on all previous occasions, the rooms were crowded,
and all felt it a privilege to listen to him. On July 3, Swami Vivekananda
and Swami Turiyananda left New York, the former going to Detroit to
visit old friends, and the latter to California to establish a Shanti
Ashrama and to take charge of the Vedanta Society work at San
Francisco.
It should be mentioned that, after staying for a time in New York,
Sister Nivedita sailed for France on June 28, and, as has been seen in
the above report, Swami Vivekananda and Swami Turiyananda left
New York for Detroit on July 3. The two Swamis were accompanied by
a Miss Minnie C. Boock, who was going on to California with Swami
Turiyananda. In June of 1900, Miss Boock, a member of the New York
Vedanta Society and a student of Swami Abhedananda, offered Swami
Vivekananda 160 acres in the largely uninhabited San Antone Valley in
Santa Clara County, California. The property lay a hundred miles or so
south-east of San Francisco, just beyond the eastern slopes of Mount
Hamilton, on whose summit stood the famous Lick Observatory. Fifty
miles from a railway station, twelve miles from the nearest habitation,
and three miles from the post office, it was far removed from the
conflicting influences of the world and well-suited for an austere and
contemplative life. On accepting the land from Miss Boock, the Swami
spoke to Swami Turiyananda, who had been lecturing and holding
classes at the New York Vedanta Society since April, of his intention of
sending him to California at once to lead the Vedanta movement there
and to establish the Shanti Ashrama or "Peace Retreat". Being devoted
to meditation and austerity, Swami Turiyananda always hesitated to
plunge into work, and thus was averse to the idea. Failing to prevail
upon him by argument, the Swami said at last, "It is the will of the

Mother that you should take charge of the work there." At this the
brother-disciple said jocosely, "Rather say it is your will. Certainly you
have not heard the Mother communicate Her will to you in that way.
How can we hear the words of the Mother!" "Yes, brother," said the
Swami with great emotion, "yes, the words of the Mother can be
heard as clearly as we hear one another. It only requires a fine nerve to
hear the words of the Mother." The Swami said this with such fervour
that Swami Turiyananda could not but accept his wish as expressing
the will of the Divine Mother, and he cheerfully agreed to take charge
of the California work.
Memorable were the parting words of the Swami to Swami
Turiyananda, when the latter asked for some advice as to how he
should conduct the work. "Go and establish the Ashrama in California,"
exclaimed the Swami in reply, "Hoist the flag of Vedanta there. From
this moment destroy even the memory of India! Above all, live the life,
and Mother will see to the rest!"
After visiting the Vedanta Societies in Los Angeles, Pasadena, and
San Francisco, Swami Turiyananda went to the property in the San
Antone Valley for the first time on August 2, 1900, taking with him
twelve students. There he remained almost continually until June
1902, when ill health forced him to return to India. In the two years of
his almost unbroken stay in the Valley, he established the Shanti
Ashrama, training in meditation those spiritual aspirants who came to
live there for varying periods of time and living with them the austere
monastic life he had known in India. For many years thereafter annual
retreats of one month were conducted at the Shanti Ashrama by the
Swami in charge of the San Francisco centre.
During Swami Vivekananda's short stay in Detroit in July of 1900,
he lived at the house of Christine Greenstidel and her family, who,
though poor, would have shared with him whatever they had. He
devoted most of his time there to resting; only once or twice holding
informal gatherings for the benefit of his intimate disciples and friends.
On July 10 he returned to New York, where he again stayed at the
Vedanta Society until he sailed for Paris.

The Swami spent these last two weeks or so in New York in rest
and retirement in the circle of his close followers. He attended also to
the publication of his books. "This is my plan just now," he had written
to Christine on June 27 before going to Detroit. "I will have to remain
in New York a few days yet to see my books through. I am going to
publish another edition of Karma-Yoga and the London lectures in a
book form. Miss Waldo is editing them and Mr. Leggett will publish."
Now, after his return from Detroit, he wrote to Miss MacLeod on July
24, "The books are in the hands of Waldo and Whitmarsh. They are
nearly ready."
It was at this time that the Swami designed the seal of the
Ramakrishna Order, taking the help of one of his New York disciples,
Mr. Henry Van Haagen, who was a draughtsman as well as a printer.
"The Sun = Knowledge", the Swami explained to Miss MacLeod in a
letter dated July 24. "The stormy water = Work. The Lotus = Love. The
serpent = Yoga. The swan = the Self. The Motto = May the Swan (the
Supreme Self) send us that. It is the mind-lake."
Among the disciples, whom the Swami frequently visited in New
York and with whom he spent many hours in discussing philosophy and
plans of work, was Miss Waldo. Another of his intimate friends, and
one who had introduced him into very distinguished circles, both in
Chicago in the days of the Parliament of Religions and in New York,
was Mrs. Annie Smith, whom he was wont to call "Mother Smith". She
had been born in India and from early womanhood had interested
herself in Indian philosophy. She was well known in America as a
lecturer on Oriental subjects. Some time after the Swami's passing
away, Mrs. Smith spent four years in Los Angeles and Pasadena and
wrote that she "found the spiritual seed of the Swami's planting
springing up all over the Pacific coast, for he vitalized American
religions and sects, as well as Hinduism."
Writing of him at this time, one of the Swami's friends said:
He has broadened in his sympathies and expanded in his
knowledge daring the four years of his absence from America. While
the season is now over for lectures and classes, Swamiji's old friends

are basking in the sunshine of his presence. His health is now excellent,
and he is his dear old self once more, with yet a mingling of a newer,
nobler self that makes us adore him more than ever.... He has to be a
world-worker, and so no rest can be for him until that work is done.
Only July 26, when the Swami set sail for France, his second and,
as it was to prove, his last visit to America came to a close. From the
days of the Parliament of Religions until now he had spent in all nearly
thirty-nine months in the United States, during the course of which he
had sown the seeds of his message from one end of the continent to
the other; he had established Vedanta Societies on both coasts and
had placed the work he had begun in the able hands of brotherdisciples. Now in the summer of 1900 the great Swami was ready to
start his journey home.

THE PARIS CONGRESS AND A TOUR IN EUROPE

After a rough and rainy voyage, the S.S. Champagne, on which the
Swami had sailed from New York on July 26, 1900, arrived at Le Havre
at noon on the third of August. He travelled the same day by rail to
Paris, where he was at first the guest of M. Gerald Nobel an old
family friend of the Leggetts and a bachelor of exceptional culture and
intelligence and then of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Leggett at their
handsome residence in the Place des Etats-Unis. Later, in the first week
of September, he moved to the quarters of M. Jules Bois, a well-known
writer and a student of comparative religion. The Swami hoped that by
living alone with the young M. Bois, who spoke nothing but French, he
might thereby become more proficient in that language; thus M. Bois's
apartment remained his headquarters in Paris until he left for his
European tour.
While he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Leggett, the Swami met
many distinguished people at their large and lavish entertainments and
frequent salons, where celebrated men and women of all branches of
knowledge and culture gathered- poets, scientists, philosophers,
writers, actors and actresses, singers, painters, sculptors. These
gatherings proved splendid opportunities for him to exchange ideas

with leading thinkers of the West and to spread his message among
them. Indeed, during his stay at the Leggetts', he gave a talk on Friday,
August 24, 1900, in their drawing rooms on "La Religion et le
philosophie des Hindoos" (The Religion and the Philosophy of the
Hindus), to which many people were invited.
In his "Memoirs of European Travel" the Swami gives this
picturesque description of the at-homes given by the Leggetts: "That
incessant outflow of words, clear and limpid like a mountain-fall, that
expression of sentiments emanating from all sides like sparks of fire,
bewitching music, the magic current of thought from master minds
coming into conflict with one another... used to hold all spellbound,
making them forgetful of time and place...."
Among the eminent men and women with whom the Swami came
into close contact in Paris were Professor Patrick Geddes, an eminent
sociologist of Edinburgh University, Jane Addams, the famous
American social worker, Pre Hyacinthe, Sir Hiram Maxim, the Duke of
Richelieu, Madame Emma Calv, Mrs. Potter Palmer of Chicago, Dr.
Lewis G. Janes, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, Princess Demidoff, the Duke
of Newcastle. One of the Swami's own countrymen was also in Paris
Dr. Jagadish Chandra Bose, whose remarkable discoveries in regard to
plant sensitivity had amazed the scientific world. Dr. Bose had been
invited to attend the Exposition in connection with the Congress of
Scientists, and the Swami met him frequently. Often he would point
out to his acquaintances the greatness of this Indian scientist, "the
pride and glory of Bengal". Once at a gathering of distinguished people
a student of a celebrated English scientist maintained that her
professor was experimenting on the growth of a stunted lily. The
Swami humorously replied, "Oh, that's nothing! Bose will make the
very pot in which the lily grows respond!"
While he was in Paris, the Swami was a close and keen observer of
French culture, and embodied many of his observations in his article
"The East and the West". The Paris Exposition Universelle, which was
then in full swing, afforded him unique opportunities for study, and the
authorities received him with honour, giving him every opportunity for
thorough observation. Accompanied by Alberta, Mr. Leggett, and

Patrick Geddes, he often visited the Exhibition, where Patrick Geddes

explained the exhibits to the party, the Swami always bringing out of
them some new revelations, fresh comparisons, and intellectual
discoveries. The artistry of the varied exhibits pleased his fastidious
eye, and nothing of interest escaped his glance.
The main event of his stay in Paris was his appearance at the
Congress of the History of Religions, which was held from September 3
through 8, 1900, at the Sorbonne in connection with the Paris
Exposition. This Congress was "not a big affair", as the Swami wrote. It
was concerned exclusively with scholarly matters relating to the
historical aspects of various religions; for discussion of different
doctrines or beliefs, such as had taken place so fervently at Chicago
Parliament of Religions, was not allowed. Rumour had it that the idea
of holding another Parliament of Religions had been defeated by the
vehement opposition of Roman Catholics who feared that Oriental
ideas might jeopardize the authority of orthodox Christianity. In any
event, the purpose of the Paris Congress was only to enquire into the
historic evolution of the different forms of established faiths and other
matters incidental to it. Accordingly, missionary creeds of various
religions were not represented, and the Congress was attended not by
ecclesiastics but only by such scholars as devoted themselves to the
study of the origin and history of different religions.
Though he was present at several sittings of the Congress, the
Swami's ill health prevented him from lecturing before that assembly
more than twice. He had been requested by the committee to debate
with the Western Orientalists on whether the Vedic religion was the
outcome of nature worship or not; for his many lectures and writings
on Vedanta philosophy and Indian culture had made it evident that he,
above all others, was best fitted to interpret the Indian position. To
meet the occasion, as well as for his visits to Paris in general, he had
for several months been endeavouring to master the French language.
To judge from two references in the Indian Mirror, he had succeeded
to a great extent; he had, indeed, become sufficiently fluent in French
to speak on highly technical matters before a gathering of scholars.
The first of these newspaper references, dated April 21, 1900, read,

"Swami Vivekananda, has been invited to represent Hinduism and

Vedanta in the Paris Exhibition, and the Swami will deliver an address
in French." The second item which appeared in the Indian Mirror long
after the event (on December 12, 1900) referred to the Swami's having
delivered a "very impressive and eloquent speech in French at Paris".
Being scheduled to speak on September 7, he was present when a
paper was read that morning by a Mr. Gustav Oppert, a German
Orientalist, who tried to trace the origin of the Shalagrama-Shila and
the Shiva-Linga to mere phallicism. To this the Swami objected,
adducing proofs from the Vedas, and particularly the Atharva- Veda
Samhita, to the effect that the Shiva-Linga had its origin in the idea of
the Yupa-stambha or Skambha, the sacrificial post idealized in Vedic
ritual as the symbol of the Eternal Brahman. "As afterwards," said the
Swami, "the Yajna (sacrificial) fire, its smoke, ashes, and flames, the
Soma plant, and the ox that used to carry on its back the wood for the
Vedic sacrifice gave place to the conceptions of the brightness of
Shiva's body, his tawny matted hair, his blue throat and the riding on
the bull of Shiva, and so on just so, the Yupa-Skambha gave place in
time to the Shiva-Linga, and was deified to the high Devahood
(godhood) of Shri Shankara." Then, also, the Shiva-Linga might have
been more definitely developed through the influence of Buddhism,
with its Bauddha Stupas, or memorial topes, in which the relics, either
of the Buddha himself or of some great Buddhist Bhikshus, used to be
deposited. It was quite probable that during the Buddhistic ascendancy
the Hindus adopted this custom and used to erect memorials
resembling their Skambha. The Shalagrama-Shilas were natural stones,
resembling the artificially cut stones of the Dhatu-Garbha, or "metalwombed", stone reliquaries of the Bauddha Stupas, and these, being
first worshipped by the Buddhists, gradually found their way into
Vaishnavism. The explanation of the Shalagrama-Shila as a phallic
emblem was an imaginary invention. A degenerate period in India,
following the downfall of Buddhism, had brought on the association of
sex with the Shiva-Linga. In reality, the Shiva-Linga and the
Shalagrama-Shila had no more to do with sex-worship than the Holy
Communion in Christianity had in common with cannibalism.

This rebuttal of Mr. Oppert's paper was, of course,

extemporaneous. So also was the Swami's scheduled talk given on that
same morning of September 7. In this discourse, of which we have the
Swami's own report in a letter to the Udbodhan, he dwelt on the
historic evolution of the religious ideas in India. The Vedas, he said, are
the common source of all the various stages of Hinduism. They are the
source also of Buddhism and of every other religious belief in India. He
spoke also of the priority of Shri Krishna to Buddha and said that the
worship of Krishna was much older than that of Buddha. The Gita, the
Swami held, was contemporaneous with, if not prior to, the
Mahabharata. Both the thought and the language of the Gita were the
same as those of the Mahabharata; therefore, how could the Gita have
been later than the Mahabharata? Moreover, if it had been compiled
much later, in the Buddhist period, why, when it attempted the
reconciliation of all the religious creeds prevalent in India at that
period, should it not have mentioned Buddha and Buddhism?
The Swami went on to reprove the cavalier shallowness of
Western scholars in their Indian research. The traditions of India, he
said, were true, and Western Sanskrit scholars should try to discover
their hidden truths instead of writing fanciful articles. He cited as an
example of prejudiced and unscholarly research the contention of
Western savants that Greek influence lies over everything Indian
literature, art, astrology, arithmetic, and so on. There might be, it was
true, some similarity between Greek and Indian terms in astronomy,
but Westerners had ignored the direct Sanskrit etymology and sought
for some far-fetched etymology from the Greek. Such shallow and
biased learning manifested by many Western Orientalists was most
deplorable. From a single Sanskrit Shloka [verse] that reads, "The
Yavanas [Greeks] are Mlechchhas, in them this science is established,
therefore, even they deserve worship like Rishis... "They have gone so
far as to declare that all Indian sciences are but echoes of the Greek!
Whereas a true reading of the Shloka might show that the Mlechchha
disciples of the Aryans are herein praised in order to encourage them
to a further study of the Aryan sciences. The effort to trace the Indian
drama to Greek sources was also preposterous, for nothing in the

Sanskrit dramas bore any similarity either to Greek literary methods or

Greek histrionic forms. Lastly, referring to Professor Max Mller's
premise that unless it could be demonstrated that at least one Greek
had known Sanskrit, it could not be concluded that ancient India
helped ancient Greece in any way, the Swami turned it against him. He
argued that unless one Hindu who had known Greek could be brought
forward, one ought not to talk even of Greek influence on Indian
science or culture. The Swami closed his arguments with the counsel
that Western Orientalists, who spent so much time on a single Greek
work, should do likewise with Sanskrit works; then only some true
account of the exchange of ideas between East and West in various
historic periods could be gathered. Like Pythagoras, the celebrated
Greek, whom Clement of Alexandria had no hesitation in calling a pupil
of the Brahmanas, they might even come to India to learn.
After the lecture, many present expressed their opinion that the
views of the modern school of Sanskrit scholars in the West were
largely the same as those of the Swami. They agreed also with his
statement that there was much that was historically true in the
Puranas and Hindu traditions. But the learned President of the
Congress differed from the Swami with reference to the
contemporaneousness of the Gita and the Mahabharata, his reason
being that the majority of Western Orientalists thought that the
former was not a part of the latter.
While in Paris the Swami was not only responding to immediate
demands on his time, but was attending also to the urgent
requirements of the movement he had started. For various reasons, he
was anxious to assure that the responsibility for the movement a
responsibility that had been given to him by Shri Ramakrishna and that
had long rested on his shoulders be passed on to his brotherdisciples. He was keenly aware that the organization he had founded in
India needed not only spiritual resilience but also legal invulnerability
in order to function effectively in the world. For this, he had been long
anxious that the trust-deed of the Math at Belur be registered at the
earliest possible date. Even before he left India in June 1899, he had
been prodding his brother-disciples to give the deed a final form. But

for one reason or the other this could not be done earlier. At last in
August 1900 he could get the deed executed duly at the British
Consulate in Paris.
Aside from this, he was engaged in the task of training Margaret
Noble to become truly nivedita, truly "dedicated" to the "Mother's
work". He had brought her to the West to earn money by lecturing in
America for the prospective "Homes for Widows and Girls", which the
Swami wanted her to start in some big cities of India. Though she had,
of her own free will, chosen to be the disciple of the Swami, and
though she was so much devoted to him and his Mission, she was not
yet fully aware of the implications of true discipleship. At times, ideas
extraneous to the Swami's teachings could still fascinate her and claim
the loyalty of her heart. While she was in New York, she became
charmed by the sociological theories of the eminent Professor Patrick
Geddes of the Edinburgh University, and later became involved in his
work during the Paris Exposition. She was yet to know that if she were
to be a true disciple of the Swami, all her powers, devotion, and loyalty
had to he concentrated on one objective the service of the cause
she had received from her Master. Thus during this period there was
misunderstanding and estrangement between herself and the Swami.
She expressed her feelings in a letter to him, to which he replied on
August 25. The Swami's letter reveals his way of discharging the two
duties that devolved upon him at this time the passing of the
responsibility to his brother-disciples, and the training of Sister
Nivedita:
Your letter reached me just now. Many thanks for the kind
expressions....
Now I am free, as I have kept no power or authority or position for
me in the work. I also have resigned the Presidentship of the
Ramakrishna Mission.
The Math etc. belong now to the immediate disciples of
Ramakrishna except myself. The Presidentship is now
Brahmananda's next it will fall on Premananda etc., in turn.

I am so glad a whole load is off me, now I am happy.... I no longer

represent anybody, nor am I responsible to anybody. As to my friends I
had a morbid sense of obligation. I have thought well and find I owe
nothing to anybody if anything, I have given my best energies, unto
death almost, and received only hectoring and mischief-making and
botheration....
Your letter indicates that I am jealous of your new friends. You
must know once for all I am born without jealousy, without avarice,
without the desire to rule whatever other vices I am born with.
1 never directed you before; now, after I am nobody in the work, I
have no direction whatever. I only know this much, so long as you
serve "Mother" with a whole heart, She will be your guide.
1 never had any jealousy about what friends you made. I never
criticized my brethren for mixing up in anything. Only I do believe the
Western people have the peculiarity of trying to force upon others
whatever seems good to them, forgetting that what is good for you
may not be good for others. As such I am afraid you might try to force
upon others whatever turn your mind might take in contact with new
friends. That was the only reason I sometimes tried to stop any
particular influence and nothing else.
You are free, have your own choice, your own work.... Friends or
foes, they are all instruments in Her hands to help us work out our own
Karma, through pleasure or pain. As such "Mother" bless them all.
After the Congress of the History of Religions the Swami, together
with Jules Bois, accepted an invitation of Mrs. Ole Bull to become her
guests in a house she had taken at Perros-Guirec, a small village on the
English Channel, six miles from Lannion in Brittany. Here from
September 17 to the end of the month, he gave himself up to leisure
and rest, though his conversations with those who surrounded him,
including Sister Nivedita, who was also the guest of Mrs. Bull, were
unusually luminous. The story of Lord Buddha was much in his mind in
these days and one finds him reciting passages from the Jatakas, the
Lalita Vistara, or the Vinaya Pitaka and other great Buddhist works. He
would tell now, after Nirvana, Buddha became the very embodiment

of the highest spiritual poetry, and he would illustrate this with

beautiful passages from the Buddhist scriptures relating to the famous
Upali Prichcha, or the "Questions of Upali, the Barber", or to the
Dhaniya Sutta from the famous Sutta Nipata. Drawing philosophical
contrasts, he would show the points of difference between the
Buddhist and the Advaita positions, and then point out the unity of
ideas between the sublime Negation of the Buddhist and the supreme
Negation of Advaita, saying, "Buddhism must be right! Reincarnation is
only a mirage! But this vision is to be reached by the path of Advaita
alone!" In his final summing up of the differences between the two
positions he said: "The great point of contrast between Buddhism and
Hinduism lies in the fact that Buddhism said, 'Realize all this as illusion,'
while Hinduism said, 'Realize that within the illusion is the Real.' Of
how this was to be done, Hinduism never presumed to enunciate any
rigid law. The Buddhist command could only be carried out through
monasticism; the Hindu might be fulfilled through any state of life. All
alike were roads to the One Real. One of the highest and greatest
expressions of the Faith [Hinduism] is put into the mouth of a butcher,
preaching, by the orders of a married woman, to a sannyasi. Thus
Buddhism became the religion of a monastic order, but Hinduism in
spite of its exaltation of monasticism remains ever the religion of
faithfulness to daily duty, whatever it be, as the path by which man
may attain to God." Hinduism, he held, included not only all the faiths
within her own fold but the message of Buddhism and Buddha himself
as well. She, as the mother of religions, had learned to regard Buddha
as the most lion-hearted of all her Avataras.
One of the most powerful factors which contributed to the
Swami's supreme veneration for Buddha was, to quote Sister
Nivedita's words, the spectacle of the constant tallying of his own
Master's life, lived before his eyes, with this world-attested story of
twenty-five centuries before. In Buddha he saw Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa: in Ramakrishna, he saw Buddha. In a flash this train of
thought was revealed, one day when he was describing the scene of
the death of Buddha. He told how the blanket had been spread for him
beneath the tree, and how the Blessed One had lain down, "resting on

his right side, like a lion", to die, when suddenly there came to him one
who ran, for instruction. The disciples would have treated the man as
an intruder, maintaining peace at any cost about their Master's deathbed, but the Blessed One overheard, and saying, "No, no! He who was
sent [the Tathagata or Messiah] is ever ready," he raised himself on his
elbow and taught. This happened four times, and then, and then only,
Buddha held himself free to die....
The immortal story went on to its end. But to one who listened,
the most significant moment had been that in which the teller paused
at his own words, raised himself on his elbow and taught and
said in brief parenthesis, I saw this, you know, in the case of
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa! And there arose before the mind the
story of one, destined to learn from that Teacher, who had travelled a
hundred miles, and arrived at Cossipore only when he lay dying. Here
also the disciples would have refused admission, but Shri Ramakrishna
intervened, insisting on receiving the newcomer, and teaching him.
In depicting the portrait of her Master, Sister Nivedita mused that
perhaps it gave him pleasure to play off Shankaracharya against
Buddha, as it were, by calling in Advaita to the aid of Buddhism. The
combination of the heart of Buddha and the intellect of
Shankaracharya, he considered the highest possibility of humanity, and
this he saw only in his own Master among the muster roll of the
world's Teachers and Saviours.
The Swami was always the religious observer. In some small
chapel in Brittany, or in the great cathedrals of Paris, he saw the points
of similarity between the ritual of Hinduism and Roman Catholicism;
and in this sense he once proclaimed, "Christianity is not foreign to the
Hindu mind." Indeed, there was nothing that did not bring some aspect
of religion or of spiritual life to the Swami's mind. Returning from
Brittany to Paris with his hostess and fellow-guests, he paid a visit on
Michaelmas Day to Mont Saint Michel, the ancient fortress and abbey
that dominates an islet off the coast of Normandy. Here, seeing the
frightful dungeon cages where prisoners were isolated in medieval
times, the Swami was heard to remark under his breath, "What a
wonderful place for meditation!"

The Swami's September visit to Brittany lasted from the

seventeenth to twenty-ninth. He was to return with Jules Bois for a
short time, in October. At the end of September, some days before he
left for Paris, his disciple Sister Nivedita departed for England, there to
try to arouse interest in her work on behalf of Indian women. Before
she went, he gave her his blessing and said: "There is a peculiar sect of
Mohammedans who are reported to be so fanatical that they take
each new- born babe and expose it, saying, 'If God made thee, perish!
If Ali made thee, live!' Now this which they say to the child, I say, but in
the opposite sense to you, tonight 'Go forth into the world, and
there, if I made you, be destroyed! If Mother made you, live!' " In June
of 1899, before Nivedita had left India in his company, he had told her
that she must resume, as if she had never broken them off, all her old
habits and social customs. Now that she was about to enter new paths
of endeavour for an indefinite period, and without his immediate
guidance, the thought must have crossed his mind that old ties were
perilous to a foreign allegiance. He had seen so many betrayals of
honour that he seemed always to be ready for a new desertion. In any
case, the moment was critical to the fate of the disciple, and this he did
not fail to realize. Thus were his special blessings at the beginning of
what was to be a long separation. A year and a half was to pass before
Sister Nivedita would once again be with her guru.
When he returned from Brittany to Paris in the last week of
September, the Swami again moved in the most distinguished circles.
In all his talks he missed no opportunity of showing, in ways distinctly
his own, the influence of India over the entire thought of mankind. He
would refer to the unmistakable evidences that Hindu religious ideas
had travelled in ancient times from India, on the one side to Sumatra,
Java, Borneo, Celebes, Australia, and even as far as the shores of
America, and on the other side to Tibet, China, Japan, and as far north
as Siberia. He would dilate on the extension of the Buddhist missionary
work in Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, and Epirus in the reigns, respectively,
of Antiochus Theos, Ptolemy Philadelphys, Antigonos Gonates, and
Alexander. Then, perhaps, he would tell his interested listeners of the
influence of the Tartars on world history and of their conquests in

Central and Western Asia and finally in India itself. And often he would
say, "The Tartar is the wine of the race! He gives energy and power to
every blood!" He saw Europe as the admixture of numbers of Asiatic
and semi-Asiatic races, intermingled with the barbarians of the forests
of Germany and the wilderness of ancient Gaul and Spain. He saw
European culture as formed, to a large extent, by Moorish influence in
Spain and by the learning and science of the medieval Arabs. The
monumental learning and patriotism which the Swami evinced
captured all minds and hearts. He was scathing in his denunciation of
the claim that European culture dominated over the Asiatic; and
history, archaeology, and philosophy were always at his service to
prove his contentions to the contrary.
One of the Swami's greatest intimates during his stay in France
was Pre Hyacinthe, the former Carmelite monk and Catholic priest,
whom he first met in early August of 1900. In the 1860s, Pre
Hyacinthe had been an exceedingly popular preacher in Paris's Notre
Dame Cathedral and was well known for his learning, his oratory, and
his austerity. His liberal views, to which he had given free and eloquent
expression, had exerted a wide influence over the Catholic world. The
Vatican, however had not been pleased, and in 1866 he had been
called to Rome and rebuked. He had continued, nevertheless, to
preach as he wished, strongly advocating a number of Church reforms,
all of which were considered radical. (Reforms similar to those he
recommended, it may be noted here, were taken up a century later at
the Second Vatican Council held in 1962-63.) Pre Hyacinthe was far in
advance of his times. When the doctrine of papal infallibility was
pronounced at the First Vatican Council in 1870, he publicly allied
himself with those who opposed it. When asked by Rome to retract, he
only the more openly and strongly stated his position. Further, he
resigned from his monastic order and was promptly excommunicated.
Now known officially as Monsieur Charles Loyson, he continued to
preach, attempting to establish a reformed Catholic church. In 1872, at
the age of 45,. he married an American woman, whose views were as
"radical" as his own and who devoted herself zealously to his cause.

These episodes in Pre Hyacinthe's life had created a stir in

Europe. Orthodox Roman Catholics condemned and ostracized him;
liberal Catholics and Protestants welcomed him with open arms. He
had continued to preach and to lecture, and in 1900 he was still
renowned, still loved and admired by some, still hated and censured by
others. He and his wife devoted their time energy, and hope to an
attempt to establish a reformed church. The Swami was manifestly
fond of this ageing priest. In his own words: "He was possessed of a
very sweet nature, modest and of the temperament of a Bhakta."
Many were the times in Paris when the Swami, who always called him
by his monastic name, and Pre Hyacinthe had long discussions on
religious subjects, on spiritual life, and on sects and creeds. On these
occasions the Swami spoke eloquently to him of Vairagya (dispassion)
and renunciation, and old memories of monastic life were stirred up in
the heart of the erstwhile monk Later on, he with his wife
accompanied the Swami and his party as far as Vienna on their way to
Constantinople. They soon met again in Scutari (also called skdar) in
Asia Minor, where the Pre was stopping on his way to Jerusalem to
try to establish cordial relations among Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
In Paris the Swami also found a congenial conversationalist in M.
Jules Bois, with whom he stayed, with the exception of his two visits to
Brittany, from the first week in September until he left France. This
young man, who moved in intellectual circles, was an advocate of
those Vedantic ideas that had influenced Victor Hugo and Lamartine
among the French, and Goethe and Schiller among the Germans.
Interested in the occult, as were many intellectuals in those days, he
had written, among other works, a large and scholarly book on the
history of satanism and magic, for which he was well known. M. Bois
had heard the Swami speak at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago,
and had long hoped to meet him. This hope was fulfilled: not only did
he meet Swami Vivekananda, but he had him for many weeks as a
guest in his quarters, accompanied him to Brittany twice, and was to
travel with him on the tour through south Europe.
Another native of France who became greatly attached to the
Swami and saw him frequently was the young Duke of Richelieu. When

the Swami was about to leave France, he asked the Duke why he did
not renounce the world and become his disciple. The young man
wanted to know what he would gain from such renunciation, and the
Swami said, "I shall give you the desire for death." When asked to
explain so dubious a blessing, he replied, that he would give the Duke
such knowledge and insight that when confronted by death he would
laugh at it. But the Duke preferred to remain in the world.
With Professor Patrick Geddes the Swami had numerous
conversations pertaining to the evolution of races, the transition in
Europe to modem times, ancient Greek civilization and the great
influence it had exerted in the formation of European culture, and
other topics of a like nature. Another interesting friend, whose
acquaintance the Swami renewed in Paris, was Sir Hiram Maxim of
machine-gun fame. Sir Hiram was then Mr. Maxim, who was knighted
in 1901. He was a lover of China and of India and a writer on religion
and philosophy. "He could not bear", said the Swami, "Christian
missionaries going to convert people in China, he himself being a lover
of Confucius. Under various Chinese pseudonyms he often wrote to
the papers against missionary propaganda in China. His wife was of the
same religious views and opinion." In 1893 Sir Hiram Maxim had
attended the Parliament of Religions and had been deeply impressed
by the Swami, in whose "commanding presence and vast learning"
bigotry could not survive.
Of his meeting with Hiram Maxim in Paris the Swami wrote to Mrs.
Bull on October 22: "Mr. Maxim of the gun fame is very much
interested in me, and he wants to put in his book on China and the
Chinese, something about my work in America. I have not any
documents with me if you have, kindly give them to him. He will
come to see you and talk it over with you. Canon Haweis also keeps
track of my work in England. So much about that." It is especially
noteworthy that the Swami went on in this letter to speak of his longcherished plan of international work. As more and more men and
women of cosmopolitan background, interests, and influence became
interested in his mission, the way seemed to be opening of itself. "It
may be", he wrote, "that Mother will now work up my original plan

of international work in that case you will find your work of the
[Cambridge Conferences] has not been in vain. It seems that after this
fall in my health, physical and mental, it is going to open out that way
larger and more international work. Mother knows best."
In Paris the Swami again met Madame Sarah Bernhardt, one of the
most celebrated actresses of the West, whom he had known in New
York in the early part of 1896. She had a fervent love for India and told
him many times that his country was very ancient, very civilized. One
year she staged a drama concerning India, and she presented a
perfectly realistic scene of an Indian street, with its men, women,
children, and sadhus. She had told the Swami in New York that in order
to gain a true setting for her play, she had visited for one full month
every museum and had carefully studied and acquainted herself with
everything relating to India the men and women, their dress, the
streets, the bathing ghats, and so on. She had a great desire to see
India. "C'est mon rve!" that is the dream of my life she now told
him, and she confided that the Prince of Wales, who later became
Edward VII, had promised to arrange everything for her travels in India
and for shooting tigers and elephants. However, she could not go to
India just then, she told the Swami to his amusement, for since she
never travelled without a special train and a retinue of attendants and
companions, the trip would be too expensive.
During his stay in Paris the Swami also came into closer touch with
one of his old admirers, Madame Calv, then the most celebrated
opera singer of the West. Her culture was not confined to music, for
she was also learned in philosophical and religious literature. Of her
the Swami wrote: "She was born poor, but by her innate talents,
prodigious labour and diligence, and her wrestling against much
hardship, she is now enormously rich and commands respect from
kings and emperors.... Though there are other great singers of both
sexes.... CaIv's genius coupled with learning is unique. The rare
combination of beauty, youth, talents, and 'divine' voice has assigned
Calv' the highest place among the singers of the West. There is,
indeed, no better teacher than misery and poverty. That constant fight
against dire poverty, misery, and hardship in the days of her girlhood,

which has led to her present triumph over them, has brought into her
life a unique sympathy and a depth of thought with a wide outlook."
Miss Josephine MacLeod proved a most helpful personal
companion for the Swami in Paris; it was often she who conducted him
to the various places of interest, entertainment, and study. She
enjoyed a great personal friendship with him, and was one of those
who saw that he required relief from his missionary labours; it was her
pleasure and she felt it her duty to keep him from too great an
abstraction of mind. When he was a guest in a house where she acted
as hostess, she made him feel free to come and go as the spirit moved
him. Others tended to ply him with questions, but not Miss MacLeod.
Her buoyant nature amused him; yet he also entered into serious or
exalted moods in her presence, and she was witness to some of his
most soul-inspiring utterances. Before meeting the Swami she had
studied the Gita, and her vision had been moulded according to its
teaching; thus from the first she "recognized" him as a Messenger of
the Spirit, a Christ-Soul, and she became an ardent champion of his
cause. She went to India, as we have seen, in company with Mrs. Ole
Bull and Swami Saradananda, and, together with other Western
disciples, she spent many days with the Swami, living in the
neighbourhood of the monastery at Belur. To her he was Master and
friend in one, and throughout her long life her many memories of him
were always inspiring to those to whom she told them.
Before leaving France, the Swami, together with Jules Bois, again
visited Brittany from the fifteenth to the nineteenth of October. Then,
on the night of October 24 he boarded the famous transcontinental
train, the Orient Express, leaving Paris, after nearly three months'
sojourn in France, for a journey across southwest Europe to
Constantinople. His travelling companions were Monsieur and
Madame Loyson, Jules Bois, Madame Calv and Miss Josephine
MacLeod. Madame Calv had decided not to sing that winter, but to
rest in the temperate climate of Egypt, and the Swami went as her
guest. On the evening of the twenty-fifth the party reached Vienna.
Here, during a stop of three days, the Swami visited many places of
interest, notably the Schnbrunn Palace, where Napoleon's son had

been kept virtually a prisoner and had died of a broken heart an

episode immortalized in a play named?' Aiglon (the Young Eagle),
which the Swami had recently seen played by Sarah Bernhardt. He was
interested in finding that every room of this palace was furnished and
decorated with the art and workmanship of some special country,
including India and China, and he was especially pleased with the
Indian decorations. He also visited the museum, and found its scientific
section and Dutch paintings especially interesting. After Paris, all other
cities of Europe were disappointing to him, but he was a fascinated
and well-informed student of history, and nothing concerning man
could be without interest for him. He knew and could talk and write
about the past, the present, and the probable future of the countries
through which his train passed. Commenting on Austria's decline of
power and prestige, he remarked, "If Turkey is called 'the sick man of
Europe', Austria ought to he called 'the sick woman of Europe'!" He
saw Europe bristling with portents of war. "Europe", he remarked
during his tour, "is a vast military camp." And he prophesied rightly:
"After the death of the present Austrian Emperor [Francis Joseph, who
died in 19 16], Germany will surely try to absorb the German-speaking
portion of the Austrian Empire and Russia and others are sure to
oppose her; so there is the possibility of a dreadful war." But even five
years earlier he had seen catastrophe brewing in the West: "Europe is
on the edge of a volcano," he had said in 1895 to Christine Greenstidel.
"If the fire is not extinguished by a flow of spirituality, it will erupt."
In the late evening of October 28, the party (with the exception of
the Loysons, who had gone on ahead) left Vienna for Constantinople,
which they reached on the thirtieth, having passed through Hungary,
Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. When they arrived, they had trouble
with the customs officers, who confiscated all their books and papers.
After much remonstrance and persuasion by Madame Calv and Jules
Bois, all but two of the books were allowed to be returned. The officers
promised to send these to the hotel immediately, but they never did.
"We went round the town and bazaar of Stamboul or Constantinople,"
the Swami wrote in his "Memoirs of European Travel". "Beyond the

Pont or creek is the Pera or foreigners' quarters, hotels, etc., whence

we got into a carriage, saw the town, and then took some rest."
The day after their arrival in Constantinople, the Swami and Miss
MacLeod decided to visit Scutari, which lies across the Bosporus, in
order to see Pre Hyacinthe, who, with his wife, was staying there for a
time at the American College for Girls. The Swami and, his companion
experienced some difficulty, because neither could speak Turkish or
Arabic. By signs they managed to hire a boat to take them across the
strip of water, and then they hired a carriage. "On the way," the Swami
wrote in his "Memoirs", "we saw the scat of a Sufi fakir [dervish].
These fakirs cure people's diseases, which they do in the following
manner. First they read a portion of their scriptures, moving their body
backward and forward; then they begin to dance and gradually get a
sort of inspiration, after which they heal the disease by treading on the
patient's body." The Swami had a long talk with Pre Hyacinthe, and
that day he had his meal in the great Scutari cemetery, with its
Mountains, cypresses, coffee-houses, and clutter of marble
tombstones.
The trip back to Constantinople proved even more difficult, as the
boat in which they had come was found only after a long search, and
they were landed far from their hotel, to which they returned by tram.
The Swami made his stay in Constantinople useful in various ways. He
visited every place of interest; he saw the Museum of Antiquities, with
its remarkable collection of sarcophagi and other relies of the past, the
foreign quarters, the ancient walls, and the fortress of seven towers,
honeycombed with the dark passages and cells of a prison "a
dreadful place". And from a site above Topkhana across the Golden
Horn he had a wide view of historic Stamboul, with its many ancient
mosques, columns, minarets, towers, and domes.
Through the letters of introduction he had brought with him from
Sir Hiram Maxim, the Swami met several distinguished persons in both
Vienna and Constantinople. In the latter city he dined with a French
charge d'affaires and made the acquaintance of a Greek pasha and also
an Albanian gentleman. As Pre Hyacinthe was not permitted to speak
publicly in Constantinople, the Swami also could not do so; but several

private conversaziones and drawing-room talks were arranged for him,

at which he spoke on the religion of the Vedanta to select audiences.
And on November 2, he again crossed the Bosporus (this time
accompanied by Madame Calv and Jules Bois) to deliver a wellattended lecture on Hinduism in the chapel at the American College for
Girls in Scutari; for here the government had not prevented Pre
Hyacinthe from speaking.
"What a pilgrimage it was!" Madame Calv6 wrote in her
reminiscences. "Science philosophy, and history had no secrets from
the Swami. I listened with all my ears to the wise and learned discourse
that went on around me. I did not attempt to join in their arguments,
but I sang on all occasions, as is my custom. The Swami would discuss
all sorts of questions with Father Loyson [Pre Hyacinthe], who was a
scholar and theologian of repute. It was interesting to see that the
Swami was able to give the exact text of a document, the date of a
Church Council, when Father Loyson himself was not certain."
After about ten days in Constantinople the Swami and his friends
took the steamer for Athens. En route they saw the islands of the Sea
of Marmara, on one of which the Swami visited an Orthodox Greek
monastery. On an island of the Archipelago he met the distinguished
Professor R. S. Lepper whom he had known when the latter was a
professor in the Pachaiyappa's College in Madras. And on another of
these islands he saw the ruins of a temple on the seashore, which he
thought must have been dedicated to Neptune (or the Greek
Poseidon), the God of the sea. They sailed on to Piraeus, the port of
Athens, where that night the ship was held in quarantine; only the
following morning could the Swami and his party disembark.
Describing his visit to Greece in his "Memoirs" the Swami wrote:
Port Piraeus is a small town, but very beautiful, having a European
air about it in all respects, except that one meets now and then with
one or two Greeks dressed in gowns. From there we drove five miles to
have a look at the ancient walls of Athens, which used to connect the
city with the port. Then we went through the town; the Acropolis, the
hotels, houses, and streets, and all were very neat and clean. The
palace is a small one. The same day, again, we climbed the hillock and

had a view of the Acropolis, the temple of the Wingless Victory, and
the Parthenon, etc. The temple is made of white marble. Some
standing remains of columns also we saw. The next day, we again went
to see these with Mademoiselle Melcarvi, who explained to us various
historical facts relating thereto. On the second day, we visited the
temple of Olympian Zeus, Theatre Dionysius, etc., as far as the
seashore. The third day, we set out for Eleusis, which was the chief
religious seat of the Greeks. Here, it was that the famous Elusinian
Mysteries used to be played. The ancient theatre of this place has been
built anew by a rich Greek.... At 10 a.m. on the fourth day, we got on
board the Russian steamer, Czar, bound for Egypt. After reaching the
dock we came to learn that the steamer was to start at 4 a.m. [p.m.?]
perhaps we were too early or there would be some extra delay in
loading the cargo. So, having no other alternative, we went round and
made a cursory acquaintance with the sculpture of Ageladas and his
three pupils, Phidias, Myron, and Polycletus, who had flourished
between 576 B.C. and 486 B.C. Even here we began to feel the great
heat. In a Russian ship the first class is over the screw, and the. rest is
only deck full of passengers, and cattle, and sheep. Besides, no ice
was available in this steamer.
In Egypt the Swami was especially interested in the Cairo museum,
and his mind often reverted, in all the vividness of his historical
imagination, to the reigns of those Pharaohs who had made Egypt
mighty and a world power in the days of old. And yet, in his inmost
heart, he was withdrawn from all external matters. The underlying
vanity of everything had made him reflect powerfully on the terrible
bondage of Maya. His compassion for those caught in it was the
compassion of a Christ.
One day, while sightseeing in Cairo, they found themselves in a
squalid street inhabited by women of ill-fame. As Madame Calv6 later
told the story, a group of women sitting on a bench in the shadow of a
dilapidated building began calling to the Swami and lewdly laughing.,
His friends tried to hurry him on, but he detached himself from them
and approached the bench. "Poor children!" he said, and he began to
weep. The women were silenced and abashed. One of them leaned

forward and kissed the hem of his robe, murmuring, "Man of God!
Man of God!" Presently he joined his party, and they walked on.
The Swami's meditative habit, which had revealed itself
throughout his second visit to the West in increasingly intense forms,
now reached a veritable climax. In Paris, his mind had often been far
from his environment, and here in Egypt it seemed as if he were
turning the last pages in the book of experience. Even the Sphinx and
the Pyramids, even the days spent on the Nile amidst the glories of
ancient temples and rich scenery did not affect him. And one who was
with him at the time said, "How tired and world-weary he seemed!"
And then there were reasons for his abstraction of mind. In far-off
India Captain Sevier, his great friend and disciple, was on his deathbed
in the last week of October; and the Swami had perceived this
intuitively. He became restless to return to India. Thus one day quite
suddenly he told his companions that he would depart for India. They
were all saddened at this news. But seeing his longing to return home,
Madame Calv, always generous, paid the fare for his voyage to
Bombay. She looked upon him as a great and noble saint, whose
"influence upon my spiritual life was profound". Using the Roman
Catholic term, she had addressed him as Mon Pre, "My Father". To
Miss MacLeod he was prophet and friend; to Monsieur Bois he was a
great thinker and a man of God. So it was with a feeling partly of
sadness and partly of resignation that they saw him extend his hands
to them in a final benediction.
On the night of November 26, 1900, he boarded the first steamer
for Indiaa ship of the Italian line, the S.S. Rubbatino. And on
December 6, 1900, after a voyage of eleven days, when the ship
touched the shores of India, he was beside himself with joy, for his
longing to be with his brother-disciples and disciples was now about to
be realized. His home-coming was entirely incognito, but travelling on
the Bombay Express from Bombay to Calcutta, he met his old friend
Manmathanath Bhattacharya. They stared at each other for a moment
in astonishment, and then entered into joyous conversation.

Late in the evening of December 9, 1900, the Swami arrived at the

Belur Monastery. His brother-monks and the brahmacharis were taking
their meal when the gardener, out of breath, came running in to tell
them, "A sahib has come!" Immediately there was much excitement
and speculation as to who the sahib might be, who had come at that
late hour and what his business with them could be. Then to their
great surprise the sahib rushed into their midst, and, when they saw
who he was they all cried out excitedly, "Oh, Swamiji has come!
Swamiji has come!" They could not believe their eyes. At once an
Asana (seat) was spread for him and he was served with a large helping
of the Khichuri which was the food prepared for that night. He partook
of it with great zest, as it was many months since he had tasted it.
Later, the monks enjoyed several delightful hours while the Swami
chatted to them about his varied experiences in the West. There was
no sleeping that night. They were happy beyond measure; he had
come back to them, altogether unexpectedly. No words can describe
their feeling. And now, though they knew it not, he was to be with
them till the end.
The Swami said that when he had first visited the Occident, he had
been impressed with its power and organization and its apparent
democracy; but now he saw that its progressive spirit was composed
for the most part of greed, selfishness, and struggle for privilege and
power. He was averse to the system of exploitation by which small
business interests could be swallowed up by large combinations; that
was tyranny indeed. "A strong combination he was able to admire, but
what beauty of combination was there, amongst a pack of wolves?" He
said to someone that his riper experience of Western life made it
appear to him "like hell", and he held that China had gone nearer to
the ideal conception of human ethics than newer countries had ever
done or could do.
In connection with China, the Swami once said at a later time, "I
see before me the body of an elephant. There is a foal within. But it is a
lion-cub that comes out of it. It will grow in future, and China shall
become great and powerful."

Before closing the chapter it will be interesting to know Sister

Nivedita's impression of the Swami during his last visit to the West:
The outstanding impression made by the Swami's bearing, during
all these months of European and American life, was one of almost
complete indifference to his surroundings. Current estimates of value
left him entirely unaffected. He was never in any way startled or
incredulous under success, being too deeply convinced of the
greatness of the Power that worked through him, to be surprised by it.
But neither was he unnerved by external failure. Both victory and
defeat would come and go. He was their witness. "Why should I care, if
the world itself were to disappear?" he said once. "According to my
philosophy, that, you know, would be a very good thing! But in fact,"
he added, in tones suddenly graver, "all that is against me must be
with me in the end. Am I not HER soldier?"
He moved fearless and unhesitant through the luxury of the West.
As determinedly as I had seen him in India, dressed in the two
garments of simple folk, sitting on the floor and eating with his fingers,
so, equally without doubt or shrinking, was his acceptance of the
complexity of the means of living in America or France. Monk and king,
he said, were obverse and reverse of a single medal. From the use of
the best, to the renunciation of all, was but one step. India had thrown
all her prestige in the past, round poverty. Some prestige was, in the
future, to be cast round wealth.
Rapid changes of fortune, however, must always be the fate of
one who wanders from door to door, accepting the hospitality of
foreign peoples. These reversals he never seemed to notice. No
institution, no environment, stood between him and any human heart.
His confidence in that Divine-within-Man of which he talked, was as
perfect, and his appeal as direct, when he talked with the imperialist
aristocrat or the American millionaire, as with the exploited and
oppressed. But the outflow of his love and courtesy was always for the
simple.
Thus, student and citizen of the world as others were proud to
claim him, it was yet always on the glory of his Indian birth that he

took his stand. And in the midst of the surroundings and opportunities
of princes, it was more and more, the monk who stood revealed.

VISIT TO MAYAVATI
The Swami is back in his own world that of his beloved India
and her monastic life. Though now almost ruined in health, he will
again take up the direction of his Indian work and the teaching and
training of his brother-monks and disciples at Belur Math. Ten days
after his arrival in India, he writes to Christine Greenstidel.
Gay and busy Paris, grim old Constantinople, sparkling little
Athens, and pyramidal Cairo, all left behind, and here I am writing in
my room on the Ganga, in the Math; it is quiet and still, the broad river
is dancing in the bright sunshine, only now and the n an occasional
cargo boat breaking the silence with the splashing of its oars. It is the
cold season here, but the middle of the day is warm, and bright every
day, and every hour of the day.... Everything is green and gold, and the
grass is like velvet, yet the air is cold and crisp and. delightful. I meant
to take rest in India a few months, and then next summer to England
once more.
The Swami had hastened to India because his mind had been
telling him that Mr. Sevier was seriously ill; moreover, he wanted to
meet him anyhow. Another reason was his own ill health. He was
feeling some trouble in the heart. On arrival at Belur Math, he learnt
that Mr. Sevier, his beloved disciple, had passed away on October 28 (1
900). On December 11 he wrote to Miss MacLeod: "Alas, my hurrying
was of no use. Poor Captain Sevier passed away, a few days ago
thus two Englishmen gave up their lives for us us the Hindus. This is
martyrdom, if anything is. Mrs. Sevier I have written just now, to know
her decision.' A fortnight later he again wrote to Miss MacLeod.. "Dear
Mr. Sevier passed away before I could arrive. He was cremated on the
banks of the river that flows by his Ashrama, a la Hindu, covered with
garlands, the Brahmins carrying the body, and boys chanting the
Vedas.... Dear Mrs. Sevier is calm. A letter she wrote me to Paris comes

back this mail. I am going tomorrow to pay her a visit. Lord bless her,
dear brave soul!"
To Mrs. Bull the Swami had written on December 15: "Things here
have gone better than I expected, during my absence; only Mr. Sevier
has passed away. It was a tremendous blow, sure, and I don't know the
future of the work in the Himalayas. I am expecting daily a letter from
Mrs. Sevier who is there still."
The Swami at once telegraphed to Mrs. Sevier to say that he
would be going to Mayavati, the date to be made known before
starting. In reply, he was asked to inform her of the date of his going
there at least eight days beforehand, to enable them at Mayavati to
make the necessary arrangements. But the Swami, unaware of the
time that these arrangements would take to make, and anxious to
hurry up matters, at once wired saying that he was leaving Calcutta on
December 27, and was due to reach Kathgodam on the 29th. The
telegram reached Mayavati on the 25th. The Swami had also sent a
telegram to his Almora friend, Lala Badri Sah, in order to be sure of
being met by someone at Kathgodam, in case those from Mayavati
failed to arrive in time. Accordingly Lala Badri Sah had sent Lala Govind
Sah from Almora to receive the Swami at Kathgodam. But Mayavati
had not been behindhand, for Swami Virajananda had gone from
village to village after receiving the telegram, engaged some dandymen and coolies at high rates, and brought them by forced marches to
Kathgodam by 12 midnight on December 28, covering the distance of
sixty-five miles in two days, instead of the usual three.
The Swami's train arrived at Kathgodam at 5 a.m. on the 29th.
With him had come Swamis Shivananda and Sadananda. On hearing of
Swami Virajananda's achievement he exclaimed, "That's my man!" Lala
Govind Sah pressed the Swami to travel first to Almora; but, on the
entreaties of Virajananda, it was decided to go direct to Mayavati.
Because the latter was tired after his arduous exertions, and because
the Swami himself was feeling feverish, they remained at Kathgodam
for a day before facing the hardships of the hill journey. The Swami
could not have chosen a worse time for going to the hills. Moreover
the winter of 1900-1901 was unusually severe, and particularly so

when he visited Mayavati. The journey there in those days, compared

to what it is today, was difficult. The account of his hill journeys to and
from Mayavati, and of his stay there, is worth giving in such detail as
we have. It brings us into close touch with his personality, and we
catch the savour of his loving, unaffected relations with his disciples.
.On the morning of starting, knowing how tired Virajananda must
still be, the Swami was concerned to see that this disciple of his should
have a pony. On Virajananda the whole management of the journey
devolved. He also did the cooking, attended the Swami at meals, and
did all sorts of services for his comfort. This was not the first time that
he had had the privilege of serving his guru. During the latter's stay at
Belur Math and in Calcutta, before his second visit to the West,
Virajananda, had greatly pleased the Swami by his services. Swami
Sadananda saw to the Swami's clothing, luggage, and other personal
needs. Throughout the first day the Swami was as happy as a child. The
party, which Lala Govind Sah had joined, halted for their midday meal
at Bhim Tal, the Swami himself superintending the cooking. The
evening halt was at Dhari, some seventeen miles from Kathgodam,
where they stayed the night in a dak bungalow.
On the day following, it was raining in the early morning and snow
threatened. However, the party left Dhari late in the morning, with a
day's march of fifteen miles before them. The sky was still overcast
with heavy clouds; therefore Swami Virajananda had every reason for
anxiety, fearing that there would be a heavy snow-fall and that unless
they hurried, they would be put to great trouble. He feared most for
the Swami, whose health called for every precaution. After going about
two miles it began to rain steadily, and it was also foggy. Snow-flakes
started to come down, but not enough to cover the ground. By and by,
snow began to fall continuously, but the Swami took it as good fun. As
the ground became thickly covered with snow, his dandy-men slipped
several times when making descents, but he was not nervous at all. On
the contrary, he was all the while merry and kept up the spirits of his
dandy-bearers by joking with them. One of them had been married
several times and had lost all his wives. The Swami asked him for fun's
sake, whether he would like to marry again. The man replied, "Of

course I would; but where shall I find the money for my wife's dowry?"
When the Swami said to him, "Suppose I give it to you", the old man
was delighted and assured the Swami that he would be very grateful.
The party moved on slowly through biting wind and snow. It was
nearly 3 p.m. when they arrived at Paurhapani, having covered seven
and a half miles from Dhari. A small shop was there, where the
travellers decided to halt for an hour or two to cook their meal. The
Swami's dandy-men begged him to allow them to have tea. Warmed
and refreshed with tea, they said, they would move on quickly to
Mournalla, the night halt intended. The Swami, feeling for them,
agreed, and promised to pay for their refreshment. Soon the men were
smoking their hookahs lazily and blowing at a bad fire in an effort to
make the damp wood burn. When Swami Virajananda came on the
scene, he grew all the more uneasy, fearing that there was every
possibility of the whole party's having to spend the night in that shop.
It was a miserable hut of one room, some fifteen by twenty feet, with a
badly thatched roof In this room was the shop, the kitchen, the
sleeping place of the owner, and a pile of fire-wood in one corner. The
smoke from the damp wood in the fire-place just a hole in the
ground in the middle of the room was terrible. The fire itself was
never out, smouldering logs being kept for travellers who came for a
little glowing charcoal to light their hookahs or their own cooking-fires
with. In this limited space the party made themselves as comfortable
as they could, while the men prepared their tea in an adjoining shelter.
This had no walls, and, as the roof consisted of brush-wood supported
by a few poles, rain and melted snow dripped through constantly. Time
flew by. Once before the fire with their hookahs in hand, men were in
no hurry to start. Soon it was 5 p.m., and getting dark. It was plain that
the party would have to spend the night in that "awful hole", as they
called it: going to Mournalla was impossible.
Then the Swami became furious in childlike impatience, and
roared at them. They were all fools for having allowed him undertake
such a journey when there was a chance of snow-fall. The eldest of
them should have been wiser; the youngest should never have
dissuaded him from his intention of visiting Almora first. All kept quiet,

and after a time the Swami became grave and silent. It had been the
Swami's mistake, Virajananda said respectfully after a while, for having
allowed the dandy-men to stop or to prepare tea and idle away the
time. Without that the party could have reached Mournalla dak
bungalow by evening. The Swami listened in silence, like a guilty child,
and then said to Virajananda, his disciple, "Now come! Don't mind
anything I said. We must make the best of our situation." Next he
asked the latter to massage his spine a little, since he was feeling a chill
in his back. The Swami was again merry now, as if it were great fun. In
the course of the hearty talk that followed, Virajananda said to the
Swami, "It was a significant event that you with your disciples should
be in this plight on the night which marks the passing of the nineteenth
century and the advent of the twentieth." The Swami smiled in a
thoughtful way.
To add to their anxiety, it was discovered that Swami Sadananda
and Lala Govind Sah were not with the party. They had gone far ahead
and had taken it for granted that the others were following. The
Swami's mind was not relieved even when told that they must have by
that time reached the dak bungalow, for there was a good chance of
their losing the way in the dark and the snow. He could not rest
content until a man was found who, for a large reward, agreed to run
to Mournalla and back, to find the missing members and inform the
Swami of their safe arrival there. Still another untoward incident
occurred at Paurhapani. This was when Swami Shivananda's horse
which had perhaps never seen snow before, dashed back to
Kathgodam at full speed, as soon as its rider dismounted. Neither the
horse, nor the syce was heard of again! The result was that the
youngest member of the party was forced to travel the remaining
distance on foot, having given his own horse to Swami Shivananda.
That night the Swami and his companions had for food "horse
chapatis", as they called them, each half an inch thick and not
thoroughly baked, and a potato curry. Sleep was out of the question.
Snow and rain dripped on the weary travellers, and they were
suffocated by the smoke. As a climax to this unpleasantness, the
Swami heard the shopkeeper speaking abusively of his visitors to one

of his relatives. He spoke in Pahari, the language of the hill people,

which the Swami could follow to some extent. He was saying that he
ought not to have inconvenienced himself by giving the party shelter,
and that next morning he would ask them to leave. The Swami no
doubt felt disgusted with the shopkeeper, but that did not prevent him
from giving him a good tip when departing. Thus the last night of 1900
passed a trying night indeed.
Next morning the party continued their journey through twelve
inches of snow. The rested dandy-men went at a fast pace, and
Virajananda, determined to keep up with the Swami, had to run most
of the way. The latter was charmed by the scene of snow-covered hills
and trees, and often exclaimed, pointing to some ugly snow-capped
stump or boulder, "Look, how snow makes everything beautiful!" He
chatted freely and humorously with his disciple. When they arrived at
Mournalla dak bungalow, the Swami rejoiced to find Swami Sadananda
and his companion there. Welcomed to a cheery fire, a warm bright
room, and a hearty meal, he was in a happy mood and gave an
amusing account of the previous night's experiences, as if he had
enjoyed them immensely. He spoke admiringly of Virajananda, saying
that no words could sufficiently praise his cool judgement and selfpossession under stress and provocation, and ended by blessing him
from the depth of his heart. The party halted at Mournalla for the day.
The next morning, January 2, 1901, the snow thawed, and the
journey to the next two stages, Devidhura and Dhunaghat, a distance
of twenty-one miles, was pleasant. The Swami walked a part of the
way towards the end, but doing so caused him to breathe hard and
tired him exceedingly. He supported himself with a staff on one side,
and by the shoulder of Swami Virajananda on the other, "as an old and
affectionate father might lean on his young son". Pointing to his
physical condition he said to his disciple, "See, how weak and aged I
have become. I feel even this short walk so difficult, while in former
days I thought nothing of walking twenty to twenty-five miles in the
mountains." His companion was much distressed at this statement and
became alarmed when a moment later he heard the Swami say, "You
see, my son, now I am coming to the end!" In fact his health was very

poor, and there was danger at any time of a complete breakdown. At

any moment the end might have come.
The Swami with his party arrived at Mayavati on January 3. When
he caught sight of the Ashrama position and its buildings, he was much
pleased. Reaching the stream in the canyon below he heard the
monastery bell strike twelve. He was so keen to reach the Ashrama
that he mounted a horse and pressed on at full speed. The Ashrama
had been artistically decorated for the occasion with evergreens and
flowers. Needless to say, the joy of the disciples there knew no bounds
at meeting the Swami after so long a time.
Unfortunately, during most of the Swami's stay, Mayavati was
snow-bound, so that he was compelled to remain indoors a great deal
of the time; and he could not take long walks, much as he desired to
do. He was given a room on the first floor of the Ashrama; but the cold
proved too intense for his comfort. From January 9 he stayed in the
library-room on the ground floor, which had a big fire place. He
remained at Mayavati until the 18th. He was obviously in declining
health. In spite of his high spirits, it was seen that he could not stand
any physical strain, and several times he had attacks of asthma which,
though not severe, alarmed those with him. For all this, he was only
thirty-seven years of age.
On the morning of January 4 the Swami went for a walk to the
Lohaghat boundary, and rode back. Hail came on as they were
returning, and then it began to snow the whole day with slight
remissions. About six inches of snow fell. In the evening it stopped.
On January 5 the weather was clear, though outside everything
was snow-covered in the morning. The Swami was feeling better. On
this day he told Swami Swarupananda of his ideas about the work that
he wished to be carried out at the Ashrama, and charged him to push
on with it with zeal and energy. The latter said that as for himself he
would do all he could, but without the co-operation of the brothermonks of the Ashrama, and the assurance that they would remain
there for at least three consecutive years, the task was beyond his
power. The Swami understood, and when all were gathered before

him, he broached the subject, asking one after the other if he were
willing to stay for three years. All but Swami Virajananda agreed. When
his turn came, he humbly but firmly said that he intended to pass some
time exclusively in meditation elsewhere, living on alms. The Swami
tried to dissuade him saying: "Don't ruin your health by practising
austerities, but try to profit by our experience. We have subjected
ourselves to extreme austerities, but what has been the result? the
break- down of our health in the prime of manhood, for which we are
still suffering. Besides, how can you think of meditating for hours?
Enough if you can concentrate your mind for five minutes, or even one
minute; for that purpose only certain hours in the morning and
evening are needed. The rest of the time you will have to engage
yourself in studies or some work for the general good. My disciples
must emphasize work more than austerities. Work itself should be a
part of their spiritual discipline and their austerities." Swami
Virajananda admitted the truth of his Master's words, but respectfully
submitted that for all that, austerity was needed to gain strength of
character and to conserve the spiritual power, and that both these
were imperative if one were to work without attachment. After he had
gone out on some duty, the Swami acknowledged that at heart he
knew that Virajananda was right and appreciated his feelings, for he
himself valued the life of meditation and the freedom of the monk.
Recalling his own itinerant days living on alms and, with the mind
fixed on God, having no thought of the world he declared that they
were the happiest and sweetest days of his life, and that he would
gladly give anything, in exchange for the obscurity that frees one from
the cares and worries of public life.
The' Swami's conversation was a constant source of inspiration to
the Mayavati brotherhood. One day in the course of a talk he suddenly
got up from his seat and paced to and fro, his voice raised and eyes
aflame with emotion, as if he were lecturing to a huge audience. He
was speaking of his Western disciples, of their exemplary devotion and
loyalty to him, of their readiness to go into the jaws of death at his
command, of how not one or two but dozens would do the same; and
of how they had served him lovingly, silently, truly, and were ready to

renounce everything at a word from him. "Look at Captain Sevier,"

cried the Swami, "how he died a martyr to the cause, at Mayavati!"
On another occasion, speaking of obedience, he said, "Obedience
and respect cannot be enforced by word of command; neither can
they be exacted. It depends upon the man, upon his loving nature and
exalted character. None can resist true love and greatness." At the
same time he emphasized the need for loyalty to the work undertaken,
loyalty to the organization, and loyalty to the man placed in charge of a
centre.
January 6 was a clear day, though the snow had hardened with
frost. On this day he received a number of visitors from Champawat,
and wrote a letter to Mrs. Bull, saying:
Mrs. Sevier is a strong woman, and has borne her loss quietly and
bravely. She is coming over to England in April, and I am going over
with her. I ought to come to England as early as I can this summer; and
as she must go to attend to her husband's affairs, I accompany her.
This place is very, very beautiful, and they have made it simply
exquisite. It is a huge place several acres in area and is very well kept. I
hope Mrs. Sevier will be in a position to keep it up in the future. She
wishes it ever so much, of course.... It is snowing heavily here, and I
was caught in a blizzard on the way... Today I walked over the snow
uphill about a mile, seeing Mrs. Sevier's lands; she has made beautiful
roads all over. Plenty of gardens, fields, orchards, and large forests, all
in her land. The living houses are so simple, so clean, and so pretty,
and, above all, so suited for the purpose.... Kindly convey my undying
love to Miss Mller the next time you see her; so to Sturdy....
PS Kali has taken two sacrifices; the cause has already two
European martyrs. Now it is going to rise up splendidly....
The snow is lying all round six inches deep, the sun is bright and
glorious, and now in the middle of the day we are sitting outside,
reading And the snow all about us! The winter here is very mild in spite
of the snow. The air is dry and balmy, and the water beyond all praise.
When the Swami visited Mayavati, Swamis Swarupananda,
Virajananda, Vimalananda, Sachchidananda (Senior), and Brahmachari

Amritananda (Charles Johnston of New York) were there as inmates of

the Ashrama; and Harendra (Nadu) had gone there as a guest. They
used to carry on the Ashrama work in co-operation with Mrs. Sevier.
Her husband, before his passing away, had led a very austere life. He
used to wear simple clothes, and work very hard for the Ashrama. He
practised austerity and poverty on principle; so much so that people
were astonished. He had suffered from urinary trouble for a long time,
but had never worried about it. Ultimately it took a serious turn.
Everybody advised him to go to Almora and get himself properly
examined and treated, but in vain. He said, "I never stayed at one place
all my life for more than six months; now I have determined that I shall
never leave Mayavati." Taking the name of God, he endured the pain
of his disease. It was a sorry sight indeed. He finally succumbed to the
trouble on October 28, 1900. He had given his life for the cause of his
Master.
To return to the account of the Swami's visit to Mayavati. The
morning of January 7 was clear. The Swami, with Swamis
Sachchidananda, Shivananda, Mrs. Sevier, and others, climbed to
Dharamgarh (also known as Dharamghar) early in the day.
The Swami managed the climb fairly well. Of the many views of
the snow ranges that one gets at Mayavati, that from Dharamgarh, the
highest point (about 7,000 feet) within the Mayavati boundary, is the
finest. The Swami was so pleased with the spot and its grand view that
he wished to have a hermitage built there, where he could meditate in
solitude, undisturbed. His favourite walk was along the lakeside. One
day, walking there with Mrs. Sevier and others, he said to her, "In the
latter part of my life, I shall give up all public work and pass my days in
writing books and whistling merry tunes by this lake, free as a child!" A
shrine room, with the photograph of Shri Ramakrishna installed in it,
had for some time been established at the Ashrama at the earnest
desire of some of the inmates. One morning the Swami happened to
go into this room. He found that regular worship was being done with
flowers, incense, and other offerings, He said nothing at the time, but
that evening, when all were gathered about the fireplace, he spoke
vehemently, disapproving of ritual worship in an Advaita Ashrama. It

should never have been done, he said. There, attention was to be paid
only to the subjective side of religion, such as meditation, individual
and collective study of the scriptures, and the practice and teaching of
the highest spiritual monism, free from any dualistic weakness or
dependence. The Ashrama had been dedicated to Advaita and to
Advaita alone. He had therefore the right to speak as he did. Though
the Swami was emphatic in his criticism of the introduction of ritual
worship there, he did not order them to do away with the worshiproom. It was not his intention to hurt the feelings of those who were
responsible for it: that would have been to use his power. He wanted
them to see their mistake and rectify it. His uncompromising attitude
in the matter did in fact lead to the discontinuance of the worship, and
ultimately to the abolition of the shrine itself from March 18, 1902.
When the Swami returned to Belur Math, in speaking of the above
incident, he remarked, "I thought of having one centre at least where
the external worship of Shri Ramakrishna would not find a place. But
going there I found that the Old Man had already established himself
even there! Well, Well!"
Later, soon after the Swami's demise, Swami Vimalananda, who
still doubted whether it was right for him to profess himself a member
of Advaita Ashrama when he leaned towards dualism, appealed to the
Holy Mother in this connection. He perhaps thought that if she
approved, a shrine for Shri Ramakrishna could be re-established at
Mayavati. But to his disappointment the Holy Mother, in her reply
from Jayrambati in September 1902, expressed a different view, as
follows:
One who is our guru [Shri Ramakrishna], he is Advaita. Since you
all are his disciples, you too are Advaitins. I can emphatically say, you
are surely Advaitavadins.
Convey my love and blessings to Mrs. Sevier. Let all of you accept
my blessings.... It is a woman's Math; stay carefully in the Math.
Swamiji's strength is no more....
On January 8 the Swami did not go out. It snowed from 3 p.m. and
stopped in the evening. Next day Mr. Beadon, a son of a former

Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and a tea-planter, came in the

afternoon from Chirapani, along with one Pandit Kashiram, on
invitation from "Mother" (Mrs. Sevier), to see the Swami. They
stopped for the night. In the morning of that day, the 9th, the Swami
had gone out for a short walk.
On January 10 the sky was clear, and there was a grand view of
the snows. In the afternoon and evening the Swami wrote an article,
"Aryans and Tamilians", for Prabuddha Bharata. In this article he points
out that virtually every known race, at almost every stage of social
development, has poured into India. He writes: "Whatever may be the
import of the philological terms 'Aryan' and 'Tamilian', even taking for
granted that both these grand sub-divisions of Indian humanity came
from outside the western frontier, the dividing line had been, from the
most ancient times, one of the language and not of blood."
While at Mayavati the Swami was invited by Lala Badri Sah to be
his guest at Almora, but he had to decline the invitation. Instead, he
asked the old gentleman to come to Mayavati if he could. Lala Badri
Sah gladly agreed, and, with his youngest brother, Lala Mohanlal Sah,
met the Swami there on January I0. Lala Govind Sah was already there.
The weather on the 11th was fine, but the Swami was not well.
The Tahsildar, with others, came to see him. On the 12th the Swami
was feeling better, and went out for a walk. Lala Badri Sah had brought
a sun-dial. This he gave to the Ashrama. Through the efforts of Swami
Virajananda, there was an ice-cream party. He had made a large,
delicious block of it with the help of the thick ice that often covers the
lake in winter. The Swami relished this favourite preparation of his.
Towards evening he felt unwell; but in spite of it, he sang some songs.
January 13 was the Swami's birthday, making him thirty-eight
years of age. It was a rainy day, but he was feeling better. The day
following was Mr. Sevier's birthday. He would have been fifty-six, had
he been alive. There was heavy and continuous rain. The Swami wrote
about the Theosophists under the heading "Stray Remarks on
Theosophy", and then began the article "The Social Conference
Address", both for Prabuddha Bharata. In the former there is sincere

criticism. The latter is a reply to Mr. justice Ranade's Presidential

Address at the Indian Social Conference of 1900. While admitting the
liberalism and patriotism of the great Marathi leader, the Swami in this
article denounces his criticism of the sannyasis. It is a passionate
defence of Indian monasticism and an affirmation of its value as shown
by Indian history. Besides this writing he made a translation of the
"Nasadiya-Sukta" of the Rig-Veda at the request of a friend, a
distinguished man of science.
The 15th was a clear day, with a little snow on the ground. The
Swami went up to the lake, and enjoyed a walk by its side. He also
wrote a letter to Mr. Sturdy saying: "So sorry to learn the passing away
of Mrs. Sturdy. She has been a very good wife and good mother, and it
is not ordinarily one meets with such in this life. The life is full of
shocks, but the effects pass away anyhow, that is the hope...."
While the Swami was at Mayavati, the disciples, out of their great
love for him, served him in every way. One day, dinner being
exceedingly late, he became impatient at the evident lack of
punctuality and seeming remissness. He blamed everyone and finally
went to the kitchen to reprimand Virajananda, who was then cooking.
But seeing the latter in that room thick with smoke, doing his best, and
blowing at a smouldering fire, he came away without saying anything.
When a long time after, food was brought, the Swami said, "Take it
away! I shall have none of it!" But the disciple, knowing his Master
well, said nothing. He placed the dishes near him and waited. Then,
like a child, the Swami sat down and commenced to eat. When he
tasted the food, he was delighted. All his anger was suddenly gone. He
praised the cooking highly, and made a hearty meal. In the course of it
he said, in a most endearing way, "Now I know why I got so angry: I
was frightfully hungry."
Realizing how difficult it is for a Westerner to understand the
Hindu viewpoint as regards service to the guru, he explained to the
American disciple then at Mayavati, Brahmachari Amritananda: "You
see how they serve me! To a Westerner, this devotion may seem
servile, and you may be shocked at the way I accept all this service
without remonstrance. But you must understand the Indian idea, then

everything will be clear to you. This is the spontaneous devotion of the

disciple to the guru. This service to the guru is one of the means by
which the disciple progresses in spirituality."
The 16th was cloudy in the morning, and very chilly. In the evening
the Swami went for a walk with Mother Sevier. She wrote and sent a
message to the Tahsildar, and in the evening he sent his horse for the
Swami. Being confined indoors most of the time, the latter became
impatient to go down to the plains. But it was difficult to secure coolies
even at high rates, since they were not willing to make the long
journey through snow. This only added to his restlessness.
The 17th, the Swami's last full day at Mayavati, was cloudy. It had
not been possible to arrange for coolies even by the evening. When
Swami Virajananda saw the Swami anxious on this account, he said,
"Never mind, Swamiji! In that case, we ourselves will carry you down
somehow!." At this the Swami laughed outright and said jovially, "Oh, I
see! you are scheming to throw me into the Khud [canyon]!" It was
decided to go down to Pilibhit by way of Tanakpur.
Early on the 18th Swami Swarupananda went to Chirapani to bring
coolies from Mr. Beadon's tea estate, and sent them to Mayavati by
11.30 a.m. But by this time the man who had been sent from Mayavati
two or three days before to engage coolies in the nearby villages, had
returned with the required number. So those collected by
Swarupananda had to be dismissed with sufficient recompense. The
Swami left Mayavati by noon, and met Swarupananda on the way. The
latter accompanied him and his party as far as Champawat, where they
stopped for the night in the dak bungalow. The Tahsildar called in the
evening.
All the way from Mayavati to Pilibhit the Swami was in excellent
spirits. On the first night, in the dak bungalow at Champawat, he talked
with great fervour of Shri Ramakrishna, especially of his inner sight and
of his judgement of men. He said that whatever the Master had
predicted had come to pass. Therefore, he (the Swami), in his relations
with his brother-disciples, was always influenced by what Shri
Ramakrishna had said of them. A few disciples Ramakrishna had

described as Ishvarakotis (souls belonging to a Divine category). The

Swami said that he had, by his own insight and repeated tests, satisfied
himself as to the superior intrinsic excellence of these special souls.
Though he might not always approve of their ways and opinions, and
might even speak harsh words to them now and then, yet in his heart
he always gave them a much higher position than the others, because
Shri Ramakrishna, whose judgement he accepted as unerring and
unassailable, himself had done so. Repeatedly he exclaimed, "And
above all, above all, I am loyal! I am loyal to the core of my heart!"
On another occasion the Swami spoke of the Ishvarakotis as
follows: "I can trust in them as I can in no one else. I know that even if
the whole world were to desert me, they would stick to me and be
ever faithful and ready to carry out my ideas and plans, even under the
most impossible conditions." A few words of added explanation will
not be out of place. Shri Ramakrishna marked out six of his disciples as
Ishvarakotis, namely, Narendra, Rakhal, Baburam, Yogin, Niranjan, and
Purna. Ishvarakotis, according to him, are those who have to take birth
whenever an Incarnation is born. They are like the high officials of a
king. They belong to the inmost circle of the Incarnation's devotees.
They are His Antaranga Bhaktas (devotees of the inner circle), whose
mission is to complement His work and conserve His teaching. Thus,
though strictly speaking they are born with Realization, they have no
Mukti. Their spiritual practices are unconsciously intended only for the
instruction of mankind. At the head of this group of Ishvarakotis Shri
Ramakrishna placed the Swami.
Next morning the party left for Deuri, fifteen miles off, while
Swami Swarupananda returned to Mayavati. The Swami had made
Swami Virajananda the leader of the party, he being a man of cool
nerves. They reached Deuri at 1 p.m. and halted in a dak bungalow to
cook their meal. With the Swami, besides Virajananda, were Swamis
Shivananda and Sadananda, and Lala Govind Sah. Once Virajananda,
who was seeing to the cooking, was in difficulty because of having too
much rice in the pot. The rice was threatening to boil over before it
was half cooked. To add to his difficulty the Swami was sending one
person or another to enquire whether the meal was ready, since it was

getting late, and he was very hungry. Virajananda was thinking of

taking out some of the rice and adding water, when the Swami himself
appeared on the scene. Seeing his disciple's plight, he said: "You need
do no such thing. Take my advice. Pour some ghee over the rice and
put the lid upside down. You will presently find that the rice, is nicely
cooked, and it will be more palatable too!" The disciple did as he was
told, with the result that the party found a most palatable dish served
them that afternoon. Everyone did justice to it.
At Tanakpur, fifteen miles further on, where the plains begin, the
dak bungalow was found occupied. Accommodation was obtained in
the bazaar above a grocer's shop. Because of the constant cooking for
parties of travellers below, the place was very smoky. The shopkeeper
kindly gave his own cot for the Swami; but this, being old and shaky,
creaked noisily at the Swami's every movement. It seemed about to
collapse with a crash! He, however, was in the best of spirits and made
fun about it.
Next morning, riding-ponies were secured for the remainder of
the journey to Pilibhit. At that time there was no railway between
Tanakpur and Pilibhit. Swami Sadananda chose for himself what
seemed the most spirited horse. He spurred it on, with the result that
it went off at full gallop. When the Swami and party had gone a mile or
more from Tanakpur, he became anxious for Sadananda. Enquiring of a
passer-by, they learnt that the horse had bolted, going across the field
just ahead. All immediately dismounted and went in that direction.
They found the missing monk. He was leading the horse, which had
now become tired and submissive. It had thrown Sadananda into a
ditch, but fortunately he came out of the escapade unhurt.
Three miles from Tanakpur, the Swami and his party were greeted
by Major Hennessy. On seeing them from his bungalow he came out
and spoke a few friendly words. At 2 p.m. Khatima was reached. That
evening the Swami told Swami Shivananda that he would have to leave
him at Pilibhit, where the latter was to go forth by himself to beg
money for the maintenance and improvement of the Belur Math. The
Swami said, "Each member of the Belur monastery should go about
preaching and teaching in India, and ultimately bring to the general

fund at least two thousand rupees." Swami Shivananda bowed in

assent to the words of the Leader.
On the fourth and last day's journey to Pilibhit, the Swami, after
riding for some time, and seeing that Swami Virajananda was nervous
when riding, said, "I will teach you how to ride!" After giving
instruction to Virajananda he whipped his own horse to a gallop and
shouted to Virajananda to do the same. But the latter's horse, seeing
the others gallop, for they had also joined the race, did not wait to be
goaded. For Virajananda it was a question of holding on or falling off.
At all events, a good deal of his nervousness was thus overcome, and
he joined in the general hilarity.
The party reached Pilibhit at four in the afternoon. They had eaten
nothing on the way, lest delay should cause them to miss the train.
Swami Sadananda and Lala Govind Sah had gone on ahead; the former
to get provisions from the bazaar at Pilibhit, the latter to inform Pandit
Bhavanidutt Joshi, the Deputy Collector, of the Swami's arrival. Mr.
Joshi came to the railway station with his friends to welcome the
Swami. In the course of the ensuing conversation the subject of meateating was. touched on. Joshiji argued respectfully against it; but the
Swami adduced facts and authorities from the Vedas and said that
even the Vedic Rishis ate beef and enjoined the eating of it upon
others. Joshiji listened in respectful silence. The station staff had
gathered round, deeply interested in every word that fell from the
Swami's lips.
It was now late in the evening, and Sadananda had not returned.
About half an hour before the time of the train's departure he at last
appeared with a large basket of Puries, fried things, curry, and sweets.
The reason for the delay was Sadananda's determination to have the
food prepared in his presence. The Swami, absorbed in his
conversation with Joshiji, had forgotten all about food. Then, with the
permission of his visitors, the Swami asked his party to sit on the same
rug and eat from the basket at the same time as himself. Before
leaving, Joshiji invited Swamis Shivananda and Virajananda to his
house in Pilibhit for a short stay.

An ugly incident occurred when the Swami and Swami Sadananda

entered a second-class compartment of their train. Occupying the
compartment was an English colonel, who rudely objected to having
"natives" travel with him. Seeing that many people had gathered
round the carriage to pay their respects to the Swami, he did not
venture to say anything to him, but hurried to the station-master and
demanded to have the natives turned out. The station-master came
and respectfully begged the Swami to leave that compartment and get
into another. He had hardly finished speaking when the Swami roared
out, How dare you say such a thing to me! Are you not ashamed?
The station-master hastily withdrew, and the colonel, thinking that his
order had been carried out, presently returned to the compartment, to
find it still occupied by the Swami and his disciple. Then he dashed
from one end of the platform to the other crying out, Station-master!
Station-master! but the latter, finding himself caught, as it were,
between devil and the deep blue sea, had gone elsewhere. The colonel
was furious; but seeing that the train was about to leave, he decided to
move into another compartment himself, along with his baggage. The
Swami and his disciples had a laugh over the affair.
On his way to Calcutta, the Swami learnt of the sudden death of
his beloved disciple, the Raja of Khetri. On the morning of January 18,
1901, the Raja had fallen from an 86 feet high tower of Shikandara,
Emperor Akbars mausoleum near Agra, and died instantly. The news
appeared in both the English and Hindi newspapers. On January 26 the
Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull: On my way I learnt of the sudden death of
the Raja of Khetri. It appears, he was restoring some old architectural
monument at Agra, at his own expense, and was up some tower on
inspection. Part of the tower came down, and he was instantly killed.
This version differs from that given in Adarsh Naresh, the Hindi
biography of the Raja. There it is stated that owing to a gust of wind
the Raja lost his balance and fell. Whatever may have happened, this
was undoubtedly a great shock for the Swami. Several months later, on
May 18, he wrote to Mary Hale, The Raja of Khetri died from a fall a
few months ago. So you see things are all gloomy with me just now.

Thus it was with a heavy heart that the Swami reached Calcutta;
but in speaking about Advaita Ashrama, its situation, and his stay
there, he was all praise and appreciation. Its scenery, the quiet of the
Himalayan jungles, the loving attention that he had received from Mrs.
Sevier, the unremitting and devoted service of the little band of his
disciples there all these and other things had made his visit to
Mayavati a very happy one. In fact, he regretted that he had to leave
the hills so soon.

A TRIP TO EAST BENGAL AND LIFE AT THE MATH

The Swami and his disciple reached Calcutta from Mayavati on the
morning of January 24, I 90 I; and in the afternoon he went to Belur
Math. His return was the cause of rejoicing among his brother-disciples
and his own disciples. They wanted to have him again in their midst for
a long period. Before leaving for Mayavati he had stayed at the, Math
for eighteen days. This had given him sufficient opportunity to see the
progress that had been made in all directions during his absence in the
West. Classes of various kinds were being held, physical exercises had
been introduced, and there were set hours f6r meditation and spiritual
practice. New Brahmacharis had joined the Order, and his own
disciples and brother-monks were strenuously occupied in study,
teaching, training, and serving.
Soon after the Swami's return to the Math, he was invited to
preside over the prize-distribution ceremony at Belur M.E. School.
Since the day was a Sunday, this probably happened on January 2 7,
and not on the 22nd, as reported in the Press.
Moreover he did not reach Calcutta until the 24th. The audience
was composed chiefly of the boys of the school and some elderly
persons of Belur. The Swami's highly practical speech on this occasion
was summarized in the Indian Mirror of February 15. He stressed the
need of learning a handicraft. This had an educative, and not just a
utilitarian, value. Secondly, the health of students was of prime
importance. Thirdly, they must be trained in character and good
manners.

In the last week of January Miss MacLeod came to Calcutta en

route for Japan, and met the Swami. He wrote to Mrs. Bull on February
2: "Joe is here, and I have seen her twice; she is busy visiting. Mrs.
Sevier is expected here soon en route to England. I expected to go
to England with her, but as it now turns out, I must go on a long
pilgrimage with my mother." The Swami had been thinking of vesting
the central Math with legal authority to manage property and take
care of all other matters connected with the growing organization.
After considering several alternative plans, he at last decided to make
a trust of the Math. Accordingly, a Trust-deed was executed on January
30, 190 1, and registered on February 6. By this Deed, Swami
Vivekananda vested all the Belur Math properties in a Board of
Trustees consisting of Swamis Brahmananda, Premananda,
Shivananda,
Saradananda,
Akhandananda,
Trigunatitananda,
Ramakrishnananda, Advaitananda, Subodhananda, Abhedananda, and
Turiyananda all disciples of Shri Ramakrishna. The Swami had
deliberately left out his own disciples to guard against any possible
legal complication in the future. The Trust-deed provided for the
election of a President by the Trustees from among themselves, to
hold office for two years only. The Swami himself had to go with a
pleader to the Registrar's Office at Howrah to register the Deed. On
February 8 the stamped and signed copy of the Trust-deed was
brought from the Howrah Sub-Registrar's Office to the Math.
According to Swami Brahmananda's diary a meeting of the
Trustees was held at 11 a.m. on Sunday, February 10, to elect the
President. Three candidates had been proposed. Swami Brahmananda
was proposed by Premananda and seconded by Swami Shivananda;
Swami Ramakrishnananda was proposed by Saradananda and
seconded by Subodhananda, and Swami Saradananda was proposed
by Brahmananda. Vote was taken by ballot and as a result Swami
Brahmananda was elected President of the Math. Then Swami
Premananda proposed Swami Saradananda's name as Secretary, and
Swami Nirmalananda, Assistant Secretary. Swami Trigunatita seconded
the proposal, and it was unanimously carried. The Swami and eight of
the eleven Trustees were present at the meeting. The Swami wanted

to include Swami Adbhutananda's name in the list of Trustees. When

he asked him about it, Adbhutananda replied, "I don't like all that
business. Please do not involve me in that." Then the Swami said to
him, "You won't be required to do anything; only your name will
remain there. So you need not object to it." Swami Brahmananda also
tried to persuade him, but he replied with firm determination, "I do
not wish to be in all that."
The Bally Municipality had levied taxes on the Math premises, on
the ground that it was not a religious establishment, but a gardenhouse, the personal property of Swami Vivekananda. A suit was filed in
the District Court sometime in September 1900, in order that the Math
might be declared exempt from municipal taxes. The suit was
contested up to the Calcutta High Court, which decreed in favour of
the Math on February 23, 1901. News to this effect was given in
Prabuddha Bharata of August 1901:
The Bally Municipality would not consider our Math at Belur as a
place of public worship and so would have it pay taxes. The matter
went to court and was decided in the first instance by the Sub-judge of
Hooghly in favour of the Math. The decision was appealed against by
the Municipality in higher court. It was then referred to the District
Magistrate of Howrah for arbitration, who has upheld the claims of the
Math and exempted it from the payment of house-rate.
On February 17, which was Shivaratri day that year, the Swami
received M. Jules Bois at the Math. When the Swami heard that this
French friend of his was coming, he wrote on February 14 to Miss
MacLeod: "I am ever so glad to hear that Bois is coming to Calcutta.
Send him immediately to the Math. I will be here. If possible, I will
keep him here for a few days and then let him go again to Nepal." By
inviting M. Bois to the Math, the Swami wanted to return the
hospitality that he himself had received in Paris; but Bois preferred to
stay in a hotel in Calcutta. Miss MacLeod, who was also staying in the
city then, already knew M. Bois as the Swami's host in Paris, and as
their co-traveller to Turkey and Egypt. On his arrival in Calcutta, M.
Bois met her at the Great Eastern Hotel, and recognized her "by her
steely glance and her profile chaste and insatiate". M. Bois later

recorded his impressions of his visit to the Swami and Belur Math in
Chapter Eight of his French book Visions de lInde, ("Visions of India").
This chapter was translated into English by Babu Gurudas Sarkar, and
published in Prabuddha Bharata of March 1918. Excerpts from the
account are given below:
Vivekananda is standing on the terrace. His big eyes seemed to
have eaten up his visage. This man with almost a swarthy
complexion and dressed as the Aryans six thousand years ago
born so far from my corner of the earth speaking another tongue
and adoring another God has been my best friend. He lived at Paris
for several weeks in my residence. Together, we travelled to
Constantinople, Greece, and Egypt. He incarnated for mewith his
genius and his perilous frenzy that India which I cherish as the
Fatherland of my dreams the Eden where lives the Ideal. We
discussed together all the questions relating to destiny and the
hereafter. Like the great Tolstoy who is about to diethis Hindu has
got the speciality that he conforms his life to his thoughts .
These are the first words at the threshold of his house "I am
free, my friend 1 am liberated anew. I have given all. The money
weighed me down like chains. I am now the poorest man in the
poorest country in the world. But the House of Ramakrishna has been
built, and his spiritual family has received a shelter."
He [the Swami] saw the American [Miss MacLeod] and saluted her
with gentle gesture... Then he presented us to his people saying
"Behold my brothers and my children"; under their splendid turbans
the young men smiled at us with still ingenuous eyes of the
apprentices of life. The old people snatched themselves off from their
meditation of the Vedas their bent foreheads marked with the
Shaivaic symbol.... He took a hookah which a disciple was smoking and
drew from it a puff which perfumed the air round, as with an odour of
the rose. Then he gave us some lotus flowers. "Come upon the
terraces", he said, "my friends are about to prepare the tiffin." From
there we saw the most moving spectacle....

Half an hour afterwards in his cell Vivekananda himself served us

the "tiffin", which consisted of eggs, fresh milk, aromatic grains, and
mangoes... But he himself could not sit with us. He begged to be
excused for not giving us meat. The monastery made no use of it....
A disciple offered us some betels in a green leaf. They all came
from the monastery garden where they were gathered...... Narcotics
are smoked or chewed all over India", said the sannyasi with a smile.
"For us life is a dream and what you call dream among yourselves is for
us a sole reality......
In the garden under an Indian fig tree, the monks were seated in a
circle. They balanced the head and the back in a rhythmic movement.
He who just accompanied us sang in a strange voicerecalling our
plain-chant but more strident and more joyous. In the centre a fire
burnt away into grey cinders. At the side of the fire the trident of Shiva
was planted, dressed in garlands, all fixed their eyes upon the flame
where dwelt the divinity....
Jules Bois, however, could not go to Nepal; nor did he write to the
Swami about himself after his visit to the Math. "Jules Bois went as far
as Lahore, being prevented from entering Nepal", the Swami was to
write on June 14 to Miss MacLeod, who was then in Japan: "I learn
from papers that he could not bear the heat, and fell ill; then he took
ship et bon voyage. He did not write me a single line since we met in
the Math."
On Sunday, February 24, the sixty-eighth birthday of Shri
Ramakrishna was celebrated at Belur Math in grand style by more than
30,000 people from far and near. The Sankirtana parties and many
visitors were received by the Swami and his brother-monks. A large
number of poor people were sumptuously fed, and some were given
Khichuri Prasad in hand.
Having settled the urgent administrative matters relating to Belur
Math, the Swami was now free to respond to the pressing invitations
that had come from Dacca and elsewhere in East Bengal (now
Bangladesh), which he could not refuse. In addition there was the
great desire of his own mother to go on a pilgrimage to the holy places

in East Bengal and Assam. Still another reason for going was his
declining health. Only those immediately about him knew how rapidly
his health was going down. He himself found that, in his condition at
that time, work of any kind, requiring great concentration of mind and
energy of will, was impossible for him. While he remained in Calcutta,
therefore, he spent his days either at the monastery or at
Balarambabu's house in Baghbazar, his occupations being confined to
the informal training and teaching of those about him, light-reading,
and replying to correspondents in various parts of the world.
On the evening of March 18 the Swami left Calcutta for East
Bengal with a large party of his sannyasi disciples. He travelled by train
to Goalundo, from where he took a steamer to Narayanganj on the
following day. When the steamer reached Narayanganj, he was
received by some gentlemen who had come from Dacca as
representatives of the reception committee there. When the train
reached Dacca in the afternoon of March 19, Babu Ishwarchandra
Ghosh, the renowned pleader, and Babu Gaganchandra Ghosh
received him in the name of the people of the city. The large crowd at
the railway station greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of "Victory to
Ramakrishna Deva!" Many students of the various educational
institutions of the city were present. The procession went along the
main thoroughfares until it reached the mansion of the late Babu
Mohinimohan Das zemindar. This had been appointed for the Swami's
use during his sojourn at Dacca. Here scores of people had gathered to
have sight of him.
At Dacca hundreds of people gathered daily to see the Swami and
hear his religious discourses. For three days consecutively regular
religious discussions were held in the afternoon. On March 24, his
mother, aunt, sister, and party left Calcutta and reached Narayanganj
on the 25th to join the Swami's party. The Swami passed that night in a
houseboat on the Sitalakshya. Next day, taking another boat, the
whole party left for Langalbandha, arriving there the following
morning. The Sitalakshya leads into the Dhaleshwari, and that leads
into the Brahmaputra. Tradition has sanctified: Langalbandha on
account of its connection with the Puranic legend of Shri Parashurama.

The festival of Budhashtami draws a large number of pilgrims to the

place. The Swami and his party went to Langalbandha to bathe in the
Brahmaputra on that holy occasion. After the ritual bathing they
returned to Dacca, having thoroughly enjoyed the pilgrimage.
On his return, his place of stay at Dacca was as before, daily
besieged by many visitors. To them he gave instructions at all hours of
the day, particularly for two or three hours in the afternoon. He spoke
to them on Jnana, Bhakti, faith, renunciation, discrimination, nonattachment, Karma-Yoga, and on other subjects. All were charmed by
his gracious personality and brilliant mind. They found his discourses
full of living faith and devotion, and infused with intense vitality and
power.
As for the Swami himself, he was charmed by the beauty of East
Bengal. In this regard he wrote to Mrs. Bull on March 20:
At last I am in Eastern Bengal. This is the first time I am here
and never before knew Bengal was so beautiful. You ought to have
seen the rivers here regular rolling oceans of fresh water, and
everything so green continual production. The villages are the
cleanest and prettiest in all India.... Mrs. Sevier, I left at Belur. She is
the guest of Mrs. Banerjee, who has rented Nilambar Mukherjee's
house on the river (The Old Math). She goes very soon to Europe.
Again on March 29 he wrote to her:
My mother, aunt, and cousin came over five days ago to Dacca, as
there was great sacred bath in the Brahmaputra river. Whenever a
particular conjunction of planets takes place, which is very rare, a huge
concourse of people gather on the river on a particular spot. This year
there have been more than a hundred thousand people; for miles the
river was covered with boats. The river, though nearly a mile broad at
the place, was one mass of mud! But it was enough, so we had our
bath and Puja (worship), and all that. I am rather enjoying Dacca. I am
going to take my mother and the other ladies to Chandranath, a holy
place at the easternmost corner of Bengal [Bangladesh].
At the earnest request of the educated community of Dacca, the
Swami gave a lecture on March 30, lasting an hour. Some two

thousand people assembled at Jagannath College to hear him. His

subject was "What Have I Learnt?" Next day he again lectured, this
time on the open maiden adjoining Pogose School. He spoke for about
two hours on "The Religion We Are Born In". Both lectures were
received with tremendous applause, and as a result of them hundreds
were led to make a diligent study of his message and his plans for the
regeneration of India.
There was a touching incident while the Swami was at Dacca. One
day a young prostitute bedecked with jewellery came in a phaeton
with her mother to see him. Jatinbabu, the host, and the disciples
hesitated to admit the visitors at first. However, when the Swami
heard that they had come, he at once accorded them an interview.
After they had saluted him and sat down, the daughter told the Swami
that she was suffering from asthma and begged him for some medicine
to cure her. The Swami expressed his sympathy and replied, "See here,
mother! I too am suffering from asthma and have not been able to
cure myself I wish I could do something for you." These words, spoken
with childlike simplicity and loving kindness, touched the two women
as well as the others present.
From Dacca the Swami went on a visit to Deobhog, the home
village of Nag Mahashaya. He spoke later about the visit to his disciple,
Sharatchandra Chakravarty, as follows:
His *Nag Mahashayas+ wife fed me with many delicacies prepared
by her own hand. The house is charming, like a peace retreat. There I
took a swimming bath in a village pond. After that I had such a sound
sleep that I awoke at half past two in the afternoon. Of the few days I
had sound sleep in my life, that in Nag Mahashaya's house was one.
Rising from sleep I had a plentiful repast. Nag Mahashaya's wife
presented me a cloth which I tied round my head as a turban and
started for Dacca. I found that the photograph of Nag Mahashaya was
being worshipped there. The place where his remains lie interred
ought to be well kept. Even now it is not as it should be. East Bengal
will do well to study and appreciate that great soul, who has sanctified
the whole province by his birth, and by living that wonderful life there.

On April 4 the Swami wrote letters to Sister Nivedita, Christine

Greenstidel, and Mr. Romesh Chandra Dutt, who was then living in
England after his retirement from the Indian Civil Service, and who had
praised Sister Nivedita's work there. To Nivedita he wrote:
A letter came just now from Mr. R. Dutt, praising you and your
work in England very much and asking me to wish you to stop longer in
England.... Of course, you stay as long as you think you are working
well. Yum [Miss MacLeod] had some talk about you with Mother [the
Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi], and she desired you to come overof
course, it was only her love and anxiety to see you.... I am now at last
in Dacca, and had some lectures here. I depart for Chandranath
tomorrow, near Chittagong the farthest eastern extremity of Bengal
[Bangladesh]. My mother, aunt, cousin, another cousin's widow, and
nine boys are with me. They all send you love.
To Christine Greenstidel he wrote: "Margot [Nivedita} is doing
splendid work in England with Mrs. Bull's backing. Things are going on
nicely. I am sleeping better, and the general health is not bad." And to
Mr. R. C. Dutt the Swami wrote: "I am so glad to learn, from a person
of your authority, ' Sister Nivedita is doing in England. I join of the good
work in earnest 'prayer with the hopes you entertain of her future
services to India by her pen.... I am under a deep debt of gratitude to
you, 'Sir, for your befriending my child, and hope you will never cease
to advise her as to the length of her stay in England and the line of
work she ought to undertake...
On April 5 the Swami and his party left Dacca for the shrine of
Chandranath, about twenty-five miles north of the port of Chittagong.
Afterwards they went to the famous shrine of the Divine Mother at
Kamakhya, close to Gauhati in Assam. On the way they stayed for
some days at Goalpara. At Gauhati he delivered three lectures.
Unfortunately they were not recorded or reported; but those who
heard them said, "They were brilliant. The Swami was full of fire and
his language was so beautiful and direct. Never before had we had
such an exposition of our religion."

Both at Dacca and at Kamakhya, the Swami's health went from

bad to worse. He decided to go to the delightful hill-station of Shillong,
where the air is drier. It was thought that his health might improve
there. Shillong was then the seat of the Assam Government, and the
late Sir Henry Cotton, a champion of the cause of India, was the Chief
Commissioner. He had heard much of Swami Vivekananda and was
anxious to meet him. At his request the Swami delivered a lecture
before resident English officials and a large gathering of Indians. Later,
Sir Henry Cotton, who had very much liked the Swamis speech, visited
the latter, exchanged greetings with him, and spent some time
discussing India and her national problems. Seeing that the Swami was
ill, he instructed the Civil Surgeon to render him all possible medical
aid. Throughout the Swamis stay, the Chief Commissioner daily made
enquiries about his health. The Swami spoke of him as a man who
understood Indias needs and aspirations, was working nobly for her
cause, and deserved the love of the Indian people.
Speaking about his Shillong visit to Sharatchandra Chakravarthy
the Swami said: The Shillong hills are very beautiful. There, I met Sir
Henry Cotton, the Chief Commissioner of Assam. He asked me,
Swamiji, after travelling through Europe and America, what have you
come to see here in these distant hills? Such a good and kind-hearted
man as Sir Henry Cotton is rarely found. Hearing of my illness he sent
the Civil Surgeon and inquired after my health mornings and evenings.
I could not do much lecturing there, because my health was very bad.
On the way Nitai served and looked after me nicely.
The Swamis health was failing rapidly. Besides the diabetes from
which he had been suffering, he had at Dacca another very severe
attack of asthma. During it the Swami said half-dreamily, as if to
himself, What does it matter! I have given them enough for fifteen
hundred years! Evidently he felt that he could die in peace now that
he had given his message to the world, and that, if the Western
nations accepted his spiritual ideals and India adopted his plans for her
regeneration, there was work ahead of both sufficient for fifteen
hundred years.

The Swami, with Swami Sadananda, his own mother, sister, and
aunt, and Ramadadas wife, reached Calcutta from Shillong on May 12.
The next day he wrote to Christine Greenstidel:
"I arrived in the Math yesterday. This morning came your short
note.... I paid a long visit of two months to Assam and the different
parts of East Bengal. For combined mountain and water scenery this
part of the country is unrivalled......
Sharatchandra Chakravarty, himself from East Bengal, recorded in
his diary other incidents in the Swami's visit to that region, which the
latter related on his return to Belur Math. In religious matters, the
Swami said, the people of those parts were very conservative, and
even fanatical in some respects. His disciples had observed the strictest
orthodoxy there. He himself, when plied with too many questions by a
Don't-touchist, had answered, "Man, I am a fakir! What is caste or
custom to me! Does not the Shastra enjoin, 'A sannyasi may live on
Madhukari received even from the hands of a person of a Mlechchha
family'?"
Speaking of religious obsessions and monomania, the Swami told
of a sentimental youth at Dacca who showed him a photograph and
asked him whether the person photographed was an Avatar, (Divine
Incarnation). "My boy, how can I know?" replied the Swami. But the
boy repeated his question three or four times. "At last," the Swami
narrated, "Seeing that he desired an affirmative answer, I said, 'My
boy, take my advice; develop your muscles and your brain by eating
good food and by healthy exercise, and then you will be able to think
for yourself. Without nourishing food your brain seems to be a little
weak.' Perhaps the boy did not like to be told the plain truth. But what
else could I do? Unless I warn such people, they may become
unbalanced."
"You may think of your guru as an Avatar," continued the Swami,
"or whatever you like; but Incarnations of God are few and far
between. There have arisen in Dacca itself three or four Avatars, I
heard! Indeed, there is a craze for them nowadays, it seems!"

Much Tantricism prevailed at Kamakhya, he said. In those parts he

had come across the worship of one "Hankar Deo", who was regarded
as an Incarnation, and whose followers were Vaishnavas. This ancient
sect had a very wide following in those parts. He said that Vaishnavism
was more prevalent in Dacca than in Assam.
The Brahmaputra valley, he remarked, was beyond compare for
beauty, and the Shillong hills were charming. The people of East Bengal
were much hardier and more active than those on the Calcutta side.
What they did, they did in a dogged fashion. Though they took more of
meat and fish, and for that reason were stronger and more Rajasic
than the West Bengal is, they used altogether too much oil and ghee in
their cooking, a thing that the Swami did not approve of, because it
tended to produce obesity.
This tour in East Bengal and Assam was the Swami's last public
tour. After it, he was worse in health. The monks urged him to have
complete rest. They begged him to give up all thought of public work
until he was well. So the Swami, to please his brother-disciples and his
own disciples, gave up his plans and lived at the monastery for seven
months in comparative retirement. Those about him did all they could
to restore him to health, to obtain for him the best medical treatment,
and to divert his mind to lighter subjects. But they found this last
difficult, for his mind spontaneously merged in the deepest
concentration. Casual teaching he was always engaged in, even during
this period. He also kept himself in touch with the general progress of
his work, and was happy at the thought that everywhere, whether in
America, England, or India itself, his ideas were gaining ground. Often
he sang and taught his disciples to sing; or he engaged in conversation,
serious and not so serious. But when it became serious, his brotherdisciples would try to divert his mind to lighter matters.
On May 18 the Swami wrote about his health to Mary Hale as
follows: "I came to India last fall, suffered all through winter, and went
this summer touring through Eastern Bengal and Assam through a
land of giant rivers and hills and malaria and after hard work of two
months had a collapse, and am now back to Calcutta slowly recovering
from the effects of it."

People flocked to Belur monastery in these days from all parts of

India to receive the Swami's blessings and instructions. He kept his eye
on the manifold activities of the Math down to their minute details.
The servants he treated as his own kin. They vied with one another in
rendering him even the slightest service. And whenever he went to
Calcutta by boat, the rowers were as interested in his personality as his
own disciples. Sometimes he would go about in the monastery with
only a Kaupina on. Or in the long robe of the wandering monk he
would stroll, immersed in thought, along the village-paths that led
from the monastery gates to the high road. He would seat himself to
meditate wherever he happened to be, by the Ganga, or under the
spreading branches of some inviting tree in the monastery compound.
Or it might be that he would spend the day in Calcutta, or with books
in his own room at the Math. And often he would return to those fiery
moods of old and make the monastery throb with his spiritual
consciousness.
Despite his brother-monks' efforts to divert the Swami's mind to
lighter matters, we learn that his more intimate talks with his brothermonks and disciples were of a diverse and weighty nature. They
included such topics as renunciation, Brahmacharya, and the making of
Real Men for the regeneration of the motherland, the music and
literature of India, points of' contact and contrast between European
and Asian art, the Gurukula system, Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the presence
of Divinity in everybody, the eradication of Don't-touchism, and God's
mercy. His discussion of these and other serious themes was both an
instruction and a delight to his listeners. In fact his discourses covered
the whole range of Hindu religion, philosophy, sociology, science, and
other branches of knowledge. He dwelt on them in a masterly way and
threw new light on them.
Often the Swami would be lost in song or meditation, and then he
was not of this world. On many days he himself supervised the cooking
and prepared delicacies for the monks. When he was visited by deeper
moods brought on by the thoughts of India and her problems, he
would not unoften make some casual remark that vibrated with
power. His remarks on even trifling matters would make his hearers

ponder. Each new manifestation of his amazing personality was, to

those who loved him, both human and divine. Now, in explaining an
idea, he would make opposed views equally convincing; again, he
would show himself in one or other special vocation or role, as monk,
or patriot, or scholar, or mystic, or religious teacher. All marvelled at
the insight and understanding, partly innate, partly acquired through
study and experience, which he revealed in spite of his illness. Though
his body was on the decline, his mind was luminous. His brotherdisciples stood in awe of him, although he was still their "Naren". As
happens with diabetes, he had periods of relief from pain and the
sense of exhaustion; and there were times when he felt as well as ever.
At such times particularly, his brother-disciples and friends implored
him to rest; but he did not heed their words for long. It would have
been easier to move a mountain than hold in check the mind that had
taught the world. Besides, it was evident that his interest in preserving
his health and life was waning. His words, spoken in former times,
came often to the minds of the disciples, "For one thing we may be
grateful this life is not eternal!" Through the power of his thought he
was loosening himself from the trammels of the body, and the time
when he would give it up altogether was drawing close.
He would sit on the upper veranda of the monastery building,
gazing northwards at the towers of the Kali temple, which showed high
above the trees of the grove of many memories at Dakshineswar. Lost
in contemplation, his face would be ineffably sad, or, at other times,
luminous with ecstasy. To the outside world, he was the famous
Vivekananda, preacher, teacher, and patriot; to his brother-monks he
was the monk, saint, leader, friend, beloved master, the son of Shri
Ramakrishna and the Holy Mother their all-in-all.
Sometimes after a walk on the lawn of the monastery he would sit
under the Bilva tree, beside which now stands his memorial temple, to
rest or to meditate, and on many occasions he would lose
consciousness of the outer world. Another favourite seat was under
the big mango tree in the courtyard between Shri Ramakrishna's shrine
and the monastery building. Here he would usually be found in the
morning hours, seated on a canvas cot and attending to his

correspondence, or writing articles, or reading, or engaged in

conversation. The Swami's room was on the second storey in the
southeast corner of the monastery building. A large room, with four
windows and three doors, it was both his study and his living quarters.
In the corner to the right of the entrance-door stood a mirror some
five feet high, and a little further on, a rack with his ochre clothes. In
the middle of the room was an iron bedstead fitted with a spring
mattress, given him by one of his Western disciples. But the Swami
hardly used it, preferring a simple bed on the floor. A couch, a kneehole writing-table with letters and manuscripts, pen, ink, paper, a
blotting pad, a call-bell, some flowers in a metal vase, a photograph of
the Master, a deer-skin Asana (seat), and a small table with a set of
porcelain tea-cups, saucers, and plates, completed the furnishings of
the room. Most of these things were presents from his Western
disciples, and are now treasured at the Math with great care. But the
most important object in the room was a picture of Shri Ramakrishna,
at which the Swami would gaze in love and reverence. In this room he
wrote, he gave instructions to his brother-monks and disciples, he
received his friends, he sometime had his meals, he slept, and he
communed with God. Here also, he passed from his mortal form in the
final meditation of his life. Now the room is regarded as a most sacred
place. Everything in it is kept as it was on the last day of his life. The
calendar on the wall reads "July 4, 1902". The writing-table is as
though he had just risen from it to go perhaps to the shrine nearby. On
the rack still hang his ochre robes. Only, on the walls and upon the
couch and the beds, pictures of the Swami have been placed, and a
life-size oil-painting of Shri Ramakrishna has also been added in a
prominent place on the wall. The room is used for meditation. He who
enters it bows down in reverence. And thousands upon thousands
have come to visit it, for it speaks of the tenderness, greatness, and
power of him whose spirit has set their souls aflame.
The Swami loved the monastery and its surroundings. He loved its
quiet and peaceful atmospherethough this was now and then
disturbed by the sirens of the steamers. He loved his room, and was
always glad to be back in it after his travels, and even after a short

absence in Calcutta. He loved his pets about which something will

be said presently. And of course he loved his brother-monks, his
disciples, and the many friends and others who came to visit the Math
and listen to his words. But sometimes he was in a strange mood,
insisting on solitude. Then none dared approach him, and he would
remain alone for hours.
About his life at the Math during this period, the Swami wrote to
Christine Greenstidel on July 6, 1901:
Things come to me in fits. Today I am in a fit of writing. The first
thing to do is therefore to pen a few lines to you.... Miss MacLeod is in
Japan. Enjoying it immensely. I would have followed, but what with
low health, dislike to long voyage, etc., I prefer to remain in India....
I am trying to be as dull as possible. I have got a few goats and
sheep, one deer, and several cows. Then there are the flower beds,
fish ponds, and kitchen gardens.
I rise very early. Then milk my goats; feed them. A dog puppy and
a beautiful black kid are my special favourites. I take some exercise on
a pair of dumbbells and then heat having got great, I loll about on a
stretcher till 10 a.m. We have two huge mango trees, one Panas [Jack
fruit], and one Nim [Margosa], making a beautiful grove just in front of
the monastery building. Under them is my favourite place. Fruits are
over. We have eaten several thousand mangoes from these two trees.
There are some Panasas left yet. You never saw a Panas. It is a huge
fruit. Some of them so big, that a very strong man can scarcely lift one.
When they are very big, they grow on the roots underground. Then the
ground bursts, and you know by the flavour where to find your fruit.
This is one seasons for best mangoes. Nothing like them in the
whole world, Christina. Then our shads are coming up the river. As I am
writing the waves are splashing against the house, and beneath me are
hundreds of small fishing boats, all seeking to catch shads. And then
our shads [are] greatly superior to your American ones. The one thing
that is disturbing me is the small steamers continuously going up and
down this huge river. They make too much noise....

The Swami was always frank and free, ruling not so much by
formal authority as by the power of his personality and love, He would
sing Kirtanas with his brother-monks or pace the monastery grounds
lost in contemplation. On festival days he would be their Leader in
spiritual exercises. He would play on musical instruments with them,
and. in his sweet and thrilling voice, sing with them in spiritual joy for
hours. He was the life-centre of the monastery.
He would often make fun with his brother-monks, or tease them,
and make them laugh. At other times he would give them instruction
or help them in their difficulties, always with great tenderness. Though
he might reprimand them on occasions, to others he spoke of those he
had reprimanded with great regard, for were they not the sons of the
Master and he the privileged servant of them all? He was the
irresistible magnet, and they were as so many iron filings drawn
towards him, often without understanding why, but always loving him.
The Swami himself was an early riser, and he would rouse the
monks from sleep in the early hours. He wanted the monastery rules
strictly followed; any infringement displeased him. He would make
them practise austerities, but would see that they did not go too far.
His love would not allow them to suffer. At the monastery it was all
enthusiasm, activity, spiritual fervour, and hard training.
The garden, the cooking, the care of the monastery cows, and the
simplest things were matters of importance to him. Like a boy he
would argue with Swami Brahmananda over the boundary between
the pasture for the cows and the latters vegetable and flower gardens,
and over the alleged trespassing from one side or the other! He would
experiment with bread-making, trying all sorts of yeast, undaunted by
repeated failures. He attributed the unhealthiness of the Math to want
of pure water for drinking and cooking, the river water being too dirty,
especially during the rains. In order to have a supply of pure water all
the year round, he attempted with the help of his fellow-monks to sink
an artesian well, for which he had bought the necessary appliances.
Sometimes, dressed in his ochre Alkhalla (a kind of robe) and sadhu's
cap and carrying a thick stick, he would call a number of his brother-

monks and disciples to go out for a walk with him. At such times he
would be as gay as ever.
Although the Swami more or less gave himself to rest during the
summer of 1901, his mind was not totally without plans. He was in
touch with his brother-monks, disciples, and friends through
correspondence. On June 3 he wrote to Swami Ramakrishnananda:
"My health nowadays is becoming a little better. Have the rains started
in Madras? When the rains begin a little in the South, I may go to
Madras via Bombay and Poona. With the onset of rains the terrible
heat of the South will perhaps subside.... Whatever that may be, I say
that you stop your work for some time and come straight back to the
Math. After you have taken a month's rest here, you and I together will
make a grand tour via Gujarat, Bombay, Poona, Hyderabad, Mysore, to
Madras. Would not that be grand?"
On the same day he wrote to Mrs. Hansbrough, the friend who
had helped him so much in Los Angeles and San Francisco to propagate
the Vedanta: "How are all our Los Angeles friends?... How are all the
San Francisco friends? How is our Madame [Mrs. Aspinall] the
noble, the unselfish?... Are you pleased with Turiyananda and his
work? Is the [Shanti] Ashrama progressing?..."
Miss Josephine MacLeod, who was now in Japan, was not simply
enjoying the charm of that country, but was trying to open up a new
field of work for the Swami there, as she had done in California. When
she had met him at the Math in February 1901, on her way to Japan,
he had told her that "he would go to Japan if she wrote for him".
Moreover, she knew since long of his desire to go to China and Japan
to preach Vedanta. Back in November 1896, Goodwin had written to
her about this, saying, "He [the Swami] says that while in Ceylon.... he
will arrange through Dharmapala's people for lectures in Japan and
China." She had not forgotten this intention of the Swami's. At her
request her Japanese friend. Mr. Okakura, sent him Rs. 300/- for his
passage to Japan., But the Swami wrote to Miss MacLeod on June 14:
"Now, Joe dear, if I am to go to Japan, this time, it is necessary that I
take Saradananda with me to carry on the work. Also I must have the
promised letter to Li Huang Chang from Mr. Maxim; but Mother knows

the rest. I am still undecided.... Just now came a cheque for Rs. 300/from Mr. Okakura, and the invitation. It is very tempting, but Mother
knows all the same." Again, four days later he wrote to her: "However,
I am really trying to come, but you knowone month to go and one
to come and a few days' stay! Never mind, I am trying my best. Only
my terribly poor health, some legal affairs, and so on, may make a little
delay." And some time later he wrote to her: "I have had a terrible
collapse in Assam from which I am slowly recovering. The Bombay
people have waited and waited till they are sick-must see them this
time. If in spite of all this you wish me to come, I shall start the minute
you write." And to Mr. Okakura he wrote on the same day: "Your
cheque for 300 Rs duly reached me and many thanks for the same. I
am just thinking of going to Japan, but with one thing or another and
my precarious health I cannot expedite matters as I wish. Japan to me
is a dream, so beautiful that it haunts one all his life."
In September, Miss MacLeod became very insistent, and the
Swami almost decided to go to Japan. On September 25 he wrote to
Christine Greenstidel: "I am just thinking of going over to Japan as Miss
MacLeod is so insistent. Perhaps something will be done, who knows?
From Japan of course a peep into America seems inevitable."
While the Swami was writing this letter, he received a telegram
and a letter from Miss MacLeod again urging him to go to Japan; so he
wrote in a postscript to the same letter:
"She is so insistent that I am thinking of going over to Japan. In
that case we cross over to America this winter and thence to England."
But ultimately the Swami could not go. He wrote to Christine
Greenstidel on October 8: "I had to give up my trip to Japan, firstly
because I am not in a working trim yet. Secondly, don't much care to
make such a long voyage (one month) alone. Thirdly, what am I to talk
to them, I wonder."
In America Swami Turiyananda also was not well. The Swami
wrote in the same letter: "The California work is progressing famously.
They want one or two men more. I would send, if I could, but I have

not any more spare men. Poor Turiyananda is suffering from malaria
yet, and is awfully overworked."
The Bombay tour also was not possible for the Swami on account
of his health. On August 7 he, his sister, and Mrs. Banerjee (of
Darjeeling) went to Darjeeling by the mail train. Swamis Brahmananda,
Trigunatita, and Sachchidananda went to Sealdah station to see them
off. He wrote to Christine Greenstidel on August 6: "I am going to
Darjeeling tomorrow for a few days..." He seems to have returned to
Calcutta in the last week of that month. After his return he wrote to
Mary Hale on August 27:
1 would that my health were what you expected... It is getting
worse, in fact, every day, and so many complications and botherations
without that. I have ceased to notice it at all.... I have not had any
direct message from Mrs. Bull or Nivedita, but I hear regularly from
Mrs. Sevier, and they are all in Norway as guests of Mrs. Bull.... I am in
a sense a retired man; I don't keep much note of what is going on
about the Movement; then the Movement is getting bigger, and it is
impossible for one man to know all about it minutely. I now do
nothing, except trying to eat and sleep and nurse my body the rest of
the time....
On September 2 the Swami wrote as follows to Christine
Greenstidel: "Within the last few months I got two fits [of asthma] by
going to two of the dampest hill stations in Bengal Shillong and
Darjeeling. I am not going to try the Bengali mountains any more. As
for me I am very happy. Of course, Bengal brings the asthma now and
then, but it is getting tame, and the terrible things Bright's disease,
diabetes have disappeared altogether. Life in any dry climate will
stop the asthma completely, I am sure. I get reduced of course during a
fit, but then it takes me no time to lay on a few layers of fat....
After his visit to East Bengal the Swami gave a good deal of
attention to a number of pets and other animals. There were Bagha,
the Math dog, a she-goat called "Hansi" ("Swan"), several cows, sheep,
ducks, geese, an antelope, a stork, and a kid named "Matru", round
whose neck he put a string of tiny bells. Wherever he went, the kid

went with him. Those who came to the Math in great reverence to see
the man who had captured the Parliament of Religions and vindicated
the spiritual life to East and West, were kindled with love for his
human personality when they found him playing and running here and
there to amuse his favourite kid. When it died, he grieved like a child,
and said to his disciple Sharatchandra, "How strange! Whoever I love
dies early!" He himself would see that the animals were properly fed
and their places kept clean and dry; in this, Swami Sadananda was his
chief helper. The animals loved the Swami exceedingly, and he would
talk to them as though they were actually human. Once he said
playfully that Matru was really a relation of his in a former existence.
The kid had access to his room and used to sleep on a couch there as
though it had every right to do so. Sometimes the Swami would go to
"Hansi" and beg her for milk for his tea, as though she could refuse or
give as she chose.
The Swami told Christine Greenstidel about his pets in his letter of
September 7:
The rains have come down now in right earnest and it is a deluge,
pouring, pouring, pouring, night and day. The river is rising, flooding
the banks; the ponds and tanks have overflowed. I have just now
returned from lending a hand in cutting a deep drain to take off the
water from the Math grounds. The rain-water stands at places several
feet deep. My huge stork is full of glee, and so are the ducks and
geese. My tame antelope fled from the Math and gave us some days of
anxiety in finding him out. One of my ducks unfortunately died
yesterday. She had been gasping for breath more than a week. One of
my waggish old monks says, "Sir, it is no use living in the Kali Yuga
when ducks catch cold from damp and rain and frogs sneeze." One of
the geese was losing her feathers. Knowing no other method of
treatment, I left her some minutes in a tub of water mixed with a mild
carbolic, so that it might either kill or heal; and she is all right now.
In one sense Bagha was the master of all the animals at the Math;
he felt that the monastery was his by right. Once he was taken across
the Ganga owing to gross misconduct, and left there. But he jumped
on the ferry-boat that evening, glaring and growling so savagely at the

boatman and the passengers when they tried to dislodge him, that
they did not dare dispute his right to remain. Next morning the Swami,
going to the bathroom about four as usual, stumbled over him as he
lay at his door. The Swami patted him on the back and assured him of
protection. Later he told the monks that whatever Bagha might do, he
should never be sent away again. The animal seemed to know that it
was to the Swami that he must go for forgiveness, and that, if he
permitted him to stay, he would not be sent away whatever others
might say or do.
There are strange stories current in the Math about Bagha. For
instance, as soon as the gongs and conchs proclaimed the beginning or
end of an eclipse, he, along with hundreds of devout men and women,
would take a dip in the Ganga of his own accord! Long after the
Swami's passing away, when Bagha died, his body was left in a remote
part of the Math grounds on the bank of the Ganga. It was carried
away by the high tide only to be washed back and deposited at the
same spot. Whereupon a Brahmachari asked permission of the elders
to inter the body in the Math grounds. Permission was granted and a
pile of bricks still marks the burial place.
In the monastery the Swami was free from the routine of life in
society, with its tiresome conventionalities. He could walk about
barefoot or with plain slippers on, hookah or staff in hand. He was free
of the coat, trousers, and particularly the collar, which had always
fretted him, of his Western experience. With a Kaupina (a piece of
ochre loin-cloth) he could live in his own element, in monastic silence
and seclusion. As the days passed, he revealed himself more and more
as the monk.
When the monks sat down to meals, the beloved Leader often
joined them, bringing and sharing with them some of the dainties
which his rich disciples had sent for him. There would often be lighthearted talk at these meals, with the Swami playing a leading part.
They were happy sons of Shri Ramakrishna living together. Their
austerities, their study and meditation, their conversation, their purity
of character all these were imbued with the Spirit of the Master's

Great Illumination. In this their Leader had shared. Its nature was
Absolute Freedom and Immortal Bliss.
The Swami's illness was on the increase. There was a condition of
general dropsy. His feet especially were swollen, making it difficult for
him to walk. His body became so sensitive that any but the slightest
touch caused him acute pain. Sleep almost deserted him in the last
year of his life. But he was resigned to the will of the Lord, and in spite
of illness was ever cheerful and ready to receive people. He talked to
them with his characteristic fire and eloquence, though sometimes in a
somewhat subdued tone. When his disciple Sharatchandra came to see
him at this time and enquired how he was, the Swami softly replied:
"Why ask any more about health, my boy? Every day the body is
getting more and more out of order. Born in Bengal, never has this
body been free from disease. This province is not at all good for the
health. As soon as you begin to work hard, the body, unable to bear
the strain, breaks down. For the few days more that it lasts, I shall
continue to work for you all and die in harness."
When urged to take rest for some months he said: "My son, there
is no rest for me. That which Shri Ramakrishna called 'Kali', took
possession of my body and soul, three or four days before his passing
away. That makes me work and work, and never lets me keep still or
look to my personal comfort." On request he told of that great event of
his life in these words: "Two or three days before the Master's passing
away, he called me to his side when alone, and, making me sit before
him, gazed intently into my eyes and entered into Samadhi. I then
actually perceived a powerful current of subtle force like electricity
entering me from his body. After a time I too lost all outward
consciousness and was merged in Samadhi. How long I was in that
state I cannot say. When I came down to the sense-plane, I found the
Master crying. On being asked he said with great tenderness, O my
Naren! I have now become a fakir by giving away my all and
everything to you! By the force of this Shakti, you will do many great
things in this world, and only after that will you go back!' It seems to
me that it is that power that makes me work and work, whirling me, as
it were, in its vortex. This body is not made for sitting idle."

Throughout July and August of 1901 the Swami took as much rest
as he could. As a result, in September he was somewhat better.
After the establishment of the Math at Belur, bigoted and
orthodox people of the neighbouring villages, who were in fact
ignorant of their own scriptures, used to indulge in biting criticism of
the Swami and the other monks for their novel ideas, their liberal ways
of living, their modes of work, and especially for their non-observance
of the customs regarding caste and food. They even invented lies
about them and cast malicious aspersions upon their purity of
character. These calumnies were aired by them particularly on the
boats plying between Calcutta and Bally, when they found passengers
going to or coming from the Math. When the Swami heard about
them, he merely observed, "You know the old proverb, 'The elephant
goes through the bazaar and hundreds of dogs follow barking after
him.' The sadhu is never affected if the world abuses him." Or: "It is a
law of nature that, whenever new ideas are preached in any country,
the adherents of the old rise against them. Every founder of religion
has had to pass this test. Without persecution higher ideas cannot
enter the core of society." Hence he regarded opposition and adverse
criticism as actual helps to the spread of his ideas, and he neither
defended himself nor allowed any of his followers or friends to do so.
He exhorted them: "Go on doing your work disinterestedly and
without attachment; it will surely bear fruit some time." Or: "The doer
of good never meets with disaster." This criticism of the Swami's work
and of the monks gradually died out even before his passing away. The
celebration at the Math of the Durga Puja in strict orthodox style
contributed a good deal to this end.
If the Swami preached liberal ideas in social matters, he was
orthodox enough in religious matters. In the latter part of 1901 he had
all the religious festivals observed. Several months before the Durga
Puja in 1901, which fell that year in October, he secured from his
disciple Sharatchandra a copy of Raghunandan's "Twenty-eight
Tattvas", otherwise called "Raghunandan's Smriti". This he consulted
so that the Durga Puja could that year be observed in strict conformity

with its injunctions. He did not speak of his intention to anyone at the
Math till a few days before the festival.
Four or five days before the Durga Puja, Swami Brahmananda had
a vision while he was sitting in the Math compound facing the Ganga.
He saw Mother Durga come over the Ganga from the Dakshineswar
side and stop near the Bilva tree in the Math compound. Just then the
Swami came by boat from Calcutta and asked, Where is Raja
[Brahmananda+?. On seeing Swami Brahmananda he said to him,
"This time make all arrangements for the Durga Puja by bringing the
Pratima [image] to the Math." Swami Brahmananda replied, "I shall let
you know after a day or two. It will have to be seen whether there is a
Pratima available now. There is not much time left. Just give me two
days' time." Then the Swami told him of the vision that he had had. He
had seen the Durga Puja being celebrated at the Math, and the Mother
being worshipped in a Pratima. On hearing this, Swami Brahmananda
told the Swami of his own vision. The news of these visions caused a
great sensation at the Math, and Brahmachari Krishnalal was
immediately sent to search for a Pratima at Kumartuly. Luckily, one
Pratima was available, since the customer who had placed an order for
it had not come to collect it on the day arranged. When the Swami was
informed, he and Swami Premananda went to Calcutta to ask the Holy
Mother's permission about certain observances connected with the
Puja. The Holy Mother gave her approval; so the Swami at once
ordered the image to be brought, and returned to the Math. The news
that the Puja was to be done in the image spread all over the city, and
the householder disciples gladly joined with the sannyasis to make the
celebration a success.
On the northern part of the lawn, where Shri Ramakrishna's
birthday festival is held, a temporary structure was put up where the
Mother could be installed for worship. The image, beautifully
decorated, was brought a day or two before Shashthi, the sixth lunar
day, which fell on October 17. As soon as it reached the Math, rain fell
in torrents.
Under the able management of Swami Brahmananda, the Math
was provided with all the variety of Puja requisites, together with an

abundance of foodstuffs. The nearby garden-house of Babu Nilambar

Mukherjee was rented for the accommodation of the Holy Mother.
She came with several women-devotees to live there on October 18,
so as to be able to be present throughout the festival.
With the permission of the Holy Mother, Brahmachari Krishnalal
took the seat of the worshipper. Ishwarchandra Bhattacharya, the
father of Swami Ramakrishnananda and a devout Brahmana, well
versed in the Tantras and Mantras, became the Tantradharaka, that is,
the director of the worship of the Goddess in strict accordance with
scriptural injunctions. The sacrifice of animals was dropped at the Holy
Mother's wish.
To feed the poor sumptuously was the chief subsidiary function
relating to the Puja. Hundreds of them came throughout the three
days that it lasted and were lavishly served with Prasada. Special
invitations were sent to some of the Brahmanas and pandits of Belur
and Dakshineswar to join in the Puja. As a result of the celebration the
orthodox members of the Hindu community in the neighbourhood lost
their animosity towards the monks and became convinced that they
were truly Hindu sannyasis.
On the night of Saptami, the first day of the Puja proper, the
Swami had an attack of fever, which prevented him from joining in it
the next morning. But on the second (Ashtami) day he rose from his
bed and slowly came down to attend the Sandhipuja, the most
important and solemn function of the whole Puja. He made three
offerings of flowers and so forth at the feet of the Mother. On the third
day, Navami, he was well and at night sang a few of those songs to the
Mother which Shri Ramakrishna used to sing on such an occasion. On
Vijaya Dashami (the fourth day) the image was consigned to the Ganga
at nightfall. The Holy Mother was highly pleased with the way the Puja
was celebrated. She returned to her residence at Baghbazar after
blessing the sannyasis.
The Durga Puja is the national festival of Bengal, having the
importance there that Christmas has in Christian lands. It is the annual
event to which every Hindu looks forward with great joy. The Mother

at this time comes down from Her icy abode on Mount Kailasa, where
She lives with Her consort Shiva and Her household of Immortals, to
stay three days with Her mortal children and bestow Her Blessings on
them. The balmy autumn air, the green fields with the paddy-crop
waving its laden head, the shining rivers and bedewed trees to
Hindus all these herald coming of the Mother among them. Presents
are given, and boys and girls have new clothes. Food and clothing are
distributed to the servants and to the poor. Invitations are sent to
friends to join in the Puja,. The houses in which the Puja is celebrated
are decorated; and for many days previous, songs to the Mother are
suing, inviting Her to come and in joyful anticipation of Her coming. In
the image, which is richly decorated, She has one foot on Her mount,
the lion, and the other on the shoulder of the demon Mahishasura,
who is in a death struggle with Her. She is surrounded by Her celestial
sons and daughters Kartika, the warrior-god, Ganesha, the giver of
success, Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune, and Saraswati, the goddess
of learning. To Her devout worshippers, She is a living Presence. One
has to live in a Hindu household where the Puja is celebrated, if one is
to understand how great is the Hindu's faith in Her as the destroyer of
distress and difficulty. And the Vijaya Dashami day in Bengal is the day
of universal rejoicing, of exchange of greetings and salutations, of
goodwill and fellow-feeling, when people forget their social
differences, enemies their animosities, and clasp each other in warm
embrace.
That October (1901), the Swami's condition again became serious,
and Dr. Saunders, a noted physician of Calcutta, was called in. The
Swami was told to abandon even the slightest exertion and give up all
intellectual work. Not long after the doctor's visit he was confined to
his bed. This distressed him, since he was eager to be up and doing.
From now onwards the monks cautioned one another and all visitors
to abstain from serious conversation with him; and if in his talks the
Swami took up any serious subject, they were to remind him to refrain
from doing so. Whenever he felt better, he busied himself with some
manual work or other. Sometimes he would hoe the cultivated ground
of the Math, sometimes he would plant fruit-trees and flower plants,

or sow vegetable seeds. He would watch their growth with boyish

interest.
That same year the Swami also had the Lakshmi Puja and the
strictly according to scriptural rites. After the Kali-Puja his mother sent
word when he was a child, he had once been seriously ill, and that
then she had vowed to offer special worship to Mother Kali and make
him, her Naren, roll on the ground before Her (Mother Kali), should he
recover. She had forgotten all about it all these years, but his recurring
illness now recalled to her mind this long-forgotten vow. Though the
Swami was ill at the time, he went to the Kalighat temple in order to
please his mother. He bathed in the Adi-Ganga and in obedience to her
wishes came all the way to the temple in his wet clothes and rolled
thrice on the ground before the Mother. After offering worship, he
walked round the temple seven times; and then, in the open
compound on the western side of the Natmandira, he himself
performed Homa in front of the Mother. Returning from Kalighat the
Swami spoke of the liberal spirit of the temple-priests. Though they
knew that he had crossed the seas an act most unorthodox in their
eyes they raised no objection. "On the other hand," he said, "they
welcomed me warmly into the temple and helped me to worship the
Mother in any way I liked."
On November 12 the Swami wrote to Nivedita:
Since the Durga Puja I have been very ill and so could not reply to
your letter earlier. We had a grand Puja here of Durga lasting nearly
four days, but alas I was down with fever all the time. We had a grand
image and huge Puja it was. Then we had the Lakshmi Puja following
close, and then night before yesterday we had the Kali Puja. It is always
after midnight, this Puja. I am better now, and we will find a house for
you as soon as you come.
I am so glad you are accompanying Mrs. Bull.... Joe [Miss MacLeod
is coming to India shortly at Christmas time with some Japanese
friends. I am expected to meet her in Madras. I am going off to the
N.W.P. [North Western Provinces], etc. soon as Bengal is malarious
now that the rains are over......

The Swami also wrote to Christine Greenstidel on the same day:

We had grand "Pujas" (worships) here in our Math this year. The
biggest of our Pujas is the Mother worship lasting nearly four days and
nights. We brought a clay image of Mother with ten hands standing
with one foot on a lion, the other on a demon. Her two daughters the
goddess of wealth and the goddess of learning and music on either
side on lotuses, beneath her two sonsthe god of war and that of
wisdom.
Thousands of people were entertained; but I could not see the
Puja alas! I was down with high fever all the time. Day before
yesterday, however, came the Puja of Kali. We had an image too and
sacrificed a goat and burned a lot of fire works. This night every Hindu
home is illuminated, and the boys go crazy over fireworks..
An eye-witness, who was staying as guest at the Math during
these days, wrote in his reminiscences: "After that came Jagaddhatri
Puja. This Puja was celebrated at the house of Swamiji's mother at
Simla [Calcutta]. All of us had been there on invitation. Swamiji himself
managed the whole function.... Later on, Saraswati Puja was
celebrated at the Math by bringing an image. Before this, never was
Saraswati Puja performed in an image at the Math."
By himself worshipping the Divine in images, the Swami showed
his approval of this form of worship. Though an out and out Advaitin,
he, like the great Shankaracharya, had fervent devotion to these
personal aspects of the Godhead. As the sun in the evening sky,
lighting up clouds of different shapes, displays a variety of fascinating
colours, so the illumined soul of Vivekananda, like that of his Master,
touched by different religious feelings, revealed to others a wonerfu1
variety of forms of God-vision. But through that variety these great
souls, in a state of realization beyond all intellectual under-standing,
saw the play of the one Infinite only.

TOWARDS THE END

The several autumn festivals in honour of the Divine Mother were
over by the middle of November (1901), and there was a sense of bliss

in the Math. But in the heart of everyone, there was concern about the
Swami's health; and to add to their anxiety, his right eye began to give
trouble. About this he wrote to Christine Greenstidel on November 25:
"By the by, my right eye is failing me badly. I see very little with that
one. It will be hard for me for some time either to read or write, and as
it is getting worse every day my people are urging me to go to Calcutta
and consult a doctor. I will go soon, as soon as I recover from a bad
cold I have on." Two days later he again wrote to her: "I am just under
another spell of catarrh and asthma. Yesterday a cyclone blew over the
place, and several trees and a bit of the roof is damaged. It is gloomy
and cold. You know, it is almost impossible to write with the asthma
on."
When Christine insisted on knowing in detail about the Swami's
health, he wrote in reply on December 12:
You know, last three years I am getting albuminuria now and then.
It is not constant, neither is it yet of any organic character. The kidneys
are structurally all right. Only they throw out albumin now and then.
This is worse than throwing out sugar in diabetes. Albumin poisons the
blood, attacks the heart, and does all sorts of mischief. Catching cold
always increases it. This time it has caused a small blood vessel in the
right eye to burst, so that I scarcely see with that eye. Then the
circulation has become very rapid. The doctors have put me to bed,
and I am forbidden to eat meat, to walk or even stand up, to read and
write.
Already there is some benefit in this lying down process, as I sleep
a lot and have good appetite and am digesting my meals. Curious, is it
not, that inactivity should bring sleep and appetite?... The doctor says,
if I keep to my bed for three months, I will get completely cured....
But it was not possible for the Swami to follow the doctor's orders
to the letter. He continues: "I must stop. I'm going to look after my
geese, and ducks, just for five minutes,, breaking the doctor's
command to lie down all the time. One of the geese is a silly fearful
bird, always despondent and anxious. She likes to be all alone by
herself and is miserable, very much like another goose I know

[meaning Christine] in another place." As this letter shows, in spite of

bad health the Swami was always ready for a little fun, and kept
himself busy with his pets and other things.
At this time something happened which showed the faith and
yoga power of the Swami. His disciple, Swami Nirbhayananda, was
delirious with high fever, and all hope of his recovery was abandoned.
The fever rose to 107'F. The Swami was very anxious. Finally, seized by
a sudden intuition, he went to the shrine of the monastery to worship
Shri Ramakrishna.. After washing the casket containing the Master's
relics, he brought the sanctified water to the sick monk to drink. The
fever abated suddenly. The Swami, turning to his brother-monks and
disciples, said with great joy, "Behold the power of Shri Ramakrishna!
What wonders can he not work!"
The Master's reliquary, just mentioned, is regarded by his
devotees as his Living Presence. 'Re Swami called it "Atmarama's
Kauta". One day, shortly after returning from his second visit to the
West, doubt entered his mind and he asked himself, "Does Shri
Ramakrishna really reside here? I must test it!" Then he prayed, "My
Lord, Shri Ramakrishna, if thou art really present here, then bring here
within three days the Maharaja of Gwalior, who has come to Calcutta
on a short visit!" He knew that the chance of the Prince's coming was
very remote. He mentioned his prayer to none and, indeed, later on,
forgot all about it. The next day, returning in the evening from Calcutta
where he had gone for a few hours on some business, he learned that
the Maharaja of Gwalior was actually prepared to call on him. The
Maharaja had deputed his brother to go in a motor car to see whether
the Swami was at the Math, and, in case of his not being there, to

leave word that he (the Maharaja) wished very much to see the Swami,
but, since he was leaving Calcutta the next day, he would have to
reserve the pleasure of seeing him for some other occasion.1 As soon
as the Swami heard this news, he remembered his test, and, running
up the stairs to the shrine, bowed his head repeatedly before the altar
containing the sacred casket. Swami Premananda, who was at that
time meditating there, was bewildered. Then the Swami told him and
the assembled monks about the test. All marvelled at this proof of the
Presence of the Lord in the shrine.
In December 1901, it became clear that some of the Swami's
Western disciples and friends were again going to gather round him.
Mrs. Sevier reached Calcutta from England on December 9. Josephine
MacLeod, with her Japanese friends, was expected by the end of
December. Mrs. Bull and Sister Nivedita were to start for India in a
month's time. And the Swami wanted Christine Greenstidel to come
too. He wrote to her on December 12: "Mrs. Bull, Miss MacLeod, Mrs.
Sevier, and Nivedita and I will be overjoyed if somebody [meaning
Christine] will be thrown into the bargain." The Swami did not stop at
this. Six days later he sent her money for her passage to India, along
with an invitation from Mrs. Sevier. He wrote to her on December 13:
"Herewith I send you four hundred eighty dollars by cheque on
Thomas Cook and Son, Broadway, New York.... This is to pay your
'passage to India' if you think fit to accept Mrs. Sevier's invitation."
Unfortunately, just at this time Christine's mother passed away. To

According to mother version, while the Maharaja of Gwalior was passing by the
Grand Trunk Road near the Math in his car, he sent his younger brother to the Math
to see if the Swami was in; but, because he was not there, the Maharaja went away
disappointed.

give her strength, the Swami wrote on December 25: "The stars
brought you a tremendous blow Blessed be the name of the Lord....
Well, the Mother phenomenal has merged in the Mother absolute,
eternal. Thy will be done. By this time you must have made a decision
[about coming to India], or rather the 'Mother has shown you the way',
surely 1 rest content." In his letter of December 18 the Swami had
given her instructions for the journey.
If the Swami had critics, he also had friends and admirers among
the most representative of his countrymen. In 1901 the Indian National
Congress met in Calcutta, its sessions commencing on December 23.
Scores of delegates from different provinces availed themselves of the
opportunity to visit the monastery and pay their homage to the Swami,
whom they regarded as the Patriot-Saint of Modern India. He often
spoke with them in Hindi instead of in English, and invariably made a
great impression on them. With one of the foremost Congress leaders
the Swami spoke one day in an impassioned and eloquent manner for
an hour and a half, all the while walking back and forth on the spacious
lawn of the monastery. It was on a topic very dear to the Swami's
heart. With regard to these meetings the Editor of the Lucknow
Advocate wrote:
When we last saw him in Calcutta, during the Congress session, he
was eloquently talking, in pure and chaste Hindi, which would do credit
to any Upper Indian, about his schemes for the regeneration of India,
his face beaming with enthusiasm.
Among the ideas that the Swami discussed with the leaders of the
Congress was the founding of a Vedic Institution to train teachers and
preserve the ancient Aryan culture and Sanskrit learning. The delegates
were in fervent sympathy with this plan. One of those who was
present at that time wrote of these meetings with the Congress
members as follows:
A few months before his [the Swami's] passing away, during the
Christmas holidays, the sittings of the National Congress were held in
Calcutta. Delegates, reformers, professors, and great men of various
callings from all the different provinces of India, assembled there on

that occasion. Many of them came to the Belur Math to pay their
respects to Swamiji every afternoon during their stay in the city.
Swamiji enlightened them on various subjects, social, political,
religious, and so on. In fact, these meetings formed a Congress in itself,
of a type even superior and more beneficial to those present than the
actual sessions of the Congress. In one of these afternoons the
proposal was to start a Vedic College in Calcutta, and all present
assured him that they would help him in carrying it on in every way
that lay in their power. But before the plan was matured, Swamiji left
the body.
The Swami cherished this desire to found a Vedic college to the
very end, and even on the last day of his life he discussed with a
brother-disciple, Swami Premananda, the need of Vedic study. To
secure funds to commence the work early on a small scale, he
instructed Swami Trigunatita to dispose of the Udbodhan press. This
was done, and the money placed in a fund. But the work did not take
practical shape, since the Swami passed away before he could do
anything in this direction.
Among the prominent members of the Indian National Congress,
who visited Belur Math, were Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar
Tilak. They were put up with other delegates in Ripon College, Calcutta,
and did not visit the Math on the same occasion. Mahatma Gandhi, or
Mr. M. K. Gandhi as he then was, stayed in Calcutta for more than a
month and a half. About his visit to the Math, he wrote in his
autobiography: "Having seen enough of the Brahmo Samaj, it was
impossible to be satisfied without seeing Swami Vivekananda. So with
great enthusiasm I went to Belur Math, mostly, or maybe all the way,
on foot. I loved the sequestered site of the Math.. I was disappointed
and sorry to be told that the Swami was at his Calcutta house, lying ill,
and could not be seen." Gandhiji also visited Sister Nivedita after her
arrival in Calcutta from England in February (1902).
Shri Bal Gangadhar Tilak, years later, wrote thus of his visit to the
Math:

Once... during one of the Congress sessions at Calcutta, I had gone

with some friends to see the Belur Math of the Ramakrishna Mission.
There Swami Vivekananda received us very cordially. We took tea. In
the course of conversation Swamiji happened to remark somewhat in a
jocular spirit that it would be better if I renounced the world and took
up his work in Bengal while he would go and continue the same in
Maharashtra. "One does not carry", he said, "the same influence in
one's own province as in a distant one.
In the latter part of 1901, a number of Santal labourers were
engaged to clear and level the Math grounds. The Swami would talk
freely with them and listen to their tales of weal and woe. It was a
relaxation for him from his work and tense state of mind. One day
some gentlemen of wealth and position came to see him while he was
talking with these poor labourers. When he was told of the arrival of
the visitors, he said, "I shan't be able to go now. I am quite happy with
these people!"
The Swami was specially, fond of one of the Santals, Keshta by
name. This man used to say, "O Swami, don't come to us when we are
working, for we cannot work while we talk to you, and the supervising
Swami takes us to task for not doing our full measure of work!" At
these words the Swami was visibly affected. He assured them that
Swami Advaitananda, the Swami referred to, would not scold them.
Sometimes, hearing of their wants and miseries, the Swami would be
moved to tears; then Keshta would say, "Now you must go, Swami! We
won't tell you any more of our troubles, for it makes you weep!"
One day the Swami asked Keshta, "Would you all like to have a
feast here?" The man replied, "Dear father, if we eat food cooked by
you with salt, we shall lose our caste!" When the Swami insisted and
assured them that salt would not be put in during the cooking, but
would be served separately, Keshta agreed. The menu included puris,
sweets, yoghurt, and other tasty items. The Swami himself supervised
the arrangements and the serving of food to his guests. From time to
time the Santals exclaimed: "Oh Swami! where did you get such fine
things from? We have never tasted such dishes before." When the
meal was over, the Swami told them, "You are Narayanas; today I have

entertained the Lord Himself by feeding you!" Later, to a disciple he

remarked, "I actually saw the Lord Himself in them! How simplehearted and guileless they are!"
Shortly after the feast was given, the Swami said to the sannyasis
and Brahmacharis of the Math: "See how simple-hearted these poor
illiterate people are! Can you mitigate their misery a little? If not, of
what use is your wearing the ochre-robe? Sacrificing everything for the
good of others this is true Sannyasa. Sometimes I think within
myself, 'What is the 'good of building monasteries and so forth! Why
not sell them and distribute the money among the poor? What should
we care for homes, we who have made the tree our shelter? Alas! how
can we have the heart to put a morsel to our mouths, when our
countrymen have not enough with which to feed and clothe
themselves!' Let us, throwing away all pride of learning and study of
the Shastras, and all spiritual disciplines for the attainment of personal
Mukti, go from village to village, devoting our lives to the service of the
poor. Let us, through the force of our character and spirituality and our
austere living, convince the rich man of his duty to the masses and
induce him to give money for the service of the poor and the
distressed. Alas! nobody in our country thinks of the low, the poor, and
the miserable! These are the backbone of the nation, whose labour
produces our food. Where is the man in our country who sympathizes
with them, who shares in their joys and sorrows? Look how, for want
of sympathy on the part of Hindus, thousands of Pariahs in the Madras
Presidency are becoming Christians! Don't think that it is merely the
pinch of hunger that drives them to embrace Christianity. It is simply
because they do not get your sympathy. Is there any fellow-feeling or
sense of Dharma [charity] left in the country? There is only 'Don'ttouchism' now,! Kick out all such degrading usages! How I wish to
demolish the barriers of 'Don't- touchism' and go out and bring
together one and all, calling out, 'Come, all ye that are poor and
destitute, fallen and downtrodden! We are one in the name of
Ramakrishna!' Unless they are raised, this motherland of ours will
never awake! What are we good for if we cannot provide them with
food and clothing! Alas! they are ignorant of the ways of the world,

and hence fail to eke out a living, though they labour hard day and
night for it. Gather all your forces together to remove the veil from
their eyes. I see as clear as daylight that the same Brahman, the same
Shakti, that is in me is in them as well! Only, there is a difference in the
degree of manifestation that is all. In the whole history of the world,
have you ever seen a country rise without a free circulation of the
national blood throughout its entire body? If one limb is paralysed,
then even with the other limbs whole, not much can be done with that
body know this for certain."
A lay disciple said to the Swami, "It is too difficult a task, sir, to
establish harmony and co-operation among all the varying religious
sects and creeds that are current in this country, and to make them act
in unison for a common purpose." Vexed at these words, the Swami
said: "Don't come here any more if you think any task too difficult.
Through the grace of the Lord, everything becomes easy of
achievement. Your duty is to serve the poor and the distressed,
without distinction of caste and creed. What business have you to
think of the fruits of your action? Your duty is to go on working, and
everything will follow of itself. My method of work is to construct, and
not to destroy that which is already existing. Read the histories of the
world and you will see that invariably, in every country, at some
particular epoch, some great man has stood as the centre of its
national life, influencing the people by his ideas. You are all intelligent
boys, and profess to be my disciples tell me what you have done.
Can't you give away one life for the sake of others? Let the reading of
the Vedanta and the practising of meditation and the like be left for
the next life! Let this body go in the service of others; and then I shall
know that your coming to me has not been in vain." Later on, he said,
"After so much Tapasya I have understood this as the highest truth:
'God is present in every being. There is no other God besides that. He
who serves all beings serves God indeed!' "
The two occasions just mentioned are examples of many such,
when the Swami, in spite of illness and suffering, rose to heights of
amazing power, feeling, and eloquence, in giving his message to his
disciples and countrymen from the enforced seclusion of his

monastery. No wonder that he would feel a reaction! But who could

check that mighty flame within him, which must either burst out and
set the souls on fire, or consume his own being!
We have seen that, at the Swami's wish, Josephine MacLeod a
"lady-missionary" as he used to call her had arranged for him to visit
Japan, but that he could not go on account of illness. As a result, Miss
MacLcod and her Japanese friends, Mr. Okakura and Mr. Hori, decided
to visit India. Besides meeting the Swami, they would be able
personally to request him to attend the Congress of Religions that was
proposed to be held in Japan. Mr. Okakura Kakuzo, better known in
Japan as Tenshin, was head of the Committee for the Restoration of
Old Temples, and one of the founders of the Tokyo School of Art, of
the Nippon Bijutsuin (Fine Arts Academy of Japan), and of an art
journal of traditional Japanese art. He had travelled extensively on
official assignments in connection with art education. And Hori was a
zealous Buddhist priest in Nara. His age was about twenty-five. He had
led the life of a Brahmachari for seven years. They left Japan on
December 7 and reached Calcutta on January 6, via Colombo, Madras,
and Cuttack.
The two Japanese were delighted to meet the Swami at the Math
on the 6th evening. The Swami said to Okakura, "We are two brothers
who meet again having come from the ends of the earth." Okakura
was charmed with the Swami's personality. To his friend Oda Tokuno, a
Buddhist priest of the Shin Sect, who was then in Tokyo, he wrote
about the Swami as follows: "We arrived here a few days ago and met
Swami Vivekananda. He is a superb scholar in high spirits. He is such a
prominent figure that people of the entire earth respect him...."
In her reminiscences relating to this event, Josephine MacLeod
wrote:
One of the happy moments of my life was when after a few days
at Belur, Mr. Okakura said to me rather fiercely, "Vivekananda is ours.
He is an Oriental. He is not yours." Then I knew there was a real
understanding between them. A day or two after, Swami said to me,
"It seems as if a long lost brother has come." Then I knew there was a

real understanding between these two men. And when the Swami said
to him, "Will you join us?" Mr. Okakura said, "No, I haven't finished
with this world yet." Which was a very wise thing.
Okakura and Hori were accommodated at Belur Math, while Miss
MacLeod stayed at the American Consulate in Calcutta, by permission
of General Patterson, the American Consul-General. The Swami used
to talk with his guests on the glorious life of the Buddha and about the
philosophical side of his teachings, with such fervour, devotion, and
insight that they simply marvelled. The Japanese loved the Swami
dearly; and he for his part moved about with them freely, and joined
Hori in his boyish hobbies. The Swami liked Hori very much. and would
say, "He will make an excellent sannyasi." Writing to Christine
Greenstidel from the Math on January 23 the Swami said: "Miss
MacLeod has arrived with her Japanese friends, Mr. Okakura, a Prof. of
Art, and Mr. Hori, a Brahmacharin. The latter has come to India to
study Sanskrit and English. The former to see India the motherland
of Japanese culture and art. Well. Mrs. Bull and Nivedita are also
expected in a few days. As it seems now, this whole party is going to
Japan, minus Nivedita. She remains here to work. Now, I am going to
try my hand in Japan and if possible in China...."
Apart from the intentions of seeing India, the motherland of
Japanese culture, and of personally inviting the Swami to the
contemplated Congress of Religions to be held in Japan, Mr. Okakura
seems also to have intended to try to secure control over the
management of the Mahabodhi Temple at Buddha Gaya, and to
acquire some land near the temple for building a rest-house for the
Japanese pilgrims. With this latter purpose in mind, he requested the
Swami to accompany him to Buddha Gaya. The Swami agreed, since he
had already made arrangements to go and stay at Varanasi, in the
Gopallal Villa, for the sake of his health. The Swami said: "It would give
me the greatest pleasure to accompany you to the place, where the
Tathagata attained Nirvana, and after that to go on a pilgrimage to
Varanasi where the Buddha first preached his Gospel unto man.
Besides, Varanasi has for me a special attraction."

After a stay of about three weeks at the Math, Okakura,

accompanied by the Swami and Miss MacLcod, started for Buddha
Gaya on January 27. About their visit, Sister Nivedita has written:
When the winter again set in, he (the Swami) was so ill as to be
confined to bed. Yet he made one more journey, lasting through
January and February 1902, when he went first to Buddha Gaya and
next to Varanasi. It was a fit ending to all his wanderings. He arrived at
Buddha Gaya on the morning of his last birthday [January 29], and
nothing could have exceeded the courtesy and hospitality of the
Mahanta (head of the monastery). Here, as afterwards at Varanasi, the
confidence and affection of the orthodox world were brought to him in
such measure and freedom that he himself stood amazed at the extent
of his empire in men's hearts. Buddha Gaya, as it was now the last, had
also been the first, of the holy places he had set out to visit. And it had
been in Varanasi, some few years back (when he was an unknown
monk), that he had said farewell to one, with the words, "Till that day
when I fall on society like a thunderbolt I shall visit this place no more!"
Mr. Okakura, as we already know, was head of the Committee for
the Restoration of Old Temples. It was owing to his efforts that the
Japanese Government in those days gave annually 150,000 yen
(75,000) for restoring old temples. In a recent article entitled "Japan's
Fight for Land at Mahabodhi Temple, Gaya", published in Amrita Bazar
Patrika of June 6, 1976, Mr. Kalipada Biswas writes of Mr. Okakura's
mission as follows:
The third stage of the movement to secure control over the
management of the Mahabodhi Temple by the Japanese Buddhist
Organization on behalf on the World Buddhists came in 1901-02 when
the famous Japanese scholar, artist, and radical thinker Tenshin
Okakura, first in the company [of] Swami Vivekananda and next with
Surendranath Tagore, reopened negotiations, with the Mahanta for a
plot of about 2 to 3 bighas of land near the Mahabodhi Temple to build
a Japanese rest-house for the pilgrims. The Mahanta and the district
officials were by this time sufficiently alerted and though the parties
were welcomed and well received by the Mahanta and his men, their
Mission was a failure.

I the Swami's party was one Shri Nareshchandra Ghosh, who had
the opportunity of serving the Swami during the last stage of the
latter's life. Recalling the visit to Buddha Gaya and Varanasi this
devotee said:
1 accompanied the Swamiji's party to Buddha Gaya. It is not
possible to describe the joy, which I feel even now. Okakura had come
from Japan, and Swamiji went with him to show Buddha Gaya. Miss
MacLcod was with us. Kanai Maharaj [Swami Nirbhayananda] was the
chief attendant to Swamiji. His helpmates were Neda and myself. In
those days to go to Gaya from Howrah, one had to change at Bankipur.
We reached Bankipur in the morning [January 28]. Immediately we
boarded the train for Gaya, where we reached within two or three
hours. Okakura had a letter from the then Viceroy, Lord Curzon, with
him, and a telegram was sent in advance. As a result, at Gaya station
some Government officers had come to receive the party. They very
cordially welcomed the party and made arrangements for our stay at
the dak bungalows....
Swamiji went to see the Vishnu-pada-padma. Then after finishing
the breakfast in the morning [of January 29] all went to visit Buddha
Gaya in horse carriages. We reached there about 10 to 11 a.m. The
temple gate was in front of the Mahanta's house. Our carriage stopped
in front of it.... The Mahanta then was a young man of 28 to 30. He
came to receive the Swami along with his disciples.... As soon as
Swamiji got down from the carriage, the Mahanta Maharaj prostrated
before him. Then the whole party went inside. First Swamiji, then Miss
MacLeod, Okakura, and others followed....
Immediately arrangements were made for Swamiji's stay in a big
house, and the Mahanta instructed his disciples to supply whatever
Swamiji would need.... Separate arrangement was made for Miss
MacLeod and Okakura in the same house.
The Mahanta Maharaj used to have discussions with the Swami
for about two hours daily, either in the morning or in the afternoon, on
various religious subjects....

We stayed at Buddha Gaya for about a week. Swamiji would visit

the temple daily, and explain to us the architecture and the historicity
of each image. In the northwestern corner of the house there was an
image of Buddha from Japan. The expressions on its face and mode of
sitting was much like Swamiji's....
One day we went to see the caves some miles away.... There,
arrangements were made for tea and other things. After taking some
refreshments and rest, Swamiji climbed up to see the caves on the
hills. Three or four caves were very marvellous. Beautiful images were
carved on the walls inside. Long ago monks used to meditate there.
We returned from there by evening....
From Gaya we went to Benares [now Varanasi]. MacLeod returned
to Calcutta......
The Swami reached Buddha Gaya on his birthday. In this
connection Miss MacLeod was to write to Mary Hale on July 10, 1902:
"On his fortieth [actually thirty-ninth] birthday, January 29, he arrived
at Buddha Gaya, where we stayed for a week together. He always said
he would die at forty. There can be no mistake, but anguish has come
to stay. When she wrote this letter, Joe, as the Swami affectionately
called her, had learned by telegram that he had passed away on July 4
her "anguish" being caused by that event.
After about a week's stay at Buddha Gaya, the Swami, with Mr.
Okakura, Swamis Nirbhayananda and Bodhananda, Nadu and Gour
(Nareshchandra Ghosh), left Gaya by train and reached Varanasi the
same day in the evening. At Varanasi station they were received by a
crowd of about five hundred people, led by Jaminiranjan Majumdar
and Charubabu (later Swami Shubhananda). They offered garlands to
the Swami and Mr. Okakura on arrival. Swamis Shivananda and
Niranjanananda were then at Varanasi, and the latter had made
arrangements for the Swami's stay at the Gopallal Villa, or
"Soudhavas". This had a big compound and a fine garden. The Swami
was hoping that the dry climate of Varanasi would make for an
improvement in his health.
From Varanasi the Swami wrote to Miss MacLeod on February 7:

We have safely reached Benares, and Mr. Okakura has already

done Benares. He goes to see Sarnath (the old Buddhistic place) today
and starts on his tour tomorrow. He has asked Niranjan (Swami
Niranjanananda) to accompany him, and he has consented.... I hope
Nivedita and Mrs. Bull have safely arrived [at Calcutta]. I am rather
better than at Buddha Gaya. The house is nice and well furnished, and
has a good many rooms and parlours. There is a big garden all around
and beautiful roses and gigantic trees. It is rather cooler than at Gaya.
There was no hitch to our friend's being admitted into the chief temple
or to touching the Sign of Shiva, and worship. The Buddhists, it seems,
are always admitted. With all love and welcome to Mrs. Bull and
Nivedita if they have arrived and all to you.
In Varanasi the Swami was, as usual the centre of attraction for
many people. The Mahantas and orthodox pandits who met him,
became his admirers, in spite of his sweeping ideas on Hindu culture
and its restoration, and in spite of the fact that he had crossed the
seas. He met here the Maharaja of Bhinga, who begged him to
establish a monastery of the Order in the Holy City, offering him
money for its maintenance for one year and assuring him of his further
support. The Swami promised to do so; and on his return to Calcutta
he sent Swami Shivananda with a disciple to open an Ashrama there.
Many times he went for an afternoon trip on the Ganga, and on a few
occasions, when health permitted, he bathed in its waters, and then,
like any ordinary devotee, visited the temples, particularly that of
Vishwanath. He also kept in touch with affairs in Calcutta and in his
Indian centres elsewhere. He was at the time giving much thought to
the place of Buddhism in the Indian historical and archaeological
perspective, as his letter of February 3 shows:
My dear Swarupananda,... In answer to Charu's letter, tell him to
study the Brahma-Sutras himself. What does he mean by the BrahmaSutras containing references to Buddhism? He means the Bhashyas
[commentaries], of course, or rather ought to mean; and Shankara was
only the last Bhashyakara [commentator]. There are references though
in Buddhistic literature to Vedanta and the Mahayana school of
Buddhism is even Advaitistic. Why does Amara Singha, a Buddhist, give

as one of the names of Buddha 'Advayavadi'? Charu writes, the word

Brahman does not occur in the Upanishads! Quelle btise [what
nonsense]!
1 hold the Mahayana to he the older of the two schools of
Buddhism. The theory of Maya is as old as the Rik Samhita. The
Shvetasvatara Upanishad contains the word "Maya" which is
developed out of Prakriti. I hold that Upanishad to be at least older
than Buddhism.
1 have had much light of late about Buddhism, and I am ready to
prove that (1) Shiva-worship, in various. forms, antedated the
Buddhists, that the Buddhists tried to get hold of the sacred places of
the Shaivas, but failing in that, made new places in the precincts, just
as you find now at Buddha Gaya and Sarnath (Varanasi).
(2) The story in the Agni-Purana about Gayasura does not refer to
Buddha at all as Dr. Rajendralal will have it but simply to a preexisting story.
(3) That Buddha went to live on Gayashirsha mountain proves the
pre-existence of that place.
(4) Gaya was a place of ancestor-worship already, and the
footprint-worship the Buddhists copied from the Hindus.
(5) About Varanasi, even the oldest records go to prove it as the
great place of Shiva-worship, etc.
Many are the new facts I have gathered in Buddha Gaya and from
Buddhist literature. Tell Charu to read for himself, and not be swayed
by foolish opinions....
A total revolution has occurred in my mind about the relation of
Buddhism and Neo-Hinduism. I may not live to work out the glimpses,
but I shall leave the lines of work indicated, and you and your brethren
will have to work it out.
Inspired by the Swami's teachings, several young Bengalis at
Varanasi, under the leadership of Charuchandra Das (afterwards
Swami Shubhananda), Kedarnath Maulik (later Swami Achalananda),
and Jaminiranjan Majumdar, had formed themselves into a band

towards the middle of June 1900. Their object was to serve suffering
pilgrims, who gather in thousands in that sacred city. They rented a
small house and endeavoured with their limited means to provide
proper food, shelter, and medical aid to destitute pilgrims, helpless
widows, and aged persons lying ill on the streets and ghats of the city.
They had named their institution "Poor Men's Relief Association". They
worked with a zeal and spirit of self-sacrifice that recalled the days of
St. Francis of Assisi. The Swami was delighted with the work they were
doing and was proud of them. "You have the true spirit, my boys," he
said, "and you have always my love and blessings! Go on bravely; never
mind your poverty; money will come; a great thing will grow of it
surpassing your fondest hopes!" So as to fit in with the new outlook
inculcated by the Swami, the association was renamed "The
Ramakrishna Home of Service" at his wish. He himself wrote an appeal
to accompany their first report.
At that time Shri Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar, Editor of the
Mahratta of Poona (now Pune), was at Varanasi. One evening he came
to see the Swami. The latter was lying ill on his bed. Shri Kelkar humbly
saluted and took his seat on the carpet spread on the floor. They
talked in English. As the talk became more and more serious, the
Swami sat up on his bed. His voice gradually changed from mild to
loud. The subject was the social, political, and economic development
of India. Feeling pained at heart he said, "What is the use of living
longer to see such a degraded, and poor state of the Indians. They are
undergoing the troubles of hell at every moment, somehow they are
passing their days simply by saving their life. They are day and night
bearing the pangs of hunger, humility, and misery. They are as if
burning day and night in the fire of hell death would be far better than
all this." No good would come of imitating the Westerners' political
methods; but, if the traditional culture of India could be revived,
something could be achieved. India had always effected, her social and
other development through religion. The Swami's way of thinking on
these matters was new. It was his own.
In later years, when Shri Kelkar spoke at Ferguson College, Poona,
on July 19, 1935, he said: "If I compare Shri Ramakrishna to a unique

and brilliant torchlight, I would like to call Vivekananda one who set
the whole humanity on fire with the help of this torch." Such was his
regard for the Swami.
Many incidents that took place during the Swami's short stay at
Varanasi have come to light, but we shall have to confine ourselves to
a few. Some of them we learn of from Shri Nareshchandra Ghosh's
reminiscences, as following:
A few days after coming to Varanasi, Okakura wore dhoti and a silk
turban at the instance of the Swami. People would take him to be a
person from the royal household of Nepal. Then Swamiji sent him with
that dress to visit the Vishwanath temple. About fifteen to twenty
people accompanied him. Swamiji did not go with him. The party went
to the temple in four or five horse-carriages....
Bhaktaraj and a few others wanted to take initiation from the
Swami. They were initiated in one of the rooms of the same gardenhouse on an auspicious day. On this day I saw Swamiji in a high
spiritual state, as if intoxicated....
During this period big pandits and sannyasis of Varanasi would
come to the Swami for discussing the scriptures.... Shivanath [or
Shivananda] Pandit used to have discussions with him for five to six
hours daily. The son of Pramadadas Mitra [named Kalidas Mitra] also
visited him often....
While the Swami was at Varanasi, Mrs. Ole Bull and Sister Nivedita
arrived in Calcutta via Madras, sometime in the first week of February.
Miss MacLeod, who had accompanied the Swami to Buddha Gaya, had
left his party to receive them in Calcutta. They stayed at the American
Consulate. From Varanasi the Swami wrote to Mrs. Bull on February
10:
Welcome to India once more, dear mother [Mrs. Bull] and
daughter [Nivedita].... I hope you are resting well after your long
journey, and so is Nivedita. I wish it so much that you should go for a
few hours to a few villages west of Calcutta to see the old Bengali
structures made of wood, bamboo, cane. mica, and grass. These are
the bungalows, most artistic. Alas! the name is travestied nowadays by

every pigsty appropriating the name.... Brahmananda will arrange for

it, and you have only to take a journey of a few hours.
Mr. Okakura has started on his short tour. He intends to visit Agra,
Gwalior, Ajanta, Ellora, Chittore, Udaipur, Jaipur, and Delhi... Niranjan
has gone with Okakura, and as he is a Japanese, they don't object to
his going into any temple.... They allowed him to touch the sign of
Shiva and worship...., The Buddhists are not considered non-Hindus in
any of our great temples....
And to Sister Nivedita, the Swami wrote on the 12th:
Overjoyed to receive your letter, more so that you come with
unimpaired will and recuperated health. In a previous letter, I have
written you what little I had to suggest.... I recommend you none
not oneexcept Brahmananda. That "Old man's" [Shri Ramakrishna's]
judgements never failed mine always do. If you have to ask my
advice or to get anybody to do your business, Brahmananda is the only
one I recommend, none else, none else: with this my conscience is
clear.
Do just as the "Mother" directs. I would help you if I could, but I
am only a bundle of rags and with only one eye at that; but you have
all my blessingsall and more if I had.
All my powers come unto you may Mother Herself be your
hands and mind. It is immense power, irresistible, that I pray for you,
and if possible along with it infinite peace.... If there was any truth in
Shri Ramakrishna, may He take you into His leading, even as He did
me, nay a thousand times more.
At Varanasi the Swami's health did not improve; rather it gradually
became worse. Once he became seriously ill, and three attendants had
to fan him continuously by turns at night. He would say to Swami
Shivananda: "How long can we keep the sick body by patching up like
this? And even if I pass away Nivedita and Shashi [Ramakrishnananda]
and others will keep my word. They will do Thakur's [Shri
Ramakrishnas+ work till the end of their life; they won't waver in any
case. My all hopes rest in them."

In his letter to Sister Nivedita from Varanasi on March 4, the

Swami wrote in the same vein:
It is night now, and I can hardly sit up or write. Yet still feel duty
bound to write to you this letter, fearing lest it becomes my last, it may
put others to troubles. My condition is not at all serious, but it may
become any time, and I don't know what is meant by a low fever, that
almost never leaves me, and the difficulty of breathing.
Well, I sent Christina 100 from Mrs. Sevier for a travel to India, as
she lost her mother at that time. Her last letter informs me that she
sails on February 15th. In that case her reaching India is very near. I
expect of course some information as to the port and steamer next
week. In case I pass away, which I would like very much to do in this
city of Shiva, do you open her letters directed to me, receive the girl,
and send her home back. If she has no money to go back, give her a
passage, even if you have to beg.
1 have spent the little money I brought from Europe in feeding my
mother and paying her debts; what little remains, I cannot touch, as
that is the expense for the pending lawsuit....
Ramakrishnananda came a few weeks before I came away, and
the first thing he did was to lay down at my feet Rs. 400 he had
collected in so many years of hard work!!! It was the first time such a
thing had happened in my life. I can scarcely suppress my tears. Oh
Mother!! Mother!! There is not all gratitude, all love, all manliness
dead!!! And, dear child, one is enough one seed is enough to
reforest the world.
Well, that money is in deposit in the Math. I never meant to touch
a penny of that.... Well, if I pass away, see that Rs. 400 is paid back
every rupee to him. Lord bless you and Ramakrishnananda. I am quite
satisfied with my work: to have left two true souls is beyond the
ambition of the greatest.
Ever your loving father,
Vivekananda
Despite bad health. the stay of about a month in Varanasi was a
pleasant one for the Swami. Amid the temples and sadhus of the

sacred city he felt himself to be dwelling in the Spirit. On March 8, he

returned to Belur Math with Swamis Shivananda, Niranjanananda, and
others, to take part in the birth anniversary of Shri Ramakrishna, which
fell that year on March 11.
According to Hori's diary, however, the Swami and party reached
the Math on March 7, and on the 9th Mr. Okakura came to see him.
This means that Mr. Okakura had completed his tour by this time.
From Sister Niveditas letters we know that he was at the American
Consulate as the guest of Miss MacLcod. Mrs. Ole Bull was also staying
there till she left Calcutta on April 17. In the second week of February,
Miss MacLcod had left Calcutta and perhaps joined Mr. Okakura's
party to see such places of historical and architectural importance as
Sanchi, Ajanta, and so on. She appears to have returned to Calcutta
along with Mr. Okakura, for she was one of the party, which included
Mrs. Bull and Nivedita, that visited Belur Math on March 22.
There were times when the Swami finding his body becoming
more and more incapable of work, would feel dejected, since only a
few workers had come forward to help him. His hope lay in gathering
together a number of intelligent young men, who would renounce
everything for the welfare of others, who would lay down their lives in
working out his ideas for their own good and for that of their country.
He used to say that, if he could get ten or twelve youths fired with a
faith like that of Nachiketa, he could turn the whole current of thought
and aspiration of his country into a new channel.
Speaking of this one day to Sharatchandra, he suddenly exclaimed:
"Keeping before you the national ideal of renunciation which comes of
devotion to the Lord, you have to work fearlessly with the strength of a
lion, heedless of the fruits of action and without caring for criticism.
Let Mahavira be your ideal. See how, with unbounded faith in the
name of Rama, he the prince of the self-controlled ones, wise and
sagacious crossed the ocean in one bound, defying death! You have
to mould your lives after that high ideal, thinking yourselves the
servants of the Lord." He condemned all weakening ideals in all
departments of life including religion, and advocated the practical
expression of the loftiness of spirit that is the mark of heroism. "Only

by following such an ideal of manliness can we ensure the welfare of

our motherland.... But, mind you, never for a moment swerve an inch
from the path of righteousness. Never let weakness overcome you."
Speaking in this strain the Swami came downstairs and sat on the
canvas cot under the mango tree in the courtyard, facing west, as he
often did. His eyes were luminous;' his whole frame seemed alive with
some strange spiritual consciousness. Pointing to the sannyasis and
Brahmacharis about him, he exclaimed: "And where will you go to seek
Brahman? He is immanent in all beings. Here, here is the visible
Brahman! Shame on those who, disregarding the visible Brahman, set
their minds on other things! Here is the Brahman before you as
tangible as a fruit in your hand! Can't you see! Here here here is
the Brahman!" He spoke these words in such an inspiring way that
over all present there came the peace and insight of deep meditation.
They stood like marble statues, so motionless and hushed in silence
had they become! Swami Premananda, after his bath in the Ganga,
was on his way to the shrine for worship. Hearing the words of his
brother-monk he fell into a state of absorption and became
motionless. After a quarter of an hour the Swami said to him, "Now go
for worship." Then only did Premananda regain normal consciousness.
That scene was unforgettable. Everyone in the monastery was
struck with amazement at the power of the beloved Leader who, with
a word, could raise the minds of all present to the heights of Supreme
Insight.
The public celebration of the birthday of Shri Ramakrishna was on
March 16; but the Swami could not leave his room. For some days
previous he had been confined to his bed. His feet were swollen, and
he was almost unable to walk. Gloom was cast over the celebration by
the announcement that his malady had taken a serious turn. The
thousands who had come were greatly disappointed, for they had
hoped to see and hear him. In the morning he thought several times of
making a public appearance; but he found that even the few visitors
who had come to him in the early part of the day had tired him. So he
decided to rest, and asked Swami Niranjanananda to keep guard and
permit no one to enter his room. The brother-disciple did as he was

asked. Only one lay disciple attended on the Swami. Seeing the latter's
state of health, the disciple was much affected. The Swami understood
his feelings and said: "What is the use of giving way to sorrow, my boy?
This body was born, and it will die. If I have been able to instil into you
all, even to a small degree, some of my ideas, then I shall know that I
have not lived my life in vain! Always remember that renunciation is
the root idea. Unless initiated into this idea, not even Brahma and the
World-Gods have the power to attain Mukti."
He then became deeply absorbed in thought. After a while he
observed. "I think that it will be better if, from now on, the anniversary
is celebrated in a different way. The celebration should extend to four
or five days instead of one. On the first day, there may be study and
interpretation of the scriptures; on the second, discussion on the
Vedas and the Vedanta, and solution of problems in connection with
them; on the third day, there may be a question class; the fourth day
may be fixed for lectures; and on the last day there will be a festival on
the present lines."
When the Sankirtana parties arrived, he stood by the window
facing south, supporting himself against its iron bars, and gazed
lovingly on the assembled thousands. After a few minutes he had to sit
down, since he was too weak to stand. He then spoke to the disciple
on the realization of the Self which comes of devotion to the Lord born
as a world-teacher from time to time. He also talked on the glory of
the Avatars, the Incarnations of God, who are able to give Mukti to
millions of souls in one life by dispelling their ignorance.
He gave a beautiful explanation of what is meant by grace. He
said: "He who has realized the Atman becomes a store-house of great
power. From him as the centre, and within a certain radius, emanates
a spiritual force, and all those who come within this circle become
animated with his ideas and are overwhelmed by them. Thus without
much religious striving they inherit the results of his wonderful
spirituality. This is grace."
"Blessed are those", he continued, "who have seen Shri
Ramakrishna. All of you also will get his vision. When you have come

here, you are very near to him. Nobody has been able to understand
who came on earth as Shri Ramakrishna. Even his own nearest
devotees have got no real clue to it. Only some have got an inkling of
it. All will understand it in time."
'Off and on during the last year and a half of his life the Swami was
under strict medical orders. When he, returned from Varanasi to be
present at the festival just mentioned, and to take up again, as he
hoped, his work of personal training and teaching, his health suffered a
serious relapse, as we have seen. At the earnest entreaty of Swami
Niranjanananda, in which all the monks joined, he agreed to place
himself under the treatment of an Ayurvedic practitioner, the wellknown Kaviraj Mahananda Sen Gupta of Calcutta. The treatment was
rigorous: he was not allowed to drink water or take salt. These
instructions the Swami adhered to faithfully. Firstly, because he loved
to feel the response of the body to the will, to realize his own
command over it; secondly, because he felt that he should abide by
the wishes of his monastic brothers; and lastly, for the sake of the
work that was constantly opening up before him. For all these reasons
he was ready to give a trial to this or any other course of treatment,
though he was not himself very hopeful. In loving humility he said to
someone, "You see, I am simply obeying the orders of my brothers. I
could not disregard their request; they love me so dearly!" One disciple
asked him, "Swamiji, how is it that in spite of the severe heat of the
summer, you can refrain from drinking water, when you were in the
habit of drinking it hourly throughout the day?" The Swami replied,
"When I decided to begin the treatment ' I imposed this vow upon
myself, and now the water will not go down my throat. For twenty-one
days I have refrained from water, and now, in rinsing out my mouth, I
find that the muscles of my throat close of their own accord against
the passage of a single drop. The body is only a servant of the mind.
What the mind dictates the body will have to carry out." After a few
days of Ayurvedic treatment, he was able to say to his brother-monks,
"Now I do not even think of water. I do not miss it at all!" He was
overjoyed to find that, in spite of physical weakness and broken health,

his strength of will remained. After more than two months' use of the
Ayurvedic medicines, he felt greatly benefited.
In spite of a very spare diet, very little sleep, and the severe
restrictions imposed on him by the treatment, the natural glow of his
countenance and the lustre of his eyes were undiminished, and he
knew no respite from his labours. Shortly before beginning the
treatment he had begun reading the newly-published edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. His disciple, Sharatchandra Chakravarti,
seeing one day those twenty-five large volumes, remarked, "It is
difficult to master the contents of so many volumes in one life." He did
not know at the time that the Swami had already finished ten volumes
and was reading the eleventh. "What do you mean?" said the Swami.
"Ask me whatever you like from these ten volumes and I can tell you
all about it." The disciple, out of curiosity, brought down the books and
asked him many questions on difficult subjects, selecting one or two
from every volume. Not only did the Swami answer the questions
displaying a vast amount of even technical knowledge, but in many
instances he quoted the very language of the books! The disciple was
astounded at the extraordinary grasp and memory of his guru, and
exclaimed, "This is beyond the power of man!" The Swami then told
him that there was nothing miraculous about it; that, if one observed
the strictest Brahmacharya, one could retain and reproduce exactly
what one had heard or read but once, even if years ago. "For the lack
of this Brahmacharya," he added, we as a nation are becoming poorer
and poorer in strength and intellect, and are losing our manhood."
After a while the Swami went on to explain to the disciple, most
lucidly and convincingly, the arguments advanced and conclusions
arrived at by the different systems of Hindu philosophy. While the talk
was going on, Swami Brahmananda came in and said to the disciple,
"How inconsiderate you are! Swamiji is unwell, and you, instead of
humouring him with light talk, as I told you to, are tiring him out by
making him speak on these abstruse subjects!" The disciple was
abashed. But the Swami said to the brother-disciple, "Who cares for
your medical restrictions and all that! They are my sons; if in giving
them instruction my body wears out, who cares a straw for that!"

The conversation afterwards turned to the subject of the Bengali

poets. The Swami was very severe on Bharat Chandra, one of the older
Bengali poets,, and praised Michael Madhusudan Dutta's
Meghanadavadha Kavya as the greatest poetic work in Bengali
literature, adding that it was difficult to find another epic poem in the
whole of modern European literature to match it. "And, do you know",
he said in conclusion, "what portion of it I regard as the poet's greatest
creation? It is the scene in which Indrajit has been slain in battle, and
Mandodari the queen of King Ravana, stricken with sorrow at the loss
of her valiant son, is imploring her husband to desist from battle; but
Ravana, burning with pride, anger, and revenge, like the great hero
that he is, casting from his heart all grief for his dead son, and without
thought for the fate of his queen and other sons, is ready to go forth to
battle. 'Come what may, let the universe remain or be broken to
fragments, I will not forget my duty!' these are the words of a
mighty hero!" Then he asked the disciple to bring the book from the
Math library, and read aloud that portion in a thrilling manner.
Another morning, talking with the same disciple, he raised the
question of establishing the Math, so much desired by him, for
women, somewhere near Calcutta, on the bank of the Ganga. It was to
be on the same lines as that for men, with the Holy Mother as its
central figure and guiding spirit. Brahmacharinis and women teachers
would be trained there to work for the regeneration of their sex in
India. In a long enthusiastic talk he spoke in detail of his ideas about
the convent, the means and methods of its action, the urgent need to
start centres all over the country for the education of Indian women on
national lines, and the great results that would come of such work in
time.
Throughout 1901, and even up to the time of his passing away in
1902, the Swami was eager to receive friends and visitors and instruct
his disciples, despite the wish of his monastic brothers that he take
rest; for, in the matter of teaching done by him, he opposed attempts
to set limits to it. For that, everything must be sacrificed, even the
body itself. Sometimes, hearing of earnest seekers who had been
refused admission to his presence, he would be so moved with

sympathy that he would say: "Look here! what good is this body! Let it
go in helping others. Did not the Master preach till the very end? Shall I
not do the same? I do not care a straw if the body goes! You cannot
imagine how happy I am when I find earnest seekers after truth to talk
to. In the work of waking up the Atman in my fellow-men I shall gladly
die again and again!"
To come back to events in the last months of the Swami's life. On
March 21, 1902 Sister Nivedita lectured at the Classic Theatre Hall on
"The Hindu Mind in Modern Science". Justice Saradacharan Mitter was
in the chair. The lecture was a grand success. On March 29, work on
the foundation of the river embankment started at the instance of the
Swami. The embankment was necessary because the water of the
Ganga used to enter the Math compound at high tide and make it
muddy. On March 30, at I p.m., worship was done in connection with
the embankment work. This was according to Hindu custom.
On April 2 the Rev. Oda, the abbot of a Buddhist monastery in
Japan, arrived in Calcutta and stayed as the guest of Miss MacLeod at
the American Consulate. On the same day, he went with Mr. Okakura
to the Math to see the Swami, and dined there. The Rev. Oda said to
the Swami: "If such a distinguished person as you take part in the
Congress [of Religions to be held in Japan], it will be a success. You
must come and help us. Japan stands in need of a religious awakening,
and we do not know of any one else who can bring about this much
desired consummation." The Swami, seeing his and Okakura's
sincerity, became enthusiastic and expressed consent. Though his
health was very bad at the time, he did not mind, so long as he could
be of service to humanity.
On April 19 Mr. Okakura and the Rev. Oda left for Buddha Gaya,
and Swami Saradananda followed them a little later. The party was to
go to Nepal as well; but to get their passports they had to return to
Calcutta, which they did on April 28. However, the visit to Nepal did
not come off, since the Rev. Oda left for Japan on May 1, to see to
further plans for the Congress of Religions. Mr. Okakura remained in
India till October 1902. In May, as we shall see, he went to Mayavati
for a few days, and then returned to Calcutta. Hori remained at the

Math studying Sanskrit, till he fell ill in the summer. On June 10 Shri
Surendranath Tagore had him moved to Shantiniketan. He only learnt
of the Swami's death several days after it happened.
By the end of March, Christine Greenstidel had arrived in Bombay.
The Swami welcomed her in his letter of March 30: "You know how
welcome you are I need not express it.... come over straight; only
take great great [care] of the heat by protecting, the back of the
head.... If you feel tired, take rest in Bombay. Mrs. Bull, Joe [Miss
MacLcod], and Margot [Nivedita] are anxiously awaiting you, and so is
Vivekananda." On April 7 Christine reached Calcutta. She stayed with
other Western disciples at the American Consulate. Next morning she
went to see the Swami at the Math with Mrs. Bull, and was there for
the whole day. While she was in Calcutta, till she left for Mayavati, she
often visited the Math. On April 19 Nivedita wrote about her to Miss
MacLeod, then at Mayavati, as follows: "Christine is beyond
wordssoothing, gracious, lovely. I think we may come to Mayavati
together... And I feel that it is very possibly her destiny to remain in the
Himalayas a year or so meditating. I should think that will prove to
be her power. Her character is radiantly beautiful. Of course I wish I
could have her to live with me!"
Sometime in the first week of April, Josephine MacLcod left
Calcutta for Mayavati. The Swami wrote to her on April 2, with
instructions about the journey: The telegraph is already gone... The
dak bungalows en route to Mayavati provide no food, nor have they
cooks. Provisions have to be taken at Kathgodam and arrangements
made. If you find any difficulty, go straight to Almora and make your
arrangements at leisure. . I like Mr. Oda much he means
business....
From the Mayavati diary it is learnt that Miss MacLeod,
accompanied by Lala Gangi Sah, reached Mayavati on April 7 (1902),
and left on the 20th. Recalling her meetings with the Swami at the
Math before she went to Mayavati, Miss MacLcod wrote later:

One day in April 119021 he said, "I have nothing in the world. I
haven't a penny to myself. I have given away everything that has ever
been given to me." I said, "Swami, I will give you fifty dollars a month
as long as you live." He thought a minute and then he said, "Can I live
on that?" "Yes, 0 yes", I said, "but perhaps you cannot have cream." I
gave him then two hundred dollars, but before the four months were
pawed he had gone.
At Belur Math one day, while Sister Nivedita was distributing
prizes for some athletics, I was standing in Swamiji's bedroom at the
Math, at the window, watching, and he said to me, "I shall never see
forty." 1, knowing he was thirty-nine, said to him, "But Swami, Buddha
did not do his great work until between forty and eighty." But he said,
"I delivered my message and I must go." I asked, "Why go?" and he
said, "The shadow of a big tree will not let the smaller trees grow up. I
must go to make room." Afterwards I went again to the Himalayas. I
did not see Swami again...
On May 5, Mr. Okakura, Nivedita, Christine, Sadananda, Miss Bett,
Suren, and Kalu left for Mayavati in the evening. Swami Saradananda
saw them off. Swamiji bore all the travelling expenses for Christine.
From the Mayavati diary it is known that Christine, Swami
Sadananda, Suren, and Gangi Sah reached there on May 10; while
Sister Nivedita, Mr. Okakura, and his two servants arrived on May 13.
After a short stay at Mayavati Okakura and his servants left on May 20.
Sister Nivedita stayed there up to June 20, and then returned to
Calcutta.
Especially from the early part of March 1902 until his passing
away, the Swami was busy in many ways. He did not mind even his
illness when he was bent upon doing something. Even to the last day
he himself conducted numerous scriptural and question classes at the
monastery, and often the Brahmacharis and even his own brotherdisciples came to him for spiritual advice. He would explain the various
methods of meditation, and train those who were backward in it. He
spent hours in answering correspondence, or in reading, or making
notes on Hindu philosophy or Indian history for publication; for

recreation he would sing or discourse with his brother- monks giving

himself up to fun and merriment. Oftentimes, in the midst of his talks,
his face would assume a dreamy far-away look, and then all would
leave him, knowing that he wished to he alone with his thoughts.
The Swami's eye saw everything that went on in the monastery,
and he was very strict during these days in enforcing discipline. He
insisted upon thorough cleanliness; when he found the floor covered
with dust because of the servants' illness, he himself would sweep it, in
order to teach the disciples the necessity of cleanliness, and would not
surrender the broom to them. He would examine the beds and see
that they were properly cared for and aired. If he found any
carelessness in that respect, his reprimand was most severe. And once
when Bagha, the Math dog, polluted the water brought for the Puja
through the gross carelessness of one of the junior members, he was
greatly vexed. He insisted that the classes on the Vedas and the
Puranas be held regularly. He allowed none of the members of the
Order to rest after the noonday meal, making them commence at once
the study of the Puranas.
The Swami abhorred extremes. He protested against the elaborate
paraphernalia of daily worship at the Math in the strongest terms and
advised his disciples to devote more time to scriptural study, religious
talks and discussions, as well as to meditation, in order to mould their
lives and understand the true spirit of Shri Ramakrishna's teachings,
and not waste their time over superfluous and minute details in
conducting the worship. He felt that the Puja should be done in the
simplest way with due devotion and fervour, and go hand in hand with
meditation and study, and not be allowed to take up the whole time of
the monks. In order to enforce this, he introduced the ringing of a bell
at appointed hours when the monks had to leave whatever they might
be doing to join the classes for study, discussion, and meditation, and
anyone failing to do so promptly was severely censured. Indeed, he
was a loving and stern guru loved and feared at the same time by his
disciples and brother-monks. Throughout his stay at the Belur
monastery and especially during the last few months of his life, the
Swami used to lay great stress on meditation. About three months

before his death, he made a rule that at four o'clock in the morning a
hand-bell should be rung from room to room to awaken the monks,
and that within half an hour all should be gathered in the chapel to
meditate. Over and above this, the Swami encouraged his disciples to
practise austerities. Besides formulating a hard and fast daily routine
for the monks, he had already written out, in the early part of 1898, a
comprehensive set of rules and regulations for the proper guidance of
the monastic Order, wherein he had briefly set forth his principal ideas,
methods, and lines of work. This was to form the ideal of the
Brotherhood, and its practical application was to be the sole aim and
endeavour of the monks. In his charge to the disciples he repeatedly
pointed out that no monastic order could keep itself pure and retain its
original vigour or its power of working for good, without a definite
ideal to reach, without rigorous discipline and vows, and without
keeping up culture and education within its fold. He also pointed out
that had it not been for the severe austerities and Sadhanas practised
by himself and the Brotherhood, both during the lifetime of their
Master and after his Mahasamadhi, and had it not been for the
Master's divine life which stood as an example and ideal before them,
they could not have achieved what they had done.
Thus everyone was bound by routine as regards eating, resting,
helping in worship and household duties, study, and meditation. There
were also rules which the visitors and the lay disciples of Shri
Ramakrishna had to observe whenever they were at the monastery, so
that their visits might not interrupt the activities of the monks. For the
welfare of the Order he had sometimes to be harsh and severe in
enforcing the observance of the daily routine, even though he
occasionally incurred displeasure thereby.
The Swami's joy was great when meditation and austerities were
in full swing. He would say to his old friends and lay disciples: "See how
the sadhus are practising devotion here. That is right! In the morning
and evening, as Shri Ramakrishna used to say, the mind turns naturally,
when trained, to the highest spiritual thoughts, and it is therefore
easier to control and concentrate it at these junctures. One should
therefore try to meditate then on God with undivided attention." What

he preached, he practised. Whenever his health permitted and

fortunately he was comparatively well at this time he joined in the
morning meditation in the chapel. He used to rise at 3 a.m. In a
prominent part of the worship-room a special seat was spread for him,
facing the north. He meditated there with the others. No one was
allowed to leave his seat until the Swami had risen. Oftentimes his
meditation would last for more than two hours. Then he would get up
chanting "Shiva! Shiva!" and bowing to Shri Ramakrishna he would go
downstairs and pace to and fro in the courtyard, singing a song to the
Divine Mother or to Shiva as he walked. His presence in the
meditation-room invariably lent an added power and intensity to the
meditation of those who sat with him. Swami Brahmananda once
remarked, "Ah! one at once becomes absorbed if one sits for
meditation in company with Naren! I do not feel this when I sit alone."
The days when the Swami could not join in the general
meditation, he would make enquiries as to the attendance. Once, after
an absence of many days, the Swami went into the worship-room at a
time when the monks should have been meditating. It so happened
that on that particular day many were absent. The Swami was vexed at
this lapse, and at once coming down called them all before him. He
demanded an explanation, and on receiving no satisfactory answer,
passed orders that as penalty none of those absent at the meditation,
except two or three who were ill at the time, should be allowed to
have meals at the Math that day. He told them to go out for
Madhukari Bhiksha, or beg handfuls of rice and other food-stuff from
the villagers and cook for themselves under the trees in the Math
grounds. They were forbidden to go to their friends in Calcutta, from
whom they might expect to have a hearty dinner. He spared none, not
even the greatest of his brother-disciples, whom he otherwise treated
with a special reverence. In order to ensure obedience he ordered the
one in charge of the store-room not to supply cooking materials that
day. So most of them were obliged to go out for begging their food.
The Swami, however, could not bear to see his dear ones and those
whom he respected begging their food, and he left for Calcutta on the
pretext of business. He returned to the Math the next day full of love

and kindness, and laughed at the queer experiences of some, or the

better luck of others, and rejoiced at the warm welcome and the
sumptuous feast which some had received from some Marwari
merchants of Salkhia, three miles distance from the monastery.
In spite of his illness, the Swami had not forgotten his beloved
disciples and friends, who had gone to Mayavati. On May 27 he wrote
to Christine:
My health, though not improved as much as I wished, is not bad.
The liver has been benefited, is a great gain.... I am so happy to learn
the mountains are doing you good. Eat a lot, sleep as much as you can,
and get plump. Stuff yourself till you get plump or you burst.
So the place did not suit Mr. Okakura; why? There must have been
something to annoy him very much, that he left the place so abruptly.
Did he not like the scenery? Was not it sublime enough for him? Or
Japanese do not like sublimity at all? They only like beauty.... How is
Margot [Nivedita]? Is she still there? Or gone away with Mr.
Okakura?...
And to console his friend Madame Emma Calve, who had lost her
father, the Swami wrote on May 15:
With great sorrow I learn the sad bereavement that has come
upon you. These blows must come upon us all. They are in the nature
of things, yet they are so hard to bear. The force of association makes
out of this unreal world a reality, and the longer the company, the
more real seems the shadow. But the day comes when the unreal goes
to the unreal, and oh, how sad to bear! Yet that which is real, the Soul,
is ever with us omnipresent blessed is the person who has seen the
real in this world of vanishing shadows.... May the Lord always shower
His choicest blessings on you, is the everlasting prayer of Vivekananda.
The days passed as though they were hours. Whatever the mood
of the Swami, for his brother-monks and disciples, his presence was in
itself a constant source of joy and inspiration. Whether he was
impatient, whether he reprimanded, whether he was exacting or
unreasonable, whether he was the teacher or the meditating sage,
whether he was full of mirth or grave to his brethren, he was always

the beloved "Naren", and to his disciples, the blessed and

incomparable guru. A well-known preacher speaking of the Swami in
these days says:
At this time he began to feel that he had finished his public work
and had delivered to the world the message of his blessed Master, Shri
Ramakrishna. The inexhaustible energy and power that were working
through the form now made him turn his attention to another work,
the work of training the disciples and moulding the character of those
that had gathered round him, by his living example as well as by his
soul-stirring spiritual instructions. Silently ignoring his world-wide
fame, he lived unostentatiously in the quiet monastery on the bank of
the Ganga, sometimes playing the part of a guru or spiritual teacher,
sometimes that of a father, sometimes even that of a school-master.
Man-making was now the ideal of our illustrious Swami. He held
classes on the Vedas and the grammar of Panini, sat in meditation with
the monks morning and evening, and received visitors from various
parts of India.... His relation with those who came to him was of the
kindliest character. His all-embracing love was truly divine. To the
visitors he was a personification of humility.... Through a heart
weeping at the sight of the suffering and degradation of the illiterate
masses of India, through a soul glowing with the fire of disinterested
love for humanity, and through true patriotism and through selfsacrificing zeal that did not know what fatigue was, he showed to his
disciples how a God-inspired soul felt and worked for humanity. Like a
cloud in the rainy season that silently deluges the world with water, he
now worked silently and proved to hits disciples that he was a real
worker who felt the universal brother hood of man, who did not talk
much, who did not make little sects for universal brotherhood, but
whose acts, whose whole body, whose movements, whose walking,
eating, drinking, whose whole life manifested a true brotherhood of
mankind, a real love and sympathy for all. By preaching Vedanta, by
living and moving in Vedanta, by cosmopolitan charity, and by the
simplicity, purity, and holiness of his life, Swami Vivekananda solved
the problem of the future of his Motherland by holding before the
eyes of his disciples, followers, friends, and admirers, nay, before even

the whole of India, the ideal of character-building through the light and
spirit of Vedanta.

MAHASAMADHI
The last two months, which the Swami passed on earth, were full
of events foreshadowing the approaching end, though at the time
these events passed unsuspected by those about him. Every trifling
incident had its portent and a host of associations that throbbed with a
peculiarly significant meaning. Some time after he had returned from
Varanasi the Swami greatly desired to see all his sannyasi disciples, and
wrote to them to visit him, if only for a short time. The call went even
to those beyond the seas. Some came; others busy at various centres
could not avail themselves of what proved later on to be the last
opportunity of seeing their beloved Leader, to whose cause they had
dedicated their whole life and soul. And great indeed was to be their
sorrow. Oh, if they had but known what the call had meant, they
would have left everything to respond.
About this Sister Nivedita has written: "Many of his disciples from
distant parts of the world gathered round the Swami on his return to
Calcutta. Ill as he looked, there was none, probably, who suspected
how near the end had come. Yet visits were paid and farewells
exchanged that it had needed voyages half round the world to make."
Strangely enough, as days passed by, the Swami felt more and
more the necessity of withdrawing himself from the task of directing
the affairs of the Math, in order to give those that were about him a
free hand. "How often", he said, "does a man ruin his disciples by
remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is
essential that their leader leave them, for without his absence they
cannot develop themselves."
When he spoke thus, it invariably caused pain to those who loved
him. They felt that if he leaves the body, it would mean a terrible blow
to the work. But there were times now in his deep meditation when
the Swami cared for nothing but infinite repose. Work and all other
bonds were dropping off; more than ever did he withdraw himself

from all outer concerns. Meditation became his great occupation. The
Master and the Mother were constantly in his mind. A high spiritual
mood had come over him, and he was making ready for death. His
brother-monks and disciples became very anxious at seeing their
beloved Leader retire into such an atmosphere of austerity and
meditation. Their memory was constantly haunted by the prophecy of
Shri Ramakrishna that Naren would merge in Nirvikalpa Samadhi at the
end of his work, when he would realize who and what he really was
and refuse to remain in the body. "Not long before his departure,"
writes Sister Nivedita, some of his brother-monks were one day
talking over the old days, and one of them asked him quite casually,
'Do you know yet who you were, Swamiji?' His unexpected reply, 'Yes, I
know now!' awed them into silence, and none dared to question him
further."
Everything about him in these days was so deliberate and full of
meaning that it seemed strange that no one apprehended the true
import. They must have been deceived by the Swami's cheerful
bearing, and by the fact that since the beginning of June he seemed to
have become himself again.
On June 6 the Swami went to Bara Jaguli, a village in the Nadia
District of Bengal, at the earnest request of his disciple Srimati
Mrinalini Bose, a letter written to whom has been quoted in the earlier
chapter. He stayed at her house for about a week, and returned to the
Math on June 12. About this journey the Swami wrote to Christine on
June 14: "As for me, I am much stronger than before; and when seven
miles of jolting in a bullock-cart, and a railway travel of 34 miles,
together did not bring back the dropsy on the feet, I am sure they are
not going to return. But anyway, it is the Math that suits me most just
now."
On the same day the Swami wrote about his Japanese friends and
Abhayananda to Mrs. Bull:
I am so so. The rest are all right. Margot [Nivedita] is in the hills.
Okakura came back to town and is a guest of Mr. Tagore
[Surendranath]. He came to the Math one day, but I was away. Hope

to see him soon and learn his next moves. The abbot [Rev. Oda] has
not yet replied to his proposals. I am sorry.
Young Hori had an attack of fever here, came round in a few days,
and has gone with Okakura for a few days. He is liked by everybody for
his religious nature. He has great ideas of sexual purity, and his
ambition is to start a fresh band of monks in Japan conforming strictly
to chastity; but in my opinion a race must first cultivate the great
respect for Motherhood, through the sanctification and inviolability of
marriage, before it can attain to the ideal of perfect chastity....
I wanted to write many things, but the flesh is weak. Marie Louise
[Abhayananda] is here, as a follower of Chaitanya. Some rich men, I
hear, have taken her up. May she have plenty of money this time!
"Whosoever worships me for whatsoever desire, I meet him with
that." She wanted money. May the Lord give her a lot!
The Swami must have been pained to learn around this time about
the defection of Swami Abhayananda. As early as May 26 a news item
had appeared about her in the Indian Nation of Calcutta:
The Pioneer writes: "Certain phases of Hinduism seem to possess a
peculiar fascination for some American women. One of these was for
some time a Vedantist and a follower of Swami Vivekananda, who for a
time made a name in New York or Chicago as a preacher of Vedantic
Hinduism, but she has now changed her faith and gone over to another
Hindu sect, the sect of English-educated Vaishnavas in Bengal, who
own the leadership of Babu Shishirkumar Ghose. This lady [Swami
Abhayananda] is reported to be coming out shortly to India to work as
a missionary of Neo-Vaishnavism."
From Swami Brahmananda's diary we learn that Mr. Sakharam
Ganesh Deuskar, the Sub-editor of the Hitavadi, Calcutta, visited the
Math on June 15 in the afternoon and requested the Swami to preside
over a meeting, but he declined due to his bad health.
Nivedita, now anxious to start her school, left Mayavati for
Calcutta on June 20. By this time a house had been secured for her at
17 Bosepara Lane of Baghbazar, Calcutta. Christine also wished to go
with Nivedita to Calcutta and help her in the work; but the Swami had

written to her on June 15: "I will be very anxious if you are in Calcutta
at Baghbazar. I am slowly recovering. Stay with Mrs. Sevier as long as
you can. Don't come down with Margot." And a week later he again
wrote to her: "You have not the least cause to be anxious. I am getting
on anyhow, and am quite strong. As to diet I find I have to restrict
myself, and not follow the prescription of my doctor to eat anything I
like. The pills continue however.... No anxiety on the score of Marie
Louiss *Abhayananda's] arrival in Calcutta. She has not yet made any
noise. Things go on the same. I am trying to go to Monghyr, a place
near to Calcutta and said to he very salubriant. We will think of your
coming to Baghbazar after Nivedita has fairly started. Till then, keep
quiet and lay on food...."
One day, about a week before the end, the Swami told his disciple,
Swami Shuddhananda, to bring the Bengali almanac to him. On getting
it, he turned over several pages beginning at that day and kept it in his
room. He was seen several times on subsequent days studying the
almanac intently, as if undecided about something he wanted to know.
Only after his passing was the significance of this understood by his
brother-monks and disciples. Then they realized that he had been
searching an auspicious day on which to throw off the bondage of the
body; and the day he chose of all others was the Fourth of July!
Sister Nivedita arrived at Calcutta from Mayavati on June 26 and
took her lodging at 17 Bosepara Lane, Baghbazar. Swami Saradananda
received her and gave her a deerskin mat as a present from the Swami.
Nivedita was glad to hear from him that the Swami was happy over her
coming. She was eager to start her work, and had brought with her
some equipment for this purpose.

On June 28, when Nivedita was preparing to go to the Math to see

the Swami, she received a note that he himself was coming to the city
for some business, and would see her. Accordingly the Swami arrived
at her residence about 9 in the morning, and "went over the whole
house, explained everything, examined everything". He then sat down
on his own rug, and played with "some Lucknow figures"10 she had
brought. He expressed delight on seeing the microscope, magic
lantern, and camera, and told her to bring the microscope to the Math
the next day. Then he asked Nivedita about her plans and she told him
that she wished to do "University Settlement Work"11 rather than the
school. To this he said, "All right". As he was departing, Nivedita said,
"Swami, you must come back and bless the work!" "I am always
blessing you," he responded.
On the same day the Swami went to his sister's house on
invitation with several others, mainly to settle the long-drawn dispute
over the ancestral property. They reached an amicable settlement by
compromise. The attorney of the opposite party confirmed the
conditions and the matter was decided to the satisfaction of both
parties.
About these incidents, Nivedita wrote to Miss MacLeod on August
7: "He left everything in order. On Sunday [June 29] he told me that

10

Perhaps, some sort of school equipment which she might have

brought from Lucknow on her way from Mayavati to Calcutta.
11

From Sister Nivedita's letters it appears that she had a plan to start a
University for the education of Indian women.

the lawsuit with the family that had been hanging over him for three
years, was compromised by them voluntarily in his favour, and he was
satisfied at last. It was the same with everything. Here I am on my feet.
He blessed the house and the work, and me- Everything."
Sister Nivedita went to the Math on the morning of June 29,
stayed there till evening, and talked a great deal with the Swami.
About her meeting with him, she wrote in the same letter: "In the
afternoon, he grew very cross, being tired, and I cried bitterly. Then he
gave me a beautiful blessing holding my head and blessing me twice
in that caressing way. I only asked him to tell me when he doubted
or disapproved not to make up his mind apart from me. Oh I am
sure he will! That day, I think I must have told you, he said: a great
Tapasya was coming over him. Had I not been there, at near noon, he
would still have been in the chapel. He felt that death was drawing
near, and at these words, the gecko cried."
Three days before his passing away, as the Swami was walking up
and down on the spacious lawn of the monastery in the afternoon with
Swami Premananda, he pointed to a particular spot on the bank of the
Ganga, and said to his brother-monk gravely, "When I give up the
body, cremate it there!" On that very spot stands today a temple in his
honour.
Sister Nivedita, introducing many significant facts in connection
with the Swami's passing away and his foreknowledge of it, writes:
When June closed, however, he knew well enough that the end
was near. "I am making ready for death!" he said to one who was with
him, on the Wednesday before he died. "A great Tapasya and
meditation has come upon me, and I am making ready for death!"
And we who did not dream that he would leave us, till at least
some three or four years had passed, knew nevertheless that the
words were true. News of the world met but a far-away rejoinder from
him at this time. Even a word of anxiety as to the scarcity of the rains,
seemed almost to pass him by as in a dream. It was useless to ask him
now for an opinion on the questions of the day. "You may be right," he

said quietly, "but I cannot enter any more into these matters. I am
going down into death!"
Once in Kashmir, after an attack of illness, I had seen him lift a
couple of pebbles, saying, "Whenever death approaches me, all
weakness vanishes. I have neither fear, nor doubt, nor thought of the
external. I simply busy myself making ready to die. I am as hard as
that" and the stones struck one another in his hand "for I have
touched the Feet of God!"
Personal revelation was so rare with him, that these words could
never be forgotten. Again, on returning from the cave of Amarnath, in
that same summer of 1898, had he not said, laughingly, that he had
there received the grace of Amarnath not to die till he himself
should will to do so? Now this, seeming to promise that death would
never take him by surprise, had corresponded so well with the
prophecy of Shri Ramakrishna that when he should know who and
what he was, he would refuse to remain a moment longer in the body
that one had banished from one's mind all anxiety on this score, and
even his own grave and significant words at the present time did not
suffice to revive it.
Did we not remember, moreover, the story of the great Nirvikalpa
Samadhi of his youth, and how, when it was over, his Master had said,
"This is your mango. Look! I lock it in my box. You shall taste it once
more, when your work is finished!" " And we may wait for that," said
the monk who told me the tale. "We shall know when the time is near.
For he will tell us that, again he has tasted his mango."
How strange it seems now, looking back on that time, to realize in
how many ways the expected hint was given, only to fall on cars that
did not hear, to reach minds that could not understand!
It would seem, indeed, that, in his withdrawal from all weakness
and attachment, there was one exception. That, which had ever been
dearer to him than life, kept still its power to move him. It was on the
last Sunday before the end that he said to one of his disciples, "You
know, the work is always my weak point! When I think that might
come to an end, I am all undone!"

On Wednesday [July 2] of the same week, the day being Ekadashi,

and himself keeping the fast in all strictness, he insisted on serving the
morning meal to the same disciple [Nivedita]. Each dish as it was
offered boiled seeds of the jackfruit, boiled potatoes, plain rice, and
ice-cold milk formed the subject of playful chat; and finally, to end
the meal, he himself poured the water over the hands, and dried them
with a towel.
"It is I who should do these things for you, Swamiji! Not you for
me!" was the protest naturally offered. But his answer was startling in
its solemnity "Jesus washed the feet of His disciples!"
Something checked the answer "But that was the last time!"
as it rose to the lips, and the words remained unuttered. This was well.
For here also, the last time had come.
There was nothing sad or grave about the Swami during these
days. In the midst of anxiety about over-fatiguing him, in spite of
conversation deliberately kept as light as possible, touching only upon
the animals that surrounded him, his garden experiments, books, and
absent friends, over and beyond all this, one was conscious the while
of a luminous presence, of which his bodily form seemed only as a
shadow or symbol. Never had one felt so strongly as now, before him,
that one stood on the threshold of an infinite light. Yet none was
prepared, least of all on that last happy Friday, July the 4th, on which
he appeared so much stronger and better than he had been for years,
to see the end so soon.
On the day of the Mahasamadhi itself, whether consciously or
intuitively, his actions were most deliberate and full of meaning. His
solitary meditation for three hours in the morning from eight to eleven
was the most striking. He rose rather early that day and, after
partaking of his tea, entered the chapel of the monastery. After some
time it was noticed that he had closed all the windows and bolted all
the doors. What transpired there, no one will ever know. In his
meditation his own Master and the Divine Mother to his own
realization One and the Same Personality must have been present,

for, when he had finished, he broke forth in a touching song in which

the highest Jnana mingled with the highest Bhakti.
Descending the stairs of the shrine, he walked back and forth in
the courtyard of the monastery, his mind withdrawn. Suddenly the
tenseness of his thought expressed itself in a whisper loud enough to
be heard by Swami Premananda who was nearby. The Swami was
saying to himself, "If there were another Vivekananda, he would have
understood what Vivekananda has done! And yet, how many
Vivekanandas shall be born in time!!" This remark startled his brotherdisciple, for never did the Swami speak thus, save when the floodgates of his soul were thrown open and the living waters of the highest
Consciousness rushed forth.
Another unusual incident took place, when the Swami, who was
not in the habit of taking his food with his brother-monks and disciples,
dined with them in the refectory. Still more strange was his relish of
food. He had never felt better, he said.
This same Friday morning he expressed a desire to have the Kali
Puja performed at the monastery on the following day, that being an
auspicious one for the worship of the Mother. Soon after, Swami
Ramakrishnananda's father, Shri Ishwarchandra Chakravarti, a devout
worshipper of Kali, came. On seeing him the Swami was delighted and
explained his intention to him. He called Swamis Shuddhananda and
Bodhananda and instructed them to secure all the necessaries for the
intended ceremony which they hastened to do.
Of course, the Kali Puja could not be performed on the following
day (Saturday, July 5) as he had wished; but from Sister Nivedita's
letter of August 7, 1902, to Miss MacLeod, we learn that it was
performed about a month later. She writes: "Three wishes... which he
expressed the very day he went 'want to do something for Japan.' A
night's worship of the Mother; which was carried out by the men last
Saturday [August 2]. And [to see] Mr. [R. C.] Dutta; which will surely
bring them together somewhere in the universe."
After instructing the disciples to make preparations for the Kali
Puja, the Swami asked Swami Shuddhananda to fetch the Shukla-Yajur-

Veda from the library. When the latter had brought it, the Swami
asked him to read the Mantra beginning with the words "Sushumnah
Suryarashmih", with the commentary on it. The disciple read the
Mantra together with the commentary. When he had finished a part of
it, the Swami remarked: "This interpretation of the passage does not
appeal to my mind. Whatever may be the commentator's
interpretation of the word 'Sushumnah', the seed or the basis of what
the Tantras, in later ages, speak of as the Sushumna nerve-channel in
the body, is contained here, in this Vedic Mantra. You, my disciples,
should try to discover the true import of these Mantras and make
original reflections and commentaries on the Shastras."
The passage above referred to is the fortieth verse in the
eighteenth chapter of Madhyandina recension of the Vajasaneyi
Samhita of the Shukla-Yajur-Veda, and runs as follows:
(Sanskrit)
The purport of Mahidhara's commentary on this may be put thus:
"That Chandra (Moon) who is of the form of Gandharva, who is
Sushumna, that is, giver of supreme happiness to those who perform
sacrifices (Yajnas), and whose rays are like the rays of the Sun may
that Chandra protect us Brahmanas and Kshatriyas ! We offer our
oblations to him (Svaha vat)! His (Chandra's) Apsaras are the stars,
who are illuminators (hence called Bhekurayas) we offer our
oblations to them (Svaha)!"
At 1 p.m., a quarter of an hour after the midday repast, the Swami
entered the Brahmacharis' room and called them to attend the class
on Sanskrit grammar. One who attended this class writes: "The class
lasted for nearly three hours. But no monotony was felt. For he (the
Swami) would tell a witty story or make bons mots now and then to
lighten his teaching, as he was wont to do. Sometimes the joke would
be with reference to the wording of a certain aphorism, or he would
make an amusing play upon its words knowing that the fun would
make it easier for recollection. On this particular day he spoke of how
he had coached his college friend, Dasharathi Sanyal, in English history

in one night by following a similar process. He, however, appeared a

little tired after the grammar class."
Some time later the Swami, accompanied by Swami Premananda,
went out for a long walk, as far as the Belur Bazaar ' and spoke with his
brother-disciple on many interesting subjects, particularly on his
proposed scheme of founding a Vedic college in the monastery. In
order to have a clearer understanding of what the Swami felt on the
matter, Swami Premananda asked, "What will be the good of studying
the Vedas, Swamiji?" To this the Swami replied, "It will kill out
superstitions!"
Returning to the Math the Swami talked for a while with the
monks. Oh, if they had but known that these were the last words they
would ever hear from the lips of their dear and blessed Leader, their all
in all!
As evening approached, the Swami's mind became more and more
withdrawn, and when the bell for the evening service rang, he retired
to his own room. There he sat in meditation facing the Ganga. What
occurred on that memorable day of the Swami's passing has been best
told by some members of the Order, and a few of these different
versions are given below.
That written by Swami Saradananda on July 24 to Dr. Logan, the
President of the San Francisco Vedanta Society, read:
... We sent a cable to the New York Vedanta Society with
directions to communicate to you, and to all friends in the United
States, about the Nirvana of our beloved Swami Vivekananda. He
entered into the Life Eternal on July 4, Friday evening at ten minutes
past nine. It came upon us so suddenly that even the Swamis, in the
rooms next to his in the Math, had not the slightest intimation of it.
The Swami was meditating in his own room at 7 p.m. leaving word that
none was to come to him until called for. An hour after, he called one
of us and requested him to fan his head. He lay down on his bed
quietly, and the one tending him thought he was either sleeping or
meditating. An hour after, his hands trembled a little, and he breathed
once very deeply. Then all was quiet for a minute or two. Again he

breathed in the same manner, his eyes becoming fixed in the centre of
his eye-brows and his face assuming a divine expression, and all was
over.
All through the day he felt as free and easy as possible, nay, freer
than what he had felt for the last six months. He meditated in the
morning for three hours at a stretch, took his meals with a perfect
appetite, gave talks on Sanskrit grammar, philosophy, and on the
Vedas to the Swamis at the Math for more than two hours and
discoursed on the Yoga philosophy. He walked in the afternoon for
about two miles, and on returning enquired after everyone very
tenderly. While resting for a time, he conversed on the rise and fall of
nations with his companions, and then went into his own room to
meditateyou know the rest.
A monastic disciple of the Swami writes:
The Mahasamadhi took place a few minutes after 9 p.m. The
supper bell had just been rung when the inmates were called to see
what had happened to the Swami. Swamis Premananda and
Nishchayananda began to chant aloud the name of the Master,
believing that he might be brought to consciousness thereby. But he
lay there in his room on his back, motionless, and the course proved
fruitless. Swami Advaitananda asked Swami Bodhananda to feel the
Swami's pulse. After a vain attempt for a while, he stood up and began
to cry aloud. Swami Advaitananda then told Nirbhayananda, Alas,
what are you looking at! Hasten to Dr. Mahendranath Mazumdar of
Baranagar, under whose treatment Swamiji was during these days] and
bring him here soon as you can. Another crossed the river and went
to Calcutta to give information to Swamis Brahmananda and
Saradananda who were there on that day, and bring them to Math.
They arrived about half past ten. The doctor examined him thoroughly,
found life suspended, and tried to bring him back by artificial
respiration. At midnight the doctor pronounced life extinct. Dr.
Mazumdar said that it might have been due to sudden heart-failure.
Dr. Bipinbihari Ghosh, who came from Calcutta the next day, said that
it was due to apoplexy. But none of the doctors, who came afterwards
and heard of the symptoms, could agree. Whatever they might say, the

monks of the Math have the unshakeable conviction that the Swami
had voluntarily cast off the body in Samadhi, when he did not want to
remain any longer in the world, as predicted by Shri Ramakrishna.
Sister Nivedita came in the morning. She sat all the while by the
Swami and fanned him, till the body was brought down at 2.pm. to the
porch leading to the courtyard, where the Aratrika was performed
before taking it to the spot which had been indicated by the Swami
himself for cremation.
A brother-disciple of the Swami writes in the Udbodhan:
He next meditated from 8 to 11 a.m. in the shrine. On other
days he never meditated so long at one sitting. Nor could he meditate
in an unventilated room, with doors and windows shut; but on this day
he meditated after having shut and bolted all the doors and windows
of the chapel.
After meditation he began to sing a beautiful song on Shyama
(Mother Kali). The monks below were charmed to hear the sweet
strains of it coming from the shrine-room. The song ran thus, Is my
mother dark ? the dark-featured Mother, who has dishevelled hair,
illumines the lotus of the heart!
He took his noonday meal that day with great relish. After meals
he taught the disciples Laghukaumudi, a standard work on Sanskrit
grammar, for more than tow hours and a half. Then in the afternoon
he took a walk for nearly two miles with a brother-monk. For many
days past he could not walk so far. He said he was very well that day. In
the course of the walk he expressed his particular desire to establish a
Vedic school in the Math. After returning from the walk, he attended
to some personal needs and afterwards said that he felt very light in
body. After conversation for some time, he went to his own room and
told one of his disciples to bring him his rosary. Then, asking the
disciple to wait outside, he sat down to tell his beads and meditate in
the room alone. He had thought of worshipping Kali the next day,
which was a Saturday with Amavasya (new moon). He had talked much
about this that day.

After meditating and telling his beads for about an hour, he laid
himself down on his bed on the floor, and calling the disciple, who was
waiting outside, asked him to fan his head a little. He had the rosary
still in his hand. The disciple thought the Swami was perhaps having a
light sleep. About an hour later, his hand shook a little. Then came two
deep breaths. The disciple thought he fell into Samadhi. He then went
downstairs and called a sannyasi, who came and found on examination
that there was neither respiration nor pulse. Meanwhile, another
sannyasi came and, thinking him to be in Samadhi, began to chant
aloud the Master's name continually, but in no way was the Samadhi
broken! That night an eminent physician was called in. He examined
the body for a long time and afterwards said that life was extinct.
The next morning it was found that the eyes were bloodshot and
that there was a little bleeding through the mouth and nostrils. Other
doctors remarked that it was due to the rupture of a blood-vessel in
the brain. This clearly leads to the conclusion that, in the process of
Japa and meditation, his Brahmarandhra [aperture in the. crown of the
head] must have been pierced when he left the body!
After his Mahasamadhi several doctors came and examined his
body minutely and tried to bring him back to consciousness. They
exhausted all the means and methods that they knew of rousing him,
but to no avail. They could not, in point of fact, make out the real
cause of his death. He died, in truth, of his own accord. He was born a
yogi, and he died a yogi!
Still another version reads:...
For a month before his passing away, the Swami used to
meditate much more than usual; and on these days it seemed as if he
had no disease in the body.... On this day, before going for the
afternoon walk with Swami Premananda, he talked with him in a merry
mood on various topics concerning the West. In the evening he went
up to his room to meditate. After some time the Swami called in a
disciple and asked him to open all the windows of the room as it was
warm and to fan him. Next he laid himself down on the bedding on the
floor. After the Brahmachari had gently fanned him at the head for a

while, the Swami said to him, "All right; no more need of fanning ! It
would be better if you rubbed my feet a little." Saying this, he seemed
to have fallen asleep shortly after, In this way an hour passed; the
disciple was rubbing him; the Swami was lying on his left side. He
changed sides once within this time, and, shortly after that, he cried in
exactly the same way as babies cry out in dreams. The Brahmachari
noticed, a little after this, that the Swami breathed a deep breath, and
his head rolled down the pillow. Another long deep breath like the
preceding one, and then all was calm and still about him like death!
The tired child slept in the lap of the Mother, whence there was no
awakening to this world of Maya!
The Swami passed away at the age of thirty-nine years, five
months and twenty-four days, thus fulfilling a prophecy which was
frequently on his lips, "I shall never live to see forty."
Nothing could have been more startling than the news of the
death of Swami Vivekananda. The monks at the Belur Math were
struck dumb at the thought of their bitter, irreparable loss. The
monastery was shrouded in gloom.
In the morning, people poured into the monastery from all
quarters. Carriages passed through the monastery gate, and boats
arrived at the ghat bringing a large number of passengers. Sadness
reigned everywhere. The body lay in state in the room which only a
day or two ago rang with the laughter and stirring eloquence of the
inspired monk. Hundreds passed before the body in silence, their eyes
debating whether he was dead. Then they turned in a tempest of grief
from the lifeless form of him whom they had loved more than their
own life, saying to themselves: "Is our Swami really gone?" And one
looking at the face of Swami Vivekananda on this day, vowed then and
there to devote his life thenceforth solely to the service of his country.
Not since the passing of their Master, Shri Ramakrishna, had the
monks known such a bereavement. Never before had the scene of
their Master's cremation been brought so forcibly to their minds. They
felt that the bottom had fallen out of everything. When the Master
himself had passed away, he had given them to Naren's charge. Now

that both had left the mortal plane, the monks felt themselves as
strangers in the caravan-serai of this world.
In spite of the conclusion of learned doctors, there was an
unreasonable hope that Swami Vivekananda might, after all, return to
mortal consciousness. Perhaps this was the very highest Samadhi;
perhaps he might return from it. For this reason the body was left
within the room upstairs until a late hour of the next day. But every
moment the body became colder and more rigid, and all were
convinced beyond doubt that the Soul had sped for ever into the
regions of Everlasting Light and Life. When they were forced to believe
that he was physically no more, the elder monks despatched some of
the disciples to Calcutta to herald the news. Some were sent to
telegraph the message to different parts of India and the world. Some
were sent for sandalwood, incense, flowers, etc. Incense was burned in
many quarters of the monastery. The monastery grounds were
crowded with people. Everyone in the monastery felt that this was the
last time that they could have a look at the blessed form of the
Prophet, who had preached the Modern Gospel to many peoples of
near and distant lands, whose greatness had been felt everywhere.
Towards the afternoon the body was brought downstairs to the
porch in front of the courtyard. There on a cot it lay, wrapped in the
robes symbolic of sannyasis poverty. The soles of his feet were
painted with Alta, a kind of crimson pigment, and impressions were
taken of them on muslin, to be preserved as sacred mementoes. Then
the Arati service was performed, this being the last rite of worship to
that form which had been the instrument for the revelation of the
Highest Truth. Lights were waved, Mantras were recited, conchs were
blown, bells were rung, and incense was burned. At the end of the
ceremony some bowed low, others fell prostrate on the ground in
salutation, and those who were disciples touched with their heads the
feet of their Blessed Master 5s earthly form.
A procession was formed, and the cot on which the body rested
was slowly lifted. Again and again rose the thrilling shouts of Jai Shri
Guru Maharajji Ki Jai! Jai Shri Swamiji Maharajji Ki Jai!" from the depths
of the devotees' hearts.

The procession moved slowly through the courtyard across the

spacious lawn, until it reached the Bilva tree which stands in the
southeastern corner of the grounds. There, slightly ahead and to the
left, on the very spot where the Swami himself had desired his body to
be cremated, the funeral pyre was built. Finally the body was placed
upon the funeral pyre by the monks and devotees. Reeds were lighted,
and along with the monks scores of persons lighted the pyre until it
was all ablaze.
In the deep dusk the flames died down, and in the souls of those
who stood about, an intense calm prevailed. And when the flames had
died out and the body had returned to its original elements, leaving
only burning coals and smouldering embers behind, the monks poured
Ganga water over the pyre, and in the darkness their prayers went to
the Lord for guidance and protection. A great peace came and
utmost resignation. All felt that the Lord knew best; and in their
sorrow, they said in the depths of their hearts, "O Lord, Thy will be
done!"
The next day, the monks gathered the sacred relics for themselves
and the future generations. Today a temple stands on that spot. An
altar has been built, and upon it is a marble bas-relief of the Swami.
Here the monks are wont to pray and meditate in silence. The table of
the altar stands on the very spot on which the body of the Swami
rested in the flames. Some of the relics are kept here, and a copper
receptacle near the altar of Bhagavan Shri Ramakrishna in the shrine
contains the rest.
Of these days Sister Nivedita wrote to Miss MacLeod on July 16:
The Math is absorbed these days in weeping and in worship, and
everyone tends to slip back under the hypnotism of things said in
illness and caprice, don't you know? I feel enslaved and terrorized by
the thought of it, but they will work out their own way for
themselves.... Do you realize how ideally great the last scene has
been? How even enemies catch their breath and worship?
Quietly to put the body down as a worn-out garment at the end of
an evening meditation! "That will be a great death I shall die, saying

'Hara! Hara! Hara!' "I remember his saying long ago. And it has come
true. With the laurels green, with all things in order, with the shield
undimmed, he went. Oh Swami, dear Swami, grant me always to carry
out your innermost will not merely the personal whim or weakness!
True, the monks and the lay disciples of the Order were still griefstricken, but their faith in, and resignation to, their Lord with the
resulting peace had taken away the sting of death. Deep beneath the
veils of sorrow, all were aware that this was not the end. Emptiness
dwelt in the monastery; but within the silence and illumination of their
hearts, all were conscious of the fact that life in the soul, such as their
Leader lived, could not have remained long shut up within the prisonwalls of earthly existence, and that his constantly intensifying
realization must have burned the body-consciousness and soared
beyond the grasp of death in Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Across the sad event of his passing from the world, the words he
spoke long before his death ring out now with a triumphant meaning:
"It may be that I shall find it good to get outside my body to cast it
off like a worn-out garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall
inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with
God!" That inspiration has come, it shall remain with mankind until the
whole world attains to the Highest Truth. Ay, he scorned Mukti for
himself, until he could lead all beings in the universe to its portals.
Vision and Realization are imperishable; being of the Truth, they
are eternal. And he who has found the Truth is eternal he has
Eternity in the palm of his hand, as it were. The notes of Freedom and
Realization are heard beyond the boundaries of life and death; and
with the numerous devotees, the apostles and disciples of the Modern
Gospel the prophets and the saints and seers of the Sanatana
Dharma the Voice of India is heard and shall resound down the
centuries in those shouts of praise and triumph:
Jai Shri Guru Maharajji ki Jai!
Jai Shri Swamiji Maharajji ki Jai!
Jai Shri Sanatana Dharma ki Jai!

The benediction of the Most High rests now over the world anew.
The flames of the Sanatana Dharma have been rekindled. Truly, gods
have walked amongst the sons of men! The Lord Himself, Truth Itself,
was embodied as Ramakrishna-Vivekananda for the good of the world.
The spirit of India herself had been made flesh; and they, the twinsouls who were horn once more to awaken her, the great mother of
religions, have passed from the flesh into the silence of the infinite,
having fulfilled their mission and given the message. The Divine
Mother Herself, the destroyer of illusion and the giver, of the waters of
life, has walked upon the earth; and the sun of Brahman has bathed
the world with its rays, scattering the clouds of darkness and
ignorance, spreading the light of the celestial effulgence! The ends of
the world have met, and the gospel of the age has been preached to
the nations of the world. The luminous spirits, who were the founder
and the prophet of the new gospel, came because religion had
declined and unrighteousness had prevailed. And they are to come
again and again for the good of the world, for the establishment of
righteousness, for the reinterpretation of the Sanatana Dharma, and
for the manifestation of the kingdom which is not of this world, the
passport to which is the motto:
"Renounce! Renounce! Realize the Divine Nature! Arise! Awake!
and stop not till the goal is reached!'
HARIH OM TAT SAT!