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REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
SWAMI BODHANANDA

IN 1890 when I was a student in the Ripon College, Calcutta, I had the greatest blessing of my life to know of Shri Ramakrishna. With some of my classmates and friends I attended the anniversary of the dedication of the temple at Kankurgachi (east Calcutta) in the month of August of that year. There we first heard of Shri Ramakrishna from one of his greatest devotees, the late Ramachandra Datta. His devotion to Shri Ramakrishna is indescribable. Only those who knew him personally can appreciate it. We often chant the sacred verse, “Thou art our Mother; Thou art our Father; Thou art our Friend; Thou art our Companion; Thou art our Wisdom; Thou art our Wealth; Thou art our All in all”, but Ram Babu was one of those who realized its true meaning. To him Shri Ramakrishna was really his “All in All”. He worshipped no other God than Shri Ramakrishna; never visited any other temple than the one at Kankurgachi in which Shri Ramakrishna’s ashes were interred; never read or preached any other religious doctrines or discourses than those he had heard from Shri Ramakrishna.

Master Mahashaya (Babu Mahendra Nath Gupta) was our professor. We heard that he was also a disciple of Shri Ramakrishna. One day we approached him and introduced ourselves to him. We had a little talk on Shri Ramakrishna. He recommended us to visit the Math (monastery) at Baranagore where Shri Ramakrishna’s sannyasin disciples were then living. He was naturally a very reserved man, but was most cordial to us and candid in his opinion about a devotee who lives in his family and a disciple who has renounced the world to devote his whole life to the practice of religion. He used this simile: The former is like a sour mango, but quite ripe and the latter (a sannyasin) is like a mango of the highest grade (Fazli or Langra), but not yet ripe. Master Mahashaya’s illustrations were very much to the point. He further said, if we wished to see the living examples of the teachings of Shri Ramakrishna, we must go to the Math.

Shortly afterwards, we visited the Math. Our first visit was on a week day, as we went directly from the college. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon when we reached there. We first met Shashi Maharaj (Swami Ramakrishnananda). He was delighted to see us and inquired about us. When he learnt that we were students, he asked us some questions and advised us not to neglect our studies. We stayed until 5 or 6 o’clock. He took us to the chapel (thakur ghar) after the doors were opened at 4 o’clock, gave us some flowers from the altar and prasada (dedicated fruits and sweets) which we valued most. We prostrated ourselves before the picture of Shri Ramakrishna on the bed and the wooden receptacle (kouta) on the altar in which his sacred remains were preserved. There were four or five other Swamis. We saluted them all, one after the other, and they also very kindly spoke to us and blessed us with their well-wishes. When we parted, they invited us to come again. We walked back home, and all the time we talked of the wonderful visit – the renunciation of the Swamis and the peaceful atmosphere of the Math.

Master Mahashaya then lived in Kambuliatolah (Calcutta). On our way home, we stopped at his house and told him of the visit to the Math. He congratulated us and urged us to go there often and render personal services to the Swamis, such as shampooing their feet, preparing tobacco for their smoking, etc. To see them and serve them, to him, was like seeing and serving Shri Ramakrishna himself.

Swamiji (Swami Vivekananda) had just left the Math for a pilgrimage in the North-Western Provinces1 of India. This time he wanted to live so exclusively that he very seldom wrote letters to the brothers at the Math. In fact, for a year or two nobody knew where he was.

Shashi Maharaj, Baburam Maharaj, Mahapurushji, Yogen Maharaj, Kali Maharaj, and Niranjan Maharaj were at the Math then. They all told us about Swamiji and Shri Ramakrishna’s love for him and his love to Shri Ramakrishna. Some of them even then assured us that Swamiji would be pleased to initiate us to sannyasa when he returned to the Math.

Strangely enough several years before that time (most probably in 1887) when I was a student in the Metropolitan School, Bowbazar Branch, I saw Swamiji, who was then headmaster of that School for a few weeks. I belonged to a lower grade and did not have the privilege and pleasure of hearing him teach our class. But I used to watch him from our class-room window almost every day as he entered the school compound. I still vividly remember the scene. He was clothed in trousers and Alpaka Chapkan with a white scarf (chadar) about six feet long around his shoulders. In one hand he carried an umbrella and in the other a book, most probably the text-book of the Entrance Class. With sparkling eyes and smiling face he looked so indrawn that some would be attracted to him for his charming personality, and some would not dare approach him for his extreme gravity and solemnity. It was not however until I I came to the Baranagore Math that I knew that the great headmaster who impressed me so much was Swamiji himself.

He returned to India in December 1896, from his mission in America and Europe. He landed in Colombo in January, and arrived in Calcutta in February 1897. I was then a teacher in a High School in a village near my home about twenty miles west of Calcutta. The anniversary of the birth of Shri Ramakrishna then used to be celebrated in the compound of the temple gardens at Dakshineswar. The Swamis then lived in the Math at Alambazar about two miles from Dakshineswar temple gardens. That year the anniversary took place as usual either in the last week of February or in the first week of March. The day before I came to the Math, That was a Saturday as the public celebration was held then as it is now on the Sunday following the actual birthday (tithipuja).

Swamiji was then temporarily living in a house on the bank of the Ganga about three miles from the Math. Early in the morning on Sunday I saw him there. It was about six o’clock — still dark — when I arrived at the house, Swamiji was an early riser. He first saw me from the window of his room and came downstairs to open the door. I saluted him and he received me very kindly as if he had known me long before. He talked to me in a familiar way and asked me to fetch him a glass of water. He was then washing his mouth. When he learnt that I was preparing for an examination, he was pleased and gave me his blessing. Mahapurushji was there too. He told Swamiji that I was one of the group of young men who had been coming to the Math for several years and that I was planning to join the Order. On hearing this, Swamiji said he would initiate me to sannyasa in the near future. Those words made the hope of the realization of my dream brighter.

A few days before the public anniversary — most probably on the actual birthday of Shri Ramakrishna — Swamiji initiated four Brahmacharins to sannyasa, and on that day gave mantra-initiation (diksha) to one or two devotees. At about 8 o’clock he arrived at the Math. I came with him, by his permission, in the same carriage. Shortly after arrival, he took his bath and went into the chapel for meditation. We followed him. It was a most inspiring occasion.

At about 11 o’clock he went to the Dakshineswar temple gardens where the public festival was being held. There was a vast concourse of people at the gardens, and Swamiji’s presence was another reason for that great crowd. Many requested him to deliver a lecture near the Panchavati (the cluster of five sacred trees). But the crowd was so enthusiastic and noisy in their expression of joy at his sight that he found it impossible to make a speech. About 1 o’clock he returned to the Math for a rest. I was with him all that day and had the privilege of rendering him a little personal service as an attendant. That was a most glorious day of my life. Its impression is indelible in my memory. As I think of it now I still seem feel the thrill of the joy I felt then.

The next day I had to return to my school duties with great reluctance. The sense of gratitude and exaltation of this unique occasion remained in me several days afterwards. I longed to see Swamiji again and sit at his feet for his further grace and guidance.

(Prabuddha Bharata, October 1934)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
SWAMI VIMALANANDA

BEFORE I knew Swamiji personally, I had heard much about his greatness from persons who had moved and lived with him on the closest terms of intimacy. Therefore, when it was announced in the year 1893 that he had gone over to America to represent our religion at the Chicago Parliament of Religions, I started following his movements with the closest attention and the greatest interest. I was anxiously waiting to see if his achievements would not confirm me in my very high estimate of him. I need not tell you, people of Madras, that every bit of my expectation was much more than satisfied. But till I saw him with my own eyes, the perfect satisfaction of knowing the man could not come. Till then I could not be quite free from the secret misgivings that I might be after all labouring under a delusion. So you see, gentlemen, that I did not meet Swamiji as one in any way biased against him. The throbbing interest and convincingness which attach to the glowing description of the conquest of opponents of a great man of overmastering personality does not belong to my subject. I may say, I was already a great admirer of his. But I must say at the same time that it was not too late in the day to retrace my steps and give Swamiji up as one unworthy of my love and esteem if facts were found to give the lie. Perhaps, the shock which such a disclosure would have given to my mind would be too painful; perhaps it would have cost a great drenching of the heart. But I can assure you that the instinct of moral self-preservation was yet stronger than my admiration of Swamiji, and cost how much it would, the heart could not long cling round him if reason and moral sense condemned him with one voice.

And what was the nature of the greatness I was expecting to see in Swamiji? It was not the dashing and daring spirit displayed by a heroic warrior on the battlefield, nor the fine ethereal vision and ecstasy of the poet, nor the vast erudition of a scholar, nor the dazzling intellectual flourish of the master controversialist, nor the quick penetration and the wide comprehension of the philosopher, nor the weeping heart of a true lover of humanity. It was not that I had not had enough testimony as to these qualities of head and heart being abundantly present in him, but because my conception of religion was not wide enough to include all these under it. His marvellous achievements in the West were bringing us overwhelming evidences of his wonderful intellectual powers. But either from some constitutional necessity or my extreme poverty in that direction I was always attributing the brightness of his intellect to his highly elevated religious life, and it was this religious life that I expected to see in him. My idea of religion was then confined to purity and meditation. Sitting at the feet of the holy and good disciples of Bhagavan Shri Ramakrishna, I had learnt that these two were the indispensable conditions of acquiring spirituality and are the sure marks by which a religious man can always be known. My debt of gratitude to the blessed Swamis, at whose feet I had learnt these great lessons, is too large to be repaid. Personal contact with Swamiji instead of diminishing the value of purity and meditation in my eyes, has only enhanced it. At the same time it has heightened and intensified my conception of religion by adding new elements to it. Till I came in personal contact with Swamiji my temperament had led me to expect to see in him a man of intense purity and meditative inwardness. And I need not tell you that I was not disappointed. The First sight of Swamiji, the peculiar brightness of his face, his lustrous yet soft and sweet eyes, at once carried into my heart an overwhelming sense of satisfaction that I had come to a man that like of whom I had never seen before. Then when he began to talk to us making personal inquiries and giving us words of hope and encouragement with the cordiality of one truly interested in our welfare, we felt that our hearts were being drawn closer to him. To us who were very insignificant compared with his friends and visitors who were standing or sitting ground him in large numbers, this kindness on his part filed us with great joy and gratitude. Then the wonderfully free and frank way in which he was talking to his visitors revealed to us a heart that knew nothing of guile or fear nor cared a bit for social conventionality. The transparently clear and pointed words that were shooting out of his lips like meteors gave us a peep into the keen penetration of his intellect and the breadth and profundity of his mental vision. We felt ourselves in the presence of an overpowering personality whose immensity it was not possible for us to gauge, but which was drawing us to itself as by a tie of close personal relationship. There arose on the first day of our meeting an excellent opportunity of knowing something of his real humility. I say real humility because it had nothing to do with that sense of self-abasement with its external manifestation of facial contortions which so often pass for humility. It was self-effacement and was not therefore without the charming dignity of self-respect. A question from one of the visitors as to why Swamiji’s lecture on his Master delivered in America had not seen the light of day, brought the bold confession: “I did not allow it to be published as I had done injustice to my Master. My Master never condemned anything or anybody. But while I was speaking of him I criticized the people of America for their dollar-worshipping spirit. That day I learnt the lesson that I am not yet fit to talk of him.” These words were really startling to us for more than one reason. Here was a man who was being idolized, nay actually worshipped by so many, and this man in their very presence confessing his inability to represent his guru! “What an unpretentious man is before us”, said we to ourselves. “What a wonderful man must his guru have been to occupy such a high place in the heart of this great man!”

This, in short, was my impression of Swamiji on the first day of our meeting. As days went and I knew more and more of him, it gained greater and greater strength. I only saw on the first day the few sparks that shot forth into our range of vision from a soul aglow with the fire of divine love and wisdom. It was yet in store for me to see many more sparks from the same source that drew me near to it, gave me a closer view of it, and enabled even my icy cold heart to possess a little of its warmth. I have already told you that I had always thought that Swamiji’s gigantic intellect was the result of his highly elevated life of purity. Greater acquaintance with him was making my belief stronger till one day his own words made it a settled conviction with me. It was a memorable evening in my life, which shall never be effaced from my mind, when a question from one of his would-be disciples brought forth an exhaustive and stirring discourse on brahmacharya or sexual purity. In the course of the discourse he was explaining to us the incalculable value of purity in religious life, how to practise it, how religious fervour, suddenly aroused by working on the emotional side of man to the utter neglect of the moral and intellectual, is apt to produce great reaction on the sexual desires and so forth. Then at last when he came to talk of the infinite powers of strict sexual purity and how the animal propensity is converted into spiritual might, he warmed up to such a high pitch of earnestness that it seemed as if the transparent soul within was flowing out in torrents through his lips, bathing its hearers with its heavenly waters. The picture that was being drawn by his words in our minds saw its own prototype in the figure that stood before us. And I leave it to you, gentlemen, to imagine the effect of these concluding words of the discourse upon us: “My Master had told me that if I could attain to the perfect state of purity I had just described. I will have spiritual insight. I ventured to stand before the world only when I had been satisfied that I had attained to it. I earnestly appeal to you, my boys, to keep to this ideal with adamantine firmness. Pray, do not be unworthy of me. “On another occasion too I heard him speak of his spiritual insight which could at once see the end of a thing hidden in the womb of futurity, of which the beginning is only made. I must not be understood to mean that intellectual brightness is always a sign of spirituality. A man may have a great intellect without being in the least spiritual. On the other hand a man may be spiritual without having his mind stored with informations, vast and varied, or without the power to put his words in a logical form. But truth will always be his and will flash upon his mind of itself. My present idea of Swamiji’s intellect has undergone some modification from what it was before I knew him personally. He combined in him spiritual insight with an intellect of the highest order. Truth came to him by intuition. But he would press his intellect into its service by giving it a logical form and making it convincing by a rich supply of facts and analogies stored in his brain.

And the purity which gave Swamiji this spiritual insight was something extraordinary. It was not the fragile purity that can protect itself by keeping itself away from all corrupting influences. It had long outgrown the need of the citadel of isolation. But that was not all. It became aggressive, taking a sort of delight in encountering its enemies on their own grounds and winning them over to its side. In other words, it could not only keep itself untouched amidst corrupting influences, but could turn them into positive powers for good. Gentlemen, I cannot go into personal details on a subject like this. But my knowledge of Swamiji’s marvellous achievements in this direction compels me to lay at his feet my deepest reverence; this one element of perfection in Swamiji would have been quite enough to compel me to give him the highest place in my heart.

…There was one more prominent feature of Swamiji’s life which speaks to me volumes about his renunciation. I mean his dealing with rich men. Many of you are aware that among his foreign disciples some are very wealthy and a few of them came out to India to help Swamiji in his work. The treatment which he used to give them did not in the least differ from that given to his most insignificant Indian disciples. He was kind and loving by nature to all, but his love did not make him blind to their flaws and defects which needed mending.

Gentle speech would not always serve the purpose, and Swamiji would have to be at times hard. And in this apparently unpleasant treatment, his wealthy disciples would have exactly the same fate as his begging sannyasins. At times, this would be too much for persons born and brought up in the lap of luxury and accustomed to hear words of praise and flattery From a worldly point of view, Swamiji paid dear for it. But did he ever regret? Far from it. The perfect unconcern which he showed whether rich people would stick to him or give him up is truly unprecedented.

…Of the few pregnant proverbs and epigrammatical expressions which Swamiji would never be tired of repeating, one was ” — The giver of the head is alone the leader”, that is, he atone can be a leader who is ready to die for others. And Swamiji’s own life determines his place among his fellow beings. I have already told you that Swamiji was not only kind and soft but was very hard also at times. He could not only lay down his life for others, but could take arms against others if needed. Whatever he would think or feel he would do so with wonderful vehemence and intensity. And this whole-souledness was another marked feature of Swamiji’s life. One evening in the course of a talk that Swamiji was giving to one of his disciples, opening his eyes to the fact that the disciple’s inability to manage the servants of the Math (which was one of his duties then) and make them do their respective duties was a weakness and did not proceed from love, he said, “Don’t think that your heart is full of love, because you cannot give them a little scolding now and then. Can you give your life for them? I know, you can’t, because you do not love them. This minute I can die for them; but also I can hang them on this tree this minute if need be. Can you do that? No, my boy, namby-pamby is not love. Remember the words of the poet, —’Harder than the thunderbolt and softer than the flower’, this is the ideal, No, love is not weak sentimentality.”

I have seen no man who could be so soft as Swamiji. The death of a gurubhai or a disciple would rob him of rest and consolation for days and days together. Some time in the year 1898, it pleased the Lord to take away one of his gurubhais. The pang of bereavement was so intense in Swamiji that for week he remained exceedingly heavy and absent-minded keeping as much away from others as possible. On the evening of the seventh or eighth day he came to the temple-room of the Math, and began to talk to those that were present there, like a simple child: “I did not come to the temple these days because I was very angry with my Master for having deprived me of my dear brother. I love them so much because I have lived longer and more intimately with them than even with my own brothers…. But why should I be angry with my Master? Why should I expect that all things will be ordained according to my wishes? And why should I be sad at all? Am I not a hero? My Master used to say laying his arm upon my shoulder: Naren, you are a hero; the very sight of you inspires me with courage.’ Yes, I am a hero. Why should I then give way to grief?”

…Ask each one of his disciples, American or English, Bengali or Madrasi, and you will hear the same thing from all that their hearts were won by Swamiji’s wonderful love and sympathy. Swamiji’s marvellous intellectual powers, no doubt, evoked the awe of all. But this awe would have kept at a distance all unintellectual people like myself and would have proved more a barrier than a help to them to come in direct touch with him and drink from the fountain of his soul. Heaps of instances could be cited to show Swamiji’s wonderful heart.

…And how can universal love be without the ever present consciousness of the closest kinship with the universe, without the realization that whatever is is mine, nay, whatever is is me? And this is brahmajnana (knowledge of Self) as our holy books describe it. This is the very core of Swamiji’s teaching — The Selfhood of all — the Divinity of man. And this is, I am fully convinced, the key to his wonderfully versatile nature. He was a lover of all, because he was a jnani. And here I must tell you that the fatal illusion under which I had long laboured that jnana and bhakti are destructive of each other, dispersed in the presence of Swamiji as darkness before the sun. Swamiji was a tremendous worker because he was a bhakta and jnani. The tremendous energy that shook the whole world and is still at work awakening many a slumbering soul to its innate Divinity, instilling life into dead bones, bringing sunshine in the darkness of despair and love in dry, arid souls –, this tremendous energy owes its origin to his realization of brahman in all. Here too, I must tell you that the fatally-erroneous idea that karma is antagonistic to jnana and bhakti is dispelled at once by the life of Swamiji.

I told you at the outset that before I met Swamiji I did not, on account of my limited religious views, expect to see in him anything of the warrior, the poet, the philosopher, or the philanthropist. But I found that he was all these and more than these. He was as much a poet as a philosopher; as much a sentimental visionary as a man of action. And he was all these, not in spite of his religion but on account of it.

I have learnt that a religion which does not call forth into vigorous activity and chasten and elevate the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic faculties of man, make him humane and self-sacrificing and at the same lime self-absorbed and meditative is an imperfect religion. But I have also learnt that even such imperfect religions have their great purpose to serve in helping the growth of persons less evolved and that our attitude towards them all should he one of extreme sympathy and love. I have learnt that I should hesitate thrice before I condemn any form of religious faith, however repellent it may appear to me. For I have seen forms of worship, generally condemned as superstitious, yield treasurers of infinite beauty and holiness touched by the magic wand of Swamiji. I have learnt that every individual, however degraded he may appear in my eyes, is God involved, and therefore cannot be lost for ever. We should look upon him with respect and if possible give him a lift Godward, not by condemning his perverted ideal and by cruelly tearing it away from his heart but by gently replacing it by a true one suited to his temperament and culture. I have learnt that under peculiar circumstances even hardness and cruelty become a virtue, stubborn resistance. and excellence, and that activity is as much a help to spiritual growth as contemplative calmness. I have learnt that God can be enjoyed both within ourselves and outside of ourselves; within ourselves by effacing completely from our consciousness all impression of the world of senses and making me Spirit touch Spirit. Outside ourselves by seeing God in everything and pouring out our hearts unto His feel in the shape of loving service. I have learnt the incalculable value of great personalities in the scheme of individual, national, and universal redemption. I have also learnt that I have learnt all these only intellectually and am yet far from getting them woven into my nature. And all these I have learnt from the life of Swamiji. One thing more: My conviction that Swamiji’s spiritual realization was of the highest order came to me not only from his intense purity, fearlessness, love of truth, and universal sympathy, but also from those subtler personal manifestations described in our shastras. I have seen him weep like a child and becoming disconsolate at the name of God. I have seen him go into such deep meditation that even the function of the lungs stopped. Last of all came his own words to give the finishing touch to my conception of his spiritual greatness….

(Vedanta Kesari, January-February 1923)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
SWAMI SHUDDHANANDA

 

(Translated from Swamijir Katha in Bengali)

LONG years have rolled away, it was February 1897, I believe, when Swami Vivekananda set his foot in Bharatavarsha (India) after his triumph in the West. From the moment when in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago Swamiji proved the superiority of the Hindu dharma and left the banner of Hinduism flying victoriously in the West, I had gathered every possible information regarding him from newspapers and read them with great interest. I had left college only two or three years ago, and I had not settled down to earning. So I spent my time, now visiting my friends, now going to the office of the Indian Mirror, devouring the latest news about him and studying the reports of his lectures. Almost all that he had spoken in Ceylon and in Madras from the time he had set foot in India had thus been read by me. Besides this, I used to visit the Alambazar Math and hear from his gurubhais as well as from those of my friends who used to frequent the Math many things about Swamiji. Further, nothing escaped my notice of the comments concerning him that appeared in Bangabasi, Amritabazar, Hope, Theosophist, etc. — some satirical, some admonishing, some patronizing, each according to its own outlook and temperament.

Today that Swami Vivekananda alights at the Sealdah station and comes back to Calcutta, the city of his birth. The idea I had formed of him through hearsay and reports has to be tested today and confirmed by seeing his personality. So, early at break of day many had come to welcome the Swami. I met many of my acquaintances and had many pleasant chats with them concerning him. I noticed that two leaflets printed in English were being distributed freely. These were the farewell addresses which the Americans and Englishmen had presented Swamiji on the eve of his departure from the West, expressing their feelings of gratitude for the services rendered to them by the Swami. By and by the dense crowd eager to see him began to pour in batches. The station platform became a surging mass of humanity. With anxious expectation every one was inquiring of one another. “What more delay for the Swami’s arrival?” We heard then that Swamiji was coming in a special train, and that there was not much delay for his arrival. There it is! The sound of the train is being heard, and with usual puff, the train heaves into the platform. As the carriage stopped, I was fortunately placed on that very spot overlooking the carriage that brought in Swamiji. Swamiji was standing up and making his salutation with folded palms to all assembled to receive him. At that moment I only could get a cursory glance of him. The Reception Committee with Babu Narendra Nath Sen at its head approached Swamiji and brought him down from the train. Many crowded to take the dust of his feet. On this side of him the anxious crowd was spontaneously shouting in exultation of joy — “Jai Swami Vivekanandaji Ki Jai! Jai Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Dev Ki Jai!” My voice too mingled with it and began to ring in tune with theirs. When we came out of the platform, we found that Swamiji’s carriage was already unhorsed and a band of young men were getting ready to draw it up themselves. I also tried to join them, but the crowd prevented my doing so. So giving up this attempt, I began to walk accompanying the carriage from a little distance. In the station a sankirtana party had come to receive him, and along the road a band was playing, ahead of the procession. The roads were decorated with festoons and buntings. The carriage came and drew up in front of Ripon College. This time I was able to get an opportunity to see Swamiji well. I found him with his head projected out of the carriage and talking with some old acquaintance. That face was extraordinarily brilliant, and “seemed as if it was emitting rays of brilliant light; yet it seemed lo he a bit dim because of the fatigue the journey entailed. There were two carriages. In one were Swamiji and Mr. and Mrs. Sevier. The Hon. Babu Charu Chandra Mitra was standing in this carriage and with the movements of his hand was manipulating the crowd. In the other carriage were seated Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Harrison (a European Buddhist monk from Ceylon), G.G., Kidi, and Alasinga (who were three of Swamiji’s Madrasi disciples), and Swami Trigunatita. Because of the earnest entreaties of many, Swamiji got down from the carriage and addressed those present for two or three minutes, and then drove towards the house of Pashupati Babu in Baghbazar. I also tendered my salutations mentally and wended my way back to my house.

After my noonday meal I went to the house of Khagen (Swami Vimalananda) and from there drove together in their cab to the house of Pashupati Babu. Swamiji was at that time resting in an upstairs room. Many people were not allowed to go in. Fortunately for us, we were able to meet with many of Swamiji’s gurubhais, well known to us. Swami Shivananda took us to the presence of Swamiji and introduced us to him with the words: “These young men are your ardent admirers.” Swamiji and Swami Yogananda were sitting side by side on two easy chairs in a well-furnished room in the first floor of the house. The other Swamis were moving hither and thither clad in their gerua robes. We bowed down to Swamiji and occupied the carpet on the floor. Swamiji was then speaking with Swami Yogananda. The topic of conversation was his experiences in America and in Europe. “Well Yogin, do you know what I saw in the West? All over the world I was seeing only the play of the same great shakti (Divine Energy). Our forefathers manifested that power in religion and philosophy, and the West is manifesting the selfsame energy in the modern age through dynamic activity. Truly, through the whole universe there are only different expressions of that same maha-shakti (Great Energy).

Looking towards Khagen and seeing his emaciated appearance, Swamiji said. “This boy looks very sickly.” Swami Shivananda. “He has been suffering for a long time from dyspepsia.” Swamiji, “Is not our Bengal a sentimental country? That is why there are so many cases of dyspepsia here.” After a while tendering our obeisance we departed to our homes….

Swamiji and his disciples, Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, were staying in the garden-house of the late Gopal Lal Seal in Cossipore. We had been frequenting this house for some time with our friends and relations to attend the conversations of Swamiji. I shall try to put down here what little is left of my memory of these days.

It was in one of the rooms of this garden-house that I talked directly with Swamiji for the first time. Swamiji was then sitting within and I went and prostrated myself before him. There was nobody else in the room. Suddenly, I do not know why, Swamiji asked me. “Do you smoke?” I replied, “No”, to which Swamiji replied, “Very well, smoking is not good. I am also trying to leave it off.” Another day Swamiji was speaking with a vaishnava who had come to see him. Swamiji was saying, “Babaji,1 once in America I lectured to them on Shri Krishna. Captivated by that lecture, one exquisitely beautiful young lady, the mistress of a great many attainments and heiress to an immense fortune, renounced everything and retired to a solitary island and lost herself in the intoxication of meditation on the Lord. “Afterwards Swamiji began to speak on “Renunciation”. “In all religious sects that do not keep aflame the fire of renunciation, degeneration quickly sets in….”

Another day we found a large gathering sitting before him. His conversation was aimed at a young gentleman, who was staying in the quarters of the Bengal Theosophical Society. The young gentleman was saying. “I went to many a sect and denomination, but I could not yet find out Truth.” Swamiji replied in endearing terms, “Well, my child, once I too was in the same disconsolate state of mind as you are. Why should you be so anxious on this score? Tell me what they advised you to do, and what you have done all along.” The young man replied, “Sir, in our society there is a preacher, Bhavani Shankar by name, who is a profound Sanskrit scholar. He made me understand in a beautiful way the value of image worship in the scheme of spiritual development. Obeying him I began to worship with the proper ceremonials for a time, but this did not give me the peace I was yearning for. At that time one gentleman told me, ‘Try to make your mind void, and if you can succeed in the attempt, you will get peace.’ I also spent some days in following this advice, but to no purpose. Sir, even now I sit in a closed room, and meditate as long as I can. Yet, peace is far, far away from me. How am I to gain peace?”

Swamiji continued to speak to him in endearing terms: “My boy, if you have any respect for my words, the first thing I will advise you to do is to throw open all the doors and windows of your room! In your quarter there are lots of poor people sunk in degradation and misery. You will have to go to them and serve them with all your zeal and enthusiasm. Arrange to distribute medicines to those who are sick, and nurse them with all care, supply food to him who is starving, teach with as much as lies in you the ignorant; and if you begin to serve your brethren in this wise, I tell you, my child, you will surely get peace and consolation.”

The youth: “Sir, weak as I am, if I alone go to serve the poor and thereby break the regularity of my life by keeping awake late at nights, I might fall ill, and then what shall become of me?”

All along Swamiji was speaking with the youth very lovingly, sympathizing with all his mental troubles; but the last words of the youth very much vexed him, and so Swamiji next, talked with him in another strain: “Look here, while volunteering to do service to your brethren, you set a higher price on your own life. I can now understand well — so also those who are present here — that you are not that sort of man who would exert so much in the service of the sick as to affect your own health and convenience.” There was no more talk with that youth.

Another day the talk was with Master Mahashaya, the author of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Master Mahashaya was asking Swamiji: “You speak of service, charity, and doing good to the world; do not they too belong to the domain of maya? When the goal of Vedanta is mukti (liberation), to cut at the root of all maya, what will be the result of these teachings to the people who are already bound tight in the coils of maya?” Out came a curt reply from Swamiji that startled Master Mahashaya and made him speechless: “Does not the idea of mukti also lie within the realm of maya? Atman (the Self) is nitya-mukta (ever free). Hence what necessity is there for you to attempt for it?” We understood that Master Mahashaya was ready to prescribe dhyana, japa, dharana,2 and other devotional practices to all classes of aspirants setting aside the importance of service, charity, love and benevolence. But according to Swamiji, just as devotional practices are of vital value to a class of aspirants, so there are other classes of aspirants for whom the ideals of karma-yoga are the real incentives of spiritual development. If you belittle the importance of the latter, you have also to set aside the efficacy of the former; but when you accept one course of sadhana (the spiritual practice), necessarily you cannot help accepting the other course too. We were able to grasp from this pointed reply of Swamiji that Master Mahashaya was belittling the ideals of karma-yoga as being a part of maya and was accepting dhyana, japa, dharana, etc., as the only paths to mukti. The generous heart and subtle intellect of Swamiji at once perceived this fallacy, and he could not bear this limited and narrow interpretation of spiritual practices. He showed by his wonderful arguments that even the struggle for liberation is within the domain of maya, and by giving service, charity, etc., the same place as the devotional practices in the development of the spiritual life, he enunciated that the followers of the karma-yoga too have the same claim to recognition as the followers of the other yogas.

Next the conversation was diverted to Thomas à Kempis, and his Imitation of Christ. Many of us know that before Swamiji renounced the world, he was reading this book with special interest, and when the habitation of the Sannyasins shifted to Baranagore, the gurubhais of Swamiji used to read this book and study its teachings as special aids to their sadhana. Swamiji loved this book so much that in those days he had contributed to a contemporary magazine Sahityakalpadruma, an introduction to the book which he named in Bengali as “Ishanusarana” and had freely rendered its teachings into Bengali.

By reading the introduction we can understand with what an attitude of mind Swamiji looked upon this book; so much of awe and reverence he evinced towards its author! And really such innumerable and illuminating counsels the book gives on renunciation, discrimination, humility, dasya bhakti,3 etc., that it cannot but evoke these sentiments in the mind of any one who reads it. One of those present there felt the curiosity to know Swamiji’s opinion on the teachings of the book now. So he read out a teaching in the book about humility and remarked that without considering oneself as the lowest of the low it is impossible to get spiritual development; Hearing this Swamiji said, “What more need for us to consider ourselves low? Where is ignorance again for us? We have enjoyed the bliss of Illumination — we are children of that Illumination.”

From this reply we could easily understand that he had transcended the stages of preliminary sadhanas, as mentioned in that book, and had reached great heights of realization. We especially noted that even trivial everyday occurrences of life did not escape his scrutiny and he transmuted them as aids to popularize high spiritual truths.

Once Shri Ramlal Chattopadhyaya, the nephew of Shri Ramakrishna, known amongst the Ramakrishna Order as Ramlal-Dada, came from Dakshineswar to visit Swamiji. Seeing him, Swamiji got one chair for him and requested him to take his seat while he himself strolled to and fro. “Dada” felt very delicate at this respect shown to him and began to implore Swamiji to take that seat; but Swamiji was not prepared to leave him; with much protestations, “Dada” was made to occupy the chair. Swamiji continued to walk up and down repeating to himself, “guruvat guruputtreshu — One should treat the descendants of the guru with the same honour as one would treat the guru.” Here we noticed that though Swamiji was the recipient of such glory and honour, there was not the least trace of any conceit in him. We learnt, too, that that was the way to showing one’s gurubhakti (devotion to guru).

Many students had come to see him. Swamiji was then sitting in a chair. All were squatting around him eagerly waiting to hear a few words from Swamiji. There were no seats left where the boys could sit and hear him. Hence they had to sit on the floor. Perhaps it struck Swamiji that it was better to have given them seats; but perhaps soon his mind was turned on some other topic and he thought otherwise and said, “Doesn’t matter! you have sat well. To practise a little tapasya (austerity) is good.”

One day we took with us Shri Chandi Charan Vardhan who lived in our quarter of the city. Chandi Babu, was the manager of a small Hindu Boys’ School where education was given up to the third class. From the beginning he was a great lover of God. After reading the lectures of Swamiji he developed an intense faith in him. Formerly he had even thought of renouncing the world for facilitating his devotional practices; but he was not successful in this attempt. For a while he was an amateur actor, in a theatre and he even figured as a playwright. He was very emotional by temperament. He had picked up the acquaintance of Edward Carpenter, the famous democrat. In his book Adam’s Peak to Elephanta, the author has given an account of his meeting with Chandi Babu as well as a picture of him.

Chandi Babu came and with great reverence made his obeisance and asked Swamiji. “Swamiji, whom can we accept as guru?”

Swamiji: “He who can understand and speak to you of your past and future can be recognized as your guru. My guru spoke all about my past and future.”

Chandi Babu: “Well, Swamiji, does wearing kaupina in any way help in controlling lust?”

Swamiji: “A little help might be got thereby. But when the passion gets strong, could it be checked, my child, with a kaupina? Unless and until the mind is completely given to God, no external check can completely obliterate lust. But then, you know, as long as the mind has not reached that stage, it tries to protect itself by external aids. Once in me rose the feeling of lust. I got so disgusted with myself that I sat on a pot of burning cinders, and it took a long time for the wound to heal.”

Chandi Babu put Swamiji many questions regarding brahmacharya (continence) and Swamiji with utter frankness clearly expounded all its secrets to him. Chandi Babu was making severe attempts at sadhana — but being a householder he had not the facility at all times to do this to his entire satisfaction. Fully knowing that brahmacharya was the prime necessity for all sadhanas, he was not yet able to act up to it to his entire satisfaction. And as he was engaging his time in the management and education of young boys. he had occasion to notice how by the absence of any moral and religious education of young boys, and by association in bad company the boys lose their sexual purity even at a tender age; and he was always thinking within himself how to resuscitate the lost sexual purity in the boys. But how can one who himself has not attained a thing give it to others?

Thus unable to gain brahmacharya with regard to himself and plant the same in his boys, he used to get much worried and desperate at times. So now hearing from that ideal brahmacharin, Swamiji, his straightforward counsels and energetic words, it struck him suddenly that this mahapurusha (great soul), if he minds, could revive in him and his boys the ancient ideal of brahmacharya. I have mentioned earlier that Chandi Babu was very emotional by temperament. Suddenly, as it flared up by an uncontrollable enthusiasm, he shouted out in English in great excitement, “Oh Great Teacher, tear up this evil of hypocrisy and teach the world the one thing needful — how to conquer lust”. Swamiji pacified Chandi Babu.

The topic of conversation next was Edward Carpenter. Swamiji said, “At London, he used to call on me on many occasions and sit near me. Many other Socialist Democrats also used to visit me. Finding in the religion of Vedanta a strong support for their ideals, they felt much attracted towards its teachings.”

Swamiji had read his book Adam’s Peak to Elephanta. This brought to his mind the picture of Chandi Babu printed therein, and he told him that he had already been familiar with his appearance. The shadows of evening began to fall, and so Swamiji got up for a little rest. And addressing Chandi Babu, he said, “Chandi Babu, you come across many boys; can you give me some excellent boys?” Chandi Babu was a bit absentminded when Swamiji said this. So, unable to understand the full bearing of Swamiji’s words, when Swamiji retired to his room he followed him and inquired what he had said as regards some beautiful boys. Swamiji replied: “I do not want those whose appearance looks well. I want some strongly built, energetic, serviceable boys of character, I want to train them up so that they may get themselves ready for their own liberation as well as for the good and welfare of this world.”

Another day we went and found Swamiji walking up and down and talking very familiarly with Shri Sharat Chandra Chakravarti (the author of Swami-Shishya-Samvada). We were very eagerly waiting to put Swamiji one question. The problem was this — what is the difference between an avatara and a mukta (liberated soul) or siddha purusha (perfected being)? We especially requested Sharat Babu to place the question before Swamiji, and he did so accordingly. But without giving a direct reply to this question, Swamiji said, “Of all states videha-mukti (freedom after death) is the best — this is my firm belief. During my sadhana period when I was travelling round Bharatavarsha (India), how many days had I spent in caves, how many a time had I even thought of giving up this body since liberation was not achieved, what strenuous efforts had I made for my spiritual practices! But now I have not that thirst for liberation. My present mood is that so long as even one individual lives in this world without gaining liberation, I do not want my own liberation.”

Hearing these words of Swamiji I began to wonder at his infinite kindness of heart, and I thought within myself, “Does he convey to us the nature of the avatara by quoting himself as an example? Is he also then a divine incarnation?” And I thought. “Maybe, he no longer aspired after liberation, because he had already attained it.”

On another day myself and Khagen (Swami Vimalananda) went to him after dusk. In order that we might be specially introduced to Swamiji, Haramohan Babu (a devotee of Shri Ramakrishna) spoke to him, “Swamiji, these are your great admirers and they study Vedanta with great aptitude.” Though the first portion of Haramohan Babu’s words were literally true, the second part was overdone. For although we had studied something of the Gita and a few primers on Vedanta, we could be credited with no more than a superficial knowledge; we had not studied them with the thoroughness of a student nor had we recourse to the original texts and commentaries on the same. Whatever that might be, hearing Vedanta mentioned, Swamiji asked us. “Have you studied the Upanishads?”

I replied, “Yes, a little.”

Swamiji: “Which Upanishad?”

Searching my mind and finding nothing else I replied, “Katha Upanishad.”

Swamiji: “Well, repeat a few lines. Katha Upanishad is very grand, full of poetic beauties.”

What a catastrophe! Perhaps Swamiji understood that I knew Katha Upanishad by heart, and I was asked to repeat a few verses from it. Though I had turned over the pages of this Upanishad, I had cared neither to grasp its meaning nor commit it to memory. So I was in a sad predicament. What should be done! Suddenly I struck upon a plan. A few years back I had made some regular attempts in reading the Gita and as a result I could remember most of the verses. I knew for certain that if I did not repeat from memory some scriptural texts at least, I could hardly show my face before him afterwards. Therefore I said; “I do not know by heart Katha Upanishad; but from the Gita I can repeat a few verses.” Swamiji ordered me to repeat a few verses from the Gita. From the latter part of the eleventh chapter I repeated all the verses which Arjuna sang in praise of the Lord. To inspire us with enthusiasm, Swamiji was punctuating my recitation with his appreciative remarks.

The next day, taking with us our friend Rajendranath, we went to see Swamiji. I told Rajen: “Brother, yesterday I was thrown in a very delicate position before Swamiji with my poor knowledge of the Upanishads. If you have with you any Upanishad, take one with you in your pocket so that if any occasion arises, we can draw it out from our pocket and read out before Swamiji.” Rajen had a pocket edition of the Upanishads by Prasanna Kumar Shastri with a commentary in Bengali. We took this in our pocket. That evening we found Swamiji’s room filled with visitors. What I had thought of came to pass. Somehow or other the topic of conversation turned to Katha Upanishad. Immediately taking out the book from my pocket I began to read the Upanishad from the beginning. And as I read, Swamiji spoke of the faith of Nachiketa, that faith whereby he dared even to go to the house of Yama (Death). When I began to read of the second boon of Nachiketa regarding the attainment of heaven, Swamiji asked me to read a few verses here and there and begin that part dealing with the third boon; Nachiketa asks Yama about the doubts of men, whether man ever survives bodily death. And Yama places temptations before him, but he rejects them all. After reading of these was over Swamiji spoke in praise of his character, in words pregnant with celestial fire. But my weak memory retains but little of that day’s talk.

But by these two days’ talk on the Upanishads Swamiji infused into my mind something of his intense faith and love of the Upanishads. From that day, whenever I got an opportunity, I studied the Upanishads with due reverence and am still doing the same. Even now I seem to hear those Upanishadic mantras which Swamiji used to repeat at different times, in his own peculiarly fiery, clear, and ringing tone. Whenever I, forget the Self, carried away by criticisms and judgement of others, memory brings back to me that familiar Upanishadic text which Swamiji used to repeat often in his own sweet and melodious tone: “Know that atman alone. Give up all other talks. He is the bridge to Immortality.” On any day when the sky is dark and thick set with clouds and lightning flashed I remember his familiar figure pointing to the flash of lightning in the sky and uttering the well-known mantra: “There the sun shines not, nor the moon nor stars. These lightnings also do not shine there; He shining, all shine, after Him; His light illumines them all.” Or whenever my heart gets filled with despondency that realization is far away from me, I seem to hear Swamiji with his face suffused with bliss, repeating in sonorous voice the message of hope from the Upanishads: “Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! Even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One, who is beyond all darkness, all delusion; knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again — there is no other way!”…

It was the end of April 1897. Only five days ago I had left home to live with the sannyasins 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. When I came forward to take down Swamiji’s dictation, Swamiji casually remarked whether I would stick on, and some one answered that I would. All the while I was getting the writing materials ready; and 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 mornings and evenings should be devoted to meditation, while the afternoons after a short rest should be 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 be 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.

I found some difficulty in carrying out this last instruction. Swamiji’s central idea was that it does no good to men to point out their various defects and tell them. “You should not do this, or that”, and so on. But he believed that if the proper deal he clearly placed before the aspirants, it would help them to rise up, and the defects would gradually fall off by themselves. I was at every turn reminded of this principle when I tried out his instruction to put the rules in a positive form. Except in the case of the intoxicant all other rules I was able to make positive. Its original form was “that in the Math except tobacco, no other intoxicants shall be allowed”. When I wanted to remove the negative form, I first of all made it thus: “All in the Math shall use tobacco”! But seeing that this seemed to make it obligatory to smoke even for those who are free from that habit, after many futile attempts I finally gave it this form; “That in the Math (of all intoxicants) tobacco alone can be used.” Somehow I now find that we only made an awkward compromise. As a matter of fact in any set of rules and regulations it is not possible to do away with the negative form altogether; but it must be remembered that the more the rules embody the positive aspect of the ideal, the more helpful they become. And this was Swamiji’s main idea….

Another day Swamiji was sitting in the hall, his face radiating an unusual brilliance. A variety of topics were talked about. Amidst the audience was our friend Vijaya Krishna Bose. In those days Vijaya Babu used to ascend many a platform and speak before many associations. He had once even spoken before the Congress in English. Somebody let Swamiji know of his capacity to deliver lectures, and so Swamiji asked Vijaya Babu to deliver a lecture as there was quite a good audience. The subject suggested was atman (Self). But Vijaya Babu exhibited no signs of willingness to act up to Swamiji’s suggestion; and Swamiji and all the rest tried in vain to set him upon his legs. After nearly fifteen minutes of ineffectual persuasion their glance fell upon me. Before coming to the Math I had occasionally delivered a few lectures in Bengali, and in our Debating Society I trained myself to speak in English as well. Some one present referred to this, and I was caught hold of to speak on the same subject. I have never been encumbered much with that inconvenient commodity called modesty. I at once stood up and held forth for nearly half an hour giving out ideas about atman beginning with those contained in the Yajnavalkya-Maitreyi samvada (conversation between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi) of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. I did not pay any heed whether there were grammatical mistakes or any incongruity of ideas in my speech. Our gracious Swamiji also, without caring for any of these, began to cheer me enthusiastically. After me, Swami Prakashananda (who is now in charge of the Hindu Temple, San Francisco, U.S.A.), a new initiate to sannyasa, also spoke for about ten minutes on atman. He modelled his speech on that of Swamiji and in good sonorous voice spoke out what he had to say. Swamiji extolled much his speech also.

Really, Swamiji never looked into man’s failings and weaknesses. On the other hand he used to encourage whatever was good in anyone thereby giving him the proper surroundings and facility to manifest his latent possibilities. But our readers need not be under the impression that Swamiji used to praise one and all in every one of his doings. Far from it, many times we have seen him assuming a severe appearance and pointing out one’s shortcomings, especially of his gurubhais and disciples. But he did that to rid us of our faults, to sound us a note of warning, and never to discourage us in any way. Where could we find another like him to fire us with such enthusiasm, courage, and hope? Where could we find such another to write to his disciples, “I want each one of you, my children, to be a hundred times greater than I could ever be. Every one of you must be a giant — must, that is my word” ….

At that time in the Math we received from Mr. E.T. Sturdy of London the copies of Swamiji’s jnana-yoga lectures printed in pamphlet form. Swamiji had not then returned from Darjeeling. We were reading with great enthusiasm those soul-entrancing and inspiring interpretations of the Advaita Vedanta contained in those lectures. The old Swami Advaitananda did not know English well. But it was his special desire to hear how “Naren” captivated the heart of the West, what interpretation of the Vedanta brought out their admiration of him. By his request we used to read and explain the substance of those lectures before him. One day Swami Premananda asked the new bramhacharins to translate Swamiji’s lectures into Bengali. So we began to do it. Meanwhile Swamiji returned to the Math, and Swami Premananda spoke of this to Swamiji and asked me to read out the translation before Swamiji. Swamiji also, while expressing his opinion on the translation, remarked that certain words would sound better if put in a particular way and so on. One day I was alone in the presence of Swamiji. Suddenly he spoke to me “Why not you translate my Raja-Yoga?” I wondered why Swamiji ordered such an unfit person like me to do this work. Long ago I had tried to practise raja-yoga. For some time I had such an attraction for this yoga that I even used to look down upon the other paths of jnana, karma and bhakti. I was under the impression that the sadhus (holy men) of the Math knew nothing of yogic practices, and hence they did not encourage them. My reading of the Raja-Yoga revealed to me that Swamiji had not only a thorough grasp of the truths of raja-yoga — for therein I found a masterly exposition of all ideas I had already gathered on the subject — but had also brought out in a beautiful manner their true relations with other yogas as well. Another reason which increased my faith and devotion was this. Was it that in asking me to translate the Raja-Yoga Swamiji meant to help me in my spiritual growth by bringing about thereby my close consideration of the truths of this yoga? Or was it because the raja-yoga practices are not much current in Bengal that he desired that the truth should be sown broadcast there? In a letter to Babu Pramadadas Mitra he writes that the practice of raja-yoga is completely ignored in Bengal and what little there is of it is only such as blowing through the nose and the like.

Whatever that might be, without caring for my own shortcomings, I immediately set at work to carry out Swamiji’s order.

(Vedanta Kesari, Dec. 1922 & Jan-Feb. 1923)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
KAMAKHYA NATH MITRA

IT was in the year 1897, the year of my graduation, that I had the rare privilege of seeing at Calcutta the world-famous Hindu monk, the epoch-making Swami Vivekananda, in the house of the late Babu Balaram Bose, a devout bhakta well known to the disciples of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. I went to see him because I was profoundly interested in his message, though its significance was not yet quite clear to me. A few words may be necessary to explain my interest.

I was inquisitive from my boyhood and the question of religion had a strange fascination for my mind. Just as in these days the predominant interest of my countrymen is politics, so in my boyhood their predominant interest was religion. It was a time of great religious movements and controversies. There was a constant play of action and reaction. On the one hand, there was the rising tide of Brahmoism with which most enlightened men were in sympathy. On the other, there was the frantic effort of the so-called orthodoxy with its pseudo-scientific and fanciful interpretation of the religion of the Hindus. Then, again, there was Theosophy with its Mahatmas, occultism, and spirit-world to which many educated people were attracted because they did not like the Westernized outlook of the Brahmos, and further because they felt flattered by the uncritical eulogy of everything Hindu by Colonel Olcott of America and Mrs. Annie Besant of England. It must be said at the same time that not an inconsiderable section of university-bred young men were free-thinkers, rationalists or agnostics who swore by Mill, Comte, Spencer, Huxley, and Haeckel and thought that all religions were equally false. Such was my intellectual milieu as a boy and a youth. I listened to the discussion of my elders and sometimes took part in the discussions. Religion to me was not yet a craving of the soul. It was more or less a question of intellectual interest. Though born in an orthodox Hindu family, yet the influence that I felt most was that of the Brahmo Samaj and also that of a near relative who was an out and out agnostic. With the social programme of the Brahmos I had every sympathy, but their theology I could not accept. I was swaying between two forces — Brahmoism and agnosticism.

It is in this state of mind that I finished my school education and entered college. It is in the first year class, if I remember right, that I first heard of Ramakrishna — yet I did not hear of him from any fellow-countryman of mine but from a foreigner — no less a personage than Professor Max Muller himself. I just happened to read two articles from his pen in The Nineteenth Century — one entitled Esoteric Buddhism, a scathing criticism of Madame Blavatsky and her theosophy and the other A Real Mahatman. This Real Mahatman was no other than our Bhagavan Ramakrishna. A new horizon opened before me. A new light flashed forth. And all this happened at a mofussil town.

About a year after this, I read in the papers all about the famous Parliament of Religions at Chicago and the resounding triumph of Swami Vivekananda there. Who was this Vivekananda? I came to know soon after that he was the chief disciple of Ramakrishna, the Real Mahatman of Professor Max Muller. I was eager to know all about the man and his message. Unfortunately I was not present at Calcutta at the time when the whole city turned out to receive him with the tremendous ovation that signalizes the return of a conquering hero. I read, however, glowing accounts of the event and saw that honour such as this had never fallen to the lot of any man on the Indian soil

From this time onward I read the reports of all the speeches he delivered at different places in India. I felt that it was the spirit of India herself that breathed through his utterances. Such force, such fire was beyond the utmost stretch of my imagination. Several speeches of Keshab Chandra Sen I had read before. I had great admiration for his style, eloquence, and religious fervour. But here was a new atmosphere altogether, a new accent, a new emphasis, a new outlook at once national and universal. Here was Hinduism in all its phases, but how different from the Hinduism of the hide-bound Sanatanists, pseudo-revivalists, the Scribes and Pharisees of India! I was under a spell. The two speeches that impressed me most were his Calcutta Town-hall speech and his Lahore address on Vedanta. When I read the Lahore address, I was a B.A. student at Calcutta.

I eagerly waited for an opportunity to see the man. The opportunity came, as I have said, in 1897. I went to see Swami Vivekananda in the Calcutta residence of the late Babu Balaram Bose in company with a class-fellow of mine, Babu Narendra Kumar Bose.

We entered a hall which was full to overflowing. The people assembled there were for the most part students of the Calcutta colleges. They were all seated cross-legged on the floor covered with duree and pharas (floor matting covered with cotton sheets) In the centre was the seat meant for Swamiji. I managed somehow to occupy a place in the hall, and we all eagerly waited for the arrival of Swamiji. Perfect silence prevailed. A few minutes passed and the Swami stepped in. His gait was leonine and the dignity of his bearing simply royal. His frame was athletic and robust. He had a gairic alkhalla (ochre cloak) on, his feet were bare and his head, chin and lips clean shaven — altogether a striking personality. He had the look of a man born to command. He was soon seated, and then he looked at us. His large eyes beamed with genius and spiritual fire. He spoke in Bengali interlarded with English. Words flowed from his lips, and we heard him with rapt attention. Each word of his was like a spark of fire. His manner was impassioned. It was clear to all that here was a man with a message. His awakening power was wonderful. We heard him and felt aroused. A new spirit was breathed into us. Here was a man of faith in an age of doubt, sincere to the backbone, a dynamo of supernal force. To have seen him was education. To have heard him was inspiration. It was the most memorable day in my life, and it is impossible for me ever to lose its recollection.

What did he tell us all? To be strong and self-confident, to renounce and serve. Strength was the burden of all that he said. He poured torrential scorn upon what he called out “negative education” and spoke enthusiastically on man-making. He gave a vivid picture of our country’s degradation and the misery of the masses. How he felt for the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed! If we had a millionth part of his feeling, the face of the country would change at once. He spoke of the greatness of Hinduism and proudly said. “It is my ambition to conquer the world by Hindu thought — to see Hindus everywhere from the North Pole to the South Pole.” As he uttered these words I saw in him the very Napoleon of Religion. I saw the warrior’s heart throbbing beneath the yellow robe of the sannyasin. Not a mild Hindu at all this Swami Vivekananda but the most aggressive Hindu I have ever seen in my life. He was made of the same stuff of which Alexander and Caesar were made — only his role was different.

Some of his words are still ringing in my ears and they are these: “You must have steel nerves and cast-iron muscles. A moment’s vigorous life is better than years of jelly-fish existence. Cowards die many time before their death. An honest atheist is a thousand times better than a hypocritical theist. Don’t be jealous, for the slaves are jealous. Virtue is heroism — from vir in Latin which means man and which again is the same word as vira in Sanskrit.”

After about two hours the Swami left the hall and we dispersed in different directions. I returned to my lodgings but the words of the Swami filled the air. I could think of nothing but Swami Vivekananda. There stood his heroic figure which-ever way I turned.

I could not resist the temptation of seeing him again, and so on the next day I went once more to the house of the late Babu Balaram. On this day there was no great gathering. Swamiji was seated in the veranda on an asana surrounded by a group of his brother-disciples. The Brahma-Sutras with Shankara’s commentary was being read out by one of them, and Swamiji passed explanatory remarks here and there. Today’s atmosphere was different altogether. It was all very quiet. Soon after the reading was finished, one of the Swami’s brother-disciples spoke of the spirit-world and read an extract from a theosophical book. Swamiji at once came down upon him and extinguished him completely. I saw that the Swami was a hater of spookism. He clearly said that all this was weakening and debilitating and had nothing to do with true religion. After this, many light topics were introduced, and then Swamiji laughed and joked like a child. Here was another mood. I said to myself: Is it the same Swami I saw yesterday — the thundering Swami in dead earnest?

It was about a year after this that I saw the Swami once more — and this time on the platform. Now I was face to face with Vivekananda the orator. The scene was the Star Theatre of Calcutta. The occasion was the introduction of Sister Nivedita to the Calcutta public. The hall was crammed to suffocation. On the dais were seated many distinguished persons. I remember only Sir Jagadish Bose and Sir Ananda Charlu among them. Swami Vivekananda was in his best form. He wore a gairic turban and a long-flowing robe which was also gairic in hue. He introduced Sister Nivedita in a neat little speech. The Sister addressed the meeting in a graceful style. Then rose Swami Vivekananda, and he spoke on his foreign policy. The speech is to be found in the Mayavati Memorial Edition of his Complete Works. He brought forward a scheme of his future missionary work in the West. The speech was full of fire. Such thrilling voice, rich intonation, variation of pitch. strong and sonorous accent with occasional explosion as of the bolt of heaven I have never heard in my life nor am I likely to hear again. Sometimes he paced to and fro on the platform as he spoke and folded his arms across his chest. Sometimes he faced the audience and waved his hand. His expressions flowed free and fast with the rush and impetuously of a mountain torrent. His words were like the roaring of a cataract. Well might The New York Herald say: “He is an orator by divine right.” Altogether a more majestic, striking, and magnetic personality it is hard to conceive. We heard him spell bound. Each word was an arrow that went straight to the heart.

Such is my recollection of Swami Vivekananda. To fully understand his message I read subsequently all his speeches and writings and almost all about his Master. There is not a single problem of our individual, social, and political life, that he has not touched and illuminated. He has given a new impulse to the country. So far as I am concerned, he is growing more and more vivid to me with the lapse of years, and I see his stature dilated today “like Teneriffe or Atlas”. His message is the message of freedom, strength, fearlessness, and self-confidence. It is the eternal truths of our religion that he has preached in a new way, in modem terms, and he has also shown how these truths are to be applied to the present conditions of India and the rest of the world. A more constructive thinker and inspiring teacher I have not seen in my life. I do not know a single self-sacrificing Indian worker of the present century who has not been influenced more or less by his thoughts, words, and example. More than anybody else he has made India respected abroad. Many a child of the West has found in his message the solace of his life and the solace of his death. It is true that at the present moment the predominant interest of our country has become political, but the better minds believe with Swami Vivekananda that spirituality must be the basis of all our activities. It is difficult to say what form our national reconstruction will exactly take, it is difficult to predict anything about the future of the world as a whole, but I sincerely believe that the ideas and ideals of Swami Vivekananda are destined to play a very important part in the history of the human race. May his influence grow from more to more!

(Prabuddha Bharata, February 1930)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
MANMATHA NATH GANGULI

FIRST VISIT

IT was in the year 1897 (?) when I heard that Swamiji (that is, Swami Vivekananda) had arrived at Calcutta. I went to see him in Baghbazar where he was staying with Shri Balaram Bose. On the first floor, facing the street, there was a hall where a few persons waited to have a darshana of the great Swami, who was in an adjacent room. I took my seat in a corner of the floor which was carpeted, and in a short while there came Miss Noble (Sister Nivedita) through one of the doors inside the hall. She wore an overall robe of pale saffron which came almost to her ankles and there was a necklace of holy rudraksha beads on her neck. As she entered the room barefooted she looked as pure as a goddess.

She went with slow strides straight to the door adjoining the room in which Swamiji was resting; but then she knelt down beside the door-frame and folded her hands; her finger and palms joined to offer her obeisance to the Lord. She bowed down in this posture and then remained quietly sitting on her ankles with joined palms as we do while praying. But she did not enter the room in which Swamiji was sitting on a cot. Swamiji talked, with her for a while, and she also answered in a soft voice reverentially as if she was in a church. Then she again bowed down to the Swami and went away as silently as she had come.

I had heard a lot about Sister Nivedita but this was the first time that I saw her in person. Her face had a serenity and fullness that one sees in the face of Madonna that indicates the direct vision of God in person….

After a while Shri Vijayakrishna Goswami entered the hall with a few of his followers who had an earthen mridanga (long drum) and cymbals with them. The party were seated at one corner of the hall, a little apart from the rest of the people who by this time had assembled there. As soon as Swamiji saw Shri Vijayakrishna, he left his room and came inside the hall and stood in the middle. Seeing the Swami, Shri Vijayakrishna and his party stood up as a mark of respect. Then Shri Vijayakrishna Goswami advanced a step or two and tried to take the dust from the feet of Swamiji. But Swamiji was too alert for it, and he himself bent down to take the dust from the feet of Shri Goswami. Simultaneously both of them avoided to be touched by the other, and again both of them tried to outdo the other in this form of homage. At last Swamiji took hold of Shri Goswami’s hand and made him sit beside himself on the carpet in the middle of the floor.

Shri Vijayakrishna was then in a great ecstatic mood and he looked like a man intoxicated with the love of God. A few minutes after, when he seemed normal, the Swami entreated him to speak a few words about Shri Ramakrishna. At this Shri Vijayakrishna was again choked with emotion and he slowly repealed the words several times with great effort: “Thakur (Shri Ramakrishna) has kindly blessed me.” But he could speak no further due to his immense surge of devotion. We could see divine grace in his flushed face and ecstatic mood. He sat quiet and motionless and tears flowed from his eyes continuously for some time wetting his cheeks. At this the men who had come with him stood up and began sankirtana keeping him and the Swami in their centre. After some time Shri Goswami was able to stand up and though even then he seemed to be in a condition of half-awakened consciousness, his followers took him in their middle and moved slowly out of the hall.

It was then that I bowed to the Swami from a distance. There was none to introduce me to him, but I felt very happy to be able to see him face to face. I thought that I was fortunate enough to see the great Swami, lionized in America for his great learning and oratory. I was a petty clerk in government service at Allahabad, but hearing about the Swami’s return to India, I took leave from my office and went forth for his darshana. Thus I came to Calcutta where my elder brother lived and practised as a lawyer. Twice or thrice in the year I used to come to Calcutta, and I never lost the opportunity to know at a closer quarter the sannyasins of the Math, and the disciples of Shri Ramakrishna, for my own spiritual benefit.

On a few occasions I had seen the Holy Mother but never asked her for initiation. A Brahmo friend of mine, Shri Narendra Nath Basu, got a touch of divine intoxication at the very first sight of Mother’s holy feet. By her grace he got his initiation soon along with his wife. It is this friend of mine who came to me with the information that Swamiji was in the house of Balaram Babu. It was due to the kindness of this friend of mine that I own this fortune of seeing the Swami in person for the first time in my life.

I was born in an era which is difficult to be understood today by a generation which is so much removed from the ingrained thoughts of those times which now may have become meaningless. But then I also was so much influenced by the Brahminic ideas that prevented me to touch the feet of even a sannyasin born of the Kayastha caste. I am not ashamed to confess today that to me on that day Swamiji was not an exception to this rule. But the Swami spoke a few words to me in a kind voice and in a few minutes my Brahminic barriers seemed to be vanishing altogether.

SECOND VISIT

It was in the last week of December when one morning I went to Belur. I found Swamiji standing near the open yard in front of the kitchen. On his head there was a woollen cap of gerua colour (ochre-brown). On his body there was a woollen dressing gown with large black checks on a white background. His complexion was fair, but his skin looked fairer due to a peculiar brilliance and softness in it. The most attractive part of this fine personality was his eyes. He had large expressive eyes. I have never come across another pair of such fine eyes.

This time I went up to him and bowed down touching his feet with the end of my fingers. Nearby was a small tent in which there was a small tea-table and a few stools to sit on. He asked a Brahmacharin to bring a cup of tea for me. Tea and

prasada

were served on the table, and then Swamiji fell into a conversational mood. He asked me where I lived and what I did. I answered him pertinently. …Then he went elsewhere and I also moved about with other Swamis of my acquaintance. Thus some time passed till it was about ten.

Inside the verandah facing the courtyard of the Math, Swamiji was on a chair while Rakhal Maharaj, Mahapurushji and Sharat Maharaj (Swamis Brahmananda, Shivananda and Saradananda) were seated in one of the three benches, and I alone was in another bench at a little distance. Swamiji was in a talking mood and he was relating many of his experiences in America. In the course of the conversation he said, “In Chicago it was proved that Hinduism was the greatest religion of the world and then the padres there got infuriated. They wanted to convene another Parliament of Religions in France, They had thought of making it a convention at Paris to make it compulsory for the speakers to address the House in the French language, I did not know French at the time. And they thought that my ignorance of the language would debar me from the Parliament. But I went to France and picked up the language in about six months and then began to deliver some speeches in French. This damped the enthusiasm of the missionaries. Later on the idea of recalling another Parliament was dropped.”1

Swamiji said, “In America, outside my room there was a private letter box. I used to lock it up. Occasionally in the day. I opened it myself. Various were the letters that I used to get from all sorts of people. Many of them were threats from unknown persons. They asked me to stop preaching Hinduism. But sometimes I received letters of admiration and praise. Most of them were written by women. A few of them also contained proposals for marriage. There had been other occasions when some influential ladies expressed the desire to get me married to some rich woman and settle down in America. I had to explain to them that Indian monks do not marry. But it was difficult for them to be convinced as some padres did marry in their country, and so they asked why should not I.”

In the course of his conversation he spoke of one peculiar incident which to roe seemed very strange, and Swamiji also did not try to explain the phenomenon. He said, “I was then travelling from city to city and addressing many gatherings even in a single day. One day I was thinking that I had spoken on all the topics that I knew about. I was to address a meeting the next day and I was sorry that this time I would speak something that might be a repetition of some former lecture. This I wanted to avoid. It was late at night. I was sitting on an easy chair quite relaxed. In my mind I was accusing the Master for this predicament of mine. Suddenly I heard him speaking to me. At that moment I had closed my eyes and I could not see him. I only heard his voice. He went on speaking for some time at length and said, ‘You should speak thus — and thus — and don’t worry at all.’ I was very much astonished. But I was glad to learn about the topics of my next lecture. There was even more astonishment in store for me. Next day in the morning a gentleman living in a room adjacent to mine asked me. ‘Who was talking to you yesterday? I couldn’t follow anything because the language was new to me.’ Now, the language that I heard was Bengali. I wondered how could this man also hear it.”

Swamiji continued. “Once I was asked in America to deliver a lecture on my guru. I told them that Shri Ramakrishna could not touch even a copper coin, what to say of gold or silver. It was true not only in the figurative sense but true literally. If he touched a metal coin inadvertently, his fingers cramped and the hand recoiled as if his nervous system rejected the touch instinctively. The contact would give him actual physical pain, and it was so intense that he would cry out even in sleep. One night the Master was asleep when I took a silver rupee and touched him with it. It had an instantaneous effect. Shri Ramakrishna wokeup. It was evident that he was anguished with pain, and I was ashamed of my childish act.”

Then Rakhal Maharaj requested Swamiji to write a life history of the Master. At this Swamiji winced and said, “I cannot do it. It is not for me to attempt such a difficult task. In the hand of a bad artist even the picture of Shiva may appear to be that of a monkey.” At this Rakhal Maharaj said. “If you say so, then the task will remain undone.” But Swamiji answered, “If Thakur wishes it, some one else shall accomplish it.”

For the time, his brother-disciples dispersed leaving the Swami seated there atone, who now turned to me and started a casual conversation.

“So you live at Allahabad, isn’t it? Do you know Doctor Nandi? When I was at Jhusi, I used to go to his house for bhiksha (alms). I knew him very well.” Dr. Nandi was a devotee of Shri Ramakrishna. We liked him and there was some acquaintance between us through this common bond. As far as I know, Dr. Nandi had seen Shri Ramakrishna. But I loved him because he had known Swami Vivekananda personally. He had told us that Swami Vivekananda, the chief disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, once stayed for some time on the other side of the Ganga where there were many kuthias (thatched houses) for wandering monks. Swamiji was then a parivrajaka Sannyasin (itinerant monk). It was summer and the days were very hot. Often there was a hot breeze, locally known as the loo. Swamiji even in those hot days wore half of a coarse blanket as a bahirvasa (outer garment) and half of it covered his upper body. He walked barefooted to and from the house of Dr. Nandi.

This time I went to Belur quite often. Many men, young and old, used to come to Belur for a darshana of Swamiji. But it was not so easy to see the Swami at all hours of the day. Mostly he remained in his own room, and he was seldom disturbed even by his gurubhais. It was well known that often he was absorbed in his moods of tranquillity, and then it pained him to talk on affairs alien to his own mood. So the custom was that people saw him and could talk to him when he came down from the upper storey of his own accord, and then the visitors also were allowed to go to him without any restriction.

One morning Swamiji’s mother came to see him. Her very appearance commanded respect. She was a strongly built lady with large fine eyes with long eyelashes. She had a remarkably strong personality that made her obeyed without any questioning. No wonder that Swamiji had inherited these qualities from her. She went up to the verandah of the first storey and cried aloud “Viloo-oo”, and her child came out of the room at once. The great Vivekananda was just like a teen-aged son to his mother. He descended the stairs along with Bhuvaneswari Devi, and then they walked in the garden-path together and conversed softly on personal matters.

During the last few years whenever Swamiji was at Calcutta he would go himself to his mother. While at Belur he would occasionally visit his mother at Calcutta, but if perchance he could not go to her for a week or two she would herself come down to Belur to see him and also ask his advice on family matters.

It was about four in the afternoon when one day the Japanese Consul came to meet the Swami at Belur. He was asked to be seated on one of the benches inside the inner verandah where generally Swamiji received his guests. He was informed of the honourable guest, but he had to wait for some time before the Swami came down. It depended on Swamiji’s mood altogether whether he would meet a person, however important, instantly or at some more convenient time. On that occasion the Consul had been kept waiting for quite a long time as Swamiji came when it was wont for him to take his evening walk. He took a chair near the Consul and the conversation took place through an interpreter. After the formal greetings the Consul spoke to his purport: “Our Mikado is very keen to receive you in Japan. He has sent me to request you to visit Japan as early as may be convenient to you. Japan is eager to hear about Hindu religion from your lips.”

Swamiji answered, “In my present state of health I think it will not be possible for me to visit Japan now.”

The Consul said, “Then, may I with your permission inform the Mikado that you will go there some time in future when your health permits?”

Swamiji said, “It is very doubtful whether this body will ever be fit enough.”

At the lime, Swamiji was suffering from diabetes. His body was quite emaciated. He was not so ill when I had seen him for the first time.

Shortly after, I returned to Allahabad. But soon I availed an opportunity to go to Calcutta and proceeded to Belur in the hope of seeing the Swami. To my utter disappointment he had gone elsewhere for the time.

Next to Swamiji, Raja Maharaj or Rakhal Maharaj was the head of the Order. I was well known to him; yet I felt him at the time to be rather distant and aloof from me. He was often absorbed in his own spiritual moods and was not very accessible to easy conversation. I had heard about his great spiritual attainments. He often had samadhi, and he was beyond the reach of my understanding.

I sat near him while he remained quiet for some time after we exchanged a few casual words of greeting. I was thinking of a few problems that I wanted to solve through his help. But I did not speak, thinking if he was a great divine soul he would know them without my telling him. Suddenly Rakhal Maharaj said to me. “Come with me, let us have a walk.” It was not yet dusk. The path led to one of the gates of the Math on one side and the river Ganga on the other. The temples were not built then. There were a few buildings only. Most of the place was open. There were a few shrubs and trees and we went up to the gate that led to the jetty and then turned back. Thus we strolled for a little while and Rakhal Maharaj did all the talking and to my great wonder he touched all the three problems of mine, one by one, and they were solved to my satisfaction. Then Rakhal Maharaj took me to the ghat of the Ganga just facing the Math on one side and he took his seat on one of the steps and asked me to sit beside him. I also sat on a step near his feet. I was at that moment overwhelmed with an emotion akin to devotion and wished to surrender myself to him completely. So I entreated him to give me initiation formally. He kept quiet for some time. Then he spoke slowly. “Your guru is Vivekananda, not I.” It extinguished my hopes of ever being initiated as I knew that Swamiji had initiated very few persons, and to be one among his disciples was a dream to me, never to be realized. So, I was absolutely disappointed and returned to Allahabad in a few days.

Next time when I went to Belur, Swamiji’s health seemed to be a little improved and he was in good cheer. One day I had gone to Belur in the morning. Some one told me that Swamiji was in the puja (worship) room of Shri Thakur. I went up the stairs and saw Swamiji in a divine ecstasy. He was pacing from one end to the other inside the covered verandah just in front of the worship room. His hands were sometimes swinging and sometimes crossed above his breast as was his wont. He paced rapidly and his gait was in jerk-like motion. His face seemed red with an intense emotion which he was trying to suppress….I heard him constantly muttering very audibly: Then, all his mind was turned inwards and he was very restless as if he was keeping a watch before his ideal Shri Rama-Janaki, as Mahavira. He seemed to be a completely dedicated soul to Shri Ramakrishna, but his will was full of explosive possibilities and he was determined to do even the impossible for the sake of the service of the Lord.

That afternoon some young men had come to see Swamiji. They were about ten or twelve and most of them might be college students. They had assembled on the verandah facing the Ganga on the first floor before Swamiji’s room. Swamiji came out after a short time and talked with them very freely. He was so jovial that he himself looked like them — quite young and enthusiastic. He talked to one, touched another on his back. or mildly slapped some other at the shoulder. It was a pleasing sight to see him in this mood for most often that I had seen him he was full of gravity and seriousness.

There was a solid gold chain, around his neck. attached to a gold watch in his pocket, and it matched very nicely with his fair complexion. One of the young men touched the chain with his fingers and said, “It is very beautiful.” At once Swamiji took the watch out of his pocket and put the chain with the gold watch in the hand of that youth who in amazement had then cupped his palms. He said, “You like it! Then it is yours. But my boy. do not sell it. Keep it with you as a souvenir” Needless to say that the young man was extremely happy. I marvelled at the ease with which Swamiji could part with such a valuable thing; not only for its cost but the present was also invaluable for its association. Once he had said before me, “Sacrifice means the sacrifice of something you possess. A man who has everything in his possession and yet is indifferent to them is a truly detached soul. The man who has nothing is only poor — what can he give?”

During the Christmas holidays some scholars came from Agra. A few of them were professors. It was about nine o’clock in the morning. Inside the courtyard of the Math there were a few ordinary benches on which the visitors were seated while Swamiji took a chair near them. The college dons put their questions one by one and Swamiji answered them with due gravity. The problems were various, some philosophical and some social or political. They seemed to be quite satisfied and after a while they all went away.

I was sitting at a little distance and tried to follow the trend of the conversation. Swamiji would occasionally look at me which made me feel at home.

It was then about twelve in the noon. Suddenly the Swami asked me. “Sadhu Amulya lives at Allahabad. Do you know him? How does he do? Tell me all about him.”

I said, “I know him for many years. He used to serve all without any self-interest. His courage and spirit of service endeared him to all. Once there was an epidemic of cholera and he nursed the helpless and the needy without the least fear of his life. So he was loved by the rich and the poor who considered him as a congenial friend in times of distress.”

Sadhuji was the name given to Amulya who then wore white robes as do the Bramhacharins, But later on he put on gerua clothes. By some he was then called guruji. Many of his devotees were addicts to ganja, charas and bhang. They offered him these and when guruji had smoked a little, they got the prasada. By and by he began to drink, and women of questionable character also visited him. After some time he left all clothes and lived like Nagas. When I saw him last he was a fully fallen man. On hearing this sorry tale of Amulya, Swamiji kept silent for some time. Then he said, “Ah! a great soul — a great soul!” He added, “For him this life is lost. But he shall be free in his next birth. Amulya used to read with me in the college. He was a good student. He had a wide vision and was a follower of the path of knowledge…. Sadhu Amulya had no spiritual guru. When the disciple takes a wrong move and is about to fall, it is the spiritual guide who guards him and the disciple regains his balance.” I could see that Swamiji was visibly moved. He was very sympathetic. Though I knew him to be a great moralist, yet his love for the fallen made me wonder at his nature which was stern from outside but very tender within. Then he addressed me, “Manmatha, this time when you go to Allahabad, go to Amulya and tell him that it is I who sent you to ask what he wants. Whatever be the things that he asks of you, make it a point to supply him with them.”

Accordingly, a few days after I went to guruji and said, “Sir, Swamiji has asked me to come to you. otherwise I would not come to you at all. Please tell me what are the things that you need.” He seemed not to mind my taunt and exclaimed with a beaming face. “What! Swamiji has sent you — Swamiji? What did he say of me?” I reported all that I had heard him say.

For some time he was silent with an emotion that overwhelmed him, and he tried to suppress it. Then he said, “Bring me about four seers of ghee from cow’s milk, and some fruits.” In a few days I brought these to him and he expressed his satisfaction. That was the last that I saw him. In a few weeks I came to know of his death. Most probably Sadhu Amulya left his life by not taking any food at all. He was a peculiar combination of a raja-yogi and an Aghori (of the Tantrika school). Perhaps he took nothing after I saw him except the little present I had made to him in the name of Swamiji.

After telling me about Sadhu Amulya, Swamiji asked me, “What is that you want to know from me? You may put any question you like.” I said, “I have seen your lectures on maya. It has appealed to me. But I have not understood it. Please let me know what is maya. For a while he was silent. Then he said, “If you have anything else to know, you can ask me.” I said, “Sir, I have nothing more to ask. If a knower of Brahman like you cannot enlighten me, then it will remain a closed book to me during this life.” At this Swamiji began a discourse on maya. He was speaking fast and I followed his words and the logic. By and by, my mind lost the contact of the sense-organs. I experienced a subtle world around me which was much finer than the gross world. I could see with my open eyes the Math, the trees, and everything before me vibrating. If you look above a large fire you can see a vibration. The objects were oscillating and vibrating before my eyes just like that. I was conscious of my uncommon experience and asked myself, “What is this that I see?”

I looked around me and saw there was vibration everywhere. Slowly even Swamiji vanished from my eyes. Even then I could hear his voice, but I did not follow its meaning. Then suddenly I was aware of a vibration within my brain and there was only the void.

Again I could see and hear the Swami and then followed the meaning as well. But my mind was conscious of my ego, and it no more exerted as it did before as I thought that I knew the meaning of maya.

I, who never had the courage to speak before the Swami, considered myself a bubble in the ocean of maya in which the Swami was also another. The difference was lost to me for the moment. The giant personality of the Swami and his great spiritual power and everything seemed to be a coincidence in the ocean that Swamiji called maya. But it was nothing but an undivided chit — the Cosmic Consciousness.

Then I said, “Swamiji, you are also in the maya. Your activities of the Math, schools, daridra-narayanaseva (service of God in the poor), hospitals, the Mission — everything is maya. What is the need of all this? You yourself are within the meshes of maya.”

At this he smiled and kept quiet for some time. It was through his grace that I considered myself as one with the maya. And now again I entered the little shell of my own self. I saw the Math, the Swami, and everything once again in its true perspective, i.e. the one I was used to have before this experience. A little time before I had spoken with a high pitched voice and that in a piquant manner, and now I was ashamed of having done so. Swamiji and myself were not of the same substance any more and I felt the vast difference.

Swamiji must have known that now I was normal once again. Then, he said. “Yes; you have said aright. I am playing with maya. If you do not like this play of maya, you can go to a deep cave of the Himalayas. There you can get yourself lost in, tapasya (spiritual effort).”

It was high time for lunch and everyone was kept waiting. Swamiji stood up and I fell prostrate at his feel. He was Shiva in person, and I touched his feet.

It was then that I had the desire to have prasada from Swamiji. But I said nothing. Swamiji was pacing in front of the open verandah before the store-room. He went to the room and took an apple and asked for a knife from a Bramhacharin. Slowly he peeled the apple and then cut a slice. He came near me and offered the slice to me. I was gratified. Then he took a piece himself. Then I wished to have anna-prasada from Swamiji. A little later when we were all seated for the midday lunch. Swamiji asked a Bramhacharin to come to him and he said. “Take this cooked rice to Manmatha.” It had been offered to Shri Ramakrishna.

When the midday meal was over everyone retired to his respective room and Swamiji also went to his own room. But he had little rest even then. He was very busy in framing the rules and regulations of the Math. Somehow he was apprehensive of his approaching death and he wanted to lay down the principles for the future guidance of the Sannyasins of the Order.

I stayed at the Math that day and also the night. Next morning I went to Swamiji to offer my obeisance. He was standing near the door of his room while I bowed down before him. He said, “Go to the Ganga and have a dip. Then come soon to me.” His face was beaming with kind benediction, and I knew at once that he was in a mood to shower his grace. My heart beat fast as I understood this to be his permission to be initiated. I was as happy as a teen-aged boy and literally ran to have a dip, so impatient was I. Unless Swamiji was filled with gurubhava (attitude of the teacher) which they called the mood of Shri Ramakrishna himself, he would not initiate any one. When I returned I found him lying on his back on a sofa. He let fall his right hand loosely and said, “Hold my hand.” I sat down on the floor and held him at the wrist. His body had emaciated, yet his wrist was broad and in spite of my grip there remained a gap of about half a finger. Swamiji closed his eyes and lay motionless. Time passed and I held him as a young child. It seemed to me that his personality engulfed me. but I tried to retain my consciousness. For a fraction of a second it seemed to have vanished completely. Then he sat up.

Swamiji got down from the sofa and stood in the room. He pointed to a carpet and asked me to sit on it. At a short distance there was another carpet and Swamiji took his seat on it. When I followed him, he said, “In dream you have seen the Mother as Kumari. But henceforth you should meditate on Her as of the Shodashi form — like.” As he said this I could vividly visualize the image and at the moment I did not wonder at this at all. About the vision I had never spoken to any soul. yet he knew it, and I did not marvel for I had taken it for granted that he knew everything. In my dream, many years before, I had seen seven maids. The tallest was a maid of eleven and the smallest and youngest only five. The difference of age and height decreased in a graded manner and all were very beautiful divine persons. Each of them had a gold crown and they were dressed in very fine garments and ornaments. But they had all the brightness of the goddesses. They emerged one by one from one side and moved forward on before me to vanish at a small distance. The vision was so vivid that the images left a permanent impression in my memory.

Swamiji went on, “After some time you saw Mahadeva in your vision. He had the trident in His hand and He gave you this mantra…. From that time on you performed that japa.” It was many years after the first one that I had this dream. He said. “But from now onwards your mantra is this.” … He repeated the bija-mantra of the Mother thrice, aloud. And I saw before me a full size divine figure of the classical image with the tongue lolling out. I asked him, “Shall I have to meditate on Her like that?” He said. “If you wish, you can think of Her with the tongue in. “And he smiled.

After this he gave me certain hints about initiation and the process of sadhana that I was to practise. He gave me the mantra for the worship of the guru and showed me the centres for nyasa. He said, “First of all perform the menial obeisance, then visualize your guru as vividly as you can. For this, sahasrara (thousand-petalled lotus in the brain) is the best place. After this the mantra of the chosen deity should be slowly repeated and Her image should be meditated in the heart.

“In offering the mental worship, first of all meditate on the feet, then slowly go upwards till you come to the face, and then meditate on the face. When meditation will be deep, there will he no hands or feet. As long as you see the form, the nirvikalpa plane cannot be reached. But do not hurry. You must go slowly and across the stages one by one. Otherwise it may take a much longer time.”

After my initiation was thus over, he said, “Sit here, beside me, and meditate. Practise meditation every day without fail, however busy you may be. It must be done even for a short time, say for a few minutes. If you do not find time otherwise you may do it in the bathroom. Even that will do.”

The last time that I saw him was a few months before his passing away. There were many occasions when I went to Belur between my initiation and the beginning of January 1902. As the impressions were not written at the time, the exact dates are not possible to give now. But some of the things that I heard from him I shall try to present here.

Once he said, “This body will never be fit again. I shall have to leave it and bring another body to complete the work. There are many things that remain undone.”

On a previous occasion he had said in a divine mood. “I do not want mukti (liberation). As long as there shall be one soul left. I have to come again and again.”

The internal condition of China was politically very wretched. The European powers wanted to divide China among them. Japan also joined them in this exploitation and attacked China. One day I asked Swamiji. “China is such an old country. Do you think this ancient country with its civilization will die out?” He was silent for a while. Then he said. “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.”

Of Indian freedom, he said, “Our country shall be free. But not with bloodshed. There is a great future for India after her independence.” At the time he did not say when, but from another brother-disciple I had learnt later that he had said that India would be free within fifty-years.

Once I asked, “What will happen if I do not follow your behest and fall?” He said. “Go and fall to the very depth of abyss. It is I who shall raise you by the tuft of your hair. There is no power on this earth to keep you fallen.

At one time he remarked casually. “There are many souls that will come in future. They shall be free from birth and some shall become free even by hearing the name of Shri Ramakrishna.

He had said. “I want a band of Sannyasins for my work. But some good parents must constitute the nucleus of a better order of things. From this shall originate the future society to outshine the past glory of India.”

On the question of women’s emancipation, he said, “There is no need of any set programme for uplifting women. Give them education and leave them free. They will work out the solution of their own problems themselves.”…

Here are a few incidents that I heard from Swamiji which have been referred to by others. But I give the details as I heard.

Swamiji said, “Then I used to beg my food from door to door in the Himalayas. Most of the time I spent in spiritual practices which were rigorous; and the food that was available was very coarse, and often that too was insufficient to appease the hunger. One day I thought that my life was useless. These hill people are very poor themselves. They cannot feed their own children and family properly. Yet they try to save a little for me. Then what is the use of such a life? I stopped going out for food. Two days thus passed without any food. Whenever I was thirsty I drank the water of the streams using my palms as a cup. Then I entered a deep jungle. There I meditated sitting on a piece of stone. My eyes were open, and suddenly I was aware of the presence of a striped tiger of a large size. It looked at me with its shining eyes. I thought, ‘At long last I shall find peace and this animal its food. It is enough that this body will be of some service to this creature.” I shut my eyes and waited for it, but a few seconds passed and I was not attacked. So, I opened my eyes and saw it receding in the forest. I was sorry for it and then smiled, for I knew it was the Master who was saving me till his work be done.”

Here are a few of his remarks about the national traits of America and India. These were casual observations during his talks and discourses in a conversational mood.

“In America I found them to be full of rajo-guna. They will now try to proceed to sattva-guna. All Europe is predominantly active in achieving material success but America leads them all in this respect.”

“Bharata was sattva-pradhana during the days of rishis. Even now inside the bone and marrow India is still sattva-guni. Among all the nations of the world Bharata is still sattvika — more so than any one else — but on the outer shell it has become full of tamas. For a long time they have been passing through a great storm, and their bad days have not ended yet. It is hunger that is killing the nation, and the whole race is dying out slowly. Our duty is to give them food and education.”

Once he said, “In America the beds are very soft and cozy. You do not even see such things here. But there have been many nights when I could not sleep in those soft beds thinking of the extreme poverty of my own people. I have then passed nights on the floor tossing, without any sleep or rest.”

“To change the condition of India she must be fed and clothed properly. People must get education. The poor are the narayanas. They must be served with food and education.”

“The Indians are religious inside. For want of food and clothing the spiritual fire has dimmed. When there will be no want and they get some education, the spiritual fire will blaze once more.”

“Do not talk and think too much of child-marriage, widow-marriage, etc. When women get proper education and are enlightened, they will solve their own problems themselves.”

About brahmacharya and medhu he seemed to have the orthodox view. I heard him say on his wonderful power of retentive memory in this manner. “If a man can be continent for twelve years, he can have extraordinary memory. One must be celibate and keep his brahmacharya absolutely even in his dream.”

He had once told me. “You must know that the Sannyasin is the guru of the householders. Even if you but see the gerua (ochre cloth) bow down to it in reverence. Think of your own guru and pay your respect whether the person is fit or unfit. Keep the ideal of renunciation before you and gerua should remind you of the highest renunciation and knowledge.”

To me he advised, “Choose one path. Do not keep your feet in two boats.” He wanted me to become a Sannyasin or a householder. At that time was I unmarried. Later on. I chose to be a householder.

One day we were sitting in the right hand room of the Math facing the Ganga. It was generally called the music-room. Sadhu Nag Mahashaya entered the room. He had a dhoti and a shirt on. His dress was anything but neat. His hair was unkempt. His eyes were a little red as if he was intoxicated and the look was rather vacant. He stood near the door within the room and with folded hands said, “You are Narayana — Narayana in a human form. The Master said so. My salutations to you.” For some time he stood there as still as a statue.

Swamiji looked at us and said, “Look, engrave this scene in your memory. You will never see this again.” Now I think it must have been a state of samadhi. When Nag Mahashaya opened his eyes again, Swamiji said, “Please, tell them something of the Master.” Swamiji did not rise himself nor did he ask him to sit. Such attempt would have jarred the ecstatic mood in which he was at that time, and Nag Mahashaya himself would have been very uncomfortable.

Sadhu Nag Mahashaya suddenly smiled the heavenly smile of the gods who have the vision of Shiva’s world. He half raised his right hand and said, “It is this, it is this.” Every one felt a charge of spiritual energy and the atmosphere of the room was tense with awe and reverence. Then he went out as suddenly as he had come.

(Vedanta Kesari, January & April 1960)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
MRS. S. K. BLODGETT

(From a letter dated September 2, 1902, to Josephine MacLeod)

I AM ever recalling those swift, bright days in that never-to-be forgotten winter, lived in simple freedom and kindliness. We could not choose but to be happy and good. And now while I share with all who knew and loved him a deep sense of loss, it would be an impertinence to measure your sorrow and loss by my own, so closely have you been associated with him in his intimate friendship with your family. I knew him personally but a short time, yet in that 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 nearly one’s heart. I think the Mead sisters must have remarked this side of Swamiji.

Possessing as he did an almost inexhaustible knowledge of things old as the world — a sage and philosopher — he yet appeared to me to lack utterly the commercial knowledge which so distinguish[es] men of the Western world. You were constantly rendering him some apparently trifling service in the everyday homely happenings of our daily life, he in some small way requiring to be set right. That which we mother and care for in little, seemingly inconsequent ways must through the very nature of our care weave a world of tenderness around the object of our love — until in some sad day we are robbed of the divine privilege of loving service and are left like “Rachel mourning for her children because they are not”, Thus I know, aside from the loss of a delightful and rare companion, the fact alone of your generous service brought him very near to you. One day busy with my work, Swamiji absorbed with his curries and chapattis, I spoke to him of you, when he said: “Ah, yes! Jo is the sweetest spirit of us all” — 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. Presently ‘Jo’ would appear and discover the culprit among pots and pans in his fine dress, who was by thrifty, watchful Jo admonished to change to his home garments.

Ah, those pleasant ‘Tea Party’ days, as you termed them. How we used to laugh. Do you remember the lime he was showing me how he wound his turban about his head and you were begging him to hasten as he was already due at the lecture room. I said, “Swami, don’t hurry. You are like a man on his way to be hung. The crowd was jostling each other to reach the place of execution, when he called out. ‘Don’t hurry. There will be nothing interesting until I get there’. I assure you, Swami, there will be nothing interesting until you get there.” This so pleased him that often afterwards he would say, “There will be nothing interesting ’til I gel there”, and laugh like a boy. Just now I recall a morning quite an audience had gathered at our house to listen to the learned Hindu, who sat with downcast eyes and impenetrable face while his audience waited. His meditations over, he raised his eyes to Mrs. Leggett’s face and asked, like a simple child. “What shall I say?” This gifted man, possessing the subtle power of delighting an intellectual audience, to ask for a theme! There appeared to me in this question an exquisite touch of confidence in her judgement in suggesting a subject suitable to the occasion. A most interesting portion of the day you lost.

In the early morning when you and your sister would be sleeping, he would come in for his morning plunge in the bath. Soon his deep, rich voice would be heard in the something resembling a solemn chant. Though Sanskrit [was] an unknown tongue to me, I yet caught the spirit of it all, and these early morning devotions are among my sweetest recollections of the great Hindu. In the homely old-fashioned kitchen you and I have seen Swamiji at his best. He could let his thoughts have untrammelled (s)way.

Do you remember how interesting and instructive one morning he was in one of his inspirational moods? Something in the paper, an abused wife or maltreated child, had aroused my ire, when I vehemently protested against the utter abomination of a system of laws which permitted the indiscriminate production of a mongrel race of children who through heredity and environment were prenatally doomed to be paupers, lunatics, and criminals to prey upon the better born. My plea was for the enactment of a law to save the wretched from themselves by preventing worthless characters — boozy fathers and fool mothers — from forcing upon the world a blasphemy against God and a shameful profanation of His “image and likeness” in [the] shape of half-born children. Swamiji replied by taking us back to the time when a man’s choice of a wife was emphasized with a club, step by step down through the ages showing the gradual amelioration of the condition of women. The evolution of thought had been broadening and developing for them greater freedom and happiness. The central idea in this morning’s talk was that all great reforms had been developed slowly; otherwise, the order and equilibrium of the universe would be disturbed and result in chaos. Of course, I cannot follow him in detail or give his words. I can only give his idea. A curious thing to me, while I lost not a word [n]or failed to grasp the point he would make, [I] have yet found it impossible to repeat but fragmentary utterances of his. I question if one could repeat him in his inspirations. At such moments, one gave oneself up to the joy of listening.

I heard very few ofSwamiji’s public lectures. My age and household duties gave me no choice but like Martha to sit in the house. To follow in detail our pleasant hours at that time would be like one[‘s] repeating a dream from which one awoke too soon. Were you present at a lecture when one of those ladies who love to make themselves conspicuous by some ill-timed remark asked: “Swami, who is it who support the monks in your country? There are so many of them, you know.” Like a flash Swami replied; “The same who support the clergy in your country, madam. The women!” The audience laughed. Madam was for the time effaced and Swamiji proceeded with his lecture.

Another time I was at a lecture of his in the Masonic Temple in Chicago. A noted clergyman present said: “You believe in creeds, do you not, monk?” “Oh, yes,” said Swami, “while you need them. You plant an acorn for a tree and build around it a little fence to keep away the pigs and goats. But when your acorn has grown to a tall, spreading tree, you do not need your little fence.” He was never at a loss — always equal to the occasion. And now “after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well”, never to be awakened to the discords and tumults of this life, or to be reclothed with an earthly body (in my belief), since this is true that we shall see him no more. Let us hope that in some distant star, above a world of separation and pain, his gentle spirit may again lead and influence the spirits of men. India has sustained a great loss in her Americanized son, who while he sacrificed no essential feature of their faith, yet saw things undreamed of by them, to their betterment and happiness. Nivedita, what will she do without the inspiration of his presence?…’

(Prabuddha Bharata, July 1963)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
IDA ANSELL

ALL the superlatives in the language couldn’t convey one’s impressions of Swami Vivekananda when he introduced us, early in 1900, to a completely new conception of life and religion. I have been requested, as one who took notes of his lectures for her own use, with no thought of their ever being published, to give my impressions of him. How to do it? He seemed like a radiant being from a higher plane, and yet so understanding of every phase of humanity. He appealed to every grade of intelligence by his oratory, his humour, his mimicry, his scornful denunciation of any form of pettiness or intolerance, and by his compassion for every human need.

Startled at the loftiness of his conception compared with our little ideals, we knew, as we left the hall with the Swami’s vibrant chanting of a Sanskrit shloka still ringing within, that he was ushering us, in the beginning of this twentieth century, into a new and larger conception of the meaning of life.

It is interesting to look back on a long life and note the changes in one’s sense of values, and also to note what tiny, insignificant events changed the whole course of life. If I had not accepted the offer of a course in stenography just before entering high school, and if, in the second year of high school I had not had a nervous breakdown and been forced to leave school, I might never have met Swamiji, although I probably would have heard some of his lectures. I had been studying the piano as well as going to school. The doctor, whose verdict was, “You must give up school or music, or you will not need either”, sent me to Miss Lydia Bell for help. Miss Bell was the leader of the California Street Home of Truth in San Francisco. I was staying in the Home and taking notes of her morning classes and Sunday lectures.

In the morning classes we were studying Swami Vivekananda’s Raja-Yoga (it had been published in New York during his earlier visit to the West) when the Swami, then in Los Angeles, accepted an invitation from Rev. B. Fay Mills to give some lectures in the First Unitarian Church in Oakland. There I went with Miss Bell and other friends, early in February 1900, and we were startled and astonished at what we heard, amazed and enraptured at the Swami’s appearance. He was surely a Mahatma or a divine being, more than human. No one had ever been so sublimely eloquent or so deliciously humorous, such an entrancing story-teller, or such a perfect mimic. When I saw and heard him and thought of the interpretation we had been given of the civilization that had produced him, I felt almost ashamed that I was an American. I went to most of his lectures with Miss Bell and to some with other friends and met the same glowing enthusiasm in all, though with some it was the man rather than the doctrine that appealed most. I remember one very wealthy and aristocratic young lady. who was studying music with my teacher, saying ecstatically, “Oh, he is tike a lovely golden statue!”

Besides the public lectures. Swamiji had some morning classes for earnest students, in meditation. They were held in the living room of an apartment on Turk Street where Mrs. Alice Hansborough (Shanti) and Mrs. Emily Aspinall (Kalyani) kept house for him. I was able to attend only a few of these classes and did not take any notes. First there would be a meditation and then a period of instruction, followed by questions and answers and practical suggestions as to exercise, rest and diet. Swamiji stressed the importance of moderation in amount and mildness in quality of food. One suggestion I remember was that we refrain from eating salt for a week. thereby benefiting the nervous system, as salt is considered an irritant.

Many questions were answered in these classes. Also, for those who arrived before class time, there was a little opportunity for getting acquainted personally with the Swami. We were invited into the dining room, where we enjoyed some informal talks. He would make fun of our habit of rushing here and there. He never hurried. That majestic calmness never left him. It amused him to see someone run for a street car. “Won’t there be another one?” he would ask. It did not trouble him at all if he was late in beginning a class or a lecture, and there was no set time for its ending. He would continue until he finished his subject, even if it took more than double the allotted time These early morning visits previous to the class were completely informal. Swamiji would wear a gray flannel robe, sit cross-legged in an arm-chair, smoke, answer questions, and tell jokes. When it was time for the class, he would appear two minutes later in the living room, clad in his ochre robe, his hair smooth, and the pipe missing. But the jokes continued to be interspersed among the serious subjects.

The same was true in his public lectures. He playfully ridiculed the question: What becomes of one’s individuality when one realizes his oneness with God? “You people in this country are so afraid of losing your in-di-vid-u-al-i-ty!” he would exclaim. “Why, you are not individuals yet. When you realize your whole nature, you will attain your true individuality, not before. In knowing God you cannot lose anything. There is another thing I am constantly hearing in this country, and that is that we should live in harmony with nature. Don’t you know that all the progress ever made in the world was made by conquering nature? We are to resist nature at every point if we are to make any progress.”

He encouraged questions at the end of each lecture, and once when someone suggested that they were tiring him with too many questions, he said, “Ask all the questions you like, the more the better. That is what I am here for and I won’t leave you until you understand. In India they tell me, I ought not to teach Advaita (monistic) Vedanta to the people at large, but I say I can make even a child understand it. You cannot begin too early to teach the highest spiritual truths.”

Speaking of spiritual training for the mind, he said,”The, less you read, the better. Read the Gita and other good works on Vedanta. That is all you need. 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 me three readings to memorize Macaulay’s History of England, while my mother memorized any sacred book she wanted to in one reading. People are always suffering because they can’t control their minds. To give an illustration, though rather a crude one, a man has trouble with his wife. She leaves him and goes off with another. She’s a terror! But the poor fellow cannot take his mind away from her even so, and so he suffers.”

One Sunday evening Swamiji was scheduled to give a lecture at the Home of Truth. “Come to my lecture tonight,” he said to some friends. “I am going to throw some bombs. It will be interesting and it will do you good!” It was interesting and terribly convincing. He told us in plain and forceful language just what he thought of us and it was not flattering, but very wholesome if we could take it, and I think we could. I don’t remember that any one left. He stressed the idea of chastity as a means of strengthening the mind, and purity for the house-holder as well as for the monk. He told of a Hindu boy who had been in America for some time and was suffering from ill health. The boy told Swamiji that the Indian theory of chastity must be wrong because the doctors here had advised him against it. Swamiji said, “I told him to go back to India and listen to the teachings of his ancestors who had practised chastity for thousands of years.” And then he severely rebuked the American doctors for giving such advice.

Mrs. Steele had prepared an excellent dinner which was served before the lecture, at which Swamiji was delightfully informal and jolly. We waited expectantly for him to say the usual grace, but to our surprise he immediately commenced to eat. He made some remark about saying grace after dinner rather than before, and he also said, addressing Mrs. Steele, “I will say grace to you, Madame; you have done all the work.” She had some very fine dates for desert, which Swami evidently enjoyed, and when, after the lecture she expressed her appreciation of it, he replied, “It was your dates Madame”

One evening Swamiji was talking of the different interpretations of heaven and hell presented in the Indian scriptures. He described several varieties of hell. Usually after a lecture some of the devotees would take him either to Mr. Louis Juhl’s restaurant in the section of San Francisco known as Little Italy or to some uptown cafe, depending on whether his mood and the weather called for hot food or ice-cream. On this particular occasion it was a very cold night and Swamiji shivered in his overcoat, remarking. “If this isn’t hell, I don’t know what is.” But, in spite of the hellishly cold weather, he chose ice-cream, which he liked very much. Just as it was time to leave the cafe the hostess had to go to the telephone and asked us to wait. As she left for that purpose, Swamiji called after her, “Well don’t be long or when you come back you will find only a lump of chocolate ice-cream.”

On another occasion a waitress made a mistake in the order and brought Swamiji an ice-cream soda, which he did not like. He asked her if she would change it. As she was on her way to do so Swamiji happened to see the annoyed manager, and called out loudly, not caring who heard him, “If you scold that girl I’ll eat all the ice-cream sodas in the place.”

Congregational singing in the Christian churches he referred to as “bottle-breaking business”. He made all sorts of fun of”Beulah Land”:

I’ve reached the land of corn and wine
And all its riches freely mine.

Another hymn that amused him was the “Missionary Hymn”:

From Greenland’s icy mountains
To India’s coral strand….

He would sing it all through to the end, in his rich voice, and then pause, point dramatically at himself, and say, smilingly: “I am the heathen they came to save”

On March 30 Swamiji wrote to Swami Turiyananda, who was then in New York helping Swami Abhedananda. “I am leaving for Chicago next week.” But more lectures followed and on April 23 he wrote to Mary Hale, “I ought to have started today, but cannot forego the temptation to be in a camp under the high redwood trees of California before I leave. Therefore I postpone it for three or four days.” As it turned out he should have said “three or four weeks”, for he did not leave the Bay district until May 26.

The invitation to be in such a camp had come to him from Miss Bell, to whom Mr. Juhl, the owner, offered it for a summer vacation. Miss Bell invited Mrs. Eloise Roorbach and me to accompany her. Various letters indicate that Swamiji remained in the Turk Street apartment until April 19, then worked and lived at Alameda on the other side of the Bay for some days, not actually reaching the redwood camp until May 2.

On April 22, Miss Bell, Mrs. Roorbach, and I were established at Camp Irving (the name of Mr. Juhl’s camp at the outskirts of Camp Taylor, a rustic summer retreat in Marin County) a few miles north of San Francisco. The camp ground was a narrow strip of land between a railroad track and a creek. There was a circular clump of trees at one end which we used as a sort of chapel for classes and meditation. The kitchen was at the other end and its equipment consisted of a stove under a tree, a trunk for supplies, a rough board table with benches on either side, and some shelves built into the tree for dishes, the pots and pans being hung on nails driven into the tree. Between these two provisions for spiritual and material food there was room for four tents and an open space for a camp-fire.

When Swamiji did reach the camp, he arrived with Shanti after a series of efforts to get there which she related to me when I was in San Francisco a few years ago. She told me of her mental conflict in regard to going to the camp. She was torn between the desire to accompany Swamiji and the wish, after three months’ absence, to get back to her daughter in Los Angeles. Swami said to her, “Don’t go to Los Angeles. Come with me to the camp and will teach you to meditate.” In order to go from Alameda to Camp Irving it was necessary to take two ferry boats, one across the Bay to San Francisco and one north from there to Marin County. In Alameda there were two rail-road lines which carried passengers to the docks, one broad gauge and one narrow gauge, just a few blocks apart. Swamiji and Shanti missed the train at one of them and went to the other. Seated in the car, they discussed the matter of whether to have breakfast on the boat from Alameda to San Francisco or on the boat from San Francisco to Marin County. and then discovered that there was no engine attached to the car in which they were sitting. They returned to the Home and had breakfast there, and Swamiji said, “We missed the train because your heart was in Los Angeles and there is no force or power in the universe that can pull against the human heart.”

Shanti told me of how, after reading Swamiji’s books for two years, she had first heard him lecture in Los Angeles the winter of 1899-1900. At once she had been eager to help in his work. A society was organized of which Shanti was the First Secretary. Lectures were given at Blanchard Hall, the Los Angeles Home of Truth, the Shakespeare Club of Pasadena, and other places. Swami had been staying at the home of Mrs. S.K. Biodgett. He was also the guest of the Mead sisters in South Pasadena, of whom Shanti was one. The other two were Mrs. Carrie Mead Wyckoff, who in later years gave her Hollywood home as the headquarters of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, and Helen Mead, who took some of Swamiji’s Los Angeles lectures in shorthand. When Swamiji left for Oakland, he said. “You three sisters have become a part of my mind for ever.”

Shanti told me: “Swamiji had such simplicity about him, he put one right on a level with himself. He said to me, ‘You have no reverence.’ When I told this to Swami Turiyananda, he remarked. “Yes, he said that, but he was pleased that you did not have reverence. Where there is equality there is exchange of perfect love. Where there is no superior and inferior you have that perfect union.'”

When Swamiji received the invitation to lecture in the Unitarian Church in Oakland, he asked Shanti if she would like to accompany him north. He said, “If you want to go with me, don’t let anybody keep you from coming.” So Shanti went to San Francisco and at last to Camp Irving. There she was very active in caring for Swami’s needs and comfort. One morning he found her in the kitchen preparing food when it was time for his morning class. “Aren’t you coming in to meditate?” he asked. “Yes.” she replied, “but I have to get this broth simmering first. Then I shall come in.”

Then Swamiji said, “Well, never mind; our Master said you could leave meditation for service.”

Two never-to-be-forgotten nights stand out in my long life. To think of either of them is a cure for any ill. One is the first night at Shanti Ashrama with Swami Turiyananda, about whom I have already written. The other is Swamiji’s first night at Camp Taylor, May 2. 1900. I 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 next day it rained all day. In the morning after breakfast Swamiji sat on Miss Bell’s cot and talked for a long time. although even then he had a fever. That night he was very ill, so ill that he made a will, leaving everything to his brother monks. Shanti and Kalyani took care of him. I can see Shanti now, in the pouring rain, heedless of getting drenched, spreading an extra piece of canvas over his tent directly opposite to the one I shared with Miss Bell.

The next day was Saturday and Miss Bell and I had to go to San Francisco. When we returned Sunday afternoon, Swamiji was better. He had been invited to the camp to rest, but every day after breakfast he would sit on Miss Bell’s cot and talk to us for a long time, telling stories, answering questions. He told of his hopes for a better understanding of the East and the West and their mutual benefit thereby. He told of his love for Thomas a Kempis and how he had travelled all over India with two books, the Gita and The Imitation of Christ. In one of his lectures in San Francisco Swamiji closed with a quotation from the latter: “Silence all teachers, silence all books; do Thou only speak unto my soul.”

After the morning talk and meditation, Swami would be interested in the preparations for dinner. Sometimes he helped. He made curry for us and showed us how they grind spices in India. He would sit on the floor in his tent with a hollow stone in his lap. With another smooth, round stone he would grind the spices much finer than we can do with a bowl and chopper. This would make the curry quite hot enough for us, but Swami would augment it by eating tiny red-hot peppers on the side. He would throw his head back and toss them into his mouth with a great circular movement of his arm. Once he handed me one of them, saying, “Eat it, It will do you good.” One would eat poison if offered by Swamiji, so I obeyed, with agonizing result, to his great amusement. At intervals all the afternoon he kept asking, “How is your oven?” Another time he made rock candy for us, explaining how it is the purest kind of candy, all the impurities being removed by boiling and boiling.

The meals were jolly and informal, with no end of jokes and stories. Shanti had been to Alaska and was accustomed to roughing it, and her carefree spirit and indifference to conventions pleased Swamiji. At one breakfast he reached over and took a little food from her plate, saying. “It is fitting that we should eat from the same plate: we are two vagabonds.” He also said to her again, “You have become part of my life for ever,” and to Kalyani he remarked that if she had lived on the highest mountain she would have had to come down to take care of him. “I know it, Swami,” she replied.

Nothing escaped Swami’s notice. Some work was being done on the place by a Mexican or American Indian, and Swami noticed that he watched us having breakfast. Later on he talked to the boy, who complained of not having been given any coffee. He said, “Black man like coffee; white man like coffee; red man tike coffee.” This amused Swami very much. He requested that the boy be given some coffee, and all the afternoon he kept repeating the boy’s remark and laughing.

The afternoons were devoted to long walks. The grand climax of the day’s activities was the evening fireside talk and the following meditation. After telling stories and answering questions Swamiji would give us a subject for meditation such as “Firm and Fearless” before beginning to chant. One morning he inspired us with a talk on “Absolute Truth, Unity, Freedom” and the subject for the evening meditation was “I am All Existence, Bliss, and Knowledge.”

So the days went by all too fast, with serious mornings, merry afternoons, and sublime evenings.

When Miss Bell invited me to spend the summer with her at Camp Irving, it was agreed that I would go down to San Francisco each Saturday morning, give a music lesson in the afternoon-and return Sunday after her lecture, which I was to try to take in shorthand. On the second week-end Miss Bell, for some reason that I have forgotten, went alone to San Francisco on Friday afternoon, with the understanding thaT I was to follow on Saturday.

When I was getting ready to take the train as usual, Swamiji said to me, “Why do you go?”

“I have to go, Swami.” I replied. “I have to give a lesson.” I have always regretted the answer, for the dollar I received for the lesson was not the motive forgoing. The real motive was Miss Bell’s lecture.

Swamiji said, “Then go, and make half a million dollars and send it to me for my work in India.” He took me up the steep steps to the railroad track and flagged the train for me. There was no station and the train stopped only on signal. Swamiji’s carriage was magnificent. His eyes were always fumed skyward, never down. Someone said of him that he never saw anything lower than a telegraph pole.

When the engine passed us, as the train slowed down, I heard the fireman say to the engineer, “Hellow! Who is this sky pilot?” I had never heard the expression and was puzzled at first as to its meaning. Then I realized that it must mean a religious leader, and that it was evident to any one who saw him that Swamiji was such a leader.

It has always been a matter of regret that I went to San Francisco that week-end, for soon after that Swami left Camp Irving. The half million dollars for his work in India has not been made, but I have never given up the childish hope that in some miraculous way it may yet be accomplished. Swami Turiyananda said many times, “Mother can make the impossible possible.”

I do not know the exact date that Swamiji left Camp Irving, but various letters written by him indicate that he was still in San Francisco on the 26th of May and that he was under the care of Dr. M.H. Logan, at whose home he stayed, and gave three lectures on the Gita on May 26, 28, and 29. He wrote from Los Angeles on June 17, “Am leaving for Chicago in a few days,” and he was in New York on July 11.

Tom Allan and his wife Edith (Ajoy and Viraja) are my oldest friends and they have told me many times of their first impressions of Swamiji and their experiences with him, and of the immense benefit they received from him. Edith was very ill when Swamiji first came to Oakland in 1900 and Tom went alone to hear the Hindu monk whose lecture was advertised in the paper. When he returned, he was very much excited and could scarcely contain his enthusiasm. He said, “I have met a man who is not a man; he is a god! And he spoke the truth!” Edith asked him to tell her what he had said that impressed him so much, and the two most startling ideas were these: Good and evil are the obverse and reverse of the same coin; and you cannot have one without the other. We had been taught in the Home of Truth that all is good and there is no evil. The other idea that deeply impressed him was that a cow cannot tell a lie and a man can, but the cow will always be a cow. while a man can become divine.

Tom immediately began to give his services as usher in Swamiji’s lectures, and as soon as she was able, Edith went to hear him. It was while she was standing near the entrance waiting for Tom to count the collection that Swamiji saw her, and called to her, “Madame, you come here,” She went to him and he said. “If you would like to see me privately come to the flat. No collection is taken there; everything is free.”

“When shall I come?” she asked.

“Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

She went to the flat the next morning and sat on one side of a bay window. Swamiji came in chanting and sat at the other side of the window. “Well, Madame,” he said. Edith was so moved that she could not speak and could not stop crying for a long time. Then Swamiji said. “Come tomorrow morning at the same time.” She went to him several times for spiritual instruction. He gave her some simple breathing exercises, warning her not to practise them except in his presence. He told her that he thought the work of the Home of Truth was the best then available in the West, and he appreciated the fact that the workers there did not charge for spiritual assistance, as some others did.

One time Swamiji said, “I am the disciple of a man who could not write his own name, but I am not worthy to unloose his shoes. How often I have wished that I could take this intellect and throw it in the Ganga.”

“But Swami,” protested one woman, “your intellect is what we like about you.” “That is because you are a fool. Madame, as I am,” was Swamiji’s answer.

At the end of the last meeting of the class, Edith was departing quietly when Swamiji shouted. “Madame, you come back. Go into the dining room and sit down.” When he finished saying good-bye to the others, he went in and asked her to stay to dinner. Then he began to cook and made her peel potatoes and onions. While working, he was chanting verses from the Gita and once he stopped and recited in English the sixty-first verse of the eighteenth chapter: “The Lord lives in the heart of every creature. He turns them round and round upon the wheel of his Maya.” “You see, Madame,” he said, “he has us on the wheel. What can we do?”

When Swamiji was slaying for a time at the Alameda Home of Truth, Edith had some wonderful times helping him cook. While the service was going on in the living room, they would be busy in the kitchen preparing the meal. There he was jolly and informal, but she was also given many incidental lessons. Once she was wearing a new green dress of which she was very proud. Suddenly some butter from the frying pan splattered on it. She was bemoaning the mishap and making a great tragedy of it, while Swami continued to chant and go about his work without taking the slightest notice of the incident.

Once they bought some pickles in a little wooden dish. Some of the pickle juice ran out on Swami’s hand. He immediately put his fingers to his mouth and began to lick off the liquid. This seemed undignified, and Edith said. “Oh Swami!” in a shocked tone. “This little outside.” Swami replied. “That’s the trouble with you here; you always want this outside to be so nice.”

Tom told me many of his experiences. He acted as usher of Swamiji’s lectures and several times introduced him to the audience. The first time they stood together on the platform, Tom had the feeling that Swamiji’s height was about forty feet and his about six inches. After that, when introducing him, he always stood at the foot of the platform. On one occasion Swamiji was speaking on India. Before beginning the lecture he said, “When I start on India I never know when to stop; so you attract my attention at ten o’clock.” So Tom stood at the back of the hall and at ten o’clock took out his watch and swung it back and forth on the chain like a pendulum. After a time Swamiji noticed the signal and said, “I told them to stop me at ten o’clock. They are already swinging the watch and I haven’t got started yet.” But he stopped and, from that time on as long as he lived, Tom Allan always carried and used every day that same old watch.

On Easter Sunday night a group of friends were sitting on the porch of the Home of Truth, and Swamiji was telling some of his experiences in America. On one occasion he was advised to consult a lady chiropodist for some foot treatment. He evidently did not think very highly of her, for he always referred to her as the lady toe-doctor and said, “My toe hurts every time I think of her.”

That evening someone asked Swamiji about renunciation. “Babies!” he answered, “what do you know of renunciation? If you want to be my disciples, you must face the cannon without a murmur.”

Tom was English and had been an officer in the British Army. His speciality was naval engineering, and he had a stiff military bearing. Swamiji once said to him, as Tom stood up in his presence. “Mr. Allan, we are both in the same caste. We are in the military caste.” When Tom asked him where he found his best disciples. Swamiji replied promptly. “In England. They are harder to get, but when you get them, you’ve got them.”

Swamiji always attracted attention wherever he went. He had a majestic bearing which everybody recognized. As he would walk down Market Street, people would stand aside to let him pass or turn around and ask. “Who is the Hindu prince?” It was in this way that he was able to see a ship launched from the actual launching platform. Tom was working in one of the big iron works of San Francisco at the time. and when Swamiji expressed a wish to see a launching, he invited a little group to the shipyard. The launching platform was closed except to the invited guests of the management who had tickets, and the ramp leading to the platform was guarded by two attendants. Swamiji decided he would have a better view from the launching platform, so he just calmly walked past the guards, who made no protest. When he came down, after the launching, he said. “It is like the birth of a child.”

Swamiji emphasized the fact that spiritual people are not fanatical or severe. “They are not long-faced and thin.” he said. “They are fat, like me.”

During one of the talks in Miss Bell’s tent at Camp Irving. Miss Bell remarked that the world is a school where we come to learn our lesson. Swamiji asked. “Who told you that the world is a school?”

Miss Bell was silent. Swamiji went on, “This world is a circus, and we are clowns come to tumble.” Miss Bell asked, “Why do we tumble. Swamiji?” Swamiji replied. “Because we like to tumble. When we get tired of tumbling, we quit.”

Tom and Edith had an apartment in San Francisco which was permeated with the atmosphere of Swamiji. All the Swamis of the Ramakrishna Order in this country loved to visit them when they went to San Francisco, and some of them said or wrote. “You, more than anybody else in the West, are able to make Swamiji real to us.” One of my friends said of them when she and her son visited the Allans a few years ago that their account of Swami Vivekananda was so full of joy and so vivid, it seemed as though he himself could walk into the room. There was a beautiful picture of him in the dining room, and the guests were always seated facing it. Chanting always preceded the meal, and there was little talk of anything during it other than of Swamiji, his Master, and his work. All his books were there, and the Allans had an enormous collection of pictures which they enjoyed showing to their guests. One particular favourite was taken in a garden. Swamiji was lying on the grass, enjoying a conversation with some friends, when someone came and wanted to take his picture. He did not want to get up but, urged by all to do so, he stood up, just as he was, without turban or robe, against a background of flowering vines, looking as if about to speak, and the result is one of his best portraits.

Edith had a nice contralto voice, and sometimes she would sing, with deep feeling, some of the songs associated with Swamiji. A favourite was the song of the nautch-girl, which she adapted from Swamiji’s translation of a song sung by a courtesan in the palace of a Raja where he was staying just before leaving for America the first time. Although he left the room when he learnt that this girl was about to sing, he heard the song from outside and was so moved by the words and her manner of singing that he returned and spoke most beautifully to her, even thanking her for the lesson she had given him, thus removing the last vestige of a possible spiritual pride, and completing the preparation for his work in the West.

Never since the day Swamiji perceived Edith’s need for help has he been out of her mind. Many times in the last fifty years she has remembered the words spoken at their last meeting: “It ever you are in trouble, you can call on me. No matter where I am, I’ll hear you.” Many ordeals she has met bravely, sustained by that promise.

In one of his lectures Swamiji said, “If a bad time comes, what of that? The pendulum must swing back to the other side. But that is no better. The thing to do is to stop it.” Then he uttered an American expression which children used to use when swinging, when they would stop pumping and let the swing slow down to a halt: “Let the old cat die.”

To have seen and heard Swamiji and to have felt his words of power flow through me on to paper and thence to print for many to read, thereby receiving courage and inspiration, is a rare privilege and is compensation for all ills of life. It makes me almost ready to let the old cat die.

(Vedanta and the West, May-June 1954)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
ISABEL MARGESSON

IN response to your wish that I should write a few words recalling early memories of my friendship with and admiration for Swami Vivekananda, I find to my regret that they have grown faint after the lapse of nearly forty years.

Perhaps it is as it should be: The memories have become absorbed into his teaching, and they live as the inspiration of my deepest thoughts and are hardly to be separated from the undercurrent of my daily life. The main impression left on me is that I had been in touch with a truth that was so large and so gründlich that it contained in itself all that I had previously believed. It became a ground pattern, or a mosaic, capable of constant adjustment to fit the needs of my growing thought.

Let me quote some of those sayings of the Master that have molded my character in the most positive way under the stress of joy and sorrow, of anxiety and illness, and of the many perplexities that invariably accompany us when we start the way.

I must put first that they are a key to all the rest. Without it, I can confidently affirm, there can be no real inner growth or progress of the soul in its search for Peace and for Reality.

The key lies in daily meditation. The Master’s words on this subject can never be forgotten. I am well aware that of late years it has been recognized as the pearl of great price in almost all spiritual enlightenment, but when I first heard the Swami’s lessons on it, it was new to me. The monkey mind, the charioteer who controls the horses (i.e. the senses), the silence of the Inner Self, the necessity of practice, the study of the teaching which teaches liberation of the Self, discrimination between the Real and the unreal, are thoughts and phrases that will at once recall the Swami to his disciples. Other words of practical wisdom, as I remember them in my own inadequate words are:

1. Grow up within the fold of your own particular church, but do not die in it. Let it gradually lead you into fresh pastures.
2. As scaffolding is an indispensable factor in material building, so is it in spiritual attainment. Do not destroy it either for yourself or for others (the Gospel says, “Let both grow until the harvest”), but wait for the inevitable moment of its automatic destruction.
3. Never debase your ethical standard by calling wrong right. If you know that an act of yours is wrong, do it if you wish, but do not call it right for that is a fatal self-deception.
4. Say to yourself when you repent of some small action: “I am glad I did that wrong, for now I see and I shall never do it again.”
5. Unselfish work for other people must be regarded as beneficial to the doer, for it is the doer that gains in his character.
6. Do not identify your Self with any mental state. Perhaps this injunction is specially fundamental in sorrow or pity for the Self. Nothing leads so directly to wise judgement as holding the Real Self free from the unreal Self.
7. The greatest heresy is separation.
8. Unity is the Goal of Religion and of Science.
9. I am That.

I must add to these great sayings the stories told by the Swami — inimitable stories which illustrated the points in his teaching. They became like the parables in the Bible — marvellous “lamps of light unto our feet.”

Disciples of the Swami will remember the story of the lion brought up as a sheep but awakening afterwards to its true nature; of the man who lost his wife and children and possessions in a flood, but when was himself cast up safely on a bank and came to himself, he found the disaster was all a dream and that he was now just as he was before the flood.

(Prabuddha Bharata, February 1939)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
VIRAJA DEVI

EARLY in March 1900 the Swami Vivekananda gave a series of three lectures on “Indian Ideals” in Redmen’s Hall, Union Square, San Francisco, and it was at the first lecture of this series that I had the blessed privilege of hearing him. Being in ill health, both mentally and physically, it was a great effort to go to the lecture; and as I sat in the hall waiting for the Swami to come. I began to wonder whether I had not made a mistake in coming to hear him; but all doubts vanished when the Swami’s majestic figure entered the hall. He talked for about two hours telling us of India’s Ideals and taking us with him, as it were, to his own country so that we might understand him a little and be able to comprehend even in the least the great truths he taught. After the lecture, I was introduced to the Swami; but feeling overawed by his wonderful presence. I did not speak, but sat down at a distance and watched him, while waiting for friends who were busy settling up the business connected with the lectures. After the second lecture, I was again waiting, sitting at a distance watching the Swami, when he looked across and beckoned to me to come to him. I went and stood before him as he sat in a chair. He said, “Madame. if you want to see me privately, you come to the flat on Turk Street, no charge there, none of this botheration about money.”

I told him I should like very much to see him. He said, “Come tomorrow morning”, and I thanked him. Much of the night was spent thinking of all the questions I should ask him, as many questions had been troubling me for months and no one to whom I had gone was able to help me. On arriving at the flat next morning, I was told that the Swami was going out, so could not see any one. I said I knew he would see me because he had told me I might come, so I was allowed to go up the stairs and into the front sitting-room. In a little while the Swami came into me room, dressed in his long overcoat and little round hat, chanting softly. He sat on a chair on the opposite side of the room and continued chanting softly in his incomparable way. Presently he said “Well, Madame!” I could not speak but began to weep and kept on weeping as though the flood-gates had been opened. The Swami continued chanting for a while, then said, “Come tomorrow about the same time.”

Thus ended my first interview with the Blessed Swami Vivekananda, and as I went from his presence, my problems were solved and my questions were answered, though he had not asked me anything. It is now over twenty-four years since that interview with the Swami, yet it stands out in memory as the greatest blessing of my life. I had the wonderful privilege of seeing Swamiji every day for a month, and was in the meditation class which he held in Turk Street.

I used to stay after the class and help him cook lunch etc., or rather, he allowed me to be in the kitchen with him and do odd jobs for him while he talked Vedanta and chanted and cooked. One verse from the Gita he chanted a great deal is verse 61, Chapter 18: “The Lord dwelleth in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, by His illusive power, causing all beings to revolve as though mounted on a potter’s wheel.

He chanted it in Sanskrit, and every now and then would stop and talk of it. He was so wonderful, his nature so manysided, at times so childlike, at times the Vedanta Lion, but to me always the kind and loving parent. He told me not to call him Swami, but to call him “Babaji”, as the children did in India. Once when walking along the street with Swamiji after a lecture, all at once he seemed to me so big, as though he towered above the ordinary mortals. The people on the street looked like pigmies, and he had such a majestic presence that people stepped aside to let him pass by. One evening after the lecture, Swamiji insisted upon taking a party of about 10 or 12 of us to have ice-cream. Some ordered ice-cream and some ice-cream soda. Swamiji was fond of ice-cream but did not care for ice-cream soda. The waitress who look the order made a mistake and brought ice-cream soda for the Swami; she said she would change it for him. The proprietor spoke to the waitress about it, and when Swamiji heard him, he called out, “Don’t you scold that poor girl. I’ll take all the ice-cream soda if you are going to scold her.”

After living in Turk Street for a month, Swamiji went to Alameda and stayed at the “Home of Truth”, It was quite a large house and was surrounded by a beautiful garden, where the Swamiji used to walk about in smoking. There was quite a large porch on the house on which Swamiji sat sometimes talking to the few of us who gathered around him. The Easter Sunday night was the full moon, the nisteria was in full bloom and draped the porch like a curtain. Swamiji sat on the porch smoking and telling funny stories, then he told of how his feet hurt him when he wore shoes in Chicago, and of his experience with a lady doctor who had undertaken to doctor his toe. He said. “Oh my toe, my toe! Whenever I think of that lady doctor, my toe hurts. “Then one of the party asked him to talk on “Renunciation”. “Renunciation?” said Swamiji, “Babies, what do you know of renunciation?” “Are we too young even to hear of it?” was asked. Swamiji was silent for a while and then gave a most illuminating and inspiring talk. He spoke of discipleship and of entire resignation to the guru, which was quite a new teaching to the Western world. While in Alameda Swamiji used to cook Hindu dishes for himself on Sunday afternoons, and I again had the privilege of being with him and partaking of his dishes; and although I attended all Swamiji’s public lectures both in San Francisco and Alameda, it was this close contact with the Swamiji that I most deeply cherish. Once after being quiet for some time Swamiji said, “Madame, be broad-minded, always see two ways. When I am on the Heights I say ‘I am He’, and when I have a stomach-ache, I say “Mother, have mercy on me’. Always see two ways.” On another occasion he said, “Learn to be the witness. If there are two dogs fighting on the street and I go out there, I get mixed up in the fight but if I stay quietly in my room. I witness the fight from the window. So learn to be the witness.” While in Alameda Swamiji gave public lectures in Tucker Hall. He gave one wonderful lecture. “The Ultimate Destiny of Man” and Finished by placing his hand on his chest and saying “I am God”. A most awed silence fell upon the audience, and many people thought it blasphemy for Swamiji to say such a thing.

Once he did something in rather an unconventional way. and I was a little shocked at him. He said. “O Madame, you always want this little outside to be so nice. It is not the outside that matters, it is the inside.”

How little we understood the Swamiji? We had no knowledge of what he really was. Sometimes he would tell me things, and I in the abundance of my ignorance, would tell him I did not think that way, and he would laugh and say, “Don’t you?” His love and toleration was wonderful. Swamiji was not in good health — much lecturing told upon him. He used to say he did not like platform work, “Public lecturing is killing. At eight o’clock I am to speak on’Love’. At eight o’clock I do not feel like love!”

After he finished lecturing in Alameda, the Swami went to Camp Taylor and a tittle later started for the East and we in California never saw him again. Yet we who were blessed by his presence cannot feel he is entirely gone from us. He lives in our memories and in the teachings he gave us. Before he left, he told me if I ever got into psychic difficulty again to call on him and he would hear me wherever he was, even though hundreds of miles away, and it may be he can hear even now.

(Vedanta Kesari, September 1924)

REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
REEVES CALKINS

MY first impression of the Swami was not happy one. He had come to the World’s Fair as India’s representative at the Chicago Parliament of Religions, and I, a young preacher fresh from the University, did not greatly admire the magnificent ease with which he waved aside Christian history and announced a new Star in the East. I think it was his lordly manner that disturbed, somewhat, my American sense of democracy. He did not argue that he was a superior person, he admitted it. Afterwards, when I learnt that several cities, notably Boston, had formed Vivekananda Clubs, I was prepared to credit the report that, not his ideals, but his eyes, were leading captive silly American women, which was manifestly unfair. Then, for several years, I heard nothing further of him.

I reached India in December 1900, embarking at Naples on the “Rubattino” of the old Italian Line. It chanced that my seat in the saloon was at the end of one of the centre tables — which has considerable to do with my story. Mr. Drake Brockman, I.C.S., of the Central Provinces, occupied the first seat on the right, and another English Civilian whose name has escaped my memory sat opposite him. At Suez there was a shift at table, some of the passengers having left the vessel, and our first meal in the Red Sea saw a strange gentleman, in Indian habit, seated next to Mr. Drake Brockman. He was silent at that first meal, taking only a ship’s biscuit and soda water, and leaving before the meal was finished. There was some question up and down the board as to the identity of the distinguished stranger, for, as was quite evident, he was no mean personage; whereupon a rough and ready traveller, disdaining delicacy, called to the chief steward to bring him the wine orders. Ostensibly looking for his own wine card, he drew forth a modest soda water slip which was handed round the table. “Vivekananda”, in pencil, was what passed across my plate. In a moment I remembered the furore he had created at the Parliament of Religions, and looked forward with some interest to the coming days at sea.

My earlier impression of the Swami was still strong upon me, so I did not immediately seek his acquaintance; a bow at table answered every requirement. But I chanced to overhear one of the passengers speak his name, and add, “We’ll draw him!” I suppose my instinct for fair play pulled me toward Vivekananda as his unconscious ally in the intellectual recounters of the next ten days. Perhaps he discerned my unspoken friendliness, for almost immediately, he sought me out.

“You are an American?”

“Yes.”

“A missionary?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you teach religion in my country?” he demanded.

“Why do you teach religion in my country?” I countered.

The least quiver of an eyelash was enough to throw down our guards. We both burst out laughing, and were friends.

For a day or two, at table, one or other of the passengers proceeded to “draw” the Swami — only he refused to be drawn! His answers were ready and usually sufficient; but, more than that, they were brilliant. They sparkled with epigrams and apt quotations. Presently the lesser wits learnt the valour of putting up their swords, all excepting Mr. Drake Brockman; his keen and analytic mind constantly cut across Vivekananda’s epigrams and held him close to the logic of admitted facts. It worried the Swami a lot! The rest of the company soon lost interest and permitted our little group at the end of the table to hold uninterrupted forum, breakfast. tiffin, and dinner.

One night I participated in a discovery. Vivekananda had been particularly brilliant. His conversation was like Ganga at high flood. There was really no interrupting him. A question might deflect him for a moment, but presently he was moving again on the main current of his speech. At the close of an unusually eloquent period he bowed slightly to each of us then arose and quietly left the saloon. The civilian sitting opposite Mr. Drake Brockman leaned across the table.

“Have you noticed that when the Indian gentleman is interrupted, he begins again where he left off?”

“Yes, we both had noticed it.”

“He is repeating one of his lectures for our private benefit”

And so it was. But even so, it was an amazingly interesting performance, many leagues beyond the ordinary chitchat on board ship.

Vivekananda was a patriot much more than philosopher, I think his passion for the Vedantic propaganda was because this seemed to him the surest way of fostering Indian nationhood. I believe in this he was mistaken;1 nevertheless, my recognition of his patriotism washed away completely my first unhappy impression of him and enabled me to know him as I think he would be glad to be remembered by his country-men — not as a religionist propagating an ancient creed, but as a lover of his own land seeking to promote her good in the society of modem nations.

It was this passion for his country, short-circuited by a misapprehension of the purpose of Christian missions, that brought on an explosion. One evening, over the nuts and coffee, the conversation had turned on India’s preparedness for self-government, (By the way, the conversation took place more than twenty-two years ago, when as yet the Montagu-Chelmsford Reform Bill was nebulous and far away; similar conversations may logically continue for one hundred and twenty-two years to come, for no nation ever yet as “prepared” for self-government.)

Suddenly Vivekananda blazed.

“Let England teach us the fine art of government,” he burst forth, “for in that art Britain is the leader of the nations,” then, turning to me, “let America teach us agriculture and science and your wonderful knack of doing things, for here we sit at your feet; but” — and Vivekananda’s pleasant voice grew harsh with bitterness — “let no nation presume to teach India religion, for here India shall teach the world.”

That night we walked over the deck together and talked of the deeper things where there are no Britons, no Americans. no Indians, but only our hungry humankind and of one Son of Man whose sacrificial blood, somewhere in the shifting sands of Asia, still abides. I think I helped the Swami to understand that no missionary in his senses is seeking to teach “religion” in India, but only to help India know and love that Man.

During the last day or two of the voyage our understanding of each other increased greatly, and, as I believe, our mutual respect. The mysticism of Vivekananda was a fascination and wonder. For it was not affected. When our conversation touched, as it was bound to, on the hidden things of the spirit, his heavy eyelids would droop slowly and he wandered, even in my presence, into some mystic realm where I was not invited. When, on one such occasion. I remarked that a Christian’s conscious fellowship with the Supreme Person must be alert and awake (as all personal fellowships must be), and therefore is essentially and necessarily different from a Hindu’s immersion in the all-pervading Brahman, he looked at me with a quick glance of scrutiny but made no reply.

The last night, before the “Ruballino” reached Bombay. we were standing on the forward deck. Vivekananda was smoking a short sweet-briar pipe —the one “English vice”, he said, which he was fond of. The wash of the sea and the unknown life which would begin on the morrow invited quietness. For a long time no word was spoken. Then, as though he had made up his mind I would do India no harm, he laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Sir,” he said, “they may talk about their Buddhas, their Krishnas, and their Christs, but we understand, you and I; we are segments of the All-One.”

His hand remained upon my shoulder. It was such a friendly hand, I could not rudely remove it. Then he withdrew it himself, and I offered him my own.

“Swami,” I said, “you will have to speak for yourself and not for me. The All-One of which you speak is impersonal, and therefore must remain unknowable, even though we be immersed in it as this ship is immersed in the Indian Ocean; He whom I know, whom I love, is personal and very very real — and, Swami, in Him all fullness dwells.

The sweet-briar went swiftly to his lips, and the drooping eyelids as he leaned against the rail gave token that Vivekananda had gone forth on a far quest.

Was it the All-One, or the One in all, the Swami sought the night?

(Prabuddha Bharata, March 1923)