On Himself

My father and mother fasted and prayed for years and years, so that I would be born.

I have such a memory when I was only two years old I used to play with my syce, at being a Vairagi, clothed in ashes and Kaupina. And if a Sadhu came to beg, they would lock me in upstairs to prevent my giving too much away. I felt that for some mischief, I had had to be sent away from Siva. No doubt my family increased this feeling, for when I was naughty they would say “Dear, dear, so many austerities, yet Siva sent us this demon after all, instead of a good soul!” Or when I was very rebellious, they would empty a can of water over me, saying Siva! Siva! and then I was all right. Always, even now, when I feel mischievous, those words keep me straight.

When I was a little boy at school, I had a fight with another fellow about some sweetmeats, and he being the stronger boy, snatched them from my hand. I remember the feeling I had; I thought that boy was the most wicked boy ever born, and that as soon as I grew strong enough I would punish him, There was no punishment sufficient for his wickedness. We have both grown up now and we are fast friends. This world is full of babies to whom eating and drinking and all these little cakes are everything. They will dream of these cakes, and their idea of future life is where these cakes will be plentiful.

What I saw and felt (on my way to Raipur in 1877)¹ when going through the forest, has for ever remained firmly imprinted on my memory, particularly one event of one day. We had to travel by the foot of the Vindhya mountains of high peaks on that day. The peaks of the Ranges on both sides of the road were very high in the sky, bending under the weight of fruits and flowers. Various kinds of trees and creepers produced wonderful beauty on the sides of the mountains, birds of various colours flying from arbour to arbour or down on the ground in search of food, filled the quarters with sweet notes.

I saw all these and felt an extraordinary peace in my mind. The slowly moving bullock cart arrived at a place where two mountain peaks coming forward as in love, locked themselves up in an embrace over the narrow forest path. Observing carefully below the meeting points, I saw that there was a very big cleft from the crest to the foot of this mountain on one side of the path, cfad filling that cleft, there was hanging on it an enormous honeycomb, the result of the bees’ labour for ages. Filled with wonder, as I was pondering over the beginning and the end of that kingdom of bees, my mind became so much absorbed in the thought of the infinite power of God, the Controller of the three worlds, that I completly lost my consciousness of the external world for some time. I do not remember how long I lay in the bullock cart in that condition. When I regained external consciousness, I found that we had crossed that place and come far away. As I was alone in the cart, no one could know anything about it.

We cannot deny that there is much misery in the world; to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although in the long run we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves. As a boy I had some white mice. They were kept in a little box which had little wheels made for them, and when the mice tried to cross the wheels, the wheels turned and turned, and the mice never got anywhere. So it is with the world and our helping it. The only help is that we get moral exercise.

When he (my tutor) came to our house, I brought my English and Bengali Books to him and showing him which part of which books were to be learnt that day, I lay or sat freely. The teacher repeated twice or thrice the spelling, pronunciation, meaning etc. of the words of these portions of the books, as if he was himself learning his own lesson and went away. That was sufficient for me to learn them.

Even while I was a student at Calcutta, I was of a religious temperament. I was critical even at that time of my life, mere words would not satisfy me.

I used to see all my life a wonderful point of light between my eyebrows as soon as I would shut my eyes in order to go to sleep, and observe attentively its various changes. In order that it might be convenient to see it, I used to lie on my bed in the way people bow down touching the ground with their foreheads. That extraordinary point used to change its colours, and increasing in size, become gradually converted into the form of a ball, and bursting at last, cover my body from head to foot with white liquid light. As soon as that happened, I lost external conciousness and fell asleep. I believed that all people went to sleep that way. I was long under that impression.

When I grew up and began to practice meditation, that point of light used to come before me, first of all, as soon as I closed my eyes, and I concentrated my mind on it. In those days I daily practised meditation with a few friends according to the instruction of Maharshi Devend-ranath. We talked among ourselves about the nature of visions and experiences each of us had. At that time I came to know from what they said that they never had the vision of such light and that none of them went to sleep in that way.

From my very boyhood I was a dare-devil sort of fellow. Otherwise do you think I could make a tour round the world without a single copper in my pocket?

While at school, one night I was meditating within closed doors and had a fairly deep concentration of mind. How long I meditated in that way, I cannot say.

It was over, and I still kept my seat, when from the southern wall of our room a luminous figure stepped out and stood in front of me. There was a wonderful radiance on its visage, yet there seemed to be no play of emotion on it. It was the figure of a sanyasin absolutely calm, shaven headed, and staff and kamandalu (a sanya-sin’s wooden water-bowl) in hand. He gazed at me for some time, and seemed as if he would address me. I too gazed at him in speechless wonder. Then a kind of fright seized me. I opened the door and hurried out of the room. Then it struck me that it was foolish of me to run away like that, and that perhaps he might say something to me. But I have never met that figure since. Many a time and often have I thought if I could again see him, I would no more be afraid but would speak to him. But I met him no more; I could find no clue to its solution. It was the lord Buddha whom I saw.

From my very boyhood, whenever I came in contact with a particular object, man or place, it would sometimes appear to me as if I had been acquainted with it beforehand. But all my efforts to recollect were unsuccessful, and yet the impression persisted. I will give you an instance. One day I was discussing various topics with my friends at a particular place. Suddenly something was said which at once reminded me that in some time past in this very house I had talked with these friends on that very subject and that the discussion had even taken the same turn. Later on I thought that it might be due to the law of transmigration. But soon I decided that such definite conclusions on the subject were not reasonable. Now I believe that before I was born I must have had visions somehow of those subjects and people with whom I would have to come in contact in my present birth. That memory comes, every now and then, before me throughout my whole life.

Just two or three days before the Entrance examination I found that I hardly knew anything of geometry. Then I began to study the subject keeping awake for the whole night and in course of twenty four hours I mastered the four books of geometry.

It so happened that I could understand an author without reading his book line by line. I could get the meaning by just reading the first and the last line of a paragraph. As this power developed I found it unnecessary to read even the paragraphs. I could follow by reading only the first and last lines of the page.

Further, where the author introduced a discussion to explain a matter and it took him four or five or even more pages to clear the subject, I could grasp the whole trend of his arguments by only reading the first few lines.

I studied hard for twelve years, and became a graduate of the Calcutta University.

As soon as I went to bed, two ideals appeared before me every night since I had reached my youth. One vision presented me as a person of endless wealth and property, innumerable servants and dependants, high rank and dignity, great pomp and power and I thought I was seated at the head of those who were called big men in the world. I felt I certainly had that power in me. Again, the next moment, I felt as if I had renounced everything of the world and putting on a loin cloth, eating whatever was available without effort and spending nights under trees, depending upon God’s will only, I was leading my life. I felt I could live the life of Rishis and Munis if I would.

These two pictures, according to which I could mould my life in two different ways, thus arose in my mind. But the latter would grip the mind in the end. I thought that in this way alone man could attain real bliss and that I would follow this path and not the other. Brooding on the happiness of such a life, my mind would then merge in the contemplation of God and I would fall asleep. It is a matter of astonishment that it happened to me, every night for a long time.

I never terrified children by speaking of hobgoblins as I was afraid of uttering a falsehood, and scolded all whom I saw doing it. As {he result of English education and my frequenting the Brahmo Samaj, the devotion to verbal expression of truth had increased so much then.

At the beginning of this century (19th) it was almost feared that religion was at an end. Under the tremendous sledge-hammer blows of scientific research, old superstitions were crumbling away like masses of porcelain. Those to whom religion meant only a bundle of creeds and meaningless ceremonials were in despair; they were at their wit’s end. Everything was slipping between their fingers. For a time it seemed inevitable that the surging tide of agnosticism and materialism would sweep all before it. When I was a boy, this scepticism reached me, and it seemed for a time as if I must give up all hopes of religion. But, fortunately for me, I studied the Christian religion, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist and others, and what was my surprise to find was that the same fundamental principles taught by my religion were also taught by all religions. It appealed to me this way.” What is the truth”, I asked.

When I was a boy here, in the city of Calcutta, I used to go from place to place in search of religion, and everywhere I asked the lectures after hearing very big lectures,^“Have you seen God?” The man was taken aback at the idea of seeing God and the only man who told me ”I have” was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and not only so, but he said “I will put you on the way of seeing Him too”.

 

He is born to no purpose, who, having the privilege of being born a man, is unable to realise God in this life.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divine within, by controlling nature external and internal.

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA.

1

In the year 1877, while Vivekananda (then Naren) was a student of third class, his father went to Raipur in the Central Provinces (Madhya Pradesh). He arranged that this family should follow him later on led by Naren. It was a journey partly by bullock cart via Allahabad and Jubbulpore through dense forests and over unfrequented roads, for the railways were in those days constructed only upto Nagpur.

I was born in Bengal and became a monk and a celibate by choice. At my birth my father had a horoscope taken of my life, but would never tell me what it was. Some years ago I visited my home. My father having died, I came across the chart among some papers in my mother’s possession and saw from it that I was destined to become a wanderer on the face of the earth.

I had a deep interest in religion and philosophy from my childhood. And our books teach renunciation as the highest ideal to which man can aspire. It only needed the meeting with a great teacher, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, to kindle in me the final determination to follow the path he himself had trod, as in him I found my highest ideal realised.

In the Order to which I belong we are called Sanyasins The word means “A man who has renounced”. This is a very, very, very ancient Order. Even Buddha, who lived 560 years before Christ, belonged to that Order. So ancient! You find it mentioned away back in the Vedas, the oldest book in the world.

The Order is not a Church and the people who join the Order are not priests. There is an absolute difference between the priests and the Sanyasins.

The Sanyasins don’t posses property, and they do not marry. There is the bond between the teacher and the taught. That is peculiar to India. The teacher is not a man who comes to teach me and I pay him so much and there it ends. In India it is really like an adoption. The teacher is more than my own father, and I am truly his child, his son in every respect. I owe him obedience and reverence first, before my own father even, because the father gave me this body, but he (the teacher) showed me the way to Salvation. He is greater than father.

And we carry this love, this respect for our teacher all our lives. Sometimes the teacher may be a young man and the disciple a very old man.

Now, I happened to get an old man to teach me, and he was very peculiar. He did not go much for intelectual scholarship, scarcely studied books, but when he was a boy he was seized with a tremendous idea of getting truth direct. First he tried by studying his own religion. Then he got the idea that he must get the truth of other religions, and with that idea he joined all the sects, one after another. For the time being, he did exactly what they told him to do, lived with the devotees of these different sects in turn, until interpenetrated with the particular ideal of that sect. After a few years he would go to another sect. When he had gone through all that, he came to the conclusion that they were all good. He had no criticism to offer to any one, they are all so many paths leading to the same goal. And then he said, “That is a Glorious thing that there should be so many paths because if there were only one path parbaps it would suit only an individual man. The more the number of paths the more the chance for everyone of us to know the truth. If I cannot be taught in one language, I will try another, and so on.” Thus his benediction was for every religion.

I remember vividly my first visit to him. It was at the temple garden at Dakshineshwar in his own room. That day I sang two songs. He went into Samadhi. He said to Ram Babu, “Who is this boy? How well tie sings!” He asked me to come again.

Well, I sang the song, but shortly after, he suddenly rose and taking me by the hand led me to the northern verandah, shutting the door behind him. It was locked from the outside; so we were alone. I thought he would give me some private instructions. But to my utter surprise he began to shed profuse tears of joy as he held my hand, and addressing me most tenderly as one long familiar to him, said “Ah, you come so late! How could you be so unkind as to keep me waiting so long! My ears are  well-nigh burnt listening to the profane talks of worldly people. Oh, how I yearn to unburden my mind to one who can appreciate my innermost experience!”.

Thus he went on amid sobs. The next moment he stood before me with folded hands and began to address me, “ Lord, I know that you are that ancient Sage, Nara, the Incarnation of Narayana – born on earth to remove the miseries of Mankind ” and so on!

I was altogether taken aback by his conduct. “Who is this man whom I have come to see ?” I thought, “ he must be stark mad. Why. I am but the son of Vishwanatha Dutta and yet he dares to address me thus!” But I kept quiet allowing him to go on. Presently he went back to his room, and bringing some sweets, sugar-candy and butter, began to feed me with his own hands. In vain did I say again and again, “ Please give the sweets to me. I shall share them with my friends !”. He simply said, “They may have some afterwards,” and desisted only after I had eaten all. Then he seized me by the hand and said, “Promise that you will come alone to me at an early date.” At his importunity I had to say “Yes”, and returned with him to my friends.

I sat and watched him. There was nothing wrong in his words, movements or behaviour towards others. Rather from his spiritual words and ecstatic states, he seemed to be a man of genuine renunciation, and there was a marked consistency between his words and life. He used the most simple language, and I thought, “ Can this man be a great teacher?” I crept near him and asked him the question which I had asked so often, – “Have you seen God Sir?” Yes, I see him just as I see you here, only in a much intenser sense.” “God can be realised”, he went on. “One can see and talk to Him as I am doing with you. But who cares to do so? People shed torrents of tears for their wife and children, for wealth or property, but who does so for the sake of God ? If one weeps sincerely for Him, He surely manifests Himself.” That impressed me at once. For the first time I found a man who dared to say that he had seen God, that religion was a reality to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world. As I heard these things from his lips, I could not but believe that he was saying them not like an ordinary preacher but from the depths of his own realisations. Bu_t I could not reconcile his words with his strange conduct with me. So I concluded that he must be a monomaniac Yet I could not help acknowledging the magnitude of his renunciation. “He may be a madman,” I thought, “but only the fortunate few can have that renunciation. Even if insane, this man is the holiest of the holy, a true Saint and for that alone he deserves the reverential homage of mankind!” With such conflicting thoughts I bowed before him and begged his leave to return to Calcutta.

I went to see him next at Rajamohan’s house. The third visit was at Dakshineshwar again. During that visit he went into Samadhi, and began to praise me as if I were God. He said to me, ” O Narayana, you have asssumed this body for my sake! I asked the Divine Mother ” Mother, unless I enjoy the company of some genuine devotees completely free from “Woman and Gold” how , shall I live on earth?” Then he said to me “You came to see me at night, woke me up and said, Here I am !”

But I did not know anything of this. I was sound asleep in our Calcutta house.

I did not realise then that the temple garden of Dakshineshwar was so far from Calcutta, as on the previous occasion I had gone there in a carriage. The road seemed to be so long as to be almost endless. However, I reached the garden somehow, and went straight to Sri Ramkrishna’s room. I found him sitting alone on the bedstead. He was glad to see me and calling me affectionately to his side, made me sit beside him on his bed. But the next moment I found him overcome with a sort of emotion. Muttering something to himself, with his eyes fixed on me, he slowly drew near me. I thought he might do something queer as on the previous occasion. But in the twinkling of an eye be placed his right foot on my body. The touch at once gave rise to a novel experience within me. With my eyes open I saw that the walls and everything in the room, whirled rapidly and vanished into naught and the whole Universe together with my individuality was about to merge in an all-encompassing mysterious void! I was terribly frightened and thought that I was facing death, for the loss of individuality meant nothing short of that. Unable to control myself I cried out,” What is it that you are doing to me, – I have my parents at home.” He laughed at this and stroking my chest said, “ All right, let it rest now. Everything will come in time.” The wonder of it was that no sooner he had said this than that strange experience of mine vanished. I was myself again and found everything within and without the room as it had been before.

All this happened in less time than it takes me to narrate it, but it revolutionised my mind. Amazed I thought, “ What could it possibly be? It came and went at the mere wish of this wonderful man I began to question if it were mesmerism or hypnotism. But that was not likely, for these acted only on weak minds, and I prided myself on being just the reverse. I had not as yet surrendered myself, to the stronger personality of the man; rather I had taken him to be a monomaniac. So to what might this sudden transformation of mine be due?

I could not come to any conclusion. It was an enigma, I thought, which I had better not attempt to solve. I was determined, however, to be on my guard and not to give him another chance to exert similar influence over me.

The next moment I thought how can a man who shatters to pieces a resolute and strong mind like mine be dismissed as a lunatic ? Yet that was just the conclusion at which one would arrive from his effusiveness on our first meeting, unless he was an Incarnation of God, which was indeed a far cry. So, I was in dilemma about the real nature of my experience, as well as the truth about this wonderful man, who was obviously pure and simple as a child. My rationalistic mind received an unpleasant rebuff at this failure in judging the true state of things. But I was determined to fathom this mystery somehow.

Thoughts like these occupied my mind during the whole of that day. But he became quite another men after that incident, and as on the previous occasion treated me with great kindness and cordiality. His bebavioifr towards me was like that of a man who meets an old friend or relative after a long separation. He seemed not to be satisfied with entertaining and taking all possible care of me. This remarkably loving treatment drew me all the more to him. At last, finding that the day was coming to a close, I asked his leave to go. He seemed very much dejected at this and gave me his permission only after I had promised to come again at my earliest convenience.

One day in the temple garden of Dakshineshwar, Sri Ramakrishna touched me over the heart, and first of all I began to see that the houses, rooms, doors, windows, verandahs, the trees, the sun, the moon, all were flying off, shattering to pieces as it were, reduced to atoms and molecules, and ultimately became merged in the Akasha. Gradually again, the Akasha also vanished, and after that my consciousness of the ego with it, what happened next I do not recollect. I was at first frightened. Coming from that state, again I began to see the houses, doors, windows, verandahs, and other things. On another occasion I had exactly the same realisation by the side of a lake in America.

A derangement of the brain! How can you call it so, when it comes neither as the result of delirium from any disease nor as an illusion produced by various sorts of queer breathing exercises, – but when it comes to a normal man in full possession of his health and wits? Then again, this experience is in perfect harmony with the Vedas. It also coincides with the words of realisation of the inspired Rishis and Acharyas of old. Do you take me, at last, to be a crack-brained man?.

Know [that] this knowledge of oneness is what the Sastras speak of as realisation of the Brahman, by knowing which, one gets rid of fear, and the shackles of birth and death break for ever. Having once realised that supreme bliss, one is no more overwhelmed by pleasure and pain of this world.

That supreme bliss fully exists in all, from Brahman down to the blade of grass. Being again and again entangled in the intricate maze of delusion and hard chit by sorrows and afflictions, the eye will turn of itself to one’s own real nature, the inner self. It is owing to the presence of this desire for bliss in the heart, that man, getting hard shocks, one after another, turns his eyes inwards – to his own self. A time is sure to come to everyone, without exception, when he will do so, to one it may be in this life, to another, after thousands of incarnations.

Seeing that the Master gave no thought to himself on account of me, I did not hesitate on occasion to use harsh words about his blind love for me. I used to warn him, saying that if he constantly thought of me, he would become like me, even as King Bharata of the old legend, who so doted upon his pet deer that even at the time of death he was unable to think of anything else, and as a result, was born as a deer in his next life. At these words, the Master, so simple was he, became very nervous, and said, “What you say is quite true. What is to become of me, for I cannot bear to be separated from you?” Dejected, he went to the Kali temple. In a few minutes he returned smiling and said, “You rogue, I shall not listen to you any more. Mother says that I love you because I see the Lord in you, and the day I no longer do so, I shall not be able to bear even the sight of you.” With this short but emphatic statement he dismissed once for all everything that I had ever said to him on the subject.

One day he said to me, “You can see Krishna in your heart if you want.” I replied, “I don’t believe in Krishna or any such nonsense!”. Once I said to him, “The form qf God and things like that which you see in your visions are all figments of your imagination”. He had so much faith in my words that he went to the Divine Mother in the Temple and told Her what I had said to him. He asked Her, “Are these hallucinations then?” Afterwards he said to me, “Mother told me that all these are real”.

Again, he said to me, “When you sing. He who dwells here (touching his heart) like a snake, hisses as it were, and then spreading the hood, quietly hold himself steady and listens to your music”

He has no doubt said many things about me.

And how can Sri Ramakrishna’s words prove false?.

We (Sri Ramakrishna and I) talked of our revealed book, the Vedas, of the Bible, of the Quoran and of the revealed books in general. At the close of our talk this good man asked me to go to the shelf and take up a book. It was a book which, among other things, contained a forecast of the rainfall during the year. The sage said, “Read that”. And I read out the quantity of rain that was to fall. He said, “Now take the book and squeeze it”. I did so and he said, “Why my boy, note drop of water comes out. Until the water comes out it is all a book, book. So until your religion makes you realise God, it is useless. He who studies books only for religion reminds one of the fable of the ass which carried a heavy load of sugar on its back but did not know the sweetness of it.”

I did not believe in anything. At first I did not accept most of what the Master said. One day he asked me, “Then, why do you come here?.” I replied, “I come here to see you, not to listen to you”. He was very much pleased.

One day when I was alone with him, he said something to me. Nobody else was present. He said, “It is not possible for me to exercise occult powers, but I shall do so through you. What do you say?” “No”, I replied “you can’t do that!”

I used to laugh at his words. I told him that his vision of God was all hallucination of his mind.

He said to me, “I used to climb to the roof of the Kuthi and cry, “O, Devotees where are you all? come to me; O! Devotees, I am about to die. I shall certainly die if I do not see you. And the Divine Mother told me, ‘The devotees will come’. You see everything is turning out to be true.” What else could I say? • I kept quiet.

I used to follow my own whim in every thing I did. The Master never interfered. I became a member of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj.

The master knew that women attended the meeting of the Brahmo Samaj. A man cannot meditate with women sitting in front of him, therefore he criticised the meditation of the Brahmo Samaj. But he didn’t object to my going there. But one day he said to me, “Don’t tell Rakhal about your being a member of the Brahmo Samaj, or he too will feel like becoming one.”

When I found that the master did not bestow that kind of grace on them (my friends) which he had done on me by accepting me and instructing me in religion, I used to ask him importunately to bestow it on them. On account of boyish frivolity, I became ready on many occasions to argue with him. I said, “Why Sir, God is indeed never so partial that He will bestow His grace on some and not on others. Why should you then not accept them as you have done me?. Is it not certain that one can attain spirituality and realise God if one wills and makes an effort just as one can become a learned Pandit if he puts forth an effort? The Master replied, “What can I do my child? Mother shows me that there is the beastly mental attitude of a bull in them they cannot realise spirituality in this life. What c^pl do? and what is it you say? Can anyone become what one wishes to in this life by mere will and effort?” But who lent an ear to the Master’s words then? I said, “What do you say, Sir? Can’t one become what one wishes to, if one wills and makes efforts? Surely one can. I cannot believe what you say about it.” At that also the Master said the same thing, “Whether you believe it or not, Mother shows me that.” I never accepted then what he said. But the more time passed on, fhe more did I understand from experience that what the master said was right, and what I thought was wrong.

One day as soon as I went to Dakshineshwar, the Master gave me those books (on non-dualism) to read, which he forbade others to. Amongst other books, a copy of Ashtavakra Samhita was in his room. When the master found anyone reading that book he would forbid him to do so and would give him instead such books as “Mukti and how to attain it,” “The Bhagavat Gita,” or some Purana. But scarcely had I gone to him when he took out the book and asked me to read it. Or, he would ask me to read some part of Adhyatma Ramayana which was full of non-dualistic ideas. I said, and sometimes in an outspoken way, “What is the use of reading this book? It is a sin even to think T am God’: the book teaches the same blasphemy. It should be burnt”. The Master smiled and said, “Do I ask you to read it to yourself? I ask you to read a little to me. Please do it. That being the case, you will not have to think that you are God”. So, I had to read a little for him at his request.

This magic touch of the Master that day immediately brought a wonderful change over my mind. I was stupified to find that really there was nothing in the Universe but God! I saw it quite clearly but kept silent to see if the idea would last. But the impression did not abate in the course of the day. I returned home, “but there too everything I saw appeared to be Brahman. I eat down to take my meal, but found that everything the food, the plate, the person who served and even myself was nothing but That. I ate a morsel or two and sat still. I was startled by my mother’s words, “Why do you sit still? – finish your meal,” and I began to eat again. But all the while whether eating or lying down or going to college, I had the same experience and felt myself always in a sort of comatose state. While walking in the streets, I noticed cabs plying, but I did not feel inclined to move out of the way. I felt that the cabs and myself were of one stuff. There was no sensation in my limbs which I thought were getting paralysed. I, did not relish eating, and felt as if somebody else were eating. Sometimes I lay down during a meal and after a few minutes got up and again began to eat. The result was that on some days I would take too much, but it did me no harm. My mother became alarmed and said that there must be something wrong with me. She was afraid that I might not live long. When the above state altered a little, the world began to appear to me as a dream. While walking in cornwallis Square, I would strike my head against the iron railings to see if they were real or only a dream. This state of thing continued for some days. When I became normal again I realised that I must have had a glimpse of the Advaita State. Then it struck me that the words of the scriptures were not false. Thenceforth I could not deny the conclusions of the Advaita Philosophy.

, For the first time I found a man who dared to say that he saw God, that religion was a reality, to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world. I began to go to that man, day after day; and I actually saw that religion could be given. One touch, one glance, can change a whole life. I have read about Buddha and Christ and Mohammed, about all those different lumanaries of ancient times; how they would stand up and say, “Be thou whole,” and the man became whole. I now find it to be true and when I myself saw this man, all scepticism was brushed aside. It could be done and my master used to say, “Religion can be given and taken more tangibly, more really than anything else in the world.”

The second idea that I learned from my master, and which is perhaps the most vital, is the wonderful truth that the religions of the world are not contradictory or antagonistic; they are but various phases of one Eternal Religion; that one Eternal Religion, as applied to different planes of existence is applied to the opinions of various minds and various races.

Devotion as taught by Narada, he used to preach to the masses, those who were incapable of any higher training. He used generally to teach dualism. ,As a rule, he never taught Advaitism. But he taught it to me. I had been a Dualist before.

Sri Ramakrishna once told me that not one in twenty millions in this world believe in God. I asked him why, and he told me “Suppose there is a thief in this room and he gets to know that there is a mass of gold in the next room, and only a very thin partition between the rooms, what will be the condition of that thief”? I answered, “he will not be able to sleep at all. His brain will be actively thinking of some means of getting at the gold and he will think of nothing else”. Then he replied “Do you bglieye that a man could believe in God and not go mad to get Him? If a man sincerely believes that there is that immense, infinite mine of bliss, and that it can be reached, would not that man go mad in his struggles to reach it? Strong faith in God and the consequent eagerness to reach Him constitute Sraddha.”

One day at that time I spent a night with the Master at Dakshineshwar. I was sitting quiet for some time under the Panchavati, when the Master suddenly came there and catching hold of my hand, said smiling. “Your intellect and learning will be examined today; you have passed two and a half examinations¹ only. A teacher who has passed three and a half has come today. Come, Idt me see how you fare in conversation with him”. Nolens Volens, I had to go with the Master. When I reached his room and was introduced to M. (Mahendra Nath Gupta) I began to talk with him on various subjects. Having thus engaged us in a talk, the Master sat silent and went on listening to our words and observing us. Afterwards, when Sri M. took leave and went away, he said, “What matters it, even if he has passed those examinations? The teacher is womanish in charcater – shy. He cannot talk with emphasis”. Thus putting me against others, the Master enjoyed the fun.

(Shortly after meeting the Master)I might not have gained anything else by this practice of religion (shortly after I had met the Master), but it is certain that I have gained control over my terrible anger by His grace. Formerly I used to lose all control over myself in rage and was seized with repentance afterwards. But, now if anyone does me a great harm or even beats me severely, I don’t become so very angry.

One day during one of my early visits, the Master in an ecstatic mood said to me, “You have come!” “How amazing”, I said to myself, “it is as if he had known me for a long time”. Then he said to me, “Do you ever see light”? I replied, “Yes, Sir, before I fall asleep I feel something like a light revolving near my forehead.”

I used to see it frequently. In Jadu Mallick’s garden house the Master one day touched me and murmured something to himself. I became unconscious. The effects of the touch lingered with me a month like an intoxication

When he heard that a proposal had been made about my marriage, he wept, holding the feet of the image of Kali. With tears in his eyes he prayed to the Divine Mother, “O Mother!, please upset the whole thing, don’t let Narendra be drowned”.

One day grandmother overheard my Master speaking in my room about the efficacy of a celibate life. She told of this to my parents. They became greatly concerned lest I should renounce the world, and were increasingly anxious that I should marry. My mother was especially fearful lest that I should leave the family to take upon myself the vows of a monastic life. She often spoke of the matter to me, but I would give a casual reply. But all their plannings for my marriage were frustrated by the strong will of the Master. On one occasion all negotiations of marriage were settled, when a petty difference of opinion arose and the engagement was broken.

It is impossible to give others any idea of the ineffable joy we derived from the presence of the Master. It is really beyond our understanding how he could train us, without our knowing it, through fun and play, and thus mould our spiritual life. As the master wrestler proceeds with great caution and restraint with the beginner, now overpowering him in the struggle with great difficulty as it were, again allowing himself to be defeated to strengthen the pupil’s selfconfidence—in exactly the same manner did Sri Ramakrishna handle us. Realizing that the Atman, the source of infinite strength, exists in every individual, pigmy though he might be, he was able to see the potential giant in all. He could clearly discern the latent spiritual power which would in the fullness of time manifest itself. Holding up that bright picture to view, he would speak highly of us and encourage us. Again he would warn us lest we should obstruct this future consummation by becoming entangled in worldly desires, and moreover, he would keep us under control by carefully observing even the minute details of our life. All this was done silently and unobtrusively. That was the secret of his training of the disciples and of his moulding of their lives.

After my father’s death my mother and my brothers were starving. When the master met AanandaGuha one day, he said to him, “Narendra’s father has died. His family is in a state of privation. It would be good if his friends helped him now with money.

After Ananda had left, I scolded him. I said, “Why did you say all these things to him”? Thus rebuked, he wept and said, “Alas! for your sake I could beg from door to door.” He tamed us by his love.

Even before the period of mourning (after my father’s death) was over I had to knock about in search of a job. Starving and barefooted I wandered from office to office under the scorching noon-day sun with an application in my hand; one or two intimate friends, who sympathised with me in my misfortunes, accompanying me sometimes. But everywhere the door was slammed in my face. This first contact with the reality of life convinced me that unselfish sympathy was a rarity in the world. There was no place in it for the weak, the poor and the destitute. I noticed that those who only a few days ago would have been proud to help me in any way, now turned their face against me, though they had enough and to spare. Seeing all this, the world sometimes seemed to me to be the handiwork of the devil. One day, weary and footsore, I sat down in the shade of the Ochterlony monument in the Maidan. Some friends of mine happened to be there, one of whom sang a song about the overflowing grace of God, perhaps to comfort me. It was like a terrible blow on my head. I remembered the helpless condition of my mother and brothers, and exclaimed in bitter anguish and despondency, “Will you please stop that song? such fancies may be pleasing to those who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and have no starving relatives at home. Yes, there was a time when I too thought like that. But today, before the hard facts of life, it sounds like grim mockery.” My friend must have been wounded_# How could he fathom the dire misery that had forced these words out of my mouth ? Some times when I found that there were not enough provisions for the family and my purse was empty, I would pretepd to my mother that I had an invitation to dine out and remain practically without food. Out of self-respect I could not disclose the fact to others. My rich friends sometimes requested me to come to their homes and gardens to sing. I had to comply when I could not avoid it. I did not feel inclined to express my woes before them nor did they try themselves to find out my difficulties. A few among them sometimes used to ask me, “Why do you look so pale and weak today?” Only one of them came to know about my poverty without my knowledge, and now and then sent anonymous help to my mother by which act of kindness he put me under a deep debt of gratitude.

Some of my old friends who earned their livelihood by unfair means asked me to join them. A few among them who had been compelled to follow this dubious way of life by sudden turns of fortune, as in my case, really felt sympathy for me. There were other troubles also. Various temptations came in my way. A rich woman sent me an ugly proposal to end my days of penury which I sternly rejected with scorn. Another woman also made similar overtures to me. I said to her “You have wasted your life, seeking the pleasures of the flesh. The dark shadows of death are before you. Have you done anything to face that ? Give up all these filthy desires and remember God.”

In spite of all these troubles, however, I never lost faith in the existence of God nor in His Divine Mercy.

Every morning taking His name I got up and went out in search of a job. One day my mother overheard me and said bitterly, “Hush you fool, you are crying yourself hoarse for God from your childhood, and what has He done for you?” I was stung to the quick. Doubt crossed my mind, “Does God really exist?” I thought, “and if so does He really hear the fervent prayer of man? Then why is there so much woe in His benign Kingdom?

Why does Satan rule in the realm of Merciful God?” Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s words, ‘If God is good and gracious, why then do millions of people die for want of a few morsels of food at times of famine V rang in my ears with bitter irony. I was exceedingly cross with God. It was also the most opportune moment for doubt to creep into my heart.

It was ever against my nature to do anything secretly. On the contrary it was a habit with me from my boyhood not to hide, even my thoughts from others through fear or anything else. So it was quite natural for me now to proceed to prove before the world that God was a myth or that even if He existed, to call upon Him was fruitless. Soon the report gained currency that I was an atheist and did not scruple to drink or even frequent houses of ill fame. This unmerited calumny hardened my heart still more. I openly declared that in this .miserable world there was nothing reprehensible in a man, who seeking for a brief respite, would resort to anything. Not only that, but if I was once convinced of the efficacy of such a course I would not, through fear of anybody, shrink from following it.

It was ever against my nature to do anything secretly. On the contrary it was a habit with me from my boyhood not to hide even my thoughts from others through fear or anything else. So it was quite natural for me now to proceed to prove to the world that God was a myth, or that, even if He existed, to call upon Him was fruitless. Soon the report gained currency that I was an atheist and did not scruple to drink or even frequent houses of ill fame. This unmerited calumny hardened my heart still more. I openly declared that in this miserable world there was nothing reprehensible in a man who, seeking for a brief respite, should resort to anything; not only that, but that if I was once convinced of the efficacy of such a course, I should not, through fear of anybody, shrink from following it.

But notwithstanding these forced atheistic views, the vivid memory of the Divine Visions I had experienced since my boyhood, and especially after my contact with Sri Ramakrishna, would lead me to think that God must exist and there must be some way to realise Him. Otherwise life would be meaningless. In the midst of all troubles and tribulations I must find that way. Days passed, and the mind continued to waver between doujbt and certainty. My pecuniary wants also remained just the same.

The summer was over, and the rains set in. The search for a job still went on. One evening, after a whole day’s fast and exposure to rain I was returning home with tired limbs and a jaded mind and overpowered with exhaustion and unable to move a step forward, I sank down on the outer plinth of a house on the roadside.

I can’t say whether I was insensible for a time or not. Various thoughts crowded in my mind and I was too weak to drive them off and fix my attention on a particular thing. Suddenly I felt as if by some Divine Power the coverings of my soul were removed one after another. All my former doubts regarding the co-existence of Divine Justice and Mercy and the presence of misery in the creation of a Blissful Providence, were automatically solved. By a deep introspection I found the meaning of it all and was satisfied. As I proceeded homewards I found there was no trace of fatigue in the body and the mind was refreshed with wonderful strength and peace. The night was well-nigh over.

Henceforth I became deaf to the praise and blame of worldly people. I was convinced that I was not born like others to earn money and maintain my family much less to strive for sense pleasures. I began secretly to prepare to renounce the world like my grandfather. I fixed a day for the purpose and was glad to hear that the Master was to come to Calcutta that very day. “It is lucky ” I thought; “I shall leave the world with the blessings of my Guru”. As soon as I met the Master he pressed me hard to spend that night with him at Dakshineshwar. I made various excuses, but to no purpose. I had to accompany him. There was not much talk in the carriage. Reaching Dakshineshwar I was seated for some time in his room along with others, when he went into a trance. Presently he drew near me and touching me with great tenderness, began to sing a song, with tears in his eyes. I had repressed my feelings so long but they now overflowed in tears. The meaning of the song was too apparent. He knew of my intentions. The audience marvelled at the exchange of feeling between us. When the Master regained his normal mood, some of them asked the reason of it, and he replied with a smile, “Oh,it was something between him and me!” Then at night he dismissed the others and calling me to his side said, “I know you have come for the Mother’s work and won’t be able to remain in the world. But for my sake, stay as long as I live.” Saying this he burst into tears again. The next day with his permission I returned home. A thousand thoughts about the maintenance of the family assailed me. I began to look about again for a living.

By working in an attorney’s office and translating a few books, I got just enough means to live from hand to mouth, but it was not permanent and there was no fixed income to maintain my mother and brothers.

One day the idea struck me that God listened to Sri Ramakrishna’s prayers. So why should I not ask him to pray for me for the removal of my pecuniary wants, a favour the master would never deny me. I hurried to Dakshineshwar and insisted on his making the appeal on behalf of my starving family. He said, “ My boy, I can’t make such demands. But why don’t you go and ask the Mother yourself ? All your sufferings are due to your disregard of Her.” I said, “ I do not know the mother, you speak to Her on my behalf. You must.” He replied tenderly, “ My dear boy, I have done so again and again. But you do not accept Her, so she does not grant my prayer. All right, it is Tuesday-go to the Kali temple to night, prostrate yourself before the mother and ask Her any boon you like. It shall be granted. She is knowledge Absolute, the Inscrutable Power of Brahman and by Her mere will she has given birth to this world. Everything is in Her power to give”. I believed every word and eagerly waited for the night. About 9 O’ Clock, the Master commanded me to go to the temple. As I went I was filled with a Divine intoxication. My feet were unsteady. My heart was leaping in anticipation of the joy of beholding the living Goddess and hearing Her words. I was full of the idea. Reaching the temple as I cast my eyes upon the image, I actually found that the Divine Mother was living and conscious, the Perennil Fountain of Divine Love and Beauty. I was caught in a surging wave of devotion and love. In an ecstacy of joy I prostrated myself again and again before the Mother arid prayed, ‘‘Mother, give me discrimination! Give me renunciation give me knowledge and devotion, grant that I may have an uninterrupted vision of Thee!” A serene peace reigned in my soul. The world was forgotten. Only the Divine Mother shone within my heart.

As soon as I returned, Sri Ramakrishna asked me if I had prayed to the Mother for a removal of my worldly wants. I was startled at this question and said, “No, Sir; I forgot all about it. But is there any remedy now?” “Go again,” said he, “and tell Her about your wants”. I again set out for the temple, but at the sight of the Mother again forgot my mission, bowed to Her repeatedly and prayed only for love and devotion. The Master asked if I had done it the second time. I told him what had happened. He said, “How thoughtless! couldn’t you restrain yourself enough to say those few words? Well try once more and make that prayer to Her. Quick ! I went for the third time, but on entering the temple a terrible shame overpowered me. I thought, “What a trifle have I come to pray to the Mother about! It is like asking a gracious king for a few vegetables! What a fool I am! In shame and remorse I bowed to Her respectfully and said, “Mother, I want nothing but knowledge and devotion”. Coming out of the temple I understood that all this was due to Sri Ramakrishna’s will. Otherwise how could I fail in my object no less than thrice? I came to him and said “Sir, it is you who have cast a charm over my mind and made me forgetful. Now please grant me, the boon that my people at home may no longer suffer the pinch of poverty!’’ He said, “Such a prayer never comes from my lips. I asked you to pray for yourself, but you couldn’t do it. It appears that you are not destined to enjoy worldly happiness. Well, I can’t help it.’’ But I wouldn’t let him go. I insisted on his granting that prayer at last he said, “All right, your people at home will never be in want of plain food and clothing.”

Sri Ramakrishna was the only person who ever since he had met me believed in me uniformly throughout. Even my Mother and brothers did not do so. It was his unflinching trust and love for me that bound me to him for ever. He alone knew how to love one another’ Worldly people only make a show of love for selfish ends.

It is impossible to give others even an idea of the inneffable joy we derived from the presence of the Master. It is really beyond our understanding how he would give us training, though unconsciously on our part, through fun and play and thus mould our spiritual life. As the master athlete proceeds with great caution and restraint with the beginner, now overpowering him in the struggle with great difficulty, as it were, again owning defeat at bis hands to strengthen his spirit of self-reliance; in exactly the same manner did Sri Ramakrishna treat us. Realising that in all exists the Atman which is the source of infinite strength, in every individual, pigmy though he might be, he was able to see the potential giant. He could clearly discern the latent spiritual power which would in the fulness of time manifest itself. Holding that bright picture before us, he would speak highly of us and encourage us. Again, he would warn us lest we should frustrate this future consummation by becoming entangled in worldly desires, and further, he would keep us under control by carefully observing even the minute details of our life. All this was done silently and unobtrusively. That was the great secret of his training of the disciples and moulding of their lives^/Once I felt that I could not practice deeper concentration in medication. I told him of it and sought his advice and direction. He told me his personal experiences in the matter and gave me instructions. I remember that as I sat down to meditate during the early hours of the morning, my mind would be disturbed and diverted by the shrill note of the whistle of a neighbouring jute mill. I told him about it and he advised me to concentrate my mind on the very sound of the whistle. I followed his advice and derived from it much benefit. On another occasion I felt great difficulty in totally forgetting my body during meditation and concentrating the mind wholly on the ideal. I went to him for counsel and he gave me the very instruction which he himself had received from Tota Puri while practising Samadhi at the time of his Vedantic Sadhana.

He sharply pressed between my two eyebrows with his finger nail and said, “Now concentrate your mind on this painful sensation!”As a result I found I could concentrate the mind easily on that sensation as long as I liked and during that period, I completely forgot the consciousness of other parts of my body, not to speak of their causing any distraction in the way of my meditation. The solitude of the Panchavati, associated with the various spiritual realisations of the Master, was also the suitable place for our meditation. Besides, meditation and spiritual exercises, we used to spend a good deal of time there in sheer fun and merry-making. Sri Ramakrishna also joined with us and by taking a part enhanced our innocent pleasure. We used to run and skip about, climb on the trees, swing from the creepers and at times hold merry picnics.

On the first day of the picnic the Master noticed that I myself had cooked the food and he partook of it. I knew that he could not take food unless it was cooked by Brahmins, and, therefore, I had arranged for his meal at the Kali Temple. But he said, “It won’t be wrong for me to take food from such a pure soul like yourself! Inspite of my repeated remonstrations, he enjoyed the food cooked by me that day.

He loved me so much! But whenever an impure idea crept into my mind, he at once knew it. While going round with Annada, sometimes I found myself in the company of evil people. On those occasions, the Master could not eat any food from my hands. He could raise his hand only a little but could not bring it to his mouth. On one such occasion, while he was ill he brought his hand very close to his mouth, but it did not go in. He said to me, “You are not yet ready.”

How many times he prayed to the Divine Mother for my sake! After my father’s death when I had no food at home, and my mother and sisters and brothers were starving too, the Master prayed to the Divine Mother to give me money. But I didn’t get any money. The Master told me what the Divine Mother had said to him: “He would get simple food and clothing.”

How I used to hate Kali and all Her ways! That was the ground of my six years’ fight – that I could not accept Her. But I had to accept Her at last! Rama-krishna Paramahamsa dedicated me to Her, and I now believe that She guides me in everything I do, and does with me what She will–* Yet I fought so long! I loved him (the Master) you see, and that was what held me, I saw his marvellous purity… I felt his wonderful love. His greatness had not dawned on me then. All that came afterwards, when I had given in. At that time I thought him a brain-sick baby, always seeing visions and the rest. All that I hated. And then I too had to accept Her !

No, the thing that made me do it is a secret which will die;with me. I had great misfortunes at that time… It was an opportunity… She made a slave of me. Those were the very words – “a slave of you.” And Ramakrishna Paramahamsa made me over to Her…

Strange! He lived only two years after doing that, and most of the time he was suffering. Not more than six months did he keep his own health and brightness.

Indeed, I was, in a fix in trying to explain to the Master one day the meaning of ‘blind faith’. I could find no [meaning for the expression. I gave up using that phrase since then, as I was convinced of the truth of the Master’s contention.

Let none regret that they were difficult to convince! I fought my Master for six years with the result that I know every inch of the way! Every inch of the way! You see my devotion is the dog’s devotion. I have been wrong so often and he has always been right, and now I trust his judgement blindly

Oct 27, 1885: We think of him (Sri Ramakrishna) as a person who is like God. Do you know what it is like ? There is a point between the vagetable creation and the animal creation where it is very difficult to determine whether a particular thing is a vegetable or an animal. Likewise, there is a stage between the man-world and the God-world where it is extremly hard to say whether a person is a man or a God. I do not say he is God. What I am saying is that he is a God-like man. We offer worship to him bordering on divine worship.

4 January 1886: I have been thinking of going there (to Dakshineshwar) today. I intend to light a fire under the bel-tree and meditate. I shall feel greatly relieved if I find a medicine that will make me forget all I have studied.

I was meditating here (Cossipore garden-house where the Master was then staying for health reasons) last Saturday when suddenly I felt a peculiar sensation in my heart.

Probably, it was the awakening of the Kundalini. I clearly perceived the Ida and the Pingala nerves. I asked Hazra to feel my chest. Yesterday I saw him (Sir Ramakrishna) upstairs and told him about it. I said to him, “All the others have had their realisation, please give me some. All have succeeded; shall I alone remain unsatisfied?” He said, “Why don’t you settle yqur family affairs first and then come to me? You will get.everything. What do you want?” I replied, “It is my desire to remain absorbed in Samadhi continually for three or four days, only once in a while coming down to the sense plane to eat a little food.” Thereupon he said to me, “You are a very small-minded person. There is a state higher even than that (Samadhi). ’All that exists art Thou’, it is you who sing that song f Settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will attain a state higher than Samadhi”. I went home. My people scolded me saying, “Why do you wander about like a vagabond? Your law examination is near at hand, and you are not paying any attention to your studies. You wander about aimlessly.” My mother did not say anything. She was eager to feed me. She gave me venison. I ate a little, though I didn’t feel like eating meat.

I went to my study at my grandmother’s. As I tried to read I was seized with a great fear, as if studying were ,a terrible thing. My heart struggled within me. I burst into tears; I never wept so bitterly in my life. I left my books and ran away. I ran along the streets. My shoes slipped from my feet – I didn’t know where. I ran past haystack and got hay all over me. I kept on running along the road to Cossipore.

Since reading the Vivekachudamani I have felt very much depressed. In it Sankaracharya says that only through great tapasya and good fortune does one acquire these three things : a human birth, the desire for liberation, and refuge with a great soul. I said to myself :‘I have surely gained all these three. As a result of great tapasya, I have been born a human being; through great tapasya, again, I have the desire for liberarion; and through great tapasya, I have secured the companionship of such a great soul.¹

Has anybody seen God as I see that tree? Sri Ramakrishna’s experience may be his hallucination. I want truth. The other day I had a great argument with Sri Ramakrishna himself. He said to me, “Some people call me God”. I replied, “Let a thousand people call you God, but I shall certainly not call you God as long as I do not know it to be true”. He said, “Whatever many people say is indeed truth; that is dharma.” Thereupon, I replied, “Let others proclaim a thing as truth, but I shall certainly not listen to them unless I myself realize it as truth.”

April 23, 1886: How amazing it is ! One learns hardly anything, though one reads book for many years. How can a man realise God by practising Sadhana for two or three days ? Is it easy to realise God ? I have no peace.

Staying in the Cossipore garden, Sri Ramakrishna said to us, “The Divine Mother showed me that all of these are not my inner devotees.” Sri Ramakrishna said so, that day, with respect to both his men and women devotees.

Once I came to know about my true Self in Nirvi-kalpa Samadhi at the Cossipore garden-house. In that experience, I felt that I had no body. I could see only my face. The Master was in the upstairs room. I had that experience downstairs. I was weeping. I said, ”What has happened to me?’’ The elder Gopal went to the Master’s room and said, “Naren is crying.” When I saw the Master he said to me, “Now you have known. But, I am going to keep the key with me”. I said to him “What is it that happened to me?” Turning to the devotees, he said, “He will not keep his body if he knows who he is. But I have put a veil over his eyes.”

One day, in Cossipore garden, I had expressed my prayer to Sri Ramakrishna with great earnestness, Then, in the evening, at the hour of meditation, I lost the consciousness of the body, and felt that it was absolutely non-existent. I felt that sun, moon, space, time, ether and all that melted far away into the unknown; the body consciousness had almost vanished, and I had nearly merged in the Supreme. But I had just a trace of the feeling of Ego, so I could again return to the world of relativity from the Samadhi. In this statd of Samadhi all the differences between T and ‘Brahman’ go away; everything is reduced to unity, like the waters of the Infinite Ocean, – water everywhere, nothing else exists -language and thought, all fail there.

After that experience, even after trying repeatedly, I failed to bring back the state of Samadhi. On informing Sri Ramakrishna about it, he said, “If you remain day and night in that state, the work of the Divine Mother will not be accomplished; therefore, you won’t be able to induce that state again; when your work is finished, it will come again!”

Sri Ramakrishna used to say that Avataras alone can descend to the ordinary plane from that state of Samadhi, (or the good of the world. Ordinary jivas do not; immersed in that state, they remain alive for a period of 21 days; after that, their body drops like a sere leaf from the tree of Samsara.

All the philosophy and scriptures have come from the plane of relative knowledge of subject and object. But, no thought or language of the human mind can fully express the Reality which lies beyond the plane of relative knowledge ! Science, Philosophy, etc. are only partial truth; so, they can never be the adequate channels of expression for the transcendent reality. Hence, viewed from the transcendent standpoint, everything appears to be unreal – religious creeds and works, I and thou, and the universe – everything is unreal! Then only it is perceived that I am the only reality – ‘I am the all – pervading Atman and I am the proof of my own existence ! Where is the room for a separate proof to establish the reality of my existence ? I am, as the scriptures says,    – always known to myself as the eternal subject. I have actually seen that state, realised it.

It happened when I used to meditate before a lighted fire under a tree at the Cossipore garden house. One day, while meditating, I asked Kali (later Abhedananda) to hold my hand. Kali said to me, “When I touched your body, I felt someting like an electric shock coming to my body.”

[One day Sri Ramakrishna wrote on a piece of paper, “Naren will teach people. ”] But I said to him, “I won’t do any such thing.” Thereupon he said, “Your very bones will do it.

Now all the ideas that I preach are only an attempt to echo his (Sri Ramakrishna’s) ideas. Nothing is mine originally. Every word that I have ever uttered which is true and good is simply an attempt to echo his voice. Read his life by Prof. Max Muller.

Well, there at his feet I conceived these ideas — there, with some other young men. I was just a boy. I went there (to Sri Ramakrishna) when I was about sixteen* Some of the other boys were still younger, some a little older — about a dozen or more. And together we concaved that this ideal had to be spread. And not only spre#d^ but made practical. That is to say, we must show the spirituality of the Hindus, the mercifulness of the Buddhists, the activity of the Christians, the brotherhood of the Mahommedans, by our practical lives. “We shall start a universal religion now and here,” he said, “we will not wait.”

Our teacher was an old man who could never touch a coin with his hands. He took just the little food offered, just so many yards of cotton cloth, no more. He could never be induced to take any other gift. With all these marvellous ideas, he was strict, because that made him free. The monk in India is the friend of the prince today, dines with him; and tomorrow he is with the beggar^ sleeps under a tree.

He (our teacher) used to call me Narayan and he loved me intensely, which made many quite jealous of me. He knew one’s character by sight, and never changed his opinion. He could perceive, as it were, supersensual things, while we try to know one’s character by reason, with the result that our judgements are often fallacious. He called some persons his Antarangas or belonging to the ¹ inner circle and he used to teach them the secrets of his own nature and those of yoga. To the outsiders or Bahirangas, he taught those parables now known as ‘Sayings.’ He used to prepare those youngmen (the former class ) for his work, and though many complained to him about them, he paid no heed. I may have perhaps a better opinion of a Bahiranga than an Antaranga though his actions, but I have a superstitious regard for the Jatter. “ Love me, love my dog,” as they say. I love that Brahmin priest. ( our teacher) intensely, and, therefore, love whatever he used to love, whatever he used to regard! He was afraid about me that I might create a sect, if left to myself.

He used to say to some, “ You will not attain spirituality in this life. He sensed everything, and this will explain his apparent partiality to some. He as a scientist, used to see that different people required different treatment . None except the “ inner circle ” were allowed to sleep in his room. It is not true that those who have not seen him will not attain salvation; neither is it true that a man who has seen him thrice will attain Mukti.

It has become a trite saying that idolatry is wrong, and every man swallows it at the present time without questioning. I once thought so, and to pay the penalty of that, I had to learn my lesson sitting at the feet of a man who realized everything through idols; I allude to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, my teacher, my master, my hero, my ideal, my God in life.

Despite the many iniquities that have found entrance into the practices of image-worship as it is in vogue now.

I do not condemn it. Aye, where would I have been if I had not been blessed with the dust of the holy feet of that orthodox, image- worshipping Brahmin !

When my Master, Sri Ramakrishna, fell ill, a Brahmin suggested to him that he apply his tremendous mental power to cure himself; he said that if my Master would only concentrate his mind on the diseased part of the body it would heal. Sri Ramakrishna answered, ” What! bring down the mind that I have given to God; to this little body ?” He refused to think of body and illness. His mind was continually conscious of God; it was dedicated to him utterly. He would not use it for any other purpose.

Am I able to sit quiet ? Two or three days before Sri Ramakrishna’s passing away, She whom he used to call ‘ Kali ‘ entered this body ( of mine ). It is She who takes me here and there and makes me work; without letting me remain quiet, or allowing me to look to my personal comforts.

No, I am not speaking metaphorically. Two or three days before his leaving the body, he called me to his side one day, and asking me to sit before him, looked steadfastly at me and fell into Samadhi. Then. I really felt that a subtle force like an electric shock was entering my body! In a little while, I also lost outward consciousness and sat motionless. How long I stayed in that condition I do not remember; when consciousness returned I found Sri Ramakrishna shedding tears. On questioning him, he answered me affectionately, ” Today, giving you my all, I have become a beggar. With this power, you are to do many works for the world’s good before you return,’

Yes, Sri Ramakrishna did say out of his own lips that he was God, the all-perfect Brahman, so many times* And he said this to all of us. One day while he was staying at the Cossipore garden, his body in imminent danger of {ailing off for ever, by the side of his bed I was saying in my mind, “Well, now if you can declare that you are God, then only will I belive you are really God Himself “

It was only two days before be passed away. Immediately he looked upwards, all on a sudden and said, ‘He who was Rama, He who was Krishna, verily is He now Ramakrishna in this body. And that not from the standpoint of your Vedanta !’ At this, I was struck dumb. Even we haven’t had yet the perfect faith, after hearing it again and again from the holy lips of our Lord himself—our minds still get disturbed now and then with doubt and despair — and so, what shall we speak of others being slow to believe ? It is indeed a very difficult matter to be able to declare and believe a man with a body like ours to be a God Himself. We may just go the length of declaring him to be “a perfected one”, or “a knower of Brahman”. Well, it matters nothing, whatever you may call him and think of him, a Saint or a Knower of Brahman. Never did come to this earth such an all-perfect man as Sri Ramakrishna ! In the utter darkness of the world, this great man is like the shining pillar of illumination in this age I And by his light alone will man now cross the ocean of Samsara!

Never during his life did he (Sri Ramakrishna) refuse a single prayer of mine; millions of offences has he forgiven me; such great love even my parents never had for me. There is no poetry, no exaggeration in all this. It is the bare truth and every disciple of his knows it. In times of great danger, great temptation, I have wept in extreme agony with the prayer, ^4lO God, do save me. and no response has come from anybody; but this wonderful saint, or Avatara or anything that he may be, has come to know of all my affliction through his powers ot insight into human hearts and has lifted it off – in spite of my desire to the contrary – after getting me brought to his presence … Him alone I have found in this world to be like an ocean of unconditioned mercy.

Time and again, have I received in this life the marks of his grace. He stands behind and gets all the work done by me. When lying helpless under a tree in an agony of hunger, when I had not even a scrap of cloth for kaupin when I was resolved on travelling penniless round the world, even then help came in, always by the grace of Sri Ramakrishna. And again when crowds jostled with one another in the streets of Chicago to have sight of this Vivekananda, then also I could digest without difficulty all the honours – a hundredth part of which would have been enough to turn mad an ordinary man – because I had his grace, and by his will, victory followed everywhere.

He (Sri Ramakrishna) was all Bhakti without, but within he was all Jnana; I am all Jnana without, but within my heart, it is all Bhakti. All that has been weak has been mine. All that has been life-giving, strengthening pure and bold, has been his inspiration, his words and he himself.

If there has been anything achieved by me, by thoughts, or words, or deeds, if from my lips has ever alien one word that has helped anyone in the world, I lay no claim to it; it was his. But if there have been curses falling from my lips, if there has been hatred coming out of me, it is all mine and not his.

Sri Ramakrishna himself is his own parallel. Has he any exemplar? Truly. I tell you, I have understood him (Sri Ramakrishna) very little. He appears to me to have been so great that whenever I have to speak anything about him, I am afraid lest I should ignore or explain away the truth, lest my little power should not suffice, lest in trying to extol him I should present his picture by painting him according to my lights and be little him thereby!

Sri Ramakrishna’s was a different case. What comparison can there be between him and ordinary men ? He practised in his life all the different ideals of religions to show that each of them leads but to the, One Truth Shall you or I ever be able to do all that he has done? None of us has understood him fully, So I do not venture to speak about him anywhere and everywhere. He only knows what he really was; his frame was a human one only, but everything else about him was entirely different from others.

The fact is that Sri Ramakrishna is not exactly what the ordinary followers have comprehended him to be. He had infinite moods and phases. Thousands of Vive-kanandas may spring forth through one gracious glance of his eyes! But instead of doing that he has chosen to get things done this time through me as bis single instrument and what can I do in this matter ?

Verily, verily, I say unto you he who wants Him finds Him.

Go and verify it in your life. Try for three days, try with genuine earnestness and you are sure to succeed.

– SRI RAMAKRISHNA.

To be good and to do good – that is the whole of religion. !

— SWAMI VIVEKANANDA:

1

Narendranath was then studying for his BA. Examination and Sri M, had passed that examination and was studying Law (BL). The Master put these facts in that way.

When by the process of time,the descendants of the Aryans deviated from proper conduct; they lost their spirit of renunciation and their sharp intelligence and became deeply attached to popular customs. They even failed to understand the import of the Puranas, thinking them contradictory to one another because each one taught by emphasizing only a particular aspect of the spiritual ideal and because each taught people of ordinary intelligence the abstruse truths of Vedanta by using concrete imagery and elaborate language. They divided the whole of the Sanatana Dharma—the sum total of all religious ideals—into many sects. They enkindled the fire of sectarian jealousy and anger and tried to throw each other into it. When the degraded Aryans had almost turned India, the land of religion, into a hell, Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna incarnated himself to demonstrate the true religion of the Aryan race. He made visible the unity among the innumerable sects and denominations of the Hindu religion that had cropped up throughout the country over a vast period of time. At that time the Hindu religion had been devastated by continuous sectarian fights, and was seemingly divided into many sects. Its various sects were overrun by hideous customs, and Hinduism had become confusing to Indians and an object of contempt to foreigners. Over time, this eternal religion had been debased, but Sri Ramakrishna incorporated its universal and eternal aspects in his own life to become a living example of the eternal religion, which he lived before all for the good of humanity. . .

This new religion of the age is the source of great good to the whole world, specially to India; and the inspirer of this dispensation, Sri Bhagavan Rama-krishna, is the reformed and remodelled manifestation of all the past great epoch-makers in religion. O man, have faith in this, and lay it to heart.

Every new religion’s wave requires a new centre. The old religion can only be revivified by a new centre. Hang your dogmas or doctrines, they never pay ! It is a character, a life, a centre, a God-man that must lead the way, that must be the centre round which all other elements will gather themselves and then fall like a tidal wave upon the society, carrying all before it, washing away all impurities.

Again, a piece of wood can only easily be cut along the grain. So the old Hinduism can only be reformed through Hinduism, and not through the new-fangled reform movements. At the same time, the reformers must be able to unite in themselves the culture of both the East and the West. Now you have already seen the nucleus of such a great movement, that you have heard the low rumblings of the coming tidal wave. That centre, that God-man to lead was born in India. He was the great Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Sankara had a great head, Ramanuja had large heart; and the time was ripe for one to be born, the embodiment of both this head and heart; the time was ripe for one to be born who in one body would have the brilliant intellect of Sankara and the wonderfully expansive infinite heart of Chaitanya. one who would see in every sect the same spirit working, the same God; one who would see God in every being; one whose heart would weep for the poor for the weak, for the outcast, for the downtrodden, for everyone in this world, inside India or outside India, and bring a marvellous harmony, the universal religion of head and heart into existence; such a man was born, and I bad the good fortune to sit at his feet for years.

It was while reforms of various kinds were being inaugurated in India, that a child was born of poor Brahmin parents on the 18th of February 1836, in one of the remote villages of Bengal. The father and mother were very orthodox people. Very poor they were, and yet many a time the mother would starve herself a whole day to help a poor man. Of them, this child was born, and he was a peculiar child from very boyhood. He remembered his past from his birth, and was conscious for what purpose he came into the world, and every power was devoted to the fulfilment of that purpose.

While he was quite young, his father died. The boy was sent to school. He was peculiar, for after a few days he said, “I will not go to school any more.” And he did not; that was the end of bis going to school. But this boy had an elder brother, a learned professor, who took him to Calcutta, to study with him. After a short time the boy became fully convinced that the aim of all secular learning was mere material advancement and nothing more, and he resolved to give up study and devote himself solely to the pursuit of spiritual knowledge. The father being dead, the family was very poor, and this boy had to make his own living. He went to a place near Calcutta and became a temple priest.

In the temple was an image of the “Blissful Mother.”. This boy had to conduct the worship morning and evening and by degrees, this one idea filled his mind: “Is there anything behind this image? Is it true that there is a Mother of Bliss in the universe ? Is it true that She lives and guides this universe, or is it all a dream? Is there any reality in religion ?”

This idea took possession of the boy and his whole life became concentrated upon that. Day after day, he would weep and say : “Mother, is it true that Thou exis-test, or is it all poetry? Is the Blissful Mother an imagination of poets and misguided people, or is there such a Reality?” We have seen that of books, of education in our sense of the word, he had none; and so much the more natural, so much the more healthy was his mind, so much purer his thoughts, undiluted by drinking in the thoughts of others. Because he did not go to the university, therefore, he thought for himself. Well has Prof. Max Muller said in his article, ‘A real Mahatman’, that this was a clean, original man, and the secret of that originality was that he was not brought up within the precincts of a university. However, this thought — whether God can be seen — which was uppermost in his mind gained in strength every day, until be could think of nothing else. He could no more conduct the worship properly, could no more attend to the various details in all their minuteness. Often he would forget to place the food-offering before the image, sometimes he would forget to wave the light at other times, he would wave it for hours, and forget everything else.

And that one idea was in his mind every day – “Is it true that Thou existent, O Mother? Why dost Thou not speak? Art Thou dead?” At last, it became impossible for him to serve in the temple. He left it and entered into a little wood that was near and lived there. About this part of his life, he told me many times; he could not tell when the sun rose or set, or how he lived. He lost all thought of himself and forgot to eat. During this period, he was lovingly watched by a relative who put into his mouth food which he mechanically swallowed.

Days and nights thus passed with the boy. When a whole day would pass, towards the evening, when the peal of bells in the temples, and the voices singing, would reach the wood, these would make the boy very sad, he would cry, “Another day is gone in vain. Mother, and Thou hast not come. Another day of this short life has gone and I have not known the Truth.” In the agony of his soul, sometimes he would rub his face against the ground and weep; and this one prayer burst forth:    “Do Thou manifest Thyself in me, Thou Mother of Universe I See that I need Thee, and nothing else!” Verily, he wanted to be true to his own ideal. He had heard that the Mother never came until everything had been given up for Her.

He had heard that the mother wanted to come to everyone. but they would not have Her; that people wanted all sorts of foolish little idols to pray to, that they wanted their own enjoyments, and not the Mother, and that the moment they really wanted Her with their whole soul, and nothing else, that moment She would come. So, he began to enter into that idea, he wanted to be expect, even on the plane of matter. So, he threw away all the little property he had, and took a vow that he would never touch money and this one idea I will not touch money⁹ became a part of him. It may appear to be something occult, but even in after-life, when he was sleeping, if I touched him with a piece of money, his hand would become bent, and his whole body would become, as it were, paralysed. The other idea that came into his mind was — lust was the other enemy. Man is a soul and soul is sexless, neither man nor woman. The idea of sex and the idea of money were the two things, he thought, that prevented him from seeing the Mother.

We have seen in Sri Ramakrishna how he had the idea of divine motherhood in every woman, of whatever caste she might be, or whatever might be her worth.

This whole universe is the manifestation of the Mother, and She was in every woman’s body. “ Every woman represents the Mother; how can I think of woman in mere sex relation?’ That was the idea. Every woman was his Mother; he must bring himself to the state when he would see nothing but Mother in every woman; and he carried it out in his life.

This illiterate boy, possessed of renunciation, turned the heads of your great old Pundits. Once at the Dakshi-nesbwar Temple, the Brahmana who was in charge of the worship of Vishnu broke a leg of the image. Pundits were brought together at a meeting to give their opinions, and they, after consulting old books and manuscripts, declared that the worship of this broken image could not be sanctioned according to the Sastras, and a new image would have to be consecrated. There was consequently a great stir. Sri Ramakrishna was called at last. He heard and asked,” Does a wife forsake her husband in case he becomes lame ?” What followed ? The Pandits were struck dumb, all their Sastric commentaries and learned comments could not withstand the force of this simple statement. That is why Sri Ramakrishna came down to this earth, and discouraged mere book-learning so much. That new life-force which he brought with him has to be instilled into learning and education.

Later on, this very man said to me, ” My child, suppose there is a bag of gold in one room, and a robber in the next room, do you think that robber can sleep? He cannot. His mind will be always thinking how to get into that room and obtain possession of that gold. Do you think then that a man firmly persuaded that there is a Reality behind all these appearances, that there is a God, that there is One who never dies, One who is infinite bliss, compared with which these pleasures of the senses are simply playthings, can rest contended without struggling to attain it? Can he cease his efforts for a moment? No; he will, become mad with longing. ” This divine madness seized the boy. At that time, he had no teacher, nobody to tell him anything, and everyone thought that he was out of his mind.

So days, weeks, months passed in continuous struggle of the soul to arrive at Truth. The boy began to see visions, to see wonderful things; the secrets of his nature were, beginning to open to him. Veil after veil was, as it were, being taken off. Mother Herself became the teacher, and initiated the boy into truths he sought. At this time, there came to this place a woman, of beautiful appearance, learned beyond compare. Later on, this Saint used to say about her that she was not learned, but was the embodiment of learning; she was learning itself in human form.

She was a Sannyasini, for women also give up the world, throw away their property, do not marry, and devote themselves to the worship of the Lord. She came, and when she heard of this boy in the grove, she offered to go and see him, and hers was the first help he received. At once, she recognised what his trouble was and she said to him,” My son, blessed is the man upon whom such madness comes. People may call you mad, but yours is the right kind of madness. Blessed is the man who is mad after God. Such men are very few, ” This woman remained near the boy for years, taught him the forms of the religions of India, initiated him into the different practices of Yoga, and, as it were, guided and brought into harmony this tremendous river of spirituality.

Later there came to the same grove a Sannyasin, of the begging friars of India, a learned man, a philosopher. He was a peculiar man; he was an idealist. This man began to teach the boy the philosophy of the Vedas, and he found very soon, to his astonishment, that the pupil was in some respects wiser than the master. He spent several months with the boy, after which he initiated him into the Order of Sannyasins, and took his departure.

When as temple-priest his extra-ordinary worship made people think him deranged in his head, his relatives took him home and married him to a little girl, thinking that would turn his thoughts and restore the balance of his mind.

But, he came back, and merged deeper in his madness. The husband had entirely forgotten that he had a wife. In her far off home, the girl heard that her husband had become a religious enthusiast, and that he was even considered insane by many.

She resolved to learn the truth for herself; so she set out and walked to the place where her husband was. When at last she stood in her husband’s presence, he at once admitted her right to be his life-partner. The young man fell at the feet of his wife and said, “As for me, the Mother has shown me that She resides in every woman, and so, I have learned to look upon every woman as Mother. That is the one idea I can have about you, but if you wish to draw me into the world, as I have been married to you, I am at your service.”

The maiden was a pure and noble soul, and was able to understand her husband’s aspirations and sympathise with them. She quickly told him that she had no wish to drag him down to a life of worldliness; but that all she desired was to remain near him, to serve him and to learn from him. She became one of his most devoted disciples, always revering him as a divine being. Thus, through his wife’s consent, the last barrier was removed, and he was free to lead the life he had chosen.

That was the woman. The husband went on and became a monk, in his own way; and from a distance the wife went on helping as much as she could. And later, when the man had become a great spiritual giant, she came – really, she was the first disciple and she spent the rest of her life taking care of the body of this man. He never knew whether he was living or dying. Sometimes when talking, he would get so absorbed that if he sat on live charcoals, he would not know it! Live charcoals forgetting all about his body at the time.

The next desire that seized upon the soul of this man was to know the truth about the various religions. Up to that time, he had not known any religion but his own. He wanted to understand what other religions were like. So he sought teachers of other religions. He found a Mahommedan Saint and went to live with him; he underwent the disciplines prescribed by him, and to his astonishment found that when faithfully carried out, these devotional methods led him to the same goal he had already attained. He gathered similar experience from following the true religion of Jesus the Christ.

He went to all the sects he could find, and whatever he took up, he went into it with his whole heart. He did exactly as he was told, and in every instance, he arrived at the same result. Thus, from actual exper-ience he came to know that the goal of every religion is the same, that each is trying to teach the same thing, the difference being largely in method, and still more in language.

That is what my Master found and he then set about to learn humility, because he bad found that the one idea in all religions is “not me, but Thou, “ and he who says “not me”, the Lord fills his heart. He now set himself to accomplish this. As I have told you, whenever he wanted to do anything, he never confined himself to fine theories, but would enter into the practice immediately. We see many persons talking the most wonderfully fine things about charity and about equality and the rights of other people and all that, but only in theory. I was so fortunate as to find one who was able to carry theory into practice. He had the most wonderful faculty of carrying everything into practice which he thought was right.

Now, there was a family of Pariahs living near the the place. My Master would go to a Pariah and asked to be allowed to clean his house. The business of the Pariah is to clean the streets of the cities, and to keep houses clean. By birth the Brahmin stands for holiness, and the pariah for the very reverse. And this Brahmin asked to be allowed to do the menial services in die house of the pariah . The pariah, of course, could not allow that, for they all think that if they allow a Brahmin to do such menial work, it will be an awful sin, and they will become extinct. The pariah would not permit it; so in the dead of night, when all were sleeping, Rama-krishna would enter the house. He had long hair, and with his hair, he would wipe the place, saying, “Oh my Mother, make me the servant of the pariah; make me feel that I am even lower than the pariah.

There were various other preparations, which would take a long time to relate, and I want to give you just a sketch of his life. For years, he thus educated himself. One of the sadhanas was to root out the sex idea. Having been born in a masculine body, this man wanted to bring the feminine idea into everything. He began to think that he was a woman; he dressed like a woman, spoke like a woman, gave up the occupation of men, and lived in the household among the women of a good family, until after years of this discipline, his mind became changed, and he entirely forgot the idea of sex; thus, the whole view of life became changed to him.

We hear in the West about worshipping woman, but this is usually for her youth and beauty. This man meant by worshipping woman, that to him every woman’s face was that of the Blissful! Mother, and nothing but that. I myself have seen this man standing before those women whom society would not touch, and falling at their feet bathed in tears saying, “Mother,  one form Thou art in the street, and in another form Thou art the universe. I salute Thee, Mother, I salute Thee”

Think of the blessedness of that life from which all carnality has vanished, which can look upon every woman with that love and reverence, when every woman’s face becomes transfigured, and only the face of the Divine Mother, the Blissful One, the Protectress of the human race, shines upon itl Such purity is absolutely necessary if real spirituality is to be attained.

This rigorous, unsullied purity came into the life of that man; all the struggles which we have in our lives were past for him. His hard-earned jewels of spirituality, for which he had given three-quarters of his life, were now ready to be given to humanity, and then began his mission. His teaching and preaching were peculiar. This teacher had no thought whether he was to be respected or not; he had not the least idea that he was a great teacher; and thought that it was the Mother who was doing everything and not he. He always said, “If any good comes from my lips, it is the Mother who speaks; what have I to do with it?” That was the one idea about his work, and to the day of his death, he never gave it up. This man sought no one; his principle was: first form character, first earn spirituality, and results will come of themselves. His favourite illustration was “When the lotus opens, the bees come of their own accord to seek the honey; so let the lotus of your character be full-blown and the results will follow.” This is a great lesson to learn. My Master taught me this lesson hundreds of times, yet, I often forget it.

Sri Ramakrishna, too, practised the Tantra, but not in the old way. Where there is the induction of drinking wine, he would simply touch his forehead with a drop of it. The Tantrika form of worship is a very slippery ground.

The Puris seem to have a peculiar mission in rousing the spirituality of Bengal. Sri Chaitanya Deva was initiated into Sannyasa by Ishwar Puri, at Gaya. Bhagwan Sri Ramakrishna got his Sannyasasrama from Tota Puri.

Sri Ramakrishna wept and prayed to the Divine Mother to send him such a one to talk with as would have in him not the slightest tinge of Kamakanchana; for he would say, “My lips burn when I talk with the worldly-minded.” He also used to say that he could not even bear the touch of the worldly-minded and the impure.

This habit (in me) of seeing every person from his strongest aspect must have been the training under Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. We all went by his path to some extent. Of course, it was not so difficult for us as he made it for himself. He would eat and dress like the people he wanted to understand, take their initiation, and use their language. “One must learn,” he said, “to put oneself into another man’s very soul!” And this method was his own! No one ever before in India became Christian and Mohammedan and Vaishnava by turns!

Take a thousand idols more if you can produce Ramakrishna Paramahamsa through idol-worship, and may God speed you!

The world used to call him mad, and this was his answer: “My friends, the whole world is a lunatic asylum; some are mad after worldly love, some after fame,or going to heaven. In this big lunatic asylum, I am also mad, I am mad after God. You are mad; so am I; I think my madness is after all the best.”

Sometimes, the mind is concentrated on a set of ideas – this is called meditation with Vihalpa or oscillation. But, when the mind becomes almost free from all activities, it melts in the inner Self, which is the essence of infinite knowledge, One, and Itself Its own support. This is what is called Nirvikalpa Samadhi, free from all activities. In Sri Ramakrishna, we have again and again noticed both these forms of Samadhi. He had not to struggle to get these states. It was a wonderful phenomenon! It was by seeing him that we could rightly understand these things.

It is not very difficult to bring under control the material powers and flaunt a miracle; but I do not find a more marvellous miracle than the manner in which this mad Brahmana (Sri Ramakrishna) used to handle human minds, like lumps of clay, breaking, moulding and remoulding them at ease and filling them with new ideas by mere touch.

He began to preach when he was about forty; but he never went out to do it. He waited for those who wanted his teachings to come to him.

He is worshipped in India as one of the great incarnations, and his birthday is celebrated there as a religious festival.

He never spoke a harsh word about anyone. So beautifully tolerant was he that every sect thought that he belonged to them. He found a place for each one. He was free, but free in love, not in “thunder.” The mild type creates, the thundering type spreads.

Ramkrishna came to teach the religion of today, constructive and not destructive; he had to go afresh to nature to ask for facts and he got scientific religion which never says “believe” but “see”; “I see, and you too can see” Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings are “the gist of Hinduism” they were not peculiar to him. Nor did he claim that they were; he cared naught for name and fame;

The other idea of his life was intense love for others. The first part of my Master’s life was spent in acquiring spirituality, and the remaining years in distributing it. Men came in crowds to hear him and he would talk twenty hours in the twenty four, and that not for one day, for months and months, until at last, the body broke down under the pressure of this tremendous strain. His intense love for mankind would not let him refuse to help even the humblest of the thousands who sought his aid. Gradually, there developed a vital throat disorder, and yet he could not be persuaded to refrain from these exertions. As soon as he heard that people were asking to see him, he would insist upon having them admitted, and would answer all their questions. When expostulated with, he replied, “I do not care. I will give up twenty-thousand such bodies to help one man. It is glorious to help even one man.” There was no rest for him. Once a «man asked him, “Sir, you are a great Yogi; why do you not put your mind a little on your body and cure your disease ?” At first he did not answer, but when the question was repeated, he gently said, “My friend, I thought you were a sage, but you talk like other men of _the world. This mind has been given to the Lord; do you mean to say that I should take it back and put it upon the body, which is but a mere cage of the soul ?”

So, he went on preaching to the people, and the news spread that his body was about to pass away; and the people began to flock to him in greater crowds than ever When the people heard that this holy man was likely to go from them soon, they began to come round him more than ever and my Master went on teaching them without the least regard for his health. We could not prevent this. Many of the people came from long distances, and he would not rest until he “had answered their questions. “While I can speak I must teach them”, he would say. and he was as good as his word. One day, he told us that he would lay down the body and that day, on repeating the most sacred word of the Vedas, he entered into Samadhi and passed away.

I could not believe my own ears when I heard western people talking so much of consciousness! Consciousness? What does consciousness matter! Why, it is nothing as compared with the unfathomable depths of the subconscious, and the heights of the superconscious. In this, I could never be misled, for had I not seen Rama-krishna Parmahamsa gather in ten minutes from a man’s subconscious mind, the whole of his past, and determine from that his future and his talent and powers?

Sri Ramakrishna was quite unable to take food in ‘an indiscriminate way from the hands of any and all. It happened many a time that he would not accept food touched by a certain person or persons, and on rigorous investigation, it would turn out that these had some particular stain to hide.

He used to deprecate lukewarmness in spiritual attainments; as, for instance, saying that religion would come gradually, and that there was no hurry for it.

He used to disparage the longing for supernatural powers; his teaching was that one cannot attain to the Supreme Truth if one’s mind is diverted to the manife station of the powers.

We have seen how Sri Ramakrishna would encourage even those whom we considered as worthless, and change the very course of their lives thereby! His very method of teaching was a unique phenomenon.

He never destroyed a single man’s special inclinations. He gave words of hope and encouragement even to the most degraded of persons and lifted them up.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was alive to the depths of his being, yet on the outer plane, who was more active ? This is the secret. Let your life be as deep as the ocean, but let it also be as wide as the sky.

The artistic faculty was highly developed in our Lord, Sri Ramakrishna, and he used to say that without this faculty none can be truly spiritual.

He used to say, “As long as I live, so long do I learn.

A certain young man of little understanding used always to blame Hindu Shastras before Sri Ramakrishna. One day, he praised the Bhagavad-Gita, on which Sri Ramakrishna said, “Methinks some European Pandit has praised the Gita, and so he has followed suit!”

It was no new truth that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa came to preach, though the advent brought the old truths to light, ^n other words, he was the embodiment of all the past religious thoughts of India, His life alone made me understand what the Shastras really meant, and the whole plan and scope of the old Shastras.

He was the Saviour of women, Saviour of the masses, Saviour of all, high and low.

And the most wonderful part of it was that his life’s work was just near a city which was full of Western thought, a city which had run mad after these,,accidental ideas, a city which had become more Europeanised than any other city of India. There he lived, without any booklearning whatsoever; this great intellect never learnt even to write his own name; but the most brilliant graduates of our university found in him an intellectual giant. He was a strange man, this Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the fulfilment of the Indian sages, the sage for the time, one whose teaching is just now, in the present time, most beneficial. And mark the Divine Power working behind

the man. The son of a poor priest, born in an out-of-the-way village, unknown and unthought of, today is worshipped literally by thousands in Europe and America, and tomorrow will be worshipped by thousands more. Who knows the plans of the Lord? Let me say that if I have told one word of truth, it was his and his alone, and if I have told many things, which were not true, which were not correct, which were not beneficial to the human rate, they were all mine, and on me rests the responsibility!

It requires striving through many births to reach perfection or the ultimate stage with regard to a single one of the many devotional attitudes. But, Sri Ramakrishna, the king of the realm of spirittal sentiments, perfected himself in no less than eighteen different forms of devotion! He also used to say that his body would not have endured, had he not held himself on to this play of spiritful sentiments.

To remove all the corruption in (present-day) religion, the Lord has incarnated Himself on earth in the present age in the person of Sri Ramakrishna. The universal teachings that he offered, if spread all over the world, will do good to humanity and the world; not for many a century past has India produced so great, so wonderful, a teacher of religious synthesis.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa came for the good of the world; call him a man, or God, or an Incarnation, just as you please.

From the day, Sri Ramakrishna was born, dates the growth of modern India and of the Golden Age.

In the Ramakrishna Incarnation, there is Knowledge, Devotion and Love, infinite knowledge, infinite love, infinite work, infinite compassion for all beings. What the whole Hindu race has thought for ages, he lived in one life. His life is the living commentary on the Vedas of all nations. People will come to know him by degrees.

The future, you say, will call Ramakrishna Parama-hamsa an Incarnation of Kali. Yes, I think there is no doubt that She worked up the body of Ramakrishna for Her own ends.

He was contented simply to live that great life, and to leave it to others, to find the explanation!

One drop from the full ocean of his spirituality, if realised, will make gods of men. Such a synthesis of universal ideas you will not find in the history of the world again. Understand from this who was born in the person of Sri Ramakrishna. When he used to instruct his Sannyasi disciples, he would rise from his seat and look about to see if any householder was coming that way or not. If he found none, then in glowing words he would depict the glory of renunciation and tapasya. As a result of the rousing power of that fiery dispassion, we have renounced the world and become averse to worldliness.

Of course, everybody who has come to Sri Ramakrishna has advanced in spirituality, is advancing and will advance.

When an Avatara comes, then with him are born liberated persons as helpers in his world-play. Only Avataras have the power to dispel the darkness of a million souls and give them salvation in one life. This is known as grace.

The way is to call on him (Sri Ramakrishna). Calling on him, many are blessed with his vision, can see him in a human form just like ours and obtain his grace.

Those who have seen Sri Ramakrishna are really blessed. Their family and birth have become purified by it.

Nobody has been able to understand who came on earth as Sri Ramakrishna. Even his own nearest devotees have got no real clue to it. Only some have got a little inkling of it. All will understand it afterwards.

“One should beg his food from door to door, aye, even from the house of an outcast.” But, of course, external forms are necessary in the beginning, for the inner realisation of religion, in order to make the truth of the scriptures practical in one’s life…Outward forms and observances are only for the manifestation of the great inner power of man. The object of all scriptures is t6 awaken those inner powers and make him understand and realise his real nature. The means are of the nature of ordinances and prohibitions… If you lose sight of the ideal and fight over the means only, how will it avail? In every country I have visited, I find this fighting over the means going on and people have no eyes on the ideal, Sri Ramakrishna came to show the truth of this.

In the highest truth of the Parabrahman, there is no distinction of sex. We only notice this on the relative plane. And the more the mind becomes introspective, the more that idea of difference vanishes. When the mind is wholly merged in the homogeneous and undifferentiated Brahman, then, such ideas as this is a man or that a woman, do not remain at all. We have actually seen this in the life of Sri Ramakrishna.

You study all the great teachers the world has produced, and you will see that not one of them went into the various explanations of texts; on their part, there is no attempt at “text-torturing;” no saying – “this word meins this, and this is the philological connection between this and that word.” Yet, they taught.

The Master used to say that the sapling must be hedged round.

If anyone accepts Paramahamsa Deva as an Avatara, it is all right; if he doesn’t do so, it is just the same. The truth about it is that in point of character, Paramahamsa Deva beats all previous record, and as regards teaching, he was more liberal, more original and more progressive than all his predecessors. In other words, the older Teachers were rather one-sided, while the teaching of this new Incarnation or Teacher is that the best point? of Yoga, Devotion, Knowledge and Work must be combined now so as to form a new Society… The older ones were no doubt good, but this is the new religion of the age — the synthesis of yoga, knowledge, devotion and work -the propagation of knowledge and devotion to all, down to the very lowest, without distinction of age or sex. The previous Incarnations were all right but they have been synthesised in the person of Ramakrishna.

That Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was God incarnate I have not the least doubt…but, let people find out for themselves what he used to teach.

Without studying Ramakrishna Paramahamsa first, one tan never understand the real import of the Vedas, the Vedanta, of the Bhagavata and the other Puranas. His life is a searchlight of infinite power thrown upon the whole mass of Indian religious thought. He was the living commentary on the Vedas and their aim. He had lived in one life the whole cycle of the national religious life of India

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is the latest Avatara and the most perfect, the concentrated embodiment of Knowledge, Love, and renunciation, catholicity and the desire to serve mankind. So, where is anyone else to compare with him? He is born in vain who cannot appreciate him! My supreme good fortune is that I am his servant through life after life. A single word of his is to me far weightier than the Vedas and the Vedanta. Oh, I am the servant of the servants of his servants… Certain fishermen and illiterate people called Jesus Christ a God, but, the literate people killed him. Buddha was honoured in his life time by a number of merchants’ and cowherds. But Ramakrishna has been worshipped in his life time – towards the end of the nineteenth century – by the demons and giants of the university as God incarnate… Here is a man in whose company we have been day and night, and yet consider him to be a far greater personality than any of the earlier Avataras.

Our ideal is, of course, the abstract Brahman. But as all cannot be inspired by an abstract ideal, we must have a personal ideal. We have got that in the person of Sri Ramakrishna…In order that Vedanta may be realised by everyone, there must be a person who is in sympathy with the present generation. This is fulfilled in Sri Ramakishna. So now, we should place him before everyone. Whether one accepts him as a Sadhu or an Avatara, does not matter.

He said he would come once again with us. Then,I think he will embrace Videha-Mukti (Absolute Emancipation).

The mind of those who have truly received Sri Ramakrishna’s grace cannot be attached to worldliness.

The test of his grace is – unattachment to lust or wealth. If that has not come in to anyone’s life, then he has not truly received his grace.

Sri Ramakrishna’s life is presented in the book (by Prof. Max Muller) in very brief and simple language. In this life, every word of the wary historian is weighed, as it were, before being put on paper.

We have heard the great Minister of the Brahmo Samaj, the late revered Acharya Sri Keshab Chandra Sen, speaking in his charming way that Sri Ramakrishna’s simple, sweet, colloquial language breathed a superhuman purity; though in his (Ramakrishna’s) speech could be noticed some such words as we term obscene; the use of those words, on account of his uncommon child like innocence and of their being perfectly devoid of the least breath of sensuality, instead of being somewhat reproachable, served rather the purpose of embellishment.

“Know Truth for yourself, and there will be many to whom you can teach it afterwards; they will all come.” This was the attitude of my Master. He criticised no one. For years, I lived with that man, but never did I hear those lips utter one word of condemnation of any sect. He had the same sympathy for all sects; he had found the harmony among them. A man may be intellectual, or devotional or mystic or active: the various religions represent one or the other of these types. Yet, it is possible to combine all the four in one man, and this is what future humanity is going to do. That was his idea. He condemned no one, but saw the good in all.

The life of Sri Ramakrishna was an extraordinary searchlight under whose illumination one is able to really understand the whole scope of Hindu religion. He was the object-lesson of all the theoretical knowledge given in the Shastras. He showed by his life what the Rishis and Avataras really wanted to teach. The books were theories; he was the realisation. This man had in fifty-one’years lived the five thousand years of national spiritual rife and so raised himself to be an object-lesson for future generations. The Vedas can only be explained and the Shastras reconciled by his theory of Avastha or “conditioned” stages – that we must not only tolerate others, but positively embrace them, and that truth is the basis of all religions.

He had a whole world of knowledge to teach.

He did not found a sect. No, His whole life was spent in breaking down the barriers of sectarianism and dogma. He formed no sect. Quite the reverse. He advocated and strove to establish absolute freedom of thought. He was a great Yogi.

While others, who have nothing to teach, will take up a word and write a three-volume book on its origin and use, my Master used to say: “Think of the men who went into a mango, orchard and busied themselves in counting the leaves, and examining the colour of the leaves, the size of the twigs, the number of branches, and so forth, while only one of them had the sense to begin to eat the mangoes!”

Sri Ramakrishna is a force. You should not think that his doctrine is this or that. But he is a power, living even now in his disciples and working in the world. I saw him growing in his ideas. He is still growing. Sri Ramakrishna was both a Jivanmukta and an Acharya.

It is easier to become a Jivanmukta (free in this very life) than to be an Acharya. For the former knows the world as a dream and has no concern with it; but an Acharya knows it as a dream and yet has to remain in it and work. It is not possible for everyone to be an Acharya. He is an Acharya through whom the Divine Power acts.

The Guru (Acharya) has to bear the disciple’s burden of sin, and that is the reason why diseases and other ailments appear even in the bodies of powerful Acharyas.

The highest ideal of Iswara which the human mind can grasp is the Avatara. Beyond this, there is no relative knowledge. Such Knowers of Brahman are rarely born in the world. And very few people can understand them. They alone are the proofs of the truths of scriptures pillars of light in the ocean of the world.

In company of such Avataras and by their grace, the darkness of the mind disappears in a trice, and realisation flashes immediately in the heart. Why or by what process it occurs cannot be ascertained. But, it does occur. I have seen it happen like that.

The work which the Jnani does only conduces to the well being of the world. Whatever a man of realisation says or does contributes to the welfare of all. We have minutely observed Sri Ramakrishna, he was as it were “in the body but not of it!” – About the motive of the actions of such personages, only this can be said – “Lokavattu lilakaivalyam” -“ Everything they do like men is simply by way of sport.”

Stand you up, and realise God! If you can renounce all wealth and all sex, it will not be necessary for you to speak. Your lotus will have blossomed, and the spirit will spread. Whoever approaches you will be warmed, as it were, by the fire of your spirituality.

This is the Message of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world: “Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or churches or temples; they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality, and the more this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he. Earn that first, acquire that, and criticise no one, for all doctrines and creeds have some good in them. Show by your lives that religion does not mean words, or names, or sects, but that it means spiritual realisation. Only those can. understand who have experienced. Only those who have attained to spirituality can communicate to others, can be great teachers, of mankind. They alone are the powers of light.”

To proclaim and make clear the fundamental unity underlying all religions, was the mission of my Master. Other teachers have taught special religions which bear their names, but this great Teacher of the nineteenth century made no claim for himself.

People love me personally. But, they little dream that what they love in me is Ramakrishna; without Him I am only a mass of foolish, selfish emotions.

 

He finds who seeks Him! he who with intense longing weeps for God.

— SRI RAMAKRISHNA.

I do not believe in any politics. God and truth are the only politics in the world, everything else is trash.

— SWAMI VIVEKANANDA.

A

Then came the sad day when our old teacher died. We nursed him as best we could. We had no friends; who would listen to a few boys, with their crank notions? Nobody. At least, in India, boys are nobodies. Just think of it – a dozen boys telling people vast, big ideas, saying they were determind to work these ideas out in life. Everybody laughed. From laughter, it became serious; it became persecution. The parents of the boys came to feel like spanking everyone of us. And the more we were derided, the more determined we became.

Sri Ramakrishna used to say, “In the morning and evening, the mind remains highly imbued with sattwa ideas; those are the times when one should meditate with earnestness.”

After the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna, we went through a lot of religious practice at the Baranagore Math. We used to get up at 3 A.M. and after washing our face etc. – some after taking bath, and some without it – we would sit in the worship-room and become absorbed in japam and meditation. What a strong spirit of dispassion we had in those days!

We had no thought even as to whether the world existed or not. Ramakrishnananda busied himself day and night with the duties pertaining to Sri Ramakrishna’s worship and service, and occupied the same position in the Math as the mistress of the house does in a family. It was he who would procure, mostly by begging, the requisite articles for Sri Ramakrishna’s worship and our sustenance. There were days when the Japam and meditation continued from morning till four or five in the afternoon. Ramakrishnanda waited and waited with our meals ready, till at last he would come and drag us from our meditation by sheer force. Oh, what a wonderful constancy of devotion we noticed in him!

What was collected by begging and such other means, was utilised for defraying the Math expenses. Today, both Suresh Babu and Balaram Babu are no more. Had they been alive, they would have been exceedingly glad to see this Math (at Belur). Suresh Babu was in a way the founder of this Math. It was he who used to bear all the expenses of the Barangore Math. It was Suresh Mitra who used to worry most for us in those days. His devotion and faith have no parallel!

Owing to want of funds, I would sometimes fight for closing the Math altogether. But, I could never induce Ramakrishnananda to accede to the proposal… There were days when the Math was without a grain of food… If some rice was collected by begging, there was no salt to flavour it with!

On some days, there would be only rice and salt, but nobody cared about it in the least. We were then being carried away by a tidal wave of spiritual upsurage. Boiled Nimbaleaves, rice and salt – this was the menu for a month at a stretch.Oh! Those wonderful days! The austerities of that period were enough to dismay supernatural beings, not to speak of men. But, it is a tremendous truth that if there is real worth in you, the more circumstances are against you, the more will that inner power manifest itself, But the reason why I provided for beds and a tolerable living in the Math is that the Sannyasins that are enrolling themselves nfiwadays will not be able to bear so much strain as we did. There was the life of Sri Ramakrishna to inspire us, and that was why we did not care much for privation and hardships. Boys of this generation will not be able to undergo so much hardship. Hence, it is that I have provided for some sort of habitation and a bare subsistence for them. If they get food and clothing, the boys will devote themselves to religious practice, and will learn to sacrifice their lives for the good of humanity.

Let outside people say anything against this sort of bedding and furniture. Even in jest they will at least once think of this Math. And they say it is easier to attain liberation through cherishing a hostile spirit!

After Sri Ramakrishna’s passing away, all forsook us as so many worthless, ragged boys. Only people like Suresh Babu and Balaram Babu were our friends in that hour of need. And we shall never be able to repay our debts to them.

Then came a terrible time—for me personally and for all the other boys as well. But to me came such misfortune! On the one side was my mother, my brothers. My father died at that time, and we were left poor. Oh, very poor, almost starving all the time! I was the only hope of the family, the only one who could do anything to help them I had to stand between my two worlds. On the one hand, I would have to see my mother and brothers starve unto death; on the other, I had believed that [Sri Ramakrishna’s] ideas were for the good of India and the world, and had to be preached and worked out. And so the fight went on in my mind for days and months. Sometimes I would pray for five or six days and nights together without stopping. Oh, the agony of those days! I was living in hell! The natural affections of my boy’s heart drawing me to my family—I could not bear to see those who were the nearest and dearest to me suffering. On the other hand, nobody to sympathise with me. Who would sympathise with the imaginations of a boy—imaginations that caused so much suffering to others? Who would sympathise with me? None—except one [Sri Sarada Devi]. That one’s sympathy brought blessing and hope. . .

Well, that lady, his (Sri Ramakrishna’s) wife, was the only one who sympathised with the idea of those boys. But she was powerless. She was poorer, than we were. Never mind! We took the plunge, I believed, as I am living, that these ideas were going to revolutionise India and bring better days to many lands and foreign races. With that belief, came the realisation that it is better that a few persons suffer than that such ideas should die out of this world. What if a mother or two brothers die? It is a sacrifice. Let it be done. No great thing can be done without sacrifice. The heart must be plucked out and the bleeding heart placed upoh the altar. Then great things are done. Is there any other way? None have found it. I appeal to each one of you, to those who have accomplished any great thing. Oh, how much it has cost! What agony! what torture! What terrible sufferring is behind every deed of success, in every life! You know that, all of you.

And thus we went on, only a band of boys. The only thing we got from those around us was a kick and a curse, that was all.

Of course, we had to beg from door to door for our food – got hips and haws – the refuse of everything. A piece of bread here and there. We got hold of a broken-down old house, with hissing cobras living underneath; and because that was the cheapest, we went into that house and lived there.

Thus we went on for some years, in the meanwhile making excursions all over India, trying to carry out the idea gradually. Ten years were spent without a ray of light! Ten more years! A thousand times despondency came; but there was one thing always to keep u$ hopeful – the tremendous faithfulness to each other, the tremendous love among us. I have got a hundred men and women around me; if I become the devil himself tomorrow, they will say: “Here we are still! we will never give you up!” That is the great blessing. In happiness, in misery, in famine, in pain, in the grave, in heaven or in hell he, who never gives me up, is my friend. Is such friendship a joke? A man may have salvation through such friendship. If we have that faithfulness, why, there is the essence of all concentration. You need not worship any gods in the world if you have that faith, that strength, that love. Any one that was there was with us all throughout the hard time. That made us go from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from the Indus to Brahmaputra.

This band of boys began to travel about. Gradually we began to draw attention; ninety per cent was antagonism, very little of it was helpful. For we had one fault, – we were boys – in poverty, and with all the roughness of boys.

He who has to make his own way in life is a bit rough; he has not much time to be smooth and suave and polite – “my lady and my gentleman,” and all that. You have seen that in life, alwaysl He is a rough diamond, he has not much polish, he is a jewel in an indifferent setting.

And there we were. “No compromise,” was the watchword. “This is the ideal and this has got to be realised. If we meet the king, though we die, we must give him a bit of our mind; if the peasant, the same.” Naturally, we met with antagonism.

But, mind you, this is life’s experience. If you really want the good of others the whole universe may stand against you, but cannot hurt you. It must crumble before the power of the Lord Himself in you, if you are sincere and really unselfish. And those boys were that. They came as children, pure and fresh from the hands of nature. Said our Master, “I want to offer at the altar of the Lord only those flowers that have not even been smelt, fruit that have not been touched with the fingers.” The words of the great man sustained us all. For he saw through the future life of those boys that he collected from the streets of Calcutta, so to say. People used to laugh at him when he said, ‘‘You will see – this boy, that boy, what he becomes.” His faith was unalterable. “Mother showed it to me. I may be weak, but when She says this is so. She never makes mistakes, it must be so.”

So things went on and on for ten years without any light, but with our health breaking down all the time.

It tells on the body in the long run: sometimes one meal at nine in the evening, another time a meal at eight in the morning, another after two days, another, after three days – and always the poorest and roughest thing. Who is going to give to the beggar the good things he has? And then they have not much in India. And most of the time walking, climbing snow peaks, sometimes ten miles of hard mountain climbing just to get a meal. They eat unleavened bread in India, and sometimes they have it stored away for twenty or thirty days, until it is harder than bricks; and then they will give a crumb of that. I would have to go from house to house to collect suffi-cient food for one meal. And then the bread was so hard, it made my mouth bleed to eat it. Literally, you can break your teeth with that bread. Then I would put it in a pot and pour river water over it. For months and months, I lived that way – of course, it told on the health.

Sri Ramakrishna was a wonderful gardener. Therefore he has made a bouquet of different flowers and formed his Order. All different types and ideas have come into it, and many more will come. Sri Ramakrishna used to say, “Whoever has prayed to God sincerely for one day, must come here.” Know each of those who are here [the Sannyasin disciples of Sri Ramakrishna], to be of great spiritual power. . . . When they will go out, they will be the cause of the awakening of spirituality in people. Know them to be part of the spiritual body of Sri Ramakrishna, who was the embodiment of infinite religious ideas. I look upon them with that eye. See, for instance, Brahmananda, who is here—even I have not the spirituality which he has. Sri Ramakrishna looked upon him as his mind-born son; and he lived and walked, ate and slept with him He is the ornament of our Math—our king.

He who has a dogged determination like that shall have everything…It is because we had such a determination that we have attained the little that we have. Otherwise, what dire days of privation we had to pass through! One day. for want of food I fainted in the outer platform of a house on the roadside, and quite a shower of rain drenched my head before I recovered my senses. Another day, I had to do odd jobs in Calcutta for the whole day without food, and had my meal on my return to the Math at ten or eleven in the night. And these were not solitary instances.

I worked for fulfilling the purpose for which the Lord (Sri Ramakrishna) came. He gave me the charge of them all (the youngsters) , who will contribute to the great wellbeing of the world, though most of them are not yet^? aware of it. They are each a centre of religious power and in time that power will manifest itself.

The disciples of Jesus were all Sannyasins. The direct recipients of the grace of Sankara, Ramanuja, Sri Chaitanya and Buddha were all-renouncing Sannyasins. It is men of this stamp who have been spreading the Brahma-vidya in the world…In Veda, Vedanta. Itibasa (history) Purana (ancient tradition) , you will find everywhere that the Sannyasins have been the teachers of Religion in all ages and climes. History repeats itself. It will also be likewise now. The capable Sannyasin children of Sri Ramakrishna, the teacher of the great synthesis of religions, will be honoured everywhere as the teacher of men.

Sri Ramakrishna used to say, “Whoever has prayed to God sincerely for one day, must come here.” Know each of the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna to be of great spiritual powet. Do not think them to be ordinary souls. They will be the source of the awakening of spirituality in people. Know them to be part of the spiritual body of Sri Ramakrishna, who was the embodiment of infinite religious ideas. I look upon them with that eye. See Brahmananda – even I have not the spirituality which he has. Sri Ramakrishna looked upon him as his spiritual son and he lived and walked, ate and slept with him. He is the ornament of our Math-our King. Similarly Premananda, Turiyananda, Trigunantita, Akhandananda, Saradananda, Ramakrishnananda, Subodhananda and others.

To create a band of men who are tied and bound together with the most undying love in spite of differences, is it not wonderful? This band will increase.

The ways, movements and ideas of our Master were all cast in a new mould, so we are also of a new type. Sometimes dressed like gentlemen, we are engaged in lecturing; at other times, throwing all aside, with “Hara, Hara, Aum, Aum,” on the lips, ash smeared on the body, we are immersed in meditation and austerities in mountains and forests.

Referring to history, we see that only that fragment which is fit will survive and what makes fit to survive but character?…

Let me tell you a little personal experience. When my Master left the body, we were a dozen penniless and unknown young men. Against us were a hundred powerful organisations, struggling hard to nip us in the bud. But Ramakrishna had given us one great gift, the desire, and the lifelong struggle, not to talk alone, but to live the life. And today all India knows and reverences the Master, and the truths he taught are spreading like wildfire. Ten years ago, I . could not get a hundred persons together to celebrate his birthday anniversary. In 1894, there were fifty-thousand.

His thoughts and his message were known to very few capable of giving them out. Among others, he left a few young boys who had renounced the world, and were ready to carry on his work. Attempts were made to crush them. But they stood firm, having the inspiration of that great life before them. Having had the contact of that blessed life for years, they stood their ground. These young men living as Sannyasins, begged through the streets of the city where they were born, although some of them came from high families. At first, they met with great antagonism, but they persevered and went on from day to day spreading all over India the message of that great man, until the whole country was filled with the ideas he had preached.

I am not taking pride in this. But, mark you, I have told the story of that group of boys. Today, there is not a village, not a man, not a woman in India that does not know their work and bless them. There is not a famine in the land where these boys do not plunge in and try to work and rescue as many as they can.

I believed, and still believe that without my giving up the world, the great mission which Ramakrishna Parama-hamsa, my great Master, came to preach, would not see the light; and where would those young men be who have stood as bulwarks against the surging waves of materialism and luxury of the day? These have done a great deal of good to India, especially to Bengal, and this is only the beginning. With the Lord’s help, they will do things for which the whole world will bless them for ages. So on the one hand my vision of the future Indian religion and that of the whole world, my love for the millions of beings sinking down and down for ages with nobody to help them, nay nobody with even a thought for them; on the other hand, making those who are nearest and dearest miserable. I chose the former and “Lord will do the rest.” He is with me, I am sure of that, if of anything. So long as l am sincere, nothing can resist me because He will be my help. Many and many in India could not understand me; and how could they, poor men? Their thoughts never strayed beyond the everyday routine business of eating and drinking … But appreciation or no appreciation, I am born to organise these young men……nay, more…… And this I will do or die. We are a unique company……Nobody amongst us has a right to force his faith upon others……Many of us do not believe in any form of idolatry…… What harm is there in worshipping the Guru when that Guru was a hundred times more holy than even the historical Prophets all taken together? If there is no harm in worshipping Christ, Krishna, or Buddha, why should there be any harm in -worshipping this man who never did or thought anything unholy, whose intellect only through intuition stands head and shoulders above all the other Prophets because they were all one-sided?

25-3-1887 – I have attained my present state of mind as a result of much suffering and pain. I now realise that without trials and tribulations, one cannot resign oneself to God and depend on Him absolutely.

I have noticed a peculiar thing. Some objects or places make me feel as if I had seen them before, in a previous birth. They appear familiar to me. One day I went to Sarat’s house on Amherst Street. Immediately I said to Sarat: “This house seems familiar to me. It seems to me that I have known the rooms, the passages, and the rest of the house for many, many days.”

April 9, 1887 – Now and then I feel great scepticism.

At Baburam’s house it seemed to me that nothing existed, as if there were no such thing as God.

Whatever spiritual discipline we are practising here (Baranagore Math) is in obedience to the Master’s command. But it is strange that Ram Babu criticises us for our spiritual practices, He says, “We have seen him (Sri Ramakrishna). What need have we of any such practice?” But the Master asked us to practise sadhana.

May 7, 1887 – I don’t care for anything, I shall fast un to death for the relization of God.

It seems there is no God. I pray so much, but there is no reply, none whatsoever.

How many visions I have seen! How many mantras shining in letters of gold! How many visions of the Goddess Kali! How many other divine forms! But still I have no peace.

B

Brindaban, 12-8-1888—Leaving Ayodhya I have reached Brindaban, and am putting up at Kala Babu’s Kunja…..I have a mind to proceed very shortly to Hardwar.

20-8-1888 — I postpone my going to Haridwar for some days.

I saw many great men in Hrishikesh. One case that I remember was that of a man who seemed to be mad, He was coming nude down the street, with boys pursuing and throwing stones at him. The man was bubbling over with laughter, while blood was streaming down his face and neck. I took him and bathed the wound, putting ashes (made by burning a piece of cotton cloth) on it, to stop bleeding. And all the time, with peals of laughter, he told me of the fun the boys and he had been having throwing the stones. “So the Father plays,” he said.

Many of these men hide, in order to guard themselves against intrusion. People are a nuisance to them. One had human bones strewn about his cave, and gave it ouj that he lived on corpses. Another threw stones; and.so on.

Sometimes the thing comes upon them in a flash. There was a boy. for instance, who used to come to read the Upanishads with Abhedananda. One day, he turned and said, “Sir, is all this really true?“ “Oh, Yes!” said A^bhedananda, “It may be difficult to realise, but it is certainly true.” And next day, that boy was a silent Sannyasin, nude, on his way to Kedarnath!

Baranagore: 19-11-1888 — A good deal of study is given to Sanskrit scriptures in this Math. This Math is not wanting in men of perseverence, talent and penetrative intellect.

Baghbazar: 28-11-1888 — I had an attack of fever sigain. I am ailing much.

Baranagore: 4-2-1889— I am going now on a pilgrimage to the place of my Master’s nativity, and after a sojourn of few a days there, I shall present myself at Banaras.

22-2-1889 — I had intended to go to Banaras and I planned to reach there after visiting the birthplace of my Master. But, unluckily, on the way to that village, I had an attack of high fever followed by vomitting and purging as in cholera. There was again fever after three or four days.

Baghbazar (Calcutta) 21-3-1889 — I am very ill at present; there is fever now and then, but there is no disorder in the spleen or other organs. I am under homeopathic treatment. Now I have to give up completely the intention of going to Banaras. Whatever God dispenses will happen, later on according to the state of the body……My going there is very uncertain.

4-7-1889 — Some relative of my former life (i.e the life which I have renounced) has purchased a bungalow at Simultala (near Baidyanath – Bihar). The place being credited with a healthy climate, I stayed there tor some time. But the summer heat growing excessive, I had an attack of acute diarrhoea, and I have just fled away from the place. By the will of God, the last six or seven years of my life have been full of constant struggles with hindrances and obstacles of all sorts. I have been vouchsafed the ideal Shastra; I have seen the ideal man; and yet I fail myself to get on with anything to the end -this is my profound misery.

I see no chance of success, while remaining near Calcutta. In Calcutta, my mother and two brothers live, I am the eldest; the second.is preparing for the first Arts, ex&m., and the third is young.

They were quite well off before, but since my father’s death, it is going very hard with them – they even have to go fasting at times! To crown all, some relatives taking

advantage of their helplessness drove them away from the ancestral residence. Though a part of it is recovered through law suits at the High Court, destitution is now upon them, a matter of course in litigation.

Living near Calcutta, I have to witness their adversity; and the quality of Rajas prevailing, my egotism sometimes develops into the form of a desire that rises to plunge me into action; in such moments, a fierce fighting ensues in my mind. Now their law suit has come to an end. y

Simla: Cal. 14-7-89- My difficulties here have almost come to a close, only I have engaged the services of a broker for the sale of a piece of land, and I hope the sale will be over soon. In that case, I shall be free from all worry.

Calcutta, 4 July 1889 • By the will of God, the last six or seven years of my life have been full of constant struggles with hindrances and obstacles of all sorts. I have been vouchsafed the ideal Shastra; I have seen the ideal man; and yet fail myself to get on with anything to the end—this is my profound misery. And particularly, I see no chance of success while remaining near Calcutta. In Calcutta live my mother and two brothers. I am the eldest; the second is preparing for the First Arts Examination, and the third is young. They were quite well off before, but since my father’s death, it is going very hard with them— they even have to go fasting at times! To crown all, some relatives, taking advantage of their helplessness, drove them away from the ancestral residence. Though a part of it is recovered through suing at the High Court, destitution is now upon them—a matter of course in litigation. Living near Calcutta I have to witness their adversity, and the quality of Rajas prevailing, my egotism sometimes develops into the form of a desire that rises to plunge me into action; in such moments, a fierce fighting ensues in my mind, and so I wrote that the state of my mind was terrible. Now their lawsuit has come to an end

17-8-89 – I have no partiality for any party in this caste question, because I know it is a social law and is based on diversity of Guna and Karma. It also means grave harm if one, bent on going beyond Guna and Karma, cherishes in mind any caste distinctions. In these matters, I have got some ideas through the grace of my Guru.

Baghbazar: 3-12-89 – Two of my brother-disciples are shortly leaving for Banaras. One is Rakhal (Brahma-nanda) by name, the other is Subodh (Subodhananda). The first named was beloved of my Master and used to stay much with him.

Gangadhar is now proceeding to Kailas. The Tibetans wanted to slash him up on the way, taking him to be a spy of the foreigners. Eventually some Lamas kindly set him free; his physical endurance has grown immensely – one night he passed uncovered on a bed of snow, and that without much hardship.

But there is the chain of iron, and there is the chain of gold. Much good comes of the latter, and it drops off by itself when all the good is reaped. The sons of my Master are indeed the great objects of my service, and here alone I feel I have some duty left for me. Perhaps, I shall send brother K, down to Allahabad or somewhere else as convenient.

Baidyanath: 24-12-1889 – I have been staying for the last few days at Baidyanath in Purna Babu’s lodge. I am suffering from indigestion, probably due to excess of iron in the water……I leave for Banaras tomorrow.

My idea is to remain there for some time, and to watch how Viswanath and Annapurna deal out my lot. And my resolve is something like “either to lay down my life or realise my ideal” –

Allahabad: 30-12-1889 — I was to go to Banaras, but news reached me that a brother-disciple, Yogananda by name, had been attacked with small-pox after arriving here from a pilgrimage to Chitrakuta, Omkarnath etc., and so I came to this place to nurse him.

Ghazipur: 24-1-90— I reached Ghazipur three days ago. Here I am putting up in the house of Babu Satish Chandra Mukherjee, a friend of my early age.

The place is very pleasant. Close by flows the Ganges……

I again had a great mind to go over to Kashi (Banaras), but the object of my coming here, namely, an interview with the Babaji (Pavahari Baba, the great saint), has not yet been realised.

Ghazipur: 30-1-90— Of the few places I have recently visited, this is the healthiest. The few days I passed at Banaras, I suffered from fever day and night……I have visited Pavahari Baba’s house – there are high walls all round, and it is fashioned like an English bungalow. There is a garden inside and big rooms, chimneys etc. He allows nobody to enter. If he is so ^inclined, he comes up to the door and speaks from inside -that is all. One day I went and waited and waited in the cold and had to return. After a few days’ stay at Banaras, I shall start for Hrishikesh.

It is so very difficult to meet Babaji. He does not step out of his home.

4-2-90 — Through sorfie good fortune, I have obtained an interview with Babaji. A great sage indeed! It is all very wonderful, and in this atheistic age, a tower-, ing representation of marvellous power born of Bhakti and Yoga! I have sought refuge in his grace, and he has given me hope – a thing very few may be fortunate enough to obtain. It is Babaji’s wish that I stay on for some days here, and he would do me some good. So following the saints bidding, I shall remain here for some time………

Unless one is face to face with the life of such men, faith in the scriptures does not grow in all its real integrity.

I am not leaving this place soon – it is impossible to turn down Babaji’s request.

A pain in the loins is giving me much trouble.

7-2-90 – Apparently in his features, the Babaji is a Vaishnava, the embodiment, so to speak, of Yoga, Bhakti and humility, His dwelling has walls on all sides with a few doors in them. Inside these walls, there is one long underground burrow wherein he lays himself up in Sama-dhi. He talks to others only when he comes out of the hole. Nobody knows what he eats, and so they call him Pavahari Baba (i. e . one living on air). Once he did not come out of the hole for five years, and people thought he had given up the body. But, now again he is -out. This time, however he does not show himself to people and talks from behind the door. Such sweetness in speech I have never come across! He does not give a direct reply to questions but says “What does this servant know?” But then fire comes out as the talking goes on. On my pressing him very much he said, “Favour me high-ly by staying here some days.” But he never speaks in this way; so from this I understood he meant to reassure me; and whenever I am importunate, he asks me to stay on. So I wait and hope. He is a learned man no doubt, nothing in the line betrays itself. He performs scriptural ceremonials, for from the full-moon day to the last day of the month, sacrificial oblations go on. So it is sure he is not retiring into the hole during this period.

13-2-90 – I am having some sort of pain in the loins which, being aggravated of late, gives much trouble. For two days I could not go out to meet Babaji, and so a man came from him to enquire about me. For this reason, I go today………Such amazing endurance and humility I have never seen.

14-2-90 – If Mother [Sri Sarada Devi] has come, please convey to her my countless salutations, and ask her to bless me that I may have unflinching perseverance. Or, if that be impossible in this body, may it fall off soon!

25-2-90 – The lumbago is giving a good deal of trouble. It is three days since I came away from Babaji’s place, but he enquires of me kindly almost every day.

February: 90 – Brother Kali is having repeated attacks of fever at Hrishikesh. I have sent him a wire from this place. So if from the reply I find I am wanted by him, I shall be obliged to start direct for Hrishikesh from this place; otherwise, I go to Banaras. Weaving all this web of Maya? – and that is no doubt the fact.

PAVAHARI BABA

I once knew a Yogi, a very old man, who lived in a hole in the ground all by himself. All he had was a pan or two to cook his meals in. He ate very little and wore scarcely anything and spent most of his time meditating.

With him all people were alike. He had attained to non-injuring. What he saw in everything, in every person, in every animal was the Soul, the Lord of the universe. With him, every person and every animal was “my Lord.” He never addressed any person or animal in any other way. Well, one day a thief came his way and stole one of his pans. He saw him and ran after him. The chase was a long one. At last, the thief from exhaustion had to stop, and the Yogi running up to him, fell on his knees before him and said, “My Lord, you do me a great honour to come my way. Do me the honour to accept the other pan. It is also yours.” This old’man is dead now. He was full of love for everything in the world. He would have died for an ant. Wild animals instinctively knew this old man to be their friend. Snakes and ferocious animals would go into his hole and sleep with him. They all loved him and never fought in his presence.

The ideal of the Yogi is eternal peace and love through omniscience and omnipotence. I know of a Yogi who was bitten by a cobra, and so fell down on the ground. In the evening he revived again, and when asked what happened, he said, “A messenger came from my Beloved.” All hatred and anger and jealousy have been burned out of this man.

Like many others in India, there was no striking or stirring external activity in the life of Pavhari Baba. It was one more example of that Indian ideal of teaching through life and not through words. Persons of this type are entirely averse to preaching what they know, for they are for ever convinced that it is internal discipline alone that leads to Truth, and not words. Religion to them is no motive to social conduct, but an intense search after, and realisation of Truth in this life.

The present writer had occasion to ask the saint the reasonjof his not coming out of his cave to help the world. At first, with his native humility and humour, he gave the following strong reply:

“A certain wicked person was caught in some criminal act, and had his nose cut off as a punishment. Ashamed to show his noseless features to the world, and disgusted with himself, he fled into a forest, and there spreading a tiger skin on the ground, he would feign deep meditation, whenever he thought any body was about.

“This conduct, instead of keeping people off, drew them in crowds to pay their respects to this wonderful saint, and he found that his forest life had brought him once again an easy living. Thus years went by. At last, the people around became very eager to listen to some instruction from the lips of the silent meditative saint, and one young man was specially anxious to be initiated into the Order. It came to such a pass that any more delay in that line would undermine the reputation of the saint. So one day he broke his silence, and asked the enthusiastic young man to bring on the morrow a sharp razor with him. The young man, glad at the prospect of the great desire of his life being speedily fulfilled, came early the next morning with the razor. The noseless saint led him to a very retired spot in the forest, took the razor in his hand, opened it, and with one stroke cut off his nose repeating in a solemn voice, “Young man, this has been my initiation into the Order. The same I give to you. Do you transmit it diligently to others when the opportunity comes!” The young man could not divulge the secret of this wonderful initiation for shame, and carried out to the best of his ability the injunction of his master. Thus, a whole sect of nose-cut saints spread over the country. Do you want me to be the founder of another such?”

Later on, in a more serious mood, another query brought the answer: “Do you think that physical help is the only help possible? Is it not possible that one «mind can help other minds, even without the activity of the body?”

When asked on another occasion, why he, a great Yogi, should perform Karma, such as pouring oblations into the sacrificial fire, and worshipping the image of Sri Raghunathji, which are practices only meant for beginners, the reply came, “Why do you take for granted that everybody makes Karma for his own good? Cannot one perform Karma for others?”

One of his great peculiarities was his entire absorption in the task in hand, however trivial. The same amount of care and attention was bestowed on cleaning a copper pot, as on the worship of Sri Raghunathji, he himself being the best example of the secret he once told us of work, “The means should be loved and cared for as if it were the end itself.”

His humility was not kindred to that which means pain and anguish of self-abasement. It sprang naturally from the realisation of that which he once so beautifully explained to us: “O king, the Lord is the wealth of those who have nothing – yes, of those,” he continued, “who have thrown away all desires of possession, even that of one’s own soul.”

In appearance he was tall and rather fleshy, had but one eye, and looked much younger than his real age. His voice was the sweetest we have ever heard. The present writer owes a deep debt of gratitude to the departed saint and dedicates these lines, however, unworthy, to the memory of one of the greatest Masters he has loved and served.

Ghazipur: March 1890 – I am staying with Pava-hariji, the wonderful Raja-Yogin, and he has given me some hopes, too. There is a beautiful bungalow in a small garden belonging to a gentleman here. I mean to stay there. The garden is quite close to the Babaji’s cottage. A brother of the Babaji stays there to look after the comforts of the sadhus, and I have my Bhiksha at his place. Hence, with a view to seeing to the end of this fun, I give up for the present my plan of going to the hills. Let me wait and see what Babaji will give me.

My motto is to learn whatever good things I may come across anywhere. This leads many friends to think that it will take away my devotion to the Guru.

After Sri Ramakrishna’s leaving the body, I associated for some time with Pavhari Baba of Ghazipur. There was a garden not far distant from his Ashrama where I lived. People used to say it was a haunted garden, but I am a sort of demon myself and have not much fear of ghosts. In that garden there were many lemon trees which bore numerous fruits. At that time, I was suffering from diarrhoea, and there no food could be had except bread. So, to increase the digestive powers, I used to take plenty of lemons. Mixing with Pavhari Baba, I liked him very much and he also came to love me deeply. One day, I thought that I did not learn any art for making this weak body strong, after living with Sri Ramakrishna for so many years. I had heard that Pavhari Baba knew’the science of Hatha-yoga. So, I thought I would learn the practice of Hatha-yoga from him. and through it strengthen the body. By nature I have a dogged resolution and whatever I set my heart on, I always carry out. On the eve of the day on which I was to take initiation, (from Pavhari Baba), I was lying on a cot thinking and just then I saw the form of Sri Ramakrishna standing on my right side, looking steadfastly at me, as if very much grieved. I had dedicated myself to him, and at the thought that I was taking another Guru I was much ashamed and kept looking at him. Thus, perhaps, two or three hours passed, but no words escaped from my mouth. Then he disappeared all of a sudden. My mind became upset seeing Sri Ramakrishna that night; so, I postponed the idea of initiation from Pavhari Baba for the day. After a day or two again the idea of initiation from Pavhari Baba arose in the mind, and again in the night there was the appearance of Sri Ramakrishna as on the previous occasion. Thus when for several nights in succession I had the vision of Sri Ramakrishna, I gave up the idea of initiation altogether, thinking that as every time I resolved on it, I was getting such a vision, then no good but harm would come from it.

Ghazipur. 3-3-90 – The lumbago obstinately refuses to leave me, and the pain is very great. For the last few days I haven’t been able to go to see Pavhariji, but out of his kindness he sends every day for my report, but, now I see the whole matter is inverted in its bearings! While I myself have come as a beggar at his door, he turns round and wants to learn of me! This saint perhaps is not yet perfected – too much of works, vows, observances, and too much of self-concealment.

By my stay here, I have been cured of all other symptoms of malaria, only the pain in the loins make me frantic; day and night it is aching and chafes me very much……I find wonderful endurance in Babaji, and that is why I am begging something of him, but no inkling of the mood to give, only receiving and receiving! So, I also fly off.

To no big person am I going any longer. “Remain, O mind, within yourself etc,” Says the poet Kamala-kanta.

So now the great conclusion is that Ramakrishna has no peer, nowhere else in this world exists that unprecedented perfection, that wonderful kindness for all, that does not stop to justify itself, that intense sympathy for the man in bondage. Either he must be an Avatara as he himself used to say, or else the ever-perfected divine man of whom the Vedanta speaks as the Free One who assumes a body for the good of humanity. This is my conviction sure and certain; and the worship of such a divine man has been referred to by Patanjali in the aphorism;

“Or the goal may be attained by meditating on a saint.” (Patanjal Darshan – aphorisun 1/37: The mind becomes calm when meditating on a person unattached to sense-object.)

Ghazipur: 3-3-50- I am a very soft-natured man in spite of the stern Vedantic views I hold. And this proves to be my undoing. At the slightest touch, I give myself away; for howsoever I may try to think only of my own good, I slip off in spite of myself to think of other people’s interests. This time it was with a very stern resolve that I set out to pursue my own good; but I had to run off at the news of the illness of a brother at Allahabad. And now comes this news from Hrishikesh  and my mind has run off with me there.

15-3-90 – I am leaving this place tomorrow. Let me see which way destiny leads!

31-3-90 – I haven’t been here for the last few days and am again away today. I have asked brother Gangadhar [Swami Akhandananda] to come here, and if he comes, we go over to Benares together. For some special reason, I shall continue to stay in secret in a village some distance off this place. The news of his arrival is not yet received and his health being bad, I am very anxious for his sake. I have behaved very cruelly towards him – that is, I have harassed him much to make him leave my company.

There is no help……I am so very weak-hearted, so much overmastered by the distractions of love!… What shall I say about the condition of my mind! Oh, it is as if the hell-fire is burning there day and night! Nothing,nothing could I do yet! And this life seems muddled away in vain; I feel quite helpless as to what to do! The Babaji throws out honeyed words and keeps me from leaving. Ah, what shall I say? I am… a man driven mad with mental agonies. Abhedananda is suffering from dysentery… My Gurubais must be thinking me very cruel and selfish. Oh, what can I do? Who will see deep down into my mind? Who will know how much I am suffering day and night?… My lumbago is as before.

2-4-90 – My salutations to Pramada Babu; his is a friendship which greatly benefits both my mind and body. And I am particularly indebted to him. Things will turn up some way, anyhow.

Baranagore: 10-5-90 – Directly the hot weather relaxes a little I am off from this place, but I am still at a loss where to go.

Baghbazar, Cal. 26-5-90 – I am Ramakrishna’s slave, having laid my body at his feet ‘‘with til and tulsi leaves.” I cannot disregard his behest. If it is in failure that that great sage laid down his life after having attained to superhuman heights of Jnana, Bhakti, Love and Powers, and after having practised for forty years stern renunciation, non-attachment, holiness and great austeries, then where is there anything for us to count on? So, I am obliged to trust his words as the words of one identified with Truth.

Now his behest to me was that I should devote myself to the service of the Order of all – renouncing devotees founded by him, and in this, I have to persevere, come what may, being ready to take heaven, hell, salvation or anything that may happen to me.

His command was that his all-renouncing devotees should group themselves together and I am entrusted with seeing to this. Of course, it matters not if anyone of us goes out on visits to this place or that, but these shall be but visits, while his own opinion was that absolute homeless wandering suited him alone who was perfected to the highest point. Before that state, it is proper to settle somewhere to dive down into practice.

So in pursuance of this his commandment, his group of Sannyasins are now assembled in a dilapidated house at Baranagore, and two of his lay disciples, Babu Suresh Chandra Mitra and Babu Balaram Bose, so long provided for their food and house-rent.

For various reasons the body of Bhagavan Ramakrishna had to be consigned to fire… The remains of his ashes are now preserved, and if they can be now properly enshrined somewhere on the banks of the Ganges, I presume we shall be able in some measure to expiate the sin lying on our head. These sacred remains, his seat and his picture are everyday worshipped in our Math in proper form; a brother-disciple of mine, of Brahmin parentage, is occupied day and night with the task. The expenses of the worship used also to be borne by the two great souls mentioned above.

What greater regret there can be than this that no-memorial could yet be raised in this land of Bengal in the very neighbourhood of the place where he lived his life of sadhana – he by whose birth the race of Bengalees has-been sanctified, the land of Bengal has become hallowed; he who came on earth to save the Indians from the spell of the wordly glamour of Western culture, and who, therefore, chose most of his all-renouncing disciples from university men?

The two gentlemen mentioned above had a strong desire to have some land purchased on the banks of the Ganges and see the sacred remains enshrined on it, with the disciples living there together; and Suresh Babu had offered a sum of Rs. 1,000/- for the purpose, promising to give more, but for some inscrutable purpose of God, he left this world yesternight! And Balaram Babu’s death has already occurred.

Now there is no knowing as to where his disciples will stand with his sacred remains and his seat. The disciples are Sannyasins and are ready forthwith to depart anywhere their way may lie. But, I, their servant, am in an agony of sufferings, and my heart is breaking to think that a small peice of land could not be had in which to install the remains of Bhagavan Ramakrishna.

I have not the slightest qualm to beg from door to door for this noble cause, for the sake of my Lord and his Children… To my mind, if all these sincere, educated youthful Sannyasins of good birth fail to live up to the ideals of Sri Ramakrishna owing to want of an abode and help, then alas for our country!

If asked. “You are a Sannyasin, so why do you trouble over these desires?” – I would then reply, “I am Ramakrishna’s servant, and I am willing even to steal and rob, if by doing so, I can perpetuate his name in the land of his birth and sadhana, and help even a little his disciples to practise his great ideals… I have returned to Calcutta for this reason.

Baghbazar, Cal. 4-6-90 – It is quite true that the Lord’s Will will prevail. We are spreading out here and there in small groups of two or three. I got two letters from Brother Gangadhar. He is at present in’ the house of Gagan Babu, suffering from an attack of influenza. Gagan Babu is taking special care of him. He will come here as soon as he recovers.

6-7-90 – I had no wish to leave Ghazipur this time, and certainly not to come to Calcutta, but Kali’s illness made me go to Banaras, and Balaram’s sudden death brought me to Calcutta. So, Suresh babu and Balaram Babu have both gone! G.C. Ghosh is supporting the Math…I intend shortly, as soon as I can get my fare, to go up to Almora and thence to some place in Gbarwal on the Ganges where I can settle down for a long meditation-Gangadhar is accompanying me. Indeed it was with this desire and intention that I brought him down from Kashmir.

I am in fine health now.

Travels in India as an Unknown Sannyasin

I was once travelling in the Himalayas and the long road stretched before us. We poor monks cannot get any one to carry us, so we had to make all the way on foot. There was an old man with us. The way goes up and down for hundreds of miles, and when that old monk saw what was before him, he said, “Oh, Sir, how to cross it? I cannot walk any more, my chest will break.” I said to him, “Look down at your feet.” He did so, and I said, “The road that is under your feet is the road that you see before you; it will soon be under your feet.” The highest things are under your feet, because you are Divine Stars; all these things are under your feet. You can swallow the stars by the handful if you want; such is your real nature. Be strong, get beyond all superstition, and be free.

Many times I have been in the jaws of death, starving, footsore, and weary; for days and days I had had no food, and often could walk no further; I would sink down under a tree, and life would seem ebbing away. I could not speak; I could scarcely think, but at last the mind reverted to the idea: “I have no fear of death; I never hunger or thirst. I am it, I am it; the whole of nature cannot crush me; it is my servant. Assert thy strength, Thou Lord of Lords and God of Gods! Regain Thy lost empire! Arise and walk and stop not!” and I would rise up, re-invigorated, and here am I, living today.

Once when I was in Varanasi, I was passing through a place where there was a large tank of water on one side and a high wall on the other. It was in the grounds where there were many monkeys. The monkeys of Varanasi are huge brutes and are sometimes surly. They now took it into their heads not to allow me to pass through their street, so they howled and shrieked and clutched at my feet as I passed. As they pressed closer, I began to run, but the faster I ran, the faster came the monkeys and they began to bite at me. It seemed impossible to escape, but just then I met a stranger who called out to me, “Face the brutes!” I turned and faced the monkeys, and they fell back and finally fled. That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them. Once in Western India I was travelling in the desert country on the coast of the Indian Ocean. For days and days I used to travel on foot through the desert, but it was to my surprise that I saw every day beautiful lakes, with trees all around them, and the shadows of the trees upside down and vibrating there. “How wonderful it looks and they call this a desert country!” I said to myself. Nearly a month I travelled, seeing these wonderful lakes and trees and plants. One day I was very thirsty and wanted to have a drink of water, so I started to go to one of these clear, beautiful lakes, and as I approached, it vanished. And with a flash it came to my brain, “This is the mirage about which I have read all my life,” and with that came also the idea that throughout the whole of this month, every day, I had been seeing the mirage and did not know it. The next morning I began my march. There was again the lake, but with it came also the idea that it was the mirage and not a true lake.

Real monasticism is not easy to attain. There is no order of life so rigorous as this. If you stumble ever so little, you are hurled down a precipice – and are smashed to pieces. One day, I was travelling on foot from Agra to Vrindaban. There was no farthing with me. I was about a couple of miles from Vrindaban, when I found a man smoking on the roadside, and I was seized with a desire to smoke. I said to the man, “Hello, will you let me have a puff at your chillum?” He seemed to be hesitating greatly and said, “Sir, I am a sweeper!” Well, there was the influence of the old samskaras, and I immediately stepped back and resumed my journey without smoking. I had gone a short distance when the thought occurred to me that I was a Sannyasin who had renounced caste, family, prestige and everything and still I drew back as soon as the man gave himself out as a sweeper, and could not smoke the chillum touched by him! The thought made me restless at heart: then I had walked on half a mile. Again, I retraced my steps and came to the sweeper whom I found still sitting there. I hastened to tell him, “Do prepare a chillum of tobacco for me, my dear friend.” I paid no heed to his objection and insisted on having it. So, the man was compelled to prepare a chillum for me. Then I gladly had a puff at it and proceeded to Vrindaban.

You find that in every religion, mortifications and asceticisms have been practised. In these religious conceptions the Hindus always go to the extremes. I once saw a man who had kept his hands raised in this way, and I asked him how it felt when he did it first. He said it was awful torture. It was such a torture that he had to go to a river and put himself in water, and that allayed the pain for a little while. After a month, he did not suffer much. Through such practices, powers (Siddhis) can be attained.

When I was in Jaipur, I met a great grammarian and felt a desire to study Sanskrit grammar with him. Although he was a great scholar in that branch, he had not much aptitude for teaching. He explained to me the commentary on the first aphorism for three days continuously, still I could not grasp a bit of it. On the fourth day, the teacher got amazed and said, “Swamiji, I could not make you understand the meaning of the first aphorism even in three days; I fear, you will not be much benefited by my teaching.” Hearing these words, a great self-reproach came over me. Putting food and sleep aside, I set myself to study the commentry on the first aphorism independently. Within three hours the sense of the commentary stood explained before me as clearly as anything. Then going to my teacher, I gave him the sense of the whole commentary. My teacher, hearing me said, “How could you gather the sense so excellently within three hours, which I failed to explain to you in three days?’¹. After that, every day, I began to read chapter after chapter, with great ease. Through concentration of mind everything can be accomplished – even mountains can be crushed to atoms. , – ‘

In Malabar……the women lead in everything.Exceptional cleanliness is apparent everywhere, and there is the great impetus to learning. When I myself was in that country, I met many women who spoke good Sanskrit, while in the rest of India, not one woman in a million can speak it.

Once while I was putting up at Manmatha Babu’s place (in Madras), I dreamt one night that my mother had died. My mind became much distracted. Not to speak of correspondence with anybody at home, I used to send no letters in those days even to our Math, (at Baranagore). The dream being disclosed to Manmatha, be sent a wire to Calcutta to ascertain facts about tbe matter. For the dream had made my mind uneasy on the one hand, and on the other, our Madras friends with all arrangements ready, were insisting on my departing for America immediately, and I felt rather unwilling to leave before getting any news of my mother. So Manmatha, who discerned this state of my mind suggested our repairing to a man living some way off from town, who having acquired mystic powers over spirits could tell fortunes, and read the past and future of man’s life. So at Manmatha’s request and to get rid of my mental suspense, I agreed to go to this man. Covering the distance partly by railway and partly on foot, we four of us – Manmatha, Alasinga, myself and another – managed to reach the place, and what met our eyes there was a man with ghoulish, haggard, sootblack appearance, sitting close to a cremation ground. His attendents used some Madrassi dialect to explain to us that this was the man with perfect power over the ghosts. At first, the man took absolutely no notice of us, and then, when we were about to retire from the place, he made a request to us to wait.

Our Alasinga was acting as the interpreter and he explained the request to us. Next, the man commenced drawing some figures with a pencil, and presently I found him getting perfectly still in mental concentration. Then, he began to give out my name, my genealogy, the history of my long line of forefathers, and said that Sri Ramakrishna was keeping close to me all through my wanderings, intimating also to me good news about my mother. He also foretold that I would have to go very soon to far-off lands for preaching religion. Getting good news thus about my mother, we all travelled back to town, and after arrival there, received by wire from

Calcutta the assurance of mother’s doing well. Everything that the man had foretold came to be fulfilled to the letter, call it some fortuitous occurrence or anything you will.

I know very little of this science (of mind); but for the little that I gained, I worked for thirty years of my life, and for six years I have been telling people the little that I know. It took me thirty years to learn it; thirty years of hard struggle. Sometimes I worked at it twenty -hours during the twenty-four. Sometimes I slept only one hour in the night; sometimes I worked whole nights; sometimes I lived in places where there was hardly a sound, hardly a breath: sometimes I had to live in caves. Think of that. And yet I know little or nothing. I have barely touched the hem of the garment of this science. But, I can understand that it is true and vast and wonderful.

I have met some who told me they did remember their previous life. They had reached a point where they could remember their former incarnations.

When I became a Sannyasin I consciously took the step, knowing that this body would have to die of starvation. What of that, I am a beggar. My friends are poor. I love the poor, I welcome poverty. I am glad that I sometimes have to starve.

In the course of my wanderings, I was in a certain place where people came to me in crowds and asked for instruction. Though it seems almost unbelievable, people came and made me talk for three days and nights without giving me a moment’s rest. They did not even ask me whether I had eaten. On the third night, when all the visitors had left, a lowcaste poor man came up to me and said, “Swamiji, I am much pained to see that you have not had any food these three days. You must be very tired and hungry. Indeed, I have noticed that you have not even taken a glass of water!” I thought that the Lord Himself had come in the form of this lowcaste man to test me. I asked him, “Can you give me something to eat?” The man said, “Swamiji, my heart is yearning to » give you food; but how can you eat chapaties baked by my hands; If you allow me, I shall be most glad to bring flour, lentils, and other things and you may cook them yourself.” At that time, according to the monastic rules, I did not touch fire. So I said to him, “You had better give me the chapaties cooked by you. I will gladly take them.” Hearing this, the man shrank in fear; he was a subject of the Maharajah of Khetri and was afraid that if the latter came to hear that he, a cobbler, had given Chapatis to a Sannyasin, he would be severely dealt with and possibly banished from the State. I told him, however, that he need not fear and the Maharajah would not punish him. He did not belive me. But out of the kindness of his heart, even though he feared the consequence, he brought me the cooked food. I doubted at that time whether it would have been more palatable if Indra, a King of the Devas, should have held a cup of nectar in a golden basin before me. I shed tears of love and gratitude and thought, “Thousands of such large -hearted men live in lowly huts, and we despise them as low castes and untouchables.” When I became well acquainted with the Maharajah, I told him of the noble act of this man. Accordingly, within a few days the latter was called to the presence of the prince. Frightened beyond words, the man came shaking all over, thinking that some dire punishment was to be inflicted upon him. But the Maharajah praised him and put him beyond all want.

O, the days of suffering I passed through ! Once after eating nothing for three days, I fell down senseless on the road. I did not know how long I was in that state. When I regained my consciousness I found my clothing wet through a shower of rain. Drenched in it, I felt somewhat refreshed. I arose, and after trudging along some distance, I reached a monastery, and my life was saved by the food I received there.

I find that whenever I have made a mistake in my life, it has always been because self entered into the calculation; where self has not been involved, my judgement has gone straight to the mark.

Preparations for the Journey West

I had from before a desire to go to Chicago. When at Madras, the people there of their own accord, in conjunction with the H. H. of Mysore and Ramnad, made every arrangement to send me up…Between the H. H. of Khetri and myself there exist the closest ties of love. Well, I, as a matter of course, wrote to him that I was going to America. Now the Raja of Khetri thought in his love that I was bound to see him once before I departed, especially as the Lord gave him an heir to the throne and great rejoicings were going on there” and to make sure of my coming he sent his Private Secretary all the way to Madras to fetch me.

There were my Gurubhais at Junagad…Of them one is our leader. I met them after three years and we came together as far as Abu and then I left them.

Margoa : 1893 – I reached here safe. I went to visit Panjim and a few other villages and temples nearby. I returned just today. I have given up the intention of visiting Gokarna, Mahabaleswar and other places. I start for Dharwar by the morning train tomorrow. Doctor Yogdekar’s friend was very hospitable to me. The town of Panjim is very neat and clean. Most of the Christians here are literate. The Hindus are mostly uneducated.

You see, in my travels through India all these years, I have come across many a great soul, many a heart overflowing with loving kindness, sitting at their feet I used to feel a mighty current of strength coursing into my heart, and the few words I tell you are only through the force of that current gained by coming in contact with them. Do not think I am myself something great!

Baroda : 26-4-92- I had not the least difficulty in reaching the house ( of Sri Haridas Viharidas Desai, Dewan of Junagad ) from the station of Nadiad-.Mr. Manibhai has provided every comfort for me…As to his company, I have only seen him twice; once for a minute and the other for 10 minutes at the most when he talked about the system of education here. Of course, I have seen the library and the pictures of Ravi Varma and that is about all worth seeing here. So, I am going off this evening to Bombay… At Nadiad, I met Mr. Manilal Nanubhai. He is a very learned and pious gentleman and I enjoyed his company much.

Poona : 15-6-92 –1 came down with the Thakore Saheb of Mahabaleshwar and I am living here with him. I would remain here a week or more and then proceed to Rameshwar via Hyderabad……I saw the Surti tutor to the Prince of Bhavnagar – He is a perfect gentleman. It was quite a privilege to make his acquaitance, he is so good and noble-natured a man.

Bombay: 22-8-92 – Yesterday I saw Mr. Manahashukharam who has lodged a Sannyasi friend with him. He is very kind to me and so is his son… After remaining here for 15 or 20 days I would proceed towards Rameshwar.

Hyderabad: 21-2-93- A young graduate came to receive me at the station, and also a Bengali gentleman, At present I am living with the Bengali gentleman; (father of late Sarojini Naidu-Dr. Aghorenath Chatterjee) tomorrow, I go to live with the young friend for a few days and then I see the different sights here, and in a few days expect to be at Madras……I cannot bear heat at all. So the next thing I would do would be to go back to Bangalore and then to Ootacamund to pass the summer there. My brain boils in heat.

So all my plans have been dashed to the ground. That is why I wanted to hurry off from Madras early. In that case, I would have months left in my hands to seek for somebody amongst our nothern princes to send me over to America. But alas, it is now too late. First, I cannot wander about in this heat – I would die. Secondly, my fast friends in Rajputana would keep me bound down to their sides if they get hold of me and would not let me go over to Europe. So my plan was to get hold of some new person without my friend’s knowledge. But this delay at Madras has dashed all my hopes to the ground, and with a deep sigh, I give it up and the Lord’s will be done ! “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, for Thine is the glory and the Kingdom for ever and ever.

Khetri: 27-4-93 – As to my taking ship I have already made arrangements from Bombay……The Raja or my Gurubhais would be the last men to put any obstacles in my way……As for the Rajaji, his love for me is simply without limit.

Khetri : 28-4-93 – I am shortly going back to Bombay, say in 20 days……Here the Khetri Rajaji was very, very anxious to see me and sent his Private Secretary to Madras; and so I was bound to leave for Khetri. But the heat is quite intolerable and so, I am flying off very soon- I have made the acquaintances of nearly all the Dakshini Rajas and have seen most queer sights in many places..I saw Ratilalbhai in the train. He is the same nice and kind gentleman.

Bombay: 22-5-93 – Reached Bombay a few days ago and would start off in a few days……The Private Secretary to H.H. of Khetri and I are now residing together. I cannot express my gratitude to him for his love and kindness to me. He is what they call a Tazimi Sardar in Rajaputana, i.e., one of those whom the Rajas receive by rising from their seats. Still he is so simple and sometimes his service for me makes me almost ashamed.

Bombay, 24 May 1893 – Arrangements are all ready for my starting for America on the 31st next.

 

The companionship of the holy and the wise is one of the main elements of spiritual progress. –

– SRI RAMAKRISHNA.

The first work that demands our attention is that the most wonderful truths confined in our Upanishads, in our Scriptures, in our Puranas – must be brought out from the books and scattered broadcast all over the land. –

– SWAMI VIVEKANANDA.

I do not take into any consideration whether people accept Sri Ramakrishna’s name or not, but I am ready to lay down my life to help his teachings, his life and his message spread all over the world.

I am called by the Lord for this. I have been dragged through a whole life full of crosses and tortures; I have seen the nearest and dearest die, almost of starvation: I have been ridiculed, distrusted, and have suffered for my sympathy for the very men who scoff and scorn me.

I do not care for liberation, or for devotion; I would rather go to a hundred thousand hells, “doing good to others (silently) like the spring” – this is my religion.

Yes, my own life is guided by the enthusiasm of a certain great personality, but what of that? Inspiration was never filtered out to the world through one man

It is true I believe Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to have been inspired. But then I myself am inspired also.

I belong as much to India as to the world…What country has any special claim on me? Am I any nation’s slave?

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

I do not believe in any politics. God and truth are the only politics in the world, everything else is trash.

Truth is my God, the universe my country.

Before proceeding to America, I wrote to Mother (Sri Sarada Devi) to bless me. Her blessings came and at one bound, I cleared the ocean.

1893: The Parliament of Religions is being organised ‘ for this (pointing to himself) – My mind tells me so. You will see it verified at no distant date.

Bombay: 24-5-93 – Arrangements are all ready for my starting for America on the 31st next. The Private Secretary to the Maharajah of Khetri has come here to see me off.

I want to give them dry, hard reason, softened in the sweetest syrup of love and made spicy with intense work, and cooked in the kitchen of Yoga, so that even a baby can easily digest it.

To put the Hindu ideas into English and then make out of dry philosophy and intricate Mythology and queer startling psychology, a religion which shall be easy, simple, popular, and at the same time, meet the requirements of the highest minds – is a task only those can understand who have attempted it. The abstract Advaita must become living – poetic in everyday life; out of hopelessly intricate Mythology must come concrete moral forms; and out of bewildering Yogi-ism must come the most scientific and practical psychology – and all this must be put in a form that a child may grasp it; that is my life’s work.

From Bombay we reached Colombo. Our steamer remained in port nearly the whole day, and we took the opportunity of getting off to have a look at the town. We _vdrove through the streets and the only thing I remember was a temple in which there was a gigantic Murti (image) of the Lord Budha in a reclining posture, entering Nirvana.

The next station was Penang, which is only a strip of land along the sea in the body of the Malay Peninsula. On our way from Penang to Singapore, we had glimpses of Sumatra with its high mountains, and the captain pointed out to me several places as the favourite haunts of pirates in days gone by.

Singapore has a fine botanical garden with the most splendid collection of palms. The beautiful fan-like palm called the traveller’s palm, grows here in abundance, and the breadfruit tree is everywhere. The celebrated mangosteen is as plentiful here as mangoes in Madras, but mango is nonpareil. Singapore possesses a fine museum, too.

Hong Kong next. Yon feel you have reached China, the Chinese element predominates so much. All labour, all trade seems to be in their hands. And Hong Kong is real China. As soon as the steamer casts anchor, you are besieged by hundreds of Chinese boats to carry you to the land. These boats with two helms are rather peculiar. The boatman lives in the boat with his family. Almost always the wife is at the helms managing one with her hands and the other with one of her feet. And in ninety per cent cases, you find a baby tied to her back, with the hands and feet of the little Chin left free. It is a quaint sight to see the little John Chinaman dangling very quietly from his mother’s back, while she is now setting with might and main, now pushing heavy loads, or jumping with wonderful ability from boat to boat. And there is such a rush of boats and steam launches coming in and going out, Baby John is every moment put into the risk of having his little head pulverised, pigtail and all; but he does not care a fig. This busy life seems to have no charm for him, and he is quite content to learn the anatomy of a bit of rice cake given to him from time to time by the madly busy mother. The Chinese child is quite a philosopher, and calmly goes to work at an age when your Indian boy can hardly crawl on all fours.

Hong Kong is a very beautiful town. It is built on the slopes of hills and on the tops too, which are much cooler than the city. There is an almost perpendicular tramway going to the top of the hill, dragged by wire-rope and steam-power.

We remained three days at Hong Kong and went to see Canton, which is eighty miles up a river. What a scene of bustle and life! What an immense number of boats almost covering the waters! And not only those that are carrying on the trade, but hundreds of others which serve as houses to live in. And quite a lot of them so nice and big. In fact, they are big houses two or three stories high, with verandahs running round, and streets between and all floating.

We landed on a strip of ground given by the Chinese Government to foreigners to live in. Around us on both sides of the river for miles and miles is the big city – a wilderness of human beings, pushing, struggling, surging, roaming. But, with all its population, all its activity, it is the dirtiest town I saw. Yet not a speck of filth is allowed by the Chinese to go waste; every house is a shop, people living only on the top-floor. The streets are very very narrow, so that you almost touch the shops on both sides as you pass.

I went to see several temples. The biggest in Canton is dedicated to the memory of the first Buddhistic Emperor, and the five hundred first disciples of Buddhism. The central figure is of course Buddha, and next beneath Him, is seated the Emperor, and ranging on both sides are the statues of the disciples, all beautifully carved out of wood.

From Canton back to Hong Kong, and thence to Japan. The first port we touched was Nagasaki. We landed for a few hours and drove through the town, What a contrast! The Japanese are one of the cleanliest peoples on earth. Everything is neat and tidy. Their streets are all broad, straight and regularly paved. Their little houses are cagelike, and their pine-covered ever green little hills form the background of almost every town and village. Japan is the land of the picturesque! Almost every house has a garden at the back, very nicely laid out according to Japanese fashion with small shrubs, grassplots, small artificial waters and small stone bridges.

From Nagasaki to Kobe. Here I gave up the steamer and took the land route to Yokohama, with a view to see the interior of Japan.

I have seen three big cities in the interior – Osaka, a great manufacturing town; Kioto, the former capital, and Tokyo, the present capital. Tokyo is nearly twice the size of Calcutta with nearly double the population.

The match factories are simply a sight to see.

I saw quite a lot of temples. In every temple, there are sopie Sanskrit Mantras written in old Bengali characters. Only a few of the priests know Sanskrit. But they are an intelligent sect.

I have heard in Japan that it was the belief of the girls of that country that their dolls would be animated if they were loved with all their heart. The Japanese girl never breaks her doll.

There in Japan, you find a fine assimilation of knowledge…They have taken everything from the Europeans, but they remain Japanese all the same, and have not turned Europeans…They are great as a nation because of their art.

And one special feature about them (the Japanese) is this: that while in Europe and elsewhere Art generally goes with dirt, Japanese Art is Art plus absolute cleanliness…The Japanese think that everything Hindu is great, and believe that India is a holy land. Japanese Buddhism is entirely different from what you see in Ceylon. It is the same’as Vedanta. It is positive and theistic Buddhism.

I hold the Mahayana to be older of the two schools of Buddhism.

The theory of Maya is as old as the Rik Samhita. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad contains the world “Maya”. I hold Upanishad to be at least older than Buddhism.

I have had much light of late about Buddhism, and I am ready to prove :

1.    That Shiva worship in various forms antedated the Buddhists, that the Buddhists tried to take hold of the sacred places of the Shaivas but failing in that, made new places in the precints just as you find now at Bodh-Gayaand Sarnath (Benares).

2.    The story in the Agni-Purana about Gayasura does not refer to Budha at all – as Dr. Rajendralal will have it – but simply to a pre-existing story.

3.    Gaya was a place of ancestor-worship already, and foot-print worship the Buddhists copied from the Hindus.

4.    That Buddha went to live on Gaya-sirsha mountain proves the pre-existence of the place.

5.    About Banaras, even the oldest records go to prove it as the great place of Shiva-worship etc. etc.

In China and Japan, on the walls of all temples I have observed various monosyllabic Mantrams written in big gilt letters, which approach the Bengali characters so much that you could easily make out the resemblance.

I thought, I have tried India; it is time tor me to try another country. At that time the Parliament of Religions was to be held, and someone was to be sent from India. I was just a vagabond, but I said, “If you send me, I am going. I have not much to lose, and I don’t care if I lose that.” It was very difficult to find the money, but after a long struggle, they got together just enough to pay for my passage – and I came – came one or two months earlier, so that I found myself drifting about_#in the streets here, without knowing anybody.

That I went to America was not my doing, or your doing, but the God of India, who is guiding her destiny sent me.

In view specially of the poverty and ignorance (in India), I had no sleep. At Cape Comorin, sitting in Mother Kumari’s temple, sitting on the last bit of Indian rock – I hit upon a plan: the first thing we need is men, and the next is funds. Through the grace of the Guru, I was sure to get men. I next travelled in search of funds. I have come to America to earn money myself and then return to my country, and devote the rest of my days to the realisation of this one aim of my life:

Metcalf (Mass. US.A) 20-8-1893 – From Japan I reached Vancouver. The way was by the Northern Pacific. It was very, cold and I suffered much for want of warm clothing. However, I reached Vancouver anyhow, and thence went through Canada to Chicago. I remained about 12 days in Chicago. And almost everyday I used to go to the Fair. It was a tremendous affair. The lady to whom Varada Rao introduced me. and her husband, belong to the highest Chicago society, and they were so very kind to me. I took my departure from

Chicago and came to Boston. Mr. Lulloobhoy was with me up to Boston. He was very kind to me.

The expense I am bound to run into here is awful… On an average it costs me £1 everyday; a cigar costs eight annas of our money. The Americans are so rich that they spend money like water, and by forced legislation keep up the price of everything so high that no other nation on earth can approach it. Every common coolie earns nine or ten rupees a day, and spends it. All those rosy ideas we had before starting have melted, and I have now to fight against impossibilities. A hundred times I had a mind to go out of the country and go back to India. But, I am determined and I have a call from above; I see no way, but His eyes see. And I must stick to my guns, life or death…

Just now I am living as the guest of an old lady in a village near Boston. I accidently made her acquaintance in the railway train, and she invited me to come over and live with her. I have an advantage in living with her, saving for some time my expenditure of £1 per day; and she has the advantage of inviting her friends over here, and showing them a curio from India! And all this must be borne. Starvation, cold, hooting in the streets on account of my quaint dress, these are what I have tonight against. But, my dear boy, no great things were ever done without great labour.

This is the land of Christians, and any other influence than that is almost zero. Nor do I care a bit for the enmity of any “ists“ of the world. I am here amongst the children of the Son of Mary, and the Lord Jesus will help me. They like much the broad views of Hinduism and my love for the Prophet of Nazareth. I tell them I preach nothing against the Great One of Galilee. I only ask the Christians to take in the Great Ones of India along with the Lord Jesus, and they appreciate it.

Yesterday, Mrs.Johnson, the lady superintendent of the women’s prison, was here. They don’t call it prison but reformatory.It is the grandest thing I have seen in America. How the inmates are benevolently treated,how beautiful,you must see to believe! And, oh,how my heart ached to think of what we think of the poor, the low in India. They have no chance, no escape, no way to climb up. The poor, the low, the sinner in India have no friends, no help – they cannot rise, try however they may. They sink lower and lower everyday, they feel the blows showered upon them by a cruel society, and they do not know whence the blow comes. They have forgotten that they too are men. Thoughtful people within the last few years have seen it, but unfortunately laid it at the door of the Hindu religion, and to them the only way of bettering is by crushing this grandest Religion of the world. Hear me, my friend, I have discovered the secret through the grace of the Lord. Religion is not at fault. On the other hand, your religion teaches you that every being is only your own self multiplied. But it was the want of practical application, the want of sympathy -the want of heart. The Lord once more came to you as Buddha and taught you how to feel, how to sympathise with the poor, the miserable, the sinner, but you heard him not…

I have travelled twelve years with this load in my heart and this idea in my head. I have gone from door to door of the so-called rich and great…

With a bleeding heart I have crossed half the world to this strange land, seeking for help. The Lord is great. I know He will help me.

From the village Breezy Meadows, I am going to Boston tomorrow. I am going to speak at a big Ladies’ Club there, which is helping Ramabai…People gather by hundreds in the streets to see me. So what I want is to dress myself in a long black coat, and keep a red robe and turban to wear when I lecture. This is what they advise me to do.

In America, there are no classes in the railway except in Canada. So. I have to travel first class, as that is the only class; but I do not venture in the ‘Pullmans’. They are very comfortable – you sleep, eat, drink, even bathe in them, just as if you were in a hotel, – but they are too expensive.

It is very hard work getting into society and making yourself heard…After such a struggle, I am not going to give up easily. Rome was not built in a day…I hope everything will come right…I am trying my best to find any plank I can float upon.

Even now it is so cold in New England that everyday we have fire night and morning. Canada is still colder. I never saw snow on such low hills as there.

Metcalf, Mass: Aug. 20,93 – I am going to speak before a large society of ladies in Salem on Monday. And that will introduce me to many more.

I do not know whether I shall go back to Chicago or not. My friends there wanted me to represent India and the gentleman whom V introduced me to is one of the Directors of the Fair. But, I refused as I would have to spend all my little stock of money in remaining more than a month in Chicago.

Salem (USA) : 30-8-93 – I am going off from here today. I have received an invitation with full directions from Mr. Sanborn. So I am going to Saratoga on Monday.

Salem : Sept. 4, 93 – I have received a letter from Mr. Theles of Chicago giving the names of some of the delegates and other things about the Congress.

Mr. Sanborn has written to me to come over to Saratoga on Monday (6th) and I am going accordingly.

I would stop then at a boarding house called Sanatorium.

I am the first monk to come over to these western countries. It is the first time in the history of the world that a Hindu monk crossed the ocean.

When I, a poor, unknown, friendless Sannyasin was, going to America, going beyond the waters to America without any introductions or friends there, I called on the leader of the Theosophical Society. Naturally I thought, he being an American and a lover of India, perhaps, would give me a letter of introduction to somebody there. He asked me,, “Will you join my society ?” “No“, I replied, “How can I ? For I do not believe in most of your doctrines.“ “Then, lam sorry I cannot do anything for you,” he answered. That was not paving the way for me. I reached America through the help of a few friends in Madras. I arrived in America several months before the Parliament of Religions began. The money I had with me was little, and it was soon spent. Winter approached and I had only thin summer clothes. I did not know what to do in that cold, dreary climate, for if I went to beg in the streets, the result would be that I would be sent to jail. There I was with the last few dollars in my pocket.

I sent a wire to my friends in Madras. This came to be known to the Theosophists, and one of them wrote, “Now the devil is going to die; God bless us all.” Was that paving the way for me ? I would not have mentioned this, but as my countrymen wanted to know, it must come out. For three years, I have not opened my lips about these things. Silence has been my motto; but, today the thing has come out. That was not all. I saw some Theosophists in the Parliament of Religions, and I wanted to talk and mix with them. I remember the looks of scorn which were on their faces as much as to say, “What business has this worm to be here in the midst of the Gods ?”

Chicago : 20-9-93 – I came here to seek aid for my improverished people, and I fully realised how difficult it was to get help for the heathen from Christians in a Christian land.

I must try to the end. First I will try in America, and if I fail, I will try in England; if I fail there, too, I can go back to India, and wait for further commands from On High.

It must be particularly remembered that the same ideals and activities do not prevail in all societies and countries. Our ignorance of this is the main cause of much of the hatred of one nation towards another. It is very harmful; it is the cause of half the uncharitableness found in the world. When I came to this country (America) and was going through the Chicago Fair, a man from behind pulled at my turban. I looked back and saw that he was a very gentlemanly looking man, neatly dressed. I spoke to him, and when he found that I knew English he became very much abashed. On another occasion, in the same Fair, another man gave me a push. When I asked him the reason, he also was ashamed and stammered out an apology saying, “Why do you dress that way !“ The sympathies of these men were limited within the range of their own language and their own fashion of dress. Much of the oppression of powerful nations on weaker ones is caused by this prejudice. It dries up their fellow feeling for fellow-men. That very man who asked me why I did not dress as he did and wanted to ill-treat me because of my dress, may have been a very good man, a good father and a goad citizen; but the kindliness of his nature died out as soon as he saw a man in a different dress

Before I knew the customs of this country (America)I received such a shock when the son, in a very refined family, got up and called the mother by name ! However, I got used to that. But with us (in India) we never pronounce the name of our parents,

I belong to an Order very much like what you have in the Mendicant Friars of the Catholic Church; that is to say, we have to go about without very much in the way of dress and beg from door to door, live thereby, preach to people when they want it, sleep where we can get a place • that way we have to follow. And the rule is that the members of this Order have to call every woman “mother”. Coming to the West, that old habit remained and I would say to ladies, “Yes mother,” and they were horrified. I couldn’t understand why they should be horrified. Later on, I discovered the reason; because that would mean that they were old!

Power comes to him who observes unbroken Brahma-charya for a period of twelve years, with the sole object of realising God. I have practised that kind of Brahma-charya myself, and so a screen has been removed, as it were, from my brain. For that reason, I need not any more think over or prepare myself for any lectures on a subtle subject as philosophy. Suppose I have to lecture tomorrow, all that I shall speak about will pass tonight before my eyes like so many pictures; and the next day I put into words during my lecture all those things that I saw.

I can know them (all about my previous births) -I do know them – but I prefer not to say anything in detail.

Chicago: 2-10-93 – I dropped on the Congress in the eleventh hour, and quite unprepared, and that kept me very busy for some time. I was speaking almost everyday in the Congress. The Congress is now over.

I was so afraid to stand before that great assembly of fine speakers and thinkers from all over the world and speak, but the Lord gave me strength and I almost everyday heroically faced the audience. If I have done well, He gave me the strength for it.

Prof. Bradley was very kind to me and he always cheered me on. And oh ! everybody is so kind here to me who am nothing. Glory unto Him in the highest in whose sight the poor ignorant monk from India is the same as the learned divines of this mighty land. And how the Lord is helping me-every day of my life . I sometimes wish for a life of million ages to serve Him through the work dressed in rags and fed by charity.

Here were some of sweet ones from India-the tenderhearted Buddhist Dhammapal and the orator Mazoomdar.

Col. Higginson, a very broad man, was very sympathetic to me. I am going to Evanston tomorrow and hope to see Prof.Bradley there.

At first in America I was almost out of water. I was afraid I would have to give up the accustomed way of being guided by the Lord and cater for myself – and what a horrid piece of mischief and ingratitude was that. I now clearly see that He who was guiding me on the snow tops of the Himalayas and the burning plains of India is here to help me and guide me. Glory unto Him in the highest. So I have calmly fallen in my old ways. Somebody or other gives me a shelter and food and somebody or other comes to ask me to speak about Him and I know He sends them and mine is to obey. And then He is supplying my necessities, and His will be done.

So it is in Asia, so in Europe, so in America, so in the deserts of India, so in the rush of business in America, for is He not here also ?

Oh, He is so full of fun. He is always playing -Sometimes with great big balls which we call the sun and earth, sometimes with little children, and laughing. How funny to see Him and play with Him !

When I come to Chicago, I always go to see Mr. and Mrs. Lyons, one of the noblest couples I have seen here.

Chicago : 10-10-93- Just now I am lecturing about Chicago, and I am doing, as I think, very well – it is ranging from 30 to 80 dollars a lecture and just now I have been so well advertised in Chicago gratis by the Parliament of Religions. Yesterday I returned from Streater where I got 87 dollers for a lecture. I have engagements every day this week.

26-10-93 – I am doing very well here. Almost everybody has been very kind to me, except of course the very orthodox. Many of the men brought together here from far off lands have got projects and ideas and missions to carry out. But I thought better and have given up speaking about my project entirely ~ because I am sure now – the heathen draws more than his project.

So I want to go to work earnestly for my own project only keeping the project in the backround and working like any other lecturer.

He who has brought me hither and has not left me yet will not leave me ever. Of course, I am too green in the business (of getting money), but would soon learn the trade. I am very popular in Chicago. So I want to stay here a little more and get money.

Tomorrow, I am going to lecture on Buddhism at the ladies’ fortnightly club-which is the most influential in this City. I think the success of my project probable.

2-22-93 – At a village near Boston, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Wright, Professor of Greek in the Harvard University. He sympathised with me very much and urged upon me the necessity of going to the Parliament of Religions, which he thought would give me an introduction to the nation. As I was not acquainted with anybody, the Professor undertook to arrange everything for me, and eventually I came back to Chicago. Here the oriental and occidental delegates to the Parliament of Religions and I were all lodged in the house of a gentleman.

On the morning of the opening of the Parliament we were all assembled in a building called the Art Palace, where one huge and other smaller temporary halls were rented for the sittings of the Parliament. Men from all nations were there. From India were Mazoonr dar of the Brahmo Samaj, and Nagarkar of Bombay, Mr. Gandhi representing the Jains, and Mr. Chakravarti representing Theosophy with Mrs. Annie Besant. Of these, Mazoomdar and I were, ot course, old friends, and Chakravarti knew me by name. There was a grand procession, and we were all marshalled on to the platform.

Imagine a hall below and a huge gallery above, packed with six or seven thousand men and women representing the best culture of the country* and on the platform learned men of all the nations of the earth. And I, who never spoke in public in my life, to address this august assemblage! It was opened in great form with music and ceremony and speeches; then the delegates were introduced one by one, and they stepped up and spoke. Of course, my heart was fluttering and my tongue nearly dried up; I was so nervous, and could not venture to speak in the morning. Mazoomdar made a nice speech, Chakravarti a nicer one, and they were much applauded. They were all prepared and came with ready-made speeches. I was a fool and had none, but bowed down to Devi Saraswati, and stepped up, and Dr. Barrows introduced me. I made a short speech. I addressed the assembly as “Sisters and Brothers of America,”—a deafening applause of two minutes followed and then I proceeded and when it was finished I sat down, almost exhausted with emotion. The next day all the papers announced that my speech was the hit of the day, and I became known to the whole of America, Truly has it been said by the great commentator Sridhara

“Who maketh the dumb a fluent speaker.” His name be praised ! From that day I became a celebrity and the day I read my paper on Hinduism the hall was packed as it had never been before. I quote from one of the papers : “Ladies, ladies, ladies packing every place-filling every corner, they patiently waited and waited while the papers that separated them from Vivekananda were read,’ etc. Suffice it to say that whenever I went on the platform a defeaning applause would be raised for me. Nearly all the papers paid high tributes to me, and even the most bigoted had to admit that “This man with his handsome face and magnetic presence and wonderful oratory is the most prominent figure in the Parliament’ etc……I have no more wants now. I am well off, and all the money that I require to visit Europe I shall get from here…

Many of the handsomest houses in this city are open to me. All the time I am living as a guest of somebody or other.

The Lord will provide evrything for -me…Day by day I am feeling that the Lord is with me, and I am trying to follow His direction. His will be done… We will do great things for the world, and that for the sake of doing good and not for name and fame.

It is a great art to press the largest amount of thought into the smallest number of words. Even,—’s paper had to be cut very short. More than a thousand papers were read, and there was no time to give to wild perorations. I had a good long time given to me over the ordinary half hour, because the most popular speakers were always put down last, to hold the audience. And

Lord bless them, what sympathy they have, and what patience! They would sit from ten o’ clock in the morning to ten o’ clock at night-only a recess of half an hour for a meal, and paper after paper read, most of them very trivial, but they would wait and wait to hear their favourite.

Dharmapapala of Ceylon vas one of the favourites… He is a very sweet man, and we became very intimate during the Parliament.

Lecturing is a very profitable occupation in this country and sometimes pays well. Mr. Ingersoll gets five to six hundred dollars a lecture. He is the most celebrated lecturer in this country.

In my first speech in this country, in Chicago, I addressed that audience as “Sisters and Brothers of America,” and you know that they all rose to their feet. You may wonder what made them do this, you may wonder if I had some strange power. Let me tell you that I did have a power and this is it—never once in my life did I allow myself to have even one sexual thought. I trained my mind, my thinking, and the powers that man usually uses along that line I put into a higher channel, and it developed a force so strong that nothing could resist it

I spoke at the Parliament of Religions; with what effect I may quote to you from a few newspapers and magazines ready at hand. I need not be self-conceited, but I say that no Hindu made such an impression in America, and if my coming has done anything, it has done this that the Americans have come to know that India even today produces men at whose feet even the most civilized nations may learn lessons of religion and morality. Don’t you think that is enough to say for the Hindu nation sending over here their Sannyasin?…

These I quote from the journals: “But eloquent as were many of the brief speeches, no one expressed as well the spirit of the Parliament (of Religions) and its limitations as the Hindu monk. I copy his address in full but I can only suggest its effect upon the audience for he is an orator by Divine Right and his strong intelligent face in its pictureque setting of yellow and orange was hardly less interesting than these earnest words and the rich rhythmical utterance he gave them” (here the speech is quoted in extenso) – New York Critique.

“He has preached in clubs and churches until his faith has become familiar to us…His culture, his eloquence and his fascinating personality have given us anew idea of Hindu civilisation… His fine, intelligent face and his deep musical voice, prepossessing one at once in his favour …He speaks without notes, presenting his facts and his conclusions with the greatest art and the most convincing sincerity, and rising often to rich inspiring eloquence” Ibid.

“Vivekananda is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions. After hearing him, we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this learned nation.” Herald (the greatest paper here.)

I cease from quoting more lest you should think me conceited…

I am the same here as in India; only here in this highly cultured land there is an appreciation, a sympathy. There our people grudge us monks a crumb of bread here they are ready to pay one thousand rupees a lecture and remain grateful for the instructions for ever. I am appreciated by these strangers more than I was ever in India. I can, if I will, live here all my life in the greatest luxury, but I am a Sannyasin, and “India, with all thy faults I love thee still.” So, I am coming back (to India) and go on sowing the seeds of religion and progress from city to city, as I was doing so long.

Now after these quotations, do you think it was worthwhile to send a Sannyasin to America? Please do not publish it. I hate notoriety in the same manner as I did in India.

I am doing the Lord’s work, and wherever He leads I follow.

He who makes the dumb eloquent and the lame cross a mountain, He will help me. I do not care for human help. He is ready to help me in India, in America, on the North Pole, if He thinks fit. If He does not, none else can help me. Glory unto the Lord for ever and ever!

The parliament of Religions was organised with the intention of proving the superiority of Christian religion over other forms of faith, but the Philosophic religion of Hinduism was able to maintain its position not-with-standing.

The Parliament of Religions was a failure from the Christian standpoint…But the Chicago Parliament was a tremendous success for India and Indian thought. It helped on the tide of Vedanta, which is flooding the world. The American people, of course, minus the fanatical priests and Church-women, are very glad of the results of the Parliament.

Of the name by which I am now known (Swami Vivekananda), the first is descriptive of a Sannyasin, or one who formally renounces the world, and the second is the title I assumed-as is customary with all Sannyasins-on my renunciation of the world; it signifies literally “the bliss of discrimination.”

What a wonderful achievement was the world’s Fair at Chicago! And that wonderful Parliament of Religions where voices from every corner of the earth expressed their religious ideas! I was also allowed to present my own ideas through the kindness of Dr. Barrows and Mr. Bonney. Mr. Bonney is such a wonderful man! Think of that mind that planned and carried out with great success that gigantic undertaking, and he, no clergyman, but a lawyer presiding over the dignitaries of all the churches, the sweet, learned, patient Mr. Bonney with all his soul speaking through his eyes.

At the Parliament of Religions (in America) there came among others, a young man, a Negro born, a real African Negro, and he made a beautiful speech. I became interested in the young man, and now and then talked to him, but could learn nothing about him. But one day in England, I met some Americans and this is what they told me, this boy was the son of a Negro chief who lived in the heart of Africa; one day another chief became angry with the father of this boy and murdered him and murdered the mother also, and they were cooked and eaten; he ordered the child also to be killed and cooked and eaten; but the boy fled, and after passing through great hardships and having travelled a distance of several hundreds of miles, he reached the sea-shore, and then he was taken into an American vessel and brought over to America. And this boy made that speech!

 

Do your work with one hand and touch the feet of the Lord with the other; when you have no work in the world to do, hold His feet fast to your breast with both your hands-

-Sri. RAMAKRISHNA.

“Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die” . Be of good cheer and believe that we aie selected by the Lord to do great things, and we will do them.-

-SWAMI VIVEKANANDA.

As our country is poor in social virtues, so this country (America) is lacking in spirituality. I give them spirituality, and they give me money. I do not know how long I shall take to’realise my end. I shall try to carry out my plans or die in the attempt. You may perhaps think what Utopian nonsense all this is! You little know what is in me…Gurudeva will show me the way out.

I have heard many stories about the American home: of liberty running into licence, of unwomanly women smashing under their feet all the peace and happiness of home-life in their mad liberty-dance, and much nonsense of that type. And now after a year’s experience of American homes, of American women, how utterly false and erroneous that sort of judgement appears! American women! A hundred lives would not be sufficient to pay my deep debt of gratitude to ‘you ! I have not words enough to express my gratitude to you.

Last year I came to this country in summer, a wandering preacher of a far distant country, without name, fame, wealth, or learning to recommend me-friendless, helpless, almost in a state of destitution. And American women befriended me, gave me shelter and food; took me to their homes and treated me as their own son, their own brother. They stood as my friend even when their own priests were trying to persuade them to give up the “dangerous heathen’’-even when day after day their best friends had told them not to stand by this “unknown foreigner, maybe, of dangerous character. ” But they are better judges of character and soul-for it is the pure mirror that catches the reflection.

And how many beautiful homes I have seen, how many mothers whose purity of character, whose unselfish love for their children are beyond expression, how many daughters and pure maidens, “pure as the icicle on Diana’s temple” and withal with much culture, education and spirituality in the highest sense! Is America then full of only wingless angels in the shape of women ? There is good and bad everywhere true; but a nation is not to be judged by its weaklings, but by the good, the noble and the pure.

And then the modern American women – I admire their broad and liberal minds.

There are thousands of women here (in America) whose minds are as pure and white as the snow of this country. And look at our girls (of India) , becoming mothers below their teens!!

I have travelled all over India, and seen this country, too. “Admist all the scriptures and Puranas, know this statement of Vyasa to be true, that doing good to others conduces to merit, and doing harm to them leads to sin. ”

“Fifty years ago,” said Ingersoll to me, “You would have been hanged in this country if you had come to preach. You would have been burnt alive or you would have been stoned out of the villages.”

When I came into this country (America), I was surprised to meet so many liberal men and women. But after the Parliament of Religions, a great Presbyterian paper came out and gave me the benefit of a seething article. This the editor called enthusiasm.

I pity the Hindu who does not see the beauty in Jesus Christ’s character. I pity the Christian who does not reverence the Hindu Christ.

Detroit: 12-3-94 – I am now living with Mr. Palmer. He is a very nice gentleman… I spoke at an opera house for two hours and a half. People were very much pleased. I am going to Boston and New York…I am not going to lecture in Michigan. Mr. Holden tried to persuade me this morning to lecture in Michigan…To tell the truth the more I am getting popularity and facility in speaking the more I am getting fed up. My last address was the best I ever delivered. Mr. Palmer was in ecstasies and the audience remained almost spell-bound, so much so that it was after the lecture that I found I had spoken so long.

15-3-94 – The funniest thing said about me here was in one of the papers which said, “The cyclonic Hindu has come, and is a guest with Mr. Palmer………“. The first lecture was not properly managed, the cost of the hall being 150 dollars.

I am pulling on well with old Palmer. He is a very jolly, good old man. I got only 127 dollars by my last lecture. I am going to speak again in Detroit on Monday.

Mr. Palmer makes me laugh the whole day.

Just because this assertion of independence, this proving that man is not a machine, is the essence of all religious thought, it is impossible to think of it in the routine mechanical way. It is this tendency to bring everything down to the level of a machine that has given the West its wonderful prosperity. And it is this which has driven away all religion from its doors. Even the little that is left, the West has reduced to a systematic drill.

Detroit: 17-3-94 – I have returned today to Mrs. Bagley’s as she was very sorry that I should remain so long with Mr. Palmer. In Palmer’s house, there was real ‘good time’. He is a real jovial heartwhole fellow.

18-3-94 – There was a letter from my brethren at Calcutta and it was written on the occasion of a private invitation to celebrate the birthday of my Master. The letter says that Mazoomdar has gone back to Calcutta and is preaching that Vivekananda is committing every sin under the sun in America… This is your America’s wonderful spiritual manl It is not their fault; until one is really spiritual, that is, until one has got a real insight into the nature of one’s own soul and has got a glimpse „of the world of the soul, one cannot distinguish chaff from seed, tall talk from depth and so on. I am sorry for poor Mazomdar that he should stoop so low! Lord bless the old boy!

The address inside the letter is in English and is my old, old name, written by a companion of my child-hood who has also taken orders. It is a very poetic name. That written in the letter is an abbreviation, the full name being Narendra, meaning the “Chief of men” “nara” means man and “Indra” stands for ruler in chief – very ludicrous, isn’t it? But such are the names in our country; we cannot help, but I am glad I have given that up.

Chicago : 19-3-94 – I have no wants in this country, but mendicancy has no vogue here and I have to labour, that is, lecture in places. It is as cold here as it is hot. The summer is not a bit less hot than at Calcutta. And how to describe the cold in winter ! The whole country is covered with snow, three or four feet deep, nay, six or seven feet, at places! In the southern parts there is no snow. Snow, however, is a thing of little consideration here. For it snows when the mercury stands at 32 degrees F. In Calcutta, it scarcely comes down to 60 degrees, and it rarely approaches zero in England. But here, your mercury sinks to minus 4 or 5 degrees. In Canada, in the north, mercury becomes condensed, when they have to use the alcohol thermometer.

When it is too cold, that is, when the mercury stands even below 20 deg. F., it does not snow. I used to think that it must be an exceedingly cold day on which the snow falls. But it is not so; it snows on comparatively warm days. Extreme cold produces a sort of intoxication; no carriages would run; only the sledge, which is without wheels, slides on the ground! Everything is frozen stiff – even an elephant can walk on rivers and canals and lakes. The massive Falls of Niagara, of such tremendous velocity, are frozen to marble !! ! But. I am doing nicely. I was a little afraid at first, but necessity makes me travel by rail to the borders of Canada one day, and the next day finds me lecturing in South America! The carriages are kept quite warm, – like your own room. By means of steam pipes, and all round are masses of snow, spotlessly white, – oh the beauty of it !

I was mortally afraid that my nose and ears ‘would fall off, but to this day they are all right. I have to go out, however, dressed in a heap of warm clothing surmounted by a furcoat. No sooner you breathe out than the breath freezes among the beard and moustache! Notwithstanding all this, the fun of it is that they won’t drink water without putting a lump of ice into it. This is because it is warm indoors. Every room and the staircase are kept warm by steam pipes. They are first and foremost in arts and appliances, foremost in enjoyment and luxury, foremost in making money, and foremost in spending it. The daily wages of a coolie are six rupees as also are those of a servant; you cannot hire a cab for less than three rupees, nor get a cigar for less than four annas. A decent pair of shoes costs twenty-four rupees and a suit, rupees five hundred. As they earn, so they spend. A lecture fetches two hundred to three thousand rupees. I have got up to five hundred.

Of course, now I am in the very heyday of fortune. They like me, and thousands of people come to hear me speak.

As it pleased the Lord, I met here Mr. M-. He was very cordial at first, but when the whole Chicago population began to flock to me in overwhelming numbers, then grew the canker in his mind !… The priests tried their utmost to snub me. But the Guru is with me, what could anybody do? And the whole American nation loves and respects me, pays my expenses, and reveres me as a Guru. It was not in the power of the priests to do anything against me. Moreover, they are a nation of scholars………What they want is philosophy, learning and empty talk will no more do.

Nowhere in the world are women like those of this country. How pure, independent, self-relying and kind-hearted! It is the women who are the life and soul of this country. All learning and culture are centred in them.

This is a very funny country. It is now summer-this morning it was as hot as April in Bengal, but now it is as cold as February at Allahabad ! So much fluctuation within four hours! The hotels of this country beggar description. For instance there is a hotel in New York where a room can be hired for up to Rs. 5,000 – a day, excluding board charges. —Not even in Europe is there a country like this in point of luxury. It is indeed the richest country in the world. I seldom live in hotels, but am mostly the guest of big people here. To them I _: am a widely known man. The whole country knows me now, so wherever I go they receive me with open arms into their homes. Mr. H’s home is my centre in Chicago

I scarcely find a family so highly pure and kind. Oh, how wonderfully kind they are !

As for lectures and so forth, I don’t prepare them beforehand. Only one I wrote out. The rest I deliver off-hand, whatever comes to my lips—Gurudeva backs me up. Once at Detroit I held forth for three hours at a stretch. Sometimes I myself wonder at my own achievement – to think that there was such stuff in this pate !

A friend criticised the use of European terms of philosophy and religion in my addresses…I would have been very glad to use Sanskrit terms; it would have been much more easy, as being the only perfect vehicle of religious thought. But the friend forgets that I was addressing an audience of western people; and although a certain Indian Missionary declared that the Hindus had forgotten the meaning of their Sanskrit books, and that it was the missionaries who unearthed the meaning, I could not find one in that large concourse of Missionaries who could understand a line in Sanskrit-and yet some of them read learned papers criticising the Vedas, and all the sacred sources of the Hindu religion!

Detroit : 30-3-94 – I am very glad to receive the Khetri letter…He (the Raja) wants some newspaper clippings… Mrs. Breed wrote to me a stiff burning letter first, and then I got a telegram from her inviting me to be her guest for a week. Before this, I got a letter from Mrs. Smith of New York writing on her behalf and another lady Miss Helen Gould and another

Dr., asking me to come over to New York. As the Lynn Club wants me on the 17th of next month, I am going to New York first and come in time for their meeting at Lynn.

Next summer if I do not go away and Mrs. Bagley insists I should not – I may go to Annisquam where Mrs. Bagley has engaged a nice house. Mrs. Bagley is a very spiritual lady and Mr. Palmer a spiritual gentleman but very good…I am all right in nice health of body and mind…Mrs. Sherman has presented me with a lot of things, amongst which is a nail-set and letter holder and a little satchel, etc. etc. Although I objected, especially to the nail-set, as very dudish with mother of pearl handles, she insisted and I had to take them, though I do not know what to do with that brushing instrument. Lord bless them all! She gave me one advice – never to wear this Afrikee dress in society. Now I am a society man ! Lord ! what comes next ? Long life brings queer experiences!

New York: 9-4-94 – I have lectured in many of the big towns of America…I have made a good many friends here, some of them very influential. Of course, the orthodox clergymen are against me and seeing that it is not easy to grapple with me, they try to hinder, abuse and vilify me in every way…Lord bless them !

I believe that the Satya-yuga will come when there will be one caste, one Veda, and peace and harmony. This idea of Satya-yuga is what would revivify India.

I have an old mother. She has suffered much all her life and in the midst of all she could bear to give me for the service of God and man.

The cat is out of the bag—without my seeking at all. And who is the editor of one of our (Indian) papers which praises me so much, and thanks God that I came to America to represent Hinduism ? Mazoomdar’s cousin! Poor Mazoomdar-he has injured his cause by telling lies through jealousy. Lord knows I never attempted any defence.

I had a very good time in Boston at Mrs. Breed’s and saw Prof.Wright. I am going to Boston again. The tailor is making my new gown; I am going to speak at Cambridge University (Harvard) and would be the guest of prof. Wright there. They write grand welcomes in the Boston papers inviting me.

I spoke last night at the Waldorf hotel. Mrs. Smith sold tickets at $2 each, I had a full hall which by the way was a small one.

I made a hundred dollars at Lynn which I do not send (to India) because I have to make my new gown and other nonsense.

Do not expect to make any money at Boston. Still I must touch the brain of America and stir it up if I can.

2nd May 94 : – I could not find the exact orange color of my coat here; so I have been obliged to satisfy myself with the next best; a cardinal red with more of yellow. The coat will be ready in a few days.

Got about 70 the other day by lecturing at Waldorf and hope to get some more by tomorrow’s lecture.

From 7th to I8th there are engagements in Boston but they pay very little.

In the evening, I am going to speak at a vegetarian dinner !

New York : April 26, 94 – Well, I am a vegetarian for all that, because I prefer it when I can get it. I have another invitation to lunch with Lyman Abbot day after tomorrow. After all, I am having very nice time, and hope to have very nice time in Boston-only that nasty, nasty lecturing: disgusting. However, as soon as 19th is over-one leap from Boston to Chicago and then I will have a long long breath and rest and rest for two weeks. I will simply sit down and talk and talk and smoke.

New York people are very good—only more money than brains.

I am going to speak to the students of the Harvard University. Three lectures at Boston, 3 at Harvard-all arranged by Mrs. Breed. They are arranging something here too, so that I will, on my way to Chicago, come to hjew York once more—give them a few hard raps and pocket the boodle and fly to Chicago !

I hate only one thing in the world— hypocrisy.

New York: 4-5-94 – I will be in Boston on Sunday (6th). On Monday, I lecture at the Women’s Club of Mrs. Howe.

Just think, with all the claims to civilisation in this country (America), on one occasion I was refused a chair to sit on, because I was a Hindu!

Chicago – May 24-94 – Had I not the “fad” in my head I would never have come over here. And it was with a hope that it would help my cause that I joined the Parliament of Religions, having always refused it when our people wanted to send me for it. I came over telling them-“that may or may not join that assembly-and you may send over if you like.” They sent me over leaving me quite free. I do not care for the attempts of the old Missionary, but the fever of jealousy which attacked Mazoomdar gave me a terrible shock, and I pray that he would know better-for he is a great and good man who has tried all his life to be good. But this proves one of my Master’s sayings : “live in a room covered with black soot; however careful you may be, some spots must stick to your clothes.”

So however one may try to be good and holy-so long he is in the world – some part of his nature must gravitate downwards.

I was never a missionary nor ever would be one-my place is in the Himalayas. I have satisfied myself so far that I can with a full conscience say, God -I saw terrible misery among my brethren. I searched and discovered the way out of it; tried my best to apply the remedy but failed – so Thy will be done.”

24-5-94 : Some would call you a saint, some a chandala, some a lunatic; others a demon; go on then straight to thy work without heeding any,’* thus sayeth one of our great Sannyasins, an old Emperor of India, King Bharttihari who joined the Order in old times.

Chicago : 28-5-94 : I was whirling to and fro from New York to Boston. I do not know when I am going back to India. It is in the hands of Him who is at my back directing me.

I have done a good deal of lecturing here……The expenses here are terrible.

18-6-94 : I am going to New York in a week. Mrs. Bagley seems to be unsettled by that article in the Boston paper against me. She sent me over, a copy from Detroit, and has ceased correspondence with me. Lord bless her; she has been very kind to me.

Although there is much public appreciation of my work, it is thoroughly uncongenial and demoralising to me.

20-6-94 : The backbiters, I must tell you, had not indirectly benefited me; on the other hand, they had injured me immensely in view of the fact that our Hindu people did not move a finger to tell the Americans that I represented them. Did our people send some words thanking the American people for their kindness to me and stating that I was representing them?…No, they told the American people that I had donned the Sannya-sin’s garb only in America and that I was a cheat, bare and simple. So far as reception went, it had no effect on the American nation; but so far as helping me with funds went, it had a terrible effect in making them take off their helping hands from me. And it is one year since I have been here, and not one man of note from India had thought it fit to make the Americans know that I am no cheat. There again the missionaries are always seeking for something against me and they are busy picking up anything said against me by the Christian papers of India and publishing it here…

Round him (the great Ramakrishna Paramahamsa) this band (of young educated Sannyasins) is slowly gathering. They will do the work…This requires an organisation, money – a little at least to set the wheel in motion…Who would have given us money in India ? So, I crossed over to America. I begged all the money from the poor, and the offers of the rich I would not accept because they could not understand my ideas. Now lecturing for a year in this country, I could not succeed at all (of course, I have no wants for myself) in my plan of raising some funds for setting up my work. First this year is a bad year in America; thousands of their poor are without work. Secondly, the missionaries and the— try to thwart all my views. Thirdly; a year has rolled by, and our countrymen could not even do so much for me as to say to the American people that I was a real Sannyasin and no cheat, and that I represented the Hindu religion. Even this much, the expenditure of a few words, they could not do ! (yet) I love them ; He who has been with me through hills and dales, through deserts or forest, will be with me, I hope.

I am sincere to the backbone, and my ^greatest fault is that I love my country only to well.

23-6-94 : Mrs. Potter Palmer is the chief lady of the United States. She was the lady President of the World’s Fair. She is much interested in raising the women of the world and is at the head of a big organisation for women. She is a particular friend of Lady Dufferin and has been entertained by the Royalties of Europe on account of her wealth and position. She has been very kind to me in this country.

Chicago : 29-6-94 – I am continually travelling. In Chicago there is a friend whose house is my headquarters.

Now as to my prospects here – it is well nigh zero. Why, because although I had the best purpose it has been made null and void by these causes. All that I get about India is from Madras letters. The letters say again and again how I am being praised in India. But, I never saw a single Indian paper writing about me except the three square inches sent to me by Alasinga. On the other hand, everything that is said by Christians in India, is sedulously gathered by the missionaries and regularly published and they go from door to door to make my friends give me up. They have succeeded only too well, for there is not one word for me from India. Indian Hindu papers may laud me to the skies, but not a word of that ever came to America; so that many people in this country think me a fraud. In the face of the missionaries and with the jealousy of the Hindus here to back them, I have not a word to say. I now think it was foolish of me to go to the Parliament on the strength of the Madras boys. They are boys after all. Of course I am eternally obliged to them, but they are after all enthusiastic young men without any executive abilities. I came here without credentials. How else to show that I am not a fraud in the face of the missionaries and the B – S-?… There has not been one voice for me in one year and every one against me. More than two months ago I wrote to Alasinga about this. He did not even answer my letter. I am afraid his heart has grown lukewarm…On the other hand, my brethren foolishly talk nonsense about Keshab Sen…Oh !, if only I had one man of some true abilities and brains to back me in India ! But His will be done. I stand a fraud in this country. It was my foolishness to go to the Parliament without any credentials, hoping that there would be many for me. I have to work it out slowly.

Every moment I expected something from India. No, it never came. Last two months especially I was in torture every moment. No, not even a newspaper from India ! My friends waited, waited month after month; nothing came, not a voice. Many consequently grew cold and at last gave me up. But, it is the punisnment for relying upon man.

My thanks eternal to the Madras young men…May the Lord bless them for ever………I am praying always for their welfare and am I not in the least displeased with them, but I am not pleased with myself. I committed a terrible error of calculating upon others’ help-once in my life-and I have paid for it. It was my fault and not theirs. Lord bless all the Madras people.. I have launched my boat in the waves, come what may. Regarding my brutal criticisms, I have really no right to make them…I must bear my own Karma and that without a murmur

New York: July 94 – I came yesterday to this place, and shall remain here a few days. I did not receive any “Interior” for which I am glad. I want to keep aloof from rousing bad feelings towards these “sweet Christian gentlemen” in my heart………I do not care the least for the gambols these men play, seeing as I do through the insincerity, the hypocrisy and love of self and name that is the only motive power in these men.

I am bearing the heat very well here. I had an invitation to Swamscott on the sea from a very rich lady whose acquaintance I made last winter in New York, but I declined with thanks. I am very careful now to take the hospitality of anybody here, especially rich. I had a few other invitations from some very rich people here. I refused; I have by this time seen the whole business through.

New York: 9-7-94 – Glory unto Jagadamba (the Divine Mother) ! I have gained beyond expectations. The prophet has been honoured and with a vengeance. I am weeping like a child at His mercy – He never leaves His servant; …the printed things are coming to the American people. The names there are the very flower of our country. The President was the chief nobleman of Calcutta and the other man Mahesh Chandra Nyaya-ratna is the Principal of the Sanskrit College and the chief Brahmin in all India and recognised by the Government as such. What a rogue am I that in the face of such mercies sometimes faith totters. Seeing every moment that I am in His hands, still the mind sometimes gets despondent. There is a God – a Father – a Mother who never leaves His children, never, never. Put uncanny theories aside and becoming children take refuge in Him. I cannot write more – I am weeping like a woman.

Blessed, blessed art Thou, Lord God of my soul!

U.S.A.: 11-7-94 – We will do great things yet ! Last year, I only sowed the seeds; this year, I mean to reap.

In the Detroit lecture I got $ 900, i.e. Rs. 2, 700. In other lectures, I earned in one $ 2,500, i.e. Rs. 7,500, in one hour, but got only 200 dollars! I was cheated by a roguish lecture bureau. I have given them up.

Swampscott: 26-7-94 – I had a beautiful letter from sister Mary. Sister Jeany can jump and run and play and swear like a devil and talk slang at the rate of 500 a minute; only she does not much care for religion, only a little. She is gone home today and I am going to Green-acre. I had been to see Mrs. Breed, Mrs. Stone was there, with whom is residing Mrs. Pullman and all the golden bugs, my old friends hereabouts. They are kind as usual. On my way back from Greenacre I am going to Annisquam to see Mrs. Bagley for a few days. Darn it, I forget everything. I had duckings in the sea like a fish. I am enjoying every bit of it. How nice and cool it is here, and it increases a hundredfold when I think about the gasping, sizzling, boiling, frying four old maids (the Hale Sisters), and how cool and nice I am here. Whooooo!

Miss Philips has a beautiful place somewhere in N. Y. State – mountain, lake, river, forest altogether -what more? I am going to make a Himalayas there and start a monastery as sure as I an) living – I am not going to leave this country without throwing one more apple of discord into this already roaring, kicking, mad whirl pool of American religion.

Greenacre Inn, Eliot, Maine: 26-7-94 – This is a big inn and farm house where the Christian Scientists are holding a session. Last spring in New York, I was invited by the lady projector of the meeting to come here, and here I am. It is a beautiful and cool place, no doubt, and many of my old friends of Chicago are here. Mrs. Mills, Miss Stockam and several other ladies and gentlemen live in tents which they have pitched on the open ground by the river. They have a lively time and sometimes all of them wear what you call the scientific dress the whole day. They have lectures almost everyday. One Mr. Colville from Boston is here; he speaks every day, it is said, under spirit control. The Editor (?) of the University Truth has settled herself down here. She is conducting religious services and holding classes to heal all manner of diseases, and very soon I expect them to be giving eyes to the blind, and the like! After all, it is a queer gathering. They do not care much about social laws and are quite free and happy. Mrs. Mills is quite brilliant and so are many other ladies…A very cultured lady from Detroit is going to take me to an Island fifteen miles into the sea. I hope we shall have a nice time… I may go over to Annisquam from here, I suppose. This is a beautiful and nice place and the bathing is splendid. Cora Stockham has made a bathing dress for me, and I am having as good a time in the water as a duck – this is delicious even for the denizens of Mudville..

Here is Mr. Wood of Boston, who is one of the great lights of the Christian Science sect. But, he objects to belong to the sect of Mrs. Whirlpool. So he calls himself a mental healer of meta-physical-chemico-physico-religiosic what-not! Yesterday, there was a tremendous cyclone which gave a good “treatment” to the tents. The big tent under which they had the lectures, had developed so much spirituality under the “treatment” that it entirely disappeared from mortal gaze and about two hundred chairs were dancing about the grounds under spiritual ecstasy! Mrs. Figs takes a class every morning; and Mrs. Mills is jumping all about the place – they are all in high spirits. I am especially glad for Cora, for they suffered a good deal last winter and a little hilarity would do her good. You will be astounded with the liberty they enjoy in the camps, but they are very good and pure people there – a little erratic, that is all.

I shall be here till Saturday next…The other night the camp people went to sleep beneath a pine tree under which I sit every morning a la Hindu and talk to them. Of course, I went with them, and we had a nice night under the stars, sleeping on the lap of mother earth, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I cannot describe that night’s glories – after a year of brutal life that I have led, to sleep on the ground, to meditate under the tree in the forest! The inn people are more or less well-to-do-, and the camp people are healthy, young, sincere and holy men and women. I teach them “Shivoham” “Shivoham” and they all repeat it, innocent and pure as they are and brave beyond all bounds. And so I am happy and glorified.

Thank God for making me poor, thank God for making these children in the tents poor. The Dudes and Dudines are in the Hotel, but iron-bound nerves and souls of triple steel and spirits of fire are in the camp. If you had seen them yesterday, when the rain was falling in torrents and the cyclone was overturning everything, hanging by their tent strings to keep them from being blown down, and standing in the majesty of their souls – these brave ones – it would have done your hearts good – I will go a hundred miles to see the like of them. Lord bless them.

“Sweet one! Many people offer to You many things. I am poor-but I have the body, mind and soul. I give them over to you. Deign to accept, Lord of the Universe, and refuse them not.” So have I given over my life and soul once for all. One thing-they are a dry sort of people here. They do not understand “Madhava”, the Sweet One. They are either intellectual or go after faith cure, table turning, witchcraft, etc. etc. Nowhere have I heard so much about “love, life and liberty” as in this country, but no where it is less understood. Here God is either a terror or a healing power, vibration, and so forth. Lord bless their souls! And these parrots talk day and night of love and love and love!

Greenacre: 11-8-94 – I have been all this time in Greenacre. I enjoyed this place very much. They have been all very kind to me. One Chicago lady, Mrs. Pratt of Kenilworth, wanted to give me $500. She became so much interested in me; but I refused. She has made me promise that I would send word to her whenever I was in need of money, which I hope the Lord will never put me in. His help alone is sufficient to me.

On Sunday I am going to lecture at Plymouth at the “Sympathy of Religions” meetings of Col. Higginson… Miss Howe has been so kind to me. I think I am going to Fishkill from Plymouth, where I will be only a couple of days…I will be in New York next fall. New York is a grand and good place. The New York people have a tenacity of purpose unknown in any other city. I had a letter from Mrs. Potter Palmer asking me to see her in August. She is a very gracious and kind lady. There is my friend Dr. Janes of New York, President of the Ethical Cultural Society, who has begun his lectures. I must go to hear him. He and I agree so much.

Annisquam: 20-8-94 – I am with the Bagleys once more. They are kind as usual. Professor Wright was not here. But he came day before yesterday and we have very nice time together. Mr. Bradley of Evanston was here. His sister-in-law had me sit for a picture several days and had painted me. I had some very fine boating and one evening overturned the boat and had a good drenching, clothes and all…

From here I think I will go back to New York. Or I may go to Boston to Mrs. Ole Bull, widow of the great violinist of this country. She is a very spiritual lady. She lives in Cambridge and has a fine big parlour made of woodwork brought all the way from India. She wants me to come over to her any time and use her parlour for lectures.

I have kept pretty good health all the time and hope to do in the future. I had no occasion yet to draw on my reserve, yet I am rolling on pretty fair. And I have given up all money making schemes and will be quite satisfied with a bite and a shed and will work on.

31-8-94 : The letter from the Madras people was published in yesterday’s “Boston Transcript”…I shall be here till Tuesday next at least, on which day I am going to lecture here in Annisquam.

The greatest difficulty with me is to keep or even to touch money. It is disgusting and debasing…I have friends here who take care of all my monetary concerns.

Boston : 13-9-94 – I have been in this holel (Hotel Bellevue, Becon St.) for about a week. I will remain in Boston some time yet…I am vagabondizing. I was very much amused the other day to read Abe Hue’s description of the vagabond lamas of Tibet-a true picture of our fraternity. He says they are queer people. They come when they will, sit at everybody’s table, invitation or no invitaion, live where they will and go where they will. There is not a mountain they have not climbed, not a river they have not crossed, not a language they do not talk in. He thinks that God must have put into them a part of that energy which makes the planets go round and round eternally. Today this vagabond lama was seized with a desire of going right along.scribbling and so I walked down and entering a store brought all sorts of writing materials and a beautiful portfolio which shuts with a clasp and has even a little wooden inkstand…Last month, I had mail enough from India and am greatly delighted with my countrymen at their generous appreciation of my work. Good enough for them. Prof. Wright, his wife and children were as good as ever. Words cannot express my gratitude to them.

Everything so far is not going bad with me, except that I had a bad cold. Now I think the fellow is gone.

This time I tried Christian Science for insomnia and really found it worked very well.

Hotel Belle Vue, Boston 19-9-94 – I am at present lecturing in several places in Boston. What I want is to get a place where I can sit down and write down my thoughts. I had enough of speaking; now I want to write. I think I will have to go to New York for it. Mrs. Guernsey was so kind to me and she is ever willing to help me. I think I will go to her and sit down and write my book.

U.S.A. ; 21-9-94 – I have been continuously travelling from place to place and working incessently, giving lectures and holding classes.

I have made some nice friends here amongst the liberal people, and a few amongst the orthodox. .Too much work is making me nervous. The giving of too many public lectures and constant hurry have brought on this nervousness…

New York: 25-9-94 – Here in summer they go to the sea side-I also did the same. They have got almost a mania for boating and yatching. The yacht is a kind of light vessel which everyone, young and old who has the means, possesses. They set sail in them every day to the sea and return home to eat, drink and dance-while music continues day and night. Pianos render it a botheration to stay indoors!

I shall now tell something of the Hales. Hale and his wife are an old couple, having two daughters, two nieces and a son. The son lives abroad where he earns a living.

The daughters live at home. In this country relationship is through the girls. The son marries and no longer belongs to the family, but the daughter’s husband pays frequent visits to his father-in-laws’s house. They say,

“Son is son till he gets a wife,

The daughter is daughter all her life.”

All the four are young and not yet married. Marriage is a very troublesome business here. In the first place, one must have a husband after one’s heart. Secondly, he must be a moneyed man…They will probably live unmarried; besides they are now full of ‘renunciation through my contact and are busy with thoughts of Brahman!

The two daughters are blondes, that is, have golden hair, while the two nieces are brunettes, that is of dark hair. They know all sorts of occupations. The nieces are not so rich, they conduct a kindergarten school, but the daughters do not earn. Many girls of this country earn their living. Nobody depends upon others. Even millionaires’ sons earn their living, but they marry and have separate establishments of their own. The daughters call me brother, and I address their mother as mother. All my things are at their places, and they look after them, wherever I may go. Here the boys go in search of a living while quite young, and the girls are educated in the universities. So, you will find that in a meeting there will be ninety-nine per cent girls. The boys are nowhere in comparison with them.

There are a good many spiritualists in this country. The medium is one who induces the spirit. He goes behind a screen, and out of the latter come ghosts, of all sizes and all colours. I have witnessed some cases, but they seemed to be a hoax. I shall test some more before I come to a final conclusion. Many of the spiritualists respect me.

Next comes Christian Science. They form the most influential party, nowadays, figuring everywhere. They are spreading by leaps and bounds, and causing heart-burn to the orthodox. They are Vedantins; I mean, they have picked up a few doctrines of the Advaita and grafted them upon the Bible. And they cure diseases by proclaiming, “    ’’ “I am He” “I am He” – through strength of mind. They all admire me highly.

Nowadays the orthodox section of this country are crying for help. “Devil Worship is but a thing of the past. They are mortally afraid of me and exclaim, “What a pest! Thousands of men and women follow him! He is going to root out- orthodoxy! ’ Well, the torch has been applied and the conflagration that has set in through the grace of the Guru shall not be put out. In course of time, the bigots will have their breath knocked out of them.

The Theosophists have not much power. But, they too are dead against the orthodox section.

This Christian Science is exactly like our Kartabhaja sect (an offshoot of Vaishnavism during its degeneracy in Bengal). Say, “I have no diseases, and you are whole; and say, “ I am He ” –    – and you are quits – be at large. This is a thoroughly materialistic country. The people of this Christain land will recognise religion if only you can cure diseases, work miracles, and open up avenues to money, and understand little of any thing else-But there are honourable exceptions.

People here have found a new type of man in me. Even the orthodox are at their wit’s end. And people are now looking up to me with an eye of reverence. Is there a’greater strength than that of Brahmacharyam— purity, my boy ?

…They are good-natured, kind, and truthful. All is right with them, but that enjoyment is their God. It is a country where money flows like a river, with beauty as the ripple and learning its waves, and which rolls in luxury.

They look with veneration upon women, who play a most prominent part in their lives.,.Well, I am almost at my wit’s end to see the women of this country! They take me to the shops and everywhere, as if I were a child. They do all sorts of work-I cannot do even a sixteenth part of what they do.

Boston: 26-9-94 I will have to go back to Melrose on Saturday and remain there till Monday.

I am busy writing letters to India last few days. I will remain a few days more in Boston.

U.S,A- 27-9-94 – One thing I find in the book of my speeches and sayings published in Calcutta. Some of them are printed in such a way as to savour of political views; whereas I am no politician, or political agitator. I care only for the spirit – when that is right everything will be righted by itself…No political significance should be ever attached falsely to any of my writings or sayings.

What nonsense!…I heard that Rev. Kali Charan Banerji in a lecture to Christian missionaries said that I was a political delegate. This is their trick! I have said a few harsh words in honest criticism of Christian Governments in general, but that does not mean that I care for, or have any connection with politics or that sort of thing…

Uniform silence is all ray answer to my detractors…

This nonsense of public life and newspaper blazoning has disgusted me thoroughly. I long to go back to the Himalayan quiet.

Chicago. Sept. 94 – I have been travelling all over this country all this time and seeing everything. I have come to this conclusion that there is only one country in the world which understands religion-it is India; with all their faults, the Hindus are shoulders above and ahead of all other nations in morality and spirituality……I have seen enough of this country. I think, and so soon will go over to Europe and then to India.

Baltimore. Oct. 94- I am here now. From here I go to Washington, thence to Philadelphia and then to New York.

Washigton: I am going to talk here today, tomorrow at Baltimore, then again Monday at Baltimore and Tuesday at Washington again. So, I will be in Philadelphia in a few days after that. I shall be in Philadelphia only to see Prof. Wright, and then I go to New York and run for a little while between New York and Boston and then go to Chicago, via Detroit, and then “whist”… as Senator RL&ner says, to England.

I have been very well treated here and am doing very well. There is nothing extraordinary, in the meantime, except that I got vexed at getting loads of newspapers from India; so after sending a cartload to Mother Church and another to Mrs. Guernsey, I had to write to them to stop sending their newspapers. I have had “ boom ” enough in India. Alasinga writes that every village all over the coutry now has heard of of me. Well, the old peace is gone for ever and no rest anywhere from heretofore. These newspapers of India will be my death, I am sure…Lord bless them; it was all my foolery. I really came here to raise a little money secretly and go over but was caught in the trap and now no more of a reserved life.

23-10-94 : I have become one of their own teachers. They all like me and my teachings…I travel all over the country from one place to another, as was my habit in India, preaching and teaching. Thousands and thousands have listened to me and taken my ideas in a very kindly spirit. It is the most expensive country, but the Lord provides for me everywhere I go.

26-10-94 : I am enjoying Baltimore and Washington very much. I will go hence to Philadelphia.

The lady with whom I am staying is Mrs. Totten, a niece of Miss Howe. I will be her guest more than a week yet.

A lady from London with whom one of my friends is staying has sent an invitation to me to go over as her guest.

U.S A.: 1894: Last winter I travelled a good deal in this country, although the Veather was very severe.

I thought it would be dreadful, but I did not find it so after all.

Chicago: 15-11-94 – I have seen many strange sights and grand things…America is a grand country. It is a paradise of the poor and women. There is almost no poor in the country and no where else in the world women are so free, so educated, so cultured. They are everything in society.

This is a great lesson. The Sannyasin has not lost a bit of his Sannyasinship, even his mode of living. And in this most hospitable country, every home is open to me. The Lord who guides me in India, would He not guide me here? And He has.

You may not understand why a Sannyasin should be in America, but it was necessary …I am neither a sightseer nor an idle traveller, but you will see…and bless me all your life.

New York: 19-11-94 – Struggle, struggle was my motto for the last ten years. Struggle, still I say. When it was all dark, I used to say, struggle; when light is breaking in, I still say, struggle.

I have depended always on the Lord, always on Truth, broad as the light of day. Let me not die with stains on my conscience for having played Jesuitism to get up name or fame, or even to do good.

Chicago : Nov. 94 – Here……they were all trying to lecture and get money thereby. They did something, but I succeeded better than they. Why ? I did not put myself as a bar to their success. It was the will of the Lord. But all these have fabricated and circulated the most horrible lies about me in this country, and behind my back……

I do not care what they say. I love my God, my religion, my country, and above all, myself, a poor beggar. I love the poor, the ignorant, the down trodden, I feel for them. The Lord knows how much. He will show the way. I do not care a fig for human approbation or criticism.

I have that insight through the blessings of Ramakrishna, I am trying to work with my little band, all of them poor beggars like me…

Cambridge .- 8-12-94 – I have been here three days. We had a nice lecture from Lady Henry Somerset. I have a class every morning here on Vedanta and another topics..I went to dine with the Spaldings another day. That day they urged me, against my repeated protests, to criticize the Americans:    I am afraid they did not relish it. It is, of course, always impossible to do so…I am kept pretty busy the whole day…I shall remain here until the 27th or 28th of this month.

Cambridge : 21-12-94- I am going away next Tuesday to New York. The lectures are at an end.

U. S. A – : 26-12-94 – In reference to me every now and then, attacks are made in missionary papers (so I hear), but, I never care to see them.

Brooklyn : 28-12-94 -I arrived safely in New York and proceeded at once to Brooklyn, where I arrived in time. We had a nice evening. Several gentlemen belonging tc the Ethical Culture Society came to see me.

Next Sunday we shall have a lecture. Dr. James was as usual very kind and good, and Mr. Higgins is as practical as ever…Mr. Higgins has published a pamphlet about me.

Through the Lord’s will, the desire for name and fame has not yet crept into my heart, and I dare say never will. I am an instrument and He is the operator. Through this instrument He is rousing the religious instinct in thousands of hearts in this far-off country. Thousands of men and women here love and revere me–. I am amazed at His grace. Whatever town I visit, it is in an uproar. They have named me “the cyclonic Hindu”. It is His will – I am a voice without a form.

Chicago : 3-1-95 – I lectured at Brooklyn last Sunday. Mrs. Higgins gave a little reception the evening I arrived and some of the prominent members of the Ethical Society including Dr. (Lewis G.) James were there. Some of them thought that such oriental religious subjects will not interest the Brooklyn public.

But the lecture through the blessing of the Lord proved a tremendous success. About 800 of the elite of Brooklyn were present and the very gentlemen who thought it would not prove a success are trying to organise a series in Brooklyn.

I am trying to get a new gown. The old gown is here, but it is shrunken by constant washings so that it is unfit to wear in public.

I saw Miss Couring at Brooklyn. She was as kind as ever.

6-1-95 – I have been in the midst of the genuine article in England. The English people received me with open arms and I have very much toned down my ideas about the English race. First of all, I found that those fellows, as Lund etc., who came over from England to attack me were nowhere. Their existence is simply ignored by the English people. None but a person belonging to the English Church is thought to be genteel. Again some of the best men of England belong to the English Church and some of the highest in position and fame became my truest friends. This was another sort of experience from what I met in America.

The English people laughed and laughed when I told them about my experience with the Presbyterians and other fanatics here (in America) and my reception in hotels etc. I also found the difference in culture and breeding between tha two countries, and came to understand why American girls go in shoals to be married to Europeans.

Everyone was kind to me there (in England), and I have left many noble friends of both sexes anxiously awaiting my return in the spring.

As to my work there, the Vedantic thought has already permeated the higher classes of England. Many people of education and rank, amongst them not a few clergymen, told me that the conquest of Rome by Greece was being re-enacted in England…I had eight classes a week apart from public lectures, and they were so crowded that a good many people even ladies of high rank, sat on the floor and did not think anything of it. In England,

I find strong-minded men and women take up the work and carry it forward with the peculiar English grip and energy. This year my work in New York is going on splendidly. Mr. Leggett is a very rich man of New York and very much interested in me. The New Yorker has more steadiness than any other people in this country (America), so that I have determined to make my centre here. In this country my teachings are thought to be queer by the “Methodist” and “Presbyterian” aristocracy. In England, it is the highest philosophy to the English Church aristocracy.

Moreover those talks and gossips, so characteristic of the American women, are almost unknown in England. The English woman is slow, but when she works up to an idea she will have a hold on it sure, and they are regularly carrying on my work there and sending every week a report—think of that ! Here (in America) if I go away for a week, everything falls to pieces.

Chicago : 11-1-95 -1 have been running all the time between Boston and New York, two great centres of this country, of which Boston may be called the brain, and New York, the purse. In both, my success is more than ordinary …I am indifferent to newspaper reports… A little boom was necessary to begin work.

I want to teach truth; I do not care whether here or elsewhere…

I shall work incessantly until I die. and even after death, I shall work for the good of the world.

Thousands of the best men do care for me; I am slowly exercising an influence in this land, greater than all the newspaper blazoning of me can do…

It is the force of character, of purity and of truth and personality. So long as I have these things, no one will be able to injure a hair of my head. If they try they will fail, sayeth the Lord…The Lord is giving me a deeper and deeper insight every day. The Lord is always with me …

12-1-95 – I do not care for name or fame, or any humbug of that type. I want to preach my ideas for the good of the world. My life is too precious to be spent in getting the admiration of the world…I have no time for such foolery.

Brooklyn: 20-1-95- I am to lecture here(Brooklyn) tonight, and two other lectures in the next month. I came in only yesterday. Miss Josephine Lock and Mrs. Adams were very kind to me in Chicago and my debt to Mrs. Adams is simply inexpressible.

New York : 24-1-95- This year, I am afraid I am getting overworked, as I feel the strain…

Tomorrow will be the last Sunday lecture of this month. The first Sunday of next month there will be a lecture in Brooklyn, the rest three in New York, with which I will close this year’s New York lectures.

New York : 24-1-95-My last lecture was not very much appreciated by men but awfully by women. This Brooklyn is the centre of anti-women’s rights movements and when I told them that women deserve and are fit for everything, they did not like it of course. Never mind, the women were in ecstasies.

I have got again a little cold. I am going to the Guernseys. I have got a room downtown also where I will go several hours to hold my classes.

New York : 1-2-95 – I have a message, and I will give it after my own fashion; I will neither Hinduise my message nor Christianise it, nor make it any ‘ise’ in the world. I will only my-ise it and that is all.

I have a message to give; I have no time to be sweet to the world, and every attempt at sweetness makes me a hypocrite. I will die a thousand deaths rather than lead a jelly-fish existence and yield to every requirement of this foolish world – no matter whether it be my own country or a foreign country.

I am living with Landsberg at 54 W, 33rd Street. He is a brave and noble soul; Lord bless him. Sometimes I go to Guernseys’ to sleep.

9- 2-95 – In this dire winter I have travelled across mountains and over snows at dead of night and collected a little fund; and I shall have peace of mind when a plot is secured for Mother (Sri Sarada Devi).

10- 2-95 – Three lectures I delivered in New York. These Sunday public lectures are now taken down in shorthand and printed. Three of them made two little pamphlets…I shall be in New York two weeks more, and then I go to Detroit to come back to Boston for a week or two.

My health is very much broken down this year by constant work. I am very nervous. I have not slept a single night soundly this winter. I am sure, I am working too much, yet a big work awaits me in England.

I will have to go through it and then I hope to reach India and have rest all the rest of my life. I have tried at least to do my best for the world, leaving the result to the Lord.

Now I am longing for rest. Hope I will get some and the Indian people will give me up. How I would like to become dumb for some years and not talk at all!

I was not made for these struggles and fights of the world. I am naturally dreamy and restful. I am a born idealist, can only live in a world of dreams; the very touch of fact disturbs my vision and makes me unhappy. Thy will be done !

The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.

New York, 14 2 1895 –According to Manu, collecting funds even for a good work is not good for a Sannyasin, and I have begun to feel that the old sages were right. “Hope is the greatest misery, despair is the greatest happiness.” It appears like a hallucination. I am getting out of them. I was in these childish ideas of doing this and doing that.

“Give up all desire and be at peace. Have neither friends nor foes, and live alone. Thus shall we travel having neither friends nor foes, neither pleasure nor pain, neither desire nor jealousy, injuring no creatures, being the cause of injury to no creatures—from mountain to mountain, from village to village, preaching the name of the Lord.”

“Seek no help from high or low, from above or below. Desire nothing— and look upon this vanishing panorama as a witness and let it pass.”

“In wealth is the fear of poverty, in knowledge the fear of ignorance, in beauty the fear of age, in fame the fear of backbiters, in success the fear of jealousy, even in body is the fear of death Everything in this earth is fraught with fear. He alone is fearless who has given up everything.” [Bhartrihari, Vairagya-satakam 31 ]

14-2-95 – Perhaps, these mad desires were necessary to bring me over to this country. And I thank the Lord for the experience.

I am very happy now. Between Mr. Landsberg and me, we cook some rice and lentils or barley and quietly eat it, and write something or read or receive visits from poor people who want to learn something, and thus I feel I am more a Sannyasin now than I ever was in America.

I went to see Miss Corbin the other day, and Miss Jarmer and Miss Thursby were also there. We had a talk half-hour and she wants me to hold some classes in  next Sunday.

I was told once by a Christian missionary that their Scriptures have a historical character, and therefore, are true. To which I replied, “Mine have no historical character and therefore they are true; yours being historical they were evidently made by some man the other day. Yours are man-made and mine are not; their nonhistoricity is in their favour.”

I have myself been told by some of the Western scientific minds of the day how wonderfully rational the conclusions of the Vedanta are. I know one of them personally, who scarcely has time to eat his meals, or go out of his laboratory, but who yet would stand by the hour to attend my lectures on the Vedanta; for, as he expresses it, they are so scientific, they so exactly harmonise with the aspirations of the age and with the conclusions to which modern science is coming at the present time.

It struck me more than once that I should have to leave my bones on foreign shores owing to the prevalence of religious intolerance.

By improper representation of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses, the Christian missionaries were trying with all their heart and soul to prove that really religious men could never be produced from among their worshippers; but like a straw before a tidal wave that attempt was swept away; while that class of our countrymen – interested organized bodies of mischief-makers-which set itself to devise means for quenching the great fire of the rapidly spreading power of Sri Ramakrishna, seeing all ita efforts futile, has yielded to despair. What is humati will in opposition to the Divine?

I am not a fool to believe anything and everything without direct proof. And coming into this realm of Mahamaya, oh, the many magic mysteries I have come across alongside this bigger conjuration of a universe! Maya, it is all Maya!

There is nothing higher than the knowledge of the Atman, all else is Maya, mere jugglery. The Atman is the One unchangable truth. This I have come to understand, and that is why I try to bring it home to all.

While I was in America, I had certain wonderful powers developed in me. By looking into people’s eyes, I could fathom in a trice the contents of their minds. The working of everybody’s mind would be patent to me, like the fruit on the palm of one’s hand.

To some I used to tell these things, and of those to whom I communicated these, many would become my disciples; whereas those who came to mix with me with some ulterior motive would not, on coming across this power of mine, even venture in to my presence any more.

When I began lecturing in Chicago and other cities, I had to deliver every week some twelve or fifteen or even more lectures at times. This excessive strain on the body and mind would exhaust me to a degree. I seemed to run short of subjects for lectures, and was anxious where to find new topics for the morrow’s lecture.New thoughts seemed altogether scarce. One day, after the lecture I lay thinking of what means to adopt next, (some part here missing) induced a sort of slumber and in that state somebody standing by me was lecturing

many new ideas and new veins of thought which I had scarcely heard or thought of in my life. On awaking I remembered them and reproduced them in my lecture.

I cannot enumerate how often this phenomenon took place. Many, many days did I hear such lectures while lying in bed. Sometimes the lecture would be delivered in such a loud voice that the inmates of the adjacent rooms would hear the sound and ask me |he next day. “With whom, Swamiji, were you talking so loudly last night ?” I used to avoid the question somehow. Ah, it was a wonderful phenomenon.

When people began to honour me, then the Padris were after me. They spread many slanders about me by publishing them in the newspapers. Many asked me to contradict these slanders. But I never took the slightest notice of them. It is my conviction that no great work is accomplished in this world by low cunning; so without paying any heed to these vile slanders, I used to work steadily for my mission. The upshot, I used to find, was that often my slanderers feeling repentant afterwards, would surrender to me and offer apologies, themselves contradicting the slanders in the papers. Sometimes, it so happened that learning that I had been invited to a certain house, somebody would communicate those slanders to my host, who hearing them, would leave home locking the door. When I went there, to attend the invitation, I found it was deserted and nobody was there. Again a few days afterwards, they themselves learning the truth, would feel sorry for their previous conduct, and come to offer themselves as disciples. The fact is this whole world is full of mean ways of worldliness. But men of real moral courage and discrimination are never deceived by these. Let the world say what it chooses, I shall tread the path of duty—know this to be the line of action for a hero. Otherwise, if one has to attend day and night to what this man says or that man writes, no great work is achieved in this world. ” Let those versed in the ethical codes praise or blame, let Lakshmi, the Goddess of fortune, come or go whenever she wisheth, let death overtake him today or after a century, the wise man never swerves from the path of rectitude.”

I stand for truth. Truth will never ally itself with falsehood. Even if all the world should be against me, Truth must prevail in the end.

Missionaries and others could not do much against me in this country (America). Through the Lord’s grace, the people here like me greatly, and are not to be tricked by the opinions of any particular class. They appreciate my ideas.

When I was in America, I heard once the complaint made that I was preaching too much of Advaita, and too little of Dualism. To preach the Advaita aspect of Vedanta is necessary to rouse up the hearts of men, to show them the glory of their souls, It is, therefore, that I preach this Advaita, and I do so not as a sectarian, but upon universal and widely acceptable grounds.

U. S. A.: 6-3-95 – The Maharaja of Mysore is dead—one of our greatest hopes. Well! the Lord is great. He will send others to help us.

I am going to have a series of paid lectures in my rooms (downstairs), which will seat about a hundred persons, and that will cover the expenses. Miss Hamlin has been very kind to me and does all she can to help me.

N. Y.: March 27 , 95 – Mrs. Bull has been greatly benefitted by Mrs. Adam’s lessons. I also took a few but no use; the ever-increasing load in front does not allow me to bend forward as Mrs. Admas wants !

My classes are full of women. Sometimes, I get disgusted with eternal lecturings and talkings; want to be silent for days and days.

When I was a boy, I thought that fanaticism was a great element in work, but now, as I grow older, I find that it is not.

My experience comes to this, that it is rather wise to avoid all sorts of fanatical reforms.

To make a man take in everything and believe it, would be to make him a lunatic. I once had a book sent to me, which said I must believe everything told m it. It said there was no soul, but that there were Gods and Goddesses in heaven, and a thread of light going from each of our heads to heaven ! How did the writer know all these things ? She had been inspired, and wanted to believe it, too, and because I refused, she said, “You must be a very bad man; there is no hope for you ! ” This is fanaticism.

N. F.: 10-4-95 – Tomorrow I have a class at Miss Andrews’ of 40, W. 9th Street.

11-4-95 – I am going away to the country tomorrow to Mr. L – for a few days, A little fresh air will do me good, I hope.

Everyone of my friends thought it would end in nothing, this my living and preaching in poor quarters by all myself, and that no ladies would ever come here. Miss Hamlin especially thought that “ she ” or “her right sort of people” were way up from such things as to go and listen to a man who lives by himself in a poor lodging. But, the “right kind” came for all that, day and night, and she too. Lord ! how hard it is for man to believe in Thee and Thy mercies ! Shiva! Shiva!

24-4-95 – I am perfectly aware that although some truth underlies the mass of mystical thought which has burst upon the western world of late, it is for the most part full of motives unworthy or insane.

For this reason, I have never had anything to do with these phases of religion, either in India or elsewhere, and mystics as a class are not very favourable to me…

Only the Advaita philosophy can save mankind, whether in East or West, from “devil worship” and kindred superstitions, giving tone and strength to the very nature of man. India herself requires this, quite as much or even more than the West. Yet, it is hard uphill work, for we have first to create a taste, then teach, and lastly proceed to build up the whole fabric.

Perfect sincerity, holiness, gigantic intellect, and an all-conquering will—let only a handful of men work with these, and the whole world will be revolutionised. I did a good deal of platform work in this country last year, and received plenty of applause but found that I was only working for myself. It is the patient upbuilding of character, an intense struggle to realise truth, which alone will tell on the future of humanity. So this year I am hoping to work along this line—training up to practical Advaita realisation a small band of men and women. I do not know how far I shall succeed……I can teach, and preach, and sometimes write. But, I have intense faith in Truth. The Lord will send help and hands to work with me. Only let me be perfectly pure, perfectly sincere, and perfectly unselfish.

New York 25-4-95 – The day before yesterday, I received a kind note from Miss F—including a cheque for a hundred dollars for the Barbar House lectures. She is coming to N. Y. next Saturday.

I have arranged to go to the Thousand Islands. There is a cottage belonging to Miss Dutcher, one of my students, and a few of us will be there on rest and peace and seclusion. I want to manufacture a few “Yogis” out of the materials of the classes.

New York: 5-5-95 -I always thought that although Prof. Max Muller in all his writings on the Hindu religion adds in the last a derogatory remark, he must see the whole truth in the long run…His last book “Vedantism”-there you will find him swallowing the whole of it: re-incarnation and all…it is only a part of what I have been telling…Many points smack of my paper in Chicago.

I am glad now the old man has seen the truth, because that is the only way to have religion in the face of modern research and science.

I know very little; that little I teach without reserve; where I am ignorant confess it and never am I so glad as when I find people being helped by Theosophists,

Christians, Mohammedans or any body in the world. I am a Sannyasin and as such I consider myself as a servant, not as a master in the world. If people love me, they are welcome; if they hate, then too are they welcome.

U.S.A.: 6-5-95-I did not come to seek name and fame, it was forced upon me…I am the one man who dared defend his country, and I have given them such ideas as they never expected from a Hindu. There are many who are against me, but I will never be a coward.

I have a firm footing in N. Y., and so my work will go on. I am taking several of my disciples to a summer retreat to finish their training in Yoga and Bhakti and Jnana.

New York: 7-5-95- I am going to have two public lectures more in N.Y., in the upper hall of Mott’s Memorial Building. The first one will be Monday next, on the Science of Religion; the next, on Rationale of Yoga.

The classes are going on and the attendance is large. But, I shall have to close them this week. I am rather busy just now in writing a promised article for the Press Association on Immortality.

New York: 1895 – I am now in New York City. The City is hot in summer, exactly like Calcutta. You perspire profusely, and there is not a breath of air. I made a tour in the north for a couple of months. I shall start for England.

N. Y. May: 95-My pupils have come round me with help and the classes will go on nicely now no doubt. I was so glad of it because teaching has become a part of my life, as necessary to my life as eating or breathing.

Those that are very emotional, no doubt, have their Kundalini rushing quickly upwards, but it is as quick to come down as to go up. And when it does come down, it leaves the devotee in a state of utter ruin. It is for this reason that Kirtans and other auxiliaries to emotional development have a great drawback. It is true that by dancing, jumping, etc. through a momentary impulse, that power is made to course upwards, but it is never enduring. On the contrary, when it traces back its course, it rouses virulent lust in the individual. Listening to my lectures in America, through temporary excitement many among the audience used to get into an ecstatic state, and some would even become motionless like statues, but on enquiry, I afterwards found that many of them had an excess of the carnal instinct immediately after that state. But this happens simply owing to a lack of steady practice in meditation and concentration.

New York: 28-5-95 – I have succeeded in doing something in this country at last.

June, 95: I am going today to live with the Guernseys as the doctor wants to watch me and cure me…

I will be in N. Y.a few days more. Helmer wants me to take three treatments a week for four weeks, then two a week for four more and I will be all right. In case I go to Boston, he recommends me to a very good ostad (expert) there whom he would advise on the matter.

New Hampshire: 7-6-95 I am here at last with Mr. Leggett. This is one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen. Imagine a lake surrounded with hills covered with a huge forest, with nobody but ourselves. So lovely, so quiet, so restful! How glad I am to be here after the bustle of cities!

It gives me a new lease of life to be here. I go into the forest alone and read my Gita, and am quite happy. I will leave this place in about ten days and go to the Thousand Islands Park. I will meditate by the hour there, and be all alone to myself. The very idea is ennobling.

N. Y.: June, 95-1 have just arrived home. The trip did me good, and, I enjoyed the country and the hills, and especially Mr. Leggett’s country-house in N. Y. State.

May the Lord bless Landsberg wherever he goes! He is one of the sincere souls I have had the privilege in this life to come across.

Just now I received a letter from an English gentleman in London who had lived in India in the Himalayas with two of my brethren. He asked me to come to London.

Percy N. H.: 17-6-95: ( on birch bark ) – Going tomorrow to the Thousand Island care Miss Dutcher’s, T. I. Park, N. Y. I have a chance of going to Europe in August.

New York: 22-6-95: I am going on pretty nearly in the same old fashion; talking when I can and silent when forced to be. I do not know whether I will go to Greenacre this summer. I saw Miss Farmer the other day…She is a noble, noble lady.

I am left alone. I am living mostly on nuts and fruits and milk, and find it very nice and healthy, too. I hope to lose about 30 to 40 lbs. this summer. That will be all right for my size. I am afraid I have forgotten all about Mrs. Adam’s lessons in walking. I will have to renew them when she comes again to N. Y.

This year, I could hardly keep my head up and I did not go about lecturing…I intend to write a book this summer on the Vedanta philosophy.

T. I. Park, N. Y. : 26-6-95 -In the articles by Prof. Max Muller on the “Immortality of the Soul, the old man has taken in Vedanta, bones and all, and has boldly come out…

I am asked again and again in the letters from India to go over. They are getting desperate. Now if I go to Europe. I will go as the guest of Mr. Francis Leggett of N. Y. He will travel all over Germany, England, France and Switzerland for six weeks. From there I shall go to India, or I may return to America. I have a seed planted here and wish it to grow. This winter’s work in N. Y. was splendid and it may die if I suddenly go to India; so I am not sure about going to India soon.

Nothing noticeable has happened during this visit to the Thousand Islands. The scenery is very beautiful and I have some of my friends here with me to talk about God and soul ad libitum… I am eating fruits and drinking milk and so forth, and studying huge Sanskrit books on Vedanta which they have kindly sent me from India…

My reply to Madras (address) has produced a tremendous effect there. ‘A late speech by the President of the Madras Christian College, Mr. Miller, embodies a large amount of my ideas, and declares that the West is in need of Hindu ideas of God and man, and calls upon the young men to go and preach to the West. This has created quite a furore, of course amongst the Missions…

9-7-95- I am a man of dogged perseverence. The more the Christian priests oppose me, the more I am determined to leave a permanent mark on their country.

I have already some friends in London. I am going there by the end of August.

Aug. 95 – My ideas are going to work in the West better than in India.

I am free, my bonds are cut, what care I where this body goes or does not go?… I have a truth to teach, I, the child of God. And, He, who gave me the truth will send me fellow-workers…

T. I. Park, N. Y. : I am enjoying this place immensely; very little eating, good deal of thinking and talking, and study. A wonderful calmness is coming over my soul. Every day I feel I have no duty to do; I am always in eternal rest and peace. It is He that works. We are only instruments. Blessed be His name I The threefold bondage of lust and gold and fame is as it were fallen from me for the time being, and once more even here, I feel what sometimes I felt in India : “From me all difference has fallen, all right or wrong, all delusion and ignorance has vanished, I am walking in the path beyond the qualities.” What law I obey, what disobey ?

From that height, the universe looks like a mudpuddle. Hari Om Tat Sat. He exists; nothing else does. I in Thee and Thou in me. Be Thou, Lord, my eternal refuge! Peace, Peace, Peace!

N. Y. : 2-8-95 – I am going to Paris first with a friend and start for Europe on the 17th of Aug. I will, however, remain in Paris only a week…and then I go over to London.

Some Theosophists came to my classess in N. Y., but as soon as human beings perceive the glory of the Vedanta, all abracadabras fall off themselves. This has been my uniform experience. Whenever mankind attains a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. Multitude counts for nothing. A few heart-whole, sincere and energetic men can do more in a year than a mob in a century; if there is heat in one body, then those others that come near it must catch it. This is the law.

So success is ours, so long as we keep up the heat, the spirit of truth, sincerity and love. My own life has been a very chequered one, but I have always found the eternal words verified; “Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through Truth, alone, lies the way of God.”

New York: 9-8-95 – The names of those who will wish to injure us will be legion. But is that not the surest sign of our having the truth? The more I have been opposed, the more my energy has always found expression; I have been driven and worshipped by princes. I have been slandered by priests and laymen alike. But, what of it? , Bless them all! They are my very Self and have they not helped me by acting as a spring board from which my energy could take higher and higher flights?

I have discovered one great secret — I have nothing to fear from talkers of religion.

N.Y. Aug. 95 – The work here is going on splendidly. I have been working incessantly at two classes a day since my arrival. Tomorrow I go out of town with Mr. Leggett for a week’s holiday. Madame Antoinettee Sterling, one of the great (English) singers is very much interested in the work. I have made over all the secular part of the work to a committee and am free from all that botheration. I have no aptitude for organising. It nearly breaks me to pieces.

I have now taken up the Yoga Sutras, and take them up one by one and go through all the commentators along with them. These talks are all taken down, and when completed will form the fullest annotated translation of Patanjali in English.

T.I. Park, Aug. 95 – I am going by the end of Aug. with Mr. Leggett to Paris, and then I go to London.

The older I grow the more I see behind the idea of Hindus, that man is the greatest of all beings.

Paris: 5-9-95 – I have a cordial invitation from Miss Muller… I was very ill for a few days.

9-9-95 – I am going to London tomorrow.

ENGLAND

Reading, England: Sept. 95 – I arrived safely in London; found my friend (Mr. E.T. Sturdy) and am all right in his home. It is beautiful. His wife is surely an angel, and his life is full of India. He has been years there — mixing with the Sannyasins, eating their food, etc. etc.; so, I am very happy. I found already several retired Generals from India; they were very civil and polite to me.

That wonderful knowledge of the Americans that identify every black man with the negro is entirely absent here, and nobody even stares at me in the streets…

I am very much more at home here than anywhere out of India.-.

My friend being a Sanskrit scholar, we are busy working on the great commentaries of Shankara, etc. I am going to try to get up classes in October in London.

It is taught in the West that society began 1800 years ago, with the New Testament. Before that there was no society. That may be true with regard to the West, but it is not true as regards the whole world.

Often, while I was lecturing in London, a very intellectual and intelligent friend of mine would argue with me, and one day after using all his weapons against me, he suddenly exclaimed, “But why did not your Rishis come to England to teach us?” I replied, “Because there was no England to come to. Would they preach to the forests?”

Saversham (England): 4-10-95 – I am now in England. Mr. Sturdy has taken invitation from me, and is a very enterprising and good man.

Reading (England) Oct. 95 – Mr. Sturdy is known to Tarakda (Shivananda). Wc are both trying to create a stir in England. I shall this year leave again in November for America.

4-10-95 – He (Sri Ramakrishna) is protecting us, forsooth – I see it before my eyes. Is it through my own strength that beauty like that of fairies, and hundreds of thousands of rupees, lose their attraction and appear as nothing to me? Or is it he who is protecting me?

6-10-95 – This month I am going to give two lectures in London and one in Maidenhead.

23-10-95 –I delivered a lecture (“Self-knowledge”) last night at 8-30 P.M. in the Princes Hall (Piccadilly) London.

Whatever in my teaching may appeal to the highest intelligence and be accepted by thinking men, the adoption of that will be my reward.

All religions have for their object the teaching either of devotion, knowledge or Yoga, in a concrete form. Now, the philosophy of Vedanta is the abstract science which embraces all these methods, and this is that I teach leaving each one to apply it to his own concrete form. I refer each individual to his own experiences, and where reference is made to books the latter are procurable, and may be studied by each one for himself. Above all, I teach no authority proceeding from hidden beings, speaking through visible agents, any more than I claim learning from hidden books or manuscripts. I am the exponent of no occult societies, nor do I believe that good can come of such bodies.

I teach only the self, hidden in the heart of every individual and common to all.

I propound a philosophy which can serve as a basis to every possible religious system in the world, and my attitude towards all of them is one of extreme sympathy-my teaching is antagonistic to none. I direct my attention to the individual, to make him strong, to teach him that he himself is divine, and I call upon men to make themselves conscious of this divinity within.

Caversham {Eng): 1895 – I have to work day and night, and am always whirling from place to place besides. By the end of next week I shall go to America.

Eng. 95 – One must prevail over these people by dint of learning, or one will be blown off at a puff. They understand neither Sadhus nor your Sannyasins nor the spirit of renunciation. What they do understand is the vastness of learning, the display of eloquence and tremendous activity.

London 24-10-95- I have already delivered my first address. It has been well received by the ‘Standard’ ,one of the most influential conservative papers.

Chelsea (Eng): 31-10-95 – Two American ladies, mother and daughter, Mrs. and Miss Netter, living in London came to the class last night. They were very sympathetic, of course. The class there at Mr. Chamier’s is finished.

I shall begin at my lodgings from Saturday night next. I expect to have a pretty good-sized room or two for my classes. I have been also invited to Moncure

Conway’s Society, where I speak on the 10th. I shall have a lecture in the Balboa Society next Tuesday. The Lord will help.

London : 18-11-95 – In England my work is really splendid. I am astonished myself at it…Bands and bands come and I have no room for so many; so they squat on the floor, ladies and all.

I am really tired from incessant work. Any other Hindu would have died if he had to work as hard as I have to.

21-11-95 – I sail by the ‘Britannia’on Wednesday, the 27th. My work so far has been very satisfactory here.

R.M.S. “Britannia” (on the way back to America) So far the journey has been very beautiful. The Purser has been very kind to me and gave me a cabin to myself. The only difficulty is the food…Today, they have promised to give me some vegetables. We are standing at anchor now. The fog is too thick to allow the ship to proceed. It is a queer fog almost impenetrable, though the sun is shinging bright and cheerful.

A great number of people sympathised with me in America – much more than in England. Vituperation by the low cast missionaries made my cause succeed better. I had no money, the people of India having given me my bare passage-money, which was spent in a very short time. I had to live on the charity of individuals.

In England, there was not one missionary or anybody who said anything against me; not one who tried to make a scandal about me. To my astonishment, many of my friends belong to the Church of England.

BACK TO U.S.A.

3-12-95 – (U.S.A.) – I find I have a mission in this country also (U.S.A.).

I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East.

My ideal indeed can be put into a few words, that is, to preach unto mankind their divinity and how to make it manifest in every moment of life.

This world is in chains of superstition. I pity the oppressed, whether man or woman, and I pity the oppressors more.

The world is burning with misery. Can we sleep? Let us call and call till the sleeping gods awake, till the God within answers to the call. What more is in life? What greater work? The details come to me as I go. I never make plans. Plans grow and work themselves and I only say, awake, awake!

Yes, Buddha taught that the many were real and the One unreal, while orthodox Hinduism regards the One as the Real, and the many as unreal; and what Ramakri-shna Paramhamsa and I have added to this is that the Many and the One are the same Reality, perceived by same mind at different times and in different attitudes.

Ingersoll once said to me: “I believe in making the most out of this world, in squeezing the orange dry, because this world is all we are sure of.” I replied, “I know a better way to sqeeze the orange of this world than you do, and I get more out of it. I know I cannot die, so I am not in a hurry; I know there is no fear, so I enjoy the squeezing. I have no duty, no bondage of wife and children and property; I can love all men and women. Everyone is God to me. Think of the joy of loving man as God! Squeeze your orange this way and get ten-thousand fold more out of it. Get every single drop.”

That knowledge of answering other’s question before their vocal expression does not happen to me so often, but with Sri Ramakrishna it was almost always there.

New York: 8-12-95 – After ten days of a most tedious and rough voyage, I safely arrived in New York. For the first time in my life, I was badly sea-sick. My friends had already engaged some rooms, where I am living now, and intend to hold classes ere long. In the meanwhile, the T-s have been alarmed very much and are trying their best to hurt me; but they and their followers are of no consequence whatever.

I went to see Mrs. Leggett and other friends and they are as kind and enthusiastic as ever.

After the clean and beautiful cities of Europe, New York appears dirty and miserable. I am going to begin work next Monday…Saw Mrs. and Mr. Solomon and other friends. By chance met Mrs. Peak at Mrs. Guernsey’s but yet have no news of Mrs. Rothinburger. Going to Ridley this Christmas.

N.Y.: 10-12-95 – This month, notices are out for the four Sunday lectures. The lectures for the first week of Feb. in Brooklyn are being arranged by Dr. Janes and others.

N, Y.: 16-12-95 -The classes I bad here were six in the week, besides a question class. The general attendance varies between 70 to 120. Besides, every Sunday I have a public lecture. The last month my lectures were in a small hall holding about 600. But 900 will come as a rule, 300 standing, and about 330 going off, not finding room. This week, thereore, I have a bigger hall, with a capacity of holding 1200 people.

There is no admission charge in these lectures, but a collection covers the rent. The newspapers have taken me up this week and altogether I have stirred up New York considerably this year. If I could have remained here this summer and organised a summer place, the work would have been going on sure foundations here. But as I intend to go over in May to England, I shall have to leave it unfinished.

I am afraid my health is breaking down under constant work. I want some rest. The Brahmavadin is going on here very satisfactorily. I have begun to write articles on Bhakti…Some friends here are publishing my Sunday lectures.

Next month I go to Detroit, then to Boston, and Harvard University, then I shall have rest, and then I go to England.

New York : 23-12-95 – I have a strong hatred for child-marriage, I have suffered terribly from it and it is the great sin for which our nation has to suffer. As such I would hate myself if I help such a diabolical custom directly or indirectly…This world is broad enough for me. There will always be a corner found for me somewhere. If the people of India do not like me, there will be others who do. I must set my foot to the best of my ability upon this devilish custom of child-marriage…I am sorry, very sorry. I cannot have anything to do with such things as getting husbands for babies. Lord help me, I never had and never will have…I can kill the man who gets a husband for a baby…I want bold, daring, adventurous spirits to help me. Else I will work alone. I have a mission to fulfil. I will work it out alone. I do not care who comes or who goes…I am pleased with myself for having tried my best to discharge the duties laid on me by my Guru; and well done or ill, I am glad that I have tried. I want no help from any human being in any country.

1896 – I got thoroughly used to the interviewer in America… There I was representative of the Hindu religion at the world’s Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893. The Raja of Mysore and some other friends sent me there. I think I may lay claim to having had some success in America. I had many invitations to other great America^cities besides Chicago. My visit was a very long one, for with the exception of a visit to England last summer, I remained about three years in America. The American civilsation is in my opinion a very great one. I find the American mind peculiarly susceptible to new ideas, nothing is rejected because it is examined on its own merits and stands or falls by these alone. It might convey a more definite idea to call it (my teaching) the kernel of all forms of religion, stripping from them the non-essential and laying stress on that which is the real basis.

New York: 18 1-96 – I have begun my Sunday lectures here and also the classes. Both are very enthusiastically received. I make them all free and take up a collection to pay the hall etc. Last Sunday’s lecture was very much appreciated and is in the Press,

As my friends have engaged a Stenographer (Goodwin) all these class lessons and public lectures are taken down…

I have a chance of getting a piece of land in the country, and some buildings on it, plenty of trees and a river, to serve as a summer meditation resort. That, of course, requires a committee to look after it in my absence, also the handling of money and printing and other matters,

I have separated myself entirely from money questions, yet without it, the movement cannot go on. So necessarily I have to make over every thing executive to a commitee, which will look after these things in my absence.

U. S. A. : 17-2-96 – I have succeeded now in rousing the very heart of the American civilisation, New York, but it has been a terrific struggle.

People are now flocking to me. Hundreds have now become convinced that there are men who can really control their bodily desires.

N. Y. : 29-2-96 – One book, the Karma – Yoga, has been already published; the Raja-Yoga, a much bigger one, is in the course of publication; the Jnana-Yoga may be published later on. These will be popular bodks, the language being that of talk. The stenographer, who is an Englishman, named Goodwin, has become so interested in the work that I have now made him a Brahmachari, and he is going round with me.

N. Y. : 17-3-96 – I had a beautiful letter from Miss Muller, also one from Miss MacLeod; the Leggett Family has become very attached to me.

Boston: 23-3-96 – One of my new Sannyasins is indeed a woman. The others are men.

My success is due to my popular style-the greatness of a teacher consists in the simplicity of his language. My ideal of language is my Master’s language, most colloquial and yet most expressive. ^ _

I am glad that a good deal of lectures has been created by taking down stenographic notes of my literatures. Four books are ready.

Chicago: 6-4-96 – I have been suffering from slight fever for the last two days.

N. Y.: 14-4-96 – I am sailing for England tomorrow.

I sail on the White Star Line Germanic (tomorrow) at 12 noon.

SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND

Reading (Eng.): 20-4-96 – The voyage has been pleasant and no sickness this time, I gave myself treatment to avoid it. I made quite a little run through Ireland and some of the old England towns and now am once more in Reading amidst Brahma, Maya, and Jiva, the individual and the universal soul, etc.

May 96, London: In London once more. The eliminate now in England is nice and cool. We have fire in the grate.

I am having classes here just now. I begin Sunday lectures from next week. The classes are very big and are in the house. We have rented it for the season.

London : 30-5-96 Day before yesterday, I had a fine meeting with Prof. Max Muller. He is a saintly man and looks like a young man in spite of seventy years, and his face is without a wrinkle. His reverence for Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is extreme.

And he has written an article on him in the Nineteenth Century. He asked me, “What are you doing to make him known to the world?” Ramakrishna has charmed him for years.

I am to begin from next Sunday my public lectures.

May, 96 – We have a whole house to ourselves this time. It is small but convenient, and in London they do not cost so much as in America. Some old friends are here, and Miss M. came over from the Continent. She is good as gold, and as kind as ever. We have a nice little family in the house, with another monk from India. I have had two classes already—they will go on for four or five months and after that to India I go.

This city of London is a sea of human heads—ten or fifteen Calcuttas put together.

5–6-96 – The Raja-Yoga book is going on splendidly Saradananda goes for the States soon.

The biggest guns of the English Church told me that I was putting Vedantism into the Bible.

Mrs. Besant is a very good woman. I lectured at her Lodge in London. I do not know personally much about her. That she is one of the most sincere of women, her greatest enemy will concede. She is considered to be the best speaker in England. She is a Sannyasini.

At first, I found myself in a critical position owing to the hostile attitude assumed against the people of this country (India) by those who went there (America) from India…At first, many fell foul of me, manufactured huge lies against me by saying that I was a fraud, that I had a harem of wives and half a regiment of children. But my experiences of these missionaries opened my eyes as to what they were capable of doing m the name ot religion. Missionaries were nowhere in England. None came to fight me. Mr. Lund went over to America to abuse me behind my back, but people would not listen to him. I was very popular with them. When I came back to England, I thought this missionary would be at me, but Truth silenced him. They (the English Church people) greatly sympathised with me. I was agreeably surprised to find that the English clergymen, though they differed from me, did not abuse me behind my back and stab in the dark.

When I first lectured in England, I had a little class of twenty or thirty, which was kept going when I left, and when I came back from America, I could get an audience of one thousand. In America, I could get a much bigger one, as I spent three years in America.

June, 6, 96 – What an extraordinary man is Prof. Max Muller! I paid a visit to him a few days ago. The Professor was first induced to inquire about the power, which led to sudden and momentous changes in the life of the late Keshab Chandra Sen, the great Brahmo leader; and since then, he has been an earnest student and admirer of the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.

“Ramakrishna is worshipped by thousands today, Professor” I said. “To whom else shall worship be accorded if not to such?” was the answer. The Professor was^:kindness itself, and asked Mr. Sturdy, and myself to lunch with him. He showed us several colleges in Oxford, and the Bodlein library. He also accompanied us to the railway station and all this he did because as he said, “It is not everyday one meets a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.”

The visit was really a revelation to me. That nice little house in its setting of a beautiful garden, the silver headed sage, with a face calm and benign, and forehead smooth as a child’s in spite of seventy winters, and every line in that face speaking of a deep-seated mine of spirituality somewhere behind; that noble wife, the ‘helpmate of his life through his long and arduous task of exciting interest, overriding Opposition and contempt, and at last creating a respect for the thoughts of the sages of ancient India-the trees, the flowers, the calmness, and the clear sky-all these sent me back in imagination to the glorious days of ancient India, the days of our Brahmarshis and Rajarshis, the days of the great Vanaprasthis, the days of Arundhatis and Vasishthas.

It was neither the philologist nor the scholar that I saw, but a soul that is every day realising its oneness with Brahman, a heart that is every moment expanding to reach oneness with the universal. Where others lose themselves in the desert of dry details, he has struck the well-spring of life. Indeed his heart-beats have caught the rhythm of the Upanishads “Know the Atman alone, and leave off all other talk.”

And what love he bears towards India ! I wish I had a hundredth part of that love for my own motherland!

Max Muller is a Vedantist of Vedantists.

“When are you coming to India ? Every heart there would welcome one who has done so much to place the thoughts of their ancestors in the true light,” I said.

The face of the aged sage brightened up—there was almost a tear in his eye, a gentle nodding of the head, and slowly the words came out—“I would not return then; you would have to cremate me there.” Further questions seemed an unwarrantable intrusion into realms wherein are stored the holy secrets of man’s heart.

There are certain great souls in the West who sincerely desire the good of India, but I am not aware whether Europe can point out another well-wisher of India, who feels more for India’s well-being than Prof. Max Muller.

My impression is that it is Sayana who is born again as Max Muller to revive his own commentary on the Vedas! I have had this notion for long. It became confirmed in my mind, it seems, after I had seen Max Muller. What a deep-and unfathomable respect for Sri

Ramakrishna! He believes in his Divine Incarnation! What hospitality towards me when I was his guest. Seeing the old man and his lady, it seemed to me that they were living their home-life like another Vasishtha and Arundhati! At the time of parting with me, tears came into the eyes of the old man.

One who is the commentator of the Vedas, the shining embodiment of knowledge—what are Varnashrama and caste to him? To him they are wholly meaningless, and he can assume human birth wherever he likes for doing good to mankind. Specially, if he did not choose to be born in a land which excelled both in learning and wealth, where would he secure the large expenses for publishing such stupendous volumes? The East India Company paid nine lakhs of rupees in cash to have the Rig-Veda published! Even this money was not enough. Hundreds of Vedic Pandits had to be employed in this country (India) on monthly stipends. Has anybody seen in this age, here in this country, such profound yearning for knowledge, such prodigious investment of money for the sake of light and learning ?

Max Muller himself has written it in his preface that in twenty five years, he prepared only the manuscripts. Then the printing took another twenty years! It is not J possible for an ordinary man to drudge for forty five years of his life with one publication. Just think of it! Is it an idle fancy of mine to say he is Sayana himself ?

It was Sankaracharya who first found out the idea of the identity of time, space and causation with Maya, and I had the good fortune to find one or two passages

in Sankara’s commentaries and send them to my friend, Professor Max Muller.

That Advaitism is the highest discovery in the domain of religion, the Professor has many times publicly admitted.

Perhaps his previous birth was in India; and lest by coming to India, the old frame should break down under the violent rush of a suddenly aroused mass of past recollections—is the fear in his mind that now stands foremost in the way of his visit to this country (India). It is not a fact that the Professor is an utter disbeliever in such subtle subjects as the mysterious psychic powers of the Yogis.

Prof. Max Muller presented Sri Ramakrishna’s life to the learned European public in an article entitled “A Real Mahatman” which appeared in the Nineteenth Century in its August number, 1896.

Subsequently, he has published the book—Rama–krishna, His Life and Sayings.

The greater portion of the book has been devoted to the collection of the sayings, rather than to the life itself. That those sayings have attracted the attention of many of the English-speaking readers throughout the world, can be easily inferred from the rapid sale of the book. The sayings falling direct from his holy lips are impregnate with the strongest spiritual force and power and therefore they will surely exert their divine influence in every part of the world.

London : 24-6-96- Next month I go to Switzerland to pass a month or two there, then I shall return to London.

London 6-7-96 -The Sunday lectures were quite successful. So were the classes. The season has ended, and I too am thoroughly exhausted.

London 7-7-96 – The work here progressed wonderfully. I had one monk here from India. I have sent him to the U.S.A. and sent for another from India. The season is closed, the classes, therefore, and the Sunday lectures are to be closed on the 16th next. And on the 19th, I go for a month or so for quiet and rest in the Swiss Mountains to return next autumn to London and begin again. The work here has been very satisfactory. By rousing interest here, I really do more for India than in India… Later on, towards the end of the winter, I expect to go to India with some English friends who are going to live in my monastery there, which, by the way, is in the air yet. It is struggling to materialize somewhere in the Himalayas.

London: 8-7-96 – In three minutes’ time, the other evening, my class raised £ 150/- for the new quarters for next autumn’s work.

England 14-7-96 -I am going to Switzerland next Sunday.

SWITZERLAND

Switzerland 25-7-96 – I want to forget the world entirely at least for the next two months. The mountains and snow have a beautifully quieting influence on me, and I am getting better sleep here than for a long time.

I am reading a little, starving a good deal, and practising a good deal more. The strolls in the woods are simply delicious. We are now situated under three huge glaciers, and the scenery is very beautiful.

Whatever scruples I may have had as to the Swiss lake origin of the Aryans, have been taken clean off my mind.

5-8-96 – A letter came this morning from Prof. Max Muller telling me that the article on Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has been published in the Nineteenth Century,August number.

He asked my opinion about it…He promises a good deal of help.

8-8-96 – Mrs. Annie Besant invited me to speak at her Lodge on Bhakti. I lectured there one night. Col. Olcott also was there. I did it to show my sympathy for all sects.

Max Muller writes me a long and nice letter offering to write a book on Sri Ramakrishna. I have already supplied him with much material.

I am now taking rest. I am much refreshed now. I look out of the window and see the huge glaciers just before me, and feel that I am in the Himalayas. I am quite calm. My nerves have regained their accustomed strength and little vexations do not touch me at all. How shall I be disturbed by this child’s play ? The whole world is a mere child’s play—preaching, teaching, and all included. And what is there to be desired in this little muddle – puddle of a world, with its ever – recurring misery, disease and death?

This rest, eternal, peaceful rest, I am catching a glimpse of now in this beautiful spot. “Having once known that the Atman alone and nothing else exists, desiring what or for whose welfare, shall you suffer¹ misery about the body ?”

Miss Muller thinks that she will go away very soon to England. In that case, I will not be able to go to Berne, for that Purity Congress I have promised. Only if the Seviers consent to take me along I will go to Kiel. The Seviers are good and kind, but I have no right to take advantage of their generosity, nor of Miss Muller as the expenses there are frightful. As such, I think it best to give up the Berne Congress, as it will come in the middle of September, a long way off. I am thinking, therefore, of going towards Germany ending in Kiel, and thence back to England.

Miss Muller telegraphed to Prof. Deussen last night; the reply came this morning, 9th Aug., welcoming me; I am to be in Kiel at Deussen’s on the 10th September. I am going with the Seviers to Kiel.

I have not fixed yet anything about the lecture. I have no time to read.

Stvitz : 12-8-96 – I haven’t yet written anything nor read anything. I am indeed taking a good rest. I had a letter from the Math stating that the other Swami is ready to start. He will, I am sure, be just the man. He is one of the best Sanskrit scholars we have……I have a number of newspaper cuttings from America about Saradananda—I hear from them that he has done very well there.

Aug. 1896 – I went to the glacier of Monte Rosa yesterday and gathered a few hardy flowers growing almost in the midst of eternal snow.

23-8-96 – I am at present travelling in Switzerland, and shall soon go to Germany, to see Professor Deussen. I shall return to England from there about the 23rd or 24th September and the next winter will find me back in my country.

Saradananda and Goodwin are doing good work in the U.S. I have sent for another man from India who will join me next month. I have begun the work, let others work it out.

I have seen Professors of Sanskrit in America and in Europe. Some of them are very sympathetic towards Vedantic thought. I admire their intellectual acumen and their lives of unselfish labour. But, Paul Deussen, who is the professor of Philosophy in the University of I Kiel, and the veteran Max Muller have impressed me, as \ the truest friends of India and Indian thought. It will always be among the most pleasing episodes in my life— my first visit to this ardent Vedantist at Kiel, his gentle wife who travelled with him in India, and his little daughter, the darling of his heart—and our travelling together through Germany and Holland to London, and the pleasant meetings we had in London.

The Hindus visiting foreign countries take with them Ganges water and the Gita……First time when I went to the West, I also took a little of it with me, thinking it might be needed, and whenever opportunity occurred I used to drink a few drops of it. And every time I drank, in the midst of the stream of humanity, amid that bustle of civilisation, that hurry of frenzied footsteps of millions of men and women in the West, the mind at once became calm and still, as it were. That stream of men, that intense activity of the West, that clash and competition at every step, those seats of luxury and celestial opulence—Paris, London, New York, Berlin, Rome—all would disappear and I used to hear that wonderful sound of “Hara, Hara,”

26-8-96 – I have been doing a great deal of mountain climbing and glacier-crossing in the Alps. Now I am going to Germany, I have an invitation from Prof. Deussen to visit him at Kiel.

Kiel: 10-9-96-I have at last seen Prof. Deussen… the whole of yesterday was spent very nicely with the Professor, sightseeing and discussing Vedanta—He is what I should call “a warring Advaitisic.”

BACK TO ENGLAND

London: 17-9-96 -Today I reached London, after my two months of climbing and walking and glacier seeing in Switzerland. One good it has done me-a few pounds of unnecessary adipose tissue have returned to the gaseous state!

I had a pleasant visit from Prof. Deussen in Germany, the greatest living German Philosopher. He and I travelled together to England, and today came together to see my friend here with whom I am to stop for the rest of my stay in England. I shall work for a few weeks, and then go back to India in the winter.

My natural tendency is to go into a cave, and be quiet, but a fate behind pushes me forward and I go. Who ever could resist fate ?

I now live mostly on fruits and nuts, they seem to agree with me well. I have lost a good deal of my fat, but on days I lecture, I have to go on solid food.

I met Madam S- in the street today. She does not come any more to my lectures. Good for her. Too much of philosophy is not good !

The lady who used to come to every meeting too late to hear a word, but buttonholed me immediately after and kept me talking, till a battle of Waterloo would be raging in my internal economy through hunger. She came. They are all coming and more. That is cheering.

We have a hall now; a pretty big one holding about two hundred or more. There is a big corner which will be fitted up as a library. I have another man from India now to help me.

Wimbledon: 8-10-96- The London classes were resumed, and today is the opening lecture.

London: 28-10-96 -The new Swami(Abhedananda) delivered his maiden speech yesterday at a friendly society’s meeting. It was good and I liked it; he has the making of a good speaker in’ him, I am sure.

Goodwin is going to become a Sannyasin. It is to him that we owe all my books. He is a strict vegetarian. He took shorthand notes, of my lectures, which enabled the books to be published.

London: 13-11-96 – I am very soon starting for India, most probably on the 16th of Dec. The first edition of Raja-Yoga is sold out, and there is standing order for several hundreds more.

28-11-96 ” The work in London has been a roaring success. Capt. and Mrs. Sevier and Mr. Goodwin are going to India with me to work and spend their own money on it!

I am going to start a centre in Calcutta and another in the Himalayas. The Himalayan one will be an entire hill about 7000 ft. high, cool in summer, cold in winter. Capt. and Mrs. Sevier will live there.

People there in the West think that the more a man is religious, the more demure he must be in his outward bearing,—no word about anything else from his lips! As the priests in the West would on the one hand be‘struck with wonder at my liberal religious discourses, they would be as much puzzled on the other hand when they found me after such discourses, talking frivolities with my friends. Sometimes, they would speak out to my face : ^t4Swami, you are a priest, you should not be joking and laughing in this way like ordinary man. Such levity does not look well in you.” To which I would reply : “We are children of Bliss; why should we look morose and sombre?” But, I doubt if they could rightly catch the drift of my words.

I had to work till I am at death’s door and had to spend nearly the whole of that energy in America, so that the Americans might learn to be broader and more spiritual. In England, I worked only six months. There was not a breath of scandal save one, and that was the working of an American woman, which greatly relieved my English friends,—not only no attacks, but many of the best English Church clergymen became my firm friends, and without asking I got much help for my work.

Feb. 97 – From first to last, it (my first experience of America) was very good.

I have a good many disciples in the West,—may be more than two or three thousands. And they are all initiated with Mantras. I gave them permission to utter  Pranava (Om). My disciples are all Brahmanas !

I call them Brahmanas who are sattwika by nature.

I have visited a good deal of Europe, including Germany and France, but England and America were the chief centres of my work.

All the social upheavalists (in America and England), at least leaders of them, are trying to find that all their communistic or equalising theories must have a spiritual basis, and that spiritual basis is in the Vedanta only. I have been told by several leaders who used to attend my lectures, that they required the Vedanta as the basis of the new order of things.

Many times, I was near being mobbed in America and England, only on account of my dress. But, I never heard of such a thing in India as a man being mobbed because of peculiar dress.

I have experienced even in my insignificant life that good motives, sincerity and infinite love can conquer the world.

I cannot but believe that there is somewhere a great Power that thinks of Herself as feminine, and is called Kali, and Mother.• -and I believe in Brahman, too…

The older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new gospel.

I have been asked many times : “Why do you laugh so much and make so many jokes?” I become serious sometimes, when I have stomach-ache ! The Lord is all blissfulness. He is the reality behind all that exists; He is the Goodness, the Truth in everything. You are His incarnations. That is what is glorious. The nearer you are to Him, the less you will have occasion to cry or weep. The farther we are from Him, the more will long faces appear. The more we know of Him, the more misery vanishes. If one who lives in the Lord becomes miserable, what is the use of living in Him? What is the use of such a God ?

 

Weep and pray to God. “ O, God, reveal thyself to me. Keep my mind away from lust and gold.^M And dive deep. Can a man find pearls by floating or swimming on the surface.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA.

Then only will India awake, when hundreds of large hearted men and women, giving up all desires of enjoying the luxurious life, will long and exert themselves to their utmost for the well-being of the millions of their countrymen.

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA.

Westminster: 11-11-96 – I shall most probably start (for India) on the I6th of December, or may be a day or two later. I go from here to Italy, and after seeing a few places there, join the steamer (North German Lloyd S.S. Prinz Regent Luitpold) at Naples.

The first edition of Raja-Yoga is sold out and a second is in the press.

London : 20-32-96 – My present plan of work is to start two centres, one in Calcutta and the other in Madras, in which to train up young preachers. My interests are international and not Indian alone.

22-33-96 – I reach Madras about the 7th of Jan. I have three English friends with me. Two of them, Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, are going to settle in Almora. They are my disciples, and they are going to build the Math for me in the Himalayas.

3-12-96 – I am to start for India on the 16th with Captain and Mrs. Sevier and Mr. Goodwin. The Seviers and myself take steamer at Naples. And as there will be four days at Rome, I will look in to say good-bye to Alberta.

Things are in a “Hum” here just now; the big hall for the class at 39, Victoria, is full and yet more are coming.

Well, the good old country now calls me; I must go. So good-bye to all projects of visiting Russia this April.

I just set things going a little in India, and am off again for the ever beautiful U.S. and England etc………

The coming of Goodwin was very opportune as it captured the lectures here which are being published in a periodical form. Already there have been subscribers enough to cover the expenses.

Three lectures, next week, and my London work is finished for this season. Of course, everybody here thinks it foolish to give up just when the “boom” is on, but the Dear Lord says, “Start for old India,” and I obey……

Florence : 20-12-96 – I am on my way (to India).

Damper ; 3-3-97 – We are nearing Port Said after four days of frightfully bad sailing from Naples.

The ship is rolling as hard as she can.

From Suez begins Asia. Once more Asia. What am I ? Asiatic, European or American? I feel a curious medley of personalities in me.

I land in a few days at Colombo and mean to “do” Ceylon a bit…

I enjoyed Rome more than anything in the West, and after seeing Pompeii, I have lost all regard for the so called “modern civilisation”……I was mistaken- when I told that sculpturing of the human figure was not developed in India as among the Greeks.

I had a curious dream on my return voyage from England. While our ship was passing through the Mediterranean Sea, in my sleep, a very old and venerable looking person, Rishi~like in appearance, stood before me and said, “Do ye come and effect our restoration. I am one of that ancient order of Theraputtas which had its origin in the teachings of the Indian Rishis. The truths and ideals preached by us have been given out by Christians as taught by Jesus; but for the matter of that, there was no such personality by the name of Jesus ever born. Various evidences testifying to this fact will be brought to light by excavating here”. “By excavating which place can those proofs and relics you speak of be found?” I asked. The hoary-headed one, pointing to a locality in the vicinity of Turkey, said, “See here.” Immediately after I woke up, and at once rushed to the upper deck and asked the captain, “What neighbourhood is the ship in just now ?” “Look yonder,” the captain replied, “there is Turkey and the Island of Crete.”

I was asked by an English friend on the eve of my departure, “Swami, how do you like your motherland after four years’ experience of the luxurious, glorious, powerful West ?” I could only answer, “India I loved before I came away, now the very dust of India has become holy to me, the very air is now holy, it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the Tirtha.”

Pamban: 1897 – It is impossible for me to express my gratitude to H. H. the Rajah of Ramnad for his love towards me. If any good work has been done by me and through me, India owes much to this good man, for it was he who conceived the idea of my going to Chicago, and it was he who put that idea into my head and persistently urged me on to accomplish it.

Ramnad: 30-1-97 – Things are turning out most curiously for me. From Colombo in Ceylon, where I landed, to Ramnad, the nearly southernmost point of the Indian Continent where I am just now as the guest of the Rajah of Ramnad, my journey has been a huge procession, crowds of people, illuminations, addresses etc. etc. A monument forty feet high is being built on the spot where I landed. The Rajah of Ramnad has presented his address to “His Most Holiness” in a huge casket of solid gold beautifully worked. Madras and Calcutta are on the tiptoe of expectation as if the whole nation is rising to honour me……I am on the very height of destiny. Yet, the mind turns to quietness and peace.

I wrote a letter to my people from London to receive Dr. Barrows kindly. They accorded him a big reception, but it was not my fault that he could not make any impression there. Calcutta people are a hard-headed lot! Now Barrows thinks a world of me, I hear! Such is the world.

When I returned to India after a visit to the West, several orthodox Hindus raised a howl against my association with the Western people and my breaking the rules of orthodoxy. They did not like me to teach the truths of the Vedas to the people of the West.

Madras: 1897 – There have been certain circumstances growing around me, tending to thwart me, oppose my progress and crush me out of existence, if they could. Thank God, they have failed, as such attempts will always fail. But there has been for the last three years a certain amount of misunderstanding, and so long as I was in foreign lands, I held my peace and did not even speak one word; but now, standing upon the soil of my motherland, I want to give a few words of explanation.

Not that I care what the result will be of these words… not that I care what feeling I shall evoke by these words: I care very little, for I am the same Sannyasin that entered this city (Madras) about four years ago with his staff and Kamandalu; the same broad world is before me.

Now I come to the reform societies in Madras. Some of these societies, I am afraid, try to intimidate me to join them. That is a strange thing for them to attempt. A man who has met starvation face to face for fourteen years of his life, who has not known where he will get a meal the next day and where to sleep, cannot be intimidated so easily. A man almost without clothes, who dared to live where the thermometer registered thirty degrees below zero, without knowing where the next meal was to come from, cannot be so easily intimidated, in India. This is the first thing I will tell them, I have a little will of my own. I have my little experience, too, and I have a message for the world which I will deliver without fear and without care for the future. To the reformers I will point out that I am a greater reformer than any of them. They want to reform only little bits. I want root and branch reform. That is my position.

Madras : 12-2-97 – I am to start by S. S. Mombasa next Sunday for Calcutta. I had to give up invitations from Poona and other places on account of bad health. I am very much pulled down by hard work and heat.

I did not go to America for the Parliament of Religions, but this demon of a feeling (for the people of India) was in me and within my soul. I travelled twelve years all over India, finding no way to work for my countrymen; that is why I went to America. Who cared about the Parliament of Religions? Here was my own flesh and blood sinking every day, and who cared for them? This was my first step.

Alam Bazar Math: 25-2-97 – I have not a moment to die, as they say, what with processions and tom-tomings and various other methods of reception all over the country. I am almost dead. As soon as the birthday celebration (of Sri Ramakrishna) is over I will fly off to the hills. I do not know whether I would live even six months more or not unless I have some rest.

I wished rather that a great enthusiasm should be stirred up. Don’t you see, without some such things how would the people be drawn towards Sri Ramakrishna and be fired in his name? Was this ovation done for me personally, or was not his name glorified by this ? See, how much thirst has been created in the minds of men to know about him! Now they will come to know of him gradually; and will not that be conducive to the good of the country? If the people do not know him, who came for the welfare of the country, how can good befall them? When they know what he really was, then men, real men, will be made…So I say that I rather desired that there should be some bustle and stir in Calcutta, so that the public might be inclined to believe in the mission of Sri Ramakrishna. Otherwise what was the use of making so much fuss for my sake ? Have I become any greater now ?…I am the same now as I was before.

Darjeeling: 20-4-97- My illness is now much less— it may even be cured completely, if the Lord wills.

This Darjeeling is a beautiful spot with a view of the glorious Kanchanjanga (27,579 ft.) now and then, when the clouds permit it, and from a near hilltop one can catch a glimpse of Gouri Shankar (29,002 ft.) now and then. Then the people here too are so picturesque, the Tibetans and Nepalese, and above all, the beautiful Lep-cha women. One Colston Turnbull of Chicago was here a few weeks before I reached India. He seems to have had a great liking for me, with the result that Hindu people all liked him very much.

28-4-97 – The whole country here rose like one man to receive me. Hundreds of thousands of persons, shouting and cheering at every place, Rajahs drawing my carriage, arches all over the streets of the capitals with blazing mottos etc., etc.! But, unfortunately, I was already exhausted by hard work in England and this tremendous exertion in the heat of southern India prostrated me completely. I had, of course, to give up the idea of visiting other parts of India and fly up to the (nearest) hill station, Darjeeling. Now I feel much better.

I have just another chance of coming over to Europe. Raja Ajit Sinha and several other Rajas start next Saturday for England. Of course, they wanted hard to get me to go over with them. But, unfortunately, the doctors would not hear of my undertaking any physical or mental labour just now. So with the greatest chagrin, I had to give it up, reserving it for a near future.

My hair is turning grey in bundles and my face is getting wrinkles all over; that losing of flesh has given me twenty years of age more. And now I am losing flesh rapidly, because I am made to live upon meat and meat alone; no bread, no rice, no potatoes, not even a lump of sugar’in my coffee!

Baghbazar, Cal. (May – 97) – The conviction has grown in my mind, after all my travels in various lands, that no great cause can succeed without an organisation.

Let this association be named after him in whose name, indeed, we have embraced the monastic life, and within twenty years of whose passing away a wonderful diffusion of his holy name and extraordinary life has taken place both in the East and the West.

This is on Sri Ramakrishna’s lines. He had an infinite breadth of feeling. I will break down the limits and scatter broadcast over the earth his boundless inspiration. We have been blessed with obtaining refuge at the feet of the Master, and we are born to carry his message to the world.

Calcutta : May 5, 97 – I have been to Darjeeling for a month to recuperate my shattered health. I am very much better now. The disease disappeared altogether in Darjeeling. I am going tomorrow to Almora, another hill station, to perfect this improvement.

Things are looking not very hopeful here, though the whole nation has risen as one man to honour me and people went almost mad over me ! The price of the land has gone very much high near Calcutta. My idea at present is to start three centres at three Capitals. These would be my normal schools, from thence I want to invade India.

India is already Ramakrishna’s, whether I live a few years more or not; and for a purified Hinduism, I have organised my work here a bit.

I had a very kind letter from Prof. James in which he points out my remarks about degraded Buddhism.

I am perfectly convinced that what they call modern Hinduism with all its ugliness is only stranded Buddhism. As for the ancient form which the Buddha preached, I have the greatest respect for it, as well as for His person. We Hindus worship Him as an Incarnation. Nor is the Buddhism of Ceylon any good. My visit to Ceylon has entirely disillusioned me. The real Buddhism I once thought of, would yet do much good. But I have given up the idea entirely, and I clearly see the reason why Buddhism was driven out of India.

I was one man in America and am another here (in India). Here the whole nation is looking upon me as their authority, there I was a much reviled preacher. Here, princes draw my carriage; there I would not be admitted to a decent hotel. My utterances here, therefore, must be for the good of the race, my people, however unpleasent they might appear to a few.

I was glad to see that there was yet a liberality of view at Kalighat. The temple authorities did not object in the least ro my entering in the temple, though they knew that I was a man who had returned from the West. On the contrary, they very cordially took me into the holy precincts and helped me to worship the Mother to my heart’s content.

There are moments when one feels entirely despondent, no doubt,—especially when one has worked towards an ideal, during a whole life time, and just when there is a bit of hope of seeing it partially accomplished, there comes a tremendous thwarting blow. I do not care for tbe disease but what depresses me is that my ideals have not had yet the least opportunity of being worked out. And you know the difficulty is money.

The Hindus are making processions and all that, but they cannot give money. The only help I got in the world was in England, from Miss S., and Mr. S…… I thought then that a thousand pounds were sufficient to start at least the principal centre in Calcutta, ten or twelve years ago. Since then the prices have gone up three or four times.

The work has been started anyhow. A rickety old little house has been rented for six or seven shillings, where about twenty-four young men are being trained. I had to go to Darjeeling for a month to recover my health, and I am very much better—without taking any medicine, only by the exercise of mental healing. I am going again to another hill-station tomorrow, as it is very hot in the plains … The London work is not doing well at all, I hear. And that was the main reason why I would not go to England, just now, although some of our Rajas going for the Jubilee tried their best to get me with them, as I would have to work hard again to revive the interest in Vedanta. And that would mean a good deal more trouble physically.

I may go over for a month or so very soon, however.

Only if I could see my work started here, how gladly and freely would I travel about!

Mr. and Mrs. Hammond wrote two very kind and nice letters, and Mr. Hammond, a beautiful poem in the Brahmavadin: although I did not deserve it a bit.

Almora: 20-5-97 – Even now money is floating on the waters, as it were… but it will surely come. When it comes, buildings, land and a permanent fund — every thing will come all right. But one can never rest assured until the chickens are hatched; and I am not now going down to the hot plains within two or three months. After that I shall make a tour and shall certainly secure some money.

On account of the great heat in Almora, I am now in an excellent garden twenty miles from there. This place is comparatively cooler but still warm. The heat does not seem to be particularly less than that of Calcutta…

The feverishness is all gone. I am trying to go to a still cooler place. Heat or the fatigue of walking, I find, at once produces trouble of the liver. The air here is so dry that there is a burning sensation in the nose all the time, and the tongue becomes, as it were, a chip of wood.

I am very well here, for life in the plains has become a torture. I cannot put the tip of my nose out in the streets, for there is a curious crowd! Fame is not all milk and honey !! I am going to train a big beard, now it is grey. It gives a venerable appearance.

To meet the expenses of my reception, the people of Calcutta made me deliver a lecture, and sold tickets !

Almora: 29-5-97 – I began to take a lot of exercise on horse-back, both morning and evening……. I really began to feel that it was a pleasure to have a body.

Almora : 2-6-97 – I have been very, very bad indeed; I am now recovering a bit,—I hope to recover very soon…

I am afraid the work in London is going to pieces.

I am living in a beautiful garden belonging to a merchant of Almora, a garden abutting several miles of mountains and forests. Night before last a leopard came here and took away a goat from the flock kept in this garden. It was a frightful din the servants made and the barking of the big Tibet watchdogs. These dogs are kept chained at a distance all night since I am here, so that they may not disturb my sleep with their deep barks. The leopard thus found his opportunity and got a decent meal, perhaps, after weeks. May it do much good to him !

Miss Muller has come here for a few days and was rather frightened when she heard of the leopard incident.

Before me, reflecting the afternoon’s glow, stand long, long lines of huge snow peaks. They are about 20 miles as the crow flies from here, and forty through the circuitous mountain roads.

Almora : 2-6-97 – Sleep, eat and exercise-exercise, eat and sleep—that is what I am going to do some months yet! Mr. Goodwin is with me in his Indian clothes. I am very soon going to shave bis his head and make a fullblown monk of him.

10-6-97 – I am at present in excellent health.

20-6-97 – I have not had any news of the work (in London) for so long. I do not expect any help from India, in spite of all the jubilation over me. They are so poor !

But I have started work in the fashion in which I myself was trained—that is to say, under the trees, and keeping the body and soul together, anyhow. The plan has also changed a little. I have sent some of my boys to work in the famine district. It has acted like a miracle, I think, as I always thought—it is through the heart and that alone, that the world can be reached.

A number of boys are already in training, but the recent earthquake has destroyed the poor shelter we had to work in, which was only rented, anyway. Never mind. The work must be done without shelter, and under difficulties -• As yet it is shaven heads, rags and casual meals. This must change, however, and will, for are we not working for it, head and heart ?… One of my boys in training has been an executive engineer, in charge of a district. That means a very big position here (in India ). He gave it up like a straw !

20-6-97- I am all right now. Yesterday, I came to Almora and shall not go any more to the garden. Henceforth, I am Miss Muller’s guest.

30-6-97-I am leaving this place next Monday. Here I gave a lecture to an European audience in English, and another to the Indian residents in Hindi. This was my maiden speech in Hindi but everyone liked it for all that… Next Saturday, there will be another lecture for the Europeans.

Monday next, trip to Bareilly, then to Saharanpur, next to Ambala thence most probably to Mussoorie with Capt. Sevier, and as soon as it is a little cool, return to the plains, and journey to Rajputana, etc.

4-7-97 – Although I am still in the Himalayas and shall be here for at least a month more, I started the work in Calcutta before I came, and they write progress every week.

Just now I am very busy with the famine, and except for training a number of young men for future work, have not been able to put more energy into the teaching work. The ‘’feeding work” is absorbing all my energy and means. Although we can work only on a very small scale as yet, the effect is marvellous. For the first time since the days of Buddha, Brahmin boys are found nursing by the bed-side of cholera-stricken pariahs.

In India, lectures and teaching cannot do any good. What we want is Dynamic Religion. And that “God willing,” as the Mohammedans say, I am determined to show.

Almora : 9-7-97 – I had arranged to go with A to England, but the doctors not allowing, it fell through.

I have also a lot of cuttings from different American papers, fearfully criticising my utterances about American women, and furnishing me with the strange news that I had been outcast! as if I had any caste to lose, being a Sannyasin !

Not only no caste has been lost, but it has considerably shattered the opposition to sea-voyage—my going to the West…A leading Raja of the caste to which I belonged before my entering the Order got up a banquet in my honour, at which were present most of the big bugs of that caste… These feet have been washed and wiped and worshipped by the descendants of Kings, and there has been a progress through the country which none ever commanded in India.

It will suffice to say that the police were necessary to keep order if I ventured out into the street! That is outcasting indeed!

I never planned anything. I have taken things as they came; only one idea was burning in my brain; to start the machine for elevating the Indian masses—and that I have succeeded in doing to a certain extent. My boys are working in the midst of famine and disease and misery—nursing by the mat-bed of the cholera-stricken pariah and feeding the starving Chandala. He is with me, the Beloved, He was when I was in America, in England, when I was roaming about unknown from place to place in India. What do I care about what they talk— the babies, they do not know any better.

What! I who have realised the spirit and the vanity of all earthly nonsense, to be swerved from my path by babies’ prattle! Do I look like that ?

I had to talk a lot about myself…I feel my task is done—at most three or four years more of life are left. I have lost all wish for my salvation. I never wanted earthly enjoyments, I must see my machine in strong working order, and then knowing sure that I have put in a lever for the good of humanity, in India at least, which no power can drive back, I will sleep, without caring what will be next; and may I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls,—and above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.

My time is short. I have to unbreast whatever I have to say, without caring if it smarts some or irritates others; do not be frightened at whatever drops from my lips, for the Power behind me is not Vivekananda but He, the Lord, and He knows best.

If I have to please the world, that will be injuring the world… Every new thought must create opposition— in the civilised a polite sneer, in the vulgar savage howls and filthy scandals.

Almora: 10-7-97 – I am very busy, from here directing the work of my boys in some of the famine districts…

I had a mind to go to Tibet this year, but they would not allow me, as the road is dreadfully fatiguing. However, I content myself with galloping hard over pre-cipieces on mountain ponies.

Goodwin has gone to work in Madras on a paper, Prabuddha Bharata, to be started there soon.

Almora: 13-7-97 – Today, my health is a little bad owing to this riding on horseback at break-neck speed in the sun. I took Sashi s medicine for two weeks; I find no special benefit. The pain in the liver is gone, and owing to plenty of exercise my hands and legs have become muscular, but the abdomen is di^ending very much.

I feci suffocated while getting up or sitting down. Perhaps, this is due to the taking of milk. Previously, I suffered from two attacks of sunstroke. From that time, my eyes become red if I expose myself to the sun, and the health continues to be bad for two or three days at a stretch.

Almora: 25-7-97 – I am having a good deal of riding and exercise but I had to drink a lot of skimmed milk per prescription of the doctors, with the result that I am more to the front than back ! I am always a forward man though, but do not want to be too prominent just now, and I have given up drinking milk…Miss Margaret Noble of Wimbledon is working hard for me.

I am glad to find that I am aging fast, my hair is turning grey. “Silver threads among the gold”—I mean black —are coming in fast.

It is bad for a preacher to be young, I think, as I did all my life. People have more confidence in an old man, and it looks more venerable…The world has its code of judgement which, alas, is very different from truth’s.

Madam Halboister has been helped by Vedanta and Yoga. I am unfortunately sometimes like the circus clown who makes others laugh, himself miserable!

Our difficulty in life is that we are guided by the present and not by the future. What gives us a little pleasure now drags us on to follow it; with the result that we always buy a mass of pain in the future for a little pleasure in the present.

The greatest misery in my life has been my own people-my brothers and sisters and mother, etc. Relatives are like deadly clogs to one’s progress and is it not a wonder that people will still go on to find new ones by marriage!!!

He who is alone is happy. Do good to all, like everyone, but do not love anyone. It is a bondage, and bondage brings only misery. Live alone in your mind-that is happiness. To have nobody to care for and never minding who cares for you is the way to be free.

I am more a woman than a man… I am always dragging others’ pain into me—for nothing, without being able to do any good to anybody just as women, if they have no children; bestow all their love upon a cat!!!

Do you think this has any spirituality in it? Nonsense, it is all material, nervous bondage—that is what it is. O, to get rid of the thraldom of the flesh!!

Sturdy’s thermometer is now below zero, it seems. He seems to be greatly disappointed with my non-arrival in England this summer; what could I do?

We have started two Maths, one in Calcutta, the other in Madras, The Calcutta Math (a wretched rented house) was awfully shaken in the late earthquake.

Alwora : 25-7-97 – In a few days I am going down to the plains and from thence go to the western parts of the mountains. When it is cooler in the plains, I will make a lecture tour all over and see what work can be done.

29-7-97 – I am leaving this place the day after tomorrow — whether for Mussporie hills or somewhere else I shall decide later.

Yesterday, I delivered a lecture in the circle of the local English people, and all were highly pleased with it. But, I was very much pleased with the lecture in Hindi that I delivered the previous day; I did not know before that I could be oratorical in Hindi.

Ambala: 19-8-97 – I am now going to the hills at Dharamsala. I intend to start work in the Punjab after a few days;more rest in the Punjab hills. The Punjab and Rajputana are indeed fields for work.

My health was very bad recently. Now I am very slowly recovering. It will be alright if I stay in the hills for some more days.

Amritsar: 2-9-97 – Today, I am leaving by the 2 O’Clock train with all my party for Kashmir. The recent stay at Dharamsala hills has improved my health much, and the tonsilitis, fever, etc. have completely disappeared……

Niranjan, Latu, Krishna Lai, Dinanath, Gupta and Achyut are all going to Kashmir with me.

Srinagar (Kashmir): 13-9-97 – Now Kashmir. There is no place so beautiful as this; and the people also are fair and good-looking, though their eyes are not beautiful. But, I have also never seen elsewhere villages and towns so horribly dirty. In Srinagar, I am now putting up at the house of Rishibar Babu. He is very hospitable and kind. In a few days, I shall go out somewhere else on excursions; but, while returning, I shall come by way of Srinagar…As soon as we come down to the plains (Ambala) from Kashmir, I shall go to Lahore.

Since reaching Dharmasala, I have been all right. I like the cold places; there the body keeps well. I have a desire either to visit a few places in Kashmir and then choose an excellent site and live a quiet life there, or to go on floating on the water. I shall do what the doctor advises. The Raja is not here now. His brother, one just next to him in age, is the Commander-in-Chief. Efforts are being made to arrange a lecture under his chairmanship. If the meeting for the lecture is held in a day or two, I shall stay back, otherwise, I go out again on my travels. Sevier is still in Murree. His health is very bad, going about in jolting tongas and jatbas. In October I shall go down from here and shall deliver a few lectures in the Punjab. After that, I may go via Sind to Cutch, Bhuj and Kathiawar-even down to Poona if circumstances are favourable; otherwise, I go to Rajputana via Baroda. From Rajputana, I go to the North-Western Province, then Nepal, and finally Calcutta-this is my present programme. Everything, however, is in God’s hands.

Srinagar (Kashmir): 15-9-97 – Kashmir is the one land fit for Yogis, to my mind. But the land is now inhabited by a race which, though possessing great physical beauty, is extremely dirty. I am going to travel by water for a month, seeing the sights and getting strong. But the city is very malarious just now, and Sadananda and Krishnlal have got fever. Sadananda is all right today, but Krishnalal has fever yet. The doctor came today and gave him a purgative. He will be all right by tomorrow, we hope; and we start also tomorrow. The State has lent me one of its barges and it is fine and quite comfortable. They have also sent orders to the Tahsildars of different districts. The people here are crowding in bands to see us and are doing everything they can to make us comfortable.

After a month, I go back to the Punjab. I have travelled far and wide, but I have never seen such a country.

Srinagar 30-9-97 – I am leaving for the Punjab in in two or three days. Of the party, only Gupta and Achyut will accompany me.

As my health is now much better, I have decided to tour again in the same way as before. The people of our country have not yet offered me even as much as a pice for my travelling expenses. It is also a matter of shame to have to draw upon only the English disciples.

A monk from Ceylon, P. C. Jinawar Vamar by name, has written to me among other things that he wants to visit India. Perhaps, he is the same monk who comes of the Siamese royal family. His address is Wellawatta, Ceylon. He believes in the Vedanta.

Srinagar : 1-10-97 – I shall not try to describe Kashmir. Suffice it to say, I never felt sorry to leave any country except this paradise on earth; and I am trying my best, if I can, to influence the Raja to start a centre; so much to do here, and the material so hopeful.

Kashmir is a veritable heaven on earth. Nowhere else in the world is such a country as this. Mountains and rivers, trees and plants, men and women, beast and and birds—all vie with one another for excellence.

Since visiting Amarnath I feel as if Shiva is sitting on my head for twentyfour hours and would not come down.

I underwent great religious austerities at Amarnath and then in the temple of Kshir-Bhavani……

On the way to Amarnath, I made a very steep ascent on the mountain. Pilgrims do not generally travel by that path. But the determination came upon me that I must go by that path, and so I did. The labour of the strenuous ascent told on my body.

I entered the cave with only my kaupin (loin cloth) on and my body smeared with holy ash; I did not then feel any cold or heat. But when I came out of the temple, I was benumbed with cold.

I saw three or four white pigeons; whether they live in the cave or the neighbouring hills, I could not ascertain.

I have heard that the sight of the pigeons brings to fruition whatever desires you may have.

Since hearing that Divine Voice (inlthe Kshir Bhavani temple), I cherish no more plans. The idea of building Maths, etc. I have given up; as Mother wills so will it be.

Whether it be internal or external, if you actually hear with your ears such a disembodied voice, as I have done, can you deny it and call it false ? Divine Voices are actually heard, just as you and I are talking.

Swami Vivekananda stayed in the Kshir Bhavani Devi temple for seven day8 and daily worshipped the Devi with offerings of Kshir (thickened milk) besides making Homa. One day, while worshipping, the thought arose in Swamiji’s mind, Mother Bhavani has been manifesting Her presence here far untold years. The Mohammedans came and destroyed the temple, yet the people of the place did nothing to protect Her. Alas, if I were then living, I could never have borne it silently.” When thinking in this strain his mind was oppressed with sorrow and anguish, he distinctly heard the voice of the Mother saying:    “What even if unbelievers should enter My temples, and decile My images ! what is that to you ? Do you protect Me Or do I protect you ? “

97 – Reached Murree from Kashmir in the evening of the day before yesterday.

Murree : 10-10-97 – I am soon going to Rawalpindi tomorrow or the day after; then, I visit Lahore and other places via Jammu, and return to Rajputana via Karachi. I am doing well.

Murree: 11-10-97 -1 feel I have been working as if under an irresistible impulse for the last ten days, beginn-ing from Kashmir. It n^y be either a physical or a mental disease. Now I have come to the conclusion that I am unfit for further work……Whatever of Mother’s work was to be accomplished through me, She made me do it, and has flung me aside breaking down my body and mind. Her will be done!

Now I retire from all work. In a day or two I shall give up every thing and wander about alone: I shall spend the rest of my life quietly in some place or other…I have all along been like a hero, I want my work to be quick like lightning and firm as adamant. Similarly, shall I die also …I have never retreated in a fight…There is success and failure in every work. But I am inclined to believe that one who is a coward will after death be born as an insect or a worm: there is no salvation for a coward even after millions of years of penance. Well, shall I after all be born as a worm?……In my eyes this world is a mere play,and it will always remain as such…I am a man of action… When I fight, I fight with girded loins—that much I fully understand; and I also understand that man, that hero, that God who says, “Don’t care, be fearless, brave one, here I am by your side.’’ To such a Man-God, I offer a million salutations. Their presence purifies the world; they are the saviours of the world. And the others who always wail, “Oh, don’t go forward, there is this danger, there is that danger,”—those dyspeptics—they always tremble with fear. But through the grace of the Divine Mother, my mind is so strong that even the most terrible dyspepsia shall not make me a coward—I am the child of the Divine Mother, the source of all power and strength. To me, cringing, fawning, whining, degrading inertia and hell are one and the same thing.

Jammu: 3-11-97 – I am going to write to Sturdy from Lahore, for which I start tomorrow. I have been here for 15 days to get some land in Kashmir from the Maharaja. I intend to come to Kashmir again next summer if I am here, and start some work.

Lahore : 11-11-97 – The lecture at Lahore is over somehow. I shall start for Dehra-Dun in a day or two.

I have now postponed my tour to Sind……because of various obstacles.

Probably, I shall leave Sadananda and Sudhir here after establishing a Society…Now no more lecturing—I go in a hurry straight to Rajaputana… Without regular exercise, the body does not keep fit; talking, talking all the time brings illness…

Lahore: 15-11-97 – In spite of my earnest wishes, I do not find it feasible to go to Karachi this time– Owing to my kidney trouble, I cannot count upon a long life.

It is one of my desires to start a Math in Calcutta, towards which as yet, I could do nothing. The people of my country have withheld the little help they used to give to our Math of late. They have got a notion that I have brought plenty of money from England! It is impossible to celebrate Sri Ramakrishna’s Festival this year, for the proprietors of Rasmani’s gardens would not let me go there as I am returned from the west! For these reasons I postpone my tour to Sind.

15-11-97 – My health is good; only I have to get up at night once or twice. I am having sound sleep; sleep is not spoiled even after exhausting lectures; and I am doing exercise everyday…

I start for Dehra-Dun this very day.

Dehra Dun : 24-11-97 – I am doing well now.

I have been suffering for a long time from some pain at the back of my neck… The day after tomorrow I am leaving for Saharanpur, from there to Rajputana.

Delhi: 8-12-97 -We shall start for Khetri tomorrow. Gradually the luggage has greatly increased. After Khetri, I intend to send everybody to the Math (Belur).

Recently, I met at Dehra Dun the Udasi Sadhu, Kalyan Dev, and few others, I hear the people at Hrishi-kesh are very eager to see me, and are asking again and again about me.

Khetri: 14-12-97 – I have today sent the power of attorney with my signature… A Raja of a place in Bundel-khand named Chatrapur has invited me. I shall visit the place on my way to the Math. The Raja of Limbdi, too, is writing earnestly. I cannot avoid going there also, I shall make a lightning tour of Kathiawar—that is what it will come to…

Jaipur: 27-12-97 – I am not very well, but am going to Calcutta in a few days and will be all right.

Belur Math : 25-2-98 – My health has not been all right of late; at present, it is much better. Calcutta is unusually cool just now, and the American friends who are here are enjoying it ever so much. Today we take possession of the land we have bought and though it is not practicable to have the Mahotsav (of Sri Rama-krishna) on it just now, I must have something on it on Sunday. Anyhow, Sriji’s relics must be taken to our place for the day and worshipped…Every cent I had I have made over to Raja (Brahmananda) as they all say I am a spendthrift, and are afraid to keep money with me……We have once more started the dancing business (Swamiji humorously alludes to the good old days with Sri Ramakrishna, in whose inspired company he and his brother-disciples used to sing and dance in ecstatic joy) here, Hari, Sarada and my own good self in a waltz. How we keep balance at all is a wonder to me!…

Sarat is hard at work as usual. We have got some good furniture now, and a big jump from the old chatai (mat) in the old Math to nice tables and chairs and three cots (Khats)…I am going to America again with Mrs. Bull in a few months

So, the Math here is a fait accompli and I am going over to get more help.

Belur Math : 25-2-98 – A friend to whom I owe much is here, presumably to take me to his place in Darjeeling. There are some American friends and every spare moment is occupied in working for the new Math and several organisations therein, and I expect to leave India next month for America.

2-3-98 – I am working hard to set things all right so that the machine may move forward when I am off the stage. Death I conquered long ago when I gave up life. My only anxiety is the work and even that to the Lord I dedicate and He knows best.

Belur Math : 2-3-98 – It was in southern India, when I came from London and when the people were feteing and feasting and pumping all the work out of me that an old hereditary disease made its appearance.*. The disease will take two or three years at worst to carry me off.

Darjeeling: 23-4-98 – My health was excellent on my return from Sandukphu (11,924 ft.) and other places, but after returning to Darjeeling, I had first an attack of fever, and after recovering from that I am now suffering from cough and cold. I try to escape from this place everyday; but they have been constantly putting it off for a long time. However, tomorrow, Sunday, I am leaving; after halting at Kharsana (Kurseong) for a day I start again for Calcutta on Monday.

29-4-98 – I have had several attacks of fever, the last being influenza. It has left me now, only I am very weak yet. As soon as I gather strength enough to undertake the journey, I come down to Calcutta.

If the plague comes to my native city, I am determined to make myself a sacrifice; and that I am sure is a “Darn sight better way to Nirvana” than pouring oblations to all that ever twinkled… I am going to start a paper — The Udbodhana — in Calcutta.

Almora: 20-5-98 – After I reached Nainital, Baburam went from here to Nanital on horseback against everybody’s advice, and while returning he also accompanied us on horseback. I was far behind as I was in a dandi, When I reached the dak bungalow at night, I heard that Baburam had again fallen from the horse and had hurt one of his arms — though he had no fractures. Lest I should rebuke him, he stayed in a private lodging house. He did not meet that night. Next day, I was making arrangements for a dandi for him, when I heard that he had already left on foot. Since then I have not heard of him. I have wired to one or two places, but no news. Perhaps, he is putting up at some village. Very well !…

My health is much better, but the dyspepsia has not gone, and again insomnia has set in.

The climate at Almora is excellent at this time. Moreover, the bungalow rented by Sevier is the best in Almora. On the opposite side Annie Besant is staying in a small bungalow with Chakravarty. One day, I went to see him. Annie Besant told me entreatingly that there should be friendship between her organisation and mine all over the world, etc. etc. Today Besant will come here for tea. Our ladies are in a small bungalow nearby and are quite happy. Only Miss MacLeod is a little unwell today. Harry Sevier is becoming more and more a Sadhu as the days pass.

Srinagar: 17-7-98 – My health is alright. I have to get up seldom at night, even though I take twice a day rice and potatoes, sugars or whatever I get. Medicine is useless — it has no action on the system of a knower of Brahman!

Srinagar: 1-8 98 – The Maharaja of Kashmir has agreed to give us a plot of land. I have also visited the site. Now the matter will be finalised in a few days, if the Lord wills. Right now, before leaving, I hope to build a small house here. I shall leave it in the charge of Justice Mukherjee when departing…

Kashmir: 25-8-98 – It is a lazy life I have been leading for the last two months, floating leisurely in a boat, which is also my home, up and down the beautiful Jhelum, through the most gorgeous scenery God’s world can afford, in nature’s own park, where the earth, air, land, grass, plants, trees, mountains, snows and the human form all express on the outside at least, the beauty of the Lord : with almost no possessions, scarcely a pen or inkstand even, snatching up a meal whenever and wherever convenient, the very ideal of a Rip Van Winkle !

“Duty is the mid-day sun whose fierce rays are burning the very vitals of humanity.” It is necessary for a time as a discipline; beyond that, it is a morbid dream. Things go on all right whether we lend them our helping hands or not. We in delusion only break ourselves.

Srinagar: 28-8-98 – I have been away a few days. Now, I am going to join the ladies. The party there goes to a nice quiet spot behind the hill, in a forest, through which a murmuring stream flows, to have meditation deep and long under the deodars (trees of God) cross-legged a la Buddha.

Lahore : 16-10-98 – I have not witnessed the Durga Puja for the last nine years. So, I am starting for Calcutta.

Belur: Nov. 98 – The other day, I was a guest of Babu Priyanath Mukherjee at Baidyanath. There I had such a spell of asthma that I felt like dying. But from within, with every breath arose the deep-toned sound, “I am He, I am He.” Resting on the pillow, I was waiting for the vital breath to depart; and observing all the time that from within was coming the sound of “I am He, I am He ! ” I could hear along :“The Brahman, the One without a second, alone exists, nothing manifold exists in this world.

Calcutta : 12-11-98 – Sri Mother is going this morning to see the new Math (Belur). I am also going there.

l£was at the Cossipore garden that Sri Ramakrishna said to me, “Wherever you will take me on your shoulders, there I will go and stay, be it under a tree or in a hut.” It is, therefore, that I myself carried him on my shoulders to the new Math grounds. Know it for certain that Sri Ramakrishna will keep his seat fixed there for the welfare of the many, for a long time to come…

Each devotee colours Sri Ramakrishna in the light of his own understanding, and each forms his own ideas of him from his peculiar standpoint. He was, as it were, a great Sun, and each one of us is eyeing him, as it were through a different kind of coloured glass, and coming to look upon that one Sun as multicoloured…

Belur Math : 35-12-98 – The Mother is our guide and whatever happens or will happen is under Her ordination.

The Math : 33-4-99 – Two years of physical suffering have taken away twenty years off my life.

Belur Math : 16-4-99 – If by the sacrifice of some specially cherished object of either myself or my brother disciples, many pure and genuinely patriotic souls come forward to help our cause, we will not hesitate in the least to make that sacrifice, nor shed a tear-drop. But my hairs have turned grey since I began the study of man. I have some doubts about those patriotic souls who can join with us if only we give up the worship of the Guru. Well, if as they pose, they are indeed panting and struggling so much almost to the point of dissolution from their body to serve the country, how can the single accident of Guru-worship stop everything ! If this trifle of Guru-worship serves as a stone to choke one to death, we had better extricate one from this predicament.

 

When the mind and speech unite in earnestly asking for a thing, that prayer is answered.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA.

I am grateful to the lands of the West for the many warm hearts that received me with all the love that pure and disinterested souls alone could give; but my life’s allegiance is to this my motherland, if I had a thousand lives, every moment of the whole series would be con-secreted to your service, my countrymen, my friends!

For, to this land I owe whatever I possess, physical, mental and spiritual, and if I have been successful in anything, the glory is yours, not mine. Mine alone are my weaknesses and failures, as they come through my inability of profiting by the mighty lessons with which this land surrounds one, even from one’s very birth.

I am thoroughly convinced that no individual or nation can live by holding itself apart from the community of others, and whenever such an attempt has been made under false ideas of greatness, policy or holiness—the result has always been disastrous to the seceding one.

To my mind, the one great cause of the downfall and the degeneration of India was the building of a wall of custom—whose foundation was hatred of others—round the nation, and the real aim of which in ancient times was to prevent the Hindus from coming in contact with the surrounding Buddhistic nations.

A bit of public demonstration was necessary for Guru Maharaja’s work. It is done and so far so good.

I do not believe in a God or religion which cannot wipe the widow’s tears or bring a piece of bread to the orphan’s mouth.

I believe in God and I believe in man. I believe in helping the miserable; I believe in going to hell to save others.

India has suffered long, the religion eternal has suffered long. But the Lord is merciful. Once more He has come to help His children, once more the opportunity is given to fallen India to rise. India can only rise by sitting at the feet of Sri Ramakrishna. His life and his teachings are to be spread far and wide, are to be made to penetrate every pore of Hindu society.

My master used to say that these names, Hindu, Christian, etc. stand as great bars to all brotherly feelings between man and man. We must try to break them down first. Well, we will have to work hard and must succeed.

That is why I desire so much to have a centre. Organisation has its faults, no doubt, but without that nothing can be done.

Sankaracharya had caught the rhythm of the Vedas, the national cadence. Indeed I always imagine that he had some vision such as mine when he was young, and recovered the ancient music that way.

But finally the Parliament of Religions opened and I met kind friends who helped me right along. I worked a little, collected funds, started two papers, and so on After that I went over to England and worked there. At the same time, I carried on the work for India in America, too.

My plan for India, as it has been developed and centralised, is this; I have told you of our lives as monks there, (in India) how we go from door to door, so that religion is brought to everybody without charge, except, perhaps, a broken piece of bread. That is why you see the lowest of the low in India holding the most exalted religious ideas…But ask a man, “Who are the English?” — he does not know. “Who governs you?” “We do not know”. “What is the Government?” They don’t know. But they know philosophy. It is a practical want of intellectual education about life on this earth they suffer from. These millions and millions of people are ready for life beyond this w⁷orld—is not that enough for them? Certainly not. They must have a better piece of bread and a better of rag on their bodies. The. great, question is how to get that better bread and better piece of frag for these sunken millions.

First I must tell you, there is great hope for them, because you see, they are the gentlest people on earth, not that they are timid. When they want to ‘fight, they fight like demons. The best soldiers the English have, are recruited from the peasantry of India. Death is a thing of no importance to them. Their attitude is, “Twenty times I have died before, and I shall die many times after this; what of that”? They never turn back. They are not given to much emotion, but they make very good fighters.

Their instinct, however, is to plough. If you rob them, murder them, tax them, do anything to them, they will be quiet and^gentle, so long as you leave them free to practise the^ religion. They never interfere with the religion of others. “Leave us liberty to worship our Gods, and take everything else..” That is their attitude. Touch them there, trouble starts. That was the real cause of 1857 Mutiny—they would not bear religious repression. The great Mohammedan Governments were simply blown up because they touched India’s religion.

Now there is no reason why they should suffer such distress—these people, so pure and good !

No national civilisation is perfect, yet, give the civilisation a push, and it will arrive at its own goal; don’t strive to change it. Take away a nation’s institutions, customs and manners, and what will be left ? They hold the nation together.

But, here comes the very learned foreign man, and he says, “Look here, you give up all those institutions and customs of thousands of years, and take my tomfool tin pot and be happy.” This is all nonsense.

We will have to help each other.

And that strikes to the heart. The people come to know it.

Well, then, my plans are, therefore, to reach these masses of India.

Now, you see, we have brought the plan down nicely on paper; but I have taken it, at the same time, from the regions of idealism. So far the plan was loose and idealistic. As years went on, it became more and more condensed; I began to see by actual working its defects and all that.

What did I discover in its working on the material plane ? First, there must be centres, to educate these monks in the method of education…In India, you will find every man quite illiterate, and that teaching requires tremendous centres. And what does all that mean ? Money. From the idealistic plane you come to everyday work. Well? I have worked hard fgj years in America, and two in England…There are American friends and English friends who come over with me to India, and there has been a very crude beginning. Some English people came and joined the Orders. One poor man worked hard and died in India……I have started the Awakened India (Prabuddha Bharat-monthly)……I have a centre in the Himalayas……I have another centre in Calcutta.

The same work I want to do on parallel lines, for women.

That part has to be accomplished.

My idea is to bring to the door of the meanest, the poorest, the noble ideas that the human race has developed both in and out of India, and let them think for themselves. Whether there should be caste or not, whether women should be perfectly free or not, does not concern me.

‘ Liberty of thought and action is the only condition of life, of growth and well-being.”

My whole ambition in life is to set in motion a machinery which will bring noble idea to the door of everybody and then let men and women settle their own fate.

Look at that handful of young men called into existence by the divine touch of Ramakrishna’s feet. They have preached the message from Assam to Sindh, from the Himalayas to the Cape Comorin. They have crossed the Himalayas at a height of twenty-thousand feet over snow and ice on foot, and penetrated into the mysteries of Tibet. They have begged their bread, covered themselves with rags; they have been persecuted, followed by the police, kept in prison, and at last set free when the government was convinced of their innocence.

A movement which half a dozen penniless boys set on foot and which bids fair to progress in such an accelerated motion—is it a humbug or the Lord’s will ?

I have been criticised from one end of the world to the other as one who preaches the diabolical idea that there is no sin ! Very good. The descendents of these very men will bless me as the preacher of virtue, and not of sin. I am the teacher of virtue, not of sin. I glory in being the preacher of light, and not of darkness.

Travelling through many cities of Europe and observing in them the comforts and education of even the poor people, there was brought to my mind the state of our own people, and I used to shed tears. What made the difference ? Education was the answer I got.

I don’t feel tired even if I talk for two whole nights to earnest enquirers; I can give up food and sleep and talk and talk. Well, if I have a mind, I can sit up in Samadhi in Himalayan cave. Why then don’t I do so ? And why am I here ? Only the sight of the country’s misery and the thought of its future do not let me remain quiet any more even Samadhi and all that appear as futile even the sphere of Braham with its enjoyments becomes insipid! My vow of life is to think of others’ welfare. The day that vow will be fulfilled, I shall leave this body and make a straight run up !

Going round the whole world, I find that people of this country ( India) are immersed in great Tamas (inactivity), compared with people of other countries. On the outside, there is a simulation of the Sattwa (calm and balanced) state, but inside, down—right inertness like that of stocks and stones. What work will be done in the world by such people ?…So my idea is first to make the people active by developing their Rajas, and thus make them fit for struggle for existence. With no strength in the body, no enthusiasm at heart, and no originality in the brain, what will they do, these lumps of dead matter !

By stimulating them, I want to bring life into them; to this, I have dedicated my life. I will rouse them through the infalliable power of Vedic mantras. I am born to proclaim to them that fearless message “Arise, Awake ! ”

Social life in the west is like a peal of laughter, but underneath it is a wail. It ends in a sob. The fun and frivolity are all on the surface; really, it is full of tragic intensity. Now here (in India) it is sad and gloomy on the outside, but underneath are carelessness and merriment.

I have never spoken of revenge : I have always spoken of strength.

Now my own desire is to rouse the country—the sleeping Leviathan, that has lost faith in its power and makes no response. If I can wake it up to a sense of the

Enternal Religion, then I shall know that Sri Rama-krishna’s advent and our birth are fruitful. That is the one desire in my heart; Mukti and all else appear of no consequence to me.

My hope is to see again the strong points of India, reinforced by the strong points of this age; only in a natural way. The new state of things must be a growth from within.

So, I preach the Upanishads. If you look, you will find that I have never quoted anything but the Upanishads. And of Upanishads it is only that one idea, strength. The quintessence of the Vedas and Vedanta, all lies in that one word. Budha’s teaching was non-resistance, or non-injury. But I think this is a better way of teaching the same thing……My own ideal is that saint whom they killed in the Mutiny and who broke his silence, when stabbed to the heart, to say, “And thou also art He.”

But you may ask what is the place of Ramakrishna in this scheme ?

His is the method, that wonderful unconscious method! He did not understand himself. He knew nothing of England or the English, save that they were queer folk from over the sea. But he lived that great life and I read the meaning. Never a word of condemnation for any ! Once I had been attacking one of our sects of Diabolism. I had been raving on for three hours, and he had listened quietly. “Well, well !” said the old man as I finished, “Perhaps, every house may have a back door, who knows?”

It is not for me to determine in what sense is Sri Ramakrishna a part of this awakened Hinduism. I have never preached personalities. My own life is guided by the enthusiasm of this great soul.

Vedanta is the one light that lightens the sects and creeds of the world, the one principle of which all religions are only applications. And what was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ? The practical demonstration of this ancient principle, the embodiment of India that is past, and a foreshadowing of the India that is to be, the bearer of spiritual light unto nations.

The other day when I installed Sri Ramakrishna on the Math grounds, I felt as if his ideas shot forth from this place and flooded the whole universe, sentient and insentient. I, for one, am doing my best, and shall continue to do so– Sankara left the Advaita philosophy in the hills and forests, while I have come to bring it out of those places and scatter it broadcast before the work-a-day world and society.

This Math that we are building will harmonise all creeds, all standpoints. Just as Sri Ramakrishna held highly liberal views, this Math too will be a centre for propagating similar ideas. The blazing light of universal harmony that will emanate from here will flood the whole world.

Through the will of Sri Ramakrishna, his Dharma-kshetra sanctified spot has been established today. A twelve years anxiety is off my head.

You see only a little manifestation of what has been done by our labours. In time the whole world must accept the universal and catholic ideas of Sri Rama-krishna and of this, only the beginning has been made. Before this flood, everybody will be swept off.

That activity and self-reliance must come in the people of the country in time I see it clearly. Ever since the advent of Sri Ramakrishna, the eastern horizon has been aglow with the dawning rays of the sun which in course of time, will illumine the country with the splendour of the midday sun.

It is my opinion that Sri Ramakrishna was born to vivify all branches of art and culture in this country (India).

If but a thorn pricks the foot of one who has surrendered himself to Sri Ramakrishna, it makes my bones ache; all others I love. You will find very few men so unsectarian as I am, but you must excuse me, I have got that bit of bigotry. If I do not appeal to his name, whose else shall I ? In this birth, it is that unlettered Brahmin who has bought this body of mine for ever.

This boy born of poor Brahmin parents, is literally worshipped in lands which have been fulminating against heathen worship for centuries. Whose powers ^it ? It is none else than the power which was manifested here as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Here has been a manifestation of an immense power, just the very beginning of whose workings we are seeing; and before this generation passes away, you will see more wonderful workings of that power. It has come just in time for the regeneration of India.

It seemed that we were going to change the theme in our national life, that we were going to exchange the backbone of our existence, as it were, that we were trying to replace a spiritual by a political backbone. If it all could have succeeded, the result would have been annihilation. But it was not to be. So, this power became manifest. I do not care in what light you understand this great sage, it matters not how much respect you pay to him, but I challenge you with the fact that here is a manifestation of the most marvellous power that has heen for several centuries in India. Long before ideas of universal religion and brotherly feeling between different sects were mooted and discussed in any country in the world, here in the sight of the city of Calcutta had been living a man whose life was a Parliament of Religions, as it should be.

Such a hero has been given to us in the person of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. If this nation wants to rise, take my word for it, it will have to rally enthusiastically round his name.

It does not matter who preaches Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, whether I or you or anybody else. But, him I place before you for the good of our race, for the good of our nation. One thing is sure that It was the purest of all lives that you have ever seen, or, let me tell you distinctly, that you have ever heard of. Within ten years of his passing away, this power has encircled the globe. Judge him not through me. I am only a weak instrument. Let not his character be judged by seeing me. It was so great that if I, or any other of his disciples spent hundreds of lives we could not do justice to a millionth part of what he really was.

I, through the grace of God, had the great good fortune of sitting at the feet of one, whose whole life was an interpretation of the underlying harmony of the Upanishadic texts; whose life, a thousandfold more than whose teaching, was a living commentary on the texts of the Upanishads, was, in tact, the spirit of Upanishads lying in a human form. Perhaps, I have got a little of that harmony.

Jnanam is all right but there is the danger of its becoming dry intellectualism. Love is great and noble, but it may die away in meaning-less sentimentalism. A harmony of all these is the thing required. Ramakrishna was such a harmony. Such beings are few and far between; but keeping him and his teachings as the ideal, we can move on.

God, though everywhere, can be known to us in and through human character. No character was ever so perfect as Ramakrishna, and that would be the centre round which we ought to rally; at the same time, allowing everybody to regard him in his own light, either as God, Saviour, teacher, model, or great man, just as he pleases.

My hopes of the future lies in the youths of character — intelligent, renouncing all for the service of others, and obedient — who can sacrifice their lives in working my ideas and thereby do good to themselves and the country at large… If I can get ten or twelve boys with the faith of Nachiketa, I can turn the thoughts and pursuits of this country in a new channel.

I once met a man in my country whom I had known before as a very stupid, dull person, who knew nothing and had not the desire to know anything, and was living the life of a brute. He asked what he should do to know God, how he was to get free. “Can you tell a lie?.“It is better to tell a lie than to be a brute, or a log of wood. You are inactive; you have not certainly reached the highest state, which is beyond all actions, calm and serene; you are too dull even to do something wicked.” That was an extreme case of course, and I was joking with him; but what I meant was that a man must be active, in order to pass through activity to perfect calmness.

Sometimes, I feel a desire to sell the Math and everything and distribute the money to the poor and destitute… When I was in the western countries, I prayed to the Divine Mother, “People here are sleeping on a bed of flowers, they eat all kinds of delicacies, and what do they not enjoy ? while people in our country are dying of starvation. Mother, will there be no way for them?” One of the objects of my going to the West to preach religion was to see if I could find any means for feeding the people of this country…I see as clear as daylight that there is one Brahman in all, in them and in me,— one Shakti dwells in all. The only difference is of manifestation… After so much austerity, I have understood this as the real truth— God is present in every Jiva; there is no other God besides that; “Who serves Jiva, serves God indeed.”

This body is born and it will die. If I have been able to instill a few of my ideas into you all, then I shall know that my birth has not been in vain.

I was born for the life of a scholar—retired—quiet —poring over my books. But the mother dispenses otherwise, yet the tendency is there.

Today, the Americans, out of love, have given me this nice bed and I have something to eat also. But, I have not been destined to enjoy physically, and lying on the matteresses only aggravates my illness, I feel suffocated as it were. I have to come down and lie on the floor for relief.

I do not see into the future; nor do I care to see. But, one vision I see clear as life before me: that the ancient Mother (India) has awakened once more, sitting on her throne, rejuvenated, more glorious than ever.

My teaching is my own interpretation of our ancient books, in the light which my Master shed upon them. I claim no supernatural authority.

1899 – A very funny thing happened today. I went to a friend’s house. He has had a picture painted, the subject of which is Sri Krishna addressing Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Sri Krishna is standing in the chariot, holding the reins in His hand, and preaching the Gita to Arjuna. He showed me the picture and asked me how I like it. “Fairly well,I said. But as he insisted on having my criticism on it, I had to give my honest opinion by saying, “There is nothing in it to commend itself to me; first, because the chariot of the time of Sri Krishna was not like the modern Pagoda-shaped car, and also there is no expression in the figure of Sri Krishna. The kings never used to fight in pagoda-chariots. There are chariots even today in Rajputana that greatly resemble the chariots of old.

“See the chariots in the pictures of Grecian mythology. They have two wheels, and one mounts them from behind; we had that sort of chariot. What good is it to paint a picture if the details are wrong? An historical picture comes up to a standard of excellence when, after making proper study and research, things are portrayed exactly as they were at that period. The truth must be represented, otherwise the picture is nothing. To paint a really good picture requires as much talent as to produce a perfect drama.

“Sri Krishna ought to be painted as He really was, the Gita personified; and the central idea of the Gita should radiate from His whole form as He was teaching the path of Dharma to Arjuna, who had been overcome by infatuation and cowardice.” So, saying, I posed myself in the way in which Sri Krishna should be portrayed and continued, “Look here, thus does he hold the bridle of the horses, with their forelegs fighting the air and their mouths gaping. This will show a tremendous play of action in the figure of Sri Krishna. His friend, the world-renowned hero, casting aside his bow and arrows, has sunk down like a coward on the chariot, in the midst of the two armies. And Sri Krishna, whip in one hand and tightening the reins with the other, has turned Himself to Arjuna, with his childlike face beaming with unwordly love and sympathy, and a calm and serene look, and is delivering the message of the Gita to his beloved comrade.”

“Aye, that is it; Intense action in the whole body, and withal a face expressing the profound calmness and serenity of the blue sky. This is the central idea of the Gita – to be calm and steadfast in all circumstances, with one’s body, mind and soul centred at His hallowed Feet!”

Everyone says that the highest, the pure truth, cannot be realised all at once by all, that men have to be led to it gradually through worship, prayer and other kinds of prevalent religious practices.

 

He who has faith has everything, and he who lacks faith lacks everything. It is faith in the name of Lord that works wonders, for faith is life and doubt is death.

– Sri RAMAKRISHNA.

have experienced in my insignificant life, that good motives, sincerity and infinite love conquer the world.

– SWAMI V1VEKANANDA.

June, 1899 – It took us two days to get out of the Hooghly.

Our ship reached the sea.

There fell upon my ears the deep and sonorous music of commingled male and female voices, singing in chorus the British national anthem, “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves !” Startled, I looked around and found that the ship was rolling heavily, and brother T – holding his head with his hands, was struggling against an attack of sea-sickness.

In the second class two Bengali youths were going to the West for study. Their condition was worse. One of them looked so frightened that he would have been only too glad to scuttle straight home if he were allowed to land. These two lads and we two were the only Indians on the ship – the representatives of modern India !

In the night of the 24th June, our ship reached Madras. Getting up from bed in the morning, I found that we were within the enclosed space of the Madras harbour. Within the harbour the water was still, but without, towering waves were roaring, which occasionally dashing the harbour-wall, were shooting up fifteen or twenty feet high into the air and breaking in a mass of foam. In front lay the well-known Strand Road of Madras. Two European police inspectors, a Madrasi Jamadar and a dozen constables boarded our ship and told me with great courtesy that “natives” were not allowed to land on the shore, but the Europeans were…; but the Madrasis had asked for a special permission for me. By degrees the Madrasi friends began to come near our vessel on boats in small groups. As all contact was strictly forbidden, we could only speak from the ship, keeping some space between.. I found all my friends – Alasinga, Biligiri, Narasimhachary, Dr. Nanjunda Row, Kidi, and others on the boats. Basketfuls of mangoes, plantains, cocoanuts, cooked rice-and-curd, and heaps of sweet and salt delicacies, etc. began to come in. Gradually the crowd thickened – men, women and children, and boats everywhere. I found also Mr. Chamier, my English friend who had come out to Madras as a barrister-at-law. Ramakrishnananda and Nirbhayananda made some trips near to the ship. They insisted on staying on the boat the whole day in the hot sun, and I had to remonstrate with them, when they gave up the idea.

As the news of my not being permitted to land got abroad, the crowd of boats began to increase still more. I, too, began to feel exhaustion from leaning against the railings too long. Then I bade farewell to my Madrasi friends and entered my cabin. Alasinga got no opportunity to consult with me about the Brahmavadin and the Madras work; so he was going to accompany me to Colombo. The ship left the harbour in the evening, when I heard a great shout, and peeping through the cabin window, I found that about a thousand Madrasi men, women and children who had been sitting on the harbour walls, gave this farewell shout when the ship started.

It took us four days to go from Madras to Ceylon. That rising and heaving of waves which had commenced from the mouth of the Ganges began to increase as we advanced, and after we had left Madras, it increased still more. The ship began to roll heavily, and the passengers were terribly sea-sick, and so were the two Bengali boys. One of them was certain he was going to die, and we had to console him with great difficulty, assuring him that there was nothing to be afraid of, as it was quite a common experience and nobody ever died of it. The second class, again, was right over the screw of the ship. The two Bengali lads, being “natives,” were put into a cabin almost like a blackhole, where neither air nor light had any access. So the boys could not remain in the room and on the deck the rolling was terrible. Again, when the prow of the ship settled into the hollow of a wave and the stern was pitched up, the screw rose clear out of the water and continued to wheel in the air, giving tremendous jolting to the whole vessel. And the second class then shook as when a rat is seized by a cat and shaken!

This was monsoon season. The more the ship proceeded, the more gale and wind she had to encounter. The Madrasis had given plenty of fruits, the greater part of which and the sweets and rice-and-curd, etc. I gave to the boys. Alasinga had hurriedly bought a ticket and boarded the ship barefooted…Editor of the Brahmavadin, Alasinga, a Mysore Brahmin of the Ramanuja sect, had brought with him with great care, as his provision for the voyage, two small bundles, in one of which there was fried flattened rice and in another popped rice and fried peas ! His idea was to live upon these during the voyage to Ceylon, so that his caste might remain intact. However, one rarely finds men like our Alasinga in this world-one so unselfish, so hard-working, and devoted to his Guru, and such an obedient disciple is indeed very rare on earth. A Madrasi by birth, with his head shaven so as to leave a tuft in the centre, barefooted, and wearing the dhoti, he got into the first class. When hungry, he chewed some of the popped rice and peas!

Alasinga did not feel sea sick. Brother T. felt a little trouble at the beginning but was then all right. So the four days passed in various pleasant talks and gossip.

Once I was preaching at Anuradhapuram (Ceylon) among the Hindus-not Buddhists-and that in an open maidan, not on anybody’s property, when a whole host of Buddhist monks and laymen, men and women, came out beating drums and cymbals and set up an awful uproar. The lecture had to stop, of course, and there was the imminent risk of bloodshed. With great difficulty I had to persuade the Hindus that we at any rate might practise a bit of non-injury (Ahimsa) if they did not. Then the matter ended peacefully.

Our Colombo friends had procured a permit for our landing. So we landed and met our friends. Sir Coomara Swami is the foremost man among the Hindus. Mr. Aru-nachalam and other friends came to meet me. After a long time, I partook of millagutawny, and the king cocoanut. They put some green cocoanuts into my cabin. I also visited the monastery and school of our old acquaintance, the Countess of Canovara.

Alasinga returned to Madras from Colombo, and we also got on board our ship, with presents of some lemons from the orchard of Kumaraswamy, some cocoanuts, two bottles of syrup, etc.

The ship left Colombo in the morning of 25th June (1899). Owing to the rolling of the ship, most of the passengers were suffering from headache. A little girl named Tootle was accompanying her father. She had lost her mother. Our Nivedita became mother to Tootle. Tootle was brought up in Mysore with her father who is a planter. I asked her, “Tootle, how are you?” She replied, “This bungalow is not good and rolls very much, which makes me sick.” To her every house was a bungalow !

After six days’ journey had been prolonged into fourteen days, and our buffeting by terrible wind and rain night and day, we at last did reach Aden. Near the Island of Socotra, the monsoon was its worst. The captain remarked that that was the centre of the monsoon, and that if we could pass that, we should gradually reach calmer waters. And so we did. And the nightmare also ended.

In the evening of the 8th July, we reached Aden. I had visited the town last time. Aden is a very ancient place… Our ship is now passing through the Red Sea.

The very name of the Red Sea strikes terror – it is so dreadfully hot, specially in summer. But fortunately we did not experience so much heat. The breeze instead of being a southwind, continued to blow from the north, and it was the cool breeze of the Mediterranean.

On the 14th of July, the steamer cleared the Red Sea and reached Suez. The Suez Canal is now the link between Europe and Asia.

This is a very beautiful natural harbour, surrounded almost on three sides by sandy mounds and hillocks, the water also is very deep. There are innumerable fish and sharks in it.

As soon as we heard of the sharks moving about behind the ship – I had never an opportunity to see live sharks – we hastened to the spot. But our friends, the sharks, had moved off a little. We were watching – half an hour, three quarters, we were almost tired of it when somebody announced – there he was. Casting my eyes, I found that at some distance, a huge black thing was moving towards us, six or seven inches below the surface of the water. The huge flat head was visible. A gigantic fish.

One of the second class passengers, a military man, found out a terrible hook. To this, they tightly fastened two pounds of meat with a strong cord, and a stout cable tied to it. About six feet from it, a big piece of wood was attached to act as a float. Then the hook with the float was dropped in the water. We in eagerness stood on tiptoe, leaning over the railing and anxiously waited for the shark. Suddenly, about a hundred yards from the ship, something of the shape of a water carrier’s leather bag, but much larger, appeared above the surface of the water. The shark rushed close by and put the bait into his jaws and tilted on his side – pull, pull, forty or fifty pulled together. What tremendous strength the fish has, what struggles he made ! He turned and turned in the water. Alas, he extricated himself from the bait! The shark fled, getting rid of the hook. And he was tiger – like, having black stripes over his body like a tiger.

There, another huge flat – headed creature! Moving near the hook and examining the bait, lie put it in his jaws. He turned on his side and swallowed it whole leisurely. When about to depart, immediately there was the pull from behind ! “Flat-head” astonished, jerked his head and wanted to throw the bait off, but it made matters worse ! The hook pierced him, and from above, men young and old began to pull violently at the cable. There, about half the shark’s body was above water. Oh, what jaws ! The whole of it was clear of water. Now he was set on the deck. What a big shark ! And with what a thud he fell on board the ship ! The military man with body and clothes splashed with blood raised the beam and began to land heavy blows on the shark’s head. I had my meal almost spoilt that day – everything smelt of that shark.

The Suez Canal is a triumph of Canal engineering; it is also a thing of remote antiquity. By connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, it has greatly facilitated commerce between Europe and India. Now comes the Mediterranean. It marks the end of Asia, Africa and of ancient civilisation. We now enter Europe. The borders of this Mediterranean were the birth place of that European Civilisation which has now conquered the world.

The ship touched Naples, – we reached Italy. The capital of Italy is Rome-Rome, the capital of that ancient and most powerful Roman Empire. After leaving Naples, the ship called at Marseilles, and thence straight at London.

ENGLAND

Wimbledon : 3-8-99 – We are in at last. Turiya-nanda and I have beautiful lodgings here… I have recovered quite a bit by the voyage… It is nice and warm here; rather too much, they say. I have become for the present a Sunyavadi, a believer in nothingness or void ! No plans, no after – thought, no attempt, for anything; Laissez faire to the fullest!!!

What is this osteopathy ? Will they cut off a rib or two to cure me ? Not I, no manufacturing from my ribs, sure ! Whatever it be, it will be hard work for him to find my bones. My bones are destined to make corals in the Ganges.

I am going to study French…but no grammar business.

I expect to be in New York in a few weeks, and don’t know what next.

No one ever landed on English soil with more hatred in his heart for a race than I did for the English; but the more I lived among them and saw how the machine was working – the English national life, – and ipixed with them, I found where the heartbeat of the nation was, and the more I loved them.

AMERICA

The Americans’ kindness to me is past all narration; it would take me years yet to tell how I have been treated by them, most kindly and most wonderfully.

Ridgely Manor (N.Y.) 14-9-99 – I have simply been taking rest at the Leggett’s and doing nothing. Abhedananda is here. He has been working hard.

N.Y. : 22-12-99 – I had a slight relapse of late, for which the healer has rubbed several inches of my skin off. Just now I am feeling it, the smart.

I had a very hopeful note from Margo (Margaret E. Noble)… I am grinding on in Pasadena ! hope some result will come out of my work here. Some people here are very enthusiastic; The Raja-Yoga book did indeed great service on this coast. I am mentally very well, indeed; I never really was so well as of late. The lectures for one thing do not disturb my sleep, that is some gain. I am doing some writing, too. The lectures here were taken down by a stenographer, the people here want to print them.

Slowly as usual plans are working, but Mother knows as I say. May She give me release and find other workers for her plans ! I have made a discovery as to the mental method of really practising what the Gita teaches, of working without an eye to results. I have seen much light on concentration and attention, and control of concentration which if practised will take us out of all anxiety and worry. It is really the science of bottling up our minds whenever we like. Mrs. Legget is doing well; so is Joe; I, they say, I too, am. Maybe they are right. I work anyway and want to die in harness; if that be what Mother wants, I am quite content.

Los Angeles: Dec. 6, 99 – If I did not break my heart over my people I was born amongst, I would do it for somebody else. I am sure of that. This is the way of some, I am coming to see it. We are all after happiness, true; but that some are only happy in being unhappy – queer, is it not ?

There is no harm in it either, except that happiness and unhappiness are both infections. Ingersol said once that if he were God, he would make health catching, instead of disease, little dreaming that health is quite as catching as disease, if not more !

12-12-99 – My mistakes have been great, but everyone of them was from too much love. Would I never had any Bhakti!

I went years ago to the Himalayas, never to come back; but my sister committed suicide, the news reached me there, and that weak heart flung me off from that prospect of peace ! It is the weak heart that has driven me out of India to seek some help for those I love, and here I am ! Peace have I sought, but the heart, that seat of Bhakti, would not allow me to find it. Struggle and torture; torture and struggle !

Yet, let the world come, the hell come, the God come, let Mother come, I fight and do not give in.

Ravana got his release in three births by fighting the Lord himself! It is glorious to fight Mother.

Los Angeles: 23-12-99 – I am all right. The wheel is turning up. Mother is working it up, She cannot let me go before Her work is done.

Los Angeles : 27-12-99-I am much better in health – able enough to work once more. I have started work already, and have sent to Saradananda (Belur Math) Rs. 1,300/- already………I shall send more, if they need it…Poor boys! How hard I am on them at times!

Well, they know in spite of all that I am their best friend.

I am at my best when I am alone. Mother seems to arrange so. Joe (Miss Josephine Macleod) believes great things are brewing in Mother’s cup; hope it is so……I can only say, every blow I had in this life, every pang, will only become joyful sacrifice if Mother becomes propitious to India once more.

The Raja-Yoga book seems to be very well – known here……

Joe has unearthed a magnetic healing woman. We both are under her treatment. Joe thinks she is pulling me up splendidly. On her has been worked a miracle, she claims. Whether it is magnetic healing, California ozone, or the end of the present spell of bad karma, I am improving. It is a great thing to be able to walk three miles, even after a heavy dinner.

It is exactly like Northern Indian winter here, only some days a little warmer. The roses are here and the beautiful palms. Barley is in the fields, roses and many other flowers round about the cottage where I live. Mrs. Blodgett, my host, is a Chicago lady. Fat, old and extremely witty. She heard me in Chicago and is very motherly……I shall be very happy if I can make a lot of money. I am making some.

Los Angeles: 17-1-1900- I have been able to remit Rs. 2,000/- to Saradananda with the help of Miss MacLeod and Mrs. Leggett. Of course, they contributed the best part. The rest was got by lectures……

I am decidedly better in health. The healer thinks I am not at liberty to go anywhere I choose; the process will go on and I shall completely recover in a few months……

I am here principally for health……

Now it occurs to me that my mission from the platform is finished.

Los Angles: 15-2-1900 – Going to San Francisco next week.

Pasadena : 20-2-1900 – I have lost many relatives, suffered much, and the most curious cause of suffering when somebody goes off is the feeling that I was not good enough to that person. When my father died, it was a pang for months, and I had been so disobedient…..I was in the glare, burning and panting all the time……My life is made up of continuous blows, because of poverty, treachery and my own foolishness !

California : 21-2-1900 -Wordy warfares, texts and scriptures, doctrines and dogmas – all these I am coming to loathe as poison, in this my advanced age.

San Francisco: 2-3-1900 -I am busy making money only I do not make much……I have to make enough to

pay my passage home at any rate. Here is a new field, where I find ready listeners by hundreds prepared beforehand by my books.

San Francisco : 4-3-1900 – My health is about the same; don’t find much difference; it is improving perhaps but very imperceptibly. I can use my voice, however, to make 3,000 people hear me as I did twice in Oakland, and get good sleep too after two hours of speaking.

San Francisco : 7-3-1900 – I am so so in health. No money. Hard work. No result. Worse than Los Angeles. They come in crowds when the lecture is free-when there is payment, they don’t.

Almeda Calif : 20-4-1900 – A kind lady has given me a pass up to New York to be used within three months. The Mother will take care of me. She is not going to strand me now after guarding me all my life.

Almeda Calif: 30-4-1900 – Sudden indisposition and fever prevent my starting for Chicago yet. I will start as soon as I am strong for the journey……

Almeda Calif : 2-5-1900 – I have been very ill, one more relapse brought about by months of hard work.

New York: 11-5-1900 –I have been much censured by everyone for cutting off my long hair……… I had been to Detroit and came back yesterday. Trying as soon as possible to goto France, then to India……

Los Angeles: 17-6-1900– Kali worship is not a necessary step in any religion. The Upanishads teach us all that there is of religion. Kali worship is my special fad. I only preach what is good for universal humanity. If there is any curious method which applies entirely to me, I keep it a secret and there it ends. I never taught Kali worship to any body……

Religion is that which does not depend upon books or teachers or prophets or Saviours, and that which does not make us dependent in this or in any other lives upon others. In this sense, Advaitism of the Upanishads is the only religion. But, Saviours, books, prophets, ceremonials, etc. have their places. They may help many, as Kali worship helps me in my secular work. They are welcome.

I have worked for this world all my life, and it does not give me a piece of bread without taking a pound of flesh.

New York: 18-7-1900- I stayed in Detroit for three days only. It is frightfully hot here in New York. Kali (Abhedananda) went away about a week ago to the mountains. He cannot come back till September. I am all alone, and washing; I like it.

New York : 24-7-1900 – I am to start on Thursday next, by the French steamer ha Champagne.

New York: 25-7-1900- Iam starting for Paris tomorrow.

PARIS

Paris : 25-8-1900 – Now I am free, as I have kept no power or authority or position for me in the work. I also have resigned the Presidentship of the Ramakrishna Mission.

I am so glad a whole load is off me, now I am happy.

Paris: 28-8-1900 -I am trying to learn French. Some are veity appreciative already.

I have not had much time to think of the body. So it must be well.

We have an adage among us that one that has a disc-like pattern on the soles of his feet becomes a vagabond. I fear I have my soles inscribed all over with them !……It was my cherished desire to remain in Paris for some time and study the French language and civilisation. I left my old friends and acquaintances and put up with a new friend, a Frenchman of ordinary means, who knew no English, and my French, well, it was something quite extraordinary!

I had this in mind that the inability to live like a dumb man would naturally force me to talk French, and I would attain fluency in that language in no time. But on the contrary, I took to a tour through Vienna, Turkey, Greece, Egypt and Jerusalem !

I had three travelling companions – two of them French and the third, an American. The French male companion was Monsieur Jules Bois, a famous Philosopher, and literatuer of France; and the French lady friend was the world-renowned singer Madamoiselle Calve. I had previously been acquainted with her.

Madame Sarah Bernhardt, the foremost actress in the West, has a special regard for India. She told me again and again that our country is “very ancient and very civilised.” One year she performed a drama touching on India, in which she set up a whole Indian street scene on the stage – men, women and children, sadhus and Nagas and everything – an exact picture of India! After the performance she told me that for about a month she had visited every museum and made herself acquainted with the men and women, and their dress, the streets and bathing ghats and everything relating to India. Madame Bernhardt has a desire to visit India.

Madamoiselle Calve will not sing this winter, and is going to temperate climates like Egypt, etc. I am going as her guest. Calve has not devoted herself to music alone; she is sufficiently learned, and has a great love for philosophical and religious literature.

She was born amidst very poor circumstances. There is no better teacher than pain and poverty ! That extreme penury and pain and hardship of childhood, a constant struggle against which has won for Calve her victory, have engendered a remarkable sympathy, and a profound seriousness in her life.

Western music is very good; there is in it a perfection of harmony, which we (Indians) have not attained. Only, to our untrained ears it does not sound well, hence, we do not like it and we think that the singers howl like jackals. I also had the same sort of impression, but when I began to listen to the music with attention and study it minutely, I came more and more to understand it, and I was lost in admiration.

What is meant by bath in the West ? Why, the washing of face, head and hands, i. e. only those parts which are exposed. A millionaire friend of mine once invited me to come over to Paris – Paris, which is the capital of modern civilisation – Paris, the heaven of luxury, fashion and merriment on earth – the centre of arts and sciences. My friend accommodated me in a huge palatial hotel, where arrangements for meals were in a right royal style, but for bath-well, no name of it. Two days I suffered silently – till at last I could bear it no longer, and had to address my friend thus: “Dear brother, let this royal luxury be with you and yours ! I am panting to get out of this situation, such hot weather, and no facility of bathing; if it continues like this, I shall be in imminent danger of turning mad like a rabid dog.” Hearing this, my friend became very sorry for me and annoyed with the hotel authorities, and said, “I won’t let you stay here any more, let us go and find out a better place.”

Twelve of the chief hotels were seen, but no place for bathing was there in any of them ! There are independent bathing-houses, where one can go and have a bath for four or five rupees. Good heavens ! That afternoon I read in a paper that an old lady entered into the bath-tub and died then and there ! Whatever the doctors may say, I am inclined fo think that perhaps, that was the first occasion in her life to come into contact with so much water, and the frame collapsed by the sudden shock!! This is no exaggeration.

No nation in the world is as cleanly in the body as the Hindu who uses water very freely.

France – a picturesque country, neither very cold nor very warm, very fertile; weather neither excessively wet nor extremely dry. Sky clear, sun sweet, elms and oaks in abundance, grasslands charming, hills and rivers small, springs delightful. Excepting some parts of China, no other country in the world have I seen that is so beautiful as France……The rich and the poor, the young and the old, the fields, the gardens, the walks, so artistically neat and clean – the whole country looks like a picture. Such love of nature and art have I seen nowhere except in Japan. “

We had two other companions on the journey as far as Constantinople – Pera Hyacinthe alias Mons. Loyson and his wife.

One special benefit I got from the company of those ladies and gentlemen was that except the one American lady, no one knew English and consequently somehow or other I had to talk as well as hear French.

From Paris our friend Maxim had supplied me with letters of introduction to various places, so that the countries might be properly seen. Maxim is the inventor of the famous Maxim gun-the gun that sends off a continuous round of balls, and is loaded and discharged automatically, without intermission. An admirer of India and China, Maxim is a good writer on religion, philosophy etc. Having read my works long since, he holds me in great – I should say, excessive admiration.

The tour programme was as follows: from Paris to Vienna and thence to Constantinople, by rail; then by steamer to Athens and Greece, then across the Mediterranean to Egypt, then Asia Minor, Jerusalem, and so on.

Paris, in the year 1900 was the centre of the civilised world, for it was the year of the Paris Exhibition and there was an assemblage of eminent men and women from all quarters of the globe. The master minds of all countries had met in Paris to spread the glory of their respective countries by means of their genius. From among that white galaxy of geniuses, there stepped forth one distinguished youthful hero to proclaim the name of our Motherland – it was the world-renowned scientist Dr. J. C. Bose. Alone, the youthful Bengali physicist, with his galvanic quickness charmed the Western audience with his splendid genius. Well done, hero!

I took a round over the Paris Exhibition – that accumulated mass of dazzling ideas, like lightning held steady as it were, that unique assemblage of celestial panorama on earth!

In this Paris Exhibition, the Congress of the History of Religions sat for several days together. At the Congress, there was no room for the discussions on the doctrines and spiritual views of any religion; its purpose was only to enquire into the historic evolution of the different forms of established faiths, and along with it other accompanying facts that are incidental to it. Accordingly, the representation of the various missionary sects of different religions and their beliefs was entirely left out of account in this Congress. The Chicago Parliament of Religions was a grand affair and the representatives of many religious sects from all parts of the world were present in it. This Congress, on the other hand, was attended only by such scholars as devoted themselves to the study of the origin andliistory o^ifferent religions. At the Chicago Parliament of the Roman Catholics expected to establish their superiority over the Protestants without much opposition, by proclaiming their glory and strength and laying the bright side of their faith before the assembled Christians, Hindus, Bauddhas, Mussalmans and other representatives of the world religions and publicly exposing their weakness, they hoped to make firm their own position. But the result proving otherwise, the Christian world has been deplorably hopeless of the reconciliation of the different religious systems: so the Roman catholics are now particularly opposed to the repetition of any such gathering. France is a Roman catholic country; hence, in spite of the earnest wish of the authorities, no religious congress was convened on account of the vehement opposition on the part of the Roman Catholic world.

The Congress of the History of Religions at Paris was like the Congress of Orientalists.

From Asia only three Japanese Pandits were present at the Congress. From India, there was the present writer.

The conviction of many of the Sanskrit scholars of the West is that the Vedic religion is the outcome of the worship of the fire, the sun and other awe – inspiring objects of natural phenomena.

I was invited by the Paris Congress to contradict this conviction, and I promised to read a paper on the subject. But I could not keep my promise on account of ill health and with difficulty was only able to be personally present at the Congress where I was most warmly received by all the western Sanskrit scholars whose admiration for this scribe was all the greater, as they had already gone through many of my lectures on the Vedanta.

At the Congress, Mr. Gustav Oppert, a German Pandit, read a paper on the origin of Salagrama-Sila.

He traced the origin of the Salagrama worship to the emblem of the female generative principle. According to him, the Siva Lingam is the phallic emblem of the male, and the Salagrama of the female generative principle. And thus he wanted to establish that the worship of the Siva Linga and that of the Salagrama – both are but the component parts of the worship of Lingam and Yoni!

I repudiated the above two views and said that though I had heard of such ridiculous explanations about the Siva Lingam, the other theory of the Salagramasila was quite new and strange, and seemed groundless to me.

I also said that the worship of the Siva Lingam originated from the famous hymn in the Atharva Veda Samhita sung in praise of the Yupastambha, the sacrificial post. In that hymn a description is found of the begin-ingless and endless Stambha or Skambha, and it is shown that the said Skambha is put in place of the eternal Brahman. As, afterwards, the Yajna (Sacrificial) fire, its smoke, ashes and flames, the Soma plant and the ox that used to carry on its back the wood for the Vedic sacrifice, gave place to the conceptions of the brightness of Siva’s body, his tawny matted hair, his blue throat, and the riding on the bull of the Siva, and so on. Just so, the Yupa-Skambha gave place in time to the Siva-Lingam, and was deified to the high Devahood of Sri Sankara. In the Atharva Veda Samhita, the sacrificial cakes are also extolled along with the attributes of Brahman.

In the Linga Purana, the same hymn is expanded in the shape of stories, meant to establish the glory of the great Stambha and the superiority of Mahadeva.

Again, there is another fact to be considered. The Bauddhas used to erect memorial topes consecrated to the memory of Buddha; and the very poor, who were unable to build big monuments, used to express their devotion to him by dedicating miniature substitutes for them. Similar instances are still seen in the case of Hindu temples in Banaras and other sacred places of India, where those who cannot afford to build temples, dedicate very small temple like constructions instead. So, it might be quite probable that during the period of Buddhistic ascendency, the rich Hindus, in imitation of the Bauddhas, used to erect something as a memorial resembling their Skambha, and the poor in a similar manner copied them on a reduced scale, and, afterwards, the miniature memorials of the poor Hindus became a new addition to the Skambha.

One of the names of the Buddha Stupas (memorial topes) is Dhatugarbha, that is “metal-wombed.” Within the Dhatu-garbha i» small cases made of stone, shaped like the present Salagrama, used to preserve the ashes, tones and other remains of the distinguished Bauddha Bhikshus, along with gold, silver and other metals. The Salagrama-silas are natural stones resembling in form these artificially cut stone-cases of the Bauddha Dhatu-garbha, and thus, being first worshipped by the Bauddhas, gradually got into Vaishnavism, like many other forms of Buddhistic worship that found their way into Hinduism. On the banks of the Narmada and in Nepal, the Buddhistic influence lasted longer than in other parts of India, and the remarkable coincidence that the Narmadeswara Siva-lingam found on the banks of the Narmada and hence so called, and the Salagrama-silas of Nepal, are given preference by the Hindus to those found elsewhere in India, is a fact that ought to be considered with respect to this point of contention.

The explanation of the Salagrama-sila as a phallic emblem was an imaginary invention and, from the very beginning, beside the mark. The explanation of the Siva-lingam as a phallic emblem was brought forward by the most thoughtless and was forthcoming in India in her most degraded times, those of the downfall of Buddhism. The filthiest Tantrika literature of Buddhism of those times is yet largely found and its rites practised in Nepal and Tibet.

I gave another lecture in which I dwelt on the historic evolution of the religious ideas in India, and said that the Vedas are the common source of Hinduism in all its varied stages, as also Buddhism and every other religious belief in India.

I said a few words on the priority of Sri Krishna to Buddha – that the worship of Sri Krishna is much older than that of Buddha, and if the Gita be not of the same date as the Mahabharata, it is surely much earlier, and by no means later. When the Gita notices the doctrines of all the religious sects of the time, why does it not, I asked, ever mention the name of Buddhism?

After the lecture, many present expressed their opinions for or against the subject, and declared that they agreed with most of what I had said, and assured me that the old days of Sanskrit Antiquarianism were past and gone and the views of modern Sanskrit scholars were largely the same as those of mine.

And what your European Pandits say about the Aryans sweeping down from some foreign land, snatching away the lands of the aborigines and settling in India by exterminating them, is all pure nonsense, foolish talk! Strange that our Indian scholars, too, say amen to them; and all these monstrous lies are being taught to our boys ! This is very bad indeed.

I am an ignoramus myself. I do not pretend to any scholarship; but with the little that I understand I strongly protested against these ideas at the Paris Congress.

I have been talking with the Indian and European savants on the subject, and hope to raise many objections to this theory in detail when the time permits.

Paris – Now I am staying on the sea coast of France. The session of the Congress of History of Religion is over. It was not a big affair; some twenty scholars chattered a lot on the origin of the Salagramaand the origin of Jehovah, and similar topics. I also said something on the occasion.

Paris 9-1900 – The body is somehow rolling on. Work makes it ill, and rest makes it well – that is all. Mother knows…Nivedita has gone to England. She and Mrs. Bull are collecting funds.

Paris 14-10-1900 – I am staying with a famous French writer. M. Jules Bois. I am his guest. As he is a man making his living with his pen, he is not rich, but we have many great ideas in common and feel happy together.

He discovered me a few years ago and has already translated some of my pamphlets into French.

I shall travel with Madame Calve, Miss MacLeod and M. Jules Bois, I shall be the guest of Madame Calve, the famous singer.

We shall go to Constantinople, the Near East, Greece and Egypt. On our way back, we shall visit Venice.

It may be that I shall give a few lectures in Paris after my return, but they will be in English with an interpreter…

I am sending all the money I earned in America to India; now I am free, the begging – monk as before. I have also resigned from the Presidentship of the monastery.

M. Jules Bois is very modest and gentle, and though a man of ordinary means, he very cordially received me as a guest into his house in Paris. Then, he was accompanying us for travel.

In the evening of October 24,1900 the train left Paris. The night was dark and nothing could be seen. Monsieur Bois and myself occupied one compartment, and early went to bed. On awakening from sleep we found we had crossed the French frontier and entered German territory. I had already seen Germany thoroughly.

The whole day the train rushed through Germany, till in the afternoon it reached the frontiers of Austria, the ancient sphere of German supremacy, but now an alien territory.

In the evening of October 25, the train reached Vienna, the capital of Austria. There were few passen-gers_f and it did not take us much time to show our luggage and have it passed. A hotel had already been arranged for, and a man from the hotel was waiting for us with a carriage: we reached the hotel duly. It was out of question to go out for sight-seeing during the night; so the next morning we started to see the town.

Vienna is a small city after the model of Paris. The thing most worth seeing in Vienna is the Museum, specially the scientific Museum, an institution of great benefit to the students. Three days in Vienna were sufficient to tire me.

On the 28th Oct., at 9 P. M., we again took that Orient Express train, which reached Constantinople on the 30th. These two nights and one day, the train ran through Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Formerly, I had the notion that people of cold climates did not take hot chillies, which was merely a bad habit of warm climate people. But the habit of taking chillies, which we observed to begin with Hungary and which reached its climax in Rumania, Bulgeria, etc. appeared to me to beat even the Madrasis!

The first view of Constantinople we had from the train. At the station we had great trouble over our books. Madamoiselle Calve and Jules Bois tried much, in French, to reason with the octroi officers, which gradually led to a quarrel between the parties. The head of the officers was a Turk and his dinner was ready, so the quarrel ended without further complications. They returned all the books with the exception of two which they held back. They promised to send them to the hotel immediately, which they never did. We went round the town and bazar of Stamboul, or Constantinople.

Beyond the Pont, or creek, is the Pera or foreigner’s quarters, hotels etc. whence we got into a carriage, saw the town and then took some rest. In the evening, we went to visit Woods Pasha, and the next day, started on an excursion along the Bosphorus in a boat. It was extremely cold and there was a strong wind. So I and Miss M-got down at the first station. It was decided that we would cross over the Scutari and see Pere Hyacinthe-Not knowing the language we engaged a boat by signs merely, crossed over and hired a carriage. On the way, we saw the seat of a Sufi Fakir.

We had a long talk with Pere Hyacinthe about the American colleges, after which we went to an Arab shop where we met a Turkish student. Then we returned from Scutari – we had found out a boat but it failed to reach its exact destination. However, we took a tram from the place where we were landed, and returned to our quarters at the hotel at Stamboul. The Museum at Stamboul is situated where the ancient harem of the Greek Emperors once stood. We saw some remarkable sarcophagi and other things, and had a charming view of the city from above Tophaneh. I enjoyed taking fried chick peas here after such a long time, and had spiced rice and some other dishes, prepared in the Turkish fashion. After visiting the cemetery, we went to see the ancient walls. Within the walls was the prison-a dreadful place. Next we met Woods Pasha and started for the Bosphorus. We had our dinner with the French Charged Affairs and met a Greek

Pasha and an Albanian gentleman. The police have prohibited Pere Hyacinthe’s lectures. So_f I too could not lecture. We saw Mr. Devanmall and Chobeji-a Gujarati Brahmin. There are a good many Indians here, Hindustanis, Mussalmans, etc. We had a talk on Turkish Philology and heard of Noor Bey, whose grandfather was a Frenchman. The women here have got no Purdah system and are very free. We heard of Kurd Pasha, and the massacre of Armenians.

At 10 in the morning, we left Constantinople, passing a night and a day on the sea, which was perfectly placid; by degrees, we reached the Golden Horn and the sea of Marmora. In one of the islands of the Marmora, we saw a monastery of the Greek religion.

While out in the morning on a visit to the Mediterranean Archipelago, we came across Professor Liper, whose acquaintance I had already made in the Pachiappa College at Madras. In one of the islands, we came upon the ruins of a temple, which had probably been dedicated to Neptune, judging from its position on the sea-shore. In the evening, we reached Athens, and after passing a whole night, under quarantine, we obtained permission for landing in the morning. Port Peiraeus is a small town, but very beautiful. From there we drove five miles to have a look at the ancient walls of Athens which used to connect the city with the port. Then we went through the town; the Acropolis, the hotels, houses and streets, and all were very neat and clean. The place is a small one. The same day, again, we climbed the hillock and had a view of the Acropolis, the temple of the Wingless Victory, and the Parthenon, etc. The temple is made of white marble. Some standing remains of columns also we saw. The next day, we again went to see these with Madamoi-sselle Melcarvi, who explained to us various historical facts relating thereto. On the second day, we visited the temple of Olympian Zeus. Theatre Dionysius etc., as far as the seashore. The third day, we set out for Eleusis, which was the chief religious seat of the Greeks. Here it was that the famous Eleusinian Mysteries used to be played. The ancient theatre of this place has been built anew by a rich Greek. The Olympian games too have been revived in the present times. At 10 A. M. on the fourth day, we got on board the Russian Steamer, Czar, bound for Egypt. After reaching the deck, we came to learn that the steamer was to start at 4 P.M. – perhaps, we were too early or there would be some extra delay in loading the cargo. So having no other alternative, we went round and made a cursory acquaintance with the sculpture of Ageladas and his three pupils, Phidias, Myron and Polycletus, who flourished between 576 B. C. and 486 B. C. Even here, we began to feel the great heat. No ice was available in this steamer. From a visit to the Louvre Museum in Paris, I came to understand the three stages of Greek art.

Paris: 14-10-1900 – We shall leave Paris for Vienna on the 29th.

Port Tewfick: 26-11-1900 – The steamer was late, so I am waiting. Thank goodness, it entered the canal this morning at Port Said. That means it will arrive some time in the evening if everything goes right.

Of course, it is like solitary imprisonment these two days and I am holding my soul in patience.

But they say the change is thrice dear. Mr. Gaze’s agent gave me all wrong directions; in the first place, there was nobody here to tell me a thing, not to speak of receiving me. Secondly, I was not told that I had to change my Gaze’s ticket for a steamer one at the agent’s office, and that was at Suez, not here.

It was good one way, therefore, that the steamer was late. So, I went to see the agent of the steamer and he told me to exchange Gaze’s pass for a regular ticket.

I hope to board the steamer some time tonight. I am enjoying the fun immensely.

 

One must love all. No one is stranger. It is Hari alone that exists in all beings. Nothing exists without Him. Never think that you alone have true understanding and that others are fools.

– Sri RAMAKRISHNA.

Say, brother, “The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good,’’ and repeat and pray day night “Oh, Thou Lord of Gouri, O, Thou Mother of the Universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me O, Thou Mother of Strength, take away my unmanliness, and make me a man”,

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA.

Belur Math : 11-12-1900 – I arrived night before last. Alas ! my hurrying was of no use. Poor Captain Sevier has passed away, a few days ago; thus two Great Englishmen gave up their lives for us, the Hindus. This is martyrdom if anything is.

He was cremated on the banks of the river that flows by his Ashrama, a la Hindu, covered with garlands, the Brahmins carrying the body and boys chanting the Vedas.

Dear Mrs. Sevier is calm. I am going up tomorrow to pay her a visit.

15-12-1900 – Three days ago, I reached here. It was quite unexpected, and everybody was so surprised.

26-12-1900 – I am going to Mayavati tomorrow.

Mayavati: 6-1-1901 – The first day’s touch of Calcutta brought the asthma back; and every night I used to get a fit during the two weeks I was there. I am however very well in the Himalayas.

It is snowing heavily here, and I was caught in a blizzard on the way; but, it is not very cold; all this exposure to the snows for two days on my way here seems to have done me a world of good.

Today, I walked over the snow uphill about a mile.

The snow is lying all round six inches deep, the sun is bright and glorious, and now in the middle of the day we are sitting outside reading, and the snow all about us ! The winter here is very mild in spite of the snow. The air is dry and balmy, and the water beyond all praise.

Belur Math: 26-1-1901 – I went to see Mrs. Sevier in Mayavati. On my way, I learned of the sudden death of the Raja of Khetri. It appears he was restoring some old architectural monument at Agra, at his own expense, and was up some tower on inspection. Part of the tower came down, and he was instantly killed.

Dacca: 29-3-1901 – My mother, aunt and cousin came over five days ago to Dacca, as there was a great sacred bath in the Brahmaputra river. Whenever a particular conjunction of planets takes place, which is very rare, a huge concourse of people gather on the river at a particular spot. This year, there has been more than a hundred thousand people; for miles the river was covered with boats.

The river, though nearly a mile broad at the place, was one mass of mud ! But, it was firm enough, so we had our bath and puja and all that.

I am rather enjoying Dacca. I am going to take my mother and other ladies to Chandranath, a holy place at the eastern – most corner of Bengal.

I liked East Bengal on the whole, ^”he fields, I saw were rich in crops, the climate also is good, and the scenery on the hill-side is charming. The Brahmaputra valley is incomparable in beauty. The people of East

Bengal are a little stronger and more active than those of this (West Bengal). It may be due to their taking plenty of fish and meat. Whatever they do, they do with great persistence. They use a good deal of oil and fat in their food, which is not good, because taking too much oily and fatty good produces fat in the body.

About religious ideas, I noticed the people are very conservative, and many have turned into fanatics in trying to be liberal in religion. One day, a young man brought to me in the house of Mohinim Babu at Dacca a photograph and said, “Sir, please tell me who he is. Is he an Avatara ?” I told him gently many times that I knew nothing of it, when even on my telling him three or four times, the boy did not cease from his persistent questioning, I was constrained to say at last, “My boy, henceforth take a little nutritious food and then your brain will develop. Without nourishing food, I see your brain has become dried up.” At these words, the young man may have been very much displeased. But, what could I do ? Unless I spoke like this to the boys, they would turn into madcaps by degrees.

People may call their Guru an Avatara; they may have any idea of him they like. But, Incarnations of God are not born anywhere and at all seasons. At Dacca itself, I heard there were three or four Avataras !

The women are very nearly the same everywhere. I found Vaishnavism strong at Dacca.

Going so far, I could not return without visiting the birthplace of such a great soul as Nag Mahashaya. His wife fed me with many delicacies prepared with her own hand. The house is charming, like a peace retreat. There I took a swimming bath in a village pond. After that, I had such a sound sleep that I woke at half past two in the afternoon. Of the few days, I had sound sleep in my life, that in Nag Mahashaya’s house was one. Rising from sleep, I had a plentiful repast. Nag Maha-shaya’s wife presented me a cloth which I tied round my head as a turban and started for Dacca. I found that the photograph of Nag Mahashaya was being worshipped there. The place where his remains lie interred ought to be well kept. Even now it is not as it should be.

Even while living the life of a householder, Nag Mahashaya was more than a Sannyasin. This is very uncommon; I have rarely seen one like him.

Decidedly, without a shadow of doubt, Nag Mahashaya was the living personification of humility in the play of Sri Ramakrishna’s divine drama on earth…Sri Ramakrishna used to speak of Nag Mahashaya as a “flaming fire.”

All the characteristics of the highest type of Bhakti spoken of in the scriptures have manifested themselves in Nag Mahashaya. It is only in him that we actually see fulfilled the widely quoted text.

Blessed indeed is East Bengal to have been hallowed by the touch of Nag Mahashaya’s feet!

How can ordinary people appreciate a great man like him ? Those who had his company are blessed indeed.

The land that has produced a great soul like Nag Mahashaya is blessed and has a hopeful future. By the light of his personality, Eastern Bengal is radiant.

There in East Bengal, they used to make such fuss about my food and say, “Why should you eat that food or eat from the hands of such and such?” – and so on. To which I had to reply – “I am a Sannyasin and a mendicant friar and what need have I to observe so much outward formality with regard to food etc. Do not your scriptures say – “One should beg one’s food from door to door, aye even from the house of an outcaste.”

The Shillong hills are very beautiful. There I met Sir Henry Cotton, the Chief Commissioner of Assam. He asked me, “Swamiji, after travelling through Europe and America, what have you come to see here in these distant hills?” Such a good and kind-hearted man as Sir Henry Cotton is rarely found. Hearing of my illness, he sent the Civil Surgeon and inquired after my health morning and evening. I could not do much lecturing there, because my health was very bad. On the way Nitai served and looked after me nicely.

Kamakhya is the land of the Tantras. I heard of one “Hankar” Deva who is worshipped there as an Avatara.

I heard his sect is very widespread. I could not ascertain if “Hankar” Deva was but another form of the name of Sankaracharya. They are monks – perhaps, Tantrika Sannyasins. Or perhaps, one of the Sankara sects.

Math: 15-5-1901 – I have just returned from my tour through East Bengal and Assam. As usual, I am quite tired and broken down.

Belur Math,: 14-6-1901 – At Shillong, the hill sanatorium of Assam, I had fever, Asthma, increase of albumen, and my body swelled to almost twice its normal size. These symptoms subsided, however, as soon as I reached the Math. It is dreadfully hot this year, but a bit of rain has commenced, and I hope we will soon have the monsoon in full force. I have no plans just now except that the Bombay Presidency wants me so urgently that I think of going there soon.

Belur Math: 5-7-1901 – My health has been and is very bad. I recover for a few days only; then comes the inevitable relapse. Well, this is the nature of the disease anyway.

Assam is, next to Kashmir, the most beautiful country in India, but very unhealthy. The huge Brahmaputra winding in and out of mountains and hills, studded with Islands, is, of course, worth one’s while to see.

Belur Math,: 27-8-1901 -My health is getting worse, in fact everyday…

I am in a sense a retired man; I don’t keep much note of what is going on about the Movement.

Belur Math, ; 7-9-01 – It has been raining here day and night last three days. Two of our cows have calved.

Well, about the rains – they have come down now in right earnest and it is a deluge, pouring, pouring night and day. The river is rising, flooding the banks ; the ponds and tanks have overflown. I have just now returned from lending a hand in cutting a deep drain to take off the water from the Math grounds. The rain water stands at places some feet high. My huge stork is full of glee and so are the the ducks and geese. My tame antelope fled from the Math and gave us some days of anxiety in finding him out. One of my ducks unfortunately died yesterday. She had been gasping for breath more than a week. One of my waggish monks says, “Sir, it is no use living in this Kaliyuga when ducks catch cold from damp and rain, and frogs sneeze!”

One of the geese was losing her feathers. Knowing no other method, I left her some minutes in a tub of water mixed with mild carbolic, so that it might either kill or heal – and she is all right now.

Belur Math: 8-11-1901 -I have been ever since my trip to East Bengal almost bed-ridden. Now I am worse than ever with the additional disadvantage of impaired eyesight.

Banaras Cantonment: 10-2-1902 – Mi, Okakura (of Japan) has started on his short tour. A very well educated rich young man of Banaras, with whose father we had a long standing friendship, came back to this city yesterday. He is especially interested in art, and spending purposely a lot of money in his attempts to revive dying Indian arts. He came to see me only a few hours after Mr Okakura left.

He is just the man to show him artistic India (i. e. what little is left) and I am sure he will be much benefited by Okakura’s suggestions. Okakura just found a com terracotta water-vessel here used by the servants. The shape and the embossed work on it simply charmed him, but as it is common earthenware and would not bear the journey, he left a request with me to have it reproduced in brass. I was at my wit’s end as to what to do. My young friend comes a few hours after and not only undertakes to have it done, but offers to show a few hundreds of embossed designs in terracotta infinitely superior to the one Okakura fancied. He also offers to show old paintings in that wonderful style. Only one family is left in Banaras who can paint after the old style yet. One of them has painted a whole hunting scene on a pea, perfect in detail and action!

I may shift from this place very soon.

Banaras Cantonment: 18-2-1902 -If in this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true; this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else is mere moonshine.

Belur Math: 21-4-1902 – The plan of going to Japan seems to have come to nought.

Belur Math: 21-4-1902 – I am getting on splendidly, they say, but yet very weak and no water to drink. Anyhow the chemical analysis shows a great improvement. The swelling about the feet, and other complaints have all disappeared.

Belur Math : 15-5-1902 -I am somewhat better, but, of course, far from what I expected. A great idea of quiet has come upon me- I am going to retire for good-no more work for me.

If ever a man found the vanity of things, I have it now……This is the world, hideous beastly corpse. Who thinks of helping it is a fool! But we have to work out our slavery by doing good or evil. I have worked it out, I hope. May the Lord take me to the other shore !

To set the work going, I had to touch money and property, for a time. Now I am sure my part of the work is done, and I have no more interest in Vedanta or any philosophy in the world or the work itself. I am getting ready to depart to return no mdre to this hell, this world,

Even its religious utility is beginning to pall me. May Mother gather me soon to Herself never to come back any more !

I have given up the bondage of iron, the family tie. I am not to take up the golden chain of religious brotherhood! I am free, must always be free, I am as good as retired. I have played my part in the world.

I had a message from India to the West, and boldly I gave it to the American and English peoples.

I have worked my best. If there is any seed of truth in it, it will come to life. I am satisfied in my conscience that I did not remain an idle Swaroi. I have a notebook which has travelled with me all over the world. I find these words written seven years ago – “Now to seek a corner and lay myself there to die !” Yet, all this Karma remained.

Through Maya all this doing good etc, came into my brain-now they are leaving me, I long, Oh, I long for my rags, my shaven head, my sleep under the trees and my food from begging ! Never before in my life I realised more forcibly the vanity of the world.

I have roused a good many of our people; that was all I wanted. Let things have their course and Karma its way. I have no bonds here. I have seen life and it is all self – life is for self, love for self, honour for self, everything for self. I look back and scarcely find any action I have done for self; even my wicked deeds were not for self. So I am content…………I have seen the truth. – let the body float up or down, who cares ?

Oh, the grief! If I could get two or three like me, I could have left the world convulsed.

It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body-to cast it off like a disused garment. But, I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere.

It seems there is no more strength left to bear the burden of work and responsibility. Rest and peace for the few days that I shall yet live. Victory to the Guru ! Victory to the Guru! No more lectures or anything of that sort. Peace!

Let me die a true Sannyasin, as my Master did, heedless of money, of women, and of fame!

Do you think that there will be no more Vivekanandas after I die !…………There will be no lack of Vivekanandas, if the world needs them………Know for certain that the work done by me is not the work of Vivekadanda, it is His work- Lord’s own work! If one Governor-Gene ral retires, another is sure to be sent in his place by the Emperor.

“As the birds which have slept in the branches of a tree wake up, singing when the dawn comes, and soar up into the deep blue sky, so is the end of my life.”

I have had many difficulties, and also some very great successes. But all my difficulties and sufferings count for nothing, as I have succeeded. I have attained my aim. I have found the pearl for which I dived into the ocean of life, I have been rewarded. I am pleased……

I see the cloud lifting, vanishing, the cloud of my bad Karma, and the sun of my good karma rises, shining, beautiful and powerful.

I think I am beginning to see the Divine, I think I am slowly approaching that state when I shall be able to love the very ‘‘Devil” himself, if there were any.

At twenty years of age, I was the most unsympathetic, uncompromising fanatic; I would not walk on the footpath, on the theatre side of the streets in Calcutta. At thirty three, I could live in the same house with prostitutes and never would think of saying a word of reproach to them……My power of work is immensely increasing

and becoming immensely effective. Some days I get into a sort of ecstasy. I feel that I must bless everyone, everything and embrace everything, and I do see that evil is a delusion. I bless the day I was born. That Love Infinite that brought me into being has guarded every one of my actions good or bad; for what am I, what was I ever, but a tool in His hands? for whose service I have given up everything, my beloved ones, my joys. He is my playful darling, I am His playfellow.

There is neither rhyme nor reason in the universe ! What reason binds Him ? He the playful One is playing these tears and laughters over all parts of the play ! Great fun; great fun.

It is a funny world, – and the funniest chap you ever saw is, He – the Beloved Infinite! Fun, is it not? Brotherhood or playmate hood – a school of romping children let out to play in this playground of the world! Isn’t it? Whom to praise, whom to blame, it is all His play. They want explanations, but how can you explain Him? He is brainless, nor has He any reason. He is fooling us with little brains and reason, but this time He won’t find me napping.

Beyond, beyond reason and learning and talking is the feeling, the “Love”, the “Beloved”, Aye, “Saki”¹ fill up the cup and we will be mad.”

I am more calm and quiet now than I ever was. My boat is nearing the calm harbour from which it is never more to be driven out. Glory, glory unto Mother! I have no wish, no ambition now. Blessed be Mother ! I am the servant of Ramakrishna. I am merely a machine. I know nothing else. Nor do I want to know. Glory, glory unto Sri Guru!

Mother is becoming propitious once more… Mother is doing Her own work; I do not worry now. Moths like me die by the thousand every instant. Her work goes on all the same. Glory unto Mother ! Alone and drifting about in the will-current of the Mother, has been my whole life…

I am happy, at peace with myself, and more of the Sannyasin than I ever was before. Memories of long nights of vigil with Sri Ramakrishna under the Dakshin-eshwar Banyan tree are waking up once more. And work ? What is work? Whose work? Whom shall I work for?

I am free. I am Mother’s child. She works, she plays, why should I plan? What should I plan ? Things came and went, just as She liked, without my planning. We are Her automata. She is the wirepuller.

I have bundled my things and am waiting for the great deliverer.

I am only the boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the Banyan tree at Dakshiineshwar. That is my true nature. Works and activities, doing good and so forth are all superimpositions. Now I again hear his voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking-    love dying, work becoming tasteless – the glamour is off life. Now the voice of the Master calling: ‘I come, Lord,

I come.” – “Let the dead bury the dead, follow thou Me.“

– “I come, my beloved, I come.”

Yes, Nirvana is before me. I leave none bound,

I take no bonds.

I come, Mother, I come, In Thy “warm bosom.

I feel freedom is near at hand.

I am the infinite blue sky; the clouds may gather over me, but I am the same infinite blue.

These tinpots of bones and foolish dreams of happiness and misery – what are they?

My dreams are breaking. Om Tat Sat!

Black and thick are the folds of sinister fate. But, I am the master. I raise my hand, and lo, they vanish! All this is nonsense and fear. I am the Fear of fear, the Terror of terror. I am the fearless secondless One. I am the Ruler of Destiny, the Wiper – out of fate. Sri Wah Guru!

All is good ! Nonsense. Some good, some evil. I enjoy the good and I enjoy the evil. I was Jesus and I was Judas Iscariot; both my play, my fun. All is good!… Come good, come evil, both welcome, both of you my play. Fhave no good to attain, no ideal to clench up to, no ambition to fulfil. I, the diamond mine, am playing with pebbles, good and evil, good for you, evil, come; good for you, good, you come too. If the universe tumbles round my ears, what is that to me? I am Peace that passeth understanding. I am beyond, I am Peace !

I am being lifted up above the pestilential miasma of this world’s joys and sorrows; they are losing their meaning. It is a land of dreams; it does not matter whether one enjoys or weeps; they are but dreams, and as such, must break sooner or later…Life is but a dream! I am attaining peace that passeth understanding, which is neither joy nor sorrow, but something above them both… Now I am nearing that Peace, the eternal silence. I preached the theory (of Vedantism) so long, but Oh Joy! I am realising it now. Yes, lam. “I am free.” “Alone, alone. I am the One without a second.”

 

As the dawn heralds the rising sun, so unselfishness, purity righteousness precede the advent of God.

– Sri RAMAKRISHNA.

The blissful winds are sweet to us,

The seas are showering bliss on us.

May the corn in our fields bring bliss to us, May the plants and herbs bring bliss to us, May the cattle give us bliss,

O, Father in Heaven, be Thou blissful unto us!

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

1

A Persian word for a wine-cup bearer.