For some time Swami Vivekananda had been
planning a visit to London. He wished to sow the seed of Vedanta
in the capital of the mighty British Empire. Miss
Henrietta Müller had extended to him a cordial invitation to come
to London, and Mr. E.T. Sturdy had requested him to stay
at his home there. Mr. Leggett, too, had invited the Swami
to come to Paris as his guest.
Mr. Francis H. Leggett, whose hospitality the
Swami had already enjoyed at Percy, was a wealthy business
man of New York. He and two ladies of his acquaintance,
Mrs. William Sturges and Miss Josephine MacLeod (who
were sisters), had attended the Swami's lectures in New
York during the previous winter. They were all impressed
by the Swami's personality and his message, and Mr.
Leggett remarked, one day, that the teacher was a man of
'great common sense.' An intimate relationship
gradually developed between the Swami, the two sisters, and
Mr. Leggett. Mrs. Sturges, who was a widow, and Mr.
Leggett became engaged and announced their engagement at
the summer camp at Percy. They decided to be married in
Paris, and Mr. Leggett invited the Swami to be a witness at
the ceremony.
This invitation, coming at the same time as
Miss Müller's and Mr. Sturdy's seemed to the Swami, as
he described it in a letter, a 'divine call.' The Swami's New
York friends thought that a sea voyage would be
most beneficial for his weary body and mind. At this time
the Swami began to feel a premonition of his approaching
end. One day he even said, 'My day is done.' But the
awareness of his unfulfilled mission made him forget his body.
The Swami and Mr. Leggett sailed from New
York about the middle of August 1895, reaching Paris by
the end of the month. The French metropolis with its
museums, churches, cathedrals, palaces, and art galleries
impressed him as the centre of European culture, and he
was introduced to a number of enlightened French people.
When Swami Vivekananda arrived in London he
was enthusiastically greeted by Miss Müller, who had
already met him in America, and Mr. Sturdy, who had
studied Sanskrit and had to a certain degree practised
asceticism in the Himalayas. The Swami's mind, one can imagine,
was filled with tumultuous thoughts as he arrived in the
great city. He was eager to test his ability as an interpreter of
the spiritual culture of India in the very citadel of the
English-speaking nations. He also knew that he belonged to
a subject race, which had been under the
imperialistic domination of England for almost one hundred and
forty years. He attributed India's suffering, at least in part,
to this alien rule. He was not unaware of the arrogance of
the British ruling class in India, to whom India was a
benighted country steeped in superstition. Would the Britishers
give a patient hearing to the religion and philosophy of
his ancestors, of which he was so proud? Would they not
rather think that nothing good could ever come 'out of
Nazareth'? He did not, as we learn from his own confession, set
foot on English soil with the friendliest of feelings. But how he
felt when he left England after his short visit will
be presently described.
After a few days' rest the Swami quietly began
his work. Through friends he was gradually introduced
to people who were likely to be interested in his thoughts;
he also devoted part of his time to visiting places of
historical interest. Within three weeks of his arrival he was
already engaged in strenuous activity. A class was started and
soon the hall was found inadequate to accommodate
the students. Newspapers interviewed him and called him
the 'Hindu yogi.' Lady Isabel Margesson and several
other members of the nobility became attracted to the
Swami's teachings. His first public lecture was attended by
many educated and thoughtful people; some of the
leading newspapers were enthusiastic about it. The
Standard compared his moral stature with that of
Rammohan
Roy and Keshab Chandra Sen. The London Daily
Chronicle wrote that he reminded people of Buddha. Even the
heads
of churches showed their warm appreciation.
But the Swami's greatest acquisition in London
was Miss Margaret E. Noble, who later became his
disciple, consecrating her life to women's education in India.
She also espoused the cause of India's political freedom
and inspired many of its leaders with her written and
spoken words.
Miss Noble, the fourth child of Samuel Noble,
was born in Northern Ireland in 1867. Both her grandfather
and her father were Protestant ministers in the Wesleyan
church and took active part in the political agitation for the
freedom of Ireland. Her grandmother and her father gave her
instruction in the Bible. Her father, who died at the age of
thirty-four, had
a premonition of his daughter's future calling. One of
the last things he whispered to his wife was about
Margaret. 'When God calls her,' he said, 'let her go. She will
spread her wings. She will do great things.'
After finishing her college education, Margaret
took the position of a teacher at Keswick, in the English
Lake District, where contact with the High Church stirred
her religious emotions. Next she taught in an orphanage
in Rugby, where she shared the manual labour of the
pupils. At twenty-one, Miss Noble was appointed as mistress
at the secondary school in Wrexham, a large mining
centre, and participated in the welfare activities of the
town, visiting slum households and looking for waifs and
strays. Next she went to Chester and taught a class of
eighteen-year-old girls. Here she delved into the educational
systems of Pestalozzi and Froebel. And finally she came to
London, where, in the autumn of 1895, she opened her own
school, the Ruskin School, in Wimbledon.
The metropolis of the British Empire offered
Miss Noble unlimited opportunities for the realization of
her many latent desires — political, literary, and
educational. Here she joined the 'Free Ireland' group, working
for Ireland's home rule. She was also cordially received at
Lady Ripon's exclusive salon, where art and literature
were regularly discussed. This salon later developed into
the Sesame Club, with rooms in Dover Street, where
Bernard Shaw, T.H. Huxley, and other men of literature and
science discussed highly intellectual subjects. Margaret
Noble became the secretary of the club, and lectured on
'The Psychology of the Child' and 'The Rights of Women.' Thus
even before she met Swami Vivekananda she
was unconsciously preparing the ground for her future
activities in India.
At this time Margaret suffered a cruel blow. She
was deeply in love with a man and had even set the
wedding date. But another woman suddenly snatched him away.
A few years before, another young man, to whom she
was about to be engaged, had died of tuberculosis.
These experiences shocked her profoundly, and she began to
take a more serious interest in religion. She was very fond of
a simple prayer by Thomas à Kempis: 'Be what thou
prayest to be made.'
One day her art teacher, Ebenezer Cook, said
to Margaret: 'Lady Isabel Margesson is inviting a few
friends to her house to hear a Hindu Swami speak. Will you
come?' Swami Vivekananda had already been a topic of
discussion among certain members of the Sesame Club. Mr. E.T.
Sturdy and Miss Henrietta Müller had told of his
extraordinary success in America as a preacher and orator.
Miss Noble first met Swami Vivekananda on a
Sunday evening in the drawing-room of Lady Isabel
Margesson, situated in the fashionable West End of London. He was
to address a group of people on Hindu thought. Miss
Noble was one of the last to arrive. Fifteen people sat in the
room in absolute silence. She nervously felt as if all eyes
were turned on her, and as she took the first vacant chair,
she gathered her skirt to sit down without making any
noise. The Swami sat facing her. A coal fire burnt on the
hearth behind him. She noticed that he was tall and well
built and possessed an air of deep serenity. The effect of his
long practice of meditation was visible in the gentleness and
loftiness of his look, which, as she was to write
later, 'Raphael has perhaps painted for us on the brow of
the Sistine Child.'
The Swami looked at Lady Isabel with a sweet
smile, as she said: 'Swamiji, all our friends are here.' He
chanted some Sanskrit verses. Miss Noble was impressed by
his melodious voice. She heard the Swami say, among
other things: 'All our struggle is for freedom. We seek
neither misery nor happiness, but freedom, freedom alone.'
It was at first difficult for Miss Noble to accept
Swami Vivekananda's views. But before he left London she
had begun to address him as 'Master.'
Recalling those first meetings in London, and
their decisive influence on her life, Nivedita wrote in 1904 to
a friend: 'Suppose he had not come to London that time!
Life would have been like a headless dream, for I always
knew that I was waiting for something. I always said that a
call would come. And it did. But if I had known more of life,
I doubt whether, when the time came, I should certainly
have recognized it. Fortunately, I knew little and was spared
that torture....Always I had this burning voice within,
but nothing to utter. How often and often I sat down, pen
in hand, to speak, and there was no speech! And now there
is no end to it! As surely I am fitted to my world, so surely
is my world in need of me, waiting — ready. The arrow
has found its place in the bow. But if he had not come! If
he had meditated, on the Himalayan peaks!...I, for one,
had never been here.'
Swami Vivekananda and Mr. Sturdy soon began
an English translation of the Bhakti aphorisms of Narada.
At this time the idea came to the Swami's mind that a religion
could not have permanent hold upon people
without organization and rituals. A mere loose system of
philosophy, he realized, soon lost its appeal. He saw the
need, therefore, of formulating rituals, on the basis of
the Upanishadic truths, which would serve a person from
birth to death — rituals that would prepare for the
ultimate realization of the supramental Absolute.
His stay in England was very short, but his
insight enabled him to appraise the English character
with considerable accuracy. He wrote to a devotee on
November 18, 1895: 'In England my work is really splendid. I
am astonished myself at it. The English do not talk much
in the newspapers, but they work silently. I am sure of
having done more work in England than in America.' And
in another letter, written on November 13, to a brother
disciple in India: 'Every enterprise in this country takes some
time to get started. But once John Bull sets his hand to a
thing, he will never let it go. The Americans are quick, but
they are somewhat like straw on fire, ready to be extinguished.'
The Swami had been receiving letters from
American devotees asking him to come back; a rich lady from
Boston promised to support his work in New York throughout
the winter. Before leaving England, however, he arranged
that Mr. Sturdy should conduct the classes in London till
the arrival of a new Swami from India, about the need of
whom he was writing constantly to his brother disciples at
the Baranagore monastery.
On December 6, 1895, Swami Vivekananda
returned to New York, after his two months' stay in England,
in excellent health and spirits. During his absence
abroad, regular classes had been carried on by his American
disciples Kripananda, Abhayananda, and Miss Waldo,
who taught raja-yoga in both its practical and its
theoretical aspects.
Together with Kripananda he took up new
quarters, consisting of two spacious rooms, which could
accommodate one hundred and fifty persons. The Swami at
once plunged into activity and gave a series of talks on work
as a spiritual discipline. These talks were
subsequently published as Karma-Yoga, which is
considered one of
his best books. In the meantime the devotees of the
Swami had been feeling the need of a stenographer to take
down his talks in the classes and on public platforms. Many
of his precious speeches had already been lost because
there had been no reporter to record them. Fortunately
there appeared on the scene an Englishman, J.J. Goodwin,
who was at first employed as a professional stenographer; in
a few days, however, he was so impressed by the
Swami's life and message that he became his disciple and
offered his services free, with the remark that if the teacher
could give his whole life to help mankind, he, the disciple,
could at least give his services as an offering of love.
Goodwin followed the Swami like a shadow in America, Europe,
and India; he recorded many of the public utterances
of Vivekananda, now preserved in published books,
and thereby earned the everlasting gratitude of countless
men and women.
The Swami spent Christmas of 1895 with Mr. and
Mrs. Leggett at their country home, Ridgely Manor, which
he frequently visited in order to enjoy a respite from his
hard work in New York. But even there he would give
exalted spiritual discourses, as will be evident from the following
excerpt from a letter written by Mr. Leggett on January
10, 1896, to Miss MacLeod:
One night at Ridgely we were all spellbound by his eloquence. Such thought I have never heard expressed by mortal man — such as he uttered for two and a half hours. We were all deeply affected. And I would give a hundred dollars for a typewritten verbatim report of it. Swami was inspired to a degree that I have never seen before or since. He leaves us soon and perhaps we shall never see him again, but he will leave an ineffaceable impress on our hearts that will comfort us to the end of our earthly careers.
After a short visit to Boston as the guest of Mrs.
Ole Bull, the Swami commenced a series of public lectures
in New York at Hardeman Hall, the People's Church, and
later at Madison Square Garden, which had a seating
capacity of fifteen hundred people. In the last mentioned place
he gave his famous lectures on love as a spiritual
discipline, which were subsequently published as
Bhakti-Yoga. Both the lectures of the Swami and his
personality
received favourable comment from the newspapers. He
initiated into monastic life Dr. Street, who assumed the name
of Yogananda.
Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, one of the founders of
the New Thought movement in America, spoke highly of
the Swami's teachings. She and her husband first went to
hear him out of curiosity, and what happened afterwards
may be told in her own words:
Before we had been ten minutes in the audience, we felt ourselves lifted up into an atmosphere so rarefied, so vital, so wonderful, that we sat spellbound and almost breathless to the end of that lecture. When it was over we went out with new courage, new hope, new strength, new faith, to meet life's daily vicissitudes.... It was that terrible winter of financial disasters, when banks failed and stocks went down like broken balloons, and business men walked through the dark valleys of despair, and the whole world seemed topsy-turvy. Sometimes after sleepless nights of worry and anxiety, my husband would go with me to hear the Swami lecture, and then he would come out into the winter gloom and walk down the street smiling and say: 'It is all right. There is nothing to worry over.' And I would go back to my own duties and pleasures with the same uplifted sense of soul and enlarged vision.... 'I do not come to convert you to a new belief,' he said. 'I want you to keep your own belief; I want to make the Methodist a better Methodist, the Presbyterian a better Presbyterian, the Unitarian a better Unitarian. I want to teach you to live the truth, to reveal the light within your own soul.' He gave the message that strengthened the man of business, that caused the frivolous society woman to pause and think; that gave the artist new aspirations; that imbued the wife and mother, the husband and father, with a larger and a holier comprehension of duty.
Having finished his work in New York, the
Swami, accompanied by Goodwin, left for Detroit. The main
theme of his lectures and class talks there was bhakti, or love of
God. At that time he was all love. A kind of divine
madness seemed to have taken possession of him, as if his
heart would burst with longing for the beloved Mother. He
gave his last public lecture at Temple Beth-El, of which
Rabbi Louis Grossman, an ardent admirer of the Swami, was
the leader. The Swami cast a spell, as it were, over the
whole audience. 'Never,' wrote Mrs. Funke, 'had I seen the
Master look as he looked that night. There was something in
his beauty not of earth. It was as if the spirit had almost
burst the bonds of flesh, and it was then that I saw a
foreshadowing of the end. He was much exhausted from the
years of overwork, and it was even then to be seen that he
was not long for this world. I tried to close my eyes to it, but
in my heart I knew the truth. He had needed rest but felt
that he must go on.'
The idea that his years were numbered came to
Swami Vivekananda again and again. He would often say at
this time, 'Oh, the body is a terrible bondage!' or 'How I
wish that I could hide myself for ever!' The note-book that
he had carried during his wanderings in India contained
these significant words: 'Now to seek a corner and lay
myself down to die!' In a letter to a friend, he quoted these
words and said: 'Yet all this karma remained. I hope I have
now worked it out. It appears like a hallucination that I was
in these childish dreams of doing this and doing that. I
am getting out of them.... Perhaps these mad desires were
necessary to bring me over to this country. And I thank
the Lord for the experience.'
On March 25, 1896, he delivered his famous
lecture on 'The Philosophy of Vedanta' before the
graduate students of the philosophy department of Harvard
University. It produced such an impression that he
was offered the Chair of Eastern Philosophy in the
university. Later a similar offer came from Columbia University.
But he declined both on the ground that he was a sannyasin.
In 1894 Swami Vivekananda had established
the Vedanta Society of New York as a non-sectarian
organization with the aim of preaching the universal principles
of Vedanta. It became better organized in 1896. Tolerance
and religious universalism formed its motto, and its
members generally came to be known as 'Vedantins.'
In the meantime the Swami's great works Raja-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, and Karma-Yoga were receiving marked attention from many thoughtful people of the country. The Swami was serious about organizing Hinduism on a sound, universal, ethical, and rational basis so that it would appeal to earnest thinkers in all parts of the world. He wanted to reinterpret, in keeping with the methods of modern science, the Hindu view of the soul, the Godhead, the relationship between matter and energy, and cosmology. Further, he wanted to classify the apparently contradictory passages of the Upanishads bearing on the doctrines of dualism, qualified non-dualism, and absolute non-dualism, and show their ultimate reconciliation. In order to achieve this end, he asked his devotees in India to send him the Upanishads and the Vedanta Sutras with their commentaries by the leading acharyas, and also the Brahmana portions of the Vedas, and the Puranas. He himself wanted to write this Maximum Testamentum, this Universal Gospel, in order to translate Hindu thought into Western language. He expressed his objective in a letter written to one of his disciples on February 17, 1896:
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 which only those can understand who have attempted it. The abstract Advaita must become living — poetic — in everyday life; and out of bewildering yogism must come the most scientific and practical psychology — and all this must be put into such a form that a child may grasp it. That is my life's work. The Lord only knows how far I shall succeed. To work we have the right, not to the fruits thereof.
The Swami always wanted a healthy interchange
of ideas between East and West; this was one of the aims
of the Vedanta Society of New York. He felt the need of
centres of vital and continual communication between the
two worlds to make 'open doors, as it were, through which
the East and the West could pass freely back and forth,
without a feeling of strangeness, as from one home to another.'
Already he had thought of bringing to America some of
his brother disciples as preachers of Vedanta. He also
wanted to send some of his American and English disciples to
India to teach science, industry, technology, economics,
applied sociology, and other practical things which the
Indians needed in order to improve their social conditions
and raise their standard of living. He often told his
American disciples of his vision that the time would come when
the lines of demarcation between East and West would be
obliterated. From England he had already written to
Swami Saradananda to prepare to come to the West.
In the spring of 1896 letters began to pour in
from England beseeching Swami Vivekananda to return
there and continue his activities. The Swami felt the need of
concentrating on the work in both London and New York,
the two great metropolises of the Western world. Therefore
he made arrangements with Miss Waldo and other
qualified disciples to continue his program in America during
his absence. Mr. Francis Leggett was made the president
of the Vedanta Society.
The Swami had also been receiving letters from
his friends in India begging for his return. He said he
would come as soon as possible, but he encouraged them
to organize the work, warning them against the formation
of any new cult around the person of Sri Ramakrishna,
who, to the Swami, was the demonstration of the eternal
principles of Hinduism. On April 14, 1896, he wrote to India:
'That Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was God — and all that sort of thing — has no go in countries like this. M—_ has a tendency to put that stuff down everybody's throat; but that will make our movement a little sect. You keep separate from such attempts; at the same time, if people worship him as God, no harm. Neither encourage nor discourage. The masses will always have the person; the higher ones, the principle. We want both. But principles are universal, not persons. Therefore stick to the principles he taught, and let people think whatever they like of his person.'
The Swami now made definite arrangements to
leave for London on April 15, and, after carrying out his
plans there, to sail for his motherland.
It should be apparent to readers of Swami
Vivekananda's life that he worked under great pressure, from a
fraction of which a lesser person would have collapsed
in no time. Naturally he spent his few spare moments in
fun and joking. He would read a copy of
Punch or some other comic paper, and laugh till
tears rolled down his
cheeks. He loved to tell the story of a Christian missionary
who was sent to preach to the cannibals. The new
arrival proceeded to the chief of the tribe and asked him,
'Well, how did you like my predecessor?' The cannibal
replied, smacking his lips, 'Simply de-li-cious!'
Another was the story of a 'darky' clergyman
who, while explaining the creation, shouted to his
congregation: 'You see, God was a-makin' Adam, and He was
a-makin' him out o' mud. And when He got him made, He
stuck him up agin a fence to dry. And den—' 'Hold on,
dar, preacher!' suddenly cried out a learned listener.
'What's dat about dis 'ere fence? Who's made dis fence?'
The preacher replied sharply: 'Now you listen 'ere, Sam
Jones. Don't you be askin' sich questions. You'll be a-smashin'
up all theology!'
By way of relaxation he would often cook an
Indian meal at a friend's house. On such occasions he brought
out from his pockets tiny packets of finely ground spices.
He would make hot dishes which his Western disciples
could hardly eat without burning their tongues. They were,
no doubt, soothing to his high-strung temperament.
But the Swami's brain was seething with new
ideas all the time. He very much wanted to build a
'Temple Universal' where people of all faiths would gather
to worship the Godhead through the symbol
Om, representing the undifferentiated Absolute. At
another time, in
the beginning of the year 1895, he wrote to Mrs. Bull about
buying one hundred and eight acres of land in the
Catskill Mountains where his students would build camps
and practise meditation and other disciplines during
the summer holidays.
A touching incident, which occurred in 1894, may
be told here; it shows the high respect in which some of
the ladies of Cambridge, Massachusetts, held the Swami
and his mother. The Swami one day spoke to them about
'the Ideals of Indian Women,' particularly stressing the
ideal of Indian motherhood. They were greatly moved.
The following Christmas they sent the Swami's mother in
India a letter together with a beautiful picture of the Child
Jesus on the lap of the Virgin Mary. They wrote in the letter:
'At this Christmastide, when the gift of Mary's son to the
world is celebrated and rejoiced over with us, it would seem
the time of remembrance. We, who have your son in our
midst, send you greetings. His generous service to men,
women, and children in our midst was laid at your feet by him,
in an address he gave us the other day on the Ideals
of Motherhood in India. The worship of his mother will be
to all who heard him an inspiration and an uplift.'
The Swami often spoke to his disciples about
his mother's wonderful self-control, and how on one
occasion she had gone without food for fourteen days.
He acknowledged that her character was a constant
inspiration to his life and work.
The love and adoration in which the Swami was
held by his Western disciples can hardly be
over-emphasized. Some described him as the 'lordly monk,' and some as
a 'grand seigneur.' Mrs. Leggett said that in all her
experience she had met only two celebrated personages who could
make one feel perfectly at ease without for an instant
losing their own dignity, and one of them was
Swami Vivekananda. Sister Nivedita described him aptly as a
Plato in thought and a modern Savonarola in his fearless
outspokenness. William James of Harvard addressed him
as 'Master' and referred to him in Varieties of Religious
Experience as the 'paragon of Vedantists.'
A pleasant surprise awaited Swami Vivekananda
on his arrival in London. Swami Saradananda had
already come and was staying as the guest of Mr. Sturdy. The
two Swamis had not seen each other in a very long time.
Swami Vivekananda was told all the news of his spiritual
brothers at the Alambazar monastery and their activities in India.
It was a most happy occasion.
Swami Vivekananda soon plunged into a
whirlwind of activity. From the beginning of May he conducted
five classes a week and a Friday session for open discussion.
He gave a series of three Sunday lectures in one of the
galleries of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours,
in Piccadilly, and also lectured at Princes' Hall and the
Lodge of Annie Besant, in addition to speaking at many clubs,
and in educational institutions and drawing-rooms. His
audiences consisted mostly of intellectual and
serious-minded people. His speeches on jnana-yoga, containing the
essence of the Vedanta philosophy, were mostly given in
England. Canon Wilberforce held a reception in the Swami's
honour, to which he invited many distinguished people.
At one of the meetings, at the close of his address,
a white-haired and well-known philosopher said to
the Swami: 'You have spoken splendidly, sir, but you have
told us nothing new.' Quick came the Swami's reply: 'Sir, I have
told you the Truth. That, the Truth is as old as
the immemorial hills, as old as humanity, as old as creation,
as old as the Great God. If I have told you in such words
as will make you think, make you live up to your
thinking, do I not do well in telling it?' Loud applause greeted
him at the end of these remarks.
The Swami was quick in repartee. During the
question period a man who happened to be a native of
Scotland, asked, 'What is the difference between a
baboo and a baboon?1
'Oh, not much,' was the instantaneous reply
of the Swami. 'It is like the difference between a sot and
a Scot — just the difference of a letter.'
In one of his public lectures in England he paid
the most touching tribute to his master, Sri Ramakrishna.
He said that he had not one little word of his own to utter,
not one infinitesimal thought of his own to unfold;
everything, every single thing, all that he was himself, all that he
could be to others, all that he might do for the world, came
from that single source, from that pure soul, from that
illimitable inspiration, from him who, seated 'there in my
beloved India, had solved the tremendous secret, and bestowed
the solution on all, ungrudgingly and with divine
prodigality.' The Swami's own self was utterly forgotten,
altogether ignored. 'I am what I am, and what I am is always due
to him; whatever in me or in my words is good and true
and eternal came to me from his mouth, his heart, his soul. Sri
Ramakrishna is the spring of this phase of the
earth's religious life, of its impulses and activities. If I can
show the world one glimpse of my Master, I shall not have
lived in vain.'
It was Ramakrishna who brought him in contact
with Max Müller, the great German Sanskritist and
Indologist, who had been impressed by the eloquence of
Keshab Chandra Sen and his religious fervour, and had also
come to know of the influence that Sri Ramakrishna had
exerted in the development of Keshab's life. From the
information that he had been able to gather from India, Max
Müller had already published an article on Ramakrishna in
the Nineteenth Century, entitled 'A Real Mahatman.'
Now
he was eager to meet a direct disciple of the Master,
and invited Swami Vivekananda to lunch with him in
Oxford on May 28, 1896.
The Swami was delighted to meet the savant.
When the name of Ramakrishna was mentioned, the Swami
said, 'He is worshipped by thousands today, Professor.'
'To whom else shall worship be accorded, if not
to such?' was Max Müller's reply.
Regarding Max Müller and his wife, the Swami later wrote:
The visit was really a revelation to me. That little white house, its setting in a beautiful garden, the silver-haired 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 brahmarshis2 and rajarshis,3 the days of the great vanaprasthas,4 the days of Arundhatis and Vasishthas.5 It was neither the philologist nor the scholar that I saw, but a soul that is every day realizing its oneness with the universe.
The Swami was deeply affected to see Max
Müller's love for India. 'I wish,' he wrote enthusiastically, 'I had
a hundredth part of that love for my motherland.
Endowed with an extraordinary, and at the same time an
intensely active mind, he has lived and moved in the world of
Indian thought for fifty years or more, and watched the
sharp interchange of light and shade in the interminable
forest of Sanskrit literature with deep interest and heartfelt
love, till they have sunk into his very soul and coloured his
whole being.'
The Swami asked Max Müller: 'When are you
coming to India? All men there would welcome one who has
done so much to place the thoughts of their ancestors in a
true light.'
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 on the Swami's part seemed
an unwarranted intrusion into realms wherein were stored
the holy secrets of a man's heart.
Max Müller asked the Swami, 'What are you doing
to make Sri Ramakrishna known to the world?' He
himself was eager to write a fuller biography of the Master if
he could only procure the necessary materials. At the
Swami's request, Swami Saradananda wrote down the sayings
of Sri Ramakrishna and the facts of his life. Later Max
Müller embodied these in his book The Life and Sayings of
Sri Ramakrishna.
One day Saradananda asked the Swami why
he himself had not written about the Master's life for
Max Müller. He answered: 'I have such deep feeling for
the Master that it is impossible for me to write about him
for the public. If I had written the article Max Müller
wanted, then I would have proved, quoting from philosophies,
the scriptures and even the holy books of the Christians,
that Ramakrishna was the greatest of all prophets born in
this world. That would have been too much for the old
man. You have not thought so deeply about the Master as I
have; hence you could write in a way that would satisfy
Max Müller. Therefore I asked you to write.'
Max Müller showed the Swami several colleges
in Oxford and the Bodleian Library, and at last
accompanied him to the railroad station. To the Swami's protest that
the professor should not take such trouble, the latter said, 'It is
not every day that one meets with a disciple of
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.'
Besides doing intensive public work in England,
the Swami made there some important personal contacts.
The names of Goodwin, Henrietta Müller, Margaret
Noble, and Sturdy have already been mentioned. These
knew him intimately during his second visit and had
become his disciples. Now came the turn of Captain and
Mrs. Sevier. The captain was a retired officer of the
English army, forty-nine years old, and had served for many
years in India. Both were earnest students of religion and
had sought the highest truth in various sects and creeds,
but had not found it anywhere. When they heard
Swami Vivekananda, they intuitively realized that his
teachings were what they had so long sought. They were
deeply impressed by the non-dualistic philosophy of India
and the Swami's personality.
Coming out of one of the Swami's lectures,
Captain Sevier asked Miss MacLeod, who had already known
the Swami in America: 'You know this young man? Is he
what he seems?'
'Yes.'
'In that case one must follow him and with him
find God.'
The Captain went to his wife and said, 'Will you
let me become the Swami's disciple?'
'Yes,' she replied.
She asked him, 'Will you let me become the Swami's
disciple?'
He replied with affectionate humour, 'I am not so sure!'
The very first time the Swami met Mrs. Sevier
in private he addressed her as 'Mother' and asked her if
she would not like to come to India, adding, 'I will give
you my best realizations.'
A very affectionate relationship sprang up
between the Swami and the Seviers, and the latter regarded him
as their son. They became his intimate companions
and offered him all their savings. But the Swami, anxious
about their future worldly security, persuaded them to keep
the greater portion of their fortune. Captain and Mrs.
Sevier, together with Miss Noble and Goodwin, were the
choicest among the followers that Swami Vivekananda gathered
in England and all of them remained faithful to him and
his work till the last days of their lives.
Through the generosity of the Seviers, the Swami,
as will be seen, established the Advaita Ashrama at
Mayavati, an almost inaccessible place in the Himalayas, for
the training of the disciples, both Eastern and Western, in
the contemplation of the Impersonal Godhead. After
Captain Sevier's death at Mayavati Mrs. Sevier lived there
for fifteen years busying herself with the education of
the children of the neighbouring hills. Once Miss
MacLeod asked her, 'Do you not get bored?' 'I think of him,'
she replied, referring to Swami Vivekananda.
Though preoccupied with various activities
in England, the Swami never for one moment forgot his
work in India. After all, it was his intense desire to find means
to ameliorate the condition of his countrymen that
had brought him to the West. That hope he always cherished
in a corner of his mind, both in Europe and in America.
He had to train his brother disciples as future workers in India.
And so he is seen writing to them in detail regarding
the organization of the monastery at Alambazar, where
they had been living for some time.
On April 27, 1896, he sent instructions about the
daily life of the monks, their food and clothing, their
intercourse with the public, and about the provision of a spacious
library at the monastery, a smaller room for interviews, a big
hall for religious discussions with the devotees, a small
room for an office, another for smoking and so forth and so
on. He advised them to furnish the rooms in the simplest
manner and to keep an eye on the water for drinking and
cooking. The monastery, he suggested, should be under the
management of a President and a Secretary to be elected by turns
by vote. Study, preaching, and religious practices should
be important items among the duties of the inmates. He
also desired to establish a math for women directly under
the control of the Holy Mother. The monks were not to visit
the women's quarters. In conclusion, he recommended
Swami Brahmananda as the first President of the math, and
said: 'He who is the servant of all is their true master. He
never becomes a leader in whose love there is a consideration
of high or low. He whose love knows no end and never
stops to consider high or low has the whole world lying at
his feet.' For his workers the Swami wanted men with
'muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind
of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.'
To quote the Swami's words again: 'I want
strength, manhood, kshatravirya, or the virility of a warrior,
and brahma-teja, or the radiance of a brahmin.... These
men will stand aside from the world, give their lives, and
be ready to fight the battle of Truth, marching on from country
to country. One blow struck outside of India is equal
to a hundred thousand struck within. Well, all will come
if the Lord wills it.'
The Swami was exhausted by his strenuous work
in England. Three of his intimate disciples, the Seviers
and Henrietta Müller, proposed a holiday tour on the
continent. He was 'as delighted as a child' at the prospect. 'Oh! I
long to see the snows and wander on the mountain paths,'
he said. He recalled his travels in the Himalayas. On July
31, 1896, the Swami, in the company of his friends, left for
Switzerland. They visited Geneva, Mer-de-Glace,
Montreux, Chillon, Chamounix, the St. Bernard, Lucerne, the
Rigi, Zermatt, and Schaffhausen. The Swami felt exhilarated
by his walks in the Alps. He wanted to climb Mont Blanc,
but gave up the idea when told of the difficulty of the
ascent. He found that Swiss peasant life and its manners
and customs resembled those of the people who dwelt in
the Himalayas.
In a little village at the foot of the Alps between
Mont Blanc and the Little St. Bernard, he conceived the idea
of founding a monastery in the Himalayas. He said to
his companions: 'Oh, I long for a monastery in the
Himalayas, where I can retire from the labours of my life and
spend the rest of my days in meditation. It will be a centre
for work and meditation, where my Indian and
Western disciples can live together, and I shall train them as
workers. The former will go out as preachers of Vedanta to the
West, and the latter will devote their lives to the good of
India.' Mr. Sevier speaking for himself and his wife, said:
'How nice it would be, Swami, if this could be done. We
must have such a monastery.'
The dream was fulfilled through the Advaita
Ashrama at Mayavati, which commands a magnificent view of
the eternal snows of the Himalayas.
In the Alps the Swami enjoyed some of the most
lucid and radiant moments of his spiritual life. Sometimes
he would walk alone, absorbed in thought, the
disciples keeping themselves at a discreet distance. One of
the disciples said: 'There seemed to be a great light about
him, and a great stillness and peace. Never have I seen
the Swami to such advantage. He seemed to
communicate spirituality by a look or with a touch. One could
almost read his thoughts which were of the highest, so
transfigured had his personality become.'
While still wandering in the Alps, the Swami
received a letter from the famous orientalist, Paul Deussen,
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kiel. The
professor urgently invited the Swami to visit him. The
Swami accepted the invitation and changed his itinerary.
He arrived at Kiel after visiting Heidelberg, Coblenz,
Cologne, and Berlin. He was impressed by the material power
and the great culture of Germany.
Professor Deussen was well versed in Sanskrit,
and was perhaps the only scholar in Europe who could
speak that language fluently. A disciple of Schopenhauer and
follower of Kant, Deussen could easily appreciate the
high flights of Sankaracharya's philosophy. He believed that
the system of Vedanta, as founded on the Upanishads and
the Vedanta Sutras, is one of the 'most majestic
structures
and valuable products of the genius of man in his search
for Truth, and that the highest and purest morality is
the immediate consequence of Vedanta.'
The Swami and the Seviers were cordially
received by the German scholar. In the course of the
conversation Deussen said that a movement was being made
back towards the fountainhead of spirituality, a movement
that would in the future probably make India the
spiritual leader of the nations, the highest and the greatest
spiritual influence on earth. He also found in the Swami a
vivid demonstration of concentration and control of the
mind. On one occasion he saw his guest turning over the
pages of a poetical work and did not receive any response to
a query. Afterwards the Swami apologized, saying that
he had been so absorbed in the book that he did not hear
the professor. Then he repeated the verses from the book.
The conversation soon turned to the power of concentration
as developed in the Yoga philosophy. One of the purpose
of Deussen's meeting the Swami, it is said was his desire
to learn from the latter the secrets of the Yoga powers.
Deussen showed the Swami the city of Kiel.
Thereafter the Swami wished to leave immediately for
England, though the professor insisted that he should stay at Kiel
a few days more. As that was not possible, Deussen
joined the party in Hamburg and they travelled together
in Holland. After spending three days in Amsterdam
all arrived in London, and for two weeks Deussen met
with the Swami daily. The Swami also visited Max Müller
again at Oxford.
Swami Vivekananda spent another two months
in England, giving lectures and seeing important men of
their day, such as Edward Carpenter, Frederick Myers,
Canon Wilberforce, and Moncure D. Conway. The most
notable lectures he gave at this time were those on maya, about
which he spoke on three occasions, dealing with its
various aspects. It is said that some members of the British
royal family attended these lectures incognito. He created
such an intense atmosphere during these talks that the
whole audience was transported into a realm of
ecstatic consciousness, and some burst into tears. The lectures
were the most learned and eloquent among his speeches on
non-dualistic Vedanta.
Swami Abhedananda arrived from India,
and Vivekananda was immensely pleased to have his
brother disciple assist him in his foreign work. The maiden
speech of Abhedananda at a club in Bloomsbury Square on
October 27, was highly appreciated by all, and the Swami said
about his spiritual brother, 'Even if I perish on this plane,
my message will be sounded through these dear lips, and
the world will hear it.' The report of the continued
popularity of Swami Saradananda, who had in the meantime gone
to New York, likewise gratified him.
Despite the rush of his European work
Swami Vivekananda maintained his contact with America. He
took a personal interest in the spiritual development of
his students. The affectionate relationship of the Swami
with the Hale family of Chicago has been mentioned
before, especially with the four unmarried girls. Hearing of
the proposed marriage of Harriet, he wrote to her on
September 17, 1896, 'Marriage is the truest goal for ninety-nine
per cent of the human race, and they will live the happiest life
as soon as they have learnt and are ready to abide by
the eternal lesson — that we are bound to bear and forbear
and that to everyone life must be a compromise.' He sent
the young lady his blessings in these terms: 'May you always
enjoy the undivided love of your husband, helping him
in attaining all that is desirable in this life, and when you
have seen your children's children, and the drama of life
is nearing its end, may you help each other in reaching
that infinite ocean of Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss, at
the touch of whose waters all distinctions melt away and
we all become One.'
But Mary Hale could not make a decision
between marriage and lifelong celibacy. She was full of idealism
and the spirit of independence; but she was warm in
her affection. Swami Vivekananda was particularly fond
of Mary. On the day he wrote to Harriet he also wrote to
Mary, congratulating Harriet for her discrimination,
and prophesying for her a life of joy and sweetness, since
she was 'not so imaginative and sentimental as to make a
fool of herself and has enough of common sense and
gentleness to soften the hard points of life which must come
to everyone.' But he wanted to tell Mary 'the truth, and
my language is plain.' He wrote:
My dear Mary, I will tell you a great lesson I
have learnt in this life. It is this: 'The higher your ideal
is, the more miserable you are,' for such a thing as
an ideal cannot be attained in the world — or in
this
life, even. He who wants perfection in the world is
a madman — for it cannot be. How can you find
the infinite in the finite?
You, Mary, are like a mettlesome
Arab — grand, splendid. You would make a splendid
queen — physically, mentally — you would shine alongside
of a dashing, bold, adventurous, heroic husband. But,
my dear sister, you will make one of the worst
wives. You will take the life out of our easy-going,
practical, plodding husbands of the everyday world. Mind,
my sister, although it is true that there is much
more romance in actual life than in any novel, yet it is
few and far between. Therefore my advice to you is
that until you bring down your ideals to a more
practical level, you ought not to marry. If you do, the
result will be misery for both of you. In a few months
you will lose all regard for a commonplace, good,
nice young man, and then life will become insipid....
There are two sorts of persons in the
world — the one strong-nerved, quiet, yielding to nature, not
given to much imagination, yet good, kind, sweet, etc.
For such is this world — they alone are born to be
happy. There are others, again, with high-strung
nerves, tremendously imaginative, with intense
feeling — always going high, and coming down the
next moment. For them there is no happiness. The first
class will have almost an even tenor of happiness.
The second will have to run between ecstasy and
misery. But of these alone what we call geniuses are
made. There is some truth in a recent theory that genius is
'a sort of madness.'
Now persons of this class, if they want to be
great, must fight to be so — clear the deck for battle.
No encumbrance — no marriage — no children, no
undue attachment to anything except the one
idea, and live and die for that. I am a person of
this sort. I have
taken up the one idea of 'Vedanta,' and I have 'cleared
the deck for action.' You and Isabel are made of this
metal — but let me tell you, though it is hard,
you are spoiling your lives in vain. Either take up
one
idea, clear the deck, and to it dedicate the life,
or be
contented and practical, lower the ideal, marry, and have a
happy life. Either 'bhoga' or 'yoga' — either enjoy
this life
or give up and be a yogi. None can have both in
one. Now or never — select quick. 'He who is very particular
gets nothing,' says the proverb. Now sincerely and
really and for ever determine to 'clear the deck for the
fight,' take up anything — philosophy or science or
religion or literature — and let that be your God for the rest
of your life. Achieve happiness or achieve greatness.
I have no sympathy with you and Isabel — you
are neither for this nor for that. I wish to see you
happy, as Harriet is, or great. Eating, drinking, dressing,
and society nonsense are not things to throw away a
life upon — especially for you, Mary. You are rusting
away a splendid brain and abilities for which there is
not the least excuse. You must have ambition to be
great. I know you will take these rather harsh remarks
from me in the right spirit, knowing I like you really as
much as or more than what I call you, my sister. I had
long had a mind to tell you this and as experience
is gathering I feel like telling you. The joyful news
from Harriet urged me to tell you this. I will be
overjoyed to hear that you are married also, and happy so far
as happiness can be had here, or would like to hear
of your doing great deeds.
Mary Hale later married a gentleman from
Florence, and became known as Mme. Matteini.
For some time the Swami had been feeling an
inner urge to return to India. From Switzerland he wrote
to friends in India: 'Do not be afraid. Great things are
going to be done, my children. Take heart....In the winter I
am going back to India and will try to set things on their
feet there. Work on, brave hearts fail not — no saying nay;
work on — the Lord is behind the work. Mahasakti, the
Great Power, is with you.'
On November 29, 1896, he wrote to a disciple in
India about his proposed Himalayan monastery. He further
said that his present plan was to start two centres, one in
Madras and the other in Calcutta, and later others in Bombay
and Allahabad. He was pleased to see that the
magazine Brahmavadin, published in English in
Madras,
was disseminating his ideas; he was planning to start
similar magazines in the vernaculars also. He also intended to
start a paper, under the management of writers from all
nations, in order to spread his ideas to every corner of the
globe. 'You must not forget,' he wrote, 'that my interests
are international and not Indian alone.'
Swami Vivekananda could no longer resist the
voice of India calling him back. Sometime during the middle
of November, after a class lecture, he called Mrs. Sevier
aside and quietly asked her to purchase four tickets for
India. He planned to take with him the Seviers and Mr.
Goodwin. Reservations were accordingly made on the 'Prinz
Regent Luitpold,' of the North German Llyod Steamship
Line, sailing from Naples for Ceylon on December 16, 1896.
The Seviers wanted to lead a retired life in India,
practising spiritual disciplines and helping the Swami in carrying
out the idea of building a monastery in the Himalayas. Faithful
Goodwin, who had already taken the vows of a
brahmacharin, would work as the Swami's stenographer. It
was also planned that Miss Müller and Miss Noble
would follow the party some time after, the latter to devote
her life to the cause of women's education in India.
The Swami was given a magnificent farewell by
his English friends, devotees, and admirers on December
13 at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours,
in Piccadilly. There were about five hundred people
present. Many were silent, tongue-tied and sad at heart. Tears
were very near in some eyes. But the Swami, after his
farewell address, walked among the assembled friends and
repeated over and over again, 'Yes, yes we shall meet again, we
shall.' It was decided that Swami Abhedananda would
continue the work after the Swami's departure.
Of the impressions left by the Swami's teachings
in England, Margaret Noble writes:
To not a few of us the words of Swami Vivekananda came as living water to men perishing of thirst. Many of us have been conscious for years past of that growing uncertainty and despair, with regard to religion, which has beset the intellectual life of Europe for half a century. Belief in the dogmas of Christianity has become impossible for us, and we had no tool, such as now we hold, by which to cut away the doctrinal shell from the kernel of Reality, in our faith. To these, the Vedanta has given intellectual confirmation and philosophical expression of their own mistrusted intuitions. 'The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.'... It was the Swami's I am God that came as something always known, only never said before.... Yet again, it was the Unity of Man that was the touch needed to rationalize all previous experiences and give logical sanction to the thirst for absolute service, never boldly avowed in the past. Some by one gate, and some by another, we have all entered into a great heritage, and we know it.
The practical Englishman saw in the Swami's life
the demonstration of fearlessness which was the
necessary corollary of his teaching regarding the divinity of the
soul. It was revealed in many incidents.
One in particular illustrates this. He was one
day walking with Miss Müller and an English friend
across some fields when a mad bull came tearing towards
them. The Englishman frankly ran, and reached the other side
of the hill in safety. Miss Müller ran as far as she could,
and then sank to the ground, incapable of further effort.
Seeing this and unable to aid her, the Swami — thinking, 'So this
is the end, after all' — took up his stand in front of her,
with folded arms.
He told afterwards how his mind was occupied
with a mathematical calculation as to how far the bull would
be able to throw him. But the animal suddenly stopped a
few paces off, and then, raising its head, retreated sullenly.
The Englishman felt ashamed of his cowardly retreat and
of having left the Swami alone to face the bull. Miss
Müller asked the Swami how he could muster courage in such
a dangerous situation. He said that in the face of danger
and death he felt — and he took two pebbles in his hands and
struck the one against the other — as strong as flint, for
'I have touched the feet of God.' He had shown a like
courage in his early boyhood, when he quickly stepped up to
drag away a child who was about to be trampled under a
horse's feet in a street of Calcutta.
Regarding his experience and work in England, he
told the Hale sisters, in a letter, that it was a roaring success.
To another American friend he wrote that he believed in
the power of the English to assimilate great ideas, and
that though the process of assimilation might be slow, it
would be all the more sure and abiding. He believed that the
time would come when distinguished ecclesiastics of the
Church of England, imbued with the idealism of Vedanta,
would form a liberal community within the Anglican Church
itself, supporting the universality of religion both in vision
and in practice.
But what he admired most in England was
the character of the English people — their
steadiness, thoroughness, loyalty, devotion to the ideal, and
perseverance to finish any work that they undertook.
His preconceived idea about the English was
thoroughly changed when he came to know them intimately. 'No
one,' he said later, addressing the Hindus of Calcutta,
'ever landed on English soil feeling more hatred in his heart
for a race than I did for the English. [The iniquities of
the colonial rule in India were deeply impressed in
his mind.]...There is none among you who loves the
English people more than I do.'
He wrote to the Hale sisters on November 28,
1896: 'The English are not so bright as the Americans, but
once you touch their heart it is yours for ever....I now
understand why the Lord has blessed them above all
other races — steady, sincere to the backbone, with great
depths of feeling, only with a crust of stoicism on the surface.
If that is broken you have your man.' In another letter:
'You know, of course, the steadiness of the English; they are,
of all nations,least jealous of each other and that is why
they dominate the world. They have solved the secret
of obedience without slavish cringing — great freedom
with law-abidingness.' On still another occasion he called
the English 'a nation of heroes, the true kshatriyas....Their
education is to hide their feelings and never to show them.
If you know how to reach the English heart, he is your
friend for ever. If he has once an idea put into his brain, it
never comes out; and the immense practicality and energy of
the race makes it sprout up and immediately bear fruit.'
The Swami felt that the finger of God had
brought about the contact between India and England. The
impact created by the aggressive British rule, on the one
hand, awakened the Hindu race from its slumber of ages, and
on the other hand, offered India opportunities to spread
her spiritual message throughout the Western world.
He wrote to Mr. Leggett on July 6, 1896:
The British Empire with all its evils is the greatest machine that ever existed for the dissemination of ideas. I mean to put my ideas in the centre of this machine, and it will spread them all over the world. Of course, all great work is slow and the difficulties are too many, especially as we Hindus are a conquered race. Yet that is the very reason why it is bound to work, for spiritual ideals have always come from the downtrodden. The downtrodden Jews overwhelmed the Roman Empire with their spiritual ideals. You will be pleased to learn that I am also learning my lesson every day in patience and above all in sympathy. I think I am beginning to see the Divine even inside the bullying Anglo-Indians. I think I am slowly approaching to that state when I would be able to love the very 'Devil' himself, if there were any.
Though Swami Vivekananda himself spoke highly of the effect of his teachings in England, he did not start any organized work there as he did in the United States of America. From his letters and conversations one learns that he was growing weary of the world. Though he was at the peak of his success as far as public activity was concerned, he began to feel a longing for the peace that comes from total absorption in the Supreme Spirit. He sensed that his earthly mission was over. On August 23, 1896, he wrote to a friend, from Lucerne:
'I have begun the work, let others work it out. So you see, to set the work going I had to defile myself by touching money and property for a time.6 Now I am sure my part of the work has been done, and I have no more interest in Vedanta or any philosophy in the world or in the work itself. I am getting ready to depart, to return no more to this hell, this world.... Even its religious utility is beginning to pall on me.... These works and doing good, and so forth, are just a little exercise to cleanse the mind. I have had enough of it.'7 He was losing interest even in the American programme, which he himself had organized.
In the letter quoted above, the Swami wrote: 'If
New York or Boston or any other place in the U.S. needs
Vedanta teachers, they must receive them, keep them, and
provide for them. As for me, I am as good as retired. I have
played my part in the world.' To Swami Abhedananda he
confided one day, about this time, that he was going to live for
five or six years at the most. The brother disciple said in
protest that he was a young man and that he should not
think of death. 'But,' Vivekananda said, 'you are a fool; you
do not understand. My soul is getting bigger and bigger
every day; the body can hardly contain it. Any day it
may burst this cage of flesh and bone!'
The world was leaving him. The string of the kite
by which it was fastened to earth was breaking.
The reader may recall that Sri Ramakrishna spoke
of Vivekananda as a free soul whom he had dragged
down from the realm of the Absolute to help him in his
mission on earth. A temporary veil, necessary for
physical embodiment and work, was put on this soul so that it
might dwell in the world to help men in their search for
spiritual freedom. But now, as the veil was becoming thinner,
the Swami began to get a glimpse of the real freedom.
He realized that the world was the lila, the play, of the
Divine Mother, and it would continue as long as She wanted
it. On August 8, 1896, he wrote from Switzerland to Goodwin:
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 like those you write of do not touch me at all. How shall I be disturbed by this child's play? The whole world is mere child's play — preaching, teaching, and all included. 'Know him to be a sannyasin who neither hates nor desires.' What is to be desired in this little mud-puddle of a world, with its ever recurring misery, disease, and death? 'He who has given up all desires, he alone is happy.' This rest — eternal, peaceful rest — I am catching a glimpse of it now in this beautiful spot. 'If a man knows the Atman as "I am this," then desiring what and for whose sake will he suffer in the wake of the body?'
I feel as if I have had my share of experience
in what they call 'work.' I am finished. I am longing
to get out now.
With this growing detachment from the world,
the idea of good and evil, without the consciousness of
which no work is possible, began to drop away. The Swami
was realizing an intense love for God. In that mood a
great exaltation would come over him, and the whole
universe would seem to him an eternal garden where an
Eternal Child plays an eternal game. In that mood of delirious
joy he had written on July 6, 1896, to Francis Leggett, his
friend and disciple:
At twenty I was a most unsympathetic,
uncompromising fanatic. I would not walk on the footpath
on the theatre side of the street in Calcutta. At
thirty-three I can live in the same house with prostitutes
and never would think of saying a word of reproach
to them. Is it degeneration? Or is it that I am
broadening out into that universal love which is the
Lord Himself?...Some days I get into a sort of ecstasy. I
feel that I must bless everyone, every being, love
and embrace every being, and I literally see that evil is
a delusion.... I bless the day I was born. I have had
so much of kindness and love here, and that Love
Infinite who brought me into being has guided every one
of my actions, good or bad (don't be frightened); for
what am I, what was I ever, but a tool in His
hands — for whose service I have given up
everything — my Beloved, my Joy, my Life, my Soul? 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 laughter are all parts of the play. Great fun, great
fun! as Joe8
says.
It is a funny world, and the funniest chap
you ever saw is He, the Beloved. Infinite fun, is it
not? Brotherhood or playmatehood? A shoal 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 an explanation, but how can
you explain Him? He is brainless, nor has He any
reason. He is fooling us with little brains and reasons, but this
time He won't find me napping — 'you bet.' I
have learnt a thing or two. Beyond, beyond reason
and learning and talking is the feeling, the 'Love,'
the 'Beloved.' Ay, 'Sake' (Friend)
fill the cup and we will be
mad. — Yours ever in madness, Vivekananda.
In a philosophical mood he spoke about the
illusion of progress. He did not believe in the possibility
of transforming this earth into a heaven where misery
would be totally eliminated and happiness alone would reign
in its place. True freedom and bliss could be attained only
by the individual and not by the masses as a whole. He
wrote to Goodwin on August 8, 1896: '"A good world," "a
happy world," "social progress" are equally intelligible as
"hot ice," "dark light," etc. If it were good it would not be
the world. The soul foolishly thinks of manifesting the
Infinite in finite matter — the intelligence through gross
particles — and at last finds out its error and tries to
escape. This going back is the beginning of
religion, and its method,
destruction of self, that is, love. Not love for wife or child or
anybody else, but love for everything else except this little
self. Never be deluded by the tall talk, of which you will hear
a lot in America, about "human progress" and such
stuff. There is no progress without regression.'
On November 1, 1896, in the course of a letter to
Mary Hale, Swami Vivekananda wrote from London:
'An objective heaven or millennium therefore has existence only in the fancy, but a subjective one is already in existence. The musk-deer, after vain search for the cause of the scent of the musk, at last will have to find it in himself.'
But Swami Vivekananda's mission to the world
was not yet finished. An arduous task was awaiting him in
his beloved motherland. The Indian work had to be
organized before he could bid farewell to this earth. He left
England on December 16, 1896, and travelled overland for the
port of departure at Naples.
The party headed directly for Milan, passing
through Dover, Calais, and Mont Cenis. The Swami enjoyed
the railroad journey and entertained his companions,
the Seviers, with his stimulating conversation. But a part
of his mind was drawn to India. He said to the Seviers:
'Now I have but one thought, and that is India. I am looking
forward to India.' On the eve of his departure from
London, an English friend had asked him, 'Swami, how will
you like your motherland after three years' experience in
the luxurious and powerful West?' His significant reply
was: 'India I loved before I came away. Now the very dust
of India has become holy to me, the very air is now holy
to me; it is the holy land, the place of pilgrimage.' Often
the Swami said that the West was the karma-bhumi, the
land of action, where through selfless work a man purified
his heart; and India was the punya-bhumi, the land of
holiness, where the pure in heart communed with God.
In Milan the Swami was much impressed by the
great cathedral and by Leonardo's 'Last Supper.' Pisa, with
the leaning tower, and Florence, with its
magnificent achievements in art, immensely delighted him. But the
peak of his happiness was reserved for Rome, where he
spent Christmas week. Many things there reminded him of India:
the tonsure of the priests, the incense, the music, the
various ceremonies of the Catholic Church, and the Holy
Sacrament — the last of these recalling to his mind the
prasada of the Hindu temples, the food partaken of by
devotees after it has been offered to God.
When asked by a lady companion about the
church ritual, the Swami said, 'If you love the Personal God,
then give Him your best — incense, flowers, fruit, and silk.'
But he was a little bewildered by the imposing High Mass
at St. Peter's on Christmas Day, and whispered to the
Seviers: 'Why all this pageantry and ostentatious show? Can it
be possible that the Church which loves such a display
of pomp and ceremonies is the true follower of the
humble Jesus, who had nowhere to lay his head?' He could
never forget that Christ was a sannyasin, a
world-renouncing monk, and that the essence of his teachings was
renunciation and detachment.
He enjoyed his visit to the catacombs, associated
with the memories of early Christian martyrs and saints.
The Christmas festival at Santa-Maria d'Ara Coeli, with the
stalls where sweets, toys, and cheap pictures of the Bambino
were sold, reminded him of similar religious fairs in India.
Christmas in Rome filled his heart with a warm devotion for
Jesus Christ, who was an Asiatic and whom Asia had offered
to the West as a gift to awaken its spiritual consciousness.
The Swami spent a few days in Naples,
visiting Vesuvius, Pompeii, and other places of interest. Then
the ship at last arrived from Southampton with Mr.
Goodwin as one of her passengers. The Swami and his friends
sailed from Naples on December 30, 1896, expecting to arrive
in Colombo on January 15, 1897.
On board the ship the Swami had a significant
vision. One night, somewhere between Naples and Port Said,
he saw in a vivid dream a venerable, bearded old man,
like a rishi of India, who said: 'Observe carefully this place.
You are now in the Island of Crete. This is the land
where Christianity began. I am one of the Therapeutae who
used to live here.' The apparition uttered another word,
which the Swami could not remember. It might have been
'Essene,' a sect to which John the Baptist belonged.
Both the Therapeutae and the Essenes had
practised renunciation and cherished a liberal religious
outlook. According to some scholars, the word
Therapeutae may be derived from the Buddhist word
Sthaviraputtra or theraputta,
meaning the sons or disciples
of the Theras,
or Elders, the superiors among the Buddhist monks. The
word Essene may have some relation with
Isiyana, meaning the Path of the Lord, a well-known
sect of Buddhist monks.
It is now admitted that the Buddhists at an early time
had monasteries in Asia Minor, Egypt, and generally along
the eastern part of the Mediterranean.
The old man in the dream concluded his statement
by saying: 'The truths and ideas preached by us
were presented as the teachings of Jesus. But Jesus the
person was never born. Various proofs attesting this fact will
be brought to light when this place is dug up.' At
that moment — it was midnight — the Swami awoke and
asked a sailor where the ship was; he was told that it was
fifty miles off Crete.
The Swami was startled at this singular
coincidence. The idea flashed in his mind that the Acts of the
Apostles might have been an older record than the Gospels, and that
Buddhist thought, coming through the Therapeutae
and the Essenes, might have helped in the formulation
of Christianity. The person of Christ might be a later
addition. He knew that Alexandria had been a meeting-place
of Indian and Egyptian thought. Later, when the old sites
in Crete were excavated, evidence was found connecting
early Christianity with foreign sources.
But Swami Vivekananda never refused to accept
the historical Christ. Like Krishna, Christ, too, has
been revealed in the spiritual experiences of many saints.
That, for Vivekananda, conferred upon him a reality which
was more real than historical realities. While travelling
in Switzerland, the Swami one day plucked some
wild flowers and asked Mrs. Sevier to offer them at the feet
of the Virgin in a little chapel in the mountains, with
the remark, 'She too is the Mother.' One of his disciples,
another day, gave him a picture of the Sistine Madonna to
bless. But he refused in all humility, and piously touching
the feet of the child said, 'I would have washed his feet,
not with my tears, but with my heart's blood.' It may be
remembered that the monastic Order of Ramakrishna
was started on Christmas Eve.
During the two weeks' voyage, Swami
Vivekananda had ample time to reflect on the experiences of his
three years in the Western world. His mind was filled
with memories of sweet friendship, unflinching devotion,
and warm appreciation from both sides of the Atlantic.
Three years before, he had come to America, unknown
and penniless, and was regarded somewhat as a curiosity
from the glamorous and inscrutable East. Now he was
returning to his native land, a hero and prophet worshipped by
hundreds and admired by thousands. Guided by the
finger of God he had gone to Chicago. In the New World he
had seen life at its best and its worst. He found there a
society based on the ideals of equality, justice, and freedom,
where a man — in sad contrast with India — was given
every opportunity to develop his potentialities. There
the common people had reached a high standard of living
and enjoyed their well-earned prosperity in a way
unimaginable in any other part of the world. The American
mind was alert, inquisitive, daring, receptive, and endowed
with a rare ethical sensitivity. He saw in America, in her
men and women of letters, wealth, and position, sparks
of spirituality which kindled at the touch of his magic
words. He was impressed to see the generous confidence
and richness of heart manifested through the pure and
candid souls who gave themselves to him once they
had recognized him as a trustworthy spiritual guide.
They became his noble friends and slaves of love, and did
not shrink from the highest sacrifice to help in the
fulfilment of his mission.
But withal, the Swami saw the vulgarity,
garishness, greed, lust for power, and sensuality among this
vast country's heterogeneous elements. People had been
swept off their feet by the newly acquired prosperity created
with the aid of science, technology, and human ingenuity.
They often appeared to him naive and noisy, and he may
have wondered if this new nation, l'enfant
terrible, the last hope of Western culture and also the
source
of potential fear
for the rest of the world, would measure up to the
expectations of its Founding Fathers and act as the big brother of
the world, sharing with all the material amenities of life.
America had given him the first recognition and
he was aware of it. In America he had started the work
of Vedanta in an organized form, and he hoped
America would be the spiritual bridge between the East and
the West. Though his scholarly and conservative mind
often felt at home among the intellectuals of England
and Germany, yet to America his heart was devoted.
The monuments of Western culture no doubt fascinated
him, but, as he wrote to Mary Hale from London, in May
1896: 'I love the Yankee land — I like to see new things. I do
not care a fig to loaf about old ruins and mope a life out
about old histories and keep sighing about the ancients. I
have too much vigour in my blood for that. In America is
the place, the people, the opportunity for everything new.
I have become horribly radical.'
In that same letter he wrote, too, that he wished
he could infuse some of the American spirit into India,
into 'that awful mass of conservative jelly-fish, and then
throw overboard all old associations and start a new
thing, entirely new — simple, strong, new and fresh as the
first-born baby — throw all of the past overboard and
begin anew.'
Swami Vivekananda bestowed equally high
praise upon the Englishman. He felt that in a sense his work
in England was more satisfactory than his work in
America. There he transformed the life of individuals. Goodwin
and Margaret Noble embraced his cause as their own, and
the Seviers accompanied him to India, deserting Europe
and all their past to follow him.
But what of Swami Vivekananda's early dream
of gathering from America the material treasures to remedy
the sufferings of the Indian masses and raise their
standard of living? He had come to America to obtain, in
exchange for India's spiritual wealth, the needed monetary help
and scientific and technological knowledge to rebuild
the physical health of his own people. Though on his
return he did not take with him American scientists
and technologists, or carry in his pocket gold and silver
from the New World, yet he had left behind a vast storehouse
of goodwill and respect for India. He had been India's
first spiritual ambassador to America, India's herald,
who, remembering the dignity of the royal land whence he
had come, had spoken in her name and delivered her
message with appropriate dignity.
The full effect of this contact will be known only
in years to come; but a beginning can be seen even now.
Half a century after Swami Vivekananda's visit to America,
India gained her freedom from British rule. When she
thus obtained facilities to arrange her national affairs in her
own way, India sent thousands of students to the New World
to acquire advanced knowledge in the physical sciences
and technology. Further, American money is now being
spent to improve the material condition of the Indian
masses. Thus it appears that, after all, Swami Vivekananda
was not a mere visionary, but had insight into the shape of
things to come.
The immediate task before him, the Swami felt,
was to work for India's regeneration from within the
country itself. India could be liberated by her own efforts
alone. But he was carrying from the West a priceless asset to
help him in his herculean task: The West had given him
an authority which, it appears, he did not have before in the
land of his birth. He had been successful in planting
the seeds of India's spiritual ideas in the very heart of
the English-speaking world — in New York and London.
Did he know then that within a half century these ideas
would be broadcast over the Western world, and earn its
respect for his motherland? Though he had come to America as
a giver, he was now, in a sense, going back to India as a
gift from the New World.