😁😁😁അരവണയ്ക്ക് വില 80 ആയി.😁😁😁
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"അരവണ" യ്ക്ക് വില 100 ആയാലും അത് വാങ്ങി ഭഗവാൻറ്റെ പ്രസാദമെന്നു പറഞ്ഞ് നാട്ടുകാർക്കും,വീട്ടുകാർക്കും "നക്കാൻ" കൊടുത്താലെ ഒരു ശരാശരി ഭക്തൻറ്റെ ശബരിമല യാത്ര പൂർത്തിയാകൂ..കോടികണക്കിനു രൂപയുടെ കച്ചവടം ആണല്ലോ ഇത്. ഭക്തർ ക്യൂ നിന്ന് വാങ്ങി ലാഭത്തിലാക്കേണ്ടുന്ന കച്ചവടം..അയ്യപ്പൻ പോലും കാണാത്ത അയ്യപ്പ പ്രസാദം..തേർഡ് ക്വാളിറ്റി ശർക്കരയിൽ എന്തൊക്കെയോ കലക്കി അത്യാധുനിക യന്ത്ര സഹായത്താൽ പരിപാവനമായി.പല്ലിവാലും,എലിക്കാട്ടവും
സമം ചേർത്ത് ഏതോ *ഈശ്വരവിശ്വാസി*ആയ പാവം തൊഴിലാളി കഷ്ടപെട്ടുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന അരണ വണ ബൂർഷ്വാസികളായ ഭക്തർ വാങ്ങിയില്ലേൽ പാവം തൊഴിലാളി വിശ്വാസി കഷ്ടപെട്ടു പോകും..
കോടികൾ കൈക്കൂലി കൊടുത്തു അരവണ കരാർ എടുക്കുന്ന മാന്യ ദേഹം ഭക്തരെ പ്രസാദം ഊട്ടിക്കാനല്ല കൊടുത്ത കൈക്കൂലി കോടികളുടെ എത്ര ഇരട്ടി ലാഭം ഉണ്ടാക്കാം എന്ന് ആലോചിക്കുമ്പോൾ അയാളെ കുറ്റം പറയാൻ പറ്റില്ല .
=ലോകത്ത് ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതൽ ആളുകളെ പറ്റിച്ചും ,വിഡ്ഢികളാക്കിയും ജീവിക്കുന്നത് മതങ്ങളും ,ആരാധനാലയങ്ങളും ആണ്.അതിൽ പ്രഥമസ്ഥാനം ശബരിമലയ്ക്കായിരിക്കും...ഭഗവാനെ വിറ്റു പണമാക്കുന്ന ദേവസ്വം സംവിധാനങ്ങളിൽ നിന്നും അയ്യപ്പആസാദിക്ക് വേണ്ടി ഇന്നു മുതൽ ഞാൻ അരവണപായസമെന്നബൂർഷ്വാ ലായനി ബഹിഷ്കരിക്കുന്നു.....പല്ലി പായസം വാങ്ങുകയോ കഴിക്കുകയോ ചെയ്യില്ല..😁😁😁ഇനിയും ഇത്തരം വിഢിത്തം അനുഭവിക്കാൻ ഭക്തരുടെജീവിതം ബാക്കിയോ..!??😁😁😁

ഒരു പാവം ഭക്തൻ

ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണ വിശേഷങ്ങൾ

ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണ വിശേഷങ്ങൾ

1, ദ്വാപര യുഗത്തെയും കലി യുഗത്തെയും കൂട്ടിയിണക്കിയ മനു പരമ്പരയിലെ പതിനൊന്നാമത്തെ ഗുരുവാണ് ഭഗവാൻ ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണൻ
2,ജന്മനാ ജ്ഞാനി ആയിരുന്നു ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണൻ
3,ജ്ഞാനാഗ്നി ശരീരത്തിൽ വ്യാപിക്കുമ്പോൾ ഉള്ള താപം ബാലൻസ് ചെയ്യാൻ ആയിരുന്നു കൃഷ്ണൻ ധാരാളം വെണ്ണ ഭക്ഷിച്ചിരുന്നത് 
4,ഇതുവരെ ഉണ്ടായതിന്റെയെല്ലാം ആദിമൂലം ഭഗവാൻ ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണൻ ആകുന്നു
5,ആത്മീയതയുടെ എട്ടാം അവസ്ഥയായ ദൈവാവസ്ഥയിൽ എത്തിയ മഹാത്മാവ് ആണ് ഭഗവാൻ കൃഷ്ണൻ
6,16008 മസ്‌തിഷ്‌ക്ക കലകൾ പൂർണതയിൽ എത്തിയ മഹാത്മാവ് ആകുന്നു കൃഷ്‌ണൻ .സാധാരണ മനുഷ്യരിൽ ഒരു കല മാത്രമേ പൂർണതയിൽ ഉള്ളു
7,1973 വരെ യുഗ ധർമം ആയിരുന്നത് ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണ നാമം ആയിരുന്നു [ ഓം ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണായ പരബ്രഹ്മണേ നമഃ]
8,ശ്രീ കൃഷ്ണൻ ഉപരിമനസ്സ് ആണെന്നും ഉപരിമനസ്സാൽ ആഗതനാകുന്ന അതിമാനസ്സ തേജസിൽ കുടി മനുഷ്യ സമൂഹം യുക്തി ഘട്ടത്തിൽ നിന്നും യുക്ത്യാതീത തലമായ അതിമാനസ തലത്തിൽ പ്രവേശിക്കുമെന്നും മഹർഷി അരബിന്ദോ സിദ്ധാന്തിക്കുന്നു .

ജന്മാഷ്ടമിയും അഷ്ടമിരോഹിണിയും

ജന്മാഷ്ടമിയും അഷ്ടമിരോഹിണിയും

എന്നാണ് ശ്രീകൃഷ്ണന്‍ ജനിച്ചത്? ഉദ്ദേശം 5227 വര്‍ഷം മുമ്പ് വിശ്വവസു വര്‍ഷത്തില്‍. ശ്രാവണ മാസത്തിലെ വെളുത്തപക്ഷം തുടങ്ങി എട്ടാം ദിവസം രോഹിണി നക്ഷത്രത്തില്‍. 

ശ്രാവണ പൂര്‍ണിമയ്ക്ക് ശേഷമുള്ള അഷ്ടമിനാള്‍ മഹാവിഷ്ണുവിന്‍റെ എട്ടാമത്തെ അവതാരമായിരുന്നത്കൊണ്ട് ശ്രീകൃഷ്ണന്‍റെ ജന്മദിവസം ജന്മാഷ്ടമിയായി അറിയപ്പെടുന്നു. കൃഷ്ണാഷ്ടമി, ഗോകുലാഷ്ടമി എന്നും ഈ ദിവസത്തിന് പേരുണ്ട്. എന്നാല്‍ എല്ലാ തവണയും ഈ അഷ്ടമിക്ക് രോഹിണി നക്ഷത്രം വന്നുകൊള്ളണമെന്നില്ല. 

ചിലപ്പോള്‍ അടുത്തമാസം അഷ്ടമിക്കാവും രോഹിണി നക്ഷത്രം ചേര്‍ന്ന് വരിക. ഇതിനെ കാലാഷ്ടമി എന്നാണ് പറയാറ്. ഭാദ്രപാദ മാസത്തിലെ കറുത്ത പക്ഷമാണ് ശ്രാവണമാസമെന്ന് അറിയപ്പെടുന്നത് എന്നുമൊരു പക്ഷമുണ്ട്. 

കൃഷ്ണാഷ്ടമി എന്ന ജന്മാഷ്ടമി രക്ഷാബന്ധന്‍ കഴിഞ്ഞ് എട്ടാം ദിവസമാണ്. ഇത് കണിശമായും ഓഗസ്റ്റിലാണ് വരുക. അഷ്ടമിയും രോഹിണിയും ചേര്‍ന്ന് വരുന്നത് ചിലപ്പോള്‍ സെപ്റ്റംബറില്‍ ആവാറുണ്ട്. 

2006ല്‍ കൃഷ്ണാഷ്ടമി ഓഗസ്റ്റ് 16നും അഷ്ടമിരോഹിണി സെപ്റ്റംബര്‍ 14നുമാണ്. കേരളീയര്‍ക്ക് അഷ്ടമിരോഹിണിയോടാണ് പ്രിയം. ഉത്തരേന്ത്യാക്കാര്‍ക്ക് ജന്മാഷ്ടമിയോടും. അതുകൊണ്ട് 2006 രണ്ട് തവണ ശ്രീകൃഷ്ണ ജയന്തി ആഘോഷിക്കേണ്ടി വന്നു 

ഇംഗ്ളീഷ് കലണ്ടര്‍ പ്രകാരം, ക്രിസ്തുവിന് പിമ്പ് 222 വിശ്വവസു വര്‍ഷത്തില്‍ ശ്രാവണമാസത്തിലെ രണ്ടാം പകുതിയില്‍ ഒരു ബുധനാഴ്ച ജൂലൈ 19 ആണ് ശ്രീകൃഷ്ണന്‍റെ ജനനമെന്ന് ചില ശാസ്ത്രജ്ഞര്‍ അഭിപ്രായപ്പെടുന്നു. ഈ കാലം ദ്വാപരയുഗം - ചരിത്രത്തില്‍ അയേണ്‍ ഏജ് - എന്നറിയപ്പെടുന്നു. കൃഷ്ണന്‍ 125 വര്‍ഷം ജീവിച്ചു. 

ക്രിസ്തുവിന് പിമ്പ് 3102ല്‍ ഫാല്‍ഗുനത്തിലെ പൂര്‍ണിമ നാളില്‍ ഗുജറാത്തിലെ സോമനാഥില്‍ ഫെബ്രുവരി 18 ശ്രീകൃഷ്ണന്‍ അപ്രത്യക്ഷനായി - സ്വര്‍ഗാരോഹണം നടത്തി - എന്ന് പറയുന്നു. ഇതായിരുന്നു കലിയുഗത്തിന്‍റെ തുടക്കം.

15. Vivekananda Quotes

15. Vivekananda Quotes

1

Ye divinities on earth—sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature!

Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.

2

If you have faith in the three hundred and thirty millions of your mythological gods, and in all gods which foreigners have introduced into your midst, and still have no faith in yourselves, there is no salvation for you. Have faith in yourselves and stand up on that faith.

3

The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the Divinity within. You can do anything.

You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or a nation loses faith in himself or itself, death comes. Believe first in yourself, and then in God.

4

He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God; the new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself.

5

The Voice of Asia has been the voice of religion. The Voice of Europe is the voice of politics.

6

India is immortal, if she persists in her search for God.

7

I do not mean to say that political or social improvements are not necessary, but what I mean is this, and I want you to bear it in mind, that they are secondary here, and that religion is primary.

8

None can resist her (India) anymore; never is she going to sleep anymore; no outward powers can hold her back any more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet.

9

If you seek your own salvation, you will go to hell. It is the salvation of others that you must seek; and even if you have to go to hell in working for others, that is worth more than to gain heaven by seeking your own salvation.

10

So long as the millions die in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them!

11

So long as even a single dog in my country is without food, my whole religion will be to feed it.

12

Where should you go to seek for God? Are not all the poor, the miserable, the weak, gods? Why not worship them first? Why go to dig a well on the shores of the Ganga?

Let these people be your God—think of them, work for them, pray for them incessantly—the Lord will show you the way.

13

Religion deals with the truths of the metaphysical world, just as chemistry and the other natural sciences deal with the truths of the physical world.

14

Take religion from human society and what will remain? Nothing but a forest of brutes. Sense happiness is not the goal of humanity; wisdom (Jñāna) is the goal of all life.

15

The ultimate goal of all mankind, the aim and end of all religions, is but one—reunion with God, or, what amounts to the same, with the divinity which is every man’s true nature.

16

Can religion really accomplish anything? It can. It brings to man eternal life. It has made man what he is and will make of this human animal, a God. That is what religion can do. The ideal of all religions, all sects, is the same—the attaining of liberty, the cessation of misery.

17

I claim that no destruction of religion is necessary to improve the Hindu society, and that this state of society exists not on account of religion, but because religion has not been applied to society as it should have been.

18

Let there be but a dozen lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bounds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth, nor power, nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world.

19

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

20

Those who give themselves up to the Lord do more for the world than all the so-called workers.

21

What we need today is to know that there is a God, and that we can see and feel Him here and now.

22

Not a drop will be in the ocean, not a twig in the deepest forest, not a crumb in the house of the god of wealth, if the Lord is not merciful. Streams will be in the desert and the beggar will have plenty if He wills it. He sees the sparrow’s fall. Are these but words or literal, actual life?

23

This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

24

These prophets were not unique; they were men as you or I. They were great Yogis. They had gained this super-consciousness, and you and I can get the same. The very fact that one man ever reached that state, proves that it is possible for every man to do so. Not only is it possible, but every man must, eventually, get to that state, and that is religion.

25

The only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings, to give up all work unto God. All duties are His.

26

No work is secular. All work is adoration and worship.

27

As I grow older I find that I look more and more for greatness in little things. Anyone will be great in a great position. Even the coward will grow brave in the glare of the footlights. The world looks on! More and more the true greatness seems to me that of the worm doing its duty silently, steadily from moment to moment and hour to hour.

28

We want everything but God, because our ordinary desires are fulfilled by the external world. So long as our needs are confined within the limits of the physical universe, we do not feel any need for God; it is only when we have had hard blows in our lives and are disappointed with everything here that we feel the need for something higher; then we seek God.

29

Life is the unfoldment and development of a being under circumstances tending to press it down.

30

There must be no fear. No begging, but demanding—demanding the Highest. The true devotees of the Mother are as hard as adamant and as fearless as lions. They are not the least upset if the whole universe suddenly crumbles into dust at their feet! Make Her listen to you. None of that cringing to Mother! Remember, She is all-powerful. She can make heroes even out of stones!

31

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy—by one or more or all of these—and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines or dogmas or rituals or books or temples or forms are but secondary details.

32

Each soul is a star, and all stars are set in that infinite azure, that eternal sky, the Lord. There is the root, the reality, the real individuality of each and all. Religion began with the search after some of these stars that had passed beyond our horizon, and ended in finding them all in God, and ourselves in the same place.

13. Parting glimpses

13. Parting glimpses

Before taking up the work that awaited him on his return to India, the Swami’s first object was to visit Mrs Sevier at the Advaita Āśrama, in Māyāvatī.

On his arrival at the Belur Math, he had the confirmation of his premonition of the passing away of his beloved disciple, Mr Sevier, which had occurred on October 28, 1900.

Without stopping to rest at Belur, he telegraphed to Māyāvatī that he was coming to the Āśrama:

He arrived on January 3, 1901, and despite the mingled joy and emotion he felt at meeting Mrs Sevier again, in seeing the work finished, and in contemplating the beauty of the Āśrama perched on the mountain-slope he could stay there only for a fortnight; asthma suffocated him.

The Swami had to come back to the Belur Math on January 24.

Apart from a last pilgrimage that he made with his mother to the holy places of Eastern Bengal and Assam, to Dacca and Shillong, which left him exhausted, he left Belur only for a short stay at Varanasi at the beginning of 1902.

The great journey of his life was soon to end:

After his return from the tour in East Bengal and Assam, which was the last public tour undertaken by the Swami, his health was much worse.

The monks were greatly concerned. They now urged him to have complete rest; they begged him to give up all thought of appearing before the public until he should be perfectly well.

But as was his wont, he gave frequent interviews to all who flocked to the Belur Math in these days from all parts of India to receive his blessings and instructions.

At the monastery he lived a simple life, free from the monotony of society and its tiresome conventionalities:

He was a ‘Sannyasin free’. He would freely walk about barefooted or with plain slippers on and sometimes with a staff in hand— full of mirth like a boy.

Here he was free of the necessity to dress according to the dictates of society. With a piece of ochre cloth on, he could live in a world of his own in monastic silence and seclusion.

At times he would be found taking interest in the garden or experimenting in cooking or finding delight in the company of his pet animals— ‘Bagha’ the dog,  ‘Hansi’ the she-goat, ‘Matru’ the kid, an antelope, a stork, cows, and so on.

At this time who could recognize in him the world-renowned Swami Vivekananda!

At other times he would instruct or help the members of the Math in their difficulties, always manifesting the greatest tenderness.

Almost daily until his passing, he held Vedāntic classes to teach the novices the methods of meditation, inspired the workers with a spirit of virile confidence in themselves, paid strict attention to discipline and cleanliness, drew up a weekly timetable and kept a watchful eye over the regularity of all the daily activities.

No negligence escaped the vigilance of the Swami. He always maintained an atmosphere of serene peace and holiness.

He was the irresistible magnet and the inmates of the Āśrama were as so many iron filings drawn towards him, often without understanding why, but always loving him.

Every word of this great teacher was instinct with life and vigour and acted with telling effect on all who listened.

Once when he saw some monks and Brahmachārins going for worship to the temple, he said to them:

“Where shall you go to seek Brahman? He is immanent in all beings. Here, here is the visible Brahman! Shame on those who, neglecting the visible Brahman, set their minds on other things. Here is the Brahman before you as tangible as a fruit in one’s hand!”

So forceful was his utterance that everyone felt an ineffable peace and remained for nearly a quarter of an hour rooted to the spot. The scene was unforgettable.

Everyone in the monastery was struck with amazement at the wonderful power of the beloved Leader who with but one word could raise the minds of all to the heights of Supreme Insight.

About the latter part of the year 1901, a number of labourers used to work in the Math grounds. One day he served a beautiful feast for them at which he said: “You are Nārāyaṇas; today I have entertained Nārāyaṇa Himself.”

Then turning towards his disciples, he said to them:

“See how simple-hearted these poor illiterate people are. Will you be able to relieve their miseries to some extent at least? Otherwise, of what use is our wearing the ochre robe of the Sannyasin?

How can we have the heart to put a morsel into our mouths when our countrymen have not enough to feed or clothe themselves?

Let us throw away all pride of learning and study of the Shastras and all Sadhanas for the attainment of personal Mukti—

and going from village to village devote our lives to the service of the poor, and by convincing the rich men about their duties to the masses, through the force of our character and spirituality and austere living, get money and the  means wherewith to serve the poor and the distressed.

Alas! Nobody in our country thinks for the low, the poor, and the miserable!

Those that are the backbone of the nation, whose labour produces food, those whose one day’s strike from work raises a cry of general distress in the city—where is the man in our country who sympathizes with them, who shares in their joys and sorrows?

Unless they are elevated, the great Mother (India) will never awake!

What I see clear as daylight is that the same Brahman, the same Shakti is in them as in me! Only there is a difference in the degree of manifestation— that is all.

In the whole history of the world have you ever seen a country rise unless there was a uniform circulation of the national blood all over its body? Know this for certain, that no great work can be done by that body, one limb of which is paralysed.

After so much Tapasyā (asceticism) I have known that the highest truth is this:

He is present in every being! These are all the manifold forms of Him. There is no other God to seek for! He alone is worshipping God who serves all beings!”

The days glided by in the Math as if they were hours:

Whatever the mood in which the Swami were, for his Gurubhais and disciples his presence was in itself a constant source of joy and inspiration!

Whether he was impatient, whether he reprimanded, whether he was the teacher or the meditating sage, whether he was full of mirth or grave—to his Gurubhais he was always the beloved ‘Naren’, and to his disciples the blessed and incomparable Guru.

The joy of the Swami was great when meditation and austerities were in full swing in the Math. Whenever his health permitted, he joined in the morning meditation in the chapel. His presence in the meditation room invariably lent an added power and intensity to the meditations of those who sat with him.

In spite of his physical ailment, the Swami was eager till the end to receive friends and visitors and instruct his disciples. Everything must be sacrificed, even the body itself.

Sometimes hearing of the plight of earnest seekers who were refused admission to his presence by the monks, he would be so deeply moved with pity that he would say:

“Look here! Did not the Master preach unto the very end? And shall I not do the same? I do not care a straw if the body goes!

You cannot imagine how happy I am when I find earnest seekers after truth to talk to. In the work of waking up the Ātman in my fellow-men I shall gladly die again and again!”

But on some other occasions, in the midst of his talks his face would assume a dreamy far-away look and then all would leave him, knowing that he wished to be left alone with his thoughts.

14. The Passing

14. The Passing

The last two months which the Swami passed on earth were full of events foreshadowing the approaching end, though at times these events passed by unsuspected by those around him.

As days passed the Swami felt more and more the necessity of withdrawing himself from the task of directing the affairs of the Math.

“How often,” he said, “does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them? When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leaves them, for without his absence they cannot develop themselves!”

Work and all other bonds were dropping off; more than ever did he withdraw himself from all outer concerns. Meditation became his one great occupation.

His Gurubhais and disciples were alarmed at seeing him retire into such an atmosphere of austerity and meditation. The prophecy of Śrī Ramakrishna that Naren would merge in Nirvikalpa Samadhi at the end of his works constantly haunted their memory.

It seemed he was looking forward to a certain day on which to throw off the bondage of the body.

It was Friday, the fourth of July 1902: On that day he went to the chapel in the morning, and after closing the windows and bolting the doors, spent three hours in meditation. Then he broke forth in a touching song of the Divine Mother.

The monks below were charmed to hear the sweet strains of it coming from the shrine-room. Descending the stairs of the shrine, he paced up and down in the courtyard of the monastery, his mind withdrawn.

He was heard muttering to himself:

“If there were another Vivekananda, he would have understood what Vivekananda has done! And yet, how many Vivekanandas shall be born in time!”

The Gurubhai who, unnoticed, heard these words were startled, for never did the Swami speak in this manner.

At noon he took his food along with all in the refectory—contrary to his practice during these days. After the meal he took a Sanskrit class with his disciples for about three hours.

Then in the afternoon he took a walk with one of his Gurubhais and expressed his particular desire to establish a Vedic College in the Math.

In the evening, as the service bell in the shrine rang, he went to his room and remained absorbed in meditation for nearly an hour. Then he laid himself down on his bed. He had his rosary still in his hand.

About an hour later, he changed sides and took a deep breath. Another long deep breath like the preceding one, and then all was calm and still. The tired child slept in the lap of the Mother, whence there was no awakening to this world of Māyā.

The Swami was thirty-nine years and a few months, thus fulfilling a prophecy which was frequently on his lips: “I shall never live to see forty.”

But with the passing of days, as one observes how the number of his disciples, devotees, and admirers in the two hemispheres is rapidly increasing,

how he is silently influencing thousands of lives all over the world, how his fiery message is supplying direct and indirect inspiration to hundreds of movements in his own motherland and throughout the world for the uplift of which he thought so much and worked so hard—

one remembers the words he spoke long before his death:

“It may be that I shall find it good to get outside my body—to cast it off like a worn-out garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God!”

12. Second visit to the West

12. Second visit to the West

The Swami announced his intention of going to the West in order to see the work he had founded as well as to give fresh impetus to them. He was urged also by his friends and physicians to do so at once as his health was very poor.

This time he took with him Sister Nivedita and a brother monk, Swami Turiyananda, and boarded the steamer on June 20, 1899.

In regard to taking Swami Turiyananda to America, the Swami said:

“They have seen the Kshatriya power—now I want to show them the Brahmin!”

He meant that in himself the West had seen the combative spirit and energy in the defence of the Eternal Religion, Sanātana Dharma;

and now the time had come when the people should have before them the example of a man of meditation in his Gurubhai, born and bred in the best traditions and rigorous discipline of Brāhminhood.

After having broken his journey in London, he went to the United States and stayed for almost a year. There he found Abhedananda actively engaged in the Vedāntic work.

Turiyananda settled down at Mont Clair near New York, and he himself went to California, where he founded the Vedanta Society at San Francisco.

Besides, he received the gift of a property of one hundred and sixty acres of forest land in the district of Santa Clara, where an Āśrama was established by Swami Turiyananda to train a select band of students in the monastic life.

Thus the work prospered and the ideas spread; but though the Swami was full of merriment even while busy consolidating his work in America, there was always in him the undertone of serious states of mind:

Throughout his Western experience this time one notices in him a deep yearning for the Absolute. In one of his letters he definitely says:

“Pray for me that my works may stop for ever, and my whole soul be absorbed in the Mother! The battles are lost and won. 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 of Dakshineswar. That is my true nature; works and activities, doing good and so forth are all superimpositions.

Now, I again hear his voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking, love dying, work becoming tasteless; the glamour is off life. Now only the voice of the Master calling: Let the dead bury the dead, follow thou Me!

I come, my Beloved Lord, I come, Nirvana is before me. I feel it at times, the same infinite ocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath.”

Towards the end of July 1900, the Swami started for Paris, where he had been invited to the Congress of the History of Religions. He stayed in Paris for about three months and left for Egypt via Vienna, Constantinople, and Athens.

The meditative habit, which had revealed itself ever since his second visit to the West in intense forms, now reached a veritable climax:

In Paris, oftentimes his mind had been far aloof from his environment; and here in Egypt it seemed as if he were turning the last pages in the Book of Experience. He seemed world-weary.

Suddenly he felt a strong desire to return to India. There in the far-off Himalayan Āśrama, Mr Sevier, his great friend and disciple, had given up his body—a martyr to his cause. The Swami had, as it were, a presentiment of this.

He became restless to return to India. So without waiting a single day he took the first steamer and came back alone to his motherland at the beginning of December 1900.

The joy of his brother-monks knew no bounds when they unexpectedly found their leader present in their midst.

About his impression of this visit to the West the Swami said that during his first journey he had been caught by the power, the organization, and the apparent democracy of America and Europe.

But now he had discovered the spirit of lucre, of greed, of Mammon, with its enormous combinations and ferocious struggle for supremacy.

Material brilliance no longer deceived him. He saw the hidden tragedy, the weariness under the forced expenditure of energy—the deep sorrow under the frivolous mask:

“Social life in the West,” he said to Nivedita, “is like a peal of laughter: but underneath it is a wail. It ends in a sob.

The fun and frivolity are all on the surface; really it is full of tragic intensity. Here (in India) it is sad and gloomy on the surface, but underneath are carelessness and merriment.”

10. Message to his countrymen

10. Message to his countrymen

Enthusiasm reached its height at Madras:

The city erected for him seventeen triumphal arches, presented him with twenty-four addresses in various languages, and suspended her whole public life at his arrival.

Here he gave an eloquent utterance to his message to India in a series of magnificent lectures comprising “My Plan of Campaign”, “The Mission of Vedanta”, and “The Future of India”.

“Each nation, like each individual”, he said, “has one theme in this life, which is its centre, the principal note with which every other note mingles to form the harmony.

If any nation attempts to throw off its national vitality, the direction which has become its own through the transmission of centuries, that nation dies:

In India religious life forms the centre, the keynote of the whole music of national life.

Social reform has to be preached in India by showing how much more spiritual a life the new system will bring, and politics has to be preached by showing how much it will improve the one thing that the nation wants— its spirituality.

Therefore before flooding India with socialistic or political ideas the land should first be deluged with spiritual ideas.

The first work that demands our attention is that the most wonderful truths confined in our Upanishads, in our scriptures and Purāṇas, must be brought out from the books, the monasteries, and the forests and scattered broadcast over the land so that these truths many run like fire all over the country, from north to south, and east to west, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from the Indus to the Brahmaputra.”

“Ay, let every man and woman and child without respect of caste or birth, weakness or strength, hear and learn that behind the strong and the weak, behind the high and the low, behind everyone, there is that Infinite Soul, assuring the infinite possibility and the infinite capacity of all to become great and good.

Let us proclaim to every soul:

Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached. Arise, awake! Awake from this hypnotism of weakness:

None is really weak; the soul is infinite, omnipotent, and omniscient. Stand up, assert yourself, proclaim the God within you, do not deny Him.”

“It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making education all round that we want. It is man-making theories that we want.

And here is the test of Truth:

Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually - reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true.

Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all knowledge.

Give up weakening mysticisms, and be strong, the greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.”

While delivering this inspiring message to his countrymen the Swami was not oblivious of his duty to emphasize the need of uplifting the sunken millions from the slough of torpor and degradation.

He struck a sharp note of warning to his compatriots and gave vent to his own ideal of patriotism in the following stirring words:

“It is we who are responsible for all our degradation.

Our aristocratic ancestors went on treading the common masses of our country under- foot, till they became helpless, till under this torment the poor people nearly forgot that they were human beings. They have been compelled to be merely hewers of wood and drawers of water for centuries.

Feel, therefore, my would-be reformers, my would-be patriots! Do you feel?

Do you feel that millions and millions of the descendants of gods and of sages have become next- door neighbours to brutes? Do you feel that millions are starving today, and millions have been starving for ages?

Do you feel that ignorance has come over the land as a dark cloud?

Does it make you restless? Does it make you sleepless? Have you forgotten all about your name, your fame, your wives, your children, your property, even your own bodies? Have you done that? That is the first step to become a patriot—the very first step!

Instead of spending your energies in frothy talk, have you found any way out, any practical solution, some help instead of condemnation, some sweet words to soothe their miseries, to bring them out of this living death?

Yet, that is no all. Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you, sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think right? If you have these three things, each one of you will work miracles.”

“For the next fifty years let all other vain gods disappear from our minds:

This is the only God that is awake, our own race: everywhere His hands, everywhere His feet, everywhere His ears, He covers everything. All other gods are sleeping.

What vain gods shall we go after and yet cannot worship the God that we see all round us—the Virāṭ?

The first of all worship is the worship of the Virāṭ—of those all around us. These are our Gods—men and animals—and the first gods we have to worship are our own countrymen!”

Bengal did not lag behind. She also vied with other provinces in giving a fitting reception to her favourite and distinguished son:

Hardly had the Swami reached Calcutta when hundreds of people came to pay their personal respects to him and to hear his exposition of Vedanta.

In the day-time he made his headquarters generally in the palatial building of Gopal Lal Seal at Baranagore and at night he stayed at the Math which was then at Alam- bazar.

The City’s Address of Welcome took place on 28 February 1897, at the magnificent residence of Raja Sir Radhakanta Dev Bahadur at Shobhabazar.

The meeting was presided over by Raja Binoy Krishna Dev Bahadur, who introduced the Swami as the foremost national figure in the life of India.

There were present Rajas and Maharajas, Sannyasins, a group of distinguished Europeans, many well-known Pandits, illustrious citizens, and hundreds of college students.

The speech which the Swami gave in reply to the address of welcome has become famous as a masterpiece of oratory and of fervent patriotism.

During the Swami’s stay in Calcutta he was constantly visiting one devotee of Śrī Ramakrishna or another. Many distinguished people, persons of various professions and callings as well as hundreds of enthusiastic youths used to come daily to the Seal garden.

The questioners were invariably charmed with his knowledge and interpretation of the Shastras, and even great masters of philosophy and university professors were amazed at his genius.

But his heart was with the educated, unmarried youths, with whom he was never tired of speaking:

He was consumed with the desire of infusing his own spirit into them and to train some of the more energetic and religious among them, so that they might devote their lives to the salvation of their own souls and to the good of the world.

He deplored their physical weakness, denounced early marriage, admonished them for their lack of faith in themselves and in their national culture and ideals.

But all this was done with such unmistakable love and kindness that they became his staunchest disciples and followers.

It goes without saying that the main interest of the Swami’s stay in Calcutta centred round the Alambazar monastery. No words can describe the joy of the monks when their beloved leader was with them again:

Memories of the olden days were revived, the days with the Master (Śrī Ramakrishna) and the innumerable experiences of the wandering life of everyone were recalled, and the Swami entertained his Gurubhais (brother-disciples) and the devotees of the Master with hundreds of tales and episodes of his life and work in the distant West.

Of the Swami’s numerous achievements one of the greatest was the conversion of his Gurubhais from the individualistic to the universal idea of religious life in which public spirit and service to fellow-men occupied a prominent place:

Up to this time the ideal of the monks of the Math was to strive for personal Mukti (liberation) and realization of the Supreme Ātman by severe penance and meditation, remaining as much as possible aloof from the world, its cares and sorrows, in consonance with the old conception of monastic life.

But with the appearance of the Swami among them a new order of things was inaugurated:

He railed at them for their lack of faith in themselves and in the great mission of the Master, for their failure to organize themselves into an active body, and for their neglect in preaching the gospel of liberation to others.

The age demanded, he said, that they should carry the new light unto others, that they themselves should show by their example how to serve the poor, the helpless, and the diseased, seeing God in them, and that they should inspire others to do the same.

The mission of his life, he declared, was to create a new order of Sannyasins in India who would dedicate their lives to help and serve others.

Thus the Swami  interpreted his Master’s message in a new light, showing them that their supreme duty lay in the carrying on of the Master’s mission, the bringing about of a religious rejuvenation by raising the condition of the masses through loving service, and spreading the life-giving ideas of the Master over the entire world.

Even while in the West he had conveyed to his Gurubhais this message again and again through his inspiring letters.

Now, his personal presence and passionate appeals as also his brilliant exposition of his Master’s mission completely bore down all opposition and he electrified their imagination with the synthetic ideal

which combined in it a life of renunciation and service —a course of strict moral discipline, contemplation, and study as also of self-dedication at the altar of humanity for the attainment of the highest goal of human existence.

Out of their profound faith in their leader, his brother-disciples bowed their heads in acquiescence, knowing his voice to be the voice of their Master;

all girded up their loins to do anything and to go anywhere, for the good of their fellow- beings at the bidding of the Swami.

Swami Ramakrishnananda, who had never left the precincts of the Math for twelve years, went to Madras at the behest of Swami Vivekananda to open a centre there to propagate the teachings of  the Vedanta in Southern India.

Swamis Saradananda and Abhedananda had already gone to the West at the call of the Swami to help him in the work there.

And full of the same spirit, Swami Akhandananda went to the district of Murshidabad to start famine relief work for the people dying from starvation in the villages.

The other Gurubhais of the Swami were also ready to take up, as occasion demanded, any work of religious and philanthropic utility launched by him, or to further his ideas and plans of work in India and abroad.

A brilliant group of young men inspired by the Swami’s life and teachings soon joined the Order and now gallantly stood by his side to sacrifice their lives for others, to provide the ignorant and the depressed masses with the ways and means for the struggle for existence and make them stand on their own feet, to preach the highest message of the scriptures to one and all.

Gradually there came into existence the various monastic centres, Homes of Service, and the relief centres in times of plague, famine, and flood, under the charge and with the cooperation of his Gurubhais and his disciples.

The Swami had long thought of bringing about a cooperative effort among the monastic and the lay disciples of Śrī Ramakrishna, and of organizing in a systematic way the activities, both spiritual and philanthropic, of his brotherhood.

In  response to the Swami’s intimation of his desire to hold a meeting for the purpose of founding an association,

a representative gathering of all the monastic and lay disciples of Śrī Ramakrishna took place at the house of a devotee—Balaram Bose—in the afternoon of 1 May 1897.

With the unanimous consent of the assembled devotees an organization was formed under the name of the Ramakrishna Mission Association.

The duty of the Mission would be to conduct in the right spirit the activities of the movement inaugurated by Śrī Ramakrishna for the establishment of fellowship among the followers of different religions, knowing them all to be so many forms only of one underlying Eternal Religion.

Its methods of action would be:

(1) to train men so as to make them competent to teach such knowledge or sciences as are conducive to the material and spiritual welfare of the masses;

(2) to promote and encourage arts and industries;

(3) to introduce and spread among the people in general Vedāntic and other religious ideas in the way in which they were elucidated in the life of Śrī Ramakrishna.

It was further resolved that the activities of this Mission should be directed to the establishment of Maths and Āśramas in different parts of India for the training of Sannyasins and such of the householders as may be willing to devote  their lives to educate others.

Its work in the foreign department should be to send trained members of the Order to countries outside India to start centres there for the preaching of Vedanta in order to bring about a close relation and better understanding between India and foreign countries.

A practical Vedāntist, Swami Vivekananda wanted one and all to translate the Upaniṣadic doctrines into action in everyday life:

The Swami himself practised the ideal in his own life; he flung himself whole-heartedly into the whirlpool of activity and thus inspired others to follow in his footsteps and render service to the suffering humanity even under the most trying circumstances.

From May 1897 to January 1898, he went like a whirlwind through the historic cities of Northern India, sowing the seed with his characteristic boldness and zeal.

Whether at Almora, Kashmir, and the Punjab, or at Khetri, Alwar, Ajmer, and other principal states of Rajputana — in every place the Swami was the recipient of spontaneous homage of his countrymen from the highest to the lowest.

He mixed and talked as freely and intimately with the Rajas and Maharajas as with other sections of the Indian people—always placing before them the vital needs of their motherland. 

He was never tired of showing to his countrymen the value and significance of the culture they had inherited from their ancestors—a culture in comparison with which any other civilization, past or present, paled into insignificance—till their hearts throbbed at the very name of India.

He clearly pointed out that Indian nationalism was to be based on the greatness of the past though various new ideas also had to be assimilated in the process of growth.

If we have to be true to the genius of the race, if we have to appeal to the soul of the nation, we have to drink deep of the fountain of the past and then proceed to build the future.

This heritage from the past, he pointed out, was essentially a religious heritage. The fundamental problem in India, therefore, was to organize the whole country round the spiritual ideal.

By religion he meant the eternal life-giving principles as taught by the Śrutis and not the mass of superstitions and local customs, which are mere accretions requiring a weeding out with a strong hand.

Above all, he showed that the nation depended upon the character and qualities of its individual members:

On the strength of the individuals lay the strength of the whole nation:

So each individual, he urged, if he desired the good of the country as a whole, should try, whatever might be his walk of life, to build character and acquire such virtues as courage, strength, and self-respect, and practice the national ideals of renunciation and service.

11. In the company of western and eastern disciples

11. In the company of western and eastern disciples

Having finished his lecture tour Swami Vivekananda returned to Calcutta about the middle of January 1898:

The Math was transferred in February from Alambazar to Nilambar Mukherjee’s garden- house on the western bank of the Ganga in the village of Belur.

For some time the Swami devoted himself to certain important aspects of his Mission—notably the training of his own disciples, both Eastern and Western, so as to enable them to carry into practice his plans for the regeneration of his motherland.

His Western disciples had come to India at his call:

Miss Margaret Noble at the end of January, to found in conjunction with Miss Henrietta F. Müller model institutions for the education of Indian women; Mrs Ole Bull and Miss Josephine MacLeod arrived in February.

In March, Margaret Noble took the vow of Brahmacharya and the name of Nivedita, the Consecrated One. Vivekananda introduced her in warm terms to the Calcutta public as a gift of England to India.

The training of these Western disciples was of momentous concern to the Swami as a spiritual teacher.

Among the Western disciples he particularly chose Nivedita in whom he had great hope and trust; and as such, his illuminating discourses were mainly directed to her.

The Swami was anxious that his Western disciples should make an impartial study of Indian problems:

They were not only to see the glories, but also to have special and clear understanding of the problems of the land and to bring the ideals and methods of Western scientific culture to bear upon the task of finding a solution.

The Swami then set out on a journey through India with a select group of his disciples:

After a stay at Almora, were the Seviers were already established, and then after a journey to Kashmir up the river Jhelum through the Vale of Srinagar,

the Swami undertook, at the end of July 1898, the great pilgrimage to the cave of Amarnath in the glacial gorge of the Western Himalayas. Only Sister Nivedita was permitted to accompany him to that holy place.

On August 2, the day of the annual festival, they arrived at the sacred cave where there was the famous ice-Shiva.

Behind the other pilgrims, Swami Vivekananda, trembling with emotion, entered the sanctuary in an almost semi-conscious condition. A great mystical experience came to him.

So saturated became his personality with the Presence of the Lord that for days afterwards he could speak of nothing but Shiva— the Eternal One, the Great Monk, rapt in meditation, aloof from all worldliness.

Following the pilgrimage to Amarnath the Swami’s devotion concentrated itself on the Mother, and he was soon blessed with a wonderful vision of Kālī the Divine Mother:

While his vision was most intense he wrote ‘Kālī the Mother’—a poem, where he is seen at his best.

After this experience he retired alone abruptly on September 30 to the Coloured Springs of Kṣīra Bhavāni where he practised severe austerities.

He was found completely transfigured when he returned to his disciples after a few days. All thought of leader, worker, or teacher was gone. He was now only the Monk—in all nakedness of pure Sannyāsa.

So, he feelingly said to them: “It is all Mother now! All my patriotism is gone. Everything is gone. Now it is only Mother, Mother!”

The party then came back to Lahore.

The Swami’s health was so much undermined that he had to be brought back to Bengal by Swami Sadānandā, who had hurried down from Almora after learning of the Swami’s poor health.

They arrived at Belur, where the new monastery was under construction, in the month of October.

The Swami, in spite of his failing health, resumed his old life with the monks and performed the consecrating ceremony of the monastery on December 9. From January 2, 1899, this place, now known as Belur Math, became the permanent headquarters of the monks of the Ramakrishna Order.

Gathering together his disciples, the Swami began from now to impress on them the duties and responsibilities of their monastic life:

Hours were spent in religious conversation; scriptures were read and commented upon; and strict regulations and monastic discipline were instituted along with spiritual and intellectual work for certain hours of the day.

Addressing the disciples, the Swami would point out:

“The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within.

You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man loses faith in himself, death comes. Believe first in yourself, and then in God.

A handful of strong men will move the world:

It is the salvation of others that you must seek; and even if you have to go to hell in working for others, that is worth more than to gain heaven by seeking your own salvation.”

In spite of illness, the Swami continued with the organization of the Ramakrishna Mission with Swami Saradananda who had been called back from America for this work.

He soon built up a strong band of ‘the sappers and miners in the army of religion’ for the reconstruction of Indian life, as also for the diffusion of Vedāntic ideas throughout the length and breadth of the world.

Very soon, his dream of starting a monastery in a cool, secluded region of the Himalayas, where the East and the West could meet on an equal footing of love and unity, exchange the highest ideals of each, and practise the Advaita philosophy, was also realized.

Mr and Mrs Sevier with the help of Swami Swarupananda, founded the Advaita Āśrama in March 1899, under the guidance of Swami Vivekananda at Māyāvatī from where one can command a magnificent view of the charming ranges of perpetual snow.

Other service institutions also sprang into existence under his directions in different parts of India, and the Swami had the satisfaction of seeing his lofty ideal rooted deep in the soil of his birth.

9. Beloved India

9. Beloved India

On December 16, 1896, the Swami with Mr and Mrs Sevier left London for the Continent. It was also arranged that Mr Goodwin sailing from Southampton would meet them at Naples.

The Swami rejoiced that he was free again.

He said to Mr and Mrs Sevier: “Now I have but one thought and that is India. I am looking forward to India!”

On the eve of his departure an English friend asked: “Swami, how do you like your motherland now after four years’ experience of the luxurious, glorious, powerful West?”

His significant reply was: “India I loved before I came away. Now the very dust of India has become holy to me; it is now the holy land—the place of pilgrimage, the Tirtha.”

The party travelled to Milan via Dover, Calais, and the Mont Cenis, and had a short tour through Italy:

As the train left Florence for Rome, the Swami was full of emotion, for of all cities in Europe he was most desirous to see Rome. One week was spent in this imperial city.

At Rome the Swami was exceedingly delighted to witness the various places of historic importance—its magnificent seats of learning, arts, and religion.

When the party left Rome, however, the Swami was not sad, for he realized that each day was bringing him nearer to the desired event—the departure for India. From Rome the next move was to Naples, where they were to embark.

The ship arrived at last from Southampton, bringing Mr Goodwin as one of its passengers, and left Naples for Colombo on December 30, 1896, with the Swami and his disciples among others, on board.

The home-coming of the Swami was a great event in the history of modern India, for a united India rose to do him honour.

For about four years the Indian public had been made aware that the Swami was doing the great work of presenting and interpreting Hinduism to the Western nations with great success.

All India looked to him as to some mighty Āchārya of old, born again to revivify the fading glories of the Eternal Religion and to carry her banner throughout the whole civilized world.

New forces had been at play in India ever since his triumph at the Parliament of Religions:

Through the study of the Swami’s lectures and utterances, the eyes of the educated Indians were opened to the hidden beauties and treasures of their religion and they came more and more to see how Vedanta alone could claim the supreme position of being a universal religion.

In the early morning, on January 15, 1897, the coast of Ceylon could be seen in the distance. It was a beautiful sight in the roseate hues of the rising sun.

This was India, and the Swami was beside himself with excitement.

But he was totally unaware that he was going to meet representatives of all religious sects and social bodies who had come to welcome him.

One of his brother-disciples had come to Ceylon to meet him; others were on the way. In Madras and in Calcutta there was great excitement over his impending arrival.

He was to find that he had become the “man of the hour” in India: 

When he arrived at Colombo, jubilant shouts arose from the seething mass of humanity covering the quays. A multitude flung itself upon him to touch his feet.

A huge procession was formed with flags at its head. Religious hymns were intoned and flowers strewn before his path. Hundreds of visitors, rich and poor, brought him offerings.

The cynosure of all eyes, the Swami appeared in the midst of that procession like a conqueror returning from his victory, crowned with glory—not a conqueror of earthly dominions, but a conqueror of hearts, both Eastern and Western.

In Ceylon he had to address several meetings in response to the welcome from the public. He stayed in the island for about ten days.

As he crossed the sea and proceeded towards the north, everywhere he was received with most enthusiastic greetings:

Triumphal processions were organized— bands played, cannons boomed, rockets shot forth as a mark of welcome, Rajas drew his carriage, and people vied with one another to show him honour and respect.

What a great difference now from the events of five years back! Then the Swami passed through these places footsore and weary —an unknown wanderer with a begging bowl in his hand.

But the Swami knew that the extraordinary reception given to him was but a spontaneous expression of love of the people for the Ideal which he represented.

He was now all the more convinced that religion represented the very heart of Indian national life, and all along the way he broadcasted his ideas about the regeneration of India in a series of brilliant speeches.

7. As a Teacher in America

7. As a Teacher in America

The Swami, finding that the lecture bureau was exploiting and defrauding him, soon shook himself free from American lecturing organizations.

At the beginning of the winter of 1894, he returned to New York after a whirlwind tour through various centres of learning and culture in America.

His previous visits to this noted city had been only casual. He had given only a few public lectures but was not in a position to begin any constructive work.

With a view to starting regular work the Swami now readily accepted the invitation of the Brooklyn Ethical Association to deliver a series of lectures. These lectures produced the desired effect and opened a new avenue for organizing the work in America.

He soon found a group of earnest souls who were seriously bent on following the guidance of the Swami for spiritual enlightenment.

The Swami gave his whole time to teaching by means of talks and lectures, and every day instructed this band of chosen followers in the exercise of the double method of Rāja-Yoga and Jñāna-Yoga.

His lectures at this time were replete with the deepest philosophical insight and with extraordinary outbursts of devotion, revealing his nature as essentially a combination of the Jñānī and Bhakta—the illumined saint and true mystic in one.

Prominent among those who became his ardent followers at this time were Mrs Ole Bull, Dr. Day, Miss S.E. Waldo, Professors Wyman and Wright, Dr. Street, and many clergymen and laymen of note.

Mr and Mrs Francis Leggett and Miss MacLeod, well-known society people of New York, became his most intimate friends.

By the month of June 1895, the Swami had placed his real  constructive work on a solid foundation, and also finished writing his famous treatise on Raja-Yoga, dictated to Miss S.E. Waldo (afterwards Sister Haridasi), which soon attracted the attention of American psychologists like William James.

The Swami also had support from wealthy and influential followers, and whatever he could save from the financial returns he received went towards further consolidation of his work.

All through the year the Swami’s work was enormous; he was working intensely; lecturing both privately and publicly, he began to feel himself wearing out.

But the Swami was satisfied that the ideals of the Sanātana Dharma, the Eternal Religion, were spreading and percolating through the whole thought-world of America, and that they were very often echoed in pulpits and in rostrums, though it might be that he received no credit for them.

Having almost exhausted himself by this uninterrupted work of class and public lecturing, the Swami now eagerly sought a place of retreat where he could give a modicum of rest to his shattered nerves and train up a group of students for future action.

One of the students, Miss Dutcher, owned a handsome cottage at Thousand Island Park, the largest island in the St. Lawrence River and she offered the use of it to the Swami and as many of the students as it would accommodate. 

The place was ideally situated, overlooking a wide sweep of the beautiful river with many of its far- famed Thousand Islands.

Not a human sound penetrated the seclusion of the house. The inmates heard but the murmur of the insects, the sweet songs of the birds, or the gentle sighing of the wind through the leaves.

Part of the time the scene was illumined by the soft rays of the moon and her face was mirrored in the shining waters beneath.

In this scene of enchantment, the devoted students spent seven blessed weeks with their beloved teacher, listening to his words of inspiration.

This group of twelve included, Miss S.E. Waldo and Miss Greenstidel who later became Sister Christine and ably assisted Sister Nivedita in her educational work in India.

During the Swami’s stay in this island he threw light upon all manner of subjects, historical and philosophical, spiritual and temporal. It was as if the contents of his nature were pouring themselves forth as a grand revelation of the many- sidedness of the Eternal Truth.

Certainly the seven weeks lived at Thousand Island Park were one of the freest and the greatest periods in the Swami’s life:

Surrounded by ardent disciples he was there in the uninterrupted stillness of the island retreat, in an atmosphere reminiscent of that in which his Master had lived and taught in the Dakshineswar days of old.

The whirlwind of spiritual rhapsody and ecstasy that had swept the souls of devotees in Dakshineswar on the bank of the Ganga, swept here anew the souls of other devotees in this lonely region.

Some glimpses of his ecstatic utterances of this period can be had in Inspired Talks, a book which owes not a little to the sedulous care and industry of Miss Waldo, one of this enthusiastic group of students on the island.

It was in the silence of this retreat that the Swami wrote also the immortal Song of the Sannyasin, which has now become one of the most precious legacies to spiritually-minded souls.

Having fulfilled his great work of training and initiating disciples into Brahmacharya and Sannyāsa at Thousand Island Park, the Swami returned to New York, from where he soon sailed to England to carry to the British people the same message which he had preached in America.

During his absence the work of spreading Vedanta was carried on uninterrupted by the group of his trained disciples.

But the Swami’s presence was greatly needed in the New World for the consolidation of the various work started there. So he soon returned.

With a view to giving a concrete shape to his Vedāntic work on the American soil, the Swami after the close of his public lectures in the latter  part of February 1896, organized the Vedanta movement into a definite society and began to issue his teachings in book form.

Thus came into existence The Vedanta Society of New York, a non- sectarian body with the aim of preaching and practising Vedanta and applying its principles to all faiths.

Its members met regularly at appointed times for the purpose of carrying on co-operative and organized work, and for the study and propaganda of Vedanta literature.

Some of the great works like Rāja-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, and Karma-Yoga had already been published and aroused an interest among some of the great savants and thinkers of America.

One of the principal purposes of the Swami in organizing his classes into this Society was particularly to bring about an interchange of ideas and ideals between the East and the West.

Already he had in his mind the plan of bringing from India some of his brother-disciples to teach and preach in America, and also of having some of his American, and English disciples in India to teach and preach there.

In America it would be religious teaching, and in India it would be practical training—a message of science, industry, economics, applied sociology, organization, and co-operation.

The Indian needed that energy, that dexterity in action, that thirst for improvement which characterized the freedom-loving people of the active West.

In the opinion of the Swami, the Orient would be benefited by greater activity and energy like that of the West, as the latter would profit by a mixture of Eastern introspection and the meditative habit.

The Swami made Mr Francis H. Leggett, one of the wealthy and influential residents of the city of New York, the President of this newly formed Vedanta Society.

The universal teachings and profound learning of the Swami made a deep impression upon the minds of the American intelligentsia. He was even offered the Chair of Oriental Philosophy at Harvard university and at Columbia the Chair of Sanskrit.

Besides the distinguished psychologists and philosophers, influential persons of other fields of thought also were charmed with his erudition and knowledge of science and arts.

The fearless outspokenness of the Swami often alienated that general approval for which so many public workers slave and sacrifice their true views and their principles.

But, after all, he found that the American public, though at first it might appear to resent, would afterwards regard with great admiration one who dared to speak openly of what he felt were the drawbacks of its civilization.

At the end of his American work the Swami was thoroughly tired. Everything he did, said, or wrote was at the white heat of intensity; and this undoubtedly undermined even his strong constitution.

His friends knew that he had given himself wholly for the good of those who made his message the gospel of their lives.

8. In England

8. In England

We have already seen that Swami Vivekananda, after closing his teaching work in Thousand Island Park, visited England in the latter part of 1895.

As a matter of fact, he made three visits there; from September to the end of November 1895; from April to the end of July 1896; and from October to December 16, 1896.

From the moment he set foot in England he breathed a quite different atmosphere of culture and tradition. He discovered here a nation of heroes, brave and steady. But while he admired the English people, he never lost sight of his Indian mission.

He once wrote to Mr Leggett in America:

“The British Empire with all its drawbacks is the greatest machine that ever existed for the dissemination of ideas. I mean to put my ideas in the centre of this machine, and they will spread all over the world.”

On the way the Swami visited Paris, the centre of European culture, and was delighted to see the museums, churches, cathedrals, art galleries, and other artistic wealth of the nation.

He was introduced in Paris to some of the enlightened friends of his host, with whom he discoursed on subjects which ranged from the most learned studies to the highest spiritual thoughts.

On his arrival in England, Swami Vivekananda was warmly received by friends, among them being Miss Henrietta Müller, who had already met him in America, and Mr E.T. Sturdy.

After a few days rest he commenced work in a quiet way:

During the day he paid visits to every place of historic or artistic interest; in the mornings, and often in the late evenings, he held classes and gave interviews.

His reputation spread at once, and within three weeks of his arrival he found himself engaged in strenuous activity:

The Press welcomed and heralded his ideas, and some of the most select clubs of the city of London and even some leaders of its prominent clerical institutions invited him and received him with marked admiration.

He was moving in the best circles of English society, and even members of the nobility were glad to recognize him as their friend. This completely revolutionized the Swami’s idea of Englishmen and women.

In America he found that the public was most enthusiastic and responsive in taking up new ideas; but in England he discovered that, though his hearers were more conservative in their praise and declaration of acceptance, they were all the more fervent and staunch, once they had convinced themselves of the worth of a teacher and his ideas.

Though his stay in London was very short this time, he had the joyous satisfaction of being able to count many as his sincere friends and earnest supporters:

Among these was Miss Margaret Noble (afterwards Sister Nivedita) who was the headmistress of an educational institution and a conspicuous member of the Sesame Club, founded for the furtherance of educational purposes:

She moved in quiet but distinguished intellectual circles and was deeply interested in all modern influences and thought. She was struck with the novelty and the breadth of the Swami’s religious culture and the intellectual freshness of his philosophical outlook.

Swami Vivekananda visited England for the second time in April 1896. A pleasant surprise awaited him there:

Swami Saradananda, one of his brother-disciples, who had been asked by the Swami to come to England to continue the work started during his first visit, had arrived from Calcutta and was the guest of Mr E.T. Sturdy.

This time the Swami opened regular classes on Vedāntic  thought; his illuminating lectures on Jñāna-Yoga— the Path of Wisdom—which were as brilliant as impressive, made a direct appeal to the most intellectually gifted people of England and created a very good atmosphere for the spread of Hindu thought and culture in their purest form.

He also gave several courses of lectures in public as well as to private circles.

One of the memorable events during the Swami’s stay in London was his meeting with the great Orientalist, Professor Max Müller of Oxford University, at his residence, by special invitation, on May 28, 1896.

To quote the Swami’s own words:

“The visit was really a revelation to me:

The 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.”

Max Müller was anxious to know from the Swami more than what he had already gathered about Śrī Ramakrishna, and told him that he would be glad to write a larger and fuller account of his Master’s life and teachings.

The facts, as far as available, were placed very soon by the Swami at the disposal of this venerable Professor, who set to work at once and embodied them in an instructive volume which was soon published under the title Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings;

The book, aided materially in giving the Swami and his mission a firmer hold on the English-speaking world.

The Swami in his previous visit had made acquaintances, which ripened into friendship, with such talented souls as Miss Henrietta Müller, Miss Margaret Nobel, Mr E.T. Sturdy and others:

Now they became his disciples and were ready to sacrifice everything for him and his cause. To this group were soon added two of his most faithful disciples, Mr and Mrs Sevier.

Indeed the Swami held Sister Nivedita, J.J. Goodwin, and Mr and Mrs Sevier as the finest fruits of his work in England.

Exhausted with the strenuous exertions of his London work, the Swami accepted the invitation of three of more intimate friends for a tour and a holiday on the Continent:

He spent most of the summer of 1896 in the midst of the snowy ranges of Switzerland:

It was there in a village at the foot of the Alps, between Mount Blanc and the Little St. Bernard that he first conceived the plan of founding in the silent retreat of the Himalayas a monastery where his Western and Eastern disciples might be united.

And the Seviers, who were with him, never let the idea lapse; it became their life- work.

While enjoying the stillness and freshness of the mountain retreat in Switzerland, there came a letter from Professor Paul Deussen, the celebrated Indologist of Germany, inviting him to visit him at Kiel.

To see him the Swami shortened his stay at Switzerland.

He, however, managed to visit Heidelberg, Coblenz, Cologne, and Berlin: for he wished to have a glimpse at least of Germany, and he was impressed by her material power and great learning.

His reception at Kiel was as cordial and their relations as animated as might have been expected from such an ardent Vedāntist as Paul Deussen.

After the continental tour the Swami again came to London, and Professor Paul Deussen joined him there:

The Swami spent another two months here seeing Max Müller again, meeting Edward Carpenter, Frederick Meyers, Canon Wilberforce, and other celebrities, and delivering another series of lectures on the Vedanta, on the Hindu theory of Māyā, and on the Advaita.

This heavy strain seriously affected his health, and his friends suggested complete rest.

But the voice of India was now calling him back:

He began to feel that his part of the work in the West had been done, and it was time for him to fling himself passionately into the treadmill of action in India for the service of his motherland.

For the management of his works in America in his absence, he soon sent Swami Saradananda to New York in response to the repeated requests of his disciples and students of Vedanta there; and he brought from India Swami Abhedananda, another of his brother-disciples, for the work in London.

The Swami did all in his power to impress the newcomer with the responsibilities of his new life. Day after day he trained him so that he would be able to carry on the work alone.

He was eager to leave behind a worker fitted both spiritually and intellectually to take his place, and the Swami was delighted to find in him a very able exponent of the Vedanta and a capable substitute for doing the Master’s work even after his departure.

Thus relieved, the mind of the Swami now pointed like the needle of a compass to India, the home of poor and sunken millions for whom he had crossed the Atlantic.