CHAPTER EIGHT

DETROIT: MARCH 1896

As has been related in the last volume, Swami Vivekananda

completed his second season of teaching in New York City in the
last week of February, 1896. It had been a season of great harvest,
to be matched only by that which was to come in London in the
fall of this same year. During the months of December, 1895, and
January and February, 1896, he had produced, largely through the
medium of his classes, the books Karma-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, and
Raja-Yoga, as well as The Science and Philosophy of Religion,
which consisted of his advanced New York classes on jnana
yoga. In addition, seven of the pubic lectures that he gave during
this period constitute today a good part of the book we know as
Jnana-Yoga and provide, when read in chronological order, his
step-by-step presentation of the Vedanta philosophy. Besides
these, he delivered during this period a number of other important
lectures, including "The Claims of Religion," "Bhakti or
Devotion," and "My Master."
Ever since Swamiji's return from England in the early part of
December of 1895, he had been planning to visit Detroit and to
hold classes in that "dynamic city" of the Midwest, if only for a
short period. His previous visit in Detroit had taken place in
February and March of 1894 and its nature, in keeping with the
first period of his Western mission, had been dramatic and
necessarily public. He had to a large extent concentrated, as he
had throughout his midwestern tour, on counteracting through his
many lectures the highly distorted and denigrating pictures that
Christian missionaries had given of the complex, highly
diversified, and exquisitely refined culture and religion of India.
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 Needless to say, Swamiji's lectures in Detroit had also con-
tained stirring teachings on the philosophy of Vedanta-whether or
not he called them by that name-for first and foremost he was a
teacher of spirituality; indeed, he was above all a prophet of the
highest magnitude, standing among those rare visitors to this
earth whose advent creates a spiritual tide in the currents of world
thought. Throughout his travels in the Midwest he bestowed his
blessings without effort or deliberation upon the thousands of
people with whom he came in contact. One might say, for lack of
a better English term, that he shone upon them. Perhaps if
Swamiji had done nothing else in the Western world, this silent
aspect of his mission would have been enough to turn the
direction of Western culture toward a spiritual goal. But in this
rationally oriented and highly practical age, it was also important
that he be philosophically explicit; thus came the period of
concentrated work in New York City, a period of teaching during
which his mission struck deep roots and which he wanted now to
extend to the Midwest.
Swamiji, with his faithful and efficient secretary-disciple,
Josiah J. Goodwin, arrived in Detroit on the night of Tuesday,
March 3,* a day later than expected but well in time to hold his
first class, which was scheduled For the following morning at
eleven o'clock. Two of Swamiji's Detroit disciples, Christina
Greenstidel (Sister Christine) and Mrs. Mary Funke, had engaged
a parlor and two bedrooms for him and Goodwin at the Richelieu
Hotel-"a kind of combination between an apartment house and an
hotel, in the best quarter of the City."1
This two weeks' visit, during which he intended to hold two
classes daily, morning and evening, was to be more or less
private. News of his classes, which were meant for serious
students, would inevitably and rapidly spread by word of mouth
among his friends. There was no need of publicity; nor did
Swamiji want any. Two years earlier his presence in Detroit had
provoked a religious storm, rocking the pulpits,
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alarming missionary societies, and delighting every newspaper
editor in town. The heated controversy-the wordy virulence of the
more orthodox clergymen, who saw Swamiji as a threat to their
credibility and power, the eloquence of more liberal thinkers,
both lay and clerical, who saw him as a champion of their cause-
made heady copy. And that controversy had been in dead earnest;
Swamiji's enemies would have destroyed him if they could; they
were not merely talking.* His friends, for their part, were fighting
not for Swamiji alone but for humanity itself.
It is today a matter of history that in 1894 Swamiji had
silenced the bigots of Detroit simply by his undeniable spiritual
eminence. It had been abundantly clear that the country whose
religion he represented and whose son he was, could hardly be a
totally benighted land of dark and idolatrous creeds. Swamiji had
won the day without effort. But his enemies, though publicly
silenced in America, did not give up. Was he, after all, a true
representative of Hinduism? One or two hostile Indian
newspapers, anxious to discredit him, declared that he was not.
Many American newspapers diligently quoted such reports, all of
which put Swamiji in an extremely awkward position, for at that
time he had had no official backing from his fellow countrymen.
It was not until months after his first visit in Detroit that word
reached America of his public recognition by the important Hindu
communities of India as an accredited representative of Hinduism
and as an honored sannyasin. In the fall of 1894 the news was
duly published in the newspapers of New York, Chicago, Boston,
and other large cities of the United States-except, it would seem,
those of Detroit. Indeed, as late as March of 1896 the Detroit
newspapers were not only in the dark regarding Swamiji's total
and unquestioned vindication, they were still living in the days of
his first visit to the city and spoiling for another fracas over the
Heathen Monk. If Swamiji now wished to avoid as far as possible
the newspaper "blazoning" that he so much disliked, his entrance
into the city should have been, so to speak, on tiptoe. It so
happened,
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however, that Swami Kripananda had arrived in Detroit three and
a half days in advance of his guru.
Only at the last minute had Kripananda decided to go to
Detroit. On February 27 Mr. Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull, who
had recently returned to Cambridge from a visit to New York:
You ask about Krapananda [sic], & I am afraid that you
will be surprised to hear he left on Wednesday evg for
Buffalo, with the intention of proceeding this (Thursday)
evg. to Detroit. He came back from seeing you off, & told
me that he was to stop in Buffalo, & would not be going on
to Detroit, but changed his mind within the next half an
hour. . . .
Krapananda is taking a room at Detroit in a different house
to that in which the Swami will be.2
In Buffalo Kripananda visited Mr. and Mrs. Tralles, both of
whom he had initiated into brahmacharya the previous year. He
spent two happy and peaceful days in the company of these
devoted disciples, and then, fatally, moved on to Detroit, where
he arrived in the early afternoon of Saturday, February 29.
It does not seem probable that Swamiji would have requested
Kripananda to announce his arrival in Detroit to the local
newspapers. Yet that is the first thing Kripananda did. As he
wrote to Mrs. Bull, he "called at the principal newspapers to have
the announcement of the Swami's arrival published in the Sunday
paper: ' Nor was this all. "It occurred to me," he continued, "to
call on Miss Hamilton [a half disciple of his, of whom more later]
as she might introduce me to some reporter of the Detroit Free
Press where I wished to have published the Swami's coming." 3
And thus Kripananda, barely off the train, set in motion a
newspaper hubbub, which though meaningless, was disagreeable
and for a time disruptive to the private and serious classes
Swamiji had wanted to hold.
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 On Sunday morning, March 1, the Detroit .News-Tribune
printed the following announcement:

KANANDA COMING

_______________

The Hindoo Philosopher Will Revisit Detroit

Swame Vive Kananda, who created a stir in Detroit's social

circles when he was here two years ago, will revisit Detroit this
week for the purpose of instructing classes in his religious
doctrines. He will arrive in the city sometime Tuesday.
There will be six of these classes. The first one will be called
together at 11 o'clock Wednesday morning, when everybody is
invited to be present and listen to the teachings of the Hindoo. In
accord with Swame's life there will be no charges whatever for
the lessons. The second class will meet Wednesday night at 8
o'clock. All the classes will meet at the Richelieu, 420 Second
avenue, where apartments have been engaged for Kananda. In
addition to the classes Kananda will probably lecture once or
twice in the unitarian church.
Actually, Swamiji intended to remain in Detroit for two weeks
and to hold far more than six classes. Kripananda was not well
informed in these matters. Yet he talked on-and not entirely about
Swamiji. On the same morning the Free Press, one of the leading
newspapers of the city, ran the Following:

VIVEK ANANDA COMING

_______

The Swami Will Once More Visit

This City.
He Will Give Free Classes In
The Hindoo Religions.
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 Swami Kripanande Arrived In
Detroit Yesterday
________

The Latter is the Translator of "The

Unknown Life of Christ."
Swami Vive Kananda, the Hindoo monk who excited much
interest here two years ago, will arrive in Detroit to-morrow. The
Swami's precursor, Swami Kripanande, disciple and brother
"Sanyasin," reached the city last evening. He is domiciled at the
Utopia. Vive Kananda will give public lectures and free classes in
Yoga and Vidante philosophy. The first lecture will probably be
given in the Unitarian church March 8. The free class lessons will
begin Wednesday, March 4, and will be held at 11 a.m. and 8
p.m. at the Richelieu, 420 Second Avenue.
Swami Kripanande is the translator of that work which
attracted so much attention, "The Unknown Life of Jesus." The
old documents were found at Lhasa, in India, in an old monastery
and purported to have been written about the time of the Savior.
Max Muller cast ridicule upon the work.
Last night Swami Kripanande said to a Free Press
representative: "You can publish that I have received word from
Vive Kananda in this important matter. He announces that a
brother `Sanyasin' has investigated the documents in the old
monastery and guarantees their genuineness."*
"And why should not India throw light on the Savior's life?"
added the visitor. "India is the country where nearly all religions
had birth; she is the mother of religions and has herself the oldest
and most enduring religion of all."
In this connection the eastern philosopher [i.e., Kripananda]
added: "All religions are true. The goal is the same, though the
methods may vary. The principal methods are: Karma Yoga,
Bhakte, Raga and Gnana.
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Karma Yoga is the religion of unselfish work; Bhakte indicates
devotion to God, or faith; Raga signifies control of mind and
Gnana, knowledge. Different temperaments assimilate different
methods, but the goal is the same. The heart method, the mind
method, the spiritual method - all tend to the same end. All are
good. The Karma Yoga is the oldest order and the one to which
Buddha belonged."
Swami Kripanande is a linguist of rare talents, having about
ten languages at his command.
On Sunday afternoon, Kripananda had yet another interview
with a representative from the Free Press, to whom Miss
Hamilton may have introduced him. During this "chat"
Kripananda delivered a creditable lecture on the harmony of
religions, which was duly printed the following morning (March
2) together with two drawings: one of Swami Vive Kananda and
the other of Swami Kripananda, the latter of which has been
reproduced in the previous volume. The headings and opening
paragraphs of the article read as follows;

ALL FAITHS ARE GOOD

_______

JUST AS IT WAS SAID ALL ROADS

LEAD TO ROME.
_______

METHODS MAY DIFFER, BUT THE

END IS THE SAME.
________

HINDOO RELIGION HAS ALWAYS

RECOGNIZED THIS.
________

Chat Yesterday Afternoon With Swami

Kripananda.

Swami Kripananda, who is in Detroit, is domiciled a the

Utopia. His brother in faith, Swami Vive Kananda will be here
today and will give a course of free lectures.
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 Swami Kripananda, in speaking of religious matters, said
yesterday to a representative of The Free Press:
"All roads lead to Rome; and so all religions lead to God. The
various religions are, as it were, so many universal dramas in
which one and the same actor God-appears in different roles-
Yehova, Allah, Krishna, Jesus, and so forth-but in all alike good,
grand, and perfect... "
[The remaining paragraphs were devoted to Kripananda's talk
on the harmony of religions.)
In the meanwhile, the Evening News had not been idle.
Sniffing a good wrangle in the wind, that journal, always hostile
to Swamiji, lost no time in calling on the Right Reverend J. M.
Thoburn, a Christian missionary whose contempt For all things
Indian could be counted on. This particular reverend had not
engaged directly in the frenzied attack against Swamiji in 1894
(he had not been in Detroit)* but had taken a prominent part in a
controversy that had raged in several widely read periodicals
during the last part of 1894 and the first part of 1895 on the
subject of Hinduism and Christian Missions. Mr. Thoburn did not
disappoint the Evening News. Blazoned on the front page of the
Monday evening (March 2) edition were the headlines:

SWAMI'S NAME
__________

REV. THOBURN SAYS VIVE KANANANDA

BORROWED ONE.
__________

THE HINDOO PRIEST WAS AN OBSCURE

LAWYER IN CALCUTTA.
_________

SO THE PASTOR OF THE CENTRAL

M. E. CHURCH DECLARES.
______
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 WHAT AN INDIAN PAPER HAS TO SAY
OF THE MISSIONARY.

Illustrating the article that followed was a drawing two

columns wide of Sri Ramakrishna, taken from the photograph that
shows him seated in meditation posture. The caption read: "Head
of the Sanyasen Order to which Swami Vivekananda Claims to
Belong." The intent of publishing this likeness of Sri
Ramakrishna, which in the 1890s would have appeared too
scantily clad, was clearly malicious. Its use as a weapon against
Swamiji came as a surprise to Kripananda, and, to his credit, he
was not slow to object. "Kripananda was greatly disturbed," the
Evening News blandly reported the following day, "because the
picture of the holy man Ramakrishna had been printed in
connection with the attack."
Yet, one wonders how the photograph from which the drawing
was made fell into the hands of the News in the first place. While
it is conceivable that Swamiji's enemies in Detroit had somehow
obtained it, it is more likely that Kripananda had imprudently lent
the News his own copy. He was, in any case, suspect.
I have received this morning a copy of a Detroit paper
[Miss Waldo wrote to Mrs. Bull from New York on March 6
containing a savage attack on the Swami, and in the midst of
it, a picture of Sri Ramakrishna "the head of the order of
Sanyasens to which Swami Vivekananda belongs." I cannot
help deploring the publication of this picture. It is the very
last thing that Sri Ramakrishna himself would have wished.
I do not know who was so ill advised as to give it to the
papers, but I think all friends of the movement will greatly
regret such very undesirable newspaper notoriety for such a
man. Perhaps you will also receive a copy of the paper &
can judge for yourself. These cheap and claptrap methods of
advertising the Swami, as if he were some variety performer,
seem to me
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 to be entirely mistaken, but perhaps I am wrong. They
certainly are undignified, and unworthy of the great
teachings he comes to present.4
Miss Waldo, needless to say, had her own idea of who had
given the photograph to the papers. So also had Mr. Goodwin. "I
sincerely hope," the latter would write to Mrs. Bull on March 9,
"the newspaper cuttings will not get into the papers in Boston,
especially one in which a portrait o£ Ramakrishna was given in
conjunction with an interview with Kripananda, in which not a
word referred to the Swami himself."5 This comment was not
altogether fair of Mr. Goodwin. While it was true that Kripananda
had talked a great deal about himself during the three and a half
days he was alone in Detroit, he had also mentioned his "brother
sanyasin" several times. This particular article of March 2,
moreover, certainly referred to Swamiji. Its first part was, as Miss
Waldo noted, a savage attack on him; the second part was, to be
sure, an interview with Kripananda. Its text read in Full:
Rev. J. M. Thoburn, pastor of the Central M[ethodist]
E[piscopal] church, was from 1885 to 1888 pastor of the
largest christian church in Calcutta, Ind., the home of Swami
Vivekananda, the Hindoo missionary who comes to Detroit
tonight to conduct a series of meetings and classes for the
spread of the faith which he represents. He was asked this
morning if he had known Vivekananda in India.
"No," he replied, "and neither did any one else. I was
well acquainted with natives of all descriptions, both
Hindoos and Mohammedans, but I never heard of this man
there. From what I can learn, however, he seems to have
been an obscure lawyer there at that time or not long before.:
Mr. Thoburn then showed The News a copy of the Indian
Witness of Calcutta, the largest religious [Christian
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 missionary] paper published in India, which has a circulation
throughout that country as well as Burmah and Ceylon. The
issue of Saturday, Feb. 9, 1895, says, editorially:
"[We] note with some surprise that first-class English
journals take the trouble to give a careful analysis of what
they call `the new Hinduism,' as taught by Vivekananda. If
the English editors correctly understood the character of the
man and his teachings they would not give him the
compliment of a three-line paragraph. . . . Neither his own
life nor his statements of Hindu religious thought give him
the slightest claim on the attention of serious-minded men,
of any race or any religion."

Did He Borrow His Name.

"In another issue of the same paper," said Mr. Thoburn, "it
was stated that the name Vivekananda was not the one by which
this man was known while practicing as a lawyer in Calcutta. In
fact, it was alleged that he had borrowed the name and the
monkish title `Swami' from a Madrassi monk, and came over here
to the congress of religions as the self appointed representative of
a Hindooism existing in his own mind only.
"Mr. K. C. Banarji, one of the leading Bengali barristers at the
high court of Calcutta, in an address delivered in Calcutta in June,
1894, on the effect of the congress of religions in India, referred
to Vivekananda as `the self styled Swami.'
"This title belongs to an order with which he has no more
connection, either by blood or otherwise, than you have. To my
personal knowledge, at the time he was being so lionized in this
country and figuratively borne on the shoulders of certain
impressionable people here, the Calcutta papers were making all
manner of sport of the gullibility of Yankees who were taken in by
the glib fellow. He appears to have a peculiar fascination for a
certain
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class of women in this country, particularly women of wealth and
leisure, who are in a very uncertain state as to their religious
views."

Converted Kripananda.

Swami Kripananda, the advance agent of Swami Vivek-

ananda, has been in the city two days, stopping at the Utopia. He
talked enthusiastically of his brother, and of the work he has been
doing in New York, and hopes to do here.
"I have always been a seeker for truth," said he. "I studied
many religions and found some truth in all, but all too much
encrusted with superstition, until I became a materialist, and
remained so until I met the swami in New York just after he came
here, and was helped to find the truth. I have lived with him three
years since, and learned to know that religious experiences are as
capable of demonstration as any other fact in science, that they
can be proved, that we may see God. I am an American citizen,
and was educated in Germany and France. I have lived in this
country for years. I used to have a paper in the south myself, and
was later connected with one of the largest dailies in New York.
"The swami will remain here about two weeks, holding classes
at 420 Second avenue [the Richelieu Hotel], at 11 a.m. and 8
p.m., every day, beginning Wednesday. They will be free.
Religious teaching cannot be sold for dollars and cents. He has
had great success in New York for the last three months, holding
daily classes with large attendance, and bringing many to the
truth. He will go to Boston from here and Harvard, then after a
week in Chicago he goes to England, where Lady Dudley and
others have long been interested.

Will Go Into A Cave.

"He will spend the summer there and then return to

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India, where he will retire to a cave for maybe two or three years
for contemplation and introspection, as pious monks do. I was
initiated by him to the order of Sanyasens, or announcers of the
truth, and will remain here after he goes, to continue his work.
"Haw will I live? I will get some work to earn enough to keep
body and soul together. We take three vows before we are
initiated-poverty, chastity and homelessness. `Not I, but you,' is
the watchword of a sanyasen. We work for the love of the good.
Religion should not be made a profession."
Swami Vivekananda has written a book and some pamphlets
on the faith which Kripananda admitted would be sold, and the
receipts used for the benefit of the poor among the Swami's
disciples.
The following day (March 3) the Detroit Tribune, which
seems to have been little more than an echo of the Evening ,News,
printed a summary of Thoburn's attack under the headlines:

ROASTS KANANDA.
Rev. J. M. Thoburn Never Heard of
the Hindoo in Calcutta

The Free Press, which should have known better, followed

suit:
BABOO N. N. DUTTA, B.A.
IS THIS VIVE KANANDA'S TRUE AND
ONLY NAME?

Rev. J. M. Thoburn Will Deliver a Sermon

About Him.
. . . "I regard the Swami as a very dangerous man," said the
pastor. "He is more dangerous than Bob Ingersoll, because he is
more subtle. He received his education from
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the Christians and came near being a Christian at one time. Mr.
K. C. Banarji, one of the leading barristers in Calcutta, referred to
him as the `self style Swami.' "
"I intend to preach a sermon on the matter. next Sunday," said
the pastor. "I think it my duty to open the eyes of the public
regarding the character of this man."
The Reverend Thoburn's ill-informed attempts to discredit
Swamiji were scarcely worth a direct rejoinder. Even in the early
days, Swamiji's consistent reply to those whose purpose was to
destroy his reputation and his work had been silence; he had,
moreover, asked his followers in India to refrain from giving
battle. "Tell my Friends that a uniform silence is all my answer to
my detractors . . .," he had written to Alasinga in September of
1894. "Tell them that the truth will take care of itself, and that
they are not to fight anybody for me."6 (Thoburn's virulence, it
may be noted here, was too much for Alasinga. Reading Detroit
newspaper clippings, he wrote a long and forceful letter in
Swamiji's defense to the editor of the Detroit Evening News. It
was printed by the ,News-Tribune of Sunday, June 7, 1896, and is
given in full in Appendix A.) Kripananda was, of course, well
aware of Swamiji's policy of silence in the face of even the most
outrageous slander; yet one cannot blame him too much for
wanting to somehow get matters under control before his guru
arrived in Detroit. "The Swami, as you will see from [the] last
clipping sent to you, has now more advertisement than he cared
for," he wrote to Mrs. Bull on March 3. "I, too, unvoluntarily am
drawn into the controversy; but of course, though I would be
indifferent to attacks on myself, I can not suffer untruths to be
spread concerning the Swami without refuting them. The Rev.
Thoburn . . . announces a sermon for next Sunday about the
Swami."7
Kripananda's refutation appeared in the Evening News of
March 3:
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 CHANGES NAMES
________

SANYASENS ALWAYS TAKE

MONKISH TITLES.
_________

KRIPANANDA EXPLAINS AWAY REV.

THOBURN'S CHARGES.
_________

GRECE SAYS VIVEKANANDA IS

WELL KNOWN IN INDIA
_________

Detroit Lawyer Found the Prophet

Honored at Home.

Swami Vivekananda missed his train yesterday, but is

expected today. Swami Kripananda, his advance agent, seemed
little disturbed by the attack made upon his master by Rev. J. M.
Thoburn in yesterday's News.
"It is true," said he, "that the name by which we know the
Swami is not that by which he was known when studying law in
Calcutta. His real name is Baboo Norendra Nath Dutta. So, my
real name is not Kripananda. When one becomes a Hindoo monk
he takes a monkish name, the same as do those who join some of
the orders in other churches. Swami is the title the same as
`reverend' or `brother' or `father.'
These attacks we expect. The militant spirit seems to be strong
in the missionary world. It is not christian. I call a christian one
who lives the life of Christ. There is very little religion among
some of these people. They stir up strife. I suppose they fear the
Swami may interfere with their collections for Indian missions.
The Swami never answers slanderous attacks. They only react
upon those who assail him. He lives his life for the good of
others. He knows God, and these petty things cannot disturb him.
"As to the Swami not being known in India, Mr. Kripananda said:
"Why, the rajahs worship him as a holy man.
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15
Those who have touched his garments dare not tell a lie, and a
maharajah is proud to wash his feet."
Kripananda was greatly disturbed because the picture of the
holy man Ramakrishna had been printed in connection with the
attack. He considered it blasphemy.
Edward S. Grece, of Detroit, recently returned from India,
says:
"I have noticed in The News the statement of Rev. M.
Thoburn, regarding Vivekananda. It was my pleasure to meet
many in India who know him and words of commendation and
praise were always given in his behalf. On his return to India after
his tour through America, and his grand reception at the world's
congress of religions, he was received everywhere, except by the
christian missionaries, with open arms. (Mr. Grece erred: Swamiji
had not returned to India.]
"At Madras he delivered an address which was printed in
pamphlet form and circulated everywhere. I have a copy of this
address. The people of India are not much given to recognizing
frauds, and knowing Vivekananda as well as he is known in
India, it is not likely he would be received and loved as he is
there, even among the orthodox Hindoos, if he were other than
what he has heretofore been known to Americans and Europeans.
"Is there not room in our midst for the teachings of these
eastern sages? If they have the truth can we not tolerate it? And if
what they say is false, surely the people may judge. Nothing is
gained against such men by calumny.
"Let me add that while at Adyar, near Madras, I was called
upon to address an audience of intelligent Hindoos on
Vivekananda in America."
("Mr. Grece is a lawyer highly respected in this city,"
Kripananda explained to Mrs. Bull, to whom he sent a clipping of
the above article. "He and his wife had returned a short
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time ago from a trip to India. He had called on me and told me of
all the good things he had heard about the Swami when in India,
and when the slanderous attack appeared he readily consented to
my request to refute the false statements made therein.") 8
But the same day (March 3) on which it published Kripa-
nanda's brave but ineffectual attempt to set things straight, the
Evening News also published an editorial which for sheer
vulgarity outdid the Reverend Mr. Thoburn himself. It read:

A CLEVER HINDOO BOOK AGENT.

Whether or not the Swami Vivekananda that we know

here in Detroit is the only genuine blown-in-the-bottle
Swami Vivekananda of unpronounceable Hindoo birth and
surroundings, is not of the slightest consequence. The
Hindoo-Brahmin-Buddhistic fad of an effete and rotten
orientalism has run its course in the west, and it has been
found that there is nothing in it. The statement can be proved
by the infallible test of personal experiment. Before the
world's congress of religions at Chicago, a, great deal of
attention had already been given by western scholars to the
"ethnic religions" of the east, and already the new learning
had begun to filter down among the commoner sort of
students so that everybody had a smaller or larger smattering
of the system of Confucius, Zoroaster, Gautama and the rest
of 'em. Half the people of the country who affect a degree of
intellectuality in these matters had come to think half way
that the old religions of the east contained a good deal of
truth and beauty that christianity knows nothing about.
After all these eastern isms had had their say, there was a
regular mania throughout the occident for the religions that
had done little for the masses of their votaries but to make
dirty, lazy beggars of them. Detroit was specially favored by
the presence through a formal course of
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 lectures of one of the high priests of one of these old
systems. He told not a single truth that does not form a stone
in the foundation of our own western faith, but whenever
Kananda said a pretty and truthful thing which may be heard
in christian pulpits every day, he was applauded to the echo
by people who know so little about the religion of their own
fathers that they actually thought this brown-faced Hindoo
was making a new revelation to them-such honor have the
prophets away from their own countries!
Now here is the test and the challenge. The News
challenges anybody in the state of Michigan to name a
single new truth or thought or religious idea which Kananda
gave him, and which is not a part of the already existing
common stock of our own christian knowledge, and which
the person challenged has taken into his life for his mental
and moral enlargement. In other and briefer words, we
challenge a man or woman to point to a single spiritual
benefit he or she has derived from this Hindoo which was
not accessible in the treasuries of christian learning.
Kananda had come to be forgotten and his work had utterly
perished with him. And now he is back again! His very
presence as a representative of an effete system with his
personality we have nothing to do-is no compliment to the
intelligence or the religious stability of Detroit. Kananda has
not a thing of value to offer to people trained in christian
modes of thought. But the clever Hindoo has, according to
his advance agent, some books and pamphlets for sale and
therein probably lies the true reason for his return to Detroit.
The modern book agent is a wonder.
On the same page in a column of brief and caustic comments
one could read: "If Swami Vivekananda really wants converts
here he won't be too sudden about introducing the Ramakrishna
style of apparel." It was also noted that Professor Max
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18
Muller could "converse in 18 different languages," which threw
Kripananda's ten into deep shade.

This was the frenzy into which the newspapers had worked
themselves when Swamiji arrived in Detroit on the night of
Tuesday, March 3. It is not likely that anyone met him at the
depot (for he had not sent word of his delayed arrival); nor is it
likely that he read the local papers at that late hour. It may not,
then, have been until the following morning that he learned of the
commotion in the press and not until he came down to the parlor
at the Richelieu Hotel to greet, as he supposed, his assembled
friends, that he received his first shock. It was a stunning one. In
the large crowd that awaited him there was only one familiar face.
The rest were strangers, curious, sensation-seeking. Mr. Goodwin
indignantly wrote of the situation to Mrs. Bull. His letter, dated
March 5, read:
The Swami reached here at about half an hour before midnight
on Tuesday & yesterday gave two lectures morning & evening,
both of them The Ideal of a universal Religion. There has been
considerable confusion here I am sorry to say. When we arrived
we found that a newspaper war had been in course of progress.
Charges had been made against the Swami & they had been,
injudiciously, refuted. The consequence was that his arrival had
been made thoroughly public property, &, the classes which he
had intended as entirely private to friends, degenerated into public
classes. At the first, indeed, only one of his friends was present, &
the room was filled with strangers. It has been decided, to
overcome the difficulty, to give three public classes, & to confine
the remainder to his friends. The unfortunate part of the matter
was that the Swami himself was very much upset at the
miscarriage of intentions, but the rearrangement has put him more
#

19
at ease. I hope that there will be no more difficulty & can assure
you that anything I can do to help the ladies here to that end will
be done?.9
The crowds at Swamiji's second class, held on Wednesday
evening, were as dense as they had been in the morning, if not
more so. The scene was described by a Tribune reporter, whose
write-up appeared the following day (March 5):

VIVEKANANDA'S PHILOSOPHY
________

He Would Have Many Kinds of

Religion.

Vivekananda, the Hindoo missionary, lectured at the

Hotel Richelieu last night. The parlors of the private hotel
were filled to overflowing with a crowd of ladies. When
Vivekananda arrived at the hotel it was with difficulty he
worked his way in. He went upstairs and very shortly came
down again robed in a purple gown, caught about the waist
with a purple cord.
Vivekananda in his talk said that there were various
religions and each believer thought his religion the only true
religion. It was a mistake, he said, to suppose that all should
have the same religion.
"If all were of the same religious opinion," said he, "there
would be no religion. No sooner does a religion start than it
breaks into pieces. The process is for the religion to go on
dividing until each man has his own religion, until each man
has thought out his own thoughts and carved out for himself
his own religion."
Vivekananda will remain in Detroit about two weeks and
will give classes every morning at 11 o'clock and every
evening at 8 o'clock at the hotel. The announcement was
made that his next public lecture would be Monday.
While Swamiji had been upset by the large number of
#

20
strangers who flocked to his classes, crowding out his disciples
and friends, the absurd newspaper attack on his integrity was in
itself harmless and did not disturb him. When asked why he did
not defend himself against the Thoburns,* who threatened to
"hound him out of Detroit," he replied, recalling Sri
Ramakrishna's counsel, "The dog barks at the elephant, is the
elephant affected? What does the elephent care?" 10 But the
flagrant misuse of his Master's sacred photograph was another
matter. When Swamiji saw it printed with malign intent on the
front page of the Evening News he cried out, "Oh! This is
blasphemy!"11
Swamiji was not pleased with his disciple. "When he arrived
here," Kripananda wrote in retrospect to Mrs. Bull, "not a
question he asked if I had a place where to lay my head upon how
I lived, whether I had any means to live-and he knew very well
that I had not means. But instead reproaches." 12
Actually, Swamiji knew very well that his disciple had means
for at least a week; he himself had given him more than enough
money for this Detroit sojourn; Kripananda was not destitute just
then. Yet he suffered, understandably enough, from corroding
jealousy, and Swamiji's apparent indifference was magnified by
his mind into rejection. Josiah Goodwin, young and competently
filling the place Kripananda had earlier deserted, did nothing to
help matters. "In Detroit I was a perfect stranger to [Swamiji),"
the latter continued in the same letter, "and when I dared to call
on him, I had to leave after five minutes stay carrying with me
away the bitter feeling of humiliation. By his new favorite I was
insulted and put to public shame in the most outrageous
manner."13 (By "public" Kripananda generally meant that there
was a third person present.)
Mr. Goodwin gave his own version of what must have been
this same scene in a letter of March 9 to Mrs. Bull. "I am
avoiding all unpleasantness with Kripananda," he wrote, "altho I
did once lose my temper & accuse him of self advertisement "14
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21
 If Kripananda's self advertisement, if such it was, had been his
only indiscretion during the three and a half days he had been on
his own in Detroit, peace might soon have been restored. He was
not to blame, after all, for the malice of Swamiji's enemies. But as
will be seen later, his bitterness of mind had led him to further
and more serious mistakes, which seemed almost deliberately self
destructive.
How the attempted rearrangement of Swamiji's classes worked
out is not known. But as the days went by a natural selection very
likely took place: Swamiji's old friends must have soon learned to
arrive early, and those strangers not seriously interested must
have soon dropped away. Meanwhile, many of those who had
been strangers became friends, and the classes remained crowded.
Indeed, it was not altogether unfortunate that so many newcomers
had been pushed by curiosity into the Hotel Richelieu; for they
returned again and again, caught up in the radiance of the
"Hindoo priest." How many must have exclaimed, as had
Christina Greenstidel and Mary Funke two years before, "If we
had missed this !"15
On March 11, a week after Swamiji's arrival in the city,
Kripananda wrote to Mrs. Bull, "The classes the Swami had so far
were filled to overcrowding. The parlour, the hall, the staircase
could not hold the great crowd of people who-in Spite of the
attack made against the Swami in the newspapers, had come to
listen to his teachings.'16 From another source one also learns of
the crowds that attended Swamiji's classes as well as something
of Swamiji himself. Recalling those days, Mrs. Funke wrote in
her sketch "The Master," "They [Swamiji and Goodwin] occupied
a suite of rooms at The Richelieu, a small family hotel, and had
the use of the large drawing room for class work and lectures.
The room was not large enough to accommodate the crowds and
to our great regret many were turned away. The room, as also the
hall, staircase and library were literally packed. At that time he
was all Bhakti-the love for God was a hunger and a thirst. A kind
of divine madness seemed to take possession of him, as if his
heart would
#

22
burst with longing for the Beloved Mother." 17
Detroit's mixed reaction to Swamiji provides a clear picture of
his position vis-a-vis the American religious scene at the end of
the nineteenth century. Although the city's population was under
three hundred thousand, its church life represented in
concentrated form the religious thought prevalent throughout the
Midwest-a section of the country in which religion was taken
with intense seriousness. On the one hand, Detroit seems to have
contained more than its share of "old-time" ministers and
missionaries who were afflicted with minds as tight and hard as
clenched fists, minds gnarled with suspicion of and hatred for
anything beyond their own small purview. On the other hand, it
was not an unsophisticated or culturally backward city.
Detroit's wealthy citizens looked toward the East Coast for
intellectual stimulus, and among the young a liberal outlook was
growing fashionable; the "old-time religion" was rapidly losing
ground to the universe of science with its expanding horizons and
astounding revelations. Even before Swamiji's first hurricane like
descent upon the city in 1894, Detroit was a battleground of the
old and the new, and many a bystander was caught betwixt and
between. Educated truth-seekers could no longer listen to old-
fashioned preachers without acute uneasiness of mind, but neither
could they listen to more modern, secularly oriented ministers
without uneasiness of soul. Caught between a creed they could no
longer believe and one that substituted a doctrine of social service
for a living faith, they experienced a profound restlessness. They
wandered, as had Christina Greenstidel and Mary Funke, from
one lecture or sermon to another, seeking they knew not what. In
the 1890s every American city contained such religious nomads;
but Detroit seems to have been abundantly supplied. In no other
large city had people flocked with the almost frantic eagerness of
the half starved to hear Swamiji, and, significantly, in no other
American city had he been so violently opposed. But now, two
years after he had decisively won his battle, only
#

23
the ill-informed and ill-advised Mr. Thoburn, egged on by the
newspapers, was foolish enough to stand against him. The
Reverend Mr. Thoburn was, one might say, the last of the
Missoos. *
While Swamiji held his classes at the Richelieu, the news-
papers raved on. "HOW ABOUT KANANDA?" the journal
asked on March 5, and assuming the role of public guardian,
followed this query with an editorial, which read in part:
In view of the serious charges reflecting upon his stand-
ing and character in his representative capacity, it would
seem to devolve upon the Hindoo monk, "Swami Vivek-
ananda," to vindicate himself if he can and prove beyond the
possibility of a doubt that he is what he represents himself to
be. The charges preferred brand him as an impostor and the
testimony offered by those who make the charges is of a
character which cannot well be ignored. If he is an impostor,
it is due to those who are being imposed upon to know it. If
he is not, it is due both to him and the public that the proof
of his sincerity be at once established. . . .
The world is too largely populated with innocent fools
and clever rascals to make it a barren field for impostors to
work in but it is nevertheless our duty to save as much
pasture as possible for the true and worthy.
The following day the Detroit Tribune pursued another line of
attack by plastering across its front page a three-column-wide
caricature (a poor one) of Swamiji standing on a dais and reading
from a book. Surrounding him in various attitudes of rapt
adoration were a cluster of fashionable women in informal
evening dress. Two potted palms, which may have been part of
the decor of the Richelieu parlor, completed the picture. Across
the top were the words: "VIVEKANANDA’S FERTILE
MISSIONARY FIELD." At the bottom, a caption read: "Where
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24
The Apostle of Hindoo Mysticism Seeks Converts in the City of
the Straits." This was an old trick, used as early as 1893, when
Swamiji's detractors had sought to belittle his success by pointing
out that his audience consisted primarily of women. In what sense
this was a discredit to him, neither the women of America nor
Swamiji himself ever understood.
And then on March 8 the Reverend Mr. Thoburn gave the
Sunday sermon he had promised. It was not, as he had promised,
on the character of Swamiji, but was replete nevertheless with "a
half hour prelude with the stereoptican, wherein pictures [were]
shown which [he] brought from India, contrasting Brahminism
and Buddhism with Christianity, particularly in the temples and
people these different systems have produced."18
On Monday, March 9, three of Detroit's leading newspapers
reported on the sermon with similar articles. It will be enough to
quote briefly here from that of the Tribune:

KANANDA'S CREED
IT WAS ROASTED HARD BY REV. J. M.
THOBURN.
HIS RELIGION IS DEGRADING
It Makes Slaves of Women, and American Women
Should be Slow to Favor It.

Rev. J. M. Thoburn spoke of "Comparative religions" at

the Central M.E. church last evening, denouncing the
religions of India, and particularly those taught by Vivek-
ananda, although the latter's name was not mentioned.
Rev. Mr. Thoburn lived in India for four years, and he
stated that he felt capable of talking intelligently on the
subject. . . .
"The fact is [Thoburn said], Hinduism has gone into
partnership with sin. No vice is ever rebuked at her altars.
`The brides of Krishna' are 10,000 fallen women. Oh! if our
American women only knew what slaves the religions of
India made of their sisters there, they would be very
#

25
 slow to crowd the audience of a mystic pundit who dares to
champion such degrading superstitions.
". . . How men and women of culture and intelligence can
rave over the mental and rhetorical gymnastics of an
aristocratic yogee from the plains of Hindustan is a freak
which cannot be accounted for on any other basis than
cataleptic hysteria.
"The renaissance of Sanscrit literature, Edwin Arnold's
poetry and the religious menagerie held at Chicago during
the world's fair are responsible for the oriental religious fad
which has swept over England and America. I have lived in
India for four years. I have witnessed its blight on character
and truth. I have seen the kind of people it produces, and
have viewed with horror its deified vice. A pigsty looks
artistic under the magic of moonshine, when you are at a
safe distance from its odors. Hinduism enamors only those
who have never gotten up close to it."
And so on. Even the newspapers were embarrassed by the
Reverend Mr. Thoburn's "Comparative Religions." Having stirred
him into giving a sermon against Swamiji, they now reproved
him in one or two editorials for his failure to exert an uplifting
Christian influence on the people of Detroit. In addition, the
Evening News, the first paper to have interviewed Thoburn, now
promptly interviewed Rabbi Grossmann, certain of an
entertaining commentary on the missionary's empty and abrasive
rhetoric. The article in which the rabbi was quoted appeared on
March 9 and read in part:

ROASTS THOBURN

Rabbi Grossmann expressed some pointed views this

morning about Rev. Dr. Thoburn's roast of Buddhism last
evening at the Central M.E. church.
"I cannot suppose," said Rabbi Grossmann, "that since
Dr. Thoburn was during his four years' stay in India
#

26
 in the devout communion of the christian missionaries and
was religiously preoccupied with the salvation of souls, he
had much leisure to go to the literary and metaphysical
sources of the counterfeit religions he saw there, but he
quotes from the Hindu Tract society, and that sort of
literature seems very satisfactory to him. But there was one
thing in which Rev. Dr. Thoburn has profited very much,
and he must have edified his congregation very much
indeed, and they must have regarded him as very powerful. I
confess I relished his eloquence; it is so churchy, you know.
Listen to his list of arguments: `Perversion, distortion,
mythological shadows, demon-worshiper, revolting mystic,
degrading godless, nauseating compound, paganism that was
dumped, emasculated, mental and rhetorical gymnastics,
aristocratic yogee, cataleptic hysteria,' and-this was probably
the climax of his christian zeal-`pigsty looking artistic under
the magic of moonshine.' Dr. Thoburn is ingenious, but his
ingenuity is medievalism revamped, and that none of us
want in the city of Detroit today, even if a Hindu is in town.
...
". . . As to the merits of that which Swami Vivekananda
has said, the auditors of Dr. Thoburn can best assure
themselves in the way in which we Americans usually do
assure ourselves-by going to hear the man. If Kananda is
really an exhibit of the vices which Dr. Thoburn has taken
pains to describe in a succession of names, it would seem
that the presence of the man in this country should be
regarded by the church as felicitous and a substantial help. If
this christian minister is sure of the superiority of his faith,
he can well afford to leave the alternative of the choice to
sensible people. If he is not sure of it, he will hardly improve
his chances by resorting to abuse. I do not mean to be
understood, however, as defending Vivekananda."

If the Evening News had quoted Rabbi Grossmann correctly,

#

27
it is strange that he did not mean to be understood as defending
Swamiji. The rabbi, whom Kripananda described as "a learned
young man,"19 had spoken in support of Swamiji in February of
1894, when it was a daring thing to do. He had delivered a
Sunday lecture entitled "What Vivekananda Has Taught Us,"
during the course of which he had said, among other things in
praise of Swamiji, "Kananda has told us something of the heathen
with a clearness, with a precision, with a candor, which puts to
shame the confused and vehement pretension which so long has
usurped an unrighteous prestige in church and religion. . . . Let us
learn from the Hindu the lesson that God lives and reigns, now
and ever, that God is in every flower of the field; in every breath
of the air; in every throb of our blood."20
If a seed of doubt regarding Swamiji's status had been sown in
the rabbi's mind by the press, he had the decency to go now to
Swamiji himself to have the matter cleared up. Sometime during
the second week in March the two men met, and as a result, the
rabbi offered his temple-the Temple Beth-El-for Swamiji's use on
Sunday evening, March 15. The lecture Swamiji was to give that
evening would be one of the most largely attended and
enthusiastically received that he had given in the United States.
It is significant that the efforts of the newspapers in 1896 to
stir up another controversy over Swamiji fell as flat as had
Thoburn's sermon. Few people bothered to express their views on
the subject. Even the articulate O. P. Deldoc, who in 1894 had
written long and vigorous letters to the Free Press, castigating the
bigotry of the age with many a zestful metaphor, was now silent.
Swamiji's battle had been won, and the people of Detroit were
fully aware of it. They welcomed him with open arms, and it is
unlikely that any of those hundreds who had heard him speak in
1894 and who heard him now gave the slightest importance to
Thoburn's outmoded and tiresome charges. Those who feared the
Hindoo monk no longer dared publicly oppose him; those who
loved and honored him knew
#

28
that he no longer needed defense. Indeed Swamiji had well
known whereof he spoke when, a few months after his first visit
to Detroit, he had written to India, "The torch has been applied
and the conflagration that has set in through the grace of the Guru
will not be put out. In course of time the bigots will have their
breath knocked out of them."21

Swamiji had many friends in Detroit. To those he had made in

1894, among whom were Mrs. John J. Bagley, the Honorable
Thomas W. Palmer, and Mr. Charles Freer, he had since added
many others, including a Mrs. Speers, who lived at the Richelieu,
a Mrs. Phelps (whom he may have met earlier and who had tried
in September of 1895 to help Kripananda), Christina Greenstidel,
who lived with her mother and four younger sisters at 418 Alfred
Street, the heart of the city's German district, and Mrs. Mary
Funke, who lived nearby with her husband, Charles, a well-to-do
wholesale and retail grocer. Then there was Stella Campbell, one
of Swamiji's students at Thousand Island Park, who had now
secluded herself on a small island in one of the many lakes
around Detroit. Although Stella was determinedly reclusive, it is
hard to think that she did not come into the city at least once to
see her guru. But the closest of his earlier friends-she in whose
home he had been an honored guest for many weeks. and who
had bravely and devotedly championed him when he had been
maligned-was not in the city. Mrs. Bagley was in Colorado
tending a daughter, who was recovering from tuberculosis. She
was never again to see Swamiji; before his next visit to America
she would die, still in Colorado, from an attack of appendicitis.
Holding classes morning and evening and giving interviews in
the afternoon, as was generally his custom, Swamiji had less time
than he had had in 1894 to accept formal invitations. Yet no
doubt he often dined informally at the homes of his close friends,
and no one could be as delightfully informal as Swamiji.
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29
The teacher who held crowds of people spellbound by the very
transcendence of his personality and whose majesty of bearing
could inspire awe, could also play with the lightheartedness of a
child. The simplest occasion became in his presence a joyous
festival, where all formality and shyness disappeared. The life
tells us of an unplanned dinner at the home of one of his Detroit
friends:

On a certain occasion he went to the house of one of his

admirers and, with that unique sense of freedom and
frankness which was his, asked to be allowed to cook an
Indian meal himself. The request was immediately granted,
and then to the amusement of everyone present, he gathered
from his pockets some score or more of tiny packets filled
with finely ground condiments and spices. These had been
sent all the way From India, and wherever he went these
packets went with him, At one time, one of his choicest and
most prized possessions was a bottle of chutney some
gentleman had thoughtfully sent him from Madras. His
Western disciples delighted to have him cook his own dishes
in their kitchens. They helped him also in this, and thus time
would pass by in merriment and making new experiments.
He would make the dishes so hot with spices that they were
not palatable to a Western taste, and many times the
preparations took so long that when the food was ready to be
served the party was literally ravenous, Then there would be
much talk and laughter, and he would take the keenest
delight in seeing how the Western tongue stood the hot-
spiced dishes of distant Hindusthan. They were, no doubt,
soothing to his high-strung temperament and tired nerves,
but certainly not "good for his liver" as he insisted they
were.22

There is no way of knowing how many disciples Swamiji

made in Detroit, but that many people became his followers is
certain, and to be a direct follower of his was no small matter.
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30
No one who came close to him could have ignored, or ever
forgotten, the fact that such a man actually existed. Henceforth, if
only unconsciously, all other experience would be judged by the
touchstone of his being, and the direction of one's life would tend
toward that which he had so vividly and unmistakably
personified. The experience of coming face to face with Swamiji
would have been in itself a kind of initiation, a plunge into the
current of spiritual life. Nor can one doubt that he bestowed his
liberating blessing upon all whom he met, silently, permanently
removing deep-seated obstructions that had long blocked their
paths; one cannot doubt that he thus turned hundreds of lives
toward freedom, for to do so was in his power.
It is probable, however, that in Detroit several men and
women, if not many, became his formal disciples and that some
took their first monastic vows. In Kripananda's letter of March 22
to the Brahmavadin one reads, "In Detroit, too, several persons
joined the children of Sri Ramakrishna."23 It is interesting to note
that at least one and a half of those who received. the vows of
brahmacharya from Swamiji had been Kripananda's own
disciples. "Two Brahmacharyas were made," he wrote to Mrs.
Bull on March 11. "Miss Hamilton half the Swami's disciple and
half my own pupil took the vow of Bramacharina and so did Mr.
Edwards, my disciple."24
One wonders how Swamiji felt about having only half a
disciple in Miss Martha Hamilton. Perhaps, if he knew of it, he let
it pass so as not to give more pain to Kripananda, who was to be
sorely in need of the sympathy and friendship that Miss Hamilton
could and would offer him.* The hopes that Swamiji had held for
his sannyasin disciple had been shattered; much as he loved
Kripananda, much as he recognized his good qualities and
potential strengths, it had become impossible for him to introduce
him to Detroit as his successor, as he had intended. Kripananda
had not only inadvertently triggered a newspaper war, which was
forgivable enough, but had talked, apparently with malice and
certainly with indiscretion, against
#

31
the officers of the New York Vedanta Society. On March 11 Mr.
Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull, informing her of Kripananda's
distressing and, one might say, distraught accusations.
There has been so much misrepresentation not only of
myself but of everyone in New York, here, that I want to ask
you to let me pay my own expenses in coming here & while
here. The Principal charge made before we reached here was
that the Swami had been systematically "robbed" in New
York. This was the word used. The charge went further &
said that he had not even been allowed carfare, & that I had
been sent here by the Vedanta Society to act as a spy over
him & get what I could out of him for the Vedanta Society.
It was also carefully circulated that I was getting $18 a week
here & had been throughout, & was in the general
movement. I suppose I need not tell you who was the author
of this, (Kripananda) who added that he had lived &, had his
meals away from the Swami in New York rather than be a
party to the robbery. He even went so far as to say that he
had given the Swami the proceeds of anything he had
written [news]papers about the Swami's work in New York.
The Swami has since let this cat out of the bag
(unintentionally) & has admitted that Kripananda has had
hundreds of dollars from time to time, & that he even paid
his fare to Detroit.
But'the chief point is this, that nothing on my part shall
be allowed to lend color of truth to the charge, & with your
permission, to avoid this, I should like to refund to you my
part of the expenses.25
After months of smoldering, the fire of Kripananda's jealousy
seems to have totally destroyed his judgment; one can only think
that a sort of madness possessed him. But however explainable
(and forgivable) his conduct may have been, it could not be
overlooked. Swamiji could not possibly endorse the charges
Kripananda had publicly made against the officers of
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32
the New York Vedanta Society by sponsoring him in Detroit as a
religious teacher. There seems to have been an element of self-
destruction in Swami Kripananda that defied any amount of
grace; at least so it seemed during this difficult stretch of his life,
when almost nothing he did was right.
There was, for instance, his teaching of the "Tattvas" whatever
those may have been. On March 9 Mr. Goodwin, who lost few
opportunities to criticize poor Kripananda, though not without
justification, had written to Mrs. Bull:
I really am afraid the Swami will make a mistake in
doing as he proposes-letting him [Kripananda] go his own
way. Mrs. Phunke, Miss Greenstidel, & two other ladies
here, whose names I do not remember, have told me that he
has been systematically preaching Tatvas, entirely unknown
to the Swami, & they are confident he will continue this
directly the Swami's back is turned. This would be
degradation of the Swami's teaching & would not only not
lead to spirituality, but would make the road to spirituality
harder & more obscure. I do not wish to pose as a saint. I
have nothing of saintliness, but I do say that this teaching
has got a firm enough hold on me to make the idea of such a
result as Krapananda's connection with the work seems to
promise thoroughly repugnant to me.26
What the young Mr. Goodwin thought of Swami Kripananda's
connection with Swamiji's work was, of course, neither here nor
there. But Swamiji himself, while never forbidding his disciples
to teach in accordance with their own understanding and
temperament, could not authorize the preaching of the "Tattvas,"
which, as the Detroit ladies had correctly surmised, Kripananda
was intent upon. As far as can be understood, the term Tattvas, as
Kripananda and others were using it, signified a type of Kundalini
yoga with emphasis on various stages of psychic experience. (See
note for Volume
#

33
Three, .chapter five, page 379.) This was a kind of teaching
Swamiji strongly advised against; yet, for all the fuss the ladies
made, Kripananda's "Tattvas" do not seem to have been on the
dark or lefthand side or to have warranted the disapproval Mrs.
Bull conveyed when she later rebuked him for having "tampered
with unclean books & taught from them."27
Kripananda's stars seem to have been particularly awry during
that month of March 1896-or, if one prefers, his bad karmas seem
to have been pelting down upon his head like apples from a
shaken tree. Before the month was out even an earlier indiscretion
dropped its missile fruit. As was seen in the last volume, one of
Kripananda's duties was to write a monthly letter to the
Brahmavadin, reporting upon the progress of Swamiji's work. In
January of 1896 his newsletter from New York had consisted in
large part of a heated diatribe against Theosophical and
spiritualist groups, as well as other "religious and irreligious
monstrosities" that then abounded in America. "In this Bedlam of
religious cranks," he wrote, "in this devil's kitchen of fraud,
imposture and knavery, the Swami appeared to teach the lofty
religion of the Vedas, the profound philosophy of the Vedanta,
the sublime wisdom of the ancient Rishis. . . . He denounced
fraud and superstition in whatever guise they appeared, and all
those untrue and erratic existences hid themselves, like bats at the
approach of daylight, in their haunts before this apostle of
Truth."28
It is not likely that in those busy New York days Swamiji had
taken the time to read Kripananda's long and acrimonious letter
before it was sent off to Madras. It was published in the February
15, 1896, issue of the Brahmavadin, and in the last part of March
returned in printed form to America, where it came to the
attention of one of Swamiji's New York friends and supporters,
William Joseph Flagg.* Mr. Flagg wrote the following letter to
Swamiji on March 23 :

My dear Master,
I enclose a cutting from the last Brahmavadin, to which
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34
 I beg to call your attention. I am sure you would not sanction
the insulting flings at
1 Americans in general.
2 The 6 million spiritualists.
3 The equally numerous "healers, scientists &c."
4 The Theosophical Society.
- which some indiscreet friend has been indulging in.
"We do not catch bees with vinegar"
There can be no good done by making enemies, I do not
think there is one fraud in a thousand of them. (except paid
mediums)
I dont object to giving a scolding to the Scribes and
Pharisees, and sinners in general, but do the sincere millions
whom Mr. K is trying to kick deserve the epithets he flings?
You know they don't hit me, for I am neither a healer, a
spiritualist, nor a Theosophist. All these naturally lean
towards you, for they are all occultists & look upon India as
the home of occultism. I see no good in driving them away.
I trust to see you on your way through: If you are subject
to sea-sickness I have a specific for it. Yours most truly. 29
Swamiji received Mr. Flagg's letter after he left Detroit and
turned it over to Mrs. Bull to act upon. She promptly copied it out
sad, for his information, sent it on to Kripananda. On March 30
he replied to her:
I am sure the Master sanctions every word said in this
article. If he should not do so now, it would only prove that
he has changed his mind since it was written.
I wrote what I thought to be the truth and stand for it,
whether people like it or not, provided I have the approval of
my own conscience.
As you were so eager in sending me the letter-implying
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35
 another reproach on your part, I trust you will show yourself
just as eager in informing me of the Swami's opinion of the
article.
You are, of course too busy at present to think of me, so I
wont detain you with a long letter.30
Whether or not Swamiji's opinion was relayed to Kripananda
we do not know; we do know, however, that he told Alasinga,
editor of the Brahmavadin, his views on the matter:

A letter you published from Kripananda in the Brahma-

vadin was rather unfortunate. Kripananda is smarting under
the blows the Theosophists [not "Christians" as in the
Complete Works)* have given him and that sort of letter is
vulgar, pitching into everybody. It is not in accord with the
tone of the Brahmavadin. So in future when Kripananda
writes, tone down everything that is an attack upon any sect,
however cranky or crude. Nothing which is against any sect,
good or bad, should get into the Brahmavadin. Of course,
we must not show active sympathy with frauds. 31

All in all, speaking, writing, and acting out of torments of

emotion, Kripananda had managed to make one mistake after
another, until finally he was in deep disrepute. To make matters
worse, there are indications that in Detroit he had angrily berated
Swamiji.. In a letter to Mrs. Bull, dated March 19, he wrote:

Had I no reason to be exasperated, not on account of my

personal misery but on account of this betrayal of friend-
ship? (The "betrayal of friendship" to which Kripananda
referred here was Swamiji's failure on his arrival in Detroit
to ask him if he had "a place to lay his head upon."] . . . You
will say that it was all my own fault, that it was my irascible
temper which caused all this
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36
 trouble. I will plead guilty to this charge. But again let me
ask, what made me so? I used to be respected, loved? There
must be some cause for a man becoming mad. Your
woman's tact ought long ago have guessed the real cause,
and if so you ought not to condemn me. I am not perfect yet
and have still human feelings. Can you not imagine the
torments of one who after years [?] of faithful devotion sees
himself thrown away like a dirty rag?32

In another letter Kripananda refers twice to "that fatal

occurrence with the Swami,"33 by which he may have meant the
entire Detroit episode or some specific and critical occasion of
which he assumed Mrs. Bull had been informed. But whatever
Kripananda may have said to or about his guru, or however
harshly the guru may have rebuked him, there was no change in
Swamiji's love. One cannot but apply the following passage in
Mary Funke's essay "The Master" to Swamiji's relationship with
Kripananda:
He knew no malice. Did one abuse him, he would look
thoughtful, repeat Siva, Siva, then his face would become
illumined and he would say gently: "It is only the voice of
the Beloved"; or if we who loved him would become
indignant, he would ask: "What difference can it mate when
one knows that blamer, blamed, and praiser, praised, are
one?"34

But while Swamiji readily forgave Kripananda for his affronts

to himself and those, less forgivable, to his friends-perhaps seeing
in such behavior nothing worse than the inner twistings of a still
unpurified but deep devotion-he was compelled for the sake of his
work (and for the sake of the disciple himself) to maintain an
outward coldness-a discipline that could be terrible indeed. But
for his part, Kripananda seems to have recognized no causal
relation between his own actions and those of his guru. Months
later he was to relate to
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37
Mrs. Bull his own version of Swamiji's glacial treatment of him
in Detroit:
You know that the Swami, far from helping me to
continue his work here, did everything to frustrate the very
purpose for which he had me come to Detroit. Not only did
he not announce to his classes that I would resume his work,
but by his actions and talk showed that I was entirely
estranged to him, so that even the few friends I had here
turned away from me, and his very followers made me the
subject of slander and calumny warning everybody not to
avail themselves of my teachings. Some persons who had
learned of my being in the city and desirous to take lessons
went to ask at the Swami's residence of my whereabouts
were purposely denied my address by the Landlord who
from the Swami's public utterances implied his dislike for
me. I know this as a fact.35

What Kripananda knew as facts were, particularly when his

emotions were involved, largely fantasy. There is little doubt,
however, that the estrangement between him and Swamiji in
Detroit was apparent to everyone. Yet for the sake of his work, as
well as for the sake of the disciple whom he loved and with
whom his relationship was many-leveled and beyond our probing,
there was surely nothing Swamiji could have done other than
what he did.

On March 11 Mr. Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull, "The attacks

which have been made on the Swami here, almost of daily
occurrence, have urged him on to give a Sunday public lecture-
altho' he does not acknowledge this as the reason-& the subject of
it will be `India's message to the West.' . . . It is sure to be one to
inspire him."36
As we saw earlier, Rabbi Grossmann had offered Swamiji
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38
the use of the Temple Beth-El, and on Saturday, March 14, the
newspapers duly announced that the lecture would commence at
eight o'clock the following evening and would be free. The News
Tribune had more to say: on Sunday morning it published a long
editorial clearly intended to dissuade all sensible people from
attending the lecture. On the basis of Swamiji's New York
pamphlet Bhakti-Yoga, the paper pronounced with authority "that
those portions of [the Swami's] teachings that are true are not
novel in the west, and those portions that are novel to westerners
are not true." "The hearers and readers of Kananda," the editorial
went on, "have always been struck by the similarity of most of his
moral and spiritual teachings to those of the christian teachers. "
And no wonder! Why, "Kananda was educated at Oxford in an
atmosphere that is altogether christian." (One is reminded here of
the St. Louis minister who, two years earlier, made the gratifying
discovery that Swamiji had graduated from Harvard and owed
everything but his robe and the color of his skin to the West.)37
The editorial continued with a nastiness and an obtuseness that
the present reader can be spared, and concluded: "Wherever
Kananda's philosophy is untrue, it is so palpably untrue that the
whole system would fall flat if it were not for the liberal mixture
of christianity that it contains. Is this chase after the orientalism of
an effete people to be charged up to the mental unbalance that
seems to have come over the whole western world?"
If so, the people of Detroit were sorely deranged: they flocked
to the Temple Beth-El that evening. Hundreds-those who failed to
arrive at least an hour before the lecture was to begin were turned
away. Every seat and every square inch of standing space, aisles
and all; were filled. Swamiji, wearing his vivid robe and a white
turban, was introduced by Rabbi Grossmann, whose talk, as
Kripananda wrote to the Brahmavadin, "was one grand eulogy of
the Hindus and Hinduism."38
Although Swamiji had intended to lecture on "India's Message
to the West," he changed his mind, perhaps at the
#

39
last moment, and lectured instead on "The Ideal of a Universal
Religion." This latter subject was, of course, not divorced from
the former, yet in emphasis it was more in keeping with the
message he wished to impress upon the American public during
this second phase of his mission. Did he perhaps change his
subject at the sight of his audience? He had been going to reply to
his enemies, or, rather, to the maligners of his motherland, but
facing him now were thousands of spiritual seekers. In the exalted
mood of a world prophet he spoke not of India, but of Religion-of
its basic meaning, of the endless variety of its expressions and
practices, of the reality, certainty, and universality of its goal.
This was a theme that he had spoken on often before--it had,
indeed; been the subject of his first two classes at the Richelieu,
and although no transcripts exist of any of Swamiji's Detroit
talks-public or private-we can guess that this particular lecture
was similar to those of the same title that he had given in New
York and in Hartford and would give the following week in
Boston. We need not dwell on those ideas here except to say that
Swamiji felt it was of supreme importance that mankind
comprehend them. "To learn this central secret that the truth may
be one and yet many at the same time, that we may have different
visions of the same truth from different standpoints, is exactly
what must be done " he was to say in his lecture on Sri
Ramakrishna later in the year. " . . This idea, above all other
ideas, I find to be the crying necessity of the day."39
The lecture was a stunning success. Two or three months later,
when they were in London, Mr. Goodwin, recalling these
American days, exclaimed to Swamiji, "Our biggest meeting was
in Detroit. Nearly 6,000 people! That day your words came out
with superhuman strength. I was mad with joy!" 40 Six thousand
may have been an exaggeration, but even the Detroit newspapers
had to admit that the temple had been packed solid. The longest
accounts appeared in the Tribune and the Free Press of March 16
and read, respectively, as follows:
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40
 HEARD SWAMI TALK
________

VIVEKANANDA LECTURED IN
TEMPLE BETH EL.
________

Spoke on the Ideal of a Universal

Religion-He Will Probably
Leave Tuesday

Temple Beth El was crowded to the doors last night when

Swami Vivekananda delivered his address upon "The Ideal of a
universal religion." The time announced for the service was 8
o'clock, but the congregation began to assemble at the temple
early in the evening so that the doors had to be opened at 6:25
p.m. They were closed at 7 o'clock and the hundreds that arrived
after that time had to be turned away.
"We all hear about universal brotherhood, and how societies
stand up and want to preach this. -But to what does it amount? As
soon as you make a sect you protest against equality, and thus it is
no more," said Swami.
"Unity in variety is the plan of the universe. Just as we are all
men, yet we are all separate. We find then, that if by the idea of a
universal religion is meant one set of doctrines should be believed
by all mankind, it is impossible, it can never be, any more than
there will be a time when all faces will be the same. We must not
seek that all of us should think alike, like Egyptian mummies in a
museum, looking at each other without thought to think. It is this
difference of thought, this differentiation, losing of the balance of
thought, which is the very soul of our progress, the soul of
thought."
Swami will probably leave Tuesday [March 17]. At the close
of his address last night he thanked the people of Detroit For the
kind reception tendered him and his philosophy.
_________
#

41
 THE WOMEN STOOD UP.
________

BIG CROWD TO SEE KANANDA AT

THE TEMPLE BETH-EL.

It was a singular spectacle. Hundreds of Christians in a temple

devoted to the worship of God after the manner of the Hebraic
faith, and all listening eagerly to a discourse from a Hindoo
priest, who discussed the religious customs of his hearers. Such
was the scene at the Temple Beth-EI last evening, it having been
announced that Swami Vive Kananda would speak. Before 7:30
every seat in the building was taken, and every aisle was taken up
by people willing to stand wearily through the service to gratify
their curiosity or learn a new lesson in religion. And not all that
wanted to managed to get inside the building. For some time after
the ceremonies had begun the voices of many could be heard in
the hall as they tried unsuccessfully to push their way into the
building.
It was noteworthy that the greater part of the audience were
women. It seemed as if at least two-thirds of the attendants wore
big hats and bonnets. It was the women and girls in the back part
of the room that stood on chairs to look at the Hindoo monk and
many of the fair ones in the audience stood in front of their seats
in order that they might the better gaze upon the swarthy features
of the man that seems to exercise a spell over Detroit's femininity.
There was applause when Rabbi Grossmann walked upon the
platform with the Swami. After a flattering introduction by Dr.
Grossmann Kananda, dressed in a red gown and with a white
hood with long white streamers, began his address. He argued for
the universal brotherhood of man, which he said would
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42
continue until every man was a sect unto himself; in fact until the
right of every man to his own individual religious belief was fully
established.
The power that emanated from Swamiji that evening was of a
different quality than that which he had manifested during his
visit to Detroit two years earlier. It had then been predominantly
and necessarily the power that destroys "the wicked"-or,
certainly, the obstructive; it was now predominantly that which
"protects the righteous and establishes religion." The difference
was a subtle one, but it was not lost upon Sister Christine, who
had attended his Detroit lectures in 1894, been with him at
Thousand Island Park, and now knew him well enough to detect
different aspects of the same benevolent force. In a portion of her
memoirs that has been recently made available to us by Mrs.
Boshi Sen, Christine recalled Swamiji's Detroit lectures:
Vivekananda was to visit Detroit once more, but this time
for only a short farewell visit.
When asked what preparation he made for speaking, he told us
none-but neither did he go unprepared. He told us that usually
before a lecture [no doubt during his first visit in Detroit] he
heard a voice saying it all. The next day he repeated what he had
heard. He did not say whose voice he heard. Whatever it was, it
came as the expression of some great spiritual power, greater than
his own normal power, released by the intensity of his
concentration. This may have been quite unconscious. No written
words can convey the vitality, the power, the majesty that came
with his spoken words, What might happen to one's ideas, values,
personality if this current of power were let loose upon them! It
was great enough to move the world, let alone one little human
personality, which was but as a straw upon its mighty current. It
was force that could sweep everything before it. Old ideas would
change, the
#

43
purposes and aims of life, its values would change, old tendencies
would be directed into a new channel, the entire personality
would be transmuted. . . .
. . . The spiritual force generated at such times was so great
that some in the audience were lifted above the normal state of
consciousness, so that it was possible to remember only the
beginning of a lecture. After a certain point, there seemed a blank.
The normal mind was no longer functioning; a higher state of
consciousness, beyond reason and memory, had taken its place.
Long after, perhaps, it would be found that during that period
when the mind seemed blank, a specially deep impression had
been made. . . .
. . . After giving (his course of classes at the Richelieu Hotel],
he was invited by his friend Rabbi Grossmann to speak at the
Temple Beth-El on the last Sunday of his stay in Detroit. An hour
before the time appointed the Temple was filled to its utmost
capacity and it became necessary to close the doors. Hundreds
were turned away. Others, refusing to be shut out, hammered on
the doors and tried by every means to gain admittance. Just as the
lecture was about to begin the clamour became so great that it
seemed as if the mob would storm the place. But when he
appeared on the platform a hush fell over the audience. I heard a
foreign voice near me gasp, "How beautiful he is!" And indeed
never was beauty more ethereal. At this time the power was not
so obvious. It had been transformed into a diviner radiance and a
deeper compassion for the world which he was soon to leave. So
India often pictures her gods-robes and turbans of concentrated
sunlight, complexion of gold, a divine radiance lighting the face,
an inner stillness as of a deep pool. He rose and poured forth
majestic truths in a voice which completed a beautiful harmony of
appearance, voice, and message. Not a gesture was there to
detract the mind from the intense concentration into which he had
plunged his hearers.41
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44
 Mary Funke, also struck by the ethereal, still quality of
Swamiji's presence, wrote in her own reminiscences of this
period:

His last public appearance in Detroit was at the Temple

Beth EI of which Rabbi Louis Grossman[n], an ardent
admirer of the Swami, was the pastor. It was Sunday
evening and so great was the crowd that we almost feared a
panic. There was a solid line reaching far out into the street
and hundreds were turned away. Vivekananda held the large
audience spellbound, his subject being . . . "The Ideal of a
Universal Religion." He gave us a most brilliant and
masterly discourse. Never had I seen the Master look as he
looked that night. There was something in his beauty not of
earth.42
It was not until the eve of Swamiji's departure from Detroit
that the city caught up on the news of 1894. One guesses that he
had deliberately waited until his work in Detroit was over before
making available to the papers the letter written to him by the
Chairman of the Calcutta Meeting, which had long since been
published in the papers of many other American cities. Coming at
this late hour of his visit in Detroit, the letter acclaiming his work
in America was obviously not published as a rejoinder to Thoburn
and his kind, but as his parting assurance to his supporters that
their trust had not been given to an impostor. That he felt he owed
this to his friends was characteristic of his humility; yet the
timing of his release of this letter to the Detroit papers had about
it the immense dignity of the elephant passing through the
marketplace, unmindful of the barking at its feet. On Monday,
March 16, 1896, the day after his resoundingly successful public
lecture and the day before his departure from the city, the
Calcutta letter appeared in the Free Press with the following
heading and introduction:
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45
 PRAISE FOR VIVE KANANDA
LAUDED FOR HIS LEARNING BY
BROTHER HINDOOS

Action Taken at a Public Meeting

Held in Calcutta.

On account of the recent strictures passed upon Swami Vive

Kananda the following proceedings of a public meeting, which
was held in the town hall of Calcutta, September 5, 1894, will
prove of interest. It was called by the representative men of the
Hindoo community for the purpose of expressing their gratitude
to him for his able representation of Hindooism at the Parliament
of Religions, held during the world's fair. Some 4,000 people
were present, and speeches in praise of Vive Kananda were made
by the most learned men in the community, who lauded him both
For his learning and his tact. Towards the close of the meeting the
chairman, by resolution, sent the following letter to Vive
Kananda:

The letter, addressed to Sreemat Vivekananda Swami by the

Chairman of the Meeting, Raja Peary Mohun Mookerjee,
followed in full and left no doubt at all that Swamiji was a bona
fide representative of Hinduism and a real swami. It closed with
the passage:

Hinduism has, for the first time in its history, found a

Missionary, and by a rare good fortune it has found one so
able and accomplished as yourself. Your fellow--
countrymen, fellow-citizens and fellow-Hindus feel that they
would be wanting in an obvious duty if they did not convey
to you their hearty sympathy and earnest gratitude for all
your labours, in spreading a true knowledge of the ancient
faith. May God grant you strength and energy to carry on the
good work you have begun!43

That settled the matter as far as Swamiji's status and name

#

46
were concerned. It was not, however, until June 7, when Alasinga
Perumal's stalwart and eloquent letter was printed in the Detroit
Sunday News-Tribune that the Reverend J. M. Thoburn was
roundly answered point by point and as roundly roasted (see
Appendix A). But by then Swamiji had left the city far behind.
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47
NOTES ON CHAPTER EIGHT
p. 2 * Swamiji had been expected in Detroit on the night of
Monday, March 2. As it happened, however, his good friend Mrs.
Florence Adams of Chicago gave a lecture that evening in New
York, and he had stayed over to attend it. According to Swami
Kripananda, then in Detroit, this twenty-four hour delay in
Swamiji’s arrival caused no little anxiety among his Detroit
students, who feare, Kripananda informed Mrs. Bull, that he
might not come at all.
p. * The missionaries had good reason to be afraid of Swamiji’s
eloquence, brilliant intellect, and manifest spirituality. And what
ther feared did indeed come to pass. Headlines of an article in the
Chiago Inter Ocean of April 6, 1896 Itwo and a half years or so
after Swamiji’s appearance at the Parliament of Religions),
proclaimed: CRISIS IN MISSIONS – EVANGELISTS
CANNOT RETURN TO THEIR WORK IN INDIA –
TEACHERS OF THE GOSPEL MUST REMAIN INACTIVE
BECAUSE THERE IS NO MONEY IN THE TREASURY. (See
also Swami Vivekananda, His Second Visit to the West, Second
Edition, pages 663-65/)
p. 6 * The old documents that Nicholas Notovich, author of The
Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, claimed to have found in a Tibetan
monastery tell of how Jesus traveled in his fourteenth year to
India, where he studied Vedic and Buddhist scriptures and then
proceeded to convert a large part of the country to Christianity,
preaching in the best missionary manner against idolatry, the
divine origin of the Vedas, the caste system, sun worship, and so
on, recalling, the
#

48
p. 6 (contd.) book sayass, “the true God to the people that were in
deparavities.” Far from giving credence to this work, Swamiji
scoffed at it. “It is nonsense to say that Notovich’s book is
genuine,’ he wrote on March 2, 1896, from Detroit (not from
Boston as in the Complete Works, 6:359) to Swami Trigunatita,
who had written to him on the subject.
p. 8 * During the years 1893 and 1894 the Reverend Mr. Thoburn
had been pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church in Duluth,
Minnesota.
p. 21 * Writing of Swamiji’s reaction to this unpleasant episode,
Sister Christine refers to “the machinations of a family of
missionaries long connected with Calcutta” (Rem., pages 202-3;
italics mine).
p. 24 * In his unedited letters to Mary Hale Swamiji referred to
Christian missionaries of the Rev. Mr. Thoburn breed as the
Minsoos. The term was a pleasantry of the era.
p. 31 * Miss Martha Hamilton had evidently met Swamiji at
Greenacre in the summer of 1894. She had also met Mrs. Bull
there.
p. 34 * For information about William J. Flagg see Burke, Swami
Vivekananda in the West, New Discoveries: His Prophetic
Mission – Part Two (Hereafter called Prophetic Mission-2),
chapter nine, section two.
p. 36 * In his original letter to Alasinga (RKM, Belur),
Swamijis’s word was Theosophs. One of Swami Kripananda’s
difficulties was the amount of criticism he had been receiving
from the members of the Theosophical Society in New York,
from which he had resigned in early 1895. A little later he had
written to Mrs. Bull: “I severed my connections with the
[Theosophical] society and my associates, so that not the
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49
p. 36 (cont) least particle of my time and devotion should be
robbed on the Swami and his cause. I became his servant, his
slave, his shadow, and I was ready to lear – and the Lord only
knows how much I have – all the slander and abuse heaped on me
by my former associates on account of my following the man
who I regarded as the embodiment of divine truth” (Kripananda
to Sara Bull, April 16, 1895, SCB). But Kripananda’s acidulous
letter of January, 1896, to the Brahmavadin was a means of
retaliation against his former associates at the expense of
Swamiji’s cause of tolerance. There was, to be sure, much truth in
his depictin of the religious, or quasireligious, groups in America
that confronted Swamiji, and for this reason the Brahmanavadin
letter has been quoted in various editions of the Life since 1913.
Only recently has it become clear that this was the polemic to
which Swamiji had objected in his letter dated March, 1896, to
Alasinga, (Complete Works, 7:490).
#

50
 CHAPTER NINE

BOSTON: MARCH 1896

Traveling straight from Detroit to Boston, a railway journey of

some seven hundred and fifty miles, Swamiji and Mr. Goodwin
arrived at their destination on the afternoon of March 18, 1896.
The following evening, the third Thursday in the month, a rainy
day with a temperature only a little above freezing, the Procopeia
(Progress) Club held its monthly reception, at which Swamiji and
his friends Mrs. Ole Bull, Miss Emma Thursby, and Mrs.
Antoinette Sterling were among the honored guests. The Boston
Evening Transcript of March 20. recounted the news:

DISTINGUISHED GUESTS AT THE PROCOPEIA

Swami Vivekananda, Mrs. Ole Bull, Miss Emma

Thursby, Emil Paur, Wulf Fries, Miss Harriet Shaw, John
Orth and Mrs. Antoinette Sterling were the special guests of
the Procopeia Club at its rooms on St. Botolph street, last
evening. The reception committee included: Mrs. George
Seabury, Mrs. Winifred Barber, Mrs. F. R. Fibbetts and Mrs.
W. H. Stearns.

The Procopeia Club's monthly receptions "are always

thoroughly informal and homelike, but very largely
attended," the young Ralph Waldo Trine, a member (perhaps
an officer) of the Club who was later to become a well-
known writer on metaphysics, had written to Miss Thursby a
month earlier, inviting her on behalf of the reception
committee not only to attend the March gathering but to sing
at it. This was, he explained, to be a "musicians' evening," at
which each
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51
 musician was to "contribute his or her little share in a
selection or two." As an incentive, Mr. Trine informed Miss
Thursby that the Club was "planning to have Swami
Vivekananda as the class teacher . . . about that time." 1
Ralph Waldo Trine, who had been at Greenacre in the
summer of 1894 as special correspondent for the Boston
Evening Transcript, well knew that Swamiji would draw not
only Miss Thursby to the Procopeia Club but many another
seeker of truth. He had sued for Swamiji well in advance.

Even that first evening the club rooms were no doubt crowded
with people who had come to see the famous Hindu as well as to
hear the' music, all of which would have been excellent. As
vocalists, Emma Thursby and Antoinette Sterling, both of whom
were world famous, were unsurpassed, and none but a first-rate
musician (such as Mrs. Bull) would, one trusts, have presumed to
perform on the same program with either of them. But "of
course," as the Boston Daily Globe of March 20 commented in an
article describing this Procopeia Club reception, "the chief
interest of the evening centered in the Swami Vivekananda,
whose oriental countenance and dress of rich dark red made him a
conspicuous figure." And of course Swamiji was one of the
guests of honor, being scheduled as the club's "class teacher" for
the remainder of the month. Although on the following day
(March 20) Swamiji went to Medford, a small town just north of
Boston, to fill a lecture engagement there,'* the Procopeia's
musical reception marked the beginning of an eleven-day period
in Boston and Cambridge that was to form a climactic finale to
his five seasons of public lecturing in America.**
Boston was by no means an unfamiliar city to Swamiji. It was
there in August of 1893 that he had delivered his first lecture in
the West, a semipublic lecture before a faintly hostile Ramabai
Circle. It was in Boston also that during this same early period he
had been chased by a crowd of men and boys, earaged by the
sight of an orange robe to the point of throwing stones. And it
was in Boston, shortly after this incident that, at
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52
the advice of his friends, he had bought his first somber Western
attire-a black Prince Albert frock coat.2 During his second visit to
Boston in May of 1894 he had lectured there, and in September of
the same year he had spent almost four weeks in the city,
lecturing, as he wrote, "in several places," and subsequently had
spent ten days or so as a guest of Mrs. Bull in nearby Cambridge.
He was in Cambridge also in December of 1894, holding a series
of classes at Mrs. Bull's during almost the whole of that month. 3
Thus by 1896 Boston and Swamiji knew each other well, and as
the Daily Globe commented in an article that will be reproduced
in full later on, "society, fashionable, intellectual and faddist,
went wild over him."
In the 1890s Boston was the hub not only of the universe but
of those three categories of American society, not least of a11 the
faddist. Despite, or perhaps because of, the city's deep-rooted,
ironclad traditions, there proliferated dozens of unorthodox sects,
as of which were known in Boston as fads and which ranged from
straggly groups surrounding spiritualists and astrologers, who
held seances or cast horoscopes in early decorated back parlors,
to well-organized churches of New Thought persuasion. In an
article describing these Bostonian heterodoxies, a correspondent
from the Chicago Inter Ocean wrote in part:

There is a region of Boston not unlike the Latin quarter

of Paris, in that it is a region that is very much alive and that
in it everything happens. In the best sense, it is semi-
Bohemian-an artistic Bohemia, with an even stronger
element of the occult trend of thought and speculation. . , .
No mere resume of these various activities can give any
adequate idea of the force and variety they lend to life.
There are the three prominent centers of the "spiritual
temple"-the Theosophical Society, which has its rooms of
Mount Veraon street, and the "First Church of Christ,
Scientist;" of which Rev. Mary Baker Eddy is the idolized
pastor. There are many and various teachers of "mental
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53
 healing" of all shades of belief, no two of which coincide.
There is the Procopeia, which stands for a great deal and is a
most interesting center.4

The Procopeia Club, which has left behind no records of its

activities or statements of its purposes, does not appear to have
represented any one particular belief but seems, rather, to have
been a meeting place for Boston's upper-notch religious "faddists"
of all varieties. The membership was no doubt composed in part
of gentle and serious seekers of truth, such as Mrs. Ole Bull, in
part of earnest religious teachers and healers, and in part of men
and women in various states of high-minded confusion. Socially
and economically it was not an exclusive club. It took as its
motto: "To be spiritually minded is life and peace," and asked
only that its members agree with this dictum and that they pay
five dollars a year in dues (equivalent to at least fifty dollars
today 1982). Yet knowing that Mrs. Bull was connected with the
Club, one can be sure that it had its intellectual aspects as well as
its noble ideals and that it was eminently respectable. (Although
Sara Bull, having originally come from what Bostonians would
have looked upon as backwoods, was not a Proper Bostonian and
although, as it was whispered in Cambridge, she burned incense
in her private heathen shrine and although her house turned its
back upon Brattle Street in a most peculiar manner, she was by no
means Bohemian, or even semi-Bohemian, in her outlook or
manner.)
The Procopeia Club had its headquarters on St. Botolph Street
in two adjoining houses that had been thrown into one, "the
parlors on one side forming a pleasant lecture-room, seated with
camp chairs, and those on the other side used as a reception-room
and library." During the season extending from November to
May, the doors were open every day for social meetings, and the
monthly program consisted of a public lecture every Thursday
evening (with the exception of the third Thursday in each month)
and of two series of class talks intended for members only.
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54
 Swamiji evidently had a knowledge of the Procopeia Club
prior to 1896 and was not altogether pleased with what he knew.
Because of its more or less indiscriminate embrace of Boston's
various metaphysical cults and ventures, he felt a reluctance to
lecture under its auspices. On January 3, 1896, be had written to
Mrs. Bull from New York, "I have had a letter from Mr. [Ralph
Waldo] Trine asking me to have some classes at the Procopeia in
February. I do not see my way to go to Boston in Feb. however I
may like it."5 But even when a visit to Boston became possible,
Swamiji did not see himself holding classes at the Procopeia. It
was Mrs. Bull who would persuade him, not Mr. Trine. On
February 6 he wrote to her, "I have not much faith in working
such things as the Procopeia &c-because these mixed up
conglomerations of all isms & ities mostly fads-disturb the
steadiness of the mind and life becomes a mass of frivolities. . . .
This does not mean I am not coming to Procopeia I will come but
it will be only for your sake."6
Swamiji spoke five times before the Procopeia Club. Four of
these lectures had been intended (as in Detroit) to constitute a
series of private class talks, while the fifth, to be delivered on
Thursday evening, March 26, was to be open to the public. As it
turned out, however, all five lectures were public. Although there
had been no newspaper hullabaloo and only one inconspicuous
announcement, word had spread through Boston that Swami
Vivekananda was to speak. It had shortly become apparent that
the Procopeia Club's parlor and its complement of camp chairs
would be stormed. Any idea the members may have had of
keeping Swamiji's classes to themselves was abandoned, and the
arena of the Allen Gymnasium, a building situated directly across
St. Botolph Street, was rented to accommodate the expected
crowd. Even this proved too small, and, as on almost all the
occasions in 1896 when Swamiji had lectured publicly, scores of
disappointed people were turned away. Thus all chance of
intimacy was lost, but at the same time the Procopeia's aura of
occultism that Swamiji disliked was dissipated in the crowd.
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55
 On March 21 the Evening Transcript introduced Swamiji's
current work in Boston with an excellent article, such as one
would not find in cities further west, or, for that matter, further
south. The Boston Evening Transcript was no ordinary
newspaper. Founded in the 1830s it was the journal of First-
Family Bostonians, ceremoniously delivered every day at teatime
to their doorsteps and religiously read. It reflected their likes and
dislikes, their approvals and .disapprovals, and also guided their
intellectual and political thought. "In the wind of its editorial
opinion [its readers] swayed, said T. S. Eliot, `like a field of ripe
corn.' "' It was a bible of sorts and also what would today be
called a status symbol. It was, as Lucius Beebe put it, "a
qualitative hallmark as clearcut in its implications as a coat of
armor or membership in the Somerset Club [one of Boston's
sacrosanct clubs]."8 Even the employees of the Transcript, from
copy boys to editors, were as dignified, as sedate, and often as
well entrenched socially as were its readers. Nor was the esteem
felt for the Transcript confined to Boston; the paper was known
nationally as the best of thoughtful and sober journals, and it was
also acclaimed abroad. When the Transcript devoted a long
article to Swamiji in its stately pages, it was doing more than
giving the news; it was announcing that the "Athens of America"
had welcomed him without reservation. Even Emerson had not
been accorded this honor. "Original thinkers," the Transcript had
sternly written in connection with the latter, "are not always
practical men, and they are sometimes led into insupportable
theories."9 Although Swamiji very likely gave little heed to the
approval or disapproval of the Transcript, the fact remained that
the following article was a magnificent accolade:

PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM
________

Swami Vivekananda Compares Teachings

of Hindu Wisdom, and Western Religions. .

The Swami Vivekananda, who will be remembered as the

Hindu delegate to the World's Parliament of Religions,
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56
is in the city as the March class lecturer at the Procopeia, 45 St.
Botolph street. The Swami has been doing some most valuable
and successful work in systematic class lecturing in New York,
with constantly increasing audiences, during the past two winters,
and comes to Boston at a most opportune time.
The Swami gives the following description of his work. In
explanation of the term sannyasin, he said, When a man has
fulfilled the duties and obligations of that stage of life in which he
is born, and his aspirations lead him to seek a spiritual life, and to
abandon altogether the worldly pursuits of possession, fame, or
power; when, by the growth of insight into the nature of the
world, he sees its impermanence, its strife, its misery, and the
paltry nature of its prizes, and turns away from all these, then he
seeks the true, the eternal love, the refuge. He makes complete
renunciation. (sannyasin) of all worldly position, property and
name, and wanders forth into the world to live a life of self
sacrifice, and to persistently seek spiritual knowledge, striving to
excel in love and compassion, and to acquire lasting insight;
gaining these pearls of wisdom by years of meditation, discipline
and inquiry. He in his turn, becomes a teacher, and hands on to
disciples, lay or professed, who may seek them from him, all that
he can of wisdom and beneficence.
A sannyasin cannot belong to any religion, for his is a life of
independent thought, which draws from all religions; his is a life
of realization, not merely of theory or belief, much less of
dogma.10
In giving some idea of his work and its methods the Swami
says he left the world because he had a deep . interest in religion
and philosophy from his childhood, and Indian books teach
renunciation as the highest ideal to which a man can aspire.
The Swami['s] teaching, as he expresses it, "is my own :
interpretation of our ancient books in the light which my master
(a celebrated Hindu sage) shed upon them. I
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57
claim no supernatural authority. Whatever in my teachings may
appeal to the highest intelligence and be accepted by thinking
men, the adoption of that will be my reward. All religions have
for their object the teaching of devotion, or knowledge, or
activity, in a concrete form: Now, the philosophy of Vedanta is
the abstract science . which embraces all these methods, and this
is what I teach, leaving each one to apply it to his own concrete
form. I refer each individual to his own experience, and where
reference is made to books, the latter are procurable, and may be
studied for each one by himself'." The Swami teaches no
authority from hidden beings, through visible objects, any more
than he claims learning from hidden books or MSS. He believes
no good can come from secret societies. "Truth stands on its own
authority, and truth can bear the light of day." He teaches only the
Self, hidden in the heart of every individual, and common to all.
A handful of strong men, knowing that Self, and living in its
light, would revolutionize the world, even today, as has been the
case of single strong men before, each in his day.
His attitude towards Western religions is briefly this. He
propounds a philosophy which can serve as a basis to every
possible religious system in the world, ' and his attitude towards
all of them is one of extreme sympathy. His teaching is
antagonistic to none. He directs his attention to the individual, to
make him strong, to teach him that he himself is divine, and he
calls upon men to make themselves conscious of divinity within.
His hope is to imbue individuals with the teachings to which he
has referred, and to encourage them to express these to others in
their own way; let them modify them as they will; he does not
teach them as dogmas; truth, at length, must inevitably prevail.
The Swami will give a series of four class-lectures on the
Vedanta philosophy at the Procopeia on the evenings of Saturday,
March 21, Monday, the 23rd, Friday, the
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58
27th, Saturday, the 28th. He will also give the Thursday evening
public lecture on the 26th, on "The Ideal of a Universal Religion."
No charge will be made for the class-lectures to those who are not
members of the club and who wish to attend them. He will also
give two afternoon lectures at the home of Mrs. Ole Bull in Cam-
bridge, and will lecture to the graduate students in the department
of philosophy at Harvard University.
Swamiji's first three class-lectures were entitled "The Science
of Work," "Devotion," and "Realization, or the Ultimate of
Religion." As is apparent not only from their titles but from
newspaper reports as well, these lectures were expositions of,
respectively, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, and raja yoga. During his
fourth "class" he read from the Upanishads, giving his
commentary, which no doubt constituted a discourse on jnana
yoga. In this series one finds, then, a sort of summing up of his
winter's class work in New York, during the course of which, as
we have seen in the previous volume, he had given talk after talk
on these four yogas and had prepared for publication a book on
each. (Jnana Yoga as we know it today differs from the book that
was contemplated in 1896.)11 The subject of Swamiji's Officially
public lecture at the Procopeia Club (March 26) was "The Ideal of
a Universal Religion"-a subject on which he had lectured publicly
in almost every town he had visited during this 1896 season and
which, as said often before, constituted an intrinsic and vital part
of his message to the West. Of equal importance would. be the
subjects of his lectures at Harvard and the Twentieth Century
Club, entitled respectively "Vedanta Philosophy" and "The
Vedanta: Its Practical Bearings." Thus in the lectures that
Swamiji would give in or near. Boston during these last days of
March, 1896, one finds a resume of the most essential aspects of
his Western message-a message that he had by now completely
and concisely formulated and fully given.
As far as is known today, Mr. Goodwin did not take down or
transcribe the Procopeia Club lectures; it is from the news-
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59
papers alone that we learn a little about them. A correspondent
from the Chicago Inter Ocean, who often described life in Boston
and Cambridge, seems to have attended at least one, and while
her following paragraph from the Inter Ocean of April 4, 1896,
betrays a confusion regarding Swamiji's teachings, it is of value
for its information, some of which is not found elsewhere:

VIVEKANANDA

It is under the auspices of (the Procopeia Club] that the

Swami Vivekananda has just been giving a course of
lectures, which attracted such throngs of people that the
Allen gymnasium, just across the street, had to be engaged
as a lecture-room. The hour was 8 o'clock, but by 7:15
o'clock every seat would be filled, and even the aisles
crowded to suffocation with people, who stood for three-
quarters of an hour before the lecture began in order to hear
it. The Swami lectured on Karma Yogi as an ideal of
univcrsal religion, and devoted his last evening to readings
from the Sanskrit, with interpretations that were extremely
interesting. Anything more musical than his reading from
the Sanskrit could not be imagined. One listened as if to
unknown magic.
After Swamiji had given his first two lectures at the Allen
Gymnasium, the Boston Daily Globe, a substantial journal, wrote
appreciatively of the monk who had come from "the mountains of
India." The writer, whose article appeared on March 24, had
evidently interviewed Swamiji:

OUT OF THE EAST.

________

Message Brought by the Swami Vivekananda

-in His Country the Gods Are
"Bright Ones" That Help.'

The Swami Vivekananda is enjoying as great a degree of

popularity on his present visit to Boston as he did when
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society, fashionable, intellectual and faddist, went wild over him
on his former visit.
This monk has come from the mountains of India, where he
wandered in solitude, occupied with spiritual meditations. He
comes weighted with the maxims and principles of an ancient
religion. He comes to tell the people of this western continent,
struggling with scores of varying creeds, the simple, unified
thought of the Hindu teachings. He is not here to proselyte or to
found a new religion, but simply to make men conscious of the
divinity within them.
The Swami has talked not only before intellectual audiences
and in fashionable drawing rooms, but he has sought out and
made friends with the workingmen with whom he is able to get
on so well, because he believes that all great truths are expressed
in simple forms.
A New York paper published an interview with the Swami, in
which he is reported to have expressed the opinion that in Boston
"the women are all faddists, all fickle, merely bent on following
something new and strange." But Swami Vivekananda says that
this is an exaggerated and distorted presentation of a criticism
which he made upon all American women, that they were too
superficial and too prone to follow the sensational and to change
from one thing to another. This he says his observation has forced
upon him. The American women are intellectual, but they are not
steady, serious and sincere.
The first of the Swami's lectures was delivered before an
audience of 400 people in the Allen gymnasium, Saturday
evening on "The Science of Work," and the second one of the
course on "Devotion" was given in the same place, the hall being
filled and a number turned away unable to gain admittance.
The lecture was exceedingly interesting and the speaker's
manner was very magnetic. In his country, said the Swami, the
gods were the "bright ones" who gave help to men and received
help from them. The gods are Only human
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61
beings who are somewhat elevated after death, but God, the
highest, is never prayed to or asked for help. He is given only
love and worship without anything being asked in return. There
are two phases of this God, the one, the abstract God behind the
substance of the universe, and the other the personal God who is
seen through human intellect and given attributes by it.
The love which is given to God never takes, but always gives,
and it does not depend on anything. The worshiper does not pray
for health, money or any other thing, but is content with the lot
apportioned to him.
People who ask about religion from mere motives of curiosity
become faddists, they are always looking for something new and
their brains degenerate until they become old rags. It is a religious
dissipation with them.
It is not the place that makes heaven or hell, but the mind.
Love knows no fear, there can be no love where it is. In love of
any sort external objects are only suggested by something within-
it is one's own ideal projected, and God is the highest ideal that
can be conceived of.
Hatred of the world does not drive good men from it, but the
world slips away from the great and saintly. The world, the
family and social life, are all training grounds, that is all.
When one realizes that God, is love, it does not matter what
his other attributes are, that is the only essential. The more a man
throws himself away, the more God comes in, hence self
abnegation, which is the secret of all religion and morality.
Too many people bring down their ideals. They want a
comfortable religion, but there is none such. It is all self surrender
and upward striving.
The above article contains a paragraph that requires a
digression, for Swamiji's statement that American women were
too superficial was pounced upon by his enemies and worried
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62
out of all recognizable shape. It would be somehow attributed to
his India lectures of the following year, then thrown back, much
altered, to America, where it would be fielded by the old
adversaries. According to the original New York .. interview
(from an unidentified newspaper), Swamiji's words (most of
which he may well have said) were, to be sure, scolding and
admonitory.l2 But, as is well known, his regard for the women of
America was always wholehearted. "I am really struck with
wonder to see the women here," he had written in 1894."How
gracious the Divine Mother is on them! Most wonderful women,
these!"13 And as he said more than once, he looked to the
American women for the salvation of the country. 14 He scolded
men and women alike only to make sure that women's potential
greatness would be realized. "When I look about me and see what
you call gallantry," he was quoted as having said in the New York
interview, "my soul is filled with disgust. Not until you learn to
ignore the question of sex and to meet on a ground of common
humanity will your women really develop. Until then they are
playthings, nothing more. . . . We should not think that we are
men and women, but only that we are human beings, born to
cherish and to help one another."15
Swamiji's admiration for the virtues and strengths of American
women was never dimmed by his observation of their foibles. In
an attempt to counteract the false reports that were encircling the
globe, Mr. Goodwin would write from India on June 28, 1897, to
Mrs. Bull:
We have just seen reports from Chicago and Detroit
papers which give a lecture by Dr. Barrows, & contributions
from our old friends the Revs. Mr. Thoburn & Mr. Clark. In
these it is stated that Swamiji has lost no opportunity since
he returned to India of abusing & belittling American
women. Now, we do not wish to reply to these papers, but
you have so many opportunities of meeting representative
American women that I can do no harm in acquainting you
with the absolute facts, and
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63
 leaving them in your hands. I have been present at every
single lecture given by Swamiji in India & Ceylon. I have
also been present at every single interview granted to a
newspaper man. Further I have not missed one single report
of any utterance of his in any paper. With this opportunity of
knowing the actual facts I can assure you that any statement
of a single word from Swamiji derogatory to American
women is a malicious Fabrication. On the contrary I am
becoming almost weary, if that be possible, of hearing him
speak in the most glowing terms of the American women,
and only a week or two ago he said "If I have to come back
again as woman I must & will come as an American
woman."16

But let us return to Boston. During Swamiji's visit there, the

Evening Transcript published four articles or reports on his
lectures, the first of which has been reproduced above. The
second, a brief report of his public lecture "The Ideal of a
Universal Religion," appeared on March 27:

Said a Universal Religion is Impossible.

Swami Vivekananda told the large audience that crowded

the Allen Gymnasium to hear him speak on the "Ideal of a
Universal Religion," last night, that the recent Parliament of
Religions at Chicago proved, to that date, that universal
religion was impossible. "Nature," he said, "is wiser than we
have thought her to be. It is competition of ideas, the clash
of thought, that keeps thought alive. Sects have always been
antithetical, and always will be splitting into little varieties
of themselves. And the way to get out of this fight of
religions is to let the sects go on subdividing.
"There is no unity in the three elements of religion-
philosophy [theology?], mythology and ceremony. Each .
theologian wants unity, but his idea of unity is the adjust-
ment of all other creeds to his own. I agree with the old
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64
 prophets as long as they agree with me. But there is an
element of religion that towers above all; that is, philosophy.
The philosopher seeks truth, which is one and the same
always. And it is acceptable to the four sides of every
religious nature-the emotional, mystical, active and
philosophical. And he who dares to seek the truth for truth's
sake is greatest among men."
The third Evening Transcript article about Swamiji appeared
on March 28 and was even briefer than the above, being no more
than a mention of his lecture "Realization, or the Ultimate of
Religion." For the sake of completeness, it is given below:

VIVEKANANDA ON THE `FUTURE OF RELIGION'

In the Allen Gymnasium, last evening, about four

hundred people heard the Swami Vivekananda speak under
the auspices of the Procopeia on "Realization, or the
Ultimate of Religion." Tonight the last lecture of the course
will be given, to be followed by a general philosophic
discussion. On Monday the Indian philosopher will return to
Chicago. [As we know, Swamiji had come from Detroit, not
Chicago.]
On Monday, March 30, the Evening Transcript printed its
fourth and longest article about Swamiji, summarizing his work
The city and at Harvard with understanding and appreciation. But
before reproducing this article, let us look at another side of
Swamiji's life in Boston. His stay there was not all work; ere was
a holiday aspect to it, for several of his close friends ad tome from
New York and were staying in Cambridge as guests of Mrs. Ole
Bull.

The commodious house on Brittle Street was even more full of

people than usual. In addition to the relatives, friends,
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65
housekeepers, secretaries, and proteges, who in greater or lesser
number seemed always to be a part of Mrs. Bull's household,
there were Miss Thursby and Mrs. Sterling, Mr. and Mrs. Francis
Leggett, and, later in the month, Miss Sarah Farmer. Miss
Farmer, the gentle founder of the Greenacre Conferences, who
dressed habitually in grey and wore a flowing headdress
resembling that Of an Anglican deaconess, was a close friend of
Mrs. Bull's and her guest for at least a part of Swamiji's Boston
visit. Not being in the city to greet him when he arrived, she
wrote to him from New York on stationery embossed with the
Greenacre seal (a twig-bearing dove flying over the word
PEACE) to express her regret. Her letter was dated March 20 and
read:
My dear Brother
It seems a strange providence that I should be here in
New York and not in Boston to welcome you and do
something to help make pleasant your stay, but I trust I may
be able to return before you leave & that I may have the
privilege of seeing you for a short time at least before you
return.
I have thought of you a great many times and have given
thanks to God for making you a blessing to so many souls.
There were many inquiries about you at Greenacre last year
and many wishes expressed that you might be there, but I
think all your friends rejoiced that you had the privilege of
carrying your message to England, but we hoped that this
summer Greenacre might claim you. Is it not so to be? The
report comes to me that you are to go abroad again this
summer, is it true? God bless you wherever you may go and
strengthen you for your work!
If you are not too busy while you are in Boston, will you
kindly note down for me the particulars of the Parliament of
Religion held in your country so many hundreds of years
ago, telling me who originated it and what was the
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66
 end sought. Please send it to 26 Holyoke St. that I may find
it on my return
With every good wish for you, I remain
Your sister, in the work'17
(Miss Farmer's reference to the Parliament of Religion held in
India was no doubt to the conclave Akbar the Great convened at
his Ibadat-khana, or House of Worship, in the latter half of the
sixteenth century. This parliament, attended by Hindu
philosophers, Jaina teachers, Parsi priests, and Christian
missionaries-the learned imams of Islam had previously had their
say-had been referred to by Swamiji as "only a parlour meeting"
compared to the great Parliament of Religions held in Chicago,
but it was a parlor meeting of which he was justly proud.)
Another out-of town friend of Swamiji's who had come to
Boston in March was Miss Ellen Waldo, his New York disciple,
secretary, housekeeper, and all-round worker for his cause. Miss
Waldo did not stay with Mrs. Bull-the two were not altogether
congenial-but with her (Miss Waldo's) cousin, a Dr. William H.
Prescott, who lived in Boston at 285 Marlborough Street. "He has
for years done a large amount of free medical work among the
poor and he is interested in the higher teachings that the
Procopeia is striving to popularize," Miss Waldo had written to
Mrs. Bull from New York earlier in the month, accepting on her
cousin's behalf tickets to the Procopeia Club meetings.
Where Swamiji (with Goodwin always nearby) made his
headquarters during this Boston period is not known. One can,
however, be fairly sure that while he gave his mailing address as
the Procopeia, he often stayed overnight at Mrs. Bull's hospitable
house in Cambridge where so many of his good friends had
gathered. Mrs. Bull, one imagines, would not have had it
otherwise, and Swamiji himself must have welcomed a relaxed
evening, talking in the fire - and candlelight with congenial
friends, for after nearly three years of continuous work
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his nerves, as he wrote to Alasinga on March 23, were "almost
shattered."18 But another part of the time he may well have slept
for the sake of convenience at the Procopeia Club in Boston,
where he no doubt sometimes held morning and afternoon
interviews with those who wished to talk with him, who wished
to receive instruction, to have their problems solved, their way of
life clarified, and their paths cleared of obstruction, who wished,
in short, his blessing. Swamiji would have taken the time and care
to give to ail who came.
And then he had many friends in Boston and Cambridge other
than his fellow visitors. Of his pleasure in renewing these old
friendships he wrote to both Christina Greenstidel and Mary
Funke, whom he had parted from in Detroit a few days earlier. In
his letter to Christina, whom he looked upon as a daughter and
whose dependent family had less than enough money, he
enclosed a check. (Christina excised from his letter the direct
evidence of Swamiji s affectionate concern for her, but inferential
evidence remains.) His two letters, heretofore unpublished, read;

22nd March 96
c/o the Procopeia
45 St Botolph street
Boston Mass.
Dear Christina
Herewith [words excised] to countersign it & put it
[words excised]. I am afraid I have made ,a mistake in
writing Miss to your name. In that case you will have to sign
also as Miss &c.
I am enjoying Boston very much especially the old
friends here.
They are all kind. Reply promptly. Write fully later on.
With everlasting love & blessings
ours &c19
Vivekananda
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 22nd March 96.
Dear Mrs Funkey
I had no time to write a line even I was so busy. I am
enjoying Boston immensely only hard work. The meeting
with old friends is very pleasing no doubt. The so called
class swelled up to 500 people last night and am afraid will
go on increasing. Every thing going on splendidly. Mr.
Goodwin as nice as ever. We are all friends here. I go next
week to Chicago.
Hope everything is going on well with you there. Kindly
give my love to Mrs. Phelps Mr Phelps and all the rest of my
friends.
With all love and blessings
Yours20
Vivekananda

Swamiji's Boston friends included the famous Julia Ward

Howe, the equally famous Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
Franklin Sanborn, and Professor William James. But his friend of
longest standing was Professor John Henry Wright of Harvard's
Greek Department, who in 1895 had been made dean of the
University's Graduate School. Swamiji's friendship with professor
Wright and his family dated back to the days before the
Parliament of Religions when almost no one could correctly spell
Vivekananda and very few had tried. It had been professor Wright
who, like an instrument of providence, had quickly recognized
Swamiji's genius, had urged him to appear as a delegate to the
Parliament, and had made it possible for him do so, writing the
necessary letters of introduction to the authorities. Since those
early days, Swamiji and the professor had met frequently and,
from time to time, had corresponded.
The Wright family was one of which Swamiji was particularly
fond, but unhappily for all concerned, Mrs. Wright and three
Wright children-Elizabeth, or Bessie, who was
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sixteen, Austin, going on thirteen, and the four-year-old John -
were not in Cambridge in March of 1896. Because of the delicate
health of John, or Jackie, Mrs. Wright had taken the children to
Marion, Alabama, for the winter, thus escaping the rigors of the
New England climate. Professor Wright had perforce remained in
Cambridge, a temporary bachelor, rooming at one of Harvard's
dormitories. But while New England had its snow, sleet, and
subzero temperatures, the southern part of the United States had
perils of its own, and the Wright family was not to escape
tragedy. In March the two boys, Austin (in whom Swamiji was
especially interested) and John, contracted typhoid fever, in those
days a prevalent and dread disease. The correspondence at this
time of crisis between Professor Wright and his wife has been
made available to us by Mr. John K. Wright (the Jackie of 1896),
for it was during this trying period that the professor saw Swamiji
and wrote of him at some length to Mrs. Wright.
On the evening of Tuesday, March 24, Professor Wright called
on Swamiji at Mrs. Bull's, but as other guests abounded, there
was small opportunity for a long and good talk between the two
men. By ten o'clock the professor was back in his dormitory
room, writing to his wife and preparing to catch an eleven o'clock
train for New Bedford, a Massachusetts city some fifty miles
south of Boston.
Tonight [he wrote in this hurried letter] I went to Mrs. Ole
Bull's to call on Swami. He is coming to lunch with me on Friday.
He looks good, and happy and is making a great success at
lecturing. A young stenographer [Mr. J. J· Goodwin] has fallen in
love with his teachings, been converted from Materialism to
Vedantism, and takes him down for love, following him from city
to city. Many of his lectures are in print. At Mrs. Bull's I met Mr.
Fenellosa, Miss Emma Thursby, Miss Seabury and Mrs. Vaughan
(born Bull) [Olea Vaughan, Mrs. Bull's daughter], besides Mr.
Leggett, a New York rich man (rather
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nice) who took Swami to Europe last summer, and greatly
admires him. 21

Professor Wright's next letter to his wife was written on the

following day from New Bedford, where, it appears, he had gone
to make a study of educational methods. By chance, this New
Bedford field trip fell on the day of Swamiji's Harvard 1ecture,
and thus we have no firsthand account from Professor Wright of
that occasion. In New Bedford, however, he thought of his now
famous friend and, with a touch of paternal pride, to which he
was well entitled, wrote to his wife of the heights Swamiji had
attained in the world and of his recent successes in Boston:
Swami gives a lecture tonight in Cambridge, before the
Philosophical Club: all the big wigs in philosophy are going
to see him.
He is giving talks in Boston before the Procopeia society:
they supposed about 150 people might come, but they have
had to take a larger hall, 450 people crowding in. And there
has been absolutely no advertising.22
The following day Professor Wright returned to Cambridge,
and on Friday, March 27, Swamiji had lunch with him, going first
to his room in Harvard's Holworthy Dormitory for an hour long
talk and, after lunch at "the Club," returning to the room where
for another hour and a half the conversation continued. Swamiji
told of his life for the past year or so-of his visit to England, of
the people he had met and the reception he had been accorded, of
his triumphs and his adventures. this recounting he owed the
professor, who, as he had once written to Alasinga, had been "the
first man [in America] who stood as my friend."23
Professor Wright found Swamiji changed. The last time he
and Mrs. Wright had together seen him had been in May of 1894;
since then he had formulated his message in detail, had
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become certain of the nature of his mission in the West, and had
settled down to teach. The fiery warrior who in one city after
another had forthrightly given the lie to missionary propaganda
against his motherland, who had defied all opposition, who had
indeed stridden onward as though opposition, virulent as it was,
did not exist, who manifested power above all else, this "cyclonic
Hindu" had become the imperturbable teacher, more absorbed
now in delivering his message than in pulling the fangs of
bigotry, from which he had by now milked most of the venom.
As a consequence, he appeared more gentle. Others had
commented upon this change in his manner, which seems to have
become noticeable around the beginning of 1895, or at the start of
his teaching work in New York. The reader may remember, for
instance, that Miss Thursby, in writing to Mrs. Bull, had
remarked: "Last night's lecture in Brooklyn was a splendid one.
He seems to have come to the realization that he must work in the
spirit of his Master. I wrote him . . . how much my friends had
enjoyed his talk [at a private class] and how we all felt the uplift
when he spoke to us only in the spirit of his Master. Landsberg
said last night that he [Swamiji] would never talk again in the old
antagonistic spirit."24 But "the old antagonistic spirit" had been
essential to the work Swamiji had had to do during most of 1894.
His days of battle were over only because the battle had been
won.
Swamiji's experiences since he had last seen Professor Wright
had been many and varied, and it is small wonder that there was
so much to talk of. Telling his wife of that conversation of March
27, the professor wrote:
Swami came and lunched with me today. He came to the
room at about twelve: we sat and talked till one, when we
went over to the Club; then at two we came back and talked
till half past three.
He is become so much gentler, and wiser, and sweeter.
Indeed he is most charming. He says his stay in America has
taught him a great deal. I wish I could give you an idea of
his talk: He says he has worked on and out with a
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new view of life: that the practical living of America has
brought his old problems before him in new lights.
Last summer he was in England and had a very suc-
cessful time. He made a speech in Queen's [Prince's] Hall
and the papers took him [up], writing editorials. The clergy
of the Established church became interested in him, and
came to his classes. Canon Wilberforce, now in charge of
Westminster Abbey, took him into his house and gave him a
dinner. Mr. Haweis had him lecture in his own parlours, and
preached about him and his teachings in his church. "Wasn't
it funny?" Swami said. "When I came into Mr. Haweis'
crowded parlour he came up to me and in a loud voice said
`Here comes the master!' "
The chief secretary for India, Sir F. Arbuthnot, Swami
succeeded in winning, and they became fast friends.* Swami
said that England is just like India with its Castes. "I had to
have separate classes for the two castes. For the high Caste
people-Lady This and Lady That, Honorable This and
Honorable That-I had classes in the morning; for the Low
Caste people, who came pell-mell, I had classes in the
evening."
My account of what Swami said may sound as if he was
boasting, but it was not so. He was never so modest. He has
made a very fast friend in a Scotch gentleman, a Mr. Sturdy,
who must be a character. He made a fortune of £10,000 a
year in Australia and then came to England, and became a
Theosophist. His Theosophy carried him to India where he
soon became cured of it.** He then became a monk and fell
in with some of' Swami's gurubhais (or `fellow pupils') and
became much attached to them. Something then carried him
back to England where he married, giving up the monk's
life. But his love for his former brethren now finds its outlet
in Swami. It was he who got up the various lectures and
classes in London. Swami says that he intends to take to
India .a score of young English Vedantists and have them go
as missionaries to the Hindoos, of their own (the Hindoo)
religion. The
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Hindoos, he says will listen to them as to no other people.
"Why! if these people think there is so much in our religion,
there must be something in it," Swami naively said they
would say.
Canon Wilberforce told Swami that they were trying to
teach in substance the Vedanta philosophy in the church at
the present time, and that he (Swami) was really a
missionary to the Church of England.
Mr. Leggett, Swami's New York friend is a very rich
grocer. Swami becomes genuinely American in talking
about him: "he is worth about $20,000,000." He took Swami
to England last summer. In May Swami goes over again, and
several other people are also going. It is a sort of nineteenth
century Vedantade. Mrs. Ole Bull will probably be of the
company.
In England Swami saw men chiefly, clergymen, members
of the India civil service, not a few army officers. He says
that about every one person in four was either born or has
lived in India. And these people either hate it bitterly, or
think there is no country like it. The latter class found in
Swami something that reminded them of their beloved
home, and came to him and helped him most
enthusiastically.
Swami has evidently swept Professor James off his feet.
Miss Sibbens told me this evening that he was going in to
Boston to hear his talks at every opportunity. Dear old
Swami! He said he used to believe in revivals, and used to
take part in them . . . He used to harangue in the wildest
manner, sing and dance, and have crowds following him in
India but that is all wrong. Quietness and Knowledge is best.
[It is more than probable that Professor Wright confused two
stories here: one, a description, . perhaps, of the early days at
the Baranagore Monastery when Swamiji and the other
monks would at times lose themselves in a fervor of spiritual
emotion, spending hours totally absorbed in singing
devotional songs; and two, a description of Hindu kirtans,
such as those inspired and
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 led by Sri Chaitanya in the sixteenth century, when crowds
dancing and singing in devotional ecstasy could be said to
be mad with the love of God. Swamiji may well have joined
in such public kirtans in India, but that he led them does not
accord with what is known of his life there prior to his
coming to America. Thus until some corroborative evidence
is forthcoming it is safer to assume that Professor Wright, to
whom this whole subject must have been new and strange,
got it a little wrong.] He said some very beautiful things: he
is going to send me his lectures, and I'll let you have them.
He asked very affectionately about you and the children the
very first thing he said to me. 25
Just before lunching with Swamiji, Professor Wright had
received news that his two sons were very much better but that
bessie had entered upon the uncertain course of the disease. It was
a time of extreme anxiety for him. "The tension is not easy to
bear," he wrote to his wife; yet (or perhaps therefore) he would
devote pages in this same letter to telling her about Swamiji,
knowing she would be interested, and she, in turn, could
remember him and write of him with affection. "Your letter came
about Swami," she wrote on the night of March 30. " . . Dear old
Swami! I do love him."26
It was not until a day or two after Swamiji had left Boston that
Professor Wright received word from Marion, Alabama, of his
daughter's death, and not until some six weeks later that this
tragic news reached Swamiji in England. Swamiji's letter of
condolence, which has also been made available to us by Mr.
John K. Wright, is the last he is known to have written to his
friend:

16th May 1896

63 St George's Road
London. S.W

Dear Adhyapakji [Honorable Professor] Last mail

brought the very very sad news of the blow that has fallen
on you.
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 This is the world my brother-this illusion of Maya-the
Lord alone is true. The forms are evanescent but the spirit
being in the Lord and of the Lord is immortal and
omnipresent All that we ever had are round us this minute
for the spirit can neither come nor go only changes its plane
of manifestation.
You are strong and pure and so is Mrs. Wright and I am
sure that the Divine in you has arisen and thrown away the
lie and delusion that there can be death for anyone. "He who
sees in this world of manifoldness that one support of
everything, in the midst of a world of unconsciousness that
one eternal consciousness, in this evanescent world that one
eternal and unchangeable, unto him belongs eternal peace"
May the peace of the Lord descend upon you and yours
in abundance is the prayer.
of your ever loving friend27
Vivekananda
During his stay in Boston and Cambridge, Swamiji also
renewed his friendship with Professor James, sweeping him, as
Professor Wright told his wife, "off his feet " Swamiji had
probably first met James in October of 1894 when he had stayed
at Mrs. Bull's for ten days or so, and almost certainly he had met
him in December of that year when he had held classes in
Cambridge under Mrs. Bull's auspices. An account of what must
have been the first of these 1894. meetings is given in the Life:
It was at this time [the time is not made clear] that the
Swami met the distinguished Professor William James of
Harvard at dinner at the residence of Mrs. Ole Bull. After
dinner the Swami and the Professor drew together in earnest
and subdued conversation. It was midnight when they rose
from their long discourse. Eager to know the result of the
meeting Of these two great minds, Mrs. Bull
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 asked, "Well, Swami, how did you like Professor James?"
He replied in a sort of abstracted way, "A very nice man, a
very nice man!" laying emphasis on the word nice. The next
day the Swami handed a letter to Mrs. Bull with the casual
remark, "You may be interested in this." Mrs. Bull read and
to her amazement saw that Professor James, in inviting the
Swami to meet him at his own residence for dinner a few
days later, had addressed him as "Master."28

Swamiji had evidently not been able to accept that invitation,

for now in 1896 Professor James, still addressing him as
"Master," again asked to see him "for once" under his own roof.
His letter, delivered to Mrs. Bull's house by his young son, read in
full :
95 Irving St.
Cambridge March 28 [1896]

Dear Master,
I hate not to have any talk with you before you go away.
I am willing to give up two engagements I have this
afternoon for the sake of meeting you, if you yourself should
be free between 4 and 6:30 o'clock. Or if it suits you better
can you lunch with me tomorrow at one? Or can you dine
with me at 6:00 this evening and still be in time for your
lecture at 8?
Pray choose one of these alternatives and let the mes-
senger, my son, know which. A verbal message will suffice.
In case you choose this afternoon at 4, pray say whether you
prefer to come to my house or to have me call at Mrs.
Bull's? I can do either, but naturally I should like to see you
for once under my own roof. If I go to Mrs. Bull's I may not
be there before half past four. If you stay to dinner tonight,
pray come as early in the afternoon as you can.
Sincerely yours29
Wm. James
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 Of these various alternatives, Swamiji, who would have to
deliver two lectures that Saturday, March 28-one at the Twentieth
Century Club and one at the Procopeia Club chose to lunch with
Professor James the following day at one o'clock. Accordingly,
James's young son William dutifully came once again to Mrs.
Bull's to escort his father's improbable guest across the
Cambridge Common to the house on Irving Street. Many years
later, when the young William was an old man, he wrote to a
friend; recalling that disconcerting experience. His letter read in
part:
I was deputed one spring Sunday morning (when I was
about 13 years old) to call for [the Swami] at Mrs. Ole Bull's
house on Brattle St and conduct him to lunch with my
parents in Irving St. He of course was dressed in his turban
and Hindoo robes and I remember feeling anxiety lest we
should meet any of my schoolmates on our way across the
Common. You can see that this fear of being conspicuous
didn't make for conversation-he being occupied with his
high thoughts and I with my low ones. I remember that at
lunch he and my father were much interested in each other-
and that he accepted, in his stride, our American fare-in
regard to which he must have had some dispensation. 30
The conversation at that lunch, which took place on the last
day but one of Swamiji's stay in Boston, could not have been
anything but rich and brilliant, the two men delighting in one
another's company, though not necessarily agreeing with one
another's though, which was as it should have been in Cambridge,
where no philosopher worthy of the name agreed with any other.
How many friends, all told, Swamiji had in and around Boston
there is no telling. We can be sure, however, that they did not all
belong to the circles of the famous or the near-famous, for
Swamiji's friendships were never confined to any
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one group or class of people. Indeed the story of his visit to
America would not be complete without taking into account a
sentence imbedded in one of the news articles quoted earlier.
Speaking of his American life in general, the Daily Globe
observed: "The Swami has talked not only before intellectual
audiences and in fashionable drawing rooms, but he has sought
out and made friends with the workingmen with whom he is able
to get on so well, because he believes that all great truths are
expressed in simple forms." Swamiji's friendship with American
workingmen constitutes a part of his life of which we know
almost nothing, for no memoirs or letters concerning it have come
down to us. Yet even as he had made friends with the rich and the
poor alike during his wandering days in India, so in America he
surely did the same, and to overlook this aspect of his visit to the
West is to miss a large part of Swamiji himself, for his love and
concern for the poor and the burdened was an intrinsic element of
his nature. How often did he write: "Love the poor, the miserable,
the downtrodden!" It is true that he had in mind, and at heart,
primarily the poor of India, but not exclusively. "May I be born
again and again," he wrote to Mary Hale in 1897, "and suffer
thousands of miseries, a that I may worship the only God that
exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls-and
above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God
the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my
worship."31 It is said that even as a boy he used to visit the
quarters of Calcutta where the untouchables lived in order to help
them; and during his days of wandering alone through India he
grieved, brokenhearted, over the misery he saw throughout his
motherland. Feeling for the poor as he did, it is not likely that he
would have ignored them in this country, particularly in the de-
pression years of 1893 to 1897 when the suffering among the
laboring classes was intense. One remembers the passage in Sister
Christine's "Reminiscences" in which she recalls several instances
of his keen feeling for the poverty-stricken and the forlorn in
America. "His compassion," she writes, "for the
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poor and downtrodden, the defeated, was a passion. One did not
need to be told, but seeing him one knew that he would willingly
have offered his flesh for food and his blood for drink to the
hungry."32
1n the 1890s in America the distinction between the upper and
lower classes was vast. While industry and business flourished,
and immense fortunes were being raked up in piles by a few
enterprising and often ruthless men, the workingman's average
earnings remained low. He worked, if he were lucky enough to
work at all, a minimum of sixty hours a week, and for those sixty
hours he earned from five to nine dollars (barely enough to pay
his rent and feed his family). He lived, undernourished, in
ramshackle, overcrowded, fetid, and rat-ridden tenements. In the
best of times the specter of unemployment was never absent, and
in those depression years, when hundreds of thousands were
thrown out of work, it was a stark and fearful reality. Nor did he
have at any time a means of redressing the many wrongs done
him, nor any avenue of escape. He dived, his back against a cliff,
on the edge of pauperism-an abyss into which illness or an
accident or simply a lay-off could plunge him irrevocably.
It was such men and women whom Swamiji sought out and
made friends with, talking with them, perhaps, on the docks of
New York, at the People's Church, in the slums of Chicago, or in
the swarming back streets of South End Boston, where the Italian
and Greek venders plied their pushcarts and the Irish huckster
with his horse and wagon gave full-throated advertisement to his
wares. Perhaps he sometimes entered their dilapidated tenements
and shared their meals. Nor did he find the conditions too terrible,
for he had seen worse. (In Chicago in 1893 he had remarked that
the slums there-among the worst in the United States-were
"comfortable and even pleasant" compared with those of India.) 33
Swamiji's eye, moreover, penetrated to an essential quality of the
American workingman-his air, his inner conviction, of self
respect and dignity. The workingman, come recently perhaps
from Europe,
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was now a citizen of a democracy, and he sensed, even if he did
not actually experience, all that that implied. Writing in 1898,
Robert A. Woods, one of the first authors to draw attention to the
plight of the lower classes in urban America, remarked: "Even in
the face of the most untoward circumstances -and without making
light of the crushing power of the circumstances that surround the
life of poverty-one can often find here some touch of that
dauntlessness which is typically American."34 Swamiji found it;
he found that look in the face and carriage of the poorest of the
poor which declared, "I am a man among men.”35

Swamiji lectured seven times during his stay in Boston, and

on Monday, March 30, the day he left the city, the Evening
Transcript devoted a long article to his work. Although portions
of this article have been quoted in the first and the latest (1981)
editions of the Life, it is given here in full. Despite a bit of
confusion in connection with the Harvard talk, it conveys, I
believe, not only an idea of Swamiji's lectures of. this period, but
also an idea of Boston's reception of them as reflected in its best
of newspapers:

FOR UNIVERSAL RELIGION

The Hindu Swami Lectures Before Several Societies.

The Swami Vivekananda has, during the past few days,

conducted a most successful work in connection with the
Procopeia. During this time he has given four class lectures
for the club itself, with constant audiences of between four
and five hundred people, at the Allen Gymnasium, 44 St.
Botolph street, two at the house of Mrs. Ole Bull in
Cambridge, and one before the professors and graduate
students of the philosophical department of Harvard
University.
The idea which brought the Swami to America three
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years ago as Hindu delegate to the Parliament of Religions,
and has been the guiding motive of all his subsequent work,
both in America and England, is one which appeals strongly
to the people whose creation the parliament was, but the
methods which he proposes are peculiarly his own. One of
his lectures during the week has been "The Ideal of a
Universal Religion," but a "harmonious religion" would,
perhaps, equally meet the case, if, indeed, it would not more
adequately express that for which he is striving. The Swami
is not a preacher of theory. If there is any one feature of the
Vedanta philosophy, which he propounds, which appears
especially refreshing, it is its intense capability of practical
demonstration. We have become almost wedded to the idea
that religion is a sublime theory which can be brought into
practice and made tangible for us only in another life, but
the Swami shows us the folly of this. In preaching the
Divinity of Man he inculcates a spirit of strength into us
which will have none of those barriers between this life and
actual realization of the sublime that, to the ordinary man,
appear as insurmountable.
In discussing the general lines on which it appears to him
universal religion can alone be established, he claims for his
plan no super-authority. As he says: "I have also my little
plan. I do not know whether it will work or not, and I want
to present it to you for discussion. In the first place, I would
ask mankind to recognize this maxim: `Do not destroy.'
Iconoclastic reformers do no good to the world. Help, if you
can; if you cannot, fold your hands, stand by, and see things
go on. Therefore say not a word against any man's
convictions, so far as they are sincere. Secondly, take man
where he stands, and from thence give him a lift. 36
"Unity in variety is the plan of the universe. Just as we
are all men, yet we are all separate. As humanity, I am one
with you; as Mr. So-and-so, I am different from you. As a
man you are separate from woman, but as human
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beings you are all one; as a living being you are one with
animals and all that lives, but as man you are separate. That
existence is God, the ultimate unity in this universe. In Him
we are all one. We find, then, that if by the idea of a
universal religion is meant that one set of doctrines should
be believed by all mankind, it is impossible; it can never be,
any more than all faces will be the same. Again, if we expect
that there will be one universal mythology, that is also
impossible, it cannot be. Neither can there be a universal
ritual. When this time comes the world will be destroyed,
because variety is the first principle of life. What makes us
Formed beings? Differentiation. Perfect balance will be
destruction.
"What then do I mean by the ideal of a universal
religion? I do not mean a universal philosophy, or a
universal mythology, or a universal ritual, but I mean that
this world must go on, wheel within wheel. What can we
do? We can make it run smoothly, we can lessen friction, we
can grease the wheels, as it were. By what? By recognizing
variation. Just as we have recognized unity, by our very
nature, so we must also recognize variation. We must learn
that truth may be expressed in a thousand ways, and each
one yet be true. We must learn that the same thing can be
viewed from a hundred different standpoints, and yet be the
same thing.
"In society we see so many various natures of mankind.
A practical generalization will be impossible, but for my
purpose I have simply characterized them into four. First,
the active man; then the emotional man; then the mystical
man, and lastly the philosopher.
"To be universal, religion must provide possibility of
realizing truth through means suitable to any one of these
minds, and a religion which says that through one alone all
men must struggle, whether these minds are capable of the
struggle or not, must end in agnosticism."
In his lecture on Karma Yoga, the Swami dealt with
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the science of work. The lecture for the most part analyzed
the motives men have in work, and particularly the motive
of heaven as a reward for good work on earth. This, said the
Swami, is shopkeeping religion. Work alone reaches its
highest when it is done absolutely without hope of reward,
work for work's sake, and without regard to the
consequences.
In discussing Bhakti Yoga, Devotion, the Swami ex-
plained the rationale of a Personal God. This idea of
devotion and worship of some being who has to be loved,
and who can reflect back the love to man, is universal. The
lowest stage of the manifestation of this love and devotion is
ritualism, when man wants things that are concrete, and
abstract ideas are almost impossible. Throughout the history
of the world we find man is trying to grasp the abstract
through thought forms, or symbols, and the external
manifestations of religion. Bells, music, rituals, books,
images, come under that head. Man can only think with
form and word. Immediately thought comes, form and name
flash into the mind with them, so that when we think of God,
whether as the Personal God with human shape, or as the
Divine Principle, or in any other aspect, we are always
thinking of our own highest ideal with some or other form,
generally human, because the form of man is the highest of
which man can conceive. But, while recognizing this as a
necessity of human weakness, and while making
proportionate use of rituals, symbols, books and churches,
we must always remember that it is very good to be born in
a church, but it is very bad to die in a church. If a man dies
within the bounds of these forms, it shows that he has not
grown, that there has been no uncovering of the real, the
Divinity, within him.
True love can be regarded as a triangle. The first angle is,
love knows no bargain. So when a man is praying to God,
"give me this, and give me that," it is not love. How can it
be? "I give you my little prayer, and you give me
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something in return;" that is mere shopkeeping. The second
angle is, love knows no fear. So long as God is regarded as a
rewarder or a punisher, there can be no love for him. The
third angle, the apex, is, love is always the highest ideal.
When we have reached the point where we can worship the
ideal as the ideal, all arguments and doubts have vanished
forever. The ideal can never escape, because it is part of our
own nature.
In his lecture at Harvard University the Swami traced the
history, so far as it is known, of the Vedanta philosophy, and
showed to what extent the Vedas (the Hindu scriptures) are
accepted as authoritative; merely as the foundation for the
philosophy in so far as they appeal to the reason. He
compared the three schools, the Dualists, who acknowledge
a supreme being, and a lesser being manifesting in men, but
eternally separate from men. Next he described the
philosophy of the Qualified nondualists, whose particular
idea is that there is a God and there is nature, but that the
soul of nature [?] is simply the expansion, or the body of
God, just as the body of man is to man's soul. They claim, in
support of this theory, that the effect is never different from
the cause, but that it is the cause reproduced in another form,
and as God, therefore, is the cause of this universe, he is also
the effect. The Monists . . . declare that if there is a God, that
God must be both the material and the efficient cause of the
universe. Not only is he the Creator; but he is also the
created. He himself is this universe, apparently; but, in
reality, this universe does not exist-it is mere hypnotisation.
Differentiation is in name and form only. There is but one
soul in the universe, not two, because that which is
immaterial cannot be bounded, must be infinite; and there
cannot be two infinities, because one would limit the other.
The soul is pure, and the appearance of evil is just as a piece
of crystal, which is pure in itself, but appears to be variously
colored when flowers are placed before it.
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 In discussing Raja Yoga ["Realization, or the Ultimate of
Religion" at the Procopeia], the psychological way to union
with God, the Swami expanded upon the power to which the
mind can attain through concentration, both in reference to
the physical and the spiritual world. It is the one method that
we have in all knowledge. From the lowest to the highest,
from the smallest worm to the highest sage, they have to use
this one method. The astronomer uses it in order to discover
the mysteries of the skies, the chemist in his laboratory, the
professor in his chair. This is the one call, the one knock,
which opens the gates of nature and lets out the floods of
light. This is the one key, the only power-concentration. In
the present state of our bodies we are so much distracted, the
mind is frittering away its energies upon a hundred sorts of
things. By scientific control of the forces which work the
body this can be done, and its ultimate effect is realization.
Religion cannot consist of talk. It only becomes religion
when it becomes tangible, and until we strive to feel that of
which we talk so much, we are no better than agnostics, for
the latter are sincere and we are not.
The Twentieth Century Club had the Swami as their
guest Saturday [March 28], and heard an address from him
on the "Practical Side of the Vedanta Philosophy." He leaves
Boston today, and will, within a few days, sail for England,
en route for India.
In volume five of the Complete Works it is mentioned that
Swamiji gave two afternoon talks on March 22 and 24 of 1896 to
a group of Harvard students. From two brief entries in Miss
Emma Thursby's diary, we learn that these afternoon talks and the
class lectures that he held at Mrs. Bull's house on Brattle Street in
Cambridge (mentioned in the first paragraph of the above article)
were one and the same. "Harvard students at Mrs. Bull's hear
Swami," Miss Thursby noted on March 22; and on March 24 the
variation, "Harvard students hear the
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Swami at Mrs. Bull's."37 Miss Thursby was not much of a diarist
and commented no further on these events, but in the Complete
Works we find Swamiji's answers to the questions asked at Mrs.
Bull's by the Harvard students.38 The questions themselves were
not taken down, but to judge from the answers, alone of which
were quite long, these young men were serious, thoughtful, and
eager. They wanted to know about Buddhism, the problem of free
will, the Vedantic theory of evolution, the theory of Maya, and so
on. Although Swamiji's class talks themselves are lost, it would
appear from this subsequent discussion that he had spoken
primarily of Advaita Vedanta. It would appear also that he had
immensely enjoyed talking to these earnest young men whose
minds were still flexible and vigorous. He had, indeed, looked
forward to such an occasion. "I am very glad however," he had
written to Mrs. Bull in February of his proposed Boston visit, "to
get an opportunity to talk to the graduates of Harvard." (The
"however:' in this sentence was in reference to the lack of
enthusiasm he had felt in regard to the Procopeia Club.)39 The
Harvard students, in turn, found in Swamiji a teacher par
excellence, one who could clarify and evaluate abstruse concepts
and help a lost youth thread his way through Harvard's
philosophical labyrinths. Once before, in December of 1894
Swamiji had spoken to Harvard students in Mrs. Bull's spacious
teak-paneled music room and had unsnarled their philosophical
tangles. "He has helped students who were bewildered by their
course of Philosophy at Harvard,"40 Mrs. Bull had written to Dr.
Lewis G. Janes, and there can be little doubt that this was equally
true of his classes in March of 1896. The story is told, no doubt
0riginally by Professor James, that as he (James) was walking
behind two Harvard undergraduates who had just attended one of
Swamiji's talks, he overheard the following conversation: First
student: "I was really disappointed." Second student: "Why?"
First student: "Well, we were told that this man was so great, that
his ideas were so profound." Second student: "What makes you
say his ideas aren't profound?" First
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student: "Because I understood every word he said!” 41
Many Harvard students not only understood what Swamiji
said, they never forgot it. In this connection one recalls the
"Recollections of Swami Vivekananda" by the late Professor
William Ernest Hocking, said to have been the last of the great
American Idealists. After writing of the deep impression Swamiji
had made on him at the Parliament of Religions, Professor
Hocking went on:
For several years I lost sight of Vivekananda....I spent
four years in Davenport [Iowa], earning money to come East
and study with James. During those years, Vivekananda had
begun his great work of founding centers for the Vedanta
throughout America. In the course of this work he came to
Cambridge. I heard him twice: once in a class in
metaphysics, and once at the home of Mrs. Ole Bull on
Brattle Street. It was in these informal gatherings that the
quality of the man most directly spoke, and I was confirmed
in my regard, and my purpose to rethink my philosophical
foundations.42
The 1896 class lectures at Mrs. Bull's were, in a sense,
forerunners of Swamiji's lecture of March 25 before the Harvard
Graduate Philosophical Club. This Harvard engagement, spoken
of by his biographers as "one of the most remarkable incidents of
his whole American career,"43 served the purpose, though without
conscious intent, of an ideally appropriate farewell tribute. To be
invited to speak before this society was to receive one of the
highest honors intellectual America could pay, and while Swamiji
himself does not seem to have been particularly impressed by the
honorific significance of the invitation, it could not have been lost
upon others. One can say without exaggeration that in the 1890s
the Graduate Philosophical Club of Harvard represented the best
of America's philosophical thought. It was not only one of the
few graduate societies of any kind then existing in the country,
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but was, without question, the most intellectually rich and varied
of them all. Its members included the graduate students of
Harvard's Department of Philosophy and also, of course,
Harvard's professors of philosophy and psychology (the latter
being still officially regarded as a branch of the former). George
H. Palmer, William James, Josiah Royce, Hugo Miinsterberg, and
George Santayana-to name them in order of their seniority-were
in 1896 its stars, and, with the exception of Santayana, who was
as yet unknown to the world at large, were the stars also of
American philosophy as a whole. Closely affiliated were Charles
C. Everett in Harvard's Philosophy of Religion, Francis G.
Peabody in Social Ethics, E. C. Moore in Christian Morals, and P.
H. Hanus in Education, all well known in their respective fields.
Professor Palmer affectionately and accurately referred to the
Department of Philosophy, of which he was head, as a
"philosophical menagerie."44 One could not easily have found
elsewhere so varied, so lively, and so noisy a group of thinkers.
All its members were brilliant, none thought along the same lines
as any of the others, and each delighted in prolonged
argumentation. An open and joyful debate took place endlessly on
the campus and in the professors’ cheerful and hospitable homes.
Recalling this halcyon period of philosophical wrangling, George
Foot Moore, who had been at the time a professor of Hebrew at
the not-distant Andover Theological Seminary, wrote of it with
nostalgia:
Palmer, . . . James, Royce, Munsterberg, and, a little
later, Santayana, made such a constellation as no American
University had seen or may perhaps see again in our time.
They were men of widely diverse types; fundamentally
different philosophies and opposite ways of approaching all
philosophical problems were represented among them. It
was no "Harvard School," having a system to inoculate the
minds of docile pupils with, but so many vigorous and
independent thinkers, fit to inspire
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 students to thought by their very disagreements. For in fact
they agreed on little else than freedom to disagree, and in
their generous admiration and affection for one another.
Uniformity of opinion on things human or divine they had
no wish to see among themselves or in their pupils, knowing
that it is purchasable only by renunciation of a man's right to
think for himself, which is worth more to him than even the
possession of the truth!45

It is perhaps not too surprising under the circumstances that

some of the students found themselves not so much inspired as
"bewildered by their course of Philosophy at Harvard." But
however that might have been, the professors were in transports.
"If our students now could begin really to understand what Royce
means with his voluntaristic-pluralistic monism, what
Munsterberg means with his dualistic scientificism and
platonism, what Santayana means by his pessimistic platonism, . .
. what I mean by my crass pluralism, what you mean by your
ethereal idealism, that these are so many religions, ways of
fronting life, and worth fighting for," James wrote with
exuberance to Professor Palmer, "we should have a genuine
philosophic universe at Harvard."46
In the New York Herald of January 19, 1896, it was said that
Swami Vivekananda had "just received an invitation from Mr.
John P. Fox to lecture before the Harvard Graduate Philosophical
Club." This statement is somewhat misleading. In 1896 John
Pierce Fox was a young man, footloose, without title or authority,
and in no position to issue so important an invitation. He had
graduated from Harvard in 1894, had studied for a part of the
following year in Harvard's Divinity School, and in the first half
of 1896, having not yet settled upon a career, was working in his
brother's real estate office. One can only assume (though there are
no available records to this effect) that during this last period he
was also corresponding secretary for the Graduate Philosophical
Club and, in this capacity, sent the invitation to Swamiji. In any
event, Swamiji
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did indeed receive an invitation, of which he wrote to Mrs. Bull in
the early part of January, 1896: *

I have received your letter & also another from the

Secretary of the Harvard Metaphysical (Philosophical?]
club.**
I will be only too glad to come to Boston for the Harvard
lecture especially.47
Whatever Mr. Fox's position may have been, Swamiji wrote to
him, and on January 15 that young man, who was also in touch
with Mrs. Bull, wrote the following letter to her:
I had a note from Vivekananda Monday [January 13],
saying he expects to come to Boston in March or perhaps in
February, and will be only too glad to speak to the students:
It will be not before the Harvard Religious Union, but the
Graduate Philosophical Club-the most philosophical
organization at Harvard-so that the audience will be the best
the University can afford.48
Again, on February 23, John Fox wrote to Mrs. Bull from his
home in Dorchester, Massachusetts:
Your letter came Friday, and I at once went out to
Cambridge to see Mr. Lough, the president of the Philo-
sophical Club. He said the Club would like to have Swami
speak on Wednesday evening, March 25.49
Thus one gathers that while Mr. Fox clearly played a part in
the arrangements for Swamiji's talk before the Harvard
Philosophical Club, the invitation itself was issued by the presi-
dent of that august body and was very likely sanctioned by its
senior members, who, in the early months of 1896, would have
been William James and Josiah Royce. (Professor George Palmer
was taking a sabbatical leave and traveling in Europe
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with his wife. Hugo Miinsterberg, the brilliant young psychol-
ogist whom William James had brought from Germany in 1892 to
take charge of Harvard's psychological laboratory, had returned
for a time to his homeland. Although George Santayana, the
youngest of the group-just Swamiji's age-was teaching in Harvard
in the spring of 1896, he was not yet a full professor with a
decisive voice in the affairs of the Department. This left James
and Royce, Harvard's brightest philosophical stars in any event, in
full command.)
As far as I know, there are no records to prove beyond all
possibility of doubt that these two professors attended Swamiji's
lecture before the Graduate Philosophical Club. One does know,
however, that they intended to. A few days before the event, Mr.
Fox wrote to Mrs. Bull, "Mr. Lough said that Vivekananda's
addresses (his published pamphlets] interested not only the
philosophical students, but also Prof. James and Prof. Royce, who
hope to be at his Harvard talk." And to judge from Professor
Wright's account of James's enthusiastic attendance at the
Procopeia lectures and his remark that "a11 the big wigs in
philosophy" were going to attend the Harvard talk, it is not likely
that James was absent; nor would Royce have done Swamiji the
discourtesy of remaining away. Other professors who we can be
reasonably sure attended the lecture were Professor Charles
Rockwell Lanman, chairman of the Sanskrit Department, who
had helped to collect the thousand-and-more manuscripts of
Harvard's Sanskrit library (and who was later made an honorary
member of the New York Vedanta Society), and the Reverend
Charles Carroll Everett, head of Harvard's Divinity School. How
many others were present we can only guess, but professors and
divines, instructors, such as George Santayana, and graduate
students, such as John Fox, no doubt packed the hall.' It was, as
the life remarks, a "great critical gathering."
Swamiji's talk, "The Vedanta Philosophy," which one can find
in volume one of the Complete Works, was a short, brilliantly
concise exposition of the origin, development, and meaning of
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Vedanta in its three phases. It was a talk intended for philos-
ophers and students of philosophy, whose interest in the subject
could be presumed to be primarily intellectual. And yet, toward
the end, when speaking of Advaita Vedanta, Swamiji seems to
have become electrified; the brilliant scholar became the
incandescent prophet, pouring out his message, as was usually his
way, directly to the hearts, as well as to the minds, of his
listeners.
"My success," Swamiji had written two days earlier to his
Madras disciple Alasinga, "is due to my popular style-the
greatness of a teacher consists in the simplicity of his language."50
Beyond question it was true that Swamiji made his lectures as
simple as possible, his purpose being always to help spiritually,
never to confuse intellectually; but simplicity of language was not
the whole of the secret. "That man," William James was later to
exclaim, "is simply a wonder for oratorical power." 51
The discussion following the Harvard lecture was long and
lively-a sure indication of the audience's interest and delight.
There were many questions; some were philosophical, some were
concerned with the relation of Vedanta to science, to ethics, to
psychic phenomena (one of William James's interests), and
inevitably to the Indian caste system-though this was an odd
question to be raised at Harvard, where the Bostonian caste
system was accepted as one of the irrefrangible laws of the
universe. Unfortunately, the names of the questioners, many of
which might today be of interest, have not come down to us, but
one can assume that it was primarily the professors who asked,
for such was, and is, the usual procedure at gatherings of this sort.
Swamiji's Harvard talk may have been longer than we know.
A comparison between a report of his lecture in the Evening
Transcript (see pp. 85-86) and the version that has been published
in the Complete Works (as taken from a pamphlet printed in April
or May of 1896) leads one to the unsettling suspicion that it has
not come down to us in full. Who was to
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blame for whatever omissions may have been made there is today
no way of knowing. Indeed, before going to England Swamiji
himself did some editing. On April 14 Mr. Fox, by then becoming
involved in Swamiji's work, wrote from New York to Mrs. Bull,
who had charge of the publishing end of things:
Mr. Goodwin wrote you, I believe, that Swami has
worked on the Harvard lecture, spending about three hours
Sunday morning with me. On the Vedas, commentators, etc.,
he wrote three pages of notes,-making everything clear on
those matters I think. This afternoon, I am going to see him
again about a thing or two more. . . .
In regard to the expense of printing the Harvard lecture,
Mr. Leggett is ready to help, but did not say to what extent:
that would depend on the cost, I suppose.
I expect now to return Thursday [April 16] and will come
out to see you the first thing, that there may be no more
delay about publication.52
Within two weeks the publication of the pamphlet was well
under way, and Mr. Leggett, a man of his word, not only helped,
but bore the entire expense of publishing the first edition. On May
1 he wrote to Mrs. Bull:
I am in receipt of your letter and enclose check for $125
to cover expense of publishing the Swami Harvard talks. Of
course a paper cover is far preferrable to pamphlet form for
durability etc. I should not combine the Harvard series with
the Raja production unless it is carefully revised and all
repetition is eliminated.
Prof Royce's preface to the Harvard series I should think
to be very desirable and gives Swami's thought the stamp of
approval and thereby helps the ordinary reader. 53
Whether Professor Royce's preface to Swamiji's lecture was
actually written or only proposed and what, in any event, be-
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came of it, we do not know. Duly published, the booklet con-
tained an Introduction by the Reverend Charles Carroll Everett
and a Note written by John P. Fox, but there was no preface by
Royce or anyone else. Mr. Fox's Note, which gives information
regarding the lecture's editing, read:

This lecture and the discussion which followed were

stenographically reported. They could receive from the
Swami only a cursory revision, owing to his departure for
England, but it is hoped no errors have crept in. Professor
LANMAN and Professor WRIGHT of Harvard [the latter
despite the grief that then was his] have kindly assisted in
the final revision. In the reporting of the discussion, some of
the questions were unavoidably lost. The first four notes
were added by the Swami. In the original lecture, the
quotations from Hindu writings were first given in the
Sanskrit, and then translated; these offhand translations
stand as given.
Following the lecture and discussion, are the answers of
the Swami to questions at two afternoon talks with some
Harvard students, on March 22 and 24. These answers were
stenographically reported, but the questions were not. There
have also been added a few selections from unpublished
lectures. Some of the answers and selections cover the same
general ground, but they have all been retained on account
of the variety in treatment.
While no adequate exposition of the Vedanta philosophy
can be given in a single address, it is hoped that this, with
the accompanying answers and selections, will be of value
to those interested in the thought and life of the East. 54
Dr. Everett's introduction to the Harvard booklet has been
reproduced in full in the first edition of the Life and in part in later
editions. For the convenience of the present reader all of it is
given here:
The Swami Vivekananda was sent by his friends and
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 co-religionists to present their belief at the Congress of
Religions that was held in connection with the World's Fair
in Chicago. This he did in a way to win general interest and
admiration. Since then he has lectured on the same theme in
different parts of our country. He has been in fact a
missionary from India to America. Every where he has made
warm personal friends; and his expositions of Hindu
philosophy have been listened to with delight. It is very
pleasant to observe the eager interest with which his own
people in India follow his course, and the joy that they take
in his success. I have seen a pamphlet filled with speeches
made at a large and influential meeting in Calcutta, which
was called together to express enthusiastic approval of the
manner in which he has fulfilled his mission; and
satisfaction at this invasion of the West by oriental thought.
This satisfaction is well grounded. We may not be so near to
actual conversion as some of these speakers seem to believe;
but Vivekananda has created a high degree of interest in
himself and his work. There are indeed few departments of
study more attractive than the Hindu thought. It is a rare
pleasure to see a form of belief that to most seems so far
away and unreal as the Vedanta system, represented by an
actually living and extremely intelligent believer. This
system is not to be regarded merely as a curiosity, as a
speculative vagary. Hegel said that Spinozism is the
necessary beginning of all philosophizing. This can be said
even more emphatically of the Vedanta system. We
occidentals busy ourselves with the manifold. We can,
however, have no understanding of the manifold, if we have
no sense of the One in which the manifold exists. The reality
of the One is the truth which the East may well teach us; and
we owe a debt of gratitude to Vivekananda that he has
taught this lesson so effectively.55
Of the distribution and sale of the first edition of the Harvard
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pamphlet (which was later to run to several editions) we learn a
little from the following letter that the talented if not altogether
practical Mr. Fox wrote to Mrs. Bull on June 6, 1896, from the
S.S. Victorian on his way to London:

I forgot to ask you about the receipts from the Sale of the
Harvard lectures, and so shall send word to Mr. Goodyear to
write to you about the matter. You will want the money sent
to you, I suppose. The Old Corner Bookstore will forward
their receipts to Mr. Goodyear along with the receipts from
the other pamphlets, unless you want to write to them: I had
Mr. Wilson (the printer) send them fifty Harvard lectures. If
the distribution does not go smoothly, I will straighten
things out in the fall.
In the hurry at Mr. Wilson's, I forgot to have copies sent
to Dr. Everett, Prof. Wright, and Prof. Lanman. Prof. Wright
was away in the evening so I do not know just how many
copies he would like. I left one copy for Dr. Everett when
calling with Dr. Jaynes (Janes?). I will ask Mr. Lough to see
that he has more. As to Prof. Wright and Prof. Lanman,-
could you not have ten Copies sent to each? or perhaps Miss
Hamlin could take them.

I have done a little Vedanta missionary work on the

steamer, correcting false ideas of Mohini (Chatterji) and
Vivekananda held by three Boston ladies. 56

The Harvard professors had been so deeply impressed with

Swamiji's lecture and with his incisive and sometimes heated
replies to their questions during the discussion that he was offered
the chair of Eastern Philosophy. Invitations such as this were not
given lightly at Harvard. The offer had about it something of the
solemnity of a marriage proposal; for President Eliot, not without
good reason, expected his professors to wed themselves heart and
soul and for life to the University. Writing in the spring of 1897
to Hugo Munsterberg, who was having difficulty trying to decide
whether to live in Germany or in
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Cambridge, Eliot made himself clear. "I ought also to say to you
frankly," he wrote, "that the University will not be content to
have you return hither without `burning your ships'; the
University will desire that you return with the intention to remain
in its service, just as any American accepts a professorship here
with the definite intention of spending his life in all probability at
Harvard. . . . In accepting a professorship which is not limited to a
term of years the incumbent is expected to have the present
intention to remain."57
This stipulation would have applied as well to the offer made
to Swamiji. The professorship of Eastern Philosophy was, like
any other Harvard professorship, a lifetime post, and since the
vows on both sides were inviolable, it is clear that the Harvard
professors were not only much impressed by Swamiji's scholar-
ship and mastery of his subject, but that many of them, including
President Eliot, knew him more than casually and were impressed
with him as a man. "[He] is an honor to humanity," 58 William
James would later on write to Mrs. Bull. Harvard, in short, had
decided that it wanted Swamiji for its own-forever. A higher
honor than this could not have been paid by the academic world
of America. But Swamiji was a sannyasin; he could not bind
himself to a secular institution, and he had, moreover, work to do
and a message to give in the open world. Thus he refused.*
(That all of philosophical Harvard-professors and students
alike-acclaimed Swamiji's eloquent, forceful, and rational
presentation of Vedanta is unquestioned, but whether or not he
had budged such monuments as James and Royce one inch from
their hard-fought and well-known philosophical positions is
another matter. The reader can find some thoughts on this subject
in Appendix B.)
On March 26, the day following the Harvard talk, Miss
Thursby noted in her diary: "Mrs. Bull gives reception for
Sterling, Leggetts and self. Swami's lecture at Procopia."59 This
reception was no doubt a late afternoon tea, and, although
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the diary does not mention it, Swamiji was certainly present, three
of the guests of honor being his close friends and the fourth, Mrs.
Antoinette Sterling, well known to him. And that evening, which
in this cold and snowy month was remarkably springlike in its
warmth, his hostess, himself, the guests of honor, and very likely
other guests, such as Miss Farmer, who had by now come from
New York, crossed over the Charles River to Boston, where he
was to deliver "The Ideal of a Universal Religion" at the
Procopeia Club.
During the next two days, in which the weather returned to a
more seemly, March-like cold, Swamiji delivered his last three
talks in Boston, holding in the evenings his third and fourth
classes ("Realization, or the Ultimate of Religion" and the
Upanishad class) at the Procopeia's rented arena, and on the
afternoon of March 28 giving a talk at the Twentieth Century
Club. Of this last, no announcements or reports can be found in
the Boston papers, which leads one to think that the occasion
must have been a private one. The loss, however, is minimal, for
the lecture ("The Vedanta: Its :Practical Bearings; How It Differs
from Other Philosophies") and the discussion that followed were
printed in pamphlet form by the Twentieth Century Club and later
published in volumes one and five, respectively, of the Complete
Works.60 (The lecture as published in volume one of the Complete
Works has been given the title "The Spirit and Influence of
Vedanta.")
As its name would indicate, the Twentieth Century Club was
riding on the crest of the times into the future. It was a dub
devoted primarily to social reform, and its standards of
membership were high. As described by a contemporary
magazine, "It called at once for progressive men, in sympathy
with the advancing spirit of brotherhood in the world." It wanted
"men to a degree dissatisfied with the existing social and
industrial order; men reaching out for light and leadership,
humble enough to confess their perplexity in the face of grave
problems and teachable enough to receive instruction from any
source."61 This was a big order, and, as might be
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expected, the membership included men whose biographical
sketches can be found in Who Was Who, as well as in various
encyclopedias. To name a few: Edward Everett Hale (whom
Swamiji had met at Greenacre), John Fiske, Davis R. Dewey,
Robert A. Woods, and the club's president, Edwin D. Mead.
To have been invited to speak before Boston's Twentieth
Century Club was, in a sense, as great an honor as to have been
invited to speak before Harvard's Graduate Philosophical Club.
Its membership was as elect and its guest speakers as carefully
chosen. "The Twentieth Century Club," a contemporary
newspaper noted, "is the modern representative of the old and
famous Radical Club of Boston. Like that, it has the most
distinguished men of the day as its speakers and guests."62 The
Radical Club itself was not unknown to Swamiji. Among his
friends were men and women who had been closely connected
with it during its years of glory: notably, Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, Franklin B. Sanborn, who, like Professor Wright, had
recognized Swamiji's genius even before the days of the
Parliament of Religions, Julia Ward Howe, Charles Carroll
Everett, Lewis G. Janes. In fact, the Radical Club, which had
been formed in 1869 when to be "radical" meant to be more
liberal than, and in open rebellion against, the main body of the
Unitarian Church, was associated both in spirit and in
membership with the Free Religious Association, before which
Swamiji had spoken in 1894. To speak before the one was, in
effect, to speak before the other. It was, however, the Twentieth
Century Club that more truly represented the intellectual world of
1896, its interests lying more in the findings and promises of
science and in social and economic reforms than in the
speculative idealism of theology.
As far as we know, Swamiji's talk before this group was
relatively short, but in it he presented compactly and powerfully
the essential teachings of Vedanta insofar as they are of relevance
to, and importance for, the Western world. He spoke of the broad
impersonality of Vedanta, which stands as a background to all
sects, which is antagonistic to none, and
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which, in fact, supports rather than nullifies variety in religious
belief: He spoke of the Vedantic teaching of the divinity of man,
of the infinite oneness of human life, which is the basis and
sanction of all morality and ethics, and in the unfoldment and
realization of which alone lies universal brotherhood. Sig-
nificantly, and perhaps deliberately, Swamiji gave in this last
public lecture in America (during his first visit to the West) a
proud and eloquent recital of his country's immemorial and
,consistent history of tolerance which was almost identical with
that in his first address at the Parliament of Religions. Also, as in
that first talk, he gave in this, his last, a free translation of the
Sanskrit verse which stands as the rationale of religious harmony:
"As so many rivers, having their source in different mountains,
roll down, crooked or straight, and at last come into the ocean-so
all these various creeds and religions, taking their start from
different standpoints and running through crooked or straight
courses, at last come unto Thee."63 As though taking a long
backward look over his work in the West, he seemed to find that
the message he had started with-the message of universal
toleration and sympathy, based on the essential divinity of all
men and the identity of their goal-was the message he should end
with, for this was a basic teaching of bit great Master and one of
which the West was in desperate need. To these idealistic men of
the Twentieth Century Club, who wanted to advance the "spirit of
brotherhood in the , world," he gave the secret in a word: "The
Vedanta lays down that each man should be treated not as what
he manifests, but as what he stands for. Each human being stands
for the divine, and, therefore, every teacher should be helpful, not
by condemning man, but by helping him to call forth the divinity
that is within him."64
It was before these men who sought to mold the coming age
that Swamiji bade farewell to the country in which he had spent
the better part of three years. According to the pamphlet in which
his talk was printed, he said: "I have lived three years amongst
you. I have travelled over nearly the whole of this
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country, and as I am going back from here to my own country, it
is meet that I should take this opportunity of expressing my
gratitude in this Athens of America.. .. In a few words I would
like to sum up all my experiences here. Here alone, in this
climate, in this land of America, no question is asked about a
man's peculiarities. If a man is a man, that is all, and they take
him into their hearts, and that is one thing I have never seen in
any other country in the world."65
Swamiji left Boston on Monday, March 30. Although, as we
shall see in the following chapter, he did not leave America until
a little over two weeks later, he had delivered in Boston the last of
the public lectures he ,was to give during his first American visit
and had made his official farewell.
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 NOTES FOR CHAPTER NINE
p.52 * To date, no records have been found of Swamiji’s
lecture in Medford, Massachusetts, on March 20, 1896. The
Medford newspapers for that year are no longer on file in either
Medford or Boston.
** Accodrding to one way of reckoning, Swamiji’s five
seasons of work in America were roughly as follows: (1) August
through December, 1893; (2) January through August, 1894; (3)
September through December, 1894; (4) January 28 through
August 6, 1895; (5) Decmber 9, 1895, to April 13, 1896.
p. 73 * For “Sir F. Arbuthnot” see Burke, Swami Vivekananda
in the West: New Discoveries, The World Teacher – Part One
(hereafter called World Teacher – 1), chapter four, section one.
p. 91 * In the Complete Works (6:353) this letter is dated
December 10, 1895, which is the date Swamiji himself gave to it.
From the full text of the letter (Sen Col.), which differs somewhat
from the published version, it is clear that it was written in early
January, 1896. Moreover the postmark on its envelope contains
the abbreviation “Jan.”
** No record has been found of the existence of a Harvard
Metaphysical Club in the 1890s. No doubt Swamiji meant to
write “Philosophical” as given in the Complete Works version of
this letter (6:353).
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p. 92 * It is probable that Swamiji gave his talk in William Jame’s
Psychological Laboratory at Harvard. In 1896 the laboratory was
housed on the top floor of Dane Hall and consisted on two
laboratory rooms and a large lecture room.
p. 95 * Most of the “selections from unpublished lectures”
mentioned by Mr. Fox have been reprinted in altered arrangement
in volume five of the Complete Works, where they have been
incorporated in the section entitled “Notes from Lectures and
Discourses.”
p. 98 * It is said the Life (first edition, vol. 2, page 444; 1981
edition, vol.2, page 91) that in 1894 or 1896 (the year is not
clearly stated) “the Columbian University offered [Swamiji] the
Chair of Sanskrit, which honor he had to decline because he was
a Sannyasin.” In an attempt to verify and perhaps flesh out this
skeletal bit of information, one comes up against the following
cul-de-sac contained in a letter written in the 1960s from the Law
Library of Columbia University, New Yor:
“The professorship of Sanscrit was established July 1, 1891,
with Edward Delevan Perry as incumbent. He held this
professorship until July 1, 1895, when it was abolished. There is
no record either in the Trustees’ Minutes or the University
Archives that it was offered to Swami Vivekananda, or that he
lectured at Columbia.”
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 CHAPTER TEN

LAST DAYS IN AMERICA

On March 17, 1896, Swamiji's last day in Detroit, he had

received an alarming letter from his English friend, Mr. Edward
T. Sturdy, and had at once answered it. A crisis had arisen
regarding the publication of his New York lectures and classes,
particularly the publication of Raja-yoga.
In the last week of February, before leaving New York,
Swamiji had completed his editing of his raja yoga classes. He
had done so in a rush and had turned the transcript over to Miss
Sarah Ellen Waldo.* Somewhat distraught, Miss Waldo wrote to
Mrs. Bull on March 6:

I am hard at work on the Raja matter, and have nearly

finished it. The last part was corrected in such a hurry by the
Swami, that I find it very difficult to bring it into a
satisfactory shape. I wish you were here, that I could submit
it to you, before publication. I feel it almost too much
responsibility to decide on it alone. 1

Plans for publishing the book were already well under way.
On Saturday, February 29, Mr. Walter Goodyear, who, together
with his wife, Frances, was agency manager for Swamiji's
pamphlets and books, had written to Mrs. Bull, giving her his
report on the progress that had been made to date. His letter read
in full:
My dear Mrs. Bull
Mr Goodwin has consulted Mr. Gestefeld who is now
with the Metaph[ysical] Pub. Co. as to the best means of
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 bringing out the Rajah book. One way is to handle it
ourselves as we have the ones [pamphlets and Karma-Yoga]
already in print. Goodwin thinks it would cost about $280
for first thousand. Another way would be to print it, and give
the handling of it to them, for which they would give us 40c
and take 60c (supposing it to be a $1 book.) The third way-
and the one which, all things considered, we all favor, is to
give the whole affair into their hands and take a royalty of
about 20 % of selling price-they to pay all expenses &c.
While the percentage may seem small, it seems to us that
considering their facilities for distribution and adv'g, this
would be the most advantageous way -especially
considering that the meetings [lectures and classes] are over
and we cannot any longer avail ourselves of them. The
manuscript will be ready Mon. [March 2] and if you approve
of the above or will leave it to me on seeing Mr. Whipple
(Mr. Goodwin's information was only advisory not official)
please wire me Mon. at 115 Nassau Str. In any event the
copyrights will be in Swami's name as heretofore.
Power of Atty and first two copyrights [for the pamphlets
"The Ideal of a Universal Religion" and "The Cosmos"] to
follow later.
Your kind note of Thurs record and noted-many thanks
With kindest regards from each of us
Most sincerely yours2
Walter Goodyear

As Miss Waldo had informed Mrs. Bull, the manuscript was

not ready on Monday, March 2, but would be so about a week
later. The haste in getting the book into print may have been due
in some measure to the hints of trouble that had come from
London. Toward the end of February it had become apparent to
the officers of the New York Vedanta Society that while the
Publication Committee was busy producing Swamiji's lectures in
pamphlet and book form,* Mr. Sturdy in England
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had been pursuing plans of his own. On December 23, 1895,
before the Publication Committee had been established, Swamiji
had written to Sturdy:
We have got up a very nice idea here. We have got a
stenographer to take down the talks as they are delivered to the
class-these are then typewritten. I will send you a copy of each as
it is finished. Perhaps you may find in them some suggestions for
your classes there.3
A few days later (on December 29) Swamiji again wrote to
Sturdy: "By this time the copies of the lectures must have reached
you:. Hope they may be of some use."4 In January he sent more
typed manuscripts to Mr. Sturdy and also a copy of the first
pamphlet, "The Ideal of a Universal Religion." "They may
suggest to you some ideas,"5 he wrote on January 16. They did
indeed. Swamiji's next letter, however, should have served to nip
those ideas in the bud.

Some friends here are publishing my Sunday lectures [he

wrote in the first week of February]. * have sent you a few
copies of the first one. I shall send you next mail a few of
the next two lectures ["The Cosmos-the Macrocosm" and
"The Cosmos-the Microcosm," printed in one pamphlet] and
if you like them I shall ask them to send you a number. Can
you manage to get a few hundred copies sold in England?
That will encourage them in publishing the subsequent
ones:6

It would seem clear enough from this that Swamiji wanted the
American pamphlets to be sold in England. But Mr. Sturdy either
failed to understand or, understanding, felt that the publication
efforts of Swamiji's American friends were not to be taken
seriously. It is not improbable that he tended to look upon the
American work as a colonial branch of the London work and to
feel that if anyone was to undertake the publication
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of Swamiji's lectures, it should be he. In any; case toward the end
of February Mr. Sturdy sent Swamiji a pamphlet that he had had
printed in London from some of the material Swamiji had sent to
him-very probably the New York lecture "The Ideal of a
Universal Religion." This coup must have caused no little
consternation in the New York Vedanta Society. Swamiji
hastened to advise Mr, Sturdy that in the eyes of the now
established Publication Committee the material belonged to the
Committee and to no one else. "The pamphlet was beautiful," he
wrote on February 29, and went on to explain the situation.
The books and pamphlets here have been got up this way.
A committee was formed in New York. They paid all the
expenses of stenographing and printing on condition the
books will belong to them. So these pamphlets and books
are theirs. . . . The books are the property of this Committee
of which Mrs. Ole Bull is the principal backer, also Mr.
Leggett. It is only just that they should have the books as
they paid all the expenses. There is no fear of the publishers
meddling with them as they are the publishers themselves.7
On March 5 Mrs. Bull also Wrote to Mr. Sturdy in what was
no doubt her charming and often confusing way. But Mr. Sturdy
evidently received neither Swamiji's letter nor hers in time to
prevent him from setting forth at some length his publication
plans in a letter to Mrs. Frances Goodyear. In the same mail he
sent to Mrs. Goodyear a copy of each of the pamphlets, or small
books, that' he had so far printed. There were five of these: The
Ideal of a Universal Religion, The Cosmos, Karma Yoga, Bhakti
Yoga, and Raja Yoga.* The first two had been printed from the
New York pamphlets, and the remainder from the typed
transcripts of Swamiji's New York class talks. Sturdy's letter to
Mrs. Goodyear, dated March 11, read in part:
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 I have printed 500 copies of each of these subjects which
have been for distribution gratis. Of course that cannot go
on for long as it would exhaust resources needed for other
things. What I should like to do would be to publish the
series as a series to be called the "Viveka Series". We would
keep it continually going and each volume would help those
to follow. In that way we should make a public around our
work. Now Longmans Green & Co. are important & also
nice people and they have a house in New York, London &
Bombay. I think they would be the best people for our
purpose. The series should be sold just to cover the expenses
and so be put in everybody's power to procure. Longmans
Green & Co. are bringing out a little book for me, a
translation of the Narada Sutras or "Inquiry into Love
(Bhakti)". I shall have it published in New York also and
shall call it Viveka Series.No 1.* On the fly page I have
dedicated the work to Swami. In an appendix there is an
explanation of who he is. I shall be following with other
little translations and this is why I think it would be well to
keep all the work in one series.8
To judge from the fait-accompli tone of Mr. Sturdy's letter, it
did dot seriously occur to him, if it occurred at all, that anyone
might object to this plan. It was, one feels, only as a last-minute
courtesy that he asked the approval of Swamiji and his American
friends. "I should like to hear soon," he continued in his letter to
Mrs. Goodyear, "whether this plan is approved by Swamiji and
his friends on your side. I think the sooner we go ahead the better.
If I hear from Swami that he approves I shall immediately put all
the work, of which I am sending you copies by this mail, into
Longmans' hands with instructions to publish in New York and
London."9
It did occur to Mr. Sturdy, however, that the class talks
Swamiji had edited might be considered better than those he
himself had edited. In this event, the solution would he simple:
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"The only difference that it would be necessary to make to my
proposal," he wrote, "is that his [Swamiji's] copy should take the
place of that which I am sending & of which I have something
under 400 copies left, this balance can be given away gratis as
always intended & Swami's copy go to Longmans." 10
In a later paragraph of this same letter to Mrs. Goodyear
Sturdy suggested that it would "probably economise our fund if
you can run off 200/500 copies of the pamphlet[s] in New York
instead of my posting them. This latter plan would run me out of
them."
All in all, it is clear that Mr. Sturdy intended to handle the
publication of Swamiji's lectures for both New York and London.
The work already done in New York does not seem to have made
any impression upon him at all.
This, then, was the way matters stood when on March 17, just
as he finished his work in Detroit, Swamiji received a letter from
Mr. Sturdy which no doubt outlined the same plan he had set
before Mrs. Goodyear. In his reply, Swamiji did not mince words:
I received your last just now and it frightened me
immensely. The lectures were delivered under the auspices
of certain friends who paid for the stenography and all other
expenses on condition they alone will have the right to
publish them. As such they have already published the
Sunday lectures as well as three books on "Karma-Yoga,"
"Raja-Yoga" and "Jnana-Yoga."* " The Raja-Yoga
especially has been much altered and rearranged along with
the translation of "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali". The Raja-Yoga
is in the hands of Longmans. The friends are furious at the
idea of these books being published in England; and as they
have been made over to them by me legally, I am at a loss
what to do. The publication of the pamphlets was not so
serious, but the books have been so much re-arranged and
changed that the American edition will not recognise the
English one. Now pray don't
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 publish these books, as they will place me in a very false
position and create endless quarrel and destroy my
American work. . . .
I pray you again to think about this publishing business
and write some letters to Mrs. Ole Bull and through her ask
the opinion of the American friends of the Vedanta,
remembering "ours is the Gospel of oneness of all beings",
and all national feelings are but wicked superstitions.
Moreover I am sure that the person who is always ready to
give way to others' opinions finds at last that his opinion has
triumphed. Yielding always conquers at last. 11
On March 23 we find Miss Waldo in Boston with the
manuscript of Raja-Yoga, which Mrs. Bull had now read.
Negotiations in America with the Metaphysical Publishing
Company as well as with Longmans for its publication had in
both cases come to nothing. The Arena Company in Boston was
now being consulted, as one learns from the following letter Miss
Waldo wrote to Mrs. Bull on March 23 from the Boston home
other cousin, Dr. William H. Prescott.
I received the parcel of manuscript all right this morning,
& noticing your suggestion of a title page for thc Aphorisms,
I went at once to Mr Goodwin & got him to type me one. I
then went to Helen Gardiner's (Mrs Smart) to leave the
manuscript for an estimate. I found her quite ill with "grip"
so she passed me on to her husband who took me to the
Arena office & gave me the estimate, a copy of which I
enclose. Col Smart wants a "catching" title for the cover, as
Yoga Philosophy would appeal only to the initiated, and he
thinks that the book will be certain of a large sale, as
anything occult is the rage just at present. He would also
copyright it in Eng. & bring it out there. He says books of
this class have a large & ready sale there. The contract
provides for mistake in estimating no. of
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 pages, also other details. The Eng. cop. rght would be $5.25.

The book can be got out in good shape in about six

weeks. The Arena Co. would advertize, review, push & sell
the book & estimate their expenses in so doing at an equal
amount. Of course their prestige & position in the trade
count for a good deal. The charge for Ed. correction would
be taken out, should the book be found not to require it.
I am writing by this mail to Mr Goodyear for a report as
to our financial standing. I think any money put into this
would be sure to come back from sales, & I'think it very
possible that Mr Flagg would help us.'* " I would do what I
can & perhaps the Leggetts would let their advance stand
over for this book too. I thought I had better write you this in
advance, so that you could think it over before I see you
tomorrow. I wrote it, in case there should be no opportunity
to talk about it this evening, & then I could just hand you the
note.12
[At the close of her letter Miss Waldo quoted the
following estimate:] ,
No of pages (estimate) 288
Size of book page 8 1/2 x 5 1/2
Size " type " pages 5 1/2 x 3
No of copies 2000
Retail price (cloth) $I.25
small pica type double leaded,
Aphorisms-Pica
Cost of composition & electrotyping 205.92
Editorial corrections 30.00
Cost paper & printing 136.25
Cost binding 2000
copies-cloth including dies 323.00
Copyright (Am. only) 1.00
_______
696.17
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 (Here we find an estimate of nearly $700 for two thousand
copies, which was considerably more than Mr. Goodwin's guess
of $280 for the first thousand.)
In the meanwhile, Mr. Sturdy had received Mrs. Bull's letter of
March 5. His reply, dated March 17, must have reached
Cambridge during the last days of Swamiji's stay there. It read in
part:
I have your letter of Mar 5th from Cambridge Mass.
The, Jnana Yoga typed copy has already been edited by
me but on learning that a syndicate had been formed in
America to publish & look after all Swami Vivekananda's
work there I put it on one side and have not printed it.*
I am waiting to hear further as to what should be done.
The 500 copies of several of the American typed lectures &
addresses I received I have given away for the most part,
especially to Swamis classes &c here, but the remainder I
am about to advertise for sale altho' I shall not publish them
& thus not interfere with your book or books if you bring
them out.
I thought it as well to make a charge because I can thus
husband my resources which would otherwise give out. 13
As might be expected, Mr. Sturdy was much put out by the
American interference with his publishing project. On March 29,
however, he replied to Swamiji's letter of March 17 with restraint:
My dear Swamiji
Your letter of the 17th March has reached me in good
time to prevent the books being sold.
I shall now do nothing further with them unless I hear to
the contrary from your American Committee.
It is a pity because it has wasted some £90 of my
resources.
This was brought about by the first letter that came with
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 the original type-written reports telling me to make what use
I thought best of them. [Swamiji had referred only to their
use in Sturdy's classes.]
However we can only regret the waste of energy &
money & let the matter drop.
For the satisfaction of your American Committee kindly
show them these figures.
I printed Ideal Cosmos Raja Karma Bhakti
of Un. Yoga Yoga Yoga
Religion

500 500 500 500 500

Gaveaway 125 75 41 29 20

Still on
my hands 375 425 459 471 480
So you see very little harm has been done.
These books would has [sic] been sold on the book stalls
at 1s/ld whereas the bound copy of Karma Yoga sent me
from America is published at 4/2 [$1.00]. They will never
cell in London at such a price, except to a mere handful of
people.
The Theosophists are selling a scholarly edition of the
first 5 or 6 Upanishads at 6d and the Gita also at 6d both of
them as good as any Edition published anywhere heretofor
[sic].
I have a note from Naples from Saradananda and I see by
the mail news his steamer has now passed Gibraltar: he
expects to be here about April 2nd.
Many letters only make confusion so will you kindly
place this before your American Publishing Committee.
I am telling friends you will be here in the beginning of
May, which I presume is correct.
Yours always in [Sat]
E. T. Sturdy
This suppression of literature entirely cripples our prospect
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of making your coming well known. The books would have been
travelled by four travellers all over the country & in the city of
London.14
Two days later, Mr. Sturdy wrote more crossly to Swamiji in
regard to the suppression of literature by the "American
Syndicate." This second letter, dated March 31, read in full:
I wrote you at once on the receipt of your letter informing
you that I had entirely suppressed the books I had printed at
the wish of your American friends. Since writing I have
refused various applications for them either on sale or as
gifts.
I am writing now because the attitude of your Committee
in America is inexplicable to me. Even supposing that the
books have been enlarged, there could have been no harm in
these books appearing in England as a preliminary edition in
their original form, and of course, as you well know, I have
eliminated anything that would seem indiscrete [sic] in print,
altho' well enough spoken to friends. Is it that these people
are only thinking of recuping [sic] their outlay, or is it
national or personal jealousy, or what is the reason? I quite
fail to understand them.
It is well however that they should know the result. It is
this-
We are entirely disarmed here; we have nothing to send
for review to the press; nothing to set before the people or
refer to, and this valuable month, preceding your coming,
will be entirely lost. We can only sit down and do nothing.
When you come we shall be just where we were last year
and all to begin over again. It is different in America where
you have been now known for three years. I do not know
what your American Syndicate intends to do in England.
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 If they are going to bring out books here at any price
much over 1/- they will be quite unread: people will not buy
them. Books to be popular and tempt to purchase when the
subject is new must be almost given away. Your friends here
have had to be dissuaded from making a protest to the
American Committee for having so entirely crippled your
prospects for the coming season.
To bring out these books when you are already leaving
the country for India will be to lose half or very much more
than half the result of people seeing them whilst you could
be referred to here. All this has made your friends here
indignant. These people [the Americans] have neither
produced for us any cheap literature here, nor have they
given us a free hand to do so.
To produce it in the middle of next Summer when those
people who would be your audience are all gone to the
country is almost useless, if you adhere to your plan of
going to the East in the late autumn.
If you bring your stenographer friend over or if we can
engage one here I hope to bring out a series of your English
Addresses.
I hope however to make your American friends a free gift
of any such work and not to buck their enterprise or to
prevent them utilizing this work, perfectly or imperfectly, as
best they promptly may, in their country.
No news of Saradananda yet, but he must be nearing
Plymouth now.
I had made arrangements with a large firm who employ 4
travellers to have your books offered everywhere in town &
country. As nothing to make your coming efficiently known
can now be done I propose to utilize the time with
Saradananda in translating some little books quietly at
home. 15
A few days thereafter, Mr. Sturdy informed all readers of the
Brahmavadin that the London work was being obstructed by
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Swamiji's American followers. In a letter to that magazine he
wrote the following easy-to-read-between lines:
Constant applications are being made for literature which
unfortunately cannot be supplied, the addresses and lectures
given by Swami Vivekananda in America not being
obtainable, so far, in this country.
We live in an age of cheap books and cheap printing and
the only way in which a large number of people can be made
quickly aware of any subject is through books and through
reviews in the Press. We hope soon after Swami's return to
remedy this absence of his lectures and addresses so that we
may put them before everybody at as low a rate as possible.
-E.T.S.16
Mr. Sturdy may have had a point. In any case, the American
Committee had become divided on the issue. Miss Waldo, to
whom Swamiji had dictated his translation of Patanjali's Yoga
Sutras, who was closely involved with the actual editing of Raja-
Yoga as a whole, and who had enthusiastically and energetically
busied herself in making arrangements for its publication, was
much upset by Sturdy's attitude. Indeed, it would seem that it was
she who headed the American oppositon to him. Mrs. Bull and
Mr. Goodwin, on the other hand, were swinging around to
Sturdy's side-and it was Mrs. Bull who had the authority in the
matter, she being in charge of the Publication Committee, with
power of attorney. A letter written by Mr. Goodwin to Mrs. Bull
(after a ten-day visit with her) gives ample evidence that
Swamiji's American workers were, to say the least, not of one
accord. Dated April 10, Goodwin's letter read in part:
Since I returned [to New York from Cambridge] this
morning I have been rather discouraged by many things. To
begin with, while I hold to my contention that Miss Waldo's
manners are not advantageous to the work, &
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 that she lacks consideration for what we who are trying in
various ways to advance the Vedanta have a right to expect,
I am afraid I have been too severe in my condemnation.
I really believe that, in great measure, if not wholly, these
failings are due to lack of judgment, & Mrs Goodyear told
me to-day that on her (Miss Waldo's] return (from Boston]
she was almost heartbroken at the turn things had taken, &
especially at the Swami's apparent forgetfulness of her work
for him, into which he was responsible for pushing her, even
to the point of being responsible for many of the ill judged
things she has done-
In a way, this will do me good, I believe. I have vowed
mentally that I will never again, knowingly, criticise anyone.
...
Mr. Sturdy has actually published the early Raja lectures
in pamphlet form. I shall read it to-night, & think I can get
an idea of his acquaintance with Raja. Gnana, of course, he
is safe with. But this previous knowledge may be of use in
deciding the other.17
The following day, April 11, Swamiji returned to New York
from Chicago. He had by now read Mr. Sturdy's outraged letters
of March 29 and 31 and at once turned them over to Mr.
Goodwin, who, in turn, promptly forwarded them to Mrs. Bull,
together apparently, with Sturdy's proof for his `Raja Yoga"
pamphlet. The publisher, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent &
Co., was a branch of the famous Luzac & Co., Oriental
Publishers. It was enough to give one pause. In his covering letter
Goodwin wrote:
I enclose herewith letters from Mr. Sturdy which the
Swami who arrived this evg-has handed me. They are rather
disturbing. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. are equal probably to
Longmans in their way as publishers, which you no doubt
know, & it seems an extreme pity that the
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 work should have been interfered with. Miss Waldo was
present when the Swami handed me the letters & I showed
her the proofs with that firms imprints. She must have
realised her mistake then, & I believe did so--& is sorry for
it. I did not show her the letters. There is no use in
perpetuating the ill-feeling-but I showed them to Mr.
Goodyear afterwards. I suggested to the Swami cabling Mr
Sturdy as follows-Use all publications except Raja
Vivekananda-but he thought not. I think, however, we
should do so without referring to him again. I was going to
do it on my own responsibility but would rather ask you-
What do you think of it? If you approve I should be glad if
you will write me on receipt of this, & I will do so at once.
Mr. Sturdy will have your letter by now, &. this, with the
cable, would make him feel secure.18
Mrs. Bull's letter to Sturdy to which Goodwin refers is not
today available, and we cannot guess what it proposed. In any
event, with an authority that Swamiji had evidently given her, she
consented to Goodwin's hair-raisingly disobedient (but, as it
turned out, not injudicious) cable advising Sturdy to "use all
publications except Raja.”*
In an extended postscript to his letter of April 11, Mr.
Goodwin assured Mrs. Bull that while he would not "openly
criticise [Miss Waldo] again" (as he had resolved in his letter of
April 10), he still had his "ideas of how things should be." "And I
shall always," he wrote, "when the power is in my hands, follow
my best judgement, wherever possible, with the added force &
light of the opinions of others, but without giving the possibility
of offense by open criticism” (It was a resolve he would have
occasion to remember in later months.) In this postscript, which
was dated April 12, he continued:
Miss Waldo was discussing Boston with me nearly the
whole of yesterday, & took a very decided course with
regard to myself. She claims that I was in everything only
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 a tool to yourself. I asked her to remember that I had not
varied one atom in Boston from the views I had expressed to
her in New York previously on the two main points (I) Mr
Sturdy (2) The necessity of care in her personal relations
with the Swami- for his sake. These enclosures from Mr
Sturdy prove my attitude on that point to have been the
correct one, while the other matter can only be left to
personal & individual taste. I have always asked her if the
proper way to regard Mr Sturdy's use of the pamphlets &
lecture matter generally was not as for the Vedanta as a
whole, & whether we were practically applying Vedanta in
claiming for one section of Vedantists, as against another,
proprietary rights in educational matter which is of as much
importance to one as the other & vice versa-merely because
one section had found the means & the other had not?19
It was, in actual fact, Mr. Sturdy who had found a better
means of publishing Swamiji's works than had the Americans.
3ecause of this, not because of the lofty idealism with which Mr.
Goodwin had belabored Miss Waldo, the project of publishing
Raja-Yoga in America was stopped. There was some idea now of
bringing out the book in England, and Professor William James
was to be approached (by Mrs. Bull and Goodwin) for a preface.
The Swami is delighted at the idea of Prof. James' pre-
face [Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull on April 15]. He is
anxious that Raja shall be got through as soon as possible
now. Do you think Prof James could criticise it & write this
without delay, so that it might follow us to England at
earliest?20
Almost everyone was happy with these decisions. Only Miss
Waldo was left with an unconsoled heart. No one seems to have
informed her about the fate of the raja yoga manuscript; nor
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does she seem now to have been speaking (or writing) directly to
Mrs. Bull. Instead, she addressed a letter, dated May 19, to Mrs.
Bull's secretary-companion, Miss Elizabeth Hamlen, and thus
indirectly spoke her mind to the head of the Publication
Committee-more with sorrow, one feels, than with rancor.
I cannot tell you [she wrote] anything about the Raja
Yoga, beyond the fact that the lessons of this year were most
carefully prepared for publication & were all ready to be
printed about the 10th Mch. I believe the manuscript has
gone to Eng. It may get into print sometime, but I have my
doubts. Meantime, Mr Sturdy's little book is better than
nothing, & I would be glad to have it circulated. I have no
definite information about it however. Fortunately we still
have the notes of the lessons & if no public use is made of
them, we can have typewritten copies made for the
subscribers. I expect that will be the final outcome. People
will have got over wanting the Raja book & have turned
their attention to some new subject by next Fall, & that is as
early as the book can now be put on the market. Right after
the Swami's classes closed, there was an active demand for
the book & it would have had a ready sale, but you know
yourself how soon a thing is forgotten. 21
The story of the publication of Raja-Yoga now moves its
center to England, where we shall come upon it in the following
chapter. Let us here return to March 30, 1896, when Swamiji, his
Boston work completed, left for Chicago.

Chicago was in a sense Swamiji's home town. It was here that

he first walked on American streets, and here, nearly six weeks
later, that he first spoke to a large and important gathering of
American people and then and there set in motion
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a ground swell of spiritual thought that even today is gathering
momentum.
In the mid-nineties Chicago was, physically, barely a quarter-
century old, almost all of it having been burned to the ground in
October of 1871 in a superconflagration. It had been at that time a
mere overgrown pioneer town, sprung from a rough and muddy
trading post that had been bought from the Indians some thirty-
five years earlier for a heap of blankets, kettles, hatchets, and the
like. Standing at the crossroads of commerce, the town had grown
fast. Grain and livestock poured in from the west, lumber and
manufactured goods from the east, wheat and cotton from the
south,. and all of it poured out again, always leaving behind a rich
deposit of profits. Millions were regularly made overnight,
largely by the industrious and thrifty Yankees who had come
from New England to settle in this gold mine of a town. After the
Great Fire, Chicago grew even faster than before, mushrooming
up from its cinders with a vitality that astounded oven its own
energetic pioneers. Intense concentration had wrought the
miracle: the men of Chicago had one, and only one, consuming
interest-the making of money.
The same intensity and passion with which that money was
made went into civilizing the city, particularly after the fire and
into barbarizing it as well. Chicago quickly took on all the
characteristics of any other big American city of the 1880s and
90s-and this with a vengeance. Gamblers and swindlers, who had
come from the South during the Civil War, flourished; honest
immigrants, full of soon-shattered hope, poured in from Europe;
vice and corruption, labor riots murderous on both sides, crowded
slums, stockyards, packing houses, grain elevators massive and
ostentatious mansions, the world's first, skyscraper, noise,
congestion, unabashed avarice-all went into the brew that was
Chicago. And in and through this disorder, the beautiful and
gracious wife of the immensely rich Potter Palmer went about
building up an elite and cultivated society which sophisticated
Easterners could no longer ridicule.
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Mrs. Palmer reigned with a mind given, as well, to society in a
larger sense. Like most upper-class Chicago women, she had an
awakening social conscience, a sense of civic pride, and a serious
interest in the welfare of the poor. For all its new wealth, Chicago
society was not altogether frivolous, nor in the nineties was it
crude. Thanks to women like Mrs. Palmer, it had acquired not
only a measure of savoir-faire but of responsibility as well, and if
it hadn't quite made the Eastern grade in sophistication, it was
well out of the prairies.
Chicago's cultural life had also grown apace; among its other
prides, the city boasted the beginnings of a symphony orchestra, a
stock of masterpiece paintings, purchased in Europe for the new
Art Institute Building (where the Parliament of Religions was
held), a university, endowed by John D. Rockefeller in 1892, a
literary magazine of national interest, a literary club-the
Fortnightly, where Swamiji lectured in 1893-and the Auditorium,
opened in 1889, where the New York Metropolitan opera
company gave annual performances. Furthermore, Chicago had
long been on the itineraries of many famous artists and lecturers,
among them, Adelina Patti, Ole Bull, Sarah Bernhardt, and Oscar
Wilde. To its pride, and sometimes to its astonishment, the
trading post had become a metropolis. Most wonderful of all,
Chicago, only a scant twenty years out of its ashes, decided to put
on a mammoth World's Fair, together with an imposing and
unprecedented World's Parliament of Religions, both of which
turned out to be enormously successful.
During the last three months of 1893, after his astounding
appearance at the Parliament in September, and during the first
three months of 1894, Swamiji had been in and out of Chicago,
staying, when in the city, primarily with the Hale family on
Dearborn Avenue. After March of 1894, he had returned only
once, when he had held a series of classes in the first three weeks
of January, 1895. Now in 1896, he had come to hold classes once
again in the city before leaving America. Outside of the Hale
family and the John B. Lyon family, with
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the latter of whom Swamiji had stayed during the Parliament of
Religions, the names of only a few of his Chicago friends are
known to us, and of these, most are only names-such as Mrs.
Pratt, Miss Stockham, Mrs. Mills. Of Miss Josephine C. Locke,
who enters now and then into Swamiji's correspondence with the
Hales and who arranged a class for him at Chicago's Plaza Hotel
in January of 1895, a little is known: she was the Director of Art
in the Public Schools of Chicago, and at the World's Fair held the
position of Chairman of the Women's Committee in charge of the
Congress on Manual and Art Education. She was, moreover, a
dynamo of energy, and, as Swamiji wrote to Isabelle McKindley
in March of 1895, "apt to be carried away by enthusiasm." "Sister
Josephine is very fiery," he added.22 A few years later Nivedita,
meeting Miss Locke, would write of her (not unkindly) as being
"like twenty storms in one tea cup."23 "Sister Josephine" was
instrumental in arranging classes for Swamiji during this last
visit, and surely went about it with zest. But even more
instrumental was Mrs. Florence J. Adams, whom Swamiji had
first met not in Chicago but in Cambridge in December of 1894,
when they had both been guests of Mrs. Ole Bull.
Florence Adams, then in her early thirties, was the petite and
lively wife of Milward Adams, house manager of the grand
Auditorium Theatre ("one of the handsomest in the world,
Baedeker said), where the acoustics were perfect and, as men-
tioned above, the Metropolitan Opera Company gave annual
performances. The Opera Company was, in fact, gracing Chicago
in April of 1896,* its stars staying at the Auditorium Hotel-an
immense building which, together with an office building and
tower, had been constructed in connection with (and to finance)
the Auditorium Theatre, making, in all, one "mammoth pile of
masonry" on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Congress Street.
In her own way, Mrs. Adams was also a star of sorts-a talented
("one of the most gifted women" Mrs. Bull had ever known) and
popular lecturer on "The Art of Expression," which art included
speaking, walking, gestur-
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ing, and standing. (Swamiji took lessons in walking from her, but,
as he wrote in March of 1895 to Isabelle McKindley, to "no use;
the ever increasing load in front does not allow me to bend
forward as Mrs. Adams wants it. If I try to bend forward in
walking, the centre of gravity comes to the surface of the
stomach, and so I go cutting front somersaults.")24
Mrs. Adams had a studio in the Fine Arts Building, adjacent
on Michigan Avenue to the Auditorium. Here such people as the
young Ethel Barrymore and Mme Antoinette Sterling came for
lessons, and it was here that Swamiji would give at least two of
his talks during his ten-day stay in the city. Inadvertently, he
himself did much to make his presence known in Chicago. In a
letter dated April 2, 1896, Mrs. Adams told her friend Mrs. Bull
that on the night of his arrival "he came to the opera for two acts,
and there met many old friends, among them Prince Wolkonsky."
The intermission between those two acts of what happened to be
Il Trovatore must have been like a gala reception for Swamiji.
One can well picture his brilliant robe among the elegantly
dressed opera-goers the ladies in their elaborate low-cut, floor-
sweeping gowns, their necklaces and tiaras flashing with jewels;
the gentlemen courtly in white tie and tails. His was a surprise
appearance that must have elicited many a delighted exclamation,
sometimes on both sides, as when he met his old friend Prince
Wolkonsky, who was also in Chicago for a short visit only. In her
letter of Thursday, April 2, Mrs. Adams went on:
The Swami has just given his first lesson and not only the
matter but the appreciation of the audience was all we could
desire.
The Swami was clear gentle and brilliant. How deep he
carries one's thought in the short space of one hour.
As you know Chicago is always convulsed with Opera
excitement and I have been so bewilderingly busy since my
return after a month absence from the Studio-and with
guests for the Opera-the Homers-and nightly box
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 parties-but best of all hours & hours with the de Reszkes &
Melba filled with helpful & stimulating talks. I could not
seem to do much for the Swami before he came-and at the
time of his arrival I realized after talking with every one I
met for the week that one series of talks must be in the
center Of town, so I waited for his approval & we began
today with a select audience in my Studio. The rooms were
full and more coming tomorrow if we outgrow the Studio
we can go into Apollo Hall. Tonight an eve. course begins at
1628 Indiana Ave.... Next week the Prince [Wolkonsky's]
and Swami's lectures will be all there is. Today being Holy
Thursday & tomorrow Good Friday-& Saturday a matinee
for which people had arranged-I am delighted at todays
attendance & response. I want Dr John Hall & Jenkin Lloyd
Jones to hear him &c. We had a fair half of men today
which is only possible in C[hicago] in a down town place? 25
So Swamiji gave two classes on April 2-in the morning at
Mrs. Adams's Studio, and in the evening at 1628 Indiana Avenue
(the home of a Dr. H. S. Perkins). We can, I think, assume that
this was the pattern he would follow for the next week-a class
downtown in the morning, one in the evening in the home of a
friend, and it is probable that the size of at least the morning class
made it necessary to move it to a public hall. On May 17 Mrs.
Adams would write to Mrs. Bull, who, characteristically, had sent
her a check to provide for Swamiji's Chicago expenses:
As to the Swami's affairs in Chicago and your check my
dear friend, I thought you offered to assist about the
expenses if we did not receive sufficient return in Chicago.
As you know, we literally had no time to prepare the ground
for the Swami's coming, but our audience was beyond our
aims or plans, and when the financial return by voluntary
contribution [at] only the last three lectures
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 amounted to close to $200,00 I was well pleased. After all
his expenses were paid-board, R.R. ticket, & Hall rent-I
gave him $140.00 as he left, & he seemed to be well
pleased.
You are so good to think that I might need help, but I
know that the few in Chicago who realized would be glad to
do so little as the Swami asked.26
Where in Chicago did Swamiji live this time? Not with the
Hale family, for Mr. and Mrs. Hale were not in town and the
"sisters"-Mary and Harriet Hale and their cousins Isabelle and
Harriet McKindley-had taken an apartment together at Walton
Place. It is not likely that he stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Adams,
who lived at the Auditorium Hotel; nor, as one can gather from
the reminiscences of their grand-daughter,27 did he stay with Mr.
and Mrs. Lyon during this period. Where then ? One answer,
which may or may not suffice For the whole ten days, can be
found in the following item on the social page of the Inter Ocean
of Easter Sunday, April 5:
Mr. Vivekananda from Calcutta is the guest of Dr. H. S.
Perkins, No 1628 Indiana Avenue.
As we have seen, Swamiji held an evening class at Dr.
Perkins's on April 2; on April 6 he wrote two letters from that
address; thus it is possible that he stayed with the doctor (who
was the director of the Chicago National College of Music and
almost certainly a friend of Mrs. Adams), for at least several days.
But this is only speculative; at the present time our knowledge of
Swamiji's ten-day stay in Chicago is sketchy at best. He did not
write newsy letters; Mr. Goodwin had remained behind in
Cambridge; and the Chicago newspapers were almost wholly
silent on the subject of "the lordly monk's" visit to town-blessedly
so for him, unsatisfactorily so for us. All we know for certain is
that he held enthusiastically attended classes, had some dental
work done,* was not feeling well, and
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had "beautiful visits" with his friends. Among those friends were
of course the Hale and MeKindley "sisters," and it was very likely
during this period that he made a number of recordings at their
Walton Place flat, talking into a big horn that flared from one of
Edison's phonograph machines. This information (though not the
exact year to which it belongs) comes from Mrs. Herbert E. Hyde,
who was nine or ten years old in 1896, the daughter of a third
McKindley sister, Mary (Mrs. Leonard Baker). The little girl,
Louise Baker, had often visited her aunts at Walton Place when
Swamiji was there. "Of course," she told me when I had the good
fortune to talk with her in 1969, "he was generally shut up in a
room by himself when he was lecturing into the machine. But
once I saw him while he was doing it. I remember the black
recording thing. It was very primitive." (Mrs. Hyde also
remembered Swamiji's beautiful voice and how very handsome
he was. "And his eyes!" she said. "He had luminous eyes. I'll
never forget ") What became of the cylinders that bore the
impress of Swamiji's voice no one, it would seem, knows. And
indeed, unless a permanent matrix was taken of them, they would
surely have long since deteriorated, being made, as was
customary, of a waxy substance not meant to last.
That Swamiji was not feeling well is not surprising, for he had
been physically exhausted when he left New York a month earlier
and had been holding classes and giving lectures steadily ever
since. On April 6, he wrote to Mrs. Bull, "I am suffering from
slight fever the last two days; so I can't write a long letter."28
On this same day he also wrote a short note (and sent another
check?) to Sister Christine:
1628 Indiana Ave
Chicago III
Dear Christina
[A line is here excised.] reply as soon as possible.
I am going forward to Newyork on Thursday [April 9]
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 and start for England on the 15th of April.
Goodby and love to you all-to Mrs Funkey to Mrs Phelps
and all the rest of our friends.
In this life we meet and part again and again but the mind
is omnipresent and can be, hear and feel anywhere.
Yours with love and blessings
Vivekananda P.S.
Give Kripananda & Miss Hamilton my love and
blessings when you meet them next.29

(Kripananda had need of that message from Swamiji. He was

not doing well. On April 11 Mr. Goodwin would write from New
York to Mrs. Bull: "I received your letters this evening & was
interested in what you write about K. I can quite believe that in
his best moods he can do work of a high order. But I also hear
that he is at present worse than ever, & Mrs. Phunke says if he
receives many more criticisms she thinks he will become quite
crazy.")30
Before sealing his letter to Christina, Swamiji postponed the
date of his departure from Chicago by one day. In the margin he
wrote: "I will go to Newyork next Friday [April 10]."

Mr. Goodwin, who had returned from Cambridge to

NewYork on Friday, April 10, was much perturbed to learn that
Swamiji had not yet left Chicago. He wrote to Mrs. Bull at once:
I was very much surprised to receive your telegram
stating that Swamiji would not leave Chicago until Friday
(today) or Saturday. When writing Mrs Adams the other day
I made it clear, as I thought, that he would have a lot of
things to occupy his short time in New York, & I understood
that she assented to the arrangement of sending him back
yesterday.
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 Immediately on receipt of your telegram I wired her
"Please send Swami to-day latest-Engagements made." I
hope I did correctly. I have no doubt it is by Swami's wish
he is staying, & I think that even he should not be exempt
from ordinary obligations. I am afraid Mr Le Vinsen was not
much pleased when I told him of the message.31
(Mr. Carl Le Vinsen was a teacher of music and a good friend
of Swamiji's. There was also a Flounce d'A. Le Vinsen and a
Maude R. Le Vinsen.* They lived at 124 East Forty-fourth Street,
and very possibly Swamiji would stay with this family for several
days after his arrival from Chicago. Beyond this, we have at
present no knowledge of the Le Vinsens.)
On April 11, saying nothing of his delayed arrival in New
York, Mrs. Bull wrote a bon-voyage letter to Swamiji that speaks
of her growing reverence for him. He was placing the American
work in her hands, and it was with a certain diffidence that she
accepted this position, knowing as she did by now that he did not
gladly suffer interference. Her letter read in part:
Your winter's work will be to very many a sure and good
foundation. Whatever it has cost you, you may rest assured
of it. And, if you go on to India from England, you may ever
count upon the love and faithfulness of your students here,
who will realize more and more the truth of the principles as
the years go by. .
You will know always that any service you will ask of
me will be a pleasure. And that at any time any transference
of any trust from me to another whom you may choose as
better suited to the moment of the task, you will determine
and I will understand.
I mentioned to Mr. Sturdy your suggestion that I should
be in London for a time, as a politeness to him who stands
for your work there. I am to be possibly needed here at
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 home, I cannot yet tell. There is always one best place for
us, and I have learned not to ask or choose.
Always my best wishes and my grateful thanks for your
true friendship and service.32
Swamiji arrived in New York on Saturday, April 11, "I met
the Swami at the depot this evening," Mr. Goodwin wrote to Mrs.
Bull, "and had a long talk with him afterwards. He was much
pleased, in every way, with his work in Chicago & enjoyed the
journey back."33 This letter continued at some length, and to
judge from its tone, Mr. Goodwin had returned from his visit with
Mrs. Bull imbued with a managing spirit. He had gotten on well
in Cambridge. "We enjoyed Mr. Goodwin's visit," Mrs. Bull
would write to Swamiji. "He worked hard all the time. He made
friends of all my family."34 Pleased with this dedicated young
man, she had, it would seem, made him her deputy in connection
with Swamiji's work. Of this arrangement he wrote to her in his
letter of April 11 ; after expressing his disapproval of what he felt
to be Miss Waldo's non-Vedantic attitude toward Mr. Sturdy's
publishing projects, he continued:
I lay no claim to being an ideal Vedantist, & I almost
think it is as well that I am not. It strikes me more forcibly
every day that some one individual must, either from taste,
or as a personal sacrifice, be content & willing to take over
the fighting part of the work which it is impossible to
eliminate from any movement. . . . The Vedanta' will never
be made a living thing but to a very few, without the element
of business in its propagation, & as far as I am able I am
willing & anxious to take this work, where no one else will,
altho I must confess I wd rather be without it.'35
He went on to say that Swamiji had "a cheque for $125 from
Chicago which he had given into my charge" and that
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he (Swamiji) "will also draw $200 from the bank to-morrow,
which I think he had sent from England." "I intend," he wrote
firmly, "to get a draft on Cook's with this, as I have heard here
that while in Boston he gave away a large sum of money, quite
haphazard-over $300 I believe, & I am determined to stop this
indiscriminate giving-I am doing this with Mr. Leggett's
approval.”
(From a practical point of view, Mr. Goodwin's resolve was
understandable. To appreciate it, one need only remember that
three hundred dollars was then equivalent to a laborer's wage for
a year, to the earnings of a seamstress working long hours for
over three years, or, again, to three times the amount Swamiji
received in New York for holding six classes in the Fifth Avenue
home of a friend. Swamiji, of course, did not so calculate. But
while he gave to whoever had need, the word indiscriminate
seems hardly to apply. Nor was he dupable. He had, it is true,
been cheated right and left when he first came to America, but he
had soon learned to recognize both predator and prey. In March
of 1895 he could write to Isabelle MeKindley that the good and
credulous metaphysician Mrs. Peake was most likely being
"played upon" by a confidence man, the fiery Miss Locke being
equally taken in. "This is a wonderful country for cheating," he
wrote, "and 99.9 per cent have some motive in the background to
take advantage of others. If anyone just but closes his eyes for a
moment, he is gone! ! . . . I have been so well handled by the
people here that I look round me for hours before I take a step."36
Swamiji would always give away his money as freely as he gave
his blessings, but it was no longer taken from him-at least not
often.)
Of the many activities that, according to Mr. Goodwin, were
to occupy Swamiji's last days in America we know of only a few.
On Sunday morning, April 12, he spent "about three hours" with
Mr. Fox (who had come from Cambridge with Goodwin and was
staying with him at the Warwick Hotel), editing the Harvard
lecture and writing notes for it. On Monday evening "he gave a
brief talk to the members of his
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New York class [who had gathered, one guesses, at the home of
Miss Mary Phillips) on the chief principles of the Vedanta and its
prospects in America."37 This talk is most unfortunately not
available today; we learn only a very little of it from a letter
written on May 3, 1896, to Swamiji's brother disciples in India by
a number of New York students and friends. (This letter and that
to which it was a reply are given in full in Appendix C.) The
pertinent paragraph read:
The Swami Vivekananda sailed for England on the 15th
of April. In his farewell address to his friends and pupils in
New York, he spoke highly of the Americans, and the
freedom of their institutions, which made them peculiarly
accessible to the Vedanta Philosophy.38
(Only a few days after Swamiji's friends had composed this
letter, he himself was writing from England to Mary Hale in
praise of America: "I love the Yankee land. . . . In America is the
place, the people, the opportunity for everything."39 And a month
later, "In America alone there is that something in the sir which
brings out whatever is best in everyone."40 The spirit, the facts of
freedom, of equality, of self reliance, of youth and vitality were,
Swamiji felt, essential ingredients of the soil in which the
Vedanta philosophy could best flourish, not as an intellectual
exercise merely, but as an everyday way of life. While he was
well aware of the soul-swamping materialism of American
culture, he saw also-and this with delight-those qualities
peculiarly American that both reflected the divine in man and
conspired toward its unfoldment. "You may be astonished to
hear," he would later say in a lecture in Lahore, "that as practical
Vedantists the Americans are better than we are."41 Indeed, the
ripe potential for spiritual development in the American character
was perhaps why he had come to this country; it was, certainly,
why he had stayed.)
On Tuesday, the eve of his departure, Swamiji spent some
time writing letters. One of these, written from the Le Vinsens'
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on their monogrammed stationery, was to Mrs. Bull and con-
cerned "a curious person (a practical mechanic and inventor who
comes to me with a letter from Bombay . . . [and] wants to learn
the secret of iron manufacture." "I do not know anything about
this man," he wrote, "but if he is not a rogue I like very much to
foster this sort of adventurous spirit among my countrymen. He
has money enough to pay his way though I helped him some." 42
(Mr. Goodwin's measures were not working.) Swamiji concluded
by asking Mrs. Bull (if she saw fit) to help this stranger, whom he
had taken time to talk to and write about in these last hurried
days.
In this same letter he added a significant postscript confirming
his appointment of Mrs. Bull as caretaker of his work. *
Heretofore unpublished, this brief mandate read:
P.S. I shall sail tomorrow, expecting to see you in
England. In the meanwhile I leave everything here to your
care!43
Swamiji also wrote at least two letters to India, both full of
vigor. The first was addressed to Swami Trigunatita, but was
meant for the guidance of all his brother disciples-and this in
small detailed matters as well as in large. "The term `Friend' can
be used with all," he wrote in connection with the form of an
English invitation. And in the next few sentences cautioned his
brothers against emphasizing the person of Sri Ramakrishna over
the principles he taught and thereby making "our movement a
little sect."44
Swamiji's second letter to India was addressed to a friend in
Madras, Dr. Nanjunda Rao, encouraging him in his proposed
magazine and promising to write stories for it. 45 The magazine
came out under the name Prabuddha Bharataha name later to
become well known to student of Vedanta the world over. The
progress of his Indian work was ever in Swamiji's mind; indeed
the amount of energy that flowed toward his motherland was very
probably as great as, if not greater than, the energy he
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was expending in the West. But of that more later.
On the same day, April 14, he wrote from 6 West Forty-third
Street (an address whose occupant in 1896 is not presently
known) a short note of farewell to the Hale Sisters: "On account
of illness [I] could not write earlier. I sail on board the White Star
Line Germanic tomorrow at 12 noon. With everlasting memory
of love, gratitude and blessings."46
And at noon on Wednesday, April 15, 1896, the S.S. Germanic
sailed from the foot of West Tenth Street with Swamiji aboard.
Standing on deck, he waved a gerua scarf for "as long as the eye
could follow"47 to the many students and friends who had come to
see him off. Thus his first visit to America came to an end. All
told, he had spent less than two and a half years on American
soil-years that hundreds of Americans would never forget and
that he himself had found particularly fruitful. "After all," he
would write to Mary Hale on his arrival in England, "those years
there have been some of the best I have yet seen." 48
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 NOTES FOR CHAPTER TEN

P. 105 * For the part Miss S. Ellen Waldo played in the editing
of Swamiji’s New York lectures and classes, see World Teacher-
1, chapter six., page 433, note **.
p. 106 * For the formation of the Publication Committee of the
New York Vedanta Society, see World Teacher – 1, Cpater
seven, section seven.
p. 107 * In the Complete Works (8:363) the date given to this
letter is December 16, 1895, but on the evidence of the letter’s
contents, Swamiji must have written it in early February of 1896.
p. 108 * The full titles of Mr. Stury’s publications as finally
brought out were: Addresses on the Vedanta Philosophy: Volume
I, Karma Yoga, Volume II, Bhakti Yoga, Volume III, (I) The
ideal of a Universal Religion, (2) The Cosmos and Microcosm.
p. 109 * See World Teacher – 1, chapter four, section one. Mr.
Sturdy dropped the idea of the “Viveka Series.” His Narada Sutra,
published in March of 1896, was subtitled “Indian Ideals – No.
1,” which designation was also dropped in the next edition.
p. 110 * When Swamiji wrote to Mr. Sturdy on March 17,
1896, that his American friends had “as such … already
published the Sunday lectures as well as three books on `Karma-
Yoga,’ `Raja-Yoga’ and `Jnana-Yoga,’” he must have meant in
regard to the last two that the New York Committee possessed the
absolute right to publish them and fully intended to do so.
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 p. 112 * For information about Mr. William Flagg see
Prophetic Mission – 2, chapter nine, section two.
p. 113 * Th Jnana Yoga that Mr. Sturdy mentions in his letter
of March 17 to Mrs. Bull was not the Jnana Yoga we know today,
which contains many lectures Swamiji had not delivered. (See
World Teacher – 1, chapter six, section six.)
p. 119 * In a complex business letter to Mr. Sturdy, written
after Goodwin’s cable had been sent off, Mrs. Bull indicated her
authorization of it. “My understanding is this,” she wrote: your
letter of inquiry concerning the motives and methods of the N.Y.
Committee with the title pages of your English Pamphlets marked
“suppressed” was forwarded to me from New York. To facilitate
your arrangements a cable, I understand, was sent releasing all
but the Raja, which seemed to me advisable at the time” (Sara
Bull to E.T. Sturdy, undated, SCB).
p. 124 * Mme Emma Calve was in Chicago with the
Metropolitan Opera Company in March and April of 1896. for
her possible meeting with Swamiji at this period, see Prophetic
Mission -, Appendix.
p. 127 * Mrs. Bull writes in her letter to Swamiji dated April
11, 1896, “Mrs. Adams has written me of your good work with
them and her enjoyment of it all – and that you had been busy
with visits, dentistry etc.” From this it seems clear that Mrs.
Adams had written a second letter to Mrs. Bull (later than that of
April 2), in which she had given a fairly detailed account of
Swamiji’s Chicago visit. The hope is that someday this letter may
come to light.
p. 130 * Three Le Vinsens – Florence d’A., Maude R., and
Carl – were on the dock to wave goodbye to Swamiji on April 15,
1896 (see Appendix C).
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p. 134 * In the Life of Swami Vivekananda it is said, “Before
leaving New York [Swamiji] made Mr. Francis H. Leggett … the
President of the Vedanta Society (1965 edition, page 394; 1981
editiion, vol. 2, page 70). I do not at present know the evidence
for this. There is, however, some evidence to the contrary. When
Swami Abhedananda first came to New York in August of 1897,
Mr. Leggett does not seem to have ever been president of the
Society. It was only with difficulty that Swami Abhedananda
persuaded him to become the first president of the Vedanta
Society of New Yor as incorporated on October 28, 1898 (see
Complete Works of Swami Abhedananda, vol. 10, pages 28, 65,
67,71)..
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 CHAPTER_ELEVEN

ENGLAND: MAY JULY 1896-I

The voyage from New York to Liverpool on the S.S.

Germanic took just half the time of Swamiji's "disastrous" winter
crossing (going the other way) the previous December. He
availed himself, moreover, of the sea-sickness remedy that his
friend William Flagg had offered, and thus, as. he wrote to Mary
Hale, "The voyage has been pleasant and no sickness this time."1
The ship touched at Queenstown, or Cobh, on the south coast of
Ireland, and it would seem that Swamiji and Josiah J. Goodwin
there disembarked, "made quite a little run through Ireland," 2
reboarded the Germanic at a port further north; and crossed the
Irish Sea to Liverpool. From there they went by train through
"some of the old English towns," at one of which Mr. Goodwin
changed trains for Bath to visit his widowed mother before going
on to London. Swamiji proceeded to Reading, and on April 20 we
find him once more in Caversham with Mr. Sturdy "amidst
Brahma and Maya and Jive, the individual and the universal soul,
etc."3
But Caversham was not all philosophy: Swamiji was delighted
to find there (as he knew he would) his brother disciple Swami
Saradananda, who had arrived in England on April 1. The two
Swamis had not seen each other since the early part of 1891 and
had much to say. They no doubt walked together in the April
countryside, along the lanes, by the side of the Thames,
conversing in Bengali all the while. Swamiji amazed his brother
monk with tales of successes in the West and his plans for the
future. On his part, Swami Saradananda spoke of Alambazar
Math, then the headquarters of the young Ramakrishna Order,
and of the other monastic disciples of Sri
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Ramakrishna, none of whom Swamiji had seen for at least three
years.
Swami Saradananda's report may have helped Swamiji to
write a long-pondered letter to his brothers at the Math, stressing,
as he had often done before, the need for organization. This time
he laid down definite rules and regulations in regard to the Math's
daily routine as well as to its overall government. (This now
famous letter, written in an Oxfordshire village on the Thames,
constituted the beginning of what Swamiji would later expand
into the official Rules and Regulations of the Ramakrishna Math
at Belur on the Ganges-a world away.)
Aside from this letter of April 27 and his letter of April 20 to
the Hale sisters, from which I have quoted above, the only other
known letter written by Swamiji at this period is a heretofore
unpublished note to Sister Christine. It is short and not very
informative, but it perhaps said everything that she could want to
know: he sent her his love and blessings and told her that he
himself was all right. It read in full:
26th April'96
High View Caversham
Reading London.
Dear Christina
How things are going on with you? I am all safe & sound
here in England Going to begin work from May fourth. How
is Mrs. Funkey?
Give them all my Love. Write me all about yourself &
Mrs Funkey when you have time from [sic] Address me at
63 St George's Road, S.W. London.
Where is Krip.P What is he doing now? Has he been able
to get up any classes yet? Has his temper gone down. Give
them all my love & Miss Hamilton & to all my
friends & to the Rabbi. .
Yours ever with love & blessings 4
Vivekananda
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 Plans were a foot for the coming season in London. During
Swamiji's absence, Mr. Sturdy had not been idle: apart from his
frustrated publishing projects, he had held weekly classes until
the Easter holidays in April, when they had been suspended, and
had leased the Margesson house in anticipation of larger crowds.
On March 17 he had written to Swamiji, "Lady Isabel lately
wrote me that they would be letting their house for the Summer
months and furnished. I went to see it and the result is I have
taken it for five months from the 1st May until 1st Oct for 63 for
you & your classes. I think it will do very well for the purpose.
Miss Muller will take some rooms in it and so help to reduce the
cost."5 The Margessons' house was the townhouse at 63 St.
George's Road in fashionable South Belgravia, or Pimlico, where
on the cold Sunday afternoon of November I0, 1895, Swamiji had
given a talk to a small group of Lady Isabel Margesson's friends,
among whom had been a Miss Margaret Noble.
Presumably, Swamiji moved to St. George's Road on Friday,
May 1. Before starting work, however, he and Swami Sarada-
nanda spent a few days with Miss Muller at her house, the Meads,
in the village of Pinkney's Green. There they were joined by
Mahendra Nath Datta, the elder of Swamiji's two younger
brothers. Mahendra Nath, who was then twenty-six, had recently
come to England with the intention of studying law and had been
staying in another town. Years later he was to write his memoirs
of those extraordinary days in England with his great brother. No
one's memory, it is true, remains unaltered through the years;
nevertheless, Mahendra Nath Datta's three-volume Londone
Swami Vivekananda (Swami Vivekananda in London) is a mine
of information, full of details and incidents that could not, one
thinks, have existed in memory at all if they had not existed in
fact.* We shall, then, with the kind permission of the Mohendra
Publishing Committee, take advantage of these memoirs, or,
rather, an unpublished English precis of them made by Swami
Yogeshananda.
The last time Swamiji had been in Calcutta was in 1890, and
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it is probable that Mahendra Nath-or Mahendra, as we shall call
him-had not seen him since then. He now found in him a new
power and presence!6 Indeed at the Meads Mahendra had his first
wonderstruck glimpse of his elder brother's loftiness of stature.
Even Swami Saradananda was stunned by a remark Swamiji let
fall during the course of a conversation with Miss Henrietta
Muller. They may have all been sitting in the garden-arbor taking
afternoon tea. Speaking of his mission, Swamiji said, "I will have
a lot of difficult work to do in this life. Compared with last time,
there is much more to be done." And scorning Miss Muller's
remark to the effect that work should have an end, he said directly
to her, "This time I will work up to the very last moment!"7 And a
little later: "I have just begun my work; in America I have raised
only one or two waves; a tidal wave must be raised; society must
be turned upside down; the world must be given a new
civilization. The world will understand what that Power is and
why I have come. Compared with the power I showed last time, it
will be tremendous."8 When one remembers that Swamiji once
later remarked, "This time I have left nothing unsaid,"9 it is not
too difficult to believe that to the small and intimate group at
Pinkney's Green, in this brief respite between two momentous
seasons of his mission, he suddenly gave expression to the
underlying facts of his existence on this earth and of his place in
history-facts such as a prophet of his stature intuitively knows.*
There were, of course, other modes of talk at Pinkney's Green.
Mahendra recalled that Mr. and Mrs. Sturdy arrived one
afternoon on bicycles from Caversham, some twelve miles
distant. The conversation then was practical and concerned with
plans for the coming London work. It may have been on still
another day, when sobersided Mr: Sturdy was, not there, that
Swamiji and Swami Saradananda themselves tried (without much
success) to ride a bicycle in front of the house. "That day,"
Mahendra recalled, "he was his boyish self, all jokes, and in a
sweet voice he sang a Bengali song:
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 Who set me adrift on the waves
in the boat of desire?
At morn the boat went floating;
I thought this was a grand play
of the water,
And the spring breeze would blow sweet;
I would go floating in joy.10
The visit at Pinkney's Green could not have lasted for more
than five days, for on Wednesday, May 6, Swamiji was in
London at 63 St. George's Road. There were two receptions on
that day, morning and evening, "at which arrangements were
definitely made for the classes." As Mr. Goodwin wrote to Mrs.
Bull on May 12, these classes were to be held on
"Tuesday at 11.30 & 8.30
"Thursday at 11.30 & 8.30
"Friday (Afternoons) At Home
"(Friday) 8.30 Question Class."11
In other words, Swamiji was to hold four regular classes and a
question class every week, with, in addition, an afternoon devoted
to receiving visitors.
The class-lectures, as they were called, were held in the
drawing room on the first floor of the house (the second floor by
American reckoning). .In Mahendra Datta's memory, this room,
which was divided by supporting iron pillars into two parts, was
large, accommodating about 150 people. But a more recent visitor
to the house found it small, able to seat at the utmost about 100.
The house itself, like so many London houses of that era, was
narrow and cramped, squeezed by its neighbors. Following
Mahendra's memory (greatly aided by a more recent account),· let
us go quickly from bottom to top of its five floors: In the
basement, below street level, were the Kitchen, storerooms, and
servant quarters. On the floor above the ground floor-was the
entrance hall and to its right the parlour. This room, which had
one tall window looking over the iron-fenced areaway to the
street, was used by Swamiji (and
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the others) as a sitting room and dining room combined. Behind it
were two small rooms, in one of which he slept, and beyond them
was a small lavatory. Swamiji's bedroom is of singular interest; it
not only was small, but had no windows. What daylight and air
there were came across the adjoining rooms through glass panels
(some of which could, presumably, be opened) in the upper part
of the walls. (Some years later, Swamiji was goaded into
speaking plainly to Mr. Sturdy in regard to his accommodations
in London. "There too (at St. George's Road]," he wrote, "I don't
remember to have had any luxuries-as to food or drink or bed or
even the room given me.")12 (The italics are his.)
The floor above (the first floor), to which a narrow stairway
led, was, as noted before, given over to the double drawing room
where Swamiji held his classes. Above this was the second floor,
one room of which-surely the front and larger one-was occupied
by Miss Muller, and the other by Mr. Sturdy. (Lucie Sturdy and
the baby, Ambrose, remained at Caversham.) Proceeding upward,
one came to the bathroom the bathroom-off the landing between
the second and third floors. The third floor contained a large
room, probably the same size as the double drawing room, in
which several people could sleep. Ordinarily, this was the nursery
for the Margesson children; now it was occupied by Swami
Saradananda and Mahendra. As in all the rooms, there was a
fireplace here and, uniquely, a rocking horse by the street wall.
Above this was the garret, a long, narrow room with dormer
windows and a sloping ceiling. Here slept Goodwin.*
The household, on the whole, was youthful. Miss Muller,
around forty-five, was the oldest by at least nine years. Swamiji
was thirty-three; Swami Saradananda, thirty; and Mr. Sturdy,
thirty-six. The other young men were well under thirty: Mahendra
was twenty-six; Goodwin, twenty-five; and John Fox, who would
be spending much of his time in the house after the first week of
June, was twenty-three. It was, moreover, an exceptionally lively
household, for at its center was a
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tremendous charge of spiritual energy. Not only did Swamiji
manifest enormous power during his classes, of which we shall
say more later, but it poured from him as well (though in different
aspects at different times) during his everyday life- a life which
had its hub in the ground-floor parlor. Here everyone congregated
to eat, work, and talk. It was not a large room. There was a round
central table, four or five chairs, a secretary or writing table, and,
in a corner near the fireplace, opposite the hall door, an easy chair
for Swamiji. The ceiling was decorated with a lotus design
molded in plaster; the walls, we can be reasonably sure, were
patterned with gilt-framed pictures against a patterned paper; the
window was draped, the floor carpeted.
Generally, the day began around nine o'clock when Swamiji
came into the parlor for breakfast, still wearing his dressing gown
and slippers. The early morning had been his own: perhaps he had
slept late after a sleepless night; more likely, he had remained in
deep meditation or in ecstasy (he would speak at least once of
such solitary and luminous hours to the others). His breakfast,
which the old housekeeper would bring up from the kitchen, was
no doubt eggless and certainly meatless, for Mr. Sturdy and Miss
Muller were strict vegetarians, as nowadays was Goodwin.*
After breakfast, Swamiji would sit in his easy chair and talk to
Goodwin and Swami Saradananda, while Mr. Sturdy worked on
his English translation of some Sanskrit scripture that he hoped to
bring out as No. 2 of the "Indian Ideals" series, of which the
Narada Sutra, then recently published, was No.1 (Such
publications were one way of spreading the ideals of Vedanta, for
in those days English translations of Sanskrit works were rare,
hard to come by, and on the whole unreadable. Indeed, as we
have seen in an earlier chapter, one of the reasons Swamiji had
called a brother disciple to England was to suit in the work of
translating. Swami Saradananda no doubt helped with whatever
text Mr. Sturdy had chosen as No. 2. But whatever it was, it
seems never to have been published.)
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 The news in the morning papers would sometimes lead to
discussion, during which Swamiji's heart seems to have been
stabbed by the anguish everywhere in the world. There was, for
instance, the catastrophe that had taken place at the coronation of
Czar Nicholas II. The vast, poorly organized crowd had surged
out of hand, and of the thousands of peasants who had come from
far-off villages to procure-gratis, perhaps-an enameled coronation
cup, 2000 had died, crushed, trampled by one another, and shot
at by the overwrought police. Mr. Sturdy and Mr. Goodwin had
much to say about the barbarous conditions in Russia, as opposed
to the civilized and orderly conditions in England. But Swamiji
remained silent, grave. Then suddenly he exclaimed, "What
misery! What suffering! For the sake of one cup all those people
left their villages and came to the city! And so many killed! How
poor the country is! They have given their lives for a two-bit
enameled glass!"13 And he began to walk the floor, his eyes deep
with sorrow.
Again, there would be tales of human evil in the news that
filled him with despair and disgust. "A race begins to rot from the
inside first," he said one morning in connection with the biggest
London scandal of the day; "then comes an enemy and destroys
it. If this race goes on in this way, its fall is assured. From social'
evil every other evil follows."14 Sturdy and Goodwin could only
agree. But at other times there were fervent patriotic outbursts
from the two Englishmen and heated arguments, Goodwin
upholding the abstract glory of the British Empire, Swamiji
pointing out its flagrant transgressions and injustices, with all the
evidence of history behind him, until the young man would be
silenced.
There was also, of course, work to be discussed. One of the
first matters to be settled was the fate of Mr. Sturdy's pamphlets
of Swamiji's New York lectures, which, as we have seen in the
last chapter, Sturdy had printed on his own authority. To repeat,
there were four such pamphlets, duplicating those already brought
out by the New York Vedanta Society. In addition, Mr. Sturdy
had printed a pamphlet consisting of at
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least some of Swamiji's New York raja yoga classes, which
production interfered with the proposed American publication of
an altered and enlarged manuscript.* It was now agreed, in line
with a cable Mr. Goodwin, with Mrs. Bull's concurrence, had sent
to Sturdy in April, that the first four English pamphlets be
published and distributed by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent
& Company, a reputable publishing firm, with whom Mr. Sturdy
had earlier started negotiations. The four pamphlets were to be
published in three booklets: Karma Yoga; Bhakti Yoga; and The
Ideal of a Universal Religion and The Cosmos. As for Raja Yoga,
the version that was to have been published in America was a
good-sized manuscript, which included Swamiji's translation of
and class-commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Swamiji
had brought the manuscript with him, but arrangement for its
publication were still unclear, largely because Mr. Sturdy had
been unable to fathom the contradictory and highly complicated
letters regarding copyright laws that he had received from various
members of the American Publication Committee. The
complexities of this correspondence between Mr. Sturdy, Mr.
Goodyear, Mrs. Goodyear, Ms. Fox on behalf of Mrs. Bull, and
Mrs. Bull'' herself were compounded not only by the transatlantic
time lag but by the question of whether or not Mr. Sturdy's "Raja
Yoga" pamphlet should be distributed in America.** Opinions
varied.
"Until the Swami & I reached London," Goodwin would write
to Mrs. Bull on July 19 of 1896, "Mr. Sturdy was very much at a
loss to know what it was desired that he should do in the matter ,
and the fact that letters of instruction, often "contradictory to
some extent, came from Mr Goodyear & others & clashed with
those from yourself, made it more difficult still for him to do
anything."15
Mrs.Bull's letters to Mr. Sturdy written in late April are not
available today, but there can be little doubt that they contain long
illegible passages of the unique circumlocution .peculiar to her
more formal correspondence. On May 8,
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Swamiji took matters in hand. His letter of that date to Mrs. Bull,
not heretofore published, read in full:

63 St George's Road
London. S.W.

Dear Mrs Bull-your last letters to Sturdy at hand. They I

am sorry to say leave us nowhere. I could not make out
anything out of them.
What are we to do? Is the book going to be published or
not? Prof. James introduction is of no use in England. So
why wait so long for that and what use are those long
explanations about him?
Our hands are tied down. Why do not you write some-
thing plain and decisive? Life is short and time is flying. I
am so sorry you are loosing [sic] sight of that. Your letters
are full of explanations directions but not one word about
what is to be done!!! So much red tape about printing a little
book! ! Empires are managed with less manipulation than
that I am sure! ! So kindly write at your earliest something
precise about the book and whether it is going to be printed
or not and pray make the writing a little legible.
Poor Sturdy is out of his wits as to what to do, he has
gone through the Mss long ago.
Joking apart I am very sorry you are not coming over this
year. We are in Lady Isabell's house. Miss Muller has taken
some rooms in it too. Goodwin is here with us. We have not
yet made any big stir here. The classes have begun, they are
not yet what we expected. We had only two yet.
We will work on steadily next 4 or 5 months. Sturdy is as
patient & persevering and hopeful as ever.
It is cool enough yet here to have fire in the grate
Give my love to Mrs. Adams Miss Thursby and all other
friends My love to Mr. Fox and blessings.
Yours with love & blessings 16
Vivekananda
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 Before receiving a letter of clarification from Mrs. Bull, Mr.
Sturdy was satisfied enough with Mr. Goodwin's explanation of
her wishes, and "without further delay he proceeded with the
matter of making a contract with Longmans," which "of course
took some little time.17 And, at length, Mrs. Bull's own
explanation of what the American Committee had in mind arrived
in London. "Your last letter put everything straight," Swamiji
wrote to her on June 5, in a passage not heretofore fully
published, "and the Raja yoga book is splendidly going on " 18
As matters now stood, Mr. Leggett and Mrs. Bull were to pay
for the publication of the book and, on behalf of the New York
Publication Committee, would retain control of the rights to it.
Mr. Sturdy was to act as agent for the Committee in negotiating
with Longmans, Green, and Company. The book, he had decided,
would be printed and copyrighted in England only and distributed
both there and in America.* Although Mrs. Bull had no objection
to Sturdy's arrangements, she was generally displeased with him.
First, for telling others (notably the Goodyears) of the possible
inclusion in the book of a preface from William James-which, as
it happened, was not forthcoming, certainly not in time for
publication. "A preface for an American edition from a specialist
would be of decided value," she wrote to Sturdy reprovingly; "but
this was merely an incidental that I desired not mentioned. It
seems Mr. Goodyear is however acquainted with that intention
also. I deemed it better if not carried out that it should not be
spoken of."19 Furthermore, for the past several months Sturdy had
neglected to reply to her suggestions and queries, perhaps, to give
him the benefit of the doubt, not comprehending them. "Your
letter of today," she wrote to Swamiji on June 8, "is. the first and
only message of response of Mr. Sturdy to my business letter [of
March], his correspondence since your return to England (has
been] solely addressed to Mr. Goodyear I believe."20 She was
understandably annoyed, and for this reason, as well as perhaps
for others, she requested Swamiji to
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turn over her power of attorney in connection with his American
books to Mr. Leggett.
"We did not quite understand your letters," Goodwin wrote to
her on June 19.

but I think you have probably handed over the power of

attorney to Mr Leggett in order to avoid friction in New
York, & Mr Sturdy & I recognise your good motives in this,
altho it seems a pity that you do not intend to retain
possession, as no one is more fitted to do so than yourself.
Of course if you really wish that Mr Leggett shall replace
you the Swami is perfectly satisfied that Mr Leggett should
take it from you, but, at the same time, he would strongly
wish that you still retain the position.
We hope that nothing else has arisen, of which we are
unaware, to cause you annoyance. OF course you under-
stand that the Swami is in no way a business man; even if he
were he is doing so great a work here that he has no time for
the consideration of such matters, & Mr Sturdy, is very
pleased to relieve him of the necessity. 21

But Mrs. Bull's mind was made up, and the power of attorney
was transferred. In a heretofore unpublished passage of a letter to
Mr. Francis Leggett, dated July 6, Swamiji wrote:

Your kind letter and the L40 for the publication duly
reached me and a beautiful letter from Mother [Mrs.
Leggett].
Mrs. Bull writes to me to make out a power of attorney
for you in regard to the books which I send herewith.
[Enclosed was the following, dated July 6, 1896:]
Dear Sir
Herewith I constitute you as my attorney and
representative in regards to all publication pamphlets, etc.
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 written or dictated by me, their copyright, sale, etc. in the
U.S. of America.
Yours affly,22
Vivekananda

And to Mrs. Bull Swamiji wrote a formal release:

I have sent to Mr. Leggett by last mail the power of

attorney and as you desired this is to notify you of the fact
and absolve you from the responsibilities of the power of
attorney which I gave you in America last year. 23

By this time, Raja Yoga was "well under way" (Goodwin

wrote in his letter of June 19) and showing "every promise of ;
being published in very handsome form." And while Mrs. Bull ;
may have resigned in effect from the New York Publication
Committee, she was still in overall charge of the American work.
Vague and round-about she may have been, but her judgment in
practical matters was generally sound. Above all, she had
Swamiji's trust. Of this, Mr. Goodwin more than once assured
her. On April 11 he had written:

Quite without suggestion from myself-he [Swamiji, who

was then still in New York] said" Is Mrs Bull going to
England with us? I am afraid the baby [her granddaughter]
will prevent her"-I told him I thought it quite probable that
you would go later on, & he said he hoped you would.
I took advantage of this allusion to ask him what he
thought of you as the leader of matters connected with the
Vedanta in America-His reply was that he looked upon you
as a woman of the most excellent judgment &. that he would
not feel so secure of the work in anyone's hands as in yours;
and repeated that he hoped you wd be in England.
You must please excuse the personal character of this,
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but I know you wished just such an expression of his opinion, &
especially a voluntary statement .24
.
Later on, toward the end of the year, Goodwin would again
relay to Mrs. Bull (for whom he himself had much respect) words
of praise from Swamiji. With the same diffidence and caution he
made bold to write:

I know it will not interest you much from the personal

point of view, but it will probably help you in understanding
letters & so on which the Swami writes you, & which seem
harsh, if I tell you that the Swami was speaking of you the
other evening & said you were the noblest woman he knew,
& the "least cranky." Please excuse my being thus
personal.25

It is not likely that she took offense.

2

With Raja Yoga "well under way," everyone was happy.

Indeed Swamiji was often in a spontaneously playful and joyous
mood. But however spontaneous it might have been, no mood
could be his master. Mahendra tells us of one occasion, typical,
surely, of many, when the playful child became the World Guru
in no more time and with no more fuss than it takes to turn over a
coin. It was a little while before the morning class. Mr. Sturdy
had finished his translating work and had gone upstairs; Swamiji
had changed into his gerua robe with its silk sash. The late-
morning traffic could be seen through the parlor window, which
looked directly onto the street. Horse-drawn carriages and cabs
were passing by; men and women were walking along unhurried,
some, perhaps, entering the house. Looking out the window,
Swamiji suddenly began to improvise a song that his younger
brother remembered as: "Umbrella in hand, hat on the head;
pretty girls with basketfuls of flour on
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their faces." So comic the words and so "droll and mysterious"
the tune, that Mahendra went, into fits of laughter. To Swami
Saradananda, Swamiji said, "Just see! The ladies have put so
much powder on their faces it could be scraped up with a hoe!" It
was nearly class time, but Swamiji's mood remained playful.
Iaughing, joking, and poking one another in the ribs like a pair of
children, he and Swami Saradananda started up the stairs to the
lecture room, Mahendra following. And as they went, Swamiji
became totally transformed. The laughter and play disappeared;
he became profoundly grave and withdrawn. Swami
Saradananda fell behind, silent. It was not the playful child who
entered the first-floor drawing room, where people had
assembled; it was the majestic knower of God, the World
Teacher.26
As we have seen in Swamiji's letter of May 8 to Mrs. Bull , the
attendance at his first two classes, which he had held the day
before, had not been up to expectations, any effective advance
publicity having been blocked, Mr. Sturdy might have pointed
out, by the "American Syndicate." But however that may have
been, Mr. Goodwin was present taking his shorthand notes, and
on May 12 he wrote to Mrs. Bull, giving her a brief resume of
Swamiji's first three talks. Since his notes of those talks have not
been published, the pertinent portion of his letter is given here in
full :

The Swami began last Thursday with two classes-in

which he took up the history of the Vedanta. In the morning
he traced the history of the Aryan Race-its division into the
European branches on the one hand, & the Hindu branches
on the other, & showed how the Aryan language permeates
all European languages except the Basque &. the Hungarian,
8t the Tartar (if it may be called European). Then he traced
the influence of the old stock on Modern Science. In the
evening he followed this up by tracing the influence of the
Vedas & the Vedanta on Western religious thought-through
the Buddhists, who took it to Persia &.Greece-through the
Arabs who
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 took it from Persia, 8c also, to some extent, from India direct
in the course of their commerce. From the Arabs to Greece
& Spain. How from Spain it spread to Rome, by means of a
Pope educated at a Moorish University at Toledo. [Mr.
Goodwin may have misunderstood Swamiji. At Toledo, the
Archbishop Raymond (ca. 1130) commissioned a corps of
translators to render Arabic works into Latin. The greatest of
the translators was Gerard of Cremona (1114- 1187).
Another Gerard (also of Cremona) of the thirteenth century
translated Avicenna at the order of the emperor Frederic II.]
Then through Alfazil [Al-Farabi?] and Avicenna, the Arab
philosophers, to Thomas Aquinas, who took up their
philosophy [and] who was, in turn, preached by Abelard.
Today [the morning class of Tuesday, May 12] he traced the
evolution of the Upanishads as the religion of the people in
India-from the earlier sacrificial religion of the days of
priestcraft.'27

A large portion of Mr. Goodwin's unpublished transcript of

Swamiji's morning class of May 7 has recently been found among
Mrs. Bull's papers. This was actually an introductory jnana yoga
class, opening with the words:

I have told you how I would divide the subject into four
yogas, but, as the bearing [direction] of all these various
yogas is the same, [as] the goal they want to arrive at is the
same, I had better begin with the philosophical portion: the
jnana yoga jnana means knowledge. [But]before going into
the principles of the Vedanta philosophy, I think it is
necessary to sketch, in a few words, the origin, the
beginning, and the development, that is, the historical
portion, of that system.

Swamiji then proceeded, as Goodwin informed Mrs. Bull, to

trace the history of the Aryan race through the spread of the
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Sanskrit language, speaking of the various theories that had been
put forward in that regard. In addition, he spoke of the origin of
religion and contrasted the early Hindu, Egyptian, and Semitic
ideas. And in a fine digression (Swamiji's digressions were often
as important and inspiring as his main themes) he spoke with
pride in his race for its power of survival, for a vitality that
resided in an inner, hidden strength far more tensile and enduring
than the overt and relatively short-lived bravura of conquering
peoples. Speaking of the many invasions of India that had
devastated her culture again and again, he went on:
Books and literature and civilization went down. But
there is a vitality in that race which is unique in the history
of humanity, and perhaps that vitality comes from non-
resistance. Nonresistance is the greatest strength. In suffer-
ing is greater strength than in doing. In resisting one's own
passions is far higher strength than in hurting others. And
that has been the watchword of the race through all their
difficulties; their misfortunes, and their prosperity. They are
the only nation that never went beyond their frontiers to cut
the throats of their neighbours. It is a glorious thing. It
makes me rather patriotic to think I am born a Hindu, a
descendant of the only race that never went out to hurt
anyone, and whose only action upon humanity has been
giving and enlightening and purifying and teaching, but
never robbing. Three quarters of the wealth of the world has
come out of India, and does even now. The commerce of
India has been the turning point, the pivot of the history of
the world. . . . Upon the blood of the [toiling millions of
Hindus] the history of the world has been turning since we
know history and will have to turn for thousands of years
more. And what is the benefit? It gives that nation strength.
They are, as it were, an example; they must suffer and stand
up through all, fighting for the truths of religion, as a
signpost, a beacon, to tell unto mankind that
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 it is much higher not to resist, much higher to suffer, that if
life be the goal, as even their conquerors will admit, we are
the only race that can be called immortal, that can never be
killed. ... I want to bring these things before you, for,
generally, the uneducated minds, of every nation, like the
vulgar mobs in every big city, cannot grasp, cannot see,
cannot understand, any fine movement. The causes, the real
movements in this world of ours, are very fine: it is only the
effects that are gross, and muscular. The mind is the real
cause of this body, the fine movements behind. The body is
the gross, the external. But everyone sees the body; very few
see the mind. So with everything; the masses, the brutal,
ignorant masses of every race see a triumphant procession,
stampeding horses, arms, and cannonades, and these they
understand. But those fine, gentle workings that are going on
behind, it is only the philosopher, the highly cultivated man
or woman, that can understand.28

Interestingly, Mr. Sturdy did not look upon Swamiji's London

classes with the same selfless universality with which he had
viewed his New York classes. In his letter of May 12 to Mrs.
Bull, Mr. Goodwin wrote:

I am sending you the two first lectures, but please keep

them entirely to yourself. If you will do so; I think you had
better not let Mr Fox or anyone else see them, or let the N.
Y. people know anything of them, as Mr Sturdy does not
wish to risk the chance of their being used. I rather fancy he
is taking a one sided view of things. Of course the old saying
"Set a thief to catch a thief" wd not apply, but there is just a
suspicion of ego about him, both in relation to this &, to the
work here. At the same time his judgement is good, & so.
are his connections.

(Actually, Mr. Goodwin sent not two but six class transcripts
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to Mrs. Bull. On the envelope of the above letter he wrote this
postscript: "I find the postage on the lectures, which are bulky, is
heavy. So shall send half a dozen on Sat'y by express." By
Saturday, May 16, Swamiji would, to be sure, have given half a
dozen lectures, including an unscheduled one at the Sesame Club.
And so careful was Mrs. Bull to keep these talks to herself', as
Goodwin had asked, that even today only one of them has been
published-that of May 14 and only recently a second transcript
discovered-that of May 7, an excerpt from which has been given
above.)
Swamiji's unscheduled and unexpected engagement at the
Sesame Club gave him precisely the kind of publicity he needed
at the beginning of this season in London. In the Daily Chronicle
of May 14, one finds the following item:

]The Sesame Club.-At a meeting of the Sesame Club on

Tuesday night (May 12], the chairman, Mr. Ashton ,]onson,
said he regretted to announce that Mrs. Norman was too
unwell to be present to open, as announced, a debate on
"Should we return to the land." An address was accordingly
given by Swami Vivekananda on the subject of education, in
which he urged that no one could obtain intellectual
greatness until he was physically pure. Morality gave
strength; the immoral were always weak, and could never
raise themselves intellectually, much less spiritually.
Directly immorality began to enter the national life its
foundations commenced to rot. As the life blood of every
nation was to be found in the schools, where boys and girls
were receiving their education, it was absolutely essential
that the young students should lie pure, and this purity must
be taught them.
The members of the Sesame Club, who assembled that
evening, were intellectuals, most of them interested one way or
another in education, which was then just beginning to become a
matter for serious thought and experiment. The club
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had been founded the previous year and was one of the first
"mixed" clubs in London-that is, its membership was open to
both men and women. According to the "Sesame Club Papers,"
published in the first years of the club's existence, one of its
purposes was to "become a recognized rendezvous for persons
interested in education in all its branches, whether as professional
teachers or otherwise: ' The Honourable Secretaries were Lady
Isabel Margesson and Mrs. Ashton Jonson, both of whom were
known to Swamiji. On Tuesday evenings the club held what were
called "Literary Evenings" a poor title for that function," the
"Club Papers" remarked, "there being all sorts of topics brought
forward, lectures, debates, etc," Indeed, in the "Papers" one finds
mention of talks by people of divers interests, such as Patrick
Geddes, George Bernard Shaw (not yet famous), Rev. H. R.
Haweis, and William Butler Yeats, to say nothing of Swami
Vivekananda.
Thc talk Swamiji gave on the Tuesday evening of May 12 was
not announced in the "club Papers," it having been unforeseen.
Even Swamiji had had little chance to inform people that his
regular evening class that Tuesday was canceled. Among those
who were unaware of it were Mr. and Mrs. Eric Hammond.
Mr. Hammond and his wife Nell lived in a modest house in
the suburb of Wimbledon. He was a journalist and poet, well
known in his own town for his popular annual lectures on poetry
and poets as well as for his work on the Wimbledon Library
Committee and his close association with the Wimbledon Literary
Society. He and Nell, in their mid-forties in1896, were kind and
gentle people ("She is a great soul " Swamiji would later say of
Nell Hammond) and were, of course, good friends of Margaret
Noble, who had founded the Literary Society in 1890. It was she
who had urged them persistently-to go to London on the evening
of May 12 in order to attend one of Swamiji's classes. In a
published reminiscence, Mr. Hammond tells what happened that
rainy "cheerless and dismal" evening which found him and his
wife
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ringing the doorbell at 63 St. George's Road. They were "met, at
first, by disappointment."

Swamiji was not at home [Mr. Hammond relates). How-

ever, a very kindly message awaited us. We were permitted-
so the message ran-to follow him to the Sesame Club
whither he had gone, at brief notice, to speak in place of a
lecturer who was prevented from appearing. Obeying
instructions with alacrity we sought the Club [then at 171:
Victoria Street, not far from St. George's Road]. We found
ourselves in a big drawing room or hall, filled almost to
overflowing by smart people in evening dress. Some
courteous and obliging person ushered us close to a platform
where one or two chairs were vacant. The position was
conspicuous and so, alas! were we. Our overcoats were
dripping with rain, nor were we otherwise clothed in fine
raiment; not anticipating a summons to so distinguished a
gathering. Most of those present were, we discovered,
schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, tutors and the like. The
subject announced for lecture was "Education". Soon he,
Swamiji, appeared. .. . His dark skin, his deep glowing eyes,
even his costume, attracted and fascinated. Above all,
eloquence acclaimed him, the eloquence of inspiration. . . .
More, Swamiji soon showed that he was equally versed in
history and political economy. He stood among these people
on their own ground. Without fear, beseeching no favour, he
dealt them blow upon blow enforcing the Hindu principle
that the teacher who taught for the money-making was a
traitor to the highest and deepest truth. "Education is an
integral part of religion and neither one nor the other should
be bought nor sold." His words, rapier-like, pierced the
armour of scholastic convention; yet no bitterness spoilt his
speech. This Hindu, cultured, gracious with his notable
smile that disarmed unkindly criticism, held his own and
made his mark. . . .
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 Discussion followed. Climatic and other reasons for
charges for teaching were set forth, but Swamiji maintained
his position.
Such then was our first meeting with him; a meeting
which resulted in reverent friendship, in genuine admiration
and in most grateful remembrance .29

Another report of Swamiji's Sesame Club talk comes to us

from the pen of Swami Saradananda, who included it in a May
news-letter to the Brahmavadin. His letter published in the issue
of June 6, 1896, read in part:

On Tuesday last, the Swami lectured on education at the

Sesame Club. It is a respectable club got up by women for
diffusing female education. In this he dealt with the old
educational system of India, pointed out clearly and
impressively that the sole aim of the system was `man--
making' and not cramming, and compared it with the present
system. He held that the mind of man is an infinite reservoir
of knowledge and all knowledge present and past or future is
within man, manifested or non-manifested, and the object of
every system of education should be to help the mind to
manifest it. For instance the Law of Gravitation was within
man, and the fall of the apple helped Newton to think upon it
and bring it out from within his mind.

After the Sesame Club lecture the attendance at Swamiji's

classes began to grow. In the same news-letter Swami Sarad-
ananda was able to report:

Swami Vivekananda has made a good beginning here.. A

large number of people attend his classes regularly and the
lectures are most interesting. Canon Haweis, one of the
leaders of the Anglican Church, came the other day and was
much interested. . . . In the class lectures he has begun
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 with Gnana Yoga. A shorthand report of these lectures is
being taken down by Mr. Goodwin, who is a great admirer
of the Swami; and will be published later on:
Around the same time in May as Swami Saradananda sent the
above to the Brahmavadin, the Queen; the Lady’s Newspaper,
published the following, as quoted in the Indian Mirror of June 3
1896:
Here in London; Swami Vivekananda has been holding
class lectures, 63, St. George's Road, S.W., every Tuesday
and 'Thursday, both in the morning. and evening. The
number of his students has been increasing very rapidly. He
has; therefore opened a question class which he holds every
Friday, at 8-30 P.M. It is a great wonder indeed, that the
Swami has been able to attract, from the very
commencement of the course of his lectures; so many men
in a materialistic city like London; where none cares a fig
for religion, where, politics reigns supreme in the minds of
the people, especially now at the time of the London season-
the season of balls, feasts and all sorts of entertainments,
He, who has once listened to the great Swami, is tempted to
attend every lecture that he delivers. We cannot but own that
the man possesses a great magnetic power or some power
divine by which he even draws so many Londoners towards
him. Many a lady and many learned man here have become
his students. Today Rev. Canon Haweis, a very learned man,
came to his class. He has at once marvelled at his lectures." 30

And by the end of May, Swamiji wrote to Mary Hale, "The

classes are very big."31
As has been mentioned earlier, these classes were held in a
double drawing room that could seat approximately one hundred
people: In front of the two windows at the street end was a table
and chair, beside which Swamiji stood. In the
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middle of the aide wall to his right was the fireplace, and between
this and the windows was a table where Goodwin would sit to
take notes, his back to the room. Along the far wall of the room
was a large spring sofa, on which Mr. Sturdy, Mahendra, and,
later on, John Fox used to sit, acting more on less as ushers-Mr.
Sturdy being the usher-in-chief. In addition, there were, of course,
other chairs both hard and soft in the room, many of them no
doubt borrowed or rented for the classes. The French windows
behind and to the left of where Swamiji stood opened into a
balcony that extended over the front vestibule. Here, when the
weather permitted, several people could sit comfortably.
To the morning classes more women came than men, and
some were noteworthy. Near the French window of the balcony,
just behind Swamiji, there sat, for instance, a slender young
woman in the unmistakable nurse’s uniform of the 1890s, whose
name no one ever learned. She attended every class, coming and
going silently. Perhaps many another member of the audience
came and went silently, anonymously; the thing that marked the
nurse off from the others and that makes us want to know her
name was that she invariably took shorthand notes of every thing
Swamiji said.32 Goodwin, it is true, also took shorthand notes of
Swamiji's classes in May and through most of June-but as far as
anyone knows to date, most of his notes have been irretrievably
lost.
By contrast, another woman came every morning "too late to
hear a word," as Swamiji would recall months later, buttonholed
him immediately after the class and kept him talking "till a. battle
of Waterloo would be raging in my internal economy through
hunger."33
Then there was the stout, white-haired old lady from Syden-
ham in far southeast London. She came every class day, part of
the way by carriage and part, to save expense, on foot. Once,
when she seemed heated from the exertion of climbing the stairs,
Mahendra gave her a fan, and they entered into conversation. "I
love the Swami's talks," she told him. "I can't
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understand much of the philosophy, but his voice and gestures
charm me. I seem to be seeing someone out of the Bible."34
And there was the middle-aged woman who had been born in
Moscow and had spent her youth there. While in Russia she had
had a dream which she now related with much emotion. In the
dream she was led to a sailing ship by a luminous man; it was a
black night, and the ship set sail in a boundless sea. She was
afraid. Then another man, whose face she saw very clearly, said
to her, "There is no fear. Even in the dark the ship will go to its
destination." Her fear left, and she awoke. For many years
thereafter she had searched in vain for that face in both Russia
and England. Then in October of 1895 she attended Swamiji's
lecture at Prince's Hall, and there he was, the man in her dream. 35
Another visitor to the morning class was distinguished in quite
a different way. She was not a regular attendant; indeed, as far as
we know, she came only once, but that once, Mahendra tells us,
caused all the other ladies to turn to look at her and to whisper
among themselves, After she left, driving off in her carriage, the
others told Swamiji with bated breath that she was the Duchess of
Albany, the widow of Queen Victoria's youngest son, Leopold.
She had come incognito so she had intended. '36 (On another and
later occasion we shall again find some incognito members of the
Royal Household attending one of Swamiji's talks.)
In a few of his letters Swamiji mentions the Galeworthys, who
seem to have attended his classes with some regularity. The
family was known to Miss MacLeod and was almost certainly
that of the Galsworthy who was later to become a famous author.
Assuming that it was, it is possible that the as yet unknown and
unpublished John Galsworthy attended some of the meetings that
Mr. Sturdy had conducted for a time during Swamiji's absence in
America. "I have very enthusiastic accounts of your classes from
Miss MacLeod," Swamiji had written to Sturdy on January 16,
1896. "Mr. Galsworthy seems to be very much interested now."37
This, could have been the
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young John. Brought up to be a well-mannered, well-educated
scion of a wealthy Father and trained to practice law, John
Galsworthy had not appeared to be anything but an average
young man of the upper middle class. But in the early nineties a
marked change had come over him. Various influences outside
his affluent circle began to mold and awaken his mind; he became
aware that a richer and more meaningful life was possible;
simultaneously he discovered the abject poverty that existed in
London. He haunted the slums, deeply moved by the misery he
saw. Further, he fell in love with a young woman who urged him
to write. In this sensitive period of transition from conventional
dandy and potential man-of property to serious author, it is not
unlikely that in 1896 John Galsworthy, then twenty-nine, found in
Vedanta a needed ideal and rudder.* Although some
misunderstanding seems to have arisen between Swamiji and the
Galsworthys, Miss MacLeod evidently straightened it out. In July
of 1896, Swamiji wrote to Mr. Francis Legett, "The Galesworthys
have been very very kind!" Joe brought them around
splendidly."38 Mrs. Galsworthy, the mother of the family, is said
by her irritated children to have had a narrow and superficial
mind, like that of many English women of her generation. "The
Queen, the Royal family, the Church, the structure of Society, all
to her were final," her son noted. "Almost at once-if we talked-a
kind of irritation would begin in me, a sort of inward railing at the
closed door I perceived in her mind."39 Mrs. Galsworthy may not
have very often attended Swamiji's classes (one hopes she was
there when the Duchess of Albany came), but her daughters were
of another mind. The two young ladies belonged to the generation
of women who were pushing toward freedom; their minds were
breaking the bonds of. a closed society; they were intellectual,
art-loving, talented, open to new ideas, encouraged in pursuing
them by their father. Surely one could have often found the
Galsworthy daughters, the elder of whom was married, at 63 St.
George's Road.
There were, of course, many others who came regularly on
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Tuesdays and Thursdays and -on Fridays as well. Miss MacLeod,
who was then in London, would surely sweep in, dressed in the
best Paris style and looking very elegant indeed among the
conservative English women. Miss Margaret Noble from
Wimbledon would attend whenever she could, bringing the
Hammonds. The Reverend and Mrs. R. H. Haweis came often,
and very probably Canon Wilbedorce, together with his wife and
daughter, came more than once. A Miss Emmeline Souter, who
was a friend of the Reverend Mr. Haweis and who would later
contribute to Swamiji's Indian work, often attended, as did Mrs.
Ashton Jonson, one of the secretaries of the Sesame Club. And
then there would be Captain and Mrs. Sevier, who had somehow
found Swamiji and who were to become two of his most devoted
and loyal followers. Like Margaret Noble, they would quite
literally (and sooner than she) leave all that they had to follow
him, giving themselves gently, steadily, and without stint to his
work. Captain Sevier was a retired army officer who had served
for five years in India and, as Swamiji would write to Alasinga,
"knows India a good deal." Both he and his wife, Charlotte
Elizabeth, were around forty-nine years old in 1896 and lived
quietly in Hampstead, a suburb of London, to which the steam-
driven Underground did not then reach. Although on first hearing
Swamiji they had both known that this was what each had always
been seeking, they could have had little idea that within two
months or less they would be his hosts in the Alps. Nor could
they have known that within a year they would be living and
working in the Himalayas-he to die there in the fall of 1900. They
came unobtrusively to his classes, among the many who sat in the
double drawing room absorbed in the powerful words that were
becoming a part of their being and changing their thought and
their lives.
Some of those who attended Swamiji's talks were, it is said,
lifted into a state bordering on samadhi; some, on the other hand,
may have been deeply disturbed by these strange new ideas that
seemed to blast away the very fabric of their accus-
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tomed worlds. Some were glorified; some were afraid; none could
have been left unmoved. The morning class usually lasted for an
hour and a half or so. Afterwards, it is more than probable that
Swamiji talked for a time with those who pressed around him, his
mood changing from that of the awe-inspiring teacher whom one
might hesitate to approach to that of the friend, jovial, informal,
and accessible.
Often, he would go out to lunch, sometimes with Miss
MacLeod and a friend or two, sometimes with people who struck
Mahendra as very important personages. Once, indeed, Swamiji
had a luncheon engagement with a "a duke in Park Lane,"-which
he had totally forgotten until, in the nick of time, he chanced to
consult his engagement book. He rushed to get ready, "Goodwin
whirling like a spinning wheel" to help him. A carriage was
hailed, and off he went, not to return until very late that night. 40
Thus, not only through his classes, but through his friendships
with all kinds of people, Swamiji brought the best of India's
religious culture to England: "From now on," Mahendra heard
him remark to Swami Saradananda, "they will see India with new
eyes."41
Lunch at home had its tensions.. There was Henrietta Muller,
who seemed to be "an old woman" to Mahendra and who some
times wore, he said, “a man’s suit “42 (very probably a stylish
sporting costume with a tightfitting, broad-lapelled jacket and a
skirt that rose a daring four inches from the floor). Miss Muller
had some very definite opinions. Mahendra describes an
exchange that took place one day when she expressed her
disapproval of the old cows in India, remarking that in England
such unproductive and suffering animals would be forthwith done
away with. At this, Swami Saradananda mildly asked why the
English did not, then, do away with their parents when they
became old. What Miss Muller, who was much devoted to her
elderly mother, replied is not known, but whatever it may have
been, it was her last word to the Swami for three days. "You see,
Sharat; ' Swamiji told his brother disciple when he heard of this
contretemps, "in this country there are
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two kinds of old maids: some grow fat-they are even tempered
and comfortable; the others get dried up and are peevish. You
must take great care how you act around them. Stand up when
they come into the room; ask `How are you?'; quickly give them
whatever they want; try to pacify them."43
As for Miss Muller, Swamiji would at times gently chide her
"We are all monomanics. I am a monomaniac for my preaching
of Vedanta; you are a monomaniac for your whims. The world is
full of monomaniaca."44 One of Miss Muller's main grievances
was the cooking done by the elderly housekeeper, who had, no
doubt, been engaged by Mr. Sturdy. One day, Mahendra reports,
"she grumbled and grumbled about the food, got dressed up and
went off to her relatives." Swamiji was much annoyed. "Nothing
but quarrels! Let her stay with her family for a while; she will
cool off and come back."45 And so she did, bringing another cook,
whose British method of boiling rice threw Swami Saradananda
and Mahendra into such spasms of choked laughter that another
row was barely avoided. 46
Swamiji was himself not always enthusiastic about the
monotonous English fare at St. George's Road. Even the basket of
choice fruit sent almost daily by an anonymous admirer could not
make up for a diet of long-boiled vegetables and potatoes. Now
and then he would go down to the kitchen with the spices Swami
Saradananda had brought to him from India and create a splendid
curry. "Last night I made a dish," he wrote to Mary Hale on May
30. "It was such a delicious mixture of saffron, lavender, mace,
nutmeg, cubebs, cinnamon, doves, cardamom, cream, lime juice,
onions, raisins, almonds, pepper, and rice, that I myself could not
eat it. There was no asafoetida, though that would have made it
smoother to swallow."47 The event immediately preceding the
creation of that dish had been something of an ordeal for Swamiji.
Miss Muller had taken him to see a "marriage a la mode." "One
of her nieces was married to somebody's nephew I suppose. What
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tiring nonsense!"48 Certainly the only thing to do after that was
rush to the kitchen and cook "'a la Indian."

On May 28, the day before Swamiji attended the wedding, he

had one of the most memorable experiences of his visit in
England. He had gone by train with Mr. Sturdy to see Professor
Max Muller at his home in Oxford, about sixty-four miles
northwest of London. He was enchanted by the venerable phi-
lologist and Sanskrit scholar, who, though born and educated in
Germany, had spent some fifty years of his life in England,
translating and editing the Rig-Veda in six volumes and later
editing the fifty-volume Sacred Books of the East,* as well as
writing a number of books and essays. The long years he had
spent delving into "the interminable forest of Sanskrit literature
with deep interest and heart-felt love" had colored, Swamiji
found, his whole being.49 "It was neither the philologist nor the
scholar that I saw," he wrote in a letter to the Brahmavadin a few
days after his visit to Oxford, "but a soul that is every day
realising its oneness with the Brahman, a heart that is every
moment expanding to reach oneness with the Universal.** Where
others lose themselves in the desert of dry details, he has struck
the wellspring of life. Indeed, his heartbeats have caught the
rhythm of the Upanishads."50
Professor Friedrich Max Muller was Corpus Professor of
Comparative Philology and had just been made the Right
Honourable, which distinction he held among many others.***
He treated Swamiji and Mr. Sturdy with great cordiality,
introducing them to his wife, entertaining them at his house at 7
Norham Gardens, a Tudor cottage (which he called his
"Ashrama") set in an English garden with rosebushes in full
bloom, inviting them to lunch, showing them several Colleges of
Oxford, and conducting them through the Bodleian Library, of
which he was a curator and which was rich in Oriental manu-
scripts, and at the close of the day accompanying them to the
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railway station. "And all this he did," Swamiji wrote, "because, as
he said, `It is not every day one meets a disciple of Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa.' "51
It had been a beautiful spring day away from the noisy and
murky city. "The trees, the flowers, the calmness, and the clear
sky," Swamiji wrote, "-all these sent me back in imagination to
the glorious days of Ancient India, the days of our Brahmarshis
and Rajarshis, the days of the great Vanaprasthas, the days of
Arundhatis and Vasishthas."52 (The image remained in Swamiji's
mind. "Seeing the old man and his lady," he was later to say to an
Indian disciple, "it seemed to me that they were living their
home-life like another Vasishtha and Arundhati!")53 Even before
he met the Professor, Swamiji had sensed that he belonged to
Vedic India-a reincarnation of the fourteenth-century Sayana,
born to revive his own commentary on the Rig-Veda. How else
explain his inherently profound love for India's ancient scriptures,
so anomalous in the nineteenth century West? Now, meeting and
talking with "the silverheaded sage, with a face calm and
benign,"54 Swamiji was confirmed in his belief. Max Muller
himself, a believer in reincarnation-in total contradiction to his
Christian loyalties -seemed to sense that he had lived another life
in another land, where his heart belonged. Taking leave of him,
Swamiji had asked, "When are you coming to India? Every heart
there would welcome one who has done so much to place the
thoughts of their ancestors in the true light." "The face of the aged
sage brightened up," Swamiji wrote, "there was almost a tear in
his eyes, a gentle nodding of the head, and slowly the words came
out: `I would not return then; you would have to cremate me
there.' Further questions seemed an unwarrantable intrusion into
realms wherein are stored the holy secrets of man's heart. Who
knows but that it was what the poet has said-`He remembers with
his mind the friendships of former births, firmly rooted in his
heart.' 55
Swamiji did not always agree with Max Muller's scholarly
conclusions. A few years later at the Paris Congress of the
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History of Religions, he was to point out the illogic of a con-
tention of the Professor's (even as he had once "indulged in an
innocent squib at Sayana") 56 This did not, however, lessen his
respect for "the great-souled scholar." Indeed, Max Muller's love
for India and his devotion to the task of bringing out her greatest
jewels for Western view and understanding had won Swamiji's
everlasting esteem. "His life," he wrote, "has been a blessing to
the world."57

Nor was the Professor's interest solely in India's great spiritual

past; he had also sought out its living present. He had "a deep,
unfathomable respect for Sri Ramakrishna,"58 which particularly
endeared him to Swamiji. In April of 1896 he had sent Swamiji
the following postcard, the first of their communications:

2 April 96
Dear Sir, Accept my best thanks for your interesting
pamphlet. I believe you are a pupil of Rama Krishna
Paramahansa, whom I have always sincerely admired. I
hope you will continue your work in America and make
both Sankara and Ramanuja widely known.
Yours faithfully59
F. Max Muller

Swamiji must have replied warmly, for later in the same

month Max Muller wrote to him with less formality, opening his
heart:

As for your beloved master of blessed memory,

Bhagaban Sri Ram Krishan, how can I ever tell you what he
is to me, I love and worship him with my whole heart. To
think of him makes my eyes fill with tears of gladness that I
was permitted to hear of him. His sayings, published in the
Brahmavadin, are my greatest delight. How wonderful that
his teachings should have been borne to this far-off land
where we had never even known of his existence! If
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 I might only have known him, while he was yet with us! My
greatest desire is to one day visit the spot which [was]
sanctified by his presence, while he lived, and I may be so
fortunate as to fulfil the wish.60
"I should say that I went [not to pay a visit but] to pay my
respects to [Max Muller]," Swamiji would write, "for whosoever
loves Shri Ramakrishna, whatever be his or her sect, or creed, or
nationality, my visit to that person I hold as a pilgrimage."61
It had been through making inquiries into the power behind
the sudden and momentous changes in the life of Keshab Chandra
Sen that Max Muller had discovered the Paramahamsa of
Dakshineswar and had thereafter been "an earnest student and
admirer" of his life and teachings. He had, in fact, written an
article entitled "A Real Mahatman," which was to be published in
the August 1896 issue of the Nineteenth Century, a highly
reputable and widely read magazine. He told Swamiji that he
would be "very glad to write a larger and fuller account . . . if
sufficient materials were forthcoming." It would appear that
Swamiji accordingly sent him some information, for on June 22
the Professor wrote to him from Scotland, where he was then
staying. His letter to Swamiji, a copy of which came by way of
John P. Fox to Mrs. Bull, and thence to us, has not previously
been published. It read:
Spitalhaugh
West Linton [Scotland]
22 June 96
My dear Mr. Vivekananda
Accept my best thanks for your most interesting com-
munication. I wish I had had it when I wrote my article on
Rama Krishna which will, I hope, appear in the July number
of the xix Century. Just now I am very busy with proof
sheets, and a new edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
and several other matters. But I have several
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 questions to ask you about your great Guru, and I should be
obliged if you would let me have your address.
What I should like to do would be to rewrite my article
on R.K., with a complete collection of his sayings, properly
arranged according to their subjects. Do you think that your
friends would help me to do that.
Yours very truly62
F. Max Muller.

On receiving this letter, Swamiji at once wrote to Swami

Ramakrishnananda: "Max Muller wants all the sayings of Shri
Ramakrishna classified, that is, all on Karma in one place, on
Vairagya in another place, so on Bhakti, Jnana, etc, etc. You must
undertake to do this forthwith. . . . We must take care to present
only the universal aspect of his teachings."63 Later on, Swamiji
was to send Max Muller "a full description of his Master's life,"
upon which the Professor based his book The Life and Sayings of
Ramakrishna,64 It was in respect to this, however, that the
Professor was to deal Swamiji something of a blow, or, at least,
one thinks, to cause him disappointment. But of this we shall
speak in a later chapter.

As we have seen, Swamiji often was invited out in the after-

noons. But he also received visitors at home, some of whom came
for spiritual guidance, others for advice in their personal lives,
confiding in him as one might confide in a wise and com-
passionate uncle whom one had always known. Or on some
afternoons when no one else came, he would sit in the parlor
talking with Swami Saradananda, Sturdy, Goodwin, Mahendra,
and, after the first week of June, John Fox, who had arrived in
London around June 6 to study architecture. (For the first week or
so of his London stay, Fox lived in the house at St. George's
Road, but even after taking lodgings elsewhere, he continued to
spend a part of his time there.)* Snatches of
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the talk come down to us through the memory of Mahendra, who
seems almost always to have been present, listening attentively.
While one cannot suppose that Mahendra had total recall,* one
can, I believe, accept the highlights of his memory, as well as its
broad outlines.
There was, for instance, the afternoon when Swamiji, leaning
back in his easy chair, his legs crossed, his eyes closed, remained
silent for a long time, "as if pondering something." The others in
the room were quiet, waiting. Then suddenly Swamiji uncrossed
his legs and said to John Fox that he had been thinking of how St.
Paul, becoming the Apostle of Christ's teachings, had succeeded
in spreading them in the face of powerful opposition. "Paul was a
learned fanatic," Swamiji said. "Do you know what I am? I am
also a learned fanatic, and I want to create a band of learned
fanatics. You see, just a fanatic is not enough; fanaticism is a
disease of the brain and makes much mischief. It takes a learned
fanatic." He grew quite excited, Mahendra tells us, and his
listeners were awestruck by the clear implication of his own place
in the establishment of a new Dispensation. And indeed, as
Mahendra points out, many have since remarked that what Paul
was to Christ, Swami Vivekananda was to Sri Ramakrishna. Here
again was Swamiji's impersonal recognition of the immensity of
his own place in history.65
But not only was it through such statements that his status was
revealed. There were times in which it was clearly apparent. The
divine light of his being kept shining out, as though a thin veil
were being continually blown aside. Sometimes, Mahendra
recalled, the power he manifested seemed overwhelming,
particularly so during a class or lecture; it was like a fire blazing
in the middle of the house and difficult to bear. At such times,
what Spirit was could be clearly understood. "It was as if the
room was flowing with Brahmajnana and wisdom, and Swamiji,
smiling, was sprinkling it around, offering anjali with his two
hands."66
Or there were times in the parlor when he sat in so grave and
absorbed a mood that no one dared approach him; he
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was infinity itself. But there were other times when the childlike
joy characteristic of the Paramahamsa was uppermost and
irrepressible. Often he would sing Bengali songs to himself, as
though giving voice to a continual inner joy and worship. And
there was the day when he was just soaked in bliss, guilelessly
absorbed in joy. There were only a few intimate friends present in
the lecture room that day-probably a Friday afternoon and
Swamiji, standing by the lecture table, began suddenly to dance. 67
Or, again, there was the morning in the parlor, where all the
household was assembled except Mr. Sturdy and Miss Muller
(the latter of whom seldom, it seems, joined the young men).
"Swamiji sat for a long time in his chair in deep thought,"
Mahendra wrote. "Then all at once he began to say, `So'ham,
So'ham.' The look of his face, the tone of his voice became utterly
changed. His countenance became the veritable picture of joy. In
this bliss he began to pace the floor or dance for a while.
Everyone was astonished. Here was a new person, a free person.
Then he became silent and sat again in his chair. Slowly, as his
mood passed, he became his normal self again."68 But Swamiji's
"normal self'" was an extraordinary self; there seems to have been
always that ecstasy shimmering just below the surface, ready to
overflow.
We have not only Mahendra's memories as evidence of
Swamiji's spiritual ecstasy during his life in England, but more
important and more telling, his own words as they have come
down to us in his famous and often-quoted letter written on July 6
to "Frankincense," as he addressed the rather staid Mr. Leggett.
At twenty years of age [he wrote] I was the most
unsympathetic, uncompromising fanatic; I would not walk
on the footpath on the theatre side of the streets in Calcutta.
At thirty-three, I can live in the same house with prostitutes
and never would think of saying a word of reproach to them.
Is it degenerate? Or is it that I am
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 broadening out into the Universal Love which is the Lord
Himself? Again I have heard that if one does not see the evil
round him he cannot do good work-he lapses into a sort of
fatalism. I do not see that. On the other hand, my power of
work is immensely increasing and becoming immensely
effective. Some days I get into a sort of ecstasy. I feel that I
must bless every one, everything, love and embrace
everything, and I do see that evil is a delusion. . . . He is my
playful darling. I am his playfellow. There is neither rhyme
nor reason in the universe! What reason binds Him? . . .
Whom to praise, whom to blame, it is all His play. They
want explanations, but how can you explain Him? He is
brainless, nor has He any reason. He is fooling us with little
brains and reason, but this time He won't find me napping. I
have learned a thing or two. Beyond, beyond reason and
learning and talking is the feeling, the `Love', the `Beloved'.
Aye, Saki,* fill up the cup and we will be mad.69
The talks in the parlor ranged over innumerable subjects, and
the young men were continually amazed at Swamiji's endless
fund of knowledge. He discussed politics with Goodwin, history
with Fox, the Harvard graduate, who had taken many courses in
the subject. He astounded them not only with the extent of his
learning but with the hundreds of absorbing details that he had at
the tips of his fingers, as, for instance, the fact that the gluttonous
Roman Emperor Vitellius ate myna birds from Assam boiled in
ghee and milk. To Mrs. Bull, Fox wrote on June 17, "The last day
or two I have had some good talks with [Swami], or rather
listened to him, for he knows so much about everything that one
hardly ventures to express his own ideas on a subject. I have not
realized till lately how much he knows about every country and
time, and he has such a true and broad knowledge-real
philosophy."70 Indeed. He could describe how American carriage
wheels were made, discuss the recent discoveries of German
science, talk at length
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about the Jewish Cabala, about astronomy, other branches of
science, Perisian customs, European politics--anything; and while
the facts he told were in themselves fascinating, he made them
more so by relating them to the wide movements of man's history
on earth. He often spoke of India, his mind ever on the means of
improving the lot of his countrymen. At times the poverty and
helplessness of India's people, compared with the robust activity
of the average Westerner, filled him with grief. But though his
mind roamed over the world both in time and space, no detail of
his immediate surroundings escaped his notice. Were his young
brother, for instance, not properly dressed, he would at once
admonish him. He himself scrupulously observed the customs
and manners of London, lest he give offense to his English
friends; nor does it seem to have been difficult for Swamiji to
adjust to the ways of the West. Even the humor-that subtle idiom
relished by its own culture and era, unintelligible to the outsider-
held no mystery for him, as his letters to Western friends
delightfully show.
Often there were jokes and laughter. Once Mr. Sturdy, who
had attended an English public school, told with indignation of
the canings given to the boys. "I get angry," he said, "whenever I
see a man beating a boy." "I, too," said Goodwin; "I get angry
even when I see a man beating a donkey." Swamiji smiled. "That
is because it arouses your fellow-feeling," he said.71 They all
laughed, perhaps Goodwin the loudest. Indeed, one might
suppose that the house was a continuous mart of joy, filled with
peace and goodwill during the ten weeks or so of Swamiji's stay
there. To a great extent, this was of course the case; yet it was not
altogether so: there were undercurrents of tension in the minds of
those who lived, as on some high Himalayan peak, in close
association with Swamiji. Alone among them, Swami
Saradananda was fully accustomed to the altitude of his presence;
it was native to him. Goodwin, Mahendra, and Fox seemed to
have basked in it, allowing it to suffuse them. But Mr. Sturdy and
Miss Muller appear to have resisted it. "You can silence me,"
Miss Muller was heard to
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say to Swamiji from time to time, "but you cannot convince
me!"72 Mr. Sturdy was equally strong-minded. Portions of a letter
he was to write in December of 1899 to Miss MacLeod give some
insight into his attitude:

Of course Swami does not stand to me as he does to

many others. To them he came as a teacher of something
they had not heard before and also as a manifestation of his
teachings to a great extent in himself.
To me he came as a manifestation, a partial realisation of
ideals and doctrines I had studied and striven to follow for-
counting them now-I7 years. I realised at once on meeting
him that he was far above most of the men I had met in India
in many directions and his contact with the West had
furnished his mind with many new examples and
illustrations and he had heart and head equally developed. I
still look up to Swami as a very great man-teacher, but I
have very gravely modified my idea of him in some
directions. It would be unfair to go into them. They are
personal experiences and impressions, which may be
entirely or partly the mistakes of the impressed. I have not
altered any ideals or convictions, but these experiences and
impressions produce just that taking away of enthusiasm and
energy without which, when one lacks them, no work or
cooperation can be engaged in.73

And so on. Mr. Sturdy was to write this letter after he had
failed to manage the London work successfully in Swamiji's
absence. Nevertheless, it indicates that he suffered from a certain
resentment even in the days of 1896, during which (as we know
from letters of a later day) he collected and harbored grievances
by the score. "Poor Sturdy!" Miss MacLeod would comment to
Sister Nivedita in November of 1899, "You've tried to limit the
Limitless by your little yard measure-& you couldn't even come
to the knee!"74
One incident that may have served Sturdy as an "impres-
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sion" occurred one day in 1896 when he (who did not smoke)
bought some inferior pipe tobacco for Swamiji at a bargain.
Swamiji found it tasteless; nor did it burn well or draw. After
Sturdy had left the room, he said to Goodwin, "Throw this away,
my boy. Go out and get me some good tobacco. All day I have to
spend talking with people, have to lecture, have to think; I can't
even smoke a little if I wish." And with his genius for the apt
phrase, he added, "This sour-faced man into whose hands I have
fallen has taken the life out of me!"75 Undoubtedly Mr. Sturdy
came to learn that his cheap tobacco had been discarded for a
better, more expensive brand; it was a rejection that would not be
easily forgotten or forgiven. Nor could it have helped matters that
Swamiji often praised the young and exuberant Goodwin, who
attended to his every need so devotedly and so well.
Of some of these undercurrents one learns from John Fox-a
nice young fellow," a friend of Mrs. Bull's once wrote of him
"looking so pure and good." In his goodness and his youth, Mr.
Fox was much surprised to find no one perfect at St. George's
Road except the two Swamis. "Mr. Sturdy is rather
disappointing," he wrote to Mrs. Bull. "The tone of the house is
far from the highest. Mr. Goodwin, though very able in many
ways, has not yet realized all he has heard [from Swamiji], but I
hope is not too old to change"; and again, "[Mr. Goodwin] is
more and more disappointing on close acquaintance. Though very
able, with very wide knowledge and experience, with great
executive ability, he is inclined to be narrow and dogmatic,
wanting his own way always, often very antagonistic and
maintaining his view is the right one in the face of all authority. It
is a pity he has not assimilated the Vedanta more. . . ."
But it was Miss Muller who made it impossible for John Fox
to remain in the house. "I have taken a room near 63 St. George's
Road, because I think Miss Muller wanted my room for a new
cook though she asked Mr. Sturdy to say to me that she could not
`cater' for me," he wrote to Mrs. Bull on June 27.
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"Mr. Sturdy hires the house, and Miss Muller tends to the
`catering.' They dislike each other very much indeed. Miss Muller
is very peculiar and I am better off here on the whole, with far
better food, though room and board cost only 19s. a week, and
more freedom and chance to think. It was very distracting at the
other house. I can step in and see Swami any time I want to."76
According to Mahendra, Goodwin's position in the household
was not much better than Mr. Fox's. But although Goodwin
referred to Miss Muller as "the Chilean woman" (she having been
born in Chile),* we find no hint in his letters to Mrs. Bull of overt
conflict between him and the benefactors at St. George's Road. In
actual fact, it seems to have been Mahendra, rather than
Goodwin, who, like Fox, was persona non grata. "My poor
brother was ill," Swamiji was to write to Sturdy a few years later,
recalling those days of 1896, "and Miss Muller drove him
away."77 Miss Muller's animosity toward his young brother must
have been unpleasant for Swamiji, but his primary concern was
that "Mohin" choose a fruitful career. In this connection he wrote
to Mrs. Bull on June 5:
I have a very serious thing to consult you about You
know my brother Mohin is here in London for the last two
months. He intends to become a barrister. He has also a
liking he says for electrical engineering.
Now I do not like any one of my blood would become a
lawyer although my father was one. My Master was against
it and I believe [that] that family is surely to come to grief
where there are several lawyers. Secondly-the country
[India] is full of lawyers. The universities turn them out by
the hundreds with the uniform result that they starve. Again
what my nation wants is pluck and scientific genius. So I
intend him to be an electrician. Even if he fails in life still I
will have the satisfaction that he strived to become great &
really useful to his country.
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 There are good schools for training electricians here no
doubt. But in America alone there is that something in the
air which brings out whatever is best in everyone. So I want
him to go to America and be put under some good
electricians & try his venture. The Raja of Khetri will send
him some money. I have 300 £ with me I can give him the
whole of it. You promised to give me $100 a year. I do not
want it. I want my brother to be daring bold and struggle to
cut a new path for himself and his nation. An electrical
engineer can easily make a living in India. He has been
suffering from jungle fever of late and even now gets little
feverish every fortnight or so-otherwise he is strong. He is
also a very good boy rather puritanic as I was when I was
young. Pluck is what my nation wants now and scientific
education. I have put the whole case before you and await
your reply. He needs to be taken care of a few months at
first till he begins to understand western life and method. 78
Swamiji did all he could to dislodge Mahendra from London,
but his efforts did not avail.

[Swamiji] had the desire [Mahendra recalled] that Indians

should study the science of electricity in the United States
and bring it to India. Then the country would be benefited.
This was his firm conviction. Therefore he told me again
and again to go to America and study electricity. But I was
at that time enamoured of the famous Reading Room of the
British Museum and was unwilling to leave it. 79

Mr. Goodwin, who was going off to America with Swami

Saradananda, also did his best to persuade his young Indian friend
to join them. "If you stay here I will kill you! Come on! Come to
a new country and see what fun!" But for the time being the
Reading Room won out, and Mahendra, driven
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away by Miss Muller, moved in with John Fox at 137 Cambridge
Street, a nearby lodging house.
As for Fox, he went with Mahendra to the Reading Room and
studied the Vedanta Sutras. "I mean to spend all my spare time
reading the Hindu books in the Museum," he wrote to Mrs. Bull
on June 27, "as Swami is not inclined to talk very much. I
suppose he is too tired."80

From May 7 to July I7 of 1896 Swamiji held four regular

classes and (until the end of June) one question-and-answer class
every week. At this rate (allowing for the evenings of one
Tuesday in May and one Thursday in July, when he lectured
elsewhere), he held during this period at least forty-five classes in
addition to six Sunday lectures. As we have learned earlier from
Goodwin's letter of May I2 to Mrs. Bull, in his first three classes
Swamiji placed Vedanta in its historical settings in relation to
both India and the West. Goodwin's transcript of the fourth class,
held on the morning of Thursday, May I¢, has recently been
discovered-not among Mrs. Bull's papers but among those
evidently sent by Miss Waldo to Sister Devamata-and preserved
by the Vedanta Centre at Cohasset. Many years ago this transcript
found its way into the Complete Works, where it was published
without identification in volume six under the title "Methods and
Purpose of Religion." In this long and rich class Swamiji
introduced the grand ideas of the Vedanta philosophy, or, rather,
he presented the great facts of existence to which religious
prophets or seers have given utterance through the ages. Who
listening to him that morning would not have known he was
among the greatest of those seers and that, perchance, one would
be a prophet someday oneself? That is what he demanded.
One can read this glowing talk in the Complete Works, but let
us quote here some excerpts that touch on its primary theme:
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Religious laws, the grand truths of spirituality, . . . are
working all the time. If all the Vedas and the Bibles and the
Korans did not exist at all, if seers and prophets had never
been born, yet these laws would exist. . . . But they are the
prophets who see them, discover them. . . . As Newton and
Galileo were prophets of physical science, so are they
prophets of spirituality. They can claim no exclusive right to
any one of these laws; they are the common property of all
nature.
The Vedas, as the Hindus say, are eternal. We now
understand what they mean by their being eternal, i.e. that
the laws have neither beginning nor end, just as nature has
neither beginning nor end.... The beginning and end of time
can be told as regards a certain planet; but as regards the
universe, time has no meaning at all. So are the laws of
nature, the physical laws, the mental laws, the spiritual laws-
without beginning and without end are they. And it is within
a few years, comparatively speaking, a few thousand years
at best, that man has tried to reveal them. The infinite mass
remains before us. . . . The one great lesson that we learn
from the Vedas, at the start, is that religion has just begun.
The infinite ocean of spiritual truth lies before us to be
worked on, to be discovered, to be brought into our lives.
The world has seen thousands of prophets, and the world has
yet to see millions.
There were times in olden days when prophets were
many in every society. The time is to come when prophets
will walk through every street in every city in the world. . . .
The study of religion should 1 e the training to make
prophets. The schools and colleges should be training
grounds for prophets. [All beings in the] whole universe
must become prophets; and until a man becomes a prophet,
religion is a mockery and a byword unto him. We must see
religion, feel it, realise it in a thousand times more intense
sense than that in which we see the wall.
. . . The gigantic principles, the scope, the plan of
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 religion were already discovered ages ago when man found
the last words, as they are called, of the Vedas-"I am He"-
that there is that One in whom this whole universe of matter
and mind finds its unity, whom they call God, or Brahman,
or Allah, or Jehovah, or any other name. We cannot go
beyond that. The grand principle has been already mapped
out for us. Our work lies in filling it in, working it out,
applying it to every part of our lives. We have to work now
so that everyone will become a prophet. There is a great
work before us.
. . . Vedanta declares that religion is here and now,
because the question of this life and that life, of life and
death, this world and that world, is merely one of super-
stition and prejudice. There is no break in time beyond what
we make. . . . So, says Vedanta, religion is to be realised
now. And for you to become religious means that you will
start without any religion, work your way up and realise
things, see things for yourself; and when you have done that,
then, and then alone, you have religion. . . .
. . . It is practice, work, that will bring us up to that. The
plan of Vedanta, therefore, is: first, to lay down the
principles, map out for us the goal, and then to teach us the
method by which to arrive at the goal, to understand and
realise religion.
Again, these methods must be various. Seeing that we are
so various in our natures, the same method can scarcely be
applied to any two of us in the same manner. . . .
. . . Multiply your prophets if you like; [Vedanta] has no
objection. It only preaches the principle, and the method it
leaves to you. Take any path you like; follow any prophet
you like; but have only that method which suits your own
nature, so that you will be sure to progress.81
Aside from this class of May 14 and Goodwin's recently
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discovered transcript of May 7, there remain out of Swamiji's
forty-five or so classes at St. George's Road only two sets of short
notes that are identified in the Complete Works (volume six) as
being "made out of class notes preserved in England."
Presumably these notes, which are entitled "Lessons on Raja-
Yoga" and "Lessons on Bhakti-Yoga," were taken down in the
summer of 1896.
In addition, Mahendra Nath Datta has written a good deal in
his Londone Swami Vivekananda about Swamiji's classes at St.
George's Road. He paints an extraordinary picture, but it is a
credible one, for it is in full accord with what we know of his
subject. Again and again he speaks of the spiritual splendor and
power Swamiji manifested during his class talks. He seems never
able to say enough or to find the right words to describe the
radiance that emanated from him and embraced his listeners,
lifting their thought to the high level in which they could, as it
were, enter the realm of spiritual consciousness. This phenomenal
power, Mahendra tells us, was the "life and soul" of Swamiji's
lectures. "As he himself was full of Brahmajnana and wisdom, so
was he also able to share it with others."82
He shared spiritual joy as well. He told many tales from the
Jataka stories of Buddha's former births, and Mahendra recalled
that when he told the story of the tigress his face was very
peaceful, as if expressing fullness of love for all creatures. There
was not a trace of sternness, only enthusiasm and bliss, and his
mood became much more attractive than the tale he was telling.
He would sometimes say, "If I meditate on the brain of a
Shankara, I become Shankara, or on the brain of a Buddha, I
become Buddha." And indeed that evening he seemed to
Mahendra to be a modern Buddha, recounting to his audience his
own Jataka tales.83
Swamiji did not, of course, only radiate sometimes power,
sometimes joy; he also poured out ideas, logical, clear, and well
organized, such as would stand by themselves through centuries.
His subjects that May, June, and the first half of July
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were, in Mahendra's memory, raja yoga, bhakti yoga, and the
philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. He apparently spoke on raja yoga
and bhakti yoga in much detail, explaining their various stages
and practices and exemplifying, even as he spoke, the perfected
yogi or the supreme devotee of God.
As mentioned above, a few notes "made out of" these classes
have been published in the Complete Works. As they come to us,
they seem to be self contained details excerpted from what must
have been the richly varied tapestry of the classes. Let us quote
here more or less at random some smaller bits yet-snatches of the
words Swamiji spoke as he stood, his back to the window, facing
the crowded room. The class was on raja yoga:
The last and highest manifestation of prana is love. The
moment you have succeeded in manufacturing love out of
Prana, you are free. It is the hardest and the greatest thing to
gain. You must not criticise others; you must criticise
yourself. If you see a drunkard, do not criticise him;
remember he is you in another shape. He who has no
darkness sees no darkness in others. What you have inside
you is what you see in others. This is the surest way of
reform. If the would-be reformers who criticise and see evil
would themselves stop creating evil, the world would be
better. Beat this idea into yourself.84 . . .
There is no knowledge without experience, and man has
to see God in his own soul. When man has come face to face
with the one great fact in the universe, then alone will
doubts vanish and crooked things become straight. This is
"seeing God". Our business is to verify, not to swallow.
Religion, like other sciences, requires you to gather facts, to
see for yourself, and this is possible when you go beyond the
knowledge which lies in the region of the five senses.
Religious truths need verification by everyone. To see God
is the one goal. Power is not the goal. Pure Existence-
Knowledge-and-Love is the goal; and Love is God. . . .
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 . . . Mere thoughts are like little wavelets; fresh. impulses to
vibration come to them simultaneously, until at last one
great wave seems to stand up and swallow up the rest. These
universal thought waves seem to recur every five hundred
years, when invariably the great wave typifies and swallows
up the others. It is this which constitutes a prophet. He
focusses in his own mind the thought of the age in which he
is living and gives it back to mankind in concrete
form....Once again in our day there is a vibration of the
waves of thought and the central idea is that of the
Immanent God, and this is everywhere cropping up in every
form and every sect. . . . The majority of sects will be
transient, and last only as bubbles, because the leaders are
not usually men of character. Perfect love, the heart never
reacting, this is what builds character. There is no allegiance
possible where there is no character in the leader, and
perfect purity ensures the most lasting allegiance and
confidence.
Take up an idea, devote yourself to it, struggle on in
patience, and the sun will rise for you.85

In these notes taken from Swamiji's raja yoga classes, one

finds him speaking more than once of "mental healing," a subject
he seems to have seldom dwelt upon in other lectures and classes.
To his London class he said:

Mental healing is a fine proof of the superconscious state;

for the thought which heals is a sort of vibration in the
Prana, and it does not go as a thought but as something
higher for which we have no name.86 . . . When thought is
joined to will, we call it power. That which strikes the sick
person whom you are trying to help is not thought, but
power.
. . . When the imagination is very powerful, the object
becomes visualised. Therefore by it we can bring our bodies
to any state of health or disease. When we see a
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 thing, the particles of the brain fall into a certain position
like the mosaics of a kaleidoscope. Memory consists in
getting back this combination and the same setting of the
particles of the brain. . . . Imagination must hold to the
thought of health and strength in order that in case of illness
the memory of the ideal of health may be roused and the
particles re-arranged in the position into which they fell
when healthy. The tendency of the body is then to follow the
brain. The next step is when this process can be arrived at by
another's mind working on us. . . .
. . . When the mind has reached [one-pointedness] all is
gained-healing, clairvoyance, and all psychic gifts. In a
moment you can direct this current of thought to anyone, as
Jesus did, with instantaneous result.87
According to Mahendra, Swamiji instantaneously healed him
during their stay at St. George's Road of malarial fever, from
which he had been recurrently suffering. Mahendra, who must
have known whereof he spoke, wrote in his memoirs:
It is necessary to say that Swami Vivekananda cured the
malarial fever of one and a half years standing, of the writer,
by his sheer will. He [Mahendra] and Swami Saradananda
were in the fourth floor room and Swami Vivekananda from
the first floor projected his power and cured the writer. 88
And Swamiji did the same for Swami Saradananda, curing
him of a severe and long-standing case of malaria, while his
brother disciple sat like a child at his feet. *
But to continue with our brief passages from Swamiji's
classes. Here are some scraps from his talks on bhakti yoga:

We want to become harmonious beings, with the

psychical, spiritual, intellectual, and working (active) sides
of our nature equally developed. Nations and
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individuals typify one of these sides or types and cannot
understand more than that one. They get so built up into one
ideal that they cannot see any other. The ideal is really that
we should become many-sided. Indeed the cause of the
misery of the world is that we are so one-sided that we
cannot sympathise with one another. . . .
. . . The Roman Catholic is deep and spiritual, but he has
lost breadth. The Unitarian is wide, but he has lost
spirituality and considers religion as of divided importance.
What we want is the depth of the Roman Catholic and the
breadth of the Unitarian. We must be as broad as the skies,
as deep as the ocean; we must have the zeal of the fanatic,
the depth of the mystic, and the width of the agnostic. . . .
We are all travelling the same way, towards the same goal,
but by different paths made by the necessities of the case to
suit diverse minds. We must become many-sided, indeed we
must become protean in character, so as not only to tolerate,
but to do what is much more difficult, to sympathise, to
enter into another's path, and feel with him in his aspirations
and seeking after God.89 . . .
In this world we are bound by laws, and we are always
striving to break through these laws, we are always trying to
disobey, to trample on nature. . . . The whole struggle of life
is not to obey. (That is why I sympathise with Christian
Scientists, for they teach the liberty of man and the divinity
of soul.) The soul is superior to all environment. "The
universe is my father's kingdom; I am the heir-apparent"-that
is the attitude for man to take. "My own soul can subdue
all."
We must work through law before we come to liberty.
External helps and methods, forms, ceremonies, creeds,
doctrines, all have their right place and are meant to support
and strengthen us until we become strong. Then they are no
more necessary.90 . . .
. . . The highest love is the love that is sexless, for it is
perfect unity that is expressed in the highest love, and sex
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 differentiates bodies. It is therefore only in spirit that union
is possible. The less we have of the physical idea, the more
perfect will be our love; at last all physical thought will be
forgotten, and the two souls will become one. We love love
always. . . . God is love, and we love God--or love love. . . .
Love for love's sake cannot be expressed to those who have
not felt it. . . . When man loves God as his highest ideal, as
no beggar, wanting nothing, then is love carried to the
extreme of evolution; and it becomes a great power in the
universe.91
But it was during his classes on jnana yoga that Swamiji
seemed to rise to a state bordering on the divine-awesome and yet
infinitely gracious. "Face shining, he had lost hi: human nature
and seemed like someone from a higher plane, as if his previous
self had vanished and in its place there stood a powerful being. It
was as if on one side stood personified the hoary doctrine which
has come down through ages, and on the other was he, the
teacher, trying to dig out the deep meaning from the scriptures of
all religions, showing no partiality for any particular view. A dry
philosopher and a divine being-he had become both."92
Swamiji's class-lectures on the subject of adhyasa ("super.
imposition") were, according to Mahendra, particularly luminous
and illuminating. They comprised eight class sessions, extending
over a period of two weeks. To summarize Mahendra's account of
them (for there are no known notes), Swamiji spoke of the
various levels and kinds of spiritual consciousness and of the
superimposition, or projection (adhyasa), of these inner states of
being upon external nature, creating, as it were, the universes
experienced at different stages of spiritual awareness. It is thus
that various truths have been revealed to saints and seers in
accordance with their own various levels of consciousness and
points of view-all of them equally valid, none of them revelations
of Absolute Truth, of which there can be no description and no
revealer. The audience, Mahendra tells
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us, was awestruck by Swamiji's elaborate and detailed exposition
of this line of thought, in which he explained precisely why it is
that "Truth is One, sages call it by various names," and why it is
that all religions, however different they may be, present valid
views of the One Brahman. He explained rationally the
phenomena of visions, giving many examples and descriptions.
Mahendra found it difficult to describe the splendor of his face,
eyes, and voice during these eight sessions, so great it was. And
he recalled that such was the level of these talks that Swamiji's
fame increased and many new people came to hear him. 93
It was shortly after the completion of these talks that a ruckus
occurred one evening that momentarily interrupted the con-
centrated flow of Swamiji's teaching but at the same time brought
forth yet another aspect of his power. The scene had everything:
comedy, dramatic intensity, pathos, and the Terrible. According
to John Fox, who at once reported the incident to Mrs. Bull, the
Friday evening question class had just begun. The gas lights were
glowing, and the students were in their seats. Swamiji stood in his
gerua robe by the lecture table; Goodwin sat at his desk, ready to
take notes; Swami Saradananda, Sturdy, Mahendra, and Fox sat
on the sofa at the back of the room. Answering a question,
Swamiji was speaking of the comparative effects of Christianity
and Buddhism on thc cultures they dominated; the former, he
said, had become a military religion, the latter still maintained an
attitude of compassion. At this point a thin, elderly Englishman,
with a skin darkened by years under an Indian sun, questioned
Swamiji in what Fox described as a "very insulting and cynical
way." Swamiji answered calmly, but even as he spoke, the man,
Mahendra recalled, kept shouting out in a taunting, sarcastic
voice, "Oh, thank you!" Swamiji seemed not to hear, but those
who had come to the class in deep interest, if not reverence,
turned to glare at the heckler. Having their attention, he began to
proclaim that Buddha was a selfish and cruel man who had " run
off from his wife and child. The religion of Jesus, he
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cried, "is the only religion!" Swamiji did not reply. Quietly he
spoke of the great compassion of Lord Buddha. "Even today," he
said, "there are such noble sadhus in India." "No!" cried the man.
"I know that sadhus are all thieves and loafers. I used to chase
them out of the village!" This was too much for Mr. Sturdy.
Jumping up, he strode to the middle of the room, from where he
loudly and heatedly declared, "When I lived in India, I saw many
fine sadhus, men of the high level of Swamiji here. I made
particular investigations into this matter and talked a lot with
them and watched them."
The Anglo-Indian, who had been a civil servant in Bengal,
now said in patronizing tones to Swamiji, "I had thought you
were from Madras, now I see you are a Bengali Babu. You know
that during the Mutiny we saved you." Mr. Sturdy shouted, "But
you were well paid for it!" Then shaking with rage, he seized the
man by the collar and started to lift him from his chair. Mr.
Goodwin, who all this time had been dutifully taking notes, for-
Swamiji had gone on talking, put down his pen, stood up, and,
Mahendra remembered, "rolled up his sleeves." It is unlikely that
he did this last; it is more than likely, however, that he assumed a
threatening stance. From the sofa, Fox, whose speech was
indistinct and who was generally slow to act, was calling out
something unintelligible. Swami Saradananda and Mahendra (the
latter recalled) were shivering in alarm at this uproar in a foreign
land. The audience, one can well imagine, was stunned.
And then it happened: Swamiji's bright and serene expression
suddenly changed completely. Turning to the AngloIndian, who
sat by the fireplace on his right, he assumed an altogether
different and terrible aspect, and "poured fire upon him for thirty-
five minutes without let." In a steady flow Swamiji told the
history of the English people from the days of Hengist and Horsa
in the fifth century A.D. He told of their oppressive and arrogant
behavior wherever they had gone. He spoke with a full and
unhesitating knowledge. His indictment was scathing and
unanswerable. The poor man wept uncon-
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trollably, not only, one imagines, because of his humiliation, but
because the direct impact of Swamiji's rebuke shattered him-as
how would it not?
When he had finished, Swamiji turned back to his class and in
his normal voice, as though nothing at all had happened, took up
the thread of his talk where it had broken off. 94
After the class, when the young men of the household
gathered in the downstairs parlor, Swamiji said, silencing the
outraged talk, "Don't forget, that man, too, is Narayana And then
he went out into the night with Goodwin for his customary
walk.95 It may have been with this incident in mind that he wrote
to Mr. Leggett on July 6, "You will be pleased to know that I am .
. . learning my lessons every day in patience and, above all, in
sympathy. I think I am beginning to see the Divine even inside
the high and mighty Anglo-Indians. I think I am slowly
approaching to that state when I should be able to love the very
`Devil' himself, if there were any."96
As more than a balance to this unpleasant man and his kind,
there were, as we have seen in the previous volume, many
Anglican clergymen who looked upon Swamiji as a welcome
"missionary" from the East. Among them, and perhaps one of the
most ardent of them, was the Reverend Hugh Reginald Haweis.
Mr. Haweis often attended Swamiji's evening classes and on the
Sunday of June 21 he gave two sermons at his own church-
morning and evening-on the subject of Swami Vivekananda. Mr.
Goodwin attended them both and gleefully reported to the
household that the minister had sung Swamiji's " praises and had
talked about Backty and Backto at great length. 97 In his news-
letter, dated June 23, to the Brahmavadin, Goodwin wrote more
soberly of Haweis's appreciation of Swamiji:

The Rev. H. R. Haweis, the leading English authority on

Church Music, and himself a delegate to the Chicago
Parliament of Religions, from the Anglican Church,
preached two sermons last Sunday at St. James' Chapel
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 Marylebone, London on the Swami. I wish those in India
and elsewhere who are so eagerly following the Swami's
movements could have heard the eloquent and generous
tribute paid to him by this other worker in God's Vineyard.
The Rev. gentleman spoke of the Swami's teachings from
the point of view of the support they give to Christ's
teachings, and what better evidence could I give that thc
"Ideal of a Universal Religion" is not falling on barren
ground?98

Even the Christian Commonwealth mentioned the Reverend

Mr. Haweis's evening talk on Swamiji, which had evidently been
an extemporaneous continuation of the morning's sermon. His
announced theme, the journal noted, was "Occultism,"

but he had little to say about it on Sunday evening.

"Where shall wisdom be found?" was his text, and his
exhortation was to accept the truth no matter whence it
comes. Christ's teaching, he said, was limited in time, and
necessarily, therefore, He was not able to embrace all
knowledge and wisdom. Mr. Haweis then spoke of his
acquaintance with Vivekananda, and read passages from
him and other Eastern writers to show how their teaching
supported and dovetailed into the sublime teaching of
Christ.99
At the end of the season, when Swamiji brought his classes to
a close in mid July and was about to vacation in Europe, Mr.
Haweis sent him a little book of his own sermons, inscribing it:
"To the Master Vivekananda from one who both reverences and
admires his teachings, H. R. Haweis." A note accompanying the
gift read:

My dear Schwami
With every sentiment of profound esteem & admiration I
wish you heartily God speed & a return to London. Your
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 teaching is of a kind peculiarly adapted to the Western mind
& you are doing inestimable good-Allow me to ask your
acceptance of the accompanying little booklet 10,000 of
which are now in circulation. It is nothing but a few
condensed short hand reports of my general teaching--
Yours truly & faithfully100
H. R. Haweis

We have not quite completed the account of Swamiji's daily

life at 63 St. George's Road. As we have seen, he usually took a
walk after the evening class with Goodwin or Mr. Sturdy to relax
after a day of continual work. Sometimes his companion would
be John Fox, as it was once on a warm evening in July when there
was no class. "I had a most delightful walk with [Swamiji] to
Chelsea last week one evening along the river," Fox wrote to Mrs.
Bull; "he seemed inspired in a way, and talked to me for two or
three hours about many sorts of things." On other evenings he
would sometimes have a hot bath, after which he would go to his
small bedroom and lie down-alone, quiet. One can only relate in
secondhand words something of what would happen when he
thus withdrew from the outside world to the threshold of deep
meditation. Mahendra heard Swamiji speak of it. "You see,"
Swamiji said, "at night I go to my room and lie down. I keep
quiet for a while, and then within me so much ananda arises that I
cannot stay lying down. I see the Blissful Mother. Men, animals,
the sky and earth-all are saturated with bliss. I cannot lie down
any longer; so I get up and dance in the middle of the room. That
bliss can no longer be confined within my heart. The whole world
becomes filled with it, as it were." Even as he said this, Swamiji
began to dance like a child for a little while. Then he said with
affection to those who were present, "Be happy, don't be
depressed; the Mother is everywhere; all will be filled with
bliss!"101
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 NOTESFOR CHAPTER ELEVEN
P. 141 * The reader who is familiar with Mahendra Nath
Datta’s account will find that the presents history does not
always follow it faithfully. For instance, Mr. Datta places
Swamiji’s visit to the Meads at a somewhat later date than is
given here. I shall not always point out such discrepancies,
which are many, but simply ask the reader to have faith that
Mahendra Nath Datta’s memory can be expanded and
amended by reliable information that was not available to
him when he wrote his book.
p. 142 * In connection with Swamiji’s statements at
Pinkney’s Green regarding the significance of his work, one
is reminded of Sister Nivedita’s comment: “He was
profoundly conscious of the historic significance of his own
teaching” (The Master as I Saw Him, sixth edition, page
36). But he was well aware that his work was but a
beginning, as the sowing of a viable seed is the beginning of
a forest. “I have only laid the foundation of the work,” he
was to say the following year of his Western teaching. “If
future preachers follow my path, a good deal of work may
be done in time” (Complete Works, 6:447).
p. 143* Swami Yogeshananda, then Assistant Secretary
of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre in London, obtained
entry into the house at 63, St. George’s Road in June of
1973, shortly before its interior was completely remodeled
into separate flats. The description of the house given in tis
book relies heavily on the Swami’s on-the-spot observation
and photographs.
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p. 144 * The sleeping quarters at 63 St. George’s Road may have
been rearranged from time to time with, for instance, the
temporary stay of John Fox and, later, the advent of a new cook.
p. 147 * Mr. Sturdy’s publication of Bhakti Yoga was also a
source of trouble in some respects. Swamiji had earlier sent his
New York articles and classes on bhakti yoga to Alasinga for
publication first in the Brahmavadin and then in book form. In
October of 1896 he would write to Alasinga, who had finally
brought out the book, “I received your Bhakti Yoga and
Universal Religion. The Bh[akti] must have a good sale in U.S. In
London the short edition [published by Sturdy] has already
forestalled the sale I am afraid” (original letter, Belur Math).
** Some of this multiway correspondence is extant among the
papers of Mrs. Ole Bull, but the reader is spared it.
p. 149 * This arrangement – the publication of Raja Yoga in
England for distribution in America – was to create difficulty for
the New York Vedanta Society. In his diary for September, 1897,
Swami Abhedananda wrote, “As the Raja Yoga was published by
Longmans and Green in London … it was difficult to get the
book from London to New York for there was imposed a heavy
Customs duty on all foreign publications. For this reason, Swami
Vivekananda’s Americal students, headed by Miss Mary Phillips,
published an American edition of his Raja Yoga in New York. I
made necessary corrections and made a Glossary of Sanskrit
words in the text” (Swami Abhedananda, Complete Works,
10:12).
p. 164 * One wonders if the Mr. Galsworthy of Swamiji’s letters
was not the father of the family rather than the
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p. 164 (cont) son. The senior
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#

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CHAPTER TWELVE

ENGLAND: MAY JULY 1896-II

Swamiji's regular classes at 63 St. George's Road in London,

which would continue into the middle of July, did not constitute
his only work of that season. Starting on June 7, he delivered a
public lecture every Sunday afternoon at the Royal Institute of
Painters in Water Colours-the same building in which he had
delivered his first lecture in London the previous year, though not
the same hall. During the winter of 1895-96, Prince's Hall had
been thoroughly transformed from a "dismal cave of the Muses"
into a restaurant of lavish multistyle decor, which opened for
business on May 16, 1986. Thus Swamiji's public lectures were
now given in one of the three large art galleries on the upper
floor, to which a handsome, ornately banistered staircase led from
the building's main entrance on Piccadilly.
Although these Sunday lectures were not written up in the
London papers, it was not the case, as Mahendra supposed, that,
due to religious prejudice, the London Press deliberately ignored
Swamiji. London, like New York, was a huge, tumultuous
metropolis, full of daily surprises and explosive oratory.
Swamiji's lectures were not (as far as the journalistic world was
concerned) sensational events; nor did they constitute a threat to
the Church of England, to be railed against. Yet in their reserved
way the London papers did in fact take note of Swamiji's work,
and they did so more than once, indicating a friendly and
sympathetic attitude toward it. On June 10, shortly after his first
Sunday lecture, for instance, the Daily Chronicle printed the
following article:
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 The gentleman known as the Swami Vivekananda, who
was one of the most striking figures at the Chicago Parlia-
ment of Religions, and who went there to expound the
ancient teachings of India to the newest of Western nations,
is at present in England, returning to his own land in
September. The Swami is one of the greatest living ex-
ponents of the Vedantic philosophy; his calm manner, dis-
tinguished appearance, the ease with which he expounds a
profound philosophy, his mastery of the English tongue,
explain the great cordiality with which the Americans re-
ceived him and the fact that they almost compelled him to
remain a year or two among them. The Swami has taken the
vow of complete renunciation of worldly position, property,
and name. He cannot be said to belong to any religion, since
his life is one of independent thought which draws from all
religions. Those who desire that his teaching may be made
known, arrange the entire business part of the work, and the
lectures are, so far, made free. They may be heard at 63, St.
George's road, on Tuesday and Thursday, at half past eleven
a.m. and half past eight p.m. up to the end of July. It is also
announced that the Swami will lecture in one of the rooms
of the Royal Institute of Water Colours, 191, Piccadilly, at
halfpast three p.m. on Sundays.
Another short article appeared around this same time in The
Country House for June. It read:
All sorts and conditions of men are to be found in
London, but probably the great city contains just now none
more remarkable than the philosopher, who re-presented the
Hindu religion at the "Parliament of Religions," held in
Chicago in 1893. In an unobtrusive way he is still teaching
and preaching though the public know but little of his work.
I lately came across two or three little books containing his
addresses on the "Vedanta
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 Philosophy." It would be the merest flippancy to attempt on
a cursory reading to discuss here and now the recondite
subjects with which they deal. But they are singularly lucid
in expression and the ideas which they contain are set forth
with much moderation and persuasiveness. The Philosopher,
who elects to be known as Swami Vivekananda, believes he
has a message for the world, and the burden of his theme is a
universal religion. There has been of late a curious interest
in the philosophy of the East, and the casual reader may
obtain from these little books a tolerably clear idea of its
general principles.

(These "little books" were no doubt Mr. Sturdy's publications

through Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company of
Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and in one volume, "The Ideal of a
Universal Religion" and "The Cosmos." These three companion
volumes had been brought out under the overall title Addresses on
the Vedanta Philosophy.)
Indeed the interest in Swamiji was so friendly that the London
Sunday Times of June 21, 1896, published a long interview with
him, entitled "A Missionary to England," in which he described
his mission and was himself described as "a picturesque figure in
his Eastern dress, . . . simple and cordial in manner, savouring of
anything but the popular idea of asceticism." This interview has
been reprinted in volume five of the Complete Works, under the
title "India's Mission" (see note * to page 236, chapter twelve),
and thus need not be given here, but it must have aroused interest
in the London of its day and could not have excited anything but
a favorable attitude toward the Hindu "missionary."
Swamiji's Sunday lectures were, in fact, well attended and, as
he wrote to Mr. Leggett on July 6, "quite successful"; indeed, the
art gallery, which seated around two hundred people, was
generally filled to capacity. There can be little doubt, however,
that with better publicity Swamiji could have filled a much larger
hall, and if he himself did not care for
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crowds, Mr. Sturdy did. Apparently still disgruntled that his
publication plans for the "little books" mentioned above had been
curtailed and delayed for two or three months, Sturdy would
append the following note to a lecture pamphlet printed in
December of 1896: "The conviction must...be here declared that
in place of the hundreds who have heard Swami Vivekananda's
teachings during the past year, thousands would have listened and
benefited had they known of the existence and nature of such
exposition. But time is needed to make such a subject known in
an age when by vast advertisement and trumpet blast all things
having a little worth or none, are clamouring for the distracted
attention of mankind. Progress has however been made, and that
of the best kind, for the few who first met Swami Vivekananda
soon brought their friends, and these latter, equally gratified, have
extended that circle, and so in all probability the knowledge of his
work will increase."1
In addition to publicity by word of mouth, cards and handbills
were printed and distributed, one of which is here reproduced. As
it announced, the titles of Swamiji's first three Sunday lectures
(June 7, 14, and 21) were "The Necessity of Religion," "The Ideal
of a Universal Religion," and "The Real and the Apparent Man."
The first and third of these were transcribed by Goodwin and
brought out in pamphlet form by Mr. Sturdy. Subsequently, they
were included in the book, Jnana Yoga.
On June 28, July 5, and July 12, Swamiji held a second series
of three Sunday afternoon lectures at the Royal Institute of
Painters in Water Colours, entitled respectively, "Bhakti Yoga,"
"Renunciation," and "Realisation." But of these there are no
known transcripts, for on Saturday, June 27, Mr. Goodwin had
left for America with Swami Saradananda."*
("The Swami recognises with me that I am really wasting time
here, & could do much more good in America," Goodwin wrote
to Mrs. Bull on June 4. "He has spoken two or three times of his
wish that we had a magazine in the States to keep our
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people together & assist others in the study of Vedanta. I have
thought over the matter carefully, & I have come to the con-
clusion that my work lies in this direction."2 Swamiji approved. In
a postscript to a letter to Mrs. Bull, dated June 5, he wrote,
"Goodwin is writing to you this mail with reference to a magazine
in America. I think something of the sort is necessary to keep the
work together, and shall of course do all that I can to help it on in
the line he suggests. . . . I think it very probable that he will come
over with Saradananda."3 Nothing was to come of this proposed
magazine, but Mr. Goodwin did indeed spend the summer of
1896 in America.)
The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours was not
within easy walking distance of 63 St. George's Road; therefore
the male occupants of the house-Swamiji, Sturdy, Mahendra,
John Fox, and, before they left London, Swami Saradananda and
Goodwin-would go by a little horse-drawn omnibus, sitting on
benches atop the roof. Miss Muller, more regally, would take a
hansom cab. Along the route Swamiji would talk lightly with his
companions as though he were on his way to listen to a lecture
rather than to give one. Even at the Institute he would chat with
his assembled friends until it was time for him to take his place
on the small platform at one end of the large art gallery, which
could seat four or five hundred people on folding chairs.
Mahendra describes at some length the transformation that
would come over Swamiji as he commenced his lecture. We need
only note here that the moment he revealed himself as the
Teacher, his whole appearance, his voice, his gestures became
charged with authority. No one failed to be impressed by the
grandeur of his bearing. "The Swami is a man of distinguished
appearance," an English interviewer For India (a monthly
published in London) commented. "Tall, broad, with fine features
enhanced by his picturesque Eastern dress, his personality is very
striking. . . . His gifts as an orator are high. He can speak for an
hour and a half without a note or the
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slightest pause for a word."4 Indeed, the words would pour out,
and when the lecture was over, Swamiji would again mingle with
the audience, talking affectionately with his friends, answering
questions. "Yet even then," Mahendra recalled, "a `lit' look would
remain in his face and eyes"5-the aura of the Prophet still visible.
Swamiji began his first series of three Sunday lectures with
the same subject matter as that of his first Sunday lecture in New
York during the winter of 1895-96. As the reader will remember,
the New York lecture was delivered on the first Sunday of
January, 1896, and was entitled "The Claims of Religion: Its
Truth and Utility";* the title of the first London lecture, delivered
exactly five months later on the first Sunday of June, 1896, was
"The Necessity of Religion." In both lectures Swamiji explained
what religion is in essence and pointed out the vital need for it in
human life. In 1896 Western man had but touched the fringes of
scientific discovery; like a child gleefully striking matches in a
powder magazine, he was still enchanted with the unending
wonder and charm of the light they made. But it was eminently
clear to Swamiji that the religion of the future must be infinite in
its scope and depth if it was to meet and sustain the age that lay
ahead-the age of such unlimited knowledge and fearsome power
that without a truly spiritual religion that would embrace and
suffuse all aspects of human life only disaster could result. But
what was a truly spiritual religion? In his first London lecture
Swamiji went into more detail in regard to the origin and meaning
of religious inquiry than he had in his comparable New York
lecture. His central point, however, was the same:
A tremendous statement is made by all religions; that the
human mind, at certain moments, transcends not only the
limitations of the senses, but also the power of reasoning. It
then comes face to face with facts which it could never have
sensed, could never have reasoned out. These facts are the
basis of all the religions of the world. 6

205
 In this London lecture Swamiji went on to say that there is one
charecteristic common to the supersensuous facts discovered by
religions:
They are all abstractions as contrasted with the concrete
discoveries of physics, for instance…. This one fact stands out
from all these different religions, that there is an Ideal Unit
Abstraction, which is put before us, wither in the form of a
Person, or an Impersonal Being, or a Law, or a Presence, or an
Essence. We are always struggling to raise ourselves up to that
ideal.7
In both New York and London Swamiji asserted that it is the
inquiry into that which is beyond the senses and the subsequent
struggle to attain to the ideals thus discovered that makes the
difference between a man and an animal.
Without the struggle towards the Infinite there can be no ideal
[he said in London] …. Man is man so long as he is struggling to
rise above nature, and this nature is both internal and external….
It is grand and good to know the laws that govern the stars and
planets; it is infinitely grander and better to know the laws that
govern the passions, the feelings, the will of mankind. This
conquering of the inner man, understanding the secrets of the
subtle workings that are within the human mind, and knowing its
wonderful secrets, belong entirely to religion. ….
This pursuit of the Infinite, this struggle to grasp the
Infinite,… is the grandest and most glorious that man can make. 8
In “The Necessity of Religion” as in the New York “Claims of
Religion” Swamiji took pains to point out the inadequacy of the
doctrine of utilitarianism as a foundation and guide for moral
action. Indeed in these lectures he seems at times to have
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 been having a sort of dialogue with John Stuart Mill, whose
Utilitarianism had been published in 1863.
The utilitarianism of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries had been a radical and exciting theory, militating
against a belief in the "natural rights" of the upper classes and
supplying a logical, "measurable" test for moral behavior.
Applying it to the prevailing social and political conditions,
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) taught it to his many followers,
prominent among whom was James Mill (1773-1830), father of
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). The doctrine was rational,
antiromantic, antireligious, and optimistic. Politically and eco-
nomically speaking, it was at one with the radical winds of
liberalism, democracy, and parliamentary reform that were
sweeping through the West in the wake of the Industrial
Revolution. It was, in short, symptomatic of the times. While
John Stuart Mill's version of utilitarianism and his understanding
of the scope of human happiness were broader and less prosaic
than those of Bentham, to Swamiji's mind, his doctrine fell far
short of its purpose, which was to insure the morality, freedom,
and dignity of all men-and (ahead of his time) of all women.
In pointing out the shortcomings of utilitarianism to his
listeners, Swamiji seems to have countered Mill's thesis point by
point. Mill wrote:
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals,
Utility of the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that
actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the
absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of
pleasure. . . . The theory of life on which this theory of
morality is grounded [is] that pleasure, and freedom from
pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all
desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as
in any other scheme) are desirable either
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 for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the
promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain. 9
Lest anyone think (as some did) that this was a doctrine
"worthy only of swine," Mill protested rather indignantly that the
utilitarian, like every other human being, assigns a higher value to
"the pleasure of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and
of the moral sentiments . . . than to those of mere sensation: 10 The
utilitarian, he assured his readers, will always find greater
happiness in the higher pleasures, even though only partly
realized, than in, say, a satisfied stomach. "It is better," he said,
"to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied,"11 and the utilitarian is
quite as aware of that, he added testily, as is anyone else.
He then went on to say that "the utilitarian standard . . . is not
the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of
happiness altogether." That is, in the famous phrase used by
Bentham, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" is the
ultimate end of human life, and, this being the case, it is also the
standard of moral action.
Swamiji would not have disagreed with this principle; but for
what utility, he asked in effect, do we care about the happiness of
others? What is the basis for that assumed caring? "Utilitarian
standards," he said in "The Necessity of Religion," "cannot
explain the ethical relations of men; for . . . we cannot derive any
ethical laws from considerations of utility. . . . Why should we do
good? . . . If happiness is the goal of mankind, why should I not
make myself happy and others unhappy? What prevents me?" 12
And in New York: "What prevents me from cutting the throats of
my brothers so long as I can make myself safe from the police,
and make myself happy? What will you answer? You are bound
to show some utility."13

Mill had several answers to this question. First of all, other

people will not approve of you if you put your own happiness:
above theirs or secure your own at their expense. Their dis-
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pleasure will make you unhappy; therefore your conduct in
seeking your own happiness will be self-defeating; it will bring
you not pleasure but pain. On the other hand, if you act
unselfishly in the interest of others, the consequent approval of
your fellowmen will bring you happiness.14 Thus it pays to be
unselfish. Those are the "outward motives" or "external
sanctions" for considering others. There is an inward motive also:
there is something within man which prods him to be unselfish.
In other words men somehow have a moral conscience. l5
And here Swamiji had him: "When you are pushed from your
ground you answer, `My friend, it is good to be good.' What is the
power in the human mind which says, `It is good to do good,'
which unfolds before us in glorious view the grandeur of the soul,
the beauty of goodness, the all attractive power of goodness, the
infinite power of goodness: That is what we call God, is it not?"16
Mill did not care to accept this. The primary basis he puts
forth for unselfish action is that man is fundamentally a social
being.
There is this basis of powerful natural sentiment, and this
it is which, when once the general happiness is recognized
as the ethical standard, will constitute the strength of the
utilitarian morality. This firm foundation is that of the social
feelings of mankind.17
. . . This feeling in most individuals is much inferior in
strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting
altogether. But to those who have it, it possesses all the
characters of a natural feeling . . . [and] is the ultimate
sanction of the greatest happiness morality. 18
To this Swamiji replied in "The Necessity of Religion":
The basis of utility is too narrow. All the current social
forms and methods [of moral conduct] are derived from
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 society as it exists, but what right has the Utilitarian to
assume that society is eternal? Society did not exist ages
ago, possibly will not exist ages hence. Most probably it is
one of the passing stages through which we are going
towards a higher evolution, and any law that is derived from
society alone cannot be eternal, cannot cover the whole
ground of man's nature. At best, therefore, Utilitarian
theories can only work under present social conditions.
Beyond that, they have no value. But a morality, an ethical
code, derived from religion and spirituality has the whole of
infinite man for its scope. It takes up the individual, but its
relations are to the Infinite, and it takes up society also-
because society is nothing but numbers of these individuals
grouped together; and as it applies to the individual and his
eternal relations, it must necessarily apply to the whole of
society, in whatever condition it may be at any given time.
Thus we see that there is always the necessity of spiritual
religion for mankind. Man cannot always think of matter,
however pleasurable it may be.19
Swamiji did not deny that Utilitarians could be very good and
moral. "There have been many great men in this world perfectly
sound, moral, and good, simply on utilitarian grounds."
But [he continued] the world-movers, men who bring, as
it were, a mass of magnetism into the world, whose spirit
works in hundreds and in thousands, whose life ignites
others with a spiritual fire-such men, we always find, have
that spiritual background. Their motive power came from
religion. Religion is the greatest motive power for realising
that infinite energy which is the birthright and nature of
every man. In building up character, in making for
everything that is good and great, in bringing peace to others
and peace to one's own self, religion is the highest
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 motive power and, therefore, ought to be studied from that
standpoint.20

But the fallacy at the very root of Utilitarianism or, for that
matter, of any other ethical system aimed at the perfecting of
human society,'* was not only that its basis was too narrow, but
that its goal was impossible. In his New York lecture "The
Claims of Religion" Swamiji had pointed out that the good in the
world was not steadily increasing, nor the evil steadily fading out.
"Thousands of means have been created every day to conduce to
the happiness of the world," he had said, "and this has been going
on for hundreds and thousands of years. I ask you: Is the sum
total of the happiness in the world today more than what it was a
century ago? It cannot be. Each wave that rises in the ocean must
be at the expense of a hollow somewhere."21 In London Swamiji
put forth another aspect of the same argument. "To manifest the
Infinite through the finite," he said, "is impossible, and sooner or
later man learns to give up the attempt." And herein lay the true
basis of morality:
This giving up, this renunciation of the attempt, is the
background of ethics. Renunciation is the very basis upon
which ethics stands. . . . You have to put yourself last and
others before you. The senses say `Myself first.' Ethics says
`I must hold myself last' Thus, all codes of ethics are based
upon this renunciation; destruction, not construction, of the
individual on the material plane. That Infinite will never find
expression upon the material plane, nor is it possible or
thinkable. 22
In this first public lecture in London in 1896 Swamiji did not
enter into the philosophy behind this last statement. As far as the
London public was concerned, he had not yet expounded the
principles of Vedanta. Just as in his first public lecture in New
York, his purpose here was first to establish the fact that a
spiritual ideal, an ideal of something higher than matter or
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social utility, was essential to the well-being of mankind. Only on
that basis could a metaphysical discussion have meaning, (It is
interesting to note in this connection that in the Complete Works
the have words with which this London lecture closes ; "the One
without a second," have replaced the five less philosophical and,
to be sure, less resounding words in the original pamphlet, "the
God in the universe." Swamiji had been careful in his public
lectures not to confound his audience with monistic concepts that
he had not yet explained; he took his listeners step by step over
this steep and unfamiliar terrain.)
In this same lecture, Swamiji declared with words even more
apt today than when he spoke them:

All . . . narrow, limited, fighting ideas of religion have to

go. . . . As the human mind broadens, so its spiritual steps
must broaden. The time has already come when a man
cannot record a thought without it reaching to all corners of
the earth; by merely physical means we have come into
touch with the whole world; so the future religions of the
world have to become as universal, as wide. . . .
What is needed is a fellow-feeling between the different
types of religion . . . and not the condescending, patronising,
niggardly expression of goodwill unfortunately in vogue at
the present time with many.23

What kind of religion could be broad enough to bring about a

harmony not only between the various creeds of the world, but
also between religion and "the so-called material sciences" ?
Swamiji answered this question in the second of his Sunday
lectures, "The Ideal of a Universal Religion." We have no
transcript or report of this talk, but according to a letter written by
Goodwin on June 23, 1896, to the Brahmavadin24 it was in
substance the same as Swamiji's lecture of that title given in New
York at Hardman Hall, which was already in print. In the
previous volume we discussed some of the points of that New
York lecture, delivered on January 12 of 1896; it
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will suffice to remind the reader that Swamiji considered reli-
gious harmony to be of extreme importance to the West. And the
possibility of such harmony depended on the definition of
religion itself. IF man's ideal of religion could be broad enough
and deep enough, then only could it embrace all varieties of
religious forms and practices and satisfy all types of human
beings the world over.
A harmony of religions, rooted deep in the unchanging
spiritual nature of man and therefore stable, was among the most
practical applications of Vedantic teachings, and it is not
surprising that wherever he went Swamiji never failed to impress
his audiences first off with the need for and basis of that
harmony. In this connection, it is interesting to read his thoughts
on this subject just as he jotted them down on a scrap of paper,
possibly in hurried preparation for a lecture. The following two
sets of heretofore unpublished notes have been made available to
us by the Vedanta Centre of Cohasset, Massachusetts, and are
presented here with the kind permission of Srimata Gayatri Devi.
It is probable that in the early years of the twentieth century Miss
Ellen Waldo gave these cherished papers that bore Swamiji's
handwriting to her friend Sister Devamata, by then a disciple of
Swami Paramananda and a member of the Boston (now Cohasset)
Vedanta Centre. This probability would lead to the assumption
that Swamiji made these notes in America; nonetheless, he
expressed these ideas everywhere, and they are as germane to
London as to New York. He wrote:
Man will need a religion so long as he is constituted
as at present.
The forms will change from time to time
The dissatisfaction with the senses.
The yearning beyond.
There were encroachments of religion on the
domains of physical science-these [encroachments]
religion is giving up every day.
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 Yet there is a vast field covered by religion where
physical science(s] are mute.
The (vain?] attempt to keep man strictly
within the limits of the senses-
Because-there are men who catch a
glimpse now and then of the infinite beyond.
The types of men.
The worker-the mystic the emotional
the intellectual.
Each type is necessary for the well being
of society. The dangers of each-
A mixture minimizes the danger
The East is too full of mystics & meditative
the west of workers-
An exchange will be for the good of both.
__________

The necessity of religion

The four types of men
that come to religion-
the basis of Unity- the Divinity
in man Why use this term?
the western Society has work
and intellectual philosophy
But work must not be destructive
of others.
Philosophy-must not be only dry intellectuality25

To return to Swamiji's first two lectures in London-"The

Necessity of Religion" and "The Ideal of a Universal Religion" -
he had established during their course, first, the essential meaning
of and need for religion in general and, second, the need in the
world today for harmony among all specific religions. His
audience, which had filled almost every seat (Mr. Fox said) to
hear "The Ideal of a Universal Religion," was ready now for a
more detailed exposition of those principles
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themselves. They were ready, that is, to hear some of the basic
principles of Vedanta. In his third and fourth lectures in New
York, he had explained the Vedantic cosmology-first, that of the
external universe; "The Macrocosm"; second, that of the internal
universe, "The Microcosm."
In the third lecture of his first London series, "The Real and
the Apparent Man"-or, as entitled in the Complete Works (to
distinguish it, no doubt, from the New York lecture) and as I shall
henceforth call it, "The Real Nature of Man"-his subject matter
was in effect the same as in the two "Cosmos" lectures.
In this London lecture Swamiji first briefly reviewed the
Indian theory of cyclic manifestation and dissolution, which he
had thoroughly discussed in the New York "Macrocosm,”
reconciling the scientific view of evolution from mollusc to man
with the religious view of man's fall from perfection. He then
proceeded, as he had in the New York "Microcosm," to turn the
scientific outlook on its head. Not matter, he said in effect, but
Spirit is the one basic substance of man, God; and the world. His
approach in London, however, was different than it had been in
the New York "Microcosm”. There he had arrived at the true
nature of man through a psychological, or epistemological,
argument; he now came to the same conclusion by means of
philosophy.
The then prevailing scientific view was that man and every-
thing else was fundamentally matter and that man's actions were
mechanically determined. Indeed, Thomas Huxley was of the
extreme opinion that consciousness was a mere echo of molecular
movements in the nervous system. William James, it is true,
argued against this "automaton-theory," pointing out that since
consciousness was there, it had "in all probability been evolved,
like all other functions, for a use." This use, it seemed, was.
through various states of mind, to "steer the nervous system and
keep it in the path which to the consciousness seemed best."26 In
other words, consciousness, James conceded, played an important
part in human action-even
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though, as he had also said, all mental states and feelings "have
brain processes for the condition of existence."27 At the other
extreme was the metaphysical position (which Swamiji also held)
that "the force called thought" manifests the body. But Swamiji
did not stop there; he jumped beyond both views and pointed to a
force underlying and manifesting both matter and mind.'
One of the most difficult and certainly one of the most
important tasks of his mission was to convey to the West the
concept of the Self. Inasmuch as the basic outlook and structure
of any culture hinges on what it considers to be the essential
nature of man, he took the utmost pains to convincingly present
this most central of his teachings, approaching it from all
directions. In his London lecture he built his argument on the
scientists' own ground. In skeletal form, his reasoning went like
this:
There is a great discussion going on as to whether the
aggregate of materials we call the body is the cause of
manifestation of the force we call the soul, thought, etc., or
whether it is the thought that manifests this body. . . . Taking
the . . . position that the soul or the mass of thought . . . is the
outcome of this machine, the outcome of the chemical and
physical combinations of matter making up the body and
brain, leaves the question unanswered. What makes the
body? What .force combines the molecules into the body
form? . . . If you say that some other force was the cause of
these combinations . . . it is no answer. . . . It is more logical
to say that the force which takes up the matter and forms the
body is the same which manifests through that body. To say,
therefore, that the thought forces manifested by the body are
the outcome of the arrangement of molecules and have no
independent existence has no meaning; neither can force
evolve out of matter. Rather is it possible to demonstrate that
what we call matter does not exist at all. It is only a
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 certain state of force. . . . What is the force which manifests
itself through the body?28
It was this question that Swamiji, having posed, answered by
referring to the ancient philosophy of India. As he had in "The
Microcosm," he spoke of the subtle body-"the bright body." But
even this "has form . . . and requires something else behind it to
move it "
That something [he went on] was called the soul, the
Atman in Sanskrit. . . . What is this Atman, this soul of man
which is neither the body nor the mind? Great discussions
followed. Speculations were made, various shades of
philosophic inquiry came into existence; and I shall try to
place before you some of the conclusions that have been
reached about this Atman.29
Pushing further than he had in his comparable American
lecture "The Microcosm," in which he had stopped in his
argument with the individual soul, Swamiji now went on to
outline the steps leading to the conclusion that "as this Atman is
beyond the mind and formless, it must be beyond time, beyond
space, and beyond causation. . . ..[Therefore,] it must be infinite.
Then comes the highest speculation in our philosophy. The
infinite cannot be two. If the soul be infinite, there can be only
one Soul, and all ideas of various souls-you having one soul, and
I having another, and so forth-are not real." And then the crux of
the matter:
The Real Man, therefore, is one and infinite, the omni-
present Spirit. And the apparent man is only a limitation of
that Real Man. In that sense the mythologies [that man has
degenerated from a state of perfection] are true: the apparent
man, however great he may be, is only a dim reflection of
the Real Man who is beyond. The Real Man, the Spirit,
being beyond cause and effect, not bound by
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 time and space, must, therefore, be free. He was never
bound, and could not be bound. The apparent man, the
reflection, is limited by time, space, and causation, and is,
therefore, bound. Or in the language of some of our phi-
losophers, he appears to be bound, but really is not. 30
Swamiji was now in a position to point out with even greater
force than in his two earlier London lectures the foundations of
ethics according to the principles of Vedanta. Here was the root
answer to Utilitarianism:

One idea stands out as the centre of all ethical systems,

expressed in various forms, namely doing good to others.
The guiding motive of mankind should be charity towards
men, charity towards all animals. But these are all various
expressions of that eternal truth that "I am the universe; this
universe is one." Or else, where is the reason? Why should I
do good to my fellowmen? Why should I do good to others?
What compels me? It is sympathy, the feeling of sameness
everywhere. . . . What is perfect self-abnegation? It means
the abnegation of this apparent self, the abnegation of all
selfishness[,] . . . and the more this present self passes. away,
the more the real Self becomes manifest. This is true self
abnegation, the centre, the axis, the gist of all moral
teaching; and whether man knows it or not, the whole world
is slowly going towards it, practising it more or less. Only
the vast majority of mankind are doing it unconsciously. Let
them do it consciously. Let them make the sacrifice,
knowing that this "me and mine" is not the real Self, but
only a limitation.31
This eloquent and important lecture "was so complete [a
treatment of the subject]," Mr. Fox reported, "as to cover the
ground of next Sunday's lecture `Are We Immortal?' so that
subject has been changed to `Bhakti Yoga.'32 Indeed it was in
"The Real Nature of Man" that Swamiji reached the heart
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of his message to the public, here that he presented to Western
man an entirely new outlook-an outlook so transcendental and yet
so rational that it subsumed and quieted the two warring views
that had been exercising Western thought for centuries-that of
Idealism, in which mind is said to produce matter, and that of
Materialism, in which matter is said to produce mind. Nor was
this lecture only an explanation of the Vedanta philosophy; it was
also an exhortation, a practical teaching:
Can [the knowledge of the Spirit] be practised in modern
society? Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient
or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.
Societies should be moulded upon truth, and truth has not to
adjust itself to society. . . . That society is the greatest, where
the highest truths become practical. That is my opinion; and
if society is not fit for the highest truths, make it so; and the
sooner, the better. Stand up, men and women, in this spirit,
dare to believe in the Truth; dare to practise the Truth! The
world requires a few hundred bold men and women. Practise
that boldness which dares know the Truth, which dares show
the Truth in life, which does not quake before death, nay,
welcomes death, makes a man know that he is the Spirit, that
in the whole universe nothing can kill him. Then you will be
free. . . .
. . . Say to your own minds, "I am He, I am He." Let it
ring day and night in your minds like a song, and at the point
of death declare, "I am He." That is the Truth; the infinite
strength of the world is yours. Drive out the superstition that
has covered your minds. Let us be brave. Know the Truth
and practise the Truth. The goal may be distant, but awake,
arise, and stop not till the goal is reached. 33

Swamiji's second series of three London lectures at the Royal

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Institute of Painters in Water Colours (which he gave by popular
demand) went unrecorded; for as we have noted Mr Goodwin
sailed from England with Swami Saradananda on June 27. Thus
we know only the titles of the lectures of June 28, July 5, and July
12-which, as mentioned earlier, were, respectively, "Bhakti
Yoga," "Renunciation," and "Realisation." Originally, Swamiji's
first lecture of this series was to be entitled "Are We Immortal?"
But, as we have seen above, in "The Real Nature of Man" he had
covered the subject of immortality of the soul, delivering, as it
were, two lectures in one. Given thus an extra Sunday, he chose
(not insignificantly, one thinks) the title "Bhakti Yoga." Does not
one again glimpse here a pattern of presentation? Was not this
second London series comparable in subject matter to Swamiji's
second series of lectures in New York in February of this same
year "Bhakti Yoga," "The Real and the Apparent Man," and "My
Master," which last had much to do with renunciation? It is, of
course, not possible to speak with any certainty of lectures of
which we have not a shred of a note; we can, however, say that
Swamiji's second series of lectures in both London and New York
contained one lecture on bhakti yoga, one on jnana yoga, and one
in which he emphasized renunciation. (In the fall, it may be noted
here, he was to lecture in England, as he had in New York, on Sri
Ramakrishna.)
During this spring and hot summer Swamiji held at least forty-
five classes and gave six Sunday lectures, but even this did not
exhaust the extent of his work. From time to time he lectured
elsewhere at the invitation of various and somewhat oddly
assorted individuals and groups.

As we have already noted, Swamiji had delivered a lecture

at a moment's notice at the Sesame Club on the evening of
May 12. His next "outside" talk known to us took place on the
Wednesday of June 10 at the home of Mrs. John Biddulph
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Martin at 17 Hyde Park Gate, "a richly somber house on an
exclusive and somber street "34 Mrs. Martin was the wife of one
of the most wealthy and prominent bankers in England, a scion of
the landed gentry, next to titled aristocracy in rank and second to
none in security. The banking house in which the Biddulph
Martin family had been partners for generations was of fifteenth-
century origin and of such rocklike stability that it could well
afford its name, The Grasshopper of Lombard Street. In 1896,
Mrs. John Biddulph Martin, then fifty-eight, had been a member
of this stolid family for thirteen years and was to remain
contentedly so for the rest of her long life. It was a life totally
different in all respects from that which she had pursued before
her marriage.
Born in a small Ohio town to what one historian aptly
describes as "a family of pathologically turbulent poor whites,"35
Victoria Claflin Woodhull became, through dazzling temerity, the
American firebrand of the 1870s. Not only was she the first lady
broker on Wall Street, the first woman to address a Congressional
committee, the first woman to run for president of the United
States (nominated by the Equal Rights Party), the first person in
America-man or woman to print the Communist Manifesto,
which she did in the weekly she and her sister edited and
published, not only did she campaign for radical social, political,
and economic reforms, but, moat arrestingly, she persisted in
waving the flag of "free love." This was by no means a new
doctrine in the nineteenth century, but it was a profoundly
shocking one, violating, as it did, all the conventions and taboos
of a family-oriented society. The topic was not mentioned in
mixed company, let alone in public. But Victoria Claflin
Woodhull fearlessly announced her advocacy of "free love" from
the housetops, declaring, moreover, that marriage "was the most
consummate outrage on women. that was ever conceived"-a
sentiment not shared in the 1870s by the generality of American
housewives. With her beauty, brilliance, and unfailing
magnetism, The Woodhull (as she was called) attracted thousands
of people to her
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inflammatory lectures, sweeping them off their feet; inevitably,
however, she also provoked severe criticism and censure. Angry
at this injustice (as she felt it to be), she set about exposing the
scandalous hypocrisy of one of the most esteemed pillars of
society. This was a mistake. The other pillars stood by their own,
and Victoria Woodhull soon found herself in jail, where she
languished for several weeks.
Her health collapsed; and then with complete suddenness her
whole approach to life underwent a transformation. She now
turned to a religion somewhat of her own devising and, with the
same fervent conviction and intensity as she had talked of social
and political freedom, began to talk and write about the Garden of
Eden and the "Seventh Seal" of the Bible. But it was not until the
young John Biddulph Martin had (unaccountably) attended a
religious lecture of hers in London and had determined then and
there to marry her that the then twice-divorced Victoria Woodhull
began a long and arduous campaign to throw a cloak of
respectability over her past. It was, however, to be six long years
before the Martin family consented to the marriage and even
longer before London society accepted Mrs. Martin into its
drawing rooms and entered into hers.*
By the time Swamiji met Mrs. John Biddulph Martin, her
transformation from the flaming Victoria Claflin Woodhull to the
sedate and gracious matron of the English Establishment was
complete. As a serious hobby, she now edited and published, not
the explosive Woodhull and Clafiin's Weekly but the staid
Humanitarian, a periodical devoted to the prevention of cruelty to
men and animals. There is some evidence that the once defiantly
unconventional Mrs. Martin was bored with all this respectability,
particularly after it was secured, and it is not at all unlikely that
Swamiji brought a welcome shaft of light into what she referred
to as her "dreary, smoky, foggy" London world. 36 She was by no
means unperceptive and surely would not only have recognized
greatness when she saw it but have been strongly attracted by
Swamiji's majestic air of free-
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dom and independence, qualities she had in her own way striven
for all her life. "Mrs. Biddulph Martin, who is I believe a very
noble woman . . . is a great admirer of Swami," 37 Mr. Sturdy was
to write in April of the following year to Miss MacLeod.
Whether or not Swamiji was aware of Mrs. Martin's re-
markable history we do not know; nor could her past have
mattered to him, except as it spoke of spirit, courage, and that
quality which had led an American reporter to call her "a small
splinter of the indestructible."38 In any event, his only known
reference to Mrs. Martin is found in a letter of July 6 to Mr.
Francis Leggett: "You must already know a good deal about
[Mrs. Martin] from Joe."39 How much Joe knew is a matter of
conjecture. But so well publicized a history as Victoria
Woodhull's could scarcely, despite her efforts, be altogether
buried; it kept surfacing. Among Mrs. Bull's papers of 1896, for
instance, has been found an undated clipping from the Boston
Herald which reviewed The Woodhull's advocacy of "social
freedom." Across it Mrs. Bull had written, "for Mr. Goodwin:
Please show to Dr. Janes and then return to me. . . . I wish this for
my records & cannot give it up."40
Be that as it may, Swamiji saw fit to lecture at Mrs. Biddulph
Martin's home oh the afternoon of Wednesday, June 10. The
London American of June 13 wrote of the occasion:

Those of us who were at home in the year of the Exhibi-

tion will doubtless remember the Parliament of Religions
which assembled at the World's Fair. It was a bold idea, and
one which could scarcely have been conceived of, let alone
carried through, by any but Americans. The Indian
representative at that great gathering was Swami
Vivekananda, a Hindu with a marvellous grasp of his
subject, and an equally marvellous power of expression.
This interesting man is at present in London, and with her
usual eagerness to learn and have others do the same, Mrs.
Victoria Biddulph Martin, on Wednesday afternoon,
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 asked him to deliver an address at her house in Hyde Park
Gate on the Hindu Idea of [the] Soul. The weather on
Wednesday was wretched, but this did not prevent a large
number of ladies and gentlemen [from] accepting Mrs.
Martin's hospitality. The address was, as its title would show
of a most fascinating nature, the Hindu theology being most
graphically and picturesquely explained. After the address,
general conversation took place over the teacups, and the
Hindu was plied with questions by several ladies who
seemed to have studied the subject to some purpose. This,
perhaps, was as interesting as the address itself, as it showed
wherein the main difference lies between the Christian and
Brahmin beliefs. It is the usual thing at Mrs. Martin's
receptions to meet Americans, and on Wednesday we
noticed many well-known faces. There were also present
some members of the Royal Household, but these were
strictly incognito. Mrs. Martin's drawing room looked, as it
always does, artistic from floor to ceiling. The room formed,
indeed, a fitting stage for the Swami, who himself presented
a picture with all the Eastern coloring in perfection. His dark
olive face with its dignity of expression, his little yet
powerful figure clothed in a long brown garment with a
crimson girdle, and his raven-black hair, made him look
what in truth he is-the Hindu Swami (the Master) ; the
expounder of an Oriental creed.

Was the incognito royal party mentioned above the Duchess of

Albany and her entourage? Or had other members of the Royal
Household, which was extensive, come to hear Swamiji? Unless
old letters someday yield this secret, we shall perhaps never
know. But it is clear in any case that Mrs. Martin entertained
lavishly and with a good deal of social success. On another of her
festive occasions even the weather cooperated. Although
Swamiji's name is not mentioned in the following article, which
appeared in The Lady for July 9, 1896-a
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magazine devoted to the doings of upper-class women-he was
among the, guests (as he would write to Mr. Leggett two days
later)41 at the fashionable Fourth-of July party of which it tells:

On Saturday night Mrs. John Biddulph Martin gave a

large reception at her beautiful house, 17, Hyde Park Gate,
in commemoration of "Independence Day." Her guests had
the advantage not only of the splendid reception-rooms, but
the extensive garden was turned into a fairy retreat, with its
many-coloured glimmering electric lights, and its garlanded
umbrellas spread under a cloudless sky. To the strains of
Herr Gottlieb's Viennese Orchestra, hundreds of people
wandered through the flower-decorated rooms into the
delightful coolness of the garden, and it seemed impossible
to believe that within a stone's-throw Kensington High Road
was teeming with nocturnal traffic. Mrs. Biddulph Martin, in
a greyishgreen silk gown, with touches of red and gold on
bodice and skirt, received her many guests at the entrance to
the drawing-room. Among the well-known people present
were Lady Clark, in turquoise-blue silk, veiled with chiffon
of the same shade, and displaying many fine diamonds;
Lady Palliser, in black, with a white lace fichu; Colonel and
Miss Knollys (the latter in bright red, with fillets of the same
colour in her hair), Miss Constans (all in white), Mr.
Hermann Vezin, Mr. Murray Carson, Mr. Mowbray Marris,
and many others. Lord and Lady Teynham, and Lady
Llangattock and the Hon. Miss Rolls were among other
distinguished people who accepted invitations. Mrs.
Biddulph Martin is to be much congratulated upon the
success of her "Fourth of July" party, which had the
advantage of a lovely new moon and a cloudless sky to
make it quite perfect.

On the Thursday evening following this gala affair Swamiji

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lectured at the invitation of another famous woman, whose early
life, in some respects, bore a similarity to that of Victoria Martin.
Mrs. Annie Besant (whose name, she said, rhymed with
"pleasant") is known today almost exclusively for her long
leadership of the Theosophical movement, but for years before
Theosophy entered her life and she its, she had been actively and
conspicuously at the center of what were to the Victorian world
radical and shocking causes. She was beautiful, charming,
brilliant, and a spellbinding orator. She lived her life as she
wished, though, unlike Victoria Woodhull, she did so with
extreme circumspection. She was an Atheist, a Socialist, a
crusader of the Trade-Union movement, a champion of birth
control (a subject as unmentionable as was "free love"), and while
she was not divorced, she had tried her best to become so and was
legally separated from her husband. She was ostracized, villified,
and once jailed. And then, with the same stunning suddenness and
thoroughness with which Mrs. Woodhull had changed the pattern
and mode of her life, Mrs. Besant embraced Theosophy. That had
been in 1889, soon after her first meeting with Madame Helena
Blavatsky. Her subsequent rise to prominence in the
Theosophical movement had been meteoric; she was soon one of
its leaders, placing her unquestioned gifts in its service. "She is
not psychic nor spiritual in the least-all intellect," Madame
Blavatsky had written to William Q, Judge shortly before her own
death in t8gt. But she had qualities that made up for any
deficiency. Her heart is "one single unbroken diamond," Madame
Blavatsky continued, "transparent . . . and filled to the brim with
pure, unadulterated Theosophy and enthusiasm." 42
It may seem odd that Swamiji should accept an invitation to
speak before the Theosophical Society in London after Mr.
Sturdy had so diligently let it be known the previous year that the
Hindu Monk was. not in any way associated with that, or any
other, organization. But by now Swamiji had firmly established
his independence of all religious groups and societies; he could
well afford to speak where he chose and to whom
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he wished. Moreover, although the Theosophical Society had at
times been hostile toward him, he said or did nothing whatsoever
in the West to harm it; such was not his way. His acceptance of
Mrs. Besant's invitation was in friendship. "Godspeed to everyone
who wants to do good to the world,"43 he had written in 1895 in
connection with her.
Blavatsky Lodge, as the Theosophical Headquarters in
London was called, was located at 19 Avenue Road in St. John's
Wood, then a residential district of detached houses and big, leafy
gardens. The spacious "lodge" had once belonged to Mrs. Besant,
who in 1890 transferred it to the Society. In the grounds behind
the house, a meeting hall had been built, which, though
unprepossessing on the outside, was elaborately decorated inside
with intricate religious, occult, and zodiacal symbols. At one end
of the hall was a low platform backed by a large mirror bearing
the six-pointed Theosophical star, a painted lion's head, a winged
scorpion, and other emblems. It was here that Swamiji stood on
the evening of July g to deliver "an eloquent discourse on Bhakti
Yoga to a crowded lodge"44 -a discourse of which unfortunately
there is no available record.
The only known mention Swamiji made of this talk we find in
a letter he wrote to Alasinga on August 8: "By-the-bye, Mrs.
Annie Besant invited me to speak at her Lodge on Bhakti. I
lectured there one night. Col. Olcott was also there. I did it to
show my sympathy for all sects."45 But Swamiji did not thereby
endorse every aspect of Theosophy as it was then taught. "Regard
and estimation and love are one thing," he was to say publicly in
Madras on his return to India in 1897, "and swallowing
everything any one has to say, without reasoning, without
criticising, without analysing, is quite another."46 To his mind,
occult organizations and beliefs were not among the things India
needed. In London toward the end of 1896 he was asked by the
editor of an Indian Theosophical monthly, Light of the East, for
suggestions toward improving the magazine. It was an ill-advised
request, but it is to the editor's credit that
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he published Swamiji's reply in the December issue. As
subsequently reprinted in the Indian Social Reformer for January
31, 1897, it read:
I must frankly state that in my lifelong experience in the
world, I have always found `occultism' injurious and
weakening to humanity. What 'we want is strength. We,
Indians, more than any other race, want strong and vigorous
thought. We have enough of the superfine in all concerns.
For centuries we have been stuffed with the mysterious, the
result ix that our intellectual and spiritual digestion is almost
hopelessly impaired and the race has been dragged down to
the depths of hopeless imbecility never before or since
experienced by any other civilized community. There must
be freshness and vigour of thought behind, to make a virile
race. More than enough to strengthen the whole world exists
in the `Upanishads'. The Advaita is the eternal mine of
strength. But it requires to be `applied'. It must first be
cleared of the incrustation of scholasticism, and then in all
its simplicity, beauty, and sublimity be taught over the
length and breadth of the land and applied even to the
minutest detail of daily life. This is "a very large order" but
we must work toward it nevertheless as [if] it would be
accomplished tomorrow. Of one thing I am sure that
whoever wants to help his fellow beings through genuine
love and unselfishness will work wonders. 47
Swamiji never minced his words to his own countrymen, but
East or West, he gave no quarter to those elements in any creed
that degraded or obscured its essential truth. He deplored the
elements of bigotry and exclusiveness in Christianity, those of
fanaticism in Mohammedanism, those of superstition and
priestcraft in Hinduism, those of mystery-mongering in Theos-
ophy, those of fraudulence in Spiritualism. Simultaneously, he
gave a helping hand to all sincere religious aspiration, whatever
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its form. To be sure, his proffered hand could at times seem
chastising, and at times more offense was taken than he had
meant to give. It was under such circumstances that he wrote a
clarifying and soothing letter to the editor of Light, a London
journal of "Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research." On July 4,
this magazine had printed an aggrieved piece by the supporters of
Spiritualism, some of whom had evidently attended a Thursday
and a Friday evening class of Swamiji's at St. George's Road. The
plaint had read in part:

SPIRITUALISM AND THE VEDANTA

PHILOSOPHY.

When first we heard that the Swami Vivekananda was

coming to London to expound the Vedanta Philosophy, we
were hopeful that his teaching would not only confirm the
faith of Spiritualists, but might also add to their number. We
hoped this, because the very essence of the Hindu
Philosophy is that man is a spirit, and has a body, and not
that man is a body, and may have a spirit also; which is as
far as many a Western mind can reach. . . .
It has been the glorious privilege of our modern Spiri-
tualism to prove by actual demonstration the existence of
spirit apart from flesh, and it would, therefore, seem
reasonable to look for co-operation on the part of the
exponents of the Vedanta Philosophy and the supporters of
Spiritualism. We are not quite certain, however, that this
desirable consummation can be attained, for observations
made very recently by the Swami are calculated only to
divide the two sects. The Vedanta Philosophy sets before the
student an ideal aim! Nothing less, in fact, than the
unfolding of the God within him, and nothing could well be
more impressive and inspiring than the presentation of this
idea by a speaker of the force and eloquence of the Swami.
We could only respect and admire, until modern
Spiritualism was alluded to, and that in a manner which left
upon us the impression that the Swami
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condemned without reservation all sitting for phenomena.
He admitted having sat for observation with professional
mediums, and held that one and all had practised fraud.
`Spirit voices,' according to the Swami, are never heard to
clash! As `the sepulchral dies away the small child's voice
rises up,' intimating thus that ventriloquism was invariably
responsible for the sounds. `Spirit messages,' he remarked,
`were quite worthless, for they never rose above the level of
"I am well and happy," or "Give John a piece of cake." ' This
assertion could, of course, only be made in ignorance of the
contents of `Spirit Teachings,' a book which, we think, can
well stand comparison even with the exalted teaching of the
Swami Vivekananda. The process of making up sham
materialisations and working the figure on the end of a wire
was also described in detail.
We were present again the following evening, when a
paper of questions bearing upon the adverse criticism of the
Swami was read out to the meeting. Some thirty minutes
were then passed in qualifying and explaining his remarks of
the night before, and, to our deep satisfaction, the Swami not
only confessed his belief in the possibility of spirits
communicating with mortals, but even expressed his
conviction that at times spirits of a high grade visited earth
in order to assist mankind. It is, however, we conceive, no
part of the Vedanta Philosophy to recommend the seeking of
such intercourse, on account of its possible `dangers.' It is
commonly held that the undeveloped spirit can most easily
communicate with man, consequently the Swami uttered his
word of warning and withheld any word of encouragement. .
..
To gain the summit of a mountain without climbing
might be desirable if possible, but who can do it?
. . . We intend to learn all we can from the Swami. We
recognise his ability, his earnestness, and his high purpose,
but we claim for ourselves such tribute and recognition as
we yield to others.
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 Recognizing the sincerity of its wounded authors,
Swamiji replied gently to this defense of Spiritualism. His
letter, which appeared in Light for July 11, 1896, is here
reprinted for the first time.
Sir; Allow me to put a few words in your estimable
journal, as comments on an article in your paper dated July
4th. I must thank you without reserve for the kind and
friendly spirit manifested throughout the article towards me
and the philosophy I preach; but, as there is a fear of
misconstruction in one part of it-especially by my
Spiritualistic Friends-I want to clear my position. The truth
of correspondence between the living and the dead is, I
believe, in every religion, and nowhere more than in the
Vedantic sects of India, where the fact of mutual help
between the departed and the living has been made the basis
of the law of inheritance. I would be very sorry if I be
mistaken as antagonistic to any sect or form of religion, so
far as they are sincere. Nor do I hold that any system can
ever be judged by the frauds and failures that would
naturally gather round every method under the present
circumstances. But, all the same, I cannot but believe that
every thoughtful person would agree with me when I affirm
that people should be warned of their dangers, with love and
sympathy. The lecture alluded to could but accidentally
touch the subject of Spiritualism; but I take this opportunity
of conveying my deep admiration for the spiritualist com-
munity for the positive good they have done already, and are
doing still. ( 1 ) The preaching of a universal sympathy. (2)
The still greater work of helping the human race out of
doctrines which inculcate fear and not love. Ever ready to
co-operate with, and at the service of, all who are striving to
bring the light of the spirit; I remain, yours sincerely,

63, St. George's-road, S.W. ViveKananda.

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 (In connection with Swamiji's views on whether or not psychic
phenomena are capable of scientific demonstration, it is of
interest to read in the Complete Works a short undated talk he
gave in London during a discussion on the subject. Cutting
through webs of fruitless debate, he said, "In order to have
scientific explanation of psychical phenomena, we require not
only perfect evidence on the side of the phenomena themselves,
but a good deal of training on the part of those who want to see.
All this being granted, we shall be in a position to say yea or nay
about the proof or disproof of any phenomena which are
presented before us. But before that, the most remarkable
phenomena, or the most oft-recorded phenomena that have
happened in human society, in my opinion, would be very hard
indeed to prove even in an off-hand manner.")48
On July 18, Swamiji gave another "outside" talk before the
London Hindu Association. Although no report of his lecture has
been found in the London papers, the following article from the
Daily Chronicle of July 20 gives some idea of the meeting itself.
It read in part:

LONDON HINDU ASSOCIATION.

On Saturday a social conference of Indians resident in

Great Britain and Ireland was held under the auspices of
above-named association at Montague Mansions [a hotel
and office building], Museum Street, W.C., when Swami
Vivekananda, M.A., the representative of Hindu. ism at the
Parliament of Religions of Chicago, presided, A number of
English ladies and gentlemen attended, thc others present
being composed of Hindus, Parsees, and Mohammedans.
After a brief opening by the chairman Mr. Ram Mohan Ray,
barrister, delivered an address: on "Hindus and their Needs".
He commenced by saying that political questions would not
be alluded to at the conference, the subjects to be introduced
being entirely of a social character. . . . In the discussion
which followed,
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 Miss Morant drew attention to the condition of women in
India with regard to what she termed the army of
occupation. Mr. D. Naoroji said, so far back as 1849, he and
others started three parsee and three Hindu schools which
had 8ourished. . . . Dr. Moncure Conway advised the
association not to go rashly to work, but to gather together
the genius of India, and by careful action they would in time
succeed. Mr. Martin Wood, Mr. T. J. Desai, Sevak Ram (the
hon secretary), and the chairman, also spoke, and the
meeting closed with the usual vote of thanks.

The "chairman" who also spoke was, of course, Swamiji. Mr.

T. J. Desai, the secretary of the Association, whom we met
earlier, has related in his reminiscences something of the
impression Swamiji made when, "as chairman of the conference
[he] rose to speak and . . . electrified the audience."

When he struck his hand on the table during his speech

(Mr. Desai related] my watch bounded from the table and
fell down on the ground and created a visible sensation! He
had a commanding figure, and my landlady, who had come
to the meeting with me, was greatly impressed with his
speech and personality. While the Swami had captivated the
British public by his oratory, it was placarded as I was going
home, that Prince Ranjit Singhi had saved the honour of
England against the Australian team. He had scored 154
runs and was not out!49
While Mr. Desai tells us that Swamiji electrified the audience
at the meeting, John Fox, writing to Mrs. Bull on July 24, reveals
a little of what he said:

If Swami returns to India and speaks as he did last

Saturday to the London Hindu Association, he ought to take
the country by storm. I never heard him so eloquent,
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 so earnest, in appealing to the young Hindus to give up
European dress and airs on returning home, and mingling
with the people and trying to help them. He denounced caste
in the strongest terms, and spoke finely on the position of
women. I wish you had been there.50

Swamiji's fiery talk to his compatriots and their response to it

made Fox "fear less for his success in India." He need not have
feared at all. Swamiji was already a national hero to the Indian
people, as well known and loved in his own field as the great
Ranjit Singh was, at the time, well known and loved in his. In
August the India Nation printed the following paragraph:

The two most conspicuous Indians now in England are

Swami Vivekananda and Mr. K. S. Ranjitsinghi. In a certain
sense they represent extremes, but both alike are extremes of
excellence, Vivekananda soars on the aerial altitudes of the
spirit; and Mr. Ranjitsinghi represents the perfection of
certain kinds of physical accomplishment. The Swami, on
his plane, is brilliant, original, illuminating. Alike by his
presence, his teaching, and the magnetism of his soul he has
impressed large numbers of men and women in England. He
has not only rescued the religion of the Hindus from the
reproach of a gross and groveling idolatry but placed it on a
height and in a light which cannot but secure the respect of
men. The young Rajput Chief in his sphere stands gloriously
first, and has distanced all competitors as widely as Boswell
was regarded by Macaulay to have distanced other
biographers. He is the best bat in England, the country most
distinguished for the skill of its players. In many other
games than cricket, too, he can be beaten by few. He thus
sheds a rare lustre on his countrymen, for he exhibits a skill
which Englishmen highly value and has achieved a
distinction of which they cannot but bejealous. 51
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 How many talks Swamiji gave in London that season it is hard
to say with accuracy. Aside from his many classes, his six Sunday
afternoon lectures, and the few "outside" lectures and talks that
we have mentioned, he undoubtedly spoke on occasions of which
we know nothing, or very little. He is, for instance, said to have
addressed a large meeting "at Notting Hill Gate [a neighborhood
of West London] at the residence of. Mrs. Hunt." This
information originated with Mr. Goodwin's letter of June 23 to
the Brahmavadin.52 He tells in this same letter that Swamiji "also
spoke to a large meeting at Wimbledon, when a good deal of
helpful discussion followed the lecture." "Several other meetings
of a similar character have been held," Goodwin went on, and that
must have indeed been so, for Swamiji was in great demand. So
often did he lecture and hold classes that by the end of June he
was physically exhausted. "At one time he thought of stopping
the work," John Fox wrote to Mrs. Bull on June 17, "but is to
keep on till about the 15th of July." Swamiji s regular students
surely kept on with him, but around the beginning of July many
Londoners fled the hot city, and as a consequence, the attendance
at his last two Sunday lectures (July 5 and 12) at the Royal
Institute noticeably fell off-though, as Mr. Fox informed Mrs.
Bull in a letter dated July 16, "the [Art] Gallery was three-fourths
filled each time."53

It was on that day-July 16-that Swamiji held his last class

of the season; but not his last class of the year. In June, the
students had made as certain as they could that he would continue
to teach in the fall. In Goodwin's Brahmavadin letter, mentioned
above, he wrote: "At the class lecture yesterday morning a
number of those who have been regularly attending, combined to
guarantee a sum of money necessary to obtain quarters for the
exposition of the Vedanta in London. The proposal includes a
large room for regular lectures, a
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235
library of books on Eastern Philosophy, including all translations
of Sanscrit literature, and a monthly magazine. The fact that the
necessary funds were forthcoming before the close of the
lecture[s] will be encouraging news to all who are interested in
the spreading of the Vedanta."54
In regard to this arrangement Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Bull on
July 8, "The English people are very generous. In three minutes'
time the other evening my class raised ,£150 for the new quarters
for next autumn's work. They would have given ,£500 on the spot
if wanted, but we want to go slow, and not rush into undue
expense. There will be many hands here to carry on the work and
they understand a bit of renunciation here, the deep English
character."55 In a heretofore unpublished portion of this same
letter Swamiji added, " . . . the work is growing here-as it never
grew anywhere else. That, [together] with these men and women
with such strong decision of character, the work will never
vanish."56
But Swamiji knew that his ideas would spread only slowly. In
an interview he had given to a reporter at 63 St. George's Road he
had said,' "When you deal with roots and foundations, all real
progress must be slow. Of course, I need not say that these ideas
are bound to spread by one means or another, and to many of us
the right moment for their dissemination seems now to have
come."57 Indeed Swamiji was convinced that India's spirituality
would eventually conquer England. "Today [England] has the
sword," he is reported as having said in this same interview, "but
it is worse than useless in the world of ideas. You know what
Schopenhauer said of Indian thought. He foretold that its
influence would be as momentous in Europe, when it became
well known, as the revival of Greek and Latin culture after the
Dark Ages. . . . I dare say a good many people saw no signs of the
old Renaissance and did not know it was there, even after it had
come. But there is a great movement, which can be discerned by
those who know the signs of the times."58
Swamiji well knew that the world was moving into a new
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236
era where the thought of the East would become essential. He
knew that the giant tree he was planting would bear its fruit when
the need for it came, and he knew he was planting that tree firm
and deep. "The work here is coming to a head," he wrote to
Swami Ramakrishnananda on June 24. "We have already got
funds to start a London Centre. Next month I go to Switzerland to
pass a month or two there, then I shall return to London. What
will be the good of my going home? This London is the hub of
the world. The heart of India is here. How can I leave without
laying a sure foundation here? Nonsense!"59
And in a heretofore unpublished letter to Mrs. Hale, who was
then travelling in Europe, he wrote on July 7 of his satisfaction
with his London work. His letter read in full:

Dear Mother-18th of this month I start for Switzerland

for a holiday. I will come back to London again to work in
Autumn. The work in England bids fare [sic] to be much
better & deeper than in the U.S. And here in London is the
heart of India also. Where are you now? I am passing
through Geneva on my way to the Hills. I will be there a day
or two. If you be some where near I will make it a point to
come to see you. Did you hear Annie Besant? How did you
like her? What about your plans of going to India next
winter? What about the innocents at home? I haven't had any
news of them. My love to Father Pope mother temple and
yourself-Kindly answer early as I will be only a few days
here.
Ever yours with love & gratitude60
Vivekananda

Mr. and Mrs. Hale were in Stockholm when Swamiji's letter

reached them; their path did not cross his until much later in the
year. Mrs. Bull was as unlucky in this respect. Quite suddenly,
she decided to come, after all, to London. She was to sail on the
S.S. Cestriars, due to arrive in Liverpool
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237
on July 17. And then, as suddenly, she canceled her plans, which
was as well. Presumably her intention had been to see Swamiji-
what else at this time of year, when everyone was fleeing from
London to resorts on the coast, estates in the country, or spas
abroad? She would not have arrived in the city until July 18 at the
earliest, on which day Swamiji expected to set off for Europe. A
letter from him, dated July 8, advising her of his plans, could not
have reached her in time for her to change hers; indeed, his
multipostmarked envelope was originally addressed to the hotel
in Liverpool where she had made a reservation. He meant only at
this late date to express his regrets. In a heretofore unpublished
portion of this letter he wrote:

Received your letter last evening. Very glad to learn you

are coming but I do not know whether I will be able to see
you or not-I start for Switzerland on the 18th of this month.*
It has been all previously arranged. And as you never write a
certain word but always keep things dubious, I could only
take the best that opened to me-to go to Switzerland for
August & September with some friends.
If however your boat is here earlier-and you come to
London-than 18th I am at your service till 18th. 61

It is not known at present what prevented Mrs. Bull from

embarking on the Cestrian. But a letter of dire foreboding from
Swami Kripananda may have been a contributing factor. On July
2, still in Detroit, still in a desolate state of mind, he wrote:

My best wishes accompany you on your voyage.

I wish, however, you would not go to England. I see
great dangers before you. Not only your money, but also -
your honor, is at stake. A terrible abyss is opening before
you ready to engulf you.
Go not to England, listen to my warning.
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 It is the spirit of my old love and friendship for you that
dictates me this warning; for, whatever has happened
between you and me, however much pain and suffering you
gave me in the last few months by your lack of sympathy
and compassion in a period of the greatest distress when
friendship's offices were mostly needed, I cannot Forget
what you were to me once. . . .
I do not know whether under the circumstances in which
I am placed I shall have a chance to see you before my long
voyage. If events should take this turn, I want you to know
that my last thought in departing was-a blessing for you.62

Such intimations of all-round disaster might well unnerve

anyone on the eve of a voyage, but it was primarily for reasons of
her own that Mrs. Bull changed her plans. On July 17 Kripananda
wrote again:

I am very glad to learn from your note that the force of

circumstances though not my own friendly advice prevailed
upon you to give up your trip to England. . . . You have
escaped a great danger. Thank the lord for having disposed
things for your best.63

While Mrs. Bull may have escaped great danger, she did not
escape momentary hurt feelings in connection with her
relationship with Swamiji. Although the difficulty does not seem
to have been entirely clear to him, he wrote a generally reassuring
(and mildly reproving) letter to her. Not heretofore published, it
read in full:

63 St. George's Road

18th July 1896

Dear Mrs. Bull

I received your last note duly-and you already know
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 my gratitude and love for you and that I perfectly agree with
most of your ideas and work.
I did not understand however one point you speak of
Sturdy and myself being members. Members of what? I as
you well know cannot become a member of any society. *
I am very glad to learn that you have been favourably
impressed by Saradananda. There is one big mistake you are
labouring under. What do you mean of [my] writing to my
workers more confidentially and not to you? I seldom write
to anyone. I have nothing to write. I have no workers.
Everyone is independent to work as one likes. I don't bother
my head about these lithe things at all. I can give ideas that
is all, let people work them out any way they like and
Godspeed to all.
"He who works unattached to persons and giving up the
fruits of work is a genuine worker". Gita.
Yours ever, with love and gratitude, 64
Vivekananda

Meanwhile, there was Raja Yoga. In another heretofore un-

published paragraph of Swamiji's letter of July 8 to Mrs. Bull
(which he had expected her to receive in Liverpool) one finds that
there was still trouble of sorts surrounding the publication of that
book.

I will try once more to give the half over to Sturdy (he
wrote]. What a storm in a tea pot about this little book!
However it [is] all right now. The money and everything has
been already paid.65

The first sentence of the above referred to Mrs. Bull's round-

about method of supplying her half of the cost of publication (Mr.
Leggett having paid the other half). lndeed, Mrs. Bull's part in the
financing of publishing Raja Yoga was remarkable, and the
present writer can do no better by way
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of recounting it than to quote the following passage in a letter
from Goodwin to Mrs. Bull, dated July 19:
I explained [to Sturdy] how the whole matter stood, &,
Mr Sturdy says he wd not care to receive the money from
the Swami, .even altho it was an obligation to some other
person that he was liquidating, & he would rather pay the
half amount, unless indeed it was arranged between you &
Mr Leggett that Mr Leggett shall meet the whole cost. In the
event of Mr Leggett not caring to take any further
responsibility than his half Mr Sturdy, in taking up the other
half, requests that you will look upon it as a liquidation
through him of the Swami's obligation to you but that you,
all the same, retain your control, together with Mr Leggett,
of the whole affair, & that Mr Sturdy remain, as heretofore,
merely your agent in the matter, in trying to fulfil, as far as
can be, your wishes, & the success of the work. Under these
circumstances the return from the book as far as your
interest in it, would also remain yours. 66

In any event, the book was published. "Raja Yoga came out
Monday [July 13] after many revisions of proof by Mr. Goodwin
and Mr. Sturdy," Mr. Fox informed Mrs. Bull in a letter dated
July 16. "It seems to have no copyright at all; at least Mr. Sturdy
knows of none. Perhaps you had better say very little or nothing
about the matter to him."67 The matter was no doubt a touchy one.
After the many and complicated discussions that had taken place
in both America and England regarding the copyright of Raja
Yoga, Swamiji had apparently settled the matter with a word. In
October of 1896 he would write to Alasinga: "You can very well
get out a cheap edition of Raja Yoga if you like.* I have not re-
served any copyright on it purposely."68
But copyright or no, Raja Yoga was finally on its way, and
Swamiji could go off to Europe with that transatlantic storm
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241
behind him. "The season has ended," he had written to Francis
Leggett in his letter of July 6, "and I too am thoroughly
exhausted. I am going to make a tour in Switzerland with Miss
Muller."69 As mentioned in the last chapter, Captain and Mrs.
Sevier were also to be Swamiji's hosts on this tour that he so
badly needed after ten weeks of strenuous and steady work-
indeed one might say not ten weeks but three years, for this was
to be the first real vacation he had had since his arrival in
Vancouver on July 25 of 1893.
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 NOTES FOR CHAPTER TWELVE
p. 203 * Swami Saradananda's original plan was to leave London for
America with Mr. Goodwin on July 4 (see the Brahmavadin, July I8,
1896, page 278). Indeed the Swami had an engagement to lecture in
London on Monday, June 29, before a women's Vegetarian Society on
"Vegetarianism." This would have been his first lecture in the Western
world, and possibly it was very much to his relief that the date of
departure was (for reasons unknown to us) changed first to June 25 and
finally to June 27. While the young Swami would have done anything at
all for Swamiji, he had not at that time (according to Mahendra) the
least desire to give a lecture.

p. 205 * A discussion of Swamiji's New York lecture "The Claims of

Religion: Its Truth and Utility" (Complete Works, volume four) can be
found in World Teacher - I, chapter six, section three.

p. 211 * Needless to say, the talkative nineteenth century yielded ethical

theories other than Utilitarianism. Nietzsche, for example, felt that the
happiness or unhappiness of the greatest number was in itself not of the
least importance. "The misfortunes of all these small folk," he says, "do
not together constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men"
(quoted in Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, page 763).
Herbert Spencer had still other ideas regarding the small folk: those who
could not, out of weakness or disability, adjust to the social state would,
if do-gooders would abstain from meddling, simply die off.
Schopenhauer saw nothing to be gained
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p. 211 (cont) by the absence of "want, toil, calamity and frustration."
"Work, worry, toil and trouble," he wrote, "are indeed the lot of almost
all men their whole life long. And yet if every desire were satisfied as
soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how woulcl they
pass the time? Imagine this race transported to Utopia where everything
grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted....: in such
a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some
would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for
themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is. Thus for
a race such as this no stage, no form existence is suitable other than the
one it already possesses" (Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms, ed.and
trans. R. J. Hollingdale [New York: Penguin Books, I970], page 43).
Karl Marx wanted no part of Jeremy Bentham, who, he said, "assumes
the modern petty bourgeois to be the normal man. Whatever seems
useful to this queer sort of normal man, and to his world, is regarded as
useful in and by itself.... Had I the pluck of my friend Heinrich, Heine, I
should call Mr. Jeremy a genius in the way of bourgeois stupidity" (Karl
Marx, Capital [NewYork: Everyman's Library, 1951], vol. 2, page 671).

p. 2 I 6 * For a resume of Swamiji's detailed teachings regarding matter

and mind in his New York classes on jnana yoga, see World Teacher- I,
chapter six, section seven.

p. 222 * A number of books and articles have been written on the life of
Victoria Claflin Woodhull. Her history enters also into larger histories
of the United States. In recording a few of the known facts of her
astonishing career, I have drawn primarily on The Terrible Siren by
Emanie Sachs and Mrs. Satan by Johanna Johnston. (See Bibliography.)
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244
· p. 236 * In
volume five of the Complete Works one finds two interviews
given by Swamiji at St. George's Road, South Belgravia, London. One,
entitled "India's Mission," is from the Sunday fimes; the other, entitled
"India and England," is from the London monthly
India and is signed "C.S.B." So similar are the topics discussed in these
interviews that one cannot but suspect that there was but one
conversation written up in two different ways by "C.S.B."

p. 238 * By July I4, the date of Swamiji's departure for Switzerland had
been moved ahead to Sunday, July I9 (see Complete Works, 5:IO9). The
trip was very likely postponed for one day so that he could accept the
invitation to preside at the London Hindu Association on July 18.
p. 240 * Mrs. Bull's mention in her note to Swamiji that he and Sturdy
were "members" without indicating what they were members of was
typical. She seems never
to have clarified the point. Receiving Swamiji's letter of July I8, she
replied, as he was to inform Sturdy in a letter dated August 23 from
Lucerne, that she regretted they "could not be corresponding members
of some Society she is founding at Cambridge." "I do [not] remember to
have written to her about your and my non-acquiescence in this
membership," he added. "I have not yet been able to write even a
line" (Completc Works, 5:II3). He wrote to Mrs. Bull from Lucerne on the
same day, "I do not know what membership you mean. I have no [?]
objection to
have my name to be put on the list of membership of any society. As for
Sturdy I did not know what his opinions are" (ibid., 6:370). (In Swamiji's
original letter (Sen Col.) the words "no objection" are clearly written.
But he had as clearly written in his letter of July I8, I896, to Mrs. Bull that
as a sannyasin he
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p. 240 (cont) did indeed have an objection: "I [,] as you well know [,] cannot
become a member of any society." How one is to resolve this apparent
contradiction, I do not know.) The "society" Mrs. Bull had in mind was most
likely the Cambridge Conferences-lecture courses which she was organizing
with Dr. Lewis G. Janes as Director (see note for page 342, chapter fourteen).
Swamiji knew and approved of this project, although he had probably not
thought of it as a society.
p. 241 * The cheap Indian edition of Raja Yoga, which, came out in Madras in
I898, was to cause Mr. Slurdy considerable distress. "If we allowed anybody to
print and undersell our books as soon as they were becoming successful no
decent publisher would deal with us," he wrote to Mrs. Bull inJuly of I898. "I
gather from Swamiji's short note to me that he did authorize the Madras Edition.
I can only write to Longmans and apologize. They seem not to put the book in
any of their lists nor to push it in any way in England now, having I suppose
become disgusted with the whole business" (A.A.).
As for America, Longmans, Green, and Company had not copyrighted the book
there. The New York Vedanta Society was legally free, therefore, to bring out an
edition through another publisher. The first American edition appeared in I897
under the title Vedanta Philosophy: Lectures by the Swami Vivekananda on Raja
Yoga and Other Subjects. The "other subjects" were Swamiji's lecture
"Immortality" and the text of his book Bhakti Yoga. Swamiji's appendix to the
London Raja Yoga was unchanged, but the glossary was much enlarged by
Swami Abhedananda to serve the entire text of the American edition.

246
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EUROPEAN TOUR, SUMMER 1896

For serenity, remoteness, and beauty, the Swiss Alps were

probably as close to the Himalayas as one could come without
leaving the Western Hemisphere. Particularly was this true in the
1890s when tourists-though plentiful enough-had not yet
descended (or ascended) en masse upon the lovely mountain
valleys. The little villages were hard to get to; yet at the same
time they contained comfortable Victorian hotels, built to
accommodate a few dedicated European and English view-lovers
and mountain-climbers.
In his valuable article "Vivekananda in Switzerland, 1896"
Swami Vidyatmananda has traced in vivid detail Swamiji’s Swiss
tour-uphill and down, over high mountain passes, alongside
torrents, and across glaciers, in horse-drawn stagecoaches, or
diligences, on muleback, on foot, and by train. Much of his
information was gathered through firsthand research, for he
followed in Swamiji's footsteps, making use of old guide books to
recreate the scenes, routes, and conditions of the 1890s. Since
Vidyatmananda's article has been published in the Prabuddha
Bharata,1 the detailed information it provides need not be
repeated here, but its author's careful research will nonetheless be
of help to us in following Swamiji on his Alpine tour-a tour that
he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed-"constantly on the move
getting a much needed rest."2
The party of four-Swamiji, Captain and Mrs. Sevier, and Miss
Henrietta Muller-left Dover on Sunday afternoon, July 19, and
crossed the English Channel to Calais. From there they went by
train to Paris, where they spent the night
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247
in a hotel, the name of which is lost to us. The following day the
party entrained for Geneva. There they took accommodations in a
hotel overlooking Lake Leman, the largest lake in Western
Europe, long, narrow, and fed by the waters of the, Rhone. They
were now in sight of the Alps; big cities, noise, crowds, pounding
traffic-all such drains on body and nerves belonged to some
distant and forgotten world. Indeed, one might say that it was
here in Geneva that Swamiji's vacation really began. And one of
the first things he did was to go up in a balloon.
This large, hydrogen-inflated sphere, with a passenger basket
hanging below and a long tether for safety, was, to Swamiji, at
least, the main attraction of a national exhibition of Swiss
handicrafts and industrial products then being held in Geneva.
Interested though he was in the Exhibition itself, it was the
balloon that captivated him. In the still hour of sunset, the party
entered the basket-Mrs. Sevier reluctantly, but unable to resist
Swamiji's enthusiasm-and up they went. "Up-up-up!" says the
life. "The balloon sped upwards and upwards, like some great
bird at ease in its own element. The day was perfect, the sunset
itself gorgeous . . . and the balloon sailed steadily and smoothly in
the evening air."3 It was all-too short a ride, and Swamiji so much
enjoyed it that he wanted to go again before night fell. But "other
interests intervened," and the hungry party went to a restaurant
instead.
They stayed for three days in Geneva. Aside from taking the
smooth, silent balloon-ride high above the city, Swamiji bathed
twice in the bracing waters of the Rhone River as they flowed
swiftly from Lake Leman through one of the city's bathhouses.
On another day, the party went on an excursion to the far end of
the lake to visit the Castle of Chillon, made famous by Lord
Byron's poem "The Prisoner of Chillon." Perhaps they followed a
guide from the lovely surroundings of the castle to the "dungeons
deep and old . . . below the surface of the lake," to whose stone
columns the Swiss patriot
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Francois Bonivard had been chained for six years with his two
younger brothers, both of whom died beside him one by one. It
would have seemed a dark and fearful vault to everyone except,
perhaps, to Swamiji, who may have found it as later he would
find another ancient European dungeon-a splendid place to
meditate.
From Geneva the party entered the Alps, and from now on it
would be hard going all the way, requiring careful preparation
and fortitude. And when one considers the enormous quantity of
bulky clothes that people, particularly women, wore in those
days, even on informal vacation, one is staggered by the amount
of luggage that must have gone along with them, adding to the
difficulty of traveling up and down mountains. The party went
from Geneva to the French village of Chamonix partly by train,
but mostly by diligence, an arduous, dusty, and scenically
beautiful journey of more than six hours. Chamonix, even then a
tourists' mecca, was well worth the trip for the sheer
magnificence of its towering setting of granite, snow, and ice.
"Surely," writes one present-day traveler, "there is nothing even
remotely comparable to this cataclysm in the whole of the Alps."4
According to Swami Vidyatmananda's educated guess, the party
made the trip from Geneva to Chamonix on Friday, July 24. It is
probable, then, that Swamiji's letter to Mrs. Bull dated July 25
was written in the shadow of the overwhelmingly near Mont
Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, and it is small wonder
that he wanted "to forget the world entirely." Inasmuch as only
two or three sentences of this letter have been heretofore
published, it is given here in full:

Switzerland
July 25 '96

Dear Mrs. Bull-your letter reached today with the ,£5. As

you see I am now travelling in Switzerland, so it is hard
for me to get my mail regularly.
The printed forms gave me to understand along with
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 your letter the work that is being done in Cambridge. I have
every sympathy with it as you are perfectly aware of.
I got a nice letter from Goodwin about their arrival but
none yet about the work at Greenacre. I required this rest
badly and I will have no time to write anything for the next
two months. I want rest & quite [sic] so you see I can not
send any paper to Greenacre this summer. I am always on
the move. It is hard to get paper &. pen even for I am
travelling in the most lonely nooks and corners of
Switzerland. I want to forget the world entirely at least for
the next two months and practice hard. That is my rest. I am
sorry you could not come to London but everything for the
best. You have seen the Raja Yoga by this time of course.
The mountains and snow have a beautifully quieting
influence on me and I am getting better sleep here than for a
long time.
With everlasting love and gratitude
Yours Vivekananda

P.S. My love to Miss Farmer, Dr. Jain [sic] & all our
friends in Boston & Cambridge.5

Like a boy out of school, Swamiji was by no means lacking in

physical energy. Confronted with the magnificence of Mont
Blanc, he at once wanted to climb to its summit of 15,771 feet.
He was dissuaded, for although, as a travel book says, "the ascent
offers no difficulty for experienced climbers with a guide [two
guides in the 1890s] . . . it is extremely fatiguing: ' Nearby,
however, was the famous Mer-de-Glace, a glacier that could be
more easily crossed than the mountain climbed -though the
crossing was no gentle stroll.
One early morning the party set out. First, they had to climb
for three hours on muleback to reach the glacier itself; then they
made a steep descent to the edge of the ice; next, they crossed the
Mer-de-Glace on foot. It was a stormy "sea" furrowed with high
frozen waves, deep crevasses, and slippery
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troughs. They advanced with the aid of steel-pointed alpenstocks
and spiked soles fastened to their shoes. Miss Muller, who' in her
younger days had thought nothing of tricycling for fifty miles at a
stretch or rowing for twenty and who, moreover, was an old hand
at Alpine climbing, very probably took the glacier in her stride,
cheering the others on. In any event they all managed to reach the
other shore without mishap. But then, as though this crossing,
which took about three quarters of an hour, were not enough,
there was a hair-raising ascent on the other side. This consisted of
a series of extremely narrow paths and stairs roughly hewn across
the sheer face of a precipice and unrailed on their outer edge. This
upward passage was called the "Mauvais Pas." Swami
Vidyatmananda points out that the name means simply "tight
corner" or "awkward situation" and not, as Mark Twain would
more feelingly have it, "the villainons road." But it was a tight
corner indeed in which to have vertigo. And a spell of vertigo
overcame Swamiji on the face of that precipice, with nothing
between him and the frozen "sea" far below. His foot slipped
several times, the first edition of the Life recounts, and one can
imagine that each time the hearts of his companions stopped.
After about forty-five minutes of this harrowing ascent, the party
reached a little chalet at the summit, where they had a restoring
cup of coffee and a blessed rest.
Swamiji had very much wanted to cross a glacier, and it would
appear that he enjoyed the adventure, and surely also the
awesome and silent majesty of the glacier itself. On the way back
to Chamonix (a relatively easy route negotiated on muleback), he
seems to have been in high spirits, talking warmly of the
similarity between the Alpine peasants and those of the
Himalayas. Then he went on to speak of the sacred Himalayas
themselves and of his longing to establish a monastery there.
According to the Life, this was the first time the Seviers had
heard of Swamiji's dream of a Himalayan ashrama. But
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one finds that in a letter to the Hale sisters, dated July 7, well over
a week before leaving London, he had written, "Later on, towards
the end of winter, I expect to go to India with some English
friends who are going to live in my monastery there, which, by
the by, is in the air yet. It is struggling to materialize somewhere
in the Himalayas."6 It would appear from this that Swamiji had
already discussed his plan for a Himalayan Math (monastery)
with the Seviers-though perhaps not in such detail as now, with
snow peaks all around and in the air the fragrance of pine and
larch.
From Chamonix the party visited the monastery and hospice
of Little St. Bernard, which was run by Augustinian Canons,
assisted "by lay-brothers and the famous St. Bernard dogs." Little
St. Bernard should not be confused with its farbetter-known
brother-hospice, Great St. Bernard, situated on the high and
much-traveled Alpine pass of the same name. Little St. Bernard is
in the Graian Alps between France and Italy, about twenty-five
mild south of Chamonix as the crow flies. That crow could
probably make the trip in one or two unhurried hours, but for
human beings in the 1890s Little St. Bernard was an arduous two-
day trek from Chamonix. Swami Vidyatmananda has described
the probable 1895 route in interesting detail. To quote briefly,
"Much of the trip was done by following bridle paths [on
horseback or on mules] which edged mountain torrents. At least
two passes of more than ten thousand feet had to be traversed.
But there were inns along the route. The [second] day a guide
would be necessary . . . since one went along the edge of
glaciers."7
The swami suggests that it was because of' Swamiji’s interest
at the time in mountain monasteries that he journeyed to thin
unlikely, far-out-of the-way place. Certainly, it was not for the
scenery; for, like that of Great St. Bernard, the scenic aspect of
Little St. Bernard is bleak, both being above the timberline. This
is not to say that bleakness in itself does not have its austere
beauty; it is only to say that one would not go so long and hard a
way for that sight alone. Rather, it was, surely,
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the monastery-the lonely monastery in the high mountains -that
called to Swamiji. The stone buildings were as austere as their
surroundings, but their monks were warmly welcoming to the
travelers-for to render aid to those who needed it was one of their
ways of serving God. Swamiji very likely talked at length with
the abbot then in charge--Abbe Pierre Chanoux, who, Swami
Vidyatmananda tells us, was a selfless and well-loved pastor to
the simple mountain villagers.
The only thing we know about this visit is that the romping St.
Bernard puppies, who had been born there and who, no doubt,
assisted in welcoming the guests, won Swamiji's heart. He very
much wanted to buy one-most probably for his Himalayan
ashrama. But there was a long way to go to the Himalayas, and
one wonders what he, or anyone else, would have done with an
enthusiastic St. Bernard puppy in London, or what that heavy-
coated puppy would have done in, say, Madras. "Fortunately," the
life remarks, the puppies had already been sold . 8
Since Swamiji no doubt followed the long trail to Little St.
Bernard with his future Himalayan Math in mind, let us take time
out here to recall what is known of his thoughts on the subject-
what he wanted the Himalayan centre to represent, what part he
wanted it to play in his overall world mission.

As we have seen at the beginning of this book, Swamiji had

wanted in the summer of 1895 to train into "practical Advaita
realisation a small band of men and women" at Thousand Island
Park. "It is the patient upbuilding of character," he had written to
Sturdy in this connection, "the intense struggle to realise the
truth; that and that alone will tell in the future of humanity."9 One
might say that the cottage at Thousand Island Park, where for
more than six weeks Swamiji taught and trained a few men and
women-monastics and householders alike-was the seed, as it
were, of a permanent Advaita
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Ashrama which, situated at the top of the world, would serve all
who could climb to its heights and remain there. Indeed, to create
men and women of Advaitic realization was (according to
himself) the very crux of Swamiji's mission. Even a few such
people, he often said, would revolutionize the entire world. It is
very possible, therefore, that a permanent, firmly established, and
all-welcoming Advaita Ashrama in the Himalayas had been in his
mind at least from early in 1895, when the practical working out
of his world mission seems to have taken definite, conscious
shape in his mind. It was this longthought-out plan to which he
gave voice in the Alps, the "miniature Himalayas," where his
spirit soared. The Iife quotes him (through Mrs. Sevier's first-
hand memory) as having said:

... It [the Himalayan Monastery] will be a centre for work

and meditation, where my Indian and Western disciples can
live together, and them I shall train as workers, the former to
go out as preachers of Vedanta to the West, and the latter to
devote their lives to the good of India.10.

Two or three years later, shortly after the Seviers had found
and purchased an old Himalayan tea plantation, where the
Advaita Ashrama was to be established, Swamiji would clearly
define its general purpose and scope. In March of 1899 he sent to
his disciple Swami Swarupananda, who was then editing the
Prabuddha Bharata, four paragraphs to be published together
with matter he had already approved. It was his prospectus for the
Ashrama. Attached to it was the following note, heretofore
unpublished:

My dear S[warupananda].
I have no objection whether Mrs. Sevier's name goes on
top or mine or anybody else's, the prospectus ought to go in
the name of the Sevier's, mustering my name
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 also if necessary. I send you a few lines for your considera-
tion in the prospectus. The rest are all right.
I will soon send the draft deed.11
V.

In the January 1900 issue of Prabuddha Bharata, by then

being printed at Mayavati itself, the above-mentioned prospectus
appeared. The first four paragraphs (barring the last phrase of the
third) are those Swamiji had sent to Swami Swarupananda. The
prospectus read in full:

THE ADVAITA ASHRAMA

HIMALAYAS.

In Whom is the Universe, Who is in the Universe, Who is

the Universe; in Whom is the Soul, Who is in the Soul, Who
is the Soul of man; knowing him-and therefore the Universe
as our Self, alone extinguishes all fear, brings an end to
misery and leads to Infinite Freedom. Wherever there has
been expansion in love or progress in well-being, of
individuals or numbers, it has been through the perception,
realisation and the practicalisation of the Eternal Truth,_
THE ONENESS OF ALL BEINGS. "Dependence is misery,
Independence is happiness." The Advaita is the only system
which gives unto man complete possession of himself, takes
off all dependence and its associated superstitions, thus
making us brave to suffer, brave to do, and in the long run
attain to Absolute Freedom.
Hitherto it has not been possible to preach this Noble
Truth entirely free from the settings of dualistic weakness;
this alone we are convinced explains why it has not been
more operative and useful to mankind at large.
To give this ONE TRUTH, a freer and fuller scope in
elevating the lives of individuals and leavening the mass of
mankind, we start the Advaita Ashrama on the Himalayan
heights, the land of its first expiration, with the
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 fullest approval and under the guidance of the Swami
Vivekananda.
Here it is hoped to keep Advaita free from all supersti-
tions and weakening contaminations. Here will be taught
and practised nothing but the Doctrine of Unity, pure and
simple; and though in entire sympathy with all other
systems, this Ashrama is dedicated to Advaita and Advaita
alone.12
The main lines along which the work is to be carried on
are necessarily educational and consist of sending out
trained teachers and issuing publications. Arrangements,
therefore, are in course of progress for training Indian and
European men and women side by side, for Advaita work in
the East and the West. All men and women who believe in
the uplifting power of the Advaita and are ready to make
their lives one with the GREAT LIFE and to help others in
doing so, are invited to join the Ashrama and assist in the
carrying out of its object in the manner best suited to each
individual circumstances.13
Swarupananda.
(Mrs.) C. E. Sevier.
J. H. Sevier.

It would seem clear that Swamiji wanted the Advaita Ashrama

at Mayavati to be a center of intensive spiritual and intellectual
study which would train men and women to become true
Advaitins. He seems to have wanted particularly a mingling here
of East and West, and, as well, of householders and monastics.
Above all, he wanted to make great human beings, whatever their
sex, nationality, or station in life might be-human beings who
"shall arise and cast off these kindergartens of religion and shall
make vivid and powerful the true religion, the worship of the
spirit by the spirit"14 Indeed, the Ashrama would be in essence
like an ancient Upanishadic forest-school-but it would be for the
entire world.
In April of 1900, a few months after the publication of the
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above prospectus, Swamiji spoke of the establishment of Advaita
Ashrama at Mayavati as the very heart of his world mission. In
his San Francisco lecture "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?"..
(from which comes the quotation in the above paragraph) he left
no question in anyone's mind that he wished, as the servant and
messenger of Sri Ramakrishna, to bring not a new philosophy but
a new method of spiritual practice into the world at large. The
following passages from Swamiji's lecture will be familiar to
many readers, but let us quote them here anyhow, for they
constitute a sort of manifesto:

If Vedanta-this conscious knowledge that all is one spirit-

spreads, the whole of humanity Will become spiritual. But is
it possible? I do not know. Not within thousands of years.
The old superstitions must run out. You are all interested in
how to perpetuate all your superstitions. Then there are the
ideas of the family brother, the caste brother, the national
brother. All these are barriers to the realisation of Vedanta.
Religion has been religion to very few. . . .
There is another side to the question. Everyone says that
the highest, the pure truth cannot be realised all at once by
all, that men have to be led to it gradually through worship,
prayer, and other kinds of prevalent religious practices. I am
not sure whether that is the right method or not. In India I
work both ways.
In Calcutta, I have all these images and temples-in the
name of Cod and the Vedas, of the Bible and Christ and
Buddha. Let it be tried. But in the heights of the Himalayas I
have a place where I am determined nothing shall enter
except pure truth. There I want to work out this idea about
which I have spoken to you today [the teaching of Advaita
Vedanta]. There are an Englishman and an Englishwoman in
charge of the place. The purpose is to train seekers of truth
and to bring up children
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 without fear and without superstition. They shall not hear
about Christs and Buddhas and Shivas and Vishnus -none of
these. They shall learn, from the start, to stand upon their
own feet. They shall learn from their childhood that God is
the spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
Everyone must be looked upon as spirit. That is the ideal. I
do not know what success will come of it. Today I am
preaching the thing I like. I wish I had been brought up
entirely on that, without all the dualistic superstitions. . . .
I am the servant of a man who has passed away. I am
only the messenger. I want to make the experiment. The
teachings of Vedanta I have told you about were never really
experimented with before. Although Vedanta is the oldest
philosophy in the world, it has always become mixed up
with superstitions and everything else.15

In June of 1900 there appeared in Prabuddha Bharata a more

or less detailed plan of how Swamiji's experiment would be
carried out. Inasmuch as this article was published during his
absence in America, it was very probably not written by him; nor
does it seem to be in his style. But however that may be, the
article lays down qualifications for membership at Advaita
Ashrama and describes the proposed regime; the requirements
were necessarily strict and rigorous. The article read in part as
follows:

THE ADVAITA ASHRAMA:

A Few Explanatory Words.

The Ashrama aims at helping with its best might, such

men as sincerely long for a life truly suited for the culture of
deep spiritual instincts abiding in the human heart. While
believing naturally in the elevating power of all systems of
religion and allowing its members full liberty to choose and
follow their own ways of upasana, the Philosophy of
Advaita-which derives its support not
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only from the simple unequivocal text of the Srutis but also
From the results of modern scientific research-forms the
basic principle of its thought and action. . . .
Those only who struggle to be entirely free from sensual
appetites are capable of walking on the path, "sharp like the
edge of a razor and pronounced extremely difficult by the
wise." The Ashrama, therefore, lays down, as the first
condition for membership, the rule that every member
should take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
This excludes all those who have not that true longing for
spirituality which ever delights in the freedom of
renunciation. It also precludes the possibility of the members
having to bear their own expenses of living in the Ashrama.
. . . [It is enjoined] upon every one of the members to
give that respect and toleration to the habits and religious
opinions of others, which he would they should accord to
his, and to practise in daily life his belief in the Brotherhood
of man and the Selfhood of all.
Now, as everything depends upon a strong physique, and
as a good climate and moderate exercise almost ensure it to
those whose habits are regulated by strict discipline, the
Ashrama deems it wise to have some of its manual work
done by the members. . . .
Study would form another important and necessary
occupation of the members. The usefulness of discriminate
study in an institution of this character cannot be too much
emphasized. It prevents the spirit of religion from lapsing
into dead formalities and weakening superstitions, by
bringing the touchstone of a refined understanding to bear
upon whatever comes in its garb and lifts the mind
pleasantly and unconsciously from the senseplane to the
region illumined with exalted thought. . . .
The last, though not the least object to be particularly
attended to by the members of the Advaita Ashrama, is
Yoga. This is the channel through which the energy
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 acquired by judiciously following the disciplinary methods
indicated above, should be directed in order that they may
lead up to the highest point of spiritual evolution and ground
the character firmly on the adamantine rock of conviction,
gained through practical experience in spiritual truths.
Those Sannyasin members of the Ashrama who can give
satisfactory testimony of their abilities-physical, intellectual
and spiritual-to take the responsible position of teachers, will
be sent out to teach what they themselves have learnt by
study, meditation and Yoga. "Example is better than
precept," and the Ashrama will always look to the all-sided
development of the members as its sole concern, rather than
seek to swell its body by indiscriminate admission.
But as the Advaita Ashrama believes that a single day
spent in religious discipline in the company of men leading a
higher life, may leave impressions capable of proving a
tower of strength in trying circumstances, it will gladly
admit members who have a mind to take up the house-
holder's life, after making them, to some extent, fit for its
heavy responsibilities by receiving some training in the
Ashrama. It should be clearly understood that during the
period of training these members will have to abide strictly
by the rules stated above.16
Four months after Swamiji's death in July of 1902, the
following began to appear inside the front cover of almost every
issue of Prabuddha Bharata from November 1902 through April
1905:

THE ADVAITA ASHRAMA

OBJECTS

1. Study and practice towards realisation of the

Advaita Vedanta-the Oneness of Existence.
2. Training of Brahmacharins and Sannyasins to carry
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 the Gospel of Advaita to all men in all lands.
The Advaita Ashrama is situated in a secluded spot
amidst some of thc loveliest of Himalayan Sceneries. The
climate is one of the best in India. . . .
Brahmacharins are admitted as inmates for training under
the rules of the Ashrama. Attempts will be made to make
special arrangements for the residence in the Ashrama,
temporarily or permanently, of Vanaprasthas, Householders
and others, on application.
All particulars will be gladly furnished on enquiry by the
manager of this paper.

Perhaps no householders applied, or perhaps because of the

limited accommodations at Mayavati it was found impossible to
arrange For their temporary or permanent residence in the
Ashrama. In any event, this part of the original prospectus faded
out. But most of Swamiji's ideas were put into practice.
Prabuddha Bharata has been regularly edited at Mayavati for
more than three-fourths of a century; many male monastics have
been trained there who have then gone out to teach, some in the
West; Western brahmacharins are admitted for training; above all,
the principles of Advaita Vedanta have been kept pure, no
"dualistic weakness" befogging them.
This last and most important of Swamiji's ideas was almost
destroyed at the very outset and but for his actual presence at
Mayavati might have become an unrealized dream. It is recounted
that by the time he visited the Ashrama in 1901 the daily
ritualistic (albeit simple) worship of Sri Ramakrishna was being
performed in a room dedicated to the purpose. "When Swamiji
became aware of this," one account reads, "he vehemently
reproached Mother Sevier and Swarupananda, pointing out that in
this Ashrama only the Advaita way of life was to be lived, and
Puja (ritual worship) was against the regulations." 17 Although
Swamiji did not give an order to remove the shrine, his meaning
was no doubt perfectly clear, and the worship was soon
discontinued. Some who were
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devotionally inclined may have felt uneasy living at a shrineless
ashrama, but to one who confided his sense of conflict to her, Sri
Sarada Devi (Holy Mother) wrote in September of 1902, "One
who is our Guru [Sri Ramakrishna] is [all] Advaita. You are all
His disciples. So you too are Advaitavadins.18
To return to Switzerland, where the idea for the Ashrama
began to take form, so certain was Swamiji of what he wanted
that he at once set the wheels in motion. To his friend Lala Badri
Sah of Almora he wrote on August 5, after his visit to Little St.
Bernard, "I want to start a Math at Almora or near Almora rather.
I have heard that there was a certain Mr. Ramsay who lived in a
bungalow near Almora and that he had a garden round his
bungalow. Can't it be bought? What is the price? If not to be
bought, can it be rented? Do you know of any suitable place near
Almora where I can build my monastery with a garden etc.? I
would rather like to have a hill all to myself. Hoping to get an
early reply."19
In November Swamiji would write again to Badri Sah, this
time even more specifically, "We want a whole hill, with a view
of the snow-range, all to ourselves."20 It was as though he were
visualizing the property that would be later found at Mayavati and
exactly describing it.

From Little St. Bernard the party returned to Chamonix by the

same route they had come-there was no other. From Chamonix
they now went on to Zermatt in the Valais Alps, a hard trip by
diligence and train of a day and a half, with a stop over at
Martigny.* The village of Zermatt was famous for its view of the
great Matterhorn that towered above it like some majestic and
incredibly steep rock-pyramid (14,700 feet above sea level). From
the village one could go on excursions up nearby mountains for
even closer, more awe-inspiring views. One such trip was a
comparatively gentle climb on
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muleback up the Riflieberg, from which one enjoyed, as one
ascended, ever finer and fuller sights of the Matterhorn and the
Gornergrat. But from the Gornergrat itself, a higher mountain
than the Riflleberg, one could have what one guide book
describes as "one of the most breathtaking panoramic views in all
Switzerland."21 The rack-and-pinion railway that today carries
passengers up the Gornergrat (10,290 feet above sea level) would
not be built until 1898, and Captain Sevier was the only member
of the party to attempt the then strenuous and long ascent. It is
more than probable, however, that the entire party made the
excursion up the Riflieberg and stayed overnight at the summit.
Indeed, we know that Swamiji picked Alpine flowers on the
glacier of Monte Rosa, which is easily accessible from the
summit hotel.
One of these small flowers he sent in a letter (probably on
August 3 or 4) to his disciple Kripananda. "I went to the glacier
of Monte Rosa yesterday," he wrote, "and gathered a few hardy
flowers growing almost in the midst of eternal snow. * I send you
one in this letter hoping that you will attain to a similar spiritual
hardihood amidst all the snow and ice of this earthly life."22
It was an affectionate and heartening letter, written on
impulse. "A few days ago," he wrote to Goodwin on August 8, "I
Felt a sudden irresistible desire to write to Kripananda. Perhaps
he was unhappy and thinking of me. So I wrote him a nice letter.
Today from the American news [he had heard from different
letters "a lot about Kripananda"], I see why it was so. I sent him
flowers gathered near the glaciers. Ask Miss Waldo to send him
some money and plenty of love. Love never dies. The love of the
father never dies, whatever the children may do or be. He is my
child. He has the same or more share in my love and help, now
that he is in misery."23
Kripananda was indeed in misery. In the last chapter we found
him darkly hinting at imminent death in a postscript of a letter
dated July 2. In his next letter to Mrs. Bull, dated
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July 17, in which he expressed relief that she had not voyaged to
England, he made a still more stunning announcement:
I wish to prepare you slowly to the shocking news which
may reach you some of these days to the effect that the
Swami Kripananda has become a bar-tender. I hope you will
not blame me if, driven by necessity, I should grasp at this
only chance to make a living by a profession so humiliating
to the dignity of a religious teacher. All my attempts to
obtain a position as a teacher proved fruitless because of my
affiliation with the Swami Vivekananda, and as I am not yet
far enough advanced in Yoga to live from mere breathing
exercises, I must-bon gre mal gre-resign myself to doing the
lowest kind of work that will help me to keep soul and body
together.24

This was, of course, simply a signal of distress, a cry for

attention after a period of silence from Mrs. Bull. She had not
responded to his talk of dying, but the bartender threat would
have been to her another and a graver matter. She replied at once.
(It is very likely that she also relayed the news in a letter to
Swamiji, which would have been among those to reach him a few
days after he had intuited Kripananda's despair.)
Mrs. Bull's letter to Kripananda was dated July 23 and read in
part:

Dear Kripananda
I have considered your last letter. It indicates physical
want on your part. You do not come out & say directly that
you wish help to live as I have told you I wanted you to do,
when no way opened to you. . . . I will now say that your
comments [in an earlier letter] I read carefully indeed. As I
understand it, you can repudiate the Vedanta wholly and still
be a Sanyasin. [But] the title of Swami verily demands of
you truth to your vow of
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 chastity & poverty-the former in thought, word and deed. If
a Sanyasin fails in this there is no recovery on his part as a
teacher in India, I have understood, as he is supposed to take
the vow with a full understanding, and if he fail to hold it, he
is held more responsible in his failure than the ordinary man.
To stand behind a drinking bar means, with us, to serve
the stimulant which is directly connected with impurity of
life and deed.
If you ever say to me that you need bread and clothes I
will always hope to have some ways and means to supply
you as a Sanyasin. But if you differ ever with Vivekananda's
teaching as to the two essentials of poverty and chastity, the
latter pure & simple without equivocation of word: or
sophistry in thought, word or deed, then I would hold you,
as I would him, unfit to help others. You know him to be a
Gnana, and yet you as a student of his you publicly
denounce Gnana-while you claim to be a teacher of Vedanta
& the Yogas. Your manner of this announcement was not to
my mind in the true spirit of respect & sincerity.
Vivekananda asks obedience of his students, only to these
ideals they voluntarily assume, not to his teachings, if I
understand him. Will you answer me directly if concerning
the life & teachings of the Sanyasin you differ from him? I
send enclosed for your personal need. That I ask this in the
spirit of a friend who would wish to serve you in any moral,
physical or spiritual need, I believe you will acknowledge to
yourself.25
In reply, Kripananda returned Mrs. Bull's check along with ten
pages of bitter vituperation in elegant Spencerian script. In the
course of this letter, dated July 27, he wrote:

In spite of all the difficulties I have carried on the work

till the last of June, and only closed the meetings
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 for lack of attendance on account of the heat. It will interest
you to learn that all my returns for my spiritual teachings
was in the neighborhood of $25, rather less than more. The
reason for this small income was probably that people
thought my expenses were paid by a committee, somewhere
in the moon. Some ladies gave me also flowers. That this
was not sufficient to keep body and soul together, you. will
readily agree with me. If it had not been for the kindness of
Miss Hamilton, a poor girl who works as typewriter in an
office, I would have perished long ago. 26

What Kripananda did not know was that Mrs. Bull had for
some time been corresponding with Miss Martha Hamilton,
whom she had met at Greenacre, and had sent her fifty dollars (a
fair sum in those days) for his personal needs. Miss Hamilton was
sworn to secrecy. "Certainly," she wrote in one of her letters to
Mrs. Bull, "your desire to remain unknown in regard to sending
the money for K. shall be respected. He shall never know unless
you wish it."27
In one of the less angry portions of his long letter Kripananda
wrote with total sincerity:

Whatever my relation to the Swami may be, of one thing

you may be sure, that I shall not break my vows once taken,
as they are too sacred to me as to trifle with them. You know
that I always insisted upon living the life, and whatever my
enemies may say about me they will never have occasion to
say that Kripananda was unchaste or wallowed in wealth.
And now as to the bar-tender affair. I have found another
and better way of making my living, which, I trust, will meet
with your fullest approval.
I believe I mentioned to you that for years I had been
working at the construction of a certain apparatus for
curative purposes.28
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 He went on to describe the apparatus he had invented ten years
earlier. It involved "odic-force" or electric waves, which were
"fifteen million times longer than the light waves" and which, he
theorized, "were identical with the waves produced by the
mesmerizer with his passes on his subject."
"Now in my embarrassment of getting a livelyhood," he wrote,
"I again thought of my invention. After pawning my superfluous
clothes (and there was not much of it) and with the kind
assistance of Miss Hamilton-God bless her soul, if not for her I
would have perished long ago-I succeeded in roughly getting up
my apparatus. My first tests exceeded all my expectations:"29
The Odomotor, as it was called, was a most remarkable
machine. Not only was it capable (Kripananda claimed) of curing
cancer, palsy, general disability, and all the other diseases and
malfunctions that such "electro-magnetic" devices were said in
those days to cure, but it had an extra special potential: with a few
improvements, it would also "produce Trance or that state of the
Yogi called Samadhi." So far, Kripananda had treated three
grateful patients, the first of whom was Miss Hamilton. Indeed,
Mrs. Bull had known for some time all about the Odomotor from
that young lady, who was, to be sure, full of kindness and faith
and who, on her tiny salary, had helped in its creation and
promotion.
Kripananda closed his letter to Mrs. Bull with an apology for
its long pages of rudeness and "bitter utterances," which had
struck as harshly at Swamiji as at Mrs. Bull herself. "I had the
intention to rewrite this letter," he told her, "but after second
thought I concluded to let it go as it is. You are so good that you
will forgive your naughty child for his rudeness. Will you?"
This time she would not. Mrs. Bull replied to Kripananda, but
she addressed him as "Leon Landsberg." "For so I must call you
now," she wrote, "and I must also, having given you the
opportunity to write me without reserve speak to you in
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sincerity and truth without reserve." Her letter, the date of which,
all things considered, was probably August 1 or 2, then
continued:

Asking as you have my motherly service and protection

in the spiritual sense, I must demand on your part that
sincerity and truthfulness that acknowledges sin as virtue to
the one whom motherly service is invoked.
This you have denied me. You have broken not only your
Sanyasin vow of charitableness, but of pure thought and
speech. You have tampered with unclean books & taught
from them. [This was a reference to the "Tattvas" (see
chapter eight).]
If a way has opened to you to heal the bodies of men
thank God reverently and, while serving others, pray for the
beginning of that child-like purity and love that shall redeem
and regenerate your own soul. I charge you henceforth to
offer yourself to no living soul as a religious teacher. This
charge is to your own salvation, and the penalty one that will
consume [illegible] of your being dedicated to the pure
flame of Ram Krishna's life and teachings.
Renouncing your Sanyasin name, I can then in the spirit
of truth receive you in all unchanged kindness and
protection.30
This high-handed and devastating letter, which Kripananda
did not answer, was the last in their long correspondence. Mrs.
Bull continued to receive news of him from Martha Hamilton and
continued to help him in indirect and covert ways, but her esteem
and her personal kindness, which had meant so much to him, he
had lost. He received the blow of her last letter in the first days of
August, just around the time that Swamiji in Switzerland heard,
as it were, his cry of pain and sent him his blessings. In his letter
of August 8 to Goodwin Swamiji wrote in connection with
Kripananda: "It is in the
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nature of things that many should fall, that troubles should come,
that tremendous difficulties should arise, that selfishness and all
the other devils in the human heart should struggle hard when
they are about to be driven out by the fire of spirituality. The road
to the Good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a
wonder that so many succeed, no wonder that so many fall.
Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles."31
On that roughest and steepest road in the universe, Kripananda
was indeed stumbling at this period of his ascent, but there were
also moments of accomplishment, and of these Swamiji took
greater notice than he did of the falls. In its issue of September
:12, 1896, the Brahmavadin published the first part of a four part
article by Kripananda entitled "The Talmud: Its Ethics, Doctrines,
and Sayings," which he may have sent on during his stay in
Detroit. Reading the first installment, Swamiji would be highly
pleased. On October 8 he would write to Miss Waldo from
England: "I send you two letters one for Krip[ananda] the other
for Abh[ayananda]. Kindly see that they reach them. K's article in
the Brahmavadin has been magnificent:'32

From Zermatt, where Swamiji gathered a few Alpine flowers

by the Monte Rosa glacier, the party traveled to Saas-Fee, another
village in another of the steep lateral valleys of exceptional
beauty that lead at right angles from the Rhone Valley deep into
the northern slopes of the Valais (or Pennine) Alps. To get from
Zermatt to Saas-Fee, the party had to return by train to Stalden
and then backtrack by mule into the Saas Valley by a roughly
parallel route. From a portion of a letter written by Swamiji to
Mr. Sturdy it would appear that the party had at first intended to
stay at Saas-Grund (or Saas im Grund), the largest village in the
valley. This letter, which is undated but which is clearly
Swamiji's first to Sturdy from
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the Grand Hotel at Saas-Fee, opens with the following heretofore
unpublished words:
Blessed and beloved: I hope everything is going on very
well with you. .
We have changed the Saas Grund Hotel and have come
up a few thousand feet more to Saas-Fee and here we mean
to rest a few weeks.33
(Swamiji was not good at figures. Saas-Fee is about 80o feet
above Saas-Grund, which is itself only 5,125 feet above sea
level.) Except for four hotels, Saas-Fee was a cluster of timbered
chalets, nestled among glaciers and high snow peaks. "There is
not a lovelier spot in Switzerland," a traveler wrote in 1856,
"emerald meadows set in frosted silver; glaciers descending from
the Alphubel and the Mischabelhorner."34 In the summer months
gentle cows grazed on those emerald meadows, their cowbells
chiming with the sound of peace.
Swamiji's stay of two weeks in Saas-Fee-from around August
4 to August 19-was, in respect to the rest he had so badly wanted,
the highlight of his European tour. "I want to forget the world
entirely at least for the next two months and practice hard. That is
my rest,"35 he had written to Mrs. Bull on July 25, a week or so
before reaching the village,* and as though in response to that
need, the party had been guided there.
One of the letters that most clearly bespoke his state of mind
during the August days at Saas-Fee was written to Christina
Greenstidel on August 5, shortly after his arrival. This letter has
been published in Prabuddha Bharata, but it is given here in full,
for through its words one can trace his soaring mood:

Blessed and beloved-Surrounded on all sides by eternal

snow peaks, sitting on the grass in a beautiful wood-my
thoughts go to those I love-so I write.
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 I am in Switzerland constantly on the move getting a
much needed rest. It is a miniature Himalayas-and has the
same effect of raising the mind up to the Self-and driving all
earthly feelings & ties. I am intensely enjoying it I feel so so
uplifted-I can not write but I wish you will have the same for
ever-when your feet do not want as it were to touch *he
material earth-when the soul finds itself floating as it were in
an ocean of spirituality.
Prof Max Muller has written in the 19th Century an
article on my Master-read it if you can August number. I
hope you are enjoying this beautiful summer and are
perfectly rested after hard work. My love to all-blessing to
all
Yours ever with love & blessings 36
Vivekananda
In this letter Swamiji also enclosed some Alpine flowers.
Mentioning them in a postscript, he used almost the same words
as to Kripananda, for Christina's life, too was, in its way, one of
hardship and struggle. His flowers were a prayer that she would
"attain spiritual hardihood amidst all the snows and ice of this
life."
The published portion of Swamiji's letter to Sturdy, written
most likely on August 4, also expressed his joy at the marvelous
meadows and glaciers and woods:

I am reading a little, starving a good deal and practising a

good deal more. The strolls in the woods are simply
delicious. We are now situated under three huge glaciers and
the scenery is very beautiful.
By the by, whatever scruples I may have had as to the
Swiss-lake origin of the Aryans have been taken clean off
my mind. The Swiss is a Tartar minus a pigtail. 37
In a second unpublished portion of this same letter, Swamiji
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wrote of various mundane matters, his mind, perhaps by effort,
brought to touch on them. They were not unimportant:

Did you hear anything from America? Is Fox still in

London? Have you found a place [for the fall lectures] yet?
Are you going on with your tapas also?
I will write your introduction to the Magazine by and by,
you need not be anxious.
A letter from Mrs. I. Butler inviting me to their con-
ference at Berne reached yesterday. I have just written to her
accepting the invitation. Miss Muller and the Seviers send
their love. My love to Mrs. Sturdy arid the other friends. 38

On the morning of August 5 Swamiji received a cordial letter

from Professor Max Muller, dated August 2, 1896, and written
from Droitwick, a small town in Worcester County, England. It is
given here in full:

Dear Swami Vivekananda,

I am glad that my article on Ramakrishna Paramahansa
has appeared at last in the August number of the XIX
Century. I should be glad to know whether on the whole you
agree with what I have said. I hope, anyhow, that it may
produce a good effect in England, and in other countries,
too, for the XIX Cent. is very widely read.
I should like to know what your and Mr. Sturdy's plans
are. You may have heard of a lady who offered to assist a
Vedantic Journal in England with £1000. I wrote to say that
I should always be glad to help, but that in order to live and
to be really influential, a new Review would want more
capital. You could not get the writers you want, unless you
pay them what other Reviews pay; even then, it is a favour
their writing for you, because they are more widely read in
the old Reviews. I have watched the struggles of several
Reviews
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 in England, I am watching one now; and I am afraid it is
useless to fight against the power of Mammon with any
weapons but his own. It seems to me but yesterday [it was
May 28, 1896] that I saw you. at Oxford and today I see an
account of your visit, sent from England to Madras, printed
there [in the Brahmavadin], and now returned to England!
Who would have believed that possible a hundred years ago.
Thanks for all the kind things you say of me-I only wish I
were younger and better able to help you. Studying Sanskrit
fifty years ago was very different from what it is now; it was
slow work, one had to make the tools oneself, before one
could set to work. The time I had to spend on copying and
collecting the Rig-Veda, and, still more, on editing Sayana's
commentary, was very great. Now everything is ready at
hand. The same with the Vedanta Sutras and the com-
mentary. We have now excellent editions and translations.
But I can assure you, when I began nearly 50 years ago, the
first chapter of Sankara's commentary took me months, and
even then I could not always find the thread of his argument.
Deussen's translation and Thibaut's in the S.B.E. [Sacred
Books of the East] will save students of the Vedanta years of
hard work.
I think that a fuller account of Ramakrishna might bc
useful, if there are sufficient materials. Only, not everything
that interests us and people in India will interest the English
public. Even Ramakrishna's `sayings' will have to be sifted
so as to avoid offending the taste of readers in Europe.
I shall have to stay here for another fortnight; then hope
to return to my quiet Asrama at Oxford.
Yours sincerely,39
F. Max Muller*

Receiving the above, Swamiji wrote to Mr. Sturdy on August

5, "A letter came this morning from Professor Max
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Muller telling me that the article on Shri Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa has been published in The XIX Century August
number. . . . You will see from his letter which I shall send you as
soon as I have replied (after reading The XIX Century) that he is
very much pleased with our movement and is ready to help it as
much as he can."40
In a postscript Swamiji encouraged Mr. Sturdy to start the "big
magazine," in England, for which Max Muller promised help.
"Some money can be raised in America," he wrote, "and we can
keep the magazine all to ourselves at the same time. . . . `A great
tree is to be taken refuge in, when it has both fruits and shade. If,
however, we do not get the fruit, who prevents our enjoyment of
the shade?' So ought great attempts to be made, is the moral." 41
A few days later Swamiji received at Saas-Fee a copy of the
Nineteenth Century and was much pleased with the Professor's
article. "I have read Max Muller's article, which is a good one,"
he wrote to Alasinga on August 8, "considering that when he
wrote it, six months ago, he had no material except Mazoomdar's
leaflet. Now he writes me a long and nice letter offering to write a
book on Shri Ramakrishna. I have already supplied him with
much material, but a good deal more is needed from India."42
Things looked promising. But of Max Muller there will be
more to say later on.
While a part of Swamiji's mind may have been concerned with
magazines and books and the course of his work in both India and
the West, ninety-nine percent of it was, it would seem, immersed
in the God-consciousness he so readily entered whenever the
pressure of daily work was removed. A letter written to Goodwin
on August 8 (a day on which he also wrote to Mr. Sturdy and
Alasinga of practical matters) seems to have been written from
just this side of samadhi.

I am much refreshed now. I look out of the window and

see the huge glaciers just before me and feel that I
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 am in the Himalayas. I am quite calm. My nerves have
regained their accustomed strength; and little vexations like
those you write of [from America], do not touch me at all.
How shall I be disturbed by this child's play? The whole
world is a mere child's play-preaching, teaching, and all
included. "Know him to be the Sannyasin who neither hates
nor desires." And what is there to be desired in this little
mud-puddle of a world, with its 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 now in this beautiful spot. "Having once known that the
Atman alone, and nothing else, exists, desiring what, or for
whose desire, shall you suffer misery about the body."
I feel as if I had my share of experience in what they call
"work". I am finished, I am longing now to get out. 43
Those who were with Swamiji at Saas-Fee were witness to his
transcendent state of consciousness. One cannot do better here
than to quote from the Life, which, in turn, quotes directly from, it
must be, Mrs. Sevier.
A strange quiet obsessed him. He seemed far, far away
from all worldly concerns. . . . Many times he walked
silently on the mountain paths and his friends seemed to be
caught up with him in a world of meditation and of peace.
One of those who were with him in this wondrous fortnight
says, "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!"44
And there was the morning that Swamiji, in gratitude and
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devotion, offered (through Mrs. Sevier, lest his Hinduism cause
offense) a handful of Alpine flowers at the feet of the Virgin
Mary at a small mountain chapel-"For she, also," he said, "is the
Mother."45 His life had just been miraculously saved on a path
that for a stretch skirts a precipice above a mountain torrent. As
he had walked along the edge of the precipice in contemplation
and at some distance behind his companions, his alpenstock
suddenly plunged into a hidden crevice; he lost his balance and,
but for a miracle, would have fallen into the waters far below. It
was on the way home that Swamiji made his offering-perhaps, as
Swami Vidyatmananda suggests, at the Zur Hohen-Stiege, the
largest and oldest of the small chapels along the way and, in the
opinion of Samuel Butler, "of such extreme beauty-the great Fee
glaciers showing through the open portico-that it is in itself worth
a pilgrimage."46
After two world-forgetting weeks in Saas-Fee, where, the Life
recounts, "the Swami . . . was the silent meditating monk of
old,"47 the party left, probably on August 20, for Lucerne. Again
the road was hard and steep, and the way slow. The trip took at
least two days, much of it by diligence, with a stopover at, very
probably, the Rhone Glacier. Lucerne, a charming city in a
beautiful and romantic setting of lake and stormy mountains, is in
almost the exact center of Switzerland. There was much of
interest to be seen in this old and historic town, and although
Swamiji had a bad cold when he arrived, the party "took in" many
of the Famous sights, including the Lion of Lucerne, hewn out of
living sandstone, and the Muhlenbrucke, the medieval covered
bridge across the Reuss, with its interior paintings of the "Dance
of Death"-a series of murals showing death in the form of a
grinning skeleton snatching diverse people from the midst of their
lives at inopportune moments-a theme popular in the Middle
Ages. The party also took a day-long steamer ride on Lake
Lucerne and made an excursion by mountain railway up the Rigi,
then the most famous viewpoint in all of Switzerland.
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 But at this period of the trip Swamiji was not feeling well. To
Sturdy he wrote from Lucerne on August 23, "I am suffering
from a very bad cold indeed. . . . I have not yet been able to write
even a line. I had not a moment's time even to read, climbing up
hill and going down dale all the time. We will have to begin the
march again in a few days."48 And to Mrs. Bull on the same day
he declared his intention to retire from all work for good, indeed
"to depart to return no more to this hell, this world. Even its
religions and its variety is beginning to pall me," he wrote. "May
Mother gather me soon to Herself never to come back any more.
These works, and doing good, etc., are just a little exercise to
cleanse the mind. I have enough of it. This world will be world
ever and always."49 In this letter there was the same longing for
freedom as in that of August 8 to Goodwin, but there was also a
thunderous note. It was evidently in reference to this ominous
mood that Goodwin would write from London on October 21 to
Mrs. Bull, who had no doubt shown him Swamiji's letter, "Both
Sturdy and the Seviers tell me Miss Muller `treated Swami like a
dog' in Switzerland. This will account for the fractious letter he
sent you. He & the Seviers went to Germany alone."50
It is indeed possible that Swamiji had lost patience with Miss
Muller's "violent temper and overbearing conduct and her awfully
vacillating mind,"51 of which he was to warn Margaret Noble the
following year. He had no reason or need to suffer Miss Muller or
anyone or anything else in this world. "Who works?" he wrote in
his letter of August 23 to Mrs. Bull, who had written to him about
money in connection with the New York work, which she was at
that time attempting to reorganize. "Whose work? There is no
world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call [it] world. Neither I
nor thou nor you-it is all He the Lord, all one. So I do not [want]
anything [to do] about money matters [from] this time. It is your
money. You spend it just as you like, and all blessings follow
you."52 And in a postscript, which had to do with a Greenacre
bulletin, the ill-advised wording of which implied
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a possessive attitude in regard to his brother disciple, Swami
Saradananda-an attitude insufferable to him-he wrote, "I am free,
must always be Free. I wish everyone to be free free as the air. . .
. I am as good as retired. I have played my part in the world." 53
Not unnaturally, Mrs. Bull must have been alarmed and dismayed
by Swamiji's scorn of all concern and mission, but one thinks
that, unlike Goodwin, she was far too aware by now of the divine
nature of his independence to have called it "fractious." .
Whether or not the thunderous side of Swamiji's mood was
aggravated by Miss Muller's crankiness, she soon left the party.
This was not, however, an abrupt departure. As early as August 8
Swamiji had written to Sturdy from Saas-Fee, "Miss Muller
thinks that she will go away very soon to England. In that case I
will not be able to go to Berne for that Purity Conference [to
which a Mrs. I. Butler had invited him] as I have promised. Only
if the Seviers consent to take me along, I will go to Kiel and write
to you before."54 Professor Paul Deussen, the famed Sanskrit
scholar, had previously written to Swamiji in London, inviting
him and Mr. Sturdy to Kiel, an invitation that was confirmed by a
telegram to Saas-Fee (Mr. Sturdy, as it happened, could not
accept). And thus when Miss Muller left the travelers in the last
week in August, Swamiji and the Seviers (who of course
consented to take him along) went on to his engagement with Dr.
Deussen.

From Lucerne onward the way was relatively easy; there was
no more bouncing over rough and steep roads, no more climbing
mountains on muleback. The travelling was now all by train or,
for a stretch, by steamer up the Rhine. In his article "Vivekananda
in Germany and Holland, 1896" Swami Vidyatmananda has
provided us with the details of this trip,55 some of which had not
theretofore been recounted in the Life. We need not here go over
the ground that has been so
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thoroughly and interestingly covered by him; rather, let us just
quickly follow the trail to Kiel in broad leaps and bounds.
Lucerne to Schaffhausen on the Rhine in the northernmost
corner of Switzerland was a half day's train trip from Lucerne, the
most effortless journey since the party had left Geneva to plunge
into the Alps almost exactly five weeks earlier. In Schaffhausen-a
medieval city containing an ancient monastery (once Benedictine)
and a thick-walled castle-the Alps were left behind. But here
nature was still prodigally spectacular: the Falls of the Rhine, the
grandest waterfall in Central Europe, roared over a sixty-foot
limestone cliff about two miles downstream from the city. They
were, to be sure, nothing in height and width compared with the
falls of Niagara, which Swamiji had also seen, but they were far
more beautiful in Switzerland's romantic style.
From Schaffhausen, where the party spent a full day, they
crossed into Germany and thence north (via Stuttgart) to
Heidelberg, a theatrically beautiful town in its own right and
world-famed for its 600-year-old university. Rich with oldworld,
aristocratic glamour and ebullient with youthful joie de vivre, the
university had, withal, an extremely high academic standard,
which impressed Swamiji. During their day in Heidelberg, he and
the Seviers not only visited the university, but also climbed up to
the partly ruined castle that rose stalwart and imposing high
above the river. They must also have walked through the streets
of the old town, marveling at its strata of architectural styles-
Gothic, renaissance, baroque.
Then on to the walled city of Coblenz on the Rhine, and from
there (on September 1) by steamer to Cologne, sailing down the
"lordly, lovely Rhine"56 itself, passing vineyards and orchards,
medieval towns and fairy-tale castles on high bluffs. It was a trip
of sixty miles and, say, five hours.
Cologne (or Koln), an ancient city dating from Roman times,
was more beautiful From afar for its many towers and spires than
from within its gates. Of this city, from which the sweet-smelling
eau de cologne gets its name, Coleridge wrote
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in 1828 (and no reason to think things had changed by 1896): "In
Koln, a town of monks and bones,/And pavement fang'd with
murderous stones,/And rags and hags, and hideous wenches,/I
counted two-and-seventy stenches."57 But making up for any
number of murderous stones and stenches, was the famed Gothic
cathedral, with its two towers and five naves, its high altar, dating
from 1320, its even older bejeweled shrine of the Magi, its
.fourteenth-century stained-glass windows, its profusely carved
Gothic choir stalls, and its rich art treasures. Here in this vast
church, said to be the most magnificent of its kind in the world,
Swamiji and the Seviers attended Mass.
According to Swami Vidyatmananda's reckoning, it was now
September 3. The original plan had been to go directly from
Cologne to Kiel, some 450 miles north, but Swamiji's
engagement with Dr. Deussen was not until September 10. Thus
there remained almost a full week in which to see more of
Germany. The Seviers, always eager to serve Swamiji in every
possible way, were ready to take him wherever he wanted to go.
To travel with him anywhere and everywhere was a joy for them.
"Every phase of human activity, and every department of
knowledge had interest for Swamiji," Mrs. Sevier was later to
write in connection with this European trip, "and his mental
attitude of cheerfulness and kindness, combined with his fine
intelligence and personal charm, made him the most delightful of
travelling companions."58 They decided now to see Berlin and
Dresden, and although both these cities would take them far out
of their way, there might be just enough time, cutting it very thin,
for this "detour."
On September 4 the party set out for Berlin, 360 miles and
twelve hours by train east of Cologne. It was on this journey that
Swamiji saw the prosperous, ambitious Germany of the north,
which was beginning to flex its industrial and military muscles, in
contrast to the devout, gracious, and home-loving Germany of the
south. He was much impressed with Berlin. "Its wide streets, fine
monuments and beautiful parks made
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him compare it favourably with Paris itself,"59 says the Life, and
from a practical point of view he may have done so, but not from
an esthetic one. Several years later he was to write in his Memoirs
of European Travel, "After Paris there is no other city in the
Western world; everywhere it is an imitation of Paris-or at least
an attempt at it. . . . The Germans are constructing after the
French fashion big houses and mansions, and placing big statues,
equestrian figures, etc. on top of them. But on seeing a double-
storeyed German building one is tempted to ask-is it a dwelling-
house for men, or a stable for elephants and camels, while one
mistakes a five-storeyed French stable for elephants and horses as
a habitation for fairies: '60
But there was a great deal to see in the modern city of Berlin,
the dynamic center of the great, stirring energy of the country.
Thus they stayed through September 6, the Seviers taking him to
"every place of historic and intellectual importance."61 But, now,
if they went to Dresden, which was not en route to Kiel, but about
a hundred miles in the opposite direction, and if they spent any
time there at all, they would be late for the meeting with Deussen.
"Professor Deussen will be expecting us," the Life quotes Swamiji
as having said. "We must not defer our visit longer."62 So from
Berlin the party proceeded directly to Kiel, ago miles north on the
Baltic Sea. They arrived on September 8, and took rooms at the
Hotel Germania.
Sending word of their day-early arrival to Professor Deussen,
they received in reply an invitation for breakfast the following
morning. So on the morning of September g, promptly at ten
o'clock, Swamiji and the Seviers were cordially greeted by Dr.
and Mrs. Deussen at their home at 39 Beselerallee, a substantial,
two-story brick house set back from the street. According to Mrs.
Sevier's account of the meeting between Swamiji and Dr.
Deussen, the talk began almost at once when, after the
preliminaries were over, the Professor directed his eyes to some
volumes lying open on the table (probably as
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a hungry man directs his eyes to bread) and turned the con-
versation to the books. They were off-he and Swamiji. And they
did not stop talking for days-in Kiel, through Germany, Holland,
across the North Sea, into England. A good deal of it was in
Sanskrit, which Deussen (and of course Swamiji) could speak
fluently. And those who listened to this flow of learning and of
wisdom were almost as enthralled as were the two savants-at least
when the talk was in English, as, in company, it often was.
After breakfast on that first day of September 9, Swamiji
courteously began to take his leave. No! No! They must stay on
for the mid-day dinner. After dinner, Swamiji again made a move
to go. No! They must stay for tea, at which, it so happened, the
birthday of the Deussens' little daughter, Erika, was being
celebrated.
Dr. Paul Deussen was fifty-one years old and at the height of
his powers when he and Swamiji met. Since 1889 he had been
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kiel. His German
translation of the Vedanta Sutras with Sankara's Commentary had
been published in 1887 and was one of the great pioneer works of
Sanskrit scholarship, as Max Muller had mentioned in his letter of
August 2, 1896, to Swamiji. Deussen had also written, among
many other works, Systems of the Vedanta and Aelgemeine
Geschichte der Philosophie ("General History of Philosophy"),
portions of both of which had appeared in English translation in
the Brahmavadin.* In 1897 his monumental translation of Sixty
Upanishads was to be published, and it seems very probable that
he and Swamiji discussed some of the knotty problems which
peppered this huge work. Indeed, as Mrs. Sevier recalled, "The
Swami interested himself in some translations Dr. Deussen was
making, and a discussion arose on the precise signification and
correct understanding of various obscure passages. The former
pointed out that clearness of definition was of primary, and
elegance of diction of very secondary importance. The vigorous
and lucid interpretations given by the Oriental exegeticist [that
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is, Swamiji] with such firmness of conviction, and yet such
delicacy of perception, eventually quite won over the German
savant."63
Paul Deussen had learned Sanskrit the hard way-indeed there
was no other way to learn it in the Europe of his youth, despite
the fact that Max Muller had blazed the trail before him, as had
his own teacher, Professor Christian Lassen. Nevertheless, as
Swamiji wrote in his essay on Deussen, "It was long, up-hill
work-this learning of Sanskrit; with him, too, it was the same
world-old story of successful scholars and their hard work, their
privations and their indomitable energy; and also the same
glorious conclusion of a really heroic achievement. He thus
achieved success; and now-not only Europe but all India knows
this man, Paul Deussen."64 The thing that most delighted Swamiji
was that Deussen was not merely a Sanskrit scholar but a man of
insight into and love for the profundity of the texts he labored
over. "I have seen professors of Sanskrit in America and in
Europe," he wrote. "Some of them are very sympathetic towards
Vedantic thought. I admire their intellectual acumen and their
lives of unselfish labour. But Paul Deussen . . . and the veteran
Max Muller, have impressed me as being the truest friends of
India and Indian thought."65
Max Muller himself looked upon Paul Deussen as his heir and
successor. In December of 1899, the older scholar wrote to the
younger: "I have received lately many letters and papers from
India. The Vedanta is working there too, and when I am gone a
heavy burden will fall on your shoulders. It will mean not only to
make the Vedanta intelligible to Europeans but also to Indians.
They possess everything in the Vedanta, but they do not know it,
and millions of souls have to be taken into account there. The
Alexandrian-Christian philosophy is understood by the Indians,
but they would like to derive it as self developed From the
Vedanta. Well, the thing is not impossible, if only we could find
facts. . . . Here in Oxford I have once more been violently
attacked as
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a heretic. Woe to him who is not a heretic, who does not choose
for himself!"66
Deussen was a satisfactory heretic, more boldly so, perhaps,
than Max Muller himself "Deussen is certainly the freest among
the scholars in the expression of his opinion about the Vedanta,"
Swamiji wrote. "He never stops to think about the `What they
would say' of the vast majority of scholars."67 "He is what I
should call `a roaring Advaitist,' " Swamiji wrote to Mr. Sturdy.
"No compromise with anything else. `Ishwara' is his bugbear. He
would have none of it if he could."68 Professor Deussen was, in
fact, first a philosopher and only second a Sanskritist. Above all,
he was a lover of knowledge in the realm of ideas and sought
truth through the medium of every tongue. In addition to Sanskrit
and German, he knew Russian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French,
English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. As a young
man, his whole mind had been given to study-and his heart as
well; he did not marry until he was forty-five.
In November of 1892, he and his wife took a trip to India,
where they stayed for four or five months. Being German, they
were not self limited by the arrogance of a conquering people,
and were, as well, especially endowed with an understanding of
the best of India's thought and culture; thus they enjoyed their
visit to the full. Not only could Dr. Deussen speak Sanskrit and
English, but he quickly picked up some Hindi; thus equipped, he
talked to his heart's content to open-hearted pandits and plunged
ever deeper into the bottomless treasure-house of Sanskrit texts.
Mrs. Deussen, who also spoke English, was herself not at a loss
in India. The country was, in fact, one of the topics of
conversation that engrossed the Deussens, Swamiji, and the
Seviers on that wonderful day of September 9, the Deussens no
doubt relating their experiences, telling of many incidents,
charming scenes, and gracious customs; but they saddened
Swamiji, perhaps, by their dismay at his motherland's desperate
poverty, written all too clearly in the out-stretched hands of
hungry children.
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 And so the talk went on. There seemed to have been only one
interruption-itself of interest. This occurred when Swamiji,
perhaps during a lull, was looking into a book of poetry. The
Professor, wanting to draw him back into the conversation, spoke
to him, but received no response; Swamiji continued to turn the
pages. Later on, when he came to know of this seeming
discourtesy, he apologized for it, explaining to the Professor that
he had been so absorbed in reading that he had heard nothing.
This was, indeed, not the first time, nor would it be the last, that
Swamiji's mind, focused in a single, steady beam on some matter
at hand, was deaf to a friend's word or call. Like others before and
after him, Professor Deussen was at first incredulous and later
(when Swamiji recited from memory long passages from
whatever he had been reading) astounded. Thereupon, the
conversation turned to the subject of concentration, which, to
quote from the Life, was "practiced by the Indian Yogi with so
much perfection that, the Swami said from personal knowledge,
in that state he would be unconscious even if a piece of burning
charcoal were placed on his body. The Professor remarked that he
could now easily believe that."69
After tea, the Deussens insisted upon taking Swamiji and the
Seviers to an exhibition of German arts and industries then being
held in Kiel. It was only after a light supper together that the day
ended.
The next day, Thursday, September 10, was given over to
sightseeing in and around the city, the Deussens conducting the
tour. Two of the most notable sights at that time were the Kiel
Harbour, the chief naval port of Germany, and the entrance (or
exit) to the great Kiel Canal, then recently completed, which runs
from the North Sea to the Baltic. The fascinating talk very likely
went on during this day of excursions, and when Swamiji spoke
of starting the following day for London, the Professor
understandably objected. What more congenial place for
exchange of knowledge and ideas between these two richly
stocked minds than the Professor's
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richly stocked library! But Swamiji's work awaited him; thus all
there was for it, if the conversation was to continue, was that Dr.
Deussen accompany Swamiji to England.
On September 11 Swamiji and the Seviers left Kiel for
Hamburg, and thence on to Bremen, where Professor Deussen
joined them.* From Bremen they all went to Amsterdam and
spent three days there, sightseeing. From Amsterdam they went
by train the short distance to the Hook of Holland and from there,
on the night of Wednesday, September 16, made "a most
unpleasant"70 voyage across the rough North Sea to Harwich on
the coast of England. At Harwich, early on the morning of
September I7, they entrained for London, where they arrived at
the Liverpool Street Station at 8.45 A.M.
Deussen obviously enjoyed Swamiji's company, but he seems
to have had small understanding of his spiritual attainment and
status. In his autobiography, Mein Leben, he wrote an account of
his meeting with him that reveals a good deal more of himself
than of his subject, whom he judged by the familiar Protestant
Christian concept of a holy man-dry, pale, half starved, and
constantly fighting temptation. The unattached merriment of the
ever-free baffled him. Recalling his days with the "Indian saint,"
Deussen adopted a patronizing and would-be humorous tone,
which ill-repaid Swamiji's friendship, and related almost nothing
of interest. What one finds interesting today in connection with
Deussen's account is that Swamiji met this cordial but worldly-
eyed man on his own ground of philosophy and scholarship and,
seeing greatness in him, took pleasure in his company. One also
finds that despite the bad cold he had had in Lucerne, Swamiji's
vacation, particularly his two weeks of meditation and austerity at
Saas-Fee, had done him much good. Deussen wrote:

The 9th of September, 1896, the second birthday of

Erika, brought us also a special surprise, the visit of Swami
Vivekananda, accompanied by Captain and Mrs.
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Sevier. People had brought this Swami to the Chicago
exposition as a sample of an Indian saint; there two friends
of India, Miss Muller and Mr. Sturdy, had caused him to
come to London, there to give some lectures on Vedanta.
Later they had sent him to Switzerland so that he might
relax, from where, after he had asked in advance if I would
be at home, he had arrived on September g with the Seviers.
I showed them what there was to see in Kiel and suggested
that they spend a day in Hamburg, following which I joined
them at Bremen, from which we left together for England.
On the 12th of September the four of us went from Bremen
to Amsterdam.
Following the English custom, my companions had a
great quantity of baggage. We engaged a porter to conduct
us to a big hotel across from the railroad station. Since my
companions spoke no Dutch nor any German, it was I who
did the negotiations. I asked for two single bedrooms, plus a
double room for the couple. But nothing was available
except two rooms, each having two beds, and since it was
not easy, with all that baggage, to change hotels, I was
forced, for good or bad, to share one of the bedrooms with
our brown brother From the East, and that not without some
apprehension, as the memory of Indian ways that I retained
from my trip to India was still vivid.
No sooner had I gone into the room with the holy man to
go to sleep than the first thing he did was to light a short
English pipe. I could see no solution other than to open the
door and window and give him a little lecture on how bad it
is for the health to sleep in a room full of smoke.
He spoke Sanskrit very well and English equally well,
was lively and clever by nature, was somewhat impetuous in
character, a young man abounding with health, with full red
cheeks, very different from our conception of a saint.
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 Deussen went on to speak disparagingly of Swamiji in what he
no doubt thought was a perceptive and jocular way. Un-
fortunately, as already mentioned, his comments and innuendoes
came across as crude and obtuse betrayals of Swamiji's
friendship, and this being the case, there seems no purpose in
recording them here. Swamiji could not have read Deussen's
reflections upon him, for Mien Leben was not published until
1922; thus he was spared any hurt he may have felt. Very likely,
however, he would only have laughed. Did he not well know that
the worldly mind views everything-high, low, and in between-
with worldly eyes? Important were the professor's scholarship
and affability. Deussen concluded his memoirs of his young
Indian friend factually and innocuously:

The next day we visited the Royal Museum, went to the

Hook of Holland, and embarked for England. In England we
lived separately but met every day and did many things
together. Vivekananda introduced me to his protectors, Mr.
Sturdy and Miss Muller, whom I found interesting. 71

Swamiji, for his part, had only kind, impersonal things to say
of his friend.

It will always be among the most pleasing episodes in my

life [he wrote]-my first visit to this ardent Vedantist at Kiel,
his gentle wife who travelled with him in India, and his little
daughter, the darling of his heart,-and our travelling together
through Germany and Holland to London, and the pleasant
meetings we had in and about London.72

The daily meetings in and about London with Deussen were

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pleasant indeed. To Miss MacLeod Swamiji wrote on October 7
from Wimbledon, "I enjoyed Switzerland immensely, also
Germany. Prof. Deussen was very kind-we came together to
London and had great fun here. Prof. Max Miiller is very, very
friendly too. In all," he added, "the English work is becoming
solid-and respectable too, seeing that great scholars are
sympathising."73
Before concluding this chapter, let us turn again to the other
renowned Sanskritist friend of Swamiji's. As we have seen
earlier, in Saas-Fee Swamiji received a warm letter from Max
Muller, dated August 2. The Professor wrote to Swamiji again the
following month. Although this second letter is not available, it
left its trail in a note Swamiji wrote to Mr. Sturdy, probably on
Thursday, October 8:* "I forgot to tell you in the morning that
Prof. Max Muller also offered in his letter to me to do everything
he can if I go to lecture at Oxford: ”74
We know very little about Swamiji's proposed lectures at
Oxford, except that he had fully intended to give them. In a letter
to Alasinga, he wrote early in October, "Max Muller is getting
very friendly. I am soon going to deliver two lectures at
Oxford."75 Further information comes from a letter written by
Professor Max Miiller to Mr. Sturdy on October 16:

I look forward with great pleasure to hearing Vivek-

ananda lecture here. But I am sorry I cannot do what you
wish and preside. During all the years I have been at Oxford,
since 1847, I have never presided at any Meeting, and if Dr.
Drummond lets you have a room in his College, it is he or
Prof. Carpenter who ought to preside, not I. I have heard
nothing as yet from Prof. [J. Estlin] Carpenter, but shall try
to see him and arrange matters with him. 76

But that is all. The next one hears, Professor Max Muller is
writing to Sturdy on November 28 to ask "Is Vivekananda
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still in England?" And in this same letter inquires: "Has
Vivekananda given up his idea of lecturing at Oxford? I was sorry
to have to decline taking the chair at Manchester College. But
during the 50 years I have spent at Oxford, I have never taken the
chair and I could not have done so without giving offence. The
head of each College is the right person to take the Chair in his
own College."77
Why Swamiji changed his mind about lecturing at Oxford we
do not know. We can, however, be fairly certain that Professor J.
Estlin Carpenter, who is mentioned in Max Muller's letter of
October 16, would have been willing to preside. Although the
Professor (it was said) had been among those clergymen sharply
and unfairly critical of Swamiji during his years in America,* he
had evidently changed his views. In the Inqairer, a Unitarian
paper of London, the following article, signed by Professor
Carpenter, appeared on August 15, 1896. It read in part:

. . . The same indefatigable scholar [Max Muller] has

sketched for us in the current number of the Nineteenth
Century a modern figure of singular interest, the late
Ramakrishna Paramahansa who so deeply influenced
Keshab Chunder Sen in the last stage of his career, and died
after him, near Calcutta in 1886. He did not belong to any of
the orthodox Hindu sects, but came nearest, perhaps, to the
teaching of the Vedanta. He represents that tendency,
planted so deep in the Hindu mind, towards spiritual
abstraction which enabled him to accept the doctrines and
practise the usages of each religious cult in turn. His
disciples have carried his teachings over India, and one of
them Vivekananda, has been recently in this country. The
philosophical and religious addresses of this remarkable
personality, who produced a great effect at the Chicago
Parliament of Religions, have been. issued in three little
volumes (Simpkin, Marshall and Co.; eighteen pence each),
well worth the
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 study of all who are interested in the present developments
of religion in India. They are reprinted from shorthand
reports with very slight modifications. The Swami speaks, as
I had the good fortune to hear at the annual meeting of the
Free Religious Association at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in
August, 1894 , in perfect English, with that mastery over
both matter and form which comes of long meditation and
possession of his subject. One series is entitled "Karma
Yoga, or the Realisation of the Divine through Works
performed without attachment." The second ascends higher
and expounds the principles of "Bhakti Yoga, or the
Realisation of the Divine through Love"; while the third
presents the "Ideal of a Universal Religion". The perennial
problems of the meaning of the world and life are here
presented in the light of the highest Hindu philosophy. The
preacher stands outside all parties. He does not attempt, like
Keshub Chunder Sen or Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, to
reckon with Christ or Christianity as living forces. He is not
concerned with historic institutions. The essence of religion
for him lies in yoga,- union between God and man,-which
must be based on the harmonious activity of all man's
powers. How to achieve it, what discipline of reason and
will, of unselfish labour, of spiritual affection, is needed for
the soul that would know itself in God, -this is set forth with
much earnestness in these discourses. Whatever message we
may have to send to India, we must not ignore the insight of
its own seers.

Professor Max Muller corresponded with Mr. Sturdy in

November and December of 1896 and January and February of
189'7.* These letters concerned the material sent to the Professor
from India for his proposed book on Sri Ramakrishna. He was not
altogether satisfied with it. "Tell (Vivekananda)," he wrote in his
letter of November 28, "that a collection of Ramakrishna's
sayings that I have received from N. Rama-
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krishnananda Alumbasa [Swami Ramakriahnananda, Alambazar]
are the same as those published in the Brahmavadin. What I want
to know is whether there are any more, and whether there are any
more fully developed, and not mere aphorisms."78
On December 8, he wrote again to Sturdy in this connection:
"I have tried to arrange some of Ramakrishna's utterances. If you
have a copy of the Brahmavadin to spare, it will be useful. I
wonder who has put these sentences into Sanskrit."79 Mr. Sturdy
informed him that it was Swamiji's Gurubhai Ramakrishnananda
who had done so. Whereupon, the Professor wrote: "Are you
quite certain that Ramakrishna put these sayings into Sanskrit
verse? I was assured that he was quite unable to do so. I think
Vivekananda himself told me so."80 Then, on being set straight:
"The Sanskrit translation is very good-I did not know the
meaning of Guruthai [Gurubhai]."81
That point cleared up, the Professor continued with his work
of "trying to make a complete collection of Sri Ramakrishna's
sayings,"82 from both Swami Ramakrishnananda's manuscript and
the Brahmavadin, which, since its first issue, had been running a
collection of the Master's Sayings. * In February of 1897, the cold
and damp of England caused the Professor to flee to Italy. By this
time, however, he had completed his collection of the Sayings
and had indexed them.
Meanwhile, Max Muller's Nineteenth Century article on Sri
Ramakrishna had been bitterly criticized by both the Christian
missionaries and the Brahmo Samajists. In Swamiji's words of a
later date:

When Professor Max Muller, who occupies in the West

the first rank in the field of Indian religion, philosophy, and
literature, published with a devoted heart a short sketch of
Shri Ramakrishna's life, in the Nineteenth Century, for the
benefit of Europeans and Americans, it is needless to say
that a bitter feeling of burning rancour made its
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 appearance amongst [the Christian missionaries and certain
members of the Brahmo Samaj]. By improper representation
of the Hindu gods and goddesses, the Christian missionaries
were trying with all their heart and soul to prove that really
religious men could never be produced from among their
worshippers; but like a straw before a tidal wave, that
attempt was swept away; while that class of our countrymen
alluded to above, which set itself to devise means for
quenching the great fire of the rapidly spreading power of
Shri Ramakrishna, seeing all its efforts futile, has yielded to
despair. . . . Of course, from both sides, unintermittent
volleys of fierce attack were opened on the aged Professor's
devoted head.83

Swamiji went on to say that the Professor faced these attacks

with dignity, "and to stop the empty shouts of his inferior
opponents, he has published, by way of a warning to them, the
book, Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings."84
The book was published in November of 1898. One hundred
and three of its two hundred pages were devoted to the Sayings
and their Index. The remainder dealt with India's spiritual
traditions, some of her modern saints, the life of Sri Ramakrishna,
and a strong reply to Pratap Chandra Mazumdar's charges against
Sri Ramakrishna-such as that he declined to live a married life,
used strong language, and so on.
But there was one flaw that ran like a crack throughout the
main burden of the book. The good Professor was a scholar with
a reputation at stake. He was not about to give his critics the least
opening for attack. He proceeded with the utmost caution and, to
be on the safe side, threw the blame for any possible mistake or
misjudgment upon Swamiji. He did this in the name of
scholarship. But let us quote from his book itself Introducing his
main subject, the life of Sri Ramakrishna, he wrote:

. . . We possess indeed full accounts of his life, but they

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are often so strangely exaggerated, nay so contradictory, that
it seemed almost hopeless to form a correct and true idea of
his earthly career and his character. I applied therefore to
one of his most eminent pupils, Vivekananda, asking him to
write down for me what he could tell of his own knowledge
of his venerable teacher, and I received from him a full
description of his Master's life. It will be easily seen,
however, that even this account is not quite free from
traditional elements. If I give it as much as possible
unaltered, I have a reason for it. Such as it is, it will give us
an insight into the way in which a new religion, or rather a
new sect, springs up and grows. It will place before our eyes
the transformation which mere repetition, conversation, or
what is called oral tradition will and must produce in the
description of the facts as they really happened. We can
watch here what is really a kind of Dialectic Process which
is at work in all history, both ancient and modern. . . . There
is hardly a single fact in history which can escape being
modified by this process [which he also calls the Dialogic
Process] before it reaches the writer of history. . . . How can
we ever hope to escape from the transforming power of oral
tradition? The changes wrought by that power are of course
more or less violent according to circumstances; entirely
absent, I believe, they never are. And nowhere are they more
evident than in the accounts which have reached us of the
founding of new religions and of their founders. . . . It is for
this very reason, and because this process can be so seldom
watched, but can generally be traced in its later results only,
that even this slight sketch of what a disciple of
Ramakrishna, with every wish to be truthful, can tell us of
his master, may be of some interest to ourselves both for its
own sake and for the light which it throws on the conditions
under which every religion has to grow up and to be
recorded....
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 I had made it as clear as possible to Vivekananda that the
accounts hitherto published of his Master, however edifying
they might be to his followers, would sound perfectly absurd
to European students, that stories of miraculous events in
childhood, of apparitions of goddess (devi) communicating
to the Sannyasin a knowledge of languages and literature
which, as we know, he never possessed in real life, would
simply be thrown away on us poor unbelievers, and that
descriptions of miracles performed by the Saint, however
well authenticated, would produce the very opposite effect
of what they were intended for. Vivekananda himself is a
man who knows England and America well, and perfectly
understood what I meant. Yet even his unvarnished
description of his Master discloses here and there the clear
traces of what I call the Dialogic Process, and the
impressible miraculising tendencies of devoted disciples.
And I am really glad that it does so, if only it helps to teach
us that no historian can ever pretend to do more than to
show us what a man or a fact seemed to be to him or to the
authorities whom he has to follow, and not what he or it
actually was.85

While Professor Max Muller attended well to the Dialogic

Process, he seems to have given little importance to the logical
process. He argued in a circle: the Dialogic Process was in-
evitable and particularly evident among religious devotees;
therefore the actual facts of the life of Sri Ramakrishna were
necessarily distorted by Swami Vivekananda's well-intentioned
narrative of them; therefore his narrative serves as an excellent
example of the process, demonstrating its inevitable influence. To
make his point, the Professor here and there interjected a
parenthetical remark in the story of Sri Ramakrishna's life,
indicating the disciple's unconscious apotheosis of his Master. In
connection, for example, with the instances in which people
experienced samadhi at the touch of the Master, the
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Professor makes the aside: "(evidently cases of hypnosis)." On
the other hand, as already mentioned, he boldly contested Pratap
Chandra Mazumdar's criticisms of Sri Ramakrishna, seeing in
them a Dialogic Process of another kind. As for the Sayings, of
which he gave 395, he states that he himself found some of them
"insipid, in bad taste, or even blasphemous," but included all such
in the interest of historic truth.
Swamiji's admiration for Max Muller and for his life-long
work did not diminish. He excused the human weakness of the
venerable Professor; yet one cannot but suppose that it saddened
him. In his long review of Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings,
which he wrote for the Udbodhan of March :4, 1899, it is clear
that in some respects neither the book nor the man had come up
to his expectations. A few passages from the English translation
as published in volume four of the Complete Works read:

There are certain great souls in the West who sincerely

desire the good of India, but we are not aware whether
Europe can point out another well-wisher of India who feels
more for India's well-being than Professor Max Muller. Not
only is Max Muller a well-wisher of India, but he has also a
strong faith in Indian philosophy and Indian religion. That
Advaitism is the highest discovery in the domain of religion,
the Professor has many times publicly admitted. . . . Still, as
a worldly man, whoever he may be, he has to look to all
sides and conduct himself accordingly. When, after a
complete surrender of all worldly interests, even the
Sannyasin, when performing any practices which he knows
to be purest in themselves, is seen to shiver in fear of public
opinion, . . . what wonder then that the man of the world
who is universally honoured and is ever anxious not to incur
the displeasure of society will have to be very cautious in
ventilating the views which he personally cherishes. It is not
a fact that the Professor
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 is an utter disbeliever in such subjects as the mysterious
psychic powers of the Yogis.
It is not many years since Professor Max Muller "felt
called upon to say a few words on certain religious move-
ments now going on in India-which has often and not
unjustly been called a country of philosophers"-which
seemed to him "to have been very much misrepresented and
misunderstood at home." In order to remove such
misconceptions . . . Professor Max Muller presented Shri
Ramakrishna's life to the learned European public in an
article entitled "A Real Mahatman," which appeared in The
Nineteenth Century in the August number, 1896.86

Swamiji went on to speak of the "volley of fierce attacks [that]

were opened on the aged Professor's devoted head" and of his
reply in the form of his book, in which "he has collected more
complete information and given a fuller account of his [Shri
Ramakrishna's] life and utterances." He then continued:

The Professor greatly fears lest the Dialogic Process the

transformation produced in the description of the facts as
they really happened, by too much favourableness or
unfavourableness of the narrator towards them-which is
invariably at work in all history as a matter of inevitable
course, also influences this present sketch of [Shri Rama-
krishna's] life. Hence his unusual carefulness about the
collection of facts. The present writer is an insignificant ser-
vant of Shri Ramakrishna. Though the materials gathered by
him for Ramakrishna's life have been well pounded in the
mortar of the Professor's logic and impartial judgement, still
he (Max Muller) has not omitted to add that there may be
possible "traces of what I call the Dialogic Process and the
irrepressible miraculising tendencies of devoted disciples",
even in "his [Swamiji's] unvarnished description of his
Master". . . . Shri Ramakrishna's life
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 is presented in the book in very brief and simple language.
In this life, every word of the wary historian is weighed, as it
were, before being put on paper; those sparks of fire, which
are seen here and there to shoot forth in the article "A Real
Mahatman," are, this time, held in with the greatest care.
The Professor's boat is here plying between the Scylla of the
Christian missionaries on the one hand, and the Charybdis of
the tumultuous Brahmos on the other.87

Swamiji then highly praised the Professor for having replied to

"the many hard words and many carping remarks" of his critics,
removing "with a sober, dignified, not the least malignant, yet
firm and thundering voice worthy of the aged scholar . . . the
charges that were levelled against some of the out-of the-common
ideas of the great-souled sage [Sri Ramakrishna]-swelling forth
from a heart too deep for ordinary grasp."88
After himself saying a thundering thing or two about these
charges, Swamiji praises the Professor's collection of Sayings as a
whole. "That those sayings have attracted the attention of many of
the English-speaking readers throughout the world, can be easily
inferred from the rapid sales of the book."89 Indeed, the book was
well received and widely read, helping, as was said, to bring "to
the notice of the Western world the life, character, and teachings
of one of the greatest Vedantic teachers of modern times." 90 And
so it did. But while Swamiji never lost his high regard for Max
Muller, his earlier unalloyed, almost childlike delight in the purity
and integrity of the "silver-headed sage" whose "reverence for
Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa [was] supreme," was tempered
now with his knowledge of the Professor's care for public
approval, for the sake of which he would on occasion sacrifice
not only his friends but his own beliefs.*
How few people, on the human, everyday level of life, did not
in one way or another disappoint Swamiji! Barring his
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 brother disciples, one can count them on one's fingers-a
calculation that he himself' certainly never made, so quickly and
so totally did he excuse a fault or forgive a failure of
understanding or of love-and yet, one cannot suppose that the
wounds he sustained were not sometimes very deep.
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NOTES POR CHAPTER THIRTEEN
p.262 * SwamiVidyatmananda has pointed outin his article
"Vivekananda in Switzerland" (Prabuddha
Bharata,April I973, page I84) that the itinerary given in the
Life in connection with the visit to Zermatt cannot be
correct. I have here followed his version.
p.263 * In his "Leaves from an Ashrama: II. Winter
Flowers" (Vedar~ta for East and West, No. I73, pages 26-
27), Swami Vidyatmananda writes of the Alpine flower
that Swamiji sent to Kripananda: "What species of flower
did Swamiji send? The ashrama resident had often
wondered. One thinks immediately of the edelweiss. But he
rejected that choice as being a flower too bulky to be
pressed between folds of paper and fitted easily into an
envelope.He decided that it must have been the Ranunculus
glacialis, or Ranunculus of the Glaciers. This is a low-
growing plant whose flowers of five petals resemble the
old-fashioned single rose, some three centimeters (a good
inch) in diameter, pale pink in colour, with numerous
stamens of gold. The Ranunculus of the Glaciers blooms in
the Alps as high as 4,200 meters, or about I3,000 feet."In
consulting the guidebook's description of the characteristics
of the Ranunculus of the Glaciers, he could see the fitness of
Swamiji's gesture in recommending this as a model to be
followed by a devotee.The plants do not fear the cold (they
are found in Greenland and the Arctic, as well as in the high
Alps). They require so little earth that the mountaineer,
coming upon them in his ascent, is almost
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p.263 (cont.) led to believe that they spring forth from pure
rock. And they cannot be tamed to grow at lower levels in
cultivated gardens."
p.270 * In the Complete Works (6:368) this letter, datedJuly
25' bears the address "Saas-Fee, Switzerland." However, in
the original letter (Sen Col.) Swamiji wrote only
"Switzerland," not "Saas-Fee," which the party had not yet
reached nor yet planned to reach.
p.273 * Several of Max Muller's letters to Swamiji,
including this one of August 2' I896' were kindly made
available to the present writer in I96I by the late revered
Swami Yatiswarananda.
p.282 * In the February I5,29, and March I4, I896' issues of
the Brahmavadin excerpts are given from Deussen's Systems
of the Vedanta, translated by Lt.-Col. A. W. Smart. On April
II and July I8' I896' the Brahmavadin published Swami
Kripananda's translation of "History of the Word Atman"
from Deussen's General History of Philosophy.
p.286 * According to Mrs. Sevier, Dr. Deussen joined the
party in Hamburg. Deussen himself, however, recalls in his
biography, Mein Leben, that he joined them in Bremen.
Traveling from place to place for some two months, as Mrs.
Sevier had done, she would be more apt to forget what
happened there than would Professor Deussen, to whom this
meeting was a special event. I believe, therefore, that in this
particular instance Dr. Deussen's account is the more
reliable one
** "The Master, who himself observed many rules
regarding eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, etc., as well as
meditation, counting the beads etc., in order to encourage
his devotees to do likewise, lest their devotion should suffer,
used to say unhesitatingly again and again in the presence of
all, that no harm
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p.286 (cont) would befall Narendra if he did not observe
those rules. 'Narendra is eternally perfect'; 'he is perfect in
meditation'; 'the fire of knowledge ever ablaze in him,
reduces - to ashes all blemishes pertaining to food'; 'his
mind, therefore, will not be tarnished or distracted even if he
takes whatever he likes at any place and from any person';
'he daily cuts to pieces Maya's bondages with the sword of
knowledge; Mahamaya, therefore, fails to bring him under
Her control' " (Swami Saradananda, The Great Master,
Second edition, p. 762).
p.289 * In the Complete Works (8:376) Swamiji's letter to
Sturdy is dated "April, I896, Thursday Afternoon."But the
return address is "Waveney Mansions, Fairhazel Gardens,
London, N.W.," which was the home address of Captain and
Mrs. Sevier in Hampstead, London. Swamiji had not yet
met the Seviers in April of I896. It is not likely that he
visited their home until after he had returned from Europe.
Thus the date of this letter to Sturdy must fall
somewhere between September I7 and November 98. Very
probably it was written on Thursday, October 8. Swamiji
had, we know, spent the night of October 7 at the Seviers'
home (see Complete Works, 6:376).
p.290 * In her letter of August 22, I895, to Lady Henry
Somerset, Mrs. Bull had written: "The estimate against
Vivekananda has been serious because of remarks repeated
from Mozoomdar, Lyman Abbott and Prof Estlin Carpenter,
remarks that have come directly to me, and from others as
well as these." (See World [eacher- I, chapter three, section
one.)
p.29I * Max Muller's letters to Mr. Sturdy can be found in
Sankari Prasad Basu's Vivekananda O Samakaleen
Bharalvarsha [Vivekananda and contemporary India],
volume two, pages I36-38.
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p.292 * The Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna were first
compiled by the Master's householder disciple Suresh
Chandra Dutta. The book contained 595 Sayings, some of
which were later translated into English from the Bengali
for the Brahmavadin (September I4, I895 October ~,
I897) and some into Sanskrit by Swami
Ramakrishnananda for the monthly Vidyodaya (as well as
for Max Muller).
p.298 * Swamiji may also have been surprised at the
following passage in Max Muller's autobiography, Auld
Lang Syne, which was published in 1899 and could have
come to his notice: "When I see well-intentioned men like
Vivekananda preaching the doctrines of the Upanishads, of
Badarayana and Samkara in America, and gaining, as I read,
numerous converts, I still seem to perceive now and then
something of the old Blavatsky leaven that has not yet been
entirely thrown off.Vedantism requires no bush, no
trappings, no tricks.What we want is a historical and critical
treatment,
just the same as that which has been applied to Plato and
Aristotle" (page I66). And again, "From what I have
seen and read of Vivekananda and his colleagues, they seem
to me honestly bent on doing good work.... Vivekananda
and the other followers of Ramakrishna ought, however, to
teach their followers how to distinguish between the
perfervid utterances of their teacher, Ramakrishna, an
enthusiastic Bhakta (devotee), and the clear and dry style of
the Sutras of Badarayana. The Vedanta spirit is there, but
the form often becomes too vague and exaggerated to give
us an idea of what the true Gnanin (knower) ought to be"
(page 169). It is interesting to compare the above with
the letter Max Muller wrote to Swamiji, as given in chapter
eleven, pages 170-7I.
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 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ENGLAND, FALL 1896 – I

I Swamiji's vacation in Europe-the pure air of the Swiss Alps,

the weeks of peace and meditation at Saas-Fee, the
companionship of his fellow travelers, the good talks with
Professor Paul Deussen-had done him much good. "I had a fine
rest," he would write later to Miss Waldo of those two months. 1
And in a letter to Mary Hale, written on the day he arrived in
England from the Continent-September I7: "One good it has done
me-a few pounds of unnecessary adipose tissue have returned
back to the gaseous state."2 From this letter we learn that Swamiji
and Professor Deussen had traveled that same day from London
to the suburb of Wimbledon, where Miss Henrietta Muller then
lived.* "I am [going] to stop [with Miss Muller] for the rest of my
stay in England,"3 he wrote, informing Mary Hale of a plan no
doubt made in Switzerland before Miss Muller left the party. That
arrangement would not, however, prove to be convenient, and in
two or three weeks he would move to the city.
Meanwhile, he was not without good company in Wimbledon.
Although Professor Deussen shortly went to stay with friends at
St. John's Wood in London, the two men were often to meet and
talk Sanskrit together.** Better still, there was Swamiji's `brother
disciple Swami Abhedananda, whom he had sent for when Swami
Saradananda left for America. "For the present, I shall have Kali
here," he had written to Swami Ramakrishnananda as early as
June 24; "tell him to be ready."4 And on July 3, "Send Kali to
England as soon as you get this letter. . . . Let there be no delay as
in Sharat's [Swami Saradananda's] case, but let Kali come at
once."5
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There was no delay. Swami Abhedananda left India in early
August, and one day-sometime later than September 17*- he
suddenly appeared in Wimbledon. "By some mischance," Mr.
Goodwin would later write to Mrs. Bull, "the Swami Abedananda
was not met at the Docks, but found his way up to the city, &
from there to Wimbledon alone. This will give you an idea of
what he is."6 Indeed. It is, in fact, remarkable that Swami
Abhedananda learned where Swamiji was, let alone how to find
his way to Wimbledon. But find his way he did-not only to
Wimbledon, but to Miss Muller's house, where, quite matter-of
factly perhaps, he knocked at her door. There he was-young (he
would be thirty on October 2) and extraordinarily handsome with
a beauty not of this earth-answering Swamiji's call. Swamiji must
have been overjoyed to see him.
During the next two weeks or so the two brother disciples
surely talked for hours at a stretch; they also worked over the
Sanskrit tomes that Swamiji had asked Swami Abhedananda to
bring from India. "He will have to bring some books for me," he
had written to Swami Ramakrishnananda in earl July. "I have
only got Rig-Veda Samhita. Ask him to bring the Yajur-Veda,
Sama-Veda, Atharva-Samhita, as many of the Brahmanas as he
can get, beginning with the Shatapatha, some of the Sutras, and
Yaska's Nirukta."7 The Swami probably brought them all except,
perhaps, the Atharva-Samhita; for one finds Swamiji asking
Sturdy on what was probably October 8, "Have you written for
the Atharva Veda Samhita edited by Sankara Panduranga?”8 But
in any case, there were, one would think, enough Samhitas,
Brahmanas, and Sutras to keep the two Swamis happily occupied.
Swamiji had once again started to write "something big on the
Vedanta philosophy"9 -a project he had long been considering but
had never had time for. "The other Swami who is here is also
helping me in writing by collecting passages from books as I
direct," he wrote from Wimbledon to Mrs. Bull on October 8. 10
And to Alasinga from London, shortly after leaving
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Wimbledon, "I am busy collecting passages from the various
Vedas bearing on the Vedanta in its threefold aspect," and asked
for "a [Sanskrit] book published in Mysore in Tamil characters
comprising all the one hundred and eight Upanishads."11 (In the
event this book was not available in Devanagari characters,
Swamiji planned to learn the Tamil alphabet.)
But even with piles of Sanskrit books to pore over, the two
Swamis could not have spent all their time indoors at Wimbledon.
Although the air was cold and brisk and the sky overcast that
September of 1896, they must have often walked over the
Common-an open area of almost one thousand acres that offered,
as one contemporary writer put it, "the most glorious beauties,
now on the wane [it being the fall of the year], of nature's ample
munificence." In the expanse of the Common there was a deep
and wide ravine that contained a woodland of hazel, beech, oak,
and silver birch, a lovely lake named Queensmere, and a little
brook that fed it. The town of Wimbledon was itself not
unattractive, even in autumn. The streets of its upper-class
residential district, which rose aristocratically on a hill above the
railway station and the workmen's district, were shaded by red-
and gold-leafed trees and lighted at night by what were even then
antiquated oil lamps set on tall posts. The chestnut trees along
High Street, where Miss Margaret Noble and her family lived,
were laden with nuts, and the hedgerows in the lanes were red
with berries. Miss Muller's rented house, Airlie Lodge, stood at
the end of a one-block street named Ridgeway Gardens. It was a
plain, medium-sized residence, detached from its neighbor by a
narrow strip of land (now occupied by a garage), and except for
its elfin name and its occupants that autumn of 1896, it was
unremarkable, almost indistinguishable from the other houses on
the block.
It is not unlikely that along that quiet street, where there was
no through traffic, Swamiji again took up his attempt at bicycle
riding, which he had begun in the spring at Pinkney's
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Green. This time he was more successful. "Like a little child ",
Swami Abhedananda wrote in his diary, "Swamiji eagerly learnt
to ride a bike," and whether or not this process took place at
Wimbledon, he became so proficient that in London, as Swami
Abhedananda continued with perhaps some exaggeration, he
"would go out bicycling every morning" with Mr. Sturdy and
others.12
At the present time, we know of only two specific events that
took place during Swamiji's stay at Airlie Lodge. One was an
outing of which we learn only a little through a letter Swamiji
wrote to John Fox, then still in London, who copied it out for Mr.
Goodwin, then in America, who, in turn, copied it out for Miss
MacLeod in a letter dated October 4. The end result read:

This is from a letter from Swami Vivekananda to Fox “I

will be very glad to see you, and am really anxious to see
you before you start for U.S. Tomorrow Prof. Deussen,
myself, Miss Muller and some other friends are going to
have a little picnic at Hampton Court Castle Hotel at I2.30.
You are very welcome. There you will meet us all. Deussen
and we have become great friends; we travelled together
from Germany to London."13

(In his letter to Miss MacLeod, which contained the above

passage, Mr. Goodwin commented: "The enclosed reference to
the Swami and Prof. Deussen is very good news-for Deussen.")
Among the other friends who went on this "picnic" may have
been the Seviers and Mr. Sturdy, the last of whom had moved
with his wife and son from Caversham to London. (It is not
probable that Mrs. Sturdy joined the party, for she was not overly
fond of Swamiji or of Vedanta or of her husband's preoccupation
with both* Moreover, there was the baby Ambrose to attend.)
Hampton Court Castle, the largest and most magnificent
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of all England’s royal palaces, had been built by Cardinal Wolsey
in 1515 for his own use and ten years later prudently presented to
Henry VIII, who had had an eye on it. From then on, up until the
time of George II, the palace had been a royal residence,
embellished and enlarged as time went by. About fifteen miles
southwest of London near the Thames, it was a vast structure of
various architectures, mainly Gothic, with towers, crenelated
walls, great halls, in which hung fine paintings and tapestries, and
various courts, including the one that contained Henry VIII’s
marvelous astronomical clock. There were, as well, a moat,
beautiful gardens, a vast deer park, and a maze that was easier to
get into than out of. It is not conceivable that Swamiji and his
friends would have lunched at the Hampton Court Castle Hotel
without intending to see at least some parts of this famous and
history-rich castle.
The second event that took place during Swamiji’s stay at
Wimbledon and of which we have definite knowledge was a
lecture he gave at Airlie Lodge to a gathering of the town’s
residents. In the Life it is said that Swamiji delivered tow lectures
at Miss Muller’s house during this period, but at the present time
we have information of only one – almost certainly the second,
given on October 6. The only Wimbledon paper that mentioned
Swamiji’s lectures was the newborn Post, which came into
existence on October 9, 1896. Its first issue carried the following
article, the body of which can be found in volume one of the
Complete Works, under the title “Vedanta as a factor in
civilisation.” Quoted below are the first and last paragraphs of the
Post’s write-up, which have been omitted from the Complete
Works but which set the scene:
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE VEDAS.
A Glimpse at Hindu Spiritualism.
By kind invitation of Miss Muller, some 30 or 40 residents,
nearly all ladies, gathered at Airlie-lodge,
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Ridgeway-gardens, on Tuesday afternoon, for the purpose of
hearing an address by the Swami Vivekananda, a native of India,
on the “Philosophy of the Vedas.” Mr. J.F. Schwann, J.P.,
presided, and in introducing the Swami, mentioned that Miss
Muller, to whose kindness they were indebted for the discourse
they were about to listen to, had been in India for some time and
had interested herself very much in the religions of that country,
and especially in the different branches of the Hindu belief. She
accordingly took great interest in the course of lectures which the
Swami had been giving in America and England, and he was sure
they felt very grateful to her, for having placed her room at their
disposal that afternoon. His own knowledge of the subject which
was to be dealt with was exceedingly vague, and he expected it
was the same with a great many of them.
The Swami then commenced his address, which, eloquent
throughout, was listened to with greatest intentness and
appreciation. [There followed the excerpt from Swamiji’s talk
that appears in the Complete Works. The article then concluded:]
At the close of the address, Mr. Schwann cordially thanked the
Swami, on behalf of all present, for the intellectual pleasure he
had afforded them, and announced that he had expressed a desire
to form some classes in Wimbledon. They would be free and
meet at Airleie-lodge by the kindness of Mrs. [sic] Muller.
Accordingly to the probable date of this talk, it would have
been, as noted above, the second of the two talks mentioned in the
Life. Yet in subject matter it seems to have been an introduction
and brief survey of the Vedantic philosophy. Swamiji spoke of
the early search by the Vedic Aryans for God in the outside world
of sense and matter, of their dissatisfaction with the concept of a
monotheistic God, and of their turning inward to discover that
“what we call the
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 Absolute, the Universal Soul, the Self is the force by which
from the beginning all things have been and are and will be
manifested."14
One of the remarkable part's of this lecture, of which we have
only an excerpt, was' its 'concluding paragraph. "The scientist,"
Swamiji said, "is brought to the necessity of recognising
metaphysics when he supposes that atoms having neither breadth
nor length yet become, when combined, the cause of extension,
length, and breadth."15 He seems to have been speaking here of
subatomic "particles" which indeed lie beyond sensory perception
and have' "neither length nor breadth," but which are yet the
"stuff" of our solid three-dimensional world. When one considers
that the existence of even the electron would not be established
for another year, Swamiji's scientific knowledge-or was it
prescience?-is astounding. "It is finally the mind," he went on to
say, "which gives the form to all perception. When I see a chair, it
is not the real chair external to my eye which I perceive but an
external something plus the material image formed. Thus even the
materialist is driven to metaphysics in the last extremity."16
Perhaps few scientists of the late nineteenth century would have
agreed with Swamiji. But today in the late twentieth century
physicists are beginning to point out striking parallels between
their own mind-boggling discoveries and the equally stunning
pronouncements of Eastern mysticism-parallels that Swamiji had
struggled to express again and again with the inadequate
scientific terminology of the nineteenth century, attempting to
point out in the Newtonian language of his day the similarities
between the concepts of Vedanta and the findings of a then
unknown physics, which he clearly foresaw. The time was not far
off when at least some of the truths that he was stating would be
scientifically verified: relativity and quantum physics were just
around the corner; but he could not wait; he went ahead, not only
giving scientific support to Vedantic concepts but supplying the
science of the future with a philosophy and religion it could
accept.
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 On the night of October 6, the day Swamiji probably gave this
lecture, he wrote to Sister Christine. His letter, heretofore
unpublished, read in full:

Dear Christina
I am sure you got my letter from Switzerland.
I am now in London back after having travelled through
Germany and Holland.
How things are going with you? Had you a nice summer?
How are you physically & spiritually? How is Mrs
Fhunkey and all the other friends? Have you any news of
Baby [Stella Campbell]? Where is Kr[ipananda] and what is
he doing now?
I have another Sanyasin here over with me now, who will
work here whilst I am away to India, where I go this winter.
I will write to you in extenso later, tonight it is so late
and I am so weary

With all love and blessings

Yours17
Vivekananda

The next day (October 7) Swamiji embarked upon his fall

series of classes in London. But of these we shall speak later; let
us first move to America, where the Vedanta movement was
struggling to take form and from which Swamiji had received
heartening accounts of Swami Saradananda's success as a
lecturer. He had also, however, received some disturbing (or, at
least, disturbed) news, which would lead him to ask Miss Waldo,
in a letter of October 8, a startling question that was both a
command and a sanction: "Why do you not begin to teach?"
Thereby hangs a tale, which we can, I think, take time here to
relate.
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 2

It had been Mrs. Bull's suggestion in a letter to Mr. Goodwin

that Swami Saradananda come to America from London to
participate in the summer lecture courses at Greenacre, Maine.'*
Goodwin replied to her on May 18: "I received your letter with
reference to Greenacre this morning, & told the Swami
[Saradananda] the contents. He asked me to speak to Mr Sturdy
about it; he had rather an idea that Mr Sturdy might have some
objection to his going as he had brought him to England. I spoke
to Mr Sturdy at once, & after I had told him as I best could what
Greenacre was, & the nature of the work, he was perfectly
agreeable that he should go." "As to the cost of his passage,"
Goodwin continued, "it would seem from your letter that with the
funds Miss Farmer has at her disposal & Mr. Flagg's offer this
will be met. Mr Sturdy has offered to advance the cost, but the
Swami Vivekananda, I think, would rather Mr Sturdy were not
asked to do this. You will know which you consider the best
plan.. . . I must ask you to excuse me for entering into the money
question, but I think you would rather I told you as fully as
possible the arrangement which would best please the Swami
[Vivekananda].
"Most undoubtedly the only plan is that the Swami Sarada-
nanda should be entirely under the care of Dr Janes. The Swami
Viv. has the highest opinion of Dr Janes, both as regards his
ability to make Swami Sar. comfortable, & as to his wisdom in
the conduct of the work. I take it that the idea of his going to
Greenacre is mainly to give the practical side of Raja Yoga-& for
this an entire absence of contention, or of wirepulling would be
necessary. I think he would be more likely to find this peaceful
atmosphere with Dr Janes than with anyone else I have in my
mind. And the Swami, you may take for granted, will advise his
brother Swami to leave everything in the way of arrangements-
everything barring the actual teaching-in the hands of Miss
Farmer & Dr Janes."18
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 Mr. Goodwin could not have hinted more pointedly that the
officers and workers of the New York Vedanta Society should
have no claim upon Swami Saradananda. Mr. William Flagg, a
wealthy New Yorker who has entered this history earlier, had
made his offer to pay for Swami Saradananda's passage to
America through Miss Waldo, thus involving the Society.
Whether or not Mrs. Bull understood Goodwin's message, Swami
Saradananda's passage (some fifty dollars) was paid for entirely
by Boston money, a circumstance that was later to have tactical
import.
Sailing from England on June 27, the Swami and Mr.
Goodwin, whom Swamiji sent along, arrived in New York on or
about July 2. Earlier, Goodwin had written to Mrs. Bull in
connection with their arrival in America, "I will bring [the
Swami] direct to Boston without staying the night in New York.
If it will be convenient to you & to your pleasure I will take him
out to Cambridge. If not, he could stay with me until time for him
to be handed over to Dr. Janes."19 We do not know, nor does it
matter, whether or not Swami Saradananda was taken directly to
Cambridge, but the part of Goodwin's plan that would spirit him
through New York without so much as a nod to anyone there, was
no doubt carried out as well as possible. From the very beginning,
Mr. Goodwin was biased. Ever since the difference in opinion
between the New York and the Boston people-specifically,
between Miss Waldo and Mrs. Bull-regarding the publication of
Swamiji's books and pamphlets, this dedicated young man, whose
handlebar mustache and experience in the world, as well as his
ability and intelligence, made him seem older and perhaps wiser
than he was, had felt a certain animosity toward Miss Wal'do and
very likely toward other New York workers as well; accordingly,
he had allied himself with Mrs. Bull. In April of 1896 he had
been her house guest for ten days or so, and it was not unnatural
that during that happy time he had become her assistant in
connection with Swamiji's American work (Miss Waldo would
have said "her tool").
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 But however that may have been, the next we learn is. that
Swami Saradananda was at Greenacre, where he lectured on the
afternoon of July 7 on "The Vedanta Philosophy." It was his first
public lecture in the Western world-indeed, his first anywhere in
the world-but Swamiji had prepared him for it by having him
deliver talks to the little household at 63 St. George's Road. He
passed his first test in America with flying colors. Two weeks or
so later, after the Swami had held a number of classes at
Greenacre, Goodwin wrote to the Brahmavadin of his success.
This letter, dated July 23, 1896, appeared in the issue of August
29 and read in part:

The Swami Saradananda began his work on July 7th,

with a lecture in which he gave a general presentation of the
Vedanta, with the particulars of which I need not deal,
excepting to add that he not only received a thoroughly
sympathetic hearing for this, his first lecture in the West, but
impressed people with the feeling that both from his manner,
and the matter of his address, he had much to give them. The
following day he began a series of classes on alternate week-
days in Raja-Yoga, to many who are systematically earnestly
pursuing this method. From the theoretical instruction in
Raja-Yoga, he next took up the subject of Karma-Yoga, in
which he is now engaged, and this will be followed by
Bhakti-Yoga, but the private instruction in Raja-Yoga will
continue throughout the conference, which will last
altogether for two months.20

Writing of Swami Saradananda to Mrs. Bull, John Fox, who

had often talked with him in London, spoke of him with the
affection so many felt for him in response to his calm warmth and
understanding:
I like Saradananda very much. He is exceedingly kind
and thoughtful of other people, very quiet and reserved
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 usually, though not without humor. From his clearness in
answering questions and readiness to help, I think he will
succeed as a teacher, though he has done no such work as
yet, [in London] at least.

Goodwin had been equally enthusiastic, informing Mrs. Bull

that the new Swami was

of a retiring, modest nature . . . but has evidently given

his whole energies toward realisation, & I should say had
made enviable progress on the way. He is an able Sanscrit
scholar, speaks quite as good English as Swami V., & has a
very intimate knowledge of the Vedanta as our Swami, altho
in a combative sense probably he is not so strong. Raja Yoga
however he is thoroughly competent to teach. He was. with
Swami V. for six years, & says he owes the greater part of
his knowledge to him. He has been a Sanyassin about ten
years. . . . To sum up, he is a good man, in the best sense of
the word, & I find his presence & association with him,
almost, if not quite, as helpful as I do that of the Swami
Vivekananda. He will, I have not the least doubt, succeed in
endearing himself to his class.21

The Swami did indeed endear himself to everyone in America-

in Boston, Greenacre, and New York alike; he was himself so
loving, he was inevitably loved. Today one knows Swami
Saradananda best-if not entirely-as the first Secretary of the
Ramakrishna Order, an indefatigable worker, imperturbably
shouldering the immense responsibilities of his position, always
compassionate, yet also stern and awesome in his spiritual
greatness. He was the Holy Mother's attendant, or, as he humbly
called himself, her "doorkeeper," upon whom she depended for
everything; he was the author of the monumental book Sri Sri
Ramakrishna Lilaprasanga (Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master);
he was one of the direct disciples
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whose names fill us with reverence. But in 1896, Swami
Saradananda was barely thirty years old, retiring and modest, as
Mr. Goodwin said, or, as Swamiji said, "with nothing of that
pluck and go which I have . . . always dreamy and gentle and
sweet! That won't do."22 But it did very well in America, where
nothing disturbed him and where his very presence tended to
bring peace. His photographs of that period show the serenity,
purity, and selflessness of one who sees only the hand of God in
every circumstance. And there were to be circumstances in
America that would require that steady vision.
The trouble started with (but was not directly caused by) what
can be called the Greenacre Circular. As we have noted more than
once, Swamiji had placed Mrs. Bull in charge of the American
work; she now attempted to reorganize it along lines that seemed
to her to be workable and desirable. It was the New York work
that she felt was most in need of a plan on the basis of which
Swami Saradananda could conduct his teaching there and the
Vedanta movement could grow. The existing organization-the
Vedanta Society of which Miss Mary Phillips was secretary, Mr.
Walter Goodyear, treasurer, and Miss Waldo, untitled but ever-
present worker-was not, in fact, a particularly strong and cohesive
group such as could support and promote the young Vedanta
movement. There were no headquarters, no one to take full
charge, and little cooperation. As Miss Waldo would write the
following year to Swami Saradananda (who was then in
Cambridge), the Committee that had come into being in New
York in the early part of 1896 had not survived as an efficient
body of workers. "I am afraid," she warned him, "you will have
quite a hard problem to deal with in the matter of a Committee.
And, Swami, it is not of the slightest earthly use to draw up any
rules to govern such a Com. because any Com. needing rules to
govern it w'd never follow those rules, if it had them. What we
need, is to find a few people capable of governing themselves, &
able to act together in harmony & love, not continually getting
jealous of each other, or trying to outwit each other. Where such
people are to be found, only
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Heaven knows! If the Lord does not send them to us, we must get
along as best we can without a Com."23
In the summer of 1896, Mrs. Bull, fully aware of the shaky
state of affairs in New York, sought to set up some sort of
workable arrangement. Accordingly, during the summer session
at Greenacre she and Goodwin drew up and distributed a printed
circular that outlined a new plan. Quietly and with apparent
reasonableness, this plan, if implemented, would dissolve the
New York Society altogether, substituting for it "co-operative
work without an organization."
While it is true that Swamiji wanted as little organization as
possible in his American work, it does not appear that he had
been consulted about the details of the Circular; nor, for that
matter, did he wish to be. On July 18 he had written to Mrs. Bull:

I received your last note duly-and you already know my

gratitude and love for you and that I perfectly agree with
most of your ideas and work. . . .
. . . Everyone is independent to work as one likes. I don't
bother my head about these little things at all. I can give
ideas that is all, let people work them out any way they like
and God speed to all.24
So Mrs. Bull had gone ahead on her own. The plan of work
that she and Goodwin formulated was set forth in the undated
Circular as follows:

SEASON 1896-7

It has been urged that at the conclusion of his work at

Greenacre the Swami Saradananda shall meet the Swami
Vivekananda's class in New York, and continue instruction
in the Vedanta there, with the possible prospect of his
visiting other centres in which the Swami Vivekananda has
laid a foundation. In order that his work may be carried on to
the best advantage, without loss of time, it is suggested that
quarters shall be taken in
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New York which shall serve as a permanent centre for the
presentation of the Vedanta Philosophy. To effect this
proposal your cooperation and help are invited.
The plan suggested is, briefly, as follows:
(1) That a four-roomed flat shall be secured at a probable
rental of $500 per annum. Two of the rooms to be devoted to
the use of the Swami Saradananda and his assistant when in
New York, the remaining two to serve as a reading room
and library.
(2) That a library be secured, the nucleus of which shall
include standard publications in English of Vedic literature,
Buddhism, Sankhya, the Sacred Books of the East, and the
works of the leading Occidental Philosophers and
Metaphysicians. We have reason to believe that a ready
response will be made to an appeal for contributions of
books of this nature.
(3) For the privilege of using this library and reading
room, it is suggested that there shall be a nominal sub-
scription of $1.00 per annum, which will further give
members the right to attend
(a) Fortnightly meetings for the reading and mutual
discussion of the Vedanta Sutras and kindred books.
(b) Lectures in the alternate weeks by scholars of
standing. It is hoped that a strong program of lecturers may
be secured (where possible,) or of papers (where it would
not be possible for the writer to attend in person.) Class
teaching of the Vedanta to be given by qualified Sanscrit
scholars only. These lectures to be open to the general public
on admission fee of twenty-five cents.
It is expected that a considerable part of the necessary
revenue will be met in the Following way:
From Subscribers $100 00
Admission to the lectures and voluntary contri-
butions at discussions, for the season $100 00
Sale of the Swami Vivekananda's literature $100 00
________
$300 00
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 This estimate leaves a balance to be met of $200.00. We
may add that the personal service necessarily connected with
such a library for certain hours of the day and evening, and
for the assistance of the Swami Saradananda, for the season
1896-7 has been offered to and accepted by the Swami
Vivekananda, and approved by Mr. Sturdy, in the person of
Mr. J. J. Goodwin. If this co-operative plan appeals to a
sufficient number of the friends of Swami Vivekananda
resident in. New York and elsewhere, they are invited to
correspond with Mr. Goodwin, who may be addressed as
below. Mr. Goodwin's services at Greenacre have been most
acceptable.
1f this plan meets with a sufficient response, Mr. Sturdy
will be asked to extend the leave of absence, already so
generously granted to Swami Saradananda from his London
work for the benefit of the Greenacre School of Comparative
Religions.
Sarah J. Farmer. Lea Bull Vaughan.
Lewis G. Janes. Emma C. Thursday.
Jehanghier D. Cola. Annie A. Haines.
Keijiro Nakamura, Tokio,
Japan. Sara G. Farwell.
M. L. Holbrook. Francis Keefe.
Elizabeth L. Hamlen. RuthEllis
Mary H. Whitwell. L. L. Wight.
S. Ellen Waldo. Sara C. Bull.
The undersigned, having heard the Swami Saradananda's
expositions of the Vedanta Philosophy in the School of
Comparative Religions at Greenacre, take pleasure in
testifying to its clearness and value to all interested in the
comparative study of religions. [There follows a list of
seventeen names almost the same as those who had signed
the proposed plan.]
P.S. It is proposed that those who wish shall be regarded
as Associate members of the rooms spoken of in the circular
herewith, and that they shall be entitled to correspondence
relating to the Vedanta, and questions
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 arising out Of the Vedanta. If therefore there are any at the
Greenacre Conference who wish to take this interest in the
movement, I shall be glad to receive their names. We hope
that the rooms will be taken and the library established from
October 1st next, and those whose names are handed to me
will be communicated with upon the subject in due course.
An annual subscription of $1.00 is suggested.
J. J. Goodwin, Greenacre Inn.
Letters addressed to me, Care of Mr. W. Goodyear, 1418
Broadway, New York City, will find me after the close of
this Conference.25

After distributing the Circular, Mr. Goodwin confirmed its

promise of Swami Saradananda's presence in New York during
the coming fall season by the following paragraph in his letter of
July 23 to the Brahmavadin:

At the close of his [Greenacre] work here, (the Swami

Saradananda] has arranged to meet the Swami Vivek-
ananda's classes in New York, and to continue the latter's
work there, and I have no doubt other work will be found for
him. He has one object at heart, to assist and to develop the
work Of his Guru Bhai, and the unassuming and yet
energetic manner in which he is doing his work is creating a
profound impression.26

Things seemed propitious. "The Swami (Saradananda] invited

a discussion of the New York plans," Goodwin wrote on August
21 from Greenacre to Mrs. Bull (who came and went, spending
much of her time in her daughter's home in Sharon,
Massachusetts), ". . . and I am glad to say he coincides thoroughly
with the idea of keeping the rooms free entirely from intrusion-
making them a small Mat[h]; in fact. He will support me in this &
I think there will be no further difficulty in the matter."27 Very
clearly, this had reference to
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Miss Waldo, who had been much in evidence, indeed indis-
pensable, the previous year. As for Miss Waldo herself, she was
attending the Greenacre Conference with her friends Ruth Ellis
and Dr. Wight and had come to know and deeply appreciate
Swami Saradananda; she was amenable therefore to any plan that
would further his New York work and quite readily accepted Mr.
Goodwin's assumption of authority .“Miss Waldo yesterday told
me she wanted to talk to me about New York," Goodwin wrote to
Mrs. Bull on August 29, during another of her absences from
Greenacre. "She was prepared to work there at my direction or, if
the work is not opened there, to help Abhayananda in Brooklyn. I
told her I hoped she wd not neglect Abhayananda. It will
probably solve that difficulty."28 And again on the same date,
"Miss Waldo made a remark to me just now to the effect that she
hoped I was going to have entire control of the New York Centre.
If she remains in this idea I can make any steps I take to prevent
the difficulties we were speaking of from occurring personal to
myself, and in that way I think I can manage Miss Waldo." 29
Nor did Miss Mary Phillips, secretary of the New York
Vedanta Society, object to Goodwin's control over thc work. "We
were pleased with the idea of having a permanent headquarters
with Mr. G. in charge," she would write in retrospect a few
months later to Mrs. Bull, "and spoke to everyone about his great
interest in the work, and that he had stated that he was willing
even to devote his personal earnings if needed to its maintenance,
&c. &c."30
In pursuance of the New York plan, Mrs. Bull wrote a long
letter to Mr. and. Mrs. Leggett and Miss MacLeod, all three of
whom were spending the summer at Ridgely Manor. Her letter,
dated August 29, invited them to become associate members of
the rooms and set forth in detail her ideas in regard to the way the
American Vedanta work should be administered and coordinated.
She also, though obliquely, expressed her criticisms of the way
the New York work had
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been conducted in the past. Her letter, too long to be quoted here
in full, read in part:

Being rather peculiarly placed and coming in touch

personally as I have with all "sorts and conditions" of men
as it were, at all the points nearby where Vivekananda has
lectured, it gives me a certain sense of responsibility toward
it, and possibly some means of determining the right
workers and the work's need of them. As the best artist
without the right business management is lost as it were, so
Vivekananda in the hands of some people is positively
injured even. . . .
It seems to me right that the Hindus should be able to
follow their own custom of giving their religious teaching
without price. But this means that it must be provided for
and also that it shall not be made valueless, as the best work
of either artist or teacher may be when given improperly to
those to direct or receive who do not appreciate it at its true
value and quality.
This means that in some way the recipients should
according to their means of money or service share in the
furtherance of the work itself and such centres as New York,
Chicago & Boston[,] Greenacre would gain by having the
few who now are interested, in agreement as to essentials
and the economical use of resources, both of money and
workers.
Now as to the essentials, I wonder if you will agree with
me?
First-that all teaching shall be qualified in that a
knowledge of Sanskrit and the discipline of a life that has
had a noviciate's probation is essential to the real teachers'
vocation.
Second-that where practicable the men shall be assisted
by personal attendants at their quarters who are men. . . .
Third-that such means as shall be contributed shall be in the
hands of a Treasurer so well known as to make
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all feel that the quarters are cared for in a way that prevents
narrow dictation, or the turning into limited, personal ways
this broad basic philosophy required by all our sects and
students if made known to them in its true scope.
I wrote Vivekananda some time since, that I was willing
that my own contribution should go entire this year to N.Y.*
Since Mr. Goodwin was to be in charge, should it prove
needful, to enable the work there to be rightly placed, I have
had opportunities of testing Mr. G's fitness. He writes well
concerning the philosophy, he is an indefatigable worker,
loves Vivekananda personally, but in the broad way, I
believe of welcoming other workers and helping them....
I am suggesting to him not to hasten matters in N.Y.
First, I am confident that Vivekananda on his return from
Switzerland will give his best. His Talks and Lectures ought
to be saved towards the permanent literature of the Vedanta.
Personally I am desirous of this and willing to send Mr. G.
over for October to secure this material which no one can &
will do as himself. . . .
. . . I will like if it is possible to have some definite plan
as to the means & methods for future work, something to
which we may all attend, and then have Vivekananda clearly
understand & accept, that we may work without loss of
strength or money, as, I have had to do at various times here
to keep his interests from direct harm.
It seems to be necessary that some one of character and
means should be Treasurer. I am not willing to place my
friends in a position towards the Vedanta that I regret having
to accept myself, of having my contributions of money and
service sometimes seriously misapplied through a lack of fit
workers and direction. It is necessary that Mr. Goodwin if he
takes the responsibility for a season in N.Y. with good
results, should have the intelligent support of V's friends,
unhindered by interference
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 and criticism such as I have met personally myself. My own
experience teaches me the means to make the conditions
practicable for him.
[Here Mrs. Bull suggested that Mr. Goodwin be paid, so
that he would not have to spend time and energy in
supporting himself. Mr. Goodwin, reading a draft of her
letter, asked her to make it clear that he would accept only a
bare living.]31
I will try to see you all if possible, if these suggestions
meet your approval as to what is needed in the way of
putting the work on a permanent basis without the limita-
tions of an organization, which I believe will be better
avoided & is in agreement with the Sanyasi principles. A
Treasurer and Resident assistant being the only ap-
pointments necessary for the year, and these may be made,
of course, by Vivekananda himself. These are the main
features it seems to me to be considered; and these to be put
into definite business shape and practice. Mr. Goodwin has
thought of going immediately to N.F. to begin there. I advise
him to go to England for October, and meantime we can in
October and November, give the Swami Saradananda a
house and work in Cambridge.32

Mrs. Bull may have had Mr. Leggett, or perhaps herself, in

mind for a suitable treasurer. In any case, for reasons that are not
clear, Mr. Walter Goodyear, the incumbent treasurer, seems to
have been out of favor. Even Mr. Goodwin was angry with him,
though this had more to do with the magazine Goodwin was
proposing to start in America than with the Society's accounts. It
would seem that Mr. Goodyear (the American agent for the
Brahmavadin, as well as treasurer) had written to Swamiji,
pointing out (among other things) the financial impracticality of
launching another and ambitious magazine in America when back
issues of the Brahmavadin were piling up in his storeroom for
lack of subscribers. Swamiji agreed with the wisdom of this and,
as he wrote to Mr. Sturdy
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on August 12 from Switzerland, "suggested [to the American
people] that instead of having too many papers, they may start by
putting in a few sheets in the Brahmavadin-written in America-
and raise the subscription a little which will cover the American
expenses."33 Mr. Goodyear, a man of experience in handling
money, had apparently raised other objections, as well, to the new
plan of work, opposing it on practical grounds.* Mr. Goodwin
was much annoyed. He wrote the Following letter from
Greenacre to Mrs. Bull on Monday, September 1 :

I have received the enclosed from Mr. Goodyear. I have

replied to him that I am trying to carry out the Swami's own
wishes. I am sorry Mr. Goodyear wrote him as he did,
because it seems that whatever the Swami proposes for the
work the financial difficulty is flaunted in his face.
Besides, Mr. Goodyear had no right to raise this diffi-
culty without first asking me with reference to it. I think in
any case it would have been well if he had sent me a copy of
the letter when mailing it to the Swami. The Swami, in
business matters, always accepts the last suggestion made to
him. I could write to him now with an absurd & entirely
impracticable suggestion with the perfect confidence of
securing his approval for it.
These letters have in no way altered my determination to
proceed with the work, especially as the Swami's letter gives
an idea that this is his ideal. I fail to see how the
Brahmavadin, which cannot get a circulation at $2.00 will
do so at $3.00.
Perhaps you will give me your view of the matter when
you come up on Wednesday. I feel that the time has come
when I should formulate an idea for work for the Swami
[Saradananda] & simply carry it through with whatever
support I am able to get. It is simply impossible to propose a
plan which will be universally accepted.34
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 Despite Walter Goodyear's negative financial outlook, a
contribution for the proposed rooms was forthcoming-or, at least,
was under consideration. On the strength of the Circular, Mr.
Leggett had expressed a willingness to give "substantial aid" to
the New York work and wished to discuss the matter with
Goodwin. Accordingly, the two men met in New York on
September 8, a meeting during which Mr. Leggett, an astute
businessman, no doubt questioned the younger man minutely,
making his own position crystal clear. He gave no promises, left
no room for misunderstanding, and requested Goodwin to put the
result of their meeting in writing. Goodwin dutifully did so:

Dear Mr. Leggett,

The outcome of [our] conversation, as I took it, was that

although you will be interested in whatever work is
undertaken, for the sake of your regard for the Swami
Vivekananda, you are not willing to be held responsible for
it in any way-either financially or otherwise. You will be
prepared to consider a request to contribute towards the cost
of obtaining quarters for the furtherance of the work, but do
not wish it to be understood that you will exceed the amount
you then contribute should an occasion arise for a further
request for funds. Neither do you wish your name to be
connected with whatever you do.
If I am connected with the work, as seems probable, I
shall personally take pleasure in seeing that your wishes on
these points are respected 35...
Meanwhile, Swamiji, travelling in Switzerland, received a
packet of the Greenacre Circulars. His reaction to them was not
auspicious; indeed it boded ill for the whole projected plan. In a
postscript to his letter of August 23 from Lucerne, he wrote:
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 If Goodwin and Saradananda can spread the work in U.S.
God speed to them. They are in no way bound to me or to
Sturdy or to anybody else. It was an awful mistake in the
Greenacre programme about Saradananda that he was there
by the kind permission of Sturdy.* Who is Sturdy or any
body else to permit a sanyasin? Sturdy himself laughed at it
and was sorry too. It was one piece of folly nothing short of
that. It was an insult to Sturdy and would have proved
serious for my work if it had reached India. Fortunately I
tore all those notices to pieces and threw them in the gutter
and wondered whether it was the celebrated "yankee" good
manners the English people delight in talking about. Even so
I am no Master to any sanyasins in the world; they do
whatever it suits them and if I can I help them, that is all my
connection with them. I have given up the bondage of iron
the family tie; I am not to take up the gold chain of religious
brotherhood.... If N.Y. needs Vedanta or Boston or any other
place in the U.S. they will receive them and keep them and
provide for them. 36

(Swamiji vehemently underscored the italicized words in the

above paragraph three, four, and, in the instance of the word
Master, five times.)
Mrs. Bull wrote at once to Mr. Sturdy: had she indeed insulted
him? He replied consolingly, "The matter you write of is a very
small one. Probably in America the whole matter would pass
unnoticed, but to any body acquainted with the East it implies the
difference between a Sanyasin-one who works for love & duty &
not for any other consideration and a pandita-one who can be
hired by paying him, supporting him &c."37 But whether or not
the matter would pass unnoticed in America, those Circulars had
been torn up and thrown into the gutter by a hand that could not
err even in a gesture. Something worse than a blunder in wording
was wrong.
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 Indeed, no sooner had the Circulars been widely distributed
and thoroughly read, no sooner had the plan they set forth been
approved by numbers of Swamiji's New York friends and
students than the whole project grew uncertain in Mrs. Bull's
mind. If Goodwin should return to England for the month of
October (as she felt he should), then Swami Saradananda's
proposed work in New York must (she also felt) await Goodwin's
return; otherwise the old management would continue as before.
As far as Mrs. Bull was concerned, Swami Saradananda could
work through October, and perhaps through November, as
beneficially in Cambridge as in New York. (Later on, Goodwin
would point out to Swamiji that since the Boston people had paid
Swami Saradananda's passage to America they "were entitled to
first claim on him.")38 The fact that both the Greenacre Circular
and Goodwin's letter to the Brahmauadin had announced clearly
that the Swami would meet Swami Vivekananda's class in New
York "at the conclusion of his work at Greenacre"-or by October
1 at the latest-did not seem to disturb either Mrs. Bull or
Goodwin. Neither of them notified the New York people of a
change in plan.
It was not until Miss Phillips wrote to Mrs. Bull in late
September, inquiring when Swami Saradananda was coming, that
Mr. Goodwin replied, on Mrs. Bull's behalf, that the Swami
would probably come to New York around the first of November.
This letter, which is not extant, but which Miss Phillips irately
quoted from again and again, was dated earlier than September
22, but not much earlier. It was Miss Phillips's first indication that
the plans for New York were by no means definite. Placed in
what was, to say the least, an awkward position, she was
incensed. On October 4, she again wrote to Mrs. Bull:

There has been a great deal of inquiry about the Vedanta

Classes in New York. Mr. Goodwin wrote that "To those
who ask I believe you can say that the Swami
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 Saradananda will be in New York probably about the 1st of
November." This is so very vague and indefinite after the
previous statement that a flat would be taken here in
September for a library and classes, that we are puzzled to
know what to do, or, say to inquirers.
Has there been a complete change of plans? Kindly keep
me posted.
Will Saradananda alternate a few weeks at a time be-
tween Cambridge and New York, or what can we depend
upon from him?
We, of course, prefer to have him continue the work of
Swami Vivekananda if possible, before seeking another
Teacher.39

This last paragraph was a threat-polite but scarcely veiled. In

her earlier letter to Mrs. Bull (which Goodwin had answered)
Miss Phillips had enclosed a note she had received from a friend
in Chicago regarding a Mr. Chattopadhyaya. In his reply Mr.
Goodwin had directed Miss Phillips to "give (Chattopadhyaya]
absolutely no encouragement with regard to the Vedanta work in
this country."40 Mr. J. C. Chattopadhyaya (called "Roy" for
short)* was a Theosophist soon to arrive in America from
England, where he had called on on Swamiji. "The Swami
positively & firmly declined to have anything to do with him [in
London]," Goodwin informed Mrs. Bull, "and told us afterwards
that there were strong reasons why it would not do to allow of
any connection between them. Mohin [Mahendra] was at the
Theosophical Society offices the same evening of the same day &
heard Roy speaking in the most insulting way of the Swami. For
these reasons I have written to Miss Phillips."41 And Mr.
Goodwin fully expected Miss Phillips to heed his instructions.
Meanwhile, he and Swami Saradananda had left Greenacre
and gone first to Sharon, Massachusetts, where Mrs. Bull's
daughter, Olea, lived, and then to a resort hotel in the White
Mountains of New Hampshire in a small town called Lisbon,
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where they stayed from September 17 to 28. "I believe we are
curing the Swami's malaria," Goodwin would write to Mrs. Bull.
"He is taking long walks, & yesterday & to-day I have enticed
him into Wells [River]. He likes it exceedingly." 42
But it was during their stay in the mountains that Mr.
Goodwin quite suddenly backed away from the entire New York
work. Ostensibly the difficulty was Swami Saradananda's
disregard of his (Goodwin's) authority in spiritual matters. But let
us quote at some length from his letter to Mrs. Bull, dated
September 22:

There is one point with regard to my own connection

with (Swami Saradananda's] teaching which has come home
forcibly to me, & which I think has made me decide finally
to go to England, either now, or a little later on. It is this-and
I had a very long discussion with Mrs. Farwell (a friend of
Mrs. Bull's from St. Paul and a lecturer at Greenacre] about
it this morning. The Swami was asked to give an informal
talk here on his religion the other night, & did so very well.
On Sunday evg (September 20] he was asked again to
answer questions. This he also did. One question towards the
end asked for information regarding the breathing. But this
question was asked in such a way that he might have
avoided it. "If you would rather go into this at another time
do so, Swami." Yet he went into the whole matter glossed it
over-gave just enough for them to have something to
practice, & certainly not enough for them to understand it.
Now, rightly or wrongly, I feel very strongly about this.
The Swami Vivekananda sent me over with him to help him
in matters of policy, & I feel that as the Swami S. has so
great a regard for the Swami V. he shd be willing to follow
his wishes in matters of policy-whether he has the freedom
of a Sanyassin or no-until he has discovered, really, a line
for himself. The Swami V. has
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come to just the same view of Raja Yoga as I have-& I
believe you have, that it shd never where possible to avoid
it, be taught in class. . . . I have spoken numbers of times
with Saradananda about this-& he has taken the same view.
What am I to think then of his meeting a haphazard dozen of
people at a holiday hotel, & telling them just enough Raja
Yoga to give them something to work upon, & not enough
to be scientific with it? This is not by any means the first
time he has entirely ignored my advice, & I can only feel
that Miss Waldo has undermined the right the Swami Viv.
expressly gave me to advise him. In this case it wd be
foolish on my part to take the responsibility on myself of the
management part of his work in New York, with the
necessity of Miss Waldo at hand constantly. I feel,
moreover, that you are right in claiming that New York must
share the Vedanta with other towns, & shd therefore wait its
turn now. I am afraid in face of all this (I) that I shall have to
surrender the charge, in no matter how insignificant a way,
of Saradananda's work; (2) that New York should at least
wait till the New Year for him, when Mr. Fox probably will
have enough acquaintance with the nature of his work in
Cambridge to attend him in N.Y., if thought advisable; (3)
that altho I will consider it my duty when the time is ripe
(perhaps next Dec or January or perhaps later) to establish
the New York centre on the line's proposed, my
responsibility must end with the establishment. Perhaps you
will find it hard to understand how intensely I feel about
Raja Yoga, & I may appear bigoted to you in the matter. If
so it means that I am not fit to be with the Swami
Vivekananda even, but I hope not. I think I have formed my
conclusions from careful study of consequences-& helped
by numbers of hard facts in the dangers which it has actually
implied.
If I go to England I think it will be wrong to delay as
little as possible-& I personally favor the idea of going
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 next week-unless I go altogether later. .. .
I must add one thing more. The thing that I have sd here
is intended as no reflection on the Swami. I blame Miss
Waldo entirely & not him, & I have tried to write this in the
broadest possible way.43
What Miss Waldo had to do with the matter is not clear, but
just at this point she played directly into Mr. Goodwin's hands
with a letter that was almost certainly intended to be taunting. She
wrote the following to him on September ;23

I went last evig, at Miss Phillips' invitation to listen to

Mr. J. C. Chattopadhyaya, a Brahmin from Eng. I like him
exceedingly. He is a good speaker & presented the Vedanta
in a somewhat new light, but most excellently. It is fortunate
for us in N.Y. that we shall not be left destitute of a teacher
after all. We hope to keep this one, even tho' Dr. Janes has
invited him to Cambridge to speak this winter. I only got
home yesterday & went over at once to 38th St (the home of
Miss Mary Phillips). . . . Do you expect to sail on the 26th &
are you likely to return to America this winter? If so, I
suppose Cambridge will claim you.'44

Receiving the above, Goodwin was exultant. On September 25

he wrote to Mrs. Bull:

I enclose [a] letter from Miss Waldo, than which nothing

could be more opportune. I tried all the summer, in every
way possible-& even went very much out of my way, to
become on very friendly terms with Miss Waldo, but I have
failed, & intend to take another course in all future dealings.
Therefore I am pleased to receive this letter, which, in the
face of what both the Swami Saradananda & I told her about
this Brahmin & the Swami V's desire that he shd not be
connected with
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 the movement in any way, declares her intention to accept
him as the winter's teacher. In the face of this it wd be
impossible to ask Mr Leggett or anyone else to contribute
anything towards a centre.45

It would also be impossible to allow Swami Saradananda to go

to New York. In a letter of October 7 to Miss Phillips, Goodwin
explained this point:

Only within the last week or ten days has there been any
idea of the Swami not being in New York from November
(see Goodwin's letter of September 22], but for the present I
feel it of the utmost importance that the Swami shall not
follow in the footsteps of any unauthorized teacher. And as I
was sent by the Swami Vivekananda to do what I could for
him I have taken the responsibility of advising him to
remain in Cambridge the whole of this autumn, & have thus
accepted an invitation given to be accepted any time which
seemed advisable for the work.46

On October 4, Goodwin, having left Lisbon, wrote to Miss

MacLeod from Sharon, where he had talked over matters with
Mrs. Bull. His letter read in part:

I thought perhaps you would like to know that it is

decided that I go to England by the Teutonic on Wednesday
[October 7].... I don't think I shall be in New York until
Wednesday morning, by the Fall River boat. I should think it
would be safe to leave booking until then. I shall risk it, at
any rate.
I want to thank you for showing me that letter of the
Swami's (perhaps Swamiji's ecstatic letter of July 6 to Mr.
Leggett; see chapter eleven, section four]. If there could
possibly be nobler language than that I am not ready for it.
Indeed I am not ready for this-it makes
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 me think & think of the distance between the Swami &
myself, but, at the same time, I should be low down indeed
if it were not an inspiration for good to me. Shall I shock
you very much if I tell you that the Swami takes the place of
Christ to me ? I think not, for you will understand what I
mean.47

On the same day (October 7) that Goodwin had written to

Miss Phillips, informing her that he had advised Swami
Saradananda to remain in Cambridge for the rest of the year, he
passed quickly and silently through New York, boarded the S.S.
Teutonic, and before the somewhat formidable Miss Phillips had
time to catch her breath was off and away. Six days later, as his
ship was safely nearing the shores of England, Miss Phillips
wrote an outraged letter to him. Dated October 13, it read in part:

When you have time to think matters carefully over you

will probably realize that you have made several serious
mistakes....
You seem to consider the great Vedanta Movement, a
trifling matter of the petty preferences and wishes of a few
people-that you can make engagements and break them at
will, as if they were not of the slightest importance, as,
worth even a notification or, consultation. This is the more
astonishing, as the search for Truth should have its
foundation in Truth and trustworthiness.
Swami Vivekananda's last public lectures, attracted wide
public attention. There is daily inquiry as to when lectures
and classes will begin. . . .
Your Circular from Green Acre was read by me to a
number. Your article signed "A Disciple," in the last
Brahmavadin was read by the subscribers and others, who
have called and written. Your evasive answer about the
"possibility" of Swami Saradananda's coming in November,
in reply to my note sent to Mrs. Bull . . . only
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seemed to defer the time of his coming. Your leaving for
England without making any arrangement, of any kind, for
any future time, places us all in an extremely unpleasant and
awkward position.
We do not consider this a personal affair. Our dear
Swami Vivekananda's inspired eloquence was not poured
forth to "entertain."
A great and growing interest in a deep religious
movement, in a metropolitan city like this, should not be
treated in a flippant, offhand, fast and loose, child's play
manner as it has been this fall. . . .
It seems incredible that you who seemed so devoted to
the movement and whose statements we trusted, should so
have betrayed your trust. I learn that you slipped away,
without even communicating with a single New York
member. I presume that we would have now been left
without the courtesy of an announcement that Swami
Saradananda would not be allowed to come this winter, had
you not felt obliged to answer my note to Mrs. Bull.
Is this honorable, or, brotherly, or, as you would have us
do by you? . . . [I am] more amazed than I can describe.
Swami Vivekananda worked hard and patiently under
manifold discouragements to establish a firm foothold for
the Yoga and Vedanta in New York. No Western teacher
could command the confidence, or, attention that a Hindu
Sannyasin like Saradananda can, in the absence of our
Vivekananda.
A movement like this should not be allowed to die out for
want of a teacher, or to sink into a mere literary cult for a
favored few.
Swami Vivekananda returned to America last winter to
prevent this, and gave his lectures free to all, rich and poor
alike. . .
Now, brother Goodwin, what can be done to remedy this
remarkable conditions of affairs? For the sake of
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 the Cause, we will keep it from the Reporters of the
Newspapers if possible, and do what we can to hold Vedanta
Meetings.48

This was the first of many letters of reproach brother Goodwin

would receive from Swamiji's irate New York friends.
Meanwhile, Miss Waldo, who had had no real intention of
engaging Mr. Chattopadhyaya as a teacher without Swamiji's
expressed approval, had written to him, telling him of the peculiar
situation in New York. On October 8, the day he started his
classes in London, he replied, solving all problems with a few
clear and definite words. This letter from Wimbledon, parts of
which have been published in the Complete Works and often
quoted, acquires its full import only when read against the
background noise that it effectively silenced; thus it will bear
repeating here in part. The following is quoted from the original,
substantial parts of which have not heretofore been known:

Dear Ellen,
Your letter gave me a great deal of information for which
many thanks. The good news about Abhayananda [who
was successfully teaching in Brooklyn] has pleased me more
than anything else. . . . .
... About Swami S[aradananda] I do not see any reason
why he cannot work between Boston & New York. We will
only have little classes in Boston, &, that too a spice in a
hodge podge at best. It must not be forgotten that his duty is
to preach Vedanta. I will write to Mrs. Bull to that effect. In
the meantime I smell a little of that jealousy that had sprung
up between Boston & New York. If you can succeed in
smoothing it you will have my heart-full of blessings & your
liberation will proceed in compound accelerated motion. . . .
I hear that Goodwin is coming over to Eng. I had no letter
from him or S[wami] S[saradananda]. . . .
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 I am glad that the young man Roy is in America at last.
He came to Sturdy & to me to be taken in. But as for me, I
have no funds & Sturdy would not touch a Theosophist. And
then this young man has a little desire for money making.
None without Vairagyam has any right to preach Vedanta.
He is however competent to teach elementary Sanskrit-Gita
etc-&, the easy Upanishads. I know very little of him except
he is a Bengali. And you know my settled doctrine: I do not
trust anyone who has not conquered "lust & gold". You may
try him in theoretical subjects, but keep him off from
teaching Raja yoga-that is a dangerous game except for the
regularly trained to play at. Of Saradananda-the blessing of
the greatest yogi of modern India is on him-& there is no
danger.
Why do you not begin to teach? Begin boldly. Mother
will give you all power-thousands will come to you. Plunge
in. No clinging to this fellow or that. Wherever
Ramakrishna's children boldly come out, He is with them.
You know a thousand times more philosophy than the boy
Roy. There is nothing in Vedanta which you do not know,
and you can argue it out & present it infinitely better than
this boy. Plunge in bravely. Have faith you will move the
world. Send notices to the class & hold regular talks &
lectures. Goodyear & the others will back you right along. I
will be a thousand times more pleased to see one of you start
than any number of Hindus scoring success in America,
even be he one of my brethren. "Man wants victory from
everywhere but defeat from his own children." I will begin
from today sending out powerful thoughts to you all. Make a
blaze, make a blaze.
Yours with all love & blessings
V

P.S. My love to the Goodyears, Miss Phillips, to Carl Le

Vinsen, & all the rest of my friends. What is Van Haagen
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 doing? Miss Ellis & Doctor will back you well-to purpose.
Stand on your own feet 49V.

On the same day (October 8) Swamiji wrote a letter to Mrs.

Bull, which has also been published only in part. Pertinent
portions (both published and unpublished) read as follows:

What about Saradananda? Where is he now? What about

Goodwin? I am quite in the dark about their movements. I
hear Goodwin was coming over to London -I have no
intimation yet.
What about the N.Y. work?
Can not Saradananda work at both places i.e. both Boston
and Newyork. I will be very glad if that is possible. For N.Y.
is not to be neglected, and then although I am in all
sympathy with the various branches of religious and social
work [with which Mrs. Bull's Cambridge Conferences were
concerned], I find that specification of work is absolutely
necessary. Our special branch is to preach Vedanta. Helping
in other work should be subordinate to that one ideal. I hope
you will inculcate this into the mind of S. very strongly.
This winter will be his first in a cold climate and I do not
think his chest is strong. So I hope you will kindly see that
he does not suffer from cold for want of clothes. . . .
I will write later on fuller.
It is needless fear for me to state that you have my
implicit confidence in all works in the U.S. and that [I]
entrust everything there to you.50

On October 24 Swami Saradananda visited New York in order

to fill an engagement with the Brooklyn Ethical Association that
had been made at least a month earlier.* On September 22 Mr.
Goodwin had written to Mrs. Bull, "Do you think it wd be well to
give [Miss Phillips] the opportunity of entertaining the Swami for
the night before & after his
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Brooklyn lecture? the 24th & 25th October?"51 This act of
generosity was by way of throwing Miss Phillips a crumb, but she
made a loaf of it. On November 14 she wrote to Mrs. Bull, not,
one thinks, without satisfaction, "When Swami Saradananda
decided to remain a few days after the Brooklyn lecture we sent
notice immediately for the opening of the Vedanta Classes, and
the response exceeded our expectations. The audience even on the
one and two days notice which was all we had to give overflowed
into the back parlor and hall."52 Miss Phillips also informed the
New York newspapers, one of which (unidentified) printed the
following piece:

Interest in the Vedanta philosophy has steadily increased

since the appearance of the Swami Vivekananda at the
World's Congress of Religions, and on his departure for
England he persuaded Miss Waldo to carry on the work, as
he considers her his ablest and beat-prepared student in this
country. Previous to the Swami's arrival she had been
interested in the various schools of philosophy, and had been
a student of Max Muller. For the last four years she has
studied Faithfully and diligently, with the result that she will
now organize classes of her own. On Wednesday evening
last [October 28] there was an informal reunion, in honor of
the Swami Saradananda, held at the home of Miss Mary
Phillips, No. 19 West Thirty-eight St. Miss Waldo, who is a
relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson, is a keen student and
eager in the pursuit of the Vedanta philosophy. Miss Emma
Thursby, William Flagg, the Rev. Francis Caruthers, Mr.
and Mrs. A. H. Spencer, Mrs. Weyman, Dr. Austin Telice
and other prominent men and women have signified their
interest in the subject by [their] attendance Wednesday
evening.

Miss Waldo, who had known Swami Saradananda at

Greenacre, was warmed and uplifted by his brief stay. Indeed
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his presence was so filled with the spirit of peace and with a
loving understanding of everyone involved in the tangle of wills
surrounding him, that she wrote a letter of truce to Mrs. Bull-an
apology, in fact. She also, however, sent along through Swami
Saradananda the letter Swamiji had written to her, and if she felt a
certain sense of triumph in doing so, one could hardly blame her.
Her letter, dated October 27, read:

My dear Mrs. Bull

Swami Saradananda has shown me that I misjudged you
about the matter of his coming to New York, so I feel that I
owe you an apology. He told me that he showed you my
letter to him, so of course I know you are aware of the view
I took. Perhaps it was not altogether inexcusable under the
circumstances, that I should have supposed that Mr
Goodwin was acting under your advice & direction.
He could have easily ascertained from Swami S. that I
never had the slightest intention of "defying" Swami
Vivekananda. The very idea is absurd! I at once wrote to
Swami V. about Mr. Roy & his answer is very much what I
expected. Swami S. has a copy of it, which he will show
you. I am so thankful that Saradananda makes this little stay
at Miss Phillips' & has been able to smooth things out &
restore harmony.
He has kindly consented to come to N.Y. for Jan & Feb.
& carry on Swami V.'s work.
It was very kind of you to waive your claims on Nov. &
Dec. but we have not the slightest disposition to in-
convenience you in any way, & we are glad the Vedanta is
going to be presented to the Harvard professors thro' you.
All that we ever wanted was a definite date and a reliable
engagement that would enable us to make plans & issue
notices. This we have now secured from Swami S. himself
& we are satisfied. It was impossible to take any action on
the vague generalities which were all Mr Goodwin
vouchsafed.
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 I trust you will accept my assurance that I did not
intentionally do you an injustice &, pardon me for drawing
wrong conclusions from premises that seemed to warrant
them. 53

Mrs. Bull replied in her most formal manner.

I have your letter and the copy of the Swami Vivek-

ananda's for which I thank you.
I trust the time may come when the good service and the
personal devotion felt for the Swami Vivekananda may find
a common unity of expression in steadfast loyalty to him
and consideration each for the other.
Until Mr. Goodwin received your letter [of September
23] at Lisbon he expected to have Saradananda in New York
from November to May. [See Goodwin's letter of September
22 above, reference 43.]
With every sincere wish that Vivekananda's words may
prove prophetic.54

Miss Waldo did, in fact, do exceedingly well. Indeed, her very

effort to carry on Swamiji's work during the last three months of
1896, while Swami Saradananda lectured in Cambridge and
Boston, was perhaps more pleasing to Swamiji than would have
been the reorganization of the New York work along the lines
Mrs. Bull had proposed. At any rate, he was glad that "New York
has settled down to work," as he wrote to Mrs. Bull on November
13.55
Mrs. Bull also heard from Miss Phillips, who in a long letter,
dated November 14, sang Miss Waldo's praises.

The Swami Vivekananda wrote to me that Vedanta

would never succeed in America until the Americans
themselves become teachers, and added that he would be
prouder of the success of one of his pupils than of a hundred
of his brethren from India. He urged Miss Waldo in the
strongest terms to commence. She finally
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 consented though very reluctantly. I enclose a notice in the
N.Y. Tribune for her first address [given on November 11].
There were questions for an hour after the addreea was over,
and the people seemed unwilling to go home.
. . . Mr. & Mrs Edward Moran, in whose studio you
remember we spent a short time, complimented Miss Waldo
highly on her clear style, and judicious manner of presenting
the subject. Although the evening was stormy the parlor was
full.56

Swami Saradananda stayed in or around Cambridge during

most of October, November, and December of 1896, lecturing at
the Cambridge Conferences,* Mrs. Bull's primary interest,
holding classes at her home at 168 Brattle Street, and lecturing at
the Procopeia and other clubs in Boston. Swamiji was agreeable
to this arrangement. On October 21 Goodwin, now in London,
wrote to Mrs. Bull:

Naturally Miss Waldo has written the Swami & he tells

me he has written the Swami S. & yourself saying divide the
Swami's time between Boston & New York. I have told him
how important it is that the Vedanta shd be represented at
the Cambridge School [the Cambridge Conferences] & he is
agreed that the present arrangement is good, that the Swami
shall stay with you till the New Year & then do some New
York work. I am going to get him to initial this if I can.57

But Mr. Goodwin could not get Swamiji to initial that

paragraph or any other. In a postscript he wrote: "The Swami
won't initial, because he says he has no right to dictate, but he
says what I have written is correct." No one contested it, least of
all Mrs. Bull. Although her plans for the New York work had
fallen through, the new arrangement was entirely to her liking.
The following letter to Swamiji, in which she put in
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a good word for her young and energetic friend Goodwin perhaps
to counteract other, predictably different report had reached
Swamiji along with Goodwin himself:

My dear Vivekananda,
I must send a direct word to you by Mr. Goodwin, and
first, love with the best wishes for your resumed London
work.
Mr. Goodwin leaves the Vedanta interest stronger than he
found it both at Greenacre locally & in the larger sense of
what Greenacre is destined to effect; his suggestion of a
Greenacre book which he has carried out quietly &
efficiently in his helpful way is an important contribution.;
Having been at Greenacre the larger part of the Season I was
able to observe his patient, wise, untiring service to both
strangers & friends-a service that Miss Farmer could feel at
every point where a competent, faithful friend was needed.
And to your New York adherents who were there, every
effort for loyal co-operation and consideration was made by
him, as every courtesy & opportunity extended by Miss
Farmer. In fact, I may sum up his service by saying, that it
has been wholly constructive, with a forgetfulness of self
that has most effectively recommended the Vedanta.
He decides that the Vedanta interest will be best served
for the present in connection with Dr. Janes at Cambridge.
This leaves him himself free to return to London and I agree
with the Leggetts that it is best for him to do this. If you
shall decide to take India via the United States, you will
remember that you have made for yourself a place in the
minds of Cambridge people and would be heartily
welcomed; and I hope that some day Mr. Sturdy may be
inclined to make our acquaintance.
As for myself, personally, the blessing of Saradananda's
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 presence bringing as the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna do a
quality of life that is both an incentive and benediction to all
that is worthy and beautiful. The home will be
overshadowed by the Divine and that it has come unasked
gives it greater power and teaches me to be trustful & not
dread lest I myself be unequal to serve the work which
seems as it moves on to be self appointed for Cambridge
through Dr. Janes. I am evolving gradually, I hope, the spirit
of the true grandmother. Our little Edwina's needs & love
require this of me. Sometime, dear Vivekananda, when I
deserve it, you will perhaps adopt me also as your faithful
loving "Grannie" (grandmother) [as had Swami
Saradananda.] Will you kindly express to Mr. Sturdy the
pleasure Dr. Janes & myself feel in welcoming Saradananda
to Cambridge.
Ever yours58
Sara Bull.

Except for his brief visit in October to New York, Swami

Saradananda stayed at Mrs. Bull's spacious and guest-filled home
for three months; then in the first week of 1897 he moved to New
York, escorted by John Fox, who had turned his energies and
interest from the study of architecture and was devoting himself
to the Cambridge Conferences in the capacity of secretary and
right-hand man. "I put Swami to bed (on the train] at 10p.m. last
night, with a good porter to look out for him," Fox wrote to Mrs.
Bull on January 6. "He was quite silent all the way in; perhaps
America needs a new kind of non-attachment."59
That night Swami Saradananda also wrote to his Cambridge
hostess-his "very first letter from N.Y." she noted on the
envelope. It was not only the first from New York but the first
addressed to "Granny" in what was to be a long correspondence,
during which he confided in Mrs. Bull as in a close and
sympathetic friend. His first letter was informative:
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 Dear Granny
I have just finished my lecture tonight before the New
York class and all seemed satisfied with it. Some fifty to
sixty people were present and I spoke on the general
principles of Vedanta.
I thank you very much for all that you have done to me
both bodily and spiritually for I must confess that I have
been helped spiritually a great deal by you and every one
there. As long as we are in the relative we both give and
receive, there is no doubt of that.
My love & blessings to yourself Mrs. Vaughn and dear
Edwina [Mrs. Bull's granddaughter].
I have a little room here on the third floor, with a big
window facing the street, where the eternal rumbling of
wheels and clatter of horses' hoofs bring to my con-
sciousness always of the busy rushing life of the big city.
My meals have been arranged at Miss Phillips'. I have got a
gas stove to heat my room and all arrangements to make me
feel comfortable. I write you all this so that you might not
get anxious for me.
I have not seen the Leggetts as yet nor Miss Thursby but
hope to do so soon. The arrangements for my classes have
been made as follows,-Monday mornings & evenings Bhakti
Yoga, Wednesday evenings-talk on general philosophy and
Friday evenings & Saturday mornings on Raja Yoga.
I slept tolerably well on the sleeper last night and am
doing well. It is cold today for New York. The temperature
now is below zero so after all N.Y. is giving me a cold
reception at the very outset. Hoping you all & Edwina doing
very well I am ever yrs affly.60
Saradananda.

Swami Saradananda held his classes in his room at 509 Fifth

Avenue, above Forty-second Street. When the room overflowed,
the landlord, a sympathetic man who appreciated
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the Swami's talks, let the class move to the hall on the ground
floor, free of charge. And there in that hall-the New Century Hall-
the Swami also held Sunday morning lecture. Indeed, he gave in
all six regular lectures a week. A newsletter in the Brahmavadin
of March 13, 1897, read:

Class instruction is given on Mondays and Saturdays in

the morning, and on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in
the evenings in the various Yogas. [This in addition to a
regular Sunday morning lecture, and at times a Sunday
evening lecture as well.]

Reading the above in India, Swamiji was dismayed. "By the

bye," Goodwin would write to Mrs. Bull on March 30, 1897,

we have seen a report in the Brahmavadin of the Swami

Saradananda's New York work, & he [Swamiji is much
troubled by the amount of work he was made to do. The
Swami has been declared to be suffering from Diabetes &
brain fag, &. you will realise what part the 9 lectures a week
in N.Y. played towards that. If 9 lectures are a tremendous
strain to a man like the Swami what must 6 lectures a week
be to poor Saradananda, to whom every lecture is an effort?
Will you please use your influence to prevent what seems be
simply greedy disregard for the future work of a man."61

But by the time Mrs. Bull received this letter Swami Sarada-
nanda was back in her home, to which he had returned in March.
For the remainder of the year he moved, unperturbed, between
New York, Greenacre, and Cambridge in a pattern that we need
not try to follow here.* In August of 1897 Swami Abhedananda
came from London to New York and began to hold classes, carry
the work forward, and become the center of another set of
controversies. Thus the American Vedanta movement went on,
propelled by a will
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and a force of its own. From the very beginning there had been
nothing either from outside or from within-neither malicious
obstruction, petty spitefulness, well-intentioned bungling,
arrogance, irresponsibility-nothing that could stop the wave
Swamiji had set in motion from sweeping forward, from finding
its own form and direction, from gaining power as it went.
In one of her long and indignant letters to Mrs. Bull on the
subject of Mr. Goodwin's "incredible" behavior, Miss Mary
Phillips had summed up the lessons learned from the attempts
Mrs. Bull had made to centralize the work.

One excellent result has come from it (she wrote). It has

shown the necessity for each local society to have entire
charge of its own affairs. Each society understands the
individual needs of its own locality better than a stranger can
possibly realize. Each local society can give and take
assistance from each other, and help on in all kindness and
friendliness the Vedanta Movement in America. . . . .
. . We would have sustained Mr. Goodwin with pleasure in
his plan of taking a flat. No1 in the magazine project as that
seems premature. Now, however, it is much better to leave
matters as they are, and not have any one person decide for
different places. Swami Saradananda seems to me to be very
capable of acting as his own manager, and we can agree not
to conflict with any plan. each society may decide upon for
itself. Do you not think this is much the safer, and better
way? And in the end more successful? We can act in perfect
harmony, and good-will assisting each other with pleasure in
any way we can."62

And that, to be sure, was to be the way the American Vedanta

movement would progress as is moved ineluctably on through the
years to come.
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 3

By coincidence, or so it seems, on the day Josiah J. Goodwin

sailed from New York on the England-bound Teutonic Swamiji
opened what was to be the climactic season of his first visit to the
West-a season during which he would give his message in its
fullest flowering and of which we might have known very little
had not Goodwin felt inclined to return when he did. As it was,
many of Swamiji's class-lectures of this season were expertly
taken down and together formed a teaching that even he might be
satisfied with as "something big on the Vedanta philosophy."63
Although these collected class-lectures would not constitute the
more technical work he had wanted to leave behind, they formed
a deeply communicative and compelling masterpiece of practical
teaching. He here translated, but never for a instant watered
down, the lofty philosophy of Advaita Vedanta into guidance for
everyday life. Scholars such as Max Muller and Paul Deussen
could write brilliant and learned treatises on the Vedanta
philosophy, but only a person, a prophet, of Swamiji's combined
spiritual and intellectual genius could bring that philosophy, made
all-embracing through his insight, to the homes, the offices, the
marketplaces, and the round tables of the world. This he did
throughout his teaching life, but it would seem that he did so most
pointedly during this fall season of 1896.
The day of the first meeting was Wednesday, October 7. That
night Swamiji did not return to Wimbledon but stayed at the
Seviers' flat in Hampstead, a northwestern suburb of London that
still retained the rural charm of an old English town. From the
Seviers' he wrote that evening to Josephine MacLeod, who was
then in America and whose familiar face - `always helpful,
cheerful, and strengthening"64-he had missed seeing among those
who had come to his opening class. Or had this meeting been a
preliminary reception rather than a class? If the date on Swamiji's
letter to Miss MacLeod
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is correct, then one is inclined to think so; for the following day,
October 8, he wrote to Miss Waldo, "The London classes were
resumed, and today is the opening lecture."65 .'And to Mrs. Bull
on the same day, ". . . from today the classes have been resumed
again."66 October 8, moreover, was a Thursday, a day of the week
in accord with the class schedule he was to follow for the rest of
the season.
But whether the first meeting was a class or a reception, it was
held not at 63 St. George's Road, which the Margessons had
reoccupied, but in rooms that Mr. Sturdy had found and rented for
the fall lectures on behalf of those who had guaranteed The
necessary money (see chapter twelve, section three). Writing on
October 3 to Miss MacLeod, who was no doubt one of the
guarantors, Sturdy described the new rooms:

After a good deal of searching I have taken a room, or

rather three rooms, knocked into one, at 39 Victoria Street.
It is on the sixth floor but quiet and has plenty of light
and a good lift.
The rent is £80 a year; laying fires and cleaning 6/a
week.
The whole block consists of business premises-offices
etc, so that it is entirely closed on Sunday. It was impossible
therefore to arrange for using the room on that day.
The difficulty in finding a large room is so great and the
rents so excessive that there was no alternative.
In the ordinary course the lift ceases running at 7 p.m..
but it is arranged that the lift sha`.1 be at our service until
10:30 p.m. for any two nights in the week by paying
something,. not yet decided upon, to the porter for his
attendance.
The agreement is for five years but can be determined
[terminated?] by us at the end of any year by giving due
notice.
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 The electric light has been fitted and it is proposed to
have a few shelves for our library.
I am sending a copy of this letter to each of the guaran-
tors of the rent etc, which sum will leave quite a margin to
add books to those already kindly lent by Miss Muller and a
few previously existing.
I have now much pleasure in enclosing the printed notice
which is being sent to all the addresses in my book."67

Victoria Street, as Goodwin would write to Mrs. Bull, was

"one of the best thoroughfares in London."68 In the district of
Westminster, it opened at one end onto Parliament Square, with
Westminster Abbey on the right and the Houses of Parliament
and the Thames just beyond, and at the other end met Victoria
Station and Buckingham Palace Road. The tall (six-and-a-half
story) brick and stone building where Swamiji's classroom was
located stood on the south side of the street, and while closer to
the Abbey than to the Station, was within easy enough walking
distance from the latter to be convenient for anyone coming from
out of town-from Wimbledon, for instance.
Although Swamiji missed Josephine MacLeod's cheerful face
that first day, he saw others familiar to him. "Most of our friends
came," he wrote to her, "one of the Galsworthys too-i.e. the
married daughter. Mrs. Galsworthy could not come today; it was
very short notice. We have a hall now, a pretty big one holding
about 200 or more. There is a big corner which will be fitted up
as the Library. . . . They are all coming and more. That is
cheering."69 There would have been, among many others, the
Seviers, Margaret Noble (sitting on the left end of the second
row, at least on Wednesday evenings), the Eric Hammonds, also
from Wimbledon, Henrietta Muller, Mr. Sturdy, Marie Halboister
(a friend of Mrs. Biddulph Martin), perhaps Mrs. Martin herself
the unnamed nurse, the Reverend Mr. Haweis, his friend Miss
Emmeline
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Souter, her friend Max Gysi, Lady Margesson, Mrs. Ashton
Jonson, and the old lady from Sydenham-in short, all the regulars
and more besides.
We do not know exactly when Swamiji decided to live in
London rather than to remain at Miss Muller's in Wimbledon and
commute, as he had originally intended. One finds him writing
from the Wimbledon address on October 8, and then, in what
must have been only a few days, writing to Alasinga from his
new London address-14 Greycoat Gardens. * A building of flats,
or apartments, Greycoat Gardens stood on the corner of Greycoat
Street and Greycoat Place, a wide-angled corner in the tangle of
side streets south of the thoroughfare, only two or three blocks
from Swamiji's classroom. It was a huge structure of red brick
with stone trim, newly built earlier that year. Inasmuch as the
many flats it contained had been fully rented 'before its
completion, Swamiji's flat, Number 14, may have been sublet
from the original tenant. A basement flat, it was reached from the
street hallway by descending a flight of stairs, at the foot of which
one found its door directly on one's right. Number 14 was more or
less underground, looking out on a narrow areaway in front and a
narrow courtyard in back, and though its windows were tall, its
rooms were dark and cheerless in the short, pea-soup days of
London's fall and winter. (Swamiji would later refer to this
basement flat as "the black-hole of London.") Otherwise, it was
nice enough and conveniently located. (According to the Life, it
had been Captain and Mrs. Sevier who had let, or sublet, the
place for Swamiji and Swami Abhedananda, but Swamiji seems
to have attributed the choice to Mr. Sturdy.) * *
On October 20, Goodwin arrived in London, probably after
visiting his mother in Batheaston on the way from Liverpool, and
he of course moved into the flat. The following day he wrote to
Mrs. Bull, "The two Swamis and myself are in a flat at the above
address alone with myself as housekeeper, cook, &c."70 Two days
later he wrote in more detail:
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 We have a flat-in the basement-but comfortable, &
respectable, which are the two great requisites. It has dining
room-three bedrooms, kitchen, bath room, & a janitor (an
unusual but appreciable attraction in England). It is within 2
minutes of his lecture room-39 Victoria St. . . .
We have a woman in for three hours in the evening; but
otherwise I am in charge-do the cooking, &c. In this way we
are at our own mercy with regard to cleanliness, a distinct
advantage. 71

Swamiji’s move from Wimbledon to London was not made

without disturbance. "I was living with [Miss Muller in
Wimbledon] for the last few weeks," he wrote to Alasinga in his
letter of early October. "But the London work cannot go on
without my living in London. As such I have changed quarters. I
am sorry it has chagrined Miss Muller a bit. Cannot help." 72
Swamiji's move seems to have chagrined Miss Muller more than
a bit: "There is quite a lot of trouble with Miss Muller here,"
Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull in his letter of October 21, "and the
Swami (according to Mr. Sturdy) will be quite ready to fall into
any plans which prevent her from accompanying him to India."73
One of Swamiji's plans was a visit to Gambridge, Massachuseits
(as Mrs. Bull wanted), at the end of December. He also thought of
going to Russia. But (Mr. Sturdy notwithstanding) the avoidance
of Miss Muller's tempestuous company on the voyage to India
was not Swamiji's primary motive in considering these round-
about routes; nor would they be necessary to achieve that end.
While he would not offend Miss Muller if he could avoid it ("I
hope you will ask Miss Muller's opinion about the lodgings and
the Halt [to be rented for the fall season]," he had written from
Switzerland in August to Mr. Sturdy, "as I am afraid she will be
very displeased if she and others are not consulted"), 74 he could
also speak his mind clearly when necessary and would do so later
on.
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Meanwhile he lived in peace at Greycoat Gardens. Exactly what
trouble Miss Muller caused, what scenes took place and where,
we do not know, but the flat provided Swamiji with a sort of
monastery and sanctuary. Of all the places he had stayed in the
West during his season of work in 1895 and 1896 it was perhaps
the most serene. The lively household at 63 St. George's Road
had dispersed. Swami Saradananda was, as we know, now in
America; John Fox had followed in late September, deciding, as
we have seen, to work for Mrs. Bull's Cambridge Conferences;
Mahendra Nath Datta was still in London, living in a lodging
house (near the one he had earlier moved to with Fox) and was
not doing much of anything;'" Mr. Sturdy had moved his family
from Reading to London and would soon be living in a house at
25 Holland Villas Road; and Miss Muller, for the most part at
least, was at Airlie Lodge, Wimbledon, where Swamiji would
hold a class every Monday afternoon until the last day of
November.
Swamiji's lecture schedule was not as full as it had been in the
spring of the year, but it seems nonetheless strenuous. "The
Swami lectures on Tuesday & Thursday mornings at the room [39
Victoria Street] & also on Wednesday evenings [when, with an
arrangement with the janitor, the lift would be working]; on
Monday afternoons he lectures at Wimbledon, on Tuesday evg
last he lectured at the Sesame Club. I am writing it up & will send
you a copy by next mail. [No copy has been found.] It was an
admirable general lecture. He has certainly come back refreshed,
& the smaller number of lectures makes the quality very much
higher."75
When Goodwin wrote the above he had heard (as he told Mrs.
Bull) only two lectures, both given on October 20"Maya and the
Evolution of the Conception of God" in the morning, and the
Sesame Club lecture in the evening. (The first has been published
in volume two of the Complete works.) If the lecture schedule had
been the same during; the first week of the season as Goodwin
outlined, then he had missed four class-lectures at Victoria Street
and two Wimbledon. Four of
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these six lectures are lost to us; we do not know even their titles.
But two-one, which may have been given on either the morning
of Tuesday, October 13, or the evening of October I4 and which
is published in volume one of the Complete Works under the title
"Vedic Religious Ideals,"* and one entitled "Maya and Illusion “
given almost certainly on Thursday, October 15 were taken down
by some anonymous stenographer in a style worthy of Goodwin
himself

As the season went on, Swamiji would give many more talks,
both at Victoria Street and outside his classrooms, than were
transcribed. Of his probable twenty-seven regular class-lectures,
given on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Wednesday
evenings, we have only fifteen transcripts.* In Wimbledon he
held eight Monday afternoon classes in October and November,
of which we have only one-"Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa." As
for the London lectures that he is known to have given outside his
classrooms, there was at least one at the Sesame Club, one at an
unidentified "club on Brook Street," and five at the Unitarian
Church in West Croyden. Of these seven lectures we have a
transcript of only one-"Privilege." All in all, then, Swamiji would
give (as far as we can know) forty-two lectures during this season
(October 8 to December 10), and of these we have transcripts of
only seventeen. But these seventeen, all of which must have been
published with his knowledge and consent, give a strong and
clarifying statement of the message he wanted to Leave in the
West-the highest teachings of Vedanta put in terms of "common
everyday life."

It would appear from what has come down to us that his

Tuesday and Thursday morning class-lectures constitute a
consecutive series, while those held on Wednesday evenings
seem to form a separate but related series. (The Wednesday
evening series, however, is a matter of conjecture, for we know of
only four lectures, none of which bears a date, that could have
belonged to it. But of these we shall speak later.)
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 For the sake of convenience (and also because they seem to
me to fall into this pattern) I have divided Swamiji's Tuesday-
Thursday class-lectures into two series. In the first he discussed
Maya-its appearance and its disappearance. These Maya classes
comprised not only the three entitled "Maya and Illusion," "Maya
and the Evolution of the Concept of God," and "Maya and
Freedom," but, as I have understood it, his following class on the
Isha Upanishad, entitled "God in Everything" and his two classes
on the Katha Upanishad, entitled "Realisation" and "Unity in
Diversity." In the second series he discussed specifically the
practical aspect of Advaita Vedanta. This series consisted, of
course, of his four class lectures entitled "Practical Vedanta" and
also, I believe, of a class preceding them entitled "The Freedom
of the Soul." For all five classes of this second series he used the
Chhandogya Upanishad as a text.
"Vedic Religious Ideals" could well have been Swamiji's
introductory lecture to his entire fall course, throughout which he
would reveal the great ideas of the Upanishads as being entirely
relevant to modern life, He began at the beginning for even in the
earliest Vedic thought lay the germs of the world's loftiest
religion and philosophy-and in this lecture traced the
transformation of the primitive, "boisterous," and at times
drunken gods of the Samhitas into the omnipotent and
omnipresent Personal God of monotheism. He pointed out the
important phenomenon, basic to Indian culture, that each of the
Vedic gods had been raised in turn to the proportions of the
infinite Personal God of the Universe. The explanation of this
unique mythology is, he said, a grand one, "one that has given the
theme to all subsequent thought in India, and one that will be the
theme of the whole world of religions: Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha
Vadanti, `That which exists is One; sages call It by various
names.' . . . [In modern times] we have to learn yet that all
religions, under whatever name they may be called, either Hindu,
Buddhist, Mohammedan, or Christian, have the same God, and he
who derides any
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one of these derides his own God. That was the solution the
Vedic Aryans] arrived at."76
But, he went on, the monotheistic idea, grand though it was,
did not satisfy the Hindu mind. "A ruler of the. world does not
explain the world" either intellectually or morally. So those Vedic
sages sought for an explanation of the universe, first in the
external world, where it was not to be found, and later, analyzing
the mind, within themselves.

And they found out step by step that that which is ex-
ternal is but a dull reflection at best of that which is inside.
We shall see how they took, as it were, this old idea of God,
the Governor of the universe, who is external to the
universe, and first put Him inside the Universe. He is not a
God outside, but He is inside; and they took Him from there
into their own hearts. Here He is, in the heart of man, the
Soul of our souls, the Reality in us. 77

This was Swamiji's introduction to the Vedanta philosophy as

it had been developed through the ages by the groping but
unflagging search for truth-a search common to all men but never
undertaken so boldly, and so persistently as by the Upanishadic
seers. Their consummate discovery, their total revolution in
outlook, was their legacy to mankind, and Swamiji, their modern
spokesman, revealed the secrets of that great and ancient
discovery for another world and time. In his advanced jnana yoga
classes in New York he had explained the Advaita Vedanta
philosophy at length through means of .the Sankhya cosmology
and psychology and had ended up with the difficult but basic
doctrine of Maya-a concept which "forms one of the pillars upon
which the Vedanta rests,"78 but which by its very nature is
inexplicable and more often than not misunderstood. Now in
London he undertook to explain Maya, or, at least, to define it. In
doing so, he did not enter into a technical or highly philo-
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sophical discussion, which would have had only academic
meaning for his listeners; rather, he equated Maya with the most
familiar of phenomena-the curious, tantalizing, baffling, and
impenetrable mystery of human life as we know it (or don't know
it) and as we live it from day to day, year to year.
He started, in other words, with the given-"what we are and
what we see around us."79 Maya is "simply a statement of facts
about the universe as it exists."80 Yet the universe as it exists is a
strange affair. From the point of view of our everyday life the
universe is by no means an illusion: it is our reality; the
incomprehensible, contradictory, unsatisfactory muddle we call
human existence is very real for us. And yet, while it is what we
take to be real, it is also unreal. "It has no absolute existence. It
exists only in relation to my mind, to your mind, and to the mind
of everyone else."

We see this world with the five senses [Swamiji contin-

ued in "Maya and Illusion"], but if we had another sense, we
would see in it something more. If we had yet another sense,
it would appear as something still different. It has, therefore,
no real existence; it has no unchangeable, immovable,
infinite existence. Nor can it be called nonexistence, seeing
that it exists and we have to work in and through it. It is a
mixture of existence and nonexistence.81

This contradiction underlying all human experience and

knowledge also permeates them, riddles them through and
through. Swamiji pointed out in some detail the unavoidable
inconsistencies, absurdities, frustrations, and tragedies of life that
are woven into its very fabric. Though men want knowledge,
there is ever "an adamantine wall" beyond which the human
intellect cannot pass; the mind by reason of its very constitution
can never leap beyond the barrier of time, space, and causation to
the substance of things. The universe we
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know is Maya, but there is no way to find its cause, for cause lies
only within Maya's realm; Maya can never explain its own
existence; nor can it discover that which lies beyond itself. "The
problems which are nearest and dearest to [mans are impelling
him on and calling, day and night, for a solution, but he cannot
solve them, because he cannot go beyond his intellect."82
So with everything in experience. "Desire is implanted
strongly in [mans." His impulse is to be selfish; "at the same time
there is some power beyond us which says that it is unselfishness
alone which is good." But desire is there: desire for love, for
wealth, for glory, for happiness. The young are full of hope and
dreams; "old age comes, and life is a mass of ruins. Dreams have
vanished into the air, and the man becomes a pessimist." We
oscillate between the extremes of optimism and of pessimism
"without knowing where we are going." And inevitably-whatever
desires one may have had or whatever satisfactions one may have
gained-"there is the tremendous fact of death."83

The whole world is going towards death; everything dies.

All our progress, our vanities, our reforms, our luxuries, our
wealth, our knowledge, have that one end -death. That is all
that is certain. Cities come and go, empires rise and fall,
planets break into pieces and crumble into dust, to be blown
about by the atmospheres of other planets. Thus it has been
going on from time without beginning. Death is the end of
everything. Death is the end of life, of beauty, of wealth, of
power, of virtue too. Saints die and sinners die, kings die
and beggars die. They are all going to death, and yet this
tremendous clinging on to life exists. Somehow, we do not
know why, we cling to life; we cannot give it up. And this is
Maya.84

Swamiji gave many examples in his Maya lectures of the

nonsensical nature of the life of individuals, of societies, of
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nations, of the human race. "These tremendous contradictions in
our intellect, in our knowledge, yea, in all the facts of our life face
us on all sides."85 There is no happiness without somewhere an
equal amount of misery, no social reform without the eruption of
social evil, no laughter without tears, no life without death. He
did not spare his listeners. This is the way it is, he said, and this is
Maya. "It has been preached in every country, taught everywhere,
but only believed in by a few, because until we get the
experiences ourselves we cannot believe in it."86

What does it show? Something very terrible. For it is all

futile. Time, the avenger of everything comes, and nothing
is left. He swallows up the saint and the sinner, the king and
the peasant, the beautiful and the ugly; he leaves nothing.
Everything is rushing towards that one goal, destruction. 87

In each of his three lectures on Maya Swamiji stressed this

point, perhaps knowing that to hear it from his lips was equivalent
to learning it the slow, hard way over hundreds, thousands of
lifetimes. His lectures, particularly his class lectures, were often
hammer blows, breakers of bondage. He would repeat an
unaccustomed or unpalatable idea again and again, never in quite
the same way. He would suddenly digress, perhaps to break too
great a tension, perhaps to impress an important thought upon
minds grown concentrated and receptive; he seldom, if ever,
followed an outline. Reading his lectures, one may sometimes
lose one's way, but his listeners, caught up in the atmosphere of
freedom that surrounded him, were, he could be, themselves set
free. "You must bear in mind," he said to them, "that I have to tell
you facts that will frighten you sometimes, but if you remember
what I say, think of it, and digest it, it will be yours; it will raise
you higher and make you capable of understanding and living in
truth."88 So he pounded upon the hard lesson that
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no solution, no remedy, no explanation of the contradictions of
Maya could be found within Maya's own realm. Like a drawing
of a hand that is drawing both itself and its surroundings, it was a
closed circle; the mind had somehow created or conjured up its
objects, and those objects totally limited the mind within their
own unyielding walls.

To find a solution of this problem is impossible [he said].

Why should it be so? It is impossible to answer this, because
the question cannot be logically formulated. There is neither
how nor why in fact; we only know that it is and that we
cannot help it. Even to grasp it, to draw an exact image of it
in our own mind, is beyond our power. How can we solve it
then? Maya is a statement of the fact of this universe, of how
it is going on. . . . Animals are living upon plants, men upon
animals; and, worst of all, upon one another, the strong upon
the weak. This is going on everywhere. And this is Maya . 89

Swamiji insisted that his nineteenth-century audience, so

given to the idea of progress and positive thinking, face the world
as it is rather than hide the facts under a cloak of optimism. "Bold
we must be," he said. "Hiding facts is not the way to find a
remedy. As you all know, a hare hunted by dogs puts its head
down and thinks itself safe; so, when we run [in] optimism we do
just like the hare, but that is no remedy."90 He blasted man's
foredoomed attempts to solve the problem of evil. For instance,
"[We] are told that in the long run all will be good. Taking it for
granted that this is possible, why should there be this diabolical
way of doing good?" Nor, for that matter, did he believe that "in
the long run all will be good:91 As he so often said in his Western
lectures and classes, he did not hold with the theory, taken as
gospel truth in his day, that evolution "eliminates evil and, this
evil being continually eliminated from the world, at last only
good will remain."92 "That is very nice to hear,"
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he said. "Yet this argument is fallacious from beginning to end."
Why?

It takes for granted, in the first place, that manifested

good and evil in this world are two absolute realities. In the
second place, it makes a still worse assumption that the
amount of good is an increasing quantity and the amount of
evil is a decreasing quantity. . . . Very easy to say, but can it
be proved that evil is a lessening quantity? . . . As we
increase our power to be happy, we also increase our power
to suffer, and sometimes I am inclined to think that if we
increase our power to become happy in arithmetical
progression, we shall increase, on the other hand, our power
to become miserable in geometrical progression. We who
are progressing know that the more we progress, the more
avenues are opened to pain as well as to pleasure. And this is
Maya.93
Then there were the agnostics and their kin, the "practical"
people who "tell us, `Don't bother your heads about such
nonsense as religion and metaphysics. Live here; this is a very
bad world indeed, but make the best of it.' 94 Swamiji made short
work of them.

Hope and a positive ideal [he said in "Maya and

Freedom"] are very good motive powers for our lives, but
there is a certain danger in them. The danger lies in our
giving up the struggle in despair. Such is the case with those
who preach, "Take the world as it is; sit down as calmly and
comfortably as you can, and be contented with all these
miseries. When you receive blows, say they are not blows
but flowers; and when you are driven about like slaves, say
that you are free. Day and night tell lies to others and to your
own souls, because that is the only way to live happily."
This is what is called practical wisdom, and. never was it
more prevalent in
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 the world than in this nineteenth century; because never
were harder blows hit than at the present time, never was
competition keener, never were men so cruel to their
fellowmen as now; and therefore, must this consolation be
offered. It is put forward in the strongest way at the present
time; but it fails, as it always must fail. We cannot hide a
carrion with roses; it is impossible. It would not avail long;
for soon the roses would fade, and the carrion would be
worse than ever before. So with our lives. We may try to
cover our old and festering sores with cloth of gold, but
there comes a day when the cloth of gold is removed, and
the sore in all its ugliness is revealed.95

Nor was that all. Swamiji not only mercilessly pointed out the
fallacies in man's attempts to somehow get around or hide from
the fact that evil as well as good exists in this world, he also
undercut every attempt to explain the why and the how of the
universe. The material sciences, pride of the modern age,
constituted one such attempt to understand and to master the
whole of life. It is no use, said Swamiji. It has all been tried
before. The Vedic seers had, in principle, penetrated finer and
finer levels or states of matter and had there failed to solve the
problem.

The detailed workings of modern science do not bring the

question one step nearer to solution, because the principles
have failed. . . . In their inquiry into the principle [of the
universe] the Hindu thinkers were as bold as, and in some
cases much bolder than the moderns. They made some of the
grandest generalizations that have yet been reached, and
some still remain as theories, which modern science has yet
to get even as theories. . . . No amount of knowledge of the
external world could solve the problem.. . . [The Vedantist]
has proved beyond all doubt that the mind is limited. . . . As
no man
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 can jump out of his own self, so no man can go beyond the
limits that have been put upon him by the laws of time and
space.96

Nor does the concept of God as Creator and Governor serve to

explain the universe. In his lecture "Vedic Religious Ideals," from
which I have quoted earlier, Swamiji elaborated on this theme:

The Aryan mind had so long been seeking an answer to

the question from outside. They questioned everything they
could find, the sun,. the moon, and stars, and they found all
they could in this way. The whole of nature at best could
teach them only of a personal Being who is the Ruler of the
universe; it could teach nothing further. In short, out of the
external world we can only get the idea of an architect, that
which is called the Design Theory. It is not a very logical
argument, as we all know; there is something childish about
it, yet it is the only little bit of anything we can know about
God from the external world, that this world required a
builder. But this is no explanation of the universe.. .. The
God that the Design Theory gives is at best only an
architect, and a limited architect of the universe; He is bound
and restricted by the materials; He is not independent at
all.97

As providing an explanation of the universe, the Personal God

was deficient in yet another respect, which Swamiji discussed in
"Maya and the Evolution of the Conception of God." As the
concept of God evolved, He "became the most ethical being in
the universe, as well as [the most] almighty." But now the
problem of evil only increased.

Why under the reign of an almighty and all-loving God

of the universe should diabolical things be allowed
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 to remain? Why so much more misery than happiness, and
so much more wickedness than good? We may shut our eyes
to all these things, but the fact still remains that this world is
a hideous world. At best, it is the hell of Tantalus. 98

There was no answer anywhere. Neither through reason nor

through sense experience, nor by means of both, nor by faith in a
Creator God can mankind--even given a million years and more-
explain this universe and the half good, half evil life within it.
This admission was the beginning of Vedanta. "The Vedanta was
(and is) the boldest system of religion," Swamiji said. "It stopped
nowhere."99 It began with a bold intellectual inquiry and an
incessant yearning of heart for release. "Religion begins with a.
tremendous dissatisfaction with the present state of things, with
our lives, and a hatred, an intense hatred, for this patching up of
life, an unbounded disgust for fraud and lies."100
Was it not because of this initial need for "unbounded disgust"
that Swamiji again and again tore aside the veils of rationalization
and sentimentality from his listeners' minds, forcing them to look
squarely at the Tantalus hell in which they lived? Only after
doing this did he show the way out. It was in "Maya and
Freedom," the third of his Maya lectures, that he turned the
attention of his listeners to the voice rising continuously,
insistently from the depths of their own beings. "Is there no
hope?" he asked. "Is there no way out?" And he devoted the
remainder of this series on Maya to his answer. It was a matter,
simply, of shifting one's point of view.

We find that with all this, with this terrible fact before us,
in the midst of sorrow and suffering, even in this world
where life and death are synonymous, even here, there is a
still small voice that is ringing through all ages, through
every country and in every heart: `This My Maya is divine,
made up of qualities and very difficult to
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 cross. Yet those that come unto me cross the river of life.'
This is the voice that is leading us forward. . . . This is called
religion.
. . . Every moment nature is proving us to be slaves and
not free. Yet, simultaneously rises the other idea that still we
are free. . . . Some inner voice tells us that we are free. . . .
And if you study all the various religions of the world you
will find this idea expressed. Not only religion-you must not
take this word in its narrow sense-but the whole life of
society is the assertion of that one freedom. . . . We are all
rushing towards freedom, we are all following that voice,
whether we know it or not. . . . The whole universe is
nothing but the result of this mad struggle to reach the voice.
This is the manifestation of nature.101

Thus did Swamiji turn over the coin of Maya. On one side the
whole universe was "rushing towards . . . destruction"; on the
other side it was all rushing towards freedom. On the one side
were the walls of time, space, and causation; on the other side
was the innate freedom of the soul-the very Existence which
made those walls seem real, the very stuff behind their
appearance. This was not philosophical speculation; it was
practical religious instruction. The "voice" that asserted the
Freedom of the soul was dynamic in human life; it was to be
heard and to be understood. And then religion begins.

The scene begins to shift [Swamiji went on]. As soon as

you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole
scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly
battlefield of Maya is now changed into something good and
beautiful. We no longer curse nature, nor say that the world
is horrible and that it is all vain; we need no longer weep and
wail.102

Swamiji here returned to a theme that ran throughout

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these classes-the evolution of religious concepts. He had come
now to the point where he could show the basic motive power and
ideal behind all religious development-from the lowest and most
external religion up to the highest and most inward -the ideal, in
one way or another, had ever been that of freedom.

As the idea of nature expands [he said in summary], the

idea of the soul [the gods] superior to nature also expands,
until we come to what we call monotheism, which holds that
there is Maya (nature), and that there is some Being who is
the Ruler of this Maya. .
Here Vedanta begins, where these monotheistic ideas
first appear. But the Vedanta philosophy wants further
explanation. . . . The idea that the goal is far off, far beyond
nature, attracting us all towards it, has to be brought nearer
and nearer, without degrading or degenerating it. The God of
heaven becomes the God in nature, and the God in nature
becomes the God who is nature, and the God who is nature
becomes the God within this temple of the body, and the
God dwelling in the temple of the body at last becomes the
temple itself, becomes the soul and man-and there it reaches
the last words it can teach. . . . The voice that you heard was
right, says the Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the
voice was wrong. That ideal of freedom that you perceived
was correct, but you projected it outside yourself, and that
was your mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer, until you find
that it was all the time within you, it was the Self of your
own self,103

Swamiji's next lecture in his Tuesday-Thursday morning

classes was entitled "God in Everything." Although this class was
a running commentary on the Isha Upanishad, it was also a
continuation of the Maya series. The way out of Maya was simple
in the telling: give up the unreal element of experience,
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assert the real, In a Word: renounce. But Swamiji was well aware
of the negative connotations that word had in the Western mind,
and thus, even as he had brought the metaphysics of Mayavada
into focus, making it relevant to human life on every level, so did
he give the teaching of renunciation a realistic ring-a positive,
vibrant ring that did not jar on the human heart.

There is evil in the world, give up the world: that is the

great teaching [of most religions] and the only teaching, no
doubt. Give up the world. There cannot be two opinions that
to understand the truth every one of us has to give up error. .
And yet, what remains to us if this theory involves giving
up the life of the senses, the life as we know it? And what
else do we mean by life? If we give this up, what remains? 104

In answering this question Swamiji did not enter into a

metaphysical discussion; he simply stated the conclusions of the
Vedanta philosophy, asking his listeners to take it on faith for the
time being that "in Vedanta alone we find a rational solution of
the problem." He then stated that solution, and one can only guess
at its impact upon his audience as it came from his lips. "Since I
heard the Swami," one of his regular class members said, "light
has flooded into religion. It is real; it lives; it has a new glad
meaning and is altogether transformed for me."105

Here I can only lay before you what the Vedanta seeks to
teach [Swamiji said], and that is the deification of the world.
The Vedanta does not in reality denounce the world. The
ideal of renunciation nowhere attains such a height as in the
teachings of the Vedanta. But at the same time, dry suicidal
advice is not intended; it really means deification of the
world-giving up the
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 world as we think of it, as we know it, as it appears to us-
and to know what it really is. Deify it; it is God alone.
. . . The whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes
and see Him. This is what Vedanta teaches. Give up the
world which you have conjectured, because your conjecture
was based upon a' very partial experience, upon very poor
reasoning, and upon your own weakness. Give it up; the
world we have been thinking of so long, the world to which
we have been clinging so long, is a false world of our own
creation. Give that up; open your eyes and see that as such it
never existed; it was a dream, Maya. What existed was the
Lord Himself. It is He who is in the child, in the wife, and in
the husband; it is He who is in the good and in the bad; He is
in the sin and in the sinner; He is in life and in death. 106

Renunciation, then, was not a matter of running to the

Himalayas, there to seek a cave. It was, rather, a matter of
switching one's entire point of view from the unreal to the real;
from the external appearance to the inner divinity; it was a matter
of understanding one's world not through the accustomed mind
and senses but through the innermost core of one's being, of
perceiving through the divinity within, the divinity everywhere. It
was not a matter of giving up activity; one could be more active
than ever, but without desire or fear or fanaticism. This was,
actually, Swamiji's teaching of karma yoga as rooted in Advaita
Vedanta. "We must work ", ha said. "Ordinary mankind, driven
everywhere by false desire, what do they know of work? . . . He
works who is not propelled by his own desires, by any selfishness
whatsoever. He works who has no ulterior motive in view. He
works who has nothing to gain from work."107

So work, says the Vedanta, putting God in everything

and knowing Him to be in everything. Work incessantly,
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 holding life as something deified, as God Himself, and
knowing this is all we have to do, this is all we should ask
for. God is in everything, where else shall we go to find
Him? He is already in every work, in every thought, in every
feeling. Thus knowing we must work-this is the only way,
there is no other. Thus the effects of work will not bind us. .
. . Those who have not learnt this secret will have to live in a
demoniacal world until they discover it. Many do not know
what an infinite mine of bliss is in them, around them,
everywhere; they have not yet discovered it. What is a
demoniacal world? The Vedanta says ignorance. 108

Thus did Swamiji comment on the first three verses of the Isha
Upanishad and, at the same time, continue his discussion of
Maya and its conquest. In his teaching, renunciation became not a
fearsome denial of life but a triumphant conquest of the small, the
finite. Conquest was his key word. But never did he give the
impression that this path was an easy, permissive one. It was as
fraught with difficulties as was any other, replete with stumbling
blocks, over most of which one would surely stumble. But what
of that? "Never mind these failures, these little backslidings," he
encouraged the aspirant; "hold the ideal a thousand times, and if
you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more. . . . There
is infinite life before the soul. Take your time and you will
achieve your end."109
In the remainder of this class Swamiji took up verses four
through eighteen of the Isha Upanishad and ran through them
quickly but with luminous and powerful sentences, expounding
another and related theme of Vedanta: "this Oneness of life, the
Oneness of everything." The One Being that was the sole essence
of all apparent diversity was to he affirmed and perceived and
known as oneself "The Truth in thee I see, and That which is
within thee is within me, and I am That."110
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 4

On the last day of October, the weekly Light, "a journal of

Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research," whose editors had
earlier been dismayed by Swamiji's apparent criticism of
spiritualism and had subsequently been pacified by him (see
chapter twelve, section two), published a short review of one of
his October classes. As far as can be made out, the class in
question had most probably been held on the evening of
Wednesday, October 28, and could have been "Vedic Religious
Ideals" (to which we have tentatively assigned an earlier date) *
or a class similar to it for which we have no transcript. In any
event, in the following review one sees and almost hears Swamiji,
then at the height of his powers, through the eyes and ears of a
stranger:

On the sixth floor of one of the dismal but convenient

Victoria-street houses, we lately listened to a discourse by
Swami Vivekananda-one of a long series on the Hindoo
Religion and Philosophy. The lecturer is a distinctly inter-
esting personality; in the prime of life, vigorous and sug-
gesting a vitality brimful of health, with a handsome face,
splendid eyes, and a good voice. His English is admirable,
his flow of thought and facility of expression remarkable,
his field very broad. For an hour and a half he spoke,
without a note. It is true that the discourse was rather a flow
of remarks than a connected study, but it was all keenly
interesting.
The subject, in the main, was the Vedas, but we got
excursions upon Evolution, Modern Science, Idealism and
Realism, the Supremacy of Spirit, &c. On the whole, we
gathered that the speaker was a preacher of the universal
religion of spiritual ascendancy and spiritual harmony.
Certain passages from the Vedas-beautifully translated and
read, by the way-were charming in their bearing upon the
humanness and sharp reality of a life
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 beyond the veil. One longed for more of this.
We were much impressed with the admission that in the
Vedas there were many contradictions, and that devout
Hindoos never thought of denying them nor reconciling
them. Everyone was Free to take what he liked. At different
stages and on different planes, all were true. Hence the
Hindoos never excommunicated and never persecuted. The
contradictions in the Vedas are like the contradictions in
life-they are very real, but they are all true. This seems
impossible, but there is sound sense in it. At all events, as
regards excommunication and persecution, we only wish the
Christians could make the Hindoo's claim.

On the same day as Light published the above paragraphs,

there appeared in the London Daily Graphic a longer article, the
author of which may have attended more than one October class-
lecture at 39 Victoria Street. While one does not learn from the
following enough of what Swamiji said to identify positively
which classes those were, it does not much matter; a description
of Swamiji is, again, what interests us. The article read in full:

A REAL MAHATMA.
THE NEWEST THING IN OLD RELIGIONS.

Londoners to-day are very much the same as the

Athenians of old in their fondness for new things, and yet
"the weary King Ecclesiast" declared that there is no new
thing under the sun. That the newest thing in religions
should be the oldest savours of paradox, but so does the very
presence among us of the Swami Vive Kananda. He is a
highly respected pupil of the Goru Kama Krishna [Guru
Ramakrishna, whose Bengali life has been told by the
Librarian of the India Office under the heading "The Life of
a Modern Hindu Saint,"* and still more recently by
Professor Max Muller as that of "a real Mahatma."
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 A SANNYASIN.

The Swami is a young man, a little over thirty years old;

and after a distinguished college career, and having sat at the
feet of the aforesaid Goru, he became a Sannyasin. For the
benefit of the uninitiated, it may be explained that a
Sannyasin renounces all worldly position, rank and name;
and, as Mr. Ruskin has finely said, it is much more difficult
to give up all that than life itself. The Swami's assumed
name-Vive Kananda-signifies "Bliss of discrimination and
happiness." He was sent by the Rajah of Khetri and other
influential Hindus as a delegate to the Chicago Parliament of
Religions, and there he made his bow to the Western world.
The Swami since then has been lecturing in the United
States and in this country, and now he has a considerable
following in London. It would not be too much to say that
his weekly audience here numbers in the aggregate 500, and
on the strength of his preaching a room in Victoria Street has
just been engaged permanently for meetings of those people
interested in the Swami's message, while the nucleus of a
lending library finds a place along the walls. Who shall deny
the Swami's fame when it is added that he is to occupy the
pulpit of Mr. Page Hopps, and that he has already been the
object of one of Mr. Haweis's sermons?

THE SWAMI'S AUDIENCES.

The Swami's way has been prepared before him to some

extent, first by the Theosophical Society-not that he has
anything in common with the goings on that have driven
away the society's earlier adherents, who were attracted by
the glamour of the gorgeous East, and were unacquainted
with Madame Blavatsky; and in the second place by Sir
Edwin Arnold. The poet's place in this galley is accounted
for by the popularity of his "Light of Asia."
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The ten-year soldier tells us in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's ballad,
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin' you won't never 'eed naught
else"; and anything Eastern-and old-enthralls a certain
species of mankind as nothing else can. The Swami's
audiences are motley: they include persons of title and
fashionable ladies with pretensions to culture, and others,
half educated, to whom the oracular is always irresistible;
the men of the kind always found in such an environment,
and others of both sexes whose earnestness in the pursuit of
will-o'-the-wisp Truth it would be discourteous to question.
The Swami lectures in an upper chamber-literally, for it is
six stories high, but there is a lift. He is a stalwart, good-
humoured looking man, with long black hair and clean-
shaven face, with nothing of the ascetic about him. He wears
a terra-cotta robe (the irreverent might call it a dressing-
down) and a stand-up collar, the general effect being
clerical. Indeed, the curate's intonation is now and then
varied by the perfervid declamation of an evangelical
revivalist. But the Swami's voice is more musical than that
of either, and the way he half croons Sanscrit verse may be
very clever, but, like Mr. Gilbert's hero, "I couldn't
understand it," until a metrical English version was repeated.
The Yogi is admirably allusive; he uses no notes, but his
English is fluent and free, and his gestures do him credit.
The listener is convinced, while hearing the discourse, that
Milton was right in dubbing him that saw nothing charming
or musical in divine philosophy a "dull Fool."

THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY.

Critics condemn the dramatist who keeps his audience in

suspense too long, so it may be explained at once that the
Swami's mission is to unfold the Vedanta philosophy. This
is not philosophy, he explains, in the same sense that one
talks of Hegel's or Kant's philosophy-it is much more, and
(cunning touch) it was written by poets! The religion
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 unfolded in the Vedanta is the oldest in the world, and the
Swami's enthusiasm for what remains of the Vedas is equal
to that formerly displayed by the obsolete believer in verbal
inspiration for our own Christian Bible. For all younger
religions-Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedanism-the
Vedantic philosopher has a kindly tolerance; and with pride
the Swami declares that the Hindus have never been parties
to religious persecution. The same God, he says, is common
to all systems, and all men are informed by God. There is no
such thing as a personal soul, or individuality of mind-our
organism, our faculties are illusory (and a twinge of
toothache added point to the remark in the case of one
listener). It is not "the Virgilian cry-the sense of tears in
mortal things"-that the Swami expounds, but the sense of
unreality in matter; his crowning conclusion being "the
absolute Non-Duality, immanent in all things." There is,
however, no unreality in the welcome that Mr. E. T. Sturdy,
the moving spirit among the assembled independent
inquirers and students committed to nothing (who do not,
they expressly say, constitute any society) gives to visitors at
the conclusion of the hour's lecture, with the assurance that
they are at liberty to attend the lectures and to use the library
without money and without price. Alas, too, there is little
illusion about the existence of the yellow fog at that moment
pervading the metropolis.

In Swamiji's next two class-lectures, "Realisation" and

"Unity in Diversity," he took up the Katha Upanishad, giving a
running commentary on it, and here again he continued his course
on Maya. In "God in Everything" he had spoken of the
"deification of the world," of knowing that in reality "it is God
alone." Now, in "Realisation" he went on to stress that such
knowledge is not intellectual, not to be acquired by argu-
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ment or reasoning; rather, it is the vivid, unobstructed awareness
of reality from the very center of things.

Religion [he said] is a question of fact, not of talk. We

have to analyse our own souls and to find what is there. We
have to understand it and to realise what is understood. That
is religion. No amount of talk will make religion. . . . This is
one great idea to learn and to hold on to, this idea of
realisation. . . . This is the watchword of the Vedanta-realise
religion, no talking will do. But it is done with great
difficulty."111

Swamiji pointed cut once again that only by giving up the

small, ephemeral joys of this life (and those of heaven, as well)
can one know what joy really is.

Philosophy insists that there is a joy which is absolute,

which never changes. That joy cannot be the joys and
pleasures we have in this life, and yet Vedanta shows that
everything that is joyful in this life is but a particle of that
real joy, because that is the only joy there is. . . . But to
understand that, we have to go through the negation and then
the positive side will begin. We have to give up ignorance
and all that is false, and then truth will begin to reveal itself
to us. When we have grasped the truth, things which we
gave up at first will take new shape and form, will appear to
us in a new light, and become deified."112

In this same class he again reviewed the various arguments put

forth by the utilitarians who sought pleasure, by the evolutionists
who believed that in time evil would be eliminated from the earth,
by the German philosophers who theorized that the Infinite would
eventually manifest Itself perfectly in the finite world. He
demolished them all and closed with a resounding call for
renunciation-renunciation not by running
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from life but by struggling to live on the plane of the spirit in
every part of it. These last paragraphs are given somewhat
differently in the pamphlet of this class, as published in May of
1897, than in the Complete Works. Though the pamphlet edition
is less polished, its sentences are perhaps closer to Swamiji's
actual words and perhaps convey more of his vitality of utterance
than do those of the Complete Works version, however faithfully
the latter may convey his thought. The closing paragraphs of the
pamphlet read:

I always cling to the side of the old religious ideas, when

I see Christ preach, and Buddha preach, and the Vedanta
declare, and the Bible declare it, that we must all come to
that perfection in time, but by giving up this imperfection.
This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature,
a shadow of the reality. All the fools are running to enjoy the
senses.
It is easy to run in the senses. It is easier to run in the old
groove, eating and drinking, but what these modern
philosophers want to tell you is to take these comfortable
ideas and put the stamp of religion on them. But that
doctrine is not true. Death is in the senses. We must go
beyond death. It is not a reality. Renunciation will take us to
the reality. Renunciation is meant by morality. Renunciation
is every part of our life, every moment of goodness and real
life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves. I am
dead; the old man is dead; and then we are in the Real, and
the Vedanta says that reality is God, and He is our own real
nature, and He is always in you and with you. Live in Him
and stand in Him; although it seems to be so much harder, it
will become easier by-and-bye. You will find that it is the
only joyful state of existence; every other existence is of
death. Life on the plane of the spirit is the only life, life on
any other plane is mere death; the whole of this life can be
only described as a gymnasium. We must go beyond it to
enjoy real life.113
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 In his next class, "Unity in Diversity," held on Tuesday
morning, November 3, Swamiji continued his commentary on the
Katha Upanishad, beginning with the first verse of part Two and
going on to the end. Here again he dwelt on the subject of good
and evil, for the idea that a state of unalloyed good could
someday be realized on earth and the persistent desire to realize it
was the very Food of Maya, was Maya itself. Therefore he
pounded again and again on the impossibility of good existing in
this world without the shadow of evil. In this last class of the
Maya series he summed it all up. Let us quote just one passage,
which seems to contain the whole:

This is a world of good and evil. Wherever there is good,

evil follows, but beyond and behind all these manifestations,
all these contradictions, the Vedanta finds out that Unity. It
says, "Give up what is evil and give up what is good." What
remains then? Behind good and evil stands something which
is yours, the real you, beyond every evil, and beyond every
good too, and it is that which is manifesting itself as good
and bad. Know that first, and then and then alone you will
be a true optimist, and not before; for then you will be able
to control everything. . . . First be master of yourself, stand
up and be free, go beyond the pale of these laws, for these
laws do not absolutely govern you, they are only part of
your being. First find out that you are not the slave of nature,
never were and never will be; that this nature, infinite as you
may think it, is only finite, a drop in the ocean, and your
Soul is the ocean; you are beyond the stars, the sun, and the
moon. They are like mere bubbles compared with your
infinite being. Know that, and you will control both good
and evil. Then alone the whole vision will change and you
will stand up and say, "How beautiful is good and how
wonderful is evil!114

I can find no better way to recount what Swamiji taught than

to quote his own words. But since one has to stop short of
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reproducing the whole of Jnana Yoga, I have quoted here only
sketchily, following his main theme (as I understand it) as one
might follow an arterial path in a woodland of many branching
trails or listen to only one line of richly orchestrated music. One
cannot help but miss much this way. Swamiji's lectures with their
strength and beauty, their poetry, their secondary themes and
subtleties of thought, their marvelous sentences and flashes of
insight-those wonderful lectures must be read in full to catch their
fire and power. They were a triumph of his effort to bring the
philosophy of Vedanta with its abstruse doctrine of Maya into
sharp focus so that it had a total relevance to ordinary human life.
In addition, weaving the theme in and out, he showed the
evolution of religion as it moved upward and inward step by step
to the grand consummation of the teaching of Oneness-"that
behind everything, as the substance of everything, He is standing,
and that He is the one real Self."115 Swamiji's Maya lectures were
themselves more than evolutionary: they were revolutionary; they
turned the accustomed universe inside out. There he stood, the
"Incarnation of Man," as Sri Ramakrishna had called him, boldly
dispelling ancient and enslaving dreams, revealing the eternal
reality and sovereignty of the Self, the majesty of his presence
giving full support to his astounding words. He himself was
satisfied with this series of classes. In her Master as I Saw Him
Sister Nivedita wrote, "He always considered, for his own part,
that his greatest intellectual achievement during this period had
consisted in his lectures on Maya, and it is only by reading these
carefully that an idea can be formed of the difficulty of the task
he undertook, in trying to render the conception in modern
English"-and, one ventures to add, not only in modern English
but in the language of life itself.

The six Tuesday-Thursday morning class-lectures quoted from

above-the three classes on Maya, one on the Isha
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Upanishad, and two on the Katha Upanishad-were only the
beginning of Swamiji's exposition that fall of practical Advaita
Vedanta. There was a good deal more to come, but let us pause
here. It was, in fact, almost at this point-the Sunday between his
first and second talks on the Katha Upanishad-that he wrote a
brief summary of his October classes in reply to an inquiry from
Mary Hale regarding his views on the Silver Question-a complex
political and economic issue that was then agitating the United
States, for it formed the platform of William Jennings Bryan's
presidential campaign against William McKinley and involved an
emotionally charged clash of rich and poor, capitalist and laborer,
creditor and debtor. Swamiji replied to this political query with a
mind tuned to the fundamental answers contained in the classes
he had been giving. His letter, dated November 1, opened:

"Silver and gold," my dear Mary, "have I none; but such

as I have give I thee" freely, and that is the knowledge that
the goldness of gold, the silverness of silver, the manhood of
man, the womanhood of woman, the reality of everything is
the Lord-and that this Lord we are trying to realise from
time without beginning in the objective, and in the attempt
throwing up such "queer" creatures of our fancy as man,
woman, child, body, mind, the earth, sun, moon, stars, the
world, love, hate, property, wealth, etc.; also ghosts, devils,
angels and gods, God etc.116

Swamiji went on to speak of realization and renunciation, of

good and evil, of Maya and Truth, of phenomena and the One
Existence, of the attainment of jivanmukti-all ideas which he had
been discussing in his classes and an understanding and
application of which could, in his view, alone solve the economic,
political, social, and moral problems of the world. This indeed
was Swamiji's politics. "God and truth are the only politics in the
world," he had written a year or so
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earlier to Alasinga, "everything else is trash."· 117 and again in an
interview in the spring of 1896, "Religion is of deeper importance
than politics, since it goes to the root and deals with the essential
of conduct "118 But at the same time, he was intensely interested
in everything concerning man's everyday life and problems, as
well as in the long sweep of human history. He felt deeply for the
suffering of the masses everywhere. And after a time in this letter
he answered Mary Hale's question specifically, rising from the
real heart of the matter to a sort of middle ground, seeing the
problem in its broadest historical perspective and relating it to the
rise and fall through the ages of four different social classes, or
castes-the priests, the soldiers, the traders, and the laborers. "The
first three have had their day," he wrote. "Now is the time for the
last-they must have it-none can resist it " He then came to thc
matter at hand for a brief paragraph or two:

I do not know all the difficulties about the gold or silver

standards (nobody seems to know much as to that), but this
much I see that the gold standard has been making the poor
poorer, and the rich richer. Bryan was right when he said,
"We refuse to be crucified on a cross of gold."* The silver
standard will give the poor a better chance in this unequal
fight. I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect
system, but half a loaf is better than no bread.
The other systems have been found wanting. Let this one
be tried-if for nothing else, for the novelty of the thing....
Let every dog have his day in this miserable world, so
that after this experience of so-called happiness they may all
come to the Lord and give up this vanity of a world and
governments and all other botherations:119

Swamiji's statement in this letter to Mary Hale that he was a

socialist obviously did not apply, as some have thought, to his
views on Indian politics. He was speaking here of the social
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and economic problems of the late-nineteenth-century industrial
West. He was declaring himself, as naturally he would, to be on
the side of the American poor with, it so happened, William
Jennings Bryan, and on the side of the English poor with the more
widely based proponents of socialism. Whatever Swamiji's views
may have been regarding India's problems, he was not here
referring to them even by implication. It is of interest,
nevertheless, to consider what he was referring to. What would he
have meant by the term socialism? In the 1890s English
Socialism was a movement initiated by a few nonviolent, highly
intellectual, middle- and upper-class men and women whose
social conscience had been aroused.
The appalling living and working conditions of the laboring
classes in industrial England, their poorly paid, overworked,
underfed, miserably housed life, their total lack of redress for the
injustices heaped upon their heads, the unspeakable workhouses
into which they were shunted when employment failed, as it
frequently did, the all-in-all hopelessness of an enormous number
of men, women, and children, whose unending labor fed and.
clothed the rich-this state of things had not been discovered and
made widely known until the 1880s. Such works as Charles
Booth's factual eighteen-volume Life and Labours of the People
in London, William Booth's more popular In Darkest England
and the Way Out, Andrew Mearns's The Bitter Cry of Outcast
London, together with the sensational journalism of William T.
Stead, who described the conditions of London's poor in lurid, but
not exaggerated, terms (one could hardly exaggerate the squalor
of the city's slums in which thirty percent of the population
lived)-such books brought to public notice that all was not well in
merrie England. Many people, shocked, increased their donations
to charity and, much relieved, forgot the whole matter. But the
few who could not forget made an intensive study of the causes of
poverty. As for its remedy, other books written around this time
had much to say and were highly influential-notably, Henry
George's Progress and Poverty, Edward Bellamy's Looking
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Backward, H. M. Hyndman's England for All, Karl Marx's
Capital. These, addressing themselves to the economic problems
of the Industrial Age, pointed to a socialistic solution-a
redistribution of wealth through state, rather than individual,
ownership of the means of production. Around this general idea,
various kinds of socialism arose in England-all of them
gentlemanly. There were the utopian Christian Socialists, the
Marxist-based Social-Democratic Federation, its splinter group,
the Socialist League, and the down-to-earth, highly educated,
upper-middle-class, hard-working Fabian Socialists, who owed
nothing to Marx and favored a gradual means of reform. It would
seem to go almost without saying that if Swamiji was in
sympathy with any particular group of socialists, it was with the
small and fairly exclusive Fabian Society (founded in 1884), for it
steered a path between the irrationality of violence on the one
hand and that of sentimentality on the other-between, that is,
plans for wholesale revolution and dreams of isolated utopian
communes.
The leaders of the Fabian Society, which was not and never
would be a political party, were brilliant, witty, compassionate,
and vigorous men and women; among them were, most notably,
George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Sydney
Olivier, Graham Wallas, Hubert Bland, Annie Besant (before she
became a Theosophist), and, later on, Bertrand Russell. The
Fabians, a historian wrote of them, were "a group of men and
women who are endeavouring to spread practical views on the
immediate and pressing social problems, and to indicate the way
for their embodiment in legislative or administrative
measures."120 They held regular fortnightly meetings, attended
other pertinent meetings, wrote tracts, pamphlets, and leaflets,
gave innumerable lectures, and in every way possible tried to
"permeate" all classes, high and low, with the idea that "society,
as based on the competitive system, must be reconstructed in such
a manner as to secure the general welfare and happiness."121 Far
from being destructive or revolutionary, the Fabian Society
"constructed the
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edifice of Socialism on the firm foundations of existing political
and social institutions"12which in England were, it so happened,
already democratic. In short, as described by Graham Wallas, it
was "a movement towards economic equality to be achieved by
democracy."123
And that movement was, of course, motivated by a deep
conviction, considered wildly irresponsible by its right-wing
opponents, that all human beings have a right to work, to rest, to
eat, to be educated, and to be well housed. While Swamiji would
not have agreed that social and economic reforms could in
themselves bring about a society consisting of moral and happy
men and women, he would not have discouraged these dedicated
socialists from doing their utmost for the welfare of others. Nor
were all socialists philosophical materialists; some among them
placed a strong emphasis on spiritual values. One such was
Edward Carpenter, who, along with others, came to visit Swamiji
at his flat. In Swami Shuddhananda's reminiscences one reads:

Swamiji said, "At London, [Edward Carpenter] used to

call on me on many occasions and sit near me. Many other
socialists and democrats also used to visit me. Finding in the
religion of Vedanta a strong support for their ideals, they felt
much attracted towards its teachings.124

It has been said that Edward Carpenter "shows in the

appendices to his Pagan and Christian Creeds the undoubted in-
fluence of Vivekananda:"125 The appendix to this work (published
in 1920) is entitled "The Teaching of the Upanishads" and
consists of two parts: "Rest" and "The Nature of the Self." Both
essays are full of Vedantic ideas, and there can indeed be little
doubt that Swamiji's thought entered into, clarified, and enriched
Carpenter's own. But the door was wide open. Edward Carpenter
had been thinking and feeling along Vedantic lines for many
years prior to his meeting with Swamiji, and throughout his adult
life he had nourished his thought with food from
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many sources, including the Upanishads. Thus, while one cannot
deny Swamiji's influence upon him, one cannot easily pinpoint it.
But however that may be, some of the best and most vital of
minds must have gathered at 14 Greycoat Gardens along with
Edward Carpenter. There would have been long and good talks
on the nature of man, on the foundations of morality, on the
meaning of equality and freedom, on the art of working
effectively and beneficially, on the divinity of all men and all
things, on renunciation and self sacrifice. The conversation must
often have turned on the question of whether a better order of
things would be brought about solely by economic reform, which,
it was assumed, would enable everyone to manifest his natural
goodness and morality, or through, first, a moral and spiritual
regeneration, such as would create a perfect society.
As far as India was concerned, Swamiji had written to
Alasinga in 1895, "There cannot be any reform without spiritual
reform first,"126 and he no doubt would have said the same in
connection with the West. Indeed, he made this point clear in his
lecture "Vedanta and Privilege," which bears no date as published
but which may have been given on a Wednesday evening in
November:

This is the gist of Vedantic morality . . . sameness for all.

We have seen that it is the subjective world that rules the
objective. Change the subject, and the object is bound to
change; purify yourself, and the world is bound to be
purified. This one thing requires to be taught now more than
ever before. We are becoming more and more busy about
our neighbours, and less and less about ourselves. The world
will change if we change; if we are pure, the world will
become pure. . . .
. . . You ask one of your great men in England, of great
birth and wealth, if he believes as a Christian in the
brotherhood of mankind, since all came from God. He
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 answers in the affirmative, but in five minutes he shouts
something uncomplimentary about the common herd. Thus,
it has been a theory only. . . . All understand it, declare it as
the truth, but when you ask them to practise it, they say it
will take millions of years. . . .
Do you believe what Christ says, "Sell all that thou hast
and give to the poor"? Practical equality there; no trying to
torture the texts, but taking the truth as it is. . . . Do not
torture texts; dare to face truth as it is. Even if we cannot
reach to it, let us confess our weakness, but let us not
destroy the ideal. Let us hope that we shall attain to it
sometime, and strive for it. There it is-"Sell all that thou
hast, and give to the poor, and follow me." Thus, trampling
on every privilege and everything in us that works for
privilege, let us work for that knowledge which will bring
the feeling of sameness towards all mankind. You think that
because you talk a little more polished language, you are
superior to the man in the street. Remember that when you
are thinking this, you are not going towards freedom, but are
forging a fresh chain for your feet.127

Here again was Swamiji's "political" stand. It called for inner

change on the part of many individuals, for without that, no
amount of social or economic reform could be effective and
lasting. Indeed, too high a social ideal without a strong foundation
of individual selflessness and sameness of vision could be only
destructive, like an attempt to raise a lofty tower on a bed of silt.
According to a letter written by Goodwin to Mrs. Bull, it was
during a talk at Greycoat Gardens that Swamiji, discussing social
questions, said, "It is very good to have a high ideal, but don't
make it too high. A high ideal raises mankind, but an impossible
ideal lowers them from the very impossibility of the case: 128 He
was surely speaking here of social ideals that involve large groups
of people or entire nations, ideals such as communism or
anarchism or pacifism, ideals which society as
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a whole is not ready to live up to, which in theory are grand and
noble but which in practice instantly become corrupt and
distorted, sometimes monstrous; for as he said, "it is the sub-
jective world that rules the objective";129 it is not the other way
around.

Even when there were no visitors, the conversation at

Greycoat Gardens was full of liveliness and interest-at least for
the participants. In another letter to Mrs. Bull, Goodwin wrote, "I
am writing this while the two Swamis are having a big discussion
in Bengalee-12 midnight-which has already lasted over two hours
on a sentence in the Brihadaranya (sic) Upanishad which you
have often heard the Swami quote `No man loves the wife for the
wife's sake, but for the Self & c’”130 Or Swamiji spoke on another
evening about Buddha. "The Swami says," Goodwin reported to
Mrs. Bull, "he thinks that when Buddha came India had reached a
very great eminence in civilization, but the intense intellectuality
had nlade religion a dry, selfish, agnosticism. Buddha preached
the highest agnosticism-& he also spoke of Buddha never having
spoken of doing anything for himself-always for all these.' "131
And there would of course have been conversations outside
the flat as well as in it, for Swamiji was surely often a guest at a
luncheon or dinner at the home of one friend or another. We
know, however, of only one such occasion during the fall season,
information about which comes to us from a letter of Goodwin's
dated October 23:

Yesterday we lunched at the house of a wealthy lady

[Miss Emmeline Souter]* & met the Rev. H. R. Haweis, &
the Bishop of Ballarat (Australia) & others. Mr. Haweis is
really splendid in his attitude to the Swami-so deferential, &
so generous in his open admiration of his greatness.132
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 The "we" who attended this luncheon included Swami
Abhedananda, who was getting on well in this foreign land.
Goodwin "piloted" him about London, showing him the sights;
Swamiji saw to it that he met people of all classes, coached him
in public speaking, and before long decided that he should give a
talk. The young Swami was not to avoid this first-speech trial in
London, as Swami Saradananda had fortuitously done earlier in
the year (see chapter twelve, section one). The story has come
down to us that in the late morning of the scheduled day (October
27) in what must have been Swamiji's seventh-story Victoria
Street classroom, Swami Abhedananda said to his older brother,
who had just given the glowing class-lecture "God in
Everything," “You know, Naren, I don't think I will speak this
afternoon. Some other time . . ." And Swamiji, who was a good
deal more strongly built than Swami Abhedananda, replied
fiercely, "Kali, you must speak, or I will throw you out that
window!"
It was a well-chosen gathering at which Swami Abhedananda
spoke that afternoon-a small, informal, and friendly meeting of
the Christo-Theosophical Society (at 33 Bloomsbury Square) that
had convened to hear Swamiji himself. If the audience was at first
disappointed not to hear the speaker it had come to hear, it was
soon delighted with the young Swami's maiden speech and
enchanted by the sight of Swamiji s own unbounded pleasure. Mr.
Eric Hammond, who was present, recalled that "an overwhelming
joy was noticeable in the Swami in his scholar's success. Joy
compelled him," Hammond went on,

to put at least some of itself into words that rang with

delight unalloyed. It was the joy of a spiritual father over the
achievement of a well-beloved son, a successful and brilliant
student. . . . The whole impression had in it a glowing
beauty quite indescribable. . . . He remarked that this was the
first appearance of his dear Brother and pupil, as an English-
speaking lecturer before an English audience,
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 and he pulsated with pure pleasure at the applause that
followed the remark. His selflessness throughout the episode
burnt itself into one's deepest momory.133

But for Mr. Hammond that radiant scene would have eluded
us-as have how many others! Swamiji wrote with restraint to
Alasinga of the lecture: "The new Swami delivered his maiden
speech yesterday at a friendly society's meeting. It was good and I
liked it; he has the making of a good speaker in him I am sure."134
Goodwin was as matter-of fact: "The, Swami Avedananda
lectured to the Christo-Theosophical Socy last week, &. was
exceedingly good. He will make a lecturer."135 That is all we
would have known of Swamiji's pleasure on that occasion, which
was indeed a momentous one-the beginning 'for Swami
Abhedananda of what would be many years of lecturing in the
Western world. But even as Swamiji was overjoyed with him, he
himself was more pleased with his great brother than with his
own success. On November 19 he wrote from London to a friend
in India:

The Swami is holding his classes here & he is really

going to be appreciated by the English people. I am sur-
prised to see the wonderful power of speech which the
Swami has got. He can charm & attract hundreds of people
by his magnetic influence.

Yon will be glad to know that I have delivered here 3

lectures in English.* In the course of delivering my first
lecture I felt a little nervous, but in the other two I was not at
all nervous.
The Swami has got here hundreds of his admire. 136

Swamiji’s English work had lost nothing of its impetus and

strength during the summer vacation. The classes had, in fact,
grown, and the verbal support of Max Muller and Paul Deussen,
both highly esteemed scholars, had given his teachings the aura of
respectability, as he informed Mrs. Bull in his letter
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of October 8.* "Things are working very favorably here in
England," he wrote; "that is a great gain. The work is not only
popular but respectable."137 The Anglican clergy was favourably
disposed toward him; unorthodox but highly respected ministers
such as the Reverend Mr. Haweis greatly admired him; and, as
we have seen, many intellectuals saw in Vedanta a philosophy
that could support their views on social reform. But would the
work survive his absence? Even though Swami Abhedananda
would prove to be a good lecturer, was there an organization to
support him? And was one swami enough? The news from
America told of Swami Saradananda's success there, but it also
indicated that more teachers were needed to fill the demand and
maintain a continuity of interest. Though such thoughts did not
weigh on Swamiji's mind, they entered it.
"The work in London is growing apace, the classes are
becoming bigger as they go on," he wrote to Alasinga in the
second or third week of October, and continued:

I have no doubt this will go on increasing at this rate and

the English people are steady and loyal. Of course, as soon
as I leave, most of this fabric will tumble down. [But]
something will happen. Some strong man will arise to take it
up. The Lord knows what is good. In America there is room
for twenty preachers on the Vedanta and Yoga. Where to get
these preachers and where also the money to bring them?
Half the United States can be conquered in ten years, given a
number of strong and genuine men. Where are they?138

As this last season of his Western work began, Swamiji sent

out a resounding call through Alasinga: "My child, what I want is
muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of
the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made."139 He
wanted such workers, heroic and unconquerable, not for the West
alone, but, as will be seen in the following chapter, for India as
well.
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NOTES FOR CHAPTER FOURTEEN
p. 304 * It is interesting to note that although, according tc
the Seviers, Miss Muller had "treated Swamiji like a dog" in
Europe, he found it in his heart, as always, to forgive and
forgive and forgive, and, in this instance to put a seal upon
his forgiveness by accepting Mis Muller's invitation to be a
guest in her Wimbledon home. Captain Sevier does not
appear to have been so tolerant of Miss Muller's vagaries
(see note to page 483, chapter I6).
According to the Life (pages 428 and 4~9 in the ~965
edition), Swamiji went directly from the Liverpool Station
in London to the Seviers' home in the northern suburb of
Hampstead, where he is said to have stayed for a few days
before going on to Wimbledon. I do not know what
evidence there is for this, and since ther~ is good evidence
that he and Professor Paul Deussen traveled from London to
Wimbledon on the day oi their arrival in London-the
evidence of Swamiji'' own words (Complete Works 8: 39~)-I
have followec that line of history. (Later on, Swamiji may
hav' spent a few days at the Seviers' flat in Hampstead. Or
the night of October 7, he wrote a letter to Mis MacLeod
from there.)
** In his autobiography Mcin Leben Deussen wrote of this
period: "In England we [Vivekananda and I] lived
separately but met every day and did many things together.
Vivekananda introduced me to his protectors, Mr. Sturdy
and Miss Muller, whom I found interesting."
(Translation, courtesy of Swami Vidyatmananda.)
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p.305 * In a letter dated September I7, I896, Mr. Sturdy
wrote to Mrs. Bull: "Abhedananda is on his way from India
here, another gurubhai (brother) of Swami's."
p.307 * On November 4, I897, Swami Abhedananda would
write to Swami Brahmananda from New York: "Mrs. Sturdy
is dead [set] against Vedanta and Narendra;she gets upset at
the very name of India. She has swallowed Mr. Sturdy and
is always on her guard lest Sturdy becomes a Sannyasin and
escapes" (Swami Abhedananada, Complete Works, IO: I46).
For Mrs Sturdy's early animosity toward Swamiji see
Complete Works, 7: 516.
p.312 * For details regarding the summer sessions at
Greenacre see Prophetic Mission - 2, chapter eleven, section
two. In the summer of I896 Dr. Lewis G. Janes established
and conducted the Monsalvat School of Comparative
Religion, which was held during the month of August in
conjunction with the Greenacre Lecture Conference under
the "Lysekloster Pines"-- a pine grove named by Mrs. Bull
after her home in Norway.
p.323 * For somewhat manipulative reasons, Mrs. Bull
wanted Swamiji to say that her donation was his, offered to
him for the work by "a friend." His letter from Switzerland,
dated August ~3, I896 (Complete Works, 370-72), was in
part a manifestly irritated reply to and rejection of this
idea. Her letter, typically opaque and illegible to boot, read
as follows:
". . . If Mr. Goodwin's plan of New York quarters seems the
best plan to you and you would like to add the Vedanta loan
to your credit with me for the support of Saradananda & the
quarters in New York, either in whole or in part, to the
effect of $500-five hundred dollars-I will be glad to replace
it, and it
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p.323 (cont) would perhaps be best for you to say to
Mr. Goodwin that you have such an amount from a friend
for the work and let him receive it from and account to you
? It will leave him free, if not related in his mind to anyone
but yourself.
"I see that you do not find anything in Dr. Janes' work at
I68 Brattle St with informal, unorganized methods that
calls for the cooperation of yourself and Mr. Sturdy. It
seems to be best that Saradananda who should represent you
always and also Mr. Sturdy through whose courtesy he is
here should not be asked for assistance very kindly offered
him to Dr. Janes.
"I will suggest to Dr. Janes that you will possibly first find
the need of New York and other centres requiring
Saradananda's time, and that when that has been met you
will be likely if you think it best to yourself suggest the
presence and scholarship of Saradananda to him for the
Conferences. I will also tell him that you do not find it best
no doubt for yourself and Mr. Sturdy to accept even a
corresponding membership of the Home Conferences at
Brattle St...."
p.325 * Mr. Goodwin's letters of this period in I896
are not at present available, but their import can be inferred
from Swamiji's letter of August I~ (Complete Works,
8:387), and Goodwin's letter of September I, I896,
to Mrs. Bull (SCB).
p.327 * In addition to the Circular, a seven page leaflet
was distributed at Greenacre, most of which-a reprint from
"a little pamphlet published by Mr. E. T. Sturdy, in
England"-explained the importance of the study of Eastern
thought in the West and Swamiji's role in expounding it.
The last paragraph, however, was purely of American (and
possibly of Mrs. Bull's) composition. It read:
"Swami Saradananda, of the same brotherhood of
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p. 32 7 (cont) faith as the Swami Vivekananda, is highly
commended for his personal qualities and ability as a
teacher by competent persons in England, where he has
been teaching for some time under the auspices of Mr. E. T.
Sturdy, of High View Caversham, Reading. The managers
of the Greenacre School of Comparative Religion are deeply
indebted to Mr. Sturdy for his kindness in giving the Swami
Saradananda leave of absence to assist in the Greenacre
work." Whether or not Swamiji saw this leaflet in addition
to the Circular is not known.
p. 329 * Clear evidence thatJ. C. Chattopadhyaya and Roy
were the same person is contained in the letter Miss
Phillips's friend wrote to her from Chicago on September I5,
I896. It read in part:
"I am glad to be able to write you that the young Brahmin J.
Chattopadhyaya (we call him Roy for short) who has been
in England for the past year, is now on his way to Chicago.
He is probably to arrive in N.Y. next Sat. on the St. Louis,
& be the guest of Mr. Alex Fullerton of the Am. Sec. of T.S.
[American Section of the Theosophical Society] for 2 or 3
days before starting for Chicago. I have written giving him
your address & also the address of Mr. Goodyear, as I am as
is he very desirous of his meeting you. He is in entire
oneness with our Swami Vivekananda & their teachings
seem the same. If Saradananda or the lady monks are in
N.Y. I hope he will meet them...."
p. 338 * Swami Saradananda's lecture of October o5, I896,
before the Brooklyn Ethical Association at the Pouch
Mansion was entitled "The Ethics of the Hindus." The
Swami was the second speaker in a series of ten lectures
sponsored by the Association on the ethics of various
religions and philosophies. He spoke again at
#

393
p.338 (cont) a meeting of the Association, probably
on October 29, before returning to Cambridge.
p.34I * None of Swamiji's letters to Miss Mary Phillips
oi this period are available. For the benefit of future
researchers it should be noted that one such letter may
be in the possession of a Mrs. George Denniston of Seattle,
Washington. Mrs. Denniston is the great grandniece of Miss
Phillips and possesses, in addition to a letter (of unknown
date) written by Swami Vivekananda to her great-grandaunt,
other paper; connected with the early years of the Vedanta
movement. Mrs. Denniston is not willing at the present timr
to describe these papers or allow them, or copies of them, to
be seen. In years to come, however, either she or her son,
Mr. M. Kent Willing, may wish to make them available to
students of Swami Vivekananda's life and work.
p.342 * The Cambridge Conferences was the name of an
ambitious project conceived, organized, managed, and
financed by Mrs. Ole Bull and held in her residence at I68
Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Conferences,
directed by Dr. Lewis G. Janes, were inaugurated on
November 8 of I896 and continued this first season
through April of I897.Thereafter, until I9OI' they
.were held every year for a six-month season. In September
of I9OI Dr. Janes died, and the Conferences came to a
close. In the Outlook for August I897' there appeared an
article by Mrs. Bull in which she explained the purpose and
scope of the Conferences. She wrote in part:
"In circular letters sent out last year to a selected list of
university professors, students, and others interested,
invitations were extended for membership in conferences to
be held for the comparative study of ethics, religion, and
philosophy during the six months
#

394
p. 342 (cont) from November, 1896 to May, 1897, in my
housee at Cambridge, Mass. An acceptance on the part of
some three hundred resulted, including eminent professors
of the vicinity and country, clergymen, divinity students,
graduate and undergraduate students of Harvard and
Radcliffe-the ablest being among the first to respond. No
fees or expenses were to be met by professional members,
and no work on the part of members was asked or
pledged.... Dr. Lewis G. Janes ... accepted the direction of
the Conferences....
"In addition to [the course of twenty-five Sunday
afternoon lectures before the Conferences], twenty one
Wednesday afternoon conferences, and some seventy
discussions, class, and special evening meetings, were
arranged in response to the call of members and their
friends, the attendance increasing as the season advanced.....
"The household, adapted somewhat from an experience of
visits to college settlements-that is, made up of members
interested in the work-found the visits of guests from a
distance an extremely pleasant feature. The Oriental guests,
we trust, were made to realize the sympathy that lies back of
all human needs and feeling, behind the differentiations of
formal thought and custom...."
In connection with this household (which consisted of
several of Mrs. Bull's friends and helpers), Dr. Janes had
written to his wife in January of I897: "It seems Mrs. Bull at
first tried to carry out her plan of a cooperative
household-no servants, breakfast in the kitcher', stand-up
lunch in the pantry, take turns in cooking, etc.-but Mrs.
Farwell and Miss Wyn 'kicked,' metaphorically
speaking, and the whole plan was revolutionized before I
came, for which I am devoutly thankful."
Many eminent people participated in the Con-
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395
p. 342 (cont) ferences, including Professor Josiah Royce,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Miss Jane Addams,
CHarles Carroll Everett, the Anagarika H. Dharmapala,
Frank B. Sanborn, Edwin D. Mead, and as we know, Swami
Saradananda -- one of the household's "Oriental guests."
p. 343 * The Greenacre book that Goodwin had suggeste~
and had been working on throughout September of
I896 was to be a collection of the papers read at the
"crisp sentences from the [Greenacre] lectures on all
subJects and [making] part of the book a daily diary
of Greenacre thoughts." In addition and probably in
lieu of an American magazine, he had a Vedanta yearbook
in mind, which was to consist of relevant quotations from
all sources. As far as is known, nothing came of Goodwin's
projects, but they kept him occupied between the time the
Greenacre Conferences closed and his return to London, and
beyond.
p. 346 * According to a bulletin put out by the New York
Vedanta Society in March of I897, the year's calendar was
planned as follows: Classes in Vedanta Philosophy 508
Fifth Avenue, above 4cd St., N.Y.(These classes are
sustained by voluntary contributions)The Course of
Lectures commencing on Jan 6th I897 by SWAMI
SARADANANDA was continued by him until March 4th.
On WEDNESDAY MARCH I oth MISS ELLEN WALDO
will resume her Class Lectures at 11 a.m]and at 8. I5 p.m.
continuing them on every succeeding Wednesday
throughMarch andApril at the same hour.
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p. 346 (cont) THE SWAMI SARADANANDA of India will
lecture on Wednesday evenings, May sth, I~th and Igth at
8.I5 p.m. and will again return to New York on the FIRST
OF OCTOBER, to teach and lecture until January I898.
As things turned out, the last seven words of the above
bulletin did not come true. While Swami Saradananda
returned to New York in October of I897, some difficulty
had arisen between him and the New York people, the
nature of which is not clear. On October 4 he wrote to Mrs.
Bull: "I have decided now once & for all to have nothing to
do with the N.Y. work, but always to be their personal
friend and I am doing it every day. I will always hold the
attitude of an elder brother or a father, towards them, though
they have perfectly misunderstood me" (SCB). The Swami
was then staying with a Mrs. Wheeler, an ardent devotee of
Vedanta (who years earlier had had a vision of Sri
Ramakrishna), and was holding classes in her house in
Montclair, NewJersey, a country town about an hour from
New York (see Swami Atulananda, With the Swamis in
America, pages 77-78). Meanwhile, Swami Abhedananda
had come to America from England, and was carrying on
the work in New York. He also visited Montclair to be with
his beloved brother disciple. In this connection Swami
Saradananda wrote to Mrs. Bull on October I8, "I invited
Abhedananda, who came to visit Mrs. Wheeler for a few
days, to keep up the interest by giving at least two lectures a
month here [after Swami Saradananda's departure]; to which
he consents. His visit & stay here has changed many of his
opinions regarding the N.Y. affair. Miss Waldo was here too
& she also acknowledged that N.Y.S[ociety] has acted very
wrongly towards me & also towards you in suspecting
unfounded things. She said that she did not endorse
#

397
p.346 many things in this affair. However it might be, I was
always just as kind to her as before or at least tried to [be].
This sameness of behavior on my part has convinced her
partly at least, I think, that I am governed by no one: & not
in the least antagonistic to hem. I thank you so much for
fulfilling your promise of sending good thoughts to them for
I think that will
give them the power of looking at things in the proper
proportion, whc. they lack" (SCB).
The above makes it clear (at least) that Mrs. Bull was the
chief adversary in the "New York affair" and that Swami
Saradananda was suspected of being "governed" by her. But
however that may be, New York was no longer a congenial
field of work for him. At the end of October I 897, he
returned to Cambridge, remaining there until January 9,
I898, when at Swamiji's call he set offfor India. Mrs. Bull
and Miss MacLeod accompanied him.
p.35I * This letter to Alasinga (Complete Works 5: II6) is
undated but opens, "I have returned about three weeks from
Switzerland." Since Swamiji returned from Switzerland on
September 17' one can assume that he was writing shortly
after October 8.
** See the Life (I98I), 2: I29 and Complete Works,7 5I6 - I8.
p.353 * Mahendra Nath Datta does not again enter this
volume. The only- further information the present writer has
of his visit in the Western world comes from a passage in a
letter written by Mr. Sturdy inJanuary of I897 to Miss
MacLeod: "I do not know anything of Mohin; he has
entirely disappeared from view leaving no address and I
have returned all his letters to the post office."
But Swamiji's hopes for his younger brother's future
#

398
p.353 (cont) were to rise. On August I4 of I900
he would write to John Fox, then in America: "Kindly write
Mohin that he has my blessings in whatever he does. And
what he is doing now is surely much better than lawyering,
etc. I like boldness and adventure and my race stands in
need of that spirit very much. Only as my health is failing
and I do not expect to live long, Mohin must see his way to
take eare of mother and family. I may pass away any
moment. I am quite proud of him now" (Complete Works,
8:53I-32).
p.354 * There is a possibility that Swamiji gave
the lecture entitled "Vedic Religious Ideals" on Wednesday
evening, October 28, as an introduction to his two classes
on the Eetha Upanishad, "Realisation" and "Unity in
Diversity." The evidence for this date isalmost as strong as
that for either Tuesday, October I3, or Wednesday,
October I4. I have chosen the earlier dates (one or the
other of them), as the lecture seems to be more introductory
to Swamiji's entire lecture series than to just a part of it. But
this choice is not final; it swings with the evidence. For
instance, Swamiji's introductory words to "Realisation" as
well as an article in Light, dated October 3I' refer to a
~recently given lecture which could have been
"VedicReligious Ideals." On the other hand, "Vedic
Religious Ideals" itself several times seems to anticipate the
Maya lectures and could have predated them.
** This number includes "Vedanta and Privilege" and "The
Absolute and Manifestation," neither of which have been
definitely dated.
*** The transcript that is tentatively assigned here to
Wimbledon is "Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa."
p.370 * See note * for page 354 above.
#

399
p. 37I* The reference was to Charles Henry Tawney's "A
Modern Hindu Saint," which appeared in theJanuary I896
issue of the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly
Review.Tawney's article was a sympathetic critique of
Suresh Chandra Dutta's Parambansa Srimad Ramakrishner
Upadesha [Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna]. See note for page
292, chapter thirteen.
p. 380 * William Jennings Bryan's sensational "Cross of
Gold" speech, which had won him the Democratic
nomination, did not win him the presidency, which went to
William McKinley. A year or two later, when gold became
more accessible to the United States Treasury, the
monetary issue was no longer critical.Bryan had to find
other platforms for his three subsequent presidential
campaigns, all of which he lost.
p. 386 * According to Swami Abhedananda's diary for this
period, Miss Souter often invited Swamiji to her house (in
Marylebone) for lunch and dinner, introducing him to her
friends, one of whom was the Reverend Hugh R. Haweis.
Swamiji would take Swami Abhedananda along on these
occasions, so that he, too, would meet a number of London's
distinguished people. (See Brahmachari Satya Chaitanya,
"Londone Swami Vivekananda," part 3, Vishwavani, Caitra,
I335, p. 855~)
p. 388 * Swami Abhedananda's second lecture was a tall
before the class at 39 Victoria Street on the evening of
Wednesday, November II, in Swamiji's absence All we
know about his third talk is that it took place on Sunday,
November I5, when, as Mr. Goodwin
wrote to Mrs. Bull, he lectured "in the country at a church"
(SCB)
p. 389 * In the Complete Works (6: 377) Swamiji's word
"respectable" has been changed to "appreciated."
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400
p. 389 (cont) But it was intellectual "respectability" that
Max Muller and Deussen had shed over Swamiji's work in
England; that is what he meant to convey. To Miss
MacLeod he had written, "In all, the English work is
becoming solid-and respectable too, seeing that great
scholars are sympathising" (Complete Works, 6: 374)

401
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN

IGNITING THE INDIAN WORK

Throughout this first visit to the West Swamiji had been

deeply-almost, it would seem, continuously-concerned with the
initiation of his work in India. If one were to judge solely from
the many letters (over one hundred) that he wrote from America
and England to his brother disciples, to his own disciples, and to a
few Indian friends, one could well think that his mind and heart
were given wholly to setting in motion forces that would bring
about an India "rejuvenated, more glorious than she ever was."1
And indeed for many months after the Parliament of Religions his
primary effort had been to accumulate funds with which to start
his Indian project and thereby awaken his ancient and slumbering
motherland. The boldness of that effort, as well as of its goal, is
staggering.

I . . . traveled [through India] in search of funds (he wrote

from Chicago in January of 1894 to his brother disciples],*
but do you think the people of India were going to spend
money! . . . Selfishness personified-are they to spend
anything? Therefore I have come to America to earn money
myself and then return to my country and devote the rest of
my days to the realisation of this one aim of my life-[to raise
the Indian masses].
As our country is poor in social virtues, so this country is
lacking in spirituality. I give them spirituality, and they give
me money. I do not know how long I shall take to realise my
end. . . . I depend on no one in Hindustan. I shall try to earn
the wherewithal myself to the
#

402
 best of my might and carry out my plans, or die in the
attempt.2

After a grueling lecture tour through the Midwest in the harsh

winter of 1893-94, during which he was "cheated by a roguish
lecture bureau," harassed by bigoted ministers, and unable to
obtain substantial help for his project from a people whose
country was in the throes of a severe economic depression,
Swamiji recognized the impossibility of collecting adequate sums
of money. He stayed on in America, for he had found that he had
a mission to the West; but although the primary motive for his
visit thus changed, never did he forget the great need of his
country and his resolve to raise her people. He went on writing
letter after letter in which he directed the beginning of his work in
Calcutta and Madras and sent money to both places whenever he
could. Indeed his plan for the regeneration of India was so
constant a part of his thought during his entire first visit in the
West that any narrative of those years would be incomplete
without at least a brief look at the huge effort he made to start the
wheels of his Indian work rolling.
On his way to America in the spring of 1893, Swamiji's
heartbreak over the condition of the Indian masses-"the poor, the
ignorant, the downtrodden"-was, if possible, intensified when in
Japan he saw how well the people fared and how vital and
progressive was the country. Even the priests favored progress,
"And you, what are you?" he wrote from Yokohama to his
Madras disciples,

talking twaddle all your lives, vain talkers, what are you?
Come, see these people, and then go and hide your faces in
shame! . . . Come, be men! Come out of your narrow holes
and have a look abroad. See how nations are on the march!
Do you love man? Do you love your country? Then come,
let us struggle for higher and better things.3
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 In America the contrast between the well-being and freedom
of the masses and the wretchedness of their Indian counterparts
wrung Swamiji's heart even more. The bleak interior of a late-
nineteenth-century reformatory for women seemed glorious to
him, for the prison offered hope to the outcasts of society,
rehabilitating them. "How grand, how beautiful, you must see to
believe!" he wrote to Alasinga from Massachusetts. "And, oh,
how my heart ached to think of what we think of the poor and low
in India. They have no chance of escape, no way to climb up."4
The dreadful slums of Chicago seemed palatial in comparison
with the hovels of India's poor. And, above all, he saw the great
American dream shining in the eyes of the most destitute
immigrant and noted the pride of freedom in his walk; the
common laborer had hope, he could hold his head high, he could
earn an honest dollar with the best of men, and his children could
(and very often did) become millionaires.

In spite of all the ravings of the priests [Swamiji wrote to

Alasinga from Chicago in November of 1893], caste is
simply a crystallized social institution, which after doing its
service is now filling the atmosphere of India with its stench,
and it can only be removed by giving back to the people
their lost individuality. Every man born here knows that he
is a man. Every man born in India knows that he is a slave of
society. Now, freedom is the only condition of growth; take
that off, the result is degeneration.5
He did not blame India's social customs per se for the state of
her downtrodden hundreds of millions; nor did he seek the cause
in the insufferable oppression and exploitation of the Indian
people by the British Raj; least of all did he lay the blame at the
door of the Hindu religion, as the country's social reformers were
wont to do. He placed the blame on the tyranny of the Hindu rich
over the poor, the upper castes
#

404
over the lower; he placed the blame squarely on the Indians
themselves.

Caste or no caste, creed or no creed, any man or class, or

caste, or nation, or institution which bars the power of free
thought and action of an individual . . . so long as that power
does not injure others-is devilish and must go down. . . .
Of course, I am a sympathiser for every reform [he went
on in this letter of January 24, 189 4to Alasinga] but the fate
of a nation does not depend upon the number of husbands
their widows get, but upon the condition of the masses. Can
you raise them? Can you give them back their lost
individuality without making them lose their innate spiritual
nature? Can you become an occidental of occidentals in your
spirit of equality, freedom, work, and energy, and at the
same time a Hindu to the very backbone in religious culture
and instincts? This is to be done and we will do it. You are
all born to do it. .. . Sympathy for the poor, the
downtrodden, even unto death-this is our motto.6

True reformation, such as would strengthen India's unique

cultural heritage and simultaneously give social freedom to her
people, required more religion, not less. He saw the root cause of
India's degradation precisely in her failure to apply "the grandest
religion in the world"-a religion that was the very source of her
life.

Hear me, my friend [he wrote in his first letter from

America to Alasinga], I have discovered the secret through
the grace of the Lord. Religion is not at fault. On the other
hand, your religion teaches you that every being is only your
own self multiplied. But it was the want of practical
application, the want of sympathy-the want of heart. The
Lord once more came to you as
#

405
 Buddha and taught you how to feel, how to sympathise with
the poor, the miserable, the sinner, but you heard Him not. . .
.
. . . [The Pandits] do not know that India is a very small
part of the world and the whole world looks down with
contempt upon the three hundred millions of earthworms
crawling upon the fair soil of India and trying to oppress
each other. This state of things must be removed, not by
destroying religion but by following the great teachings of
the Hindu faith, and joining with it the wonderful sympathy
of that logical development of Hinduism-Buddhism.7
The first necessity, as Swamiji then saw it, was education, and
this on all fronts. The upper classes required an education as well
as the lower, but theirs should be one of expansion, an education
to break down the wall between India and the modern world.
"The fact of our isolation from all the other nations of the world is
the cause of our degeneration," he wrote to Haridas V. Desai,
"and its only remedy is getting back into the current of the rest of
the world."8 That current had been sweeping forward for
centuries, bringing with it the ideals of Liberty, equality, and
fraternity, of the dignity of the individual and the right of all
human beings to realize their own potential for greatness. While
the common man was rising, while other societies were radically
changing, accommodating themselves to new ideals, Indian
society had remained obdurately feudal, caste-bound, and priest-
ridden. From the day swamiji had seen the cities of Japan with
their thriving Industry and their prosperous people, he urged his
countrymen to "come out," to see the world, to learn, to expand,
to comprehend what men and women are capable of.

This cannot be achieved through the study of books [he

wrote to his friend Manmatha Nath Bhattacharya in
September of 1894]. I say, can you send out some men
#

406
 and women to see the world? Only then will the country
wake up-not through the reading of books. . . .
Keeping aloof from the community of nations is the only
cause for the downfall of India. Since the English came, they
have been forcing you back in communion with other
nations, and you are visibly rising again. . . . All narrowness,
all contraction, all selfishness is simply slow suicide, and
when a nation commits the fatal mistake of contracting itself
and of thus cutting off all expansion and life, it must die.
Women similarly must go forward or become idiots and
soulless tools in the hands of their tyrannical lords. The
children are the result of the combination of the tyrant and
the idiot, and they are slaves. And this is the whole history
of modern India. Oh, who would break this horrible
crystallisation of death? Lord help us!9

"If group after group of Indians travel all over the world and
back for some years, the face of India will be changed within
twenty years by that alone; nothing else need be done," he wrote
in this same letter.10 Nor did Swamiji want his countrymen to
travel abroad only to learn; he wanted them to give as well. This
was, indeed, the theme of his Reply to the Calcutta Address,
which he wrote in New York on November 18, 1894:

Give and take is the law, and if India wants to raise

herself once more, it is absolutely necessary that she brings
out her treasures and throws them broadcast among the
nations of the earth, and in return be ready to receive what
others have to give her. Expansion is life, contraction is
death. Love is life, and hatred is death. We commenced to
die the day we began to hate other races; and nothing can
prevent our death unless we come back to expansion, which
is life. We must mix, therefore, with all the races of the
earth. . . . The wonderful struc-
#

407
 tures of national life, which the Western nations have raised,
are supported by the strong pillars of character, and until we
can produce numbers of such, it is useless to fret and fume
against this or that power.11

Swamiji saw that the time was coming when Hindus would
indeed travel widely and would benefit from and bring benefit to
other cultures. But another aspect of India's education could not
wait-the education, both secular and religious, of the poor. His
plan (revolutionary in many respects) was for his brother monks-
the great, though still young, disciples of Sri Ramakrishna-to
undertake the task. Further, he wanted his householder disciples
in Madras to work along the same lines. Indeed, it seems clear
from his early letters to Madras that he had discussed these plans
with Alasinga. "Do not forget our plan of a central college," he
wrote to him in January of 1894, "and the starting from it to all
directions in India. Work hard."'12 And in a postscript to this
letter:

There is no harm in preaching the idea of elevating the

masses by means of a central college, and bringing
education as well as religion to the door of the poor by
means of missionaries trained in this college. Try to interest
everybody.13

My whole ambition in life [he wrote in this same letter] is

to set in motion a machinery which will bring noble ideas to
the door of everybody, and then let men and women settle
their own fate. Let them know what our forefathers as well
as other nations have thought on the most momentous
questions of life. Let them see specially what others are
doing now, and then decide. We are to put the chemicals
together, the crystallisation will be done by nature according
to her laws 14

In short, Swamiji was bent on stirring the great cauldron of

India, whose incomparable treasures had sunk to the bottom,
lying motionless and hidden under layers of debris. The whole
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408
nation, as he said again and again, was sunk in tamas, heavy,
inert, almost impossible to move. But in the heart of that nation
he knew the embers were still glowing, needing only to be fanned
into flame by the fresh breeze of ideas both old and new. He had
seen the spiritual ideal shining deep in the serene eyes of every
villager, expressing itself in the grace and gentleness of carriage
and gesture, woven into every household tradition, indeed into the
very texture of life. He knew that in the basic spiritual nature of
the Hindu villager lay the hope of his motherland, and he knew
that that nature had not died; it could be fully revived. "The only
hope of India is from the masses," he would write to Alasinga in
March of 1896. "The upper classes are physically and morally
dead."15

It was not until January of 1894. (probably on the nineteenth)

that Swamiji wrote his first letter to his brother disciples, who
were at that time scattered, wandering in accordance with the age-
old tradition of sannyasins. He addressed his letter to Swami
Ramakrishnananda, who alone among the group always remained
at the Alambazar Math, performing the worship of the Master
with steadfast devotion and generally taking care of things. In this
long letter, Swamiji told his plan for the regeneration of India.

At Cape Comorin [he wrote], sitting in Mother Kumari's

temple, sitting on the last bit of Indian rock-I hit upon a
plan: We are so many Sannyasins wandering about and
teaching the people metaphysics-it is all madness. Did not
our Gurudeva use to say, "An empty stomach is no good for
religion"? That these poor people are leading the life of
brutes is simply due to ignorance. We have for all ages been
sucking their blood and trampling them underfoot.
. . . Suppose some disinterested Sannyasins, bent on
#

409
 doing good to others, go from village to village dissemi-
nating education and seeking in various ways to better the
condition of all down to the Chandala, through oral teaching
and by means of maps, cameras, globes, and such other
accessories--can't that bring forth good in time? All these
plans I cannot write out in this short letter. The long and the
short of it is-if the mountain does not come to Mohammed,
Mohammed must go to the mountain. The poor are too poor
to come to schools and Pathashalas, and they will gain
nothing by reading poetry and all that sort of thing. We, as a
nation, have lost our individuality, and that is the cause of all
mischief in India. We have to give back to the nation its lost
individuality and save the masses.16

Swamiji's second letter to Swami Ramakrishnananda was

almost certainly written on March 19, 1894, from Detroit, where
he was giving some of the most dynamic lectures of his
midwestern tour and where Christian ministers and missionaries
were at their most rambunctious in their attacks upon him. It was
a powerful letter; in it he spoke as a prophet of his mission and of
the inevitability of its fulfillment. He spoke with a prescience too
great for fully disclosing. "For the last six months I have been
saying the curtain is going up, the sun is rising. Yes, the curtain is
lifting by degrees, slow but sure; you will come to know it in
time. He knows. One cannot speak out one's mind. These things
are not for writing."17 In this deeply prophetic mood Swamiji
wrote in a general way of the furtherance of the Master's message
by a united body of' sannyasins and householders-men and
women alike. He wrote of the necessity for universality both in
preaching and in deed, for "perfect acceptance, not tolerance
only," and for total lack of jealousy and party-spirit among those
who would propagate the universal teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.

Everything must be sacrificed, if necessary, for that one

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410
 sentiment, universality. . . . Take care how you trample on
the least rights of others. Many a huge ship has foundered in
that whirlpool. Remember, perfect devotion minus its
bigotry-this is what we have got to show. . . .
Our matrons are all bale and hearty, I hope? Where is
Gour-Ma [a woman disciple of Sri Ramakrishna's] ? We
want a thousand such Mothers with that noble stirring spirit.
. . . We want all. It is not at all necessary that all should have
the same faith in our Lord as we have, but we want to unite
all the powers of goodness against all the powers of evil. . . .
One must make no distinction between householders and
Sannyasins-then only one is a true Sannyasin.18

What appears to be Swamiji's third letter to Swami Rama-

krishnananda (to whom he would address most of his letters from
the West, though they were meant for all his brother disciples)
was a thunderclap. Its date is not certain, for these Bengali-
language letters through which he was giving form and life to his
work seldom bore any date at all; as is clear from the original
holographs, they were written at top speed, as though the words
were cascading from some overflowing source: the date was
irrelevant. Very probably, however, this particular letter was
written in April or May of 1894, shortly after he had received
news of the celebration at the Dakshineswar Temple of Sri
Ramakrishna's birthday on March 11. He wrote in flaming
impatience over the energy expended in performing ceremonial
pujaa and none in serving "the living God." Here one finds
Swamiji's teaching of service-as-worship glowing white hot; to
him the altar of true worship was as vast as the surface of the
earth and its God "every being that wears a human form." If this
concept of service had ever been preached before, its everyday
practice had never before been urged so insistently (if at all) upon
sannyasins.
But if not sannyasins, then who? Very few were the upper or
middle-class householders in Swamiji's day who would give
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so much as a thought to the poor. In ancient times, Hindu society
had been structured in such a way-with its four ashramas and its
four main castes-that all parts of the social order had been
nourished. In that healthy and vigorous system, it was the
unquestioned duty, the dharma, of the upper castes to provide for
whatever poor there were. There was little want, and no one went
hungry for lack of charity. Under these conditions, it had not been
necessary for the sannyasin to engage in social work; his duty in
the overall scheme of things was to transcend, not to perpetuate,
this unreal world. But after the Mohammedan and English
conquests, the Hindu social structure had degenerated and, as
Swamiji wrote to Alasinga, was "filling the atmosphere of India
with its stench." It was no longer the dharma of the rich to help
the poor; it was, rather, their privilege to exploit them. Thus only
in the sannyasins of India, whose strength (and prestige as well)
lay in renunciation, did Swamiji see help ready at hand. "This
tremendous power in the hands of the roving Sannyasins of
India," he would say at a later date, "has got to be transformed,
and it will raise the masses up."19 He would release that power
from forest and mountain fastnesses to rush over the plains and
into the villages of India, nourishing them, seeding them with
new life. To Swamiji, selfless work was not merely a means of
purifying the mind, preliminary to the spiritual practices of
renunciation and meditation; it was a spiritual practice in itself,
on a par with traditional sadhanas and capable of leading, like
them, to the highest spiritual goal. Performed rightly, service of
man was a direct and conscious worship of God, as spiritually
potent in every respect as worship in a shrine and far more
beneficial to the world.
It was this idea, burning in Swamiji's heart and mind, that
exploded in this third letter to Swami Ramakrishnananda. "There
is no hope for our nation," he began, and continued with a
thunder of protest:

Not one original idea crosses anyone's brain. . . . My

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 God! won't you do something to show that you are in any
way removed from the common run of men! Only indulging
in madness! . . . Today you have your bell, tomorrow you
add a horn and follow suit with a chowry the day after; or
you introduce a cot today and tomorrow you have its legs
silver-mounted, and people help themselves to a rice-
porridge, and you spin out two thousand cock-and-bull
stories-in short nothing but external ceremonials. This is
called in English imbecility. . . . There is an ocean of
difference between idleness and renunciation.

And in sentences that can stand as a manifesto of his Indian

work he went on:

If you want any good to come, just throw your cere-

monials overboard and worship the Living God, the Man-
God-every being that wears a human form-God in his
universal as well as individual aspect. The universal aspect
of God means this world, and worshipping it means serving
it-this indeed is work, not indulging in ceremonials. . . . Let
some of you spread like fire and preach this worship of the
universal aspect of the Godhead-a thing that was never
undertaken before in our country. . . .
Spread ideas-go from village to village, from door to
door-then only will there be real work. Otherwise, lying
complacently on the bed and ringing the bell now and then is
a sort of disease, pure and simple. . . . Be independent, learn
to form independent judgements. . . . Through the Lord's
will, out of your lips shall come millions of Vedas and
Tantras and Puranas. . . .
. . . Go from village to village, do good to humanity and
to the world at large. Go to hell yourself to buy salvation for
others. . . . Don't worry in the least; heaven or hell, or Bhakti
or Mukti-don't care for anything, but go, my boy, and spread
the name of the Lord from door to door! . . . As Shri
Ramakrishna used to love you, as I
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 love you, come, love the world like that....'1'o do the highest
good to the world, [to] everyone down to the lowest-this is
our vow. Welcome Mukti or hell, whichever comes of it.20

What appears to have been Swamiji's next letter (the fourth) to

his brother disciples reinforced all he had written so far. He
started quietly, explaining his earlier impatience:

I do not take into any consideration whether people ac-

cept his [Sri Ramakrishna's] name or not, but I am ready to
lay down my life to help his teachings, his life, and his
message spread all over the world. What I am most afraid of
is the worship-room. It is not bad in itself, but there is a
tendency in some to make this all in all and set up that old-
fashioned nonsense over again-this is what makes me
nervous. I know why they busy themselves with those old,
effete ceremonials. Their spirit craves for work, but having
no outlet they waste their energy in ringing bells and all that.
I am giving you a new idea. If you can work it out, then I
shall know you are men and will be of service. 21

Swamiji devoted a part of this letter to telling his brothers

about life in America, and then the fire in him flamed up, and he
wrote on, as though that fire itself flowed through his pen:

What is wanted is a power of organisation-do you under-

stand me? Have any of you got that much brain in your
head? If you do, let your mind work. . . . We want some
disciples-fiery young men-do you see?-intelligent and brave,
who dare to go to the jaws of Death and are ready to swim
the ocean across. Do you follow me? We want hundreds like
that, both men and women. Try your utmost for that end
alone. Make converts right and left, and put them into our
purity-drilling machine.. . . We
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 must electrify society, electrify the world. Idle gossip and
barren ceremonials won't do. Ceremonials are meant for
householders; your work is the distribution and propagation
of thought currents. . . .
Let character be formed and then I shall be in your midst.
Do you see? We want two thousand Sannyasins, nay, ten, or
even twenty thousand-men and women both. . . . We must
make a sensation. Give up your passive attitude, gird your
loins and stand up. Let me see you make some electric
circuits between Calcutta and Madras. Start centres at
places, go on always making converts. . . . He alone is a
child of Shri Ramakrishna who is moved to pity for all
creatures and exerts himself for them even at the risk of
incurring personal damnation.22

As Swamiji wrote this letter he became more and more

impassioned, as though rising to higher and yet higher states of
being and of knowing:

. . . Arise! Arise! A tidal wave is coming! Onward! Men

and women down to the Chandala-all are pure in his eyes.
Onward! Onward! There is no time to care for name, or
fame, or Mukti, or Bhakti! We shall look to these some other
time. Now in this life let us infinitely spread his lofty
character, his sublime life, his infinite soul. This is the only
work-there is nothing else to do. Wherever his name will
reach, the veriest worm will attain divinity, nay, is actually
attaining it; you have got eyes, and don't you see it? Is it a
child's play? Is it silly prattle? Is it foolery? "Arise! Awake!"
Great Lord! He is at our back. I cannot write any more.
Onward! I only tell you this, that whoever reads this letter
will imbibe my spirit! Have faith! Onward! Great Lord! I
feel as if somebody is moving my hand to write in this way.
Onward! Great Lord! Everyone will be swept away! Take
care, he is coming! Whoever will be ready to serve him-no,
not
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 him but his children-the poor and the downtrodden, the
sinful and the afflicted, down to the very worm-who will be
ready to serve these, in them he will manifest himself. 23

How many of Sri Ramakrishna's monastic disciples were

living at Alambazar Math in the first part of 1894 is not definitely
known. Some came and went; some had been wandering through
India, some were living in holy places practicing austerities. As
recorded in the History of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna
Mission by Swami Gambhirananda, "Swamis Brahmananda and
Turiyananda were at Vrindaban; Adbhutananda was in Calcutta;
Akhandananda and Abhedananda were travelling separately in
Western India. Advaitananda lived at Benares; Yogananda
generally stayed either with the Holy Mother or in places outside
the Math, his health having been irrecoverably ruined by too
much austerity. Niranjanananda roved about in the South."24 And
Swami Shivananda was in Madras. As far as was possible,
Swamiji's letters were circulated among his scattered brothers,
and perhaps some of them at once imbibed his spirit. But to
others his instructions and exhortations must have seemed, at
first, highly impractical. A small, penniless band of young monks
to regenerate the whole of India! Moreover, the work he was
urging upon them was entirely against the tradition of Hindu
monasticism. For millennia India's sannyasins had been striving
for illumination through the age-old and not invalid means of
solitude, austerity, meditation, and ceremonial worship. The
monks of the Ramakrishna Math had continued, more or less, in
the old order Of things, finding in Sri Ramakrishna a tremendous
spiritual impetus, but failing to find in his teachings a radical
departure from the traditional paths of spiritual practice. Then,
like a whirlwind from across the seas, Swamiji began exhorting
them to lay down their lives in the service of others, to be
intensely active, teaching the ignorant, feeding the poor, nursing
the sick, opening centers, organizing, preaching throughout India.
Sri Ramakrishna had said nothing to them
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about such things. Were these not Swamiji's own ideas? Nor did
it go unnoticed by his brother disciples that in the newspaper
reports of his American lectures he seldom, if ever, mentioned his
Master. Puzzled, unconvinced, almost none of them made a move
in the direction he urged. But there was at least one.
As though mentally receiving Swamiji's highly charged
thought-for he had read none of his letters-Swami Akhandananda
had, on his own, taken a vow to alleviate the sufferings of the
tenants of the Raja of Khetri in Rajputana. In the early part of
1894 he wrote from Khetri to Swamiji, describing the misery of
the poor and the luxurious life of their Indian rulers. "I wanted to
know," he would later recount, "whether I was right in taking the
vow of relieving the distressed people.”25
Swamiji probably received this letter in May of 1894, and his
joy can only be imagined. He replied with explicit instructions:

Try to develop spirituality and philanthropy amongst the

Thakurs [lords or rulers] in the different places of Rajputana.
. . . Go from door to door amongst the poor and lower
classes of the town of Khetri and teach them religion. Also,
let them have oral lessons on geography and such other
subjects. . . . Go to other villages from time to time and
teach the people the arts of life as well as religion. . . . The
Gerua robe is not for enjoyment. It is the banner of heroic
work. You must give your body, mind, and speech to the
welfare of the world. . . . The poor, the illiterate, the
ignorant, the afflicted-let these be your God. Know that
service to these alone is the the highest religion.26

"On getting this reply," Swami Akhandananda recounted, "I

applied all my energy to work."27 And thus, on a tiny scale,
almost imperceptibly, began the humanitarian work of the
Ramakrishna Order in India.
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 3

Meanwhile in America Swamiji had been bombarded with

every kind of slander his enemies could conceive of. No sup-
porting word had come from India to the American people, and,
as related elsewhere in these volumes, his predicament had been,
to say the least, awkward.28 At his instruction to Alasinga (for no
one in India had thought of it)s` an official meeting was
organized and held in Madras on April 28, 1894, in recognition of
the immense value to India of his American work. Shortly
thereafter, a few of Swamiji's brother disciples at Alambazar
Math, notably Swamis Abhedananda, Ramakrishnananda, and
Yogananda, organized a similar meeting in Calcutta, which was
held on September 5 and at which the leaders of the Hindu
community recognized Swamiji as a bonafide representative of
Hinduism and thanked him for his great service to his country.
When news finally reached America of these meetings, Swamiji
was overjoyed, not only because the resolutions and letters
proved to his American friends that he had not abused their trust
in him, but because his beloved brother disciples and his Madras
disciples were "making a stir." On September 25, after receiving
news that the Calcutta Meeting was about to be held, he wrote to
his brothers an energizing, spurring letter: "To work with un-
daunted energy! What fear! Who is powerful enough to thwart
you! `We shall crush the stars to atoms and unhinge the universe.
Don't you know who we are? We are the servants of Shri
Ramakrishna.' Fear? Whom to fear, forsooth?"29 And on October
22, "Now you have come to know your own powers. Strike the
iron while it is hot. Idleness won't do. . . Come on to the practical
field with tremendous energy; to work, in the fullness of
strength!"30
A month or two later, probably in December of 1894, Swamiji
wrote to Swami Brahmananda, who had by then returned to
Alambazar Math, and for the first time gave specific instructions
in regard to the work he wanted done.
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Had these details been forming in his mind as, far off in America,
he pondered over the best way to proceed? Had he been waiting
for Swami Brahmananda and others to return to the Math? Or was
it simply that the iron was now hot, as he had written to Swami
Ramakrishnananda, and should be struck? In any case, he gave
some definite directives:

It isn't much use getting up a sensation every day. But

avail yourselves of this stir that is rife all over the country
and scatter yourselves in all quarters. In other words, try to
start branches at different places. Let it not be an empty
sound merely. You must join the Madrasis and start
associations, etc., at different places. What about the
magazine which I heard was going to be started? Why are
you nervous about conducting it? . . . Come! Do something
heroic. Brother, what if you do not attain Mukti, what if you
suffer damnation a few times?. . .
An organized society is wanted. Let Shashi look to the
household management, Sanyal [a disciple of Sri Rama-
krishna's] take charge of money matters and marketing, and
Sharat [Swami Saradananda] act as secretary, that is, carry
on correspondence etc. Make a permanent centre -it is no
use making random efforts as you are doing now. Do you
see my point? I have quite a heap of newspapers, now I want
you to do something. If you can build a Math, I shall say you
are heroes; otherwise you are nothing. Consult the Madras
people when you work. They have a great capacity for work.
Celebrate this year's Shri Ramakrishna festival with such as
to make it a record. ...
... Well, I cannot tell you all-if I could but get another
demon like me!31

There was no other demon like him. But Swamiji would hear
no protests of inadequacy from his brothers. Over and over again
he bolstered their self-confidence, for there was no
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doubt in his mind that these sons of Sri Ramakrishna could, if
they would, "crush the stars to atoms and unhinge the universe"-
more, he knew they were destined to "contribute to the great well-
being of the world."32 His letter to Swami Brahmananda, who in
later years was to become a bulwark of strength and
administrative ability, carrying forward the work of the Order
after Swamiji's death,* was in part an exhortation:

. . . What queer humility is this to say, "I know nothing!"

"I am nothing!" This is pseudo-renunciation and mock-
modesty, I tell you. Off with such a self-debasing spirit! . . .
These are the words of an atheist-the huroility of a vagabond
wretch. We can do everything, and will do everything! He
who is fortunate enough will heroically join us, letting the
worthless mew like cats from their corner. . . . Let him who
has courage in his mind and love in his heart come with me.
I want none else. Through Mother's grace, single-handed I
am worth a hundred thousand [men] now and will be worth
two millions. 33

Around this time-the end of 1894-Swamiji was becoming

aware of his status as a prophet and of the magnitude and scope
of his mission. When his brothers expressed anxiety over the
criticism of this or that enemy, he replied as one who knew the
power working through him was invincible. To Swami
Abhedananda he wrote:

I could not catch the drift of your letter. I shall collect my

own funds to build a monastery for ourselves, and if people
criticise me for it, I see nothing in this to affect us either
way. You have your minds pitched, high and steady, it will
do you no harm. . . . Keep up the deepest mental poise. Take
not the slightest notice of what puerile creatures may be
saying against you. Indifference, indifference, indifference! .
. . Whether I make my pile or
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 do whatever else I am reported to; shall the opinions of the
riff raff stand in the way of His work? . . . So long as you
gird up your loins and stand united behind me, there is no
fear even if the whole world combines against us. Finally, I
have understood this much-that I shall have to assume a very
high position.34

One of the things Swamiji observed in the West and pondered

over as an element essential not only to his work in India but to
the new East-West culture he envisioned was the power of
organization. Shortly after the Parliament of Religions, he
remarked to his Chicago hostess, Mrs. John B. Lyon, that he had
had "the greatest temptation of his life in America." And when
she teasingly asked, "Who is she, Swami?" he burst out laughing
and replied, "Oh, it is not a lady, it is Organisation."35 Why a
temptation? "We [Hindus]," he would say two years later in
connection with religion, "believe that organisation always brings
new evils."36 But convinced that without organization the
"machine" he wanted to set in motion would inevitably stall, he
struck again and again at the basic obstacle to (and bane of) all
organized work. "We cannot give up jealousy and rally together.
That is our national sin,"37 he wrote to his brother disciples. And
again, "That jealousy, that absence of conjoint action is the very
nature of enslaved nations. But we must try to shake it off. . . . At
any cost, any price, any sacrifice, we must never allow that to
creep in among ourselves. Whether we be ten or two, do not care,
but those few must be perfect characters."38
Although Swamiji did not at this time designate any one of his
brothers as leader in his absence, he wrote in the same cautionary
vein of the qualifications for leadership: "One must be a servant
of servants and must accommodate a thousand minds. There must
not be a shade of jealousy or selfishness, then you are a leader.
First by birth and secondly, unselfish-that's a leader."39 Thus he
molded them for the unified work ahead, a work in which the
least flaw could mar
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the whole: not saints, but supersaints were needed-men such as
the world had rarely seen and never before as a band. "From the
day Shri Ramakrishna was born dates the growth of modern India
and of the Golden Age," he told them. "And you are the agents to
bring about this Golden Age. To work, with this conviction at
heart!"40
That Swamiji eventually succeeded in forming an organization
of spiritual giants in which "each does his own part, and all the
parts taken together express an ideal of harmony," 41 was one of
his greatest achievements. By and large, these young men-each
different in temperament from the others, each strong-minded,
spirited, forged by Sri Ramakrishna had little desire to undertake
the practical, organized work he asked of them; some had thought
it out of keeping for a monk to work at all. Swamiji succeeded in
winning their full cooperation; but in the long run, it was not
alone his power of persuasion that made this achievement
possible, it was also their deep love for him, together with their
knowledge that the Master had placed them in his charge.
Just as his experience in the Western world convinced
Swamiji of the power of organization, so did it open his eyes to
the greatness of the role women could play in human society. He
was indeed "struck dumb with wonderment at seeing the women
of America."

There are thousands of women here [he wrote] whose

minds are as pure and white as the snow of this country. And
look at our girls, becoming mothers below their teens! Good
Lord! I now see it all. Brother, "The gods are pleased where
the women are held in esteem"-says the old Manu. We are
horrible sinners, and our degradation is due to our calling
women "despicable worms", "gateways to hell", and so
forth.42 Goodness gracious! There is all the difference
between heaven and hell!!

In the face of the Christian missionaries' crude misrepresen-

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tation of India's treatment of her women, Swamiji again and
again, throughout America, spoke of the revered position the
Indian woman held as mother. He extolled the sanctity of her
rights, the chastity and purity of her life. Nonetheless, he was
keenly aware that there was much to be desired in the prevailing
condition and status of Indian women as a whole. To his brothers
he wrote, "[The American women] are like Lakshmi in beauty
and like Sarasvati in virtues-they are the Divine Mother incarnate
and worshipping them, one verily attains perfection in everything.
Great God! Are we to be counted among men? If I can raise a
thousand such Madonnas, Incarnations of the Divine Mother, in
our country before I die, I shall die in peace. Then only will your
countrymen become worthy of their name."43
There was then living in India a woman who, in a very special
sense, was "the Divine Mother incarnate." Swamiji was among
the first of Sri Ramakrishna's disciples to recognize the divinity
of Sri Sarada Devi. Not until he had received her blessing would
he undertake his first voyage to America, though Sri Ramakrishna
had himself beckoned him to cross the seas. Yet it was only in
America that the significance of her life in connection with the
elevation of women became clear to him. For the first time that
we know of he gave full expression to his conviction in a letter
written to Swami Shivananda in the winter of 1894. So
extraordinary was this letter, ringing with the authority of
prophetic vision, that I quote ` from it at some length, familiar
though it may be to many:

I have determined first to build some place for Mother

[Sri Sarada Devi], for women require it first. I have now
about $3,000-about Rs 10,000-of which, keeping about Rs
3,000 for my expenses back, I can send nearly Rs,7,000 for a
place for Mother.44 . . . You have not yet understood the
wonderful significance of Mother's life-none of you. But
gradually you will know. Without Shakti there is no
regeneration for the world. Why is it that our
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 country is the weakest and the most backward of all
countries? Because Shakti is held in dishonour there. Mother
has been born to revive that wonderful Shakti in India; and
making her the nucleus, once more will Gargis and
Maitreyis be born into the world. Dear brother, you
understand little now, but by degrees you will come to know
it all. Hence it is her Math that I want first. . . . Without the
grace of Shakti nothing is to be accomplished. What do I
find in America and Europe?-the worship of Shakti, the
worship of power. Yet they worship Her ignorantly through
sense-gratification. Imagine, then, what a lot of good they
will achieve who will worship Her with all purity, in a
Sattvika spirit, looking upon Her as their mother! I am
coming to understand things clearer every day, my insight is
opening out more and more. Hence we must first build a
Math for Mother. First Mother and Mother's daughters, then
Father and Father's sons-can you understand this? . . . To
me, Mother's grace is a hundred thousand times more
valuable than Father's. . . . In this terrible winter I am
lecturing from place to place and fighting against odds, so
that funds may be collected for Mother's Math. 45

Throughout 1895 and a part of 1896Swamiji continued to

write to his brother disciples, repeatedly encouraging them,
prodding them, urging them on. "Gird up your loins and set
yourselves to work," he would write. 46 Or again, "Let nothing
daunt you. Who on earth has the power to snub us so long as the
Lord favours us? Even if you are at your last breath be not afraid.
Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with
the tenderness of a flower."47 "While I am on earth," he assured
them, "Shri Ramakrishna is working through me. So long as you
believe in this there is no danger of any evil for you."48 Although
very little was accomplished
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until he returned to India, his letters prepared the ground,
accustoming his brothers to his ideas, his plans, his expectations.
He did not relax the tension of his demands upon them, and with
the joy and pride of a father, he encouraged any sign of initiative
on their part. To all of them he wrote:

Everyone [among you] has the capacity to manifest, in

times of need, the highest energy. I see it. Look for instance
how Shashi [Swami Ramakrishnananda] will remain always
constant to his spot; his steadfastness is a great foundation-
rock. How successfully Kali and Jogen [Swamis
Abhedananda and Yogananda] brought about the Town Hall
meeting; it was indeed a momentous task! Niranjan [Swami
Niranjanananda] has done much work in Ceylon and
elsewhere. How extensively has Sarada [Swami
Trigunatita]* travelled and sown seeds of gigantic future
works! Whenever I think of the wonderful renunciation of
Hari [Swami Turiyananda], about his steadiness of intellect
and forbearance, I get a new access of strength! In Tulasi
[Swami Nirmalananda], Gupta [later, Swami Sadananda],
Baburam [Swami Premananda], Sharat [Swami
Saradananda], to mention a few, in every one of you there is
tremendous energy. If you still entertain any doubt as to Shri
Ramakrishna's being a jewel expert, what then is the
difference between you and a madman!49

When Swami Trigunatita thought of bringing out a Bengali -

language magazine, Swamiji heartily applauded the idea. "Come,
here is a task for you, conduct the magazine," he wrote in January
of 1895. "Thrust it on people and make them subscribe to it, and
don't be afraid."50 A year later he wrote again, "Your idea of the
paper is very good indeed. Apply yourself to it heart and soul. . . .
The way [to get subscribers] is this: You lead a wandering life;
wherever you find Bengali language spoken, thrust the paper on
whomsoever
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you can lay your hands on."51 It was not until the beginning of
1899 that Swami Trigunatita's magazine, the Udbodhan, finally
appeared, but once it was started, he did indeed apply himself
heart and soul to it, conducting it almost singlehanded. It was to
become one of the main organs of the Ramakrishna Math.
The many centers of the Order that are today flourishing
throughout India also had their genesis in Swamiji's letters from
the West. Again and again he urged his brother disciples to start
centers wherever they might be. "Throw the whole of Bengal and,
for the matter of that, the whole of India into convulsions. Start
centres at different places."52 He instructed Swami
Akhandananda, who was still in Rajputana, to send Swami
Abhedananda to Meerut to start a center there. "Try to open a
centre at Ajmer," he added. "Work! Work! Go on opening centres
in this way. . . . By degrees we must spread the world over."53 He
wrote also of starting centers at Almora, Jaipur, Benares, Madras,
in the Punjab, and in Kashmir. Knowing that the great task of
building up the Order and spreading its ideals would devolve
upon his brothers, he did everything he could to prepare them. "It
is indeed a great thing to discover a new path," he wrote to
Swami Brahmananda in what was possibly September of 1895,
"but it is as difficult a task to cleanse that path and make it
spacious and nice. If you live for some time in places where I
have sown the seeds of our Master's ideals and succeed in
developing the seeds into plants, you will be doing much greater
work than I did."54 He counseled patience: "Steady! Every great
work is done slowly"55 yet wanting to "throw the world into con-
vulsions," he stormed with the impatience of one whose vision is
far ahead of his day. "All will come in good time," he wrote. "But
at times I fret and stamp like a leashed hound." 56
In these early days it was Swamiji alone among his brothers
who fully understood that Sri Ramakrishna's advent had brought
to all of mankind new ways of practicing the eternal truths of
religion, new ways of worship, of action, of thought,
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ways that would harmonize with existing forms but that would
also enable the human race to feel the hard challenges and
demands of the coming age. "It was Narendra Nath alone,"
Swami Saradananda would later write, "who with his prodigious
intellect could really evaluate the deep significance of [the
Master's] inspired utterances and astound us by explaining, now
and then, their true imports."57 Nor did Swamiji minimize the
incalculable power of grace that was pouring into every corner of
the world with the advent of Sri Ramakrishna, who, in his
knowledge, was the greatest of all Divine Incarnations to have
ever come to earth. In reply to his disciple Saratchandra
Chakravarty, who had asked him if he believed Sri Ramakrishna
to be an Avatara or Incarnation of God, such as Sri Ramachandra,
Sri Krishna, Sri Gauranga, Buddha, and Jesus, Swamiji said, "I
know Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna to be even greater than those
you have just named. What to speak of believing, which is a petty
thing-I know!"58 To explain the Master's utterances, to give the
intended direction to his world-moving power, to make certain
that those utterances and that power would not somehow miscarry
in this uncertain world were among Swamiji's great tasks. He
foresaw the difficulties ahead and warned against them.
One of his primary wishes was that the annual celebrations at
the Dakshineswar Temple of Sri Ramakrishna's birthday should
attract "a hundred thousand people" and be not only memorial
festival but also "the central union of an intense propaganda of his
doctrines."59 Yet there was a danger. After learning of the
celebration held on March 11, 1894, he had written to his brother
disciples, "It is a welcome news that Shri Ramakrishna's festival
has come off with great Eclat; the more his name is spread the
better it is. But there is one thing to know: Great sages come with
special messages for the world, and not for name; but their
followers throw their teachings overboard and fight over their
names-this is verily the history of the world."60 And in September
of the same year, "Always
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remember that Shri Ramakrishna came for the good of the world-
not for name or fame. Spread only what he came to teach. Never
mind his name-it will spread of itself. Directly you insist on
everybody's accepting your Guru, you will be creating a sect, and
everything will Fall to the ground-so beware!"61 He deplored the
"cock-and-bull" stories of Sri Ramakrishna's miracles that were
being published by his householder devotees. "They are true,"
Swamiji wrote to one of his Madras disciples, "but the fools will
make a mess of the whole thing, I am sure. He had a whole world
of knowledge to teach, why insist upon unnecessary things as
miracles really are!"62 Again and again he advised both his
brother disciples and his disciples to underplay Sri Ramakrishna
as an Avatara and to emphasize, rather, the grand, universal
principles that He came to teach. In April of 1896, he wrote to
Swami Trigunatita, "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 aloof 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, let people think whatever they like of his
person."63
The difficulty was that the Person in question was a Presence
as indubitably shining as the sun on a cloudless day and essential
to the renewed life of the principles. Indeed Swamiji himself
would have been the last to decry the necessity of the person to
the success of a religion. "Every new religious wave requires a
new centre," he had written to the Dewan of Junagad (Haridas V.
Desai) in June of 1894.

The old religion can only be revivified by a new centre.

Hang your dogmas or doctrines, they never pay. It is a
character, a life, a centre, a God-man that must lead the
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 way, that must be the centre round which all other elements
will gather themselves and then fall like a tidal wave upon
the society, carrying all'before it, washing away all
impurities. . . . That centre, that God-man to lead was born
in India. He was the great Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and
round him this band [his monastic disciples] is slowly
gathering. They will do the work.64

But Sri Ramakrishna was a center without a circumference.

"[We are] a non-sectarian sect,"65 Swamiji wrote to a Madras
disciple. And indeed the position of the Ramakrishna movement
was without precedent: it was rooted in a single point, and yet it
was boundless; it was not a sect, for it included all sects; yet it
was a sect, for it had its Center, its teachings, its shrines, and its
ever-increasing number of followers. That it was a sect could not
be denied, but its uniqueness vis-a-vis other sects was its teaching
of nonsectarianism, of principle, not person. Still, the Person was
there-blazing. One thinks it was because of the very intensity of
that Person that Swamiji warned so strongly against raising
around him the barriers he had come to destroy. In devotion and
loyalty to him, he himself took every precaution not to limit him.
"Do not preach to the public that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was
an Incarnation and things of that sort"66 was his repeated
instruction; he knew that to stress Sri Ramakrishna as a personal
Savior of his devotees rather than to emphasize his universal,
worldsaving message would at last kill the ideas for the sake of
the person.67 The effort most worthy of his Master's greatness was
to flood India with the spirituality that lay dormant in her soul and
that Sri Ramakrishna had come to exemplify in full degree and to
awaken. In his long and stirring Reply to the Madras Address,
which he wrote in September of 1894, and through which he
hoped to reach the people of India, he made himself very clear:

Bring in the light; the darkness will vanish of itself. Let

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 the lion of Vedanta roar; the foxes will fly to their holes.
Throw the ideas broadcast, and let the result take care of
itself. . . . Bring forth the power of the spirit, and pour it over
the length and breadth of India; and all that is necessary will
come by itself."68
And to Justice Sir Subramanya Iyer in January of 1895:

This is my method-to show the Hindus that they have to

give up nothing, but only to move on in the line laid down
by the sages and shake off their inertia, the result of
centuries of servitude... . We had to stop building during
centuries of oppression. Now finish the building and
everything will look beautiful in its own place. This is all
my plan. I am thoroughly convinced of this. Each nation has
a main current in life; in India it is religion. Make it strong
and the waters on either side must move along with it. This
is one phase of my line of thought.69

A most important phase. By giving back to the people a

knowledge of and pride in their incomparable spiritual heritage,
by giving them an understanding of the eternal principles
underlying every aspect of their religious culture, by awakening
them to an awareness of their own divinity and the divinity of all
others, Swamiji would cause life to flow through India's veins
once again. Otherwise, India, as India, could not survive and
should she die, then "from the world all spirituality will be
extinct."70

By the end of 1895 most of Swamiji's brother disciples had

returned at his call to Alambazar Math. Among others, Swamis
Akhandananda, Premananda, Niranjanananda, Shivananda,
Ramakrishnananda, and Adbhutananda were living at the Math
itself, while Swamis Brahmananda, Yogananda, Saradananda,
and Trigunatita were nearby in Calcutta."* It was time to think of
organizing the Ramakrishna Order in
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earnest. In the summer of 1895 Swamiji had written to his
brothers of the need for a "commodious building" and had
suggested a daily routine of classes and sankirtans. But this was
only preliminary. As time went on the form of the vessel that was
to contain and widely dispense Sri Ramakrishna's message and
power continued to take shape in Swamiji's mind. On April 14 of
1896 he wrote from New York to Swami Trigunatita, "Now what
you want is organisation-that requires strict obedience and
division of labour." Such words he had written many times
before, but now the structure of an organization was becoming
definite in his thought. "I shall write out everything in every
particular from England, for which I start tomorrow. I am
determined to make you decent workers thoroughly organised."71
True to his word, less than a fortnight later he wrote from
England, where he was then staying with Mr. Sturdy, a long,
highly detailed set of rules for the Math. "No doubt," he wrote, "it
is an evil to be bound by laws, but it is necessary at the immature
state to be guided by rules. . . . Secondly, it is quite natural for
idle minds to indulge in gossip and faction mongering, and so
forth. Hence I jot down the following hints. If you follow them,
you will undoubtedly prosper, but if you don't do so, then there is
a danger of all our labours coming to naught."72 Swamiji then
proceeded to draw up a sort of informal constitution which laid
down the general policy of the Math's life and government, from
the annual election of office bearers to rules regulating
management, daily routine, general conduct, even the amount and
kind of furniture in each monk's room. He thought of everything.
This long letter, which shows with how much care he was
initiating his work in India, was a forerunner of the official Math
Rules that he would later draw up and that today guide the Order.
He was not throwing out casual, enthusiastic suggestions, but
carefully building a strong foundation for a structure that had to
endure. He knew that even a small mistake made at the beginning
would "in the long run [assume] gigantic proportions
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and become hard to correct."73 Thus he moved with the utmost
caution; but at the same time, he moved with inexhaustible
intensity. His "hints" had a thunderbolt quality. "If you consider it
wise to be guided by my ideas and if you follow these rules," he
wrote toward the end of his letter, "then I shall supply all
necessary funds. Otherwise, there will be a severance of
connection with you completely."74 He closed on a more gentle
note, "Well, just do with alacrity what I ask you to. Let me see
how you carry out these few small things. Then gradually great
things will come to pass."75
Swamiji had not forgotten that he wanted to build a math for
women, with Sri Sarada Devi at its head. "Please show this letter
to Gour-Ma, Yogin-Ma, and others, and through them establish a
Women's Math. Let Gour-Ma be the president there for one year,
and so on. But none of you shall be allowed to visit the place.
They will manage their own affairs. They will not have to work at
your dictation. I shall supply all necessary expenses for that work
also."76 But the time was not ripe for a formal women's math or
convent.'* In her own spontaneous and unerring way, the Holy
Mother would carry forward Sri Ramakrishna's work for many
years without an organization. However fervently Swamiji may
have wanted to protect her and the Master's other women
disciples, her concern at that time was not a Math for herself but
one for the monks. Indeed, in earlier years she had prayed to Sri
Ramakrishna that a monastery be established to carry on his work
and shelter his sons. "Ah, how much I wept, how often I prayed
to the Master," she would later say. "That is why you see all these
monasteries established by his grace."77 And one cannot but
remember here the Divine Mother's words to Swamiji when, in
Kashmir, he would deplore the ancient distruction of one of Her
temples and declare that he would have prevented it had he been
there: "Do you protect Me?" She replied, "Or do I protect you?"78
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 5

All this time-through 1894, '95, and '96-Swamiji had been

writing to his disciples in Madras-letters as fiery, as demanding,
as full of plans and instructions as were those to his brothers,
though perhaps not as exacting and impatient, for the wind blows
hardest where the trees are strong. Still, he expected much of his
Madras disciples; it had been they who had collected most of the
money which had enabled him to cross the Pacific in 1893 and to
live in America for the first month or so; and it was they who
from the start had had unquestioning faith in his ideas and
methods of work. Though they sometimes grew disheartened, for
his demands were great, not stopping short of the regeneration of
India, they were never skeptical. "I sincerely believe from Madras
will come the impetus,"79 he wrote to them, and they did all they
could to prove him right. Their strength lay in their devotion to
him. "Mind you," he wrote to Alasinga at the end of 1895, "the
Guru-Bhakta will conquer the world-this is the one evidence of
history. . . . It is faith that makes a lion of a man."80
Although Swamiji addressed most of his letters to Alasinga
Perumal, his instructions were meant for the small group of
young householders as a whole. Alasinga, who was, in fact, the
leader, was twenty-nine years old in 1894 and a teacher of science
(later headmaster) at Pachaiyappa's High School in Madras.*
Among the others were G. G. Narasimhachariar of Bangalore,
whom Swamiji called "G.G."; Dr. Nanjunda Rao, whom he called
"Dr."; Singaravelu Mudaliar, Assistant Professor of Science in the
Christian College of Madras, whom he called "Kidi"; and G.
Venkataranga Rao.
Swamiji's letters to Madras were not different in essence from
those to his brother disciples. Indeed, he sometimes requested that
they be forwarded to Alambazar Math, for by and large what he
said to the south was meant for the north as well; what he said to
his householder disciples was meant
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also for his brother sannyasins; and even as he wrote in the Rre of
inspiration to his brothers, so, too, he wrote to his disciples,
spurring them on in letter after letter:
"Great things can be done by great sacrifices only. No
selfishness, no name, no fame, yours or mine, nor my Master's
even! Work, work, the idea, the plan, my boys, my brave, noble,
good souls-to the wheel, to the wheel put your shoulders!"81 "I do
not believe in a God or a religion which cannot wipe the widow's
tears or bring a piece of bread to the orphan's mouth." 82 "Your
country requires heroes; be heroes!"83 "What Indian wants is a
new electric fire through the national vein. This was ever, and
always will be slow work. Be content to work and, above all be
true to yourself. Be pure, staunch, and sincere to the very
backbone, and everything will be all right."84 "Rejoice that you
are the chosen instruments in his hands. The flood of spirituality
has risen. I see it is rolling over the land, resistless, boundless, all-
absorbing. Every man to the fore, every good will be added to its
forces, every hand will smooth its way, and glory be unto the
Lord!"85 "The only way is love and sympathy. The only worship
is love."86 And so, writing tirelessly, Swamiji imbued them with
his own vision, energy, and spirit.

At first, as we have seen earlier, he urged his disciples to work

among the poor, educating them.

Try to get up a fund, buy some magic-lanterns, maps,

globes, etc., and some chemicals. Get every evening a crowd
of the poor and low, even the Pariahs, and lecture to them
about religion first, and then teach them through the magic-
lantern and other things, astronomy, geography, etc., in the
dialect of the people. Train up a band of fiery young men [as
teachers]. Put your fire in them and gradually increase the
organisation, letting it widen and widen its circle. . . .
Printing magazines, papers, etc., are good no doubt, but
actual work, my boys, even if infinitesimal, is better than
eternal scribbling and talking. . . .
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 Magazines are secondary, but this is primary. You must
have a hold on the masses.87

Again and again Swamiji wrote in this vein. In addition he

urged his disciples to collect funds to build a temple in Madras
and eventually to start a colony in Central India, "where only a
man who will follow your ideas will be admitted, and then a little
leaven will leaven all: 88 In such a colony, Vedanta in its purest
form could thrive afresh without having to struggle for light and
air in the dense Indian undergrowth of accumulated tradition and
superstition, where, entangled and suffocated, both the spirit and
body of the people lay half dead. Behind these various and
tentative projects was Swamiji's one aim of raising the Indian
masses without destroying "their innate spiritual nature." There
was no easy solution, and in early 1895 he changed the method of
his Madras work: Where he had wanted practical work among the
people first and intellectual work colleges and magazines-second,
he now reversed this order of importance.

I have given up at present my plan for the education of

the masses [he wrote to Alasinga on January 12]. It will
come by degrees. What I now want is a band of fiery
missionaries. We must have a College in Madras to teach
comparative religions, Sanskrit, the different schools of
Vedanta, and some European languages; we must have a
press, and papers printed in English and the Vernaculars.
When this is done, then I shall know that you have
accomplished something. . . . If you cannot do anything of
the kind in India, then let me alone. I have a message to
give, let me give it to the people who appreciate it and who
wilt work it out. What care I who takes it "He who doeth the
will of my Father," is my own.89

To this stern ultimatum Swamiji added, "Try hard, do not give

up."90 He cared very much indeed who took his message:
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Until the upper classes of India received it, until the spiritual level
of the entire country was raised, there was little hope for the
regeneration of her poor. Thus his desire for a magazine through
which the ideals of Vedanta and the message of Sri Ramakrishna
could be spread was occupying his thought more and more. And
the money for this project? In the same letter Swamiji scolded
Alasinga in this regard:

The whole national character is one of childish depen-

dence. They are all ready to enjoy food if it is brought to
their mouth, and even some want it pushed down. America
cannot send you any money. Why should they? You do not
deserve to live if you cannot help yourselves. Your letter to
me asking me if you can be assured of a few thousand
rupees every year from America has almost made me
hopeless. You will not get a cent. You wilt have to meet it
all yourself. Can you?91

He knew the answer could only be no, for while his disciples
would do all they could, it would not be enough. As for those
among the wealthy and influential to whom he looked for help,
they were by and large unresponsive. The one who showed
interest-the Maharaja of Mysore--died in early 1895. "Well!"
Swamiji wrote at this turn of events, "The Lord is great. He will
send others to help the cause."92 Meanwhile, it was Swamiji
himself who did the helping. In early May, after scolding
Alasinga for his timidity in the face of Christian criticism, he
assured him of financial support:

Now, my boy, I have scolded you enough. You deserved

it. Now go to work about the organ. I have sent some money
to Calcutta; within a month I will be in a position to send
you some money. Very little now, but I will continue it
onward. So go on working. Do not go about begging from
the Hindu beggars. I will do it all myself
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 with my own brain and strong right hand. I do not want the
help of any man here or in India. I will earn enough money
to keep up both Calcutta and Madras.93

And again on May 14, 1895 (a time when he was giving

public lectures now and then in order to support his New York
classes), he wrote: "Ere long I will be in a position to send you
money. It will not be much-a few hundred now, but I will send on
from time to time if I live."94 The following week he was able to
send a hundred dollars to Madras, which he hoped would "go just
a little in starting [the] paper." "Hoping to do more by and by," 95
he added. And without fail he did so.
There was indeed no "demon" like him. He had to do it all,
raising money, standing firm against opposition, lifting the inert
mass of India, preaching, writing, organizing, exhorting,
scolding..
I know, my son [he wrote to Alasinga], I shall have to
come and manufacture men out of you. I know that India is
only inhabited by women and eunuchs. So do not fret. I will
have to get the means of working there. I do not put myself
in the hands of imbeciles. You need not worry, do what little
you can. I have to work alone from top to bottom. The
Calcutta fellows have such a small narrow idea-i.e. my
brethren. You Madrasis faint at the barking of a dog!!96. . .
The brave alone do great things, not the cowards. Know once
for all, you faithless, that I am in the hands of the Lord. So long
as I am pure and His servant, not a hair will be touched. Bring out
your paper. Anyhow I will send more money very soon & I will
send money from time to time. Go on. Do something for the
nation, then they will help you, the nation will help you. . . . Be
brave, be brave! Man dies but once: My disciples must not be
cowards?97
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 From May of 1895 forward Swamiji gave more and more
thought to the magazine-which was named the Brahmavadin -
giving detailed instructions in regard to its policy, its style, its
contents, its writing, its form, its publication, and its distribution.
"The journal must not be flippant," he wrote in May of 1895, "but
steady, calm, and high-toned. . . . Get hold of a band of fine,
steady writers."98 The first issue of the Brahmavadin, a
bimonthly, came out on September 14 of that year. It was not
widely subscribed to, particularly in the West, but it was close to
Swamiji's heart, for not only was it a means of spreading religious
ideas, but it served as a line of communication between the
centers in New York, London, Calcutta, and Madras. "The
Brahmavadin is a jewel," he wrote to Alasinga on August 6 of
1896 from Switzerland; "it must not perish."99 And two days
later, "I have found my way to let you know . . . I will give you
Rs 100 a month for a year or two. . . . That will set you free to
work for the Brahmavadin and make it a better success.* . . .
[Have] entire devotion to the cause, knowing that your
SALVATION depends upon making the Brahmavadin a success.
Let this paper be your Ishtadevata, and then you will see how
success comes."100 Swamiji watched the magazine's progress with
a father's eye. A year after its first issue had appeared, he wrote to
Alasinga, "The ideal of the paper, apart from the preaching of
Vedanta, should be to make it a magazine of Indian research and
scholarship, of course, bearing on religion. You must approach
the best writers and get carefully written articles from their pen.
Work on with all energy."101 The magazine kept on. "[Mr.
Alasinga Perumal] was the very substance of its life," his obituary
would read in May of 1909, "and worked in no small measure to
make it a real success as a Hindu religious journal of impor-
tance."102 Even after the blow of Alasinga's untimely death, the
Brahmavadin (by then a monthly) kept on for four more years,
staunchly serving its purpose.**
Curiously, it was another Madras magazine, far less ambitious
at its inception than the Brahmavadin, that was to survive
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and grow. This was the Prabuddha Bharata, a magazine for boys
that was started by Dr. Nanjunda Rao with Swamiji's
encouragement and direction, as well as his promise to write
stories for it "when time permits." (Incredibly, time permitted in
October of 1896, when he was opening his fall season in London
with a full schedule. "I have begun a story for the Pr[abuddha
Bharata]," he wrote to Alasinga on October 28, "I will send it as
soon as I finish.")103 The first issue of Prabuddha Bharata, a
monthly, came out in July of 1896 under the editorship of B. R.
Rajam Iyer, a alienated, spiritually minded young householder,
whom Alasinga had, as he said "unearthed from his hiding place."
"[The Magazine] is very satisfactory," Swamiji told "Dr."-except
for its elaborately pictorial cover, about which he did not mince
words. "The cover is simply barbarous. It is awful and
hideous."104 And in his next letter he promised to design a cover
himself and send it on-in addition to the stories. (As long as the
monthly was published in Madras, its cover, into the creation of
which someone had surely poured his whole heart, was not
changed.) The publication of these magazines delighted Swamiji.
"It is from Madras that the new light must spread all over India,"
105
he wrote to "Dr." in connection with the start of Prabuddha
Bharata. "Let this paper be your God for the time, and you will
succeed." And to he sure, the monthly rapidly gained
subscriptions and was hailed as "a real Hindu magazine" that
presented Hinduism by "real Hindus," as opposed to "Hinuduised
Europeans."106 But as things turned out, Prabuddha Bharata was
destined to spread its message not from Madras but from the far
north. In May of 1898 its editor and chief writer died at the age of
twenty-six, and with the June issue the work came to a halt. But
Swamiji, in Almora with the Seviers at that time, would not let
the magazine die. He made Captain Sevier its manager and
publisher, and his disciple Swami Swarupananda its editor. He
had its headquarters transferred to the Seviers' rented house in
Almora, and the following year had them transferred once again,
together with the hand-press and all the type, Deeper
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into the Himalayas-to the newly purchased ashrama at Mayavati.
And there Prabuddha Bharata, which soon became the primary
periodical of the Ramakrishna Order, has had its editorial offices
ever since.
To do justice to the letters Swamiji wrote to his disciples and
brother disciples throughout his first visit to the West, even while
he was expending the energy of a giant on every level of his
being for his Western work, would be to quote them all in full.
Nothing short of that can give a true idea of the force they carried
and the ground they covered. They were not letters merely; they
were charges of immense power, the ignition of the "machine" of
his Indian work, which was, in turn, the very heart of his world
mission. Returning to India in 1897, he would develop the ideas
he had expressed in his letters, he would propound them to his
countrymen in magnificent and stirring lectures "from Colombo
to Almora." Despite his shattered health, despite how few there
were to help (perhaps twenty, when he had wanted twenty
thousand!), he would give those ideas workable form, he would
establish the Ramakrishna Math on an unshakable foundation,
inaugurate the Ramakrishna Mission, and send out his brother
disciples to start branches throughout the country. "I must see my
machine in strong working order," he would write to Mary Hale
from Almora in July of 1897, "and then knowing sure that I have
put in a lever for the good of humanity, in India at least, which no
power can drive back, I will sleep without caring what will be
next."108 And before he died Swamiji did indeed see his
"machine" in strong working order.
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NOTES FOR CHAPTER FIFTEEN
p. 402 * This was Swamiji's first letter from the West to his
brother disciples. The date assigned to it on the original (by
another hand) and in the Complete Works is March rg, I894.
[t is reasonably certain, however, that it was not written later
than mid-January of that year. (See Prophetic Mission- I,
page 183?.)
p. 4I7 * For substantiation of this statement, see Swami
Akhandananda's own account in his Service of God in Man,
pages 63-70 and 77.
p. 418 * It should be noted here that, to his credit, the
Buddhist Anagarika Hewivitarne Dharmapala lectured in
Calcutta on May I4, I894, on the subject "Swami
Vivekananda and Hinduism in America." He paid high
tribute to Swamiji, and the event, which was attended by
many dignitaries, took the form of a small public meeting in
his honor. News of this meeting did not' however, reach the
American people. It was the more official and important
meeting in Calcutta on September 5, organized in large part
by Swamiji's brother disciples, that saved the day.) In the
interests of history, it should also be noted that
Dharmapala's friendship for Swamiji did not long endure.
When Swamiji later spoke of the degradation of Buddhism
in India and criticized specifically the then current
Buddhism of Ceylon, which Dharmapala had represented at
the Parliament of Religions, the latter had a radical change
of heart. (See Complete, Works, 7:505-6.) On Swamiji's
death, Dharmapala wrote a defamatory obituary letter to Dr.
Paul Carus for publication in the Open Court magazine.
I have
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p.418 seen a copy of this letter, which outdid even the
Christian missionaries in vindictiveness and malice. Dr.
Carus, Swamiji's friend, declined to publish it. The letter is
not, certainly, worth publishing, even as a curiosity, but its
existence is probably worth noting, for it underscores not
only the backbiting that Swamiji so often met with, but the
loyalty of his friends as well.

p.420 Swami Brahmananda is often called the first

president of the Ramakrishna Math, which to the present
writer seems somewhat misleading, implying, as it does,
that Swami Vivekananda was never the Math's president. It
is true that in its early years the Ramakrishna Math was not
strictly organized, and nowhere to my, or anyone's,
knowledge is there an unequivocal statement that before
I90I the Math had a president in the formal and legal sense
of the term. But if one uses the word president to mean one
who presides and leads, then it would seem clear that
Swamiji held the position of president from the very
beginning of the Math, when it was first established at
Baranagore, to I9OI-and this not only in the eyes of his
brother disciples but in his own eyes as well (see Complete
Works, 6:434 and 8:538). As for the Ramakrishna
Mission, which was founded in I897, Swamiji was both de
facto and de jurc its first president. In I90O he resigned
from his informal presidentship of the Math and from his
formal residentship of the Mission (see ibid.) and turned
over the Math property to a Board of Trustees. In January of
I9OI the Declaration of Trust was made final, and,
subsequently, Swami Brahmananda was formally elected
first president of the Trustees. It is in this context that he is
said to be the first president of the Math. He himself
naturally
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p. 420 looked upon Swamiji as the leader de facto until
Swamiji's death in July of I902.
p. 425 * The correct form of Swami Trigunatita's name is,
of course, Swami Trigunatitananda, the suffix ananda
belonging to the names of all sannyasins of the
Ramakrishna Order. But as the reader may remember,
Swami Vivekananda wrote to him from New York in a
letter dated in the Complete Works (6:297) January I7, I895
(I believe the year should be 'I896'): "By the bye, can't you
shorten your name a bit, my boy? What a long, long name-a
single name enough to fill a volume! Well, you hear people
say that the Lord's name keeps away death! It is not the
simple name Hari, mind you. It is those deep and sonorous
names . . . that put to rout King Death and his whole party.
Won't it look nice if you simplify yours a little? But it is too
late, I am afraid, as it has already been abroad. But, believe
me, it is a world-entrancing, death defying name that you
have got!”
For practical purposes, it was not too late. Actually one
finds the Swami signing himself “Trigunatit” (possibly for
the same of anonymity) in a letter to the Indian Mirror,
December 27, 1893 (VIN, page 9). Later, when he came to
San Francisco in 1903 and there built up the Vedanta
Society that Swamiji had started in 1900, he called himself
Trigunatita. Thenceforth, he has been known in the Western
world, as well as in much of the English-language literature
of the Ramakrishna Order, by that name. Needless to say,
there is no disrespect or casualness implied in the dropping
of ananda. Following Swamiji’s wish(however humorously
Swamiji may have put it, it was a wish), he himself
discarded the ananda, and following his wish, his American
disciples (knowing no better,
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p. 425 (cont.) in any case) always referred to him both
officially and informally as Swami Trigunatita. Being an
American, I have followed suit.
p. 430 * This information has been culled from Swami
Gambhirananda’s History of Ramakrishna Math and
Ramakrishna Mission, page 111, and Swami
Akhandananda’s Service of God in Man, page 84.
p. 432 * In 1954 an independent convent for women – the
Sri Sarada Math – was opened by the Ramakrishna Order in
Dakshineswar in accordance with and because of Swamiji’s
wish. Since then a number of branches have been
established.
p. 433 * Alasinga Perumal’s obituary in the Brahmavadin of
May 1909, reads in part: “Mr. M.C. Alasinga Perumal …
was first employed as a teacher in a private school at
Kumbakonam. Soon afterward he joined the staff of
Pachaiyappa’s High School at Chidambaram in 1887 as
science teacher. After the death of his father, he sought and
obtained a transfer to Pachaiyappa’s High School at Madras
in 1890. … He soon rose to be the Head Master of the High
School at Madras, which he maintained during his regime in
a high state of efficiency. He was, just a few weeks before
he died, made Science Lecturer in [Pachiayapp’s] College to
teach physics and chemistry to the intermediate classes in
accordance with the new regulations of the Madras
University.”
p. 438 * the money that would enable Alasinga to give his
whole time to the Brahmavadin was offered by Miss
Henrietta Mullet, then traveling in Switzerland with
Swamiji and the Seviers (see Ciomplete Works, 5:118).
** Except for the combined issue of March – April 1914,
the Brahmavadin stopped appearing in May of 1913.
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p. 438 (cont) The following year the publication department
of the Madras Math brought a new monthly – the Vedanta
Kesari – which was, in a sense, a successor to the
Brahmavadin . Its first issue came out in May 1914, and the
magazine continued ever since (see Swami Gambhirananda,
History of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, p.
242).

445
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ENGLAND: FALL 1896-II

"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." Thus Swamiji had written to
Margaret Noble on June 7, 1896. "Let us call and call," he wrote
in this same letter, "till the sleeping gods awake, till the God
within answers the call."1 Now in the autumn of the year, the last
season of his first visit to the West, he was calling with all the
power of his great heart to those sleeping gods, and this through
class-lectures in which his message to the people of the West
reached its culmination-even as had the Upanishads- `with a
grand flourish of Advaita ideas."2 At this point I should perhaps
remind the reader that .in the spring at St. George's Road Swamiji
had dwelt at Length (or so we are told) on bhakti and raja yoga,
as well as on jnana. Most, if not all, of those who were now
attending his fall classes were old timers; they had heard and,
presumably, assimilated what had gone before and would hear
nothing now to nullify or contradict it. In his own vast being, all
paths were of a piece, and each would find its harmony with the
others in the consciousness of those who listened to him. His
emphasis, to be sure, was varied. Indeed Swamiji, who had
transcended all types of mind and temperament, could pour his
whole being into any mold: he could be now the total bhakta, now
the total jnani, now the total yogi. He could make each path seem
the best; but at the same time he unified them all. Philosophically,
their differences found their harmony in the grand, all-embracing
teaching of nondualism, to which he was now giving full
attention. If he did not speak
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specifically of devotion to God, the need for spiritual love was
implicit in his every word, and if he did not give instruction in
meditation, the need to still and purify one's mind (if the truths he
taught were to become realities in one's life) went without saying,
he having said it before in the spring classes and, surely, in
private interviews as well.
In an earlier chapter we spoke of his London lectures on
Mayavada, which had constituted the first series of this fall
season and had included his classes on the Isha and Katha
Upanishads. In his second series he would take up the Chhan-
dogya Upanishad, starting on Thursday morning, November 5,
with `The Freedom of the Soul." A day or two after he had held
this class, one of his students requested him to say something
about the practical position of the Vedanta philosophy. Swamiji
did not reply, as he well could have, that he had been doing just
that all along; rather, he readily and perhaps beamingly agreed
that "the Vedanta . . . as a religion must be intensely practical."
"We must," he said, "be able to carry it out in every part of our
lives."3 And forthwith, starting with the Tuesday morning class of
November 10, still using the Chhandogya Upanishad as his text,
he gave his famous series of four class-lectures entitled "Practical
Vedanta." Related to these five classes in tone and subject matter
are three undated lectures in the Complete Works; one of these,
"Reason and Religion," was almost certainly given in the Victoria
Street classroom on Wednesday evening, November 18, and the
other two, "The Absolute and Manifestation" (originally entitled
"Realisation and Knowledge") and "Vedanta and Privilege," were
most probably held in the same place on other Wednesday
evenings of November or December. Let us say, then, for the sake
of convenience, that this second fall series consisted of eight
lectures or class-lectures, all of which pertained to the thesis that
Vedanta was practical, not only in the sense that its ideal could be
put into practice by anyone in any condition of life, but also
because the deeply felt effort toward its realization would
tangibly benefit the world. While
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Swamiji had little use for those who would apply religion to
material ends, his concern was not alone with the spiritual
liberation of the few; it was with the whole of humanity and with
every aspect of human life-moral, cultural, social, economic,
political. He believed that through a broad and infinitely deep
spiritual culture the whole life of mankind in all its richly varied
expression could be nourished and rescued from the devastating
materialism of the modern age. In this sense, the practice of
Advaita Vedanta was, he said, "the only remedy there is."4
It would not be long before the outcome of the battle mono-
theistic religion was waging against science would be decisive.
Indeed, to a large extent, science was already the victor at the
close of the nineteenth century: the religion of a Creator and
Ruler God could no longer be accepted by the educated, and the
result was either what Swamiji called "a hideous mass of
unbelief"5 or, perhaps worse, a belief that amounted to "not-
thinking carelessness."6 But as he had pointed out in earlier
lectures, religion was a necessity of human life, not because of
man's habitual need to rely on and pray to some superior being,
but because Spirit was the very essence of life, and the need to
manifest that essence was the driving power of civilization itself.
"The fall [of a nation] begins when this pursuit after the Infinite . .
. has ceased," he had said earlier in the year. "That is to say, the
mainspring of the strength of every race lies in its spirituality, and
the death of that race begins the day that spirituality wanes and
materialism gains ground."7 That day was undeniably coming in
the West, and it was coming with a vengeance, for "the physical
sciences are better equipped now than formerly and religions
have become less and less [well] equipped."8 It was not the
development of science and technology per se that was to blame.

The difference between God and the devil [he said in

"Vedanta and Privilege"] is in nothing except in
unselfishness and selfishness. The devil knows as much as
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 God, is as powerful as God; only he has no holiness that
makes him a devil. Apply the same idea to the modern
world; excess of knowledge and power, without holiness,
makes human beings devils: Tremendous power is being
acquired by the manufacture of machines and other
appliances, and privilege is claimed today as it never has
been claimed in the history of the world. That is why
Vedanta wants to preach against it, to break down this
tyrannising over the souls of men.9

Keenly aware of the inadequacy of dualistic religion to stand

in the face of science, Swamiji tried in many ways to show that
on its deeper levels the religious way of looking at the universe
was not "unscientific." In his raja yoga classes, for instance, he
had pointed out that both religion and science sought "the One out
of which the manifold is being manufactured;"10 and that religion,
like any science, had its own methods of procedure, its own
premises, and its own conclusions based on reason and
experience. In his New York advanced jnana yoga classes he had
attempted to point out the correspondence between the
evolutionary theories of Sankhya cosmology and the most recent
theories and findings of science. As it happened, Swamiji was
somewhat handicapped in this effort: while he may have
anticipated-indeed, as pointed out before, he sometimes seems to
have been convenient with -a good deal of present-day
knowledge, his audiences, even the scientists and scholars among
them, were still geared to Newtonian physics, which could not
compare in subtlety and range with the physics of' today or, for
that matter, with the knowledge possessed by the ancient rishis.
Now, in the fall of 1896, he took another and, one thinks, more
telling approach to the reconciliation of science and religion. In
the third of his "Practical Vedanta" classes and, more Fully, in the
Wednesday evening class that followed it, he showed that
Advaita , satisfies, as dualistic religions cannot, two principles
fundamental to all scientific inquiry.
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 Josiah Goodwin wrote glowingly of that Wednesday evening
class of November 18. "The Swami's lectures seem to be better
and better every time," he told Mrs. Bull. "His lecture on Wedy
evg was a plea for the Vedanta in an entirely new way, which he
has just recently thought out. It was really superb."11 He went on
to summarize the class-lecture that is now published as "Reason
and Religion." But let us, rather, hear Swamiji himself; in brief,
he had put it like this:
This fight [between religious and secular knowledge]
cannot last much longer without breaking to pieces all the
buildings of religion.
The question is: Is there a way out? . . . Is religion to
justify itself by the discoveries of reason, through which
every other science justifies itself? . . . In my opinion this
must be so, and I am also of opinion that the sooner it is
done the better. . .'. All that is dross will be taken off, no
doubt, but the essential parts of religion will emerge
triumphant out of this investigation. . . .
What do I mean by reason? I mean what every educated
man or woman is wanting to do at the present time, to apply
the discoveries of secular knowledge to religion. The first
principle of reasoning is that the particular is explained by
the general, the general by the more general, until we come
to the universal. . . . The last concept that we have, the most
universal, [is] that of existence. ... [This generalization or
classification] is what is meant by knowledge. . . .
A second explanation [principle?] of knowledge is that
the explanation of a thing must come from inside and not
from outside. . . . This tendency you will find throughout
modern thought; in one word, what is meant by science is
that the explanations of things are in their own nature, and
that no external beings or existences are require to explain
what is going on in the universe. . .. And this is one of the
features of science which I mean
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 to apply to religion. . . . There is an ancient theory of a
personal deity entirely separate from the universe, which has
been held from the very earliest time. . . . What is the cause
of the universe? Something outside of it, some being who is
moving this universe! . . . And religions an falling to pieces,
because they cannot give a better explanation than that.
Another idea connected with this, the manifestation of
the same principle that the explanation of everything comes
from inside it, is the modern law of evolution. The whole
meaning of evolution is simply that the nature of a thing is
reproduced, that the effect is nothing but the cause in
another form. . . .
Can there be a religion satisfying these two principles? I
think there can be. . . . We have to come to an ultimate
generalisation which not only will be the most universal of
all generalisations but out of which everything else must
come. It will be of the same nature as the lowest effect; the
cause, the highest, the ultimate, the primal cause must be the
same as the lowest and most distant of its effects [in] a series
of evolutions. The Brahman of the Vedanta fulfils that
condition, because Brahman is the last generalisation to
which we can come. It has no attributes but is Existence,
Knowledge, and Bliss-Absolute. Existence, we have seen, is
the very ultimate generalisation which the human mind can
come to. . . .
Thus we see that the religion of the Vedanta can satisfy
the demands of the scientific world by referring it to the
highest generalisation and to the law of evolution. That the
explanation of a thing comes from within itself is still more
completely satisfied by Vedanta. The Brahman, the God of
the Vedanta, has nothing outside of Himself; nothing at all.
All thee indeed is He: He is in the universe: He is the
universe Himself.12

Swamiji went on to say that while the Impersonal God is

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a higher generalization than the Personal, the Impersonal does not
thereby nullify the Personal but, rather, makes him, possible, for
"without the Impersonal, the Personal cannot remain. 13

If you mean to say there is a being entirely separate from

this universe, who has created this universe just by His will
out of nothing, that cannot be proved. Such a state of things
cannot be. But if we understand the idea of the Impersonal
then the idea of the Personal can remain there also. This
universe, in its various forms, is but the various readings of
the same Impersonal . . . and the Personal God is the highest
reading that can be attained to of that Impersonal by the
human intellect. So that the Personal God is true as much as
this chair is true, as much as this world is true, but no more.
It is not absolute truth. . . . A Personal God is explicable as
the highest manifestation of the Impersonal. You and I are
very low manifestations, and the Personal God is the highest
of which we can conceive. Nor can you or I become that
Personal God. When the Vedanta says you and I are God, it
does not mean the Personal God. . . . We and the Ruler of
the Universe are one, but as manifested beings, men, we are
His eternal slaves, His worshippers. Thus we see that the
Personal God remains. Everything else in this relative world
remains, and religion is made to stand on a better
foundation. Therefore it is necessary that we first know the
Impersonal in order to know the the Personal.14

Thus Swamiji, reconciling science and Advaita Vedanta by

pointing out the fundamental principles of knowledge common to
the both, took nothing away; rather, he enhanced everything. The
Personal God, far from being dethroned, was supported; at the
same time, thinking men and women those who set the overall
tone of world thought would be
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able to accept religion, to see it not as a set of soft-brained,
soothing fantasies, but as an indispensable means to a true
knowledge of Reality. "Advaita-the nonduality, the Oneness, the
idea of the Impersonal God," he said, "is the only religion that can
have any hold on any intellectual people."15
Its appeal to reason was one of the great practicalities of
Advaita Vedanta. But the two-part question-how does one
practice Advaita in everyday life, and what does its practice
accomplish in that life?-was not thereby answered. In his classes
on "Pratical Vedanta". Swamiji would answer both part, but first
he clarified an all-important point. Almost at the outset of the
series he defined what he meant by practical:

[Ordinarily] we all use this word practical for things we

like and can do. Therefore I will ask you to understand that
Vedanta, though it is intensely practical, is always so in the
sense of the ideal. . . .
. . . This we must always bear in mind, that in the
Vedanta there is no attempt at reconciling the present life-
the hypnotised life, this false life which we have assumed-
with the ideal; but this false life must go, and the real life
which is always existing must manifest itself, must shine
out. No man becomes purer and purer, it is a matter of
greater manifestation. The veil drops away, and the native
purity of the soul begins to manifest itself. Everything is
ours already-infinite purity, freedom, love, and power.
The Vedanta also says that not only can this be realised
in the depths of forests or caves, but by men is all possible
conditions of life. . . . But we must not degrade the ideal to
the actual. : : . The present life should be made to coincide
with life eternal.16

Swamiji did not give the impression that it was an easy matter
to make one's life, whatever its circumstances might be, coincide
with the ideal. In the beginning at least, there
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would be resistance and struggle, for the human mind has little
inclination to budge from any given position. "To harmonise the
ideal with the life," he said, ". . . is the temptation of our lives." 17
"There is this strongly conservative tendency in human nature: we
do not like to move one step forward. I think of mankind just as I
read of persons who become frozen in snow; all such, they say,
want to go to sleep. . . . That is what we are doing all our life,
getting frozen from the feet upwards, and yet wanting to sleep.
Therefore you must struggle towards the ideal." 18 And, if that
struggle was to be successful, the ideal must be understood.
He never disparaged the role of intellect in spiritual struggle.
On the contrary, he urged those who wanted to make progress in
spiritual life to have a sound intellectual grasp of what they were
trying to do. Not that the intellect could provide spiritual
knowledge or even a restless desire for it (no more than could a
map impart the experience of travel or excite wanderlust), but it
could save one from losing the way; it could prevent the mind
from bogging down in superstition and Blind belief.

I will abide by any reason [Swamiji said in "Practical

Vedanta-III"] because with all its weakness there is some
chance of my getting at truth through it; while by the other
means [reliance on authority] there is no such hope at all. . . .
What we want is progress, development, realisation. No
theories ever made men higher. No amount of books can
help us to become purer. The only power is in realisation,
and that lies in ourselves and coma from thinking. Let men
think. A clod of earth never thinks; but it remains only a
lump of earth. The glory of man is that he is a thinking
being.19

He provided many lines of reasoning by which the student

could intellectually comprehend the truth of and necessity for
Advaita Vedanta and thereby push forward to its realization
without being hobbled by uncertainty and confusion. In his
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advanced jnana yoga class in New York, in which he had
discussed Vedanta cosmology, he had, for instance, explained the
Sankhya systems of ontology and psychology; in his raja yoga
classes he had described the methods of practice based on this
cosmological scheme. In London he had entered deeply into the
theory of Maya, and now in his second London series he pointed
out, as we have just seen, that Advaita Vedanta satisfies the basic
principles of knowledge. In this series (notably in the third and
fourth classes of `,`Practical Vedanta") he traced another, though
related, line of thought, in which he showed that only the
philosophy of monism can resolve the age-old battle between
idealists and realists, noumenalists and phenomenalists, between
those who state, not without good reason, that all that exist--
certainly all that we can ever know to exist-is a continually
whirling kaleidoscope of phenomena and those who wish to
believe, but cannot rationally prove, that behind phenomena there
is an unchanging noumenon or substance, or, in religious
terminology; God. The failure to reply in a scientific manner to
empirical philosophies was one reason that dualistic religions,
positing God and matter, substance and qualities, could not hold
their own in modern times. "The only answer we get," Swamiji
said in "Practical Vedanta-III," "is from the monistic theory of the
Vedanta. It is true that only one exists, and that one is either
phenomenon or noumenon."

It is not true [he went on] that there are two-something

changing, and in and through that, something which does not
change; but it is the one and the same thing which appears as
changing, and which is in reality unchangeable. We have
come to think of the body and mind and soul as many, but
really there is only one; and that one is appearing in all these
various forms.20

This was, of course, another way of saying that monism

arrives at the highest possible generalization-the Impersonal
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Brahman, which subsumes within Itself (or appears as) the
Personal God, the souls, and the world. "There is but one life,"
Swamiji said in "Practical Vedanta-I," "one world, one existence.
Everything is that One."21 And, as he had explained at length in
his Maya classes, "That One is manifesting Himself as many, as
matter, spirit, mind, thought, and everything else." And that One
is the Self: "Thou art That." The Self, "the shining One," was to
be realized and manifested in everyday life. The question was
how.
In his yoga classes in New York (and no doubt in London as
well) Swamiji had given varied answers to this question, advising
a balanced mixture of all methods. Now in this series on practical
Vedanta he did indeed combine them, for though these classes
were concerned primarily with jnana yoga, it was a jnana yoga
that incorporated into itself an Advaita-based karma yoga as well
as a bhakti yoga that took for the object of devotion every
manifestation of Brahman-most particularly that highest of all
visible manifestations, one's fellow man. Here was a great
synthesis of yogas, by means of which the Impersonal God is
conceived as fully occupying every particle and every event of
the relative world, as water fully occupies the wave. Here work
and love are not shunned as relating to an ensnaring delusion, but
are looked upon as direct paths to the center of things, for both
are seen as the play, as it were, between the manifestations, or
appearances, of One Being. At any point, at any time, one can
penetrate to the Reality. "The theme of the Vedanta is to see the
Lord in everything," Swamiji said in his second "Practical
Vedanta" class, "to see things in their real nature, not as they
appear to be. . . . This is the real, practical side of Vedanta. . . . It
does not show that this world is vain and does not exist, but it
says; `Understand what this world is, so that it may not hurt you.'
"22
But while this understanding did not require one to flee from
the world to a forest or cave, monastery or hermitage, it did
require renunciation. "What philosophy insists on," Swamiji had
said in his earlier lecture "Realisation," "is not to give
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up joys, but to know what joy really is. . . . But [and this was a
very big but] to understand that, we have to go through the
negation, and then the positive side will begin. We have to give
up ignorance and all that is false, and then truth will begin to
reveal itself to us. When we have grasped the truth, things which
we gave up at first will take new shape and form, will appear to
us in a new light and become deified."23 Thus Advaita Vedanta
practiced in the world, or in everyday life, was not a matter of
throwing a mantle of philosophical words over the manifold
universe, it was a hard-fought matter of conquering sense desire,
of attaining inner renunciation, of elevating life to the idea.24
"Until one has conquered the desires for enjoyment," Swamiji
said, "the truth will not shine in him. 25 But the conquest could
certainly be made on the battlefield itself. It was a matter of
seeing oneself and the world ac Brahman, or Spirit, and as
nothing else. This was, of course, the very height of spiritual
perception; it was the vision of one totally free of delusion; it
was, indeed, the goal of spiritual practice. The practice itself, as
Swamiji prescribed it again and again, was to struggle
continuously to think, to feel, and to act under all circumstances
in the way a knower of Brahman would spontaneously and
naturally think, feel, and act. This effort to treat the world and to
react to it realistically, in the Vedantic sense, would lead
unfailingly to the Reality Itself; effort would gradually (or
suddenly) become effortless perception; all ways of life, when
understood as manifestations of Brahman, would become direct
revelations of Him. Such practice was an affirmation (and a
celebration) through service, love, and reason of the One Reality;
it was an affirmation in which all modes of life were transformed
into yogas leading to the realization of the Self.
Thus Swamiji, emphasizing the positive side of Advaita
Vedanta, brought it to the marketplaces of the world. "We shall
see," he said in his first "Practical Vedanta" class, "how this
Vedanta can be carried into our everyday life, the city life, the
country life, the national life, and the home life of
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every nation. For if a religion cannot help man wherever he may
be, wherever he stands, it is not of much use; it will remain only a
theory of the chosen few. . . . The principles of Vedanta, or the
ideal of religion, or whatever you may call it, will be fulfilled by
its capacity for performing this great function."26

As Swamiji pointed out in "The Absolute and Manifestation,"

this was not the first time Advaita had been given to the people. It
had come whenever materialism had prevailed. "At first," he said,
"some monks got hold of [this Advaita] and took it to the forests,
and so it came to be called the `Forest Philosophy'. By the mercy
of the Lord, the Buddha came and preached it to the masses, and
the whole nation became Buddhists. . . . Before the Buddha came,
materialism had spread to a fearful extent, and it was of a most
hideous kind. . . . A thousand years after his death a similar state
of things again prevailed. . . .. Then Shankaracharya arose and
once more revivified the Vedanta philosophy. He made it a
rationalistic philosophy."27 "We want today," Swamiji said in this
same lecture, "that bright sun of [Shankara's] intellectuality
joined with the heart of Buddha, the wonderful infinite heart of
love and mercy. This union will give us the highest philosophy.
Science and religion will meet and shake hands. Poetry and
philosophy will become friends. This will be the religion of the
future, and if we can work it out, we may be sure that it will be
for all times and peoples."28 And Swamiji, the third great giver of
Advaita Vedanta to the people, had been working it out. During
the whole of his Western mission, particularly throughout 1895
and 1896, he had been presenting this union of intellect and heart
to the modern world, and in these last lectures of 1896, he
brought it into sharp focus.
"My idea," he said, "is to show that the highest ideal of
morality and unselfishness goes hand in hand with the highest
metaphysical conception. . . . Human knowledge is not antag-
onistic to human well-being. On the contrary, it is knowl-
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edge alone that will save us in every department of life-in
knowledge is worship. The more we know the better for us."29
But the highest knowledge did not lie in some vast and complex
compendium; rather, it was contained in the simplest of truths,
easily stated in both its metaphysical and its practical aspects.
"[Truth] has to be made practical," he said at the very close of his
"Practical Vedanta" classes, "to be made simple (for the highest
truths are always simple), so that it may penetrate every pore of
human society and become the property of the highest intellects
and the commonest minds, of the man, woman, and child at the
same time."30
And indeed the simplicity of Swamiji's practical presentation
of the most profound philosophy was one of his unique
contributions to religious culture. For instance, his application of
one of the great culminate mahavakyas of the Vedanta, "Thou art
That," to any circumstance of life took the form of two
commandments: Have faith in yourself, and recognize that the
universe is one. "What is there to be taught more in religion than
the oneness of the universe and faith in oneself?"31 he asked in his
first class in "Practical Vedanta," and with one burning sentence
after another he extended these two dicta into everyday life, as
though throwing lifelines out into the world.
The first, faith in one's self, worked on every level-physical,
mental, spiritual. It worked for everyone everywhere, regardless
of his condition or of the odds against him, for it was a matter
simply of standing on the unshakable ground of one's real nature,
the all-powerful Spirit. "Never say `No,' " Swamiji instructed;
"never say `I cannot,' for you are infinite. Even time and space are
as nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and
everything; you are almighty."32 It was an entirely practical ideal:

The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to

us. If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught
and practised, I am sure a very large portion of the evils
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 and miseries that we have would have vanished. Throughout
the history of mankind, if any motive power has been more
potent than another in the lives of all great men and women,
it is that of faith in themselves. Born with the consciousness
that they were to be greet, they became great. Let a man go
down as low as possible; then must come a time when out of
sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will
learn to have faith in himself But it is better for us that we
should know it from the very first. Why should we have all
these bitter experiences in order to gain faith in ourselves?
We can see that all the difference between man and man is
owing to the existence or nonexistence of faith in himself.
Faith in ourselves will do everything. . . . Do you know how
much energy, how many powers, how many forces are still
lurking behind that frame of yours? What scientist has
known all that is in man? Millions of years have passed
since man first came here, and yet but one infinitesimal part
of his powers has been manifested. Therefore, you must not
say that you are weak. How do you know what possibilities
lie behind that degradation on the surface? You know but
little of that which is within you. For behind you is the ocean
of infinite power and blessednes.33
How to tap that ocean of infinite power and blessedness and
channel it into every field and corner of human life? The way, he
said, was by saturating one's consciousness with an awareness of
that latent power. "Hear day and night that you are the Soul."

Repeat it to yourselves day and night till it enters into

your very veins, till it tingles in every drop of blood, till it is
in your flesh and bone. Let the whole body be full of that
one ideal. . . . Meditate upon it, and out of that will come
work. . . . Action will come. Fill yourselves with the ideal;
whatever you do, think well on it. All your
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 actions will. be magnified, transformed, deified by the very
power of the thought.34

Out of that thought will come tremendous strength of char-

acter, fearlessness in the face of death, discrimination between
right and wrong, unwavering moral courage, and a selfishness
that scorns all thought of gain. What to fear, what to lose, what to
gain if one's being is centered in the Self? Swamiji's classes
resounded with this call to "the sleeping gods"-a call that lay at
the very heart of all practical religion; for unless those gods
awoke, nothing in heaven or on earth could make man's lot on
earth a happier one; for nothing else could release him from the
grip of fear. With the strength of the Self, on the other hand,
anything and everything could be accomplished.

Strength, therefore, is the one thing needful [Swamiji

declared in "The Freedom of the Soul"]. Strength is the
medicine for the world's disease. Strength is the medicine
which the poor must have when tyrannised over by the rich.
Strength is the medicine that the ignorant must have when
oppressed by the learned; and it is the medicine that sinners
must have when tryannised over by other sinners; and
nothing gives such strength as this idea of monism. Nothing
makes us so moral as this idea of monism. Nothing makes us
work so well at our best and highest as when all the
responsibility is thrown upon ourselves. 35 [And in the last of
his classes on "Practical Vedanta":] Build up your character,
and manifest your real nature, the Effulgent, the
Resplendent, the Ever-Pure, and call It up in everyone that
you see. . . . This is the highest prayer that the Advaita
teaches. This is the one prayer, to remember our true nature,
the God who is always within us, thinking of it always as
infinite, almighty, ever-good, ever-beneficent, selfless,
bereft of all limitations. And because that nature is selfless,
it is strong
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 and fearless; for only to selfishness comes fear. He who has
nothing to desire for himself, whom does he fear, and what
can frighten him? What fear has death for him? What fear
has evil for him?36

In America such powerful exhortations had raised a hue and

cry among Christian ministers; even in England the idea of man's
almightiness may have seemed to militate against the Christian
teaching of humility before God. The Vedantic teaching was,
actua(ly, the same call to perfection, but in another mode. "The
one takes the positive side," Swamiji said, "and the other the
negative side. One shows to man his strength and the other his
weakness."

There may be weakness, says the Vedanta, but . . . being

reminded of weakness does not help much; give strength,
and strength does not come by thinking of weakness all the
time. The remedy for weakness is not brooding over
weakness, but thinking of strength. Teach men of the
strength that is already within them. Instead of telling them
they are sinners, the Vedanta takes the opposite position, and
says, "You are pure and perfect, and what you call sin does
not belong to you." Sins are very low degrees of Self
manifestation; manifest your Self in a high degree. That is
the one thing to remember; all of us can do that. 37
In "The Freedom of the Soul" he had pointed out that while
dualistic religions preach man's fall from perfection by one
misfortune or another, each giving its own instruction about how
to regain that lost paradise, monism denies the fall altogether.

The last and greatest counsel is that you need not weep at
all. You need not go through all these ceremonies and need
not take any notice of how to regain your empire, because
you never lost it. Why should you go to seek for
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 what you never lost? You are pure already, you are free
already. If you think you are free, free you are this moment,
and if you think, you are bound, bound you will be. This is a
very bold statement.38

Bold it was. At a time when the doctrines of original sin and

redemption through Christ alone had been drilled into the minds
of Swamiji's listeners from their Sunday-school days forward, the
idea that man was not, in fact, a sinner in need of salvation had
the ring of blasphemy. Swamiji was well aware that he was not
only assaulting the more rigid doctrines of Christianity but
attacking the most formidable and impenetrable fortification in
the world-the conditioned human brain; he knew there would be
alarm and resistance, but he went ahead, for he also knew that his
listeners had come to him out of a desire for truth and that sooner
or later they would make it their own. He could not, in any case,
give less than the highest, for anything less would no longer do.
To think in new religious terms may have been an agonizing,
soul-searching struggle for some of those who came to his
classes, yet it was the sort of struggle that attends the birth of a
new age and awakens human greatness. "I shall have to speak to
you very boldly," Swamiji told his listener. "It may frighten you
now, but when you think over it, and realise it in your own life,
then you will come to know that what I say is true."39 And they
listened as he spelled out the simple and challenging tnonistic
truth of the soul's eternal freedom and purity.
His second commandment-a deep sense of the oneness of all
life-was, of course, a corollary of the first, faith in one's self, for
both arose from, or were manifestations of, the underlying
spiritual reality of all being. "[Faith in one's self] means faith in
all," he said, "because you are all. Love for yourselves means
love for all, love for animals, love for everything, for you are all
one. It is the great faith which will make the world better. I am
sure of that."40 Immense, selfless feeling for other, a largesse
generated by a sense of oneness was not, he insisted,
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unique with Buddhas and Christs, but was innate in every man,
woman, and child everywhere and at all times. He urged his
listeners to practice it in their lives. "The watchword of all well-
being, of all moral good is not `I' but `thou,' " he said in ' an
impassioned plea and continued:

Who cares whether there is a heaven or a hell, who cares

if there is a soul or not, who cares if there is an unchange-
able or not.? Here is the world, and it is full of misery. Go
out into it as Buddha did, and struggle to lessen it or die in
the attempt. Forget yourselves; this is the first lesson to be
learnt, whether you are a theist or an atheist, whether you are
an agnostic or a Vedantist, a Christian or a Mohammedan.
The one lesson obvious to all is the destruction of the little
self and the building up of the Real Self. 41

Again and again throughout his classes on practical Vedanta

Swamiji .urged the service of one's fellowman. Any work,
whatever its field might be-art, science, education, law, com-
merce, anything-could be transformed into service and laid at
man's feet, as at the feet of God. Such action in its most perfect,
most spontaneous form was, of course, an expression of the
highest love, which love was itself a pure and immediate
manifestation of Oneness, a force that could be called Para
Shakti, the Force of all forces. "The motive power of the whole
universe, in whatever way it manifests itself, is that one
wonderful thing, unselfishness, renunciation, love, the real, the
only living force in existence."42 To become, as it were, an open,
unobstructed channel of that force, through which it could flow in
its most pure and undistorted form, manifesting itself as
"unselfishness, renunciation, and love," was to become ethical in
the highest degree. A sense of oneness with all life was, indeed,
the very heart of morality. "As manifested beings we appear to be
separate, but our reality is one, and the less we think of ourselves
as separate from that One, the better
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for us. The more we think of ourselves as separate from the
Whole, the more miserable we become. From this monistic
principle we get at the basis of ethics, and I venture to say that we
cannot get any ethics from anywhere else."43
While the principles of Advaita Vedanta were the foundation
of ethics and thus the key to social well-being, their practice
constituted also a direct path to spiritual liberation. In "Practical
Vedanta-II" he put it unequivocally. (This was a class of which
Goodwin wrote, "he gave himself free play and gave a pure
Advaita lecture-what he calls undiluted roaring Vedanta.")44

What is more practical [he said] than worshipping here,

worshipping you? I see you, feel you, and I know you are
God. The Mohammedan says, there is no God but Allah.
The Vedanta says, there is nothing that is not God. It may
frighten many of you, but you will understand it by degrees.
The living God is within you, and yet you are building
churches and temples and believing all sorts of imaginary
nonsense. The only God to worship is the human soul in the
human body. Of course all animals are temples too, but man
is the highest, the Taj Mahal of temples. If I cannot worship
in that, no other temple will be of any advantage. The
moment I have realised God sitting in the temple of every
human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every
human being and see God in him -that moment I am free
from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.
This is the most practical of all worship. 45

But what was the difference in effect, as far as ethics was

concerned, between the service of man based on the monistic
ideal and that based on brotherly love as taught by theistic
religions? No difference, providing that brotherly love extended
without the slightest distinction to all mankind. It was true that
those who followed the religion of Christ in its purity
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-and in its purity it was not unlike Vedanta-were themselves
Christ like in universal compassion. But popular dualistic
teachings, by whatever name, were another matter. Swamiji
pointed out not only the philosophical limitations of most
dualistic ideals, but their psychological limitations as well. For
one thing, man's soul, according to dualism, retains its indivi-
duality through all eternity, and in most theistic religions this
concept is degraded into that of an afterlife of perpetual sense
pleasure. "Clinging onto little enjoyments, and to desire the
continuation and repetition of this state of things is utter
selfishness," Swamiji thundered. ". . . Talk of morality and doing
good to others! Silly talk of the present time! . . . The more selfish
a man, the more immoral he is. And so also with the race. .. . It
[is] crudeness indeed-this fight for the little self, this clinging on
to the `I', not only in this life, but also in the desire for its
continuance even after death. This they declare to be
unselfishness; this the foundation of morality!"46
Then there was the dualist's constitutional exclusiveness. "The
Advaitist knows that whatever may be [the dualist's] theories, he
is going to the same goal as he himself. There he differs entirely
from the dualist, who is forced by his point of view to believe that
all differing views are wrong. The dualists all the world over
naturally believe in a Personal God who is purely
anthropomorphic, who like a great potentate in this world is
pleased with some and displeased with others. . . . You will find
that in almost every religion is the idea, `We are the favorites of
our God, and only by believing as we, do, can you be taken into
favour with Him.' . . . I challenge you to show me one dualistic
religion which has not more or less of this exclusiveness. And,
therefore, in the nature of things, dualistic religions are bound to
fight and quarrel with each other, and this they have ever been
doing.”47

The other side of exclusiveness was fear. If God has

favorites, saving some and not others, then it well behooves
His devotees to stay in good favor.
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 [Dualists] have been worshipping a God in heaven separate
from them, and of whom they are much afraid. They have
been born shaking with fear, and all their life they will go on
shaking. Has the world been made much better by this? . . .
How can you expect morality to be developed through fear?
It can never be. "Where one sees another, where one hears
another, that is Maya. When one does not see another, when
one does not hear another, when everything has become the
Atman, who sees whom, who perceives whom?" It is all He,
and all I, at the same time. The soul has become pure. Then,
and then alone we understand what love is. Love cannot
come through fear, its basis is freedom. In freedom we really
begin to love the world, and then we understand what is
meant by brotherhood and mankind, and not before. 48

Swamiji's analysis of the failings of dualism was a prod, as it

were, to his listeners; he urged them to break through all
confining beliefs. "Come out into the broad open light of day," he
cried; "come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the
infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts? Come out
into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours,
stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you ever felt
you wanted to do that, you have felt God."49
Nor would one lose anything at all by expanding. "The whole
universe is one person," he declared in this same glowing
passage; "let go the little things. Give up the small for the Infinite,
give up small enjoyments For infinite bliss. It is all yours, for the
Impersonal includes the personal."
Yet Swamiji had no criticism for those who wanted to remain
with dualistic beliefs and practices. By its very nature, Advaita
disturbed no one's faith, but included all. "If you seek a universal
religion which can apply to every one," he said in "The Absolute
and Manifestation," "that religion must not be composed of only
the parts, but it must always be their sum total and include all
degrees of religious development....
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They are all parts, equally struggling to attain to the whole."50
"This is one of the great points to be remembered," he cautioned
his class at the close of "Practical Vedanta-II" (for he had been
urging his listeners to move forward), "that those who worship
God through ceremonials and forms, however crude we may
think them to be, are not in error. It is the journey from truth to
truth, from lower truth to higher truth. . . . It must always be
borne in mind that we should see others with eyes of love, with
sympathy, knowing that they are going along the same path that
we have trodden."51 And again; "[Dualists] want a consoling
religion, and we understand that it is necessary for them. The
clear light of truth very few in this life can bear, much less live up
to. It is necessary, therefore, that this comfortable religion should
exist; it helps many souls to a better one."52 "Dualism and all
systems that had preceded it are accepted by the Advaita not in a
patronising way, but with the conviction that they are true
manifestations of the same truth, and that they all lead to the same
conclusions as the Advaita has reached."53 And in "Vedanta and
Privilege": "Consciously or unconsciously, . . . the whole uni-
verse is going towards that goal... . One benefit from this theory
we practically see is that the idea of a real universal love is only
possible from this point of view. All are our fellow passengers,
our fellow travellers-all life, plants, animals; not only my brother
man, but my brother brute, my brother plant; not only my brother
the good, but my brother the evil, my brother the spiritual, and
my brother the wicked. They are all going to the same goal. All
are in the same stream, each is hurrying towards that infinite
freedom."54
Nevertheless, as is evident from his teachings, with their
strong emphasis on the divinity of man, Swamiji was anxious to
free that universal current wherever it had become entrapped and
stagnant.

I have no objection to dualism in many of its forms [he

said in "The Freedom of the Soul"]. I like most of them,
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 but I have objections to every form of teaching which
inculcates weakness. . . . I know it is truth alone that gives
strength. I know that truth alone gives life, and nothing but
going towards reality will make us strong, and none will
reach truth until he is strong. Every system, therefore, which
weakens the mind, makes one superstitious, makes one
mope, makes one desire all sorts of wild impossibilities,
mysteries, and superstitions, I do not like, because its effect
is dangerous. Such systems never bring any good; such
things create morbidity in the mind, make it weak, so weak
that in course of time it will be almost impossible to receive
truth or live up to it.55

Swamiji never inveighed against devotion to the Personal

God; on the contrary, he always spoke of true devotion to God in
any form or aspect as a sure path to freedom. But weakness was
not devotion, and he was giving his life to the effort to
dehypnotize human beings of the sense of limitation, guilt, and
fear. "For those who want to be practical," he said, "this is the
first thing to learn. Never tell yourselves or others that you are
weak."56 And this he meant for everyone.
The very fact that Swamiji was giving the highest truth to
people whose lives, as far as we can know, were closely woven
into the world's social fabric-housewives, educators, nurses, men
of various professions, women campaigning for the right to take
part in life outside the home, men attempting to better the world-
the very fact that he was pouring out the highest of Vedantic
teachings to such men and women was clear evidence of his
conviction that the highest truth could be put into practice and
realized by anyone with a yearning for it, "in all possible
conditions of life." In his view, no man or woman was ordinary;
no one was less than divine, and there was no one who should not
be told so.
[To teach the monistic ideal to everyone] appears now a
very big and a very great undertaking [he said in "The
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 Freedom of the Soul"]; to many it appears very startling, but
that is because of superstition, nothing else. By eating all
sorts of bad indigestible food, or by starving ourselves, we
are incompetent to eat a good meal. We have listened to
words of weakness from our childhood.57

And carrying forward the same theme in his next class,

"Practical Vedanta-I," he went on as it were:
,
And most of us think that this ideal can never be reached;
but the Vedanta insists that it can be realised by every one.
There is neither man nor woman nor child, nor difference of
race or sex, nor anything that stands as a bar to the
realisation of the ideal, because Vedanta shows that it is
realised already, it is already there.58

From first to last, Swamiji taught man's divinity, which stood

clear before his eyes. Even when explaining in "Practical
Vedanta-IV" "a few of the popular ideas of dualism" which have
been retained in the body of Vedantic thought, he was soon back
without transition to the concepts of monism. Then, as though
realizing where his thought or vision had led him, he said, "I have
been going into things which do not belong to the dualists
possibly. I cannot stand long with the dualists, I am afraid," 59 and
he went ahead full sail with his main theme-the practicality of
Advaita in everyday life.
The traditional idea that the realization of the Self or Atman
was a goal so far-off from the average person that any thought
about it was but idle chattering of the mind was to Swamiji the
most obstructive of all delusions. "In and through the Self all
knowledge comes," he declared in one of his many affirmations
of the immediacy and availability of the Impersonal Brahman.
Therefore, it is the best known of all. . . . Limitation can
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 never come upon the unlimited; it is a fiction. The Self is
known, therefore, to every one of us-man, woman, or child-
and even to animals. . .,. The God of the [monistic] Vedanta
is the most known of all and is not the outcome of
imagination. If this is not preaching a practical God, how
else could you teach a practical God? . . . For you are He,
the omnipresent God Almighty, the Soul of your souls, and
if I say you are not, I tell an untruth. I know it, whether at all
times I realise it or not. He is the Oneness, the Unity of all,
the Reality of all life and all existence.60

Why, then, should riot this truth be told to all? There was no
knowing what life of spirit and release from burden the teaching
of man's true nature might bring to the least of men; nor did
external modes or conditions of life determine in whom the ideal
might take flame. "Perchance a prophet thou " Swamiji liked to
say to his listeners, "who knows!" "Men, animals, and gods are
all common recipients of this one truth. Let them all receive it,"
he said in "The Freedom of the Soul " and continued:

Why make life miserable? Why let people fall into all
sorts of superstitions? I will give ten thousand lives if twenty
of them will give up their superstition. Not only in this
country, but in the land of its very birth, if you tell people
this truth, they are frightened. They say, "This idea is for
Sannyasins who give up the world arid live in forests; for
them it is all right. But for us poor householders, we must all
have some sort of fear, we must have ceremonies," and so
on.
Dualistic ideas have ruled the world long enough, and
this is the result. Why not make a new experiment? It may
take ages for all minds to receive monism, but why not
begin now? If we have told it to twenty persons in our lives,
we have done a great work.61
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 And in a passage that rings like a sky of carillons he ex-
claimed:

I do not believe at all that monistic ideas preached to the

world would produce immorality and weakness. On the
contrary, I have reason to believe that it is the only remedy
there is. IF this be the truth, why let people drink ditch water
when the stream of life is flowing by? If this be the truth,
that they are all pure, why not at this moment teach it to the
whole world? Why not teach it with the voice of thunder to
every man that is born, to saints and sinners, men, women,
and children, to the man on the throne and to the man
sweeping the streets?62

Though the number of people who strove to put monistic

philosophy into continuous practice might be relatively small in
any given community, their influence for good would be
incalculable. "If we are Advaitins," Swamiji told his class, "we
must think from this moment that our old self is dead and gone. . .
All weakness has vanished from us, and our only work is to
arouse this knowledge in our fellow-beings. We see that they too
are the same pure self, only they do not know it; we must teach
them, we must help them to rouse up their infinite nature. This is
what I feel to be absolutely necessary all over the world."63
Indeed, "the salvation of Europe depends on a rationalistic
religion,"64 he said, referring to Advaita Vedanta, and he foresaw
the day when "the whole of mankind will become Jivanmuktas-
free whilst living."65 And one is reminded here of his nudge,
which touched Margaret Noble so forcibly, toward total
dedication to the monistic ideal: "If this is true, what other thing
could matter? If it is not true, what do our lives matter?"66

"The Swami's morning lectures are magnificent," Goodwin

wrote to Josephine MacLeod on November 14, apropos of the
Tuesday-Thursday classes on practical Vedanta. Again on
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November 30 he exclaimed to her, "I really believe his lectures
here are better than ever!" And as though Swamiji were calling to
people to come to hear these classes-the last of his first Western
visit-the attendance grew. "The morning lectures are now largely
attended,": Goodwin told Miss MacLeod on November 20, "about
200 every time. Fresh people come every class day."67 Others
returned after an absence. Mr. John Galsworthy (senior or junior,
we do not know) came on the morning of Thursday, November
19, to hear "Practical Vedanta-IV." It was his first time that
season. (He and Swamiji would lunch together the following
Tuesday.) Mme Antoinette Sterling also came to that lecture after
a long absence. Old friends and newcomers filled the classroom;
nor was it only Swamiji's teachings that drew them and held
them, it was also the radiance that streamed from the teacher
himself. In America and London both, many told of the
experience of attending his lectures. "After the first few
sentences," Sister Christine would once say, " . . . it always used
to be more of realising than listening."68 And Miss Muller,
writing later of a talk Swamiji would give in India, remembered
other lectures, other days:

Sometimes it seemed as though the Teacher, his words,

his audience, and the Spirit pervading them all, were ONE. .
. . Those who have frequently heard him will recall and
recognize a similar experience-a moment when he ceases to
be Swami Vivekananda lecturing to critical and attentive
hearers; all details, and personalities are lost, names and
forms disappear, only the Spirit remains, uniting Speaker,
Hearer, and spoken word:69

One can but remember and repeat here the words of Mahendra
Nath Datta telling of Swamiji's classes earlier that year: "What
Spirit is could clearly be understood. It was as if the room was
flowing with Brahmajnana and wisdom, and Swamiji, smiling,
was sprinkling it around, offering anjali with both his hands"-a
picture that brings to mind, in turn, the vision Sri
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Sarada Devi had when sitting one moonlit evening on a ghat of
the Ganga: she saw Sri Ramakrishna walk swiftly into the river
and dissolve into its waters; then suddenly Naren appeared and,
crying "Jai Ramakrishna!" "Victory to Ramakrishna!" took up
handfuls of that shimmering, immeasurably sacred water and
scattered it over the multitudes of men and women who had
gathered there, liberating them.70

In addition to his regular Tuesday and Thursday morning and

Wednesday evening classes at Victoria Street, Swamiji went
every Monday by train through the bleak November countryside
to Wimbledon, where he gave an afternoon class at Miss Muller's
house, Airlie Lodge. Of these classes we know almost nothing,
for even if Mr. Goodwin took them down, we have no identified
transcripts of them. In the town of Wimbledon, however,
Swamiji's course of eight classes, which started on October 12
and continued through November 30, did not go un-remarked,
and on Saturday, December 5, the Wimbledon News printed the
following by way of acknowledgement:

A HINDU PHILOSOPHER.

On Monday afternoon [November 30] the Swami Vivek-

ananda delivered the last of his course of lectures on
"Vedanta Philosophy" at Airlie Lodge, Ridgway gardens.
The lectures have aroused great interest, on one occasion
over 70 persons being present. At the conclusion of the
lecture Mr. O. H. Beatty expressed the thanks of the class to
Miss Muller for kindly allowing them to meet in her house,
and then presented the Swami with a number of books
which had been subscribed for by those who had attended
his lectures. In making the presentation Mr. Beatty said that,
while all could not agree with his views in detail, yet all
could find very much to admire in his philosophy. He had
placed noble ideas before them, and
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 amid the fret and turmoil of life, noble ideals were more
than ever necessary. In addition to the above presentation
the following was separately addressed to the Swami by
some of his admirers:
"To the Swami Vivekananda from a few members of his
Wimbledon class, with their sincere good wishes, and in
grateful appreciation of his inspiring teaching in exposition
of the Vedanta Philosophy, lifting them a little higher on the
altar-stairs which slope through darkness up to God:--
"By many ways the world comes home to God-
Of all-men's wanderings the common goal;-
`By each disciple,' cried the strenuous soul,
`Let his own proper pilgrim-path be trod!

"“The Devotee beneath his banyan-tree;

The child of Jesus kneeling at the Cross;-
If each but, selfless, count the world as loss,
He comes at last to God's felicity!' "*

Later on, Margaret Noble would write a Wimbledon news-

letters for the Brahmavadin, in the course of which she spelled
out the difficulties some of the students had had with Swamiji's
"views in detail," as mentioned above by Mr. Beatty.

Of course [she wrote] there are cases in which the name

of a given formula arouses a certain repugnance, which it
takes time to overcome. Reincarnation is an outstanding
rock to this day with very many. That sin is Ignorance is
another alien notion. On the whole it may be observed that
the last point to be taken quite seriously is the opposition
between the Real and the Apparent.71

But despite these boulders on the path, each of the Wimbledon

students seems to have found in Swamiji's classes a spiritual
nourishment profoundly pertinent to his or her particular
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bent and need. "Some by one gate, and some by another,"
Margaret Noble wrote, "we have all entered into a great heritage,
and. we know it."72
Another series of lectures also took Swamiji out of town. Like
a number of Unitarian ministers in America, the Reverend John
Page Hopps, the liberal, indeed "radical," but well esteemed
pastor of the Unitarian and Free Christian Church of West
Croyden-a residential suburb south of London-found in Swamiji a
strong inspiration and invited him to give not one sermon but a
series of five on the Sundays of November 8, 15, 22, 29, and
December 6. On the last of those Sundays Swamiji gave not one
lecture but two, returning to London to deliver at the Sesame
Club that evening a talk entitled "Privilege," which one can find
in volume one of the Complete Works. As far as is known,
however, none of the West Croyden "sermons" have been
published, though very likely at least one was taken down, far we
know that Goodwin went along at least once. Of the first lecture
at West Croyden. he wrote to Mrs. Bull, "(The Swami) preached
a most excellent sermon last Sunday . . . & has sermons for the
next four Sundays." "The (first) Croyden sermon," he continued
in this same letter, "is being printed by (the Unitarian Church):' 73
No copy of this printing has been found to date; nor have recent
inquiries turned up any record of Swamiji's West Croyden talks,
possibly because the old church was bombed during the Second
World War and, though made of iron, was totally destroyed.
Although in November and a part of December Swamiji
regularly gave five lectures a week ("better and better every
time," said Goodwin)74 and although he was deeply tired and had
a bad cold in mid-November, he still had energy enough to lunch
and dine with friends, to see the sights, to go to the theatre now
and then, and to attend at least one lecture he himself was not
giving. Such diversions were no doubt welcome in lieu of the
"thorough rest" of which he was feeling great need and which, as
Goodwin wrote to Josephine MacLeod on November 14, "no man
ever deserved more."75 It is largely
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from Goodwin's confiding letters to his friends who also loved
Swamiji-Mrs. Bull and Miss MacLeod-that we learn something of
his outings. Additional bits of information come from a precis of
Swami Abhedananda's diary for this period. Entitled "Londone
Swami Vivekananda" (Swami Vivekananda in London), it was
written by Brahmachari Satya Chaitanya and published in 1920 in
three issues of the Bengali-language magazine Vishwavani.
Swami Swananda, head of the Berkeley Vedanta Society, has
very kindly translated the articles for use an this book. While one
could wish for more, these two sources serve us moderately well
:n keeping track of Swamiji's extracurricular activities in London.
Here are gleanings from them with a minimum of commentary:

Goodwin to Mrs. Bull, Friday, October 23:

I took Swami Avedananda to the Indian Exhibition the
other evg & today I took both [Swamis] to the United
Services Museum & the aquarium.
[The Royal United Services Museum contained a large
number of national trophies, emblems, weapons, and models
of warships and battlefields. Most fascinating of these
material memorabilia was a huge model of the Battle of
Waterloo complete with tens of thousands of toy soldiers.]

Goodwin to Mrs. Bull, Tuesday, November 11:

[The Swami] heard a lecture at the Royal Asiatic Socy
yesterday on Tao. I had told him as I told the Rev. Mr.
James that Taoism was an offshoot of Vedantism, & it is
interesting to note that in addition to Mr. Sturdy making the
claim at yesterday's meeting [in Wimbledon (?)] a letter was
read from probably the chief Professor in China making the
same admission, in distinct terms. There is, the Swami says,
distinct evidence of Vedanta's Missionary enterprise long
before the advent of Buddha.

Goodwin to Miss MacLeod, Friday, November 20:

The Swami saw Irving the other evening in Cymbeline.
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He did not like him, but thought Ellen Terry very good. I
took them the other evening to see Charley's Aunt, and I am
sorry to say the Swami laughed most at the wicked parts.
[Henry Irving was a famous Shakespearian actor, who,
some thought, overplayed his roles; Ellen Terry, an actress
of equal fame at the time and better remembered today, had
been his leading lady for almost twenty years. As For
Charley's Aunt, this was the second time, at least, that
Swamiji had seen this hilarious comedy, which is still being
produced today by repertory theatres and high school drama
classes. The first time he saw it was in Chicago in the
summer of 1894, when, as he said, he had nearly killed
himself laughing.]

From Swami Abhedananda's Diary regarding the same

occasions;
One evening, Swamiji was taken to see `Cymbeline' by
Miss Sutter [sic]. Captain and Mrs. Sevier, Mr. Sturdy and
Swami Abhedananda accompanied him. The Prince of
Wales was also at the Theatre that night. . . . Another night,
Swamiji, together with Mr. Goodwin and Swami
Abhedananda, went to see a comedy called `Charlie's Aunt'.
Swamiji waited a long time in line to get inexpensive gallery
tickets. [He] was smiling and saying, "You can't make
friends here without knowing their customs, behaviour,
politics. You have to know the manners of the rich, the
cultured and the poor."

Goodwin to Miss Macleod, Friday, November 20 (cont.):

At Cambridge, tomorrow, the undergrads. are giving a
complimentary banquet to Ranjit Sinjhi, the famous Indian
cricketer, and the Swami has accepted the invitation to
attend and respond to the toast of India.

From Swami Abhedananda's Diary:

Swami Vivekananda would visit various parts of the city
of London. . . . accompanied by Swami Abhedananda. One
day Swamiji said, "Let's go see what an English
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 market is like." And they went to see a weekly farmers'
market in the poorer section of town. They did not see many
of the tropical vegetables common in Bengal, but even then,
there was a wide variety of greens and fruits. . . . Seeing
oysters and clams being sold, Swamiji exclaimed, "See, they
eat crabs, clams and oysters like Bengalees!"

Goodwin to Mrs. Bull, Friday, December 11:

I took the two Swamis to see the Smithfield Club Cattle
show this morning. Our Swami was very anxious to see the
very fat pigs of which he has been told. 76

On December 16, 1896, the Indian Mirror printed a long

article about the banquet to Ranjit Sinjhi, the opening sentences
of which, together with what is to us the most interesting part,
read:

On the 21st of this month [November], the Cambridge

"Indian Majlis" gave a complimentary dinner at the
University Arms Hotel [in Cambridge] to Prince Ranjitsinhji
and Mr. Atul Chandra Chatterjee. Mr. Hafiz G. Sarwir of St.
John's College, took the chair. There were about fifty
Indians present and a few Englishmen. . . .
Swami Vivekananda rose next to respond [to the toast of
India] amidst loud and deafening cheers. The Swami began
by saying that he did not know exactly why he should be
chosen to respond to the toast unless it be for the reason that
he in physical bulk bore a striking resemblance to the
national animal of India (laughter). He desired to
congratulate the guest of the evening and he took the
statement which the Chairman had made that Mr. Chatterjee
was going to correct the mistake of past historians of India,
to be literally true. For out of the past the future must come
and he knew no greater and more permanent foundation for
the future than a true knowledge of what had preceded
before. The present is the
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 effect of the infinity of causes which represent the past.
They had many things to learn From the Europeans but their
past, the glory of India which had passed away, should
constitute even a still greater source of inspiration and
instruction. Things rise and things decay, there is rise and
fall everywhere in the world. And though India is fallen to-
day she will assuredly rise again (loud cheers). There was a
time when India produced great philosophers and still
greater prophets and preachers. The memory of those days
ought to fill them with hope and confidence. This was not
the first time in the history of India that they were so low.
Periods of depression and degradation had occurred before
this but India has always triumphed in the long run and so
would she once again in the future.

Swamiji must have been a familiar figure in Westminster as he

walked from his flat to his classroom, or, in the other direction, to
the Victoria Station or the Sesame Club, or, again, to the United
Services Museum, or any place within an easy distance. When he
wore his turban and his brilliant robe, street urchins would, to his
amusement, hoot at him; an alarmed and irate coal-cart driver
once, with fortunately poor aim, hurled a lump of coal at his head;
other Londoners might turn to watch a maharaja striding by.
Sometimes he wore a top hat, which must have also been an
arresting sight. But whatever his headgear, Swamiji never passed
by unremarked. And there was at least one urchin who did not
hoot. Mr. Goodwin told the story in a letter of November 29 to
Mrs. Bull:

A very pretty incident happened the other day. The

Swami was walking to a Ry Station when a little ragamuffin
caught hold of his arm & began rubbing his head against it.
The Swami did not remember him at first, but the child said
"You remember me, you gave me a penny the other day." It
turned out that the Swami saw this boy & another fighting,
and after stopping them gave
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 each of them a penny, & this was the boy's way of showing
his affection.77

The two Swamis-Swamiji and Swami Abhedananda-most

likely went sightseeing more often than Goodwin recorded, but
they also must have stayed at home many afternoons and
evenings on those dark, cold days of fall and winter when thick
yellow fog blanketed London. Visitors came to talk or dine with
them, and certainly the two gurubhais conversed at length
together, recalling perhaps days under different skies at Dak-
shineswar when they and their companions had sat at the feet of
Sri Ramakrishna, listening enrapt as he spoke to them, his mind
barely this side of samadhi. The two Swamis also took pleasure in
debate, choosing one philosophical point or another for a subject.
There was, for instance, the unpublished statement Swamiji had
made toward the end of "Practical Vedanta -IV" (and on other
occasions as well): "A jiva," he had said, according to a letter of
Goodwin's, "can never attain absolutely to Brahman until the
whole of Maya disappears. While there is still. a jiva left in Maya,
there can be no soul absolutely free."78 "Swami Avedananda takes
exception to this," Goodwin told Mrs. Bull, "and they are going to
argue it out." But the argument would have been in Bengali, and
Goodwin could not report the outcome-which, in any case, was
perhaps not conclusive, for, as Swamiji had said in his lecture (in
the same unpublished passage), "Vedantists are divided on this
point."
There was work to do at home as well. Throughout November,
Swamiji's London class-lectures were being prepared for
publication, Goodwin doubtless typing them on the "new kind of
typewriter-very cheap" that he had bought at the United Services
Museum when he had taken the Swamis there. (Before this, he
had written out all the London transcripts in longhand, page after
page of small neat script, and had copied them for Mrs. Bull as
well.) The London lectures were to be in lieu of, or the
beginnings of, a magazine that Mr. Sturdy hoped to produce and
that Swamiji encouraged. "There must be work
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for the people here to do when I am gone," he wrote to Alasinga
in November, "else the whole thing will go to pieces. Therefore
there must be a paper here, so also in America by and by." 79 "Mr.
Sturdy begins publishing on Dec. 1st the Swami's London
lectures-in monthly parts," Goodwin informed Mrs. Bull. "The
first months will be a lecture each month with just a few notes
perhaps. Three or four papers of other matters, with the idea of
developing out Of this into a magazine. . . . The subscription is
6/- [or] $1.50 per annum, to include postage."80 These pamphlets
would come out regularly for twelve months from December 1,
1896, to November 1, 1897.* Each contained a lecture of
Swamiji's, and four of them did indeed include a page or two of
news, some of which would be contributed by Goodwin from
India, and some by Mrs. Bull from America. But as it happened,
the pamphlets did not develop into a magazine. At the end of
1897 Mr. Sturdy went on a trip around the world, and by the time
he returned to London the magazine idea had died, never in his
lifetime to be revived. But that is another story. In November of
1896 things were humming in London with the vitality that
Swamiji's presence gave them. Not only were the London lectures
being prepared for publication, but the second edition of Raja
Yoga was on its way to press; further, Swamiji and Goodwin
were going over the New York lectures for their second edition,
and Goodwin was making up an index (now lost) of their leading
subjects.
Along with all his other activities, this young man, Goodwin,
whose energies were seemingly inexhaustible, continued to work
on his Year Book, which he had started in America and which
had by now expanded to include verses from the Upanishads,
Swamiji helping him with untranslated selections until he had
learned Sanskrit, which he was studying on the side. He planned
also to include many more Western authors than he had at first
contemplated. "It requires a great deal of reading," he told Mrs,
Bull, and indeed, as far as is known, the required reading never
ended, and the Year Book, over which
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he had labored hard, died unfinished. Another project o1
Goodwin's was " a handbook of the Philosophy of the Vedanta
for beginners." "The Swami liked the idea of it when I told him,"
he wrote to Mrs. Bull. "My idea also is to use Western
philosophies to support the theories of the Vedanta and to give
the whole subject in a simple reasoned out manner."81 This book,
too, was never to see the light. But Josiah Goodwin, so devoted to
Swamiji, so spirited and hard-working, was once again by his
guru's side, taking down and transcribing his lectures; what else
he accomplished or failed to accomplish would make no
difference-not even to him. The New York people had, to be sure,
not forgiven him for highhandedly flouting their work, as they
saw it, but under Swamiji's wing he was impervious to blame. "I
am getting letters of the most violent condemnation and
denunciation from N.Y. almost daily," he wrote to Josephine
MacLeod in November, "but the Swami has supported me in the
arrangement by which Saradananda will work in Boston through
the winter, and to tell you the truth, N.Y.'s displeasure falls rather
flat."82 Living with Swamiji and Swami Abhedananda that busy
autumn in the flat at 14 Greycoat Gardens, Goodwin was perhaps
at the peak of his short, strenuous, and invaluable life.
As early as November 11, Swamiji had definitely decided to
return to India by way of Europe rather than by way of America-a
route he had at one time considered, partly to prevent the
increasingly difficult Miss Muller from traveling with him. ("I
think Miss Muller is going mad," Goodwin wrote to Miss
MacLeod in his letter of November 14. "She is acting very
strangely.") Now that the Seviers had been included in the
voyage, the situation had become a little complex: the American
route would be inconvenient and expensive for them; and yet one
suspects that they had no liking for Miss Muller's tempestuous
behavior and no desire to travel with her."* Swamiji now dealt
with the problem head-on. "Miss Muller has given up the idea of
going to India, after some plain speaking from the Swami, which
she has taken very well."
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Goodwin reported to Miss MacLeod the following week. 83
Actually, she did not give up the idea of going to India but, rather,
agreed to go on her own, accompanied by a companion -a Miss
Bell. Swamiji's plain speaking, for which there had been no
alternative, was perhaps a tonic she had badly needed at the time.
"Miss Muller has recovered from more things than one," Sturdy
would write to Miss MacLeod in January of 1897, "and has gone
to India. I am sincerely sorry for her, but Swami is her medicine. I
can hardly give detailas but she has cast off the adopted son
[Akshay Kumar Ghosh] and I, hope all the nonsense and
superstition which led her into that affair."84 (It was not until two
years later that Henrietta Muller would turn publicly against
Swamiji and his country. "Her defection was a great blow to me,"
he would write in 1900 to Sister Christine, "-as I loved her so
much and she was a great helper & worker.") 85
One reason Swamiji was eager to return to India was to
implement what Goodwin called "his biggest project'-“the
building of the Monastery in Calcutta as a training ground for
Vedanta teachers."86 The London newspapers had been full of
accounts of the severe famine that was devastating India in the
fall of 1896, and such news could not but have moved him
deeply. He sent money to the Indian Mirror's famine relief fund,
but he whose mind was always thinking of way: and means to
bring lasting well-being to the Indian people could not be
satisfied with patchwork relief; nor did he attribute the
depredations of famine to the will of a Creator God and resign
himself to them. "As if it would not be one's right and duty to
fight such a God and slay Him!"87 he would later exclaim in grief
over another senseless tragedy. Persistently he had sought a
remedy for India's ills and had found it in the application of her
own highest teachings. "In India there is a famine now," he said
in "Practical Vedanta-II," "but there are temple in each of which
there are jewels worth a king's ransom! If the priests taught this
Impersonal idea to the people, their occupation would be gone.
Yet we have to teach it--unselfishly,
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without priestcraft."88 There was no other way to raise the nation
whose life's blood was spirituality than to give her basic religion
to the people, from whom it had been kept and to whom it
belonged. "It is there for every one in every occupation of life,"
he would say in India itself. "These conceptions of the Vedanta
must come out, must remain not only in the forest, not only in the
cave, but they must come out to work at the Bar and the Bench, in
the Pulpit, and in the cottage of the poor man, with the fishermen
that are catching fish, and with the students that are studying. . . .
How can the fisherman and all these carry out the ideals of the
Upanishads? . . . Let everyone do what little he can. If the
fisherman thinks that he is the Spirit, he will be a better
fisherman; if the student thinks he is the Spirit, he will be a better
student. If the lawyer thinks that he is the Spirit, he will be a
better lawyer, and so on."89 To establish a monastery from which
the great truths of Vedanta and of Sri Ramakrishna's teachings
would flood over India was his most pressing mission, now
taking precedence over the establishment of a math for women.
As we have seen in the previous chapter, he had done all he could
through correspondence to imbue his brother disciples and
disciples with his ideas; his presence was now needed in India to
put those ideas into action.
Swamiji spoke of his project to his close English friends, and
they handsomely responded-Miss Muller offered two hundred
pounds a year (and later much more), Mr. Sturdy gave five
hundred pounds, and Miss Souter, who had also contributed to
the famine relief, one thousand. On November 20 he was able to
write to Alasinga: "My present plan of work is to start two
centres, one in Calcutta and the other in Madras, in which to train
up young preachers. I have funds enough to start the one in
Calcutta, which being the scene of Shri Ramakrishna's life-work,
demands my first attention. As for the Madras one, I expect to get
funds in India."90 Thus at long last, Swamiji obtained substantial
Western help for his, Indian work. Nor was it only his English
disciples who came forward.
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Unbeknownst to him, Goodwin wrote to both Mrs. Bull and Miss
MacLeod-to the latter by way of cautiously approaching the
practical Mr. Leggett-about Swamiji's Calcutta project. Mrs. Bull
wrote to Swamiji at once, offering him a very large contribution
(30,000 rupees), but still unsure of details, Swamiji refused it. "I
don't want to encumber myself with a large sum of money at the
first start," he wrote to her on December 9, "but as things progress
on I will be very glad to find employment for that sum. My idea
is to start on a small scale."91 (Later on, Swamiji accepted Mrs.
Bull's offer to help him establish Belur Math on the property he
had purchased in 1898 with Miss Muller's contribution of Rs.
40,000.)92
By November 14. Swamiji's passage to India was booked on
the Prinz Regent Luitpold, which would sail from Naples on
December 30. "I am doing my best to go," Goodwin wrote to
Mrs. Bull, "as the Swami seems to want me to." Swamiji did
indeed want his faithful disciple with him. As early as October
25, after Goodwin had returned from America, Swamiji had
decided to give him sannyasa and to keep him close by his side.
Furthermore, he wanted this young Englishman, with his good
comprehension of Vedanta, to lecture in India. Goodwin was
skeptical. "The Swami says he is going to put me up to speak to
the 50,000 people (these are his figures) who will make the
pilgrimage on Ramakrishna's birthday," he informed Mrs. Bull,
"but I regret to say the Swami sometimes speaks nonsense, as an
antidote, I suppose, to the amount of sense which he dispenses." 93
And again, "I do not know exactly what I am to do [in India], but
the Swami evidently wants me to lecture there, & of course I shall
do my best, although the idea of lecturing there after heating the
Swami so often seems absurd to me. But his idea is that an
Englishman living among the natives-the poorer natives-and as a
native, can have some influence, & I shall only be too glad if I am
able to help his work in any small way, either by what I say or by
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personal example, altho in this respect I need an awful lot of
improvement myself."94
It all came about as Swamiji had said. On March 16 of 1897
Goodwin would write to Mrs. Bull from Darjeeling: "There were
60,000 at the [Sunday, March 7) anniversary [celebration] at
Dakshineswar, and the Swami made me make a speech to
goodness knows how many people. Fortunately there was so
much noise that nobody could hear what a fool I made of myself.
I live quite as a Hindu, eat on the ground with my fingers and
everything. It has helped me to make hundreds of friends here
already."95 But during the year or so he had left to him, Goodwin
would find that he was "about 50 per cent American and the rest
English (and, in a whisper please, not a bit Hindu)."96
3

The human mind tends to read patterns into everything, and

perhaps rightly (or inevitably), for that which is in essence One is
not apt to be chaotic in its temporal and spatial modes. But
Swamiji's mission seems especially rich with synchronies. Good-
win's entrance onto the scene, for instance, had occurred right on
cue. He appeared just as Swamiji's second season in New York
was getting underway-the season during which his message in its
well-formulated and integrated parts would pour from him in
such torrents that only a highly experienced and expert
shorthandist, one who was, to boot, educated, intelligent,
energetic, and ready to dedicate his life at Swamiji's feet, could
take it all down. Josiah J. Goodwin, who walked in the door at
228 West Thirty-ninth Street on December 12, 1895, was exactly
such a person. From that day forward he caught the whole
Western message verbatim, as it fell fresh from Swamiji's lips,
taking down almost every lecture and class from mid-December
of 1895 to mid-December of 1896 and, as far as we can know,
transcribing the most important of them. A year and a half later
he died.
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 Since the faithful Goodwin will not enter the next volumes of
this series, let us jump ahead here to follow his life to its end.
Swamiji had intended to give him the vows of sannyasa on the
auspicious day of Sri Ramakrishna's 1897 birthday (March 5),
and he had been ready to receive them* "I want you to know," he
had assured Mrs. Bull at the end of January (1897), "that my
being a Sannyasin makes [will make?] no difference to my
continuing as the servant of the Swami. There is a blanket Swami
here, & all sorts of Swamis. I will be the Silent Swami."1 For one
reason or another Swamiji put off giving Goodwin the vows. As
late as June 2 of that year he wrote from Almora to an English
friend (Marie Halboister), "You ought to have seen [Goodwin] in
his Indian clothes. I am very soon going to shave his head and
make a full-blown monk of him."2 Somehow - things did not
work out that way, and Goodwin was to remain the faithful J. J.
Goodwin all his life.
But however that may be, he was witness to Swamiji's trium-
phal journey from Colombo to Madras, wide-eyed all along the
way to see such scenes as that at Ramnad, where "the rejoicing
was tremendous. Cannon roared, torches flared, fireworks were
set off, both English and native music played, the Rajah's body
guard accompanied the Swami, who was seated in the State
Palanquin, & the Rajah's brother commanded the guard. The
cheering & shouting of Hara Hara Maha Dev was terrific."3 He
voyaged with Swamiji From Madras to Calcutta and stayed for a
time at Alambazar Math, apparently enjoying himself to the full.
Swami Akhandananda, writing of those days, remembered him
well: "The three devotees of Madras [Alasinga, G.G., and Dr.]
and Goodwin stayed mostly at the Math. . . . Goodwin danced and
sang in his boyish way. The piece `Sankara siva vyom vyom
bhola' in his mouth was very sweet to hear. He would often catch
hold of me and dance around."4 Swami Virajananda also
remembered Goodwin with affection. "Goodwin and the Madras
disciples always remained with the Swami," he recalled.
"Goodwin used to serve the Swami day and night. Oh, what a
wonderful spirit of service he had!"5
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 For the sake of his health, Swamiji left Calcutta on March 8
for Darjeeling, where the Seviers were already staying. He took
Goodwin with him, and there, until the first week of April,
Goodwin remained. On April 14 he wrote to Mrs. Bull from
Dehra Dun, giving an account of his travels:

A week or ten days ago I left the Swami at Darjeeling,

which was continuing to do him immense good, &, at his
wish, returned to Calcutta, where Swami Sivananda joined
us & we came on here. During the week we are going on to
Almora with Miss Muller, who is here at present, & we are
to set on foot there between us an institution to act as an
adjunct to the institution which the Swami is having founded
in Calcutta. We are going there by way of Rishi Kesha, one
of the most sacred spots in India, & a great center of
pilgrimage. Almora is within I5 days journey of Kedar Nath,
one of the four sacred temples of which Ramesvaram,
Juggernath, & one in Ghoojerat are the other three. Swami
Niranjan[ananda] (who is at Almora) & I are going there
also. It is up in the mountains among the snows.6

Mrs. Bull (who would be traveling in the north of India herself

before long), was always ready to serve those who were serving
Swamiji. She had offered money to Goodiwin many times, and he
now accepted:

I am naturally bound [he wrote in this same letter], when

the Swami sends me about from place to place, to rely on the
funds on the Math for travelling expenses, & I hardly like
this. You were good enough to tell me some time ago to let
you know of a case of this kind. If you think it a proper case
I should be very glad if you would let me have a little money
for this purpose, but only for this reason. If you think there
is no reason for scruples on the point I do not need anything
for other purposes.7
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 "The Math, Alambazar, Calcutta, will be a better future
address," he added as a postscript to this letter of April 14, "as we
shall be rarely in the South, & shall always be returning from
time to time to Calcutta." But in regard to himself, this was a false
prediction.
Swamiji came to Almora in early May with three of his
brother disciples, and here again, as so often before, Goodwin
witnessed an ecstatic reception for his guru, the whole town
turning out to honor him. By this time, however, he was not so
impressed as he had been at first.
I think [the Swami] has come to see what, to tell the
truth, I have felt for some time, that in India he will do very
little [he had written to Mrs. Bull from Darjeeling]. His chief
weapon is in his Western work. For every success he has
there the influence here is tenfold, but when he is among his
own people the truth of the old saying-"A prophet . has no
honour in his own country" is verified as far as active help is
concerned. The people will run after him & shout `Jai
Vivekananda' by the thousands, & will applaud him when he
says the God of India is the cooking pot & the religion of the
country the kitchen, but the same people go home & throw
away their meal if anyone looks at it. There are a few strong
sterling spirits here, but the many are hopelessly weak, &
have no idea of religion outside of hard & fast observances
in the kitchen. It is astonishing to a European. 8

Particularly, perhaps, to a European ready to throw in his lot

with India. Goodwin's British pride, if not his innate friendliness,
may have been as deeply affronted by India's "kitchen religion" as
was his Vedantic idealism. "There can be no assimilation &
lasting fusion while the sahib is studiously kept out of the place in
which, even in England, he most unbends-the dining room," he
went on in his letter to Mrs. Bull with all the irrational
indignation of a piqued sahib. And indeed, though
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Goodwin was much loved by Swamiji's Indian friends, his
position in the India of that day was not comfortable. Shunned by
the English community (which, in any case, did not consist, he
wrote, of "the real John Bull") for fraternizing with the "natives"
and, except where Swamiji's influence prevailed, kept at arm's
length by upper-caste Hindus, he pardonably stewed. Swamiji,
discouraging Mrs. Bull from coming to India with an idea of
serving the poor, would write to her, "Even Goodwin smarts now
and then [at all the indignities of isolation which a Mlechcha is
made to undergo here] and has to be called to ordcr."9
But in Almora with Swamiji and Swamiji's brother disciples
and friends, Goodwin must have felt at home and at ease. The
party traveled some twenty miles deeper into the Himalayas to
Dewaldhar, a secluded and exquisitely beautiful estate owned by
a relative of an Almora friend, Lala Badri Sah, and considerably
cooler than the hot town. There in the lovely mountains they
stayed for a month or so and then, perforce, returned. On June 20
Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull:

The Swami is again in Almora and seems now to be quite

recovered from his indisposition. Alasinga Perumal and Prof
Rangacharya (of the Brahmavadin) have also been here,
mainly because they wished to visit Badri Narayan, and it
was their presence which brought Swamiji up from
Dewaldhar.10

Was it also their presence that changed everything for Good-

win? Had the two Madras workers asked for his help in a new
venture? One does not know, but with what appears to be terrible
suddenness, Swamiji sent him to Madras. "Goodwin has gone to
work in Madras on a paper to be started there soon," he wrote to
Miss MacLeod on July 10.11 But as things turned out, he proposed
third English-language paper was not started, and Goodwin, at
Swamiji's request, went to work for the Brahmavadin.
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 There was, in fact, plenty to do in Madras without starting a
third journal, and with enthusiasm still unbounded, Goodwin
plunged in, helping not only with the Brahmavadin, which was in
dire need of funds, but with the establishment of the Madras
Math, which had been started a few months earlier by Swami
Ramakrishnananda. Goodwin's energy, ability, and capacity for
hard work is evident in a letter he wrote to Mrs. Bull on July 19,
which can be given here almost in full, for little has been known
of his valiant efforts in southern India.

The Swami is most anxious that the sphere of the

Brahmavadin shall be increased, both as regards the teaching
it gives, and the width of its circulation. He has over and
over again spoken to me about it, and it suggested itself to
me to think out a plan for helping this on. There have been
three general objections found, both by readers and those
who have been asked to become readers. I say this from
experience I have had in trying to obtain subscribers. They
are as follows:
(1)The paper is altogether Hindu, and therefore, in a
way, alien to Western readers. It wants local coloring.
(2) It is too small for the subscription,
(3) It is too scholarly.
Taking the third first, it would unquestionably be a mis-
take to lower the scholarly tone, and any such idea may at
once be dismissed. But there is a way in which all three
objections may be obviated. The Swami himself has now a
huge circle of acquaintances, friends and admirers, and the
proposal I have made, and which meets with the approval of
the Swami himself, as well as the management of the paper,
is this-that 8 pages shall be regularly added (raising it from
12 pp to 20 pp) and thus meeting objection 2. This 8 pp shall
be solely a record, systematically kept of Swamiji's work. It
shall contain at least one fresh lecture by him each week.
(Thus preserving what he says in the future in permanent
form). Reports of the progress
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of the work from all the different centres (N.Y., Boston,
Calcutta, Madras, London, etc.) and a concise report of all
his own work beyond the one lecture given. This, I think,
will give the required local colouring, and meet the first
objection, at the same time, that without lowering the
intellectual tone of the paper, it will give Vedantic teaching
in the marvellously simple and easily understood manner of
which Swamiji is facile princeps the master.
But the Brahmavadin people have already been issuing
the paper at a personal sacrifice for the sake of Swamiji's
work, and they have not funds for the increased undertaking.
I have proposed therefore to raise the necessary funds ($500)
by shares of ($25) among some of Swamiji's friends who are
able to help. It will be understood that the assistance will be
purely in the nature of an investment, return of which may
be claimed at the end of one year, but at the same time I
should tell you that it will not be interest bearing. The
Brahmavadin people are largely out of pocket so far, but we
hope that the increased support which may [be] expected
from the new interest which will be given to the paper will
help to place it on a sounder basis.
Claims are always being made on your purse and your
readiness to help, and I am going to make yet another in this
instance, to the extent of one or more shares as I have
described. We propose to begin this with the new year's
issue [the issue of September 15, 1897], and to thus keep a
running and complete record of the autumn tour. I may add
that I have undertaken to supply the whole of the matter for
this supplement, as I shall be with the Swami on his tour.
I want also to speak to you about the other matter, the
regular supply of a Boston letter. It need not be long-one
column, but it would be a great help. Can you induce
someone to make this a regular duty out of regard for the
Swami and his work? . . .
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 I am taking up as much as they will allow me of the
Brahmavadin work, because the Swami has made it very
clear to me that he has a real interest in the paper, and
anxiety for its success. . . .
I have sent you by this mail a portrait of the Madras
group and also of Swami Ramakashnananda. I hope you will
find them interesting. At present I am helping to get the
latter's work in Madras organised. There was actually no
organisation before, and he had really been here for four
months for nothing.
You would laugh to see an article by me in the Brahma-
vadin ("Hegel and the Vedanta," Brahmavadin, July 3, July
17, 1897) ; they were in trouble for a leader, and asked me to
write it, but it was too advaitic for the Vishishtadvaitic
Madrassis and they trembled at the idea of expressing such
opinions, particularly about Isvara.12

Goodwin's efforts to improve the Brahmavadin were

hampered and complicated by the fact that he was working in a
culture alien to him. Temperamentally, he was not suited to India:
his whirlwind energy, his impatience, his ingrained British out-
look and British self assurance all came up against the imper-
turbable, gentle, and unalterable pace of Hindu life. Unable to
wait for help, he perhaps took too much upon himself. "I am very
much occupied, & can hardly do all I have to do," he wrote to
Mrs. Bull from Madras on September 16. "I hope you will think
the Bvadin an improvement: I wish the paper were better (it was
far inferior to the previous paper), but if we used English paper it
would double the cost to us. As it is it will not pay, unless I can
increase the subscr list materially as I hope to be able to do. . . .
There is no one to help here; Madras is the laziest place I have
ever been. I have joined the staff of the Mail. They asked me to
several times, & as they allow me perfect liberty to make the
Swami's work my first interest, & as, also, it will enable me to
keep myself here, & help my mother out, I joined. My sister is
being married & my mother
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will join me, as she will not care to remain at home under the new
conditions."13
In November, Goodwin, no doubt to his joy, was again in
northern India with his guru, first at Jammu and then in Lahore,
where he took down one of Swamiji's most stunning of lectures,
"The Vedanta" (to be published in full in the December 1 issue of
the Brahmavadin). It was the last he would record, and, as far as
we know, he returned to Madras shortly thereafter.
Understandably, Alasinga was not about to turn over the
editorship of the Brahmavadin to Swamiji's English disciple; nor,
as understandably, could Goodwin adjust to the Indian tempo and
mode of work, try as he might. Inevitably, he felt a touch, at least,
of frustration. We find him, for example, writing later on to Miss
MacLeod, "I gave your letter the day I received it to Alasinga and
as usual with the Brahmavadin people it still awaits attention. . . .
If you will please let me know which [of Swamiji's lectures] you
would like I will have it attended to by the Prabuddha people,
who do attend to things."14 (Actually, the Prabuddha people were
inclined to be more disorganized than the Brahmavadin people.)
The magazine began to occupy less and less of his time, the
Madras Mail, more and more, and one thinks that it was only
because Swamiji was in India that Goodwin stayed there at all. In
a letter on May 5, 1898, to Miss MacLeod, who was then in
Calcutta and to whom he wrote with less reserve than to Mrs.
Bull, one hears a cry. (His letter was from Ootacamund, where
the Mail had an office and where he had gone for a time, perhaps
on assignment or to escape the scorching Madras heat.)

When I came to India I need not say what my feelings

were with regard to Swamiji, but I have been here 16
months, and I have completely come round to your point of
view. I will do anything for him personally, but I simply do
not care a pin for anything else. If I do any of his work it
will be merely because he wishes it. Partly for this reason I
am for the present really out of the work altogether. I
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 also felt that recognising as I did that I could do absolutely
nothing to help-although I really tried in Madras, it was
wrong to remain a burden on him or his, and for that reason
I joined the Mail.
I should dearly like to go to Kashmere, but cannot. I am
going to try hard when I go down from here to get a month
off, which would allow me a week or ten days at Srinagar,
but I cannot say I have great hopes. I have not seen the
Swami since last November.
. . . I realise more and more every day that the Swami is
not a Hindu-as Hindus go because everything must be
judged by the sum-total, and the sum-total of India is
meanness, and petty scheming, and not religion. 15

Less than a fortnight later Goodwin contracted the chill and

fever from which he would not recover. He died at Ootacamund
on the night of June 2, not yet twenty-eight. Alasinga sent a
telegram to Swamiji, who was in Almora with a few of his
Western disciples, and on June 8 he wrote in detail:

Beloved Swamiji,
Poor Goodwin has passed from our midst and we one and all
feel exceedingly sorry. When you sent him down here you asked
me to put up with his bad temper and pull on with him smoothly.
I did all I could to please him and work with him and I believe he
had not much to complain against me. [The word However is here
crossed out.] We grew to be fast friends and I grieve over his
death all the more. He did splendid work for the Ramakrishna
Mission and peace [be] to his soul. The day previous to his depar-
ture from this place to Ooty he came to me and spent some time.
He had asked me to report the proceedings of a public meeting
from which he wanted to go away, and he took the report from
me and bade me good-bye & never did I dream that that would
prove to be his last farewell. After going to Ooty he did not write
to me & I
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was thinking of writing to him when another Mail reporter came
down to Madras &, told me that Goodwin was soon coming down
to Madras as he was tired of Ooty. He went there about the first
of April & he was to come down about the middle of May. A
friend of mine who came here from Ooty about the 26 or so told
me that he was very reckless about his health & never cared a bit
about it. It seems about the 16th or 17th there was a cricket match
& Goodwin got drenched in the rain two or three times. But never
changed his coat. The next day he was slightly feverish but went
again to be present at the funeral of one Mr Ross, a member of
the Madras Legislative Council. He seems to have again got wet.
The fever continued to progress. He did not inform either the
Mail office or any of us. The climate of Ooty is just now very
bad, influenza, typhoid & dysentery all committing. havoc. The
papers have begun to complain only just now about the ill health
at Ooty. The Mail Office learnt of it rather two [sic] late that
Goodwin was seriously [ill] & that he refused to take any
medicines. That very evening they sent another of their reporters
and we got information in the night about his serious illness. I
wired immediately to Goodwin & to some of my friends to nurse
him & render every help. I wired to Goodwin that we were ready
to start if he wanted help. The next evening i.e. on the second
night at about 8 o'clock my friend wired to me that Goodwin was
dying in the Hospital. It seems by the time Mr Bremner the Mail
reporter reached Ooty Goodwin was delirious & was running
away frequently from his bed. He had been removed to hospital &
on the second night at about 10-30 he passed away. It seems he
has left all his things in utter confusion. There are only a very few
of his things-a bicycle (which is out of order), a watch & a few
papers. After receiving Mrs. Ole Bull's telegram I saw Mr Bren-
cham, the Editor of the Madras Mail & learnt from him that he
had wired to Mr Bremner to take an accurate list
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of his things & report to the District Magistrate who in his turn
will place himself in communication with the Administrator
General & only anyone who has a legal right or a power of
Attorney from his mother that can get at them. Mr. Beecham also
is very sorry for him & wanted to get at the core of Hinduism
through Goodwin.16

"Now my right hand is gone," Swamiji said when he was told

of his disciple's death. "My loss is incalculable."17 And after a few
days he insisted on leaving Almora, where "with infinite sorrow"
he had received that blow-that sad news made sadder still by its
suddenness which, he said, "prevented all possibilities of my
being at his side at the time of death."18
The news had shocked and saddened the entire party at
Almora. Even Swamiji's Indian friends, such as Lala Badri Sah,
were grieved-"so much the boy was loved," Sister Nivedita would
write to Nell Hammond."* As for the Western disciples, they had
all known Goodwin-Mrs.Bull, Miss MacLeod, the Seviers,
Nivedita. Mrs. Bull had perhaps been the closest to him, for it had
been through Frequent correspondence with him that she had kept
in touch with Swamiji's work. Nivedita, who knew him least well,
drafted a requiem poem, which Swamiji would rework and give
beauty to, and Mrs. Bull, on her own behalf, wrote a letter to the
Brahmvadin in tribute to her friend. Swamiji's now famous poem,
his memorial paragraph for the press, and Mrs. Bull's letter are all
given in Appendix D-flowers strewn on Goodwin's grave, to
which every follower of Swamiji's must want to add his own.

But let us return now to London and to the days of November

1896 when Josiah Goodwin was joyfully busy with a variety of
things and Swamiji was bringing his first Western visit to an end.
He did not close this London season, even as he had not closed
his New York season, without delivering a public, or
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semipublic, lecture on his Master. Although this lecture, given in
Wimbledon probably in late November or early December, was
(as far as we know) his only long and formal talk in England on
Sri Ramakrishna, it was not on the first occasion on which he had
spoken of him to an English audience. Once, during the course of
a reply to a challenging listener at the close of a discourse at some
London gathering, he had broken into an impassioned tribute to
his Master. That unscheduled talk was remembered by Eric
Hammond as a highlight of the season. He wrote of it in part:
At the close of his address, a white-haired and well
known philosopher said to the Swami, "You have spoken
splendidly, sir, and I thank you heartily, but you have told us
nothing new." The lecturer's sonorous tones rang through the
room in reply, "Sir, I have told you the Truth. That, the
Truth, is as old as the immemorial hills, as old as humanity,
as old as the Creation, as old as the Great God. If I have told
it in such words as will make you think, make you live up to
your thinking, do I not do well in telling it?" The murmur of
"Hear!" "Hear!" and the louder clapping of hands showed
how completely the Swami had carried his audience with
him. . . .
"I will tell you how I came to know the Truth," continued
the Swami, and in the telling they learned something of the
earth-life of Sri Ramakrishna; the sublime simplicity of his
character; his indefatigable search for Truth in this religious
phase and that; his discovery and his fine proclamation of it:
"Where I am, there the Truth is!" . . .
From first to last of this address he dwelt on the message
of his Master, Sri Ramakrishna. He had, he said, not one
little word of his own to utter, not one infinitesimal thought
of his own to unfold. Everything, every single thing, all he
was himself, all he could be to us, all he might be to the
world, came from that single source; from the pure soul,
from the illimitable inspiration who, seated "there in my
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 beloved India, had solved the tremendous secret and be-
stowed the solution broadcast, ungrudgingly, with divine
prodigality."
In passages of exquisite eloquence he dilated upon Sri
Ramakrishna. Self was utterly forgotten, altogether ignored.
. . . "Sri Ramakrishna is the spring of this phase of the earth's
religious life, of its impulses and its activities. If I can show
the world one glimpse of my Master I shall not live in
vain."19

It was in addition to that spontaneous and moving tribute that

Swamiji devoted an entire lecture or class to Sri Ramakrishna.
This talk was later combined by an editor in New York (possibly
Miss Waldo) with the lecture Swamiji had given at Madison
Square Garden on February 23, 1896, and the composite was
published under the title "My Master." As we have seen in Part
One (chapter seven) of this book, the New York lecture has
recently been released from that tangle through a process of
scholarly extraction. As for the English lecture, entitled
"Ramakrishna Paramahamsa," we need only turn (carefully) to
the crumbling Brahmavadins of September 15 and October 1 of
1897 to find it as Goodwin took it down in England and saw it
through the press in Madras. Swamiji here gave a brief sketch of
Sri Ramakrishna, explaining along the way some ancient customs
of India, against the background of which certain incidents in that
extraordinary and unparalleled life could be understood by a
Western audience. There were two themes in this lecture to which
he gave special emphasis, and toward the end he summed them
up:
Studying his life I learnt certain things. Of these things
that I learnt, two ideas, I think, would be valuable for all
humanity. The first [is] the idea of realisation-that religion
does not consist in erecting temples, or building churches,
that it is neither in books, nor words, nor in lectures, nor in
societies, it is not in the power of organisa-
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tion, but religion consists in realisation. As a fact we all
know that nothing will satisfy us until we know the truth for
ourselves. However we may argue; however much we may
know, but one thing will satisfy us-our own realisation. And
such an experience is possible for every one of us, if we only
try. The first ideal of this attempt to realise religion is that of
renunciation; we must give up. As far as we can, we must
give up. Darkness and light, enjoyment of the world and
enjoyment of God will never go together. Let people try it, if
they will. I have seen millions in every country who have
tried, but, after all, it comes to nothing. If one word remains
true, it is the saying, give up everything for the sake of the
Lord. This is a long task, but you can begin it here and now.
Bit by bit we must go towards it.
The second ideal that I have learnt, and which is perhaps
the freshest or the newest, is the wonderful truth that the
religions of the world are not contradictory nor antagonistic;
they are various phases of the one eternal Religion. That
Religion is applied to different planes of existence, is
applied to the opinions of various minds and various races;
there never was my religion or yours, my national religion or
your national religion; there never existed many religions;
there is only one. The one infinite Religion existed through
eternity and will ever exist, and this Religion is expressing
itself in various countries in various ways. As such, we must
respect them all, and we must try to take them all in as far as
we can. Religions manifest themselves not only according to
race and geographical position, but according to individual
powers. In one it is manifesting itself as intense activity, as
work. In another it is manifesting itself as mysticism, in
another it is manifesting itself in philosophy, and so forth. It
is wrong when we say to others your methods are not right. .
. . To learn this one central secret, that the Truth may be one
and yet many at the same time, that we may have different
visions of the same Truth from different standpoints, is
exactly what has
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 got to be. . . . And this idea, above all other ideas, I find to
be the crying need of the day.

Swamiji concluded this lecture with the words:

In every sect-even among the Mohammedans, whom we

always regard as the most exclusive, even among them -we
find that wherever there was a man trying to realise religion,
from his lips have come the fiery words: "Thou art the Lord
of all, Thou art in the heart of all, Thou art the guide of all,
Thou art the Teacher of all, and Thou carest infinitely more
for the land of Thy children than we can ever do."20

One might say that these two (or three?) interwoven threads of
his Master's teaching constituted the main themes of Swamiji's
own message during his first visit to the West; yet only twice, as
far as is known at present, did he give a formal, scheduled lecture
on Sri Ramakrishna, and this with reluctance, lest, as he would
later say, "I ignore or explain away the truth, lest my little power
does not suffice, lest in trying to extol him I present his picture by
painting him according to my lights and belittle him thereby!"21
There were other reasons as well; the Westerner of the 1890s was
either content with Christ as a Divine Incarnation or wanted none
at all. Only to a few earnest, deeply devoted, and open-minded
disciples, such as Mrs. Bull and those who followed him in 1895
to Thousand Island Park, did Swamiji speak at length of his
Master. But perhaps one finds the most significant reason for his
reticence in his reply in 1897 to his brother disciple Swami
Yogananda, who had suggested that his methods of work in India
were not in accord with Sri Ramakrishna's intention. Swamiji had
flared up:

How do you know that all this is not on Sri Rama-

krishna's lines? He had an infinite breadth of feeling, and
dare you shut him up within your own limited views of life?
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 I will break down these limits and scatter broadcast over the
earth his boundless inspiration. He never instructed me to
introduce any rites of his own worship. We have to realise
the teachings he has left us about religious practice and
devotion, concentration and meditation and such higher
ideas and truths, and then preach these to all men. The
infinite number of faiths are only so many paths. I haven't
been born to found one more sect in a world already teeming
with sects. We have been blessed with obtaining refuge at
the feet of the Master, and we are born to carry his message
to the dwellers of the three worlds. 22

Mindful of the tendency of the human mind to squeeze the

universe into its own small purview, Swamiji was as careful in
the West as in India never to preach anything that could be turned
into a cult: He did not preach his Master as a Savior or Divine
Incarnation; he did not introduce his worship into any of the
places he visited; he did not encourage the adoption of Hindu
customs or teach the worship of Hindu deities. "The real thing is
the Religion taught by Sri Ramakrishna, let Hindus call it
Hinduism-and others call it in their own way," he implored his
brother disciples.23 And to Mary Hale he wrote in 1900, "I preach
only what is good for universal humanity. Religion is that which
does not depend upon books or teachers or prophets or saviours,
and that which does not make us dependent in this or in any other
[life] upon others. In this sense, Advaitism of the Upanishads is
the only religion."24 To preach "the pure Upanishadic religion,"
which he equated with the universal teachings of Sri Ramakrishna
and which he knew had been fully exemplified, empowered, and
made accessible to all by Sri Ramakrishna's life, was always the
dominant aspect of his mission. And that aspect was eminently
suited to the West, for self reliance and self effort were inbred in
the Western character; they were, indeed, among the traits
Swamiji most admired and would do the least to undermine.
Seldom, if ever, did he stress in America or England a religion of
supplication
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to an external God. Man, he taught, contains within himself, and
can evoke, all the grace that man can ever need. Yet, he was
never rigid, and in the same letter to Mary Hate he continued:
"But saviours, books, prophets, ceremonials, etc. have their
places. They may help many. . . . They are welcome."
While the "pure religion of the Upanishads," as illumined by
the life and message of Sri Ramakrishna, found a fertile and
uncluttered field in the West, it was not for the West alone, nor
for the East alone, but for the world. "You must always remember
that you are addressing the whole world, not India alone,"
Swamiji had written to Alasinga in connection with the Brahma-
vadin.25 Nor could he himself be confined to or contained within
any nationality or culture. He belonged to the whole world, and
thc world to him. "What am I?" he would ask on his return
voyage to India. "Asiatic, European or American? I feel a curious
medley of personalities in me."26 And as though the gigantic
power of a world teacher were pressing against its bounds he had
cried to his brother disciples early in 1896, "Let the world shake
on its hinges! Oh the grief! If I could get two or three like me, I
could have left the world convulsed. As it is I have to proceed
gently. Move the world to its foundations! Send one to China,
another to Japan!"27 But in 1896 there was no one to venture so
far afield but he himself, and now that the time was coming for
him to travel once again, he thought of going not only to China
and Japan, but to Russia as well.
Very likely, it was Mrs. Florence Adams who had opened up
to him the possibility of a visit to Russia. She herself had been
there in the summer of 1895 and had there introduced Swamiji's
name. "I have been telling them in Russia that they must send him
a call," she had written to Mrs. Bull in September of 1895,
"Perhaps if I return to Russia in the spring to give a course of
Lectures, such as the friends there wish to arrange for me, Swami
would consider a Russian visit."28 Mrs. Adams's return to Russia
would be postponed to the late winter of 1896
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or early spring of 1897, and it would seem certain that during
Swamiji's visit to Chicago in April of 1896 both she and Prince
and Princess Wolkonsky, also in Chicago at that time, had offered
to open Russian doors for him and had urged him to come. He
had not forgotten. Although the Imperial Russia of Swamiji's day
was not a cultural force in Europe, Swamiji sensed a world power
growing there. "The next great upheaval which is to bring about a
new epoch will come from Russia or China. I can't quite see
which, but it will be either Russia or China," he had said in
1895.29 The Russians, moreover, were a deeply religious people,
imbued with mysticism and without prejudice toward India. The
Czar himself had, to Swamiji's delight, spoken of India as the
land of spirituality and wisdom.'"
In late October of 1896, Goodwin wrote from London to Mrs.
Bull, "[The Swami] would like to know if Mrs. Milward Adams
is going to Russia. He is quite anxious to go if she would be able
to get him an opening for a hearing there."30 Mrs. Bull assured
Swamiji by return mail that she would "write to Mrs. Adams to
learn of her Russian plans, if she has determined them."31 But
what Mrs. Adams's plans were, we do not know, for meanwhile
Swamiji had changed his, and the Russian visit (as well as a
proposed visit to Boston) was dropped. He had decided to go
directly to India. At least one reason for this change of plan is
contained in a letter to Mrs. Bull dated November 13. "I am very
soon starting for India," he wrote, " . . . and as I have arranged to
take several friends from England with me to India, it is
impossible for me to go to America on my way, however I might
have liked it." For the same reason, a visit to Russia would also
be out of the question.
As for China and Japan, Swamiji wanted to visit them on his
way from India to America in the summer of 1897. "He says that
while in Ceylon- where he intends stopping a week -he will
arrange through Dharmapala's people for lectures [at some of the
universities] in Japan and China," Goodwin wrote to Miss
MacLeod on November 14, 1896. "He changes his mind almost
daily, but I fancy he will not be in India more
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505
than six months and then Japan and China en route for California,
where he intends to work before returning to the Eastern
States."33 Ill health prevented Swamiji from carrying out this plan
in either 1897 or 1898. Nor was he able to visit China and Japan
in later years.
In both these countries, through which he had passed in 1893
on his way to America, he had sensed an immense vitality. Of
China, where, in Canton, he had seen extreme poverty and "a
wilderness of human beings, pushing, struggling, surging,
roaring," he would say that the country had had "the most
admirable organisation of all nations," but that today it "is like a
disorganised mob, because her men are not equal to the system
contrived in the olden days." "Religion," he said, "goes to the root
of the matter. If it is right, all is right."34 In Japan, where he had
briefly visited several large cities, he had been much impressed
by their cleanliness and neatness and by the drive of the Japanese
toward modernization. As we have seen in the previous chapter,
he had wanted his own countrymen to "pay a visit to Japan and
China every year. Especially to the Japanese." "Come out of your
narrow holes," he had cried, "and have a look abroad. See how
nations are on the march!"35
It had been for India's sake that he had wanted young Hindus
to travel abroad. But by the end of his first visit to the West it was
equally for the sake of other countries. "My plan is to send out
numbers of Hindu boys to every civilised country to preach," he
wrote to Mary Hale, "[and] get men and women from foreign
countries to work in India. This would be a good exchange." 36 His
dream was to bring the best of India to the whole world and the
best of the modern world to India. He wanted to flood the West
with spirituality and India with material prosperity, and this not
by disturbing thc basic culture of either but by stimulating each to
borrow from the other and to flourish in its own way. Any living
culture was, of course, the creation and, in turn, the molder of the
people who gave it life; the most potent stimulus any culture
could have, there-
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fore, was the development within its own traditions of a new type
of men and women, strong, compassionate, open-minded, and
wise in the knowledge of man's true nature and purpose. The
assimilation by every people not only of each other's unique
contributions but of the awakening message of Sri Ramakrishna
would everywhere bring about, Swamiji felt certain, a "new order
of humanity." "In time," he said, "the whole world must accept
the universal and catholic ideas of Sri Ramakrishna, and of this,
only the beginning has been made."37 And as a corollary of this
vision he would prophesy, "The God of India who is guiding her
destiny sent me [to America] and will send hundreds of such to
all the nations of the world. No power can resist it."38
From wherever a call came or a field opened up, there he
would try to go himself or think of sending an emissary. He
wanted, for instance, to spread the Master's message not only to
Europe and Asia but also to South Africa, where an Indian
community was living on uneasy terms with the British. In
response to a request from a Bombay friend (a Mr. Setlur), to
send someone "to look after the religious needs of the Indian
emigrants [there]," he would consider sending Swami Shiv-
ananda. "The work will not be congenial at present, I am afraid,"
he would write to his brother disciple in December of 1897 from
Jaipur, "but it is really the work for a perfect man. You know the
emigrants are not liked at all by the white people there. To look
after the Indians, and at the same time maintain cool-headedness
so as not to create more strife-is the work there. No immediate
result can be expected, but in the long run it will prove a more
beneficial work for India than any yet attempted. I wish you to try
your luck in this. If you agree, please write to Setlur about your
willingness and ask for more information."39 More information
came from a young Indian barrister who was then living in
Durban, Natal, and championing the rights of his people. His
letter, which was addressed to a Mr. B. N. Bhajekar, High Court
pleader of Bombay, was forwarded to Swamiji, then in Kashmir.
It
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found its way into the papers of Mrs. Bull and thence, through the
kindness of her granddaughter, Sylvea Bull Curtis, into the pages
of this book. The writer's name was Mohandas K. Gandhi. His
letter, dated February 23, 1898, read in full:

Dear Mr Bhajekar,
I have your very interesting & important letter. Let there
be no haste in sending out a religious preacher, A religious
preacher working on the European lines will not succeed
here or for that matter anywhere amongst the orthodox
Indians. And the Indians here although they have broken
through the caste barriers are still old fashioned & simple
minded. I use both the expressions in a good sense. A
religious preacher is very badly wanted here but he must
tower above all the priests here. He must be absolutely pure
minded and unselfish & must not require money to support
him. Such a man would extort reverence & wipe out the
miserable false priests here who suck the life blood out of
the people & work all sorts of mischief. I wonder what Mr.
Goodwin would or could do here does he speak Hindustani
or Tamil? Does he know the Hindoo scriptures & the great
epics? He may come & perhaps he will be able to form a
different opinion to mine. ["He has misunderstood our
proposal," a marginal note in another hand read. "We said
we wd send a Swamy and to help him that Mr. Goodwyn
would accompany him if necessary. Poor Goodwyn is gone
away from us once for all."] Though I yield to no one in the
intensity of belief [,] my work lies in another department &
therefore I may not be a sure guide in religious matters. A
religious priest for Natal must know Tamil, Telegu & Hindi.
If we are to be self governing at any stage of our national
life we would send out doctors to look after the health of our
people outside India [,] lawyers to give them legal advice
but more particularly to find out their grievances and voice
them and priests to keep up the national reli-
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 gions. Our travellers go to Europe to be dazzled by the
Western splendour but they would not go to the colonies &
other parts of the world where they might not be welcomed
& where they might have to rough it.
How can we ask the British Government to send out a
priest or two with the immigrants? They do not interfere in
religious matters. And have they the capacity to make the
selection?
Could not Swami himself be induced to pay us a visit? I
shall do everything I can to make his mission a success. He
can work both among Indians & Europeans. I take it he
moves freely among the Indians the highest as well as the
lowest. He is sure to do one thing if he comes. He will
electrify the Europeans by his eloquence & possibly hip-
notise [sic] them into liking the `Coolies' in spite of them-
selves. Though the Europeans here are very obstinate they
are not so as never to listen to reason.
I very rarely write unreservedly but I thought this was
one of those occasions when it is allowed to & even obliga-
tory on a man to throw off his reserve.
You may place this letter before the Swami if you so
wish it.
I am yrs truly40
M. K. Gandhi

Swamiji did not send Swami Shivananda to Africa and, for a

variety of reasons, could not go himself--even as he could not go
to China, Japan, or Russia-to spread his Master's message. But, as
he knew it must, that message, which he gave so fully in America
and England, has today reached almost every corner of the world.

While Swamiji may have "changed his mind daily" in the

course of making an important decision, once that decision was
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made, once "the Command" had come, nothing could alter it. In
reply to an invitation from Miss MacLeod to visit America (and,
most probably, to be at Ridgely Manor for Christmas, as in 1895),
he wrote, "the Dear God has disposed it this way, viz, I am to
start for India on the 16th [of December]. . .. Of course,
everybody here thinks it foolish to give [the London work] up just
now the `boom' is on, but the Dear Lord says, `Start for Old
India'. I obey."41
He was more than satisfied with the work he had done in
London and with its reception by the English people, about whom
(having known them on their own ground) he had had h decided
change of heart.

The work in London has been a roaring success [he wrote

to the Hale sisters on November 28]. The English are not so
bright as the Americans, but once you touch their heart, it is
yours forever. . . . My ideas about the English have been
revolutionised. I now understand why the Lord has blessed
them above all other races. They are 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.42

And after returning to India he would say, "My work in

England has been more satisfactory to me than my work in
America. . . . I firmly believe that if I should die tomorrow the
work in England would not die, but would go on expanding all
the time."43 But at other times he had made more accurate
predictions. In October of 1896 he had written to Alasinga in
connection with the success of his London work, "Of course, as
soon as I leave, most of this fabric will tumble down."44 And in
November, "There must be work for the people here to do when I
am gone, else the whole thing will go to pieces." 45
Soon after he left England, the London work would indeed go
to pieces, vanishing almost without a trace. This was not
altogether surprising. On its surface levels the era, giddy with
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the promises of science and convinced of its supreme enlighten-
ment, was not yet ripe for the serious study and practice of
Vedanta. Most of Swamiji's followers had come to hear him
because he was Swamiji; when his light, infinitely and universally
attractive, was no longer visible, there was very little to hold them
together. Swami Abhedananda, who later would be highly
successful in America, did his best "to work according to the wish
of Mr. Sturdy" (as he would write to Swami Brahmananda),46 but
there was not even a minimal organization to stand behind him.
There was only Mr. Sturdy himself, and Mr. Sturdy, torn between
Vedanta and a jealous wife, was not a charismatic leader.
But however that would be, Swamiji's work in England did
not fail to bear immediate fruit. For one thing, he had mined three
jewels, three "lion-souls" who were to play vital parts in his world
mission. Among them, perhaps most notable, was Margaret
Noble, who would grow into Sister Nivedita. After having heard
Swamiji three times in November of 1895, Miss Noble, her keen
mind aflame with questions, came as often as she could to his
London classes in the spring and summer of 1896 and again in the
fall of that year, when she also attended his weekly class in
Wimbledon. As early as June of 1896 Swamiji wrote a letter to
this fiery, determined, and intense young woman, the tone of
which indicated that he had recognized her potential greatness.
After answering a question about his ideal, he went on to speak
directly to her

Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has
been the Law, it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth's
bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the
good of many, for the welfare of all. Buddhas by the
hundred are necessary with eternal love and pity.
. . . The world is in need of those whose life is one
burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell
like thunderbolt.
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 It is no superstition with you, I am sure, you have the
making in you of a world-mover, and others will also come.
Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake,
awake, great ones! The world is burning with misery. Can
you sleep?47
Those words did not fall on barren ground. If Margaret Noble
had not at first fully accepted Swamiji's teachings, worrying them
endlessly in her mind, she had been won over when he returned to
London in the spring of 1896. Her good friends Eric and Nell
Hammond watched the dawning of her discipleship with
sympathetic eyes, and in later years Eric would recall the autumn
and winter days in London when her joy of discovery and
acceptance was overflowing:

She responded to his call as a harp responds to the touch

of a masterplayer. She listened to him at her club, the
Sesame; at Miss Muller's, Wimbledon; at many religious and
philosophical centres in and near London. Everywhere she
went she hailed him as the Prophet of the age. She assisted
his appearance at various places, including the Christo-
Theosophical Society established by Sir Richard Stapley in
Bloomsbury Square, where, by the bye, Swami
Abhedananda made his maiden speech in English. There is
no doubt that her influence and her persuasive faith, backed
by Mr. E. T. Sturdy's solidity of aim and pecuniary aid,
largely contributed to Swamiji's career in London. Immersed
as she came to be in the Vedanta, she employed all her
oratorical power on its behalf. Once caught in Vivekananda's
wonderful web, she spoke of him and about him
unceasingly. "Have you seen and heard the Swami?" she
would ask. "If you have not seen and heard him, you simply
must. There is no one like him, no one to equal him, no one
at all!" Eloquent, persistent, imperious, she drew friends,
acquaintances, even strangers, towards this Son of India who
was, she assured them, the Sun of
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 Truth. Her acceptance of, and adhesion to, the Swami's
gospel was whole-hearted.48

Two short notes from Swamiji to Miss Noble, which have

recently turned up, show that in the fall of 1896 she had come to
know him personally and was making arrangements for others to
meet him. The first, dated "Oc.29.96," was addressed to her
school in Wimbledon and read:

Dear Miss Noble

I will be at yours on Friday next at 4. p.m.
I did not know of any arrangements made to meet any-
body friday last hence my absence.
Yours49
Vivekananda

By December 5, when Swamiji wrote the second note, Mar-

garet Noble had in one way or another served his cause and
earned his gratitude:

Dear Miss Noble-Many thanks for sending the kind pres-

ent of Mr. Beatty. I have written to him acknowledging his
beautiful gift.
As for you my dear noble kind friend-I only would say
this-we Indians lack in many things-but there is none on
earth to beat us in gratefulness-I remain
Ever yours gratefully50
Vivekananda

As has been mentioned in the previous chapter, one of

Swamiji's pivotal objectives was to elevate the women of his
country; he wanted to accomplish this by giving them an edu-
cation-intellectual, practical, and, above all, religious and
cultural-such as would produce enlightened women who would
be like flames to ignite the lives of others in their turn.
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513
"For this work a woman is needed," he had exclaimed in 1895.
"No man can do it. But where is the woman?" "One after another
was put to the test and failed," Sister Christine, with whom he had
discussed the problem, would write in later years. "It was not easy
to find someone who had the necessary qualifications, spiritual
and intellectual, who had the devotion of the disciple, who was
selfless, and who could pass on the living fire."51
One can only imagine the growing delight with which Swamiji
came to know Margaret Noble. This brilliant, highly idealistic,
courageous young woman, in whom burned a spirit of self
sacrifice, who was a trained educator, who was deeply absorbed
in the ideals of Vedanta, and who, in the spirit of a disciple, had
begun to call him Master-this young woman was the person he
had sought. Yet Swamiji did not try to persuade her to come to
India; so momentous a decision would have to be her own, and it
would have to be made, not in enthusiasm, but with quietly
considered resolve. His approach was almost offhand. During the
course of a light conversation with a few people, he turned to her
and said, "I have plans for the women of my own country in
which you, I think, could be of great help to me: ' That was all.
"And I knew," Margaret Noble would write years later when she
was Nivedita, "that I had heard a call which would change my
life."52 Even so, she did not rush to answer that casually dropped
thunderbolt.

She experienced a very natural hesitancy [Eric Hammond

wrote]. With the present writer she frequently referred to
reasons for and against the proposal. If she went to India
with that purpose, she must trust others to cherish her aging
mother; she must relinquish all those interests for which
London claimed her and for which she was endowed with
peculiar fitness. Above all, she must endure harsh
misinterpretation of her motive, and suspicion and
disapproval on the part of the majority of her Christian
connections.53
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514
 After Swamiji's departure from England, Margaret Noble did
all she could to help keep his work alive. She presided over the
meetings in Wimbledon, sometimes spoke at them, wrote an
occasional newsletter for the Brahmavadin (at Goodwin's re-
quest), and solicited subscriptions for both Madras magazines, all
the while wrestling with her destiny. In June or July of 1897 she
wrote what must have been an indecisive letter to Swamiji,
placing the burden of decision upon him. He did not accept it -at
least, not in the way she wanted: "You can do more work for us
from England than by coming here," he counseled. "Lord bless
you for your great self sacrifice for the poor Indians." 54 But less
than a week later, after learning from others of her determination
to work for his country, and confident now that her desire to
come was in earnest, he gave a very different reply:

Let me tell you frankly that I am now convinced that you

have a great future in the work for India. What was wanted
was not a man, but a woman-a real lioness-to work for the
Indians, women specially.
India cannot yet produce great women, she must borrow
them from other nations. Your education, sincerity, purity,
immense love, determination, and above all, the Celtic blood
make you just the woman wanted.

He went on to warn her of the difficulties she would en-

counter: harsh caste prejudice, severe criticism from her own
people, inconvenience, discomfort, sweltering weather. "You
must think well before you plunge in," he wrote. But he gave her
the assurance of his own unfailing support-whatever might come:

After work, if you fail in this or get disgusted, on my part

I promise you, I will stand by you unto death whether you
work for India or not, whether you give up Vedanta or
remain in it. "The tusks of the elephant come out, but
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515
 never go back"; so are the words of a man never retracted. I
promise you that.

Finally, Swamiji warned her of Miss Muller, who planned to

take her and others under her wing in India and whose quirky
disposition he well knew.

It is very kind and good of her [he wrote] but her Lady
Abbess plan will never be carried out for two reasons-her
violent temper and overbearing conduct, and her awfully
vacillating mind. Friendship with many is best at a distance,
and everything goes well with the person who stands on his
own feet.

But the words that must have shone from Swamiji's letter,
dazzling their reader to all else, were these: "You are welcome,
and a hundred times welcome." She arrived in Calcutta on
January 28, 1898, and the rest is history, for her subsequent life as
Sister Nivedita is the subject of many biographies today and will
no doubt be the subject of many more tomorrow.
Then there were James and Charlotte Sevier. In his welcoming
letter to Margaret Noble, Swamiji recommended them to her.
"Mrs. Sevier is a jewel of a lady," he wrote, "so good, so kind!
The Seviers are the only English people who do not hate the
natives, Sturdy not excepted. Mr. and Mrs. Sevier are the only
persons who did not come to patronise us."55 Captain and Mrs.
Sevier, like Margaret Noble, "burned their boats" (as Eric
Hammond wrote in connection with the latter), and this they did
sooner than she, for they had no dependents to worry over and no
budding careers to renounce. They simply disposed of their
possessions in Hampstead, moved to temporary quarters in
London, and waited in readiness for the greatest voyage of their
lives.
These were the three jewels-Margaret Noble and the Seviers -
that Swamiji had mined in England. (One cannot count here
Josiah J. Goodwin, for though he was English to the bone, he
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516
had come to Swamiji in America and had there dedicated his life
to him.)
But this, of course, was not the only result of Swamiji's En-
glish work. There were scores, if not hundreds, of people in
England, both prominent and obscure, whose outlook on life had
been clarified and whose burden forever lightened by attending
his classes-those incomparable classes, in which he had not
merely talked spirituality but had abundantly given it. There was
no type of listener at any kind of lecture to whom he could not
bring light. In New York he had described the endless fluidity of
the "only true teacher," who "can convert himself as it were into a
thousand persons at a moment's, notice: '56 Swamiji himself was
such a teacher; in his vastness he could, as it were, become each
listener, identifying with his or her need and temperament, cutting
through some knot, opening some long-locked door with a
precisely tuned word or phrase. Whatever his lecture subject
might have been, whatever the focus of his concentration, no one
had been left out of his regard.

Vedanta work in London is quite quiescent [Mr. Sturdy

would write to Miss MacLeod in July of 1898], but the
strong interest in Vivekananda is here all the time and not
only does it not die out, but people talk to their friends of
their experiences with that wonderful teacher and his fame
quietly and steadily spreads. . . . A great many people car-
ried away from Swami's teachings something which they
will never forget.57

Among those people were Eric and Nell Hammond. Writing to

Swamiji in August of 1899, Sister Nivedita (then in England) told
him of a visit with Nell:

How wonderful she is! She is simply a battery charged

with devotion, it seems to me. She says the first time she
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517
 saw you, as you entered the [Sesame] club room, she knew
at once your significance to her and turned and said to her
husband: "This is he for whom we waited." About her vision
she says she told you "I am just as inert as Mr. Sturdy." She
says "There is nothing to do but to stand aside. You see it's
all done-It's all right now!"58

Of Nell Hammond's "inert" state Nivedita wrote to Mrs. Bull

the following day. It was a very different kind of inertia from that
of Mr. Sturdy, who, at that time, had darkly turned from Swamiji
and his work:
She has had a wonderful wonderful wonderful vision a
glimpse of the superconscious if ever there was one. Sud-
denly, in her little sitting room one day she floated as it were
up into the vision of the Mother Kali-distinctly visible. Then
when the first cry of surprise was over, she thought "Just the
moment to see if it will help anybody." And she turned to
"the train-horses" whose unhappy state worries her kind
heart much. "But they were not there they were just
shadows, whisking round a corner-& in their place was
"Mother". Then she thought "I'll tell Swami" and she turned
to him in her thought-but when she looked at him he was a
shadow that passed away & left the Mother standing there. It
was all Mother everywhere. "And so," she says, "Tho I only
saw it once, still I know it now-it's all done. There's nothing
to work for, nothing to be done. Everything's all right. We
have only to stand aside."
Isn't it marvelous? She wrote to Swami she says & told
him & had a sweet sweet note in reply. 59

There were many others who would never forget Swamiji. In

Nivedita's letter to him of August 23, 1899, we catch a glimpse of
one whom we otherwise would not have known, but who, in
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518
her gratefulness, is perhaps typical of scores of his English
students.

I had a visit from your disciple-Miss Frances Williams of

Epsom-who spoke with tremendous feeling of the peace and
meaning that you had brought into her life-by a sentence in a
lecture here and there-and then by just a word about
concentrating her mind on the heart. She cannot tell what it
means or why it helped her, she said, but as a matter of fact
her life is now satisfied and at peace. . . . She came to hear
about India but I discovered that she had once been in a
convent-and I kept her talking about rules and
orgariisation.60

Such people, whose lives Swamiji had touched, must, in turn,

have touched the lives of others with that powerful magic, and so
on, in ever-widening circles, until the impact of his thought would
gradually spread on untraceable routes to every corner of the
earth. "This British Empire with all its drawbacks is the greatest
machine that ever existed for the dissemination of ideas," he
wrote to Mr. Leggett on July 6 of 1896. "I mean to put my ideas
in the centre of this machine, and they will spread all over the
world."51
But important though these results were-the capture of a few
"lion-souls" on the one hand and the quiet, slow spreading of
Vedantic thought on the other-they did not constitute the only, or
even the greatest, significance of Swamiji's work in England. It is
said that a Divine Incarnation and his apostles work on a deep
level of consciousness, where they introduce, as it were, a
powerful shaft of spiritual light into the collective mind of
humanity; that is the very purpose of their appearance on earth,
the meaning of their birth, their sadhana, and their teaching.
Through their activity (or play) in human form they awaken, so to
speak, the "cosmic Kundalini," charging that state of existence
called mankind with a spiritual power that will for centuries
manifest itself more and more fruitfully in
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the world and, to a greater or lesser degree, in every individual.
Swami Shivananda, one of Swamiji's great brother disciples,
would say years later: "Swami Vivekananda once said: `In this
age the Brahma-kundalini-the Mother who is responsible for the
creation, preservation and destruction of the universe has been
awakened by the fervent prayers of Sri Ramakrishna: . . . That is
why we see symptoms of a great spiritual upsurge everywhere. . .
. We need have no worry this time."62 Could it not be said that
Swamiji carried that tremendous power to the Western world and
infused with it the deep levels of Western culture? He himself
once spoke specifically of his Western work, his words recalled
by another of his great brothers, Swami Saradananda:

After Swamiji returned from the West his health com-

pletely broke down. He used to say, "Whatever I had I have
left in that country (the West). During the lectures a power
used to emanate from this body and would infuse the
audience." The thought current of the country underwent a
change. That was no easy matter. . . .
I had heard that Budo Baba (Swami Satchidananda}
begged Swamiji to grant him Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Swamiji
said, "If I put on the loin cloth and become absorbed in
spiritual practice without thinking of ways and means of
maintenance, then perhaps the power to grant Nirvikalpa
Samadhi may come. It has become exhausted, or lost, by
giving lectures in America."63
Did not this influx of radiant power into the Western world,
which is bound sooner or later to set the whole culture aglow,
constitute the real significance of Swamiji's work in England as
well as in America? Yet this is but a poor attempt to understand
what Swamiji did in the West. Who can really assess his
accomplishment? "If there were another Vivekananda," he was
heard to say at the close of his life, "he would have understood
what Vivekananda has done! And yet how many Vivek-
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520
anandas shall be born in time!!"64 And of his last days Swami
Saradananda would write to a brother disciple, "Sometimes he
would say `Death has come to my bedside, I have been through
enough of work and play, let the world realize what contribution I
have made, it will take quite a long time to understand that "' 65
The coming centuries will indeed be the only other true assessor
of his contribution-the rest is inference and speculation. There is,
however, one thing we can say even now, and this is that
throughout his mission, East and West, he gave himself heart and
soul to his Master's work, awakening everywhere man's spiritual
consciousness, setting in motion a spiritual tide that no power can
stem. "Before this flood," he prophesied, "everybody will be
swept off."66
As the time for Swamiji's departure from England drew
near, Miss Souter, as though to stay the sun in its passage, had
the professional photographer Alfred Ellis take twelve studio
pictures of him67-one of which was the familiar meditation
photo and another, the photo reproduced in the frontispiece of
this volume-which perhaps do indeed capture him for us. * But
Swamiji himself, "as impatient as a school boy,"68 began to
count the days. "Three lectures next week," he wrote on
December 3 to Josephine MacLeod, "and my London work is
finished for this season."69 Of those three lectures-his classes
of December 8, 9, and 10-we have at present information
about only the last. In the back pages of the pamphlet "The
Real and the Apparent Man," Mr. Sturdy appended some
news-notes entitled, "The Swami Vivekananda's Departure
from. London." The first two paragraphs read:
The last address was given by Swami Vivekananda to a
crowded audience at the Room, in Victoria Street, on
Thursday, December 10th. With this lecture the series which
has been pursued during the past season, was brought to a
conclusion.
The subject was the Advaita Vedanta, or that one of the
three views taken by the Vedanta system which maintains
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521
 the, Non-Duality of what is Real and Permanent in an
otherwise eternally changing universe.

With the close of this lecture, Swamiji's first visit to the West
was virtually over. That night at his flat he spoke to a few
disciples of a path beyond work, in which the aspirant, as though
having climbed to the summit of a Himalayan peak, takes flight
into the sky, employing now a new kind of effort to reach the
final goal-if it be effort at all.
One wishes Goodwin had taken shorthand notes that night, but
at least he wrote to Mrs. Bull of Swamiji's soaring talk:

Last night [December 10, Swamiji] was talking phi-

losophy to two or three of us in his best mood. One or two
points are worth telling you. He was talking about work, &
gave his own ideas on the matter. He admitted that in
lecturing it was essential to preach the ideal of work, but
pointed out that a work philosophy (Buddhism for instance)
is not sufficient. Good work produces good results, bad bad.
Whether good or bad the chain of cause & effect is infinite.
Work can only be regarded as a preparatory step & he
emphasised very strongly that merely by work we will never
become free. Good work is necessary to fit the mind to
realise an always existing freedom (in other words that we
always have been free) but good work must be done with
discretion, & .men have to learn when the time is ripe for the
abandonment of work. When we are ready for that no matter
what we may do-good & bad will leave no effect on our
struggle for freedom, but will, so to speak, be altogether
outside &, unconnected with that struggle.
We have to discriminate between local & infinite com-
mandments [he said this same evening], & in this respect
Christ, as the typical example of the highest local com-
mandment, falls before the Buddha, as the highest infinite.
By "local" the Swami meant that Christ (1) made his
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522
 teaching personal, (2) had love for some more than for
others-&c-whereas Buddha was always working in the
universal & from the Infinite. He quoted as an example the
Buddha's death, when Ananda was chided by the Buddha for
weeping.
He also spoke very strongly against the Personal God
idea, & especially of the "special" Divinity of Christ. "If
Christ was God & no one else, what hope is there for anyone
else?"70

His work done, the physically grueling routine of scheduled

classes finished, Swamiji's health, still resilient, at once im-
proved. "[He] is already better," Goodwin wrote to Mrs. Bull in
his letter of December 11, "now that the `bondage' is over for the
time being."71 There remained only the Farewell Reception,
where speeches were made and he was presented with an ornately
printed address from his English friends and disciples.* The
reception, held at the Institute of Painters in Watercolours on the
afternoon of Sunday, December 13, was "a triumphant success,"
Goodwin reported to Mrs. Bull. "There were over 500 there, &
the Swami was in his very best style. He was evidently a good
deal affected, because the people here as well as in America have
been exceedingly kind to him."72 Swamiji was not alone in being
affected; there was perhaps no one in that large gathering who
was not sorrowful over his departure. Eric Hammond described
that farewell day:

It was Sunday in London, when shops were shut, busi-

ness at a standstill, and the city streets silenced for a while
from some at least of the rattle and the rumble of their
heavier traffic. Londoners wore their Sunday clothing, their
Sunday bearing and manner, and grey, subdued, and
semisilent folk wended their way to church and chapel. This
afternoon the friends of Swamiji were to say "Goodbye" to
him whose coming had meant so much to them. In the hall
of meeting, dedicated to the use of the artists,
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523
 paintings hung upon the walls; palms, flowers, and ferns
decorated the platform from which Swamiji would utter his
final speech in England's great metropolis to the British
people. All sorts and conditions of men were there, but all
alike were filled by one desire; to see him, to hear him, even
it may be to touch his garment once again.
On the platform musicians and singers at stated intervals
"discoursed sweet sounds". Speeches illustrating the esteem
and affection which Swamiji had won, were made by men
and by women. Salvoes of applause punctuated and
followed them. Many were silent, tongue-tied, and sad at
heart. Tears were very near to some eyes. Grey and gloom
without were intensified and deepened by grey and. gloom
within. One form, one figure, fought and triumphed over
sorrow; arrayed in garments, glistering as of amber, Swamiji
passed among the people like a living shaft of sunshine?73

"His last words to me were notable words," Eric Hammond

related elsewhere. "I stood before him, saying nothing. He was
going back to India, and `Goodbye' stuck in my throat. He knew
what I would say, if I could only say it. (He always knew that. I
never remember putting a question to him; he replied without
prompting.) Grasping my hands; pouring, as it seemed, his soul
through his eyes to mine, he said, `Yes, yes, I shall come back!'
And he has kept his word."74
But Swamiji kept that word only by keeping another, which he
had once made in Hammond's hearing: "It may be that I shall find
it good to get outside of my body-to cast it off as a disused
garment; but I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men
everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God." '75
few of his English disciples would, it is true, briefly see him again
in London in 1899, but he would never again be with them as a
teacher, pouring the clear water of truth day after day, week after
week, from his soul to theirs.
Impatient though he was to return to his motherland, Swamiji
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524
had come to love the Western world-not only England and the
English people, but America and the Americans. Indeed,
according to Swami Abhedananda, he extolled the "liberality and
thirst for knowledge" that he had found in America, comparing
them favorably with the conservatism and reserve of the
English?76 "I love the Yankee land,"77 he had written from
London earlier in the year to Mary Hale. And again, "Those years
there have been some of the best I have yet seen."78 He had made
many close and dear friends in that Yankee land, the dearest of all
being the Hale sisters themselves,* to whom he wrote on
November 28 in a goodbye letter, "I think you are the four
persons whom I love most in this world, somehow or other, and I
am vain enough to believe that you four have the same love for
me."79 And there was Mrs. Bull, "the noblest" and "least cranky"
of women, and Josephine MacLeod, "always helpful, cheerful,
and strengthening." These and uncounted others had become his
own, and he theirs. Indeed, Swamiji and the Western world were
forever linked with unbreakable bonds, some visible, some,
perhaps most, invisible, lost to all knowledge; together they
created an ineluctable and living force that slowly, surely would
work its miracle.
Three days after the Farewell Reception, Swamiji and the
Seviers crossed the English Channel to France. Goodwin, who
would meet the party in Naples, almost certainly went first to
Batheaston to spend a few days with his mother, whom he much
loved, before boarding the Prinz Regent Luitpold at nearby
Southampton on December 21. Swamiji's tour through Italy with
the Severs and his journey back to India has been told in the Life
in as much detail as is presently known, and the story need not be
repeated here. Let me just quote from two of Goodwin's letters to
Mrs. Bull and thereby bring this narrative of Swami
Vivekananda's first visit to the West to a close. The first letter
was dated January 3, 1897, and was mailed from Port Said; the
second; January 19, from Kandy, Ceylon;80

There is nothing to write about on a voyage ever, but

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525
 you will be pleased to hear that the Swami joined me at
Naples in the best of health & spirits, & completely charmed
with his tour. He was full of Rome. Rome & Delhi are the
two cities in the world he says. He also liked Milan very
well, & was, in fact, interested in every place he saw. We
have had bad weather almost throughout the Mediterranean,
& Swami & the Seviers have been under the weather. In fact
the two latter are still so. . . . The Swami has entered for
some of the tournaments on the boat-of the committee for
which, by the bye, I was made chairman.
____________

I am only writing a very few lines here owing to lack of

time. There is a great deal to occupy our attention. The
Swami received an intensely enthusiastic reception in
Colombo, & India is mad with enthusiasm for him. Tele-
grams pour in: The people regard him in every sense of the
word as a Divine Incarnation-as I do-& are constantly
worshipping him. He was worshipped at the Temple on
Sunday evg by the largest crowd ever seen there, who
shouted
Jai Jai Maha Deva-
All Hail Highest Deva.
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526
p. 475 * These lines may well have been written by Eric
Hammond, who was later to contribute a number of poems
on Vedantic themes to the Brahmavadir~ and Prabuddha
Bharata. Swamiji was extremely fond of both Eric and his
wife, Nell. In August of ~898 Margaret Noble (then Sister
Nivedita) would write from India to Nell, "He thinks the
world of you two, you know" (Letters of Sister J~ivedita,
ed. Sankari Prasad Basu, I :I7).
p. 482 * The twelve London lectures that Mr. Sturdy
published in pamphlet form were, consecutively: "The
Necessity of Religion"; "The Real and the Apparent Man";
"Maya and the Evolution of the Conception of God"; "Maya
and Freedom"; "God in Everything"; "Realisation"; "Unity
in Diversity"; "The Freedom of the Soul"; "Practical
Vedanta" (parts I through IV).
p. 483 * Captain Sevier's attitude toward Miss Muller
surprised even Mr. Goodwin. Writing to Miss MacLeod
from India on March 16, ~897, Goodwin described what
seems to have been an outburst of sorts on the part of the
good Captain: "By the bye Miss Muller came [to Calcutta]
the other day unexpectedly, and Mr. Sevier has become mad
in consequence. He is going back to Bangalore (in Madras
Presidency) and I expect home soon. He is certainly
unreasonable in this case, for Miss Muller put herself quite
in the Swami's hands, offered to go anywhere so that Mr.
Sevier might be satisfied, but Mr. Sevier studiously set
himself to make a row with her, and it must be said to
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527
p. 483 (cont) Miss Muller's credit unsuccessfully. She, in
fact, has become unwell-nervously-from having to sit at the
table and listen to his really insulting remarks. I think the
heat has affected him somewhat" (Leg. Col.).
p. 488 * Swamiji had given Goodwin the vows of
brahmacharya in New York in February of I896. See World
feacher- `, chapter seven, section seven. See also Complete
Works, 8: 373.
p. 498 * OnJune 5, I898, Sister Nivedita wrote from
Almora to Nell Hammond: "Yesterday was made very sad
for us here by a telegram towards noon announcing the
death of Mr. Goodwin. Mrs. Ole Bull and Miss MacLeod
knew him be~tter than I, but I was the last who had seen
him, he was so good to me that day at Madras, and his
goodness was so utterly characteristic of him! The grief of
the Hindus who knew him here was evident and real. One
young man who attends us night and day almost, sat
here for 3 or 4 hours and scarcely spoke-another, a monk,
sat the whole afternoon and told us tender loving memories
about him. One man, Badri Shah, the richest man about
here, had come to this monk early in the morning saying
that he felt sure that his brother Govinda Lall, was dead.
When the telegram came, Swami Saddhananda [Sadananda]
wanted to suppress it, as the King [Swamiji] was away, and
it was addressed to him, but he could not prevent'some tears
rolling down,' and this man insisted on knowing the truth.
'Well,' he said, when he heard, 'Govinda Lall or Goodwin, it
is almost the same to me.' So much the boy was loved. The
King is still away and will be home this morning-the blow
will be terrible" (Letters of Sister Nivedita, ed. Sankari
Prasad Basu, I :I2).
p. 505 * On September 22 of I896 Swamiji wrote to
Alasinga, "I send you a Daily J`fews article on a book of
travel written by the Czar of Russia. The paragraph in which
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528
p. 505 he speaks of India as the land of spirituality and
wisdom, you ought to quote in your paper and send the
articletothe IndianMirror"(CompleteWorks, 5: I Is).In the
Brahmavadin of October a4, ~896, under "Notes and
Thoughts," Alasinga duly published the paragraph. It was
from The Travel in the East of ;Yicholas II, Emperor of
Russia and read:
"To-morrow, India! Sleep deserts mine eyes. I vainly sought
it in the balmy night;-in the gold and crimson of the rising
sun, the dawn greets the promised land, where the heavens
are pervaded with the charms of love, but passion is
conquered by an unspeakable sadness-where life glows
bright, yet all is as a dream, and breathes with beauty
irresistible as death. O land of daring dreams and soaring
thought! Thou risest out of the azure deep, whose mournful
moaning echoes sadly back the discord reigning in the
weary heart. India lies before us! Here holiness and peace
appeared in visions unto men contemptuous of pleasures;
since their age the people live the self-same life, yearning
for the Divinity, for freedom, and atonement. Here, where
the earthly realm of sorrow borders on the heavens, and
when the soul is crushed by unceasing torments, this magic
land calls us into a world of wonders, into the realm of the
eternal mysteries of boundless wisdom."
p. 52 I * In recent years a proof sheet from the photographic
studio of Alfred Ellis has come to light in which six (not
twelve) poses of Swamiji are shown. These were without
question taken at the sitting Miss Souter had arranged. They
are: the well-known meditation pose; one bust with robe and
turban (right profile); one bust with robe and bare head (full
face); two full length with robe and turban; one full length
with robe and bare head. All of these have been reproduced
in Swami Vivekananda: A Biography in Pictures.
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529
p. 523 * For the text of the farewell address from Swar'
English friends and for other addresses of the s kind from
his devoted American friends and disci see Appendix E.
p. 525 * On his way back to India Swamiji would run Mr.
and Mrs. Hale ("Mother Church and Father Pope") in
Florence, but he would not see the "sisters" again until three
years had passed. This not for lack of an invitation to Mary
Hale. On August 30, I897, Josephine MacLeod would write
to Miss Hale, with whom she was not yet on a first-name
basis: "Swami Vivekananda wrote me a few weeks ago
from India urging Mrs. Bull and me to come this fall to
India and telling me to let you know-in case you to be of the
party.... We would love to have you join us. This is but a
line to let you know early in case you must make plans
ahead.” (Leg. Col.) There was more correspondence on the
subject, ending in a telegram dated January 8, 1898, to Mary
Hale from Miss MacLeod: “We sail for India Wednesday
[January 12] via England. Can you come?” (Leg. Col.) For
one reason or another, Mary Hale did not, or could not, go
along on that incomparable journey.
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 EPILOGUE

Swamiji had not expected the tremendous ovation that greeted

him. Traveling by stages from Colombo, where he had landed on
January 15, 1897, to Madras, he received everywhere the
adoration and homage of thousands upon thousands of his
countrymen. Everywhere the streets were elaborately decorated
and lengthy speeches were delivered in his praise. At one place
his carriage was drawn by a group of devotees, at another,
hundreds flung themselves on the tracks in front of his
approaching train, forcing it to stop so that they might catch a
glimpse of him. Everywhere he addressed the multitudes, firing
them with his spirit and awakening them to an appreciation of
their ancient culture. His nine-day stay (February 6-15) at Madras
was a veritable festival, as was the reception given him in the city
of his birth, Calcutta, to which he had traveled from Madras by
boat, arriving on February 19. No honor was too great to pay him,
no words effusive enough to express the love and reverence the
people felt for him. To Swamiji all this meant but one thing-that
India's spiritual greatness still lived, that she was still able to give
higher tribute to a homeless sannyasin than to a military hero, a
statesman, or a king. He was profoundly moved.
In Calcutta he made his headquarters during the day at the
riverside home of Gopal Lal Seal in Cossipore. At night he stayed
with his brother monks at the Ramakrishna Math in Alambazar.
To both places a stream of people came to visit him-scholars,
students, householders, and monks-asking questions that touched
upon everything from abstruse philosophy to matters of personal
concern. To all, particularly to the young unmarried men, in
whom he saw India's hope, he communicated his dream of
awakening thc giant soul of his motherland, inspiring them with
his own enthusiasm and
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531
determination. On May 1, 1897, he called a meeting of his
Master's monastic and lay disciples and inaugurated, with himself
as General President, the Ramakrishna Mission Association, the
purpose of which was to establish the humanitarian work of the
Order on an organized basis.
Swamiji's poor health soon forced him to leave the hot , humid
climate of Bengal. Most of March and April he spent in
Darjeeling, and on May 6, accompanied by a party of brother
monks and disciples, he left Calcutta for Almora, where Miss
Muller and Mr. Goodwin awaited him. But rest was a factor that
played little part in his life. Although the dry and cool air of
northern India benefited him, his three months in Almora were
spent in almost continual activity, in receiving streams of visitors,
holding discourses, and granting interviews. In early August he
started on a lecture tour of northern India, accompanied by
several of his brother monks and disciples. For the next five
months, though often ill, he lectured and talked almost
unremittingly, visiting many places in the Punjab, Kashmir,
Rajputana, and the Central Provinces, awakening in the minds of
the people a luminous vision of a resurgent India and placing
before them the ideals of renunciation and service.
Toward the end of January, having finished his tour, he
returned to the Alambazar Math, and there, along with many
other activities, continued the training of his young disciples: he
held classes not only in Sanskrit scriptures, but in science and
history as well, he gave lectures, spent hours with them. in
meditation or devotional singing, and discussed with them every
topic under the sun, until his ideas became an integral part of their
thought and until they themselves became, as he wanted, "strong,
vigorous, believing young men, sincere to the backbone."
Swamiji gave as much care and attention to his Western
disciples as to his Eastern. At his call, Miss Margaret Noble had
come from England in January, 1898, to work for the good of
Indian women. In February, Mrs. Ole Bull and Miss
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532
Josephine MacLeod arrived to help him in whatever way they
could. To the question of how this could best be done, Swamiji
replied in two words: "Love India!"-and it was through his
constant and careful guidance that they learned to do so. Indeed,
it was not difficult to love his country when it was seen through
his eyes and understood through his heart. From May to October
his Western disciples, together with a number of his brother
monks and Eastern disciples, traveled with him through northern
India. He made them thrill as he did himself to the glories of
India's history, to the beauties of her present, and to the simple
but noble life of the people, which was rooted in a tradition
whose beginnings were lost in an unfathomable past and whose
meaning had been continually enriched by generation upon
generation of God-centered lives. The pasty journeyed from Naini
Tal to Almora, where the Seviers were already established and
where, in the early part of June, Swamiji received the shocking
and heartbreaking news of the death of his young disciple,
Goodwin. Traveling on, the party reached the beautiful Kashmir
Valley, and there leisurely meandered in houseboats up the River
Jhelum through the Vale of Srinagar.
In India a new side of Swamiji was revealed to his Western
disciples: they saw not only the benign, all-loving and serene
teacher they had known in the West, but the fervent, almost
fierce, patriot and "man-maker." They saw, moreover, the
majestic and awesome moods of the supreme knower of God,
whose spiritual experiences reached heights incomprehensible to
the mind and who walked paths where none could follow. Even
during the first weeks after his arrival in India, when the whole
country had risen as one man to welcome him, he would enter
during the course of the day into many a brief samadhi. Professor
K. Sundararama Iyer, who has related his impressions of
Swamiji's nine days in Madras in February of 1897, tells us of his
moods of "sweet serenity when his face assumed the air both of a
child and an angel from heaven," and of his sudden lapses into a
strange state. "He was always having
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533
visitors about him," Professor Iyer writes, "and sat listening or
speaking to them. Suddenly his eyes became still, though
remaining open, and he seemed not to listen or even to be
conscious of what was passing about him. When once more he
became aware of the scene, he seemed as if he had been utterly
insensible to it. He had been neither asleep nor awake. . . . His
eyes . . . remained fixed and without the least sign of movement. .
. . He seemed to me like one who for a while had left this physical
tenement and fleeted away to another state of existence."1 Indeed,
Swami Shivananda and Swami Niranjanananda, who were with
Swamiji in Madras, both noticed his frequent though brief
absorptions into samadhi, and the former was heard many years
after to remark that ever since Swamiji's first return from the
West he had dwelt in a continuous state of superconsciousness.
While in Kashmir with his Western disciples, Swamiji sud-
denly, in the last days of July, 1898, announced his desire to visit
the Cave of Amarnath, the far-away shrine of Shiva, to which
hundreds of devotees were making a pilgrimage. Alone of his
Western disciples, Sister Nivedita was chosen to accompany him,
making the four-day climb on foot, up and across precipitous,
snow-covered mountains. In the huge Cave of Amarnath,
Swamiji, nude except for kaupina, or loincloth, his body covered
with ashes and his face glowing with devotion, looked upon the
great ice symbol of Shiva, and in a supreme moment of divine
consciousness beheld the living God Himself He spoke little of
this experience, but when he returned to the Vale of Kashmir it
seemed to those near him as if Shiva, the Eternal One, had
literally permeated his being.
Following his absorption in Shiva, Swamiji's mind and heart
turned to the Divine Mother, the Power behind all relative forms.
With the same awesome intensity with which he had been
concentrated in the motionless and silent God, he was now
absorbed in His dynamic aspect. At the end of September he
abruptly left his disciples and retired for a week to the
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534
Colored Springs of Kshir-Bhavani, a famous shrine of the
Mother. There, lost to the world, he performed daily worship and
practiced severe austerities. Although we know that at Kshir-
Bhavani Swamiji heard the voice of the Divine Mother speaking
to him, we know little of his other experiences, of which he no
doubt had many; for, after returning from the shrine he quoted
from his own poem "Kali, the Mother" "Who dares misery
love,/and hug the form of Death,/Dance in Destruction's
dance,/To him the Mother comes"-and he said, "It all came true,
every word of it. To him the Mother does indeed come. I have
proved it. For I have hugged the form of Death !"2
The impact of the spiritual experiences through which
Swamiji had passed left his body shattered; yet his work con-
tinued. Returning to Calcutta in October he took up as
strenuously as ever his task of guiding the activities of his brother
monks and disciples. In December he installed the sacred relics of
Sri Ramakrishna in the new Math at Belur where, earlier in the
year, he had purchased seven or so acres on the Ganga. A month
later the monastery was moved to these permanent headquarters
and thenceforth became known as the "Belur Math." Until June of
1899 Swamiji remained, for the most part, in Calcutta, and then,
on the advice of his doctors and friends, set sail once again for the
West.
He was aware that there were but few years left to him on this
.earth. "I am getting ready to depart to return no more to this hell,
this world," he wrote to Mrs. Bull as early as August, 1896; 3 and
to Mary Hale in July of 1897: "At most three or four years more
of life is left. . . . My time is short "4 Knowing how little time he
had, he worked with impatience to finish his task and to train
others to feel as he felt and to work as he worked. It was an
almost terrible impatience, in which his spirit thrashed against the
inertia of the world that he longed to lift and exalt-an impatience
which led Sister Nivedita to write: "From the moment of my
landing in India . . . I found something quite unexpected. . . . It
was the
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personality of my Master himself, in all the fruitless torture and
struggle of a lion caught in a net."5
Torture it may have been; but fruitless it was not, for during
Swamiji's two and a half years in his motherland he had put his
"machine in strong working order." Aside from the immeasurable
influence he had exerted over the minds and hearts of his
countrymen, he had permanently organized the Ramakrishna
Math and the Ramakrishna Mission-the monastic and
humanitarian branches of the Order. (In 1900 Swamiji was
informally to hand over the presidency of both the Math and the
Mission to Swami Brahmananda [see note for page 420, chapter
fifteen]. "Now I am free," he would write to Sister Nivedita on
August 25, 1900, "as I have kept no power or authority or
position for me in the work. I also have resigned the Presidentship
of the Ramakrishna Mission. The Math etc. belong now to the
immediate disciples of Ramakrishna except myself. The
Presidentship is now Brahmananda's-next it will fall on
Premananda etc., in turn. I am so glad a whole load is off me,
now I am happy."6 Swamiji would also express his relief at no
longer being the head of the Ramakrishna Order to Sister
Christine. "I am sending all the money I earned in America to
India," he would write to her in October of 1900. "Now I am free,
the begging-monk as before. I have also resigned from the
Presidentship of the Monastery. Thank God, I am free!"7 But in
1897, '98, and '99 the "whole load" of organizing and supervising
the work of the Order was mainly his.) Under his direction,
Swami Ramakrishnananda had successfully started a center in
Madras. On November 14, 1896, Sister Nivedita had opened her
girls' school. His disciples, Swamis Virajananda and
Prakashananda, had, at his wish, gone to Dacca in East Bengal to
preach Vedanta; two of his brother monks, Swamis Saradananda
and Turiyananda, had departed to preach in Gujarat (the former,
in December of 1899, went also to Dacca and other cities of East
Bengal), and Swami Shivananda had traveled to Ceylon, where
he formed classes in raja yoga and the Gita.
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Aside from having established monastic centers in Calcutta and
Madras, Swamiji realized through the help of his London
disciples, Captain and Mrs. Sevier, his long cherished dream of
setting up a monastery in the Himalayas. The site of Mayavati,
which the Seviers had found after much searching, was an entire
hill, 6,400 feet above sea level. After its purchase, Swamiji
commissioned four of his disciples to construct additional
buildings on the property, to make roads, and to landscape the
grounds. The monastery was dedicated to the principle of
Advaita, or Nondualistic, Vedanta. External worship of any kind
was barred. "Here will be taught and practised," Swamiji wrote,
"nothing but the Doctrine of Unity, pure and simple; and though
in entire sympathy with all other systems, this Ashrama is
dedicated to Advaita and Advaita alone."8
The message of Sri Ramakrishna and Swamiji was dis-
seminated not only by the preaching activities of the Order, but
through the medium of the written word. Very dear to Swamiji's
heart were the three magazines he had established between
1895and 1899. As we have seen during the course of the present
volume, the first of these, the Brahmavadin, was published in
English by his Madras disciples and had been under way since
September of 1899, and in 1898, while he was in Almora,
Swamiji arranged to revive the Prabuddha Bharata, an English
language monthly, the editor of which had recently died. With the
help of the Seviers the editorial offices were moved from Madras
to Almora and, with Swami Swarupananda as editor, the
magazine was published as an organ of the Ramakrishna Math
and Mission. Later, the offices were transferred to Mayavati,
where, to this day, Prabuddha Bharata, or Awakened India, is
edited monthly, spreading the ideals of the Order. A third
magazine was the Udbodhan. Since 1894 Swamiji had urged his
gurubhais (brother monks) to start a Bengali periodical. Swami
Trigunatita was the first to take up the idea of the magazine with
enthusiasm and, as early as 1895, made plans to publish it. It was
not, however, until January 14, 1899, that the Udbodhan made its
first appearance
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with Swami Trigunatita as its editor and manager.
The publication of books, which today forms an important
function of the Ramakrishna Order, was also undertaken during
Swamiji's lifetime, his own works being published in both
English and Bengali by the Math.
An important part of the work of the Ramakrishna Mission
was the opening of temporary relief centers in times of disaster.
In 1897 Swami Akhandananda, who had earlier established
schools in Khetri under Swamiji's encouragement and detailed
direction, began to work in the famine-stricken district of
Mzrshidabad in Bengal in an effort to give what help he could.
On hearing of this Swamiji was, of course, overjoyed. He sent
two of his disciples as assistants and, with the help of the
Mahabodhi Society, started a fund to which contributions poured
in. With his approval, Swami Akhandananda instituted a
nonsectarian orphanage for both boys and girls at Mohulathe first
of its kind to be founded under the auspices of the Ramakrishna
Order. The orphanage had-as had all of Swamiji's work-the
support of his brother monks.
Other relief work was set up under the guidance of Swamiji by
his various brother monks and disciples. In August of 1897,
Swami Trigunatita opened a famine relief center in Dinajpur.
Later in the same year a third relief center was established at
Deoghar by Swami Virajananda, and between October of 1897
and January of 1898 Swami Prakashananda gave out rice to the
famished people of Dakshineswar. In May of 1898 Swamiji
prepared for relief operations in Calcutta to meet a threatened
outbreak of plague, coming down from a needed vacation in
Darjeeling to do so. "If the plague comes to my native city," he
had written from Darjeeling on April 29, 1898, "I am determined
to make myself a sacrifice."9 In the few days during which the
epidemic seemed imminent he did all that was necessary to meet
it. Through means of plague manifestoes, he brought confidence
to the panic-stricken people; further, he made arrangements for
setting up a quarantine camp and also for teaching sanitation to
the people
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and, if need be, for cleaning the lanes and houses of various
districts. The following year, 1899, when an epidemic actually
broke out in the city, the Ramakrishna Mission plague service
went at once into action under Swamiji's direction. The
management of the work was placed in the hands of Sister
Nivedita as secretary and Swami Sadananda as officer-in-chief. In
four areas of the city the poor quarters were cleared of cartloads
of filth and with the help of scavengers thoroughly disinfected.
Swamiji himself went to live in the slums, that he might bring
comfort and courage to the people. On April 22 he presided over
a public meeting held in Calcutta, during which fifteen students
volunteered for service in response to his stirring plea. As an
outcome of this a permanent plague service was established at the
Math, making it possible, when the most virulent epidemic of all
broke out in 1900, for the Ramakrishna Mission to give
invaluable aid.
By mid 1899 Swamiji's health had become dangerously
shattered; for rest, more than for anything else, he set sail in the
company of Swami Turiyananda and Sister Nivedita for his
second visit to the West. As it turned out, that visit would prove
to be a momentous chapter of his mission, and its story is the
subject of another book.
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 APPENDIX A

Alasinga Permual in Defense of Swami Vivekananda

In view of the attacks made upon Swamiji in Detroit in March

of 1896 (see chapter eight) by one Reverend J. M. Thoburn,
Alasinga Perumal, a Madras disciple of Swamiji's and editor of
the Brahmavadin, wrote the following letter to the editor of the
Detroit Evening News, which journal had exhibited a particularly
hostile attitude toward Swamiji. It is to the credit of the Evening
News that its affiliated paper, the Sunday News-Tribune,
published Alasinga's reply to Thoburn in full. The letter, dated
April 23, 1896, appeared on June 7 and read:

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
DEFENDED BY THE EDITOR OF A
PAPER IN INDIA
____________

GIVES HIM A HIGH CHARACTER

To the Editor of the Evening News:

It is a matter for deep regret that some of your Christian
missionaries should attack Swami Vivekananda and his work
with an amount of pharisaic audacity which is thoroughly
unbecoming of men who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ.
It seems to me that Jesus Christ was in a true prophetic vein when
he said that the custodians of his religion of love would so far
degenerate in later centuries as to be unable to recognize the
second Christ if he should appear. We see signs of it already.
These paid revilers of the so-called gentiles, forgetting the
principles of the religion of whose universality and charity they
never tire of boasting, instead of making it a common cause with
godly men to counteract the evil effects of the
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rapidly rising tide of materialism in all parts of the world, try to
hold aloft the greatness of their own religion by decrying all other
faiths and the best of men belonging to these faiths. They do not
seem to understand that such unworthy tactics discredit them and
their religion in the eyes of all fair-minded men and women. A
few illiterate and ignorant men can, perhaps, be taken in by such
willful misrepresentations, and this, I suppose, consoles their
souls for all their misstatements of facts. I shall presently take up
a case of missionary misrepresentation and hope to prove to the
satisfaction of all fair minded readers of your paper that I am not
drawing upon my own imagination for anything.

GROSS MISREPRESENTATIONS.

Very recently one Rev. Thoburn, on being interviewed by a

representative of the Detroit Evening News, has, with a "rarity of
Christian charity," vilified in the name of Jesus Christ, Swami
Vivekananda by a series of gross misrepresentations and
misstatements quite characteristic of overzealous Christian
missionaries. I propose to examine here his utterances seriatim.
1. "I don't know Vivekananda, nor did anyone else. I never
heard of this man." He seems to argue here very much in the
wake of an old character, "not to know me argues thyself
unknown." I am very sorry that Swami Vivekananda did not get
himself acquainted with the clergyman when he was in Calcutta.
The reverend gentleman might not have known him, and that is
no reason for his not being known by "anyone else". Thousands
of people knew him, both in and out of Calcutta. I have with me
plenty of evidence to prove to you that many a Calcutta
gentleman of position and respectability, and hundreds of others
who came in contact with him during his tour through India, were
well acquainted with him. His own great Guru Sri Ramakrishna
had predicted a bright future for him, and thousands of men came
under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa during his
lifetime. Everyone
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in Madras and other places who met the Swami was struck with
his personality and great spiritual powers. They knew that he
would form an important factor in the shaping of New India.
History tells us that no great religious teacher is ever known
much before he delivers the message. Swami Vivekananda was
preparing himself for the gigantic task that was awaiting him.
"All great men are made in the cave," says a French writer. It is
unnecessary for me to dilate more on this matter. Suffice it for me
to say that he was known to a large body of men in India before
sailing for America and that wherever he travelled in India he
always produced an indelible impression on the minds of those he
came in contact with.
Amongst us a truly religious man is a crystal brook that runs at
the door of every poor cottage, carrying the cool and refreshing
water of eternal bliss to quench the spiritual thirst of the cottager.
Our religious teachers do not advertise themselves. We seek
them, and they give us religion. Religion is life. It is "to be and
become." A truly spiritual teacher needs no credentials. The sun
does not require a torch to be seen. Even if Swami Vivekananda
were altogether unknown, that ought not to affect hie teachings,
and that is certainly no reason why Christian missionary
gentlemen should call him an impostor and manufacture all sorts
of detestable myths about him.

WAS NEVER A LAWYER.

2. The reverend dergyman next says: "From what I can learn

he seems to have been an obscure lawyer." I am glad that the
reverend is not assertive here, for Swami Vivekananda was never
a lawyer, and though he was compelled to finish his course of
legal studies, did not even take up the LL.B. degree to qualify
him for the legal profession, because the bent of his mind from
his youth was in a different direction altogether.
Next turning our attention to the scriptures that the venerable
bishop quotes in support of his statement:
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 3. "The Indian Witness is the largest religious paper published
in India." This may be true so far as the Christians of India are
concerned, but these number about two millions out of a
population of not less than three hundred millions. The majority
of Hindus have not heard even its name.
4. Says the Witness: "If the English editors correctly under-
stood the character of the man and his teachings they would not
give him the compliment of a three-line paragraph," etc. This is
surely a cowardly attack. Why does not the Witness enlighten the
English editors by describing in detail the character of Swami
Vivekananda. This will bring to light the true nature of the
character of these revilers. They dare not, therefore, enter into
details. We challenge them to do it. We know Swami
Vivekananda has led an unblemished life from his youth and that
his character is of unalloyed gold. The trials and sufferings he has
undergone, and the self sacrifice he has made-all for the love he
bears to God and to humanity are yet a sealed book to all but a
few who know his inner life, and I am sure that if this were
sufficiently widely known his character will be appreciated all the
greater.
5. Reverend Thoburn says again: "It was alleged that he had
borrowed the name and the monkish title Swami from a Madrassi
monk and came over here to the congress of religions as the self
appointed representative of a Hinduism existing in his mind
only." Here again both the Indian Witness and the reverend
gentleman betray an utter ignorance of the religion they are
attacking. The truth of the matter is that missionary gentlemen
that come here, in 99 cases out of 100, care more for their salaries
than for understanding the real nature of the religion of the people
amongst whom they have to work. They frequently wound the
feelings of the people by ignorant abuse of all they cherish as
sacred. Every Hindu knows that when a man becomes a sanyasin
he gives up all old, worldly associations. He gets, as it were, a
new birth and discards all conventional names and forms. He is
free thenceforward to call himself by whatsoever name he
chooses; he has to observe
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three vows, that of chastity, poverty, and homelessness, and that's
all. In other respects he is quite free.
The guru, however, from a full knowledge of his nature and
tendencies, gives him a characteristic name for the convenience
of others, and Swami Vivekananda is a name of that kind given to
him therefore by his great guru Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa.
Sri Ramakrishna was no Madrassi monk, as the bishop would
have you believe. He was a pure blooded Bengali Brahman
whose influence over the Calcutta society was so profound that
even now every year not less than 15,000 people congregate to
celebrate his birthday on the banks of the Ganges. Among those
that were influenced by him may be mentioned the two Brahmo
leaders-Babus Keshub Chandra Sen and Protab Chandra
Muzumdar. The latter gentleman has himself written a short
account of the Paramahansa's life.

WAS DULY ACCREDITED.

Rev. Thoburn says again that the Swami was the self
appointed representative of Hinduism. Here is again, a mis-
representation. The facts are as follows: A number of Madrassi
gentlemen in conjunction with the Maharajah of Mysore and the
Rajahs of Khetri and Ramnad subscribed amongst themselves to
send him to America, and requested him if he thought fit to
represent Hinduism at the Chicago Parliament of Religions, but
left him perfectly free in the matter. We know well that when the
Swami sailed from India he had no definite plans ahead. He had
travelled in India, and wanted to travel in America and do what
work God placed in his way in a quiet, unassuming way.
What gives him a representative character is his having been a
disciple of a great Hindu sanyasin, and the request of a large body
of influential, educated Madras gentlemen that he should
represent Hinduism at the Parliament of Religions. His
representative character was subsequently confirmed by largely
attended public meetings held in different important centers of
India, as Madras, Bangalore, Kumbakonum, Khetri
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and Calcutta, reports of which are sent herewith for your
information.

HIS HINDUISM.

As regards the Hinduism he preached. That it was not woven

out of his imagination would become clear to you when I say that
no true Hindu in any part of India has taken exception to the
Swami's exposition of Hinduism, and any impartial critic will be
able to make out that the Swami has correctly expounded what is
found in our vedic and vedantic scriptures. In the public meetings
already referred to this has been emphasized over and over again.
I do grant that corruptions creep in whenever an ideal is put into
practice. Many a visitor to Chicago has written volumes upon the
Christianity practiced therein but no sane man would ever
attribute these corruptions to the noble religion of Jesus Christ.
Rev. Thoburn then takes to his help one Mr. K. C. Bennerjee. I
am sorry he is not in good company here. Mr. Bennerjee is a
native Christian of some standing in society on account of his
political views, but in matters religious no Hindu would attach
any value to his opinions regarding Hinduism. Rev. Thoburn
himself would not like my unfolding this gentleman’s history.
I have said enough to make any impartial reader of your paper
make out the fairness or otherwise of the attack made by
Christian dogmatists of the stamp of Rev. Thoburn upon the
representative of the Hindus at the Parliament of Religions.

DEMAND FOR MORE TOLERANCE

Before I conclude let me ask Rev. Thoburn and other Christian

believers to be more tolerant towards other faiths. All great
religions and all great thinkers of the world teach virtually the
same truths and want us to bring about greater and greater
harmony between the warring creeds and sects, "They are all so
many paths leading to the same goal," says Sri Krishna in the
Gita. Goethe, addressing the Christian believers, says:
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 "Ye faithful, do not claim that your confession
Be truth alone; for we have faith like you.
Science can't be deprived of the possession
Belonging to the world and to me too."

In an article on Goethe, Dr. Paul Carus says in a recent issue

of the Open Court: "The church that developed from the moral
movement started by Christ has supplemented the theoretical
doctrines which Christ had neglected to teach, but unfortunately
the dogmatists of the church replaced the broad ecce homo by a
narrow ecce ego, and thus the assumptions of the ego psychology
have become officially recognized as Christian dogmas. Yet I
venture to say that those two masters of the world of thought,
Buddha and Goethe, are nearer to the spirit of Christ than those
who bear his name and call themselves his disciples."

FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES.

It appears to me that the last few lines apply with equal force
to Swami Vivekananda also. Christian missionaries have fallen
far short of the ideal set up by their master, and when this is
pointed out and a loftier ideal is placed before them their
fanaticism resorts to all kinds of undignified vituperation. Let me
tell my missionary friends, adopting the words of Amiel: "It is not
to the clever folk, nor even to the scientific folk, that the empire
over souls belongs, but to those who impress us as having
conquered nature by grace, as having passed through the burning
bush, and as speaking, not the language of human wisdom, but of
the divine will. In religious matters it is holiness that gives
authority; it is love or the power of devotion and sacrifice, which
goes to the heart, which moves and persuades.. .. Our business is
to point men to another ideal, purer, higher, more spiritual than
the old, and so to raise behind a lofty summit one more lofty still.
In this way no one is despoiled; we gain men's confidence, while
at the same time forcing them to think and enabling those minds
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which are already tending towards change to perceive new
objects and goals of thought. An ideal is replaced by satisfying
the conditions of the old with some advantages over [them]. Let
the liberal Protestants offer us a spectacle of Christian virtue of a
holier, intenser, and more intimate kind than before; let us see it
active in their persons and in their influence; they will have
furnished the proof demanded by the Master; the tree will be
judged by its fruits."

M. C. ALASINUAPERUMAL,
Editor of the Brahmavadin.
Madras, India, April 23, 1896.

547
 APPENDIX B

Some Thoughts on
Swamiji and the Harvard Professors

Inasmuch as Swamiji was closely listened to and sincerely

admired by the professors of Harvard's illustrious Philosophy
Department (see chapter nine of this book), one can but ask what
effect he had upon the thought of the two most influential
metaphysicians of that Department's golden era-William James,
the Pluralist and Pragmatist, and Josiah Royce, the Idealist.
In 1896 both James and Royce were already well known.
Although Professor James was not to publish his The Varieties of
Religious Experience for another six years, nor his more in-
fluential philosophical work, Pragmatism, for another eleven, he
was famous for his massive and important work, The Principles
of Psychology ( 1890), known to students as the "James," and for
its abridged version, Textbook of Psychology, or Psychology,
Briefer Coarse (1892), known, needless to say, as the "Jimmy."
Professor Royce was perhaps even more renowned in the 1890s
than was James. A prolific writer, he was looked upon as
America's foremost Idealist. He was a Hegelian, a monist and an
admirer of those immense dialectical systems of thought that
characterized much of the philosophy of the nineteenth century.
William James, on the other hand, had an intense dislike for
Hegelianism, an impatience with systems, with rationalism, and,
above all, with monism of any sort materialistic, Hegelian,
Roycean, or, as it turned out, Vedantic. Although thirteen years
older than Josiah Royce, James represented, and may be said to
have originated, the reaction against the misty and windy type of
Idealism that the younger philosopher so eloquently expounded.
First and last, James was a pragmatist; Royce, on the other hand,
was one of those
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"absolutistic philosophers" whom James described as dwelling
"on so high a level of abstraction that they never even try to come
down." Their debates were, of course, interminable and a delight
to everyone, including themselves. "I lead a parasitic life upon
you," James once wrote to Royce, "for my highest flight of
ambitious ideality is to become your conqueror, and go down into
history as such, you and I rolled in one another's arms and silent
(or rather loquacious still) in one last death grapple of an
embrace."1
"These differences of opinion in our staff," Professor George
Patmer wrote in his autobiography, "were always openly
acknowledged. In our lectures we were accustomed to attack each
other by name, James forever exposing the follies of the idealists,
particularly of Royce and me, Royce in turn showing how
baseless all empiricism is, lacking a metaphysical ground. . . . Our
students were not misled by these our attacks on each other. They
knew that we were all warm friends, few Departments more so. . .
. And what happiness to work under conditions of entire freedom,
where suspicions were unknown, and friendships were
profound!"2
Unlike as they were in their philosophical approach, both
Professor James and Professor Royce belonged to the age in
which they lived. Both were deeply concerned over the problems
peculiar to that age, particularly those which followed on the
heels of the recent crash of Christianity's theological foundations.
Both had accepted the main ideas of the theory of Evolution (as
had almost all literate men and women of the nineties), but they
had not become thereby, as had many others, atheists or
agnostics. On the contrary, both philosophers felt duty bound to
construct a new foundation on the ruins of the old, to devise a
philosophy strong and broad enough to support both religious
faith and scientific facts. In those days the Big Questions-
questions involving the destiny of man and his conduct while en
route to that destiny-were still considered appropriate and
meaningful matters for philosophical inquiry. Both James and
Royce inquired into such
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questions without embarrassment, and both gave their considered
answers. In doing so, Royce manfully tried to come down a little
from the metaphysical heights wherein he dwelt; while, from the
ground, Jamea reached upward toward what he called "something
more," and somewhere in midair they clasped hands.
There is at present no known record of Swamiji's persona!
relationship with Professor Royce. We know, however, that he
looked upon William James as "a very nice man, a very nice
man!"3 and that James, when writing to him, addressed him as
"Master."4 Professor James was indeed a thoroughly nice man, as
lacking in pettiness and dogmatism as he was rich in the ability to
acknowledge and delight in the greatness of others when he saw
it. But while James's use of the term "Master" in connection with
Swamiji implied deep respect, it did not indicate that he had
become Swamiji's disciple or that he had any intention of doing
so. There is a passage in James's essay "The Energies of Men"
(1907) in which, to quote from the Life, "he speaks of a
University professor who underwent the Raja-Yoga practices as a
cure for nervous disorders, and who received thereby not only
physical benefit but intellectual and spiritual illumination as
well."5 It has been thought by some that James may have been
referring here to himself. Actually, however, the unnamed "yogi"
referred to in this essay was Wincenty Lutoslawski, a Polish
writer and philosopher, with whom James was well acquainted.
(It is interesting to note that while Mr. Lutoslawski undertook
hatha yoga [not raja yoga] more or less on his own, he was not
uninfluenced by Swamiji. In describing his practices to William
James, Lutoslawski wrote, "Thus I decided to follow Vivek-
ananda's advice: `Practice hard: whether you live or die by it
doesn't matter.' ") On first receiving Mr. Lutoslawski's report on
his yoga practices, which he later quoted in part in "Energies,"6
James wrote to him a congratulatory letter, remarking in its
course, "You are mistaken about my having tried Yoga
discipline-I never meant to suggest that. I have
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read several books . . . and in the slightest possible way tried
breathing exercises. These go terribly against the grain with me,
are extremely disagreeable, and even when tried this winter (the
winter of 1905-6) (somewhat perseveringly), to put myself asleep,
after lying awake at night, failed to have any soporific effect."7
But although Professor James evidently did not practice raja
yoga under Swamiji's instruction-or that of anyone else, there is
little doubt that he was deeply impressed with Swamiji himself as
a man, a thinker, and what he would have called "a religious
genius." James was, in fact, as Professor Wright noted, "swept off
his feet," and missed no opportunity of hearing Swamiji lecture in
Boston and, presumably, in Cambridge.
As for Josiah Royce, as was said above, we unfortunately do
not know at present what he and Swamiji thought of one another.
We do know, however, that Royce had long been au admirer of
Indian thought, a knowledge of which he had derived first from a
study of Schopenhauer and later from European Orientalists, such
as Max Muller, Paul Deussen, and Richard Garbe. Royce felt
attracted particularly toward the Upanishads and tended to insert
Sanskrit phrases here and there throughout his writings. Josiah
Royce must have been exceedingly interested in Swamiji's
lectures and undoubtedly admired him as a man and as a thinker.
But much as James and Royce admired and respected Swa-
miji, much as they wanted him to accept the Chair of Eastern
Philosophy at Harvard and thus become their permanent col-
league and debating companion,8 much as they must have
enjoyed his company, they could not accept, without each doing
violence to his own long-held view, the philosophy of Advaita
Vedanta. They were disturbed by it, and it is through the
evidences of this disturbance that Swamiji's effect on the
professors can best be seen.
Nothing gave William James more pleasure than a philo-
sophical debate with a worthy opponent. But it was not until
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1898, when Swamiji's brother disciple, Swami Abhedananda,
lectured in Cambridge, that James again had a chance to tackle
Vedantic monism head on. He lost no time at all in taking
advantage of this opportunity. The story of the meeting between
Professor James and Swami Abhedananda is told in the latter's
biography by Swami Shankarananda and clearly shows how
exercised William James was over Swamiji's "doctrine of the
One," as he called it .9
Swami Abhedananda arrived in Cambridge in May and a day
or two before delivering his own lecture, audited a class of
Professor James's. James evidently knew who the Swami was and
seeing him, with some surprise no doubt, among his students,
suddenly launched into an attack against monism, bringing forth
all the arguments at his command. As has been seen, open attacks
such as this were not uncommon, nor unfriendly, at Harvard. Nor
did Swami Abhedananda take this one amiss. Rather, he quietly
"jotted down in his note-book the essential points." After the
class, Professor James expressed the wish, as was only fair, that
the Swami discuss "Oneness" at his coming lecture, which he
promised to attend. To this proposal, Swami Abhedananda readily
agreed.
"In Mrs. Bull's house on the 29th of May," the Swami wrote in
his diary, "I gave a lecture on `One in Many' at thc Cambridge
Conferences. Dr. [Lewis G.] Janes presided over the meeting.
During the lecture I raised Professor James's objections to
Monism and showed by logical reasoning how irrational and false
those arguments were. . . . Professor James had come with some
of his students. [After the lecture] he began to prompt his students
to ask questions. . . . [When asked by Dr. Janes to put questions
himself] Professor James said `Not here.' I felt that Professor
,James evaded asking questions, being afraid of being defeated in
the presence of his students.* At the end of the meeting, Professor
James shook
*In fairness to Professor James, it should be noted that at such gathering, at which
students questioned a guest speaker, it was, and still is, customary for the Professors to
hold their peace.
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552
hands with me and praised highly my rational and simple
explanation of Monism and invited me to dinner in his house the
next evening."
The following evening was a momentous one. Describing it in
his diary, Swami Abhedananda wrote: "I went to Professor
James's house with Dr. Janes. There were along with us at the
same table Professor Seller, Professor Royce and Professor
Lanman. After the dinner was over, Professor James started
arguing against Monism....I myself began to refute his arguments
by giving further reasonings. This discussion went on for nearly
four hours. . . . Professor Royce, Professor Seller and Professor
Lanman and Dr. Janes took my side. Afterwards, Professor James
was compelled to say that my arguments in favor of the Oneness
of the cosmic reality were indeed irrefutable:"10
Clearly, Swami Abhedananda carried the evening. But this
was only round one of the professors' battle against Monism.
Although Josiah Royce had sided with Swami Abhedananda
during that four-hour discussion, one is inclined to think that he
had done so more in disagreement with his colleague James than
in agreement with the Swami. In any case, a year later, when
Royce gave his Gifford Lectures at thc University of Aberdeen,
he quoted long passages from the Brihadaranyaka and
Chhandogya Upanishads (translations of which had been
provided him by Professor Lanman) and, in defense of his own
type of idealism, went to some length to show that the philo-
sophical basis of mysticism (by which he meant monism) as set
forth in the Hindu scriptures was unsatisfactory. Here one detects
a change in Royce's views. In earlier years he had floated in the
waters of Indian philosophy; he now, it seems, felt inclined to
swim for shore. We need not enter here into his objections to and
arguments against "Hindu Mysticism"; suffice it to say that he
arrived at the conclusion that the Absolute of Advaita Vedanta
spelled Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. 11
I don't think William James ever went this far; yet he seems
#

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to have been unsuited temperamentally, perhaps intellectually, to
a monistic philosophy. On August 2 of 1900, while recuperating
in Germany from a badly overstrained heart, he wrote to Mrs.
Bull: "I have just been reading some of Vivekananda's Addresses
in England, which I had not seen. That man is simply a wonder
for oratorical power. As for the doctrine of the One, I began to
have some talk with that most interesting Miss, Noble [Sister
Nivedita] about it, but it was cut short, and I confess that my
difficulties have never yet been cleared up. But the Swami is an
honour to humanity in any case."12
It had been Miss Josephine MacLeod who had lent some of
Swamiji's London lectures to Professor James. On August 8,
1900, he wrote to her, "I am sending back to you his addresses,
all but 4 [actually 3] ; the real & the apparent Man; Maya &
Freedom; Practical Vedanta, part IV. These I keep a while longer,
and wish I might get hold of the first 3 parts of Practical Vedanta.
Has the Swami my books? It has made me feel badly that I didn't
give him my Psychology when he was in America; and if he
would like aught of mine, I will now have it sent to him, if you
can provide me with an address which will `keep' a while. I am
perhaps unduly shy about obtruding my writings on people." 13
Whether or not Swamiji and William James met in Europe in
the fall of 1900 is not certain. A letter written by Swamiji from
Paris on September 3, 1900, to Mrs. Francis Leggett, mentions in
its printed form that a "Dr. James" had been a guest at a party that
Swamiji had attended. It has been thought by some that Swamiji
was referring here to Professor James. Yet the text of the letter
itself gives several indications that Dr. Lewis G. Janes, not
Professor William James, was the man in question. 14 For one
thing, Swamiji speaks a little teasingly of the doctor's "great
blaster, Herbert Spencer." It was Dr. Lewis Janes who was, as
everyone then knew, a dedicated follower of Herbert Spencer.
Professor James, on the other hand, found much in Spencer's
philosophy to take issue with,
#

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deploring, among other things, "the vagueness of all his funda-
mental ideas, his whole system wooden, as if knocked together
out of cracked hemlock boards."15
But whether or not William James had a further chance to talk
with Swamiji, he did once again meet Sister Nivedita. Their first
meeting, mentioned above, most probably took place in England
in 1899. The second occurred in the spring of 1901, when,
recovering from his illness and en route from London to
Edinburgh with his wife to deliver his Gifford Lectures, he
chanced to meet Mrs. Bull and Nivedita on the train (very likely
the famous "Flying Scotsman," then the fastest train in the world,
that sped between London and Edinburgh at an average speed of
fifty-five miles per hour). "We had a splendid journey yesterday,"
James wrote to a friend on May I5, 1901, "in an American
(almost!) train, first-class, and had the pleasure of some talk with
our Cambridge neighbor, Mrs. Ole Bull, on her way to Norway to
the unveiling of a monument to her husband. She was accom-
panied by an extraordinarily fine character and mind--odd way of
expressing myself-a young Englishwoman named Noble, who has
Hinduized herself (converted by Vivekananda to his philosophy)
and lives now for the Hindu people. These free individuals who
live their own life, no matter what domestic prejudices have to be
snapped, are on the whole a refreshing sight to me, who can do
nothing of the kind myself. And Miss Noble is a most deliberate
and balanced person no frothy enthusiast in point of character,
though I believe her philosophy to be more or less false. Perhaps
no more so than anyone else's!"16
When James's Gifford Lectures were about to be published as
The Varieties of Religious Experience, he wrote from Edinburgh
to Mrs. Bull in a letter dated June 5, 1902, "Will you kindly send
me Vivekananda's address so that I may order a copy of my
lectures sent to him. They will seem half hearted stuff, I know, to
him. They've appointed a `safe' man, some DD, to be the next
lecturer here. I think I wrote you that I nominated
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V[ivekananda] who is a man of genius, even though his Absolute
be not the truth."17
In The Varieties of Religious Experience (which could not
have reached Swamiji in time for him to read it) James quoted at
some length from Raja Yoga and also from two of Swamiji's
lectures that Miss MacLeod had lent him-"Practical Vedanta, Part
IV" and "The Real and the Apparent Man."18 Although these
quotations were not given by way of either commending or
criticizing Vedanta, but simply as illustrative of the monistic
interpretation of religious experience, James made it clear enough
in Varieties that he did not lean toward monism. In his
Pragmatism, published in 1907, however, he took definite issue
with Swamiji. Characteristically, he did not do so without paying
tribute to him, writing of the Vedanta philosophy as "the paragon
of all monistic systems" and of Swamiji as "the paragon of
Vedantic missionaries."19 But the quotations he now gave from
Swamiji's lectures ("God in Everything" and "The Atman") were
chosen specifically to illustrate the extreme monistic view to
whose "dogmatic rigoristic temper" he was taking objection. 20 In
this same work James conceded that monism as a belief had
pragmatic value, imparting, as he said, "a perfect sumptuosity of
security,"21 and "in so far forth"22 was true. But here James seems
to have forgotten Swamiji altogether (and, for that matter, Swami
Abhedananda and that "extraordinarily fine character and mind,"
Sister Nivedita). If monism was pragmatically true, he contended,
it was true for the "tender-minded" only.23 Much as though he had
never known "the paragon of Vedantic missionaries" or read his
lectures, James wrote: "What do believers in the Absolute mean
by saying that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that
since, in the Absolute finite evil is `overruled' already . . . we
have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the
world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better
hands than ours and are none of our business." 24 And again, "The
peace and rest, the security desiderated at such moments [when
life breaks down] is security
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against the bewildering accidents of so much finite experience.
Nirvana means safety from this everlasting round of adventure of
which the world of sense consists. The hindoo and the buddhist,
for this is essentially their attitude, are simply afraid, afraid of
more experience, afraid of life."25
This attack, betraying as it did an ignorance of India's culture
and thought together with a boundless faith in the infinite
perfectability of the finite, was typical of the times. Josiah Royce
had resorted to somewhat the same argument against Hindoo
philosophers. In an essay published in 1898 he wrote, "The
Hindoo, as a philosopher, has always been a keen critic of human
illusions, but since it chanced, by some accident of race-
development, that the Hindoo, from an early period of his
evolution, did not love life, Hindoo philosophy, extensive as are
its literary monuments, is in its essential doctrine always very
brief and unfruitful. Life For the Hindoo is an ill; one
philosophizes to seek salvation. And salvation lies in some sort of
absolute contemplative abstraction from life an abstraction which
you can define in many ways; but the goal is always the same-a
peace that passeth understanding, and that flees from facts to the
Absolute beyond life's illusions."26
Having dispensed with the majestic and thunderous philos-
ophy of Advaita Vedanta as being a weakness of the Hindu
psyche, William James and Josiah Royce continued, each in his
own way, as popular spokesmen of their age.
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 APPENDIX C

Correspondence between Swamiji's New York Students

and the Swamis of the Alambazar Math

On February 22, 1896, in celebration of Sri Ramakrishna's

birthday, Swamiji's New York students sent a telegram to the
Swamis at Alambazar Math. Although the telegram itself is no
longer extant, its message was no doubt one of reverence and
salutation and told (an American newspaper reported) of the rapid
progress of the Hindu religion here."1 Swami Ramakrishnananda
replied:

(To the Students of Swami Vivekananda)

Baranagore Alambazar Matt

26-2-96

My dear friends
Your telegram of the 22 nd inst. duly reached us just at the time
when we were engaged in giving a parting feast to one of our
brothers Swami Saradananda, who was on the point of starting for
Eng. as desired by the leader of the present unique movement
tending to bring about the brotherhood of the whole human race,
who is now amongst you instilling his broad & universal doctrine
of "assimilation but no destruction", "harmony & peace & no
dissension." That the sudden & unexpected appearance of a news
redolent with the ambrosia of love & affection increased
hundredfold the solemnity & unmixed joy that reigned in our
Monastery at that time is too apparent to be mentioned. It reached
us at a time when our hearts were filled with a love that had for
its field of action nothing short of the entire expanse of this world
of ours & everything that is in it. Your salutatory note therefore
served to animate with fresh vigour the already animated feeling
of universal love stirred within us on the occasion.
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 Swami Saradananda started for Eng. to take his quarters with
Mr. Sturdy in the str. Rewa of BISN line & to help Swami
Vivekananda in his stupendous labours consequent upon prop-
agating his gospel of love & charity. This new Swami, if it be the
desire of his leader at a future date to transfer him to your
quarters, is sure to gain your hearts in no time, not of course by
those dazzling faculties which especially mark out Vivekananda
as a power among nations, but by his sweet & amiable character,
diffusing peace & love wherever he goes. In him you will find a
man who is void of all the vanities of the world. He is sure to
carry out the onerous duty laid upon him with great credit.
[Swami Vivekananda's] indefatigable energy, the immense moral
power that can easily surmount the gloomy & unfriendly
environments, the keen intellect that can penetrate the deepest
veil of what to others appears as mystic &. altogether
uncomprehensible, a heart which is the storehouse of love &
affection for his fellowmen, a sweet voice & an expressive &
amiable countenance, which are the fit agents to bring forth the
sweet sentiments hidden under the bosom,- all these contribute to
make the great revivalist of this highly advanced age, Swami
Vivekananda, a fit agent of the Deity whose direct hand is his
principal, nay his only stay, in a troublous sea of insincerity &
private interests. That he has taken & upheld the cause of Truth,
that his heart flows with the sincerest love for his fellowmen, that
his extraordinary power, coupled with the divine grace is a sure
sign of his ultimate success, are facts which none but the most
blinded of bigots can deny. This auspicious telegram is a seal of
our mutual love, by this India & America are joined together with
the indissoluble tie of love, heart embracing heart. They are no
longer two different entities, ocean may separate their physical
selves, but essentially they have now become one. May the Lord,
Who first breathed this idea of universal toleration in the heart of
Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna, & Who is now proclaiming this
noble idea throughout the length & breadth of the world thro'
Vivekananda, the fit disciple of a great &
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unparalleled master, keep us united thro' eternity.
Wishing to hear from you, our other selves of America, every
now & then as to the success of our noble cause, in the name of
all our brothers here,
I remain yours ever with love
Ramakrishnananda.

P.S. The Sanyasin disciple of the Swami [Kripananda] sends

very interesting letters to the Brahmavadin. We cannot adequately
thank him for them. We look with eagerness in every fresh issue
of the paper for the letter of K. We would be very glad if he (K)
condescend to communicate with us directly.

Yours &c 2
R.

Swami Ramakrishnananda's letter arrived in New York in the

last days of April, and on May 1, Mr. Leggett wrote to Mrs. Bull:
"The letter from India in answer to the Cable was simply
beautiful. I have not the original but prize the copy which Mr.
Goodwin furnished, very highly. I believe Miss Phillips has the
original but think either you or I should possess it." 3 Two days
later, a number of the New York students sent the following letter
to the Swamis in India:

19, West 38th Street

May 3rd, 1896

Dear Friends and Brothers,-Swami Ramakrishnananda's letter

to us, your American brothers and sisters, received a cordial
welcome.
We believe with you that a strong bond of union now exists
between your land and ours, established by the Swami Vivek-
ananda.
The grand truths of the Vedanta, as presented by him,
interested thinking minds of all classes, and met with a ready
acceptance by In any of those, who had the privilege of hearing
them.
The Swami Vivekananda sailed for England on the I5th
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560
of April. In his farewell address to his friends and pupils in New
York, he spoke highly of the Americans, and the freedom of their
institutions, which made them peculiarly accessible to the
Vedanta Philosophy.
We did not realize until now, that the Hindus, so distant and so
ancient, held so much wisdom and knowledge in trust for us, the
youngest among nations.
With loving greetings, and the hope that we may frequently
have the pleasure of hearing from you.
Your brothers and sisters in America,
(Sd.) MARY PHILLIPS, S. ELLEN WALDO, WALTER
GOODYEAR, FRANCES B. GOODYEAR, ETHEL E. HOWE,
L. L. WIGHT, MARIE B. SMITH, SWAMI ABHAYANANDA,
EDlTH SWANANDER, RUTH ELLIS, FLOUNCE D'A LE
VINSEN, MAUDE R. LE VINSEN, CARL LE VINSEN,
SWAMI JOGANANDA, HENRY J. VAN HAAGEN, J. E.
SUITLERLIN, ELIZABETH ANNE WYMAN, DR. JOHN C.
WYMAN, ANNlE A. HAINES, EDMOND L. (EDWARD G. P]
DAY, M.D., MARY H. DAY, and many more.
"K" is not now in this city.4
Neither Mr. Leggett nor Mrs. Bull, it may be noted, were
included among tile above signatories. Nor did they succeed at
once in obtaining Swami Ramakrishnananda's original letter from
Miss Phillips. In November of 1896 she seems still to have laid it.
In writing to Mrs. Bull on November 14 of the success of Miss
Waldo's first lecture (see chapter fourteen, section two), Miss
Phillips commented: "It (the occasion of the talk] was the first
suitable opportunity to read the letter from Ramakrishnananda
`To the Students of the Swami Vivekananda' which had come
since the letter reached me and all seemed greatly interested in it,
requesting printed copies."5
According to an unidentified American newspaper, Miss
Phillips had almost immediately on its receipt shown Swami
Ramakrisnananda's letter to the Press. With pardonable though
belated defensiveness she had assured a reporter: "'This
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561
letter shows with what reverence our Swami Vivekananda is held
in India. It refutes effectually all of the hints that his religious
enemies have tried to spread broadcast, that he was not the real
representative of the Hindu monks to this country."6
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 APPENDIX D

Tributes to J. J. Goodwin

On receiving news of the untimely death of Josiah J. Good-

win, Swamiji sent the following paragraph and poem to the
newspapers as well as to Goodwin's mother. They appeared also
in the Prabuddha Bharata of August 1898:

With infinite sorrow I learn the sad news of Mr. Good-

win's departure from this life, the more so as it was terribly
sudden and therefore prevented all possibilities of my being
at his side at the time of death. The debt of gratitude I owe
him can never be repaid and those who think they have been
helped by any thought of mine, ought to know, that almost
every word of it was published through the untiring and
most unselfish exertions of Mr. Goodwin. In him I have lost
a friend true as steel, a disciple of never-failing devotion, a
worker who knew not what tiring was and the world is less
rich by one of those few who are born, as it were, to live
only for others.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE
Speed forth, O Soul! upon thy star-strewn path;
Speed, blissful one! where thought is ever free,
Where time and space no longer mist the view,
Eternal peace and blessings be with thee!

Thy service true, complete thy sacrifice,

Thy home the heart of love transcendent find;
Remembrance sweet, that kills all space and time,
Like altar roses fill thy place behind!

Thy bonds are broke, thy quest in bliss is found,

And one with That which comes as Death and Life;
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 Thou helpful one! unselfish e’er on earth,
Ahead ! still help with love this world of strife!

Mrs. Ole Bull, who had known Goodwin well and who was in
Almora when the news of his death arrived there, wrote the
following letter to Alasinga Perumal. It was published in the
Brahmavadin of June 16, :1898:

My Dear Sir,
I have never received a sadder message than the words
from you announcing the death of dear Goodwin. It causes
us all who know him great sorrow. We had counted so much
on seeing him here in India.
Such a life calls, for reverent recognition, so utterly
generous, silent and untiring has he been in the service of his
beloved Guru Swami Vivekananda and others.
He once told me that his early years had been spent
knocking about the world as a journalist and in literary work
and the best outcome of it all was agnosticism. After his
experience in New York as stenographer to the Swami, with
whom he lived day and night for months, the beauty of life's
highest realization, knowledge of the soul and of God, came
to him, as we know.
His entire devotion to the Swami as his servant and
friend was the fruit of his new hope and belief and the
Swami's published lectures as recorded by Mr. Goodwin are
his permanent contribution to us. This young man embodied
the integrity and honor of the gentleman to enemy and friend
alike, in brief, he was a true Englishman with the spirit of
sympathy, responsive to the noble and divine wherever he
found it, at home or abroad. The Sannyasins of
Vivekananda's order have in this layman an example of one,
who worked for work's sake and loved for love's sake.
In Mr. Goodwin's death, the work of the Swami Vivek-
ananda meets with an irreparable loss to us of the West.
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 We are grateful for his brave loving life-a life that added
richness of experience and pleasure, to all those whom he
loved or served. You will, I know, sympathize with us as we
with you and all of us with his family in England.

Sincerely yours,
Sara C. Bull
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 APPENDIX E

Addresses to Swami Vivekananda

After he had completed his first Western visit, letters of

appreciation came to Swamiji from various groups of his dis-
ciples and friends. Two such letters, or addresses-those from the
London and the New York students-were elaborately printed-in
the style of the day, as though to make the words somehow carry
more reverence than, unadorned, they could ever convey. The
texts of the addresses from, respectively, the London students, the
New York students, the Detroit students, the Cambridge
Conferences, and the Brooklyn Ethical Association are given
below.
In addition, a Christmas letter from Mrs. Ole Bull to Swamiji's
brother disciples is given here, following the addresses.

THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA IN ENGLAND

At a large meeting of the Swami Vivekananda's Friends and

Sympathisers held at the Galleries of the Royal Institute of
Painters in Water Colours, Picadilly, London, on December 13th
1896, the Chairman E. T. Sturdy Esq. was requested to present
the following Address to the Swami on the motion of H. B. M.
Buchanan Esq. B.A. (Cantab.). Seconded by Mrs. G. C. Ashton
Jonson and unanimously supported:-
The Students of the Vedanta Philosophy in London under your
remarkably able instruction feel that they would be lacking in
their duty and privilege if they failed to record their warm and
heartfelt appreciation of the noble and unselfish work you have
set yourself to do, and of the great help you have been to them in
their Study of Religion.
We feel the very deepest regret that you are so soon to leave
England, but we should not be true Students of the very beautiful
Philosophy you have taught us to regard so highly,
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if we did not recognise that there are claims upon your work from
our Brothers and Sisters in India. That you may prosper very
greatly in that work is the united prayer of all who have come
under the elevating influence of your teaching, and no less of
your personal attributes, which, as a living example of the
Vedanta we recognise as the most helpful encouragement to us
one and all to become real lovers of God in practise as well as in
theory.
We look forward with great interest and keen anticipation to
your speedy return to this Country, but, at the same time, we feel
real pleasure that India, which you have taught us to regard in an
altogether new light, and, we should like to add, to love, is to
share with us the generous service which you are giving to the
world.
In conclusion we would specially beg of you to convey our
loving sympathy to the Indian People, and to accept from us our
assurance that we regard their Cause as ours, realising as we do
from you that we are all One in God. 1

Address from New York

To our Indian Brethren

Dear Friends:
The Western Aryans send cordial greeting to the Aryans
of India.
We, in New York who have been so fortunate as to hear
the Vedanta Philosophy taught by the Swami Vivekananda,
are desirous of expressing to you in some small measure our
grateful recognition of his services to us.
He came, a stranger, unheralded, but, by the force of his
magnetic eloquence, and the purity of his personal character,
he commanded the attention and interest of thousands, and
attracted their minds to the study of a subject almost entirely
unknown to them. Here, in New York, where he taught and
lectured for two seasons, the impression he produced is so
deep, that we hope and trust it will extend until the Vedanta
Philos-
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567
ophy shall take permanent root among us, and its
comprehensive and tolerant teachings shall find lodgement
in hearts, and expression in the lives of large numbers of our
people. We who came into more immediate contact with
him, are deeply grateful for the noble work he did among us,
for the unselfish and self-sacrificing efforts he made in our
behalf; and we will try to the best of our ability to establish
on a lasting basis the study of the Vedanta Philosophy and to
promote the growth of knowledge concerning it.
We wish to extend to you his fellow countrymen, our
heartfelt sympathy in your present afflictions, with an
earnest hope that a way may be found to lighten them.
May the Swami Vivekananda's work among his own
people be blessed a thousandfold, and meet with the Fullest
measure of success. Should he return to us in the years to
come, he will receive a most cordial welcome. He has made
us feel that we are all of one kin, and all expressions of that
One Existence which is the background of the Universe. 2
Mary A. Phillips Secretary.

Address from Detroit

From this far-away city, in a land, old yet young, ruled

by a people who are a part of the ancient Aryan race, the
mother of nations, we send to you in your native country-
India, the conservator of the wisdom of the ages-our
warmest love and sincerest appreciation of the message you
brought to us. We, Western Aryans, have been so long
separated from our Eastern brothers that we had almost
forgotten our identity of origin, until you came and, with
beautiful presence and matchless eloquence, rekindled
within our hearts the knowledge that we of America and you
of India are one.
May God be with you! May blessings attend you! May
All Love and All-Wisdom guide you!

OM TAT SAT OM!3

[The above was signed by forty-two of
Swamiji's Detroit friends.]
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 Address from the Cambridge Conferences
TO SWAMI VIVEKANANDA-INDIA

DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER,

As members of the Cambridge Conferences devoted to com-
parative study in Ethics, Philosophy, and Religion, it gives us
great pleasure to recognize the value of your able expositions of
the Philosophy and Religion of Vedanta in America, and the
interest created thereby among thinking people. We believe such
expositions as have been given by yourself and your colabourer,
the Swami Saradananda, have more than. a mere speculative
interest and utility; that they are of great ethical value in
cementing the ties of friendship and brotherhood between distant
peoples, and in helping us to realize that solidarity of human
relationships and interests which has been affirmed by all the
great religions of the world.
We earnestly hope that your work in India may be blessed in
further promoting this noble end, and that you may return to us
again with assurances of fraternal regard from our distant brothers
of the great Aryan Family, and the ripe wisdom that comes from
reflection and added experience and fresh contact with the life
and thought of your people.
In view of the large opportunity for effective work presented
in these Conferences, we should be glad to know something of
your own plans for the coming years, and whether we may
anticipate your presence with us again as a teacher. It is our hope
that you will be able to return to us, in which event we can assure
you the cordial greetings of old friends and the certainty of
continued and increasing interest in your work. 4

We remain,
Cordially and fraternally yours,
LEWIS JANES, D.D., Director
C. C. EVERETT, D.D.
WM JAMES
JOHN H. WRIGHT
JOSIAH ROYCE
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 J.E.LOUGH (Pres.,Harvard Graduate
Philosophical Society 1895-96)
A.O.LOVEJOY(Secretary,do 1986-97)
RACHEL KENT TAYLOR (Pres.,
Radcliffe Philosophical Club,
1896-97)
SARA C. BULL
JOHN P. FOX

Address from the Brooklyn Ethical Association

The Pouch Mansion,
345, Clinton Avenue,
Brooklyn, N.Y., December 31st,1896.

To our Indian Brethren of the Great Aryan Family.

Dear Friends:-The return to India of the Swami Vivek-

ananda, the delegate of the Vedantists to the Parliament of
Religions in Chicago, and the teacher of the Religion and
Philosophy of the Vedanta in. England and America, is a
proper occasion for the expression of our warm fraternal
regard for our Eastern brethren, and our sincere hope that
one effect of the presence and teaching of the Swami
Vivekananda and the Swami Saradananda in our Western
world will be the establishment of closer relations of
sympathy and mutual helpfulness between India, England
and America.
We wish to testify to our high appreciation of the value
of the work of the Swami Vivekananda in this country. His
lectures before the Brooklyn Ethical Association opened up
a new world of thought to many of his hearers, and renewed
the interest of others in the comparative study of religious
and philosophic systems, which gives breadth to the mind,
and an uplifted stimulus to the moral nature. We can heartily
endorse the words of the Venerable Dean of the Harvard
Divinity School: "The Swami Vivekananda . . . has been, in
fact, a missionary from India to America. Everywhere he has
made warm personal friends; and his expositions of the
Hindu philos-
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ophy have been listened to with delight. . . . We may not be
so near to actual conversion as some seem to believe; but
Vivekananda has created a high degree of interest in himself
and his work."
We thank you for sending him to us. We wish him god-
speed in his educational work in his own country. We hope
he may return to us again with new lessons of wisdom
resulting from added thought and experience. And we
earnestly hope that the new avenues of sympathy opened by
the presence of himself and his brother Sannyasins will
result in mutual benefits, and a profound sense of the
solidarity and brotherhood of the human race. 5
On behalf of the Brooklyn Ethical Association
Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON,
President.
LEWIS G. JANES,
Ex-President.

Christmas Letter from Mrs. Bull

The following letter to the Sannyasins at Alambazar

Math was written, in part at least, at the suggestion of Mr.
Goodwin, who in a letter to Mrs. Bull dated December 11,
1896, had ventured: "By the by as I know it would be
appreciated if you would write to the Math a letter of
greeting &, particularly, expressing the ties of motherhood
between the West & India in time for Sri Ramakrishna's
birthday-Feb 20th." Mrs. Bull complied in her own way. She
chose the more immediately at hand celebration of Christ's
birthday as an occasion; and the style of her letter, the
sentiments it expressed, and the gift it proffered were pure
Sara Bull. (The reference in the following letter to a message
from Swamiji's mother was possibly to Bhuvaneshvari
Devi's nonextant reply to a Christmas 1894 greeting from
Mrs. Bull and other women of Cambridge. See Prophetic
Mission-2, chapter twelve, section four.) Mrs. Bull's letter to
Alambazar Math read :
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 To the Sons of
Ram Krishna Paramhansa
at the Muth in Calcutta
The divine message of your master, the acceptance of
which brings peace to the heart & good will to men,
enlightens, purifies & strengthens each believer's concept of
God & the Soul, whatever be his birth or environment. The
Vedanta in the light & warmth of his sacred example
vitalizes & establishes the pure teachings of Jesus; the way
chosen by our people as we gladly testify. You, the chosen
of his heart, with whom he lived & taught, have done us
here a great & brotherly service. The truths of revealed
religion have been made acceptable to modern thought &
agnosticism, a gift than which none could be greater.
Faithfully & ably your Vivekananda & Saradananda have
served us. Faithfully & affectionately may we share in your
special legacy, the up building of the influence of your
master's life & service. The ideal of Divine motherhood
made luminous by Ram Krishna while sending your
Sanyasis across the earth if needs be, not withholding in
cloistered retirement or forest life your message of light &
love, has indeed brought to western mothers the consolation
of timely help. No sweeter or nobler message than that of
Vivekananda's mother, blessing the work of her son in our
midst, has come to us. The human weakness of a mother's
heart received strength in wishing that her function be
fulfilled to him in homes his message had entered. Such
mothers are indeed worthy to bear & cherish children fit to
become the Sons of a Ram Krishna.
And now my message to you in turn is, that giving on
your part to these your mothers the spiritual bread of life as
faithfully as they cherished your helpless infancy &
childhood that you should become men & Sons of God,
makes the bond of Motherhood the world over Divine. Like
your revered Sankara Acharya, you will never fail to hear
the call of your mothers, through whom all women are
blessed by your labors. Their gift of their sons to
homelessness & service makes the record
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of Mary of more effect to us at this Christmas time. Guest-
rooms for your mothers to be added to the Muth where they
may retire for spiritual refreshment & help are a contribution
I would like to offer. If God wills, I will one day hope to
attend with one of them a devotional service at the Muth.
With prayers for the safe return to you of Vivekananda, for a
happy reunion of Ram Krishna's sons & people at the
birthday, & my salutations to the revered Sarada, & to each
of you severally, I am
Faithfully you,6
Sara C.Bull.
168 Brattle Street,
Cambridge. Dec. 25, 1896.
Massachusetts, U.S.A.

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