Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Volume 6
Epistles - Second Series-7
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Lectures and Discourses
Notes of Class Talks and Lectures
Writings: Prose and Poems - Original and Translated
Epistles - Second Series
Conversations and Dialogues ( From the Diary of a Disciple)
Epistles - Second Series
I Sir
II Sir
III Sir
I Sir
IV Sir
V M—
VI Sir
VII Sir
VIII Sir
IX Sir
X Sir
XI Sir
XII Sir
XIII Sir
XIV Sir
XV Sir
XVI Sir
XVII Sir
XVIII Sir
XIX Sir
XX Sir
XXI Sir
XXII Sir
XXIII Akhandananda
XXIV Sir
XXV Sir
XXVI Sir
XXVII Akhandananda
XXVIII Akhandananda
XXIX Sir
XXX Kali
XXXI Sir
XXXII Sir
XXXIII Sir
XXXIV Sharat
XXXV Govinda Sahay
XXXVI Govinda Sahay
XXXVII Govinda Sahay
XXXVIII Doctor
XXXIX Mother
XL Maharaja of Khetri
XLI Shashi
XLII Sir
XLIII Sisters
XLIV Sisters
XLV Brothers
XLVI Mother Sara
XLVII Brother disciples
XLVIII Mrs. Bull
IL Swami Ramakrisnananda
L Mrs. Bull
LI Dear and Beloved
LII Govinda Sahay
LIII Govinda Sahay
LIV Swami Ramakrishnanda
LV Akhandananda
LVI Dear and Beloved
LVII Mrs. Bull
LVIII Sarada
LIX Sanyal
LX Mrs. Bull
LXI Mrs. Bull
LXII Mrs. Bull
LXIII Shashi
LXIV Mrs. Bull
LXV Mrs. Bull
LXVI Mrs. Bull
LXVII Mrs. Bull
LXVIII Mrs. Bull
LXIX Shashi
LXX Alberta
LXXI Rakhal
LXXII Akhandananada
LXXIII Brother Disciples
LXXIV Rakhal
LXXV Shashi
LXXVI Rakhal
LXXVII Shashi
LXXVIII Rakhal
LXXIX Mrs. Bull
LXXX Mrs. Bull
LXXXI Mother
LXXXII Dear—
LXXXIII Rakhal
LXXXIV Mrs. Bull
LXXXV Akhandananda
LXXXVI Mrs. Bull
LXXXVII Alberta
LXXXVIII Mrs. Bull
LXXXIX Mrs. Bull
XC Sister
XCI Sarada
XCII Yogen
XCIII Mrs. Bull
XCIV Sarada
XCV Mrs. Bull
XCVI Mrs. Bull
XCVII Sarada
XCVIII Mrs. Bull
XCIX Mrs. Bull
C Shashi
CI Shashi
CII Frankincense
CIII Mrs. Bull
CIV Mrs. Bull
CV Sahji
CVI Shashi
CVII Mrs. Bull
CVIII Sister
CIX Joe Joe
CX Miss S. E. Waldo
CXI Mrs. Bull
CXII Mary
CXIII Mrs. Bull
CXIV Lalaji
CXV Dear—
CXVI Sisters
CXVII Alberta
CXVIII Mrs. Bull
CXIX Frankincense
CXX Alberta
CXXI Mary
CXXII Mrs. Bull
CXXIII Mary
CXXIV Sir
CXXV Shuddhananda
CXXVI Miss Noble
CXXVII Rakhal
CXXVIII Akhandananda
CXXIX Rakhal
CXXX Rakhal
CXXXI Akhandananda
CXXXII Akhandananda
CXXXIII Mrs. Bull
CXXXIV Mother
CXXXV Sarada
CXXXVI Akhandananda
CXXXVII Rakhal
CXXXVIII M—
CXXXIX Mother
CXL Mother
CXLI Margot
CXLII Friend
CXLIII Margot
CXLIV Dear
CXLV Dhira Mata
CXLVI Dear
CXLVII Mrs. Bull
CXLVIII Margot
CXLIX Margot
CL Mrs. Bull
CLI Margot
CLII Margot
CLIII Nivedita
CLIV Akhandananda
CLV Nivedita
CLVI Nivedita
CLVII Margot
CLVIII Joe
CLIX Nivedita
CLX Nivedita
CLXI Nivedita
CLXII Nivedita
CLXIII Mother
CLXIV Alberta
CLXV Joe
CLXVI Nivedita
CLXVII Joe
CLXVIII Nivedita
CLV
SAN FRANCISCO,
4th March, 1900.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
I don't want to work. I want to be quiet and rest. I know the time and the place; but the fate or Karma, I think, drives me on — work, work. We are like cattle driven to the slaughter-house — hastily nibbling a bite of grass on the roadside as they are driven along under the whip. And all this is our work, our fear — fear, the beginning of misery, of disease, etc. By being nervous and fearful we injure others, by being so fearful to hurt we hurt more. By trying so much to avoid evil we fall into its jaws.
What a mass of namby-pamby nonsense we create round ourselves!! It does us no good, it leads us on to the very thing we try to avoid — misery. ...
Oh, to become fearless, to be daring, to be careless of everything! . . .
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA
CLVI
SAN FRANCISCO,
25th March, 1900.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
I am much better and am growing very strong. I feel sometimes that freedom is near at hand, and the tortures of the last two years have been great lessons in many ways. Disease and misfortune come to do us good in the long run, although at the time we feel that we are submerged for ever.
I am the infinite blue sky; the clouds may gather over me, but I am the same infinite blue.
I am trying to get a taste of that peace which I know is my nature and everyone's nature. These tin pots of bodies and foolish dreams of happiness and misery — what are they?
My dreams are breaking. Om Tat Sat!
Yours,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLVII
1719 TURK STREET,
SAN FRANCISCO,
28th March, 1900.
MY DEAR MARGOT, (Margaret E. Noble or Sister Nivedita)
I am so glad at your good fortune. Things have got to come round if we are steady. I am sure you will get all the money you require here or in England.
I am working hard; and the harder I work, the better I feel. This ill health has done me a great good, sure. I am really understanding what non-attachment means. And I hope very soon to be perfectly non-attached.
We put all our energies to concentrate and get attached to one thing; but the other part, though equally difficult, we seldom pay any attention to — the faculty of detaching ourselves at a moment's notice from anything.
Both attachment and detachment perfectly developed make a man great and happy.
I am so glad at Mrs. Leggett's gift of $1,000. She is working up, wait. She has a great part to play in Ramakrishna's work, whether she knows it or not.
I enjoyed your accounts of Prof. Geddes, and Joe has a funny account of a clairvoyant. Things are just now beginning to turn. . . .
This letter, I think, Will reach you at Chicago. . . .
I had a nice letter from Max Gysic, the young Swiss who is a great friend of Miss Souter. Miss Souter also sends her love, and they ask to know the time when I come over to England. Many people are inquiring, they say.
Things have got to come round — the seed must die underground to come up as the tree. The last two years were the underground rotting. I never had a struggle in the jaws of death, but it meant a tremendous upheaval of the whole life. One such brought me to Ramakrishna, another sent me to the U.S., this has been the greatest of all. It is gone — I am so calm that it astonishes me sometimes!! I work every day morning and evening, eat anything any hour —
and go to bed at 12 p.m. in the night — but such fine sleep!! I never had such power of sleeping before!
Yours with all love and blessings,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLVIII
ALAMEDA, CALIFORNIA,
18th April, 1900.
MY DEAR JOE,
Just now I received yours and Mrs. Bull's welcome letter. I direct this to London. I am so glad Mrs. Leggett is on the sure way to recovery.
I am so sorry Mr. Leggett resigned the presidentship.
Well, I keep quiet for fear of making further trouble.
You know my methods are extremely harsh and once roused I may rattle A—
too much for his peace of mind.
I wrote to him only to tell him that his notions about Mrs. Bull are entirely wrong.
Work is always difficult; pray for me Joe that my works stop for ever, and my whole soul be absorbed in Mother. Her works, She knows.
You must be glad to be in London once more — the old friends, give them all my love and gratitude.
I am well, very well mentally. I feel the rest of the soul more shall that of the body. The battles are lost and won, I have bundled my things and am waiting for the great deliverer.
"Shiva, O Shiva, carry my boat to the other shore."
After all, Joe, I am only the boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the Banyan at Dakshineswar. That is my true nature; works and activities, doing good and so forth are all superimpositions. Now I again hear his voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking — love dying, work becoming tasteless — the glamour is off life. Only the voice of the Master calling. — "I come Lord, I come." "Let the dead bury the dead, follow thou Me." — "I come, my beloved Lord, I come."
Yes, I come. Nirvana is before me. I feel it at times — the same infinite ocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath.
I am glad I was born, glad I suffered so, glad I did make big blunders, glad to enter peace. I leave none bound, I take no bonds. Whether this body will fall and release me or I enter into freedom in the body, the old man is gone, gone for ever, never to come back again! The guide, the Guru, the leader, the teacher has passed away; the boy, the student, the servant is left behind.
You understand why I do not want to meddle with A—. Who am I to meddle with anyone, Joe? I have long given up my place as a leader — I have no right to raise my voice. Since the beginning of this year I have not dictated anything in India. You know that. Many thanks for what you and Mrs. Bull have been to me in the past. All blessings follow you ever! The sweetest moments of my life have been when I was drifting: I am drifting again — with the bright warm sun ahead and masses of vegetation around — and in the heat everything is so still, so calm — and I am drifting languidly — in the warm heart of the river! I dare not make a splash with my hands or feet — for fear of breaking the marvellous stillness, stillness that makes you feel sure it is an illusion!
Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst of power! Now they are vanishing, and I drift. I come! Mother, I come! In Thy warm bosom, floating wheresoever Thou takest me, in the voiceless, in the strange, in the wonderland, I come — a spectator, no more an actor.
Oh, it is so calm! My thoughts seem to come from a great, great distance in the interior of my own heart. They seem like rains, distant whispers, and peace is upon every thing, sweet, sweet peace — like that one feels for a few moments just before falling into sleep, when things are seen and felt like shadows —
without fear, without love, without emotion. Peace that one feels alone, surrounded with statues and pictures — I come! Lord, I come!
The world is, but not beautiful nor ugly, but as sensations without exciting any emotion. Oh, Joe, the blessedness of it! Everything is good and beautiful; for things are all losing their relative proportions to me — my body among the first. Om That Existence!
I hope great things to come to you all in London and Paris. Fresh joy — fresh benefits to mind and body.
With love as ever to you and Mrs. Bull,
Yours faithfully,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLIX
NEW YORK
20th June, 1900.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
. . . Well, Mother seems to be kind again and the wheel is slowly rising up. . . .
Yours etc.
VIVEKANANDA.
CLX
NEW YORK,
2nd July, 1900.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
. . . Mother knows, as I always say. Pray to Mother. It is hard work to be a leader — one must crush all one's own self under the feet of the community. . .
.
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXI
6 PLACE DES ETATS UNIS, PARIS,
25th Aug., 1900.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
Your letter reached me just now. Many thanks for the kind expressions.
I gave a chance to Mrs. Bull to draw her money out of the Math; and as she did not say anything about it, and the trust deeds were waiting here to be executed, I got them executed duly at the British Consulate; and they are on their way to India now.
Now I am free, as I have kept no power or authority or position for me in the work. I also have resigned the presidentship of the Ramakrishna Mission.
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., etc., in turn.
I am so glad a whole load is off me, now I am happy. I have served Ramakrishna through mistakes and success for 20 years now. I retire for good and devote the rest of my life to myself.
I no longer represent anybody, nor am I responsible to anybody. As to my friends, I had a morbid sense of obligation. I have thought well and find I owe nothing to anybody; if anything, I have given my best energies, unto death almost, and received only hectoring and mischief-making and botheration. I am done with everyone here and in India.
Your letter indicates that I am jealous of your new friends. You must know once for all, I am born without jealousy, without avarice, without the desire to rule — whatever other vices I am born with.
I never directed you before; now, after I am nobody in the work, I have no direction whatever. I only know this much: So long as you serve "Mother" with a whole heart, She will be your guide.
I never had any jealousy about what friends you made. I never criticised my brethren for mixing up in anything. Only I do believe the Western people have the peculiarity of trying to force upon others whatever seems good to them, forgetting that what is good for you may not be good for others. As such, I am afraid you might try to force upon others whatever turn your mind might take in contact with new friends. That was the only reason I sometimes tried to stop any particular influence, and nothing else.
You are free, have your own choice, your own work. ...
Friends or foes, they are all instruments in Her hands to help us work out our own Karma, through pleasure or pain. As such "Mother" bless them all.
With all love and blessings,
Yours affectionately,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXII
PARIS,
28th August, 1900.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
Such is life — grind, grind; and yet what else are we to do? Grind, grind!
Something will come — some way will be opened. If it does not, as it probably never will — then, then — what then? All our efforts are only to stave off, for a season, the great climax — death! Oh, what would the world do without you, Death! Thou great healer!
The world, as it is, is not real, is not eternal, thank the Lord!! How can the future be any better? That must be an effect of this one — at least like this, if not worse!
Dreams, oh dreams! Dream on! Dream, the magic of dream, is the cause of this life, it is also the remedy. Dream' dream; only dream! Kill dream by dream!
I arm trying to learn French, talking to — here. Some are very appreciative already. Talk to all the world — of the eternal riddle, the eternal spool of fate, whose thread-end no one finds and everyone seems to find, at least to his own satisfaction, at least for a time — to fool himself a moment, isn't it?
Well, now great things are to be done! Who cares for great things? Why not do small things as well? One is as good as the other. The greatness of little things, that is what the Gita teaches — bless the old book!! . . .
I have not had much time to think of the body. So it must be well. Nothing is ever well here. We forget them at times, and that is being well and doing well. .
We play our parts here — good or bad. When the dream is finished and we have left the stage, we will have a hearty laugh at all this — of this only I am sure.
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXIII
6 PLACE DES ETATS UNIS, PARIS,
3rd Sept., 1900.
DEAR MOTHER, (Mrs. Francis Leggett.)
We had a congress of cranks here in this house.
The representatives came from various countries, from India in the south, to Scotland in the north, with England and America buttressing the sides.
We were having great difficulty in electing the president, for though Dr. James (Professor William James) was there, he was more mindful of the blisters raised on him by Mrs. Melton (probably a magnetic healer) than solution of world problems.
I proposed Joe (Josephine MacLeod), but she refused on the ground of non-arrival of her new gown — and went to a corner to watch the scene, from a coign of vantage.
Mrs. (Ole) Bull was ready, but Margot (Sister Nivedita) objected to this meeting being reduced to a comparative philosophy class.
When we were thus in a fix — up sprung a short, square, almost round figure from the corner, and without any ceremony declared that all difficulties will be solved, not only of electing a president but of life itself, if we all took to worshipping the Sun God and Moon God. He delivered his speech in five minutes; but it took his disciple, who was present, fully three quarters of an hour to translate. In the meanwhile, the master began to draw the rugs in your parlour up in a heap, with the intention, as he said, of giving us an ocular demonstration of the power of "Fire God", then and there.
At this juncture Joe interposed and insisted that she did not want a fire sacrifice in her parlour; whereupon the Indian saint looked daggers at Joe, entirely disgusted at the behaviour of one he confidently believed to be a perfect convert to fire worship.
Then Dr. James snatched a minute from nursing his blisters and declared that he would have something very interesting to speak upon Fire God and his brethren, if he were not entirely occupied with the evolution of Meltonian blisters. Moreover his great Master, Herbert Spencer, not having investigated the subject before him, he would stick to golden silence.
"Chutney is the thing", said a voice near the door. We all looked back and saw Margot. "It is Chutney," she said, "Chutney and Kali, that will remove all difficulties of Life, and make it easy for us to swallow all evils, and relish what is good." But she stopped all of a sudden and vehemently asserted that she was not going to speak any further, as she has been obstructed by a certain male animal in the audience in her speech. She was sure one man in the audience had his head turned towards the window and was not paying the attention proper to a lady, and though as to herself she believed in the equality of the sexes, yet she wanted to know the reason of that disgusting man's want of due respect for women. Then one and all declared that they had been giving her the most undivided attention, and all above the equal right, her due, but to no purpose.
Margot would have nothing to do with that horrible crowd and sat down.
Then Mrs. Bull of Boston took the floor and began to explain how all the difficulties of the world were from not understanding the true relation between the sexes. She said, "The only panacea was a right understanding of the proper persons, and then to find liberty in love and freedom in liberty and motherhood, brotherhood, fatherhood, Godhood, love in freedom and freedom in love, in the right holding up of the true ideal in sex."
To this the Scotch delegate vehemently objected and said that as the hunter chased the goatherd, the goatherd the shepherd, the shepherd the peasant, and the peasant drove the fisher into the sea, now we wanted to fish out of the deep the fisher and let him fall upon the peasant, the peasant upon the shepherd, and so on; and the web of life will be completed and we will be all happy. He was not allowed to continue his driving businesss long. In a second everyone was on his feet, and we could only hear a confusion of voices — "Sun God and Moon God", "Chutney and Kali," "Freedom holdings up right understanding, sex, motherhood", "Never, the fisherman must go back to the shore", etc.
Whereupon Joe declared that she was yearning to be the hunter for the time and chase them all out of the house if they did not stop their nonsense.
Then was peace and calm restored, and I hasten to write you about it.
Yours affly.,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXIV
6 PLACE DES ETATS UNIS,
PARIS, FRANCE,
10th September, 1900.
DEAR ALBERTA,
I am surely coming this evening and of course will be very glad to meet the princess (probably Princess Demidoff) and her brother. But if it be too late to find my way out here, you will have to find me a place to sleep in the house.
Yours with love and blessings,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXV
THE MATH, BELUR,
11th Dec., 1900.
DEAR JOE,
I arrived night before last. Alas! my hurrying was of no use.
Poor Captain Sevier passed away, a few days ago — thus two great Englishmen gave up their lives for us — us the Hindus. Thus is martyrdom if anything is. Mrs. Sevier I have written to just now, to know her decision.
I am well, things are well here — every way. Excuse this haste. I will write longer ere long.
Ever yours in truth,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXVI
THE MATH, BELUR, HOWRAH,
19th Dec., 1900.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
Just a voice across the continents to say, how do you do? Are you not surprised? Verily I am a bird of passage. Gay and busy Paris, grim old Constantinople, sparkling little Athens, and pyramidal Cairo are left behind, and here I am writing in my room on the Ganga, in the Math. It is so quiet and still! The broad river is dancing in the bright sunshine, only now and then an occasional cargo boat breaking the silence with the splashing of the oars. It is the cold season here, but the middle of the day is warm and bright every day.
But it is the winter of Southern California. Everything is green and gold, and the grass is like velvet; yet the air is cold and crisp and delightful.
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXVII
THE MATH, BELUR, HOWRAH,
26th Dec., 1900.
DEAR JOE,
This mail brought your letter including that of Mother and Alberta. What the learned friend of Alberta says about Russia is about the same I think myself.
Only there is one difficulty of thought: Is it possible for the Hindu race to be Russianised?
Dear Mr. Sevier passed away before I could arrive. He was cremated on the banks of the river that flows by his Ashrama, à la Hindu, covered with garlands, the Brahmins carrying the body and boys chanting the Vedas.
The cause has already two martyrs. It makes me love dear old England and its heroic breed. The Mother is watering the plant of future India with the best blood of England. Glory unto Her!
Dear Mrs. Sevier is calm. A letter she wrote me to Paris comes back this mail. I am going up tomorrow to pay her a visit. Lord bless her, dear brave soul!
I am calm and strong. Occasion never found me low yet Mother will not make me now depressed.
It is very pleasant here, now the winter is on. The Himalayas will be still more beautiful with the uncovered snows.
The young man who started from New York, Mr. Johnston, has taken the vow of a Brahmachârin and is at Mayavati.
Send the money to Saradananda in the Math, as I will be away in the hills.
They have worked all right as far as they could; I am glad, and feel myself quite a fool on account of my nervous chagrin.
They are as good and as faithful as ever, and they are in good health. Write all this to Mrs. Bull and tell her she was always right and I was wrong, and I beg a hundred thousand pardons of her.
Oceans of love for her and for M—
I look behind and after
And find that all is right.
In my deepest sorrows
There is a soul of light.
All love to M—, Mrs. C—, to Dear J.B.— , and to you, Dear Joe, Pranâms.
VIVEKANANDA.
CLXVIII
THE MATH, BELUR,
7th Sept., 1901.
DEAR NIVEDITA,
We all work by bits, that is to say, in this cause. I try to keep down the spring, but something or other happens, and the spring goes whirr, and there you are —
thinking, remembering, scribbling, scrawling, and all that!
Well, about the rains — they have come down now in right earnest, and it is a deluge, pouring, pouring, pouring night and day. The river is rising, flooding the banks; the ponds and tanks have overflowed. I have just now returned from lending a hand in cutting a deep drain to take off the water from the Math grounds. The rain-water stands at places some feet high. My huge stork is full of glee, and so are the ducks and geese. My tame antelope fled from the Math and gave us some days of anxiety in finding him out. One of my ducks unfortunately died yesterday. She had been gasping for breath more than a week. One of my waggish old monks says, "Sir, it is no use living in this Kali-Yuga when ducks catch cold from damp and rain, and frogs sneeze!"
One of the geese had her plumes falling off. Knowing no other method, I left her some minutes in a tub of water mixed with mild carbolic, so that it might either kill or heal; and she is all right now.
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.
