List of abbreviations_x000d_
_x000d_
_x000d_
In this section, only Swami Vivekananda's direct words have been placed within quotation marks. References have been iden¬tified by the following abbreviations:_x000d_
_x000d_
ND Burke, Marie Louise. Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries. 6 vols. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1983 87. _x000d_
_x000d_
CWSN Nivedita, Sister. The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita. Vol. 1. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1982._x000d_
_x000d_
LSN Nivedita, Sister. Letters of Sister Nivedita. 2 vols. Compiled and edited by Sankari Prasad Basu. Cal¬cutta: Nababharat Publishers, 1982._x000d_
_x000d_
VIN Basu, Sankari Prasad and Ghosh, Sunil Bihari, eds. Vivekananda in Indian Newspapers: 1893 1902. Calcutta: Dineshchandra Basu, Basu Bhattacharya and Co., 1969. _x000d_
_x000d_
1. From Mrs. Prince Woods's description of Swami Viveka nanda's departure from the Woods's residence in Salem, Massa¬chusetts, in August 1893. Swami Vivekananda gave his staff, his most precious possession, to Dr. Woods, who was at that time a young medical student, and his trunk and his blanket to Mrs. Kate T. Woods, saying:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Only my most precious possessions should I give to my friends who have made me at home in this great country." (ND 1: 42)_x000d_
2. On the back of Swami Vivekananda's transcription from Louis Rousselet's book India and Its Native Princes__Travels in Central India and in the Presidencies of Bombay and Bengal, dated February 11, 1894:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I say there is but one remedy for one too anxious for the future__to go down on his knees." (ND 1: 225)_x000d_
3. An extract from a prayer Swami Vivekananda delivered at the Chicago World's Parliament of Religions:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me to bear the little burden of this life." (ND 2: 32)_x000d_
4. An extract from another prayer offered by Swami Viveka nanda at the Chicago World's Parliament of Religions:_x000d_
_x000d_
"At the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One through whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth. And what is His nature? He is every¬where the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All Merciful. Thou art our Father. Thou art our beloved Friend." (ND 2: 33)_x000d_
_x000d_
5. From Mary T. Wright's journal entry dated Saturday, May 12, 1894:_x000d_
_x000d_
The widows of high caste in India do not marry, he said; only the widows of low caste may marry, may eat, drink, dance, have as many husbands as they choose, divorce them all, in short enjoy all the benefits of the highest society in this country. . . ._x000d_
"When we are fanatical", he said, "we torture ourselves, we throw ourselves under huge cars, we cut our throats, we lie on spiked beds; but when you are fanatical you cut other people's throats, you torture them by fire and put them on spiked beds! You take very good care of your own skins!" (ND 2: 58 59)_x000d_
6. An 1894 extract from the Greenacre Voice, quoting one of the Swami's teachings delivered at Greenacre, Maine:_x000d_
_x000d_
"You and I and everything in the universe are that Absolute, not parts, but the whole. You are the whole of that Abso¬lute." (ND 2: 150)_x000d_
7. In a March 5, 1899 letter from Sister Nivedita to Miss Jose phine MacLeod:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I am at heart a mystic, Margot, all this reasoning is only apparent__I am really always on the lookout for signs and things__and so I never bother about the fate of my initia¬tions. If they want to be Sannyâsins badly enough I feel that the rest is not my business. Of course it has its bad side. I have to pay dearly for my blunder sometimes__but it has one advantage. It has kept me still a Sannyasin through all this__and that is my ambition, to die a real Sannyasin as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa actually was__free from lust___x000d_
and desire of wealth, and thirst for fame. That thirst for fame is the worst of all filth." (ND 3: 128 29)_x000d_
_x000d_
8. From John Henry Wright's March 27, 1896 letter to Mary Tappan Wright, in which Swami Vivekananda stated that Eng¬land is just like India with its castes:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I had to have separate classes for the two castes. For the high caste people__Lady This and Lady That, Honourable This and Honourable That__I had classes in the morning; for the low caste people, who came pell mell, I had classes in the evening." (ND 4: 73)_x000d_
9. While Swami Vivekananda was offering flowers at the feet of the Virgin Mary in a small chapel in Switzerland in the sum¬mer of 1896, he said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"For she also is the Mother." (ND 4: 276)_x000d_
10. From Mr. J. J. Goodwin's October 23, 1896 letter to Mrs. Ole Bull, quoting Swami Vivekananda's conversation at Grey¬coat Gardens in London:_x000d_
_x000d_
"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." (ND 4: 385)_x000d_
11. A November 20, 1896 entry from Swami Abhedananda's diary, quoting Swami Vivekananda's observation of the English people:_x000d_
_x000d_
"You can't make friends here without knowing their cus toms, behaviour, politics. You have to know the manners of the rich, the cultured and the poor." (ND 4: 478)_x000d_
12. In Mr. J. J. Goodwin's November 11, 1896 letter to Mrs. Ole Bull, quoting Swami Vivekananda's unpublished statement toward the end of "Practical Vedanta__IV":_x000d_
_x000d_
"A Jiva can never attain absolutely to Brahman until the whole of Mâyâ disappears. While there is still a Jiva left in Maya, there can be no soul absolutely free. . . . Vedantists are divided on this point." (ND 4: 481)_x000d_
13. From Swami Saradananda's letter to a brother disciple, concerning Swami Vivekananda's last days:_x000d_
_x000d_
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". (ND 4: 521)_x000d_
14. In an October 13, 1898 letter to Mrs. Ashton Jonson, writ¬ten from Kashmir, Sister Nivedita described Swami Viveka nanda's spiritual mood:_x000d_
_x000d_
To him at this moment "doing good" seems horrible. "Only the Mother does anything. Patriotism is a mistake. Every¬thing is a mistake. It is all Mother. . . . All men are good. Only we cannot reach all. . . . I am never going to teach any more. Who am I that I should teach anyone? . . . Swamiji is dead and gone." (ND 5: 3 4)_x000d_
15. From Mr. Sachindranath Basu's letter recounting Swami Vivekananda's closing remarks in his talk to swamis and novices assembled at Belur Math, June 19, 1899:_x000d_
_x000d_
"My sons, all of you be men. This is what I want! If you are even a little successful, I shall feel my life has been meaningful." (ND 5: 17)_x000d_
16. During an evening talk with Swami Saradananda in the spring of 1899:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Men should be taught to be practical, physically strong. A dozen such lions will conquer the world, not millions of _x000d_
_x000d_
sheep. Men should not be taught to imitate a personal ideal, however great." (ND 5: 17)_x000d_
17. From Mrs. Mary C. Funke's reminiscences of her August 1899 voyage to America with Swamis Vivekananda and Turiya nanda:_x000d_
_x000d_
"And if all this Maya is so beautiful, think of the wondrous beauty of the Reality behind it!" (ND 5: 76)_x000d_
_x000d_
"Why recite poetry when there [pointing to sea and sky] is the very essence of poetry?" (Ibid.)_x000d_
18. In Miss Josephine MacLeod's September 3, 1899 letter to Mrs. Ole Bull:_x000d_
_x000d_
"In one's greatest hour of need one stands alone." (ND 5: 122)_x000d_
19. From Sister Nivedita's October 27, 1899 diary entry at Ridgely Manor, in which Swami Vivekananda expressed his con¬cern for Olea Bull Vaughn:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Nightmares always begin pleasantly__only at the worst point [the] dream is broken__so death breaks [the] dream of life. Love death." (ND 5: 138)_x000d_
20. In a December 1899 letter from Miss Josephine MacLeod to Sister Nivedita:_x000d_
_x000d_
"All the ideas the Californians have of me emanated from Chicago." (ND 5: 179)_x000d_
21. From Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences which quoted Swami Vivekananda as telling Mr. Baumgardt:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I can talk on the same subject, but it will not be the same lecture." (ND 5: 230)_x000d_
22. Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences relating Swami Vivekananda's response to her sight seeing attempts:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Do not show me sights. I have seen the Himalayas! I would not go ten steps to see sights; but I would go a thou¬sand miles to see a [great] human being!" (ND 5: 244)_x000d_
23. From Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences relating Swami Vivekananda's interest in the problem of child training:_x000d_
_x000d_
He did not believe in punishment. It had never helped him, he said, and added, "I would never do anything to make a child afraid". (ND 5: 253)_x000d_
24. Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's record of Swami Vivekananda's explanation of God to seventeen year old Ralph Wyckoff:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Can you see your own eyes? God is like that. He is as close as your own eyes. He is your own, even though you can't see Him." (ND 5: 254)_x000d_
25. Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences regarding Swami Vivekananda's opinion of the low caste English soldiers who occupied India:_x000d_
_x000d_
"If anyone should despoil the Englishman's home, the En¬glishman would kill him, and rightly so. But the Hindu just sits and whines!_x000d_
"Do you think that a handful of Englishmen could rule India if we had a militant spirit? I teach meat eating throughout the length and breadth of India in the hope that we can build a militant spirit!" (ND 5: 256)_x000d_
26. Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences of a picnic in Pasa dena, California when a Christian Science woman suggested to Swami Vivekananda that one should teach people to be good:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Why should I desire to be 'good'? All this is His handi¬work [waving his hand to indicate the trees and the country¬side]. Shall I apologize for His handiwork? If you want to reform John Doe, go and live with him; don't try to reform him. If you have any of the Divine Fire, he will catch it." (ND 5: 257)_x000d_
27. From Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences:_x000d_
_x000d_
"When once you consider an action, do not let anything dis¬suade you. Consult your heart, not others, and then follow its dictates." (ND 5: 311)_x000d_
28. From Mr. Frank Rhodehamel's notes taken during a March 1900 lecture in Oakland, California:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Never loved a husband the wife for the wife's sake, or the wife the husband for the husband's sake. It is God in the wife the husband loves, and God in the husband the wife loves. It is God in everyone that draws us to that one in love. [It is] God in everything, in everybody that makes us love. God is the only love. . . . In everyone is God, the Atman; all else is but dream, an illusion." (ND 5: 362)_x000d_
29. From Mr. Frank Rhodehamel's notes taken during a March 1900 lecture in Oakland, California:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Oh, if you only knew yourselves! You are souls; you are gods. If ever I feel [that I am] blaspheming, it is when I call you man." (ND 5: 362)_x000d_
_x000d_
30. An excerpt from Mr. Thomas J. Allan's reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda's March 1900 San Francisco lecture series on India:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Send us mechanics to teach us how to use our hands, and we will send you missionaries to teach you spirituality." (ND 5: 365)_x000d_
31. Mrs. Edith Allan's reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda's philosophical observations while cooking at the Turk Street flat:_x000d_
_x000d_
"'The Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, by His illusive power causing all beings to revolve as though mounted on a potter's wheel.' [Bhagavad Gitâ XVIII.61] This has all happened before, like the throw of a dice, so it is in life; the wheel goes on and the same combination comes up; that pitcher and glass have stood there before, so, too, that onion and potato. What can we do, Madam, He has us on the wheel of life." (ND 6: 17)_x000d_
32. From Mrs. Edith Allan's reminiscences of an after lunch conversation:_x000d_
_x000d_
"The Master said he would come again in about two hun¬dred years__and I will come with him. When a Master comes, he brings his own people." (ND 6: 17)_x000d_
33. Mrs. Edith Allan's reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda's "kitchen" counsel while he was staying in San Francisco, Cali¬fornia, in 1900:_x000d_
_x000d_
"If I consider myself greater than the ant that crawls on the ground I am ignorant." (ND 6: 19)_x000d_
_x000d_
"Madam, be broad minded; always see two ways. When I am on the heights I say, 'Shivoham, Shivoham: I am He, I am He!' and when I have the stomachache I say, 'Mother have mercy on me!'" (Ibid.)_x000d_
_x000d_
"Learn to be the witness. If two dogs are fighting on the street and I go out there, I get mixed up in the fight; but if I stay quietly in my room, I witness the fight from the win¬dow. So learn to be the witness." (Ibid.)_x000d_
34. From Mr. Thomas J. Allan's reminiscences of a private talk with Swami Vivekananda in San Francisco, California, 1900:_x000d_
_x000d_
"We do not progress from error to truth, but from truth to truth. Thus we must see that none can be blamed for what they are doing, because they are, at this time, doing the best they can. If a child has an open razor, don't try to take it from him, but give him a red apple or a brilliant toy, and he will drop the razor. But he who puts his hand in the fire will be burned; we learn only from experience." (ND 6: 42)_x000d_
35. From Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences of a walk home with Swami Vivekananda after one of his lectures in San Francisco in 1900:_x000d_
_x000d_
"You have heard that Christ said, 'My words are spirit and they are life'. So are my words spirit and life; they will burn their way into your brain and you will never get away from them!" (ND 6: 57 58)_x000d_
36. From Mrs. Alice Hansbrough's reminiscences in San Francisco, 1900__referring to Swami Vivekananda's great heart:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I may have to be born again because I have fallen in love with man." (ND 6: 79)_x000d_
37. From Mrs. George Roorbach's reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda at Camp Taylor, California, in May 1900:_x000d_
_x000d_
"In my first speech in this country, in Chicago, I addressed that audience as 'Sisters and Brothers of America', and you know that they all rose to their feet. You may wonder what made them do this, you may wonder if I had some strange power. Let me tell you that I did have a power and this is it_x000d_
__never once in my life did I allow myself to have even one sexual thought. I trained my mind, my thinking, and the powers that man usually uses along that line I put into a higher channel, and it developed a force so strong that nothing could resist it." (ND 6: 155)_x000d_
38. In a conversation with Swami Turiyananda, which probably took place in New York:_x000d_
_x000d_
"The call has come from Above: 'Come away, just come away__no need of troubling your head to teach others'. It is now the will of the Grand Old Lady that the play should be over." (ND 6: 373)_x000d_
39. In a July 1902 Prabuddha Bharata eulogy, "a Western dis¬ciple" wrote:_x000d_
_x000d_
The Swami had but scant sympathy with iconoclasts, for as he wisely remarked, "The true philosopher strives to destroy nothing, but to help all". (VIN: 638)_x000d_
40. Sister Nivedita's reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda in an October 9, 1899 letter to Miss Josephine MacLeod:_x000d_
_x000d_
He has turned back on so much__"Let your life in the world be nothing but a thinking to yourself". (LSN I: 213)_x000d_
41. Swami Vivekananda's luncheon remarks to Mrs. Ole Bull, recorded by Sister Nivedita in an October 18, 1899 letter to Miss Josephine MacLeod:_x000d_
_x000d_
"You see, there is one thing called love, and there is another thing called union. And union is greater than love._x000d_
"I do not love religion. I have become identified with it. It is my life. So no man loves that thing in which his life has been spent, in which he really has accomplished something. That which we love is not yet ourself. Your husband did not love music for which he had always stood. He loved engineering in which as yet he knew comparatively little. This is the difference between Bhakti and Jnâna; and this is why Jnana is greater than Bhakti." (LSN I: 216)_x000d_
42. Swami Vivekananda's remarks on his spiritual ministry, recorded in Sister Nivedita's October 15, 1904 letter to Miss Josephine MacLeod:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Only when they go away will they know how much they have received." (LSN II: 686)_x000d_
43. Sister Nivedita's reminiscences in a November 5, 1904 letter to Alberta Sturges (Lady Sandwich) of Swami Vivekananda's talk on renunciation while he was staying at Ridgely Manor:_x000d_
_x000d_
"In India we never say that you should renounce a higher thing for a lower. It is better to be absorbed in music or in literature than in comfort or pleasure, and we never say otherwise." (LSN II: 690)_x000d_
44. In Sister Nivedita's November 19, 1909 letter to Miss Jose phine MacLeod:_x000d_
_x000d_
"The fire burns if we plunge our hand in__whether we feel it or not__so it is with him who speaks the name of God." (LSN II: 1030)_x000d_
_x000d_
45. Swami Vivekananda's reminiscences of Shri Ramakrishna, recorded in Sister Nivedita's July 6, 1910 letter to Dr. T. K. Cheyne:_x000d_
_x000d_
"He could not imagine himself the teacher of anyone. He was like a man playing with balls of many colours, and leaving it to others to select which they would for them¬selves." (LSN II: 1110)_x000d_
46. Sister Nivedita's reminiscences of a conversation with Swami Vivekananda at Ridgely Manor, recorded in an 1899 letter written from Ridgely Manor to Miss Josephine MacLeod:_x000d_
_x000d_
I have never heard the Prophet talk so much of Shri Rama krishna. He told us what I had heard before of [his master's] infallible judgement of men. . . ._x000d_
"And so", Swami said, "you see my devotion is the dog's devotion. I have been wrong so often and he has always been right, and now I trust his judgement blindly". And then he told us how he would hypnotize anyone who came to him and in two minutes know all about him, and Swami said that from this he had learnt to count our consciousness as a very small thing. (LSN II: 1263)_x000d_
47. From Sister Nivedita's January 27, 1900 letter to Sister Christine:_x000d_
_x000d_
Swami said today that he is beginning to see the needs of humanity in quite a different light__that he is already sure of the principle that is to help, but is spending hours every day in trying to solve the methods. That what he had known hitherto is for men living in a cave__alone, undisturbed___x000d_
but now he will give "humanity something that will make for strength in the stress of daily life". (LSN II: 1264)_x000d_
48. In a July 7, 1902 letter to Sister Christine, Sister Nivedita recorded one of Swami Vivekananda's remarks made while giving a class to the monks at Belur Math on July 4, 1902:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Do not copy me. Kick out the man who imitates." (LSN II: 1270)_x000d_
49. The Swami's comment after he made a statement concerning the ideal of the freedom of the soul, which brought it into ap¬parent conflict with the Western conception of the service of hu¬manity as the goal of the individual:_x000d_
_x000d_
"You will say that this does not benefit society. But before this objection can be admitted you will first have to prove that the maintenance of society is an object in itself." (CWSN 1: 19)_x000d_
50. Sister Nivedita wrote:_x000d_
_x000d_
He touched on the question of his own position as a wan¬dering teacher and expressed the Indian diffidence with re¬gard to religious organization or, as someone expresses it, "with regard to a faith that ends in a church". "We believe", he said, "that organization always breeds new evils"._x000d_
He prophesied that certain religious developments then much in vogue in the West would speedily die, owing to love of money. And he declared that "Man proceeds from truth to truth, and not from error to truth". (CWSN 1: 19 20)
51. "The universe is like a cobweb and minds are the spiders; for mind is one as well as many." (CWSN 1: 21)_x000d_
52. "Let none regret that they were difficult to convince! I fought my Master for six years with the result that I know every inch of the way! Every inch of the way!" (CWSN 1: 22)_x000d_
53. Swami Vivekananda was elucidating to what heights of selflessness the path of love leads and how it draws out the very best faculties of the soul:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Suppose there were a baby in the path of the tiger! Where would your place be then? At his mouth__any one of you_x000d_
__I am sure of it." (CWSN 1: 24)_x000d_
54. "That by which all this is pervaded, know That to be the Lord Himself!" (CWSN 1: 27)_x000d_
55. Concerning Swami Vivekananda's attitude toward religion:_x000d_
_x000d_
Religion was a matter of the growth of the individual, "a question always of being and becoming". (CWSN 1: 28)_x000d_
56. "Forgive when you also can bring legions of angels to an easy victory." While victory was still doubtful, however, only a coward to his thinking would turn the other cheek. (CWSN 1: 28 29)_x000d_
57. "Of course I would commit a crime and go to hell forever if by that I could really help a human being!" (CWSN 1: 34)_x000d_
58. To a small group, including Sister Nivedita, after a lecture:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I have a superstition__it is nothing, you know, but a per¬sonal superstition!__that the same soul who came once as Buddha came afterwards as Christ." (CWSN 1: 35)_x000d_
59. After Swami Vivekananda was told of Sister Nivedita's willingness to serve India:_x000d_
_x000d_
"For my own part I will be incarnated two hundred times, if that is necessary, to do this work amongst my people that I have undertaken." (CWSN 1: 36)_x000d_
60. Sister Nivedita's memory of an incident:_x000d_
_x000d_
He was riding on one occasion with the Raja of Khetri, when he saw that his arm was bleeding profusely and found that the wound had been caused by a thorny branch which he had held aside for himself to pass. When the Swami ex¬postulated, the Rajput laughed the matter aside. "Are we not always the defenders of the faith, Swamiji?" he said._x000d_
"And then", said the Swami, telling the story, "I was just going to tell him that they ought not to show such honour to the Sannyasin, when suddenly I thought that perhaps they were right after all. Who knows? Maybe I too am caught in the glare of this flashlight of your modern civilization, which is only for a moment"._x000d_
"__I have become entangled", he said simply to one who protested that to his mind the wandering Sâdhu of earlier years, who had scattered his knowledge and changed his name as he went, had been greater than the abbot of Belur, burdened with much work and many cares. "I have become entangled." (CWSN 1: 43)_x000d_
61. Sister Nivedita wrote:_x000d_
_x000d_
One day he was talking in the West of Mirâ Bâi__that saint who once upon a time was Queen of Chitore__and of the freedom her husband had offered her if only she would re¬main within the royal seclusion. But she could not be bound. "But why should she not?" someone asked in aston¬ishment. "Why should she?" he retorted. "Was she living down here in this mire?" (CWSN 1: 44)_x000d_
62. As years went by, the Swami dared less and less to make determinate plans or dogmatize about the unknown:_x000d_
_x000d_
"After all, what do we know? Mother uses it all. But we are only fumbling about." (CWSN 1: 44)_x000d_
63. Quoting Swami Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita remembered:_x000d_
_x000d_
Love was not love, it was insisted, unless it was "without a reason" or without a "motive" . . . . (CWSN 1: 52)_x000d_
64. About Swami Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita wrote:_x000d_
_x000d_
When asked by some of his own people what he considered, after seeing them in their own country, to be the greatest achievement of the English, he answered "that they had known how to combine obedience with self respect". (CWSN 1: 54)_x000d_
65. Swami Sadananda reported that early in the morning, while it was still dark, Swami Vivekananda would rise and call the others, singing:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Awake! Awake! all ye who would drink of the divine nec¬tar!" (CWSN 1: 56)_x000d_
66. Sister Nivedita remembered:_x000d_
_x000d_
At this time [during the Swami's itinerant days, near Almora] he passed some months in a cave overhanging a mountain village. Only twice have I known him to allude to this experience. Once he said, "Nothing in my whole life ever so filled me with the sense of work to be done. It was as if I were thrown out from that life in caves to wander to and fro in the plains below". And again he said to someone, "It is not the form of his life that makes a Sadhu. For it is possible to sit in a cave and have one's whole mind filled with the question of how many pieces of bread will be brought to one for supper!" (CWSN 1: 61)_x000d_
67. About his own poem "Kâli the Mother":_x000d_
_x000d_
"Scattering plagues and sorrows", he quoted from his own verses,_x000d_
_x000d_
Dancing mad with joy,_x000d_
Come, Mother, come!_x000d_
For terror is Thy name!_x000d_
Death__is in Thy breath._x000d_
And every shaking step_x000d_
Destroys a world for e'er._x000d_
_x000d_
"It all came true, every word of it", he interrupted himself to say._x000d_
_x000d_
Who dares misery love._x000d_
Dance in Destruction's dance,_x000d_
And hug the form of death, . . ._x000d_
_x000d_
"To him the Mother does indeed come. I have proved it. For I have hugged the form of Death!" (CWSN 1: 98 99)_x000d_
68. Sister Nivedita, referring to her plans for a girls' school:_x000d_
_x000d_
Only in one respect was he [Swami Vivekananda] inflexible. The work for the education of Indian women, to which he would give his name, might be as sectarian as I chose to make it. "You wish through a sect to rise beyond all sects." (CWSN 1: 102)_x000d_
69. Commenting on Sister Nivedita's visit to Gopaler Ma's dwelling__a small cell:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Ah! this is the old India that you have seen, the India of prayers and tears, of vigils and fasts, that is passing away, never to return!" (CWSN 1: 109)_x000d_
70. About the aims of the Ramakrishna Order:_x000d_
_x000d_
The same purpose spoke again in his definition of the aims of the Order of Ramakrishna__"to effect an exchange of the highest ideals of the East and the West and to realize these in practice" . . . . (CWSN 1: 113)_x000d_
_x000d_
71. After teaching Sister Nivedita the worship of Shiva, Swami Vivekananda then culminated it in an offering of flowers at the feet of the Buddha. He said, as if addressing each soul that would ever come to him for guidance:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Go thou and follow Him, who was born and gave His life for others five hundred times before He attained the vision of the Buddha!" (CWSN 1: 114)_x000d_
72. Upon returning from a pilgrimage in Kashmir:_x000d_
_x000d_
"These gods are not merely symbols! They are the forms that the Bhaktas have seen!" (CWSN 1: 120)_x000d_
73. Sister Nivedita's reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda's words heard long before:_x000d_
_x000d_
"The Impersonal God seen through the mists of sense is per¬sonal." (CWSN 1: 120)_x000d_
74. Swami Vivekananda's comment when he was reminded of the rareness of criminality in India:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Would God it were otherwise in my land, for this is verily the virtuousness of death!" (CWSN 1: 123)_x000d_
75. Swami Vivekananda said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"The whole of life is only a swan song! Never forget those lines: _x000d_
_x000d_
The lion, when stricken to the heart,_x000d_
gives out his mightiest roar._x000d_
When smitten on the head, the cobra lifts its hood._x000d_
And the majesty of the soul comes forth,_x000d_
only when a man is wounded to his depths."_x000d_
(CWSN 1: 124)_x000d_
76. After hearing of the death of Shri Durga Charan Nag (Nag Mahashay):_x000d_
_x000d_
"[He] was one of the greatest of the works of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa." (CWSN 1: 129)_x000d_
77. About Shri Ramakrishna's transformative power, Swami Vivekananda said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Was it a joke that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa should touch a life? Of course he made new men and new women of those who came to him, even in these fleeting contacts!" (CWSN 1: 130)_x000d_
78. While speaking on the true spirit of a Sannyasin, Swami Vivekananda said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I saw many great men in Hrishikesh. One case that I re¬member was that of a man who seemed to be mad. He was coming nude down the street, with boys pursuing and throwing stones at him. The whole man was bubbling over with laughter while blood was streaming down his face and neck. I took him and bathed the wound, putting ashes on it to stop the bleeding. And all the time with peals of laughter he told me of the fun the boys and he had been having, throwing the stones. 'So the Father plays', he said._x000d_
"Many of these men hide, in order to guard themselves against intrusion. People are a trouble to them. One had human bones strewn about his cave and gave it out that he lived on corpses. Another threw stones. And so on. . . ._x000d_
"Sometimes the thing comes upon them in a flash. There was a boy, for instance, who used to come to read the Up¬anishads with Abhedananda. One day he turned and said, 'Sir, is all this really true?'_x000d_
"'Oh yes!' said Abhedananda, 'It may be difficult to real¬ize, but it is certainly true'._x000d_
"And next day, that boy was a silent Sannyasin, nude, on his way to Kedarnath!_x000d_
_x000d_
"What happened to him? you ask. He became silent!_x000d_
"But the Sannyasin needs no longer to worship or to go on pilgrimage or perform austerities. What then is the mo¬tive of all this going from pilgrimage to pilgrimage, shrine to shrine, and austerity to austerity? He is acquiring merit and giving it to the world!" (CWSN 1: 133)_x000d_
79. Referring to the story of Shibi Rana:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Ah yes! These are the stories that are deep in our nation's heart! Never forget that the Sannyasin takes two vows: one to realize the truth and one to help the world__and that the most stringent of stringent requirements is that he should renounce any thought of heaven!" (CWSN 1: 134)_x000d_
80. To Sister Nivedita:_x000d_
_x000d_
"The Gitâ says that there are three kinds of charity: the Tâmasic, the Râjasic and the Sâttvic. Tamasic charity is per¬formed on an impulse. It is always making mistakes. The doer thinks of nothing but his own impulse to be kind. Rajasic charity is what a man does for his own glory. And Sattvic charity is that which is given to the right person, in the right way, and at the proper time. . . . _x000d_
"When it comes to the Sattvic, I think more and more of a certain great Western woman in whom I have seen that quiet giving, always to the right person in the right way, at the right time, and never making a mistake._x000d_
"For my own part, I have been learning that even charity can go too far. . . ._x000d_
"As I grow older I find that I look more and more for greatness in little things. I want to know what a great man eats and wears, and how he speaks to his servants. I want to find a Sir Philip Sidney greatness! Few men would remem¬ber the thirst of others, even in the moment of death._x000d_
_x000d_
"But anyone will be great in a great position! Even the coward will grow brave in the glare of the footlights. The world looks on. Whose heart will not throb? Whose pulse will not quicken till he can do his best?_x000d_
"More and more the true greatness seems to me that of the worm doing its duty silently, steadily, from moment to moment and from hour to hour." (CWSN 1: 137)_x000d_
81. Referring to the great individual__the divine incarnation, the Guru, and the Rishi:_x000d_
_x000d_
"You do not yet understand India! We Indians are MAN worshippers, after all! Our God is man!" (CWSN 1: 144)_x000d_
82. On another occasion, Swami Vivekananda used the word "man worshippers" in an entirely different sense:_x000d_
_x000d_
"This idea of man worship exists in nucleus in India, but it has never been expanded. You must develop it. Make poetry, make art, of it. Establish the worship of the feet of beggars as you had it in Mediaeval Europe. Make man worshippers." (CWSN 1: 144 45)_x000d_
83. To Sister Nivedita:_x000d_
_x000d_
"There is a peculiar sect of Mohammedans who are reported to be so fanatical that they take each newborn babe and ex¬pose it, saying, 'If God made thee, perish! If Ali made thee, live!' Now this, which they say to the child, I say, but in the opposite sense, to you tonight: 'Go forth into the world and there, if I made you, be destroyed! If Mother made you, live'!" (CWSN 1: 151)_x000d_
_x000d_
84. Long after Southern magnates in America had apologized to Vivekananda when they learned that he had been mistaken for a Negro and was thus refused admission into hotels, the Swami remarked to himself:_x000d_
_x000d_
"What! rise at the expense of another! I didn't come to earth for that! . . . If I am grateful to my white skinned Aryan ancestor, I am far more so to my yellow skinned Mongolian ancestor and, most so of all, to the black skinned Negri¬toid!" (CWSN 1: 153)_x000d_
85. Commenting on the dungeon cages of mediaeval prisoners on Mont Saint Michel:_x000d_
_x000d_
"What a wonderful place for meditation!" (CWSN 1: 154)_x000d_
_x000d_
"Oh, I know I have wandered over the whole earth, but in India I have looked for nothing save the cave in which to meditate!" (Ibid.)_x000d_
86. Though he considered offspring of the Roman Empire to be brutal and the Japanese notion of marriage a horror, Swami Vivekananda nevertheless summed up the constructive ideals, never the defects, of a community:_x000d_
_x000d_
"For patriotism, the Japanese! For purity, the Hindu! And for manliness, the European! There is no other in the world who understands, as does the Englishman, what should be the glory of a man!" (CWSN 1: 160)_x000d_
87. Swami Vivekananda said of himself before he left for Amer¬ica in 1893:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I go forth to preach a religion of which Buddhism is noth¬ing but a rebel child and Christianity, with all her preten¬sions, only a distant echo!" (CWSN 1: 161)_x000d_
_x000d_
88. Describing the night Buddha left his wife to renounce the world, Swami Vivekananda said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"What was the problem that vexed him? Why! It was she whom he was about to sacrifice for the world! That was the struggle! He cared nothing for himself!" (CWSN 1: 172)_x000d_
89. After describing Buddha's touching farewell to his wife, the Swami said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Have you never thought of the hearts of the heroes? How they were great, great, great__and soft as butter?" (CWSN 1: 172)_x000d_
90. Swami Vivekananda's description of Buddha's death and its similarity with that of Shri Ramakrishna's:_x000d_
_x000d_
He told how the blanket had been spread for him beneath the tree and how the Blessed One had lain down, "resting on his right side like a lion" to die, when suddenly there came to him one who ran for instruction. The disciples would have treated the man as an intruder, maintaining peace at any cost about their Master's death bed, but the Blessed One overheard, and saying, "No, no! He who was sent is ever ready", he raised himself on his elbow and taught. This happened four times and then, and then only, Buddha held himself free to die. "But first he spoke to reprove Ananda for weeping. The Buddha was not a person but a realization, and to that any one of them might attain. And with his last breath he forbade them to worship any." _x000d_
The immortal story went on to its end. But to one who listened, the most significant moment had been that in which the teller paused__at his own words "raised himself on his elbow and taught"__and said, in brief parenthesis, "I saw this, you know, in the case of Ramakrishna Parama¬hamsa". And there rose before the mind the story of one, _x000d_
_x000d_
destined to learn from that teacher, who had travelled a hundred miles, and arrived at Cossipore only when he lay dying. Here also the disciples would have refused admis¬sion, but Shri Ramakrishna intervened, insisting on receiv¬ing the new comer, and teaching him. (CWSN 1: 175 176)_x000d_
91. Commenting on the historic and philosophic significance of Buddhistic doctrine:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Form, feeling, sensation, motion and knowledge are the five categories in perpetual flux and fusion. And in these lies Maya. Of any one wave nothing can be predicated, for it is not. It but was and is gone. Know, O Man, thou art the sea! Ah, this was Kapila's philosophy, but his great disciple [Buddha] brought the heart to make it live!" (CWSN 1: 176)_x000d_
92. Concerning the Buddhist First Council and the dispute as to its President:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Can you imagine what their strength was? One said it should be Ananda, because he had loved Him most. But someone else stepped forward and said no! for Ananda had been guilty of weeping at the death bed. And so he was passed over!" (CWSN 1: 177)_x000d_
93. Considering reincarnation a "scientific speculation" rather than an article of faith:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Why, one life in the body is like a million years of con¬finement, and they want to wake up the memory of many lives! Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof! . . . Yes! Buddhism must be right! Reincarnation is only a mirage! But this vision is to be reached by the path of Advaita alone!" (CWSN 1: 180 81)_x000d_
_x000d_
94. "Had I lived in Palestine, in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, I would have washed his feet, not with my tears, but with my heart's blood!" (CWSN 1: 189)_x000d_
95. "For the Advaitin, therefore, the only motive is love. . . . It is the Saviour who should go on his way rejoicing, not the saved!" (CWSN 1: 197 98)_x000d_
96. On the necessity of restraint in a disciple's life:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Struggle to realize yourself without a trace of emotion! . . . Watch the fall of the leaves, but gather the sentiment of the sight from within at some later time!" (CWSN 1: 207)_x000d_
_x000d_
"Mind! No loaves and fishes! No glamour of the world! All this must be cut short. It must be rooted out. It is sentimen¬tality__the overflow of the senses. It comes to you in colour, sight, sound, and associations. Cut it off. Learn to hate it. It is utter poison!" (Ibid., 207 208)_x000d_
97. On the value of types:_x000d_
_x000d_
"A strong and distinct type is always the physical basis of the horizon. It is all very well to talk of universalism, but the world will not be ready for that for millions of years!_x000d_
"Remember! if you want to know what a ship is like, the ship has to be specified as it is__its length, breadth, shape, and material. And to understand a nation, we must do the same. India is idolatrous. You must help her as she is. Those who have left her can do nothing for her!" (CWSN 1: 209)_x000d_
98. Describing the Indian ideal of Brahmacharya in the stu¬dent's life, Swami Vivekananda said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Brahmacharya should be like a burning fire within the veins!" (CWSN 1: 216)_x000d_
_x000d_
99. Concerning marriage by arrangement instead of choice, Swami Vivekananda said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"There is such pain in this country! Such pain! Some, of course, there must always have been. But now the sight of Europeans with their different customs has increased it. So¬ciety knows that there is another way!_x000d_
[To a European] "We have exalted motherhood and you, wifehood; and I think both might gain by some interchange._x000d_
"In India the wife must not dream of loving even a son as she loves her husband. She must be Sati. But the husband ought not to love his wife as he does his mother. Hence a reciprocated affection is not thought so high as one unre¬turned. It is 'shopkeeping'. The joy of the contact of hus¬band and wife is not admitted in India. This we have to bor¬row from the West. Our ideal needs to be refreshed by yours. And you, in turn, need something of our devotion to motherhood." (CWSN 1: 221 22)_x000d_
100. Speaking to a disciple with great compassion:_x000d_
_x000d_
"You need not mind if these shadows of home and marriage cross your mind sometimes. Even to me, they come now and again!" (CWSN 1: 222)_x000d_
101. On hearing of the intense loneliness of a friend:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Every worker feels like that at times!" (CWSN 1: 222)_x000d_
_x000d_
102. Concerning the Hindu and Buddhist monastic and non monastic ideals:_x000d_
_x000d_
"The glory of Hinduism lies in the fact that while it has defined ideals, it has never dared to say that any one of these alone was the one true way. In this it differs from Buddhism, which exalts monasticism above all others as the path that must be taken by all souls to reach perfection. The story given in the Mahâbhârata of the young saint who was made to seek enlightenment, first from a married woman and then from a butcher, is sufficient to show this. 'By doing my duty', said each one of these when asked, 'by doing my duty in my own station, have I attained this knowledge'. There is no career then which might not be the path to God. The question of attainment depends only, in the last resort, on the thirst of the soul." (CWSN 1: 223)_x000d_
103. With reference to the idea that the lover always sees the ideal in the beloved, Swami Vivekananda responded to a girl's newly avowed love:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Cling to this vision! As long as you can both see the ideal in one another, your worship and happiness will grow more instead of less." (CWSN 1: 224)_x000d_
104. "The highest truth is always the simplest." (CWSN 1: 226)_x000d_
105. Swami Vivekananda's remarks on American séances:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Always the greatest fraud by the simplest means." (CWSN 1: 233)_x000d_
106. On Western and Eastern views of a person as a body or a soul:_x000d_
_x000d_
"Western languages declare that man is a body and has a soul; Eastern languages declare that he is a soul and has a body." (CWSN 1: 236 37)_x000d_
_x000d_
107. Concerning Swami Vivekananda's reverence for his Guru:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I can criticize even an Avatâra [divine incarnation] without the slightest diminution of my love for him! But I know quite well that most people are not so; and for them it is safest to protect their own Bhakti!" (CWSN 1: 252)_x000d_
_x000d_
"Mine is the devotion of the dog! I don't want to know why! I am contented simply to follow!" (Ibid., 252 53)_x000d_
108. "Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to begin every day by walking about in his room for a couple of hours, saying 'Sat chidânanda!' or 'Shivoham!' or some other holy word." (CWSN 1: 255)_x000d_
109. A few months before his passing away, Swami Vivekananda said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"How often does a man ruin his disciples by remaining always with them! When men are once trained, it is essential that their leader leaves them; for without his absence they cannot develop themselves!" (CWSN 1: 260)_x000d_
110. A few days before his passing away, the Swami said:_x000d_
_x000d_
"I am making ready for death. A great Tapasyâ and medita¬tion has come upon me, and I am making ready for death." (CWSN 1: 261 62)_x000d_
111. In Kashmir after an illness, Swami Vivekananda said as he lifted a couple of pebbles: _x000d_
_x000d_
"Whenever death approaches me, all weakness vanishes. I have neither fear, nor doubt, nor thought of the external. I simply busy myself making ready to die. I am as hard as that [the pebbles struck one another in his hand]__for I have touched the feet of God!" (CWSN 1: 262)