Yesterday Mrs. Johnson, the lady superintendent of the women's prison, was here. They don't call it prison but reformatory here. It is the grandest thing I have seen in America. How the inmates are benevolently treated, how they are reformed and sent back as useful members of society; how grand, how beautiful, you must see to believe! And, oh, how my heart ached to think of what we think of the poor, the low, in India. They have no chance, no escape, no way to climb up. The poor, the low, the sinner in India have no friends, no help-they cannot rise, try however they may. They sink lower and lower every day, they feel the blows showered upon them by a cruel society, and they do not know whence the blow comes. They have forgotten that they too are men. And the result is slavery. Thoughtful people within the last few years have seen it, but unfortunately laid it at the door of the Hindu religion, and to them, the only way of bettering is by crushing this grandest religion of the world. Hear me, my friend, I have discovered the secret through the grace of the Lord. Religion is not in 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 Buddha and taught you how to feel, how to sympathize with the poor, the miserable, the sinner, but you heard Him not. Your priests invented the horrible story that the Lord was here for deluding demons with false doctrines True indeed, but we are the demons, not those that believed. And just as the Jews denied the Lord Jesus and are since that day wandering over the world as homeless beggar, tyrannized over by everybody, so you are bond-slaves to any nation that thinks it worth while to rule over you. Ah, tyrants! You do not know that the obverse is tyranny, and the reverse slavery. The slave and the tyrant are synonymous.
The Swami envisaged a national regeneration in which all, particularly the downtrodden masses, would be given every opportunity and assistance to achieve all-round progress and well-being. When the Swami wrote in the letter just quoted that the Buddha came to teach us "how to feel, how to sympathize with the poor, the miserable, the sinner", was not the compassion and enlightenment of the Buddha once more finding its way into the national consciousness of India through his words? Was not the same Spirit that worked through the Buddha now working through the Swami? The ultimate goal towards which all were to move, according to both teachers, was spiritual salvation. By and large the world, accustomed to political uprisings devoid of all concepts of spiritual salvation, would take ages to learn the need of spiritual values in social and political movements; but India was, through the Swami, being shown that need.
The leader-sage wrote in this same letter of August 20:_x000d_
A hundred thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in the Lord, nerved to lion's courage by their sympathy for the poor and the fallen and the downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social raising-up-the gospel of equality._x000d_
No religion on earth preaches the dignity of humanity in such a lofty strain as Hinduism, and no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and the low in such a fashion as Hinduism. The Lord has shown me that religion is not in fault, but it is the Pharisees and Sadducees in Hinduism, hypocrites, who invent all sorts of engines of tyranny in the shape of doctrines of Paramarthika [absolute] and Vyavaharika [relative].
When the Swami emphatically wrote "The Lord has shown me . . ." he meant what he said. It was the Lord-shown way he was treading and Lord-given words he was speaking. He was ever aware that the Lord stood directly behind his movements.
In this letter of August 20, when he had yet to find his bearings in America, he wrote:_x000d_
A hundred times I had a mind to go out of the country and go back to India. But I am determined; and I have a call from Above; I see no way, but His eyes see. And I must stick to my guns, life or death. . . Despair not- remember the Lord says in the Gita, "To work you have the right, but not to the result." Gird up your loins, my boy. I am called by the Lord for this.
And in his earlier letter of August 20, 1893, from Breezy Meadows, the Swami had also told them what was required of them:_x000d_
Trust not to the so-called rich, they are more dead than alive. The hope lies in you-in the meek, the lowly, but the faithful. Have faith in the Lord; no policy, it is nothing. Feel for the miserable and look up for help-it shall come. I have travelled twelve years with this load in my heart and this idea in my head. I have gone from door to door of the so-called rich and great. With a bleeding heart I have crossed half the world to this strange land, seeking for help. The Lord is great. I know He will help me. I may perish of cold or hunger in this land, but I bequeath to you, young men, this sympathy, this struggle for the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed. . . . Vow, then, to devote your whole lives to the cause of the redemption of these three hundred millions, going down and down every day.
Swami Vivekananda, in setting his Indian work in motion, was intent to see that it would not stop until the goal was reached. He did not make his appeal sweet. His demand was total because nothing less would suffice for the task of India's regeneration.
In the same letter he continued:_x000d_
It is not the work of a day, and the path is full of the most deadly thorns. But Parthasarathi [Shri Krishna] is ready to be our Sarathi [charioteer]--we know that. And in His name and with eternal faith in Him, set fire to the mountain of misery that has been heaped upon India for ages-and it shall be burned down. Come then, look it in the face, brethren, it is a grand task, and we are so low. But we are the sons of Light and children of God. Glory unto the Lord, we will succeed. Hundreds will fall in the struggle, hundreds will be ready to take it up. I may die here unsuccessful, another will take up the task. You know the disease, you know the remedy, only have faith. Do not look up to the so-called rich and great; do not care for the heartless intellectual writers, and their cold-blooded newspaper articles. Faith, sympathy-fiery faith and fiery sympathy! Life is nothing, death is nothing, hunger nothing, cold nothing. Glory unto the Lord-march on, the Lord is our General. Do not look back to see who falls—forward--onward! Thus and thus we shall go on, brethren. One falls, and another takes up the work.