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, inten¬sified 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,_x000d_ 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.

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. 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.

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.

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 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. . . .

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]._x000d_ * 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?.)

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

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.

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. 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.

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 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 earth worms 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.

Of course, I am a sympathiser for every reform [he went on in this letter of January 24, 1894 to 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.

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.

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. 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 country men to "come out," to see the world, to learn, to expand, to comprehend what men and women are capable of.

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 doing good to others, go from village to village disseminating 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.

What appears to be Swamiji's third letter to Swami Ramakrishnananda (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 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 trans¬formed, and it will raise the masses up. 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:_x000d_ Not one original idea crosses anyone's brain. . . . My_x000d_ # _x000d_ 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, to¬morrow 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 them¬selves to a rice-porridge, and you spin out two thousand cock-and-bull stories-in short nothing but external cere¬monials. 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 ceremo¬nials. . . . 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 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.

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.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._x000d_ _x000d_ Everything must be sacrificed, if necessary, for that one 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. . . ._x000d_ 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.

. . . 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 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.

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.

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. 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 about such things. Were these not Swamiji's own ideas? Nor did it go unnoticed by his brother disciples that in the news paper 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.

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 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!

"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.

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 structures 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.

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.

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. 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.

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 spe¬cially 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.

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 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.

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._x000d_ * For substantiation of this statement, see Swami Akhandananda's own account in his Service of God in Man, pages 63-70 and 77.

Meanwhile in America Swamiji had been bombarded with every kind of slander his enemies could conceive of. No supporting 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)* 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 undaunted 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? 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!_x000d_ _x000d_ * 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 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.

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. 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?. . ._x000d_ 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 news apers, 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. …_x000d_ … Well, I cannot tell you all-if I could but get another demon like me!

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 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. 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:_x000d_ . . . 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.

* 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 I90I-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 jure its first president. In I900 he resigned from his informal presidentship of the Math and from his formal presidentship of the Mission (see ibid.) and turned over the Math property to a Board of Trustees. In January of I90I 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 looked upon Swamiji as the leader de facto until Swamiji's death in July of I902.

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 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.

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. Why a temptation? "We [Hindus]," he would say two years later in connection with religion, "believe that organisation always brings new evils. 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, 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.

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. Thus he molded them for the unified work ahead, a work in which the least flaw could mar 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!

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, 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._x000d_ 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.

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 degrada¬tion is due to our calling women "despicable worms", "gateways to hell", and so forth. Goodness gracious! There is all the difference between heaven and hell!!

In the face of the Christian missionaries' crude misrepresentation 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.

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 Shiv¬ananda 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 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 igno¬rantly 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.

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. 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."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.Although very little was accomplished 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:_x000d_ _x000d_ Everyone [among you] has the capacity to manifest, in times of need, the highest energy. I see it. Look for in¬stance 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!

* 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!”_x000d_ 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, in any case) always referred to him both officially and informally as Swami Trigunatita. Being an American, I have followed suit.

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. 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 you can lay your hands on. 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. 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. 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. He counseled patience: "Steady! Every great work is done slowly yet wanting to "throw the world into convulsions," 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.

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, 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. 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! To explain the Master's utterances, to give the in-tended 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. 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. And in September of the same year, "Always 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! 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! 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.

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 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.

But Sri Ramakrishna was a center without a circumference. "[We are] a non-sectarian sect, 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 was his repeated instruction; he knew that to stress Sri Ramakrishna as a personal Savior of his devotees rather than to emphasize his universal, world¬saving message would at last kill the ideas for the sake of the person. 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.

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

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.

A most important phase. By giving back to the people a knowledge of and pride in their incomparable spiritual heri-tage, 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.

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!!

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?

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. 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. 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 Brahma¬vadin a success. Let this paper be your Ishtadevata, and then you will see how success comes. 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. 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 importance. 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.**

* 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)._x000d_ _x000d_ ** Except for the combined issue of March – April 1914, the Brahmavadin stopped appearing in May of 1913. 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).

Curiously, it was another Madras magazine, far less ambitious at its inception than the Brahmavadin, that was to survive 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. 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. 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, 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 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.

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 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.

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.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 and become hard to correct. Thus he moved with the utmost caution; but at the same time, he moved with inex-haustible 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.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.

* 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.

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. 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. 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?

* 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.

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.

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._x000d_ * 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.”

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 also for his brother sannyasins; and even as he wrote in the fire 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! "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. "Your country requires heroes; be heroes! "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. 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! The only way is love and sympathy. The only worship is love. And so, writing tirelessly, Swamiji imbued them with his own vision, energy, and spirit.

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, geog-raphy, 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 infini¬tesimal, is better than eternal scribbling and talking. . . . Magazines are secondary, but this is primary. You must have a hold on the masses.

"where only a man who will follow your ideas will be admitted, and then a little leaven will leaven all. 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.

To this stern ultimatum Swamiji added, "Try hard, do not give up."90 He cared very much indeed who took his message: _x000d_ 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:_x000d_ The whole national character is one of childish dependence. 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?

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. 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:_x000d_ 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 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.

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. And before he died Swamiji did indeed see his "machine" in strong working order.

I do not take into any consideration whether people accept 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._x000d_ 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.

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 _x000d_ 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.