Swamiji had first met Haridas Viharidas Desai, the Dewan of Junagadh, during his wandering days in India. The Dewan, whom he looked upon as one of India's great men, had become his admirer, supporter, and close friend. He had of his own accord written to Mr. Hale the previous year, vouching for Swamiji's probity, which the Christian missionaries had been doing their best to bring into question. The following year, Swamiji was to write from New York to Mr. Giriharidas Mangaldas Desai, a nephew of the Dewan. The letter, dated March 2, 1896, read in part:_x000d_ _x000d_ Your uncle was a great soul, and his whole life was given to do good to his country. Hope you will all follow in his footsteps._x000d_ I am coming to India this winter, and cannot express my sorrow that I will not see Haridasbhai once more._x000d_ He was a strong noble friend, and India has lost a good deal in losing him.

But though sadness came to Swamiji even at Thousand Island Park, nothing could overshadow the joyfulness that was always his and that welled from an unalterable, unobstructed source, the little group basked in it, and he gave himself to them fully. "It was a most blessed summer," Mary Funke wrote. "I have never seen our Master quite as he was then. He was at his best among those who loved him.

To Dr. Paul Carus_x000d_ c/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park_x000d_ N. Y._x000d_ [June 1895]_x000d_ Dear Doctor,_x000d_ I am in this place now and had to change some of my plans on account of the Toronto Congress._x000d_ I am therefore not quite sure whether I will be able to come to Oak Island Conference. It is very possible, however, that I will be able to do so._x000d_ I also hope Mr. [Charles Carroll] Bonney will come. He is a noble, noble soul__one who sincerely wishes the fellowship of all humanity._x000d_ Is it not true, Dr., that Mr. Bonney, as I have every reason to think, originated the plan of the parliament of religions?_x000d_ I will certainly try my best to come._x000d_ Thanking you very much for your kindness, I remain_x000d_ Ever yours in the Lord of Compassion,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ P.S. Will you kindly inform me what lines of thought you want me to take._x000d_ V.

Every morning, just as soon as the various tasks were over (and often before), the Swami called the students together in the large parlour that served as a classroom and began to teach. Each day he took up some special subject, or expounded from some sacred book, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, or the Vedanta-Sutras of Vyasa.

In these morning lessons the point of view presented was sometimes that of pure dualism as represented by Madhva, while on another day it was that of the qualified non-dualism taught by Ramanuja, known as Vishishtadvaita. Most frequently, however, the monistic commentary of Sankara was taken up, but because of his subtlety he was more difficult to understand. So to the end Ramanuja remained the favourite among the students.

Sometimes the Swami took up the Bhakti-Sutras of Narada. They are a short exposition of devotion to God, which gives one some conception of the lofty Hindu ideal of real, all-absorbing love for the Lord, love that literally possesses the devotee to the exclusion of every other thought.

In these talks the Swami for the first time spoke to them at length about Shri Ramakrishna, of his daily life with the Master and of his struggles with his own tendency to unbelief, which at times drew tears from his Master.

Certainly the seven weeks at, Thousand Island Park were one of the freest and the greatest periods in the Swami's life. He was there in the uninterrupted stillness of the island retreat, in an atmosphere similar to that in which his Master had lived and taught in the Dakshineswar days of old. There the walked in the woods or along the river; there he happily studied the huge Sanskrit tomes that he had earlier sent for to India.

And there on the banks of the St. Lawrence, in a mood of supreme ecstasy, he one day entered while meditating into Nirvikalpa Samadhi as he had done in the days of blessed 'memory at Cossipore. Though at the time he spoke of it to no one, he reckoned this experience as one of the most exalted in his life. The whirlwind of spiritual rhapsody and ecstasy that had swept the souls of devotees in Dakshineswar on the bank of the Ganga, swept here anew the souls of other devotees in the island retreat of the beautiful St. Lawrence River, and the spirit of the Master and the realization of the Swami burned constantly in vast, ignorance destroying flames.

Feeling that a special sanctuary should be prepared for the Thousand Island Park retreat, Miss Dutcher, the student to whom the cottage belonged, built as a love offering to her Teacher a new wing that was nearly as large as the original cottage . The house was ideally situated on high ground, overlooking a wide sweep of the beautiful 'river with many of its far-famed Thousand Islands. The town of Clayton could be dimly discerned on the New York shore, while the Canadian shore bounded the view to the north. The cottage stood on the side of a hill, which on the north and west sloped down abruptly towards the river and a little inlet that lay like a small lake behind the house. The house was literally "built upon a rock", and huge boulders lay all around it. The new wing stood on the steep slope of the rock like a great lantern tower with windows on three sides, three storeys deep at the back, and only two in front. The lowest room was occupied by one of the students. The one over it opened out of the main part of the house by several doors, and being large and convenient became the classroom, where for hours each day the Swami gave the students informal instructions. Over this room was the one devoted exclusively to the use of the Swami. In order that it might be perfectly secluded, Miss Dutcher had supplied it with a separate outside staircase, although there was also a door opening upon the second-storey piazza.

This upstairs piazza played an important part in the lives of the students, as all the Swami's evening talks were given here. Wide, roomy, and roofed over, it extended along the south and west sides of the cottage. Miss Dutcher had the west side carefully screened off by a partition, so that none of the strangers, who frequently visited the piazza to see the magnificent view it commanded, could intrude upon their privacy. Every day, immediately after the evening meal, they all repaired to the upper piazza and awaited the coming of the Swami. Nor had they long to wait, for hardly had they assembled than the door of his room would open and he would quickly step out and take his accustomed scat by his door. There every evening the beloved Teacher would commune with the disciples who sat silent in the darkness, eagerly drinking in his inspired words. The place was a veritable sanctuary . At their feet, like a sea, waved the leaves of the treetops, for the entire place was surrounded by thick woods. Not one house of the large village could be seen; it was as if they were in the heart of some dense forest, miles away from the haunts of men. Beyond the trees spread the wide expanse of the St. Lawrence, dotted here and there with islands, some of which gleamed bright with the lights of hotels and boarding houses. All these were so far away that they seemed more like a pictured scene than a reality. Not a human sound penetrated their seclusion; they heard but the murmur of the insects, the sweet songs of the birds, or the gentle sighing of the wind through the leaves. Part of the time the scene was illumined by the soft rays of the moon, and her face was mirrored in the shining waters beneath. The Swami always spent two hours with them and more often much longer. One glorious night, when the moon was about full, he talked to them until it set below the western horizon, apparently as unconscious as were his listeners of the lapse of time.

In this scene of enchantment, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot", the devoted students spent seven blessed weeks with their beloved Teacher, listening to his words of inspiration.

To those who were fortunate enough to be there with the Swami, those were weeks of ever-hallowed memory, so fraught were they with unusual opportunity for spiritual growth. No words can describe what that blissful period meant (and still means) to the devoted little band who followed the Swami from New York to the island in the St. Lawrence, who daily served him with joy and listened to him with heartfelt thankfulness. His whole heart was in his work, and he taught like one inspired.

Of these talks it was not possible to take notes. They are preserved only in the hearts of the hearers. None of us can ever forget the sense of u lift, the intense spiritual life of those hallowed hours. The Swami poured out all his heart at those times his own struggles were enacted again before us; the very spirit of his master seemed to speak through his lips, to satisfy all doubts, to answer all questioning, to soothe every fear. Many times the Swami seemed hardly conscious of our presence, and then we almost held our breath for fear of disturbing him and checking the flow of his thoughts. He would rise from his scat and pace up and down the narrow limits of the piazza, pouring forth a perfect torrent of eloquence.

The Swami did not appear to address us directly, but rather seemed to be speaking to himself in words of fire, as it were, so intense were they, and so convincing, burning into the very hearts of his listeners, never to be forgotten.

Never was he more gentle, more lovable than during these hours. It may have been much like the way his own great Master taught his disciples, just allowing them to listen to the outpourings of his own spirit in communion with himself.

It was a perpetual inspiration to live with a man like, Swami Vivekananda. From morning till night it was ever the same, we lived in a constant atmosphere of intense spirituality. Often playful and fun-loving, full of merry jest and quick repartee, he was never for a moment far from the dominating note of his life. Everything could furnish a text or an illustration, and in a moment we would find ourselves swept from amusing tales of Hindu mythology to the deepest philosophy. The Swami had an inexhaustible fund of mythological lore, and surely no race is more abundantly supplied with myths than those ancient Aryans. He loved to tell them to us, and we were delighted to listen; for he never failed to point out the reality hidden under myth and story and to draw from it valuable spiritual lessons. Never had fortunate students greater cause to congratulate themselves on having so gifted a Teacher!

Those ideas were new and strange to us, and we were slow in assimilating them, but the Swami's patience never flagged, his enthusiasm never waned. In the afternoons he talked to us more informally, and we took usually a long walk.

By a singular coincidence just twelve students followed the Swami to Thousand Island Park, and he told us that he accepted us as real disciples and that was why he so constantly and freely taught us, giving us his best. All the twelve were not together at once, ten being the largest number present at any one time. Two of our number subsequently became sannyasins....

The ceremony of initiation was impressive from its extreme simplicity. A small altar fire, beautiful flowers and the earnest words of the Teacher alone marked it as different from our daily lessons. It took place at sunrise of a beautiful summer day and the scene still lives fresh in our memories.... _x000d_ On the occasion of the consecration of the second sannyasin, the Swami initiated fives of us as Brahmacharinis.

It was decided, when they went to Thousand Island Park, that they would live as a community, each doing his or her share of the housework in order that no alien presence should mar the serenity of the household. The Swami himself was an accomplished cook and often prepared for them delicious dishes.

Though not all the talks of the Swami during his stay at Thousand Island Park were written down, some were, and these have been embodied in the book known as Inspired Talks. It is to Miss Waldo that the followers of the Swami are indebted for these immortal words, and the title of the book was well chosen, for those talks were inspired indeed. The Swami threw light upon all manner of subjects, historical and philosophical, spiritual and temporal. It was as if the contents of his nature were pouring themselves forth as a grand revelation of the many-sidedness of the Eternal Truth.

In a letter dated August 1895 to Alasinga Perumal, he wrote, in the glory of his realizations at Thousand Island Park: "I am free, my bonds are cut, what care I whether this body goes or does not go? ... I have a truth to teach, I, the child of God. And he that gave me the truth will send me fellow-workers from the earth's bravest and best."

Now and then the MONK. in him would come out in protest against his surroundings and distraction. His poem "The Song of the Sannyasin", considered by some to be his masterpiece, was written in such a state of protest and spiritual fervour. He had received a letter criticizing his determination to work among the people instead among the rich. As we have seen earlier, the Swami had long since rebuffed such attempts to interfere with his work, but just as the sight of a butterfly or a flower was occasion for an exalted discourse, so the slightest attempt to bind him down to the dictates of society could arouse in him the lion of renunciation and call forth a grand roar of freedom.

"One afternoon," Mrs. Funke wrote, "when he had been telling us of the glory of renunciation, of the joy and freedom of those of the ochre robe, lie suddenly left us and in a short time he had written his 'Song of the Sannyasin', a very passion of sacrifice and renunciation." The Swami sent the poem by return mail in reply to the letter that had evoked it. Three verses selected from that great song afford an insight into the ardour and the power .of his spirit of sannyasa and the profundity of his realization:

Strike off thy! Fetters! Bonds that bind thee down, _x000d_ Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore; _x000d_ Love, hate—good bad—and all the dual throng _x000d_ Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free; _x000d_ For fetters though of gold, are not less strong to bind; _x000d_ Then off with them, sannyasin bold! Say—_x000d_ ``Om Tat Sat, Om’’

Heed then no more how body lives or goes, _x000d_ Its task is done. Let Karma float it down; _x000d_ Let one put garlands on, another kick _x000d_ This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be _x000d_ Where praiser, praised—blamer, blamed—are one. _x000d_ Thus be thou calm, sannyasin bold! Say— _x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"

Few only know the Truth. The rest will hate _x000d_ And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed. _x000d_ Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help _x000d_ Them out of darkness, Maya's veil. Without _x000d_ The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go _x000d_ Beyond them both, sannyasin bold! Say— _x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"

The little two-story house, built in 1885, was also ready to receive Swamiji and this, without any doubt, by design. As soon as he had accepted her invita¬tion to make her cottage at Thousand Island Park his summer retreat,* Miss Dutcher had made arrangements to add a wing to the cottage for his comfort. There had been ample time._x000d_ * To avoid confusion it should be noted that the lower-case word retreat is used here to mean "a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, and instruction under a director." When capitalized, the word denotes a place for withdrawal etc. The cottage at Thousand Island Park did not become a Vedanta Retreat or Ashrama until it was purchased by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York in December of 1947. The first Vedanta Retreat in the Western world was Shanti Ashrama in California, established under the direction of Swami Vivekananda in I goo and owned by what was then the Vedanta Society of San Francisco (now the Vedanta Society of Northern California).

Swamiji's earliest known mention of his acceptance of Miss Dutcher's invitation is found in a published letter to Mrs. Ole Bull:_x000d_ _x000d_ ... I cannot go to Greenacre now; I have arranged to go to the Thousand Islands, wherever that may be. There is a cottage belonging to Miss Dutcher, one of my students, and a few of us will be there in rest and peace and seclu¬sion. I want to manufacture a few "Yogis" out of the materials of the classes, and a busy farm [fair?] like Greenacre is the last place for that, while the other is quite out of the way, and none of the curiosity-seekers will dare go there.

This letter was dated April 25, 1895; thus there were about seven weeks at the least in which to build a wing of three sizable rooms, each about twelve by fifteen feet, one above the other.** The top room, Which was for Swamiji's personal use, was served by an outside staircase and opened, also, onto an upper veranda of the cottage. The room directly below opened onto the first-floor front parlor and was to be used as a study and classroom. The room beneath that, which was to become an extra guest room, stood below the first floor of the house and had its own entrance, for the cottage proper had been built, literally, on a rock-a huge granite boulder, such as crop up throughout the area. The lattice skirts of the cottage, together with its floor, hugged and enclosed the rock; whereas the new wing stood behind it and could rest on lower ground. Although the biblical symbolism of building on a rock very likely appealed to Miss Dutcher, the architecture of the little cottage did not lend a sense of stability. It was that of the late 1870s-the steeply pitched roof, the tall doors and windows, the slender, lathe-turned veranda posts, the adorning wooden lace and froufrou all conspired to produce a Fragile and charming storybook effect. The earliest known photograph of the cottage, which is reproduced here, shows it after Swamiji's wing had been added. If one covers over the wing (the left side of the house beyond the verandas), the original cottage stands clear. (The large rock in the foreground of the photo¬graph is not a part of that upon which the cottage stands.)_x000d_ _x000d_ ** According to Mr. Thomas Mitchell, grandson of the carpenter who built the addition to Miss Dutcher's cottage in 1895, six weeks would have been ample time for building the wing.

As a finishing touch to the preparations for Swamiji's arrival a homemade banner proclaiming in large letters "WELCOME VIVEKANANDA" had been tacked up to greet him as he entered the front parlor. He was welcome indeed! But perhaps not even in their fondest dreams could his disciples have fore¬seen the spiritual bonanza in store for them.

Swamiji had been right in thinking that Thousand Island Park was "quite out of the way"; it was not, certainly, a fair for religious curiosity seekers, as was Greenacre. But it was not, on the other hand, a remote or unpeopled spot. The 1700-and-more islands, "scattered," as it was said in an 1894 guidebook, "in prodigal profusion along the noble St. Lawrence River," had during the past twenty years become a popular resort area, beautiful, easy of access, and pervaded by "a spirit of rest and freedom from care." "During the summer season," the guidebook informed the vacationer, "the Islands teem with life, and the reticulated channel of the sparkling blue river is flecked with the white wings of little sailing yachts and pleasure boats which, like birds, of passage, flit hither and thither among the Islands, in search of pleasure and new delights." The Islands varied in size "from a small mass of rock . . . To picturesque islands miles in extent, over spread with a rich and luxuriant vegetation." Wellesley Island, on which Thousand Island Park was situated, was the second largest of these “island gems” and according to an item in a contemporary newspaper, if the Park was the most popular summer resort of all.

In June of 1895 Thousand Island Park was exactly twenty years old. On June 9, 1875, the sale (or long-term lease) of its first lots (each 40 by 80 feet) had begun. The area, comprising at the time 980 acres, had recently been purchased by the Thousand Island Camp Meeting Association for the purpose, precisely, of holding religious camp meetings during the summer months. The plan, thought up by a Methodist minister, the Reverend John Ferdinand Dayan, was to establish a permanent campground somewhat on the order of the Chautauqua Institute, which had been founded the year before in Chautauqua County, New York. Other such camp grounds were putting down roots here and there on the East Coast; indeed in the latter half of the nineteenth century religious camp meetings were taking on an air of sobriety. No longer were they the frenzied itinerant revival meetings of the early 1800s with their shouting ministers, their screaming and convulsive congregations. Things had quieted down considerably, and an element of thought was tempering the old time evangelical madness. Prepared sermons often took the place of emotional tirades, the meetings became more like study sessions than religious orgies and were held over a longer period of time-say, a week or two, rather than a day or two. Accordingly, lodgings for large crowds were set up in the vicinity of the revival tent. At first, the meeting-goers lived in tents themselves; later on, family cottages and rooming houses were built, and a sort of religious summer resort came into existence.

The Thousand Island Camp Meeting Association had the establishment of just such a resort in mind, “free from the frivolities and extravagances of fashionable watering places. It was a resort in which the highly moralistic (some said “bluenosed”) restrictions of orthodox Protestant Christianity were rigidly observed and in which religious camp-meetings were the principal recreation. At first there was no drinking of liquor, playing of cards, or selling of tobacco at any time or at any place in the Park; there was a curfew for noise at nine o’clock at night and for lights at ten o’clock; there was to be no nonsense whatsoever on Sundays, not even croquet, boating, or landing at or embarking from the premises. (Later on, some of these laws were relaxed: Swamiji could have bought a cigar in the village store had he wished, and every Saturday night, there was a full dress “hop” at the Columbian Hotel, at which couples blithely waltzed or danced the two-step to orchestra music and carried on till well after nine o’clock.)

The Thousand Island Camp Meeting Association, which changed its name to the Thousand Island Park Association in 1879, owned the land, the Dock, the main communal buildings, and the many tents that it rented to campers. On the liability side, the Association was responsible for the care, maintenance, and improvement of the Park and for various kinds of public service. Through the lease of lots, the granting of franchises to stores, boardinghouses, and so on, the charge of a commission of profits, the levying of a low (today very high) tax on leased land, and a sporadic (and hotly debated) entrance fee, the Association became a going concern, and in no time the Park grew into a healthy, thriving community, its character changing rapidly from camp-meeting ground to “Christian Summer Resort.” Indeed, despite its persisting blue laws, which preserved it as “a place where ‘the assassins of society’ would have no inducement whatever to come, the community had never been excessively hidebound. Outdoor sports (except on Sundays) had always been encouraged, and from the beginning much stress was laid on the Park’s non-denominational aspect and its “international character,” by_x000d_ which last was meant that Canadians from across the St. Lawrence were welcome to buy lots.

In 1875 no one, of course, dreamed that in twenty years a Hindu monk would be teaching a heathen creed in one of the Park's very own cottages! And yet during the course of the first series of lectures held at the vast Tabernacle tent in the summer of 1875 a hymn was sung in, of all things, the Hindi language. To quote from a history of the Park:

Among [the] speakers was Mrs. J. L. Humphrey, a missionary recently returned from India, who spoke on the activities of the Ladies' Foreign Missionary Society in India and then "sang a hymn in the Hindoo language, the words being set to their music"; a Park Missionary Society was formed on the spot.

Although the quoted words in the above passage are ambiguous, it is not likely that Mrs. Humphrey sang a Hindu bhajan; more probably the song was a Christian hymn translated into Hindi and set to what passed for Indian music. Nevertheless, a hymn in the Hindoo language had been sung in the Tabernacle during the first, christening, and services of the camp ground. While the intent, to be sure, was not to bring India to the Park, there she was.*_x000d_ * It is possible that Mrs. Humphrey had learned in Sanskrit a Vedic hymn that had been set to music by members of the Pro-Christian Brahmo Samaj a possibility that makes matters all the more remarkable.

Thousand Island Park grew apace. In 1883 the large and grand Thousand Island Park Hotel was opened, its four stories and impressive central tower facing the river. Seven years later, the hotel burned to the ground, and in its place was built the even grander and larger Columbian Hotel. In 1884 a permanent Tabernacle replaced the huge tent of the early days. The wooden facade of this new structure stood squarely across the end of the Park's central avenue and accommodated the platform, with podium and seats for a choir of several hundred. Extending back from the platform was the slightly sloped earth floor of the auditorium, the plank benches of which could seat 3,000. This immense area was covered by a pitched wooden roof, supported by hand-hewn posts, beams, and rafters; its back and sides were wide open to the woods, though canvas curtains could be lowered in case of heavy rains and gales. That was the Tabernacle as Swamiji knew it.

The 1880s and the early 1890s saw rapid improvements in the Park’s public facilities. At first, a few scattered wells and rain barrels had provided water, but in 1883 a wood-burning steam engine pumped river water to a reservoir stop Sunrise Mountain (which rose behind the Tabernacle and was nearly 200 feet high at its summit), from where it was piped, for a fee, to individual cottages. A gas system provided lights on the main avenues, as well as in the hotel. (Electricity of sorts took over this task in the early 1890s.) A sewer line was installed in the populous part of the Park, and garbage, it was decreed, would be picked up “at least twice during the months of July, August, and September of each year.” Streets were graded and graveled; there was a telegraph office in the hotel; the Park had its own post office, its general store, its lumber dock and yard, tin shop, bookstore and circulating library, photograph studio, chapel, museum, art gallery, glass blower, basket maker, baseball field, tennis courts, taffy stand, and almost anything else a summer resident might desire. In short, by the 1890s Thousand Island Park was a summer resort par excellence. As one historian was to write in 1898, “The village, for such it is in fact, has . . . every adjunct of a completely appointed municipality, and far better than the majority of them in this state.

Competing for attention with the tennis courts and the luxurious Columbian Hotel at the river end of St. Lawrence Avenue, the Tabernacle programs tended to become more diversified and, one might say, secular. Although the religious meetings continued, lectures on various nonreligious topics, such as Shakespearian Drama, the Laws of Storms, New Electrical Devices, and the Woodpecker, appeared on the scene, as did Glee Club Programs and Recitations. Thousand Island Park began to be referred to as the "Chautauqua of the North," and the crowds kept pouring in, Meanwhile, as has been km earlier, the entire area of the Thousand Islands had also been transformed during the past twenty years from a remote wilderness to a popular resort-laud where people played games, danced, fished, went boating, and otherwise enjoyed themselves. By 1895, the Islands as a whole drew thousands of excursionists every day; Thousand Island Park (now 800 acres in area, 100 acres of which were plotted for cottage lots) had a summer population of around 10,000; its cottages, large and small, numbered well over 600, and in addition to the hotel, there were at least a dozen rooming houses. "It is a very beautiful spot," Swamiji was to write in early July, "but I am afraid it becomes too crowded during the season, The Park would, indeed; scarcely seem the place for a summer retreat. But most of the cottages lay jam-packed between the river and the base of Sunrise Mountain; whereas Miss Dutcher's little house, perched alone a short way up the hill, was quiet and relatively secluded.

Inside, the cottage was simplicity itself and typical of many others in the Park. One entered from the front porch into a small, rectangular parlor, about nine by fifteen feet, whose windows looked out over the south veranda into the trees, Adjoining it was a slightly wider second parlor, or dining room, most of whose light came through the open archway between the two rooms.* Alongside this was a small, shed like kitchen, which Miss Dutcher had added after the cottage was built. At the front end of the second parlor a narrow, enclosed staircase led to the upper floor. Here, normally, there would have been two bedrooms, one on either side of a narrow hallway, but Miss Dutcher had chosen to divide these rooms into four small cells to accommodate her guests. That was all there was of the cottage before the summer of 1895, except for the wide verandas which ran along the front and the side that faced the river._x000d_ *In 1895 Miss Dutcher may have had the second parlor extended two feet or so at the back (as it is today). The chances are, however, that the room was not extended until years later when further additions were made to the cottage. The floor plans given in this book are based on the latter supposition.

An outside staircase led to the upper verandas for the benefit, perhaps, of the villagers, who came from time to time in neighborly fashion to see the view. Today, the trees surrounding the cottage hide the river, but such was not the case in 1895, for some forty years earlier, the then owner of the Park site had thoroughly lumbered its rich forests, until by 1864 there was only “pasture land and areas covered by brush.” The trees had grown up again, but slowly. By the 1890s the tallest tops of the maples, elms, and oak on the slopes below Miss Dutcher’s cottage were barely on a level with the second floor. Thus the upper verandas were the highest lookouts in the Park, commanding a wide vista of the river and its opposite shore. Everyone was welcome day and night to come and gaze, and Miss Dutcher had thoughtfully screened off Swamiji’s porch from the one that ran along the front of the house, to which the neighbors had access.

In the various memoirs that have come down to us, no one described the living conditions in 1895 in a Thousand Island Park cottage, perhaps because they were not unusual for the age. Eighty-odd years later, however, they are worthy of note, and it is possible to make some educated guesses in regard to them. We know, for instance, that water was almost certainly piped to the cottage from the reservoir higher on the hill, but it is not likely that there was more than one faucet, which would have been in the kitchen. Each bedroom would have had a bowl and ewer for washing, but there was no bathroom. Sunk in the rock under the house was a cistern where rain (Miss Dutcher’s only water source in the days before the reservoir) had been collected. The cistern was still functional in 1895, and one could shiveringly bathe there with a dipper and bucket. As was the case with most country houses of the era, there was an outhouse, and since the cottage was not connected with the Park’s new sewer system, it was probably primitive. There are no existing records to show whether Or not the village gas lines reached as far as the cottage (it is certain that the electric lines did not); so kerosene lamps and candles may have given the only light. As for heat, be¬cause of a Park ordinance, there were no open fireplaces to cheer a rainy or chilly evening. But such evenings were rare in the summer months, and in the winter the whole Park closed down, hibernating under a cover of deep snow.

It was in a state of spiritual joy and, certainly, spiritual power that Swamiji came from the White Mountains to Thousand Island Park-a state in which he stood at the open door of the highest Samadhi, holding back, as it were, in order to teach, and at the same time, though not in contradiction, in which he was like a carefree boy. As for his physical health, even as his spirit soared, his body and mind relaxed after the tensions of his city work. "All the sleep in the world has come upon me," he wrote to Betty Sturges in early July from the Park. "I sleep at least two hours during the day and deep through the whole night as a piece of log. This is a reaction, I think, from the sleeplessness of New York. I am also writing and reading a little, and have a class every morning after breakfast. The meals are being conducted on the strictest vegetarian principles, and I am fasting a good deal I am determined that several pounds of my fat shall be off before I leave. Swamiji, in fact, wanted to lose thirty to forty pounds that summer, as he had written to Mary Hale from New York earlier in the year. "That will be all right for my size," he assured her.

A week or so after arriving at Thousand Island Park Swamiji wrote two letters to Mary Hale, both of which are dated in the Complete works June 26, 1895, but which must have been written a few days apart. In what appears to be the first, he wrote in a somewhat low key: "Nothing noticeable has happened during this visit to the Thousand islands. The scenery is very beautiful and I have some of my friends here with me to talk about God and soul ad libitum. I am eating fruits and drinking milk and so forth, and studying huge Sanskrit books on Vedanta which they have kindly sent me from India.

In this same letter he spoke philosophically, somewhat in the tone of his classes as we know them from Inspired Talks: “The more the shades around deepen [and] the more the ends approach [,] the more one understands the true meaning of life, that it is a dream; and we begin to understand the failure of everyone to grasp it, for they only attempted to get meaning out of the meaningless. . . . Desire, ignorance, and inequality this is the trinity of bondage.

“Denial of the will to live, knowledge, and same sightedness is the trinity of liberation._x000d_ _x000d_ “Freedom is the goal of the universe._x000d_ _x000d_ In the second letter dated June 26, Swamiji suddenly bursts through the page, revealing the exalted state of a Paramahansa, a Knower of Brahman:

A wonderful calmness is coming over my soul. Every day I feel I have no duty to do; I am always in eternal rest and peace. It is He that works. We are only the instruments. Blessed be His name! The threefold bondage of lust and gold and fame is, as it were fallen from me for the time being, and once more, even here, I feel what sometimes I felt in India, “From me all difference has fallen, all right or wrong, all delusion and ignorance has vanished, I am walking in the path beyond the qualities. What law I obey, what disobey?” From that height the universe looks like a mud-puddle. Hari Om Tat Sat. He exists; nothing else does. I in Thee and Thou in me. Be Thou Lord my eternal refuge! Peace, Peace, Peace!

From that height Swamiji taught the twelve students who followed him to the Park, wanting, as he said, to “train them in Advaita realization” so that later they could carry on his work in his absence. How far he would succeed in this im¬mediate purpose, he himself did not know. Nor, perhaps, did it matter. Later he was to say that he had been at his beat at Thousand Island Park," and we know from the notes of his classes and from the few available memoirs of the seven weeks he spent there that he poured out continuously a torrent of spirituality. "Day by day I am experiencing a manifestation of power in me," he was to write in July to his Madras disciple Alasinga. And the power manifested in a Swami Vivekananda could not be contained in a small place or be effective for only a limited time. Was not his stay at Miss Dutcher's cottage only the occasion then, for releasing a flood of spiritual energy into the very heart of the nation? Was he not teaching generations of Americans in those few weeks? One cannot but think that the immense power generated by Swamiji'e teaching day and night at the height of spiritual consciousness must have far transcended and outdistanced its effect in the lives of the twelve students who gathered around him and who asked themselves the unanswerable question, "What have we ever done to deserve this ?

1. Miss Mary Elizabeth Dutcher :_x000d_ _x000d_ Let us recall here what we know of those disciples, First, Miss Dutcher, who was, Sister Christine tells us, "a conscientious little woman [and] a devout Methodist. Her whole outlook on life had been conditioned by one of the most orthodox, missionary minded Protestant denominations. It was a matter for amazement not only that she was among the group at Thousand Island Park, but that she had herself proposed the retreat and added a wing to her cottage to accommodate Swamiji. But there was, perhaps, more to Miss Dutcher than met the eye. Indeed, considering the age in which she lived, her background, and her religious upbringing, she seems to have been something of a rebel._x000d_ Born about 1895 in Oswego County, New York (not far from the Thousand Islands), she was the daughter of a poor farmer and no doubt spent her girlhood as did other country girls of that era, attending a one-room school, helping with the chores, and regularly going to church on Sundays. She very likely also attended with her parents many a Methodist Camp Meeting, which in her girlhood would have been extravagances of "jumping, jerking, and roaring," interspersed with terrifying, guilt-forging sermons on sin, responsibility, and hell-fire._x000d_ Not easily in the early half of the nineteenth century did a country girl break away from such an upbringing to attend art school in New York City. But Mary Elizabeth Dutcher went off to New York to study art at the Art Students' League and also at the Academy of Design. She did not return to the farm, but moved to Rochester, where she taught art and on occasion exhibited her own paintings. Prim and proper she may have seemed to a later generation; actually she must have had daring and courage. She managed to support herself through her art work and had enough money left over to buy the lot at Thousand Island Park (for about $100) and to build a cottage on it. Nor, presumably, did Miss Dutcher care in the least what her God-fearing neighbors might think of her harboring a Hindoo in their very midst. Inevitably, they had their opinions. The story goes that one day a young girl of sixteen, living with her family at the foot of the hill, "expressed the desire to talk to the Swami. 'Don't go near him,' her mother said sternly. 'He is a heathen!’ Miss Dutcher held her ground. Indeed, she was to invite many of the neighbors to her cottage one Sunday to see and hear the heathen for themselves here, it would seem, was no "conscientious little woman" but a stalwart and earnest soul. She was a gentle soul as well, who quite literally would not hurt a fly: in her cottage she kept a humane fly trap, which she took into the woods each evening to release the flies imprisoned during the day._x000d_ _x000d_ Having attended Swamiji's New York classes, Miss Dutcher must have known, to some extent at least, that she was taking into her house a spiritual tornado. Surely she knew that much of her lifelong religious conditioning, her ingrained beliefs and assumptions, were about to be turned topsy-turvy. Yet to know that a tornado is coming does not lessen its impact, and Miss Dutcher seems to have been shaken to the very roots of her being by Swamiji’s teachings at Thousand Island Park. He could not spare her; he taught what he had to teach, much of which must have seemed not only outrageous but blasphemous to her. And yet his words rang with an authority she could not deny. The conflict was shattering. Sometimes she would disappear (to a neighbor’s cottage, perhaps) for two or three days at a stretch. “Don’t you see,” Swamiji explained to the others, “this is not an ordinary illness? It is the reaction of the body against the chaos that is going on in her mind. She cannot bear it.”33 Yet she held on, playing in her own way an essential role in Swamiji’s Western mission.* _x000d_ _x000d_ * The information given here about Mary Elizabeth Dutcher relies largely upon Malcolm Willis's article "Historical Sketch of Vivekananda Cottage at Thousand Island Park, New York," Vedanta Kasei, August 1963, pages 252--56.

2. Miss Sarah Ellen Waldo :_x000d_ _x000d_ Just as there could not have been the weeks at Thousand Island Park without Miss Dutcher, so there could not have been the book Inspired Talks without Sarah Ellen Waldo. Miss Waldo, who was nearing her fiftieth birthday in the summer of 1895, was, like Miss Dutcher, a spinster. Unlike her, however, she apparently had no need to earn a living, or to supplement a private income. She had her own house in Brooklyn at 249 Monroe Street and spent a good deal of time in intellectual pursuits. She was a close student of the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, to whom she was distantly related, and most probably had studied the works of other Transcendentalists as well. Thus she was familiar, even before meeting Swamiji, with a mode of thought derived, in part at least, from India. She had also read the writings of Professor Max Muller, including, perhaps, his then recent Vedanta Philosophy. Such interests, together with her membership in the Brooklyn Ethical Association, made it almost inevitable that she would attend Swamiji’s first lecture before that learned gathering on the night of December 30, 1894, and that, subsequently, she would regularly attend his classes in New York._x000d_ _x000d_ Although we know almost nothing of Miss Waldo's life before she met Swamiji, it does not appear to have had any particular focus. Now it became centered in his mission. As we shall see in a later chapter, she was to serve Swamiji and the early New York Vedanta Society as a tireless factotum. Tall, "very portly," efficient, and inclined to be somewhat domineering, Miss Waldo may have vexed others at times, but it was she who did most of the work.

3. Ruth Ellis :_x000d_ _x000d_ Ruth Ellis was a close friend of Sarah Ellen Waldo and was probably about the same age. Almost all we know of her comes from a brief description in Sister Christine's remi¬niscences. "Ruth Ellis was on the staff' of one of the New York newspapers,” Christine wrote. "She was gentle and retiring and seldom spoke, yet one knew that her love and devotion were unbounded:' Miss Ellis, a Dr. L. L. Wight, to whom she was like a daughter, and Miss Waldo had been attending lectures on philosophy together for thirty years, and together they came to Swamiji's New York classes, finding at last what they had sought for so long.

4. Dr. L.L. Wight :_x000d_ _x000d_ Of Dr. Wight we know only that in 1895 he was "well over seventy but as enthusiastic and full of interest as a boy. Indeed "little old Docky Wight," as his fellow-disciples called him, seems to have been stunned by Swamiji's teachings, not devastatingly, as was Miss Dutcher, but with a kind of awe. "At the end of each [morning class at Thousand Island Park]," Christine wrote, "there was usually a pause, and the little old `Docky' would stoop down and rub his bald head and say, with the most pronounced nasal twang, `Well, Swami, then it all amounts to this, "I am the Absolute!"' We always waited for that, and Swamiji would smile his most fatherly smile and agree.

5. Stella Campbell:_x000d_ _x000d_ Then was Stella. If anyone among the group was a misfit, it seems to have been this one-time actress, who was past her prime and who, according to Sister Christine, may have been hoping to "restore her fast-fading beauty and bring back her lost youth" by becoming spiritual. Sizing up Stella, the others doubted that Swamiji understood her motives in coming to Thousand Island Park. How could he understand "that anyone could put such an interpretation upon his lofty teachings?" Then one day he said, "I like that Baby. She is so artless." This remark, Christine relates, met with a dead silence. "Instantly his whole manner changed, and he said very gravely, 'I call her Baby hoping that it will make her childlike, free from art and guile.' There was very little Swamiji did not understand, and there was no one for whom he did not have compassion and blessings._x000d_ Sister Christine tells us that at Thousand Island Park Stella lived "in a room below." Whether this means that she occupied the relatively large room on the ground floor of Swamiji's wing or that she lived in a room in the village is not clear. The latter meaning may be the more probable one, for Christine goes on to say, "It was several days before we saw her, for she seldom came up to the classes, being, as we were given to understand, too deeply engrossed in ascetic practices to break in upon them. Apparently Stella did not appear for any meal during those several days, and unless she was fasting even from water, she must have been rooming and boarding in the village and no doubt scandalizing the good natives with her bizarre behavior. But we cannot know for certain; Christine's sentence leaves us only with a question unanswerable at the present time._x000d_ After leaving Thousand Island Park at the end of the summer, Stella (whose last name was Campbell) built a tiny cabin on an island in Orchard Lake near Detroit and there continued her yoga practices. This created a sensation. Among the newspaper stories written about her was one by the then young and unknown novelist Will Levington Comfort, who later on came to know Swamiji and to love India. It was he who once told Christine (as she was to write in 1924 to Miss MacLeod) that "everyone connected with Swamiji whom he had ever known had a glow. Perhaps he included Stella in this observation; she was the first he had known._x000d_ In any event, Swamiji did not take Stella's aspirations lightly. In July of 1897 he was to write to Josephine MacLeod from Almora, "There is a young lady, Miss Campbell,Orchard Lake, Orchard Island, Michigan, who is a great worshipper of Krishna and lives alone in that Island, fasting and praying. She will give anything to be able to see India once, but she is awfully poor. If you bring her with you, I will anyhow manage to pay her expenses. Although Stella did not make the voyage with Miss MacLeod, Swamiji did not abandon the idea of brining her to India. Now and then he inquired of Christine about "Baby." "I am sorry she state of mind of' Baby is so unsettled," he was to write to her on May 20 of 1898. "I hope to find a home for her in India very soon and one for you if you like and your duties permit. And again, in August of that year, "I had a very beautiful letter from Baby-I am so glad she is happy and has helping friends. Lord blesses the dear child. And in July of l899 he would write, again to Christine, that he had had another "beautiful letter from Baby" and that he was soon going to "pen a reply in [Christine's] care as directed._x000d_ After her experiments with yoga, Stella went back for a time, at least, to the stage, "and none of us knew anything of her afterwards," Christine wrote, "until news came of her death a few months ago."" This undated statement, like "a room below," leaves us with a question. But Stella's death must have come sometime between 1927, when Christine started writing her memories, and 1930, when she herself died.

6. Walter Goodyear and Frances Goodyear : _x000d_ _x000d_ In her reminiscences of Thousand Island Park, Sister Christine mentions many of her fellow-students, but not Walter and Frances Goodyear, who, as we know from another source, were members of the group at Miss Dutcher's cottage for two weeks. They were at the time a young, childless couple (not until 1897 was a son born to them), who lived in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. As has been seen in the preceding chapter, the Goodyears were among those who had given Swamiji practical help during the spring of 1895. In September of this same year, Walter Goodyear was to become the New York agent for the Brahmavadin, the English-language magazine newly launched by a group not Swamiji's Madras disciples. He seems also to have been treasurer of the New York Vedanta Society from its very beginning in the fall of 1894 and was almost certainly one of the trustees who constituted the Society's Executive Committee, which would be formed in December of 1895 to handle all business matters Inasmuch as Walter Goodyear was treasurer of the New York branch of the Good-year Sewing Machine Company of Canada, he was a logical choice for these responsibilities and, together with his wife, was to be helpful in the secular side of the work-which side, Swamiji said, "nearly breaks me to pieces.

7. Mme. Marie Louise:_x000d_ _x000d_ In the last week of June or first week of July came Mme Marie Louise, brining along a small pet tortoise, which instantly took off into the alluring woods and disappeared. One can well imagine that the whole household was set to searching for the errant pet, to no avail. "[Marie Louise] was a little sorry at first,” Swamiji worte to Betty Sturges, "`but we preached liberty with such vigour that she had to come round quich._x000d_ Mme Marie Louise; who for reasons of her own, always refused to divulge her family name (which she would soon no longer need), "was, in some respects, the outstanding per¬sonality in this small community," Sister Christine recalled._x000d_ _x000d_ A tall, angular woman, about fifty years of age [she continued], so masculine in appearance that one looked twice before one could tell whether she was a man or a woman. The short, wiry hair, in the days before bobbed hair was in vogue, the masculine features, the large bones, the heavy voice and the robe, not unlike that worn by men in India, made one doubtful. Her path was the highest, she announced, that of philosophy--jnana. She had been the spokesman for ultra-radical groups and had learning and some degree of eloquence. "I have magnetism of the platform," she used to say. Her vanity and personal ambition made her unfit for discipleship, and useless as a work in Swami Vivekananda's move¬ment._x000d_ _x000d_ This strange Frenchwoman seems to have exasperated some of Swamiji's other disciples as well, including, later on, Sister Nivedita, who was to write of her from India in 1899, "Such egotism I have new imagined! But Swamiji's attitude toward her was equally unimaginable. Nivedita remarked upon it a week later with almost the same exclamatory phrase: "Such greatness, such sweetness, such humility as I see in him towards her, I could not have imagined!_x000d_ _x000d_ As is well known, Swamiji gave the vows of sannyasa to Mme Marie Louise and the name Abhayananda at Thousand Island Park. The ceremony took place on Sunday, July 7, very possibly at sunrise, with a homa fire outdoors. "One of my new Sannyasins is indeed a woman, Swamiji was to write in March of 1896 to his apparently astounded Madras disciple Alasinga Perumal, who had read the news in the New York Herald of January 19, 1896. "She was a leader of the labourers, he added in a heretofore unpublished sentence, which must also have struck Alasinga dumb._x000d_ _x000d_ The newspaper article Alasinga had read and had reprinted in the Brahmavadin was a review of Swamiji's work in New York. The paragraph that concerns us here gives us what little we know of Mme Marie Louise’s background. For the past twenty-five years she had been an American citizen living in New York City and known to liberal circles as "a materialist, socialist (some say anarchist), friend of Emma Goldman and others of that ilk." At the beginning of 1895 she had been a prominent member of the Manhattan Liberal Club and was known in the press and on the platform as "a fearless, progressive, advanced woman, whose boast it was that she was always in the forefront of the battle and ahead of her times._x000d_ _x000d_ The rumors that Mme Marie Louise was an Anarchist were probably untrue; she could not have been a Socialist and an Anarchist at the same time, for the latter contemptuously, and necessarily, rejected all forms of political organization. Still, if she was a friend of the young Emma Goldman (an Anarchist loader of fiery disposition) "and others of that ilk," she very likely sympathized with the wildly unrealistic and utopian ideals of theoretical Anarchism. At any rate, she clearly had been a vociferous and, it would appear, by no means self-effacing champion of the oppressed and desperate laboring classes, who had not yet found a united voice of their own. When and how she first came to Swamiji, whom she was to call "Mon Papa," we do not know; but once she had found her way to him, the direction of her life altogether changed, though not overnight her nature. "She is impetuous, and quick to take offense where no offense is intended," Ruth Ellis would write to Mrs. Bull from the Park on Monday, July 29, "but withal she has splendid qualities and I expect much from her. She can reach the masses and her work will probably lie in that direction. She has softened wonderfully since her initiation and the Swami seems satisfied with her.

8. Leon Landsberg:_x000d_ _x000d_ Leon Landsberg, whom Swamiji also initiated into sannyasa at Thousand Island park, giving him the name of Kripananda, arrived on July 11. "The Master calls," he had written to Mrs. Bull from New York the day before, "and I am ready to do his will. I just received a letter from the Swami asking me to come to Thousands' Island. I suppose you know the object. I shall probably leave to night The storm that had earlier raged in his soul, stirring it up, as he said; "to its very foundations," may have been salutary. In a second letter to Mrs. Bull that will be given is full later on, Ruth Ellis was to remark upon the great change "which has taken place in Landsberg. We all noticed it and were touched by it._x000d_ _x000d_ But as will be clear in later chapters, Leon Landsberg did not remain (on the surface, at least) greatly changed-no more so than did Mme Marie Louise. Indeed, in view of what is known of these two disciples, both of whom were eventually to turn against Swamiji, the question of why he gave them sannyasa is bound to arise. Presumptuous and ultimately unanswerable though such a question may be, one cannot help reflecting over it, hoping that such refection, however short it may fall of the mark, may lead to some small understanding of Swamiji himself.

We can be sure at the outset that Swamiji knew these disciples far better than did anyone else, seeing in them virtues and strengths hidden from others by an overlay of faults and weaknesses-which weaknesses themselves he may have seen as latent strengths. His choice of these two, Sister Christine writes, "grew out of the theory which he then held that fanaticism is power gone astray," a force that "can be transmuted and turned into a higher channel. No doubt Swamiji was moved by the inner worth and potential powers of these disciples, seeing therein their capacity for good work. But did he not a1w see the flaws that would make it unlikely that either Abhayananda or Kripananda would be able to carry on his work successfully? One cannot but think that he of course did (though differently than we) ; nor can it be thought that he had no motives for giving sannyasa other than to mate good workers. Such initiation from him was a rocketing into spiritual freedom for the disciples-though fire if need be. It was an event of supreme importance in the long journey of the soul, the meaning of which soul hardly be read in terms of one lifetime alone._x000d_ A few years later Swamiji was to say to Sister Nivedita in connection with his giving sannyasa to Westerners, "I am at heart a mystic, Margot, all this reasoning is only apparent I am really always the lookout for signs and things and so I never bother about the fate of my initiations. If they want to be sannyasins 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 Paramahansa actually was-free from lust-& desire of wealth, & thirst for fame. That thirst for fame is the worst of all folth.

His bestowal of sannyasa, then, was not motivated. by an evaluation of the candidate's potential for beneficent power nor by his recognition of some special virtues; more simply, it was his unreasoned response to the prayer of the disciple, the outflowing of his grace that knew no calculation. This is not to say that Swamiji gave initiation for the mere asking. He gave "if they want to be sannyasins badly enough." In a letter written the following year to the Brahmavadin, Kripananda mentions Swamiji's "great reluctance to create Sanyasins in this country, except upon the most urgent insistence of the applicants. It was the inner cry alone that tapped his grace._x000d_ _x000d_ Another point that can perhaps be ventured here is that aside from Swamiji's immediate reasons of mind or heart for giving the vows of sannyasa to any individual, his acts-the acts of a world teacher-were far-reaching, establishing a pattern for the future. His desire, as he often intimated, was to see many hundreds of men and women of the West formally renounce the world. "The yellow robe of the sannyasin is the sign of the free," he said in one of his last classes at Thousand Island Park. "Give up the beggar's dress of the world; wear the flag of freedom, the ochre robe. Although Swamiji often said that in this age the highest of Vedantic thought and practice must spread among nonmonastics (this was indeed a vital part of his message), he wanted to see a flowering of monasticism too. In March of 1896 he was to write to Alasinga from New York, "Yellow-garbed sannyasins will be common here and in England. Could not his first initiations of a man and a woman into sannyasa have nudged into being a culture in the West where the ochre robe would be a common sight? ("Even now," he once said during a morning class in June, "we can `give the push' in consciousness and it goes beyond and acts in the superconscious certainly Swamiji could give that push.) One may still ask, why those two? But who else in America had so far importuned him for sannyasa? As far as we know, there had been no one else.

9. Christina Greenstidel and Mrs. Mary Funke:_x000d_ _x000d_ Christina Greenstidel* and Mrs. Mary Funke, of whom we shall say more later on, were the last students to arrive at Miss Dutcher's cottage, bringing the number of known disciples up to eleven. But in her "Introductory Narrative" to Inspired Talks Miss Waldo writes, "By a singular coincidence just twelve students followed the Swami to Thousand Island Park. Who, then, was the twelfth? At the date of this writing his or her identity is unknown, and therefore when occasion arises, we shall refer to this twelfth person as the Unidentified Student. It is probable, as will be seen later, that he or she was present for only a week or ten days in the first part of July._x000d_ * According to the Detroit directories, Sister Christine's given name was Christina, not Christine. In his letters to her Swamiji almost always addressed her as Christina, even as he generally addressed Sister Nivedita as Margot.

The morning after he arrived at Thousand Island Park Swamiji started to hold his classes in the new room just below his own. It was a small group that gathered around him; aside From Miss Dutcher, Miss Ellen Waldo must have been present, for it is her notes of this class of June 19 that open the now famous book Inspired Talks. "We had not yet all assembled there," she wrote at the outset, "but the Master's heart was always in his work, so he commenced at once to teach the three or four who were with him. Who the other one or two were we can only guess, but for a number of reasons, with which we need not bother the reader, the best guess is that they were Ruth Ellis and Dr. Wight, close friends of Miss Waldo's, both of whom very likely came with her from New York._x000d_ _x000d_ The room was relatively large and full of light. Five tall windows (two of which can be seen in the photograph of the house) looked out into leafy trees; a door opened onto the veranda, and another onto the small front parlor. As we have seen earlier, there was no fireplace (as there is today), and thus there was plenty of wall space for a number of chairs and perhaps a sofa or two. Where Swamiji's chair stood, no memoir has told us; yet perhaps that spot is not more vibrant than any other in the room, for according to the accounts that have come down to us, he seldom remained seated when talking to the small informal group. As he became absorbed in his subject, he would often pace back and forth, propelled, as it were, by the force of his thought. The whole room was his dais._x000d_ _x000d_ That first morning he came with a Bible in his hand. Those who were present were all Christians, he said; so it was proper to start with a Christian scripture. He chose the Gospel of John, "in the first five verses of [which], is the whole essence of Christianity; each verse is full of the profoundest philos¬ophy. And it was not long before Christianity and Vedanta were indistinguishable; Religion itself, unlabeled and eternal, poured from his lips-and for forty-three morning classes thereafter it continued to do so.

In Inspired Talks we have by no means everything Swamiji said during those incomparable morning sessions, for Miss Waldo's longhand lagged behind his flow of words, perhaps catching only every other sentence or so. But if her notes were not speedy they were expert. Aphoristic, often startling in their clarity, beauty, and depth, they seem like scripture itself. Indeed one can find on almost any page of Inspired Talks a wealth of Vedantic thought as concentrated and sharply focused as in an Upanishad. Swamiji was himself amazed at the faithfulness with which she captured his thought, and one day he expressed his delight. The incident has been related by Sister Devamata:

. . . As [Miss Waldo] herself said, it was as if the thought of Swami Vivekananda flowed through her and wrote itself upon the page. Once when she was reading a portion of these same notes to some tardy arrivals in the Thousand Island Park home, the Swami paced up and down the floor, apparently unconscious of what was going on, until the travellers had left the room; then he turned to her and said: "How could you have caught my thought and words so perfectly? It was as if I heard myself speaking." What need of other commendation?

No need. One only regrets that Miss Waldo did not take notes throughout every day and well into the night; for according to all accounts, Swamiji taught not only during the morning class, but continually. "He told us," Miss Waldo later wrote, "that he accepted us as real disciples and that was why he so constantly and freely taught us, giving his best. The morning classes, however, perhaps represented the core of his teachings at Thousand Island Park; they seem indeed to contain the core of his teachings in the Western world, as though he wished to present to this small group the very heart of his message.

It should be mentioned here in passing that Inspired Talks has not come to us from Swamiji's lips entirely unedited. Some unconscious editing was, for instance, inevitable even as Miss Waldo took down his words, but the major editing was done in 1907 by Miss Laura Glenn (later Sister Devamata) with Miss Waldo's permission and approval. "It is criminal for you to keep these notes to yourself," Miss Glenn had exclaimed on hearing them read. "They belong to the world." To which Miss Waldo had replied:

"They have always seemed to me too Fragmentary, too inadequate, to publish. . . . They would give a false idea of the wonderful teaching Swamiji gave us during those six weeks at Thousand Island Park." She remained silent for a moment [Sister Devamata recalled]; then her face lighted up; she leaned forward in her chair, held out the book of notes and said to me: "If you are willing to take them and work on them and bring them out, I am glad to pass them over to you. If I tried to do anything with them, I should be thinking all the time how lacking they were.

Expert as Sister Devamata's editing may have been, it did here and there dampen the ring of Swamiji's voice. We are fortunate in having a second set of notes, which was brought to light in recent years by Swami Atmaghanananda. Although these notes are anonymous and indeed fragmentary, they not only provide a few additions to Miss Waldo's notes as given in Inspired Talks, but contain a few differences of expression. Such differences are, to be sure, of no philosophical importance, but they seem to reveal the vigor and freshness of Swamiji's diction and style. To give two instances of what may have been a certain refining process in Inspired Talks: Swamiji it quoted there as saying, "Three great gifts we have: first, a human body. . . . Second, the desire to be free. Third, the help of a noble soul. . . . When you have these three, bless the Lord; you are sure to be free. According to the anonymous set of notes, what Swamiji said was not "bless the Lord," but "you have made the lucky throw of the dice"-certainly a more refreshing thing to say. Again, in Inspired Talks Swamiji is quoted as saying, "There is a vast difference between saying `food, food' and eating it, between saying, `water, water' and drinking it. What he actually said was not "water, water" but, more vigorously, "wine, wine." On the positive side, the anonymous notes give strong evidence that (from July 2 forward, at least) the sequence of Miss Waldo's notes as it occurs in Inspired Talks is faithful to the sequence and dates of Swamiji's classes except for some minor and curious rearrangements.

(The question arises here of who took this second set of notes. They start on July 2, which would lead one to suppose, in accordance with our knowledge of the comings and goings of the students, that the note taker was either Stella or the Unidentified Student's I believe we can at once rule out Stella, who, as far as Sister Christine knew, seldom came to the classes; one does not picture her as taking notes. Let us assume, then, that our note taker was the Unidentified Student. We find that he or she struggled manfully up to July 10. From then to the last class on August 6 the notes are almost (but not entirely) identical with Miss Waldo's, as we know the latter from Inspired Talks. It is possible that the Unidentified Student remained at Thousand Island Park until August 6. But it is also possible that he or she left the Park on July 10 or 11 and copied Miss Waldo's notes at a later date.)

For convenience, Swamiji's morning class can, I think, be divided into three not altogether arbitrary parts. The first extends from June 19 through July 5; the second, from July 6 through July 19; and the third from July 20 through August 6. It is not that he was teaching different subjects, or even different aspects of the same subject; these different parts mark, rather, somewhat different avenues of approach to the same persistent and compelling theme that was to ring through all his teachings in the West during the next year and a half. As far as we can know from Inspired Talks, the first section (according to this scheme) consisted of twelve classes. During the course of these he took as his texts the Gospel of John, the Narada Bhakti Sutras (summarizing the entire book in one session), and the Bhagavad Gita. In addition, he devoted one morning to a talk on Sri Ramakrishna and another to a talk on the Divine Mother. He spoke of God, the path of devotion, Divine Incarnation, Bibles, and Prophets. There was a wonderful variety of religious thought, a symphony of many themes, each exquisite in its own truth. And each was related in its own way to a great pervasive master theme-or, one might say, each was illumined from within by the same unwavering light: through out these classes one basic instruction resounded: "Stand upon the Self!""

To quote almost at random: "We are striving `to be' and nothing more, no `I' even just pure crystal, reflecting all, but ever the same. . . . Know you are the Infinite, and then fear must die. Say ever, `I and my Father are one.' All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent; but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing. It is perfectly free, it is bliss. The more our bliss with in, the more spiritual we are. The pleasure of the Self is what the world calls religion. Life and death are only different names for the same fact, the two sides of the one coin. Both are Maya, the inexplicable state of striving at one time to live, and a moment later to die. Beyond this is the true nature, the Atman. In short, as Swamiji was to say toward the end of the summer, "The keynote running through the music is `I am He, I am He'; all other notes are but variation and do not affect the real theme. Indeed so monistic was the primary theme running through Swamiji's first two weeks of classes (devotional though they also were) that Miss Waldo used her notes of them to give an ending to another set of notes taken down most likely during his New York classes on jnana yoga, held earlier in the year. (See note for chapter one, page 41.)

From the start he taught a doctrine of strength, spurning softness of approach. "Get freedom, even at the cost of life," he thundered while teaching from the Bible. ". . . All we can do is to put down all desires, hates, differences; put down the lower self, commit mental suicide, as it were. . . . Seek truth for truth's sake alone, look not for bliss. It may come, but do not let that be your incentive. Have no motive except God. Dare to come to Truth even through hell.

On the morning of Tuesday, June 18, Swamiji left the White Mountains of New Hampshire (by train) for Thousand Island Park, about 200 miles to the west, where a number of his students awaited him. Everything at the Park had, it would seem, been made ready for his coming. The steamer St. Lawrence, on which he arrived from Clayton, four miles up the river, had been newly painted a gleaming white, elegantly reaccoutered, and gaily beflagged. The Dock, with its jaunty two-story pavilion, had been entirely rebuilt. The electric lights of' the Park's completely renovated system were perhaps already glowing (for it was late afternoon or early dusk) in the grand, three-year-old Columbian Hotel and casting circles of light along the short elm-lined avenue that led straight back from the Dock to the Tabernacle at its far end. The whole village had been brushed up for that summer. Even the sewer system (in a "deplorable state" the summer before) had been entirely reconstructed, placing the "sanitary conditions of the Park above par with those of other resort." Some might say it all happened by coincidence; but however that may be, it was a newly cleaned, brightly lighted, refurbished community to which Swamiji came on Tuesday, June 18, 1895

C/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park, N.Y._x000d_ 18th June, 1895_x000d_ Dear Friend {Mr. F. Leggett},_x000d_ A letter reached me from Mrs. Sturges the day before she left, including a cheque for $50. It was impossible to make the acknowledgment reach her the next day; so I take this opportunity to ask you the favour of sending her my thanks and acknowledgment in your next to her._x000d_ We are having a nice time here except, as an old Hindu proverb says, that "a pestle must pound even if it goes to heaven". I have to work hard all the same. I am going to Chicago in the beginning of August. When are you starting?_x000d_ All our friends here send their respects to you. Hoping you all bliss and joy and health, and ever praying for the same._x000d_ I remain, yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Almost certainly, his hostess, Miss Mary Elizabeth Dutcher, and the two or three other disciples who had gathered at Thousand Island Park ahead of him were on the Dock to greet him and to escort him (no doubt by horse and buggy hired for the occasion) the short half toile to Miss Dutcher's cottage, which stood, set apart from hundreds similar to it, on the wooded sod hilly edge of the community, behind and to the west of the Tabernacle.

(This day marks the beginning of the regular teaching given daily by Swami Vivekananda to his disciples at Thousand Island Park. We had not yet all assembled there, but the Master's heart was always in his work, so he commenced at once to teach the three or four who were with him. He came on this first morning with the Bible in his hand and opened to the Book of John, saying that since we were all Christians, it was proper that he should begin with the Christian scriptures.)_x000d_ "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Hindu calls this Maya, the manifestation of God, because it is the power of God. The Absolute reflecting through the universe is what we call nature. The Word has two manifestations--the general one of nature, and the special one of the great Incarnations of God--Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Ramakrishna. Christ, the special manifestation of the Absolute, is known and knowable. The absolute cannot be known: we cannot know the Father, only the Son. We can only see the Absolute through the "tint of humanity", through Christ._x000d_ In the first five verses of John is the whole essence of Christianity: each verse is full of the profoundest philosophy._x000d_ The Perfect never becomes imperfect. It is in the darkness, but is not affected by the darkness. God's mercy goes to all, but is not affected by their wickedness. The sun is not affected by any disease of our eyes which may make us see it distorted. In the twenty-ninth verse, "taketh away the sin of the world" means that Christ would show us the way to become perfect. God became Christ to show man his true nature, that we too are God. We are human coverings over the Divine; but as the divine Man, Christ and we are one._x000d_ The Trinitarian Christ is elevated above us; the Unitarian Christ is merely a moral man; neither can help us. The Christ who is the Incarnation of God, who has not forgotten His divinity, that Christ can help us, in Him there is no imperfection. These Incarnations are always conscious of their own divinity; they know it from their birth. They are like the actors whose play is over, but who, after their work is done, return to please others. These great Ones are untouched by aught of earth; they assume our form and our limitations for a time in order to teach us; but in reality they are never limited, they are ever free. . . ._x000d_ Good is near Truth, but is not yet Truth. After learning not to be disturbed by evil, we have to learn not to be made happy by good. We must find that we are beyond both evil and good; we must study their adjustment and see that they are both necessary._x000d_ The idea of dualism is from the ancient Persians. Really good and evil are one and are in our own mind. When the mind is self-poised, neither good nor bad affects it. Be perfectly free; then neither can affect it, and we enjoy freedom and bliss. Evil is the iron chain, good is the gold one; both are chains. Be free, and know once for all that there is no chain for you. Lay hold of the _x000d_ golden chain to loosen the hold of the iron one, then throw both away. The thorn of evil is in our flesh; take another thorn from the same bush and extract the first thorn; then throw away both and be free. . . ._x000d_ In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make no conditions, and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us._x000d_ The Lord is the only Giver, all the men in the world are only shopkeepers. Get His cheque, and it must be honoured everywhere._x000d_ "God is the inexplicable, inexpressible essence of love", to be known, but never defined._x000d_ _x000d_ In our miseries and struggles the world seems to us a very dreadful place. But just as when we watch two puppies playing and biting we do not concern ourselves at all, realising that it is only fun and that even a sharp nip now and then will do no actual harm, so all our struggles are but play in God's eyes. This world is all for play and only amuses God; nothing in it can make God angry._x000d_ _x000d_ "Mother! In the sea of life my bark is sinking._x000d_ The whirlwind of illusion, the storm of attachment is growing every moment._x000d_ My five oarsmen (senses) are foolish, and the helmsman (mind) is weak._x000d_ My bearings are lost, my boat is sinking._x000d_ O Mother! Save me!"_x000d_ "Mother, Thy light stops not for the saint or the sinner; it animates the lover and the murderer." Mother is ever manifesting through all. The light is not polluted by what it shines on, nor benefited by it. The light is ever pure, ever changeless. Behind every creature is the "Mother", pure, lovely, never changing. "Mother, manifested as light in all beings, we bow down to Thee!" She is equally in suffering, hunger, pleasure, sublimity. "When the bee sucks honey, the Lord is eating." Knowing that the Lord is everywhere, the sages give up praising and blaming. Know that nothing can hurt you. How? Are you not free? Are you not Atman? He is the Life of our lives, the hearing of our ears, the sight of our eyes._x000d_ We go through the world like a man pursued by a policeman and see the barest glimpses of the beauty of it. All this fear that pursues us comes from believing in matter. Matter gets its whole existence from the presence of mind behind it. What we see is God percolating through nature.

Wednesday, June 19, marked the beginning of the regular teaching given daily by the Swami to his group of disciples at Thousand island Park. He came on this first morning with the Bible in his hand and opened it at the Book of John, saying that since the students were all Christians, it was proper that he should begin with the Christian scriptures.

The light-weight orange robe that Mrs. Hale had had made for Swamiji in Chicago soon arrived, but not so the rugs from India, which (the previous year) he had asked his good friend the Dewan of Junagadh to send to the Hale family. In a heretofore unpublished postscript to a long letter from Chicago, dated June 20, 1895, Swamiji had written to the Dewan:

P.S. I would ask a favor of you. I am going off now to N.Y. This family [the Hales] have sheltered me all the time and loved me as their son-and that in spite of the calumny of our countrymen and their own priests and that I came to them without any credentials or introductions or anything of that sort._x000d_ I would like to make them a little present-if you can send me some beautiful rugs made in Agra or Lahore-2 or 3 pieces-they are very fond of Indian rugs for their floors. It is a great luxury. There is one difficulty-the Americans allow nothing in without taxing duty. Perhaps the consul at Bombay can make it come free by permitting it as a present to friends-if not you may send them over-I will pay the duty here. If they are too expensive, I do not care to have.

19 W. 38th St., New York,_x000d_ 22nd June, 1895_x000d_ Dear Kidi,_x000d_ I will write you a whole letter instead of a line. I am glad you are progressing. You are mistaken in thinking that I am not going to return to India; I am coming soon. I am not giving to failures, and here I have planted a seed, and it is going to become a tree, and it must. Only I am afraid it will hurt its growth if I give it up too soon. . . ._x000d_ Work on, my boy. Rome was not built in a day. I am guided by the Lord, so everything will come all right in the end._x000d_ With my love ever and ever to you,_x000d_ Yours sincerely,_x000d_ Vivekananda

54 W. 33rd Street_x000d_ New York_x000d_ 22nd June, 1895_x000d_ Dear Sister {Mary Hale},_x000d_ The letters from India and the parcel of books reached me safe. I am so happy to know of Mr. Sam's arrival. I am sure he is "bewaring of the vidders" nicely. I met a friend of Mr. Sam's one day on the street. He is an Englishman with a name ending in "ni". He was very nice. He said he was living in the same house with Sam somewhere in Ohio._x000d_ I am going on pretty nearly in the same old fashion. Talking when I can and silent when forced to be. I do not know whether I will go to Greenacre this summer. I saw Miss Farmer the other day. She was in a hurry to go away, so I had but very little talk with her. She is a noble, noble lady._x000d_ How are you going on with your Christian Science lessons? I hope you will go to Greenacre. There you will find quite a number of them and also the Spiritualists, table turnings, palmists, astrologers, etc., etc. You will get all the "cures" and all the "isms" presided over by Miss Farmer. Landsberg has gone away to live in some other place, so I am left alone. I am living mostly on nuts and fruits and milk, and find it very nice and healthy too. I hope to lose about 30 to 40 lbs. this summer. That will be all right for my size. I am afraid I have forgotten all about Mrs. Adam's lessons in walking. I will have to renew them when she comes again to N.Y. Gandhi has gone to England en route to India from Boston, I suppose._x000d_ I would like to know about his "chaperon" Mrs. Howard and her present bereaved state. I am very glad to hear that the rugs did not go down to the bottom of the Atlantic and are at last coming._x000d_ This year I could hardly keep my head up, and I did not go about lecturing. The three great commentaries on the Vedanta philosophy belonging to the three great sects of dualists, qualified dualists, and monists are being sent to me from India. Hope they will arrive safe. Then I will have an intellectual feast indeed. I intend to write a book this summer on the Vedanta philosophy. This world will always be a mixture of good and evil, of happiness and misery; this wheel will ever go up and come down; dissolution and resolution is the inevitable law. Blessed are those who struggle to go beyond. Well, I am glad all the babies are doing well but sorry there was no "catch" even this winter, and every winter the chances are dwindling. Down. Here near my lodgings is the Waldorf-Hotel, the rendezvous of lots of titled but penniless Europeans on show for "Yankee" heiresses to buy. You may have any selection here, the stock is so full and varied. There is the man who talks no English; there are others who lisp a few words which no one can understand; and others are there who talk nice English, but their chance is not so great as that of the dumb ones--the girls do not think them enough foreign who talk plain English fluently. I read somewhere in a funny book that an American vessel was being foundered in the sea; the men were desperate and as a last solace wanted some religious service being done. There was "Uncle Josh" on board who was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. They all began to entreat, "Do something religious, Uncle Josh! We are all going to die." Uncle Joseph took his hat in his hand and took up a collection on the spot!_x000d_ That is all of religion he knew. And that is more or less characteristic of the majority of such people . Collections are about all the religion they know or will ever know. Lord bless them. Good-bye for present. I am going to eat something; I feel very hungry._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Be brave and be sincere; then follow any path with devotion, and you must reach the Whole. Once lay hold of one link of the chain, and the whole chain must come by degrees. Water the roots of the tree (that is, reach the Lord), and the whole tree is watered; getting the Lord, we get all._x000d_ One-sidedness is the bane of the world. The more sides you can develop the more souls you have, and you can see the universe through all souls--through the Bhakta (devotee) and the Jnani (philosopher). Determine your own nature and stick to it. Nishtha (devotion to one ideal) is the only method for the beginner; but with devotion and sincerity it will lead to all. Churches, doctrines, forms, are the hedges to protect the tender plant, but they must later be broken down that the plant may become a tree. So the various religions, Bibles, Vedas, dogmas--all are just tubs for the little plant; but it must get out of the tub. Nishtha is, in a manner, placing the plant in the tub, shielding the struggling soul in its path. . . ._x000d_ Look at the "ocean" and not at the "wave"; see no difference between ant and angel. Every worm is the brother of the Nazarene. How say one is greater and one less? Each is great in his own place. We are in the sun and in the stars as much as here. Spirit is beyond space and time and is everywhere. Every mouth praising the Lord is my mouth, every eye seeing is my eye. We are confined nowhere; we are not body, the universe is our body. We are magicians waving magic wands and creating scenes before us at will. We are the spider in his huge web, who can go on the varied strands wheresoever he desires. The spider is now only conscious of the spot where he is, but he will in time become conscious of the whole web. We are now conscious only where the body is, we can use only one brain; but when we reach ultra-consciousness, we know all, we can use all brains. Even now we can "give the push" in consciousness, and it goes beyond and acts in the superconscious._x000d_ We are striving "to be" and nothing more, no "I" even--just pure crystal, reflecting all, but ever the same. When that state is reached, there is no more doing; the body becomes a mere mechanism, pure without care for it; it cannot become impure._x000d_ Know you are the Infinite, then fear must die. Say ever, "I and my Father are one."_x000d_ _x000d_ In time to come Christs will be in numbers like bunches of grapes on a vine; then the play will be over and will pass out--as water in a kettle beginning to boil shows first one bubble, then another, then more and more, until all is in ebullition and passes out as steam. Buddha and Christ are the two biggest "bubbles" the world has yet produced. Moses was a tiny bubble, greater and greater ones came. Sometime, however, all will be bubbles and escape; but creation, ever new, will bring new water to go through the process all over again.

(The reading today was from the Bhakti-Sutras by Narada)_x000d_ "Extreme love to God is Bhakti, and this love is the real immortality, getting which a man becomes perfectly satisfied, sorrows for no loss, and is never jealous; knowing which man becomes mad."_x000d_ My Master used to say, "This world is a huge lunatic asylum where all men are mad, some after money, some after women, some after name or fame, and a few after God. I prefer to be mad after God. God is the philosophers' stone that turns us to gold in an instant; the form remains, but the nature is changed--the human form remains, but no more can we hurt or sin."_x000d_ "Thinking of God, some weep, some sing, some laugh, some dance, some say wonderful things, but all speak of nothing but God."_x000d_ Prophets preach, but the Incarnations like Jesus, Buddha, Ramakrishna, can give religion; one glance, one touch is enough. That is the power of the Holy Ghost, the "laying on of hands"; the power was actually transmitted to the disciples by the Master--the "chain of Guru-power". That, the real baptism, has been handed down for untold ages._x000d_ "Bhakti cannot be used to fulfil any desires, itself being the check to all desires." Narada gives these as the signs of love: "When all thoughts, all words, and all deeds are given up unto the Lord, and the least forgetfulness of God makes one intensely miserable, then love has begun."_x000d_ "This is the highest form of love because therein is no desire for reciprocity, which desire is in all human love."_x000d_ "A man who has gone beyond social and scriptural usage, he is a Sannyasin. When the whole soul goes to God, when we take refuge only in God, then we know that we are about to get this love."_x000d_ Obey the scriptures until you are strong enough to do without them; then go beyond them. Books are not an end-all. Verification is the only proof of religious truth. Each must verify for himself; and no teacher who says, "I have seen, but you cannot", is to be trusted, only that one who says, "You can see too". All scriptures, all truths are Vedas in all times, in all countries; because these truths are to be seen, and any one may discover them._x000d_ "When the sun of Love begins to break on the horizon, we want to give up all our actions unto God; and when we forget Him for a moment, it grieves us greatly."_x000d_ Let nothing stand between God and your love for Him. Love Him, love Him, love Him; and let the world say what it will. Love is of three sorts--one demands, but gives nothing; the second is exchange; and the third is love without thought of return--love like that of the moth for the light._x000d_ "Love is higher than work, than Yoga, than knowledge."_x000d_ Work is merely a schooling for the doer; it can do no good to others. We must work out our own problem; the prophets only show us how to work. "What you think, you become ", so if you throw your burden on Jesus, you will have to think of Him and thus become like Him--you love Him._x000d_ "Extreme love and highest knowledge are one."_x000d_ But theorising about God will not do; we must love and work. Give up the world and all worldly things, especially while the "plant" is tender. Day and night think of God and think of nothing else as far as possible. The daily necessary thoughts can all be thought through God. Eat to Him, drink to Him, sleep to Him, see Him in all. Talk of God to others; this is most beneficial._x000d_ Get the mercy of God and of His greatest children; these are the two chief ways to God. The company of these children of light is very hard to get; five minutes in their company will change a whole life; and if you really want it enough, one will come to you. The presence of those who love God makes a place holy, "such is the glory of the children of the Lord". They are He; and when they speak, their words are scriptures. The place where they have been becomes filled with their vibrations, and those going there feel them and have a tendency to become holy also._x000d_ "To such lovers there is no distinction of caste, learning, beauty, birth, wealth, or occupation; because all are His."_x000d_ Give up all evil company, especially at the beginning. Avoid worldly company, that will distract your mind. Give up all "me and mine ". To him who has nothing in the universe the Lord comes. Cut the bondage of all worldly affections; go beyond laziness and all care as to what becomes of you. Never turn back to see the result of what you have done. Give all to the Lord and go on and think not of it. The whole soul pours in a continuous current to God; there is no time to seek money, or name, or fame, no time to think of anything but God; then will come into our hearts that infinite, wonderful bliss of Love. All desires are but beads of glass. Love of God increases every moment and is ever new, to be known only by feeling it. Love is the easiest of all, it waits for no logic, it is natural. We need no demonstration, no proof. Reasoning is limiting something by our own minds. We throw a net and catch something, and then say that we have demonstrated it; but never, never can we catch God in a net._x000d_ Love should be unrelated. Even when we love wrongly, it is of the true love, of the true bliss; the power is the same, use it as we may. Its very nature is peace and bliss. The murderer when he kisses his baby forgets for an instant all but love. Give up all self, all egotism; get out of anger, lust, give all to God. "I am not, but Thou art; the old man is all gone, only Thou remainest." "I am Thou." Blame none; if evil comes, know the Lord is playing with you and be exceeding glad._x000d_ Love is beyond time and space, it is absolute.

After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature; both are chains--one iron, one gold; behind both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are states and states must ever change; but the nature of the Soul is bliss, peace, unchanging. We have not to get it, we have it; only wash away the dross and see it._x000d_ Stand upon the Self, then only can we truly love the world. Take a very, very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world. It is but baby's play, and we know that, so cannot be disturbed by it. If the mind is pleased with praise, it will be displeased with blame. All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent; but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing. It is perfectly free, it is bliss. The more our bliss is within, the more spiritual we are. The pleasure of the Self is what the world calls religion._x000d_ The internal universe, the real, is infinitely greater than the external, which is only a shadowy projection of the true one. This world is neither true nor untrue, it is the shadow of truth. "Imagination is the gilded shadow of truth", says the poet._x000d_ We enter into creation, and then for us it becomes living. Things are dead in themselves; only we give them life, and then, like fools, we turn around and are afraid of them, or enjoy them. But be not like certain fisherwomen, who, caught in a storm on their way home from market, took refuge in the house of a florist. They were lodged for the night in a room next to the garden where the air was full of the fragrance of flowers. In vain did they try to rest, until one of their number suggested that they wet their fishy baskets and place them near their heads. Then they all fell into a sound sleep._x000d_ The world is our fish basket, we must not depend upon it for enjoyment. Those who do are the Tamasas or the bound. Then there are the Rajasas or the egotistical, who talk always about "I", "I". They do good work sometimes and may become spiritual. But the highest are the Sattvikas, the introspective, those who live only in the Self. These three qualities, Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva (idleness, activity, and illumination), are in everyone, and different ones predominate at different times._x000d_ Creation is not a "making" of something, it is the struggle to regain the equilibrium, as when atoms of cork are thrown to the bottom of a pail of water and rush to rise to the top, singly or in clusters. Life is and must be accompanied by evil. A little evil is the source of life; the little wickedness that is in the world is very good; for when the balance is regained, the world will end, because sameness and destruction are one. When this world goes, good and evil go with it; but when we can transcend this world, we get rid of both good and evil and have bliss._x000d_ There is no possibility of ever having pleasure without pain, good without evil; for living itself is just the lost equilibrium. What we want is freedom, not life, nor pleasure, nor good. Creation is infinite, without beginning and without end--the ever-moving ripple in an infinite lake. There are yet unreached depths and others where the equilibrium has been regained; but the ripple is always progressing, the struggle to regain the balance is eternal. Life and death are only different names for the same fact, the two sides of the one coin. Both are Maya, the inexplicable state of striving at one time to live, and a moment later to die. Beyond this is the true nature, the Atman. While we recognise a God, it is really only the Self which we have separated ourselves from and worship as outside of us; but it is our true Self all the time--the one and only God._x000d_ To regain the balance we must counteract Tamas by Rajas; then conquer Rajas by Sattva, the calm beautiful state that will grow and grow until all else is gone. Give up bondage; become a son, be free, and then you can "see the Father", as did Jesus. Infinite strength is religion and God. Avoid weakness and slavery. You are only a soul, if you are free; there is immortality for you, if you are free; there is God, if He is free. . . ._x000d_ The world for me, not I for the world. Good and evil are our slaves, not we theirs. It is the nature of the brute to remain where he is (not to progress); it is the nature of man to seek good and avoid evil; it is the nature of God to seek neither, but just to be eternally blissful. Let us be God! Make the heart like an ocean, go beyond all the trifles of the world, be mad with joy even at evil; see the world as a picture and then enjoy its beauty, knowing that nothing affects you. Children finding glass beads in a mud puddle, that is the good of the world. Look at it with calm complacency; see good and evil as the same--both are merely "God's play"; enjoy all._x000d_ _x000d_ My Master used to say, "All is God; but tiger-God is to be shunned. All water is water; but we avoid dirty water for drinking."_x000d_ The whole sky is the censer of God, and sun and moon are the lamps. What temple is needed? All eyes are Thine, yet Thou has not an eye; all hands are Thine; yet Thou hast not a hand._x000d_ Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing; do not merely endure, be unattached. Remember the story of the bull. A mosquito sat long on the horn of a certain bull. Then his conscience troubled him, and he said, "Mr. Bull, I have been sitting here a long time, perhaps I annoy you. I am sorry, I will go away." But the bull replied, "Oh no, not at all! Bring your whole family and live on my horn; what can you do to me?"

c/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park, N.Y._x000d_ 26th June, 1895_x000d_ Dear Sister {Mary Hale},_x000d_ Many thanks for the Indian mail. I cannot express in words my gratitude to you. As you have already read in Max Muller's article on Immortality I sent Mother Church, that he thinks that those we love in this life we must have loved in the past, so it seems I must have belonged to the Holy Family in some past life. I am expecting some books from India. I hope they have arrived. If so, will you kindly send them over here? If any postage is due I shall send it as soon as I get intimation. You did not write about the duty on the rugs; there will be another big packet from Khetri containing carpets and shawls and some brocades and other nick-nacks. I have written them to get the duty paid there if it is possible through the American Consul in Bombay. If not I shall have to pay it here. I do not think they will arrive for some months yet. I am anxious about the books. Kindly send them as soon as they arrive._x000d_ My love to Mother and Father Pope and all the sisters. I am enjoying this place immensely. Very little eating and good deal of thinking and talking and study. A wonderful calmness is coming over my soul. Every day I feel I have no duty to do; I am always in eternal rest and peace. It is He that works. We are only the instruments. Blessed be His name! The threefold bondage of lust and gold and fame is, as it were, fallen from me for the time being, and once more, even here, I feel what sometimes I felt in India, "From me all difference has fallen, all right or wrong, all delusion and ignorance has vanished, I am walking in the path beyond the qualities." What law I obey, what disobey? From that height the universe looks like a mud-puddle. Hari Om Tat Sat. He exists; nothing else does. I in Thee and Thou in me. Be Thou Lord my eternal refuge! Peace, Peace, Peace! Ever with love and blessings,_x000d_ Your brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

c/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park, N.Y._x000d_ 26th June, 1895_x000d_ Dear Sister {Mary Hale},_x000d_ Many thanks for the Indian mail. It brought a good deal of good news. You are enjoying by this time, I hope, the articles by Prof. Max Muller on the "Immortality of the Soul" which I sent to Mother Church. The old man has taken in Vedanta, bones and all, and has boldly come out. I am so glad to know the arrival of the rugs. Was there any duty to pay? If so I will pay that, I insist on it. There will come another big packet from the Raja of Khetri containing some shawls and brocades and nick-nacks. I want to present them to different friends. But they are not going to arrive before some months, I am sure._x000d_ I am asked again and again, as you will find in the letters from India, to go over. They are getting desperate. Now if I go to Europe, I will go as the guest of Mr. Francis Leggett of N.Y. He will travel all over Germany, England, France, and Switzerland for six weeks. From there I shall go to India, or I may return to America. I have a seed planted here and wish it to grow. This winter's work in N.Y. was splendid, and it may die if I suddenly go over to India, so I am not sure about going to India soon._x000d_ Nothing noticeable has happened during this visit to the Thousand Islands. The scenery is very beautiful and I have some of my friends here with me to talk about God and soul ad libitum . I am eating fruits and drinking milk and so forth, and studying huge Sanskrit books on Vedanta which they have kindly sent me from India._x000d_ If I come to Chicago I cannot come at least within six weeks or more. Baby needn't alter any of her plans for me. I will see you all somehow or other before I go._x000d_ You fussed so much over my reply to Madras, but it has produced a tremendous effect there. A late speech by the President of the Madras Christian College, Mr. Miller, embodies a large amount of my ideas and declares that the West is in need of Hindu ideas of God and man and calls upon the young men to go and preach to the West. This has created quite a furore of course amongst the Missions. What you allude to as being published in the Arena I did not see a bit of it. The women did not make any fuss over me at all in New York. Your friend must have drawn on his imagination. They were not of the "bossing" type at all. I hope Father Pope will go to Europe and Mother Church too. Travelling is the best thing in life. I am afraid I shall die if made to stick to one place for a long time. Nothing like a nomadic life!_x000d_ The more the shades around deepen, the more the ends approach and the more one understands the true meaning of life, that it is a dream; and we begin to understand the failure of everyone to grasp it, for they only attempted to get meaning out of the meaningless. To get reality out of a dream is boyish enthusiasm. "Everything is evanescent, everything is changeful"--knowing this, the sage gives up both pleasure and pain and becomes a witness of this panorama (the universe) without attaching himself to anything._x000d_ "They indeed have conquered Heaven even in this life whose mind has become fixed in sameness . God is pure and same to all, therefore they are said to be in God " (Gita, V.19). Desire, ignorance, and inequality--this is the trinity of bondage._x000d_ Denial of the will to live, knowledge, and same-sightedness is the trinity of liberation._x000d_ Freedom is the goal of the universe._x000d_ "Nor love nor hate nor pleasure nor pain nor death nor life nor religion nor irreligion: not this, not this, not this."_x000d_ Yours ever,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Our best work is done, our greatest influence is exerted, when we are without thought of self. All great geniuses know this. Let us open ourselves to the one Divine Actor, and let Him act, and do nothing ourselves. "O Arjuna! I have no duty in the whole world", says Krishna. Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces, we can only see the results. Put our self, lose it, forget it; just let God work, it is His business. We have nothing to do but stand aside and let God work. The more we go away, the more God comes in. Get rid of the little "I", and let only the great "I" live._x000d_ We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live, they travel far. Each thought we think is tinged with our own character, so that for the pure and holy man, even his jests or abuse will have the twist of his own love and purity and do good._x000d_ Desire nothing; think of God and look for no return. It is the desireless who bring results. The begging monks carry religion to every man's door; but they think that they do nothing, they claim nothing, their work is unconsciously done. If they should eat of the tree of knowledge, they would become egoists, and all the good they do would fly away. As soon as we say "I", we are humbugged all the time; and we call it "knowable", but it is only going round and round like a bullock tied to a tree. The Lord has hidden Himself best, and His work is best; so he who hides himself best, accomplishes most. Conquer yourself, and the whole universe is yours._x000d_ In the state of Sattva we see the very nature of things, we go beyond the senses and beyond reason. The adamantine wall that shuts us in is egoism; we refer everything to ourselves, thinking. "I do this, that, and the other." Get rid of this puny "I"; kill this diabolism in us; "Not I, but Thou"--say it, feel it, live it. Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will. To give up the world is to forget the ego, to know it not at all--living in the body, but not of it. This rascal ego must be obliterated. Bless men when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing you; they can only hurt themselves. Go where people hate you, let them thrash the ego out of you, and you will get nearer to the Lord. Like the mother-monkey, we hug our "baby", the world, as long as we can, but at last when we are driven to put it under our feet and step on it then we are ready to come to God. Blessed it is to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness. Blessed are we if we cannot read, we have less to take us away from God._x000d_ Enjoyment is the million-headed serpent that we must tread under foot. We renounce and go on, then find nothing and despair; but hold on, hold on. The world is a demon. It is a kingdom of which the puny ego is king. Put it away and stand firm. Give up lust and gold and fame and hold fast to the Lord, and at last we shall reach a state of perfect indifference. The idea that the gratification of the senses constitutes enjoyment is purely materialistic. There is not one spark of real enjoyment there; all the joy there is, is a mere reflection of the true bliss._x000d_ Those who give themselves up to the Lord do more for the world than all the so-called workers. One man who has purified himself thoroughly accomplishes more than a regiment of preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power._x000d_ "Be like a lily--stay in one place and expand your petals; and the bees will come of themselves." There was a great contrast between Keshab Chandra Sen and Shri Ramakrishna. The second never recognised any sin or misery in the world, no evil to fight against. The first was a great ethical reformer, leader, and founder of the Brahmo-Samaj. After twelve years the quiet prophet of Dakshineswar had worked a revolution not only in India, but in the world. The power is with the silent ones, who only live and love and then withdraw their personality. They never say "me" and "mine"; they are only blessed in being instruments. Such men are the makers of Christs and Buddhas, ever living fully identified with God, ideal existences, asking nothing, and not consciously doing anything. They are the real movers, the Jivanmuktas, absolutely selfless, the little personality entirely blown away, ambition non-existent. They are all principle, no personality.

(The Swami brought the New Testament this morning and talked again on the book of John.)_x000d_ Mohammed claimed to be the "Comforter" that Christ promised to send. He considered it unnecessary to claim a supernatural birth for Jesus. Such claims have been common in all ages and in all countries. All great men have claimed gods for their fathers._x000d_ Knowing is only relative; we can be God, but never know Him. Knowledge is a lower state; Adam's fall was when he came to "know". Before that he was God, he was truth, he was purity. We are our own faces, but can see only a reflection, never the real thing. We are love, but when we think of it, we have to use a phantasm, which proves that matter is only externalised thought. _x000d_ Nivritti is turning aside from the world. Hindu mythology says that the four first-created were warned by a Swan (God Himself) that manifestation was only secondary; so they remained without creating. The meaning of this is that expression is degeneration, because Spirit can only be expressed by the letter and then the "letter killeth"; yet principle is bound to be clothed in matter, though we know that later we shall lose sight of the real in the covering. Every great teacher understands this, and that is why a continual succession of prophets has to come to show us the principle and give it a new covering suited to the times. My Master taught that religion is one; all prophets teach the same; but they can only present the principle in a form; so they take it out of the old form and put it before us in a new one. When we free ourselves from name and form, especially from a body--when we need no body, good or bad--then only _x000d_ do we escape from bondage. Eternal progression is eternal bondage; annihilation of form is to be preferred. We must get free from any body, even a "god-body". God is the only real existence, there cannot be two. There is but One Soul, and I am That._x000d_ Good works are only valuable as a means of escape; they do good to the doer, never to any other._x000d_ Knowledge is mere classification. When we find many things of the same kind we call the sum of them by a certain name and are satisfied; we discover "facts", never "why". We take a circuit in a wider field of darkness and think we know something! No "why" can be answered in this world; for that we must go to God. The Knower can never be expressed; it is as when a grain of salt drops into the ocean, it is at once merged in the ocean._x000d_ Differentiation creates; homogeneity or sameness is God. Get beyond differentiation; then you conquer life and death and reach eternal sameness and are in God, are God. Get freedom, even at the cost of life. All lives belong to us as leaves to a book; but we are unchanged, the Witness, the Soul, upon whom the impression is made, as when the impression of a circle is made upon the eyes when a firebrand is rapidly whirled round and round. The Soul is the unity of all personalities, and because It is at rest, eternal, unchangeable. It is God, Atman. It is not life, but It is coined into life. It is not pleasure, but It is manufactured into pleasure. . . ._x000d_ Today God is being abandoned by the world because He does not seem to be doing enough for the world. So they say, "Of what good is He?" Shall we look upon God as a mere municipal authority?_x000d_ All we can do is put down all desires, hates, differences; put down the lower self, commit mental suicide, as it were; keep the body and mind pure and healthy, but only as instruments to help us to God; that is their only true use. Seek truth for truth's sake alone, look not for bliss. It may come, but do not let that be your incentive. Have no motive except God. Dare to come to Truth even through hell.

(The entire party went on a picnic for the day, and although the Swami taught constantly, as he did wherever he was, no notes were taken and no record, therefore, of what he said remains. As he began his breakfast before setting out, however, he remarked:)_x000d_ Be thankful for all food, it is Brahman. His universal energy is transmuted into our individual energy and helps us in all that we do.

(The Swami came this morning with a Gita in his hand.)_x000d_ Krishna, the "Lord of souls", talks to Arjuna or Gudakesha, "lord of sleep" (he who has conquered sleep). The "field of virtue" (the battle-field) is this world; the five brothers (representing righteousness) fight the hundred other brothers (all that we love and have to contend against); the most heroic brother, Arjuna (the awakened soul), is the general. We have to fight all sense-delights, the things to which we are most attached, to kill them. We have to stand alone; we are Brahman, all other ideas must be merged in this one._x000d_ Krishna did everything but without any attachment; he was in the world, but not of it. "Do all work but without attachment; work for work's sake, never for yourself."_x000d_ Freedom can never be true of name and form; it is the clay out of which we (the pots) are made; then it is limited and not free, so that freedom can never be true of the related. One pot can never say "I am free" as a pot; only as it loses all ideas of form does it become free. The whole universe is only the Self with variations, the one tune made bearable by variation; sometimes there are discords, but they only make the subsequent harmony more perfect. In the universal melody three ideas stand out--freedom, strength, and sameness._x000d_ If your freedom hurts others, you are not free there. You must not hurt others._x000d_ "To be weak is to be miserable", says Milton. Doing and suffering are inseparably joined. (Often, too, the man who laughs most is the one who suffers most.) "To work you have the right, not to the fruits thereof."_x000d_ Evil thoughts, looked at materially, are the disease bacilli._x000d_ Each thought is a little hammer blow on the lump of iron which our bodies are, manufacturing out of it what we want it to be._x000d_ We are heirs to all the good thoughts of the universe, if we open ourselves to them._x000d_ The book is all in us. Fool, hearest not thou? In thine own heart day and night is singing that Eternal Music--Sachchidananda, soham, soham--Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, I am He, I am He._x000d_ The fountain of all knowledge is in every one of us, in the ant as in the highest angel. Real religion is one, but we quarrel with the forms, the symbols, the illustrations. The millennium exists already for those who find it; we have lost ourselves and then think the world is lost._x000d_ Perfect strength will have no activity in this world; it only is, it does not act._x000d_ While real perfection is only one, relative perfections must be many.

To try to think without a phantasm is to try to make the impossible possible. We cannot think "mammalia" without a concrete example. So with the idea of God._x000d_ The great abstraction of ideas in the world is what we call God._x000d_ Each thought has two parts--the thinking and the word; and we must have both. Neither idealists nor materialists are right; we must take both idea and expression._x000d_ All knowledge is of the reflected, as we can only see our face in a mirror. No one will ever know his own Self or God; but we are that own Self, we are God._x000d_ In Nirvana you are when you are not. Buddha said, "You are best, you are real, when you are not"--when the little self is gone._x000d_ The Light Divine within is obscured in most people. It is like a lamp in a cask of iron, no gleam of light can shine through. Gradually, by purity and unselfishness we can make the obscuring medium less and less dense, until at last it becomes as transparent as glass. Shri Ramakrishna was like the iron cask transformed into a glass cask through which can be seen the inner light as it is. We are all on the way to become the cask of glass and even higher and higher reflections. As long as there is a "cask" at all, we must think through material means. No impatient one can ever succeed._x000d_ Great saints are the object-lessons of the Principle. But the disciples make the saint the Principle, and then they forget the Principle in the person._x000d_ The result of Buddha's constant inveighing against a personal God was the introduction of idols into India. In the Vedas they knew them not, because they saw God everywhere, but the reaction against the loss of God as Creator and Friend was to make idols, and Buddha became an idol--so too with Jesus. The range of idols is from wood and stone to Jesus and Buddha, but we must have idols._x000d_ _x000d_ Violent attempts at reform always end by retarding reform. Do not say, "You are bad"; say only, "You are good, but be better."_x000d_ Priests are an evil in every country, because they denounce and criticise, pulling at one string to mend it until two or three others are out of place. Love never denounces, only ambition does that. There is no such thing as "righteous" anger or justifiable killing._x000d_ If you do not allow one to become a lion, he will become a fox. Women are a power, only now it is more for evil because man oppresses woman; she is the fox, but when she is no longer oppressed, she will become the lion. _x000d_ Ordinarily speaking, spiritual aspiration ought to be balanced through the intellect; otherwise it may degenerate into mere sentimentality. . . ._x000d_ All theists agree that behind the changeable there is an Unchangeable, though they vary in their conception of the Ultimate. Buddha denied this in toto. "There is no Brahman, no Atman, no soul," he said._x000d_ As a character Buddha was the greatest the world has ever seen; next to him Christ. But the teachings of Krishna as taught by the Gita are the grandest the world has ever known. He who wrote that wonderful poem was one of those rare souls whose lives sent a wave of regeneration through the world. The human race will never again see such a brain as his who wrote the Gita._x000d_ There is only one Power, whether manifesting as evil or good. God and the devil are the same river with the water flowing in opposite directions.

c/o Miss Dutcher,_x000d_ Thousand Island Park,_x000d_ July, 1895_x000d_ Dear Mother {Mrs. Betty Sturges},_x000d_ I am sure you are in New York by this time, and that it is not very hot there now._x000d_ We are having great times here. Marie Louise arrived yesterday. So we are exactly seven now including all that have come yet._x000d_ All the sleep of the world has come upon me. I sleep at least two hours during the day and sleep through the whole night as a piece of log. This is a reaction, I think, from the sleeplessness of New York. I am also writing and reading a little, and have a class every morning after breakfast. The meals are being conducted on the strictest vegetarian principles, and I am fasting a good deal. _x000d_ I am determined that several pounds of my fat shall be off before I leave. This is a Methodist place, and they will have their camp meeting in August. It is a very beautiful spot, but I am afraid it becomes too crowded during the season._x000d_ Miss Joe Joe's fly-bite has been cured completely by this time, I am sure. Where is . . . Mother? Kindly give her my best regards when you write her next._x000d_ I will always look back upon the delightful time I had at Percy, and always thank Mr. Leggett for that treat. I shall be able to go to Europe with him. When you meet him next, kindly give him my eternal love and gratitude. The world is always bettered by the love of the likes of him._x000d_ Are you with your friend, Mrs. Dora (long German name)? She is a noble soul, a genuine Mahatma (great soul). Kindly give her my love and regards._x000d_ I am in a sort of sleepy, lazy, happy state now and do not seem to dislike it. Marie Louise brought a little tortoise from New York, her pet. Now, arriving here, the pet found himself surrounded with his natural element. So by dint of persistent tumbling and crawling, he has left the love and fondlings of Marie Louise far, far behind. She was a little sorry at first, but we preached liberty with such a vigour that she had to come round quick._x000d_ May the Lord bless you and yours for ever and ever is the constant prayer of_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. Joe Joe did not send the birch bark book. Mrs. Bull was very glad to have the one I had sent her._x000d_ I had a large number of very beautiful letters from India. Everything is all right there. Send my love to the babies on the other side--the real "innocents abroad"._x000d_ V.

According to the scheme we arc here following, the second part of Inspired Talks began on July 6. The group of students had become somewhat larger. "Marie Louise arrived yester day," Swamiji wrote to Betty Sturges sometime before July 7. "So we are exactly seven now including all that have come yet. Was it coincidence that with the arrival of the intellectual and intense Frenchwoman Swamiji now took as his text the Brahma Sutra Bhashya of Shankaracharya, or had the awaited book only just arrived? In any event, the morning class now entered the deep waters of Advaita Vedanta philosophy.

As is well known to every student of Indian philosophy, the Brahma Sutras, or Vedanta Sutras, was an ancient attempt to systematize the sometimes obscure and contradictory thought of the Upanishads. These highly terse and elliptical sutras have been ascribed to Badarayana Vyasa, of whom little is known, (Some scholars place him in ancient times, and tradition identifies him with Veda Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata.) Because of their near impenetrability, the 550-odd aphorisms of this compendious work have been interpreted down through the ages, each commentator at times twisting the text a bit, as Swamiji pointed out, to suit his own philosophical bent and thesis-"conscious liars" all. The commentaries of Shankara (monistic), Ramanuja (qualified-monistic), and Madhva (dualistic) are the best known.

As early as March 6, 1895, Swamiji, in an unpublished passage, had written to Alasinga Perumal, "Can you send me the books I wrote you for? And on April 4, "Send me the Vedanta Sutras and the Bhasyas of all the sects. A Alasinga had already sent the first volume of the Bhashya of Ramanuja. On his receipt of the book Swamiji wrote a long letter (dated May 6, 1895) to his disciple, in the course of which he explained in some detail his reason for wanting all the great commentaries. The passage is well known, but can be repeated here, for it sounds one of the main themes of his thought:

Now I will tell you my discovery. All of religion is contained in the Vedanta, that is, in the three stages of the Vedanta philosophy, the Dvaita [Dualism], Vishishtadvaita (Qualified-monism], and Advaita [Nondualism]; one comes after the other. These are the three stages of spiritual growth in man. Each one is necessary. This is the essential of religion; the Vedanta, applied to the various ethnic customs and creeds of India, is Hinduism. The first stage, i.e. Dvaita, applied to the ideas of the ethnic groups of Europe, is Christianity; as applied to the Semitic groups, Mohammedanism. The Advaita, as applied in its Yoga-perception form, is Buddhism, etc. Now by religion is meant the Vedanta; the applications must vary according to the different needs, surroundings, and other circumstances of different nations. You will find that although the philosophy is the same, the Shaktas, Shaivas, etc. apply it each to their own special cult and ,forms. . . I wish to write a book on this subject, therefore I wanted the three Bhashyas; but only one volume of the Ramanuja (Bhashya) has reached me as yet.

Swamiji was eager to receive the other volumes, which were long in coming. In May he had written to Mrs. Bull about the expected arrival of the Sanskrit works and his intention "to write a book in English on the Vedanta Philosophy in its three states when I am at Thousand Islands. Other Sanskrit books came from India, but not, it would appear, the Bhashyas.

It was no doubt in regard to the same shipment of safely arrived books that Swamiji had written from New York to Mary Hale, who generally attended to forwarding to him his Chicago addressed letters and packages: "The letters from India and the parcel of books reached me safe." In another passage of this letter it is clear that those books were not the eagerly awaited Bhashyas. "The three great commentaries on the Vedanta philosophy belonging to the three great sects of dualists, qualified dualists, and monists are being sent to me from India. Hope they will arrive safe. Then I will have an _x000d_ intellectual feast indeed. I intend to write a book this summer on the Vedanta philosophy.

It is not clear from Swamiji's letters exactly when the Bhashyas came into his hands. As late as June 26 he was still "expecting some books from India," and asking Mary Hale to "kindly send them over here [to Thousand Island park].

But finally they arrived. As has been said, we know that Swamiji began his discussion of the Vedanta Sutras on July 6. And although Miss Waldo does not always indicate in her notes on which days he read from and elucidated the commentaries, it is possible to discover (to some extent at least) the mornings on which he brought one or another of the great tomes to the class. For instance, on the morning of July 6, he went through the entire text of Shankara's introduction to his commentary, in which is discussed the subject of adhyasa, or the superimposition of the object upon the subject, the latter of which is "the only reality; the other [the object] a mere appearance." On this same morning, he covered also Shankara's commentary on the first and second aphorisms of the Brahma Sutras, bringing out the salient points from the midst of long and weighty arguments and expositions, which tend to confound the Western student, particularly in the then available English translations. On July 10 he took up the commentary on the third aphorism; on July 12 and 16 (jumping around a bit) that on the fourth aphorism; and on July 18, that on the fifth.

Interspersed, were classes on the Shri Bhashya of Ramanuja. Although Miss Waldo made no note of it, Swamiji seems to have begun his discussion of Ramanuja's philosophy, or theology, on the morning of Sunday, July 7. He began to quote from Ramanuja's Shri Bhashya on that afternoon and continued to elucidate it on the following morning and the morning after that. As for the Bhashya of Madhvacharya, he did not linger with it. "Madhva is a thoroughgoing dualist or dualist," he said. ". . . He quotes chiefly from the Puranas. He says that Brahman means Vishnu, not Siva at all, because there is no salvation except through Vishnu. . . . There is no place for reasoning in Madhva's explanation, it is all taken from the revelation in the Vedas. That is almost all we find about Madhvacharya in Inspired Talks.

It was the Bhashyas of Shankara and Ramanuja that claimed Swamiji's attention from July 6 through July 19. Throughout these classes he not only quoted from the commentaries but gave his own harmonizing views. To Swamiji it was on the basis of Advaita that the dualistic religions, from the most crude to the most rarefied, had validity; they Were needed representations or expressions of the soul's partial visions of itself at varying distances some far off and awesome, some close and enrapturing. Ultimately, they led to the highest realization of all that of the identity of the unveiled soul with the Self or Brahman. Swamiji's reconciliation of the three philosophical schools of Vedanta was, as he himself was later to say, a contribution to Indian thought. Previously each school had been considered a different, though equally valid, path to the soul's liberation. Sri Ramakrishna had demonstrated the actual truth of this in his life, verifying it beyond all doubt. Swamiji now pointed out philosophically the basis for the harmony of all religious ideals and paths, showing them to be but stages on the way back to the One Reality as taught by Advaita Vedanta. When asked in later years why, if this view was correct, it had never before been mentioned by any of the Masters, he replied, with the knowledge of his own stature, "Because I was born for this and it was left for me to do.

In his classes at Thousand Island Park we find him dwelling on this subject, explaining again and again the place of dualistic religions in relation to Advaita Vedanta, the meaning of the Personal God in relation to the Absolute Brahman. Indeed, the views he expressed at Miss Dutcher's cottage perhaps constitute an important part of the book he wanted to write that summer. Here are a few passages pertinent to this particular theme. _x000d_ So long as I say "you" [he said on July 19] I have the right to speak of God protecting us. When I see another, I must take all the consequences and put in the third, the ideal, which stands between us; that is the apex of the triangle. . . . The idea of creation or change is inseparably connected with will. So long as we perceive this world in motion, we have to conceive will behind it. . . . From our present standpoint, this world appears to us as will and consciousness. Personal God is as much an entity for Himself as we are for ourselves, and no more.

And a few days later:_x000d_ _x000d_ Separating ourselves from the Absolute and attributing certain qualities to It gives us Isvara. It is the Reality of the universe as seen through our mind.

A week later:_x000d_ Man does not manufacture God out of his own brain; but he can only see God in the light of his own capacity, and he attributes to Him the bat of all he knows. Each attribute is the whole of God, and this signifying the whole by one quality is the metaphysical explanation of the Personal God. Isvara is without form yet has all forms, is without qualities yet has all qualities. As human beings, we have to see the trinity of existence - God, man, nature; and we cannot do otherwise.

It is through God Himself that we can go beyond Him, back (as it were) to the Absolute Brahman. "Some imaginations help to break the bondage of the rest," Swamiji said in his last-but-one day at Thousand Island Park. "The whole universe is imagination, but one set of imaginations will cure another set. . . . The highest imagination that can break all the links of the chain is that of the Personal God.

There are many definitions and explanations of the Personal God, both as Ishvara and as the Divine Mother, in Inspired Talks, but let us quote just one more-one in which we find the illusory line between God and Brahman-the "optical illusion," the difference that does not exist and yet, because we see it, cannot be denied:_x000d_ The sea calm is the Absolute; the same sea in waves is Divine Mother. She is time, space, and causation. God is Mother and has two natures, the conditioned and the unconditioned. As the former, She is God, nature, and soul (man). As the latter, She is unknown and unknowable. Out of the Unconditioned came the trinity: God, Nature, and soul-the triangle of existence."

To the orthodox Vishishtadvaitist (qualified-monist) the triangle is real; to the Advaitist, it is the magic spell under which, for a time, man laughs and cries and prays-all the while, as Swamiji said, eternally free. "Beyond [Maya] is the true nature, the Atman. While we recognise a God, it is really only the Self, from which we have separated ourselves and worship as outside of us; but it is our true Self all the time-the one and only God.

Ramanuja would not have agreed. Nor perhaps would Shankara have agreed with Swamiji's [and Sri Ramakrishna's] recognition of the Vishishtadvaita stage as essential in the life of the aspiring soul. Essential, but not permanent or prolonged. Swamiji never tired of emphasizing that while the jiva (the individual soul) must recognize a God, the effort must be ever toward freedom, toward the Advaitic realization, not toward further and further dependence, not , in the gravitational field of Maya, toward a more and more crude and debilitating form of dualism. "Fearlessness is not possible as long as we have even God over us; we must be God."We create God in our image; it is we who create Him to be our master, it is not God who mates us His servants. When we know that we are one with God, that we and He are friends, then come equality and freedom. So long as you hold yourself separated by a hair's breadth from the Eternal One, fear cannot go. And again, "Never forget the glory of human nature. We are the greatest God that ever was or ever will be. Christs and Buddhas are but waves on the boundless ocean which I am. Bow down to nothing but your own higher Self. Until you know that you are that very God of gods, there will never be any freedom for you.

Swami completed his discussion of the Bhashyas of the Brahma Sutras on July 18 or 19, and so ended (according to our division) the second part of his morning class.

It appears to have been around this time that two strangers, wet, bedraggled, and terrified by their own boldness, knocked one dark and rainy night at the Front door. Miss Dutcher, who let them in, called Swamiji from the upstairs veranda to see the "two ladies from Detroit. He came down the stairs to the little parlor, and the young women, overwhelmed in his presence, forgot all their rehearsed speeches. The words tumbled out: "We have come to you just as we would go to Jesus if he were still on the earth and ask him to teach us.

"He greeted us so sweetly!" one of them was to write to a friend. "It was like a benediction. And he said, "If only I possessed the power of the Christ to set you free now! Then after a few more words, he invited them upstairs to join the group to whom he had been talking. "And what do you think?" the letter went on. "Instead of our staying at a hotel or boarding house, as we expected, those dear people insisted [the next day] upon our becoming members of the household. Our hearts sang paeans of praise.

And thus it was that Mrs. Mary Funke and Miss Christina Greenstidel came to Swamiji-my disciples," he would say in later years, "who travelled hundreds of miles to find me, and they came in the night and in the rain.

According to Sister Christine's memoirs, she and Mrs. Funke arrived at Thousand Island Park on the night of July 6. Yet her memory of the date was admittedly not certain, for when first mentioning it she wrote, "It must have been the 6th of July, 1895, that we had the temerity to seek him out. With due apologies to Sister Christine, one must venture to say that there are a number of reasons that the date could not have been the sixth of July. First of all, July 6 was not a rainy night. The first time that rain fell in the area after weeks of what the natives considered to be a drought was on the night of Monday, July 8. It was an event worthy of notice. "The blessed rains came last night beginning at 8 p.m.," the Watertown Times rejoiced.9 Nor could the two young ladies have arrived on the evening of July 8, for it seems clear from Sister Christine's memoirs that Leon Landsberg was there ahead of them, and he, it is certain, had arrived not earlier than July 11. Again, we learn from Sister Christine that Swamiji was planning to initiate several people on the Monday following the arrival of the two young women from Detroit. The two initiation ceremonies that Swamiji held at Thousand Island Park took place on Sunday, July 7, (when he gave the vows of sannyasa and the name Abhayananda to Mme Marie Louise) and Monday, July 22 (when he gave the same vows and the name Kripananda to Leon Landaberg). In all probability it was the second occasion to which Sister Christine was referring, and thus it could have been on the rainy night of Saturday, July 20, that she and Mary Funke arrived. According to another reference in Christine's memoirs, however, it was not the twentieth, but the equally rainy nineteenth. Writing of their first meeting at the cottage, she precisely describes the class which is dated July 20 in Inspired Talks. Indeed, her notes of this morning class coincide in places almost word for word with Miss Waldo's. Nor in any of Christine's writings about Thousand Island Park does she refer to classes or events earlier than those of July 20. So even if we had only the inclusions and omissions in the memoirs of Sister Christine to go by, we would feel confident in giving the date of July 19 to that memorable dark and rainy night. But we have also a series of letter fragments, interwoven with reminiscences, written by Mary Funke. These "Reminiscences," as the composition is called as a whole, appeared in Prabuddha Bharata in February of 1927, only a few months before Mrs. Funke died. The date that heads it is "July 19 [1895].It is clear enough that the first letter fragment was not written on the day of arrival; but it is also clear that the date does not belong to the first fragment any more than to later, undated fragments; rather, its purpose, it would seem, is to mark the beginning of that wonderful and auspicious time. All in all, then, July 19 would seem to have been the date of the arrival of the "two ladies from Detroit "

But late though they may have come, they stayed to the end and were filled, as were all the others, to overflowing. Indeed it was a time not to be counted in days or weeks; it partook of eternity-a time they could never have imagined in anticipation and could not easily recapture in memory.

Only if one's mind were lifted to that high state of consciousness in which we lived for the time, could we hope to recapture the experience (Sister Christine was to write in her memoirs]. We were filled with joy. We did not know at that time that we were living in his radiance. On the wings of inspiration, he carried us to the height which was his natural abode. He himself, speaking of it later, said that he was at his best in Thousand Islands.

As is well known to everyone familiar with Swami Vivekananda's life, Christina Greenstidel and her friend Mary Funke had first heard Swamiji in their home town of Detroit in mid February of 1894. A combination of conditions-religious and intellectual boredom, the dreary monotony of Detroit's usual _x000d_ lecture season, Mary Funke's unquenchable sense of optimism about what lay around the next corner, and, surely, some imponderable element-had taken them one evening to the Unitarian Church to hear "Vive Kananda, the Hindoo Monk." They had gone hoping for a ray of light, and they found the sun itself.

"Surely, never in our countless incarnations had we taken a step so momentous!" Sister Christine was to write long after, the wonder of the event only increasing with the passing years. "For before we had listened five minutes, we knew that we had found the touchstone for which we had searched so long. In one breath, we exclaimed--`If we had missed this . . . !

Swamiji was in Detroit that season from February 12 to 23 and from March 9 to 30. He gave eight public lectures in the city, all of which the two friends attended. They did not meet him personally; it had been enough to be in the same auditorium with that radiant power, to listen to that mind.

That amazing mind! (Sister Christine was to recall.] What can one say that will give even a faint idea of its majesty, its glory, its splendour? It was a mind so far transcending other minds, even of those who rank as geniuses, that it seemed different in its very nature. Its ideas were so clear, so powerful, so transcendental that it seemed incredible that they could have emanated from the intellect of a limited human being. . . . He burst upon us in a blaze of reddish gold, which seemed to have caught and concentrated the sun's rays. He was barely thirty, this preacher from far away India.

After Swamiji had left Detroit the two young women lost track of him. It was not until the summer of the following year that a friend happened to inform them that he was still in America and was spending the summer at Thousand Island Park. One can imagine that Christina Greenstidel and Mary Funke simply looked at one another and without a word knew what they would do. Early the next morning they were on a train headed east--to Niagara Falls (or perhaps to Buffalo), New York; from there to Clayton, and thence by river steamer to the Dock at the Park: a journey all told of more than five hundred miles.

Arriving in the early evening, they no doubt took a room and had dinner; and then, for they could not wait, they made in inquiries at the village stores about how to find Swami Vivekananda. At length they learned that there were, yes, "some queer people living up on the hill, among whom is a foreign¬ looking gentleman. They hired a man with a lantern, who led them through the rain to the Tabernacle and thence along a wet and slippery path-slick with mud in some spots, with wet granite in others-up and across the wooded hill. They could not have gone more than sixty yards before they saw a light through the trees and heard the "rich, beautiful voice of the Swami, who was talking to those who had gathered on his porch." "Our heart-beats could have been heard, I truly believe!" Mary Funke later wrote to her friend17 But their courage did not fail them. They reached the cottage, walked up the front steps, knocked on the door--and we know the rest.

These two pilgrims became dear to Swamiji, particularly Christina Greenstidel. Gentle, "pure in soul," as he said, and self sacrificing, she would, he knew, become instrumental in his Indian work. For Mary Funke he saw another road. Of her future he was to say, dashing her romantic dreams of wearing yellow robes in Himalayan caves-"You are a house¬holder. Go back to Detroit, find God in your husband and family. That is your path at present." Eminently sensible, she acknowledged the rightness of his words. "How foolish of me " she later wrote, "and how wise Swamiji was!"

Of Mary Caroline Funke's background and life we know only that her husband, Charles F. Funke, was a wholesale grocer in Detroit and an elder in the Presbyterian Church (which, on the whole, did not look with favor upon Swamiji). _x000d_ We know also that Mary Funke was beautiful, gracious, and charming, that she was somewhat older than Sister Christine, that she suffered From ill health in later years, that she died a widow in August of 1927 and was survived by a daughter. To judge from her letters and reminiscences, together with the memoirs of Christine, she had an optimistic and sunny disposition, a bubbling sense of humor, the gift of giving herself to others, and the blessed ability to amuse Swamiji. She had, as well, the "temerity" to seek him out with Christina in his "retreat," the humility to be aghast at her own boldness, and the courage, again, to knock upon his door. "Mrs. Funke is a jewel," Swamiji was to write in a letter to Christine years later, "--all blessings on her.

Christina Greenstidel had the same courage, the same humility, the same dauntless spirit as her friend, but she does not seem to have had the same spontaneous cheerfulness. Indeed her life (before Swamiji entered it) seems to have been without rapture, burdened with external responsibilities, darkened by inward depression, and propelled by an iron will. A sketch written by Mr. Boshi Sen, a good friend of hers in later years, gives us the only information we have of her early days. Mr. Sen, whose source was, no doubt, Christine herself, wrote:

Sister Christine was born of German parentage, in Nuremberg, August 17, 1866. Her father, Frederick Greenstidel, moved to the United States when she was only three years old, and the family settled in Detroit. [The home address of Christine's family was in the heart of Detroit's German district, as was that of Mary and Charles Funke.] She had a very happy childhood. Her father, a noble, free-thinking German scholar, was the hero of her worship and the object of her adoration. But he lacked business acumen and as a result lost all his savings and inheritance. At the age of seventeen, Sister Christine, faced with the responsibility of being the sole provider for her mother and five [actually, four] younger sisters, accepted the position of teacher in the Detroit Public Schools. From this time on to the very end, life demanded of her heroic struggles and noble self-effacement.

According to Boshi Sen, Christina, outgrowing an early devotion to the Orthodox Church, became “one of the first Christian Scientists of Detroit.” But along with many another spiritual seekers, she had ventured up other religious avenues and byways as well. Indeed, in the summer of 1895 she and Mary Funke were attending a class in Detroit held by Mrs. Peake, an occultist of sorts. Mrs. Peake, whom Swamiji had once referred to as “a simple good woman, taught some wonders passing strange. “The two ladies [so good and pure] who have come from Detroit were in Mrs. Peake’s class,” he wrote from Thousand Island Park on July 29, “and unfortunately were mighty frightened with imps and other persons of that ilk. They have been taught to put a little salt, just a little, in burning alcohol, and if there is a black precipitate, that must be the impurities showing the presence of the imps. However, these two ladies had too much fright from the imps. It is said that these imps are everywhere filling the whole universe.

It is small wonder that Mary and Christina ran to Thousand Island Park. “Oh, the sublime teaching of Vivekananda!” Mary Funke wrote from there. “No nonsense, no talk of ‘astral,’ ‘imps,’ etc., but God, Jesus, Buddha. I feel that I shall never be quite the same again for I have caught a glimpse of the Real.

In her memoirs, Sister Christine tells how Swamiji happened to initiate them (?) almost immediately upon their arrival at Miss Dutcher’s cottage. “We came on Saturday, . . .” she wrote, meaning, no doubt, the morning they joined the household. “Swami Vivekananda had planned to initiate several of those already there on Monday [July 22]. ‘I don’t know you well enough yet to feel sure that you are ready for initiation,’ he said on Sunday afternoon. Then he added rather shyly, `I have a power which I seldom use-the power of reading the mind. If you will permit me, I should like to read your mind, as I wish to initiate you with the others tomorrow.' We assented joyfully.

He told them a little of what he found. "He saw that one of us [Christina] would be indissolubly connected with India. Important as well as minor events were foretold for us, nearly all of which have come to pass. In this reading the quality of the personality was revealed-the mettle, the capacity, the character. But modestly enough, Sister Christine does not relate in her memoirs what she confided to Boshi Sen:

The day after the arrival [Mr. Sen wrote in his sketch], Swamiji, with Sister Christine's permission, read her life. When he asked: "May I read all?" she replied: "Yes, of course." "Brave girl !" he exclaimed. He told her then that she had only three veils left and that her third eye would open in this life. The next day Swamiji initiated her.

The reference to "three veils" and "third eye" has an esoteric ring uncharacteristic of Swamiji. But whether or not he actually used these terms, their significance is clear: Christina had already advanced far along the spiritual path. There may have been other teats of her readiness as well. Would it not have been during the first day or two after her arrival that Swamiji, perhaps wanting quickly to plumb the depth of her spiritual sincerity, or perhaps forcing her to plumb the depths of her own commitment, outrageously blew cigarette smoke in her face? In her own words:_x000d_ It is true that we were conventional and proper to the point of prudishness. Still even one more Bohemian might have been disconcerted. He, in the days when men did not smoke before ladies, would approach, and blow the cigarette smoke deliberately into one's face. Had it been_x000d_ # _x000d_ anyone else, I should have turned my back and not spoken to him again. Even so for a moment I recoiled. I caught myself and remembered the reason for coming. I had come to one in whom I had seen such spirituality as I had never even dreamed of. From his lips I had heard truths unthought of before. He knew the way to attainment. He would show me the way. Did I intend to let a little whiff of smoke turn me back? It was all over in last time than it takes to tell it. I knew it was over in another sense as well.

Did Swamiji initiate Christina then and there into brahmacharya? According to Miss Waldo's reminiscences, written in 1905, it seems almost certain that he did.

. . . Every one of the students (at Thousand Island Park) received initiation at the hands of the Swami (Miss Waldo wrote). . . . The ceremony of initiation was impressive from its extreme simplicity. A small altar fire, beautiful flowers, and the earnest words of the Teacher alone marked it as different from our daily lessons. It took place at sunrise of a beautiful summer day, and the scene still lives fresh in our memories. Of those who be¬came Brahmacharinis at Thousand Island Park, two are dead, and one is now in India helping to carry on the work nearest to Swami Vivekanauda's heart, the uplifting of his fellow countrymen.

As is well known, it was Sister Christine, alone among the students at Thousand Island Park, who was working in India in 1905. (According to Miss Waldo, four others received the vows of brahmacharya at Thousand Island Park.)

The classes that Christina Greenstidel and Mary Funke attended from July 20 through August 6 constitute what we have called the third part of Inspired Talks. There were only eighteen classes (and two recorded after noon talks) is this last section, but there was everything in them that had gone before, at least in essence, and there was also more. There were discussions on the necessity for a guru, and also, from a higher standpoint, on the non necessity for a guru. (In a passage that one finds only is the anonymous set of notes, Swamiji said on July 13, "We do not require a guru. Know: I depend on no one; I have all I need, I no more need a teacher. All a guru is for is to teach us that we do not need a teacher. There were discussions, also, of Buddha, Christ, free will, the art of teaching, the need for chastity, the theory of raja yoga, the practice of karma yoga and bhakti yoga, and, throughout, persistently and continuously, the fiery call to discrimination and renunciation, the insistence on total spiritual independence, the commands: Stand on the Self! Be Free! There was little argumentation or philosophical reasoning in Swamiji's classes; rather, there was the outpouring of one stunning spiritual truth after another. He himself was proof of their validity. He seems to have been drawing aside a curtain in the most simple way to reveal the most simple (and most philosophically abstruse) of all facts: "I am He"-the individual soul is Brahman. His words, even as one reads them, convey power as well as knowledge; but, as Sister Christine writes in her memoirs, "there was something else, as influence, an atmosphere charged with the desire to escape from bondage all it what you will that can never be put into words, and yet was more powerful than any words. . . . `Azad, Azad, the Free,' he cried, Pacing up and down like a caged lion. Yes, like the lion in the cage who found the bars not of iron but of bamboo. Or, "walking up and down the room, getting more and more excited, he would stop before some one, as if there were no one else in the room. `Don't you see,' he would say eagerly, 'there is a reason why chastity is insisted on in all monastic orders? Spiritual giants are produced only where the vow of chastity is observed: Or, again, "He would rush up to one of us with blazing eyes and fingers printing and would exclaim, ‘Remember, God is the only Reality.’ Like a madman, but he was mad for God.

From July twenty-first through the twenty-eighth Swamiji taught from various texts: the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Bhagavad Gita, the Brihadaranyaka and Katha Upanishads, and the uncompromisingly monistic Avadhuta Gita. The following nine days he seems to have taught without any particular text, creating, as it were, his own scriptures. And through all ran the grand theme of man’s innate divinity. It is sometimes said that Swamiji taught both monism and dualism side by side, or one at one time and the other at another time. But a reading of Inspired Talks (among others of his works) would seem to leave no doubt that he taught only the great fact that One Being alone existed, a Being that included I and thou, even as the Personal God was included in and stood upon the Absolute Brahman.

In bringing the teachings of Advaita Vedanta from the “caves and forests of India” “into our everyday life, the city life, the country life, the national life, and the home life of every nation, Swamiji never lost sight of the average man’s practical necessity to act within the world as he perceived it the world of Maya perceived at its best on the plane of Vishishtadvaita, where God, the soul, and Nature form “the trinity of existence”.“What we need today,” he said, “is to know that there is a God and that we can see and feel Him here and now. And again, “At the present time God should be worshipped as ‘Mother,’ the Infinite Energy. This will lead to purity, and tremendous energy will come here in America. But at the same time, as we have attempted to point out earlier, he let no one lose sight of the One Reality, within which all dreams-dreams of God, man, and the world have their existence. “The dream is only the dreamer, it has no other basis. Or, to pick another passage more or less at random, “He who knows he is the Atman, he is a law unto himself. He knows he is the universe and its creator. Again, “Atman is the reality of all; all we see is Atman, but not as we see it, as name and form; they are all in our veil, in Maya.

In Swamiji's teachings at Thousand Island Park one senses a movement in and out, a swinging from the Formless Reality to the Divine Illusion of Form magically patterned in Pure Consciousness. "Learn concentration and use it in any direction," he taught. "Thus you lose nothing. He who gets the whole must have the parts too. Dualism is included in Advaitism.* . . . You must be able to sympathize fully with each particular, then at once to jump back to the highest monism. After having perfected yourself, you limit yourself voluntarily. Take the whole power into each action. Be able to become a dualist for the time being and forget Advaita, yet be able to take it up again at will Give up the waves and go to the ocean, then you can have the waves as you please._x000d_ * Students of Swamiji's teaching may have been relieved to learn through "Further Light on Swami Vivekananda's Inspired Talks" by Swami Atmaghanananda that the lines from a Persian Sufi poem which follow this sentence ("Dualism is included in Advaitism")were transferred to this class of August 2 from that of July 4, by either Miss Waldo or Sister Devamata. Swamiji himself did not quote the lines here, for his point was not that "the highest expression of love is unification" (an idea that the poem illustrates), but, rather, that love is an expression on a lower level of Oneness.

This practical monism was, in Swamiji's view, essential to the modern world. It by no means demanded a scornful rejection of the world as unreal and worthless; it demanded, rather, the renunciation of the false and narrow vision. It asked that man see the world in its highest light, as permeated through and through with divinity. "We divide ourselves into two to love God, myself loving my Self," he had said on July 3. ". . . The very idea of God is love. Seeing a cat loving her kittens, stand and pray. God has become manifest there; literally believe this. Repeat `I am Thine, I am Thine,' for we can see God everywhere. Do not seek for Him, just see Him. And at a later date, "Everything is the living God, the living Christ; see it as such. Read man, he is the living poem. And, on the last day, “The seeing of many is the great sin of all the world. See all as Self and love all; let all ideas of separateness go._x000d_ Was this not the very essence of Swamiji's Vedanta for the intensely active, deeply involved men and women of the present day? It was the Vedanta of applied monism, the assertion of one's own divinity here and now: the persistent declaration of, and, consequently, the worship and service of, the living divinity of all men everywhere and at all times; I was a new path for a new world.

There are many more strands of Swamiji's world message in Inspired Talks, but to attempt to trace them all is not my purpose here. I want only to point out that this early record of his concentrated teaching of Vedanta to the West announces the essential theme, the "keynote" that he was to develop and elaborate during the next year and a half of his Western visit. There were to be many variations, many philosophical and psychological explanations, many detailed instructions and practical teachings, some of which I shall attempt to discuss in later chapters, but the basic strength and freedom giving theme, "I am He, I am He!" was never to be over shadowed by its expositions and variations. On the contrary, it was to grow more and more emphatic. By 1900, when he would deliver his last lectures in the West, he would be admonishing man to "stand upon the Self" with such unqualified insistence and love that al! Other themes would be drowned out in that lion roar.But that would be the grand finale, far ahead of our story. Thousand Island Park was the arresting clap of thunder at the start.

Of the first Swamiji had written to Mrs. Bull from New York in his letter of May 28, which has been given in full in chapter one, "I have an invitation to speak at a parliament of religions at Toronto Canada on July 18th. I will go there from Thousand Islands and return back.

Toronto, on the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario, is about 150 miles from Thousand Island Park. Swamiji could have made the round trip in one day, or a day and a half at the most. The orthodox Christians, however, were not of a mind to let the Hindu monk steal the show in Toronto as he had done in Chicago.

Wake up the note! the song that had its birth_x000d_ Far off, where worldly taint could never reach,_x000d_ In mountain caves and glades of forest deep,_x000d_ Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame_x000d_ _x000d_ Could ever dare to break; where rolled the stream_x000d_ Of knowledge, truth, and bliss that follows both._x000d_ Sing high that note, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Strike off thy fetters! Bonds that bind thee down,_x000d_ Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore;_x000d_ Love, hate--good, bad--and all the dual throng,_x000d_ Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free;_x000d_ For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind;_x000d_ Then off with them, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Let darkness go; the will-o'-the-wisp that leads_x000d_ With blinking light to pile more gloom on gloom._x000d_ This thirst for life, for ever quench; it drags_x000d_ From birth to death, and death to birth, the soul._x000d_ He conquers all who conquers self. Know this_x000d_ And never yield, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ "Who sows must reap," they say, "and cause must bring_x000d_ The sure effect; good, good; bad, bad; and none_x000d_ Escape the law. But whoso wears a form_x000d_ Must wear the chain." Too true; but far beyond_x000d_ Both name and form is Atman, ever free._x000d_ Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om! "_x000d_ _x000d_ They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams_x000d_ As father, mother, children, wife, and friend._x000d_ The sexless Self! Whose father He? Whose child?_x000d_ Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One?_x000d_ The Self is all in all, none else exists;_x000d_ And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ There is but One--The Free--The Knower--Self!_x000d_ Without a name, without a form or stain._x000d_ In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream._x000d_ The witness, He appears as nature, soul._x000d_ Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world_x000d_ Nor that can give. In books and temples vain_x000d_ Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds_x000d_ The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament,_x000d_ Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Say, "Peace to all: From me no danger be_x000d_ To aught that lives. In those that dwell on high._x000d_ In those that lowly creep, I am the Self in all!_x000d_ All life both here and there, do I renounce,_x000d_ All heavens and earths and hells, all hopes and fears."_x000d_ Thus cut thy bonds, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Heed then no more how body lives or goes,_x000d_ Its task is done. Let Karma float it down;_x000d_ Let one put garlands on, another kick_x000d_ This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be_x000d_ Where praiser praised, and blamer blamed are one._x000d_ Thus be thou calm, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Truth never comes where lust and fame and greed_x000d_ Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman_x000d_ As his wife can ever perfect be;_x000d_ Nor he who owns the least of things, nor he_x000d_ Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates._x000d_ So, give these up, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend?_x000d_ The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed; and food_x000d_ What chance may bring, well cooked or ill, judge not._x000d_ No food or drink can taint that noble Self_x000d_ Which knows Itself. Like rolling river free_x000d_ Thou ever be, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Few only know the truth. The rest will hate_x000d_ And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed._x000d_ Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help_x000d_ Them out of darkness, Maya's veil. Without_x000d_ The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go_x000d_ Beyond them both, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ _x000d_ Thus, day by day, till Karma's powers spent_x000d_ Release the soul for ever. No more is birth,_x000d_ Nor I, nor thou, nor God, nor man. The "I"_x000d_ Has All become, the All is "I" and Bliss._x000d_ Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say--_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"

U.S.A._x000d_ 1st July, 1895_x000d_ Dear Alasinga,_x000d_ I received your missionary book and the Ramnad photos. I have written to the Raja as well as the Dewan at Mysore. The missionary pamphlet must have reached here long ago, as the Ramabai circle controversy with Dr. Janes savoured of it, it seems. Now you need not be afraid of anything. There is one misstatement in that pamphlet. I never went to a big hotel in this country, and very few times to any other. At Baltimore, the small hotels, being ignorant, would not take in a black man, thinking him a negro. So my host, Dr. Vrooman, had to take me to a larger one, because they knew the difference between a negro and a foreigner. Let me tell you, Alasinga, that you have to defend yourselves. Why do you behave like babies? If anybody attacks your religion, why cannot you defend it? As for me, you need not be afraid, I have more friends than enemies here, and in this country one-third are Christians, and only a small number of the educated care about the missionaries. Again, the very fact of the missionaries being against anything makes the educated like it. They are less of a power here now and are becoming less so every day. If their attacks pain you, why do you behave like a petulant child and refer to me? . . . Cowardice is no virtue._x000d_ Here I have already got a respectable following. Next year I will organise it on a working basis, and then the work will be carried on. And when I am off to India, I have friends who will back me here and help me in India too; so you need not fear. So long as you shriek at the missionary attempts and jump without being able to do anything, I laugh at you; you are little dollies, that is what you are. . . . What can Swami do for old babies!!_x000d_ I know, my son, 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 means to work 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. . . . "This Atman (Self) is not to be reached by cowards." You need not be afraid for me. The Lord is with me, you defend yourselves only and show me you can do that; and I will be satisfied. Don't bother me any more with what any one says about me. I am not waiting to hear any fool's judgment of me. You babies, great results are attained only by great patience, great courage, and great attempts. . . . Kidi's mind is taking periodic somersaults, I am afraid. . . ._x000d_ The brave alone do great things, not the cowards. Know once for all, you faithless ones, that I am in the hands of the Lord. So long as I am pure and His servant, not a hair of my head will be touched. . . . Do something for the nation, then the nation will be with you. Be brave, be brave! Man dies but once. My disciples must not be cowards._x000d_ Ever yours with love,_x000d_ Vivekananda

(Shri Ramakrishna Deva)_x000d_ Shri Ramakrishna was the son of a very orthodox Brahmin, who would refuse even a gift from any but a special caste of Brahmins; neither might he work, nor even be a priest in a temple, nor sell books, nor serve anyone. He could only have "what fell from the skies" (alms), and even then it must not come through a "fallen" Brahmin. Temples have no hold on the Hindu religion; if they were all destroyed, religion would not be affected a grain. A man must only build a house for "God and guests", to build for himself would be selfish; therefore he erects temples as dwelling places for God._x000d_ Owing to the extreme poverty of his family, Sri Ramakrishna was obliged to become in his boyhood a priest in a temple dedicated to the Divine Mother, also called Prakriti, or Kali, represented by a female figure standing with feet on a male figure, indicating that until Maya lifts, we can know nothing. Brahman is neuter, unknown and unknowable, but to be objectified He covers Himself with a veil of Maya, becomes the Mother of the Universe, and so brings forth the creation. The prostrate figure (Shiva or God) has become Shava (dead or lifeless) by being covered by Maya. The Jnani says, "I will uncover God by force" (Advaitism); but the dualist says, "I will uncover God by praying to Mother, begging Her to open the door to which She alone has the key."_x000d_ The daily service of the Mother Kali gradually awakened such intense devotion in the heart of the young priest that he could no longer carry on the regular temple worship. So he abandoned his duties and retired to a small woodland in the temple compound, where he gave himself up entirely to meditation. These woods were on the bank of the river Ganga; and one day the swift current bore to his very feet just the necessary materials to build him a little enclosure. In this enclosure he stayed and wept and prayed, taking no thought for the care of his body or for aught except his Divine Mother. A relative fed him once a day and watched over him. Later came a Sannyasini or lady ascetic, to help him find his "Mother". Whatever teachers he needed came to him unsought; from every sect some holy saint would come and offer to teach him and to each he listened eagerly. But he worshipped only Mother; all to him was Mother._x000d_ Shri Ramakrishna never spoke a harsh word against anyone. So beautifully tolerant was he that every sect thought that he belonged to them. He loved everyone. To him all religions were true. He found a place for each one. He was free, but free in love, not in "thunder". The mild type creates, the thundering type spreads. Paul was the thundering type to spread the light. _x000d_ The age of St. Paul, however, is gone; we are to be the new lights for this day. A self-adjusting organisation is the great need of our time. When we can get one, that will be the last religion of the world. The wheel must turn, and we should help it, not hinder. The waves of religious thought rise and fall, and on the topmost one stands the "prophet of the period". Ramakrishna came to teach the religion of today, constructive, not destructive. He had to go afresh to Nature to ask for facts, and he got scientific religion which never says "believe", but "see"; "I see, and you too can see." Use the same means and you will reach the same vision. God will come to everyone, harmony is within the reach of all. Shri Ramakrishna's teachings are "the gist of Hinduism"; they were not peculiar to him. Nor did he claim that they were: he cared naught for name or fame._x000d_ He began to preach when he was about forty; but he never went out to do it. He waited for those who wanted his teachings to come to him. In accordance with Hindu custom, he was married by his parents in early youth to a little girl of five, who remained at home with her family in a distant village, unconscious of the great struggle through which her young husband was passing. When she reached maturity, he was already deeply absorbed in religious devotion. She travelled on foot from her home to the temple at Dakshineswar where he was then living; and as soon as she saw him, she recognised what he was, for she herself was a great soul, pure and holy, who only desired to help his work, never to drag him down to the level of the Grihastha (householder)._x000d_ Shri Ramakrishna is worshipped in India as one of the great Incarnations, and his birthday is celebrated there as a religious festival. . . ._x000d_ A curious round stone is the emblem of Vishnu, the omnipresent. Each morning a priest comes in, offers sacrifice to the idol, waves incense before it, then puts it to bed and apologises to God for worshipping Him in that way, because he can only conceive of Him through an image or by means of some material object. He bathes the idol, clothes it, and puts his divine self into the idol "to make it alive"._x000d_ There is a sect which says, "It is weakness to worship only the good and beautiful, we ought also to love and worship the hideous and the evil." This sect prevails all over Tibet, and they have no marriage. In India proper they cannot exist openly, but organise secret societies. No decent men will belong to them except sub rosa. Thrice communism was tried in Tibet, and thrice it failed. They use Tapas and with immense success as far as power is concerned._x000d_ Tapas means literally "to burn". It is a kind of penance to "heat" the higher nature. It is sometimes in the form of a sunrise to sunset vow, such as repeating Om all day incessantly. These actions will produce a certain power that you can convert into any form you wish, spiritual or material. This idea of Tapas penetrates the whole of Hindu religion. The Hindus even say that God made Tapas to create the world. It is a mental instrument with which to do everything. "Everything in the three worlds can be caught by Tapas." . . ._x000d_ People who report about sects with which they are not in sympathy are both conscious and unconscious liars. A believer in one sect can rarely see truth in others._x000d_ A great Bhakta (Hanuman) once said when asked what day of the month it was, "God is my eternal date, no other date I care for."

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ C/o Miss Dutcher's_x000d_ Thousand Island Park_x000d_ N.Y._x000d_ 2nd July 1895_x000d_ _x000d_ Dear Mother___x000d_ You did not write to me a single line for a long time. Nei¬ther did Sister Mary write about the duty paid on the rugs [from the Dewan of Junagadh]. I am afraid the rugs are small._x000d_ Here is another consignment from Raja Ajit Singh [the Maharaja of Khetri] consisting of carpets, shawls, etc., etc., for which the bill of lading you sent me the other day. This con¬signment has no duty to pay because it was all prepaid in India, and the bill of lading says so expressly. I will send you the bill of lading and the receipt for the duty. Kindly take one more trouble for me and get it out of the express company. And keep it with you till I come. The goods have arrived in New York and I had a notice of that. They are on their way to Chicago._x000d_ In two or three days I will send the bill of lading and the receipt for duty paid, to you. I foolishly asked Miss Phillips, as soon as I got the Company's notice, to get them out before I got the bill of lading. Now the bill of lading shows that it is bound for Chicago. So I am bound to give you this trouble. I am so sorry. Again with my usual business instincts__I forgot to note down the name of the express company. So I have written to New York for the letters of the Company. As soon as that comes I will send over to you._x000d_ I am going to Europe by the end of August or a little later._x000d_ I will come to see you by the end of August._x000d_ Lord bless you and yours for ever and ever._x000d_ Your ever affectionate Son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

(The Divine Mother.)_x000d_ Shaktas worship the Universal Energy as Mother, the sweetest name they know; for the mother is the highest ideal of womanhood in India. When God is worshipped as "Mother", as Love, the Hindus call it the "right-handed" way, and it leads to spirituality but never to material prosperity. When God is worshipped on His terrible side, that is, in the "left-handed" way, it leads usually to great material prosperity, but rarely to spirituality; and eventually it leads to degeneration and the obliteration of the race that practises it._x000d_ Mother is the first manifestation of power and is considered a higher idea than father. With the name of Mother comes the idea of Shakti, Divine Energy and Omnipotence, just as the baby believes its mother to be all-powerful, able to do anything. The Divine Mother is the Kundalini ("coiled up" power) sleeping in us; without worshipping Her we can never know ourselves. All-merciful, all-powerful, omnipresent are attributes of Divine Mother. She is the sum total of the energy in the universe. Every manifestation of power in the universe is "Mother". She is life, She is intelligence, She is Love. _x000d_ She is in the universe yet separate from it. She is a person and can be seen and known (as Shri Ramakrishna saw and knew Her). Established in the idea of Mother, we can do anything. She quickly answers prayer._x000d_ She can show Herself to us in any form at any moment. Divine Mother can have form (Rupa) and name (Nama) or name without form; and as we worship Her in these various aspects we can rise to pure Being, having neither form nor name._x000d_ The sum total of all the cells in an organism is one person; so each soul is like one cell and the sum of them is God, and beyond that is the Absolute. The sea calm is the Absolute; the same sea in waves is Divine Mother. She is time, space, and causation. God is Mother and has two natures, the conditioned and the unconditioned. As the former, She is God, nature, and soul (man). As the latter, She is unknown and unknowable. Out of the Unconditioned came the trinity--God, nature, and soul, the triangle of existence. This is the Vishishtadvaitist idea._x000d_ A bit of Mother, a drop, was Krishna, another was Buddha, another was Christ. The worship of even one spark of Mother in our earthly mother leads to greatness. Worship Her if you want love and wisdom.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Thousand Island Park, N.Y._x000d_ C/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ July 3, 1895_x000d_ Dear Mother___x000d_ Herewith I send you the bill of lading and the inventory of the goods sent from India. The duty, as you will find, has been prepaid, so there is no botheration on that score. The goods have reached Hull. They will be here by the middle of this month. And if you see a letter with the Morris American Express Co. name on the envelope, tear it open. You need not forward it to me, for that will be the notice of arrival to Chicago. I am sure Dewanji's carpets were too small, but why do you not write to me about the duty if you had to pay it? I insist upon paying it myself. The Raja's things seem to come very quick. I am so glad too I will have something to present to Mrs. Bagley, Mrs. Bull, etc._x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ [Enclosed in the above letter was the following note.]_x000d_ _x000d_ 541 Dearborn Ave._x000d_ Chicago._x000d_ To the Morris Express Co.___x000d_ Dear Sir,_x000d_ Please permit Mrs. G. W. Hale of 541 Dearborn Ave., Chicago, to act for me about the goods sent to me from India and receive the same._x000d_ I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant,_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda

Generally speaking, human religion begins with fear. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." But later comes the higher idea. "Perfect love casteth out fear." Traces of fear will remain with us until we get knowledge, know what God is. Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry. Denunciation is never the highest. David's hands were smeared with blood; he could not build the temple. _x000d_ The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe. We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one._x000d_ Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love; criticising can never do any good, it has been tried for thousands of years. Condemnation accomplishes nothing._x000d_ A real Vedantist must sympathise with all. Monism, or absolute oneness is the very soul of Vedanta. Dualists naturally tend to become intolerant, to think theirs as the only way. The Vaishnavas in India, who are dualists, are a most intolerant sect. Among the Shaivas, another dualistic sect, the story is told of a devotee by the name of Ghantakarna or the Bell-eared, who was so devout a worshipper of Shiva that he did not wish even to hear the name of any other deity; so he wore two bells tied to his ears in order to drown the sound of any voice uttering other Divine names. On account of his intense devotion to Shiva, the latter wanted to teach him that there was no difference between Shiva and Vishnu, so He appeared before him as half Vishnu and half Shiva. At that moment the devotee was waving incense before Him, but so great was the bigotry of Ghantakarna that when he saw the fragrance of the incense entering the nostril of Vishnu, he thrust his finger into it to prevent the god from enjoying the sweet smell. . . . _x000d_ The meat-eating animal, like the lion, gives one blow and subsides, but the patient bullock goes on all day, eating and sleeping as it walks. The "live Yankee" cannot compete with the rice-eating Chinese coolie. While military power dominates, meat-eating will prevail; but with the advance of science, fighting will grow less, and then the vegetarians will come in._x000d_ _x000d_ We divide ourselves into two to love God, myself loving my Self. God has created me and I have created God. We create God in our image; it is we who create Him to be our master, it is not God who makes us His servants. When we know that we are one with God, that we and He are friends, then come equality and freedom. So long as you hold yourself separated by a hair's breadth from this Eternal One, fear cannot go._x000d_ Never ask that foolish question, what good will it do to the world? Let the world go. Love and ask nothing; love and look for nothing further. Love and forget all the "isms". Drink the cup of love and become mad. Say "Thine, O Thine for ever, O Lord!" and plunge in, forgetting all else. The very idea of God is love. Seeing a cat loving her kittens stand and pray. God has become manifest there; literally believe this. Repeat "I am Thine, I am Thine", for we can see God everywhere. Do not seek for Him, just see Him._x000d_ "May the Lord ever keep you alive, Light of the world, Soul of the universe!" . . ._x000d_ The Absolute cannot be worshipped, so we must worship a manifestation, such a one as has our nature. Jesus had our nature; he became the Christ; so can we, and so must we. Christ and Buddha were the names of a state to be attained; Jesus and Gautama were the persons to manifest it. "Mother" is the first and highest manifestation, next the Christs and Buddhas. We make our own environment, and we strike the fetters off. The Atman is the fearless. When we pray to a God outside, it is good, only we do not know what we do. When we know the Self, we understand. The highest expression of love is unification._x000d_ "There was a time when I was a woman and he was a man._x000d_ Still love grew until there was neither he nor I;_x000d_ Only I remember faintly there was a time when there were two._x000d_ But love came between and made them one."_x000d_ --Persian Sufi Poem_x000d_ Knowledge exists eternally and is co-existent with God. The man who discovers a spiritual law is inspired, and what he brings is revelation; but revelation too is eternal, not to be crystallised as final and then blindly followed. The Hindus have been criticised so many years by their conquerors that they (the Hindus) dare to criticise their religion themselves, and this makes them free. Their foreign rulers struck off their fetters without knowing it. The most religious people of earth, the Hindus have actually no sense of blasphemy; to speak of holy things in any way is to them in itself a sanctification. Nor have they any artificial respect for prophets or books, or for hypocritical piety._x000d_ The Church tries to fit Christ into it, not the Church into Christ; so only those writings were preserved that suited the purpose in hand. Thus the books are not to be depended upon and book-worship is the worst kind of idolatry to bind our feet. All has to conform to the book--science, religion, philosophy; it is the most horrible tyranny, this tyranny of the Protestant Bible. Every man in Christian countries has a huge cathedral on his head and on top of that a book, and yet man lives and grows! Does not this prove that man is God?_x000d_ Man is the highest being that exists, and this is the greatest world. We can have no conception of God higher than man, so our God is man, and man is God. When we rise and go beyond and find something higher, we have to jump out of the mind, out of body and the imagination and leave this world; when we rise to be the Absolute, we are no longer in this world. Man is the apex of the only world we can ever know. All we know of animals is only by analogy, we judge them by what we do and feel ourselves._x000d_ The sum total of knowledge is ever the same, only sometimes it is more manifested and sometimes less. The only source of it is within, and there only is it found._x000d_ _x000d_ All poetry, painting, and music is feeling expressed through words, through colour, through sound. . . ._x000d_ Blessed are those upon whom their sins are quickly visited, their account is the sooner balanced! Woe to those whose punishment is deferred, it is the greater!_x000d_ Those who have attained sameness are said to be living in God. All hatred is killing the "Self by the self", therefore love is the law of life. To rise to this is to be perfect; but the more perfect we are, the less work (so-called) can we do. The Sattvika see and know that all is mere child's play and do not trouble themselves about anything._x000d_ It is easy to strike a blow, but tremendously hard to stay the hand, stand still, and say, "In Thee, O Lord, I take refuge", and then wait for Him to act.

Until you are ready to change any minute, you can never see the truth; but you must hold fast and be steady in the search for truth. . . ._x000d_ Charvakas, a very ancient sect in India, were rank materialists. They have died out now, and most of their books are lost. They claimed that the soul, being the product of the body and its forces, died with it; that there was no proof of its further existence. They denied inferential knowledge accepting only perception by the senses._x000d_ Samadhi is when the Divine and human are in one, or it is "bringing sameness". . . ._x000d_ Materialism says, the voice of freedom is a delusion. Idealism says, the voice that tells of bondage is delusion. Vedanta says, you are free and not free at the same time--never free on the earthly plane, but ever free on the spiritual._x000d_ Be beyond both freedom and bondage._x000d_ We are Shiva, we are immortal knowledge beyond the senses._x000d_ Infinite power is back of everyone; pray to Mother, and it will come to you._x000d_ "O Mother, giver of Vak (eloquence), Thou self-existent, come as the Vak upon my lips," (Hindu invocation)._x000d_ "That Mother whose voice is in the thunder, come Thou in me! Kali, Thou time eternal, Thou force irresistible, Shakti, Power!"

(Today we had Shankaracharya's commentary of Vyasa's Vedanta Sutras.)_x000d_ Om tat sat! According to Shankara, there are two phases of the universe, one is I and the other thou; and they are as contrary as light and darkness, so it goes without saying that neither can be derived from the other. On the subject, the object has been superimposed; the subject is the only reality, the other a mere appearance. The opposite view is untenable. Matter and the external world are but the soul in a certain state; in reality there is only one._x000d_ All our world comes from truth and untruth coupled together. Samsara (life) is the result of the contradictory forces acting upon us, like the diagonal motion of a ball in a parallelogram of forces. The world is God and is real, but that is not the world we see; just as we see silver in the mother-of-pearl where it is not. This is what is known as Adhyasa or superimposition, that is, a relative existence dependent upon a real one, as when we recall a scene we have seen; for the time it exists for us, but that existence is not real. Or some say, it is as when we imagine heat in water, which does not belong to it; so really it is something which has been put where it does not belong, "taking the thing for what it is not". We see reality, but distorted by the medium through which we see it._x000d_ You can never know yourself except as objectified. When we mistake one thing for another, we always take the thing before us as the real, never the unseen; thus we mistake the object for the subject. The Atman never becomes the object. Mind is the internal sense, the outer senses are its instruments. In the subject is a trifle of the objectifying power that enables him to know "I am"; but the subject is the object of its own Self, never of the mind or the senses. You can, however, superimpose one idea on another idea, as when we say, "The sky is blue", the sky itself being only an idea. Science and nescience there are, but the Self is never affected by any nescience. Relative knowledge is good, because it leads to absolute knowledge; but neither the knowledge of the senses, nor of the mind, nor even of the Vedas is true, since they are all within the realm of relative knowledge. First get rid of the delusion, "I am the body", then only can we want real knowledge. Man's knowledge is only a higher degree of brute knowledge._x000d_ One part of the Vedas deals with Karma--form and ceremonies. The other part deals with the knowledge of Brahman and discusses religion. The Vedas in this part teach of the Self; and because they do, their knowledge is approaching real knowledge. Knowledge of the Absolute depends upon no book, nor upon anything; it is absolute in itself. No amount of study will give this knowledge; it is not theory, it is realisation. Cleanse the dust from the mirror, purify your own mind, and in a flash you know that you are Brahman._x000d_ God exists, not birth nor death, not pain nor misery, nor murder, nor change, nor good nor evil; all is Brahman. We take the "rope for the serpent", the error is ours. . . . We can only do good when we love God and He reflects our love. The murderer is God, and the "clothing of murderer" is only superimposed upon him. Take him by the hand and tell him the truth._x000d_ Soul has no caste, and to think it has is a delusion; so are life and death, or any motion or quality. The Atman never changes, never goes nor comes. It is the eternal Witness of all Its own manifestations, but we take It for the manifestation; an eternal illusion, without beginning or end, ever going on. The Vedas, however, have to come down to our level, for if they told us the highest truth in the highest way, we could not understand it._x000d_ Heaven is a mere superstition arising from desire, and desire is ever a yoke, a degeneration. Never approach anything except as God; for if we do, we see evil, because we throw a veil of delusion over what we look at, and then we see evil. Get free from these illusions; be blessed. Freedom is to lose all illusions._x000d_ In one sense Brahman is known to every human being; he knows, "I am"; but man does not know himself as he is. We all know we are, but not how we are. All lower explanations are partial truths; but the flower, the essence of the Vedas, is that the Self in each of us is Brahman. Every phenomenon is included in birth, growth, and death--appearance, continuance, and disappearance. Our own realisation is beyond the Vedas, because even they depend upon that. The highest Vedanta is the philosophy of the Beyond._x000d_ To say that creation has any beginning is to lay the axe at the root of all philosophy._x000d_ Maya is the energy of the universe, potential and kinetic. Until Mother releases us, we cannot get free._x000d_ The universe is ours to enjoy. But want nothing. To want is weakness. Want makes us beggars, and we are sons of the king, not beggars.

c/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park, N.Y._x000d_ 7th July, 1895_x000d_ Dear Friend {Mr. F. Leggett},_x000d_ I see you are enjoying New York very much, so excuse my breaking into your reverie with a letter._x000d_ I had two beautiful letters from Miss MacLeod and Mrs. Sturges. Also they sent over two pretty birch bark books. I have filled them with Sanskrit texts and translations, and they go by today's post._x000d_ Mrs. Dora is giving, I hear, some startling performances in the Mahatma line._x000d_ Since leaving Percy I have invitations to come over to London from unexpected quarters, and that I look forward to with great expectations. _x000d_ I do not want to lose this opportunity of working in London. And so your invitation, coupled with the London one, is, I know, a divine call for further work._x000d_ I shall be here all this month and only have to go to Chicago for a few days sometime in August._x000d_ Don't fret, Father Leggett, this is the best time for expectation--when sure in love._x000d_ Lord bless you ever and ever, and may all happiness be yours for ever, as you richly deserve it._x000d_ Ever yours in love and affection,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Infinite manifestation dividing itself in portion still remains infinite, and each portion is infinite. _x000d_ Brahman is the same in two forms--changeable and unchangeable, expressed and unexpressed. Know that the Knower and the known are one. The Trinity--the Knower, the known, and knowing--is manifesting as this universe. That God the Yogi sees in meditation, he sees through the power of his own Self._x000d_ What we call nature, fate, is simply God's will._x000d_ So long as enjoyment is sought, bondage remains. Only imperfection can enjoy, because enjoyment is the fulfilling of desire. The human soul enjoys nature. The underlying reality of nature, soul, and God is Brahman; but It (Brahman) is unseen, until we bring It out. It may be brought out by Pramantha or friction, just as we can produce fire by friction. The body is the lower piece of wood, Om is the pointed piece and Dhyana (meditation) is the friction. When this is used, that light which is the knowledge of Brahman will burst forth in the soul. _x000d_ Seek it through Tapas. Holding the body upright, sacrifice the organs of sense in the mind. The sense-centres are within, and their organs without; drive them into the mind and through Dharana (concentration) fix the mind in Dhyana. Brahman is omnipresent in the universe as is butter in milk, but friction makes It manifest in one place. As churning brings out the butter in the milk, so Dhyana brings the realisation of Brahman in the soul._x000d_ All Hindu philosophy declares that there is a sixth sense, the superconscious, and through it comes inspiration._x000d_ The universe is motion, and friction will eventually bring everything to an end; then comes a rest; and after that all begins again. . . ._x000d_ So long as the "skin sky" surrounds man, that is, so long as he identifies himself with his body, he cannot see God.

There are six schools of philosophy in India that are regarded as orthodox, because they believe in the Vedas._x000d_ Vyasa's philosophy is par excellence that of the Upanishads. He wrote in Sutra form, that is, in brief algebraical symbols without nominative or verb. This caused so much ambiguity that out of the Sutras came dualism, mono-dualism, and monism or "roaring Vedanta"; and all the great commentators in these different schools were at times "conscious liars" in order to make the texts suit their philosophy._x000d_ The Upanishads contain very little history of the doings of any man, but nearly all other scriptures are largely personal histories. The Vedas deal almost entirely with philosophy. Religion without philosophy runs into superstition; philosophy without religion becomes dry atheism._x000d_ Vishishta-advaita is qualified Advaita (monism). Its expounder was Ramanuja. He says, "Out of the ocean of milk of the Vedas, Vyasa has churned this butter of philosophy, the better to help mankind." He says again, "All virtues and all qualities belong to Brahman, Lord of the universe. He is the greatest Purusha. Madhva is a through-going dualist or Dvaitist. He claims that even women might study the Vedas. He quotes chiefly from the Puranas. He says that Brahman means Vishnu, not Shiva at all, because there is no salvation except through Vishnu.

19 W. 38, New York_x000d_ 8th July, 1895_x000d_ Dear Alberta {Sturges},_x000d_ I am sure you are engrossed in your musical studies now. Hope you have found out all about the scales by this time. I will be so happy to take a lesson on the scales from you next time we meet._x000d_ We had such jolly good time up there at Percy with Mr. Leggett--isn't he a saint?_x000d_ Hollister is also enjoying Germany greatly, I am sure, and I hope none of you have injured your tongues in trying to pronounce German words--especially those beginning with sch, tz, tsz, and other sweet things._x000d_ I read your letter to your mother from on board. Most possibly I am going over to Europe next September. I have never been to Europe yet. It will not be very much different from the United States after all. And I am already well drilled in the manners and customs of this country._x000d_ We had a good deal of rowing at Percy and I learnt a point or two in rowing. Aunt Joe Joe had to pay for her sweetness, for the flies and mosquitoes would not leave her for a moment. They rather gave me a wide berth, I think, because they were very orthodox sabbatarian flies and would not touch a heathen. Again, I think, I used to sing a good deal at Percy, and that must have frightened them away. We had such fine birch trees. I got up an idea of making books out of the bark, as was used to be done in ancient times in our country, and wrote Sanskrit verses for your mother and aunt._x000d_ I am sure, Alberta, you are going to be a tremendously learned lady very soon._x000d_ With love and blessings for both of you,_x000d_ Ever your affectionate,_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda

There is no place for reasoning in Madhva's explanation, it is all taken from the revelation in the Vedas._x000d_ Ramanuja says, the Vedas are the holiest study. Let the sons of the three upper castes get the Sutra and at eight, ten, or eleven years of age begin the study, which means going to a Guru and learning the Vedas word for word, with perfect intonation and pronunciation._x000d_ Japa is repeating the Holy Name; through this the devotee rises to the Infinite. This boat of sacrifice and ceremonies is very frail, we need more than that to know Brahman, which alone is freedom. Liberty is nothing more than destruction of ignorance, and that can only go when we know Brahman. It is not necessary to go through all these ceremonials to reach the meaning of the Vedanta. Repeating Om is enough._x000d_ Seeing difference is the cause of all misery, and ignorance is the cause of seeing difference. That is why ceremonials are not needed, because they increase the idea of inequality; you practise them to get rid of something or to obtain something._x000d_ Brahman is without action, Atman is Brahman, and we are Atman; knowledge like this takes off all error. It must be heard, apprehended intellectually, and lastly realised. Cogitating is applying reason and establishing this knowledge in ourselves by reason. Realising is making it a part of our lives by constant thinking of it. This constant thought or Dhyana is as oil that pours in one unbroken line from vessel to vessel; Dhyana rolls the mind in this thought day and night and so helps us to attain to liberation. Think always "Soham, Soham"; this is almost as good as liberation. Say it day and night; realisation will come as the result of this continuous cogitation. This absolute and continuous remembrance of the Lord is what is meant by Bhakti._x000d_ This Bhakti is indirectly helped by all good works. Good thought and good works create less differentiation than bad ones; so indirectly they lead to freedom. Work, but give up the results to the Lord. Knowledge alone can make us perfect. He who follows the God of Truth with devotion, to him the God of Truth reveals Himself. . . . We are lamps, and our burning is what we call "life". When the supply of oxygen gives out, then the lamp must go out. All we can do is to keep the lamp clean. Life is a product, a compound, and as such must resolve itself into its elements.

U.S.A._x000d_ 9th July, 1895_x000d_ {to the Maharaja of Khetri}_x000d_ . . . About my coming to India, the matter stands thus. I am, as your Highness well knows, a man of dogged perseverance. I have planted a seed in this country; it is already a plant, and I expect it to be a tree very soon. I have got a few hundred followers. I shall make several Sannyasins, and then I go to India, leaving the work to them. The more the Christian priests oppose me, the more I am determined to leave a permanent mark on their country. . . . I have already some friends in London. I am going there by the end of August. . . . This winter anyway has to be spent partly in London and partly in New York, and then I shall be free to go to India. There will be enough men to carry on the work here after this winter if the Lord is kind. Each work has to pass through these stages--ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Each man who thinks ahead of his time is sure to be misunderstood. So opposition and persecution are welcome, only I have to be steady and pure and must have immense faith in God, and all these will vanish. . . ._x000d_ Vivekananda

Man as Atman is really free; as man he is bound, changed by every physical condition. As man, he is a machine with an idea of freedom; but this human body is the best and the human mind the highest mind there is. When a man attains to the Atman state, he can take a body, making it to suit himself; he is above law. This is a statement and must be proved. Each one must prove it for himself; we may satisfy ourselves, but we cannot satisfy another. Raja-Yoga is the only science of religion that can be demonstrated; and only what I myself have proved by experience, do I teach. The full ripeness of reason is intuition, but intuition cannot antagonise reason._x000d_ _x000d_ Work purifies the heart and so leads to Vidya (wisdom). The Buddhists said, doing good to men and to animals were the only works; the Brahmins said that worship and all ceremonials were equally "work" and purified the mind. Shankara declares that "all works, good and bad, are against knowledge". Actions tending to ignorance are sins, not directly, but as causes, because they te********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************hman is the essence, the reality of all knowledge, and that all manifestations as knower, knowing, and known are mere imaginings in Brahman. Ramanuja attributes consciousness to God; the real monists attribute nothing, not even existence in any meaning that we can attach to it. Ramanuja declares that God is the essence of conscious knowledge. Undifferentiated consciousness, when differentiated, becomes the world. . . ._x000d_ Buddhism, one of the most philosophical religions in the world, spread all through the populace, the common people of India. What a wonderful culture there must have been among the Aryans twenty-five hundred years ago, to be able to grasp ideas!_x000d_ Buddha was the only great Indian philosopher who would not recognise caste, and not one of his followers remains in India. All the other philosophers pandered more or less to social prejudices; no matter how high they soared, still a bit of the vulture remained in them. As my Master used to say, "The vulture soars high out of sight in the sky, but his eye is ever on a bit of carrion on the earth."_x000d_ _x000d_ The ancient Hindus were wonderful scholars, veritable living encyclopaedias. They said, "Knowledge in books and money in other people's hands is like no knowledge and no money at all."_x000d_ Shankara was regarded by many as an incarnation of Shiva.

There are sixty-five million Mohammedans in India, some of them Sufis. Sufis identify man with God, and through them this idea came into Europe. They say, "I am that Truth"; but they have an esoteric as well as an exoteric doctrine, although Mohammed himself did not hold it._x000d_ "Hashshashin " has become our word "assassin", because an old sect of Mohammedanism killed non-believers as a part of its creed._x000d_ A pitcher of water has to be present in the Mohammedan worship as a symbol of God filling the universe._x000d_ The Hindus believe that there will be ten Divine Incarnations. Nine have been and the tenth is still to come._x000d_ Shankara sometimes resorts to sophistry in order to prove that the ideas in the books go to uphold his philosophy. Buddha was more brave and sincere than any teacher. He said: "Believe no book; the Vedas are all humbug. If they agree with me, so much the better for the books. I am the greatest book; sacrifice and prayer are useless." Buddha was the first human being to give to the world a complete system of morality. He was good for good's sake, he loved for love's sake._x000d_ Shankara says: God is to be reasoned on, because the Vedas say so. Reason helps inspiration; books and realised reason--or individualised perception--both are proofs of God. The Vedas are, according to him, a sort of incarnation of universal knowledge. The proof of God is that He brought forth the Vedas, and the proof of the Vedas is that such wonderful books could only have been given out by Brahman. They are the mine of all knowledge, and they have come out of Him as a man breathes out air; therefore we know that He is infinite in power and knowledge. He may or may not have created the world, that is a trifle; to have produced the Vedas is more important! The world has come to know God through the Vedas; no other way there is._x000d_ And so universal is this belief, held by Shankara, in the all-inclusiveness of the Vedas that there is even a Hindu proverb that if a man loses his cow, he goes to look for her in the Vedas!_x000d_ Shankara further affirms that obedience to ceremonies is not knowledge. Knowledge of God is independent of moral duties, or sacrifice or ceremonies, or what we think or do not think, just as the stump is not affected when one man takes it for a ghost and another sees it as it is._x000d_ Vedanta is necessary because neither reasoning nor books can show us God. He is only to be realised by superconscious perception, and Vedanta teaches how to attain that. You must get beyond personal God (Ishvara) and reach the Absolute Brahman. God is the perception of every being: He is all there is to be perceived. That which says "I" is Brahman, but although we, day and night, perceive Him, we do not know that we are perceiving Him. As soon as we become aware of this truth, all misery goes; so we must get knowledge of the truth. Reach unity; no more duality will come. But knowledge does not come by sacrifice, but by seeking, worshipping, knowing the Atman._x000d_ Brahmavidya is the highest knowledge, knowing the Brahman; lower knowledge is science. This is the teaching of the Mundakopanishad or the Upanishad for Sannyasins. There are two sorts of knowledge--principle and secondary. The unessential is that part of the Vedas dealing with worship and ceremonies, also all secular knowledge. The essential is that by which we reach the Absolute. It (the Absolute) creates all from Its own nature; there is nothing to cause, nothing outside. It is all energy, It is all there is. He who makes all sacrifices to himself, the Atman, he alone knows Brahman. Fools think outside worship the highest; fools think works can give us God. Only those who go through the Sushumna (the "path" of the Yogis) reach the Atman. They must go to a Guru to learn. Each part has the same nature as the whole; all springs from the Atman. Meditation is the arrow, the whole soul going out to God is the bow, which speeds the arrow to its mark, the Atman. As finite, we can never express the Infinite, but we are the Infinite. Knowing this we argue with no one._x000d_ Divine wisdom is to be got by devotion, meditation, and chastity. "Truth alone triumphs, and not untruth. Through truth alone the way is spread to Brahman"--where alone love and truth are.

Without mother-love no creation could continue. Nothing is entirely physical, nor yet entirely metaphysical; one presupposes the other and explains the other. All Theists agree that there is a background to this visible universe, they differ as to the nature or character of that background. Materialists say there is no background._x000d_ In all religions the superconscious state is identical. Hindus, Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists, and even those of no creed, all have the very same experience when they transcend the body. . . ._x000d_ The purest Christians in the world were established in India by the Apostle Thomas about twenty-five years after the death of Jesus. This was while the Anglo-Saxons were still savages, painting their bodies and living in caves. The Christians in India once numbered about three millions, but now there are about one million._x000d_ Christianity is always propagated by the sword. How wonderful that the disciples of such a gentle soul should kill so much! The three missionary religions are the Buddhist, Mohammedan, and Christian. The three older ones, Hinduism, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, never sought to make converts. Buddhists never killed, but converted three-quarters of the world at one time by pure gentleness._x000d_ The Buddhists were the most logical agnostics. You can really stop nowhere between nihilism and absolutism. The Buddhists were intellectually all-destroyers, carrying their theory to its ultimate logical issue. The Advaitists also worked out their theory to its logical conclusion and reached the Absolute--one identified Unit Substance out of which all phenomena are being manifested. Both Buddhists and Advaitists have a feeling of identity and non-identity at the same time; one of these feelings must be false, and the other true. The nihilist puts the reality in non-identity, the realist puts the reality in identity; and this is the fight which occupies the whole world. The is the "tug-of-war"._x000d_ The realist asks, "How does the nihilist get any idea of identity?" How does the revolving light appear a circle? A point of rest alone explains motion. The nihilist can never explain the genesis of the delusion that there is a background; neither can the idealist explain how the One becomes the many. The only explanation must come from beyond the sense-plane; we must rise to the superconscious, to a state entirely beyond sense-perception. That metaphysical power is the further instrument that the idealist alone can use. He can experience the Absolute; the man Vivekananda can resolve himself into the Absolute and then come back to the man again. For him, then, the problem is solved and secondarily for others, for he can show the way to others. Thus religion begins where philosophy ends. The "good of the world" will be that what is now superconscious for us will in ages to come be the conscious for all. Religion is therefore the highest work the world has; and because man has unconsciously felt this, he has clung through all the ages to the idea of religion._x000d_ Religion, the great milch cow, has given many kicks, but never mind, it gives a great deal of milk. The milkman does not mind the kick of the cow which gives much milk. Religion is the greatest child to be born, the great "moon of realisation"; let us feed it and help it grow, and it will become a giant. King Desire and King Knowledge fought, and just as the latter was about to be defeated, he was reconciled to Queen Upanishad and a child was born to him, Realisation, who saved the victory to him. _x000d_ Love concentrates all the power of the will without effort, as when a man falls in love with a woman._x000d_ The path of devotion is natural and pleasant. Philosophy is taking the mountain stream back to its source by force. It is a quicker method but very hard. Philosophy says, "Check everything." Devotion says, "Give up all to the stream, have eternal self-surrender." It is a longer way, but easier and happier._x000d_ "Thine am I for ever; henceforth whatever I do, it is Thou doing it. No more is there any me or mine."_x000d_ "Having no money to give, no brains to learn, no time to practise Yoga, to Thee, O sweet One, I give myself, to Thee my body and mind."_x000d_ No amount of ignorance or wrong ideas can put a barrier between the soul and God. Even if there be no God, still hold fast to love. It is better to die seeking a God than as a dog seeking only carrion. Choose the highest ideal, and give your life up to that. "Death being so certain, it is the highest thing to give up life for a great purpose."_x000d_ Love will painlessly attain to philosophy; then after knowledge comes Parabhakti (supreme devotion)._x000d_ Knowledge is critical and makes a great fuss over everything; but Love says, "God will show His real nature to me" and accepts all._x000d_ _x000d_ RABBIA_x000d_ Rabbia, sick upon her bed,_x000d_ By two saints was visited--_x000d_ Holy Malik, Hassan wise--_x000d_ Men of mark in Moslem eyes._x000d_ _x000d_ Hassan said, "Whose prayer is pure_x000d_ Will God's chastisements endure."_x000d_ Malik, from a deeper sense_x000d_ Uttered his experience:_x000d_ "He who loves his master's choice_x000d_ Will in chastisement rejoice ."_x000d_ _x000d_ Rabbia saw some selfish will_x000d_ In their maxims lingering still,_x000d_ And replied: "O men of grace,_x000d_ He who sees his Master's face,_x000d_ _x000d_ Will not in his prayers recall_x000d_ That he is chastised at all!"_x000d_ --Persian Poem

(Shankara's Commentary.)_x000d_ Fourth Vyasa Sutra. "Atman (is) the aim of all."_x000d_ Ishvara is to be known from the Vedanta; all Vedas point to Him (who is the Cause; the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer). Ishvara is the unification of the Trinity, known as Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, which stand at the head of the Hindu Pantheon. "Thou art our Father who takest us to the other shore of the dark ocean" (Disciple's words to the Master)._x000d_ The Vedas cannot show you Brahman, you are That already; they can only help to take away the veil that hides the truth from our eyes. The first veil to vanish is ignorance; and when that is gone, sin goes; next desire ceases, selfishness ends, and all misery disappears. This cessation of ignorance can only come when I know that God and I are one; in other words, identify yourself with Atman, not with human limitations. Dis-identify yourself with the body, and all pain will cease. This is the secret of healing. The universe is a case of hypnotisation; de-hypnotise yourself and cease to suffer._x000d_ In order to be free we have to pass through vice to virtue, and then get rid of both. Tamas is to be conquered by Rajas, both are to be submerged in Sattva; then go beyond the three qualities. Reach a state where your very breathing is a prayer._x000d_ Whenever you learn (gain anything) from another man's words, know that you had the experience in a previous existence, because experience is the only teacher._x000d_ With all powers comes further misery, so kill desire. Getting any desire is like putting a stick into a nest of hornets. Vairagya is finding out that desires are but gilded balls of poison._x000d_ "Mind is not God" (Shankara). "Tat tvam asi", _x000d_ "Aham Brahmasmi" ("That thou art", "I am Brahman"). When a man realises this, "all the knots of his heart are cut asunder, all his doubts vanish". Fearlessness is not possible as long as we have even God over us; we must be God. What is disjoined will be for ever disjoined; if you are separate from God, then you can never be one with Him, and vice versa. If by virtue you are joined to God, when that ceases, disjunction will come. The junction is eternal, and virtue only helps to remove the veil. We are azad (free), we must realise it. "Whom the Self chooses" means we are the Self and choose ourselves._x000d_ Does seeing depend upon our own efforts or does it depend upon something outside? It depends upon ourselves; our efforts take off the dust, the mirror does not change. There is neither knower, knowing, nor known. "He who knows that he does not know, knows It. He who has a theory knows nothing._x000d_ The idea that we are bound is only an illusion._x000d_ Religion is not of this world; it is "heart-cleansing", and its effect on this world is secondary. Freedom is inseparable from the nature of the Atman. This is ever pure, ever perfect, ever unchangeable. This Atman you can never know. We can say nothing about the Atman but "not this, not this"._x000d_ "Brahman is that which we can never drive out by any power of mind or imagination." (Shankara)._x000d_ The universe is thought, and the Vedas are the words of this thought. We can create and uncreate this whole universe. Repeating the words, the unseen thought is aroused, and as a result a seen effect is produced. This is the claim of a certain sect of Karmis. They think that each one of us is a creator. Pronounce the words, the thought which corresponds will arise, and the result will become visible. "Thought is the power of the word, the word is the expression of the thought," say Mimamsakas, a Hindu philosophical sect.

To Mrs. Ole Bull_x000d_ C/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park N.Y._x000d_ 13th [postmarked 11th] July '95._x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ The shirts arrived yesterday; they are nice and fit me well._x000d_ Everybody liked them._x000d_ Landsberg arrived this morning with a picture of Shri Ramakrishna._x000d_ The Toronto affair has fallen through because the clergyman objected to a heathen. There is one invitation from the Christian Union of Oak Beach. I do not know whether I will go there._x000d_ As I intend to go to Chicago, in August, I ought to give to the people here all the time I can._x000d_ I do not know yet the exact date when I start [for Europe]_x000d_ __but somewhere at the end of August, I am sure._x000d_ Landsberg sends his love to all the rest._x000d_ Ever yours in love and gratitude,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Of this turn of events Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Bull on July 11 from Thousand Island Park. His letter, heretofore unpublished in full, read as follows:

Everything we know is a compound, and all sense-knowledge comes through analysis. To think that mind is a simple, single, or independent is dualism. Philosophy is not got by studying books; the more you read books, the more muddled becomes the mind. The idea of unthinking philosophers was that the mind was a simple, and this led them to believe in free will. Psychology, the analysis of the mind, shows the mind to be a compound, and every compound must be held together by some outside force; so the will is bound by the combination of outside forces. Man cannot even will to eat unless he is hungry. Will is subject to desire. But we are free; everyone feels it._x000d_ The agnostic says this idea is a delusion. Then, how do you prove the world? Its only proof is that we all see it and feel it; so just as much we all feel freedom. If universal consensus affirms this world, then it must be accepted as affirming freedom; but freedom is not of the will as it is. The constitutional belief of man in freedom is the basis of all reasoning. Freedom is of the will as it was before it became bound. The very idea of free-will shows every moment man's struggle against bondage. The free can be only one, the Unconditioned, the Infinite, the Unlimited. Freedom in man is now a memory, an attempt towards freedom. _x000d_ Everything in the universe is struggling to complete a circle, to return to its source, to return to its only real Source, Atman. The search for happiness is a struggle to find the balance, to restore the equilibrium. Morality is the struggle of the bound will to get free and is the proof that we have come from perfection. . . ._x000d_ The idea of duty is the midday sun of misery scorching the very soul. "O king, drink this one drop of nectar and be happy." ("I am not the doer", this is the nectar.)_x000d_ Let there be action without reaction; action is pleasant, all misery is reaction. The child puts its hand in the flame, that is pleasure; but when its system reacts, then comes the pain of burning. When we can stop that reaction, then we have nothing to fear. Control the brain and do not let it read the record; be the witness and do not react, only thus can you be happy. The happiest moments we ever know are when we entirely forget ourselves. Work of your own free will, not from duty. We have no duty. This world is just a gymnasium in which we play; our life is an eternal holiday._x000d_ The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free. The full sponge can absorb no more._x000d_ Even fighting in self-defence is wrong, though it is higher than fighting in aggression. There is no "righteous" indignation, because indignation comes from not recognising sameness in all things.

As far as can be reasonably ascertained, Swamiji did not leave Thousand Island Park on any side trips or excursions during his seven-week stay. Although he and the students may have embarked on one of the daily boat excursions among the scenic Islands, he did not, it would seem, go further afield. He had, however, two invitations to speak elsewhere. One of these was canceled, and the other is a matter of some mystery.

Philosophy in India means that through which we see God, the rationale of religion; so no Hindu would ever ask for a link between religion and philosophy._x000d_ Concrete, generalised, abstract are the three stages in the process of philosophy. The highest abstraction in which all things agree is the One. In religion we have first, symbols and forms; next, mythology; and last, philosophy. The first two are for the time being; philosophy is the underlying basis of all, and the others are only stepping stones in the struggle to reach the Ultimate._x000d_ In Western religion the idea is that without the New Testament and Christ there could be no religion. A similar belief exists in Judaism with regard to Moses and the Prophets, because these religions are dependent upon mythology only. Real religion, the highest, rises above mythology; it can never rest upon that. Modern science has really made the foundations of religion strong. That the whole universe is one, is scientifically demonstrable. What the metaphysicians call "being", the physicist calls "matter", but there is no real fight between the two, for both are one. Though an atom is invisible, unthinkable, yet in it are the whole power and potency of the universe. That is exactly what the Vedantist says of Atman. All sects are really saying the same thing in different words._x000d_ Vedanta and modern science both posit a self-evolving Cause. In Itself are all the causes. Take for example the potter shaping a pot. The potter is the primal cause, the clay the material cause, and the wheel the instrumental cause; but the Atman is all three. Atman is cause and manifestation too. The Vedantist says the universe is not real, it is only apparent. Nature is God seen through nescience. The Pantheists say, God has become nature or this world; the Advaitists affirm that God is appearing as this world, but He is not this world._x000d_ We can only know experience as a mental process, a fact in the mind as well as a mark in the brain. We cannot push the brain back or forward, but we can the mind; it can stretch over all time--past, present, and future; and so facts in the mind are eternally preserved. All facts are already generalised in mind, which is omnipresent. _x000d_ Kant's great achievement was the discovery that "time, space, and causation are modes of thought," but Vedanta taught this ages ago and called it "Maya." _x000d_ Schopenhauer stands on reason only and rationalises the Vedas. . . . Shankara maintained the orthodoxy of the Vedas._x000d_ "Treeness" or the idea of "tree", found out among trees is knowledge, and the highest knowledge is One. . . ._x000d_ Personal God is the last generalisation of the universe, only hazy, not clear-cut and philosophic. . . ._x000d_ Unity is self-evolving, out of which everything comes. . . ._x000d_ Physical science is to find out facts, metaphysics is the thread to bind the flowers into a bouquet. Every abstraction is metaphysical; even putting manure at the root of a tree involves a process of abstraction. . . ._x000d_ Religion includes the concrete, the more generalised and the ultimate unity. Do not stick to particularisations. Get to the principle, to the One. . . . _x000d_ Devils are machines of darkness, angels are machines of light; but both are machines. Man alone is alive. Break the machine, strike the balance, and then man can become free. This is the only world where man can work out his salvation._x000d_ "Whom the Self chooses" is true. Election is true, but put it within. As an external and fatalistic doctrine, it is horrible.

Where there is polyandry, as in Tibet, women are physically stronger than the men. When the English go there, these women carry large men up the mountains. _x000d_ In Malabar, although of course polyandry does not obtain there, the women lead in everything. Exceptional cleanliness is apparent everywhere and there is the greatest impetus to learning. When I myself was in that country, I met many women who spoke good Sanskrit, while in the rest of India not one woman in a million can speak it. Mastery elevates, and servitude debases. Malabar has never been conquered either by the Portuguese or by the Mussulmans._x000d_ The Dravidians were a non-Aryan race of Central Asia who preceded the Aryans, and those of Southern India were the most civilised. Women with them stood higher than men. They subsequently divided, some going to Egypt, others to Babylonia, and the rest remaining in India.

The "unseen cause" leads us to sacrifice and worship, which in turn produce seen results; but to attain liberation we must first hear, then think or reason, and then meditate upon Brahman._x000d_ The result of works and the result of knowledge are two different things. "Do" and "Do not do" are the background of all morality, but they really belong only to the body and the mind. All happiness and misery are inextricably connected with the senses, and body is necessary to experience them. The higher the body, the higher the standard of virtue, even up to Brahma; but all have bodies. As long as there is a body, there must be pleasure and pain; only when one has got rid of the body can one escape them. The Atman is bodiless, says Shankara._x000d_ No law can make you free, you are free. Nothing can give you freedom, if you have it not already. The Atman is self-illumined. Cause and effect do not reach there, and this disembodiedness is freedom. Beyond what was, or is, or is to be, is Brahman. As an effect, freedom would have no value; it would be a compound, and as such would contain the seeds of bondage. It is the one real factor, not to be attained, but the real nature of the soul. _x000d_ Work and worship, however, are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion. They do not give us freedom; but all the same, without effort on our own part we do not open our eyes and see what we are. Shankara says further that Advaita-Vedanta is the crowning glory of the Vedas; but the lower Vedas are also necessary, because they teach work and worship, and through these many come to the Lord. Others may come without any help but Advaita. Work and worship lead to the same result as Advaita._x000d_ Books cannot teach God, but they can destroy ignorance; their action is negative. To hold to the books and at the same time open the way to freedom is Shankara's great achievement. But after all, it is a kind of hair-splitting. Give man first the concrete, then raise him to the highest by slow degrees. This is the effort of the various religions and explains their existence and why each is suited to some stage of development. The very books are a part of the ignorance they help to dispel. Their duty is to drive out the ignorance that has come upon knowledge. "Truth shall drive out untruth." You are free and cannot be made so. So long as you have a creed, you have no God. "He who knows he knows, knows nothing." Who can know the Knower? There are two eternal facts in existence, God and the universe, the former unchangeable, the latter changeable. The world exists eternally. Where your mind cannot grasp the amount of change, you call it eternally. . . . You see the stone or the bas-relief on it, but not both at once; yet both are one._x000d_ _x000d_ Can you make yourself at rest even for a second? All Yogis say you can. . . ._x000d_ _x000d_ The greatest sin is to think yourself weak. No one is greater: Realise you are Brahman. Nothing has power except what you give it. We are beyond the sun, the stars, the universe. Teach the Godhood of man. Deny evil, create none. Stand up and say, I am the master, the master of all. We forge the chain, and we alone can break it._x000d_ No action can give you freedom; only knowledge can make you free, Knowledge is irresistible; the mind cannot take it or reject it. When it comes the mind has to accept it; so it is not a work of the mind; only, its expression comes in the mind._x000d_ Work or worship is to bring you back to your own nature. It is an entire illusion that the Self is the body; so even while living here in the body, we can be free. The body has nothing in common with the Self. Illusion is taking the real for the unreal--not "nothing at all".

Ramanuja divides the universe into Chit, Achit, and Ishvara--man, nature, and God; conscious, subconscious, and superconscious. Shankara, on the contrary, says that Chit, the soul, is the same as God. God is truth, is knowledge, is infinity; these are not qualities. Any thought of God is a qualification, and all that can be said of Him is "Om tat sat"._x000d_ Shankara further asks, can you see existence separate from everything else? Where is the differentiation between two objects? Not in sense-perception, else all would be one in it. We have to perceive in sequence. In getting knowledge of what a thing is, we get also something which it is not. The differentiae are in the memory and are got by comparison with what is stored there. Difference is not in the nature of a thing, it is in the brain. Homogeneous one is outside, differentiae are inside (in the mind); so the idea of "many" is the creation of the mind._x000d_ Differentiae become qualities when they are separate but joined in one object. We cannot say positively what differentiation is. All that we see and feel about things is pure and simple existence, "isness ". All else is in us. Being is the only positive proof we have of anything. All differentiation is really "secondary reality", as the snake in the rope, because the serpent, too, had a certain reality, in that something was seen although misapprehended. When the knowledge of the rope becomes negative, the knowledge of the snake becomes positive, and vice versa; but the fact that you see only one does not prove that the other is non-existent. The idea of the world is an obstruction covering the idea of God and is to be removed, but it does have an existence._x000d_ Shankara says again, perception is the last proof of existence. It is self-effulgent and self-conscious, because to go beyond the senses we should still need perception. Perception is independent of the senses, of all instruments, unconditioned. There can be no perception without consciousness; perception has self-luminosity, which in a lesser degree is called consciousness. Not one act of perception can be unconscious; in fact, consciousness is the nature of perception. Existence and perception are one thing, not two things joined together. That which needs no cause is infinite; so, as perception is the last proof of itself, it is eternal. It is always subjective; perception itself is its own perceiver. Perception is not in the mind, but perception brings mind. It is absolute, the only knower, so perception is really the Atman. Perception itself perceives, but the Atman cannot be a knower, because a "knower" becomes such by the action of knowledge; but, Shankara says, "This Atman is not I", because the consciousness "I am" (Aham) is not in the Atman. We are but the reflections of that Atman; and Atman and Brahman are one._x000d_ When you talk and think of the Absolute, you have to do it in the relative; so all these logical arguments apply. In Yoga, perception and realisation are one. Vishishtadvaita, of which Ramanuja is the exponent, is seeing partial unity and is a step toward Advaita. Vishishta means differentiation. Prakriti is the nature of the world, and change comes upon it. Changeful thoughts expressed in changeful words can never prove the Absolute. You reach only something that is minus certain qualities, not Brahman Itself; only a verbal unification, the highest abstraction, but not the non-existence of the relative.

(The lesson today was mainly Shankara's argument against the conclusion of the Sankhya philosophy.)_x000d_ The Sankhyas say that consciousness is a compound, and beyond that, the last analysis gives us the Purusha, Witness, but that there are many Purushas--each of us is one. Advaita, on the contrary, affirms that Purushas can be only One, that Purusha cannot be conscious, unconscious, or have any qualification, for either these qualities would bind, or they would eventually cease; so the One must be without any qualities, even knowledge, and It cannot be the cause of the universe or of anything. "In the beginning, existence only, One without a second", says the Vedas._x000d_ The presence of Sattva with knowledge does not prove that Sattva is the cause of knowledge; on the contrary, Sattva calls out what was already existing in man, as the fire heats an iron ball placed near it by arousing the heat latent in it, not by entering into the ball._x000d_ Shankara says, knowledge is not a bondage, because it is the nature of God. The world ever is, whether manifested or unmanifested; so an eternal object exists._x000d_ Jnana-bala-kriya (knowledge, power, activity) is God. _x000d_ Nor does He need form, because the finite only needs form to interpose as an obstruction to catch and hold infinite knowledge; but God really needs no such help. There is no "moving soul", there is only one Atman. Jiva (individual soul) is the conscious ruler of this body, in whom the five life principles come into unity, and yet that very Jiva is the Atman, because all is Atman. What you think about it is your delusion and not in the Jiva. You are God, and whatever else you may think is wrong. You must worship the Self in Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna. Only by worshipping the Self can freedom be won. Even personal God is but the Self objectified. "Intense search after my own reality is Bhakti", says Shankara._x000d_ All the means we take to reach God are true; it is only like trying to find the pole-star by locating it through the stars that are around it._x000d_ The Bhagavad Gita is the best authority on Vedanta.

So long as I say "you", I have the right to speak of God protecting us. When I see another, I must take all the consequences and put in the third, the ideal, which stands between us; that is the apex of the triangle. The vapour becomes snow, then water, then Ganga; but when it is vapour, there is no Ganga, and when it is water, we think of no vapour in it. The idea of creation or change is inseparably connected with will. So long as we perceive this world in motion, we have to conceive will behind it. Physics proves the utter delusion of the senses; nothing really is as we see, hear, feel, smell, taste it. Certain vibrations producing certain results affect our senses; we know only relative truth._x000d_ The Sanskrit word for truth is "isness" (Sat). From our present standpoint, this world appears to us as will and consciousness. Personal God is as much an entity for Himself as we are for ourselves, and no more. God can also be seen as a form, just as we are seen. As men, we must have a God; as God, we need none. This is why Shri Ramakrishna constantly saw the Divine Mother ever present with him, more real than any other thing around him; but in Samadhi all went but the Self. Personal God comes nearer and nearer until He melts away, and there is no more Personal God and no more "I", all is merged in Self._x000d_ Consciousness is a bondage. The argument from design claims that intelligence precedes form; but if intelligence is the cause of anything, it itself is in its turn an effect. It is Maya. God creates us, and we create God, and this is Maya. The circle is unbroken; mind creates body, and body creates mind; the egg brings the chicken, the chicken the egg; the tree the seed, the seed the tree. The world is neither entirely differentiated nor yet entirely homogeneous. Man is free and must rise above both sides. Both are right in their place; but to reach truth, "isness", we must transcend all that we now know of existence, will, consciousness, doing, going, knowing. There is no real individuality of the Jiva (separate soul); eventually it, as a compound, will go to pieces. Only that which is beyond further analysis is "simple", and that alone is truth, freedom, immortality, bliss. All struggles for the preservation of this illusive individuality are really vices. All struggles to lose this individuality are virtues. Everything in the universe is trying to break down this individuality, either consciously or unconsciously. All morality is based upon the destruction of separateness or false individuality, because that is the cause of all sin. Morality exists first; later, religion codifies it. Customs come first, and then mythology follows to explain them. While things are happening, they come by a higher law than reasoning; that arises later in the attempt to understand them. Reasoning is not the motive power, it is "chewing the cud" afterwards. Reason is the historian of the actions of the human being._x000d_ _x000d_ Buddha was a great Vedantist (for Buddhism was really only an offshoot of Vedanta), and Shankara is often called a "hidden Buddhist". Buddha made the analysis, Shankara made the synthesis out of it. Buddha never bowed down to anything--neither Veda, nor caste, nor priest, nor custom. He fearlessly reasoned so far as reason could take him. Such a fearless search for truth and such love for every living thing the world has never seen. Buddha was the Washington of the religious world; he conquered a throne only to give it to the world, as Washington did to the American people. He sought nothing for himself.

Perception is our only real knowledge or religion. Talking about it for ages will never make us know our soul. There is no difference between theories and atheism. In fact, the atheist is the truer man. Every step I take in the light is mine for ever. When you go to a country and see it, then it is yours. We have each to see for ourselves; teachers can only "bring the food", we must eat it to be nourished. Argument can never prove God save as a logical conclusion._x000d_ It is impossible to find God outside of ourselves. Our own souls contribute all the divinity that is outside of us. We are the greatest temple. The objectification is only a faint imitation of what we see within ourselves._x000d_ Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us see God. If you know one soul (your own), you know all souls, past, present, and to come. The will concentrates the mind, certain things excite and control this will, such as reason, love, devotion, breathing. The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul._x000d_ No one method can suit all. These different methods are not steps necessary to be taken one after another. Ceremonials are the lowest form; next God external, and after that God internal. In some cases gradation may be needed, but in many only one way is required. It would be the height of folly to say to everyone, "You must pass through Karma and Bhakti before you can reach Jnana."_x000d_ Stick to your reason until you reach something higher; and you will know it to be higher, because it will not jar with reason. The stage beyond consciousness is inspiration (Samadhi); but never mistake hysterical trances for the real thing. It is a terrible thing to claim this inspiration falsely, to mistake instinct for inspiration. There is no external test for inspiration, we know it ourselves; our guardian against mistake is negative--the voice of reason. All religion is going beyond reason, but reason is the only guide to get there. Instinct is like ice, reason is the water, and inspiration is the subtlest form or vapour; one follows the other. Everywhere is this eternal sequence--unconsciousness, consciousness, intelligence--matter, body, mind--and to us it seems as if the chain began with the particular link we first lay hold of. Arguments on both sides are of equal weight, and both are true. We must reach beyond both, to where there is neither the one nor the other. These successions are all Maya._x000d_ Religion is above reason, supernatural. Faith is not belief, it is the grasp on the Ultimate, an illumination. First hear, then reason and find out all that reason can give about the Atman; let the flood of reason flow over It, then take what remains. If nothing remains, thank God you have escaped a superstition. When you have determined that nothing can take away the Atman, that It stands every test, hold fast to this and teach it to all. Truth cannot be partial; it is for the good of all. Finally, in perfect rest and peace meditate upon It, concentrate your mind upon It, make yourself one with It. Then no speech is needed; silence will carry the truth. Do not spend your energy in talking, but meditate in silence; and do not let the rush of the outside world disturb you. When your mind is in the highest state, you are unconscious of it. Accumulate power in silence and become a dynamo of spirituality. What can a beggar give? Only a king can give, and he only when he wants nothing himself._x000d_ Hold your money merely as custodian for what is God's. Have no attachment for it. Let name and fame and money go; they are a terrible bondage. Feel the wonderful atmosphere of freedom. You are free, free, free! Oh, blessed am I! Freedom am I! I am the Infinite! In my soul I can find no beginning and no end. All is my Self. Say this unceasingly.

(Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms)_x000d_ Yoga is the science of restraining the Chitta (mind) from breaking into Vrittis (modifications). Mind is a mixture of sensation and feelings, or action and reaction; so it cannot be permanent. The mind has a fine body and through this it works on the gross body. Vedanta says that behind the mind is the real Self. It accepts the other two, but posits a third, the Eternal, the Ultimate, the last analysis, the unit, where there is no further compound. Birth is re-composition, death is de-composition, and the final analysis is where Atman is found; there being no further division possible, the perdurable is reached._x000d_ The whole ocean is present at the back of each wave, and all manifestations are waves, some very big, some small; yet all are the ocean in their essence, the whole ocean; but as waves each is a part. When the waves are stilled, then all is one; "a spectator without a spectacle", says Patanjali. When the mind is active, the Atman is mixed up with it. The repetition of old forms in quick succession is memory._x000d_ Be unattached. Knowledge is power, and getting one you get the other. By knowledge you can even banish the material world. When you can mentally get rid of one quality after another from any object until all are gone, you can at will make the object itself disappear from your consciousness._x000d_ Those who are ready, advance very quickly and can become Yogis in six months. The less developed may take several years; and anyone by faithful work and by giving up everything else and devoting himself solely to practice can reach the goal in twelve years. Bhakti will bring you there without any of these mental gymnastics, but it is a slower way._x000d_ Ishvara is the Atman as seen or grasped by mind. His highest name is Om; so repeat it, meditate on it, and think of all its wonderful nature and attributes. Repeating the Om continually is the only true worship. It is not a word, it is God Himself._x000d_ Religion gives you nothing new; it only takes off obstacles and lets you see your Self. Sickness is the first great obstacle; a healthy body is the best instrument. Melancholy is an almost insuperable barrier. If you have once known Brahman, never after can you be melancholy. Doubt, want of perseverance, mistaken ideas are other obstacles._x000d_ _x000d_ Pranas are subtle energies, sources of motion. There are ten in all, five inward and five outward. One great current flows upwards, and the other downwards. Pranayama is controlling the Pranas through breathing. Breath is the fuel, Prana is the steam, and the body is the engine. Pranayama has three parts, Puraka (in-breathing), Kumbhaka (holding the breath), Rechaka (out-breathing). . . ._x000d_ The Guru is the conveyance in which the spiritual influence is brought to you. Anyone can teach, but the spirit must be passed on by the Guru to the Shishya (disciple), and that will fructify. The relation between Shishyas is that of brotherhood, and this is actually accepted by law in India. The Guru passes the thought power, the Mantra, that he has received from those before him; and nothing can be done without a Guru. In fact, great danger ensues. Usually without a Guru, these Yoga practices lead to lust; but with one, this seldom happens. Each Ishta has a Mantra. The Ishta is the ideal peculiar to the particular worshipper; the Mantra is the external word to express it. Constant repetition of the word helps to fix the ideal firmly in the mind. This method of worship prevails among religious devotees all over India.

(Bhagavad-Gita, Karma-Yoga)_x000d_ To attain liberation through work, join yourself to work but without desire, looking for no result. Such work leads to knowledge, which in turn brings emancipation. To give up work before you know, leads to misery. Work done for the Self gives no bondage. Neither desire pleasure nor fear pain from work. It is the mind and body that work, not I. Tell yourself this unceasingly and realise it. Try not to know that you work._x000d_ Do all as a sacrifice or offering to the Lord. Be in the world, but not of it, like the lotus leaf whose roots are in the mud but which remains always pure. Let your love go to all, whatever they do to you. A blind man cannot see colour, so how can we see evil unless it is in us? We compare what we see outside with what we find in ourselves and pronounce judgment accordingly. If we are pure, we cannot see impurity. It may exist, but not for us. See only God in every man, woman and child; see it by the antarjyotis, "inner light", and seeing that, we can see naught else. Do not want this world, because what you desire you get. Seek the Lord and the Lord only. The more power there is, the more bondage, the more fear. How much more afraid and miserable are we than the ant! Get out of it all and come to the Lord. Seek the science of the maker and not that of the made._x000d_ "I am the doer and the deed." "He who can stem the tide of lust and anger is a great Yogi."_x000d_ "Only by practice and non-attachment can we conquer mind." . . ._x000d_ Our Hindu ancestors sat down and thought on God and morality, and so have we brains to use for the same ends; but in the rush of trying to get gain, we are likely to lose them again._x000d_ _x000d_ The body has in itself a certain power of curing itself and many things can rouse this curative power into action, such as mental conditions, or medicine, or exercise, etc. As long as we are disturbed by physical conditions, so long we need the help of physical agencies. Not until we have got rid of bondage to the nerves, can we disregard them._x000d_ There is the unconscious mind, but it is below consciousness, which is just one part of the human organism. Philosophy is guess-work about the mind. Religion is based upon sense contact, upon seeing, the only basis of knowledge. What comes in contact with the superconscious mind is fact. Aptas are those who have "sensed" religion. The proof is that if you follow their method, you too will see. Each science requires its own particular method and instruments. An astronomer cannot show you the rings of Saturn by the aid of all the pots and pans in the kitchen. He needs a telescope. So, to see the great facts of religion, the methods of those who have already seen must be followed. The greater the science the more varied the means of studying it. Before we came into the world, God provided the means to get out; so all we have to do is to find the means. But do not fight over methods. Look only for realisation and choose the best method you can find to suit you. Eat the mangoes and let the rest quarrel over the basket. See Christ, then you will be a Christian. All else is talk; the less talking the better._x000d_ The message makes the messenger. The Lord makes the temple; not vice versa._x000d_ Learn until "the glory of the Lord shines through your face", as it shone through the face of Shvetaketu._x000d_ Guess against guess makes fight; but talk of what you have been, and no human heart can resist it. Paul was converted against his will by realisation.

(After dinner there was a short conversation in the course of which the Swami said:)_x000d_ Delusion creates delusion. Delusion creates itself and destroys itself, such is Maya. All knowledge (so-called), being based on Maya, is a vicious circle, and in time that very knowledge destroys itself. "Let go the rope", delusion cannot touch the Atman. When we lay hold of the rope--identify ourselves with Maya--she has power over us. Let go of it, be the Witness only, then you can admire the picture of the universe undisturbed.

"One afternoon," Mary Funke wrote in her memoirs, "when he had been telling us of the glory of renunciation, of the joy and freedom of those of the ochre robe, he suddenly left us and in a short time he had written his `Song of the Sannyasin; a very passion of sacrifice and renunciation. Swamiji may have written this now famous poem on the afternoon of July 23, the day following his giving of monastic initiations, for on that afternoon he had said during the course of a short conversation, "'Let go the rope,' delusions cannot touch the Atman. When we lay hold of the rope-identify ourselves with Maya, she has power over us. Let go of it, be the Witness only, then you can admire the picture of the universe undisturbed-a teaching which one finds in two verses of his thirteen-verse poem:_x000d_ _x000d_ There is but One-the Free, the Knower, Self! Without a name, without a form or stain._x000d_ _x000d_ In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream. The Witness, He appears as nature, soul. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say¬_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!"_x000d_ Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world Nor that can give. In books and temples vain_x000d_ Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds The rope that drags thee on, Then cease lament, Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say¬_x000d_ "Om Tat Sat, Om!

The powers acquired by the practice of Yoga are not obstacles for the Yogi who is perfect, but are apt to be so for the beginner, through the wonder and pleasure excited by their exercise. Siddhis are the powers which mark success in the practice; and they may be produced by various means, such as the repetition of a Mantra, by Yoga practice, meditation, fasting, or even by the use of herbs and drugs. The Yogi, who has conquered all interest in the powers acquired and who renounces all virtue arising from his actions, comes into the "cloud of virtue" (name of one of the states of Samadhi) and radiates holiness as a cloud rains water._x000d_ Meditation is on a series of objects, concentration is on one object._x000d_ Mind is cognised by the Atman, but it is not self-illuminated. The Atman cannot be the cause of anything. How can it be? How can the Purusha join itself to Prakriti (nature)? It does not; it is only illusively thought to do so. . . ._x000d_ Learn to help without pitying or feeling that there is any misery. Learn to be the same to enemy and to friend; then when you can do that and no longer have any desire, the goal is attained._x000d_ Cut down the banyan tree of desire with the axe of non-attachment, and it will vanish utterly. It is all illusion. "He from whom blight and delusion have fallen, he who has conquered the evils of association, he alone is azad (free)."_x000d_ To love anyone personally is bondage. Love all alike, then all desires fall off._x000d_ Time, the "eater of everything", comes, and all has to go. Why try to improve the earth, to paint the butterfly? It all has to go at last. Do not be mere white mice in a treadmill, working always and never accomplishing anything. Every desire is fraught with evil, whether the desire itself be good or evil. It is like a dog jumping for a piece of meat which is ever receding from his reach, and dying a dog's death at last. Do not be like that. Cut off all desire._x000d_ _x000d_ Paramatman as ruling Maya is Ishvara; Paramatman as under Maya is Jivatman. Maya is the sum total of manifestation and will utterly vanish. _x000d_ Tree-nature is Maya, it is really God-nature which we see under the veil of Maya. The "why" of anything is in Maya. To ask why Maya came is a useless question, because the answer can never be given in Maya, and beyond Maya who will ask it? Evil creates "why", not "why" the evil, and it is evil that asks "why". Illusion destroys illusion. Reason itself, being based upon contradiction, is a circle and has to kill itself. Sense-perception is an inference, and yet all inference comes from perception._x000d_ Ignorance reflecting the light of God is seen; but by itself it is zero. The cloud would not appear except as the sunlight falls on it._x000d_ There were four travellers who came to a high wall. The first one climbed with difficulty to the top and without looking back, jumped over. The second clambered up the wall, looked over, and with a shout of delight disappeared. The third in his turn climbed to the top, looked where his companions had gone, laughed with joy, and followed them. But the fourth one came back to tell what had happened to his fellow-travellers. The sign to us that there is something beyond is the laugh that rings back from those great ones who have plunged from Maya's wall._x000d_ _x000d_ Separating ourselves from the Absolute and attributing certain qualities to It give us Ishvara. It is the Reality of the universe as seen through our mind. Personal devil is the misery of the world seen through the minds of the superstitious.

(Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms)_x000d_ "Things may be done, caused to be done, or approved of", and the effect upon us is nearly equal._x000d_ Complete continence gives great intellectual and spiritual power. The Brahmacharin must be sexually pure in thought, word, and deed. Lose regard for the body; get rid of the consciousness of it so far as possible. _x000d_ _x000d_ Asana (posture) must be steady and pleasant; and constant practice, identifying the mind with the Infinite, will bring this about._x000d_ Continual attention to one object is contemplation._x000d_ When a stone is thrown into still water, many circles are made, each distinct but all interacting; so with our minds; only in us the action is unconscious, while with the Yogi it is conscious. We are spiders in a web, and Yoga practice will enable us like the spider to pass along any strand of the web we please. Non-Yogis are bound to the particular spot where they are._x000d_ _x000d_ To injure another creates bondage and hides the truth. Negative virtues are not enough; we have to conquer Maya, and then she will follow us. We only deserve things when they cease to bind us. When the bondage ceases, really and truly, all things come to us. Only those who want nothing are masters of nature._x000d_ Take refuge in some soul who has already broken his bondage, and in time he will free you through his mercy. Higher still is to take refuge in the Lord (Ishvara), but it is the most difficult; only once in a century can one be found who has really done it. Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, "Thy will be done". We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go. Take refuge in God, only so can we cross the desert of Maya. "Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold, say, Om tat sat, Om!"_x000d_ It is our privilege to be allowed to be charitable, for only so can we grow. The poor man suffers that we may be helped; let the giver kneel down and give thanks, let the receiver stand up and permit. See the Lord back of every being and give to Him. When we cease to see evil, the world must end for us, since to rid us of that mistake is its only object. To think there is any imperfection creates it. Thoughts of strength and perfection alone can cure it. Do what good you can, some evil will inhere in it; but do all without regard to personal result, give up all results to the Lord, then neither good nor evil will affect you._x000d_ Doing work is not religion, but work done rightly leads to freedom. In reality all pity is darkness, because whom to pity? Can you pity God? And is there anything else? Thank God for giving you this world as a moral gymnasium to help your development, but never imagine you can help the world. Be grateful to him who curses you, for he gives you a mirror to show what cursing is, also a chance to practise self-restraint; so bless him and be glad . Without exercise, power cannot come out; without the mirror, we cannot see ourselves._x000d_ Unchaste imagination is as bad as unchaste action. Controlled desire leads to the highest result. Transform the sexual energy into spiritual energy, but do not emasculate, because that is throwing away the power. The stronger this force, the more can be done with it. Only a powerful current of water can do hydraulic mining._x000d_ What we need today is to know there is a God and that we can see and feel Him here and now. A Chicago professor says, "Take care of this world, God will take care of the next." What nonsense! If we can take care of this world, what need of a gratuitous Lord to take care of the other!

Swamiji's invitation from the "Christian Union of Oak Beach" (by which he meant the Oak Island Beach Christian Unity Conference) poses a problem. Oak Island Beach was a summer-resort town on Fire Island, a small island near Babylon, Long Island, New York.

The Conference was a fairly important affair, the purpose of which was briefly explained by the following item that appeared in the Open Court of July 25, 1895:

The Christian Unity Conference is now in session at Oak Island Beach, Long Island, N.Y. The idea of the Conference is to bring the various denominational divi¬sions of Christianity in the United States close together, and to affect some kind of organic Christian unity. Addresses will be made by the Rev. Josiah Strong, the Rev. Madison C. Peters, the Rev. Franklin Noble, the Rev. J. Winthrop Hegeman, the Rev. James DeWolf Perry, and many others. Swami Vivekananda and Dr. Paul Carus will speak on the World's Religions Parliament Extension.* The officers of the Conference have chosen as their place of meeting one of the pleasantest resorts on the Atlantic Coast and a large attendance may be expected, as also beneficent results._x000d_ * "The most substantial outgrowth of the 1893 Parliament was a series of organizations founded in the 1890's to perpetuate the dialogue of religions inaugurated there. [Paul] Carus was a leading spirit in practically every case. The most significant of these, the World's Religions Parliament Extension, was formed in 1894., with Carus as secretary." (Carl T. Jackson, "The Meeting of East and West: the Case of Paul Carus," Journal of the History of Ideas 29 [1968] : 86.)

(Brihadaranyakopanishad.)_x000d_ Love all things only through and for the Self. Yajnavalkya said to Maitreyi, his wife, "Through the Atman we know all things." The Atman can never be the object of knowledge, nor can the Knower be known. He who knows he is the Atman, he is law unto himself. He knows he is the universe and its creator. . . ._x000d_ Perpetuating old myths in the form of allegories and giving them undue importance fosters superstition and is really weakness. Truth must have no compromise. Teach truth and make no apology for any superstition; neither drag truth to the level of the listener.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ Thousand Island Park_x000d_ C/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ N.Y._x000d_ 27th July '95_x000d_ Dear Mother___x000d_ I will be ever so much obliged if you kindly look into the "bead" affair. I think there will be a little duty to pay. I will pay it to you when I come._x000d_ I start from here next week. I will be in Detroit a day or two on my way. I will be in by the third or fourth of August. _x000d_ With Everlasting love, your Son,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ [Enclosed in the above letter was the following note.]_x000d_ _x000d_ 27th July '95_x000d_ To the United States Express Company_x000d_ Foreign Department._x000d_ Dear Sir,_x000d_ Herewith I authorize Mrs. George W. Hale to take delivery of the "beads" that have been expressed to me from India. Hop¬ing they will be regularly delivered to her, I remain yours obe¬diently,_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda

(Kathopanishad)_x000d_ Learn not the truth of the Self save from one who has realised it; in all others it is mere talk. Realisation is beyond virtue and vice, beyond future and past; beyond all the pairs of opposites. "The stainless one sees the Self, and an eternal calm comes in the Soul." Talking, arguing, and reading books, the highest flights of the intellect, the Vedas themselves, all these cannot give knowledge of the Self._x000d_ In us are two--The God-soul and the man-soul. The sages know that the latter is but the shadow, that the former is the only real Sun._x000d_ Unless we join the mind with the senses, we get no report from eyes, nose, ears, etc. The external organs are used by the power of the mind. Do not let the senses go outside, and then you can get rid of body and the external world._x000d_ This very "x" which we see here as an external world, the departed see as heaven or hell according to their own mental states. Here and hereafter are two dreams, the latter modelled on the former; get rid of both, all is omnipresent, all is now. Nature, body, and mind go to death, not we; we never go nor come. The man Swami Vivekananda is in nature, is born, and dies; but the self which we see as Swami Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality._x000d_ The power of the mind is the same whether we divide it into five senses or whether we see only one. A blind man says, "Everything has a distinct echo, so I clap my hands and get that echo, and then I can tell everything that is around me." So in a fog the blind man can safely lead the seeing man. Fog or darkness makes no difference to him._x000d_ Control the mind, cut off the senses, then you are a Yogi; after that, all the rest will come. Refuse to hear, to see, to smell, to taste; take away the mental power from the external organs. You continually do it unconsciously as when your mind is absorbed; so you can learn to do it consciously. The mind can put the senses where it pleases. Get rid of the fundamental superstition that we are obliged to act through the body. We are not. Go into your own room and get the Upanishads out of your own Self. You are the greatest book that ever was or ever will be, the infinite depository of all that is. Until the inner teacher opens, all outside teaching is in vain. It must lead to the opening of the book of the heart to have any value._x000d_ The will is the "still small voice", the real Ruler who says "do" and "do not". It has done all that binds us. The ignorant will leads to bondage, the knowing will can free us. The will can be made strong in thousands of ways; every way is a kind of Yoga, but the systematised Yoga accomplishes the work more quickly. Bhakti, Karma, Raja, and Jnana-Yoga get over the ground more effectively. Put on all powers, philosophy, work, prayer, meditation--crowd all sail, put on all head of steam--reach the goal. The sooner, the better. . . ._x000d_ Baptism is external purification symbolising the internal. It is of Buddhist origin._x000d_ The Eucharist is a survival of a very ancient custom of savage tribes. They sometimes killed their great chiefs and ate their flesh in order to obtain in themselves the qualities that made their leaders great. They believed that in such a way the characteristics that made the chief brave and wise would become theirs and make the whole tribe brave and wise, instead of only one man. Human sacrifice was also a Jewish idea and one that clung to them despite many chastisements from Jehovah. Jesus was gentle and loving, but to fit him into Jewish beliefs, the idea of human sacrifice, in the form of atonement or as a human scapegoat, had to come in. This cruel idea made Christianity depart from the teachings of Jesus himself and develop a spirit of persecution and bloodshed. . . ._x000d_ Say, "it is my nature", never say, "It is my duty"--to do anything whatever._x000d_ "Truth alone triumphs, not untruth." Stand upon Truth, and you have got God._x000d_ _x000d_ From the earliest times in India the Brahmin caste have held themselves beyond all law; they claim to be gods. They are poor, but their weakness is that they seek power. Here are about sixty millions of people who are good and moral and hold no property, and they are what they are because from their birth they are taught that they are above law, above punishment. They feel themselves to be "twice-born", to be sons of God.

(Avadhuta Gita or "Song of the Purified" by Dattatreya )_x000d_ "All knowledge depends upon calmness of mind."_x000d_ "He who has filled the universe, He who is Self in self, how shall I salute Him!"_x000d_ To know the Atman as my nature is both knowledge and realisation. "I am He, there is not the least doubt of it."_x000d_ "No thought, no word, no deed, creates a bondage for me. I am beyond the senses, I am knowledge and bliss."_x000d_ There is neither existence nor non-existence, all is Atman. Shake off all ideas of relativity; shake off all superstitions; let caste and birth and Devas and all else vanish. Why talk of being and becoming? Give up talking of dualism and Advaitism! When were you two, that you talk of two or one? The universe is this Holy One and He alone. Talk not of Yoga to make you pure; you are pure by your very nature. None can teach you._x000d_ Men like him who wrote this song are what keep religion alive. They have actually realised; they care for nothing, feel nothing done to the body, care not for heat and cold or danger or anything. They sit still and enjoy the bliss of Atman, while red-hot coals burn their body, and they feel them not._x000d_ "When the threefold bondage of knower, knowledge, and known ceases, there is the Atman."_x000d_ "Where the delusion of bondage and freedom ceases, there the Atman is."_x000d_ "What if you have controlled the mind, what if you have not? What if you have money, what if you have not? You are the Atman ever pure. Say, 'I am the Atman. No bondage ever came near me. I am the changeless sky; clouds of belief may pass over me, but they do not touch me.'"_x000d_ "Burn virtue, burn vice. Freedom is baby talk. I am that immortal Knowledge. I am that purity."_x000d_ "No one was ever bound, none was ever free. There is none but me. I am the Infinite, the Ever-free. Talk not to me! What can change me, the essence of knowledge! Who can teach, who can be taught?"_x000d_ Throw argument, throw philosophy into the ditch._x000d_ "Only a slave sees slaves, the deluded delusion, the impure impurity."_x000d_ Place, time causation are all delusions. It is your disease that you think you are bound and will be free._x000d_ You are the Unchangeable. Talk not. Sit down and let all things melt away, they are but dreams. There is no differentiation, no distinction, it is all superstition; therefore be silent and know what you are._x000d_ "I am the essence of bliss." Follow no ideal, you are all there is. Fear naught, you are the essence of existence. Be at peace. Do not disturb yourself. You never were in bondage, you never were virtuous or sinful. Get rid of all these delusions and be at peace. Whom to worship? Who worships? All is the Atman. To speak, to think is superstition. Repeat over and over, "I am Atman", "I am Atman". Let everything else go.

The bright little settlement under University Extension rule at Oak Island Beach is profiting by cool sea breezes, several kinds of lectures and good music. . . . The past week was devoted to the Christian unity congress which began on Tuesday [July 23], the Rev. Josiah Strong, secretary of the Evangelical alliance and the Rev. Leighton Williams of Amity Baptist church, were speakers. Other clergymen included . . . Swami Vivekananda and Dr. Paul Carus, editor of the Monist. The character of the concerts at Oak Island Beach is excellent as the names of the soloists would indicate.87 [The italics are mine.]

A BASIS FOR WORLD-WIDE UNITY._x000d_ _x000d_ IT IS BEING AND DOING RIGHT,_x000d_ SAYS SWAMI VIVEKANANDA,_x000d_ AN ORIENTAL RELIGIONIST._x000d_ The Oak Beach Christian Unity was addressed yesterday afternoon by the Oriental, Swami Vivekananda. He spoke of the world-wide unity, and said that all religions were, at the bottom, alike. This was so, although the Christian Church, like the Pharisee in the parable, thanks God that it atone is right, and is willing to admit that all other religions are wrong and in need of Christian light. Christianity must become tolerant before the world will be willing to unite with the Christian Church in a common charity, he said. God had not left Himself without a witness in any heart, and men, especially men who follow Jesus Christ, should he willing, he said, to admit this. In fact, Jesus Christ was willing to admit every good man to the family of God. It was not the man who believed something, but the man who did the will of the Father in Heaven who was right. On this basis being right and doing right-the whole world can unite, he contended.

Dr. Paul Carus also spoke during the afternoon about the World's Parliament Extension. This organization proposes to extend the work of the Chicago parliament. It is proposed to hold such a parliament in this city next spring. These parliaments will show the world that by taking what is best in each religion and improving the various religions up to this level there shall be had the religion of the twentieth century._x000d_ (As the reader may recognize, most of the above resume of Swamiji's talk has been published in volume five of the Com¬plete Works under the title "World-Wide Unity.”)

Now, if we were to judge by the newspapers alone, it would seem clear that Swamiji spoke at Oak Island Beach on the afternoon of Saturday, July 27. But looking into Inspired Talks we find that he held a class that morning at Miss Dutcher's cottage on the Katha Upanishad. Not by the fastest train could he have been at Oak Island Beach that afternoon! Nor could he have been back at the cottage on Sunday morning (when he also held a class), for no steamers or boats were allowed to dock at Thousand Island Park on Sundays. So here is something of a mystery. The most probable explanation is that Swamiji did not appear in person at the Oak Beach Conference but sent a short paper, which was read by someone else, the reporters not knowing the difference. Until more information comes to light, I think we shall have to suppose that this was the case. It is, moreover, the most agreeable, as well as the most reasonable, explanation, for one does not like to think that Swamiji broke into those serene days at Thousand Island Park to spend even a fraction of them at Oak Island Beach. At the very least he would have been away for two days and two nights, and the nights at Miss Dutcher's cottage were no less precious than the days.

Thousand Island Park_x000d_ 29th (July?), 1895_x000d_ {to Mrs. William Sturges}_x000d_ A glorious time to you, dear Mother, and I am sure this letter will find you in all health. Many thanks for the $50 you sent; it went a long way._x000d_ We have had such a nice time here. Two ladies came up all the way from Detroit to be with us here. They are so pure and good. I am going from the Thousand Island to Detroit and thence to Chicago._x000d_ Our class in New York is going on, and they have carried it bravely on, although I was not there._x000d_ By the by, the two ladies who have come from Detroit were in the class, and unfortunately were mighty frightened with imps and other persons of that ilk. They have been taught to put a little salt, just a little, in burning alcohol, and if there is a black precipitate, that must be the impurities showing the presence of the imps. However, these two ladies had too much fright from the imps. It is said that these imps are everywhere filling the whole universe. Father Leggett must be awfully downcast at your absence, as I did not hear from him up to date. Well, it is better to let grief have its way. So I do not bother him any more._x000d_ Aunt Joe Joe must have had a terrible time at sea. All is well that ends well._x000d_ The babies must be enjoying their stay in Germany very much. My shiploads of love to them._x000d_ We all here send you love, and I wish you a life that will be like a torch to generations to come._x000d_ Your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

We sometimes indicate a thing by describing its surroundings. When we say "Sachchidananda" (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss), we are merely indicating the shores of an indescribable Beyond. Not even can we say "is" about it, for that too is relative. Any imagination, any concept is in vain. Neti, neti ("Not this, not this") is all that can be said, for even to think is to limit and so to lose._x000d_ The senses cheat you day and night. Vedanta found that out ages ago; modern science is just discovering the same fact. A picture has only length and breadth, and the painter copies nature in her cheating by artificially giving the appearance of depth. No two people see the same world. The highest knowledge will show you that there is no motion, no change in anything; that the very idea of it is all Maya. Study nature as a whole, that is, study motion. Mind and body are not our real self; both belong to nature, but eventually we can know the ding an sich. Then mind and body being transcended, all that they conceive goes. When you cease utterly to know and see the world, then you realise Atman. The superseding of relative knowledge is what we want. _x000d_ There is no infinite mind or infinite knowledge, because both mind and knowledge are limited. We are now seeing through a veil; then we reach the "x", which is the Reality of all our knowing._x000d_ If we look at a picture through a pin-hole in a cardboard, we get an utterly mistaken notion; yet what we see is really the picture. As we enlarge the hole, we get a clearer and clearer idea. Out of the reality we manufacture the different views in conformity with our mistaken perceptions of name and form. When we throw away the cardboard, we see the same picture, but we see it as it is. We put in all the attributes, all the errors; the picture itself is unaltered thereby. That is because Atman is the reality of all; all we see is Atman, but not as we see it, as name and form; they are all in our veil, in Maya._x000d_ They are like spots in the object-glass of a telescope, yet it is the light of the sun that shows us the spots; we could not even see the illusion save for the background of reality which is Brahman. Swami Vivekananda is just the speck on the object-glass; I am Atman, real, unchangeable, and that reality alone enables me to see Swami Vivekananda. Atman is the essence of every hallucination; but the sun is never identified with the spots on the glass, it only shows them to us. Our actions, as they are evil or good, increase or decrease the "spots"; but they never affect the God within us. Perfectly cleanse the mind of spots and instantly we see, "I and my father are one"._x000d_ We first perceive, then reason later. We must have this perception as a fact, and it is called religion, realisation. No matter if one never heard of creed or prophet or book. Let him get this realisation, and he needs no more. Cleanse the mind, this is all of religion; and until we ourselves clear off the spots, we cannot see the Reality as it is. The baby sees no sun; he has not yet the measure of it in himself. Get rid of the defects within yourself, and you will not be able to see any without. A baby sees robbery done, and it means nothing to him. Once you find the hidden object in a puzzle picture, you see it ever more; so when once you are free and stainless, you see only freedom and purity in the world around. That moment all the knots of the heart are cut asunder, all crooked places are made straight, and this world vanishes as a dream. And when we awake, we wonder how we ever came to dream such trash!_x000d_ "Getting whom, misery mountain high has no power to move the soul."_x000d_ With the axe of knowledge cut the wheels asunder, and the Atman stands free, even though the old momentum carries on the wheel of mind and body. The wheel can now only go straight, can only do good. If that body does anything bad, know that the man is not Jivanmukta; he lies if he makes that claim. But it is only when the wheels have got a good straight motion (from cleansing the mind) that the axe can be applied. All purifying action deals conscious or unconscious blows on delusion. To call another a sinner is the worst thing you can do. Good action done ignorantly produces the same result and helps to break the bondage._x000d_ To identify the sun with the spots on the object-glass is the fundamental error. Know the sun, the "I", to be ever unaffected by anything, and devote yourself to cleansing the spots. Man is the greatest being that ever can be. The highest worship there is, is to worship man as Krishna, Buddha, Christ. What you want, you create. Get rid of desire. . . ._x000d_ The angels and the departed are all here, seeing this world as heaven. The same "x" is seen by all according to their mental attitude. The best vision to be had of the "x" is here on this earth. Never want to go to heaven, that is the worst delusion. Even here, too much wealth and grinding poverty are both bondages and hold us back from religion. Three great gifts we have: first, a human body. (The human mind is the nearest reflection of God, we are "His own image".) Second, the desire to be free. Third, the help of a noble soul, who has crossed the ocean of delusion, as a teacher. When you have these three, bless the Lord; you are sure to be free._x000d_ What you only grasp intellectually may be overthrown by a new argument; but what you realise is yours for ever. Talking, talking religion is but little good. Put God behind everything--man, animal, food, work; make this a habit._x000d_ Ingersoll once said to me: "I believe in making the most out of this world, in squeezing the orange dry, because this world is all we are sure of." I replied: "I know a better way to squeeze the orange of this world than you do, and I get more out of it. I know I cannot die, so I am not in a hurry; I know there is no fear, so I enjoy the squeezing. I have no duty, no bondage of wife and children and property; I can love all men and women. Everyone is God to me. Think of the joy of loving man as God! Squeeze your orange this way and get ten thousandfold more out of it. Get every single drop."_x000d_ That which seems to be the will is the Atman behind, it is really free.

Jesus was imperfect because he did not live up fully to his own ideal, and above all because he did not give woman a place equal to man. Women did everything for him, and yet he was so bound by the Jewish custom that not one was made an apostle. Still he was the greatest character next to Buddha, who in his turn was not fully perfect. Buddha, however, recognised woman's right to an equal place in religion, and his first and one of his greatest disciples was his own wife, who became the head of the whole Buddhistic movement among the women of India. But we ought not to criticise these great ones, we should only look upon them as far above ourselves. Nonetheless we must not pin our faith to any man, however great; we too must become Buddhas and Christs._x000d_ No man should be judged by his defects. The great virtues a man has are his especially, his errors are the common weaknesses of humanity and should never be counted in estimating his character._x000d_ Vira, the Sanskrit word for "heroic", is the origin of our word "virtue", because in ancient times the best fighter was regarded as the most virtuous man.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ C/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park_x000d_ 30th August [July] '95_x000d_ Dear Mother,_x000d_ I was starting for Chicago, Thursday next [August 1], but your letter stopped me. The letter and the package have safely arrived._x000d_ Write to me or wire if you want me to come to Chicago. I will then start for Chicago next week, i.e. on Tuesday next [August 6]. I thought Sister Mary was at home. When are the other babies coming? My going to Europe is not yet settled finally. The babies have not written me a line__not one of them._x000d_ Oh, Mother, my heart is so, so sad. The letters bring the news of the death of Dewanji. Haridas Viharidas has left the body. He was as a father to me. Poor man, he was the last 5 years seeking the retirement from business life, and at last he got it but could not enjoy it long. I pray that he may never come back again to this dirty hole they call the Earth. Neither may he be born in heaven or any other horrid place. May he never again wear a body__good or bad, thick or thin. What a humbug and illusion this world is, Mother, what a mockery this life. I pray constantly that all mankind will come to know the reality, i.e. God, and this "Shop" here be closed for ever._x000d_ My heart is too full to write more. Write to me or wire if you like._x000d_ Your ever obedient Son,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ P.S. We will think of the coming package [from the Maharaja of Khetri] in Chicago. How long will you be in Chicago? If it is only a week or so, I need not come. I will meet you in New York. If more than that, I come to see you._x000d_ Yours,_x000d_ V.

This letter, like Swami’s poem itself, has the ring of ecstasy in it. And yet, on that very day (July 30) he wrote to Mr. Hale of a great sorrow that had come to him. His letter read in part:

Christs and Buddhas are simply occasions upon which to objectify our own inner powers. We really answer our own prayers._x000d_ It is blasphemy to think that if Jesus had never been born, humanity would not have been saved. It is horrible to forget thus the divinity in human nature, a divinity that must come out. Never forget the glory of human nature. We are the greatest God that ever was or ever will be. Christs and Buddhas are but waves on the boundless ocean which I am . Bow down to nothing but your own higher Self. Until you know that you are that very God of gods, there will never be any freedom for you._x000d_ All our past actions are really good, because they lead us to what we ultimately become. Of whom to beg? I am the real existence, and all else is a dream save as it is I. I am the whole ocean; do not call the little wave you have made "I"; know it for nothing but a wave. Satya-kama (lover of truth) heard the inner voice telling him, "You are the infinite, the universal is in you. Control yourself and listen to the voice of your true Self."_x000d_ The great prophets who do the fighting have to be less perfect than those who live silent lives of holiness, thinking great thoughts and so helping the world. These men, passing out one after another, produce as final outcome the man of power who preaches._x000d_ _x000d_ Knowledge exists, man only discovers it. The Vedas are the eternal knowledge through which God created the world. They talk high philosophy--the highest--and make this tremendous claim. . . ._x000d_ Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better. Childish ideas are for babies and savages; and these are not all in the nursery and the forests, some of them have fallen into the pulpits._x000d_ It is bad to stay in the church after you are grown up spiritually. Come out and die in the open air of freedom._x000d_ All progression is in the relative world. The human form is the highest and man the greatest being, because here and now we can get rid of the relative world entirely, can actually attain freedom, and this is the goal. Not only we can, but some have reached perfection; so no matter what finer bodies come, they could only be on the relative plane and could do no more than we, for to attain freedom is all that can be done._x000d_ The angels never do wicked deeds, so they never get punished and never get saved. Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom. . . ._x000d_ _x000d_ A thing dimly perceived we call by one name; the same thing when fully perceived we call by another. The higher the moral nature, the higher the perception and the stronger the will.

The reason of the harmony between thought and matter is that they are two sides of one thing, call it "x", which divides itself into the internal and the external._x000d_ The English word "paradise" comes from the Sanskrit para-desa, which was taken over into the Persian language and means literally "the land beyond", or the other world. The old Aryans always believed in a soul, never that man was the body. Their heavens and hells were all temporary, because no effect can outlast its cause and no cause is eternal; therefore all effects must come to an end._x000d_ The whole of the Vedanta Philosophy is in this story: Two birds of golden plumage sat on the same tree. The one above, serene, majestic, immersed in his own glory; the one below restless and eating the fruits of the tree, now sweet, now bitter. Once he ate an exceptionally bitter fruit, then he paused and looked up at the majestic bird above; but he soon forgot about the other bird and went on eating the fruits of the tree as before. Again he ate a bitter fruit, and this time he hopped up a few boughs nearer to the bird at the top. This happened many times until at last the lower bird came to the place of the upper bird and lost himself. He found all at once that there had never been two birds, but that he was all the time that upper bird, serene, majestic, and immersed in his own glory.

A few days thereafter he sent the poem to his disciple Alasinga, accompanying it with a letter dated July 30, 1895, in which he wrote in part:_x000d_ _x000d_ The "Song of the Sannyasin" is my first contribution for your journal [the forthcoming Brahmavadin). Don't feel depressed. Don't lose faith in your guru. Do not lose faith in God. Oh, Child! As long as the inspiration and faith in the guru and God is within you, nothing will be able to defeat you. Day by day I am experiencing a manifesta¬tion of power in me. Oh, my courageous children! Go on working.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ C/o Miss Dutcher_x000d_ Thousand Island Park_x000d_ N.Y._x000d_ [July 31, 1895]_x000d_ Dear Mother___x000d_ I am afraid I can not come to see you and neither will you advise me. I am going with a friend to Europe, at his expense. We go first to Paris and from there to London. My friend will go to Italy and I to London. I will, however, come back to New York in September. So I am not going away for good._x000d_ I start on the 17th. So you see, it is impossible to come and go that way for 3 or 4 days._x000d_ The package from India ought to have reached by this time. If they come, kindly take the delivery and send it back to New York to Miss Mary Phillips, 19 W. 38. If the package does not come to Chicago before you go away, then kindly send the bill of lading etc. to Miss Mary Phillips, 19. W. 38. The babies [the Hale daughters] did not write me a line, nor did they intimate where they are. I absolutely do not know anything about them. As they do not want it, it seems I ought not to disturb them with my letters. But you kindly convey them my love and eternal, undying blessings. So to you, Mother and Father Pope. I will pen a longer epistle in a few days. We will see each other next spring in Chicago, Mother, if we all live._x000d_ Ever gratefully your Son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

On July 31 Swamiji's plans, so uncertain the day before, seem to have suddenly jelled. He had no doubt heard from Mr. Leggett regarding the date of the European sailing and had decided there was not time to go to Chicago; nor was Mrs. Hale certain of her own plans. The package from Khetri would, accordingly, have to be forwarded to New York. Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Hale to this effect in a letter postmarked July 31, 1895:

c/o Miss Dutcher,_x000d_ Thousand Island Park, N.Y._x000d_ 31st July, 1895_x000d_ Dear Friend {Francis Leggett},_x000d_ I wrote you before this a letter, but as I am afraid it was not posted carefully, I write another. I shall be in time before the 14th. I shall have to come to New York before the 11th anyway. So there will be time enough to get ready. _x000d_ I shall go with you to Paris, for my principal object in going with you is to see you married. When you go away for a trip, I go to London. That is all._x000d_ It is unnecessary to repeat my everlasting love and blessings for you and yours._x000d_ Ever your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Luther drove a nail into religion when he took away renunciation and gave us morality instead. Atheists and materialists can have ethics, but only believers in the Lord can have religion._x000d_ The wicked pay the price of the great soul's holiness. Think of that when you see a wicked man. Just as the poor man's labour pays for the rich man's luxury, so is it in the spiritual world. The terrible degradation of the masses in India is the price nature pays for the production of great souls like Mirabai, Buddha, etc. _x000d_ _x000d_ "I am the holiness of the holy" (Gita). I am the root, each uses it in his own way, but all is I. "I do everything, you are but the occasion."_x000d_ Do not talk much, but feel the spirit within you; then you are a Jnani. This is knowledge, all else is ignorance. All that is to be known is Brahman. It is the all. . . ._x000d_ Sattva binds through the search for happiness and knowledge, Rajas binds through desire, Tamas binds through wrong perception and laziness. Conquer the two lower by Sattva, and then give up all to the Lord and be free._x000d_ The Bhakti-Yogi realises Brahman very soon and goes beyond the three qualities. _x000d_ The will, the consciousness, the senses, desire, the passions, all these combined make what we call the "soul"._x000d_ There is first, the apparent self (body); second, the mental self who mistakes the body for himself (the Absolute bound by Maya); third, the Atman, the ever pure, the ever free. Seen partially, It is nature; seen wholly, all nature goes, even the memory of it is lost. There is the changeable (mortal), the eternally changeable (nature), and the Unchangeable (Atman)._x000d_ Be perfectly hopeless, that is the highest state. What is there to hope for? Burst asunder the bonds of hope, stand on your Self, be at rest, never mind what you do, give up all to God, but have no hypocrisy about it._x000d_ Svastha, the Sanskrit word for "standing on your own Self", is used colloquially in India to inquire, "Are you well, are you happy?" And when Hindus would express, "I saw a thing", they say, "I saw a word-meaning (Padartha)." Even this universe is a "word-meaning"._x000d_ _x000d_ A perfect man's body mechanically does right; it can do only good because it is fully purified. The past momentum that carries on the wheel of body is all good. All evil tendencies are burnt out._x000d_ _x000d_ "That day is indeed a bad day when we do not speak of the Lord, not a stormy day."_x000d_ Only love for the Supreme Lord is true Bhakti. Love for any other being, however great, is not Bhakti. The "Supreme Lord" here means Ishvara, the concept of which transcends what you in the West mean by the personal God. "He from whom this universe proceeds, in whom it rests, and to whom it returns, He is Ishvara, the Eternal, the Pure, the All-Merciful, the Almighty, the Ever-Free, the All-Knowing, the Teacher of all teachers, the Lord who of His own nature is inexpressible Love."_x000d_ Man does not manufacture God out of his own brain; but he can only see God in the light of his own capacity, and he attributes to Him the best of all he knows. Each attribute is the whole of God, and this signifying the whole by one quality is the metaphysical explanation of the personal God. Ishvara is without form yet has all forms, is without qualities yet has all qualities. As human beings, we have to see the trinity of existence--God, man, nature; and we cannot do otherwise._x000d_ _x000d_ But to the Bhakta all these philosophical distinctions are mere idle talk. He cares nothing for argument, he does not reason, he "senses", he perceives. He wants to love himself in pure love of God, and there have been Bhaktas who maintain that this is more to be desired than liberation, who say, "I do not want to be sugar. I want to taste sugar; I want to love and enjoy the Beloved."_x000d_ In Bhakti-Yoga the first essential is to want God honestly and intensely. We want everything but God, because our ordinary desires are fulfilled by the external world. So long as our needs are confined within the limits of the physical universe, we do not feel any need for God; it is only when we have had hard blows in our lives and are disappointed with everything here that we feel the need for something higher; then we seek God._x000d_ Bhakti is not destructive; it teaches that all our faculties may become means to reach salvation. We must turn them all towards God and give to Him that love which is usually wasted on the fleeting objects of sense._x000d_ Bhakti differs from your Western idea of religion in that Bhakti admits no elements of fear, no Being to be appeased or propitiated. There are even Bhaktas who worship God as their own child, so that there may remain no feeling even of awe or reverence. There can be no fear in true love, and so long as there is the least fear, Bhakti cannot even begin. In Bhakti there is also no place for begging or bargaining with God. The idea of asking God for anything is sacrilege to a Bhakta. He will not pray for health or wealth or even to go to heaven. _x000d_ One who wants to love God, to be a Bhakta, must make a bundle of all these desires and leave them outside the door and then enter. He who wants to enter the realms of light must make a bundle of all "shop-keeping" religion and cast it away before he can pass the gates. It is not that you do not get what you pray for; you get everything, but it is low, vulgar, a beggar's religion. "Fool indeed is he, who, living on the banks of the Ganga, digs a little well for water. Fool indeed is the man who, coming to a mine of diamonds, begins to search for glass beads." These prayers for health and wealth and material prosperity are not Bhakti. They are the lowest form of Karma. Bhakti is a higher thing. We are striving to come into the presence of the King of kings. We cannot get there in a beggar's dress. If we wanted to enter the presence of an emperor, would we be admitted in a beggar's rags? Certainly not. The lackey would drive us out of the gates. This is the Emperor of emperors and never can we come before Him in a beggar's garb. Shop-keepers never have admission there, buying and selling will not do there at all. You read in the Bible that Jesus drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple._x000d_ So it goes without saying that the first task in becoming a Bhakta is to give up all desires of heaven and so on. Such a heaven would be like this place, this earth, only a little better. The Christian idea of heaven is a place of intensified enjoyment. How can that be God? All this desire to go to heaven is a desire for enjoyment. This has to be given up. The love of the Bhakta must be absolutely pure and unselfish, seeking nothing for itself either here or hereafter._x000d_ "Giving up the desire of pleasure and pain, gain or loss, worship God day and night; not a moment is to be lost in vain."_x000d_ "Giving up all other thoughts, the whole mind day and night worships God. Thus being worshipped day and night, He reveals Himself and makes His worshippers feel Him."

To Mr. Francis Leggett_x000d_ [Thousand Island Park, U.S.A._x000d_ August 1895]_x000d_ Dear Friend,_x000d_ I received your note duly._x000d_ Very kind of you and noble to ask me to have my own time to London. Many thanks for that. But I am in no hurry for Lon¬don and, moreover, I want to see you married in Paris and then I go over to London._x000d_ I will be ready, Father Leggett, at hand and in time__never fear._x000d_ Yours affectionately ever,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Thousand Island Park_x000d_ August, 1895_x000d_ Dear Mrs. Bull,_x000d_ . . . Now here is another letter from Mr. Sturdy. I send it over to you. See how things are being prepared ahead. Don't you think this coupled with Mr. Leggett's invitation as a divine call? I think so and am following it. I am going by the end of August with Mr. Leggett to Paris, and then I go to London._x000d_ What little can be done for my brethren and my work is all the help I want from you now. I have done my duty to my people fairly well. Now for the world that gave me this body--the country that gave me the ideas, the humanity which allows me to be one of them!_x000d_ The older I grow, the more I see behind the idea of the Hindus that man is the greatest of all beings. So say the Mohammedans too. The angels were asked by Allah to bow down to Adam. Iblis did not, and therefore he became Satan. This earth is higher than all heavens; this is the greatest school in the universe; and the Mars or Jupiter people cannot be higher than we, because they cannot communicate with us. The only so-called higher beings are the departed, and these are nothing but men who have taken another body. This is finer, it is true, but still a man-body, with hands and feet, and so on. And they live on this earth in another Akasha, without being absolutely invisible. They also think, and have consciousness, and everything else like us. So they also are men, so are the Devas, the angels. But man alone becomes God ; and they all have to become men again in order to become God. . . ._x000d_ Yours etc.,_x000d_ Vivekananda

We [she and Miss Christine Greenstidel] had no chance to meet him in a personal way at the time [during his first visit to Detroit], but we listened and pondered. in our hearts over all that we heard him say, resolving to find him sometime, somewhere, even if we had to go across the world to do it. We lost trace of him completely for one year and a half and thought that probably he had returned to India, but one afternoon we were told by a friend that he was still in this country and that he was spending the summer at Thousand Island Park. We started the next morning, resolved to seek him out and ask him to teach us.

At last after a weary search we found him. We were feeling very much frightened at our temerity in thus intruding upon his privacy, but he had lighted a fire in our souls that could not be quenched. We must know more of this wonderful man and his teaching. It was a dark and rainy night, and we were weary after a long journey, but we could not rest until we had seen him face to face. Would he accept us? And if he did not, what then could we do? It suddenly seemed to us that it might be a foolish thing to go several hundred miles to find a man who did not even know of our existence, but we plodded on up the hill in the rain and darkness, with a man we had hired to show us the way with his lantern. Speaking of this in after years, our guru would refer to us as "my disciples, who travelled hundreds of miles to find me, and they came in the night and in the rain." We had thought of what to say to him, but ' when we realized that we had really found him, we instantly forgot all our fine speeches, and one of us blurted out, "We come from Detroit and Mrs. P. sent us to you." The other said, "We have come to you just as we would go to Jesus if He were still on the earth and ask Him to teach us." He looked at us so kindly and said gently, "If only I possessed the power of the Christ to set you free now!" He stood for a moment looking thoughtful and then turning to his hostess who was standing near, said, "These ladies are from Detroit, please show them upstairs and allow them to spend the evening with us." We remained until late listening to the Master who paid no more attention to us, but as we bade them all goodnight we were told to come the next morning at nine o'clock arrived promptly, and to our great joy were accepted by the Master and were cordially invited to become members of the household. In a letter to a friend at this time she writes:

So here we are in the very house with Vivekananda, listening to him from 8 o'clock in the morning until late at night. Even in my wildest dreams I could not imagine anything so wonderful, so perfect. To be with Vivekananda! To he accepted by him!

Oh, the sublime teaching of Vivekananda! No nonsense, no talk of "astrals", "imps", but God, Jesus, Buddha. I feel that I shall never be quite the same again for I have caught a glimpse of the Real.

Just think what it means to listen to a Vivekananda at every meal, lessons each morning and the nights on the porch, the eternal stars shining like "patines of bright gold"! In the afternoon, we take long walks, and the Swami literally, and so simply, finds "books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good (God) in every- thing." And this same Swami is so merry and fun-loving. We just go mad at times.

Later. We have been soaring on the Heights, since I last wrote you. Swami tells us to forget that there is any Detroit for the present that is, to allow no personal thoughts to occupy our minds while taking this instruction. We are taught to we God in everything from the blade of grass to man- 'even in the diabolical man".

Really, it is almost impossible to find time to write here. We put up with some inconveniences as it is so crowded. There is no time to relax, to rest, for we feel the time is A too short as the Swami leaves soon for England. We scarcely take time to array ourselves properly, so afraid are we of losing some of the precious jewels. His words are like jewels, and all that he says fits together like a wonderfully beautiful mosaic. In his talks he may go ever so far afield, but always he comes back to the one fundamental, vital thing—"Find God! Nothing else matters."

I especially like Miss Waldo and Miss Ellis, although the whole household is interesting. Some unique characters. One, a Dr. Wight of Cambridge [of New York],. a very cultured man, creates much merriment at times. He becomes so absorbed in the teaching that he, invariably at the end of each discourse, ends up with asking Swamiji, "Well, Swami, it all amounts to this in the end, doesn't it? I am Brahman; I am the Absolute." If you could only see Swami's indulgent smile and hear him answer so gently, "Yes, Dockie, you are Brahman, you are the Absolute, in the real essence of your being." Later, when the learned doctor comes to the table a trifle late, Swami, with the utmost gravity but with a merry twinkle in his eyes, will say, "Here comes Brahman" or "Here is the Absolute."

Swamiji's fun-making is of the merry type. Sometimes he will say, "Now I am going to cook for you!" He is a wonderful cook and delights in serving the "brithrin". The food he prepares is delicious but for "yours ' too hot with various spices; but I made up my mind to cat it if it strangled me, which it nearly did. If a Vivekananda can cook for me, I guess the least I can do is to cat it. Bless him!

At such times we have a whirlwind of fun. Swamiji will stand on the floor with a white napkin draped over his arm d la waiter on the dining cars, and will intone in perfect imitation their call for dinner—“Last call for' the dining cah. Dinner served." Irresistibly funny. And then, at table such gales of laughter over some quip or jest, for he unfailingly discovers the little idiosyncrasies of each one—but never sarcasm or malice—just fun.

Since my last letter to you when I told you of Swamiji's capacity for merriment, so many little things have occurred to make one we how varied are the aspects of Vivekananda. We are trying t take notes of all that he says, but I find myself lost in listening and forget the. notes. His voice is wondrously beautiful. One might well lose oneself in its divine music. However, dear Miss Waldo is taking very full no" of the lessons, and in that way they will be preserved.

Some fairy must have presided at our birth—Christine's and mine. We do not, as yet, know much of Karma and reincarnation, but we are beginning to see that both are involved in our being ~t into touch with Swamiji.

Sometimes I ask him rather daring questions, for I am so anxious to know just how he would react under certain conditions. He takes it so kindly when I in my impulsive way sometimes rush in where angels fear to tread. Once he said to someone, "Mrs. Funke rests me, she is so naive." Wasn't that dear of him?

One evening, when it was raining and we were all sitting in the living room, the Swami was talking about pure womanhood and told us the story of Sita. How he can tell a story! You see it and all the characters become real. I found myself wondering just how some of the beautiful society queens of the West would appear to him—especially those versed in the art of allurement—and before I took time to think, out popped the question and immediately I was covered with confusion. The Swami, however, looked at me calmly with his big, serious eyes and gravely replied, "If the most beautiful woman in the world were to look at me in an immodest or unwomanly way, she would immediately turn into a hideous, green frog, and one does not, of course, admire frogs!" . . .

Vow he has closed the class for the morning, and he has turned to me, "Mrs. Funke, tell me a funny story. We are going to part soon, and we must talk funny things, isn't it?"

We take long walks every afternoon, and our favourite walk is back of the cottage down a hill and then a rustic path to the river.... Sometimes we stop several times and sit around on the grass and listen to Swami's wonderful talks. A bird, a flower, a butterfly, will start him off, and he will tell us stories from the Vedas or recite Indian poetry....

In the letter written by Mrs. Funke that we have quoted from earlier, she wrote of that last day: _x000d_ Wednesday, August 7th. Alas, he has departed! Swamiji left this evening at 9 o'clock on the steamer for Clayton where he will take a train for New York and from there sail for England. _x000d_ The last day has been a very wonderful and precious one. This morning there was no class. He asked G. [Christine] and me to take a walk as he wished to be alone with us. (The others had been with him all summer, and he felt we should have a last talk.) We went up a hill about half a mile away. All was woods and solitude. Finally he selected a low-branched tree, and we sat under the low-spreading branches. Instead of the expected talk, he suddenly said, "Now we will meditate. We shall he like Buddha under the Bo _x000d_ # _x000d_ Tree." He seemed to turn to bronze, so still was he. Then a thunder-storm came up, and it poured. He never noticed it. I raised my umbrella and protected him as much as possible. Completely absorbed in his meditation, he was oblivious of everything. Soon we heard shouts in the distance. The others had come out after us with raincoats and umbrellas. Swamiji looked around regretfully, for we had to go, and said, "Once more am I in Calcutta in the rains." _x000d_ He was so tender and sweet all this last day. As the steamer rounded the bend in the river he boyishly and joyously waved his hat to us in farewell and he had departed indeed. _x000d_ And while leaving the islands he said, "I bless these Thousand Islands".

All that winter [in New York] the work went on, and when the season came to an end, early in the summer, this devoted group was not willing to have the teaching discontinued. One of them owned a house in Thousand Island Park on the St. Lawrence River, and a proposal was made to the teacher that they all spend the summer there. He consented, much touched by their earnestness. He wrote to one of his friends that he wanted to manufacture a few yogis out of the materials of the classes. He felt that his work was now really started and that those who joined him at Thousand Islands were really disciples....

Early in June three or four were gathered at Thousand Island Park with him and the teaching began without delay. We came on Saturday, July 6, 1895. Swami Vivekananda had planned to initiate several of those already there on Monday. "I don't know you well enough yet to feel sure that you are ready for initiation," he said on Sunday afternoon. Then he added rather shyly, I have a power which I seldom use the power of reading the mind. If you will permit me, I should like to read your mind, as I wish to initiate you with the others tomorrow." We assented joyfully. Evidently he was satisfied with the result of the reading, for the next day, together with several others, he gave us a Mantra and made us his disciples. Afterwards, questioned as to what he saw while he was reading our minds he told us a little. He saw that we should be faithful and that we should make progress in our spiritual life. He described something of what he saw, without giving the interpretation of every picture. In one case, scene after scene passed before his mental vision which meant that there would be extensive travel apparently in Oriental countries. He described the very houses in which we should live, the people who should surround us, the influences that would affect our lives. We questioned him about this. He told us it could be acquired by anyone. The method was simple at least in the telling. First, think of space—vast, blue, extending everywhere. In time, as one meditates upon this space intently, pictures appear. These must be interpreted. Sometimes one sees the pictures but does not know the interpretation. He saw that one of us would be indissolubly connected with India. Important as well as minor events were for us nearly all of which have come to pass. In this reading, the quality of the personality was revealed— the mettle, the capacity, the character. Having passed this test, there can be no self-depreciation, no lack of faith in one's self. Every momentary doubt is replaced by a serene assurance. Has the personality not received the stamp of approval from the one being in the world … ?

Of the wonderful weeks that followed, it is difficult to write. Only if one's mind were lifted to that high state of consciousness in which we lived for the time, could we hope to recapture the experience. We were filled with joy. We did not know at that time that we were living in his radiance. On the wings of inspiration, he carried us to the height which was his natural abode. He himself, speaking of it later, said that he was at his best in Thousand Islands. Then he felt that he had found the channel through which his message might be spread, the way to fulfil his mission, for the guru had found his own disciples. His first overwhelming desire was to show us the path to Mukti, to set us free. "Ah", he said with touching pathos, "If I could only set you free with a touch!" His second object, not so apparent perhaps, but always in the undercurrent, was to train this group to carry on the work in America. On his own little veranda, overlooking the treetops and the beautiful St. Lawrence, he often called upon us to make speeches. It was a trying ordeal. Each in turn was called upon to make an attempt. There _x000d_ was no escape. At these intimate evening gatherings often he soared to the greatest height as the night advanced. What if it was two o'clock in the morning? What if we had watched the moon rise and set? Time and space had vanished for us.

There was nothing set or formal about these nights on the upper veranda. He sat in his large chair at the end, near his door. Sometimes he went into a deep meditation. At such times we too meditated or sat in profound silence. Often it lasted for hours and one after the other slipped away. For we knew that after this he would not feel inclined to speak. Or again the meditation would be short, and he would encourage us to ask questions afterwards, often calling on one of us to answer. No matter how far wrong these answers were, he let us flounder about until we were near the truth; and then in a few words, he would clear up the difficulty. This was his invariable method in teaching. He knew how to stimulate the mind of the learner and make it do its own thinking. Did we go to him for confirmation of a new idea or point of view and begin, "I see it is thus and so", his "Yes?" with an upper inflection always sent us back for further thought. Again we would come with a more clarified understanding and again the "Yes?" stimulated us to further thought. Perhaps after the third time when the capacity for further thought along that particular line was reached, he would point out the error—an error usually due to something in our Western mode of thought. And so he trained us with such patience, such benignity. It was like a benediction.

It was a strange group—these people whom he had gathered around him that summer at Thousand Islands. No wonder the shopkeeper, to whom we went for direction upon our arrival, said, "Yes, there are some queer people living up on the hill, among whom is a foreign-looking gentleman." There were three friends who had come to the Swami's New York classes together—Miss S,. E. Waldo, Miss Ruth Ellis, and Doctor Wight. For thirty years, they had attended every lecture on philosophy that they had heard of, but had never found anything that even remotely approached this. So Doctor Wight gravely assured us, the newcomers....

... We in our retirement seldom saw anyone except now and then someone who came for the view. The conditions were ideal for our purpose. One could not have believed that such a spot could be found in America. What great ideas were voiced there! What an atmosphere was created, what power was generated! There the Teacher reached some of his loftiest flights, there he showed us his heart and mind. We saw ideas unfold and flower. We saw the evolution of plans which grew into institutions in the years that followed. It was blessed experience—an experience which made Miss Waldo exclaim, "What have we ever done to deserve thin?" And so we all felt.

The original plan was that they should live as a community, without servants, each doing a share of the work. Nearly all of them were unaccustomed to housework and found it uncongenial. The result was amusing; as time went on, it threatened to become disastrous. Some of us who had just been reading the story of Brook Farm felt that we saw it re-enacted before our eyes. No wonder Emerson refused to join that community of transcendentalists! His serenity was evidently bought at a price. Some could only wash dishes. One whose work was to cut the bread, groaned and 'all but wept whenever she attempted the task. It is curious how character is tested its these, little things. Weaknesses which might have been hidden for A lifetime in ordinary intercourse, were exposed in a day of this community life. It was interesting. With Swamiji the effect was quite different. Although only one among them was younger than himself, he seemed like a father or rather like a mother in patience and gentleness. When the tension became too great, he would say with the utmost sweetness, "Today, I shall cook for you." To this Landsberg would ejaculate in an aside, "Heaven save us!" By way of explanation he said that in New York when Swamiji cooked, he, Landsberg, would tear his hair, because it meant that afterwards every dish in the house required washing. After several unhappy experiences in the community housekeeping, an outsider was engaged for help, and one or two of the more capable ones undertook certain responsibilities, and we had peace.

But once the necessary work was over and we had gathered in the class room, the atmosphere was changed. There never was a disturbing element within those walls. It seemed as if we had left the body and the bodily consciousness outside. We sat in a semicircle and waited. Which gate to the Eternal would be opened for us today? What heavenly vision should meet our eyes? There was always the thrill of adventure. The Undiscovered Country, the Sorrowless Land opened up new vistas of hope and beauty. Even so, our expectations were always exceeded. Vivekananda's flights carried us with him to supernal heights. Whatever degree of realization may or may not have come to us since, one thing we can never forget: We saw the Promised Land. We, too, were taken to the top of Pisgah and the sorrow and trials of this world have never been quite real since.

... When he saw how deep the impression was which he had made, he would say with a smile, "The cobra has bitten you. You cannot escape." Or sometimes, "I have caught you in my net. You can never get out."

Miss Dutcher, our hostess, was a conscientious little woman, a devout Methodist. How she ever came to be associated with such • group as gathered in her house that summer would have been • mystery to anyone who did not know the power of Swami Vivekananda to attract and hold sincere souls. But having once seen and heard him, what could one do but follow? Was he not the Incarnation of the Divine, the Divine which lures man on until he finds himself again in his lost kingdom? But the road was hard and often terrifying to one still bound by conventions and orthodoxy in religion. All her ideals, her values of life, her concepts of religion were, it seemed to her, destroyed. In reality, they were only modified. Sometimes she did not appear for two or three days. "Don't you see," Swami said, "this is not an ordinary illness? It is the reaction of the body against the chaos that is going on in her mind. She cannot bear it." The most violent attack came one day after a timid protest on her part against something he had said in the class. "The idea of duty is the midday sun of misery scorching the very soul," he had said. "Is it not our duty," she began, but got no farther. For once that great free soul broke all bounds in his rebellion against the idea that anyone should dare bind with fetters the soul of man. Miss Dutcher was not seen for some days. And so the process of education went on. It was not difficult if one's devotion to the guru was great enough, for then, like the snake, one dropped the old and put on the new. But where the old prejudices and conventions were stronger than one's faith, it was a terrifying, almost a devastating process.

For the first time we understood why all religions begin with ethics. For without truth, non-injury, continence, non-stealing, cleanliness, austerity, there can be no spirituality.... _x000d_ Continence—Chastity: This subject always stirred him deeply. Walking up and down the room, getting more and more excited, he would stop before someone as if there were no one else in the room. "Don't you see," he would say eagerly, "there is a reason why chastity is insisted on in all monastic orders? Spiritual giants are produced only where the vow of chastity is observed. Don't you see there must he a reason? The Roman Catholic Church has produced great saints, St. Francis of Assisi, Ignatius Loyola, St. Teresa, the two Catherines and many others. The Protestant Church has produced no one of spiritual rank equal to them. There is a connection between great spirituality and chastity. The explanation is that these men and women have through prayer and meditation transmuted the most powerful force in the body into spiritual energy. In India this is well understood and yogis do it consciously. The force so transmuted is called Ojas and is stored up in the brain. It has been lifted from the lowest centre of the Kundalini the Muladhara to the highest." To us who listened, the words came to our remembrance: "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."

. . . How touchingly earnest Swami Vivekananda was as he proposed this subject. He seemed to plead with us, as if to beg us to act upon this teaching as something most precious. More, we could not be the disciples he required if we were not established in this. He demanded a conscious transmutation. "The man who has no temper has nothing to control," he said. "I want a few, five or six, who are in the flower of their youth." . . .

It is needless to repeat the formal teaching, the great central idea. These one can read for oneself. But there was something else, an influence, an atmosphere charged with the desire to escape from bondage—call it what you will—that can never be put into words, and yet was more powerful than any words. It was this which made us realize that we were blessed beyond words. To hear him say, "This indecent clinging to life", drew aside the curtain for us into the region beyond life and death, and planted in our hearts the desire for that glorious freedom. We saw a soul struggling to escape the meshes of Maya, one to whom the body was an intolerable bondage, not only a limitation but a degrading humiliation. “Azad, Azad, the Free”, he cried, pacing up and down like a caged lion. Yes, like the lion in the cage who found the bars not of iron but of bamboo. "Let us not be caught this time," would be his refrain another day.... _x000d_ We seemed to be in a different world. The end to be attained was Freedom—Freedom from the bondage in which Maya has caught us, in which Maya has enmeshed all mankind. Sooner or later the opportunity to escape will to all. Ours had come. For during these days every aspiration, every desire, every struggle was directed towards this one purpose—consciously by our Teacher, blindly, unconsciously by us, following the influence he created

The Swami had been exhausted when he had left New York at the end of the season's work. Yet after barely two weeks' rest at Camp Percy, he had once again entered upon the strenuous task of continual teaching. Again he gave utterly of himself, letting no moment of his attention lapse from the instruction and training of these students who had come to the retreat, though most of them were novices on the spiritual path, new to its psychological demands and trials; and none were his own countrymen. And yet they were all his own; for all mankind had become his own.

"What little can he done for my brethren [brother-disciples] and my work is all the help I want from you now," he wrote to Mrs. Bull from Thousand Island Park in connection with the help she had been giving his family. "Now for the world that gave me this body—the country that gave me the ideas, and humanity which allows me to be one of them. The older I grow, the more I see behind the idea of the Hindus that man is the greatest of all beings." And it was to man—not to any particular individual or nation—that he gave himself.

But despite the Swami's overflowing, impersonal love for all humanity, despite his monistic vision and intense spirit of renunciation, he never failed in deep personal tenderness and affection for his friends. Even in his most exalted moods lie was intensely human. In his correspondence with Mrs. Hale one finds him endlessly anxious over the delayed arrival in Chicago of the shawls, mats, carpets, Rudraksha beads, and so on sent by the Raja of Khetri and the 1) Dewanji of Junagadh as gifts for his devoted friends. "Why do you not write to me about the duty if you had to pay it," he wrote to Mrs. Hale from Thousand Island Park, when a bundle from India finally came. "I insist upon paying it myself. The Raja's things seem to come very quick. I am so glad too [as] I will have something to present to Mrs. Bagley, Mrs. Bull, etc."

(In India Raja Ajit Sing of Khetri & in America Mrs Ole Bull-these are the two persons upon whom I can depend at any time. Of all the friends I have in the world you two show such wonderful steadiness of Purpose and both are so calm and silent, both of your actions remind me of a passage of "Kalidas"-speaking of a line of Kings-Their workings were so silent that it was only when the result came, that people could infer that they were working,--"just as we infer a past life by the results of the present." The raja is taking very good care of my family.)

In connection with the Tabernacle from which Swamiji was debarred from speaking, a story is told by one who heard it from Mary Elizabeth Dutcher many years ago. One Sunday morning Swamiji attended the services at the Tabernacle with Miss Dutcher (as he may have done more than once). This Sunday there was a special drive for funds, and before the collection was taken the minister rhetorically exhorted the members of the congregation to "give all they had in their purses and pockets." When the collection plate came to Swamiji he quietly put into it several silver dollars ¬a very large donation in those days, when ten cents was usual and fifty cents munificent. Miss Dutcher was aghast. "Why did you give so much!" she whispered. Swamiji looked at her with surprise. "The man said to give all we had with us," he replied. "That is what I had."*_x000d_ * Swamiji seems to have had no capacity for holding money to himself or for imagining it was his to hold, It is said in the Life (1981, 2: 86) that at Thousand Island Park he was given a handsome purse at the end of his class work. The whole sum was spent in purchasing presents for his friends and disciples.

Adding Ruth Ellis's letter to the three memoirs mentioned above, we can perhaps form a more or less clear picture of the days as they passed, particularly those days after Christina and Mary Funke had joined the group. It would seem logical to assume that when the newcomers from Detroit arrived almost everyone else was there. "Our family . . . was never smaller than eight," Ruth Ellis writes, "and sometimes we had ten or even twelve persons. " Presumably she was including Swamiji in this count; so let us say that at least once there were eleven students-which could have been only when the Goodyears and "the two ladies from Detroit" were all four present. But the little cottage could not have accommodated so large a crowd for long, and it is more than likely that the Goodyears soon left. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, Sister Christine's description of her fellow students does not include them; their presence at the cottage has been revealed to us only through Ruth Ellis. Nor does Christine mention the Unidentified Student, From which omission we can infer that he or she had also left-possibly on July 11, as we have earlier guessed. The others were all there: the two newly ordained swamis, Miss Dutcher, Miss Watdo, Miss Ellis, Dr. Wight, Stella, Christine, and Mary Funke-all of whom (with the exception of the two swamis, who were to leave before Swamiji himself) stayed on to the end, and some even beyond. Where did all the members of this group, which was "never smaller than eight" (and often larger) sleep? The reader already has an idea of the house with its four tiny upstairs bedrooms, the comparatively large bedroom (occupied by Stella?) on the ground floor of Swamiji's wing, the small parlors and verandas._x000d_ Even the voluminous clothes they wore would have required a large amount of space: the ladies' long skirts and balloon¬sleeved shirtwaists, the stiff brimmed straw hats, the many obligatory petticoats and stays and chemises-where were they all kept? But who cared? "We put up with some in¬conveniences, as it is so crowded," Mary Funke wrote cheerfully to her anonymous friend.

They ate at the refectorylike dining table, which filled almost the whole of the second parlor. Preparations for the midday meal (always vegetarian) would get under way as soon as the morning class was over. The bustling about in the little kitchen with its cast-iron wood-burning stove, cold -water sink, icebox, and cooler was not without anguish for the students. In those days, when only the poorest of families were without servants, few among the group were accustomed to doing housework. Even Christine, whose family had fallen upon hard times, was told by Swamiji in later years, "You don't know a thing about cooking. Chaos ensued. One or two of the women were, perhaps, efficient, as, for instance, Miss Waldo and the French Abhayananda. But these two strong-minded women would not, certainly, have agreed as to how things should be done, and the others, trying to be helpful, would only have got in the way, or, struggling with their allotted tasks such as slicing bread, would, as Sister Christne tells it, all but weep. At length, as we have seen, "one small maid" was engaged to help.

Even so, household tensions sometimes neared the breaking point. Then Swamiji, with fatherly understanding, would give everyone a respite and a treat. "After a morning in the class¬room, where it almost seemed as if he had gazed into the very face of the Infinite, he would say with the utmost sweetness, "Today I shall cook for you. At thin Swami Kripananda would groan and acclaim under his breath, "Heaven save us! As we have seen in the last chapter, Kripananda, then Landsberg, had found that Swamiji's cooking could call for many a utensil. But to the rest of the students, a meal from _x000d_ Swamiji was worth the washing of every pot, pan, and dish in the place.

"With what patience would he stand over the stove and prepare some Indian tit-bit for us!" Mary Funke wrote. " .. What a lesson to his disciples; the brilliant, the great and learned Vivekananda ministering to their little wants! He was at those times so gentle, so benign. What a legacy of sacred tender memories has he left us! And what great fun he was! At another time Mrs Funke wrote, "He is a wonderful cook and delights in serving the `brethren.' The food he prepares is delicious but for `yours truly' too hot with the various spices; but I made up my mind to eat it if it strangled me, which it nearly did. If a Vivekananda can cook for me, I guess the least I can do is to eat it. Bless him!

"At such times we have a whirlwind of fun. Swamiji will stand on the floor with a white napkin draped over his arm, a la the waiter on the dining cars, and will intone in perfect imitation their call for dinner, `Last call for the dining cab. Dinner served.' Irresistibly funny! And then, at table, such gales of laughter over some quip or jest, for he unfailingly discovers the little idiosyncrasies of each one-but never sarcasm or malice-just fun.

One thinks of Swamiji saying gravely when Dr. Wight would appear at mealtime a trifle late, "Here is the Absolute! Or telling of his first (or second?) meeting with Landsberg, when the latter, delivering a lecture on "The Devil" at a New York Theosophical society, would every now and then say the word "devil" with great emphasis and invariably point at a woman in the audience who wore a scarlet blouse. One can imagine Swamiji relating the story with perfect mimicry, to the hilarity of all. He loved to tell and hear comic anecdotes, at which he would laugh like a boy; but again, his mood would abruptly change and he would be telling tales of deep beauty from Indian mythology or history, holding his listeners enthralled.

Swamiji's conversation-his humor, his vivid story-telling, his recollections of his life in India, his flow of ideas on all subject was invariably entertaining, instructive, and uplifting all at once; no one who ever wrote of him found it to be less. Thus those spicy meals, with him presiding over the “family,” would have been veritable festivals. “It was a perpetual inspiration to live with a man like Swami Vivekananda,” Miss Waldo wrote. “From morning till night it was ever the same we lived in a constant atmosphere of intense spirituality.

In the afternoons Swamiji had time to himself to rest, to read, to write letters, to fill “two pretty [Camp Percy] birch bark books” with Sanskrit texts and translations for Josephine MacLeod and her sister,and perhaps to do other writing. One Sunday afternoon, as we have already seen, he spoke to the good people of Thousand Island Park, who had gathered to hear him in Miss Dutcher’s parlors and who went away unable to object (hard as some might have tried) to the Hindu views of religion. Often he would go on a walk in the woods behind the house or down to the river and perhaps along its bank. Generally, he would take only Kripananda with him; but sometimes he would ask the whole group, or perhaps just two or three. “We could walk in all directions and meet no one,” Sister Christine recalled; but her memory could have been only three-fourths accurate, for during a walk south through the village, which was not so far away as she remembered (Christine’s memories of time and space at Thousand Island Park were almost all exalted, like those of childhood), they must have encountered dozens of people. In the last half of July the Park was crowded with “pleasure a seekers.” This popular resort,” it was said at that time, “now presents the aspect of a small city.

We know of two such walks the group took through the village. One of them took place before many people were abroad. They stopped at the Thousand Island Park Studio, which specialized in “Portrait Photography, Instantaneous Pictures, [and] Thousand Island Park Views, and at the request of his students Swamiji had tintypes taken of himself, two of which may well have been the poses reproduced in these pages: one full-length with a painted river-view for a backdrop, the other a Simple head and shoulders.* "He was so full of fun, so merry," Mrs. Funke wrote of this occasion. And it is clear to see._x000d_ * The original print of this head-and-shoulders photo bears the name of the studio: Lamsom & Van Camp, 1000 Island Park, N.Y.

During the other known stroll along the boardwalks of the village, Swamiji was also Full often and merriment. Mrs. Funke tells of this outing, which was for her particularly memorable:

One day, we all walked down to the village and passed a glass-blower's tent. Swamiji was much interested in this and held a whispered' conversation with the glass-blower. Then he asked us to take a walk through the main street of the village, and upon our return the glass-blower handed him sundry mysterious packages which proved to contain a gift for each of us, a large crystal ball, each one different with our names blown in the glass "With the love of Vivekananda." Upon reaching the house, we opened our packages. My name was spelled "Phunkey." We were convulsed with laughter but not where he could hear us. He never having seen my name written; "Phun¬key" was the result.

And he was so sweet, so gentle and benign all that evening, just like an indulgent father who had given his children beautiful gifts, although many of us were much older than he.

The favorite walk, one where indeed they might have met no other person, was "back of the cottage down a hill [the present roadway?) and then a rustic path to the river." "Sometimes we stop several times," Mrs. Funke wrote to her friend, "and sit around on the grass and listen to Swami's wonderful talks. A bird, a flower, a butterfly will start him off and he will tell us stories from the Vedas or recite Indian poetry."69 Surely to walk or sit under the trees with Swamiji, to see through his eyes the sun--splashed paths, the massive grey and pink boulders mottled with silver-green lichen, the wide river-to see this loveliness as he saw it, if only for a brief moment, was surely to have one's mind washed clear of all cluttering thought and to taste something of the freedom in which he lived. "We are taught to see God in everything," Mary Funke wrote, "from the blade of grass to man-`even in the diabolical man.

His was never a sentimental view of natural beauty or the world. Of this, Sister Christine wrote:_x000d_ _x000d_ Did you in your immature enthusiasm see the world as beautiful, and believe in the reality of good and the unreality of evil? He was not long in destroying all your fine illusions. If good is real, so is evil. Both are different aspects of the same thing. Both good and evil are in Maya. Do not hide your head in the sand and say, "All is good, there is no evil." Worship the terrible even as now you worship the good. Then get beyond both. . . . Terrible in its sternness was this teaching. But soon there came glimpses of something beyond, an unchanging Realty.

Swamiji's presence was in itself a breaking of bondage, but he delivered palpable shocks for good measure, deliberately cutting through ingrained and concealed obstructions to spiri¬tual freedom. The habitual helplessness, for instance, that came so naturally to Victorian women, was in his eyes nothing but worldliness, the worse for its guise of propriety. He refused to take part in the game of chivalry:

. .. We found that this man whom we had set up in our minds as an exalted being did not observe the con¬ventions of our code [Sister Christine wrote]. All fine men reverence womanhood; the higher the type, the greater the reverence. But here was one who gave no heed to the little attentions which ordinary men paid us. We were allowed to climb up and slide down the rocks without an extended arm to help us. When he sensed our feeling, he answered, as he so often did, our unspoken thought, "If you were old or weak or helpless, I should help you. But you are quite able to jump across this brook or climb this path without help. You arc as able as I am. Why should I help you? Because you are a woman? That is chivalry, and don't you see that chivalry is only sex? Don't you see what is behind all these attentions from men to women?" Strange as it may seem, with these words came a new idea of what true reverence for womanhood means. . . . Was not every woman to him a manifestation in one form or another of the Divine Mother? . . . Knowing the criticism that awaited him in India, he still dared in America to initiate into sannyasa a woman, for he saw in her only the sexless Self.

Swamiji's training of the individual students at Thousand Island Park went on continuously, but its method was different in each case. To quote Sister Christine again:_x000d_ _x000d_ . . . With some, it was an incessant hammering. The severest asceticism was imposed with regard to diet, habits, even clothing and conversation. With others his method was not so easy to understand, for the habit of asceticism was not encouraged. Was it because in this case there was spiritual vanity to be overcome and because good had become a bondage? With one the method was ridicule-loving ridicule-with another it was sternness. We watched the transformation of those who put them¬selves into line with it. Nor were we ourselves spared. Our pet foibles were gently smiled out of existence. Our conventional ideas underwent a process of education. We were taught to think things through, to reject the false and hold to the true fearlessly, no matter what the cost.

He refused to solve our problems for us. Principles he laid down, but we ourselves must find the application. He encouraged no spineless dependence upon him in any form, no bid for sympathy. "Stand upon your own feet. You have the power within you!" he thundered. His whole purpose was-not to make things easy for us, but to teach us how to develop our innate strength. "Strength! Strength!" he cried, "I preach nothing but strength. That is why I preach the Upanishads." From men he demanded manliness and from women the corresponding quality for which there is no word. Whatever it is, it is the opposite of self pity, the enemy of weakness and indulgence. This attitude had the effect of a tonic. Something long dormant was aroused and with it came strength and freedom.

After the supper dishes had been washed and Miss Dutcher had released the day's catch of flies into the woods, everyone would repair to the roofed-over, screened-off veranda outside Swamiji's room. "At our feet, like a sea of green, waved the leaves of the tree tops, for the entire place was surrounded by thick woods," Miss Waldo wrote. ". . . Beyond the trees spread the wide expanse of the St. Lawrence, dotted here and there with islands, some of which gleamed bright with the lights of hotels and boarding-houses. All these were so far away that they seemed more like a pictured scene than a reality.

When the students had assembled on the veranda, Swamiji would soon come from his room and sit in a big chair by his door. And then, "the nights all glowing with the soft mystery of moonlight or golden starlight, would begin some of the best hours of the twenty-four. In the darkness no one could take notes of what Swamiji said; thus only brief accounts have come down to us of those marvelously informal and varied evenings. "None of us," Miss Waldo wrote, "can ever forget the uplift, the intense spiritual life of those hallowed hours.Swamiji spoke during those evenings with the utmost freedom; he would seem at times to be communing with himself, recalling his own struggles or experiences, or perhaps thinking aloud, pro and con, about his plans for his Indian work, to which a part of his mind was always given. Or in his "wondrously beautiful" voice he would speak of spiritual life and vision, pacing up and down the short stretch of the veranda, "pouring forth a perfect torrent of eloquence," his mind soaring to greater and greater heights as the hours passed. One night-it could have been in early July or, more probably, during the first few days of August (for Christine mentions it)-he talked to the spellbound group until the moon, just past full, set in the west around two in the morning. On that "glorious night" none of them had been conscious of the passing time. Indeed, they seldom were except perhaps when Swamiji would call upon one of them to attempt to answer a question or, worse, insist that one or another stand up and give an extemporaneous talk. No one was excused from the latter ordeal, not even Mme Marie Louise, who had had practice enough and to spare in public speaking.

He was ever the loving, gentle father during these evening hours when he trained and taught his disciples-all of whom, except Christine, were older than he. Sometimes the young guru would teach with words, sometimes in silence, as when he would enter into a deep meditation that lasted for hours. The students would meditate for a time with him and then, one by one, slip away, knowing there would be no further words that night.

The last days of July were fiercely windy, cold, and rainy. At the resort-hotels of the Thousand Islands the vacationers "huddled indoors around fireplaces," and the river was empty of pleasure craft.95 One could not take pleasant strolls under the trees or sit on the veranda in the evening; nor, as noted earlier, was there a cheerful fireplace in Miss Dutcher's cottage to huddle around. But by the second of August the days were warm and fair again, and at night the moon shone clearly. Thus the last few days of the retreat were lovely ones-not excepting a sudden thunder shower, of which more in a moment.

As we have seen from Miss Ellis's letter, these last days were an unexpected boon for the disciples. Swamiji had originally intended to leave the Park on the first of August for Chicago, where he had planned to visit the Hale family; from Chicago he would have returned to New York in time to sail to Paris with Mr. Leggett. This had been the proposed schedule, with variations, until July 30. Then, because of a change in Mrs. Hale's plans, Swamiji decided (at the last minute, it would seem) to prolong his stay at Thousand Island Park and go directly from there to New York.*_x000d_ _x000d_ * Swamiji's heretofore unpublished letters to Mrs. Hale in which these plans are mentioned will be given in full in chapter three; they pertain primarily to shipments from India and except for their dates have little to do with Swamiji's stay at Thousand Island Park

Thus he stayed at Miss Dutcher's cottage until the night of August 6. On that morning he held his class as usual, and here again he explained with the crystal clarity and simplicity born of direct experience the place (logical and psychological) of the Personal God in man's spiritual journey to the realiza¬tion of his own Being. God was as real as the journey-no more, no less. Swamiji could not, one thinks, have made this more clear. To quote a few sentences:_x000d_ Both matter and mind exist in a third, a unity which divides itself into the two. This unity is the Atman, the real Self._x000d_ _x000d_ There is being, "x," which is manifesting itself as both mind and matter. Its movements in the seen are along certain fixed lines called law. As a unity, it is free; as many, it is bound by law. . . . We must get out. Mukti is the one end to be attained. . . ._x000d_ _x000d_ While we think on the relative plane, we have the right to believe that as bodies we can be hurt by relative things and equally that we can be helped by them. This idea of help, abstracted, is what we call God. The sum total of all ideas of help is God. . . . That should be the sole idea. . . . Cry for help and you will get it, and at last you will find that the one crying for help has vanished and so has the Helper, and the play is over; only the Self remains.

And yet "To the end Ramanuja remained the favorite among the students," Miss Waldo wrote in her "Introductory Narrative: That is to say, the favorite teaching was that of qualified nondualism, in which the ultimate reality is sad to be an organic unity composed of God, the individual souls, and the world. Day after day, morning, noon; and night, Swamiji had taught a transcendent unity that both subsumed this trinity and gave meaning to it. And did he not want those whom he trained at Thousand Island Park to teach this all comprehensive religion in their turn? It had been his purpose at the start to train these disciples in Advaita Vedanta in order that they might carry on his work; he did not, apparently, change his mind in this respect.

He felt [at Thousand Island Park] that he had found the channel through which his message might be spread, the way to fulfil his mission [Sister Christine wrote in her reminiscences], for the guru had found his own disciples. His first overwhelming desire was to show us the path to mukti (freedom), to set us free. . . . His second object, not so apparent perhaps, but always in the under-current, was to train this group to carry on the work in America. "This message must be preached by Indians in India, and by Americans in America," he said.

On the other hand, Swamiji never dictated to his students what they should teach. Although he often spoke to them (particularly toward the end of his stay) on the art of spiritual teaching itself, he gave them full freedom. "Each one is quite independent to teach, quite free to preach whatever he or she likes," he was to write to Swami Abhayananda (Marie Louise) later in the year. And, then, what could any disciple do but teach what he himself had understood and been set aflame by? Swamiji poured his indestructible, boundless spirit into them all; the vessels, small or large, rigid or malleable, were their own. And did the shape and size of the immediate vessels really matter? Would not (as we asked in the beginning) the spiritual power generated at Thousand Island Park make its own trackless way throughout the Western world ?

But let us return to Swamiji's last day at the Park. After the midday meal, he took his walk as usual, this time-the last time-asking Christine and Mary Funke to accompany him, for, as he said, the others had been with him all summer (from the beginning), and he wished to have a last talk alone with these newcomers. They "went up a hill about half a mile away," Mrs. Funke later wrote. "All was woods and solitude." (In recent times those who know the area well have guessed that Swamiji and the two young women must have walked northeast, up and across the hill, partly through woods and partly over huge outcroppings of granite. They would have come to a spot, less than half a mile from the house, where the branches of an oak tree today spread above the flat top of an immense boulder. Here the hill drops steeply away to the river, and the lovely green and wooded country is visible for miles.) "Finally," Mary Funke continued, "he selected a low-branched tree [in all probability, the same oak that shelters the site today], and we sat under the low-spreading branches. Instead of the expected talk, he suddenly said, `Now we will meditate. We shall be like Buddha under the Bo Tree.' He seemed to turn to bronze, so still was he. Then a thunderstorm came up, and it poured. He never noticed it. I raised my umbrella and protected him as much as possible. Completely absorbed in his meditation, he was oblivious to everything.

"It is reported," Swami Nikhilananda writes in his introduction to the 1958 edition of Inspired Talks, "that one day at Thousand Island Park (Swamiji] experienced nirvikalpa samadhi. Was not this the time? If so, Swamiji's emergence into the Impersonal Brahman was once again interrupted. "Soon," Mary Funke continued, "we heard shouts in the distance. The others had come out after us with raincoats and umbrellas. Swamiji looked around regretfully, for we had to go, and said, `Once more am I in Calcutta in the rains.' A seemingly simple statement-then one remembers the rainy season at Cossipore, Calcutta, in 1886 and the event the Life speaks of as "the greatest moment of Naren's Sadhana, the very crest and glory of his spiritual realisations. Had he touched upon that height again-only to be again called back, "thrown out," as it were, to continue his mission in the world ¬a mission by no means done ?

The real Guru is the one through whom we have our spiritual descent. He is the channel through which the spiritual current flows to us, the link which joins us to the whole spiritual world. Too much faith in personality has a tendency to produce weakness and idolatry, but intense love for the Guru makes rapid growth possible, he connects us with the internal Guru. Adore your Guru if there be real truth in him; that Guru-bhakti (devotion to the teacher) will quickly lead you to the highest._x000d_ Sri Ramakrishna's purity was that of a baby. He never touched money in his life, and lust was absolutely annihilated in him. Do not go to great religious teachers to learn physical science, their whole energy has gone to the spiritual. In Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa the man was all dead and only God remained; he actually could not see sin, he was literally "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity". The purity of these few Paramahamsas is all that holds the world together. If they should all die out and leave it, the world would go to pieces. They do good by simply being, and they know it not; they just are. . . ._x000d_ Books suggest the inner light and the method of bringing that out, but we can only understand them when we have earned the knowledge ourselves. When the inner light has flashed for you, let the books go, and look only within. You have in you all and a thousand times more than is in all the books. Never lose faith in yourself, you can do anything in this universe. Never weaken, all power is yours._x000d_ If religion and life depend upon books or upon the existence of any prophet whatsoever, then perish all religion and books! Religion is in us. No books or teachers can do more than help us to find it, and even without them we can get all truth within. You have gratitude for books and teachers without bondage to them; and worship your Guru as God, but do not obey him blindly; love him all you will, but think for yourself. No blind belief can save you, work out your own salvation. Have only one idea of God--that He is an eternal help._x000d_ Freedom and highest love must go together, then neither can become a bondage. We can give nothing to God; He gives all to us. He is the Guru of Gurus. Then we find that He is the "Soul of our souls", our very Self. No wonder we love Him, He is the Soul of our souls; whom or what else can we love? We want to be the "steady flame, burning without heat and without smoke". To whom can you do good, when you see only God? You cannot do good to God! All doubt goes, all is, "sameness". If you do good at all, you do it to yourself; feel that the receiver is the higher one. You serve the other because you are lower than he, not because he is low and you are high. Give as the rose gives perfume, because it is its own nature, utterly unconscious of giving._x000d_ The great Hindu reformer, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, was a wonderful example of this unselfish work. He devoted his whole life to helping India. It was he who stopped the burning of widows. It is usually believed that this reform was due entirely to the English; but it was Raja Ram Mohan Roy who started the agitation against the custom and succeeded in obtaining the support of the Government in suppressing it. Until he began the movement, the English had done nothing. He also founded the important religious Society called the Brahmo-Samaj, and subscribed a hundred thousand dollars to found a university. He then stepped out and told them to go ahead without him. He cared nothing for fame or for results to himself.

There are endless series of manifestations, like "merry-go-round", in which the souls ride, so to speak. The series are eternal; individual souls get out, but the events repeat themselves eternally; and that is how one's past and future can be read, because all is really present. When the soul is in a certain chain, it has to go through the experiences of that chain. From one series souls go to other series; from some series they escape for ever by realising that they are Brahman. By getting hold of one prominent event in a chain and holding on to it, the whole chain can be dragged in and read. This power is easily acquired, but it is of no real value; and to practise it takes just so much from our spiritual forces. Go not after these things, worship God.

To Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ The Western Union Telegraph Company._x000d_ Received at: Plaza Hotel Drug Store,_x000d_ North Ave. & Clark Street._x000d_ Thousand Island, N.Y., 2, '95_x000d_ [August 2, 1895]_x000d_ 8 jw ws 11 paid 1.33 p.m._x000d_ _x000d_ Mrs. G. W. Hale_x000d_ 541 Dearborn Ave._x000d_ WHY ANY CHARGES DUTY PREPAID YOU HAVE DOCUMENTS WRITE FULL PARTICULARS._x000d_ VIVEKANANDA

That was not quite the end of the Khetri package matter. On August 2, Swamiji sent the following telegram to Mrs. Hale:

19 West 38th St., New York,_x000d_ 2nd August, 1895_x000d_ Dear Friend {E. T. Sturdy},_x000d_ Your kind note received today. I am going to Paris first with a friend and start for Europe on the 17th of August. I will however remain in Paris only a week to see my friend married, and then I go over to London._x000d_ Your advice about an organisation was very good indeed. And I am trying to act on that line._x000d_ I have many strong friends here, but unfortunately they are most of them poor. So the work here must be slow. Moreover it requires a few months more of work in New York to carry it to some visible shape: as such I will have to return to New York early this winter, and in summer I will return to London again. So far as I see now I can stay only a few weeks in London. But if the Lord wills, that small time may prove to be the beginning of great things. From Paris I will inform you by wire when I arrive in England._x000d_ Some Theosophists came to my classes in New York, but as soon as human beings perceive the glory of the Vedanta, all abracadabras fall off of themselves. This has been my uniform experience. Whenever mankind attains a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. Multitude counts for nothing. A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men can do more in a year than a mob in a century. If there is heat in one body, then those others that come near it must catch it. This is the law. So success is ours, so long as we keep up the heat, the spirit of truth, sincerity, and love. My own life has been a very chequered one, but I have always found the eternal words verified: "Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through truth alone lies the way to God."_x000d_ May the Sat in you be always your infallible guide! May He speedily attain to freedom and help others to attain it!_x000d_ Ever yours in the Sat ,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Nishtha (devotion to one ideal) is the beginning of realisation. "Take the honey out of all flowers; sit and be friendly with all, pay reverence to all, say to all, 'Yes, brother, yes, brother', but keep firm in your own way." A higher stage is actually to take the position of the other. If I am all, why can I not really and actively sympathise with my brother and see with his eyes? While I am weak, I must stick to one course (Nishtha), but when I am strong, I can feel with every other and perfectly sympathise with his ideas._x000d_ The old idea was: "Develop one idea at the expense of all the rest". The modern way is "harmonious development". A third way is to "develop the mind and control it", then put it where you will; the result will come quickly. This is developing yourself in the truest way. Learn concentration and use it in any direction. Thus you lose nothing. He who gets the whole must have the parts too. Dualism is included in Advaitism (monism)._x000d_ "I first saw him and he saw me. There was a flash of eye from me to him and from him to me."_x000d_ This went on until the two souls became so closely united that they actually became one. . . ._x000d_ _x000d_ There are two kinds of Samadhi--I concentrate on myself, then I concentrate and there is a unity of subject and object._x000d_ You must be able to sympathise fully with each particular, then at once to jump back to the highest monism. After having perfected yourself, you limit yourself voluntarily. Take the whole power into each action. Be able to become a dualist for the time being and forget Advaita, yet be able to take it up again at will._x000d_ _x000d_ Cause and effect are all Maya, and we shall grow to understand that all we see is as disconnected as the child's fairy tales now seem to us. There is really no such thing as cause and effect and we shall come to know it. Then if you can, lower your intellect to let any allegory pass through your mind without questioning about connection. Develop love of imagery and beautiful poetry and then enjoy all mythologies as poetry. Come not to mythology with ideas of history and reasoning. Let it flow as a current through your mind, let it be whirled as a candle before your eyes, without asking who holds the candle, and you will get the circle; the residuum of truth will remain in your mind._x000d_ The writers of all mythologies wrote in symbols of what they saw and heard, they painted flowing pictures. Do not try to pick out the themes and so destroy the pictures; take them as they are and let them act on you. Judge them only by the effect and get the good out of them._x000d_ Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Jehovah, Allah, Agni, but it is only the Self, the "I". . . .Concepts grow, but there is no historical value in the allegories which present them. Moses' visions are more likely to be wrong than ours are, because we have more knowledge and are less likely to be deceived by illusions._x000d_ Books are useless to us until our own book opens; then all other books are good so far as they confirm our book. It is the strong that understand strength, it is the elephant that understands the lion, not the rat. How can we understand Jesus until we are his equals? It is all in the dream to feed five thousand with two loaves, or to feed two with five loaves; neither is real and neither affects the other. Only grandeur appreciates grandeur, only God realises God. The dream is only the dreamer, it has no other basis. It is not one thing and the dreamer another. The keynote running through the music is --"I am He, I am He", all other notes are but variations and do not affect the real theme. We are the living books and books are but the words we have spoken. Everything is the living God, the living Christ; see it as such. Read man, he is the living poem. We are the light that illumines all the Bibles and Christs and Buddhas that ever were. Without that, these would be dead to us, not living._x000d_ Stand on your own Self._x000d_ The dead body resents nothing; let us make our bodies dead and cease to identify ourselves with them.

Individuals who are to get freedom in this life have to live thousands of years in one lifetime. They have to be ahead of their times, but the masses can only crawl. Thus we have Christs and Buddhas. . . . _x000d_ There was once a Hindu queen, who so much desired that all her children should attain freedom in this life that she herself took all the care of them; and as she rocked them to sleep, she sang always the one song to them--"Tat tvam asi, Tat tvam asi" ("That thou art, That thou art"). _x000d_ Three of them became Sannyasins, but the fourth was taken away to be brought up elsewhere to become a king. As he was leaving home, the mother gave him a piece of paper which he was to read when he grew to manhood. On that piece of paper was written, "God alone is true. All else is false. The soul never kills or is killed. Live alone or in the company of holy ones." When the young prince read this, he too at once renounced the world and became a Sannyasin._x000d_ Give up, renounce the world. Now we are like dogs strayed into a kitchen and eating a piece of meat, looking round in fear lest at any moment some one may come and drive them out. Instead of that, be a king and know you own the world. This never comes until you give it up and it ceases to bind. Give up mentally, if you do not physically. Give up from the heart of your hearts. Have Vairagya (renunciation). This is the real sacrifice, and without it, it is impossible to attain spirituality. Do not desire, for what you desire you get, and with it comes terrible bondage. It is nothing but bringing "noses on us," as in the case of the man who had three boons to ask. We never get freedom until we are self-contained. "Self is the Saviour of self, none else."_x000d_ Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds, and do not remember your good deeds; be azad (free). The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach Atman. You cannot undo, the effect must come, face it, but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give all, both good and bad. Do not keep the good and give only the bad. God helps those who do not help themselves._x000d_ "Drinking the cup of desire, the world becomes mad." Day and night never come together, so desire and the Lord can never come together. Give up desire._x000d_ _x000d_ There is a vast difference between saying "food, food" and eating it, between saying "water, water" and drinking it. So by merely repeating the words "God, God" we cannot hope to attain realisation. We must strive and practise._x000d_ Only by the wave falling back into the sea can it become unlimited, never as a wave can it be so. Then after it has become the sea, it can become the wave again and as big a one as it pleases. Break the identification of yourself with the current and know that you are free._x000d_ True philosophy is the systematising of certain perceptions. Intellect ends where religion begins. Inspiration is much higher than reason, but it must not contradict it. Reason is the rough tool to do the hard work; inspiration is the bright light which shows us all truth. The will to do a thing is not necessarily inspiration. . . ._x000d_ Progression in Maya is a circle that brings you back to the starting point; but you start ignorant and come to the end with all knowledge. Worship of God, worship of the holy ones, concentration and meditation, and unselfish work, these are the ways of breaking away from Maya's net; but we must first have the strong desire to get free. The flash of light that will illuminate the darkness for us is in us; it is the knowledge that is our nature--there is no "birthright", we were never born. All that we have to do is to drive away the clouds that cover it._x000d_ Give up all desire for enjoyment in earth or heaven. Control the organs of the senses and control the mind. Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable. Think of nothing but liberation. Have faith in Guru, in his teachings, and in the surety that you can get free. Say "Soham, Soham" whatever comes. Tell yourself this even in eating, walking, suffering; tell the mind this incessantly--that what we see never existed, that there is only "I". Flash--the dream will break! Think day and night, this universe is zero, only God is. Have intense desire to get free._x000d_ All relatives and friends are but "old dry wells"; we fall into them and get dreams of duty and bondage, and there is no end. Do not create illusion by helping anyone. It is like a banyan tree, that spreads on and on. If you are a dualist, you are a fool to try to help God. If you are a monist, you know that you are God; where find duty? You have no duty to husband, child, friend. Take things as they come, lie still, and when your body floats, go; rise with the rising tide, fall with falling tide. Let the body die; this idea of body is but a worn-out fable. "Be still and know that you are God."_x000d_ The present only is existent. There is no past or future even in thought, because to think it, you have to make it the present. Give up everything, and let it float where it will. This world is all a delusion, do not let it fool you again. You have known it for what it is not, now know it for what it is. If the body is dragged anywhere, let it go; do not care where the body is. This tyrannical idea of duty is a terrible poison and is destroying the world._x000d_ Do not wait to have a harp and rest by degrees; why not take a harp and begin here? Why wait for heaven? Make it here. In heaven there is no marrying or giving in marriage; why not begin at once and have none here? The yellow robe of the Sannyasin is the sign of the free. Give up the beggar's dress of the world; wear the flag of freedom, the ochre robe.

"Whom the ignorant worship, Him I preach unto thee."_x000d_ This one and only God is the "knownest" of the known. He is the one thing we see everywhere. All know their own Self, all know, "I am", even animals. All we know is the projection of the Self. Teach this to the children, they can grasp it. Every religion has worshipped the Self, even though unconsciously, because there is nothing else._x000d_ This indecent clinging to life as we know it here, is the source of all evil. It causes all this cheating and stealing. It makes money a god and all vices and fears ensue. Value nothing material and do not cling to it. If you cling to nothing, not even life, then there is no fear. "He goes from death to death who sees many in this world." There can be no physical death for us and no mental death, when we see that all is one. All bodies are mine; so even body is eternal, because the tree, the animal, the sun, the moon, the universe itself is my body; then how can it die? Every mind, every thought is mine, then how can death come? The Self is never born and never dies. When we realise this, all doubts vanish. "I am, I know, I love"--these can never be doubted. There is no hunger, for all that is eaten is eaten by me. If a hair falls out, we do not think we die; so if one body dies, it is but a hair falling. . . ._x000d_ The superconscious is God, is beyond speech beyond thought, beyond consciousness. . . . There are three states,--brutality (Tamas), humanity (Rajas), and divinity (Sattva). Those attaining the highest state simply are. Duty dies there; they only love and as a magnet draw others to them. This is freedom. No more you do moral acts, but whatever you do is moral. The Brahmavit (knower of God) is higher than all gods. The angels came to worship Jesus when he had conquered delusion and had said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." None can help a Brahmavit, the universe itself bows down before him. His every desire is fulfilled, his spirit purifies others; therefore worship the Brahmavit if you wish to attain the highest. When we have the three great "gifts of God"--a human body, intense desire to be free, and the help of a great soul to show us the way--then liberation is certain for us. Mukti is ours._x000d_ _x000d_ Death of the body for ever is Nirvana. It is the negative side and says, "I am not this, nor this, nor this." Vedanta takes the further step and asserts the positive side--Mukti or freedom. "I am Existence absolute, Knowledge absolute, Bliss absolute, I am He", this is Vedanta, the cap-stone of the perfect arch._x000d_ The great majority of the adherents of Northern Buddhism believe in Mukti and are really Vedantists. Only the Ceylonese accept Nirvana as annihilation._x000d_ No belief or disbelief can kill the "I". That which comes with belief and goes with disbelief is only delusion. Nothing teaches the Atman. "I salute my own Self." "Self-illuminated, I salute myself, I am Brahman." The body is a dark room; when we enter it, it becomes illuminated, it becomes alive. Nothing can ever affect the illumination; it cannot be destroyed. It may be covered, but never destroyed._x000d_ _x000d_ At the present time God should be worshipped as "Mother", the Infinite Energy. This will lead to purity, and tremendous energy will come here in America. Here no temples weigh us down, no one suffers as they do in poorer countries. Woman has suffered for aeons, and that has given her infinite patience and infinite perseverance. She holds on to an idea. It is this which makes her the support of even superstitious religions and of the priests in every land, and it is this that will free her. We have to become Vedantists and live this grand thought; the masses must get it, and only in free America can this be done. In India these ideas were brought out by individuals like Buddha, Shankara, and others, but the masses did not retain them. The new cycle must see the masses living Vedanta, and this will have to come through women._x000d_ "Keep the beloved beautiful Mother in the heart of your hearts with all care."_x000d_ "Throw out everything but the tongue, keep that to say, "Mother, Mother!"_x000d_ "Let no evil counsellors enter; let you and me, my heart, alone see Mother."_x000d_ "Thou art beyond all that lives!"_x000d_ "My Moon of life, my Soul of soul!"

Mind is an instrument in the hand of Atman, just as body is an instrument in the hand of mind. Matter is motion outside, mind is motion inside. All change begins and ends in time. If the Atman is unchangeable, It must be perfect; if perfect, It must be infinite; and if It be infinite, It must be only One; there cannot be two infinites. So the Atman, the Self, can be only One. Though It seems to be various, It is really only One. If a man were to go toward the sun, at every step he would see a different sun, and yet it would be the same sun after all._x000d_ Asti, "isness", is the basis of all unity; and just as soon as the basis is found, perfection ensues. If all colour could be resolved into one colour, painting would cease. The perfect oneness is rest; we refer all manifestations to one Being. Taoists, Confucianists, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Mohammedans, Christians, and Zoroastrians, all preached the golden rule and in almost the same words; but only the Hindus have given the rationale, because they saw the reason: Man must love others because those others are himself. There is but One._x000d_ Of all the great religious teachers the world has known, only Lao-tze, Buddha, and Jesus transcended the golden rule and said, "Do good to your enemies", "Love them that hate you."_x000d_ Principles exist; we do not create them, we only discover them. . . . Religion consists solely in realisation. Doctrines are methods, not religion. All the different religions are but applications of the one religion adapted to suit the requirements of different nations. Theories only lead to fighting; thus the name of God that ought to bring peace has been the cause of half the bloodshed of the world. Go to the direct source. Ask God what He is. Unless He answers, He is not; but every religion teaches that He does answer._x000d_ Have something to say for yourself, else how can you have any idea of what others have said? Do not cling to old superstitions; be ever ready for new truths. _x000d_ "Fools are they who would drink brackish water from a well that their forefathers have digged and would not drink pure water from a well that others have digged." Until we realise God for ourselves, we can know nothing about Him. Each man is perfect by his nature; prophets have manifested this perfection, but it is potential in us. How can we understand that Moses saw God unless we too see Him? If God ever came to anyone, He will come to me. I will go to God direct; let Him talk to me. I cannot take belief as a basis; that is atheism and blasphemy. If God spake to a man in the deserts of Arabia two thousand years ago, He can also speak to me today, else how can I know that He has not died? Come to God any way you can; only come. But in coming do not push anyone down._x000d_ The knowing ones must have pity on the ignorant. One who knows is willing to give up his body even for an ant, because he knows that the body is nothing.

The question is: Is it necessary to pass through all the lower stages to reach the highest, or can a plunge be taken at once? The modern American boy takes twenty-five years to attain that which his forefathers took hundreds of years to do. The present-day Hindu gets in twenty years to the height reached in eight thousand years by his ancestors. On the physical side, the embryo goes from the amoeba to man in the womb. These are the teachings of modern science. Vedanta goes further and tells us that we not only have to live the life of all past humanity, but also the future life of all humanity. The man who does the first is the educated man, the second is the Jivanmukta, for ever free (even while living)._x000d_ Time is merely the measure of our thoughts, and thought being inconceivably swift, there is no limit to the speed with which we can live the life ahead. So it cannot be stated how long it would take to live all future life. It might be in a second, or it might take fifty lifetimes. It depends on the intensity of the desire. The teaching must therefore be modified according to the needs of the taught. The consuming fire is ready for all, even water and chunks of ice quickly consume. Fire a mass of birdshot, one at least will strike; give a man a whole museum of truths, he will at once take what is suited to him. Past lives have moulded our tendencies; give to the taught in accordance with his tendency. Intellectual, mystical, devotional, practical--make one the basis, but teach the others with it. Intellect must be balanced with love, the mystical nature with reason, while practice must form part of every method. Take every one where he stands and push him forward. Religious teaching must always be constructive, not destructive._x000d_ Each tendency shows the life-work of the past, the line or radius along which that man must move. All radii lead to the centre. Never even attempt to disturb anyone's tendencies; to do that puts back both teacher and taught. When you teach Jnana, you must become a Jnani and stand mentally exactly where the taught stands. Similarly in every other Yoga. Develop every faculty as if it were the only one possessed, this is the true secret of so-called harmonious development. That is, get extensity with intensity, but not at its expense. We are infinite. There is no limitation in us, we can be as intense as the most devoted Mohammedan and as broad as the most roaring atheist._x000d_ The way to do this is not to put the mind on any one subject, but to develop and control the mind itself; then you can turn it on any side you choose. Thus you keep the intensity and extensity. Feel Jnana as if it were all there was, then do the same with Bhakti, with Raja (-Yoga), with Karma. Give up the waves and go to the ocean, then you can have the waves as you please. Control the "lake" of your own mind, else you cannot understand the lake of another's mind._x000d_ The true teacher is one who can throw his whole force into the tendency of the taught. Without real sympathy we can never teach well. Give up the notion that man is a responsible being, only the perfect man is responsible. The ignorant have drunk deep of the cup of delusion and are not sane. You, who know , must have infinite patience with these. Have nothing but love for them and find out the disease that has made them see the world in a wrong light, then help them to cure it and see aright. Remember always that only the free have free will; all the rest are in bondage and are not responsible for what they do. Will as will is bound. The water when melting on the top of the Himalayas is free, but becoming the river, it is bound by the banks; yet the original impetus carries it to the sea, and it regains its freedom. The first is the "fall of man", the second is the "resurrection". Not one atom can rest until it finds its freedom._x000d_ Some imaginations help to break the bondage of the rest. The whole universe is imagination, but one set of imaginations will cure another set. Those which tell us that there is sin and sorrow and death in the world are terrible; but the other set which says ever, "I am holy, there is God, there is no pain", these are good and help to break the bondage of the others. The highest imagination that can break all the links of the chain is that of Personal God._x000d_ "Om tat sat" is the only thing beyond Maya, but God exists eternally. As long as the Niagara Falls exist, the rainbow will exist; but the water continually flows away. The falls are the universe, and the rainbow is personal God; and both are eternal. While the universe exists, God must exist. God creates the universe, and the universe creates God; and both are eternal. Maya is neither existence nor non-existence. Both the Niagara Falls and the rainbow are eternally changeable. . . . Brahman seen through Maya. Persians and Christians split Maya into two and call the good half "God" and the bad half the "devil". Vedanta takes Maya as a whole and recognises a unity beyond it--Brahman. . . ._x000d_ Mohammed found that Christianity was straying out from the Semitic fold and his teachings were to show what Christianity ought to be as a Semitic religion, that it should hold to one God. The Aryan idea that "I and my Father are one" disgusted and terrified him. In reality the conception of the Trinity was a great advance over the dualistic idea of Jehovah, who was for ever separate from man. The theory of incarnation is the first link in the chain of ideas leading to the recognition of the oneness of God and man. God appearing first in one human form, then re-appearing at different times in other human forms, is at last recognised as being in every human form, or in all men. Monistic is the highest stage, monotheistic is a lower stage. Imagination will lead you to the highest even more rapidly and easily than reasoning._x000d_ Let a few stand out and live for God alone and save religion for the world. Do not pretend to be like Janaka when you are only the "progenitor" of delusions. (The name Janaka means 'progenitor" and belonged to a king who, although he still held his kingdom for the sake of his people, had given up everything mentally.) Be honest and say, "I see the ideal but I cannot yet approach it"; but do not pretend to give up when you do not. If you give up, stand fast. If a hundred fall in the fight, seize the flag and carry it on. God is true for all that, no matter who fails. Let him who falls hand on the flag to another to carry on; it can never fall._x000d_ When I am washed and clean, why shall impurity be added on to me? Seek first the kingdom of Heaven, and let everything else go. Do not want anything "added unto you"; be only glad to get rid of it. Give up and know that success will follow, even if you never see it. Jesus left twelve fishermen, and yet those few blew up the Roman Empire._x000d_ Sacrifice on God's altar earth's purest and best. He who struggles is better than he who never attempts. Even to look on one who has given up has a purifying effect. Stand up for God; let the world go. Have no compromise. Give up the world, then alone you are loosened from the body. When it dies, you are azad, free. Be free. Death alone can never free us. Freedom must be attained by our own efforts during life; then, when the body falls, there will be no rebirth for the free._x000d_ Truth is to be judged by truth and by nothing else. Doing good is not the test of truth; the Sun needs no torch by which to see it. Even if truth destroys the whole universe, still it is truth; stand by it._x000d_ Practising the concrete forms of religion is easy and attracts the masses; but really there is nothing in the external._x000d_ "As the spider throws her web out of herself and draws it in, even so this universe is thrown out and drawn in by God."

Without the "I" there can be no "you" outside. From this some philosophers came to the conclusion that the external world did not exist save in the subject; that the "you" existed only in the "I". Others have argued that the "I" can only be known through the "you" and with equal logic. These two views are partial truths, each wrong in part and each right in part. Thought is as much material and as much in nature as body is. Both matter and mind exist in a third, a unity which divides itself into the two. This unity is the Atman, the real Self._x000d_ There is being, "x", which is manifesting itself as both mind and matter. Its movements in the seen are along certain fixed lines called law. As a unity, it is free; as many, it is bound by law. Still, with all this bondage, an idea of freedom is ever present, and this is Nivritti, or the "dragging from attachment". The materialising forces which through desire lead us to take an active part in worldly affairs are called Pravritti._x000d_ That action is moral which frees us from the bondage of matter and vice versa. This world appears infinite, because everything is in a circle; it returns to whence it came. The circle meets, so there is no rest or peace here in any place. We must get out. Mukti is the one end to be attained. . . ._x000d_ Evil changes in form but remains the same in quality. In ancient times force ruled, today it is cunning. Misery in India is not so bad as in America, because the poor man here sees the greater contrast to his own bad condition._x000d_ Good and evil are inextricably combined, and one cannot be had without the other. The sum total of energy in this universe is like a lake, every wave inevitably leads to a corresponding depression. The sum total is absolutely the same; so to make one man happy is to make another unhappy. External happiness is material and the supply is fixed; so that not one grain can be had by one person without taking from another. Only bliss beyond the material world can be had without loss to any. Material happiness is but a transformation of material sorrow._x000d_ Those who are born in the wave and kept in it do not see the depression and what is there. Never think, you can make the world better and happier. The bullock in the oil-mill never reaches the wisp of hay tied in front of him, he only grinds out the oil. So we chase the will-o'-the-wisp of happiness that always eludes us, and we only grind nature's mill, then die, merely to begin again. If we could get rid of evil, we should never catch a glimpse of anything higher; we would be satisfied and never struggle to get free. When man finds that all search for happiness in matter is nonsense, then religion begins. All human knowledge is but a part of religion._x000d_ In the human body the balance between good and evil is so even that there is a chance for man to wish to free himself from both._x000d_ The free never became bound; to ask how he did, is an illogical question. Where no bondage is, there is no cause and effect. "I became a fox in a dream and a dog chased me." Now how can I ask why the dog chased me? The fox was a part of the dream, and the dog followed as a matter of course; but both belong to the dream and have no existence outside. Science and religion are both attempts to help us out of the bondage; only religion is the more ancient, and we have the superstition that it is the more holy. In a way it is, because it makes morality a vital point, and science does not._x000d_ "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This sentence alone would save mankind if all books and prophets were lost. This purity of heart will bring the vision of God. It is the theme of the whole music of this universe. In purity is no bondage. Remove the veils of ignorance by purity, then we manifest ourselves as we really are and know that we were never in bondage. The seeing of many is the great sin of all the world. See all as Self and love all; let all idea of separateness go. . . ._x000d_ The diabolical man is a part of my body as a wound or a burn is. We have to nurse it and get it better; so continually nurse and help the diabolical man, until he "heals" and is once happy and healthy._x000d_ While we think on the relative plane, we have the right to believe that as bodies we can be hurt by relative things and equally that we can be helped by them. This idea of help, abstracted, is what we call God. The sum total of all ideas of help is God._x000d_ God is the abstract compound of all that is merciful and good and helpful; that should be the sole idea. As Atman, we have no body; so to say, "I am God, and poison does not hurt me", is an absurdity. While there is a body and we see it, we have not realised God. Can the little whirlpool remain after the river vanishes? Cry for help, and you will get it; and at last you will find that the one crying for help has vanished, and so has the Helper, and the play is over; only the Self remains._x000d_ This once done, come back and play as you will. This body can then do no evil, because it is not until the evil forces are all burned out that liberation comes. All dross has been burned out and there remains "flame without heat and without smoke"._x000d_ The past momentum carries on the body, but it can only do good, because the bad was all gone before freedom came. The dying thief on the cross reaped the effects of his past actions. He had been a Yogi and had slipped; then he had to be born again; again he slipped and became a thief; but the past good he had done bore fruit, and he met Jesus in the moment when liberation could come, and one word made him free._x000d_ Buddha set his greatest enemy free, because he, by hating him (Buddha) so much, kept constantly thinking of him; that thought purified his mind, and he became ready for freedom. Therefore think of God all the time, and that will purify you. . . ._x000d_ (Thus ended the beautiful lessons of our beloved Guru. The following Monday he left Thousand Island Park and returned to New York. )

That night at a quarter to nine Swamiji, accompanied by Miss Waldo, boarded the river steamer for Clayton, where they would take the train-Miss Waldo for Albany, Swamiji for New York. Tradition has it that as Swamiji took leave of the Park he said, "I bless these Thousand Islands." The words, though spoken in gratitude for the peace he had known, cannot but seem redundant: his very stay at the Park had been a long, sustained blessing. "The presence of those who love God makes a place holy," he had said in one of his morning classes,`such is the glory of the children of the Lord.' They are He; and when they speak, their words are scriptures. The place where they have been becomes filled with their vibrations, and those going there feel them and have a tendency to become holy also. His parting words but put a seal upon the fact.

Then, as the steamer moved out into midstream, "he boyishly and joyously waved his hat" to the five or six disciples on the Dock. And he was gone.