After two to three days they reached Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. They collected their long-accumulated mail and decided on the programme of their holiday. They thought it better to see the country first and afterwards to make a retreat.

The period from June 22 to July 15 was spent in houseboats on the Jhelum, in and about Srinagar.

On the next day of their journey far up the Jhelum river, when the boats were moored near a village, the Swami took his companions out for a long walk across the fields. He turned into a. farmyard in order to introduce them to a woman of whose faith and self-assurance he had spoken not only in conversation, but even in one of his speeches in Calcutta. In that farmyard they found, seated under a tree, a handsome elderly woman. She was spinning wool, while round her, helping her, were her two daughters-in-law and their children. The Swami had called at this farm the previous year to beg a glass of water. After drinking, he had asked her in a mild tone, "And what religion. is yours, mother?" "Thank God, sir," the woman had said, with triumph in her voice, "by the mercy of the Lord, I am a Mussulman!" On the present occasion the Swami was warmly welcomed by the whole family, and every courtesy was shown to his friends.

The Vale of Kashmir had once been a lake; and it is related that at this point where the party were entering the Vale, the Divine Boar pierced the mountains with his tusks, and let the Jhelum go through. From the scenic point of view alone, the journey was fascinating. Groups of singing peasants; pilgrims and monks wending their way along tortuous paths to sacred shrines; irises in bloom on every hillside; green fields; valleys ringed round with snow-clad mountains; the poplars in the neighbourhood of Islamabad (now Anantnag); and the immense chenar trees to be seen everywhere — all these made pictures never to be forgotten.

No matter where he travelled, the Swami would try to identify himself with the people and adopt some of their habits. So here in Kashmir one finds him drinking Kashmiri tea from a samovar and eating the local jam after the fashion of the people. Since he had brought no attendants with him, he had to look to every detail himself, and make all the arrangements, such as hiring the Dungas (houseboats) and so forth. But here at Baramula he had immediately fallen in with a man who, on hearing his name, had undertaken to attend to the whole business, and had sent him back free of responsibility. About four in the afternoon the party started for Srinagar in three houseboats. Next day they found themselves in a beautiful valley, with snow-peaks all round. This is known as the Vale of Kashmir, though it might more accurately be described as the Vale of Srinagar. Sometimes their course lay through large green tangles of lotus leaves, with here and there a flower or two. On each side stretched green fields. "The whole was", Sister Nivedita writes, "a symphony in blue and green and white, so exquisitely pure and vivid that for a while the response of the soul to its beauty was almost pain!"

Many excursions were made; and many were the discussions. Sometimes the Swami became so interested in these latter that he forgot all thought of food. The topics were various: for instance, the different religious periods through which Kashmir had passed, with special attention given to the period under Kanishka; the morality of Buddhism and the religious imperialism of Ashoka; and again the history of Shiva-worship. One day he spoke of the conquests of Chenghis Khan, of whom he said, "He was not a vulgar aggressor." The Swami compared him with Napoleon and Alexander, saying that Chenghis Khan, like these other two, "was inspired with the thought of unity; he wanted to unify his world". Those three were perhaps one soul, "manifesting itself in three different conquests", in the same way that one Soul might have come again and again as Krishna, Buddha, and Christ, to bring about the unity of man in God ', in the world of religious realities. Often the talk would be on the Gita, "that wonderful poem, without one note in it of weakness or unmanliness".

During this period in Srinagar, as already mentioned, he composed the poem "To the Awakened India" and sent it to Swami Swarupananda for the first resumed number. Sister Nivedita relates: "One afternoon he brought to us, as we sat together, a paper on which he had 'tried to write a letter, but it would come this way!' " (i.e. in the form of a poem).

A new chapter was opened at Dulai, in our knowledge of Hinduism, for the Swami told us, gravely and frankly, of its modern abuses, and spoke of his own uncompromising hostility to those evil practices which pass under the name of Vamachara. This shows that the Swami kept nothing back from his Western disciples when instructing them about his motherland. He told them the worst about his people and their creeds, as well as the best. And he did not hesitate to denounce when denunciation was called for.

They were charmed with the place. A little mud fortress overhung the footpath as it swept into a great open theatre of field and hill. Along the road, above the river, lay the bazaar. They returned to the dak bungalow by a path across the fields, past cottage gardens where roses bloomed.

This person was suffering from a disease that baffled the doctors. Naturally, he lost hope of recovery and zest for life, and turned to religion and thoughts of dispassion. Hearing that the Swami had become a monk and an adept in yoga, he sent for him, begging him to come, if only once. The Swami did so; and as he sat at the patient's bedside, there came to mind the Upanishadic text: "Him the Brahmana conquers, who thinks that he is separate from the Brahmana. Him the Kshatriya conquers, who thinks that he is separate from the Kshatriya. And him the universe conquers, who thinks that he is separate from the universe." Curiously, this acted like a charm on the sick man. The effect was miraculous. He grasped the theme with only the recitation of the passage, felt new strength in the body, and made a quick recovery. "And so," said the Swami, "though I often say strange things and angry things, yet remember that in my heart I never seriously mean to preach anything but love. All these things will comb right, if only we realize that we love each other."

Readers will remember the fascination that Shiva had for the Swami during his childhood. As he grew older his love for Shiva, the Lord of monks and yogis, deepened. And now, in the Himalayas, the abode of the Great God, the thought of Him was uppermost in the Swami's mind. To his disciples he spoke of the Puranic conception of the oneness of Shiva and His consort, Uma, under the guise of half-man and half-woman. It represented the junction of two great streams of thought, Monasticism and Mother-worship; or it represented the vision of truth where renunciation through philosophy and supreme love become inseparable. And "he understood, he said, for the first time this summer, the meaning of the nature-story that made the Ganga fall on the head of the Great God, and wander in and out amongst His matted locks, before she found an outlet on the plains below. He had searched long, he said, for the words that the rivers and waterfalls uttered, amongst the mountains, before he had realized that it was the eternal cry 'Vyom! Vyom! Hara!' 'Yes!' he said of Shiva one day, 'He is the Great God, calm, beautiful, and silent; and I am His great worshipper'."

On June 26 the Swami suddenly felt a longing to leave the party and go to a quiet place all alone. But not knowing that this was his intention, the party followed him to the Coloured Springs, called Kshir-Bhavani (or Kheer Bhawani). It was said to be the first time that Christian or Muslim had set foot there. The irony of the occasion was that the Muslim boatman would not allow them to land with shoes on; "so thoroughly Hinduistic", says Nivedita,, "is the Mohammedanism of Kashmir, with its forty Rishis, and pilgrimages made fasting, to their [i.e. the Hindus'] shrines".

Whenever the Swami felt a desire for solitude, he would break away from the little company to roam about alone. When he returned, he would be radiant from his contact with the Source of all Knowledge. After such occasions he would say now and again, "It is a sin even to think of the body"; or, "It is wrong to manifest power!" Or again, "Things do not grow better. They remain as they were, and we grow better, by the changes we make in them." He was constantly interpreting human life as an expression of God. Life in society seemed to him to be agony, so antagonistic was it to the pursuit of what he held to be most worthwhile. He was often haunted by the old-time monk's longing for quiet and self-effacement.

The life of the silent ashen-clad wanderer, or the bidden hermit, he thought of, it would now and then seem, as the lover might think of the beloved. At no time would it have surprised us, had someone told us that today or tomorrow he would be gone for ever, that we were now listening to his voice for the last time. He, and necessarily we, in all that depended on him, were as straws carried on the Ganga of the Eternal Will. At any moment It might reveal Itself to him as Silence. At any moment life in the world might end for him.

This plan-less-ness was not an accident. Never can I forget the disgust with which he turned on myself once, a couple of years later, when I had offered him some piece of worldly wisdom regarding his own answer to a letter which he had brought for me to see. "Plans! Plans!" he exclaimed in indignation. "That is why you Western people can never create a religion! If any of you ever did, it was only a few Catholic saints, who had no plans. Religion was never, never preached by planners!"

Living in the shadow of that great life burning with passion for the Highest, the Western pilgrims could understand that the Swami's own plan-less-ness resulted from his knowledge, and that solitude and silence were the best means of self-development. Nivedita writes that nothing better illustrated, to the Swami's mind, "the difference between Eastern and Western methods of thought, than the European idea that a man could not live alone for twenty years and remain quite sane, taken side by side with the Indian notion that till a man had been alone for twenty years, he could not be regarded as perfectly himself"

Among the local excursions that the Swami made with his disciples was that on June 29 to the small, massively built Shiva temple that stands atop the Shankaracharya Hill. This hill is also known as the Takt-i-Suleiman, and rises a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain. The famous floating gardens can be seen below, for miles around. The beauty and extensive sweep of the scene drew from the Swami the exclamation. "Look, what genius the Hindu shows in placing his temples! He always chooses a grand scenic effect! See, the Takt commands the whole of Kashmir. The rock of Hari Parvat rises red out of blue water, like a lion couchant, crowned. And the temple of Martand has the valley at its feet!" Then he launched into a lengthy discourse on the Hindu's innate love of nature which showed itself in his choice of sites for temples, hermitages, and monuments.

To Miss Josephine MacLeod or Mrs. Ole Bull_x000d_ Seshnag_x000d_ Chandanbari, Kashmir_x000d_ [en route from Srinagar to Amarnath]_x000d_ [End of July 1898]_x000d_ _x000d_ I send back the old Dandi as it is difficult to carry it through. I have got another like Margaret's. Please send it back to the Tahsildar of Vernag, Khand Chand, Esq., whom you already know. We are all right. Margot has discovered some new flowers and is happy. There is not much ice so the road is good._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ P.S. Keep this Dandi till I come and pay the coolies (2) 4 Rs., 2 annas each._x000d_ coolie Tara_x000d_ _x000d_ _x000d_ [Accounts List]_x000d_ [Illegible word] 20_x000d_ Dandi 26_x000d_ Coolies 16 2 hrs. =8 Rs. __ as._x000d_ Coolies 4 2½ hrs. at 4 as. per hr. =2 __ 8_x000d_ Dandi 26 3½ hrs. at 6 as. per hr. 34 __ 2_x000d_ 4 extra 1 hr. at 4 as. per hr. =1 __ 0_x000d_ 2 ponies 2½ hrs. at 12 as. per hr.=3 __ 12_x000d_ 1 pony 1 hr. at 12 as. per hr. =0 __ 12_x000d_ ___________________x000d_ 50 __ 2_x000d_ 2 Dandis 3½ hrs. [Illegible words]_x000d_ ___________________x000d_ 52 __ 0_x000d_ [Illegible words] 8 __ [0]_x000d_ ___________________x000d_ 60__ [0]_x000d_ Bed chairs 4_x000d_ Luggage 25_x000d_ _x000d_ Dandi 26_x000d_ ____________x000d_ 55_x000d_ 55 all inclusive_x000d_ _x000d_ Two horses____ 1st stage_____12 miles_x000d_ Batacooti_____x000d_ Phahalgaon [Pahalgam]__ next stage

It was a direct memorial of Buddhism, representing one of the four religious periods into which he had already divided the history of Kashmir: (1) Tree and Snake-worship, from which dated all the names of the springs ending in Nag, as Veernag, and so on; (2) Buddhism; (3) Hinduism, in the form of Sun-worship; and (4) Mohammedanism. Sculpture, he told us, was the characteristic art of Buddhism, and the sun-medallion, or lotus, one of its commonest ornaments. The figures with the serpents referred to pre-Buddhism....

He spoke, for instance, of the points of similarity between the Vedic and the Roman Catholic ritual, holding the latter to have been derived from the former through Buddhism, which was only an offshoot of Hinduism, and "was entirely within Hinduism 1" "Vedic ritual", he pointed out, "has its Mass, the offering of food to God, your Blessed Sacrament, our Prasada. Only it is offered sitting, not kneeling, as is common in hot countries. They kneel in Tibet. Then, too, Vedic ritual has its lights, incense, music." When it was suggested that Hinduism had no Common Prayer., he flashed out: "No! and neither had Christianity! That is pure Protestantism, and Protestantism took it from the Mohammedans perhaps through Moorish influence. Mohammedanism is the only religion that has completely broken down the idea of the priest. The leader of prayer stands with his back to the people, and only the reading of the Koran may take place from the pulpit. Protestantism is an approach to this."

"Even the tonsure", he continued, "existed in India, in the shaven head.... The monk and nun both existed in pre-Buddhistic Hinduism. Europe gets her orders from the Thebaid."

Almost the whole of Christianity, he believed, was Aryan. "Indian and Egyptian ideas met at Alexandria, and went forth to the world tinctured with Judaism and Hellenism, as Christianity." The historicity of Jesus, he said, he had in a way doubted since the significant dream that he had had while on board ship off Crete. However, "two things stand out as personal living touches in the life of Christ: the woman taken in adultery — the most beautiful story in literature — and the woman at the well. How strangely true is this last to Indian life! A woman, coming to draw water, finds, seated at the well-side, a yellow-clad monk. He asks her for water. Then he teaches her, and does a little mind-reading, and so on. Only, in an Indian story, when she went to call the Villagers, the monk would have taken his chance, and fled to the forest!"

Of the early figures of Christianity he remarked that only of Saint Paul could history be sure, "and he was not an eyewitness, and according to his own showing was capable of Jesuitry — 'by all means save souls' — isn't it?" He preferred Strauss to Renan, whose "life of Jesus. is mere froth", and felt that the Acts and Epistles were older than the Gospels. Saint Paul's greatness lay in galvanizing into life an obscure Nazarene sect of great antiquity, which "furnished the mythic personality as a centre of worship". He thought that Rabbi Hillel was probably responsible for the teachings of Jesus. "The Resurrection, of course," he said, "is simply spring cremation. Only the rich Greeks and Romans had had cremation anyway, and the new sun-myth would only stop it amongst the few."

"But Buddha l" the Swami continued; "Buddha! Surely he was the greatest man who ever lived. He never drew a breath for himself Above all, he never claimed worship. He said, 'Buddha is not a man, but a state. I have found the door. Enter, all of you!"'

With regard to the Swami's views on early Christianity, it is worth noting that they were in substantial accord with those of such eminent Christian scholars of that time as Mr. J. M. Robertson, Dr. A. Drews, and Prof. W. B. Smith.

Kashmir_x000d_ 3rd July, 1898_x000d_ Dear Sturdy,_x000d_ Both the editions had my assent, as it was arranged between us that we would not object to anybody's publishing my books. Mrs. Bull knows about it all and is writing to you._x000d_ I had a beautiful letter from Miss Souter the other day. She is as friendly as ever._x000d_ With love to the children, Mrs. Sturdy, and yourself_x000d_ Ever yours in the Lord,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Taking the one non-American member of the party into his confidence, he went out late on the afternoon of July 3 and in great excitement brought back a Brahmana tailor. He asked his English disciple to explain to the man how to make a replica of the American flag. The stars and stripes were crudely represented on a piece of cotton cloth. This was nailed to the head of the dining-room boat, where an early tea was arranged, and surrounded with branches of the evergreens. As his own special contribution to the occasion, he wrote a poem that was read aloud by way of greeting. It was entitled "To the Fourth of July", and can be interpreted as a passionate utterance of his own longing for the Final Freedom in the Infinite. Time was to prove that it had been penned in a prophetic vein; for, four years later, on that very day, his shackles of work broken, he entered in "Springing joy" into the Final Freedom, concerning which he had written.

[It is well known that Swami Vivekananda's death (or resurrection, as some of us would prefer to call it!) took place on the 4th of July, 1902. On the 4th of July, 1898, he was travelling with some American disciples in Kashmir, and as part of a domestic conspiracy for the celebration of the day--the anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence--he prepared the following poem, to be read aloud at the early breakfast. The poem itself fell to the keeping of Dhira Mata.]_x000d_ _x000d_ Behold, the dark clouds melt away,_x000d_ That gathered thick at night, and hung_x000d_ So like a gloomy pall above the earth!_x000d_ Before thy magic touch, the world_x000d_ Awakes. The birds in chorus sing._x000d_ The flowers raise their star-like crowns--_x000d_ Dew-set, and wave thee welcome fair._x000d_ The lakes are opening wide in love_x000d_ Their hundred thousand lotus-eyes_x000d_ To welcome thee, with all their depth._x000d_ All hail to thee, thou Lord of Light!_x000d_ A welcome new to thee, today,_x000d_ O Sun! Today thou sheddest Liberty !_x000d_ _x000d_ Bethink thee how the world did wait,_x000d_ And search for thee, through time and clime._x000d_ Some gave up home and love of friends,_x000d_ And went in quest of thee, self-banished,_x000d_ Through dreary oceans, through primeval forests,_x000d_ Each step a struggle for their life or death;_x000d_ Then came the day when work bore fruit,_x000d_ And worship, love, and sacrifice,_x000d_ Fulfilled, accepted, and complete._x000d_ Then thou, propitious, rose to shed_x000d_ The light of Freedom on mankind._x000d_ _x000d_ Move on, O Lord, in thy resistless path!_x000d_ Till thy high noon o'erspreads the world._x000d_ Till every land reflects thy light,_x000d_ Till men and women, with uplifted head, _x000d_ Behold their shackles broken, and_x000d_ Know, in springing joy, their life renewed!

He, evidently, took the play seriously; for next morning when he joined the group, he was charged with passion for the ideal of renunciation. Carried away by his mood, he spoke with uncompromising scorn against those who sought to glorify the householder's life. "Is it so easy", he asked, "to be a Janaka ? To sit on a throne absolutely unattached? Caring nothing for wealth or fame, for wife or child? One after another in the West has told me that he had reached this. To them I could only say, 'Such great men are not born in India!"' Then, taking up the other side of the matter, he said: "Never forget to say to yourself, and to teach to your children: 'As is the difference between a firefly and the blazing sun, between a little pond and the infinite ocean, between a mustard seed and the mountain of Meru, such is the difference between the householder and the sannyasi!' Everything is fraught with fear: renunciation alone is fearless. Blessed he even the fraudulent sadhus and those who have failed to keep their vows, inasmuch as they also have witnessed to the ideal, and so are in some degree the cause of the success of others l" He pointed out that had it not been for the ochre robe, that is to say monasticism, luxury and worldliness would have robbed man of all his manliness.

A desire for quiet and peace seemed to grow more and more upon the Swami in these days; and the absence of two of his American disciples on a short visit to Gulmarg he took to be an opportunity to carry out his design. Without revealing his plans he made preparations for a pilgrimage to the famous Shiva shrine of Amarnath by way of Sonamarg. On July 10 he left, penniless and alone.

Srinagar_x000d_ 17th July, 1898_x000d_ {original in Bengali}_x000d_ My Dear Rakhal {Brahmananda},_x000d_ I got all the news from your letter. . . . My opinion regarding what you have written about Sarada is only that it is difficult to make a magazine in Bengali paying; but if all of you together canvass subscribers from door to door, it may be possible. In this matter do as you all decide. Poor Sarada has already been disappointed once. What harm is there if we lose a thousand rupees by supporting such an unselfish and very hardworking person? What about the printing of Raja-Yoga ? As a last resort, you may give it to Upen on certain terms of sharing the profit in the sales. . . . About money matters, the advice given previously is final. Henceforward do what you consider best regarding expenditure and other things. I see very well that my policy is wrong, and yours is correct, regarding helping others; that is to say, if you help with money too much at a time, people instead of feeling grateful remark on the contrary that they have got a simpleton to bank upon. I always lost sight of the demoralising influence of charity on the receiver. Secondly, we have no right to deviate even slightly from the purposes for which we collect the donations. Mrs. Bull will get her rosary all right if you send it care of Chief Justice Rishibar Mukhopadhyaya, Kashmir. Mr. Mitra and the Chief Justice are taking every care of them. We could not get a plot of ground in Kashmir yet, but there is a chance that we shall do so soon. If you can spend a winter here, you are sure to recoup your health. If the house is a good one and if you have enough fuel and warm clothing, then life in a land of snow is nothing but enjoyable. Also for stomach troubles a cold climate is an unfailing remedy. Bring Yogen with you; for the earth here is not stony, it is clay like that of Bengal._x000d_ If the paper is brought out in Almora, the work will progress much; for poor Sevier will have something to do, and the local people also will get some work. Skilful management lies in giving every man work after his own heart. By all the means in our power the Nivedita Girls' School in Calcutta should be put on a firm footing. To bring Master Mahashay to Kashmir is still a far cry, for it will be long before a college is established here. But he has written that it is possible to start a college in Calcutta, with him as the principal, at an initial expense of a thousand rupees. I hear that you all also favour this proposal. In this matter do what you all consider best. My health is all right. I have to get up seldom at night, even though I take twice a day rice and potatoes, sugar, or whatever I get. Medicine is useless--it has no action on the system of a Knower of Brahman! Everything will be digested--don't be afraid._x000d_ The ladies are doing well, and they send you their greetings. Two letters from Shivananda have come. I have also received a letter from his Australian disciple. I hear that the outbreak of plague in Calcutta has completely subsided._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

On the first afternoon they sought out and found the quaint old Temple of Pandrethan (derived from Puranadhishthana meaning "old capital"), sunken in a scum-covered pond within a wood, by the side of the Jhelum. This is four and a half miles to the Southeast of Srinagar. The temple is a small cell, with four doorways opening to the cardinal points. Externally, it is a tapering pyramid supported on four-pierced pedestal. Its top is truncated to give root-hold to a bush. Inside it, the Swami introduced his companions to Indian archaeology and architecture. He drew their attention to the interior decorations, with their sun-medallion, and to the fine sculpture, in low relief, of male and female figures intertwined with serpents. Among the outside sculptures is a fine one of the Buddha, standing with hands uplifted, in one of the trefoil arches of the eastern doorway. And there is a much-defaced frieze, showing a seated woman and a tree. This evidently represents Maya Devi, the Buddha's mother. The temple is built of grey limestone, and dated from the tenth century A.D.

Moving up the river, and enjoying the scenery, the party came next day (July 20) to the ruins of the two great temples of Avantipur. The river here is broad, shallow, and clear. The Swami, with Nivedita and another of his Western disciples, walked across the fields and along the bank, for about three miles. Discoursing on the sense of sin as current among the Egyptian, Semitic, and Aryan races, he pointed out that though it appears in the Vedas, it quickly disappears, while the Egyptians and Semites cling to it as one of the main planks of their religious ideas. The Devil, in the Vedic conception, is the Lord of Anger; with the Buddhists he is Mara, the Lord of Lust. "But while Satan is the Hamlet of the Bible, in the Hindu scriptures the Lord of Anger never divides Creation. He always represents defilement, never duality." With Zoroaster, who was a reformer of some old religion that must have been Vedantic, Ormuzd and Ahriman were not supreme; they were only manifestations of the Supreme. In India, righteousness and sin — Vidya and Avidya — have both to be transcended to reach the highest truth.

On these walks the conversation often drifted to his mother-land and her future. "In order to strengthen the national life," he said, "we must reinforce the current of that life itself along the line of its own culture and ideals. For instance, Buddha preached renunciation, and India heard. Yet within a thousand years, she had reached her highest point of national prosperity. The national life in India has renunciation as its source. Its highest ideals are service and Mukti."

That whole afternoon and night the Swami lay ill in his boat. But next day (July 21), when the party landed at the temple of Bijbehara, then already thronged with Amarnath pilgrims, he was able to join them for a little while.

After visiting the temple, they left for Islamabad (Anantnag), which was reached on the afternoon of July 22.

At Islamabad, in the evening, when two of the group, whose boat was moored at a distance. joined the others, they found them sitting round the Swami on the grass in an apple orchard and, As Nivedita says, he was "engaged in the rarest of rare hap-penings" — a talk of a personal nature. Picking up two pebbles, he said, "Whenever death approaches me, all weakness vanishes. I have neither fear, nor doubt, nor thought of the external. I simply busy myself making ready to die. I am as hard as that" — and the stones struck one another in his hand – “for I have touched the feet of God!” Then he went on to tell them some remarkable episodes in his wandering life. The talk came to an end abruptly, when a child with a badly-cut hand was brought to him by the villagers. He himself bathed the wound with water and applied the ashes of a piece of calico to stop the bleeding.

"It had been a wonderful old building — evidently more abbey than temple — in a wonderful position," writes Nivedita; "and its great interest lay in the obvious, agglomeration of styles and periods in which it had grown up."

"From all these hours, the day before and the day after," continues the Sister, "fragments of (the Swami's) talk come back to me":

"No nation, not Greek or another, has ever carried patriotism so far as the Japanese. They don't talk, they act — give up all for country. There are noblemen now living in Japan who gave up their political privileges and powers to create the unity of the empire. And not one traitor could be found in the Japanese war. Think of that!"

"The sannyasin who thinks of gold, to desire it, commits suicide." "With the Hindus, marriage is not for individual happiness, but for the welfare of the nation and the caste."

"You are so morbid, you Westerners! You worship sorrow! All through your country I found that. Social life in the West is like a peal of laughter, but underneath, it is a wail. It ends in a sob. The fun and frivolity are all on the surface; really, it is full of tragic intensity.. Here, it ;s sad and gloomy on the outside, but underneath are carelessness and merriment."

"A leader is not made in one life. He has to be born for it. For the difficulty is not in organization and making plans; the test, the real test of a leader lies in holding widely different people together, along the 'line of their common sympathies. And this can only be done unconsciously, never by trying."

But the Swami was not the philosopher or the, teacher all the time. He could be gay as well as grave, full of fun and humorous stories — a phenomenon that had shocked some of the clerics and church ministers when he was in the West. Some had, even told him to his face, "Swami, you are a religious preacher. You should not give yourself up 'to laughter and frivolity like common folk. Such conduct does not befit you." But his reply had been: "We are children of Bliss and Light! Why should we be sombre and morose?"

Once more awake!_x000d_ For sleep it was, not death, to bring thee life _x000d_ Anew, and rest to lotus-eyes for visions _x000d_ Daring yet. The world in need awaits, O Truth! _x000d_ No death for thee!_x000d_ _x000d_ Resume thy march,_x000d_ With gentle feet that would not break the_x000d_ Peaceful rest even of the roadside dust _x000d_ That lies so low. Yet strong and steady, _x000d_ Blissful, bold, and free. Awakener, ever _x000d_ Forward! Speak thy stirring words._x000d_ _x000d_ Thy home is gone,_x000d_ Where loving hearts had brought thee up and_x000d_ Watched with joy thy growth. But Fate is strong--_x000d_ This is the law--all things come back to the source _x000d_ They sprung, their strength to renew._x000d_ _x000d_ Then start afresh _x000d_ From the land of thy birth, where vast cloud-belted _x000d_ Snows do bless and put their strength in thee, _x000d_ For working wonders new. The heavenly _x000d_ River tune thy voice to her own immortal song; _x000d_ Deodar shades give thee eternal peace._x000d_ _x000d_ And all above, _x000d_ Himala's daughter Uma, gentle, pure, _x000d_ The Mother that resides in all as Power _x000d_ And Life, who works all works and _x000d_ Makes of One the world, whose mercy _x000d_ Opensthe gate to Truth and shows _x000d_ The One in All, give thee untiring _x000d_ Strength, which is Infinite Love._x000d_ _x000d_ They bless thee all, _x000d_ The seers great, whom age nor dime _x000d_ Can claim their own, the fathers of the _x000d_ Race, who felt the heart of Truth the same, _x000d_ And bravely taught to man ill-voiced or _x000d_ Well. Their servant, thou hast got _x000d_ The secret--'tis but One._x000d_ _x000d_ Then speak, O Love!_x000d_ Before thy gentle voice serene, behold how_x000d_ Visions melt and fold on fold of dreams_x000d_ Departs to void, till Truth and Truth alone_x000d_ In all its glory shines--_x000d_ _x000d_ And tell the world--_x000d_ Awake, arise, and dream no more!_x000d_ This is the land of dreams, where Karma_x000d_ Weaves unthreaded garlands with our thoughts_x000d_ Of flowers sweet or noxious, and none_x000d_ Has root or stem, being born in naught, which_x000d_ The softest breath of Truth drives back to_x000d_ _x000d_ Primal nothingness. Be bold, and face _x000d_ The Truth! Be one with it! Let visions cease, _x000d_ Or, if you cannot, dream but truer dreams, _x000d_ Which are Eternal Love and Service Free.