In this country [America] the king has entered every one of you. You are all kings in this country. So with the religion of Vedanta. You are all Gods. One God is not sufficient. You are all Gods, says the Vedanta. _x000d_ This makes Vedanta very difficult. It does not teach the old idea of God at all. In place of that God who sat above the clouds and managed the affairs of the world without asking our permission, who created us out of nothing, just because He liked it, and made us undergo all this misery, just because He liked it, Vedanta teaches the God that is in everyone, has become everyone and everything. His majesty the king has gone from this country; the Kingdom of Heaven went from Vedanta hundreds of years ago.... There is a chance of Vedanta becoming the religion of your country because of democracy. But it can become so only if you can and do clearly understand it, if you become real men and women, not people with vague ideas and superstitions in your brains, and if you want to be truly spiritual, since Vedanta is concerned only with spirituality.... _x000d_ These are what Vedanta has not to give. No book. No man to be singled out from the rest of mankind—"You are worms, and we are the Lord God!" — none of that. If you are the Lord God, I also am the Lord God. So Vedanta knows no sin. There are mistakes, but no sin; and in the long run everything is going to be all right. NO Satan — none of this nonsense. Vedanta believes in only one sin, only one in the world, and it is this. the moment you think you are a sinner, or anybody is a sinner, that is sin. From, that follows every other mistake, or what is usually called sin. There have been many mistakes in our lives. But we are going on. Glory be unto us that we have made mistakes! Take a long look at your past life. If your present condition is good, it has been caused by all the past mistakes as well as successes. Glory be unto success! Glory be unto mistakes! Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead! ... _x000d_ No book, no person, no Personal God. All these must go. Again,the senses must go. We cannot be bound to the senses. At present we are tied down — like persons dying of cold in the glaciers. They feel such a strong desire to sleep, and when their friends try to wake them, warning them of death, they say, "Let me die, I want to sleep." We all cling to the little things of the senses, even if we are ruined thereby: we forget there are much greater things.

In 1900, Oakland was a city of some 70,000 souls. Because of its sheltered location, it escaped much of the fog and wind that swept from the ocean over San Francisco, and because of the wide mud flats along its bay-front, it escaped, as well, much of the commerce and hurly-burly of the bigger city. Indeed, Oakland led a quiet, suburban life. It was full of trees and sunshine and boasted a landscaped lake, where large Victorian houses, surrounded by wide lawns and parterres, gazed placidly at one another across the water, or, as the case might be, across tree-shaded avenues. Smaller houses, neat, uncrowded, and substantial, lined its less fashionable streets, along some of which up-to-date electric trolley cars clattered to and fro. Among other necessities of civic life, such as a City Hall, elementary schools, a Masonic Lodge, and innumerable churches (in proportion to the population, there were three times as many churches as in San Francisco), Oakland contained a social club with artistic and intellectual leanings (named the Athenian), a theater, a handsome high school building, and a Free Public Library that "kept well up in works of fiction, science and art." While the oldest part of the city, with its long-established residences and buildings, was perfectly flat, to the north and east were rolling hills, which had been annexed ten years or so earlier and whose abundant oaks were rapidly being replaced with large and generally affluent houses. From here one could enjoy a, fine panoramic view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate-a view at its best at sunset when the distant mountains of Marin County darkened and the sky and water shone fiery red or gold.

The city of San Francisco, unlike Los Angeles of the period, was a true city, cosmopolitan, urbane, full of vigorous life and variety. Not only was it the undisputed business, financial, and cultural center of the entire western part of the United States, but it was renowned the world over for its air of sophisticated, lighthearted gaiety. The city had grown fast. Scarcely more than half a century earlier it had contained about four hundred and fifty people ¬mostly men. In 1900 its population stood at almost 343,000, and its area had extended steadily, reclaiming the mud flats of the Bay, climbing the hills, spreading over the sand dunes. Architecturally, San Francisco was not lovely. The downtown district, lying between the Embarcadero and the hills, was gray and drab, crowded with three-, four-, and five-storied buildings of wood or brick, mostly boxlike and flat-roofed. Only a few skyscrapers stood out here and there, all of them out-classed by the Call Building, whose domed tower rose a spectacular nineteen stories above Market and Kearny streets, Atop Nob Hill the pretentious and ornate mansions that had been built in the seventies by the newly rich silver and railroad kings were, with one or two exceptions, monstrous blunders. And if some of the smaller mansions, beyond Van Ness Avenue, with their cupolas and turrets, were more gracious, the rows of narrow bay-windowed houses and flats that each year stretched out farther to the west were singularly dreary.

Yet if San Francisco was on the whole architecturally drab, or, as some would have it, plain ugly, this defect was more than made up for by the beauty of its setting. To the north and east lay its wide Bay, jeweled by Alcatraz and Goat islands, surrounded by mauve mountains and golden hills that turned emerald in the spring, and guarded by cliff bound straits. To the west lay the Pacific Ocean, to the south, the gentle hills of the Peninsula. The panorama constantly changed its appearance in the varying light; indeed, it often disappeared altogether, lost in the gray fog that came sweeping over the _x000d_ city from the sea. But San Franciscans were as happy with the fog as with the view, for it, too, was exclusively their own. They were happy with many other things as well. They made excursions to the palatial Cliff House that literally overhung the ocean and from which one could watch the sea lions barking and lolling on Seal Rocks; they strolled in the nearby statue laden gardens of Sutro Heights and swam in the immense, glass roofed Sutro Baths. They were proud of their Golden Gate Park that had been lovingly coaxed to grow in the face of sand and wind, of their forested Presidio and their celebrity filled Palace Hotel. They were enchanted by their foreign quarters: festive Little Italy, ramshackle Little Mexico, and Chinatown, sinister and mysterious. They were charmed with their flower stalls that graced almost every downtown street corner with a riot of color, with their jaunty little cable cars that fearlessly ascended and descended precipitous hills, with their sedate ferries, their flocks of lateen rigged fishing boats, and their tall masted ships and funneled steamboats lying at dock along the Embarcadero or sailing to or from far distant shores through the Golden Gate.

The people, it was said, were noticeably jovial, as though attending a continuous festival. They loved music, drama, painting, sculpture, and literature of all sorts, and they warmly patronized the city’s artists, many of whom were famous or soon to become so. There were several art schools, the best known of which was housed in the Mark Hopkins mansion a Nob Hill structure that, seen from some angles, more closely resembled a small, congested town than a house. There was the prestigious Bohemian Club on Post Street, which included in its membership an impressive number of artists, writers, actors, and musicians. Moreover, San Franciscans respected scholarship in all fields. Two nearby universities-Stanford down the Peninsula, which had opened in 1891, and the older and academically renowned University of California in Berkeley across the Bay, with a faculty in 1900 of 108-had brought learned professors and graduate students to the community. In San Francisco itself there had existed for decades many a scholarly institute and library; well-stocked book-stores were plentiful, and literary societies, some of them erudite, abounded.

If San Francisco was lighthearted, it was serious as well, and these two qualities did not preclude one another; rather they blended to create an atmosphere at once sparkling and serene and as peculiar to the city as was its setting. Like the majority of people everywhere, the majority of San Franciscans were perhaps not inclined to think very deeply; but on the other hand, they were blessed with the liberty to do so; nothing prevented. They were free from the tensions of the East Coast, from the oppressive narrowness of the Midwest, and they were free, too, from both the rural naivete and straining ambitions of southern California. Nothing in their environment pressed on their nerves, weighed on their hearts, or clouded their minds. They could expand their souls, and perhaps some did.

The very fact that there were two well-supported Homes of Truth in this not-large city might indicate that many men and women were seeking beyond the orthodox, or even liberal, forms of Christianity for deeper answers to their deeper ques¬tions and needs. In any case, the founder of these organizations, Mrs. Annie Rix Militz, had been instrumental in introducing Mrs. Hansbrough and many others to Swami Vivekananda’s books, and it was the Pine Street Home of Truth, now under the supervision of a Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Aspinall, that welcomed Swamiji to the city, providing him, free of charge, with a room and board.

Mrs. Hansbrough went on as advance agent and arranged for his stay at the Pine Street Home of Truth, one of the two "Homes" in the city. She also made arrangements for his first lecture. Thus the Swami, who arrived in San Francisco on the evening of February 22, started his work in the northern part of the state, as he had in the south — on his own, free of outside management or sponsorship.

It has been generally assumed that Swamiji’s incentive to visit San Francisco stemmed from an invitation from the Reverend Benjamin Fay Mills to speak before a Congress of Religions at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland and that his work in northern California began with his lectures before that Congress. Actually, neither of these things was the case. The thought of working in San Francisco had been in Swamiji’s mind as early as December 27 and had perhaps become a definite plan shortly after he moved to Pasadena, at which time Mrs. Hansbrough had conceived the idea of becoming his advance agent. According to her "Reminiscences," it was after one of his lectures at the Shakespeare Club that she had said to him, "Swamiji, I think you would like me to go on to San Francisco." "His eyes lighted up," she related, "as they always did when he was particularly interested in something, and he answered, `Yes, of course I would.’ "_x000d_ Promptly, Mrs. Hansbrough’s sisters had discouraged her. "They did not feel," she said, "that I was a `big’ enough person to do what was necessary. Further, they did not feel that I was `socially inclined’ enough, and they never did think I was very bright."_x000d_ Deflated by this sisterly counsel, Mrs. Hansbrough abandoned the idea of preparing Swamiji’s way. It was he who without preamble brought the subject up again. "Well," he said to her one morning after breakfast while they were sitting alone together, "when are you going to San Francisco?"_x000d_ Mrs. Hansbrough was taken aback. "Why," she replied, "I could go if you wanted me to."_x000d_ Swamiji smiled. "When once you consider an action," he said, "do not let anything dissuade you. Consult your heart, not others, and then follow its dictates." "He seemed to have sensed," Mrs. Hansbrough mused, "that I had been discouraged from the plan."

As the Swami's health improved during his stay in Los Angeles, he began to think of extending his work and his mission further afield. The Pacific Coast, he discovered, was a fertile ground for the reception of Vedantic ideals. Indeed, as early as the last days of December of 1899 he had been thinking of lecturing in San Francisco and off and on had discussed the idea with his intimate friends, notably Mrs. Hansbrough. No definite plans were made.

It had been shortly after this that a letter arrived from the Reverend B. Fay Mills, inviting Swamiji to speak before the Congress of Religions on Sunday, February 25. The invitation was, in sense, a last-minute one. As late as January 13 a Dr. Sonado, an eminent Buddhist, then recently arrived in San Francisco from the Orient, had been scheduled to speak at the Congress instead of Swamiji, who, possibly, Mr. Mills had not known was in California. But however that may be, when for some reason Dr. Sonado canceled his engagement, Mr. Mills wrote to Swami Vivekananda. He proposed either in his first letter or in a somewhat later one that Swamiji give his first northern California lecture in Oakland at the Congress of Religions, where he would be assured of a large and overflowing audience. This done, he (Mr. Mills) would manage any lectures Swamiji might subsequently wish to give in San Francisco, advertising them in the local papers with the truthful banner: MANY HUNDREDS TURNED AWAY! ! ! ("He was an astute man of business," Mrs. Hans¬brough remarked.)

From a box-office point of view, the plan was, to be sure, an excellent one. On hearing of it and of Mr. Mills’s proposal that he be Swamiji’s manager, Mrs. Hansbrough had again withdrawn. "Then I needn’t go," she had said. But Swamiji was incapable of the box-office point of view, nor did he have any intention of allowing his work in San Francisco to be exploited. He accepted Mr. Mills’s invitation to speak at the Unitarian church in Oakland, together with the train fare to San Francisco, but that was all. "We shall support our own work," he had said to Mrs. Hansbrough. "I shall give my first lecture in San Francisco independently. I am willing to trust an American woman," he added; "I will trust an Amer¬ican man sometimes; but an American minister-never!"

Through many an unsavory experience during his first visit in the West, Swamiji well knew that the American minister, no matter how liberal, would never move far from the inbred beliefs of a congregation upon which his livelihood depended, would never dare to champion a Hindu monk to the end, would always, when pushed, back down and sometimes attack. That was in the nature of things, even as it was in Swamiji’s nature to say what he had to say in total freedom. And in San Francisco he was to have much to say. So around the middle of February, Mrs. Hansbrough traveled north in the role of advance agent.

Mrs. Hansbrough went on as advance agent and arranged for his stay at the Pine Street Home of Truth, one of the two "Homes" in the city. She also made arrangements for his first lecture. Thus the Swami, who arrived in San Francisco on the evening of February 22, started his work in the northern part of the state, as he had in the south — on his own, free of outside management or sponsorship.

Miss MacLeod had thought that it should not be, and Mrs. Hansbrough, different in those days, had given in. "Swamiji usually let us decide these things," she related, "as he was unfamiliar with the country. I did not have the temerity and outspokenness I have now, or I would have ridiculed Miss MacLeod into agreeing that it should be a free first lecture. . . . If I were to have the work to do over again with my present perspective, I would do it much differently. I would get the California Academy of Sciences [in San Francisco] to sponsor the first lecture, and have it free. If we had done this, it would have given Swamiji at the start a group of intellectual people, and then he could have chosen from there on what he wanted to do."

This hindsighted plan might or might not have been effective. As it was, Mrs. Hansbrough, lacking experience, connections, and promotional flair, proceeded as best she could. For a week she busied herself getting in touch with her old San Francisco friends and acquaintances, particularly those interested in "New Thought"; she arranged for Swamiji to stay at the Home of Truth on Pine Street; she rented a hall for his first lecture; she had tickets printed, and, on February 18, she inserted a running advertisement in the San Francisco Examiner, which appeared in-or, more accurately, disappeared into-the Classified Ad Section. In five lines of close and small type under the general heading "Meeting Notices" it read:_x000d_ _x000d_ SWAMI VIVEKANANDA will lecture Friday evening, February 23rd, at Golden Gate Hall, 625 Sutter Street; subject, "The Ideal of a Universal Religion"; admission 50c; tickets on sale at Sherman & Clay’s, cor. Sutter and Kearney.

Few people could have noticed this announcement or, noticing, have been impressed by it. On the day of Swamiji’s lecture, however, the same announcement appeared in the more widely read amusement column of the San Francisco Chronicle under the large, eye catching, and misspelled heading: _x000d_ SWAMI VIVIKANAWANDA. Added was the information that Swami Vivikanawanda was the Hindoo monk and that his lecture would begin at eight o’clock.

Swamiji had begun his work in San.Francisco as he had wanted: on his own, with a lecture of his own choosing and without obligation to anyone. Whether the admission to his first lecture had been fifty cents or free, whether his first audience had been large or small, was of little consequence compared to the establishment of his independence.

The people of Oakland were, on the whole, not too different from those in San Francisco; many of them were, in fact, San Franciscans who preferred to make their residence in the warmer, quieter, and more easy gong East Bay. But if they slept in Oakland and raised their children there, they visited the metropolis regularly for business, for shopping, for pleasure, for culture, for almost everything but church-going, commuting back and forth on commodious ferryboats, where, by gentlemen’s agreement, their individual seats, once chosen, were thereafter held inviolate. As a contemporary guidebook of the Bay Area admitted, Oakland and the smaller towns in its vicinity, such as Berkeley and Alameda, were "somewhat disrespectfully, though not inappropriately, called the `bedroom of San Francisco.’ " Oakland was also called a number of other names, less disrespectful but equally appropriate: the "City of Churches," the "City of Roses," the "City of Homes," and, because of its proximity to the University of California at Berkeley, the "Athens of the West." In later years the city became commercially ambitious and lost its residential character and charm, but in Swamiji’s time Oakland was content with churches, roses, homes, and a nearby temple of learning, which did indeed, as the guidebook said, give it "quite the air of a University town."

Compared to the great and renowned World’s Parliament of Religions, Oakland’s Congress was a lackluster affair, and, except for Swamiji’s participation, strictly local. Conceived by the Reverend B. Fay Mills and held under the auspices of the Young People’s Religious Union of the First Unitarian Church, it consisted of eight consecutive Sunday evening lectures, each delivered by a representative of a different religious outlook. Apart from the word denoting the speaker’s faith, the titles of all eight lectures were ready made and identical, namely, "The Claims of . . . on the Modern World." On the evenings of January 21 and 28 and of February 4 and 11, the claims of Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestant Orthodoxy, and Liberal Religion had been respectively set forth. The last mentioned claim, made by the Rev. Mr. Mills, had completed the first series. Undramatic as this Congress seems to have been, the interest it aroused in Oakland was intense. On the first two Sundays the church auditorium and the large hall adjoining it had been crowded to overflowing, and, to be sure, hundreds had been turned away. The two Protestant speakers had also drawn a crowd, particularly Mr. Mills, who was an orator of no small talent.

At the time of our story the Reverend Mr. Mills was occupying the pulpit of the First Unitarian Church only temporarily and was uncertain as to whether or not he would accept the position of permanent pastor. The congregation was imploring him to do so. "We all think a great deal of both he and Mrs. Mills," a leading member of the church was quoted in the San Francisco Examiner as having said, "and the church needs them badly. Indeed the church thought so much of Mr. Mills that a special meeting of the trustees was held to determine what arrangements in the way of salary and privileges could induce him to stay.

Mr. Mills, at the time in his early forties, was an intensely determined, extroverted man with an erect, slightly militant carriage, leonine blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. He had started out his ministerial career some twenty years earlier as a small-time Congregationalist pastor, going from village church to village church. In 1886, having discovered within himself an extraordinary talent for rousing people to religious fervor, he resigned a small pastorate in Rutland, Vermont, to devote himself to itinerant, interdenominational evan-gelism. He was phenomenally successful. For some ten years he energetically evangelized in town after town, including San Francisco and Oakland, delivering in the latter city fifty sermons in 1892. By 1893 he had become so well known that he was invited to speak before the august Parliament’of Religions. By this time his religious views had somewhat changed. Because of a "social vision," as he was later to explain, he had conceived of Christ as the Savior of the social organization rather than of individuals, and accordingly he had begun to lose faith in the evangelical approach. During the Parliament his views were to undergo an even more radical change. The B. Fay Mills who orated at that assembly in typical orthodox fashion ("Christ stands or falls in connection with His claim to be the Savior of the entire world") was shortly thereafter to undertake, as he said, "a study of the great books of all ages and nations, through which [study] the Bible ceased to be to me the exclusively inspired word of God.It would appear that Mr. Mills had not only orated at the Parliament but had listened-and he had listened in particular to a flaming young Hindu monk named Swami Vivekananda. "This man," he was later to say to Mrs. Hansbrough, "altered my life! He was also to say that after the Parliament of,Religions he and his wife had kept track of Swamiji’s work and had read his books as they were published. Although many years later Mr. Mills was to return to the itinerant evangelism of his youth, he made a definite break with that career in 1897 and established a People’s Church in Boston. Indeed so liberal had Mr. Mills become that one finds him speaking in June of 1899 before the Free Religious Association, which represented liberal Christianity at its most erudite and best and before which Swamiji had spoken once or twice during his first visit in America. "The Bible of today," Mr. Mills had said during this talk, "is a hindrance to the full development of life. . . " Shortly thereafter he came with his wife and three children to the Pacific Coast for a year’s vacation, and it was at this point that the First Unitarian Church of Oakland persuaded him to fill its then empty pulpit for a period of four months. With the close of February, 1900, the term would have run its course, but, as we have seen, the church could not bear to part with this handsome and dynamic preacher who packed the pews, wrung tears from the congregation, opened both its heart and its purse, and whose name was often in the newspapers as the target of an outraged orthodox ministry.

It was not, however, until two days later, when the Swami spoke in Oakland before the Congress of Religions that his presence in the area became widely known. The Reverend B. Fay Mills, then pastor of Oakland's First Unitarian Church and organizer of this local Congress of Religions, did not know of the Swami by hearsay only. Mr. Mills had himself spoken before the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893 ;and had there heard the Swami speak. He had been impressed; indeed, he was to say later to Mrs. Hansbrough of the Swami, "This man altered my life". Nor was he without the expectation that Swami Vivekananda would draw large crowds. He was not to be disappointed. The Congress of Religions, which was held during the months of January and February of 1900, and whose programme consisted of eight Sunday evening lectures, each delivered by a representative of a different religious point of view, created much interest among intellectual and religious circles.

The second series of the Congress of Religions, which dealt, as Mr. Mills put it, "with the ancient and modern forms of religion and their claims on the world," consisted, in order of their presentation, of the claims of Spiritualism, of Vedantism (or Hindooism), of Theosophy, and of Christian Science. All this unorthodoxy created a rumbling among the Oakland clergy. "Run after a pretentious healer . . . and call it `progress,’ " fumed one Reverend R..F.Coyle, a Presbyterian minister of some prominence. "Put a Hindoo in the pulpit in the name of progress. Call a `Congress of Religions’ and there will be a crowd at the church door an hour before the mockery begins. And through it all the novelty hunters flash and foam and the throne of God grows out of date." The Reverend B. Fay Mills was unperturbed. "I have always admired Dr. Coyle," said he, "because I believe he is an honest man and a good man. . . . When he says these Sunday night lectures are a farce, I refer him to our doors at 7:30 o’clock in the evening, when people are being turned away by the hundreds.

The following two articles that heralded Swamiji’s lecture in the Enquirer were unearthed many ‘years ago by a member of the Vedanta Society of Northern California and were subsequently reprinted in Prabaddha Bharata of March 1936. They have not, however, been reproduced elsewhere, and therefore should, I believe, be included here. The first appeared on February 23, the second the following day:

A DISTINGUISHED HINDOO._x000d_ Swami Vivekananda, Teacher of the Vedanta_x000d_ Philosophy, to Speak Here Sunday Night._x000d_ _x000d_ Swami Vivekananda, a distinguished Hindoo lecturer and teacher of the Vedanta philosophy, arrived in San Francisco last evening from Los Angeles. He expects to remain here several weeks teaching and lecturing, and will occupy the pulpit of the First Unitarian church next Sunday evening in the parliament of religions which is being held there. He represents the order of Sanyasino, a traveling priesthood, which inculcates its philosophy, after the Hindoo fashion, to learners wherever found, whether at the plow; the bench or in pilgrimage. The Swami is a man of profound learning in the line of psychology and the philosophy of eastern religions.

In time the uproar subsided. Indeed the ineffectiveness of the attempts to discredit Swamiji in the United States can best be judged by the subsequent action of Mr. Mills. When at the beginning of 1900 he had invited the great and famous Hindu monk to speak at the Unitarian church in Oakland he had done so with the certain knowledge that even in this staid and orthodox "City of Churches," throngs would flock to hear him-not once but as often as he would speak. Having no doubt of this, he now invited Swamiji to deliver a second free lecture at the church and, further, a series of three pay lectures in Wendte Hall.

The Swami was invited to give a second lecture at Oakland's First Unitarian Church on the evening of February 28. Entitled "Vedanta and Christianity", it drew as large and enthusiastic a crowd as had the first.

Swamiji’s ringing, musical voice that filled both the audi¬torium of the Unitarian church and Wendte Hall deeply atirred those who heard it. While the available notes and reports of his two lectures give us some idea of what he had said, they leave much to the imagination. It is only through the reminiscences of those who actually heard his words rolling out with the living, concentrated force of his personality behind them that we can derive some idea of how they impressed his audience. One such reminiscence comes to us from Thomas Allan, a tall and stalwart young Scotsman who was among the listeners at the Unitarian church on Wednesday evening, February 28. Thirty-five years later, on the occasion of Swami¬ji’s birthday, which was being celebrated in the temple of the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, Mr. Allan, then president of the Society, recounted his memories of the great Swami. Happily, he did not speak extemporaneously but had prepared a manuscript of eight large pages, which is now preserved in the archives of the Society; thus his impressions come to us firsthand. After a short introduction Mr. Allan wrote:

Having heard of Swami Vivekananda and what a wonderful man he was and what a stir he made at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, also having read his book Raja Yoga, it was with great joy that I learned of his coming from Los Angeles to this section of the State. He came to San Francisco in February, 1900, and his first (actually his second] public lecture in Oakland was given on 28th February, 1900, in the Unitarian Church, Oakland, of which Church the Reverend Benjamin Fay Mills was the Pastor. The subject of this lecture was "Similarity between the Vedanta Philosophy and Chris¬tianity." He told us always to look for similarities, for common points of interest, and never to look for differences. I was at that lecture, and the impression he made on me was, "Here is a man who knows what he is talking about. He is not repeating what some other person told him. He is not relating what he thinks, he is telling what he knows." Going home from the lecture I was walking on air. When I got home I was still acting like a crazy man. When I was asked what sort of a man he was, I replied, "He is not a man, he is a god." I can never forget the impression he produced on me. To me he was a wonder, and I followed him to any of the Bay cities where he spoke.

There were no doubt hundreds among the thousands who heard the Swami speak in Oakland who had ears to hear that they were listening to no ordinary lecturer. The reaction of one such listener is on record. Returning home from the Swami's lecture of February 28, Mr. Thomas Allan declared to his startled wife that he had just heard "not a man, but a God!" and he became thenceforth an ardent Vedantin.

"Edith [Mr. Allan’s wife] asked him to tell her what he had said that impressed him so much, and the two most startling ideas were these: Good and evil are the obverse and reverse of the same coin; and you cannot have one without the other. We had been taught in the Home of Truth that all is good and there is no evil. The other idea that deeply impressed him was that a cow cannot tell a lie and a man can, but the cow will always be a cow, while a man can become divine.

Mr. Allan, of whom more later, became a dedicated Vedan¬tin, remaining so until his death at the age of eighty-nine in 1953. It is true, of course, that not all who heard Swamiji embraced the Vedanta philosophy then and there; but it is safe to say that very few ever forgot him.

There was, for instance, a young man by the name of George A. Applegarth, who in 1900 sang in the choir of the Unitarian church and heard a. number of Swamiji’s lectures. Nearly sixty years later, Mr. Applegarth’s son called upon the Vedanta Society in San Francisco, seeking information about the philosophy. His father, he said, had often mentioned having heard Swami Vivekananda in Oakland. A few years thereafter (1962), a member of the Vedanta Society sought out the senior Mr. Applegarth to ask for his memories. During the course of the interview Mr. Applegarth, then eighty-four, recalled the impression the Swami had made upon his listeners so many years before:

He was so outstanding in the portrayal of his religion that none of the other speakers could compare with him. They would have made a very poor showing if they had been called upon to speak after the Swami. . . . The other addresses had all been more or less complex and obscure. The Swami, on the other hand, presented a philosophy that was so simple and was presented from such a beautiful viewpoint that people were eager to hear more. He had a remarkable command of English and his lectures were full of colorful metaphors. . . . I was present after some of the lectures when others spoke to him. He was very approachable. He would be surrounded by many people who wanted to speak to him, so we younger people did not get very close to him. . . . But on one occasion he spoke in the Sunday School area [Wendte Hall] to the younger people…. I talked to many of the people who had attended his lectures. All were deeply impressed by the simplicity of his philosophy and by the richness and beauty of his English.. . . I remember that one of the subjects on which he lectured was "Concentration." He told us how the Hindus were trained in the practice of concentrating their minds.

In the twilight of Thursday, February 22, 1900, Swami Vivekananda, after traveling a night and a day from Los Angeles, alighted from a Southern Pacific train at the Oakland mole. Mrs. Hansbrough, who had come north a week earlier, was there to meet him, and together they boarded a waiting ferryboat for the twenty minute trip across the Bay. As the boat neared the western shore, Swamiji, surely standing awhile in the salty wind of the deck, looked for the first time upon the massed hills of San Francisco that rose, sprinkled now with lights, behind the tall, gray stone tower of the new Ferry Building. Arriving at the wharf, the ferry, backing water, bumped and creaked against the piles of its slip, sea gulls rose protesting into the air, and with a rattle and clank of chains a wooden ramp was lowered onto the boat’s wide bow. Swamiji and Mrs. Hansbrough disembarked, passed with the tramping crowd through the Ferry Building, and emerged into bedlam. Streetcars, both cable- and horse-drawn, hotel buses, and hackney cabs jammed the Embarcadero at the foot of Market Street; and shouting newsboys, peddlers, agents, cabbies, and redcaps swarmed arnund the new arrivals, each demanding full attention. Mrs. Hansbrough no doubt fended off this clamorous assault, helped Swamiji claim his luggage, and chose a cab that would take them quickly, the horse clopping over cobbled streets, into the quiet depths of the darkening city. Their destination was the Home of Truth, housed on Pine Street between Hyde and Leavenworth, on the lower south¬west slope of Nob Hill. There Mrs. Hansbrough had arranged for Swamiji to stay, and there dinner now awaited him.

However, until — as though to emphasize the need to carry his ministry to the north — a letter arrived from the Reverend Benjamin Fay Mills, inviting him to speak on February 25 before the Congress of Religions that was to be held at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland, a city across the Bay from San Francisco. The Swami accepted Mr. Mill's invitation, deciding, as well, to work independently in San Francisco.

Golden Gate Hall, the home of Golden Gate Commandery No. 16 of the Knights Templars, an order of Freemasonry, was a brick building that stood on the south side of Sutter Street between Taylor and Mason. As is the case with every San Francisco building in which Swamiji lectured, it was destroyed by the 1906 Earthquake and Fire; vanished, too, as far as can be ascertained, are photographs of anything but its hapless ruins. But to judge from pictures of a heap of bricks and a partly standing wall, the building had been a handsome one, with arched windows and doorway. Old accounts state that the Temple, built in 1891, had "a frontage of 72 feet, a depth of 138 feet, and an ample armory banquet hall and amphitheater which was used for lodge work and other func¬tions. Although no records of the seating capacity of the amphitheater seem to exist, one may guess that it was medium¬sized. One may also guess that the speaker’s platform was not equipped with a separate entrance; for Swamiji, waiting on Friday evening, February 23, to approach the lectern, sat in the front row of the hall.

Shortly before eight o’clock Mrs. Hansbrough joined him, and together they silently conversed. By a sign he asked her how many people she thought had come. "One hundred and fifty," she whispered. But in the palm of his hand he wrote, "He did not say anything," Mrs. Hansbrough related, "but he seemed disappointed." Yet, a hundred people was not a small gathering for a lecture that had not been announced in large, conspicuous type until the day of its occurrence and for which there was a charge of fifty cents per seat.

If anyone introduced Swamiji to his first San Franciscan audience there is no available record of who it was. It is possible that when the time to lecture came he simply ascended the platform, stood for a while looking into the faces of those who had come to hear him, and then entered into his subject, carrying his audience with him, transporting them almost at once, as a listener at one of his San Francisco lectures was to write, "into a sea of being, of feelings of a higher existence.

Swamiji spoke for at least an hour and a half (one listener said "over two hours") on "The Ideal of a Universal Religion." During that time he must have given many of the ideas contained in his published lectures of a similar title.

His first lecture, delivered on the evening of February 23 at San Francisco's Golden Gate Hall, was entitled "The Ideal of a Universal Religion".

The San Fancisco Examiner’s report read as follows:_x000d_ VIVEKANANDA, the Hindu Monk._x000d_ _x000d_ Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu Monk, was a dazzling _x000d_ figure last night as he stepped on the platform of Golden _x000d_ Gate Hall gowned in crushed strawberry silk, with a turban _x000d_ of the same hue: He held his audience in rapt attention for _x000d_ over two hours while he discoursed on "The Ideal _x000d_ of a Universal Religion."_x000d_ _x000d_ Mr. Vivekananda said that the great contrasts in the nature _x000d_ of man were effected by peace and war. Peace aroused _x000d_ the angel in him; war the devil. Peace was the promoter _x000d_ of hospital and institutional work; war the demon that let _x000d_ loose the sword, smote the heart of the wife and _x000d_ made fatherless her infant children.

The San Francisco Chronicle did better:_x000d_ _x000d_ HINDOO MONK LECTURES _x000d_ Swami Vivekananda’s Topic Is "The Idea of_x000d_ Universal Religion"._x000d_ _x000d_ At Golden Gate Hall last evening Swami Vivekananda, a Hindoo monk, entertained an audience for an hour and a half with his lecture on "The Idea of Universal Religion." Swami Vivekananda is an interesting speaker. He first visited America in 1893, and was afterward the representative of the Hindoo religion at the World’s Congress of Religions held in Chicago._x000d_ Tracing religion from the commencement of history he spoke of the existence of creeds. Sects were known from the earliest time, he said. As time rolled on there began various contests for a supremacy between the various sects. History, he declared, was a mere repetition of slaughter under the guise of religion. Superstition, he thought, was fast becoming a thing of the past through the expansion of the minds of men. They had more liberality of thought now. They were deeper students of philosophy and through the principles of true philosophy only could religion in its deepest form be found. Until men could accord to others the right of free belief on all subjects, and be willing to believe truth under whatever form it might appear, no universal religion would be manifest to the world, he declared. It would never be promulgated by any society, but would grow instinctively as the intellect of man developed.

A MAN OF MARK_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda, A Remarkable Oriental_x000d_ An Eloquent Expounder of the Faith of Brahminism_x000d_ When the Congress of Religions was held in Chicago in connection with the World’s Fair in 1893 several remarkable men from the Orient appeared, including H. Dharmapala of Ceylon, Rev. Zitsuza Ashitzu, Nara¬sima Charia, and Professor C. N. Chakravarti. But the most remarkable exemplar of orientalism was the Swami Vivekananda, a Hindoo who stands for the Brahmin religion, or Vedantism as he prefers to call it._x000d_ Those who heard Vivekananda at Chicago have been enthusiastic in praise of his power as an orator. He is a large, fine looking man who has an excellent command of English and is a master of elocutionary effects. After the Chicago parliament Vivekananda lectured to thronged houses in the large cities of this country and then returned to India, where he was received with extraordinary honours. It seems the simple-minded people of India had heard of Vivekananda’s success in America and had exaggerated it so much that they believed he had con¬verted the whole American Continent and in particular had rescued the United States from the errors of Chris¬tianity, as they considered them._x000d_ So when he reappeared among his friends they hailed him as the deliverer of the Western world, and being wrought up with excess of enthusiasm they took Vivek¬ananda in their arms and it is said that he was passed from village to village and city to city until he had been trans-ported seventeen miles without his feet having once touched the ground._x000d_ Vivekananda is now in the United States a second time for a tour of some of the large cities. Swami means monk of the order of Sannyasins. Viveka means "discrimination" and ananda means "bliss". The Swami comes to Oakland tomorrow to deliver his address at the local congress of religions in the evening at the Unitarian Church but Rev. B. F. Mills hopes to arrange with him to deliver a course of lectures here._x000d_ The Swami claims to belong to "the most ancient order of monks in the world" and his faith he characterizes as "the mother of religion". Vedantism is the religion of the Vedas, or the ancient Hindoo books. In one of his Chicago addresses Vivekananda said: [There follow four paragraphs of quotations from Swamiji’s paper on Hinduism delivered before the Parliament of Religions.]

INDIAN IN OAKLAND PULPIT_x000d_ The Serami Vive Kananda, who is to lecture on the ancient Brahman religion of India at the Unitarian church on Sunday evening, is one of the noted philosophers and orators of the world. He first came to America to represent Hindoostan in the World’s Parliament of Religions. It is not too much to say that he there produced the most powerful impression of any of the delegates. After the Parliament, he lectured to thronged houses in large cities, and then returned to India, where he was received with honors said to be greater than any paid to a religious teacher since the time of Buddha. He has now returned to America for a tour of some of our cities._x000d_ Serami means monk of the order of Sanyasin. Viveka means discrimination and ananda means bliss._x000d_ The Serami comes to Oakland to deliver this address at the Congress of Religions, but Mr. Mills is in hopes that arrangements may be made for him to deliver a course of lectures in this city.

That people were being turned away by the hundreds from the second series of the Congress of Religions was true at least of Swamiji’s lecture on "The Claims of Vedantism ", which took place on the evening of February 25. As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, Swami Vivekananda’s name was well known on the Pacific Coast. All that was required to draw crowds to his lecture were informative and conspicuous announcements, and in this regard the leading Oakland papers-the Enquirer and the Tribune-had not been remiss.

On the evening of Sunday, February 25, the folding doors were opened wide. Both the main auditorium and Wendte Hall, whose combined capacity was 2,000, were jammed to overflowing, and a crowd of five hundred unfortunate men and women had been turned away for lack of room. The audience was restless in anticipation. _x000d_ For one reason or another (perhaps he missed the proper ferry from San Francisco, which, after seven o’clock in the evening, ran on a half hour schedule) Swamiji did not arrive at the church when the newspapers had said he would. The musical program had run its course, and Mr. Mills had made his introductory remarks. Still no Swami Vivekananda.

It should be mentioned here that in the early editions of the Life it is said: "In a lecture before the gathering, the Rev. Dr. Mills speaking on `The Hindu Way of Salvation,’ introduced the Swami in terms of highest praise, describing him as `a man of gigantic intellect, indeed, one to whom our greatest university professors were as mere children.’ Actually, Mr. Mills gave this lecture in San Francisco more than two years later (on April 20, 1902) before the Unity Club, a society he had then just organized. His introduction of Swamiji at the Unitarian Church in 1900 is not, to my knowledge, on record. It was perhaps short; for in the absence of its subject, Mr. Mills resorted to telling stories.

Then at last there was a sudden stir, a sense of excitement. Swamiji in his robe and turban entered from the street and with superb, unselfconscious majesty and grace strode down the right aisle and ascended the steps to the pulpit.

All the lectures were well attended. But on the evening of Sunday, February 25, when Swami Vivekananda was scheduled to speak on "The Claims of Hinduism on the Modern World", an unprecedented crowd poured into the Unitarian Church. The large auditorium and its adjoining hall were filled, and hundreds were turned away for lack of room. In the audience were many prominent California clergymen who later had the opportunity to meet him and to exchange ideas with him. Two years later, lecturing in San Francisco on "The Hindu Way of Salvation", Mr. Mills spoke of the Swami in terms of highest praise, describing him as "a man of gigantic intellect, indeed, one to whom our greatest university professors were as mere children."

The announcement that Swami Vivekananda, a distinguished savant of the East, would expound the philosophy of Vedanta in the Parliament of Religions at the Unitarian Church last evening, attracted an immense throng. The main auditorium and ante-rooms were packed, the annexed auditorium of Wendte Hall was thrown open, and this was also filled to overflowing, and it is estimated that fully 500 persons, who could not obtain seats or standing room where they could hear conveniently, were turned away. _x000d_ The Swami created a marked impression. Frequently he received applause during the lecture, and upon concluding, held a levee of enthusiastic admirers. He said in part, under the subject of "The Claims of Vedanta on the Modern World":_x000d_ Vedanta demands the consideration of the modern world. The largest number of the human race is under its influence. Again and again, millions upon millions have swept down on its adherents in India, crushing them with their great force, and yet the religion lives. _x000d_ In all the nations of the world, can such a system be found? Others have risen to come under its shadow. Born like mushrooms, today they are alive and flourishing, and tomorrow they are gone. Is this not the survival of the fittest? _x000d_ It is a system not yet complete. It has been growing for thousands of years and is still growing. So I can give you but an idea of all I would say in one brief hour. _x000d_ First, to tell you of the history of the rise of Vedanta. When it arose, India had already perfected a religion. Its crystallisation had been going on many years. Already there were elaborate ceremonies; already there had been perfected a system of morals for the different stages of life. But there came a rebellion against the mummeries and mockeries that enter into many religions in time, and great men came forth to proclaim through the Vedas the true religion. Hindus received their religion from the revelation of these Vedas. They were told that the Vedas were without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience--how a book can be without beginning or end; but by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. _x000d_ Before these men came, the popular ideas of a God ruling the universe, and that man was immortal, were in existence. But there they stopped. It was thought that nothing more could be known. Here came the daring of the expounders of Vedanta. They knew that religion meant for children is not good for thinking men; that there is something more to man and God._x000d_ The moral agnostic knows only the external dead nature. From that he would form the law of the universe. He might as well cut off my nose and claim to form an idea of my whole body, as argue thus. He must look within. The stars that sweep through the heavens, even the universe is but a drop in the bucket. Your agnostic sees not the greatest, and he is frightened at the universe. _x000d_ The world of spirit is greater than all--the God of the universe who rules--our Father, our Mother. What is this heathen mummery we call the world? There is misery everywhere. The child is born with a cry upon its lips; it is its first utterance. This child becomes a man, and so well used to misery that the pang of the heart is hidden by a smile on the lips._x000d_ Where is the solution of this world? Those who look outside will never find it; they must turn their eyes inward and find truth. Religion lives inside. _x000d_ One man preaches, if you chop your head off, you get salvation. But does he get any one to follow him? Your own Jesus says, "Give all to the poor and follow me." How many of you have done this? You have not followed out this command, and yet Jesus was the great teacher of your religion. Every one of you is practical in his own life, and you find this would be impracticable. _x000d_ But Vedanta offers you nothing that is impracticable. Every science must have its own matter to work upon. Everyone needs certain conditions and much of training and learning; but any Jack in the street can tell you all about religion. You may want to follow religion and follow an expert, but you may only care to converse with Jack, for he can talk it._x000d_ You must do with religion as with science, come in direct contact with facts, and on that foundation build a marvellous structure. _x000d_ To have a true religion you must have instruments. Belief is not in question; of faith you can make nothing, for you can believe anything. _x000d_ We know that in science as we increase the velocity, the mass decreases; and as we increase the mass, the velocity decreases. Thus we have matter and force. The matter, we do not know how, disappears into force, and force into matter. Therefore there is something which is neither force nor matter, as these two may not disappear into each other. This is what we call mind--the universal mind._x000d_ Your body and my body are separate, you say. I am but a little whirlpool in the universal ocean of mankind. A whirlpool, it is true, but a part of the great ocean. _x000d_ You stand by moving water where every particle is changing, and yet you call it a stream. The water is changing, it is true, but the banks remain the same. The mind is not changing, but the body--how quick its growth! I was a baby, a boy, a man, and soon I will be an old man, stooped and aged. The body is changing, and you say, is the mind not changing also? When I was a child, I was thinking, I have become larger, because my mind is a sea of impressions. _x000d_ There is behind nature a universal mind. The spirit is simply a unit and it is not matter. For man is a spirit. The question, "Where does the soul go after death?" should be answered like the boy when he asked, "Why does not the earth fall down?" The questions are alike, and their solutions alike; for where could the soul go to?_x000d_ To you who talk of immortality I would ask when you go home to endeavour to imagine you are dead. Stand by and touch your dead body. You cannot, for you cannot get out of yourself. The question is not concerning immortality, but as to whether Jack will meet his Jenny after death. _x000d_ The one great secret of religion is to know for yourself that you are a spirit. Do not cry out, "I am a worm, I am nobody!" As the poet says, "I am Existence, Knowledge, and Truth." No man can do any good in the world by crying out, "I am one of its evils." The more perfect, the less imperfections you see.

and on Sunday evening, February 25, a little late to be of service to the San Francisco public, the San Francisco Butletin printed a short but well-headed notice in its Oakland Church News._x000d_ Swami Kananda to Speak to the Unitarians. _x000d_ Will Discuss the Doctrines of the Modern_x000d_ Brahmin Religion._x000d_ Oakland, Feb. 24. -At the First Unitarian Church tomorrow evening Swami Vive Kananda, the noted Hindoo monk, will speak on "The Claims of Hindooism on the Modern World." He is said to be a most eloquent speaker and is the most prominent divine in the Orient. The musical programme will consist of a soprano solo by Miss Eva Shorey, a violin solo by Mrs. Frank A. Wasley (the latter a Hindoo song) and the usual organ numbers by Mr. Frank Katzenbach.

At the turn of the century, the First Unitarian Church, established in 1877, was the church of Oakland’s many churches -the one, that is, to which the more intellectually inclined people of the upper and middle classes belonged and to which they went of a Sunday morning. The building itself, then ten years old, stood (and still stands) near the center of town on the corner of Fourteenth and Castro Streets. It was a graceful, gable-roofed, gray stone and red brick structure built around three sides of a courtyard, the fourth side of which opened on Fourteenth Street. The right wing, now ivy-grown, housed the bell tower and the main auditorium, the left wing the church office. Connecting the two wings was Wendte Hall, which was used primarily for Sunday School, social functions, dramas, and such lectures as were not, strictly speaking, sermons. It was used also on occasion to accommodate an overflow crowd. Wendte Hall and the church auditorium adjoined one another at right angles; thus when the wide folding doors between them were opened, the pulpit, which in those days stood squarely in the center of the chancel, served both halls.

But let us see him through the eyes of one who was present; for we are lucky enough to have in the archives of the Vedanta Society of Northern California a brief description of the occasion written many years afterward by Miss Sarah Fox as an introduction to her memoirs.

Miss Fox, who from 1900 forward was to enter heart and soul into the study and practice of Vedanta, visited India in 1922, where, together with her sister Rebecca, she remained for four years, keeping in close contact with the monks of the Ramakrishna Order. Returning to Oakland in 1926, she lived, while teaching school and attending to household duties, a deeply meditative, God-centered life. The Hindu swamis of the Vedanta Society who sometimes visited her small, humble home in Oakland found its atmosphere like that of an Indian monastery, and they found Miss Fox herself far along on the spiritual path. Her memories of Swamiji’s appearance at the Unitarian church are perhaps of special value, for not only was his impact upon her life manifestly profound, but through her eyes one somehow sees him as he was-not as a man possessed of tremendous power, but as a living power embodied in human form.

According to her memoirs, Miss Fox, then a resident of Berkeley, first heard of Swami from Mr. Paul Militz, who had married Annie Rix, the founder of the West Coast Homes of Truth, around 1893 and who was now the leader of a small religious group in Oakland to which Miss Fox and her sister belonged. Mr. Militz, who had seen Swamiji in New York and had no doubt attended some of his classes and lectures, spoke highly of him, and the Fox sisters were deeply impressed. "When the news was published shortly afterwards that the eat Swami was going to lecture in Oakland," Miss Fox called, "we were bound and determined to hear him." Her memoirs continue:_x000d_ The lecture was scheduled for eight o’clock on a Sunday night in the spring of 1900, at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland. Everyone was on time except the Swami, and the minister was entertaining the congregation with stories to keep them from going away. In the middle of these tales we all became aware that the Swami had arrived. He entered the Church auditorium from the street entrance and without any ado walked down the aisle nearest the wall to the front of the church in long, slow, measured steps. This wonderful man, clad in an ochre robe and wearing a turban, looked as if he feared nothing and cared for nothing. He seemed like an immense wave going along; his back was straight as a rod, yet his entire bearing was a perfect blending of dignity and grace. He reached the pulpit and stood there for a long time just looking out over the congregation. Then after what seemed like an hour, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen . . . " We were seated too far away to see his face closely, but how we enjoyed his discourse! He did not seem old, as indeed he was not, but tremendously wise and experienced._x000d_ "After the lecture was over," Miss Fox went on, "the Swami invited questions, and the one which I remember was particularly foolish. An unlucky woman asked, `Is it true, Swami? I have heard that you throw new-born babies into the Ganges.’ The Swami replied, `Madam, we have heard that at Thanks¬giving you serve new-born babies!"‘ ._x000d_ (Swamiji seems never to have run out of answers to this question, which pursued him from one end of the United States to the other. In Los Angeles he had replied, "Yes, madam; but I was one who escaped." Or, when the question applied to girl babies only: "Yes, madam, and now-a-days all the babies are born of men."14 And in Detroit in 1894 when he was asked why only female children were given to the croco¬diles, he had answered, "Probably because they are softer and more tender and can be more easily masticated."15 Or again in Detroit, "I was such a fat little baby the crocodiles refused to swallow me. Whenever I feel badly about being such a fat monk, I think of how I was saved from the crocodiles and am comforted."16 And in Minneapolis, "Yes, madam, they threw me in, but like your fabled Jonah, I got out again."17 Thus he ridiculed stupidity until it hid its head in shame-literally. In Los Angeles, Mrs. Hansbrough related, he once made the question sound so inane that the friend who had asked it hid behind her chair. "I don’t blame you," Swamiji had said, "I would hide, too, if I had asked such a question!")*_x000d_ _x000d_ * Swamiji’s tone was not always scathing when he replied to crocodile questions. Sometimes, when the questioner meant no offense or seemed vulnerable and sad, he would hold his fire. Touring the Midwest more or less in his footsteps, Nivedita once came upon a woman who admitted that in Minneapolis she had asked Swamiji about babies and crocodiles. "She is a poor, sorrowful soul," Nivedita wrote to Miss Mac¬leod, "and he seems to have answered her very gently" (Letters of Sister .Nivedita, I : 30¢-305).

All that is known of Swamiji’s Oakland lecture itself comes to us from three newspaper accounts, one of which appeared in the Oakland Times of February 26. It read in part:_x000d_ _x000d_ AN APOSTLE OF VEDANTISM _x000d_ HINDOO PRIEST ELOQUENTLY TELLS OF MAN_x000d_ AND SPIRIT_x000d_ _x000d_ Immense Throng Gathered in Unitarian church _x000d_ to Listen to his Discourse_x000d_ _x000d_ Before a large audience, such as the Unitarian church has never seen before, the doctrine of Vedantism was expounded last evening by the famous exponent of that religion, Swami Vivekananda. Many people went to the church before 6 o’clock and waited over an hour for the doors to open. It was estimated that at least 500 were turned away for want of standing room._x000d_ The Swami created a marked impression. Frequently he received applause during the lecture, and upon concluding held a levee of enthusiastic admirers. He said in part, under the subject of "The Claims of Vedantism on the Modern World:" . . .

The remainder of this article, which filled a column and a half, was the same as that in the Oakland Enqairer. The Ersqnires’s article was reprinted in Prabuddha Bhasata of March 1936 and subsequently in volume eight of the Complete Works. In type big and black its headings read:_x000d_ _x000d_ THE PHILOSOPHY OF VEDANTISM_x000d_ As Expounded by Swami Vivekananda Last Evening._x000d_ A Vast Throng Attended His Address at the Unitarian Church._x000d_ Will Speak Again Wednesday Evening at Wendte Hall on _x000d_ Vedantism and Christianity.

The article that followed was, like most newspaper reports of Swamiji’s lectures, an unsatisfactory and disjointed sort of thing. Yet, one can gather from it the gist of what he said. Its theme was that wonderful one which he had literally poured into the minds of whomever he had spoken to in the West, from the Parliament of Religions to these last days of his work, when ~e so strongly emphasized it: "The one great secret of religion is to know for yourself that you are Spirit. Do not cry out, `I am a worm, I am nobody!’ As the poet says, `I am Existence, Knowledge and Truth.’ No man can do any good in the world by crying out, `I am one of its evils.’ The more perfect you are, the less imperfection you see.

There is no need to quote long passages from the Enquirer article, for the reader can find the full text in the Complete Works. The report published in the Oakland Tribune of February 26, however, has not been reprinted and can be quoted here in full, for though it is in part repetitious of the Enquirer, it adds somewhat to our knowledge. (The Tribune article was repeated in its entirety in the San Francisco Call of the same date, and the following headings, which varied from those of the Tribune, are taken from the Call.)

VEDANTISM, AND _x000d_ WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT _x000d_ Lecture of Swami Vivekananda on the _x000d_ Religion of the Hindoos._x000d_ It is the Only Creed, He Says, that Can Be Taught _x000d_ Without Lies and Without Compromise._x000d_ The claims of the Brahmin religion, or Vedantism, on the modern world were presented to-night at the Congress of Religions in the First Unitarian Church by Swami Vivekananda, a remarkably eloquent expounder of that faith. His lecture proved one of the most instructive of the series given before the Congress, and decidedly the most novel._x000d_ Vivekananda is a Hindoo, and after attending the Con¬gress of Religions in Chicago during the World’s Fair, he lectured to thronged houses in many of our largest cities. When he returned to his people in India they hailed him as a deliverer of the Western world. They were wrought up with excessive enthusiasm, and fairly carried him in their arms from city to city. This is his second tour in this country._x000d_ To his auditors to-night he explained Vedantism as the religion of the Vedas, or ancient Hindoo books, which, he asserted, is "the mother of religion."_x000d_ "It may seem ridiculous how a book can be without beginning or end," he said, "but by the Vedas no books are meant. They signify the accumulated treasury. Of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. The Hindoo believes he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce, him the fire cannot burn, him the water cannot melt, him the air cannot dry. He believes every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose center is located in a body. Death means the change of this center from body to body. We are the children of God. Matter is our servant._x000d_ "Vedantism is a sort of rebellion against the mockery of the past. Some men are so practical that if they know that by chopping off their heads they could get salvation, there are many who would do so. That is all outward; you must turn your eyes inward to learn what is in your soul. Soul is spirit omnipresent. Where does the soul go after death? Where could the earth fall to? Where can the soul go? Where is it not already? The great cornerstone of Vedan¬tism is the recognition of Self. Man, have faith in yourself. The soul is the same in every one. It is all purity and perfection and the more pure and perfect we [you] are the more purity and perfection you will see. _x000d_ "A man or preaching jack who cries, `Oh Lord, I’m only a crawling worm!’ should be still and crawl into his hole. His cries only add more misery to the world. I was amused to read in one of your papers, `How would Christ edit a paper?’ How foolish. How would Christ cook a meal? Yet you are the advanced people of the West. If Christ came here, you would shut up shop and go into the street with him to help the poor and downtrodden. Vedantism is the only religion that can be taught without lies, without stretching the texts, without compromise."_x000d_ _x000d_ It should perhaps be mentioned that the fourth paragraph of the above article appears to be a condensation of the quota¬tions in the Enquirer article of February 24, which quotations were, in turn, taken from Swamiji’s address at the Parliament of Religions. Whether the Tribune took a part of its copy from the Enquirer’s article, or whether Swamiji repeated almost word for word what he had said six and a half years earlier, it is hard to say. It is clear, however, that the Tribune’s somewhat sly reference to Swamiji’s reception in India as "a deliverer of the Western world" was taken from the Enquirer’s earlier remark regarding "the simple-minded people of India [who] believed he had converted the whole American Continent." Behind this allusion lay a tale.

Between all great religions of the world there are many points of similarity; and so startling is this likeness, at times, as to suggest the idea that in many particulars the different religions have copied from one another._x000d_ This act of imitation has been laid at the door of different religions; but that it is a superficial charge is evident from the following facts:_x000d_ Religion is fundamental in the very soul of humanity; and as all life is the evolution of that which is within, it, of necessity, expresses itself through various peoples and nations._x000d_ The language of the soul is one, the languages of nations are many; their customs and methods of life are widely different. Religion is of the soul and finds expression through various nations, languages, and customs. Hence it follows that the difference between the religions of the world is one of expression and not of substance; and their points of similarity and unity are of the soul, are intrinsic, as the language of the soul is one, in whatever peoples and under whatever circumstances it manifests itself. The same sweet harmony is vibrant there also, as it is on many and diverse instruments._x000d_ The first thing in common in all great religions of the world is the possession of an authentic book. When religious systems have failed to have such a book, they have become extinct. Such was the fact of the religions of Egypt. The authentic book is the hearthstone, so to speak, of each great religious system, around which its adherents gather, and from which radiates the energy and life of the system._x000d_ Each religion, again, lays the claim that its particular book is the only authentic word of God; that all other sacred books are false and are impositions upon poor human credulity; and that to follow another religion is to be ignorant and spiritually blind._x000d_ Such bigotry is characteristic of the orthodox element of all religions. For instance, the orthodox followers of the Vedas claim that the Vedas are the only authentic word of God in the world; that God has spoken to the world only through the Vedas; not only that, but that the world itself exists by virtue of the Vedas. Before the world was, the Vedas were. Everything in the world exists because it is in the Vedas. A cow exists because the name cow is in the Vedas; that is, because the animal we know as cow is mentioned in the Vedas. The language of the Vedas is the original language of God, all other languages are mere dialects and not of God. Every word and syllable in the Vedas must be pronounced correctly, each sound must be given its true vibration, and every departure from this rigid exactness is a terrible sin and unpardonable._x000d_ Thus, this kind of bigotry is predominant in the orthodox element of all religions. But this fighting over the letter is indulged in only by the ignorant, the spiritually blind. All who have actually attained any real religious nature never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the life of all religions is the same, and, consequently, they have no quarrel with anybody because he does not speak the same tongue._x000d_ The Vedas are, in fact, the oldest sacred books in the world. Nobody knows anything about the time when they were written or by whom. They are contained in many volumes, and I doubt that any one man ever read them all._x000d_ The religion of the Vedas is the religion of the Hindus, and the foundation of all Oriental religions; that is, all other Oriental religions are offshoots of the Vedas; all Eastern systems of religion have the Vedas as authority._x000d_ It is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough--that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous._x000d_ I have never seen the man who was not at least my equal. I have travelled all over the world; I have been among the very worst kind of people--among cannibals--and I have never seen the man who is not at least my equal. I have done as they do--when I was a fool. Then I did not know any better; now I do. Now they do not know any better; after a while they will. Every one acts according to his own nature. We are all in process of growth. From this standpoint one man is not better than another.

{original in Bengali}_x000d_ Dear Haribhai {Turiyananda},_x000d_ I am glad to hear that your leg is all right and that you are doing splendid work. My body is going on all right. The thing is, I fall ill when I take too much precaution. I am cooking, eating whatever comes, working day and night, and I am all right and sleeping soundly!_x000d_ I am going over to New York within a month. Has Sarada's magazine gone out of circulation? I am not getting it any longer. Awakened also has gone to sleep, I think. They are not sending it to me any more. Let that go. There is an outbreak of plague in our country; who knows who is alive and who is dead! Well, a letter from Achu has come today. He had hidden himself in the town of Ramgarh in Sikar State. Someone told him that Vivekananda was dead; so he has written to me! I am sending him a reply._x000d_ All well here. Hope this finds you and all others well._x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

San Francisco_x000d_ March, 1900_x000d_ {original in Bengali}_x000d_ Dear Haribhai {Turiyananda},_x000d_ I have just received a bill of lading from Mrs. Banerji. She has sent some Dal (pulses) and rice. I am sending the bill of lading to you. Give it to Miss Waldo; she will bring all these things when they come._x000d_ Next week I am leaving this place for Chicago; thence I go over to New York. I am getting on somehow. . . . Where are you putting up now? What are you doing?_x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

The flat occupied the full top floor of a three-storied house that stood on the southwest corner of Turk and Seymour streets. (Strictly speaking, Seymour was not a street; rather, it was a wide alley intersecting the block, which was bounded on the west by the cross-town street of Divisadero and on the east by that of Scott.) In 1900 this section of San Francisco-a part of the Western Addition-was not what people had in mind when they described the city as sparkling, lighthearted, and vibrant with charm. The Western Addition itself has been called "an exhibition of architectural lunacy." And indeed those of its frame houses that still stand today have an incredi¬bility about their ornate towers and turrets, their vestibules and porches and abundant gimcrackery that gives them a certain manic enchantment. But the neighborhood in which Swamiji’s flat was located was largely devoid even of this lunacy. It was without distinction: it was neither unduly ornate nor unduly plain; neither rich nor poor, neither fashion¬able nor shoddy. It was a neighborhood of two- and three¬family dwellings, of small houses, and of few gardens. It was far from the waterfront and far, as well, from the southern hills; and while it is true that Turk Street sloped upward here almost steeply, from east to west, the hill it climbed failed to command the wide view of the Bay that made San Francisco famous. Constructed in 1877, the building itself was flat¬roofed, bay-windowed, long, narrow, and ungainly; it was to any eye-one imagines-devoid of charm. Yet, it had redeeming points: being a corner building, it caught the morning sun full on its long eastern flank, and in front and partly along the side there was space for a small garden. A few shrubs and small but sturdy trees grew there in 1973, and though one cannot say for sure, perhaps such greenery grew there in 1900 too._x000d_ An impressive, pillared entrance on Seymour Street gave access to the ground floor, and on Turk Street, alongside the little garden plot, a long, precipitous flight of stairs ascended to the porticoed, twin-door entry to the second and third stories. Swamiji’s door was on the right. Entering it, one was at once confronted by another stairway, long and very narrow, which ascended straight and steep to the third floor. At the top, one found oneself in a hallway not much wider than the stairs. To the right the wall was solid, without doors or windows (the west side of the building abutted on another) ; to the left were four stained-oak doors, three that opened into rooms and one into a closet; straight ahead some ten feet was a window that looked out upon an air shaft. To reach the parlor, where Swamiji was to hold his classes, one had to backtrack beside the railed stairwell to the front of the building, an arrangement peculiar to many upper-story flats of the period._x000d_ The front room itself was large enough for comfort-say, sixteen by fourteen feet-and its wide bay window,’which faced north, overlooking Turk Street, gave it extra depth as well as extra light. A second window in the far corner faced east, allowing the morning sun to flood the room. Except for the "fancy mantels" promised in the Examiner, a divan and several chairs mentioned or implied in more than one reminiscence, and a register for heat that an interviewer noticed, one cannot say how the room was furnished. One can guess, however, that it was typical of the period and location-that the floor was laid with a patterned, perhaps flowered carpet, that the windows were draped and curtained, that the woodwork was dark and that the furniture, stolid and ugly in the mode of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was, like the neighbor-hood, neither elegant nor shabby. Again, one can guess-and one must guess, for records are not available-that the light fixtures had not yet been adapted to electricity and that at night the room, indeed the entire flat, was lit by gas._x000d_ The front parlor was separated from Swamiji’s bedroom (actually a second parlor) by sliding doors, which could be thrown open to accommodate a large class. (According to Mrs. Hansbrough, when the class overflowed into Swamiji’s room, a screen was placed around the couch he slept on, which information helps us to furnish this room with at least a screen, a couch-and several chairs.) It was slightly smaller than the front parlor, but like it, had a bay window, which faced east._x000d_ In addition to the two parlors, another room opened off the front hall. This was a small (nine by six feet) bedroom at the Turk Street end of the house, in which Mrs. Hansbrough slept and which, she supposed, had originally been meant for a servant._x000d_ These three rooms-the two parlors and small bedroom¬together with the hallway and a hall closet comprised the front half of the flat. The back half began at the air well. Here a narrow passageway jogged off to the left, ran for a few feet, made a right-angled turn and proceeded to the back of the house, giving access to the remaining rooms. On the right was the bathroom, on the left the dining room, and at the rear were the kitchen and Mrs. Aspinall’s room. This last was cornered between the dining room and the kitchen, without direct entry from the hall, and was best suited, one would imagine, for a breakfast room or den._x000d_ In regard to the bathroom, it was not so up-to-date as the newspaper advertisement, which boasted of a "porcelain bath," had made out. While the other fixtures of the bathroom may have been porcelain, the bathtub was not. Mrs. Hansbrough’s memory on this point was particularly vivid: "There was one item about the Turk Street flat which was distinctly different from our home in Pasadena," she related, "and which as I look back on it, had its amusing side. This was the bathtub-one of those old-fashioned things built of zinc. Procelain tubs were still not in use everywhere. I had to go over that tub carefully every day with a stone called a bath brick. Swamiji would ask me regularly if I had washed the tub. He was most particular and exacting about it; and as I recall it now, I think the goings¬ over I got about that tub were more for my benefit than the tub’s. Swamiji would go on at great length about it. One day I scrubbed it three times. After the third time, when he still complained that it was not clean, I said, `Well, Swami, I have scrubbed that tub three times, and if you can’t bathe in it now, I guess you will have to go without a bath!’ So he let it go and took his bath."_x000d_ Aside from the bathtub, the flat seems to have been ideal for Swamiji’s purpose. Not only did the two parlors open expan¬sively one onto the other, but an inner door connected the second parlor with the dining room, where he could hold informal morning interviews without stepping into the front hall._x000d_ The flat, moreover, was easily accessible from other parts of the city, and transportation, though sometimes roundabout, was not a problem. On Turk Street a cable car ran down to Market Street, with cross-town transfer points along the way; and on Eddy Street, a block north, another cable traveled back. Furthermore, the neighborhood, unlike that in which Swamiji had lived during his first season in New York, was as respectable as a cable car itself and one to which ladies would proceed unescorted and without a qualm-would, indeed, live in.

"Such an argument is foolish. I challenge any one to go and listen to the Swami and then show where there is anything in his teachings that is not for the good of humanity. It may be true that there are things in the religion as taught in India that are not desirable, but any one who heard the Swami will admit that his teachings regarding morality are good. It is well understood that the Unitarians do not endorse all that is said from our plat¬forms, but they have advanced ideas and are liberal enough to allow any one who has a good teaching and is honest in his belief to tell it from their platform."

Even in the civilized Christian community of Oakland the days when diatribes against Swamiji and India made good reading had long since passed. Indeed, attacks against Swamiji were now so palpably absurd that the orthodox ministers of the city engaged in attacking the Reverend B. Fay Mills rather than his famous guest speaker. "COYLE ROASTS B. FAY MILLS," the headlines blared. "PRESBY¬TERIAN ROUNDLY SCORES METHODS OF UNI¬TARIAN." "WOULDN’T TOLERATE REV. B. FAY MILLS: OBJECTED TO HIS SPEAKING IN CON-GREGATIONAL CHURCH." "LIBERALISM OF B. FAY MILLS EXCORIATED." And so on-much to the enter-tainment of the Oakland laity. Mr. Mills, never averse to a headline, was undisturbed; on the contrary, he preached his Liberalism with greater zeal and flourish than ever and ac¬cepted, on his own terms, the invitation to the Unitarian pulpit.

After airing both sides of the short-lived controversy over Swamiji, the Enquirer of March 2 went on in the same article to a report of his second lecture at the Unitarian church, which had taken place on the evening of Wednesday, Feb¬ruary 28, and which, predictably, had drawn as large and appreciative a crowd as had the first:_x000d_ _x000d_ THE SWAMI’S LECTURE_x000d_ "Some Points of Resemblance Between Vedantism_x000d_ and Christianity”_x000d_ Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu monk sojourning in California, delivered a lecture at the First Unitarian _x000d_ Church Wednesday on "Some Points of Resemblance Between Vedantism and Christianity."_x000d_ The speaker first discoursed upon comparative religions and showed that the semitic branch of the Caucasian family had contributed two great religions, Judaism and Mohammedanism, and that the Aryan branch had con¬tributed several others. [He said] that all of these had resemblances in common and that all such resemblances were not due to the fact that they were derived from some religion which had preceded or because there had been communication between those holding the different faiths, but because the principles of true religion were the same, man being an essentially religious animal._x000d_ He then went into particulars to show that the first resemblance between Christianity and Vedantism was that each had an authoritative book-the Bible in the case of the Christian and the Vedas in the case of the Hindu._x000d_ After discussing this first resemblance at considerable length he took up the second, which he said was the belief in a trinity. ._x000d_ ‘The next and a striking resemblance was that in each instance the second person of trinity descends to earth to redeem mankind. He then discussed the question of reincarnation, stating that whereas the Christian believed in but one incarnation, the Hindu believed in many.

In volume six of the Complete Works, under the heading "The Vedanta Philosophy and Christianity," one can find notes of this lecture, taken down by Franklin Sprague ("Frank") Rhodehamel, a young married man of Oakland, who almost from the start was one of Swamiji’s ardent followers. In many respects, Mr. Rhodehamel was a better listener than the Enquirer reporter, and while the reader can verify this for himself in the Complete Works, let me quote a little from the former’s notebook:*_x000d_ _x000d_ *Franklin S. Rhodehamel’s notebook has been recently rediscovered in the archives of the Vedanta Society of Northern California. It contains his notes of a number of Swamiji’s lectures in San Francisco, Oakland, and Alameda. Many of these notes have long since been published, without identification, in the Complete Works, primarily in volume six.

[The] act of imitation has been laid at the door of different religions [Swamiji said], but that it is a superficial charge is evident from the following facts:_x000d_ Religion is fundamental in the very soul of humanity; and as all life is the evolution of that which is within, it, of necessity, expresses itself through various peoples and nations._x000d_ The language of the soul is one, the languages of nations are many; their customs and methods of life are widely different. Religion is of the soul and finds expression through various nations, languages, and customs. Hence it follows that the difference between the religions of the world is one of expression and not of substance; and their points of similarity and unity are of the soul, are intrinsic, as the language of the soul is one in whatever peoples and under whatever circumstances it manifests itself-[it is] the same sweet harmony vibrant on many and diverse instruments. . . ._x000d_ . . . All who have actually attained any real religious nature never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the life of all religions is the same, and, consequently, they have no quarrel with anybody because he does not speak the same tongue. . . ._x000d_ … I have travelled all over the world; I have been among the very worst kind of people-among cannibals -and I have never seen the man who is not at least my equal. I have done as they do-when I was a fool. Then I did not know any better; now I do. Now they do not know any better; after a while they will. Everyone acts according to his own nature. We are all in process of growth. From this standpoint one man is no better than another.

As we have said before, Swamiji rarely neglected to impress these ideas, which held the very essence of his Master’s teachings, upon the people of every city he visited. "We do not only tolerate but accept every religion," he had written to a friend in January of 1894 "and with the Lord’s help I am trying to preach it to the whole world. Usually he gave these teachings at the outset of a lecture course. They were, in a sense, like the opening, annunciatory chords of some great orchestral work; they set the mood and the key, silenced the prejudices of the mind, brought its energies together and freed it, opened it, to receive the soaring themes that were to come. Or if, by chance, a receptive listener heard these ideas alone, he still would have heard enough to change his view of the religions of his fellow¬men and of his own religion as well.

In addition to Swamiji’s two lectures from the pulpit of the Unitarian church, he was to deliver in Wendte Hall two series of three lectures each. The first series, which began on the evening of Wednesday, March 7, was announced in the Enquirer of the same date with an article whose concise heading attested clearly to his quick renown in the city:

THE SWAMI_x000d_ He will begin this evening a course of three lectures. This evening at the First Unitarian Church the Swami Vivekananda of Calcutta, India, will deliver the first of a series of popular lectures, the general subject of which is The Most Ancient Religion. To-night the title of the lecture will be The Laws of Life and Death._x000d_ When the Swami first appeared in Oakland, in a free lecture, the church was crowded, and it was supposed that people’s curiosity would have been exhausted by this, but subsequently he delivered a second lecture and once more the church was crowded. The three lectures which he will deliver here to-night, tomorrow night and Monday will be pay lectures, but there is no doubt they will be very largely attended. The Swami is an unusually gifted man and considerable enthusiasm has been manifested at both of his previous appearances in Oakland.

Indeed, so great was the Swami's attraction in Oakland that in the month of March he delivered on popular demand two series of three paid lectures. Both series, which were given in Wendte Hall, a smaller auditorium of the same Unitarian Church, again drew large crowds. The first series consisted of three lectures dealing with the Vedanta philosophy, and were entitled: "The Laws of Life and Death", "The Reality and the Shadow", and "The Way to Salvation". These were given respectively on the evenings of March 7, 8, and 12.

The social column of the San Francisco Call informed its readers that "[Oakland] society is showing much interest in the coming series of popular lectures to be given by Swami Vivekananda,the philosopher and orator, who has lately arrived from Calcutta." And to be sure, Swamiji’s "pay lectures" in Oakland drew large crowds. But we shall speak of these lectures later, for they take us too far beyond our present story.

But first there was more work to be done, and in San Francisco that work was slow in getting started. Indeed, three days after writing the above letter Swamiji was markedly discouraged. He had by then given two lectures in the city to which a fifty-cent admission had been charged, and his guess had proved correct. "They come in crowds when there is a free lecture and very few when there is something to pay, he wrote to Mrs. Bull on March 7. And to Miss MacLeod on the same day, "No money. Hard work. No result. Worse than Los Angeles. Inadequate publicity for Swamiji’s early pay lectures in the busy, happy-go-lucky metropolis of San Francisco was very likely responsible for their relatively small attendance; and, to trace the cause back a step further, lack of publicity had resulted from a lack of money and help. There was no Miss MacLeod in San Francisco to interest a number of influential men in his work; nor at the beginning of his visit did he himself know anyone of note in the city. As for Mr. Mills, who had earlier wanted to take over the management of his San Francisco lectures, he now declined to assist in any way, perhaps piqued at Swamiji’s rejection of his initial pro¬posal, perhaps afraid of losing his own following.

The pastor was at this time delivering a series of well-attended Sunday afternoon sermons at San Francisco’s large Metropolitan Temple. "I went there one evening to see him," Mrs. Hansbrough related, "to ask if he would announce from his platform that Swami Vivekananda was to give a course of lectures [as Mr. Fritz had done in Los Angeles]. This was after Swamiji’s fiist lecture, and we felt if he could obtain some announcements of this type it would help increase the attendance. Mr. Mills refused. I did not have the temerity then that I have now,"‘ Mrs. Hansbrough added, "or I would have told him plainly what I thought of him! (Gratifying as a few verbal jabs at the pastor might have been, it is not likely that they would have helped matters. Only big and bold type and a long, apprecistive article or two in the San Francisco newspapers would have drawn crowds, and these were not forthcoming.)

Much less conspicuous were the advertisements for the series of three lectures that Swamiji delivered the following week on the subject of his motherland. Listed under SUNDAY MEETINGS in the Classified Ad sections of the Chronicle and the Examiner was the following information:_x000d_ Lectures by Swami Vivekananda at Washington. Hall, Red Men’s Building, 320 Post Street, Monday, March 5th; subject, "India and Its People"; Tuesday, March 6th, "Arts and Science of India"; Friday, March 9th, "Ideals of India." Single tickets; 50c; course tickets, $1.

That was all, and these advertisements, difficult to find even when one is looking for them, appeared only once.

But if crowds failed to attend Swamiji’s series on India, those who did attend were enthralled. Among them was Mrs. Thomas Allan, whose husband had arrived home in a state of exaltation on the evening of February 28, declaring that he had heard "not a man but a god." Mrs. Allan’s first opportunity to hear Swamiji for herself had come on March 5, and in her rem¬iniscences, first published in The Vedanta Kesari of September 1924 and later in the Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda, she recalled the experience:

Early in March 1900 the Swami Vivekananda gave a series of three lectures on "Indian Ideals" in Redmen’s Hall, Union Square, San Francisco, and it was at the first lecture of this series that I had the blessed privilege of hearing him. Being in ill health, both mentally and physi¬cally, it was a great effort to go to the lecture; and as I sat in the hall waiting for the Swami to come, I began to wonder whether I had not made a mistake in coming to hear him; but all doubts vanished when the Swami’s majestic figure entered the hall. ["When he walked in, clad in his terra-cotta robe," Mrs. Allan said to a fellow Vedantin years later, "his face looked golden to me. He had long blue-black hair, wavy, but not curly. And his eyes, his wonderful eyes!"] He talked for about two hours telling us of India’s Ideals and taking us with him, as it were, to his own country so that we might understand him a little and be able to comprehend even in the least the great truths he taught. After the lecture, I was introduced to the Swami; but feeling over-awed by the wonderful presence, I did not speak, but sat down at a distance and watched. Him, while waiting for friends who were busy settling up the business connected with the lectures. After the second lecture, I was again waiting, sitting at a distance watching the Swami, when he looked across and beckoned to me to come to him. I went and stood before him as he sat in a chair. He said, "Madame, if you want to see me privately, you come to the flat on Turk Street, no charge there, none of this botheration about money:" I told him I should like very much to see him. He said, "Come tomorrow morning," and I thanked him.

One does not like to quibble with those who shared their cherished memories of Swami Vivekananda, but for the sake of history one sometimes must, and Mrs. Allan will no doubt pardon us if we say that it could not have been after his second lecture in the series on India that she first spoke to Swamiji but after his third lecture; for it was not until then that he had moved into the flat on Turk Street.

The date of this move is not unimportant in the story, of his life in San Francisco. After Swamiji’s second poorly attended lecture in the Indian series he was on the verge of leaving California. There seemed little reason for staying. As pointed out in the last chapter, one of his motives for coming to the West Coast had been to obtain money for his Indian work. This same motive had surely also played a part in bringing him to San Francisco; for although he had filled the Math’s critical need to defray the expenses of its lawsuit against the municipality, there remained the ever¬present, overall need for funds. There remained also (al¬batrosslike) Swamiji’s debt of five thousand rupees-the sum he had borrowed from the Math in order to buy a house for his aging mother. Appended to this was the expense of bringing a lawsuit against his aunt in order to take possession of the house. After nearly two weeks in San Francisco it seemed to Swamiji that his attempt to earn money there was not only hopeless but self-defeating. The only noticeable consequence of his work had been a decline in his health. "I have a relapse-for some days-and am feeling very bad," he wrote to Miss MacLeod on March 7. "I think lecturing every night is the cause. And to Mrs. Bull on the same date, "Now I have entirely failed in California financially. . . . There is not the least use in breaking my health in San Francisco for nothing. . . . Platform work is nigh gone for me, and forcing it is only hastening the end. I leave here very soon. . . . I would start just now," he added, "if I could make money for a passage to India without touching the 1000 dollars in New York.

This thousand dollars, which Swamiji had deposited with Mr. Leggett and which had come partly from the sale of the English edition of Raja yoga and partly from money given to him for his personal use by the Maharaja of Khetri, he wanted to keep intact for help in the future support of his mother, his grandmother, his brother, and, he sometimes thought, himself. ("The thousand dollars I have in New York will bring Rs. 9 a month," he explained to Mrs. Bull, trying as he occasionally did, though rarely with consistency or success, to make financial plans; "then I bought for her [his mother] a bit of land which will bring about Rs. 6; and her old house-that will bring about Rs. 6. I leave the house under litigation out of consideration, as I have not got it. Myself, my mother, my grandmother and my brother will live on Rs. 20 a month easy. Twenty rupees was then equivalent to about six dollars and fifty cents; Swami evidently meant this to eke out the monthly stipend of Rs. 100¬about thirty-two dollars and fifty cents-that the Maharaja of Khetri had been regularly contributing for the support of his mother and brothers.)

The only other money available to him was three hundred dollars that he had made in southern California. But three hundred dollars was not enough for a passage to India, and Swamiji’s plan on March 7, as one can gather from his letters of that date, was to work his way home in stages. He would leave San Francisco as soon as possible for New York; in New York he would make enough money for a passage to England, where he hoped to revive his London work; from England he would voyage to India. In India he would retire for good, living not at the expense of the Math but with his mother and other members of his family.

It might be mentioned here parenthetically that since the time Swamiji had renounced the world in order to fulfill his mission, he had been much concerned over the welfare of his mother, whom under ordinary circumstances he would have supported. As she grew older and as his mission drew to a close, his concern seems to have increased. It may appear strange that he felt so strong a love and obligation, and the question may arise, should not a sannyasin relinquish all such filial ties and duties? Yes, a sannyasin should; but Swamiji was far more than a sannyasin undertaking spiritual discipline and striving for enlightenment. He was enlightened, his goal had been attained years before; no rules bound him; no observance, no prohibition or practice could have meaning for him: he could not be pulled down; he had no need to be lifted up; nor was any act of his without some profound significance to be probed.

As For Bhuvaneswari Datta, she was a hero’s mother. Reading Swamiji’s letters in regard to her, one somehow gets the impression that she was at this time a frail, little old lady, grieving inconsolably over her son’s renunciation. She was not so. In the Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda one finds the following glimpse of her as given by a Manmatha Nath Ganguli. The year was 1901 or 1902 the place, Belur Math.

One morning [Mr. Ganguli wrote] Swamiji’s mother came to see him. Her very appearance commanded respect. She was a strongly built lady with large fine eyes with long eyelashes. She had a remarkably strong personality that made her obeyed without any questioning. No wonder that Swamiji had inherited these qualities from her. She went up to the verandah of the first storey and cried aloud "Viloo-oo," and her child came out of the room at once. The great Vivekananda was just like a teen¬aged son to his mother. He descended the stairs along with Bhuvaneswari Devi, and then they walked in the garden¬path together and conversed softly on personal matters.

Swamiji’s mother, it would seem, could endure much. Yet he who was giving his life to relieve the suffering of all humanity could not bear to be the cause of pain to anyone. "All my life I have been a torture to my poor mother," he now wrote to Mrs. Bull on March 7 of 1900. "Her whole life has been one of continuous misery. If it be possible, my last attempt should be to make her a little happy. I have planned it all out. I have served the Mother all my life. It is done; I refuse now to grind Her axe. Let Her find other workeres-I strike."

But whatever Swamiji might may, he was not one to give up. If he rebelled against continuous work, he rebelled even more impatiently against obstacles in the path of his Indian mission, and he worked on. It was just at this time, moreover, that Mrs. Hanebrough and Mrs. Aspinall rented a flat on Turk Street.

It was not until Swamiji moved into the Turk Street flat,deciding after all to remain in San Francisco for at least a month, that his work in the city assumed a definite form of its own. Heretofore it had had, in substance at least, a preliminary or introductory quality. Although he had found, as he said, "ready listeners by hundreds, prepared beforehand by my books, his ideas were nonetheless new-even to the members of the Home of Truth. He had still to expound the basic principles of Vedanta, either to prepare the ground for future classes or, should he not stay, to leave behind ideas that would take root of themselves and grow. As we have seen, he had lectured in San Francisco on the fundamental unity of all religious thought and striving and had given a lecture entitled "The Science of Religion." While nothing of this last remains by which we can know what he said, its title would indicate that it, too, had been more or less of a preliminary nature._x000d_ (As far as is known, the only other lecture that Swamiji gave with this title was delivered in New York on May 13, 1895; and here again we know only the title, not the text. However, if one turns to a page or two of unidentified notes published in volume six of the Complete Works under the somewhat mislead¬ing heading "Religion and Science," one can find a little of what Swamiji may have said in a lecture entitled "The Science of Religion." "Experience is the only source of knowledge," the notes read in part. "In the world, religion is the only science where there is no surety, because it is not taught as a science of experience. This should not be. There is always, however, a small group of men who teach religion from experience. They are called mystics, and these mystics in every religion speak the same tongue and teach the same truth. This is the real science of religion. . . . This science of religion is based on the analysis of the human soul. It has no creed._x000d_ In addition, Swamiji had presented in San Francisco a picture of India’s culture and ideals, showing that little understood and much maligned country in its own light and, simultaneously, uprooting from his listeners’ minds the old attitudes that could choke the flow of spiritual thought._x000d_ And, then, simply by his presence, Swamiji himself, whatever the subject of his lectures may have been, had been leading those who heard him during his first two weeks in northern California to a new level of mind from where the horizons of life, losing themselves in infinity, had an altogether different look than before. Inevitably, some of his listeners recoiled from so much vastness; but others gathered around him to hear and see more, forming the nucleus of his Future classes.

It was, indeed, not until the Swami had moved into the Turk Street flat on March 9, deciding to remain for at least a month more in San Francisco, that his work assumed a definite and distinctive character. Theretofore, it had a more or less general nature; that is to say, he gave his listeners a wide view of his overall message, teaching the harmony of religions, giving a broad survey of the principles of the Vedanta philosophy, and presenting, as in Oakland, a picture of Indian culture that was in outline, colour, and meaning faithful to fact. As we have seen, his first lecture in San Francisco had been "The Ideal of a Universal Religion". His second lecture, delivered on Sunday, March 4, also at Golden Gate Hall, had been entitled "The Science of Religion". And on March 5, 6, and 9, at the Red Men's Building on Post Street, he had given a series of three lectures on India, entitled respectively, "India and Its People", "Arts and Sciences in India", and "Ideals of India". I _x000d_ Thenceforth, the Swami's San Francisco lectures markedly assumed the emphasis that distinguishes the main body of his work on the Pacific Coast. Noticeably, he stressed the need for man to stand on his own feet, to be a light unto himself, to realize and to utilize to the full his own divine power. More consistently and strongly than ever before, he emphasized the essential divinity of man. It was as though he wanted to impress the principles of Advaita Vedanta indelibly on the new era of civilization that was then struggling into birth throughout the world. _x000d_ While living and holding classes at the Turk Street flat, the Swami also delivered three evening lectures a week in the Red Men's Building in downtown San Francisco and on Sunday afternoons gave a series of five public lectures in Union Square Hall, which was also centrally located. The subjects of his Sunday lectures were: "Christ's Message to the World" (March 11), "Buddha's Message to the World" (March 18), "Mohammed" (March 25), "Krishna and His Message" (April 1), and "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?". The last named lecture, given on April 8, was one of his most stirring and provocative. We may quote from it here at some length, for it epitomized much of his teaching on the Pacific Coast, where, as said above, he again and again stressed the need for monistic Vedanta in the modern world.

Among the lectures that were preliminary in both time and nature to Swamiji’s main work in San Francisco one can include his first series of three lectures at Wendte Hall in Oakland, given on the evenings of March 7, 8, and 12. As a short notice in the Alameda County Section of the San Francisco Examiner stated, the course was "intended to be a general exposition of Hindu Philosophy."_x000d_ In volume eight of the Complete Works one can find newspaper reports of these three lectures, which were entitled "The Laws of Life and Death," "The Reality and the Shadow," and "Way to Salvation"; and in volume six one finds Frank Rhodehamel’s brief but beautiful and perhaps largely verbatim notes of the same lectures under the titles, respectively, "How to Become Free," "The Reality and Shadow," and "The Design Theory." While Mr. Rhodehamel’s notes seem to bring us closer to Swamiji, catching the cadence and power of his speech, the newspaper write-ups give us a more extensive idea of the lectures themselves. Of course, like most newspaper accounts of Swami’s lectures, these remind one of the ruins of what must once have been a mighty edifice: broken and scattered cornices and columns are all that remain to us. Yet these have a grandeur still, and from them one can guess to some extent the nature of what once had been. It is clear, for instance, that during the course of the series Swamiji indeed explained some of the basic principles of Vedanta philosophy. He discussed the laws of karma and reincarnation, the concepts of Hindu cosmology, the theory of cyclic evolution and involution, and the theory of Maya. "He told how the life of man, in the view of the Hind, is bound in the endless chain of the law of cause and effect, how freedom can never be found in this world, and how the mind of the Hindoo people turns forever to the thought of how man can rid himself of the burden and torment Of existence.” Thus read the Enquerier’s report of “the laws of life and death,” which is not to be fuond in the Complete works. The report continued with a direct quotation: “ ‘This sounds harse_x000d_ To Western people,’ said the swamiji; ‘to the people of the Anglo-Saxon race it perticulerly repellent;but it the truth,and it must be told.’ But if Swamiji spoke of the beginningless, endless, and inexorable laws that govern relative existence, he spoke also, and above all,of the eternal freedom and purity of the Spirit, which stands untouched and unbound by any low. “Only by escaping from life can we escape from slavery to freedom’ he said in this same lecture.And according to several heretofore unpublished lines in Mr. Rhodehamel’s notes,he paraphrased a famous passege from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: “Never loved a husband the wife for the wife’s sake , or the wife the husband for the husband’s sake. It is god in the wife the husband loves and god in the husband the wife loves.It is god in everyone that draws us to that one in love . [It is] God in everything, in everybody that makes us love. God is the only love….In everyone the god is Atman; all else is but dream, an illusion.”47 And again heretofore unpiblished, is one of Swamiji’s most moving of exclamations, a cry escaped from his heart derectly to the heart of his listners: “Oh, if you only new yourself ! You are souls; you are gods. If ever I feer [that I am] blaspheming , it is when I call you man. _x000d_ But the sentence that seems to have come across to his audence with the greatest bomblike force was “Not how to go to veaven-this is the object of the search of the Hindu. The statement left Oakland gasping. “KEEP OUT OF HEAVEN , ” the Enquerer shouted the next day in large type ; and the San Francisco Bulleting introduced a report of Swamiji’s second lecture with the news : “ Swami Vivekananda … . Has set Oaklanders Thinking…[The Swami] said that man’s chiefest concern should be how not to get to heaven.” The idea seemed such a startler that some two weeks later when Mrs.B. Fay Mills occupied the Uniterian pulpit in her husband’s absence, she took as the subject of her sermon “Heaven and How to Escape It” and thereby drew a goodly crowed.

As we have said, one purpose of Swamiji’s lectures on India was to destroy prejudice; and one suspects that during his first lecture in this second Oakland series (the Enquirer’s report of which is given in volume eight of the Complete Works under the title "The People of India") he delivered a few direct blows. "It is apparent," the Enquirer editorialized touchily, "that the Swami, educated and intellectual man that he is, is no admirer of Western civilization. He has evidently been a good deal embittered by the talk about child widow, the oppression of women and other barbarisms alleged against the people of India, and is somewhat inclined to resort to the to quoque in reply.

Sure enough, the evening before, a missionary who had recently returned from Burma (there were several such in California) had spoken her mind about Vedantism. "VEDANTISM IN INDIA," the report of her talk was headed in the Enquirer of March 19. "An Interesting Lecture By a Returned Missionary. Tells How Many Buddhists Dedicate Themselves to Their God in Most Cruel Fashion." There was no attempt to disguise the fact that this interesting talk had been directed against Swamiji. The article began: "Apropos of the recent lecture delivered in this city by the profound Hindoo priest Swami Vivekananda, upon the power and theory of the old Vedant religion, Mrs. A. Haswell, a returned missionary from India (actually from Burma], told last evening at the 23d Avenue Baptist Church of the practical results of the religion as she has seen it. . . . She said in part: . . . "We need not reproduce what Mrs. Haswell said in part. It was the old story-the story of India’s religion as told by nineteenth-century Americans staring at the surface of a totally foreign culture, insensible to the living spirit that permeated and animated it, to its traditions and goals, to its subtleties and depths of meaning, insensible, indeed, to every¬thing but the fact, glaring to be sure, that India was not the Protestant West.

Arrogance, prejudice, lack of sympathy for the beliefs, ways, and trials of others were, he well knew, the enemies of America as well as of India. Very likely he made somewhat the same observation in Oakland as he had made in Pasadena in his lecture "Women of India": "Nations in the vigour of their youth think that they can do anything and everything: `We are the gods of the earth. We are the chosen people.’ They think that God Almighty has given them a charter to rule over all the world, to advance His plans, to do anything they like, to turn the world upside down. They have a charter to rob, murder, kill; God has given them this, and they do that because they are only babes. So empire after empire has arisen-glorious, resplendent-now vanished away-gone, nobody knows where; it may have been stupen¬dous in its ruin."54 But imperial babes could have no place in the centuries ahead when mutual understanding and service between the peoples of the world would constitute their only hope of survival. One of Swamiji’s dreams of which he often spoke was of an exchange of ideas and achievements between East and West. He gave voice to this in San Francisco, as he had elsewhere in the United States: "Send us mechanics to teach us how to use our hands," he is quoted by Mr. Allan as having said during his lecture series on India, "and we will send you missionaries to teach you spirituality. It was a dream that not only reached far into the future but was itself, perhaps, the seed of future fact.

One can find the Enquirer’s brief report of Swamiji’s second lecture of the series on India, "Arts and Sciences in India," in volume four of the Complete Works. The introductory paragraph _x000d_ of the report, however, has not been reprinted and is worth giving here:_x000d_ "Arts and Sciences in India" was the topic under which the Swami Vivekananda was introduced before the audience in Wendte Hall last evening in the Unitarian Church. But as he acknowledged himself, he touched nearly every subject but the one upon which he was elected to speak. Nevertheless, the Swami held the attention of his audience, as was demonstrated by the many _x000d_ questions which were put to him after his address._x000d_ The lecture (also reported upon in an almost identical write-up by the Tribune) had been a provocative one in many respects, and once again a statement of Swamiji’s was blazoned in the Enquirer in bold type: "Declares the Anglo-Saxon People Have Always Been Badly Fitted for Art." Indeed, Swamiji did not pussyfoot. When one is able to compare the original versions of his extemporaneous lectures with those in the Complete Works, one now and then finds that in the normal course of editing (for in the nature of things all extemporaneous talks must be edited) his forthright and vivid sentences have undergone a little mellowing judicious in its day. Such was the case in this instance. Commenting upon English poetry, Swamiji had not said, "Merely the rhyming of words is not good. It is not the most civilized thing in the world. What he had said, as reported by the Enquirer of March 27, was: "This rhyming business of words is not even fitted for the language of dogs. It is the most uncivilized thing in the world."*_x000d_ _x000d_ * I have been told that some lovers of English poetry are puzzled and a little hurt by Swamiji’s unmitigated censure of rhyming. It should perhaps be pointed out, therefore, that he was not here condemning the great English poets who, rhyme or no rhyme, have produced lasting beauty. He seems to have been saying, rather, that the artificial convention of end-rhymes was not an essential ingredient of a good poem, that it was, in fact, a primitive and highly dispensable device. In the twentieth century there would be many seconders of this view.

The only other certain reference to Swamiji’s lecture on Christ is a passing mention of it in the unpublished memories of Mrs. George Roorbach, which were taken down fifty years later during the course of a conversation. In 1900 Mrs. Roorbach, of whom more later, was a leader of the Alameda Home of Truth. "I heard of Swami and went to his lectures, every one I could get to," she recalled. "Of course, he blew the top out of our minds." When Mrs. Roorbach was asked if she remembered any outstanding lectures, she replied. "I don’t think one was better than another, but I remember he gave one on the life and teachings of Jesus. I thought it was wonderful that he could make it so understandable and in¬spiring-much more so than our own ministers can. He gave it a different turn; he explained that God came in many forms.

Miss Albers, a poet, was later to contribute often to Prabuddha Bharata and to write several books, such as The Ramayana in Verse, The Life of Buddha for Children, and Ancient Tales of Hindustan. Her memories of one of Swamiji’s San Francisco lectures were first published in Prabuddha Bharata of August 1938, and later in Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda; but of which lecture she was writing, she does not say. In many respects her article could apply to all; yet in one respect it could apply particularly to "Christ the Messenger," for Swamiji was not well on that day. The previous week he had had a relapse in health, and his trips to and from Oakland, his nightly lectures at Wendte Hall and in San Francisco could not have improved matters. In fact, on Sunday, March 11, he had a bad cold.

When he rose to go to the platform [Miss Albers wrote] it seemed an effort on his part. He walked with a heavy gait. I noticed that his eyelids were swollen, and he looked like one who suffers pain. He stood for a while in silence before he spoke, and I saw a change. His countenance brightened, and I thought his very features were different now. He began to speak, and there was a transformation. The soul-force of the great man became visible. I felt the tremendous force of his speech-words that were felt more than they were heard. I was drawn into a sea of being, of feelings of a higher existence, from which it seemed almost like pain to emerge when the lecture was finished. And then those eyes, how wonderful! They were like shooting stars-lights shooting forth from them in constant flashes.

While a bad cold did not, could not, stand as a barrier to the radiant flow of Swamiji’s spiritual power, it was at least partly responsible for a change in his plans. He had intended to be present that Sunday afternoon at one of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst’s musicales in Berkeley (which is why, perhaps, he had given his lecture on Christ in the morning rather than in the afternoon as was generally his custom on Sundays). Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst, widow of the mining magnate and United States senator George Hearst, and mother of the young but already powerful newspaper czar, William Randolph Hearst, was immensely wealthy, influential, and noted for her many philanthropies. She was, indeed, one of the Bay Area’s most prominent women. Her Sunday afternoon musicales, which had been taking place since the beginning of the year in "Hearst Hall"-a newly built "cathedral-like" structure ad-joining her residence in Berkeley-were events, both social and cultural. Although they were intended primarily for the benefit of university students and professors, Mrs. Hearst extended invitations to her friends and to friends of friends, and she had invited Swamiji.

As Swamiji wrote to Miss MacLeod on March 2, he had called on Mrs. Hearst during his first few days in northern California and had found her not at home It was Swamiji’s good friend Emma Thursby who had supplied him with a letter of introduction. (According to a newspaper note, Miss Thursby had been in southern California that winter. A singer of international popularity and acclaim, she knew many influential people in many cities throughout the United States and Europe. She had given Swamiji other letters of introduction at other times, including an earlier one to Mrs. Hearst herself (which he had not used) when the latter was in Washington, D.C._x000d_ As it happened,. Swamiji did not go to Mrs. Hearst’s musicale. "I could not go," he wrote to Miss MacLeod. "I had a bad cold. So that was all. From Mrs. Allan, who was at the Turk Street flat that Sunday afternoon, one learns that there was an additional reason for his not attending the musicale. "When the time grew near for Swamiji to go," Mrs. Allan related during one of her many verbal recollections of those days, "someone said, `It is time for you to get ready, Swami.’ He replied, `I am not going.’ And he didn’t go. Several days later I asked him why he hadn’t gone. `All Mrs. Hearst wants is to lionize me,’ he said. `Why should I go?’ " Although Swamiji was often the despair of those of his friends who sought to introduce him to the "right people," it is probable that he met Mrs. Hearst later on; for according to Mrs. Hansbrough, she offered him one thousand dollars for his Indian work.

"Buddha’s Message to the World" was the second lecture during which Miss Ansell practiced her shorthand (the first having been an evening lecture given in San Francisco two days before, entitled "Concentration"), and her transcript of it was among the four that were edited for The Voice of India and subsequently published in volume eight of the complete works Thus we have an excellent account of it. But as has already been pointed out, Miss Ansell did not by any means take down Swamiji’s every word, and in this particular instance, the San Francisco press has contributed to our knowledge. On March 19, 1900, the Chronicle printed a fairly long report of the lecture. Although this journalistic paraphrase (it is not a strictly verbatim report) is even more scanty and much less satisfactory than Miss Ansell’s notes, it contains two or three details that she missed, and for the sake of these I shall give it here in full. (As far as can be discovered to date, this article and the short accounts of "The Ideal of a Universal Religion," which I have reproduced earlier, constitute the only newspaper reports of Swamiji’s San Francisco lectures.)

The Chronicle reporter, to be sure, jotted down some things Miss Angel had obscured or let slide-¬notably, the wonderful sentence, so characteristic of this period of Swamiji’s mission: "How dare you cast God away from you with a `thou’ ? Always hereafter say “I” But the reporter failed on the whole, as Miss Ansell did not, to catch Swamiji’s most salient points. Throughout this lecture there is an interplay of past and present, of Buddha’s message to the world and of Swamiji’s own message. Telling in one breath of the ancient prophet who spoke to ancient India, Swamiji, in the next breath, was the modern prophet speaking to the modern West. One moment, for instance, the audience heard of how Buddha had brushed aside the superstitions, the priestcraft, the rituals, the metaplysical and philosophical niceties and complexities of his time to declare the full, simple, and direct truth to all men; the next moment they heard Swamiji thundering to them: "Are you ashamed of God that you cannot confess His truth before the world? Do you call that religious and spiritual? The priests are the only people fit for the truth! The masses are not fit for it! . . . It must be diluted! Water it down a little! . . . But the people shall learn the truth. . . . Bring truth out! If it is real, it will do good. When people protest and propose other methods, they only make apologies for witchcraft. Many are such instances in which Buddha and Swamiji played, as it were, contrapuntal themes. But if they were alike in their direct, un¬equivocal approach to truth, alike in their boundless desire to free all men from delusion and slavery, alike in their insistence on self reliance, the difference between their basic teachings was enormous-both philosophically and practically.

According to Miss Ansell’s transcript, Swamiji did not say in this lecture, as he is quoted in the Chronicle report, that the Hindus interpret Buddha to have meant something he did not teach. Rather, he opposed Buddha’s negative teaching of no God, no soul or self, with the positive teaching of monistic Vedanta. "There is another way of looking at the truth we have been discussing," he said: "the Hindu way. We claim that Buddha’s great doctrine of selflessness can be better understood if it is looked at in our way. In the Upanishads there are [is?] already the great doctrine of the Atman and the Brahman." And then Swamiji spoke of that grand Upanishadic teaching: "There is one Self, not many. That one Self shines in various forms. Man is man’s brother because all men are one. A man is not only my brother, say the Vedas, he is myself. Hurting any part of the universe, I only hurt myself. I am the universe. It is a delusion that I think I am Mr. So-and-so-that is the delusion. …It is the delusion of separateness that is the root of misery. . . . When Buddha says there is no soul, I say, `Man, thou art one with the universe; thou art all things.’ How positive !

It was this positive, monistic truth that Swamiji gave to all men. He gave it in full measure, because man (whom in this lecture he called in unforgettably incisive words "the other God-man") was himself that truth in full measure. Buddha asked all men, indiscriminately, to leave the world; Swamiji asked them to spiritualize the world, to know it and themselves as divine. But in each teaching man stood supreme in the universe, possessing the means of his own salvation, with no cause either to beg for help or to weep. In northern California, as we shall see, Swamiji was to lay greater and greater emphasis on the total self-sufficiency of man-the other God-in whose service he himself, like Buddha, would willingly, and paradoxically, sacrifice his life a thousand times.

It is possible that these were two different versions of the same morning session; yet this is not certain, and Swamiji may have received the reporters on separate days, giving a good deal of time to each._x000d_  

The reporter from the Chronicle was an imaginative young woman named Blanche Partington. In August of this same year she was to visit Shanti Ashrama-the Vedanta retreat in the San Antonio Valley, of which Swami Turiyananda was then in charge-and was to write up her visit for her newspaper. Miss Partington was clearly impressed with Swamiji, and it is interesting to note that later on in her life she was to become a Christian Science practitioner (or healer), devoting herself, if not to Vedanta, to the belief that man is Spirit. The story of her morning visit to the Turk Street flat (which was published in the Chronicle of March 18 and first reprinted in Prabuddha Bharata of June 1929).

A DUSKY PHILOSOPHER FROM INDIA_x000d_ _x000d_ Had I been a little wiser or a little less wise-a little knowledge is a dangerous thing-it is possible that my prevailing sensation on meeting the Hindoo monk, Swami Vivekananda, would have been other than an irresistible inclination to get behind something or somebody for fear of my aura telling unkind tales of me._x000d_ These Eastern seers are such strange folk, and our auras we have always with us. That mine was radiating curi¬osity and "nerves" and other undesirable original sins in every direction, I was painfully aware, but either the Swami, through knowledge, has come to charity, or else he is as comfortably unconscious of auras as the rest of us, for his greeting was gracious and kind as might be. Bowing very low, in Eastern fashion, on his entrance to the room, then holding out his hand in good American style, the dusky philosopher from the banks of the Ganges gave friendly greeting to the representative of that thoroughly Occidental institution, the daily press._x000d_ I couldn’t see much of him at first, for his eyes, which are very large and brilliant, and black, of course, but I found afterward that he was taller than common, of much dignified grace of movement, and of a color calculated to make artists of fish wives. It made me dream of "heathen idols, the temple bells a-ringing", of splendid mosques and bazaars, gold and ivory, bejeweled rajahs and elephants, and the whole gorgeous confusion of color which does duty for the foreigner’s conception of that ancient rich land of India. And the Swami himself-a Buddha come to judg¬ment! It is exactly the type. When he is not smiling, and the Swami is a humorous soul, there is the same suggestion of eternal inscrutableness in his face, the same suggestion of immutable poise in his figure. The repose of the Vere de Vere is not in it. ["Her manners had not that repose," Tennyson wrote, "which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere."] One might, indeed, suggest that the quickest way of learning to be English would be to study manners in India! An undoubted addition to the Swami’s striking picturesqueness is the wonderful red robe he wears. One cannot accuse a Swami of studying his complexion, yet the effect is identically the same as if the question had been studied with the utmost nicety, and I can confidently recommend a certain "persimmonish" terra cotta to the advanced brunette-what price for the hint, ladies? Per¬haps the Swami Vivekananda is not without the very smallest spice of the universal vanity. I asked for a picture to illustrate this article, and when someone handed me a certain "cut". Which has been extensively used in lecture advertisements here he uttered a mild protest against its use._x000d_ "But that does not look like you," said I._x000d_ "No, it is as if I wished to kill someone," he said smiling, "like-like-"_x000d_ "Othello," I inserted rashly. But the little audience of friends only smiled as the Swami made laughing recogni¬tion of the absurd resemblance of the picture to the jealous Moor. But I do not use that picture._x000d_ "Is it true, Swami," I asked, "that, when you went home after lecturing in the Congress of Religions after the World’s Fair, princes knelt at your feet, a half dozen of the ruling sovereigns of India dragged your carriage through the streets, as the papers told us? We do not treat our priests so."_x000d_ "That is not good to talk of," said the Swami. "But it is true that religion rules there, not dollars."_x000d_ "What about caste?"_x000d_ "What of your Four Hundred?" he replied, smiling. "Caste in India is an institution hardly explicable or intelligible to the Occidental mind. It is acknowledged to be an imperfect institution, but we do not recognize a superior social result from your attempts at class distinction. India is the only country which has so far succeeded in imposing a permanent caste upon her people, and we doubt if an exchange for Western superstitions and evils would be for her advantage."_x000d_ "But under such regime-where a man may not eat this nor drink that, nor marry the other-the freedom you teach would be impossible," I ventured._x000d_ "It is impossible," assented the Swami; "but until India has outgrown the necessity for caste laws, caste laws will remain."_x000d_ "Is it true that you may not eat food cooked by a foreigner-unbeliever?" I asked._x000d_ "In India the cook-who is not called a servant-must be of the same or higher caste than those for whom the food is cooked, as it is considered that whatever a man touches is impressed by his personality, and food, with which a man builds up the body through which he ex¬presses himself, is regarded as being liable to such impres¬sion. As to the foods we eat, it is assumed that certain kinds of food nourish certain properties worthy of cultiva¬tion, and that others retard our spiritual growth. For instance, we do not kill to eat. Such food would be held to nourish the animal body, at the expense of the spiritual body, in which the soul is said to be clothed on its departure from this physical envelope, besides laying the sin of blood guiltiness upon the butcher."_x000d_ "Ugh!" I exclaimed involuntarily, an awful vision of reproachful little lambs, little chicken ghosts, hovering cow spirits-I was always afraid of cows anyway-rising up before me._x000d_ "You see," explained the Brahmin, "the universe is all one, from the lowest insect to the highest Yogi. It is all one, we are all one, you and I are one-’ Here the Occidental audience smiled, the unconscious monk chanting the oneness of things in Sanscrit and the consequent sin of taking any life._x000d_ It is weird and beautiful, like far-off echoes of some ancient oracle, to hear-the deep and musical chant of Sanscrit scriptures, in which to vary the intoning of one syllable is a deadly sin. It falls from the monk’s lips as dear and lovely poetry rises from a Western heart, and chant and translation, chant and translation, ring out their alternate music and truth through all his talk and teaching. He was pacing up and down the room most of the time during our talk, occasionally standing over the register-it was a chill morning for this child of the sun-and doing with grace and freedom what¬ever occurred to him, even, at length, smoking a little._x000d_ "You, yourself, have not yet attained supreme control over all desires," I ventured. The Swami’s frankness is infectious._x000d_ "No, madam," and he smiled the broad and brilliant smile of a child; "Do I look it?" But the Swami, from the land of hasheesh and dreams, doubtless did not connect my query with its smoky origin._x000d_ "Is it usual among the Hindoo priesthood to marry?" I ventured again._x000d_ "It is a matter of individual choice," replied this member of the Hindoo priesthood. "One does not marry that he may not be in slavery to a woman and children, or permit the slavery of a woman to him."_x000d_ "But what is to become of the population?" urged the Anti-Malthusian._x000d_ "Are you so glad to have been born?" retorted the Eastern thinker, his large eyes flashing scorn. "Can you conceive of nothing higher than this warring, hungry, ignorant world? Do not fear that you may be lost, though the sordid, miserable consciousness of the now may go. What worth having [would be] gone?_x000d_ "The child comes crying into the world. Well may he cry! Why should we weep to leave it? Have you thought " here the sunny smile came back-"of the different modes of East and West of expressing the passing away? We say of the dead man, `He gave up his body’; you put it, `he gave up the ghost’. How can that be? Is it the dead body that permits the ghost to depart? What curious inversion of thought!"_x000d_ "But, on the whole, Swami, you think it better to be comfortably dead than to be a living lion?" persisted the defender of populations._x000d_ "Svaha, Svaha, so be it!" shouted the monk._x000d_ "But how is it that under such philosophy men consent to live at all?"_x000d_ "Because a man’s own life is sacred as any other life, and one may not leave chapters unlearned," returned the philosopher. "Add power and diminish time, and the school days are shorter; as the learned professor can make the marble in twelve years which nature took centuries to form. It is all a question of time."_x000d_ "India, which has had this teaching so long, has not yet learned her lesson?"_x000d_ "No, though she is perhaps nearer than any other country, in that she has learned to love mercy."_x000d_ "What of England in India?" I asked._x000d_ "But for English rule I could not be here now," said the monk, "though your lowest free-born American negro holds higher position in India politically than is mine. Brahmin and coolie, we are all `natives’. But it is all right, in spite of the misunderstanding and oppression. England is the Tharma [karma?] of India, attracted inevitably by some inherent weakness, past mistakes, but from her blood and fibre will come the new national hope for my country¬men. I am a loyal subject of the Empress of India!" and here the Swami salaamed before an imaginary potentate, bowing very low, perhaps too low for reverence._x000d_ "But such an apostle of freedom-" I murmured._x000d_ "She is a widow for many years, and such we hold of high worth in India," said the philosopher seriously. "As to freedom, yes, I believe the goal of all development is freedom, law and order. There is more law and order in the grave than anywhere else-try it."_x000d_ "I must go," I said, "I have to catch a train."_x000d_ "That is like all Americans," smiled the Swami, and I had a glimpse of all eternity in his utter restfulness. "You must catch this car or that train always. Is there not another, later?"_x000d_ But I did not attempt to explain the Occidental concep¬tion of the value of time to this child of the Orient, realiz¬ing its utter hopelessness and my own renegade sympathy. It must be delightful beyond measure to live in the land of "time enough": In the Orient there seems time to breathe, time to think, time to live; as the Swami says, what have we in exchange? We live in time; they in eternity._x000d_ One does not like to spoil Miss Partington’s joke, but it is not likely the Swamiji recommended the grave to her, or that he had said that the goal of all development was "freedom, law and order." More probably he had said it was "freedom, not law and order." However, the reader will judge this for himself._x000d_  As for the picture of Swamiji which Miss Partington likened to Othello, it may have been one of those taken during the Parliament of Religions in 1893, showing him standing with his arms folded and looking like the heroic warrior-monk that he was. The photograph which she chose to accompany her article was in another mood entirely. Here Swamiji is seated in his robe and turban, his right elbow rests on the arm of his settee, he leans slightly to the right, his head supported by his hand. This picture was one of several taken professionally in San Francisco, perhaps at Mrs. Hansbrough’s urging and certainly before March 17. Two sets of photographs had been taken at the same studio. In one set, Swamiji wears his robe and turban; in the other, which shows him seated in an ornately carved chair, his head is bare, he wears his clerical collar and loose black coat. In all these photographs, he seems piercingly beautiful, the embodiment-almost translucently so-of grace in every meaning of the word. The reader is perhaps familiar with these pictures, for they have been reproduced more than once (most recently, I believe, in Vivekananda: A Biography in Pictures); but reproductions made from reproductions become progressively undefined. Attempts, therefore, have been made in San Francisco to recover the original negatives; but this to no avail, and it would seem certain that they were destroyed by the Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Fortunately, however, the Vedanta Society of Northern California possesses some of the original prints and has given permission to reproduce them in the pages of this book. The two sets are the only pictures we have of Swamiji in San Francisco, and as Miss Partington has let us know, it is these photographs, not earlier ones, which show us how he was when he was here, how he looked when he lectured, when he talked to friends and interviewers, when he walked these streets.

It carried no by-line, but whoever wrote it seems to have been as charmed by him as was Miss Partington. One wishes that he or she had been less sparing of words, but we have at least something of what Swamiji said as he paced for "a couple of hours" about the front parlor of his flat. The opening paragraph was taken from the preface of a pamphlet printed at Harvard in March of 1896. As for the headlines, they are justified, in part at least, by the material which directly followed the interview. There was no accompanying photograph; instead, an imaginative line drawing depicted Swamiji standing (in India) amid a circle of bearded disciples. The effect was meant to be, and no doubt struck many readers as being, exotic, weird, and strange.

"WE ARE HYPNOTIZED INTO WEAKNESS BY_x000d_ OUR SURROUNDINGS"_x000d_ _x000d_ Hindoo Philosopher_x000d_ Who Strikes at the Root of Some Occidental_x000d_ Evils and Tells How_x000d_ We must Worship God Simply and Not with _x000d_ Many Vain Prayers._x000d_ _x000d_ "The Swami Vivekananda has created a high degree of interest here in himself and his work," said C. C. Everett, D.D., LL.D., of Harvard University, in speaking of the work of the Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions held at the World’s Fair in Chicago. "There are, indeed, few departments of study more attractive than the Hindoo thought. . .. We Occidentals busy our-selves with the manifold. We can, however, have no understanding of the manifold if we have no sense of the One in Whom the manifold exists. The reality of the One is the truth which the East may well teach us, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Vivekananda that he has taught this lesson so effectively."_x000d_ The Swami is among us now, and we, too, may hear this "truth" if we will. He must preach for his devotees, the strange, old gospels of the East._x000d_ A strikingly picturesque figure, the Swami Vivekananda is certain to attract sympathetic and unusual attention. Deeply learned in Sanscrit lore, familiar with all the phases of contemporary life, thoroughly versed in world-history, his friends are found in all classes and countries._x000d_ One American friend he may be assured of-the Swami is a charming person to interview._x000d_ Pacing about the little room where he is staying, he kept the small audience of interviewer and friend enter¬tained for a couple of hours._x000d_ "Tell you about the English in India? But I do not wish to talk of politics," he said. "But from the higher standpoint, it is true that but for the English rule I could not be here. We natives know that it is through the inter¬mixture of English blood and ideas that the salvation of India will come. Fifty years ago, all the literature and religion of the race were locked up in the Sanscrit language; today the drama and the novel are written in the vernacular, and the literature of religion is being translated. That is the work of the English, and it is unnecessary, in America, to descant upon the value of the education of the masses."_x000d_ "What do you think of the Boer War?" was asked._x000d_ "Oh! Have you seen the morning paper?" the monk inquired. "But I do not wish to discuss politics. English and Boers are both in the wrong. It is terrible-terrible¬ the bloodshed! English will conquer, but at what fearful cost! She seems the nation of Fate."_x000d_ And the Swami, with a smile, began chanting the Sanscrit for an unwillingness to discuss politics._x000d_ Then he talked long of ancient Russian history, and of the wandering tribes of Tartary, and of the Moorish rule in Spain, and displaying an astonishing memory and research. To this childlike interest in all things that touch him is doubtless due much of the curious and universal knowledge that he seems to possess.

This portion of the newspaper text has been reprinted in volume eight of the Complete Works under the title "The Essence of Religion" and with the notation "Report of a lecture delivered in America." Just what lecture this was, it is hard to say. It seems to contain excerpts from much earlier lectures and classes, and could have been compiled, in part at least, from Swamiji’s books and pamphlets. It does not, in any case, seem to be a report of any of his known San Francisco or Oakland lectures given prior to March 18. There is, of course, always the possibility, indeed the probability, that Swamiji gave lectures or talks in the Bay Area of which we know nothing, and “The Essence of Religion” could have been the notes taken at such a lecture. But since it is not at all certain that this is so, we must leave the matter here as an unsolved puzzle.

After his opening sentences, Swamiji had actually given a long historical background, setting the world scene upon which Mohammed had appeared. Miss Ansell’s notes of this portion, which she included in her first transcript of 1945, run to seventy-four typewritten lines. These are interspersed with many small and large gaps that represent unrecorded passages, and are interrupted three times by notations that indicate Swamiji told a story.

These notes are "scrappy" indeed. However, scattered throughout this first half of the transcript are a few complete sentences and paragraphs which are in themselves of much interest. Out of context, they give no conception of the broad panorama of history Swamiji was unfolding before his audience, but they should, one thinks, be rescued for themselves alone. Thus I shall present them here. Except for a bracketed guess here and there as to a word or a meaning, I give them as Miss Ansell took them down.

The Swami commanded reverence when he revealed himself at times to his audience in one of those wonderful waves of transcendental feeling which he did not try to cheek. As when he said, "All faces are dear to me…. As it is possible to 'see Helen in an Ethiop's face', so we must learn to see the Lord in all. All, even the very worst, are Mother's children. The universe, good and bad, is but the play of the Lord."

In private interviews he was the ideal host, entering into conversation, argument, or story-telling, not only without restraint, but with apparent enjoyment. His personal appearance on my first interview was a pleasurable shock from which I have never fully recovered. He had on a long grey dressing gown, and was sitting cross-legged on a chair, smoking a pipe, his long hair failing in wild disarray over his features. As I advanced, he extended a cordial hand and bade me be seated. Memory delivers but fragments of those interviews. What remains vivid is the contact with the great sannyasin — the impressions and impetus received — which refuses to be less than the greatest experience in life.

for during the course of it the Swami had said, "Not how to go to heaven, but how one can stop going to heaven — this is the object of the search of the Hin-du"! It was a concept totally new to Christianity, and, as the papers said the following day: "Swami Vivekananda ... Has Set Oaklanders Thinking."

The second series of three lectures dealt with India's customs, culture, and ideals. Delivered respectively on the Monday evenings of March 19, 26, and April 2, the lectures were entitled "The Manners and Customs of India", "The Arts and Sciences in India", and "The Ideals of India". Here, too, his voice was like a fresh wind sweeping through old ways of thought. Even as during his first visit to America the Swami took time and care to present a true picture of India's culture and ideals, uprooting from his listeners' minds the old, distorted images and attitudes that could block their reception of his country's great spiritual gifts. It must be noted, however, that, if the Swami spoke of India for a purpose, he also simply liked to talk about his country and to narrate the wonderful Indian stories, so rich with life and so imbued with and illustrative of high moral and spiritual ideals — and his audience never tired of listening, for he was a story teller Par excellence.

He had given eight lectures in all at the Unitarian Church, each time travelling to and fro by ferry across San Francisco Bay, accompanied by a number of his newly made and devoted followers.

Meanwhile, he had been working steadily and successfully in San Francisco. Early in March, he had moved from the Pine Street Home of Truth, where he had felt crowded and not free to live and teach as he pleased, to a friend's at 1502 Jones Street. Here he had not been comfortable either. Therefore, Mrs. Hansbrough and Mrs. Benjamin Aspinall, who with her husband was director of the "Home", had found and rented for a month a large upstairs flat for him at 1719 Turk Street, where he could be independent, hold classes, receive visitors, give individual instruction where, in short, he could live in every respect as he wished. Mrs. Hansbrough, together with Mrs. Aspinall, also moved to these roomy quarters, serving him faithfully as secretary, housekeeper, cook, press agent, and general keeper-of-accounts. On March 17 he wrote to Mrs. Leggett.

These he delivered in groups, or series, of three. The six lectures of the first two series, given during the second and third weeks of March were entitled: "The Mind. Its Powers and Possibilities" (March 13), "Mind Culture" (March 15), "Concentration" (March 16), "Nature and Man" (March 20), "The Soul and God" (Marc 'h 23), and "The Goal" (March 27). On March 29, April 3, and April 5, he delivered his. Third series in the Red Men's Building. The three lectures were entitled: "The Science of Breathing", "Meditation", and "Practical Religion: Breathing and Meditation". In addition, he gave an evening lecture on March 30, whose title was "Discipleship".

Though in San Francisco he worked continuously, he also found time to go on outings during the day, sometimes to Golden Gate Park, to the Beach, or to, San Francisco's famed Chinatown, which was in those days barely westernized. He and Mrs. Hansbrough, Mrs. Aspinall, and others would travel here and there by means of San Francisco's cable cars, which left no area of the city inaccessible. Or he would simply rest in the Turk Street flat, reading, writing, or receiving visitors. One now finds the sense of deep peace, which was to mark his last years on earth, beginning to pervade his letters to his more intimate friends and disciples.

But in this mood of increasing calm the Swami's lectures and classes remained extraordinarily dynamic, and his power of attraction was as strong as ever. Many men and women of San Francisco and Oakland became his close followers, attending all his lectures on both sides of the Bay and becoming, as well, students of his classes at his flat. One of these, a Mr. Frank Rhodehamel, was later to write his reminiscences of those unforgettable weeks, giving us an intimate and delightful picture of the great Swami during this fruitful period of his mission. Mr. Rhodehamel wrote: _x000d_ It is now more than ten years since the Swami Vivekananda lectured to California audiences; it seems but yesterday. It was here as elsewhere; the audiences were his from the outset and remained his to the end. They were swept along on the current of his thought without resistance. Many there were who did not want to resist, whose pleasure and novelty it was to have light thrown into the hidden recesses of their minds by the proximity of a luminous personality. There were a few who would have resisted if they could, but whose powers of resistance were neutralized by the irresistible logic, acumen, and childlike simplicity of the Great Teacher. Indeed, there were a few who arose to demur. but who resumed their seats either in smiling acquiescence or in bewildered impotency.

The Swamiji's personality impressed itself on the mind with visual intensity. The speaking eyes, the wealth of facial expression, and gesticulation; the wondrous Sanskrit chanting, sonorous, melodious, impressing one with the sense of mystic potency; the translations following in smiling confidence—all these, set of 'by the spectacular apparel of the Hindu sannyasin — who can forget them? _x000d_ As a lecturer he was unique. never referring to notes, as most lecturers do; and though he repeated many discourses on request, they were never mere repetitions. He seemed to be giving something of himself, to be speaking from a super-experience. The most abstruse points. Of the Vedanta were retrieved from the domain of mere speculation by a vital something which seemed to emanate from him. His utterances were dynamic and constructive: arousing thought and directing it into synthetic process. Thus he was not only a lecturer but a Teacher of the highest order as well.

On one occasion, after persistent queries by a number of persons, it occurred to someone that they were plying the Swami too insistently with questions, and he remarked to that effect. "Ask all the questions you like—the more the better", was the Swami's good-natured reply. "That is what I am here for, and I won't leave you till you understand." The applause was so prolonged that he was obliged to wait till it subsided before he could continue. At times he literally startled people into belief by his answers. To the question, after a lecture on Reincarnation, "Swami, do you remember your past life?" he answered quickly and seriously, "Yes, clearly, even when I was a little boy."

Quick and, when necessary, sharp at repartee, he met all opposition with the utmost good nature and even enjoyment. His business was to make his hearers understand, and he succeeded as, perhaps, no other lecturer on abstruse subjects ever did. To popularize abstractions, to place them within the mental grasp of even very ordinary intellects, was his achievement. He reached them all. "In India," he said, "they tell me that I ought not to teach Advaita Vedanta to the people at large. But I say that I can make even a child understand it. You cannot begin too early to teach the highest spiritual truths."

In the questions which usually followed a talk on this subject, there was almost sure to he the question: "But, Swami, what will become of one's individuality when one realizes one's oneness with God?" He would laugh at this question, and playfully ridicule it. He would say, "You people in this country are so afraid of losing your individualities," drawing out the word in laughing mockery. "Why, you are not individuals yet. When you know God, you will be. When you realize your whole nature, you will attain your true individualities, not before. In knowing God you cannot lose anything worth having.... There is another thing I am constantly hearing in this country and that is that we should "live in harmony with nature!" "Harmony with nature", he ridiculed. "Why, don't you know that all the progress ever made in the world was made by fighting nature, by conquering nature? There never has been an exception. Trees live in harmony with nature. Perfect harmony there; no opposition there—and no progress. We are to resist nature at every point if we are to make any progress. Something funny happens and nature says’cry', and we cry — "

"But," interposed an old lady in the audience, "it would be very hard to mourn for those we love, and I think we would be very hard-hearted if we did not mourn." "O yes, Madam," he replied, "it is hard, no doubt. But what of that? All great accomplishments are hard. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. But don't lower the ideal because it is difficult to attain. Hold the banner of freedom aloft! You do not weep, Madam, because you want to, but because nature forces you. When nature says, 'Weep!' say 'No! I shall not weep!' Strength! Strength! Strength! — say that to yourself day and night. You are the Strong! The Pure! The Free! No weakness in you; no sin; no misery l"

Such statements, vitalized by his tremendous personality, placed him in the same class with the world's greatest spiritual teachers. During these lectures, one was suspended in a spiritual firmament by the proximity of a Soul to whom the world was really a joke, and to whom Consciousness, super-cosmic, was the One and only Reality._x000d_ The Swami was blessed with an irrepressible sense of humour, which enlivened his lectures and classes, and at times relieved the tenseness of embarrassing situations. Observe his parry to the question incredulously hurled at him at the close of a lecture which culminated in an impassioned outburst on the glory of God-Consciousness: "Swami, have you seen God?" "What!" he returned, his face lighting up with a happy smile, "Do I look like it — a big fat man like me?"

On another occasion while he was expounding Advaita, an old man, sitting in the front row, arose deliberately, and with a look which said as plainly as words, "Let me get out of this place in hurry," 'hobbled down the aisle and out of the hall, pounding the floor with his cane at every step. The Swami apparently enjoyed the situation, for amusement overspread his features as he paused to watch him. The attention of the audience was divided between the Swami, smiling, fun-loving, and the disgusted old man who had had enough of him. _x000d_ The whimsical, playful side of the Swami's character would break out at any moment. Certain Theosophic and New Thought students were interested primarily in occult phenomena. One such asked, "Swami, have you ever seen an elemental?" "O yes, we have them in India for breakfast," was the quick reply. Nor did he hesitate to joke about his own personality. At one time when looking at sonic works of art the Swami, surveying a painting of sonic corpulent monks, remarked, "Spiritual men are fat. See, how fat I am!" Again, speaking about the power of prophecy in the saints he said, "Once when I was a little boy playing in the streets, a sage passing by put his hand on my head and said, 'My boy, you will be a great man some day.' And now see where I am!" At this little conceit his face fairly beamed with fun. There was nothing egotistical in such statements. His simple fun-loving nature carried his hearers along with him in the spirit of his joke. At another time: "The Christian idea of hell is not at all terrifying to me. I have read Dante's Inferno three times, but I must say that I find nothing terrible in it. There are many kinds of Hindu hells. When a glutton dies,, for instance, he is surrounded by great quantities of the very best kinds of food. He has a stomach a thousand miles long, and a mouth as small as a pin-head! Think of that!" During this lecture he got very warm owing to the poor ventilation. On leaving the hall after the lecture, he was met by a chill blast of north wind. Gathering his coat tightly about him he said vehemently, "Well, if this isn't hell, I don't know what is."

The concepts Swamiji presented are startling today; in 1900 they were thunderclaps, and delivered by him, propelled by the incredible force of his personality, they could be profoundly unsettling. His words were not mere words; they were experiences, cutting new pathways in the mind. Many people, like Mrs. French, tried to resist, yet despite themselves were drawn deeper and deeper into the world of light Swamiji was opening to them. "[Their] powers of resistance," Mr. Rhodehamel observed, "were neutralised by the irresistible logic, acumen and childlike simplicity of the Great Teacher. Indeed, there were a few who arose to demur but who resumed their seats either in smiling acquiescence or in bewildered impotency. As far as is known, only one crusty soul had the courage, of sorts, to leave the hall. "On [one] occasion while he was expounding Advaita," Rhodehamel recounted, "an old man sitting in the front row, arose deliberately, and with a look which said as plainly as words, `Let me get out of this place in a hurry,' hobbled down the aisle and out of the hall, pounding the floor with his cane at every step. The Swami apparently enjoyed the situation, for amusement overspread his features as he paused to watch him. The attention of the audience was divided between the Swami, smiling, fun ¬loving, and the disgusted old man who had had enough of him._x000d_ But that old man, stomping and grumbling his way out, was a rarity; others sat spellbound. It is true that Swamiji had written to Mrs. Bull from southern California, "I cannot any more tell from the platform" and toward the beginning of his stay in San Francisco, "Platform work is nigh gone for me. And, to be sure, the years of intensive, "cyclonic" public work were indeed gone for him, or, rather, he had withdrawn from them, their purpose served. But there is no indication that the power he could project from the platform had in any way diminished. With a single sentence he could electrify a hall. "Once before beginning his lecture," Mrs. Allan related, "he looked out at the audience for a moment and then said: `Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached!' It was like an electric shock! Marvellous!

Dilating on the life of the sannyasin as compared to that of the householder he said, "Someone asked me if I was ever married." Here he paused to glance smilingly over the audience. A multitudinous titter was the response. Then the smile giving place to a look of horror, he continued: "Why, I wouldn't be married for anything. It is the devil's own game." Here he paused as though to give his words effect. Then raising his hand to check the audible appreciation that had begun, he went on with a quite serious expression over-spreading his features, "There is one thing, however, that I have against the monastic system, and that is" — (another pause) — "that it takes the best men away from the community." He did not attempt to stem the outburst that followed. He had his little joke and enjoyed it. On another occasion, while speaking seriously, he suddenly broke out in merriment, "As soon as a man gets a little sense he dies. He begins by having a big stomach which sticks out farther than his head. When he gains wisdom, his stomach disappears and his head becomes prominent. Then he dies."

The Swami's assimilation of the world's maturest religious thought and his consummate power in expounding it, contrasted curiously with his youthful appearance, and much conjecture was rife as to his age. He must have known this, for he availed himself of an opportunity to have a little fun on this point at the expense of the audience. Alluding to his own age, which was apropos of the subject, he said, "I am only — " (breathless pause, anticipation) — "of a few years", he added mischievously. A sigh of disappointment ran over the audience. The Swami looked on waiting for the applause, which he knew was ready to break out. He enjoyed his own jokes as much as did the audience. Once he laughed outright at sonic particularly pointed joke which he just told. The house was in an uproar at once. The joke is irretrievably lost. What a pity! During his series of lectures on The Ideals of India, the fact was disclosed that he was a wonderful storyteller. Here, perhaps, he was at his best. He gave life to the ancient tales by telling them in his inimitable fashion, the subject giving full play to his unsurpassed power of interpretation, and to that wealth of facial expression which was his greatest personal charm. "I love to tell these stories," he said. "They are the life of, India. I have heard them since babyhood. I never get tired of telling them."

Speaking of spiritual training for the mind he said, "The less you read the better. What are books but the vomitings of other men's minds? Why fill your mind with a load of stuff you will have to get rid of? Read the Gita and other good works on Vedanta. That is all you need." Then again: "The present system of education is all wrong. The mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Control of the mind should be taught first. If I had my education to get over again, and had any voice in the matter, I would learn to master my mind first, and then gather facts, if I wanted them. It takes people a long time to learn things, because they can't concentrate their minds at will.... It took three readings for me to memorize Macaulay's History of England, while my mother memorized any sacred book in only one reading.... People are always suffering because they can't control their minds. To give an illustration, though a rather crude one: A man has trouble with his wife. She leaves him and goes with other men. She's a terror! But, poor fellow, he can't take his mind away from her, and so he suffers."

I asked him to explain why the practice of begging, common among religious mendicants, was not opposed to renunciation. He replied: "It is a question of the mind. If the mind anticipates, and is affected by the results — that is bad, no doubt. The giving and receiving of alms should be free; otherwise it is not renunciation. If you should put a hundred dollars on that table for me, and should _x000d_ expect me to thank you for it, you could take it away again, I would not touch it. My living was provided for before I came here, before I was born. I have no concern about it. Whatever belongs to a man he will get. It was ready for him before he was born."

To the question: "What do you think about the Immaculate Conception of Jesus?" he replied, "That is an old claim. There have been many in India who have claimed that. I don't know anything about it. But for my part, I am glad that I had a natural father and mother." "But isn't such a theory opposed to the law of nature?" I ventured. "What is nature to the Lord? It is all His play," he replied as he knocked the ash from his pipe against the heel of his slipper, regardless of the carpeted floor. Then blowing through the stem to clear it, he continued, "We are slaves of nature. The Lord is the Master of nature. He can do as He pleases. He can take one or a dozen bodies at a time, if He chooses, and in any way He chooses. How can we limit Him?" _x000d_ After answering at length various questions about Raja-Yoga, lie concluded with a friendly smile, "But why bother about Raja-Yoga? There are other ways."_x000d_ But what made the most profound impression on Mr. Rhodehamel was not so much Swamiji's conversation during those interviews as Swamiji himself. "What remains vivid," he wrote more than ten years later, "is the contact with the great Sannyasin-the impressions and impetus received ¬which refuses to be less than the greatest experience in life.

This interview was continued fifteen minutes beyond the time set for a class on Raja-Yoga to be held in the front room of the house. We were interrupted by the lady in charge of affairs, rushing into the room and exclaiming, "Why, Swami! You have forgotten all about the Yoga class. It is fifteen minutes past time now, and the room is full of people." The Swami rose hastily to his feet, exclaiming to me, "Oh, excuse me! We will now go to the front room." I walked through the hall to the front room. He went through his bedroom, which was between the room we had been sitting in and the front room. Before I was seated, he emerged from his room with his hair (which I have said was in a state of wild disorder) neatly combed, and attired in his sannyasin robe! Not more than one minute had elapsed from the time he started from his room with dishevelled hair and in lounging attire, till he came leisurely out into the front room ready to lecture. Speed and precision of action were evidently at his command. It was difficult at times, however, to persuade him to stir beyond the pace he had set for himself. When late for a lecture, for instance, it was sometimes impossible to induce him to hurry for the street car. In response to entreaties to hurry, he would drawl, "Why do you hurry me? If we don't catch that car, we will catch the next."

There is little doubt that Swamiji held many private interviews at his Turk Street flat, for many of the men and women who attended his classes would surely have wanted to discuss their personal problems and experiences with him and to learn more of how they could spiritualize their individual lives. But among those who availed of the opportunity to talk to him privately only two people wrote their memoirs. One, of course, was Frank Rhodehamel._x000d_ Mr. Rhodehamel evidently had several interviews with Swamiji and found him "the ideal host, entering into conver-sation, argument or story-telling, not only without restraint, but with apparent enjoyment." To judge from the fragments of conversation that Rhodehamel recalled in his memoirs (as published in the Life), he could ask questions that poked, as it were, at the honeycomb and that drew forth Swamiji's views on many subjects:

At these yoga classes one came closer to the man and teacher than was possible in the lecture hall. The contact was more personal and the influence more direct. The embodiment of holiness, simplicity, and wisdom, he seemed speaking with incisive power, and drawing one's mind more to God and renunciation than to proficiency in Raja-Yoga practices.

After delivering a short lecture, he would scat himself cross-legged on the divan and direct in meditation such of the audience as remained for that purpose. His talk was on Raja-Yoga, and the practical instruction on simple breathing exercises. He said in part. "You must learn to sit correctly; then to breathe correctly. This develops concentration; then comes meditation.... When practising breathing, think of your body as luminous... . . Try to look down the spinal cord from the base of the brain to the base of the spine. Imagine that you are looking through the hollow Sushumna to the Kundalini rising upward to the brain.... Have patience. Great patience is necessary."

Such as voiced doubts and fears, he reassured by his, "I am with you now. Try to have a little faith in me." One was moved by his persuasive power when he. said: "We learn to meditate that we may be able to think of the Lord. Raja-Yoga is only the means to that end. The great Patanjali, author of the Raja-Yoga, never missed an opportunity to impress that idea upon his students. Now is the time for you who are young. Don't wait till you are old before you think of the Lord, for then you will not be able to think of Him. The power to think of the Lord is developed when you are young."

Seated cross-legged on the divan, clothed in his sannyasin garb, with hands held one within the other on his lap, and with his eyes apparently closed, he might have been a statue in bronze, so immovable was he. A yogi, indeed! Awake only to transcendental thought, he was the ideal, compelling veneration, love, and devotion.

In none of the various reminiscences available to us did anyone mention the date on which Swamiji started holding classes in his flat at 1719 Turk Street in San Francisco; nor in his known letters, did he. We can guess, however, that shortly after he had a place of his own the requests for practical instruction became many and insistent. As we have noted earlier, he probably moved into the flat on March 8, 1900. Since this was a Thursday, it is not likely that classes were started that week. It is more than likely, however, that they were started the next, particularly since Swamiji was by then (as will be seen later) giving a series of three evening lectures, entitled collectively "Applied Psychology," in downtown San Francisco at the Red Men's Building. Although we have a record only of the last of these lectures, there can be very little doubt that all three dealt in general with the science of raja yoga, a subject that must have at once increased the "imperative demand for personal instruction," which demand, Mr. Frank Rhodehamel has told us "gave rise to class work. But however that may be, Swamiji's classes, once started, were held regularly through March and the first week of April.

According to Mrs. Hansbrough, the classes were held three times a week, but it is possible that she was referring only to the morning classes. That Swamiji held at least a few afternoon classes as well is almost certain. Many years later Miss Ansell, consulting her diary for 1900, told Mr. Allan that she began the morning class on March 26 and that on March 29 she "was invited to join the first class. One may gather from this that Swamiji held two sets of classes-one for beginners and one for more advanced students. As will be seen later on, there is evidence that the advanced class was held in the afternoon.

In regard to the morning class, Mrs. Hansbrough tells us that it began, or was scheduled to begin, at ten-thirty. (How long the class might last on any given day no one knew. "There was no set time for their close," Mrs. Allan once recalled. "They lasted from one hour to two and a half hours. But there was no time in his presence-the hours fled. Between thirty and forty people attended, climbing the stairs to the third floor, backtracking along the narrow passage, and crowding into the front parlor. There were, of course, not enough chairs to accommodate everyone, and several people-men and women alike-sat on the carpeted floor. Swamiji would enter from his bedroom, sometimes at ten-thirty, sometimes later; for more often than not he had been giving a private interview in the dining room, oblivious of time.

"His personal appearance on my first interview," he wrote, "was a pleasurable shock from which I have never fully recovered. He had on a long grey dressing gown [perhaps the same worn black and white herringbone tweed of Pasadena days] and was sitting cross-legged on a chair, smoking a pipe, his long hair falling in wild disarray over his features. . . . This interview was continued fifteen minutes beyond the time set for a class on Raja Yoga to be held in the front room of the house. We were interrupted by the lady in charge of affairs [undoubtedly Mrs. Hansbrough] rushing into the room and exclaiming, `Why, Swami! You have forgotten all about the Yoga class. It is fifteen minutes past time now, and the room is full of people.' The Swami arose hastily to his feet, exclaiming to me, `Oh, excuse me! We will now go to the front room.' I walked through the hall to the front room. He went through his bedroom, which was between the room we had been sitting in and the front room. Before I was seated he emerged from his room with his hair . . . Neatly combed, and attired in his Sannyasin robe! Not more than one minute had elapsed from the time he started from his room with dishevelled hair and in lounging attire, till he came leisurely out into the front room ready to lecture. Speed and precision of action were evidently at his command.

If the front parlor became too crowded, the sliding doors leading to Swamiji's bedroom would be opened and further adjustments made in the seating arrangements. Then Swamiji would take his place on the sofa, and the class would begin. And here again, we can turn to Frank Rhodehamel for a picture._x000d_ (Mr. Rhodehamel's memoirs are, incidentally, the longest and perhaps the most important among those that pertain to Swamiji's life and work in northern California. They first appeared anonymously in an appendix to the 1913 edition of the Life and in later editions were incorporated into the body of the text, where they form several pages of the chapter "Second Visit to America." Mr. Rhodehamel and his wife were living in Oakland at the time of Swamiji's visit and had first heard him lecture at the Unitarian Church. Thence¬forth, like many others, they attended every talk of his they could, no matter on which side of the Bay it was given. Both husband and wife-and Mrs. Rhodehamel's sister, Charlotte Brown, as well-remained students of Vedanta throughout the remainder of their lives, studying under Swami Turiyananda during his stay in California and, as we have seen in chapter seven, becoming members of the small, informal group in Oakland of which Gurudasa was the leader. Later on, Mr. Rhodehamel added to his memoirs with two articles -"Vedanta in California: Memories" and "Shanti Ashrama Days", published, again anonymously, in Prabuddha Bharata of, respectively, February-March 1916 and 1918. It is through the first of these that we see the half awe-inspiring, half informal beginning of one of Swamiji's classes.)

"Again we are seated in the class about him," Rhodehamel recalled, seeing the scene in his mind's eye as he wrote:_x000d_ He is the orange-robed, the illuminated one, seated on the divan. His great dark eyes searching the faces about him reveal no clew as to his findings. A few words of instruction as to posture, breathing, relaxation, etc. follow, though without rigid conformity to the traditional teachings. His idea is apparently to make everyone feel at ease as if he would have the spirit of contemplation steal upon us unawares.

Two students, a man and a woman, squat on the floor in painful imitation of the Swami's posture. He looks at them a moment then looks at the rest and laughs. "You can't sit that way," he says. "Your legs are not trained to sit that way. In India we are trained to sit that way from babyhood, but you can't do it." Neither move. The woman replies, pressing her knees down, "Oh, this is easy for me. I am used to it. I always sit this way." The man laughs and hangs his head. Swami looks from one to the other and laughs again. "Come," he says, speaking to the man, "sit here beside me and let your feet rest on the floor." He is stubborn. "Come, come," he pleads, patting the divan beside him, "come sit here by me. You can't meditate that way." But it is useless. Both remain on the floor. Swami laughs and abandons his efforts. Everyone laughs. "All that is necessary," he continues, "is to sit comfortably with the body erect-that is all. Try to think of the body as luminous, full of light.

Concerning the Western difficulty with cross-legged sitting, Mrs. Hansbrough told a similar story, which could have been another version of the same incident or, more probably, an account of a different one. "There was a Mr. Wiseman who came to the classes," she related. "He was a devoted follower of Miss Lydia Bell. He came late once to the class, when all the seats were taken and he had to sit on the floor. In those days the style of men's trousers did not provide the generous leg room they do nowadays [1941], and Mr. Wiseman's trousers were so tight he could not sit cross-legged. Swamiji noticed him sitting with his knees up under his chin and suddenly exclaimed, `Don't look like a fool; come and sit by me!' Mr. Wiseman was a quiet, unassuming sort of man or he would have felt it presumptuous to sit on the same couch with Swamiji. But he accepted the invitation and took a seat on the end of the couch.

According to Mrs. Hansbrough, the classes began (once everyone was settled) with a meditation period that lasted from fifteen minutes to half an hour. Miss Ansell, too, recalled that meditation came first and was followed by a period of instruc¬tion, which, in turn, was followed by "questions and answers and practical suggestions as to exercise, rest and diet.8 Mr. Rhodehamel, on the other hand, tells us that the meditation period took place after the class for "such of the audience as remained for that purpose." But whether the meditation came at the beginning of the class or at its end, to meditate with Swamiji was an experience never forgotten.The period began with his chanting.

"The rhythmic intonation of Sanskrit Mantras stirs responsive chords," Mr. Rhodehamel recalled, still reliving those wonderful days as he wrote:_x000d_ The result is emotional rather than intellectual. An intangible sweetness steals upon the senses, quieting them, and the mind reflects somewhat of that placid depth which is the Swami's habitual state. Now he pauses to translate, weaving through the witchery of words an atmosphere of spiritual idealism. His personality becomes a magnet drawing one away from [oneself], and [one] feels as pleasurable those thought-flashes which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been resisted as inimical to personality. Something within leaps upward. Conscious¬ness breaks through the incrustation of personal identity. One's life in the world fades into a mere tradition, unstable, unalluring. A transitional period of spiritual probation is covered in a flash. The present consciousness becomes contemporaneous with that wisdom which is ever unsullied by the succession of events.

Perhaps not everyone responded to Swamiji's influence so sensitively or so consciously as did Frank Rhodehamel; yet few seated before Swamiji in that classroom could have failed to receive something of his peace, to taste something of the depths of true meditation that ever afterward would beckon. "I throw my mind into the state of bliss," he once said during the course of a lecture in San Francisco, "and the tendency is to raise the same bliss in your mind."10 Even one not seated near Swamiji could partake of his meditation. One morning Mrs. Hansbrough was too occupied in the kitchen to attend the class. "I used to prepare a lamb broth for Swamiji every day," she related. "I would cook it for three or four hours, and it was very nourishing because every bit of the food value would be cooked out of the meat. One day for some reason I had not been able to get the broth made by . . . ten-thirty. Swamiji looked into the kitchen before going to the class. `Aren't you coming?' he asked. I told him that because I had neglected to plan my work properly, now I had to stay in the kitchen. `Well, that's all right,' he said, `I will meditate for you.' All through the class I felt he really was meditating for me. And do you know, I have always had the feeling that he still does meditate for me.

Perhaps not everyone responded to Swamiji's influence so sensitively or so consciously as did Frank Rhodehamel; yet few seated before Swamiji in that classroom could have failed to receive something of his peace, to taste something of the depths of true meditation that ever afterward would beckon. "I throw my mind into the state of bliss," he once said during the course of a lecture in San Francisco, "and the tendency is to raise the same bliss in your mind. Even one not seated near Swamiji could partake of his meditation. One morning Mrs. Hansbrough was too occupied in the kitchen to attend the class. "I used to prepare a lamb broth for Swamiji every day," she related. "I would cook it for three or four hours, and it was very nourishing because every bit of the food value would be cooked out of the meat. One day for some reason I had not been able to get the broth made by . . . Ten-thirty. Swamiji looked into the kitchen before going to the class. `Aren't you coming?' he asked. I told him that because I had neglected to plan my work properly, now I had to stay in the kitchen. `Well, that's all right,' he said, `I will meditate for you.' All through the class I felt he really was meditating for me. And do you know, I have always had the feeling that he still does meditate for me.

On another occasion, which can be told of here although it did not occur at Turk Street, Mrs. Hansbrough felt the strong effect of Swamiji's meditation. "In Alameda," she recalled, "I was upset or depressed about something and he said to me, `Come, sit down and we will meditate.' `Oh, I never meditate, Swamiji,' I told him. `Well, come and sit by me, and I will meditate,' he replied. So I sat down and closed my eyes. In a moment I felt as though I were going to float away, and I quickly opened my eyes to look at Swamiji. He had the appearance of a statue, as though there were not a spark of life in his body. He must have meditated for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then opened his eyes again. The sight of Swamiji meditating was in itself a profoundly moving experience. "Seated cross-legged on the divan [at Turk Street], clothed in his Sannyasin garb, with hands held one within the other on his lap, and with his eyes apparently closed, he might have been a statue in bronze, so immovable was he," Rhodehamel wrote years later in his memoirs. "A Yogi, indeed! Awake only to transcendental thought, he was the ideal, compelling veneration, love and devotion.

This reminiscence is in the form of a letter written by an unnamed member of the San Francisco Vedanta Society to the editor of the magazine and, as will be seen, gives evidence that Swamiji held at least one afternoon class for advanced students at his Turk Street flat. The letter reads:

It was my good fortune to be in Los Angeles at a time when Swami Vivekananda was giving lectures there. Although the subjects on which he spoke were new to me at that time, I was fascinated by them, and when I returned to Oakland and Swami came later and lectured in San Francisco, Oakland and Alameda, I was irresistibly attracted and was almost invariably one of his listeners.

On one occasion it was announced that on a certain afternoon the Swami would give a lecture to advanced students at his place of residence. As I was very desirous of attending, I applied to Swami's secretary [Mrs. Hans¬brough] for permission to do so, at the same time tell-ing her that I was not an advanced student. In answer I was given to understand that such being the case I would better not try to attend. Not satisfied, however, I applied to the Swami himself for permission to attend._x000d_ He said most heartily, "Come, and welcome, welcome, welcome!" _x000d_ The Swami's lecture was an intellectual and spiritual feast; we seemed to be transported to higher regions of thought and feeling.

A part of the afternoon was given to answering questions some of which were somewhat trivial, but the Swami always answered with unfailing courtesy.

The subject of diet was being discussed when a student asked, "Swami, what about eating onions?" "Well," answered Swami, "onions are not the best diet for a spiritual student, but how fond I was of them when I was a boy! I used to eat them and then walk up and down in the open air to get them from my breath."

The last half hour of the afternoon was devoted to meditation and the Swami became completely lost to the external world. His presence seemed to radiate a divine influence which permeated our very being. We went home, our feet scarcely touching the ground. It seemed as if the Swami had given us to drink of the Divine Nectar.

"After the period of meditation," Mrs. Hansbrough said, speaking of the morning classes, "Swamiji would discourse on some sacred book. Sometimes he would ask the class what they would like for a subject. Unfortunately, she did not remember what sacred books Swamiji discoursed upon, or what he said. We know, however, that many of his classes were devoted to instruction in raja yoga. It was, indeed, these that Mr. Rhodehamel remembered best and these alone of which he spoke in his memoirs.

"The conditions, physical and mental, necessary to efficient contemplation of the significance of spiritual teachings were patiently dwelt upon in detail," he wrote in his 1916 Prabuddha Bharata article, and continued: "The difference between mere#_x000d_ _x000d_ intellectual appreciation of spiritual ideals and the desire to be spiritual was sharply drawn. He taught that in the attainment of the spiritual capacity, or the desire to be spiritual, nothing is arbitrary; that the whole process is one of natural develop¬ment. There was nothing mystical about it. Practice,practice, practice, life-long practice, and if necessary many lives of practice, was the one and only method to acquire the all¬ absorbing desire to be spiritual. And practice? Intensive con¬templation of the significance of spiritual teachings and of the spiritual character. Hence the elimination of obstacles to deep contemplation and the employment of any accessories to that end was the scope of the Swami's efforts in his class-work.

While the above quotation summarizes the scope and purpose of Swamiji's classes, more concrete is the glimpse Mr. Rhodehamel gives in his earlier memoirs published in the Life. Here one is brought closer, as it were, to Swamiji himself. "His talk was on Raja Yoga," Rhodehamel recalled, "and the practical instruction simple breathing exercises. He said in part: You must learn to sit correctly; then to breathe correctly. This develops concentration; then comes meditation. . . . When practicing breathing, think of your body as luminous. . . . Try to look down the spinal cord from the base of the brain to the base of the spine. Imagine that you are looking through the hollow Sushumna to the Kundalini rising upward to the brain. . . . Have patience. Great patience is necessary.' Such as voiced doubts and fears he reassured by his, `I am with you now. Try to have a little faith in me.' One was moved by his persuasive power when he said, `We learn to meditate that we may be able to think of the Lord. Raja Yoga is only the means to that end. The great Patanjali, author of the Raja Yoga, never missed an opportunity to impress that idea upon his students. Now is the time for you who are young. Don't wait till you are old before you think of the Lord, for then you will not be able to think of Him. The power to think of the Lord is developed when you are young."

In Frank Rhodehamel's notebook, found not long ago in the archives of the Vedanta Society of Northern California, there is a brief note with the heading "Class lessons in meditation by Swami Vivekananda" and the date "Monday, March 26, 1900." Here one finds what one can assume to be Swamiji's verbatim instructions on that particular day:_x000d_ The first point is the position. Sit with the spine perfectly free, with the weight resting on the hips. The next step is breathing. Breathe in the left nostril and out the right. Fill the lungs full and eject all the breath. Clear the lungs of all impure air. Breathe full and deep. The next thing is to think of the body as luminous, filled with light. The next thing is to concentrate on the base of the spine, not from the outside, but look down the spinal column inside to the base of the spine.

It would seem that Swamiji held fairly detailed raja yoga classes at his Turk Street flat; nor is it surprising that he would do so. As Mr. Rhodehamel pointed out, he taught raja yoga as the best means of acquiring the disciplines of Advaita Vedanta, all of which presuppose great mastery of the mind and senses. Indeed, Swamiji taught raja yoga, particularly during his second visit to the West, as an auxiliary path to jnana yoga. As he was to explain during a lecture in Alameda, "the central idea of all this training [in raja yoga] is to attain to [the] power of concentration, the power' of meditation. And this power of meditation was to be combined with the practice of discrimination between the Real and the unreal, with the continual affirmation of the Self. "By means of discrimination [jnana yoga] and meditation [raja yoga], the goal, of Brahman, has to be reached," he said in India shortly before coming to America the second time. "This, in my opinion, is the easy path ensuring quick success. We find him stressing this combined path above all others during the last days of his mission. To be sure, Swamiji presented raja yoga as a powerful vehicle that could speed one along any path one might choose, but he hitched it firmly to the star of Advaita Vedanta, and he let no one forget that ultimate goal.

But while Swamiji may have taught a good deal of practical raja yoga in San Francisco, he also taught far more than can be conveyed in words. One cannot forget that his essential teaching took place largely in silence. Indeed, the value of Swamiji's small classes lay more in his direct, living contact with each person who sat near him than in the details of his instruction. The power and radiance of his personality, his ability to awaken love for God, to impart a glimpse of transcendental reality, revealing the end even as he taught the means, was here manifest to a still greater degree than in his lectures. "At these Yoga classes one came closer to the man and teacher than was possible in the lecture hall," Mr. Rhodehamel wrote. "The contact was more personal and the influence more direct. The embodiment of holiness, simplicity and wisdom, he seemed speaking with incisive power, and drawing one's mind more to God and renunciation than to proficiency in Raja Yoga practices. And again, "Here the teacher of wisdom revealed himself as a power of love. The fiery aggressiveness of that mind more than able to cope with all opposition gave way to a gentle friendliness of demeanour which mirrored beneath his winsome, capricious temperament a depth of consciousness, remote and inaccessible. Here the undisguised admiration of audiences for the lecturer was transformed into devotion to the Guru. The second stage of spiritual culture was now under way; the absorption of what had been heard into thought. . . . Like babies learning to talk, that difficult task made delightful by the loving attentions of the mother, the Swami's spiritual babies dallied with his every word and drank in the sweetness of his badinage as he tried to teach them how to think.

But lest Mr. Rhodehamel mislead one into forming too soft a picture of Swamiji in his classes, we should add here a memory of Mrs. Hansbrough's. "He sometimes," she said, "could be very sharp. Once when he was talking of renunciation, a woman asked him, `Well Swami, what would become of the world if everyone renounced?' His answer was, `Madam, why do you come to me with that lie on your lips? You have never considered anything in this world but your own pleasure!' Gentle, patient, and loving though he was, he seldom hesitated to deliver a pointed rebuke when it was called for. His purpose was always to open the mind to light, never to bring comfort to its darkness. Yet as a rule Swamiji softened his rebukes. On one occasion, recalled by Mrs. Allan, he had been talking to his class in "a very learned way, when suddenly he stopped and said with great feeling, `I am the disciple of a man who could not write his own name, and I am not worthy to undo his shoes. How often have I wished I could take my intellect and throw it into the Ganges!' `But, Swami,' a lady remarked, `that is the part of you I like best.' To which Swamiji replied, `That is because you are a fool, Madam-like I am: It was this "like I am" spoken in all sincerity that made his love so accessible, his friendship so secure.

When one considers Swamiji's classes at Turk Street, one marvels at the picture that rises to mind. Here was this world teacher whom one can place beside the greatest "Messengers" mankind has known, sitting in a poor flat half a world away from his homeland, training a small group of "spiritual babies" to take the first steps along the Himalayan climb to liberation! He taught them with infinite care and love, lavishing upon them the warmth of his heart, joking with them to ease tension, rebuking them when necessary, assuring them of his protection when they grew afraid, and in every mood, with every word and in every silence pouring upon them his grace. He held back nothing, except perhaps the full force of his power, lest it overwhelm them.

According to Mrs. Ansell's account of Mrs. Allan's memories, he invited her to stay to lunch only on the day of his last class, but according to Mrs. Allan's own written account, which is clearer on this point in its rough form than in the published version, she "had the advantage of being with Swamiji every day for a month while he was in San Francisco and after that in Alameda¬ another month." Perhaps on some of these days Swamiji spoke only briefly to her; but more than once he would invite her to stay for lunch after the class and would let her help him in the kitchen "peeling onions and potatoes" while he engaged in his favorite task of cooking some spicy dish. (Potatoes were not always an ingredient. "In the Turk Street apartment," Mrs. Hansbrough once said, "he often cooked palao, that rich dish made with rice and meat.") To be in the kitchen with Swamiji was a privilege not afforded to everyone. The story goes that one day Mrs. Aspinall entered with the information that Miss Lydia Bell, the heavyset, somewhat opinionated head of the California Street Home of Truth, wanted to stay for lunch. "All right," Swamiji said, "she can stay"-for he liked Miss Bell. "But keep her out of the kitchen! There was, actually, no reason for Miss Bell to be in the kitchen with Swamiji; but for Mrs. Allan those relaxed hours in his company were a deeply needed, deeply healing balm.

As the reader may remember, we left Mrs. Allan on the eve of her first interview. "Come tomorrow morning," he had said. "Much of the night was spent thinking of all the questions I should ask him," Mrs. Allan recalled in her memoirs, "as many questions had been troubling me for months and no one to whom I had gone was able to help me. She was then thirty-five years old, a slender, near beautiful woman, who looked younger than her years. A photograph taken of her about two years after she had met Swamiji shows her singing in the choir of the Home of Truth in Alameda and looking like a half wistful, half willful college girl with an untroubled oval face and a wealth of dark hair drawn back loosely and simply. Possibly she looked even younger and more immature when Swamiji first saw her, certainly more fragile and less serene. At that time she had been ill, physically and mentally, for a year or two and, as she said, had nowhere found relief In the words of a rough draft of her memoirs, she "had played with fire and got into a psychic condition, or, as I have heard from a reliable source, she had dabbled in occultism and had suffered a nervous collapse. This was precisely the sort of trouble that Swamiji had often warned against during his first visit to the West, and there is no question that, as Mrs. Allan had sat in Washington Hall waiting for her husband to count the ticket money, he had recognized at a glance her difficulty and her need for help. Thus he had called her to him.

At these subsequent interviews Swamiji gave her some spiritual instruction. "He told me how to meditate," she once said, "and he also taught me some simple breathing exercises, although he warned me never to practice them except in his presence. But shortly, as we have seen, other people discovered the Turk Street flat (through her, Mrs. Allan used to say); others asked for interviews, the morning class was started, and, to her great regret, her private sessions with Swamiji came to an end.

In one of the rough drafts of her memoirs, which are preserved in the archives of the Vedanta Society of Northern California and some portions, of which are not found elsewhere, one comes upon snatches of Swamiji's talk during these happy times: "In the kitchen at Turk Street while cooking," she wrote, "he talked Philosophy, chanted verse 61, Chapter 18, of the Gita, `The Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, by His illusive power causing all beings to revolve at though mounted on a potter's wheel.' `This has all happened before,' he said. `Like the throw of dice, so it is in life; the wheel goes on and the same combination comes up; that pitcher and glass have stood there before, so, too, that onion and potato. What can we do, Madam, He has us on the wheel of Life.’

"He longed to be free of the body. `I have to come back once ' more,' he said. `The Master said I am to come back once more with him.' `You have to come back because Sri Ramakrishna says so?' I asked. `Souls like that have great power, Madam,' he replied." (In Pasadena, Swamiji had made a similar statement. "It was probably during an after-lunch conversation when he was walking up and down the living room," Mrs. Hansbrough recalled, "that Swamiji told us, `The Master said he would come again in about two hundred years-and I will come with him. When a Master comes, he brings his own people’')

Once Mrs. Allan asked Swamiji about his triumphant reception when he returned to India in 1897, which she had no doubt read about in the newspapers. But he was always loath to speak of honor paid to himself. "Madam," he said, "I never felt such a fool." Possessions distressed him as much as fame. "He had a trunk with clothes, books, etc.," Mrs. Allan's draft continues. " `I am ashamed to have a trunk,' he said. `I am a Sannyasin.' And he quoted from his poem, The Song of the Sannyasin, `Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend? The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed. . . .' " (He was per¬haps more burdened than ashamed to have a trunk. "About his clothes," Mrs. Hansbrough recalled, "he used to say, `In India I can exist on hips and haws and live in rags, but here I want to meet your demands.' ")

This does not mean, however, that he was not urged to visit here and there. We find that at some point during his stay in San Francisco he spent at least two days with a Dr. Albert D. Hiller, a surgeon and homeopathic physician whose home and offices were at 1011 Sutter Street, in a residential block between Larkin and Hyde. The information that Swamiji was Dr. Hiller's guest comes to us from the unpublished, book¬: length memoirs of Mrs. Clinton French, and from one of Swamiji's letters we can infer the approximate date of his visit, as well as learn something of the doctor himself, of whom Swamiji writes with great humor. Upon the enthusiastic advice of Miss MacLeod this unfortunate man had taken his invalid wife to Los Angeles so that she could receive the magnetic treat¬ments of Mrs. Melton. An earlier letter of Swamiji's supplies us with the information that on March 15 the Hillers had returned from Los Angeles full of cheer. "They declare themselves very much helped by Mrs. Melton," he wrote to Mrs. Leggett. "Mrs. Hiller expects to get completely cured in a short time."68 But by the end of March Mrs. Hiller was considerably worse in health than before.

"The old doctor is now persuaded that some devils are mis-arranging his affairs of late," Swamiji continued. "He has counted on so much to have me as his guest, and his wife righted, but he had to run to Los Angeles and that upset the whole plan; and now, though he tries his best to get me in as his guest, I fight shy, not of him, but of his wife and sister-in-law. He is sure, `Devils must be in it'; he has been a Theosophical student. I told him to write to Miss MacLeod to hunt up a devil-driver somewhere so that he might run with his wife and spend another five hundred! Doing good is not always smooth! . . . I sent in a Christian Science healer to Dr. Hiller as a makeup of Joe's misdemeanour, but his wife slammed the door in her face and would have nothing to do with queer healing.

In March and April all of Swamiji's evening lectures in San Francisco were given in the Red Men's Building at 320 Post Street, which like Union Square Hall was in the center of town. To get there from Turk Street, he would have taken exactly the same route as he did on Sundays, except that at the inter¬section of Powell and Post he would have crossed to the north side of post Street and walked half a block east instead of west. The Red Men's Building, which belonged to the Improved Order of Red Men, a secret society similar to Freemasonry, was a rather narrow, three-story building in the center of the block, facing Union Square. The street floor was given over to two or more shops; the third floor, as a large sign stretching across the top of the building proclaimed, was occupied by the Pacific Business College. Washington Hall was probably on the second floor, as, no doubt, was a smaller auditorium known as Social Hall, where Swamiji was to lecture once or twice and where the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, now named the Vedanta Society of Northern California; was to come into being.

Union Square, the famous park that fills a square block in the heart of downtown San Francisco, had the same dignified status in 1900 as it has today, but the surrounding scene was very different. The now venerable Saint Francis Hotel that faces the park on the west and that seems to have been there forever was in 1900 still nonexistent. The southern part of the block on which it now stands was occupied by the Calvary Presbyterian Church, a handsome stone building with a columned façade. (One can find the same church today on the corner of Fillmore and Jackson streets, to which spot it was moved stone by stone in October of 1900.) The northern part of the block was occupied by several low, nondescript buildings. Early photographs of the three other boundaries of Union Square show a scene as unrecognizable. For the most part the buildings were from three to five stories high and, except for the Pacific Union Club, a mammoth five-story structure with an ornamental dormer roof that stood on the northwest corner of Post and Stockton, were unprepossessing. As for Union Square itself, it was adorned by lawns, small trees, low shrubs, and a flagpole, which last, said to be "menacing to life and limb " was removed during the period Swamiji was lecturing at the Red Men's Building. (The Dewey Monument, a tall granite shaft topped by an arabesquing figure of Victory, today a long¬ familiar landmark, was not to replace the flagpole until two or three years later.) There were of course no automobiles on the streets; the sounds were of horses' hooves on cobble-stones, the hum and thwack of underground cables, and the joyful clankety-clink-clink of cable car bells. Except on Sundays, it was nighttime when Swamiji walked, or rode a cable, up the slope of Powell Street to Post. His lectures in Washington Hall (in the Red Men's Building) were scheduled to begin at eight o'clock, by which hour the March sun had long since set and the street lights been turned on.

The first series of three evening lectures that he gave after he had moved into the Turk Street flat and decided to remain awhile in San Francisco had the same title as the first series he had given in Los Angeles: "Applied Psychology." Individually, the lectures were entitled "The Mind: Its Powers and Possibilities," "Mind Culture," and "Concentration"-all clearly concerned with raja yoga. He delivered them on, respectively, the evenings of Tuesday, March 13, Thursday, March 15, and Friday, March 16.

The only lecture of this series at which Ida Ansell took notes is the last. But from Mr. Rhodehamel's memoirs as published in the Life one learns something about the first, which, in a sense, marked the opening of the most important period of Swamiji's work in the Bay Area. His previous lectures had been, as I have mentioned, more or less preliminary. His main work now began, and it began, so to speak, with a bang. He had promised that it would. "Tomorrow night," he had said at the conclusion of what must have been The Way of Salvation at Wendte Hall, "I shall lecture on `The Mind: Its Powers and Possibilities.' Come to hear me. I have something to say to you. I shall do a little bomb-throwing." Here, according to Mr. Rhodehamel, he glanced smilingly over the audience, and then with a wave of his hand added, "Come on! It will do you good

But to return to his berating of his audience, one learns a little more of his manner of doing this from Miss Sarah Fox, whose recollections of her attendance at the Unitarian church in Oakland we have quoted earlier. "My sister and I heard only one other lecture by Swamiji," she added in her memoirs; "this time in San Francisco. In the first half of it he flayed his listeners for their Licentiousness, and in the second half he poured out his affection upon them. Swamiji's profound, undeviating affection for man was always there. It was indeed this that made his insights so unerring, his chastisements so incisive. While truth was the dynamite of his bombs, it was his love that ignited them. Not everyone, however, could withstand them.

Mr. E. C. Brown, who was present at most of Swamiji's lectures in the Bay Area, later told of the astonished indignation with which some members of the audience became aware that his "bomb-throwing" was aimed at them. "Does he mean me?" was incredulously asked by more than one person. "Several people," Mr. Brown reported, "stopped coming to the lectures.

This would not have troubled Swamiji in the slightest. He well knew that those who were annoyed by his words today would feel blessed by them tomorrow. "I will compare truth to a corrosive substance of infinite power," he had written during his first visit to the West in an impassioned reply to some well-meant advice that he soften his approach. "It burns its way in wherever it falls-in soft substance sooner, hard granite later, but it must. . . . I have a message to give," he continued, "I have no time to be sweet to the world, and every attempt at sweetness makes one a hypocrite. In 1900 Swamiji was again receiving advice-notably from those who had not known him earlier. His answer was in essence no different, but it was the succinct answer now of a veteran warrior who had never compromised or turned his back, and whose truth had flooded the world-to burn its way in soon or late. Miss. Hansbrough, it will be remembered, once ventured in Los Angeles to suggest that he sometimes antagonized his audiences, only to meet with the reply, "Madam, I have cleared whole halls in New York. Perhaps she brought up the point again in San Francisco. "Once while we were in the Turk Street apartment," she related, "I questioned something about the way Swamiji was handling the work. He did not answer, but simply said, 'Within ten years of my death, I will be worshiped as a god’

While some people, their pride badly damaged, may have stopped coming to Swamiji's lectures, his following as a whole was to remain constant throughout his stay in San Francisco. As has been said earlier, the attendance at his pay lectures had at first been so unsatisfactory that he had felt it not worth his while to remain in California. But soon this situation changed. "The attendance averaged from one hundred and fifty to two hundred," Mrs. Hansbrough recalled, "which was not bad, considering that there was a charge of fifty cents for each lecture and one dollar for a series of three.

By a stroke of good fortune, there was no lack of advertising for these later lectures. Among the people who were attracted to Swamiji from the beginning was Mrs. Clinton French, the wife of a printer. In the early part of 1900, Cara French, like Ida Ansell, had been attending a class on the Gita held by Miss Lydia Bell at the California Street Home of Truth. She had drifted there, she recounted in her unpublished memoirs, for lack of an anchor and because "of the keen interest of several relatives in Home of Truth teachings." "Then," she wrote, giving the sentence a paragraph of its own, "came VIVEKANANDA!" "A prolonged illness of Mr. French, with consequent financial strain, hampered me," she continued; "but so intense was my desire to attend Swami Vivekananda's lectures and classes, the way seemed to open. Mrs. Hansbrough and others in charge needed advertising matter: we had a printing shop. So through Mr. Wiseman, caretaker at the [California Street] Home of Truth, a mutually favorable arrangement was made. Copy with the cuts of Swamiji reached our desk; and presently they had dodgers (small hand¬bills), quarter-cards (for window display), and tickets-and I the coveted admissions to his courses of lectures:

This arrangement was a godsend for all concerned. Because of her husband's illness, Mrs. French did a good deal of the printing work herself and thereby not only received free admission to Swamiji's lectures (together, surely, with the cost of printing) but, as she often said in later years, derived much happiness from the work itself. As for Swamiji, the San Fran¬cisco newspapers did not often mention his lectures; advertising was expensive; and, as we have seen, the Reverend B. Fay Mills had declined to announce his lectures to his own San Francisco congregations. Dodgers and quarter-cards were just the thing. Evidently a great many of the latter were placed in strategic windows about the city to announce each lecture series; for one remembers Miss Partington's mention (in the Chronicle of March 18) of a photograph or "cut" which "has been extensively used in lecture advertisements here." But of the handbills, display cards, and tickets turned out by the Frenches' press (then located in the Phelan Building at Market and O'Farrell) only a few handbills have been recovered.

Mrs. French's memoirs, incidentally, are revealing of the awe-inspiring effect Swamiji had upon some of his listeners. Although she attended all his lectures and his classes as well, although she was happy in serving his cause, she "had no personal conversation with him." "With abundant oppor¬tunity, it was my own fault that I did not," she wrote. "Others crowded about him with questions or in greeting; I slipped out quietly, even from the small classes held at the Turk Street flat, where I was obliged to pass around him to reach the stairway in leaving. There were several reasons for my attitude," she continued; "young [then in her late twenties] and naturally shy, I felt utterly insignificant, and wondered what I was doing in being there. Captivated by the spiritual force and magnetism of his presence, yet in a degree resisting it-for was he not bowling over or knocking to pieces many a preconceived idea of spiritual teaching-my mind was dazed and in a tur¬moil. However, I do not now regard it as an altogether lost opportunity. No one squatting on the floor Oriental fashion (for lack of sufficient chairs) just a few feet from Swami Vivek¬ananda, could possibly have escaped his observation; his mental, moral and spiritual appraisal:"92 Indeed not, and in any event Mrs. French was captivated for good; she spent the rest of her life-she lived to be over eighty-in the study and service of Vedanta.

Indeed, Swamiji's wit, his vibrant life, his many-faceted attractiveness-all luminous with She quality Miss Albers referred to as "soul-force"-made as deep an impression upon his audience as his words. Even his physical appearance was arresting. After two years or more of unremitting illness, work, and anguish of heart, he was evidently as strikingly handsome as he had been during his first visit to the West. "The beauty of Swamiji nobody can imagine," Mrs. Allan once said. "His face, his hands, his feet, all were beautiful. Swami Trigunatita later said that Swamiji's hands were far more beautiful than any woman's. His color would seem to change, some days being darker and some days lighter, but usually there was about it what can best be described as a golden glow. On the platform, wearing his robe-its shade described once as "persimmonish terra-cotta," once as "crushed strawberry"-his appear¬ance was godlike, and to some, as Miss Ansell recalled, it appealed more than did his doctrine. "I remember," she wrote with a touch of disapproval, "one very wealthy and aristocratic young lady, who was studying music with my teacher, saying ecstatically, `Oh, he is like a lovely golden statue!' But one cannot blame the young woman for admiring this aspect of Swamiji. Most people did-men and women alike. "The Swamiji's personality impressed itself on the mind with visual intensity," Mr. Rhodehamel was to write some ten years later. "The speaking eyes, the wealth of facial expression and gesticulation; the wondrous Sanskrit chanting, sonorous, melodious, impressing one with the sense of mystic potency; the translations following in smiling confidence; all these set off by the spectacular apparel of the Hindu Sannyasin; who can forget them?

During his first visit to the West Swamiji's voice was often described as sheer music. It was still thrilling to his listeners. "His voice was so magnificent!" Mrs. Roorbach once recalled. "It would roll out with those Sanskrit verses and everyone in the audience would sit up and take notice. They didn't know a word of Sanskrit; I didn't either. His voice was not tenor " she added, "but bass-low bass. As far as I know, no one else ever described Swamiji's voice as "low bass," but if even one person remembered it as such, it must have been in the lower ranges. Mrs. Hansbrough confirmed this. "His voice was the most musical I have ever heard, she said of his lectures in Los Angeles, and she had judged his pitch to be closer to bass than to tenor. "It was not a powerful voice," she recalled at another time, "but it had great depth. The manager of Washington Hall in San Francisco once told me he had never heard so sweet a voice. If his voice was not powerful, it was clear and carrying. "There was never any doubt about hearing what Swamiji said," Mrs. Allan once told a fellow Vedantin. "He spoke out very decidedly and very loudly. He used quite long sentences, she added.

One recalls here a passage from Sister Christine's reminiscences: "Our conception of spirituality was not only clarified [through knowing Swamiji]," she wrote, "but transcended. Spirituality brings life, power, joy, fire, glow, enthusiasm-all the beautiful and positive things, never inertia, dullness, weakness. Then why should one have been so surprised to find a man of God with a power in an unusual degree? Why have we in the West always associated emaciation and anaemic weakness with spirituality? Looking back upon it now one wonders how one could ever have been so illogical. Spirit is life, shakti, the divine energy. It was precisely this truth that Swamiji made apparent. The incomparable attractiveness of God as seen through him was ever a source of amazement in the West, and it was one of the moat important lessons he taught--simply by his presence. But the divine energy he manifested also made of his every word a thunderbolt, and perhaps no one knew this better than he.

"One evening after one of his lectures at Washington Hall several of us were walking home with him," Mrs. Hansbrough related. "I was in front with someone, and he behind with some others. Apropos of something he had been discussing, he said, `You have heard that Christ said, "My words are spirit and they are life." ' He pointed his finger at me and declared, `So are my words spirit and life; they will burn their way into your brain and you will never get away from them!

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA . . . will give a course of three lectures on "The Vedanta Philosophy" ["Vedanta philosophy" in the Examiner; "Vedonta Philosophy" in the Chronicle], at Washington Hall, 320 Post st. Subjects; Tuesday, March 20th, 8 p.m., "Nature and Man" Friday, March 23rd, 8 p.m., "Soul and God"; Tuesday, March 27th, 8 p.m., "The Goal". Tickets, 50c; course, $ 1.00.

Vedantic Philosophy_x000d_ _x000d_ Swami Vivekananda the Hindoo exponent of the Vedantic school of philosophy delivered last evening the first of a series of lectures upon the elements of the system he represents. It was an abstruse treatise on the origin of the species and the development of the human mind. . . .

It was, it so happens, no such thing. One cannot be grateful enough that by the time Swamiji gave his series on Vedanta Philosophy Ida Ansell was busy with her pencil. Her transcripts of the three lectures have been published in the Complete Works: "Nature and Man" in volume eight under the title "I Am that I Am"; "Soul and God" in volume one; and "The Goal" in volume two. (The first is among those edited from the first transcripts and published in The Voice of India.) True to his word, Swamiji bombarded the audience. His stress on monism, so pronounced during his second visit to the West, reached in this series a climax of explicit and impassioned expression; cannon balls flew to right and to left. "Audiences were jolted out of hereditary ruts, and New Thought students, so-called, were subjected to scathing, though constructive criticisms without mercy," Mr. Rhodehamel, whose notes of these three lectures have also been published,* wrote in his memoirs. "Smilingly, [the Swami] would announce the most stupendous Vedantic conceptions so opposed to Christian theologic dogma; then pause an instant; how many, many times, and with such winsome effect!-with his teeth pressed over his lower lip as though with bated breath observing the result. To judge from the examples Mr. Rhodehamel proceeded to give of "the violence done to the traditional teachings of Christendom," he had particularly in mind this series on Vedanta Philosophy; all the concepts he cited can be found here, and many more besides._x000d_ _x000d_ * Frank Rhodehamel’s notes of “Natural and Man,” “Soul and God,” and “The Goal” have been published in volume six of the Complete Works under their original titles, approximately. From these brief published notes it is sometimes possible to understand Ida Ansell’s “scrappy” notes more clearly. For instance, in “The Soul and God” as taken down by Miss Ansell and transcribed by her for publication in Vedanta and the west a sentence reads (as edited), “Either the [soul permeates] space or space is in [it]” (Complete Works, I : 495). This same passage in Rhodehamel’s notes, “Soul and God,” reads: “Either you are in space, or space is in you” (Complete Works, 6:93). One is inclined to think that Mr.Rhodehamel’s version comes closer to the words Swamiji uttered.

According to a brief report in the San Francisco Chronicle of March 30, "Vivekananda answered questions at the close of the lecture as he will after the next two which will be on `Meditation' and `Explanations in Regard to Breathing.' "

To return to Swamiji's lectures at Washington Hall, we now come to one entitled "Discipleship," which, unlike most of his West Coast lectures, does not belong to a series. According to Ida Ansell's transcript, Swamiji gave it on March 29; but around this time Miss Ansell seems to have been a day behind. She gave the date March 28 to "The Science of Breathing," though Swamiji almost certainly delivered it on March 29. It would be in keeping, then, for her to give the date March 29 to a lecture delivered on March 30. But whenever Swamiji gave "Discipleship," one does not find a lecture similar to it in the _x000d_ Complete Works. It was in a class by itself, as were several others that he gave in California, such as "My Life and Mission" and "Women of India," both of which had been given in Pasadena on requests from the audience. In "Discipleship" Swamiji dealt with the four basic conditions of discipleship. In the order that Swamiji spoke of them, these were: renunciation, control of the senses and the mind, faith in the guru and an intense desire for freedom, and discrimination between the Real and the unreal* "These are the four conditions which one who wants to be a disciple must fulfill," he concluded; "without fulfilling them he will not be able to come in contact with the true guru. And even if he is fortunate enough to find him, he will not be quickened by the power that the guru may transmit. There cannot be any compromising of these conditions. With the fulfillment of these conditions-with all these preparations-the lotus of the disciple's heart will open and the bee shall come. Then the disciple knows that the guru was within the body, within himself. He opens out. He realizes. He crosses the ocean of life, goes beyond. He crosses this terrible ocean, and in mercy, without a thought of gain or praise, he in his turn helps others to cross._x000d_ _x000d_ * Shankaracharya lists the four indispensable qualifications for the attainment of liberation as follows: “The first is discrimination between what is eternal and what is not eternal. The second constituent is the lack of attachment for such of the objects of enjoyment as may be gained either here or hereafter. The six noble qualities, such as calmness of mind and the like [tranquility, control of senses, fortitude, renunciation, faith, concentration], when taken together, form the third constituent. According to the Sastras, the fourth and final constituent is the desire for liberation” (The quintessence of Vedanta, 14, 15 trans. Swami Tattwananda).

To Miss Josephine MacLeod_x000d_ 1231 Pine Street_x000d_ San Francisco._x000d_ March 2nd 1900_x000d_ Dear Joe___x000d_ Your note enclosing two from France and three from India just received. I have had general good news and am happy._x000d_ Financially, I have got $300 in Los Angeles. About Mrs. Bowler, she has about a hundred odd dollars in cash. Mrs. Hendrick and she have not paid up as yet. That money__$300 in all__is with her. She will send it to me whenever I write._x000d_ Rev. Benjamin Fay Mills, a very popular Unitarian preacher in Oakland, invited me from here and paid the fare to San Francisco. I have spoken twice in Oakland to 1500 people each time. Last time I got from collection $30. I am going to have classes at 50 cents admission each._x000d_ San Francisco had one lecture the other night [February 23] at 50¢ each. It paid its expenses. This Monday [Sunday?] I am going to speak free__after that a class._x000d_ I went to see Mrs. Hurst [Hearst]. She was not at home. I left a card__so with Prof. Le Conte. _x000d_ Mary [Hale] writes that you wrote her of my coming any day to the East. I don't know. Here I have a large following___x000d_ ready made by my books. Will get some money, not much. St. Francis [Francis Leggett] may put the money in the bank for me__but can that be done without my signature? And I am here? It is good if it can be done. Did you see any possibility of my books being sold for good to any publisher?_x000d_ The French invitation is all right. But it seems impossible to write any decent paper on the subject we chose. Because if I have to lecture and make money, very little time will be left for anything else. Again, I can not find any books (Sanskrit) here. So let me try to make a little money if I can and go to France all the same, but send them no paper. No scholarly work can be done in this haphazard and hurried fashion. It means time and study._x000d_ Shall I write to Mr. [Gerald] Nobel an acknowledgement and thanks? Write to me fully on these subjects if you can before you leave [for Europe]. My health is going on the same way. The gas is there more or less and this city is all climbing up[hill]__that tires me much._x000d_ With all love,_x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda _x000d_ P.S. Did anybody else respond to Mrs. Leggett's call?

Swamiji was at first optimistic in regard to his work in San Francisco-or, as a heretofore unpublished letter of Friday, March 2, to Miss MacLeod shows, he was at least not discouraged. His letter, supplied by Mrs. Frances Leggett, was written from the Pine Street Home of Truth and read:

1251 Pine Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 2nd March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Mary {Hale},_x000d_ Very kind of you to write to invite me to Chicago. I wish I could be there this minute. But I am busy making money; only I do not make much. Well, I have to make enough to pay my passage home at any rate. Here is a new field, where I find ready listeners by hundreds, prepared beforehand by my books._x000d_ Of course money making is slow and tedious. If I could make a few hundreds, I would be only too glad._x000d_ By this time you must have received my previous note. I am coming eastward in a month or six weeks, I hope._x000d_ How are you all? Give Mother my heartfelt love. I wish I had her strength, she is a true Christian. My health is much better, but the old strength is not there yet. I hope it will come some day, but then, one had to work so hard to do the least little thing. I wish I had rest and peace for a few days at least, which I am sure I can get with the sisters at Chicago. Well, Mother knows best, as I say always. She knows best. The last two years have been specially bad. I have been living in mental hell. It is partially lifted now, and I hope for better days, better states. All blessings on you and the sisters and Mother. Mary, you have been always the sweetest notes in my jarring and clashing life. Then you had the great good Karma to start without oppressive surroundings. I never know a moment's peaceful life. It has always been high pressure, mentally. Lord bless you._x000d_ Ever your loving brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

THE SWAMI VIVEKANANDA _x000d_ EXCITES SOME CONTROVERSY_x000d_ A Christian Who Calls Him an Exponent of Paganism ¬What President Elliot of the young people’s Union says. On Wednesday and Thursday evenings of next week and Monday night of the following week Swami Vivek¬ananda, the famous Hindoo monk sojourning in California is to deliver a course of three lectures on the principles of Vedantism.On the subject of these lectures and those which have been delivered, the following communication has been received;_x000d_ Editor Enquirer: Perhaps the following quotation that appeared a while ago in the "Indian Nation " an orthodox East Indian journal, may prove interesting to some just at this time, especially to those misguided individuals whom the press informs us applauded the lecture delivered last Sunday night at the Unitarian auditorium and constitute the "levee of enthusiastic admirers" who gushed over the "distinguished savant" at its close._x000d_ This journal declares that "the pure and undefiled Hindooism which Swami Vivekananda preached, has no existence to-day, in fact, has had no existence for centuries, but on the contrary, abomination worship is the main ingredient of modern Hindooism."_x000d_ _x000d_ Another paper, The Hindu, also published at Madras, says of the endowed temples and shrines of India that "they are corrupt to the core. They are a festering mass of crime and vice and gigantic swindling." The same paper, speaking of the Brahman priesthood describes these priests as "ignorant, profoundly selfish, immoral." It mentions the popular dancing girls of India only to say that such a girl "insults the Deity by her very existence," and it declares of the "pining child widow" that "every hair of her head will rise up in judgment before the bar of God in witness against the system which tolerates it "_x000d_ It is indeed to be regretted that a civilized Christian community should be subjected to the annoyance of having an exponent of this disgusting paganism forced upon it under the pseudonym of `religion’._x000d_ [This letter, which had also been sent to the editor of the Oakland Times, was signed simply with the initials C.J.P. The Enquirer submitted it to the officials of the Unitarian church for their comment, which was duly received.

NEEDS NO APOLOGY_x000d_ In speaking of the above communication Mr. A. H. Elliot, president of the First Unitarian church, under whose auspices the address referred to was given, says that the writer of the communication either did not attend the lecture or is a person who is not thoughtful and allows his prejudice to govern his religious opinions. "In the first place," says Mr. Elliot, "there was no levee of enthusiastic admirers; there was no gushing over the distinguished savant. At the close of his address there were a number of people who went forward to meet the speaker, as is usual at the close of all these lectures. Perhaps there were more on this occasion, which fact is accounted for by the speaker being a foreigner. We know nothing of either of the papers referred to by `C.J.P.’ Neither do we care what they are, for we accept the speaker for what he said. All that the Swami said during the lecture is in thorough keeping with the teachings of modern science and the expression of this great thinker. If one would take up a course in the University with Kant he would find there the same things that the Swami told us, only that in the Swami’s discourse they were put before us in a more simple manner by a man of great culture. It is very evident that the person who wrote this communica¬tion did not attend the lecture, but rushed into print after having read the account in the newspapers." The fact that the Swami was given a most respectful hearing at the Parliament of Religions at the World’s Columbian Exposition, where the most distinguished representatives of all forms of faith were assembled ought to indicate to an intelligent person that no apology is necessary for permitting him to speak in the series of discourses which are being presented on Sunday evenings in the First Unitarian Church.

More than a week had passed between Swamiji’s first public lecture in San Francisco and his second, which he delivered on Sunday, March 4, at Golden Gate Hall. In the Examiner of March 3, under the general heading, "Concerts, Lectures, Etc." one could read:_x000d_ _x000d_ SWAMI VIVEKANANDA, _x000d_ THE HINDU MONK,_x000d_ Who represented the religion of India at the World’s Fair will lecture on_x000d_ Sunday, March 4th at 3 p.m.,_x000d_ At Golden Gate Hall, 625 Sutter Street,_x000d_ _x000d_ SUBJECT, _x000d_ THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION_x000d_ ADMISSION FREE

This, it is true, was displayed eye-catchingly, and was perhaps sufficient to draw people; but there was no report of "The Science of Religion" in the papers. (Nor do any notes of it exist.)

1502 Jones Street_x000d_ San Francisco,_x000d_ 4th March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Dhira Mata {Mrs. Bull},_x000d_ I have not had a word from you for a month. I am in Frisco. The people here have been prepared by my writing beforehand, and they come in big crowds. But it remains to be seen how much of that enthusiasm endures when it comes to paying at the door. Rev. Benjamin Fay Mills invited me to Oakland and gave me big crowds to preach to. He and his wife have been reading my works and keeping track of my movements all the time. I sent the letter of introduction from Miss Thursby to Mrs. Hearst. She has invited me to one of her musicals Sunday next._x000d_ My health is about the same; don't find much difference; it is improving, perhaps, but very imperceptibly. I can use my voice, however, to make 3,000 people hear me, as I did twice in Oakland, and get good sleep too after two hours of speaking._x000d_ I learn Margot is with you. When are you sailing for France? I will leave here in April and go to the East. I am very desirous of getting to England in May if I can. Must not go home before trying England once more._x000d_ I have nice letters from Brahmananda and Saradananda; they are all doing well. They are trying to bring the municipality to its senses; I am glad. In this world of Maya one need not injure, but "spread the hood, without striking". That is enough._x000d_ Things must get round; if they don't, it is all right. I have a very nice letter from Mrs. Sevier too. They are doing fine in the mountains. How is Mrs. Vaughan? When is your conference to close? How is Turiyananda? _x000d_ With everlasting love and gratitude._x000d_ Your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

San Francisco,_x000d_ 4th March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Nivedita,_x000d_ I don't want to work. I want to be quiet, and rest. I know the time and the place; but the fate or Karma, I think, drives me on--work, work. We are like cattle driven to the slaughter-house--hastily nibbling a bite of grass on the roadside as they are driven along under the whip. And all this is our work, our fear--fear, the beginning of misery, of disease, etc. By being nervous and fearful we injure others. By being so fearful to hurt we hurt more. By trying so much to avoid evil we fall into its jaws._x000d_ What a mass of namby-pamby nonsense we create round ourselves!! It does us no good, it leads us on to the very thing we try to avoid--misery. . . . _x000d_ Oh, to become fearless, to be daring, to be careless of everything! . . . _x000d_ Yours etc.,_x000d_ Vivekananda

The greatest name man ever gave to God is Truth. Truth is the fruit of realisation; therefore seek it within the soul. Get away from all books and forms and let your soul see its Self. "We are deluded and maddened by books", Shri Krishna declares. Be beyond the dualities of nature. The moment you think creed and form and ceremony the "be-all" and "end-all", then you are in bondage. Take part in them to help others, but take care they do not become a bondage. Religion is one, but its application must be various. Let each one, therefore, give his message; but find not the defects in other religions. You must come out from all form if you would see the Light. Drink deep of the nectar of the knowledge of God. The man who realises, "I am He", Though clad in rags, is happy. Go forth into the Eternal and come back with eternal energy. The slave goes out to search for truth; he comes back free.

One cannot divide the rights of the universe. To talk of "right" implies limitation. It is not "right" but "responsibility". Each is responsible for the evil anywhere in the world. No one can separate himself from his brother. All that unites with the universal is virtue; all that separates is sin. You are a part of the Infinite. This is your nature. Hence you are your brother's keeper._x000d_ The first end of life is knowledge; the second end of life is happiness. Knowledge and happiness lead to freedom. But not one can attain liberty until every being (ant or dog) has liberty. Not one can be happy until all are happy. When you hurt anyone you hurt yourself, for you and your brother are one. He is indeed a Yogi who sees himself in the whole universe and the whole universe in himself. Self-sacrifice, not self-assertion, is the law of the highest universe. The world is so evil because Jesus' teaching, "Resist not evil", has never been tried. Selflessness alone will solve the problem. Religion comes with intense self-sacrifice. Desire nothing for yourself. Do all for others. This is to live and move and have your being in God.

Two days later Swamiji wrote a letter to Sister Christine in which one finds an indication of his mood in those days¬ neither dark nor bright, but clearly emerging from the prolonged period of exhaustion and illness that he had suffered. He wrote in part:

I am getting more & more reconciled to surroundings. My health is better but not as before-I do not know whether I ever get back the former vigour. Well, I am glad as it is-as such it is possible to be happy in this world....I am as you see in San Francisco-working working; as soon as I get money enough to pay my passage to the east I leave this place. . . ._x000d_ The people here in California have been prepared for me by my writings. . . . So I find no difficulty in getting crowds. It remains to be seen whether they will retain their eagerness when it comes to pay 50c at the door!..._x000d_ I don’t want to work. I want to be quiet & rest. I know the time & the place, but fate or Karma I think drives me on-work work. We are like cattle driven to the slaughter house, hastily nibbling a bite of grass on the roadside as they are driven along under the whip. And all this is our work-our fear. Fear, the beginning of misery-of disease &c._x000d_ I am trying hard to become fearless to be daring as before and to be careless of everything. By being nervous -and fearful we injure others. By being so fearful to hurt, we hurt more. By trying so much to avoid evil we fall into its jaws._x000d_ What a mass of Namibia pamby nonsense we create round ourselves!! They do us no good-they lead us on to the very thing we try to avoid-misery. I have been very emotional all my life-and have always suffered myself-and caused suffering to others by my emotions. Now I am getting strong mentally and physically. No emotionalism. It is now doing, not thinking. Too much of thinking pros & cons leads us nowhere. I am done with that "treacle" as Goodwin used to say._x000d_ What do you do all day-the same routine work. I wish I could have half your patience and perseverance & resignation. Blustering bustling emotional fool that I am._x000d_ This time I am determined to be at rest, within myself first and of course then with the surroundings._x000d_ No more work but peace is my quest. I have played my part in life of bustling, now I take my long holiday & rest and peace.

1502 Jones Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 7th March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Joe {MacLeod},_x000d_ I learn from Mrs. Bull's letter that you are in Cambridge._x000d_ I also learn from Miss Helen that you did not get the stories sent on to you. I am sorry. Margot has copies she may give you. I am so so in health. No money. Hard work. No result. Worse than Los Angeles._x000d_ They come in crowds when the lecture is free--when there is payment, they don't. That's all. I have a relapse--for some days--and am feeling very bad. I think lecturing every night is the cause. I hope to do something in Oakland at least to work out my passage to New York, where I mean to work for my passage to India. I may go to London if I make money here to pay a few months' lodging there._x000d_ Will you send me our General's address? Even the name slips from memory now!_x000d_ Good-bye. May see you in Paris, may not. Lord bless you, you have done for me more than I ever deserve._x000d_ With infinite love and gratitude,_x000d_ Yours,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda delivered a lecture last evening on the subject, "The Laws of Life and Death". The Swami said: "How to get rid of this birth and death--not how to go to heaven, but how one can stop going to heaven--this is the object of the search of the Hindu." _x000d_ The Swami went on to say that nothing stands isolated--everything is a part of the never-ending procession of cause and effect. If there are higher beings than man, they also must obey the laws. Life can only spring from life, thought from thought, matter from matter. A universe cannot be created out of matter. It has existed for ever. If human beings came into the world fresh from the hands of nature, they would come without impressions; but we do not come in that way, which shows that we are not created afresh. If human souls are created out of nothing, what is to prevent them from going back into nothing? If we are to live all the time in the future, we must have lived all the time in the past. _x000d_ It is the belief of the Hindu that the soul is neither mind nor body. What is it which remains stable--which can say, "I am I"? Not the body, for it is always changing; and not the mind, which changes more rapidly than the body, which never has the same thoughts for even a few minutes. There must be an identity which does not change--something which is to man what the banks are to the river--the banks which do not change and without whose immobility we would not be conscious of the constantly moving stream. Behind the body, behind the mind, there must be something, viz the soul, which unifies the man. Mind is merely the fine instrument through which the soul--the master--acts on the body. In India we say a man has given up his body, while you say, a man gives up his ghost. The Hindus believe that a man is a soul and has a body, while Western people believe he is a body and possesses a soul. _x000d_ Death overtakes everything which is complex. The soul is a single element, not composed of anything else, and therefore it cannot die. By its very nature the soul must be immortal. Body, mind, and soul turn upon the wheel of law--none can escape. No more can we transcend the law than can the stars, than can the sun--it is all a universe of law. The law of Karma is that every action must be followed sooner or later by an effect. The Egyptian seed which was taken from the hand of a mummy after 5000 years and sprang into life when planted is the type of the never-ending influence of human acts. Action can never die without producing action. Now, if our acts can only produce their appropriate effects on this plane of existence, it follows that we must all come back to round out the circle of causes and effects. This is the doctrine of reincarnation. We are the slaves of law, the slaves of conduct, the slaves of thirst, the slaves of desire, the slaves of a thousand things. Only by escaping from life can we escape from slavery to freedom. God is the only one who is free. God and freedom are one and the same.

1502 Jones Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 7th March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Dhira Mata {Mrs. Bull},_x000d_ Your letter, enclosing one from Saradananda only and the accounts, came. I am very much reassured by all the news I since received from India. As for the accounts and the disposal of the Rs. 30,000, do just what you please. I have given over the management to you, the Master will show you what is best to do. The money is Rs. 35,000; the Rs. 5,000, for building the cottage on the Ganga, I wrote to Saradananda not to use just now. I have already taken Rs. 5,000 of that money. I am not going to take more. I had paid back Rs. 2,000 or more of that Rs. 5,000 in India. But it seems, Brahmananda, wanting to show as much of the Rs. 35,000 intact as he could, drew upon my Rs. 2,000; so I owe them Rs. 5,000 still on that score._x000d_ Anyway, I thought I could make money here in California and pay them up quietly. Now I have entirely failed in California financially. It is worse here than in Los Angeles. They come in crowds when there is a free lecture and very few when there is something to pay._x000d_ I have some hopes yet in England. It is necessary for me to reach England in May. There is not the least use in breaking my health in San Francisco for nothing. Moreover, with all Joe's enthusiasm, I have not yet found any real benefit from the magnetic healer, except a few red patches on my chest from scratching! Platform work is nigh gone for me, and forcing it is only hastening the end. I leave here very soon, as soon as I can make money for a passage. I have 300 dollars in hand, made in Los Angeles. I will lecture here next week and then I stop. As for the Math and the money, the sooner I am released of that burden the better._x000d_ I am ready to do whatever you advise me to do. You have been a real mother to me. You have taken up one of my great burdens on yourself--I mean my poor cousin. I feel quite satisfied. As for my mother, I am going back to her--for my last days and hers. The thousand dollars I have in New York will bring Rs. 9 a month; then I bought for her a bit of land which will bring about Rs. 6; and her old house--that will bring, say, Rs. 6. I leave the house under litigation out of consideration, as I have not got it. Myself, my mother, my grandmother, and my brother will live on Rs. 20 a month easy. I would start just now, if I could make money for a passage to India, without touching the 1,000 dollars in New York._x000d_ Anyhow I will scrape three or four hundred dollars--400 dollars will be enough for a second class passage and for a few weeks' stay in London. I do not ask you to do anything more for me; I do not want it. What you have done is more, ever so much more than I deserve. I have given my place solemnly to you in Shri Ramakrishna's work. I am out of it. All my life I have been a torture to my poor mother. Her whole life has been one of continuous misery. If it be possible, my last attempt should be to make her a little happy. I have planned it all out. I have served the Mother all my life. It is done; I refuse now to grind Her axe. Let Her find other workers--I strike._x000d_ You have been one friend with whom Shri Ramakrishna has become the goal of life--that is the secret of my trust in you. Others love me personally. But they little dream that what they love me for is Ramakrishna; leaving Him, I am only a mass of foolish selfish emotions. Anyway this stress is terrible, thinking of what may come next, wishing what ought to come next. I am unequal to the responsibility; I am found wanting. I must give up this work. If the work has not life in it, let it die; if it has, it need not wait for poor workers like myself._x000d_ Now the money, Rs. 30,000, is in my name, in Government Securities. If they are sold now, we shall lose fearfully, on account of the war; then, how can they be sent over here without being sold there? To sell them there I must sign them. I do not know how all this is going to be straightened out. Do what you think best about it all. In the meanwhile, it is absolutely necessary that I execute a will in your favour for everything, in case I suddenly die. Send me a draft will as soon as possible and I shall register it in San Francisco or Chicago; then my conscience will be safe. I don't know any lawyer here, else I would have got it drawn up; neither have I the money. The will must be done immediately; the trust and things have time enough for them._x000d_ Ever your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu philosopher, delivered another lecture in Wendte Hall last evening. His subject was: "The Reality and The Shadow". He said:_x000d_ "The soul of man is ever striving after certainty, to find something that does not change. It is never satisfied. Wealth, the gratification of ambition or of appetite are all changeable. Once these are attained, man is not content. Religion is the science which teaches us whence to satisfy this longing after the unchangeable. Behind all the local colours and derivations they teach the same thing--that there is reality only in the soul of man._x000d_ "The philosophy of Vedanta teaches that there are two worlds, the external or sensory, and the internal or subjective--the thought world._x000d_ "It posits three fundamental concepts--time, space, and causation. From these is constituted Maya, the essential groundwork of human thought, not the product of thought. This same conclusion was arrived at a later date by the great German philosopher Kant._x000d_ "My reality, that of nature and of God, is the same, the difference is in form of manifestation. The differentiation is caused by Maya. The contour of the shore may shape the ocean into bay, strait, or inlet; but when this shaping force or Maya is removed, the separate form disappears, the differentiation ceases, all is ocean again."_x000d_ The Swami then spoke of the roots of the theory of evolution to be found in the Vedanta philosophy. _x000d_ "All modern religions start with the idea," continued the speaker, "that man was once pure, he fell, and will become pure again. I do not see where they get this idea. The seat of knowledge is the soul; external circumstance simply stimulates the soul; knowledge is the power of the soul. Century after century it has been manufacturing bodies. The various forms of incarnation are merely successive chapters of the story of the life of the soul. We are constantly building our bodies. The whole universe is in a state of flux, of expansion and contraction, of change. Vedanta holds that the soul never changes in essence, but it is modified by Maya. Nature is God limited by mind. The evolution of nature is the modification of the soul. The soul in essence is the same in all forms of being. Its expression is modified by the body. This unity of soul, this common substance of humanity, is the basis of ethics and morality. In this sense all are one, and to hurt one's brother is to hurt one's Self._x000d_ "Love is simply an expression of this infinite unity. Upon what dualistic system can you explain love? One of the European philosophers says that kissing is a survival of cannibalism, a kind of expression of 'how good you taste'. I do not believe it._x000d_ "What is it we all seek? Freedom. All the effort and struggle of life is for freedom. It is the march universal of races, of worlds, and of systems._x000d_ "If we are bound, who bound us? No power can bind the Infinite but Itself." _x000d_ After the discourse an opportunity was afforded for asking questions of the speaker, who devoted half an hour to answering them.

That which differentiates one thing from another is time, space, and causation._x000d_ The differentiation is in the form, not in the substance. You may destroy the form and it disappears for ever; but the substance remains the same. You can never destroy the substance._x000d_ Evolution is in nature, not in the soul--evolution of nature, manifestation of the soul. _x000d_ Maya is not illusion as it is popularly interpreted. Maya is real, yet it is not real. It is real in that the Real is behind it and gives it its appearance of reality. That which is real in Maya is the Reality in and through Maya. Yet the Reality is never seen ; and hence that which is seen is unreal, and it has no real independent existence of itself, but is dependent upon the Real for its existence._x000d_ Maya then is a paradox--real, yet not real, an illusion, yet not an illusion._x000d_ He who knows the Real sees in Maya not illusion, but reality. He who knows not the Real sees in Maya illusion and thinks it real.

Swamiji had not been comfortable at the Pine Street Home of Truth. "This was natural," Mrs. Hansbrough explained, "for quite a number of people were living there and he could not feel free. . . . After a week or so he said to me, `I must get out of here. She had taken him to the home of a friend, which stood, as the return address on his letters of March 4 and 7 tell us, at 1502 Jones Street, a location in more or less the same part of the city as the Home of Truth and easy of access from downtown via the Jackson-Washington Street cable car. But Swamiji had not felt at ease there either. It was at this point that Mrs. Aspioall of the Home of Truth took matters in hand. "See here," Mrs. Hansbrough quotes her as having said, "we must find a place where this man can be comfortable." A place where Swamiji could be comfortable meant a place Where he could be independent, where he could hold classes, receive visitors, give individual instruction, where he could be assured of privacy, where he could dress, sing, and cook as he pleased. Mrs: Hansbrough and Mrs. Aapinall consulted the newspapers._x000d_ In the Examiner’s Classified Ad Section under "Flats" they found the following notice, which had been appearing since March 4._x000d_ Flats to Let: A furnished, handsome, sunny corner flat _x000d_ of 6 rooms; porcelain bath, tiled sink, fancy mantels; _x000d_ appreciated if seen; $40; Eddy-st. cars to Scott. _x000d_ Apply till 4 p•m• I7I9 Turk Street._x000d_ _x000d_ "It was a poor sort of place," Mrs. Hanabrough related, "but the best we could do for the money we could afford to spend." When she had told this to Swamiji, he had replied with one of those offhand statements that, when looked at awhile, are seen to contain spiraling depths of meaning: "That is because I am a sannyasia and cannot get anything good."_x000d_ Mrs, Hansbrough and Mrs. Aspinall took the Turk Street flat for a month. Inasmuch as the above advertisement dis¬appeared from the Examiner after March 8, it was probably on that date that they took possession, and by March 9 the two women, together with Swamiji, had surely moved in-Mrs. Aspinall flying thereby in the face of opposition. "Mr. Aapinall did not like the idea of his wife’s leaving the Home of Truth [where they were teachers] to set up the Turk Street apart¬ment with me so that Swamiji could have a quiet place to stay," Mrs. Hansbrough recalled. "At first he objected strongly to it." But Mrs. Aspinall was not to be dissuaded. "Benjamin," she had said in reply to her husband’s protest, "you know that we do not have any truth; we just talk." Mr. Aspinall’s response to this is not on record, but whatever it may have been-and what could it have been but silence?-Mrs. Aspinall had packed her bag. Nothing, one thinks, could have detained her. Weeks later, toward the end of his visit in California, Swamiji was to say to her, "Even if you had lived on the highest moun¬tain, you would have had to come down to take care of me." "I know it, Swami," she replied.

When the door was opened by its upstairs lever and she asked to see the Swami, she was told from the top of the stairs (by either Mrs. Hans¬brough or Mrs. Aspinall) that he was on his way out and could see no one. A person less in need would have perhaps turned away, but Edith Allan stood her ground. "I know he will see me," she said, "because he told me to come." The logic of this being unassailable, she was asked to come upstairs, was shown into the front parlor, given a chair by the bay window, and told to wait. And to be sure, Swamiji soon entered. He was dressed for the street in his long overcoat and round black turban, and he was chanting softly. He sat on a chair on the opposite side of the room (or, as another account has it, on the other side of the bay window) . "He continued chanting softly," Mrs. Allan recalled, "in his incomparable way." Presently he said, "Well, madam!"

"I could not speak," she related, "but began to weep and kept on weeping as though the floodgates had been opened." He let her weep on and on-"for about half an hour," she once recalled; and when the purging flood of tears had subsided a little, he said, "Come tomorrow about the same time." That was all. "As I went from his presence," she recalled years later in her reminiscences, "my problems were solved and my questions were answered, though he had not asked me anything. ["When I went out onto the street, each cobblestone looked like an opal," she told a friend. "Somehow, I got home."] It is now over twenty-four years since that interview with the Swami, yet it stands out in memory as the greatest blessing of my life.

Swamiji’s evening lectures, to which admission was charged, were, as we shall see, given in groups, or series, of three. In addition, he gave a free lecture in San Francisco every Sunday, generally in the afternoon. He delivered five such Sunday lectures, which in themselves formed a series that could have been entitled "The Great Teachers of the World"-or, more accurately, "The Great Teachings of the World"-and that was in part an illustration of his teachings on the harmony of religions.

[From Mr. Frank Rhodehamel's notes of a lecture delivered in_x000d_ San Francisco, California, on March 11, 1900]_x000d_ Everything progresses in waves. The march of civilization, the progression of worlds, is in waves. All human activities likewise progress in waves__art, literature, science, religion._x000d_ Great waves succeed each other, and between these great waves is a quiet, a calm, a period of rest, a period of recupera¬tion._x000d_ All manifest life seems to require a period of sleep, of calm, in which to gain added strength, renewed vigour, for the next manifestation, or awakening to activity. Thus is the march of all progress, of all manifest life__in waves, successive waves, [of] activity and repose. Waves succeed each other in an endless chain of progression._x000d_ Religion, like everything else, progresses in waves; and at the summit of each great wave stands an illumined soul, a mighty spiritual leader and teacher of men. Such a one was Jesus of Nazareth.

Although this Sunday series almost spanned the main body of Swamiji’s work in San Francisco-beginning on March 11 with the first known lecture that he gave after his move to Turk Street, "Christ’s Message to the World," and closing on April 8 with his climactic and provocative lecture, "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?"-it will be more convenient to discuss these Sunday lectures (at least the first four) in a group rather than to take them up singly and in their chronological place. This is the method I shall follow throughout in writing of Swamiji’s lectures in the Bay Area, for his lecture-series were so interwoven one with the other that to discuss his single lectures in their chronological order rather than as groups of three (or five) would only lead to confusion. First, then, the Sunday series.

According to the information given in the city’s Sunday morning papers of March 11, Swami delivered "Christ’s Message to the World" at Golden Gate Hall that morning at eleven o’clock. Very probably Miss Ansell was not present at the lecture, for as she told Swami Ashokananda, she could find "no notes or mention of it anywhere. As for the San Francisco newspapers, they gave no report of it. But, as luck would have it, Frank Rhodehamel, who had come from Oakland, took at least a few notes. Brief as those notes were, it is clear from them that Swamiji’s San Francisco lecture on Christ was, in some respects at least, similar to that in southern California. As the reader will remember, he had pointed out in Los Angeles that in the cyclic rise and fall of nations and races "a huge wave comes, sometimes a tidal wave-and always on the topmost crest of the wave is a shining soul, the Messenger. Rhodehamel’s notes consist of a similar introduction:

Wendte Hall of the First Unitarian Church was crowded last evening with a large audience to hear the "Way to Salvation" from the standpoint of the Hindu priest, Swami Vivekananda. This was the last lecture of a series of three which the Swami has delivered. He said in part:_x000d_ One man says God is in heaven, another that God is in nature and everywhere present. But when the great crisis comes, we find the goal is the same. We all work on different plans, but the end is not different. _x000d_ The two great watchwords of every great religion are renunciation and self-sacrifice. We all want the truth, and we know that it must come, whether we want it or not. In a way we are all striving for that good. And what prevents our reaching it? It is ourselves. Your ancestors used to call it the devil; but it is our own false self._x000d_ We live in slavery, and we would die if we were out of it. We are like the man who lived in total darkness for ninety years and when taken out into the warm sunshine of nature, prayed to be taken back to his dungeon. You would not leave this old life to go into a newer and greater freedom which opens out._x000d_ The great difficulty is to go to the heart of things. These little degraded delusions of Jack So-and-So's, who thinks he has an infinite soul, however small he is with his different religions. In one country, all as a matter of religion, a man has many wives; in another one woman has many husbands. So some men have two gods, some one God, and some no God at all._x000d_ But salvation is in work and love. You learn something thoroughly; in time you may not be able to call that thing to memory. Yet it has sunk into your inner consciousness and is a part of you. So as you work, whether it be good or bad, you shape your future course of life. If you do good work with the idea of work--work for work's sake--you will go to heaven of your idea and dream of heaven._x000d_ The history of the world is not of its great men, of its demi-gods, but it is the little islands of the sea, which build themselves to great continents from fragments of the sea drift. Then the history of the world is in the little acts of sacrifice performed in every household. Man accepts religion because he does not wish to stand on his own judgment. He takes it as the best way of getting out of a bad place. _x000d_ The salvation of man lies in the great love with which he loves his God. Your wife says, "O John, I could not live without you." Some men when they lose their money have to be sent to the asylum. Do you feel that way about your God? When you can give up money, friends, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, all that is in the world and only pray to God that He grant you something of His love, then you have found salvation.

To Sister Christine_x000d_ 1719 Turk Street,_x000d_ San Francisco, California,_x000d_ 12th March 1900._x000d_ Dear Christina,_x000d_ Just now received a letter from you through New York. I, the other day, wrote you one c/o Mrs. Funke, as I was not sure which of your addresses in my notebook was the correct one! Mental telepathy or foolishness__what is it?_x000d_ By this time you must have got mine. There is nothing par¬ticular about me, except things are going on at the same rate___x000d_ very little money making, a good deal of work, and moving about. I leave here in April and come to Chicago for a few days, then to Detroit and then, through New York, go to England. I hope you are all right. I am very calm and peaceful mentally, and hope to remain so for the rest of my life._x000d_ How are Mrs. Funkey [Funke] and the rest of our friends?_x000d_ With all love,_x000d_ Vivekananda.

San Francisco_x000d_ 12th March, 1900_x000d_ {original in Bengali}_x000d_ My Dear Rakhal {Brahmananda},_x000d_ I got a letter from you some time ago. A letter from Sharat reached me yesterday. I saw a copy of the invitation letters for the birthday anniversary of Gurudeva (Divine Master). I am frightened hearing that Sharat is troubled by rheumatism. Alas, sickness, sorrow, and pain have been my companions for the last two years. Tell Sharat that I am not going to work so hard any more. But he who does not work enough to earn his food will have to starve to death! . . . I hope Durgaprasanna has done by this time whatever was necessary for the compound wall. . . . The raising of a compound wall is not, after all, a difficult thing. If I can, I shall build a small house there and serve my old grandmother and mother. Evil actions leave none scot-free; Mother never spares anybody. I admit my actions have been wrong. Now, brother, all of you are Sadhus and great saints, kindly pray to the Mother that I do not have to shoulder all this trouble and burden any longer. Now I desire a little peace--it seems there is no more strength left to bear the burden of work and responsibility--rest and peace for the few days that I shall yet live! Victory to the Guru! Victory to the Guru! . . . No more lectures or anything of that sort. Peace!_x000d_ As soon as Sharat sends the trust-deed of the Math, I shall put my signature to it. You all manage--truly I require rest. This disease is called neurasthenia, a disease of the nerves. Once it comes, it continues for some years. But after a complete rest for three or four years it is cured. This country is the home of the disease, and here it has caught me. However, it is not only no fatal disease, but it makes a man live long. Don't be anxious on my account. I shall go on rolling. But there is only this sorrow that the work of Gurudeva is not progressing; there is this regret that I have not been able to accomplish anything of his work. How much I abuse you all and speak harshly! I am the worst of men! Today, on the anniversary of his birthday, put the dust of your feet on my head--and my mind will become steady again. Victory to the Guru! Victory to the Guru! You are my only refuge--you are my only refuge! Now that my mind is steady, let me tell you that this resignation is the permanent attitude of my mind. All other moods that come are, you should know, only disease. Please don't allow me to work at all any longer. Now I shall quietly do Japa and meditation for some time--nothing more. Mother knows all else. Victory to the Mother of the Universe!_x000d_ Yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco,_x000d_ 12th March, 1900_x000d_ My Dear Dhira Mata {Mrs. Bull},_x000d_ Your letter from Cambridge came yesterday. Now I have got a fixed address, 1719 Turk Street, San Francisco. Hope you will have time to pen a few lines in reply to this. I had a manuscript account sent me by you. I sent it back as you desired; besides that, I had no other accounts. It is all right._x000d_ I had a nice letter from Miss Souter from London. She expects to have Mr. . . . to dine with her._x000d_ So glad to hear of Margot's success. I have given her over to you, and am sure you will take care of her. I will be here a few weeks more and then go East. I am only waiting for the warm season._x000d_ I have not been at all successful financially here, but am not in want. Anyway, things will go on as usual with me, I am sure; and if they don't, what then? _x000d_ I am perfectly resigned. I had a letter from the Math; they had the Utsava yesterday. I do not intend to go by the Pacific. Don't care where I go, and when. Now perfectly resigned; Mother knows; a great change, peacefulness is coming on me. Mother, I know, will see to it. I die a Sannyasin. You have been more than mother to me and mine. All love, all blessings be yours for ever, is the constant prayer of_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. Kindly tell Mrs. Leggett that my address for some weeks now will be, 1719 Turk Street, San Francisco._x000d_ V.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco,_x000d_ 12th March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Mary {Hale},_x000d_ How are you? How is Mother, and the sisters? How are things going on in Chicago? I am in Frisco, and shall remain here for a month or so. I start for Chicago early in April. I shall write to you before that of course. How I wish I could be with you for a few days; one gets tired of work so much. My health is so so, but my mind is very peaceful and has been so for some time. I am trying to give up all anxiety unto the Lord. I am only a worker. My mission is to obey and work. He knows the rest._x000d_ "Giving up all vexations and paths, do thou take refuge unto Me. I will save you from all dangers" (Gita, XVIII.66)._x000d_ I am trying hard to realise that. May I be able to do it soon._x000d_ Ever your affectionate brother,_x000d_ Vivekananda

The idea of psychology in the West is very much degraded. Psychology is the science of sciences; but in the West it is placed upon the same plane as all other sciences; that is, it is judged by the same criterion--utility. _x000d_ How much practical benefit will it do to humanity? How much will it add to our rapidly growing happiness? How much will it detract from our rapidly increasing pain? Such is the criterion by which everything is judged in the West._x000d_ People seem to forget that about ninety per cent of all our knowledge cannot, in the very nature of things, be applied in a practical way to add to our material happiness or to lessen our misery. Only the smallest fraction of our scientific knowledge can have any such practical application to our daily lives. This is so because only an infinitely small percentage of our conscious mind is on the sensuous plane. We have just a little bit of sensuous consciousness and imagine that to be our entire mind and life; but, as a matter of fact, it is but a drop in the mighty ocean of subconscious mind. If all there is of us were a bundle of sense-perceptions, all the knowledge we could gain could be utilised in the gratification of our sense-pleasures. But fortunately such is not the case. As we get further and further away from the animal state, our sense-pleasures become less and less; and our enjoyment, in a rapidly increasing consciousness of scientific and psychological knowledge, becomes more and more intense; and "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", regardless of the amount of sense-pleasures it may conduce to, becomes the supreme pleasure of the mind._x000d_ But even taking the Western idea of utility as a criterion by which to judge, psychology, by such a standard even, is the science of sciences. Why? We are all slaves to our senses, slaves to our own minds, conscious and subconscious. The reason why a criminal is a criminal is not because he desires to be one, but because he has not his mind under control and is therefore a slave to his own conscious and subconscious mind, and to the mind of everybody else. He must follow the dominant trend of his mind; he cannot help it; he is forced onward in spite of himself, in spite of his own better promptings, his own better nature; he is forced to obey the dominant mandate of his own mind. Poor man, he cannot help himself. We see this in our own lives constantly. We are constantly doing things against the better side of our nature, and afterwards we upbraid ourselves for so doing and wonder what we could have been thinking of, how we could do such a thing! Yet again and again we do it, and again and again we suffer for it and upbraid ourselves. At the time, perhaps, we think we desire to do it, but we only desire it because we are forced to desire it. We are forced onward, we are helpless! We are all slaves to our own and to everybody else's mind; whether we are good or bad, that makes no difference. We are led here and there because we cannot help ourselves. We say we think, we do, etc. It is not so. We think because we have to think. We act because we have to. We are slaves to ourselves and to others. Deep down in our subconscious mind are stored up all the thoughts and acts of the past, not only of this life, but of all other lives we have lived. This great boundless ocean of subjective mind is full of all the thoughts and actions of the past. Each one of these is striving to be recognised, pushing outward for expression, surging, wave after wave, out upon the objective mind, the conscious mind. These thoughts, the stored-up energy, we take for natural desires, talents, etc. It is because we do not realise their true origin. We obey them blindly, unquestioningly; and slavery, the most helpless kind of slavery, is the result; and we call ourselves free. Free! We who cannot for a moment govern our own minds, nay, cannot hold our minds on a subject, focus it on a point to the exclusion of everything else for a moment! Yet we call ourselves free. Think of it! We cannot do as we know we ought to do even for a very short space of time. Some sense-desire will crop up, and immediately we obey it. Our conscience smites us for such weakness, but again and again we do it, we are always doing it. We cannot live up to a high standard of life, try as we will. The ghosts of past thoughts, past lives hold us down. All the misery of the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to rise above the sense-life--the striving for physical pleasures, is the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the world. _x000d_ It is the science of psychology that teaches us to hold in check the wild gyrations of the mind, place it under the control of the will, and thus free ourselves from its tyrannous mandates. Psychology is therefore the science of sciences, without which all sciences and all other knowledge are worthless. _x000d_ The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, down, for ever--rend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us. So it must be controlled, and psychology teaches us how to do it._x000d_ To study and analyse any material science, sufficient data are obtained. These facts are studied and analysed, and a knowledge of the science is the result. But in the study and analysis of the mind, there are no data, no facts acquired from without, such as are equally at the command of all. The mind is analysed by itself. The greatest science, therefore, is the science of the mind, the science of psychology._x000d_ In the West, the powers of the mind, especially unusual powers, are looked upon as bordering on witchcraft and mysticism. The study of higher psychology has been retarded by its being identified with mere alleged psychic phenomena, as is done by some mystery-mongering order of Hindu fakirs. _x000d_ Physicists obtain pretty much the same results the world over. They do not differ in their general facts, nor in the results which naturally follow from such facts. This is because the data of physical science are obtainable by all and are universally recognised, and the results are logical conclusions based upon these universally recognised facts. In the realm of the mind, it is different. Here there are no data, no facts observable by the physical senses, and no universally recognised materials therefore, from which to build a system of psychology after their being equally experimented upon by all who study the mind._x000d_ Deep, deep within, is the soul, the essential man, the Atman. Turn the mind inward and become united to that; and from that standpoint of stability, the gyrations of the mind can be watched and facts observed, which are to be found in all persons. Such facts, such data, are to be found by those who go deep enough, and only by such. Among that large class of self-styled mystics the world over, there is a great difference of opinion as to the mind, its nature, powers, etc. This is because such people do not go deep enough. They have noticed some little activity of their own and others' minds and, without knowing anything about the real character of such superficial manifestations, have published them as facts universal in their application; and every religious and mystical crank has facts, data, etc., which, he claims, are reliable criteria for investigation, but which are in fact nothing more or less than his own imaginings. _x000d_ If you intend to study the mind, you must have systematic training; you must practice to bring the mind under your control, to attain that consciousness from which you will be able to study the mind and remain unmoved by any of its wild gyrations. Otherwise the facts observed will not be reliable; they will not apply to all people and therefore will not be truly facts or data at all._x000d_ Among that class who have gone deeply into the study of the mind, the facts observed have been the same, no matter in what part of the world such persons may be or what religious belief they may have. The results obtained by all who go deep enough into the mind are the same._x000d_ The mind operates by perception and impulsion. For instance, the rays of the light enter my eyes, are carried by the nerves to the brain, and still I do not see the light. The brain then conveys the impulse to the mind, but yet I do not see the light; the mind then reacts, and the light flashes across the mind. The mind's reaction is impulsion, and as a result the eye perceives the object. _x000d_ To control the mind you must go deep down into the subconscious mind, classify and arrange in order all the different impressions, thoughts, etc. stored up there, and control them. This is the first step. By the control of the subconscious mind you get control over the conscious.

MORE LECTURES BY THE SWAMI _x000d_ VIVEKANANDA _x000d_ The great popularity of the course of lectures just finished by the Swani Vivekananda has been a matter of surprise to those who have been familier with the most empty houses that have greeted som of the leatures that have appeared here._x000d_ At the earnast soliciations of those who vave had the pleasure of listining to him , he has consented to give another course of three lectures. thEy will take place at Wendte Hall, Fourteenth and Castro streets, on succesive Monday evenings, beginning with March 19.The Arts and Sciences in India ; and the idials of quakers._x000d_ As on more tickets will be sold than enough to comfortable fill the hall , persons desiring to here these lectures will do well to apply to the sexton at the church during the mornings of this week._x000d_ While we are in Oakland , let us continue with Swamiji’s second series of lectures at Wendth Hall, for although it will take us beyond our story, it was somewhat extranious to his main work in San Francisco; it was ,in fact, a repetition , perhaps by request, of his earlier series on India at the Red Men’s Building._x000d_ According to an item in the Enquirer of March 17, the Oakland series was arranged by , and given for the benefit of, the Women’s Alliance of the first Unitarian Church-an organization which engaged in doing good._x000d_ (I Swamiji’s attempt to earn money for India , he seems never to have been able to resist giving lectures for the financial benefit of Americans. Yet he did realize a little money from his _x000d_ first series at Wendte Hall. "The Oakland lectures paid well, he wrote to Mrs. Leggett on March 17. What he meant by this we learn from a letter to Miss MacLeod, dated in the Complete Works April, 1900, but written, it would seem, a little earlier: "Oakland work has been successful. I hope to get about $100 from Oakland, that is all. After all, I am content," he added. "It is better that I tried.

Because of Swamiji's general indifference to sightseeing as a pastime, it is probable that he did not go, if he could help it, on any of the then highly popular excursions around the Bay or down the Peninsula. But it was consistent with his interest in man that he did go to see a ship being launched at one of the city's shipyards.

Those who have read Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda will remember Ida Ansell's account of this occasion, which she, in turn, had heard from Mr. Allan. The story was, indeed, Mr. Allan's and one that he often repeated. Therefore I shall give it here as he himself gave it in the paper he read before the Vedanta Society in 1935. Mr. Allan, a marine engineer, was employed at the time as a draughtsman at the Risdon Iron and Locomotive Works in San Francisco, which had to do with the building of ships; thus he had entree to the shipyards of the Bay.

"One day," he related, "when the launching of a ship was mentioned during a conversation, Swami remarked that he had never seen a ship launched. There was to be a vessel launched in a few days from one of the big shipyards of San Francisco, and I was able to get passes for Swami and several others. When we got near the vessel, the Swami noticed the platform for the launching party, and realized that from there one could get the finest view of the proceedings. It was neces¬sary, however, to have a special ticket in order to go on that platform, which was reserved for guests of the owners. There were two guards at the approach to the platform, whose duty was to prevent any unauthorized person from passing. Swamiji simply walked past these guards, who made no move to stop him.

In one of her many letters to Swami Ashokananda, Miss Ansell adds a charming and somehow poignant incident to this story of the ship launching. It would seem that before Swamiji strode like a king onto the platform, he and Mr. Allan had gone aboard the ship itself, leaving the women of the party sitting on the dock. But Ida Ansell, who was young and no doubt eager to see the insides of a ship, followed haltingly after the two men. "Swamiji was so kind," she related in her letter, "helping me over difficult places, till Mr. Allan said, `This is no place for women,' and I returned to the dock where I belonged.

Swamiji was evidently impressed with the launching: "It is like the birth of a child, he said; and one wonders what ship it was that had so auspicious a birth, but there is no knowing for certain. The only report of a likely ship launching that can be found in the contemporary San Francisco newspapers, or elsewhere, is of a steam tug, said to be "sixty feet long and one of the finest craft that has been built for many a day." This splendid tug, whose name was not given in the newspapers, was launched at the Potrero docks (about two and a half miles south of the Ferry Building) on Wednesday, March 14, and, it was said, was to pass its days in ocean fishing This may not have been the ship whose birth Swamiji witnessed, but according to the available news reports, there was none other that could have been.

The cause becomes the effect. The cause is not one thing and the effect something else that exists as a result. The effect is always the cause worked out. Always, the cause becomes the effect. The popular idea is that the effect is the result of the operation of a cause which is something independent and aloof from the effect. This is not so. The effect is always the cause worked out into another condition._x000d_ The universe is really homogeneous. Heterogeneity is only in appearance. There seen to be different substances, different powers, etc. throughout nature. But take two different substances, say a piece of glass and a piece of wood, grind them up together fine enough, reduce them till there is nothing more to reduce, and the substance remaining appears homogeneous. All substances in the last analysis are one. Homogeneity is the substance, the reality; heterogeneity is the appearance of many things as though they were many substances. The One is homogeneity; the appearance of the One as many is heterogeneity._x000d_ Hearing, seeing, or tasting, etc. is the mind in different states of action._x000d_ The atmosphere of a room may be hypnotised so that everybody who enters it will see all sorts of things--men and objects flying through the air._x000d_ Everybody is hypnotised already. The work of attaining freedom, of realising one's real nature, consists in de-hypnotisation._x000d_ One thing to be remembered is that we are not gaining powers at all. We have them already. The whole process of growth is de-hypnotisation._x000d_ The purer the mind, the easier it is to control. Purity of the mind must be insisted upon if you would control it. Do not think covetously about mere mental powers. Let them go. One who seeks the powers of the mind succumbs to them. Almost all who desire powers become ensnared by them._x000d_ Perfect morality is the all in all of complete control over mind. The man who is perfectly moral has nothing more to do; he is free. The man who is perfectly moral cannot possibly hurt anything or anybody. Non-injuring has to be attained by him who would be free. No one is more powerful than he who has attained perfect non-injuring. No one could fight, no one could quarrel, in his presence. Yes, his very presence, and nothing else, means peace, means love wherever he may be. Nobody could be angry or fight in his presence. Even the animals, ferocious animals, would be peaceful before him._x000d_ I once knew a Yogi, a very old man, who lived in a hole in the ground all by himself. All he had was a pan or two to cook his meals in. He ate very little, and wore scarcely anything, and spent most of his time meditating._x000d_ With him all people were alike. He had attained to non-injuring. What he saw in everything, in every person, in every animal, was the Soul, the Lord of the Universe. With him, every person and every animal was "my Lord". He never addressed any person or animal in any other way. Well, one day a thief came his way and stole one of his pans. He saw him and ran after him. The chase was a long one. At last the thief from exhaustion had to stop, and the Yogi, running up to him, fell on his knees before him and said, "My Lord, you do me a great honour to come my way. Do me the honour to accept the other pan. It is also yours." This old man is dead now. He was full of love for everything in the world. He would have died for an ant. Wild animals instinctively knew this old man to be their friend. Snakes and ferocious animals would go into his hold and sleep with him. They all loved him and never fought in his presence._x000d_ Never talk about the faults of others, no matter how bad they may be. Nothing is ever gained by that. You never help one by talking about his fault; you do him an injury, and injure yourself as well._x000d_ All regulations in eating, practising, etc., are all right so long as they are complementary to a spiritual aspiration, but they are not ends in themselves; they are only helps._x000d_ Never quarrel about religion. All quarrels and disputation concerning religion simply show that spirituality is not present. Religious quarrels are always over the husks. When purity, when spirituality goes, leaving the soul dry, quarrels begin, and not before.

[This and the following two lectures are reproduced here from the Vedanta and the West with the kind permission of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, by whom is reserved the copyright for America. The lectures were recorded by Ida Ansell under circumstances which she herself relates thus:_x000d_ "Swami Vivekananda's second trip to the West occurred in 1899-1900. During the first half of 1900 he worked in and around San Francisco, California. I was a resident of that city, twenty-two years old at the time. . . . I heard him lecture perhaps a score of times from March to May of 1900, and recorded seventeen of his talks. . . ._x000d_ "The lectures were given in San Francisco, Oakland, and Alameda, in churches, in the Alameda and San Francisco Homes of Truth, and in rented halls. . . . Altogether Swamiji gave, besides nearly daily interviews and informal classes, at least thirty or forty major addresses in March, April, and May. . . ._x000d_ "I was long hesitant about transcribing and releasing these lectures because of the imperfectness of my notes. I was just an amateur stenographer, at the time I took them. . . . One would have needed a speed of at least three hundred words per minute to capture all of Swamiji's torrents of eloquence. I possessed less than half the required speed, and at the time I had no idea that the material would have value to anyone but myself. In addition to his fast speaking pace, Swamiji was a superb actor. His stories and imitations absolutely forced one to stop writing, to enjoy watching him. . . . Even though my notes were somewhat fragmentary, I have yielded to the opinion that their contents are precious and must be given for publication._x000d_ "Swamiji's speaking style was colloquial, fresh, and forceful. No alterations have been made in it; no adjusting or smoothing out of his spontaneous flow for purposes of publication has been done. Where omissions were made because of some obscurity in the meaning, they have been indicated by three dots. Anything inserted for purposes of clarification has been placed in square brackets. With these qualifications, the words are exactly as Swamii spoke them._x000d_ "Everything Swamiji said had tremendous power. These lectures have slept in my old stenographer's notebook for more than fifty years. Now as they emerge, one feels that the power is still there."]_x000d_ All knowledge we have, either of the external or internal world, is obtained through only one method--by the concentration of the mind. No knowledge can be had of any science unless we can concentrate our minds upon the subject. The astronomer concentrates his mind through the telescope . . . And so on. If you want to study your own mind, it will be the same process. You will have to concentrate your mind and turn it back upon itself. The difference in this world between mind and mind is simply the fact of concentration. One, more concentrated than the other, gets more knowledge._x000d_ In the lives of all great men, past and present, we find this tremendous power of concentration. Those are men of genius, you say. The science of Yoga tells us that we are all geniuses if we try hard to be. Some will come into this life better fitted and will do it quicker perhaps. We can all do the same. The same power is in everyone. The subject of the present lecture is how to concentrate the mind in order to study the mind itself. Yogis have laid down certain rules and this night I am going to give you a sketch of some of these rules._x000d_ Concentration, of course, comes from various sources. Through the senses you can get concentration. Some get it when they hear beautiful music, others when they see beautiful scenery. . . . Some get concentrated by lying upon beds of spikes, sharp iron spikes, others by sitting upon sharp pebbles. These are extraordinary cases [using] most unscientific procedure. Scientific procedure is gradually training the mind._x000d_ One gets concentrated by holding his arm up. Torture gives him the concentration he wants. But all these are extraordinary._x000d_ Universal methods have been organised according to different philosophers. Some say the state we want to attain is superconsciousness of the mind--going beyond the limitations the body has made for us. The value of ethics to the Yogi lies in that it makes the mind pure. The purer the mind, the easier it is to control it. The mind takes every thought that rises and works it out. The grosser the mind, the more difficult [it is] to control [it]. The immoral man will never be able to concentrate his mind to study psychology. He may get a little control as he begins, get a little power of hearing . . . And even those powers will go from him. The difficulty is that if you study closely, you see how [the] extraordinary power arrived at was not attained by regular scientific training. The men who, by the power of magic, control serpents will be killed by serpents. . . . The man who attains any extraordinary powers will in the long run succumb to those powers. There are millions [who] receive power through all sorts of ways in India. The vast majority of them die raving lunatics. Quite a number commit suicide, the mind [being] unbalanced._x000d_ The study must be put on the safe side: scientific, slow, peaceful. The first requisite is to be moral. Such a man wants the gods to come down, and they will come down and manifest themselves to him. That is our psychology and philosophy in essence, [to be] perfectly moral. Just think what that means! No injury, perfect purity, perfect austerity! These are absolutely necessary. Just think, if a man can attain all these in perfection! What more do you want? If he is free from all enmity towards any being, . . . All animals will give up their enmity [in his presence]. The Yogis lay down very strict laws . . . So that one cannot pass off for a charitable man without being charitable. . . ._x000d_ If you believe me, I have seen a man who used to live in a hole and there were cobras and frogs living with him. . . . Sometimes he would fast for [days and months] and then come out. He was always silent. One day there came a robber. . . ._x000d_ My old master used to say, "When the lotus of the heart has bloomed, the bees will come by themselves." Men like that are there yet. They need not talk. . . . When the man is perfect from his heart, without a thought of hatred, all animals will give up their hatred [before him]. So with purity. These are necessary for our dealings with our fellow beings. We must love all. . . . We have no business to look at the faults of others: it does no good. We must not even think of them. Our business is with the good. We are not here to deal with faults. Our business is to be good._x000d_ Here comes Miss So-and-so. She says, "I am going to be a Yogi." She tells the news twenty times, meditates fifty days, then she says, "There is nothing in this religion. I have tried it. There is nothing in it."_x000d_ The very basis [of spiritual life] is not there. The foundation [must be] this perfect morality. That is the great difficulty. . . .In our country there are vegetarian sects. They will take in the early morning pounds of sugar and place it on the ground for ants, and the story is, when one of them was putting sugar on the ground for ants, a man placed his foot upon the ants. The former said, "Wretch, you have killed the animals!" And he gave him such a blow that it killed the man._x000d_ External purity is very easy and all the world rushes towards [it]. If a certain kind of dress is the kind of morality [to be observed], any fool can do that. When it is grappling with the mind itself, it is hard work._x000d_ The people who do external, superficial things are so self-righteous! I remember, when I was a boy I had a great regard for the character of Jesus Christ. [Then I read about the wedding feast in the Bible.] I closed the book and said, "He ate meat and drank wine! He cannot be a good man."_x000d_ We are always losing sight of the real meaning of things. The little eating and dress! Every fool can see that. Who sees that which is beyond? It is culture of the heart that we want. . . . One mass of people in Indian we see bathing twenty times a day sometimes, making themselves very pure. And they do not touch anyone. . . . The coarse facts, the external things! [If by bathing one could be pure,] fish are the purest beings._x000d_ Bathing, and dress, and food regulation--all these have their proper value when they are complementary to the spiritual. . . . That first, and these all help. But without it, no amount of eating grass . . . Is any good at all. They are helps if properly understood. But improperly understood, they are derogatory. . . ._x000d_ This is the reason why I am explaining these things: First, because in all religions everything degenerates upon being practised by [the ignorant]. The camphor in the bottle evaporated, and they are fighting over the bottle._x000d_ Another thing: . . . [Spirituality] evaporates when they say, "This is right, and that is wrong." All quarrels are [with forms and creeds] never in the spirit. The Buddhist offered for years glorious preaching; gradually, this spirituality evaporated. . . . [Similarly with Christianity.] And then began the quarrel whether it is three gods in one or one in three, when nobody wants to go to God Himself and know what He is. We have to go to God Himself to know whether He is three in one or one in three._x000d_ Now, with this explanation, the posture. Trying to control the mind, a certain posture is necessary. Any posture in which the person can sit easily--that is the posture for that person. As a rule, you will find that the spinal column must be left free. It is not intended to bear the weight of the body. . . . The only thing to remember in the sitting posture: [use] any posture in which the spine is perfectly free of the weight of the body._x000d_ Next [Pranayama] . . . The breathing exercises. A great deal of stress is laid upon breathing. . . . What I am telling you is not something gleaned from some sect in India. It is universally true. Just as in this country you teach your children certain prayers, [in India] they get the children and give them certain facts etc._x000d_ Children are not taught any religion in India except one or two prayers. Then they begin to seek for somebody with whom they can get en rapport. They go to different persons and find that "This man is the man for me", and get initiation. If I am married, my wife may possibly get another man teacher and my son will get somebody else, and that is always my secret between me and my teacher. The wife's religion the husband need not know, and he would not dare ask her what her religion is. It is well known that they would never say. It is only known to that person and the teacher. . . . Sometimes you will find that what would be quite ludicrous to one will be just teaching for another. . . . Each is carrying his own burden and is to be helped according to his particular mind. It is the business of every individual, between him, his teacher, and God. But there are certain general methods which all these teachers preach. Breathing [and] meditating are universal. That is the worship in India._x000d_ On the banks of the Ganga, we will see men, women, and children all [practising] breathing and then meditating. Of course, they have other things to do. They cannot devote much time to this. But those who have taken this as the study of life, they practise various methods. There are eighty-four different Asanas (postures). Those that take it up under some person, they always feel the breath and the movements in all the different parts of the body. . . ._x000d_ Next comes Dharana [concentration]. . . . Dharana is holding the mind in certain spots._x000d_ The Hindu boy or girl . . . Gets initiation. He gets from his Guru a word. This is called the root word. This word is given to the Guru [by his Guru], and he gives it to his disciples. One such word is OM. All these symbols have a great deal of meaning, and they hold it secret, never write it. They must receive it through the ear--not through writing--from the teacher, and then hold it as God himself. Then they meditate on the word. . . ._x000d_ I used to pray like that at one time, all through the rainy season, four months. I used to get up and take a plunge in the river, and with all my wet clothes on repeat [the Mantra] till the sun set. Then I ate something--a little rice or something. Four months in the rainy season!_x000d_ The Indian mind believes that there is nothing in the world that cannot be obtained. If a man wants money in this country, he goes to work and earns money. There, he gets a formula and sits under a tree and believes that money must come. Everything must come by the power of his [thought]. You make money here. It is the same thing. You put forth your whole energy upon money-making._x000d_ There are some sects called Hatha-Yogis. . . . They say the greatest good is to keep the body from dying. . . . Their whole process is clinging to the body. Twelve years training! And they begin with little children, otherwise it is impossible. . . . One thing [is] very curious about the Hatha-Yogi: When he first becomes a disciple, he goes into the wilderness and lives alone forty days exactly. All they have they learn within those forty days._x000d_ A man in Calcutta claims to have lived five hundred years. The people all tell me that their grandfathers saw him. . . . He takes a constitutional twenty miles, never walks, he runs. Goes into the water, covers himself [from] top to toe with mud. After that he plunges again into the water, again sticks himself with mud. . . . I do not see any good in that. (Snakes, they say, live two hundred years.) He must be very old, because I have travelled fourteen years in India and wherever I went everybody knew him. He has been travelling all his life. . . . [The Hatha Yogi] will swallow a piece of rubber eighty inches long and take it out again. Four times a day he has to wash every part of his body, internal and external parts. . . ._x000d_ The walls can keep their bodies thousands of years. . . . What of that? I would not want to live so long. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." One little body, with all its delusions and limitations, is enough._x000d_ There are other sects. . . . They give you a drop of the elixir of life and you remain young. . . . It will take me months to enumerate [all the sects]. All their activity is on this side [in the material world]. Every day a new sect. . . ._x000d_ The power of all those sects is in the mind. Their idea is to hold the mind. First concentrate it and hold it at a certain place. They generally say, at certain parts of the body along the spinal column or upon the nerve centres. By holding the mind at the nerve centres, [the Yogi] gets power over the body. The body is the great cause of disturbance to his peace, is opposite of his highest ideal, so he wants control: [to] keep the body as servant._x000d_ Then comes meditation. That is the highest state. . . . When [the mind] is doubtful that is not its great state. Its great state is meditation. It looks upon things and sees things, not identifying itself with anything else. As long as I feel pain, I have identified myself with the body. When I feel joy or pleasure, I have identified myself with the body. But the high state will look with the same pleasure or blissfulness upon pleasure or upon pain. . . . Every meditation is direct superconsciousness. In perfect concentration the soul becomes actually free from the bonds of the gross body and knows itself as it is. Whatever one wants, that comes to him. Power and knowledge are already there. The soul identifies itself with that which is powerless matter and thus weeps. It identifies itself with mortal shapes. . . . But if that free soul wants to exercise any power, it will have it. If it does not, it does not come. He who has known God has become God. There is nothing impossible to such a free soul. No more birth and death for him. He is free for ever.

During the third lecture Ida Ansell took shorthand notes (for the first time), and we are fortunate enough to have her transcripts, the second of which has been published in volume four of the Complete Works. Miss Ansell's notes of this lecture "Concentration" were particularly scrappy; for when she took them Swamiji's ideas were still more or less new to her, as was the rich, cascading flow of his language. Yet her notes are much more full than Frank Rhodehamel's of this same lecture, and from her transcripts one can follow the gist of his talk. He outlined the essential steps of raja yoga, stressing the central practice of concentration, without which no knowledge, either secular or spiritual, can be obtained. "The subject of the present lecture," he said near the beginning, "is how to concentrate the mind in order to study the mind itself. Yogis have laid down certain rules, and this night I am going to give you a sketch of some of these rules." He went on to speak of the prime necessity of perfect morality-inner morality, not the observance of outward forms. "External purity is very easy and all the world rushes toward it," he said, ". . . any fool can do that. When it is grappling with the mind itself, it is hard work. . . . It is culture of the heart that we want. He then spoke of some of the steps in the actual practice of raja yoga-posture, breathing, concentration. He digressed to denounce hatha yoga, whose goal was longevity and which, generally speaking, was the West's only idea of yoga-and a vague idea at that. Returning to the practice of raja yoga-the practice of mental control-he concluded (and I quote here from the first transcript), "Then comes meditation. That is the highest state. . . . Meditation is practiced, and through meditation comes direct super conscious¬ness. By proper concentration the soul becomes entirely free from the bonds of the gross body and knows itself as it is. Whatever one wants, that comes to him. Power and knowledge are already there. The soul identifies itself with that which is powerless-matter-and thus weeps: It identifies itself with the mortal and weeps because it is mortal. . . . He who has become God-there is nothing impossible to such a free soul. No more birth and death for him. He has become free forever.

It is evident from Ida Ansell's first transcript that during the course of this lecture Swamiji recounted the extraordinary and elaborate practices of the hatha yogis in considerable detail. "He puts a long stick down his throat and pumps it up and down," he said in part. "Puts a thread through one nostril and brings it out through the other. Some of the hatha yogis try to arrive at a sort of trance. They turn the tip of the tongue back and [attain a trancelike state], and in that trance they remain for days. Days after he will come out, quite alive. What more immortality do you want!. . . These ideas, I have told you, have ruined races.

Swamiji also told more stories in this lecture than the second transcript indicates. Apart from the story of Pavhari Baba, there was, Miss Ansell noted parenthetically, a "Story of the Sage in the Forest" and a "Story of a Girl." One finds scattered throughout the first transcripts many such titles in parentheses. "Swamiji always told some story on the lecture platform," Mrs. Hanabrough once recounted. "He said he gathered his mind in this way. Certainly he gathered the mind of his audience in this way, or relaxed the minds too highly strung. Ida Ansell never took his stories down, and this for the very reason that his manner of telling them was so enthralling.

One misses not only Swamiji's stories in the transcripts but also the wonderful play that would go on between him and his listeners. No transcript, however complete, could capture the subtlety of his humor, his teasing, his pauses that held a wealth of meaning, his inflections, gestures, and facial expressions, all of which could bring about gasps, laughter, even delighted applause. All are lost to us in the written word. .

At one point in this lecture on "Concentration " for instance, Swamiji had his listeners in a state of suspense as he teased them in regard to his age. In the first transcript one finds this odd sentence: "I am only a few years"-a sentence meaningless if one does not know what was taking place: In his memoirs Mr. Rhodehamel recalled the incident: "Much conjecture was rife as to his age. He must have known this, for he availed himself of an opportunity to have a little fun on this point at the expense of the audience. Alluding to his own age, which was apropos of the subject, he said, `I am only-' (breathless pause, anticipation) `-of a few years,' he added mischievously. A sigh of disappointment ran over the audience. The Swami looked on waiting for the applause, which he knew was ready to break out. And, no doubt, break out it did. To judge from various newspaper reports, applause was always break¬ing out during Swamiji's lectures; and, to judge from Mr. Rhodehamel's memoirs, so was laughter, including Swamiji's own: His lectures seem to have been, in fact, veritable festivals.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 17th March, 1900_x000d_ My dear Mother {Mrs. Leggett},_x000d_ So glad to get your nice letter. Well, you may be sure I am keeping in touch with my friends. Yet a delay may sometimes cause nervousness._x000d_ Dr. and Mrs. Hiller returned to the city, much benefited, as they declare, by Mrs. Melton's rubbings. As for me, I have got several huge red patches on my chest._x000d_ What materialises later on as to complete recovery, I will let you know. Of course, my case is such that it will take time to come round by itself._x000d_ So thankful to you and to Mrs. Adams for the kindness. I will surely go and call on them in Chicago._x000d_ How are things going on with you? I have been following the "Put up or shut up" plan here, and so far it has not proved bad. Mrs. Hansborough, the second of the three sisters, is here, and she is working, working, working--to help me. Lord bless their hearts. The three sisters are three angels, are they not? Seeing such souls here and there repays for all the nonsense of this life._x000d_ Well, all blessings to you for ever is my prayer. You are one of the angels also, say I._x000d_ With love to Miss Kate,_x000d_ Ever your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. How is the "Mother's child"?_x000d_ How is Miss Spencer? All love to her. You know already I am a very bad correspondent, but the heart never fails. Tell this to Miss Spencer._x000d_ V.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 17th March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Mother {Mrs. Leggett},_x000d_ I had a letter from Joe asking me to send my signature on four slips of paper, so that Mr. Leggett may put my money in the bank for me. As I cannot possibly reach her in time, I send the slips to you._x000d_ I am getting better in health and doing financially something. I am quite satisfied. I am not at all sorry that more people did not respond to your call. I knew they would not. But I am eternally thankful to you for all your kindness. May all blessings follow you and yours for ever._x000d_ It is better that my mail be sent to 1231 Pine Street, C/o the Home of Truth. For though I be moving about, that place is a permanent establishment, and the people there are very kind to me._x000d_ I am so glad to learn that you are very well now. Mrs. Melton has left Los Angeles--I am informed by Mrs. Blodgett. Has she gone to New York? Dr. and Mrs. Hiller came back to San Francisco day before yesterday. They declare themselves very much helped by Mrs. Melton. Mrs. Hiller expects to get completely cured in a short time._x000d_ I had a number of lectures here already and in Oakland. The Oakland lectures paid well. The first week in San Francisco was not paying, this week is. Hope the next week will pay also. I am so glad to hear the nice arrangement made by Mr. Leggett for the Vedanta Society. He is so good._x000d_ With all love,_x000d_ Yours,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. Do you know anything about Turiyananda? Has he got completely cured?_x000d_ V.

As he himself once said to Mrs. Hansbrough, "The Mother dropped me in a strange world, among a strange people who do not understand me, and whom I do not understand. But the longer I stay here, I have come to feel that some of the people in the West whom I have met belong to me, and they also are here to serve the work assigned to me." Mrs. Benjamin Aspinall was among those who did all she could to serve the Swami. "Even if you had lived on the highest mountain," he was to say to her later on, "you would have had to come down to take care of me."

Here he glanced smilingly over the audience, and then with a wave of his hand added, "Come on! It will do you good." The next night there was barely standing-room. He kept his word. Bombs were thrown, and he, of all people, knew how to throw them with telling effect. In this lecture he devoted considerable time to the subject of chastity as a means of strengthening the mind. As a practice to develop purity, he expounded the theory of looking upon every woman as one's mother. When he had presented the idea, he paused and, as though in response to inarticulate questionings from the audience, said: "O yes, this is a theory. I stand up here to tell you about this beautiful theory; but, when I think, of my own mother, I know that to me she is different to any other woman. There is a difference. We cannot deny it. But we see this difference, because we think of ourselves as bodies. This theory is to be fully realized in meditation. These truths are first to be heard, then to be meditated upon."

He held purity to be for the householder as well as for the monk, and laid great stress on that point. "The other day, a young Hindu came to see me," he said. "He has been living in this country for about two years, and suffering from ill-health for some time. In the course of our talk, he said that the theory of chastity must be all wrong because the doctors in this country had advised him against it. They told him that it was against the law of nature. I told him to go back to India, where he belonged, and to listen to the teachings of his ancestors, who had practised chastity for thousands of years." Then turning a face puckered into an expression of unutterable disgust, he thundered: "You doctors in this country, who hold that chastity is against the law of nature, don't know what you are talking about. You don't know the meaning of the word purity. You are beasts! beasts! I say, with the morals of a tomcat, if that is the best you have to say on that subject!" Here he glanced defiantly over the audience, challenging opposition by his very glance. No voice was raised, though there were several physicians present.

Bombs were thrown in all of his lectures. Audiences were jolted out of hereditary ruts, and New Thought students, so-called, were subjected to scathing though constructive criticisms without mercy. Smilingly, he would announce the most stupendous Vedantic conceptions so opposed to Christian theologic dogma; then pause an instant — how many, many times, and with such winsome effect! — with his teeth pressed over his lower lip as though with bated breath observing the result. Imagine, if you can, greater violence done to the traditional teachings of Christendom than by his fiery injunction, "Don't repent! Don't repent! ... Spit, if you must, but go on! Don't hold yourselves down by repenting! Throw off the load of sin, if there is such a thing, by knowing your true selves — The Pure! The Ever Free! ... That man alone is blasphemous who tells you that you are sinners. .. ." And again, "This world is a superstition. We are hypnotized into believing it real. The process of salvation is the process of de-hypnotization.... This universe is just the play of the Lord—that is all. It is all just for fun. There can be no reason for His doing anything. Know the lord if you would understand His play. Be His play-fellow, and He will tell you all…. And to you, who are philosophers, I say that to ask for a reason for the existence of the universe is illogical, because it implies limitation in God, which you do not admit." Then he entered into one of his wonderful expositions of the salient features of the Advaita Vedanta.

The following night there was barely standing room, and Swamiji kept his word. "Bombs were thrown, and he, of all people, knew how to throw them with telling effect," Mr. Rhodehamel reported. "In this lecture he devoted considerable time to the subject of chastity as a means of strengthening the mind. As a practice to develop purity, he expounded the theory of looking upon every woman as one's mother. When he had presented the idea, he paused and, as though in response to inarticulate questionings from the audience, said, `Oh, yes, this is a theory. I stand up here to tell you about this beautiful theory; but when I think of my own mother I know that to me she is different to any other woman. There is a difference. We cannot deny it.. But we see this difference because we think of ourselves as bodies. This theory is to be fully realised in meditation. These truths are first to be heard, then to be meditated upon.'_x000d_ "He held purity to be for the householder as well as for the monk, and laid great stress on that point. `The other day a young Hindu came to see me,' he said. `He has been living in this country for about two years, and suffering from ill-health for some time. In the course of our talk, he said that the theory of chastity must be all wrong, because the doctors in this country had advised him against it. They told him that it was against the law of nature. I told him to go back to India, where he belonged, and to listen to the teachings of his ancestors, who had practised chastity for thousands of years.' Then turning a face puckered into an expression of unutterable disgust, he thundered, `You doctors in this country who hold that chastity is against the laws of nature, don't know what you are talking about. You don't know the meaning of the word purity. You are beasts! beasts! I say, with the morals of a tomcat, if that is the best you have to say on that subject!' Here he glanced defiantly over the audience, challenging opposition by his very glance. No voice was raised, though there were several physicians present (And one fancies that in that silence there was many a blush among the maidens and matrons of the audience, for this was 1900 when the words "sex" and, by association, "chastity" were still taboo. But Swamiji was in no way deceived by the hypocrisies of Victorian society. While he was well aware, as he was to say later on, that "public discussions of this subject were not to the taste of this country," as he said exactly what he wanted to say, when and where he wanted to say it).*_x000d_ _x000d_ * In her published memoirs Ida Ansell has related that this particular bomb was thrown during a lecture Swamiji gave at the California Street Home of Truth. This recollection does not occur in her original, unpublished memoirs, written in 1946, and it is possible that her published account of Swamiji’s words was borrowed, along with much else, from Frank Rhodehamel;s memoirs. But be that as it may, there is no indubitable evidence to tell us exactly where and when this blast took place. I have taken Rhodehamel’s mention of “The Mind: Its Powers and Possibilities” to be a reference to Swamiji’s Washington Hall lecture of that tide, and while that seems to be a reasonable supposition, it is, to be sure, a supposition only.

The following night there was barely standing room, and Swamiji kept his word. "Bombs were thrown, and he, of all people, knew how to throw them with telling effect," Mr. Rhodehamel reported. "In this lecture he devoted considerable time to the subject of chastity as a means of strengthening the mind. As a practice to develop purity, he expounded the theory of looking upon every woman as one's mother. When he had presented the idea, he paused and, as though in response to inarticulate questionings from the audience, said, `Oh, yes, this is a theory. I stand up here to tell you about this beautiful theory; but when I think of my own mother I know that to me she is different to any other woman. There is a difference. We cannot deny it.. But we see this difference because we think of ourselves as bodies. This theory is to be fully realised in meditation. These truths are first to be heard, then to be meditated upon.'

Frank Rhodehamel's memoirs are not his only contribution to our knowledge of Swamiji's lectures in San Francisco. He had taken notes of the three lectures of the "Applied Psychology" series, which one can find (with only slight alterations) in volume six of the Complete Works under the titles "The Importance of Psychology" and "The Power of the Mind ", which latter consists of his combined notes of "Mind Culture" and "Concentration of the Mind," the seam between them occurring invisibly between paragraphs seven and eight.** In these notes one finds only bare traces of the bombs that were thrown at the audience and that remained so vividly in Rhodehamel's memory. One can imagine that during Swamiji's most forceful, most stunning of utterances the young Frank sat breathless, his pen suspended, the words burning them¬selves into his mind, though making no impression on his notebook._x000d_ _x000d_ ** It may be of interest of students of Swamiji’s lectures to note that the last two paragraphs of “The Importance of Psychology” (Complete Works, 6:32) are actually the first two paragraphs of Rhodehamel’s original notes of “Mind Culture” (or, as published, “The Powers of the Mind, “Complete Works, 6:125).

We are all slaves to our own and to everybody else's mind [he said]; whether we are good or bad, that makes no difference. We are led here and there because we cannot help ourselves. We say we think, we do, etc. It is not so. We think because we have to think. We act because we have to. We are slaves to ourselves and to others. Deep down in our subconscious mind are stored up a11 the thoughts and acts of the past, not only of this life, but of all other lives we have lived. This great boundless ocean of subjective mind is full of all the thoughts and actions of the past. Each one of these is striving to be recognised, pushing outward for expression, surging, wave after wave, out upon the objective mind, the conscious mind. These thoughts, the stored-up energy, we take for natural desires, talents, etc. It is because we do not realise their true origin. We obey them blindly, unques¬tioningly; and slavery, the most helpless kind of slavery, is the result; and we call ourselves free. Free! . . .

The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, for ever-rend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us. So it must be controlled, and psychology teaches us how to do this ._x000d_ _x000d_ (It is interesting to notice that Swamiji used the word psychology to mean the study of the mind in the deepest possible sense, compared to which the psychological theories and treatments that would prevail in the West in the first part of the twentieth century would be mere surface scraping. In a sentence of Frank Rhodehamel's original notes of "Mind Culture," Swamiji is quoted as having said, "Psychology takes in the study of the soul; metaphysics is employed more with the mere mind.")

Buddhism is historically the most important religion--historically, not philosophically--because it was the most tremendous religious movement that the world ever saw, the most gigantic spiritual wave ever to burst upon human society. There is no civilisation on which its effect has not been felt in some way or other._x000d_ The followers of Buddha were most enthusiastic and very missionary in spirit. They were the first among the adherents of various religions not to remain content with the limited sphere of their Mother Church. They spread far and wide. They travelled east and west, north and south. They reached into darkest Tibet; they went into Persia, Asia Minor; they went into Russia, Poland, and many other countries of the Western world. They went into China, Korea, Japan; they went into Burma, Siam, the East Indies, and beyond. When Alexander the Great, through his military conquests, brought the Mediterranean world in contact with India, the wisdom of India at once found a channel through which to spread over vast portions of Asia and Europe. Buddhist priests went out teaching among the different nations; and as they taught, superstition and priestcraft began to vanish like mist before the sun._x000d_ To understand this movement properly you should know what conditions prevailed in India at the time Buddha came, just as to understand Christianity you have to grasp the state of Jewish society at the time of Christ. It is necessary that you have an idea of Indian society six hundred years before the birth of Christ, by which time Indian civilisation had already completed its growth._x000d_ When you study the civilisation of India, you find that it has died and revived several times; this is its peculiarity. Most races rise once and then decline for ever. There are two kinds of people; those who grow continually and those whose growth comes to an end. The peaceful nations, India and China, fall down, yet rise again; but the others, once they go down, do not come up--they die. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall enjoy the earth._x000d_ At the time Buddha was born, India was in need of a great spiritual leader, a prophet. There was already a most powerful body of priests. You will understand the situation better if you remember the history of the Jews--how they had two types of religious leaders, priests and prophets, the priests keeping the people in ignorance and grinding superstitions into their minds. The methods of worship the priests prescribed were only a means by which they could dominate the people. All through the Old Testament, you find the prophets challenging the superstitions of the priests. The outcome of this fight was the triumph of the prophets and the defeat of the priests._x000d_ Priests believe that there is a God, but that this God can be approached and known only through them. People can enter the Holy of Holies only with the permission of the priests. You must pay them, worship them, place everything in their hands. Throughout the history of the world, this priestly tendency has cropped up again and again--this tremendous thirst for power, this tiger-like thirst, seems a part of human nature. The priests dominate you, lay down a thousand rules for you. They describe simple truths in roundabout ways. They tell you stories to support their own superior position. If you want to thrive in this life or go to heaven after death, you have to pass through their hands. You have to perform all kinds of ceremonies and rituals. All this has made life so complicated and has so confused the brain that if I give you plain words, you will go home unsatisfied._x000d_ You have become thoroughly befuddled. The less you understand, the better you feel! The prophets have been giving warnings against the priests and their superstitions and machinations; but the vast mass of people have not yet learnt to heed these warnings--education is yet to come to them._x000d_ Men must have education. They speak of democracy, of the equality of all men, these days. But how will a man know he is equal with all? He must have a strong brain, a clear mind free of nonsensical ideas; he must pierce through the mass of superstitions encrusting his mind to the pure truth that is in his inmost Self. Then he will know that all perfections, all powers are already within himself, that these have not to be given him by others. When he realises this, he becomes free that moment, he achieves equality. He also realises that every one else is equally as perfect as he, and he does not have to exercise any power, physical, mental or moral, over his brother men. He abandons the idea that there was ever any man who was lower than himself. Then he can talk of equality; not until then._x000d_ Now, as I was telling you, among the Jews there was a continuous struggle between the priests and the prophets; and the priests sought to monopolise power and knowledge, till they themselves began to lose them and the chains they had put on the feet of the people were on their own feet. The masters always become slaves before long. The culmination of the struggle was the victory of Jesus of Nazareth. This triumph is the history of Christianity. Christ at last succeeded in overthrowing the mass of witchcraft. This great prophet killed the dragon of priestly selfishness, rescued from its clutches the jewel of truth, and gave it to all the world, so that whosoever desired to possess it would have absolute freedom to do so, and would not have to wait on the pleasure of any priest or priests. _x000d_ The Jews were never a very philosophical race: they had not the subtlety of the Indian brain nor did they have the Indian's psychic power. The priests in India, the Brahmins, possessed great intellectual and psychic powers. It was they who began the spiritual development of India, and they accomplished wonderful things. But the time came when the free spirit of development that had at first actuated the Brahmins disappeared. They began to arrogate powers and privileges to themselves. If a Brahmin killed a man, he would not be punished. The Brahmin, by his very birth, is the lord of the universe! Even the most wicked Brahmin must be worshipped!_x000d_ But while the priests were flourishing, there existed also the poet-prophets called Sannyasins. All Hindus, whatever their castes may be, must, for the sake of attaining spirituality, give up their work and prepare for death. No more is the world to be of any interest to them. They must go out and become Sannyasins. The Sannyasins have nothing to do with the two thousand ceremonies that the priests have invented: Pronounce certain words--ten syllables, twenty syllables, and so on--all these things are nonsense._x000d_ So these poet-prophets of ancient India repudiated the ways of the priest and declared the pure truth. They tried to break the power of the priests, and they succeeded a little. But in two generations their disciples went back to the superstitious, roundabout ways of the priests--became priests themselves: "You can get truth only through us!" Truth became crystallised again, and again prophets came to break the encrustations and free the truth, and so it went on. Yes, there must be all the time the man, the prophet, or else humanity will die._x000d_ You wonder why there have to be all these roundabout methods of the priests. Why can you not come directly to the truth? Are you ashamed of God's truth that you have to hide it behind all kinds of intricate ceremonies and formulas? Are you ashamed of God that you cannot confess His truth before the world? Do you call that being religious and spiritual? The priests are the only people fit for the truth! The masses are not fit for it! It must be diluted! Water it down a little!_x000d_ Take the Sermon on the Mount and the Gita--they are simplicity itself. Even the streetwalker can understand them. How grand! In them you find the truth clearly and simply revealed. But no, the priests would not accept that truth can be found so directly. They speak of two thousand heavens and two thousand hells. If people follow their prescriptions, they will go to heaven! If they do not obey the rules, they will go to hell!_x000d_ But the people shall learn the truth. Some are afraid that if the full truth is given to all, it will hurt them. They should not be given the unqualified truth--so they say. But the world is not much better off by compromising truth. What worse can it be than it is already? Bring truth out! If it is real, it will do good. When people protest and propose other methods, they only make apologies for witchcraft._x000d_ India was full of it in Buddha's day. There were the masses of people, and they were debarred from all knowledge. If just a word of the Vedas entered the ears of a man, terrible punishment was visited upon him. The priests had made a secret of the Vedas--the Vedas that contained the spiritual truths discovered by the ancient Hindus!_x000d_ At last one man could bear it no more. He had the brain, the power, and the heart--a heart as infinite as the broad sky. He felt how the masses were being led by the priests and how the priests were glorying in their power, and he wanted to do something about it. He did not want any power over any one, and he wanted to break the mental and spiritual bonds of men. His heart was large. The heart, many around us may have, and we also want to help others. But we do not have the brain; we do not know the ways and means by which help can be given. But this man had the brain to discover the means of breaking the bondages of souls. He learnt why men suffer, and he found the way out of suffering. He was a man of accomplishment, he worked everything out; he taught one and all without distinction and made them realise the peace of enlightenment. This was the man Buddha._x000d_ You know from Arnold's poem, The Light of Asia, how Buddha was born a prince and how the misery of the world struck him deeply; how, although brought up and living in the lap of luxury, he could not find comfort in his personal happiness and security; how he renounced the world, leaving his princess and new-born son behind; how he wandered searching for truth from teacher to teacher; and how he at last attained to enlightenment. You know about his long mission, his disciples, his organisations. You all know these things._x000d_ Buddha was the triumph in the struggle that had been going on between the priests and the prophets in India. One thing can be said for these Indian priests--they were not and never are intolerant of religion; they never have persecuted religion. Any man was allowed to preach against them. Theirs is such a religion; they never molested any one for his religious views. But they suffered from the peculiar weaknesses of all the priests: they also sought power, they also promulgated rules and regulations and made religion unnecessarily complicated, and thereby undermined the strength of those who followed their religion._x000d_ Buddha cut through all these excrescences. He preached the most tremendous truths. He taught the very gist of the philosophy of the Vedas to one and all without distinction, he taught it to the world at large, because one of his great messages was the equality of man. Men are all equal. No concession there to anybody! Buddha was the great preacher of equality. Every man and woman has the same right to attain spirituality--that was his teaching. The difference between the priests and the other castes he abolished. Even the lowest were entitled to the highest attainments; he opened the door of Nirvana to one and all. His teaching was bold even for India. No amount of preaching can ever shock the Indian soul, but it was hard for India to swallow Buddha's doctrine. How much harder it must be for you!_x000d_ His doctrine was this: Why is there misery in our life? Because we are selfish. We desire things for ourselves--that is why there is misery. What is the way out? The giving up of the self. The self does not exist; the phenomenal world, all this that we perceive, is all that exists. There is nothing called soul underlying the cycle of life and death. There is the stream of thought, one thought following another in succession, each thought coming into existence and becoming non-existent at the same moment, that is all; there is no thinker of the thought, no soul. The body is changing all the time; so is mind, consciousness. The self therefore is a delusion. All selfishness comes of holding on to the self, to this illusory self. If we know the truth that there is no self, then we will be happy and make others happy._x000d_ This was what Buddha taught. And he did not merely talk; he was ready to give up his own life for the world. He said, "If sacrificing an animal is good, sacrificing a man is better", and he offered himself as a sacrifice. He said, "This animal sacrifice is another superstition. God and soul are the two big superstitions. God is only a superstition invented by the priests. If there is a God, as these Brahmins preach, why is there so much misery in the world? He is just like me, a slave to the law of causation. If he is not bound by the law of causation, then why does he create? Such a God is not at all satisfactory. There is the ruler in heaven that rules the universe according to his sweet will and leaves us all here to die in misery--he never has the goodness to look at us for a moment. Our whole life is continuous suffering; but this is not sufficient punishment--after death we must go to places where we have other punishments. Yet we continually perform all kinds of rites and ceremonies to please this creator of the world!"_x000d_ Buddha said, "These ceremonials are all wrong. There is but one ideal in the world. Destroy all delusions; what is true will remain. As soon as the clouds are gone, the sun will shine". How to kill the self? Become perfectly unselfish, ready to give up your life even for an ant. Work not for any superstition, not to please any God, not to get any reward, but because you are seeking your own release by killing your self. Worship and prayer and all that, these are all nonsense. You all say, "I thank God"--but where does He live? You do not know, and yet you are all going crazy about God._x000d_ Hindus can give up everything except their God. To deny God is to cut off the very ground from under the feet of devotion. Devotion and God the Hindus must cling to. They can never relinquish these. And here, in the teaching of Buddha, are no God and no soul--simply work. What for? Not for the self, for the self is a delusion. We shall be ourselves when this delusion has vanished. Very few are there in the world that can rise to that height and work for work's sake._x000d_ Yet the religion of Buddha spread fast. It was because of the marvellous love which, for the first time in the history of humanity, overflowed a large heart and devoted itself to the service not only of all men but of all living things--a love which did not care for anything except to find a way of release from suffering for all beings._x000d_ Man was loving God and had forgotten all about his brother man. The man who in the name of God can give up his very life, can also turn around and kill his brother man in the name of God. That was the state of the world. They would sacrifice the son for the glory of God, would rob nations for the glory of God, would kill thousands of beings for the glory of God, would drench the earth with blood for the glory of God. This was the first time they turned to the other God--man. It is man that is to be loved. It was the first wave of intense love for all men--the first wave of true unadulterated wisdom--that, starting from India, gradually inundated country after country, north, south, east, west._x000d_ This teacher wanted to make truth shine as truth. No softening, no compromise, no pandering to the priests, the powerful, the kings. No bowing before superstitious traditions, however hoary; no respect for forms and books just because they came down from the distant past. He rejected all scriptures, all forms of religious practice. Even the very language, Sanskrit, in which religion had been traditionally taught in India, he rejected, so that his followers would not have any chance to imbibe the superstitions which were associated with it._x000d_ There is another way of looking at the truth we have been discussing: the Hindu way. We claim that Buddha's great doctrine of selflessness can be better understood if it is looked at in our way. In the Upanishads there is already the great doctrine of the Atman and the Brahman. The Atman, Self, is the same as Brahman, the Lord. This Self is all that is; It is the only reality. Maya, delusion, makes us see It as different. There is one Self, not many. That one Self shines in various forms. Man is man's brother because all men are one. A man is not only my brother, say the Vedas, he is myself. Hurting any part of the universe, I only hurt myself. I am the universe. It is a delusion that I think I am Mr. So-and-so--that is the delusion._x000d_ The more you approach your real Self, the more this delusion vanishes. The more all differences and divisions disappear, the more you realise all as the one Divinity. God exists; but He is not the man sitting upon a cloud. He is pure Spirit. Where does He reside? Nearer to you than your very self. He is the Soul. How can you perceive God as separate and different from yourself? When you think of Him as some one separate from yourself, you do not know Him. He is you yourself. That was the doctrine of the prophets of India._x000d_ It is selfishness that you think that you see Mr. So-and-so and that all the world is different from you. You believe you are different from me. You do not take any thought of me. You go home and have your dinner and sleep. If I die, you still eat, drink, and are merry. But you cannot really be happy when the rest of the world is suffering. We are all one. It is the delusion of separateness that is the root of misery. Nothing exists but the Self; there is nothing else._x000d_ Buddha's idea is that there is no God, only man himself. He repudiated the mentality which underlies the prevalent ideas of God. He found it made men weak and superstitious. If you pray to God to give you everything, who is it, then, that goes out and works? God comes to those who work hard. God helps them that help themselves. An opposite idea of God weakens our nerves, softens our muscles, makes us dependent. Everything independent is happy; everything dependent is miserable. Man has infinite power within himself, and he can realise it--he can realise himself as the one infinite Self. It can be done; but you do not believe it. You pray to God and keep your powder dry all the time._x000d_ Buddha taught the opposite. Do not let men weep. Let them have none of this praying and all that. God is not keeping shop. With every breath you are praying in God. I am talking; that is a prayer. You are listening; that is a prayer. Is there ever any movement of yours, mental or physical, in which you do not participate in the infinite Divine Energy? It is all a constant prayer. If you call only a set of words prayer, you make prayer superficial. Such prayers are not much good; they can scarcely bear any real fruit._x000d_ Is prayer a magic formula, by repeating which, even is you do not work hard, you gain miraculous results? No. All have to work hard; all have to reach the depths of that infinite Energy. Behind the poor, behind the rich, there is the same infinite Energy. It is not that one man works hard, and another by repeating a few words achieves results. This universe is a constant prayer. If you take prayer in this sense, I am with you. Words are not necessary. Better is silent prayer._x000d_ The vast majority of people do not understand the meaning of this doctrine. In India any compromise regarding the Self means that we have given power into the hands of the priests and have forgotten the great teachings of the prophets. Buddha knew this; so he brushed aside all the priestly doctrines and practices and made man stand on his own feet. It was necessary for him to go against the accustomed ways of the people; he had to bring about revolutionary changes. As a result this sacrificial religion passed away from India for ever, and was never revived._x000d_ Buddhism apparently has passed away from India; but really it has not. There was an element of danger in the teaching of Buddha--it was a reforming religion. In order to bring about the tremendous spiritual change he did, he had to give many negative teachings. But if a religion emphasises the negative side too much, it is in danger of eventual destruction. Never can a reforming sect survive if it is only reforming; the formative elements alone--the real impulse, that is, the principles--live on and on. After a reform has been brought about, it is the positive side that should be emphasised; after the building is finished the scaffolding must be taken away._x000d_ It so happened in India that as time went on, the followers of Buddha emphasised the negative aspect of his teachings too much and thereby caused the eventual downfall of their religion. The positive aspects of truth were suffocated by the forces of negation; and thus India repudiated the destructive tendencies that flourished in the name of Buddhism. That was the decree of the Indian national thought._x000d_ The negative elements of Buddhism--there is no God and no soul--died out. I can say that God is the only being that exists; it is a very positive statement. He is the one reality. When Buddha says there is no soul, I say, "Man, thou art one with the universe; thou art all things." How positive! The reformative element died out; but the formative element has lived through all time. Buddha taught kindness towards lower beings; and since then there has not been a sect in India that has not taught charity to all beings, even to animals. This kindness, this mercy, this charity--greater than any doctrine--are what Buddhism left to us._x000d_ The life of Buddha has an especial appeal. All my life I have been very fond of Buddha, but not of his doctrine. I have more veneration for that character than for any other--that boldness, that fearlessness, and that tremendous love! He was born for the good of men. Others may seek God, others may seek truth for themselves; he did not even care to know truth for himself. He sought truth because people were in misery._x000d_ How to help them, that was his only concern. Throughout his life he never had a thought for himself. How can we ignorant, selfish, narrow-minded human beings ever understand the greatness of this man?_x000d_ And consider his marvellous brain! No emotionalism. That giant brain never was superstitious. Believe not because an old manuscript has been produced, because it has been handed down to you from your forefathers, because your friends want you to--but think for yourself; search truth for yourself; realise it yourself. Then if you find it beneficial to one and many, give it to people. Soft-brained men, weak-minded, chicken-hearted, cannot find the truth. One has to be free, and as broad as the sky. One has to have a mind that is crystal clear; only then can truth shine in it. We are so full of superstitions! Even in your country where you think you are highly educated, how full of narrownesses and superstitions you are! Just think, with all your claims to civilisation in this country, on one occasion I was refused a chair to sit on, because I was a Hindu._x000d_ Six hundred years before the birth of Christ, at the time when Buddha lived, the people of India must have had wonderful education. Extremely free-minded they must have been. Great masses followed him. Kings gave up their thrones; queens gave up their thrones. People were able to appreciate and embrace his teaching, so revolutionary, so different from what they had been taught by the priests through the ages! But their minds have been unusually free and broad._x000d_ And consider his death. If he was great in life, he was also great in death. He ate food offered to him by a member of a race similar to your American Indians. Hindus do not touch them, because they eat everything indiscriminately. He told his disciples, "Do not eat this food, but I cannot refuse it. Go to the man and tell him he has done me one of the greatest services of my_x000d_ life--he has released me from the body." An old man came and sat near him--he had walked miles and miles to see the Master--and Buddha taught him. When he found a disciple weeping, he reproved him, saying, "What is this? Is this the result of all my teaching? Let there be no false bondage, no dependence on me, no false glorification of this passing personality. The Buddha is not a person; he is a realisation. Work out your own salvation." _x000d_ Even when dying, he would not claim any distinction for himself. I worship him for that. What you call Buddhas and Christs are only the names of certain states of realisation. Of all the teachers of the world, he was the one who taught us most to be self-reliant, who freed us not only from the bondages of our false selves but from dependence on the invisible being or beings called God or gods. He invited every one to enter into that state of freedom which he called Nirvana. All must attain to it one day; and that attainment is the complete fulfilment of man.

We read many books, but that does not bring us knowledge. We may read all the Bibles in the world, but that will not give us religion. Theoretical religion is easy enough to get, any one may get that. What we want is practical religion._x000d_ The Christian idea of a practical religion is in doing good works--worldly utility._x000d_ What good is utility? Judged from a utilitarian standpoint, religion is a failure. Every hospital is a prayer that more people may come there. What is meant by charity? Charity is not fundamental. It is really helping on the misery of the world, not eradicating it. One looks for name and fame and covers his efforts to obtain them with the enamel of charity and good works. He is working for himself under the pretext of working for others. Every so-called charity is an encouragement of the very evil it claims to operate against._x000d_ Men and women go to balls and dance all night in honor of some hospital or other charitable institution, then go home, behave like beasts, and bring devils into the world to fill jails, insane asylums, and hospitals. So it goes on, and it is called good works--building hospital, etc. The ideal of good works is to lessen, or eradicate, the misery of the world. The Yogi says, all misery comes from not being able to control the mind. The Yogi's ideal is freedom from nature. Conquest of nature is his standard of work. The Yogi says that all power is in the soul, and by the controlling of the mind and body one conquers nature by the power of the soul._x000d_ Every ounce of muscle in excess of what is beyond the needs of one's physical work is that much less of brain. Do not exercise too hard; it is injurious. The one who does not work hard will live the longest. Eat less food and work less. Store up brain food._x000d_ Household work is enough for women._x000d_ Do not make the lamp burn fast; let it burn slowly._x000d_ Proper diet means simple diet, not highly spiced.

[An interview by Blanche Partington, San Francisco Chronicle, March 18, 1900]_x000d_ . . . . . ._x000d_ . . . Bowing very low in Eastern fashion on his entrance to the room, then holding out his hand in good American style, the dusky philosopher from the banks of the Ganges gave friendly greeting to the representative of that thoroughly Occidental in¬stitution, the daily press._x000d_ . . . I asked for a picture to illustrate this article, and when someone handed me a certain "cut" which has been extensively used in lecture advertisements here, he uttered a mild protest against its use._x000d_ "But that does not look like you", said I._x000d_ "No, it is as if I wished to kill someone", he said smiling, "like__like__"_x000d_ "Othello", I inserted rashly. But the little audience of friends only smiled as the Swami made laughing recognition of the absurd resemblance of the picture to the jealous Moor. But I do not use that picture._x000d_ "Is it true, Swami", I asked, "that when you went home af¬ter lecturing in the Congress of Religions after the World's Fair, princes knelt at your feet, a half dozen of the ruling sovereigns of India dragged your carriage through the streets, as the papers told us? We do not treat our priests so"._x000d_ "That is not good to talk of", said the Swami. "But it is true that religion rules there, not dollars."_x000d_ "What about caste?"_x000d_ "What of your Four Hundred?" he replied, smiling. "Caste in India is an institution hardly explicable or intelligible to the Occidental mind. It is acknowledged to be an imperfect institu-tion, but we do not recognize a superior social result from your attempts at class distinction. India is the only country which has so far succeeded in imposing a permanent caste upon her people, and we doubt if an exchange for Western superstitions and evils would be for her advantage."_x000d_ "But under such regime__where a man may not eat this nor drink that, nor marry the other__the freedom you teach would be impossible", I ventured._x000d_ "It is impossible", assented the Swami; "but until India has outgrown the necessity for caste laws, caste laws will remain"._x000d_ "Is it true that you may not eat food cooked by a foreigner__unbeliever?" I asked._x000d_ "In India the cook__who is not called a servant__must be of the same or higher caste than those for whom the food is cooked, as it is considered that whatever a man touches is im¬pressed by his personality, and food, with which a man builds up the body through which he expresses himself, is regarded as being liable to such impression. As to the foods we eat, it is as¬sumed that certain kinds of food nourish certain properties worthy of cultivation, and that others retard our spiritual growth. For instance, we do not kill to eat. Such food would be held to nourish the animal body, at the expense of the spiritual body, in which the soul is said to be clothed on its departure from this physical envelope, besides laying the sin of blood¬guiltiness upon the butcher."_x000d_ "Ugh!" I exclaimed involuntarily, an awful vision of re¬proachful little lambs, little chicken ghosts, hovering cow spirits__I was always afraid of cows anyway__rising up before me._x000d_ "You see", explained the Brahmin [Kshatriya], "the uni¬verse is all one, from the lowest insect to the highest Yogi. It is all one, we are all one, you and I are one__". Here the Occi¬dental audience smiled, the unconscious monk chanting the one¬ness of things in Sanskrit and the consequent sin of taking any life._x000d_ . . . He was pacing up and down the room most of the time during our talk, occasionally standing over the register__it was a chill morning for this child of the sun__and doing with grace and freedom whatever occurred to him, even, at length, smoking a little._x000d_ "You, yourself, have not yet attained supreme control over all desires", I ventured. The Swami's frankness is infectious._x000d_ "No, madam", and he smiled the broad and brilliant smile of a child; "Do I look it?" But the Swami, from the land of hasheesh and dreams, doubtless did not connect my query with its smoky origin._x000d_ "Is it usual among the Hindoo priesthood to marry?" I ven¬tured again._x000d_ "It is a matter of individual choice", replied this member of the Hindoo priesthood. "One does not marry that he may not be in slavery to a woman and children, or permit the slavery of a woman to him."_x000d_ "But what is to become of the population?" urged the anti Malthusian._x000d_ "Are you so glad to have been born?" retorted the Eastern thinker, his large eyes flashing scorn. "Can you conceive of nothing higher than this warring, hungry, ignorant world? Do not fear that the you may be lost, though the sordid, miserable consciousness of the now may go. What worth having [would be] gone?_x000d_ "The child comes crying into the world. Well may he cry! Why should we weep to leave it? Have you thought"__here the sunny smile came back__"of the different modes of East and West of expressing the passing away? We say of the dead man, 'He gave up his body'; you put it, 'he gave up the ghost'. How can that be? Is it the dead body that permits the ghost to depart? What curious inversion of thought!"_x000d_ "But, on the whole, Swami, you think it better to be com¬fortably dead than a living lion?" persisted the defender of pop¬ulations._x000d_ "Swâhâ, Swaha, so be it!" shouted the monk._x000d_ "But how is it that under such philosophy men consent to live at all?"_x000d_ "Because a man's own life is sacred as any other life, and one may not leave chapters unlearned", returned the philoso¬pher. "Add power and diminish time, and the school days are shorter; as the learned professor can make the marble in twelve years which nature took centuries to form. It is all a question of time."_x000d_ "India, which has had this teaching so long, has not yet learned her lesson?"_x000d_ "No, though she is perhaps nearer than any other country, in that she has learned to love mercy."_x000d_ "What of England in India?" I asked._x000d_ "But for English rule I could not be here now", said the monk, "though your lowest free born American Negro holds higher position in India politically than is mine. Brahmin and coolie, we are all 'natives'. But it is all right, in spite of the misunderstanding and oppression. England is the Tharma [Karma?] of India, attracted inevitably by some inherent weak¬ness, past mistakes, but from her blood and fibre will come the new national hope for my countrymen. I am a loyal subject of the Empress of India!" and here the Swami salaamed before an imaginary potentate, bowing very low, perhaps too low for rev¬erence._x000d_ "But such an apostle of freedom__", I murmured._x000d_ "She is the widow for many years, and such we hold in high worth in India", said the philosopher seriously. "As to freedom, yes, I believe the goal of all development is freedom, law and order. There is more law and order in the grave than anywhere else__try it."_x000d_ "I must go", I said. "I have to catch a train"._x000d_ "That is like all Americans", smiled the Swami, and I had a glimpse of all eternity in his utter restfulness. "You must catch this car or that train always. Is there not another, later?"_x000d_ But I did not attempt to explain the Occidental conception of the value of time to this child of the Orient, realizing its utter hopelessness and my own renegade sympathy. It must be de¬lightful beyond measure to live in the land of "time enough". In the Orient there seems time to breathe, time to think, time to live; as the Swami says, what have we in exchange? We live in time; they in eternity

[An interview by the San Francisco Examiner, March 18, 1900]_x000d_ Hindoo Philosopher Who Strikes at the Root of Some Occidental Evils and Tells How We Must Worship God Simply and Not with Many Vain Prayers._x000d_ . . . . . ._x000d_ One American friend he may be assured of__the Swami is a charming person to interview._x000d_ Pacing about the little room where he is staying, he kept the small audience of interviewer and friend entertained for a couple of hours._x000d_ "Tell you about the English in India? But I do not wish to talk of politics. But from the higher standpoint, it is true that but for the English rule I could not be here. We natives know that it is through the intermixture of English blood and ideas that the salvation of India will come. Fifty years ago, all the lit¬erature and religion of the race were locked up in the Sanskrit language; today the drama and the novel are written in the ver¬nacular, and the literature of religion is being translated. That is the work of the English, and it is unnecessary, in America, to descant upon the value of the education of the masses."_x000d_ "What do you think of the Boers War?" was asked._x000d_ "Oh! Have you seen the morning paper? But I do not wish to discuss politics. English and Boers are both in the wrong. It is terrible__terrible__the bloodshed! English will conquer, but at what fearful cost! She seems the nation of Fate."_x000d_ And the Swami with a smile, began chanting the Sanskrit for an unwillingness to discuss politics._x000d_ Then he talked long of ancient Russian history, and of the wandering tribes of Tartary, and of the Moorish rule in Spain, and displaying an astonishing memory and research. To this childlike interest in all things that touch him is doubtless due much of the curious and universal knowledge that he seems to possess.

Its title was "Buddha’s Message to the World," and, like the remaining three lectures of the series, it was delivered in Union Square Hall, on the south side of Post Street between Powell and Mason streets. Golden Gate Hall, where he had given his first two lectures in San Francisco, as well as his Sunday lecture on Christ, was now left behind. We do not know the reason for this; but one advantage of the halls on Post Street was that they were easy of access from Swamiji’s flat. He could take a cable car, travel down Turk (with a jog north at Mason) to the intersection of Eddy, Powell, and Market streets, and from there either transfer to another cable at the famous Powell Street turntable or walk the four blocks north to Post. Because Swamiji lost his way easily in American cities, this directness of route had its value. As to the relative sizes of Golden Gate Hall and Union Square Hall, we can only guess; both were destroyed in 1906, and no information has so far been found regarding the seating capacity of either. We can suppose, however, that the latter was fairly large, seating about six hundred. "His Sunday audience usually ran from five to six hundred people. Mrs. Hansbrough recalled. And we learn from a recently discovered newspaper report (given below) that on Sunday, March 18, Union Square Hall was crowded.

In the audience, it is interesting to note, was a young man by the name of Ernest C. Brown. Mr. Brown, who was to become an ardent devotee and member (later, president) of the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, had come for the first time to hear Swamiji. Like Miss Sarah Fox, he had heard of the Swami through Mr. Paul Militz, the religious teacher in Oakland. "[Mr. Militz] was a German-Pole," Mr. Brown related in his reminiscences as published in the London magazine Vedanta for East and West (July-August, 1959), "a great patriot and lover of freedom. One Sunday he said: `Now, you folks have been wanting me to show you a real renouncer such as I have been telling you about -one who has renounced everything for the Truth. Very well, a great teacher has recently come from India. His name is Swami Vivekananda. I advise you all to go and hear him. He is one of the greatest teachers and greatest ascetics India has ever produced.’ The hall was empty the next Sunday morning, much to his surprise and astonishment. The only people left in the hall were an elderly German lady and myself." In the afternoon of what must have been the following Sunday (March 18), Mr. Brown and the elderly German lady also went to hear Swamiji. His memoirs continue:

…He was not there when we arrived, so we took our seats and waited. Then someone in an orange-coloured robe walked from a little side-room out on the platform and I said to myself "Who is that? An emperor?" His walk was that of a god, a man accustomed to ruling. When he sat down the audience burst into tumultuous applause. But he sat there unmoved, his Face reflecting the perfect calm within. Then he rose and just held up his hands with palms facing the audience, and at once there was a silence that you could feel, it was so tense, so palpable. I said to my companion, "Who is this person who can make a large audience like this yield and in a moment give silence? He is obviously accustomed to commanding others." Then he began his lecture. We listened, and at the close I went up to shake hands with him. Other people were lining up so I went along too. Then he said a few words which were not of significance to me then, because I did not know his greatness. I did not appreciate them until years after¬wards.74 [Mr. Brown did not say what those words were.]

The lecture which the Swami Vivekananda gave Monday night in his new course on "The People of India", was interesting, not only for what he had to relate of the people of that country, but for the insight into their mental attitude and prejudices which the speaker gave without really meaning it. It is apparent that the Swami, educated and intellectual man that he is, is no admirer of Western civilisation. He has evidently been a good deal embittered by the talk about child widows, the oppression of women, and other barbarisms alleged against the people of India, and is somewhat inclined to resort to the tu quoque in reply._x000d_ In commencing his talk, he gave his hearers an idea of the racial characteristics of the people. He said that the bond of unity in India, as in other countries of Asia, is not language or race, but religion. In Europe the race makes the nation, but in Asia people of diverse origin and different tongues become one nation if they have the same religion. The people of Northern India are divided into four great classes, while in Southern India the languages are so entirely different from those of Northern India that there is no kinship whatever. The people of Northern India belong to the great Aryan race, to which all of the people of Europe, except the Basques in the Pyrennees, and the Finns, are supposed to belong. The Southern India people belong to the same race as the ancient Egyptians and the Semites. To illustrate the difficulties of learning one another's languages in India, the Swami said that when he had occasion to go into Southern India, he always talked with the native people in English, unless they belonged to the select few who could speak Sanskrit._x000d_ A good deal of the lecture was taken up in a discussion of the caste system which the Swami characterised by saying that it had its bad side, but that its benefits outweighed its disadvantages. In brief, this caste system had grown by the practice of the son always following the business of the father. In course of time the community came thus to be divided into a series of classes, each held rigidly within its own boundaries. But while this divided the people, it also united them, because all the members of a caste were bound to help their fellows in case of need. And as no man could rise out of his caste, the Hindus have no such struggles for social or personal supremacy as embitter the people of other countries. _x000d_ The worst feature of the caste is that is suppresses competition, and the checking of competition has really been the cause of the political downfall of India and its conquest by foreign races._x000d_ Respecting the much-discussed subject of marriage, the Hindus are socialistic and see nothing good in matches being made by a couple of young people who might be attached to one another, without regard to the welfare of the community, which is more important than that of any two persons. "Because I love Jennie and Jennie loves me", said the Swami, "is no reason why we should be married."_x000d_ He denied that the condition of the child widows is as bad as has been represented, saying that in India the position of widows in general is one of a great deal of influence, because a large part of the property in the country is held by widows. In fact, so enviable is the position of widows that a woman or a man either might almost pray to be made a widow. _x000d_ The child widows, or women who have been betrothed to children who died before marriage, might be pitied if a marriage were the only real object in life, but, according to the Hindu way of thinking, marriage is rather a duty than a privilege, and the denial of the right of child widows to marry is no particular hardship.

VIVEKANANDI ON BUDDHISM._x000d_ THE HINDOO LEGTURES TO A CROWDED _x000d_ HOUSE. HIS VIEWS ON ONE OF THE RELIGIONS_x000d_ OF THE ORIENT._x000d_ A Warm Tribute to the Philosopher and His Teachings¬Some of the Principles Expounded._x000d_ The Swami Vivekanandi, apostle of the Vedanta Philosophy, spoke to a crowded house in Union-square Hall yesterday on "Buddha’s Message to the World," saying in part:_x000d_ "Buddhism is the most important religion of history, representing the most tremendous religious movement the world ever saw, the most gigantic spiritual wave that ever swept human society. Indian society 700 years before Christ had reached one of its periods of decadence, characteristic of the history of Oriental races, and invariably followed by another uplifting. When a fighting race once slips its foot it never recovers. India was then, like the Jewish nation prior to Christ’s advent, in the hands of a priesthood which was crowding the people’s heads with hideous, degrading superstitions, a body of men standing between the people and God, or spirituality. This priesthood loved power, and took every possible means to secure and hold it, by means of secrecy and abracadabras, just as men are doing among you to-day with their secret societies and their occult messages which are intended only for them. And you are impressed by them. You do not care for plain truths and plain words, although all the great truths ever spoken, like the sermon on the mount, were in the simplest language. The less you understand, the better you feel, and the more you revere. The day is coming when you will be educated out of this, but it is not here yet._x000d_ There are those among you who say that people are not yet ready for truth. And you hide it, dilute it, water it! The world is no better for hidden truths. Can the world be worse than it is to-day here among you? You, who are like so many wolves, throwing yourselves upon each other’s throats, living and thriving at the expense of your fel¬lows, under the competitive system! Buddha found awful practices in his day to keep people away from the truth. If a man of the lower caste uttered the name of a Brahman, his stomach was cut open._x000d_ If by some accident one overheard the priests reading from the sacred books, molten lead was poured into his ears. Yet many good people then, as to-day, were content to let these things go on, so long as they were safe and comfortable. Buddha had a heart to feel for the sufferings of others, a brain to think out the remedy, and a hand to do the work before him. The message that he brought was the essence of the truths in the Vedas. It was tremendously bold, even for India, where, whatever other oppression may exist, religious intolerance has never been known._x000d_ Buddha declared that all the misery in this life was due to selfishness. He thundered against priests and ceremonials and the sacrifice of animals and preached, above all, love for man. This is the Buddhist point of view. We Hindoos claim that we understand Buddha better; that he meant that men were all one and that God exists, a principle and a spirit, nearer to you than you are to your own soul because he is your own soul. How dare you cast God away from you with a "thou"? Always hereafter say "I". Ceremonies are without meaning. Work is prayer and higher than all your talks. Buddha stood for human equality; he maintained that there should be no distinctions as to the highest attainments for men and women, and that women should go to the altar. He broke the bondage of the Indian races. Greater than his doctrines was Buddha’s fearless, loving self denying life, and, although I am not a Buddhist, this has always appealed most to me, as well as has his noble death, when he protested with his last words that his followers should not worship him, but live for the principles for which he had lived. His doctrines were in a sense negative, fitted to the times. I can say the same thing that Buddha said when I declare "There is nothing but God in the universe. He pervades all, is in all, is all."

The subject tonight is man, man in contrast with nature. For a long time the word "nature" was used almost exclusively to denote external phenomena. These phenomena were found to behave methodically; and they often repeated themselves: that which had happened in the past happened again--nothing happened only once. Thus it was concluded that nature was uniform. Uniformity is closely associated with the idea of nature; without it natural phenomena cannot be understood. This uniformity is the basis of what we call law._x000d_ Gradually the word "nature" and the idea of uniformity came to be applied also to internal phenomena, the phenomena of life and mind. All that is differentiated is nature. Nature is the quality of the plant, the quality of the animal, and the quality of man. Man's life behaves according to definite methods; so does his mind. Thoughts do not just happen, there is a certain method in their rise, existence and fall. In other words, just as external phenomena are bound by law, internal phenomena, that is to say, the life and mind of man, are also bound by law._x000d_ When we consider law in relation to man's mind and existence, it is at once obvious that there can be no such thing as free will and free existence. We know how animal nature is wholly regulated by law. The animal does not appear to exercise any free will. The same is true of man; human nature also is bound by law. The law governing functions of the human mind is called the law of Karma. _x000d_ Nobody has ever seen anything produced out of nothing; if anything arises in the mind, that also must have been produced from something. When we speak of free will, we mean the will is not caused by anything. But that cannot be true, the will is caused; and since it is caused, it cannot be free--it is bound by law. That I am willing to talk to you and you come to listen to me, that is law. Everything that I do or think or feel, every part of my conduct or behaviour, my every movement--all is caused and therefore not free. This regulation of our life and mind--that is the law of Karma._x000d_ If such a doctrine had been introduced in olden times into a Western community, it would have produced a tremendous commotion. The Western man does not want to think his mind is governed by law. In India it was accepted as soon as it was propounded by the most ancient Indian system of philosophy. There is no such thing as freedom of the mind; it cannot be. Why did not this teaching create any disturbance in the Indian mind? India received it calmly; that is the speciality of Indian thought, wherein it differs from every other thought in the world._x000d_ The external and internal natures are not two different things; they are really one. Nature is the sum total of all phenomena. "Nature" means all that is, all that moves. We make a tremendous distinction between matter and mind; we think that the mind is entirely different from matter. Actually, they are but one nature, half of which is continually acting on the other half. Matter is pressing upon the mind in the form of various sensations. These sensations are nothing but force. The force from the outside evokes the force within. From the will to respond to or get away from the outer force, the inner force becomes what we call thought. _x000d_ Both matter and mind are really nothing but forces; and if you analyse them far enough, you will find that at root they are one. The very fact that the external force can somehow evoke the internal force shows that somewhere they join each other--they must be continuous and, therefore, basically the same force. When you get to the root of things, they become simple and general. Since the same force appears in one form as matter and in another form as mind, there is no reason to think matter and mind are different. Mind is changed into matter, matter is changed into mind. Thought force becomes nerve force, muscular force; muscular and nerve force become thought force. Nature is all this force, whether expressed as matter or mind._x000d_ The difference between the subtlest mind and the grossest matter is only one of degree. Therefore the whole universe may be called either mind or matter, it does not matter which. You may call the mind refined matter, or the body concretised mind; it makes little difference by which name you call which. All the troubles arising from the conflict between materialism and spirituality are due to wrong thinking. Actually, there is no difference between the two. I and the lowest pig differ only in degree. It is less manifested, I am more. Sometimes I am worse, the pig is better._x000d_ Nor is it any use discussing which comes first--mind or matter. Is the mind first, out of which matter has come? Or is matter first, out of which the mind has come? Many of the philosophical arguments proceed from these futile questions. It is like asking whether the egg or the hen is first. Both are first, and both last--mind and matter, matter and mind. If I say matter exists first and matter, growing finer and finer, becomes mind, then I must admit that before matter there must have been mind. Otherwise, where did matter come from? Matter precedes mind, mind precedes matter. It is the hen and the egg question all through._x000d_ The whole of nature is bound by the law of causation and is in time and space. We cannot see anything outside of space, yet we do not know space. We cannot perceive anything outside of time, yet we do not know time. We cannot understand anything except in terms of causality, yet we do not know what causation is. These three things--time, space, and causality--are in and through every phenomena, but they are not phenomena. They are as it were the forms or moulds in which everything must be cast before it can be apprehended. Matter is substance plus time, space, and causation. Mind is substance plus time, space and causation._x000d_ This fact can be expressed in another way. Everything is substance plus name and form. Name and form come and go, but substance remains ever the same. Substance, form, and name make this pitcher. When it is broken, you do not call it pitcher any more, nor do you see its pitcher form. Its name and form vanish, but its substance remains. All the differentiation in substance is made by name and form. There are not real, because they vanish. What we call nature is not the substance, unchanging and indestructible. Nature is time, space and causation. Nature is name and form. Nature is Maya. Maya means name and form, into which everything is cast. Maya is not real. We could not destroy it or change it if it were real. The substance is the noumenon, Maya is phenomena. There is the real "me" which nothing can destroy, and there is the phenomenal "me" which is continually changing and disappearing._x000d_ The fact is, everything existing has two aspects. One is noumenal, unchanging and indestructible; the other is phenomenal, changing and destructible. Man in his true nature is substance, soul, spirit. This soul, this spirit, never changes, is never destroyed; but it appears to be clothed with a form and to have a name associated with it. This form and name are not immutable or indestructible; they continually change and are destroyed. Yet men foolishly seek immortality in this changeable aspect, in the body and mind--they want to have an eternal body. I do not want that kind of immortality._x000d_ What is the relation between me and nature? In so far as nature stands for name and form or for time, space, and causality, I am not part of nature, because I am free, I am immortal, I am unchanging and infinite. The question does not arise whether I have free will or not; I am beyond any will at all. Wherever there is will, it is never free. There is no freedom of will whatever. There is freedom of that which becomes will when name and form get hold of it, making it their slave. That substance--the soul--as it were moulds itself, as it were throws itself into the cast of name and form, and immediately becomes bound, whereas it was free before. And yet its original nature is still there. That is why it says, "I am free; in spite of all this bondage, I am free." And it never forgets this._x000d_ But when the soul has become the will, it is no more really free. Nature pulls the strings, and it has to dance as nature wants it to. Thus have you and I danced throughout the years. All the things that we see, do, feel, know, all our thoughts and actions, are nothing but dancing to the dictates of nature. There has been, and there is, no freedom in any of this. From the lowest to the highest, all thoughts and actions are bound by law, and none of these pertain to our real Self._x000d_ My true Self is beyond all law. Be in tune with slavery, with nature, and you live under law, you are happy under law. But the more you obey nature and its dictates, the more bound you become; the more in harmony with ignorance you are, the more you are at the beck and call of everything in the universe. Is this harmony with nature, this obedience to law, in accord with the true nature and destiny of man? What mineral ever quarrelled with and disputed any law? What tree or plant ever defied any law? This table is in harmony with nature, with law; but a table it remains always, it does not become any better. Man begins to struggle and fight against nature. He makes many mistakes, he suffers. But eventually he conquers nature and realises his freedom. When he is free, nature becomes his slave._x000d_ The awakening of the soul to its bondage and its effort to stand up and assert itself--this is called life. Success in this struggle is called evolution. The eventual triumph, when all the slavery is blown away, is called salvation, Nirvana, freedom. Everything in the universe is struggling for liberty. When I am bound by nature, by name and form, by time, space and causality, I do not know what I truly am. But even in this bondage my real Self is not completely lost. I strain against the bonds; one by one they break, and I become conscious of my innate grandeur. Then comes complete liberation. I attain to the clearest and fullest consciousness of myself--I know that I am the infinite spirit, the master of nature, not its slave. Beyond all differentiation and combination, beyond space, time and causation, I am that I am.

The modern idea of nature includes only that part of the universe that is manifested on the physical plane. That which is generally understood to be mind is not considered to be nature. _x000d_ Philosophers endeavouring to prove the freedom of the will have excluded the mind from nature; for as nature is bound and governed by law, strict unbending law, mind, if considered to be in nature, would be bound by law also. Such a claim would destroy the doctrine of free will; for how can that be free which is bound by law?_x000d_ The philosophers of India have taken the reverse stand. They hold all physical life, manifest and unmanifest, to be bound by law. The mind as well as external nature, they claim, is bound by law, and by one and the same law. If mind is not bound by law, if the thoughts we think are not the necessary results of preceding thoughts, if one mental state is not followed by another which it produces, then mind is irrational; and who can claim free will and at the same time deny the operation of reason? And on the other hand, who can admit that the mind is governed by the law of causation and claim that the will is free?_x000d_ Law itself is the operation of cause and effect. Certain things happen according to certain other things which have gone before. Every precedent has its consequent. Thus it is in nature. If this operation of law obtains in the mind, the mind is bound and is therefore not free. No, the will is not free. How can it be? But we all know, we all feel, that we are free. Life would have no meaning, it would not be worth living, if we were not free._x000d_ The Eastern philosophers accepted this doctrine, or rather propounded it, that the mind and the will are within time, space, and causation, the same as so-called matter; and that they are therefore bound by the law of causation. We think in time; our thoughts are bound by time; all that exists, exists in time and space. All is bound by the law of causation._x000d_ Now that which we call matter and mind are one and the same substance. The only difference is in the degree of vibration. Mind at a very low rate of vibration is what is known as matter. Matter at a high rate of vibration is what is known as mind. Both are the same substance; and therefore, as matter is bound by time and space and causation, mind which is matter at a high rate of vibration is bound by the same law._x000d_ Nature is homogeneous. Differentiation is in manifestation. The Sanskrit word for nature is Prakriti, and means literally differentiation. All is one substance, but it is manifested variously._x000d_ Mind becomes matter, and matter in its turn becomes mind, it is simply a question of vibration._x000d_ Take a bar of steel and charge it with a force sufficient to cause it to vibrate, and what would happen? If this were done in a dark room, the first thing you would be aware of would be a sound, a humming sound. Increase the force, and the bar of steel would become luminous; increase it still more, and the steel would disappear altogether. It would become mind._x000d_ Take another illustration: If I do not eat for ten days, I cannot think. Only a few stray thoughts are in my mind. I am very weak and perhaps do not know my own name. Then I eat some bread, and in a little while I begin to think; my power of mind has returned. The bread has become mind. Similarly, the mind lessens its rate of vibration and manifests itself in the body, becomes matter. _x000d_ As to which is first--matter or mind, let me illustrate: _x000d_ A hen lays an egg; the egg brings out another hen; that hen lays another egg; that egg brings out another hen, and so on in an endless chain. Now which is first--the egg or the hen? You cannot think of an egg that was not laid by a hen, or a hen that was not hatched out of an egg. It makes no difference which is first. Nearly all our ideas run themselves into the hen and egg business._x000d_ The greatest truths have been forgotten because of their very simplicity. Great truths are simple because they are of universal application. Truth itself is always simple. Complexity is due to man's ignorance._x000d_ Man's free agency is not of the mind, for that is bound. There is no freedom there. Man is not mind, he is soul. The soul is ever free, boundless, and eternal. Herein is man's freedom, in the soul. The soul is always free, but the mind identifying itself with its own ephemeral waves, loses sight of the soul and becomes lost in the maze of time, space, and causation--Maya._x000d_ This is the cause of our bondage. We are always identifying ourselves with the mind, and the mind's phenomenal changes._x000d_ Man's free agency is established in the soul, and the soul, realising itself to be free, is always asserting the fact in spite of the mind's bondage: "I am free! I am what I am! I am what I am!" This is our freedom. The soul--ever free, boundless, eternal--through aeons and aeons is manifesting itself more and more through its instrument, the mind. _x000d_ What relation then does man bear to nature? From the lowest form of life to man, the soul is manifesting itself through nature. The highest manifestation of the soul is involved in the lowest form of manifest life and is working itself outward through the process called evolution._x000d_ The whole process of evolution is the soul's struggle to manifest itself. It is a constant struggle against nature. _x000d_ It is a struggle against nature, and not conformity to nature, that makes man what he is. We hear a great deal about living in harmony with nature, of being in tune with nature. This is a mistake. This table, this pitcher, the minerals, a tree, are all in harmony with nature. Perfect harmony is there, no discord. To be in harmony with nature means stagnation, death. How did man build this house? By being in harmony with nature? No. By fighting against nature. It is the constant struggle against nature that constitutes human progress, not conformity with it.

The series started out quietly enough. In "Nature and Man" Swamiji gave a clear, concise explanation of the essential teachings of Advaita Vedanta by contrasting nature-both external and internal phenomena, both matter and mind, changing, mortal, and bound-with the substance or noumenon, the free, immortal, unchanging, and infinite Self. "That substance -the soul-as it were moulds itself," he said, "as it were throws itself into the cast of name and form, and immediately becomes bound, whereas it was free before. And yet its original nature is still there. That is why it says, `I am free; in spite of all this bondage I am free.' And it never forgets this. .. . The awakening of the soul to its bondage and its effort to stand up and assert itself-this is called life. Success in this struggle is called evolution. The eventual triumph, when all the slavery is blown away, is called salvation, Nirvana, freedom. Everything in the universe is struggling for liberty. When I am bound by nature, by name and forms, by time, space, and causality, I do not know what I truly am. But even in this bondage my real Self is not completely lost. I strain against the bonds; one by one they break, and I become conscious of my innate grandeur. Then comes complete liberation. I attain to the clearest and fullest consciousness of myself-I know that I am the infinite spirit, the master of nature, not its slave. Beyond all differentiation and combination, beyond space, time, and causation, I am that I am. (The title given to this lecture in The Voice of India and subsequently in the Complete Works was, of course, taken from those resounding words, with which he concluded.)

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 22nd March, 1900_x000d_ My Dear Mary {Hale},_x000d_ Many thanks for your kind note. You are correct that I have many other thoughts to think besides Indian people, but they have all to go to the background before the all-absorbing mission--my Master's work._x000d_ I would that this sacrifice were pleasant. It is not, and naturally makes one bitter at times; for know, Mary, I am yet a man and cannot wholly forget myself; hope I shall some time. Pray for me._x000d_ Of course I am not to be held responsible for Miss MacLeod's or Miss Noble's or anybody else's views regarding myself or anything else, am I? You never found me smart under criticism._x000d_ I am glad you are going over to Europe for a long period. Make a long tour, you have been long a house-dove._x000d_ As for me, I am tired on the other hand of eternal tramping; that is why I want to go back home and be quiet. I do not want to work any more. My nature is the retirement of a scholar. I never get it! I pray I will get it, now that I am all broken and worked out. Whenever I get a letter from Mrs. Sevier from her Himalayan home, I feel like flying off the the Himalayas. I am really sick of this platform work and eternal trudging and seeing new faces and lecturing._x000d_ You need not bother about getting up classes in Chicago. I am getting money in Frisco and will soon make enough for my passage home._x000d_ How are you and the sisters? I expect to come to Chicago some time towards the first part of April._x000d_ Yours,_x000d_ Vivekananda

Whether it was fear or mere inquisitiveness which first led man to think of powers superior to himself, we need not discuss. ...These raised in the mind peculiar worship tendencies, and so on. There never have been [times in the history of mankind] without [some ideal] of worship. Why? What makes us all struggle for something beyond what we see--whether it be a beautiful morning or a fear of dead spirits? ...We need not go back into prehistoric times, for it is a fact present today as it was two thousand years ago. We do not find satisfaction here. Whatever our station in life--[even if we are] powerful and wealthy--we cannot find satisfaction._x000d_ Desire is infinite. Its fulfilment is very limited. There is no end to our desires; but when we go to fulfil them, the difficulty comes. It has been so with the most primitive minds, when their desires were [few]. Even [these] could not be accomplished. Now, with our arts and sciences improved and multiplied, our desires cannot be fulfilled [either]. On the other hand, we are struggling to perfect means for the fulfilment of desires, and the desires are increasing. ..._x000d_ The most primitive man naturally wanted help from outside for things which he could not accomplish. ...He desired something, and it could not be obtained. He wanted help from other powers. The most ignorant and primitive man and the most cultivated man today, each appealing to God and asking for the fulfilment of some desire, are exactly the same. What difference? [Some people] find a great deal of difference. We are always finding much difference in things when there is no difference at all. Both [the primitive man and the cultivated man] plead to the same [power]. You may call it God or Allah or Jehovah. Human beings want something and cannot get it by their own powers, and are after someone who will help them. This is primitive, and it is still present with us. …We are all born savages and gradually civilise ourselves. …All of us here, if we search, will find the same fact. Even now this fear does not leave us. We may talk big, become philosophers and all that; but when the blow comes, we find that we must beg for help. We believe in all the superstitions that ever existed. [But] there is no superstition in the world [that does not have some basis of truth]. If I cover my face and only the tip of my [nose] is showing, still it is a bit of my face. So [with] the superstitions--the little bits are true._x000d_ You see, the lowest sort of manifestation of religion came with the burial of the departed. …First they wrapped them up and put them in mounds, and the spirits of the departed came and lived in the [mounds, at night]. …Then they began to bury them. …At the gate stands a terrible goddess with a thousand teeth. …Then [came] the burning of the body and the flames bore the spirit up. …The Egyptians brought food and water for the departed._x000d_ The next great idea was that of the tribal gods. This tribe had one god and that tribe another. The Jews had their God Jehovah, who was their own tribal god and fought against all the other gods and tribes. That god would do anything to please his own people. If he killed a whole tribe not protected by him, that was all right, quite good. A little love was given, but that love was confined to a small section._x000d_ Gradually, higher ideals came. The chief of the conquering tribe was the Chief of chiefs, God of gods. …So with the Persians when they conquered Egypt. The Persian emperor was the Lord of [lords], and before the emperor nobody could stand. Death was the penalty for anyone who looked at the Persian emperor._x000d_ Then came the ideal of God Almighty and All-powerful, the omnipotent, omniscient Ruler of the universe: He lives in heaven, and man pays special tribute to his Most Beloved, who creates everything for man. The whole world is for man. The sun and moon and stars are [for him]. All who have those ideas are primitive men, not civilised and not cultivated at all. All the superior religions had their growth between the Ganga and the Euphrates. …Outside of India we will find no further development [of religion beyond this idea of God in heaven]. That was the highest knowledge ever obtained outside of India. There is the local heaven where he is and [where] the faithful shall go when they die. …As far as I have seen, we should call it a very primitive idea. …Mumbo jumbo in Africa [and] God in heaven--the same. He moves the world, and of course his will is being done everywhere. …_x000d_ The old Hebrew people did not care for any heaven. That is one of the reasons they [opposed] Jesus of Nazareth--because he taught life after death. Paradise in Sanskrit means land beyond this life. So the paradise was to make up for all this evil. The primitive man does not care [about] evil. …He never questions why there should be any. …_x000d_ …The word devil is a Persian word. …The Persians and Hindus [share the Aryan ancestry] upon religious grounds, and…they spoke the same language, only the words one sect uses for good the other uses for bad. The word Deva is an old Sanskrit word for God, the same word in the Aryan languages. Here the word means the devil. …_x000d_ Later on, when man developed [his inner life], he began to question, and to say that God is good. The Persians said that there were two gods--one was bad and one was good. [Their idea was that] everything in this life was good: beautiful country, where there was spring almost the whole year round and nobody died; there was no disease, everything was fine. Then came this Wicked One, and he touched the land, and then came death and disease and mosquitoes and tigers and lions. Then the Aryans left their fatherland and migrated southward. The old Aryans must have lived way to the north. The Jews learnt it [the idea of the devil] from the Persians. The Persians also taught that there will come a day when this wicked god will be killed, and it is our duty to stay with the good god and add our force to him in this eternal struggle between him and the wicked one. …The whole world will be burnt out and everyone will get a new body._x000d_ The Persian idea was that even the wicked will be purified and not be bad any more. The nature of the Aryan was love and poetry. They cannot think of their being burnt [for eternity]. They will all receive new bodies. Then no more death. So that is the best about [religious] ideas outside of India. …_x000d_ Along with that is the ethical strain. All that man has to do is to take care of three things: good thought, good word, good deed. That is all. It is a practical, wise religion. Already there has come a little poetry in it. But there is higher poetry and higher thought._x000d_ In India we see this Satan in the most ancient part of the Vedas. He just (appears) and immediately disappears. …In the Vedas the bad god got a blow and disappeared. He is gone, and the Persians took him. We are trying to make him leave the world [al]together. Taking the Persian idea, we are going to make a decent gentleman of him; give him a new body. There was the end of the Satan idea in India._x000d_ But the idea of God went on; but mind you, here comes another fact. The idea of God grew side by side with the idea of [materialism] until you have traced it up to the emperor of Persia. But on the other hand comes in metaphysics, philosophy. There is another line of thought, the idea of [the non-dual Atman, man's] own soul. That also grows. So, outside of India ideas about God had to remain in that concrete form until India came to help them out a bit. ….The other nations stopped with that old concrete idea. In this country, there are millions who believe that God is [has?] a body. …Whole sects say it. [They believe that] He rules the world, but there is a place where He has a body. He sits upon a throne. They light candles and sing songs just as they do in our temples._x000d_ But in India they are sensible enough never to make [their God a physical being]. You never see in India a temple of Brahma. Why? Because the idea of the soul always existed. The Hebrew race never questioned about the soul. There is no soul idea in the Old Testament at all. The first is in the New Testament. The Persians, they became so practical--wonderfully practical people--a fighting, conquering race. They were the English people of the old time, always fighting and destroying their neighbours--too much engaged in that sort of thing to think about the soul. …_x000d_ The oldest idea of [the] soul [was that of] a fine body inside this gross one. The gross one disappears and the fine one appears. In Egypt that fine one also dies, and as soon as the gross body disintegrates, the fine one also disintegrates. That is why they built those pyramids [and embalmed the dead bodies of their ancestors, thus hoping to secure immortality for the departed. …_x000d_ The Indian people have no regard for the dead body at all. [Their attitude is:] "Let us take it and burn it." The son has to set fire to his father's body. … There are two sorts of races, the divine and the demonic. The divine think that they are soul and spirit. The demonic think that they are bodies. The old Indian philosophers tried to insist that the body is nothing. "As a man emits his old garment and takes a new one, even so the old body is [shed] and he takes a new one" (Gita, II.22). In my case, all my surroundings and education were trying to [make me] the other way. I was always associated with Mohammedans and Christians, who take more care of the body. …_x000d_ It is only one step from [the body] to the spirit. …[In India] they became insistent on this ideal of the soul. It became [synonymous with] the idea of God. …If the idea of the soul begins to expand, [man must arrive at the conclusion that it is beyond name and form]. …The Indian idea is that the soul is formless. Whatever is form must break sometime or other. There cannot be any form unless it is the result of force and matter; and all combinations must dissolve. If such is the case, [if] your soul is [made of name and form, it disintegrates], and you die, and you are no more immortal. If it is double, it has form and it belongs to nature and it obeys nature's laws of birth and death. …They find that this [soul] is not the mind…neither a double. …_x000d_ Thoughts can be guided and controlled. …[The Yogis of India] practised to see how far the thoughts can be guided and controlled. By dint of hard work, thoughts may be silenced altogether. If thoughts were [the real man], as soon as thought ceases, he ought to die. Thought ceases in meditation; even the mind's elements are quite quiet. Blood circulation stops. His breath stops, but he is not dead. If thought were he, the whole thing ought to go, but they find it does not go. That is practical [proof]. They came to the conclusion that even mind and thought were not the real man. Then speculation showed that it could not be._x000d_ I come, I think and talk. In the midst of all [this activity is] this unity [of the Self]. My thought and action are varied, many [fold]…but in and through them runs…that one unchangeable One. It cannot be the body. That is changing every minute. It cannot be the mind; new and fresh thoughts [come] all the time. It is neither the body nor the mind. Both body and mind belong to nature and must obey nature's laws. A free mind never will. …_x000d_ Now, therefore, this real man does not belong to nature. It is the person whose mind and body belong to nature. So much of nature we are using. Just as you come to use the pen and ink and chair, so he uses so much of nature in fine and in gross form; gross form, the body, and fine form, the mind. If it is simple, it must be formless. In nature alone are forms. That which is not of nature cannot have any forms, fine or gross. It must be formless. It must be omnipresent. Understand this. [Take] this glass on the table. The glass is form and the table is form. So much of the glass-ness goes off, so much of table-ness [when they break]. …_x000d_ The soul…is nameless because it is formless. It will neither go to heaven nor [to hell] any more than it will enter this glass. It takes the form of the vessel it fills. If it is not in space, either of two things is possible. Either the [soul permeates] space or space is in [it]. You are in space and must have a form. Space limits us, binds us, and makes a form of us. If you are not in space, space is in you. All the heavens and the world are in the person. …_x000d_ So it must be with God. God is omnipresent. "Without hands [he grasps] everything; without feet he can move. .." He [is] the formless, the deathless, the eternal. The idea of God came. …He is the Lord of souls, just as my soul is the [lord] of my body. If my soul left the body, the body would not be for a moment. If He left my soul, the soul would not exist. He is the creator of the universe; of everything that dies He is the destroyer. His shadow is death; His shadow is life._x000d_ [The ancient Indian philosophers] thought: …This filthy world is not fit for man's attention. There is nothing in the universe that is [permanent--neither good nor evil]. …_x000d_ I told you…Satan…did not have much chance [in India]. Why? Because they were very bold in religion. They were not babies. Have you seen that characteristic of children? They are always trying to throw the blame on someone else. Baby minds [are] trying, when they make a mistake, to throw the blame upon someone [else]. On the one hand, we say, "Give me this; give me that." On the other hand, we say, "I did not do this; the devil tempted me. The devil did it." That is the history of mankind, weak mankind. …_x000d_ Why is evil? Why is [the world] the filthy, dirty hole? We have made it. Nobody is to blame. We put our hand in the fire. The Lord bless us, [man gets] just what he deserves. Only He is merciful. If we pray to Him, He helps us. He gives Himself to us._x000d_ That is their idea. They are [of a] poetic nature. They go crazy over poetry. Their philosophy is poetry. This philosophy is a poem. …All [high thought] in the Sanskrit is written in poetry. Metaphysics, astronomy--all in poetry._x000d_ We are responsible, and how do we come to mischief? [You may say], "I was born poor and miserable. I remember the hard struggle all my life." Philosophers say that you are to blame. You do not mean to say that all this sprang up without any cause whatever? You are a rational being. Your life is not without cause, and you are the cause. You manufacture your own life all the time. …You make and mould your own life. You are responsible for yourself. Do not lay the blame upon anybody, any Satan. You will only get punished a little more. …_x000d_ [A man] is brought up before God, and He says, "Thirty-one stripes for you,"…when comes another man. He says, "Thirty stripes: fifteen for that fellow, and fifteen for the teacher--that awful man who taught him." That is the awful thing in teaching. I do not know what I am going to get. I go all over the world. If I have to get fifteen for each one I have taught!..._x000d_ We have to come to this idea: "This My Maya is divine." It is My activity [My] divinity. "[My Maya] is hard to cross, but those that take refuge in me [go beyond Maya]." But you find out that it is very difficult to cross this ocean [of Maya by] yourself. You cannot. It is the old question--hen and egg. If you do any work, that work becomes the cause and produces the effect. That effect [again] becomes the cause and produces the effect. And so on. If you push this down, it never stops. Once you set a thing in motion, there is no more stopping. I do some work, good or bad, [and it sets up a chain reaction]… I cannot stop now._x000d_ It is impossible for us to get out from this bondage [by ourselves]. It is only possible if there is someone more powerful than this law of causation, and if he takes mercy on us and drags us out._x000d_ And we declare that there is such a one--God. There is such a being, all merciful. …If there is a God, then it is possible for me to be saved. How can you be saved by your own will? Do you see the philosophy of the doctrine of salvation by grace? You Western people are wonderfully clever, but when you undertake to explain philosophy, you are so wonderfully complicated. How can you save yourself by work, if by salvation you mean that you will be taken out of all this nature? Salvation means just standing upon God, but if you understand what is meant by salvation, then you are the Self. …You are not nature. You are the only thing outside of souls and gods and nature. These are the external existences, and God [is] interpenetrating both nature and soul._x000d_ Therefore, just as my soul is [to] my body, we, as it were, are the bodies of God. God-souls-nature--it is one. The One, because, as I say, I mean the body, soul, and mind. But, we have seen, the law of causation pervades every bit of nature, and once you have got caught you cannot get out. When once you get into the meshes of law, a possible way of escape is not [through work done] by you. You can build hospitals for every fly and flea that ever lived. …All this you may do, but it would never lead to salvation. …[Hospitals] go up and they come down again. [Salvation] is only possible if there is some being whom nature never caught, who is the Ruler of nature. He rules nature instead of being ruled by nature. He wills law instead of being downed by law. …He exists and he is all merciful. The moment you seek Him [He will save you]. _x000d_ Why has He not taken us out? You do not want Him. You want everything but Him. The moment you want Him, that moment you get Him. We never want Him. We say, "Lord, give me a fine house." We want the house, not Him. "Give me health! Save me from this difficulty!" When a man wants nothing but Him, [he gets Him]. "The same love which wealthy men have for gold and silver and possessions, Lord, may I have the same love for Thee. I want neither earth nor heaven, nor beauty nor learning. I do not want salvation. Let me go to hell again and again. But one thing I want: to love Thee, and for love's sake--not even for heaven."_x000d_ Whatever man desires, he gets. If you always dream of having a body, [you will get another body]. When this body goes away he wants another, and goes on begetting body after body. Love matter and you become matter. You first become animals. When I see a dog gnawing a bone, I say, "Lord help us!" Love body until you become dogs and cats! Still degenerate, until you become minerals--all body and nothing else. …_x000d_ There are other people, who would have no compromise. The road to salvation is through truth. That was another watchword. …_x000d_ [Man began to progress spiritually] when he kicked the devil out. He stood up and took the responsibility of the misery of the world upon his own shoulders. But whenever he looked [at the] past and future and [at the] law of causation, he knelt down and said, "Lord, save me, [thou] who [art] our creator, our father, and dearest friend." That is poetry, but not very good poetry, I think. Why not? It is the painting of the Infinite [no doubt]. You have it in every language how they paint the Infinite. [But] it is the infinite of the senses, of the muscles. …_x000d_ "[Him] the sun [does not illumine], nor the moon, nor the stars, [nor] the flash of lightning." That is another painting of the Infinite, by negative language. …And the last Infinite is painted in [the] spirituality of the Upanishads. Not only is Vedanta the highest philosophy in the world, but it is the greatest poem. …_x000d_ Mark today, this is the …difference between the first part of the Vedas and the second. In the first, it is all in [the domain of] sense. But all religions are only [concerned with the] infinite of the external world--nature and nature's God. …[Not so Vedanta]. This is the first light that the human mind throws back [of] all that. No satisfaction [comes] of the infinite [in] space. _x000d_ "[The] Self-existent [One] has [created] the [senses as turned]… to the outer world. Those therefore who [seek] outside will never find that [which is within]. There are the few who, wanting to know the truth, turn their eyes inward and in their own souls behold the glory [of the Self]." _x000d_ It is not the infinite of space, but the real Infinite, beyond space, beyond time. …Such is the world missed by the Occident. …Their minds have been turned to external nature and nature's God. Look within yourself and find the truth that you had [forgotten]. Is it possible for mind to come out of this dream without the help of the gods? Once you start the action, there is no help unless the merciful Father takes us out._x000d_ That would not be freedom, [even] at the hands of the merciful God. Slavery is slavery. The chain of gold is quite as bad as the chain of iron. Is there a way out?_x000d_ You are not bound. No one was ever bound. [The Self] is beyond. It is the all. You are the One; there are no two. God was your own reflection cast upon the screen of Maya. The real God [is the Self]. He [whom man] ignorantly worships is that reflection. [They say that] the Father in heaven is God. Why God? [It is because He is] your own reflection that [He] is God. Do you see how you are seeing God all the time? As you unfold yourself, the reflection grows [clearer]._x000d_ "Two beautiful birds are there sitting upon the same tree. The one [is] calm, silent, majestic; the one below [the individual self], is eating the fruits, sweet and bitter, and becoming happy and sad. [But when the individual self beholds the worshipful Lord as his own true Self, he grieves no more.]" _x000d_ …Do not say "God". Do not say "Thou". Say "I". The language of [dualism] says, "God, Thou, my Father." The language of [non-dualism] says, "Dearer unto me than I am myself. I would have no name for Thee. The nearest I can use is I…_x000d_ "God is true. The universe is a dream. Blessed am I that I know this moment that I [have been and] shall be free all eternity; …that I know that I am worshipping only myself; that no nature, no delusion, had any hold on me. Vanish nature from me, vanish [these] gods; vanish worship; …vanish superstitions, for I know myself. I am the Infinite. All these--Mrs. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, responsibility, happiness, misery--have vanished. I am the Infinite. How can there be death for me, or birth? Whom shall I fear? I am the One. Shall I be afraid of myself? Who is to be afraid of [whom]? I am the one Existence. Nothing else exists. I am everything."_x000d_ It is only the question of memory [of your true nature], not salvation by work. Do you get salvation? You are [already] free._x000d_ Go on saying, "I am free". Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, "I am bound." Dehypnotise the whole thing._x000d_ [This truth] is first to be heard. Hear it first. Think on it day and night. Fill the mind [with it] day and night: "I am It. I am the Lord of the universe. Never was there any delusion…" Meditate upon it with all the strength of the mind till you actually see these walls, houses, everything, melt away--[until] body, everything, vanishes. "I will stand alone. I am the One." Struggle on! "Who cares! We want to be free; [we] do not want any powers. Worlds we renounce; heavens we renounce; hells we renounce. What do I care about all these powers, and this and that! What do I care if the mind is controlled or uncontrolled! Let it run on. What of that! I am not the mind. Let it go on!" The sun [shines on the just and on the unjust]. Is he touched by the defective [character] of anyone? "I am He. Whatever [my] mind does, I am not touched. The sun is not touched by shining on filthy places, I am Existence."_x000d_ This is the religion of [non-dual] philosophy. [It is] difficult. Struggle on! Down with all superstitions! Neither teachers nor scriptures nor gods [exist]. Down with temples, with priests, with gods, with incarnations, with God himself? I am all the God that ever existed! There, stand up philosophers! No fear! Speak no more of God and [the] superstition of the world. Truth alone triumphs, and this is true. I am the Infinite._x000d_ All religious superstitions are vain imaginations. …This society, that I see you before me, and [that] I am talking to you--this is all superstition; all must be given up. Just see what it takes to become a philosopher! This is the [path] of [Jnana-] Yoga, the way through knowledge. The other [paths] are easy, slow, …but this is pure strength of mind. No weakling [can follow this path of knowledge. You must be able to say:] "I am the Soul, the ever free; [I] never was bound. Time is in me, not I in time. God was born in my mind. God the Father, Father of the universe--he is created by me in my own mind…"_x000d_ Do you call yourselves philosophers? Show it! Think of this, talk [of] this, and [help] each other in this path, and give up all superstition!

In "Soul and God" and "The Goal" Swamiji left no question as to the implications of the philosophy he had expounded -what it demanded of those who could follow it; what it demanded, indeed, of all men worthy of the name Man. "Do not say God, do not say Thou, say I," he thundered toward the close of "Soul and God." (I quote from the first transcripts.) "The language of materialism says God, Thou, my Father. The language of the spirit says, dearer unto me than I am myself. I would have no name for Thee. The nearest I can use is I. God is true, the universe is a dream. Blessed am I that I know this moment that I shall be free all eternity, that I know that I am worshiping only myself, that no nature, no delusion has any hold on me. Vanish nature from me. Vanish these gods. Vanish worship. Vanish all creeds and ceremonies. Vanish superstitions. For I know myself. I am the Infinite. . . . How can there be death for me, or birth? Whom shall I fear? I am the One. . . . I am everything. I am God.

San Francisco_x000d_ 25th March, 1900_x000d_ Dear Nivedita,_x000d_ I am much better and am growing very strong. I feel sometimes that freedom is near at hand, and the tortures of the last two years have been great lessons in many ways. Disease and misfortune come to do us good in the long run, although at the time we feel that we are submerged for ever._x000d_ I am the infinite blue sky; the clouds may gather over me, but I am the same infinite blue._x000d_ I am trying to get a taste of that peace which I know is my nature and everyone's nature. These tin pots of bodies and foolish dreams of happiness and misery--what are they?_x000d_ My dreams are breaking. Om Tat Sat!_x000d_ Yours,_x000d_ Vivekananda

The ancient message of Krishna is one harmonising three--Buddha's, Christ's, and Mohammed's. Each of the three started an idea and carried it to its extreme. Krishna antedates all the other prophets. [Yet, we might say,] Krishna takes the old ideas and synthesises them, [although] his is the most ancient message. His message was for the time being submerged by the advance wave of Buddhism. Today it is the message peculiar to India. If you will have it so, this afternoon I will take Mohammed and bring out the particular work of the great Arabian prophet. ..._x000d_ Mohammed [as] a young man...did not [seem to] care much for religion. He was inclined to make money. He was considered a nice young man and very handsome. There was a rich widow. She fell in love with this young man, and they married. When Mohammed had become emperor over the larger part of the world, the Roman and Persian empires were all under his feet, and he had a number of wives. When one day he was asked which wife he liked best, he pointed to his first wife: "Because she believed [in] me first." Women have faith. ...Gain independence, gain everything, but do not lose that characteristic of women! ..._x000d_ Mohammed's heart was sick at the sin, idolatry and mock worship, superstitions and human sacrifices, and so on. The Jews were degraded by the Christians. On the other hand, the Christians were worse degraded than his own countrymen. We are always in the hurry. [But] if any great work is to be done, there must be great preparation. …After much praying, day and night, Mohammed began to have dreams and visions. Gabriel appeared to him in a dream and told him that he was the messenger of truth. He told him that the message of Jesus, of Moses, and all the prophets would be lost and asked him to go and preach. Seeing the Christians preaching politics in the name of Jesus, seeing the Persians preaching dualism, Mohammed said: "Our God is one God. He is the Lord of all that exists. There is no comparison between Him and any other."_x000d_ God is God. There is no philosophy, no complicated code of ethics. "Our God is one without a second, and Mohammed is the Prophet." …Mohammed began to preach it in the streets of Mecca. …They began to persecute him, and he fled into the city of [Medina]. He began to fight, and the whole race became united. [Mohammedanism] deluged the world in the name of the Lord. The tremendous conquering power! …_x000d_ You…people {Americans} have very hard ideas and are so superstitious and prejudiced! These messengers must have come from God, else how could they have been so great? You look at every defect. Each one of us has his defects. Who hasn't? I can point out many defects in the Jews. The wicked are always looking for defects. …Flies come and seek for the [ulcer], and bees come only for the honey in the flower. Do not follow the way of the fly but that of the bee. …_x000d_ Mohammed married quite a number of wives afterwards. Great men may marry two hundred wives each. "Giants" like you, I would not allow to marry one wife. The characters of the great souls are mysterious, their methods past our finding out. We must not judge them. Christ may judge Mohammed. Who are you and I? Little babies. What do we understand of these great souls? … [Mohammedanism] came as a message for the masses. …The first message was equality. …There is one religion--love. No more question of race, colour, [or] anything else. Join it! That practical quality carried the day. …The great message was perfectly simple. Believe in one God, the creator of heaven and earth. All was created out of nothing by Him. Ask no questions. …_x000d_ Their temples are like Protestant churches, …no music, no paintings, no pictures. A pulpit in the corner; on that lies the Koran. The people all stand in line. No priest, no person{parson?}, no bishop. …The man who prays must stand at the side of the audience. Some parts are beautiful. …_x000d_ These old people were all messengers of God. I fall down and worship them; I take the dust of their feet. But they are dead! …And we are alive. We must go ahead! …Religion is not an imitation of Jesus or Mohammed. Even if an imitation is good, it is never genuine. Be not an imitation of Jesus, but be Jesus. You are quite as great as Jesus, Buddha, or anybody else. If we are not…we must struggle and be. I would not be exactly like Jesus. It is unnecessary that I should be born a Jew. …_x000d_ The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves! If you do not exist, how can God exist, or anybody else? Wherever you are, it is this mind that perceives even the Infinite. I see God, therefore He exists. If I cannot think of God, He does not exist [for me]. This is the grand march of our human progress._x000d_ These [great souls] are signposts on the way. That is all they are. They say, "Onward, brothers!" We cling to them; we never want to move. We do not want to think; we want others to think for us. The messengers fulfil their mission. They ask to be up and doing. A hundred years later we cling to the message and go to sleep._x000d_ Talking about faith and belief and doctrine is easy, but it is so difficult to build character and to stem the tide of the senses. We succumb. We become hypocrites. …_x000d_ [Religion] is not a doctrine, [not] a rule. It is a process. That is all. [Doctrines and rules] are all for exercise. By that exercise we get strong and at last break the bonds and become free. Doctrine is of no use except for gymnastics. …Through exercise the soul becomes perfect. That exercise is stopped when you say, "I believe." …_x000d_ "Whenever virtue subsides and immorality abounds, I take human form. In every age I come for the salvation of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, for the establishment of spirituality." …_x000d_ [Such] are the great messengers of light. They are our great teachers, our elder brothers. But we must go our own way!

[Excerpts of Ida Ansell's first transcript of Swami Vivekananda's_x000d_ San Francisco lecture delivered Sunday, March 25, 1900]_x000d_ Mohammed_x000d_ [After stating that he would "take Mohammed and bring out the particular work of the great Arabian prophet", Swami Viveka nanda continued his lecture.]_x000d_ _x000d_ Each great messenger not only creates a new order of things, but is himself the creation of a certain order of things. There is no such thing as an independent, active cause. All causes are cause and effect in turn. Father is father and son in turn. Mother is mother and daughter in turn. It is necessary to understand the surroundings and circumstances into which they [the great messengers] come. . . ._x000d_ This is the peculiarity of civilization. One wave of a race will go from its birthplace to a distant land and make a wonder¬ful civilization. The rest will be left in barbarism. The Hindus came into India and the tribes of Central Asia were left in bar barism. Others came to Asia Minor and Europe. Then, you remember the coming out of Egypt of the Israelites. Their home was the Arabian desert. Out of that springs a new work._x000d_ . . . All civilizations grow that way. A certain race becomes civilized. Then comes a nomad race. Nomads are always ready to fight. They come and conquer a race. They bring better blood, stronger physiques. They take up the mind of the con¬quered race and add that to their body and push civilization still further. One race becomes cultured and civilized until the body is worn out. Then like a whirlwind comes a race strong in the physical, and they take up the arts and the sciences and the mind, and push civilization further. This must be. Otherwise the world would not be._x000d_ * * * *_x000d_ The moment a great man rises, they build a beautiful [mythology] around him. Science and truth is all the religion that exists. Truth is more beautiful than any mythology in the world. . . ._x000d_ The old Greeks had disappeared already, the whole nation [lay] under the feet of the Romans who were learning their science and art. The Roman was a barbarian, a conquering man. He had no eye for poetry or art. He knew how to rule and how to get everything centralized into that system of Rome and to enjoy that. That was sweet. And that Roman Empire is gone, destroyed by all sorts of difficulties, luxury, a new foreign reli¬gion, and all that. Christianity had been already six hundred years in the Roman Empire. . . ._x000d_ Whenever a new religion tries to force itself upon another race, it succeeds if the race is uncultured. If it [the race] is cul¬tured, it will destroy the [religion]. . . . The Roman Empire was a case in point, and the Persian people saw that. Christianity was another thing with the barbarians in the north. [But] the Christianity of the Roman Empire was a mixture of everything, something from Persia, from the Jews, from India, from Greece, everything._x000d_ * * * *_x000d_ The race is always killed by [war]. War takes away the best men, gets them killed, and the cowards are left at home. Thus comes the degeneration of the race. . . . Men became small. Why? All the great men became [warriors]. That is how war kills races, takes their best into the battlefields. _x000d_ Then the monasteries. They all went to the desert, to the caves for meditation. The monasteries gradually became the centres of wealth and luxury. . . ._x000d_ The Anglo Saxon race would not be Anglo Saxon but for these monasteries. Every weak man was worse than a slave._x000d_ . . . In that state of chaos these monasteries were centres of light and protection._x000d_ Where [cultures] differ very much they do not quarrel. All these warring, jarring elements [were originally] all one._x000d_ In the midst of all this chaos was born the prophet. . . ._x000d_ _x000d_ [This concluded the first part of the Swami's lecture. Vide "Mohammed", Complete Works, Vol. I, for the remainder of the lecture.]

Swamiji’s lecture of Sunday, March 25, 1900, at Union Square Hall was to have been on "Sri Khrisna and His Message"-so it was advertised (with that spelling) in all the papers, together with the additional information that the lecture would start at 3.00 p.m. and that a Mr. Hugo Hertzer would sing the offertory. Mr. Hertzer may have sung the offertory, but otherwise little took place as announced.

"At 3 p.m.," Mr. Allan wrote in his memoirs, "Swami was not there. We waited and wondered what to do, and concluded that we must just wait." But Mr. Allan, who acted now as head usher at all of Swami’s lectures, did not just wait. He walked from the hall to the corner of Post and Power streets, looked up and down Power Street, waited awhile, saw no sign of Swami, and returned to the hall. This he did several times.

It was probably not until his fourth or fifth trip to the corner that he saw Swami walking slowly up Power Street in his own composed and majestic rhythm. The time was then three¬thirty. But Mr. Allan’s difficulties were not over. "I met him at the corner of Post Street," he continued in his memoirs, "and walked with him towards the Hall." (According to Mr. Brown, who had often heard the story from Mr. Allan, the latter had said, "Swami, don’t you know you’re late? The audience has been waiting." To which Swamiji had replied, "Mr. Allan, I am never late. I have all the time in the world. All time is mine." "Well, Swami," Mr. Allan said, "the audience may not feel the same as you do: ‘ But Swamiji just went on at his same leisurely pace. "On the way we had to pass a shoe-shine stand," Mr. Allan’s memoirs continue, "and when Swami saw that, and saw that the shoe-shiner was idle, he decided to have his shoes shined. Did I not silently fidget, remembering the people who had come to hear the lecture! But all my fidgeting did no good. Well, at last, Swami got on the platform and was introduced to that audience, which had more or less patiently waited for him.

It is not likely that Mr. Allan, fidgeting at the shoe-shine stand, had had "a glimpse of all eternity" in the Swami’s "utter restfulness" as had Miss Partington; but in a few minutes he was to become almost overpoweringly aware of the vastness of Swamiji’s being. "It was when I introduced him at that lecture," he wrote, "that I felt like a pigmy and saw him as an immense giant. After this experience I could not bring myself to stand beside him again, but always thereafter made my introduction from the foot of the platform.

Whether he was asked from the audience to make this change (as Mr. Allan indicated in his memoirs) or whether Swamiji himself felt that Moham¬med’s message should be spoken of before that of Sri Krishna (as the first paragraph of Miss Ansell’s transcript implies) is _x000d_ # _x000d_ not at all certain. But whatever the reason for the change of subject, Swamiji spoke of Mohammed without preparation, and, to Mr. Allan’s amazement, "proceeded to give the dates of all the main points referred to." "After it was over," Mr. Allan wrote, "I remarked to him about his good memory, to which he replied, `No, Mr. Allan, in my country I do not have a good memory. You know Macaulay’s History of England? I had to read it through three times before I could repeat it word for word; my mother could memorize any sacred book in only one reading!’ I was silent; but I wondered how many times any of us would have to read The History of England through to be able to repeat it all word for word! (One might note here that not only did Swamiji remember every word he read, he was, and had always been, a voracious reader on all subjects. His fund of knowledge seems to have been endless. We have found him, for instance, speaking at length to the interviewer from the Examiner "of ancient Russian history, and of the wandering tribes of Tartary, and of the Moorish rule in Spain." But there was an element in his knowledge of something more than a prodigious intellect. His mind was open, as it were, to the source of knowledge itself. "He once told us," Mr. Allan recounted, "that he had such faith in the Divine Mother that if he had to speak on a subject that he knew absolutely nothing about, he would get on his feet, for he knew that Mother would put the words into his mouth.

Thus Swamiji concluded the first part of his lecture, of which the above extracts are mere bits and pieces. He then spoke of Mohammed’s preaching the simplest of religions in a confused and degenerate age: "God is God. There is no philosophy, no complicated code of ethics. `Our God is one without a second, and Mohammed is the Prophet.’ . . . Mohammedanism deluged the world in the name of the Lord. The tremendous conquering power!" "[Mohammedanism]," he went on to say, "came as a message to the masses. In Miss Ansell’s first typed transcript an interesting sentence follows here (represented by dots in the Complete Works), which reads: "In all the great religions¬ Buddhism, Christianity, Mohammedanism-their success depends not upon the philosophy they preach, not upon the ethics, not upon the religion, for the vast mass of mankind have no religion yet. Following this sentence there is an unfortunate gap in the transcript; but it is clear that Swamiji’s meaning was that Islam’s doctrine of equality, whereby all Mohammedans were in practice brothers, made for its great appeal and strength. "The first message," he said, "was equality. . . . There is one religion-love. No more question of race, color, [or] anything else. Join it! That practical [e]quality carried the day."86 Indeed to Swamiji, the practical (not merely theoretical) equality of Islam-constituted its essential and distinguishing message to the world.

But from the standpoint of Swami’s own message, the most important part of his lecture on Mohammed lay in the glowing and provocative words toward its close: "These old people," he said (I quote from the version in Vedanta and the West), "were all messengers of God. I fall down and worship them; I take the dust of their feet. But they are dead, dead as door¬nails! And we are alive. We must go ahead! Religion is not following Jesus or Mohammed. Even if an imitation is good, it is never genuine. Be not an imitation of Jesus, but be Jesus! You are quite as great as Jesus, Buddha, or anybody else. If we are not, we must struggle and be. . . . The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature: Have faith in yourselves!

After delivering his series on "Vedanta Philosophy," Swamiji at once returned to the subject of raja yoga. Under "Church Notices" the San Francisco papers of March 25 announced:_x000d_ _x000d_ SWAMI VIVEKANANDA . . . Will continue the lectures on "Mind Culture" at Washington Hall, 320 Post Street . . . : Thursday, March 29, "The Science of Breath¬ing"; Tuesday, April 3, "Meditation"; Thursday, April 5, "The Practice of Religion, Breathing and Meditation"; tickets 50c; or the course $1.00

"Arts and Sciences in India" was the topic under which the Swami Vivekananda was introduced to the audience at Wendte Hall, San Francisco. The Swami held the attention of his hearers throughout as was demonstrated by the many questions which were put to him after his address._x000d_ The Swami said in part:_x000d_ In the history of nations, the government at the beginning has always been in the hands of the priests. All the learning also has proceeded from the priests. Then, after the priests, the government changes hands, and the Kshatriya or the kingly power prevails, and the military rule is triumphant. This has always been true. And last comes the grasp of luxury, and the people sink down under it to be dominated by stronger and more barbarous races._x000d_ Amongst all races of the world, from the earliest time in history, India has been called the land of wisdom. For ages India itself has never gone out to conquer other nations. Its people have never been fighters. Unlike your Western people, they do not eat meat, for meat makes fighters; the blood of animals makes you restless, and you desire to do something._x000d_ Compare India and England in the Elizabethan period. What a dark age it was for your people, and how enlightened we were even then. The Anglo-Saxon people have always been badly fitted for art. They have good poetry--for instance, how wonderful is the blank verse of Shakespeare! Merely the rhyming of words is not good. It is not the most civilised thing in the world._x000d_ In India, music was developed to the full seven notes, even to half and quarter notes, ages ago. India led in music, also in drama and sculpture. Whatever is done now is merely an attempt at imitation. Everything now in India hinges on the question of how little a man requires to live upon.

[Mr. Frank Rhodehamel's notes of a class delivered in San Francisco, California, on Monday, March 26, 1900]_x000d_ The first point is the position. Sit with the spine perfectly free, with the weight resting on the hips. The next step is breathing. Breathe in the left nostril and out the right. Fill the lungs full and eject all the breath. Clear the lungs of all impure air. Breathe full and deep. The next thing is to think of the body as luminous, filled with light. The next thing is to concentrate on the base of the spine, not from the outside, but look down the spinal column inside to the base of the spine.

We find that man, as it were, is always surrounded by something greater than himself, and he is trying to grasp the meaning of this. Man will ever [seek] the highest ideal. He knows that it exists and that religion is the search after the highest ideal. At first all his searches were in the external plane--placed in heaven, in different places--just according to [his grasp] of the total nature of man._x000d_ [Later,] man began to look at himself a little closer and began to find out that the real "me" was not the "me" that he stands for ordinarily. As he appears to the senses is not the same as he really is. He began to [search] inside himself, and found out that…the same ideal he [had placed] outside of himself is all the time within; what he was worshipping outside was his own real inner nature. The difference between dualism and monism is that when the ideal is put outside [of oneself], it is dualism. When God is [sought] within, it is monism._x000d_ First, the old question of why and wherefore….How is it that man became limited? How did the Infinite become finite, the pure become impure? In the first place, you must never forget that this question can never be answered [by] any dualistic hypothesis._x000d_ Why did God create the impure universe? Why is man so miserable, made by a perfect, infinite, merciful Father? Why this heaven and earth, looking at which we get our conception of law? Nobody can imagine anything that he has not seen._x000d_ All the tortures we feel in this life, we put in another place and that is our hell…._x000d_ Why did the infinite God make this world? [The dualist says:] Just as the potter makes pots. God the potter; we the pots….In more philosophical language the question is: How is it taken for granted that the real nature of man is pure, perfect, and infinite? This is the one difficulty found in any system of monism. Everything else is clean and clear. This question cannot be answered. The monists say the question itself is a contradiction._x000d_ Take the system of dualism--the question is asked why God created the world. This is contradictory. Why? Because--what is the idea of God? He is a being who cannot be acted upon by anything outside._x000d_ You and I are not free. I am thirsty. There is something called thirst, over which I have no control, [which] forces me to drink water. Every action of my body and even every thought of my mind is forced out of me. I have got to do it. That is why I am bound….I am forced to do this, to have this, and so on….And what is meant by why and wherefore? [Being subject to external forces.] Why do you drink water? Because thirst forces you. You are a slave. You never do anything of your own will because you are forced to do everything. Your only motive for action is some force…._x000d_ The earth, by itself, would never move unless something forced it. Why does the light burn? It does not burn unless somebody comes and strikes a match. Throughout nature, everything is bound. Slavery, slavery! To be in harmony with nature is [slavery]. What is there in being the slave of nature and living in a golden cage? The greatest law and order is in the [knowledge that man is essentially free and divine]. Now we see that the question why and wherefore can only be asked [in ignorance]. I can only be forced to do something through something else._x000d_ [You say] God is free. Again you ask the question why God creates the world. You contradict yourself. The meaning of God is entirely free will. The question put in logical language is this: What forced Him, who can never be forced by anybody, to create the world? You say in the same question, What forced Him? The question is nonsense. He is infinite by His very nature; He is free. We shall answer questions when you can ask them in logical language. Reason will tell you that there is only one Reality, nothing else. Wherever dualism has risen, monism came to a head and drove it out._x000d_ There is only one difficulty in understanding this. Religion is a common-sense, everyday thing. The man in the street knows it if you put it in his language and not [if it is put] in a philosopher's language. It is a common thing in human nature to [project itself]. Think of your feeling with the child. [You identify yourself with it. Then] you have two bodies. [Similarly] you can feel through your husband's mind. Where can you stop? You can feel in infinite bodies._x000d_ Nature is conquered by man every day. As a race, man is manifesting his power. Try in imagination to put a limit to this power in man. You admit that man as a race has infinite power, has [an] infinite body. The only question is what you are. Are you the race or one [individual]? The moment you isolate yourself, everything hurts you. The moment you expand and feel for others, you gain help. The selfish man is the most miserable in the world. The happiest is the man who is not at all selfish. He has become the whole creation, the whole race, and God [is] within him…. So in dualism--Christian, Hindu, and all religions--the code of ethics…is: Do not be selfish….Be unselfish. Do things for others! Expand!..._x000d_ The ignorant can be made to understand [this] very easily, and the learned can be made to understand still more easily. But the man who has just got a speck of learning, him God himself cannot make understand.[The truth is,] you are not separate [from this universe]; [just as your Spirit] is [not] separate from the rest of you. If [not] so, you could not see anything, could not feel anything. Our bodies are simply little whirlpools in the ocean of matter. Life is taking a turn and passing on, in another form….The sun, the moon, the stars, you and I are mere whirlpools. Why did I select [a particular mind as mine? It is] simply a mental whirlpool in the ocean of mind._x000d_ How else is it possible that my vibration reaches you just now? If you throw a stone in the lake, it raises a vibration and [that stirs] the water into vibration. I throw my mind into the state of bliss and the tendency is to raise the same bliss in your mind. How often in your mind or heart [you have thought something] and without [verbal] communication, [others have got your thought]? Everywhere we are one…That is what we never understand. The whole [universe] is composed of time, space, and causation. And God [appears as this universe]….When did nature begin? When you [forgot your true nature and] became [bound by time, space, and causation]._x000d_ This is the [rotating] circle of your bodies and yet that is your infinite nature….That is certainly nature --time, space, and causation. That is all that is meant by nature. Time began when you began to think. Space began when you got the body; otherwise there cannot be any space. Causation began when you became limited. We have to have some sort of answer. There is the answer. [Our limitation] is play. Just for the fun of it. Nothing binds you; nothing forces [you. You were] never bound. We are all acting our parts in this [play] of our own invention._x000d_ But let us bring another question about individuality. Some people are so afraid of losing their individuality. Wouldn't it be better for the pig to lose his pig-individuality if he can become God? Yes. But the poor pig does not think so at the time. Which state is my individuality? When I was a baby sprawling on the floor trying to swallow my thumb? Was that the individuality I should be sorry to lose? Fifty years hence I shall look upon this present state and laugh, just as I [now] look upon the baby state. Which of these individualities shall I keep?..._x000d_ We are to understand what is meant by this individuality….[There are two opposite tendencies:] one is the protection of the individuality, the other is the intense desire to sacrifice the individuality….The mother sacrifices all her own will for the needy baby….When she carries the baby in her arms, the call of individuality, or self-preservation is no more heard. She will eat the worse food, but her children will have the best. So for all the people we love we are ready to die._x000d_ [On the one hand] we are struggling hard to keep up this individuality; on the other hand, trying to kill it. With what result? Tom Brown may struggle hard. He is [fighting] for his individuality. Tom dies and there is not a ripple anywhere upon the surface of the earth. There was a Jew born nineteen hundred years ago, and he never moved a finger to keep his individuality….Think of that! That Jew never struggled to protect his individuality. That is why he became the greatest in the world. This is what the world does not know. _x000d_ In time we are to be individuals. But in what sense? What is the individuality of man? Not Tom Brown, but God in man. That is the [true] individuality. The more man has approached that, the more he has given up his false individuality. The more he tries to collect and gain everything [for himself], the less he is an individual. The less he has thought of [himself], the more he has sacrificed all individuality during his lifetime,…the more he is an individual. This is one secret the world does not understand…._x000d_ We must first understand what is meant by individuality. It is attaining the ideal. You are man now, [or] you are woman. You will change all the time. Can you stop? Do you want to keep your minds as they are now--the angers, hatreds, jealousies, quarrels, all the thousand and one things in the mind? Do you mean to say that you will keep them?...You cannot stop anywhere …until perfect conquest has been achieved, until you are pure and you are perfect. _x000d_ You have no more anger when you are all love, bliss, infinite existence….Which of your bodies will you keep? You cannot stop anywhere until you come to life that never ends. Infinite life! You stop there. You have a little knowledge now and are always trying to get more. Where will you stop? Nowhere, until you become one with life itself…_x000d_ Many want pleasure [as] the goal. For that pleasure they seek only the senses. On the higher planes much pleasure is to be sought. Then on spiritual planes. Then in himself--God within him. The man whose pleasure is outside of [himself] becomes unhappy when that outside thing goes. You cannot depend for this pleasure upon anything in this universe. If all my pleasures are in myself, I must have pleasure there all the time because I can never lose my Self…Mother, father, child, wife, body, wealth--everything I can lose except my self…bliss in the Self. All desire is contained in the Self….This is individuality which never changes, and this is perfect.…And how to get it? They find what the great souls of this world--all great men and women--found [through sustained discrimination]….What of these dualistic theories of twenty gods, thirty gods? It does not matter. They all had the one truth, that this false individuality must go….So this ego--the less there is of it, the nearer I am to that which I really am: the universal body. The less I think of my own individual mind, the nearer I am to that universal mind. The less I think of my own soul, the nearer I am to the universal soul._x000d_ We live in one body. We have some pain, some pleasure. Just for this little pleasure we have by living in this body, we are ready to kill everything in the universe to preserve ourselves. If we had two bodies, would not that be much better? So on and on to bliss. I am in everybody. Through all hands I work; through all feet I walk. I speak through every mouth; I live in every body. Infinite my bodies, infinite my minds. I lived in Jesus of Nazareth, in Buddha, in Mohammed--in all the great and good of the past, of the present. I am going to live in all that [may] come afterwards. Is that theory? [No, it is the truth.]_x000d_ If you can realise this, how infinitely more pleasurable that will be. What an ecstasy of joy! Which one body is so great that we need here anything [of] the body?...After living in all the bodies of others, enjoying all the bodies there are in this world, what becomes of us? [We become one with the Infinite. And] that is the goal. That is the only way. One [man] says, "If I know the truth, I shall be melted away like butter." I wish people would be, but they are too tough to be melted so quickly!_x000d_ What are we to do to be free? Free you are already….How could the free ever be bound? It is a lie. [You were] never bound. How could the unlimited ever be limited by anything? Infinite divided by infinite, added to infinite, multiplied by infinite [remains] infinite. You are infinite; God is infinite. You are all infinite. There cannot be two existences, only one. The Infinite can never be made finite. You are never bound. That is all….You are free already. You have reached the goal--all there is to reach. Never allow the mind to think that you have not reached the goal…._x000d_ Whatever we [think] that we become. If you think you are poor sinners you hypnotise yourselves: "I am a miserable, crawling worm." Those who believe in hell are in hell when they die; those who say that they will go to heaven [go to heaven]._x000d_ It is all play….[You may say,] "We have to do something; let us do good." [But] who cares for good and evil? Play! God Almighty plays. That is all….You are the almighty God playing. If you want to play on the side and take the part of a beggar, you are not [to blame someone else for making that choice]. You enjoy being the beggar. You know your real nature [to be divine]. You are the king and play you are a beggar….It is all fun. Know it and play. That is all there is to it. Then practise it. The whole universe is a vast play. All is good because all is fun. This star comes and crashes with our earth, and we are all dead. [That too is fun.] You only think fun the little things that delight your senses!..._x000d_ [We are told that there is] one good god here, and one bad god there always on the watch to grab me the moment I make a mistake….When I was a child I was told by someone that God watches everything. I went to bed and looked up and expected the ceiling of the room to open. [Nothing happened.] Nobody is watching us except ourselves. No Lord except our [own Self]; no nature but what we feel. Habit is second nature; it is first nature also. It is all there is of nature. _x000d_ I repeat [something] two or three times; it becomes my nature. Do not be miserable! Do not repent! What is done is done. If you burn yourself, [take the consequences]._x000d_ …Be sensible. We make mistakes; what of that? That is all in fun. They go so crazy over their past sins, moaning and weeping and all that. Do not repent! After having done work, do not think of it. Go on! Stop not! Don't look back! What will you gain by looking back? You lose nothing, gain nothing. You are not going to be melted like butter. Heavens and hells and incarnations--all nonsense!_x000d_ Who is born and who dies? You are having fun, playing with worlds and all that. You keep this body as long as you like. If you do not like it, do not have it. The Infinite is the real; the finite is the play. You are the infinite body and the finite body in one. Know it! But knowledge will not make any difference; the play will go on….Two words--soul and body--have been joined. [Partial] knowledge is the cause. Know that you are always free. The fire of knowledge burns down all the [impurities and limitations]. I am that Infinite…._x000d_ You are as free as you were in the beginning, are now, and always will be. He who knows that he is free is free; he who knows that he is bound is bound._x000d_ What becomes of God and worship and all that? They have their place. I have divided myself into God and me; I become the worshipped and I worship myself. Why not? God is I. Why not worship my Self? The universal God--He is also my Self. It is all fun. There is no other purpose. _x000d_ What is the end and aim of life? None, because I [know that I am the Infinite]. If you are beggars, you can have aims. I have no aims, no want, no purpose. I come to your country, and lecture --just for fun. No other meaning. What meaning can be there? Only laves do actions for somebody else. You do actions for nobody else. When it suits you, you worship. You can join the Christians, the Mohammedans, the Chinese, the Japanese. You can worship all the gods that ever were and are ever going to be…._x000d_ I am in the sun, the moon, and the stars. I am with God and I am in all the gods. I worship my Self. _x000d_ There is another side to it. I have kept it in reserve. I am the man that is going to be hanged. I am all the wicked. I am getting punished in hells. That [also] is fun. This is the goal of philosophy [to know that I am the Infinite]. Aims, motives, purposes, and duties live in the background…._x000d_ This truth is first to be listened to, then to be thought about. Reason, argue it out by all manner of means. The enlightened know no more than that. Know it for certain that you are in everything.That is why you should not hurt anybody, because in hurting them you hurt yourself….[Lastly,] this is to be meditated upon. Think upon it. Can you realise there will come a time when everything will crumble in the dust and you will stand alone? That moment of ecstatic joy will never leave you. You will actually find that you are without bodies. You never had bodies._x000d_ I am One, alone, through all eternity. Whom shall I fear? It is all my Self. This is continuously to be meditated upon. Through that comes realisation. It is through realisation that you become a [blessings] to others…._x000d_ "Thy face shines like [that of] one who has known God." That is the goal. This is not to be preached as I am doing. "Under a tree I saw a teacher, a boy of sixteen; the disciple was an old man of eighty. The teacher was teaching in silence, and the doubts of the disciple vanished." And who speaks? Who lights a candle to see the sun? When the truth [dawns], no witness is necessary. You know it….That is what you are going to do:…realise it. First think of it. Reason it out. Satisfy your curiosity. Then [think] of nothing else. I wish we never read anything. Lord help us all! Just see what [a learned] man becomes._x000d_ "This is said, and that is said…."_x000d_ "What do you say, my friend?"_x000d_ "I say nothing." [He quotes] everybody else's thought; but he thinks nothing. If this is education, what is lunacy? Look at all the men who wrote!...These modern writers, not two sentences their own! All quotations…._x000d_ There is not much value in books, and in [second-hand] religion there is no value whatsoever. It is like eating. Your religion would not satisfy me. Jesus saw God and Buddha saw God. If you have not seen God, you are no better than the atheist. Only he is quiet, and you talk much and disturb the world with your talk. Books and bibles and scriptures are of no use. I met an old man when I was a boy; [he did not study any scripture, but he transmitted the truth of God by a touch]._x000d_ Silence ye teachers of the world. Silence ye books. Lord, Thou alone speak and Thy servant listeneth….If truth is not there, what is the use of this life? We all think we will catch it, but we do not. Most of us catch only dust. God is not there. If no God, what is the use of life? Is there any resting-place in the universe? [It is up to us to find it]; only we do not [search for it intensely. We are] like a little piece of straw carried on in the current._x000d_ If there is this truth, if there is God, it must be within us….[I must be able to say,] " I have seen Him with my eyes," Otherwise I have no religion. Beliefs, doctrines, sermons do not make religion. It is realisation, perception of God [which alone is religion]. What is the glory of all these men whom the world worships? God was no more a doctrine [for them. Did they believe] because their grandfather believed it? No. It was the realisation of the Infinite, higher than their own bodies, minds, and everything. This world is real inasmuch as it contains a little bit [of] the reflection of that God. We love the good man because in his face shines the reflection a little more. We must catch it ourselves. There is no other way._x000d_ That is the goal. Struggle for it! Have your own Bible. Have your own Christ. Otherwise you are not religious. Do not talk religion. Men talk and talk. "Some of them, steeped in darkness, in the pride of their hearts think that they have the light. And not only [that], they offer to take others upon their shoulders and both fall into the pit." …_x000d_ No church ever saved by itself. It is good to be born in a temple, but woe unto the person who dies in a temple or church. Out of it!...It was a good beginning, but leave it! It was the childhood place..but let it be!...Go to God directly. No theories, no doctrines. Then alone will all doubts vanish. Then alone will all crookedness be made straight…._x000d_ In the midst of the manifold, he who sees that One; in the midst of this infinite death, he who sees that one life; in the midst of the manifold, he who sees that which never changes in his own soul--unto him belongs eternal peace.

In "The Goal" Swamiji continued to blast concepts dear to Christian thought-new as well as old. "You are a slave," he cried. "You never do anything of your own will because you are forced to do everything. Your only motive for action is some force. . . . Throughout nature, everything is bound. Slavery, slavery! To be in harmony with nature is [slavery). What is there in being the slave of nature and living in a golden cage?" He crumpled up and threw aside the idea that God had created the world for some purpose of His own. "[You say] God is free. Again you ask the question why God creates the world. You contradict yourself. The meaning of God is entirely free will. The question put in logical language is this: What forced Him, who can never be forced by anybody, to create the world? . . . The question is nonsense. He is infinite by His very nature; He is free. We shall answer questions when you can ask them in logical language. Reason will tell you that there is only one Reality, nothing else.

In Frank Rhodehamel's notes on "The Goal" one finds Swamiji speaking on this subject in somewhat different words: "Such questions as, `Why did God create the universe?' `Why did the All-perfect create the imperfect?' etc., can never be answered, because such questions are logical absurdities. Reason exists in nature; beyond nature it has no existence. God is omnipotent, hence to ask why He did so and so, is to limit Him; for it implies that there is a purpose in His creating the universe. If He has a purpose, it must be a means to an end, and this would mean that He could not have the end without the means. The questions, why and wherefore, can only be asked of something which depends upon something else.

Even as God has no purpose, neither in reality has man. "You are infinite; God is infinite. You are all infinite," Swamiji said. "There cannot be two existences, only one. The Infinite can never be made finite. You are never bound. That is all. You are free already. You have reached the goal-all there is to reach. Never allow the mind to think that you have not reached the goal. . . . It is all play. You may say, `We have to do something; let us do good.' Who cares for good and evil? Play! God Almighty plays. That is all. You are the almighty God playing. . . . It is all fun. Know it and play: That is all there is to it. Then practise it. The whole universe is a vast play. All is good because all is fun. This star comes and crashes with our earth, and we are all dead. That too is fun. You only think fun the little things that delight your senses! . . . Who is born and who dies? You are having fun, playing with worlds and all that. . . . The Infinite is the real; the finite is the play. You are the infinite body and the future body in one. Know it! . . . Know that you are always free. The fire of knowledge burns down all the impurities and limitations. I am that Infinite.

What will become of one's individuality? Swamiji answered this objection often, not only in his lectures themselves but after them as well. "In the questions which usually followed a talk on [Advaita Vedanta]," Mr. Rhodehamel recalled, "there was almost sure to be the question `But, Swami, what will, become of one's individuality when one realises one's oneness with God?' He' would laugh at this question, and playfully ridicule it. He would say: `You people in this country are so afraid of losing your in-di-vid-u-al-i-ties;' drawling out the word in laughing mockery. `Why, you are not individuals yet. When you know God you will be. When you realise your whole nature, you will attain your true individualities, not before. In knowing God you cannot lose anything worth having.

Swamiji shooed his alarmed listeners out of the churches. "No church ever saved by itself," he cried at the close of "The Goal." "It is good to be born in a temple, but woe unto the person who dies in a temple or church. Out of it! It was a good beginning, but leave it! It was the childhood place but let it be! Go to God directly." And to those who indulged in bemoaning their sins he cried, "Don't repent!" "Do not be miserable! Do not repent! What is done is done. . . . Be sensible: We make mistakes; what of that? That is all in fun. They go so crazy over their past sins, moaning and weeping and all that. Do not repent! After having done work, do not think of it. Go on! Stop not! Don't look back! What will you gain by looking back? You lose nothing, gain nothing. You are not going to be melted like butter. Heavens and hells and incarnations-all nonsense!

This was a religion for heroes: no heaven, no hell, no incarnations, no worship, no doctrines, no churches, no external God, not even any beating of the chest. If Swamiji had thought none could follow it, he would not have preached it; yet he knew it demanded intense effort. "This is the religion of philosophy," he said toward the end of "Soul and God." "Difficult? Struggle on! Down with all superstitions! Neither teachers nor scriptures nor gods! Down with temples, with priests, with gods, with incarnations, with God Himself! I am all the God that ever existed. There, stand up, philosophers. No fear! Speak no more of God and superstitions of the world. Truth alone triumphs and this is true. I am the Infinite. He left man no quarter; he challenged him, as undoubtedly the coming centuries will themselves challenge him, to stand up alone to the full glory of his own infinitude.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 28th March, 1900_x000d_ Well Blessed Mary {Hale},_x000d_ This is to let you know "I am very happy". Not that I am getting into a shadowy optimism, but my power of suffering is increasing. I am being lifted up above the pestilential miasma of this world's joys and sorrows; they are losing their meaning. It is a land of dreams; it does not matter whether one enjoys or weeps; they are but dreams, and as such, must break sooner or later. How are things going on with you folks there? Harriet is going to have a good time at Paris. I am sure to meet her over there and parler fransaise ! I am getting by heart a French dictionnaire ! I am making some money too; hard work morning and evening; yet better for all that. Good sleep, good digestion, perfect irregularity._x000d_ You are going to the East. I hope to come to Chicago before the end of April. If I can't, I will surely meet you in the East before you go._x000d_ What are the McKindley girls doing? Eating grapefruit concoctions and getting plump? Go on, life is but a dream. Are you not glad it is so? My! They want an eternal heaven! Thank God, nothing is eternal except Himself. He alone can bear it, I am sure. Eternity of nonsense!_x000d_ Things are beginning to hum for me; they will presently roar. I shall remain quiet though, all the same. Things are not humming for you just now. I am so sorry, that is, I am trying to be, for I cannot be sorry for anything and more. I am attaining peace that passeth understanding, which is neither joy nor sorrow, but something above them both. Tell Mother that. My passing through the valley of death, physical, mental, last two years, has helped me in this. Now I am nearing that Peace , the eternal silence. Now I mean to see things as they are, everything in that peace, perfect in its way. "He whose joy is only in himself, whose desires are only in himself, he has learned his lessons." This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells--that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one's Self. "The greatest thing I can obtain is my Self." "I am free", therefore I require none else for my happiness. "Alone through eternity, because I was free, am free, and will remain free for ever." This is Vedantism. I preached the theory so long, but oh, joy! Mary, my dear sister, I am realising it now every day. Yes, I am--"I am free." "Alone, alone, I am the one without a second."_x000d_ Ever yours in the Sat-Chit-Ananda,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. Now I am going to be truly Vivekananda. Did you ever enjoy evil! Ha! Ha! You silly girl, all is good! Nonsense. Some good, some evil. I enjoy the good and I enjoy the evil. I was Jesus and I was Judas Iscariot; both my play, my fun. "So long as there are two, fear shall not leave thee." Ostrich method? Hide your heads in the sand and think there is nobody seeing you! All is good! Be brave and face everything--come good, come evil, both welcome, both of you my play. I have no good to attain, no ideal to clench up to, no ambition to fulfil; I, the diamond mine, am playing with pebbles, good and evil; good for you--evil, come; good for you--good, you come too. If the universe tumbles round my ears, what is that to me? I am Peace that passeth understanding; understanding only gives us good or evil. I am beyond, I am peace._x000d_ V.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 28th March, 1900_x000d_ My dear Margot,_x000d_ I am so glad at your good fortune. Things have got to come round if we are steady. I am sure you will get all the money you require here or in England._x000d_ I am working hard; and the harder I work, the better I feel. This ill health has done me a great good, sure. I am really understanding what non-attachment means. And I hope very soon to be perfectly non-attached._x000d_ We put all our energies to concentrate and get attached to one thing; but the other part, though equally difficult, we seldom pay any attention to--the faculty of detaching ourselves at a moment's notice from anything._x000d_ Both attachment and detachment perfectly developed make a man great and happy._x000d_ I am so glad at Mrs. Leggett's gift of $1,000. She is working up, wait. She has a great part to play in Ramakrishna's work, whether she knows it or not._x000d_ I enjoyed your accounts of Prof. Geddes, and Joe has a funny account of a clairvoyant. Things are just now beginning to turn. . . . _x000d_ This letter, I think, will reach you at Chicago. . . . _x000d_ I had a nice letter from Max Gysic, the young Swiss who is a great friend of Miss Souter. Miss Souter also sends her love, and they ask to know the time when I come over to England. Many people are inquiring, they say._x000d_ Things have got to come round--the seed must die underground to come up as the tree. The last two years were the underground rotting. I never had a struggle in the jaws of death, but it meant a tremendous upheaval of the whole life. One such brought me to Ramakrishna, another sent me to the U.S., this has been the greatest of all. It is gone--I am so calm that it astonishes me sometimes!! I work every day morning and evening, eat anything any hour--and go to bed at 12 p.m. in the night--but such fine sleep!! I never had such power of sleeping before!_x000d_ Yours with all love and blessings,_x000d_ Vivekananda

During his stay at Turk Street-through most of March and the first week or so of April-Swamiji's health on the whole improved. "I work every day morning and evening," he wrote to Sister Nivedita around the end of March,

BREATHING_x000d_ (Delivered in San Francisco, March 28, 1900 )_x000d_ Breathing exercises have been very popular in India from the most ancient times, so much so [that] they form a part of their religion, just as going to church and repeating certain prayers. ...I will try to bring those ideas before you._x000d_ I have told you how the Indian philosopher reduces the whole universe into two parts--Prana and Akasha._x000d_ Prana means force--all that is manifesting itself as movement or possible movement, force, or attraction. ...Electricity, magnetism, all the movements in the body, all [the movements] in the mind--all these are various manifestations of one thing called Prana. The best form of Prana, however, is in [the brain], manifesting itself as light [of understanding]. This light is under the guidance of thought._x000d_ The mind ought to control every bit of Prana that has been worked up in the body. ...[The] mind should have entire control of the body. That is not [the case] with all. With most of us it is the other way. The mind should be able to control every part of [the body] just at will. That is reason, philosophy; but [when] we come to matters of fact, it is not so. For you, on the other hand, the cart is before the horse. It is the body mastering the mind. If my finger gets pinched, I become sorry. The body works upon the mind. If anything happens which I do not like to happen, I am worried; my mind [is] thrown off its balance. The body is master of the mind. We have become bodies. We are nothing else but bodies just now._x000d_ Here [comes] the philosopher to show us the way out, to teach us what we really are. You may reason it out and understand it intellectually, but there is a long way between intellectual understanding and the practical realisation of it. Between the plan of the building and the building itself there is quite a long distance. Therefore there must be various methods [to reach the goal of religion]. In the last course, we have been studying the method of philosophy, trying to bring everything under control, once more asserting the freedom of the soul. …"It is very difficult. This way is not for [every]body. The embodied mind tries it with great trouble" (Gita, XII. 5)._x000d_ A little physical help will make the mind comfortable. What would be more rational than to have the mind itself accomplish the thing? But it cannot. The physical help is necessary for most of us. The system of Raja- Yoga is to utilise these physical helps, to make use of the powers and forces in the body to produce certain mental states, to make the mind stronger and stronger until it regains its lost empire. By sheer force of will if anyone can attain to that, so much the better. But most of us cannot, so we will use physical means, and help the will on its way._x000d_ …The whole universe is a tremendous case of unity in variety. There is only one mass of mind. Different [states] of that mind have different names. [They are] different little whirlpools in this ocean of mind. We are universal and individual at the same time. Thus is the play going on. …In reality this unity is never broken. [Matter, mind, spirit are all one.]_x000d_ All these are but various names. There is but one fact in the universe, and we look at it from various standpoints. The same [fact] looked at from one standpoint becomes matter. The same one from another standpoint becomes mind. There are not two things. Mistaking the rope for the snake, fear came [to a man] and made him call somebody else to kill the snake. [His] nervous system began to shake; his heart began to beat. …All these manifestations [came] from fear, and he discovered it was a rope, and they all vanished. This is what we see in reality. What even the senses see--what we call matter--that [too] is the real; only not as we have seen it. The mind [which] saw the rope [and] took it for a snake was not under a delusion. If it had been, it would not have seen anything. One thing is taken for another, not as something that does not exist. What we see here is body, and we take the Infinite as matter. …We are but seeking that Reality. We are never deluded. We always know truth, only our reading of truth is mistaken at times. You can perceive only one thing at a time. When I see the snake, the rope has vanished entirely. And when I see the rope, the snake has vanished. It must be one thing. …_x000d_ When we see the world, how can we see God? Think in your own mind. What is meant by the world is God as seen as all things [by] our senses. Here you see the snake; the rope is not. When you know the Spirit, everything else will vanish. When you see the Spirit itself, you see no matter, because that which you called matter is the very thing that is Spirit. All these variations are [superimposed] by our senses. The same sun, reflected by a thousand little wavelets, will represent to us thousands of little suns. If I am looking at the universe with my senses, I interpret it as matter and force. It is one and many at the same time. The manifold does not destroy the unity. The millions of waves do not destroy the unity of the ocean. It remains the same ocean. When you look at the universe, remember that we can reduce it to matter or to force. If we increase the velocity, the mass decreases. …On the other hand, we can increase the mass and decrease the velocity. …We may almost come to a point where all the mass will entirely disappear. …Matter cannot be said to cause force nor [can] force [be] the cause of matter. Both are so [related] that one may disappear in the other. There must be a third [factor], and that third something is the mind. You cannot produce the universe from matter, neither from force. Mind is something [which is] neither force nor matter, yet begetting force and matter all the time. In the long run, mind is begetting all force, and that is what is meant by the universal mind, the sum total of all minds. Everyone is creating, and [in] the sum total of all these creations you have the universe -unity in diversity. It is one and it is many at the same time._x000d_ The Personal God is only the sum total of all, and yet it is an individual by itself, just as you are the individual body of which each cell is an individual part itself._x000d_ Everything that has motion is included in Prana or force. [It is] this Prana which is moving the stars, sun, moon; Prana is gravitation. …_x000d_ All forces of nature, therefore, must be created by the universal mind. And we, as little bits of mind, [are] taking out that Prana from nature, working it out again in our own nature, moving our bodies and manufacturing our thought. If [you think] thought cannot be manufactured, stop eating for twenty days and see how you feel. Begin today and count. …Even thought is manufactured by food. There is no doubt about it._x000d_ Control of this Prana that is working everything, control of this Prana in the body, is called Pranayama. We see with our common sense that it is the breath [that] is setting everything in motion. If I stop breathing, I stop. If the breath begins, [the body] begins to move. What we want to get at is not the breath itself; it is something finer behind the breath._x000d_ [There was once a minister to a great king. The] king, displeased with the minister, ordered him to be confined in the top of [a very high tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to perish. His wife came to the tower at night and called to her husband.] The minister said to her, "No use weeping." He told her to take a little honey, [a beetle], a pack of fine thread, a ball of twine, and a rope. She tied the fine thread to one of the legs of the beetle and put honey on the top of its head and let it go [with its head up]. [The beetle slowly crept onwards, in the hope of reaching the honey, until at last it reached the top of the tower, when the minster grasped the beetle, and got possession of the silken thread, then the pack thread, then the stout twine, and lastly of the rope. The minister descended from the tower by means of the rope, and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath motion is the "silken thread"; by laying hold of it we grasp the pack thread of nerve currents, and from these the stout twine of our thoughts, and lastly the rope of Prana, controlling which we reach freedom. (Vide ante pp. 143-44).]_x000d_ By the help of things on the material plane, we have to come to finer and finer [perceptions]. The universe is one, whatever point you touch. All the points are but variations of that one point. Throughout the universe is a unity (at bottom). …Even through such a gross thing as breath I can get hold of the Spirit itself. _x000d_ By the exercise of breathing we begin to feel all the movements of the body that we [now] do not feel. As soon as we begin to feel them, we begin to master them. Thoughts in the germ will open to us, and we will be able to get hold of them. Of course, not all of us have the opportunity nor the will nor the patience nor the faith to pursue such a thing; but there is the common sense idea that is of some benefit to everyone._x000d_ The first benefit is health. Ninety-nine per cent of us do not at all breathe properly. We do not inflate the lungs enough. …Regularity [of breath] will purify the body. It quiets the mind. …When you are peaceful, your breath is going on peacefully, [it is] rhythmic. If the breath is rhythmic, you must be peaceful. When the mind is disturbed, the breath is broken. If you can bring the breath into rhythm forcibly by practice, why can you not become peaceful? When you are disturbed, go in to the room and close the door. Do not try to control the mind, but go on with rhythmic breathing for ten minutes. The heart will become peaceful. These are common sense benefits that come to everyone. The others belong to the Yogi. …_x000d_ Deep-breathing exercises [are only the first step]. There are about eighty-four [postures for] various exercises. Some [people] have taken up this breathing as the whole [pursuit] of life. They do not do anything without consulting the breath. They are all the time [observing] in which nostril there is more breath. When it is the right, [they] will do certain things, and when [it is] the left, they do other things. When [the breath is] flowing equally through both nostrils, they will worship._x000d_ When the breath is coming rhythmically through both nostrils, that is the time to control your mind. By means of the breath you can make the currents of the body move through any part of the body, just [at] will. Whenever [any] part of the body is ill, send the Prana to that part, all by the breath._x000d_ Various other things are done. There are sects who are trying not to breathe at all. They would not do anything that would make them breathe hard. They go into a sort of trance. …Scarcely any part of the body [functions]. The heart almost ceases [to beat]. …Most of these exercises are very dangerous; the higher methods [are] for acquiring higher powers. There are whole sects trying to [lighten] the whole body by withdrawal of breath and then they will rise up in the air. I have never seen anyone rise. …I have never seen anyone fly through the air, but the books say so. I do not pretend to know everything. All the time I am seeing most wonderful things. …[Once I observed a] man bringing out fruits and flowers, etc. [out of nowhere]._x000d_ ….The Yogi, when he becomes perfect, can make his body so small it will pass through this wall--this very body. He can become so heavy, two hundred persons cannot lift him. He will be able to fly through the air if he likes. [But] nobody can be as powerful as God Himself. If they could, and one created, another would destroy. …_x000d_ This is in the books. I can [hardly] believe them, nor do I disbelieve them. What I have seen I take. …_x000d_ If the study [improvement?] of things in this world is possible, it is not by competition, it is by regulating the mind. Western people say, "That is our nature; we cannot help it." Studying your social problems, [I conclude] you cannot solve them either. In some things you are worse off than we are, …and all these things do not bring the world anywhere at all. …_x000d_ The strong take everything; the weak go to the wall. The poor are waiting. …The man who can take, will take everything. The poor hate that man. Why? Because they are waiting their turn. All the systems they invent, they all teach the same thing. The problem can only be solved in the mind of man. …No law will ever make him do what he does not want to do. …It is only if [man] wills to be good that he will be good. All the law and juries…cannot make him good. The almighty man says, "I do not care." …The only solution is if we all want to be good. How can that be done?_x000d_ All knowledge is within [the] mind. Who saw knowledge in the stone, or astronomy in the star? It is all in the human being._x000d_ Let us realise [that] we are the infinite power. Who put a limit to the power of mind? Let us realise we are all mind. Every drop has the whole of the ocean in it. That is the mind of man. The Indian mind reflects upon these [powers and potentialities] and wants to bring [them] all out. For himself he doesn't care what happens. It will take a great length of time [to reach perfection]. If it takes fifty thousand years, what of that! …_x000d_ The very foundation of society, the formation of it, makes the defect. [Perfection] is only possible if the mind of man is changed, if he, of his own sweet will, changes his mind; and the great difficulty is, neither can he force his own mind._x000d_ You may not believe in all the claims of this Raja-Yoga. It is absolutely necessary that every individual can become divine. That is only [possible] when every individual has absolute mastery over his own thought. …[The thoughts, the senses] should be all my servants, not my masters. Then only is it possible that evils will vanish. …_x000d_ Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my own mind [is the ideal of education]. If I want to concentrate my mind upon a point, it goes there, and the moment I call, it is free [again]. …_x000d_ That is the great difficulty. By great struggle we get a certain power of concentration, the power of attachment of the mind to certain things. But then there is not the power of detachment. I would give half my life to take my mind off that object! I cannot. It is the power of concentration and attachment as well as the power of detachment [that we must develop]. [If] the man [is] equally powerful in both--that man has attained manhood. You cannot make him miserable even if the whole universe tumbles about his ears. What books can teach you that? You may read any amount of books. …Crowd into the child fifty thousand words a moment, teach him all the theories and philosophies. …There is only one science that will teach him facts, and that is_x000d_ psychology. …And the work begins with control of the breath._x000d_ Slowly and gradually you get into the chambers of the mind and gradually get control of the mind. It is a long, [hard struggle]. It must not be taken up as something curious. When one wants to do something, he has a plan. [Raja-Yoga] proposes no faith, no belief, no God. If you believe in two thousand gods, you can try that. Why not? …[But in Raja-Yoga] it is impersonal principles._x000d_ The greatest difficulty is what? We talk and theorise. The vast majority of mankind must deal with things that are concrete. For the dull people cannot see all the highest philosophy. Thus it ends. You may be graduates [in] all sciences in the world, …but if you have not realised, you must become a baby and learn._x000d_ …If you give them things in the abstract and infinite, they get lost. Give them things [to do], a little at a time. [Tell them,] "You take [in] so many breaths, you do this." They go on, [they] understand it, and find pleasure in it. These are the kindergartens of religion. That is why breathing exercises will be so beneficial. I beg you all not to be merely curious. Practise a few days, and if you do not find any benefit, then come and curse me. …_x000d_ The whole universe is a mass of energy, and it is present at every point. One grain is enough for all of us, if we know how to get what there is. …_x000d_ This having to do is the poison that is killing us. …[Duty is] what pleases slaves. …[But] I am free! What I do is my play. [I am not a slave. I am] having a little fun--that is all. …_x000d_ The departed spirits--they are weak, are trying to get vitality from us. …_x000d_ Spiritual vitality can be given from one mind to another. The man who gives is the Guru. The man who receives is the disciple. That is the only way spiritual truth is brought into the world._x000d_ [At death] all the senses go into the [mind] and the mind goes into Prana, vitality. The soul goes out and carries part of the mind out with him. He carries a certain part of the vitality, and he carries a certain amount of very fine material also, as the germ of the spiritual body. The Prana cannot exist without some sort of [vehicle]. …It gets lodgement in the thoughts, and it will come out again. So you manufacture this new body and new brain. Through that it will manifest. …_x000d_ [Departed spirits] cannot manufacture a body; and those that are very weak do not remember that they are dead. …They try to get more enjoyment from this [spirit] life by getting into the bodies of others, and any person who opens his body to them runs a terrible risk. They seek his vitality. …_x000d_ In this world nothing is permanent except God. …Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation [comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge ! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. This you [and others] are dreaming here. When they die, they go to [the] heaven [of their dream]. They live in that dream, and [when it ends], they take a nice body [here], and they are good people. …_x000d_ [The wise man says,] "All these [desires] have vanished from me. This time I will not go through all this paraphernalia." He tries to get knowledge and struggles hard, and he sees what a dream, what a nightmare this is--[this dreaming], and working up heavens and worlds and worse. He laughs at it. According to SWAMI VIVEKANANDA HIS SECOND VISIT TO THE WEST (P. 461), this address was delivered on 29 March 1900 under the title "The Science of Breathing".--Ed.

My subject is "Discipleship". I do not know how you will take what I have to say. It will be rather difficult for you to accept it--the ideals of teachers and disciples in this country vary so much from those in ours. An old proverb of India comes to my mind: "There are hundreds of thousands of teachers, but it is hard to find one disciple." It seems to be true. The one important thing in the attainment of spirituality is the attitude of the pupil. When the right attitude is there, illumination comes easily._x000d_ What does the disciple need in order to receive the truth? The great sages say that to attain truth takes but the twinkling of an eye--it is just a question of knowing--the dream breaks. How long does it take? In a second the dream is gone. When the illusion vanishes, how long does it take? Just the twinkling of an eye. When I know the truth, nothing happens except that the falsehood vanishes away: I took the rope for the snake, and now I see it is the rope. It is only a question of half a second and the whole thing is done. Thou art That. Thou art the Reality. How long does it take to know this? If we are God and always have been so, not to know this is most astonishing. To know this is the only natural thing. It should not take ages to find out what we have always been and what we now are._x000d_ Yet it seems difficult to realise this self-evident truth. Ages and ages pass before we begin to catch a faint glimpse of it. God is life; God is truth. We write about this; we feel in our inmost heart that this is so, that everything else than God is nothing--here today, gone tomorrow. And yet most of us remain the same all through life. We cling to untruth, and we turn our back upon truth. We do not want to attain truth. We do not want anyone to break our dream. You see, the teachers are not wanted. Who wants to learn? But if anyone wants to realise the truth and overcome illusion, if he wants to receive the truth from a teacher, he must be a true disciple._x000d_ It is not easy to be a disciple; great preparations are necessary; many conditions have to be fulfilled. Four principal conditions are laid down by the Vedantists._x000d_ The first condition is that the student who wants to know the truth must give up all desires for gain in this world or in the life to come._x000d_ The truth is not what we see. What we see is not truth as long as any desire creeps into the mind. God is true, and the world is not true. So long as there is in the heart the least desire for the world, truth will not come. Let the world fall to ruin around my ears: I do not care. So with the next life; I do not care to go to heaven. What is heaven? Only the continuation of this earth. We would be better and the little foolish dreams we are dreaming would break sooner if there were no heaven, no continuation of this silly life on earth. By going to heaven we only prolong the miserable illusions._x000d_ What do you gain in heaven? You become gods, drink nectar, and get rheumatism. There is less misery there than on earth, but also less truth. The very rich can understand truth much less than the poorer people. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." The rich man has no time to think of anything beyond his wealth and power, his comforts and indulgences. The rich rarely become religious. Why? Because they think, if they become religious, they will have no more fun in life. In the same way, there is very little chance to become spiritual in heaven; there is too much comfort and enjoyment there--the dwellers in heaven are disinclined to give up their fun._x000d_ They say there will be no more weeping in heaven. I do not trust the man who never weeps; he has a big block of granite where the heart should be. It is evident that the heavenly people have not much sympathy. There are vast masses of them over there, and we are miserable creatures suffering in this horrible place. They could pull us all out of it; but they do not. They do not weep. There is no sorrow or misery there; therefore they do not care for anyone's misery. They drink their nectar, dances go on; beautiful wives and all that._x000d_ Going beyond these things, the disciple should say, "I do not care for anything in this life nor for all the heavens that have ever existed--I do not care to go to any of them. I do not want the sense-life in any form--this identification of myself with the body--as I feel now, 'I am this body--this huge mass of flesh.' This is what I feel I am. I refuse to believe that."_x000d_ The world and the heavens, all these are bound up with the senses. You do not care for the earth if you do not have any senses. Heaven also is the world. Earth, heaven, and all that is between have but one name--earth._x000d_ Therefore the disciple, knowing the past and the present and thinking of the future, knowing what prosperity means, what happiness means, gives up all these and seeks to know the truth and truth alone. This is the first condition._x000d_ The second condition is that the disciple must be able to control the internal and the external senses and must be established in several other spiritual virtues._x000d_ The external senses are the visible organs situated in different parts of the body; the internal senses are intangible. We have the external eyes, ears, nose, and so on; and we have the corresponding internal senses. We are continually at the beck and call of both these groups of senses. Corresponding to the senses are sense-objects. If any sense-objects are near by, the senses compel us to perceive them; we have no choice or independence. There is the big nose. A little fragrance is there; I have to smell it. If there were a bad odour, I would say to myself, "Do not smell it"; but nature says, "Smell", and I smell it. Just think what we have become! We have bound ourselves. I have eyes. Anything going on, good or bad, I must see. It is the same with hearing. If anyone speaks unpleasantly to me, I must hear it. My sense of hearing compels me to do so, and how miserable I feel! Curse or praise--man has got to hear. I have seen many deaf people who do not usually hear, but anything about themselves they always hear!_x000d_ All these senses, external and internal, must be under the disciple's control. By hard practice he has to arrive at the stage where he can assert his mind against the senses, against the commands of nature. He should be able to say to his mind, "You are mine; I order you, do not see or hear anything", and the mind will not see or hear anything--no form or sound will react on the mind. In that state the mind has become free of the domination of the senses, has become separated from them. No longer is it attached to the senses and the body. The external things cannot order the mind now; the mind refuses to attach itself to them. Beautiful fragrance is there. The disciple says to the mind, "Do not smell", and the mind does not perceive the fragrance. When you have arrived at that point, you are just beginning to be a disciple. That is why when everybody says, "I know the truth", I say, "If you know the truth, you must have self-control; and if you have control of yourself, show it by controlling these organs."_x000d_ Next, the mind must be made to quiet down. It is rushing about. Just as I sit down to meditate, all the vilest subjects in the world come up. The whole thing is nauseating. Why should the mind think thoughts I do not want it to think? I am as it were a slave to the mind. No spiritual knowledge is possible so long as the mind is restless and out of control. The disciple has to learn to control the mind. Yes, it is the function of the mind to think. But it must not think if the disciple does not want it to; it must stop thinking when he commands it to. To qualify as a disciple, this state of the mind is very necessary._x000d_ Also, the disciple must have great power of endurance. Life seems comfortable; and you find the mind behaves well when everything is going well with you. But if something goes wrong, your mind loses its balance. That is not good. Bear all evil and misery without one murmur of hurt, without one thought of unhappiness, resistance, remedy, or retaliation. That is true endurance; and that you must acquire._x000d_ Good and evil there always are in the world. Many forget there is any evil--at least they try to forget; and when evil comes upon them, they are overwhelmed by it and feel bitter. There are others who deny that there is any evil at all and consider everything good. That also is a weakness; that also proceeds from a fear of evil. If something is evil-smelling, why sprinkle it with rose water and call it fragrant? Yes, there are good and evil in the world--God has put evil in the world. But you do not have to whitewash Him. Why there is evil is none of your business. Please have faith and keep quiet._x000d_ When my Master, Shri Ramakrishna fell ill, a Brahmin suggested to him that he apply his tremendous mental power to cure himself. He said that if my Master would only concentrate his mind on the diseased part of the body, it would heal. Shri Ramakrishna answered, "What! Bring down the mind that I've given to God to this little body!" He refused to think of body and illness. His mind was continually conscious of God; it was dedicated to Him utterly. He would not use it for any other purpose._x000d_ This craving for health, wealth, long life, and the like--the so-called good--is nothing but an illusion. To devote the mind to them in order to secure them only strengthens the delusion. We have these dreams and illusions in life, and we want to have more of them in the life to come, in heaven. More and more illusion. Resist not evil. Face it! You are higher than evil._x000d_ There is this misery in the world--it has to be suffered by someone. You cannot act without making evil for somebody. And when you seek worldly good, you only avoid an evil which must be suffered by somebody else. Everyone is trying to put it on someone else's shoulders. The disciple says, "Let the miseries of the world come to me; I shall endure them all. Let others go free."_x000d_ Remember the man on the cross. He could have brought legions of angels to victory; but he did not resist. He pitied those who crucified him. He endured every humiliation and suffering. He took the burden of all upon himself: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Such is true endurance. How very high he was above this life, so high that we cannot understand it, we slaves! No sooner does a man slap me in the face than my hand hits back: bang, it goes! How can I understand the greatness and blessedness of the Glorified One? How can I see the glory of it?_x000d_ But I will not drag the ideal down. I feel I am the body, resisting evil. If I get a headache, I go all over the world to have it cured; I drink two thousand bottles of medicine. How can I understand these marvellous minds? I can see the ideal, but how much of that ideal? None of this consciousness of the body, of the little self, of its pleasures and pains, its hurts and comforts, none of these can reach that atmosphere. By thinking only of the spirit and keeping the mind out of matter all the time, I can catch a glimpse of that ideal. Material thought and forms of the sense-world have no place in that ideal. Take them off and put the mind upon the spirit. Forget your life and death, your pains and pleasures, your name and fame, and realise that you are neither body nor mind but the pure spirit._x000d_ When I say "I", I mean this spirit. Close your eyes and see what picture appears when you think of your "I". Is it the picture of your body that comes, or of your mental nature? If so, you have not realised your true "I" yet. The time will come, however, when as soon as you say "I" you will see the universe, the Infinite Being. Then you will have realised your true Self and found that you are infinite. That is the truth: you are the spirit, you are not matter. There is such a thing as illusion--in it one thing is taken for another: matter is taken for spirit, this body for soul. That is the tremendous illusion. It has to go._x000d_ The next qualification is that the disciple must have faith in the Guru (teacher). In the West the teacher simply gives intellectual knowledge; that is all. The relationship with the teacher is the greatest in life. My dearest and nearest relative in life is my Guru; next, my mother; then my father. My first reverence is to the Guru. If my father says, "Do this", and my Guru says, "Do not do this", I do not do it. The Guru frees my soul. The father and mother give me this body; but the Guru gives me rebirth in the soul._x000d_ We have certain peculiar beliefs. One of these is that there are some souls, a few exceptional ones, who are already free and who will be born here for the good of the world, to help the world. They are free already; they do not care for their own salvation--they want to help others. They do not require to be taught anything. From their childhood they know everything; they may speak the highest truth even when they are babies six months old._x000d_ Upon these free souls depends the spiritual growth of mankind. They are like the first lamps from which other lamps are lighted. True, the light is in everyone, but in most men it is hidden. The great souls are shining lights from the beginning. Those who come in contact with them have as it were their own lamps lighted. By this the first lamp does not lose anything; yet it communicates its light to other lamps. A million lamps are lighted; but the first lamp goes on shining with undiminished light. The first lamp is the Guru, and the lamp that is lighted from it is the disciple. The second in turn becomes the Guru, and so on. These great ones whom you call Incarnations of God are mighty spiritual giants. They come and set in motion a tremendous spiritual current by transmitting their power to their immediate disciples and through them to generation after generation of disciples._x000d_ A bishop in the Christian Church, by the laying on of hands, claims to transmit the power which he is supposed to have received from the preceding bishops. The bishop says that Jesus Christ transmitted his power to his immediate disciples and they to others, and that that is how the Christ's power has come to him. We hold that every one of us, not bishops only, ought to have such power. There is no reason why each of you cannot be a vehicle of the mighty current of spirituality._x000d_ But first you must find a teacher, a true teacher, and you must remember that he is not just a man. You may get a teacher in the body; but the real teacher is not in the body; he is not the physical man--he is not as he appears to your eyes. It may be the teacher will come to you as a human being, and you will receive the power from him. Sometimes he will come in a dream and transmit things to the world. The power of the teacher may come to us in many ways. But for us ordinary mortals the teacher must come, and our preparation must go on till he comes._x000d_ We attend lectures and read books, argue and reason about God and soul, religion and salvation. These are not spirituality, because spirituality does not exist in books or theories or in philosophies. It is not in learning or reasoning, but in actual inner growth. Even parrots can learn things by heart and repeat them. If you become learned, what of it? Asses can carry whole libraries. So when real light will come, there will be no more of this learning from books--no book-learning. The man who cannot write even his own name can be perfectly religious, and the man with all the libraries of the world in his head may fail to be. Learning is not a condition of spiritual growth; scholarship is not a condition. The touch of the Guru, the transmittal of spiritual energy, will quicken your heart. Then will begin the growth. That is the real baptism by fire. No more stopping. You go on and go on._x000d_ Some years ago one of your Christian teachers, a friend of mine, said, "You believe in Christ?" "Yes," I answered, "but perhaps with a little more reverence." "Then why don't you be baptised?" How could I be baptised? By whom? Where is the man who can give true baptism? What is baptism? Is it sprinkling some water over you, or dipping you in water, while muttering formulas?_x000d_ Baptism is the direct introduction into the life of the spirit. If you receive the real baptism, you know you are not the body but the spirit. Give me that baptism if you can. If not, you are not Christians. Even after the so-called baptism which you received, you have remained the same. What is the sense of merely saying you have been baptised in the name of the Christ? Mere talk, talk--ever disturbing the world with your foolishness! "Ever steeped in the darkness of ignorance, yet considering themselves wise and learned, the fools go round and round, staggering to and fro like the blind led by the blind." Therefore do not say you are Christians, do not brag about baptism and things of that sort._x000d_ Of course there is true baptism--there was baptism in the beginning when the Christ came to the earth and taught. The illumined souls, the great ones that come to the earth from time to time, have the power to reveal the Supernal Vision to us. This is true baptism. You see, before the formulas and ceremonies of every religion, there exists the germ of universal truth. In course of time this truth becomes forgotten; it becomes as it were strangled by forms and ceremonies. The forms remain--we find there the casket with the spirit all gone. You have the form of baptism, but few can evoke the living spirit of baptism. The form will not suffice. If we want to gain the living knowledge of the living truth, we have to be truly initiated into it. That is the ideal._x000d_ The Guru must teach me and lead me into light, make me a link in that chain of which he himself is a link. The man in the street cannot claim to be a Guru. The Guru must be a man who has known, has actually realised the Divine truth, has perceived himself as the spirit. A mere talker cannot be the Guru. A talkative fool like me can talk much, but cannot be the Guru. A true Guru will tell the disciple, "Go and sin no more"; and no more can he sin, no more has the person the power to sin._x000d_ I have seen such men in this life. I have read the Bible and all such books; they are wonderful. But the living power you cannot find in the books. The power that can transform life in a moment can be found only in the living illumined souls, those shining lights who appear among us from time to time. They alone are fit to be Gurus. You and I are only hollow talk-talk, not teachers. We are disturbing the world more by talking, making bad vibrations. We hope and pray and struggle on, and the day will come when we shall arrive at the truth, and we shall not have to speak._x000d_ "The teacher was a boy of sixteen; he taught a man of eighty. Silence was the method of the teacher; and the doubts of the disciple vanished for ever." That is the Guru. Just think, if you find such a man, what faith and love you ought to have for that person! Why, he is God Himself, nothing less than that! That is why Christ's disciples worshipped him as God. The disciple must worship the Guru as God Himself. All a man can know is the living God, God as embodied in man, until he himself has realised God. How else would he know God?_x000d_ Here is a man in America, born nineteen hundred years after Christ, who does not even belong to the same race as Christ, the Jewish race. He has not seen Jesus or his family. He says, "Jesus was God. If you do not believe it, you will go to hell". We can understand how the disciples believed it--that Christ was God; he was their Guru, and they must have believed he was God. But what has this American got to do with the man born nineteen hundred years ago? This young man tells me that I do not believe in Jesus and therefore I shall have to go to hell. What does he know of Jesus? He is fit for a lunatic asylum. This kind of belief will not do. He will have to find his Guru._x000d_ Jesus may be born again, may come to you. Then, if you worship him as God, you are all right. We must all wait till the Guru comes, and the Guru must be worshipped as God. He is God, he is nothing less than that. As you look at him, the Guru gradually melts away and what is left? The Guru picture gives place to God Himself. The Guru is the bright mask which God wears in order to come to us. As we look steadily on, gradually the mask falls off and God is revealed._x000d_ "I bow to the Guru who is the embodiment of the Bliss Divine, the personification of the highest knowledge and the giver of the greatest beatitude, who is pure, perfect, one without a second, eternal, beyond pleasure and pain, beyond all thought and all qualification, transcendental". Such is in reality the Guru. No wonder the disciple looks upon him as God Himself and trusts him, reveres him, obeys him, follows him unquestioningly. This is the relation between the Guru and the disciple._x000d_ The next condition the disciple must fulfil is to conceive an extreme desire to be free._x000d_ We are like moths plunging into the flaming fire, knowing that it will burn us, knowing that the senses only burn us, that they only enhance desire. "Desire is never satiated by enjoyment; enjoyment only increases desire as butter fed into fire increases the fire." Desire is increased by desire. Knowing all this, people still plunge into it all the time. Life after life they have been going after the objects of desire, suffering extremely in consequence, yet they cannot give up desire. Even religion, which should rescue them from this terrible bondage of desire, they have made a means of satisfying desire. Rarely do they ask God to free them from bondage to the body and senses, from slavery to desires. Instead, they pray to Him for health and prosperity, for long life: "O God, cure my headache, give me some money or something!"_x000d_ The circle of vision has become so narrow, so degraded, so beastly, so animal! None is desiring anything beyond this body. Oh, the terrible degradation, the terrible misery of it! What little flesh, the five senses, the stomach! What is the world but a combination of stomach and sex? Look at millions of men and women--that is what they are living for. Take these away from them and they will find their life empty, meaningless, and intolerable. Such are we. And such is our mind; it is continually hankering for ways and means to satisfy the hunger of the stomach and sex. All the time this is going on. There is also endless suffering; these desires of the body bring only momentary satisfaction and endless suffering. It is like drinking a cup of which the surface layer is nectar, while underneath all is poison. But we still hanker for all these things._x000d_ What can be done? Renunciation of the senses and desires is the only way out of this misery. If you want to be spiritual, you must renounce. This is the real test. Give up the world--this nonsense of the senses. There is only one real desire: to know what is true, to be spiritual. No more materialism, no more this egoism, I must become spiritual. Strong, intense must be the desire. If a man's hands and feet were so tied that he could not move and then if a burning piece of charcoal were placed on his body, he would struggle with all his power to throw it off. When I shall have that sort of extreme desire, that restless struggle, to throw off this burning world, then the time will have come for me to glimpse the Divine Truth._x000d_ Look at me. If I lose my little pocketbook with two or three dollars in it, I go twenty times into the house to find that pocketbook. The anxiety, the worry, and the struggle! If one of you crosses me, I remember it twenty years, I cannot forgive and forget it. For the little things of the senses I can struggle like that. Who is there that struggles for God that way? "Children forget everything in their play. The young are mad after the enjoyment of the senses; they do not care for anything else. The old are brooding over their past misdeeds" (Shankara). They are thinking of their past enjoyments--old men that cannot have any enjoyment. Chewing the cud--that is the best they can do. None crave for the Lord in the same intense spirit with which they crave for the things of the senses._x000d_ They all say that God is the Truth, the only thing that really exists; that spirit alone is, not matter. Yet the things they seek of God are rarely spirit. They ask always for material things. In their prayers spirit is not separated from matter. Degradation--that is what religion has turned out to be. The whole thing is becoming sham. And the years are rolling on and nothing spiritual is being attained. But man should hunger for one thing alone, the spirit, because spirit alone exists. That is the ideal. If you cannot attain it now, say, "I cannot do it; that is the ideal, I know, but I cannot follow it yet." But that is not what you do. You degrade religion to your low level and seek matter in the name of spirit. You are all atheists. You do not believe in anything except the senses. "So-and-so said such-and-such--there may be something in it. Let us try and have the fun. Possibly some benefit will come; possibly my broken leg will get straight."_x000d_ Miserable are the diseased people; they are great worshippers of the Lord, for they hope that if they pray to Him He will heal them. Not that that is altogether bad--if such prayers are honest and if they remember that that is not religion. Shri Krishna says in the Gita (VII.16), "Four classes of people worship Me: the distressed, the seeker of material things, the inquirer, and the knower of truth." People who are in distress approach God for relief. If they are ill, they worship Him to be healed;_x000d_ if they lose their wealth, they pray to Him to get it back. There are other people who ask Him for all kinds of things, because they are full of desires--name, fame, wealth, position and so on. They will say, "O Virgin Mary, I will make an offering to you if I get what I want. If you are successful in granting my prayer, I will worship God and give you a part of everything." Men not so material as that, but still with no faith in God, feel inclined to know about Him. They study philosophies, read scriptures, listen to lectures, and so on. They are the inquirers. The last class are those who worship God and know Him. All these four classes of people are good, not bad. All of them worship Him._x000d_ But we are trying to be disciples. Our sole concern is to know the highest truth. Our goal is the loftiest. We have said big words to ourselves--absolute realisation and all that. Let us measure up to the words. Let us worship the spirit in spirit, standing on spirit. Let the foundation be spirit, the middle spirit, the culmination spirit. There will be no world anywhere. Let it go and whirl into space--who cares? Stand thou in the spirit! That is the goal. We know we cannot reach it yet. Never mind. Do not despair, and do not drag the ideal down. The important thing is: how much less you think of the body, of yourself as matter--as dead, dull, insentient matter; how much more you think of yourself as shining immortal being. The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free._x000d_ The fourth and last condition of discipleship is the discrimination of the real from the unreal. There is only one thing that is real--God. All the time the mind must be drawn to Him, dedicated to Him. God exists, nothing else exists, everything else comes and goes. Any desire for the world is illusion, because the world is unreal. More and more the mind must become conscious of God alone, until everything else appears as it really is--unreal._x000d_ These are the four conditions which one who wants to be a disciple must fulfil; without fulfilling them he will not be able to come in contact with the true Guru. And even if he is fortunate enough to find him, he will not be quickened by the power that the Guru may transmit. There cannot be any compromising of these conditions. With the fulfilment of these conditions--with all these preparations--the lotus of the disciple's heart will open, and the bee shall come. Then the disciple knows that the Guru was within the body, within himself. He opens out. He realises. He crosses the ocean of life, goes beyond. He crosses this terrible ocean: and in mercy, without a thought of gain or praise, he in his turn helps others to cross.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 30th March, 1900_x000d_ My Dear Joe {MacLeod},_x000d_ Many thanks for the prompt sending of the books. They will sell quick, I believe. You have become worse than me in changing your plans, I see. I wonder why I have not got any Awakened India yet. My mail is getting so knocked about, I am afraid._x000d_ I am working hard--making some money--and am getting better in health. Work morning and evening, go to bed at 12 p.m. after a heavy supper!--and trudge all over the town! And get better too!_x000d_ So Mrs. Milton is there, give her my love, will you? Has not Turiyananda's leg got all right?_x000d_ I have sent Margot's letter to Mrs. Bull as she wanted. I am so happy to learn of Mrs. Leggett's gift to her. Things have got to come round; anyway, they are bound to, because nothing is eternal._x000d_ I will be a week or two more here if I find it paying, then go to a place near by called Stockton and then--I don't know. Things are going anyhow. _x000d_ I am very peaceful and quiet, and things are going anyway--just they go. With all love,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. Miss Waldo is just the person to undertake editing Karma-Yoga with additions etc._x000d_ V.

How many hours Swamiji actually slept he did not say; perhaps few, for throughout his life his habit was to sleep very little: deep in the night or in the early hours before dawn he would sit in meditation, his mind in those quiet, solitary times entering into the state most natural to it. One is justified in supposing that such was the case at Turk Street, for while Swamiji did not write or, as far as we know, speak directly of his spiritual practices and ex¬periences, there is much to indicate that during this period he was living on the verge of samadhi. His San Francisco lec¬tures give us some insight into his state of mind, as do some of the things he is quoted as having said in conversation; but nothing is as revealing in this respect as his letters to those few people to whom he confided his personal thoughts-Sister Nivedita, Mrs. Bull, Josephine MacLeod, and Mary Hale. Reading his letters to these friends in chronological order, one finds a gradual crescendo of mood, from depression and nervousness in Los Angeles to a growing peace in San Francisco and on to a sort of ecstasy of transcendence in Alameda in the East Bay. It seems to have been toward the end of March in San Francisco that Swamiji definitely stepped, as it were, across a line into the last phase of his life.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco, Calif._x000d_ April, 1900_x000d_ My Dear Joe {MacLeod},_x000d_ Just a line before you start for France. Are you going via England? I had a beautiful letter from Mrs. Sevier in which I find that Miss Muller sent simply a paper without any other words to Kali who was with her in Darjeeling._x000d_ Congreave is the name of her nephew, and he is in the Transvaal war; that is the reason she underlined that, to show her nephew fighting the Boers in Transvaal. That was all. I cannot understand it any more now than then, of course._x000d_ I am physically worse than at Los Angeles, mentally much better, stronger, and peaceful. Hope it will continue to be so._x000d_ I have not got a reply to my letter to you; I expect it soon._x000d_ One Indian letter of mine was directed by mistake to Mrs. Wheeler; it came all right to me in the end. I had nice notes from Saradananda; they are doing beautifully over there. The boys are working up; well, scolding has both sides, you see; it makes them up and doing. We Indians have been so dependent for so long that it requires, I am sorry, a good lot of tongue to make them active. One of the laziest fellows had taken charge of the anniversary this year and pulled it through. They have planned and are successfully working famine works by themselves without my help. . . . All this comes from the terrific scolding I have been giving, sure!_x000d_ They are standing on their own feet. I am so glad. See Joe, the Mother is working._x000d_ I sent Miss Thursby's letter to Mrs. Hearst. She sent me an invitation to her musical. I could not go. I had a bad cold. So that was all. Another lady for whom I had a letter from Miss Thursby, an Oakland lady, did not reply. I don't know whether I shall make enough in Frisco to pay my fare to Chicago! Oakland work has been successful. I hope to get about $100 from Oakland, that is all. After all, I am content. It is better that I tried. . . . Even the magnetic healer had not anything for me. Well, things will go on anyhow for me; I do not care how. . . . I am very peaceful. I learn from Los Angeles, Mrs. Leggett has been bad again. I wired to New York to learn what truth was in it. I will get a reply soon, I expect._x000d_ Say, how will you arrange about my mail when the Leggetts are over on the other side? Will you so arrange that they reach me right?_x000d_ I have nothing more to say; all love and gratitude is yours; already you know that. You have already done more than I ever deserved. I don't know whether I go to Paris or not, but I must go to England sure in May. I must not go home without trying England a few weeks more. With all love,_x000d_ Ever yours in the Lord_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. Mrs. Hansborough and Mrs. Appenul have taken a flat for a month at 1719 Turk Street. I am with them, and shall be a few weeks._x000d_ V.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 10th April, 1900_x000d_ Dear Joe {MacLeod},_x000d_ There is a squabble in New York, I see. I got a letter from A__ stating that he was going to leave New York. He thought Mrs. Bull and you have written lots against him to me. I wrote him back to be patient and wait, and that Mrs. Bull and Miss MacLeod wrote only good things about him._x000d_ Well, Joe Joe, you know my method in all these rows; to leave all rows alone! "Mother" sees to all such things. I have finished my work. I am retired, Joe. "Mother" will work now Herself. That is all._x000d_ Now, as you say, I am going to send all the money I have made here. I could do it today, but I am waiting to make it a thousand. I expect to make a thousand in Frisco by the end of this week. I will buy a draft on New York and send it or ask the bank the best way to do it._x000d_ I have plenty of letters from the Math and the Himalayan centre. This morning came one from Swarupananda. Yesterday one from Mrs. Sevier._x000d_ I told Mrs. Hansborough about the photos._x000d_ You tell Mr. Leggett from me to do what is best about the Vedanta Society matter. The only thing I see is that in every country we have to follow its own method. As such, if I were you, I would convene a meeting of all the members and sympathisers and ask them what they want to do. Whether they want to organise or not, what sort of organisation they want if any, etc. But Lordy, do it on your own hook. I am quits. Only if you think my presence would be of any help I can come in fifteen days._x000d_ I have finished my work here; only, out of San Francisco, Stockton is a little city I want to work a few days in; then I go East. I think I should rest now, although I can have $100 a week average in this city, all along. This time I want to let upon New York the charge of the Light Brigade._x000d_ With all love,_x000d_ Ever yours affectionately,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. If the workers are all averse to organising, do you think there is any benefit in it? You know best. Do what you think best. I have a letter from Margot from Chicago. She asks some questions; I am going to reply._x000d_ V.

Indeed Swamiji never tired of talking about anything connected with his beloved motherland. Just before ascending the platform to give a lecture on India in San Francisco (very probably his lecture of March 5 at the Red Men’s Building) he said to Mr. Allan, who was then acting as an usher, "When I get started on the subject of India, I never know when to stop. If I go on too long, attract my attention." "He began promptly at eight o’clock," Mr. Allan recalled, "and when it got to be ten o’clock we decided that I should attract his attention by swinging my watch from its chain. Standing at the back of the hall, I raised my hand and swung the watch. Swamiji quickly noticed. `There they are,’ he said, `swinging the watch for me to stop when I have hardly got started.’ " And then, as Mr. Allan often told the story in later years, "he went right on with the lecture.

The second Wendte Hall series, which has taken us into April, completed Swamiji’s work in Oakland. He had given eight lectures in all at the Unitarian church, each time traveling to and fro, sometimes in bad weather, between San Francisco and Oakland by streetcar, ferry, train, and again streetcar, accompanied by Mr. Allan, Mrs. Hansbrough, Mrs. Aspinall, perhaps many others. He had lectured with vigor and after each lecture had answered many questions from the audience.

"On one occasion," Mr. Rhodehamel wrote, "after persistent queries by a number of persons, it occurred to someone that they were plying the Swami too insistently with questions, and he remarked to that effect. `Ask all the questions you like-the more the better,’ was the Swami’s good-natured reply. `That is what I am here for, and I won’t leave you till you understand.’ The applause was so prolonged that he was obliged to wait till it subsided before he could continue. At times he literally startled people into belief by his answers. To the question, after a lecture on Reincarnation [very probably "The Laws of Life and Death"], `Swami, do you remember your past life?’ he answered quickly and seriously, `Yes, clearly, even when I was a little boy.’ "

At other times he brought down the house-or, as Mr. Rhodehamel put it, "relieved the tenseness of embarrassing situations"-with his humor. "Observe his parry," Rhodehamel wrote in illustration, "to the question incredulously hurled at him at the close of a lecture which culminated in an impas¬sioned outburst on the glory of God-Consciousness: `Swami have you seen God?’ `What!’ he returned, his face lighting up with a happy smile, `Do I look like it; a big fat man like me.?

It would seem probable that often Swamiji did not arrive home from Oakland until very late at night. But time was of small consequence. "One night," Mr. Allan related, "when the Reverend B. Fay Mills was walking with him to the train that would take him to the Oakland mole, Mr. Mills said, `Swami, we must hurry to catch the train.’ Swamiji made no change in his pace. `Is there not another train?’ he asked._x000d_ (Mr. Allan does not finish this dialogue; there must have been more. Mr. Mills would have, or should have, said, "Yes, Swami, there will be another train; but to miss the ferry at this hour of the night will mean a half hour’s wait for another." Whereupon Swamiji, still not changing his pace, would have answered, "What of that?" "You Indians," Mr. Mills would have observed, "have no idea of time." And Swamiji would have retorted, as he did at another time in a like circumstance, "Yes, you live in time; we live in Eternity. And thus, still at Swamiji’s unhurried pace, they would have proceeded to the train stop.)

In its early editions, its authors depending on the only in¬formation then available, the Life states that Swamiji formed a Vedanta center in Oakland. Recent research has disclosed no valid evidence that he did so. But the city was connected nevertheless with the future growth of the Vedanta movement in northern California. As we have seen, Swamiji’s lectures in Oakland were, in a sense, of a piece with his preliminary lectures in San Francisco. He reached out, as it were, across the Bay to gather students into the heart of his work, and many entered, becoming imbued forever with his spirit. Several years after Swamiji had passed away, a number of Vedanta students in Oakland, including Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rhodehamel and the Misses Sarah and Rebecca Fox, formed a study and discussion group under the leadership of the young man named Gurudasa who, as the reader may remember, had heard Swamiji lecture at the New York Vedanta Society in November of 1899. Gurudasa had been given his first monastic vows by Swami Abhedananda and had come to California in the winter of 1900 in order to live at Shanti Ashrama, of which more later. After spending several years at the Retreat, he traveled in 1906 to India, where he remained five years. Returning to California, he became the acknowledged, though unofficial, leader of the informal group of Vedanta students in Oakland. In 1922 he again went to India and at the Belur Math received the vows of sannyasa and the name Swami Atulananda. For the remainder of his long and spiritually fruitful life (he passed away in 1966 at the age of ninety-seven) he lived in India, becoming well known for his high degree of spiritual attainment._x000d_ The group that had gathered around Gurudasa kept Swamiji’s teachings alive in Oakland, and the city continued to play a part in the Vedanta movement.

In 1931 Swami Ashokananda, who had just begun his ministry at the Vedanta Society in San Francisco, extended his lecturing activities to Oakland, mindful that Swamiji had worked there. From the start the Swami’s weekly lectures in Oakland were well attended and continued so until 1939. It was in that year, on the basis of the evident interest in Vedanta in the East Bay, that the Swami opened a branch center of the Vedanta Society of Northern California in Berkeley. A temple was built near the University campus, Miss Fox and her sister Fredrica (Rebecca had died) helping to finance it. The Berkeley center is today thriving; and thus one finds a continuity of Vedantic thought in the East Bay from the time of Swamiji’s first lecture at the Unitarian church to the present. The fires he kindled do not die; nor do they blaze only under the name of Vedanta. The First Unitarian Church in Oakland has not forgotten him. Its present minister, Dr. Arnold Crompton, once spoke to me of Swami Vivekananda as "the great saint of our time," and several years later, on November 12 of 1977, he commemorated Swamiji’s lectures in the church by installing with due ceremony a bronze plaque on the pulpit from which he had spoken and also by placing a large photograph of him in the church foyer.

Throughout the weeks that Swamiji lived at 1719 Turk Street he was lecturing almost every evening in either down¬town San Francisco or the East Bay. Between March 4 and April 18, a period of forty-six days that overlapped his stay at Turk Street at both ends, he delivered at least forty-two public lectures; and when we extend this count to include the three lectures he gave in February (one in San Francisco and two at the Unitarian church in Oakland), the twelve or more classes that he held at the Turk Street flat, and four classes on the Gita held at the end of May, we find that he spoke in all, to large audiences and small, at least sixty-one times. "At least," because, as I mentioned earlier, one can never be sure that a list of Swamiji’s lectures or classes during any given period is exhaustive. Again and again a new discovery will show him to have burst the limits one had thought to set for him. But even sixty-one talks-each given in the full vigor of what he must have felt would be his last intensive public mission to the world-are a great many, and there is no denying that the tremendous wave of spiritual power that Sri Ramakrishna brought to earth swept over the Bay Area in full flood.

There had been no Mr. Goodwin to take them down; the San Francisco newspapers had, on the whole, been remiss in their reporting, and apparently no one in the audiences had thought to take notes. But with the same luck-if one may use so poor a word-that attended Swamiji’s mission throughout its course, it happened that Mr. Rhodehamel not only took notes at the Oakland Unitarian Church, but followed Swamiji across the’ Bay and took notes of a number of his San Francisco (and later his Alameda) lectures as well. Moreover, among those who heard Swamiji’s lectures in San Francisco and Alameda was a young woman who was taking this opportunity to exercise a rusty shorthand. Her name was Ida Ansell. Although Miss Ansell took notes at Swamiji’s lectures for the sake of her shorthand, she did not attend them solely for that reason. She was at the time an ardent student, a patient, and an admirer of a Miss Lydia Bell, leader of the California Street Home of Truth, and, through her, had become interested,_x000d_ somewhat mistily, in Eastern thought. In an unpublished letter written forty-six years later she told the story from the start:_x000d_ I was an only child and very lonely. My mother came to California for her health when I was about eight years old, and I was boarded with a friend near Boston. Two years later I was sent to my mother, but had become lame in the meantime. That increased the loneliness, and instead of usual childhood doings, I developed too much imagination and too little discrimination. Continual trouble with the hip sent me first to doctors, then to Christian Science, then to the Home of Truth (Mrs. Militz), then to Miss Bell, also a Home of Truth leader [in San Francisco], but one who had been active in the beginning of the Theosophical Society in New York, and consequently her teaching was not exclusively Christian. It was at her Home of Truth [on California Street] that I was staying for a few weeks when Swamiji came to San Francisco. My favorite reading had been such books as "On the Heights of the Himalayas," "In the Sanctuary," Bulwer-Lytton’s "Zanoni," "Joseph Balsamo" by Alexandre Dumas, etc. [all works that dealt romantically with the occult and supernatural]. Now was added "Light on the Path" [a Theosophical work], and Miss Bell had just begun a daily class on the Gita. Consequently, Swamiji was, to my mind, an Adept, a Mahatma, and I went to every lecture that I could. That was the foundation for any understanding. [Miss Ansell attended Swamiji’s first lecture at the Unitarian church in Oakland, but did not take notes. She did not, in fact, take notes until almost three weeks later, on March 16. Swamiji had by then given at least thirteen lectures in the Bay Area.]_x000d_ I was not a professional stenographer at that time; my one thought was to become a teacher of music. But an opportunity had come between grammar school and high school, to take a course in shorthand, which I accepted, thinking it would be fun to have it in high school. I had to leave high school after one year [because of a nervous breakdown], and never used the shorthand, except to substitute for a friend during her vacation, until I became a student and patient of Miss Bell. Then for practice I took all her Sunday lectures and later Swamiji’s lectures. She spoke very deliberately and I could get every word which was not possible with Swamiji. But the humiliating part is that while I transcribed her lectures regularly each week, I put his away, hoping to write them up later.

By this time, the notes were not only "cold," but many of the squibbles had become archaic, outmoded by a new system which she had, years since, made her own. Added to this was the difficulty that she had often been unable to keep up with Swamiji’s torrential flow of words and the further difficulty that she had always become so charmed by his manner of telling a story that her pencil had been suspended as she watched him. Many were the gaps in her notes, and the transcription of them¬ difficult, laborious, and often frustrating-took some six months of unremitting work to bring to completion.

Miss Ansell was living in Los Angeles when in 1945 she undertook this task. As she completed each transcription she mailed it, together with its duplicate copy, to Swami Ashokananda in San Francisco. I am fortunate enough to have read the many letters she addressed to the Swami both during the progress of her work and after its completion, when four of the transcripts, edited and made whole, were sent to her for her opinion. There is, one finds, an unfolding of a drama in her letters, for she began her task with misgivings and ended by rejoicing. A few excerpts will tell the story.

Just now with many misgivings, I am sending you what I can read of the notes taken of a lecture given by Swamiji on March 16, 1900. The blank spaces indicate either that something was omitted or that I could not read what was written. I could have filled in some of the blanks, but you asked me not to try to "make them nice," and it seems best to send just what I can read, without making any additions or changes. Then you can know just what material there is, and can tell me whether or not to try to continue. I feel I have committed a sort of sacrilege. None of the other lectures are much better, and some of them even more scrappy._x000d_ The difficulty is age-of the typewriter, the notes and the writer. The machine is so old, the letter "o" so sharp, it punches holes in the paper. The notes were taken 45 years ago by an amateur stenographer unfamiliar with the subject matter. . . . They are being transcribed by a decrepit old woman, of whom the less said the better. . . .

It is almost ten years [she wrote on September 15, 1945] since Mrs. Allan told you I had notes of Swamiji’s lectures and you asked me to transcribe them. I had never had any hope of having any complete lectures published, but kept them all these years hoping sometime to transcribe what I could and send them to Gurudas for Prabuddha Bharata as "Excerpts from Swamiji’s lectures in San Francisco and Alameda," giving typed copies to a few Vedanta friends. . . . If I had done that, or if I had given them to anyone else, I would have omitted all the dis¬connected portions. In sending them to you, I am including everything that I can read, no matter how disjointed it seems, feeling sure that you will know what to eliminate and what to keep, and also sure that everybody will enjoy them much more after you have edited them. So, even if it takes longer . . . It seems the right thing to do. . . . I would rather give them to you than anyone else, not only because they were taken in San Francisco and I feel they belong there, but also because the few lectures that I have heard you give are more like Swamiji’s than any others that I have heard. He never thought of time and was always completely informal and spontaneous.

When Miss Ansell wrote the above passage, she had transcribed less than half the lecture notes. Except for a vacation that she allowed herself in December, she worked on through the remainder of the year, transcribing her notes at the rate of about one set a week. Her letters to Swami Ashokananda continued throughout the fall of 1945, until at the end of December and the beginning of January she completed the transcriptions of Swamiji’s three Gita talks and sent them off with their duplicates to San Francisco._x000d_ It so happened that on January 4 of 1946, the day she mailed the last of her transcripts to Swami Ashokananda, she received from him a typed copy of "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?" -the lecture he had chosen to edit first for inclusion in The Voice of India, the magazine then being published by the Vedanta Society of Northern California._x000d_ Last night [she wrote on January 6 of 1946] Haridas read the lecture to me, and I followed the shorthand notes and we were both happy. It is truly Swamiji’s spirit throughout. Almost every blank, even the big gaps, you have filled without any break in the continuity of the thought. It is the same person speaking. I am very glad I did not attempt any editing but gave you just the notes that I could read, crude and incomplete as they were. I was so unhappy over them, but you have restored all the power and beauty of Swamiji’s words. How could you do it? . . . It makes me feel sure that once in my life I made a right decision in sending you all the notes.

Reading the typed copies in advance of publication, Miss Ansell expressed increasing pleasure and on February 27, 1947, summed up her reactions: "Swami Turiyananda used to say, `Mother can make the mouse a lion.’ She didn’t make the mouse a lion in this case, but she put the work of a mouse in the hands of a lion who could use it at the time it was most needed."_x000d_ In the meanwhile, however, a worry had arisen in Miss Ansell’s mind. As early as January, 1946, Swami Ashokananda had informed her that The Voice of India would be discontinued at the end of that year for an indefinite period. Would he, then, she wondered, continue to edit the transcripts? "I would rather they be edited by you than anyone else," she wrote in January of 1946, "-and would not like to give them to anyone else as they are now." A few days later she gave Swami Ashokananda full rights to the sixteen remaining transcripts and requested again that no one else be allowed to edit them. She was assured that her trust would not be violated.

I am very happy about your editing Swamiji’s lectures, but if you cannot do it, please don’t give them to anyone else in their present form. I did give them to the Vedanta Society there, not only because I felt they belong there, but because you will do the editing in a way no one else could._x000d_ Miss Ansell was again assured that her transcriptions would not be given to anyone else, and there the matter rested.

Swami Ashokananda’s health, never good, became worse, other urgent matters were occupying his time, and the exacting work of editing Swamiji’s lectures had to be postponed. The publication of The Voice of India, moreover, remained suspended, and thus Miss Ansell’s transcripts, it would have seemed to her, suffered a stillbirth. Understandably, she was anxious to bring out the sixteen remaining lectures, and was easily persuaded to go about the laborious process of transcribing her shorthand notes once again-this time giving them to Vedanta and the West for publication. Unfortunately, she was to see only one of her second set of transcripts in print. The first lecture that was published appeared in January of 1955; she passed away on January 31 of that year at the age of seventy-eight.

These transcripts, which are indeed precious and which one can today find in the latest editions of the Complete Works, consist of the consecutive sentences that had made her so happy to come upon in her notebooks. The "scrappy" parts-the disconnected words and phrases-that she had conscientiously typed out in 1945 she had as conscientiously omitted in later years, substituting for them three dots. "If I had given [the notes] to anyone else, I would have omitted all the disconnected portions," she had written to Swami Ashoka¬nanda in September of 1945. And to this word she was true._x000d_ (In Vedanta and the West, as also in the Complete Works, Miss Ansell’s second transcripts have been printed with interpolated words and phrases placed in brackets, and omissions have been indicated by ellipses. For the careful student of Swamiji’s lectures these dots and bracketed words are certainly of value. But in quoting from these lectures, as I shall do later on, I shall omit them for the sake of more fluent reading and also to avoid confusion with my own brackets and omission marks.)

Theretofore, it had a more or less general nature; that is to say, he gave his listeners a wide view of his overall message, teaching the harmony of religions, giving a broad survey of the principles of the Vedanta philosophy, and presenting, as in Oakland, a picture of Indian culture that was in outline, colour, and meaning faithful to fact. As we have seen, his first lecture in San Francisco had been "The Ideal of a Universal Religion". His second lecture, delivered on Sunday, March 4, also at Golden Gate Hall, had been entitled "The Science of Religion". And on March 5, 6, and 9, at the Red Men's Building on Post Street, he had given a series of three lectures on India, entitled respectively, "India and Its People", "Arts and Sciences in India", and "Ideals of India". I _x000d_ Thenceforth, the Swami's San Francisco lectures markedly assumed the emphasis that distinguishes the main body of his work on the Pacific Coast. Noticeably, he stressed the need for man to stand on his own feet, to be a light unto himself, to realize and to utilize to the full his own divine power. More consistently and strongly than ever before, he emphasized the essential divinity of man. It was as though he wanted to impress the principles of Advaita Vedanta indelibly on the new era of civilization that was then struggling into birth throughout the world. _x000d_ While living and holding classes at the Turk Street flat, the Swami also delivered three evening lectures a week in the Red Men's Building in downtown San Francisco and on Sunday afternoons gave a series of five public lectures in Union Square Hall, which was also centrally located. The subjects of his Sunday lectures were: "Christ's Message to the World" (March 11), "Buddha's Message to the World" (March 18), "Mohammed" (March 25), "Krishna and His Message" (April 1), and "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?". The last named lecture, given on April 8, was one of his most stirring and provocative. We may quote from it here at some length, for it epitomized much of his teaching on the Pacific Coast, where, as said above, he again and again stressed the need for monistic Vedanta in the modern world.

There he was — a man who was himself Godlike, who clearly had realized what he preached, and who could transport others into that same divine awareness. Whether his health was good or bad made no difference to this power of his. So. friendly and simple was the Swami that those who were close to him sometimes forgot his gigantic dimensions. Reminders, however, would flash out. Mr. Thomas Allan, whose first experience of him had convinced him that he had heard "not a man, but a God", soon became his close follower and an usher at his lectures. He was again to be awed by a sudden awareness that the Swami was far bigger than life. "It win when I introduced him at [a Sunday] lecture", he later recalled, "that I felt like a pigmy and saw him as an immense giant. After this experience I could not bring myself to stand beside him again, but always thereafter made my introduction from the foot of the platform." _x000d_ During his lectures the Swami had the power to break down the dams of orthodox thinking, behind which the mind had been long held captive and had grown stagnant. He often said things outrageous to conventional doctrine, each sentence like a charge of dynamite to blast the walls of some blind belief and liberate the soul. His utterances carried a tremendous voltage. "Once before beginning his lecture," Mrs. Allan related, "he looked out at the audience for a moment and then said: 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached!' It was like an electric shock!"_x000d_ But after a powerful and soaring evening lecture in San Francisco, during which he would have delivered many an electric shock, the Swami would go with a small group of his followers to some nearby restaurant for supper or a dish of ice cream, becoming again the merry, fully approachable, and loving friend — a friend unfailingly to all.

While most of the Swami's lectures and classes in San Francisco were devoted to teaching the paths, both in theory and practice of jnana-Yoga and Raja-Yoga, making them accessible to and compatible with the modern Western mind, temperament, and way of life, he also laid due emphasis on the devotional aspect of Vedanta. Towards the end of his stay in San Francisco, he gave a series of three lectures on Bhakti- Yoga, also at the Red Men's Building, on April 9, 10, and 12. The titles were respectively, "Worshipper and Worshipped", "Formal Worship", and "Divine Love". At the beginning of this lecture series, he said: _x000d_ We have been taking up the more analytical side of human nature. In this course we [shall) study the emotional side…. The former deals with man as unlimited being, [as] principle, the latter with man as limited being…. One gets hold of us, takes us up to the heights where our lungs almost burst. We cannot breathe [in] that atmosphere. The other leaves us where we are and tries to see the objects of life, [takes the limited] view…. Both are necessary. A bird cannot fly with only one wing…. _x000d_ What we want is to see the man who is harmoniously developed … great in heart, great in mind, [great in deed]…. We want the man whose heart feels intensely the miseries and sorrows of the world…. And [we want] the man who not only can feel, but can find the meaning of things, who delves deeply into the heart of nature and understanding. [We want] the man who will not even stop there, [but] who wants to work out [the feeling and meaning by actual deeds]. Such a combination of head, heart, and hand is what we want…. Why not [have] the giant who is equally active, equally knowing, and equally loving? Is it impossible? Certainly not. This is the man of the future, of whom there are [only a] few at present. [The number of such will increase] until the whole world is humanized.

Although Swamiji again and again insisted that man break away from abject dependence upon a Personal God or upon a Savior and stand up free and fearless, he by no means repudiated the path of devotion. As though to underscore this fact, he chose the subject of Divine Love for his additional series at Washington Hall. According to the last-minute news¬paper announcements of April 8, the lectures were entitled "Worshiped and Worshiper," "Formal Worship," and "Devotion and Love." They were given on the evenings of, respectively, Monday, April 9; Tuesday, April 10; and Thursday, April 12. All three were taken down by Ida Ansell, and her second transcripts of them have been published in volume six of the Complete Works-"Worshiped and Worshiper" under the title (with variant spelling) "Worshipper and Worshipped," and "Devotion and Love" under that of "Divine Love."

In ancient times a king in India gave up his throne and title and retired with his wife and son to the forest. He was old and blind and hoped to end his days a holy man. The son, whose name was Truth, grew to manhood, though a prophecy had foretold that at twenty-one he would suddenly die. A year before the appointed time a great prince bound on a journey through this forest paused to pay his respects to the aged yogi. With him was his daughter Purity, and she beheld the unknown youth and loved him, and her love was returned. So when the prince, her father, began his preparations to rejoin his company and continue through the forest, his daughter, declaring her choice, said she would stay and take Truth for her husband. At this the prince was very angry, but he could not change her will. So she stayed with the little family, and they were married._x000d_ Happy and beloved, these two cared for the old blind king and his wife, gathering the fruits, bringing the water, and preparing fresh garlands for their habitation in the dark forest. Purity accompanied Truth on all his expeditions of hunting and exploration, until one day he denied her this privilege, as he was going into the forest deeper than ever before and could not take her. But she pleaded and prevailed. All day they traveled together until they came to a vast and mysterious tree, which he said he would climb. So Purity waited for him at the foot of the tree till twilight came. Then looking up, she saw her lord, unearthly pale, slipping slowly down the branches, until finally, caught in her arms, she saw he was dying. The prophecy was coming true! In despair she raised her eyes and saw standing in an opening of the woods the gray-shrouded form of Death, who in Indian myth is also King of Truth, whose word can never fail. As he reached out his arms to take her beloved away, she begged in vain, and as the Shadowy One lifted and bore her treasure swiftly through the forest¬path, she followed in despair. And Death hearing her little footsteps paused. "He cannot come back to you, Purity, but ask a boon, and I will grant it" And she thought quickly, "Return the sight of our blind father to him."_x000d_ "It is done," said Death, and turned away again, swiftly bear¬ing his burden from her. Still he heard the little footsteps and turn¬ing gave her a second boon. "Restore the throne to our father."_x000d_ "It is done," said Death, "but ask me no more." And again he sped away. Then far behind him he heard the footsteps of faithful Purity still begging for her dear Truth, and the third and last time Death turned to her and said, "We are almost at my domain, hinder me no more, but ask one last favor, and it shall be granted." So she meekly asked for a hundred sons to be heirs to the throne. And Death saw that Purity had outwitted him and was forced to restore to her her lord._x000d_ ___________x000d_ _x000d_ Then [Maud Stumm related] he told us the story of the old man who came to offer his services in the construction of an English cathedral. He wished to carve an ornament in the entrance porch, but the master carver thought him unworthy for such a prominent place and gave him the top of a pillar hidden far up in a dark corner of a side aisle. The old man came every day and labored high on his scaffolding, patiently carving, until one day he did not come down, and going up the dim place, they found him dead before his work-the exquisitely carved head of the love of his youth that he had longed to have in the entrance, but had been denied. So he had made it just as beautiful in that obscure nook, where only by chance it could be seen, dimly._x000d_ _x000d_ (These two stories from the reminiscences of Maud Stumm were made available to this book by the kindness of Swami Chetanananda.)

When Swamiji moved in April to the Alameda Home of Truth, Mrs. Allan continued to see him every day-more easily now, as she was living in Alameda at the time-and again she could be with him in the kitchen when, on Sunday afternoons, he would cook for himself (not for the whole household, as Miss Ansell has it in her published memoirs). Here he set her again to various tasks and shared with her his Hindu dishes.

"He was so many-sided," Mrs. Allan's draft continued, "wonderful beyond description. All things to all men; he was all the four Yogas. Sometimes the Vedanta lion, sometimes like a child; to me he was always the patient and loving parent. Nothing was too small for his notice and interest-such love as cannot be comprehended; he always listened. He told me not to call him Swami, but to call him `Babaji,' as the children did in India."

But there was a line between informality and familiarity that Swamiji never crossed. He was ever the patient father, but to behavior that carried overtones, however unconscious, of femininity he simply did not respond. One Sunday when he was happily preparing a dish in the Home of Truth kitchen, some butter splattered from a frying pan onto Mrs. Allan's dress-a new green dress that she was wearing proudly for the first time, its splendor uneclipsed by anything like an apron. "I carried on at a great rate over this tragedy," she recalled, "but Swamiji continued chanting, going about his work without taking the slightest notice. Later a friend sponged the spots with gasoline, and they completely disappeared. I felt like a fool.

Once Swamiji and Mrs. Allan walked to an Alameda store for pickles. These were kept in a big tub of brine and were ladled for customers into dishes of paper-thin wood. On the way back some brine spilled onto Swamiji's hand. Promptly and with delight he licked his fingers. "Oh Swami!" Mrs. Allan cried, shocked at conduct so undignified. "Madam," he retorted quickly, "you always want this little outside to be so nice. That's the trouble with you here. It is not the outside that matters, it is the inside.

One could not be long with Swamiji without absorbing one lesson after another, but "he was fun all the time," Mrs. Allan said, and certainly he was never "long-faced." "Should you see anyone with a long, sad face," Mr. Allan quoted him, "you may know that he has not got religion, but he may have the stomachache." In the kitchen his counsel went on, vibrant with life. "If I consider myself greater than the ant that crawls on the ground I am ignorant," he once said. And again, Madam, be broad-minded; always see two ways. When I am on the heights I say `Shivoham, Shivoham; I am He, I am He!' And when I have the stomachache I say, `Mother have mercy on me!' Or he told her, "Learn to be the witness. If two dogs are fighting on the street and I go out there, I get mixed up in the fight, but if I stay quietly in my room I witness the fight from the window. So learn to be the witness.

"I don't think that way," Mrs. Allan would sometimes say Swamiji gave her such jewels. Whereupon he would laugh. "Don't you, madam? Well, that's fine. But many years later she was to remember and cherish his words. "How we understood Swamiji!" she wrote then. "We had no knowledge of what he really was-the mouthpiece of the Lord Himself! Yet even if Mrs. Allan's conscious mind did know who this was who at her first meeting with him had answered all her unspoken questions in silence, who had restored her to health, who told jokes in one breath and chanted the Gita in the next, who walked like a king and licked his fingers like a child, a deeper part of her mind knew. She who had barely been able to drag herself to hear him the first time, attended all his subsequent lectures, as well as his classes. There was no getting enough of him. "But it was the close contact with the Swami that I most deeply cherish, she wrote years later. And to a friend she once said, "He was kindness itself to me. Most people emphasize his great power, the side of him that was so aweinspiring. But there was this other side to him -his great love. He was like the most tender and loving mother. "Before he left California," she said another time, "he told me that if I ever got into psychic difficulty again, or any other kind of trouble, to call on him and he would hear me wherever he was. I've had occasion to take advantage of his promise many times.

It was clearly this kind of discipleship to which Swamiji was referring when he was to say to a group who had gathered around him one balmy moonlight evening in Alameda, "If you want to be my disciples, you must face the cannon without a murmur. And one remembers that in 1897 when he was about to give initiation to the young man Saratchandra Chakravarty, he put to him a few pointed questions which bore upon discipleship of this type: "Well, are you ready to do my bidding to your utmost, whatever it be and whenever it may come? If I ask you to plunge into the Ganges or to jump from the roof of a house, meaning it all for your good, could you do even that without any hesitation? Just think of it even now, otherwise don't rush forward on the spur of the moment to accept me as your guru.

That was one kind of discipleship; and we know of only a few instances in which he bestowed it in the West. At Thousand Island Park he gave the final monastic vows to a man and a woman (who thereby became Swami Kripananda and Swami Abhayananda) and the vows of brahmacharya-the first vows -to five others, one of whom was Christina Greenstidel (Sister Christine). According to Miss Ellen Waldo's memoirs, the remaining five students at Thousand Island Park (there had been twelve in all) took initiation in New York City, "together with several others of the Swami's disciples there. It was in February of 1896 that he gave these further initiations. In a letter to the Brahmavadin, Swami Kripananda reported that on Thursday, February 13, Swamiji had given sannyasa to a Dr. Street "in the presence of the other sannyasins and a number of brahmacharins," and that the following Thursday he gave diksha, or initiation with a mantra, to several young men and women. We know also that sometime during this same month he gave brahmacharya to Josiah J. Goodwin-"the shorthandist," as Swami Kripananda sometimes called him. These are the only instances of formal initiation given in the West by Swamiji that we know of. They took place with a simple ceremony in the presence of others; they were not all monastic initiations, but they all seem to have been given to people whom he expected to become dedicated workers, even teachers.

How many other people in the various places Swamiji visited, such as Boston, Detroit, Chicago, London, received a formal initiation from him, we do not know, but it would seem likely that there were some. Captain and Mrs. Sevier, for instance, became his disciples in London and gave themselves to his work. Sister Nivedita was, of course, a disciple in the most rigorous sense of the word, though her initiation took place not in the West but in India.

But it was not only disciples of this kind to whom Swamiji was referring when he spoke of having initiated more than three thousand Westerners-Brahmins all. There was the far larger group, or multitude, of "friends," to some of whom he had surely given informal initiation and whom he did indeed count among his disciples. As examples, one could cite Miss MacLeod and her friend Dora Roethlesberger, who both, according to Miss MacLeod's reminiscences, received spiritual instruction from Swamiji. "Meditate on the word `Om' for a week and come again and tell me," he instructed them when they had asked him how to meditate. In a week they returned to report. "I see a light," Mrs. Roethlesberger told him. "Good," Swamiji said; "keep on." Miss MacLeod said her own experience was "more like a glow at the heart." To this Swamiji also said, "Good, keep on." "That is all he ever taught me," she wrote. But whether she knew it or not-and she did not know it, declaring always that she was not his disciple in any sense, but his friend-this from Swamiji was initiation.*_x000d_ _x000d_ * There is highly relaiable evidance that Swamiji also gave Miss MacLeod a mantra. For information regarding this see notes to Chapter One of World Teacher –I .

To how many thousands of people Swamiji gave a similar informal, undeclared, and apparently casual initiation, we have no way of knowing. His "maybe more than [three thousand]" puts no ceiling on the number. And then, this kind of initiation was, one thinks, generally so lacking in any kind of ceremony or deliberation that often the recipient had not the faintest idea that he had received from Swamiji a blessing that was sufficient forever and that would eventually bear fruit as tangible as the amalaka in the hand.

It would seem that in giving informal initiation Swamiji seldom said anything about discipleship, its prerequisites and responsibilities. He gave his blessings, gave, perhaps, some spiritual instructions, took upon himself the burdens of those who had come to him, and went on his way, demanding nothing, neither obedience, acceptance of his teachings, nor loyalty. Not even an interview was necessary. With one penetrating look he could know all that was essential to know about any individual. Perhaps he did not even prescribe a mantra. Could he not, with a glance or a touch, transmit the spiritual impetus that would thenceforth work its miracle in the life of the recipient, carrying him quickly to liberation? "The human teacher," Sri Ramakrishna once said, "whispers the mantra in the ear of the disciple; the World Teacher puts it in his heart In speaking of initiation with a mantra, Swamiji himself once said, "With great teachers the use of words is not necessary-as with Jesus. But the `small fry' transmit this current through words. Needless to say, Swamiji Has a world teacher, a jagadguru; his was the power to transmit spiritual energy directly; this was, indeed, a vital part of his mission. "The touch of the guru, the transmittal of spiritual energy, will quicken your heart," he said during his lecture "Discipleship" in San Francisco. "Then will begin the growth. That is the real baptism by fire. No more stopping. You go on and go on. From Swamiji, the baptism by fire was sometimes as silent, as imperceptible, but as irreversible, as the first touch of spring.

One remembers those many people in the West whom he loved and who had served him, but to whom he does not seem to have given any formal initiation. To mention only a few, there were Professor John Henry Wright, the Hale and Mc¬Kindley sisters, Mrs. John Bagley, the Guernseys, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Leggett, Dr. Lewis G. Janes, Mrs. Hansbrough, and her sisters. None of these people had become his disciples in the cannon-facing sense. But can we think that he did not take them into his protection once and for all, that he did not baptize them by fire, that he did not, in short, become their guru ?

There were, then, disciples and disciples some who understood their spiritual relationship with him, many more who did not; but all were his own. Was there a greater blessing given to the one than to the other? Who could know the answer to this? "There is no condition in grace," Swamiji once said to his disciple Chakravarty. "It is as His play or sport. All this creation of the universe is like His play. `It is the pure delight of sport, as in the case of men.' Is it not possible for Him who creates and destroys the universe as if in play to grant salvation by grace to the greatest sinner? But then it is just His pleasure, His play, to get somebody through the practice of spiritual discipline and somebody else without it." "Sir," the disciple said, "I can't understand this." "And you needn't," Swamiji replied.

So if we ask if Swamiji made disciples in California, the answer I should think would be, in one sense, no; in another sense, yes. In the latter sense one might say that all the members of his Turk Street class-those with whom he meditated and to whom he gave a glimpse of superconsciousness that would ever after be pursued-were his disciples. That they may have been unaware of it made not the slightest difference.

But we were speaking of the interviews Swamiji gave at his Turk Street flat. Although we know only of those he gave to Mr. Rhodehamel and Mrs. Allan, he must have seen other people privately and have given spiritual instruction to at least a Few. Yet, to our knowledge, none of those who had known him and who continued to study and practice Vedanta after he left considered themselves to be his disciples. Many were to take initiation from either Swami Turiyananda or Swami Trigunatita: Mr. Rhodehamel, for instance, from the former; Mr. and Mrs. Allan from the latter. One wonders why this was so. The thing that concerns us here is not, of course, the spiritual lives of these people, but what constituted being a disciple of Swamiji.

That he made thousands of disciples in the West is certain; for he himself said so. "Well, Swamiji, how many disciples have you in the West?" a man once asked him in Calcutta. "Two or three thousand?" "Maybe more than that," Swamiji replied. "Are they all initiated by you with Mantras?" the questioner continued. "Yes," Swamiji replied. "Did you give them permission to utter Pranava (Om) ?" "Yes," Swamiji replied again._x000d_ (It is interesting to note in passing that the questioner, a high-caste Hindu by the name of Priya Nath Sinha, was much alarmed to learn this. "How did you, Maharaj?" he exclaimed. "They say that the Shudras have no right to Pranava, and none has except the Brahmanas. Moreover, the Westerners are Mlechchhas [barbarians], not even Shudras!" During the remainder of this conversation, an account of which is given in volume five of the Complete Works, Swamiji explained to Mr. Sinha's satisfaction that true Brahmanahood was not a matter of birth but of a sattvika, or spiritual, quality of mind. "My disciples are all Brahmanas!" he declared.)

When we consider how many thousands of people Swamiji came in contact with throughout his tours in the Western world, the number of men and women he initiated does not seem large. But when we consider the number of Westerners known to have been his disciples, then it seems large indeed, for we know of only a handful. The fact seems to be that there was a certain distinction, which Swamiji himself made, between his disciples. In Sister Christine's memoirs one reads: "Unless the desire for discipleship was definitely expressed, and unless he was convinced that the aspirant was ready for the step, he left the personal life of those around him untouched. . . . When speaking of some of those whom we did not know, he was careful to explain, `He is not a disciple; he is a friend.' It was an altogether different relation. Friends might have obvious faults and prejudices. Friends might have a narrow outlook, might be quite conventional, but it was not for him to interfere. It seemed as if even an opinion where it touched the lives of others, was an unpardonable intrusion upon their privacy. But once having accepted him as their guru, all that was changed. He felt responsible. He deliberately attacked foibles, prejudices, valuations-in fact everything that went to make up the personal self.

According to Mrs. Hansbrough, Swamiji's daily routine in San Francisco was more or less the same as it had been in Pasadena. After lunch, on days when there had been a morning class and were to be no engagements in the early afternoon, he would take a nap for about two hours. (He always slept quietly, she said.) Later in the day he would perhaps hold an advanced class or give an interview or two. Or, if there were no afternoon class and no visitors, he would read, or study French, or talk casually to Mrs. Hansbrough and Mrs. Aspinall. "He was a great one to think out loud when he was at home," Mrs. Hansbrough said. "At least, one had the feeling that this is what he was doing. He liked a listener, however. He would ask us many questions about our family lives, and then would tell us about family life in India. . . . He always talked in a low tone of voice. Even in private conversation he was always a calm man---except [as she well knew] when he was giving someone a dressing down.

Sometimes he spoke of Sri Ramakrishna. "He always spoke of his Master as `Atmaram,' " she said."Whenever there were difficulties he would say, `Well, if things do not go well, we will wake up Atmaram."' Or sometimes he would speak intimately of himself and his mission.

On a sheet of foolscap paper Mrs.Hansbrough later wrote out for the Allans the following deeply personal words, which surely Swamiji had spoken at a time when no strangers were present:_x000d_ "The Mother dropped me in a strange world," he said, "among a strange people who do not understand me and whom I do not understand. But the longer I stay here I have come to feel that some of the people in the West whom I have met belong to me, and they also are here to serve with me in the work assigned to me.

"There is none with whom I can speak of the Beloved, not one. You do not know, you cannot imagine the loneliness of it. This is how I felt in Chicago._x000d_ "I am here to serve the Mother and to give the message which I came into the world to give."_x000d_ "He talked a great deal of the Divine Mother," Mrs. Hansbrough wrote on the same sheet of paper. "He said that She was the receptacle of every germ of religion, and that She was here as a form, but was not tied to that form. She had her desires, he said, but they were related to people. She would reach for people, though they did not know it, and gradually She would draw them to Her."

Again, " This world is a huge sore,' he said, `and we are wounded with that deceitful soreness, that untrueness of the world's disease. We have that in ourselves and will not admit that we have it. We live to gloss it over and throw flowers over the wound to hide it from our eyes.'

In a somewhat disconnected and enigmatic passage of her "Reminiscences," Mrs. Hansbrough recalled that Swamiji "said many seemingly contradictory things." "For example, he said of his lectures and work, `I have been saying these things before, over and over again.' In the Turk Street flat one day he said, `There is no Vivekananda,' and again, `Do not ask these questions while you have this Maya mixed up with your understanding.' "

Swamiji's talks in the privacy of the flat were not all in the nature of thinking out loud, nor were they always calm. Mrs. Hansbrough, whom he still called Madam Moses, would sometimes argue with him, would persistently question something about the way he was handling the work, would perhaps handle it herself in a way not to his liking, or would fail to attend to some detail. His work was not an ordinary work to be done in an ordinary way; nor, to his mind, was any work an ordinary work. Even in so small a matter as cleaning a bathtub, he demanded a certain elegance, one might say a certain reverence, of action.

"He often scolded me," Mrs. Hansbrough related. "He was constantly finding fault and sometimes he could be very rough. `Mother brings me fools to work with,' he would say; or, `I have to associate with fools!' This was his favorite word in his vocabulary of scolding."_x000d_ Swamiji; however, varied his choice of words to suit the circumstances. "Going up the steps of a hall in San Francisco before one of his lectures," Mrs. Hansbrough recounted, "he asked me about something I had told him I was going to do. I had neglected to take care of it, and told him I had intended to do it, but had not. `Your intentions are good,' he remarked, `but how like devils you act!' _x000d_ Mrs. Hansbrough stood up to Swamiji's vocabulary of scolding with a staunchness and lack of complexity that he; must have liked. "You have no reverence!" he once said to her but this, in respect to himself, was as he wanted it. "Swamiji had such simplicity about him," she later told Miss Ansell, "he put one right on a level with himself." "Somehow," she recalled of his scoldings, "I never felt hurt. I would get angry and sometimes would walk out of the room, but usually I was able to hear him through. . . . Once in the Turk Street flat I was dusting after breakfast in the dining room. As I worked, Swamiji was talking about something. I don't remember now what it was or what answer I gave. But suddenly he exclaimed, `You are a silly, brainless fool, that's what you are!' He continued to scold me heatedly until Mrs. Aspinall appeared, and he stopped. I said to him, `Never mind Mrs. Aspinall, Swami; if you're not through, just keep right on!'

"There was the other side, however," she continued. "Though he himself said, `I never apologize,' he would nevertheless come after the scolding was over to find me, and he would say in a voice so gentle and with a manner so cool that butter and honey wouldn't melt in his mouth, `What are you doing?' It was clear that he was seeking to make amends for the scolding. He used to say, `The people I love most, I scold most,' and I remember thinking he was making a poor kind of apology!

"And he could give credit, too, when he chose," she added. "On the evening we left the Turk Street flat to go to the Alameda Home of Truth, he was helping me on with my overcoat and remarked, `Well, you have worked like a demon!' "And this, of course, Swamiji had appreciated all along.

Mrs. Hansbrough, in turn, knew that however hard Swamiji may have scolded, he was grace itself. "He would not have held onto me as he did if he had not been so gracious," she once said, recalling how she had often felt she must return to Pasadena to be with her small daughter Dorothy. "One day while we were in San Francisco," she related, "I finally decided that I was going back to Los Angeles. I chose the day and had all my bags packed, ready to leave for the train. All at once I heard a voice say, `You can't go. You might just as well not try.' And for some reason I became completely exhausted-so exhausted that I had to lie down on the floor. I thought of getting some food, but I couldn't move. And I couldn't bear to look at the suitcases. So I had to make up my mind not to go. Swamiji had not said anything to me," she added. "I don't know whose was the voice I heard speaking to me."

In regard to Mrs. Hansbrough's attachment to her little daughter, however, Swamiji did indeed say something to her. Years later she wrote down his words for the Allans: "You think you love your child. That is not love at all! It is the same as a hen has for her chicken; she will scratch all day to get food for her chicks, but let a strange chick come in and what will she do?"

Aside from being Swamiji's secretary and, with Mrs. Aspinall, his housekeeper, Mrs. Hansbrough was his press agent, treasurer, bookkeeper, and banker. From flat to lecture hall and back, and also, it would seem, at various other times, she would carry a "black case"-possibly a small suitcase-which held "my notebooks, advertising matter, the collection or ticket money, and other things connected with the work." Mrs. Hansbrough and her black case became a familiar, and according to one report, not always a fond sight to the members of Swamiji's audiences. "One woman," she said, "told someone that she did not like Swami Vivekananda because of the thin little woman who was always running along behind him with the black case." That was a pity; but an even greater disaster once nearly occurred in connection with the black case. "One day Swamiji and I stopped in a market to do some shopping," Mrs. Hansbrough recounted, "and when we had gone out I discovered I had left the case. I said, `Just a minute, I forgot something,' and rushed back. There was the case, sitting on the counter. It had three hundred dollars in it!"

That three hundred dollars, which Mrs. Hansbrough was perhaps taking to the bank to have changed, as was her wont, into twenty-dollar gold pieces, would have represented more than the admission to one lecture-series plus the collection from a Sunday lecture-more than a long week's work ¬possibly more than two weeks' work. Swamiji charged nothing for his Turk Street classes, for there he gave spiritual instruction directly. He put his pay lectures in a different category. "Once after we had moved to the Turk Street flat," Mrs. Hansbrough related, "a woman said something to Swamiji about his teaching religion. He looked at her and replied, `Madam, I am not teaching religion. I am selling my brain for money to help my people. If you get some benefit from it, that is good; but I am not teaching religion!"' Another time at the flat, Mrs. Hansbrough recalled, Mrs. Aspinall told him that he really should not charge admission to his lectures. "God will provide," she said. "Madam," Swamiji answered, "God has made a mess of everything. I am trying to straighten it out."

Swamiji did not spend all his time in San Francisco in either his flat or a lecture hall. "When he had no class in the morning we would often go out during the day," Mrs. Hansbrough related. "He liked to go to market with me, and sometimes we would go out for lunch or go for a ride in Golden Gate Park, which he enjoyed." They went on other excursions as well, and generally would travel by cable car, by which one could reach almost any point in the city. "Swamiji would always sit very straight on the streetcar," Mrs. Hansbrough recalled, "with his hands one on top of the other on the walking stick he carried. He would often sing on the car in a low tone of voice. To visualize Swamiji on a San Fransisco streetcar, one should remember that more likely than not he would be wearing his black coat with its frog fastenings, a clerical collar, and a round black hat. One should also remember that in those days the streetcars had two long, varnished wood benches that, facing each other, ran the length of the enclosed part of the car. The cable cars were (and still are) also equipped with outside benches that faced the street, providing an unobstructed view of the passing scene. Sitting beside Swamiji would be Mrs. Hansbrough wearing in the fashion of the day a ground¬sweeping skirt, fitted jacket, and a perky, perhaps feather ¬adorned, hat. At times she would have firmly in hand the black case.

Because of the ease with which Swamiji could get lost in a city or lose all track of time, he seldom went out alone. Another reason he liked company was that his dark skin and unusual dress were apt to excite violent expressions of hostility. Swamiji's early experience in America had taught him that the American was likely to attack anyone different from himself, anyone obviously a stranger. Particularly was this true of European immigrants of the lower classes, those who not long before had themselves been strangers in the land. But he had also found that no matter how rough and tough an American might be in defending himself and his country against a man in strange garb, he would never show disrespect to a woman.

"Swamiji spoke more than once of the indignities to which he had been subjected in the West," Mrs. Hansbrough once recalled. "It was because of the constant possibility of some unpleasant occurrence that he always preferred to have a woman escort. He said that people would respect the women where they would not respect him. Once in San Francisco when I was taking him somewhere into a rather rough part of the city on a call which escapes my memory now, some rowdies made slighting remarks about him which he overheard. He said nothing, but after we had gone he remarked, `If you had not been along, they would have thrown things at me.' "He mentioned that well-known incident in Chicago when a man came up and pulled his robe and asked him why he wore his nightgown in public. He was deeply offended by such rudeness on the part of the American public. `A man could walk the length of India in any kind of dress and such a thing would not happen to him,' he said."

One of the places to which Swamiji may have sometimes gone alone, however, was Chinatown. He particularly liked to visit this quarter of the city, which in 1900 occupied some twelve square blocks on the lower eastern slope of Nob Hill and which was in many respects more genuinely Chinese than it is today. Architecturally, it is true, Chinatown consisted for the most part of old two- and three- story brick buildings, dismal, unlovely, and as Western as the Boston traders who had built them earlier in the century. But the Chinese who had taken them over had managed to put their own colorful and graceful stamp on this basic drabness. They painted the window-frames and doorjambs bright yellow, orange, crimson, or blue. They filled the balconies and fire escapes with porcelain pots of China lilies; they hung huge, balloonlike lanterns everywhere, bright¬ened the walls with bold red or black ideographs and made works of art out of their displays of goods. The streets were lively bazaars of sidewalk shops and stalls. There were markets with exotic vegetables, shark fins, ancient eggs encased in mud, birds' nests for soup, live, squawking fowl; there were sedately elegant shops where one could find exquisite works of art, and dignified chemist shops with tiered rows of red-lacquer boxes filled with medicinal herbs, dried sea horses, or powdered deer horn. Indoors or out, artisans jewelers, lantern-makers, chair¬caners, chandlers-plied their crafts in full view. There were many richly decorated temples or, as they were called, joss houses, where various minor gods and goddesses were worshiped and prayed to. There was a theater where stylized dramas went on interminably, and luxurious restaurants that served quantities of excellent and extraordinary food.

Despite the Exclusion Act of 1882, the district was still thickly populated, and this mostly by men from Canton who had come to America during the sixties and seventies, thinking to make their fortunes as laborers on the railroads. Men from a higher class had also come; but none, high or low, dreamed of adopting Western clothes or ways. Their blue denim or black alpaca trousers and jackets or their more elegant plum ¬colored coats of quilted silk, their broad-brimmed black felt fedoras or round skull caps from which would hang a long queue (or under which one would be coiled), added as much distinctive charm to the district as did their composed pursuit of ancient customs. The women whom one saw in the streets were mostly sturdy Cantonese serving women, wearing trousers and jackets; but now and then, supported by an attendant, a delicately formed lady of the upper classes-the wife perhaps of some rich merchant-would teeter along on tiny, deformed feet, carrying a sandalwood fan and wearing a gown of pastel silk, richly embroidered with a garden of color.

To the Western ear, eye and mind, the district was a world apart, and it was a world predominantly sinister-a world of eerie heathen rites, opium dens, traffic in slave girls, tong wars and assassinations, and imminent bubonic plague. This image of Chinatown was pleasurably tingling to the late-nine¬teenth-century spine, and most pleasurably tingling of all was the firm belief in the existence of a labyrinthine underground city, said to extend seven or eight levels below the street and to contain in its shadowy dens and twisting tunnels corresponding depths of evil.

The aura of mystery and lurking peril that made Chinatown a place of fascination for the average San Franciscan would, of course, have had no meaning for Swamiji. The Chinatown he saw and liked to visit was undoubtedly the Chinatown of a cheerful and reserved people, whose age-old traditions, customs, and modes of life would have deeply interested him, as did everything connected with mankind's endlessly inventive cultures. The Chinese were, in turn, fascinated by Swamiji. The import of his majestic walk and luminous glance would not have been lost on this ancient people: they no doubt recognized him as a holy man from India-a land revered by the Chinese for well over a thousand years for its religion and its sages. "They would just flock after him," Mrs. Hansbrough recounted, " `shaking themselves by the hand,' as the saying went, to express their pleasure at his presence."

Nothing remains of Chinatown as Swamiji saw it; it was totally destroyed by the disaster of 1906. Only the walls and granite steps of Old St. Mary's Church, which stood, as it stands today, at the south portal of the district, are substantially the same as they were-which is more than can be said of almost any other downtown San Francisco building that Swamiji might have passed by or entered.

According to Mrs. Hansbrough's account another place Swamiji liked to visit was Golden Gate Park-the great park of San Francisco whose thousand or so acres form a rectangle three-quarters of a mile wide and over four miles long, running from the shore of the Pacific to approximately the geographical center of the city. In 1900 the Park had by no means achieved its present forest-like luxury of growth. Its innumerable trees and bushes were still relatively short and slender, and from almost every point there were unobstructed views. But the Park's basic plan had long since been laid out, and many of its now famous features were in existence, such as the curving roads and bridle paths, the lakes, meadows, glades, and dells, the vast lawns and gardens where one was free to stroll, picnic, or nap. Also existing were the Japanese Tea Garden [not as large or ornamental as it is today), the great glass Conservatory (with its display of rare tropical plants and immense pond lilies), the sunken Music Concourse (still without its monumental bandstand), a museum (an Egyptian-style structure, since torn down), and a fairly large number of bronze statues of famous men. On the other hand, many landmarks that today seem primordial were not yet there: the big Dutch windmills near the ocean had not been built, the Aquarium did not exist, and the Academy of Sciences Museum was located far away on Market Street.

We have few details from Mrs. Hansbrough about Swamiji's drives and walks in Golden Gate Park and can only conjecture that he visited such places as the Japanese Tea Garden or the Conservatory; we know for certain, however, that he walked on the island of Strawberry Hill. One day when Mr. Aspinall had taken Swamiji, Mrs. Hansbrough, and Mrs. Aspinall for a carriage drive in the Park, they went to Stow Lake, where one could go boating or feed the swans and wild, quacking ducks. Swamiji and Mrs. Hansbrough strolled by the lake-which Mrs. Hansbrough mistook for "a rather swift stream"-and crossed a bridge to the island, where after a time they became lost "When we had left the bridge some distance behind," she related, "and tried to discover some means of recrossing the stream, Swamiji had realized we were on an island, and without thinking to use just that word he tried to indicate the fact to me as he looked about for a means of crossing. Finally when she saw that I had neither caught his meaning nor perceived that the land was an island he remarked, `Well, ',Madam, I am glad I haven't your brain!' "

Swamiji also visited the Cliff House, going by means of a street car pulled along by a little steam engine through empty sand and dunes. The Cliff House, then a world-famous restaurant housed in a grandly spired, towered, and gabled seven story wooden chateau, sat on the very edge of a cliff at the farthermost end of the city. From here, as one ate lunch, one could have a wide view of the ocean and a close view of seal Rocks, where the sea lions, then a populous and rambunc¬tious herd, would bark, roar, and lumber about their spray¬drenched domain.

Whether or not Swamiji liked the Cliff House, the sea lions, or the ocean with its long, open beach and charging, white¬-maned breakers, Mrs. Hansbrough does not say. No doubt he did; for he saw, certainly, exquisite and profound beauty in all nature. But, as he had remarked in Pasadena, man and his works interested him far more than "sights." Indeed, he seems to have cared little for places as such: no place was his home, and none was alien to him. "He seemed like a bird in flight," Mrs. Hansbrough later said. "He would stop here and there, with no great concern for liking or disliking the places where he stopped."

In addition to going out during the day when there was no morning or afternoon class, Swamiji went out for dinner on the rare evenings-generally Saturdays and Sundays-when there was no lecture. These dinings-out were not invariably successful. Once a Mr. Charles P. Neilson, a locally well-known artist who lived in Alameda, invited Swamiji and Mrs. Hansbrough (and perhaps the Aspinalls), to have dinner with him at one of the excellent restaurants in Chinatown. He had ordered the dinner in advance, and after his guests had been seated, the cook himself came from the kitchen to greet them. But no sooner did Swamiji see this cook than he knew he could not partake of any of the specially prepared delicacies. There was no help for it. "Of course we went home," Mrs. Hansbrough related. "Mr. Neilson was very disappointed because he knew the Chinese who owned the restaurant; but Swamiji later explained that it was because of the character of the cook that he was unable to eat the food.

"One other such occurrence took place when we had fried shrimps in a French restaurant," Mrs. Hansbrough continued. "When we got home Swamiji vomited his dinner. I said fried shrimps were always hard to digest and probably these were not good, but he insisted that it was the bad character of the cook that was responsible. `I'm getting like the Old Man,' he said. `I shall have to live in a glass cage.' " By "the Old Man" Swamiji meant, of course, Sri Ramakrishna, who, as is well known, could not eat or drink anything that had come in contact with an impure person. His body would simply reject it.

Happily, Mr. Neilson had other opportunities to entertain Swamiji; according to Mrs. Hansbrough, he was his host at dinner several times and once took him to an exhibition of his paintings at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (then a branch of the University of California) that was housed in that mammoth, many-roofed mansion atop Nob Hill where the Mark Hopkins Hotel now stands. It was perhaps on this occasion that Swamiji, surveying a painting of some corpulent monks, remarked jokingly (as Mr. Rhodehamel tells it), "Spiritual men are fat. See how fat I am!

Although Swamiji had dinner on occasion with Mr. Neilson and very likely with others, he lived as quietly as possible in San Francisco. We do not hear of receptions or social gatherings of any sort being held in his honor. If he was entertained formally at dinner or supper, this, as far as is known, was always in connection with his lectures, and it would appear from our present knowledge that he entirely escaped public and social lionization.

From the above it is evident that up to and including April 1 Swamiji had succeeded in resisting Dr. Hiller's pleas that he be his guest. But sometime thereafter, probably during the first part of the month, his heart gave in to the old German and, as the following account from Mrs. French's memoirs shows, he went to stay at his home:

During one part of his sojourn in San Francisco [Mrs. French wrote], Vivekananda was guest in the home of Dr. Hiller, possessor of a very valuable library including many rare Oriental works. The Doctor's wife long an invalid, her sister (Mrs. N-) gave up her own home to assume management of this household. A third sister, living in Alameda, I knew very well._x000d_ Boston born, pride rankled as she related to me: Oh. yes, she had met Swami Vivekananda, had heard him speak; he was wonderful, etc.; but he did not have much respect for women! It seems she had crossed the Bay to visit her sisters and on entering discovered Swami Vivek-ananda squatting on the floor in front of a bookcase, poring over a book. She spoke to him; but he did not rise to greet her, or even answer her.

Undoubtedly she misapprehended the intense abstrac¬tion, which his hosts had recognized and safeguarded. It was Dr. Hiller's concern for Swami Vivekananda's health under the heavy strain of constant lectures and classes that prompted him to take Swamiji away to his cabin in the Mt. Shasta region for a few days of complete rest.

Not only did Dr. Hiller welcome Vivekananda to his home, but Mrs. N-(professedly an atheist) afterward told me that she loved Swamiji as a son; she took care of his room, his clothing, rendered other little services with her own hands, unwilling to commit these humble tasks to a servant.

Burned out, following the earthquake in 1906, Dr. Hiller soon retired from medical practice and devoted himself to study. The last one of this family quartette, who thus familiarly met Swamiji in 1900, had passed on before the close of the second decade.

The impression given here by Mrs. French is that Swamiji spent many days in the San Francisco home of Dr. Hiller. It is doubtful, however, that this was the case. Mrs. Hansbrough makes no mention of this episode, which would lead one to believe that it was of short duration; in fact, Mrs. French is the only memoirist to mention Dr. Hiller at all. One finds, however, that both Mrs. Hansbrough and Mr. Allan note very briefly that Swamiji spent two days and one night in San Francisco with a Dr. Miller. Since we encounter this Dr. Miller nowhere else and know neither his first name nor his address, it is impossible to determine at present whether he was a separate person existing in his own right or whether he was Dr. Hiller mispronounced.

Serving to further tangle up Swamiji's doctor friends, Mrs. Hansbrough mentioned that he visited the home of a doctor whose name she did not give at all. He may have been a third doctor; then again, he may have been Dr. Hiller or Dr. Miller or both. In any case, Swamiji's stay with him could not have lasted for more than twenty-four hours. Almost at once he sent out a call for help to Mrs. Hansbrough, as was his wont when caught in desperate straits.

"Invariably he either phoned or wrote me whenever he wanted to leave any place," she related. "For instance, in San Francisco he was the guest of some physician and had ex¬pected to stay for some time. But the very day he went to the doctor's home he either phoned or wrote me-I forget now which he did-to come for him. When I arrived, his hostess came in, introduced herself, and then withdrew again. Then Swamiji explained: `The trouble is, she is not a lady: she doesn't know what to do with me!' "

In view of Swamiji's quiet, almost secluded life, one of the last people one would expect him to meet and come to know quite well was Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, the wife of one of the enormously wealthy "Big Four" of the Central Pacific Railroad, who reigned in a palatial Nob Hill mansion. "Someone introduced Mrs. Collis P. Huntington to him," Mrs. Hansbrough remarked offhandedly during the course of her "Reminiscences," "and she gave him six thousand dollars for Sister Nivedita's Girls' School."

The last part of this statement is not altogether correct. At the beginning of May, Swamiji wrote to Sister Nivedita, who was then in Chicago, "Mrs. C. P. Huntington, a very, very wealthy lady, who has helped me, came; wants to see and help you. She will be in New York by the first of June. Do not go away without seeing her. If I cannot come early enough, I will send you an introduction to her."" Sister Nivedita did indeed meet Mrs. Huntington in New York-but of this more in a later chapter.

As was the case everywhere, Swamiji met people of all kinds in San Francisco, and, as was the case always, he was equally friendly to all. "He seemed to like all people," Mrs. Hansbrough once said. "He was most compassionate; it seemed as if he never saw distinctions between people-almost as if he didn't see the difference between a duck and a man!" "He talked, acted and moved in such a way," she said at another time, "that it was clear he always saw everything imbued with God." Even from a lower point of view Swamiji taught compassion for all. How often did he not say: "We do not progress from error to truth, but from truth to truth"? "Thus we must see," he told Mr. Allan, "that none can be blamed for what they are doing, because they are, at this time, doing the best they can. If a child has an open razor don't try to take it from him, but give him a red apple or a brilliant toy, and he will drop the razor. But he who puts his hand in the fire will be burned; we learn only from experience.

One might go so far as to say that if Swamiji had any preference for one person over another, he preferred the sinner who was learning through experience to the self righteous man who never stepped beyond the bounds of convention. "As far as we could understand," the Allans once said, "if there was anything Swamiji did not like it was a `goody-goody' person. He had no use for such people. He would say, `Do something even if it is bad; but do something! Everyone says, "Be good, be good." Why should I be good?'

According to Mrs. Hansbrough, who had, of course, heard Swamiji lecture in both southern and northern California, he "showed greater power in San Francisco than in Los Angeles. Perhaps this was because his health, for a time at least, was better in northern California, his mind more free from anxiety; perhaps it was because his audiences in San Francisco were more sophisticated and more responsive than those in southern California (in Pasadena his listeners had not wanted to her philosophy; in San Francisco they asked for it, and they asked for a class in practical instruction as well) ; perhaps it was for reasons too subtle to be so easily explained. Mrs. Hansbrough, in any event, told the facts as she saw them. "He seemed to get greater satisfaction from his work here," she said. "He thought that he got a better response here than he did in Los Angeles. And he was much more jolly in San Francisco. He could see the end of his work after he had come here.

After a spiritual feast, a worship, or religious discourse, it is, I have been told, the custom in Bengal (as it is the custom in the West after some cultural event-the opera or theater, for instance) to serve a delicious repast, "to sweeten the mouth," as the saying goes. After food for the spirit, comes food for the body. Perhaps thinking of this, perhaps also wanting to express his gratitude for those who had helped him, Swamiji would sometimes treat a few members of his audience; they, in turn, would sometimes treat him. But this was not only a matter of custom; there was practical necessity as well.

"Swamiji never ate dinner before a lecture," Mrs. Hans¬brough related; "he said it slowed his thinking. Thus he was ready for supper when his lecture was over. "Usually," Miss Ansell writes, " . . . some of the devotees would take him either to Mr. Louis Juhl's restaurant in the section of San Francisco known as Little Italy or to some uptown cafe, depending on whether his mood and the weather called for hot food or ice-cream. Mr. Louis Martin Juhl, an elderly German, whom we shall meet again later on, was a member of the California Street Home of Truth and a follower of Miss Lydia Bell. His restaurant stood at 533 Broadway (across the street from the County Jail, a notable landmark of the era), where Columbus Avenue (then Montgomery Avenue) diago¬nally intersects the block between Kearny Street and Grant Avenue (then Dupont Street). This location, on the south edge of North Beach (a district lying in the valley between Tele¬graph Hill and Russian Hill) and in the center of the Latin Quarter, was then a convivial meeting point of many national-ities--Indian, Spanish, Mexican, Basque, German, and some Chinese. When Swamiji and his friends went to Mr. Juhl's restaurant from the Red Men's Building they could take the little Powell Street cable car that rattled and changed over Nob Hill to land in the Latin Quarter not far from where they wanted to go; or, as an alternate and perhaps more sensible route, they could take a cable car at Stockton and Geary streets, and, after winding awhile through the dimly lit and silent business district, get off at Dupont and Broadway, just a few steps from the restaurant.

Since Swamiji sometimes preferred ice cream to a hot supper, one might think that the San Francisco nights were sometimes balmy in March or early April. It was not so; the evenings were never warm, and more often than not a chill, penetrating north wind would blow and the temperature would fall to the low fifties. Mr. Rhodehamel recounts that after a lecture during which Swamiji had spoken of the various types of hells in different religions (the Hindu hells far outclassing Dante's Inferno), he emerged from the overheated hall into the bitter wind and, gathering his coat tightly about him, said vehemently, "Well, if this isn't hell, I don't know what is! But Swamiji liked ice cream; thus, whatever the weather, he would sometimes choose to go to an ice cream parlor rather than to Mr. Juhl's. "One evening after a lecture," Miss Ansell relates in her memoirs (and I quote here from her first or original version), "a few of us, with Swami, stopped on the way home to have refreshments. It was very cold, but we ate ice cream. We had to wait for one of the party to attend to something, I have forgotten what, but I remember Swami's admonition, `Don't be long, or you will find only a lump of chocolate ice cream when you return!

The Allans used to tell of an incident that took place at an ice cream parlor on Powell Street, which Mrs. Allan once described as "an old established store." (This was the parlor, probably, that Swamiji most often went to after his evening lectures, for it would have been directly on his way home, but research has failed to turn up its name and exact location. The only "old established" ice cream parlor that stands today on Powell Street was not there until long after 1900.) Both Mrs. Allan and Ida Ansell have related the following story in their published reminiscences, but the most authentic, complete, and plausible version seems to be one found among the un-published papers of Mr. Allan. Indeed, like the story of the ship-launching; this was his story, and I shall give it here as he told it:_x000d_ "One evening after the lecture," he wrote, "Swamiji invited tight of us [not ten or twelve] to have ice cream with him, and we were a merry throng that walked with him down Powell Street. In that party there was-in addition to Swamiji-Mrs. Hansbrough, Mrs. Emily Aspinall, Mrs. Eloise Roorbach, George Roorbach, Eric F. A. Julihn, Miss Fanny Gould, Viraja [Mrs. Allan], Ajoy [Mr. Allan]. As we were walking along, Swamiji seemed to one lady [Mrs. Allan] to become very tall, while the rest of us appeared as pigmies. When we got to the parlor we all ordered "Ice Cream," but the waitress brought nine ice-cream sodas, which none of us liked, least of all Swamiji. When the error was pointed out the waitress said she would change the sodas for ice cream and was on her way to do so when the manager of the store, who had observed what had taken place, stopped her and began to speak crossly to her. Noticing this, Swamiji at once called out: `Don't scold that poor girl! If you do I will eat all those ice-cream sodas myself!,

The story does not go on to show us Swamiji blissfully eating the ice cream he had ordered. But we know from Mrs. Allan that on one such occasion he turned to her and said, "Food for the gods, madam, food for the gods.

Ida Ansell's second transcripts of these three lectures have been published in volumes one, four, and one, respectively, of the Complete Works.* (I should remind the reader that in quoting from the edited and published forms of Miss Ansell's second transcripts, I have omitted the ellipsis marks and brackets. The dots and brackets given here are my own.) As published, Swamiji's first lecture in this series on "Mind Culture" has been entitled simply "Breathing" and has been dated, in accordance with Miss Ansell's transcript, March 28, rather than March 29 as in the above announcement. The third lecture has been entitled "Practical Religion: Breathing and Meditation." More important to notice than dates and titles, however, was Swamiji's reason for giving this second series on raja yoga. He himself explained it._x000d_ _x000d_ * If Frank Rhodehamel took notes of this series, the originals are today not available to us; if they have been published they have not been identified.

"In the last course," he said near the opening of "The Science of Breathing," "we have been studying the method of philosophy, trying to bring everything under control, once more asserting the freedom of the soul by customs of its own, conquering the body without [the body's] help." (The last part of this sentence following "freedom of the soul" has been omitted from the Complete Works.) "It is very difficult," he continued. "This way is not for everybody. The embodied mind tries it with great trouble. As pointed out in the Complete Works, these last three sentences were a free translation from the Bhagavad-Gita (I2:5). But while in this chapter, "The Way of Divine Love," the Gita recommends devotion to the Personal God as an easier path to the same goal, Swamiji recommended in this particular lecture the way of raja yoga-the impersonal, methodical means of strengthening, the mind and will, of drawing forth unlimited power from within oneself.

"A little physical help will make the mind comfortable," he went on. "What would be more rational than to have the mind itself accomplish the thing? But it cannot. The physical help is necessary for most of us. The system of raja yoga is to utilize these physical helps, to make use of the powers and forces in the body to produce certain mental states, to make the mind stronger and stronger until it regains its lost empire. By sheer force of will if anyone can attain to that, so much the better. But most of us cannot, so we will use physical means, and help the will on its way.

Toward the end of this lecture Swamiji explained further the utility of the first stages of raja yoga. "Slowly and gradually you get into the chambers of the mind and gradually get control of the mind. It is a long, hard struggle. It must not be taken up as something curious. When one wants to do something, he has a plan. Raja yoga proposes no faith, no belief, no God. If you believe in two thousand gods, you can try that. Why not? But in raja yoga it is impersonal principles.

Swamiji kept the goal of meditation in clear view of his audience: "It is meditation that brings us nearer to truth than anything else. . . . This is what I mean by meditation-the soul trying to stand upon itself. That state must surely be the health¬iest state of the soul, when it is thinking of itself, residing in its own glory. "Word worshippers!" he scoffed. " `God is spirit.' God is spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and faith. Where does the spirit reside? On a tree? On a cloud? What do you mean by God being ours? You are the spirit. That is the first fundamental belief you must never give up. I am the spiritual being. It is there. All this skill of Yoga and this system of meditation and everything is just to find Him there.

"But is it practical?" was a question Swamiji was often asked in regard to Vedanta. The question had two meanings: first, was the ideal possible to attain, and second, would its attain¬ment make for a better world. In the third lecture in the series on "Mind Culture" `Practical Religion: Breathing and Meditation" (as I shall call it)-he answered both questions.

"Can man attain to the power of mastery of the body? Yoga says it is practical. Supposing it is not-suppose there are doubts in your mind. You have got to try it. There is no other way out. That took care of the first question. As for the second, Swamiji devoted much more time to its answer.

"Why are people struggling?" he asked in "Practical Religion," and answered, "To lessen the misery [of the world]. [But whence comes this misery?) All unhappiness is caused by our not having mastery over the body. We are all putting the cart before the horse. Take the system of work, for instance. We are trying to do good by comforting the poor. We do not get to the cause which created the misery. It is like taking a bucket to empty out the ocean, and more water comes all the time. The Yogi sees that this is nonsense. . . . The Yogi says, religion is practical if you know first why misery exists. All the misery in the world is in the senses. . . . You may do good works all thetime. All the same, you will be the slave of your senses, you will be miserable and unhappy. . . . You call yourselves men! You stand up and build hospitals. You are fools! . . . The conquest of internal nature is the only way out, according to Yoga. . . . It is much easier to do anything upon the external plane, but the greatest conqueror in the world finds himself a mere child when he tries to control his own mind. This is the world he has to conquer-the greater and more difficult world to conquer.

Perhaps nothing could have more dumbfounded many of Swamiji's listeners, or have seemed more Orientally pessimistic and other-worldly to them, than his concepts of practical religion. Let us take a little time here to recall what was going on at the end of the last century and the beginning of the present one in regard to this subject.

After the Civil War ( 1861-65), a number of people, largely thinkers, writers, reformers, and clergymen of the well-to-do middle classes, had become aware, first in England, then in America, that the Industrial Revolution was not turning out to be an unmitigated blessing. "At the beginning of this marvelous era," Henry George wrote in 1877 in the introductory chapter of what was to become his famous and influential book Progress and Poverty, "it was natural to expect, and it was expected, that labor-saving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the conditions of the laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing wealth would make real poverty a thing of the past. . . . Now, however, we are coming into collision with facts which there can be no mistaking. These unmistakable facts were, among other things, the grinding, hopeless poverty and debilitating toil of millions of men, women, and children, the unspeakable urban slums, rampant vice, unchecked municipal corruption, frequent industrial depressions, and along with all this (in what many felt to be a causal relationship), the increasing splendor and power of the capitalistic rich.

Henry George was not alone in taking note of such facts. In the eighties and nineties many men-Edward Bellamy, Lester Ward, Richard Ely, Henry C. Adams, Jacob Riis, to mention only a few-wrote books and articles, gave lectures, and orga¬nized societies to protest the glaring and proliferating evils of the age and to propose various solutions that ranged from gradual reform to radical and immediate socialism. Simultane¬ously, the liberal churches entered the field with a solution called the Social Gospel or, as a movement, Socialized Christianity or Christian Socialism. This, too, varied widely in its degrees of radicalism; indeed, except for its frequent references to God, it was not on the whole different in its outlooks, methods, or goal from the secular movements. The general idea behind all these movements-both those within the churches and those outside them-was that man must take a hand in the natural laws of Progress by exerting political control over his social and economic environment. Few people questioned the inevitability of Progress itself; the question that agitated the late -nineteenth-century mind was how God and nature intended Progress to proceed.

Generally speaking, these various reform movements were in direct opposition to the theories of the social evolutionists. According to Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, and their popularizer, the personable, learned and highly persuasive John Fiske, the natural laws of evolution, such as competitive struggle and the survival of the fittest, through which God was unfolding His great Purpose, should not on any account be interfered with, harsh though they might sometimes seem, but be allowed to bring about the ultimate and glorious. Goal for which the Creator had set them in motion, namely, the perfect human society. "Enthusiastic social architects," William Graham Sumner wrote, only postpone all our chances of real improvement. "Society needs first of all to be freed from these meddlers that is, to be let alone.

But the "meddlers"-the new Christian Socialists and the Social Gospelers-saw God's plan in a different light-a light which disclosed that the ethical teachings of Christianity were a necessary part of evolution. According to one of the more liberal papers read at the Parliament of Religions, Christianity was "the further evolution. It is an evolution re-enforced with all the moral and spiritual forces that have entered the world and cleaved to humanity through Jesus Christ. . . . Organic evolution is but the earlier chapter of Christianity. .. . Christianity is but the later evolution. The Reverend Francis G. Peabody, a Unitarian and a Harvard professor, spoke for Socialized Christianity when he assured the Parliament that "a completed social order was Christ's highest dream." The Kingdom of God on earth, he said, was the one thing to be desired-"that perfected world of humanity in which, as in a perfect body, each part should be sound and whole, and thus the body be complete. Properly understood, the Social Gospelers contended, Christ's teachings meant just one thing: the Kingdom of God on Earth must be brought about and could be brought about only through the moral regeneration, or the Christianization, of the political, economic, industrial, and social environment. To accomplish this wholesale regeneration was the essential, indeed the only, function and responsibility of religion. "Do you want to commence building a Heaven on earth?" Mrs. B. Fay Mills had cried in her Oakland sermon "Heaven and How to Escape from It." "You can begin at once. There is a work for you right at hand. You can find in the political, educational, social and industrial conditions that surround us a great field in which to begin.

During his first visit to the West Swamiji had had a firsthand acquaintance with the views of Socialized Christianity. Unitarian and Congregational ministers, at whose churches he sometimes spoke, were generally of Social Gospel persuasion. The Free Religious Association, to which a number of his friends belonged and before which he once spoke, was a staunch upholder of social reform. Many of the members of the Brooklyn Ethical Association, with whom he was well acquainted, were swinging toward the Social Gospel or its secular equivalent (though its former president, Swamiji's great friend Dr. Lewis G. Janes, was an ardent Spencerian). Again, the forward looking Twentieth Century Club in Boston, where Swamiji spoke in 1896, was dedicated to Progress and Reform.

Although the Social Gospel had its beginnings largely on the East Coast among the liberals and intellectuals, its spirit soon spread throughout the country. Many preachers and reformers took up the theme of collective moral regeneration. The Reverend B. Fay Mills, for instance, switched from evangelism to liberalism, from saving individual souls to saving society. The ordinarily reserved and scholarly Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, pastor of the staid Madison Square Presbyterian Church and a friend, or at least an acquaintance, of Swamiji's, suddenly sought to eliminate vice from New York and indeed managed, almost single-handedly, to dethrone for a time the powerful and infamous administration of Tammany Hall. On quite a different level, the young and rambunctious Vrooman Brothers, who were also acquaintances of Swamiji's, railed interminably against corrupt Baltimore politics, calling their campaign "Dynamic Religion."

Perhaps the most well-known and influential popularizer of the Social Gospel was the Reverend Charles M. Sheldon, a Congregational pastor of Topeka, Kansas, one of whose books, a novel entitled In His Steps: What Would Christ Do?, first published in 1896, is said to have sold more copies throughout the world (some twenty-two million by 1937) than any other book written in America. What would happen, Mr. Sheldon asked, if a whole congregation should follow "in His steps" for a year, each person conducting his business or profession as Christ would conduct it? The concept had tremendous appeal. In February of 1900, Mr. Sheldon conceived the idea of editing a newspaper "as Christ would edit it," and the following month he actually assumed for a week the editorship of the Topeka Capital, filling its columns with denunciations of, among other things, trusts and the liquor traffic.

Partly in consonance with this spirit of reform, a veritable flood of good works poured over the United States. "By the end of the century the voluntary gifts by both rich and poor totalled hundreds of millions of dollars annually. But by no means all of this humanitarianism stemmed from the liberal churches or was directly inspired by the Social Gospel. Much of it was the result of a sort of counter gospel, known as the Gospel of Wealth. As Andrew Carnegie had put it in his essay of that title: "Thus is the problem of rich and poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free, the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee of the poor. . . . Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth. To a great many Americans this true gospel concerning wealth seemed an excellent means of tempering the stern laws of evolution without recklessly tampering with them. And who, after all, could be better trustees of the poor than the rich? Americans had been brought up to believe firmly that it was the wise, virtuous, upright man who became the rich man. "In the long, run, it is only to the man of morality that wealth comes " Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts could solemnly proclaim from the pulpit. "Godliness is in league with riches. And the extremely popular Reverend Henry Ward Beecher had earlier declared to his wealthy congregation in Brooklyn, "Generally thc proposition is true that where you find the most religion there you find the most worldly prosperity.

One side was good-working to maintain the status quo; the other, very much outnumbered, side was good working to change it Both efforts (which overlapped here and there and reflected many shades of opinion, for nothing was clear-cut in that confused age) were dedicated to material Progress, or, as I was more generally spoken of, the realization of the Kingdon of God on Earth. Both were politically oriented and both were called practical religion. Indeed, by 1900 organized human itarianism, in all its uses and motivations, constituted the very core of religion itself.

"What is the practical religion you are thinking of?" Swamiji cried. "Lord help us! `Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' That means street-cleaning, hospital building, and all that? Good works, when you do them with a pure mind. . . . Serve as worship of the Lord Himself in the poor, the miserable, the weak. That done, the result is secondary. That sort of work, done without any thought of gain, benefits the soul. And even of such is the kingdom of heaven.

In that age of heady optimism when Americans stood, so they thought, on the threshold of the Millennium, Swamiji thundered, "Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing. But to get the higher. . . . This is practical religion. What else? Cleaning streets and building hospitals? Their value consists only in this renunciation. And there is no end to renunciation. . . . Where God is, there is no other. Where the world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. . . . This is what I have understood from Christianity and the life of the Teacher. Is not that Buddhism? Is not that Hinduism? Is not that Mohammedanism? Is not that the teaching of all the great sages and teachers?

From one point of view, one might say that the heart of Swamiji's message lay in his definition of practical religion, indeed of religion itself, and nowhere was that definition more clearly, more sharply enunciated than in "The Practice of Religion," which he delivered in Alameda on April 18 and from which the above quotations come. Although this lecture takes us some three weeks beyond our story, it was, in a sense, a continuation of his San Francisco lecture "Practical Religion: Breathing and Meditation," and is thus not out of place here. It was his answer, not to bigotry, not to narrowness, but to something equally ruinous to spirituality: the secularization of religion in the name of religion itself, which was rapidly stifling what little mysticism (to use that word in its true sense) Christianity then possessed.

"We hear all around us about practical religion," Swamiji said in Alameda, "and analyzing all that, we find that it can be brought down to one conception-charity to our fellow beings. Is that all of religion? Every day we hear in this country about practical Christianity-that a man has done some good to his fellow beings. Is that all? What is the goal of life? Is this world the goal of life? Nothing more? Are we to be just what we are, nothing more? The highest dream of many religions is the world. The vast majority of people are dreaming of the time when there will be no more disease, sickness, poverty, or misery of any kind. They will have a good time all around. Practical religion, therefore, simply means: `Clean the street! Make it nice!' We see how all enjoy it. Is enjoyment the goal of life?... What a mistake then to become a man! Vain have been my years-hundreds of years--of struggle only to become the man of sense enjoyments.

"Mark therefore," he continued, "the ordinary theory of practical religion, what it leads to. Charity is great, but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism. It is not religion. It is not better than atheism-a little less. You Christians, have you found nothing else in the Bible than working for fellow creatures, building hospitals? Here stands a shopkeeper and says how Jesus would have kept the shop! Jesus would neither have kept a saloon, nor a shop, nor have edited a newspaper. That sort of practical religion is good, not bad, but it is just kindergarten religion. It leads nowhere.

Nor was that sort of practical religion practical even for its own ends. "Look at the sum total of good and evil in this world," Swamiji pointed out. "Has it changed? Ages have passed, and practical religion has worked for ages. The world thought that each time the problem would be solved. It is always the same problem. At best it changes its form. . . . It is like old rheumatism: Drive it from one place, it goes to another. . . . This universe, nature, or whatever you call it, must be limited; it can never be unlimited. The Absolute, to become nature, must be limited by time, space, and causation. The energy at our disposal is limited. You can spend it in one place, losing it in another. The sum total is always the same. Wher¬ever there is a wave in one place, there is a hollow in another. If one nation becomes rich, others become poor. Good balances evil. . . . Some weep and others laugh. The latter will weep in their turn and the others laugh. What can we do? We know we cannot do anything. Which of us do anything because we want to do good? How few! They can be counted on the fingers. The rest of us also do good, but because we are forced to do so. We cannot stop. Onward we go, knocked about from place to place. What can we do? The world will be the same world, the earth the same.

In those days when Progress was an almost sacred concept, as though it were some sort of divine attribute-the way in which God behaved-Swamiji's logical denial that good will steadily increase, evil as steadily decrease, must have seemed almost blasphemous. Even those closest to him were disturbed by his apparent pessimism. Did he not know, as one who walked with God should know, that all things were working together for good? " `God's in His heaven, all's right with the world,' " Mary Hale had reminded him during his first visit to America and had reinforced this thought with another: " `Through the ages one increasing purpose runs, and the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.' I cannot see that, holding that to be true," she had continued, "our efforts to ameliorate conditions would be paralyzed-I think they would be strengthened."45 In 1900 Tennyson's lines were no doubt still on the lips of many of Swamiji's friends. "Through the ages one purpose runs sure," he mocked in a letter to Mary Hale, written possibly in January* "And that will be finished with the destruction of this earth and the sun! And worlds are always in progress indeed! And nobody as yet developed enough in any one of the infinite worlds to communicate with us! Bosh! They are born, show the same phenomena and die the same death! Increasing purpose! Babies! Live in the land of dreams, you babies!_x000d_ _x000d_ * This letter, written from Los Angeles, could not be dated June 17, 1900, as in the Complete Works, 8:524. January 17, 1900, seems a more likely date.

Should we not try to do good then? "Certainly," Swamiji would often reply. "Do good for good's sake!" In India he perhaps spoke more strongly on this point than elsewhere, for in India the futility of material progress as an end in itself was all too well understood. "What good will come of any kind of work in this evanescent world?" Swamiji's disciple Chakravarty had typically asked him. "My boy," Swamiji had answered, "when death is inevitable, is it not better to die like heroes than as stocks and stones? And what is the use of living a day or two more in this transitory world? It is better to wear out than to rust out-specially for the sake of doing the least good to others." Further-to the same disciple, who on another occasion had asked the same question: "[To do good to others] is necessary for one's own good. We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others. . . . Thus it is that doing good to others constitutes a way, a means of revealing one's own Self or Atman.

Actually, there was no cry of the human heart that Swamiji did not hear and long to comfort; there was nothing about man he ignored, no aspect of his welfare that did not claim his concern. "You know," he once said to Mrs. Hansbrough in San Francisco, "I may have to be born again." The reason he gave was not that he would have to come back with Sri Ramakrishna, as he had said at other times; rather, the will to return would be his own as well as his Master's and of a piece with his own vastness of heart. "I may have to be born again," he said, "because I have fallen in love with man."49 But he knew, knew with a knowledge as profound as his compassion, that there was only one remedy for the anguish of man: until men become spiritual, until their acts and thoughts are impregnated with the spiritual ideal, and until this ideal is made real through spiritual experience there can be no heaven on earth in any sense of the term. Indeed, to Swamiji's mind the very last way to ameliorate conditions in the West was to socialize, secularize Christianity. Thus, where "doing good" was piously undertaken for material ends and where both these means and these ends were fast becoming the whole of religion, he pointed out again and again the basic fallacy, if not the hypocrisy, behind this particular "gospel."

What, then, was practical religion? "Practical religion," Swamiji replied, "is identifying myself with my Self. Stop this wrong identification [with matter]! How far are you advanced in that? You may have built two thousand hospitals, built fifty thousand roads, and yet what of that, if you have not realised that you are the spirit? . . . You must see God. The spirit must be realised, and that is practical religion. It is not what Christ preached that you call practical religion. . . . The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. He is there. He is the soul of all souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom. . . . That is real worship. Realise yourself. That is all there is to do. Know yourself as you are-infinite spirit. That is practical religion. Everything else is impractical, for everything else will vanish. That alone will never vanish. It is eternal. Hospitals will tumble down. Railroad givers [builders?] will all die. This earth will be blown to pieces, suns wiped out. The soul endureth for ever. . . . Therefore to realise the spirit as spirit is practical religion. Everything else is good so far as it leads to this one grand idea. That realisation is to be attained by renunciation, by meditation-renunciation of all the senses, cutting the knots, the chains that bind us down to matter. `I do not want to get material life, do not want the sense-life, but something higher.' That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.

Americans were quick to reply to Swamiji: Well, now, if this kind of practical religion leads to conditions as they are in India-the all-around degradation, the famines, the plagues (there were, in fact, severe plague and famine in India in February and March of 1900), the hopeless poverty, the inequalities and injustices of the caste system, the misery of child widows . . . (the list was long), then how can this kind of practical religion be practical? The question, with its implications of Western superiority, always annoyed Swamiji. He could have replied, and sometimes did, that the condition of India was due in part to British colonialism (as readers of Henry George would have known), in part to the complex and inevitable rises and falls of the historical process, in part to the fact that the pure Vedanta of the Upanishads had never been given to the Hindu masses. But more beneficial for Americans to hear from Swamiji's lips was a rebuke of their own bottomless conceit. In the lecture "Meditation" one finds a paragraph in which he strongly chided the people of the West for their assumption of superiority in all matters under the sun. In the published version the quotation marks within this paragraph would seem to be wrongly placed, thus robbing Swamiji's reproach of its sting:

"I am asked," he said, " `Why do you Indian people not conquer these things [through yoga] ?' Here the quotation marks should, one thinks, be closed. The remainder of this paragraph does not appear to be a continuation of the query, but Swamiji's scathing reply to it, not all of which, one suspects, Miss Ansell took down, or took down correctly. Her first, unedited, transcript reads at this point: "You all the time claim to be the superior people of everybody else. You practice it and do it quicker than anybody else. Indian people are not fit themselves for such great work! You are fitter. Carry it out. If you are the great people, you ought to have the great system. You will have to [dispense with] the gods. Let them go to sleep. You take up the great philosophy. You are mere babies, as superstitious as the rest of the world, and all your claims are failures. If you have the claims, stand up and be bold, and all the heaven that ever existed is yours. The musk deer has the fragrance inside and he does not know where the fragrance is. Then after days and days he finds it in him. All these gods [and] demons [are] within [you]. You must find out, by the powers of reason, education and culture, that it is all in yourself. No more gods and superstitions. You want to be rational, to be Yogis, really spiritual. Everything [in the West] is material. What more material than God sitting on a throne? Yet you look down upon the poor man who is worshipping the image. You are not better. And you gold worshippers, what are you? The image worshipper worships his God, something he can see. But you do not even do that. You [neither] worship the spirit nor something that you can understand.

Thus (though more clearly, it is certain,) did Swamiji press home his point. Yet, needless to say, everything in the West (over eighty years later) is still material. In spite of all its disillusionment with progress (no longer spelled with a capital P), in spite of all its gropings for a religion profound enough, universal enough, and "man-making" enough to meet the unprecedented demands of the present age-a religion that would spring from and, in turn, serve to draw forth the enormous, indeed infinite, power and goodness of man-the Western world has yet to assimilate Swamiji's message. But, as we have said before, he spoke not for a day but for an age, an age that was then only in its infancy. "You may not like what I am saying," he told a San Francisco audience when speaking of the monistic concept of God and man. "You may curse me today, but tomorrow you will bless me.

But after Swamiji had completed his San Francisco lecture series on raja yoga in the first week of April (he had given the last lecture of this series—“Practical Religion: Breathing and Meditation"--on April 5) he seems to have been satisfied with the number of gold coins he had earned. "My work here is done," he wrote to Sister Nivedita on April 6. "I will come in fifteen days to Chicago if Mary [Hale] is there.

"Is Vedanta the Future Religion?" would have been Swamiji's last lecture in San Francisco. A day or two later he moved from the Turk Street flat to the town of Alameda in the East Bay, and if nothing untoward had in the meanwhile taken place, it is probable that his public work in San Francisco would have thus come to a close. After the first week in March things had gone well. "I am getting all the work I can do and more," he had written to Mrs. Bull on April 1. "I will make my passage, anyhow. Though they cannot pay me much, yet they pay some, and by constant work I will make enough to pay my way and have a few hundred in the pocket anyhow.

Swamiji would have learned of his financial standing through consultation with Mrs. Hansbrough. Although he himself tried for a time to keep track of his earnings and expenses in San Francisco (there is a little notebook preserved at Belur Math which bears brief testimony to this effort), he rarely remembered to write down the figures. Mrs. Hansbrough was the acting accountant, which is not to say a great deal, for, as I have learned from her daughter, keeping accounts was not among her skills; yet her method was direct. As mentioned earlier, she used to change the admission or collection money into twenty-dollar gold pieces, which in those days circulated freely. These-each the size of a silver dollar-she stowed in a teapot. Later, when the teapot was half full, she appropriated other small pots around the flat, until at length she had "several pots half full of twenty-dollar gold pieces." From time to time, Swamiji would ask her to figure out how much he had earned to date. "So I would get my notebook and pencil," she related, "and would bring the pots and dump the coins out on the table. After counting the money Swamiji would find that there was not enough, so he would decide to open another series of lectures.

As it happened, however, Swamiji's work in San Francisco was not yet done. The very next day (April 7) he wrote to Mrs. Bull, "You see, I will have to stay here more than I want and work." The explanation of his overnight change of plan is contained in an unpublished passage that preceded this sentence. "Today's letter from the Math," he had written, "tells me that the Raja of Khetri has stopped the stipend¬ well, Mother's will. The Raja has been very good for years. All blessings on him and his. I am calm and quiet more than ever," he continued. "I am on my own feet working-hard and with pleasure. To work I have the right-Mother knows the rest. So you see I will have to stay here. . . .

That the Raja of Khetri had "stopped the stipend" was not a matter of small importance, and since it has bearing on our present story, something of the relationship between Swamiji and his good friend and disciple Maharaja Ajit Singh of Khetri can be told here. In his book Swami Vivekananda-A Forgotten Chapter of His Life, Mr. Beni Shanker Sharma has pointed out the important role the Maharaja played in Swamiji's life, concluding that it was he who had paid his passage to America in 1893 (certainly he had borne a substantial share of the cost) ; it was he, also, who had helped in the support of his mother and two younger brothers, sending them one hundred rupees a month (then about $32.50) and thus lifting a great burden from Swamiji's mind. The Maharaja had also contributed to Swamiji's own living expenses, forwarding him money from time to time (more than half of which Swamiji would, in turn, regularly give to the Belur Math). Further, it was the Maharaja to whom Swamiji felt free to turn when matters connected with his personal finances became desperate.

Writing to Mrs. Bull in July or August of 1895, he had spoken of his esteem for and gratitude to the Maharaja:_x000d_ _x000d_ In India Raja Ajit Singh 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. . . . The raja is taking very good care of my family. I have no fear on that account even if I die it will go on all the same. So you need not trouble yourself about them anymore.

Along with other previously unpublished material, Mr. Sharma has included in his book two letters written by Swamiji toward the end of 1898, asking Maharaja Ajit Singh for help for both his family and himself. In the first of these letters, dated November 22, 1898, he wrote in part:_x000d_ _x000d_ . . . I appeal to your Highness's word, generosity and friendship. I have one great sin rankling always in my breast and that is to do a service to the world I have sadly neglected my mother. Again since my second brother [Mahendranath] has gone away she has become awfully worn out with grief. Now my last desire is to make [seva] and serve my mother for some years at least. I want to live with my mother and get my younger brother married to prevent extinction of the family. This will certainly smoothen my last days as well as that of my mother. She lives now in a hovel. I want to build a little decent home for her and make some provision for the youngest as there is very little hope of his being a good earning man. Is it too much for a royal descendent of Ramchandra to do for one he loves and calls his friend? I do not know whom-else to appeal to. The money I got from Europe was for the `work' and every penny almost has been given over to that work. Nor can I go beg of others for help for my own self. About my own family affairs I have exposed myself to your Highness and none else shall know of it. I am tired heart-sick and dying-do, I pray, this last great work of kindness to me.

The Maharaja evidently agreed to help Swamiji in whatever way he could, and in his second letter, dated December 1, 1898, Swamiji went into greater detail: The lowest possible estimate of building a little home in Calcutta is at least ten thousand rupees. With that it is barely possible to buy or build a house in some out-of-the-¬way quarter of the town a little house fit for 4 or 5 persons to live in.

As for the expenses of living, the 100 Rs. a month your generosity is supplying my mother is enough for her. If another 100 Rs. a month be added to it for my life-time for my expenses which unfortunately this illness has increased, and which I hope will not be for long a source of trouble to you, as I expect only to live a few years at best; I will be perfectly happy. One thing more will I beg of you-if possible the 100 Rs. A month for my mother be made permanent. So that even after my death it may regularly reach her, or even if your Highness ever gets reasons to stop your love and kindness for me, my poor old mother may be provided, remembering the love you once had for a poor Sadhu.

On receipt of this letter the Maharaja at once sent Swamiji five hundred rupees (about $160), but whether or not he was able to give ten thousand rupees toward the purchase of a small house is not clear. All we know at present is that it was neces¬sary for Swamiji to borrow five thousand rupees from the Belur Math in order to buy a house from his aunt and that later, when this house was not conveyed to him, he thought of building a cottage for his mother on the Ganges. This later plan, which one reads of in one or two of his letters written in March of 1900, was short-lived; in May, he wrote to Mrs. Bull in an unpublished letter, which I shall give in full later on, "I have long given up the idea of a little house on the Ganges-as I have not the money. . . . Kindly write to Sarada-nanda from yourself to give up the little house plan. Thus, all in all, it would appear that the Maharaja of Khetri had not been able to help in regard to a house for Swamiji's mother. Very possibly, however, he began to send Swamiji a monthly stipend in 1899, and possibly he assured him that the monthly allowance to his mother would be permanent. If he gave his word to that effect, he would by all means have meant to keep it. "A Rajput would rather die than break his promise," Swamiji once wrote; and Maharaja Ajit Singh was a Rajput. Unfortunately, however, in January of 1901 he died from a fall, and his only heir, a son born in 1893, died at the age of eleven in 1904. After that, the kingdom of Khetri passed into the hands of another family, whose members had no particular interest in Swamiji or his mother. Thus it does not seem likely that the sum of Rs. 100 was paid to the latter from the treasury of the Khetri estate until her death in 1911. But neither is it likely that the allowance was cancelled during the lifetime of Ajit Singh.

Presumably, then, the stipend that he abruptly stopped in April (or March) of 1900 was not the monthly allowance to Swamiji's mother but the money he had been sending to Swamiji through the Belur Math for his personal expenses¬ only a small part of which, as we have seen, Swamiji kept for himself. Why the Maharaja stopped sending this money is not known at the present time; perhaps he felt that Swamiji had many rich American friends who could look after him in their own country. But whatever the cause may have been, the result was that Swamiji had to give an extra series of evening lectures in San Francisco, coming from Alameda once or twice to do so.

"Don't disturb yourself a bit," he wrote in his letter of April 7 to Mrs. Bull. "I will work all my problems out. I am on my own feet. I begin to see the light. My success would have led me astray, and I would have lost the reality that I am a Sannyasin-that is why Mother is giving me this experience. And he of course had nothing but blessings for his old friend and disciple, the Maharaja.

Swamiji's definition of the Personal God-a definition he had often given in effect during his first visit to the West¬reconciled in a few words the philosophy of monism and the path of devotion. "You, as I see you," he explained in "Worshipper and Worshipped," "are as much of your absolute nature as has been limited and perceived by me. I have limited you in order to see you through the power of my eyes, my senses. As much of you as my eyes can see, I see. As much of you as my mind can grasp is what I know to be you, and nothing more. In the same way, I am reading the Absolute, the Impersonal, and see Him as Personal. As long as we have body and mind, we always see this triune being: God, nature and soul. There must always be the three in one, inseparable. . . . The universal soul has become embodied. My soul itself is a part of God. He is the eye of our eyes, the life of our life, the mind of our mind, the soul of our soul. This is the highest ideal of the Personal God we can have. If you are not a dualist, but a monist, you can still have the Personal God. There is the One without a second. That One wanted to love Himself. Therefore out of that One, He made many. It is the big Me, the real Me, that the little me is worshipping. Thus in all systems you can have the Personal God.

And thus Swamiji was by no means contradicting himself when on Sunday afternoon he cried, "What is the God of Vedanta? He is principle, not person. You and I are all Personal Gods! And on the following evening extolled the worship of the Personal God as a means to the spiritual goal. But this God was not the remote, magisterial monarch as conceived by most, if not all, dualistic religions. "He is the Infinite, the Ever-Pure, the Ever-Free. He is no judge. God cannot be a judge. He does not sit upon a throne and judge between the good and the wicked. He is no magistrate, no general, nor master. Infinitely merciful, infinitely loving is the Personal God." Again, the Personal God was a God for the strong, a God comprehensible, in fact, only from the standpoint of the spirit. He was the God of all that is apparently evil as well as all that is apparently good. "Face the terrible," Swamiji cried in "Worshipper and Worshipped." "Tear aside the mask and find the same God. . . . There is none else. . . . He is the good; He is the evil; He is the beautiful; He is the terrible; He is life; and He is death.

There was a call here for as much manliness as in Swamiji's lectures on jnana yoga or raja yoga, for as much same-sighted¬ness, as much selflessness, and as much freedom from the senses. Further, the way of love was as much a requirement of the present age as the way of reason. "A bird cannot fly with only one wing," he said at the outset of "Worshipper and Worshipped." "What we want is to see the man who is harmo¬niously developed-great in heart, great in mind, great in deed. We want the man whose heart feels intensely the miseries and sorrows of the world. And we want the man who not only can feel but can find the meaning of things, who delves deeply into the heart of nature and understanding. We want the man who will not even stop there, but who wants to work out the feeling and meaning by actual deeds. Such a combination of head, heart, and hand is what we want. There are many teachers in this world, but you will find that most of them are one-sided. . . . Why not have the giant who is equally active, equally knowing, and equally loving? Is it impossible? Certainly not. This is the man of the future, of whom there are only a few at present. The number of such will increase until the whole world is humanized.

In addition to giving lectures in downtown San Francisco, Swamiji spoke at least once during his stay in the city at the Pine Street Home of Truth and once at the California Street Home of Truth. Unfortunately, we have very little certain information regarding either of these talks, except that the second took place before April 8 and was preceded by a dinner at which Ida Ansell (and surely also Miss Bell, Mrs. Hansbrough, and Mrs. Aspinall) was present. In her early unpublished memoirs Miss Ansell recalled this occasion in a passage which I shall quote in full:

One night, Swamiji was to give a lecture in the Home of Truth and first he had dinner with us. Mrs. [C. W.] Steele [a resident member of the California Street Home] who prepared the dinner, had for dessert some very fine dates, which Swamiji much enjoyed. That night he delivered one of his most forceful lectures. He "threw many bombs" as he expressed it, and told us plainly and frankly just what he thought of us. It was startling, thought-provoking and uplifting. Later, when Mrs. Steele expressed appreciation of the lecture, he replied, "It was your dates, Madam." It was at this dinner also that he surprised us with the remark mentioned in "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?' -"I will say grace to you, Madam; you have done all the work.

("When I work, I say grace to myself," Swamiji had continued in that lecture. "Praise be unto me that I worked hard and acquired what I have! All the time you work hard and bless somebody else because you are superstitious, you are afraid. No more of these superstitions bred through thousands of years! It takes a little work to be spiritual.

In her later memoirs, as published in the Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda, Miss Ansell wrote that in his lecture at the California Street Home of Truth Swamiji rebuked American doctors for advising against the practice of chastity. But, as I mentioned earlier, I have taken as correct Mr. Rhodehamel's memory that this rebuke was contained in "Mind: Its Powers and Possibilities," which Swamiji gave in Washington Hall. It is possible, of course, that he spoke twice in exactly the same vein; but of this we cannot be certain.

In any case, the Home of Truth lecture was, as Miss Ansell recalled, a forceful one, and as we learn from Mrs. Allan, it was well attended. The Home occupied a house on the south side of California Street between Laguna and Buchanan-a fashionable block, graced in those days by more than one large stone mansion. Although the Home of Truth house, which is no longer standing, was considerably less than a mansion, it was spacious enough to accommodate, with some squeezing, an audience of well over a hundred people. According to Mrs. Allan, who was present that evening, two rooms on the lower floor had been thrown open for the occasion. "But so many people came," she related, "that they were crowded into the hallway and even up to the top of the stairs." Mrs. Allan was among those who sat on the topmost stair, and there, after the lecture, she was spied by Swamiji. "He came into the hall to greet the people," she said, "and seeing me, he called out, `Madam! What are you doing up there among the gods?'

Swamiji's work in San Francisco was virtually finished; he now had enough money, even without the Maharaja of Khetri's stipend, and was ready to rest. "Now, as you say," he wrote to Miss MacLeod on April 10, "I am going to send [to New York] all the money I have made here. I could do it today but I am waiting to make it a thousand. I expect to make a thousand in Frisco by the end of this week. I will buy a draft on New York and send it or ask the bank the best way to do it. . . . I think I should rest now, although I can have $100 a week average in this city all along."86 Two days later he attained his financial goal. "I have made over a thousand dollars in San Francisco which I am going to send to Mr. Leggett this week in a New York draft in his name," he wrote in an unpublished portion of a letter to Mrs. Bull dated April 12. "I will still have money left to travel-so you need not feel the least anxiety about me. As about my health, it is so so. Some days good, others bad. . . . The pressure of work and irregularity of food and sleep was tremendous in San Francisco-yet I love it well after all. It is my nature to be at my best when left alone.

It is known, however-primarily through a reference in Mr. Allan's notebooks-that he gave "a short series of lectures on Bhakti Yoga" in the smaller hall in the Red Men's Building known as Social Hall. What Mr. Allan meant by "short series" is hard to understand. Almost all of Swamiji's lecture series consisted of three lectures, and fewer than three could not, one thinks, be called a series. But however that may be, this "series" was not announced in the newspapers, nor mentioned later; it was no doubt semipublic and attended by a relatively small audience. The first, and possibly the only, lecture of the "series," certainly the only one of which we know the date, was given on the evening of Saturday, April 14, 1900-a memorable date in the history of the Vedanta movement in America, for it was immediately after the lecture that the Vedanta Society of San Francisco was founded.

Almost the same circumstances which gave birth to Buddhism in India surrounded the rise of Krishna. Not only this, the events of that day we find happening in our own times._x000d_ There is a certain ideal. At the same time there must always be a large majority of the human race who cannot come up to the ideal, not even intellectually. ....The strong ones carry it out and many times have no sympathy for the weak. The weak to the strong are only beggars. The strong ones march ahead. ...Of course, we see at once that the highest position to take is to be sympathetic and helpful to those who are weak. But then, in many cases the philosopher bars the way to our being sympathetic. If we go by the theory that the whole of this infinite life has to be determined by the few years' existence here and now, ...then it is very hopeless for us, ...and we have no time to look back upon those who are weak. But if these are not the conditions--if the world is only one of the many schools through which we have to pass, if the eternal life is to be moulded and fashioned and guided by the eternal law, and eternal law, eternal chances await everyone--then we need not be in a hurry. We have time to sympathise, to look around, stretch out a helping hand to the weak and bring them up. With Buddhism we have two words in Sanskrit: one is translated religion, the other, a sect. It is the most curious fact that the disciples and descendants of Krishna have no name for their religion [although] foreigners call it Hinduism or Brahmanism. There is one religion, and there are many sects. The moment you give it a name, individualise it and separate it from the rest, it is a sect, no more a religion. A sect [proclaims] its own truth and declares that there is no truth anywhere else. Religion believes that there has been, and still is, one religion in the world. There never were two religions. It is the same religion [presenting] different aspects in different places. The task is to conceive the proper understanding of the goal and scope of humanity._x000d_ This was the great work of Krishna: to clear our eyes and make us look with broader vision upon humanity in its march upward and onward. His was the first heart that was large enough to see truth in all, his the first lips that uttered beautiful words for each and all._x000d_ This Krishna preceded Buddha by some thousand years. …A great many people do not believe that he ever existed. Some believe that [the worship of Krishna grew out of] the old sun worship. There seem to be several Krishnas: one was mentioned in the Upanishads, another was king, another a general. All have been lumped into one Krishna. It does not matter much. The fact is, some individual comes who is unique in spirituality. Then all sorts of legends are invented around him. But, all the Bibles and stories which come to be cast upon this one person have to be recast in [the mould of] his character. All the stories of the New Testament have to be modelled upon the accepted life [and] character of Christ. In all of the Indian stories about Buddha the one central note of that whole life is kept up--sacrifice for others. …In Krishna we find…two ideas [stand] supreme in his message: The first is the harmony of different ideas; the second is non-attachment. A man can attain to perfection, the highest goal, sitting on a throne, commanding armies, working out big plans for nations. In fact, Krishna's great sermon was preached on the battlefield._x000d_ Krishna saw plainly through the vanity of all the mummeries, mockeries, and ceremonials of the old priests; and yet he saw some good in them._x000d_ If you are a strong man, very good! But do not curse others who are not strong enough for you. …Everyone says, "Woe unto you people!!" Who says, "Woe unto me that I cannot help you?" The people are doing all right to the best of their ability and means and knowledge. Woe unto me that I cannot lift them to where I am!_x000d_ So the ceremonials, worship of gods, and myths, are all right, Krishna says. …Why? Because they all lead to the same goal. Ceremonies, books, and forms--all these are links in the chain. Get hold! That is the one thing. If you are sincere and have really got hold of one link, do not let go; the rest is bound to come. [But people] do not get hold. They spend the time quarrelling and determining what they should get hold of, and do not get hold of anything. …We are always after truth, but never want to get it. We simply want the pleasure to go about and ask. We have a lot of energy and spend it that way. That is why Krishna says: Get hold of any one of these chains that are stretched out from the common centre. No one step is greater than another. …Blame no view of religion so far as it is sincere. Hold on to one of these links, and it will pull you to the centre. Your heart itself will teach all the rest. The teacher within will teach all the creeds, all the philosophies. …Krishna talks of himself as God, as Christ does. He sees the Deity in himself. And he says, "None can go a day out of my path. All have to come to me. Whosoever wants to worship in whatsoever form, I give him faith in that form, and through that I meet him. …" His heart is all for the masses._x000d_ Independent, Krishna stands out. The very boldness of it frightens us. We depend upon everything--…upon a few good words, upon circumstances. When the soul wants to depend upon nothing, not even upon life, that is the height of philosophy, the height of manhood. Worship leads to the same goal. Krishna lays great stress upon worship. Worship God!_x000d_ Various sorts of worship we see in this world. The sick man is very worshipful to God. …There is the man who loses his fortune; he also prays very much, to get money. The highest worship is that of the man who loves God for God's sake. [The question may be asked:] "Why should there be so much sorrow if there is a God?" The worshipper replies: "…There is misery in the world; [but] because of that I do not cease to love God. I do not worship Him to take away my [misery]. I love Him because He is love itself." The other [types of worship] are lower-grade; but Krishna has no condemnation for anything. It is better to do something than to stand still. The man who begins to worship God will grow by degrees and begin to love God for love's sake. …_x000d_ How to attain purity living this life? Shall we all go to the forest caves? What good would it do? If the mind is not under control, it is no use living in a cave because the same mind will bring all disturbances there. We will find twenty devils in the cave because all the devils are in the mind. If the mind is under control, we can have the cave anywhere, wherever we are._x000d_ It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world--that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves! …Whenever we are tempted to say that the world is going to the dogs, we ought to analyse ourselves, and we shall find that we have lost the faculty of seeing things as they are._x000d_ Work day and night! "Behold, I am the Lord of the Universe. I have no duty. Every duty is bondage. But I work for work's sake. If I ceased to work for a minute, [there would be chaos]." So do thou work, without any idea of duty. …_x000d_ This world is a play. You are His playmates. Go on and work, without any sorrow, without any misery.See His play in the slums, in the saloons! Work to lift people! Not that they are vile or degraded; Krishna does not say that._x000d_ Do you know why so little good work is done? My lady goes to the slum. …She gives a few ducats and says, "My poor men, take that and be happy!" …Or my fine woman, walking through the street, sees a poor fellow and throws him five cents. Think of the blasphemy of it! Blessed are we that the Lord has given us his teaching in your own Testament. Jesus says, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." It is blasphemy to think that you can help anyone. First root out this idea of helping, and then go to worship. God's children are your Master's children. [And children are but different forms of the father.] You are His servant. …Serve the living God! God comes to you in the blind, in the halt, in the poor, in the weak, in the diabolical. What a glorious chance for you to worship! The moment you think you are "helping", you undo the whole thing and degrade yourself. Knowing this, work. "What follows?" you say. You do not get that heartbreak, that awful misery. …Then work is no more slavery. It becomes a play, and joy itself. …Work! Be unattached! That is the whole secret. If you get attached, you become miserable. …_x000d_ With everything we do in life we identify ourselves. Here is a man who says harsh words to me. I feel anger coming on me. In a few seconds anger and I are one, and then comes misery. Attach yourselves to the Lord and to nothing else, because everything else is unreal. Attachment to the unreal will bring misery. There is only one Existence that is real, only one Life in which there is neither object nor [subject]. …_x000d_ But unattached love will not hurt you. Do anything--marry, have children. …Do anything you like--nothing will hurt you. Do nothing with the idea of "mine". Duty for duty's sake; work for work's sake. What is that to you? You stand aside._x000d_ When we come to that non-attachment, then we can understand the marvellous mystery of the universe; how it is intense activity and vibration, and at the same time intensest peace and calm; how it is work every moment and rest every moment. That is the mystery of the universe--the impersonal and personal in one, the infinite and finite in one. Then we shall find the secret. "He who finds in the midst of intense activity the greatest rest, and in the midst of the greatest rest intense activity, he has become a Yogi." He alone is a real worker, none else. We do a little work and break ourselves. Why? We become attached to that work. If we do not become attached, side by side with it we have infinite rest. …_x000d_ How hard it is to arrive at this sort of non-attachment! Therefore Krishna shows us the lower ways and methods. The easiest way for everyone is to do [his or her] work and not take the results. It is our desire that binds us. If we take the results of actions, whether good or evil, we will have to bear them. But if we work not for ourselves, but all for the glory of the Lord, the results will take care of themselves. "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof." The soldier works for no results. He does his duty. If defeat comes, it belongs to the general, not to the soldier. We do our duty for love's sake--love for the general, love for the Lord. …_x000d_ If you are strong, take up the Vedanta philosophy and be independent. If you cannot do that, worship God; if not, worship some image. If you lack strength even to do that, do some good works without the idea of gain. Offer everything you have unto the service of the Lord. Fight on! "Leaves and water and one flower--whosoever lays anything on my altar, I receive it with equal delights." If you cannot do anything, not a single good work, then take refuge [in the Lord]. "The Lord resides within the heart of the being, making them turn upon His wheel. Do thou with all thy soul and heart take refuge in Him. …" _x000d_ These are some of the general ideas that Krishna preached on this idea of love [in the Gita]. There are [in] other great books, sermons on love--as with Buddha, as with Jesus. …_x000d_ A few words about the life of Krishna. There is a great deal of similarity between the lives of Jesus and Krishna. A discussion is going on as to which borrowed of the other. There was the tyrannical king in both places. Both were born in a manger. The parents were bound in both cases. Both were saved by angels. In both cases all the boys born that year were killed. The childhood is the same. …Again, in the end, both were killed. Krishna was killed by accident; he took the man who killed him to heaven. Christ was killed, and blessed the robber and took him to heaven._x000d_ There are a great many similarities in the teaching of the New Testament and the Gita. The human thought goes the same way. …I will find you the answer in the words of Krishna himself: "Whenever virtue subsides and irreligion prevails, I come down. Again and again I come. Therefore, whenever thou seest a great soul struggling to uplift mankind, know that I am come, and worship. …" _x000d_ At the same time, if he comes as Jesus or as Buddha, why is there so much schism? The preachings must be followed! A Hindu devotee would say: It is God himself who became Christ and Krishna and Buddha and all these [great teachers]. A Hindu philosopher would say: These are the great souls; they are already free. And though free, they refuse to accept their liberation while the whole world is suffering. They come again and again, take a human embodiment and help mankind. They know from their childhood what they are and what they come for. …They do not come through bondage like we do. …They come out of their own free will, and cannot help having tremendous spiritual power. We cannot resist it. The vast mass of mankind is dragged into the whirlpool of spirituality, and the vibration goes on and on because one of these [great souls] gives a push. So it continues until all mankind is liberated and the play of this planet is finished._x000d_ Glory unto the great souls whose lives we have been studying! They are the living gods of the world. They are the persons whom we ought to worship. If He comes to me, I can only recognise Him if He takes a human form. He is everywhere, but do we see Him? We can only see Him if He takes the limitation of man. …If men and … animals are manifestations of God, these teachers of mankind are leaders, are Gurus. Therefore, salutations unto you, whose footstool is worshipped by angels! Salutations unto you leaders of the human race! Salutations unto you great teachers! You leaders have our salutations for ever and ever!

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 1st April, 1900_x000d_ Dear Dhira Mata {Mrs. Bull},_x000d_ Your kind note came this morning. I am so happy to learn that all the New York friends are being cured by Mrs. Milton. She has been very unsuccessful, it seems, in Los Angeles, as all the people we introduced tell me. Some are in a worse state than before the skin paring. Kindly give Mrs. Milton my love; her rubbings used to do me good at the time at least. Poor Dr. Hiller! We send him over post-haste to Los Angeles to get his wife cured. You ought to have seen him the other morning and heard him too! Mrs. Hiller, it appears, is many times worse for all the rubbings given; and she is only a few bones; and, above all, the doctor had to spend 500 dollars in Los Angeles. That makes him feel very bad. I, of course, would not write this to Joe; she is happy in her dreams of having done so much good to poor sufferers. But oh, if she could hear the Los Angeles folks and this old Dr. Hiller, she would change her mind at once and learn wisdom from an old adage not to recommend medicine to any one. I am so glad I did not write of old Dr. Hiller's alacrity in getting over to Los Angeles when he heard of this cure from Joe. She ought to have seen the old man dance about my room, with greater alacrity! 500 dollars was too much for the old man; he is a German; he dances about, slaps his pockets and says, "You can'th have goth the five hundred, buth for this silly cure!"_x000d_ Then there are poor people who paid her three dollars a rubbing sometimes and now complimenting Joe and myself. Don't tell this to Joe. You and she can afford to lose money on anyone. So also the old German doctor, but the poor boy finds it a bit hard. The old doctor is now persuaded that some devils are misarranging his affairs of late. He had counted on so much to have me as his guest, and his wife righted, but he had to run to Los Angeles and that upset the whole plan; and now, though he tries his best to get me in as his guest, I fight shy, not of him, but of his wife and sister-in-law. He is sure, "Devils must be in it"; he has been a Theosophical student. I told him to write to Miss MacLeod to hunt up a devil-driver somewhere so that he might run with his wife and spend another five hundred! Doing good is not always smooth!_x000d_ As for me, I get the fun out of it--as long as Joe pays--bone-cracker, or skin-parer, or any system whatever. But this was not fair of Joe--after having got in all these people to get rubbed down, to run off and let me bear all the compliments! I am glad she is not introducing any outsiders to be skinned. Otherwise Joe would be gone to Paris, leaving poor Mr. Leggett to collect the compliments. I sent in a Christian Science healer to Dr. Hiller as a make-up of Joe's misdemeanour, but his wife slammed the door in her face and would have nothing to do with queer healing._x000d_ Anyhow, I sincerely hope and pray Mrs. Leggett will be well this time. Did they analyse the sting?_x000d_ I hope the will will arrive soon; I am a bit anxious about it. I expected to get a draft trust-deed also by this mail from India; no letters came, not even Awakened India, though I find Awakened India has reached San Francisco._x000d_ I read in the papers the other day of 500 deaths in one week of plague in Calcutta! Mother knows what is good._x000d_ So Mr. Leggett has got the V. Society up. Good. _x000d_ How is Olea? Where is Margot? I wrote her a letter the other day to 21 W. 34, N.Y. I am so happy that she is making headway. With all love,_x000d_ Ever your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. I am getting all the work I can do and more. I will make my passage, anyhow. Though they cannot pay me much, yet they pay some, and by constant work I will make enough to pay my way and have a few hundred in the pocket anyhow. So you needn't be the least anxious about me._x000d_ V.

The next Sunday, at the same hall and, as far as is known, at the appointed hour of three o’clock, Swamiji spoke on "Krishna’s Message to the World." In many respects this was a much more important lecture than that on Mohammed, and we can be glad he postponed it for a week. By the time he gave it (the date was April 1), Ida Ansell seems to have become more adept at following him with her shorthand, and it has come down to us, it would appear, with much of its original beauty and power intact. The first typed transcript of "Krishna" has indeed so few gaps, "scrappy" parts, and obscure passages that the second transcript does not substantially differ from it. One short and clear passage, however, was omitted from the second transcript-one of Swamiji’s swift darts, thrown at his audience in his inimitable manner. In speaking of Sri Krishna’s great tolerance toward all forms of religious practice and ex¬pression-each a link in the chains that stretch out from the common center-he said, as if in quick and scathing reply to some unspoken judgment of the religious ways of others: "Every one of us has got the charter from God Almighty! He is dead and gone. We have buried Him. And He has given the world to you and me to look after! I am very busy about every¬body else except myself!"89 Another sentence that is missing from the second transcript is as typical in its way of Swamiji’s manner of lecturing as the above. It contained only three words. After saying, " . . . Krishna has no condemnation for anything. It is better to do something than to stand still. The man who begins to worship God [for material gain] will grow by degrees and begin to love God for love’s sake," Swamiji added, "Bless you all."90_x000d_ He spoke in this lecture not only of Sri Krishna’s harmo-nization of different religious ideas ("His was the first heart that was large enough to see truth in all, his the first that uttered beautiful words for each and all"),91 he spoke also of Krishna’s doctrine of work without attachment, of karma yoga, and into this he wove his own teaching:_x000d_ "It is blasphemy to think that you can help anyone. First root out this idea of helping, and then go to worship. . . . Serve the living God! God comes to you in the blind, in the halt, in the poor, in the weak, in the diabolical. What a glorious chance for you to worship! The moment you think you are `helping’, you undo the whole thing and degrade yourself. Knowing this, work. . . . Then work is no more slavery. It becomes a play, and joy itself. Work! Be unattached! That is the whole secret. If you get attached, you become miserable. . . . We do a little work and break ourselves. Why? We become attached to that work. If we do not become attached, side by side with it we have infinite rest. . . ._x000d_ "How hard it is to arrive at this sort of non attachment!" Swamiji continued. "Therefore Krishna shows us the lower ways and methods. The easiest way for everyone is to do his or her work and not take the results. It is our desire that binds us. . . . If you are strong, take up the Vedanta philosophy and be independent. If you cannot do that, worship God; if not, worship some image. If you lack strength even to do that, do some good works without the idea of gain. Offer everything you have unto the service of the Lord. Fight on!"92(But to do any justice to this lecture one would have to quote the full transcript, and this to no purpose, for the reader who has not read it will find it in volume one of the Complete Works.)_x000d_ On April 8, Swamiji gave his concluding lecture in his Sunday series. Its title was "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?" But of this we shall speak in part two of this book, after we have said more of his other lectures in San Francisco, for "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?" was the culmination not only of his Sunday series but also of his many other series in the city. Moreover, it was not a lecture on a great Messenger of the past, as had been those of the four previous Sundays. It was, rather, a message given directly to this age by a living messenger-one who spoke with as intense a faith in his mission and in himself as had his predecessors, whose every word, like theirs, burst like a bombshell, and who, with the same indifference to fame as was theirs, cared not at all whether one man in the world remembered him for himself or not.

The third lecture, "The Ideals of India" (not, after all, "The Ideals of Quakers," as the Enquirer had announced on March 14), was not reported upon by any of the newspapers, and thus we have no information about it-not even such as newspapers afford. It must be said that the brief reports of the first two lectures of the series give us very little indication of the charm and life that permeated them. Only by turning to the reminiscences of Mr. Frank Rhodehamel can one catch a glimpse of the sheer enchantment with which Swamiji filled his talks on India. He was the teacher par excellence, bringing the minds of his listeners into almost breathless concentration -one moment through the means of shock, the next through that of delight. Whether the art was conscious with him or not, he was as incapable of dullness or of dryness as the God he taught. "During his series of lectures on The Ideals of India," Mr. Rhodehamel wrote (and it seems clear that he was refer¬ring to the Oakland series), "the fact was disclosed that he was a wonderful story-teller. Here, perhaps, he was at his best. He gave life to the ancient tales by telling them in his inimi¬table fashion, the subject giving full play to his unsurpassed power of interpretation, and to that wealth of facial expres¬sion which was his greatest personal charm. `I love to tell these stories,’ he said. `They are the life of India. I have heard them since babyhood. I never get tired of telling them.

Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions. The meditative state of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind exists. When the mind is studying the external object, it gets identified with it, loses itself. To use the simile of the old Indian philosopher: the soul of man is like a piece of crystal, but it takes the colour of whatever is near it. Whatever the soul touches . . . it has to take its colour. That is the difficulty. That constitutes the bondage. The colour is so strong, the crystal forgets itself and identifies itself with the colour. Suppose a red flower is near the crystal and the crystal takes the colour and forgets itself, thinks it is red. We have taken the colour of the body and have forgotten what we are. All the difficulties that follow come from that one dead body. All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes, weakness, evil, are from that one great blunder--that we are bodies. This is the ordinary person. It is the person taking the colour of the flower near to it. We are no more bodies than the crystal is the red flower._x000d_ The practice of meditation is pursued. The crystal knows what it is, takes it own colour. It is meditation that brings us nearer to truth than anything else. . . ._x000d_ In India two persons meet. In English they say, "How do you do?" The Indian greeting is, "Are you upon yourself?" The moment you stand upon something else, you run the risk of being miserable. This is what I mean by meditation--the soul trying to stand upon itself. That state must surely be the healthiest state of the soul, when it is thinking of itself, residing in its own glory. No, all the other methods that we have--by exciting emotions, prayers, and all that--really have that one end in view. In deep emotional excitement the soul tries to stand upon itself. Although the emotion may arise from anything external, there is concentration of mind._x000d_ There are three stages in meditation. The first is what is called [Dharana], concentrating the mind upon an object. I try to concentrate my mind upon this glass, excluding every other object from my mind except this glass. But the mind is wavering. . . . When it has become strong and does not waver so much, it is called [Dhyana], meditation. And then there is a still higher state when the differentiation between the glass and myself is lost--[Samadhi or absorption]. The mind and the glass are identical. I do not see any difference. All the senses stop and all powers that have been working through other channels of other senses [are focused in the mind]. Then this glass is under the power of the mind entirely. This is to be realised. It is a tremendous play played by the Yogis. . . . Take for granted, the external object exists. Then that which is really outside of us is not what we see. The glass that I see is not the external object certainly. That external something which is the glass I do not know and will never know._x000d_ Something produces an impression upon me. Immediately I send the reaction towards that, and the glass is the result of the combination of these two. Action from outside--X. Action from inside--Y. The glass is XY. When you look at X, call it external world--at Y, internal world. . . . If you try to distinguish which is your mind and which is the world--there is no such distinction. The world is the combination of you and something else. . . ._x000d_ Let us take another example. You are dropping stones upon the smooth surface of a lake. Every stone you drop is followed by a reaction. The stone is covered by the little waves in the lake. Similarly, external things are like the stones dropping into the lake of the mind. So we do not really see the external . . .; we see the wave only. . . ._x000d_ These waves that rise in the mind have caused many things outside. We are not discussing the [merits of] idealism and realism. We take for granted that things exist outside, but what we see is different from things that exist outside, as we see what exists outside plus ourselves._x000d_ Suppose I take my contribution out of the glass. What remains? Almost nothing. The glass will disappear. If I take my contribution from the table, what would remain of the table? Certainly not this table, because it was a mixture of the outside plus my contribution. The poor lake has got to throw the wave towards the stone whenever [the stone] is thrown in it. The mind must create the wave towards any sensation. Suppose . . . We can withhold the mind. At once we are masters. We refuse to contribute our share to all these phenomena. . . . If I do not contribute my share, it has got to stop._x000d_ You are creating this bondage all the time. How? By putting in your share. We are all making our own beds, forging our own chains. . . . When the identifying ceases between this external object and myself, then I will be able to take my contribution off, and this thing will disappear. Then I will say, "Here is the glass", and then take my mind off, and it disappears. . . . If you can take away your share, you can walk upon water. Why should it drown you any more? What of poison? No more difficulties. In every phenomenon in nature you contribute at least half, and nature brings half. If your half is taken off, the thing must stop._x000d_ . . . To every action there is equal reaction. . . . If a man strikes me and wounds me, it is that man's action and my body's reaction. . . . Suppose I have so much power over the body that I can resist even that automatic action. Can such power be attained? The books say it can. . . . If you stumble on [it], it is a miracle. If you learn it scientifically, it is Yoga._x000d_ I have seen people healed by the power of mind. There is the miracle worker. We say he prays and the man is healed. Another man says, "Not at all. It is just the power of the mind. The man is scientific. He knows what he is about."_x000d_ The power of meditation gets us everything. If you want to get power over nature, [you can have it through meditation]. It is through the power of meditation all scientific facts are discovered today. They study the subject and forget everything, their own identity and everything, and then the great fact comes like a flash. Some people think that is inspiration. There is no more inspiration than there is expiration; and never was anything got for nothing._x000d_ The highest so-called inspiration was the work of Jesus. He worked hard for ages in previous births. That was the result of his previous work--hard work. . . . It is all nonsense to talk about inspiration. Had it been, it would have fallen like rain. Inspired people in any line of thought only come among nations who have general education and [culture]. There is no inspiration. . . . Whatever passes for inspiration is the result that comes from causes already in the mind. One day, flash comes the result! Their past work was the [cause]._x000d_ Therein also you see the power of meditation--intensity of thought. These men churn up their own souls. Great truths come to the surface and become manifest. Therefore the practice of meditation is the great scientific method of knowledge. There is no knowledge without the power of meditation. From ignorance, superstition, etc., we can get cured by meditation for the time being and no more. [Suppose] a man has told me that if you drink such a poison you will be killed, and another man comes in the night and says, "Go drink the poison!" and I am not killed, [what happens is this:] my mind cut out from the meditation the identity between the poison and myself just for the time being. In another case of [drinking] the poison, I will be killed._x000d_ If I know the reason and scientifically raise myself up to that [state of meditation], I can save anyone. That is what the books say; but how far it is correct you must appraise._x000d_ I am asked, "Why do you Indian people not conquer these things? You claim all the time to be superior to all other people. You practise Yoga and do it quicker than anybody else. You are fitter. Carry it out! If you are a great people, you ought to have a great system. You will have to say good-bye to all the gods. Let them go to sleep as you take up the great philosophers. You are mere babies, as superstitious as the rest of the world. And all your claims are failures. If you have the claims, stand up and be bold, and all the heaven that ever existed is yours. There is the musk deer with fragrance inside, and he does not know where the fragrance [comes from]. Then after days and days he finds it in himself. All these gods and demons are within them. Find out, by the powers of reason, education, and culture that it is all in yourself. No more gods and superstitions. You want to be rational, to be Yogis, really spiritual."_x000d_ [My reply is: With you too] everything is material. What is more material than God sitting on a throne? You look down upon the poor man who is worshipping the image. You are no better. And you, gold worshippers, what are you? The image worshipper worships his god, something that he can see. But you do not even do that. You do not worship the spirit nor something that you can understand. . . . Word worshippers! "God is spirit!" God is spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and faith. Where does the spirit reside? On a tree? On a cloud? What do you mean by God being ours ? You are the spirit. That is the first fundamental belief you must never give up. I am the spiritual being. It is there. All this skill of Yoga and this system of meditation and everything is just to find Him there._x000d_ Why am I saying all this just now? Until you fix the location, you cannot talk. You fix it up in heaven and all the world over except in the right place. I am spirit, and therefore the spirit of all spirits must be in my soul. Those who think it anywhere else are ignorant. Therefore it is to be sought here in this heaven; all the heaven that ever existed [is within myself]. There are some sages who, knowing this, turn their eyes inward and find the spirit of all spirits in their own spirit. That is the scope of meditation. Find out the truth about God and about your own soul and thus attain to liberation. . . ._x000d_ You are all running after life, and we find that is foolishness. There is something much higher than life even. This life is inferior, material. Why should I live at all? I am something higher than life. Living is always slavery. We always get mixed up. . . . Everything is a continuous chain of slavery._x000d_ You get something, and no man can teach another. It is through experience [we learn]. . . . That young man cannot be persuaded that there are any difficulties in life. You cannot persuade the old man that life is all smooth. He has had many experiences. That is the difference._x000d_ By the power of meditation we have got to control, step by step, all these things. We have seen philosophically that all these differentiations--spirit, mind, matter, etc.--[have no real existence]. . . . Whatever exists is one. There cannot be many. That is what is meant by science and knowledge. Ignorance sees manifold. Knowledge realises one. . . . Reducing the many into one is science. . . . The whole of the universe has been demonstrated into one. That science is called the science of Vedanta. The whole universe is one. The one runs through all this seeming variety. . . ._x000d_ We have all these variations now and we see them--what we call the five elements: solid, liquid, gaseous, luminous, ethereal. After that the state of existence is mental and beyond that spiritual. Not that spirit is one and mind is another, ether another, and so on. It is the one existence appearing in all these variations. To go back, the solid must become liquid. The way [the elements evolved] they must go back. The solids will become liquid, etherised. This is the idea of the macrocosm--and universal. There is the external universe and universal spirit, mind, ether, gas, luminosity, liquid, solid._x000d_ The same with the mind. I am just exactly the same in the microcosm. I am the spirit; I am mind; I am the ether, solid, liquid, gas. What I want to do is to go back to my spiritual state. It is for the individual to live the life of the universe in one short life. Thus man can be free in this life. He in his own short lifetime shall have the power to live the whole extent of life. . . ._x000d_ We all struggle. . . . If we cannot reach the Absolute, we will get somewhere, and it will be better than we are now._x000d_ Meditation consists in this practice [of dissolving everything into the ultimate Reality--spirit]. The solid melts into liquid, that into gas, gas into ether, then mind, and mind will melt away. All is spirit._x000d_ Some of the Yogis claim that this body will become liquid etc. You will be able to do anything with it--make it little, or gas, pass through this wall--they claim. _x000d_ I do not know. I have never seen anybody do it. But it is in the books. We have no reason to disbelieve the books._x000d_ Possibly, some of us will be able to do it in this life. Like a flash it comes, as the result of our past work. Who knows but some here are old Yogis with just a little to do to finish the whole work. Practice!_x000d_ Meditation, you know, comes by a process of imagination. You go through all these processes of purification of the elements--making the one melt into the other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then you are spirit. _x000d_ Spirit is always free, omnipotent, omniscient. Of course, under God. There cannot be many Gods. These liberated souls are wonderfully powerful, almost omnipotent. [But] none can be as powerful as God. If one [liberated soul] said, "I will make this planet go this way", and another said, "I will make it go that way", [there would be confusion]._x000d_ Don't you make this mistake! When I say in English, "I am God!" it is because I have no better word. In Sanskrit, God means absolute existence, knowledge, and wisdom, infinite self-luminous consciousness. No person. It is impersonal. . . ._x000d_ I am never Rama [never one with Ishvara, the personal aspect of God], but I am [one with Brahman, the impersonal, all-pervading existence]. Here is a huge mass of clay. Out of that clay I made a little [mouse] and you made a little [elephant]. Both are clay. Melt both down. They are essentially one. "I and my Father are one." [But the clay mouse can never be one with the clay elephant.]_x000d_ I stop somewhere; I have a little knowledge. You a little more; you stop somewhere. There is one soul which is the greatest of all. This is Ishvara, Lord of Yoga [God as Creator, with attributes]. He is the individual. He is omnipotent. He resides in every heart. There is no body. He does not need a body. All you get by the practice of meditation etc., you can get by meditation upon Ishvara, Lord of Yogis. . . . _x000d_ The same can be attained by meditating upon a great soul; or upon the harmony of life. These are called objective meditations. So you begin to meditate upon certain external things, objective things, either outside or inside. If you take a long sentence, that is no meditation at all. That is simply trying to get the mind collected by repetition. Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the [thought-waves] and the world stops. Your consciousness expands. Every time you meditate you will keep your growth. . . . Work a little harder, more and more, and meditation comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system. Not even the deepest sleep will give you such rest as that. The mind goes on jumping even in deepest sleep. Just those few minutes [in meditation] your brain has almost stopped. Just a little vitality is kept up. You forget the body. You may be cut to pieces and not feel it at all. You feel such pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we get in meditation._x000d_ Then, meditation upon different objects. There are meditations upon different centres of the spine. [According to the Yogis, there are two nerves in the spinal column, called Ida and Pingala. They are the main channels through which the afferent and efferent currents travel.] The hollow [canal called Shushumna] runs through the middle of the spinal column. The Yogis claim this cord is closed, but by the power of meditation it has to be opened. The energy has to be sent down to [the base of the spine], and the Kundalini rises. The world will be changed. . . ._x000d_ Thousands of divine beings are standing about you. You do not see them because our world is determined by our senses. We can only see this outside. Let us call it X. We see that X according to our mental state. Let us take the tree standing outside. A thief came and what did he see in the stump? A policeman. The child saw a huge ghost. The young man was waiting for his sweetheart, and what did he see? His sweetheart. But the stump of the tree had not changed. It remained the same. This is God Himself, and with our foolishness we see Him to be man, to be dust, to be dumb, miserable._x000d_ Those who are similarly constituted will group together naturally and live in the same world. Otherwise stated, you live in the same place. All the heavens and all the hells are right here. For example: [take planes in the form of] big circles cutting each other at certain points. . . . On this plane in one circle we can be in touch with a certain point in another [circle]. If the mind gets to the centre, you begin to be conscious on all planes. In meditation sometimes you touch another plane, and you see other beings, disembodied spirits, and so on. You get there by the power of meditation. This power is changing our senses, you see, refining our senses. If you begin to practise meditation five days, you will feel the pain from within these centres [of consciousness] and hearing [becomes finer] . . . . That is why all the Indian gods have three eyes. That is the psychic eye that opens out and shows you spiritual things._x000d_ As this power of Kundalini rises from one centre to the other in the spine, it changes the senses and you begin to see this world another. It is heaven. You cannot talk. Then the Kundalini goes down to the lower centres. You are again man until the Kundalini reaches the brain, all the centres have been passed, and the whole vision vanishes and you [perceive] . . . Nothing but the one existence. You are God. All heavens you make out of Him, all worlds out of Him. He is the one existence. Nothing else exists.

Everyone's idea of practical religion is according to his theory of practicality and the standpoint he starts from. There is work. There is the system of worship. There is knowledge._x000d_ The philosopher thinks...the difference between bondage and freedom is only caused by knowledge and ignorance. To him, knowledge is the goal, and his practicality is gaining that knowledge. ...The worshipper's practical religion is the power of love and devotion. The worker's practical religion consists in doing good works. And so, as in every other thing, we are always trying to ignore the standard of another, trying to bind the whole world to our standard. _x000d_ Doing good to his fellow-beings is the practical religion of the man full of love. If men do not help to build hospitals, he thinks that they have no religion at all. But there is no reason why everyone should do that. The philosopher, in the same way, may denounce every man who does not have knowledge. People may build twenty thousand hospitals, and the philosopher declares they are but...the beasts of burden of the gods. The worshipper has his own idea and standard: Men who cannot love God are no good, whatever work they do. The [Yogi believes in] psychic [control and] the conquest of [internal] nature. "How much have you gained towards that? How much control over your senses, over your body?"--that is all the Yogi asks. And, as we said, each one judges the others by his own standard. Men may have given millions of dollars and fed rats and cats, as some do in India. They say that men can take care of themselves, but the poor animals cannot. That is their idea. But to the Yogi the goal is conquest of [internal] nature, and he judges man by that standard. ..._x000d_ We are always talking [about] practical religion. But it must be practical in our sense. Especially [so] in the Western countries. The Protestants' ideal is good works. They do not care much for devotion and philosophy. They think there is not much in it. "What is your knowledge!" [they say]. "Man has to do something!"...A little humanitarianism! The churches rail day and night against callous agnosticism. Yet they seem to be veering rapidly towards just that. Callous slaves! Religion of utility! That is the spirit just now. And that is why some Buddhists have become so popular in the West. People do not know whether there is a God or not, whether there is a soul or not. [They think:] This world is full of misery. Try to help this world._x000d_ The Yoga doctrine, which we are having our lecture on, is not from that standpoint. [It teaches that] there is the soul, and inside this soul is all power. It is already there, and if we can master this body, all the power will be unfolded. All knowledge is in the soul. Why are people struggling? To lessen the misery. ...All unhappiness is caused by our not having mastery over the body. ...We are all putting the cart before the horse. ...Take the system of work, for instance. We are trying to do good by...comforting the poor. We do not get to the cause which created the misery. It is like taking a bucket to empty out the ocean, and more [water] comes all the time. The Yogi sees that this is nonsense. [He says that] the way out of misery is to know the cause of misery first. ...We try to do the good we can. What for? If there is an incurable disease, why should we struggle and take care of ourselves? If the utilitarians say: "Do not bother about soul and God!" what is that to the Yogi and what is it to the world? The world does not derive any good [from such an attitude]. More and more misery is going on all the time. ..._x000d_ The Yogi says you are to go to the root of all this. Why is there misery in the world? He answers: "It is all our own foolishness, not having proper mastery of our own bodies. That is all." He advises the means by which this misery can be [overcome]. If you can thus get mastery of your body, all the misery of the world will vanish. Every hospital is praying that more and more sick people will come there. Every time you think of doing some charity, you think there is some beggar to take your charity. If you say, "O Lord, let the world be full of charitable people!"--you mean, let the world be full of beggars also. Let the world be full of good works--let the world be full of misery. This is out-and-out slavishness!_x000d_ ...The Yogi says, religion is practical if you know first why misery exists. All the misery in the world is in the senses. Is there any ailment in the sun, moon, and stars? The same fire that cooks your meal burns the child. Is it the fault of the fire? Blessed be the fire! Blessed be this electricity! It gives light. ...Where can you lay the blame? Not on the elements. The world is neither good nor bad; the world is the world. The fire is the fire. If you burn your finger in it, you are a fool. If you [cook your meal and with it satisfy your hunger,] you are a wise man.That is all the difference. Circumstances can never be good or bad. Only the individual man can be good or bad. What is meant by the world being good or bad? Misery and happiness can only belong to the sensuous individual man._x000d_ The Yogis say that nature is the enjoyed; the soul is the enjoyer. All misery and happiness--where is it? In the senses. It is the touch of the senses that causes pleasure and pain, heat and cold. If we can control the senses and order what they shall feel--not let them order us about as they are doing now--if they can obey our commands, become our servants, the problem is solved at once. We are bound by the senses; they play upon us, make fools of us all the time._x000d_ Here is a bad odour. It will bring me unhappiness as soon as it touches my nose. I am the slave of my nose. If I am not its slave, I do not care. A man curses me. His curses enter my ears and are retained in my mind and body. If I am the master, I shall say: "Let these things go; they are nothing to me. I am not miserable. I do not bother." This is the outright, pure, simple, clear-cut truth._x000d_ The other problem to be solved is--is it practical? Can man attain to the power of mastery of the body? ...Yoga says it is practical. ...Supposing it is not--suppose there are doubts in your mind. You have got to try it. There is no other way out. ..._x000d_ You may do good works all the time. All the same, you will be the slave of your senses, you will be miserable and unhappy. You may study the philosophy of every religion. Men in this country carry loads and loads of books on their backs. They are mere scholars, slaves of the senses, and therefore happy and unhappy. They read two thousand books, and that is all right; but as soon as a little misery comes, they are worried, anxious. ...You call yourselves men! You stand up...and build hospitals. You are fools!_x000d_ What is the difference between men and animals? ..."Food and [sleep], procreation of the species, and fear exist in common with the animals. There is one difference: Man can control all these and become God, the master." Animals cannot do it. Animals can do charitable work. Ants do it. Dogs do it. What is the difference then? Men can be masters of themselves. They can resist the reaction to anything. ...The animal cannot resist anything. He is held...by the string of nature everywhere. That is all the distinction. One is the master of nature, the other the slave of nature. What is nature? The five senses..._x000d_ [The conquest of internal nature] is the only way out, according to Yoga. ...The thirst for God is religion. ...Good works and all that [merely] make the mind a little quiet. To practise this--to be perfect--all depends upon our past. I have been studying [Yoga] all my life and have made very little progress yet. But I have got enough [result] to believe that this is the only true way. The day will come when I will be master of myself. If not in this life, [in another life]. I will struggle and never let go. Nothing is lost. If I die this moment, all my past struggles [will come to my help]. Have you not seen what makes the difference between one man and another? It is their past. The past habits make one man a genius and another man a fool. You may have the power of the past and can succeed in five minutes. None can predict the moment of time. We all have to attain [perfection] some time or other._x000d_ The greater part of the practical lessons which the Yogi gives us is in the mind, the power of concentration and meditation. ...We have become so materialistic. When we think of ourselves, we find only the body. The body has become the ideal, nothing else. Therefore a little physical help is necessary. ..._x000d_ First, to sit in the posture in which you can sit still for a long time. All the nerve currents which are working pass along the spine. The spine is not intended to support the weight of the body. Therefore the posture must be such that the weight of the body is not on the spine. Let it be free from all pressure._x000d_ There are some other preliminary things. There is the great question of food and exercise. ..._x000d_ The food must be simple and taken several times [a day] instead of once or twice. Never get very hungry. "He who eats too much cannot be a Yogi. He who fasts too much cannot be a Yogi. He who sleeps too much cannot be a Yogi, nor he who keeps awake too much." He who does not do any work and he who works too hard cannot succeed. Proper food, proper exercise, proper sleep, proper wakefulness--these are necessary for any success._x000d_ What the proper food is, what kind, we have to determine ourselves. Nobody can determine that [for us]. As a general practice, we have to shun exciting food. ...We do not know how to vary our diet with our occupation. We always forget that it is the food out of which we manufacture everything we have. So the amount and kind of energy that we want, the food must determine. ..._x000d_ Violent exercises are not all necessary. ...If you want to be muscular, Yoga is not for you. You have to manufacture a finer organism than you have now. Violent exercises are positively hurtful. ...Live amongst those who do not take too much exercise. If you do not take violent exercise, you will live longer. You do not want to burn out your lamp in muscles! People who work with their brains are the longest-lived people. ...Do not burn the lamp quickly. Let it burn slowly and gently. ...Every anxiety, every violent exercise--physical and mental--[means] you are burning the lamp._x000d_ The proper diet means, generally, simply do not eat highly spiced foods. There are three sorts of mind, says the Yogi, according to the elements of nature. One is the dull mind, which covers the luminosity of the soul. Then there is that which makes people active, and lastly, that which makes them calm and peaceful._x000d_ Now there are persons born with the tendency to sleep all the time. Their taste will be towards that type of food with is rotting--crawling cheese. They will eat cheese that fairly jumps off the table. It is a natural tendency with them._x000d_ Then active people. Their taste is for everything hot and pungent, strong alcohol…_x000d_ Sattvika people are very thoughtful, quiet, and patient. They take food is small quantities, and never anything bad._x000d_ I am always asked the question: "Shall I give up meat?" My Master said, "Why should you give up anything? It will give you up." Do not give up anything in nature. Make it so hot for nature that she will give you up. There will come a time when you cannot possibly eat meat. The very sight of it will disgust you. There will come a time when many things you are struggling to give up will be distasteful, positively loathsome._x000d_ Then there are various sorts of breathing exercises. One consists of three parts: the drawing in of the breath, the holding of the breath--stopping still without breathing--and throwing the breath out. [Some breathing exercises] are rather difficult, and some of the complicated ones are attended with great danger if done without proper diet. I would not advise you to go through any one of these except the very simple ones._x000d_ Take a deep breath and fill the lungs. Slowly throw the breath out. Take it through one nostril and fill the lungs, and throw it out slowly through the other nostril. Some of us do not breathe deeply enough. Others cannot fill the lungs enough. These breathings will correct that very much. Half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening will make you another person. This sort of breathing is never dangerous. The other exercises should be practised very slowly. And measure your strength. If ten minutes are a drain, only take five._x000d_ The Yogi is expected to keep his own body well. These various breathing exercises are a great help in regulating the different parts of the body. All the different parts are inundated with breath. It is through breath that we gain control of them all. Disharmony in parts of the body is controlled by more flow of the nerve currents towards them. The Yogi ought to be able to tell when in any part pain is caused by less vitality or more. He has to equalise that. …_x000d_ Another condition [for success in Yoga] is chastity. It is the corner-stone of all practice. Married or unmarried--perfect chastity. It is a long subject, of course, but I want to tell you: Public discussions of this subject are not to the taste of this country. These Western countries are full of the most degraded beings in the shape of teachers who teach men and women that if they are chaste they will be hurt. How do they gather all this? …People come to me--thousands come every year--with this one question. Someone has told them that if they are chaste and pure they will be hurt physically. …How do these teachers know it? Have they been chaste? Those unchaste, impure fools, lustful creatures, want to drag the whole world down to their [level]! …_x000d_ Nothing is gained except by sacrifice. …The holiest function of our human consciousness, the noblest, do not make it unclean! Do not degrade it to the level of the brutes. …Make yourselves decent men! …Be chaste and pure! …There is no other way. Did Christ find any other way? …If you can conserve and use the energy properly, it leads you to God. Inverted, it is hell itself. …it is much easier to do anything upon the external plane, but the greatest conqueror in the world finds him-self a mere child when he tries to control his own mind. This is the world he has to conquer--the greater and more difficult world to conquer. Do not despair! Awake, arise, and stop not until the goal is reached! …

U.S.A._x000d_ 6th April, 1900_x000d_ Dear Margot {Nivedita},_x000d_ Glad you have returned. Gladder you are going to Paris. I shall go to Paris of course, only don't know when. Mrs. Leggett thinks I ought to immediately, and take up studying French. Well, take what comes. So you do too._x000d_ Finish your books, and in Paris we are going to conquer the Froggies. How is Mary? Give her my love. My work here is done. I will come in fifteen days to Chicago if Mary is there. She is going away to the East soon. With blessings,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. The mind is omnipresent and can be heard and felt anywhere._x000d_ V.

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 7th April, 1900_x000d_ Dear Mother {Mrs. Leggett},_x000d_ Accept my congratulations for the news of the cause of the wound being completely removed. I have no doubt of your being perfectly cured this time._x000d_ Your very kind note cheered me a good deal. I do not mind at all whether people come round to help me or not; I am becoming calm and less worried._x000d_ Kindly convey my best love to Mrs. Melton. I am sure to recover in the long run. My health has been improving in the main, though there are occasional relapses. Each relapse becoming less, both in tone and in time._x000d_ It is just like you to have Turiyananda and Siri treated. The Lord has blessed you for your great heart. May all blessings ever follow you and yours._x000d_ It is perfectly true that I should go to France and work on French. I hope to reach France in July or earlier. Mother knows. May all good ever follow you, is the constant prayer of_x000d_ Your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda

San Francisco_x000d_ 7th April, 1900_x000d_ {To an American friend},_x000d_ . . . I am more calm and quiet now than I ever was. I am on my own feet, working hard and with pleasure. To work I have the right. Mother knows the rest._x000d_ You see, I shall have to stay here, longer than I intended, and work. But don't be disturbed. I shall work out all my problems. I am on my own feet now, and I begin to see the light. Success would have led me astray, and I would have lost sight of the truth that I am a Sannyasin. That is why Mother is giving me this experience._x000d_ My boat is nearing the calm harbour from which it is never more to be driven out. Glory, glory unto Mother! I have no wish, no ambition now. Blessed be Mother! I am the servant of Ramakrishna. I am merely a machine. I know nothing else. Nor do I want to know. Glory, glory unto Shri Guru!

1719 Turk Street_x000d_ San Francisco_x000d_ 8th April, 1900_x000d_ My Dear Dhira Mata {Mrs. Bull},_x000d_ Here is a long letter from A__. He seems to be entirely upset. I am sure a little kindness will completely win him over. He thinks that you want to drive him out of New York, etc. He awaits my orders. I have told him to trust you in everything and remain in New York till I come._x000d_ I think, as things stand in New York, they require my presence. Do you? In that case I shall come over soon._x000d_ I have been making enough money to pay my passage. I will stop on my way at Chicago and Detroit._x000d_ Of course by that time you will be off. A__ has done good work so far; and, of course, you know I do not meddle with my workers at all._x000d_ The man who can work has an individuality of his own and resists any pressure there. That is my reason in leaving workers entirely free. Of course you are on the spot and know best. Advise me what to do._x000d_ The remittance to Calcutta has duly reached. I got news of it by this mail. My cousin sends her respects and thanks, but she is sorry she cannot write English._x000d_ I am getting better every day, and even walking uphill. There are falls now and then, but the duration is decreasing constantly. My thanks to Mrs. Milton._x000d_ I had a little note from Siri Gryanander. Poor girl, she is so thankful to be trusted. That is just like Mrs. Leggett--good, good, good. Money is not evil after all--in good hands. I hope fervently Siri will completely recover, poor child._x000d_ I will leave here in about two weeks. I go to a place called Star Klon and then start for the East. It may be I may go to Denver also. With all love to Joe,_x000d_ Ever your son,_x000d_ Vivekananda_x000d_ PS. I do not any more doubt my ultimate cure; you ought to see me working like a steam engine cooking, eating anything and everything, and, all the same, sleeping well and keeping well!_x000d_ I have not done any writing--no time. I am so glad Mrs. Leggett is much better and walking about naturally. I expect her complete recovery soon and pray for it._x000d_ V._x000d_ PS. I had a nice letter from Mrs. Sevier; they are going on splendidly with the work. Plague has broken out severely at Calcutta, but no hullabaloo over it this time. _x000d_ V._x000d_ PS. Did you reveal to A__ that I have given over to you the charge of the entire work? Well, you know best how to do things; but he seems to be hurt at that. _x000d_ V.

Those of you who have been attending my lectures for the last month or so must, by this time, be familiar with the ideas contained in the Vedanta philosophy. Vedanta is the most ancient religion of the world; but it can never be said to have become popular. Therefore the question "Is it going to be the religion of the future?" is very difficult to answer._x000d_ At the start, I may tell you that I do not know whether it will ever be the religion of the vast majority of men. Will it ever be able to take hold of one whole nation such as the United States of America? Possibly it may. However, that is the question we want to discuss this afternoon._x000d_ I shall begin by telling you what Vedanta is not, and then I shall tell you what it is. But you must remember that, with all its emphasis on impersonal principles, Vedanta is not antagonistic to anything, though it does not compromise or give up the truths which it considers fundamental._x000d_ You all know that certain things are necessary to make a religion. First of all, there is the book. The power of the book is simply marvellous! Whatever it be, the book is the centre round which human allegiance gathers. Not one religion is living today but has a book. With all its rationalism and tall talk, humanity still clings to the books. In your country every attempt to start a religion without a book has failed. In India sects rise with great success, but within a few years they die down, because there is no book behind them. So in every other country._x000d_ Study the rise and fall of the Unitarian movement. It represents the best thought of your nation. Why should it not have spread like the Methodist, Baptist, and other Christian denominations? Because there was no book. On the other hand, think of the Jews. A handful of men, driven from one country to another, still hold together, because they have a book. Think of the Parsees--only a hundred thousand in the world. About a million are all that remain of the Jains in India. And do you know that these handfuls of Parsees and Jains still keep on just because of their books? The religions that are living at the present day--every one of them has a book._x000d_ The second requisite, to make a religion, is veneration for some person. He is worshipped either as the Lord of the world or as the great Teacher. Men must worship some embodied man! They must have the Incarnation or the prophet or the great leader. You find it in every religion today. Hindus and Christians--they have Incarnations: Buddhists, Mohammedans, and Jews have prophets. But it is all about the same--all their veneration twines round some person or persons._x000d_ The third requisite seems to be that a religion, to be strong and sure of itself, must believe that it alone is the truth; otherwise it cannot influence people._x000d_ Liberalism dies because it is dry, because it cannot rouse fanaticism in the human mind, because it cannot bring out hatred for everything except itself. That is why liberalism is bound to go down again and again. It can influence only small numbers of people. The reason is not hard to see. Liberalism tries to make us unselfish. But we do not want to be unselfish--we see no immediate gain in unselfishness; we gain more by being selfish. We accept liberalism as long as we are poor, have nothing. The moment we acquire money and power, we turn very conservative. The poor man is a democrat. When he becomes rich, he becomes an aristocrat. In religion, too, human nature acts in the same way._x000d_ A prophet arises, promises all kinds of rewards to those who will follow him and eternal doom to those who will not. Thus he makes his ideas spread. All existent religions that are spreading are tremendously fanatic. The more a sect hates other sects, the greater is its success and the more people it draws into its fold. My conclusion, after travelling over a good part of the world and living with many races, and in view of the conditions prevailing in the world, is that the present state of things is going to continue, in spite of much talk of universal brotherhood._x000d_ Vedanta does not believe in any of these teachings. First, it does not believe in a book--that is the difficulty to start with. It denies the authority of any book over any other book. It denies emphatically that any one book can contain all the truths about God, soul, the ultimate reality. Those of you who have read the Upanishads remember that they say again and again, "Not by the reading of books can we realise the Self."_x000d_ Second, it finds veneration for some particular person still more difficult to uphold. Those of you who are students of Vedanta--by Vedanta is always meant the Upanishads--know that this is the only religion that does not cling to any person. Not one man or woman has ever become the object of worship among the Vedantins. It cannot be. A man is no more worthy of worship than any bird, any worm. We are all brothers. The difference is only in degree. I am exactly the same as the lowest worm. You see how very little room there is in Vedanta for any man to stand ahead of us and for us to go and worship him--he dragging us on and we being saved by him. Vedanta does not give you that. No book, no man to worship, nothing._x000d_ A still greater difficulty is about God. You want to be democratic in this country. It is the democratic God that Vedanta teaches._x000d_ You have a government, but the government is impersonal. Yours is not an autocratic government, and yet it is more powerful than any monarchy in the world. Nobody seems to understand that the real power, the real life, the real strength is in the unseen, the impersonal, the nobody. As a mere person separated from others, you are nothing, but as an impersonal unit of the nation that rules itself, you are tremendous. You are all one in the government--you are a tremendous power. But where exactly is the power? Each man is the power. There is no king. I see everybody equally the same. I have not to take off my hat and bow low to anyone. Yet there is a tremendous power in each man._x000d_ Vedanta is just that. Its God is not the monarch sitting on a throne, entirely apart. There are those who like their God that way--a God to be feared and propitiated. They burn candles and crawl in the dust before Him. They want a king to rule them--they believe in a king in heaven to rule them all. The king is gone from this country at least. Where is the king of heaven now? Just where the earthly king is. In this country the king has entered every one of you. You are all kings in this country. So with the religion of Vedanta. You are all Gods. One God is not sufficient. You are all Gods, says the Vedanta._x000d_ This makes Vedanta very difficult. It does not teach the old idea of God at all. In place of that God who sat above the clouds and managed the affairs of the world without asking our permission, who created us out of nothing just because He liked it and made us undergo all this misery just because He liked it, Vedanta teaches the God that is in everyone, has become everyone and everything. His majesty the king has gone from this country; the Kingdom of Heaven went from Vedanta hundreds of years ago._x000d_ India cannot give up his majesty the king of the earth--that is why Vedanta cannot become the religion of India. There is a chance of Vedanta becoming the religion of your country because of democracy. But it can become so only if you can and do clearly understand it, if you become real men and women, not people with vague ideas and superstitions in your brains, and if you want to be truly spiritual, since Vedanta is concerned only with spirituality._x000d_ What is the idea of God in heaven? Materialism. The Vedantic idea is the infinite principle of God embodied in every one of us. God sitting up on a cloud! Think of the utter blasphemy of it! It is materialism--downright materialism. When babies think this way, it may be all right, but when grown-up men try to teach such things, it is downright disgusting--that is what it is. It is all matter, all body idea, the gross idea, the sense idea. Every bit of it is clay and nothing but clay. Is that religion? It is no more religion than is the Mumbo Jumbo "religion" of Africa. God is spirit and He should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Does spirit live only in heaven? What is spirit? We are all spirit. Why is it we do not realise it? What makes you different from me? Body and nothing else. Forget the body, and all is spirit._x000d_ These are what Vedanta has not to give. No book. No man to be singled out from the rest of mankind--"You are worms, and we are the Lord God!"--none of that. If you are the Lord God, I also am the Lord God. So Vedanta knows no sin. There are mistakes but no sin; and in the long run everything is going to be all right. No Satan--none of this nonsense. Vedanta believes in only one sin, only one in the world, and it is this: the moment you think you are a sinner or anybody is a sinner, that is sin. From that follows every other mistake or what is usually called sin. There have been many mistakes in our lives. But we are going on. Glory be unto us that we have made mistakes! Take a long look at your past life. If your present condition is good, it has been caused by all the past mistakes as well as successes. Glory be unto success! Glory be unto mistakes! Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead!_x000d_ You see, Vedanta proposes no sin nor sinner. No God to be afraid of. He is the one being of whom we shall never be afraid, because He is our own Self. There is only one being of whom you cannot possibly be afraid; He is that. Then is not he really the most superstitious person who has fear of God? There may be someone who is afraid of his shadow; but even he is not afraid of himself. God is man's very Self. He is that one being whom you can never possibly fear. What is all this nonsense, the fear of the Lord entering into a man, making him tremble and so on? Lord bless us that we are not all in the lunatic asylum! But if most of us are not lunatics, why should we invent such ideas as fear of God? Lord Buddha said that the whole human race is lunatic, more or less. It is perfectly true, it seems._x000d_ No book, no person, no Personal God. All these must go. Again, the senses must go. We cannot be bound to the senses. At present we are tied down--like persons dying of cold in the glaciers. They feel such a strong desire to sleep, and when their friends try to wake them, warning them of death, they say, "Let me die, I want to sleep." We all cling to the little things of the senses, even if we are ruined thereby: we forget there are much greater things._x000d_ There is a Hindu legend that the Lord was once incarnated on earth as a pig. He had a pig mate and in course of time several little pigs were born to Him. He was very happy with His family, living in the mire, squealing with joy, forgetting His divine glory and lordship. The gods became exceedingly concerned and came to the earth to beg Him to give up the pig body and return to heaven. But the Lord would have none of that; He drove them away. He said He was very happy and did not want to be disturbed. Seeing no other course, the gods destroyed the pig body of the Lord. At once He regained His divine majesty and was astonished that He could have found any joy in being a pig._x000d_ People behave in the same way. Whenever they hear of the Impersonal God, they say, "What will become of my individuality?--my individuality will go!" Next time that thought comes, remember the pig, and then think what an infinite mine of happiness you have, each one of you. How pleased you are with your present condition! But when you realise what you truly are, you will be astonished that you were unwilling to give up your sense-life. What is there in your personality? It is any better than that pig life? And this you do not want to give up! Lord bless us all!_x000d_ What does Vedanta teach us? In the first place, it teaches that you need not even go out of yourself to know the truth. All the past and all the future are here in the present. No man ever saw the past. Did any one of you see the past? When you think you are knowing the past, you only imagine the past in the present moment. To see the future, you would have to bring it down to the present, which is the only reality--the rest is imagination. This present is all that is. There is only the One. All is here right now. One moment in infinite time is quite as complete and all-inclusive as every other moment. All that is and was and will be is here in the present. Let anybody try to imagine anything outside of it--he will not succeed._x000d_ What religion can paint a heaven which is not like this earth? And it is all art, only this art is being made known to us gradually. We, with five senses, look upon this world and find it gross, having colour, form, sound, and the like. Suppose I develop an electric sense--all will change. Suppose my senses grow finer--you will all appear changed. If I change, you change. If I go beyond the power of the senses, you will appear as spirit and God. Things are not what they seem._x000d_ We shall understand this by and by, and then see it: all the heavens--everything--are here, now, and they really are nothing but appearances on the Divine Presence. This Presence is much greater than all the earths and heavens. People think that this world is bad and imagine that heaven is somewhere else. This world is not bad. It is God Himself if you know it. It is a hard thing even to understand, harder than to believe. The murderer who is going to be hanged tomorrow is all God, perfect God. It is very hard to understand, surely; but it can be understood._x000d_ Therefore Vedanta formulates, not universal brotherhood, but universal oneness. I am the same as any other man, as any animal--good, bad, anything. It is one body, one mind, one soul throughout. Spirit never dies. There is no death anywhere, not even for the body. Not even the mind dies. How can even the body die? One leaf may fall--does the tree die? The universe is my body. See how it continues. All minds are mine. With all feet I walk. Through all mouths I speak. In everybody I reside._x000d_ Why can I not feel it? Because of that individuality, that piggishness. You have become bound up with this mind and can only be here, not there. What is immortality? How few reply, "It is this very existence of ours!" Most people think this is all mortal and dead--that God is not here, that they will become immortal by going to heaven. They imagine that they will see God after death. But if they do not see Him here and now, they will not see Him after death. Though they all believe in immortality, they do not know that immortality is not gained by dying and going to heaven, but by giving up this piggish individuality, by not tying ourselves down to one little body. Immortality is knowing ourselves as one with all, living in all bodies, perceiving through all minds. We are bound to feel in other bodies than this one. We are bound to feel in other bodies. What is sympathy? Is there any limit to this sympathy, this feeling in our bodies? It is quite possible that the time will come when I shall feel through the whole universe._x000d_ What is the gain? The pig body is hard to give up; we are sorry to lose the enjoyment of our one little pig body! Vedanta does not say, "Give it up": it says, "Transcend it". No need of asceticism--better would be the enjoyment of two bodies, better three, living in more bodies than one! When I can enjoy through the whole universe, the whole universe is my body._x000d_ There are many who feel horrified when they hear these teachings. They do not like to be told that they are not just little pig bodies, created by a tyrant God. I tell them, "Come up!" They say they are born in sin--they cannot come up except through someone's grace. I say, "You are Divine! They answer, "You blasphemer, how dare you speak so? How can a miserable creature be God? We are sinners!" I get very much discouraged at times, you know. Hundreds of men and women tell me, "If there is no hell, how can there be any religion?" If these people go to hell of their own will, who can prevent them?_x000d_ Whatever you dream and think of, you create. If it is hell, you die and see hell. If it is evil and Satan, you get a Satan. If ghosts, you get ghosts. Whatever you think, that you become. If you have to think, think good thoughts, great thoughts. This taking for granted that you are weak little worms! By declaring we are weak, we become weak, we do not become better. Suppose we put out the light, close the windows, and call the room dark. Think of the nonsense! What good does it do me to say I am a sinner? If I am in the dark, let me light a lamp. The whole thing is gone. Yet how curious is the nature of men! Though always conscious that the universal mind is behind their life, they think more of Satan, of darkness and lies. You tell them the truth--they do not see it; they like darkness better._x000d_ This forms the one great question asked by Vedanta: Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything for ourselves. We want a Personal God, a saviour or a prophet to do everything for us. The very rich man never walks, always goes in the carriage; but in the course of years, he wakes up one day paralysed all over. Then he begins to feel that the way he had lived was not good after all. No man can walk for me. Every time one did, it was to my injury. If everything is done for a man by another, he will lose the use of his own limbs. Anything we do ourselves, that is the only thing we do. Anything that is done for us by another never can be ours. You cannot learn spiritual truths from my lectures. If you have learnt anything, I was only the spark that brought it out, made it flash. That is all the prophets and teachers can do. All this running after help is foolishness._x000d_ You know, there are bullock carts in India. Usually two bulls are harnessed to a cart, and sometimes a sheaf of straw is dangled at the tip of the pole, a little in front of the animals but beyond their reach. The bulls try continually to feed upon the straw, but never succeed. This is exactly how we are helped! We think we are going to get security, strength, wisdom, happiness from the outside. We always hope but never realise our hope. Never does any help come from the outside._x000d_ There is no help for man. None ever was, none is, and none will be. Why should there be? Are you not men and women? Are the lords of the earth to be helped by others? Are you not ashamed? You will be helped when you are reduced to dust. But you are spirit. Pull yourself out of difficulties by yourself! Save yourself by yourself! There is none to help you--never was. To think that there is, is sweet delusion. It comes to no good._x000d_ There came a Christian to me once and said, "You are a terrible sinner." I answered, "Yes, I am. Go on." He was a Christian missionary. That man would not give me any rest. When I see him, I fly. He said, "I have very good things for you. You are a sinner and you are going to hell." I replied, "Very good, what else?" I asked him, "Where are you going?" "I am going to heaven", he answered. I said, "I will go to hell." That day he gave me up._x000d_ Here comes a Christian man and he says, "You are all doomed; but if you believe in this doctrine, Christ will help you out." If this were true--but of course it is nothing but superstition--there would be no wickedness in the Christian countries. Let us believe in it--believing costs nothing--but why is there no result? If I ask, "Why is it that there are so many wicked people?" they say, "We have to work more." Trust in God, but keep your powder dry! Pray to God, and let God come and help you out! But it is I who struggle, pray, and worship; it is I who work out my problems--and God takes the credit. This is not good. I never do it._x000d_ Once I was invited to a dinner. The hostess asked me to say grace. I said, "I will say grace to you, madam. My grace and thanks are to you." When I work, I say grace to myself. Praise be unto me that I worked hard and acquired what I have!_x000d_ All the time you work hard and bless somebody else, because you are superstitious, you are afraid. No more of these superstitions bred through thousands of years! It takes a little hard work to become spiritual. Superstitions are all materialism, because they are all based on the consciousness of body, body, body. No spirit there. Spirit has no superstitions--it is beyond the vain desires of the body._x000d_ But here and there these vain desires are being projected even into the realm of the spirit. I have attended several spiritualistic meetings. In one, the leader was a woman. She said to me, "Your mother and grandfather came to me" She said that they greeted her and talked to her. But my mother is living yet! People like to think that even after death their relatives continue to exist in the same bodies, and the spiritualists play on their superstitions. I would be very sorry to know that my dead father is still wearing his filthy body. People get consolation from this, that their fathers are all encased in matter. In another place they brought me Jesus Christ. I said, "Lord, how do you do?" It makes me feel hopeless. If that great saintly man is still wearing the body, what is to become of us poor creatures? The spiritualists did not allow me to touch any of those gentlemen. Even if these were real, I would not want them. I think, "Mother, Mother! Atheists--that is what people really are! Just the desire for these five senses! Not satisfied with what they have here, they want more of the same when they die!"_x000d_ What is the God of Vedanta? He is principle, not person. You and I are all Personal Gods. The absolute God of the universe, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe, is impersonal principle. You and I, the cat, rat, devil, and ghost, all these are Its persons--all are Personal Gods. You want to worship Personal Gods. It is the worship of your own self. If you take my advice, you will never enter any church. Come out and go and wash off. Wash yourself again and again until you are cleansed of all the superstitions that have clung to you through the ages. Or, perhaps, you do not like to do so, since you do not wash yourself so often in this country--frequent washing is an Indian custom, not a custom of your society._x000d_ I have been asked many times, "Why do you laugh so much and make so many jokes?" I become serious sometimes--when I have stomach-ache! The Lord is all blissfulness. He is the reality behind all that exists, He is the goodness, the truth in everything. You are His incarnations. That is what is glorious. The nearer you are to Him, the less you will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from Him, the more will long faces come. The more we know of Him, the more misery vanishes. If one who lives in the Lord becomes miserable, what is the use of living in Him? What is the use of such a God? Throw Him overboard into the Pacific Ocean! We do not want Him!_x000d_ But God is the infinite, impersonal being--ever existent, unchanging, immortal, fearless; and you are all His incarnations, His embodiments. This is the God of Vedanta, and His heaven is everywhere. In this heaven dwell all the Personal Gods there are--you yourselves. Exit praying and laying flowers in the temples!_x000d_ What do you pray for? To go to heaven, to get something, and let somebody else not have it. "Lord, I want more food! Let somebody else starve!" What an idea of God who is the reality, the infinite, ever blessed existence in which there is neither part nor flaw, who is ever free, ever pure, ever perfect! We attribute to Him all our human characteristics, functions, and limitations. He must bring us food and give us clothes. As a matter of fact we have to do all these things ourselves and nobody else ever did them for us. That is the plain truth._x000d_ But you rarely think of this. You imagine there is God of whom you are special favourites, who does things for you when you ask Him; and you do not ask of Him favours for all men, all beings, but only for yourself, your own family, your own people. When the Hindu is starving, you do not care; at that time you do not think that the God of the Christians is also the God of the Hindus. Our whole idea of God, our praying, our worshipping, all are vitiated by our ignorance, our foolish idea of ourselves as body. You may not like what I am saying. You may curse me today, but tomorrow you will bless me._x000d_ We must become thinkers. Every birth is painful. We must get out of materialism. My Mother would not let us get out of Her clutches; nevertheless we must try. This struggle is all the worship there is; all the rest is mere shadow. You are the Personal God. Just now I am worshipping you. This is the greatest prayer. Worship the whole world in that sense--by serving it. This standing on a high platform, I know, does not appear like worship. But if it is service, it is worship._x000d_ The infinite truth is never to be acquired. It is here all the time, undying and unborn. He, the Lord of the universe, is in every one. There is but one temple--the body. It is the only temple that ever existed. In this body, He resides, the Lord of souls and the King of kings. We do not see that, so we make stone images of Him and build temples over them. Vedanta has been in India always, but India is full of these temples--and not only temples, but also caves containing carved images. "The fool, dwelling on the bank of the Ganga, digs a well for water!" Such are we! Living in the midst of God--we must go and make images. We project Him in the form of the image, while all the time He exists in the temple of our body. We are lunatics, and this is the great delusion._x000d_ Worship everything as God--every form is His temple. All else is delusion. Always look within, never without. Such is the God that Vedanta preaches, and such is His worship. Naturally there is no sect, no creed, no caste in Vedanta. How can this religion be the national religion of India?_x000d_ Hundreds of castes! If one man touches another man's food, he cries out, "Lord help me, I am polluted!" When I returned to India after my visit to the West, several orthodox Hindus raised a howl against my association with the Western people and my breaking the rules of orthodoxy. They did not like me to teach the truths of the Vedas to the people of the West._x000d_ But how can there be these distinctions and differences? How can the rich man turn up his nose at the poor man, and the learned at the ignorant, if we are all spirit and all the same? Unless society changes, how can such a religion as Vedanta prevail? It will take thousands of years to have large numbers of truly rational human beings. It is very hard to show men new things, to give them great ideas. It is harder still to knock off old superstitions, very hard; they do not die easily. With all his education, even the learned man becomes frightened in the dark--the nursery tales come into his mind, and he see ghosts._x000d_ The meaning of the word "Veda", from which the word "Vedanta" comes, is knowledge. All knowledge is Veda, infinite as God is infinite. Nobody ever creates knowledge. Did you ever see knowledge created? It is only discovered--what was covered is uncovered. It is always here, because it is God Himself. Past, present, and future knowledge, all exist in all of us. We discover _x000d_ it, that is all. All this knowledge is God Himself. The Vedas are a great Sanskrit book. In our country we go down on our knees before the man who reads the Vedas, and we do not care for the man who is studying physics. That is superstition; it is not Vedanta at all. It is utter materialism. With God every knowledge is sacred. Knowledge is God. Infinite knowledge abides within every one in the fullest measure. You are not really ignorant, though you may appear to be so. You are incarnations of God, all of you. You are incarnations of the Almighty, Omnipresent, Divine Principle. You may laugh at me now, but the time will come when you will understand. You must. Nobody will be left behind._x000d_ What is the goal? This that I have spoken of--Vedanta--is not a new religion. So old--as old as God Himself. It is not confined to any time and place, it is everywhere. Everybody knows this truth. We are all working it out. The goal of the whole universe is that. This applies even to external nature--every atom is rushing towards that goal. And do you think that any of the infinite pure souls are left without knowledge of the supreme truth? All have it, all are going to the same goal--the discovery of the innate Divinity. The maniac, the murderer, the superstitious man, the man who is lynched in this country--all are travelling to the same goal. Only that which we do ignorantly we ought to do knowingly, and better._x000d_ The unity of all existence--you all have it already within yourselves. None was ever born without it. However you may deny it, it continually asserts itself. What is human love? It is more or less an affirmation of that unity: "I am one with thee, my wife, my child, my friend!" Only you are affirming the unity ignorantly. "None ever loved the husband for the husband's sake, but for the sake of the Self that is in the husband." The wife finds unity there. The husband sees himself in the wife--instinctively he does it, but he cannot do it knowingly, consciously._x000d_ The whole universe is one existence. There cannot be anything else. Out of diversities we are all going towards this universal existence. Families into tribes, tribes into races, races into nations, nations into humanity--how many wills going to the One! It is all knowledge, all science--the realisation of this unity._x000d_ Unity is knowledge, diversity is ignorance. This knowledge is your birthright. I have not to teach it to you. There never were different religions in the world. We are all destined to have salvation, whether we will it or not. You have to attain it in the long run and become free, because it is your nature to be free. We are already free, only we do not know it, and we do not know what we have been doing. Throughout all religious systems and ideals is the same morality; one thing only is preached: "Be unselfish, love others." One says, "Because Jehovah commanded." "Allah," shouted Mohammed. Another cries, "Jesus". If it was only the command of Jehovah, how could it come to those who never knew Jehovah? If it was Jesus alone who gave this command, how could any one who never knew Jesus get it? If only Vishnu, how could the Jews get it, who never were acquainted with that gentleman? There is another source, greater than all of them. Where is it? In the eternal temple of God, in the souls of all beings from the lowest to the highest. It is there--that infinite unselfishness, infinite sacrifice, infinite compulsion to go back to unity._x000d_ We have seemingly been divided, limited, because of our ignorance; and we have become as it were the little Mrs. So-and-so and Mr. so-and-so. But all nature is giving this delusion the lie every moment. I am not that little man or little woman cut off from all else; I am the one universal existence. The soul in its own majesty is rising up every moment and declaring its own intrinsic Divinity._x000d_ This Vedanta is everywhere, only you must become conscious of it. These masses of foolish beliefs and superstitions hinder us in our progress. If we can, let us throw them off and understand that God is spirit to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Try to be materialists no more! Throw away all matter! The conception of God must be truly spiritual. All the different ideas of God, which are more or less materialistic, must go. As man becomes more and more spiritual, he has to throw off all these ideas and leave them behind. As a matter of fact, in every country there have always been a few who have been strong enough to throw away all matter and stand out in the shining light, worshipping the spirit by the spirit._x000d_ If Vedanta--this conscious knowledge that all is one spirit--spreads, the whole of humanity will become spiritual. But is it possible? I do not know. Not within thousands of years. The old superstitions must run out. You are all interested in how to perpetuate all your superstitions. Then there are the ideas of the family brother, the caste brother, the national brother. All these are barriers to the realisation of Vedanta. Religion has been religion to very few._x000d_ Most of those who have worked in the field of religion all over the world have really been political workers. That has been the history of human beings

On April 8 Swamiji delivered the fifth and last lecture in his Sunday series on the Great Teachers of the World. On the previous Sunday afternoons, as the reader will remember, he bad spoken on the messages of Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, and Sri Krishna. One might have expected him to close this series with a talk on the great Teacher of the present age, his Master, Sri Ramakrishna, but, significantly, he chose instead the title "Is Vedanta Philosophy the Future Religion?" Throughout his mission Swamiji had preached his Master's message; seldom had he spoken publicly on his Master himself. Perhaps the primary reason for his reticence in this regard lay in his insistence upon placing principle above person, an insistence never so pronounced as during his second visit to the West, when even during his lectures on the Great Teachers he had urged man to "be not an imitation of Jesus, but be Jesus!" His great care always was not to start a cult. "I have never preached personalities," he had said in 1898 during an interview in Calcutta. "My own life is guided by the enthusiasm of this great soul [Sri Ramakrishna] ; but others will decide for themselves how far they share in this attitude. Inspiration is not filtered out to the world through one channel, however great, Each generation should be inspired afresh. Are we not all God?

On the other hand, there seems to have been little doubt in Swamiji's mind that Sri Ramakrishna would become universally known and worshiped, that the unprecedented greatness of that life would become a source of spiritual inspiration to the entire world for an untold number of generations. Indeed, the inevitability of the universal worship of Sri Ramakrishna was perhaps all the more reason that he dwelt almost exclusively on the essential principles of his Master's teachings, impressing upon the world-mind the eternal truths which had been exemplified to the full in his person. Before Sri Ramakrishna could be imprisoned within a cult, before he could be stereo-typed and limited by one interpretation or another, or divided up into a number of divergent interpretations, Swamiji presented the universality of his life and teachings, equating them with the impersonal and timeless teachings of Vedanta.

"Is Vedanta the Future Religion?" (as it is entitled in the Complete Works) was fully in keeping with the dominant trend of Swamiji's teaching during this second visit to America when his emphasis on "man-making" was so strong, so pronounced. By Vedanta he here meant Advaita, or monistic, Vedanta, the religion that left behind scriptural authority, left behind dependence upon a Savior, left behind even the Personal God-the religion, in short, that outdistanced most of the things that the majority of people looked upon as the very foundation of religion itself. "These are what Vedanta has not to give," he said. "No book, no man to be singled out from the rest of mankind. . . , no Personal God. All these must go. Again, the senses must go.... What is the God of Vedanta? He is principle, not person. You and I are all Personal Gods. The absolute God of the universe, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe, is impersonal principle. You and I, the cat, rat, devil, and ghost, all these are Its persons-all are Personal Gods. You want to worship Personal Gods. It is the worship of your own self. If you take my advice, you will never enter any church. Come out and go and wash off. Wash your self again and again until you are cleansed of all the superstitions that have clung to you through the ages.

It was indeed a "man-making religion" that Swamiji preached in San Francisco, a religion to build heroes. "We want a Personal God, a saviour or a prophet to do everything for us," he said. . . . "All this running after help is foolishness. . . . Never does any help come from the outside. There is no help for man. None ever was, none is, and none will be. Why should there be? Are you not men and women? Are the lords of the earth to be helped by others? Are you not ashamed? You will be helped when you are reduced to dust. But you are spirit. Pull yourself out of difficulties by yourself! Save yourself by yourself! There is none to help you-never was. To think that there is, is sweet delusion. It comes to no good.

But could the world accept a religion such as this? Could man accept here and now the truth of his own spiritual sovereignty, or would he have to inch and wind toward that high summit along the old paths of lesser truths-and would he reach it even then? "Sometimes I agree," Swamiji said, "that there is some good in the dualistic method: it helps many who are weak. . . . All the various practices and trainings, Bibles and Gods, are but the rudiments of religion, the kindergartens of religion. But then," he went on, "I think of the other side. How long will the world have to wait to reach the truth if it follows this slow, gradual process? How long? And where is thc surety that it will ever succeed to any appreciable degree? It has not so far. After all, gradual or not gradual, easy or not easy to the weak, is not the dualistic method based on falsehood? Are not all the prevalent religious practices often weakening and therefore wrong? They are based on a wrong idea, a wrong view of man. Would two wrongs make one right? Would the lie become truth? Would darkness become light?

Yet the question remained: Is Vedanta the future religion? Swamiji was regretfully aware that not everyone could, or would, accept it. "There is a chance," he said, "of Vedanta becoming the religion of your country because of democracy. But it can become so only if you can and do clearly understand it, if you become real men and women, not people with vague ideas and superstitions in your brains, and if you want to be truly spiritual, since Vedanta is concerned only with spirituality."60 But that was a big "if." "If Vedanta-this conscious knowledge that all is one spirit-spreads, the whole of humanity will become spiritual," he said later on in this same lecture. "But is it possible?" Realistic always, he answered: "I do not know. Not within thousands of years. The old superstitions must run out. . . . Religion has been religion to very few. . . . For thousands of years millions and millions all over the world have been taught to worship the Lord of the world, the Incarnations, the saviours, the prophets. They have been taught to consider themselves helpless, miserable creatures and to depend upon the mercy of some person or persons for salvation. There are no doubt many marvellous things in such beliefs. But even at their best, they are but kindergartens of religion, and they have helped but little. Men are still hypnotised into abject degradation. However," he concluded, "there are some strong souls who get over that illusion. The hour comes when great men shall arise and cast oft these kindergartens of religion and shall make vivid and powerful the true religion, the worship of the spirit by the spirit.

It was for these great men who would leaven the whole that Swamiji taught. His conviction seems always to have been that a few such "lion-souls" in each country would be enough to shake the world. Further, he seemed more and more con¬vinced that a much larger number of men and women than is ordinarily believed could rise to his call and to the greatness of their own divine nature. If Vedanta could not be at once practiced by all, it surely could be practiced by many, and it surely could serve as the ideal for millions more. Why else, if Swamiji was not certain of this, did he preach the divinity of man during these last years of his life so steadily, with such bold strokes and in such clear, undiluted colors? "How many of you take me seriously?" he asked in "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?" "But the truth is all here, and I must tell you the truth,

To Sister Christine_x000d_ 1719 Turk Street,_x000d_ San Francisco,_x000d_ [April 9, 1900]_x000d_ _x000d_ Hello! What's the matter with you__gone to sleep? Have not had any news of you for a long time._x000d_ I am getting better every day, and one of these days__say in a few weeks__I am coming straight to say how d'you do. Well, I will be here two weeks more, then to a place called Stockton__thence to the East. I may stop a few days in Chicago. I may not._x000d_ Beginning of May, I come [for] sure to Detroit. I will, of course, write to you. How is life going on with you__grinding, as usual? Any improvements? Write a chatty letter if you feel like. I am dying to get news._x000d_ Ever yours in the Truth,_x000d_ Vivekananda.

We have been taking up the more analytical side of human nature. In this course we [shall] study the emotional side. . . . The former deals with man as unlimited being, [as] principle, the latter with man as limited being. . . . The one has no time to stop for a few tear-drops or pangs; the other cannot proceed without wiping the tear-drop, without healing that misery. One is great, so great and grand that sometimes we are staggered by the magnitude; the other [is] commonplace, and yet most beautiful and dear to us. One gets hold of us, takes us up to the heights where our lungs almost burst. We cannot breathe [in] that atmosphere. The other leaves us where we are and tries to see the objects of life, [takes the limited] view. One will accept nothing until it has the shining seal of reason; the other has faith, and what it cannot see it believes. Both are necessary. A bird cannot fly with only one wing. . . ._x000d_ What we want is to see the man who is harmoniously developed . . . Great in heart, great in mind, [great in deed]. . . . We want the man whose heart feels intensely the miseries and sorrows of the world. . . . And [we want] the man who not only can feel but can find the meaning of things, who delves deeply into the heart of nature and understanding. [We want] the man who will not even stop there, [but] who wants to work out [the feeling and meaning by actual deeds]. Such a combination of head, heart, and hand is what we want. There are many _x000d_ teachers in this world, but you will find [that most of them] are one-sided. [One] sees the glorious midday sun of intellect [and] sees nothing else. Another hears the beautiful music of love and can hear nothing else. Another is [immersed] in activity, and has neither time to feel nor time to think. Why not [have] the giant who is equally active, equally knowing, and equally loving? Is it impossible? Certainly not. This is the man of the future, of whom there are [only a] few at present. [The number of such will increase] until the whole world is humanised._x000d_ I have been talking to you so long about intellect [and] reason. We have heard the whole of Vedanta. The veil of Maya breaks: wintry clouds vanish, and the sunlight shines on us. I have been trying to climb the heights of the Himalayas, where the peaks disappear beyond the clouds. I propose to study with you the other side: the most beautiful valleys, the most marvellous exquisiteness in nature. [We shall study the] love that holds us here in spite of all the miseries of the world, [the] love that has made us forge the chain of misery, this eternal martyrdom which man is suffering willingly, of his own accord. We want to study that for which man has forged the chain with his own hands, that for which he suffers, that eternal love. We do not mean to forget the other. The glacier of the Himalayas must join hands with the rice fields of Kashmir. The thunderbolt must blend its bass note with the warbling of the birds. _x000d_ This course will have to do with everything exquisite and beautiful. Worship is everywhere, in every soul. Everyone worships God. Whatever be the name, they are all worshipping God. The beginnings of worship--like the beautiful lotus, like life itself--are in the dirt of the earth. . . . There is the element of fear. There is the hungering for this world's gain. There is the worship of the beggar. These are the beginnings of [the] world worshipping, [culminating in] loving God and worshipping God through man._x000d_ Is there any God? Is there anyone to be loved, any such one capable of being loved? Loving the stone would not be much good. We only love that which understands love, that which draws our love. So with worship. Never say [that] there is a man in this world of ours who worshipped a piece of stone [as stone]. He always worshipped [the omnipresent being in the stone]._x000d_ We find out that the omnipresent being is in us. [But] how can we worship, unless that being is separate from us? I can only worship Thee, and not me. I can only pray to Thee, and not me. Is there any "Thou"? _x000d_ The One becomes many. When we see the One, any limitations reflected through Maya disappear; but it is quite true that the manifold is not valueless. It is through the many that we reach the one. . . . _x000d_ Is there any Personal God--a God who thinks, who understands, a God who guides us? There is. The Impersonal God cannot have any one of these attributes. Each one of you is an individual: you think, you love, [you] hate, [you] are angry, sorry, etc.; yet you are impersonal, unlimited. [You are] personal and impersonal in one. You have the personal and the impersonal aspects. That [impersonal reality] cannot be angry, [nor] sorry, [nor] miserable--cannot even think misery. It cannot think, cannot know. It is knowledge itself. But the personal [aspect] knows, thinks, and dies, etc. Naturally the universal Absolute must have two aspects: the one [representing the] infinite reality of all things; the other, a personal aspect, the Soul of our souls, Lord of all lords. [It is] He who creates this universe. Under [His] guidance this universe exists. . . . _x000d_ He, the Infinite, the Ever-Pure, the Ever-[Free]. . . . He is no judge, God cannot be [a] judge. He does not sit upon a throne and judge between the good and the wicked. . . . He is no magistrate, [no] general, [nor] master. Infinitely merciful, infinitely loving is the Personal [God]. _x000d_ Take it from another side. Every cell in your body has a soul conscious of the cell. It is a separate entity. It has a little will of its own, a little sphere of action of its own. All [cells] combined make up an individual. [In the same way,] the Personal God of the universe is made up of all these [many individuals]._x000d_ Take it from another side. You, as I see you, are as much of your absolute nature as has been limited and perceived by one. I have limited you in order to see you through the power of my eyes, my senses. As much of you as my eyes can see, I see. As much of you as my mind can grasp is what I know to be you, and nothing more. In the same way, I am reading the Absolute, the Impersonal [and see Him as Personal]. As long as we have body and mind, we always see this triune being: God, nature, and soul. There must always be the three in one, inseparable. . . . There is nature. There are human souls. There is again That in which nature and the human souls [are contained]._x000d_ The universal soul has become embodied. My soul itself is a part of God. He is the eye of our eyes, the life of our life, the mind of our mind, the soul of our soul. This is the highest ideal of the Personal God we can have._x000d_ If you are not a dualist, [but are] a monist, you can still have the Personal God. . . . There is the One without a second. That One wanted to love Himself. Therefore, out of that One, He made [many]. . . . It is the big Me, the real Me, that that little me is worshipping. Thus in all systems you can have the Personal [God]. _x000d_ Some people are born under circumstances that make them happier than others; why should this be in the reign of a just being? There is mortality in this world. These are the difficulties in the way. [These problems] have never been answered. They cannot be answered from any dualistic plane. We have to go back to philosophy to treat things as they are. We are suffering from our own Karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed? . . . _x000d_ Why is there evil? The only way you can solve [the problem] is [by saying that God is] the cause of both good and evil. The great difficulty in the theory of the Personal God is that if you say He is only good and not evil, you will be caught in the trap of your own argument. How do you know there is [a] God? You say [that He is] the Father of this universe, and you say He is good; and because there is [also] evil in the world, God must be evil. . . . The same difficulty!_x000d_ There is no good, and there is no evil. God is all there is. . . . How do you know what is good? You feel [it]. [How do you know what is evil? If] evil comes, you feel it. . . . We know good and evil by our feelings. There is not one man who feels only good, happy feelings. There is not one who feels only unhappy feelings. . . ._x000d_ Want and anxiety are the causes of all unhappiness and happiness too. Is want increasing or decreasing? Is life becoming simple or complex? Certainly complex. Wants are being multiplied. Your great-grandfathers did not want the same dress or the same amount of money [you do]. They had no electric cars, [nor] railroads, etc. That is why they had to work less. As soon as these things come, the want arises, and you have to work harder. More and more anxiety, and more and more competition._x000d_ It is very have to work to get money. It is harder work to keep it. You fight the whole world to get a little money together [and] fight all your life to protect it. [Therefore] there is more xiety for the rich man than for the poor. . . . This is the way it is. . . ._x000d_ There are good and evil everywhere in this world. Sometimes evil becomes good, true; but other times good becomes evil also. All our senses produce evil some time or other. Let a man drink wine. It is not bad [at first], but let him go on drinking, [and] it will produce evil. . . . A man is born of rich parents; good enough. He becomes a fool, never exercises his body or brain. That is good producing evil. Think of this love of life: We go away and jump about and live a few moments; we work hard. We are born babies, entirely incapable. It takes us years to understand things again. At sixty or seventy we open our eyes, and then comes the word, "Get out!" And there you are. _x000d_ We have seen that good and evil are relative terms. The thing [that is] good for me is bad for you. If you eat the dinner that I eat, you will begin to weep, and I shall laugh. . . . We [may] both dance, but I with joy and you with pain. . . . The same thing is good at one part of our life and bad at another part. How can you say [that] good and evil are all cut and dried--[that] this is all good and that is all evil?_x000d_ Now, who is responsible for all this good and evil, if God is ever the good? The Christians and the Mohammedans say there is a gentleman called Satan. How can you say there are two gentlemen working? There must be one. . . . The fire that burns the child also cooks the meal. How can you call the fire good or bad, and how can you say it was created by two different persons? Who creates all [so-called] evil? God. There is no other way out. He sends death and life, plague and epidemics, and everything. If such is God, He is the good; He is the evil; He is the beautiful; He is the terrible; He is life; and He is death._x000d_ How can such a God be worshipped? We shall come to [understand] how the soul can really learn to worship the terrible; then that soul will have peace. . . . Have you peace? Do you get rid of anxieties? Turn around, first of all, and face the terrible. Tear aside the mask and find the same [God]. He is the personal--all that is [apparently] good and all that is [apparently] bad. There is none else. If there were two Gods, nature could not stand a moment. There is not another one in nature. It is all harmony. If God played one side and the devil the other, the whole [of] nature would be [in chaos]. Who can break the law? If I break this glass, it will fall down. If anyone succeeds in throwing one atom out of place, every other atom will go out of balance. . . . The law can never be broken. Each atom is kept in its place. Each is weighed and measured and fulfills its [purpose] and place. Through His command the winds blow, the sun shines. Through His rule the worlds are kept in place. Through His orders death is sporting upon the earth. Just think of two or three Gods having a wrestling match in this world! It cannot be. _x000d_ We now come to see that we can have the Personal God, the creator of this universe, who is merciful and also cruel. . . . He is the good, He is the evil. He smiles, and He frowns. And none can go beyond His law. He is the creator of this universe._x000d_ What is meant by creation, something coming out of nothing? Six thousand years ago God woke up from His dream and created the world [and] before that there was nothing? What was God doing then, taking a good nap? God is the cause of the universe, and we can know the cause through the effect. If the effect is not present, the cause is not [the] cause. The cause is always known in and through the effect. . . . Creation is infinite. . . . You cannot think of the beginning in time or in space._x000d_ Why does He create it? Because He likes to; because He is free. . . . You and I are bound by law, because we can work [only] in certain ways and not in others. "Without hands, He can grasp everything. _x000d_ Without feet, [He moves fast]." Without body, He is omnipotent. "Whom no eyes can see, but who is the cause of sight in every eye, know Him to be the Lord." You cannot worship anything else. God is the omnipotent supporter of this universe. What is called "law" is the manifestation of His will. He rules the universe by His laws._x000d_ So far [we have discussed] God and nature, eternal God and eternal nature. What about souls? They also are eternal. No soul was [ever] created; neither can [the] soul die. Nobody can even imagine his own death. The soul is infinite, eternal. How can it die? It changes bodies. As a man takes off his old, worn-out garments and puts on new and fresh ones, even so the worn-out body is thrown away and [a] fresh body is taken._x000d_ What is the nature of the soul? The soul is also [omnipotent] and omnipresent. Spirit has neither length, nor breadth, nor thickness. . . . How can it be said to be here and there? This body falls; [the soul] works [through] another body. The soul is a circle of which the circumference is nowhere, but the centre is in the body. God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is everywhere. The soul by its [very] nature is blessed, pure, and perfect; it could never be pure if its nature was impure. . . . The soul's nature is purity; that is why souls [can] become pure. It is blessed [by nature]; that is why it [can] become blessed. It is peace; [that is why it can become peaceful]. . . ._x000d_ All of us who find ourselves in this plane, attracted to the body, work hard for a living, with jealousies and quarrels and hardships, and then death. That shows we are not what we should be. We are not free, perfectly pure, and so on. The soul, as it were, has become degraded. Then what the soul requires is expansion. . . ._x000d_ How can you do it? Can you work it out yourself? No. If a man's face is dusty, can you wash it out with dust? If I put a seed in the ground, the seed produces a tree, the tree produces a seed, the seed another tree, etc. Hen and egg, egg and hen. If you do something good, you will have to reap the result of that, be born again and be sorry. Once started in this infinite chain, you cannot stop. You go on, . . . Up and down, [to] heavens and earths, and all these [bodies]. . . . There is no way out. _x000d_ Then how can you get out of all this, and what are you here for? One idea is to get rid of misery. We are all struggling day and night to get rid of misery. . . . We cannot do it by work. Work will produce more work. It is only possible if there is someone who is free himself and lends us a hand. "Hear, ye children of immortality, all those that reside in this plane and all those that reside in the heavens above, I have found the secret", says the great sage. "I have found Him who is beyond all darkness. Through His mercy alone we cross this ocean of life"._x000d_ In India, the idea of the goal is this: There are heavens, there are hells, there are earths, but they are not permanent. If I am sent to hell, it is not permanent. The same struggle goes on and on wherever I am . How to get beyond all this struggle is the problem. If I go to heaven, perhaps there will be a little bit of rest. If I get punished for my misdeeds, that cannot last [for ever either]. . . . The Indian ideal is not to go to heaven. Get out of this earth, get out of hell, and get out of heaven! What is the goal? It is freedom. You must all be free. The glory of the soul is covered up. It has to be uncovered again. The soul exists. It is everywhere. Where shall it go? . . . Where can it go? It can only go where it is not. If you understand [that] it is ever present, [there will be] perfect happiness for ever afterwards. No more births and deaths. . . . No more disease, no body. [The] body itself is the biggest disease. . . .The soul shall stand [as] soul. Spirit shall live as spirit. How is this to be done? By worshipping [the Lord in] the soul, who, by his [very] nature is ever present, pure, and perfect. There cannot be two almighty beings in this world. [Imagine having] two or three Gods; one will create the world, another says, "I will destroy the world". It [can] never happen. There must be one God. The soul attains to perfection; [it becomes] almost omnipotent [and] omniscient. This is the worshipper. Who is the worshipped? He, the Lord God Himself, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient, and so on. And above all, He is Love. How is [the soul] to attain this perfection? By worship._x000d_ (Vedanta and the West, July-August 1955)

All of you who are students of the Bible . . . understand that the whole [of] Jewish history and Jewish thought have been produced by two [types of] teachers--priests and prophets, the priests representing the power of conservatism, the prophets the power of progress. The whole thing is that a conservative ritualism creeps in; formality gets hold of everything. This is true of every country and every religion. Then come some new seers with new visions; they preach new ideals and ideas and give a new push to society. In a few generations the followers become so faithful to their masters' ideas that they cannot see anything else. The most advanced, liberal preachers of this age within a few years will be the most conservative priests. The advanced thinkers, in their turn, will begin to hinder the man who goes a little farther. They will not let anyone go farther than what they themselves have attained. They are content to leave things as they are._x000d_ The power which works through the formative principles of every religion in every country is manifested in the forms of religion. . . . Principles and books, certain rules and movements--standing up, sitting down--all these belong to the same category of worship. Spiritual worship becomes materialised in order that the majority of mankind can get hold of it. The vast majority of mankind in every country are never [seen] to worship spirit as spirit. It is not yet possible. I do not know if there ever will be a time when they can. How many thousands in this city are ready to worship God as spirit? Very few. They cannot; they live in the senses. You have to give them cut and dried ideas. Tell them to do something physical: Stand up twenty times; sit down twenty times. They will understand that. Tell them to breathe in through one nostril and breathe out through the other. They will understand that. All this idealism about spirit they cannot accept at all. It is not their fault. . . . If you have the power to worship God as spirit, good! But there was a time when you could not. . . . If the people are crude, the religious conceptions are crude, and the forms are uncouth and gross. If the people are refined and cultured, the forms are more beautiful. There must be forms, only the forms change according to the times._x000d_ It is a curious phenomenon that there never was a religion started in this world with more antagonism . . . [to the worship of forms] than Mohammedanism. . . . The Mohammedans can have neither painting, nor sculpture, nor music. . . . That would lead to formalism. The priest never faces his audience. If he did, that would make a distinction. This way there is none. And yet it was not two centuries after the Prophet's death before saint worship [developed]. Here is the toe of the saint! There is the skin of the saint! So it goes. Formal worship is one of the stages we have to pass through._x000d_ Therefore, instead of crusading against it, let us take the best in worship and study its underlying principles._x000d_ Of course, the lowest form of worship is what is known as [tree and stone worship]. Every crude, uncultured man will take up anything and add to it some idea [of his own]; and that will help him. He may worship a bit of bone, or stone--anything. In all these crude states of worship man has never worshipped a stone as stone, a tree as tree. You know that from common sense. Scholars sometimes say that men worshipped stones and trees. That is nonsense. Tree worship is one of the stages through which the human race passed. Never, really, was there ever worship of anything but the spirit by man. _x000d_ He is spirit [and] can feel nothing but spirit. Divine mind could never make such a gross mistake as [to worship spirit as matter]. In this case, man conceived the stone as spirit or the tree as spirit. He [imagined] that some part of that Being resides in [the stone] or the tree, that [the stone or] the tree has a soul._x000d_ Tree worship and serpent worship always go together. There is the tree of knowledge. There must always be the tree, and the tree is somehow connected with the serpent. These are the oldest [forms of worship]. Even there you find that some particular tree or some particular stone is worshipped, not all the [trees or] stones in the world._x000d_ A higher state in [formal worship is that of] images [of ancestors and God]. People make images of men who have died and imaginary images of God. Then they worship those images._x000d_ Still higher is the worship of saints, of good men and women who have passed on. Men worship their relics. [They feel that] the presence of the saints is somehow in the relics, and that they will help them. [They believe that] if they touch the saint's bone, they will be healed--not that the bone itself heals, but that the saint who resides there does. . . ._x000d_ These are all low states of worship and yet worship. We all have to pass through them. It is only from an intellectual standpoint that they are not good enough. In our hearts we cannot get rid of them. [If] you take from a man all the saints and images and do not allow him to go into a temple, [he will still] imagine all the gods. He has to. A man of eighty told me he could not conceive God except as an old man with a long beard sitting on a cloud. What does that show? His education is not complete. There has not been any spiritual education, and he is unable to conceive anything except in human terms. _x000d_ There is still a higher order of formal worship--the world of symbolism. The forms are still there, but they are neither trees, nor [stones], nor images, nor relics of saints. They are symbols. There are all sorts [of symbols] all over the world. The circle is a great symbol of eternity. . . . There is the square; the well-known symbol of the cross; and two figures like S and Z crossing each other. _x000d_ Some people take it into their heads to see nothing in symbols. . . . [Others want] all sorts of abracadabra. If you tell them plain, simple truths, they will not accept them. . . . Human nature being [what it is], the less they understand the better--the greater man [they think] you are. In all ages in every country such worshippers are deluded by certain diagrams and forms. Geometry was the greatest science of all. The vast majority of the people knew nothing [of it. They believed that if] the geometrist just drew a square and said abracadabra at the four corners, the whole world would begin to turn, the heavens would open, and God would come down and jump about and be a slave. There is a whole mass of lunatics today poring over these things day and night. All this is a sort of disease. It is not for the metaphysician at all; it is for the physician._x000d_ I am making fun, but I am so sorry. I see this problem so [grave] in India. These are signs of the decay of the race, of degradation and duress. The sign of vigour, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, the sign of everything that is good, is strength. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, [and strength] in the hand. In wanting to get spiritual power through [all this abracadabra] there is fear, fear of life. I do not mean that sort of symbolism._x000d_ But there is some truth in symbolism. There cannot be any falsehood without some truth behind it. There cannot be any imitation without something real. _x000d_ There is the symbolic form of worship in the different religions. There are fresh, vigorous, poetic, healthy symbols. Think of the marvelous power the symbol of the cross has had upon millions of people! Think of the symbol of the crescent! Think of the magnetism of this one symbol! Everywhere there are good and great symbols in the world. They interpret the spirit and bring [about] certain conditions of the mind; as a rule we find [they create] a tremendous power of faith and love._x000d_ Compare the Protestant with the Catholic [Church]. Who has produced more saints, more martyrs within the last four hundred years [during which] both have been in existence? The tremendous appeal of Catholic ceremonialism--all those lights, incense, candles, and the robes of the priests--has a great effect in itself. Protestantism is quite austere and unpoetic. The Protestants have gained many things, have granted a great deal more freedom in certain lines than the Catholics have, and so have a clear, more individualistic conception. That is all right, but they have lost a good deal. . . . Take the paintings in the churches. That is an attempt at poetry. If we are hungry for poetry, why not have it? Why not give the soul what it wants? We have to have music. They are the "Mohammedans" of the Christians. Down with all poetry! Down with all ceremonials! Then they produce music. It appeals to the senses. I have seen how collectively they strive for the ray of light there over the pulpit._x000d_ Let the soul have its fill of poetry and religion represented on the external plane. Why not. . . ? You cannot fight [formal worship]. It will conquer again and again. . . . If you do not like what the Catholics do, do better. But we will neither do anything better nor have the poetry that already exists. That is a terrible state of things! Poetry is absolutely necessary. You may be the greatest philosopher in the world. But philosophy is the highest poetry. It is not dry bones. It is essence of things. The Reality itself is more poetic than any dualism. . . . _x000d_ Learning has no place in religion; for the majority learning is a block in the way. . . . A man may have read all the libraries in the world and may not be religious at all, and another, who cannot perhaps write his own name, senses religion and realises it. The whole of religion is our own inner perception. When I use the words "man-making religion", I do not mean books, nor dogmas, nor theories. I mean the man who has realised, has fully perceived, something of that infinite presence in his own heart._x000d_ The man at whose feet I sat all my life--and it is only a few ideas of his that I try to teach--could [hardly] write his name at all. All my life I have not seen another man like that, and I have travelled all over the world. When I think of that man, I feel like a fool, because I want to read books and he never did. He never wanted to lick the plates after other people had eaten. That is why he was his own book. All my life I am repeating what Jack said and John said, and never say anything myself. What glory is it that you know what John said twenty-five years ago and what Jack said five years ago? Tell me what you have to say._x000d_ Mind you, there is no value in learning. You are all mistaken in learning. The only value of knowledge is in the strengthening, the disciplining, of the mind. By all this eternal swallowing it is a wonder that we are not all dyspeptics. Let us stop, and burn all the books, and get hold of ourselves, and think. You all talk [about] and get distracted over losing your "individuality". You are losing it every moment of your lives by this eternal swallowing. If any one of you believes what I teach, I will be sorry. I will only be too glad if I can excite in you the power of thinking for yourselves. . . . My ambition is to talk to men and women, not to sheep. By men and women, I mean individuals. You are not little babies to drag all the filthy rags from the street and bind them up into a doll!_x000d_ "This is a place for learning! That man is placed in the university! He knows all about what Mr. Blank said!" But Mr. Blank said nothing! If I had the choice, I would . . . Say to the professor, "Get out! You are nobody!" Remember this individualism at any cost! Think wrong if you will, no matter whether you get truth or not. The whole point is to discipline the mind. That truth which you swallow from others will not be yours. You cannot teach truth from my mouth; neither can you learn truth from my mouth. None can teach another. You have to realise truth and work it out for yourself according to your own nature. . . . All must struggle to be individuals--strong, standing on your own feet, thinking your own thoughts, realising your own Self. No use swallowing doctrines others pass on--standing up together like soldiers in jail, sitting down together, all eating the same food, all nodding their heads at the same time. Variation is the sign of life. Sameness is the sign of death._x000d_ Once I was in an Indian city, and an old man came to me. He said, "Swami, teach me the way." I saw that that man was as dead as this table before me. Mentally and spiritually he was really dead. I said, "Will you do what I ask you to do? Can you steal? Can you drink wine? Can you eat meat?" _x000d_ The man [exclaimed], "What are you teaching!"_x000d_ I said to him, "Did this wall ever steal? Did the wall ever drink wine?"_x000d_ "No, sir."_x000d_ Man steals, and he drinks wine, and becomes God. "I know you are not the wall, my friend. Do something! Do something!" I saw that if that man stole, his soul would be on the way to salvation._x000d_ How do I know that you are individuals--all saying the same thing, all standing up and sitting down together? That is the road to death! Do something for your souls! Do wrong if you please, but do something! You will understand me by and by, if you do not just now. Old age has come upon the soul, as it were. It has become rusty. The rust must be [rubbed off], and then we go on. Now you understand why there is evil in the world. Go home and think of that, just to take off that rustiness!_x000d_ We pray for material things. To attain some end we worship God with shopkeeping worship. Go on and pray for food and clothes! Worship is good. Something is always better than nothing. "A blind uncle is better than no uncle at all." A very rich young man becomes ill, and then to get rid of his disease he begins to give to the poor. That is good, but it is not religion yet, not spiritual religion. It is all on the material plane. What is material, and what is not? When the world is the end and God the means to attain that end, that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun. _x000d_ Thus, to the man who wants this [material] life enough, all his heavens are a continuance of this life. He wants to see all the people who are dead, and have a good time once more. _x000d_ There was one of those ladies who brings the departed spirits down to us--a medium. She was very large, yet she was called a medium. Very good! This lady liked me very much and invited me to come. The spirits were all very polite to me. I had a very peculiar experience. You understand, it was a [séance], midnight. The medium said, ". . . I see a ghost standing here. The ghost tells me that there is a Hindu gentleman on that bench." I stood up and said, "It required no ghost to tell you that."_x000d_ There was a young man present who was married, intelligent, and well educated. He was there to see his mother. The medium said. "So-and-so's mother is here." This young man had been telling me about his mother. She was very thin when she died, but the mother that came out of the screen! You ought to have seen her! I wanted to see what this young man would do. To my surprise he jumped up and embraced this spirit and said, "Oh mother, how beautiful you have grown in the spirit land!" I said, "I am blessed that I am here. It gives me insight into human nature!"_x000d_ Going back to formal worship. . . . It is a low state of worship when you worship God as a means to the end, which is this life and this world. . . . The vast majority of [people] have never had any conception of anything higher than this lump of flesh and the joys of the senses. Even in this life, all the pleasures these poor souls have are the same as the beasts. . . . They eat animals. They love their children. Is that all the glory of man? And we worship God Almighty! What for? Just to give us these material things and defend them all the time. . . . It means we have not gone beyond the [animals and] birds. We are no better. We do not know any better. And woe unto us, we should know better! The only difference is that they do not have a God like ours. . . . We have the same five senses [as the animals], only theirs are better. We cannot eat a morsel of food with the relish that a dog chews a bone. They have more pleasure in life than we; so we are a little less than animals. _x000d_ Why should you want to be something that any power in nature can operate better? This is the most important question for you to think about. What do you want--this life, these senses, this body, or something infinitely higher and better, something from which there is no more fall, no more change?_x000d_ So what does it mean . . . ? You say, "Lord, give me my bread, my money! Heal my diseases! Do this and that!" Every time you say that, you are hypnotising yourselves with the idea, "I am matter, and this matter is the goal." Every time you try to fulfil a material desire, you tell yourselves that you are [the] body, that you are not spirit. . . . _x000d_ Thank God, this is a dream! Thank God, for it will vanish! Thank God, there is death, glorious death, because it ends all this delusion, this dream, this fleshiness, this anguish. No dream can be eternal; it must end sooner or later. There is none who can keep his dream for ever. I thank God that it is so! Yet this form of worship is all right. Go on! To pray for something is better than nothing. These are the stages through which we pass. These are the first lessons. Gradually, the mind begins to think of something higher than the senses, the body, the enjoyments of this world._x000d_ How does [man] do it? First he becomes a thinker. When you think upon a problem, there is no sense-enjoyment there, but [the] exquisite delight of thought. . . . It is that that makes the man. . . . Take one great idea! It deepens. Concentration comes. You no longer feel your body. Your senses have stopped. You are above all physical senses. All that was manifesting itself through the senses is concentrated upon that one idea. That moment you are higher than the animal. You get the revelation none can take from you--a direct perception of something higher than the body. . . . Therein is the gold of mind, not upon the plane of the senses. _x000d_ Thus, working through the plane of the senses, you get more and more entry into the other regions, and then this world falls away from you. You get one glimpse of that spirit, and then your senses and your sense-enjoyments, your clinging to the flesh, will all melt away from you. Glimpse after glimpse will come from the realm of spirit. You will have finished Yoga, and spirit will stand revealed as spirit. Then you will begin the worship of God as spirit. Then you will begin to understand that worship is not to gain something. At heart, our worship was that infinite-finite element, love, which [is] an eternal sacrifice at the feet of the Lord by the soul. "Thou and not I. I am dead. Thou art, and I am not. I do not want wealth, nor beauty, no, nor even learning. I do not want salvation. If it be Thy will, let me go into twenty million hells. I only want one thing: Be Thou my love!"_x000d_ (Vedanta and the West , Nov.-Dec. 1955)

"Working through the plane of the senses [through worship of forms and symbols], you get more and more entry into the other regions, and then this world falls away from you. You get one glimpse of that spirit, and then your senses and your sense enjoyments, your clinging to the flesh, will all melt away from you. Glimpse after glimpse will come from the realm of spirit. You will have finished yoga, and spirit will stand revealed as spirit. Then you will begin the worship of God as spirit. Then you will begin to understand that worship is not to gain something. At heart, our worship was that infinite-finite element, love, which is an eternal sacrifice at the feet of the Lord by the soul. `Thou and not I. I am dead. Thou art, and I am not. I do not want wealth, nor beauty, no, nor even learning. I do not want salvation. If it be Thy will, let me go into twenty million hells. I only want one thing: Be Thou my love!'

[Love may be symbolised by a triangle. The first angle is,] love questions not. It is not a beggar. . . . Beggar's love is no love at all. The first sign of love is when love asks nothing, [when it] gives everything. This is the real spiritual worship, the worship through love. Whether God is merciful is no longer questioned. He is God; He is my love. Whether God is omnipotent and almighty, limited or unlimited, is no longer questioned. If He distributes good, all right; if He brings evil, what does it matter? All other attributes vanish except that one--infinite love._x000d_ There was an old Indian emperor who on a hunting expedition came across a great sage in the forest. He was so pleased with this sage that he insisted that the latter come to the capital to receive some presents. [At first] the sage refused. [But] the emperor insisted, and at last the sage consented. When he arrived [at the palace], he was announced to the emperor who said, "Wait a minute until I finish my prayer." The emperor prayed, "Lord, give me more wealth, more [land, more health], more children." The sage stood up and began to walk out of the room. The emperor said, "You have not received my presents." The sage replied, "I do not beg from beggars. All this time you have been praying for more land, [for] more money, for this and that. What can you give me? First satisfy your own wants!"_x000d_ Love never asks; it always gives. . . . When a young man goes to see his sweetheart, . . . there is no business relationship between them; theirs is a relationship of love, and love is no beggar. [In the same way], we understand that the beginning of real spiritual worship means no begging. We have finished all begging: "Lord, give me this and that." Then will religion begin._x000d_ The second [angle of the triangle of love] is that love knows no fear. You may cut me to pieces, and I [will] still love you. Suppose one of you mothers, a weak woman, sees a tiger in the street snatching your child. I know where you will be: you will face the tiger. Another time a dog appears in the street, and you will fly. But you jump at the mouth of the tiger and snatch your child away. Love knows no fear. It conquers all evil. The fear of God is the beginning of religion, but the love of God is the end of religion. All fear has died out. _x000d_ The third [angle of the love-triangle is that] love is its own end. It can never be the means. The man who says, "I love you for such and such a thing", does not love. Love can never be the means; it must be the perfect end. What is the end and aim of love? To love God, that is all. Why should one love God? [There is] no why, because it is not the means. When one can love, that is salvation, that is perfection, that is heaven. What more? What else can be the end? What can you have higher than love?_x000d_ I am not talking about what every one of us means by love. Little namby-pamby love is lovely. Man falls in love with a woman, and woman goes to die for man. The chances are that in five minutes John kicks Jane, and Jane kicks John. This is a materialism and no love at all. If John could really love Jane, he would be perfect that moment. [His true] nature is love; he is perfect in himself. John will get all the powers of Yoga simply by loving Jane, [although] he may not know a word about religion, psychology, or theology. I believe that if a man and woman can really love, [they can acquire] all the powers the Yogis claim to have, for love itself is God. That God is omnipresent, and [therefore] you have that love, whether you know it or not._x000d_ I saw a boy waiting for a girl the other evening. . . . I thought it a good experiment to study this boy. He developed clairvoyance and clairaudience through the intensity of his love. Sixty or seventy times he never made a mistake, and the girl was two hundred miles away. [He would say], "She is dressed this way." [Or], "There she goes." I have seen that with my own eyes._x000d_ This is the question: Is not your husband God, your child God? If you can love your wife, you have all the religion in the world. You have the whole secret of religion and Yoga in you. But can you love? This is the question. You say, "I love . . . Oh Mary, I die for you!" [But if you] see Mary kissing another man, you want to cut his throat. If Mary sees John talking to another girl, she cannot sleep at night, and she makes life hell for John. This is not love. This is barter and sale in sex. It is blasphemy to talk of it as love. The world talks day and night of God and religion--so of love. Making a sham of everything, that is what you are doing! Everybody talks of love, [yet in the] columns in the newspapers [we read] of divorces everyday. When you love John, do you love John for his sake or for your sake? [If you love him for your sake], you expect something from John. [If you love him for his sake], you do not want anything from John. He can do anything he likes, [and] you [will] love him just the same._x000d_ These are the three points, the three angles that constitute the triangle [of love]. Unless there is love, philosophy becomes dry bones, psychology becomes a sort of [theory], and work becomes mere labor. [If there is love], philosophy becomes poetry, psychology becomes [mysticism], and work the most delicious thing in creation. [By merely] reading books [one] becomes barren. Who becomes learned? He who can feel even one drop of love. God is love, and love is God. And God is everywhere. After seeing that God is love and God is everywhere, one does not know whether one stands on one's head or [on one's] feet--like a man who gets a bottle of wine and does not know where he stands. . . . If we weep ten minutes for God, we will not know where we are for the next two months. . . . We will not remember the times for meals. We will not know what we are eating. [How can] you love God and always be so nice and businesslike? . . . The . . . All-conquering omnipotent power of love--how can it come? . . . _x000d_ Judge people not. They are all mad. Children are [mad] after their games, the young after the young, the old [are] chewing the cud of their past years; some are mad after gold. Why not some after God? Go crazy over the love of God as you go crazy over Johns and Janes. Who are they? [People] say, "Shall I give up this? Shall I give up that?" One asked, "Shall I give up marriage?" Do not give up anything! Things will give you up. Wait, and you will forget them._x000d_ [To be completely] turned into love of God--there is the real worship! You have a glimpse of that now and then in the Roman Catholic Church--some of those wonderful monks and nuns going mad with marvelous love. Such love you ought to have! Such should be the love of God--without asking anything, without seeking anything. . . . _x000d_ The question was asked: How to worship? Worship Him as dearer than all your possessions, dearer than all your relatives, [dearer than] your children. [Worship Him as] the one you love as Love itself. There is one whose name is infinite Love. That is the only definition of God. Do not care if this . . . Universe is destroyed. What do we care as long as He is infinite love? [Do you] see what worship means? All other thoughts must go. Everything must vanish except God. The love the father or mother has for the child, [the love] the wife [has] for the husband, the husband for the wife, the friend for the friend--all these loves concentrated into one must be given to God. Now, if the woman loves the man, she cannot love another man. If the man loves the woman, he cannot love another [woman]. Such is the nature of love._x000d_ My old Master used to say, "Suppose there is a bag of gold in this room, and in the next room there is a robber. The robber is well aware that there is a bag of gold. Would the robber be able to sleep? Certainly not. All the time he would be crazy thinking how to reach the gold." . . . [Similarly], if a man loves God, how can he love anything else? How can anything else stand before the mighty love of God? Everything else vanishes [before it]. How can the mind stop without going crazy to find [that love], to realise, to feel, to live in that? _x000d_ This is how we are to love God: "I do not want wealth, nor [friends, nor beauty], nor possessions, nor learning, nor even salvation. If it be Thy will, send me a thousand deaths. Grant me, this--that I may love Thee and that for love's sake. That love which materialistic persons have for their worldly possessions, may that strong love come into my heart, but only for the Beautiful. Praise to God! Praise to God the Lover!" God is nothing else than that. He does not care for the wonderful things many Yogis can do. Little magicians do little tricks. God is the big magician; He does all the tricks. Who cares how many worlds [there are]? . . . _x000d_ There is another [way. It is to] conquer everything, [to] subdue everything--to conquer the body [and] the mind. . . . "What is the use of conquering everything? My business is with God!" [says the devotee.]_x000d_ There was one Yogi, a great lover. He was dying of cancer of the throat. He [was] visited [by] another Yogi, who was a philosopher. [The latter] said, "Look here, my friend, why don't you concentrate your mind on that sore of yours and get it cured?" The third time this question was asked [this great Yogi] said, "Do you think it possible that the [mind] which I have given entirely to the Lord [can be fixed upon this cage of flesh and blood]?" Christ refused to bring legions of angels to his aid. Is this little body so great that I should bring twenty thousand angels to keep it two or three days more?_x000d_ [From the worldly standpoint,] my all is this body. My world is this body. My God is this body. I am the body. If you pinch me, I am pinched. I forget God the moment I have a headache. I am the body! God and everything must come down for this highest goal--the body. From this standpoint, when Christ died on the cross and did not bring angels [to his aid], he was a fool. He ought to have brought down angels and gotten himself off the cross! But from the standpoint of the lover, to whom this body is nothing, who cares for this nonsense? Why bother thinking about this body that comes and goes? There is no more to it than the piece of cloth the Roman soldiers cast lots for._x000d_ There is a whole gamut of difference between [the worldly standpoint] and the lover's standpoint. Go on loving. If a man is angry, there is no reason why you should be angry; if he degrades himself, that is no reason why you should degrade yourself. . . . "Why should I become angry just because another man has made a fool of himself? Do thou resist not evil!" That is what the lovers of God say. Whatever the world does, wherever it goes, has no influence [on them]._x000d_ One Yogi had attained supernatural powers. He said, "See my power! See the sky; I will cover it with clouds." It began to rain. [Someone] said, "My lord, you are wonderful. But teach me that, knowing which, I shall not ask for anything else." . . . To get rid even of power, to have nothing, not to want power! [What this means] cannot be understood simply by intellect. . . . You cannot understand by reading thousands of books. . . . When we begin to understand, the whole world opens before us. . . . The girl is playing with her dolls, getting new husbands all the time; but when her real husband comes, all the dolls will be put away [for ever]. . . . So [with] all these goings-on here. [When] the sun of love rises, all these play-suns of power and these [cravings] all pass [away]. What shall we do with power? Thank God if you can get rid of the power that you have. Begin to love. Power must go. Nothing must stand between me and God except love. God is only love and nothing else--love first, love in the middle, and love at the end._x000d_ [There is the] story of a queen preaching [the love of God] in the streets. Her enraged husband persecuted her, and she was hunted up and down the country. She used to sing songs describing her [love]. Her songs have been sung everywhere. "With tears in my eyes I [nourished the everlasting creeper] of love. . . ." This is the last, the great [goal]. What else is there? [People] want this and that. They all want to have and possess. That is why so few understand [love], so few come to it. Wake them and tell them! They will get a few more hints._x000d_ Love itself is the eternal, endless sacrifice. You will have to give up everything. You cannot take possession of anything. Finding love, you will never [want] anything [else]. . . . "Only be Thou my love for ever!" That is what love wants. "My love, one kiss of those lips! [For him] who has been kissed by Thee, all sorrows vanish. Once kissed by Thee, man becomes happy and forgets love of everything else. He praises Thee alone and he sees Thee alone." In the nature of human love even, [there lurk divine elements. In] the first moment of intense love the whole world seems in tune with your own heart. Every bird in the universe sings your love; the flowers bloom for you. It is infinite, eternal love itself that [human] love comes from._x000d_ Why should the lover of God fear anything--fear robbers, fear distress, fear even for his life? . . . The lover [may] go to the utmost hell, but would it be hell? We all have to give up these ideas of heaven [and hell] and get greater [love]. . . . Hundreds there are seeking this madness of love before which everything [but God vanishes]._x000d_ At last, love, lover, and beloved become one. That is the goal. . . . Why is there any separation between soul and man, between soul and God? . . . Just to have this enjoyment of love. He wanted to love Himself, so He split Himself into many. . . . "This is the whole reason for creation", says the lover. "We are all one. 'I and my Father are one.' Just now I am separate in order to love God. . . . Which is better--to become sugar or to eat sugar? To become sugar, what fun is that? To eat sugar--that is infinite enjoyment of love."_x000d_ All the ideals of love--[God] as [our] father, mother, friend, child--[are conceived in order to strengthen devotion in us and make us feel nearer and dearer to God.] The intensest love is that between the sexes. God must be loved with that sort of love. The woman loves her father; she loves her mother; she loves her child; she loves her friend. But she cannot express herself all to the father, nor to the mother, nor to the child, nor to the friend. There is only one person from whom she does not hide anything. So with the man. . . . The [husband-] wife relationship is the all-rounded relationship. The relationship of the sexes [has] all the other loves concentrated into one. In the husband, the woman has the father, the friend, the child. In the wife, the husband has mother, daughter, and something else. That tremendous complete love of the sexes must come [for God]--that same love with which a woman opens herself to a man without any bond of blood--perfectly, fearlessly, and shamelessly. No darkness! She would no more hide anything from her lover than she would from her own self. That very love must come [for God]. These things are hard and difficult to understand. You will begin to understand by and by, and all idea of sex will fall away. "Like the water drop on the sand of the river bank on a summer day, even so is this life and all its relations."_x000d_ All these ideas [like] "He is the creator", are ideas fit for children. He is my love, my life itself--that must be the cry of my heart! . . . _x000d_ I have one hope. They call Thee the Lord of the world, and --good or evil, great or small--I am part of the world, and Thou art also my love. My body, my mind, and my soul are all at Thy altar. Love, refuse these gifts not!"_x000d_ (Vedanta and the West , Sept.-Oct. 1955)

"To be completely turned into love of God," Swamiji said in "Divine Love," "-there is the real worship! You have a glimpse of that now and then in the Roman Catholic Church ¬some of those wonderful monks and nuns going mad with marvellous love. Such love you ought to have! Such should be the love of God-without asking anything, without seeking anything. . . . At last, love, lover, and beloved become one. That is the goal. . . . All these ideas [such as] `He is the creator,' are ideas fit for children. He is my love, my life itself-that must be the cry of my heart!

This combination of intense, boundless love for the Personal God who is everywhere, who is everyone and everything, with the recognition that in the final analysis-indeed the final realization-there is neither I nor Thou, but only Brahman, the One without a second, was perhaps one of Swamiji's most important contributions to religious thought. The practice of monism became in his teachings not the practice of world negation, but "the vivid and powerful worship," within the world, of the spirit by the spirit-the fearless, selfless worship of the Big Me by the little me. Devotion, at the same time, became the spontaneous expression of the underlying unity of God, soul, and nature; the monistic Reality was its very essence. "Love," Swamiji had said in an Oakland lecture ("The Reality and the Shadow"), "is simply an expression of this infinite unity. Upon what dualistic system can you explain love?

It was no doubt around the time that Swamiji was giving his series of lectures on divine love at the Red Men's Building that he told Mrs. Allan that he disliked platform work. For one thing, the lectures were titled in advance. "It is killing," he said. "At eight o'clock I am to speak on love. At eight o'clock I do not feel like love. But if Swamiji had not felt like love before giving any of the three lectures of this series, once he started, his words poured out as from the heart of love itself. It was, of course, always so. Whatever subject Swamiji found himself committed to speak on, his lecture was, literally, an act of worship, an act of divine love. "Just now I am worshipping you," he told his audience during the course of "Is Vedanta the Future Religion?" "This is the greatest prayer. Worship the whole world in this sense-by serving it. This standing on a high platform, I know, does not appear like worship. But if it is service, it is worship. This-the service of man as the actual worship of God himself-was the powerful religion Swamiji taught from so many different approaches and points of view, and it was the religion he made real by exemplifying it with his every breath.