These I quote from the journals: "But eloquent as were many of the brief speeches, no one expressed as well the spirit of the Parliament (of religions) and its limitations as the Hindu monk. I copy his address in full, but I can only suggest its effect upon the audience; for he is an orator by Divine right, and his strong intelligent face in its picturesque setting of yellow and orange was hardly less interesting than these earnest words and the rich rhythmical utterance he gave them." (Here the speech is quoted in extenso.) New York Critique.
"He has preached in clubs and churches until his faith has become familiar to us. . . . His culture, his eloquence, and his fascinating personality have given us a new idea of Hindu civilisation . . . . His fine, intelligent face and his deep musical voice, prepossessing one at once in his favour. . . . He speaks without notes, presenting his facts and his conclusions with the greatest art and the most convincing sincerity, and rising often to rich inspiring eloquence." (ibid.) "Vivekananda is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions. After hearing him we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this learned nation." Herald (the greatest paper here).
I cease from quoting more lest you think me conceited; but this was necessary to you who have become nearly frogs in the well and would not see how the world is going on elsewhere. I do not mean you personally, my n.o.ble friend, but our nation in general.
I am the same here as in India, only here in this highly cultural land there is an appreciation, a sympathy which our ignorant fools never dream of. There our people grudge us monks a crumb of bread, here they are ready to pay one thousand rupees a lecture and remain grateful for the instructions for ever.
I am appreciated by these strangers more than I was ever in India. I can, if I will, live here all my life in the greatest luxury; but I am a Sannyasin, and "India, with all thy faults I love thee still". So I am coming back after some months, and go on sowing the seeds of religion and progress from city to city as I was doing so long, although amongst a people who know not what appreciation and gratefulness are.
I am ashamed of my own nation when I compare their beggarly, selfish, unappreciative, ignorant ungratefulness with the help, hospitality, sympathy, and respect which the Americans have shown to me, a representative of a foreign religion. Therefore come out of the country, see others, and compare.
Now after these quotations, do you think it was worth while to send a Sannyasin to America?
Please do not publish it. I hate notoriety in the same manner as I did in India. I am doing the Lord"s work, and wherever He leads I follow.
etc.- He who makes the dumb eloquent and the lame cross a
mountain, He will help me. I do not care for human help. He is ready to help
me in India, in America, on the North Pole, if He thinks fit. If He does not,
none else can help me. Glory unto the Lord for ever and ever.
Yours with blessings,
VIVEKANANDA. *.
Home / Complete-Works / Volume 8 / Epistles - Fourth Series / *
x.x.xIV.
541 DEARBORN AVENUE, CHICAGO,.
November(?), 1894.
DEAR DIWANJI (Shri Haridas Viharidas Desai),
Your letter pleased me extremely. I, of course, understand the joke, but I am not the baby to be put off with a joke; now take more. The secret of success of the Westerners is the power of organisation and combination. That is only possible with mutual trust and co-operation and help. Now here is Virchand Gandhi, the Jain, whom you well knew in Bombay. This man never takes anything but pure vegetables even in this terribly cold climate, and tooth and nail tries to defend his countrymen and religion. The people of this country like him very well, but what are they doing who sent him over? They are trying to outcast him. Jealousy is a vice necessarily generated in slaves. Again it is jealousy that holds them down.
Here were . . .; they were all trying to lecture and get money thereby. They did something, but I succeeded better than they - why, I did not put myself as a bar to their success. It was the will of the Lord. But all these . . . except . . . have fabricated and circulated the most horrible lies about me in this country, and behind my back. Americans will never stoop to such meanness.
. . . If any man tries to move forward here, everybody is ready to help him. In India you may try tomorrow by writing a single line of praise for me in any of our papers (Hindu), and the next day they would be all against me. Why? It is the nature of slaves. They cannot suffer to see any one of their brethren putting his head the least above their rank. . . . Do you mean to compare such stuff with these children of liberty, self-help, and brotherly love? The nearest approach to our people are the freed slaves of the U.S.A., the Negroes. Why, in the South they are about twenty millions and are now free. The whites are a handful, still the whites hold them down all the same. Why, even when they have every right by law, a b.l.o.o.d.y war between the brothers has been fought to free these slaves? The same defect - jealousy. Not one of these Negroes would bear to see his brother-Negro praised or pushing on. Immediately they would join the whites to crush him down. You can have no idea about it until you come out of India. It is all right for those who have plenty of money and position to let the world roll on such, but I call him a traitor who, having been educated, nursed in luxury by the heart"s blood of the downtrodden millions of toiling poor, never even takes a thought for them. Where, in what period of history your rich men, n.o.blemen, your priests and potentates took any thought for the poor - the grinding of whose faces is the very life-blood of their power?
But the Lord is great, the vengeance came sooner or later, and they who sucked the life-blood of the poor, whose very education was at their expense, whose very power was built on their poverty, were in their turn sold as slaves by hundreds and thousands, their wives and daughters dishonoured, their property robbed for the last 1,000 years, and do you think it was for no cause?
Why amongst the poor of India so many are Mohammedans? It is nonsense to say, they were converted by the sword. It was to gain their liberty from the . . . zemindars and from the . . . priest, and as a consequence you find in Bengal there are more Mohammedans than Hindus amongst the cultivators, because there were so many zemindars there. Who thinks of raising these sunken downtrodden millions? A few thousand graduates do not make a nation, a few rich men do not make a nation. True, our opportunities are less, but still there is enough to feed and clothe and made 300 millions more comfortable, nay, luxurious. Ninety per cent of our people are without education - who thinks of that? - these Babus, the so-called patriots?
Now, let me tell you - still there is a G.o.d, no joke. He is ordering our lives, and although I know a nation of slaves cannot but try to bite at the hand that wants to give them medicine, yet, pray with me, you - one of the few that have real sympathy for everything good, for everything great, one at least whom I know to be a man of true ring, n.o.bility of nature, and a thorough sincerity of head and heart - pray with me: "Lead, kindly Light, amid th" encircling gloom." I do not care what they say. I love my G.o.d, my religion, my country, and above all, myself, a poor beggar. I love the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden, I feel for them - the Lord knows how much. He will show me the way. I do not care a fig for human approbation or criticism. I think of most of them as ignorant, noisy children - they have not penetrated into the inner nature of sympathy, into the spirit which is all love.
I have that insight through the blessing of Ramakrishna. I am trying to work with my little band, all of these poor beggars like me, you have seen them. But the Lord"s works have been always done by the lowly, by the poor. You bless me that I may have faith in my Guru, in my G.o.d, and in myself.
The only way is love and sympathy. The only worship is love.
May He help you and yours ever and ever!
With prayers and blessings,
x.x.xV.
To Miss Mary Hale
168, BRATTLE STREET, CAMBRIDGE,.
8th December, 1894.
DEAR SISTER, I have been here three days. We had a nice lecture from Lady Henry Somerset. I have a cla.s.s every morning here on Vedanta and other topics. Perhaps you have got the copy of Vedantism by this time which I left with Mother Temple to be sent over. I went to dine with the Spaldings another day. That day they urged me, against my repeated protests, to criticise the Americans. I am afraid they did not relish it. It is of course always impossible to do it. What about Mother Church and the family at Chicago? I had no letters from them a long time. I would have run into town to see you before this, had I time. I am kept pretty busy the whole day. Then there is the fear of not meeting you.
If you have time, you may write, and I shall s.n.a.t.c.h the first opportunity to see you. My time of course is always in the afternoon, so long I shall be here, that is until the 27th or 28th of this month; I will have to be very busy in the morning till 12 or 1.
With my love to you all,
Ever your affectionate brother,
x.x.xVI.
To Miss Mary Hale
CAMBRIDGE,.
December, 1894.
DEAR SISTER, I received your letter just now. If it is not against the rules of your society, why do you not come to see Mrs. Ole Bull, Miss Farmer, and Mrs. Adams the physical culturist from Chicago?