Triumphant return to India
I don't feel tired, not even if I talk for two whole nights to an earnest inquirer; I can give up food and sleep and talk and talk. If I have a mind to, I can sit in Samadhi in a Himalayan cave. And yet you see that nowadays - through the Mother's grace - I have not to think about food, it comes somehow. Why then don't I do so? Why am I here? Only the sight of the country's misery and the thought of its future do not let me remain quiet anymore! — Even Samadhi and all that appear futile — even the sphere of Brahmâ with its enjoyments is insipid! My vow of life is to think of your welfare. The day that vow is fulfilled, I shall leave this body and make a straight run up!
(Source:Diary of a Disciple {1899})
I don't care for Mukti and all that. My mission is to arouse within you all these ideas; I am ready to undergo 100,000 rebirths to train a single man.
(Source:Diary of a Disciple {1899})
"And so,-" said the Swami, "though I often say strange things and angry things, yet remember that in my heart I never seriously mean to preach anything but love ! All these things will come right, only when we realize that we love each other."
(Source: Notes of Some Wanderings)
In India the moment I landed they made me shave my head and wear "Kaupin" (loin cloth), with the result that I got diabetes etc. Saradananda never gave up his underwear — this saved his life, with just a touch of rheumatism and much comment from our people.
Though I often say strange things and angry things, yet remember that in my heart I never seriously mean to preach anything but love! All these things will come right, only when we realise that we love each other.
(Kashmir: June 19, 1898)
India is a rotten corpse inside and outside. We shall revive it by the blessings of Shri Maharaj.
(Letter to Ramakrishnananda 25th February, 1898.)
Jan - Feb 1897
It was in Southern India, when I came from London and when the people were feting and feasting and pumping all the work out of me, that an old hereditary disease made its appearance. The tendency was always there, and excess of mental work made it "express" itself.
Total collapse and extreme prostration followed, and I had to leave Madras immediately for the cooler North; a day's delay meant waiting for a week in that awful heat for another steamer. By the by, I learnt afterwards that Mr. Barrows arrived in Madras next day and was very much chagrined at not finding me as he expected, though I helped getting up an address for him and arranged for his reception. Poor man, he little knew I was at death's door then.
Death I have conquered long ago when I gave up life. (Letter to Mary Hale, March 02, 1898)
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- www.vivekananda.net edited by Frank Parlato Jr.
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