The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 7/Epistles - Third Series/XXVII Alasinga
XXVII
1895.
DEAR ALASINGA,
We have no organisation, nor want to build any. Each one is quite independent to teach, quite free to preach whatever he or she likes.
If you have the spirit within, you will never fail to attract others.
Theosophists' method can never be ours, for the very simple reason that they
are an organised sect, we are not.
Individuality is my motto. I have no ambition beyond training individuals
up. I know very little; that little I teach without reserve; where I am
ignorant, I confess it as such, and never am I so glad as when I find people
being helped by Theosophists, Christians, Mohammedans, or anybody in the
world. I am a Sannyasin; as such I consider myself as a servant, not as a
master in the world. . . . If people love me, they are welcome, if they
hate, they are also welcome.
Each one will have to save himself, each one to do his own work. I seek no
help, I reject none. Nor have I any right in the world to be helped.
Whosoever has helped me or will help, it will be their mercy to me, not my
right, and as such I am eternally grateful.
When I became a Sannyasin, I consciously took the step, knowing that this
body would have to die of starvation. What of that, I am a beggar. My
friends are poor, I love the poor, I welcome poverty. I am glad that I
sometimes have to starve. I ask help of none. What is the use? Truth will
preach itself, it will not die for the want of the helping hands of me!
"Making happiness and misery the same, making success and failure the same,
fight thou on" (Gita). It is that eternal love, unruffled equanimity under
all circumstances, and perfect freedom from jealousy or animosity that will
tell. That will tell, nothing else.
Yours,
VIVEKANANDA.