The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/XCIII Mrs. Bull
XCIII
NEW YORK,
25th Jan., 1896.
DEAR MRS. BULL,
Your letter to Sturdy has been sent over to me. It was very kind of you to
write that note. This year, I am afraid, I am getting overworked, as I feel
the strain. I want a rest badly. So it is very good, as you say, that the
Boston work be taken up in the end of March. By the end of April I will
start for England.
Land can be had in large plots in the Catskills for very little money. There
is a plot of 101 acres for $200. The money I have ready, only I cannot buy
the land in my name. You are the only friend in this country in whom I have
perfect trust. If you consent, I will buy the land in your name. The
students will go there in summer and build cottages or camps as they like
and practice meditation. Later on, if they can collect funds, they may build
something up. I am sorry, you cannot come just now. Tomorrow will be the
last Sunday lecture of this month. The first Sunday of next month there will
be a lecture in Brooklyn; the rest, three in New York, with which I will
close this year's New York lectures.
I have worked my best. If there is any seed of truth in it, it will come to life. So I have no anxiety about anything. I am also getting tired of lecturing and having classes. After a few months' work in England I will go to India and hide myself absolutely for some years or for ever. I am satisfied in my conscience that I did not remain an idle Swami. I have a note-book which has travelled with me all over the world. I find these words written seven years ago — "Now to seek a corner and lay myself there to die!" Yet all this Karma remained. I hope I have worked it out. I hope the Lord will give me freedom from this preaching and adding good bondages.
"If you have known the Âtman as the one existence and that nothing else
exists, for whom, for what desire, do you trouble yourself?" Through Maya
all this doing good etc. came into my brain — now they are leaving me. I get
more and more convinced that there is no other object in work except the
purification of the soul — to make it fit for knowledge. This world with its
good and evil will go on in various forms. Only the evil and good will take
new names and new seats. My soul is hankering after peace and rest eternal
undisturbed.
"Live alone, live alone. He who is alone never comes into conflict with
others — never disturbs others, is never disturbed by others." I long, oh! I
long for my rags, my shaven head, my sleep under the trees, and my food from
begging! India is the only place where, with all its faults, the soul finds
its freedom, its God. All this Western pomp is only vanity, only bondage of
the soul. Never more in my life I realised more forcibly the vanity of the
world. May the Lord break the bondage of all — may all come out of Maya — is
the constant prayer of
VIVEKANANDA.