The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/XXV Sir
XXV[6]*
(Translated from Bengali)
Victory to the Lord!
GHAZIPUR,
3rd March, 1890.
DEAR SIR,
Your kind letter comes to hand just now. You know not, sir, I am a very
soft-natured man in spite of the stern Vedantic views I hold. And this
proves to be my undoing. At the slightest touch I give myself away; for
howsoever I may try to think only of my own good, I slip off in spite of
myself to think of other peoples' interests. This time it was with a very
stern resolve that I set out to pursue my own good, but I had to run off at
the news of the illness of a brother at Allahabad! And now comes this news
from Hrishikesh, and my mind has run off with me there. I have wired to
Sharat, hut no reply yet — a nice place indeed to delay even telegrams so
much! The lumbago obstinately refuses to leave me, and the pain is very
great. For the last few days I haven't been able to go to see Pavhariji, but
out of his kindness he sends every day for my report. But now I see the
whole matter is inverted in its bearings! While I myself have come, a
beggar, at his door, he turns round and wants to learn of me! This saint
perhaps is not yet perfected — too much of rites, vows, observances, and too
much of self-concealment. The ocean in its fullness cannot be contained
within its shores, I am sure. So it is not good, I have decided not to
disturb this Sâdhu (holy man) for nothing, and very soon I shall ask leave
of him to go. No help, you see; Providence has dealt me my death to make me
so tender! Babaji does not let me off, and Gagan Babu (whom probably you
know — an upright, pious, and kindhearted man) does not let me off. If the
wire in reply requires my leaving this place, I go; if not, I am coming to
you at Varanasi in a few days. I am not going to let you off — I must take
you to Hrishikesh — no excuse or objections will do. What are you saying
about difficulties there of keeping clean? Lack of water in the hills or
lack of room!! Tirthas (places of pilgrimage) and Sannyasins of the
Kali-Yuga — you know what they are. Spend money and the owners of temples
will fling away the installed god to make room for you; so no anxiety about
a resting-place! No trouble to face there, I say; the summer heat has set in
there now, I believe, though not that degree of it as you find at Varanasi
— so much the better. Always the nights are quite cool there, from which
good sleep is almost a certainty.
Why do you get frightened so much? I stand guarantee that you shall return home safe and that you shall have no trouble anywhere. It is my experience that in this British realm no fakir or householder gets into any trouble.
Is it a mere idle fancy of mine that between us there some connection from
previous birth? Just see how one letter from you sweeps away all my
resolution and, I bend my steps towards Varanasi leaving all matters behind!
. . .
I have written again to brother Gangadhar and have asked him this time to
return to the Math. If he comes, he will meet you. How is the climate at
Varanasi now? By my stay here I have been cured of all other symptoms of
malaria, only the pain in the loins makes me frantic; day and night it is
aching and chafes me very much. I know not how I shall climb up the hills. I
find wonderful endurance in Babaji, and that's why I am begging something of
him; but no inkling of the mood to give, only receiving and receiving! So I
also fly off.
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.
PS. To no big person am I going any longer —
"Remain, O mind, within yourself, go not to anybody else's door; whatever you seek, you shall obtain sitting at your ease, only seek for it in the privacy of your heart. There is the supreme Treasure, the philosophers' stone and He can give whatever you ask for; for countless gems, O mind, lie strewn about the portals of His abode. He is the wishing-stone that confers boons at the mere thought." Thus says the poet Kamalâkânta.
So now the great conclusion is that Ramakrishna has no peer; nowhere else in this world exists that unprecedented perfection, that wonderful kindness for all that does not stop to justify itself, that intense sympathy for man in bondage. Either he must be the Avatâra as he himself used to say, or else the ever-perfected divine man whom the Vedanta speaks of as the free one who assumes a body for the good of humanity. This is my conviction sure and certain; and the worship of such a divine man has been referred to by Patanjali in the aphorism: "Or the goal may be attained by meditating on a saint." (Patanjali's aphorism has "Ishvara" in place of "saint". Nârada has an aphorism which runs thus : Bhakti (Supreme Love) is attainable chiefly through the grace of a saint, or by a bit of Divine Grace.)
Never during his life did he refuse a single prayer of mine; millions of
offences has he forgiven me; such great love even my parents never had for
me. There is no poetry, no exaggeration in all this. It is the bare truth
and every disciple of his knows it. In times of great danger, great
temptation, I wept in extreme agony with the prayer, "O God, do save me,"
but no response came from anybody; but this wonderful saint, or Avatara, or
anything else he may be, came to know of all my affliction through his
powers of insight into human hearts and lifted it off — in spite of my
desire to the contrary — after getting me brought to his presence. If the
soul be deathless, and so, if he still lives, I pray to trim again and
again: "O Bhagavan Ramakrishna, thou infinite ocean of mercy and my only
refuge, do graciously fulfil the desires of my esteemed friend, who is every
inch a great man." May he impart to you all good, he whom alone I have found
in this world to be like an ocean of unconditioned mercy! Shântih, Shântih,
Shântih.
Please send a prompt reply.
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.