Swamiji as a mendicant.

His childhood in Kolkata, British India, was affluent. His father was a lawyer at the courts. Apart from good English (Bengali was his mother tongue) his father spoke Farsi and enjoyed Persian poetry. Swamiji’s mother was a strong influence on him and when she visited the monastery later, she would call out for him and he came running like a small boy! He got his regal bearing from her.

Swamiji in front of of his meditation pine tree. At the Greenacre conference at Eliot, Maine, USA. Summer, 1894.

Ramakrishna’s influence starts –

   Swamiji met the Hindu ascetic, Ramakrishna, while studying at the Scottish College. Ramakrishna lived in a temple garden complex (Dakshineswar) outside Kolkata. He lived an austere life and worshipped the main Goddess of the temple, Kali. He worshipped idols and practised some Hindu ceremony, but did not follow the rules. Ramakrishna’s austere living and his rejection of wordly values sunk in to Swamiji. To Swamiji’s question, ‘Have you seen God?’ came the reply, ‘Yes, more clearly than I see you now, right here!’. Ramakrishna had meditated on Christ and said he had seen Jesus. He had meditated on Mohammed and said he had seen Mohammed. Ramakrishna taught, ‘As the rivers have their different paths to the same ocean, so man has many paths to the same God’.

Swamiji (sitting centre with staff) with fellow monks, 1897. Nearly all are direct disciples of Ramakrishna, some bringing Vedanta to the West to continue Swamiji’s work.

Learn how to cross the ocean of delusion –

   Ramakrishna said most people thought only about sex and their wealth (or lack of it). They had little spirituality. He said, to live correctly, with stability and understanding death, one did not need wordly comforts, one should not continually satisfy the senses. Living without comforts (which distract) was the only way to understand oneself. This was the only way you would find your true values and would see that the direction of your life has meaning. Then you made progress. Succeeding in life is, ‘To learn how to cross the ocean of delusion!’

   Ramakrishna had charisma and his humour was enjoyed by his followers. There was a group of young men who had become attached to him. On Ramakrishna’s death, this group rejected going back to live with their parents and formed the first collection of monks, taking the Hindu vows of celibacy, poverty and vowed to unite together with the purpose of spreading Ramakrishna’s message. They had nowhere to live though until a lay follower of Ramakrishna hired a dilapidated house for them – the first primitive monastery.

Kashmir 1896. L-R. Josephine Macleod and Sara Bull (sitting), his American supporters. Margot Noble, his Irish disciple (they met in London) who became a nun (Sister Nivedita) and started a girls’ school in Kolkata.

Swamiji’s attends the Parliament of Religions at Chicago’s World’s Fair, 1893 –

   Swamiji walked the entire length of India as a mendicant taking some two years – staying with rural peasants, townsfolk, and occasionally in a palace. From this he met those who would support him and they encouraged him to travel to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. This congress was part of the Chicago World’s Fair. Swamiji became a popular speaker at this congress and from here, in order to survive, he was employed on a lecture tour in America. An American friend (George Hale of Chicago) saved him from this exploitation, but now he continued to lecture on his own, as certain influential people came in to support him, financially and with the organising.

   In the winter of 1894/95 he lived and worked in New York giving lectures in large halls and daily classes to smaller groups in his rented apartment. His first 2 books were published by the New York Vedanta Society: Raja Yoga and Karma Yoga. In the summer of 1895 for 7 weeks at 1000 Islands, New York state, he taught classes in a summer house to some 8-10 students who wanted to learn Vedanta (all happily living in the same house, he producing much merriment); this was not lecturing. These classes are the book, ‘Inspired Talks’ which have some wonderful teachings. (Book 2 has 25 classes).

The first monastery is a house purchased with funds from his American followers (the finances of the order in the early days were totally American funded) –
   He went to London and gave more lectures, before returning to USA as demand for his lecturing increased. He hoped to win over enough wealthy followers who would donate large sums for him to build schools and organisations for the poor in India but this never materialised. However, the first decent large house, on the Ganges, was purchased with funds from his American admirers and it became their monastery – in 1898. The Belur Monastery complex today – with some 400 monks and trainees – ‘From which a message will reach the farthest corners of the world and some will turn a corner in their lives’.

The California Lectures on his second visit to the West –  ‘As Buddha had a message for the East, I have a message for the West’.

   It was on Swamiji’s second visit to the West that he visited California and gave many compelling lectures (some 80 lectures over 5 months along with interviews, talks and meetings). He felt the people of California were ready for his message. Their positive response to his teachings gave him energy and inspiration.

‘He told us in plain and forceful language what he thought of us – and it was not flattering.’ Said by Ida Ansell, who recorded many of his San Francisco lectures.

From this visit came the Vedanta Societies of Northern and Southern California, of today. Supported by resident monks from the Belur Monastery in Kolkata. New York also started a Vedanta society with a fellow-monk of Swamiji’s.

Education – ‘Teach the ability to concentrate correctly.’

   The present system of education is all wrong. The mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Control of the mind should be taught first. It takes people a long time to learn things because they can’t concentrate the mind at will.

Swamiji’s power of concentration –

   While walking with friends down a country road in California there were some boys with an air gun shooting at ‘blown’ eggs floating on a flowing stream – the eggs tied in a line by a string. The eggs bobbed so much that the boys could not hit one. Swamiji asked them if he could have a try. With each shot he hit an egg. He handed the air gun back to the boys – gaping in their disbelief. Those with him said that he must have spent many hours training with a gun to be such an expert. He replied that he had never held a gun before in his life – it was just a matter of concentration.

   In his book, ‘The Soul of India’ (Jawaharlal Nehru kept a copy on his desk), the historian Amaury de Riencourt writes, “In India, the flood of spiritual thought and new ideas is continuous and through this, they see the limitation of scientific reason and logic”. What Swamiji calls, ‘Kindergarten maps‘, ‘Intellectual Gymnastics’.

Who is a Free-thinker? One who rejects authority.

   For Europe to start true free-thinking, a few European thinkers had to take on some 2000 year-old Indian ideas – that Swamiji clearly presents in these books.

   Further, Amaury de Riencourt writes: ‘Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche all owe considerable debt to Ancient Indian thinkers’. 
Schopenhauer read the Forest Books (Upanishads) every evening of life – he obtained a Latin translation when young. Nietzsche (a professor at 24, Basel University) did his thesis on a Sanskrit book and he later wrote (1880’s ca) –

   ‘Only you are able to build the bridge on which you alone must cross the river of life’ – Pure Vedanta.

Nietzsche was a high school and university class mate (for one year) of Paul Deussen (Sanskrit professor, Kiel) and there is some early correspondence between them. Swamiji visited Prof Deussen in Kiel (in 1896) for 3 days, but Prof Deussen extended this meeting continually for 3 weeks, as he followed Swamiji around (with the Seviers, his companions) while he toured Germany, Amsterdam and finally reached London. Only after a further week in London did Prof Deussen finally decide to return to his university students at Kiel, a vastly improved professor – he had dug deep from Swamiji’s gold mine of Vedanta and Sanskrit.

The Forest Books/Upanishads. Vedanta. [One school from India’s vast ancient scriptures].

   They have the name Forest Books because they were developed by ascetic hermits teaching disciples, living in forests. Upanishad means, ‘to sit beside’ (teacher to disciple). They are not books. The teachings were memorised. Vast tracts. The mind is capable of enormous powers of retention (our writing culture has shrunk the mind). This was over some 1800 years (possibly 1500BC-300AD ca). The four Vedas (Veda means knowledge), were the first ‘books’, teaching this knowledge. The first Veda is The Rig-Veda; possibly 1500BC, the earliest known Sanskrit.

   Vedanta (means refined knowledge) evolved out of the Vedas. It became more and more refined from teacher to disciple over the centuries. The Vedas contain much ceremony, many Gods, worship using priests, much appealing to the senses, playing to emotions. Vedanta refined out all these practices and superstitions, avoiding any use of the senses (Swamiji says), leaving only your Soul, a single ‘Great Soul’ (Swamiji says) and you; practising concentration to develop a calm mind, a deeper self-understanding, thinking with clarity every moment and finding your true values. See menu: ‘Train the Mind’ – ‘Vedanta summarised in 22 words’.