Swamiji outside the Mead Sisters’ House, Pasadena, California, Feb-1900.
Living here were: the father, Jesse Mead, sisters: Carrie Wyckoff, Helen Mead, Alice Hansbrough, children: Ralph Wyckoff (16), Dorothy Hansbrough (5). Swamiji stayed with them, to his and their enjoyment, for 4 weeks (25-Jan to 20-Feb). Although he had started lecturing on 8-Dec 1899, the main concept for his 5 months of intense lecturing and classes grew from here, through the organising skills of Alice Hansbrough. On 23-Feb he gives his first lecture in Oakland, SF Bay Area (It was Alice Hansbrough’s idea to try lectures in San Francisco. SF is over 3 times larger than LA. She knew the greater potential).
The California Lectures
1900 populations – LA: 100,000. SF: 330,000. Motion picture industry not yet started.
On his second visit to the West, Swamiji gave 80 lectures in Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area. Swamiji took the highest teachings of ancient India (The Forest Books, Upanishads – much read by Schopenhauer) and made them simple – ‘so a child can understand them’, he said. With his refined thinking and using Western logic (with his BA degree from Scottish Calvinist/Presbytarian missionaries) he had a message for those with open minds. He sees clean through the hypocrisy of the West’s material values. Swami Vivekananda is called Swamiji here.
– ‘A voice ringing through the void’ –
By the time 3 o’clock arrived; hall, stairs, window-sills, railings, all were crowded to their full capacity. Many were even standing below hoping to catch a faint echo of the words spoken. A sudden hush, a quiet step on the stair and Swamiji passed in stately erectness up the aisle to the platform.
He began to speak; memory, time, place, people, all melted away.
Nothing was left but a voice ringing through the void.
It was as if a gate had swung open and I passed out onto a road leading to Limitless Attainment. The end of it was not visible, but the promise of what it would be shone, and it flashed through the personality of the one who gave it.
He stood there – ‘Prophet of Infinitude’.
‘His form was an Ocean of Light’.
‘Our material needs have hardened us. We are less sensitive’. Being more considerate takes time to dwell deeper on it. But we don’t have that time – it is already booked to arrange some material need.