Veils fell from your eyes – it was a tremendous joy!

He was an Ocean of Light!

She attended a Swamiji lecture – by Lillian Montgomery of New York in 1955 at the age of 85.

   (Pub: Advaita Ashrama. Kolkata. India)

  You couldn’t take your eyes off him

  So I went to the Vedanta House and I sat on a front seat so I wouldn’t miss anything. Swamiji entered by a side door. Immediately I knew that there was something extraordinary about him. He was very unassuming, very calm. He entered and took his place on the rostrum. But there was something about that presence – you couldn’t take your eyes off him – and he fascinated you. As he sat in his chair his head was the most perfect I have seen, and it was perfectly poised and power seemed to emanate from him. I was fascinated. He looked like a living Buddha. He looked entirely different from any personality I had ever seen.

  The relationship of the individual to the divinity

 He rose to speak and the voice was extraordinary. It was mellow, resonant, but of great purity. As he spoke veils just seemed to fall from your eyes because he gave you an entirely different impression of personality. He gave an entirely different impression as he was speaking – it was about the relationship of the individual to the divinity.

  His awareness was in a vision within

  I remember as I looked at him, it seemed there was an ocean of consciousness at the back of him. In some way there was no limit to his personality. His awareness was in a vision within. As we see people, we see them as limited because their awareness is entirely connected to the body. With Swami Vivekananda it seemed that there was this ocean of consciousness at the back of him and in some way it focussed and flowed through his words.

  As if his mind was a limpid lake reflectiing Divine Light

  I heard him say, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’. I have heard those words all my life, and I have the idea most people have at some time – that if you lived a certain life, you would come into contact with a divine person or something like that. As Vivekananda was speaking, the purity of that personality was so great, it just seemed to me divinty was reflected in it. As if his mind was a limpid lake reflecting Divine Light. With every word he spoke – other people speak words and they have no idea of their value – every word he spoke was a revelation because he brought with it the realisation that he was living.

  Every word he uttered came from a state of realisation

  Other people that I have heard in the pulpit and that sort of thing – and I have heard the best – they speak from a standpoint of faith, that they have a faith in a divinity. I began to realise that this man was speaking from something that he was living, that every word he uttered came from a state of realisation, such a realisation as the ordinary person cannot imagine.

  It was a strange sensation at the time – his form could shine forever. Such a power as we have never seen

  At one time, as I listened, I felt he was so established in this realisation that The Soul was Eternal that he could stand before a cannon without fear and I seemed to sense that if this form vanished, that that light which was shining through it would stay there forever – that it would never disappear. It was a strange sensation at the time. But there was a purity and an intense power, such a power as I think we have never seen and I don’t expect I’ll ever see it again. It just seemed to pour from an Infinite Source. He was perfectly calm, perfectly reposed.

   Man could face any situation that came to him. ‘Face it!’

   Another thing Swamiji said that fascinated me was, ‘Face it!’ He told the story of how he was walking along a broad wall and an elderly monk was behind him and suddenly a vicious ape appeared and it was about to attack him. Vivekananda was about to turn and run when this monk said, ‘Face it!’ He turned and faced it. He felt the power that conquers the beast. The idea he gave us was that, within man there was that which could face any situation that came to him.  Those words will always stay with me. I have never forgotten them.

  It was very powerful because it just penetrated within. It aroused something within that was not there before

  Another thing that impressed me very much – there was an absence of the sense of Ego. I saw eventually what that was because his whole awareness was turned towards that Inner Vision. Where the ordinary person has that sense of the little ego, Swami Vivekananda’s sense of ”I” had expanded into something vast and deep and was very, very pure. It was very, very powerful because it just penetrated within and it aroused something within that was not there before.

   Someplace he has said you never see without you anything that isn’t within you. I think that perhaps his great power was he perceived the divinity in all forms and he perceived it to such a degree that he awakened it in his listeners as he was speaking.

   A realisation that was all power, beauty and purity

  His whole personality was absorbed in his vision, which certainly was vast and seemed to fill the whole space behind him. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen where there seemed to be no limit to his personality – and it wasn’t like our idea of a halo or something. It was just as if this outer form was so attuned to something – a realisation that was all power, and beauty and purity.

    A beauty that flowed through every word

   It was a beauty that just flowed through every word he spoke, every phrase. As I say, every word he spoke took on a different  … you had a different conception of the words.

   Veil after veil fell from your eyes. It was a tremendous joy!

   As he spoke, veil after veil fell from your eyes because you sensed the vastness of realisation – which before, I think, we had an idea as a sort of abstraction. But it was like a tremendous joy! Something like that.

    He was so tuned to something that was all-harmony, all-beauty

  I don’t think he could have possibly had an awkward movement and he couldn’t possibly have struck an awkward tone because he was so tuned to something that was all-harmony and all-beauty.

   There’s no one that had that wonderful magnetism

   There’s no one who has appeared at the New York opera or on any stage that had that wonderful voice, that wonderful magnetism. He just seemed to be a centre of spiritual power, and that emanated from him. 

    As if his outer form was floating on a great light

   He was always calm. But every line of his body followed his thoughts. It was just as if his outer form was floating on a great light.

   I was almost walking on air

   Some stayed and asked questions, then talked with Swamiji.  I always stayed till last. He fascinated me. I was almost walking on air. You’d heard about saints and that sort of thing but he was so entirely different from any conception that I had ever had because it was a calm power.

   His form was an Ocean of Light

   It was just as if his form were an Ocean of Light, as it were. Somehow that Light concentrated and just poured through the words he was speaking.