True, Sister Rosemary. How many of us just love her. Those who do are the real salt of the Earth, the ones of steady wisdom who uphold the Earth by their penance, and real heroes to emulate. Yet how few are such heroes or maybe my vision is as yet impaired, for there might be many heroes shying from the limelight passing on silently in due course of time to Mother's presence.
With regards,

Ankur

Location: New Delhi, India

Dear Ankur,

I'm not sure if this is an impairment of our visual capacity, or not.

As I was thinking on this subject while at work today, it occurred to me that it is not so much a question of our LOVING Holy Mother, as much as it is a problem in our understanding of how much she LOVES us.

I think, for myself, that it is impossible to fathom just how much love she keeps for us, her children, and how much she suffers for the pain that we bear on ourselves.

Then, again, perhaps it IS "impaired vision" because we know not what we worship. The image of Kali which Ramakrishna worshipped is very frightening to me. Perhaps, in time, the scales will fall off of my eyes, and she will reveal herself to me.

We have to keep faith that the Divine Mother loves us, in spite of what we see in ourselves...

Yours in grace,
Rosemary

Location: North Carolina

Keeping with my own understanding, I believe you are right in part, dear Sister Rosemary. The problem does lie in the understanding of how much she loves us. Yet at the same time I feel the problem also lies in how little we love her. I mean we are full of ourself and He/She is a jealous God brooking no rival in the matter of love. As I see it, as we contemplate on Mother's love and Mother in any of her aspects, we start melting inside and disappearing and Mother gets filled in there, and in case of Mother's lovers or should I say devotee children, they cease to be and mother alone remains in a way that their previous personality traits are retained, which now cause no harm to anyone but become a blessing for others in totality. As for the Bible statement that He is a jealous God, is it not practical. God is One and the only existence; as long as we harbour love for anyone, anything other than God, we are within the realm of duality, but when God infills us as the Holy Spirit, there is nought left but She. So on God asking you, 'who are you', you can reply, 'You, Lord, You'. Yet, as long as the body remains, you too remain in one of the many relationship with God in whichever form He/She is dear to you. You might remember that setting out to worship Kali, Ramakrishna worshipped himself. For there was nought but She there. So the saying, 'Not I, not I, but You, Mother'. And that also explains why the Lord says, 'Not that you loved Me, but that I loved you'. The conception, though I am unable to explain it perhaps well enough, is very clear in my mind. There is but One existence. But while with body consciousness, or should I say as long the Divine Illusion, Maya holds sway over us, there are two, the Ista, our ideal form of God, and the devotee, and the devotee is the eternal servant and the Lord is the Master. When the body falls off, the devotee merges in his beloved, or retains a separate individuality to enjoy the bliss of loving and serving Him through eternity. These are all contemplation on the perfection that comes upon the soul by Mother's Grace. Till that perfection is attained, there are various levels of truth through which we progress, and to each his/her own truth, which should not be disturbed by anyone else. For it is that persons' truth, and it is with the strength of that truth that he/she will one day rise up to higher and higher truths to reach God one fine day by His grace.
Kali is very sweet, She is the embodiment of peace. Her imagery is one of the most attractive among all imageries. Ramakrishna and Kali are one. You can play with Kali. She is the embodiment of all contradictory qualities, which is what this world of maya is, and yet She is beyond all duality, Brahman Itself. You feel a loving thrill watching the playful face of Kali. Vivekananda did not believe in Kali at first, then circumstances ensued and in his own words, 'Kali made me Her slave. Now wherever I go, I 'see' a little girl (Kali) leading me by the fingers'. If possible read the poem on Kali by Swami Vivekananda and also the little book on Her by Sister Nivedita, 'Kali the Mother'.
FInally, Mother's love is unconditional. Not because of, but in spite of what we are, She loves us. If only we could remember this.
I have written too much. Forgive my blabbling, for it is nothing but baby talk for Mother. And the wise and intelligent are especially the Mother's playing ground. As She says in the Chandi, I forcefully draw the intellect of the wise and intelligent ones and put them into delusion. So I am wary and my love for Mother increases. Time teaches, Mother teaches. You learn in time that there is nought but Mother. That is love, that is renunciation, that is all of Religion.
Thanking you.
Pravrajika Bhaktiprana, the 92-year-old President of Sarada Math and Mission, and the embodiment of the Holy Mother Sarada for countless people, is coming to Delhi Sarada Mission early next month. I am hoping to have her darshan. She will give diksha here. On an academic level, she is the disciple of Swami Vijnanananda, a direct monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and the 4th President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. Incidentally, Swami Atmasthananda, the President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission at present is also a disciple of Swami Vijnanananda. They are among the last of the monastic disciples of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna.
With regards,
Ankur

Location: New Delhi, India

Ankur, you have a mighty fine intellect!!

As you say, one should never interfere with another's truth. Swamiji said that, too. We shouldn't interfere--not even in our mind. Therefore, one must be very, very careful and keep the intention pure.

Still, if we don't speak our own truth, then there is nothing left to discuss, and thus becomes a silence, and sometimes--when help is needed--it becomes an uncomfortable silence and thus help is forestalled.

You have said some very interesting things. This is the area that stands out most to me:

"As I see it, as we contemplate on Mother's love and Mother in any of her aspects, we start melting inside and disappearing and Mother gets filled in there, and in case of Mother's lovers or should I say devotee children, they cease to be and mother alone remains in a way that their previous personality traits are retained, which now cause no harm to anyone but become a blessing for others in totality"

Just from a cursory understanding, I seem to think that an "identification" is necessary before one can merge. Do you think that perhaps Sri Ramakrishna was physically making identity with the Divine Mother when he donned the women's clothes? Does that mean that we should follow in his footsteps and do the same? I personally don't think so.

We are yet in the shadows. "Readiness is everything" is what Josephine Macleod injected into the world.

While in Kashmir, Vivekanda chose Nivedita to make a pilgrimage with him into the holy cave of Amaranth. The other ladies were not jealous.

This is what transpired...

p. 61, Tantine, Pravrajika Prabuddhaprana

"When most of the camps had broken up and all the pilgrims moved on except themselves, they continued to sit with the full moon overhead, the roar of the swift current of the Lidar in front, and the mountain pines rustling in the wind beyond. Vivekananda talked of Shiva and the holy cave of Amarnath, and his spiritual experience there.

Nivedita, however, had no such experience in the cave; she felt disappointed and disturbed. She requested Vivekananda to give her that experience, and when he told her that he could not do that, she wanted him to make her understand it. Vivekananda, absorbed in an exalted state, could not sympathise with her. He assured her that as she made the pilgrimage, the effect of it would come to her in time. Frustrated, she cried on Joe's shoulder. Joe was always there to comfort her. after this Nivedita referred to Joe as her 'revered Mother.'"

Yours,
Rosemary

Location: North Carolina

Thank you, dear Sister Rosemary. The picture is beautiful. The Cat is thought of as the symbol of the Divine Mother here. As for your query, the following from the World Wide Net should answer it better than my own words. It concerns experience of an elderly lady at Ramana Maharshi's shrine at New Delhi which I visit now and then:

"That day, I was sitting as usual. And Ramana spoke again. He said that there was some fault in my conduct in a prior life, two births ago. And the cancerous tumour was its result. So then there ensued a dialogue between him and me! He revealed what the fault was. So I said to Him –“but Bhagawan, it seems a small fault, -- of omission to conduct myself in full accordance with my role in life, as a wife.

It was then that Bhagawan said something that was overwhelmimg. That a fault lies not so much in the effect of our action on another but rather in the action not being in accordance with our own nature. He went on to say that every created phenomenon has its own nature and each creature must act fully in accordance with that nature. Otherwise, since everything in creation is interconnected, all of creation can be affected by some such act, small or big, act of commission or omission.

And then, this fantastic thing happened!"
....

Read the whole fascinating account in http://akhilaghosh.in/ramana2.html

I read it yesterday.

Thank you for your sharings, sister. THe purity of intention is really important.

With best regards,

Ankur

Location: New Delhi

Dear Ankur,

Thank you for sharing the link. I am home on my lunch hour now, and will be heading to the link to print up the story. It is most, most interesting to me!!!! (Especially as it involves Ramana Maharshi.)

Also, it seems that you and I have been on the same wavelength since my prior post. This morning at work I have been thinking about something that I read about Sri Ramakrishna. Right now, I can't recall where or which book that I read this in, but it is important.

It went something like this:

There was a girl child (I can't recall who--perhaps the daughter of a devotee) whose parents were making plans for her marriage. Sri Ramakrishna warned the parents that the girl should never marry because she was a reincarnated Divine Being and it was not possible for a man to enjoy her. She married anyway, and either the bride or the groom passed away before the marriage could be consumated.

I will go now and print up that article. Thank you.

Yours in Mother's Grace,
Rosemary

PS. I'm glad you liked the photo...I'm going to call it "Cat at the Palace". I go back to the Palace almost every day and see the cat, but I can't get him to pose in the same spot....

Location: North Carolina

Dear Ankur,

I just read the Ramana Maharshi article and found it very interesting. It has sparked a lot of thoughts in my mind, not the least of which is about the body and about disease and about seeking cures.

When someone approached the Maharshi concerning the subject of disease his reply was that "The body is a disease." He often spoke to people about paying so much attention to the body, which itself was a disease. (This is my understanding of what he said.)

As you know, I have had a diagnosis of cancer (in 2006). At the first biopsy I was told that it was a very slow growing, less dangerous type of cancer. On the next biopsy (a couple of weeks later) I was told that it was very agressive and I was sent to top Doctors to find out what to do. Well, it turns out that at this point that the cancer has never returned after the first removal though some of my friends with the same cancer have died from it.

I use to go here and there taking vitamins and seeking cancer cures, but now, I am just standing still. Once I heard the Maharshi say, "Why all this attention to the body?" I am no longer so concerned.

We are not the doers! That is my opinion.

(Still, I use to meditate on the Maharshi's photo, and his face would do interesting things. I understand that part very well. Also, the Maharshi explained "why" it happened, but I'm not sure if she is trying to say that he "cured" her. What do you think?)

Yours,
Rosemary

Location: North Carolina

Dear Rosemary,

So happy to note that your cancer has not returned.

RE: "Maharshi concerning the subject of disease his reply was that "The body is a disease."

Sri Ramakrishna said:

'Disease is the tax which the soul pays for the body, as the tenant pays house-rent
for the use of the house.'

Swami Vivekananda said:

"The people of this Christian land will recognise religion if only you can cure
diseases, work miracles, and open up avenues to money; and they understand little
of anything else. But there are honourable exceptions. ..."

Incidentally, in reference to a previous conversation, I have since discovered
that Swamiji suffered from type 2 Diabetes.

Here is a letter explaining that fact:

To Lala Badri Sah of Almora

DARJEELING

7th April '97.

DEAR LALAJEE,

Just received your kind invitation through telegram. Perhaps you have already
heard that I have been attacked by "Diabetes", *a fell disease.

That unsettled all our plans, and I had to run up to Darjeeling, it being very
cool and very good for the disease.

I have felt much better since, and the doctors therefore do not want me to move
about, as that brings about a relapse. If my present state of health continues
for a month or two, I think I will be in a condition to come down to the plains
and come to Almora to see you all. I am very sorry that I have caused you a good
deal of trouble, but you see it could not be helped — the body was not under
my control.

With all love to yourself and other friends in Almora.

Yours affectionately,

VIVEKANANDA

*Archaic - 'destructive or deadly'

Om Shanthi Om
==============

Well, I must say that I don't get it. I can't see any evidence in his activitities or daily physical issues. He may have had it, but I can't tell it by anything that I've read about his health or his daily life.

One even wonders if I had aggressive cancer? When I asked the (Indian) Doctor in Chapel Hill if they got the diagnosis right, his reply was a bit egotistical "MY people looked at the slides." So, there it is. I had agressive cancer and now there is not a sign of it.

Of course, as one Doctor told me, "It's going to come back."

I wonder what type of tests that they had for diabetes back then???

Yours,
Rosemary

Location: North Carolina

PS,

In my opinion, medicine can be a bit subjective.

When I read my pathology reports for the second biopsy, it was reported that the slides showed an abnormality that could be interpreted to mean a very benign type of cancr OR it could have flipped the other way. The pathologists decided that based on their experience they would interpret it as agressive disease. It sounded to me like they flipped a coin.

I don't know, maybe it is just luck. I use to go and help people with bladder cancer but I stopped doing that when I read what the Maharshi said. It doesn't matter what happens to this body. My friend who lives across from me in the complex-just a stone's throw from my apartment-died yesterday morning from Stage IV Lung cancer. Just two years ago, she was healthy and she and I gardened together in the community garden. She was just 73 years old.

So, heading for my day. I say that medicine is subjective and would have been extremely so in India over 100 years ago.

If I see one thing that makes me think that Swamiji suffered from diabetes, I will let you know. At this moment, I'm just can't see it.
Yours,
Rosemary

Location: North Carolina

Swami Vivekananda's was an iccha mrityu, self-willed exit from this world. He had got that boon from the Lord (Shiva) at Amarnath, and it was Sri Ramakrishna's prediction too. The body made of five elements had to dissolve back into the elements one fine day, the diseases were just an excuse, Vivekananda chose the time of his exit and you know, according to the Bhagavad Gita, the Seven Sages, of whom Vivekananda was one, have all powers equal to God, except that they cannot create. When I was telling a senior Japanese monk of the Ramakrishna Order at Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata that I was having a bad period of Saturn's negative influence, he smiled and said Swami Ji (Vivekananda) is much more powerful than Saturn, don't worry.

With warm regards,

Ankur

Location: New Delhi

Wow!!

Location: North Carolina

Dear Rosemary,

I guess that Diabetes is 'up and down'...one day he felt good...then soon after
was feeling sick again. The disease is like that. I don't know what tests they
had for Diabetes before the discovery of insulin...it must have been primitive.

Regarding Swamiji's health, here are some excerpts from letters 1897-1902:

12 April 1902

"I am getting on splendidly, they say, but yet very weak and no water to drink.
Anyhow the chemical analysis shows a great improvement. The swelling about the
feet and the complaints have all disappeared."

27 Aug 1901

"I now do nothing, except trying to eat and sleep and nurse my body the rest of
the time."

5 July 1901

" PS. My letter had to be short; I am out of sorts all the time; it is the body!"

"I have had a terrible collapse in Assam from which I am slowly recovering."

18 June 1901

"Only my terribly poor health, some legal affairs, etc., etc., may make a little delay."

3 June 1901

"My health nowadays is becoming a little better."

29 March 1901

" I am rather well and hope you and your daughter and Margot are also enjoying
splendid health."

2 Feb 1899

"Neither did the change at Vaidyanath do me any good. I nearly died there, was
suffocating for eight days and nights!! I was brought back to Calcutta more dead
than alive, and here I am struggling to get back to life again."

Nov 1898

"Very glad to learn that you and the Kumar are enjoying good health. As for me,
my heart has become very weak."

2 Oct 1898

"I had a great desire to look in on my way down, but my health failed completely,
and I had to run down in all haste. There is some disturbance with my heart,
I am afraid."

Sept 1898

"I have been very ill here for two weeks. Now getting better"

27 July 1897

"I had a great many dinners to attend in London last season. But it was fated not
to be, and my health did not permit my going over with the Raja."

18 May 1897 (letter to his doctor)

"In Darjeeling I always felt that I was not the same man. Here I feel that I have no
disease whatsoever, but there is one marked change. I never in my life could sleep
as soon as I got into bed. I must toss for at least two hours. Only from Madras to Darjeeling(during the first month) I would sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.
That ready disposition to sleep is gone now entirely, and my old tossing habit and
feeling hot after the evening meal have come back. I do not feel any heat after the
day meal. There being an orchard here, I began to take more fruit than usual as soon
as I came. But the only fruit to be got here now is the apricot. I am trying to get more varieties from Naini Tal. There has not been any thirst even though the days are fearfully
hot. ...On the whole my own feeling is one of revival of great strength and cheerfulness,
and a feeling of exuberant health, only I am afraid I am getting fat on a too much milk
diet. Don't you listen to what Yogen writes. He is a hypochondriac himself and wants
to make everybody so. I ate one-sixteenth of a barphi(sweetmeat) in Lucknow, and that
according to Yogen was what put me out of sorts in Almora! Yogen is expected here in a
few days. I am going to take him in hand. By the by, I am very susceptible to malarious influences. The first week's indisposition at Almora might have been caused to a certain
extent by my passage through the Terai. Anyhow I feel very, very strong now. You ought
to see me, Doctor, when I sit meditating in front of the beautiful snow-peaks and repeat
from the Upanishads: [Sanskrit]—He has neither disease, nor decay, nor death; for, verily,
he has obtained a body full of the fire of Yoga."

Regarding 'aggressive cancer' or not, I guess only the Lord knows. Sri Ramakrishna
seemed to have an exaggerated faith in doctors, as is evidenced by the following
quote:

"It is God Himself who has become the physicians.
Therefore one must believe all of them.
But one cannot have faith in them
if one thinks of them as mere men."

Then again, he also said:

"Have you become an experienced physician?"
Quoting a Sanscrit verse he said, "He who has killed only
a hundred patients is a novice in medicine;
but he becomes an expert after killing a thousand."

-also-

"God laughs on two occasions. He laughs when the physician says
to the patient's mother, 'Don't be afraid, mother;
I shall certainly cure your boy.' God laughs to Himself,
'I am going to take his life, and this man says he will save it !'
The physician thinks he is the master, forgetting that God
is the Master. God laughs again when two brothers divide
their land with a string, saying to each other, '
This side is mine and that side is yours.'
He laughs and says to Himself, 'The whole universe belongs to Me,
but they say they own this portion or that portion."

My personal opinion is that physicians are only human, and are therefore just
as subject to error, as the rest of us. I certainly hope that the Oncologist
who claimed that you had 'aggressive cancer' was in error, along with 'his
people' who looked at the slides. There have been quite a few doctors in the
News these days, who have been reprimanded for mis-diagnosis.

I must say that I feel fortunate to have avoided entering a doctor's office
for over thirty five years now, except for the time that I was prescribed
special support stockings, for my varicose veins in the early 80's.

OM Shanthi Om

Josephine Macleod makes two mentions of Swamiji suffering from "heart attack". But, the author of the book "Tantine" says that no one else made reference to heart trouble. (However, we do see it in the evidence from what you have posted today.)

According to Josephine Macleod, Swamiji loved chocolate ice cream.

Also, last night in the book, I found the following to be interesting (a section quoting Romaine Rolland)

Tantine, p. 215

"About the trip to France, Miss MacLeod speaks with disgust of the meanness of Jules Bois who secretly encouraged Emma Calve to try to seduce Swami Vivekananda. But Mme. Calve who was very noble, rebuked him, saying that Vivekananda was a monk and that she respected the God who was within him."

"Vivekananda had a horror of Theosophists and spiritualists. He used to say, "Whoever seeks money is vulgar but whoever is involved in occultism is twice as vulgar. Don't touch it even with the tip of your toe. It is defiling..."
_____________________

I can't find the section now, but I read last night that Rolland quotes Josephine as insisting that Swamiji looked healthy the last time she saw him in April 1902.

Since I suffer from bladder disease and needs take a trip to the ladies room as much as 4 times an hour, I also stay very thirsty depending on urine output.

Swelling of the feet make me think of something, but I can't think of what....kidneys, I think, or it could be heart, but kidneys come to mind first. That would go along with what Holy Mother had to say, though I cannot recall her exact words.

Gotta run back to work.
Rosemary

Location: North Carolina

Dear Rosemary,

RE: Swamiji's love for chocolate ice cream

According to one of those quotes in my previous posting, Swamiji also loved
"Barfi", which is a very sweet Indian dessert. That must not have been at all
good for a man in his condition.

RE: Swamiji's quote on Theosophy

I think Swami Vivekananda deplored the whole concept of (American) Spiritualism, which was
immensely popular during the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Here are some interesting quotes:

STRAY REMARKS ON THEOSOPHY
(Found among Swami Vivekananda's papers.)

The Theosophists are having a jubilee time of it this year, and several press-notices are before us of their goings and doings for the last twenty-five years.

Nobody has a right now to say that the Hindus are not liberal to a fault. A coterie of young Hindus has been found to welcome even this graft of American Spiritualism, with its panoply of taps and raps and hitting back and forth with Mahâtmic pellets.

The Theosophists claim to possess the original divine knowledge of the universe. We are glad to learn of it, and gladder still that they mean to keep it rigorously a secret. Woe unto us, poor mortals, and Hindus at that, if all this is at once let out on us! Modern Theosophy is Mrs. Besant. Blavatskism and Olcottism seem to have taken a back seat. Mrs. Besant means well at least — and nobody can deny her perseverance and zeal.

There are, of course, carping critics. We on our part see nothing but good in Theosophy — good in what is directly beneficial, good in what is pernicious, as they say, indirectly good as we say — the intimate geographical knowledge of various heavens, and other places, and the denizens thereof; and the dexterous finger work on the visible plane accompanying ghostly communications to live Theosophists — all told. For Theosophy is the best serum we know of, whose injection never fails to develop the q u e e r moths finding lodgment in some brains attempting to pass muster as sound.

We have no wish to disparage the good work of the Theosophical or any other society. Yet exaggeration has been in the past the bane of our race and if the several articles on the work of the Theosophical Society that appeared in the Advocate of Lucknow be taken as the temperamental gauge of Lucknow, we are sorry for those it represents, to say the least; foolish depreciation is surely vicious, but fulsome praise is equally loathsome.

This Indian grafting of American Spiritualism — with only a few Sanskrit words taking the place of spiritualistic jargon — Mahâtmâ missiles taking the place of ghostly raps and taps, and Mahatmic inspiration that of obsession by ghosts.

We cannot attribute a knowledge of all this to the writer of the articles in the Advocate, but he must not confound himself and his Theosophists with the great Hindu nation, the majority of whom have clearly seen through the Theosophical phenomena from the start and, following the great Swami Dayânanda Sarasvati who took away his patronage from Blavatskism the moment he found it out, have held themselves aloof.

Again, whatever be the predilection of the writer in question, the Hindus have enough of religious teaching and teachers amidst themselves even in this Kali Yuga, and they do not stand in need of dead ghosts of Russians and Americans.

The articles in question are libels on the Hindus and their religion. We Hindus — let the writer, like that of the articles referred to, know once for all — have no need nor desire to import religion from the West. Sufficient has been the degradation of importing almost everything else.

The importation in the case of religion should be mostly on the side of the West, we are sure, and our work has been all along in that line. The only help the religion of the Hindus got from the Theosophists in the West was not a ready field, but years of uphill work, necessitated by Theosophical sleight-of-hand methods. The writer ought to have known that the Theosophists wanted to crawl into the heart of Western Society, catching on to the skirts of scholars like Max Müller and poets like Edwin Arnold, all the same denouncing these very men and posing as the only receptacles of universal wisdom. And one heaves a sigh of relief that this wonderful wisdom is kept a secret. Indian thought, charlatanry, and mango-growing fakirism had all become identified in the minds of educated people in the West, and this was all the help rendered to Hindu religion by the Theosophists.

The great immediate visible good effect of Theosophy in every country, so far as we can see, is to separate, like Prof. Koch's injections into the lungs of consumptives, the healthy, spiritual, active, and patriotic from the charlatans, the morbids, and the degenerates posing as spiritual beings.

-again-

Four years ago, when I, a poor, unknown, friendless Sannyasin was going to America, going beyond the waters to America without any introductions or friends there, I called on the leader of the Theosophical Society. Naturally I thought he, being an American and a lover of India, perhaps would give me a letter of introduction to somebody there. He asked me, "Will you join my Society?" "No," I replied, "how can I? For I do not believe in most of your doctrines." "Then, I am sorry, I cannot do anything for you," he answered. That was not paving the way for me. I reached America, as you know, through the help of a few friends of Madras. Most of them are present here. Only one is absent, Mr. Justice Subramania Iyer, to whom my deepest gratitude is due. He has the insight of a genius and is one of the staunchest friends I have in this life, a true friend indeed, a true child of India. I arrived in America several months before the Parliament of Religions began. The money I had with me was little, and it was soon spent. Winter approached, and I had only thin summer clothes. I did not know what to do in that cold, dreary climate, for if I went to beg in the streets, the result would have been that I would have been sent to jail. There I was with the last few dollars in my pocket. I sent a wire to my friends in Madras. This came to be known to the Theosophists, and one of them wrote, "Now the devil is going to die; God bless us all." Was that paving the way for me? I would not have mentioned this now; but, as my countrymen wanted to know, it must come out. For three years I have not opened my lips about these things; silence has been my motto; but today the thing has come out. That was not all. I saw some Theosophists in the Parliament of Religions, and I wanted to talk and mix with them. I remember the looks of scorn which were on their faces, as much as to say, "What business has the worm to be here in the midst of the gods?" After I had got name and fame at the Parliament of Religions, then came tremendous work for me; but at every turn the Theosophists tried to cry me down. Theosophists were advised not to come and hear my lectures, for thereby they would lose all sympathy of the Society, because the laws of the esoteric section declare that any man who joins that esoteric section should receive instruction from Kuthumi and Moria, of course through their visible representatives — Mr. Judge and Mrs. Besant — so that, to join the esoteric section means to surrender one's independence. Certainly I could not do any such thing, nor could I call any man a Hindu who did any such thing. I had a great respect for Mr. Judge. He was a worthy man, open, fair, simple, and he was the best representative the Theosophists ever had. I have no right to criticise the dispute between him and Mrs. Besant when each claims that his or her Mahâtmâ is right. And the strange part of it is that the same Mahatma is claimed by both. Lord knows the truth: He is the Judge, and no one has the right to pass judgement when the balance is equal. Thus they prepared the way for me all over America!


-also-

23rd January, 1896.

DEAR ALASINGA,

By this time you must have got enough of matter on Bhakti from me. The last copy, dated 21st December, of Brahmavadin is in. I have been smelling something since the last few issues of the Brahmavadin. Are you going to join the Theosophists? This time you simply gave yourselves up. Why, you get in a notice of the Theosophists' lectures in the body of your notes! Any suspicion of my connection with the Theosophists will spoil my work both in America and England, and well it may. They are thought by all people of sound mind to be wrong, and true it is that they are held so, and you know it full well. I am afraid you want to overreach me. You think you can get more subscribers in England by advertising Annie Besant? Fool that you are.

I do not want to quarrel with the Theosophists, but my position is entirely ignoring them. Had they paid for the advertisement? Why should you go forward to advertise them? I shall get more than enough subscribers in England when I go next.

Now, I would have no traitors, I tell you plainly, I would not be played upon by any rogue. No hypocrisy with me. Hoist your flag and give public notice in your paper that you have given up all connections with me, and join the . . . camp of the Theosophists or cease to have anything whatsoever to do with them. I give you very plain words indeed. I shall have one man only to follow me, but he must be true and faithful unto death. I do not care for success or no success. I am tired of this nonsense of preaching all over the world. Did any of Annie Besant's people come to my help when I was in England? Fudge! I must keep my movement pure or I will have none.


Yours,


VIVEKANANDA.


PS. Reply sharp your decision. I am very decided on this point. You ought to have told me so before, had your intentions been such from the very beginning. The Brahmavadin is for preaching Vedanta and not Theosophy. I almost lose my patience when I see these underhand dealings. This is the world — those whom you love best and help most try to cheat you. — V.

I could post many more quotes about Swamiji's thoughts about Theosophy, but I think
that the above will suffice.

RE: Swelling of the feet

That is part and parcel of Diabetes....

RE: Bladder disease

Is there no help for that? It seems not to be a good thing to remain thirsty; so
as to cut down on the production of urine. One must be careful to maintain hydration.

Regarding Mr. Bois

Sounds like a typical Frenchman....and I speak from experience, being half-French myself :)

Om Shanthi Om
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