BIOGRAPHY OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

Mother Earth, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I cannot describe to you thatnight's glories — after the year of brutal life that I have led, to sleep onthe ground, to mediate under the tree in the forest! The inn people aremore or less well-to-do, and the camp people are healthy, young, sincere,and holy men and women. I teach them all Sivoham, Sivoham—'I amSiva, I am Siva' — and they all repeat it, innocent and pure as they are,and brave beyond all bounds, and I am so happy and glorified.Thank God for making me poor! Thank God for making these children inthe tents poor! The dudes and dudines are in the hotel, but iron-boundnerves, souls of triple steel, and spirits of fire are in the camp. If you hadseen them yesterday, when the rain was falling in torrents and thecyclone was overturning everything — hanging on to their tent-strings tokeep them from being blown off, and standing on the majesty of theirsouls, these brave ones — it would have done your hearts good. I would goa hundred miles to see the like of them. Lord bless them!...Never be anxious for me for a moment. I will be taken care of, and if not, Ishall know my time has come — and pass out.... Now good dreams, goodthoughts for you. You are good and noble. Instead of materializing thespirit, i.e. dragging the spiritual to the material plane as these fellers do,convert matter into spirit — catch a glimpse at least, every day, of thatworld of infinite beauty and peace and purity, the spiritual, and try tolive in it day and night. Seek not, touch not with your toes, anythingwhich is uncanny. Let your souls ascend day and night like an unbrokenstring unto the feet of the Beloved, whose throne is in your own heart,and let the rest take care of themselves, i.e. the body and everything else.Life is an evanescent, floating dream; youth and beauty fade. Say day andnight: 'Thou art my father, my mother, my husband, my love, my Lord,my God — I want nothing but Thee, nothing but Thee, nothing but Thee.Thou in me, I in Thee — I am Thee, Thou art me.' Wealth goes, beautyvanishes, life flies, powers fly — but the Lord abideth for ever, loveabideth for ever. If there is glory in keeping the machine in good trim, itis more glorious to withhold the soul from suffering with the body. That isthe only demonstration of your being 'not matter' — by letting matteralone.Stick to God. Who cares what comes, in the body or anywhere? Throughthe terrors of evil, say, 'My God, my Love!' Through the pangs of death,say, 'My God, my Love!' Through all the evils under the sun, say: 'MyGod, my Love! Thou art here, I see Thee. Thou art with me, I feel Thee. Iam Thine, take me. I am not the world's but Thine — leave Thou not me.'Do not go for glass beads, leaving the mine of diamonds. This life is agreat chance. What! Seekest thou the pleasures of this world? He is thefountain of all bliss. Seek the highest, aim for the highest, and you shallreach the highest.At Greenacre the Swami became a friend of Dr. Lewis G. Janes, Director of theSchool of Comparative Religions organized by the Greenacre Conference, andPresident of the Brooklyn Ethical Association. The following autumn he lecturedin Baltimore and Washington.