Jai Ramakrishna
(Below are some of the most inspiring incidents in the life of Swami Vivekananda.)
Sometimes Swami Vivekananda spoke of Sri Ramakrishna. “He always spoke of his Master as ‘Atmaram,’ ” she said.
“Whenever there were difficulties he would say, ‘Well, if things do not go well, we will wake up Atmaram.”
The Mother dropped me in a strange world,” he said, “among a strange people who do not understand me and whom I do not understand”.
But the longer I stay here I have come to feel that some of the people in the West whom I have met belong to me, and they also are here to serve with me in the work assigned to me.
“There is none with whom I can speak of the Beloved, not one. You do not know, you cannot imagine the loneliness of it. This is how I felt in Chicago.
“I am here to serve the Mother and to give the message which I came into the world to give.”
In a somewhat disconnected and enigmatic passage of her “Reminiscences,” Mrs. Hansbrough recalled that Swamiji “said many seemingly contradictory things.”
“For example, he said of his lectures and work, ‘I have been saying these things before, over and over again.’
In the Turk Street flat one day he said, ‘There is no Vivekananda,’ and again, ‘Do not ask these questions while you have this Maya mixed up with your understanding.’ “
“Once after we had moved to the Turk Street flat,” Mrs. Hansbrough related, “a woman said something to Swamiji about his teaching religion.
He looked at her and replied, ‘Madam, I am not teaching religion. I am selling my brain for money to help my people. If you get some benefit from it, that is good; but I am not teaching religion!”
Another time at the flat, Mrs. Hansbrough recalled, Mrs. Aspinall told him that he really should not charge admission to his lectures. “God will provide,” she said.
“Madam,” Swamiji answered, “God has made a mess of everything. I am trying to straighten it out.
