Vivekananda – Pt 3

Welcome back to the ongoing story of Vivekananda. Apologies for the delay in getting this section out. You can check out the first two parts here and here, but I’ll be providing a brief recap of the last section before getting into this new section.

Last time on the life of Vivekananda: After college, Narendra was at loose ends and questioning his belief in God/Bhrama. At first he attempts to make in-roads with the Bhramo Samaj but largely finds that he’s unable to gain any real influence within the circles. Around this time, he also meets Sri Ramakrishna, who heaps tons of praise and affection on him. Initially Narendra is skeptical of Ramakrishna and even challenges what he has to teach. Over time, and with the death of his father, Narendra eventually comes to accept what Ramakrishna has to say and becomes one of his most faithful followers. He spends a few years with Ramakrishna before Ramakrishna eventually succumbs to throat cancer, leaving Narendra to lead the rest of the monastics.

For further context on this whole saga, I highly recommend reading part 2.

At the very end of part 2, I mention that after Ramakrishna’s death Narendra began assuming a myriad of monastic names despite having taken Vivekananda as his monastic name during their vow taking ceremony. From this point forward I will be referring to Narendra as Vivekananda, despite the fact that in his travels around India he assumed at least two different names. I mention this to add context to the fact that frequently the monastics at the Baranagore Math would be unsure who he was when others spoke about him.

With that out of the way, let’s get into Vivekananda’s travels around India.

Traveling India

We’ll begin where we usually begin: Nikhilananda’s version of events. A brief reminder, since it’s been a while since part 2, Nkhilananda never directly knew Vivekananda when he was alive. Most of these stories come from others and are written as if Nikhilananda had direct access to Vivekananda. Please keep that in mind as you read.

Dates and places in Nikhilananda’s version seem to be of little importance. There’s quite a lot of glossing over places and details. Instead, Nikhilananda focuses on what he assumes to be Vivekananda’s thoughts during his travels.

Initially, Vivekananda heads to Northern India and the Himalayas. He leaves with the idea that he wants to learn from other Swamis. It’s often remarked that Vivekananda was very poor as he traveled, often walking everywhere as he bounced from Swami to Swami and preaching to everyone he crossed paths with.

Most notably Vivekananda seems to be preaching this idea that Ramakrishna implored him to “regenerate India.” He proposes to do this by creating and India with a “Vedantic brain and Muslim body” – Nikhilananda suggests that this has something to do with democracy, but how exactly it relates he does not clarify on. Additionally, Vivekananda hopes to unite all faiths into one, creating a Universal Faith. Many of these ideas do not sound like Ramakrishna’s preaching but instead seem inspired by ideas Vivekananda would have encountered in his time with the Bhramo Samaj.

During this time, Vivekananda was corresponding with several people. Nikhilananda, however, does not include any details on these letters. Put a pin in this though, we will be coming back to the who, what, when, and why of these letters Vivekananda was sending in the next section.

Once he reaches the Himalayas, Vivekananda has a revelation about the Universal Soul, which I will reproduce below. I want to once again mention that Nikhilananda attributes this to Vivekananda but we have no real record of Vivekananda having ever said this, at least not at this time. It is very possible that he may have said this during one of his many lectures in America…but that’s a discussion for another section.

In the beginning was the Word, etc.

The microcosm and the macrocosm are built on the same plan. Just as the individual soul is encased in a living body, so is the Universal Soul, in the living pakriti (nature), the objective universe. Kali is embracing Siva. This is not a fancy. This covering of the one (soul) by the other (nature) is analogous to the relation between an idea and the word expressing it. They are one and the same, and it is only by a mental abstraction that one can distinguish them. Thought is impossible without words. Therefore in the beginning was the Word, etc.

This dual aspect of the Universal Soul is eternal. So what we perceive or feel is the combination of the eternally formed and the eternally formless. pg. 45

Swami Nikhilananda. 1953. Vivekananda: A biography.

This isn’t really all that profound for non-dual beliefs.

We also get a brief mention that Vivekananda’s sister commits suicide at this time. This, according to Nikhilananda Who Inhabits Vivekananda’s Soul, spurred Vivekananda to have a thought that he would “be a criminal if he remained an indifferent spectator of such social injustice.” Vivekananda then proceeds to move location, hang out with his fellow disciples, and study scripture. Your guess is as good as mine as to why this was included.

The story skips around a lot here. After about five months of learning, Vivekananda wants to go off and be by himself again. He wanders around, unsure if he wants to be more than just a traveling monk or if he just wants to content himself with being no one. The narrative being woven here is that Vivekananda is wrestling with himself, going through a difficult Hero’s Journey, to ultimately emerge with The Call.

That in the end, Vivekananda will become the spiritual leader India needs.

Thanks to the narrative, we suddenly find ourselves in Rajputana with Vivekananda insulting the Maharaja for being too Western in his thinking. Which is kind of rich coming from Vivekananda, if I’m allowed to interject my own thoughts here. This also wouldn’t be the last Maharaja that Vivekananda would meet with, which throws some doubt over his assertions that he definitely didn’t receive any favors and completed this whole pilgrimage on foot.

Between each Maharaja visit, we find Vivekananda wandering and wondering. Brooding over the fact that there’s so much disunity in India and that Western reformers are out of touch with what India really needs. That if only he could fuse Western knowledge with Indian spirituality, then maybe India would have a chance at revitalizing itself. This is a theme that appears again and again. It’s also a theme that is still alive and well in India today.

It’s also during this period of travel that Vivekananda has the idea to go to the US.

This idea would solidify itself on a December day on “the last bit of Indian rock”. Vivekananda swam out to the southern most part of Kanyakumari and meditated there. He had a vision of a unified India, but in order to achieve this he knew he needed not just people to believe in him, but money. Lots of money.

And so, Vivekananda had a plan. He would go to the US to ask for money and bring it all back to India.

The only issue in his way was how to get to the US in the first place. Thankfully for him, the Maharaja of Khetri – Ajit Singh — had heard about the upcoming Parliament of World Religions in Chicago and he was more than happy to send Vivekananda to America – but only if Vivekananda would bless him with a son. Vivekananda prayed for a son for the Maharaja and it thankfully paid off – a son was born and Vivekananda was blessed with money in return.

So, with boat ticket and some other gifts in hand, Vivekananda left from India to British Columbia, Canada before catching a train to Chicago.

On first glance, anyone familiar with typical sannyasin travels wouldn’t clock anything strange about his travels. It’s an understood tradition for monks to travel and teach to anyone who would listen. They often take alms, keeping no food or money on them as they wander.

India is also vast. It would have taken him quite awhile to get from one end of things to the other. Given that Nikhilananda provides very little in the way of temporal clues as to when Vivekananda would’ve reached certain places, we’re led to believe that he did cross much of the continent by foot. Perhaps he took a train here or there as supporters were moved to purchase them for him, but they were infrequent, and certainly nothing fancy.

The thing is, we are able to piece together where Vivekananda was traveling and when based on the letters he wrote during the time. Of course not every letter has been found or reproduced. That said, we do have a fairly thorough record of his movements that Nikhilananda may not have been aware of at the time he wrote his biography.

I’ll go year by year for these records and I promise to not make it overly long. Just as in the past, these records are reproduced in Dr Chattopadhayaya’s work.

1888

Total letters this year: 3

This is the first appearance of a new character in Vivekananda’s tale – Pramadadas Mitra. Pramadadas is a wealthy resident of Varanasi and Vivekananda’s first real patron. It’s unclear when the two met, though speculation is that it happened sometime in late 1887 or early 1888. Vivekananda did travel to Varanasi at some point in order for this meeting to have taken place, but again, it’s unclear when. All of the letters from this year were addressed to Pramadadas.

The first letter to Pramadadas happens in early August. Vivekananda is on his way to Vrindaban by way of Ayodhya at the time when he meets a man of low caste smoking a pipe. It’s well known that Vivekananda had a tobacco habit, so he asks the man to share his pipe, but the man replies that he’s of low caste and Vivekananda wanders away. According to the letter, he then realizes that as a monk he now has no caste, so Vivekananda returns to the man and they share the pipe. He closes out this letter by revealing an upcoming trip he has planned to Hardwar.

The next letter is dated about a week later. In it, Vivekananda tells Pramadadas that he has yet to leave for Hardwar because he ran into a brother monk in Vrindaban.

Sometime after this letter is when Vivekananda would set out for Hardwar. Mahendranath, who you’ll recall is responsible for much of the records we have of Vivekananda’s time with Ramakrishna – mentions that someone bought a train ticket for Vivekananda but didn’t cover his meals. On this train is a man named Sharat Chandra Gupta and he would record his meeting with Vivekananda.

According to Gupta, Vivekananda was riding in first class on the train, and Gupta was instantly interested in him and implored him to disembark at Hatras. From there, the two got to know one another and Gupta basically begged Vivekananda to make him a disciple. Vivekananda tested him by making him beg from the train porters, and when Gupta did so, Vivekananda relented even though he wasn’t too keen on traveling with anyone else.

Gupta quit his job and began traveling with Vivekanada. They took a train to Saharanpur, then continued to Hardwar on foot. Eventually they went on to Hrishikesh and spent a lot of time with other monks deep in meditation. However, Gupta got sick and they had to return to Hatras.

This turned out to be a blessing as Vivekanada had gotten malaria. Someone else wrote to the Baranagore Math on their behalf, letting the other monks know about their illnesses, and Shivananda – one of the other monks from the Baranagore Math – came to collect them both. They returned to Baranagore by late October or so.

His last letter this year to Pramadadas is essentially Vivekananda saying that he’s been too sick to write. And that was the end of 1888.

1889

Total letters this year: 13

Of the 13 letters – all addressed to Pramadadas – only 9 are really relevant. This is not a great year for Vivekananda or his travel plans.

In February a large group of monks leave for Kamarpukur, Ramakrishna’s birthplace. Most of them make it there, excluding Vivekananda, who had fallen ill and spends a week in Antpore recovering before returning to Calcutta.

He then tries to travel again in June, visiting Shimultala with his family. They’re there from roughly June 26^th through July 4^th and the heat apparently makes Vivekananda ill again. In his letter to Pramadadas at this time, Vivekananda also talks about an impending law suit against his family as a reason for why he can’t come and visit. Pramadadas sends him 20 rupees, hoping that Vivekananda would use it to travel, but Vivekananda uses it as an excuse to beg for more money and land for the family.

The next several letters between the two are tense. Most of them are just Vivekananda explaining that he’s still sick and can’t come visit. Eventually, Pramadadas calls him out on his behavior and refuses to send any more money.

December is when the most letters get sent. At the time, all his other brother monks had gone to Varanasi, but Vivekananda had instead decided to go visit Yogananda since he’d heard that Yogananda was sick. By the time Vivekananda gets out there though Yogananda is perfectly fine. He writes to Pramadadas and informs him that he’ll be in Allahabad until February.

That’s largely it. Sickness and broken promises around some attempts at traveling.

1890

Total letters this year: 33

This is a big year for Vivekananda. It’s also a year where we’ll see a narrator change. I’m getting ahead of myself though, let’s get into the letters.

Last stop of 1889 for Vivekananda was in Allahabad through February. After all this time of promises to Pramadadas to visit, Vivekananda finally makes good on them. He spends a few weeks in Ghazipur to visit Pavhari Baba, then heads on his way to Varanasi.

In a theme that will continue through the rest of Vivekananda’s life, Vivekananda almost immediately comes down with the flu upon arriving. Though he does spend some time with Pramadadas during all this. This all happened during early April because by late April word arrives that one of the other monks at the Math had suddenly passed.

This would just be the beginning of more troubled times on the horizon though.

Vivekananda returns to Calcutta and find that, not only did this monk pass suddenly, but their main financier had also unexpectedly passed. Not wasting any time to seek funding for their tenuous operation, Vivekananda immediately writes to Pramadadas and begs him to begin collecting money for a new temple in Bengal. This doesn’t go over so well with Pramadadas.

Pramadadas has had enough with Vivekananda begging for money it seems. He responds in a lukewarm manner, indicating that he’s concerned about being the sole financier and that no one has really heard of the work Vivekananda and the Math have done. Vivekananda replies in a snippy way that implies they’ll be just fine without. There is no reply from Pramadadas after this point.

We now have the records of Vivekananda’s fellow monks to thank for the remainder of the record. Through their recollections of things we have a decent accounting for what Vivekananda was up to at the time.

They all travel back to Varanasi to stay with, you guessed it, Pramadadas. As far as we know, nothing really happens between Vivekananda and Pramadadas. This is a strange theme that will continue with other followers in Vivekananda’s life, so file that away for consideration later on.

From there, they head to Nainital and then to Srinagar, Uttar Pradesh. According to the record, this travel was completely done on foot without train assistance. The group largely consisted off of alms and stayed in monasteries with other monks. After a month in Srinagar they moved on to Theri.

In Theri, one of the group became ill – as is what seems to consistently happen whenever Vivekananda travels. Though, this time, he was the one assisting in the recovery. The monks at the temple they were staying in advised them to leave before the cold months of the year settled in, so they made their way by pony to Rajpur to be seen by a doctor.

The doctor recommended staying put for a time and so the monks made arrangements for their brother monk to stay behind while they moved on to Hrishikesh. By the time they got there, however, Vivekananda had become incredibly ill. At one point he had even lost consciousness. They stayed in Hrishikesh for as long as it took for Vivekananda to recover before moving on to Meerut.

While there, they didn’t want for much. A wealthy benefactor, likely the one who had arranged for the ponies on their trip to Rajpur, let them stay in his garden during Vivekananda’s recovery. Teachings were held, songs were sung. Overall, it seems like an enjoyable and comfortable time was had by everyone.

And for now, that’s where we’ll have to end things.

It seems evident that Nikhilananda would like to present an image of Vivekananda as a leader without problem. That illness did not touch. And instead, through his letters, we see a Vivekananda who was very much human and flawed. Who could become sick like others and whose manner was not always that of a holy man.

Next time, we’ll continue on with Vivekananda’s letters and travels through India before he arrives in the West for the first time. Along the way, we’ll meet some of his friends who helped him get there and what sort of things they provided him with.

Until then, stay safe and sane!