Due to the generosity of a few friends I had the occasion to visit California, in 2015 and 2019. Apart from a few work related fixtures (vapid though I found them but which were, nevertheless, necessary to justify my travel and stay) Through good offices of my friends I could visit several places related to Swami Vivekananda, who, a fact not widely known, spent six months in California during his second visit to the West (in 1899-1900). That stay in the American west coast, impelled me to read about Vivekananda’s time in that part of the world (the primary source of information of course being the matchless, and now a canonical resource by Marie Louis Burke – ‘Swami Vivekananda in the West : New Discoveries’ and the reminiscences of Alice Hansborough – who had been like a shadow to Vivekananda almost entirely through this period – a source material extensively used by Marie Louise Burke herself. Apart from this I could do some small ‘connecting the dots’ exercises through reading of other material that I could lay hands on, before or after, like ‘Reminiscences of the Swami’s Western Admirers’, his Letters and Lectures of the time, Ashim Chatterjee’s work ‘Vivekananda in America: New Findings’ etc.
Like the great filmmaker of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Billy Wilder, I too consider myself more of a ‘rewriter’ than a writer proper. I am by no means a primary researcher and use material and labours of several others who did the real work. My own little skill, such as I feel I have is that of ‘rewriting’ with the help of motley sources’ and trying to shape the material into a somewhat orderly form, and also, hopefully, making it pleasantly readable.
So as it happened, I started to write on the subject in 2015 and – not that it requires stating – could not keep the continuity due to my own fickle mind. It took another visit in 2019 to re-trigger that interest again, and given my lousiness and waywardness, it snapped again. I had, by then, relegated this project to cold storage, or even discarded it altogether, convinced that I was neither worthy of taking up writing anything related to Swami Vivekananda nor had the single-mindedness to ever bring such a work to any kind of completion. There would be much better persons to do that, was what I felt. While nothing has occasioned to revise this opinion but knowing that I had written some 30 thousand words already, it occurred to me that it would not hurt placing these writings in public domain.
Hence, expecting some usual indulgence from some friend-readers, who have always bestowed upon me more than what this amateur-writer deserves, I venture to place this work calling it ‘Swami Vivekananda in California : His Swansong’. I call it his swansong because indeed it was the last act on the world stage by this great life-artist, his farewell performance, when he was 36-37, and was already deciding or perhaps even longing to close his sojourn in the realm of mortals, a place which only his great love for humankind and his pain at people not realising their latent divinity, caused him to remain engaged in.
Many of those who came in touch, even for a few moments, with this Messenger of Light, could hardly forget for rest of their lives the impact it had on them. Of course I, and I suppose all of us who inhabit the world today, have never seen Vivekananda, but I am compelled to believe that a like of such a personality has not come among humanity since then, and does not seem likely to appear anytime soon.
I do not mean to disparage anyone but from my little and imperfect mind when I look at Celebrity Gurus of the day offering Stress Management / Self-Help modules or other like packaged courses, costing considerable sums of money I perforce have to grapple with questions like whether the poor are ever in stress or they just don’t count, manifesting one’s innate divinity requires money or it could be made available free as air – a gift equitably available to rich as well as poor, and the question whether austerity in one’s life as a way of living is important in any way or one can wallow in luxury and costly material pleasures caring only for their immediate family, and yet claiming a Gita-like ‘bhava’ of being untouched by any worldliness – ‘Janaka’, it seems, is a convenient role model for our age. Were it possible to make the twain (of matter and spirit) meet so harmoniously, it would make life so simple and offer best of both worlds. And most importantly – can anyone continue to live cosily, thinking only of one’s own well-being (even if it is non-material, like emotional well-being etc.) while hardly having any kind of identification or any marked empathy with the poor of the world who, and this I speak from no borrowed wisdom or rhetoric, decidedly have each day as a challenge and are reconciled to their life being a series of indignities. And that is where Vivekananda is so different. – in his empathy to the suffering people or even whom the world sees as positively wicked, in his seeing the One Supreme Reality in both bright and dark, benevolent as well as terrible aspects of life and the world, and conveying truth which might be discomforting at first, but that finally bring greatest luminosity.
I dedicate this entire series to the memory of Alice (Mrs Hansborough), an embodiment of selflessness, who came into Vivekananda’s orbit for just six months, as if it was ordained by destiny, at the right time and right place and, equally wondrously, quietly disappeared into what she called her ‘little world’ that she had to take care of, and forever bearing the transformative touch of the great Master. A proper biographical account of this seemingly ordinary and self-effacing lady (yet one who through her spiritual insight, ability of spotting greatness, proclivity to serve without thought of oneself) still waits to be written. I fervently hope there will be someone soon who will take up this task.
▶Next Chapter: The Blessed Golden State