part 3 one

PART III

    Swami Vivekananda’s mood, language, words, pronunciation and everything changed at the time of his lecturing. It was exactly as if each thought were expressed as a living image. “Ideas have their form, colors and dimensions,” he would say. That is why his lectures seemed so alive.
    Goodwin did not take notes on the lectures at the R.I.P.W. Gallery because all those had been given already in America. He took notes of all the Raja Yoga and often of other conversation.
    There was a special feature of Swamiji’s lectures: the language that he used for a particular subject – that very same language he employed when that subject came up again. Idea and speech were one. “The first impression of a truth comes in the form of a picture,” he used to say. Another thing was that whenever he made a digression from his subject, upon concluding that he would return just to the point where he had left off. So his line of thought was unbroken.
    One morning everyone was sitting in the downstairs room. Sturdy was not there. Swami Saradananda, Mohendra, Goodwin and probably Fox were there. Swamiji sat a long time in his chair, deep in thought. Then all at once he began to say, “So’ham, so’ham.” The look on his face, the tone of his voice, became utterly changed. His face became the veritable picture of joy. In this bliss he began to pace the floor or dance for awhile. Everyone was astonished. Here was a new person, a free person. Then he became silent and sat again in his chair. Slowly his mood passed off and he became like a normal man.
    When staying in the St. George’s Road house became inconvenient Fox and I moved to another house [“on the side” – next door?] (This was shortly before Swamiji traveled to the Continent.) Goodwin sometimes stayed there. One day about four-thirty or five in the afternoon, Goodwin came in and told me Swamiji was sending for me. I went quickly to the St. George’s Road house. In the upper room on the street side there was a kind of porch, which we called “the lounge.” Swamiji and Miss Muller were sitting there. After asking me one or two questions, Swamiji resumed his conversation with Miss Muller.
    “The doctrine of reincarnation,” he said, “was in ancient Egypt because they used to preserve the dead body” – any injury to a limb of the corpse would mean an injury to the spiritual entity. Even if the dead man was bound by some debt, it meant the double too, was bound by that. Thus was the idea of reincarnation first hypothesized by the ancient Egyptians. Later this idea entered India and more or less pervaded the various races.” At this there was a lot of discussion about rebirth which I do not now recall. It was the first time I had heard the above idea.
    “Trace out the idea,” he said. “That is, take up an idea and see its spread in a hundred channels, among which races and in what forms it has been carried, and which idea was expressed among which people in what way – all this can be shown.”

Astronomy

    Then with Miss Muller the subject of astronomy came up. What is particularly worth mentioning here is that in ancient days there was no telescope, yet what the ancient sages if India had said about the composition of the planets etc. was true, it has become evident. Swamiji said, “There is a branch of Raja Yoga called ‘self-identification’ – I am the planet, the planet is myself.’ In this way, when the two became one, all the qualities and things embodied in that planet or star are reflected in the person. This can be used also to investigate other things besides planets. What today’s science is telling us about the planets, the Indian sages mentioned in different ways.”
    In this way he talked about what form astronomy had taken in which countries, and how it had been transformed and how ideas had passed from one land to another, and how all these ideas had been improved. He spoke in his chair just as he had while lecturing. He showed that day his knowledge of the science. He had read and thought much about it, otherwise such erudite and detailed descriptions he could never have given.
    From time to time Miss Muller would say, “You can silence me but you cannot convince me.” Then I went away.

Goings and Comings

He and Miss Muller now went to the Continent [19^th July]. Even then Swamiji used to stay at Lady Ferguson’s house, 57 St. George’s Road. Fox and I began to live in a house nearby. Not staying near him, I did not know everything. Anyway, Goodwin went again to America and so did Fox, as he was an American. I moved to another house. The cold weather began: probably it was October. One evening Goodwin suddenly came into my room. I was bowled over. He had returned only a few days before from America [13^th October]. Someone was with him, I saw, dressed in English clothes. It was dusk, I had been startled, I could not recognize this person. But Goodwin was talking to me. With embarrassment I asked the name of the newcomer. Then this person took off his hat. I saw it was Swami Abhedananda. Then how I rejoiced! Goodwin said, “Now talk in your own language!” (Because the British custom was that when a person was present who did not understand a language, it was discourteous to use that). Anyway, when Goodwin left I lit up my pipe, Abhedananda put a cigarette in his mouth, and we went out for a walk. Abhedananda said he would have to lecture the next day [27^th Oct.]. At this time Swamiji left 57 St. George’s Road and took Swami Abhedananda with him to live in Westminster on the ground floor [actually, below ground], Greycoat Gardens. Goodwin was to live there too.

First public lecture of Swami Abhedananda

    In the afternoon (of the next day) on the roof of a “bus”. Sturdy and Swamiji sat in front while Swami Abhedananda, Goodwin and I sat behind. We arrived at 33 Bloomsbury Square, WC1. The house was extremely well-appointed. On the stairway was a stuffed bearskin and a statue. The rooms had gas lanterns. On one side of the first floor a mountain and waterfall had been created with ferns and rocks and moss. One could see that the master of the house was very fashionable. A meeting had gathered in a large hall inside. Swami Abhedananda and I sat on a sofa at one side. In the middle of the side of a table sat Swamiji, Sturdy and several other people. And in various places around the room people were seated in chairs. Swami Abhedananda began his lecture; he was not accustomed to it, especially before English people, and after a few minutes became a bit self-conscious. His words seemed to get stuck. I touched his knee and whispered, “It’s going fine. Carry on.” Then the rest came out well. His subject was the book Pancadasi.
    A question period followed. As the younger Swami was new and unfamiliar, Swami Vivekananda undertook to answer the questions. Anyway the lecture was well-attended and everyone well pleased. When it broke up in the evening people came down to the outer door. Goodwin was almost dancing with joy, that Swami Abhedananda’s lecture had been successful. Swamiji said, “Kali, why were you nervous about lecturing in England? They too often get stage-fright, they make a lot of noise, and say things like ‘you see, you see.’ Your lecture was very good.” Swami Abhedananda had written out his lecture and read it over several times before giving it. Because it was the first day, naturally he had been a bit nervous. Then all went home by bus. Swamiji and Sturdy went in another direction. Goodwin and Abhedananda went to their Westminster quarters.
    At this time in Victoria Street near the Army-Navy Store Building in a rented hall upstairs Swami Abhedananda began to hold a Gita and Vedanta class. I went to it one afternoon. By that time Swami Vivekananda had returned to India. Swami Abhedananda at that time was staying in Sturdy’s house in Holland Park Avenue [Villas]. When the Gita class was over I talked with Swami Abhedananda for a while and then came home. A few days later I went to Sturdy’s house and met the Swami and the two of us went to the house of a Mrs. Turner for Indian cooking – ruti and so on. At that time he was giving a talk in some meeting on “sarva-dharma-samanvaya,” The Harmony of Religions. After that I did not know much about Swami Abhedananda. Later he went to America.

Reporting of Swamiji’s lectures resumes

    “In the early stages a lot of nonsense comes up in the mind in meditation. Endlessly, vulgar and uncontrolled thoughts are present, so that you may feel ‘Even in dreams I never thought like this. Very vile thoughts, too, arise at this time. Then too, four or five thoughts come at once and create an uproar in the mind. The ingredients a person’s mind has been composed of, surface at this time. Many wild and fearful pictures may come before our eyes. There is a limit even to the ravings of a madman, but not to this, it seems! Yet there is no need to be afraid.
    “If one practices meditation regularly for some days, the breathing becomes controlled. The breathing of the average person is irregular and unrhythmical. After some meditation, the body feels free, spontaneous, and heaviness, weakness and sloth disappear. As inertia goes, the body feels light, but there will be this special sign that within the person a power of attraction will arise. Willy-nilly people will be attracted to such. Affection, sweetness, profundity will be noticed in all one’s actions. It is as if one has gradually left one’s old body and taken on a new one.”
    Swamiji in his Raja Yoga lectures made a special point of this: that at the time of such sadhana married persons must avoid sexual relations. He used to say this repeatedly. If that virile power goes downward to another body, or to produce offspring, it is not available for rising to the higher “lotuses.” Only then can the mind rise up to the sahasrara and have God-vision.
    While giving these Raja Yoga lectures Swamiji would go from the dualistic state into the non-dualistic; finally he would arrive at the pure Advaita. Then it would become obvious what an independent being, a free soul, he was. He would stand with his spine absolutely straight. This was the method or posture for meditation. Meditation could be done while lying on one’s back: this is called the “corpse posture.” But meditating deeply while standing on one’s feet, very few are able to do.
    Swamiji, taking up a subject, would begin in a soft manner. Gradually his mood would change and (voice) become louder. The sweet tones of his beginning, with the gracious expression and affectionate eyes little by little would begin to change. Then his body would become straight as a rod. His hips, spine, neck and head all seemed as if suspended from a common string. Slowly his meditative mood would deepen, his tone of voice become altogether altered. His rhythmical sonorous voice would come from his throat in an unobstructed stream. People nearby and those farther away also, could hear that sound. In that voice of his there was not note of harshness, nor of sweetness, nor of sorrow, nor of “I and you.” It was as if in boundless space a vibration had arisen, been converted into waves and that sound was gradually penetrating everyone’s ear and body – to the very marrow of the bones. Yet everyone at such times had this particular feeling that they had no body. Body-consciousness was totally removed. Place was absent: even the consciousness that one was sitting somewhere was gone. Time was nothing, and there was no awareness of one speaking and others listening. Speaker and audience were totally one. Neither had a gross body. All had risen to the causal body and from the vast firmament, the sound was becoming a single wave-current vibration [attempted translation – Ed.]. Then he would often say, “I am a voice without form.”
    His power to make others feel like this was like a communicable disease. That is why all the topics and arguments of his lectures could not be remembered or taken notice of; it was the living power that was the reality: the arguments, the language, were unreal. The samadhi was the inner consciousness. He would say, “I am directly seeing and feeling the Truth; I am perceiving Truth and I am myself the Truth.”