4th of July - Vivekananda Style

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We have a boy of 15 from NJ who loves Vivekananda. He sent us this posting

for our list. We felt we should share this message with you as the sincere

nature of the posting and the date is relevant today.

 

>From Om Lala

 

WEEKLY EXPERIENCE

 

NAMASTE. Swamiji' took Mahasamadhi on July 4, 1902, 97 years ago. Let me

tell you from the start, that this is one of the most inspiring experiences

you will ever read. It will be because of your good fortune that you read

this. It has made millions of eyes watery with tears, millions of hairs

stand on end, and millions of hearts skip a beat, from the electrifying

inspiration. Therefore I will not shorten the experience to take away from

its full inspiration.

>From VIVEKANANDA: A BIOGRAPHY by Swami Nikhilananda: [Around May 1902 Belur

Math, Calcutta:] Sri Ramakrishna and the Divine Mother preoccupied his

mind.

He acted as if he were a child of the Mother or the boy playing at the feet

of Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar . . .

 

His [swamiji's] disciples and spiritual brothers were worried to see his

contemplative mood. They remembered the words of Sri Ramakrishna that

Naren,

after his mission was completed, would merge forever into samadhi, and that

he would refuse to live in his physical body if he realized who he was. A

brother monk asked him one day quite casually, "Do you know yet who you

are?"

The unexpected reply, "Yes I now know!" awed into silence everyone present.

No further question was asked. All remembered the story of the great

Nirvikalpa samadhi of Naren's youth and how when it was over, Sri

Ramakrishna

had said, "Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this realization,

like the jewel locked in a box, will be hidden away from you and kept in my

custody. I will keep the key with me. Only after you have fulfilled your

mission on this earth will the box be unlocked, and you will know everything

as you have known now. "

 

They also remembered that in the cave of amarnath, in the summer of 1898, he

had received the grace of Siva- not to die till he himself should will to do

so. He was looking death in the face unafraid as it drew near.

 

Everything about the Swami in these days was deliberate and significant, yet

none could apprehend its true import. People were deceived by his outer

cheerfulness. From the beginning of June he appeared to be regaining his

health.

 

One day, about a week before the end, he bade a disciple bring him the

Bengali almanac. He was seen on several times on subsequent days studying

the book intently, as if he were undecided about something he wanted to

know.

After the passing away, the brother monks and disciples realized that he had

been debating about the day when he should throw away the mortal body.

[sri]

Ramakrishna too had consulted the almanac before his death.

 

Three days before the mahasamadhi, Vivekananda pointed out to Swami

Premananda a particular spot on the monastery grounds where he wished his

body to be cremated.

 

On Wednesday the Swami fasted following the orthodox rule: it was the

eleventh day of the moon. . . He insisted however, on serving Nivedita the

morning meal. To quote the sister's words. To quote the Sister's words:

 

"Each dish, as it was offered- boiled seeds of the jack fruit, boiled

potatoes, plain rice, and ice-cold milk- formed the subject of playful chat;

and finally, to the end of the meal he himself poured the water over my

hands, and dried them with a towel.

 

"It is I who should do these things for you, Swamiji! Not you for me!" was

the protest naturally offered. But his answer was startling in its

solemnity- "Jesus washed the feet of his disciples!"

 

Something checked the answer, "But that was the last time!" as it rose to

the

lips, and the words remained unuttered. This was well for here also, the

last time had come." (end quote)

 

There was nothing sad or grave about the Swami during these days. Efforts

were made not to tire him. Conversations were kept as light as possible,

touching only upon the pet animals that surrounded him, his garden

experiments, books and absent friends. But all the while one was conscious

of a luminous presence of which the Swami's bodily form seemed only a shadow

or symbol. The members of the monastery had never felt so strongly as now

that they stood in the presence of an infinite light; yet none was prepared

to see the end soon, least of all on that Friday, July the Fourth, on which

he appeared so much stronger and healthier than he had had been for years.

 

On the Supreme Day, Friday, he rose very early. Going to the chapel alone,

he shut the windows and bolted the doors, contrary to his habit, and

meditated for three hours. Descending the stairs of the shrine he sang a

beautiful song about Kali:

 

Is Kali, my Mother really black?

The Naked one though black She seems.

Lights the lotus of the heart.

Men call Her black, but yet my mind

Does not believe that she is so:

Now She is white, now red, now blue;

Now She appears as yellow, too.

 

I hardly know who my mother is,

Though I have pondered all my life:

Now Purusha, now Prakriti,

And now the Void, She seems to be.

To meditate on all these things

Confounds poor Kamalakantha's wits.

 

Then he said almost in a whisper: If there were another Vivekananda, then he

would have understood what this Vivekananda has done! And yet- how many

Vivekanandas shall be born in time!" . . .

 

He partook of the noon meal with great relish, in company with the members

of

the Math, though usually, at that time, he ate alone in his room because of

his illness. Immediately afterwards, full of life and humour, he gave

lessons to the brahmacharins for three hours on Sanskrit grammar. In the

afternoon, he took a walk for about two miles with Swami Premananda . . .

 

At seven o'clock in the evening, the bell rang for worship in the chapel.

The Swami went to his room and told the disciple who attended him that none

was to come to him until called for. He spent an hour in meditation and

telling his beads, then called the disciple and asked to him to open up all

the windows and fan his head. He lay down quietly on his bed and the

attendant thought that he was either sleeping or meditating.

 

At the end of an hour, his [swamiji's] hands trembled a little and he

breathed once very deeply. There was a silence for a minute or two, and he

breathed in the same manner. His eyes became fixed on the centre of his

eyebrows, his face assumed a divine expression, and eternal silence fell.

 

"There was," said a brother disciple of the Swami, "a little blood in his

nostrils, in his mouth and about his eyes." According to the Yoga

scriptures, the life-breath of an illumined yogi, passes out through the

opening on the top of the head causing the blood to flow in the nostrils and

the mouth. [Just try to imagine it!]

 

The great ecstasy took place at ten minutes past nine. Swami Vivekananda

passed away at the age of thirty-nine years, five months, and twenty-four

days, thus fulfilling his own prophecy: "I shall not live to be forty years

old." The monks were knew that their leader had voluntarily cast off his

body in samadhi, as predicted by Sri Ramakrishna.

 

In the morning, people poured in from all quarters. Nivedita sat by the

body

and fanned it till it was brought down at 2 p.m. to the porch leading to the

courtyard. It was covered with ochre robes and decorated with flowers.

Incense was burnt and a religious ceremony was performed with lights, conch

shells, and bells. The brother monks and disciples took their final leave

and the precession started, moving slowly through the courtyard and across

the lawn, till it reached the vilva tree near the spot where the Swami

himself had desired his body to be cremated. The funeral pyre was built and

the body was consigned to the flames kindled with sandalwood. Across the

Ganges on the other bank, Ramakrishna had been cremated sixteen years

before.

 

Nivedita began to weep like a child, rolling on the ground. Suddenly, the

wind blew into her lap a piece of the ochre robe from the pyre, and she

received it as a blessing. It was dusk when the flames subsided. The

sacred

relics were gathered and the pyre was washed with the water of the Ganges.

The place is now marked by a temple, the table of the altar standing on the

very spot where the Swami's body rested in the flames.

 

Gloom and desolation fell upon the monastery. The monks prayed in the

depths

of their hearts, "Oh Lord, Thy will be done!" But deep beneath their grief,

all felt that this was not the end. The words of the leader uttered long

before his death rang in their ears:

 

"It may be that I shall find it good to get outside my body- to cast it off

like a worn-out garment. But I shall never seize to work. I shall inspire

men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God."

 

And: "May I be born again and again, and thousands of miseries, so that I

may

worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total

of

all souls."

 

For centuries to come, people everywhere will be inspired by Swami

Vivekananda's message: O Man! first realize that you are one with Brahman-

aham Brahmasmi- and then realize that the whole universe is verily the same

Brahman- sarvam khalvidam Brahma.

 

[THE END]

 

On this Fourth of July, while we are celebrating the political freedom of

America (Swamiji loved the Fourth of July because it represented freedom, he

wrote a poem on it, and some think that that is why he chose the Fourth of

July to take his mahasamadhi) let us also think of the unfathomable

spiritual

freedom that can be attained in THIS life. Let us remember Great Swami

Vivekananda, "the lord among men," strength itself, sing his praises and

glories, and bow down to him over and over again.

HARI OM!

-Om Lala

 

 

Sri Ramakrishnaye Namah

Vivekananda Centre London

http://www.btinternet.com/~vivekananda/