6 February :
6 Feb 1896 : Swami Vivekananda writes to Mrs Ole Bull - I am very glad,
however, to get an opportunity to talk to the graduates of Harvard.
...My health has nearly broken down. I have not slept even one night
soundly in New York since I came; and this year there is incessant work,
both with the pen and the mouth. The accumulated work and worry of
years is on me now, I am afraid. Then a
big struggle awaits me in England. I wish to go to the bottom of the sea
and have a good, long sleep....There were big money offers from near
Chicago. I have rejected them as I do not any longer believe in paid
lectures and their utility in any country. If after Detroit I feel the
body able to drag itself on to Boston, I will come, else I will remain
in Detroit or some other quiet place and rest to recuperate for the
coming work in England. So far I have tried to work conscientiously--let
the fruits belong to the Lord. If they were good they will sprout up
sooner or later; if bad, the sooner they die the better. I am quite
satisfied with my task in life. I have been much more active than a
Sannyasin ought to be. Now I will disappear from society altogether. The
touch of the world is degenerating me, I am sure, so it is time to be
off. Work has no more value beyond purifying the heart. My heart is pure
enough; why shall I bother my head about doing good to others? "If you
have known the Atman as the one, only existence and nothing else exists,
desiring what?--for whose desire you trouble yourself?" This universe
is a dream, pure and simple. Why bother myself about a dream? The very
atmosphere of the world is poison to the Yogi, but I am waking up. My
old iron heart is coming back--all attachments of relatives, friends,
disciples are vanishing fast. "Neither through wealth nor through
progeny, but by giving up everything as chaff is that immortality
attained" --the Vedas. I am so tired of talking too; I want to close my
lips and sit in silence for years. All talk is nonsense.
Join the year long 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda : sv150.org Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari
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