On Saturday the 26th August also Swamiji continued to hold the Wrights and whoever came to their cottage, spellbound. Mrs. Wright wrote to her mother, "It was a kind of revival." and in her diary she noted: "Swami talked all morning all afternoon." and entry on Sunday, August 27 - "Same thing. Swami talked religion." She also had some typed papers which reveal more about Swamiji.
The Wrights had three children: Elizabeth - thirteen, Austin - ten; and John - the baby, who was two. He was delighted playing with the Wright children as much He enjoyed the conversations. "He was wonderfully unspoiled and simple," Mrs. Wright commented in her typed story, "claiming nothing for himself, playing with the children, twirling a stick between his fingers with laughing skill and glee at their inability to equal him."
Swamiji was more interested in Austin - He talked with him at length and bought a red heart - shaped box of candy for him when He visited the Wrights at Cambridge. Later He also gave him a copy of The Light of Asia by Edwin Arnold, inscribed "Presented to Austin Wright with love and blessings of Vivekananda."
Austin also was filled with wonder by Swamiji. It was mostly at Swamiji's visit to Cambridge in 1894 - Swamiji had arrived late at night and had been put up on a couch, with the screen for privacy. In the morning Austin came down for breakfast and found a screen set up in the living room, over which were draped long pieces of coloured cloth. To little Austin this sight was quite unexpected ... the bright lengths of turban-silk in a familiar living room seemed to him as strange and romantic as of Swamiji himself. This incident remained long impressed on his mind and he wrote a story which his daughter told M.L.Burke.
Swamiji wrote his 1st letter from Chicago to Prof. Wright in which he writes for Austin -
"We may or may not meet brother. He knows. You are great learned and Holy. I dare not preach to you or your wife - but to your children - I quote these passages from the Vedas -
"The four Vedas, Sciences, languages, philosophy and all other learnings are only ornamental the real learning - the true Knowledge is that which enables us to reach him who is unchangeable in His love"
"How real, how tangible, how visible is He through whom the skin touches the eyes see and the world gets its reality"
"Hearing Him nothing remains to be heard
Seeing Him nothing remains to be seen
Attaining Him nothing remains to be attained"
"He is the eye of our eyes the ear of our ears the
Soul of our Souls."
He is nearer to you my dears than even your father and mother - you are innocent and pure as flowers - remain so and He will reveal Himself unto you. Dear Austin when you are playing there is another playmate playing with you who loves you more than anybody else and oh He is so full of fun. He is always playing - sometimes with great big balls which we call the sun and earth and sometimes with little children like you and laughing and playing with you.
How funny it would be to see him and play with Him my dear think of it."
Join the year long 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda : sv150.org Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari
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