In July 1899 Swami came to England again with Sister Nivedita, where Sister Christine and Mrs. Funke met him. From there he came to America and he came to us at Ridgely Manor in September of that year where we gave him his own cottage with two of his monks, Turiyananda and Abhedananda. Sister Nivedita was also there, and Mrs. Ole Bull. It was quite a community of people who loved and honoured the Swami, He used to call my Sister, Mrs. Leggett. "Mother", and always sat beside her at table. He particularly liked chocolate ice cream, because, "I too am chocolate and I like it," he would say. One day we were having strawberries, and someone said to him. "Swami, do you like strawberries?" He answered, "I never tasted them." "You never tasted them, why you eat them every day!" He said, "You have cream on them — pebbles with cream would be good."In the evening, sitting around the great fire in the hall of Ridgely Manor, he would talk, and once after he came out with some of his thoughts a lady said. "Swami, I don't agree with you there." "No? Then it is not for you," he answered. Someone else said. "O, but that is where I find you true." "Ah, then it was for you." he said showing that utter respect for the other man's views. One evening he was so eloquent, about a dozen people listening, his voice becoming so soft and seemingly far away; when the evening was over, we all separated without even saying goodnight to each other. Such a holy quality pervaded. My sister, Mrs. Leggett, had occasion to go to one of the rooms afterward. There she found one of the guests, an agnostic, weeping. "What do you mean?" my sister asked, and the lady said, "The man has given me eternal life. I never wish to hear him again."
It was while the Swami was at Ridgely Manor that a letter came from a lady unknown to us to say our only brother was very ill in Los Angeles and that she thought, he would die and we ought to know it. So my sister said to me, "I think you must go." And I said, "Of course. "Within two hours I was packed, the horses were at the door, we had four miles to drive to a railway station, and as I went out Swami put up his hand and said some Sanskrit blessing and then he called out. "Get up some classes and I will come." I went straight to Los Angeles and in a small white cottage covered with roses, on the outskirts of the city, lay my brother, very ill. But over his bed was a life-size picture of Vivekananda, I had not seen my brother for ten years, so after I had an hour's talk with him and saw how very ill he was, I went out to see our hostess, Mrs. Blodgett and said to her. "My brother is very ill" She said, "Yes." I said, "I think he will die."She said. "Yes." "May he die here?" I asked. She said, "O yes." Then I said, "Who is that man whose portrait is over my brother's bed?" She drew herself up with all the dignity of her seventy years and said, "If ever there was a God on earth, that is the man." I said, "What do you know about him?" She answered, "I was at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, and when that young man got up and said, 'Sisters and Brothers of America', seven thousand people rose to their feet as a tribute to something they knew not what; and when it was over and I saw scores of women walking over the benches to get near him, I said to myself, "Well, my lad, if you can resist that onslaught, you are indeed a God." Then I said to Mrs. Blodgett, "I know him." "You know him?" she asked. I said. "Yes, I left him in the little village of Stone Ridge, of two hundred people, in the Catskill Mountains in New York." She said, "You know him?" I said, "Why don't you ask him here?" She said, "To my cottage?" "He will come", I told her. In three weeks my brother was dead and in six weeks Swamiji was there and began his classes on the Pacific coast, in "Kalifornia".
To Be Continued..
(Prabuddha Bharata, December 1949)
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The main theme of my life is to take the message of Sanatana Dharma to every home and pave the way for launching, in a big way, the man-making programme preached and envisaged by great seers like Swami Vivekananda. - Mananeeya Eknathji
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