Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda - Josephine Macleod - 9

Going up the Nile and meeting some charming English people who begged me to go to Japan with them, I had occasion to pass again through India en route. Again I saw Swamiji, and he said he would go to Japan if I wrote for him. In Japan I made the acquaintance of Okakura Kakuzu who had founded the fine arts Bijutsuin school of painting in Tokyo. He was very anxious to have Swami come over and be his guest in Japan. But Swami refusing to come. Mr. Okakura accompanied me to India to meet him. One of the happy moments of my life was when after a few days at Belur. Mr. Okakura said to me rather fiercely. "Vivekananda is ours. He is an Oriental. He is not yours." Then I knew there was a real understanding between them. A day or two after, Swami said to me, "It seems as if a long lost brother has come." Then I knew there was a real undemanding between these two men. And when Swami said to him. "Will you join us?" Mr. Okakura said, "No, I haven't finished with this world yet." Which was a very wise thing.

That summer General Paterson, the American Consul General, allowed me to have the Consulate, and there I had as guest Mr. Oda, who had been my host at the Asakusa temple in Tokyo.

I saw Swami off and on all that year. One day in April he said, "I have nothing in the world, I haven't a penny to myself. I have given away everything that has ever been given to me." I said, "Swami, I will give you fifty dollars a month as long as you live." He thought a minute and then he said, "Can I live on that?" "Yes, O yes," I said, "but perhaps you cannot have cream." I gave him then two hundred dollars, but before the four months were passed he had gone.

At Belur Math one day, while Sister Nivedita was distributing prizes for some athletics. I was standing in Swamiji's bedroom at the Math, at the window, watching, and he said to me, "I shall never see forty." I, knowing he was thirty-nine, said to him. "But Swami, Buddha did not do his great work until between forty and eighty." But he said. "I delivered my message and I must go." I asked. "Why go?" and he said, "The shadow of a big tree will not let the smaller trees grow up, I must go to make room."

Afterwards I went again to the Himalayas. I did not see Swami again. I went back to Europe for the King's Jubilee, As I said, I never was a disciple, only a friend, but I remember in my last letter to him in April 1902, as I was leaving India — I was never to see him again — I distinctly remember writing in this good-bye letter the one sentence, "I swim or sink with you." I read that over three times and said. "Do I mean it?" And I did. And it went. And he received it. though I never had an answer. He died July 4.1902.

(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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