This journey was indeed an astonishing (next) adventure. The young Swami went into it at random with his eyes shut. He had heard vaguely of a Parliament of Religions to be opened some day somewhere in America; and he had decided to go to it, although neither he, nor his disciples, not his Indian friends, students, pundits, ministers or Maharajas, had taken any trouble to find out about it. He knew nothing, neither the exact date nor the conditions of admission. He did not take a single credential with him. He went straight ahead with complete assurance, as if it was enough for him to present himself at the right time God’s time.
And although the Maharaja of Khetri had
taken his ticket on the boat for him, and despite his protests had provided him
with a beautiful robe that was to fascinate American idlers no less than his
eloquence, neither he nor anybody else had considered the climatic conditions
and customs; he froze on the boat when he arrived in Canada in his costume of
Indian pomp and ceremony.
He left Bombay now Mumbai on 31 May
1893, and went by way of Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong and then visited
Canton and Nagasaki. Thence he went by land to Yokohama, seeking Osaka, Kyoto
and Tokyo. The Swami gradually accustomed himself to the life on board the
ship. His rich imaginative nature saw beauty, in a thousand forms, in the
swelling and falling of the waters, in every gust of wind and in ever-changing
shapes of clouds. He was much impressed at the sight of the various remains of
Indian religious influences in Chinese and Japanese temples. In China he found
to his amazement Sanskrit manuscripts, and in Japan Sanskrit Mantras written in
old Bengali script. In fact, everywhere in China and Japan his attention was
attracted by all that might confirm his hypothesis alike of the religious
influence of ancient India over the empires of the Far East and of the
spiritual unity of Asia. From Yokohama the ship sailed on to Vancouver—from the
Old World to the New; thence by train he reached Chicago towards the end of
July.
A few days after his arrival at Chicago
he went to the Information Bureau of the Columbian Exposition. But his hopes
received a rude shock when he came to learn from this office that the
Parliament would not commence until after the first week of September, that no
one would be admitted as a delegate without proper references, and that even
the time for being so admitted had expired! This was a great and unexpected
blow. He found that he had left India much too early, and also discovered that
he should have come as a representative of some recognized organization. Then,
too, his purse was gradually being emptied. A great depression came over him.
He cabled to his friends in Madras for
help and applied to an official religious Society to appoint him as one of its
delegates, but the chief of the Society sent him a very discouraging
reply.
Girding up his loins even in the face of
these overwhelming odds of a discouraging situation, the Swami proceeded to
Boston, which was much less expensive than Chicago. In the train from Vancouver
he had made his first American friend—a rich lady from Massachusetts who struck
by his noble personality and illuminating talks, gladly asked him to stay in
her house. She introduced him to Professor J.H. Wright, of the Greek department
in Harvard University. The Swami discussed all manner of subjects with the
learned Professor for four hours. The Professor became so deeply impressed with
his rare ability that he insisted that he should represent Hinduism in the
Parliament, saying, 'This is the only way you can be introduced to the nation
at large.' The Swami explained his difficulties and said that he had no
credentials. Professor Wright, recognizing his genius, said, 'To ask you,
Swami, for your credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to
shine!' The Professor wrote at once to his friend, Dr. Barrows, the Chairman of
the Committee on the selection of delegates stating, 'Here is a man who is more
learned than all our learned professors put together.
' He further presented him with a ticket
to Chicago, and also gave him letters of introduction to the Committee. The
Swami rejoiced at this literal manifestation of Divine Providence.
But on his arrival at the Chicago train
station he found to his dismay that he had lost the address of the Committee.
He was lost and did not know where to go. Nobody would deign to inform a colored
man. At length, tired and helpless, he passed the chilly night in a big empty
box2 found in the railway freight yard. In the morning he wandered from door to
door for food only to meet with insults and rebuffs from the fashionable
residents of the metropolis. On and on he went. At length exhausted, he sat
down quietly on the roadside, determined to abide by the Will of God. At this
juncture, the door of a fashionable residence opposite to him opened and a
regal looking woman descended and accosted him in a soft voice in accents of
culture and refinement, 'Sir, are you a delegate to the Parliament of
Religions?' The Swami told her his difficulties. The kind-hearted lady invited
him into her house and promised him that after breakfast she herself would
accompany him to the offices of the Parliament of Religions. The Swami was grateful
beyond words to his deliverer, Mrs. George W. Hale. From now on the generous
lady, her husband and children became his dearest friends.
With Mrs. Hale he called on the officers
of the Parliament, gave his credentials, was gladly accepted as a delegate, and
found himself lodged with the other Oriental delegates. He soon made
acquaintance with many distinguished personages who were to attend the
Parliament. In the grand circle of ecclesiastics that came and went in and
about Chicago, he moved as one lost in rapture and in prayer to the Master
whose mission he had come to fulfil in this distant part of the world.
On Monday, September 11, 1893, the first
session of the Parliament was opened in the great Hall of Columbus, where were
seated representatives of the religious beliefs of twelve hundred millions of
the human race. In the centre sat Cardinal Gibbons, the highest prelate of the
Roman Catholic Church on the Western Continent. On the right and left of him
were gathered the Oriental delegates—Pratap Chandra Majumdar of Bengal and
Nagarkar of Bombay who were representatives of the Brahmo Samaj; Dharmapala who
represented the Buddhists of Ceylon; Gandhi (a distant relation of Mahatma
Gandhi) representing the Jains, and Mr. Chakravarty representing Theosophy with
Mrs. Annie Besant. Among them was also seated Swami Vivekananda who, with his
noble bearing, bright countenance and gorgeous apparel, drew the attention of
the assembled thousands and soon became the cynosure of all eyes. It was the
first time that he had to speak before such an august assembly; and as the
delegates, presented one by one, had to announce themselves in public in brief
speeches, the Swami let his turn go by hour after hour until the end of the
day.
At length, in the late afternoon, when
the Chairman insisted, the Swami rose and bowed down to Saraswati, the Goddess
of Learning. His face glowed like fire. His eyes surveyed in a sweep the huge
assembly before him. When he opened his lips, his speech was like a tongue of
flame. Hardly had he pronounced the very simple opening words, 'Sisters and
Brothers of America', when hundreds rose to their feet with deafening shouts of
applause. The Parliament had gone mad—everyone cheering the Swami
enthusiastically. For two minutes he attempted to speak, but the wave of wild
enthusiasm created by this significant form of address prevented it. He was
certainly the first to cast off the formalism of the Congress and speak to the
audience in the language for which they were waiting. When silence was restored,
the Swami greeted the youngest of the nations in the name of the most ancient
order of monks in the world—the Vedic order of Sannyasins, and presented
Hinduism as the mother of religions —a religion which had taught the world both
tolerance and universal acceptance.
He quoted two beautiful, illustrative
passages taken from the scriptures of Hinduism:
'As the different streams having their
sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so O Lord, the
different paths which men take, through different tendencies, various though
they may appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.'
'Whosoever comes to Me, through
whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the
end lead to Me.'
It was only a short speech, but its
spirit of universality, its fundamental earnestness and broadmindedness
completely captivated the whole assembly. There were other Hindu delegates who
stood for societies or churches or sects, but the Swami, who belonged to no
sect but rather to India as a whole, proclaimed the universality of religious
truths and the sameness of the Goal of all religious realizations. In the
course of his illuminating addresses during the sessions of the Parliament, the
Swami placed before the distinguished audience the cardinal truths of Vedanta,
the universal religion of humanity.
He said: 'If there is ever to be a
universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or
time; which will be infinite, like the God it will preach, and whose sun will
shine upon the followers of Krishna and Christ, on saint and sinners alike;
which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum
total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its
catholicity will find a place for every human being, from the lowest grovelling
savage not far removed from the brute to the highest man towering by the
virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity. It will be a religion
which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which
will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose
whole force, will be centred in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine
nature. Offer such a religion and all the nations will follow you.? The
Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to
become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet
preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.'
The Parliament of Religions, he
concluded, had shown to the world that holiness, purity, and charity were not
the exclusive possession of any church in the world and that every system had
produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this
evidence, if anybody dreamt of the exclusive survival of his own religion and
the destruction of others, he was to be pitied and told that upon the banner of
every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: 'Help and not
fight,' 'Assimilation and not Destruction', 'Harmony and Peace and not
Dissension'.
The effect of these mighty words was
tremendous. Over the heads of the official representatives of the Parliament
they were addressed to a wider public, and Swami Vivekananda at once became the
most celebrated personality of the Parliament. The American press rang with his
fame. The best known and most conservative of the metropolitan newspapers
proclaimed him a Prophet and a Seer. The New York Herald referred to him as
'undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions', and added,
'After hearing him we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this
learned nation.'
The news of Swami Vivekananda's
unparalleled success soon poured into India as well. Indian journals and
magazines—from Madras to Almora, from Calcutta to Bombay—were filled with the
American reports of his triumph at the Parliament. The happiness of the monks
of the Ramakrishna Order at Baranagore knew no bounds when they came to learn
that it was their beloved leader who had taken the New World by storm. The
citizens of Calcutta organized a great representative meeting in the Town Hall
to thank the Swami and the American people. The name Vivekananda rang with
acclaim throughout the length and breadth of Hindusthan. Everywhere he was
recognized as the man who had come to fulfil a great need. The unknown monk
without titles and ties blossomed into a world-figure and became the man of the
hour.
But in the midst of this recognition of
his genius, universal applause, and immense popularity, the Swami was never
found for a moment forgetful of his duties to the sunken masses of India.
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