Vivekananda's Second Journey to the West

We all must have heard or read in some stages of our lives about Swami Vivekananda and his mission to the west. His speech in the Parliament of religions on Monday, September 11, 1893, was " like a tongue of Flame” in the words of Romain Rolland. He further observed, “Among the grey wastes of cold dissertation, it fired the souls of the listening throng. Hardly had he pronounced the very simple opening words, 'Sisters and brothers of America' than hundreds arose in their seats and applauded. He wondered whether it could really be he, they were applauding….” Swami Vivekananda's first journey to the West opened the doors of Indian Spiritualism to the materialistic west and in exchange Swami Vivekananda desired Western materialistic power to ease the conditions of the poverty-stricken masses of our Country. That was Swami Vivekananda's desired goal, which he achieved to a great extent. But this article is about the Second Journey of Swami Vivekananda to the west.

The purpose of Swami Vivekananda to set out upon a second journey to the West was to inspect and assess the works he had founded and to “fan the flame.”

In this journey he took with him his brother monk, Swami Turiyananda, the Sanskrit aficionado. In the Words of Swami Vivekananda "The last time they saw a warrior. Now I want to show them a Brahmin."  Sister Nivedita went with them. On 20th June 1899 he travelled from Calcutta by Madras, Colombo, Aden, Naples, Marseilles. On July 31st, he was in London. In the Words of the great French Savant Romain Rolland ' He left under very different conditions from those of his return: in his emaciated body he carried a brazier of energy, breathing out action and combat, and so disgusted with the supineness of his devitalized people that on the boat in sight of Corsica he celebrated " the Lord of War" '.

The older Vivekananda grew, the more he was convinced that the east and west must "espouse" each other. He witnessed in India and Europe 'two organisms in full youth ...two great experiments of which is yet complete.' He first broke his journey in London. He then went to the United States and stayed there for almost a year ( On August 16, 1899, he left Glasgow for New York. Until 20th July 1900, he stayed in the United States, mostly in California.). In the United States, he witnessed Swami Abhedananda and his vendantic work astounding progress. He settled down Swami Turiyananda, at Montclair near New York and he moved to California owing to the climate there, regaining his health. In California, He gave many lectures and founded new Vedantic Centres in the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Alameda. In the district of Santa Clara, He received a gift of one hundred and sixty acres of land, where he created an Ashrama, in this same Ashrama, Swami Turiyananda trained a select group of students for a future monastic life. Sister Nivedita also gave lectures in New York on the ideals of Hindu Woman, and on the ancient arts of India.

Though everything might seem well on the surface, but underneath Vivekananda's health was slowly getting affected.  The arrow of Vivekananda was "finishing its trajectory". In a letter to Miss MacLeod, April 18, 1900, Alameda Vivekananda wrote:

" I dare not make a splash with my hands or feet, for fear of breaking the wonderful stillness- Stillness that makes you feel sure it is an illusion! Behind my work was ambition,, behind my love was personality, behind my purity fear, behind my guidance the thirst for power! Now they are vanishing and I drift...I come, Mother, I come in Thy Bosom- floating wheresoever thou takest me- in the voiceless, the strange, in the wonderland. I come, a spectator, no more an actor. Oh it is so calm! My thoughts seem to come from a great, great distance in the interior of my heart. They seem like faint distant whispers, and peace is upon everything- sweet, sweet peace, like that one feels for a few moments just before falling asleep, when things are seen and felt like shadows, without fear, without love, without emotion…...I come, Lord! The world js, but not beautiful nor ugly, but as sensations without exciting any emotion. Oh the blessedness of it! Everything is good and beautiful, for they are all losing their relative proportions to me - my body among the first. Om - That Existence!"

If one reads this letter with an open-heart and not " technically”, it would be easy for him/ her to feel that a gloomy feeling hung around Swami Vivekananda, and he could sense the future that awaited! The fire that fuelled the spirit was flickering now and then and the spirit was preparing for the ultimate realization!

On July 20th, 1900 he traversed the ocean and went to Paris to take part in the Congress on the History of Religions, held in Universal Exposition. He went there as an invitee. Though, the same was not on a par with the historic Parliament of Religions held in Chicago, as the Catholic seat of Power would not have permitted it. In the words of French Savant Romain Rolland, "At the point of Liberation at which Vivekananda's life had arrived, his intellectual interest, but not his real passion not his entire being, Could find nourishment in it. Swami Vivekananda was entrusted by the Committee of the Congress to argue the proposition whether the Vedic religion came from nature — Worship. In the Congress, he debated with Gustav Oppert, a German Pandit. He made a discourse upon the Vedas, the common thrust of Hinduism and Buddhism. Further, he endorsed the Gita and Krishna over Buddhism, and rejected the theory of Hellenic influence upon the drama, the arts, and the sciences of India.

Primarily, most his time was dedicated to French culture as he was awestruck by the intellectual progress and Social advancement of Paris. 

In the Article, titled “The East, and the West” he observed that 'Paris is the centre and the source of European culture,' there the ethics and society of the West were formed, The University of Paris was the model for all other universities.

Swami Vivekananda joined his friend Mrs. Ole Bull, and Sister Nivedita at Lannion to rejuvenate himself from the rigors of the past days. He visited Mont St. Michael on St. Michael's Day and his conviction became more strengthened that Hinduism and Roman Catholicism must espouse each other. Swami Vivekananda opined that the bond between Europe and Asia would inevitably lead to revivalism of Europe; as she would reinvigorate again, aided and funded by the spiritual ideas from the East.

On 24th October, he set out for the Orient by Vienna and Constantinople. Though, no other town interested him after Paris. While Passing through Austria he remarked ' if the Turk was the sick man, she was the sick woman of Europe.” This remark is as prophetic as it reflect the impending doom that hung upon Europe.

Swami Vivekananda took a short break on the shores of the Bosphorus to have interviews with Sufi Monks- then in Greece with its memoirs of Athens and Eleusis, and finally in the museum of Cairo where the detachment from external manifestations seemed more clear. Sister Nivedita recorded in her book 'The Master as I Saw Him, ' that " during his last months in the West, he sometimes gave the impression of being different to all that was going on.”

He returned to India at the beginning of December 1900.

Romain Rolland remarked ' When he returned to India a year and a half later, he was almost entirely detached from life, and all violence and gone out of him, exorcized by the brutal face he had this time unveiled in Western Imperialism; he had looked into its eyes, full of rapacious hatred. He had realized that during his first Journey he had been caught by the Power, the Organization and the apparent democracy of America and Europe. Now he had discovered the spirit of lucre, of greed, of Mammon, with its enormous combinations and ferocious struggle for supremacy. He was capable of rendering Homage to the grandeur of a mighty association ..”

References:-

1. The Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel, Romain Rolland, 25th Edit, 2009, Advaita Ashrama Pub.

2. Swami Vivekananda on Himself, 12th Edit, Advaita Ashrama Pub.

3. The Master as I saw Him, 18th Edit, 

4. The Complete works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashrama Pub