The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 5/Epistles - First Series/XXXI Mrs. Ole Bull
XXXI
Brooklyn,
20th January, 1895.
(Written to Mrs. Ole Bull whom Swamiji called "Dhirâ Mâtâ", the "Steady Mother" on the occasion of the loss of her father.)
. . . I had a premonition of your father's giving up the old body and it is
not my custom to write to anyone when a wave of would-be inharmonious Mâyâ
strikes him. But these are the great turning points in life, and I know that
you are unmoved. The surface of the sea rises and sinks alternately, but to
the observant soul — the child of light — each sinking reveals more and more
of the depth and of the beds of pearls and coral at the bottom. Coming and
going is all pure delusion. The soul never comes nor goes. Where is the
place to which it shall go when all space is in the soul? When shall be the
time for entering and departing when all time is in the soul?
The earth moves, causing the illusion of the movement of the sun; but the sun does not move. So Prakriti, or Maya, or Nature, is moving, changing, unfolding veil after veil, turning over leaf after leaf of this grand book — while the witnessing soul drinks in knowledge, unmoved, unchanged. All souls that ever have been, are, or shall be, are all in the present tense and — to use a material simile — are all standing at one geometrical point. Because the idea of space does occur in the soul, therefore all that were ours, are ours, and will be ours, are always with us, were always with us, and will be always with us. We are in them. They are in us. Take these cells. Though each separate, they are all nevertheless inseparably joined at A B. There they are one. Each is an individual, yet all are one at the axis A B. None can escape from that axis, and however broken or torn the circumference, yet by standing at the axis, we may enter any one of the chambers. This axis is the Lord. There we are one with Him, all in all, and all in God.
The cloud moves across the face of the moon, creating the illusion that the
moon is moving. So nature, body, matter moves on, creating the illusion that
the soul is moving. Thus we find at last that, that instinct (or
inspiration?) which men of every race, whether high or low, have had to
feel, viz the presence of the departed about them, is true intellectually
also.
Each soul is a star, and all stars are set in that infinite azure, that
eternal sky, the Lord. There is the root, the reality, the real
individuality of each and all. Religion began with the search after some of
these stars that had passed beyond our horizon, and ended in finding them
all in God, and ourselves in the same place. The whole secret is, then, that
your father has given up the old garment he was wearing and is standing
where he was through all eternity. Will he manifest another such garment in
this or any other world? I sincerely pray that he may not, until he does so
in full consciousness. I pray that none may be dragged anywhither by the
unseen power of his own past actions. I pray that all may be free, that is
to say, may know that they are free. And if they are to dream again, let us
pray that their dreams be all of peace and bliss. . . .
Yours etc.,
Vivekananda.