The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/CVII Mrs. Bull
CVII
LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND,
23rd August, 1896.
DEAR MRS. BULL,
I received your last today. By this time you must have received my receipt
for £5 you sent. I do not know what membership you mean. I have no objection
to have my name to be put on the list of membership of any society. As for
Sturdy, I do not know what his opinions are. I am now travelling in
Switzerland; from hence I go to Germany, then to England, and next winter to
India. I am very glad to hear that Saradananda and Goodwin are doing good
work in the U.S. As for me, I do not lay any claim to that £500 for any
work. I think I have worked enough. I am now going to retire. I have sent
for another man from India who will join me next month. I have begun the
work, let others work it out. So you see, to set the work going I had to
touch money and property, for a time. Now I am sure my part of the work is
done, and I have no more interest in Vedanta or any philosophy in the world
or the work itself. I am getting ready to depart to return no more to this
hell, this world. Even its religious utility is beginning to pall me. May
Mother gather me soon to Herself never to come back any more! These works,
and doing good, etc., are just a little exercise to cleanse the mind. I had
enough of it. This world will be world ever and always. What we are, so we
see it. Who works? Whose work? There is no world. It is God Himself. In
delusion we call it world. Neither I nor thou nor you — it is all He the
Lord, all One. So I do not want anything to do about money matters from this
time. It is your money. You spend what comes to you just as you like, and
blessings follow you.
Yours in the Lord,
VIVEKANANDA.
PS. I have entire sympathy with the work of Dr. Janes and have written him
so. If Goodwin and Saradananda can speed the work in U.S., Godspeed to them.
They are in no way bound to me or to Sturdy or to anybody else. It was an
awful mistake in the Greenacre programme that it was printed that
Saradananda was there by the kind permission (leave of absence from England)
of Sturdy. Who is Sturdy or anybody else to permit a Sannyasin? Sturdy
himself laughed at it and was sorry too. It was a piece of folly. Nothing
short of that. It was an insult to Sturdy and would have proved serious for
my work if it had reached India. Fortunately I tore all those notices to
pieces and threw them into the gutter, and wondered whether it was the
celebrated "Yankee" manners the English people delight in talking about.
Even so, I am no master to any Sannyasin in this world. They do whatever it
suits them, and if I can help them — that is all my connection with them. I
have given up the bondage of iron, the family tie — I am not to take up the
golden chain of religious brotherhood. I am free, must always be free. I
wish everyone to be free — free as the air. If New York needs Vedanta, or
Boston, or any other place in the U.S., it must receive them and keep them
and provide for them. As for me, I am as good as retired. I have played my
part in the world.