The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Epistles - Second Series/XXVIII Akhandananda
XXVIII
(Translated from Bengali)
Salutation to Bhagavan Ramakrishna!
GHAZIPUR,
March, 1890.
BELOVED AKHANDANANDA,
Received another letter of yours just now, and with great difficulty
deciphered the scribblings. I have written everything in detail in my last
letter. You start immediately on receipt of this. I know the route to Tibet
via Nepal that you have spoken of. As they don't allow anyone to enter Tibet
easily, so they don't allow anybody to go anywhere in Nepal, except
Katmandu, its capital, and one or two places of pilgrimage. But a friend of
mine is now a tutor to His Highness the Maharaja of Nepal, and a teacher in
his school, from whom I have it that when the Nepal government send their
subsidy to China, they send it via Lhasa. A Sadhu contrived in that way to
go to Lhasa, China, Manchuria, and even to the holy seat of Târâ Devi in
north China. We, too, can visit with dignity and respect Tibet, Lhasa,
China, and all, if that friend of mine tries to arrange it. You therefore
start immediately for Ghazipur. After a few days' stay here with the Babaji,
I shall correspond with my friend, and, everything arranged, I shall
certainly go to Tibet via Nepal.
You have to get down at Dildarnagar to come to Ghazipur. It is three or four
stations from Moghul Sarai I would have sent you the passage if I could have
collected it here; so you get it together and come. Gagan Babu with whom I
am putting up, is an exceedingly courteous, noble, and generous-minded man.
No sooner did he come to know of Kali's illness than he sent him the passage
at Hrishikesh; he has besides spent much on my account. Under the
circumstances it would be violating a Sannyasin's duty to tax him for the
passage to Kashmir, and I desist from it. You collect the fare and start as
soon as you receive this letter. Let the craze for visiting Amarnath be put
back for the present.
Yours affectionately,
VIVEKANANDA.