The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 7/Epistles - Third Series/XXXIII Sister
XXXIII
63 ST. GEORGE'S ROAD, LONDON,
May, 1896.
DEAR SISTER,
In London once more. The climate now in England is nice and cool. We have
fire in the grate. We have a whole house to ourselves, you know, this time.
It is small but convenient, and in London they do not cost so much as in
America. Don't you know what I was thinking — about your mother! I just
wrote her a letter and duly posted it to her, care of Monroe & Co., 7 Rue
Scribe, Paris. Some old friends are here, and Miss MacLeod came over from
the Continent. She is good as gold, and as kind as ever. We have a nice
little family, in the house, with another monk from India. Poor man! — a
typical Hindu with nothing of that pluck and go which I have, he is always
dreamy and gentle and sweet! That won't do. I will try to put a little
activity into him. I have had two classes already — they will go on for four
or five months and after that to India I go. But it is to Amerique — there
where the heart is. I love the Yankee land. I like to see new things. I do
not care a fig to loaf about old ruins and mope a life out about old
histories and keep sighing about the ancients. I have too much vigour in my
blood for that. In America is the place, the people, the opportunity for
everything. I have become horribly radical. I am just going to India to see
what I can do in that awful mass of conservative jelly-fish, and start a new
thing, entirely new — simple, strong, new and fresh as the first born baby.
The eternal, the infinite, the omnipresent, the omniscient is a principle,
not a person. You, I, and everyone are but embodiments of that principle,
and the more of this infinite principle is embodied in a person, the greater
is he, and all in the end will be the perfect embodiment of that and thus
all will be one as they are now essentially. This is all there is of
religion, and the practice is through this feeling of oneness that is love.
All old fogy forms are mere old superstitions. Now, why struggle to keep
them alive? Why give thirsty people ditch-water to drink whilst the river of
life and truth flows by? This is only human selfishness, nothing else. Life
is short — time is flying — that place and people where one's ideas work
best should be the country and the people for everyone. Ay, for a dozen bold
hearts, large, noble, and sincere!
I am very well indeed and enjoying life immensely.
Yours ever with love,
VIVEKANANDA.