The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 8/Epistles - Fourth Series/CLXV Mary
CLXV
To Miss Mary Hale
1719 TURK STREET,
SAN FRANCISCO,
28th March, 1900.
WELL BLESSED MARY,
This is to let you know "I am very happy". Not that I am getting into a
shadowy optimism, but my power of suffering is increasing. I am being lifted
up above the pestilential miasma of this world's joys and sorrows; hey are
losing their meaning. It is a land of dreams; it does not matter whether one
enjoys or weeps; they are but dreams, and as such, must break sooner or
later. How are things going on with you folks there? Harriet is going to
have a good time at Paris. I am sure to meet her over there and parler
fransaise! I am getting by heart a French dictionnaire! I am making some
money too; hard work morning and evening; yet better for all that. Good
sleep, good digestion, perfect irregularity.
You are going to the East. I hope to come to Chicago before the end of April. If I can't, I will surely meet you in the East before you go.
What are the McKindley girls doing? Eating grapefruit concoctions and getting plump? Go on, life is but a dream. Are you not glad it is so? My! They want an eternal heaven! Thank God, nothing is eternal except Himself. He alone can bear it, I am sure. Eternity of nonsense!
Things are beginning to hum for me; they will presently roar. I shall remain
quiet though, all the same. Things are not humming for you just now. I am so
sorry, that is, I am trying to be, for I cannot be sorry for anything and
more. I am attaining peace that passeth understanding, which is neither joy
nor sorrow, but something above them both. Tell Mother that. My passing
through the valley of death, physical, mental, last two years, has helped me
in this. Now I am nearing that Peace, the eternal silence. Now I mean to see
things as they are, everything in that peace, perfect in its way. "He whose
joy is only in himself, whose desires are only in himself, he has learned
his lessons." This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through
myriads of births and heavens and hells — that there is nothing to be asked
for, desired for, beyond one's Self. "The greatest thing I can obtain is my
Self." "I am free", therefore I require none else for my happiness. "Alone
through eternity, because I was free, am free, and will remain free for
ever." This is Vedantism. I preached the theory so long, but oh, joy! Mary,
my dear sister, I am realising it now every day. Yes, I am — "I am free."
"Alone, alone, I am the one without a second."
Ever yours in the Sat-Chit-Ânanda,
VIVEKANANDA.
PS. Now I am going to be truly Vivekananda. Did you ever enjoy evil! Ha! ha!
you silly girl, all is good! Nonsense. Some good, some evil. I enjoy the
good and I enjoy the evil. I was Jesus and I was Judas Iscariot; both my
play, my fun. "So long as there are two, fear shall not leave thee." Ostrich
method? Hide your heads in the sand and think there is nobody seeing you!
All is good! Be brave and face everything — come good, come evil, both
welcome, both of you my play. I have no good to attain, no ideal to clench
up to, no ambition to fulfil; I, the diamond mine, am playing with pebbles,
good and evil; good for you — evil, come; good for you-good, you come too.
If the universe tumbles round my ears, what is that to me? I am Peace that
passeth understanding; understanding only gives us good or evil. I am
beyond, I am peace.
V.