The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 8/Epistles - Fourth Series/XLI Friend
XLI
To Mr. E. T. Sturdy
19 W. 38TH ST.,
NEW YORK
DEAR FRIEND,
I received your last duly, and as I had a previous arrangement to come to Europe by the end of this August, I take your invitation as a Divine Call.
"Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through truth alone lies the way to
Devayâna (the way to the gods)." Those who think that a little sugar-coating
of untruth helps the spread of truth are mistaken and will find in the long
run that a single drop of poison poisons the whole mass. . . . The man who
is pure, and who dares, does all things. May the Lord ever protect you from
illusion and delusion! I am ever ready to work with you, and the Lord will
send us friends by the hundred, if only we be our own friends first. "The
Atman alone is the friend of the Atman."
Europe has always been the source of social, and Asia of spiritual power;
and the whole history of the world is the tale of the varying combinations
of those two powers. Slowly a new leaf is being turned in the story of
humanity. The signs of this are everywhere. Hundreds of new plans will be
created and destroyed. Only the fit will survive. And what but the true and
the good is the fit?
Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.