end. He was much exhausted from the years of overwork, and it was even then to be
seen that he was not long for this world. I tried to close my eyes to it, but in my heart I
knew the truth. He had needed rest but felt that he must go on.'
The idea that his years were numbered came to Swami Vivekananda again and again.
He would often say at this time, 'Oh, the body is a terrible bondage!' or 'How I wish
that I could hide myself for ever!' The note-book that he had carried during his
wanderings in India contained these significant words: 'Now to seek a corner and lay
myself down to die!' In a letter to a friend, he quoted these words and said: 'Yet all this
karma remained. I hope I have now worked it out. It appears like a hallucination that I
was in these childish dreams of doing this and doing that. I am getting out of them....
Perhaps these mad desires were necessary to bring me over to this country. And I thank
the Lord for the experience.'
On March 25, 1896, he delivered his famous lecture on 'The Philosophy of Vedanta'
before the graduate students of the philosophy department of Harvard University. It
produced such an impression that he was offered the Chair of Eastern Philosophy in
the university. Later a similar offer came from Columbia University. But he declined
both on the ground that he was a sannyasin.
In 1894 Swami Vivekananda had established the Vedanta Society of New York as a
non-sectarian organization with the aim of preaching the universal principles of
Vedanta. It became better organized in 1896. Tolerance and religious universalism
formed its motto, and its members generally came to be known as 'Vedantins.'
In the meantime the Swami's great works Raja-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, and Karma-Yoga
were receiving marked attention from many thoughtful people of the country. The
Swami was serious about organizing Hinduism on a sound, universal, ethical, and
rational basis so that it would appeal to earnest thinkers in all parts of the world. He
wanted to reinterpret, in keeping with the methods of modern science, the Hindu view
of the soul, the Godhead, the relationship between matter and energy, and cosmology.
Further, he wanted to classify the apparently contradictory passages of the Upanishads
bearing on the doctrines of dualism, qualified non-dualism, and absolute non-dualism,
and show their ultimate reconciliation. In order to achieve this end, he asked his
devotees in India to send him the Upanishads and the Vedanta Sutras with their
commentaries by the leading acharyas, and also the Brahmana portions of the Vedas,
and the Puranas. He himself wanted to write this Maximum Testamentum, this
Universal Gospel, in order to translate Hindu thought into Western language. He
expressed his objective in a letter written to one of his disciples on February 17, 1896:
To put the Hindu ideas into English and then make out of dry philosophy and intricate
mythology and queer, startling psychology, a religion which shall be easy, simple,
popular, and at the same time meet the requirements of the highest minds, is a task
which only those can understand who have attempted it. The abstract Advaita must
become living — poetic — in everyday life; and out of bewildering yogism must come