freedom. But now, as the veil was becoming thinner, the Swami began to get a glimpse
of the real freedom. He realized that the world was the lila, the play, of the Divine
Mother, and it would continue as long as She wanted it. On August 8, 1896, he wrote
from Switzerland to Goodwin:
I am much refreshed now. I look out of the window and see the huge glaciers just
before me — and feel that I am in the Himalayas. I am quite calm. My nerves have
regained their accustomed strength, and little vexations like those you write of do not
touch me at all. How shall I be disturbed by this child's play? The whole world is mere
child's play — preaching, teaching, and all included. 'Know him to be a sannyasin who
neither hates nor desires.' What is to be desired in this little mud-puddle of a world,
with its ever recurring misery, disease, and death? 'He who has given up all desires, he
alone is happy.' This rest — eternal, peaceful rest — I am catching a glimpse of it now
in this beautiful spot. 'If a man knows the Atman as "I am this," then desiring what and
for whose sake will he suffer in the wake of the body?'
I feel as if I have had my share of experience in what they call 'work.' I am finished. I
am longing to get out now.
With this growing detachment from the world, the idea of good and evil, without the
consciousness of which no work is possible, began to drop away. The Swami was
realizing an intense love for God. In that mood a great exaltation would come over
him, and the whole universe would seem to him an eternal garden where an Eternal
Child plays an eternal game. In that mood of delirious joy he had written on July 6,
1896, to Francis Leggett, his friend and disciple:
At twenty I was a most unsympathetic, uncompromising fanatic. I would not walk on
the footpath on the theatre side of the street in Calcutta. At thirty-three I can live in the
same house with prostitutes and never would think of saying a word of reproach to
them. Is it degeneration? Or is it that I am broadening out into that universal love
which is the Lord Himself?...Some days I get into a sort of ecstasy. I feel that I must
bless everyone, every being, love and embrace every being, and I literally see that evil
is a delusion.... I bless the day I was born. I have had so much of kindness and love
here, and that Love Infinite who brought me into being has guided every one of my
actions, good or bad (don't be frightened); for what am I, what was I ever, but a tool in
His hands — for whose service I have given up everything — my Beloved, my Joy,
my Life, my Soul? He is my playful darling. I am His playfellow. There is neither
rhyme nor reason in the universe. What reason binds Him? He, the Playful One, is
playing — these tears and laughter are all parts of the play. Great fun, great fun! as Joe
says.
It is a funny world, and the funniest chap you ever saw is He, the Beloved. Infinite fun,
is it not? Brotherhood or playmatehood? A shoal of romping children let out to play in