Ahead, still help with love this world of strife!
Before the Swami left Almora, he arranged to start again the monthly magazine
Prabuddha Bharata, which had ceased publication with the death of its gifted editor,
B. R. Rajam Iyer. Swami Swarupananda became its new editor, and Captain Sevier,
the manager. The magazine began its new career at Almora. Then, on June 11, the
Swami, in the company of his Western disciples, left for Kashmir as the guest of Mrs.
Ole Bull.
The trip to Kashmir was an unforgettable experience for the Westerners. The natural
beauty of the country, with its snow-capped mountains reflected in the water of the
lakes, its verdant forests, multi-coloured flowers, and stately poplar and chennar trees,
make the valley of Kashmir a paradise on earth. Throughout the journey the Swami
poured out his heart and soul to his disciples. At first he was almost obsessed with the
ideal of Siva, whom he had worshipped since boyhood, and for days he told the
disciples legends relating to the great God of renunciation. The party spent a few days
in house-boats, and in the afternoons the Swami would take his companions for long
walks across the fields. The conversations were always stimulating. One day he spoke
of Genghis Khan and declared that he was not a vulgar aggressor; he compared the
Mongol Emperor to Napoleon and Alexander, saying that they all wanted to unify the
world and that it was perhaps the same soul that had incarnated itself three times in the
hope of bringing about human unity through political conquest. In the same way, he
said, one Soul might have come again and again as Krishna, Buddha, and Christ, to
bring about the unity of mankind through religion.
In Kashmir the Swami pined for solitude. The desire for the solitary life of a monk
became irresistible; and he would often break away from the little party to roam alone.
After his return he would make some such remark as: 'It is a sin to think of the body,'
'It is wrong to manifest power,' or 'Things do not grow better; they remain as they are.
It is we who grow better, by the changes we make in ourselves.' Often he seemed to be
drifting without any plan, and the disciples noticed his strange detachment. 'At no
time,' Sister Nivedita wrote, 'would it have surprised us had someone told us that today
or tomorrow he would be gone for ever, that we were listening to his voice for the last
time.'
This planlessness was observed in him more and more as his earthly existence drew
towards its end. Two years later, when Sister Nivedita gave him a bit of worldly
advice, the Swami exclaimed in indignation: 'Plans! Plans! That is why you Western
people can never create a religion! If any of you ever did, it was only a few Catholic
saints who had no plans. Religion was never, never preached by planners!' About
solitude as a spiritual discipline, the Swami said one day that an Indian could not
expect to know himself till he had been alone for twenty years, whereas from the
Western standpoint a man could not live alone for twenty years and remain quite sane.
On the Fourth of July the Swami gave a surprise to his American disciples by
arranging for its celebration in an appropriate manner. An American flag was made
with the help of a brahmin tailor, and the Swami composed the following poem: