America, Vivekananda put his arms round his brother disciple's neck and wept like a
child, saying: 'Dear brother, don't you see how I am laying down my life inch by inch
in fulfilling the mission of my Master? Now I have come to the verge of death! Can
you look on without trying to relieve part of my great burden?'
Swami Turiyananda was deeply moved and offered to follow the Swami wherever he
wanted to go. When he asked if he should take with him some Vedanta scriptures,
Vivekananda said: 'Oh, they have had enough of learning and books! The last time they
saw a warrior; now I want to show them a brahmin.'
June 20, 1899, was fixed as their date of sailing from Calcutta. On the night of the 19th
a meeting was held at the Belur Math at which the junior members of the monastery
presented addresses to the two Swamis. The next day the Holy Mother entertained
them and other monks with a sumptuous feast.
The steamship 'Golconda,' carrying the Swami and his two companions, touched
Madras, but the passengers were not allowed to land on account of the plague in
Calcutta. This was a great disappointment to Swami Vivekananda's South Indian
friends. The ship continued to Colombo, Aden, Naples, and Marseilles, finally arriving
in London on July 31.
The voyage in the company of the Swami was an education for Turiyananda and
Nivedita. From beginning to end a vivid flow of thought and stories went on. One
never knew what moment would bring the flash of intuition and the ringing utterance
of some fresh truth. That encyclopaedic mind touched all subjects: Christ, Buddha,
Krishna, Ramakrishna, folklore, the history of India and Europe, the degradation of
Hindu society and the assurance of its coming greatness, different philosophical and
religious systems, and many themes more. All was later admirably recorded by Sister
Nivedita in The Master as I Saw Him, from which the following fragments may be
cited.
'Yes,' the Swami said one day, 'the older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie
in manliness. This is my new gospel. Do even evil like a man! Be wicked, if you must,
on a grand scale!' Some time before, Nivedita had complimented India on the
infrequency of crime; on that occasion the Swami said in sorrowful protest: 'Would to
God it were otherwise in my land! For this is verily the virtuousness of death.'
Evidently, according to him, the vilest crime was not to act, to do nothing at all.
Regarding conservative and liberal ideas he said: 'The conservative's whole ideal is
submission. Your ideal is struggle. Consequently it is we who enjoy life, and never
you! You are always striving to change yours to something better, and before a
millionth part of the change is carried out, you die. The Western ideal is to be doing;
the Eastern, to be suffering. The perfect life would be a wonderful harmony between
doing and suffering. But that can never be.'
To him selfishness was the greatest barrier to spiritual progress: