power. He had noticed that the members of the audience were becoming so absorbed in
his ideas that they were losing their own individualities. He had felt that they had
become like soft clay and that he could give them any shape he wanted. That, however,
was contrary to his philosophy. He wished every man and woman to grow according to
his or her own inner law. He did not wish to change or destroy anyone's individuality.
That was why he had had to stop.
Swami Turiyananda started work at Montclair, New Jersey, a short distance from New
York, and began to teach children the stories and folklore of India. He also lectured
regularly at the Vedanta Society of New York: His paper on Sankaracharya, read
before the Cambridge Conference, was highly praised by the Harvard professors.
One day, while the Swami was staying at Ridgely Manor, Miss MacLeod had received
a telegram informing her that her only brother was dangerously ill in Los Angeles. As
she was leaving for the West coast, the Swami uttered a Sanskrit benediction and told
her that he would soon meet her there. She proceeded straight to the home of Mrs. S.
K. Blodgett, where her brother was staying, and after spending a few minutes with the
patient, asked Mrs. Blodgett whether her brother might be permitted to die in the room
in which he was then lying; for she had found a large picture of Vivekananda, hanging
on the wall at the foot of the patient's bed. Miss MacLeod told her hostess of her
surprise on seeing the picture, and Mrs. Blodgett replied that she had heard
Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago and thought that if ever there
was a God on earth, it was that man. Miss MacLeod told her that she had just left the
Swami at Ridgely Manor, and further, that he had expressed the desire to come to Los
Angeles. The brother died within a few days, and the Swami started for the West Coast
on November 22. He broke his trip in Chicago to visit his old friends, and upon his
arrival in Los Angeles became the guest of Mrs. Blodgett, whom he described in a
letter to Mary Hale as 'fat, old, extremely witty, and very motherly.'
The impression the Swami left in the mind of this good woman can be gathered from
the following lines of a letter written by her to Miss MacLeod after Swamiji's passing
away:
I am ever recalling those swift, bright days in that never-to-be-forgotten winter, lived
in simple freedom and kindliness. We could not choose but to be happy and good....I
knew him personally but a short time, yet in that time I could see in a hundred ways the
child side of Swamiji's character, which was a constant appeal to the mother quality in
all good women....He would come home from a lecture, where he had been compelled
to break away from his audience — so eagerly would they gather around him — and
rush into the kitchen like a boy released from school, with 'Now we will cook!'
Presently Joe would appear and discover the culprit among the pots and pans, and in
his fine dress, who was by thrifty, watchful Joe admonished to change to his home
garments....In the homely, old-fashioned kitchen, you and I have seen Swamiji at his
best.