Swami Vivekananda gave many lectures before large audiences in Los Angeles and
Pasadena; but alas! there was no Goodwin to record them, and most of what he said
was consequently lost. Only a little has been preserved in the fragmentary notes of his
disciples.
At the Universalist Church of Pasadena he gave his famous lecture 'Christ, the
Messenger'; and this was the only time, Miss MacLeod said later, that she saw him
enveloped in a halo. The Swami, after the lecture, was returning home wrapped in
thought, and Miss MacLeod was following at a little distance, when suddenly she
heard him say, 'I know it, I know it!'
'What do you know?' asked Miss MacLeod.
'How they make it.'
'How they make what?'
'Mulligatawny soup. They put in a dash of bay leaf for flavour.' And then he burst into
a laugh.
The Swami spent about a month at the headquarters of the 'Home of Truth' in Los
Angeles, conducted regular classes, and gave several public lectures, each of which
was attended by over a thousand people. He spoke many times on the different aspects
of raja-yoga, a subject in which Californians seemed to be especially interested.
The Swami endeared himself to the members of the Home of Truth by his simple
manner, his great intellect, and his spiritual wisdom. Unity, the magazine of the
organization, said of him: 'There is a combination in the Swami Vivekananda of the
learning of a university president, the dignity of an archbishop, with the grace and
winsomeness of a free and natural child. Getting upon the platform, without a
moment's preparation, he would soon be in the midst of his subject, sometimes
becoming almost tragic as his mind would wander from deep metaphysics to the
prevailing conditions in Christian countries of today, whose people go and seek to
reform the Filipinos with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other, or in South
Africa allow children of the same Father to cut each other to pieces. In contrast to this
condition of things, he described what took place during the last great famine in India,
where men would die of starvation beside their cows rather than stretch forth a hand to
kill.'
The members of the Home of Truth were not permitted to smoke. One evening the
Swami was invited for dinner by a member of the organization along with several other
friends who were all opposed to the use of tobacco. After dinner the hostess was absent
from the room for a few minutes, when the Swami, perhaps due to his ignorance of the
rule about tobacco, took out his pipe, filled it up, and began to puff. The guests were
aghast, but kept quiet. When the hostess returned, she flew into a rage and asked the
Swami if God intended men to smoke, adding that in that case He would have
furnished the human head with a chimney for the smoke to go out.