days. Do you know, this was just exactly what the great Sankaracharya himself had to
do. He had to go back to his mother in the last few days of her life. I accept it. I am
resigned.'
In the same letter to Mrs. Ole Bull he wrote: 'I am but a child; what work have I to do?
My powers I passed over to you. I see it. I cannot any more tell from the platform.
Don't tell it to anyone — not even to Joe. I am glad. I want rest; not that I am tired, but
the next phase will be the miraculous touch and not the tongue — like Ramakrishna's.
The word has gone to you and the boys, and to Margot.' (Referring to Sister Nivedita.)
He was fast losing interest in active work. On April 7, 1900, he wrote to a friend:
'My boat is nearing the calm harbour from which it is never more to be driven out.
Glory, glory unto Mother! (Referring to the Divine Mother of the Universe.) I have no
wish, no ambition now. Blessed be Mother! I am the servant of Ramakrishna. I am
merely a machine. I know nothing else. Nor do I want to know.'
To another friend he wrote, on April 12, in similar vein:
Work always brings dirt with it. I paid for the accumulated dirt with bad health. I am
glad my mind is all the better for it. There is a mellowness and a calmness in life now,
which never was before. I am learning now how to be attached as well as detached —
and mentally becoming my own master.... Mother is doing Her own work. I do not
worry much now. Moths like me die by the thousands every minute. Her work goes on
all the same. Glory unto Mother!...For me — alone and drifting about in the will-
current of the Mother has been my life. The moment I have tried to break it, that
moment I was hurt. Her will be done....I am happy, at peace with myself, and more of
the sannyasin than I ever was. The love for my own kith and kin is growing less every
day — for Mother, increasing. Memories of long nights of vigil with Sri Ramakrishna,
under the Dakshineswar banyan tree, are waking up once more. And work? What is
work? Whose work? Whom to work for? I am free. I am Mother's child. She works,
She plays. Why should I plan? What shall I plan? Things came and went, just as She
liked, without my planning, in spite of my planning. We are Her automata. She is the
wire-puller.
With the approaching end of his mission and earthly life, he realized ever more clearly
how like a stage this world is. In August 1899 he wrote to Miss Marie Halboister: 'This
toy world would not be here, this play could not go on, if we were knowing players.
We must play blindfolded. Some of us have taken the part of the rogue of the play;
some, of the hero — never mind, it is all play. This is the only consolation. There are
demons and lions and tigers and what not on the stage, but they are all muzzled. They
snap but cannot bite. The world cannot touch our souls. If you want, even if the body
be torn and bleeding, you may enjoy the greatest peace in your mind. And the way to
that is to attain hopelessness. Do you know that? Not the imbecile attitude of despair,
but the contempt of the conqueror for the things he has attained, for the things he has