Is Kali, my Mother, really black?
The Naked One, though black She seems,
Lights the Lotus of the heart.
Men call Her black, but yet my mind
Will not believe that She is so:
Now She is white, now red, now blue;
Now She appears as yellow, too.
I hardly know who Mother is,
Though I have pondered all my life:
Now Purusha, now Prakriti,
And now the Void, She seems to be.
To meditate on all these things
Confounds poor Kamalakanta's wits.
Then he said, almost in a whisper: 'If there were another Vivekananda, then he would
have understood what this Vivekananda has done! And yet — how many
Vivekanandas shall be born in time!'
He expressed the desire to worship Mother Kali at the Math the following day, and
asked two of his disciples to procure all the necessary articles for the ceremony. Next
he asked the disciple Suddhananda to read a passage from the Yajurveda with the
commentary of a well-known expositor. The Swami said that he did not agree with the
commentator and exhorted the disciple to give a new interpretation of the Vedic texts.
He partook of the noon meal with great relish, in company with the members of the
Math, though usually, at that time, he ate alone in his room because of his illness.
Immediately afterwards, full of life and humour, he gave lessons to the brahmacharins
for three hours on Sanskrit grammar. In the afternoon he took a walk for about two
miles with Swami Premananda and discussed his plan to start a Vedic College in the
monastery.
'What will be the good of studying the Vedas?' Premananda asked.
'It will kill superstition,' Swami Vivekananda said.
On his return the Swami inquired very tenderly concerning every member of the
monastery. Then he conversed for a long time with his companions on the rise and fall
of nations. 'India is immortal,' he said, 'if she persists in her search for God. But if she
goes in for politics and social conflict, she will die.'
At seven o'clock in the evening the bell rang for worship in the chapel. The Swami
went to his room and told the disciple who attended him that none was to come to him
until called for. He spent an hour in meditation and telling his beads, then called the
disciple and asked him to open all the windows and fan his head. He lay down quietly
on his bed and the attendant thought that he was either sleeping or meditating.