I am!'
Then there were the leaders of the cranky, selfish, and fraudulent organizations, who
tried to induce the Swami to embrace their cause, first by promises of support, and then
by threats of injuring him if he refused to ally himself with them. But he could be
neither bought nor frightened — 'the sickle had hit on a stone,' as the Polish proverb
says. To all these propositions his only answer was: 'I stand for Truth. Truth will never
ally itself with falsehood. Even if all the world should be against me, Truth must
prevail in the end.'
But the more powerful enemies he had to face were among the so-called free-thinkers,
embracing the atheists, materialists, agnostics, rationalists, and others of similar breed
who opposed anything associated with God or religion. Thinking that they would
easily crush his ancient faith by arguments drawn from Western philosophy and
science, they organized a meeting in New York and invited the Swami to present his
views.
'I shall never forget that memorable evening' wrote an American disciple, 'when the
Swami appeared single-handed to face the forces of materialism, arrayed in the
heaviest armour of law, and reason, and logic, and common sense, of matter, and force,
and heredity, and all the stock phrases calculated to awe and terrify the ignorant.
Imagine their surprise when they found that far from being intimidated by these big
words, he proved himself a master in wielding their own weapons, and as familiar with
the arguments of materialism as with those of Advaita philosophy. He showed them
that their much vaunted Western science could not answer the most vital questions of
life and being, that their immutable laws, so much talked of, had no outside existence
apart from the human mind, that the very idea of matter was a metaphysical
conception, and that it was much despised metaphysics upon which ultimately rested
the very basis of their materialism. With an irresistible logic he demonstrated that their
knowledge proved itself incorrect, not by comparison with that which was true, but by
the very laws upon which it depended for its basis; that pure reason could not help
admitting its own limitations and pointed to something beyond reason; and that
rationalism, when carried to its last consequences, must ultimately land us at
something which is above matter, above force, above sense, above thought, and even
consciousness, and of which all these are but manifestations.'
As a result of his explaining the limitations of science, a number of people from the
group of free-thinkers attended the Swami's meeting the next day and listened to his
uplifting utterances on God and religion.
What an uphill work it was for Swami Vivekananda to remove the ignorance,
superstition, and perverted ideas about religion in general and Hinduism in particular!
No wonder he sometimes felt depressed. In one of these moods he wrote from Detroit,
on March 15, 1894, to the Hale sisters in Chicago:
But I do not know — I have become very sad in my heart since I am here. I do not