lowest centre to the highest. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."' He
would plead with the students as if to beg them to act upon this teaching as something
most precious. Further, they could not be the disciples he required if they were not
established in chastity. He demanded a conscious transmutation. 'The man who has no
temper has nothing to control,' he said. 'I want a few, five or six, who are in the flower
of their youth.'
He would frequently exhort the students to attain freedom. As the words came in
torrents from the depths of his soul, the atmosphere would be charged with the
yearning to break free from the bondage of the body, a degrading humiliation. As he
touched upon 'this indecent clinging to life,' the students would feel as if the curtain
that hid the region beyond life and death were lifted for them, and they would long for
that glorious freedom. 'Azad! Azad! the Free! the Free!' he would cry, pacing back and
forth like a caged lion; but for him the bars of the cage were not of iron, but of
bamboo. 'Let us not be caught this time,' would be his refrain on other occasions.
Some of these precious talks were noted down by his disciple Miss S. Ellen Waldo and
later published as Inspired Talks. Students of Swami Vivekananda will for ever remain
indebted to her for faithfully preserving his immortal words, and the title of this book
was well chosen, for they were indeed inspired. One day Miss Waldo was reading her
notes to some tardy arrivals in the cottage while the Swami strode up and down the
floor, apparently unconscious of what was going on. After the travellers had left the
room, the Swami turned to Miss Waldo and said: 'How could you have caught my
thought and words so perfectly? It was as if I heard myself speaking.'
During these seven weeks of teaching the Swami was most gentle and lovable. He
taught his disciples as Sri Ramakrishna had taught him at Dakshineswar: the teaching
was the outpouring of his own spirit in communion with himself. The Swami said later
that he was at his best at Thousand Island Park. The ideas he cherished and expressed
there grew, during the years that followed, into institutions, both in India and abroad.
The Swami's one consuming passion, during this time, was to show his students the
way to freedom. 'Ah,' he said one day, with touching pathos, 'if I could only set you
free with a touch!' Two students, Mrs. Funke and Miss Greenstidel, arrived at the Park
one dark and rainy night. One of them said, 'We have come to you as we would go to
Jesus if he were still on the earth and ask him to teach us.' The Swami looked at them
kindly and gently said, 'If I only possessed the power of the Christ to set you free!' No
wonder that Miss Waldo one day exclaimed, 'What have we ever done to deserve all
this?' And so felt the others also.
One cannot but be amazed at the manifestation of Swami Vivekananda's spiritual
power at Thousand Island Park. Outwardly he was a young man of thirty-two. All his
disciples at the cottage, except one, were older than himself. Yet everyone looked upon
him as a father or mother. He had attained an unbelievable maturity. Some marvelled
at his purity, some at his power, some at his intellectuality, some at his serenity, which
was like the depths of the ocean, unperturbed by the waves of applause or contumely.
When had he acquired all these virtues which had made him at thirty, a teacher of