024, PRAMAD DAS MISHRAJI, BRIBE MONKS AND GET ROOM!
Swami Vivekananda wrote to Mr. Pramad das Mishra from Ghazipur on March 3, 1890:
BLOGGER'S VIEWs
*Is this the way to persuade a reluctant person to visit a place!
*Is Vivekananda not a monk of this Satanic Age!
*Is Vivekananda proposing to bribe the monks for getting accommodation?
As a monk he should have said that Hrishikesh is on the banks of the river Mandakini (Ganges) and that they can clean themselves on the banks of the river or some other rivulet. In summer, till accommodation is available, people can sleep under shade of trees or in warrandahs of choultries (free inns), which is not normally objected. In fact, thousands of travellers do sleep on river banks, tree-shades, warrandahs, bus stands, markets, closed shop-stairs, even today (2007). Everybody does not get accommodation or can pay for it. It is the true spirit of a pilgrim or seeker or scholar.
*Great confidence about the safety of fakirs and householders under the British rule. Then who is not safe?
"... What are you saying about difficulties there of keeping clean? Lack of water in the hills or lack of room!! Tirthas (places of pilgrimage) and Sannyasins of the Kali-Yuga — you know what they are. Spend money and the owners of temples will fling away the installed god to make room for you; so no anxiety about a resting-place! No trouble to face there, I say; the summer heat has set in there now, I believe, though not that degree of it as you find at Varanasi — so much the better. Always the nights are quite cool there, from which good sleep is almost a certainty.
Why do you get frightened so much? I stand guarantee that you shall return home safe and that you shall have no trouble anywhere. It is my experience that in this British realm no fakir or householder gets into any trouble. ..."
BLOGGER'S VIEWs
*Is this the way to persuade a reluctant person to visit a place!
*Is Vivekananda not a monk of this Satanic Age!
*Is Vivekananda proposing to bribe the monks for getting accommodation?
As a monk he should have said that Hrishikesh is on the banks of the river Mandakini (Ganges) and that they can clean themselves on the banks of the river or some other rivulet. In summer, till accommodation is available, people can sleep under shade of trees or in warrandahs of choultries (free inns), which is not normally objected. In fact, thousands of travellers do sleep on river banks, tree-shades, warrandahs, bus stands, markets, closed shop-stairs, even today (2007). Everybody does not get accommodation or can pay for it. It is the true spirit of a pilgrim or seeker or scholar.
*Great confidence about the safety of fakirs and householders under the British rule. Then who is not safe?
Comments