006, The Indian People owe something భారతీయులు నాకు బాకీ ఉన్నారు
According to Swami Vivekananda's biographers, Swami Vivekananda met his brother-disciples Brahmananda and Turiyananda enroute Bombay to Khetri, and told them, the purpose of his visit. It was for eradicating poverty in India. But, what Vivekananda ended up with? Trying to eradicating his own poverty?
"... 'I travelled,' he said, 'all over India. But alas, it was agony to me, my brothers, to see with my own eyes the terrible poverty of the masses, and I could not restrain my tears! It is now my firm conviction that to preach religion amongst them, without first trying to remove their poverty and suffering, is futile. It is for this reason — to find means for the salvation of the poor of India — that I am going to America.' ..."
BLOGGER'S VIEWS
Ans: Swamiji's letter dated 18th December 1899 to Mrs. Ole Bull gives some indication:
"... Mr. Leggett has got a little over £ 500 I had with Sturdy on account of Raja-Yoga and the Maharaja of Khetri. I have now about a thousand dollars with Mr. Leggett. If I die, kindly send that money to my mother. I wired to the boys three weeks ago that I was perfectly cured."
On 17th Jan. 1900, Swamiji wrote to Mrs. Bull:
" ... The only difficulty is financial part. Well, the Indian people owe something. I will try Madras and a few other friends in India."
In the same letter:
" ... The one thousand dollars with Mr. Leggett, and if a little more is collected, will be enough to fall back upon in case of need. Will you send me back to India? ... "
In his letter dt. 15th Feb. 1900 to Mrs. Bull:
"Mrs. Leggett started a plan of $ 100 subscription each a year for ten years to help me and headed the list with her $100 for 1900, and got two others to do the same."
This fund did not materialise because only two or three persons came forward.
ybrao a donkey's humble views
*Now what will happen to the problem of India's poverty?
*Swamiji claimed that he did not belong to any particular country. Swamiji said that Indians were rascals and rogues. India was a rotten corpse as per him. Then, how was it that the rotten India and the rascals owed something to him?
Comments
Theodore Roosvelt -"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."