#066, people who know not what appreciation and gratefulness are
"... America is a grand country. It is a paradise of the poor and women. There is almost no poor in the country, and nowhere else in the world women are so free, so educated, so cultured. They are everything in society. ...
And in this most hospitable country, every home is open to me ..."
BLOGGER'S VIEWS
Swamiji does not mention anything about the poverty of the 20 million Blacks in US. While describing a heaven where is the place for blacks and their deprivation? He remembers blacks only when he has to compare Indians with them for calling both "SLAVES" and "JEALOUS".
"...I am the same here as in India, only here in this highly cultural land there is an appreciation, a sympathy which our ignorant fools never dream of. There our people grudge us monks a crumb of bread, here they are ready to pay one thousand rupees a lecture and remain grateful for the instructions for ever.
I am appreciated by these strangers more than I was ever in India. I can, if I will, live here all my life in the greatest luxury; but I am a Sannyasin, and "India, with all thy faults I love thee still". So I am coming back after some months, and go on sowing the seeds of religion and progress from city to city as I was doing so long, although amongst a people who know not what appreciation and gratefulness are. ..."
BLOGGER'S VIEWS
From 1897 to 1899 while in India, he was busy touring Kashmir, Darjeeling and Almora. At that time Ms. Henrietta Mueller and Mrs. Ole Bull donated to the Math large amounts for purchase of land and construction.
Vivekananda returned to US in 1899. He might have lived all his life in USA in the greatest luxury as avowed by him. Even after waiting for two months approx. to get lecture business at Ridgely Manor, finding little response in Eastern US, he left to and concentrated on the Western US Cities of Los Angeles and California. His object was to make quick money, as per his letters to Ms. Christina Greenstidel, Ms. Mary Hale, Mrs. Ole Bull. With great difficulty, he could mobilise his return passage to India and a little Dollars. Disappointed, he blamed the audience and returned to India 1900 without informing anybody in Imdia. Swamiji found the gates of the Math. locked and the watchman was not permitting entry before consulting the masters inside at dinner time. Hence, he jumped over the gate and joined the dinner. He had a brief tour of Dhaka (Bangla Desh). Thereafter, he spent his time in the first floor of the Math Building equiped with good imported furniture and a couch. His main activity till his demise was goat and duck rearing.
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