#267 Here Princes draw my carriage
"... I was one man in America and another here. Here the whole nation is looking upon me as their authority — there I was a much reviled preacher. Here Princes draw my carriage, there I would not be admitted to a decent hotel. "
ybrao a donkey, this blogger's views
"Here the whole nation is looking upon me as their authority". "Here Princes draw my carriage". Some foolish rulers like rAmnAd, khEtri, might have drawn his carriage. Ruler of khEtri believed that he begot a male child, with the blessings of swAmIji. Whole Nation looking upon him as their authority-- an abstract untenable intangible boast which was necessary to show-on and show-off to foreign aristocratic disciples.
"...there I would not be admitted to a decent hotel. ..." SwAmiji insisted that his American disciples and hosts lodge him in decent big hotels. He did not like small hotels of his favorite yankee land.
During the same period, there were heated exchanges between SV-RK cult and Theosophical Cult of Anne Besant-Walcat.
From the same letter cited above.
"...The only respect the Buddhists pay to their great tenet of non-killing is by opening "butcher-stalls" in every place! And the priests encourage this. The real Buddhism, I once thought, would yet do much good. But I have given up the idea entirely, and I clearly see the reason why Buddhism was driven out of India, and we will only be too glad if the Ceylonese carry off the remnant of this religion with its hideous idols and licentious rites. .."
If buddhists start and run "butcher-stalls", vivEkAnanda, would have been an ideal customer, as he had to eat meat only and take no water, to cure himself of diabetes. Of course, there will be shad fish and turtles.
Quote from the same letter (ibid).
... The Theosophists tried to fawn upon and flatter me as I am the authority now in India, and therefore it was necessary for me to stop my work giving any sanction to their humbugs , by a few bold, decisive words; and the thing is done. I am very glad. If my health had permitted, I would have cleared India by this time of these upstart humbugs, at least tried my best. . . . Let me tell you that India is already Ramakrishna's and for a purified Hinduism I have organised my work here a bit....
.ybrao a donkey, this blogger's views
So theosophists are humbugs and RKs are purified Hindu souls. But by 1899, his principal donor for the bElur monastery land Ms. Henrietta Muller realised that something was some jiggery-pokery and shifted to theosophy of Anne Besant.
What was humbug and what was not humbug? Who is to decide?
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