LIX Sanyal
(Translated from Bengali )
54 W. 33rd ST., NEW YORK,
9th February, 1895.
DEAR SANYAL,
. . Paramahamsa Deva was my Guru, and whatever I may think of him in point of greatness, why should the world think like me? And if you press the point hard, you will spoil everything. The idea of worshipping the Guru as God is nowhere to be met with outside Bengal, for other people are not yet ready to take up that ideal. . . . Many would fain associate my name with themselves — “I belong to them!” But when it comes to doing something I want, they are nowhere. So selfish is the whole world!
I shall consider myself absolved from a debt of obligation when I succeed in purchasing some land for Mother. I don’t care for anything after that.
In this dire winter I have travelled across mountains and over snows at dead of night and collected a little fund; and I shall have peace of mind when a plot is secured for Mother.
Henceforth address my letters as above, which is to be my permanent seat from now. Try to send me an English translation of the Yogavâsishtha Râmâyana. . . . Don’t forget those books I asked for before, viz Sanskrit Nârada and Shândilya Sutras.
आशा हि परमं दुःखं नैराश्यं परमं सुखम् Hope is the greatest of miseries, the highest bliss lies in giving up hope.”
Yours affectionately,
VIVEKANANDA.
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1 From internal evidence it seems that letter No. LIV vas written in the beginning of 1894, for it refers to “Mazoomdar’s doings”, and cold “making itself scarce by degrees”.
The next letter must have been written in March or April 1894, as we infer from the Bengali biography of Swami Akhandananda.
Letter number LVI belongs to the summer of 1894, for it was written after Shri Ramakrishna’s festival.
Letter number LXXV belongs most probably to the beginning of 1895, for it gives directions about Shri Ramakrishna’s birthday celebration that year; it also speaks of the retreat of winter and refers to certain books to be sent by Sanyal (See letters LIX and LXXIII).
The order of these letters, however, is not altered in the absence of more cogent proof.
August, 1963
Editor
Volume 6 Page 200
