Few of us have heard of Alasinga Perumal (Iyengar).

Born in 1863, he was just a modest, deeply religious, high school teacher, who lived in Triplicane, Chennai (then called Madras). There was little
exceptional about him, except a big except his devotion to Swami Vivekananda and how he helped shape a crucial part of Swamijis life. Alasinga Perumal was to Swamiji what Sri Hanuman was
to Sri Rama. Not surprisingly, Swamiji regarded him my dearest disciple!

Alasinga Perumal
It all happened in 1892/1893. Alasinga had heard about a great Parliament of World Religions to be held in Chicago in 1893. He could have perhaps gone to the Parliament himself, but, given his
modesty, he wanted someone else really scholarly to go. He tried to persuade some leading Hindus from Madras to do so but had failed.
Around the same time, another young man, also just 30 years of age, had arrived in Madras. Born in 1863 as Narendranath (later to be called Swami Vivekananda), he had met Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa in 1881 and had become a most ardent disciple by the time of his gurus Samadhi in 1885. During 1888 -93, he wandered all over India, spreading the mission and message of
Ramakrishna and towards the end of his Bharat darshan came to Madras and spent several months and met Alasinga.
In Madras, Alasinga initially just organised Vivekanandas lectures. But, once he got to know Vivekananda, he was in no doubt as to who would be the best Hindu to go to Chicago. He therefore not
only suggested that Vivekananda goes to the Parliament (indeed, as suggested by several other prominent people such as Raja of Ramnad), but offered to collect the required funds and make it
feasible. He set about building a modern version of Rama Sethu so that his Rama could go across the seas and conquer. He succeeded in collecting the money required only at second attempt: at
Swami Vivekanandas instance the contributors were mostly poor people but included the Mysore Maharaja, Hyderabad Nizam and others. His devotion was so great that he literally carried Swami
Vivekanandas luggage on to the boat, Peninsular, in Bombay bound for the America and saw him off.
Vivekananda arrived in USA some six weeks ahead of the opening of the Parliament but his visit did not start auspiciously. He had lost the travelers cheques he had brought and what little cash he
was left with was getting depleted fast. Autumn had set in Chicago and he was not equipped for the cold weather. One night, he sought to sleep in the Railway platform as one could have done in
India, but could not and therefore spent the night in an empty packing case. Most importantly, he learnt that he could not attend the Parliament as he had not registered in time. Three weeks before the
opening date, he wrote in some desperation to, whom else but, Alasinga.
Expenses are awful. You gave me 179 pounds in India. Now it is down to 130. America is expensive and it costs me one pound a day, despite the fact I am now living as a guest of an old lady in a
village near Boston, who shows me off to her friends as a curio from India. All those rosy ideas we had before I started have melted. Starvation, cold, hooting in the streets because of my dress, these
are all the things I have to fight against. But, no great things were ever done without great labour. I have a call from ABOVE and I must stick to my guns
Before you get this letter I will be down to 60 or 70 pounds. Try your best to send some money if not for keeping me for a while, at least to help me get me out of this country. In the meantime, if
anything turns out in my favour, I will wire mindful though that a word costs about a pound!
Alasinga promptly collected some money and sent it to him. In the meantime, one Professor John Henry Wright of Harvard University had heard about Swamiji and in his second attempt managed to
meet him. The professor was enthralled with the meeting and assumed he was going to the Parliament. When told that the deadli ne for registration had already passed and in any case he had no
sponsors, Professor Wright told him To ask for your credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine. He promptly wrote to the Chairman of the Parliament Here is a man more learned than
all our professors put together and also organized the funds for the trip and other logistics. It is pointless wondering whether but for the chance meeting with the professor Swamiji would have attended
the Parliament: he was a man of destiny and one way or other he would have attended the Parliament!
On September 11, 1893, the Parliament opened. On the first day itself, after four other prepared speeches were read, Swamiji was asked to speak. In one of the greatest orations, he started with
Sisters and Brothers of America five immortal words that made the 7000 strong audience to stand up in the realization they were witnessing an epochal moment. The speech was very brief, but, so
brilliant was he that overnight he became a sensation. Life-size portraits of Swamiji, who only a few weeks earlier been told he could not attend the conference, quickly adorned the streets of Chicago!
In the Parliament itself, he became the star attraction and spoke five more times. He showcased all the great qualities that characterized his later work and his lifes mission
His immense pride in Hinduism
An ability to make profound and clear expositions on Hinduism
Tolerance and indeed respect for other religions
Acting as a bridge between the East and West
Skills as an orator especially in English.
His third and the longest speech he delivered at the Parliament is a scholarly treatise on Hinduism. In another speech he was blunt: Hindu, or, Christian, or a Buddhist, whoever thinks his religion is
greater than that of others, is like a frog in a well, unwilling to accept either that there are other wells, or, that there are great seas outside their wells. His concluding speech, another brief one, was
about inter religious harmony and peace, or, as he concluded assimilation, not destruction.
At the end of the Parliament a 1600 page report was published it said right at the beginning: Swami Vivekanandas performance and the magnificent way he conquered the entire West by his
erudition and clear exposition brings to ones memory the Latin phrase veni, vidi, vici, or, he came, he saw and he conquered. The New York Herald remarked After hearing him, we feel how foolish
we are to send missionaries to this learned nation.
What started as a trip to the Parliament, thanks to the fame acquired there, ended as a four year lecture tour of the Americas and Europe. Appropriately on his return to India in 1897, Swami
Vivekananda first touched the shores of South India. He had come by ship to Colombo and then took what used to be called the boat mail to Pamban, then to Kumbakonam and finally Madras. In the
four years he was abroad, he had gained recognition as one of Indias greatest sons and this was reflected in the welcome reception all along the way there are stories of his train having to make
unscheduled stops to accommodate people wanting to have his darshan. The thoroughfares of the city that first recognized his greatness now wore a festive look, with welcome arches all the way from
the Egmore station to Caste Kernan on the beach, where he was to stay for a few days. It is now called Vivekananda Illam. During the nine days in Madras he delivered several memorable speeches,
including one where he asked young Indians to Arise! Awake! Stand up and assert yourself.
Through all these memorable years and for the rest of their lives the sublimity of the guru-sishya relationship between him and Alasinga remained. In fact even for the Swamijis later trip to the West, it
was Alasinga who travelled with him to Colombo and saw him off in the boat. Alasinga later played a major role in starting Ramakrishna Ashram in Madras and was heavily involved in various other
initiatives.
Swami Vivekananda said of Alasinga:
One rarely finds a man like our Alasinga in this world, one so unselfish, so hard-working, and devoted to his guru, and such an obedient disciple is indeed very rare on earth. His
devotion I can never repay.
Authors notes: 2013 is the the 150th Birth Anniversary Year of Swami Vivekananda and the South Indian Society London plans to celebrate it appropriately all through the year. This will be the first of
several articles on Swami Vivekananda and his teachings to be published as part of the celebration.
Vivekanandas 120-year-old 9/11 speech
The Hindu monks speech on religious tolerance and primacy of man has been hailed as one the greatest orations in history
Sandipan Deb


First Published: Thu, Jul 18 2013. 03 03 PM IST

It is our duty to make sure that Vivekananda is not appropriated by any polemicist or politician, or even any religion. Photo: HT
Updated: Thu, Jul 18 2013. 06 24 PM IST
The current issue of Intelligent Life, the culture-technology-lifestyle sibling of The Economist, poses the question What was the greatest speech ever? Six writers were asked to give their
choices. Mark Tully, BBCs former bureau chief for India, has chosen Swami Vivekanandas speech at the first Worlds Parliament of Religion in Chicago in 1893. Picks by the others include Abraham
Lincolns Gettysburg address, Nelson Mandelas speech at his trial in 1964, and Hillary Clintons speech on womens rights at Beijing in 1995.
Most literate Indians are aware of Vivekanandas speech (I hope), or at least its beginning: Sisters and brothers of America. What is less known is that the several thousands of delegatesmost of
them Christianswere so impressed with this 30-year-old Hindu monks words that he was invited to speak five more times over the next fortnight at the congregation. As Tully notes, New York
Herald said, Vivekananda is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions. He was relevant then and is relevant today for hi s constant affirmation that all religions are paths to God,
and his call for tolerance, writes Tully.
What was so dazzling about that speech?
Its just 458 words long, so could not have lasted more than five or six minutes (It was also delivered extempore). Vivekananda speaks on one single theme: what he believes is the core value of
Hinduism, and the most precious one. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance, he says. We believe not only in universal toleration, but
we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth... I will quote to you, brethren, a few
lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: As the different streams having their sources in different
paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.
To go back a little. The way that Vivekananda arrived at the vast hall of Chicagos Art Institute is itself quite an incredible story. After the death of his Master, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Vivekananda
had lived the life of a wandering mendicant for nearly seven years, travelling the length and breadth of the country. The more he saw the wretched condition of the Indian masses, the more convinced
he was that what they needed was less religion and more spirituality (Dont be put off by that word, Vivekanandas version of spirituality was pragmatic, robust and even physical). Centuries of
oppression, poverty and obscurantism had crushed the Indian spirit. What they needed first and foremost, he decided, was inner strength, a confidence that could help them achieve their potential.
God, he felt, need not be worshipped on an empty stomach. Two square meals a day were far more important than a visit to a temple, and those meals could come only when a man realized the
power inherent in himself, his own divinity, that God resided inside him, as He did in all Creation (If you take God and divinity out of this observation, it is fundamentally no different from a
humanist/atheist argument).
Money earned literally through begging door to door, and donations from three South Indian kings, enabled Vivekananda to reach Chicago in July 1893. On arrival, he learnt to his dismay that no
delegate would be admitted to Parliament without proper credentials from a bona fide organization. Vivekananda was a lone monk representing no organization, and even if he had been, the last date
for registration of delegates was past. In addition, the Parliament was two months away. He had neither the money to return to India nor to live for two months in Chicago and take a chance at gate-
crashing the convention. Unwilling to accept defeat, and being told that Boston was a cheaper city than Chicago, he boarded a train to that city. On the way, a wealthy lady co-passenger got into a
conversation with him, and was impressed enough to invite him to come and stay in her country home. Vivekananda accepted gratefully, and through his hostess, happened to meet J.H. Wright, a
professor of Greek at Harvard. The young monks calm wisdom astonished him, and he wrote to the chairman of the committee for the selection of delegates, a friend, and bought him a ticket to
Chicago. But when he reached Chicago on 9 September, Vivekananda discovered that he had lost the address of the committee.
Walking the streets, he kept asking people about the Parliament, but no one knew anything, and he spent the night in an empty boxcar in a railroad freight yard. Next morning, he started off on his
quest again in the richer neighbourhoods of the city. After hours of being shooed away by butlers who saw only a bedraggled foreign beggar when they opened the door, he sat down, exhausted, on
the pavement. Miraculously, the door of a mansion across the road opened and the lady of the house appeared, and asked him whether he was a delegate to the Parliament of Religions. Mrs George
Hale, whose family would become lifelong friends of Vivekananda, invited him in, and after he had cleaned up and eaten, took him over to the office of the committee and had him registered.
The convention began the next day, 11 September. Yes, it was a 9/11.
As speaker after speaker representing all the major religions of the world gave lengthy speeches from prepared texts, touting the superiority of their particular faiths, the young man from India realized
that neither had he ever addressed such a large gathering (nearly four thousand people), nor did he have any written speech. Frightened now, he kept postponing his turn on the stage, till he had no
further excuses left, and had to go up and face the audience.
With his very first lines, he established his credentials with a simplicity and pride that must have awed the listeners who would anyway have been intrigued by the looks of this handsome young man in
a saffron turban and dress from the East who spoke perfect English. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world, said Vivekananda. I thank you in the name of the
mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. This was a man who had never been out of India, had spent years tending to the poor
and the diseased as he searched for the divine, and was speaking entirely off the cuff of his soul. In the next five minutes that he spoke, he electrified the audienceand, one cant help but surmise,
shamed many of the speakers who had preceded him. For he spoke of the validity of every great religion and against all forms of faith-based intolerance. Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible
descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth, he said. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole
nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. There is obviously no record of this, but there would have been very few
speakers at that grand convention who had shared hovels with lepers and gone without food for days to seek a greater truth.
In his concluding address on the last day of the convention, Vivekananda again stressed harmony and acceptance. Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just
now to venture my own theory. But if anyone here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, Brother, yours is an
impossible hope. Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. The seed is put in the ground, and earth and
air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the
water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant. Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a
Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth Holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive
possessions of any church in the world If anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart.
Writes Tully in his piece to explain why he chose this speech as the greatest of all time: Vivekanandas speeches at Parliament resonate today for the many who claim to be spiritual but not religious,
who reject religion based on faith and seek experience of God. He said: The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizingnot in
believing, but in being and becoming. And, looking to the future, he said, It will be a religion which will have no place f or persecution or intolerance in its polity Its whole scope, its whole force will be
centred in aiding humanity to realize its own, true, divine nature. That is the religion so many seek today.
Have there ever been truer words spoken about the sheer waste and stupidity of religious schisms than what that fiery young Indian said on that 9/11 day 120 years ago?
To read about Vivekananda todayand what he preached and practised throughout his tragically short life (he passed away at 39)is to wonder that such a man walked the streets of this nation. Of
course he was a Hindu, and he was proud to be one. But his philosophy transcended religions and he had little respect for rituals and ceremonies. His constant focus was on the spirit of Man. This
world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong, he wrote. Each individual has to work out his own salvation; there is no other way, and so also with nations Men in general
lay all the blame of life on their fellowmen, or, failing that, on God, or they conjure up a ghost, and say it is fate. Where is fate, and who is fate? We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own
fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise. The wind is blowing; and those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not
catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind?
The year 2013 is his 150th birth anniversary year. It is our duty to make sure that Vivekananda is not appropriated by any polemicist or politician, or even any religion. It is our duty to make sure that
his name is not taken in vain (to use a Christian term) and his words are not used to push any agenda other than the greatest good for all men. Let us not deify him either (he never could give up
smoking, though he tried hard enough); he would have hated that. He was a man, and a man among men. That is what we owe him.


To Haripada Mitra
C/O GEORGE W. HALE ESQ.,
541 DEARBORN AVENUE, CHICAGO,
28th December, 1893.
DEAR HARIPADA;

It is very strange that news of my Chicago lectures has appeared in the Indian papers; for whatever I do, I try my best to avoid publicity. Many things strike
me here. It may be fairly said that there is no poverty in this country. I have never seen women elsewhere as cultured and educated as they are here. Well-
educated men there are in our country, but you will scarcely find anywhere women like those here. It is indeed true, that "the Goddess Herself lives in the
houses of virtuous men as Lakshmi". I have seen thousands of women here whose hearts are as pure and stainless as snow. Oh, how free they are! It is
they who control social and civic duties Schools and colleges are full of women, and in our country women cannot be safely allowed to walk in the streets!
Their kindness to me is immeasurable. Since I came here, I have been welcomed by them to their houses. They are providing me with food, arranging for my
lectures, taking me to market, and doing everything for my comfort and convenience. I shall never be able to repay in the least the deep debt of gratitude I
owe to them.
Do you know who is the real "Shakti-worshipper"? It is he who knows that God is the omnipresent force in the universe and sees in women the manifestation
of that Force. Many men here look upon their women in this light. Manu, again, has said that gods bless those families where women are happy and well
treated. Here men treat their women as well as can be desired, and hence they are so prosperous, so learned, so free, and so energetic. But why is it that
we are slavish, miserable, and dead? The answer is obvious.
And how pure and chaste are they here! Few women are married before twenty or twenty-five, and they are as free as the birds in the air. They go to market,
school, and college, earn money, and do all kinds of work. Those who are well-to-do devote themselves to doing good to the poor. And what are we doing?
We are very regular in marrying our girls at eleven years of age lest they should become corrupt and immoral. What does our Manu enjoin? "Daughters
should be supported and educated with as much care and attention as the sons." As sons should be married after observing Brahmacharya up to the thirtieth
year, so daughters also must observe Brahmacharya and be educated by their parents. But what are we actually doing? Can you better the condition of your
women? Then there will be hope for your well-being. Otherwise you will remain as backward as you are now.
If anybody is born of a low caste in our country, he is gone for ever, there is no hope for him. Why? What a tyranny it is! There are possibilities, opportunities,
and hope for every individual in this country. Today he is poor, tomorrow he may become rich and learned and respected. Here everyone is anxious to help
the poor. In India there is a howling cry that we are very poor, but how many charitable associations are there for the well-being of the poor? How many
people really weep for the sorrows and sufferings of the millions of poor in India? Are we men? What are we doing for their livelihood, for their improvement?
We do not touch them, we avoid their company! Are we men? Those thousands of Brhmanas what are they doing for the low, downtrodden masses of
India? "Don't touch", "Don't touch", is the only phrase that plays upon their lips! How mean and degraded has our eternal religion become at their hands!
Wherein does our religion lie now? In "Don't-touchism" alone, and nowhere else!
I came to this country not to satisfy my curiosity, nor for name or fame, but to see if I could find any means for the support of the poor in India. If God helps
me, you will know gradually what those means are.
As regards spirituality, the Americans are far inferior to us, but their society is far superior to ours. We will teach them our spirituality and assimilate what is
best in their society.
With love and best wishes,

Yours,
VIVEKANANDA.















Most of us are aware of Vivekanandas speech (I hope), or at least its
beginning: Sisters and brothers of America addressed to a great Parliament
of World Religions held in Chicago in 1893.

It is interesting to know several facts about Swamijis sponsorship, journey,
stay, and work in USA during period of four years 1893 to 1897. I would like
to share few known and unknown incidents, which are collected from
Swamijis famous letters, newspaper articles and different sources available
on internet.

After the demise of his Master, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, (on 16 th Aug
1886), Vivekananda had lived the life of a wandering sanyasi for nearly seven
years, travelling the length and breadth of the country. The more he saw the
wretched condition of the Indian masses, the more convinced he was that
what they needed was less religion and more spirituality. Centuries of
oppression, poverty and obscurantism had crushed the Indian spirit. What
they needed first and foremost, he decided, was inner strength, a confidence
that could help them achieve their potential. God, he felt, need not be
worshipped on an empty stomach. Two square meals a day were far more
important than a visit to a temple, and those meals could come only when a
man realized the power inherent in himself, his own divinity, that God
resided inside him, as He did in all Creation.

After touring Eastern, Northern, and Western India ( Pune, Belgam, Goa,
Banglore, Mysore route), Swamiji has reached Madras in Dec-1892 and there
he met Shri Alasinga Perumal (Iyengar), modest, deeply religious, high school
teacher, who was also born in 1863. Aslinga arranged Swamjis lectures in
Madras and was aware about Chicagos Parliament of World Religions. It was
Alasinga who pursued and helped Swamiji to go for the conference.

Initially, Alasinga collected 500/- by personally begging door to door but
afterwards returned to doners same as it was not sufficient. After donations
from three South Indian kings- Raja of Ramnad, Mysore Maharaja, and
Hyderabad Nizam; Alasinga recollected money amounting to 4000/-in second
attempt. It was Alasinga who made efforts to build modern Rama Sethu so
that his Rama could go across the seas and conquer. His devotion was so
great that he literally carried Swami Vivekanandas luggage on to the boat,
Peninsular, in Bombay bound for the America and saw him off on 31st May
1893.

Swamiji reached Yokhamaha via Columbo (Sri Lanka), Penang (Malayasia),
Singapore, Hongkong, Canton (China); all the way suffering from cold for
want of warm clothes. Swamiji had visited three big cities in the interior
Osaka, a great manufacturing town, Kyoto, the former capital, and Tokyo, the
present capital and appreciated self- development of Japanese army and
navy and technological progress (tunnel boring ). Swamiji expressed that
Indian youth should pay a visit to Japan and China every year. Especially to
the Japanese to struggle for higher and better things.

He started his journey to Canada in a ship named RMS Empress of India from
Yokohama and accidentally met Jamsetji Tata who was also going to Chicago
to get new business ideas. Vivekananda inspired Tata to set up a research and
educational institution in India. They also discussed a plan to start a steel
factory in India.

He reached Vancouver on 25 July and travelled to Chicago by train (more
than 3500 km) and arrived there on Sunday, 30 July 1893. On arrival to
Chicago, he learnt to his dismay that no delegate would be admitted to
Parliament without proper credentials from a bona fide organization.
Vivekananda was a lone monk representing no organization, and even if he
had been, the last date for registration of delegates was past. In addition, the
Parliament was two months away. He had neither the money to return to
India nor to live for two months in Chicago and take a chance at gate-crashing
the convention. Unwilling to accept defeat, and being told that Boston was a
cheaper city than Chicago, he boarded a train to that city (nearly 1600 km
eastward).

On the way, a wealthy lady co-passenger got into a conversation with him,
and was impressed enough to invite him to come and stay in her country
home. Vivekananda accepted gratefully, and through his hostess, happened to
meet J.H. Wright, a professor of Greek at Harvard. The young monks calm
wisdom astonished him, and he wrote to the chairman of the committee for
the selection of delegates and told Vivekananda "To ask for your credentials
is like asking the sun to state its right to shine in the heavens." Prof. Wright
arranged for train -ticket to Chicago.

But upon reaching Chicago on 9 September, Vivekananda discovered that he
had lost the address of the committee.

Walking the streets, he kept asking people about the Parliament, but no one
knew anything, and he spent the night in an empty boxcar in a railroad freight
yard. Next morning, he started off on his quest again in the richer
neighbourhoods of the city. After hours of being shooed away by butlers who
saw only a bedraggled foreign beggar when they opened the door, he sat
down, exhausted, on the pavement. Miraculously, the door of a mansion
across the road opened and the lady of the house appeared, and asked him
whether he was a delegate to the Parliament of Religions. Mrs George Hale,
whose family would become lifelong friends of Vivekananda, invited him in,
and after he had cleaned up and eaten, took him over to the office of the
committee and had him registered. The convention began the next day, 11
September. Yes, it was a 9/11.

As speaker after speaker representing all the major religions of the world gave
lengthy speeches from prepared texts, touting the superiority of their
particular faiths, the young man from India realized that neither had he ever
addressed such a large gathering (nearly four thousand people), nor did he
have any written speech. Frightened now, he kept postponing his turn on the
stage, till he had no further excuses left, and had to go up and face the
audience.

With his very first lines, he established his credentials with a simplicity and
pride that must have awed the listeners who would anyway have been
intrigued by the looks of this handsome young man in a saffron turban and
dress from the East who spoke perfect English. I thank you in the name of
the most ancient order of monks in the world, said Vivekananda. I thank
you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of
millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. This was a
man who had never been out of India, had spent years tending to the poor
and the diseased as he searched for the divine, and was speaking entirely off
the cuff of his soul. In the next five minutes that he spoke, he electrified the
audienceand, one cant help but surmise, shamed many of the speakers who
had preceded him. For he spoke of the validity of every great religion and
against all forms of faith-based intolerance. Sectarianism, bigotry, and its
horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth, he
said. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often
with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair.
Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more
advanced than it is now. There is obviously no record of this, but there
would have been very few speakers at that grand convention who had shared
hovels with lepers and gone without food for days to seek a greater truth.

Swamijis Speech was just 458 words long, so could not have lasted more than
five or six minutes . It was also delivered extempore. In that conference, there
were several other Indian speakers - P. C. Mazoomdar, (Brahmo Samaj ), V.
A. Gandhi from Bombay (Jainism), C. N. Chakravarti representing Theosophy
with Mrs. Annie Besant, Mrs. J. Sarajbji from Bombay (Christinity), B. B.
Nagarkar from Bombay ( Brahmo Samaj), M. Philiphs from Madras
(Christinity), and M.N. Divedi (Hinduism).

Parliament was started on 11
th
Sept and concluded on 27 th Sept 1983. During
these seventeen days, Swamiji was called on five more times to speak .

He told a story of a frog in well while explaining why we disagree (15 Sept
1893).

On 19 th September, he spoke on "The meaning of the Hindu religion".

He told on 20 September that his aim to join the Chicago Parliament of
Religions was to seek aid for his impoverished people. He stressed that
Religion was not the Crying need of India and regretted for sending Christian
missionaries.

Vivekananda talked on Buddhism and showed how Buddhism is the
fulfilment to Hinduism on 26 September.

In his concluding address on the last day of the convention, Vivekananda
again stressed harmony and acceptance. Much has been said of the common
ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory.
But if anyone here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one
of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, Brother, yours
is an impossible hope. Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu?
God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian?
God forbid. The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are
placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No.
It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the
air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows
into a plant. Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a
Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But
each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality
and grow according to his own law of growth Holiness, purity and charity
are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world If anybody
dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the
others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart.
Apart from Parliament, Swamiji were delivering talks on almost everyday at
either Scientific Section or at Church or at somebodys home.


During Parliament proccedings, American newspapers gave wide publicity to
Swamiji and he became famous personality. When the Parliament was over,
he went on a lecture tour in the Midwest and the East coast of the United
States. People came in large numbers to hear him speak wherever he went,
particularly intellectuals, thus fulfilling his Masters prediction that he would
some day become a world teacher.
Vivekanandas tour of the United States also had a revitalizing effect on India.
Previously, those who had gone to the West from India were full of apologies
for the state of their country. He was not. He always spoke about his country
with pride and respect. Thus, his work in the West instilled self-respect and
self-confidence in the Indian psyche and helped India in its search for identity.
It also helped to overcome the stereotypes and deep-rooted prejudices about
India in Westerners minds.
After giving up his lecture tour, the Swami started giving free classes on
Vedanta and Yoga in New York. This resulted in the founding of the Vedanta
Society there. In the summer of 1895 he sailed for England at the invitation of
E.T. Sturdy and Henrietta Mller. His lectures there were quite successful. In
December 1895 Vivekananda returned to the United States, where he
continued his classes in New York and also lectured in other cities, and then
returned to Europe again in April 1896. In May 1896, the Swami met Max
Mller and his wife at Oxford. At the end of December 1896, Vivekananda
sailed to India from Europe.
When the news broke that Swami Vivekananda was returning to India, people
all over the country prepared to give him a heros welcome. The Swami
arrived in South India in January 1897 accompanied by three of his Western
disciples. Everywhere he went addresses of welcome were presented and
multitudes gathered to see him. In Vivekanandas response to these
addresses, he indicated that he had a plan in mind to help uplift the masses. In
fact, as early as 24 December 1894, he had written in a letter, My whole
ambition in life is to set in motion a machinery which will bring noble
ideas to the door of everybody, and then let men and women settle their own
fate.
On 1 May 1897, a few months after his return to Calcutta, the Swami set his
plan in motion when he founded the Ramakrishna Mission. This was the
beginning of an organized movement to help the suffering masses through
educational, cultural, medical and relief work.
In June 1899, he returned to Europe with one of his brother disciples and also
Sister Nivedita, an Irish disciple. After a short stay in London, Vivekananda
sailed for New York. A few months later he left for California where a series
of lectures and classes led to the founding of the Vedanta Society in San
Francisco. He eventually returned to New York, but in July 1900 went to Paris,
where he stayed for three months.
During this time he participated in the Congress of the History of Religions,
held in connection with the Universal Exposition. The Swami returned to
Calcutta on 9 December 1900.


Many things strike me here.
It may be fairly said that there is no poverty in this country.
Swamiji observed American women with pure hearts, who were well-
cultured, educated, free and energetic, who were controlling social and civic
duties in Schools and colleges as compared to unsafe women in India.
Swamiji termed men as real "Shakti-worshipper" so prosperous, so learned
where as slavish, miserable, and dead Indians.
If anybody is born of a low caste in our country, he is gone for ever, there is no
hope for him. There are possibilities, opportunities, and hope for every
individual in this country. Today he is poor, tomorrow he may become rich
and learned and respected.
As regards spirituality, the Americans are far inferior to us, but their society is
far superior to ours. We will teach them our spirituality and assimilate what is
best in their society.