The Swami, finding that the lecture bureau was exploiting
and defrauding him, soon shook himself free from American
lecturing organizations. At the beginning of the winter of
1894, he returned to New York after a whirlwind tour
through various centres of learning and culture in America.
His previous visits to this noted city had been only casual.
He had given only a few public lectures but was not in a
position to begin any constructive work. With a view to
starting regular work the Swami now readily accepted
the invitation of the Brooklyn Ethical Association to deliver a
series of lectures. These lectures produced the desired
effect and opened a new avenue for organizing the work in
America. He soon found a group of earnest souls who were
seriously bent on following the guidance of the Swami for
spiritual enlightenment. The Swami gave his whole time to
teaching by means of talks and lectures, and every day
instructed this band of chosen followers in the exercise of
the double method of Raja-Yoga and Jnana-Yoga. His
lectures at this time were replete with the deepest
philosophical insight and with extraordinary outbursts of
devotion, revealing his nature as essentially a combination of
the Jnani and Bhakta - the illumined saint and true mystic in
one. Prominent among those who became his ardent
followers at this time were Mrs. Ole Bull, Dr. Day, Miss S.E.
Waldo, Professors Wyman and Wright, Dr. Street, and many
clergymen and laymen of note. Mr. and Mrs. Francis Leggett
and Miss MacLeod, well-known society people of New York,
became his most intimate friends. By the month of June
1895, the Swami had placed his real constructive work on a
solid foundation, and also finished writing his famous treatise
Waldo, [Those who attended Swami Vivekananda's classes and lectures in New York soon grew familiar with a tall, very portly figure who moved about doing everything. We learnt before long that it was Miss Ellen Waldo, a distant connection of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a person of wide philosophic and general culture. The Swami had given her the Sanskrit name "Haridasi". and it was well chosen. She was truly a "Servant of the Lord" — her service was continuous and untiring. She cooked, edited, cleaned and took dictation, taught and managed, read proof and saw visitors ], which soon attracted the attention of American
psychologists like William James. The Swami also had
support from wealthy and influential followers, and whatever
he could save from the financial returns he received went
towards further consolidation of his work. All through the
year the Swami’s work was enormous; he was working
intensely; lecturing both privately and publicly, he began to
feel himself wearing out. But the Swami was satisfied that
the ideals of the Sanatana Dharma, the Eternal Religion,
were spreading and percolating through the whole thought-
world of America, and that they were very often echoed in
pulpits and in rostrums, though it might be that he received
no credit for them. Having almost exhausted himself by this
uninterrupted work of class and public lecturing, the Swami
now eagerly sought a place of retreat where he could give a
modicum of rest to his shattered nerves and train up a
group of students for future action. One of the students,
Miss Dutcher, owned a handsome cottage at Thousand
Island Park, the largest island in the St. Lawrence River and
she offered the use of it to the Swami and as many of the
students as it would accommodate. The place was ideally
situated, overlooking a wide sweep of the beautiful river
with many of its far-famed Thousand Islands. Not a human
sound penetrated the seclusion of the house. The inmates
heard but the murmur of the insects, the sweet songs of the
birds, or the gentle sighing of the wind through the leaves.
Part of the time the scene was illumined by the soft rays of
the moon and her face was mirrored in the shining waters
beneath. In this scene of enchantment, the devoted
students spent seven blessed weeks with their beloved
teacher, listening to his words of inspiration. This group of
twelve included, Miss S.E. Waldo and Miss Greenstidel who
later became Sister Christine and ably assisted Sister
Nivedita in her educational work in India. During the Swami’s
stay in this island he threw light upon all manner of subjects,
historical and philosophical, spiritual and temporal. It was as
if the contents of his nature were pouring themselves forth
as a grand revelation of the many-sidedness of the Eternal
Truth. Certainly the seven weeks lived at Thousand Island
Park were one of the freest and the greatest periods in the
Swami’s life. Surrounded by ardent disciples he was there in
the uninterrupted stillness of the island retreat, in an
atmosphere reminiscent of that in which his Master had lived
and taught in the Dakshineswar days of old. The whirlwind
of spiritual rhapsody and ecstasy that had swept the souls of
devotees in Dakshineswar on the bank of the Ganga, swept
here anew the souls of other devotees in this lonely region.
Some glimpses of his ecstatic utterances of this period can
be had in Inspired Talks, a book which owes not a little to
the sedulous care and industry of Miss Waldo, one of this
enthusiastic group of students on the island. It was in the
silence of this retreat that the Swami wrote also the
immortal Song of the Sannyasin, which has now become one
of the most precious legacies to spiritually-minded souls.
Having fulfilled his great work of training and initiatindisciples
into Brahmacharya and Sannyasa at Thousand Island Park,
the Swami returned to New York, from where he soon sailed
to England to carry to the British people the same message
which he had preached in America. During his absence the
work of spreading Vedanta was carried on uninterrupted by
the group of his trained disciples. But the Swami’s presence
was greatly needed in the New World for the consolidation
of the various work started there. So he soon returned.
With a view to giving a concrete shape to his Vedantic work
on the American soil, the Swami after the close of his public
lectures in the latter part of February 1896, organized the
Vedanta movement into a definite society and began to
issue his teachings in book form. Thus came into existence
The Vedanta Society of New York, a non-sectarian body with
the aim of preaching and practising Vedanta and applying its
principles to all faiths. Its members met regularly at
appointed times for the purpose of carrying on co-operative
and organized work, and for the study and propaganda of
Vedanta literature. Some of the great works like Raja-Yoga,
Bhakti-Yoga, and Karma-Yoga had already been published
and aroused a interest among some of the great savants
and thinkers of America.
One of the principal purposes of the Swami in organizing his
classes into this Society was particularly to bring about an
interchange of ideas and ideals between the East and the
West. Already he had in his mind the plan of bringing from
India some of his brother-disciples to teach and preach in
America, and also of having some of his American, and
English disciples in India to teach and preach there. In
America it would be religious teaching, and in India it would
be practical training - a message of science, industry,
economics, applied sociology, organization, and co-operation.
The Indian needed that energy, that dexterity in action, that
thirst for improvement which characterized the freedom-
loving people of the active West. In the opinion of the
Swami, the Orient would be benefited by greater activity and
energy like that of the West, as the latter would profit by a
mixture of Eastern introspection and the meditative habit.
The Swami made Mr. Francis H. Leggett, one of the wealthy
and influential residents of the city of New York, the
President of this newly formed Vedanta Society.
The universal teachings and profound learning of the Swami
made a deep impression upon the minds of the American
intelligentsia. He was even offered the Chair of Oriental
Philosophy at Harvard university and at Columbia the Chair
of Sanskrit. Besides the distinguished psychologists and
philosophers, influential persons of other fields of thought
also were charmed with his erudition and knowledge of
science and arts. The fearless outspokenness of the Swami
often alienated that general approval for which so many
public workers slave and sacrifice their true views and their
principles. But, after all, he found that the American public,
though at first it might appear to resent, would afterwards
regard with great admiration one who dared to speak openly
of what he felt were the drawbacks of its civilization. At the
end of his American work the Swami was thoroughly tired.
Everything he did, said, or wrote was at the white heat of
intensity; and this undoubtedly undermined even his strong
constitution. His friends knew that he had given himself
wholly and unstintedly for the good of those who made his
message the gospel of their lives.
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