Frank Rhodehamel
Frank Rhodehamel was a young man in his late twenties living with his wife in Oakland. He has written elaborate memoirs of meeting Swamiji in the Bay Area. He also took very detailed notes of the Swami’s lectures of classes, many of which are now part of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda.
The Swami’s appearance itself made a deep impress on Frank’s mind, as it did on countless others. He recalled, “Swamiji’s personality impressed itself on the mind with visual intensity The speaking eyes, the wealth of facial expression, and gesticulation; the wondrous Sanskrit chanting, sonorous, melodious, impressing one with the sense of mystic potency, the translations following in smiling confidence – all these, set off by the spectacular apparel of the Hindu Sanyasi – who can forget them?”
He mentioned Swamiji’s tremendous humour and the deftness with which he handled awkward or occasionally even daft questions during his lectures:
“To the question, after a lecture on Reincarnation, ‘Swami, do you remember your past life?’ he answered quickly and seriously, ‘Yes, clearly, even when I was a little boy.’” And to the question ‘Swami, have you seen God?’ ‘What?’ he retorted, his face lighting up with a happy smile, ‘Do I look like it – a big fat man like me?’ New Thought students were interested primarily in occult phenomena. One such asked, “Swami, have you ever seen an elemental?” The quick reply the questioner received was “O yes, we have them in India for breakfast.”
Mr. Rhodehamel further alluded to the characteristic wit that the Swami employed in his oratory with his marvellous flair.
He related a funny part from one of Swami’s lectures. The swami said : ‘”Someone asked me if I was ever married.” Here he paused to glance smilingly over the audience. A multitudinous titter was the response. Then the smile giving place to a look of horror, he continued: “Why, I wouldn’t be married for anything. It is the devil’s own game.” Then raising his hand to check the audible appreciation that had begun, he went on with a quite serious expression over-spreading his features, “There is one thing, however, that I have against the monastic system, and that is ” – (another pause) -“that it takes the best men away from the community.” Whether this was a mock regret or not it is difficult to say but Frank recalled thar the effect was such that Swami “did not attempt to stem the outburst that followed.”
Again, at one point in the lecture on ‘Concentration’, Frank recalled, “Swamiji had his listeners in a state of suspense as he teased them in regard to his age. Alluding to his own age, he said, ‘I am only’ – pause, and audience in anticipation, ‘of a few years.’, he added mischievously. A sigh of disappointment ran over the audience. The Swami looked on waiting for the applause, which he knew was ready to break out.”
In the mind of Mr Rhodehamel were especially fiery exhortations by the great teacher to break the limitations and express one’s infinite self. “Don’t repent! Don’t repent!,” the Swami used to say, “Spit, if you must, but go on! Don’t hold yourselves down by repenting! Throw off the load of sin, if there is such a thing, by knowing your true selves – The Pure! The Ever Free! That man alone is blasphemous who tells you that you are sinners.”
Mr Rhodehamel also had occasions for personal interactions with the Swami. Here the Swami could dwell upon various themes brought about in the interview by his interlocutor.
“Speaking of spiritual training for the mind, the less you read the better,” the Swami told him. What are books but the vomitings of other people’s minds? Why fill your mind with a load of stuff you will have to get rid of? Read the Gita and good works on Vedanta. That is all you need.”
About the prevalent ways of education the Swami said : ‘The present system of education is all wrong. The mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Control of the mind should be taught first. If I had my education to get over again and had any voice in the matter, I would learn to master my mind first, and then gather facts if I wanted them. It takes people a long time to learn things because they can’t concentrate their minds at will. It took me three readings to memorize Macaulay’s History of England, while my mother memorized any sacred book she wanted to in one reading. It takes people a long time because they can’t concentrate their minds at will. People are always suffering because they cant control their minds.” The Swami then told him rhe importance of both concentration as well as the importance of the capacity to switch off the thoughts that have a bothersome effect on one’s mind
When Mr. Rhodehamel asked the Swami about the belief pertaining to the Immaculate Conception of Jesus, the latter replied, “That is an old claim. There have been many in India who have claimed that. I don’t know anything about it. But for my part I am glad that I had a natural father and mother.”
And when asked whether this theory (of immaculate conception) opposed to laws of nature, Mr. Rhodehamel vividly described the Swami’s response. “What is nature to the Lord. It is all His play”, the Swami replied, ‘as he knocked the ash from his pipe against the heel of his slipper, regardless of the carpeted floor. Then blowing through its stem to clear it he said, “We are slaves of nature. He can do as he pleases. He can take one or dozen bodies at a time, if He chooses, and in any way He chooses. How can we limit him?”’
Mr. Rhodehamel continues in his memoirs :
“I asked him to explain why the practice of begging, common among religious medicants, was not opposed to renunciation. He replied, ‘It is a question of the mind. If the mind anticipates, and is affected by the results – that is bad, no doubt. The giving and receiving of alms should be free; otherwise it is not renunciation. If you put a hundred dollars on that table for me, and should expect me to thank you for it you could take it away. I would not touch it. My living was provided before I came here, before I was born. I have no concern about it. Whatever belongs to a man he will get. It was ready for him before he was born.'”
Mr Rhodehamel also regularly attended the classes at the apartment at Turk Street. He has given the following picture of the classes :
‘The difference between mere intellectual appreciation of spiritual ideals and the desire to be spiritual was sharply drawn. He taught that in the attainment of the spiritual capacity, or the desire to be spiritual, nothing is arbitrary; that the whole process is one of natural development. There was nothing mystical about it. Practice, practice, practice, and if necessary many lives of practice, was the one and only method to acquire the all-absorbing desire to be spiritual. And practice? Intensive contemplation of the significance of spiritual teachings and of the spiritual character. Hence the elimination of obstacles to deep contemplation and the employment of any accessories to that end was the scope of the Swami’s efforts in his class-work.
He summed up the deep experience his contact with the Swami gave him in the following words :
“What remains vivid is the contact with the great Sanyasin – the impressions and impetus received – which refuses to be less than the greatest experience in life.”
Sarah and Rebecca Fox
Miss Sarah Fox who had first listened to Swamiji at Unitairian Church at Oakland also gave an account of her first experience with the Vivekananda phenomenon. This was probably the first lecture Swamiji gave at the Unitarian Church in Oakland : “The lecture was scheduled at 8 o’ clock on a Sunday night in the spring of 1900, at the first Unitarian Church in Oakland. Everyone was on time, except the Swami, and the minister was entertaining the audience with stories to keep them from going away. In the middle of these tales we all became aware that the Swami had arrived. He entered the Church auditorium from the street entrance and without any ado walked down the aisle nearest the wall to the front of the church in long, slow, measured steps. This wonderful man, clad in an ochre robe and wearing a turban, looked as if he feared nothing and cared for nothing. He looked like an immense wave going along; his back was straight as a rod, yet his entire bearing was a perfect blending of grace and dignity. He reached the pulpit and stood there for a long time just looking out at the congregation. Then after what seemed like an hour he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen’ We were seated too far away to see his face closely, but how we enjoyed his discourse! He did not seem old, as indeed he was not, but tremendously wise and experienced.”
It was of this lecture that Sarah remembered that after the lecture was over the Swami invited questions one was particularly stupid. A woman asked, “Is it true Swami? I have heard you throw new-born babies into the Ganges.” The Swami replied, “Madam, we have heard that at Thanksgiving you serve new-born babies!”
Sarah and her sister Rebecca were teachers in an Oakland School when they first came to know of Vivekananda. They were ardent followers of Paul Militz, a preacher based in East Bay. Paul Militz and his wife Annie Militz were sincere spiritual practitioners. They also practiced celibacy and lived a life of great austerity. While Militz encouraged his pupils to draw liberally from spiritual traditions he was not too fond of people running around from place to place to seek truth. Mr Militz had listened to Swamiji in New York and praised him profusely before his followers. It was he who first showed to the Fox sisters a picture of Sri Ramakrishna.
But after this lecture the Fox sisters did not again go to another one for the reason that they felt it would hurt Mr Militz and would be like acting disloyal towards him. It took them quite a while to get over this inner conflict. Thus, unfortunately, they hardly availed of the great benefits of presence of Swami Turiyananda who came to California after Swami Vivekananda had left. But eventually the sisters found their spiritual home in Vedanta. More than two decades after they had listened to Swamiji in Oakland they spent three years in India and received the Mantra-Diksha from another great monk and a direct-disciple of Sri Ramakrishna – Swami Saradananda.
Mr E.C. Brown
Mr E.C. Brown, who was to later become the President of the San Francisco Vedanta Society attended Swamiji’s lectures in the Bay Area. He narrated his experience when he saw Swamiji for the first time on 18th March 1900, when he went to his lecture titled ‘Buddha’s Message to the World’ at Union Square Hall at South Post Street in downtown San Francisco. He later recorded this unforgettable experience as follows :
“He was not there when we arrived, so we took our seats and waited. Then someone in an orange-coloured robe walked from a little side-room out on the platform and I said to myself ‘Who is that? An emperor?’ His walk was that of a god, a man accustomed to ruling. When he sat down, the audience broke into tumultuous applause. But he sat there unmoved, his face reflecting the perfect calm within. Then he rose and just held up his hands with palms facing the audience, and at once there was a silence that you could feel, it was so tense, so palpable. Who is this person who can make a large audience like this yield and in a moment give silence? He is obviously accustomed to commanding others. Then he began his lecture. We listened, and at the close I went up to shake hands with him. Other people were lining up, so I went along too. Then he said a few words which were not of significance to me then, because I did not know his greatness.”
Cara French
There was also a young woman, Cara, who began to regularly attend Swamiji’s lectures in the Bay Area. She was wife of a printer, Clinton French, and helped in making prints of advert notices for the lectures. She was in her late twenties at the time. Her husband was not in good health at that time. Even though she did not have any conversations with the Swami, the impress of Swamiji’s magnetic personality was to make her devoted student and practitioner of Vedanta in decades to come. She later recounted in her memoirs :
“With abundant opportunity, it was my fault that I did not have any personal interactions with Swamiji]. Others crowded about him with questions or in greeting; I slipped out quietly, even from the small classes held at the Turk Street flat, where I was obliged to pass around him to reach the stairway in leaving. There were several reasons for my attitude; young then and naturally shy, I felt utterly insignificant, and wondered what I was doing in being there. Captivated by the spiritual force and magnetism of his presence, yet in a degree resisting it – for was he not bowling over or knocking to pieces many a preconceived idea of spiritual teaching – my mind was dazed and in turmoil. However, I do not now regard it as an altogether lost opportunity. No one squatting on the floor Oriental fashion (for lack of sufficient chairs) just a few feet from Swami Vivekananda, could possibly have escaped his observation; his mental, moral and spiritual appraisal.”
Fanny Gould
There was also a young unmarried woman, Fanny Gould, who was a member and teacher at the ‘Home of Truth’ at Alameda. She later became an ardent Vedantist and spent the autumn and winter of 1900 at the Shanti Ashrama, the retreat set up by Swami Turiyananda. There she also had as a companion, Gurudas Maharaj (Swami Atulananda), who later recounted in his memoirs about Fanny : “She often told me how Swamiji would keep the members of the Alameda Home spellbound when he talked to them about Vedanta. For hours Swamiji would go on and on and the listeners fearing to interrupt the flow of his spiritual outpouring dared not stir. With bated breath they would listen. They were carried off their feet, as it were, by his eloquence, they felt as if they were soaring in a higher sphere, they were entranced. And only after the Swamiji was silent would they feel themselves tied again to this mundane existence.”
Fanny died at a young age and it said the name of Sri Ramakrishna was on her lips during her last moments.
▶Next Chapter: Swami Vivekananda Arrives in Alameda (East Bay)