A wonderful phenomenon
Location: Kumbakonam ( Feb 1893)
In the said village lives a man of the Chetty caste, generally passing for an astrologer. I, with two other young men, went to see him. He was said to tell about anything a man thinks of. So, I wanted to put him to the test. Two months ago, I dreamt that my mother was dead and I was very anxious to know about her. My second was whether what my Guru had told me was right. The third was a test-question—a part of the Buddhistic mantra, in Tibetan tongue. These questions I determined upon, two days before going to this Govinda Chetty. Another young man had one of his sisters-in-law given poison to, by some unknown hand, from which she recovered. But he wanted to know the author of that delivery.
When we first saw him, the fellow was almost ferocious. He said that some Europeans came to see [him] with the Dewan of Mysore and that since then through their ‘Dristee Dosham’ he had got fever and that he could not give us a seance then and only if we paid him 10 Rs., he would consent to tell us our ‘prasnas’. The young men with me of course were ready to pay down his fees. But he goes to his private room and immediately comes back and says to me that if I gave him some ashes to cure him of his fever he would consent to give us a seance. Of course I told him that I do not boast of any power of curing diseases but he said, ‘That does not matter, only I want [the ash]’. So, I consented and he took us to the private room and, taking a sheet of paper, wrote something upon it and gave it over to one of us and made me sign it and keep it into the pocket of one of my companions. Then he told me point blank, ‘Why you, a Sannyasi, are thinking upon your mother?’ I answered that even the great Shankaracharya would take care of his mother; and he said ‘She is all right and I have written her name in that paper in the possession of your friend’ and then went on saying, ‘Your Guru is dead. Whatever he has told you, you must believe, for he was a very very great man,’ and went on giving me a description of my Guru which was most wonderful and then he said ‘What more you want to know about your Guru?’ I told him ‘If you can give me his name I would be satisfied’, and he said, ‘Which name? A Sannyasi gets different sorts of names’. I answered, ‘The name by which he was known to the public’, and says, ‘The wonderful name, I have already written that. And you wanted to know about a mantra in Tibetan, that is also written in that paper.’ And, he then told me to think of anything in any language and tell him, I told him ‘Om Namo BhagavateVasudevaya’, and he said, ‘That is also written in the paper in possession of your friend. Now take it out and see’. And Lo! Wonder! They were all there as he said and even my mother’s name was there!! It began thus—your mother of such and such name is all right. She is very holy and good, but she is feeling your separation like death and within two years she shall die; so if you want to see her, it must be within two years.
Next it was written—your Guru Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is dead but he lives in Sukshma, i.e., ethereal body, and is watching over you, etc. and then it was written ‘Lamala capsechua’, in Tibetan, and then at last was written ‘In conformation to what I have written, I give you also this mantra which you would give me after one hour after my writing; ‘Om Namo Bhagavate etc.’; and so he was equally successful with my friends. Then I saw people coming from distant villages and as soon as he sees them he says—‘Your name is such and such and you come from such and such village for this purpose’. By the time he was reading me, he toned down very much and said—‘I won’t take money from you. On the other hand, you must take some “seva” from me’. And I took some milk at his house and he brought over his whole family to bow down to me and I touched some ‘vibhutee’ brought by him and then I asked him the source of his wonderful powers. First he would not say, but after a while he came to me [and] said—‘Maharaj, it is “siddhi of mantras” through the “sahaya” of “Devi”.’ Verily, there are more things on heaven and earth Horatio than your philosophy ever dreamt of—Shakespeare.
(From a letter by Vivekananda dated Feb 15 1893 to the Maharaja of Khetri)
The cow-human theory
May 1893
Mr.Ramnath was the headmaster of the Jeypore noble’s school. He and the Swmi had a debate about vegetarianism when the swami first left Khetri after his first visit there.
The swami met him again in 1893, and the Swami recalled, “He had in the meantime got hold of some American writers and pounced upon me with his arguments from them. His author, he said, has proved to his satisfaction that the human digestive organs including the teeth are exactly like those of the cow. Therefore, man is designed by nature to be a vegetarian animal. He is a very good and nice gentleman and I did not want to disturb his confidence in the American hobbyist but one thing was on the tip of my tongue—If our digestive apparatus is exactly like that of a cow—we ought and must be able to eat and digest grass. In that case poor Indians are fools to die of starvation in famine times while their natural food, grass, is so abundant, and your Highness’ servants are fools to serve you while they have only to get up the nearest hillock and get a bellyful of grass instead of undergoing all the trouble of serving others!!! Grand American discovery indeed!!! Only I hope the holy dungs of such human cows may become of great use to the wonderful American author and his Indian disciple. Amen. So much for the cow-human theory.”
As a wandering monk
“I saw many great men in Hrishikesh. One case that I remember was that of a man who seemed to be mad. He was coming nude down the street, with boys pursuing and throwing stones at him. The whole man was bubbling over with laughter while blood was streaming down his face and neck. I took him and bathed the wound, putting ashes on it to stop the bleeding. And all the time with peals of laughter he told me of the fun the boys and he had been having, throwing the stones. ‘So the Father plays’, he said.”
“Many of these men hide, in order to guard themselves against intrusion. People are a trouble to them. One had human bones strewn about his cave and gave it out that he lived on corpses. Another threw stones. And so on. . . .”
*****
“Once I was the guest of a Police Inspector in a place of pilgrimage. He was a religious man, and had some devotion. His salary was only Rs.125 per mensem, whereas his monthly expenditure went up to two hundred or three hundred rupees. When we became more intimate, I asked him, ‘Your expenditure seems to exceed your income. How do you manage it?” ‘Men like you manage it, sir,’ said he with a smile. ‘Don’t think that all the monks who come to this place of pilgrimage are as good as yourself. Whenever any suspicion arises. I search their belongings; and often enough, much money is found. When any one of them is suspected for theft, he at once takes to his heels leaving behind everything, which then comes to my possession. I do not resort to any other illegal means of satisfaction like bribe.'”
(Source: Reminiscences of Haripada Mitra)
*****
“Once while travelling in a train. I had in the same compartment some four or five Europeans as my fellow passengers. In the course of a talk, I remarked that the best way to enjoy tobacco is to smoke it from a hookah full of water at the bottom and having at its top a lump of flavoured tobacco prepared with spices and molasses. I had some such tobacco, and I showed it to them. They smelt it and said, ‘It emits such a bad smell, and you call it good flavour!’ Thus, opinions about smell, taste, beauty, etc. differ among men according to time, place, and social environment,”
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Hookah
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(Source: Reminiscences of Haripada Mitra)