Swami Vivekananda.

A working plan, for myself and for any young person who will carry it forward.

I promised Sturdy a book in February 1896, and a book on the Vedanta philosophy in June 1895. Neither came. In the February letter I set down both promises in one breath: "I intend to write a book later on in the form of questions and answers." And I told him what kind of book these would be: "These will be popular books, the language being that of talk, as you have seen already." That is the whole rule, and I broke it often enough in the writing to know it is the only rule that matters.

What is already done, then. Karma-Yoga and Raja-Yoga are printed, and Jnana-Yoga is lectures taken down in shorthand by…

I told you once before that I am not here to teach you. I am here to tell you what I have seen and what I still hope for. Let me say it sharper tonight.

At Pasadena in January 1900 I said: "And our religion does not prevent a woman being educated at all. In this way the girl should be educated; even thus she should be trained; and in the old books we find that the universities were equally resorted to by both girls and boys, but later the education of the whole nation was neglected." I said it then because I had read the old books with my own eyes. I say it again because it is still the truth and still needs a voice.

Now, what has come since that day? When I left this body, not one woman…

My dear young friend,

Your letter reached me here at Belur, and I read it twice. You ask what you should study and why. Good. That is the right question. Most men ask what they should earn, not what they should become.

When I was in Madras in 1897, I said to your city what I had written from America two years before: "We must have a College in Madras to teach comparative religions, Sanskrit, the different schools of Vedanta, and some European languages; we must have a press, and papers printed in English and in the Vernaculars." That college never came in my lifetime. And beside it I asked for a temple — a plain temple with no image, no priest, no sect, only the symbol Om on the wall,…

The evening is still. The Ganga flows past grey and wide. My dog stirs in his sleep. And I think of Japan.

Ten days in July 1893 — from Kobe to Yokohama, by train through Osaka and Kyoto and Tokyo. A people clean as any I had seen. Temples where my own people's Sanskrit mantras stood in old Bengali script on the wall. A nation that had taken what the West knew — machines, trains, schools, organisation — and lost nothing of its own soul. They did not become Englishmen. They became themselves, only stronger.

I wrote from the Oriental Hotel in Yokohama on the tenth of July: "Only I want that numbers of our young men should pay a visit to Japan and China every year. Especially to the…

My sisters, sit close. I have come a long way to say this, and I have waited years to say it plainly.

I stood before a club of ladies in Pasadena, in California, in the January of 1900, and I told them of you. I told them that our religion does not prevent a woman being educated at all. In this way the girl should be educated; even thus she should be trained; and in the old books we find that the universities were equally resorted to by both girls and boys, but later the education of the whole nation was neglected. That is what I said there, and I say it again here, to your faces.

Do not let anyone tell you that your faith or your birth has shut the door of learning to you. The door was…

Belur Math
4 July 1902

My dear Alasinga,

You sat with me through the Madras days, when we had nothing but a plan and a few rupees, and you wrote the letter that sent me to Chicago. So to you I can say plainly what I see now, sitting here under the mango tree with the Ganga running past, and the evening coming on.

I came back to India in 1897 with fire. From Colombo to Almora the people came out to hear me, and I told them: wake up, feed the poor, teach every child, stop fighting over my God or your God. I believed then that in ten years we would have it done. The plan I had made at Cape Comorin—monks carrying maps and globes and magic lanterns from village to village, going to the very…

I sat down this evening under the mango tree at Belur with a cup of tea. The Ganga was flowing. My little dog was asleep. And I thought of you. Of every young man in this country who has heard my name and wondered what it all meant.

Let me tell you a story. In February 1897 I stood at the Victoria Hall in Madras and I said something I still mean. I said, "Men, men, these are wanted: everything else will be ready, but strong, vigorous, believing young men, sincere to the backbone, are wanted. A hundred such and the world becomes revolutionized." You are those men. Every generation is asked. The answer is still open.

Now, what did I actually do? I came home from America with a plan. At Cape…