"No doubt the vast majority of those present hardly knew why they had been so powerfully moved," Christopher Isherwood wrote a half century later, surmising that a "strange kind of subconscious telepathy" had infected the hall, beginning with Vivekananda's first words, which have resonated, for some, long after.
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Another delegate described "scores of women walking over the benches to get near to him," prompting one wag to crack wise that if the 30-year-old Vivekananda "can resist that onslaught, indeed a god." "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."Īnnie Besant, a British Theosophist and a conference delegate, described Vivekananda's impact, writing that he was "a striking figure, clad in yellow and orange, shining like the sun of India in the midst of the heavy atmosphere of Chicago…a lion head, piercing eyes, mobile lips, movements swift and abrupt." The Parliament, she said, was "enraptured the huge multitude hung upon his words." When he was done, the convocation rose again and cheered him even more thunderously. "I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world," he responded, flushed with emotion. The previously sedate crowd of 4,000-plus attendees rose to their feet and wildly cheered the visiting monk, who, having never before addressed a large gathering, was as shocked as his audience. Then something unprecedented happened, presaging the phenomenon decades later that greeted the Beatles (one of whom, George Harrison, would become a lifelong Vivekananda devotee). "It fills my heart with joy unspeakable." "Sisters and Brothers of America," he began, in a sonorous voice tinged with "a delightful slight Irish brogue," according to one listener, attributable to his Trinity College–educated professor in India.
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On its opening day, September 11, Vivekananda, who appeared to be meditating onstage, was summoned to speak and did so without notes. The event was the tony Parliament of Religions, which had been convened as a spiritual complement to the World's Fair, showcasing the industrial and technological achievements of the age. In 1893, outfitted in a red, flowing turban and yellow robes belted by a scarlet sash, he had delivered a show-stopping speech in Chicago. And by 1965 he was ready to renounce his once gritty pursuit of literary celebrity.Īlthough all but forgotten by America's 20 million would-be yoginis, clad in their finest Lululemon, Vivekananda was the Bengali monk who introduced the word "yoga" into the national conversation. At the same time, Vivekananda promised hope and solace-writing that the "same mind, when subdued and controlled, becomes a most trusted friend and helper, guaranteeing peace and happiness." It was precisely the consolation that Salinger so desperately sought. Salinger-who appears to have had a nervous breakdown of sorts upon his return from the gruesome front lines of World War II-subscribed to Vivekananda's view of the mind as a drunken monkey who is stung by a scorpion and then consumed by a demon. It was his daily mauling by the "huge tiger" and his dreaded depressions that led Salinger to abandon his literary ambitions in favor of spiritual ones. Let good people who have a longing for Liberation never go there." Salinger wrote, "I suspect that nothing is truer than that," confessing despondently, "and yet I allow myself to be mauled by that old tiger almost every wakeful minute of my life." In 1975, Salinger wrote to another monk at the New York City center about his own daily struggle, citing a text of the eighth-century Indian mystic Shankara as a cautionary tale: "In the forest-tract of sense pleasures there prowls a huge tiger called the mind.
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Finding peace would, however, be a lifelong battle.