Last hours of Swami Vivekananda

Here are details of the last days of the beloved disciple, that is unpopular or even not known to many.

Swami Vivekananda was a close disciple of the great spiritual Master Sri Ramakrishna. After Ramakrishna's passing, Vivekananda began a whirlwind of activity. He travelled across India, United States and Europe – giving lectures on Vedenta, philosophy and encouraging dynamic action – especially in India. Towards the end of his short life, his hectic schedule told on his health and he retreated to the Himalayas to spend more time in quiet contemplation.

In his final days, he became aware of his limited time left on earth; he was moved to practise more meditation and contemplate on the deepest spiritual truths.

"I am making ready for death. A great tapasya and meditation has come upon me, and I am making ready for death." – Belur Math, 1902

As his final days came, Swami Vivekananda, a great Vedantist, reveals how his devotion to Mother Kali increased and he began to be more aware of the world beyond this earth of joy and suffering.

For example, he mentioned how he was once distressed at the thought of the ruination and desecration of the Kshir Bhavani temple by earlier Muslim invaders.

Vivekananda thought "How could people have permitted such sacrilege. If I were here I would have laid down my life to protect the Mother.

But, then he heard the Mother speak, and he explained his feelings:

"No more "Hari Om!" It is all "Mother," now! he said, with a smile. "All my patriotism is gone. Everything is gone. Now it's only "Mother Mother!"

'I have been very wrong,' he said simply, after another pause. 'Mother said to me, "What even if unbelievers should enter My temples and defile My images! What is that to you? Do you protect ME? Or do I protect you?" So there is no more patriotism. I am only a little child!'

Quotes from – The Last Days

Extracted from Swami Vivekananda on Himself: (at Abe Books)

"If in this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true; this I have learnt after suffering all my life; all else is mere moonshine."

"I shall never see forty… I delivered my message and I must go… The shadow of a big tree will not let the smaller trees grow up. I must go to make room."

"If there were another Vivekananda, he would have understood what Vivekananda has done! And yet, how many Vivekanandas shall be born in time!"

"Whenever death approaches me, all weakness vanishes. I have neither fear, nor doubt, nor thought of the external. I simply busy myself making ready to die. I am as hard as that [the pebbles struck one another in his hand]- for I have touched the feet of God."

"Yes, I come. Nirvana is before me. I feel it at times – the same infinite ocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath."

"Oh, it is so calm! My thoughts seem to come from a great, great distance in the interior of my own heart. They seem like faint, distant whispers, and peace is upon everything, sweet, sweet peace – like that one feels for a few moments just before falling into sleep, when things are seen and felt like shadows – without fear, without love, without emotion. Peace that one feels alone, surrounded with statues and pictures – I come! Lord, I come!

At seven o'clock in the evening the bell rang for worship in the chapel. The Swami went to his room and told the disciple who attended him that none was to come to him until called for. He spent an hour in meditation and telling his beads, then called the disciple and asked him to open all the windows and fan his head. He lay down quietly on his bed and the attendant thought that he was either sleeping or meditating.

At the end of an hour his hands trembled a little and he breathed once very deeply.

There was a silence for a minute or two, and again he breathed in the same manner. His eyes became fixed in the centre of his eyebrows, his face assumed a divine expression,

and eternal silence fell.

'There was,' said a brother disciple of the Swami, 'a little blood in his nostrils, about his mouth, and in his eyes.' According to the Yoga scriptures, the life-breath of an illumined yogi passes out through the opening on the top of the head, causing the blood to flow in the nostrils and the mouth.

The great ecstasy took place at ten minutes past nine. Swami Vivekananda passed away at the age of thirty-nine years, five months, and twenty-four days, thus fulfilling his own prophecy: 'I shall not live to be forty years old.'

The brother disciples thought that he might have fallen into samadhi, and chanted the Master's name to bring back his consciousness. But he remained on his back motionless.

Physicians were sent for and the body was thoroughly examined. In the doctor's opinion life was only suspended; artificial respiration was tried. At midnight, however, Swami Vivekananda was pronounced dead, the cause, according to medical science, having been apoplexy or sudden failure of the heart. But the monks were convinced that their leader had voluntarily cast off his body in samadhi, as predicted by Sri Ramakrishna.