While on board a ship to England, Swami Vivekananda was touched by the childlike devotion of the ship's servants:
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA: You see, I love our Mohammedans!
SISTER NIVEDITA: Yes, but what I want to understand is this habit of seeing every people from their strongest aspect.
Where did it come from? Do you recognize it in any historical character?
Or is it in some way derived from Shri Ramakrishna?
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA: It must have been the training under Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. We all went by his path to some extent. Of course it was not so difficult for us as he made it for himself. He would eat and dress like the people he wanted to understand, take their initiation, and use their language. "One must learn", he said, "to put oneself into another man's very soul".
And this method was his own!
No one ever before in India became Christian and Mohammedan and Vaishnava, by turn!
- Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,
Vol IX, P332
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA: You see, I love our Mohammedans!
SISTER NIVEDITA: Yes, but what I want to understand is this habit of seeing every people from their strongest aspect.
Where did it come from? Do you recognize it in any historical character?
Or is it in some way derived from Shri Ramakrishna?
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA: It must have been the training under Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. We all went by his path to some extent. Of course it was not so difficult for us as he made it for himself. He would eat and dress like the people he wanted to understand, take their initiation, and use their language. "One must learn", he said, "to put oneself into another man's very soul".
And this method was his own!
No one ever before in India became Christian and Mohammedan and Vaishnava, by turn!
- Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,
Vol IX, P332
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