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The talk given by Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions
in Chicago in September 1893 is now part of history. Most Indians
relate Swamiji to this talk and historians agree that it was possibly a
key milestone in introducing Swami Vivekananda to the world stage. Many
also know of Prof Wright’s contribution in getting Swamiji an
opportunity to attend and present his thoughts at this Parliament.
But very few people know of Swami Vivekananda’s first public
discourse in the United States of America. It was August 25th, 1893 and
many professors, artists, clergymen and writers from Boston and other
cities including Chicago had come to a quite village called Annisquam on
the Massachusetts coast. They were assembling in one of the village’s
largest boarding houses called Miss Lane’s Boarding House which had many
spacious rooms and a large dining room. People here were coming at the
invitation of Professor John Henry Wright of Harvard University. Prof
Wright had mentioned that he would be coming with a young Hindu monk
whom he had recently met. He knew that he was in the presence of a
force, the dimensions of which he could barely fathom but which had
captivated him. The melodious voice, the leonine bearing, the spiritual
glow in the great dark eyes of this young man of twenty-nine attracted
all who approached him and when he spoke, there was a strange and
compelling reverberation felt within all who heard him. Mrs Wright
recording this visit to Annisquam wrote, “He walked with a strange,
shambling gait, and yet there was a commanding dignity and
impressiveness in the carriage of his neck and bare head that caused
everyone in sight to stop and look at him; he moved slowly with the
swinging tread of one who has never hastened, and in his great dark eyes
was the beauty of an alien civilization…”
On that chilly Sunday, the Hindu monk was asked to speak at the
Annisquam Universalist Church at the invitation of its pastor, Rev G W
Penniman. Elva Nelson who researched this visit of Swami Vivekananda had
this to say of his first public discourse in America. “It marked the
beginning of his unprecedented work in the West. It was in this quiet
village, Annisquam, from where ships had sailed to China and India
before revolutionary times that another revolution was so quietly
begun.” This first talk given on that Sunday in a little church was to
mark the beginning of Swami Vivekananda’s work in the West. This
heralded the approach of a spiritual storm which spread across the
entire country. It lasted less than five years in all, but history will
one day record how this quiet revolution was to lay the foundation for
the beginning of the regeneration of people who were called upon to find
their true inner selves.
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