Josephine Macleod: HIS Presence Was Dynamic, Like The Sun That You Will Never Forget Once You Have Seen....

Today i must tell you about the first meeting of Swamiji and Miss Josephine Macleod.

"Josephine counted her 'real' birth from the time she met Swami Vivekananda on 29th January 1895 when she had just turned 37."

On 25th January 1895 Josephine received a letter from Mrs. Dora Roethlesberger asking her and her sister Betty Sturges to come down to New York to see and hear a Wonderful Man from India. Dora was a very dear friend, a psychic and very spiritual lady. Her invitation meant a lot. Josephine and Betty loved to attend lectures, concerts and various art exhibitions to acquire all the best the world had to offer. They accepted the invitation and came to New York to hear the Hindu monk in the small sitting room at 54, West 33rd Street.

It was probably Tuesday on 29th January and mostly it was Swamiji’s 2nd class in His new house. As per the memoirs of Miss Sarah Ellen Waldo and Josephine the number of people had increased. I have read 2 versions of Josephine meeting Swamiji and have combined both to make it simple.  Let us hear from Josephine herself -

“I first met Swamiji in New York when my elder sister Mrs. Sturges had her days of courtship with Mr. Francis Leggett.... At that time I used to read the Gita, translated by Mohini Mohan Chatterjee.

On the 29th of January 1895, we two sisters came to New York by the Hudson River, and went to listen to Swami Vivekananda's lecture at 54, West 33rd Street, New York and heard the Swami Vivekananda in his sitting room where more than one hundred persons were present. The room was crowded, they were all scattered in the room. All the arm chairs were taken; so I sat on the floor in the front row.

Swami stood in the corner. The subject of the talk was the Gita: When Swamiji started speaking... I lifted my eyes and saw with these very eyes (she pointed to her own eyes) Krishna himself standing there and preaching the Gita. That was my first wonderful vision. I stared and stared... I saw only the figure, and all else vanished.

He said something, the particular words of which I do not remember, but instantly to me that was truth, and the second sentence he spoke was truth, and the third sentence was truth. And I listened to him for seven years and whatever he uttered was to me truth. From that moment life had a different import. It was as if he made you realize that you were in eternity. It never altered. It never grew. It was like the sun that you will never forget once you have seen....

…His power lay, perhaps, in the courage he gave others. He did not ever seem to be conscious of himself at all. It was the other man who interested him. "When the book of life begins to open, then the fun begins," he would say. He used to make us realize there was nothing secular in life; it was all holy. "Always remember, you are incidentally an American, and a woman, but always a child of God. Tell yourself day and night who you are. Never forget it." That is what he used to tell us.

His presence, you see, was dynamic. You cannot pass that power on unless you have it, just as you cannot give money away unless you have it. You may imagine it, but you cannot do it.