The Great Summer Part 2

The train trip from New York to Ridgely, or, more precisely, from Weehawken, New Jersey, to Kingston in Ulster County, New York, 100 miles or so up the Hudson, was a lovely ride. On the right lay the broad, deep river, straight almost as a canal, with its traffic of ships and ferries and its lighthouses in midstream, like Victorian dwellings set adrift; on one’s left rose the tall Hudson Highlands pressing close at first to the water’s edge, later on flattening out into the wide river valley with its farms and pastures, its orchards, its green, sun-splashed woods, its little towns, its steepled churches and its distant mountains.

At Kingston one boarded another train for Binnewater, a tiny station some seven miles west. Here the party was no doubt met by a surrey and spanking pair and driven the four miles to Ridgely Manor along a gently rolling country road, past apple orchards, corn and pumpkin fields, wooded hills, and occasional farm buildings. Most of these last were of the nineteenth century–neat red barns and white houses scalloped along the eaves with wooden rickrack called Hudson River Bracketed; but here and there a small weathered stone house, dating back to pre-Revolutionary days, stood half hidden among protective elms and chestnuts. Half a m ile beyond Stone Ridge, the small village through which the road passed, the horses turned into the avenue of Ridgely and trotted up to the Manor–a graceful and welcoming house said to have been designed by a pupil of the famous architect Stanford White and as dignified, substantial, and unassuming as its owner, Francis Leggett.

 

Burke, Marie Louise. “Ridgely: The Great Summer,” in Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, A New Gospel, vol. 5, chap. 3. (Mayavati, India: Advaita Ashrama, 1987), 107–143. Reprinted by permission from Advaita Ashrama.

The Great Summer Part 1

“Swamiji is starting today Allen Line [Allan State Line]. Numidian. from Glasgow. a telegram just received says!” Thus Josephine MacLeod wrote to Mrs. Bull on August 17, 1899. Her letter, full of heavy underscorings, continued:

Do what you choose. Come at any hour–you are always welcome.

You better meet me in New York & we will go together to meet our Prophet. He ought to be 10 days en route–but I will write you definitely tomorrow the day the ship is expected & you meet me in town.

Do not tell Mrs Crossley a word. Let her stay in Princeton so we can have our Prophet without one thorn or criticism–in all his holiness.

I think I may keep Miss Stumm over–she has her worth.

I am in Heaven.

Lovingly Jojo

(Mrs. Crossley was a London friend of Mrs. Bull’s who had crossed the Atlantic with her in June. She was not well and not, it would seem, in full accord with Swamiji’s views. The more fortunate Maud Stumm was an artist in her late twenties who had met Swamiji once or twice during his first visit to the West and who evidently had admired him. She was now visiting Ridgely.)

Five days later, Miss MacLeod again wrote to “Saint Sara,” telling her, with more underscorings, the exact date of Swamiji’s arrival in New York:

Swamiji’s boat the Numidian sailed on August 17th & is due in New York on Monday August 28th [double underscore] so a letter just announced. So you take the midnight train on Sunday, arriving at 6.–go directly to 21 [21 East Thirty-fourth Street, the Leggetts’ town house]–where a telegram is to be sent me announcing the day & hour of arrival.

Betty [Besse Leggett] goes to East Hampton on Friday & will meet you in New York on Monday, and I also will be in town that day by noon.

Our Prophet again with us!

I have invited Mrs. Coulston to go to 21 & to come up here for 3 days visit–not one uncongenial element!

God is kind.

If quite convenient you might bring up a trunk of blankets-in case 18 single ones aren’t enough–besides 10 eider down quilts.

What do you think?

I can easily bring a few pairs from our town house & this will be less complicated so do not worry or trouble about it.

I am so thankful to know you are coming to us alone.

The word alone was underscored five or six times, as though to ward off the uncongenial element. But as things happened, Miss MacLeod’s whole exuberant plan for her fiend miscarried. Just at that time Olea, spending a week or so at Camp Percy, Mr. Leggetts’ fishing camp in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, became ill. She returned to her mother’s home in Cambridge, where Mrs. Bull could not, or would not, leave her, and thus almost six weeks were to pass before they arrived at Ridgely Manor. Even Miss MacLeod’s own long-dreamed-of plan to meet Swamiji’s ship, to see him walking with his wonderfully majestic stride down the gangplank, his face breaking into radiance at the sight of his old friends, was not fulfilled, for the Numidian steamed into the New York harbor two or three hours earlier than scheduled. Fortunately, three people were at the dock to meet Swamiji and Swami Turiyananda–Maud Stumm, who had come down from Ridgely, Mrs. Coulston, acting treasurer of the New York Vedanta Society (Swami Abhedananda was out of town), and a Mr. Sydney Clarke, to whom Miss Stumm had telegraphed, asking him to take care of the Swamis’ baggage.

He was “tired and ill-looking,” Miss Stumm wrote later of Swamiji’s arrival. “He was carrying most carefully a big bottle wrapped in papers that were torn and ragged; this precious bottle, which he refused to relinquish before reaching Binnewater, contained a wonderful kind of sauce like curry; brought thus by hand from India. ‘For Jo!’ he said.”

Miss Stumm mentions that “the party from Ridgely” (presumably Miss MacLeod and the Leggetts) did not arrive until ten o’clock that morning, “and so disappointed!” ‘we all went back [to Ridgely Manor] together,” she wrote’ but whether “all” included Sister Christine and Mrs. Funke, one does not know. It is certain, however, that Swamiji spent almost no time in the hot, humid city, but after a stop at the Leggetts’ town house was whisked away with all speed.

 

Burke, Marie Louise. “Ridgely: The Great Summer,” in Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, A New Gospel, vol. 5, chap. 3. (Mayavati, India: Advaita Ashrama, 1987), 107–143. Reprinted by permission from Advaita Ashrama.

Ridgely Concert Sat. Oct. 3, 2015

Thumri Ki Kahani: a musical journey since 18th century

Featuring Pandit VIJAY KICHLU & Vidushi SUBHRA GUHA

Date: October 3 (Saturday) , 6 – 9-30 pm
Venue: MAMA (Marbletown Multi Arts)
3588 Main Street, Stone Ridge, NY 12484

Pandit Vijay Kichlu is a recipient of “Sangeet Natak Akademi Ratna” – the highest award for a performing artist by the Government of India. He is internationally recognized for promoting Indian Raga music for decades. He belongs to Agra gharana style of gayaki.

Vidushi Subhra Guha is one of the finest exponents of Agra gharana. She has been teaching & performing internationally since early 80s. Recently awarded the “Girija Shankar Purashkar” by West Bengal govt.

Suggested Minimum Donation – $25 per person
($15 for Students – ID Required)
Sponsors & Donors Welcome!
Please write checks to: “Vivekananda Retreat, Ridgely”
(all contributions are tax exempt)

For more information, contact:
845 687 4574 / 845 478 2042 / 347 496 3062
info@ridgely.org / chandisanyal@gmail.com / sweetroad@gmail.com

The Great Summer: Introduction

As part of our new blog series, Swamiji at Ridgely, we begin with a series of posts documenting  his multiple stays at Ridgely Manor.

Swami Vivekananda visited Ridgely, an estate in the Hudson Valley owned by his friends Mr. and Mrs. Francis Leggett, three times during his two visits to America. The first two times were in 1895. Both those visits were short–about ten days each. His third stay at Ridgely took place at he very beginning of his second visit to America. It lasted for ten weeks, from August 28 to Novemeber 7 of 1899. During those golden weeks of late summer and early autumn, the great swami was free from the pressure of engagements, as never before in the Western World. He was free to talk, to be silent, to meditate, to laugh, and to simply live the exalted life that was natural to him.
The chapter “The Great Summer,” which is a part of the fifth volume of the six volume work SWAMI VIVEKANANDA IN THE WEST: NEW DISCOVERIES by Marie Louise Burke (or Sister Gargi as she is known) tells in detail of these ten extraordinary weeks, during which Ridgely became, through his presence there, a place of pilgrimage. In this series of posts, we share excerpts from this chapter.

Welcome to our new website design

Our webmaster, who goes by the online name Bhairav Jr. (!), and I have redesigned Ridgely’s website. We wanted it to be simple to use for those who are viewing on smartphones and tablets as well as computers. We analyzed the data from our previous website and our other social media platforms to see which pages and platforms were the most popular. We kept those and either deleted or moved the others to a subsection of another category. As an example of that, you will now find most historical information under the About Ridgely section. You will find those sections and subsections listed in the column on the left of the main post.

One of our most important changes was to create a user- friendly blog section. We will be posting to the blog regularly along with photographs from Ridgely. We will also post podcast episodes every other Monday starting September 7, 2015. Be sure to check in every week to see new content, and to subscribe to our podcast.

Vivekananda Retreat has a busy presence on Facebook. We are hoping to move at least part of that audience to our blog and are working on a way to enable comments to be posted to our new blog after registering. We hope you will take the time to read, listen and comment on some of our blog posts.

A link to our overnight retreat application can be found on the Visit page in 2 places. Please read the information carefully before applying.

Enjoy our new simplified website. If you have any feedback about how it could be improved or would like to help us maintain some our of online platforms, please let us know.

Guest Blogger: Shivani

One day, during the garage sale at Vivekananda Retreat, Ridgely I found the book that is a constant inspiration to me: the“Shrimad Bhagavad Gita” translated by Swami Swarupananda which I will quote heavily below. I had read the Bhagavad Gita before, few different “interpretations”, but this one, almost word for word translation spoke to my soul.

Having asked the big “WHY??” of my being here, now, on this earth for many years, I was very fortunate to come to Ridgely and get introduced to such truth and to discover the teachings of Swami Vivekananda.

The “impulses of passion”, the onslaught of thoughts troubling our mind due to Karma and the habits we formed, what is termed our “lower nature” is very strong and in being unconscious of this we make ourselves miserable. Unaware that we need to work to overrule all the attachments and aversions of our senses, we go like sleepwalkers through life. The Gita teaches that:

He who here … living in sin , and satisfied in the senses… he lives in vain.(III 16)

This was how I was feeling, so why was it that way? Again, the Gita has the answer I was looking for:

 The turbulent senses… do violently snatch away the mind of even a wise man… (II 60)

So what could I do, far from being wise or anywhere close? There again, I learned the answer from the Gita:

Knowledge is covered by… the unappeasable fire of desire (III 39)

And:

In tranquility, all sorrow is destroyed. (II 65)

Easy for you to say was my first thought. But with the supporting community of Vivekananda Retreat, I realized that we are all dealing with the same problems mankind has for centuries. In the Gita, Arjuna asks:

But impelled by what does man commit sin, thoug against his wishes…      constrained as it were by force? (III 36)

Shri Krishna answer is:

It is desire – it is anger… of great craving, and of great sin; know this as the foe here (in this world). (III 37)

The senses, the mind, and the intellect are said to be its abode: through these,  it deludes the embodied by veiling his wisdom. (III 40)

Thus, knowing Him who is superior to the intellect, and restraining the Self by the Self, destroy… that enemy, the unseizable foe, desire. (III 43)

Freed from attachment, fear, and anger, absorbed in Me, taking refuge in    Me, purified by the fire of knowledge, many have attained My Being. (IV 10)

Thus, from the classes and talks with the Pravrajikas, with the teachings of the visiting Swamis and spiritual seekers who come to Vivekananda Retreat, Ridgely, I learned about the One that is all and I practice.

 

I practice and practice,
Then forget that I know
Forget my practice
But, in winter, the snow flakes
Cooling my head
In spring, the babble of birds
Waking me up at sunrise
In summer, soft warm wind
Whispering through the fields
In fall, fabulous colors
Reminding me that all is One
And in this environment,
I am always brought back to my practice.
I know what I am to do:
Rise the Wind
The sweet Wind of Knowledge
To blow the smoke
The smoke hiding the Fire
The Fire that is all.

Swami Vivekananda tells us again and again to seek the truth within ourselves as in the Gita:

Better is one’s own Dharma, (though) imperfect, than the Dharma of another well-performed. Better is death in one’s own Dharma: the Dharma of another is fraught with fear. (III 35)

Swami Vivekananda emphasized that within ourselves lays the answer and one is to search it for oneself, not blindly follow another’s truth. By searching within one “un–covers”, “remembers” the truth that is. Swamiji’s strength of character, pure knowledge and enthusiasm is catching here where he spent so many weeks. When reading his teachings or listening to the Pravrajikas uttering his words, I feel such strong conviction, I have glimpses of remembrance that yes, all is within, it is so simple for me to see yet so difficult to do. The senses, attachments and aversions are very strong but here I have discovered a map, it is now up to me to follow my path, I may go the wrong way from time to time but I have the map and can always go back and start again.

All quotes are from the “Shrimad Bhagavad Gita” translated by Swami Swarupananda

Poems by Michele C. Placais, reproduction with permission only.