stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

16 STRIPPING THE GURUS
later, in 1902, after years of declining health. Reaching only an
unripe age of thirty-nine, he “thus fulfill[ed] his own prophecy: ‘I
shall not live to be forty years old’” (Nikhilananda, 1996).
Of course, there are prophecies, and then there are earlier
prophecies:
Vivekananda declared solemnly: “This time I will give hundred
years to my body.... This time I have to perform many
difficult tasks.... In this life I shall demonstrate my powers
much more than I did in my past life” (Sil, 1997).
* * *
In spite of those many reversals, Vivekananda foresaw great and
lasting effects on the world for his teachings:
The spiritual ideals emanating from the Belur Math [one of
Vivekananda’s monasteries/universities], he once said to
Miss MacLeod, would influence the thought-currents of the
world for 1100 years....
“All these visions are rising before me”—these were his
very words (Nikhilananda, 1996).
The Vedanta Society which preserves Vivekananda’s brand of
Hinduism has a current membership of only around 22,000 individuals,
and a dozen centers worldwide. It would thus not likely
qualify as any large part of the “global spiritual renaissance”
grandly and grandiosely envisioned by the swami. The better part
of Vivekananda’s actual legacy, then, beyond mere organizational
PR, may consist simply in his having paved the way for the other
Eastern teachers who followed him into America in the succeeding
century.
Teachers such as....