39. The Chicago Conference

It is my firm inner conviction that the Chicago Conference would have been buried in oblivion long ago, as many world conferences have been, had Vivekananda not appeared from the Indian firmament to the American firmament.

The City of Chicago, in spite of the many various good qualities that it embodies, would have been known only as a city of unpredictable weather! But for Chicago to become the cynosure of all major religions would have been an impossible task.

From the spiritual point of view, let us take Chicago as the aspiring humanity’s heart-flower, and Vivekananda as the illumining Divinity’s Soul-Fragrance.

May Chicago the temple and Vivekananda the shrine inseparably and supremely inspire and guide the Religion of all religions: man, and bring down the Vision of the Transcendent God and raise the Dedication of the Immanent God to transform humanity’s earth-bound cries and Divinity’s Heaven-free Smiles.