Many of us go to Ooty to enjoy and entertain! Nothing wrong! I have this habit of visiting unusual places too in addition!
Godwin’s Cemetery at St. Thomas Cemetery Ooty!
Who is he?
But for JJ Godwin, we wdnt have got any of Swami Vivekananda’s speeches after His epoch making Chicago Speech! So impressed with Swamiji’s Chicago Speech, some Americans wanted all His Speeches to be recorded in Black and white! They advertised for a Stenographer and JJ Godwin was selected! Godwin was so impressed with Swamiji’s brilliance and simplicity, he became Swamiji’s Disciple too.
Since Godwin cdn’t stand the heat of Madras, Swamiji sent Godwin to Ooty, where he died at a young age of 28 in 1898!
Swamiji was uncontrollably moved, that He wrote this ‘Requiescant in Pace‘ a Poem, Swamiji sent to Godwin’s Mother and this is engraved on Godwin’s Memorial at St. Thomas Cemetery!
“Speed forth, O soul! upon thy star-strewn path,
Speed, blissful one, where thought is ever free,
Where time and sense no longer mist the view,
Eternal peace and blessings be on thee!
Thy service true, complete thy sacrifice,
Thy home the heart of Love transcendent find ;
Remembrance sweet, that kills all space and time,
Like altar roses fill thy place behind!
Thy bonds are broke, thy quest in Bliss is found,
And one with That which comes as Death and Life ;
Thou helpful one! Unselfish e’er on Earth,
Ahead, still help with love this world of strife!”
I bow before Godwin, but for whose contribution Swamiji’s speeches wdnt have been available for us Today!
JJ GODWIN(from Vivekananda net)
After his influential speech at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions, Swami Vivekananda travelled around America on a lecture tour. During the tour, Vivekananda’s admirers wished to record his lectures and an advertisement was published in December 1895 in two New York newspapers, the Herald and the World. In response to the advertisement, twenty-five-year-old Goodwin applied for the job.He became one of Vivekananda’s staunchest followers and played an important role in recording Vivekananda’s ex tempore speeches. After the first week Goodwin refused any money, saying, “If Vivekananda gives his life, the least I can do is to give my service.” He accepted only what was necessary for his basic subsistence.Goodwin was a hard worker amidst Vivekananda’s strenuous schedule: after taking the lectures stenographically, he would type them and hand over the manuscript to the newspapers and Brahmavadin and used to get prepared for the same work on the following day.
In August 1898, Swami Vivekananda wrote the above poem to Godwin’s Mother !
Swamiji also wrote :
“With infinite sorrow I learn the sad news of Mr. Goodwin’s departure from this life, the more so as it was terribly sudden and therefore prevented all possibilities of my being at his side at the time of death. The debt of gratitude I owe him can never be repaid, and those who think they have been helped by any thought of mine ought to know that almost every word of it was published through the untiring and most unselfish exertions of Mr. Goodwin. In him I have lost a friend true as steel, a disciple of never-failing devotion, a worker who knew not what tiring was, and the world is less rich by one of those few who are born, as it were, to live only for others. “
We must salute such Great Personalities!
Musings from Madampatti 