Swami ji swam back to the shore. He then went to Madras. There he had many disciples. He told them that in his travels he had found that India was asleep. India was like a person who had been asleep for hundreds of years. She had to be awakend.
Swami ji now explained the plan he had though of. He would go away from India. He would see what the people in other countries were doing. They had faith in themselves. So they could doanything. Also he would tell them all about India.
India believes that nothing is stronger that the spirit that is in man. But now India has forgotten this. She has no faith. Our people have lost faith in themselves. Said Swami ji sadly: I will bring back that faith to them. Now I go but when I return, I shall awaken the sleeping millions of my people.
A parliament of Religious was to be held in America, in the city of Chicago. Leaders of all the different religious of the word were going to speak. “I will go there”, Swami ji said, I will tell them about the ancient religion of India. I will tell them what I know, and I will learn from them the things they know.
Chicago was many thousands of miles away. To get there, money was needed Swami ji disciples in Madras collected money. The Raja a Khetri, one of his disciples also gave him much help. But Swami ji said that he was not yet ready to go. He said, ‘I shall not go, until I know that God wants me to go. If it is God’s plan, I shall go, otherwise not’.
One day. Swami ji was standing on the seashore looking at the beautiful sea and thinking about his plan. Then he saw a marvelous thing. In a vision, he saw Sri Ramakrishna walking on the sea. He was asking Swami ji, by signs, to follow him! Now Swami ji knew that it was his duty to go to America. It was the wish of Sri Ramakrishna. 
It was on the 31st May 1863 that Swami Vivekananda sailed for America. He boarded the ship at Bombay. The captain gave his orders. The ship’s whistle sounded a long, loud blast, and the ship sailed our of the harbor.
Swami ji watched the shores of India until they faded into the distance. Mother India faded from his sight. But she stayed in his heart and he never ceased to serve her. The ship that carried Swami ji to America stopped at several places on the way. It reached to Singapore, Hong Kong, China and to several ports in Japan. Swami ji was eager to see all those places and the different people in each country. From Japan the ship crossed the wide Pacific Ocean. Then it reached Vancouver, in Canada. At that place Swami ji left the ship and went by train to Chicago, in America.
A big exhibition was being held in Chicago. The Parliament of Religious was a part of that. But it was to start some weeks latter. Swami ji went to tell the organizers that he would speak at the Parliament. What a surprise and disappointment! He told that it was too late.
Everything has been settled, said the man in charge, ‘It istoo late now. No more people will be allowed to speak’. Swami ji did not know what/to do. Should he go back to India? But what about his plan, for which he had come so many thousands of miles? 
It was two months before the parliament would begin. It’s cost a lot of money to live in Chicago. Swami ji did not have so much money with him. Some one told him to go to at other city, Boston. There it would not cost so much. So he went to Boston and stayed there for a while. Then he went back to Chicago.
In the evening he arrived in Chicago, Swami ji had nowhere to stay. In India, he would have slept on the railway platform. But in America that was not allowed. Swami ji saw some empty packing cases near the railway station. He climbed into one of them and spent the night there. Swami ji had nothing to eat that day. He was feeling very hungry. But he did not feel sorry for himself. He was always thinking of the poor people of his country.



