The great conclusion is that Ramakrishna has no peer; nowhere else in the world exists that unprecedented perfection, that wonderful kindness for all that does not stop to justify itself, that intense sympathy for man in bondage. Either he must be the Avatara as he himself used to say, or else the ever-perfected divine man, whom the Vedanta speaks of as the free one who assumes a body for the good of humanity. This is my conviction and certain; and the worship of such a divine man has been referred to by Patanjali in the aphorism: “ or the goal may be attained by meditating on a saint.”
(p.231-2, Vol.6, Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Swamiji in his letter to Pramadadas Mitra from Gazipur on 3 March, 1890.)
Think of me as one who has done all his duty and is now dead and gone. Think that the whole work is upon your shoulders. Think that you, young men of our motherland, are destined to do this. Put yourselves to the task. Lord bless you. Leave me, throw me quite out of sight. Preach the new ideal, the new doctrine, the new life. Preach against nobody, against no custom. Preach neither for nor against caste or any other social evil. Preach to let “hands off”, and everything will come right. My blessings on you all, my brave, steadfast, and loving souls.
(p.360, Vol.4. Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, ‘What we believe in’- written to Kidi on March 3, 1894 from Chicago.)