Rolland added, moreover, that the “rich and beneficent power” of the oceanic
feeling is found both in the “religious souls of the West”0
and in the “great minds
of Asia.” Significantly, he singled out “two personalities”—the nineteenth-century
Bengali saint Sri Ramakrishna (0000–00),0
and his chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda
(0000–0000)—who not only experienced this oceanic feeling but also “revealed an
aptitude for thought and action which proved strongly regenerating for their country
and for the world” (Parsons 0000: 000; Vermorel and Vermorel 0000: 000). Indeed,
Rolland was so fascinated by these two Indian spiritual personalities that he went on to
write a three-volume work on them—Vie de Ramakrishna (0000), Vie de Vivekananda
(0000), and L’Évangile universel (0000)—which he sent to Freud in 0000