Swami Vivekananda (1863 - 1902)

Swami Vivekananda (12 January 1863 -4 July 1902), Narendranath Dutta was born in an aristocratic family of Calcutta in 1863. His father Vishwanath Datta was an attorney of Culcutta High Court. He was considered generous, and had a progressive outlook in social and religious matters. His mother Bhuvaneshwari Devi was pious and had practiced austerities and prayed to Vireshwar Shiva of Varanasi to give her a son. She reportedly had a dream in which Shiva rose from his meditation and said that he would be born as her son.

His parents influenced the Swami's thinking—the father by his rational mind and the mother by her religious temperament. He is considered a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga in Europe and America and is also credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a world religion during the end of 19th Century. Vivekananda is considered to be a major force in the revival of Hindusim in modern India. He is best known for his inspiring speech beginning with "sisters and brothers of America", through which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions at Chicago in 1893.

Narendranath entered the first year Arts class of Presidency College, Culcutta in January 1880 and the next year he shifted to Scottish Church. During the course, he studied western logic, western philosophy and history of European nations. In 1881 he passed the Fine Arts examination and in 1884 he passed the Bachelor of Arts.

From his childhood, he showed inclination towards spirituality, God realisation and realizing the highest spiritual truths. He studied different religious and philosophical systems of East and the West; he met different religious leaders. He came under the influence of the Brahmo Samaj, an important socio-religious organization of that time.

With ramkrishna

At the threshold of youth Narendra had to pass through a period of spiritual crisis when he was assailed by doubts about the existence of God. It was at that time he first heard about Sri Ramakrishna from one of his English professors at college. One day in November 1881, Narendra went to meet Sri Ramakrishna who was staying at the Kali Temple in Dakshineshwar. He straightaway asked the Master a question which he had put to several others but had received no satisfactory answer: “Sir, have you seen God?” Without a moment’s hesitation, Sri Ramakrishna replied: “Yes, I have. I see Him as clearly as I see you, only in a much intenser sense.”

Apart from removing doubts from the mind of Naren

dra, Sri Ramakrishna won him over through his pure, unselfish love. Thus began a guru-disciple relationship which is quite unique in the history of spiritual masters. Narendra now became a frequent visitor to Dakshineshwar and, under the guidance of the Master, made rapid strides on the spiritual path. At Dakshineshwar, Narendra also met several young men who were devoted to Sri Ramakrishna, and they all became close friends.

Awareness of Life’s Mission

After establishing the new monastic order, Vivekananda heard the inner call for a greater mission in his life. While most of the followers of Sri Ramakrishna thought of him in relation to their own personal lives, Vivekananda thought of the Master in relation to India and the rest of the world. As the prophet of the present age, what

was Sri Ramakrishna’s message to the modern world and to India in particular? This question and the awareness of his own inherent powers urged Swamiji to go out alone into the wide world. So in the middle of 1890, after receiving the blessings of Sri Sarada Devi, the divine consort of Sri Ramakrishna, known to the world as Holy Mother, who was then staying in Kolkata, Swamiji left Baranagar Math and embarked on a long journey of exploration and discovery of India.

Parliament of Religions

It was when these ideas were taking shape in his mind in the course of his wanderings that Swami Vivekananda heard about the World’s Parliament of Religions to be held in Chicago in 1893. He too felt that the Parliament would provide the right forum to present his Master’s message to the world, and so he decided to go to America. Another reason which prompted Swamiji to go to America was to seek financial help for his project of uplifting the masses.

His speeches at the World’s Parliament of Religions held in September 1893 made him famous as an ‘orator by divine right’ and as a ‘Messenger of Indian wisdom to the Western world.

Founding of Ramakrishna Mission

Swami Vivekananda accomplished another important task of his mission on earth. He founded on 1 May 1897 a unique type of organization known as Ramakrishna Mission, in which monks and lay people would jointly undertake propagation of Practical Vedanta, and various forms of social service, such as running hospitals, schools, colleges, hostels, rural development centres etc, and conducting massive relief and rehabilitation work for victims of earthquakes, cyclones and other calamities, in different parts of India and other countries.

Selected Teachings of Swami Vivekananda

* Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.

* We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded,

and by which one can stand on one's own feet.

* So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at

their expense, pays not the least heed to them.

* Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves

strong, strong you will be.

* If you have faith in all the three hundred and thirty millions of your mythological gods, … and still have no faith

in yourselves, there is no salvation for you. Have faith in yourselves, and stand up on that faith and be strong;

that is what we need.

* Strength, strength it is that we want so much in this life, for what we call sin and sorrow have all one cause, and

that is our weakness. With weakness comes ignorance, and with ignorance comes misery.

* The older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new Gospel.

* Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all, love.

* Religion is realization; not talk, not doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and

becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.

* Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man.

* Teach yourselves, teach everyone his real nature, call uon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will

come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come when

this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.

* It is love and love alone that I preach, and I base my teaching on the great Vedantic truth of the sameness and omnipresence of the Soul of the Universe.

* They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

* This is the gist of all worship – to be pure and to do good to others.

The rock memorial

At Kanyakumari, the Swami reportedly meditated on the "last bit of Indian rock", famously known later as the Vivekananda Rock Memorial for three days. At Kanyakumari, Vivekananda reportedly had the "Vision of one India". He wrote,

"At Cape Camorin sitting in Mother Kumari's temple, sitting on the last bit of Indian rock - I hit upon a plan: We are so many sanyasis wandering about, and teaching the people metaphysics-it is all madness. Did not our Gurudeva used to say, `An empty stomach is no good for religion?' We as a nation have lost our individuality and that is the cause of all mischief in India. We have to raise the masses