3 January 2009

SWAMI VIVEKANAND

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA'S inspiring personality was well known both in India and in
America during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the
twentieth. The unknown monk of India suddenly leapt into fame at the Parliament of
Religions held in Chicago in 1893, at which he represented Hinduism. His vast knowledge
of Eastern and Western culture as well as his deep spiritual insight, fervid eloquence,
brilliant conversation, broad human sympathy, colourful personality, and handsome figure
made an irresistible appeal to the many types of Americans who came in contact
with him. People who saw or heard Vivekananda even once still cherish
his memory after a lapse of more than half a century.

Swami Vivekananda, known in his pre-monastic life as Narendra Nath Datta, was born
in an affluent family in Kolkata on 12 January 1863. His father, Vishwanath Datta,
was a successful attorney with interests in a wide range of subjects, and his mother,
Bhuvaneshwari Devi, was endowed with deep devotion, strong character and
other qualities. A precocious boy, Narendra excelled in music, gymnastics and studies.
By the time he graduated from Calcutta University, he had acquired a vast knowledge
of different subjects, especially Western philosophy and history. Born with a yogic
temperament, he used to practice meditation even from his boyhood, and was
associated with Brahmo Movement for some time.

In America Vivekananda's mission was the interpretation of India's spiritual culture,
especially in its Vedantic setting. He also tried to enrich the religious consciousness of
the Americans through the rational and humanistic teachings of the Vedanta philosophy.
In America he became India's spiritual ambassador and pleaded eloquently for
better understanding between India and the New World in order to create a
healthy synthesis of East and West, of religion and science.

In his own motherland Vivekananda is regarded as the patriot saint of modern India
and an inspirer of her dormant national consciousness, To the Hindus he preached the
ideal of a strength-giving and man-making religion. Service to man as the visible manifestation
of the Godhead was the special form of worship he advocated for the Indians, devoted as
they were to the rituals and myths of their ancient faith. Many political leaders
of India have publicly acknowledged their indebtedness to Swami Vivekananda.

The Swami's mission was both national and international. A lover of mankind, be
strove to promote peace and human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the
Vedantic Oneness of existence. A mystic of the highest order, Vivekananda had a
direct and intuitive experience of Reality. He derived his ideas from that
unfailing source of wisdom and often presented them in the soul stirring language of poetry.

The natural tendency of Vivekananda's mind, like that of his Master, Ramakrishna,
was to soar above the world and forget itself in contemplation of the Absolute. But
another part of his personality bled at the sight of human suffering in East and West
alike. It might appear that his mind seldom found a point of rest in its oscillation between
contemplation of God and service to man. Be that as it may, he chose, in obedience to
a higher call, service to man as his mission on earth; and this choice has endeared
him to people in the West, Americans in particular.

In the course of a short life of thirty-nine years (1863-1902), of which only ten
were devoted to public activities-and those, too, in the midst of acute physical suffering-he
left for posterity his four classics: Jnana-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, and
Raja-Yoga, all of which are outstanding treatises on Hindu philosophy. In addition, he
delivered innumerable lectures, wrote inspired letters in his own hand to his many
friends and disciples, composed numerous poems, and acted as spiritual guide to the many
seekers, who came to him for instruction. He also organized the Ramakrishna Order
of monks, which is the most outstanding religious organization of modern India. It is devoted
to the propagation of the Hindu spiritual culture not only in the Swami's native land,
but also in America and in other parts of the world.

Swami Vivekananda once spoke of himself as a "condensed India." His life and teachings
are of inestimable value to the West for an understanding of the mind of Asia.
William James, the Harvard philosopher, called the Swami the "paragon of Vedantists."
Max Muller and Paul Deussen, the famous Orientalists of the nineteenth century,
held him in genuine respect and affection. "His words," writes Romain Rolland, "are great
music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel
choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages
of books, at thirty years' distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like
an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports, must have been produced
when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!''

Selected Teachings Of Swami Vivekanad:-
My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words, and that is: to preach unto mankind
their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.

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.