I.D Soni
Swami Vivekananda was born as Narendranath Datta on 12th January, 1863 in Kolkata, in a respectable middle class family. His father, Vishwanath Datta, was an attorney, and a lover of arts and literature. Although liberal-minded, Vishwanath was skeptical about religious practices. On the other hand, Narendra’s mother, Bhuvaneshwari Devi, was a pious, kind hearted lady, devoted to the Hindu traditions. The influence of each of his parents on Narendra was different, yet together they provided a congenial atmosphere for the precious boy to grow into an energetic young man with high ideals.
During his formative years, he developed extraordinary abilities which some people either misunderstood or ignored, but which other appreciated and recognized as signs of an outstanding individual. As a child he liked to play at meditation and would easily become engrossed. Thus, Narendra’s power of concentration- of fixing his mind on one thing while detaching it from everything else- was remarkable.
Ever since childhood, Narendra had great admiration for wandering monks, and he liked to think that one day he himself would become a monk. He began to search out scholars and spiritual leaders in order to question them. It was from Prof. William Hastie, Principal of his college that he heard for the first time of Sri Ramakrishna, the saint of Dakshineshwar. His meeting with Sri Ramakrishna in November 1881 proved to be a turning point in his life.
Naren was vivekananda’s name in the days of his boyhood. “Naren!”, said Ramakrishna to him, one day, “What is your highest ambition in life?”
And Naren said, “To remain always in ‘samadhi’ (ecstasy, absorption in God!”
Ramakrishna smiled and said to him, “Naren! I thought you were born for something greater, my boy!”
Vivekananda realised that was called to ‘ something greater than samadhi’. Vivekananda gave to his people the great message of shakti. “Be strong!” he said, “work, but without attachment. Work impersonally!” Vivekananda called them to work and to freedom. He asked them to give up day dreaming and all cuts of ‘imitation’.
He asked the Christians, too, to co-operate with the Hindus in rebuilding India.
Precious to him was the teaching of Jesus. To Christians, Vivekananda said: “If you solove the teaching of Jesus, Why don’t you followit?”
He had learnt, he said, learnt through life, learnt from his master, Ramakrishna, ‘not to deny’. A Russian scholar, Nicholas Roerich, wrote about Vivekananda, “He was not merely an industrious swami; something lion-like rings in his letters. How he is needed now”. More even than in 1923, India, today, hath need of thee, O lion-hearted Vivekananda!
Ramakrishna passed on in 1886. Vivekananda resolved to dedicate his life to spread his Master’s message. Six years did Vivekananda spent in retirement on the Himalayas, after the passing of Ramakrishna. Vivekananda visited Tibet and studied Buddhism in the lamas’ hermitages. Deep was his reverence for the Buddha.
Vivekananda’s call to the world in chaos:-
Swami Vivekananda! There is an inspiration in his name: ‘There is a music in his memory’! He was a symbol of India’s deathless culture which stands for the supremacy of the atman, the spirit. In his hands he held a torch. He thrilled those who heard him. He carried with him a tremendous power of the spirit. He was a man of fire. There was fire in his words, in his heart, and his soul.
He appeared at a time when million in ‘EUROPE’ and ‘AMERICA’ considered Hindus to be heathens and condemned the Hindu religion as paganism. With the roar of a lion, Swami Vivekananda said to the Christians of America:
” Hinduism is the only religion which tells you that you are not a sinner, that you are not doomed to burn eternally in the fires of hell. It is a sin to call man a sinner. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep. You are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal. You are not matter, You are not bodies. Matter is your servant, you are not the servant of matter.”
When he was asked, “Swamiji, have you come to America to convert us to a new belief?” he laughed as he answered: “I do not come to this country to convert you to a new belief. I want you to keep your own belief. I want to make the Methodist a better Methodist, a Presbyterian a better presbyterian, a Unitarian a better Unitarian.”
In the heart of Swami Vivekananda there was no sense of seperateness. He recognized the great truths of world religions. In a lecture before the Ethical Society of Brooklyn, he said, “We Hindus not only tolerate but we accept every religion, praying in the mosque of the Muslims, worshipping before the fire of the Zoroastrains, and kneeling before the cross of the Christians, knowing that so many religions are but so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and release the infinite.”
Swami Vivekananda understood the value of Islam and its message of social equality. He entered into the heart of the message of Christ. Is it not also a message of spiritual Advaita? ‘I and my Father are one’,said Jesus. He also said, “ye are Gods”, and again, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect!” Alas, The Jews of his generation understand him not. Has the west understood him yet> No! To be able to understand Jesus, one must be imbued with the spirit of the East.
Above all, Vivekananda realized the value of Higher Hinduism: He called it Vedanta. He wished to make it a World-Force. He said, “With God, you can sail over the seas. Without God, you cannot cross over the threshold.” With God, Vivekananda crossed the continents and reproclaimed the wisdom of the rishes. “Arise! Awake! And Stop not until the goal is reached,” was his trumpet call to the Hindus: Also to India, Europe and America.
Today man stands on a planet of limit less promise. Today man has reached a zenith of technological brilliance. Man’s rockets go flying past the distant planets. He has been able to station satellites in space and on the moon. Yet is he confused as to his own real being and purpose. He is faced with a terrible loneliness, and his heart is stirred by a thousand fears which he cannot name. Man boasts that he has been able to control the forces of nature. When will he learn to control himself? Today, wherever you turn, there is passion for power, the lust for fame, the greed of gold. Today there is dance of desires. This dance of desires is the dance of death: And civilisation has already begun to crumble beneath the burden of its own weight.
Swami Vivekananda urged that everyone is divine, and that man must serve his fellow men beholding in them pictures of God, images of the Eternal: Swami Vivekananda gave a new mantra to humanity, Atmana Mokshar tham jagathitaya cha. The words mean: “For the salvation of our individual self and for the well-being of all on earth.” These Twin ideals must not be separated from each other, these twin ideals must go hand in hand.
When the Buddha came to Banaras and visited his father’s palace, Rahula, the son, asked Yashodhara, “Mother! Tell me who is my father.” And she said, The lion that passes down the street, lo! He is thy father, the lion-hearted!”
In Vivekananda’s message to modern India, “Awake! Arise! And stop not, till the goal is achieved!” Was there not the roar of lion? And did he not, again and again, remind himself of the call of the Buddhist scriptures? Verily, Vivekananda wandered with his “lion-roar,” in India, England, America, carrying everywhere the message of his master. Travelling throughout the length and breadth of India, mostly on foot, Narendra was trying to work out a purpose for his life. While on the road, he often faced starvation and frequently found himself with nowhere to stay. To Narendra, this was an opportunity to study India and its needs at first hand. He observed that his country possessed a priceless spiritual heritage, but had failed to reap its benefit. The weak points were poverty, caste, neglect of the masses, oppression of women and a faulty system of education. How was India to regenerated? He came to the conclusion:
“We have to give back to the nation its lost individuality and raise the masses. Again, the force to raise them must come from inside.” Narendranath Datta by this time had been transformed into Swami Vivekananda, and he had found his life’s mission. Taking a broad look at the early part of his life we can see that there were four influences that formed his personality and philosophy:
1) In his youth, Narendra became fascinated with the ‘Evolution’ of Herbert Spencer, and ‘translated Spenceer’s on ‘Education’ into Bengali. It is also said that Narendra exchanged correspondence with Herbert Spencer for some time. But, alongside his study of Spencer and other Western philosophers, he also delved deep into Indian Sanskrit scriptures.
2) Sri Ramakrishna, the saint of Dakshineswar, had a profound influence on Narendra. In Swami Vivekananda’s estimation, his master fully harmonized the intellectual, emotional, ethical and spiritual elements of a human being and was the role model for the future.
3) Swami Vivekananda’s family also provided a strong moral and cultural foundation to his life. Infact, desire for knowledge that he had acquired in his youth prompted him to gather as much as he could wherever he was.
4) Equally important, if not more so, was Swami’s knowledge of India based on his first hand experiences acquired during his wanderings throughout the country.