A Retrospect and the Prospect
KULDIP KHAJURIA
A hundred and sixty two years ago on the twelfth of January was born in Culcutta, then capital of India, in an aristocratic family, a lad, Narendranath Datta, who in the thirties of his life conquered the world with love and wisdom as Swami Vivekananda, and left the mortal coil before he reached forty.
How did Vivekananda acquire the power with which he accomplished it? It is a long story of a hard struggle; it is difficult to imagine how hard it was. It was like a small boat tossing all the while on the bosom of the turbulent sea, yet crossing the vast span and reaching the shore, where the sun shines ever and ever.
Once he said, ‘May I be born again and again , and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls-and above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.’
What sort was he ? When Swami Vivekananda went to Oakland in 1900 one gentleman among many listened to him. ‘When he returned , he was very much excited and could scarcely contain his enthusiasm. He said, “I have met a man who is not a man; he is a God! And he spoke the truth!”’Josephine MacLeod went to see her ailing brother when he was in his death bed. His hostess was in no way related to them. Josephine found a portrait of Swami Vivekananda over his bed. She asked the hostess, Who is that man whose portrait is over my brother’s bed ?” She drew herself up with all dignity of her seventy years and said, ”If ever there was a God on earth, this is the man.”’ A lady, an agnostic, heard Vivekananda once and then went into a room and was weeping. Someone asked her the reason and she replied, ‘The man has given me the eternal life. I never wish to hear him again.’
During his itinerant life in India, after the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna, he ‘ suffered the pangs of hunger – certain times because he was during the times under a vow not to ask for food and not to eat anything that was not offered to him. At other times, when not under such a vow, various kinds of ideas seized him and he went without food — the longest such period, as he once told Sister Nivedita, being five days-and was on the verge of death. Once the question arose in his mind whether he had a right to beg for food from the poor, … for he thought he did nothing for them in return. In any case, thought he, if they could save an extra morsel of food, their children had a better claim upon it than him. One day, being in a mood like this, he walked on and on through a forest without food till he sank to the ground, fixing his mind on God. At night he saw a tiger approaching him and he felt happy at the prospect of giving his body to the animal, as Buddha is said to have done in one life and said within himself, ”We are both hungry, let one of us atleastbe fed.” The beast, however, walked away.’
Sister Christine wrote , ‘One did not need be told, but seeing him one knew that he would willingly have offered his flesh for food and his blood for drink to the hungry.’
Another day as Swami Vivekananda ‘ lay at the point of death in a Himalayan glade under a rude thatch of dry branches, ‘he heard a voice say, ‘You will not die. You have a great work to do in the world.’ Once during a long journey by railway he came across a young man, who was under the spell of occultism. Swamiji was hungry and sat quietly. But the boy approached him and started conversation. The mists before his mid started shifting as words poured out from Swamiji’s mouth. Swamiji said spiritually had nothing to do with miracle mongering. The craze for Psychic illusions was demoralizing the Indian nation . He went on : ‘What we need is strong common sense, a public spirit, and a philosophy and religion which will make us men.’ The boy felt inspired and offered food to Swamji which he accepted. When he reached the southernmost tip of India at Kanyakumari, he felt tempted to mediate on the rock across the sea, whereParvati as Kanya did her tapasya for Shiva. Not having a pie with him he swam across the sea to reach the rock. This was not un-noticed and when he came back, people asked him eagerly about himself and his meditation. ‘ He only said that he was a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, about whom the whole world would soon hear. As regards his experiences on the rock he only said that the thing in the search of which he had been wandering both physically and mentally for years he had achieved on that spot. And again in April 1902, about three months before he passed away, he said, ‘I have nothing in the world. I haven’ta penny to myself. I have given away everything that has ever been given to me.’ And how did money come to him ?Just an instance. In 1893 at Chicago Swami Vivekananda was the guest at the home of Mrs. John B. Lyon. Her granddaughter, Cornelia Conger, wrote long after, ‘when he (Vivekananda) began to give lectures, people offered him money for the work he hoped to do in India. He had no purse. So he used to tie it up in a handkerchief and bring it back – like a proud little boy – pour it into my grandmother’s lap to keep for him. She made him learn the different coins and to stack them up neatly to count them.’
Cornelia Conger wrote in her reminiscences:’ Swamiji was such a dynamic and attractive personality that many women were quite swept away by him and made every effort by flattery to gain his interest. He was still young and, in spite of his great spiritually and his brilliance of mind, seemed to be very unworldly. This used to trouble my grandmother who feared he might be put in a false or uncomfortable position, and she tried to caution him a little. Her concern touched and amused him, and he patted her hand and said, ” Dear Mrs. Lyon, you dear American mother of mine, Don’t be afraid for me. It is true I often sleep under a banyan tree with a bowl of rice given to me by a kind peasant, but it is equally true that I also am sometimes the guest in the palace of a great Maharaja and a slave girl is appointed to wave a peacock feather fan over me all night long ! I am used to temptation and you need not fear for me.’
And of name and fame ?’When he returned to his hotel the night after the first meeting of the Parliament, he wept like a child. Their lavish hospitality made him sick at heart when he remembered the crushing poverty of his own people. His anguish became so intense one night that he rolled on the floor, groaning : ”O Mother, what do I care for name and fame when my motherland remains sunk in utmost poverty ? To what a sad pass have we poor Indians come when millions of us die for want of a handful of rice, and here they spend millions of rupees upon their personal comfort ! Who will raise the masses of India ? Who will give them bread ? Show me, O Mother, how I can help them.”
Even before he launched his open offensive at the Parliament of Religions, he wrote in a letter : ‘ Gird up your loins, my boys! I am called by the Lord for this. The hope lies in you – in the meek, the lowly, but the faithful. Feel for the miserable and look up for help – it shall come. I have travelled twelve years with this load in my heart and this idea in my head. I have gone from door to door of the so – called ”rich and great.” With a bleeding heart I have crossed half the world to this strange land, seeking help. The Lord is great. I know He will help me. I may perish of cold and hunger in this land, but I bequeath to you young men this sympathy, this struggle for the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed. Glory unto the Lord ! We will succeed. Hundreds will fall in the struggle – hundreds will be ready to take it up Faith – sympathy, fiery faith and fiery sympathy ! Life is nothing, death is nothing – hunger nothing, cold nothing . Glory unto the Lord ! March on, the Lord is our General. Do not look back to see who falls – forward – onward !’
The retrospect brings forth in dotted lines ‘the personality that grew around the name Vivekananda. It is difficult to view the detailed outline, but the image that can be visualized fills any serious mind with awe and admiration. We may certainly use his own words in his own case and say : Vivekananda is a force. You should not think that his doctrine is this or that. But he is a power, living even now … and working in the world.’ We saw him growing in his ideas. He is still growing . And he said, ‘I will not cease to work.’
This takes us from the retrospect to the prospect of Vivekananda, the Power.’ This has been working and will work more vigorously in future gradually entering into all minds and bringing about a vital transformation. Unseen and unheard like the dew drops that fall at night, it will bring into blossom lives that will find fruition of their efforts in the happiness of others. Between the two hundredthand two hundred fiftieth birth anniversaries interpersonal and international relations will have undergone fundamental changes, every thought will pass through the filter – Not I, but thou – and the only policy that will be applauded will be good of the many. Recognition of the dignity of man will be supreme. Special privileges and differentiation in the matter of opportunities will become things of the past. Materialistic ideas will be buried in the earth. The pulse of spirituality will be felt everywhere. Many will correct their mistakes and many more will never commit them. Understanding and acceptance will draw a constantly ascending curve.
Towards the end of nineteenth century one day in a prophetic mood Vivekananda startled those around him by saying ,’The next great upheaval which is to bring about a new epoch will come from Russia or China.’ And it came both in Russia and china. It will also come in India but later, for the inertia is deep here.
The power will work in the world to remould man and his destiny in spite of our lukewarmness. But work done by a force is inversely proportional to the resistance it has to overcome. The question of positive resistance does not arise; our half- hearted acceptance and wordy eulogies on the power work as resistance. We can accelerate the process by our wiling acceptance and through deliberate action ensuring our own involvement.
Each of us should acquire the honesty and courage . When shall we be able to say with Sister Devamata ? : ‘The time of hearing was over , the time of pondering and practising had come.’
Said Swami Vivekananda : ‘ I have given you advice enough; now put atleast something in practice. Let the world see that your listening to me has been a success.’ This is the prospect of this power in which lies the dormant destiny of man. O Man ! ‘Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached !’
(The author is the devotee of Ramakrishna Mission Centre Jammu and Social activist)