Swami Vivekananda ( The Master Builder of Our Nation)

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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

 

THE MASTER BUILDER OF OUR NATION

 

Introduction :

 

" Whenever, O Bharata, righteousness declines and unrighteousness prevails, I

manifest myself " (Bhagadvad' Gita, Ch.IV,7).

 

This holy land of ours has been the birth place of countless world-renowned

teachers, who through their immaculate lives and teachings have brought great

glory to the country and placed her foremost among all other nations in

spiritual achievements. If we carefully study the history of their appearance

and life amidst us, we find that there was a definite purpose which they came to

serve, and they did it in a most exemplary way, suited to their particular age

and conditions of living. Many of them came us through to revive the Eternal

Sanathana Dharma when the latter was faced with some crisis or other, caused

either by external invasions from other faiths or due to internal decay and

de-generation. Gautama Buddha appeared at a time when Vedic Religion had

narrowed down to mere rituals and meaningless sacrifices. Buddha infused a new

spirit of universal love, compassion, ahimsa and renunciation, and the age-old

dharma, through under the guise of Buddhism, developed a new luster and meaning.

With the passage of time, the glorious Buddhism also started showing signs of

wear and teat and there appeared the greatest intellectual genius of all times.

Shankara Bhagavadpada, who polished the Vedic Religion and raised it to the

pinnacle of glory, unsurpassed by any.

 

 

Today as we study the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda the

inimitable teacher-disciple combination, who adorned the spiritual sky of our

country in the nineteenth century, it certainly looks as though they also came

to fulfil the prophecy of Lord Krishna quoted above. The Sanathana Dharma once

again appeared to be in danger, this time in the hands of unsympathetic Western

materialists who came in the wake of the British occupation of our country.

People, fascinated by the lure and luster of Western materialistic approach were

fast losing faith in the national culture. religion and traditions and were

adoption the alien ways of living and thinking. It was at this time there

appeared in the eastern corner of the country in the Kali temple at

Dakshineswar, West Bengal, a poor 'illiterate' Brahmin priest who, by simply

living a life, as true as truth alone could be, according to the well-known

precept of our Hindu religion, started emanating a new wave of spirituality that

was soon to flood the entire country, nay, the whole world. Like the proverbial

Swan-Hamsa - he showed how to pick up the essential it in life with utmost

sincerity. He thus rightly earned for himself the name of Paramahamsa.

Narendranath, later renowned as Swami Vivekananda was the foremost and the most

beloved disciple of this great man - SRI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA. Out of this

exquisite teacher-disciple combination was born a new concept of practical

Vedanta, which has since then brought meaning and purpose to the lives of

millions of people all over the world and has also taken our country out of her

centuries old isolation and impelled her to move towards freedom and glory.

Today, if there is some justifiable pride in us as a Nation and if we walk with

our heads held high in any world assembly, much of the credit goes to this

illustrious son of our Motherland SWAMI VIVEKANANDA. But for his appearance on

the India scene at the critical phase in her history, the Western materialistic

philosophy would have swept over our country destroying our religion, culture,

traditions, art, architecture - all that is found in India and India alone. A

master-craftsman that Swami Vivekananda was, he could blow a fresh breath of

life into age-old values and traditions. He evolved out of them a new philosophy

of life and work which was in tune with the changing values of a scientifically

and technologically advancing world. He once again proclaimed the true values of

human life, its purpose, relevance and duties to a world which was losing faith

in all these. The strength and dynamism that he exuded are as powerful today, as

when he was alive and anybody who sincerely tries to study him would find

himself transformed. The inspiration that can come from this great Master is

much more relevant now than was ever before, because, man has not yet learned

his lessons from history and is still bent upon destroying himself and the world

he lives in.

 

 

Cont....