Swami Vivekananda (The Master Builder of Our Nation)

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AT KANYAKUMARI

Traversing the entire subcontinent, finally Swamiji came to Trivendrum, After a short stay there he proceeded to Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of our Motherland, in the last week of December 1892. The visit to Kanyakumari is an important landmark in the parivrajaka life of Swamiji, as it truly marks the beginning of his rise to world fame in addition to the great fulfillment it brought in his personal life. He prostrated before the Divine Mother Kanyakumari in the temple and swam over to the rock, bearing the imprint to Devi Kumari's foot. Sitting on this last vestige of our land he fell into a profound reverie which took him over the past, present and future of our Motherland. He saw before him the wonderful glory that was his Motherland's in ages gone by. he saw before him her great riches and treasures being plundered by the foreign invaders reducing her to a state of beggary. The insults and injuries that were inflicted upon her pained him to the utmost. The terrible poverty and ignorance of the masses which he himself had seen and experienced in his wanderings lay heavy on him. As he sat in meditation, a sanyasin though he was, his focus was not self-realisation. On the other hand, he was searching for a clear injunction from his inner self which would launch him on a mission for the revival of the great culture and traditions of his Motherland. During the three days meditations on this hallowed rock, his mission in life became clear to him and he decided to embark on his future course of action. In his own words, he 'hit upon a plan'. He realised that it was his duty to raise this holiest of lands once more to the position of glory which had been rightly hers in the past. He observed, "We, as a nation, have lost our individuality and that is the cause of all the mischief in India. We have to give back to the nation its lost individuality and raise the masses".

 

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