Swami Vivekananda (The Master Builder of Our Nation)

[Guest guest]

THE WHEEL OF DHARMA

What upset Swamiji most was the inertia that had gripped the Nation reducing it to a condition of helplessness. He felt that the people's ignorance and poverty were the root causes for this evil. The first and foremost service needed to our downtrodden brethren was, the reawakening and development of their lost individuality and dignity. Priest power and the frequent foreign conquests had destroyed their human dignity and reduced them to serfdom in thought and action for centuries. The poor in India were almost forgetting that they were human beings. Swamiji questioned, if "hopeless they were born, hopeless should they remain ?" Eradicating poverty and ignorance from among people, he deemed as the first duty of the mission. Every nation, every man and every woman must work out his own salvation. But they should be given ideas, their eyes had to be opened to what is going on in the world around them and then, he felt that they would work out their own salvation. For this, he wanted that the truths of Vedantic ideals should 'become living - poetic - in every day life' He wanted to set in motion the wheel of such a spiritual message - the wheel of dharma.

 

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