Life of Swami Vivekananda

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Life of Swami Vivekananda

 

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About Swami Vivekananda

 

As a young person of 23 years or so, Swami Vivekananda

spoke to the Master in this strain: " I want to remain

immersed in samadhi for three or four days, continuously,

breaking it only for a little food. " But the Master

reprimanded him: " Shame on you! You are seeking such an

insignificant thing. There is a state higher than that

even. Is it not you who sing, 'Thou art all that exists?'

I thought you would be like a banyan, sheltering thousands

from the scorching misery of the world. But now I see

you seek your own liberation. " A few days later, however,

Shri Ramakrishna blessed him with the experience of

Nirvikalpa Samadhi. When the beloved disciple came back

from that state, the Master said: " Now, then the Mother

has shown you everything. Just as a treasure is locked

in a box, so will this realization be hidden from you

and the key shall remain with me. You have work to do.

When you have finished it, the treasure will be unlocked

again, and you will know everything then just as you do

now. "

 

And, thus, the beloved disciple of the Master worked on

incessantly for the next 16 years with a zeal that one

rarely sees, surmounting mountain high and unthinkable

obstacles, not even caring for his own liberation on

the way, till his body broke down under the stress of

intense work at the relatively young age of 39 years

and five months. And a work was set into motion that

laid a strong foundation once more for Hinduism to stand

on a firm footing - this time against the onslaught of

narrow-mindedness and sectarianism and bigotry on the

one hand and western and modern science on the other

hand - and thereby vindicating Sri Krishna's teaching

that the Lord manifests his power again and again to

protect the Eternal Religion!

 

Sister Nivedita sums up the compass of Swamiji's work

on the spiritual level: " Of the Swami's address before

the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that when

he began to speak it was of " the religious ideas of

the Hindus " , but when he ended, Hinduism had been

created. "

....

He stands merely as the Revealer, the Interpreter to

India of the treasures that she herself possesses in

herself. The truths he preaches would have been as true,

had he never been born. Nay more, they would have been

equally authentic. The difference would have lain in

their difficulty of access, in their want of modern

clearness and incisiveness of statement, and in their

loss of mutual coherence and unity. Had he not lived,

texts that today will carry the bread of life to

thousands might have remained the obscure disputes of

scholars. He taught with authority, and not as one of

the Pundits. For he himself had plunged to the depths

of the realization which he preached, and he came back

like Ramanuja only to tell its secrets to the pariah,

the outcast, and the foreigner. " Swamiji himself best

summed up the great impact of his work and mission

about a year before his passing away: " What does it

matter! " , he said, " I have given them enough for

fifteen hundred years. " And what a mass of thought !

 

And, yet Swamiji was more, far, far more, than a brilliant

intellect and a great spiritual power. Although he had

become famous overnight throughout America at the

Parliament of Religions and the doors of the rich were

open to him, he wept over his victory, remembering his

people at home, sunk in poverty and ignorance, for whose

sake he had come to America. On the very night of his

success at the Parliament of Religions, as he retired

to bed, he cried out in despair, rolling in agony on

the ground: " 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! " And that heart set in motion the foundation

of a new form of Order in India - The Ramakrishna

Mission - which performs yeoman service for the

amelioration of the innumerable sufferings of the poor

brethren of the Indian sub-continent - a mass of land

that is home to almost a fifth of humanity !

 

Even a single spark of Vivekananda is enough to set a

mansion on fire - and yet, what a mighty flame that

was ! A few hours before his passing away, Swamiji

said: " If there were another Vivekananda, then he

would have understood what this Vivekananda has done.

And yet how many Vivekanandas shall be born in time? "

 

Rare indeed it is to come across such a brilliant

intellect and such a magnanimous heart in such a

frame of ethereal beauty ! Sip, brethren, drink deep,

from that selfless life in this compiled and edited

version of the Swamiji's life by Swami Gambhirananda.