Have you seen God -Vivekananda asks Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

June 26, 2004

Swami Vivekananda's life history : - who started the Ramakrishna Mission

This is the 102 year Death Anniversary of Swamy Vivekananda:(12/Jan/1863 - 4/Jul/1902)

Swami Vivekananda is one of most admired spiritual leaders of India. The world knows him as an inspiring Hindu monk, his motherland regards him as the patriot saint of modern India, and Hindus consider him as a source of spiritual power, mental energy, strength-giving and open-mindedness.

Vivekananda was born on January 12, 1863, in a middle-class Bengali family of Calcutta. Narendranath Dutt, as he was called before sainthood, grew up to be a youth of great charm and intelligence. In a pre-independent India hidebound by communal disharmony and sectarianism, this blithe spirit soared above the rest to become the manifestation of freedom - the summum bonum of human life.

An avid scholar of Western and Hindu philosophy and ever thirsty for the mystery of Creation and the law of Nature, Vivekananda found his guru in Sri Ramkrishna Paramhamsa. He toured across India to know his country and people, and found his spiritual alma mater at the Kanyakumari rock in Cape Comorin at the southern most tip of the Indian peninsula. The Vivekananda memorial is now a landmark for tourists and pilgrims, and a tribute to him by his country men. ************ **************** ********************

Have You Seen God? Vivekananda meets and asks Ramakrishna !!

'I, I am God', 'Yes, all is God,' says Ramakrishna Paramahamsapeals back Heaven's deathless call.

In his early years,more than a century ago an adolescent boy of Calcutta, Narendra Nath Dutta was obsessed with the idea of seeing God. He was firmly grounded in the works of occidental philosophers, but none could fulfil his cherished aspiration. His search took him to the ghats of Ganges where atop an anchored barge sat the leader of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Maharshi Devendra Nath Tagore, a Guru in spiritual matters, father of the poet Tagore. But the 'Great Seer' was taken aback by Narendra's question - 'Sir, have you seen God?' - and tried to assuage him by saying that his eyes resembled that of a yogi, and that he should spiritually prosper by meditation.

Disappointed and desperate the young man one day, along with his friends, went to meet Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, a somewhat eccentric priest of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar in Calcutta. At the first opportunity Narendra put him the same question - "Sir, have you seen God?"

But this practically illiterate priest, unlike the erudite Maharshi, replied in rural dialect without mincing words - "Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked with him more intimately than I am talking to you. But my child, who wants to see God! People shed jugs of tears for money, wife and children. But if they weep for God for only one day they would surely see Him."

Narendra intuitively knew that here was a genuine man to whom God was a living reality and not at all a philosophical concept or an intellectual pastime. As we know it was under the ecclesiastical tutelage of Sri Ramakrishna (1836-86) that Narendra Nath Dutta graduated into a full-blossomed spiritual soul, later to be known as Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902).

According to Vivekananda, "My master was not learned but learning personified." This inhibition of highest spiritual knowledge comes not from cramming spiritual texts but from attaining direct realisation of Divinity through various paths prescribed by the spiritual masters of yore. The boldness of 'Sanatan Dharma' we call Hinduism is that it emphasises nothing short of direct perception of Truth as the goal of human life.

The sage in Upanishad proclaims unequivocally "I know this great Person who is resplendent like the sun, and beyond darkness. By knowing him alone one can transcend death, there exists no other path (alternative)". So it is by a first-hand perception of this effulgent truth - 'Satchit Ananda' (Existence-Consciousness-Delight) - whose amaranthine visage according to scriptures is covered with a lid of gold and one can cleave into the supreme secret of All-being which is also All-becoming. There lies the validity of religion in particular and life in general.

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The Vivekananda House

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This house in South Pasadena where the Swami stayed in 1900 has now become a shrine.

Swami Vivekananda rose to worldwide fame in 1893, when he visited America to attend the first Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. The uninvited young monk addressed this august assembly and electrified the audience. His speech made him world famous overnight: "Sisters and Brothers of America, it fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people …"

Vivekananda's life and teachings are of inestimable value to the West for an understanding of the mind of Asia, says Swami Nikhilananda of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, New York. On the occasion of America's Bicentennial Celebration in 1976, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., mounted a large portrait of Swami Vivekananda as part of its exhibition 'Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation', which paid tribute to the great personalities who visited America from abroad and made a deep impression on the American mind.

William James called the Swami the "paragon of Vedantists." Max Muller and Paul Deussen, the famous Orientalists of the nineteenth century, held him in genuine respect and affection. "His words," writes Romain Rolland, "are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his…without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shocks…must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!''

An inspiring spiritual and social leader, Vivekananda has left an indelible mark in history with his teachings, which are studied everywhere in India and abroad. The immortal soul passed away on the 4th of July, 1902 at the young age of 38.

This year on July 4th 2004, it will be 102 year Death Anniversary of Swamy Vivekananda.