Vivekananda's address- at Chicago on Sep 11,1893

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Swami Vivekananda's Speeches: at The World Parliament of Religions, Chicago

WELCOME ADDRESS - Chicago, Sept 11, 1893

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 most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration.

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.

I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.

I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair.

Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

= Swami Vivekananda

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Read the Concluding Address:CONCLUDING ADDRESS - Chicago, Sept 27, 1893

The World's Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and crowned with success their most unselfish labour.

My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and then realized it. My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to this enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.

Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, "Brother, yours is an impossible hope." Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.

The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.

Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: "Help and not fight,Assimilation and not Destruction,Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."

- Swami Vivekananda

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Visit Kanyakumari - the southern most tip of India, in Tamil Nadu, where there is Swami Vivekananda Memorial, to go in a boat to that place in the Indian Ocean.

http://hinduism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://travel.indiamart.com/tamil%2Dnadu/kanyakumari/

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Ramakrishna Order:-Ramakrishna Mission started by Swami Vivekananda:=================================================

Spiritual Guru of Swamy Vivekananda - Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ( 1836- 1886)has his ashram at Thiruvannamalai, did lot of penance in the Thiruvannamalai hills & spent his last days there.

Born in 1836 in a remote village of Bengal in India, Sri Ramakrishna attained an exalted state of spiritual illumination. Before his passing in August 1886, who lived for 50 years, he gave monastic vows to a group of young, earnest spiritual seekers. That was the seed of the monastic order which later became known as the Ramakrishna Order. The first monastery (Sanskrit, Math) at Baranagore, a northern suburb of Kolkata, was organized by Ramakrishna’s monastic disciples headed by Swami Vivekananda. Gradually the Order set for itself a twofold ideal:

to create a band of monastic teachers of Vedanta as taught by Sri Ramakrishna and practically illustrated by his own life; and in conjunction with the lay disciples to carry on missionary and philanthropic work, looking upon all - irrespective of caste, creed or color - as veritable manifestations of the Divine.

For some time the latter work was carried on through an association called the Ramakrishna Mission Association, started by Swami Vivekananda in May 1897, shortly after his return from the West. In 1899 he shifted the Math, which had changed places by then, to its present site in Belur, across the river Ganga, about six kilometers north of Howrah railway station, where it set itself more vigorously to the task of training a band of monks inspired with the twin ideals of Self-realization and service to the world. Soon after this, the Math authorities took upon themselves the work of the Mission Association.

The Ramakrishna Math was registered as a trust in 1901. To facilitate the work of the Mission Association and for giving it a legal status, a society named the Ramakrishna Mission was registered in 1909 under Act XXI of 1860. Its management was vested in a Governing Body. Both the Math and the Mission gradually extended their spheres of activity as a result of which a number of branches in different parts of India and abroad came into existence. Excluding the Headquarters at Belur, the Order has 141 branches in all with resident swamis. The distribution of centers is as follows: 10 in Bangladesh; 1 each in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Fiji, France, Japan, Mauritius, Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, and UK; 12 in USA; and 106 in India.

Though the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission with their respective branches are distinct legal entities, they are closely related, inasmuch as the Governing Body of the Mission is made up of the Trustees of the Math; the administrative work of the Mission is mostly in the hands of the monks of the Ramakrishna Math, and both have their Headquarters at Belur Math. The Math organization is constituted under the trust with well-defined rules of procedure. The Mission is a registered society.

Though both the organizations take up charitable and philanthropic activities, the former lays emphasis on religion and preaching, while the latter is wedded mainly to welfare services undertaken with the spiritual outlook.

This distinction should be borne in mind, though "Ramakrishna Mission" is loosely associated by people with Math activities also. In the West, the branches of the Ramakrishna Order are generally known as "Vedanta Society." It is necessary, moreover, to point out that the appropriation of the name of Sri Ramakrishna or Swami Vivekananda by any institution does not necessarily imply that it is a branch of either the Ramakrishna Math or the Ramakrishna Mission.

The Math and the Mission own separate funds and keep separate accounts of them. Both the Math and the Mission centers in India receive grants from the Indian federal and state governments and also public bodies, as well as donations from the public. The accounts of both the Math and the Mission are annually audited by qualified auditors

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