Swami Vivekanand

A Spiritual Reformer of India

Born – 12 January 1863, kolkata

Died – 04 July 1902, Belur

Narendranath Dutta, son of a well-known lawyer in Calcutta, Biswanath Dutta, and a very intelligent and pious lady, Bhuvaneshwari Devi in the year 1863. Biswanath often had scholarly discussions with his clients and friends on politics, religion and society. He more often invites Narendranath to join the discussions. Narendra, never embarrassed and joyfully be a part of debates and discussions. Narendra learnt the Epics and Puranas from his mother.

Narendra passed Entrance Examination from the Metropolitan Institute and FA & BA Examinations from the General Assembly’s Institution (now Scottish Church College). Hastie, Principal of the college, was highly impressed by Narendra’s philosophical insight. It was from Hastie that he first heard about Sri Ramakrishna.

As a student of philosophy, the question of god very much attracted his mind. Was there a God? If there was a God, what was he like? What were man’s relation with him? Did he create this world which was so full of anomalies? He discussed these questions with many, but no one could give him satisfactory answers. He looked to persons who could say they had seen God, but found none. In the meantime, Keshab Sen had became the head of the Brahmo Movement. He was a great orator and many young people, attracted by his speeches, enrolled as member of the Brahmo Samaj, Narendra also did the same. For some time, he was satisfied with what the Brahmo Samaj taught him, but soon he began to feel that it did not quite touch the core of the matter, so far as religion was concerned.

One day someone advise him to visit Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar, to remove all his doubts about religion. He met Ramakrishna when Ramakrishna comes to Brahmo samaj, but nothing changed. Ramakrishna was not able to create impression on Narendra’s mind. Ramakrishna, however, invited Narendra to visit him at Dakshineswar. He went to Ramakrishna and asked straightaway if he had seen God. He said he had, and if Narendra so wished, he could even show God to him. This took Narendra by surprise. For sometime Narendra thinks about Ramakrishna as ‘monomaniac’. To clear his approach, he began to watch him from close quarters and after a long time he was left in no doubt that Ramakrishna was an extraordinary man. Narendra loved and admired Ramakrishna but never surrendered his independence of judgement. Nevertheless, Narendra gradually came to accept Ramakrishna as his master.

Ramakrishna suffered from cancer and passed away in 1886. During his illness, a group of selected young men had gathered around him and began to nurse him while receiving spiritual guidance from him. Narendra was the leader of this group. Ramakrishna wanted that they should take to monastic life and had symbolically given them Gerua cloth. They accordingly founded a monastery and began to live together depending upon what they got by begging. Narendra also would sometimes go travelling. It was while he was thus travelling that he assumed the name of Swami Vivekanand.

Vivekanand travelled extensively throughout India sometimes on foot. He was shocked to see the condition of rural India people ignorant, superstitious, half-starved and victims of caste-tyranny. If this shocked him, the callousness of the so-called educated upper classes shocked him still more. In the course of his travels, he met many princes who invited him to stay with them as their guest. He also met city-based member of the intelligentsia-lawyers, teachers, journalists and government officials. He appealed to all to do something for masses. But, no one seemed to pay any heed to him except the Maharaja of Mysore, the Maharaja of Khetri and a few young men of Madras. He wanted the masses educated. The ruler of Mysore was among the first to make primary education free within the State. But this was not enough in views of Vivekanand. A peasant could not afford to send his children to school, for he needed help in his field. He wanted education taken to the peasant’s door-step, so that the peasant’s children could work and learn side-by-side.

Other princes or the intelligentsia as a whole, were impressed by Vivekanand’s personality, but were much too engrossed with their own affairs to pay any heed to his appeals. Once a group of young people begged him to go to the USA to attend the forthcoming Parliament of Religions in Chicago to represent Hinduism. Vivekanand made a tremendous impression in USA and after that in England. The press paid him the highest tributes as an exponent of India’s age-old values, overnight, he became a great national hero in India. It was under the Vivekanand’s direct inspiration that the Ramakrishna Mission was founded in 1897. This mission in all its 69 years of experience has probably alleviated more human suffering and spread more education than any other institution in this period. True to his spirit, he was a great champion of woman too. Basing his thoughts on the ideals set by Sita, Savitri, Damayanti and such other great woman etc., he stated that an Indian woman was the living embodiment of universal motherhood.

He gave some beautiful quotes:

“You have to grow from inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.”

“We are what our thoughts have made us, so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.”

He remarked: “After me, hundreds of Vivekanandas will be born and each of them hundred times greater than I.” If this man is not a God-man who else is?