Brij Mohan Sharma
Today, India, along with rest of the world is celebrating the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda — a mighty spiritual personality, a dynamic and dedicated patriot, a devoted social reformer and above all, an “Orator by Divine right”. He introduced new life into India and helped her to get out of the centuries old isolation and despondency brought about by foreign invasions, subjections and devastations. His diagnosis of the maladies from which our country was suffering was not superficial. He had gone deep into the causes which were eating into the vitals of our country, and were responsible for her downfall. He, therefore took it upon himself to make the people aware of their social, political and spiritual infirmities, and awaken them to the realities of modern age. For this, he counselled them to follow their age-old golden spiritual formula which beckons us to combine external action in a spirit of service for the enrichment of society with internal action for the spiritual enrichment of the individual.
Swamiji usually sought answers from prominent leaders of all religions to a single question, “Have you seen God?’’ None was able to satisfy the seeker in him. One day he asked the same question to his revered Guru, Sri Ramakrishna Parmahansa. The Guru unhesistatingly replied, “Yes, I have. I see God as clearly as I see you, only in a much deeper sense.’’ This straight and confident answer from his Guru directly touched the very core of Vivekananda, and therefrom began a unique Guru-disciple relationship, which wrought a transformation in the eighteen – year old intellectual Narendranath Datta, who was destined to emerge as Swami Vivekananda.
Swami ji’s span of earthly life, alas, was hardly forty years. He was born on January 12, 1863 and left this world on July 4, 1902. Within this short period he lived an intense life.
Being the foremost disciple of his great master, he wandered across the length and breadth of India, mostly on foot, to see for himself the plight of country’s impoverished multitudes who had been reduced to this pitiable condition by foreign yoke. Though he was not in a position to do much for them materially, his spiritual preachings and teachings worked as a balm for their sufferings.
He was shocked to see that “the poor fellows work hard from morning to sunset, and somebody else takes the bread out of their hands, and their children go hungry. Notwithstanding the millions of tons of wheat raised in India, scarcely a grain passes the mouth of a peasant. He lives upon the poorest corn which you would not feed to your canary birds.’’
Nonetheless, it was solacing for him to find that though the instinct of these poor fellows was to plough, they were religious to the core. “If you rob them, murder them, tax them, do anything to them, they will be quiet and gentle, so long as you leave them free to practise their religion’’. They would not allow anybody to interfere with their religion, nor would they interfere with others. “Leave us the liberty to worship our gods and take everything else’’, they would say.
Swami Vivekananda’s public teachings and activities actually commence on September 11, 1893 with his speeches at the world’s Parliament of Religions at Chicago. He won the hearts of Americans with his very first speech, when he addressed them as “Sisters and Brothers of America’’. In fact, these five words had such an electric effect on the audience that before he could proceed further with his speech, the entire audience rose to their feet and broke into a prolonged applause for several minutes and greeted him with unprecedented enthusiasm. They could feel that his words were completely free from platitudes, and reflected spontaneous realization of the spiritual Oneness of mankind.
His subsequent speeches completely captured the whole assembly for their spirit of universality, earnestness and breadth of outlook. He came to be known as an ‘orator by divine right’ and a ‘Messenger of Indian Wisdom’ to the Western world.
In the final session of the Parliament, Swami Vivekananda made a sincere and grand appeal for the harmony of religious faiths. He told the audience that this Parliament “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.’’
Next day, the New York Herald remarked, “He is undoubtedly a great figure… After hearing him we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to his learned nation.”
He spent four intense years in the United States and England, and five equally hectic years in India delivering his message of a universal and practical spirituality, and setting in motion a movement as an effective conduit for the furtherance of his message.
The goals of his Mission were based on the ideals of Karma Yoga, with its primary objective to save the poor masses in India. He urged people to achieve divinity of the soul through selfless work, worship and mental discipline. An ardent nationalist, Swami Vivekananda had the welfare of his countrymen top most on his mind. “Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is reached’’ was his perpetual message.
His teachings cut across all divisions based on political or religious affiliations. He held that spirituality was the core of every religion; dogmatic exclusiveness and intolerance are not part of every religion. The more spiritual a man, the more universal he is. He held that modern age stood in urgent need of this education from religion, by which men will learn to make their love of God into the love and service of all men.
“What I want to propagate is a religion that will be equally acceptable to all minds; it must be equally emotional, equally mystic, and equally conducive to action.. And this combination will be the ideal of the nearest approach to a universal religion….. every one who has only one or two of these elements of character I consider ‘one-sided’; and the world is almost full of such ‘one-sided’ men, with knowledge of that one road in which they move, and anything else is dangerous and horrible to them. To become harmoniously balanced in all the four directions is my ideal of religion.’’
Today, when we are celebrating Swami Vivekananda Ji’s birth anniversary, it would be quite in the fitness of things if we remember his conception of the future of our country. He believed that our culture is a rich mosaic containing Hindu, Muslim and other elements…… He also believed that the Hindus and the Muslims have certain things to learn from each other, which would make them not merely better Hindus and better Muslims, but what is more important better men. He exhorted his countrymen to discard narrow loves, hates, and grow into that wholeness which is perfection of character. In the same vein, he exhorted the Hindus to discard the sectional loyalties of caste and sect and grow into that fullness and wholeness expressive of Divine in man.
(The author is former Additional Secretary to Govt of J&K)
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