|
CHAPTER XIV
AWAKENER OF SOULS
'YE ARE CHILDREN of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth—sinners ? It is a sin to call man so....You are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal....' Thrilling words of fire uttered in the accents of a god, addressed through an American audience to the whole of humanity, echoing the voice of the Rishi in the Upanishad : śṛnvantu viśve amṛtasya putrāḥ, 'Hearken unto me, ye children of immortality on earth.' Thus spoke one who only fifteen years back had been somewhat of an agnostic, putting to one religious leader after another the challenging question : 'Sir, have you seen God ?' till his questionings and seekings were silenced by one's prompt and categorical 'Yes'. Whose was this 'Yes' and who wrought this sea-change in the agnostic ? One 'wholly impregnated by God', a silent moulder of souls, one who with his fingers of fire cast the youthful agnostic into a mighty figure of light, destined in his singular effulgence to shine for ever in the firmament of human consciousness as a God-like awakener of souls, knowing no rest till, to quote his own words, 'man becomes one with God'.
How young Narendra, an English-educated youth of Calcutta, was transformed into a vast dynamo of power by which he could shake the world as none before had done in his lifetime, is indeed a story as romantic as real, as fascinating as inspiring. The meaning of this marvellous power becomes clear to some extent when one has some idea of the quality of the seed his Master sowed in him, and the nature of the soil from which his soul sprouted and flowered into its divine magnificence. And none knew more than Sri Ramakrishna who Narendra was. Indeed, everything became completely clear when having given to his chosen disciple all he was and all he had, Sri Ramakrishna said that he and his disciple were no longer separate entities but one complete whole sent to earth by God to reveal to man his divinity. Sri Ramakrishna's unique sadhana and unexampled achievements had of course left their indelible mark on the consciousness of the race and quickened its inherent spirituality. But this inner work had to be energised and developed into a dynamic factor in a resurgence of the national life by which India could recover her freedom and greatness as a nation.
It was for this that the Master gave Vivekananda all the light and strength that he had received from the Mother. In fact, it was not only to be work for the Mother but it was She who would do the work through Vivekananda—the awakening of India and the world. It is well-known that Narendra was born with a power of heaven which made him extremely restless when very young, and with his mental development, he became an impassioned seeker of truth without which he felt his life had no meaning. The divine touch of the Master kindled his inborn fire into the naming light of the Mother which burst into the glory that was Swami Vivekananda, 'the world-teacher', 'the mighty Lion of Vedanta' the puissant cry of whose soul rang across the continents and roused man from his agelong sleep in ignorance to the truth and light of the Godhead in him. The cry became all the more vibrant in his own motherland whose uplift became the engrossing concern of his life, for without her uplift, said he, there could be no real peace for the whole world. Vivekananda was thus the first in modern times to emphasise this truth in his plan of work for India's regeneration.
The later prophets of Indian nationalism in whatever they said, wrote or did never forgot to underline the idea that India was rising not for her own self alone but also for the vaster self of the world. And, as seen above, of this truth Vivekananda was the first authentic voice. He felt for India's suffering millions as none had felt before, and why ? because to him they were gods by serving whom, he said, India would be serving God. This Vedantic basis of Indian nationalism was strengthened by another factor : Bankim's vision of India as the Mother whose awakening after long sleep was proclaimed by Vivekananda. These are among the facts which point to the resurgence of modem India beginning with the divine dawn that broke out of Sri Ramakrishna. The dawn widened with the activation of the light that he had infused into his disciple and its first rays' fell on the sleeping soul of India. Who is this disciple ? Why-did his own people and the elite of the world bow down to him ?
The famous family of the Dattas of Simla, in Calcutta, was chosen by an extraordinary soul for its earthly sojourn. The immediate relations of Narendranath Datta—the name borne by this soul—kept up their family traditions of learning, nobility, and culture. Apart from his scholarship, Durgacharan's Godward inclinations led him to renounce the world when he was twentyfive and his first son just born. This was Viswanath, the father of Narendra. A successful lawyer, he was held in high esteem by his people for his large heart, varied learning and wide cultural interests. He was a lover of Western culture and enjoyed reading the Bible and Persian poetry. Equally noble and gifted was his wife, a woman of exceptional intelligence, 'full of fire of one born, as it were, to regal state'. Her faith in God, and kindness towards all were remarkable as well as her unusual memory thanks to which most of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata was at her finger-tips.
To these two blessed souls came as their first son Narendranath, on 12 January 1863.
His mother was a most formative influence in the early fife of Narendra. He learnt from her the Bengali alphabet and his first English words. Her character, Narendra said later, was a constant inspiration to his life and work. Very early he imbibed from her the tales of the Epics, Sri Rama having captured his imagination most. He started worshipping a clay image of Sita-Rama. He would often like to play at meditation. One day he was so absorbed in 'this mimic meditation' that the door of the room had to be forced open and he shaken back to normal consciousness. On another occasion when he was meditating with his playmates, a cobra came very near to him driving away all his playmates, he remaining motionless in meditation. The cobra glided away. When asked afterwards he said, 'I knew nothing of the snake or anything else. I was feeling inexpressible bliss.'
For wandering monks he had a special liking and when they would come to his door for alms Narendra would give away whatever he would have with him including the clothes on his body. He started having inner experiences even when he was a child. Whenever he would close his eyes trying to sleep there would appear between his eye-brows a wonderful spot of light of changing colours which would expand and burst and bathe his whole body in a flood of white radiance. Later, in reply to a question of Sri Ramakrishna as to whether Narendra had such an experience his affirmative answer made the Master say that he was a dhyāna-siddha, an adept in meditation—a fact that pointed to his spiritual past carried over to his present.
But, otherwise, this youngster was so restless that he was difficult, if not impossible, to manage. He was a tease, and none greater. He would annoy everybody but never his pet animals among which was a peacock. The coachman of the family carriage, however, was his special friend and he wanted very much to be one—to him he appeared a magnificent person with his turban on, flourishing a whip as the carriage rolled on. When her boy's fidgetiness would get beyond her control, the mother would complain to Lord Siva that He had given her one of His demons in response to her prayer for a son. But that was how an affectionate mother expressed her annoyance. In fact, Lord Siva had heard her prayer and accepted an offering made to Him on her behalf at Varanasi, and his response came to her in a vivid dream in which the Lord agreed to be bom as her son. Once Sri Ramakrishna called Narendra Siva, and he characterised many of his traits as expressive of his 'Siva-nature,' 'Siva-power.' Sri Aurobindo says that Vivekananda was 'a radiant gleam from the eye of Siva.' That he, like the Buddha, followed the Siva-line is verified by other mystics.
Narendra had a prodigious memory. At six he mastered the three R's and at seven he knew by heart almost the whole of Mugdhabodha, a Sanskrit grammar, and long passages from the Epics. While at school, he would never sit at his desk, so restless he was. The fact is, he was bom with a divine fire. It would give him no rest till it could find a field to burst upon.
Narendra's favourite game was 'King and the court', he always playing the king sitting on the highest step of the stair, and his companions, the members of the court, sitting on the steps according to their ranks, showing all the while their deep respect to his royal dignity. History furnishes similar instances of some of its great makers playing similar games in their earliest days, Cyrus the Great, the builder of Persia (sixth century B.C.) being one such. A playmate of Narendra's early days once told the present writer that there was something in his young looks which compelled immediate obedience; whether he played the king or otherwise, something indefinable of the leader was in him. Games and physical activities provided an outlet for his abundant energy. He would always play furiously, inventing new games. His teachers found it difficult to control him. Narendra could divide his mind and when the class was on, he would amuse his friends with stories, himself listening to the teacher at the same time, always correctly answering his questions, while his friends listening to his stories could not. Narendra showed how fearless he was when he climbed upon a tree haunted by an evil spirit. By his ready wit and pranks he endeared himself to all. He organised an amaterur theatrical, and a gymnasium. Later, for his physical feats he won the admiration of Navagopal Mitra, the famous founder of Jatiya Mela, 'National Gathering,' who put him in charge of his own gymnasium.
But this boy of wild pranks was completely innocent of the dubious ways of the world, and this he was to the last day of his life. Designing people would often make an easy dupe of him. While he was developing his body he began to meditate at night and was blessed with wonderful visions. Mosdy due to the influence on him of his wise father, a change was now coming over him and he developed a preference for intellectual pursuits. In 1880 he passed the college Entrance Examination mastering three years' lessons in one year as he was away from Calcutta with his father for two years. 'Just two or three days before the Examination,' he said, T found that I hardly knew anything of Geometry. Then I began to study the subject keeping awake for the whole night and in course of twentyfour hours I mastered the four books of Geometry.' Narendra had now a good knowledge of the standard works on history and literature, both English and Bengali. And this he acquired with his extraordinary power of reading, which he developed first, as he himself said, by mastering the contents of a book by just reading the first and the last line of a paragraph, then only the first and last line of a page, and when there was a discussion or explanation covering four, five or more pages, only the first few lines of the first of these pages;—a superhuman feat of comprehension and memory blended together !
In college Narendra's brilliant intellect astounded his professors, both Indian and English. Principal W.W. Hastie once remarked that he had never in his travels over the continents come across a lad of his talents and possibilities. 'He is bound to make his mark in life.' As was natural, Narendra was not satisfied with his text-books. He acquired a thorough grasp of all the masterpieces of Western history, philosophy and logic. His deep studies in Western science and its analytical processes stood him in good stead when later he had to meet Western seekers and explain to them in terms of reason the mystic teachings of the Vedanta. And his success in this was indeed matchless. The rationalistic outlook he developed later came for a more important use when Sri Ramakrishna, as he himself said, wanted somebody to test the validity of his spiritual experiences. That was why he would always invite such questions from Narendra as would require him to expound his teachings to the satisfaction of the modern mind of his disciple.
Anyway, from the mental standpoint, Narendra was now an earnest seeker of truth, the truth that would solve for him the mystery of the universe. And rationalism, he then held, was the only means through which he could achieve this aim. The Brahmo Samaj which he joined like all free-thinking minds of the time, was certainly an incentive to the growth of his progressive outlook on social and religious matters but it could not give him what his soul was hungering for. The quest deepened when none of its leaders could give an affirmative answer to his question, 'Mahasaya, apni ki bhagavanke dekhechhen. 'Sir, have you seen God ?' If there is a God, he must know Him. If these devout leaders who were most of their time talking of God had not seen Him, who then could prove His existence to his mind ? This was the question that was uppermost in Narendra's mind when one day he met Sri Ramakrishna at the house of a devotee in Calcutta, where he was invited to sing. He had already heard about Sri Ramakrishna from Principal Hastie of his college who once, in class, while explaining the ecstasy of a poet, referred to Sri Ramakrishna whom he had observed as enjoying that blessed state. He now decided to go and see Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar. As soon as he appeared before him, he recognised Narendra as the one he had been waiting for. He took him to a side-room and 'began to shed tears of joy like one meeting a long lost dear one'. Narendra, however, could not make out what all this fuss was. He took Sri Ramakrishna's words as of a mad man. Nevertheless, he was struck by his renunciation, sincerity and saintliness, and felt that he must have been a God-inspired man who could satisfy the quest of his soul. And when he repeated his question he received an answer which revolutionalised his life. Here are Vivekananda's own words on what Sri Ramakrishna told him in reply. 'Yes, my son, I have seen God. I do see Him, just as I see you before me. Only I see the Lord in a much more intense sense, and I can show Him to you.' This is one of those divine affirmations that are vouchsafed to man at a turning-point in his life.
In their next meeting when Sri Ramakrishna touched Narendra's person with the toe of his right foot the latter instantaneously lost his external consciousness and got 'merged in an all-compassing mysterious Void'. As he was unable to bear it long Sri Ramakrishna touched his breast and brought him back to normal state. This incident gave a rude shock to Narendra's pride in his rationalism. He had now to admit that Sri Ramakrishna was a rare wonder, certainly not a lunatic. With more and more of their meetings both grew in mutual understanding, Sri Ramakrishna studying the inner life of Narendra, especially when the latter by his touch would dive into his own self, and Narendra recognising in Sri Ramakrishna a great spiritual personality. Yet Narendra's Brahmo leanings would not let him believe in the oneness of the individual soul and Brahman, in the necessity of a guru as spiritual guide, in the forms of God, in His worship through an image, and in the Radha-Krishna episode of the Hindu scriptures which he denounced as profane and objectionable. But Sri Ramakrishna's love for him was so deep, and his spirituality so dynamic that Narendra had gradually to accept Sri Ramakrishna's standpoint, and regard him as his Master. Sri Ramakrishna would actually pine for his beloved disciple when the latter's visits to him were less frequent. And whenever Narendra would come he would fall into trance. Often the mere sight of him would send the Master into Samadhi. Once he said, 'Every time I see Narendra I see the Lord in him.' On another occasion, when Sri Ramakrishna saw Narendra, he touched his face and began to chant the most holy word of the Vedas. He used to say that Narendra and a few others were nityasiddhas, eternally perfect, iśwara-kotis, special messengers of God born on earth to fulfil a divine mission. That they were going through the training under him was, as the Master himself said, 'not for themselves but for the good of the world'. The struggles and difficulties through which they passed would be helpful to them later in understanding and solving the difficulties of others.
Sri Ramakrishna would never reject outright any view of Narendra which contradicted his own spiritual realisations. He would argue with his disciple and let him give full play to his reasoning faculty, just to prove to him that even the highest flights of reason cannot reach the Truth which is beyond mind. Thus when Narendra finished his argument against the central theme of Advaita Vedanta that 'All this is Brahman', Sri Ramakrishna touched him and himself plunged into Samadhi. 'The magic touch,' says Narendra, 'immediately brought a wonderful change over my mind. I was stupefied to find that really there was nothing in the universe but God.... Everything I saw appeared to be Brahman.... This state of things continued for some days. When I became normal again, I realised that I must have had a glimpse of the Advaita state. Then it struck me that the words of the scriptures were not false. Thenceforth I could not deny the conclusions of the Advaita Philosophy.' One night-»in a dream Narendra saw Sri Ramakrishna transforming himself into the beautiful personality and exquisite form of Sri Radha herself. This so affected Narendra that from then on he began to sing songs of the great spiritual love of Sri Radha, the individual soul, for Sri Krishna, the Indwelling Beloved One.
This was the unique way in which the unique Master trained his unique disciple. But outward expression of love and inward transmission of spirituality were not his only ways. For more than a month the Master remained indifferent to his beloved disciple, and this only to test the sincerity of Narendra's love for him. The disciple came out of the ordeal with his love for the Master all the deeper. He was now most eager to realise God and would not have the supernatural powers the Master offered him; they would not help him, said he, in realising God but might be of help in doing work for God after he had realised Him.
About this time—the early months of 1884—Narendra's father, the only support of the family, left his body. This noble soul had spent more than he earned and was therefore involved in debts with the result that his passing threw the family into utter privations. The relatives for whom Narendra's father did so much turned enemies and even threatened to oust the family from the homestead. The whole burden fell on Narendra who had just passed the B.A. Examination and was admitted to the law class. The son of a rich father, he was now the poorest of the poor in the college. This poverty however had no effect on him personally, but he was so worried about his mother and other members of the family that one day he actually asked Sri Ramakrishna to pray for the removal of his pecuniary wants. The Master said that since he could not make such demands, Narendra could himself ask the Mother—the Mother who has everything in Her power to give. As directed by the Master, Narendra went to the temple of Kali at Dakshineswar, prostrated himself before the image of the Mother but prayed to Her only for love, devotion and knowledge. The Master sent him back again to ask for what he had originally wanted. He came back saying that he could do nothing but repeat his first prayer. And he did the same thing over again when for the third time he went to the temple at the insistence of the Master. Narendra said that he shrank from asking for relief from worldly suffering. The Master then gave him the assurance that his family would never be in want.
This incident showed the tremendous change that had come over Narendra. He accepted the Motherhood of God and the worship of Him through images and this made Sri Ramakrishna exceedingly happy. Events having important bearings on Narendra's life began now to happen, and the more notable among them in which Sri Ramakrishna figured prominently have been mentioned in the previous chapter. About this time Narendra's relatives insisted that he must marry and settle down, thinking that a marriage would keep him away from otherworldly pursuits. Narendra himself was absolutely against it and he knew that he was not meant to be a householder. When Sri Ramakrishna came to know about it he prayed to Mother to save Narendra to do Her work for the good of humanity.
The scene was now the garden-house at Cossipore in the northern suburbs of Calcutta, to which the Master was removed when his throat-trouble developed serious symptoms. In this quiet atmosphere he had as his companions only the young disciples who were by his constant spiritual influence indirectly prepared for their future work for the Mother. Besides, the guidance the Master gave to each was according to the individual need and capacity. Narendra had already grown in his inner life and was now conscious of the role allotted to him to play in the work for the Mother. And Sri Ramakrishna took care to bring this home to him every time Narendra wanted to drown himself in meditation to rise to the transcendent states of Samadhi. Nevertheless, the Master gave him these too, and more—all that he had and was, thereby building him up into a dynamic replica of his own self for the accomplishment of his mission on earth. Thus did the Master not only initiate him into the various paths of inner discipline which brought him remarkable results, but gave him the highest of spiritual experiences—those of Advaita Vedanta and Nirvikalpa Samadhi: in the former the human soul realises its oneness with Brahman and makes the supreme utterance T am Brahman'; his experiences of Nirvikalpa Samadhi have been referred to in the previous chapter. But more important than these, according to Sri Ramakrishna, was Narendra's work for humanity for which of course he must have sufficient spiritual powers and these the Master himself gave to his disciple as his last greatest gift, emptying himself of all his spiritual possessions. With these Narendra stood reinforced in the powers of leadership with which he was born and which now grew into a divine strength.
Sri Ramakrishna's last wish was that Narendra should take charge of the boys with whom the Master formed the nucleus of the Ramakrishna Order, and guide them in the growth of their spiritual life on the basis of renunciation, selflessness and purity, emphasised by him as indispensable for their inner development and for their future work. The Master now left his body entrusting the fulfilment of his work to the one marked for it by the Mother.
One of the greatest events in modern history was how to a rationalistic mind—a product of Western influence—Sri Ramakrishna revealed the truth and light of the spirit and conquered that mind for God, for the Mother. Of course the mind that had this transformation was of an extraordinary soul with an inborn quest for the truth, and with rare supernormal powers. It was indeed an exceptional phenomenon, a miracle, as it were, proving to the world that a mere touch of a God-realised man could open a seeker to new worlds of Light and baptise him into their splendours. Sri Ramakrishna stood on the peak of his spiritual realisations and when his mouthpiece uttered those eternal truths in the accents of a god he conquered the hearts of millions, he uttered the message of India's soul, and his victory was the victory of his Master, of India, the 'Ancient Mother.'
After the passing of the Master there came over the young group days of trial and hardship as if to nerve them for their work. Austerities of a most severe type they faced without flinching, in the monastery at Baranagore in the northern suburbs of Calcutta, where they carefully preserved the sacred relics of the Master. They would not beg but live on what chance would bring. Many were the days when they had nothing to eat. A piece of loin cloth was all that each had as his wear, a mat on the floor sufficed for their bed, but spiritual discourses, study of scriptures, meditation and singing went on 'as though their bodies did not exist'. And what was the aim of all these ? 'Let man-making be the goal of our lives ! Let us make this our only sadhana !' said Narendra one day to his brother disciples. Knowing as he did that nothing but God-realisation could equip them for that work he would often remind them of it. The atmosphere of the first monastery of the Ramakrishna Order was thus charged with the intensity of their souls' endeavour to achieve their goal. The spirit of true Sannyasa sustained them all and they grew in their inner life. They took monastic names, Narendra remaining without a permanent one, changing his name several times during his itineracy in order to avoid recognition. On the eve of his sailing for America he took the name of Swami Vivekananda at the request of his disciple the Maharaja of Khetri.
Some of the young monks had for a time been burning with a desire to set out on a pilgrimage which is traditionally associated with monkhood. The Swami—that is how Narendra was henceforth known—who also had been panting for it for the last two years, left Calcutta in 1888 and visited some of the religious and historical places of northern India. In the majestic silence of the Himalayas he was deeply absorbed. But the hardships of the journey and severe austerities told upon his health and he returned to Baranagore. Again in 1890 he left, this time for a longer tour with the object of preparing for his work through a life of freedom, and also of seeing his country and his people. While leaving Varanasi he told a friend : T am going away; but I shall never come back until I can burst on society like a bomb and make it follow me.' He went to the Himalayas again and was charmed by the eternal snows. Often in his Himalayan travels the Swami would ask his companions to leave him alone and meet at a certain destination. When they would meet him there they would find him talking to some invisible being and smiling, unaware that he was being seen by his companions. As he came down to the plains, he moved through cities and towns and villages having direct experience of the conditions of his countrymen belonging to all classes and stations of life. Today he would be a beggar sheltered by a sweeper or an 'untouchable', tomorrow a guest of a prince. But the woes of the former would leave him in tears. He used often to say that what India's millions wanted was not religion so much as food and the dignity of free human beings. He therefore took the vow that the one aim of his life would be to raise them to the status of honourable human beings and 'to make them conscious of their individuality as a nation'. While he saw with his own eyes the distress of the millions, he also felt, as he met all classes of people, that the heart-beats of ancient India persisted even through the benumbing degradation of the present days, and that India bore ever within her bosom the spark of the divine fire which under favourable conditions would blaze up again.
The greatness of his soul, the largeness of his heart, his profound learning, his pious simplicity, and above all, his God-like personality, all combined to exert an irresistible influence over whomsoever he met. He was friend, philosopher and guide to people of all classes and communities. Many a time he accepted the hospitality of Muslims who adored him with all the love and reverence of their heart. Once when an orthodox Hindu questioned his doing this, the Swami burst out that a sannyasi was not bound by any social convention. T see Brahman everywhere, manifested even through the meanest of creatures. For me there is nothing high or low,' were his words. Indeed, this ever-shining glory of God won his day wherever he went. The Maharaja of Alwar whose guest he was told him that he did not believe in image-worship. When the Swami asked the Dewan of the Maharaja to spit on a picture of the Maharaja and the Dewan refused on the obvious ground that the picture was a shadow of the Maharaja, the Swami said that exactly so was an image or idol to the devotee—a shadow of the deity of his worship. The Maharaja admitted that the Swami had opened his eyes to the truth of image-worship. He declared that 'never had he seen such a Mahatma'.
'Be strong, my boys, be manly' was the Swami's advice to the young men of Alwar, to whom he made an impassioned plea to study Sanskrit along with Western science, and rescue the hidden treasures from oblivion. He also said that 'a true, soul-inspiring history of India has yet to be written.' 'Life is the unfoldment and development of a being under circumstances tending to press it down' was one of the luminous answers the Swami gave to the questions of the Maharaja of Khetri who became his disciple. This noble prince was one of those who were behind the Swami's visit to America. It was he who provided him with a handsome purse and passage.
After| Rajputana the Swami wended his way through the Bombay Presidency where also he was given a most cordial reception by all classes of people. A noted Sanskrit scholar of Porbunder was the first to suggest to him that the West and not India was the true field of his work, where by preaching Sanatana Dharma he would throw a great light upon Western culture. This made the Swami glad because it echoed his secret thoughts. He was now found to be extremely restless from an abundance of the world-shaking power Sri Ramakrishna had infused into him. It was the power of the Spirit preserved and fostered by India through the ages for the inner regeneration of man. This inner regeneration of man was to be the burden of his song alike for East and West. Therefore must India rise, India the Mother of Religions, the cradle of civilisation, and the fountain-head of spirituality.'
In his wanderings in the South the Swami met some of its eminent men and princes all of whom were profoundly impressed by what he said about India's past, present and future. Some of those who heard him have left glowing accounts of his luminous exposition of India's culture. The Maharaja of Mysore was struck by 'his brilliancy of thought and learning and charm of his personality.' An Austrian missionary there was amazed by the Swami's knowledge of Western music. But his country was now his constant thought. He had now travelled almost all over the land and saw and felt what his motherland was with all her greatness and glory, poverty and ignorance. While at Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin), the last point of Bharatavarsha, he meditated upon the Mother that India was to him. 'My India ! My India !' rang out his heart. He thought of India as the heart and body of the Aryan soul, with Hinduism—the consciousness of the Spirit—as the central principle of its being. He saw her organically, synthetically and spiritually one. And this vision was the mainspring of all that he did for his motherland. India shall rise only through a renewal and restoration of that highest spiritual consciousness which has made of India, at all times, the cradle of nations and the cradle of the Faith.' Therefore must he restate the spiritual culture of the Rishis, the true religion of India, the decline of which led to India's downfall. Spirituality must therefore be the basis of India's resurgence. This basis could be successfully attempted when her poverty, ignorance and social evils had been done away with.
On his way back the Swami passed through Madras and Hyderabad. In Madras he gained numerous followers who were most eager to give him whatever help they could in fulfilling his wish to go to America and attend the Parliament of Religions. It was these noble sons of Madras whose enthusiastic support laid the foundation of the Swami's work also in the South, on which has developed to-day a splendid organisation for the religious and educational advancement of the peninsular India. By giving its moral and material support to the Swami's mission in the West the South gave, in fact, its support to a great national cause showing thereby how awakened it then was to the sense of an all-India nationality, proofs of which have always been evident in the whole-hearted participation of the South in all progressive movements in India—social, cultural, religious, political and even, revolutionary. Subramanian Bharati, the inspired poet of India's freedom and greatness, V.V.S. Aiyar, Chidambaram Pillai and Subramanian Siva are among the South's outstanding champions of revolutionary nationalism, and dauntless fighters of India's freedom. They will live in the grateful memory of their countrymen along with the revolutionaries of the North like Vinayak Savarkar, Bhai Paramanand, Lala Hardayal, Madanlal Dhingra and the others of Bengal. The contact of the first two with Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry opened them to the truth and light of the coming spiritual renaissance, which Sri Aurobindo revealed in the pages of Arya from 1914 to 1921. Chidambaram Pillai was the first in South India to start a national navigation company in the teeth of opposition from powerful British companies, the first also to champion the cause of the labouring classes.
The South's part in modern India's resurgence in the sphere of religion and spirituality has been quiet, steady and stable. From the early medieval times to the present day there has been in South India a long line of saints, sages, philosophers and Yogis, the simplicity of whose lives, and the sublimity of whose teachings have kept aloft the spiritual heritage of India. One of them, in our day, has been Sri Ramana Maharshi who has disciples and admirers both in India and abroad. By reaffirming India's cultural ideals to modern man, the Theosophical Society with its headquarters in the South has done its best to make its proper contribution to modern India's resurgence.
But this steady and stable character of the South implies no conservative rigidity. Otherwise young Vivekananda's greatness as a Yogi and his inherent capacity for revealing the East to the West could not call forth a quick appreciation in the South. Nor could Sri Aurobindo's revolutionary teachings and his stand on Supramental Transformation find increasing support in cultural circles all over South India.
The fund started by Vivekananda's South Indian admirers in aid of his American mission received generous response from all classes of people including the Muslims. At Hyderabad he delivered a lecture on 'My mission to the West'—his first 'public pronouncement on the subject. Many admirers including noblemen of Hyderabad offered him their help. He now began to prepare for the trip.
1893 is a landmark in the long history of India's spiritual life. For the first time in the present age, it marks the coincidence of two remarkable events ! Swami Vivekananda goes out to the West; Sri Aurobindo comes home to the East. The one to illumine the West with the light of the East as a preparation for a greater light to follow. The other to liberate India the Mother and to liberate the world.
The Swami sailed from Bombay in May, 1893. His halts at the ports of China and Japan gave him an opportunity to have a firsthand idea of the peoples and cultures of these famous countries of Asia. He was struck by the Sanskrit manuscripts and inscriptions in these countries, written in old Bengali characters, bringing home to him the old cultural friendship between them and his country, and the cultural unity of Asia. The rise of Japan inspired his thoughts for his country's uplift. From there, he wrote to a disciple in Madras : India wanted the sacrifice of at least a thousand of her young men, ready to struggle unto death to bring about a new state of things—sympathy for the poor—bread for their hungry mouths—enlightenment to the people at large who had been brought to the level of beasts by the tyranny of their forefathers.'
Chicago opened to him an entirely new and strange world. He did not know what to do. Neither had he enough money. He was, besides, no representative of any organisation to be able to speak at the Parliament of Religions. While at Boston, help had come to him from a rich lady who perceived in him something far above the ordinary. Through her he came into contact with Prof. J. H. Wright of the Harvard University, who recognised the learning and greatness of the Swami and proposed that he should represent Hinduism in the Parliament. When the Swami said that he had no credentials, the Professor's historic reply was : 'To ask you, Swami, for credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine.' Introducing the Swami to the Chairman of the Delegates Committee, the Professor wrote : 'Here is a man who is more learned than all our learned professors put together.' A ticket to Chicago and letters of introduction were the other kindnesses that this noble scholar offered to the Swami who saw the hand of the Divine Providence in the help he received here and from other kind-hearted Americans.
The main idea at the back of the Parliament of Religions, an adjunct of the Chicago World's Fair, was to prove the superiority of Christianity before the representatives of other religions of the world. It was a vast gathering of about ten thousand hailing from various countries of the world which for the first time in his life the Swami had to face. He soon overcame the first touch of hesitation and bowing down to Devi Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of Speech, addressed the audience as 'Sisters and Brothers of America'. 'The effect was electrical; the whole audience stood up to a man cheering and waving wildly for minutes.' All this for the divine warmth and good will in the form of address welling out of the devout heart of a Hindu universalist to whom the whole world is kith and kin. It seemed the Swami's Vedantic soul spoke out. The Swami then thanked the 'Youngest of the nations, in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world, the Vedic order of Sannyasins', and introduced Hinduism as 'the Mother of Religions, a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.' He then quoted from the Hindu scriptures two beautiful passages showing that like different streams mingling in the ocean, different paths of Religion lead to the same divine goal. It was a short speech but proved an outstanding one, vibrating with the breath of universalism which it infused into the hearts of all. Later, in his paper on Hinduism—a masterly exposition of the various aspects of Hindu religious thought—he addressed the vast assembly as 'heirs of Immortal Bliss' and exclaimed with apostolic fervour, 'Yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners ! ye are the children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth—sinners ? It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.... He by whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain and death stalks upon the earth... is the one who is everywhere, the Pure and Formless One, the Almighty and All-merciful and 'knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again and attain immortality.'' He concluded by defining a universal religion as one 'which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognise divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centred in aiding humanity to realise its own true divine nature.' In another speech he showed up the hollowness of the missionary activities in India and stating the purpose of his visit to America, said : T came here to seek aid for my impoverished people.' In his address at the final session he declared : 'The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to the law of growth.' He said that 'holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive possession of any church in the world' and none should 'dream of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of others....Upon the banner of every religion will soon be written.. 'Help and not fight,' 'Assimilation and not destruction,' 'Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.' '
The inspired words of the Swami became the inspiration of all. 'The press rang with his fame' calling him 'the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions' and his speech 'noble and sublime'. Annie Besant, who heard him, spoke of him 'as a warrior-monk' with a 'lion head' 'the exquisite beauty of whose spiritual message,' 'the sublimity of that matchless evangel of the East' 'enraptured the huge multitude'. 'That man a heathen !' said one, as he came out of the great hall, 'and we send missionaries to his people ! It would be more fitting that they should send missionaries to us !'
Thus did an obscure Sannyasi become, almost overnight, a world-figure and India and Hinduism stood vindicated before the world as a country and a religion which could yet prove their greatness by producing such a mighty soul who won for them a victory with which began anew the expansive movement of Indian thought for its larger conquests in the future.
The Swami's countrymen hailed the news with utmost joy and there was universal acclaim everywhere. But he was not happy. The degradation of his countrymen was always in his mind. A guest of a rich American admirer, he could not sleep on a soft bed of luxury which to him was like a bed of thorns. His heart cried out : 'O Mother, what do I care for name and fame when my mother. land remains sunk in utmost poverty ? Who will raise the masses of India ? Who will give them bread ? Show me, O Mother, how I can help them.' And in his letters to his admirers and disciples in India he would make impassioned appeals to them : 'Gird up your loins....Feel for the miserable and look for help.... Go down on your faces before Him and make a great sacrifice, the sacrifice of your whole life for them—these three hundred millions, going down and down every day.... Life is nothing, death is nothing. Glory unto the Lord— march on, the Lord is our General.'
Now began his lecture campaign, the greatness of India's culture and spirituality being the central theme. These lectures brought him intimate friends from among learned scholars, professors, clergymen and society people one of whom was Miss J. MacLeod whom the present writer had the honour of meeting at Blur Math where she passed the last years of her life. The venerable lady spoke of the Swami as her greatest friend in life. 'And what a heart he had, vaster even than the ocean, which felt for all, not only for India's millions but for the whole suffering humanity.' At the earnest request of many of these friends and admirers he started taking classes for them, some of whom he initiated and trained in the practice of Yoga. As more and more seekers came, his work became heavier and heavier, especially because he would always give his personal attention to every one. Added to all this were his public lectures which began to tell upon his health. He felt exhausted and needed rest which he had at Thousand Island Park where a beautiful cottage on the St. Lawrence river was lent for his use by one of his students. The seven weeks he passed there were 'one of the freest and greatest periods in the Swami's life'. His ecstatic utterances of this period can be had in Inspired Talks. Here he wrote his immortal 'Song of the Sannyasin'—an eloquent expression of the experience of inner freedom he had there. Not only this, the Swami had many such experiences there by which he reached the highest height of his spiritual power. T was at my best there,' he himself said later. From here he returned to New York where in February 1896, he founded the Vedanta Society of New York, the first organised form of the Vedanta movement he inaugurated in the West. Some of his works on Yoga had already been published and their rapidly increasing popularity was proof of America's growing interest in the new movement. Invited by some of his English admirers and friends the Swami visited England in 1895 having passed through Paris where he saw something of the greatness of France as the centre of European culture. While in London he went through a strenuous programme of classes and lectures which made the appreciative press compare him with Rammohun Roy and Keshubchandra Sen. Even the heads of churches spoke highly of his personality and teachings. A most notable event in London was the acceptance of Swami Vivekananda as her Master by Miss Margaret Noble who later became famous in India as Sister Nivedita ('Dedicated') a name given her by the Swami. This wonderful Irish lady came to India and consecrated her life to the cause of women's education, of social and cultural progress, and last, but never the least, to her political freedom. She started life as a teacher. She had a large heart and a receptive mind both of which stood her in good stead in imbibing the Indian spirit. The Swami trained her for her work in India. Though short, his stay in London bore fruitful results. In England my work is really splendid, a roaring success', as he himself said. 'The people that worked in darkness have seen a light,' quoted a disciple, speaking on his work.
In order to consolidate his work in America the Swami returned to New York in December 1895, aQd began giving lectures and class talks on subjects of Yoga and Vedanta. Once while speaking on Bhakti, Devotion, he looked the very figure of Love, with visible signs of an impetuous yearning for the beloved Mother. When he was delivering another lecture the whole audience felt a higher influence pervading the atmosphere. One of them saw in his 'beauty something not of this earth. It was as if the spirit had almost burst its bonds of flesh, and it was then that I saw and felt a foreshadowing of the end. He was much exhausted from the years of work, and it was even then to be seen that he was not long for this world.' The Swami had indeed a premonition that his days were numbered. Often he would let drop words like these, 'Oh, the body is a terrible bondage,' or 'How I wish I could hide myself for ever.' A later entry in his diary was : 'Now to seek a corner and lay myself down to die.' When a brother disciple protested that he was too young to think of death the Swami said : 'You do not understand. My soul is getting bigger and bigger every day: the body can hardly contain it. Any day it may burst this cage of flesh and bone.'
Sri Ramakrishna once said : 'Narendra will give up his body of his own will. When he realises his true nature, he will refuse to stay on this earth. Very soon he will shake the world by his intellectual and spiritual powers. I have prayed to the Divine Mother to keep away from him the Knowledge of the Absolute and cover his eyes with a veil māyā. There is very much work to be done by him. But the veil, I see, is so thin that it may be rent at any time.'
The Swami was a bom Sannyasin never fixed in the consciousness of the body. Sri Ramakrishna knew this the first time he saw him. It has been seen how from the very beginning of his acceptance of Sri Ramakrishna as his Master he had been aspiring for those higher states of Samadhi which would require complete absorption in meditation. But Sri Ramakrishna knew that Narendra had great work to do for the Mother and so the Master gave him all the force of his spiritual realisations.
No wonder Vivekananda should say : 'Something has possessed me and is giving me no rest.'
About this time he said more than once that his work was over, yet more than once he gave out new ideas, schemes and plans from which new institutions evolved and for many of which he himself laid the foundation. Apart from the Vedanta movement which the Swami initiated in the West and which today is a world movement, the dynamic light and truth of his wonderful personality always exercised its abiding influence on individual souls who felt uplifted and expressed their adoration of him in fervent terms, such as, 'A Plato in thought', 'a modern Savonarola in his fearless outspokenness,' 'a lordly monk', 'a grand seigneur'. The intellectual circles of America were no less amazed by his scholarship and learning. A University Professor addressed him as 'Master' and referred to him in his books as 'the paragon of Vedantist'. Several universities offered him their Chairs of Philosophy and Religion. And many a leading churchman had the most cordial of relations with him. This was how he sowed the seeds of the future international cultural fellowship.
Ujjvala (her American name was Ida Ansell) writes in her recollections : 'The Swami was a phenomenon in the United States. When he appeared in any place, he attracted everybody's attention. Everybody was eager to see him, to talk to him and to listen to him. He appeared no stranger to the people of the United States, in spite of his somewhat quaint dress. He moved like an object of wonder among the Americans. People looked at him, gazed at him and questioned him—in fact, tried every means to know him, because the supernatural about him was patent to everybody. Some thought he was an Indian monarch, who had taken to asceticism, and one newspaper actually gave him the title of 'Rajah'. Well-built, extremely charming, with a radiant smile always on his lips, the greatness of his spiritual personality was something like a marvel.' (The Hindu, Madras, 14.1.63). 'He was the prophet going among the people, blessing them, transmitting to them, whether they knew it or not, the inextinguishable fire of his own spirit', writes Marie Louise Burke. (Prabuddha Bharata, April 1963). 'Like all prophets, he was his message, the embodiment of it,—such was his personal magnetism', wrote an American reporter of Vivekananda's speeches. In a letter to an American disciple the Swami wrote : 'I have a truth to teach, I the child of God.' And to another : T have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East.'
Yet this wonder of a man was full of wit, fun and mirth and would hardly
miss an opportunity of enjoying them. He would raise roars of laughter at the dinner table, himself cook for his disciples, and with a white napkin draped over his arm in the fashion of a Negro waiter in a dining car and in perfect imitation of him give a call for the dinner, making all rock in laughter.
Incidentally may be mentioned here a somewhat similar aspect of Sri Ramakrishna's personality. Years ago the present writer heard from an old gentleman of Dakshineswar—an acquaintance of his—that some of the children of the locality including this gentleman used to go to Sri Ramakrishna for the sweets he would always give them and also to play with him at his wish. One of the games they played was that Sri Ramakrishna would crawl on all fours with one after another of the children on his back. 'The Paramhansa, the liberated man, is in his soul bālavat, like a child.'
About the middle of 1896, the Swami visited England for the second time and straightway launched into a programme of intense activity. In one of his lectures he spoke feelingly on his Master : 'I am what I am, and what I am is always due to him; whatever in me or in my words is good and true and eternal comes to me from his mouth, his heart, his soul. Sri Ramakrishna is the spring of this phase of the earth's religious life, of its impulses and activities. If I can show the world one glimpse of my Master, I shall not have lived in vain.'
A very important event in England is his meeting with Max Mueller, the great German Sanskritist and Indologist who did so much to popularise Indian thought in the West. He wanted to meet the famous disciple of the Master about whom he had already written an article entitled 'A Real Mahatman'. The visit, said Vivekananda, 'was a revelation to me.' Struck by their spirituality and by their devotion to truth, he compared the scholar and his wife with the Vedic Rishi Vasistha and his wife Arundhati. Quite a number of Englishmen and women became his disciples among whom were Captain and Mrs. Sevier. Addressing the lady the Swami assured her, 'Mother, I would give you my best realisations.' They both came to India with the Swami, and it was through their generosity that the Swami was able to establish an ashram at Mayavati in the Himalayas for the spiritual training of his Eastern and Western disciples.
The next phase of his tour was Europe. While in the Alps he conceived the idea of founding the above monastery in the Himalayas. In Germany he met the famous Professor Deussen with whom he had important discussions about the possibilities of the revival of spirituality in Europe through Vedanta—a movement which, the Professor said, would 'make India the spiritual leader of the nations, the highest and the greatest spiritual influence in earth.' He also found in the Swami the very embodiment of the spirit of Vedanta. About this time, while in England, the Swami outlined his plan of the Himalayan monastery, of starting two centres, one in Madras and the other in Calcutta, and late*r, others in western and northern India. He also intended to start a paper under the management of writers from all nations, in order to spread his ideas to every corner of the globe. 'You must not forget', he said, 'that my interests are international and not Indian alone.'
But India and her hapless millions had always been his chief concern. On the eve of his departure from England for India, he said, 'Now I have but one thought, and that is India.' Asked how he would like his motherland after his European experience, he said, India I loved before I came away. Now the very dust of India has become holy to me; it is the holy land, the place of pilgrimage.' It was this love for his motherland that impelled many of his movements. When on board the ship he was travelling by, several Christian missionaries were 'savagely criticising Hinduism', the Swami walked to one of them, seized him by the collar, and said menacingly, 'If you abuse my religion again, I will throw you overboard.' 'Let me go, sir,' the frightened missionary apologised, 'I'll never do it again.' A small incident but it speaks volumes for the heroic soul who never in his, life tolerated any aspersions on his Mother.
It was indeed a royal reception that his countrymen gave the Swami on his arrival in India, first in Colombo where he landed, the rest in other parts of the country. On his way to Madras the Raja of Remand, his disciple, had the carriage bearing the Swami unhorsed, and then drew it along with his people. Madras which was the first to have recognised the greatness of Vivekananda and had equipped him for his journey to Chicago, received him back with greater warmth and devotion. All these made the Swami say : 'The spirituality of the Hindus is revealed by the princely reception which they have given to a beggar sannyasin.' The Swami's lectures in Madras on India's spirituality and her future, particularly those entitled 'The Mission of the Vedanta' and 'My Plan of Campaign' were among the most inspiring of his utterances on his return to India. They were his soul's ardent call upon his people 'to awake, arise and discover their strength in the Immortal soul'. The other point he emphasised was 'that eternal, grand idea of the spiritual oneness of the whole universe, the only Infinite Reality, that exists in you and in me and in all, in the self, in the soul. The infinite oneness of the soul—that you and I are not only brothers, but are really one—is the eternal sanction of all morality. Europe wants it today just as much as our down-trodden races do, and this great principle is even now unconsciously forming the basis of all the latest social and political aspirations that are coming up in England, in Germany, in France, and in America.'
In one of these speeches the Swami made an impassioned appeal to the would-be leaders of India to feel with all the intensity of their heart for their down-trodden countrymen : 'Do you feel ? Do you feel that millions and millions of descendants of gods and of sages have become next-door neighbours 'to brutes ?... Do you feel that ignorance has come over the land as a dark cloud ?... .Does it make you sleepless ? Has it made you almost mad ? If so, that is the first step to becoming a patriot. And how should these millions be raised ?' 'Let every man and woman and child, without respect of caste or birth, weakness or strength, hear and learn that behind the strong and the weak, behind the high and the low, behind every one, there is that Infinite Soul, assuring all the infinite possibility and the infinite capacity to become great and good !J 'It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want. And here is the test of truth. Anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison.... Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all knowledge. Truth must be strengthening, must be enlightening, must be invigorating.' 'Therefore my plan is to start institutions in India to train our young men as preachers of the truths of our scriptures in India and outside India... strong, vigorous, believing young men, sincere to the backbone, are wanted. A hundred such and the world becomes revolutionised.' 'For the nest fifty years let all other gods disappear from our minds. This is the only God that is awake : our own race—everywhere His hands, everywhere His feet, everywhere His ears, He covers everything ....The first gods we have to worship are our own countrymen.' He said on another occasion : 'Every Indian has but one duty before him : to serve his country with the best of what he is and the best of what he has.'
It is history now how these fiery words of Vivekananda—the first true evangel of Indian nationalism—stirred the mind, heart and soul of the nation and how among others they were at the back of the national movement of the national being in the early years of the present century. Thus did Vivekananda lay the spiritual foundation of India's resurgent and revolutionary nationalism which inspired and sustained her struggle for freedom till its attainment. And India's attainment of independence in 1947 was the fulfilment of his prophecy made in 1897 when he exhorted his countrymen—as quoted above—to make national service their only occupation for the next fifty years. About the same time he also said : 'Fifty years hence India shall be free, but without bloodshed. There is a great future for India after her independence.'1 In i939,in course of a talk Sri Aurobindo said that Vivekananda had his own ideas of political work and of revolution and that he visioned a revolutionary centre similar to the one at Maniktala garden in Calcutta.2
Bengal gave her son a most fitting public reception. He was literally beseiged every moment by hundreds of people who came to pay him their homage. The time was now for him to turn his attention to the work-
1 Manmathanath Gangopadhyaya in Udbodhan (Bengali monthly) Kartik, 1367 B.E. and Reminiscences of Vivekananda by His Eastern and Western Admirers, p. 367.
2 Sri Aurobinder Sange Kathavarta (Bengali), 'Talks with Sri Aurobindo' by Nirodbaran, p. 270. ing out of his plan based on his new conception of a man-making religion. He found that some of his brother disciples who were eager for their personal salvation, were unable to accept this new religion. To them his answer was that as Sannyasins they were right in seeking their own salvation, but they were also to seek the salvation of others by mitigating the sufferings of India's millions. The leader won them over as supporters of his work.
While the Swami was in America his brother disciples in India—both lay and monastic—had already started giving some form to his ideas of service to the people. In order to organise this on a stable basis the Swami convened a meeting of such disciples in May 1897 at which the Ramakrishna Mission Association was formed with Swami Brahmananda as its first President to whom he handed over all the money he had brought from America. The aims and objects of the Association were : to build fellowship among followers of different religions knowing them as so many forms of one underlying Eternal Religion; to train men who would work for the spiritual and material welfare of the masses; to promote and encourage arts and industries; to introduce and spread among the people Vedantic and other religious ideas as lived and taught by Sri Ramakrishna. It was also to establish Maths and Ashramas in different parts of India and send trained members to foreign countries to spread the Vedanta and thereby promote better understanding between India and those countries. This Association ceased to function as an independent organisation when in December 1898 the Belur Math was established. But out of this nucleus has grown the present Ramakrishna Mission with its net-work of branches in various parts of India and abroad. The Swami was now happy over this materialisation of one of his aims: that with religion as the basis man should canalise all the energies and capacities of his head, hand and heart towards the worship of God. But as he knew that such institutions often tended towards sectarianism, he repeatedly warned his brother disciples against any such lapse. He said : 'Sri Ramakrishna, who is the embodiment of infinite ideas, should never be shut within any limit.'
The Ramakrishna Mission today is a world organisation doing its splendid work of interpreting to man everywhere the spiritual and cultural heritage of India, and rendering various other humanitarian services. In recent years its educational and cultural activities have expanded enormously. The Vidyamandira (College) at Belur Math has been fast developing as a centre of higher education. Its further extension is looming large in the proposed Vivekananda University at the same place to commemorate the birth centenary of Swami Vivekananda in 1963. The University will 'aim at bringing about a healthy synthesis of the Vedanta of the East and the Science and Technology of the West'. This was what Vivekananda wanted and is quite in line with the spirit of modem Indian renaissance. Indeed the Swami's ideal of 'man-making education' offers vast scope for the reorientation of India's present educational system. He denned education as 'the manifestation of the perfection already in man.' Another most important and expanding institution of the Mission is the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Calcutta founded in 1938 as part of the Sri Ramakrishna birth centenary celebration. Among its objects are : to promote and propagate Indian culture, to study other cultures and creative achievements, and to help in establishing 'world peace, genuine internationalism, and a really humane culture on earth'. Its activities and some of the recent international conferences held under its auspices are a promise of its great future. In his glowing tribute to the work of Ramakrishna Mission, Floyd H. Ross, Professor of World Religions, University of South California, says: 'One of the most vital contemporary religious and educational movements in India today is the Ramakrishna movement. Under the leadership of men trained in the spirit of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, the Ramakrishna centres are living examples of how the timeless truths of the past have value when they are continuously relived and reinterpreted in the present.... These Ramakrishna centres in the West are playing their own part quietly in helping to prepare the way for the united pilgrimage of mankind towards self-understanding and peace.'
The Swami went out on an extensive tour and lecturing campaign in northern India for about eight months from May 1897. After a stay in Almora he went to the Panjab and Kashmir 'sowing everywhere the seeds of rejuvenated Hinduism'. He noticed wherever he went the prevalence of a false sense of religion. In one of his lectures he said : 'The people are neither Hindus nor Vedantins—they are merely 'don't-touchists'; the kitchen is their temple and cooking-pots their objects of worship. This state of things must go. The sooner it is given up, the better for our religion. Let the Upanishads shine in their glory, and at the same time let not quarrels exist among different sects.' In his lectures in various cities of Uttar Pradesh and Rajputana he emphasised that the resurgent nationalism of India must be based on her spiritual ideals around which the whole country should be organised. And in this process of growth healthy scientific and technological knowledge from the West should be assimilated. By religion the Swami meant the eternal life-giving principles taught in the Veda and not local customs and superstitions. He used often to say that without a knowledge of Sanskrit a Hindu would remain alien to his own rich culture. 'To promote unity among the Hindus, he encouraged intermarriage between different castes and sub-castes, and wanted to revive the Indian universities of the ancient pattern so that they might produce real patriots, rather than clerks, lawyers, diplomats and Government officials.'
Mention may be made here that the Swami did not at all like the way in which social reforms were being introduced in the country by the reformers of the last century who were influenced by Western ideas In India everything should be done in the Indian way and according to her inherent spiritual bias which should first be revived through proper education. Then should arise the question of changes needed for the betterment of social life. When later, Aswinikumar Datta, the great devotee and Nationalist leader of the Swadeshi days, asked the Swami which way lay India's salvation, the latter repeated what Sri Ramakrishna said that 'religion being the essence of our being all reforms must come through it to be acceptable to the masses. To do otherwise is as impossible as pushing the Ganga back to its source in the Himalayas and making it flow in a new channel.' The Swami told Aswinikumar that a great power was working in him for what he was then doing to impart better education to the youths. 'But see,' the Swami continued, 'that a man-making education spreads among the masses. The next thing is the building up of character. Make your students' character as strong as the thunderbolt, of the bones of the Bengali youths shall be made the thunderbolt that shall destroy India's thraldom. Can you give me a few fit boys ? A nice shake I can give to the world then.' The Swami did want the freedom of his country and he was sure of its coming. The Vedantic idea of strength and fearlessness he would often affirm and reaffirm to the youths of India as the two indispensable factors in the reconstruction of national life.
The Swami's catholic outlook and large vision is reflected in a letter to a Muslim, written in June 1898, in which he envisages 'the future perfect India rising out of this chaos and strife, glorious and invincible, with Vedantic brain and Islamic body.' And this unity would be founded on the equality of man emphasised by Islam, 'whose deeper spiritual meaning the Hindus as a rule so clearly perceive.'
Here speaks the Swami's universal self: T accept all the religions that were in the past, and worship them all; I worship God with every one of them, in whatever form they worship Him. I shall go to the mosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter the Christian church and kneel before the Crucifix; I shall enter the Buddhist temple, where I shall take refuge in the Buddha and his law. I shall go into the forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the Light which enlightens the heart of every one. Not only shall I do these things, but I shall keep my heart open for all that may come in future.' 'Doubtless I love India. But every day my sight grows clearer. What is India or England or America to us ? We are the servants of that God who by the ignorant is called man.' 'There is but one basis of well-being, social, political or spiritual—to know that I and my brother are one. This is true for all countries and all people.' And he conceived and spoke of a Parliament of Man representing all the peoples of the world, obviously envisaging a world-government following the U. N. O. of today.
To come back to the Swami's work. Generous donations from Miss Mueller and Mrs. Ole Bull, his devoted disciples, made possible the completion of the construction of the Belur Math, the present Headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, which took almost the whole of the year 1898. This monastery, said the Swami, 'will be a centre in which will be recognised and practised a grand harmony of all creeds and faiths as exemplified in the life of Sri Ramakrishna, and religion in its universal aspect alone, will be preached. And from this centre of universal toleration will go forth the shining message of goodwill, peace, and harmony to deluge the whole world.' The training of his disciples, Eastern and Western, which the Swami had already started, now became an important part of his work. When an American disciple asked the Swami how best she could help him, he said, 'Love India'. In order that his Western disciples might understand Indian life, he advised them to visit Hindu ladies in their homes arid to observe their dress, food, and customs, but he severely discouraged their criticism of the Hindu ways. When Margaret Noble wrote to ask for the Swami's permission to come to India and devote herself to his work in India he answered back that she had a great future in the work for India but she must think well before she plunged in, 'on my part I promise you / will stand by you unto death'. In 1898 she came to India and started work with Miss Mueller for the education of Indian women. She was truly the Swami's spiritual daughter whom he introduced to the public of Calcutta as 'a gift of England to India'. What this high-souled Irish lady did for India's educational, cultural and political uplift is part of the history of her renaissance in modern times.
In order to have a change which he needed so much the Swami had been to Darjeeling but hardly had his health begun improving when the outbreak of plague in Calcutta brought him down and he started relief work in the city in collaboration with Sister Nivedita whose heart—the heart of a mother—welled up in all its milk of human kindness for the afflicted and they were deeply touched by this practical application of Vedanta by the Master and his worthy disciple. When the plague was under control, the Swami left for Almora accompanied by, among others, his Western disciples. There he arranged for the revival of the monthly magazine the Prabuddha Bharata ('Awakened India') with an Indian monk as Editor and a European admirer as Manager; months before, the Bengali magazine Udbodhan had begun to be published from Calcutta. From Almora he went to Kashmir whose marvellous beauty captivated the Westerners. Here the Swami would often break out into flashes of divine knowledge for the illumination of his companions. If the theme was human unity he would say how it was as much the aim of the world's greatest conquerors as it was of the greatest Incarnations of God. If it was the Buddha he would say that he was the greatest man that ever lived. In the midst of all these the thought of the body as an obstruction to the soul's expansion would distress him. Sister Nivedita said that they would not be surprised if they were told that 'today or tomorrow he would be gone for ever'. Had this feeling any bearing on what the Swami later said : 'Ever since I went to Amarnath Siva Himself has entered into my brain. He will not go.'? From Kashmir he had made his pilgrimage to Amarnath. Another significant event in Kashmir was his vision of Kali which he immortalised in his famous poem 'Kali the Mother'. Kali was Sri Ramakrishna's 'My Mother' in whom resides the whole universe with all its phenomenal opposites. This Almighty Mother who is always one with Brahman was seen by Vivekananda in Her terrible aspect. He concluded the poem with :
'Thou Time, the All-destroyer, Come, O Mother, come.
'Who dares misery love And hug the form of death, Enjoy destruction's dance— To him the Mother comes.'
About the poem he said : 'It all came true, every word of it; and I have proved it, for I have hugged the Form of Death.' The descent into him of Siva and his vision of Kali were not incidental experiences. The Swami had practised severe austerities and meditation in the temple of the Divine Mother. His visions and experiences there were pointers to an early end of his body. He returned a changed man with a heavenly light on his face and was now full of 'Mother'. 'Mother', 'Mother', 'Mother' was always on his lips. He said he had no more plans, neither would he make any. 'Let all things be as Mother wills'. In April 1900 he wrote to Miss MacLeod : 'Pray for me that my work may stop for ever and my whole soul be absorbed in Mother. Her work She knows.' But the Mother and the Master would not let him rest. Work he must however much his soul might yearn to depart. 'No rest for me.' came his changed front. T should die in harness ! I love action ! Life is a battle, and one must always be in action, to use a military phrase. Let me live and die in action.'
The Swami sailed for America again in December 1898, the object being to give an impetus to the work he had already started there and to entrust it to Swami Abhedananda. Besides usual classes, talks and lectures, he had to consider proposals for starting new centres and he was offered a gift of land for the construction of one at San Francisco. He put Swami Turiyananda in charge of it. What resulted from his work in America has been best expressed by Marie Louis Burke in her recent publication Swami Vivekananda in America—New Discoveries: 'Quite literally he planted the seeds of spirituality in the hearts of innumerable human beings, changing the course of their lives for ever.' Today there are as many as eleven centres in America through which the monks of the Ramakrishna Order give spiritual guidance to thousands of Americans besides lectures and talks on Indian religion, philosophy and culture. The Vedanta movement has taken root in the American soil.
From America the Swami came to Paris which he called 'the home of liberty' and where he met his distinguished countryman Jagadishchandra Basu, the discoverer of life and nervous system in plants, to whom he referred as 'the pride and glory of Bengal', and who was there on invitation to attend the scientific section of the Congress of the History of Religions. The Swami participated in the two sessions of the Congress and repudiated a German Orientalist's view that the Siva lingam was a mere phallic symbol. He also showed that the Veda was the basis of Hinduism and that Sri Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita were prior to Buddhism. In Paris he met many prominent men of Europe. With Jules Bois, a distinguished French writer, he had 'many great ideas in common' and he felt happy in his company. In October 1900 he left Paris, and passing through the countries of Eastern Europe reached Athens from where he sailed to Egypt. At Cairo, unknowingly he and the party entered the quarters inhabited by girls of ill fame. His companions wanted to take him away but he refused whereupon some of these girls came out, knelt before him, and kissed the hem of his garment.
Sister Nivedita says that all through his European tour the Swami was completely indifferent to his surroundings and it seemed as though he were continuously in meditation. Yet he was not unaffected by what he saw and felt around him: the evils of commercialism and militarism. In the atmosphere of Europe he saw the possibilities of war and called the continent 'a military camp'. Earlier in a letter he wrote : 'Europe is on the edge of a volcano. If the fire is not extinguished by a flood of spirituality, it will erupt.' And the prophecy he made in another letter ran : 'The next upheaval will come from Russia or China... The world is in the third epoch, under the domination of the vaisya. The fourth will be under the sudra.' The coming supremacy of the working class, the Swami said, would complete the cycle and then would spiritual culture reassert itself and influence human civilisation through the power of the brahmana. Swami Vivekananda often spoke of the future greatness of India as surpassing all the glories of her past.
The Swami sprang a surprise on his brother disciples at the Belur Math by his sudden arrival in December 1900. The news was now broken to him of the passing at Mayavati in the Himalayas of his beloved disciple Mr. Sevier, of which he had had a premonition in Egypt. The Swami characterised it and the passing of Mr. Goodwin in 1898 in India as the martyrdom of two Englishmen for India. It makes me love dear England and its heroic breed. The Mother is watering the plant of future India with the best blood of England. Glory unto Her !' In response to a pressing invitation from East Bengal the Swami undertook a two-month tour in that region accompanied by his mother and Sannyasin disciples. He was in poor health at this time. Yet on his return to the Math he started doing regular work : classes, talks, instructions, correspondence. When urged to rest he said : 'That which Sri Ramakrishna called 'Kali' took possession of my body and soul three or four days before his passing away. That makes me work and never lets me keep still or look to my personal comfort.' He also related how the Master transmitted his spiritual powers to him.
The Swami had this time visits from many distinguished Indians with whom he discussed the idea of founding a Vedic college for the promotion of ancient Aryan culture and of the knowledge of Sanskrit. He had another idea of establishing a monastery for women.
Towards the close of 1901 there came from Japan two learned Buddhists who invited the Swami to attend the proposed Congress of Religions in Japan. One of them was the famous artist and art-critic, Okakura Kakuzo, a devoted lover of India and an ardent champion of her freedom and that of the whole of Asia from foreign domination. The Swami spoke of Okakura : 'We are two brothers who meet again, having come from these ends of the earth.' For reasons of health and other preoccupations he could not accept the invitation. At Okakura's request the Swami accompanied him to Bodh Gaya, the first place of pilgrimage he had visited years ago as a wandering monk, and then to Varanasi to which city he had said farewell on his last visit with the words : T shall never come back until I can burst on society like a bomb.' The splendid Ramakrishna Home of Service at Varanasi was the result of this visit of the Swami.
On his return to the Math he was presented with a set of the newly-published Encyclopaedia Britannica which be started reading. When a householder disciple remarked that it was difficult to master these twenty five volumes in one life the Swami said that he had already finished the first ten volumes and he was then in the eleventh. Being asked, the disciple put to the Master questions from the volumes read only to be utterly amazed by his answers on many technical subjects and these in many places in the very language of the book. It has been seen that he was in possession of this power even when a student. Yoga must have deepened it.
The Swami's love of God in the poor was visible when at this time he served a beautiful feast to the Santhal labourers then working in the Math grounds. When the meal was finished he said to them, 'You are Narayanas; today I have entertained Narayana Himself.' He said to a disciple, 'I actually saw God in them. How guileless they are !' Addressing the inmates of the Math he said: 'See how simple-hearted these poor illiterate people are. Will you be able to relieve their miseries to some extent at least ? Otherwise of what use is our wearing the ochre robe of the Sannyasin?... Nobody in our country thinks of the low, the poor, and the miserable—the backbone of the nation. Unless they are elevated, the great Mother (India) will never awake !... After so much Tapasya (asceticism) I have known that the highest truth is this : He is present in everything ! These are all the manifold forms of Him. There is no other God to seek for ! He alone is worshipping God who serves all beings !'
His vision of the All-Pervading Brahman was so vivid that he could think of no other worship : 'May I be born again and again and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in—the sum total of all souls; and above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.' One day, his eyes radiant, the Swami burst into an affirmation of this truth in which, as he once said, he always lived, moved and had his being : 'Where will you go to seek Brahman ? He is Immanent in all beings. Here, here is the visible Brahman.' Those around him were struck by the words as if by an electric shock and stood transfixed, some in trance, some amazed.
'There is only one thing', the Swami once said, 'which we see as many.' 'God is neither outside nature nor inside nature, but God and nature and soul and universe are all convertible terms. You never see two things; it is your metaphysical worlds that have deluded you.' 'Whomsoever you hurt, you hurt yourself; they are all you. Whether you know it or not, through all hands you work, through all feet you move, you are the king enjoying in his palace, you are the beggar leading that miserable existence in the street; you are in the ignorant as well as in the learned; you are in the man who is weak and you are in the strong; know this and be sympathetic'
The day of his final departure from Ms labours for the earth was drawing nigh. He gave hints of it to some, to some he gave only his benediction. He withdrew from all responsibilities, all outside affairs. 'A great tapasya and meditation has come upon me, and I am making ready for death.' he said. One day some of his brother monks were talking of old days; one of them asked him, quite casually, 'Do you know yet who you are, Swamiji ?' His unexpected reply, 'Yes, I know now !' awed them into silence. All now remembered Sri Ramakrishna's prophecy about his passing. In the morning of that day of days, Friday, 4 July 1902, he was heard saying to himself: 'If there were another Vivekananda, he would have understood what Vivekananda has done ! And yet, how many Vivekanandas shall be born in time !' He worshipped Mother Kali in the Math, took his usual class, for three hours, and in the afternoon a walk. On his return he very tenderly made enquiries about every member of the Math, and then conversed for a long time with his companions on the rise and fall of nations. 'India is immortal', he said, 'if she persists in her search for God. But if she goes in for politics and social conflict, she will die.' In the evening he retired into his room, spent an hour in meditation, and lay down quiedy on his bed, and after an hour, his eyes fixed in the centre of his eyebrows, and a divine expression on his face, he went into Mahasamadhi, literally fulfilling his own prophecy, T shall not live to be forty years old.' A little blood in the nostrils confirmed the Yoga scriptures that the life-breath of an Illumined Yogi passes out through the opening on the top of the head, causing the blood to flow in the nostrils, and the mouth.
Thus did the mighty soul pass from time into Eternity, leaving behind, on the pages of history and in the memory of his countrymen, an imperishable name, and a symbol of leonine personality, a universal Vedantic heart afire with the Sakti of the Divine Mother and a passionate love for India, to him, 'the land of Eternal Verities'. Very truly did an admirer once say of him : 'This young man who had renounced all worldly ties and freed himself from bondage, had but one love, his motherland, and one grief, her downfall'. In her great book, The Master as I saw Him, regarded by Sri Aurobindo as 'the best study of Vivekananda', Sister Nivedita says : 'Throughout those years in which I saw him almost daily, the thought of India was to him like the air he breathed. True, he was a worker at foundations. He never used the word 'nationality' nor proclaimed an era of 'nation-making'. 'Man-making', he said, was his own task. But he was born a lover, and the queen of his adoration was his Motherland.... He was hard on her sins, unsparing of her want of worldly wisdom, but only because he felt these faults to be his own. And none, on the contrary, was ever so possessed by the vision of her greatness.'
How true is the phrase 'condensed India' which he once called himself. No wonder that his sole concern was how to raise the masses of India and awaken the whole country to the truth of its soul : spirituality governing every sphere of human activity. He once said : 'My ideal can be expressed in a few words : to preach unto men their Divinity and how to make It manifest in every movement of life.' And this, he was certain, would bring about the all-round well-being not only of India but of the whole world, because as he has so many times said, India's spirituality alone could save mankind. This is how he visioned the historic march of India towards that goal: T stand in awe before the unbroken procession of scores of shining centuries, with here and there a dim link in the chain only to flare up with added brilliance in the next, and there she is walking with her own majestic steps—my motherland—to fulfil her glorious destiny—the regeneration of man the brute into man the God.' 'This is the theme of India's lifework, the burden of her eternal songs, the backbone of her existence, the foundation of her being, the raison d'etre of her very existence—the spiritualisation of the human race.' 'For a complete civilisation the world is waiting, waiting for the treasures to come out of India, waiting for the marvellous spiritual inheritence of the race.' 'A great obligation rests on the sons of India fully to equip themselves for the work of enlightening the world on the problems of human existence.' Therefore his clarion call: 'Up India, and conquer the world with your spirituality.' 'The only condition of national life, of awakened and vigorous national life is the conquest of the world by Indian thought.' Such thoughts were enshrined in the Upanishads which to Vivekananda 'are the great mine of strength.. .strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the whole world can be vivified, made strong, and energised through them. They will call with trumpet voice upon the weak, the miserable, and the down-trodden of all races, all creeds and all sects, to stand on their feet and be free. Freedom, physical freedom, mental freedom and spiritual freedom are the watchwords of the Upanishads. Aye, this is the one scripture in the world, of all others, that does not talk of salvation but of freedom.'
'Be strong'. 'Be fearless', was the burden of Vivekananda's message to the youths of India, on whom, he said again and again, hung the great future of their country. These words have the ring of the Upanishads : 'This Self the weakling cannot attain.' And abhiḥ 'fearless', says Vivekananda, is the adjective given to the Lord only in our scriptures. 'Strength ! More strength ! Strength evermore !' 'My child', says he,' What I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.' By that strength therefore, 'Let us first be Gods, and then help others to be Gods. 'Be, and make', let this be our motto.' 'Manifest the divinity within you, and everything will be harmoniously arranged around it.'
Vivekananda saw India rising after many centuries of sleep : 'The longest night seems to be passing away, the sorest trouble seems to be coming to an end at last.. .the sleeper is awakening ! India, this motherland of ours, is awakening from her long deep sleep. None can resist her any more; never is she going to sleep any more; no external powers can hold her back any more; for, the infinite giant is rising to her feet.' 'Let us all work hard, my brethren, this is no time for sleep. On our work depends the coming of the India of the future.. .Arise and awake, and see her seated here, on her eternal throne, rejuvenated, more glorious than she ever was—this motherland of ours.'
For this future of India which Vivekananda saw would be greater than her great past, he worked all his life with the divine strength the Mother gave him through Sri Ramakrishna. And when by the depth and intensity of his love for India his soul became one with her soul, that strength entered the soul of the nation and passed into its consciousness with the result, among others, that the youths of the country came forward and responded to Sri Aurobindo's call to revolutionary nationalism of which he was the high-priest. They left their hearth and home and dedicated themselves to the cause of their country's freedom, to the Mother, and with her strength in them, they gladly faced the worst of tyrannies, even death, and wrote with their blood a chapter of perennial inspiration in the history of India's struggle for freedom. Here stands fulfilled the keyword of Indian nationalism uttered by Vivekananda : 'Every Indian must know from his very birth that his life is dedicated to his motherland.'
Many a time did Vivekananda say : 'Even after death I shall work for the good of the world.' 'There is no rest for my soul till man becomes one with God.' To his continuing the work here on earth there is the testimony of Sri Aurobindo : 'Vivekananda is a soul of puissance if ever there was one, a very lion among men, but the definite work he has left behind is quite incommensurate with our impression of his creative might and energy. We perceive his influence still working gigantically, we know not well how, we know not well where, in something that is not yet formed, something leonine, grand, intuitive, upheaving that has entered the soul of India and we say, 'Behold, Vivekananda still lives in the soul of his Mother and in the souls of her children."1 This was written in 1915. In 1908 while in jail Sri Aurobindo heard and felt Vivekananda's voice and presence. 'The voice', he says, 'spoke only of a special and limited but very important field of spiritual experience and it ceased as soon as it had finished saying all that it had to say on the subject.'2 In a talk Sri Aurobindo said: It was the spirit of Vivekananda who first gave a clue in the direction of the Supermind. He did not use the word 'Supermind'. I used it myself. This clue led me to see how the Truth-Consciousness works in everything ....I had another direct experience of Vivekananda's presence when I was practicing HathaYogin. I felt this presence standing behind and watching over me. That exerted a great influence afterwards in my life.' When asked how one like Vivekananda could speak of things of which he said nothing in his lifetime, Sri Aurobindo said that either he might not have known them in life and as souls evolve after leaving the body, knew them afterwards. He might as well have known them in lifetime but kept silent, because 'a Yogi does not say all he knows. He says only what is necessary. If I wrote all that I knew, then it would be ten times the amount I have written.'3 It will be seen later that Sri Aurobindo had several spiritual experiences and a major Yogic realisation before going to jail. In the jail itself he had die vision of the Divine Presence everywhere and in everything.
There might be between these two divine souls—Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo—a spiritual affinity, both having embodied in themselves the Truth, Light and Force that India is.
Sri Aurobindo sees in Sri Ramakrishna 'God manifest in a human being; but behind there is God in His infinite impersonality and His Universal Personality', and in Vivekananda 'A radiant glance from the
1 Sri Aurobindo : Bankim-Tilak- Dayananda, p. 49. 8 Sri Aurobindo : Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother, p. 115. 3 "Talks with Sri Aurobindo", recorded by Nirodbaran. Mother India, June 1962, pp. 12, 13- eye of Shiva"; but behind him is the divine gaze from which he came and Shiva himself and Brahma and Vishnu and OM all-exceeding.'
The inner, hence, the real significance of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda and their place in the history of man's spiritual evolution cannot be fully appraised in that the work they started has yet to reach its sufficient development. 'Nobody has been able to understand him who came on earth as Sri Ramakrishna. Even his own nearest devotees have no real clue to it. Only some have a little inkling of it. All will understand him in time', Vivekananda used often to say. The obvious fact is that whereas the realisations of the spiritual leaders of the past were generally of one particular aspect or another of the Infinite Truth, attained through a particular path, Sri Ramakrishna's realisations were of wider aspects of the Infinite and confirmed through wider paths, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and other religious concepts and creeds and covered a range never before attempted by any seeker. The reason is plain enough. He had to take in one sweep the whole world with all its diverse faiths and creeds, shake it free from inertia and obscurity and lead it back to its own self. Equally distinguished were his gifts to the world : his teachings of religious harmony and human oneness through a realisation of the One in all—lessons so imperatively needed by the world of today torn by disunity and hatred, and dominated by rank materialism and denial of God and disregard of all higher values of life. Sri Ramkrishna showed the path of liberation from all these evils and through his chosen disciple awakened seeking souls to the light and truth of the divinity within them. That was how Master and disciple began the work. Indeed they were immeasurably greater than what they said and did. They knew, as Vivekananda himself many a time said, that their mission was not over. They initiated that movement of man's soul which is to culminate in the realisation of his divine destiny. That is why even after they left their body they along with other liberated souls have been at work helping India's mission of spiritualising the human race prophesied by Swami Vivekananda and later formulated by Sri Aurobindo in his vision of the future of humanity.
In 1909, about a year after his experience of Vivekananda in jail, Sri Aurobindo wrote : 'The work that was begun at Dakshineswar is far from finished, it is not even understood. That which Vivekananda received and strove to develop, has not yet materialised. The truth of the future that Bijoy Goswami hid within himself has not yet been revealed utterly to his disciples....'1
It is significant that the main line on which this beginning developed tended towards an integration of the Vedantic idea of Brahman as the deepest truth of man's divine perfection, and the Tantrik idea of Divine Motherhood as the sustaining force in man's evolution towards that end,
1 Sri Aurobindo: The Ideal of the Karmayogin, p. 36. both being two aspects of the Divine in manifestation. Sri Ramakrishna's sadhana restored the ancient Sakti-cult to its proper place in the life and culture of the people as the source of its strength and will, expressing itself creatively in the marvellous cultural achievements of the people. Swami Vivekananda accentuated the forces released by his Master, and made them active again in the national life the result of which was its resurgence, its will to freedom and greatness. This very important and great beginning has been developing since then, not unoften obstructed by various untoward conditions, waiting now for its larger development towards a greater and grander future.
'India, the Knowledge-Sun of the world,' says Nolini Kanta Gupta, 'had sunk from her high state into the darkest depths of degradation. Vivekananda rescued her, in her own resplendent form, and enthroned her in her own glory.... He has made India's soul, her eternal being, conscious and dynamic, invested it with a new life, a new force. He has settled her in Brahman and placed her in the heart of activity.... The soul of the world is Bharata Shakti and Bharata Shakti is Brahmamayi Shakti, the force of Brahman, which means the divinity of every created being, self-conscious mastery, infinite capacity, and free, firmly-settled divine dynamis and fire. In the field of religion, in the domain of action, at the junction of the vanishing Past and the beginning of a Future rich in the potentials of a new life, Vivekananda has been the descent of a divine Life-Force.'1
In this year of the Swami Vivekananda's first Birth Centenary in 1963, we join our hearts and minds with all India and ah the world in deep reverence for what he was, and in grateful remembrance of what he did and is still doing for his people and for the whole human race.
1 Nolini Kanta Gupta : Banglar Fran (Bengali). |