O Swami Vivekananda!

O Swami Vivekananda!
Sri Ramakrishna’s life-breath,
Sri Ramakrishna’s supreme gift to mankind,
Sri Ramakrishna’s victory-song all-where!
The victory-world’s delight you were;
Lo, the cyclone-valour of the Absolute!
You awakened your slumbering India,
You awakened humanity’s sleep.
In you blossomed the Form Universal
O hero-warrior-sannyasin,
In the core of the creation sleeplessly shall burn
The incense of your self-offering.

Part I — The disciple and the Master

Vivekananda the wonder-warrior

Sri Ramakrishna’s unstinting Grace and Naren’s volcanic Will combined to create Vivekananda, who created a commotion all over the world. The never-to-be-forgotten words of Sri Aurobindo run: Vivekananda came into the world in an age seething with rank materialism. Spiritual values were at a discount. He held the mighty torch of spirituality high. Exceptional was his clarion call to lead the life of the Spirit. The soul-stirring message of Sri Ramakrishna was embodied in him, in this lion amongst men. And as regards the message of India to the world, “Remember,” declares Vivekananda, “not the Soul for Nature, but Nature for the Soul.”

There is the amusing story that Vivekananda in his childhood, in reply to his father’s query, said that his ambition in life was to become a coachman like the one who loved him much and whose love he reciprocated.

Another anecdote: once in his adolescence he asked his father what he had done for his son. “Go and look into the mirror,” came the prompt reply. Naren obeyed. He looked at his own reflection in the mirror and walked away quietly. Evidently he became convinced that he owed his magnificent personality solely to his father.

Now let us move on to a more significant topic. Tagore was an adorer of beauty, while the dominant trait of Vivekananda was the expression of power. But Vivekananda, too, possessed a deep sense of appreciation of subtle beauty. “Beauty,” says he, “is not external, but already in the mind.” Here we are reminded of what his spiritual daughter Nivedita wrote about her Master. “It was dark when we approached Sicily, and against the sunset sky, Etna was in slight eruption. As we entered the straits of Messina, the moon rose, and I walked up and down the deck beside the Swami, while he dwelt on the fact that beauty is not external, but already in the mind. On one side frowned the dark crags of the Italian coast, on the other, the island was touched with silver light. ‘Messina must thank me,’ he said; ‘it is I who give her all her beauty.’ ”

Truly, in the absence of appreciation, beauty is not beauty at all. And beauty is worthy of its name only when it has been appreciated. Further, they are not many in number who really have the power of appreciating it.

— Victor Hugo

In the realm of spirituality this truth got full manifestation in Vivekananda’s life. His was the heart that pined to realise the lofty Truth, and he did it. But about his actions, we can say that they were democratic; that is, his actions were for the good of humanity at large.

Vivekananda looked upon the world as his dear Motherland, and upon mankind as his true brothers and sisters. Come what may, to serve them was his cherished religion. Religion is a unique thirst for the One and the many. Assimilation and tolerance are the true signs of the greatest religion. Let us not forget Colton: “Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; do anything but live it.”

Religions are like the lines of a poem. As each line is helpful — rather, responsible for the completion of the poem — even so every religion is responsible for the entire fulfilment of the others. And according to Vivekananda religion is never a mere creed, but an ever-living and enlightening experience. How beautifully he unites the two antagonists, the materialist and the spiritualist: “The materialist is right. There is but One. Only he calls that Matter and I call it God.”

It is an undeniable fact that the Western mind has a liking for making plans before it takes up anything. Is it at all advisable? Not in the least, in the opinion of Vivekananda. The Eternal Will is sure to carry out its work at its chosen hour. Once he had to reprove: Nivedita. “Plans! Plans! That is why you Western people can never create a religion! If any of you ever did, it was only a few Catholic saints, who had no plans. Religion was never preached by planners.”

Again, it was Vivekananda who spoke to his Indian brothers about the greatest achievement of the English: “They have known how to combine obedience with self-respect.”

Neither are we to obliterate from our minds his solemn warning to the Westerners that they must never attempt to force upon others that which they have found good for themselves. But his consolation too is very cogent. He elsewhere says, “Never forget that a man is made great and perfect as much by his faults as by his virtues. So we must not seek to rob a nation of its character even if it could be proved that that character was all faults.”

God and men are as inseparable as one’s head and hair. It is our blind stupidity that fails to find the indivisibility of man and God. The gods who are not one of us, who ignore us and look down upon us, can never be our cherished gods. “I would not worship,” Vivekananda boldly exclaims, “even the Greek gods, for they were separate from humanity! Only those should be worshipped who are like ourselves, but greater. The difference between the gods and me must be a difference only of degree.”

“Better to wear out than to rust out.” Vivekananda’s whole body — rather, his earthly life — vibrated with this unique idea. Mother Earth lost him when he was on the right side of forty. But his work? No hyperbole, it can easily be rated as the eighth wonder of the world. Let us cite here his firm conviction with regard to work. “By work alone,” he writes, “men may get to where Buddha got largely by meditation or Christ by prayer. Buddha was a working Jnani, Christ was a Bhakta, but the same goal was reached by both of them.”

His was a life of unimaginable sacrifice. And how can India, his Motherland, dare to forget his message of stupendous sacrifice? “For my own part I will be incarnated two hundred times if that is necessary to do what I have undertaken amongst my people.” At this Sri Ramakrishna, if he had heard his disciple, could have done nothing but clap and dance in supreme ecstasy. For it was this very Naren whose heart ached to remain always in samadhi and whom he had to scold fondly by saying, “I thought you had been born for something greater, my boy!”

— Julius Caesar

Nowhere else had this truth been proved so wonderfully as it was in the life of Vivekananda. Caesar conquered only empires, but the spiritual giant of India conquered the heart of mankind. The great emperor was only of an age, but the disciple of Sri Ramakrishna shall shine for all time.

Vivekananda and his Master

A popular view is that without Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna would have remained the Sri Ramakrishna of Bengal; to the wider world he would at most have been a mere name. One may quite reasonably dispute the point, for no spiritual force of Sri Ramakrishna’s dimensions could lose its dynamism and remain confined within the narrow limits of one little province. But it goes without saying that Vivekananda would not have been his mighty self without his child-like, simple, but towering spiritual Master.

The reciprocal appreciation of the greatness of the disciple and the Master found an exceedingly interesting expression in their lives. The former was firmly convinced that millions of Vivekanandas could come into existence at the fiat of his Master, while the latter declared that his Naren was the incarnation of Narayan himself to uplift humanity.

Without Arjuna would the victory of Kurukshetra have been possible? Sri Krishna had to preach the whole Gita to train his disciple, over and above infusing into him his divine force.

Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda appeared in an age more advanced. Hence the Master could much more easily make of Naren what he intended him to be.

In the life of Narendranath we notice two instances in which matter submitted to spirit. The young Narendranath, steeped in agnosticism, accepting matter and doubting the existence of the supreme Spirit, would question people who seemed to be advanced in spirituality as to whether they had direct vision of God. Maharshi Devendranath, father of Tagore, attempted thrice in vain to answer the query of the bold young man, and at last said, “You possess the eyes of a Yogi.”

This very Narendranath fell at the hallowed feet of Sri Ramakrishna, who was a veritable embodiment of spirit, and who saw spirit permeating matter.

As a contrast, the supremely materialistic America practically bowed down before Vivekananda, who stood there as the spiritual representative of the East.

His was a life of numerous miracles. At the age of eight he entered into trance for the first time. He was only thirty years old when America — nay, the West — found the spiritual giant in him! In his childhood and boyhood he condemned women terribly. But in his later years he fought like a giant for the progress of Indian womanhood. We may, however, hold that in his earlier days Vivekananda was afraid not of woman but of temptation. It took six long years for him to make his proud head bow to the Mother Kali. When his surrender was complete he opened his devoted lips: “All my patriotism is gone. Everything is gone. Now it’s only Mother, Mother!”

I am sure my purpose will be best served if I just reproduce his own words about Kali. “How I used to hate Kali,” Vivekananda said, “and all Her ways! That was the ground of my six years’ fight — that I would not accept Her. But I had to accept Her at last. Ramakrishna Paramahansa dedicated me to Her, and now I believe that She guides me in every little thing I do, and does with me what She wills.”

Vivekananda ruthlessly looked down upon the so-called miracles that create a commotion in the minds of people. “I look upon miracles as the greatest stumbling block in the way of truth. When the disciples of Buddha told him of a man who had performed a so-called miracle — and showed him the bowl, he took it and crushed it under his feet and told them never to build their faith on miracles, but to look for truth in everlasting principles. He showed them the inner light — the light of the spirit, which is the only safe light to go by. Miracles are only stumbling blocks. Let us brush them aside.”

To show surprise at anything amounts to a tacit expression of ignorance, and hence of weakness. “Never show surprise,” was the command of Viswanath Dutta to his son Naren when he was in his teens. The son acted according to his father’s instructions from that very day until the end of his life. He spent years at the foot of the silence-hushed and snow-capped Himalayas during his itinerancy. He met people drawn from all sections of society — from the lowest to the highest. He came in close contact with the poorest and the richest of the world. In spite of striking differences in the world, surprise could never take shelter in his all-conceiving eyes.

Perfection is the only choice for a man treading the path of spirituality. Perfection and infinite bliss run abreast. True happiness lies nowhere else except in perfection. But how to achieve this perfection? Vivekananda shows us a unique way to achieve the impossible. He writes: “If we can distinguish well between quality and substance, we may become perfect men.”

Sweetness and happiness are rarely found in carrying out earthly duties. No human being must be judged by the nature of his duties, but by the manner and the spirit in which he discharges them. What is our duty and what is not our duty has been the most puzzling, the most intricate problem to solve since the dawn of civilisation. But the bold statement made by Vivekananda solves it in a very easy manner: “Any action that makes us go Godward is a good action, and that is our duty; any action that makes us go downward is evil, and that is not our duty.” And we may further add to it that in order to advance in life, it is our duty to have faith in ourselves first and then in the Divine. Everybody must remember the undeniable truth that without having faith in oneself one can never have faith in God.

Ramakrishna: Soul of the East

No Indian youth of the rising generation can ever dream of escaping the subtle influence of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa. This simple Brahmin conquered the hearts of men with a spiritual weapon which is commonly called intuition-power. He was born with it. He did not much care for the other weapon, which is brain-power.

Looked at with human eyes, his appearance was so helpless — a storm-tossed raft seemed more dependable than the frail frame of this prophet. But going deep within, one could discover his true personality. To one’s surprise, one could find in his teachings a colossal will that could shake the world.

Here was a man whose authoritative voice declared that he not only had seen the Omnipotent, but also could show Him to his beloved disciple Naren (Vivekananda). He further claimed that he saw God more clearly than he saw the disciple standing before him.

As Ramakrishna’s life was replete with wonderful visions, so was his beloved Naren’s life surcharged with the power to fulfil those visions here on earth. Awakened India must ever remain beholden to Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, for it is they who were the most outstanding spiritual figures to appear on Indian soil during the last century. The Master and the disciple were hardly two distinct individuals. Each helped to shape the other. To our deeper vision, they formed an integral whole.

Sri Ramakrishna’s precepts were couched in the simplest language, in words that flew straight into the hearts of the people. The blessings that India — nay, the world — received from him, his unique universal sympathy, stand matchless. “I do not care,” he said; “I will give up a thousand such bodies to help one man. It is glorious to help even one man.”

To live the truths that one has preached is often an impossibility. Glory to Sri Ramakrishna that he was a triumphant living example of the truths that he preached. To him, religion was nothing short of realisation. He synthesised most of the major world religions by his direct and immediate realisation of each of them. One by one, he pierced the core of each religion, extracted its essence, and became the perfect embodiment of that path to the Supreme. Sri Ramakrishna firmly believed, too, that a time would come when an aspirant would be able to attain to God-realisation by three days’ practice.

“Ramakrishna was God manifested in a human being… Vivekananda was a radiant glance from the eye of Shiva,” so said Sri Aurobindo, the founder of the Integral Yoga.

Vivekananda looked upon his Master as the embodiment of perfection. “In the presence of my Master, I found out that man could be perfect even in this body.”

In the following lines produced from the penetrating pen of KD Sethna, we shall observe how, in the march of evolution, one Avatar paves the way for the next one:

“Ramakrishna, the illiterate man from the temple of conventional worship, was a veritable colossus of mystical experience; in him direct and immediate realisation of the Divine Being reached an intensity and variety which made him a marvellous summing-up of the whole spiritual history of India, with a face carrying the first gleam of a new age of the human soul — the age that will be known as the Aurobindonian.”

And do we not remember the supremely prophetic utterance of Sri Aurobindo? “We do not belong to past dawns, but to the noons of the future.”

“East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” The famous statement by Kipling was proved false when Vivekananda, with the flood of Sri Ramakrishna’s inspiration, gloriously united the East and the West with his unique message on religion.

India wants to be. The West wants to do. Is it not at once safe and advisable to be first, and then to offer one’s contribution to the wide world? Atmanam Viddhi, “Know thyself,” says the Upanishad. First know thyself, and then do thou proclaim thyself. This was Ramakrishna’s secret.

There are different paths leading to the Divine. But the shortest and most sunlit path was most powerfully demonstrated by Sri Ramakrishna. The never-ceasing injunction of his teachings was, “Approach the Divine as a child approaches his mother, with the same purity, sincerity, ardent love, and faith, and the Mother will come to you! Call ‘Ma, Ma’; call again and again. The Mother is bound to come.”

When the influence of Western culture had almost caused the real “self” of India to die, and the children of India were running amuck to imitate Western culture, Ramakrishna Paramahansa knew that the time was ripe for him to revive the lost tradition of India.

“Sri Ramakrishna,” said Nolini Kanta Gupta, the celebrated Bengali author, “represents spirituality at its absolute, its pristine fount and power. In him we find the pure gold of spirituality at a time when duplicity, perplexity, deceit and falsehood on the one hand, and atheism, disbelief and irreverence on the other reigned supreme…When spirituality had almost disappeared from the world and even in India, it existed, as it were, merely in name, there was the advent of Sri Ramakrishna bringing with him spirituality in its sheer plenitude and investing it with eternal certitude and infallibility.”

It was Ramakrishna, too, who showed the greatest reverence for women that the world has known. He felt that women were the embodiments of the Divine Mother and he treated them as divinities. His own consort, Sarada Devi, he worshipped as the Divine Mother Herself.

Far and wide travelled the renown of Ramakrishna’s spiritual teachings, influencing, among others, the French savant Romain Rolland. So deeply was he touched that in the evening of his life he wrote the memorable book, The Life of Sri Ramakrishna. Two lines of significant insight I quote from that book.

“The man whose image I here invoke was the consummation of two thousand years of the spiritual life of three million people… His inner life embraced the whole multiplicity of men and God.”

Professor Max Muller, another famous European, was also an ardent admirer of Ramakrishna. Max Muller had devoted the major portion of his life to the study of the Hindu scriptures, had translated the Rig Veda into English, and was the author of History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature and Sacred Books of the East. Among his later works was Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings.

Once Swami Vivekananda went to Oxford to pay homage to Professor Max Muller, whom he looked upon as a sage and a “Vedantist of Vedantists and kindness itself.” On Vivekananda’s departure, the Professor, who had seen seventy winters, accompanied the Swami to the railway station, justifying his coming by saying, “It is not every day that one meets a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahansa.”

Sri Ramakrishna, to thee we offer our deepest homage. Our hearts feel that what you possessed was the Infinite, and that the Infinite was your heart’s Eternal Home.

The child of Kali

The child Ramakrishna was at once God-centric and God-intoxicated. It is often that a God-lover is misunderstood and considered to be a lunatic of the first water. Sri Ramakrishna was no exception in the eyes of some of his countrymen. As a child cries to his mother for sweets and toys, so did the child Ramakrishna cry for love and devotion to his Mother Kali. And this love and devotion is nothing other than the secret key to open the door to God-realisation.

Ramakrishna will appear to one as a man of overflowing emotion, to a second as an ardent aspirant, to a third as a man of philosophical wisdom, to a fourth as a man of unique sincerity. It is obvious that different persons should possess different opinions regarding his personality. For in a matter like this, a flawless analysis on an intellectual basis is next to impossible, and all our human judgement must sadly fail to yield any useful result. But nobody will ever hesitate to call him the most beloved child of Kali, the Mother. His sole aim in life was to have nothing save and except a constant union with the Mother Kali. His aim he did fulfil. And in one word we can sum up the message of his life: Ma.

A wonderful swimmer in the sea of Brahman’s Silence, a unique clarion in the world-atmosphere of the Spirit’s expression was Sri Ramakrishna. Although he had attained to the transcendental plane, he preferred to be the flute to be played by his Mother Kali. To cite him: “I do not want to be sugar, but I want to taste sugar.”

Ramakrishna was, as it were, the seed sown in the world-soil and Vivekananda the bumper crop of which humanity is the reaper. Ramakrishna was the inspiration, Vivekananda was its expression, and humanity now has both inspiration and expression as its peerless possessions.

Every word that fell from his divine lips carried weight. Sharp humour, too, was not wanting when the occasion demanded it, but those who had to suffer his humorous blows did feel later on that those blows were meant only to awake their slumbering soul. His trance-bound countenance, the simplicity of his expression, his unassuming and genial manner, the lucid cordiality of his relationship with all, coupled with his magnificently hallowed life and divine love, won for him a universal attraction and devotion.

It was Ramakrishna who peacefully housed in himself the Cosmic and Trans-cosmic Consciousness with all possible inclusiveness of outlook. What he felt was spontaneous. What he said was spontaneous. What he did was spontaneous. He had no purpose of his own, and whatever we apparently hold to have been his purpose, that too, to our astonishment, was never influenced by the stream of desire. He had no will save that of his Mother Kali. Consequently, an occasion never arose in his self-dedicated life to the Mother on which he had to hold himself responsible for any of his activities.

We can easily come to the conclusion that the descent of Avatars like Sri Ramakrishna with a human body is intended simply to uplift and further the progress of mankind in the evolutionary process. They go on doing good to mankind in their earthly bodies so long as such continuance is necessary in the interest of humanity, in spite of their being immune from any action, good or bad, big or small.

Naturally, we do not and cannot know all the phases of Sri Ramakrishna’s mystic life. But what we dare understand is this: that he taught us how to call to the Mother. No doubt we are her children, but it is absolutely necessary to feel that She is our real Mother, and that we are her real children, and that we have every right to demand of her all our needs, which She will never fail to fulfil for us.

Ramakrishna ranks high among the greatest mystics and spiritual figures of the world. His very life was in itself the most effective refutation of the half-believer and unbeliever of the Divine. Reason, whether erring or unerring, was altogether foreign to his nature. Who was Ramakrishna, if not a unique revelation of intuition? This supreme Mystic showed to the world that there is something divine beyond and behind terrestrial appearances, and that it is no mere inference of the hesitating understanding that the world is real. His teachings were surcharged with conviction. They sprang from the innermost depth of this heart. His simple and candid language has touched the heart of mankind as clearly as the sense-organs apprehend the physical objects of the world.

Apparently we do notice that the true and higher life is less contagious than the evil and the lower life. But the higher consciousness that constantly and puissantly flooded the mind and the heart of Ramakrishna exerted a unique attraction on all persons around him, whether they were his disciples or not, and finally lifted them above the ordinary plane to partake of the divine sweetness. They found that a supremely calm and serene atmosphere was not to be had from the eloquent discussions of the intellectuals, but only from Ramakrishna, the eternal child of the eternal Mother Kali.

It is quite surprising that Naren, the dearest disciple of Ramakrishna, had in the beginning no faith in Mother Kali. Days ran into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, yet the proud head of Naren would not surrender to Kali. In season and out, he would argue with his Master about the authenticity of divinity in the Mother. At times the Master was hurt. But the Mother used to brush off his qualms. Once She told Her child that in due time Naren would have faith in Her and stop arguing with him. With a heart full of certitude the Master said to his hesitating disciple that a time would come when at the mere mention of Mother Kali, his eyes would shed tears. Infallible was his prophecy. In after years Vivekananda says: “How I used to hate Kali and all her ways! That was the ground of my six years’ fight — that I would not accept Her. But I had to accept Her at last. Ramakrishna Paramahansa dedicated me to Her, and now I believe that She guides me in every little thing I do, and does with me what She wills.”

Vivekananda’s invocation to Kali the Mother is unique:

...Come, Mother, come!
For Terror is Thy name,
Death is Thy breath
And every shaking step
Destroys a world for e’er.
Thou “Time,” the All-Destroyer!
Come, O Mother, come!...

Something more significant we learn from him. He confides to us that only such a devotee can hope to cherish her Presence:

Who dares misery love,
And hug the form of Death,
Dance in destruction’s dance
To him the Mother comes.

The great Messenger of Nazareth declared to the world:

He made bold to declare so on the strength of his supreme identification with his Father. Now I must bring Sri Ramakrishna’s consort on the scene. Sarada Devi constantly felt and saw that the child of Kali had completely identified himself with his Mother. So to her he was neither her husband nor the God-man Ramakrishna, but Kali.

Two mothers and a son: Bhuvaneshwari, Sarada Devi and Naren

Sweeter than the sweetest is the smile of our physical mother. Deeper than the deepest is her affection. Mightier than the mightiest is the power of her blessing. Vaster than the vastest is her hope for her son.

If there be anything never-to-be forgotten, it is the reminiscences of one’s own mother. “Wife and children may desert a man, but his mother never,” so says Vivekananda. In his childhood and boyhood Vivekananda found his confidante in nobody else save his mother; and from her he inherited not only moral purity and aesthetic sense, but also many intellectual faculties and a unique memory. His mother’s commanding personality could easily win the respect and veneration of all who came in contact with her. Her son’s influence shook the world, and her influence moulded his life considerably.

The young Naren was subject to fits of restlessness. His temper was of the quickest and he was possessed of dauntless spirit and childish pranks, but even so, with no difficulty he could make a clean breast of the misdeeds of his restlessness to his mother.

“Should the worst come to the worst, never swerve from the path of truth.” One day the schoolboy Naren got this bold and precious advice from his mother after his return from school. A sad incident had taken place in the class. The geography teacher had said, “Naren, what you say is wrong.”

“No, Sir, it is right.”

“I say, it is not in the book.”

“No, Sir, it is.”

“No argument, I shall beat you black and blue.” Smack went the cane repeatedly. Yet Naren’s sincere and bold heart would not acquiesce in what he knew to be wrong. After a while the teacher opened the book. To his extreme sorrow and shame he found Naren to be perfectly right.

As Naren was wont to disclose everything to his dear mother, this sad incident too he related to her. A tender smile played upon her lips. She fondly caressed and blessed her son, saying, “I am really happy and proud of you, my son. Should the worst come to the worst never swerve from the path of truth.”

Another piece of advice he got from his mother in his boyhood. “Bileh [Naren], as you will try your utmost not to lose your prestige, even so never indulge in hurting or lowering others’ prestige.”

True, poverty is no sin. But this truth too we cannot altogether ignore — that poverty often doubts the existence of the merciful God. Within a few months after the death of Viswanath Dutta, the family members found themselves in the jaws of poverty. Friends and relatives began deceiving them terribly. The eldest, Naren, was simply unfit to make both ends meet. Alas, one morning while he was rising from bed and repeating the name of God, his attention was distracted by the sudden outburst of his mother, who cried out, “Fool, be quiet! You have made yourself hoarse with praying to God from your childhood up. And what has He done for you?” His mother’s words cut him to the quick. Such an occurrence, however, was very rare.

In after years, many times Vivekananda spoke of his mother with a deep sense of gratitude. “It is my mother who has been the constant inspiration of my life and work.”

In 1894 Vivekananda was a guest of Mrs Ole Bull in America. To comply with her request he gave a lecture on “The Ideals of Indian Women” to the women of Cambridge, a suburb of Boston. They were so charmed by it that they could not help writing a letter to his mother in India:

Two arresting incidents will form a significant contrast between the mother and the son with respect to mundane love for each other. One night during his lonely itinerancy, while he was in Madras, Vivekananda dreamed that his mother had died. He was utterly upset, for he firmly believed that his mother was actually dead — so much so that he was preparing himself to perform her obsequies in Madras. His disciple Alasingha Perumal pointed out that as a sannyasin, a renouncer, he had no right to perform the last rites of his mother.

“Nonsense, how could Shankara do all that? I am not going to abide by such silly and obligatory rules which preclude me from making my last offerings of gratitude to the memory of my dearest mother,” came the prompt reply from the Swami. Subsequently he consulted an occultist who assured him that his mother was alive and hale and hearty. And this occultist’s word proved to be quite correct.

On the other hand, when the news of her son’s entering the state of Final Illumination reached his mother’s ears, her brave heart voiced forth, “Giving birth to a son having such an exceptional genius I am ever prepared to receive such blows.”

Now let us turn to his spiritual mother, Sarada Devi. However great the earthly mother may be, her love is no match for the disinterested love of the spiritual Mother. Vivekananda’s deepest conviction about the spiritual Mother runs:

Once Vivekananda’s physical mother went to the Belur Math with one of her woman friends. She showed her friend the newly constructed buildings and the beautiful surroundings and remarked, “My Naren has done all this.” Sarada Devi and Naren also happened to be near by. Vivekananda in no time corrected his mother, saying, “Not your Naren,” and pointing to Sarada Devi, “but hers. Your Naren is by no means capable of such achievements.”

On the eve of his departure for America he decided that he would cross the seas only after having some concrete indications from his Master. He waited and waited, but in vain. At last he argued that his spiritual Mother and the Master were one and the same, and that he would seek her permission to go abroad. Accordingly he wrote a letter to Sarada Devi from Madras. By the time he received a letter from her he had had a dream in which he saw his Master Sri Ramakrishna proceed to the West over the waves and waters. This he took for approval of his plan. Presently he received whole-hearted permission from his spiritual Mother. With redoubled faith he was able to undertake his historic voyage.

When the Swadeshi movement was in full swing, Sarada Devi once remarked, “Had my Naren been alive, he could not have remained quiet and would have surely been put in jail.” This indicates how constantly she cherished the memory of her darling Naren, whom she would not allow to go anywhere alone after his triumphant return from the West.

We will not be far from the truth if we dare say that behind the fiery political activities of Nivedita her Master Vivekananda’s mighty influence loomed large. We are apt to lose sight of Swami Vivekananda’s great contribution to the reawakening of the Indian Nation. His spiritual genius has, so to speak, eclipsed his patriotism. To cite Amal Kiran (KD Sethna):

Vivekananda’s heart pined for the removal of the untold poverty and suffering of the masses — not through alms and charity, but by awakening the Spirit in their hearts, so that they could make their own way and stand up with their heads erect, as men amongst other men.

On the day of Sri Ramakrishna’s passing, his disciples and consort were standing by him. An excruciating pain was in their hearts. Sarada Devi’s eyes were full of tears, for soon her Kali (Ramakrishna) would pass behind the curtain of eternity. Naren was confused — almost baffled. Suddenly to their surprise Sri Ramakrishna, to whose life remained a few fleeting hours, said to Sarada Devi: “Why do you weep so bitterly? I leave your Naren with you. ”

We have dealt with the two mothers, physical and spiritual. Now let us focus our attention on their son. It will not be sufficient to say that Vivekananda was the son or brother or friend of so and so. Who, then, was Vivekananda? Or was there any need for any one to ask him for his credentials? Let us leave JH Wright to answer it. “To ask you, Swami, for your credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine.”

“The very fact that Ramakrishna’s chosen instrument for world-work was Vivekananda, a complex passionate analytic mind, a highly cultured master of system and organisation, a richly endowed physical nature, shows that India moves instinctively to grip earth no less than heaven. At least the intention of Ramakrishna was to reshape through Vivekananda the whole of the country’s life in the light of God-realisation.” With these most significant words, KD Sethna has depicted with unsurpassed mastery Vivekananda’s life-long mission.

Verily, Vivekananda once boldly declared that his personality was ushered upon the earth to bring down into the day-to-day practical life the precepts of Vedanta which Shankara wanted to reserve only for the ascetics dwelling in caves and forests.

These words of Longfellow are absolutely correct, but some more we may add to them: a genius can be judged only by another genius.

When Vivekananda’s days were numbered, he once said in a very low voice, “If there had been another Vivekananda, then he would have understood what this Vivekananda has done. But in years to come hundreds of Vivekanandas will come into the world.”

It is left to history alone to bear witness to these profoundly pathetic and supremely prophetic words of Vivekananda, an Olympian leader of mankind.

Vivekananda speaks about Christ

It is easier to have faith in the personal God than in the impersonal. God dons the earthly cloak. He bodies forth the creation of His own time, and casts a far-flung glance into the yet unborn to bring it into existence. He reveals Himself to each individual according to his power of receptivity.

To the beginner, Christ would immediately speak of the personal God: “Pray to your Father in Heaven.” To the one a little more advanced, he would say, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” But to the one who was fully advanced and his dear disciple, he would proclaim: “I and my Father are One.” We find the same truth echoed in Sri Ramakrishna’s words. He disclosed to his beloved Naren (Vivekananda), “He who is Rama, He who is Krishna, dwells at once in this body as Ramakrishna.”

It is a sad fact that often the disciples of various paths misinterpret the teachings of their Masters to the extent of claiming theirs as the only Master. In doing so, they bring their teachers down to the level of ordinary men. An aspirant, they claim, in spite of high achievements, counts for nothing unless and until he is prepared to give all credit to their master. What blind ignorance! If the master were an ear-witness of his disciple’s utterance, he would burn with shame. On this Vivekananda says:

An interesting event took place when Vivekananda was staying at Thousand Island Park. It was a dark and rainy night. A few ladies from Detroit had travelled hundreds of miles to find him there. Having met him, one of them humbly spoke out, “We have come to you just as we would go to Jesus if he were still on the earth and ask him to teach us.”

Vivekananda, deeply moved and overwhelmed with humility, replied, “If only I possessed the power of Christ to set you free now!”

Christ unveiled the truth, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” A heroic echo is heard in Vivekananda: “It is already yours… It is yours by right.” We are drawn to the famous lines of the Gita: “He who seeth Me everywhere and seeth everything in Me, of him will I never lose hold, nor shall he ever lose hold of Me.” Almost parallel to this are the divine words of Christ: “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”

The Nazarene was a product of the East, although the people of the West have managed to forget this bare truth. “An Oriental of Orientals,” said Vivekananda of the son of Mary. It is quite natural that in the Bible we come across many images, symbols, natural scenes and simple ways of living common to the oriental countries. But what is more important, the oriental view is that this material life falls short of true satisfaction. So when Christ says, “Not this life, but something higher,” Vivekananda cannot help remarking, “Like a true son of the Orient, he is practical in that.”

Vivekananda meant that our earthly achievements, however grandiose, are in no way enough to quench the ever-pinching thirst of human souls to attain to higher life.

Christ’s body is Christianity. Christianity embodies humility. Vivekananda’s humility the entire world treasures. He once said:

Vivekananda and America

He who broke the barrier between East and West and placed the two on common ground is still a living force in both. His function was to bring in oneness where there was none before, by carrying the best of each to the other. The East had become lost by moving away from materialism; the West, by keeping clear of spirituality. A happy marriage of the two, he deeply felt, was the supreme need of the world. Life without spirituality was as poor as life without material power. Hence he dynamised the East with the force of the West, and inspired the West with the ancient wisdom of the East.

It is foolish to think that he sailed for America to satisfy his mental curiosity. It is also an absurdity to believe that his feet touched foreign shores to make a noise in the world. No. It was Sri Ramakrishna’s silent blessing that kindled the inspiration-fire of the beloved disciple to share his light with the soil and soul of America.

No country is superior to others in all spheres of life. Vivekananda, with his deeply penetrating insight, says: “As regards spirituality, the Americans are far inferior to us, but their society is far superior to ours.”

He showed how a happy and true union could be effected between the other-world-loving Indians and this-world-loving Americans: “We will teach them our spirituality and assimilate what is best in their society.”

Asia, Europe and America — each continent made a contribution of its own to the world at large. With the help of his spirit’s vision, Vivekananda revealed the truth: “Asia laid the germs of civilisation, Europe developed man, and America is developing woman and the masses.”

It is an established fact that the women in America are the most advanced in the world, especially in the cultivation of knowledge. Vivekananda made a surprising observation:

“The average American woman is far more cultivated than the average American man.” He further added: “The men slave all their life for money and the women snatch every opportunity to improve themselves.” His highest compliment to women came when he said: “I have seen thousands of women here whose hearts are as pure and stainless as snow.” And again: “American women! A hundred lives would not be sufficient to pay my deep debt of gratitude to you! I have not words enough to express my gratitude to you.”

However, he was also deeply indebted to American men. For it was JH Wright, Professor of Greek at Harvard University, who was first in realising what Vivekananda was when the Indian monk was found, prior to becoming a delegate to the Parliament of Religions, almost destitute, no better than a street-beggar. Verily, Professor Wright, that blessed son of America, was a man of action. He introduced Vivekananda to the President of the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The professor’s flaming and instructive words have echoed and re-echoed in the hearts of both East and West: “To ask you, Swami, for your credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine.”

Vivekananda’s soul-stirring addresses inspired the audience to have faith in all the religions of the world, to hug the best in each religion. There was a magic spell of throbbing delight woven around his very name at the Parliament of Religions. He was the figure that dominated the world’s gaze there. A report appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript of 30 September 1893, about the great triumph of the Indian spiritual giant: “If he merely crosses the platform, he is applauded, and this marked approval of thousands he accepts in a childlike spirit of gratification, without a trace of conceit.”

The same paper on 5 April 1894, had an irresistible recollection:

In no time America realised that Vivekananda was no isolated dreamer, nor, unlike most spiritual figures of the East, did he care primarily for his own personal salvation. They discovered in him a lofty spiritual realist and a universal lover of humanity. It was his vast personality and his spiritual inspiration that achieved for him such acclaim in America.

Vivekananda’s credo was characterised by its freedom; thus the freedom-loving Americans responded enthusiastically to his message. They accepted his teaching that material prosperity and spiritual aspiration must run abreast and help each other if man is to see the full face of Divine Knowledge.It is indeed only when we live in this truth that we can bask in the glorious Sunshine of the Soul that is Vivekananda.

Vivekananda and England

What Vivekananda, as a boy, despised and obstinately refused to learn, proved, in his glorious youth, a mighty instrument of victory in his hands. Apart from his towering spiritual personality, his hold on the English tongue facilitated his hold on the mind, heart and soul of East and West. His obstinacy failed to reverse God’s Will, which was shaping his destiny. I hope it will not be out of place to cite a few momentous lines from that book just to make my readers intimate with the significance and necessity of the English language in India: It will be no exaggeration to say that by virtue of the English language alone India stands in the vanguard of the political history of mankind.

As each individual has a distinct place to fill in the world, even so every language has an important role. And it has been an established fact that no other European tongue has so much power of assimilating elements from foreign languages as does the English language.

The English language was brought into Britain by Teutonic invaders. These invaders were of three types: Jutes, Saxons and Angles. Modern English has undergone a considerable change. It is no more the language brought into Britain by the Saxons and the Angles.

Grimm, a German linguist, writes in his famous book On the Origin of Languages that “English possesses a veritable power of expression such as perhaps never stood at the command of any other language of men. Its highly spiritual genius and wonderfully happy development and condition have resulted from a surprisingly intimate union of the two noblest languages in modern Europe, the Teutonic and the Roman.”

Not only in his boyhood, but also in the prime of his youth, while his feet were touching the alien shores, Vivekananda’s ruthless contempt for England was almost unbelievable. As regards the English national life, a strong suspicion was then haunting his mind.

To quote him: “No one ever landed on English soil with more hatred in his heart for a race than I did for the English.”

But with what result? He had to revise his feeling overnight. In the following lines we shall observe his excessive love for England disclosed by himself before a multitude of people at Calcutta:

— Cicero

Had we been able to share this lofty truth of Cicero’s, there would not have existed the giant wall of misunderstanding between England and India. The arrow of England is matter. The arrow of India is spirit. The victory of either can never be the true fulfilment of human birth. Both the arrows must be united to pierce the veil of ignorance. Lo, the victory of victories, the fulfilment of fulfilments is at our disposal. Vivekananda’s supremely pathetic voice speaks:

Obedience and self-respect are the two divine qualities in a human being. If one can combine these two unique virtues, then truly one has achieved something invaluable. Of the greatest achievement of the English, Vivekananda’s lofty appreciation is this: “They have known how to combine obedience with self-respect.”

I am sure I will lose much in this humble attempt of mine if the ever-inspiring memory of Nivedita does not echo in my heart. In sending his spiritual daughter Nivedita’s supreme sacrifice into the world, Swami Vivekananda declared: “Nivedita is the fairest flower of my work in England.”

The presiding Deity of England not only claps her hands with delight, but also burns herself, as it were, in the flames of ecstasy to hear from a spiritual giant of the East, “My work in England has been more satisfactory than anywhere else. I firmly believe that if I should die tomorrow, the work in England would not die, but would go on expanding all the time.”

The disciple of Sri Ramakrishna was a live spring of spiritual force. No hyperbole, he was the recoverer and vivifier of the submerged soul of India. It was with his Master’s immortal teachings that he vitalised the sinews of India and illumined her darkened soul. Vivekananda was not only a great Indian figure, but also a world influence. What we actually learn from him is to fight while there is life within our limbs. Fight against what? Fight against weakness, fight against ignorance.

Vivekananda in Pondicherry

Pondicherry derives from Puduhcheri, a new town. Yes, it is a new, an ever-new town, new from age to age.

In Agastya’s time it was Vedapuri, the seat of Vedic knowledge. The truths of the Veda are at once eternal and ever-new. Coming down to our own days, we find Vivekananda visiting Pondicherry in 1893, just a few months before embarking on his historic voyage to America, where the multitudes of people heard in him the voice of eternity ringing across the ages, and saw in him the ineffable vision of God.

Vivekananda, the dearest disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, Tilak, the fearless Champion of India’s swaraj, Bharathi, the patriot Bard of India’s nationalism and independence, Sri Aurobindo, the Heaven-born Prophet of India’s independence and of the Life Divine — all hallowed the town with the dust of their feet. Sri Aurobindo’s fixing on Pondicherry as the divinely ordained seat of his world-transforming Sadhana led to visits by a number of distinguished leaders of the national movement — Lala Lajpat Rai, C.R. Das, Moonje Purushottandas Tandon and Rabindranath Tagore, to name only a few.

In 1914 there occurred an epoch-making event in the history of the world. From Paris came a remarkable spiritual figure, Madame M. Alfassa, now known as the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It is she who by her divine personality and far-seeing powers of organisation has changed the face of Pondicherry to a great extent, and is continuing to build a new life in this ever new town. The Vedapuri of old is again going to be the Vedapuri of the modern times — the meeting-place of East and West, the place of pilgrimage of the whole world.

During his six-year itinerary, Vivekananda toured India from end to end. From the Himalayan heights down to the plains he came, to the farthest point of Cape Comorin, the confluence of the three waters: the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The appalling poverty, malignant wretchedness, and untold degradation of India tortured his athletic heart. Furthermore, the caste-system was for him an unspeakable abomination.

Equally, to set foot on foreign shores was, in those days, a counter-abomination for the orthodox. Hence Vivekananda’s position in the orthodox circles of Pondicherry could easily be imagined. There was a hot exchange of words over his sea voyage between Vivekananda and an orthodox pandit of the town. The pandit had a musty load of crystallised superstitions of by-gone days in his head. He gloried in spending all his energy discussing the touchableness and untouchableness of this man and that man, of this food and that food, of this country and that country. We shall leave Vivekananda himself to relate to us that curious incident:

“Balaji and G.G. may remember one evening at Pondicherry — we were discussing the matter of sea-voyage with a Pandit, and I shall always remember his brutal gestures and his kadapi na (Never)! They do not know that India is a very small part of the world, the whole world looks down with contempt upon the three hundred millions of earth-worms crawling upon the fair soil of India and trying to oppress each other. This state of things must be removed.” This was the Pondicherry of 1893!

Few could really feel and appreciate his stupendous sacrifice for his Motherland. Rabindranath said of Vivekananda, “He sacrificed his life into a bridge between East and West.”

Sri Aurobindo said of Vivekananda, “The capitulation of Vivekananda to Sri Ramakrishna was a capitulation of the West to the East.” The symbolic beginning is now become the realistic fact that is emerging in Pondicherry. France replaced her political link with Pondicherry with a golden link of her culture.

Pondicherry stands as an Indian town with a broad intellectual culture and outlook — the promising beginning of a consummation of Vivekananda’s dream to bring West into East and East into West, as well as Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s dreams, all aiming at unity in diversity of culture.

A spiritual giant and a seer-poet

Vivekananda was a flaming tongue of fire. Tagore was a sea of beauty and delight. Vivekananda was a clarion call. Tagore was a soul-stirring flute. For both, humanity was a great love — dynamic and powerful on the part of Vivekananda, soft and sweet on the part of Tagore.

Vivekananda says in effect: “No time to linger! Awake, O India, and with your dauntless strength achieve the loftiest height of your Spirit.” Tagore says in effect: “Look everywhere and see God’s beauty, and then, O Ind, raise your proud head towards the Highest.”

With his spirit’s height, Vivekananda was the most nourishing, life-giving fruit. With his creative genius, Rabindranath was the most beautiful flower. The Goddess Mahakali shone in the eyes of Vivekananda. The Goddess Mahalakshmi smiled through the eyes of Rabindranath.

Yet it was only after their recognition by the West that the East would claim them, the spiritual giant by the impact of his Chicago address, the mystic poet by virtue of his Gitanjali. In both cases, the divine singer expressed himself in divine measure. Through his spiritual emotion and his soul-stirring voice, Narendra pleased his divine Master, Ramakrishna, and through him, the world. By his soul-awakening songs of transcendental beauty, Rabindranath charmed the world and seized the All-Blissful.

Both Narendranath and Rabindranath came into the world from the Unknown. They were, as it were, two tireless voyagers. Rabindranath touched the earth-sphere in 1861, just two fleeting years before Narendranath. Narendranath left earth and entered the upper-sphere in 1902, thirty-nine long years before Rabindranath.

Verily, Vivekananda and Tagore were pilgrims to Infinity’s Shore, where the finite, at last, has its perfect Play.

The spiritual daughter of Swami Vivekananda

East represents the Soul-power. West represents the power of matter. The absolute surrender of Miss Margaret Noble at the feet of an Indian sannyasin stands as a glorious proof of the submission of the West before the spiritual light of India. This truth finds its significant corroboration in the very name Nivedita given her by her Master. Truly, Nivedita was an emblem of true offering. She successfully utilised the power that she received from her Master in the cause of uplifting Indian womanhood and of freeing the Indian nation from foreign yoke. This again proves that as the East is endowed with the power of imparting spirituality, even so the West possesses the power of receiving it.

The sincerity of Nivedita’s devotion to her Master expressed itself more in her life than in anything else. She lived the truths which she heard from the Swami’s soul-awakening lips. And in this connection, it will be quite apposite on our part to remember the fiery and intoxicating words that she received from Vivekananda on the eve of her departure for India: “I will stand by you unto death, whether you work for India or not, whether you give up Vedanta or remain in it. The tusks of the elephant come out, but they never go back. Even so are the words of a man.” Needless to say, her Master’s words echoed and re-echoed in the innermost recesses of her heart during her historic voyage — nay, to the end of her life.

Margaret’s father was quite aware of her bright future even in her childhood. He found that his daughter was not of the common run. Therefore, before breathing his last, Samuel, who was a parson, spoke to his wife in a low tone, almost a whisper, about Margaret:

On 28 January 1898, Margaret landed in India. She was one of the most precious jewels that the West could offer to India. It may also be said that she was an unknown schoolteacher who would later stand in the glare of wide publicity.

“The Mother’s heart, the hero’s will,
The sweetness of the southern breeze,
The sacred charm and strength that dwell
On Aryan altars, flaming free —
All these be yours and many more,
No ancient soul could dream before,
Be thou to India’s future son,
The mistress, servant, friend in one.”

The chief disciple received from her Master this unique benediction while she was being initiated into the vow of Brahmacharya (celibacy) and the name Nivedita was given to her. A man treading the path of spirituality must never forget that, as opportunity never knocks at one’s door twice, even so benediction, a true benediction, rarely repeats itself. But the power of that benediction can easily fight out the stupendous odds of centuries that eclipse the knowledge-sun of the disciple.

It will be worth while to pay more attention to the word ‘benediction,’ the touchstone in the life of Nivedita. It happened that during their stay at Almora, Vivekananda for some time assumed altogether a different aspect in his relation to Nivedita. He was unbelievably severe to her. He neglected her much more than one could believe possible. “My relation,” says the disciple, “to our Master at this time can only be described as one of clash and conflict.” But the red-letter day at last dawned to save her life from the deepest pangs. To cite her once again: “And then a time came when one of the older ladies of our party, thinking perhaps that such intensity of pain inflicted might easily go too far, interceded kindly and gravely with the Swami. He listened silently and went away. At evening, however, he returned and finding us together in the verandah, he turned to her and said with the simplicity of a child, ‘You are right. There must be a change. I am going into the forests to be alone and when I come back I shall bring peace.’ Then he turned and saw that above us the moon was new and a sudden exaltation came into his voice as he said, ‘See! the Mohammedans think much of the new moon. Let us also with the new moon begin a new life!’ As the words ended he lifted his hands and blessed with silent depths of blessing his most rebellious disciple, by this time kneeling before him… It was assuredly a moment of wonderful sweetness of reconciliation…Long, long ago Sri Ramakrishna had told his disciples that the day would come when his beloved ‘Naren’ would manifest his own great gift of bestowing knowledge with a touch. That evening at Almora I proved the truth of his prophecy.”

A rare combination of sweet devotion and lofty intellect was Nivedita. No Indian will ever deny the important role that she played after entering into the Indian political fray. With a fearless heart she associated herself with the activities of Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, and other political leaders of the front rank. In those days she was surcharged within and without with her Master’s indomitable spirit. She had fully learned the meaning of suffering. To our joy her mighty sacrifice was crowned with success.

“Nivedita,” says Tagore, “was the universal Mother. We have seldom come across such motherly love which can embrace the whole of a country outside the bounds of its family circle… When Nivedita used to say ‘our people’, one could easily detect the tone of intense familiarity in that; it was so sincere and yet so spontaneous!… Nivedita had the natural power to endear herself to the people of India, irrespective of caste, creed and religion. She could mix with them intimately and freely. She looked at them with respect and not with compassion.”

In this connection let us cite here an incident that actually took place in her life. The milk-man who would daily supply her with milk asked her one day to give him some advice on religion. On hearing it her eyes widened with surprise. “You! You are an Indian. You need to have a piece of advice from me? Is there anything that you people do not know? You are the descendant of Sri Krishna. Accept my salutation.”

The following lines appeared in the Karmayogin, edited by Nivedita in the absence of Sri Aurobindo, who had then retired to Chandernagore on receiving a divine Command from Above. We shall observe here how Nivedita identified herself with India and expressed her high hopes that India would occupy the highest rank of leadership in the domain of intellectual activities:

— Bacon

The Master as I Saw Him, by Nivedita, inevitably has its place with those books that are to be ‘chewed and digested.’ According to Sri Aurobindo this book was written with the blood of her heart. Also it was Sri Aurobindo who, many years ago, addressed her as the flame-spirit.

The life and teaching of Sister Nivedita can easily claim to form an imperishable part of the recent history of Indian womanhood. Her wonderful sacrifice lives in spirit in spite of her departure from human existence, through the ever-expanding activities of the followers and admirers of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Nivedita’s was a heart of supreme selflessness. Her devotion pined to dive into the sea of Hindu religion to discover ‘full many a gem of purest ray serene.’ And she got them. She, with her superb intellect, ceaselessly helped Indian education, art, science and politics. Her multifarious activities transcend human understanding, culminating in direct contact with the Olympian spirit of her Guru. Her humility remained throughout as an innate characteristic, notwithstanding the ceaseless outpouring of respect and veneration she received from the hearts of those who knew her and closely studied her life.

Napoleon’s dictionary did not house the word ‘impossibility’, and hers had no room for ‘despair’. Even the last words she uttered under her breath amply show that her life, which was a true replica of her Master’s heroic spirit, would not give way to despair: “The boat is sinking, but I shall see the sunrise.”

Part II — Lectures

The Vedanta Philosophy¹

Seventy-three long years ago, precisely on this date, the great spiritual giant Swami Vivekananda dynamically blessed this university, the university unparalleled in the whole of the United States of America, with his august presence. He spoke on the Vedanta Philosophy. Today I am invited to speak on the same lofty subject. Seventy-three springs later, call it a mere stroke of fate, call it a destined, divine dispensation, on this fruitfully significant day, I am at once proud and blessed to associate my name with that of Swami Vivekananda, a spiritual hero of Himalayan stature.

Thomas Jefferson, on replacing Benjamin Franklin as envoy to France, remarked, "I succeed him; no one could replace him." With all the sincerity at my command, I dare neither to replace nor to succeed Swami Vivekananda, but, as a son of Bengal, I wish to bask in the unprecedented glory of Sri Ramakrishna's dearest disciple, a unique son of Mother Bengal.

O Harvard University, I tell you a sweet secret of mine. Perhaps you have heard about the Royal Bengal Tigers. The fear of these tigers ruthlessly tortured my infant heart. O Harvard, your very name used to create almost the same fear in my mind in my adolescent days. But today, to my extreme surprise, you have awakened enormous joy in my heart.

Vedanta means "the end of the Vedas"; indeed, this is purely a literal meaning. Otherwise, Vedanta has a reservoir of countless meanings; religious, philosophical, moral, ethical, spiritual, earthly human and heavenly divine. Vedanta reveals guideposts for a spiritual pilgrimage — a pilgrimage towards the absolute Truth. This pilgrimage welcomes all those who soulfully cry for the Transcendental Brahman.

The earth-bound mind is too feeble to enter into the Truth Absolute. "The words return with the mind fruitlessly endeavouring to express what Truth is." This truth sublime we learn from the Vedas.

Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma, "Verily all this is Brahman." A true lover of Brahman needs must be a true lover of mankind. Never can he see eye to eye with Samuel Johnson, who voiced forth: "I am willing to love mankind, except an American." Needless to say, the teachings of Vedanta are marked by a rare catholicity of vision — always.

Vedanta welcomes not only the purest heart, but also the scoundrel of the deepest dye. Vedanta invites all. Vedanta accepts all. Vedanta includes all. Vedanta's inner door is open not only to the highest, but also to the lowest in human society.

India's Shankaracharya is by far the greatest Vedantin that our Mother-Earth has ever produced. At the dawn of his spiritual journey, before he had attained to the Consciousness of the Absolute Brahman, a certain feeling of differentiation plagued his mind. Hard was it for him to believe that everything in the universe was Brahman. One day as Shankara was returning home after having completed his bath in the Ganges, he chanced to meet a butcher — an untouchable. The butcher, who was carrying a load of meat, accidentally touched Shankara in passing. Shankara flew into a rage. His eyes blazed like two balls of fire. His piercing glance was about to turn the butcher into a heap of ashes. The poor butcher, trembling from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, said, "Venerable Sir, please tell me the reason of your anger. I am at your service. I am at your command." Shankara blurted out, "How dare you touch my body which has just been sanctified in the holiest river? Am I to remind you that you are a butcher?" "Venerable Sir," replied the butcher, "who has touched whom? The Self is not the body. You are not the body. Neither am I. You are the Self. So am I." The Knowledge of the One Absolute dawned on poor Shankara. People nowadays in India claim that the butcher was no other than Lord Shiva who wanted Shankara to practise what he was preaching. But, according to many, Shankara himself was an incarnation of Lord Shiva.

By no means should we neglect the body. The body is the temple. The soul is the Deity therein. Have we not learned from Vedanta that it is in the physical that the spiritual disciplines have to be practised?

Lo and behold, Walt Whitman is powerfully knocking at our heart's door: "If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred."

The five cardinal points of Vedanta are: the Oneness of Existence, the Divinity in Man, the Divinity of Man, Man the Infinite and Man the Absolute.

Vedanta expresses itself through three particular systems: Advait. or Non-Dualism, Vishishtadvaita or Qualified Non-Dualism and Dvaita, Dualism. These three ancient systems developed large sects in India that were later shaken by the arrival of Buddhism. Buddhism shook the Vedic-Upanishadic tree. India is eternally grateful, therefore, to Shankara for the revival of the Non-Dualistic system, to Ramanuja for the Qualified Non-Dualistic System and to Madhava for the Dualistic System.

Shankara's Advaita or Monism

According to Shankara, there is only one Reality, and this Reality is Brahman. Brahman and Brahman alone is the Absolute Reality. Nothing does or can exist without Brahman.

To our sorrow, the world has misunderstood Shankara. He is being misrepresented. If one studies Shankara with one's inner light, one immediately comes to realise that Shankara never did say that the world is a cosmic illusion. What he wanted to say and what he did say is this: the world is not and cannot be the Ultimate Reality.

Shankara saw the light of day in the eighth century A.D. In those days, spirituality was on the wane in India. The Indian spirituality or, should I say, the Hindu spirituality, was undergoing a serious operation while a good many pseudo-religious sects were growing like mushrooms. The Supreme commanded Shankara's appearance on Indian soil to cast these unhealthy sects aside and reestablish one religion, the religion of the Vedas, the sanatana dharma, the Eternal Religion. Shankara advocated monism. This monism is the oneness absolute of the universe, man and God.

The Buddha stole God's Heart and Compassion; Shankara, God's Mind and Intellect; Chaitanya, God's Body and Love; Ramakrishna, God's Soul and Vision; Vivekananda, God's Vital and Will.

India's champion philosopher, Shankara, founded modern philosophy in India. Europe's champion philosopher, Spinoza, founded modern philosophy in Europe. America's champion philosopher, Emerson, founded modern philosophy in America.

Shankara's Kevala Advaita is above all dualism. In his monism, there is no room for relative things, relative values, the pair of opposites, for all these come and go, appear and disappear. What is eternal is the Transcendental Brahman. Ekam eva advitiyam, "That is one without a second."

Shankara's philosophy has dealt considerably with maya. Maya is now taken to mean "illusion," but its literal meaning is "measurement of extension." It refers to a way of conception. When we want to conceive and express the Truth with our incapacities or our very limited capacity, maya offers its help and comes to our rescue. But Brahman, being Infinite, escapes both our conception and our expression. Maya is the power that causes the world to be really real, and at the same time distinct from God. Maya is a power, a mysterious power, a power always inconceivable.

To quote Swami Bodhananda:

"Shankara confesses his ignorance about this power, but he assumes it as a fact. Just as we assume electricity as power, although we don't know what electricity is, he accepted maya as a power, as a fact. Centrifugally it is the becoming of the One, this Absolute Spirit, into the many, and centripetally the re-becoming of the many into that One. So, in this way maya is an eternal power. By this power Brahman projects Himself in the forms of God, man and universe. These are inseparable from maya, as well as from Brahman."

Shankara and Vedanta will always go together down the sweep of centuries. They are like twin souls.

Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita or qualified non-dualism

According to Ramanuja, the world is real, absolutely real, but it is wanting in perfection. At the same time, it does not care for perfection. It has no destined goal. The world was created by God's inspiration, is sustained by His Concern and will be dissolved by His Will. The world is God's playground. He performs His Lila, "drama", here. This eternal sport of His is His constant movement, His spontaneous expression in endless repetition. Man is real. But he has to depend on God. The world is real. But it has to depend on God. Without God, both man and the world are meaningless futility. Man can be released and will be released from the meshes of ignorance one day and he is bound to realise God. But some difference between man and God will always remain. Man will remain eternally below God, hence he will always have to worship God. Ramanuja's path is mainly the path of Devotion. He stands firm against the theory of Shankara's undifferentiated Kevala Advaita. To him, Brahman is and can only be personal. A true aspirant can realise the Highest Truth and achieve the Knowledge Infinite while he is still on earth.

Madhava's dvaita or dualism²

Madhava's philosophy affirms the complete duality between the Brahman and the self (the small self). God, man and the world have a permanent existence. But man and the world have to depend solely on God for their existence. God is at once above the universe and in the universe. God has a divine body that transcends all our human imagination. Nothing can be done on earth without God's immediate concern, direct approval and express command from the inner planes. The Supreme Will of the Supreme guides the world. It pilots the world to its destined goal. Man can be free from the shackles of ignorance only when it is the Will of the Supreme. Liberation is not only possible, but inevitable. What is absolutely essential for liberation is man's loving adoration of God.

Now I wish to tell you what I feel about Vedanta. Just once, soulfully utter the word Vedanta. Immediately it will have the effect of a magic spell on you. At once your heart is inspired, your consciousness elevated and your life illumined.

To my sorrow, in the consciousness of the Western world the idea of sin is extravagant. A Vedantin's dictionary does not house the word sin. What he knows within and without is a series of obstacles — doubt, fear and desire. He feels that he must not doubt the Divinity within him. No earthly fear can he allow to take birth in him. No desire, significant or insignificant, can ever blight the purest heart in him. Very often we are inclined to see ignorance all around. A Vedantin is justifiably apt to see the underlying Truth here, there and everywhere.

Religious people, especially the spiritual ones, cherish abundant joy in their feeling that they live in God's world, in one undivided world. Each individual is a true brother to them. The sense of brotherhood reigns supreme in their all-loving hearts. A Vedantin's heart is fully at one with them. He goes one step ahead. He sublimely declares, Tat Twam Asi, "That Thou Art." He sees and feels each human being as the embodiment of the Absolute Brahman.

Vedanta means freedom, freedom from limitations, freedom from bondage and freedom from ignorance. America is the land of matchless freedom. The American soil is exceptionally fertile for God to grow the Vedantic truth in measureless measure. Vedanta's freedom is the inner freedom. When the inner freedom comes to the fore and guides and directs the outer freedom, the outer freedom unmistakably and gloriously runs towards its destined Goal. This Goal is the manifestation of God's Infinite Truth, Peace, Light, Bliss and Power here on earth. The inner freedom is the realisation of the Eternal. The outer freedom is the manifestation of the Infinite. When the inner freedom and the outer freedom soulfully and divinely run abreast, today's man changes into tomorrow's God,

I would like to conclude my talk with a word about your universally cherished student John F. Kennedy. I would like to offer today's talk, our collective dedication, our unifying love and our united achievements to his hallowed memory and soaring aspiration.

On Swami Vivekananda's Birthday³

Swami Vivekananda was a supreme seeker and supreme lover of mankind. He was also the preserver of the universal vision. I am invoking his presence.

Was Swami Vivekananda a man? Yes, he was. Something else he also was: a lover-hero.

Did Swami Vivekananda really conquer America? Yes, he did. Truth to tell, it was a mutual conquest. Vivekananda conquered America's seeker-heart. America conquered Vivekananda's vision-eye.

What did Swami Vivekananda preach in the West? The Vedantic philosophy. Something he also did. In supreme secrecy, soulfully and lovingly on the vital plane, persistently and unconditionally on the mental plane and compassionately and unreservedly on the physical plane, he distributed Sri Ramakrishna's universal oneness-heart and blessingful joy.

Sri Ramakrishna loved at once Vivekananda's silence-heart and his sound-life. To his Naren what he gave was his own realisation-ocean. In his Naren what he found was his own vision-manifestation. Where? Here, there and all-where.

To the weak, Vivekananda had only one thing to say: "Fear not."

To the strong, he had only one thing to say: "Stop not."

To God, he had only one thing to say: "Delay not."

And to himself, he had only one thing to say: "Ask not."

Part III — Poems

VVK 18-56. These 39 poems and aphorisms were written by Sri Chinmoy in 1993 to commemorate the centenary of Swami Vivekananda's address to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. Sri Chinmoy chose the number 39 because Swami Vivekananda lived on earth for only 39 years.

1.

God’s proud possession was
Vivekananda’s ancient silence-heart.

God’s proud possession was
Vivekananda’s modern dynamism-life.

2.

Sri Ramakrishna’s proud possession was
His heart’s fondness-child,
    Naren.

3.

Mother India’s proud possession was
    Vivekananda’s
India-transformation-determination-fire.

4.

Vivekananda’s proud possession was
India’s oneness-heart-acceptance-delight.

5.

Chicago’s World Parliament of Religions
    Became
An Indian monk’s soul-dream-fragrance.

6.

Vivekananda spoke not of
    Man-made religion or religions,
But of a God-created
    Oneness-world-family-heart-home.

7.

Indeed, Vivekananda’s was the world
That was built upon
Self-giving-foundation.

8.

Stark poverty ruthlessly tortured
Vivekananda’s adolescent years
    On earth.

Infinity’s Prosperity —
    Sri Ramakrishna —
Embraced his heart-life-breath.

9.

Vivekananda rocked and drowned
    India’s lethargy-boat
And blessed India
With the boat of self-awareness
    And God-fulness.

10.

Vivekananda’s volcano-eyes
Silenced the pride of ignorance-night.

Vivekananda’s compassion-heart
Took upon itself
    The illumination of ignorance-night.

11.

Vivekananda the indomitable spirit
Entered into human weaknesses
    To transform them into
The beauty of Divinity’s strength.

12.

Vivekananda told the world
That a new crying heart
Was indeed needed
    To grow into
A new smiling face.

13.

What did Vivekananda’s
Indian sisters and brothers learn from him?

“No time for self-pity!
Arise, awake!
Fear not!
The Goal is not for the weakling!
Enjoy the confidence-sunburst of your heart!”

14.

Vivekananda, the clarion call, reverberates in the inmost recesses of India’s heart:

“Do not allow self-doubt to butcher you!
Do not enjoy, even for a fleeting second,
    Comatose stupor-unawareness!
Do not allow lethargy’s negativity-ego-applause
    To deafen you!
Be sleeplessly active and breathlessly dynamic —
    Within, without!
Enjoy your birthrights:
    The sweetness of your outer success
    And the fulness of your inner progress.”

15.

When God struck the Hour of Vivekananda,
He found that as He loved Vivekananda
    So dearly,
Even so, He needed Vivekananda
    Desperately
To manifest His Divinity’s Light
Throughout the length and breadth
    Of the world.

16.

To the budding spirituality-seeker Vivekananda said:

“Be not an ambition-renouncer;
Be an ambition-fulfiller.”

To the advanced spirituality-seeker he said:

“Ambition leads to the destruction-shore.
God-acceptance for God’s sake.
Surrender your importance-desire-will
    To God’s Omnipotence-Will;
Infinity’s happiness will be all yours.”

17.

To Vivekananda Sri Ramakrishna gave
His heart’s aspiration-mountain-cry
And his soul’s realisation-fountain-smile.

18.

God the Creator
    Vivekananda loved.
God the creation
    Vivekananda served.

He also advised us
To go to God the Creator
    By serving God the creation,
For it is at once easier and more fruitful
Than approaching God the Creator first.

19.

Vivekananda did not belong to the school of thought that advises its students to keep solemn promises in supreme secrecy until they are fulfilled and manifested in the outer world. He was wont to make solemn promises openly, and then he used his volcanic concentration-power for their perfect manifestation — and he was always crowned with success.

20.

Mischievous were his limbs;
Courageous was his heart;
Genius was his mind;
Religious was his life —
This was Vivekananda’s childhood.

21.

In Vivekananda’s school days he knew what he was not going to be in his later years.
He was a most brilliant student in all subjects save and except arithmetic.
One day he was summoned by the headmaster.
The headmaster affectionately enquired of Naren why he was not interested in arithmetic.
Naren’s immediate reply was: “Sir, I am afraid I shall never work in a grocery store!
Therefore, I am not required to be good in arithmetic.”

22.

The young Naren loved and admired God-lovers and wanted to become one himself. To many God-lovers and even God-preachers he went with one solitary question: “Have you seen God?” Alas, the answer was always in the negative, which broke Vivekananda’s God-hungry heart. However, sincerity and precious advice he did receive from Maharshi Devendranath, Tagore’s father. When the same question was asked of him, Devendranath said to young Naren: “I have not seen God. Pray and meditate soulfully. God you will definitely realise in this lifetime. My boy, you already possess the eyes of a yogi.”

23.

O Chicago’s World Parliament of Religions!
The heart of an Indian monk,
    Vivekananda,
Became your boat;
His soul became your boatman;
And his vision’s one religion —
    God-love —
Became your Golden Shore.

24.

Vivekananda wanted us to pay no heed
    To our mind-invented sins.
He wanted us to live
    In our heart-discovered virtues.

25.

Vivekananda wanted us
To shun our friendship
With our ignorance-playmate:
    Lethargy.

He wanted us to have
An awakened body,
A dynamic vital,
A God-seeking mind
And a God-loving heart
So that we can fly
With the illumination-stars
    Of our soul.

26.

Vivekananda was proud of
    Racing with time,
    Battling with unwillingness,
    Parting with compromise,
    Shaking hands with strength indomitable,
    Doing away with yesterday’s dreams
    And singing and dancing with tomorrow’s visions.

27.

Vivekananda realised both God the Creator
    And God the creation,
But he preferred God the creation
    To God the Creator,
For he felt humanity —
    Especially India —
Must devotedly love and serve
    God the Creator
    And God the creation
In the same breath.

28.

Vivekananda told the world not to crave a happy life, but to long for a spacious heart, for a happy life will spontaneously blossom inside a spacious heart.

29.

Vivekananda warned us
Of the mind-division-religion-armour.
    He inspired us to be
The heart-union-religion-lovers.

30.

Vivekananda wanted us to blow
The sun-trumpet religion
And not enjoy whisper-whimper-religion.

31.

Vivekananda’s was not the highway
    Of religion-commotion.
His was the sunlit path
    Of religion-expansion-promotion.

32.

According to Vivekananda,
God wanted humanity to discover
    A oneness-perfection-freedom.
But, alas, humanity invented
    Division-destruction-freedom.

33.

“O human mind,” Vivekananda voiced forth,
“Can you not see that you are locked
In an endless circle of self-doubt,
    Instead of swimming
In the running river of self-faith
And in the illumining sea of God-faith?”

34.

Two stoic commands Vivekananda made:
    “Shut the eye of fear!
    Open the heart of assertion!”

35.

Vivekananda became.
He became the inspiration-breath-flooded conductor
Of Truth-devoted religion-musicians
In the World Parliament of Religions.

36.

Vivekananda became.
He became the paradise-promise
In the oneness-religion-freedom-heartbeats.

37.

God-worshippers worshipping
In their own ways
Everywhere Vivekananda found.
God-servers serving
In God’s own Way,
    Alas,
He saw nowhere to be found.

38.

Vivekananda wanted
Mankind’s hate-power
To be replaced by
Mankind’s heart-love-prayers.

39.

The religion-mongers admired Vivekananda,
    The cyclone-monk.
The religion-lovers loved Vivekananda,
    The world-telephone-communicator.

Part IV — Stories

The child Narendranath

Swami Vivekananda’s earlier name was Narendranath and his nickname was Bilé. During his childhood and even in his adolescent years, he was extremely mischievous. This did not diminish his divinity. But his parents, especially his mother, sometimes would get puzzled and worry about him.

She used to say, “O Lord Shiva, I prayed to you to grant me a son like you. But instead of coming into my life, you have sent me your ghost. He is nothing but a ghost, my Bilé, always breaking things and creating problems for me. How long can I tolerate his endless mischief?”

There were also quite a few good qualities that his mother saw in him, so inwardly she was satisfied. But outwardly she always told everyone, “My Bilé is so notorious!”

One day, when he was only five years old, Vivekananda saw in the living room a few Indian hookahs or smoking pipes. One was for the Brahmins, one for the Kshatriyas and one for the Muslims. He tasted each one, and to his surprise discovered that all the hookahs tasted the same.

Alas, he was caught by his own father. “What are you doing, Bilé?” he asked.

Vivekananda replied, “Father, I was just examining the smoking pipes. I thought that the one for Brahmins would be better than the one for Kshatriyas, because Brahmins are so great. And the Muslims are so heroic and spirited. So I thought that the Muslim pipe would be special. But I wish to tell you, Father, that they are all the same. No one pipe is superior to another.”

Vivekananda’s parents were simply shocked. How is it that you have started smoking at such a tender age?” they asked. “And what kind of things is a small boy like you saying?”

Then his mother said, “My son, you are too spoiled. You have become too smart. Come here.” The child came to the mother and she took him upstairs to his room and locked the door from the outside.

In two hours’ time the maid came running to the mother, screaming: “Bilé is throwing away all his clothes. Everything he has in his room he is throwing out through the window! There are a few beggars below who are grabbing his garments as they fall. And he himself is so happy!”

At this the mother ran upstairs and demanded, “What is the matter with you, Bilé? Such expensive clothes you are throwing away!”

Vivekananda replied, “Mother, we are so rich. We can have whatever we want, whenever we want. But these are poor people. They have nothing. If we do not give to them, then who will give to them? We have enough, more than enough; so my heart wants to give these things away. They need them more than I do.”

His mother’s heart was full of joy and delight. She embraced her son and shed tears of delight that his heart was so sympathetic, so vast and so all-giving, and that he had so much oneness with the poor and with the Supreme Pilot in all.

God comes first in my life

Vivekananda showed the sincerity of his inner cry for Truth, for God, for Light. It happened once that Vivekananda, who was then called Naren, was offered a significant gift by his spiritual Master, Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna said to him, “Naren, you know I have gone through the most austere spiritual disciplines. I constantly pray to Mother Kali and worship God. I have done everything necessary and now I am blessed with occult power. But you know that I don’t care for any outer achievements. I pay no attention even to wearing clothes. I am in my own world most of the time. So I wish to tell Mother Kali that I would like to offer you all my occult power. You will be able to use it when you have to work for the world at large.”

Naren immediately replied, “Master, please tell me whether this power will be of any help to me in my God-realisation.”

Sri Ramakrishna said, “No, no! You know that occult power has nothing to do with God-realisation. But when you realise God, if you want to work for the world, if you want to manifest God on earth, then this power can be of great help to you.”

Naren’s immediate response was, “First things first. First I want to realise God. Then if you and God want to give me occult power to use for mankind, I will take it. But right now I want only God. God comes first in my life.”

Ramakrishna was extremely pleased with his dearest disciple. He said to the other disciples, “Look at my Naren. Look at the example he has set for you. You have to pay all attention to God first, only to God. That is the only way you can realise God. Occult power is of very secondary importance.”

Most genuine spiritual Masters have advised their disciples not to care for the hidden powers of the kundalini. If a disciple cares only for Truth, only for Light, then he will make real progress in his inner life.

We practise kundalini yoga in order to get power of one kind or another. But if we meditate on God and please God, the Creator, He will give us His entire creation if He wants to. If we want the Creator first and foremost, and not His creation, then we will get the Creator. And once we have the Creator, His entire creation will also be at our disposal. If we cry for one tiny part of the creation, we may get it with comparative ease; but the infinite Wealth of the Creator will be withheld from us, and we will have to be satisfied with the tiny portion which we asked for.

Swami Vivekananda smokes with an untouchable

Swami Vivekananda enjoyed smoking. In the days of his pilgrimage, when he used to walk along the streets of India, here, there and elsewhere, smoking was his great avocation. One evening, as Vivekananda was walking along a village street in northern India, he came to a small cottage where an old man was smoking an Indian hookah. Vivekananda had a tremendous desire to smoke, and he asked the old man if he would give him his pipe.

The man said, “Oh, Swami, I am a scavenger, I am an untouchable. How can I give you my hookah? How will you smoke from the hookah of an untouchable? I am so happy to see you. You are so handsome, so spirited. I am so fortunate to see you. But, alas, I come from an untouchable family.”

Vivekananda felt sorry that the old man was an untouchable. He said to him, “I am sorry, I am sorry. Alas, I won’t be able to smoke.” Vivekananda left him and continued walking.

In a few minutes he felt miserable. He said to himself, “What am I doing? What am I doing? What have I done? What have I done? Did not Thakur teach me that wherever there is a human being, there also is Lord Shiva? Each human being embodies God. This is what I have learned from my Master, Sri Ramakrishna.

I have given up everything; I am a sannyasin. So I am one with the rest of the world by virtue of my renunciation. Yet although I have renounced everything, still I have preserved this sense of discrimination. Here is a cobbler; here is a scavenger; here is a Brahmin; here is a Shudra. Low caste, high caste — how can I have the heart to distinguish? Are they not all God’s children? The sense of separativity, the sense of superiority and inferiority — how can I have that kind of feeling?”

Vivekananda then went running back to the old man and said, “Please, please, give me your hookah. Each man is God Himself.”

The old man fearfully and, at the same time, happily gave the hookah to Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda smoked to his heart’s content and then said to the old man, “I am divinely happy, supremely happy, for two reasons. My human desire is fulfilled — I am able to smoke — and my divine desire is fulfilled, because I have been able to realise my inner vision of universal oneness. My Supreme Lord abides in all. This vision of mine I have been able to manifest today by smoking here from your hookah at your house.

“God is for all. He is not only for me, but He is for all. In each individual Him to see, Him to please unconditionally, is my only goal. I shall remain ever grateful to you, for it is through you that my Lord has taught me the supreme lesson that we are all one, we are all equal, we are all children of our Absolute Lord Supreme.”

The sannyasin in America

After speaking at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, Swami Vivekananda became famous overnight and acquired many friends and admirers. One day, some of these friends and admirers came to ask him many questions about Vedanta and Indian philosophy and spirituality. They were very moved by his answers to their questions. By the time they departed, it was around midnight.

All of a sudden Vivekananda thought of India, his poor India, especially Mother Bengal. He said to himself, “Now I am going to bed. But there are thousands and thousands of people without beds, who will be lying in the street, poverty-stricken, tonight. Here I have got a cosy and most comfortable bed. But once upon a time, I was a sannyasin. I used to roam in the street with no food, nothing. Even now I am a sannyasin. Still, from time to time even today, I have no food or clothes. I am in a destitute condition.

“Again, God blesses me with riches and my generous friends keep me at their homes. Right now some friends of mine have given me this beautiful apartment. Indeed, I am in great luxury. In a few minutes, I will go to sleep in a most comfortable bed. And yet so many of my brothers and sisters in Bengal will be living in the street.

“My heart bleeds for them. I have still not fulfilled my task. I have to help my poor Indian brothers. I have to save their lives, I have to illumine them, I have to awaken their consciousness. There is so much to do, so much to do! Alas, what am I doing here? I need rest, but I will not sleep on the bed. I will sleep on the floor.”

He took off his turban, placed it on the floor and passed the night lying down on his long turban. Early the following morning, when the owner of the apartment, who was his friend, came to invite him to breakfast, he saw this great Indian saint, this great Indian hero, lying on the floor. He said, “What is the matter?”

Vivekananda replied, “Thousands and thousands of my brothers and sisters spend the night in the streets. So how can I dream of spending the night in this most comfortable bed? I can’t, I can’t, unless and until I have done something for them. It is my bounden duty to serve God in the poor and the needy. So the life of comfort is not for me. The life of selfless service, the life of dedicated, devoted service, is for me. Service is my goal, service is my perfection in life.”

Part V — Reflections

Reflections on Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna

Vivekananda, the great Vedantin of indomitable courage, voiced forth, “Freedom — physical freedom, mental freedom, and spiritual freedom — is the watchword of the Upanishads.” In order to achieve freedom, we need energy, power, and spirit.

Meditation is our soul’s cry for our life’s perfect perfection. Perfection has not yet dawned on earth, but one day it will. Perfection is the ideal of human life. To quote Swami Vivekananda: “None of us has yet seen an ideal human being, and yet we are told to believe in him. None of us has yet seen an ideally perfect man, and yet without that ideal we cannot progress.”

Meditation alone can give birth to perfection. Meditation carries us beyond the frustration of the senses, beyond the limitation of the reasoning mind. And, finally, meditation can present us with the breath of perfection.

Swami Vivekananda, never even pronounced his Master's name when he first came here to the West. Vivekananda felt that if he uttered his Master's name the world would misunderstand him. The message he carried was not in the person of his Master but in his teachings. Sri Ramakrishna's teachings represented the union and synthesis of all religions.

There is a great difference between liberation and realisation. Liberation is much inferior to realisation. One can reach liberation in one incarnation, and realisation in some later incarnation. Or one can become liberated and realised in the same incarnation. But it is not possible to be realised without first being liberated. Sometimes a great spiritual Master, if he is fortunate, will bring down with him a few really liberated souls to help him in his manifestation. Sri Ramakrishna, for example, brought down Vivekananda and Brahmananda. Some of these liberated souls who enter the earth-scene with the great Masters don't care for realisation. They come just to help. Others want realisation also.

Vivekananda was not an Avatar. He had only a few glimpses of the Truth that Sri Ramakrishna lived. Sri Ramakrishna lived the highest Truth, and Vivekananda had glimpses of that Truth. Vivekananda was a great Vibhuti, one who is endowed with a special power of God, who acts most dynamically in the world-atmosphere. Vibhutis are leaders of mankind who awaken the slumbering consciousness.

We cannot call Napoleon a Vibhuti, but what Napoleon accomplished in the material world, Vivekananda accomplished in the spiritual world. The most powerful, dynamic power acted in human form in Vivekananda. Vivekananda’s real mission was to spread the message of his Master, Sri Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna achieved, but he did not manifest much. He did not care for worldly achievement or the so-called manifold development. The present-day world needs the mind. The mind need not even be intellectual; it may be just an ordinary mind that can understand basic things. But Sri Ramakrishna did not care even for this ordinary mind. So Vivekananda collected the fruits of the tree that was Ramakrishna and offered them to the world. He came to the West at the age of thirty and brought abundant light to the West.

At the time of Sri Ramakrishna’s passing, Vivekananda still doubted his Master’s spiritual height. He said inwardly, “If you tell me that you are a great Avatar, I will believe. So Ramakrishna read his mind and said, “Naren, you still doubt me? He who is Rama, he who is Krishna, in one form in this body is Ramakrishna.” Rama was an Avatar, Krishna was an Avatar, and Vivekananda’s Master embodied them both.

Vivekananda was not an Avatar; he cannot be put on the same footing with Sri Ramakrishna. I have great love and admiration for Vivekananda. My connection with him in the inner world is very close. Unfortunately, here in the West I encounter some spiritual people and swamis who belittle Vivekananda and his achievement, and dare to say he was not realised. But all I can say is that those who belittle Vivekananda are not worthy of washing his feet. God-realisation he certainly had; he was very advanced.

The height of an Avatar cannot be judged by an ordinary person. It is like a dwarf trying to scale the height of a giant; it is ridiculous. But let us not think of a spiritual Master’s height. Let us only think of his presence in our heart. When we can feel his presence in the depth of our-heart, he can be our help, our guide, our inspiration, our aspiration, our journey and our Goal.

People speak of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda in the same breath, but Ramakrishna's status as the Guru and Vivekananda's status as the disciple are unimaginably different. There is a yawning gulf between Vivekananda's realisation and Ramakrishna's realisation. Sri Aurobindo once said that Vivekananda only got a few glimpses of the sea that Ramakrishna lived in all the time. So why do we speak of Vivekananda and Ramakrishna together? It is because we feel that Vivekananda, the greatest disciple of Ramakrishna, became totally one with his Master. Because he became totally one with Ramakrishna's consciousness, we think that what Ramakrishna had, Vivekananda also had. But it is not true. Ramakrishna appreciated and admired Vivekananda. He said, "You are very great, I have brought your soul down to earth," and so on. But Ramakrishna consciously saw how far Vivekananda had reached and how high his own height was. Again, when modesty and humility entered into Vivekananda, he said, "From this very speck of dust, Ramakrishna can make thousands of Vivekanandas."

Here in Ireland, nearly a hundred years ago, a young aspirant named Margaret Noble went to India to become the famous disciple of Swami Vivekananda. The great Yogi had come to the West in 1889 to participate in the “Parliament of Religions” at the Great World's Fair in Chicago. His spiritual stature was immediately recognised and he became famous overnight.

When he went to England from the United States, Margaret Noble attended his talks and became his dearest disciple. He called her “Nivedita, One who is totally dedicated to the Supreme Cause”.

The Indian people are all admiration for what Nivedita did for India. She helped Indian women in infinite measure. She helped to awaken their slumbering consciousness so that they could envision themselves as divine instruments and grow into the perfect embodiments of aspiration, dedication and illumination for their Mother India. We Indians are bloated with divine pride when we utter the name Nivedita.

Her father was a clergyman — a lover of God, a great seeker. Before he breathed his last, on his deathbed, he said to his wife, “Don’t stand in Margaret's way. If she wants to go to India, let her go.” Margaret’s mother had been very upset by her daughter’s desire to leave Ireland for distant India. But at her husband’s last wish, she did help Margaret and inspire her. Nivedita went to India and became India’s veritable pride. Hers was the heart that knew no despair. Just before she passed behind the curtain of eternity, she uttered under her breath, “The boat is sinking, but I shall see the sunrise.”

excerpt from “Attachment and Detachment” Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, 1 December 1970.

Dearest brothers and sisters, I have special love and admiration for your country, Ireland. I have been cherishing and treasuring love for this country since I was twelve, when I read a book written about the spiritual Master, Swami Vivekananda. In his biography I read something most striking. A young woman from your country was so deeply inspired by the Swami’s spiritual light that she went to India and offered her entire existence to Swami Vivekananda, her spiritual Master. Her name was Miss Margaret Noble, but her Master offered her a new name, a spiritual name, her soul’s name: Nivedita. Nivedita means self-offering, total self-offering. She offered her whole existence to India. India’s spiritual children will forever remain indebted to her love and sacrifice. India’s freedom-boat will forever be indebted to her significant efforts to free Mother India from ignorance. Nivedita embodied dedicated self-offering.

When I was twenty-three years old, for the first time I read her book about her Master, Swami Vivekananda. The great spiritual Master, Sri Aurobindo, once remarked that this book of Nivedita’s was written with the breath of her heart. From this book I learned how a disciple can become inseparably one with the Master on the strength of implicit love, devotion and surrender to the Master’s will.

Excerpt from “Transcendental Height and Aspiration-Light”, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, 14 June 1973.

Part VI — Drama

Scene from The Descent of the Blue

On 4 May 1908, Sri Aurobindo was arrested on charges of attempting to subvert British rule in India. During a year’s detention in Alipore Jail, Calcutta, while his case was being tried, he had many deep inner spiritual experiences. During this time, he received spiritual guidance from the soul of Vivekananda. Sri Chinmoy dramatises the interchange between Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda in the following scene taken from The Descent of the Blue, a play about the life of Sri Aurobindo written by Sri Chinmoy in 1958.

(Aurobindo in his cell. Early morning.)

AUROBINDO: I wonder from where this fragrance is coming. There is no flower near by, nor even a gentle breeze.

(A voice breaks out in the silence.)

VOICE: I am Vivekananda. I want to speak to you about the workings of the consciousness above the mind.

AUROBINDO: Above the mind?

VOICE: Yes. I myself had no idea of such workings while I was in the body. Now I have it and I will help you with it. For this I shall visit you every day for about two weeks.

AUROBINDO: I believe these workings would lead towards some Supreme Dynamic Knowledge.

VOICE: That is for you to discover. I can but show what I have found. The world’s burden of progress rests upon your shoulders. It is a great happiness to find you ready to bear it. Godspeed.

(The spirit of Vivekananda disappears.)

There is no God

NAREN

BHAVANANDA

BHUPEN (YOUNGER BROTHER OF NAREN)

(Naren is meditating in his room. Enter Bhavananda.)

NAREN (stands up): Come in. Come in, please. I am so glad to see you. I have not seen you for a long time. I have many things to discuss with you. The first thing I would like to ask you is this: does God exist, brother? It seems to me that there is no God. And even if He exists, it makes no difference to me. He never hears, He never feels the excruciating pangs of the poor. He never feels the suffering of bleeding humanity. The God who cannot feed the hungry with a piece of bread is an indifferent God, a cruel God. Who can believe he will have all happiness, all satisfaction in the other world from that kind of God?

BHAVANANDA: Naren, have you gone crazy? What is wrong with you? What nonsense are you speaking? Why do you talk like this?

NAREN: Why not? Why not? Do you know, brother, what happened this morning? Early in the morning as I got up I was uttering the name of God most soulfully. My mother said to me, “Shut up. Since your childhood you have been praying to God and meditating on God. And now look what God has done to us. Your father has left this world, and misery, suffering and poverty have embraced us. We have no food, no money, no means of supporting the family. My heart is breaking into pieces. I cannot even feed my little children, my sweet children. I will have nothing to do with a God who cannot take away our sufferings.” Now tell me, brother, what am I supposed to say to my mother?

BHAVANANDA: Naren, let us not find fault with God. If you find fault with God, then some serious calamity will take place in your family. I am warning you.

NAREN: I am not afraid of anything. Let the worst possible calamity take place. I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.

BHAVANANDA: Naren, please go to Thakur from time to time. Thakur will be so sad to hear what is happening in your life. He is the only one who will be able to console you.

(Enter Bhupen.)

BHUPEN: Brother, please bring me some candy today. I am so fond of candy. Please don’t forget.

NAREN: Please, Bhupen, do not bother me. We are having a very serious conversation. Please, please go away, Bhupen. Don’t bother us right now.

BHUPEN: I will go away, but first you have to promise to bring candy for me. You have to bring candy without fail.

(Exit Bhupen.)

NAREN: So, brother, you see? I am his elder brother, and I will not be able to fulfil his loving demand. I have no money at all, not even enough to buy a piece of candy for him. He who cannot fulfil such a simple desire of a younger brother is not worthy of being called an elder brother. His life is a real disgrace. So why should I care for God? No! We Hindus worship stone gods, so our God has become stone-hearted.

BHAVANANDA: Don’t say so, Naren. God is all Compassion. I see that what I have been hearing from people is true: you have become an atheist.

(Exit Bhavananda.)

NAREN: A real friend, indeed! He came here to test me. He came here not to show his concern, but to know what kind of life I am leading. He came not as a friend, but as a critic, as a rogue, as a detective. No, I shall not go to Thakur any more. (Pauses.) But alas, what am I doing? What am I doing? Is not God-realisation the sole object of my life? To earn money, to feed a family, can never be the aim of my life. I must renounce the world. There is no other way. I must renounce the world and search for God. There can be no other way.

(Naren sings.)

Tamasa rate nayan pate
herile jadi amar pane
apan kare amai laho
he dayamoy karuna dane
tomar ami abodh shishu
ekla chali gahan pathe
duhate more jariye dharo
bhasiye jena na jai srote

(In the dark and dense night,
You cast Your benign Eyes upon me.
Take me and make me Your very own, offering Your Compassion.
I am Your innocent child. Alone do I walk on a thick, dense path.
With Your two Arms, embrace me.
Allow me not to be drowned and washed away by the turbulent currents of life.)

My Naren can never be an atheist

SRI RAMAKRISHNA

RAKHAL

BHAVANANDA

TARAK

JOGIN

OTHER DISCIPLES

NAREN

(Sri Ramakrishna with his disciples at Dakshineshwar.)

RAKHAL: Have you heard about our Naren recently? Everybody is speaking ill of him. Everybody says that he has become an atheist. But I don’t believe it.

BHAVANANDA: You don’t believe it? I suspect him. This morning I was at his house. He speaks like a real atheist.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Shut up! Shut up! My Mother Kali has told me that this can never be so. My Naren can never be an atheist. If I hear once more from you people that my Naren has become an atheist, I shall never again see your faces! Never!

TARAK: Our Naren can never be an atheist. I know him.

JOGIN: Impossible! Our Naren can never be an atheist. Even if I see any defect in Naren, I will not believe it. I will think it is the fault of my own eyes. If I hear anything bad about Naren, I shall think it is the fault of my own ears. Our Naren can never do anything wrong.

TARAK: Certainly, certainly. That should be our attitude. He is our real friend. Our Naren is pure. It is very rare to have a God-like character like Naren’s.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Excellent, excellent. (Pointing to his own body.) It is for Naren that I have come here into the world. You try to recognise Naren. One day he will conquer the whole world. I see in the spiritual Master Keshab Sen only one knowledge-sun. But in my Naren I see eighteen knowledge-suns.

(Enter Naren. He prostrates himself before Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna places his hand on Naren’s head.)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: May Mother bless you.

NAREN: Today I have a special request.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Is there any request of yours that I will not fulfil?

NAREN: Then please fulfil this request. My mother and my little sisters and brothers are practically starving. We have become absolutely poverty-stricken. After the death of my father, all our relatives turned against us. Now my family has no means of support. I am the eldest member in my family and I can do nothing for them. If you make a special request to the Mother to save me from this financial difficulty, she will listen to you. I am sure that if you ask the Mother, she will definitely listen to your request.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Naren, I am ready to beg from door to door for you. Do you think that I have not yet asked my Mother about you? But what can I do? You do not believe in her; that is why she does not pay any attention to my request. All right. I have an excellent idea. It is Tuesday. Go to the Temple of Mother Kali today and invoke her. Pray to the Mother. Whatever you want, I assure you, she will grant to you.

NAREN: All right. Today I shall test your stone-hearted Mother, Thakur.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: My child, don’t say that. She is not stone-hearted. She is all love. She is all compassion.

Mother, give me the Light of Knowledge, the Light of Discrimination and the Light of Renunciation

NAREN — VIVEKANANDA

SRI RAMAKRISHNA

DISCIPLES OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA

(It is night. Inside the Kali Temple, Naren is meditating. After a while, he prostrates himself before the statue of Mother Kali.)

NAREN: Jnana viveka vairagya de ma. Mother, give me the Light of Knowledge, the Light of Discrimination and the Light of Renunciation, so that I can always see you.

(Enter Sri Ramakrishna hurriedly.)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Naren, have you asked Mother Kali for money for your family? What have you been doing?

NAREN: What a surprise! I forgot all about it.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: No harm. I shall give you another chance. Ask her for money, for material wealth. Mother will give it to you.

(Naren turns to the statue and begins meditating again.)

NAREN: Mother, give me the Light of Knowledge, the Light of Discrimination and the Light of Renunciation. Mother, Mother of mine, Mother of my heart and soul.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Again the same thing? Why do you forget that your mother and brothers and sisters are all starving? Ask the Mother to save your family from poverty. This is the only time that you can ask the Mother for that. I will not be able to give you the same opportunity every day. I am ready to give it to you any time. But Mother will not allow it. Today I have promised you because Mother has told me that she will fulfil your prayers today, no matter what you ask of her. Now you have lost your second chance. But I wish to give you another chance. Please, my son, this time don’t forget. Remember, you must ask the Mother for material wealth. That is what you need. Right now you don’t need spiritual wealth.

NAREN: No, I won’t take any more chances. I do not need material wealth. I want nectar from the Mother, and not anything else. For gourds and pumpkins I will not ask. I can ask only for the nectar-fruit.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Since you cannot ask the Mother for material wealth and prosperity, then I wish to say that you will never have a comfortable life. But from now on you will be able to manage. You and your family will not starve. You will be able to live at least from hand to mouth. Mother will do that much for you. (He shouts.) Come, all those who are here! No matter where you are! Come! All my disciples, come!

(Enter disciples.)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: You people have told me that my Naren has become an atheist. Look! He could not ask for material wealth from my Mother. Do you know that he starves? His mother and his sisters and brothers have no food at home. Yet he could not ask Mother Kali for material wealth. Nowhere on earth will you find anyone who can equal my Naren. He is your leader. He will lead and guide you. He will preserve you. This body of mine is completing its role. Soon I will belong to the other world. (To Vivekananda.) Naren, my child, sing a song. I shall meditate while you sing.

(Naren sings. Sri Ramakrishna meditates in deep trance.)

Sundara hate sundara tumi
nandana bana majhe
nishidin jena antare mor
tomari murati raje
tumi chhara mor nayan andhar
sakali mithya sakali asar
chaudike mor bishwa bhubane
bedanar sur baje
pabo kigo dekha nimesher tare
ei jibaner majhe

(You are beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful,
Beauty unparalleled in the garden of Eden.
Day and night may Thy image abide in the very depths of my heart.
Without You my eyes have no vision,
Everything is an illusion, everything is barren.
All around me, within and without,
The melody of tenebrous pangs I hear.
My world is filled with excruciating pangs.
O Lord, O my beautiful Lord,
O my Lord of beauty, in this lifetime, even for a fleeting second,
May I be blessed with the boon to see Thy Face.)

Ask him if he serves me or controls me

VIDYASAGAR (A SCHOLAR AND SAGE)

VAISHNAB CHARAN PUNDIT (A FRIEND OF VIDYASAGAR)

HRIDAY (NEPHEW AND ATTENDANT OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA

(Vidyasagar’s house in Calcutta. Vidyasagar is studying most attentively in his room. Enter Vaishnab Charan Pundit. They bow to each other and exchange greetings.)

PUNDIT: I have been here in Calcutta for a few days. I am sorry that I was not able to come and pay my respectful homage to you earlier.

VIDYASAGAR (smiling): I am so glad, so proud, that you have come to my home at last. Is everything going well with you? Please have a seat.

PUNDIT (taking a seat): Everything is fine, by God’s Grace. How is your health, Vidyasagar?

VIDYASAGAR: Not good. My body is not functioning well. I am old. Now I am preparing myself for the other world.

PUNDIT: Don’t say that, Vidyasagar. Don’t you know that in your absence thousands and thousands of people will be fatherless? This health, this body you have to maintain for at least one hundred years.

VIDYASAGAR: Don’t curse me, brother, don’t curse me. Already things have started to go wrong in my family. My son has become disobedient. He has cast a slur on our family. I do not know how much more suffering is in store for me.

PUNDIT: Ungratefulness is the order of the day. Bengalis have become an object of pity just because they have become totally ungrateful. The other day we had a special meeting of Pundits, and at that meeting the Pundit Panchanan said that you have ruined the Hindu religion. He said that with the help of a number of Hindu youths you are destroying the whole country. He said that there is nothing divine in your activities, no true feeling or self-sacrifice in your selfless service for Bengal. He feels it is all for name and fame. I am so sorry to tell you this. You have no idea how I suffered, and how I have been suffering for the past few days, since I heard Panchanan, of all people, speaking against you.

VIDYASAGAR: There is nothing to feel sorry about. Everything is God’s game. I do nothing, my friend. It is God who works in and through me. I am just an instrument: Nimitta matram. But I feel that you have made a mistake. I feel that you have heard something wrong. (Pauses.) I have never done any service for that Pundit. How is it that he speaks ill of me? I have come to the conclusion that only those whom I have helped in some way will criticise me. Those whom I have not helped in any way will never criticise me. And I clearly remember that I have not helped Panchanan in any way. I am sure he was speaking of somebody else.

(Enter Hriday.)

HRIDAY: O sage, my maternal uncle is constantly praying to God and meditating on God. By thinking and praying all the time he has become insane. Today he feels like seeing you, Vidyasagar.

PUNDIT: Your uncle? The Thakur of Dakshineshwar?

HRIDAY: Yes, he is outside.

PUNDIT: Outside! Why didn’t you bring him in? (Vaishnab Charan Pundit goes out and brings Ramakrishna in. He then speaks to Vidyasagar.) Today Paramahansa, the great liberated soul, the realised soul, has come to you. You can be extremely proud that he has come to you.

(Sri Ramakrishna bows to Vidyasagar. Vidyasagar in turn bows and offers Ramakrishna a seat.)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: For so long I have been living in a small pond. Today I have come to the ocean.

VIDYASAGAR: Since you have come to the ocean, please accept some saline water. It is all I can offer you.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Vidyasagar, you are doing well. It is good to show love and compassion. But attachment is very bad. When someone loves only the members of his own family it is attachment. One has to see God in everyone. When a person sees the presence of God in everyone, that is called compassion. I have come to visit you because I see that you serve God in everyone. I have come to appreciate your divine wisdom. Do you think that you have grown horns, and that that is why I have come to see you?

VIDYASAGAR: Today any home has been sanctified by your feet. Today my home becomes a place of pilgrimage.

PUNDIT (to Vidyasagar): He is all divine Love. His madness is the intoxication of divine Love. Like Sri Chaitanya, he enters into the great samadhi, the transcendental trance.

VIDYASAGAR: Yes, I know it. I can see it. I can feel it. (To Ramakrishna.) This boy, does he serve you? (Indicating Hriday.)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Ask him if he serves me or controls me. I am terribly afraid of him.

HRIDAY: Uncle, it is very bad on your part to say so. Have I ever disobeyed you? Have I ever governed you’? Do you ever listen to me? You do not pay any attention to the outer world. You forget about the weather; you forget about food. That is why I take care of you. Sometimes I kindly command you to do a few things, but it is only for your health. Don’t make me feel ashamed whenever we go places, or I shall go away. I do not have to help you, and if you don’t care for my services I shall not remain with you any longer. (He begins to leave.)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Oh, don’t go, don’t go, Hriday. Don’t leave me alone. (To Vidyasagar and Pundit.) My nephew is so nice. He loves me day and night. If he had not been with me, who would have taken care of me? I even forget to put on my clothes. If he did not control me, then how could he show his face in respectable society? I would shame him and all my family. (Hriday comes back and sits down, appeased.) Vidyasagar, again I wish to tell you that you are doing the right thing. You are serving God in humanity. You are serving God with utmost Love. That is why God is pleased with you. Your life of sacrifice will be remembered by the world forever.

(Ramakrishna rises. Vidyasagar and Pundit both rise and bow to Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna bows to them. Exeunt Ramakrishna and Hriday.)

PUNDIT: He is really a great spiritual Master. I have heard much about him, and I inwardly feel what he is.

VIDYASAGAR: I also feel what he is. He is really great. He is not only the pride of Bengal and India, but the pride of the entire world. (Pauses.) Work, work, work! Alas, my days are numbered. Yet I have not been able to serve God devotedly and soulfully. I am unable to think of my Inner Pilot because I am constantly thinking of other people and helping others. And people don’t even speak well of me. They don’t even appreciate me. If I do not bring my Inner Pilot into my life, my service to mankind will be of no use.

PUNDIT: Vidyasagar, you are really great. Your sincerity has touched the very depths of my heart. You are playing your role most devotedly, most soulfully. The creator in you is truly great, but unfortunately the critic in you is creating problems. Do not be the critic, but be the lover of humanity. You are the creator, creating love in mankind. Perfection you want, and perfection God will give you. It is the constant dedicated service you are doing for Him and for humanity that will give you perfection. You act. In your action self-perfection will dawn. Self-criticism will never give you perfection. Vidyasagar, I am advising you, but it is you who should advise me every second of my life.

VIDYASAGAR: No, God is speaking in and through you. I am so grateful to you, Pundit. From now on, now that I have seen Ramakrishna, I will pay more attention to my spiritual life. My spiritual life and my life of dedication to mankind will go together. My life of realisation and my life of dedication, which is the manifestation of Love and Light on earth, will go together from now on.

PUNDIT: Vidyasagar, a man like you is very rare. Bengal is blessed because she can claim you as her own. Mother Earth is blessed because she has you as her chosen son.

The synthesis of all religions

SRI RAMAKRISHNA — THAKUR

HRIDAY (NEPHEW AND PERSONAL ATTENDANT OF THAKUR)

NAREN, RAKHAL, BABURAM, TARUP (DISCIPLES OF THAKUR)

(Night. Thakur is walking in the Panchavati grove under the trees in a contemplative mood. Enter Hriday.)

HRIDAY: Uncle, let us go home. It is cold, and the wind is blowing very hard. I see fog being formed. You are not taking care of yourself.

THAKUR: You go. I am coming.

(Exit Hriday. Thakur meditates. Re-enter Hriday.)

HRIDAY: Don’t delay, Uncle, don’t be late. You forget everything, and then it is I who suffer afterwards.

THAKUR: What can I do? My Mother has called me here. The moment she asks me to go home, I will go. Do you think that I don’t suffer when I make you suffer for me?

HRIDAY: I am going, but don’t be late.

(Exit Hriday.)

THAKUR (to himself): The synthesis of all religions, the union of East and West, self-dedication, self-sacrifice: these are all big, big words, big theories, big ideas, big ideals. But where are they, Mother? Mother, you are talking to me about all these things. These are such high ideals. But where are your dedicated soldiers? Mother, you never tell me lies. Where are they? Where are your chosen children? O chosen children of my Mother Kali, my heart is crying for you. Come. Come. Do Mother’s work. You have to fulfil the Mother. You have to manifest the Mother on earth.

(Enter Naren.)

THAKUR (with all affection and love): Ah, Naren, you have come. You have come to me after such a long time. I have been talking to worldly people for so long. I have become practically deaf from hearing the complaints and unaspiring chatter of ordinary people. People are throwing all their worldly desires into me. Now I have nobody I can speak to about my inner life. I have nobody to tell what is going on in my heart. Naren, tell me, when are you going to come again?

NAREN: The moment I get an opportunity I will be back again. Why do you think of me so much? Why do you speak to others all the time about Naren, Naren, Naren? Don’t you know the story in the Puranas about King Bharata who always thought of his deer? Then, in the following incarnation, he became a deer.

THAKUR: You are right. But what can I do? I can’t keep my mind away from you. All the time I think of you. When I don’t see you I feel miserable. (Closes his eyes and speaks to Mother Kali.) Mother, listen to what Naren is telling me. (After a few moments he opens his eyes and speaks to Naren.) I will not listen to you. You are not saying the right thing. Mother says that I see you as Narayan, I see you as the incarnation of God. The day I don’t see you as the incarnation of God, I will not even look at your face.

NAREN: If that is true, then why have you ignored me for such a long time? I have come to you and you have avoided me, ignored me mercilessly. You have shown me such contempt the past few times.

THAKUR: Mother, Mother, listen to this fellow! (To Naren.) Can I avoid you? Can I ignore you? Can I show contempt to you? Impossible! You do not know; you cannot fathom my inner workings. Naren, tell me one thing. Granted, I have not been nice to you. I have been very unkind, very rude to you. So why do you keep coming to me?

NAREN: I come here to listen to you. I adore you. I worship you. I want to see you, Thakur, even if you are unkind to me. I love your presence. I love your meditative mood. I love your trance. I love everything you do because I love you.

THAKUR: My son, I have been testing you. I wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t show you affection and love — whether you would stay with me or not. It is only you who can bear such indifference and contempt from me. Had it been somebody else, he would not have come to my place any more. Nobody else would have stayed with me. Whoever got that kind of treatment from me would have hated me to the end of his life.

NAREN: It is all due to your compassion, to your love, that I stayed. You know that my anger is of the quickest. But you gave me shelter in your heart. You brought me into your soul and made me your true son.

THAKUR (smiling): Naren, I have occult powers, abundant occult powers, all occult powers. But what do I do with them? I don’t even wear clothes. Who is going to use these powers? I am thinking of telling Mother that I would like to give you everything, all my occult powers. You have to do much work for the Mother. If I give you these powers you will be able to work most effectively for the world. What do you think of this idea?

NAREN: Please tell me, will these occult powers help me in realising God?

THAKUR: No, they can’t help you in realising God. But when you start working for God, they will be of great help to you.

NAREN: Then I don’t want them. I want God first. After God-realisation it is up to you and God to give me occult powers.

THAKUR: Excellent, excellent. Oh, my Naren, who else is like you? Who is free from greed, but you? Most seekers cry for occult power, but I am eager to give you my occult power and you do not want it. You want God, my son, not occult power, and God is the only thing that we all need.

(Enter Rakhal, Baburam and Tarup. They bow to Thakur.)

THAKUR: One has to be a hundred per cent devoted to God like Naren. Only then can one realise God.

RAKHAL: I know that. His sincerity has impressed me greatly. My brother is all love for you, all love for God. May I ask you a question today?

THAKUR: Of course, of course. If I don’t answer your question, then whose question shall I answer?

RAKHAL: Please tell me the essence of the Vaisnava philosophy.

THAKUR: The Vaisnava philosophy is very simple. Love humanity and serve humanity: this is the philosophy.

RAKHAL: Please explain it to me further. It is not clear to me.

THAKUR: Remember the name of God. The Truth and the possessor of the Truth are one. Lord Krishna and his true devotee are one. The devotee’s whole world is nothing but Lord Krishna. It is Krishna who has become everything for him. This is what a real Vaisnava thinks and believes, and it is absolutely true. We have to show compassion to all human beings. (Pauses.) No, I am wrong. Who are we to show compassion to all human beings? We are feebler than ants. What right, what capacity do we have to help mankind? We have to serve all human beings and know that we are then serving God, for they are all manifestations of God. This is the right attitude. We have to serve all human beings, knowing and feeling that they are all manifestations of God.

TARUP: Please tell me how I can have purity.

THAKUR: Love mankind and serve mankind as devotedly as possible. Then automatically you will have purity. You have to see God in every human being. Only then will you have devotion. And when you have devotion, real devotion for God, then your heart will be pure.

NAREN: If ever God gives me the opportunity and capacity, I shall preach before the whole world. I shall speak to the whole world; the rich and the poor, the Brahmins and the Chandalas will hear your message from me. I wish to offer your message to the entire world. Please bless me so that my desire will be fulfilled.

THAKUR: My blessing is already there. It is for you, for all of you. It has been raining down on you for the last few years. The Mother is playing her own game in and through you all. You are all just instruments of the Mother.

(Enter Hriday.)

HRIDAY: Uncle, I can’t bear you any longer. I can’t. You have really become insane. Now I know you will suffer from this cold and I will suffer even more.

THAKUR: Oh, I had forgotten. Hriday, forgive me, forgive me. Come, come, all of you, come.

(Exeunt all except Naren, who sits down on the ground and sings with folded hands.)

Jago amar swapan sathi
jago amar praner pran
jago amar chokher jyoti
rishi kabi murtiman
jago, jago, jago
jago amar bishwal hiya
byapta jaha bishwamoy
jago amar sei chetana
bishwatite shesh ja noy
jago, jago, jago
jago amar dhyani-swarup
jago amar baddhwa jib
sarba jiber tandra tuti
jago amar mukta shib
jago, jago, jago

(Arise, awake, O Friend of my dream.
Arise, awake, O Breath of my life.
Arise, awake, O Light of my eyes.
O Seer-Poet in me,
Do manifest Yourself in me and through me.

Arise, awake, O vast heart within me.
Arise, awake, O consciousness of mine,
Which is always transcending the universe
And its own life of the Beyond.

Arise, awake, O Form of my meditation transcendental.
Arise, awake, O bound divinity in humanity.
Arise, awake, O my heart’s Liberator, Shiva,
And free mankind from its ignorance-sleep.)

Songs

Shadhak Shreshta Ramakrishna

Sadhak shreshta Ramakrishna mata tumi Bhakti bhore nata shire (ratul) charan chumi

Sri Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna Sri Ramakrishna Joy hok taba joy Kalir dulal sarba dharma Tomate samannoy

Narendranath Vivekananda Joy Joy Taba

Narendranath Vivekananda joy joy taba joy Naba swapaner naba chetanar mahan abhyudoy

Kalir chele Thakur paran mata pitar bile

Kalir chhele Thakur paran mata pitar bile Vishwa bojha hasi mukhe apan kare nile

Bhitare udasi bahire udasi sanyasi bir

Bhitare udasi bahire udasi sannyasi bir sannyasi Agyanatar andhar dharar moha bandhan tumi nashi

Pita Vishwanath Mata Bhubaneshwari

Pita Vishwanath mata Bhubaneshwari He vir Naren santan Pitar ashish mayer karuna

Vivekananda

Vivekananda Vivekananda viveker churamani Sabare tulite diyechile taba anahata maha dwani

Vivekananda hiyar keshari

Vivekananda hiyar keshari tyagbir samrat Atma nishtha dharare danile sarbottama path

Short you lived

Short you lived.
Much you gave.
Enormous your God-Boon.
The age-long slumber-swoon,
You saved from its ready grave.

Chicago

Chicago, Chicago, Chicago!
Your crying heart, your soaring soul
Announced Swamiji’s giant role.
Chicago, Chicago, Chicago!
Your life treasured his Vedanta-glow;
In you began the world’s oneness-flow.

Chicago, Chicago

Chicago, Chicago, Chicago!
Your pure acceptance-heart
Of Viveka’s thunder-start
Of Parliament of Religions high,
Marks your lofty vision-sky.

Arise, Awake!

Arise!
Awake!
And stop not till the goal is reached.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

Love never fails

Love never fails.
Today or tomorrow, or ages after, truth will conquer.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

Let me help my fellow men

Let me help my fellow men.
That is all I seek.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

India will be raised

India will be raised,
Not with the power of the flesh,
But with the power of the spirit;
Not with the flag of destruction,
But with the flag of peace and love,
The garb of the sannyasin.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

If God comes in the form of a dove

If God comes in the form of a dove, it is holy.
But if He comes in the form of a cow,
it is heathen superstition; condemn it!
That is how the world goes.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

Go where people hate you

Go where people hate you.
Let them thrash the ego out of you,
And you will get nearer to the Lord.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

This life is short

This life is short.
The vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others.
The rest are more dead than alive.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

Him I call a Mahatman

Him I call a Mahatman whose heart bleeds for the poor.
Otherwise he is a Duratman.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

What we need today

What we need today is to know that there is a God,
and that we can see and feel Him here and now.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

Don’t bother your head

Don’t bother your head with religious theories.
Cowards only sin, brave men never.
Try to love anybody and everybody.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

Education is the manifestation

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.

[Words of Swami Vivekananda]

Editor’s preface to the first edition of Vivekananda: Divinity’s Soul-Rainbow and Humanity’s Heart-Blossom

In 1893, the city of Chicago was host to a rainbow-gathering of representatives from the world's great religions. They had come together in a spirit of oneness for the World's Parliament of Religions. It was not the first such attempt to encompass the universal spiritual aspirations of man, there having been precedents as early as the third century BC, when the Indian King Asoka invited one thousand scholars of all faiths to meet in Patna. Again, in the sixteenth century, the great Moghul Emperor Akbar created a Hall of Worship in his palace at Fatehpur Sikri where debates were conducted between representatives of many faiths, including Christianity and Judaism.

However, the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 was the first such endeavour in modern times to reveal the truths which all faiths hold in common and to deepen mankind's understanding of the unique worth of each.

From India, a penniless monk received an inner message to come to America and participate in the conference. Bearing the ancient message of the Vedic seers, his only credential, he was welcomed as a representative of Hinduism, the mother of all religions. This was Swami Vivekananda, whose presence and speeches were to profoundly inspire and illumine the entire gathering.

"Sisters and brothers of America," he began in his opening address on 11 September 1893. With these few words he indeed sprang a surprise on the audience. Here there is no "Mr and Mrs," no "Ladies and Gentlemen." Here a brother is sharing his inspiring and inspired heart’s message-light with his sisters and brothers of the whole world. Likewise, his world-sisters and world-brothers in no time discovered in him a real brother, a oneness-heart-brother. They responded to his opening words with thunderous applause and it was several minutes before peace was restored. Swami Vivekananda then proceeded to declare to the world at large the supreme necessity for universal acceptance and tolerance. His superb command of the English language, his deeply resonant voice and his dignified bearing captivated the thousands who attended the Parliament each day. Indeed, it may be said that Swami Vivekananda galvanised the World's Parliament of Religions with his soul-stirring words.

1993 marks the centenary of that great occasion and Sri Chinmoy has chosen to honour Swami Vivekananda and his contribution by humbly offering this collection of poems, aphorisms, dramatic writings, stories and essays about the significant episodes in Vivekananda's life. The material has been drawn from Sri Chinmoy's writings over the past three decades and includes a special series of 39 poems and aphor­isms written in 1993. The book also contains Sri Chinmoy's musical compositions about Swami Vivekananda.

In 1893, Swami Vivekananda and other delegates to the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago helped to usher in the dawn of a new era of oneness between world religions. As we reflect on the one hundred years that have passed, the message of Swami Vivekananda resounds as powerfully now as it did then. In the words of Sri Chinmoy:

Finally, to our extreme delight, Sri Chinmoy the Viveananda-admirer and Vivekananda-adorer is chosen by the soulful and bountiful organisers of the World's Parliament of Religions to commence the august 1993 convocation with a few moments of silent meditation on 28 August 1993.

May Naren and Chinmoy, two Bengali hearts, two Indian lives and two cosmopolitan souls, perpetually grow and glow in the heart of aspiring humanity.