Brief Life-Sketch of Swami Vivekananda
We cannot think of Sri Rama without thinking of Hanuman, or remember Sri Krishna without remembering Arjuna. In the same way do Buddha and Ananda go together, as do Christ and St. Paul. Even such is the link between Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. For, the one was the spring and the other was the stream conveying the spring’s waters.
God to Ramakrishna was a Fact and a Reality. He did not have to argue about God. He could affirm God. He was the peak of Indian Spiritual Culture. His vision was cosmic and realisation was all-embracing. Swami Vivekananda was his chief disciple, his most beloved pupil, his greatest heir, his right interpreter and his most efficient executive.
Swami Vivekananda was born in Calcutta on January 12, 1863 on the holy day of Makara Sankaranthi. His father was Viswanatha Datta, a prominent lawyer of Calcutta and his mother was Bhuvaneswari Devi, a very cultured woman of aristocratic upbringing. The Dattas named the child Narendranath and the mother believed that he had come to her in answer to her ardent prayers to Lord Siva. The child was the darling of everybody in and near the home, and was boisterous and vivacious. There was in him, an exuberance of energy and it was hard for his people to tackle and control him. He grew into an athlete and was proficient in all kinds of games in sports. He was as good as studies as at play. He was a student with superlative talents both innate and acquired. His range of reading was wide, his powers of understanding were keen. He had a very retentive memory and in discriminative faculty he was very much above his age. Even as a boy he was highly soulful and deeply meditative; there were deeper powers in his young being than are usually found in youth. He was challenging and knew no fear. A hundred graces and excellences marked him out as a genius even at school and college.
Narendranath was a thinker and the question of God troubled him. His intellect was too robust to take things on feeble faith and customary belief. He demanded verification, asked for proof, before he believed. The doubting youth went here and there in quest of God for long but in vain. And when he almost despaired of discovering God and almost concluded that God was a mad man’s idea, Destiny, wise and benevolent Destiny, took him to Sri Ramakrishna. He asked the Saint if he had seen God. Sri Ramakrishna replied with a smile said that not only had he seen God, but he could show God to Naren also.
Thus in the simple rustic temple-priest did the college-educated rationalist find his Master and Saviour.
For nearly five years Narendranath stayed with Sri Ramakrishna and was taught and trained by him. At the end of this period of utmost intensity, Narendranath had imbibed all the superhuman wisdom of the Paramahamsa and had become his alter ego.
Sri Ramakrishna passed away in 1886, when Narendranath was not even twenty-three. On Naren’s very young shoulders fell the gigantic burden of executing Sri Ramakrishna’s mission. It was not an easy task, but if anyone was capable of performing it, it was Narendranath, who had the brain and brawn for it. He renounced home, he became Swami Vivekananda; he established a Math (a monastery) where he and his co-disciples could carry on austerities. He then wandered over India as a parivrajaka sadhu. From the northern Himalayan extremity to the southern land’s end of Cape Comorin did he travel, studying the Motherland, understanding her problems at first hand and forming solutions for her regeneration. This pilgrimage was one of the landmarks of his life and the very many occurrences and incidents relating to his wanderings are fascinating peeps into the rich variety and compelling charm of his personality.
In 1893 in the month of May, the Swami left by steamer for America to attend the Parliament of Religions to be held there at Chicago in September. He had not been formally invited and enrolled as a delegate. With some difficulty he managed to get into the Parliament; he was too luminous not to be let in. But then it was a case of conquest at first speech. When his turn to address the august assembly came, he rose like the morning sun and spoke to the ‘Sisters and Brothers of America’. That hearty call fascinated the Parliament and the western world. Rising above cramping creeds and dwarfing dogmas he spoke of harmony and universalism; his message came like the breath of life to a suffocated people. He stayed many months in America lecturing and teaching and helping Westerners to study Indian philosophy. Then he went to England and Europe. He had become a bridge of understanding between the Orient and the Occident.
In 1897 the Swami returned to India. The nation rose like one man to honour him. The people saw in him a new Sankara who had risen to bring life and vigour to the motherland. The Swami reminded his countrymen of the Indian national ideal of renunciation, roused them to a sense of privilege in being Indians and showed them how spiritual culture was the secret of India’s immortal existence. He made Bharata a Prabuddha Bharata.
But he did not stop with advising and preaching. He was a capable organiser and desired to set up an organisation which could ensure the continuance of his Master’s mission. So he founded the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (with its Headquarters at Belur Math near Calcutta) which is a body dedicated to self-realisation and to the service of humanity. This Sangha is his lasting legacy to manking.
Swami Vivekananda was not forty, when he entered into Mahasamadhi. But his age is not to be calculated in solar years. For, in just one decade of public work he had implanted into human consciousness ideas which may need one thousand and five hundred years to get worked out in full. There is an Indian side to his life-work and there is an international aspect to it. In both the fields, his contribution has been unique.
Krishna… Guruvayoorappa…
Contributed by:
Murali Ambala Kolliyil
Bangui.
