SWAMI VIVEKANANDA'S inspiring personality was
well known both in India and in America during the last decade of
the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. The
unknown monk of India suddenly leapt into fame at the Parliament of
Religions held in Chicago in 1893, at which he represented Hinduism.
His vast knowledge of Eastern and Western culture as well as his
deep spiritual insight, fervid eloquence, brilliant conversation,
broad human sympathy, colourful personality, and handsome figure
made an irresistible appeal to the many types of Americans who came
in contact with him. People who saw or heard Vivekananda even once
still cherish his memory after a lapse of more than half a century.
In America Vivekananda's mission was the
interpretation of India's spiritual culture, especially in its
Vedantic setting. He also tried to enrich the religious
consciousness of the Americans through the rational and humanistic
teachings of the Vedanta philosophy. In America he became India's
spiritual ambassador and pleaded eloquently for better understanding
between India and the New World in order to create a healthy
synthesis of East and West, of religion and science.
In his own motherland Vivekananda is regarded as
the patriot saint of modern India and an inspirer of her dormant
national consciousness, To the Hindus he preached the ideal of a
strength-giving and man-making religion. Service to man as the
visible manifestation of the Godhead was the special form of worship
he advocated for the Indians, devoted as they were to the rituals
and myths of their ancient faith. Many political leaders of India
have publicly acknowledged their indebtedness to Swami Vivekananda.
The Swami's mission was both national and
international. A lover of mankind, be strove to promote peace and
human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the Vedantic
Oneness of existence. A mystic of the highest order, Vivekananda had
a direct and intuitive experience of Reality. He derived his ideas
from that unfailing source of wisdom and often presented them in the
soulstirring language of poetry.
The natural tendency of Vivekananda's mind, like
that of his Master, Ramakrishna, was to soar above the world and
forget itself in contemplation of the Absolute. But another part of
his personality bled at the sight of human suffering in East and
West alike. It might appear that his mind seldom found a point of
rest in its oscillation between contemplation of God and service to
man. Be that as it may, he chose, in obedience to a higher call,
service to man as his mission on earth; and this choice has endeared
him to people in the West, Americans in particular.
In the course of a short life of thirty-nine
years (1863-1902), of which only ten were devoted to public
activities-and those, too, in the midst of acute physical
suffering-he left for posterity his four classics: Jnana-Yoga,
Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, and Raja-Yoga, all of which are outstanding
treatises on Hindu philosophy. In addition, he delivered innumerable
lectures, wrote inspired letters in his own hand to his many friends
and disciples, composed numerous poems, and acted as spiritual guide
to the many seekers, who came to him for instruction. He also
organized the Ramakrishna Order of monks, which is the most
outstanding religious organization of modern India. It is devoted to
the propagation of the Hindu spiritual culture not only in the
Swami's native land, but also in America and in other parts of the
world.
Swami Vivekananda once spoke of himself as a
"condensed India." His life and teachings are of inestimable value
to the West for an understanding of the mind of Asia. William James,
the Harvard philosopher, called the Swami the "paragon of Vedantists."
Max Muller and Paul Deussen, the famous Orientalists of the
nineteenth century, held him in genuine respect and affection. "His
words," writes Romain Rolland, "are great music, phrases in the
style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel
choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are
through the pages of books, at thirty years' distance, without
receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what
shocks, what transports, must have been produced when in burning
words they issued from the lips of the hero!''
