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, he 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 soul-stirring 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.
Swami
Vivekananda, the great soul loved and revered in East and West alike as the
rejuvenator of Hinduism in India and the preacher of its eternal truths
abroad, was born at 6:33, a few minutes before sunrise, on Monday,
January 12, 1863. It was the day of the great Hindu festival Makarasamkranti,
when special worship is offered to the Ganga by millions of devotees. Thus the
future Vivekananda first drew breath when the air above the sacred river not
far from the house was reverberating with the prayers, worship, and religious
music of thousands of Hindu men and women.
Before
Vivekananda was born, his mother, like many other pious Hindu mothers, had
observed religious vows, fasted, and prayed so that she might be blessed with a
son who would do honour to the family. She requested a relative who
was living in Varanasi to offer special worship to the Vireswara Siva of that
holy place and seek His blessings; for Siva, the great god of renunciation,
dominated her thought. One night she dreamt that this supreme Deity
aroused Himself from His meditation and agreed to be born as her son. When she
woke she was filled with joy.
The Parliament Of Religions :
On
Monday, September 11, 1893 the Parliament of Religions opened its deliberations
with due solemnity. This great meeting was an adjunct of the World's Columbian
Exposition, which had been organized to celebrate the four hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. One of the
main goals of the Exposition was to disseminate knowledge of the progress and
enlightenment brought about in the world by Western savants and especially
through physical science and technology; but as religion forms a vital factor
in human culture, it had been decided to organize a Parliament of Religions in
conjunction with the Exposition.
Of
the Swami's address before the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that
when he began to speak it was of "the religious ideas of the Hindus",
but when he ended, Hinduism had been created. The moment was ripe with this
potentiality. The vast audience that faced him represented exclusively the
occidental mind, but included some development of all that in this was most
distinctive.
Message of Vedanta :
The
message of Swami Vivekananda was the message of Vedanta -- a
spiritual teaching that again and again saved India during periods of decline
and crisis. The keynote of this message is: "Truth is one: Sages call it
by various names." Its four cardinal points are non-duality of the
Godhead, divinity of the soul, oneness of existence, and harmony of religions.
Religion, in the light of Vedanta, is the manifestation of the divinity already
in man. The central theme of Vedanta is harmony of religions. This spiritual harmony
is to be realized by deepening our spiritual consciousness. Vedanta asks a
Christian to be a true Christian, a Hindu a true Hindu, a Buddhist a true
Buddhist, a Jew a true Jew, Moslem a true Moslem. The message was timely and
powerful. America had received a rude shock from the Civil War and its
aftermath. Science had already shaken the very roots of religious beliefs and
dogmas, and the ideas of Darwin were challenging conventional American thought
and religion. Americans were looking for a philosophy that could harmonize
science with humanism and mystical experience, and Swami Vivekananda's words
gave them hope for the fulfillment of their spiritual aspirations. The message
was powerful not because of its dialectical superiority or philosophical subtlety,
but because of the personality of Swami Vivekananda. The message was an ancient
one, but it bore a fire of conviction that was new. One familiar with the life
of Swami Vivekananda will recall that his Master, Sri Ramakrishna, saw in him
the power and potentiality of a great world teacher. Before the Master passed
away, he prophesied: "Narendra (Swami Vivekananda) will teach others …..
Very soon he will shake the world by his intellectual and spiritual
powers."
The
news of Swami Vivekananda’s success in America soon reached the shores of India
and spread like wildfire. The country, lost in the slumber of inertia, woke up
with its new vigor and confidence, and a spiritual renaissance was set into
motion that would propel India to great intellectual and social development.
Today Swami Vivekananda is regarded as the "patriot prophet" of new
India. His words carry the power of inspiration and transformation.
Swami
Vivekananda indicated Vedanta is the future religion of mankind. With his
prophetic vision, he predicted that modern science and education would break
down the barriers between nations and prepare the ground for the fulfillment of
the age-old dream of one united world. But one world is possible only when
there is one common Soul that transcends the limitations of race, culture, and
religious denominations. Swami Vivekananda presents before humanity the
World-Soul of Vedanta, the non-dual, nameless and formless all-pervading Pure
Spirit that alone can make the dream of one world a reality. He foresaw a new
world order in which science and religion would cooperate, mysticism would
combine with humanism and spiritual harmony would replace religious dissension.
His final words at the Chicago Parliament of Religions were, "Upon the
banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance 'Help and
not Fight,' 'Assimilation and not Destruction,' 'Harmony and Peace and not
Dissension.'" At a time when world peace is being maintained by continuous
wars, divisiveness is glorified at the expense of unity, and the human soul is
being buried beneath the debris of brutality, violence and hatred, the words of
Swami Vivekananda give us assurance -- an assurance that we are not living the
last days of our destiny and that the light of the Divine, shining in every
heart, will triumph over the forces of darkness.
Incessantly
he wrote to his Indian devotees about the regeneration of the masses. In a
letter dated 1894 he said:
Let each one of us pray, day and night, for the downtrodden
millions in India, who are held fast by poverty, priestcraft, and tyranny —
pray day and night for them. I care more to preach religion to them than to the
high and the rich. I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I
am poor, I love the poor.... Who feels in India for the three hundred millions
of men and women sunken for ever in poverty and ignorance? Where is the way
out? Who feels for them? Let these people be your God — think of them, work for
them, pray for them incessantly — the Lord will show you the way. Him I call a
mahatma, a noble soul, whose heart bleeds for the poor; otherwise he is a
duratma, a wicked soul.... So long as the millions live in hunger and
ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their
expense, pays not the least heed to them.... We are poor, my brothers we are
nobodies, but such have always been the instruments of the Most High.
Hindutva (Devanagari: ,
"Hinduness", a word coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923
pamphlet entitled Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? ) is the term
used to describe movements advocating Hindu
nationalism. Members of the movement are calledHindutvavadis. According to a 1995 Supreme Court of India judgement the word Hindutva could be used to
mean "the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos".
Cultural
nationalism
According
to this, the natives of India share a common culture, history and ancestry.
M
S Golwalkar, one of the main proponents of Hindutva believed that India's
diversity in terms of customs, traditions and ways of worship was its
uniqueness and that this diversity was not without the strong underlying
cultural basis which was essentially native. He believed that the Hindu natives
with all their diversity, shared among other things "the same philosophy
of life", "the same values" and "the same aspirations"
which formed a strong cultural and a civilizational basis for a nation.
Savarkar
similarly believed that the Indian subcontinent (which includes the
area south of the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush or Akhand Bharat (undivided
India,) is thehomeland of
the Hindus. He considered "Hindus" as those who consider India (Bharat,)
to be their motherland (matrubhumi), fatherland (pitrubhumi,) as well as their
holy land (punyabhumi,), hence describing it purely in cultural terms.
To be continued ..... Via Next Post .... Keep Reading ! #JaiBharat #JaiHindutva
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