Swami Vivekananda

A Life Sketch of Swami Vivekananda and his Teachings

Swami Vivekananda (Jan 12, 1863 - July 4, 1902) is considered one of the most famous and influential spiritual leaders of the Hindu religion. He is considered by many as an icon for his fearless courage, his positive exhortations to the youth, and his broad outlook to social problems.

Swami Vivekananda was born Narendranath Dutta, son of a well-known lawyer in Calcutta, Biswanath Dutta, and a very intelligent and pious lady, Bhuvaneswari Devi, in the year 1863. Biswanath often had scholarly discussions with his clients and friends on politics, religion and society. He would invite Narendranath to join in these discussions. Narendra, not in the embarrassed, would say whatever he thought was right, advancing also arguments, in support of his stand. Some of Biswanath's friends resented Naren's presence among them, more so because he had the audacity to talk about matters concerning adults. Biswanath, however, encouraged him. Naren would say: "Point out where I'm wrong, but why should you object to my independent thinking?"

Naren learnt the Epics and Puranas from his mother, who was a good story-teller. He also inherited her memory among other qualities. He, in fact, owed much to her as he used to say later. Naren was all-round. He could sing, was good at sports, had a ready wit, his range of knowledge was extensive, had a rational frame of mind and he loved to help people . He was a natural leader. He was much sought after by the people because of his various accomplishments.

Naren passed Entrance Examination from the Metropolitan Institute and F.A. and B.A. Examinations from the General Assembly's Institution (now Scottish Church College). Hastie, Principal of the College, was highly impressed by Naren's philosophical insight. It was from Hastie that he first heard of Sri Ramakrishna.

As a student of Philosophy, the question of God was very much his mind. Was there a God ? If there was a God, what was He like ? What were man's relations with Him ? Did He create this world which was so full of anomalies ? He discussed these questions with many, but no one could give him satisfactory answers. He looked to persons who could say they had seen God, but found none. Meanwhile, Keshab Sen had become the head of the Brahmo Movement. He was a great orator and many young people, attracted by his oratory, enrolled as members of the Brahmo Samaj. Naren also did the same. For some time he was satisfied with what the Brahmo Samaj taught him, but soon he began to feel it did not quite touch the core of the matter, so far as religion was concerned. A relation of his used to advise him to visit Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar, who, he said, would be able to remove all his doubts about religion. He happened to meet Ramakrishna at the house of a neighbour, but there is nothing on record about the impression that he created on Naren's mind. He, however, invited Naren to visit him at Dakshineswar some day. As the days passed, Naren began to grow restless about the various riddles that religion presented to him. He particularly wanted to meet a person who could talk about God with the authority of personal experience. Finally, he went to Ramakrishna one day and asked him straightaway if he had seen God. He said he had, and if Naren so wished, he could even show God to him. This naturally took Naren by surprise. But he did not know what to make of it, for though his simplicity and love of God impressed Naren, his idiosyncrasies made him suspect if Ramakrishna was not a 'monomaniac'. He began to watch him from close quarters and after a long time he was left in no doubt that Ramakrishna was an extraordinary man. He was the only man he had so far met who had completely mastered himself. Then, he was also the best illustration of every religious truth he preached. Naren loved and admired Ramakrishna but never surrendered his independence of judgment. Interestingly, Ramakrishna himself did not demand it of him, or of any other of his disciples. Nevertheless, Naren gradually came to accept Ramakrishna as his master. He became famous as Swami Vivekananda, when he became the chief disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. He studied philosophy at the Scottish Church College, Calcutta.

But Vivekananda is also renowned as a thinker in his own right. One of his most important contributions was to demonstrate how Advaitin thinking is not merely philosophically far-reaching, but how it also has social, even political, consequences. One important lesson he claimed to receive from Ramakrishna was that "Jiva is Shiva " (each individual is divinity itself). This became his Mantra, and he coined the concept of daridra narayana seva - the service of God in and through (poor)human beings. If there truly is the unity of Brahman underlying all phenomena, then on what basis do we regard ourselves as better or worse, or even as better-off or worse-off, than others? - This was the question he posed to himself. Ultimately, he concluded that these distinctions fade into nothingness in the light of the oneness that the devotee experiences in Moksha. What arises then is compassion for those "individuals" who remain unaware of this oneness and a determination to help them.

His books (compiled from lectures given around the world) on the four Yogas are very influential and still seen as fundamental texts for anyone interested in the Hindu practice of Yoga.

Swami Vivekananda belonged to that branch of Vedanta that held that no-one can be truly free until all of us are. Even the desire for personal salvation has to be given up, and only tireless work for the salvation of others is the true mark of the enlightened person.

However, Vivekananda also pleaded for a strict separation between religion and government ("church and state"). Although social customs had been formed in the past with religious sanction, it was not now the business of religion to interfere with matters such as marriage, inheritance and so on. The ideal society would be a mixture of Brahmin knowledge, Kshatriya culture, Vaisya efficiency and the egalitarian Shudra ethos. Domination by any one led to different sorts of lopsided societies. Vivekananda was a socialist at heart, but he did not feel that religion should be used forcefully to bring about an ideal socialist society, since this was something that would evolve naturally by individualistic change when the conditions were right.

Vivekananda is best remembered as the man who "stole the show" at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where he earned wild applause for beginning his address with the famous words, "Sisters and brothers of America." This event marks the beginning of western interest in Hinduism not as merely an exotic eastern oddity, but as a vital religious and philosophical tradition that might actually have something important to teach the west. Within a few years of the Parliament, he had started Vedantic centres in New York and London, lectured at major universities and generally kindled western interest in Hinduism. After this, he returned to India. He started Sri Ramakrishna Math and Mission founded on the principle of Atmano Mokshartham Jagad-hitaya cha (for one's own salvation and for the welfare of the World). This institution is now one of the greatest monastic orders of Hindu society in India. He was only 39 years old when he passed away.

Teachings

1. My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words, and that is to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.
2. Religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man.
3. Religion is the idea which is raising the brute unto man, and man unto God.
4. The secret of religion lies not in theories but in practice. To be good and do good - that is the whole of religion.
5. Man is higher than all animals, than all angels; none is greater than man.
6. One may gain political and social independence, but if one is a slave to his passions and desires, one cannot feel the pure joy of real freedom.
7. Look at the wall. Did the wall ever tell a lie? It is always the wall. Man tells a lie and becomes a god, too.
8. After so much austerity, I have understood this as the real truth - God is present in every jiva; there is no other God besides that. 'Who serves jiva, serves God indeed.'
9. Cut out the word help from your mind. You cannot help; it is blasphemy! You worship. When you give a morsel of food to a dog, you worship the dog as God. He is all, and is in all.
10. Unselfishness is God. One may live on a throne, in a palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then he is in God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have nothing in the world; yet if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world.
11. All nations have attained greatness by paying proper respect to women. That country and that nation which do not respect women have never become great, nor will ever be in future.
12. With five hundred men, ... the conquest of India might take fifty years: with as many women, not more than a few weeks.
13. Religion and religion alone is the life of India, and when that goes, India will die, in spite of politics, in spite of social reforms, in spite of Kubera's wealth poured upon the head of every one of her children.
14. Before flooding India with socialistic or political ideas, first deluge the land with spiritual ideas.
15. We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran.
16. Mankind ought to be taught that religions are but the varied expressions of THE RELIGION, which is Oneness, so that each may choose the path that suits him best.
17. Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has been the Law, it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth's bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for the welfare of all.
18. Truth, purity, and unselfishness - whenever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof. Equipped with these, one individual is able to face the whole universe in opposition.
19. Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
20. The highest ideal is eternal and entire self-abnegation, where there is no 'I', but is Thou'.
21. All expansion is life, all contraction is death.
22. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
23. The national ideals of India are Renunciation and Service. Intensify her in those channels, and the rest will take care of itself.
24. Good motives, sincerity, and infinite love can conquer the world. One single soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of millions of hypocrites and brutes.
25. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.
26. The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.
27. Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.
28. The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.
29. The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them.
30. There is nothing beyond God, and the sense enjoyments are simply something through which we are passing now in the hope of getting better things.
31. The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him -- that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.
32. Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.
33. That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.
34. You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
35. The goal of mankind is knowledge. . . . Now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man "knows," should, in strict psychological language, be what he "discovers" or "unveils"; what man "learns" is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.
36. If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.
37. All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.
38. To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.
39. The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!
40. The spirit is the cause of all our thoughts and body-action, and everything, but it is untouched by good or evil, pleasure or pain, heat of cold, and all the dualism of nature, although it lends its light to everything.
41. It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world -- that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves!
42. In one word, this ideal is that you are divine.
43. All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
44. If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.
45. Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.
46. The Vedanta teaches that Nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for death to reach it. Nirvana is the realization of the Self; and after having once known that, if only for an instant, never again can one be deluded by the mirage of personality.
47. The Vedanta recognizes no sin it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that.
48. Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
49. Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true