Swami Vivekananda, known in his pre-monastic life as Narendra Nath Datta,
was born in an affluent family in Kolkata on 12 January 1863. By the time he
graduated from Calcutta University, he had acquired a vast knowledge of
different subjects, especially Western philosophy and history. Born with a
yogic temperament, he used to practise meditation even from his boyhood, and
was associated with Brahmo Movement for some time. At the
threshold of youth Narendra had to pass through a period of spiritual crisis
when he was assailed by doubts about the existence of God. It was at that
time he first heard about Sri Ramakrishna from one of his English professors
at college. One day in November 1881, Narendra went to meet Sri Ramakrishna
who was staying at the Kali Temple in Dakshineshwar. He straightaway asked
the Master a question which he had put to several others but had received no
satisfactory answer: “Sir, have you seen God?” Without a moment’s hesitation,
Sri Ramakrishna replied: “Yes, I have. I see Him as clearly as I see you,
only in a much intenser sense.”
 Apart from removing doubts from the mind of
Narendra, Sri Ramakrishna won him over through his pure, unselfish love.
Thus began a guru-disciple relationship which is quite unique in the history
of spiritual masters. Narendra now became a frequent visitor to
Dakshineshwar and, under the guidance of the Master, made rapid strides on
the spiritual path. At Dakshineshwar, Narendra also met several young men
who were devoted to Sri Ramakrishna, and they all became close friends.
After a few years two events took place which
caused Narendra considerable distress. One was the sudden death of his
father in 1884. This left the family penniless, and Narendra had to bear the
burden of supporting his mother, brothers and sisters. The second event was
the illness of Sri Ramakrishna which was diagnosed to be cancer of the
throat. In September 1885 Sri Ramakrishna was moved to a house at Shyampukur,
and a few months later to a rented villa at Cossipore. In these two places
the young disciples nursed the Master with devoted care. In spite of poverty
at home and inability to find a job for himself, Narendra joined the group
as its leader.
Sri Ramakrishna instilled in these young men the spirit
of renunciation and brotherly love for one another. One day he distributed
ochre robes among them and sent them out to beg food. In this way he himself
laid the foundation for a new monastic order. He gave specific instructions
to Narendra about the formation of the new monastic Order. In the small
hours of 16 August 1886 Sri Ramakrishna gave up his mortal body.
After the Master’s passing, fifteen of his young
disciples (one more joined them later) began to live together in a
dilapidated building at Baranagar in North Kolkata. Under the leadership of
Narendra, they formed a new monastic brotherhood, and in 1887 they took the
formal vows of sannyasa, thereby assuming new names. Narendra now became
Swami Vivekananda (although this name was actually assumed much later.)
After establishing the new monastic order, Vivekananda heard the inner call
for a greater mission in his life. While most of the followers of Sri
Ramakrishna thought of him in relation to their own personal lives,
Vivekananda thought of the Master in relation to India and the rest of the
world. As the prophet of the present age, what was Sri Ramakrishna’s message
to the modern world and to India in particular? This question and the
awareness of his own inherent powers urged Swamiji to go out alone into the
wide world. So in the middle of 1890, after receiving the blessings of Sri
Sarada Devi, the divine consort of Sri Ramakrishna, known to the world as
Holy Mother, who was then staying in Kolkata, Swamiji left Baranagar Math
and embarked on a long journey of exploration and discovery of India.
During his travels all over India, Swami Vivekananda
was deeply moved to see the appalling poverty and backwardness of the masses.
He was the first religious leader in India to understand and openly declare
that the real cause of India’s downfall was the neglect of the masses. The
immediate need was to provide food and other bare necessities of life to the
hungry millions. For this they should be taught improved methods of
agriculture, village industries, etc. It was in this context that
Vivekananda grasped the crux of the problem of poverty in India (which had
escaped the attention of social reformers of his days): owing to centuries
of oppression, the downtrodden masses had lost faith in their capacity to
improve their lot. It was first of all necessary to infuse into their minds
faith in themselves. For this they needed a life-giving, inspiring message.
Swamiji found this message in the principle of the Atman, the doctrine of
the potential divinity of the soul, taught in Vedanta, the ancient system of
religious philosophy of India. He saw that, in spite of poverty, the masses
clung to religion, but they had never been taught the life-giving, ennobling
principles of Vedanta and how to apply them in practical life.
Thus the masses needed two kinds of
knowledge: secular knowledge to improve their economic condition, and
spiritual knowledge to infuse in them faith in themselves and strengthen
their moral sense. The next question was, how to spread these two kinds of
knowledge among the masses? Through education – this was the answer that
Swamiji found.
One thing became clear to Swamiji: to
carry out his plans for the spread of education and for the uplift of the
poor masses, and also of women, an efficient organization of dedicated
people was needed. As he said later on, he wanted “to set in motion a
machinery which will bring noblest ideas to the doorstep of even the poorest
and the meanest.” It was to serve as this ‘machinery’ that Swamiji founded
the Ramakrishna Mission a few years later.
It was when these ideas were taking shape in his mind
in the course of his wanderings that Swami Vivekananda heard about the World’s
Parliament of Religions to be held in Chicago in 1893. Swamiji, however,
wanted to have an inner certitude and divine call regarding his mission.
Both of these he got while he sat in deep meditation on the rock-island at
Kanyakumari. With the funds partly collected by his Chennai disciples and
partly provided by the Raja of Khetri, Swami Vivekananda left for America
from Mumbai on 31 May 1893.
His speeches at the World’s Parliament of Religions
held in September 1893 made him famous as an ‘orator by divine right’ and as
a ‘Messenger of Indian wisdom to the Western world’. After the Parliament,
Swamiji spent nearly three and a half years spreading Vedanta as lived and
taught by Sri Ramakrishna, mostly in the eastern parts of USA and also in
London.
He returned to India in January 1897. In
response to the enthusiastic welcome that he received everywhere, he
delivered a series of lectures in different parts of India, which created a
great stir all over the country. Through these inspiring and profoundly
significant lectures Swamiji attempted to do the following:
to focus the attention of educated people on the plight of the
downtrodden masses, and to expound his plan for their uplift by the
application of the principles of Practical Vedanta.
Soon after his return to Kolkata, Swami Vivekananda accomplished another
important task of his mission on earth. He founded on 1 May 1897 a
unique type of organization known as Ramakrishna Mission, in which monks
and lay people would jointly undertake propagation of Practical Vedanta,
and various forms of social service, such as running hospitals, schools,
colleges, hostels, rural development centres etc, and conducting massive
relief and rehabilitation work for victims of earthquakes, cyclones and
other calamities, in different parts of India and other countries.
In early 1898 Swami Vivekananda acquired a big plot of land on the
western bank of the Ganga at a place called Belur to have a permanent
abode for the monastery and monastic Order originally started at
Baranagar, and got it registered as Ramakrishna Math after a couple of
years. Here Swamiji established a new, universal pattern of monastic
life which adapts ancient monastic ideals to the conditions of modern
life, which gives equal importance to personal illumination and social
service, and which is open to all men without any distinction of
religion, race or caste.
It may be mentioned here that in the West many people were influenced by
Swami Vivekananda’s life and message. Some of them became his disciples
or devoted friends. Among them the names of Margaret Noble (later known
as Sister Nivedita), Captain and Mrs Sevier, Josephine McLeod and Sara
Ole Bull, deserve special mention. Nivedita dedicated her life to
educating girls in Kolkata. Swamiji had many Indian disciples also, some
of whom joined Ramakrishna Math and became sannyasins.
In June 1899 he went to the West on a second visit. This time he spent
most of his time in the West coast of USA. After delivering many
lectures there, he returned to Belur Math in December 1900. The rest of
his life was spent in India, inspiring and guiding people, both monastic
and lay. Incessant work, especially giving lectures and inspiring people,
told upon Swamiji’s health. His health deteriorated and the end came
quietly on the night of 4 July 1902. Before his Mahasamadhi he had
written to a Western follower: “It may be that I shall find it good to
get outside my body, to cast it off like a worn out garment. But I shall
not cease to work. I shall inspire men everywhere until the whole world
shall know that it is one with God.”
Text:
Belur Math website
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