Described by Sri Aurobindo as the “the soul of puissance if ever there was one, a very lion among men,” he who came to be known the world over as Swami Vivekananda, lived for only 39 years. He was born on January 12, 1863, and named Narendra Nath. His father Vishwanath Datta was a well-known Calcutta attorney, and his mother, Bhuvaneshwari, was known as a highly intelligent woman. Narendra Nath’s early years were spent in a home characterized by purity and truthfulness. In this boyhood, Narendra showed remarkable capacities of intellect, powers of concentration and qualities of courage, self-confidence and resourcefulness. While still in his teens and studying in college, he was greatly influenced by science and logic. He was at that time skeptical, and yet he had a great yearning in his heart to touch something absolutely perfect.
This burning quest in this spirited and fearless young man drove him to seek from those who claimed to be God-knowers and God-lovers the answer to one question: Have you seen God?No one gave him a satisfactory answer. Then one day some friends took the skeptical Narendra to the Kali Temple at Dakshineshwar, some miles from Calcutta, to see someone who was known to be a “Godman”. The first meeting between Narendra Nath and Sri Ramakrishna was momentous. First, Narendra sang a few devotional songs and, as usual, poured his soul into them. Suddenly, Sri Ramakrishna took his hand and drew him into the adjacent room. When they were alone, the Master began to shed tears of joy and said, “Ah, you have come so late! How unkind of you to keep me waiting so long! My ears are almost seared listening to the cheap talk of worldly people. Oh! how I have been yearning to unburden my mind to one who will understand my thought!” Then with folded hands he went on: “Lord! I know you are the ancient sage Nara – The incarnation of Narayana – born on earth to remove the miseries of mankind.” Recalling this moment, Swami Vivekananda described his own reaction: “I was altogether taken aback by his conduct; ‘Who is this man whom I have come to see?’ I thought, ‘he must be stark mad!’ ”
Nevertheless, Sri Ramakrishna extracted from Narendra a promise to return to Dakshineshwar. Then they went back into the other room. It was at this point that Narendra Nath asked his question to the Master: “Sir, have you seen God?” The reply was immediate: “Yes, I have seen God. I see Him as I see you here, only much more clearly. God can be seen. One can talk to him. But who cares for God? People shed torrents of tears for their wives, children, wealth, and property, but who weeps for the vision of God? If one cries sincerely for God, one can surely see Him.” That answer impressed Narendra at once:
For the first time I found a man who dared to say that he had seen God, that religion was a reality to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world. As I heard these things from his lips, I could not but believe that he was saying them not like an ordinary preacher, but from the depths of his own realization… “He may be a madman,” I thought, “but only the fortunate few can have such renunciation. Even if insane, this man is the holiest of the holy, a true saint, and for that alone he deserves the reverent homage of mankind!”
During his second visit, Narendra had an even stranger experience. Sri Ramakrishna called him to sit by his side and in an ecstatic mood muttered some words and placed his right foot on Narendra’s body. “With my eyes open,” Swami Vivekananda recalled, “I saw that the wall, and everything in the room whirled rapidly and vanished into naught, and the whole universe together with my individuality was about to merge in an all encompassing mysterious void!” Narendra was terrified and cried out, “What are you doing to me? I have my parents, brothers, and sisters at home.” Then Sri Ramakrishna laughed and stroked the young man’s chest, and the experience vanished as quickly as it had come.
Narendra was tremendously puzzled by these experiences and was angry with himself for having succumbed to the influence of a “madman”. But what the sceptic in him refused proved irresistibly fascinating to another part of his character, and Narendra returned again and again to Dakshineshwar. On his part, Sri Ramakrishna described these early days of their relationship as being particularly painful to him: “I felt such a constant agonizing desire to see him! At times the pain would be so excruciating that I felt as if my head were being squeezed like a wet towel. I cried, O my darling, come to me! I cannot live without seeing you.” If Narendra failed to come to him for some days, he would become disconsolate. He would weep and pray to the Divine Mother, begging Her to make him come.
Their relationship continued in this way for some time. Narendra was a born idealist and seeker of truth, but his mind was intensely analytical and he subordinated his imagination to the demands of reason. Although his visits to Sri Ramakrishna were marked by overwhelming inner experiences, his great respect for Western material science and its processes made him want to test each of these experiences, and he would accept only those that he felt stood the test. He yearned for Truth, but would not believe anything merely through blind devotion. He needed direct vision to allay his doubts.
Later Sri Ramakrishna admitted that he was glad at heart that Narendra was a rebel; “without intellectual questioning and struggle,” he said, “no one can arrive at full illumination.” It was only after a series of powerful, undeniable experiences that Narendra accepted Sri Ramakrishna as his Master. But before his final surrender, Narendra Nath was to pass through a long period of suffering in his personal life. He had grown up in relative luxury, with few material worries. Then his father suddenly died. When the estate was settled, the family found itself poor. Narendra, being the eldest son, was faced with the responsibility of supporting his mother, brothers and sisters. The hardship of these days drove Narendra almost to despair. He even expressed bitter doubts as to the existence of a God who could be author of such pain and evil. But these dark days also triggered an experience that would mark a decisive turning point in his life. This is how he described it:
One day the idea struck me that God listened to Sri Ramakrishna’s prayers; so why should I not ask him to pray for me for the removal of my pecuniary needs?... I hurried to Dakshineshwar…. He said, “My boy, I can’t make such demands. But why don’t you go and ask the Mother yourself? All your sufferings are due to your disregard of Her.” I said, “I do not know the Mother; you please speak to Her on my behalf. You must.” He replied tenderly, “My dear boy, I have done so again and again. But you do not accept Her, so She does not grant my prayer. All right… go to the Kali temple tonight, prostrate yourself before the Mother, and ask Her any boon you like. It shall be granted. She is Knowledge Absolute, the Inscrutable Power of Brahman. By Her mere will She has given birth to this world. Everything is in Her power to give. “I believed every word and eagerly waited for the night… As I went I was filled with a divine intoxication… Reaching the temple as I cast my eyes on the image I actually found that the Divine Mother was living and conscious… I was caught in a surging wave of devotion and love. In the ecstasy of joy I prostrated myself and prayed, “Mother, give me discrimination! Give me renunciation. Give me knowledge and devotion! Grant that I may have the uninterrupted vision of Thee!” As soon as I returned, the Master asked me if I had prayed to the Mother for the removal of my worldly needs. I was startled at this question and said, “No, Sir, I forgot all about it…” “Go again,” he said, “and tell Her about your needs.”
Narendra goes a second time, and the same thing occurs. Again Sri Ramakrishna sends him back. He goes a third time.
… but on entering the temple a terrible shame overpowered me. I thought, “What a trifle I have come to pray to the Mother about!” In shame and remorse I bowed to Her respectfully and said, “Mother, I want nothing but knowledge and devotion.”
And so Narendra Nath came to know the Divine Mother, and the power of his Master. Later Sri Ramakrishna promised Narendra that his family would never be without plain food and clothing. The promise proved true, and now Narendra had more and more time to spend with him. These were the final years of the Master’s and disciple’s relationship, which was to reach in intensity described by those who observed it as “divine”. Sri Ramakrishna left his body when Narendra was only 23 years old.
Shortly before his passing, Sri Ramakrishna had called Narendra to his bedside, and then entered into deep meditation. Narendra felt that a subtle force resembling and electric current was entering his body. When the Master regained knowledge of the outer world, he said to him, “O Naren, today I have given you everything I possess – now I am no more than a fakir, a penniless beggar. By the powers I have transmitted to you, you will accomplish great things in the world, and not until then will you return to the source whence you have come.”
After the passing of the Master on August 16, 1886, Narendra and the band of young disciples found themselves with no means of support if they wished to continue their life together as seekers. Their one asset was their burning aspiration to realize God and to spread the Master’s words.
The young men took the vows of sannyasa and started a Math under extremely difficult conditions, bravely undergoing many privations. Narendra was their inspiration and their guide.
But Narendra longed for the peace of solitude. He also wanted to teach his brother monks not to depend upon him. One day he slipped away from the Math, alone and on foot, and became a wandering sannyasin. He traveled extensively in India from the Himalayan glaciers to the lands’ end at Cape Comorin in the South. In central India he lived with a family of outcast sweepers and amidst them he found spiritual treasures, while their misery choked him. Absorbed within himself, he was a seething cauldron with “a soul on fire”. “I feel a mighty power!” he wrote during this time. “It is as if I were to blaze forth. There are so many powers in me~ It seems to me as if I could revolutionize the world…”
After a fierce inner struggle to integrate his intellect, his fiery spirit and his inherent spirituality, the two-fold mission of this man of destiny – namely, the quest for God and service to mankind – was to crystallize into a progressive action. On May 31, 1893, with the new name of Swami Vivekananda, he sailed from Bombay for the first World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, USA. He was 30 years old and an unaccredited delegate among the many religious leaders from numerous faiths and sects from all parts of the world. Nevertheless, Swami Vivekananda captured the centre of the stage of the Parliament. His magnetic presence brought people cheering to their feet as he began his first address: “Brothers and sisters of America…” The New York Herald had this to say: “He is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions.”
After the Parliament, he toured the United States and visited England, Europe, China and Japan. He won many followers, a good number of whom came to be with him in India. He made a second trip abroad in 1899. But his strenuous schedules ever since his days as a wandering sannyasin had affected his health adversely. He began to feel that his mission on earth was drawing to a close, and his last year was spent in the Math at Belur. On July 4, 1902, Swami Vivekananda went to his room, lay down, and quietly left his body. He was 39 years old.
Four years earlier, on another fourth of July, Swami Vivekananda had written a poem dedicated to that date which for him represented liberty; liberty of life and of spirit. Reading it now, one cannot but feel that Swami Vivekananda in some way embodied Liberty in its highest sense:
To the fourth of July
Behold the dark clouds melt away
That gathered thick at night and hung
Like a gloomy pall above the earth!
Before thy magic touch the world
Awakes…
All hail to thee, thou lord of light!
A welcome new to thee today
O sun! Today thou sheddest liberty!
Bethink thee how the world did wait
And search for thee, through time and clime!
Move on O lord, in thy resistless path,
Till thy high noon o’erspreads the world,
Till every land reflects thy light,
Till men and women, with uplifted head,
Behold their shackles broken and know
In springing joy their life renewed!
Swami Vivekananda’s life corresponded to a time in the earth’s history when men and women throughout the world began to ask for a wider vision of life, a more comprehensive vision that would harmonise the diverse claims of science and spirituality. His burning quest to join together knowledge, devotion and action was indeed unique, and his numerous speeches and letters bear witness to this.
Kireet Joshi
