Swami Vivekananda is famously described as the ‘Patriotic Saint of India’. The epithet is as much a reflection of Swamiji’s time as it is of his unique personality. He appeared on the scene when India was overwhelmingly struggling to break free from the throes of British rule. What he did later for his country is for all of us to see, feel, celebrate, and emulate.

Given his unsparing commitment to Vedanta, the spirit of India, his approach was deeply thoughtful and yet thoroughly practical. He described the unfolding of human potential thus:

“What we want is to see the man who is harmoniously developed . . . great in heart, great in mind, [great in deed] . . . . We want the man whose heart feels intensely the miseries and sorrows of the world. . . . And [we want] the man who not only can feel but can find the meaning of things, who delves deeply into the heart of nature and understanding. [We want] the man who will not even stop there, [but] who wants to work out [the feeling and meaning by actual deeds]. Such a combination of head, heart, and hand is what we want”.

His heart yearned for India and its people, even when he was offered the greatest of luxuries in the West. “For the next fifty years this alone shall be our keynote — this, our great Mother India. Let all other vain gods disappear for the time from our minds.”, he said, radiating his love for the country and inspiring the masses. Was his love for India blind, a result of supremacist belief at the cost of other societies? If we say yes, nothing could be further from the truth. Swamiji was an unequivocal critic of all that was bad in our thinking and practices. During his extended stay in Chicago following the Parliament of Religions, he says “I am ashamed of my own nation when I compare their beggarly, selfish, unappreciative, ignorant ungratefulness with the help, hospitality, sympathy, and respect which the Americans have shown to me, a representative of a foreign religion. Therefore come out of the country, see others, and compare”, exhorting Indians to learn from others.

Not only was his heart in the right place, he never allowed emotions to cloud his intellect; he balanced the head and the heart perfectly.

British occupation of India notwithstanding, Swamiji felt that spiritual independence or Mukti is the highest ideal for Indians, as much as political independence is for the French and social independence is for the English. That religion is the heart of India, was not just a stray opinion, but a living fact for the greats who shaped India, including Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, and Mahatma Gandhi. Swamiji also knew what India meant to the rest of the world; he not only knew religion is the heart of India, he saw India as the heart of the world: “Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct.”

Unlike self-styled reformers who are quick to denounce religion, Swami Vivekananda was rooted in the tradition and recognized that Dharma plays the central role in India. Arguing that India sources it’s social power from spirituality and not the other way round, he declared with great authority, “no destruction of religion is necessary to improve the Hindu society, and that this state of society exists not on account of religion, but because religion has not been applied to society as it should have been. This I am ready to prove from our old books, every word of it."

Swamiji not only strongly felt for India’s condition, he performed an accurate diagnosis and prescribed the course of medicine too. In his lectures from Colombo to Almora, he outlined the path for an Indian renaissance. He saw immense potential in India’s spiritual knowledge and sought its refuge in waking up people from their deep slumber and hopelessness. He called for the nationalization of “gems of spirituality”, releasing them from a) the possession of a few, and b) the coffers of language. He wanted India’s ancient wisdom to be accessible to all, in their native languages, but not at the cost of Sanskrit; he believed Sanskrit is the vehicle of our culture and called on the masses to study the language.

Swamiji was very sensitive to the problem of caste that plagued our society; he felt most Indians were frittering away their precious life by quarreling over caste identities. As he remarks about reform that it should come “through construction and not destruction”, he offered a solution with not just social development but also the spiritual growth of castes in mind. Holding Brahminhood, which Swamiji defined as perfection or knowledge of God, as the ideal for all castes, he appealed to Brahmins that “they must work hard to raise the Indian people by teaching them what they know, by giving out the culture that they have accumulated for centuries. It is clearly the duty of the Brahmins of India to remember what real Brahminhood is”. And to other castes, he said the solution to the caste problem isn’t to bring down the Brahmin, but to uplift themselves through the study of Sanskrit and cultured living for attaining spiritual independence. He viewed culture as the art of living a pure life devoid of human vices such as greed, jealousy, and hatred; and those who lived such a life were the real Brahmins irrespective of their caste by birth.

What more? He didn’t lose the larger picture. He provided the direction too: “…to make a great future India, the whole secret lies in organisation, accumulation of power, coordination of wills….Being of one mind is the secret of society... That is the secret - accumulation of will-power, co-ordination, bringing them all, as it were, into one focus”. And, the impetus for this coordination was to come from developing the education system— both secular and spiritual— along “national lines, through national methods as far as practical”. He underscored the role of institutions in carrying out this educational mission:  institutions like temples promoting harmony highlighting the common ground and differences among various sects, and institutions to train teachers who would go from door to door imparting religious and secular knowledge to the masses.

At the individual level, he emphasized on taking up the responsibility of leading a life of purity, learning from failures with humility; and working towards the ideal of harmony between the inner and outer, knowledge and action, and the spiritual and material.

Yes, Swamiji felt for the people and understood their problems, but did he stop there? No. Soon after the Mahasamadhi of his Guru Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, he established the first branch of Ramakrishna Math at Baranagore in West Bengal which he and his monastic brothers sustained by alms they received from people. He set out on a journey across the country in 1890, interacting with all classes of people— from royals to the leper—culminating in his firm resolve to dedicate his entire life for fellow Indians. In what would later prove to be one of the defining moments for India and the World, he left for Chicago in 1893 and addressed the World Parliament of Religions. He was soon catapulted on the global stage, where he spent precious years of his life spreading the message of Vedanta and raising the much-needed funds for his people back in motherland.

Upon return, recognizing the magnitude of work ahead, he sought to put together a group of ‘men of character’ who were ready to sanctify their life in service of people; he set up Ramakrishna Mission in 1897. Today, Ramakrishna Math and Mission is one of the largest socio-cultural organizations in the world actively working in the areas of Education, Health, Culture, Rural Development, and Youth Empowerment.

With presence in more than 25 countries, the organization has approximately 250 centres and runs about 750 educational institutions catering to more than 2 lakh students. Realizing Swamiji’s dream of imparting cultural education to the masses, the organization with publication centres spread across the country, publishes large volumes of vernacular books on Hindu Scriptures, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, and general topics. Their centres across the globe publish monthly, bi-monthly, and quarterly magazines and journals in major Indian and foreign languages, including French and Japanese. With its undying commitment and selfless service, Ramakrishna Math and Mission has taken a prominent position in modern India’s socio-cultural landscape.

Swami Vivekananda didn’t indulge in rhetoric; he felt what he saw, said what he understood, and did what he said.  He was indeed his ideal, the harmoniously developed man with the heart, head, and hands— intensely emotional, ruthlessly logical, and relentlessly hardworking. All the three are indispensable for meaningful work; they’re what fuel, engine, and driver are for a car. Swami Vivekananda channelized these qualities for the sole purpose of his life: welfare of India and Indians. Is it any surprise that he is called the Patriotic Saint of India?

Acknowledgments: The author is grateful to Sri Gokulmuthu Narayanaswamy for his assistance in selecting relevant quotes from the reference material. Also, thanks are due to Prof. Ramesh and Poorani for their editorial inputs. 

Image Credits: Payal Domadia via Pixabay

 

Tags :

• Hindu Philosophy65
• India and the World65

• Share on Social Media

• Follow us on Social Media