|
Swami Vivekananda was the most forceful spiritual presence India had in the 19th
century though the full impact of his work was not visible until well into the twentieth.
Seldom has a man solely concerned with the spiritual life managed to impact the
destiny of a nation in the manner that he did. In a life lasting less than forty
years he swept over India like the cyclone he was often compared to and by his death
he had the satisfaction of seeing that he had brought about irrevocable changes
for the better.
He was born on January 12th, 1863 a member of a warrior caste, the Dattas, to an
extremely traditional devout mother and a freethinking agnostic father who lived
in Calcutta. The first two names that the baby received were almost prophetic in
their relation to his future course of action. He was first called Vireshwara, the
heroic one, an epithet of Shiva the god his mother had prayed to for the birth of
the much-desired son. After a few days for some obscure reason his name was formally
changed to Narendranath, which means Leader or Lord of Men. At one stroke the two
dominant qualities in his personality were intuited. Always he would be utterly
fearless and always he had to be the foremost. His superiority was taken to be a
natural order of things by most who came into contact with him. Vivekananda had
this uncanny ability to leave a lasting impression by a few seconds of personal
contact. So powerful was his personality in later life that while wandering
in the Himalayas an unwary pilgrim who had come upon him thought that he had seen
the great god Shiva himself! That he was also the severest critic of his own self
was therefore perhaps a good thing.
As a child he took full advantage of the opportunities given him because of his
father's affluence. He learnt every form of martial arts that a fearful British
would allow the Indian, sometimes trampling upon caste rules to learn from the low
caste and the Muslim. He also became a first class musician and singer and indeed
is one of India's first commentators and critics of classical music, a fact about
him that is usually overlooked. He also learnt to write in an elegant and forceful
style all his own and his contributions to the creation of the modern Bengali language
are second only to Rabindranath Tagore. The young Naren, as he was known then, was
a veritable Elephant's child, full of insatiable curiosity. Above all he was utterly
fearless. He would take no nonsense from anybody and he never quite lost the attitude
of not suffering fools gladly. He was also immensely strong physically, an attribute
he never lost till his death. In fact he used to say that the most important word
in the Upanishads is Strength and that he has never preached anything else.
Physical strength for him was an external manifestation of a healthy soul; it was
not any silly might is right equation. More than once he used to shock the pious
by winding up deep philosophical discussions with a bout of wrestling or quarter-staff
play rather like Robin Hood. Everybody recognized early on that he needed a great
mission to dedicate himself to, or else his superabundance of energy would burn
him up.
In his teens a spiritual crisis came upon him. It was the old dilemma. Why does
evil exist and what is God doing about it? Reading J.S.Mill did not help nor did
the standard theistic texts. He was unable to commit himself either way and decided
to be an agnostic till he could get somebody who could answer his burning questions.
He used to make a nuisance of himself to people who had a reputation for spiritual
attainment by asking them a simple and devastating question. " Sir, have you seen
God?" He was heartily sick of all the evasive replies he used to get till he finally
asked the same question to the great Ramkrishna
Paramahansa. Without any hesitation the answer came that not only
had he seen God, anybody could do so provided they cared enough. If men would desire
God with the same force that they desired money or sex, they could all attain Him.
The famous first meeting between the two has been well documented by a host of writers.
Ramkrishna saw in the fiery young man the synthesis of India's religious ideas,
the new path that the country need to take to cope with modernity that was insisting
on crashing through the pretended barriers of indifference. Himself one of the last
great saints of the pre-modern traditional culture of India, he was astute enough
to recognize in Naren the type of personality that could spread the new inclusive
version of faith that he had come to recognize was the truth. Naren did not give
in so easily. The guru may have appeared but this disciple was by no means ready!
He was an English educated agnostic, Ramkrishna an illiterate. Naren soon realized
however that this strange man was by no means uneducated or unintelligent. He too
had a powerful personality that attracted and while Naren maintained an attitude
of doubt, he was gradually coming under the spell of the great saint.
Naren's father died and the family were in dire straits. The torments inflicted
by the world upon the formerly affluent left him with a deep understanding of what
it means to suffer and why people go under. His spiritual practices under the guidance
of Ramkrishna were giving him extraordinary experiences and he was transforming
into something irresistible. At this juncture he was the recipient of an extraordinary
proposal from a rich woman that he alleviate the family misery by becoming her personal
gigolo! He was a very handsome man and all his life was pursued by offers of marriage
but this insult probably saved him. His spirit flared up and he let them know in
no uncertain terms that he would never violate his chastity. In all other matters
the swami was tolerant, but he was absolutely rigid about chastity, attributing
his photographic memory to its unbroken practice. The family stabilized a bit, when
a new misfortune came upon Naren.
His guru began a slow decline with a cancer of the throat. The last few months were
intense periods of training for Naren and his fellow disciples, as they became firmly
established in the philosophy of the Vedanta and most of them became worshipers
of the divine mother in the form of Kali too. Ramkrishna chose to transmit his spiritual
energies to Naren before his death. After his death a few of his disciples, 12 in
fact, got together to practice austerities and meditations at a dilapidated house
in Baranagar. This was yet another period of accelerated spiritual growth. The great
Swami himself once said that so intense were their austerities that even demons
would have run away at the sight! The great Indian tradition of the parivrajaka,
the wandering monk, proved to be too strong for them however and they began their
separate wanderings after a while.
Naren was by now a spiritual giant, and instantly acknowledged as such by all that
saw him though he was still only in his twenties. The constant wanderings across
the country gave him a first hand knowledge of the miseries of his fellow countrymen
as well as provided him with an unshakable conviction that the true life of India
lay in religion. His aristocratic contempt for all who fell from his high
standards was gradually rubbed off as his soul grew ever more vast and accepting.
A polyandrous family in Nepal taught him about the relativity of moral standards.
To his remonstrance about such vice they said that to keep a woman exclusively to
oneself where they are scarce is the height of selfishness! A dancing girl's song
went to his heart as he realized that for all his spiritual attainments, he was
still incapable of seeing the same Atman in all, preferring to judge people on their
external actions. Like Gandhi in South Africa he had the experience of running up
against a racist who objected to sharing this railway compartment with a "colored"
man. Unlike Gandhi he did not submit to this insult but grabbed the European and
heaved him out of the train! At a time white people could literally get away with
murder where natives were concerned, this was an act of unthinkable courage. And
wherever he saw an opportunity to learn, to grow he halted and humbly learnt. Kings
were his host one day, and the meanest village the next. To him they were all the
same.
continue>>
Archive
|