Swami Vivekananda- one great spiritual giant of India

[Lambretta]

Browsing thru the threads of this secn., I'm surprised tat so far there has been none abt Swami Vivekananda, possibly the greatest epitome of spiritual and cultural guidance India has ever seen. He expounded the religious and cultural aspects of India to the West at a time when the contact between them & us was very little, and all tat they knew abt India until then was wat had projected us in a negative light.
It was he who had revived the dormant glory and understanding of Hinduism and Indian culture (esp. the Vedanta philosophy), more to the West than to Indians, depsite his short life. He was looked upon as the guiding light not just for religion/spirituality but also for value-based and character-building education and even for the empowerment of women (without having them break down their idealistic image) in our country.
Born on 12th January 1863, in the Datta family of Calcutta and originally named Narendranath, he got a good education and cultural training under them, alongside embracing the agnostic philosophies of the Western mind along with the worship of science.
At the same time, vehement in his desire for spiritual perfection and to know the truth about God, he questioned people of holy reputation of the time, asking them if they had seen God. In 1882, he found such a person in Sri Ramakrishna, who became his master, allayed his doubts and gave him God vision. Thus the next four and a half years- until the mahasamadhi of Sri Ramakrishna- were marked b turbulence and turmoil, the direct result of the perfect Master transforming the perfect disciple into a sage, thus christening him as Vivekananda, ie., one who has 'Viveka', the power to discriminate between the good & bad/right & wrong, with authority to teach and reform.
After Sri Ramakrishna's death, Vivekananda renounced the world and with the help of his young co-disciples, founded a Math (monastery) in his guru's name at Barangore (Calcutta) in 1886. Setting out on a piligrimage, he criss-crossed India as a wandering monk, finally arriving at Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of the Indian soil, during December 1892. There, while meditating on the last piece of Indian rock at sea, he thought of India, its glorious history and its current degeneration, alongwith ways of regenration. And the mission of his life was quickly revealed to him. His mounting compassion for India's people quickly drove him to seek their material help from the West.
Accepting an opportunity to represent Hinduism at Chicago's Parliament of Religions, Vivekananda set sail for America on 31st May 1893. Brushing aside all suspicion and contradiction from local sceptics as well as religious racists, apart from avoiding the illusion of materialism in the Western way of life, enthralled his audience beyond doubt and created history at the World Parliament of Religions in Sepetmber the same year, not only succeeding in expounding the greatness of India's philosophy/culture but also winning instant followers in America and a ready forum for his spiritual teaching.
For three years he spread the Vedanta philosophy and religion in America and England and then returned to India via Colombo in January 1897.
Exhorting his nation to spiritual greatness, during the next five years, he wakened India to a new national consciousness. He had rightly proclaimed that India needs the Western science combined with our own philosophy to develop in the true sense. He formally established the Ramakrishna Math and Mission at Belur in 1899. He then visited the West again during 1899-1900
He died on 4the July 1902, after a second, much shorter sojourn in the West, although he had shortly before prophesised that even in the future, long after him, an equally distinguished saint would arise, reviving once again, the declining glory and power of the spirit by which India would rise, higher than before!
With Swami Vivekananda there could be no comparison with anyone. He was a class by himself, a radiant being who had descended from another world, from a higher spehere for a definite purpose.