SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ― In the Words of Bhabani
Bhattacharya
A strange
mendicant walked the streets of Upper India in the hot months of 1888. Tall,
broad-shouldered, thick-set, he had a wide forehead, a strong jaw, large dark
piercing eyes. He wore the saffron garb of an ascetic, and carried a staff, a
begging bowl. He was twenty-five.
Some years
earlier he had been a student at college, reading avidly, using his amazing
intellect to assimilate vast funds of knowledge, but ever restless, bewildered
by his own inner hungers, torn within, baffled and at bay. With the other
Bengali intellectuals of the time he visited the holy man Ramakrishna at
Dakshineswar, somewhat sceptic, yet drawn by his bitter soul-storm to seek a
place that held the promise of anchorage.
Ramakrishna
fascinated him. He had met the mystic of the Kali temple with battle in his
eyes. He struggled awhile with the dominating personality, wielding logic like
a sword, till argument faded into faith. There followed a period of
self-preparation – the study of philosophy and the meditative way.
Wanderlust
seized him then. He felt stifled among the little community of disciples at
Baranagore and longed to escape. He left all at once and set out on the
highway. Benares, Ayodhya, Agra, Brindaban…. At Hathras he found a companion.
He had reached the railway station, weak with hunger, when Sadananda, the young
station-master, saw him and was strangely perturbed by his glance. ‘I followed
two relentless eyes,’ he said later. He asked the yogi to his house, and when
his guest left, he went with him, dressed as a mendicant. Up the heights of the
Himalayas then went, and in the silent grandeur and solitude of the white-clad
peaks the searchful mind sank into meditative repose.
Sometime
after he set out on a second journey across Upper India. Great ideas were developing
in his mind, among them the Vedantic conception of ‘Oneness of all,’ a
universal gospel. He felt the pressure of an inward power, a torrent of his own
creation that beat upon him for an outlet. In an unguarded moment at Benares he
broke into rough words: ‘I am going away; I shall never come back until I can
burst on society like a bomb and make it follow me like a dog.’ Romain Rolland
aptly comments: ‘He suffered from that excess of power which insists on
domination and within him there was a Napoleon.’
So, he left
Baranagore again during the rains of 1890 and stayed away for over six years.
The first three were years of wandering, always on foot, from the Himalayas to
the Cape. In the Himalayas he lived with Tibetan races. Down in the plains he
had contact with criminal tribes. In Central India he lives awhile with
sweepers. One day he was a beggar on the street or else sheltered by
untouchables, and the next day he was an honoured guest in a Maharaja’s Palace.
His interest in man was as compelling as his interest in God. Was no
missionary. He was travelling to see India and to feel India. The poverty and
misery he witnessed crystallised the thought: ‘Religion is not for empty
bellies.’
He reached
Cape Comorin, fatigued, with no money to pay the ferry. But he would not be
held back at Land’s End. He swam the water of the strait!
It was in
those days that he made a fateful decision. He had now heard of the Parliament
of Religions to be held at Chicago a year later. He decided to take part in it.
India had a gift for the West. He would be a conveyor of that precious gift of Advaita
philosophy. A friendly Maharaja gave him his passage. At the moment of his
departure from India’s shores he assumed the name of Vivekananda.
In America
he suffered from bitter cold and even starvation. And then it seemed that the
long journey would end in disaster. No speaker was to be accepted without
official credentials, and of these he, an unknown wanderer, had none. Anyhow,
it was already too late for the registration of new speakers.
The
difficulties faded unexpectedly. A chance introduction in a railway train
brought Vivekananda into contact with a renowned Harvard Professor. Fascinated
by the young Indian’s personality, the Professor used his influence to arrange
that Vivekananda would represent Hinduism at the Parliament of Religions.
The great
assembly opened on September 11, 1893. Vivekananda did not speak until the end
of the day. At last he rose, saffron-robed, a great saffron turban on his head.
He addressed the vast gathering as ‘Sisters and Brothers of America!’ The
informal words were electrical in their effect. Hundreds rose and
applauded. Never before had Vivekananda
spoken to such an assembly, and unlike the other delegates he used no written
text, not even notes. His subject was the Vedantic concept of Advaita,
Oneness of all, and ‘his speech was like a tongue of flame. Among the grey
wastes of cold dissertation, it fired the souls of the listening throng.’ His
voice was deep, impassioned, full of beauty and power; it was described later
as ‘an admirable baritone having the vibrations of a Chinese gong’.
During the
session he spoke about a dozen times. The American press recognized him as ‘undoubtedly
the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions’. All at once Vivekananda
had risen from obscurity into glory such as no Indian had yet known overseas.
He wept
over his victory; Romain Rolland tells us. ‘Oh Mother,’ he groaned, what shall I do with
fame when my people are lying in misery?’
He was
undeceived by America’s outward glitter. In course of his subsequent lecture
tour through the United States he often stirred the anger of his audience by
laying bare the many evils of Western civilization, the narrowness of spirit
and the brutality. He did not spare Christianity either. ‘Yours is a religion
preached in the name of luxury…. Those who call upon Crist care for nothing but
to amass riches! Christ would not find a stone on which to lay his head among
you…. You are not Christians. Return to Christ!’
When
enraged clergymen began to spread base lies about Vivekananda’s private life, he
laughed them to scorn. An accusation came from his disciples in India that he
had eaten beef. His answer was characteristic: Do you mean to say I am born to
live and die one of those caste-ridden, superstitious, hypocritical…. cowards….
I belong to India just as much as to the world, no humbug about that. ‘he
believed in on other restrictive vows save those of poverty and chastity.
From
America he crossed over to Europe. He met Max Muller, Paul Deussen and Margaret
Noble. As he returned home in a blaze of publicity, India feted him. Flowers
were strewn on his path. A Rajah drew his carriage. The county was struck with
joy and pride that an Indian has imposed himself on the West and become a world
personality.
Now it was
time to gather the fruits of victory. But Vivekananda was a sick man, marked
out by death. Malaria and diabetes had been sapping his vitality for years. Yet
he roused himself to a herculean task and laid the foundations of Ramakrishna
Mission.
His fight
was, in a measure, against age-old traditions. India’s yogis had always striven
to realise their ideals in meditative inaction. They seemed lost to the outer
world. Vivekananda made service the keystone of religious quest. ‘Your Bhakti
is sentimental nonsense.’ he told his brother monks roughly. ‘Who cares what
your scriptures say? I will go into a thousand hells cheerfully if I can rouse
my country men to stand on their feet and be men
inspired with the spirit of Karma Yoga.’
He began a
whirlwind tour of India. He urged the necessity of ending the poverty of the
masses. He preached inter-caste marriage, a better life for Hindu widows, abolition
of untouchability. He lashed at the ‘don’t-touchisms’ (as he called them) of
Hindu society with angry scorn. ‘Feel, my would-be reformers,’ he cried, his
eyes flashing. ‘Do you feel? Do you feel that millions and millions… have become
next-door neighbours to brutes? Do you
feel that millions are starving for ages? Do you feel that ignorance has come
over the land as a dark cloud? Does it make you restless? Does it make you
sleepless?... Has it made you almost mad?’
Western
disciples came to India at his call. Then he set out again for America and
Europe to establish branch Missions at different centres. His life was ebbing
fast, but he would not spare himself. He went to Paris as delegate at a Congress
of Religions. Eastward through Austria to Constantinople and the Bosphorus, on
the shores of which he met some Sufi monks. Then to Athens, to Cairo. Suddenly
in Egypt he heard the call of death and hurried home to India. Shattered in
health, he yet undertook, because of an inward urge, a journey to Mayavathi,
the ashrama perched on far Himalayan heights. Four days’ march through the
severe December snow exhausted him utterly. While at Mayavathi, he stepped into
his thirty-eight year. He felt soon, journeying down the slopes.
Then he lay
dying at Belur. Ever since his days of wandering he had drawn heavily on his
great balance of physical energy. Even when worn out completely by diabetes, he
had willed his body to relentless toil. He had lived intensely, and his task
was accomplished. ‘What does it matter?’ he cried, as the end was near. ‘I have
done enough for fifteen hundred years!’
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