It is the realisation of "the one great principle of unity" at the back of the phenomenal world consisting of the configurations of matter or individual consciousness that made our Swami inveigh in words that burn against those Modern Indian leaders and reformers who acted on the principle that India must either import the religion of Christ wholesale, or at least what they considered its essentials omitting the worship of its founder's divinity and the inseparability of his association, as their only bestower, with the material advances made by humanity on earth, The Swami declared in memorable words :—"Are we to take always, to sit at the feet of the Westerns to learn everything, even religion? We can learn machines from them. We can learn many other things. But we have to teach them something, and that is our religion, that is our spirituality." And again:— "The world is waiting for that treasure; little do you know how much of hunger and thirst there is outside of India for these wonderful treasures of our forefathers." It is here that the Swami showed the superiority and the resources of his genius and shines forth for all time as the glory of Modern India. He was not ashamed of the fact that his native land had fared ill in the race for power and riches among nations. The Bengalee poet already mentioned has well said:— "The ideal that India tried to realise led her best men to the isolation of a contemplative life and the treasures that she gained for mankind by penetrating into the mysteries of reality cost her dear in the sphere of worldly success." And again :— "Man can destroy and plunder, earn and accumulate, invent and discover, but he is great because his soul comprehends all." Ten years earlier, our great Swami had declared that India's mission in the world is "to conserve, to preserve, to accumulate as it were into a dynamo, all the spiritual energy of the race, and pour forth that concentrated energy in a deluge on the world whenever circumstances are propitious." He also declared himself as follows regarding the realisation in India of "the One only without a second":— "It is not only in our books, but it runs through every phase of our national literature and it is in the national life. Here and here alone it is practised every day, and any man whose eyes are open can see that it is practised here and here alone." Home, country, humanity, and the Supreme Self (Paramatman) are successively broader and higher conception. When we have reached the infinite perfection of the Supreme Self or Absolute Existence, we have gained the highest, and there can be nothing higher; and then no material gains, not even national glories, can engross the mind of man to the exclusion of Brahman.Let not our readers suppose that the great Swami advised his countrymen and co-religionists or others who came under the magic of his influence to abandon all worldly activities and run away into the forest to practise all sorts of austerities in the pursuit, without distractions, of That content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found.
All of us are aware of the truth taught in the Gita:— "Among thousands of men only one perchance strives for perfection, and even of those who strive for and obtain it only someone knows me in truth." And again:— "At the end of many births the wise man reaches me saying,—Vasudeva is the All; he is the Mahatma, very hard to find." While carrying on the worldly activities suited to our time and coming destiny, we ought not to abandon that marvellous system of spiritual life devised to produce such "true Mahatmas" as Sri Krishna refers to in his instruction to Arjuna and run after the foreign creeds, or the locally manufactured versions of them which are so much in favour with a section of our novi homines which pants and yearns after the seductions of Maya. We must not only maintain it intact, but even take it to other lands and peoples to make them sharers to the extent possible for them so that they too may be enabled to break through the illusory turmoil of Samsara and to attain to a saner comprehension of their relation to the material universe and to the rest of the human race, to practise less of that heartless policy of exploitation, that incessant jostling and heedless pushing of others which tends to the destruction or demoralisation of race after race in this beautiful planet of ours, and converts it into a veritable Pandemonium where the only idea of right that prevails is what has been appropriately described as "the strength of the strong and the cunning of the weak." Swami Vivekananda, alone among Modern Indian teachers, loyally recognised the glory of the accomplishments of India's spiritual genius and her place of pre-eminence as the spiritual teacher of the humanity of the future. He alone has taught Modern India the need and the beneficence of continuing to exercise the privilege of practising and fulfil her vocation of proclaiming and imparting to all, that fruitful and fundamental verity of the Veda known as the Wisdom of Bhrigu and Varuna,—
"आनन्दो ब्रह्मेति व्यजानात् ॥ आनन्दाद्ध्येव खल्विमानि भूतानि जायन्ते ।
आनन्देन जातानि जीवन्ति । आनन्दं प्रयन्त्यभिसंविशन्तीति ॥"
"He realised that Brahman is the Innermost Bliss of Love (Ananda),-that from the Innermost Bliss of Love only these created objects and beings are born, that through the Innermost Bliss of Love they live after being born, that finally they are withdrawn into, and become one with, the Innermost Bliss of Love."
(Vedanta Kesari May 1914)
The main theme of my life is to take the message of Sanatana Dharma to every home and pave the way for launching, in a big way, the man-making programme preached and envisaged by great seers like Swami Vivekananda. - Mananeeya Eknathji
| विवेकानन्द केन्द्र कन्याकुमारी (Vivekananda Kendra Kanyakumari) Vivekananda Rock Memorial & Vivekananda Kendra : http://www.vivekanandakendra.org Read Article, Magazine, Book @ http://eshop.vivekanandakendra.org/e-granthalaya Cell : +91-941-801-5995, Landline : +91-177-283-5995 | |
| . . . Are you Strong? Do you feel Strength? — for I know it is Truth alone that gives Strength. Strength is the medicine for the world's disease . . . This is the great fact: "Strength is LIFE; Weakness is Death." | |
| Follow us on blog twitter youtube facebook g+ delicious rss Donate Online | |
No comments:
Post a Comment