Swami Vivekanada biography,

Who is Swami Vivekananda Biography

                            

 

Swami Vivekananda - Introduction

Born to an aristocratic Bengali family asNarendranath Dutta, Swami Vivekananda was one of the well-known Hindu monks and a chiefdisciple of the 19th century spiritual master Ramakrishna Paramhamsa. He is known for introducingthe philosophies of Vedanta – the purpose of the Vedas – and Yoga – spiritual discipline.

Swami Vivekananda is credited for raising interfaith awareness in which he promotedcooperative, positive and constructive awareness among people of different religions. At the time of crisis when young Narendrawas faced with doubts about the existence of God, he heard about Sri Ramakrishna – theyogi. 

In the year 1881 Narendra visited Sri Ramakrishna and questioned him about the existenceof God. Sri Ramakrishna not only cleared all his doubts but also gave him spiritual knowledgeand love. With this began the guru-disciple love between them and under Sri Ramakrishna’sguidance, Narendra stepped onto the spiritual path. After the death of Sri Ramakrishna, Narendratook over as the leader of the group of disciples. 

Under his leadership, the new monastic brotherhoodwas formed and in the year 1887 they took vows of sanyasa thereby assuming new names.Narendra then became Swami Vivekananda. Having established the new monastic order, SwamiVivekananda heard an inner calling within him that urged him to achieve higher goalsand greater missions in his life. In the year 1890, haven taken blessings from Sri SaradaDevi, the consort of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda took upon the journey to exploreand discover India. 

During his journey, Swami Vivekananda wasappalled to see poverty and illiteracy of the masses all over India. His travels taughthim that the real cause for India’s downfall and slow progress was the backwardness ofthe masses. 

To uplift society, he worked to infuse faith in the minds of the masses andprovided them two kinds of knowledge through education – secular knowledge to improvetheir economic condition and spiritual knowledge to infuse faith and confidence in themselvesso that they can rise from their given state. 

It was in the year 1893 when Swami Vivekanandadecided to attend the World Parliament of Religion, which was to be held in Chicago.He knew that the Parliament would provide him the right platform to present the Master’smessage and also seek financial aid to carry out his plans for uplifting the masses. SwamiVivekananda’s speech at the Parliament gained him the recognition of an orator by divineright and a Messenger of Indian wisdom to the Western World.

 After the Parliament, Swami Vivekananda spentsome years spreading the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna to the eastern parts of USA andto London. Upon returning to India, in the year 1897 he founded the unique organizationcalled Ramakrishna Mission in which monks and individuals would come together to improvethe condition of the masses and provide social services such as education, rehabilitation,medical aid etc. 

In the year 1898, Swami Vivekananda acquireda plot on the western bank of the Ganga at a place called Belur to establish a permanentabode for the monastery and the monastic order. This place came to be known as Belur Math. On 4th July 1902, Swami Vivekananda breathedhis last. All through his efforts at uplifting the condition of the masses, Swami Vivekanandahad delivered a number of lectures to inspire the youth and the educated classes of thecountry to sympathise with the condition of the society and aid him in taking action tobetter the state of the downtrodden people. 

In his lectures, he spoke about raising thereligious consciousness of the people and creating in them pride about their rich culturalheritage. Inspired by his teachings, many became hisdisciples, some of them being Sister Nivedita, Josephine McLeod and Sara Ole Bull who thentook over serving the society. 

Swami vivekananda jurney

                               

Swami Vivekananda,after his Guru Ramakrishna attained samadhi, he wanted to take his Master’s message to the West. So he wants to go and do this but he wants to seek the permission of Sarada Devi, who was Ramakrishna’s wife. She said, “Naren, can you give me that knife?” She said, “I wanted to see how you will give the knife. You may go and spread the Master’s message.” Sadhguru: To be spiritual has always beenalso understood as to be gentle.

 And unfortunately to be gentle has always been misunderstoodand misinterpreted as to be soft or to be weak. The weak are gentle not by choice. Because they’re incapableof making a strong imprint, they’re gentle. Gentleness is of value only when it's by choice. You’re capable of being violent butyou choose to be gentle - that’s of great value. You’re incapable of violence, now you’re gentle - that’s not of any great valuebecause that’s coming from a certain incapability. Today somebody was asking me, “Sadhguru, why all the goddesses in India,always they have weapons in their hands?” (Laughter) Why our Bhairavi, though she has eyes,she doesn’t have any weapons in her hands.

 Ten hands and no weaponsbecause she’s done with violence. You’ll see the buffalo, Mahishasura, already conquered. So what needs to be treated brutally has been done. The beast has been killed. Now there is no need for weapons. So all hands free. So to bring yourself to this state – intense, not in a violent manner - she’s intense in victory, she’s intense in energy,she’s intense in her ecstasy, her intensity is not violence. Not that she is not capable of,it’s just that she’s done with it. 

In the evolution of one’s action… If you look at the evolution of action, the initial part of the action will always be violent. As you become more expert with something, you will see those rough edges in your action goes away and it becomes smoother and smootherand there’ll be no violence in action. Even a swordsman, who is an expert –only somebody who is new goes, “Ahhh!” like this. An expert will just flick it and it's done. There’s no violence in the action. So in the evolution of action, she’s passed that. Still intense, but in victory, energy, and ecstasy,not in a violent manner. 

There’re many symbolisms like that here,if you peel your eyes and see, where it is intense but not violent. Is something wrong with violence? It's not a question of right and wrong,it's just a crude way of conducting life. If you say violence is bad that means you will end up rejecting a part of yourself and you can never get rid of it because it’ll not go. It’ll come out in so many ways. People who are peaceful on the streetare violent at home. 

If they’re not capable of physical violence,they’re verbally violent, they’re violent in their thought and emotion -in so many ways. So, rejecting violence is not going to work. Evolving violence into a more sophisticated action… The need is not for violence, the need is for intensity. The need for that intensity is always therein every human being. 

If you do not refine and refine that need for intensity and manage to experience that intensityby simply sitting in meditativeness, or in devotion, or in love, or in simply pure action. If you do not find refinement and still find intensity, violence will erupt from youin so many different ways. 

You may not have the courageto get into a physical fight, but it will happen in so many different waysand life turns ugly. It will enter every sphere of your life and the way you take things and keep things you will knowwhether you’re gentle or violent, you know. There’s a very beautiful incident which happenedwhich I must have told you a few times. Swami Vivekananda –all of you heard of Swami Vivekananda? After his Guru Ramakrishna attained samadhi,he wanted to take his Master’s message to the West. So he wants to go and do this but he wants to seek the permission of Sarada Devi,who was Ramakrishna’s wife. 

He went to see her andshe was busy cooking in the kitchen. When he went and said this,she was focused in what she was doing. Without looking up, she listened to him. He said, “I want to go to the Western worldand spread the message of my Master. Shall I go?” So without looking up from the choresthat she was doing she said, “Naren, can you give me that knife?” So he picked up the knife and gave it. 

He is a certain kind of personso he gave it in a certain way. (Gestures) Not like that – he gave it in a certain way. She took the knife and kept it asideand she said, “You may go.” Then he noticed this and he said,“Why did you ask for the knife? You have no vegetables to cut,everything is already on the pot. 

Already in the pot, on the boil,why did you ask for the knife? There was no need for the knife,why did you ask for it?” She said, “I wanted to see how you will give the knife.You may go and spread the Master’s message.” So this is where gentleness is. Not because somebody’s watching,not because you’re under scrutiny. Just the way you move, how you step on the planet, how you breathe, how you sit, how you stand, how you look at other people – this is where you have to refine your action. Now, I’m not talking to you about mindfulness, no -being mindful of everything - no. 

I’m talking about refining yourphysical action, your verbal action. With this, slowly, your mental action andemotional action also can be refined. To just move your hands and legsin a more gentle manner. This refinement can happen either becauseyou become meditative or you consciously refine it so that you move towards meditativeness. It's good to start from both the ends.

 If you want to reach the destination,it's good to start from every possible end, so that you get there quick enough. If you want to burn a candle quick,you burn it from both ends, isn't it? If you burn it from only an end… one end,it may take a lifetime. You want to enjoy at least half a lifetimeof meditativeness - you must burn it from both ends. So, you may be practicing meditation but alsoconsciously refining your physical action – the way you move your hands, the way you moveyour body, the way you move your breath, your words. This is not about becoming pretentious. This is about becoming conscious. 

                    

Why Did Swami Vivekananda Die So Young?

                                   

Why did Swami Vivekananda, one of the greatestpreachers of Vedanta Philosophy since the time of Shankaracharya, die so young? Justlike Shankaracharya, Swami Vivekananda too did not live long and left his physical bodyat the early age of 39. 

Now even though Swamiji, as he was calledsuffered from many ailments such as diabetes and asthma, nevertheless on the day of hispassing he was actually in good health and in a jovial mood during breakfast.So what caused him to die so young? Actually behind the passing of every evolved soul suchas Swami Vivekananda, there is a greater spiritual reality hidden which we ordinarily do notgrasp. 

But luckily for us Swamiji himself revealed the truth in great detail.About 6 years before his passing, sometime in August of 1896, Vivekananda confided tohis brother disciple Swami Abhedananda that he was going to live only for 5 or 6 yearsmore at most.

 How accurate was this prediction, for SwamiVivekananda passed away 6 years hence on July 4th 1902. When Swami Abhedananda protestedsaying a young man like him should not think of death, Vivekananda replied: “You do notunderstand. My soul is getting bigger and bigger every day; so much so that the bodycan hardly contain it. 

Any day it may burst this cage of flesh and bone.”Now what did Swamiji mean when he said that his soul was getting bigger. Here is the explanation.The soul is nothing but pure consciousness. So what Swami Vivekananda meant was that hisconsciousness was expanding so much beyond the realms of ordinary human consciousness,to the domain of the super-conscious that the body was proving an inadequate containerand would soon have to be let go. 

To better understand this point let us delveinto Vedanta philosophy for just a few moments. According to Vedanta philosophy, consciousnessis a field which exists separate from the body. This field of consciousness is a continuum– which means that it goes on endlessly in all directions like an infinite ocean.For the sake of simplicity I will draw it as follows – the yellow bar representingthe infinite field of consciousness.

 Now our individual souls can be thought of as a portionof this continuous field of consciousness. Thus what we normally experience as humanconsciousness is only a small subsection of the infinite range of consciousness. The vastmajority of which lies beyond the realm of ordinary human experience.Here I would like to point out that many times what we call as paranormal or psychic phenomenafall in this zone. 

This is similar to light, where we are able to see only a few frequenciesout of the full spectrum, but certain insects such as bees can pick out many more colours.Now Vedanta tells us that different living beings experience different portions of thisone continuous spectrum of consciousness. Take for example the ant. Compared to us ithas significantly lower amounts of consciousness. An ant is not aware of the traffic jam outside,nor does it worry about picking the kids up from school. 

In other words the soul of theant is in a state of restricted consciousness, or limited awareness about the world. Manythings exist beyond its ant world of which it is completely unaware. Now let us say thatthe soul or consciousness of the ant expands so that it becomes aware of more things.Then Vedanta tells us that the soul of the ant will find the small body and brain ofthe ant as insufficient to express its greater consciousness. And therefore, it will manifestfor its purposes a better body, say that of a cat.So according to Vedanta this is how evolution happens. Underneath the chain of physicalevolution of species, is the spiritual reality of an expanding consciousness. 

This expansionof consciousness is the real engine which propels the entire train of biological evolution.Now in the evolutionary chain you do not jump directly from an ant to a cat, rather thereare many small evolutionary steps in the middle, but this is just an example to demonstratethe idea. In fact in Hinduism, the soul is said to traverse through 8.4 million life-formsbefore it attains to a human birth. But human beings too are not the final stepin the evolutionary chain.

 In the case of human beings our consciousness or our soulhas gotten significantly bigger than that of animals but it is still restricted.In fact still beyond the realms of ordinary human consciousness, lies a specific stateof super-consciousness, where our soul has become so enlarged that it has become infinite.In other words from being a little portion of the ocean of consciousness, it has becomethe whole. 

This state, where the soul has become onewith the infinite ocean of consciousness - also known as Universal Consciousness or God; thisstate of the soul is called by different names in different religions. In Hinduism it iscalled Samadhi, in Buddhism, Enlightenment and in Christianity, Salvation.The names may be different, but they all mean the same thing – and that is freedom orliberation from the evolutionary cycle of birth and death. For in this ultimate stateof super-conscious Samadhi the soul is finally free. 

Its infinite consciousness can no longerbe confined to the finite body and the body is let go.This state of Samadhi was attained to by Swami Vivekananda, by his guru Sri Ramakrishna,by Sri Aurobindo, by Ramana Maharishi and in our present times by my highest guru ShriramSharma Acharya. 

This state of super-conscious enlightenment  was also attained to by Jesus and by Buddha; and this final state of freedom alone is the goal for all of us, right down to the little ant.This brings us to the end of our presentation.