Brij Mohan Sharma
“Arise! Awake! And Stop not till the goal is reached .’’ This thunderous and eternal message from Upanishads uttered in equally thunderous voice by Swami Vivekananda freely, frequently and vigorously, more than a century ago, roused the Indian nation from her deep slumber of centuries, and called upon her countrymen, especially the youth, to give their best for India’s spiritual and national renaissance. Inflamed and inspired by this clarion call, a generation of our people dedicated their lives to the revival of Indian nation. Hundreds of them embraced death and suffering during the struggle for independence.
In the words of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Vivekananda “was one of the most great founders of the national modern movement of India and a great number of people who took more or less an active part in the movement at a later date drew their inspiration from Swami Vivekananda. Directly or indirectly, he has powerfully influenced the India and today.’’
But for all that, Swami Vivekananda was not a politician. His aim was to regain India’s freedom with the most powerful weapon of spirituality. And, indeed, it was with this way weapon that he took India out of her isolation of centuries and brought her into the mainstream of international life and thought. The beneficent results of this great work are becoming more and more visible as decades roll by. He was, no doubt, a spiritual and intellectual genius of rare order.
The earthly career of Swami Vivekananda began with his birth on 12th January 1863, and closed with his death on 4th July, 1902. During this brief life of thirty-nine years, five months and twenty-two days, of which hardly nine years formed his active public life, he dedicated his superhuman energies to the task of awakening the humanity to its inborn divine nature, which, according to him, is the only source of man’s freedom and equality.
During his formative years, Vivekananda acquired mastery over Sanskrit and English languages. While the former made him master of the philosophical and spiritual legacy of India, the latter widened his horizon about the scientific artistic, social and political thought of modern West. Nevertheless, the most important factor that went into his making was his five years’ discipleship under Paramhansa Ramakrishna (1836-1886), the most outstanding spiritual teaher of the nineteenth century India, in whose extraordinary life and realizaion Vivekananda found verification of India’s age-old spiritual legacy. And, last but not the least, his intimate knowledge of the India of his time gained through his travels across the length and breadth of India, mostly on foot, deeply influenced the course of his vibrant career.
He was pained to see his nation growl under social injustice, political subjection and economic deprivation. He shed tears seeing the dire poverty, misery and degradation of common people, heartlessness of the intellectuals and upper classes, and the oppression and exploitation, not only by foreigners but by her own man, that had thwarted the development of man in India. This heart-rending scene of the country stirred the man in Vivekananda. He vowed to dedicate his life completely to the service of humanity, of God in man. And, for this, he decided to implement, through practical measures, the universal Vedantic vision of human dignity.
He also summoned and involved the youth of India in this high mission. While in USA (where he had gone to attend the International Parliament of Religions in 1893), he wrote to an Indian youth; “ I may perish of cold and hunger in this land, but I bequeath of you, young man, this sympathy, this struggle for the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed….. Vow, then, to devote your whole lives to the cause of the redemption of these three hundred millions, going down and down everyday.’’
Swami Vivekananda had tremendous faith in the youth of the country. He considered them as the greatest asset and wealth of India. He believed that they were full of energy, idealism, enthusiasm, hope, optimism and adventurous spirit. He often expressed that if we were to win back our ancient glory, power and prosperity, it is in the hands of our youth. It is the youth of the country, he said, who can educate and inspire the mases; it is the youth of the country who can rouse the spiritual consciousness of the people and awaken them to a sense of their own human dignity and worth. In one of his inspiring massages to the youth, he says :”Teach yourself, teach everyone, his real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will done, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to self conscious activity.’’
Swami Vivekananda exhorted the youth to be strong and fearless, kind and benevolent, strictly moral and of high character. He desired them to possess “muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material….’’. He wanted them to reject anything that makes them weak physically, intellectually and spiritually. The great secret of true success, of true hapiness, in his view, is to be unselfish, and not to expect anything in return for the good done to somebody.
Perfect morality, he said, means complete control over mind. The man who is perfectly moral cannot possibly hurt anything or anybody. Truth, purity and unselfishness-wherever these are present, “there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof”, says Vivekananda.
He asked the youth to build up their character, and manifest their real nature, which is ever pure. “Neither money pays, nor name, nor fame, nor learning, it is character that can cleave through admantine walls of difficulty. Bear this in mind’’ was his earnest advice to the youth.
At the same time, however, he wanted our educational system to be refurbished so as to help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle of life. “We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet…’’ exhorted Vivekananda.
His vision of India was to have a new society inspired by the vision of dignity of man, his freedom and individuality, his strength and his capacity to love and serve human beings- through egalitarian society free from notions of high or low.
Let our youth- who are the real builders of our nation-come forward and, by their action and conduct, translate the vision of Vivekananda into a reality, and ceaselessly strive to make our India morally and spiritually resurgent, physically healthy, socially stable and strong, politically sagacious and vibrant and economiclaly most prosperous.
(The writer is former Additional Secy. to Govt of J&K)
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