Born on 12th January 1863 in Kolkata to Vishwanath Datta and Bhuvaneswari Devi, with the childhood name of Narendranath Datta (Naren in short), Swami Vivekananda was naughty and full of spirit as a child. He grew into a youth with a strong body, wide heart, curious mind and a sharp intellect.
With his father’s demise in 1884 while Naren was 19 years, life brought to his experience the wicked and ugly side of the world. His search for truth brought him to Sri Ramakrishna who with a first touch got him in contact to something profound which human language and thought can scarce explain. Under the nurturing light of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda grew into a phenomenon that would with a bold voice proclaim the eternal truths of human divinity to all humanity from a firm ground of realization.
After Sri Ramakrishna’s mahasamadi in 1886 Swami Vivekananda formally took monastic vows. In 1888, Narendra left the monastery as a Parivrâjaka-a wandering monk and during his journey came face to face with the then national life of India. He reached the seashore in Kanyakumari on 24th Dec 1892 and jumped into the Indian ocean to swim and take seat on the last bit of Indian rock. There he sat on the rock and started meditating on India's past, present and future. He meditated for 3 days and had a vision and resolved to dedicate his life to the welfare and uplifting of the common masses of India. Then with the blessing of Ma Sarada Devi and financial assistance from the Maharaja of Khetri he started his journey to Chicago on 31st May 1893.
At Chicago Parliament of religions, his address began with the words “My dear Sisters and Brothers of America”, that invoked the spirit of universal brotherhood and was greatly appreciated. His speech turned the day - Sep 11th 1893 into a historic one.
Swami Vivekananda gave-
He introduced Yoga and Vedanta to the Western world. He also founded the Ramakrishna Mission which is a spiritual organisation, named after his Guru with a view to preserving and spreading the spiritual legacy of his Guru Ramakrishna Paramhansa. Apart from the spiritual training, the Mission also focussed on helping people through social service and by educating them on various issues. The Mission spread over India and to different countries across the world in Asia, Europe and North America including the USA. The teachings of Saint Ramakrishna Paramhansa are based on the idea of equality of all religions.
He founded the Ramakrishna Order with the motto Ātmāno mokṣārthaṃ jagata hitāya ca, “For one’s own salvation and for the welfare of the world” and set into motion a machinery that aims to take humanity to its highest peak of Nobility.
The human frame was no longer capable of holding him and having professed that he shall not live to see his 40th year, Swami Vivekananda entered mahasamadi on 4th July 1902 at the age of 39.
Swami Vivekananda had once said “It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body – to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with GOD.”
You are the creator of your own destiny.
Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy — by one, or more, or all of these — and be free. This is the whole of religion.
They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.
First make character — that is the highest duty you can perform.
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.
Let New India arise – let her arise-out of the peasant’s cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fisherman, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer’s shop, from the oven of the fritter-seller. Let her emanate from factory, from marts and from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains.
My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like lions. I have formulated the idea and have given my life to it.
Hold the ideal thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.
“I cannot write about Vivekananda without going into raptures. Reckless
in his sacrifice, unceasing in his activity, boundless in his love, profound
and versatile in his wisdom, exuberant in his emotions... I can go on for
hours and yet fail to do the slightest justice to that great man. He was
so great, so profound, so complex. He was a Yogi of the highest spiritual
level, in direct communion with the Truth, who consecrated his whole life
to the moral and spiritual uplift of humanity, that is how I would describe
him. If he had been alive, I would have been at his feet.”
“Here is a man (Swami Vivekananda) who is more learned than all our learned
professors put together.”
“I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the
pages of books, at thirty years' distance, without receiving a thrill through
my body like an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports, must
have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the
hero!”