I don’t remember the first time I saw the image. The image of a man in robes standing sideways with folded hands. I’d seen it on fridge magnets, on postal stamps, as a placeholder in photo frames. I had seen that image as portrayed by my brother for his fancy dress competition when he was 8. I had seen it on street corner plinths. A resolute countenance and a stocky figure, covered in saffron. People who’ve grown up in India will surely be familiar with that image. The image of Swami Vivekananda.
Students who’ve gone through the Indian high school curriculum will surely be aware of him. They will certainly know of him but will know very little of him. And that, no doubt, includes me. All that I knew about him was that he made a terrific speech at an american conference more than a century ago. That he was met with a roaring applause in a foreign land, I thought, was his claim to fame.
I wouldn't have been bothered by how little I knew of him if not for what happened a few weeks back. I was helping my father move my grandmother’s stuff from her home. In an old creaking cabinet, we found a bunch of books. Almost all of them fell to bookworms, but a few books wrapped in polythene barely survived. The surviving set comprised a copy of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora, A few expositions on Hinduism in Telugu, a few of my grandfather’s diaries from the 80’s and a copy of The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. And on that jacket of that last book was my father’s signature, dated 14/2/86.
At that time he would’ve been 25, not much older than I am now.
A book written by a monk would be the last thing I’d pick up. I outgrew religion a long time ago and spiritualism often seems like esoteric mumbo jumbo. But, lately I’ve come to realise that in some ways I’m not much different from my parents. In many ways I’ll forever be different but I’m sure that this difference to a fair degree has been due to the freedom with which I was raised. And so, looking at the dusty and foxed edition in my hands, I wondered whether this book had something for me too.
The first page of the book had the address that Swamiji gave at the World Parliament of Religions. This was followed by a couple of lectures and speeches, Then a section of notes on the lectures and discourses. Then a section each for essays, interviews, conversations, letters and poems.
That famous speech in which he addressed an american audience as brothers and sisters deepened my curiosity towards him. In that speech while introducing himself and the religion he represented, he takes pride in the tolerance and acceptance of foreign cultures displayed by the Hindu populace. “We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true,” he says. And that is the cornerstone of Indian Secularism.
Though Swami does talk about a sort of degradation in the social fabric, he doesn’t blame it on the other or the outsider. He blames it on individual incompetence. He doesn’t talk about changing the world, he talks about changing yourself. And he does that in perfect prose, strewn with metaphors, with a strong call to action. First and foremost he wants people to stop being lazy. He wants them to stop expecting answers from something outside. “Stand and die in your own strength,” he says.
Soon, reading Swami Vivekananda's prose became a daily habit and I understood his appeal. He speaks to the entire spectrum. From believers to atheists. He tells the superstitious to give up their illogical faith in useless things and he tells the atheists to consider a unifying force that binds humanity. The superstitious can’t refute a monk who has renounced everything and has no vested interest. The atheists will see him as a philosopher who has found a Vedic base to bolster the themes of empathy and fraternity.
Among the believers, he unites the different Indian sects and religions under the common ethos of Dharmic heritage. He finds commonalities between the Hindu schools of thought and the Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. He reminds us of the breadth and depth of religious and philosophic thought that stemmed from the subcontinent.
I have to admit that I read him as a skeptic. Always on the lookout for inconsistencies or narratives that betray a narrowness rooted in religion. But his religion isn’t like any that we encounter every day. His is a religion of deep introspection and philosophy. And he says that this is the true vedic ideal, the culmination of hindu religious thought.
He teaches the Advaita Vedanta. The non-dualistic interpretation of God and Universe. God he says is the Atman, which is everywhere and everything. The universe as we see and understand is but an ephemeral projection over a greater and more sublime truth. This the Advaitists call Maya (Magic). Looking at the universe as Maya will not make it any less intricate or any less fascinating to the curious mind.
Another thing he stresses on is the learning of the Hindu scriptures first-hand. He hopes that people will take up the Sanskrit language and explore the Vedas and the Puranas for themselves. More importantly the Vedas than any other scriptures. The Hindu epics and the discourses on religion reflect the socio-cultural mindset of their day and age. But the Vedas he says are a treasure trove of everlasting ideals. Only studying won’t do you any good either. According to Swamiji, You will reach the Atman only through practice. Bonding with humans around you through a football match brings you closer to God than reading pages from the Vedas he says.
It seems to me that the bottomline of his message is to not give in to moral weakness. However afraid you might be. You need to be strong to see clearly. By realizing the commonality of human existence we can come closer to each other. And by realizing the singularity of this existence we can reclaim the divinity within ourselves. And as the Vedas teach us, the only inherently good in the universe is Prāṇa, life.
Swami Vivekananda is only human, and if we looked closely at all the things he said and wrote, we’d surely find a few inconsistencies, but that would be completely missing the point. Because unlike all the other religious monks around us who tell us to do the religious thing, he told us to do the right thing. I’ll leave you with a few lines that I believe will stay with me,
“It is ignorance that makes us hate each other, it is through ignorance that we do not know and do not love each other. As soon as we come to know each other, love comes, must come, for are we not one?”
