12/01/2023
REMEMBERING SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
Swami Vivekananda brought Yoga, Vedanta and Hinduism to the world, as part of a global spiritual transformation from outer religious beliefs to inner spiritual practices, allowing each individual to discover the highest truth within his or her own nature. Swami Vivekananda has been one of my greatest inspirations and I have carefully read all of his collected works.
To understand the monumental impact of Swami Vivekananda, we must first remember the world situation during his time.
The late 19th century was the height of the colonial era. Extensive regions of the world, including India, were under an oppressive foreign rule.
Swami Vivekananda stepped out into a colonially dominated world where a Hindu point of view was afforded no credibility. The United States was a colonial power and American Christian missionaries were active in India. He had to face hostility wherever he went in the West.
Yet this young Hindu sadhu changed the civilizational narrative and brought a new yogic vision into the world. This Vivekananda did by the power of his character, the grace of his guru Paramahansa Ramakrishna, and his inner Self-realization.
He shared Vedic and Hindu Dharma through its Yoga and Vedanta teachings with a new receptive audience worldwide.
FROM RELIGIOUS BELIEF TO INDIVIDUAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Swami Vivekananda rejected mere religious beliefs and taught an experiential spirituality to experience the Divine within. He shared the spiritual wealth of India of the paths of yoga, pranayama, mantra, meditation and samadhi, to a world hungry for a deeper knowledge.
Since Vivekananda this movement of experiential spirituality has expanded in many directions and has influenced science, art and medicine, as Swamiji foresaw.
FROM GOD TO SELF-REALIZATION
Swamiji emphasized the Vedantic view that the goal of life is Self-realization, which means realizing that in our core essence that we are one with the Self of all beings. This idea of Self or Atman is very different than the missionary idea of a God who saves us from on high. For this we must know ourselves, which requires that we look and live within. Experiential spirituality aims at Self-realization more than any faith, theology, or idea of God. If God is apart from ourselves, such a God cannot help us. If God or the Divine is our true Self, it is inner meditation that we need.
A NEW COSMIC VISION
The turn of the twentieth century marked a major shift in scientific vision through the work of Albert Einstein, who taught the relativity of time and space and shared a new vision of the unbounded universe. Swamiji similarly recast religion and spirituality as an inner science of consciousness for understanding the universe as a whole.
That one young sadhu could accomplish so much in a short time remains an inspiration for everyone today. Science has created a powerful new information technology but has yet to unfold the deeper science of consciousness that has been suggested from Einstein to Quantum Physics.
The vision of Swami Vivekananda can guide us to another transformation in civilization from outer technology to an age of higher awareness.
