The greatest sin is to consider oneself weak… The world is a huge gymnasium, in which we live to make ourselves strong – to acquire strength, because strength is life. On the contrary, weakness is synonymous with death… Therefore, get up, stay awake and do not stop until the goal is achieved. You must have understood, these are the thoughts of Swami Vivekananda, born in Kolkata on January 12, 1863, who is known for his unique spirituality along with his unique outlook regarding religion, civilization, culture, society and nation.
Whenever he is discussed, the first thing that is remembered is that in his speech, which started amid thunderous applause by addressing ‘American sisters and brothers’ at the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893, he expressed his affection and cordial welcome. Expressing his heartfelt gratitude for this, he had said, ‘I feel proud to be a follower of a religion which taught the world tolerance and universal acceptance. At the same time, he gave shelter to the oppressed and refugees of all religions and countries of this earth and considered all religions as a means to reach the same God through different paths. In this speech, while he warned human beings against the elements like communalism, bigotry and fanaticism that have ruled this earth for a long time, he also stressed on stopping the process by which these elements are filling the earth with violence and destroying humanity. They have been bathing the countries in blood and destroying civilizations and have plunged the countries into despair.
Nobel Prize-winning French writer Romain Rolland has written in his work ‘Life of Vivekananda’ based on his personality and work that since he was not adept at preaching, his call to acquire power was also not just for others. He had also kept his body strong and powerful like a wrestler. This was when for him the acquisition of power was not synonymous with the acquisition of mere physical strength. It also included the acquisition of spiritual and mental powers, the best way for which according to him was that we should accept all the powers of the universe as our own, and not first put our hands over our eyes and then cry about how much darkness there is. It is a well-known fact that during his time the country had become poor due to long slavery, and the disabled and the poor were marginalized. To uplift these disabled and poor people, he propounded the ‘Daridranarayan principle’ of their selfless service and said that the service of Daridranarayan is as important and sacred as the service of God. Even in the World Parliament of Religions, he described preaching religion to starving people as an insult and said that the hungry need bread more than religion.
He once said, ‘As long as any person in my country is hungry, arranging food for him and taking good care of him is the biggest religion and virtuous act for me. Anything beyond this is a lie or a hoax. Preaching religion to people who are hungry and not full is just arrogance. First efforts should be made to arrange food for them. He also cautioned people about the problems that might come in the way of the path of life they were showing. It was said that if one day you do not face any problem, you can be sure that you are walking on the wrong path. He said that the outer nature of a person is just a bigger form of the inner nature of a person, hence he should learn everything from within himself, because there is no teacher better than the soul and apart from him, no one can teach him anything or make him spiritual. Yes, not confident. He also said that truth can be told in a thousand ways and inspiration can be taken from anywhere.
He was fond of both eating and feeding since childhood. One of his biographies is also named ‘Swami Vivekananda the Feasting, Fasting Monk’. Sadly, he did not live a long life. At the age of just 39, he had to say goodbye to this world. But whatever life he got, he did not waste even a single moment of it in carelessness. Even on the last day of his life, on July 4, 1902, he did not change his meditation routine and attained Mahasamadhi during meditation itself.