Vivekananda and Freedom

"Freedom is the goal of  nature, sentient or insentient and consciously or unconsciously everything is struggling towards that goal” said Vivekananda. The whole universe is but a manifestation of that freedom.

Vivekananda was not only a spiritual leader of our nation, but also was a staunch nationalist. His vision of India was that of deity, Mother India. He worshipped her. His whole and sole objective was to arouse the physical and mental strength of the masses of this country to see his nation as a prosperous nation. The poverty that he saw all around broke his heart. He taught people to get rid first of self inflicted bondages and resultant miseries.

 “Let a new India arise out of the peasant’s cottage grasping the plough; out of the hearts of the fisherman, the cobbler and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer’s shop, from beside the oven of the fritter-seller. Let her emanate from the factory, from the marts and from the markets. Let her emerge from the groves and forests, from the hills and mountains”

He therefore started his work of making the masses aware of the glorious ancient heritage of India. His nationalism is based on Humanism and Universalism, the two cardinal features of Indian spiritual culture. He is therefore considered as an architect of Modern India. His speeches motivated and charged many of the well known personalities in history of India. He could never openly condemn the Britishers , because he was a Sanyasi first. Secondly he never wanted to waste his energy on political issues , for his work lay in the area of spiritualism and arousing the masses for doing great work. He said that in India religion was the basis of freedom. He laid stress on Unity among all religions. This only he felt would give strength to the nation. He said diversity in religion was a sign of life of the nation

Great men and women who have contributed to India have been influenced by Vivekananda. Dr. Radhakrishnan has observed “Nationalism is a political religion which stirs the hearts and wills of men and rouses them to service and self sacrifice in a way that no purely religious movements have done in recent times.” Much before this observation Swami Vivekananda stirred the hearts and minds of Indians with enthusiasm for strength and fearlessness; ready for service and self sacrifice for nation.

          Bal Gangadhar Tilak equated Swami Vivekananda with Shankaracharya, who revived our spirituality in the later half of 19^th century. Rabindranath Tagore suggested "If you want to know India, study Vivekananda. In him everything is positive and nothing negative." Sri Aurobindo has said: "Vivekananda was a soul of puissance if ever there was one, a very lion among men, but the definite work he has left behind quite incommensurate with our impression of his creative might and energy. 

In 1893, during the journey from Yokohama to Canada on the ship Empress, Vivekananda accidentally met Jamsetji Tata who was also going to Chicago. During the conversation Vivekananda told Tata about the necessity of establishing a world class scientific Institution in India and this encouraged Tata to establish the Indian Institute of Science, which gradually became one of India's best-known research centres in pure sciences in India.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose considered Vivekananda as his spiritual teacher. He called Vivekananda a "full-blooded masculine personality – and a fighter to the core of being". Bose told, under the "sacred influence" of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda his own life got awakened.Vinoba Bhave praised Vivekananda's contribution to make Indians' conscious of their strength and said that he showed them their shortcomings and defects and taught them to overcome these. He further mentioned that at the time of Vivekananda people of India were shrouded in tamas ignorance and un wisdom, and failed to distinguish between weakness and non-attachment and peace. In such a situation Vivekananda brought new light and he taught "The same Soul resides in each and all" and suggested to serve mankind considering them manifestations of God daridrinarayan (meaning: "poverty stricken god").

C.Rajgopalachari , the first Indian Governer Genral of India said , Vivekananda saved Hinduism and India. He stated that we owe everything to Vivekananda. Gandhi confessed that his love for India grew manifold after reading Vivekananda. The first Vice-President and the second President of independent India .S.Radhakrishnan said that Vivekananda's was born in a "critical period" when the nation and her people were collapsing in "despair, frustration and hopelessness" and in such circumstances Vivekananda's teachings gave them new hope and taught them to rely on spiritual resources. Pranab Mukherjee said that his work paved way for growth based on mutual acceptance of people for each other. Jayalalitha, Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, and many more are ardent followers of Vivekananda .

Present Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi’s life has been influenced to a very large extent by Vivekananda. One can see it in his goal oriented approach of living life according to principles of Karma Yoga. No wonder we have achieved so much politically and socially in such a short time within our country. Our PM is living swamijis dream.....

As Vivekananda said, "Great works are to be done, wonderful powers have to be worked out, we have to teach other nations many things”