Vivekananda

 Edit with the Docs app

Make tweaks, leave comments and share with others to edit at the same time.

NO, THANKSUSE THE APP

Love India

Love India!

All of us know that Swami Vivekananda was a sannyasi with a difference. He crossed the ocean when it was taboo for saints, and carried the spiritual message of India far and wide. When it was considered that personal Mukthi was the goal of sannyasa, he created an order of Sannyasis dedicated to the service of the Poor. But, was he a patriot in the much understood sense of the term?

His intense feeling of love for the country and the heart’s bleeding for its decrepit state have been expressed in private discussions with some of his admirers.

Mr.Nagendra Gupta recollects a conversation in 1897 and says,” What struck me most was the intensity of Vivekananda’s feelings and his passionate devotion to the cause of the country”. He quotes Swamiji:

“The middle classes in India are a spent force. They have not got the stamina for a resolute and sustained endeavour. The future of India rests with the masses.” “If it would help the country in any way I am quite prepared to go to prison...” Mr.Gupta admires Swamiji’s unusually prophetic vision and writes,” No one had then heard of non co operation or Civil Disobedience, and yet, Vivekananda, who had nothing to do with politics, was standing in the shadow of events still in coming. His visit to Japan had filled him with enthusiastic admiration for the patriotism of the Japanese nation. “Their country is their religion”, he would declare, his face aglow with enthusiasm, “ the national cry is ‘dei Nipppon, bazai! Live long, great Japan!’ The country before everything else. No sacrifice is too great for maintaining the honor and integrity of the country!”

To Mr. Haripada Mitra who said that Sannyasis should love the whole world and should be above any attachment for their own country, Swamiji gave a ‘burning reply’:-“How can a man who does not feed his own mother look after other people’s mothers?”

On reading in the Newspaper that a man died of starvation in Calcutta, Swamiji poured forth his agony thus:-“Now the country is about to go to rack and ruin!” “don’t you see that in other countries hundreds of people die every year, in spite of their poor houses, work houses, Charity Funds etc.,? But in our country we never heard of death through starvation because of the system of alms-giving in vogue here! This is the first time I read in Newspapers that a man dies of starvation in Calcutta, even though there is no famine!”

The quintessence of Swamiji’s spirit of Patriotism cannot be better expressed than in his own words as spoken to K.Sundara Rama Iyer of Trivandrum. ”Practical patriotism means not a mere sentiment or emotion of love of the motherland, but a passion to serve our fellow countrymen. I have gone all over India on foot and have seen with my own eyes the ignorance, misery and squalor of our people. My whole soul is afire. I am burning with a fierce desire to end such evil conditions. Let no one talk of Karma. If it was their Karma to suffer, it is our Karma to relieve the suffering. To reach Narayana you must serve the Daridra Narayanas.-the starving millions of India.”

Ms.Josephine Macleod of America was a dear disciple of Swamiji. Once she put this question to him: “Swamiji, How can I best help you?”

Swamiji’s terse reply was,”Love India”