WakeUp Bharat ! Enlighten The World !! (English)

Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the World!!

Nivedita Raghunath Bhide

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© VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PRAKASHAN TRUST

Date of Publication : No. of copies :

Published by : Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan Trust No.5, Singarachari Street, Triplicane, Chennai 600 005. Phone no. 044-28440042, 28442843 Email : [email protected]

Price : R.15

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Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan Trust 5, Singarachari Street, Triplicane, Chennai-5

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Publisher's Note

Bharat stands on the threshold of celebrating the 150 Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. Organisations and individuals, young and old, men and women, people of the hills, forest and plains, rural and urban populace alike are coming together to make this yet another historic landmark. The celebrations are not meant to be a mere celebration - an occasion of festivity with people back to their normal routines after it is through. It is meant to be an 'Utsav' - that will raise the condition of the masses as well as the country, in fact - it will raise the quality of life of people across the globe. What marks this particular celebration is the deep churning that will take place -the global scenario and Bharat's role in it. Hence it will mark a revisiting of Swami Vivekananda's life and message and necessarily, Bharat's mission given to it by Rishis of yore - Krinvanto Vishwam Aryam - 'Make the whole world noble'. The motto of the Celebrations is Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the World!! In three in-depth chapters, the present book examines and elaborates the scientific bases of this motto and proves beyond doubt that Bharat's vision of Oneness of existence and spreading that message - the raison d'etre of her existence in fact - is the only wise and sustainable way to inclusive peace, harmony and development. The Sahitya Seva wing of Swami Vivekananda Sardh Shati Samaroh Samiti is glad to place this book for in-depth study, reflection and action.

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Swami Vivekananda Sardh Shati Samaroh Swami Vivekananda: The Seer of Vibrant India Swami Vivekananda’s sojourn to the Western countries starting with his universally-acclaimed presentations in the Parliament of Religions in 1893 gave self-respect, dignity and purpose to his Motherland. On his return he gave a rousing call to India ‘Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached.’ This was the first wave of inspiration. His message to India, ‘Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the World!’ galvanized the whole nation. It triggered a national renaissance and inspired many to work in the field of education, social reforms and spiritual service while simultaneously fighting for the freedom of India. The second wave of inspiration from the life and message of Swami Vivekananda was in the year 1963, when his birth centenary was celebrated by the entire nation with a great zeal. As a culmination of the celebrations, a grateful nation joined together to erect the grand Vivekananda Rock Memorial on the mid-sea Rock off Kanyakumari. The celebration of the 150 Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda titled ‘Swami Vivekananda Sardh Shati Samaroh’ is a great opportunity to carry the third wave of his inspiring message to as many people as possible. The nation-wide Celebrations are from 2 January 2013 to 12 January 2014. The inspiring theme is ‘Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the world!’ Wake Up, Bharat! Enlighten the World !! For centuries India was revered as Jagat Guru. The contemporary world is in search of a way of life based on Oneness of existence. India is chosen by destiny to guide the world in spirituality, in

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oneness. Today, when India is emerging as a great economic and civilizational power, she has to wake up to her potentialities and learn to use this power to deliver the message of Spirituality to the world in Vedantic vision of Oneness. The celebrations will be involve spiritual and service organizations in the country. For the celebrations, Swami Vivekananda Sardh Shati Samaroh Samitis are being organized at all India level and in each state. I. Yuva Shakti – Aayam for Youth To awaken and channelize massive youth power (focusing on student and non-student youth below 40 years age): Seva, Swadhyaya, Suraksha, Swavalamban II. Samvardhini – Aayam for Women To enhance the participation of women in all walks of life; to respect and develop further the nurturing capacity of women: Shakti, Samskar, Swadhyaya, Seva III. Gramayan– Aayam for Villagers To respect the contribution of villages and support them in total development: Vikas, Samarasata, Satsang, Seva IV.

Asmita – Aayam for Janajatis - for people inhabiting hills and forest regions To Respect, Preserve, Protect, Promote and Practice indigenous faith and culture of all the Janjatis in Bharat: Seva, Samskar, Samarasata, Sajagata V.

Prabuddha Bharat–Aayam for Social and thought Leaders To secure and consolidate the participation of the elites and the intellectuals in Nation-building: Competence, Commitment, Clarity and Confidence.

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Contents Publisher's Note

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Swami Vivekananda Sardh Shati Samaroh

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I The Knower of the East and the West

10-23

Each Nation has a role to play, India should fulfil her destiny 12; The message of Oneness - 14; Divinity of Mankind-17; Acceptance of diversity - 18; Dharma: Basis for harmony in the world of disparities - 21

II Wake up, Bharat!

24-50

Wake up Bharat to your inherent strength - 26; Wake up Bharat to the call of service - 28; Wake up Bharat to the greatness of your cultural heritage - 31; Wake up Bharat to the task of rebuilding of Nation - 38; Internalize the eternal, unifying principles - 39; Develop and rebuild the systems based on these principles - 43; Sacrifice! Great things are done by great sacrifices only-45; Never lose the sight of the purpose of nation- building47

III Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World! 51-68 Swami Vivekananda realized the need of humanity in the coming era - 51; To face the sledge-hammer of science - 51; To face materialism-53; To solve the problem of ethics - 55; To contain Religious Exclusivism and for conflict resolution-57; We stopped giving to others – hence the degradation-60; Impact of Vedanta seen on the World-61; Up India! Conquer the world -64

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I

The Knower of the East and the West A young sannyasi was wandering in India in 1892. His eyes shone with the light of realisation that he had had at the feet of his Guru Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and yet his beautiful eyes seemed to be in search of something. He was really a King among men by his bearing and yet he wore the garb of a sannyasi. He did not seem to belong to this world of matter and yet the sufferings of the poor, the ignorant and the neglected masses found a deep echo in his heart and at times rolled out as tears on his cheeks. Though he tried to merge himself in the teeming millions by changing his names frequently to Satchidananada or Vividishananada or Vivekananda, his bearing set him apart. People could discern in him something remarkable; and even after he left a place, people continued to remember him. Whether young or old, learned or ignorant, rich or poor, powerful or despised, city-dweller or villager, everyone took note of him and was drawn to him. Who was he? Totally unaware of this, the sannyasi continued his search relentlessly. It was ultimately at Kanyakumari that the search of this remarkable and yet unknown sannyasi concluded. There, sitting on the mid-sea Rock, did he get the answer to what he sought; there it was that he took the momentous decision of going to the West to proclaim the grand truth of the Hindu Dharma and also The Knower of the East and the West

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to find a way of helping the poor of his country. When on 31 May, 1893, this young Sannyasi sailed off for Chicago, he called himself Swami Vivekananda - a name that later got imprinted in the hearts of millions of people all over the world. When Swami Vivekananda sailed for America it was as if the Goddess of India’s destiny had herself set sail to conquer the conquerors with wisdom and love. Swami Vivekananda, an ardent seeker of truth and an enthusiast of philosophy and history, had known the West theoretically. After reaching there, it was time to experience the West. He could see the West from both the angles – as an unknown person and as an adored person. The first two months he had to struggle hard to survive there. He saw that the people despised him simply because of his colour and that his clothes were different. Simultaneously, he also met a few large-hearted persons who helped him. After his historic speech in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago on 11 September, 1893 there was a sea change in the attitude. The whole of the West adored him, was eager to listen to him. Thus, he also saw another aspect of the West when he moved amongst the high and mighty of the society. He saw that the sufferings of people in the West were because of crass materialism and narrow outlook of life. After a three and half year whirlwind tour of the West he returned in 1897 to India. She was eagerly waiting to welcome her son. Thus we find that Swami Vivekananda had the unique advantage of knowing the East as well as the West. He had sat at the feet of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who personified the spiritual sadhana of mankind through the ages. Swamiji had experienced Samadhi. He had also had the best of Western education and had digested all the philosophies of the West including the theology of Christianity. Not just theoretical knowledge, he had got intimately acquainted with people, the learned and the uneducated, the highly placed and the humble folks, both in India and abroad. 10

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Swami Vivekananda could perceive the strength and weakness of each civilization. He could also perceive that beyond all identities, pretensions and prejudices, it was the same humanity that was striving, consciously or unconsciously, to know the Ultimate. He saw that life in the West was becoming increasingly complex due to the onslaught of science and technology and the inadequacy of the ethicality of religious systems. He could foresee that the world would be West-centric and therefore, in the interest of humanity, course-correcting the West, filling up that essential value of ethicality, was essential. Being a true Sannyasi he had no personal interest which could cloud his judgment and understanding. Wherever he went, his all-encompassing and inclusive love made him think only in the interest of the people whom he met. So his thoughts and message had a deep appeal and impact. He could foresee that in order to manage the emerging and increasing complexity of human life, one would need to know the eternal truth of existence as the foundation of one’s life. India had discovered that eternal truth in ancient times itself and had fashioned her national life on it. India’s eternal mission has been to give it to the world in order to ennoble it. But for a few centuries, India herself seemed to be in deep slumber and oblivious to her mission. Therefore, when he returned to India his message was, “Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the World!” Each Nation has a role to play, India should fulfil her destiny Even when facing barbaric forces and under the gravest provocations, our civilization has consistently, even at cost and peril to itself, propagated non-conflicting ideas and practiced nonconflicting methods. This is because only in this land have time and again great souls appeared to raise the national spirit and revitalised the national culture. The history of Bharat is replete with such instances, where, when Dharma was threatened, some great soul or the other had arrived and inspired and organized the society to lift the nation The Knower of the East and the West

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from its morass and put it on its course. The people of Bharat would follow the lead given by great men and course-correct the nation. This has happened time and again. This is how the nation, that seemed to have lost hope, was always rejuvenated by the combination of spirituality and activism such as Srikrishna and Arjuna, Samarth Ramdas and Chatrapathi Shivaji, Vidyaranya Swami and Harihara Bukka and so on. Later the advent of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda revitalized the spiritual nationalist surge which was manifested in the freedom movement. Then followed the great pantheon of leaders who fought for the freedom of Bharat. It was Swamiji’s fiery words delivered in his lectures from Colombo to Almora that provided the philosophy for the independence movement and freedom fighters. He ignited the Youth power of Bharat and unleashed it to free the nation from foreign yoke. But that was meant to be only the beginning; India had and continues to have a role to play. She has to guide the world in spirituality. When Swami Vivekananda said that India has to give the eternal truth to the world, one might think, “Why this jingoism, this chauvinism? Does it not imply that other countries have nothing good in them?” Swami Vivekananda explained how every nation has a role to play. He said, Just as there is individuality in every man, so there is a national individuality. As one man differs from another in certain particulars, in certain characteristics of his own, so one race differs from another in certain peculiar characteristics; and just as it is the mission of every man to fulfill a certain purpose in the economy of nature, just as there is a particular line set out for him by his own past Karma, so it is with nations — each nation has a destiny to fulfill, each nation has a message to deliver, each nation has a mission to accomplish. Therefore, from the very start, we must have to understand the mission of our own race, the destiny it has to fulfill, the place it has to 12

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occupy in the march of nations, and note which it has to contribute to the harmony of races. (Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, [henceforth, CWSV] vol. III, p. 369.) The question that needs to be asked is, ‘What is it that India has to give to the world, or contribute to the harmony of civilizations?’ India’s mission is spiritualization of humanity. Swami Vivekananda said, This is the theme of Indian life - work, the burden of her eternal songs, the backbone of her existence, the foundation of her being, the raison d’être of her very existence — the spiritualization of the human race. In this her life-course she has never deviated, whether the Tartar ruled or the Turk, whether the Mogul ruled or the English. (CWSV, vol. IV, p. 315.) Swami Vivekananda warned us, We must not forget that what I mean …by spiritual thought is the sending out of life - giving principles, not the hundreds of superstitions that we have been hugging to our breasts for centuries. These have to be weeded out even on this soil, and thrown aside, so that they may die for ever. (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 277-278.) How will this spiritualization of humanity take place? What are those life-giving principles? Let us try to understand it. 1. The message of Oneness What does spiritualization of the human race mean? Spiritualization does not mean religious activities. It is the way of life based on the vision of Oneness. Our Rishis had asked several questions, “Is there any connection between all these unconnected parts, the diverse elements?” ; “What is it by knowing which everything becomes known?” Kasmin nu bhagavo vijnatam sarvamidam vijnatam bhavati?; “If everything in this universe has a The Knower of the East and the West

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purpose, what is the purpose of human life?”;“What is it that does not change in this transient world?”. Their thirst for the infinite, for the unchangeable made them go to great lengths and study the question in depth. With their sharp intellect which could transcend itself and through their deep penance, they realized that everything is the expression of the One. The ultimate purpose of human life is to realize this Oneness. This is the message that India has to give to the world. Swamiji explains, The other great idea that the world wants from us today, the thinking part of Europe, nay, the whole world …is that eternal grand idea of the spiritual oneness of the whole universe. I need not tell you today, men from Madras University, how the modern researches of the West have demonstrated through physical means the oneness and the solidarity of the whole universe; how, physically speaking, you and I, the sun, moon, and stars are but little waves or wavelets in the midst of an infinite ocean of matter; how Indian psychology demonstrated ages ago that, similarly, both body and mind are but mere names or little wavelets in the ocean of matter, the Samashti; and how, going one step further, it is also shown in the Vedanta that behind that idea of the unity of the whole show, the real Soul is one. There is but one Soul throughout the universe, all is but One Existence. This great idea of the real and basic solidarity of the whole universe ...is the one great life-giving idea which the world wants from us today, and which the mute masses of India want for their uplifting, for none can regenerate this land of ours without the practical application and effective operation of this ideal of the Oneness of things. (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 188189.) Modern Science too is coming to this conclusion. As the One expresses itself as many existence is interconnected, interrelated and interdependent. Danah Johar and Ian Marshall write in SQ: The Ultimate Intelligence, 14

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Quantum field theory describes all existing things as being states or patterns of dynamic oscillating energy. You and I, the chairs in which we sit, the food we eat are all patterns of this energy. And what does this energy oscillate on? The ground state of all being is a still ocean of background state of unexcited energy called the quantum vacuum. All things that exist are excitations of the quantum vacuum, and the vacuum therefore exists as the center within all things. Vacuum energy both underlies and permeates us. We are ‘waves’ on the ocean’ of the vacuum. Quantum vacuum is the ultimate center and source of the self. When the self is truly centered it is centered in the ground of all beings. (p. 160) Fritjoff Capra writes in his book, Turning Point, Subatomic particles, then, are not ‘things’ but are interconnections between ‘things’, and these ‘things’ in turn, are interconnections between other ‘things’, and so on. In quantum theory you never end with ‘things’; you always deal with interconnections. …This is how modern physics reveals the basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated basic blocks, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of a unified whole. Heisenberg expresses it, “The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole. …Henry Strapp, of the University of California, writes, ‘An elementary particle is not an independently existing unanalyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reach outward to other things.’ (Turning Point, pp. 69-70.)

The Knower of the East and the West

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These discoveries in quantum physics do not frighten the Hindu as that has been the core of the Vedanta. Swami Vivekananda said, It seems clear that the conclusions of modern materialistic science can be acceptable, harmoniously with their religion, only to the Vedantins or Hindus as they are called. It seems clear that modern materialism can hold its own and at the same time approach spirituality by taking up the conclusions of the Vedanta. It seems to us, and to all who care to know, that the conclusions of modern science are the very conclusions of the Vedanta reached ages ago; only, in modern science they are written in the language of matter. 2. Divinity of mankind Another great principle that India has to contribute for the good of humanity is ‘the potential divinity of man’. It was the exposition of this grand truth by Swami Vivekananda in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago that thrilled the American audience. It had a very deep impact on the people who were fed-up of listening to religious teachings in which they were called sinners. Swami Vivekananda could see that as the grip of religions had slackened. In the absence of any normative higher principles man was in fear of becoming too materialistic and selfish. Thus for the coming times, the understanding of divinity of man could give deeper meaning to human life. Swami Vivekananda said in the ‘Paper of Hinduism’- his main speech at Chicago, The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body and that death means the change of this centre from body to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence it is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. …

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“Children of immortal bliss” — what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name — heirs of immortal bliss — yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth — sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter. (CWSV, vol. I, pp. 9-11.) The deep impact this thought made on the thinkers of the West, is now being manifested in the teachings and propositions of new-age spiritualists such as Eckhart Tolley, Ken Wilber, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Covey and many others. 3. Acceptance of diversity The third important contribution that India has to make towards the harmony of the world is acceptance of diversity with a vision of Oneness. Swami Vivekananda in his Chicago speeches explained this beautifully, To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength, till it reaches the Glorious Sun. Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognized it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry, he must go without a The Knower of the East and the West

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coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realized, or thought of, or stated, through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols — so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas on. It is not that this help is necessary for everyone, but those that do not need it have no right to say that it is wrong. (CWSV, vol. I, p. 17.) The history of mankind is filled with numerous instances of violent bloodshed because of the attitude of ‘My God alone is true’. Swami Vivekananda explains very graphically how this syndrome came about and how India was fortunate to escape this fate of religious exclusivism, We observe in the histories of Babylon and among the Jews an interesting religious phenomenon happening. We find that each of these Babylonian and Jewish peoples was divided into so many tribes, each tribe having a god of its own, and that these little tribal gods had often a generic name. The gods among the Babylonians were all called Baals, and among them Baal Merodach was the chief. In course of time one of these many tribes would conquer and assimilate the other racially allied tribes, and the natural result would be that the god of the conquering tribe would be placed at the head of all the gods of the other tribes. Thus the so - called boasted monotheism of the Semites was created. Among the Jews the gods went by the name of Molochs. Of these there was one Moloch who belonged to the tribe called Israel, and he was called the Moloch-yahveh or Moloch-yava. In time, this tribe of Israel slowly conquered some of the other tribes of the same race, destroyed their Molochs, and declared its own Moloch to be the Supreme Moloch of all the Molochs. And I am sure; most of you know the amount of bloodshed, of tyranny, and of brutal savagery that this religious conquest entailed. Later on, the Babylonians

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tried to destroy this supremacy of Moloch-yahveh, but could not succeed in doing so. It seems to me, that such an attempt at tribal self-assertion in religious matters might have taken place on the frontiers of India also. …but India’s history was to be otherwise… For one of the greatest sages that was ever born found out here in India even at that distant time, which history cannot reach, and into whose gloom even tradition itself dares not peep — in that distant time the sage arose and declared, “He who exists is one; the sages call Him variously – Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti” . This is one of the most memorable sentences that was ever uttered, one of the grandest truths that was ever discovered. And for us Hindus this truth has been the very backbone of our national existence. For throughout the vistas of the centuries of our national life, this one idea comes down, gaining in volume and in fullness till it has permeated the whole of our national existence, till it has mingled in our blood, and has become one with us. We live that grand truth in every vein, and our country has become the glorious land of religious toleration. It is here and here alone that they build temples and churches for the religions which have come with the object of condemning our own religion. This is one very great principle that the world is waiting to learn from us. Ay, you little know how much of intolerance is yet abroad. It struck me more than once that I should have to leave my bones on foreign shores owing to the prevalence of religious intolerance. Killing a man is nothing for religion’s sake… Therefore the world is waiting for this grand idea of universal toleration. It will be a great acquisition to civilisation. Nay, no civilisation can long exist unless this idea enters into it. No civilisation can grow unless fanaticism, bloodshed, and brutality stop. No civilisation can begin to lift up its head until we look charitably upon one another; and the first step towards The Knower of the East and the West

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that much - needed charity is to look charitably and kindly upon the religious convictions of others. Nay more, to understand that not only should we be charitable, but positively helpful to each other, however different our religious ideas and convictions may be. (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 185) The acceptance of diversity is possible only if there is a vision of Oneness. 4. Dharma: Basis for harmony in the world of disparities This acceptance of others, acceptance of differences and wellbeing of all is possible in the Indian civilisation because religion is not dogmatic. Swami Vivekananda explained it in the West, Do not disturb the faith of any. For you must know that religion is not in doctrines. Religion lies in being and becoming, in realisation.’ (CWSV, vol. VIII, p. 229.) In the vision of Oneness man is not merely the body-mind complex, unconnected with the others; he is the expanding consciousness. The bigger, the expanded form of the individual is the family. The expanded form of the family is society. The expanded form of the society is nation. Nation is a part of creation. And ultimately everything is the expression of that One consciousness. Therefore, religion is not ‘believing’ in God; it is ‘being and becoming’. The term used in India is ‘Dharma’. Dharma was translated as 'religion', hence it has created some confusion. Swami Vivekananda too had to use the term 'religion' for Dharma though sometime he qualified it as saying ‘The Eternal Religion’.Thus it needs elaboration. Dharma is, to strive to express the divinity within; it is the striving of the smaller identity to be unselfish so that the bigger identities are nurtured and harmony is maintained; Dharma is to share, offer for the good of all because all are just the expression of one’s own self; Dharma is to perform one’s duty towards one’s larger existence such as family, society, nation and the entire 20 Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the World!!

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creation. If the society is Dharma-based, then everyone’s needs are taken care of. Dharma is defined beautifully by Sri Guruji Golwalkar as, The universal code of right conduct that awakens the Common Inner Bond, restrains selfishness, and keeps the people together in that harmonious state even without external authority. … It is through the full manifestation of dharma in human life that human beings will be able to live in that state of highest harmony in spite of the inherent disparities in nature. It is like the co-operation of blind man with a lame man. The lame man gets a leg and the blind man an eye. The spirit of co-operation takes away the sting of disparity. Our view of the relation between individual and society has always been not one of conflict but of harmony and cooperation born out of the consciousness of a single Reality running through all the individuals. The individual is a living limb of the corporate social personality. The individual and the society supplement and complement each other with the result that both get strengthened and benefited. (Bunch of Thoughts, pp. 31-33.) Dharma is not related to the God you worship. Dharma transcends even specific name and form of God. S. Gurumurthy explains in his book, Women: the Liberated vs. the Revered, that the function of Dharma is to harmonize the contradictions, Dharma, which means ‘that (which) sustains the world’, was in part religious and in part it transcended religion. It is timeless value system [Sanatana Dharma], which is considered equal, even superior, to God. Dharma bound the King. And even God… in India Dharma prevailed over not only Kings and the Saints, but also Gods! …Dharma being supreme, even Gods and their actions were measured by their adherence to Dharma. …even Gods and their actions could not, even now do not, The Knower of the East and the West

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escape being measured and judged on the principles of Dharma… Dharma was not only the yardstick to measure the conduct of humans and even Gods, it was also interpreted to harmonize and manage contradiction in human life. Contradictions arise because of the duality inherent in creation. The Indian view and way of life always recognized contradicting duality [Dwaitabhav] in everything connected to the world. The world, in the Hindu view, does not function on the principle of “like either this or that; also there is nothing in between”. Hindu view recognized a vast area of gray between black and white extremes. It is the context for application of a rule more than the text of the rule that is decisive. That is why Rama was great because he, as a dutiful son, obeyed his father unquestioningly; and Prahlada was great because, despite being otherwise obedient as a son he defied his father because of his devotion to God. Likewise, Sita was great because she obeyed her husband Rama unreservedly; and Mira is great because she, despite being a loyal wife, defied her husband because of her devotion to God. These contradictions are harmonized by the rule of Dharma. This is the bandwidth of the intellectual and spiritual tradition of ancient India. (pp. 8-11.) Dharma-based society is essential as it takes care of diverse and unequal constituents. Dharma-based society is also required for practice of Oneness and for realizing one’s divine nature. It is in the light of these four cardinal points that the message of Swami Vivekananda, “Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the World!” needs to  be seen.

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II Wake up, Bharat! It could be said by some that this knowledge of Vedanta is now already available to the people the world over. So in what way has India a role to play? In short, one could ask, ‘Is India required?’ The answer is an emphatic YES, because spirituality is not information, it is not in intellectual believing but it is in ‘being and becoming’. Oneness is to be practiced in life, its application to family systems, social systems etc. is required again in a changed context. The vision continues; the values are to be expressed in life through systems – new or adapted - which are relevant at a given time and which are capable of expressing the values and vision. It is this task, which India has to undertake. India alone can do it for the benefit of humanity. Swami Vivekananda was one of the first persons in this age to focus on this re-application of the wisdom of our Rishis. Sister Nivedita writes about it beautifully. The Swami Vivekananda would have been less than he was, had anything in this Evangel of Hinduism been his own. Like the Krishna of the Gita, like Buddha, like Shankaracharya, like every great teacher that Indian thought has known, his sentences are laden with quotations from, the Vedas and Upanishads. He stands merely as the Revealer, the Interpreter to India of the treasures that she herself possesses in herself. The truths he preaches would have been as true, had he never been born. Nay more, they would have been equally authentic. The difference would have lain in their difficulty of access, in their want of modern clearness and incisiveness of statement, and in their loss of mutual coherence and unity. Had he not lived, texts that today will carry the bread of life to thousands might have remained the obscure disputes of Wake up, Bharat!

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scholars. He taught with authority, and not as one of the Pandits. For he himself had plunged to the depths of the realisation which he preached, and he came back like Ramanuja only to tell its secrets to the pariah, the outcast, and the foreigner. (CWSV, vol. I, pp. xiv- xv.) Again it is not that Swami Vivekananda was only repeating what is in the Vedanta. But whatever contradictions were perceived till then were removed by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda. Sister Nivedita explains this. And yet this statement that his teaching holds nothing new is not absolutely true. It must never be forgotten that it was the Swami Vivekananda who, while proclaiming the sovereignty of the Advaita Philosophy, as including that experience in which all is one, without a second, also added to Hinduism the doctrine that Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita, and Advaita are but three phases or stages in a single development, of which the last-named constitutes the goal. This is part and parcel of the still greater and more simple doctrine that the many and the One are the same Reality, perceived by the mind at different times and in different attitudes; or as Sri Ramakrishna expressed the same thing, “God is both with form and without form. And He is that which includes both form and formlessness.” It is this which adds its crowning significance to our Master’s life, for here he becomes the meeting-point, not only of East and West, but also of past and future. If the many and the One be indeed the same Reality, then it is not all modes of worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes of creation, which are paths of realisation. No distinction, henceforth, between sacred and secular. To labour is to pray. To conquer is to renounce. Life is itself religion. To have and to hold is as stern a trust as to quit and to avoid. This is the realisation which makes Vivekananda the great preacher of Karma, not as divorced from, but as expressing Jnana and 24

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Bhakti. To him, the workshop, the study, the farmyard, and the field are as true and fit scenes for the meeting of God with man as the cell of the monk or the door of the temple. To him, there is no difference between service of man and worship of God, between manliness and faith, between true righteousness and spirituality. All his words, from one point of view, read as a commentary upon this central conviction. “Art, science, and religion”, he said once, “are but three different ways of expressing a single truth. But in order to understand this we must have the theory of Advaita. (CWSV, vol. I, pp. xv-xvi.) The task before India was to reclaim her great spiritual heritage, apply it for self-renewal and present it to the world in a practical form. But she was in slumber. Swami Vivekananda gave a clarion call to India to wake-up from her slumber of hundreds of years. Wake up Bharat to your inherent strength Devanirmitam Desham, Rishinirmitam Rashtram – the land of India is the creation of God; the Indian Nation is the creation of the Rishis. The land of India is beautiful. It has all types of weather conditions, tremendous bio-diversity, plenty of sun and rain and richness of minerals. The blessings are many. In this land, the Rishis by their penance have given us a way of life, a vision of life which raises man to divine heights. What do we lack? And yet we, the Shaktiworshippers have become crying babies, weaklings. Swami Vivekananda used to say, To have the ideal is one thing, and to apply it practically to the details of daily life is quite another thing. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 194) That is where we have slept for the last few centuries. He wanted us to wake up to our inherent strength. He said, What we need is strength, but who will give us strength? There are thousands to weaken us, and of stories we have had enough. …Everything that can weaken us as a race we have had for the last thousand years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this one end in view, viz how to make us weaker and Wake up, Bharat!

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weaker till we have become real earthworms, crawling at the feet of everyone who dares to put his foot on us. Therefore, my friends, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength. And the Upanishads are the great mine of strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the whole world can be vivified, made strong, energised through them. They will call with trumpet voice upon the weak, the miserable, and the downtrodden of all races, all creeds, and all sects to stand on their feet and be free. Freedom, physical freedom, mental freedom, and spiritual freedom are the watchwords of the Upanishads. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 238.) Make your nerves strong. What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel. We have wept long enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want. It is man making education all round that we want. And here is the test of truth — anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening. …Go back to your Upanishads — the shining, the strengthening, the bright philosophy — and part from all these mysterious things, all these weakening things. ...The truths of the Upanishads are before you. Take them up, live up to them, and the salvation of India will be at hand. (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 224-25.) How can the Upanishads give us strength of character and fearlessness? To explain this Swamiji narrated an incident, And in my mind rises from the past the vision of the great Emperor of the West, Alexander the Great, and I see, as it were in a picture, the great monarch standing on the bank of the Indus, talking to one of our Sannyasins in the forest; ...sitting upon a block of stone, and the Emperor, astonished at his wisdom, tempting him with gold and honour to come over to Greece. And this man smiles at his gold, and smiles at his temptations, and refuses; and then the 26

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Emperor standing on his authority as an Emperor, says, “I will kill you if you do not come”, and the man burst into a laugh and says, “You never told such a falsehood in your life, as you tell just now. Who can kill me? Me you kill, Emperor of the material world! Never! For I am Spirit unborn and undecaying: never was I born and never do I die; I am the Infinite, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient; and you kill me, child that you are!” That is strength, that is strength! (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 237-238.) Waking up to our inherent strength would mean faith in ourselves, faith in India – the kind that we see Swami Vivekananda had. Imagine in those days when India was under the British domination, when she was wallowing in ignorance, poverty, without any faith in herself and imitating the West, Swamiji said that India had a message to give to the world! He saw a glorious India rising! It is that faith that we should all have - faith in ourselves and in our people. Wake up Bharat to the call of service Swami Vivekananda observed very painfully that we are the only people who have the highest philosophy and yet the treatment to our people is the worst. We talk of oneness with the whole creation and yet we remain unconcerned about what happens to our society. Swami Vivekananda said, But above all, let me once more remind you that here is need of practical work, and the first part of that is that you should go to the sinking millions of India, and take them by the hand, remembering the words of the Lord Krishna: “Even in this life they have conquered relative existence whose minds are firm fixed on the sameness of everything, for God is pure and the same to all; therefore, such are said to be living in God.” (CWSV, vol. III, p. 433.) Once while talking to Prof. Sundararama Iyer at Trivandrum, Swamiji said, Wake up, Bharat!

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Practical patriotism means not a mere sentiment or even emotion of love of the motherland but a passion to serve our fellowcountrymen. 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 and I am burning with a fierce desire to change such evil conditions. ....If you want to find God, serve man. To reach Narayana you must serve the Daridra Narayanas— the starving millions of India. (Life of Swami Vivekananda, vol. I, p. 338.) The thought that recurred in his speeches and writings was that the service cannot be with ulterior motive. Service cannot be a trade: ‘you give up your religion to receive our service.’ He wrote, Remember that the nation lives in the cottage ……… the fate of a nation depends upon the condition of the masses. Can you raise them? Can you give them back their lost individuality without making them lose their innate spiritual nature? …Keep the motto before you – “Elevation of the masses without injuring their religion”. (CWSV, vol. V, p. 29.) For all those who want to serve people, he gave three prerequisites: First, feel from the heart. …Love opens the most impossible gates; love is the gate to all the secrets of the universe. Feel, therefore, my would-be reformers, my would-be patriots! Do you feel? Do you feel that millions and millions of the descendants of gods and of sages have become next-door neighbors to brutes? Do you feel that millions are starving today, and millions have been starving for ages? Do you feel that ignorance has come over the land as a dark cloud? Does it make you restless? Does it make you sleepless? Has it gone into your blood, coursing through your veins, becoming consonant with your heartbeats? Has it made you almost mad? Are you seized with that one idea of the misery of ruin, and have you forgotten all about your name, your fame, your wives, your children, your property, even your own bodies? Have you 28

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done that? That is the first step to become a patriot, the very first step. I did not go to America, as most of you know, for the Parliament of Religions, but this demon of a feeling was in me and within my soul. I travelled twelve years all over India, finding no way to work for my countrymen, and that is why I went to America. Most of you know that, who knew me then. Who cared about this Parliament of Religions? Here was my own flesh and blood sinking every day, and who cared for them? This was my first step. You may feel, then; but instead of spending your energies in frothy talk, have you found any way out, any practical solution, some help instead of condemnation, some sweet words to soothe their miseries, to bring them out of this living death? Yet that is not all. Have you got the will to surmount mountain high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right? If your wives and children are against you, if all your money goes, your name dies, your wealth vanishes, would you still stick to it? Would you still pursue it and go on steadily towards your own goal? …Have you got that steadfastness? If you have these three things, each one of you will work miracles. You need not write in the newspapers, you need not go about lecturing; your very face will shine. (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 225-27.) Selfless service of the society is the highest spiritual practice. Each one of us should give our committed time, energy and money in the interest of the society and in the service of the deprived and suffering masses. India has to be awakened to the great spiritual significance of “Serve man-Serve God”. Wake up Bharat to the greatness of your cultural heritage Swami Vivekananda wanted us to be aware of the significance of our culture. In those days when the the theory of ‘Survival of the

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Fittest’ and its adherents were praised, he pointed out that India has survived in spite of not forcing herself on others, - the fittest alone survive. How is it, then, that this most unfitted of all races, according to commonly accepted ideas, could bear the most awful misfortunes that ever befall a race, and yet not show the least signs of decay? How is it that, while the multiplying powers of the so-called vigorous and active races are dwindling every day, the immoral Hindu shows a power of increase beyond them all? Great laurels are due, no doubt, to those who can deluge the world with blood at a moment’s notice; great indeed is the glory of those who, to keep up a population of a few millions in plenty, have to starve half the population of the earth, but is no credit due to those who can keep hundreds of millions in peace and plenty, without snatching the bread from the mouth of anyone else? Is there no power displayed in bringing up and guiding the destinies of countless millions of human beings, through hundreds of centuries, without the least violence to others? (CWSV, vol. IV, pp. 323-24.) India could survive, because Indians held on tightly to their lifecentre, Dharma -the root, the foundation of culture. Swamiji explains it further: The mythologists of all ancient races supply us with fables of heroes whose life was concentrated in a certain small portion of their bodies, and until that was touched they remained invulnerable. It seems as if each nation also has such a peculiar centre of life, and so long as that remains untouched, no amount of misery and misfortune can destroy it. In religion lies the vitality of India, and so long as the Hindu race do not forget the great inheritance of their forefathers, there is no power on earth to destroy them. Nowadays everybody blames those who constantly look back to their past. It is said that so much looking back to the past is the cause of all India’s woes. To me, on the contrary, it seems that the opposite is true. So long as they forgot the past, the Hindu nation 30

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remained in a state of stupor; and as soon as they have begun to look into their past, there is on every side a fresh manifestation of life. It is out of this past that the future has to be moulded; this past will become the future. The more, therefore, the Hindus study the past, the more glorious will be their future, and whoever tries to bring the past to the door of everyone, is a great benefactor to his nation. (CWSV, vol. IV, pp. 324-25.) While speaking at Lahore, Swami Vivekananda reminded the audience that they belonged to the legacy of Rishis. When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the end has come. Here am I, one of the least of Hindu race, yet proud of my race, proud of my ancestors. I am proud to call myself a Hindu… I am proud that I am a countryman of yours, you the descendants of the sages, you the descendants of the most glorious Rishis, the world ever saw. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 381.) Once in a conversation with Sri Nag Mahashay, one of the greatest of disciples of Sri Ramakrishna from East Bengal, Swamiji said, Now my one desire is to rouse the country — the sleeping leviathan that has lost all faith in his power and makes no response. If I can wake it up to a sense of the Eternal Religion then I shall know that Shri Ramakrishna’s advent and our birth are fruitful. That is the one desire in my heart: Mukti and all else appear of no consequence to me. Please give me your blessings that I may succeed. (CWSV, vol. VII, p. 188.) Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had practiced Sadhana of all paths and had realized that each path is valid for its followers and ultimately each has to reach the same goal. Even after realizing the validity of all paths, he continued to live in Sanatana Dharma ‘the way of life based on the vision of Oneness.’ He said, The Hindu religion alone is the Sanatana Dharma. The various creeds you hear of nowadays have come into existence through Wake up, Bharat!

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the will of God and will disappear again through His will. They will not last forever. Therefore I say, ‘I bow down at the feet of even the modern devotees.’ The Hindu religion has always existed and will always exist. (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, ‘The Visit to Sinthi Brahmo Samaj’, Chapter 32, p. 642, First Red Letter edn. 2000.) Swami Vivekananda at his first speech in the Parliament of Religions said that, I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. …I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth…I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn: “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.” …The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: “Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me.” (CWSV, vol. I, pp. 3-4.) Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India while speaking at the Annual Convocation of Aligarh Muslim University on 24 January, 1948 asked the students, I am proud of India, not only because of her ancient magnificent heritage, but also because of her remarkable capacity to add to it by keeping the doors and windows of her mind and spirit open to fresh and invigorating winds from distant lands. India’s strength has been twofold: her innate culture which flowered through ages 32

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and capacity to draw from other sources and thus add to her own. She was far too strong to be submerged by outside streams, and she was too wise to isolate herself from them, and so there is a continuous synthesis in India’s real history, and the many political changes which have taken place have had little effect on the growth of variegated and yet essentially unified culture. I have said that I am proud of our inheritance and our ancestors who gave an intellectual and cultural pre-eminence to India. How do you feel about this past? Do you feel you are also sharers in it and inheritors of it and, therefore, proud of something that belongs to you as much as to me? Or do you feel alien to it and pass it without understanding it or feeling that strange thrill from the realisation that we are the trustees and inheritors of this vast treasure? I ask you these questions, because in recent years many forces have been at play diverting people’s minds into wrong channels and trying to pervert the course of history. You are Muslims and I am a Hindu. We may adhere to different religious faiths or even to none; but that does not take away from that cultural inheritance that is yours as well as mine. The past holds us together; why should the present or future divide us in spirit? Thus whatever may be one’s Ishtadevata [chosen name and form or perception of God], in India, we all belong to the tradition of the Rishis. Whatever may be our religious faith we are all the inheritors of their wisdom, of spirituality. What does spirituality mean? It is not a cluster of rituals and dogmas or otherworldliness. It is ‘a way of life based on the vision of Oneness’, on eternal principles. For combining our strength together we would have to be cognizant of these eternal principles which can unify all of us irrespective of our religious faith. There are persons who advise that we must first look into the economic needs of our country rather than wasting our energy in tom-toming, in trumpeting our cultural glories howsoever great they may have been in the past. Such persons are completely mistaken. Wake up, Bharat!

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Culture matters, culture impacts even economic growth. We can understand this from the phenomena of the West’s earlier material affluence and their present economic problems. The contemporary West, which holds out its socio-economiccultural-political model as modernity, has been on the rise economically for the last half a century. But it was largely through cultural fall, as it had grown economically by exhausting its cultural and civilisational assets. Communities and families are the bulwark of culture and traditions that keep the people connected to one another. But the atomization of these into alienated individuals thrown to the care of the State and its instrumentalities, led to cultural decline – as the decline of the traditional families into single parent households, live-in relations, lone individuals’ households and unwed motherhood has demonstrated. First, this cultural decline actually promoted the economic growth. A comparison of the number of persons living in US households in 1940 with the number of occupants per household in 2009 would showa decline from 3.5 to 2.6, demonstrating the atomization of the families with elders and youngsters not living in the same home. This has caused an additional demand of 35 million houses. This meant an investment of at least $7.5 trillion and, to that extent, it statistically added to economic growth. This additional growth was because the traditional families had disintegrated with parents and children not living together. In contrast, 82% of Bharatiyas live in their own houses as against just 67% in US. This is because in Bharat the number of persons living as a family, in one home, is 5.5, as against 2.6 in US. If the families in Bharat decline like and to the levels in US, over 60 crore people in Bharat will be homeless; if we have to house them, it would mean constructing 25 crore more houses; at the rate of Rs 20 lakhs per house it will cost the country 50 lakh crores! This will be six times the size of the budget of the government of India. It will be impossible within the means of the nation to house them.

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It needs no seer to say that it is the culture of Bharat which is enabling the 60 crore Bharatiyas, most of them elder, old or infirm, to reside in a home with their near and dear. Only culture and tradition can make this possible; West-centric modernity which destroys both will throw 60 crore Bharatiyas on the street. But, in the US, exhausting the cultural capital, soon led to high consumption, and fall in household and national savings, landing the households in debts. It sequenced into virtually nationalization of the collapsing families by the government, which had to step in to undertake the burden of taking care of the elders, the infirm and the unemployed who were forsaken by the families. It led to the economic crisis prompted by fall in savings and increasing government burden. The government had to step in to give what the people needed and later what they wanted and still later what they demanded. So pleasing, even corrupting, the people became the chief function of the government. This made the people less and less independent and become more and more governmentdependent. This is precisely what Bahuka, Jarasandha’s minister, told Kamsa, when the latter asked for Bahuka’s advice on how to dominate his subjects –subjects who obeyed the sages and defied Kamsa. To subordinate the subjects this is the prescription that Bahuka gave to Kamsa: There is only one way to destroy the sages. Open your purse strings to people; teach them to eat, drink and enjoy themselves; break up their families; teach women that chastity is not worth having at the cost of pleasure; bring up children to look upon their parents as useless. Once the people begin to believe in unrestrained pleasures as the goal of life, they will look upon ascetics as deranged; they will laugh at those who talk of duty, tapas, love and compassion. When wine flows, self-restraint will disappear; men will be like well-fed cattle at the mercy of their cowherds. Whatever you do to

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them they will bear as patiently as uncomplaining beasts, and obey your lash as if it were a favour from you. This is exactly what has happened to the people of particularly the US-West in the name of individual freedom. It has made them independent of the immediate family and society but has made them dependent on the remote State and its bounties. Our country is so far free from this vice. Our families are intact because our culture is preserved. But the tendency to look to the West inheres the risk of cultural erosion in India, which, due to our inane, hollow intellectualism, is already becoming visible in certain areas of our social life. So, there is a need to strengthen the cultural capital of India, which translates into its social capital and also its financial capital as reflected in the high savings rate of over 28% of the GDP by Indian families. This is what is protecting Bharat and providing the capital needed for its infrastructure according to Goldman Sachs, the world’s largest investment bank. And this cultural asset is increasingly exposed to risk and so are the nation and our economy if the net cultural import into Bharat from the US-West continues. This has to be reversed – namely there has to be net cultural export from Bharat to the West if – as Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant had said, echoing Swami Vivekananda’s prognosis – the world has to be saved from self-destruction. Only a culturally strong and vibrant Bharat can show the way for global peace and harmony. Said, Arnold Toynbee, the great British historian, It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family. 36

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Almost echoing him, Will Durant, the great American historian, said, It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to us such unquestionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals, and our decimal system. But these are not the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may learn from her in the future. Perhaps in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the calm understanding of the spirit, and a unifying, a pacifying, love for all living things. (The Case for India, 1931) Significantly both Arnold Toynbee [1889-1975] and Will Durant [1885-1981] were contemporaries; they spoke almost in the same language, namely the language of Swami Vivekananda who, in the darkest period in the history of India, saw India emerging as the Jagat Guru. This is the goal of ancient India in contemporary times. We have to awaken to this truth that it is not only in India’s interest, but in the world’s interest that Bharat has to be culturally vibrant to emerge as the Guru of the world. Wake up Bharat to the task of rebuilding of Nation How could India be a nation which is so ancient that its beginning cannot be traced and yet is most relevant in time? Though India had to face a lot of invasions, how did it retain its identity? Invaders looted India, deprived her of her wealth and distorted her systems and yet how does she have all the potentiality of an emerging super power? How is it that religion is her life-center and yet she has no problem with science and technology? India knew to rebuild itself after every challenge. What is the secret? If we understand that, we shall be able to rebuild our Wake up, Bharat!

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nation.Nation plays an important role in the life of man as well as in the march of humanity. This is what Swami Vivekananda said: Each nation has a destiny to fulfill, each nation has a message to deliver, each nation has a mission to accomplish. Therefore, from the very start, we must have to understand the mission of our own race, the destiny it has to fulfill, the place it has to occupy in the march of nations, and note which it has to contribute to the harmony of races. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 369.) For India to be able to give her message of spirituality to the world, she needs to rebuild herself first. In order to achieve this Swami Vivekananda gives a four-dimensional, (simultaneous) process: 1. Internalize the eternal, unifying principles 2. Develop and rebuild the systems based on these principles 3. Sacrifice! Great things can be achieved through great sacrifice 4. Never lose sight of the purpose of nation-building 1. Internalize the eternal, unifying principles Swami Vivekananda was interviewed by the representative of the Prabuddha Bharata. He asked Swamiji, “And what do you consider to be the function of your movement as regards India?” Swamiji replied, “To find the common bases of Hinduism and awaken the national consciousness to them.”(Prabuddha Bharata, vol. V, p. 225 , September, 1898.) Though India has immense diversity, she also has a deep cultural unity – a fact acknowledged by historians like Vincent Smith. Unfortunately the incessant invasions and subsequent Macaulay education made us lose sight of these unifying threads. Today we harp only on diversity and interpret our diversity as differences. Therefore, we have become disunited and our energies, too are dissipated. There are educated people who ask these questions, ‘What is common between a Sikh and a Jain; or a Christian and a Muslim; or between a Gujarati and an Arunachali, or a Punjabi and a Tamilian?'; ‘Their God, festival, language, food habits, physical features 38

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everything is different’ is their conclusion. We need to ask a different set of questions. ‘What is it that which is common for us?’ ‘What unites us?’ Swami Vivekananda wanted our society again to wake up to those unifying principles which have made Indian culture unique. He said, …for our national welfare, we must first seek out at the present day all the spiritual forces of the race, as was done in days of yore and will be done in all times to come. National union in India must be a gathering up of its scattered spiritual forces. A nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 371.) In one of his most soul-stirring speeches “Common Bases of Hinduism” at Lahore, Swami Vivekananda focused on these unifying principles. These should be part of our knowledge and our drive for every work that we undertake for the good of our society. These six unifying principles which spring forth from the vision of Oneness are, i. We all believe in the Vedas. By the Vedas is meant that knowledge which is eternal and not relative and does not depend on any personality or sensory perceptions. Rishis are not the authors of the Vedas, they are only seers. Thus we are not dogmatic. For example, we do not say, ‘so and so has said it and so it should be followed.’ Our religious (upasana) faiths are not personality-based but principle-based. Sister Nivedita writes in her introduction to the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, To him, all that is true is Veda.”By the Vedas,” he says, “no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. (CWSV, vol. I, p. xiii.) ii. God is everywhere. God is not sitting up there in some corner. But God has manifested as this existence. The One has become many. Thus we do not fight for a specific name or form of God. Each one has Wake up, Bharat!

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the freedom to follow his or her own Ishta Devata. Sister Nivedita writes, The distinctive doctrine is that of the Ishta Devata, the right of each soul to choose its own path, and to seek God in its own way. (CWSV, vol. I, p. xiii.) Thus we do not see in India, any community trying to convert a person of other community in the name of its God. ‘Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti’- Truth is one, learned persons call it by various names. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam the former President of India writes in his book, Wings of Fire that his pious father after his Namaz would go to work. On the way, when he passed the temple of Rameshwaram, he would join his hands in obeisance . Thus, India has been a land of unity in diversity baffling all scholars. As God pervades everything the whole existence is sacred, worthy of worship for us. There are poojas before building the house and before entering the new house. There are poojas before tilling the land and also before harvesting. There are poojas for instruments and gadgets like new Television sets and computers, poojas for parents, for ancestors, for children in all parts of India. The system of pooja differs in various parts of India but the attitude, the Bhava, the vision behind the pooja is the same. Despite all the outward differences our approaches, attitudes to nature, to society, to family are same. iii. Creation is without beginning and without end. We know that time is not linear. We do not say that the world was created so many thousands of years before and would come to an end after such and such an event. We say time is cyclical and the creation is projected and withdrawn cyclically. So psychologically we do not have apocalyptic fears. iv. Man is not just the physical body or the finer body called mind. But he/she is Atman which takes to a body again and again till it realizes it is free. Thus body is not the real identity of man. Fear of death is less and even non-existent in many.

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v. Swami Vivekananda says, And then comes the most differentiating, the grandest, and the most wonderful discovery in the realms of spirituality that has ever been made. Some of you, perhaps, who have been studying Western thought, may have observed already that there is another radical difference severing at one stroke all that is Western from all that is Eastern. It is this that we hold, whether we are Shaktas, Sauras, or Vaishnavas, even whether we are Bauddhas or Jainas, we all hold in India that the soul is by its nature pure and perfect, infinite in power and blessed. ….Whatever the difference may be, we come to the central core, and there is at once an irreconcilable difference between all that is Western and Eastern. The Eastern is looking inward for all that is great and good. When we worship, we close our eyes and try to find God within. The Western is looking up outside for his God. …This is one great point to understand, and, my friends, my brethren, let me tell you, this is the one point we shall have to insist upon in the future. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 375.) vi. Dharma does not mean faith or believing in some God. Swami Vivekananda had said, The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising — not in believing, but in being and becoming. (CWSV, vol. I, p. 13.) It is not important as to what form of God one believes. What is important is the person’s behavior and character. By worship and prayers of his God, does his heart become large enough to include all? By being religious is he really contributing to the harmony wherever he goes? That is the test. Religion is not in believing God but in Being and Becoming God. Our history, our struggles to keep our identity and our Dharma intact in the face of invasions, the aspirations passed on to us by our ancestors, all these are our common bonds apart from the above six unifying principles. India has to be awakened to this unifying strength Wake up, Bharat!

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so as to be a capable vehicle of the message of Oneness to the whole world. Swami Vivekananda emphasized the need of organization and organized efforts for the same. Taking inspiration from him many organizations came up to serve the needy. But still there is a long way to go about the conscious knowledge of our unifying principles and putting in sustained efforts in an organized way. These grand eternal truths were realized in India and also were nourished, were lived in her national life. In every period of challenging situations, the people internalized and practiced these principles. What was eternal and should be preserved and what should be changed with time was known to all. These grand principles of Shruti or the unifying principles are even today seen in the family and social life of India but they are not vibrant because these are not practised consciously but apologetically as part of tradition. The dust gathered on these great principles is held on to more tightly and followed meticulously as ultimate truth or tradition. Therefore, we need to internalize these principles and practice again. These principles should become a dynamic force in our life. We have to come out of the hypocrisy and inferiority that generally a slavish race falls prey to. For example we say God is everywhere and so nature is sacred for us and yet we are defecating nature. We do not feel pain or any qualms in polluting rivers or felling trees or throwing waste anywhere. We may chant ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ but rarely do we tell our children that ‘your life is to manifest the divinity within you’. Awakening to these eternal principles is required. 2.

Develop and these principles

rebuild

the

systems

based

on

Based on these life-giving principles we have to rebuild our family systems, economic systems, educational systems, village systems, etc. For example there was a time when we had joint family system. In today’s complex situation, if retaining the joint family system is difficult then what is the system that we could have which will keep the 42

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principle and spirit of joint family system intact and yet is practical in this age? What is it that we have to retain and what is it that we have to change with time? This churning and accordingly rebuilding is required. We cannot just imitate Western systems, howsoever good these may be for the West; imitating them would be poison for us. Howsoever wrong our systems may appear today these were built on sound principles. We need to understand these principles. Keeping our vision of life, our identity intact the systems can change if required but we cannot lose our identity by imitating the systems of others which are based on a different outlook of life. Thus a great rebuilding task needs to be undertaken in all systems. This is what a great tradition of Rishis had done in every period. We have to work on the lines of the Rishis. We have to be Rishis. As said by Swami Vivekananda, This is my method — to show the Hindus that they have to give up nothing, but only to move on in the line laid down by the sages and shake off their inertia, the result of centuries of servitude. Of course, we had to stop advancing during the Mohammedan tyranny, for then it was not a question of progress but of life and death. Now that that pressure has gone, we must move forward, not on the lines of destruction directed by renegades and missionaries, but along our own line, our own road. Everything is hideous because the building is unfinished. We had to stop building during centuries of oppression. Now finish the building and everything will look beautiful in its own place. This is all my plan. I am thoroughly convinced of this. (CWSV, vol. IV, p. 373.) We also have to use our discretion while rebuilding our systems. Not everything is to be thrown out or is outdated. Swami Vivekananda said, The degeneration of India came not because the laws and customs of the ancients were bad, but because they were not allowed to be carried to their legitimate conclusions. ...At their inception, these Wake up, Bharat!

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laws were the embodiment of a gigantic plan, which was to unfold itself slowly through time. The great seers of ancient India saw so far ahead of their time that the world has to wait centuries yet to appreciate their wisdom. (CWSV, vol. IV, pp. 324-25.) Swamiji cautioned us that merely by condemning what is wrong; rebuilding does not take place. There has been enough of criticism, there has been enough of fault - finding, the time has come for the rebuilding, the reconstructing; the time has come for us to gather all our scattered forces, to concentrate them into one focus, and through that, to lead the nation on its onward march, which for centuries almost has been stopped. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 367.) Therefore we have to wake up from the delusion of imitation, of non-action, of jealousy, of condemnation. And then using the dynamics of the Shruti (the eternal Truth) and Smriti (the changeable aspects) we have to rebuild our society again. 3.

Sacrifice! Great sacrifices only

things

are

done

by

great

Ultimately all talk of nation-building come to this: “How much am I ready to give for the country?"; "How much of my time, money and energy is for my people?” .To the people who dwell on the impossibility of the task or constantly criticise how hopeless the situation or the people are, Swami Vivekananda wrote passionately, Yet it is only through the present state of things that it is possible to proceed to work. There is no other way. Every one has the power to judge of good and evil, but he is the hero who undaunted by the waves of Samsara —which is full of errors, delusions, and miseries —with one hand wipes the tears, and with the other, unshaken, shows the path of deliverance. …I heard in Japan that it was the belief of the girls of that country that their dolls would be animated if they were loved with all their heart. The Japanese 44

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girl never breaks her doll. O you of great fortune! I too believe that India will awake again if anyone could love with all his heart the people of the country —bereft of the grace of affluence, of blasted fortune, their discretion totally lost, downtrodden, ever-starved, quarrelsome, and envious. Swamiji loved India with all his heart. He gave up his family to awaken the bigger family of millions - his country. When will India awake? Swami Vivekananda writes, Then only will India awake, when hundreds of large-hearted men and women, giving up all desires of enjoying the luxuries of life, will long and exert themselves to their utmost for the well - being of the millions of their countrymen who are gradually sinking lower and lower in the vortex of destitution and ignorance. I have experienced even in my insignificant life that good motives, sincerity, and infinite love can conquer the world. One single soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of millions of hypocrites and brutes. (CWSV, vol. V, p.127.) Not only does one dedicates oneself, but one also has to transmit the fire within to more and more youth to come forward. Wrote Swami Vivekananda, Train up a band of fiery young men. Put fire in them and gradually increase the organization, letting it widen and widen its circle. (CWSV, vol. V, p.35.) He envisaged, A hundred thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in the Lord, and nerved to lion’s courage by their sympathy for the poor and the fallen and the downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social raising-up —the gospel of equality. (CWSV, vol. V, p.15.) “Am I one in His hundred thousand?” – is a question which more and more youth need to ask themselves. When thousands would Wake up, Bharat!

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ask this question to themselves and reply in the affirmative then would India wake up. Great works are done by great sacrifices only. 4. Never lose the sight of the purpose of nationbuilding Swami Vivekananda, the knower of the East and the West, in his first speech after his return from the West said, If there is any land on this earth that can lay claim to be the blessed Punya Bhumi, to be the land to which all souls on this earth must come to account for Karma, the land to which every soul that is wending its way Godward must come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness, above all, the land of introspection and of spirituality —it is India. Hence have started the founders of religions from the most ancient times, deluging the earth again and again with the pure and perennial waters of spiritual truth. Hence have proceeded the tidal waves of philosophy that have covered the earth, East or West, North or South, and hence again must start the wave which is going to spiritualise the material civilisation of the world. Here is the life-giving water with which must be quenched the burning fire of materialism which is burning the core of the hearts of millions in other lands. Believe me, my friends, this is going to be. (CWSV, vol.III, p. 105.) Swami Vivekananda said that each nation has a mission to fulfill and the mission of India is spiritualization of human race. It is for this that she has been living in spite of so many vicissitudes. At Madras he told, Young men of Madras, my hope is in you. Will you respond to the call of your nation? Each one of you has a glorious future if you dare believe me. Have a tremendous faith in yourselves …that eternal power is lodged in every soul — and you will revive the whole of India. Ay, we will then go to every country under the sun, and our 46

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ideas will before long be a component of the many forces that are working to make up every nation in the world. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 303.) Another very interesting observation of world history made by Swami Vivekananda was that whenever communications were made, roads were linked the world over by various conquerors. The conquerors after a few years of bright existence went into oblivion but through those very channels of communication went the eternal message of India. Again the same phenomenon was taking place, observed Swami Vivekananda prophetically, Owing to English genius, the world today has been linked in such a fashion as has never before been done. Today trade centres have been formed such as have never been before in the history of mankind. And immediately, consciously or unconsciously, India rises up and pours forth her gifts of spirituality; and they will rush through these roads till they have reached the very ends of the world. That I went to America was not my doing or your doing; but the God of India who is guiding her destiny sent me, and will send hundreds of such to all the nations of the world. No power on earth can resist it. This also has to be done. You must go out to preach your religion, preach it to every nation under the sun, preach it to every people. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 223.) Swami Vivekananda had said, Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die. Societies should be moulded upon truth, and truth has not to adjust itself to society. (CWSV, vol. II, p. 84.) For example: If someone does not know or refuses to accept gravitational force, then he is not going to be spared the hurt if he jumps from a tree. Gravitational force cannot adjust to the desires, denials, foolishness or ignorance of a person, a person has to adjust oneself, align oneself with the truth or get perished. The human life, human society has come to such a state that unless it aligns itself Wake up, Bharat!

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with the truth it would perish. The grandest truth which humanity has to take into account is the Vedantic Truth of Oneness of existence. The more Swamiji moved in the West the more did he realize how the Vedantic truth is the need of the hour for the good of humanity. Actually he realized that, that was the purpose of his life. He wrote, Then you see, to put the Hindu ideas into English …is a task only those can understand who have attempted it. The dry, abstract Advaita must become living — poetic — in everyday life; out of hopelessly intricate mythology must come concrete moral forms; and out of bewildering Yogi - ism must come the most scientific and practical psychology — and all this must be put in a form so that a child may grasp it. That is my life’s work. (CWSV, vol.V pp.104-105) Swami Vivekananda could see that his purpose of life was to remind India about her national mission -to give the vision of Oneness – the practical Vedanta to the world. Bharat has to be awakened to the purpose of its existence. Will she awake? Seeing the present problems, this question rattles the brain of many. But even in those days, Swami Vivekananda predicted, India, this motherland of ours — a voice is coming unto us, gentle, firm, and yet unmistakable in its utterances, and is gaining volume as days pass by, and behold, the sleeper is awakening! Like a breeze from the Himalayas, it is bringing life into the almost dead bones and muscles, the lethargy is passing away, and only the blind cannot see, or the perverted will not see, that she is awakening, this motherland of ours, from her deep long sleep. None can resist her anymore; never is she going to sleep anymore; no outward powers can hold her back any more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 146.) Call up the divinity within you, which will enable you to bear hunger and thirst, heat and cold. …You must give up. Be great. No great work can be done without sacrifice. The Purusha Himself sacrificed Himself to create this world. Lay down your comforts, your pleasures, your names, fame or position, nay even your lives, and make a bridge of human chains over which millions will cross 48

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this ocean of life. Bring all the forces of good together. Do not care under what banner you march. Do not care what be your colour — green, blue, or red — but mix up all the colours and produce that intense glow of white, the colour of love. Ours is to work. The results will take care of themselves. I do not see into the future; nor do I care to see. But one vision I see clear as life before me, that the ancient mother has awakened once more, sitting on Her throne rejuvenated more glorious than ever. Proclaim Her to all the world with the voice of peace and benediction. (CWSV, vol. IV, pp. 353-54) An awakened India, a rising India is not for the destruction of anyone but to help humanity move forward harmoniously in its spiritual march.

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III Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World! Swami Vivekananda realized the need of humanity in the coming era India is a country which had thought and worked for the good

of humanity all through her national life. Therefore, we see that while Swami Vivekananda was intensely patriotic, he was also a great humanist, a universalist. With his knowledge of various countries and his foresight, he could foresee the problems that humanity would face in the coming centuries. He also knew that the solution was in the Vedanta – in shaping human life on the basis of the Oneness of existence for the welfare of the world. Hence he expounded the need for the scientific, inclusive and time-tested wisdom of the Vedanta. 1. To face the sledge-hammer of science In the West, religion has become dogmatic. The sacred books cannot be questioned. When science started disproving the dogmatic ‘truths’ mentioned in these texts, man’s faith in religion became shaky. A few examples prove the point. Only in 1996 was the Biblical statement ‘Earth is flat’ corrected. Time, as per Christian theology, is considered linear and that creation is just over 6000 years old, whereas today science has proved the cyclical and relative nature of time and that the earth is millions of years old. Even today in some universities in the USA, Darwin’s theory of Evolution is not taught as it is contrary to 50

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Biblical beliefs. An article on the internet on church attendance in France says, Yesterday’s poll showed that only 10 per cent go to church regularly — mainly to Sunday mass or christenings. Of the 51 per cent who still call themselves Catholics, only half said they believed in God. Many said they were Catholics because it was a family tradition. (http://viaintegra.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/france-churchattendance. Viewed on 4 August, 2012.) Another study done for America which has a better percentage of Church goers too predicts falling attendance. Booming megachurches might grab headlines, but the bigger story of American congregations is one of accelerating decline, according to David T. Olson, the director of the American Church Research Project. Based on data collected from more than 200,000 churches, he projects that by 2050, only 10 percent of Americans will be in church on any given Sunday (http://www2.journalnow.com/news/ 2009/feb/28/study-finds-attendance-at-churches-still-falling-ar131644/ (Viewed on 24 August, 2012.) This is true of the overall scenario in the West: attendance to churches is falling down. Akin to throwing the baby with the bath water, man in the West, while giving up faith in those errors of the sacred texts, has lost faith in religion itself. For a science and technology-based society, higher norms of life are required in place of the religious dogmas. Swami Vivekananda explains this graphically, For today, under the blasting light of modern science, when old and apparently strong and invulnerable beliefs have been shattered to their very foundations, when special claims laid to the allegiance of mankind by different sects have been all blown into atoms and have vanished into air, when the sledge - hammer blows of modern antiquarian researches are pulverising like masses of porcelain all sorts of antiquated orthodoxies, when religion in the West is only in the hands of the ignorant and the knowing ones look down Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World!

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with scorn upon anything belonging to religion, here comes to the fore the philosophy of India, which displays the highest religious aspirations of the Indian mind, where the grandest philosophical facts have been the practical spirituality of the people. This naturally is coming to the rescue, the idea of the oneness of all, the Infinite, the idea of the Impersonal, the wonderful idea of the eternal soul of man, of the unbroken continuity in the march of beings, and the infinity of the universe. The old sects looked upon the world as a little mud - puddle and thought that time began but the other day. It was there in our old books, and only there that the grand idea of the infinite range of time, space, and causation, and above all, the infinite glory of the spirit of man governed all the search for religion. When the modern tremendous theories of evolution and conservation of energy and so forth are dealing death blows to all sorts of crude theologies, what can hold any more the allegiance of cultured humanity but the most wonderful, convincing, broadening, and ennobling ideas that can be found only in that most marvellous product of the soul of man, the wonderful voice of God, the Vedanta? (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 110-111.) This then is another claim of the Vedanta upon modern Western minds, its rationality, the wonderful rationalism of the Vedanta. I have myself been told by some of the best Western scientific minds of the day, how wonderfully rational the conclusions of the Vedanta are. I know one of them personally who scarcely has time to eat his meal or go out of his laboratory, but who yet would stand by the hour to attend my lectures on the Vedanta; for, as he expresses it, they are so scientific, they so exactly harmonize with the aspirations of the age and with the conclusions to which modern science is coming at the present time. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 185.) 2. To face materialism In the modern society, man seems to be concerned only with acquiring money. But a time comes when even that appears meaningless. But for want of anything better or meaningful, he still 52

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runs after money and the objects of enjoyment. Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall write in their book SQ: The Ultimate Intelligence, The major issue on people’s mind today is meaning. Many writers say the need for greater meaning is the central crisis of our times. …Indeed most people seeking some spiritual fulfilment see no relation between their longing and formal religion. Swami Vivekananda pointed out, There are times in the history of a man’s life, nay, in the history of the lives of nations, when a sort of world-weariness becomes painfully predominant. It seems that such a tide of world - weariness has come upon the Western world. There, too, they have their thinkers, great men; and they are already finding out that this race after gold and power is all vanity of vanities; many, nay, most of the cultured men and women there, are already weary of this competition, this struggle, this brutality of their commercial civilisation, and they are looking forward towards something better. There is a class which still clings on to political and social changes as the only panacea for the evils in Europe, but among the great thinkers there, other ideals are growing. They have found out that no amount of political or social manipulation of human conditions can cure the evils of life. It is a change of the soul itself for the better that alone will cure the evils of life. No amount of force, or government, or legislative cruelty will change the conditions of a race, but it is spiritual culture and ethical culture alone that can change wrong racial tendencies for the better. Thus these races of the West are eager for some new thought, for some new philosophy; the religion they have had, Christianity, although good and glorious in many respects, has been imperfectly understood, and is, as understood hitherto, found to be insufficient. The thoughtful men of the West find in our ancient philosophy, especially in the Vedanta, the new impulse of thought they are seeking, the very spiritual food and drink for which they are hungering and thirsting. And it is no wonder that this is so. (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 181-182) Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World!

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Today it is no more a problem of just the West. As the world is West-centric and what is Western is generally taken as ‘modern’, the world apes the West. Religious restrictions have gone and better reasons for living the life of restraint are unavailable. So man has given in fully to the pull of materialism, consumerism and licentiousness that industrialisation, mechanisation and market-oriented economy have brought in. A question then arises, if his personal interest is taken care of, why should man bother whether nature is depleted or enriched, whether family stays together or breaks. A human being is not a mere body-mind complex; he/she is the consciousness that manifests as individual, family, society, nation and nature. Man is part of family, society, nation and nature. The more one hurts these bigger forms of one’s existence, the more one hurts oneself. The more one hurts these bigger forms, the more incomplete and insatiate one becomes. Vedanta is required to face the onslaught of crass materialism the world over. Swami Vivekananda said, And even there something of this idea will have to go from India. It has already got there. It will have to grow and increase and save their civilisations too. For in the West the old order of things is vanishing, giving way to a new order of things, which is the worship of gold, the worship of Mammon. Thus this old crude system of religion was better than the modern system, namely — competition and gold. No nation, however strong, can stand on such foundations, and the history of the world tells us that all that had such foundations are dead and gone. In the first place we have to stop the incoming of such a wave in India. Therefore preach the Advaita to every one, so that religion may withstand the shock of modern science. Not only so, you will have to help others; your thought will help out Europe and America. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 433.) 3. To solve the problem of ethics As the age of reason set in Europe, the fear of Satan or hell no more frightened the people to desist them from wrong doings. Neither the authority of any book nor prophet nor the temptation of heaven nor fear of hell could coerce man into ethical behaviour. Why should 54

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one be good to others? There was no convincing reason to control oneself in the onrush of materialistic and licentious atmosphere. Swami Vivekananda explained that Vedanta alone could resolve the question of ethicality. The rational West is earnestly bent upon seeking out the rationality, the raison d’être of all its philosophy and its ethics; and you all know well that ethics cannot be derived from the mere sanction of any personage, however great and divine he may have been. Such an explanation of the authority of ethics appeals no more to the highest of the world’s thinkers; they want something more than human sanction for ethical and moral codes to be binding, they want some eternal principle of truth as the sanction of ethics. And where is that eternal sanction to be found except in the only Infinite Reality that exists in you and in me and in all, in the Self, in the Soul? The infinite oneness of the Soul is the eternal sanction of all morality, that you and I are not only brothers — every literature voicing man’s struggle towards freedom has preached that for you — but that you and I are really one. This is the dictate of Indian philosophy. This oneness is the rationale of all ethics and all spirituality. Europe wants it today just as much as our downtrodden masses do, and this great principle is even now unconsciously forming the basis of all the latest political and social aspirations that are coming up in England, in Germany, in France, and in America. And mark it, my friends, that in and through all the literature voicing man’s struggle towards freedom, towards universal freedom, again and again you find the Indian Vedantic ideals coming out prominently. In some cases the writers do not know the source of their inspiration, in some cases they try to appear very original, and a few there are, bold and grateful enough to mention the source and acknowledge their indebtedness to it. It is only through the idea of the Impersonal God that you can have any system of ethics. In every nation the truth has been preached from the most ancient times — love your fellow-beings as yourselves — I mean, love human beings as yourselves. In India it has been preached, “Love all beings as yourselves”; we make no Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World!

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distinction between men and animals. But no reason was forthcoming; no one knew why it would be good to love other beings as ourselves. And the reason, why, is there in the idea of the Impersonal God; you understand it when you learn that the whole world is one — the oneness of the universe — the solidarity of all life — that in hurting anyone I am hurting myself, in loving any one I am loving myself. Hence we understand why it is that we ought not to hurt others. The reason for ethics, therefore, can only be had from this ideal of the Impersonal God. (CWSV, volume III, p.129) Swamiji said it then. Today Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall write in their book SQ: The Ultimate Intelligence. We cannot draw a boundary between the waves and the pond, nor can we draw any hard and fast boundary between ourselves and other ‘waves’. I am inside you and inside every creature and inside every speck of stardust. And each of these is inside me. And all of us are individual forms that contain the same centre. A person high in SQ knows that when he harms others he harms himself. When I pollute the atmosphere with my garbage or my anger, I pollute my own lungs or psyche. When I selfishly or unnecessarily cause suffering to others, that suffering comes back as a pain in my own being, as something that distorts me, makes me ‘ugly’....The high SQ requires me to use my deep spontaneity to respond to all other and to all existence, and to take responsibility for my role in caring for these things. When I cause unnecessary harm I abdicate this responsibility, which is the deepest purpose and meaning of my life. (SQ: The Ultimate Intelligence, p. 291.) 4.

To contain Religious conflict resolution

Exclusivism

and

for

Exclusive claims of religion have been the cause of bloodshed. In the wars and massacres from 800 CE to 1700 CE alone, some 400 million people were killed. And the principal reason, which accounted for almost three fourths of this kind of human loss, is religion. In his last speech at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in September 1893, Swami Vivekananda declared, 56

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If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: “Help and not fight,” “Assimilation and not Destruction,” “Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.” (CWSV, vol. I, p. 24.) Today, at the international level, several conferences, seminars and symposiums take place about conflict resolution. Samuel Huntington, who was an influential political and defense Analyst of the USA and the Director of John Olin Institute for Strategic Studies in Harvard University wrote in his widely discussed book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that the future fault lines of clashes in the world would be on civilisational lines. He admits in the book, The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-westerners never do. (The Clash of Civilizations, p. 51) Huntington diagnosed the problem with Western Universalism, –‘My way of doing things is the best and so should be applied universally to all’, or in his words, ‘The West is attempting and will continue to attempt to sustain its pre-eminent position and defend its interests by defining those interests as the interests of the “world community”. He warned that it is dangerous to the world because it could lead to a major inter-civilizational world war and it is dangerous to the West because it could lead to the defeat of the West. Thus, he proposed Instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilization, the requisites for cultural coexistence demand a search Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World!

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for what is common to most civilizations. In a multi-civilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities. This is precisely what India has been doing for ages and hence is entitled to teach these lessons of peaceful co-existence to the world. As free market, liberalization, globalization became current practices, the world got shrunk. People of diverse cultures had to interact, stay with each other. So a concept of ‘Multiculturalism’ was introduced in the West. But even that has not worked. The concern of Samuel Huntington in his later book ‘Who are We’ is that the American identity should not be lost to the hordes of immigrants. S. Gurumurthy in an introduction to the book Sri Guruji- A Drashta, writes, A research paper titled “A Working Paper of Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity” discusses how multiculturalism is seen as stifling debate; fosters separateness; refuses common values; denies problems; supports reprehensible practices and provides haven for terrorists. A poll by BBC/MORI found the public to be confused about multiculturalism. In conclusion the working paper says that “Across a range of countries, there seems to have arisen a kind of convergence of backlash discourse, idioms and stratagems attacking a presumed multiculturalism.” But if multiculturalism ends how will liberal politics and free market capitalism survive? If neither of them survives ...what will happen to globalisation and (the) global economic order? These are the questions tormenting the world, particularly the West today. The stakes seem to be very high both ways. Huntington is clear that multiculturalism has led the US into (an) identity crisis. Merely parroting that multiple cultures have to co-exist peacefully would not orient those who have been brought up on the concept of ‘Survival of the fittest’, to live in harmony with others. A commensurate, inclusive vision is required. With the vision of Oneness 58

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alone, diversity can be accepted and one can live peacefully with the ‘other’ as the ‘other’ is not the ‘other’ but an extension of one’s own self. Efforts to convert others to one’s own way also cease. Thus all can stay peacefully with one another as the expression of One. Swami Vivekananda said, This idea of oneness is the great lesson India has to give, and mark you, when this is understood; it changes the whole aspect of things, because you look at the world through other eyes than you have been doing before. And this world is no more a battlefield where each soul is born to struggle with every other soul and the strongest gets the victory and the weakest goes to death. It becomes a playground where the Lord is playing like a child, and we are His playmates, His fellow - workers. This is only a play, however terrible, hideous, and dangerous it may appear. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 160.) Thus there is a great opening for the Vedanta to do beneficent work both here and elsewhere. This wonderful idea of the sameness and omnipresence of the Supreme Soul has to be preached for the amelioration and elevation of the human race here as elsewhere. Wherever there is evil and wherever there is ignorance and want of knowledge, I have found out by experience that all evil comes, as our scriptures say, relying upon differences, and that all good comes from faith in equality, in the underlying sameness and oneness of things. This is the great Vedantic ideal. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 194.) We stopped giving to others - hence the degradation ‘Why should we Indians bother about the enlightenment of the world?’ is a question that comes easily to mind. We need to examine it, understand it in a wider perspective. Contributing to our bigger identity is necessary for our existence. If the contribution stops, then the degeneration starts. If the ‘part’ hurts the ‘whole’ then the destruction of the ‘part’ is sure. Swami Vivekananda said,

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Where are the Greeks today -they whose armies marched over the whole world? Gone, thousands of years -nobody knows where. Vanished, as soon as the barbarians of the north came and attacked them. Where are the mighty Romans, whose cohorts came and trampled the face of the earth? Where are they today? Gone-vanished like the morning dew, and left behind in the march. But here are the Hindus -three hundred million strong. (CWSV, vol. IX, p. 256) Though we can be justifiably proud that we never worked to destroy others, we must admit that for various reasons we stopped contributing to the world and therefore, degeneration set in. Swami Vivekananda in his very inspiring speech ‘Work before Us” says, One atom in this universe cannot move without dragging the whole world along with it. There cannot be any progress without the whole world following in the wake, and it is becoming every day clearer that the solution of any problem can never be attained on racial, or national, or narrow grounds. Every idea has to become broad till it covers the whole of this world, every aspiration must go on increasing till it has engulfed the whole of humanity, nay, the whole of life, within its scope. This will explain why our country for the last few centuries has not been what she was in the past. We find that one of the causes which led to this degeneration was the narrowing of our view, narrowing the scope of our actions. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 269.) Impact of Vedanta seen on the World Indians never went with swords in hand to transmit spirituality to the world. A land which considered the whole world as the expression of one’s own self could not of course go on destroying or conquering others, as there is no ‘other’. But then, how did India influence the world? It was by living the ideals that it stood for. The lives of people -not just the great or well known persons but even that of ordinary, unknown people- radiated spiritual truths. Those who go out of India on visits as students or for work or to settle down in other countries have a great responsibility of living the great 60

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spiritual principles of our country. It is only by living these principles will we have the power to influence others. Within India we have to develop our society with Abhyudaya (Material well-being and development) and Nishreyas (Inner well being and evolution) so that people from all over the world would long to come here and learn. As they came in the past or as they come even now they would and should throng India in future to learn. The influence of India has always been silent. Says Swami Vivekananda, Slow and silent, as the gentle dew that falls in the morning, unseen and unheard yet producing a most tremendous result, has been the work of the calm, patient, all-suffering spiritual race upon the world of thought. Once more history is going to repeat itself. (CWSV, vol.III, p. 110.) Swami Vivekananda explained very movingly about how the impact of India is seen and will be seen in the world. Do you not find how everything is being revolutionised? Do you not see how it was the custom to take for granted that everything was wicked until it proved itself good? In education, in punishing criminals, in treating lunatics, in the treatment of common diseases even, that was the old law. What is the modern law? The modern law says, the body itself is healthy; it cures diseases of its own nature. Medicine can at the best but help the storing up of the best in the body. What says it of criminals? It takes for granted that however low a criminal may be, there is still the divinity within, which does not change, and we must treat criminals accordingly. All these things are now changing, and reformatories and penitentiaries are established. So with everything. Consciously or unconsciously that Indian idea of the divinity within everyone is expressing itself even in other countries. And in your books is the explanation which other nations have to accept. The treatment of one man to another will be entirely revolutionised, and these old, old ideas of pointing to the weakness of mankind will have to go. They will have received their death-blow within this century. Now people may stand up and criticise us. I have been criticised, from Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World!

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one end of the world to the other, as one who preaches the diabolical idea that there is no sin! Very good. The descendants of these very men will bless me as the preacher of virtue, and not of sin. I am the teacher of virtue, not of sin. I glory in being the preacher of light, and not of darkness. ....The old lines of demarcation and differentiation are vanishing rapidly. Electricity and steam - power are placing the different parts of the world in intercommunication with each other, and, as a result, …When we go out of our country, we find the same brother - man, with the same strong hand to help, with the same lips to say godspeed; and sometimes they are better than in the country in which we are born. When they come here, they find the same brotherhood, the same cheer, the same godspeed. ...Thus we find solidarity coming in spite of itself. Even in politics and sociology, problems that were only national twenty years ago can no more be solved on national grounds only. They are assuming huge proportions, gigantic shapes. They can only be solved when looked at in the broader light of international grounds. International organisations, international combinations, international laws are the cry of the day. That shows the solidarity. In science, every day they are coming to a similar broad view of matter. You speak of matter, the whole universe as one mass, one ocean of matter, in which you and I, the sun and the moon, and everything else are but the names of different little whirlpools and nothing more. Mentally speaking, it is one universal ocean of thought in which you and I are similar little whirlpools; and as spirit it moveth not, it changeth not. It is the One Unchangeable, Unbroken, Homogeneous Atman. The cry for morality is coming also, and that is to be found in our books. The explanation of morality, the fountain of ethics, that also the world wants; and that it will get here. (CWSV, vol. III, pp. 240 – 241.) This is what Swami Vivekananda had predicted in the 19th century and today we see in the 21st century that the new-age spiritualists are talking the same language. Whether they acknowledge or not the influence of the Vedanta in their thoughts is unmistakable. Turning Point or Hidden Connections’ or other books written by Fritjoff Capra or 62

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A Theory of Everything or Spectrum of Consciousness by Ken Wilber to quote a few are inspired by this integrality of existence. Eleanor Stark in her book on Swami Vivekananda titled, The Gift Unopened: A New American Revolution, writes, Columbus discovered the soil of America, Vivekananda discovered its soul. If the soul is stirring now and searching for expression amid the accumulating material ills of the 20th century, it is to him we shall owe our rebirth. The world renowned historian, A L Basham wrote about Swamiji, Even now a hundred years after the birth of Narendranath Dutta, who later became Swami Vivekananda, it is very difficult to evaluate his importance in the scale of world’s history. It is certainly far greater than any Western historian or most Indian historians would have suggested at the time of his death. The passing of years and many stupendous and unexpected events which have occurred since then suggest that in centuries to come he will be remembered as one of the main molders of the modern world. Up India! Conquer the world Though Swami Vivekananda talked of enlightening the world, he also reminded us, We never preached our thoughts with fire and sword. …Slow and silent, as the gentle dew that falls in the morning, unseen and unheard yet producing a most tremendous result, has been the work of the calm, patient, all-suffering spiritual race upon the world of thought. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 110) Swamiji had also shown the hollowness of the theory of the ‘Survival of the Fittest’. He had pointed out, Ay, it is a curious fact that while nations after nations have come upon the stage of the world, played their parts vigorously for a few moments, and died almost without leaving a mark or a ripple on the ocean of time, here we are living, as it were, an eternal life. They talk a great deal of the new theories about the survival of the Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World!

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fittest, and they think that it is the strength of the muscles which is the fittest to survive. If that were true, any one of the aggressively known old world nations would have lived in glory today, and we, the weak Hindus, who never conquered even one other race or nation, ought to have died out; yet we live here three hundred million strong! (A young English lady once told me: What have the Hindus done? They never even conquered a single race!) And it is not at all true that all its energies are spent, that atrophy has overtaken its body: that is not true. There is vitality enough, and it comes out in torrents and deluges the world when the time is ripe and requires it. (CWSV, vol. III, p.181.) And yet Swami Vivekananda told us, “Up India! Conquer the world with your Spirituality.” Said he, Everything looks propitious and Indian thought, philosophical and spiritual, must once more go over and conquer the world. The problem before us, therefore, is assuming larger proportions every day. It is not only that we must revive our own country —that is a small matter; I am an imaginative man- and my idea is the conquest of the whole world by the Hindu race. There have been great conquering races in the world. We also have been great conquerors. The story of our conquest has been described by that noble Emperor of India, Ashoka, as the conquest of religion and of spirituality. Once more the world must be conquered by India. This is the dream of my life, and I wish that each one of you who hear me today will have the same dream in your minds, and stop not till you have realized the dream. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 276.) Swami Vivekananda was once asked in an interview in 1898: “What do you consider the distinguishing feature of your movement, Swamiji?” “Aggression,” said Swamiji promptly, “aggression in a religious sense only. Other sects and parties have carried spirituality all over India, but since the days of Buddha we have been the first to 64

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break bounds and try to flood the world with missionary zeal.” (Prabuddha Bharata, vol. V, p. 225, September, 1898.) Here Swamiji talks of conquest of the world, aggression. He was called a cyclonic monk! And he also says that India’s work is silent and spiritual. So though there seems to be a paradox, in reality there is no paradox. What Swami Vivekananda meant was that we have to be proactive, aggressively proactive in taking the message of spirituality to the world. Here aggression does not mean attack, but sustained, sincere and pro-active work. Conquest does not mean defeating or destroying others but helping all in their inner growth, saving them from destruction. Swamiji explained this, Up, India, and conquer the world with your spirituality! Ay, as has been declared on this soil first, love must conquer hatred, hatred cannot conquer itself. Materialism and all its miseries can never be conquered by materialism. Armies when they attempt to conquer armies only multiply and make brutes of humanity. Spirituality must conquer the West. Slowly they are finding out that what they want is spirituality to preserve them as nations. They are waiting for it, they are eager for it. Where is the supply to come from? Where are the men ready to go out to every country in the world with the messages of the great sages of India? Where are the men who are ready to sacrifice everything, so that this message shall reach every corner of the world? Such heroic souls are wanted to help the spread of truth. Such heroic workers are wanted to go abroad and help to disseminate the great truths of Vedanta. The world wants it; without it the world will be destroyed. The whole of the Western world is on a volcano which may burst tomorrow, go to pieces tomorrow. They have searched every corner of the world and have found no respite. They have drunk deep of the cup of pleasure and found it vanity. Now is the time to work so that India’s spiritual ideas may penetrate deep into the West. Therefore young men of Madras, I specially ask you to remember this. We must go out; we must conquer the world through our Wake up, Bharat to Enlighten the World!

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spirituality and philosophy. There is no other alternative, we must do it or die. The only condition of national life, of awakened and vigorous national life, is the conquest of the world by Indian thought. (CWSV, vol. III, p. 277.) The whole humanity is going though the pain of disintegration, irreligiosity and fundamentalism. Christian countries face the problem of irreligiosity and less and less people attend church on a regular basis. The peace and growth of human life in the Muslim nations the world over is threatened by implosion (the strife within), restlessness. We can feel the pain that man is undergoing the world over. As Sant Tukaram had told ‘Budati he jana paahave na dola – I am not able to bear the fact that the people are getting destroyed’. It is only on the basis of the Vedanta (the vision of Oneness) that Christianity and Islam can come out of the present situation the world over. Christians and Muslims born in India have this mission of protecting all that is great and elevating in their religion with the help of the Vedanta for the sake of humanity. They have the great advantage that being born in India they can internalize Vedanta and guide their co-religionists. Thus, whatever may be our religious faiths, all of us have to work for enlightening the world, for the good of humanity. It means we have to work for the regeneration of this land on the lines laid down by the great Rishis, on the lines of the Vedanta. As the nation celebrates the 150 Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, we should offer ourselves; our time and energy to rekindle and realize the mission, “Wake up, Bharat! Enlighten the World” – the mission given by Swami Vivekananda to us. Giving up the mentality of separateness, untouchability based on caste and creed, all of us have to work for the spread of the message of Oneness by serving the needy. Not destruction but construction, not separateness but oneness, not selfishness but sacrifice for the good of all, not dissension but harmony, should become the mission of our youth. For all of us who are more than 20 years old this is The Time to offer ourselves to this great task. It is said that a great occasion has its own power and vibrations. The occasion of the 150 Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda is one such occasion for all those who are above 66

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20 years – a now or never occasion- to work on a large scale for Swami Vivekananda, for India, for humanity. The 150 Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda is a propitious time for us. In Swami Vivekananda’s time his work restored India’s dignity and self-respect. That was the first Vivekananda wave. That wave set in the movement for freedom. The second wave arose when the Birth Centenary of Swami Vivekananda was celebrated. The spread of his thoughts during the celebrations helped us regain our military prowess and re-build our economy – a confidence that we had lost in the war with China. Gradually India emerged as a military and economic strength. The celebration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda should emerge as the third wave which would bring back for us the cultural confidence that our great Rishis had and so had proclaimed Krinvanto Vishwam Aryam – ‘Let us make the whole world noble’. The great fortune of having taken birth in this land and during this propitious time is to be taken to fulfillment. The call of Swami Vivekananda ‘Arise, Awake and stop not till the goal is reached!’ would propel us to move forward on this path. 

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swdwi{tveF*ananda sardh shati, sawr,aroh sertra -

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About the Book Why was the West electrified when Swani ,:vel,r .,J r,rr,i,rr:d r(.ssed the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 ;nc ir 1ir,- . r'lfSe Of hiS subsequent tour of the US and Europe? Wit. i r,r,., 'rf ii).,::),lgil tO US contained in his letters and speeci'tet r:r , "'()l l :;r'rr''rt iolcrnbo to Almora? i;:,1:":""The

150 Birth Anniversary Celebrations of Swami Vivekananda will be a ,,, . histsric landmark for Bharat, nay for the enfire world.

What marks this particular celebration is the deep churning Lhat willtake place -the globalscenario and Bharat's role in it. lt will mark a revisihng of Swami Vivekananda's life and message and necessarily, Bharat's mission given to it by her Rishis of yore - Krinvunto Vishwam Aryam ' 'Make the whole world noble'.

is Wake up, Bhoratl Enlighten the World !l present book examines and elaborates the In three chapters, the proves beyond doubt that Bharat's motto. lt scientific bases of this and spreading that message of existence vision of Oneness vision, the wise and sustainable way is only her the af existence the roison d'etre peace, development. and inclusive harmony to

The motto of the Celebrations

A strifeless society will be the supreme and mast precious

gift thct lndia

can give to the waild. lt will be an unparalleled *nd inconceivable oct at' Service.

Eknathji Renude

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