"Then alone a man loves when he finds that the object of his love is not any low, little, mortal thing. Then alone a man loves when he finds that the object of his love is not a clod of earth, but it is the veritable God Himself...That man will love his greatest enemy who knows that that very enemy is God Himself. That man will love a holy man, who knows that the holy man is God Himself, and that very man will also love the unholiest of men because he knows the background of that unholiest of men is even He, the Lord. Such a man becomes a world-mover for whom his little self is dead and God stands in its place."
January 12, 2013 marks the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. It is a momentous event and there are celebrations across the country. The story of Swami Vivekananda’s journey to North America to attend the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago has been told many times, many ways. It is the story of a destitute, unknown monk from an unrecognized order representing an impoverished, slave nation. The masses in India were poor and illiterate. Religion was a dead mass of superstition, of ‘don’t touchism’ Mere ritual. Women were oppressed, so were the lower castes. Sri Ramakrishna’s disciples consisted of a band of poor young men with no roof over their heads, no idea of where the next meal was coming from, a chadar which all of them shared! And yet, Swami Vivekananda dared to go to Chicago to attend an international conference where only the most illustrious figures representing various religions were invited! Today the Ramakrishna Math and Mission is a powerful institution with centres across India and the world.
Often we say: ‘What can I do? What can one man accomplish?’ The amazing story of Swami Vivekananda’s journey to Chicago answers that question once and for all. I’m basing my account on Swami Nikhilananda’s beautiful biography of Swami Vivekananda.
The story begins at the end of Swami Vivekananda’s pilgrimage across India. He swims through the shark infested sea, unafraid, to what is now called Vivekananda rock at Cape Comorin. As he sits on the rock, he thinks of the terrible poverty he has seen in his country. He agonises over how he can pull his people out of misery. Swami Vivekananda comes to Madras. His disciples support his plan to go to North America to raise funds. The Raja of Khetri anoints him with the name of Vivekananda and gifts him a turban and ochre raiment of fine silk.
Swami Vivekananda arrives in Chicago and is told that the Parliament of Religions which was to be held on July 31, 1893 has been postponed to September. Apart from the date, he has another problem; He needs credentials certified by a recognized organization. He has none. It is too late to register. His meagre purse is getting thinner. An American he meets advises him to go to Boston as it is cheaper. In the train to Boston, the affluent Kate Sanborn is intrigued by this regal, picturesque man in fancy dress. She invites him to her home. Swami Vivekananda meets many people at her house including Professor Wright of Harvard. Wright is impressed by his extraordinary intellect and erudition. He writes to several influential people asking them to help him get the necessary credentials: ‘Here is a man more learned than all our learned professors put together.’ He says to Swami Vivekananda: ‘To ask you, Swami, for your credentials, is like asking the sun about its right to shine.’
Swami Vivekananda goes to Chicago but can’t reach the organizing committee responsible for delegates. He spends the night in an empty wagon, hungry. Forgetting that he is in a strange country, he goes begging for food in the time honoured tradition of Hindu monks and has doors slammed in his face. His clothes are dirty. His unshaven face gives him the look of a tramp up to no good. Finally he sinks into a side wall utterly spent. Mrs Hale, an influential lady living in the house opposite, notices him. She guesses that he must be a delegate to the Parliament. Swami Vivekananda, childlike as always, pours out all his troubles. Mrs Hale sees to it that he gets a hot breakfast, bath and fresh clothes. She then takes him to the offices of the Parliament of Religions. Swami Vivekananda is introduced to Dr. Barrows, the president of the Parliament. Thereafter he is accepted as a delegate representing Hinduism. Swami Vivekananda never forgot the kindness and courtesy with which the Hales had received him. He became a part of their family until his death in 1902.
Swami Vivekananda attended the Parliament in the clothes the Raja of Khetri had gifted him: A red turban, ochre robe and scarlet sash. It had not occurred to anyone that these clothes might look a bit odd amidst the suits in Chicago. He carried them off with grace and dignity. At the Parliament, he kept postponing his speech. He had never addressed a public gathering before. It had not occurred to him to prepare a speech. His opening words ‘Sisters and brothers of America’ got a two minute ovation from the seven thousand people assembled. The rest is history. Swami Vivekananda spoke on behalf of the oldest religion and order of monks in the world and in the name of millions of Hindu peoples. The applause after his speech was thunderous. A delegate was amazed by ‘the scores of women walking over the benches to get near him.’ She remarked that if the thirty year old Swami Vivekananda ‘can resist that onslaught, (he is) indeed a God.’ Christopher Isherwood talks of ‘a strange kind of subconscious telepathy’ that spread through the assembly.
How did this sudden adulation and luxury affect Swami Vivekananda? He became even more acutely aware of the degradation of the Indian masses:
‘…what do I care for name and fame when my motherland remains sunk in utmost poverty?’
Life wasn't easy for Swami Vivekananda even after the Parliament of Religions. The new movement he represented consisted only of half a dozen bedraggled young men with hardly enough clothes to cover their backs. He was entirely dependent on donations and charity in the U.S. For this he needed his Indian followers to acknowledge him publicly as a genuine representative of Hinduism. He asked his disciple Alasingha to organize a public meeting with prominent people, move a vote of thanks for his service to his religion and country. It came, but it took months. Many of Swami Vivekananda’s admirers withdrew their support thinking him to be a cheat and an upstart. Funds dried up which caused him a lot of hardship. India has never known how to value its fairest flowers.
It’s typical of Swami Vivekananda that his love for his people did not suffer because of this neglect. In London someone asked him; ’Swami, how do you like now your motherland after three years’ experience of the luxurious and powerful west?’ Swami Vivekananda said: ‘India I loved before I came away. Now the very dust of India has become holy to me, the very air is now to me holy, it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the Tirtha!’
Swami Vivekananda went to North America with pennies in his pocket, a man no one had heard of and inspired the awe reserved for kings. The greatest American intellectual of the time, William James called him ‘Master.’ There were scores of others. Max Muller, Nikola Tesla, Rockefeller, Gertrude Stein, Salinger... He returned to India with name, fame and enough funds to buy the land on which the Ramakrishna Math and Mission at Belur were built. He put India on the world map as the mother of all religion and spirituality. He was recognized and revered as the spiritual and intellectual giant he was. The onslaught of science had led to a crisis of faith in the west. Swami Vivekananda understood this and preached a universal religion grounded in the rationality of the Upanishads. He brought the world together in one brotherhood of intensely aware, rational, self respecting individuals.
How did he feel when he got home? When his boat landed in Aden en route to Sri Lanka, he saw a ‘pan wallah’smoking a hookah as he went on shore. This is something that he had missed when he was in North America. Swami Vivekananda went up to the vendor and said; ‘Brother, do give me your pipe.’ One of his disciples, Mr Sevier was watching. He said: “Now we see! It was this that made you run away from us so abruptly!’ The welcome he got when he reached home was tumultuous. Did he puff up with pride? No. He was totally detached. He had been entrusted with a task by his guru and he had accomplished it. He offered all his work and achievements at Sri Ramakrishna’s feet. The heart and soul of his leadership ethic – if we can call it that was ‘thou, not I.’ His life is a living testament to his remark that ‘he who is the servant of all has the world at his feet.’
There are many paths to glory. Swami Vivekananda’s stance is like that of the bodhisattva who waits until everyone in the universe is free before seeking his own mukti. His task was to make even the weakest living being realize that it was not the scum of the earth, it was God. There are no impregnable hedges around his words, ideas or life. Everything that he was, everything that he had, became the birth right of every soul that approached him:
“He who in this world of evanescence finds Him who never changes, he who in this universe of death finds that One Life, he who in this manifold finds that Oneness... to (him) belongs eternal peace; unto none else, unto none else. Where to find Him in the external world, where to find Him in the suns, and moons, and stars? There the sun cannot illumine, nor the moon, nor the stars, the flash of lightening cannot illumine the place; what to speak of this mortal fire? He shining, everything else shines. It is His Light that they have borrowed...”
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