RELEVANCE OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

By Nilima Majumdar
Indian history is inseparable from the history of spirituality and religion. Foremost among our spiritual leaders is Swami Vivekananda who found that spirituality could solve the problems confronting humanity. He showed himself as one belonging to entire humanity. It is Vivekananda who gave a new dimension to the Indian philosophy. He preached that the best and sincerest way of worshiping God was to love fellow beings, especially the poor and the weak and alleviate their suffering and distress. He strongly espoused that our country should first become free from ignorance, poverty and disease. Swamiji harmonized east and west, religion and science, past and present. That is why he is so great.
When in the 19th century a fog of despondency had engulfed our land, Swami Vivekanada’s message of self-respect and self-realisation came through like a beam of sunshine and a beacon of hope. With the blessings of his master, Sri Sri Ramakrishna Parmahansa he transformed the thoughts of our scriptures from an archaical curiosity into a living vision of our nation’s greatness.
The name Vivekananda signifies one who can distinguish right from wrong. He was a noble sage who had a universal appeal and vision which ennobled everyone who came in contact with him or with his preachings. At the young age of thirty he participated at the inaugural meeting of the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in the United States of America in September 1893. He took the audience by storm. The flame he lit is still alight and from his teachings and discourses have sprung the conscience of India, its faith in her unity amongst diversity and in his great message mankind finds solace and confidence.
Swami Vivekananda always had before him the great motto of elevation of the masses. He always would feel the pain of the poor and the downtrodden. He was a farsighted person. He had realized even in those early days that casteism is the root cause and obstacle , in fact the bane, in the progress of our country. He was dead against it. Today we are trying our best at every level to remove casteism and caste based policies. Many of his speeches are full of sympathy for the poor, the downtrodden and the fallen masses of our society. His messages were always for gospels of salvation, social elevation and equality of all. He would feel strongly that class and caste feelings should be abolished from our hearts and minds and then only could we make efforts towards progress.
From the writings and speeches of Swamiji we derive considerable knowledge of hindu culture and religion from a modern point of view. He gave us the message of a New India. He instilled pride in ourselves. We felt that we are not an uncivilized and barbarious society but people of great spiritual and cultural heritage. This gave us back our self-respect. Indian renaissance was essentially a cultural and spiritual movement.
Though many spiritual leaders were actively involved in spreading the spiritual movement in india but it was Swamiji who brought the true message and meaning of the renaissaince movement to the youth of India. He infact laid the greatest stress on character building. Swami Vivekananda taught us to ignore the excrescence of our culture and go back to the Upanishads, the Bhagvad Gita and find in them the truth of our culture. Thus he brought God into our lives. It is Swamiji who taught us that religion must necessarily mean that God should come in one’s life, i.e., by consecrating all our actions as an offering to God Himself. He always used to send and spread the message: to live for others, to conquer egoism, to sink our ‘ swartha ‘ in Parmathma.
Rooted in the past and full of pride in India’s prestige, Vivekananda was yet modern in his thinking and approach to life’s problems and was a kind of bridge between the past and the present. He was a handsome figure of a man of strength and beauty, imposing, full of poise and dignity, sure of himself and his mission and at the same time full of dynamic and fiery energy and passion to push India forward. He came as a tonic for the depressed and demoralized Hindu mind and gave it self-reliance and some roots in the past. Swamiji gave us certain pride in our heritance. He talked about our failures and weaknesses too. He was not a politician but definitely a great founder of our national modern movement of India and a great number of people drew inspiration from him. Directly or indirectly, he has powerfully influenced the India of today with his fountain of wisdom, of spirit and fire. Swami Vivekananda was a true patriot. The political subjugation of the country as well as the social degradation into which our country had fallen was a challenge which he met with complete fearlessness.-
In his time, India stood at an important crossroad in her chequered history. He warned the people of the danger we faced by trying to seize the shadows and letting the substance go. Living in an age of speed and great scientific developments we have opportunities greater than ever to build society and the world and the Swamiji’s message is that man must begin with himself. The best form of homage we can pay today is to rededicate ourselves to the value for which Swami Vivekananda stood and for which he worked.
Vivekananda was not only a spiritual leader of India, he was a leader of the people of India to show them the path of love, peace and universal brotherhood. He was a person who was emotionally involved with the progress of the country for its people. He was a person who has taught us to live for others. To serve mankind, is to serve God is what he told us. 
Today we do not have any leader to show the true path of peace, love and harmonious co-existence. We have politicians who can tell us only about India’s problems but cannot solve them. For solutions we need leaders.
It is a very sad state of affairs in India today where we have no leader to lead us to new horizons of hope, peace, and fulfillment. We are drifting aimlessly, sometimes wrongly guided by our politicians to reach our goal. Barring a few, we have only politicians amongst us today who only politicize our problems without solutions. Time is running out. It is time to unite and find a leader amongst us.
A pioneer of the Indian renaissance , Swamiji raised our religion to a pedestal of worshipful dignity at the same time warning his countrymen of the unfortunate excrescences which have dimmed it. We need someone of the like of Swami Vivekananda to lead us to the path of peace, progress and tranquility in these times of despair and turbulence the world over.