by Peter Holleran


    The illustrious Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) combined in himself a tough-minded adherence to discriminative non-dualism (Advaita Vedanta) with a fierce devotion to the Divine Mother in her aspect as the goddess Kali, an inheritance from his master, Sri Ramakrishna. His passionate oratory and incisive writings continually warned against religious narrow-mindedness and complacency, and one-sided world views of both east and west. He spoke of a fusion of ideals, and his pioneering work set the stage for many eastern teachers to spread the dharma in foreign lands.

    Before his birth Vivekananda’s mother had a dream in which Lord Shiva promised to be born as her son. Narendra, as Vivekananda was then known, showed unusual signs of spiritual development from his early boyhood. When he went to sleep he would see a light appear between his eyebrows that eventually spread to envelop his entire body; then he would lose consciousness. Only years later (when questioned by Ramakrishna as to whether he saw a light before he fell asleep) did he come to realize that his experience was not the common occurrence for everyone. On their first meeting together, Ramakrishna asked Naren to sing and became absorbed in samadhi. Therein he saw that Naren was a sage whom he had called forth from a subtle plane to join him in this world. After he came out of trance he confessed, amidst profuse tears:

      “Ah, you come so late! My ears are well-nigh burnt with listening to the
      profane talk of worldly people. Oh, I am panting to unburden my mind to one
      who can appreciate my innermost experiences....Lord, I know that you are that
      ancient sage, Nara, the incarnation of Narayana - born on earth to remove the
      misery of mankind.” (1)

    Ramakrishna later revealed that he and Vivekananda had been born together many times before, trading roles; sometimes he was the master, and Vivekananda the disciple, and sometimes Vivekananda was the master and Ramakrishna the disciple.

    Restless and fun-loving as a boy, Vivekananda was active in athletics, music, and debating. He was extremely intelligent, and was later called an “unsheathed sword” by Ramakrishna, in reference to his razor-sharp discrimination and forthright boldness. He came to speak of the sad plight of his country with its “dyspeptic babajis”, and he affirmed the virtues of what he called “practical religion.”:

      “The Vedanta, therefore, as a religion must be intensely practical. We must
      be able to carry it out in every part of our lives..For, if a religion cannot help
      man wherever he may be, wherever he stands, it is not of much use: it will
      remain a theory of the chosen few.” (2)

    When he met Ramakrishna he was extremely sceptical: having been schooled in philosophy (not only did he attain a mastery of the Hindu classics and western philosophy, but he had almost verbatim familiarity with the Encyclopedia Brittannica) Vivekananda doubted the claims of the saint, and even went so far as to question whether his visions were only “caprices” of the brain. His Master never ceased praising his virtues of purity and strength of character, however, and put an end to his scepticism by granting him spiritual experiences of a profound sort on several occasions. On Vivekananda’s second visit, Ramakrishna placed his foot on his body, with the result that the room vanished and Vivekananda felt like he was about to merge into a void:

      “I was terribly frightened and thought I was facing death, for the loss of
      individuality meant that. Unable to control myself, I cried out, ‘What is
      this that you are doing to me? I have my parents at home!’ He laughed at
      this and stroking my chest said, ‘All right, let it rest now. Everything
      will come in time.’ No sooner had he said this than that strange experience
      vanished. I was myself again and found everything...as it had been before.
      All this..revolutionized my mind. I thought what it could possibly be. It
      came and went at the mere wish of this wonderful man!” (3)

    On another occasion Vivekananda was remarking to a friend that it was absurd to say that everything was God. Although he had studied Vedanta and been active in the Brahmo Samaj he mocked the Advaita philosophy when Ramakrishna taught it to him. His understanding was quickened, however, when by a touch of his Master he was catapulted into a state of continual God-communion for days on end. He found himself helplessly swooning in the vision of everything as God (an exhalted form of savikalpa samadhi). As his love for his Master grew, so did his yearning for spiritual realization. At one point he asked Ramakrishna to put him in nirvikalpa samadhi for three days and nights without a break, but the sage answered him with a rebuke, saying:

      “You fool! There is a state much higher than that...I thought you would grow
      like a huge banyan tree, sheltering thousands from the scorching misery of
      the world. But now I see that you seek your own liberation.”

    Ramakrishna predicted that once Vivekananda recognized his true spiritual identity he would leave his body by an act of will. It is alleged that he therefore kept the “keys” to higher consciousness away from Vivekananda so that the later could accomplish his teaching mission. This assumes he had the power to do so; it must be quite an advanced siddhi. (After my time spent with Kirpal Singh, I have to agree that such a thing is definitely possible, whether by the Master himself or the higher power working through Him).. Three days before passing away Ramakrishna looked Vivekananda in the eyes and transferred a current of force to him and said:

      “O Naren, today I have given you my all and have become..a penniless beggar.
      By the force of the power transmitted by me, great things will be done by you;
      only after that will you go from where you came.” (4)

    Before he died Ramakrishna gave Vivekananda the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi, but his faith was still not complete. The day before Ramakrishna’s mahasamadhi (death) he had the thought: “if, in the midst of his agonies, the Master says that he is God incarnate, then I will believe him.” In that very moment Ramakrishna turned to him and confessed his avataric status by saying:

      “O my Naren, are you still not convinced? He who was Rama, He who was Krishna, He
      himself is now Ramakrishna in this body; not in your Vedantic sense, but actually so.” (5)

      Vivekananda had a stability quite unlike the emotionally sensitive Ramakrishna, who continually passed in and out of different spiritual states. Yet his speech and writing were on fire with religious dedication, and as a man he was possessed with abundant vitality. Even as a boy he would not be restrained:

      “In my childhood I used to observe an inexhaustible force arising in me,
      overflowing my body, as it were. I used to become restless and could not
      keep quiet...If I had nothing to read, I would turn to making mischief.
      If I had been made to sit quietly for three or four days, I’d had either
      become seriously ill or have gone mad.” (6)

    After Ramakrishna’s death he took over leadership of the Ramakrishna Order, and for several years, fueled with dispassion for the world, he led the life of a wandering monk. He later came to question the usefulness of such a life, however, and near the end confessed that “more and more, the true greatness of life seems to be that of the worm doing its duty, silently and from moment to moment.” He had a ruling passion for service, and sometimes rebuked his own disciples for their incorrect ideas about spiritual life:

      “You are sentimental fools! What do you understand of religion? You are only
      good at praying with folded hands ‘O Lord! How beautiful is your nose! How sweet
      your eyes!’ and all such nonsense...and you think your salvation is secured and
      Sri Ramakrishna will come at the final hour and take you by the hand to the
      highest heaven..As if God is such an easy thing to be achieved!...You think
      jnana is dry knowledge to be attained by a desert path, killing out the
      tenderest faculties of the heart! Your bhakti is sentimental nonsense, which
      makes one impotent. You want to preach Ramakrishna as you understand him
      which is mighty little. Hands off! Who cares for your Ramakrishna? Who cares
      for your bhakti or mukti? Who cares what your scriptures say? I will go into
      a thousand hells cheerfully if I can rouse my countrymen immersed in tamas
      to stand on their own feet and be men inspired with the spirit of karma yoga...
      I am not the servant of Ramakrishna or anyone, but of him only who serves and
      helps others without caring for his own bhakti or mukti.” (7)

And again:

      “What I want to propagate is a religion that will be equally acceptable to
      all minds, it must be equally philosophic, equally emotional, equally mystic,
      and equally conducive to action.” (8)

    After six years wandering throughout India Vivekananda concluded that his mission henceforth would be to inspire his countrymen from their lethargy. He was saddened by the wretchedness and poverty he saw everywhere, and he was especially emphatic that the condition of India’s women needed to improve.

    In 1893 he journeyed to Chicago to represent India at the World Parliament of Religions. He arrived without a ticket, but happened to meet someone who knew a professor at Harvard University who wrote him a recommendation. He gave a short, impromptu speech, beginning with the words, “Brothers and sisters of America,” and seven thousand people rose to their feet and applauded. He enthralled the crowd with his charged words., and thus began a nine-year period of teaching and missionary work on three continents. The message he carried on his travels was “religion is realization, not talks nor doctrines nor theories, however beautiful they may be.” (9) He went to America twice. The first time, from 1893-1896, he toured many cities including Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, New York, teaching and lecturing day in and day out. The second trip (after going to Europe in 1896 and India in 1897) took him to the west coast, where he spent considerable time in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Stopping again in Europe, he returned once more to India, where he directed his attention to the instruction of young monks under his charge. He undertook a grueling mid-winter sojourn to the Himalayas, and the cumulative effect of all of his strenuous endeavors undermined his health. On the last day of his life he meditated three hours in the morning, taught a Sanskrit class for three more hours, and then walked two miles. In the evening he sat again for meditation. Hours later he lay down with his gaze fixed between the eyebrows and left his body; a heavenly glow was on his face. At the age of thirty-nine, Swami Vivekananda fulfilled his own prophecy that he would not live to be forty. Some of his last thoughts were embodied in these forceful words:

      “It may be that I shall find it good to get outside my body - to cast it off
      like a worn garment. But I shall not cease to work. I shall inspire men
      everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God.”

    It is interesting that Vivekananda at one time questioned whether he had received sufficient spiritual transmission and wisdom from Ramakrishna. During his wandering after the latter’s death, Vivekananda spent time with a reclusive raja yogi named Pavhari Baba. The disciples of Vivekananda tried to lure him away, imploring him to return and guide them. One brother monk even went so far as to seek out Vivekananda and accuse him of abandoning Ramakrishna for Pavhari Baba. This infuriated the Swami, who sent the monk away. He later wrote:

      “My motto is to recognize good no matter where I may come across it. This
      leads my..brother to think I may lose my devotion to the Guru. [This is an
      idea] of lunatics and bigots; for all gurus are one, fragments and radiations
      of God, the Universal Guru.”

      “Oh, it is as if hell-fire were burning [me] day and night...I feel quite
      helpless as to what to do. The Babaji throws out honeyed words [and so I stay]
      ..my brother-disciples think me very cruel and selfish. Oh, what can I do?
      Who will see deep down into my mind? Who will know how much I am suffering
      day and night?” (10)

    Just before his initation into raja yoga by Pavhari Baba (note: others say it was only hatha yoga in order to cure a stomach ailment; see "Touched by God" by Swami Chetanananda) Vivekananda had a series of visions of Sri Ramakrishna in which it was implied that he did not need to take initiation from another guru. Still, he hung on for a time, torn between his allegiance to the guru-less disciples of Ramakrishna and his desire for a living source of spiritual transmission. Brahmananda, the second most famous of Ramakrishna's disciples (of whom Ramakrishna said both were born with God-knowledge and were of the class of the "Ever-Perfect"), also sought out another guru after his Master's death, an aged Vaishnava saint in a temple in Vrindiban. [While such a practice of visiting and studying with other teachers was and is normal in the Ch'an and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, in Hindu circles one's loyalty and fidelity are more likely to be questioned]. Although he had frequent spiritual experience under Ramakrishna, after ten more years of intense spiritual effort and a final touch by the Vrindavan saint Brahmananda said he achieved perpetual samadhi, such that, even in periods of normal consciousness, he had a "fullness of God in his heart, and all around him nature vibrating with joy." He referred to the Mundaka Upanishad for his view on samadhi: "The knot of the heart, which is ignorance, is loosed, all doubts are dissolved, all evil effects of deeds are destroyed, when he who is both personal and impersonal is realized." Of Nirvikalpa Samadhi he remarked, "some say that that state is the end of spiritual experiences, but I believe it is the beginning." [Others, such as PB, might say that Sahaj was the true beginnning]

      Vivekananda embodied the ideal of the celibate yogi, and for a time after the death of Ramakrishna he was outspoken about the virtues of such a path. A number of importent incidents in his life, however, modified his position regarding the absolute nature of differing moral systems, and his views on women, which some have accused of being misogynistic and provincial. In 1891 the Maharaja of Khetri, who was a disciple of Vivekananda, brought a dancing girl in to please him. When the swami started to leave in disgust, the girl began to sing a devotional song by the Vaishnavite saint, Suradas. This profoundly moved Vivekananda, who stayed to instruct the Maharaja, letting the girl fan him. He later said that this incident transformed him greatly. (11) Another time, while staying with a family of six brothers in Tibet who shared one wife, Vivekananda was brought up short when, after trying to explain the evil of their ways, he was answered, “What selfishness, to wish to keep one woman all to oneself!” (12)

      Vivekananda argued against the notion that spirituality was for weaklings, either moral or physical, and he stressed the importance of the development of a strong body as a foundation for spiritual life:

      “Physical weakness is the cause of at least one-third of our miseries..First
      of all our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards.

      Be strong, my young friends, that is my advice to you. You will be nearer
      to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita.

      You will understand the Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little
      stronger. You will understand the mighty genius and the mighty strength of
      Krishna better with a little strong blood in you. You will understand the
      Upanishads better and the glory of the Atman, when your body stands firm
      on your feet and you feel yourselves as men.” (13)

    Vivekananda said that social life in the West was like a peal of laughter but underneath a wail and a sob, while in India it was sad and gloomy on the surface, but underneath carelessness and merriment. His life work was to bring forth the ancient Vedic dharma as a universal religion to unite all in the way of truth.

   [See also The Neo-Vedanta of Swami Vivekananda: Part One]

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  1. Life of Ramakrishna, compiled from various authentic sources, 2nd ed. (Calcutta:
     Advaita Ashram, 1928, rep. 1964), p. 332
  2.The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. II (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1976), p. 291, 300
  3. Life of Ramakrishna, op. cit., p. 334
  4. The Life of Swami Vivekananda, by his Eastern and Western Disciples, Vol 1, 5th ed.,
      2 Vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1979), p. 182
  5. Ibid p. 183
  6. Ibid, p. 32
  7. Ibid, Vol. II, pp. 616-617
  8. The Complete Works, Vol II, p. 389
  9. The Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 322-323
10. The Life of Swami Vivekananda, Vol I, op.cit, pp. 235-236
     For an account of the life of Pavhari Baba see:
     Ty Koonz, “Life Underground: The Story of Pavhari Baba,” The Laughing Man
     Vol. 4, No. 4 (Clearlake, CA: The Dawn Horse Press, 1985), pp. 49-53
11. Romain Rolland, The Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel (Calcutta:
     Advaita Ashram, 1931 reprinted 1975), pp. 24-25
12. Ibid
13. Swami Vivekananda, Education (Hollywood, CA: Vedanta Press)