For the last 4 years now, since my trip to India, I have found a deep love for Swami Vivekananda, his speeches, his writings. My appreciation and adoration from him started from spending day after day in Calcutta at home. 2 months in India started to be more of a home and less like a vacation so when Mommy couldn't climb up and down the steep 7 story stairs of the apartment in Calcutta, Riddhi was too busy with her boyfriend to visit, and everyone else was involved in the daily work grind... I spent my days reading books. All books. Books about India, about philosophy turning into a religion, history of how Vedantism turned into Hinduism, how Buddhism failed to spread in India and more in East, books written by Britishers about India, books written by Indian authors... anything. And then I ran across this book and loved it so much I had to be selfish and ask my aunt if I could have it [my mom's sister is an editor for the prestigious Oxford University Press and an avid bookworm too]. I kind of knew she wouldn't say no after my being a guest and in India and requesting just a simple not so materialistic gift.... and BAM! That book was my new found love....
He was born an aristocrat in India, with a rational upbringing from his father and religious upbringing from his mother. This led him to his spiritual quest for Truth and Religion. God as Truth.
So I spent a bit of time reading his background and essays on line:
Wikipedia states: Vivekananda is considered to be a major force in the revival of Hinduism in modern India. He introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions at Chicago in 1893... began his speech with, "Sisters and brothers of America!". To these words he got a standing ovation from a crowd of seven thousand, which lasted for two minutes.
He then went on to speak numerous more times to Parliament and give lectures all across the US in universities and such. What a pioneer for such a time!
In one letter, he wrote to Swami Akhandananda back home in India, "Go from door to door amongst the poor and lower classes of the town of Khetri and teach them religion. Also, let them have oral lessons on geography and such other subjects. No good will come of sitting idle and having princely dishes, and saying "Ramakrishna, O Lord!"—unless you can do some good to the poor."
That is so awe inspiring to me.
And to think, this was the guy that sparked the mind of Gandhi. Gandhi to spark Martin Luther King. etc. What a pioneer on the spiritual, philosophical front.
So anyways,
I love these quotes as inspirations:
It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world -- that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves!
"I am the thread that runs through all these pearls," and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.
All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.
All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.
Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power. It is not in the brain but in the heart that the Atman, possessed of knowledge, power, and activity, has its seat.
'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.' (His translation of a Hindu hymn-- a translation of a Richa?!)
sigh... I feel happy and blissful and rosey glowy now. :)
--
we live very short lives if we think about time in terms of decades and millenniums. our time on earth is very short compared to the stars and the tallest trees in the biggest forest. today i feel small.
tomorrow perhaps I'll feel bigger.
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