His Call
Beckons
Joyesh
In Swamiji, the soul heard, as it were,
its own voice calling to itself.
Marie Louise Burke
The century we live in is characterized
by the unprecedentedly painful dualities of unimaginable affluence and mind
numbing poverty, centralised autocratic power and hopeless powerlessness, surreal
flights of knowledge and abject ignorance, hypertrophy at one end and atrophy
at the other. This pain is accentuated further by the cold indifference that
world shows towards amelioration of these and instead propagates ruthless and
heartless steps towards ‘managing’ the conflicts that arise from these. Furthermore
to satisfy the insatiable lust for wealth and power the rich and the powerful are
incessantly developing devious and despicable ways of self aggrandizement at
the expense of the helpless majority.
The century is also pregnant with
possibilities. Perhaps greater than ever before the world has affirmed Swami
Vivekananda’s keen insight that the problem of life is becoming deeper and
broader every day as the world moves on highlighting the solidarity of all
life. 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 humanity1. On the
one hand globalised networks have enabled the slow permeation of the vedantic
principles to give rise to the varied New Age movements. On the other hand recent
history has proved that technology assisted anonymous networks of concerned courageous
individuals, can amalgamate to engender social waves that bring supposedly invincible
tyrannies to their knees and weave dreams of freedom and liberty.
Amidst the pleasure and pain, struggle
and resistance, exuberance, chaos and volatile expression of life that world witnesses, an either-or is slowly
taking shape – either spiritualise or descend into barbarism. Swami
Vivekanada’s agenda of spiritualization of whole human race is gradually
occupying an urgent and prominent space in the mental sphere of humanity. Either
the world discovers an unshakable, deep-lying and permanent basis and support
for the democratic and libertarian ideals honed over the ages or those ideals
will inevitably degenerate, just as do all things in this world that are nor
rooted in and nourished by spiritual truth.
The life and teachings of Swami
Vivekananda have been illuminating the paths of innumerable souls, giving a new
meaning to their lives. Renunciation and service were the twin glowing ideals
that Vivekananda placed before humanity. The power behind his persona is slowly
uncoiling itself in the world stage over the last century. Countless people
have attempted to mould their lives in their own way and as per their own
readings of the ideal of Swamiji and as a process have silently moulded the 20th
century leaving behind their mark in diverse fields of human activity – in
spirituality, monasticism, service, culture, art, politics, philosophy,
literature, science and many others. However,
a practical question faces all those who struggle to express in their lives the
ideals presented by Swamiji. Standing in the inception of the 21st
century how does one translate one’s life in light of Swamiji’s call.
Responding to the call one develops an intense desire to realize the truth and
yet one has to live in the world of anguish, suffering and resistance. To live
with an intense inward search and the pain of the outward social existence is a
challenge for all spiritual seekers.
Characteristic
of the age
The world presents a scenario of
clashing ideals and aims in life where scientific knowledge and technology have
accumulated immense power in the hands of a few which however are widely being
used for narrow sectarian, nationalistic ends at the expense of humanity. Lived
experience has led to the keen disappointment of the realization that happiness
and peace does not accompany affluence and material prosperity. Humanity’s cold
technical knowledge has outstripped humanity’s expansiveness for warmly embracing
the world. The mind has raced way beyond the heart.
However this is also the age of ‘Man’.
Everywhere in the world the common man – the laboring classes, the lower
classes, are struggling to assert their inherent rights as human beings to a
decent and dignified way of life : the right to live with dignity, to work, to
play, and to grow. Man is, indeed asserting his birthright to be a man. Swamiji
is the prophet of this upward surge of humanity – the struggle to manifest the blissful
divine in each and every one of us.
The past century has been the century of
politico-centric activity with its political ideals and political solutions. The
twentieth century history has shown the pitfalls and the limits of this political
centrality and reiterated Swamiji again and again that humanity cannot cling to
the belief that political and social changes are the only panacea for the evils
that confront us. No amount of political and social manipulation of human
conditions can cure the evils of life. No amount of force, or government, or
legislative cruelty will change the conditions – but it is spiritual culture.2
Spirituality and spiritual life encompass far greater field of human life than
political doctrines can ever envisage.
Swami
Vivekananda’s call
It is our divine nature that propels us
towards freedom. ‘It is God within your own self that is propelling you
to seek for Him, to realize Him’3. Our lives are a struggle to
manifest the being under circumstances, external and internal, that tries to
press it down. We are born rebels – rebellion against the thralldom of the
senses to break free and realize absolute freedom. Consciously or unconsciously
we are all seeking this freedom and this
human essence is the reef on which all the mighty and powerful, all tyrants and
institutionalized tyrannies have foundered.
Swamiji’s ideal was not that of a
permanent spiritual recluse and his heart ached for human misery and
degradation on every level – physical, mental, emotional, intellectual,
political, of course spiritual. He cried for the ignorant, for the bereaved,
for the suppressed, for the miserable of all nations and creeds. His clarion
call was the embodied voice of a faint echo from the distant past – that each
soul is potentially divine and the goal is to manifest that divinity within. His
message was a song of freedom for the essence of the goal is freedom –
material, mental and spiritual.
With pain and passion he had declared
“Him I call a Mahatman (great soul) whose heart bleeds for the poor, otherwise
he is a Duratman (wicked soul). Let us unite our wills in continued prayer for
their good. We may die unknown, unpitied, unbewailed, without accomplishing
anything -- but not one thought will be lost. It will take effect, sooner or
later. So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a
traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to
them!”4
And again warning against those cold and
indifferent supposed spiritual seekers he had admonished ‘Do you think that a
man who does not exert himself at all, who only takes the name of Hari,
shutting himself up in a room, who remains quiet and indifferent even when
seeing a huge amount of wrong and violence done to others before his very eyes,
possesses the quality of Sattva? Nothing of the kind, he is only enshrouded in
dark Tamas.’5 To engage with the world selflessly, constructively,
courageously , with empathy and with ‘manliness’ is the ideal which Swamiji
presented for the modern age.
Manliness
Vivekananda laid immense stress on
‘Manliness’ as the most important quality for spiritual seekers of the age. Manliness
is one of the first expressions in the body, mind, heart and will of the
manifestation of the divine, the self – which is an ocean whose shores are
defined by infinite bliss, knowledge and existence. To have the quality of
manliness was to be established in the Self, to rejoice in the Self, to want
nothing, to fear nothing, to dislike nothing, to serve all. Free and strong men
and women thinking their own thoughts, speaking their words and hewing their
own route to the infinite are the ones who will be able to make the future
which Swamiji envisioned. “Perfect sincerity, holiness, gigantic intellect and
an all-conquering will. Let only a handful of men work with these, the whole
world will be revolutionized … It is patient upbuilding of character, the
intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future.6
[Vol. iii p.335]
Be a man; be free; be strong! Only
spiritually free and strong men and women, taking their stand on the Self – the
Atman – can truly deify this world, can truly revere it and work in it
tirelessly, without desire or fear, motivated by love alone. And only such men
and women can meet the unprecedentedly terrible challenge of this age. Only such
men and women will have the mental strength and will power to renounce and
serve without the desire for wealth and name and fame that is required for the
realization of the divine and welfare of the world.
Renunciation
Ramakrishna – Vivekananda tradition has
emphatically reiterated that renunciation is the most important foundation of
all spiritual disciplines. Though it is one clean thread that runs through the
spiritual history of mankind nevertheless it runs counter to the modernist and
post modernist thought currents of the world. However, Swamiji was categorical that
renunciation, is the flag and the banner of the civilization of India, floating
over the world, the one undying thought which India sends again and again as a
warning to dying races, as a warning to all tyranny, as a warning to wickedness
in the world. Renunciation is the necessary category and fact of life that all
sincere seekers sooner or later stumble upon in their journey to the divine. In
Swamiji’s words ‘The absolute or the Infinite is trying to express itself in
the finite, but there will come a time when it will find that it is impossible
and it will then have to beat a retreat, which is the real beginning of
religion … Renounce and give up”7. Give up the world as we think of
it, as we know it, as it appears to us – know what it really is – Deify it, it
is God alone.
If one oneself is divine, all others are
equally that same infinite and adorable being
… one’s every action becomes service and that service is worship.
Material goods and facilities at once take a subordinate place in the society.
They become a festival of offerings wherein every man, woman and child is being
worshipped and served - that is all.
The ideal of renunciation also works to
solve how little a man needs to have in contrast to the modern ever receding
horizon of how much a man can possess. It presents an ideal of simplified
joyous and expansive life at play with the divine as a riposte to the
unsustainable society of affluence with its contracted, insecure and alienated
lives.
This man making religion of renunciation
and freedom is Swamiji’s antidote to the thick brew of problems – economic,
political, social, spiritual – cooking in the world today.
The
cult of Nobodies
One has to incessantly work to purify
the mind from all selfish desires to give oneself away without any expectation
of return and bereft of any hankering for wealth, name or fame with complete
self abnegation as the ideal. A difficult or rather an almost impossible ideal
it may appear, but whether ones likes it or not it has to be attempted for the
benefit of oneself and the world. The nameless but bold, brave and the fearless
have to clear the road for the others to follow. Swamiji in his clear vision
had forecasted “Sacrifice in the past has been the Law; it will be, alas, for ages
to come. The earth’s bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the
good of many, for the welfare of all. Budhas by
the hundred are necessary with eternal love and pity.”8
One has to stand on one’s own strength
and struggle on in bad time and good through drear and painful road for
inscrutably that is the divine order of things. The anonymous, humble and poor
but bold, brave and free are the ones who are most likely to change themselves
and the world. Swamiji had been emphatic “Trust not to the so - called rich,
they are more dead than alive. The hope lies in you -- in the meek, the lowly,
but the faithful. Have faith in the Lord; no policy, it is nothing. Feel for
the miserable and look up for help -- it shall come.”9 And again “We
are poor, my brothers, we are nobodies, but such have been always the
instruments of the Most High.”10
As a part of spiritual discipline one
has to undertake activity as spiritual practice, but have no eye to its
results. Giving up the fruits of work means not to perform work for the good of
one's own body or mind i.e. not for seeking
one’s own happiness. One works for the welfare of others with self abnegation
as the end. Whatever work he does without attachment for its fruits brings only
good to the world -- it is all "for the good of the many, for the
happiness of the many".
One works in pursuance of one’s
professional life – in the realm of necessity - where one’s freedom to a large
extent is constrained. One also involves in activity beyond one’s professional life
– in the realm of freedom so to say – where one has opportunity to give full
play in working out one’s spiritual disciplines. However, in both the cases
ones endeavour as spiritual seeker remains to work like the sincere maidservant
with one’s mind constantly on one’s real home – one’s divine aim. The promise
of the prophets is that if the yearning is sincere and strong then one looses
all capacity to do evil and using Ramakrishna’s metaphor one does not sing out
of tune or dance out of steps.
The world is in dire need of courageous
and constructive work towards material amelioration, knowledge sharing and
spiritual unfoldment. The principle of raising positive waves to attenuate the
negative tendencies of the mind effectively applied in the microcosm is bound
to be also effective in the macrocosm – the social world. Steadily albeit
silently, gently and imperceptibly gigantic waves of constructive thought, word
and deed will have to be generated that will inundate the world drowning all wickedness,
hatred, inhumanity and uncharitable thought, word and actions. Constructive
energies have to be channelized through lines of least resistance with activity
fundamentally premised on the principles of indifference to evil, rejoicing
with the happy, mercy for the sad and afflicted. The transformation of oneself
and of the world – materially and spiritually – is the ideal which Swamiji
embodied and presented.
Spiritualisation
of the human race
History has stamped each civilization
with its distinct signature – a civilisational ideal or a unique note in the
grand symphony of the human civilization. Each civilization so to say provides
its inimitable fragrance in the bouquet that is formed by the accumulated life
experiences of humanity. As per Swami Vivekananda for good or for bad India’s
uniqueness has been stamped long back in history and that her main note remains
her spirituality - waxing and waning in intensity through the ups and downs of
her fortune. It is her task to nurture its expansive religious acceptance, its
ideal of oneness and the grand solidarity of life, its renunciation and also
the myriad different routes for the realization of the ideals. History has entrusted
the responsibility of gifting these ideals to the world as her own distinctive
note in the grand orchestra. Not only this, there is an associated urgency too –
for the world needs it and eagerly awaits this gift. In Swamiji’s words “This
is the great ideal before us, and every one must be ready for it -- the
conquest of the whole world by India -- nothing less than that, and we must all
get ready for it, strain every nerve for it. …… 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. ………. 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. ….. We must go out, we must conquer the world
through our spirituality and philosophy. There is no other alternative, we must
do it or die.”11
The vedantic ideals which were the exclusive possession of
a select few need to be disseminated far and wide in thought, word and deed for
the good of humanity at home and abroad. In Swamiji’s words “To become broad, to go out, to amalgamate, to
universalise, is the end of our aims… the more you go out and travel among the
nations of the world, the better for you and for your country. .. . The first
manifest effect of life is expansion. You must expand if you want to live. The
moment you have ceased to expand, death is upon you, danger is ahead.”12
The process of permeation has to be
slow, silent, unperceived without disturbing even the ‘roadside dust’. It is on
a par with everything in India. The one characteristic of Indian thought is its
silence, its calmness. At the same time the tremendous power that is behind it
is never expressed by violence. It is always the silent mesmerism of Indian
thought.13 However there are several dangers in the way which need to
ruthlessly shunned. One is that of the extreme conception that we are the people in the world and rest are inferior to
us. The other is that in the guise of spirituality all kinds of pervasive superstitions,
mystery mongering, magic have taken deep roots and these have to be weeded out
and thrown aside, so that they may die for ever. Instead of reasoned out
spiritual disciplines debates have raged on ‘momentous’ questions of touchableness
and untouchableness, and dress, and food and loads of other crystallized
superstitions in our conduct and minds. Conquest of the world 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. Swamiji
had warned that “I would rather see every one of you rank atheists than
superstitious fools, for the atheist is alive and you can make something out of
him. But if superstition enters, the brain is gone, the brain is softening,
degradation has seized upon the life.”14
Swamiji was categorical that “Every
system, … which weakens the mind, makes one superstitious, makes one mope,
makes one desire all sorts of wild impossibilities, mysteries, and
superstitions, I do not like, because its effect is dangerous. Such systems
never bring any good; such things create morbidity in the mind, make it weak,
so weak that in course of time it will be almost impossible to receive truth or
live up to it. Strength, therefore, is the one thing needful. Strength is the
medicine for the world's disease. Strength is the medicine which the poor must
have when tyrannised over by the rich. Strength is the medicine that the
ignorant must have when oppressed by the learned; and it is the medicine that
sinners must have when tyrannised over by other sinners”.15
Incessant
Practice
As a strange mystical law the infinite –
the essence of our own souls – at times embodies to adjust and present the
route of ascension suited for the age. In Ramakrishna – Vivekananda the soul as
it were embodied itself to call forth the soul within us all to realize its
divinity. It is well known that Swamiji’s, indeed Sri Ramakrishna’s, ideal of a
well rounded personality was the
integration of the four yogas of work, devotion, psychic control and
philosophy. They have also vivified that life is much more than mere conformity
with the rules of self preservation and aggrandizement but is an incessant
struggle, internal and external, to manifest the divine. Intense and sincere practice of spiritual
disciplines internally and continuation of spiritual practice by selfless
engagement with the world outside is the ideal which they established.
Swamiji or the rather the whole
Ramakrishna movement he represented stands for actual practice and realization
of the spiritual truths and not mere intellectual assent to doctrines and
dogmas. Religions is not parroting thoughts of others but is being and becoming
– it is realization. The world is a gymnasium where one has to live and work to
transcend ones desire and ego to joyfully act and play in the divine unfolding.
One has to be akin to a candle that burns from two ends – to intensely pursue
spiritual disciple internally and externally to work in the world informed by
spiritual discipline. When the two ends coalesce – the world is deified and one
dissolves into the blissful play of the Mother.
1 : The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, v.3, p. 269.
2: CW, v.3, p.182.
3: CW, v.2, p. 81
4: CW, v.5, p.58
5: CW, v.5, p.352
6: CW, v.6. p.335
7: CW, v.2, p.99
8: CW, v.7, p.501
9: CW, v.5, p.16
10: CW, v.5, p.58
11: CW, v.3, p.277
12: CW, v.3, p.272
13: 3, 274
14: 3, 278
15: 2, 201
