In November 1881, he got a very good change to visit Dakshineshwar Temple, situated in Kolkata and to visit Shri RamKrishna Paramhamsa. Paramhamsa affected by his aura but Narendra Nath could not visit him much because he was busy in preparation of F.A. (Inter) examination. Narendra Nath got admission in B.A. after passing F.A. In-between he did Satsanga of Paramhamsa. The effect of this Satsanga was that he did not tie in householder life. In 1884 he passed B.A. In the same year, his father passed away. Even his father was earning a lot but he was also spending generously. So his savings were nil. When he expired, there was no money in home. Now Narendra Nath had to work in economic field for alimony of his mother and sisters. Born and grew up in rich family, this young man had to face misery. At this time he felt that poverty is the mother of sorrows. Paramhamsa was also departed in 1886. Three days before departure, Paramhamsa gave his succession to Narendra Nath and said ‘Today, I became commoner after giving you everything of mine. Through Yoga, what power I interject in you, with that you will do great works in your life. After completing your this work only, you will go from where you came.’
After the great departure of the guru, he was involved in promoting and disseminating guru’s teachings. First year his work place was Kolkata only. After that in 1888, he set out for India tour as wandering. He reached Himalaya through Kashi, Ayodhya, Lucknow, Agra, Mathura, Vrindavan and Hathras. Generally he travelled by foot only in this tour and was promoting and disseminating the teachings of Paramhamsa Ramkrishna. He travelled Rajsthan in 1891 and south India in 1892. In this tour he saw the necked image of India and experienced the spiritual unity. He reached in Kanyakumari in the last stage of his south India tour. There he worshiped goddess in temple and then he jumped in the sea, reached with floating to a rock and meditated in austerity there. He felt divinity there. There he took vow of country service; poor’s, downtrodden and neglected Indian public welfare. From here he reached Madras (Chennai). He gave scholarly lectures on Vedanta in many places of Chennai. There people were so impressed that they collected travel expense to send him for world religion conference, to be held in America. On their insistence, he accepted to go America. He kept his name Vivekananda before leaving for America and took part in that conference in September 1893. There he introduced the world with Indian religion and philosophy. Scholars of the world impressed with his expertise. American public was running behind him. Knowing the favourable conditions he stayed three years in America and promoted Vedanta there. In between many of his books published. He went England in 1897 and gave speeches many places and promoted Vedanta. He went from England to Italy, Switzerland, Germany and France and gave lectures on Vedanta in these countries. From there again he returned England and promoted Vedanta. They he returned India.
After returning India from England, he established ”Ramkrishna Mission” whose objective was not only to promote Vedanta but also to open educational institutes and hospitals for serving the poor’s. Swamiji wanted that his followers go every village to promote education and remove the darkness of ignorance. At this time only he built a monastery which became permanent centre for followers of Ramkrishna from the beginning of 1899. Few days after only he built another monastery named Adwaita Ashram, 75 Km. from Almoda in Himalaya. After retiring from these works in 1899 Swamiji again went America. He stayed over there about one year and was giving teaching of Raj-yoga and Sadhana. In 1900, Swamiji reached France from America. There he participated in “Paris World Religion History Conference”. He returned India in the same year via Italy and Grebes. Now he was somewhat unhealthy. But even he was unhealthy; he was involved in works of religion promotion, social services and public awareness. Swamiji wrote many texts also from 1887 to 1901. Among Gyan Yoga, Karm yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raj Yoga, Prem Yoga, Religious Science, Hindu Religion, Vedanta in Practical Life, Eastern and Western, My Gurudeva, Mystery of Religion, Our India, Present India and Education are important. Now his complete literatures and important speeches are published in ten parts with the name of ‘Vivekananda Literature’. But Legislation of Lord, this person of the era got salvation in short age of 39 years on 4th July 1902.
Philosophical Thought of Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda was the student of Shri Ramkrishna Paramhamsa. Shri Paramhamsa realized the truth that the divine is in the soul and the soul is in the divine and he made this realization to his student Vivekananda also. Along with that Shri Vivekananda deeply studded the Vedas and Upanishada and he realized the truths in life predicated by it. Swamiji’s opinions were not only logical but also proved by the experiences.
Vaidika religion and philosophy is the combination of differentiation. Swami Vivekananda accepted Vedanta philosophy. Vaidanta has also three forms—Dwaita, Vishishtadwaita and Adwaita. Swamiji was the supporter of Adwaita. According to him, there is no difference in Dwaita, Vishishtadwaita and Adwaita; all these three are three steps of Vedanta, whose ultimate objective is to experience of Adwaita. Not even this, but also Swamiji was telling every religions and philosophies of this world are converged to Adwaita at last.
Swamiji’s view towards religion and philosophy was so scientific. He cleared that art; science and religion are three different modes to express one and only ultimate truth. He told at one place—‘when science told that everything is representative of one power only, so don’t you remember the God, for which you have studied in Upanishada.’ And the same thing Vedanta says. He called Universal Science Religion to Adwaita Vedanta. He laud tried to see, understand and scientific interpretation of Vedanta in modern perspective. That is the newness of his Vedanta and because of this basis his philosophic thinking is called Navya Vedanta. Here metaphysics, epistemology and logic and axiology and ethics of Navya Vedanta of Swamiji are presented.
Metaphysics of Navya Vedanta of Swamiji
According to Adwaita philosophy ‘Brahma’ is the fundamental element of this nature and it is the only creator and due factor of this universe. Logic of followers of Vedanta is, the way like spider build its own web and the material for making web secretes from inside, in the same way Brahma creates this universe and is only due factor of it. Swami Vivekananda accepted this truth. According to this theory, all gross materials and small souls of this world are fraction of Brahma i.e. Divine. In other words, this whole world is full of Brahma. Question rise is what the pattern of Brahma is. According to Adwaita followers, Brahma is that power which does not have any pattern; it is shapeless, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. With the combination of Maya, this Brahma wears form of shaped Brahma (God). This gross sense-accepted world and its all materials are also its shaped form.
In relation with soul, Swamiji was agreed with the opinion of followers of Adwaita. According to him all souls are fraction of Divine and just like Divine, these are also eternal and infinite, so there is not any question of it birth or death. According to Adwaita, all other materials of this world are also fraction of Brahma i.e. Divine there is only difference in soul and other materials that soul is omnipresent and omniscient and it has the property of understanding and obtaining its true form of Divine, while other material does not have these property. According to this principle until soul recognize its true form of Divine and does not achieve it, till then it enters one body to another and when it recognize its true form and achieve it then it is free from life. Swamiji called it only salvation.
Vivekananda considered human as combination of body, mind and soul and considered that human life has two aspects—one is Physical and second is Spiritual. He emphasized to develop both physical and spiritual aspects of human. His statement was until human is not free from physical weakness, ignorance and political slavery, he cannot step forward towards spiritual freedom.
In relation with human development Swami Vivekananda view was so broad. He considered Indian knowledge and actions are needed for spiritual development of human and considered western knowledge, science and technology are needed for its physical and economic growth. Today knowledge is not limited to any country’s boundary, today there is globalization in the field of knowledge.
Epistemology and Logic of Navya Vedanta of Vivekananda
Swamiji divided knowledge into two divisions – physical knowledge and spiritual knowledge. Under the physical knowledge, he keeps the knowledge of materialistic world (all materials and actions of it) and under the spiritual knowledge, he keeps the knowledge of astral world (Divine, soul and spirits) and kept the knowledge to achieve resource rout of knowledge of astral world (Gyan Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Raj Yoga). According to Shankar, exponent of Vedanta, knowledge of materialistic world is the unreal knowledge and knowledge of astral world is real knowledge, but Vivekananda considered materialistic world and astral world both of knowledge as real knowledge. His logic is that this materialistic world is made by Brahma from Brahma and Brahma is real then this world must be real. How unreal can be originated from the real. So its knowledge is also comes under real knowledge. As far as the means of obtaining the mode of achieving knowledge, in this regards Swamiji’s opinions are clear. According to him, there is direct method and practical method for obtaining knowledge of materialistic world and knowledge of astral world obtained through Satsanga, self-study and Yoga. He considered Yoga is the best method for obtaining any kind of knowledge (knowledge of materialistic world or astral world).
Axiology and Ethics of Navya Vedanta of Vivekananda
Swamiji considered human is the wearer of the soul and was agreed with this statement of Shankar that the ultimate objective of human life is to get salvation, to get rid of visit in this world, to dissolve the soul in to Divine; but he considered this materialistic world and human life in it as real so he forced to be free it from physical weakness, mental slavery, lack of economy and feeling of inferiority in materialistic world. He preaches to mankind for this both kind of freedom, to be studious, intelligent and hardworking and preached for Satsanga, devotion and Yoga (Gyan Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Raj Yoga).
In relation with the ethics of human, clear opinion of Swamiji is that human should always follow the truth and serve to the poor’s. He considered truth and service as fundamental values of life. In his own terms, the real is that by which both physical and spiritual kinds of benefits occurs and unreal is that by which physical or spiritual any kind of harm occurs. Swamiji considered human as a temple of God and considered service to human is supreme religion. In his terms, human should be pure from mind, speech and work, he should earn his livelihood with honesty, serve to poor’s and thus make our self able to do Yoga practice through pure and undeļ¬ led and then should do self-realization through any of the Yoga rout (Gyan, Karma, Bhakti or Raj). He supported seven steps for Yoga practice—Shama-Dama, Titiksha, Uparati, Shraddha, Samadhaan, Mumukshatva and Nityanitya Viveka rout.
