Rashtriya Habbagalu

PREFACE
Swami Vivekananda's inspiring personality was well known both in India and in
America during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of
the twentieth. The unknown monk of India suddenly leapt into fame at the
Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893, at which he represented
Hinduism. His vast knowledge of Eastern and Western culture as well as his
deep spiritual insight, fervid eloquence, brilliant conversation, broad human
sympathy, colourful personality, and handsome figure made an irresistible
appeal to the many types of Americans who came in contact with him. People
who saw or heard Vivekananda even once still cherish his memory after a lapse
of more than half a century.
In America Vivekananda's mission was the interpretation of India's spiritual
culture, especially in its Vedantic setting. He also tried to enrich the religious
consciousness of the Americans through the rational and humanistic teachings
of the Vedanta philosophy. In America he became India's spiritual ambassador
and pleaded eloquently for better understanding between India and the New
World in order to create a healthy synthesis of East and West, of religion and
science.
In his own motherland Vivekananda is regarded as the patriot saint of modern
India and an inspirer of her dormant national consciousness. To the Hindus he
preached the ideal of a strength-giving and man-making religion. Service to man
as the visible manifestation of the Godhead was the special form of worship he
advocated for the Indians, devoted as they were to the rituals and myths of their
ancient faith. Many political leaders of India have publicly acknowledged their
indebtedness to Swami Vivekananda.
The Swami's mission was both national and international. A lover of mankind,
he strove to promote peace and human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation
of the Vedantic Oneness of existence. A mystic of the highest order, Vivekananda
had a direct and intuitive experience of Reality. He...