Swami Vivekananda

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
(1863 – 1902)

Swami Vivekananda’s inspiring personality was well known both in East and West during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. The unknown monk of India suddenly kept 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 lapse of more than half a century.
Swami Vivekananda’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 derived his ideas from that unfailing source of wisdom and often presented them in the soul-stirring language of poetry.
Swami Vivekananda’s first lesson started from his mother with the glory of gods and goddesses, the greatness of the sages of India and followed by Metropolitan Institute. For higher education he enrolled in Presidency College Calcutta and finally got his Bachelor of Arts degree from General Assembly’s Institution, founded by the Scottish General Missionary Board. Narendra’s college days were marked by tremendous intellectual and spiritual upheaval, in which the principal of the institution Professor William Hastie took a significant role. Attending college Narendranath studied the philosophical, social and scientific ideas of Western thinkers like Jeremy Bentham, Charles Darwin, David Hume, William S. Jevons, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Auguste Comte, Rene Descartes, George Hegel, Baruch Spinoza and many more. The...