Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary
New Delhi: Today is the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, the hero of Indian youth. He is considered the father of modern Indian nationalism. He was born on 12 January 1863 in Kolkata. His childhood name was Narendranath Dutt but in 1893, on the request of Maharaja Ajit Singh of Khetri State, he changed his name to ‘Vivekananda’. National Youth Day is also celebrated every year on 12 January, on the occasion of his birthday.
Swami Vivekananda gave a historic speech at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893. This speech introduced the Western world to Hindu philosophy (Neo-Hinduism). In his books, he has described four paths to attain salvation from worldly pleasures and attachments, which are Rajyoga, Karmayoga, Gyanyoga and Bhaktiyoga.
Monkeys taught us life lessons
This story was mentioned by Swami Vivekananda himself. Swami Vivekananda had told that once when he was in Varanasi, he was surrounded by many monkeys. Swami Vivekananda started running away due to fear of these monkeys but the monkeys were also no less cunning. These monkeys also started chasing Swami Vivekananda.
In such a situation, a stranger met Vivekananda and asked him to face these monkeys. After this Vivekananda turned back and started facing the monkeys. At last the monkeys started retreating and ran away. This incident taught Vivekananda a big lesson. After which Vivekananda said that whatever is terrible in life, it should be faced. Like monkeys, the difficulties of life come back when we start running in front of them. If we are ever to achieve freedom, it will be by conquering nature, not by running away. Cowards never win. We have to fight fear, troubles and ignorance.
Lesson learned from Guru’s wife also
There is also an incident that Vivekananda had to go to Chicago. In such a situation, he went to seek permission from Shardamani Mukhopadhyay, wife of his guru Ramakrishna Paramhansa, to go abroad. During this time Shardamani was doing some work in the kitchen. When Vivekananda asked for his permission, Shardamani asked Vivekananda to pick up the knife kept nearby and give it to him.
Vivekananda picked up the knife by the tip and turned the handle of the knife towards Shardamani. Shardamani became happy on this and while allowing Vivekananda to go to Chicago, she said that now I have understood that you will not harm anyone through your mind, words and deeds because even while giving the knife, you held its sharp part with your hand and Gave me the handle, so that I would not get harmed.
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