Swami Vivekananda

“I am condensed India.” These are the words of the great patriot monk Swami Vivekananda. The unstoppable search of God brought young Narendra Nath Dutta near Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa (Thakur) , a priest of Bhavtarini Temple of Dakshineshwar. A youth who has read Herbert, Plato, Spenser and many Bharatiya philosophers, completing his graduation from Presidency College, active in all Neo- social movements of Calcutta, take refuge at the feet of a barely literate person from a nearby village. But Sri Ramakrishna changed Narendra’s life. A naughty boy was transformed into a Yogi and then into a Cyclonic Patriot Monk by the grace of Thakur.

Swami Vivekananda discovered his life mission, “at the last bit of Indian Rock” – the historical Sripadparai at Kanyakumari. He meditated there for 72 hours – 25-26-27 December 1892. He meditated not for his own mukti but for awakening this sleeping nation, he meditated on the glorious past, pitiable present and enshining future of Bharat. And he rose up from the meditation to awaken the dormant spirit of the Mother India and gave a beaconing call, “Arise! Awake!! and stop not till the goal is reached!!!”.

Swamiji went to America to attend “Parliament of Religions” at Chicago. He was an emissary of Bhratiya Darshan and Sanskriti to the Western world. He introduced greatness of Bharat to the West. After almost 4 years he returned Bharat with plan to rejuvenate Bharat. He told, “Up India! And conquer the world with your Spirituality”. He founded a monastic order, an organisation of Sannyasins – Sri Ramakrishna Mission. He envisaged an organisation of youth, he said, “Hundred Thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of Holiness, fortified with eternal faith in the Lord and nerved to Lion’s courage by their sympathy towards the poor and the fallen and the downtrodden- will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social raising up, the gospel of equality.” This is the basic thought behind Vivekananda Kendra.