PULLOUT FOR REFERENCE
Series 5: Understanding India
- through Swami Vivekananda's eyes
ISSUE ISSUE 22 10
Swami Vivekananda had a deep appreciation of India, which was born out of four distinct factors: (i) His personal encounter with Sri Ramakrishna (of whom he said, ‘This man had in fifty-one years lived the five thousand years of national spiritual life'),
After his grand success at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Swami Vivekananda toured and lectured across the West for three years. Then he returned to Colombo on 15th January 1897.
(iii) His personal experience of the Western response to Indian ideas, which further sharpened and improved his understanding of India (during the World Parliament of Religions and later when he was the representative of India to the West), and
Colombo gave him a hero's welcome. It was here that he gave his first public lecture in the East. The topic was: ‘India – The Sacred Land’. In this issue, we study this lecture and try to appreciate (from our limited point of view) the key messages that he presented...
In this new series, we take up parts of lectures in which Swami Vivekananda has spoken about India, such as: INDIA - THE SACRED LAND, THE SAGES OF
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(iv) His own vast spiritual realizations, of which his meditation on the rock in Kanyakumari is the most famous.
INDIA, THE RELIGION WE ARE BORN IN, THE MISSION OF THE VEDANTA, THE FUTURE OF INDIA, THE WORK BEFORE US, VEDANTA & ITS APPLICATION TO INDIAN LIFE, THE COMMON BASIS OF HINDUISM, etc. We
will thus try to understand India through Swami Vivekananda's eyes, and thereby build a deeper appreciation of our own country.
Formerly I thought as every Hindu thinks …that this is the Punya Bhumi, the land of Karma. Today I stand here and say, with the conviction of truth, that it is so. If there is any land on this earth that can lay claim to be the blessed Punya Bhumi, to be the land to which all souls on this earth must come to account for Karma, the land to which every soul that is wending its way Godward must come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness, above all, the land of introspection and of spirituality — it is India. ...Here is the life-giving water with which must be quenched the burning fire of materialism which is burning the core of the
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PA G E S P O N S O R : A D E V O T E E , C H E N N A I
India – the Punya Bhumi
(ii) His extensive travels and first hand encounter with people across the length & breadth of the country (during the 6-7 years of his life as a wandering monk),
27 The Vedanta Kesari
focus in this issue:
