Speech On Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda Speech – 2

Good Morning Students – How you all are doing?

Hope everyone is enjoying the classes on spirituality and meditation as much as the teachers are enjoying in delivering it. Besides giving you practical classes on meditation, it is also important to share with you information about the great spiritual guru called Swami Vivekananda.

Born in Calcutta in the Datta family, Swami Vivekananda adopted the agnostic philosophy, which prevailed in the West along with the development on Science. At the same time, there was a strong urge in him to unravel the mystery around God and he also raised doubts about the holy reputation of certain people asking them if anyone has ever seen or talked to God.

While he was struggling with this dilemma, he happened to come across Sri Ramakrishna, who later on became his guru and helped him in finding answers to his questions, endowed him with the vision of God and transformed him into a prophet or what you may call a sage with the power to teach. Swami Vivekananda’s personality was so inspiring that he became a well-known figure not in India, but abroad, namely America during the end of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.

Who had known that this personality would rise to fame in such a short span of time? This anonymous monk from India grew to fame at the Parliament of Religion organized in Chicago in the year 1893. There he stood for Hinduism and articulated his thoughts on both eastern and western culture, including his deep understanding of spirituality. His well-articulated thoughts, sympathy for the mankind and multi-faceted personality left an irresistible charm on Americans who got the opportunity to hear him speak. People who saw or even heard him continued to applaud him till the time they lived.

He went to America with a mission to spread knowledge about our great Indian spiritual culture, particularly from the Vedantic source. He also tried to feed the religious consciousness of the people there with the help of humanistic and rational teachings from the Vedanta philosophy. In America, he represented India as its spiritual ambassador and earnestly asked people to develop mutual understanding between India and the West in order that the two worlds can come together forming a union of both religion and science.

On our motherland, Swami Vivekananda, is looked up as a great saint of contemporary India and as someone who rekindled national consciousness that lay dormant. He taught Hindus to believe in a religion which gives strength to people and unites them. Service to mankind is seen as an evident manifestation of Godhead and is a special form of prayer he asked Indian people to adopt instead of rituals and believing in age-old myths. In fact, various Indian political leaders have openly accepted their indebtedness to Swami Vivekananda.

In the end, I would just say that he was a great lover of mankind and his life experiences always inspired people and renewed the desire to attain a higher sense of being.

Thank You!