Swami vivekananda

 Born

Narendranath Datta

12 January 1863

Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day Kolkata, West Bengal, India)

Died4 July 1902 (aged 39)

Belur Math, Bengal Presidency, British India (present-day West Bengal, India)

ReligionHinduism

[22/10, 18:37] 😳: Founder ofRamakrishna Mission (1897)

Ramakrishna MathPhilosophyModern Vedanta[2][3]

Rāja yoga[3]

[22/10, 18:38] 😳: Vivekananda was born Narendranath Datta (shortened to Narendra or Naren)[12] in a Bengali family[13][14] at his ancestral home at 3 Gourmohan Mukherjee Street in Calcutta,[15] the capital of British India, on 12 January 1863 during the Makar Sankranti festival.[16] He belonged to a traditional family and was one of nine siblings.[17] His father, Vishwanath Datta, was an attorney at the Calcutta High Court.[13][18] Durgacharan Datta, Narendra's grandfather was a Sanskrit and Persian scholar[19] who left his family and became a monk at age twenty-five.[20] His mother, Bhubaneswari Devi, was a devout housewife.[19] The progressive, rational attitude of Narendra's father and the religious temperament of his mother helped shape his thinking and personality.[21][22]

Narendranath was interested in spirituality from a young age and used to meditate before the images of deities such as Shiva, Rama, Sita, and Mahavir Hanuman.[23] He was fascinated by wandering ascetics and monks.[22] Naren was naughty and restless as a child, and his parents often had difficulty controlling him. His mother said, "I prayed to Shiva for a son and he has sent me one of his demons".[20]

[22/10, 18:39] 😳: Spiritual apprenticeship – influence of Brahmo Samaj

See also: Swami Vivekananda and meditation

In 1880 Narendra joined Keshab Chandra Sen's Nava Vidhan, which was established by Sen after meeting Ramakrishna and reconverting from Christianity to Hinduism.[39] Narendra became a member of a Freemasonry lodge "at some point before 1884"[40] and of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in his twenties, a breakaway faction of the Brahmo Samaj led by Keshab Chandra Sen and Debendranath Tagore.[39][28][41][42] From 1881 to 1884, he was also active in Sen's Band of Hope, which tried to discourage youths from smoking and drinking.[39]

It was in this cultic[43] milieu that Narendra became acquainted with Western esotericism.[44] His initial beliefs were shaped by Brahmo concepts, which included belief in a formless God and the deprecation of idolatry,[23][45] and a "streamlined, rationalized, monotheistic theology strongly coloured by a selective and modernistic reading of the Upanisads and of the Vedanta."[46] Rammohan Roy, the founder of the Brahmo Samaj who was strongly influenced by unitarianism, strove towards a universalistic interpretation of Hinduism.[46] His ideas were "altered [...] considerably" by Debendranath Tagore, who had a romantic approach to the development of these new doctrines, and questioned central Hindu beliefs like reincarnation and karma, and rejected the authority of the Vedas.[47] Tagore also brought this "neo-Hinduism" closer in line with western esotericism, a development which was furthered by Sen.[48] Sen was influenced by transcendentalism, an American philosophical-religious movement strongly connected with unitarianism, which emphasised personal religious experience over mere reasoning and theology.[49] Sen strived to "an accessible, non-renunciatory, everyman type of spirituality", introducing "lay systems of spiritual practice" which can be regarded as prototypes of the kind of Yoga-exercises which Vivekananda popularised in the west.[50]

The same search for direct intuition and understanding can be seen with Vivekananda. Not satisfied with his knowledge of philosophy, Narendra came to "the question which marked the real beginning of his intellectual quest for God."[41] He asked several prominent Calcutta residents if they had come "face to face with God", but none of their answers satisfied him.[51][30] At this time, Narendra met Debendranath Tagore (the leader of Brahmo Samaj) and asked if he had seen God. Instead of answering his question, Tagore said "My boy, you have the Yogi's eyes."[41][35] According to Banhatti, it was Ramakrishna who really answered Narendra's question, by saying "Yes, I see Him as I see you, only in an infinitely intenser sense."[41] Nevertheless, Vivekananda was more influenced by the Brahmo Samaj's and its new ideas, than by Ramakrishna.[50] It was Sen's influence who brought Vivekananda fully into contact with western esotericism, and it was also via Sen that he met Ramakrishna.[52]

[22/10, 18:40] 😳: With Ramakrishna

Main article: Relationship between Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda

See also: Swami Vivekananda's prayer to Kali at Dakshineswar

In 1881 Narendra first met Ramakrishna, who became his spiritual focus after his own father had died in 1884.[53]

Narendra's first introduction to Ramakrishna occurred in a literature class at General Assembly's Institution when he heard Professor William Hastie lecturing on William Wordsworth's poem, The Excursion.[45] While explaining the word "trance" in the poem, Hastie suggested that his students visit Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar to understand the true meaning of trance. This prompted some of his students (including Narendra) to visit Ramakrishna.[54][55][56]



Ramakrishna, guru of Vivekananda



Vivekananda in Cossipore 1886

They probably first met personally in November 1881,[note 1] though Narendra did not consider this their first meeting, and neither man mentioned this meeting later.[54] At this time, Narendra was preparing for his upcoming F. A. examination, when Ram Chandra Datta accompanied him to Surendra Nath Mitra's, house where Ramakrishna was invited to deliver a lecture.[58] According to Paranjape, at this meeting Ramakrishna asked young Narendra to sing. Impressed by his singing talent, he asked Narendra to come to Dakshineshwar.[59]

In late 1881 or early 1882, Narendra went to Dakshineswar with two friends and met Ramakrishna.[54] This meeting proved to be a turning point in his life.[60] Although he did not initially accept Ramakrishna as his teacher and rebelled against his ideas, he was attracted by his personality and began to frequently visit him at Dakshineswar.[61] He initially saw Ramakrishna's ecstasies and visions as "mere figments of imagination"[21] and "hallucinations".[62] As a member of Brahmo Samaj, he opposed idol worship, polytheism and Ramakrishna's worship of Kali.[63] He even rejected the Advaita Vedanta of "identity with the absolute" as blasphemy and madness, and often ridiculed the idea.[62] Narendra tested Ramakrishna, who faced his arguments patiently: "Try to see the truth from all angles", he replied.[61]

Narendra's father's sudden death in 1884 left the family bankrupt; creditors began demanding the repayment of loans, and relatives threatened to evict the family from their ancestral home. Narendra, once a son of a well-to-do family, became one of the poorest students in his college.[64] He unsuccessfully tried to find work and questioned God's existence,[65] but found solace in Ramakrishna and his visits to Dakshineswar increased.[66]

One day, Narendra requested Ramakrishna to pray to goddess Kali for their family's financial welfare. Ramakrishna suggested him to go to the temple himself and pray. Following Ramakrishna's suggestion, he went to the temple thrice, but failed to pray for any kind of worldly necessities and ultimately prayed for true knowledge and devotion from the goddess.[67][68][69] Narendra gradually grew ready to renounce everything for the sake of realising God, and accepted Ramakrishna as his Guru.[61]

In 1885, Ramakrishna developed throat cancer, and was transferred to Calcutta and (later) to a garden house in Cossipore. Narendra and Ramakrishna's other disciples took care of him during his last days, and Narendra's spiritual education continued. At Cossipore, he experienced Nirvikalpa samadhi.[70] Narendra and several other disciples received ochre robes from Ramakrishna, forming his first monastic order.[71] He was taught that service to men was the most effective worship of God.[21][70] Ramakrishna asked him to care for the other monastic disciples, and in turn asked them to see Narendra as their leader.[72] Ramakrishna died in the early-morning hours of 16 August 1886 in Cossipore.[72][73]