Part V — Reflections
Reflections on Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna
Vivekananda, the great Vedantin of indomitable courage, voiced forth, “Freedom — physical freedom, mental freedom, and spiritual freedom — is the watchword of the Upanishads.” In order to achieve freedom, we need energy, power, and spirit.
Meditation is our soul’s cry for our life’s perfect perfection. Perfection has not yet dawned on earth, but one day it will. Perfection is the ideal of human life. To quote Swami Vivekananda: “None of us has yet seen an ideal human being, and yet we are told to believe in him. None of us has yet seen an ideally perfect man, and yet without that ideal we cannot progress.”
Meditation alone can give birth to perfection. Meditation carries us beyond the frustration of the senses, beyond the limitation of the reasoning mind. And, finally, meditation can present us with the breath of perfection.
Swami Vivekananda, never even pronounced his Master's name when he first came here to the West. Vivekananda felt that if he uttered his Master's name the world would misunderstand him. The message he carried was not in the person of his Master but in his teachings. Sri Ramakrishna's teachings represented the union and synthesis of all religions.
There is a great difference between liberation and realisation. Liberation is much inferior to realisation. One can reach liberation in one incarnation, and realisation in some later incarnation. Or one can become liberated and realised in the same incarnation. But it is not possible to be realised without first being liberated. Sometimes a great spiritual Master, if he is fortunate, will bring down with him a few really liberated souls to help him in his manifestation. Sri Ramakrishna, for example, brought down Vivekananda and Brahmananda. Some of these liberated souls who enter the earth-scene with the great Masters don't care for realisation. They come just to help. Others want realisation also.
Vivekananda was not an Avatar. He had only a few glimpses of the Truth that Sri Ramakrishna lived. Sri Ramakrishna lived the highest Truth, and Vivekananda had glimpses of that Truth. Vivekananda was a great Vibhuti, one who is endowed with a special power of God, who acts most dynamically in the world-atmosphere. Vibhutis are leaders of mankind who awaken the slumbering consciousness.
We cannot call Napoleon a Vibhuti, but what Napoleon accomplished in the material world, Vivekananda accomplished in the spiritual world. The most powerful, dynamic power acted in human form in Vivekananda. Vivekananda’s real mission was to spread the message of his Master, Sri Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna achieved, but he did not manifest much. He did not care for worldly achievement or the so-called manifold development. The present-day world needs the mind. The mind need not even be intellectual; it may be just an ordinary mind that can understand basic things. But Sri Ramakrishna did not care even for this ordinary mind. So Vivekananda collected the fruits of the tree that was Ramakrishna and offered them to the world. He came to the West at the age of thirty and brought abundant light to the West.
At the time of Sri Ramakrishna’s passing, Vivekananda still doubted his Master’s spiritual height. He said inwardly, “If you tell me that you are a great Avatar, I will believe. So Ramakrishna read his mind and said, “Naren, you still doubt me? He who is Rama, he who is Krishna, in one form in this body is Ramakrishna.” Rama was an Avatar, Krishna was an Avatar, and Vivekananda’s Master embodied them both.
Vivekananda was not an Avatar; he cannot be put on the same footing with Sri Ramakrishna. I have great love and admiration for Vivekananda. My connection with him in the inner world is very close. Unfortunately, here in the West I encounter some spiritual people and swamis who belittle Vivekananda and his achievement, and dare to say he was not realised. But all I can say is that those who belittle Vivekananda are not worthy of washing his feet. God-realisation he certainly had; he was very advanced.
The height of an Avatar cannot be judged by an ordinary person. It is like a dwarf trying to scale the height of a giant; it is ridiculous. But let us not think of a spiritual Master’s height. Let us only think of his presence in our heart. When we can feel his presence in the depth of our-heart, he can be our help, our guide, our inspiration, our aspiration, our journey and our Goal.
People speak of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda in the same breath, but Ramakrishna's status as the Guru and Vivekananda's status as the disciple are unimaginably different. There is a yawning gulf between Vivekananda's realisation and Ramakrishna's realisation. Sri Aurobindo once said that Vivekananda only got a few glimpses of the sea that Ramakrishna lived in all the time. So why do we speak of Vivekananda and Ramakrishna together? It is because we feel that Vivekananda, the greatest disciple of Ramakrishna, became totally one with his Master. Because he became totally one with Ramakrishna's consciousness, we think that what Ramakrishna had, Vivekananda also had. But it is not true. Ramakrishna appreciated and admired Vivekananda. He said, "You are very great, I have brought your soul down to earth," and so on. But Ramakrishna consciously saw how far Vivekananda had reached and how high his own height was. Again, when modesty and humility entered into Vivekananda, he said, "From this very speck of dust, Ramakrishna can make thousands of Vivekanandas."
Here in Ireland, nearly a hundred years ago, a young aspirant named Margaret Noble went to India to become the famous disciple of Swami Vivekananda. The great Yogi had come to the West in 1889 to participate in the “Parliament of Religions” at the Great World's Fair in Chicago. His spiritual stature was immediately recognised and he became famous overnight.
When he went to England from the United States, Margaret Noble attended his talks and became his dearest disciple. He called her “Nivedita, One who is totally dedicated to the Supreme Cause”.
The Indian people are all admiration for what Nivedita did for India. She helped Indian women in infinite measure. She helped to awaken their slumbering consciousness so that they could envision themselves as divine instruments and grow into the perfect embodiments of aspiration, dedication and illumination for their Mother India. We Indians are bloated with divine pride when we utter the name Nivedita.
Her father was a clergyman — a lover of God, a great seeker. Before he breathed his last, on his deathbed, he said to his wife, “Don’t stand in Margaret's way. If she wants to go to India, let her go.” Margaret’s mother had been very upset by her daughter’s desire to leave Ireland for distant India. But at her husband’s last wish, she did help Margaret and inspire her. Nivedita went to India and became India’s veritable pride. Hers was the heart that knew no despair. Just before she passed behind the curtain of eternity, she uttered under her breath, “The boat is sinking, but I shall see the sunrise.”
excerpt from “Attachment and Detachment” Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, 1 December 1970.
Dearest brothers and sisters, I have special love and admiration for your country, Ireland. I have been cherishing and treasuring love for this country since I was twelve, when I read a book written about the spiritual Master, Swami Vivekananda. In his biography I read something most striking. A young woman from your country was so deeply inspired by the Swami’s spiritual light that she went to India and offered her entire existence to Swami Vivekananda, her spiritual Master. Her name was Miss Margaret Noble, but her Master offered her a new name, a spiritual name, her soul’s name: Nivedita. Nivedita means self-offering, total self-offering. She offered her whole existence to India. India’s spiritual children will forever remain indebted to her love and sacrifice. India’s freedom-boat will forever be indebted to her significant efforts to free Mother India from ignorance. Nivedita embodied dedicated self-offering.
When I was twenty-three years old, for the first time I read her book about her Master, Swami Vivekananda. The great spiritual Master, Sri Aurobindo, once remarked that this book of Nivedita’s was written with the breath of her heart. From this book I learned how a disciple can become inseparably one with the Master on the strength of implicit love, devotion and surrender to the Master’s will.
Excerpt from “Transcendental Height and Aspiration-Light”, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, 14 June 1973.
