‘Religion is the opium of the people,’ Karl Marx famously said. ‘I am proud to call myself a Hindu,’ Swami Vivekananda equally famously said. It is clear these two visions do not go with each other. It is more than clear they go at each other.
‘I believe in patriotism.’ Vivekananda said. To be a patriot, he wants to unlock and unleash “love”. Because through love one can be able to “feel”. If one feels, he can go “mad” while thinking about starving of millions for ages. This thought will make him spend “sleepless” nights. To dedicate oneself to the obliteration of starvation, one needs to forget one’s name, fame, wife, children, property, even one’s own body.
To spread the message of love, the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, his Master, and make an overall improvement of social condition, Vivekananda founded Belur Math in 1897. Decade after decade, this Math has been doing what it was created for.
‘I respect the social contribution done by the Ramakrishna Mission for the self-reliance and uplift of the down-trodden… . They (Ramakrishna Mission) do not confine themselves to prayer. They reach out to people out of love. Come flood, they plunge to work. When it comes to development work at slums, they hurl themselves to the cause… .’ Communist leader Mr. Jyoti Basu had said at Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission (6th May,1990).
Millions flock to Vivekananda’s dream-mission Belur Math. Numbers are rising each day. Mission’s welfare work is spreading world-wide. Vivekananda must have been smiling from above. He had given a call: Arise, awake and dream no more. Rouse yourself and manifest the Divinity within.
Blood begets blood and causes destruction and counter-destruction.
Without shedding a drop of blood, Vivekananda has evolved a revolution of wellbeing through Ramakrishna Mission across the globe. He sees religion not as “the sigh of the oppressed creature”, but as the shelter; not as the “heart of the heartless world” but of a caring world; not as “the soul of soulless condition” but of a soulful condition. Because he believes in love that “opens the most impossible gates”, which remain beyond the power of guns, gunshots, bombs and mutational viral war that can wipe out millions at one strike.
Through his brand of patriotism, Swami Vivekananda can reach internationalism as he can call people of other land as his ‘brothers and sisters’. His Master, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, teaches him to feel “Not me, but Thou” that he finds in all religions.
It is no wonder that Professor Rachel McDermott, Departments of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures and Human Rights, Barnard College, on a visit to our home at Nutanpally, told my father that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda and Sarada Devi were the house-hold names overseas and people kept their photographs under table-tops to get blessed.
Not the blazing guns, but only universal love is the source of power. This power does not rest in chair but resides in heart. Vivekananda and his zealous Mission show that amply.