Swami vivEKANANDA’S THOUGHTS

ON

    INCLUSIVENESS OF INTER –RELIGIOUS FAITHS

 

 

The man who redefined the word ‘saint’, the selfless and tireless lad of our motherland who kindled the light of’ humanity’ .He , the man, visited the country as Narendranath Dutta, who later blessed the planet as Swami Vivekananda. If he is looking at us from somewhere, he must be deeply saddened because of the everyday religious tussles , mankind is facing day by day in prolific amount. The lessons taught by him to the humankind, have nearly been forgotten.

Every year we celebrate his birthday as the National Youth Day, but do we,’ the youth’, abide and delve even for a day into the thoughts he initiated? I guess, we don’t. In our era the major problems,  which are casting a holocaust on the world and our nation , is mainly due to the clash between different religious views, trying to outshadow each other.He always taught about the meaning of life and it’s purpose, but unfortunately we cannot see it now-a-days, because of the curtains of ignorance and self centered ego , which have shrouded our mind , body, heart and soul.He taught about harmony and peace , which he showed could be achieved with mutual collaboration and allowing every rational religious value to flourish, but it is quite unfortunate that just the reverse is happening.

 

According to him,’ salvation’ can be only by allowing all faiths to fuse into one and nurture humanity in all course of action.in this way only we can manifest the hidden potential inside us, through the channels of proper education. He showed the world the spirituality of the Hindus,the brotherhood of Mohammedans, the mercifulness of the Buddhists, the activity of the Christians and many enriched values of different religions and tried to show us the pragmatic way of establishing a World Religion from India and conveyed the message of togetherness, but today every other religion is trying to pull all the rest of the religions to debris, wake up folks, wake up! He correctly portrayed, that the Greatest Religion above all is not the one in which we worship some idol or we offer prayers to some unknown God.The most religious person is the one who serves the ‘Creatures of The Creator’. He always stressed that , a peson should have faith in himself or herself and by that only he or she can serve the ultimate purpose of life.But today what we do is just follow any srtakeholder of religion so blindly that, we ourselves even do not realise that on which path we are going, and ,in fact, by doing so we make ourselves so weak that we even lose our sense of judgement.

If I talk about some of his preachings specifically, no better example comes to my mind than that of his lectures from Columbo to Almora (the series of lectures), were mainly focussed on the convergence of inter –religious faiths and inclusiveness of religion, which in fact is the way leading towards the ultimate truth.He was seriously worried about the clash of different religions and thus he stressed on the purification of soul , which can only be achieved by cleansing the impurities within, through righteous education.In fact,’ the cleansing of soul concept’ has been discussed in every religious scripture of this planet, to quote few , in The Holy Queran, the concept of ‘Purification of ‘qalb’ and ‘nafz’has been very well demonstrated, for attaining a higher self, in the same manner, The Bhagwat Geeta , emphasizes on ‘Purification of the’ Aatman’’, which are obviously the same concept written in different words and expressions.It really aches me when as a keen observer, which is a natural tendency in me as a student of Physics, I see futile fights going on in the name of religion and orthodoxism and Swami Vivekananda’s teachings getting polluted.In the World Religion Parliament, in Chicago, when he delivered his historic speech, he very well expressed our nation, india, as the abode of all religions of the world, which signified his vision of a united nation. His vision was to paint India with one colour, by mixing colours of every religion and ultimately, bring Humanity to light.

He always focussed on self growth and believed that religion is a tool, which is used by the wise people as a tool to unite souls, whereas , the feeble minded people, use the same tool to creatye a rift between hearts.He believed that all religions are going beyond reason , (which is in fact prudent till date),but reason is the only guide to get there!He believed , religion gives nothing new to us , it only lets us see ourselves by erasing away the obstacles and dissolving our ego. He repeatedly said “God can be seen in every man, woman and child”But, today, we can kill a person for trivial reasons like blowing a horn , where are we going my fellow citizens..??According to his views religion is within us . No book , no teacher can do more than helping us to find that, we get all the truths within us.He used to say , “Read man , he is the living poem.”My dear friends , try to understand that religion consists solely in realization . Doctrines are methods not religion.We should not forget that religious teachings must always be constructive and not destructive. All these ideas clearly indicate that he had a pragmatic , inclusive and rational outlook, he clearly condemned orthodoxism, because that path is the way towards destruction, we have to agree on this because of a simple fact, that, we do not have more knowledge and wisdom than he had.

We all are human beings my dear friends, come let us celebrate different facets of religion and shed off the man – made shackles of tyranny, which are pulling us backward. Let us unite and allow every true human value originating from religion to flourish, and move towards a glorious future, by paying real homage to that great soul  and turn India, this time into ,” The Bird of Joy”