"This is a world of good and evil. Wherever there is good, evil follows, but beyond and behind all these manifestations, all these contradictions, the Vedanta finds out that Unity. It says, "Give up what is evil and give up what is good." What remains then? Behind good and evil stands something which is yours, the real you, beyond every evil, and beyond every good too, and it is that which is manifesting itself as good and bad. Know that first, and then and then alone you will be a true optimist, and not before; for then you will be able to control everything. Control these manifestations and you will be at liberty to manifest the real "you". First be master of yourself, stand up and be free, go beyond the pale of these laws, for these laws do not absolutely govern you, they are only part of your being. First find out that you are not the slave of nature, never were and never will be; that this nature, infinite as you may think it, is only finite, a drop in the ocean, and your Soul is the ocean; you are beyond the stars, the sun, and the. They are like mere bubbles compared with your infinite being. Know that, and you will control both good and evil. Then alone the whole vision will change and you will stand up and say, "How beautiful is good and how wonderful is evil!"

That is what the Vedanta teaches!

-Swami Vivekananda, London, 1896.

            As we celebrate Swami Vivekananda's birthday we find that throughout his life and in all his works, one theme is consistent in all his words and that is the theme of unity. Swamijis mission in life was to keep the Mother India in her pinnacles of glory as Vishwa Guru. Even in those days of slavery, poverty and ignorance, Swamiji could see the need of India for the sake of spiritual development of humanity. But in order to be relevant, useful to humanity, India needed to wake up from the stupor of slavery, poverty and ignorance. Swami Vivekananda worked to awaken the dormant spirit of India so that She becomes an able and strong vehicle to carry the spiritual thoughts to the entire humanity. And the path to Mother's glory goes through the unity and the incessant efforts of her children!

            The light of spirituality that India alone can give to the world is not just a speculative philosophy but the spiritual thoughts and the spiritual vision that was realized, nurtured, protected, propagated and lived on the soil of Bharat. There is an unbroken chain of many great souls, Rishis - known and unknown – who had worked for that, had dedicated their life for that. We as Rishi Putras – the progeny of Rishis – have to work, dedicate our body-mind-soul, our tana-mana-dhana for making this nation great so that She would be able to guide the world. The world too expects this from India. The more the material development takes place, the more a man experiences the hollow within, more he searches for the eternal amidst the ephemeral. The challenge is how to have both, the material and spiritual in life, the well-being of the body and spirit.

            Often times, when the current condition in India is discussed, the general tone is that of pessimism. When asked about the ancient culture and wisdom of India, most of the fingers are pointed only as far as the benefits of yoga (only as a physical exercise, not a spiritual one). When an Indian describes his/her heritage, it is only in the context of religious rites or superstitions. Behind all the age-old diversity, is there a golden light which all of India can call as its own? In India's past, several social evils, superstitional and meaningless customs, continuous infighting were abound. All these problems existed. But through all this drudgery, India survived. When a ripe fruit from a tree falls on the ground, it has to rot first, then from the seeds come out a tree, which is larger than the older tree. Two millennia of foreign attacks, both political as well as cultural, a thousand years under essentially foreign rule and still India has not lost its Indianness. Like the river Ganga, it accepted both good and bad of those who came from outside, made them as one of her own and continued with her timeless flow. This infinite assimilation, this ability to accept and unite anyone who is willing to, this great flow of unity within the multitudinous diversity is what makes India as a nation unique in the world. Even today, inspite of regional, religious or any other types of differences, the common cultural thread binds India strong. Swamiji personified this very aspect of India and urged his countrymen to rise over the petty differences and awaken the thought of unity.

            Of course, no individual or society or nation is without a problem. The very fact that we live indicates that we are facing challenges. But a person should be able to see the purpose of existence, the potentiality beyond the existing problems. Though problems abounded, Swami Vivekananda focused on the positive strengths of India and exhorted her to fulfill her purpose. This is the need of the hour. We should not just focus on the problems of India but on the solutions. Solutions can never be prescribed from others’ perspective. But the solutions are always based on our inherent strength. So we have to know what as a nation is our inherent strength and how do we enhance it.

            For a nation to be powerful there have to be inner principles which are strength-giving. Depending on their nature these principles give strength either on long term basis or short term basis. If the inner principles are shallow but strength-giving then the nation becomes powerful on short term basis. We see many such nations in the history which came on scene, ruled the world and are heard no more or are just surviving. If the inner principles are of eternal dimension like the nature of the immortal soul then the nation becomes powerful on long term basis. Whether shallow or deep these inner principles are worked out in the life of the people of that country, the strength starts getting manifested in all fields proportionate to the strength and scope of those inner principles. Thus that nation’s achievements are manifested in all fields.

            India has such eternal inner principles that she became the richest nation for almost 1700 years in the history of the humanity. This wealth was not at the cost of the other countries, by looting or exploiting them but it was the result of the hard work, sharing with fellow beings, frugality, simplicity, respect to nature, understanding of sustainable development. India is always known in the human history as the land of wisdom and even now continues to be the land for spiritual solace. A foreigner described India as “Indians posses everything but are possessed by nothing". But somewhere down the line may be because the Indian body and mind got engaged for centuries in defending itself from the foreign invasions at various levels, the connection with the inner self got diminished. The inner principles were almost forgotten. As the inner principles were forgotten the decay and degradation was set in.

            Fortunately, these inner principles were not given up but just were forgotten to some extent and thus India, though subjugated, hungry, exploited continued as India. She did not lose her soul. Though Jezia was to be paid, it was paid but the identity was not lost. Though no education was possible still the mothers and grandmothers kept the vision, the traditions alive through stories and rituals. Though enslaved, the rulers were not allowed to touch the religion, the inner soul of India. It was this India and her undying spirit that Swami Vivekananda saw in his wanderings all over the land. He knew ‘India is not dead nor has she spoken her last word’. He saw the dormant spirit, the fighting spirit, the staunch faith in one’s own tradition of the average Indian though reeling under famines and force of the British. Sitting on the mid-sea Rock at Kanaykumari Swami Vivekananda worked to find the solution for it. He decided to focus on the life giving principles of the Hindu Nation. But to talk to his enslaved brethren he had to go 8000 miles all alone to a foreign land to conquer the hearts of the conquerors.

            While talking at the Parliament of Religions he not only represented Hindu Dharma to them but also to the Hindus. Sister Nivedita writes, “What Hinduism had needed, was the organising and consolidating of its own idea. What the world had needed was a faith that had no fear of truth. Both of these are found here. Nor could any greater proof have been given of the eternal vigour of the Sanatana Dharma, of the fact that India is as great in the present as ever in the past, than this rise of the individual who, at the critical moment, gathers up and voices the communal consciousness. …Of the Swami’s address before the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that when he began to speak it was of ‘the religious ideas of the Hindus’, but when he ended, Hinduism had been created.”

            Sister Nivedita on the contribution of Swami Vivekananda says, “Others stood beside Swami Vivekananda, on the same platform as he, as apostles of particular creeds and churches. But it was his glory that he came to preach a religion to which each of these was, in his own words, “only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances to the same goal”. Later Dr. S. Radhakrishnan defines the Indian concept of toleration in a beautiful sentence in his remarkable book (Eastern Religions and Western Thought, p.317): “Toleration is the homage that the finite mind pays to the inexhaustibility of the infinite. The only way to worship an infinite God is not to take a copyright on Him after your experience of Him through your religion, but to accept and respect the spiritual experience of other religions also, in the knowledge that the infinite is inexhaustible. That attitude alone can make you not only tolerate other religions but also to accept them with reverence. This is mature Indian wisdom which alone can help to transform religions from mutually weakening colliding units into mutually co–operating dynamic units working for human betterment and world peace.”

            The other point which Swami Vivekananda stressed was of the freedom of the human soul to choose its own form and name of God for worship. While explaining the concept of Ishtadevata, he pointed out that the real development of human soul is possible only in giving this freedom to its spiritual aspirations. He told, “Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognised it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover his body.”

            The principle of potential divinity of each soul is the grandest of all that India has to give to the world. The real faith in this doctrine made our ancestors go all over the world spreading Indian Culture. It was this faith and realisation of this great eternal truth that Hindus expressed tremendous creativity, excellence in each field of life. It is this principle which we have to again make our living article of faith in order to be able to guide the world. Swami Ranganathananda in his speech said, “Here is Vivekananda bringing to the modern West this Vedantic message of a profound and deep humanism based upon the divine spark in every human being, and presenting man’s education and his life and work as the field to unfold that divine possibility. That is Vivekananda’s message of human excellence for all children everywhere. It will take time for humanity to be influenced by these ideas; but they are bound to produce their effect, like delayed action bombs, for they are rational and human. …This century may be considered, so far as this message is concerned, as the seed – time, while the next century can be expected to be the harvest time.”

            Later when Swami Vivekananda came back to India to tell Indians the purpose of their life, India discovered herself, her purpose of existence in the lectures of Swami Vivekananda. He strengthened India in her inner principles. The advent of Swami Vivekananda marked the beginning of the rise of India. In India, starting with the work of

Swami Vivekananda and later, with the work of the stalwarts of the freedom struggle like Sri Aurbindo, Sister Nivedita, Lokmanya Tilak, Gandhji and many others, inner principles got strengthened and we see the outer expressions of strength and achievements in various fields since independence in spite of our not much thoughtfully planning for the same. Today the achievements of India are in so many fields. However the expression of her strength, her potentiality is neither complete nor to the fullest of her capability. But before the outer expression takes place if the inner principles wither away or are forgotten and given up then the outer expressions of nation’s soul, the achievements too would wither away. Therefore our work is to strengthen the inner core of our nation. The celebration of Samartha Bharat Parva is for knowing the achievements of India, for paying our homage for those who have lived and died for the sake of the nation; but more so it is for strengthening our Dharma, our cultural traditions, our inner core.

            This is the time to make aware of the youth of this country and to awaken their latent energies. As Swamiji says, "...Out of the past is built the future. Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and after that, look forward, march forward and make India brighter, greater, much higher than she ever was. Our ancestors were great. We must first recall that. We must learn the elements of our being, the blood that courses in our veins; we must have faith in that blood and what it did in the past; and out of that faith and consciousness of past greatness, we must build an India yet greater than what she has been...." The path in front of the youth is thus laid by him. Learn about the history of India, understand her soul, and realize that the same soul resides in everyone of her sons and daughters and with the impression of that glorious past, march towards the bright future.

            It is with this confidence and inspiration that we start every new endeavour. The mission is also laid down as told by Swami Vivekananda in his lecture on ‘The Mission of the Vedanta’, “Teach yourselves, teach everyone, his real nature; call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.”

May we all rouse the sleeping soul within ourselves and work for the future of our great nation!