Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached!

As we all are aware of this famous quote that has bee used by me in the title of this blog, it was quoted by Swami Vivekananda. Here the question arises, why I would name a blog based on his life as a phrase quoted by him. The answer being.....

"I don't want people to remember me but I want them to practice my ideas in their life...."

Born as Narendranath Datta, Swami Vivekananda was son to Vishwanath Datta and Bhuvneshwari Devi.

He was quite a naughty child and would keep disturbing everyone, every now and then.

Swami's mother used to jokingly say..."After worshiping shiva so much with utmost devotion, I was expecting my child to be a great soul, but here I have been made a mother of havoc-creating demon!"

In order to calm down a notorious Swami, his mother used to pour a bucket of cold water on his head chanting the name of Shiva and then Swami would become calm and composed as if in a deep meditative state.

Later in his life he lost his father and then his family became financially unstable but Swami always used to chant the name of Shiva. His mother was fed up of financial instability and used to ask Swami why your Shiva does nothing to help us?

Swami had no answer but he kept chanting the name of shiva always!

Though Swami is considered as one of the most intellectual personality one could be on this planet, in his Bachelor of Arts degree he scored only 56%. You must have heard ...."A single piece of paper can't decide my future"... this was proven by Swami long ago.

During his school and college life he would often ask people, whether they have seen God?

Some people used to answer him "NO" and some used to sympathise him as a mentally unstable person.

He once asked the same question to Ramkrishna Paramhansa (A spiritually advanced mystic and Guru) and this time was astonished to hear a confident "YES!", Bhagwan(Ramkrishna Paramhans) said like I have seen you I have also seen God! Swami surrendered to him at that very moment.

Once when Swami was singing a bhajan, playing Sitar in front of Bhagwan, Bhagwan sat down on ground and hearing the sweet words for Shiva from the mouth of Swami he went into the state of Samadhi and as soon as he returned to the normal state, he held Swami's hand and took him to another room. Bhagwan's eyes filled with tears of joy he bowed to Swami and said "My dear son, you are the reincarnation of Narayana and an extremely intelligent personality who has been sent by the Supreme in order to show the right path of humanity to the humanity"

Swami was confused and thought whether this person was mad? But on self introspection he found that this holy man was a great saint and was even more sacred than any other sacred human being and thus an already surrendered Swami once again surrendered to Ramkrishna Paramhans Bhagwan!

Swami was highly influenced Bhagwan's thoughts and was highly attached to him because of his undoubtful love towards Swami. Later in his life he got a shock when Bhagwan's soul left his body and then Swami decided to dedicate rest of his life in order to serve the needy to spread spirituality and to inspire the youth of the nation and make them aware of the immense capabilities they possess.

He started the Ramkrishna mission with some of his like-minded counterparts and decided to spread it all over the nation, travelling as much as possible. He met various rulers,  kings and their he encouraged those people who would fight against discrimination.

Once when Swami was sitting in a cave a person of some lower caste was willing to offer food to Swami as he wanted to serve the monk. Swami noticed this, but the person was afraid because he was doubtful that whether Swami would take something from a person like him. To the person's surprise, Swami called him and took his offerings and said that he doesn't discriminate between creatures since all of the creatures are nothing but a part of the "ONE", the "SUPREME"!

Later in his life Swami thought that the teachings of his religions must not be kept limited to India and should be spread all over the world. He boarded a Ship to Chicago. It is said that it was on this very ship he met Sir Jamshedji Tata and both of them discussed about the nation's youth and condition and later on the TIFR was set up by sir Tata on suggestions of Swami. Swami was not that famous yet, even sir Tata thought him to be a normal monk with extremely high intellect. It was on this very ship, the Captain of the ship lent Swami his newspaper and took it back within a very few period of time. He jokingly asked Swami whether he has finished reading it up? Swami replied affirmative. The captain was shocked and said that Swami was joking and if not "Give me proof, he said!" and to his surprise Swami narrated the entire newspaper word by word to him. 

Later in an interview that Captain narrated this incident to the reporter and stated that people can become this able, only on practicing Brhamacharya (Lifetime Celibacy).

On reaching the USA Swami's survival had become difficult as the folklore there was either teasing him as a Joker or he was being chased as he was being misunderstood as a thief because of his Indian monk-attire, the local folklore was not used to see in their locality.

All this stopped only when Swami delivered his world-famous speech at the Parliaments of World Religions. He just started his speech with the words "Sisters and Brothers of  America" and soon the crowd started clapping for a long duration even before the actual speech had started and the rest is a history! After that Swami had become immensely popular all over the world. Swami was now being treated as a highly intellectual scholar even by the Americans, he was given a room to stay and had become a celebrity.

He also travelled to other European nations it was here he once met the revolutionary physicist Sir Nikola Tesla and it is said that Swami and he had a brief conversation and this later resulted in Tesla using the Sanskrit words like Akash, Agni and Prithvi in his research papers.

When Swami returned to India he had become immensely popular in the youth and had become a role model of millions of people. The youth looked up to him as if he was the one who has reminded them of their immense capabilities like Jamvant and Vanar Sena had reminded Hanuman of their immense capabilities.

Off late he had started falling ill, according to him thus was the result of his carelessness towards his sick mother whom he had left early in life in order to serve the greater mother. He had already declared that that he won't live for more than forty years and he did die at the age of 39 in the year 1902.

In his short lifespan he had achieved so much that his legacy inspired revolutionaries right from Bhagat Singh and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose to Dr . A.P.J. Adul Kalam and NSA Ajit Doval.

The Ramkrishna Mission started by Swami exists even today and works in full fledge and with utmost devotion  and serve the needy and help in spiritual enlightenment of individuals and masses. Swami Vivekananda is youth icon and on his birthday i.e. on 12th January every year National Youth Day is celebrated in India.

For writing this blog it felt I was being ordered by Ramkrishna Paramhans and it feels as if Swami will himself read this blog.

Thank you very much! Jai Hind 🔥🔥

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