Many times a close resemblance strikes eloquent between Srimad Bhagavad Gita of SriKrishna and the Lectures from Colombo to Almora of Swami Vivekananda. If you are earnest to see a great integral act of comprehensive statement down the ages by Hinduism you can never fail to see the resemblance, a great attempt of summary millennia ago on the Chariot and an equal effort of summary by the itinerant monk, the Hindoo Monk as he was called by the papers overseas. Both books do the same mission, I think, in different semiotics.
In one of the lectures, Swami Vivekananda starts like this:
"The subject is very large and the time is short; a full analysis of the religion of the Hindus is impossible in one lecture. I will therefore, present before you the salient points of our religion in as simple language as I can.”
And he proceeds to explain and extract the salient integral features of the great living system, viz., Hinduism. Once upon a time I was so mad after this book. Then when I embarked on the studies of the traditional schools and their works, I developed a strange audacity to think 'after all Swamiji has done oversimplification, perhaps out of his enthusiasm.' When I did enough home work on my own, it dawned slowly on me, a realisation with an embarrassment, that Swami Vivekananda has drawn out the creamy essence of Hindu scriptures, which nobody else could have done so effectively. The realisation was a punch in my nose and of course, I began to know the value of his thoughts in first hand. And coming to what I am trying to say - towards the end of his lecture he is stressing something, the value of which is so immediate and again immeasurable.
”1 have finished what I had to say about our religion. I will end by reminding you of the one pressing necessity of the day. Praise be to Vyasa, the great author of the Mahabharata, that in this Kali Yuga there is one great work. The Tapas and the other hard Yogas that were practised in other Yugas do not work now. What is needed in this Yuga is giving, helping others.
What is meant by Daanam ? The highest of gifts is the giving of spiritual knowledge, the next is the giving of secular knowledge, and the next is the saving of life; the last is giving food and drink. He who gives spiritual knowledge, saves the soul from many and many a birth. He who gives secular knowledge opens the eyes of human beings towards spiritual knowledge, and far below these, rank all other gifts, even the saving of life. Therefore, it is necessary that you learn this, and note that all other kinds of work are of much less value than that of imparting spiritual knowledge. The highest and greatest help is that given in the dissemination of spiritual knowledge."
Gift of knowledge is the very need of our age. Has not Bharathi coming in the line of Vivekananda, Nivedita sung?
"Should we indeed develop knowledge
for the sake of all the people
and all the people as one"
Again what is spirituality? Is it any big show? or any intellectual fanfaronade? Never.
”Talking is not religion ; parrots may talk, machines may talk now-a-days. But show me the life of renunciation, of spirituality, of all-suffering, of love infinite. This kind of life indicates a spiritual man.”
And what should be avoided?
“And above all, one thing is necessary. Aye, for ages we have been saturated with awful jealousy; we are always getting jealous of each other. Why has this man a little precedence, and not I? Even in the worship of God we want precedence, to such a state of slavery have we come. This is to be avoided. If there is any crying sin in India at this time it is this slavery."
(The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Part III, 3rd Ed., 1922 pp 133, 134)
Srirangam Mohanarangan
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