HAIL CHICAGO!

Ramakrishna came for the spiritual rejuvenation of the whole world. Without material well-being to begin with, spiritual well-being remains a distant dream. Thus, the children of Ramakrishna, the succession of his disciples, hold it as a trust the service of the poor and the needy in their hour of trial and tribulation through relief activity and in general times through heath-care and academic programmes. It was Vivekananda's dream to raise fallen India from the dust of degradation consequent upon centuries of foreign subjugation to the pristine heights of the ancient Indian civilisation and far higher where she would emerge as in days of yore the spiritual Guru (preceptor) of the world. But all these would be possible only if India could be made to stand on her own feet once again. When other Indian reformers were blinded by Occidental culture and Christian influences and had a rather negative idea about Hinduism which they blamed for all the prevailing ills in India, Vivekananda stood tall to point out the strong points in Indian culture, especially the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism), before the wide world and averred that the religion of the Vedas was not at fault but its faulty application in national life or, at times, its non-application whatsoever that had set in the decay in the fabric of the nation. Thus, he set about to translating ancient Indian wisdom into modern terms accessible to the rational scientific mind. In short, Vivekananda recreated Hinduism.

When at the Chicago Parliament of Religions Vivekananda in his mellifluous voice enthralled the 7000 strong audience with the music of the flowing Ganga down the breast of the Himalayas, Hinduism was being reborn. The sages of the Vedas gave utterance to their realisations through this modern Rishi, his Master Ramakrishna who animated his being sang the hymns of the Sama Veda through the heart and mind and soul and voice of the hero who in a moment of ethereal inspiration in the vesper hour of 11 September, 1893, crystallised it for good as the meeting point of the past and the future, the West and the East, science and religion, and all diverse currents of work and worship, sacred or secular. The western world had never seen such a hero as it fell into the mood of spontaneous adoration of the Prophet of the hour, so becoming a personality, yet so lofty a soul that seemed to be fathomless on all sides. Chicago stood breathless in its moment of glory, the world stood enraptured to listen to the music that was Vivekananda.