WHITHER VIVEKANANDA? ... 1

12 January has gone once more amidst celebrations of Swami Vivekananda's birthday and, in conjunction with it, the National Youth Day. Since 1985 this day has been celebrated nationwide as the National Youth Day and rightly so, for Swamiji was youth incarnate and thrust the onus on the youth to reshape human civilisation along the line of integrated spirituality that he envisaged, and the movement is gaining momentum with every passing year, but alas! the world, with the exception of India, has almost forgotten this seminal personality despite he being such an influence in America and, to a lesser extent, in Europe towards the end of the nineteenth century. It is a sad decline of popularity of this phenomenon called Vivekananda and the world is paying a heavy price for it.

In Eleanor Stark's book entitled 'The Gift Unopened' this subject has been dealt with at length. Swamiji had visited America in 1893 to participate in the Chicago Parliament of Religions and had created such an impress on American society that he himself had given an estimate of his work there. He had said that it could so happen that after he was gone bodily from the firmament of America, his message might be hidden from public view for centuries but it would not die. It would resurrect itself from within the depths of the American psyche where he had implanted his spiritual seeds and society would veer round to listen to its import. Sister Nivedita held a similar view which she had confided to Josephine MacLeod once and what we see today is, perhaps, a necessary and sad confirmation of the prophecy of the Master and his disciple. It remains a terrible shame, though, that we, Indians, also have not done and are not doing justice to the memory of this great soul who like an effulgent comet had darted through our material sky to light it up for a while with his burning brilliance only to then recede into the far reaches of the spiritual firmament whence he had come. It is time we take cognisance of this terrible lapse and start earnest conversation about Swamiji if we wish to avert imminent annihilation of the human race for which conditions are being readied and which, barring a resurrection of our good sense to uphold Swamiji in our lives, seems to be our collective unavoidable fate awaiting its catastrophic fulfilment in the fullness of time.

Shall we fail Swamiji? May we not reverse the devastating trends affecting, nay, afflicting human society? Yes, we may, but will we? If we wish to, then Vivekananda is the way. Upon the youth of the world lies this utmost duty to study Swami Vivekananda and to live out his preached principles to save civilisation from impending destruction. Hail Vivekananda, fountain of eternal youth!