VIVEKANANDA VINDICATED
Brahman pundits not quite infrequently questioned Swamiji as to the propriety of his wearing the ochre cloth of the sannyasi when he was not born a brahman and was by birth a kayastha instead. He had to argue that sannyas was not denied scripturally to the kayastha and that, as one belonging to the Order of the Paramahamsas, he was absolved from obeying all scriptural social injunctions.
At Varanasi (Kashi) he was the guest of Pramadadas Mitra who was an erudite in the Hindu scriptures, a Theosophist by inclination and sympathies but a social conservative, otherwise. Swamiji, on the other hand, was a classical Vedantic sannnyasi owing allegiance to the Upanishads but was a liberal at heart in relation to social observances and very progressive in outlook. In this point of contention between monk and Mitra there often were heated exchanges in correspondence or in conversation in person and it is surmised that on one such occasion during his stay at Mitra's place, Swamiji had burst forth in indignation at Mitra's dogmatism with a flurry of fiery words that became prophetically true in the end. He vowed that he would never visit the city (Kashi) again till he burst upon society like a bomb-shell and made it follow him like dog. And when he was nearing his end, the famous Vivekananda in his final pilgrimage in 1902, returned to the holy city with his mother, Bhuvaneshwari Devi. By then the world was at his mercy and society veritably at his feet.
The cyclonic monk had burst, indeed, like a bomb-shell upon society and made it follow him like a dog. King and commoner vied with each other to lend their arms to his carriage as they loosened the horses that drew it and carried their beloved leader, their hero, their nation's hope and aspiration embodied on their shoulders through the metropolises of the motherland.
Vivekananda had made a circuit of the world with his Master enthroned in his heart and had lit up the collective consciousness of humanity for the moment and for the millenium to come. The poking pundits had been humbled as they prostrated before this living God and where they had castigated him earlier, they now offered him worship. Thus was Vivekananda vindicated and human insult avenged, for Vivekananda was the God of man and man was the deity he worshipped.
Written by Sugata Bose
Brahman pundits not quite infrequently questioned Swamiji as to the propriety of his wearing the ochre cloth of the sannyasi when he was not born a brahman and was by birth a kayastha instead. He had to argue that sannyas was not denied scripturally to the kayastha and that, as one belonging to the Order of the Paramahamsas, he was absolved from obeying all scriptural social injunctions.
At Varanasi (Kashi) he was the guest of Pramadadas Mitra who was an erudite in the Hindu scriptures, a Theosophist by inclination and sympathies but a social conservative, otherwise. Swamiji, on the other hand, was a classical Vedantic sannnyasi owing allegiance to the Upanishads but was a liberal at heart in relation to social observances and very progressive in outlook. In this point of contention between monk and Mitra there often were heated exchanges in correspondence or in conversation in person and it is surmised that on one such occasion during his stay at Mitra's place, Swamiji had burst forth in indignation at Mitra's dogmatism with a flurry of fiery words that became prophetically true in the end. He vowed that he would never visit the city (Kashi) again till he burst upon society like a bomb-shell and made it follow him like dog. And when he was nearing his end, the famous Vivekananda in his final pilgrimage in 1902, returned to the holy city with his mother, Bhuvaneshwari Devi. By then the world was at his mercy and society veritably at his feet.
The cyclonic monk had burst, indeed, like a bomb-shell upon society and made it follow him like a dog. King and commoner vied with each other to lend their arms to his carriage as they loosened the horses that drew it and carried their beloved leader, their hero, their nation's hope and aspiration embodied on their shoulders through the metropolises of the motherland.
Vivekananda had made a circuit of the world with his Master enthroned in his heart and had lit up the collective consciousness of humanity for the moment and for the millenium to come. The poking pundits had been humbled as they prostrated before this living God and where they had castigated him earlier, they now offered him worship. Thus was Vivekananda vindicated and human insult avenged, for Vivekananda was the God of man and man was the deity he worshipped.
Written by Sugata Bose
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