SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

A regal, majestic figure of commanding presence, vast learning and deep insight, Swami
Vivekananda was barely 30 years old when he created a stir at the World’s Parliament
of Religions in Chicago in 1893. Three and a half years later, when he returned to
India, his homeland, it was as a colossus of strength, courage, confidence, love and manliness
– the embodiment of the ideal of the ‘man-making and character-building’
education he propagated.
Swami Vivekananda was born Narendranath Datta on 12 January 1863 in Calcutta
in a respectable middle-class family. His father, Viswanath Datta, was an attorney
and was a lover of the arts and literature. Although liberal-minded, Viswanath was sceptical
about religious practices. On the other hand, Narendra’s mother, Bhubaneshwari
Devi, was a pious, kind-hearted lady, devoted to the Hindu traditions. The influence
of each of his parents on Narendra was different, yet together they provided a congenial
atmosphere for the precocious boy to grow into an energetic young man with
high ideals.
During his formative years he developed extraordinary mental abilities which some
people either misunderstood or ignored, but which others appreciated and took as signs
of an outstanding individual. As a child he liked to play at meditation and wouldeasily become engrossed. Once when he was seated thus in meditation along with
some of his friends, the sudden appearance of a cobra slithering across the floor
drove all of the children out of the room except Narendra, who remained absorbed
in meditation.
Narendra’s power of concentration – of fixing his mind on one thing while detaching
it from everything else – was remarkable. In his later life he once shot in succession
twelve eggshells bobbing up and down on the water of a river, although he had never
fired a gun before. No less striking was his self-control. He remained calm and unruffled,
no matter how dramatic the situation he was in.