Swami Vivekananda: The Power and the Glory

There is at the heart of all things an unlimited radiance. We Hindus call it Brahman, Satchitananda, existence consciousness bliss, limitless awareness. We will begin there that's the beginning of all things and our story begins there. In that limitless radiance there are these seven great sages we believe. These are immortal beings who are ever immersed in that reality that one existence consciousness bliss. They are ever immersed in meditation in Samadhi on that reality. Now, what happened was, from that mass of luminosity light, it condensed into the form of a divine child, a little child and this little child comes to one of those great sages who is in Samadhi in ever eternally in contemplation of the absolute reality existence, consciousness, bliss. This child comes to a sage and gently awakens the sage to an awareness of the child's existence and the child says to that sage look yonder world the world of men is under darkness and suffering. I go there and you too must follow and the sage silently ascends to it and this child goes to the world of human beings, our material world as a ray of light descends towards this world. It sounds like some kind of, you know, Star Trek beaming down but it's not outer space and this world. It is that luminosity. That radiance is here for those who have eyes to see this is it and we do not see that then this is it also, this material world of people and places and things and samsara and world this is very, very reality. This is where that child appeared. Years later this young boy, young man, Narendranath Dutta in Calcutta, the city of Calcutta, who was in search of God. He would, you know, go around asking people have you seen God and people give different answers. Religious leaders, philosophers until he found one. Somebody said to him, in fact it was a British professor of English in his college in Scottish Church College who said to him that this ecstasy, this divine communion there is a man who experiences this. He lives very close by. He is Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in the temple of Dakshineshwar and so Narendranath goes there. This young man steeped in western ways of learning and thinking but also with a deep spiritual quest. He goes there. Meets this person and Narendranath Dutta, he, says that my first impression of Sri Ramakrishna and for a long time that was the impression he's crazy but there is some kind of extraordinary attraction he felt. He said for me Sri Ramakrishna was love Personified, l o v e love personified. This incredible attraction he felt to this This, this utter luminosity of this person, and the radiance, the utter purity of this character. He said I thought he was a monomaniac. All he thought was God, God, God and when he went and met Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramakrishna calls him aside. He said come, come to the side from the view of men, come to this outside the door of his room in Dakshineshwar and he says to him, Sri Ramakrishna the madman of God says to this young college boy - how long I have waited for you? Where were you? You are the sage, that Nara Rishi, and I say, I say that I bow down to you, you have come for the welfare of humanity. Narendranath Dutta, of course, thought he is crazy. He says I'm the son of Vishwanath Dutta of Calcutta. What are you talking about? Sri Ramakrishna just smiled and he touches this young man on his chest and the world seems to whirl and disappear into a vast luminosity. Of course, Narendranath Dutta doesn't know anything of this. He is terrified. He said stop, what are you doing? I have parents at home and Sri Ramakrishna - he smiles and he says oh well! it will happen in its own time. Let it be for now. It's that luminosity that divine child. All of this we know how? Sri Ramakrishna himself said so. He told his other disciples you know who he is? This is that sage in that realm of the Absolute ever immersed. So we Hindus think of the night sky and the seven Saptarishi, the stars you know we sort of symbolize the seven sages by those. It's very poetic, ever shining, so he's he's one of them and he has come for the welfare of humanity and, of course, we all understand then that the divine child, that luminosity itself condensed into a child and that divine child must be Sri Ramakrishna himself but what Sri Ramakrishna did also was he locked this knowledge in Naren's mind he said I'm locking this the key is with me you have to do mother's work and then it will be opened to you again. This is one of the ways of understanding Vivekananda that all his life, after Sri Ramakrishna, till his eventual Mahasamadhi, he was actually pounding again and again against this door which was locked. He knew this is the secret of his existence was there but he couldn't break through and Sri Ramakrishna and he says the mother the mother make it made him work. Kali - she made him work. She brought him down for her purposes but, just in, just a minute didn't you say the divine child is Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramakrishna brought him down for his purpose. They are the Same, Kali and Sri Ramakrishna. Vivekananda gives this answer. He says Sri Ramakrishna was Kali. She worked up the body of Sri Ramakrishna for her Purposes. I am sure of it. For Vivekananda as for Sri Ramakrishna the real nature of God is feminine. He says in this world, in this universe, there is a power which thinks of itself as female. What is this power? In another place Vivekananda writes that you know what God is, this vastness just as we are individuals, all these individuals, society, not just human beings all living beings, all of it taken together, the sum total of all souls is the only God I know and bow down to. Vivekananda says but it's not just a collective. This is the secret of God. Says it also thinks it is a person. Just as we are persons, this entire collective is a Person with a capital P. That is the personal God, Ishwara, that is worshipped as mother in India and that mother, its Shakti, alone who comes as Avatars. When we say avatar of Vishnu but it really it is the avatar of Shakti. All manifestation, this entire universe, and even the manifestation of God in this universe which is the secret of the avatar or incarnation is Shakti, is the divine mother. So she alone comes as as incarnations as avatars. Beyond this is that mass of light Vivekananda writes. Beyond even the personal God is what we call Brahman there, there is no distinction of individual and cosmic. It's individual and total. There, it is entirely impersonal. There you are the same Brahman. I am the same Brahman and everybody else is that same Brahman. There God and the individual are one and the same. At our level, individual and cosmic are not one and the same just as I am not all. You are not all. The all is God. Individual is us but beyond the individual and the all is the cosmic, is is Brahman - one absolute existence consciousness bliss which is that mass of light which is the only reality that exists and appears as all of this. Lot of philosophy there but that's the story actually and at the very end Vivekananda, you know, did he ever realize who or what he is? He knew, he also knew that he had something to do that he knew. That there was a mission to fulfill that he knew even before he went. He came here to the West. The song we heard that the divine mother is telling him there is, there is something that you must do. So the mission that he accomplished because of which we are here today. We are standing here. We are worshipping. We are observing the birthday of Swami Vivekananda. Why Vedanta is here in the West? Why all of Indian spirituality is here today in the West and all across the world? Why human civilization is what it is today? All of that but Vivekananda always struggled to find out who or what he was that that secret. He always knew that he had something to do. He always knew that his time in this world is limited. When, when one of his well-wishers, an American lady, here wrote to him cautioning him not to speak so boldly and so forth rightly and he wrote back madam I have a message to deliver. I am in a hurry I have no time to be sweet. I have a message to deliver and I shall do so after my own fashion. In, the reason I got this book - generally I don't read out from books but there is a letter. I want to get it right. The exact words of Vivekananda. It's so powerful and beautiful and when I got this book I was reminded we had this wonderful senior monk, Swami Mumukshanandaji, who passed away a few years ago, very saintly, very pure soul, very humble, very scholarly. Now when he would come to teach in the class or give talks, he would come with this many books with all carefully bookmarked because of the quotations he wanted to get it precisely right and I remember we as young monks used to make fun of him. I mean we wouldn't, not to his face of Course, but we would found it, we would find it very very funny that he would come to give talks with a bundle of books and now I'm doing the same thing. I must be getting old. So here is a letter towards, not at the very end, but towards the end. This is in 1900 from California he's writing to Josephine MacLeod. Josephine MacLeod one of his staunchest supporters or to say supporter because not disciple because she never said she was a disciple of Vivekananda and Vivekananda also agreed. He said she came to me complete. She would, Josephine MacLeod would, always say that I am I'm a friend of Vivekananda and I support, I help. Long after Vivekananda had passed she continued to work for Vivekananda's cause. What can I do for you? Vivekananda would say, I think he said this to Josephine MacLeod also, can you love India? Did he said this to Josephine, to Josephine MacLeod, to one of his disciples or friends he said that but this is what Josephine MacLeod did. One of the most touching things all her life, she was not, she was very well connected, very high society and she always had what would be considered designer clothes in those days and she was just like Vivekananda incessantly traveling but she was not very rich. So and whatever money she had she kept on madly saving because she wanted to always donate and give to the cause but one of the most touching things I've read about her is a tiny little anecdote is in one of her visits to India in her old age. She is sitting in Belur math out there in the hot Sun. There are some laborers, manual laborers working these skinny, dark, sweating men working hard very poor struggling and working hard some kind of construction work was going on. she's sitting there and watching one of the monks came to her and said what are you doing here and she said I'm loving India I'm loving India that's what she did all her life long after Vivekananda had passed she dedicated her entire life to this and she did so much for, I mean, in so many ways she helped the Ramakrishna mission she and India in general. All right so here is a letter written to Josephine MacLeod. This is 18th April 1900 from California, Alameda California. Here he writes how he is beginning to withdraw himself after he's already done the world Parliament of Religions is over, he's spreading Vedanta across the United States is over, starting the Ramakrishna Mission, the monastery in India, establishing Belur math, writing the books, publication all of that is over, now he writes. I am well, very well, mentally. I feel the rest of the soul more than that of the body. The battles are lost and won. I have bundled my things and I'm waiting for the great deliverer. Shiva Oh Shiva, carry my boat to the other shore. After all Joe, he used to call her Joe, after all Joe I am only the boy who is to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the banyan at Dakshineshwar that is my true nature. Work and activities doing good and so forth are all superimpositions. Now I again hear his voice, the same old voice, thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking. Love dying. Work becoming tasteless. The glamour is off life. Now only the voice of the master calling. I come Lord, I come. Let the dead bury the dead follow thou me. I come my beloved Lord. I come. Yes I come. Nirvana is before me. I feel it at times the same infinite ocean of peace without a ripple, a breath. I am glad I was born. Glad I suffered so. Glad I did make big blunders. Glad to enter peace. I leave none bound. I take no bonds. Whether this body will fall and or and release me or I enter into freedom in the body the old man is gone, gone forever. The guide, the guru, the leader, the teacher has passed away. The boy, the student, the servant is left behind. The sweetest moments of my life have been when I was drifting. I am drifting again with the warm bright Sun, the bright warm Sun ahead and masses of vegetation around and in the heat everything is so still, so calm and I'm drifting languidly in the warm heart of the river. I dare not make a splash with my hands or feet for fear of breaking the marvelous stillness. Stillness that makes you feel sure it is an illusion. Oh! it is so calm my thoughts seem to come from a great, great distance in the interior of my own Heart. They seem like faint distant whispers and peace is upon everything sweet, sweet peace. Like that one feels a few moments just before falling into sleep. When things are seen and felt like shadows, without fear, without love, without emotion, peace that one feels alone surrounded with statues and pictures. I come Lord, I come. The world is but not beautiful nor ugly but as sensations without exciting any emotion. Oh Joe! the blessedness of it. Everything is good and beautiful for things are losing their, all their relative proportions to me. My body among the first. OM. That existence. In almost the very end of his life, somebody asked him, when he was discussing this what Sri Ramakrishna had said about Vivekananda, and somebody asked Vivekananda do you know what Sri Ramakrishna meant when he said these things about you and Vivekananda said now I know and everybody felt silent. Felt silent because Sri Ramakrishna had warned them that do not talk about this to him. If the day he knows who he is, he will leave this body and go back to that realm and that he did. He asked one of his disciples, this was 1902, asked one of his disciples select an auspicious date from the Indian calendar and when he came to that date and in a particular date Vivekananda said stop let it be and that date corresponded to the fourth of July in the English calendar. The independence day of America which he so loved. It's not a coincidence that he would select the date of his departure from the world. Freedom from the body. Freedom from from material existence and the independence day of America again Very, very much in keeping with his philosophy his deep non-dual philosophy. It's not that there is a spiritual world and there is a secular world it's one reality. The Upanishads and the American Constitution Declaration of Independence they're all spiritual documents. This is the great teaching. We'll talk, talk about that later. On his walk with Swami Premananda, as walking to the monastery which he had established on the bank of the Ganga, in one place he shows, in that when I pass, cremate me here, burn my body here, now he was only 39 so nobody took it too seriously. He was not keeping well at all physically but on the 4th of July in the evening and the vespers, the arati, was over, he sat for meditation and he passed, he left the body consciously, deliberately and of course the body was cremated in the place where he had pointed out to Baburam and Swami Premananda. That's where now the temple of Vivekananda stands on the bank of the Ganga. That was the beginning and the end I would say “An end”. It's not really the end because the story continues even till today but that is not the subject of today's talk from glory he came and back to glory he went but our talk today is, the subject is, what happened in between the display of Shakti, the power, which he gave us which we are benefiting from even today, standing here, talking here about him. So what did he do, the government of India has recognized Vivekananda's birthday 12th of January on the English calendar as the National Youth Day and truly he's an icon for the youth. I mean, it is in one sense it's sad that we don't get to see Vivekananda at 60. We can't think of Vivekananda at 80 but for us Vivekananda always remains that young person, at the age of 39 forever immortal as that person and truly he embodies the spirit of youth. Imagine what he did. He came to this country in 1893, the World Parliament of Religions and by 1902 he was gone. In 10 years, in less than 10 years, the tremendous amount of work. He changed the world. He changed the Western world. He changed the East. India. He changed the course of world history and in 10 years he was done and if that's not the spirit of youth then what is! When he came to the World Parliament of Religions, I mean, I will not tell the whole story but it's just how amazingly sister Nivedita writes about it you know when Vivekananda stood up to speak at the World Parliament of Religions, by the way it was 9-11 here in New York and throughout the world especially here in New York 9-11 means something else to us. It means violence and destruction and terrorism and hatred in the name of religion and the answer to this problem was given more than a hundred years ago in 1893 in the World Parliament of Religions on the same date - 11th September 1893. What is the answer to hatred and to religious fanaticism? Vivekananda as if he's giving the answer a hundred years before this terrible aggression. When he stood up to speak, sister Nivedita writes, before him was remember it was the universal exposition. World Parliament of Religions was a part of the Colombian exposition so before him was the modern West in all its, modern means 1893, by the way they wrote a best-selling book about 1893 Chicago “Devil in the white city” I think it's about it apparently there was a serial killer in the Colombian exposition when Vivekananda stood up to speak before him in Chicago, it was the Colombian Exposition, it was the modern West and Nivedita says not modern West. She says it was the modern world and she's right. What was there is now the world. All over the world. It's that spirit. It was the latest inventions of science and technology. The latest discoveries of the natural world and of geography and of different cultures all presented there in a grand exhibition. The energy, dynamism, the free-thinking, the new ideas embodied in this new nation America at that time that was in front of Vivekananda and then Nivedita writes behind him was five millennia, five thousand years of patient development of one of the greatest stories of humanity, the story of spirituality, five thousand years of patient development of spiritual life, behind him was the sun-drenched dusty roads of India upon which, these are her words, upon which have trodden for centuries and millennia so many sages and saints and Vivekananda embodied that wisdom, she writes, that when he stood up to speak he did not speak about his master he did not speak about Sri Ramakrishna or his particular view of religion. He spoke as it were all of the development of Indian spirituality through millennia for all that spiritual consciousness as if he were a gateway to that and in this Nivedita writes he became a meeting point not only of the East and the West but also of the past and the future. At that point they met new world today especially in spiritual life was born. There he spoke about, what did he speak about, he spoke about first of all the harmony of religions. It's not that one religion is true and others are false. Not that one everybody has to be converted to my way of thinking. No, that all religions are true and here he was echoing his master's words Sri Ramakrishna's teachings. All religions are true. We are all wending our way to that one ultimate reality and who is speaking this Vivekananda who has come from that realm of the absolute. We are all bending our way all of human civilization through various religions. Not just religion through all ways of life that struggle which is going on which we call civilization, which we call life itself is moving there's a purpose to all this. We are moving towards that absolute reality. He spoke about the divinity within us. Nivedita writes again the two great teachings of Vivekananda: one is the - in this vast world, the world of continuous change, in this world of death there is one eternal life. There is one background and unchanging immortal reality. The background to this vast multifarious world of continuous change, this flux and in us where we are all individuals, we seem to be all separate people in competition and clash with each other but Vedanta says we are not these bodies. We are not even these minds. We are spirit. We are that pure being, that reality which appears to us this vast universe that reality also we are. The great Vedantic equation, that thou art, this is, this, the plank upon which Vivekananda stood and he spoke. This is what he conveyed, the message he conveyed and more than this, Nivedita says that he brought to the West the message of the divinity within each of us and the oneness of all existence and she says that these ideas were there in ancient India even if Vivekananda had not lived, Gita and the Upanishads they would have been there but Vivekananda not only presented that old message in new words but he did something more. He says is it true that there was nothing new in his teachings? There was. He, to the old idea of the Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual Vedanta, the, the identity of the human and the divine and the Vishistha Advaita that all of this is one integral whole we are all part of God and Dvaita Vedanta dualism that there is God and we are there separate and we worship God they seem to be different philosophies and India they have, they were all these great schools of Vedanta - Dvaita Vedanta, Vishistha Advaita Vedanta, Dvaita Vedanta which for a thousand years from Shankara Onwards, they have engaged in dialectical combat in debate who is, which is the right interpretation of the Upanishads? Which is the right interpretation of the Gita? Vivekananda, sister Nivedita says Vivekananda gave us this idea that they are all developments of that one stream of thought. It's not that one is right or the other is wrong. They're all right. They're all developments of that one stream of thought originating from the Upanishads and the Gita. You can worship God as separate. I am a creature and God is the creator. I am human and God is divine and I worship in temples and churches and mosques and synagogues, in gurudwaras, in all these places God can be worshipped in all special times, in special forms, in special names. God can be worshipped. The dualistic mode of worship of God is perfectly alright. It will take you to the absolute reality also or the one divine, not separate, all of it is pervaded by one divinity. All this entire universe and all of us, God dwells in all of us we are all part of God that too is correct and then finally neither you nor I know individuality, no difference, one unlimited undifferentiated mass of radiance existence consciousness bliss, that is what you are, Tattvamasi, that is also true from different perspectives, each of them is true, different spiritual realizations. Vivekananda often did put it as a hierarchy, you know, first dualism then qualified monism and then the identity - Dwaita, Vishishta Adwaita, Adwaita but actually Sri RamKrishna never made such a hierarchy. He just said in whichever way you take a pie and you eat it in this way or that way, it still tastes the same. It still tastes sweet. Then sister Nivedita goes on to say another, the greatest teaching, the master key which will unlock all of Vivekananda's teachings. She says this is part of the simpler and still greater teaching, the still greater truth that the many and the one are the same reality seen by different seekers in different minds, in a mindsets, in different times, in different attitudes. What is the many and the one? The many is this universe. What is the one? There is God and philosophy, theology, from the very beginning till now has a struggle when you talk about God or Allah or Brahman or Shiva or Devi or even if you don't believe in God, still talk about Buddha nature and Tathagata, Garbha, the Dharmakaya whatever you talk about, the ultimate reality your philosophy says that there is this something which is an ultimate real and that reality - what connection does it have with this world. Here is our life. There is what you're talking about. What's the relationship? What are we to that? Are we separate? Are we part of it or are we one with it? The various questions can be asked and for that is one in the, many multiple answers have come and the religions of the world and the philosophers of the world have given various kinds of answers to this. Vivekananda he comes and he says one and the many are the same reality, I mean, just to take a quick survey if you take the Nyaya Vaisheshika philosophers of ancient India. They said “the one” is real. There is a God and “the many” are also real separately. They were pluralists. There is a material universe. There are substances. We are all substances here and there are substances of qualities and there are actions, dravya, guna, kriya. There are relationships. So they constructed a world. Pretty much common sense. The way we experience the world and they said this is it and there is a God, Ishwara. That was, “one” is real, “many” are real and they are separate. Then comes, you know, the, the Sankhyan - one is Purusha and “the many” they put it under another reality called prakriti, nature. The nature alone becomes “the many” and you are Purusha consciousness. That's another way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it would be “the one” alone is real and “the many” are appearances of that reality, the Advaitin, the Brahman alone is real and “the many” are appearances of that - that's another way of looking at it. What Vivekananda said was “the many” and “the one” are the same reality and then what is the, what is the upshot of that, what is the conclusion, what follows from that? What follows from that is all of Vivekananda's great gifts to humanity. Nivedita says if that is true then it's not just religion which is spiritual but our secular life also becomes spiritual. If it's the same reality, if your office and the temple are the same reality, if God and human beings are the same reality, if meditation and work are the same reality then they cannot, that not that one is spiritual and the other is not spiritual. It cannot be so, so she says henceforth no difference between the sacred and the spiritual, and sacred and the secular, no difference between the sacred and the secular. To labor is to pray, to have and hold as, as strict a trust as to quit and renounce the office. The farmyard, the schoolroom, the shop they are as fit a place for meeting of God and man as the meditation hall or the temple. It's not that you cannot meet God here. You can do it here but you can do it there also and she says this is what made Vivekananda the great teacher of karma action not as divorced from Gyana and Bhakti but as the expression of Gyana and Bhakti. So, in traditional Advaita Vedanta or you know the traditional schools of Vedanta, karma, your active life, it was seen as a way of preparing you for spirituality at most. It cannot lead you to God realization but it will help you to develop yourself so you become fit for Enlightenment. So karma was always given a lower rank but in Vivekananda it becomes the same rank as Gyan and knowledge and meditation and devotion and work. His famous definition of spirituality of religion - it is the manifestation of the divinity already within us and you do it, how, you do it by Philosophy, philosophy means by the path of knowledge, Gyana yoga, you do it by love, worship, the path of devotion, Bhakti yoga, do it by psychic control he says meditation, by the path of Raja yoga or by service, by work and service, Karma yoga, by one or more or all of these and be free, i.e, all of religion. Books, temples, doctrines, churches: they are all secondary details. They are useful but they are secondary. The thing to do is attain to freedom. What is freedom? Freedom from limitation, freedom from want, freedom from suffering, freedoms from smallness in to awaken and attain to our real nature which is that vast luminosity that limitless radiance His brother disciple, Swami Ramakrishnananda, wrote a hymn Vivekananda Panchakam - five verses on Vivekananda. In the first verse he describes who the essence of Vivekananda. He says “Anitya Drishyeshu Vivichya Nityam, Tasmin Samaadhatta Ihaasma Leelaya, Viveka Vairagya Vishuddha Jittam, Yosau Viveki Tamaham Namami”. I salute that Vivekananda. He calls him Viveki the one who practices and embodies Viveka but what is Viveka? What does this Viveka mean? “Anitya Drishyeshu Vivichya Nityam” - it is this, the heart of Advaita Vedanta. In this world of flux and ever change, ever-changing world. Time is passing. Scene after scene is coming before you and disappearing. Our bodies are continuously changing from birth to babyhood to childhood to teenage, in youth and middle age and old age. Our senior most member, Bill Conrad, he is in a senior facility. When he went there he said it's not bad but there's one problem here and what's the problem? He said they are all old and decrepit. That's his complaint in the senior facility and and he is 98. So our our bodies they become old and decrepit. We mustn't laugh because we'd all get there. We're all getting there to becoming old and decrepit. I remember once I was walking bare feet on the cold grass in in our main monastery. There was a young novice monk. An old monk there, he was walking with, he used to walk with two sticks. It was a very funny old Swami and he was always full of humor and he said put on your sandals. Don't walk bare feet on the wet ground. I said, Oh, it's no problem at all and he said, I still remember, you will learn young monk. You will learn when you come to my age. Another funny thing about him was, so he used to walk with two sticks does what like this, now in the Mandukya Upanishad there is a saying “Soyaam Atma Chatush Paad” literally it means the Atman has four feet. What it basically means is it has waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and through that you realize the ultimate reality, the underlying that same mass of luminosity which appears as waking, dreaming, deep sleep, the fourth so but it's said that Atman has four feet and whenever I would see him I would say “Soyaam Atma Chatush Paad”, here is the Atman with four feet. World is continuously changing. Our bodies are changing and our minds are changing all the time. How much so from childhood to youth to middle age, this our mind? Just imagine what your mind was ten years ago. Just imagine what your mind was like when you were a teenager in a high school. We would be very embarrassed to think that, that was me. That's what I thought. It was, but don't be embarrassed because again it was not. It was just the mind just as you're not your clothes, you're not even your mind so you can save yourself the embarrassment. You are fine. The mind was like that and imagine what the mind was like when you were a kid ten years old, five years and you can't remember. We can't remember what was the mind like when we were six months old. It would be such an alien mind to us. Mind is continuously changing. The body is continuously changing. People are changing. Time and space, ever-changing scenes are coming and flowing before us in this “Anitya Drishya” and this Anitya means Impermanent, transient, temporary the Buddha says what is but life but a bubble on a fast-flowing stream. What happens to a bubble on a fast-flowing stream? Bursts. It's very delicate. I have a good friend here in Central Park who blows bubbles. That's what he does all day long and beautiful iridescent colorful bubbles, huge one soap bubbles and they float around for a few seconds. If you touch it, it bursts and it disappears into back into space. That's what our life is and he does this beautiful trick. Little kids love those bubbles and he has this beautiful trick where he makes a little kid stand and he blows a bubble around the kid. So, that's very beautiful but that's what we are, I was thinking, here is our bubble and the body is part of that bubble and our thoughts are part of that bubble and it bursts. “Anitya Drishya” and then is the word Drishya. Notice one thing, however, one thing all of it appears to you. You are the one who experiences this. Yeah, that's true. So, that seems to be part of the problem that we are experiencing this massive change and aging and disease and death and old age and decrepit but you are experiencing it. That which is experiencing is not part of the bubble. The body is part of the bubble. Mind is part of the bubble but the mind is appearing to you. The body is appearing to you and the bubble of this life is appearing to you. That the pure subject is consciousness, is awareness, is that mass of light. We do not know it, we do not see it. It's there. Vivekananda called it the open secret of what we are. This unchanging mass of illumination, light shining, light not this physical light, nature of this light is consciousness, that's light shining. This is what we are, now “Anitya Drishyeshu Vivichya Nityam”. Swami Ramakrishnanandaji writes about Vivekananda. In this mass of change, continuous mass of change which everybody experiences he also experienced but the difference is in this he was able to Vivichya literally means, Sanskrit word means, Vivich - Prithak Karane, separating, he was able to separate, to see in every experience, in meditation, out of meditation, in action and in inaction, in the midst of action, midst of inaction, in repose, in sleep, in waking, everywhere he was able to see. “See” means within quotes the the background radiance, the consciousness to which this entire universe is appearing. Vivichya Nityam - what's the use of that? All problems, all change and conflict and unhappiness are part of this bubble. So are all pleasures part of this bubble but none of them is there in that, our, in our real nature, in that consciousness. This is what Vivekananda was saying I come, that peace, without a ripple that absolute calm, nirvana is before me. He's saying I come that's what we have, we are our real nature. He was able to see that but he was able to see that in every experience with eyes open and eyes closed. Anitya Drishyeshu Vivechya Nityam and then, you see, we, if we try a little bit, we can also see. The problem is even if we get to see it we know, we complain, we can't stay there and we get mixed up with the bubble of life. Vivekananda says that many come to an understanding few realize. We are unable to settle ourselves there but then what does Vivekananda do, the second line. “Tasmin Samaadhatta Ihaasma Leelaya” realizing the eternal the, the background, this radiance, existence, consciousness, bliss. He was able to remain absorbed in Samadhi in that and Leelaya - just like that. We are unable to steady ourselves in that radiance. It's there right now. Right now it's there. It's just one mass of radiance everywhere and that is what you are. Tat Tvam Asi but we can't. The moment, especially when, when the bubble is very shiny it's very nice. We get sucked into that or it's very terrifying we get sucked into that and whether it's temptation or terror, whether it's anxiety or pleasure we are unable to remain centered in our real nature as the experiencing consciousness as that absolute but he could. When? At all times. With that, that complete ease he always had it from his childhood even before he met Sri RamaKrishna. Why he had it? We know. He did not know. We know why he had it. That's his real nature. He is one of those Saptarishis that always immersed in the contemplation of the divine but this is what he wanted to give us. The reason why he could easily remain established in his real nature, effortlessly – “Viveka Vairagya Vishuddha Chittam” - because his mind was purified. Purified mind he could deploy, manifest these two things - Viveka and Vairagya. Viveka - this ability to see the eternal in the non-eternal, ability to see the divine in the secular, ability to, to, to see the reality in the midst of appearance, so this is Viveka. Vedanta shows us many ways. Well, if we, our minds are not pure what happens is, if we read all that it sounds like very nice philosophy, very “cool” things to know but is it working for you? Not quite. We, we say it's a very interesting language that people use that I, I understand it but I haven't realized it yet. We say that. It's like saying, hey, you are Sarvapriyananda. You say if, I say I understand it but I still am unable to realize I'm Sarva Priyananda. How silly that is. It means you don't really understand. Viveka, that's Viveka and that goes with another very important quality of the mind, power of the mind. Vairagya – dispassion, dispassion. This continuous, we get attached, terror-temptation, both of them will tie us down to this world. Vivekananda writes in one of his poems – “thine only is the hand that holds the rope that drags thee on, let go thy hold sanyasi bold, say - Om Tat Sat Om” but we can't let go of our hold. We are trapped somehow. We are suffering because of it but we can't let go of our hold, hold on people, the world, Facebook status and popularity, parking spot and the body as I would like it to be. I don't know, I don't like that it's changing and aging and no I want it this way. I don't want it that way and the mind - I want it to be happy, a smiley emoji all the time. I don't like it when it is unhappy. It is a very interesting observation I was just thinking in the Bhagavad Gita, “sthita pragya”, the enlightened person - Arjuna asks what is it like to be enlightened and Krishna answers in the end of the second chapter. Very beautiful. “Sthita pragyasya ka bhasha”. What is the description, the characteristics of the enlightened one and the word used is very significant “sthita pragya” - stabilized enlightenment. We have this complaint I get it but I am swept away so suppose you got it, it became real and you are never swept away. What would be, what would it be like and then Krishna gives some characteristics there. All of them match Vivekananda and yet in some cases they don't. Very interesting he says first of all “prajahaati yada kamaan” - one must be able to be completely absorbed. Shut down the world. Shut down the thought, feelings of the body, mind, be absorbed in the reality “aham brahmasmi” in samadhi and Vivekananda could do that very easily. We see this. Second, he says at the level of our minds, Krishna says, in samadhi I am Brahman centered in the reality, centered in the light within, good - that's one, most important. Second, what about the mind when you are interacting with the world? What is the mind of an enlightened one? What is it like? “Dukheshvanudvigna manah sukheshu vigatasprhah” he says when things don't go your way. Even if you're enlightened there will be things which will not go your way. Old age and decrepit. that'll come. Then what happens? “Anudvigna”, “Anudvigna” - not upset. When the setup is not to your liking don't get upset. It ,the enlightened one does not get upset. “Sukheshu vigatasprhaha” - when things are going my way I don't have this, this thirst, this hunger for more, more. Give me more of this. Let me hold on to what is there. No, so this detached but here I was just thinking that Vivekananda was not like this. You'd say that the serene evenness of mind but Vivekananda would, could get pretty upset. He would be quite emotional. He would be quite joyous and he would weep in sorrow. I was thinking this is a deeper understanding of what Krishna is saying. Tt's not that the enlightened one will be sitting quietly in serene whatever will happen. Doesn't matter. Shrug. I am Brahman. Let whatever will happen, happen. I will not let my mind get upset. Nice things come. I will not let my mind be happy but a deeper understanding is let the mind weep with the sorrows of the world, let the mind be happy with the happiness of the people. You are Brahman. You are pure consciousness. What is it to you? That's a fuller life. He left but notice one thing he is weeping and his joy but all for others. He was completely unselfconscious. The difference is, the unenlightened person, we weep for ourselves. I, me, and mine. We are joyful for ourselves and nastily just the reverse for others. When people are weeping, a little delight Inside. People are happy, little jealousy inside. Vivekananda was just the opposite, completely self-effaced. Once Vivekananda was getting ready for a talk here in the United States, he was looking at the mirror tying them looking at the mirror and one of the American ladies there, she thought oh this young monk, he is vain of his looks. Vivekananda understood and he looked around he said madam you know the strangest thing - the moment I go away from the mirror I completely forget what I look like. So he's coming to take a look. He is not aware of his own Existence. That's why when he would speak, Josephine MacLeod she met Vivekananda here in New York and she says that it's like a door had opened and no this is another person, another American lady, she became a very famous poet later on, she says when Vivekananda started speaking it's like a door had opened. The form disappeared. It was like a great voice, like a bell, it kept ringing and, you know, took us to an impersonal level that as if a vast mass of luminosity was before us. So, because he had no self-consciousness. He could be happy with your happiness. He could weep at your sorrow. He would sympathize completely and yet be completely detached. That was Vivekananda. “Viveka Vairagya Vishuddha Chitta” - purified mind, dispassion is there but dispassion does not mean he will be like a wall not reacting to anything at all in the world, he reacted to everything he felt every bit as much as we do and much more. That's why he could sympathize with everybody, especially with those who suffered. He says, my god, all of this, all humanity, all living beings, that's the only God I recognize and I worship and bow down to but, especially my God the poor, my God the sick, my God the wicked, those are the objects of my special worship. He always had this power and so Ramakrishnanada Ji says – “Yosau viveki tamahum namami” I bow down to this Vivekananda. This is his understanding of Vivekananda and he always had this power. Here in San Francisco, he would sit in those trams. They still have trams. Of course, they are more modern now with electric power and everything, he would sit in those trams and then he would be immersed in Samadhi. He would be lost till it would take him around and he would get upset with himself. It was difficult for him not to be in Samadhi. I think Marylouise Burke, she remarks that it seemed that he had this series of, like, mini Samadhis throughout the day, here in New York. There is beautiful descriptions. After Chicago he came to New York, established the Vedanta Society of New York, us in November 1894, rented locations. One of the most beautiful descriptions is how Vivekananda, he said he would be in a meditative mood, in silent absorbed in the luminosity within and he says while this great city slept at the night, Vivekananda meditated. Sometimes the most wonderful experience would be in the daytime in that room where he in that apartment where he stayed there, was rented, it would be to you would walk into a room where Vivekananda was there and suddenly he would be struck by the absolute silence there. He is in Samadhi and one would slowly back out of the room, carefully. So kind of silence and luminosity is to pervade the atmosphere around him. He always had this power. Sometimes to his embarrassment, he would sit in a class in New York, here, teaching meditation, Raja Yoga - Patanjali Yoga Sutras and to demonstrate meditation he would start meditating going to Samadhi half an hour, one hour, two hours, until the audience would slowly get up and carefully leave and he got impatient with himself and he taught some people - remember they did not know these things, you know, that a special word, a mantra, has to be said - say it in my ears when I'm in that particular state. This, it shows you exactly what Sri Ramakrishna used to do to those people around him in Dakshineshwar, if I go into Samadhi and don't come down, chant this mantra, this particular mantra in my ears and different bhavas and different mantras which shows you Samadhi is not a state of unconsciousness, the state of heightened consciousness is perfectly aware but absorbed in one thing not in other things will not get through to him but something related to that will get through to him. Something related to that idea of the divine so he always had that power and he could throw others into it here in New York Vedanta Society is giving a talk. Abhidananda ji has come from England to help him here from India to England, England to here and Vivekananda is giving a talk. Abhidananda later writes - I felt as if my Kundalini was rising when I listened to Vivekananda. Everybody felt their minds were being raised. He could transmit spirituality. Just, it's not just a talk he's giving. He says Vivekananda said later do you think in America I just gave lectures? No, I gave them spirituality. After one of the talks, Abhidananda foolishly, I think, he announced now there'll be a question answer and Vivekananda scolded him, question answer after this, do you want to spoil it after this? What question answer? Let them go away carrying this with themselves. In Belur Math, he is talking with visitors under that big mango tree which is still there barely alive now with support and all but he used to sit under that in a cot and talking with visitors. Now people would be affected by this transmission in different ways depending upon their level of understanding. So, that day is talking with visitors. Swami Premananda, he would conduct the worship of Sri Ramakrishna. At that time, it was the old temple. If those have gone to Belur Math, you know in the courtyard before the big temple was constructed, the old temple on the first floor. So, Swami Premananda would go up there, finish the worship of Sri Ramakrishna, would come down with the tray of the flowers and the sandal paste and the offerings and he would go to the Ganga to conduct the worship of Ganga with the with the tray of offerings. So, Vivekananda was talking and the subject came to God realization, realization of Brahman and Vivekananda says do not seek just see Brahman here is Brahman. He says here is Brahman. The moment he said this a stunned silence descended upon the courtyard and all the people who are sitting around him they were lost in deep meditation but at different levels none more so than Swami Premananda, another disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who after finishing the worship in the temple was coming down walking down towards the Ganga with the tray of offerings he was not part of the conversation he just heard here is Brahman, just Vivekananda saying that and he stopped in Samadhi. One foot in front of the other like a picture. This state, that courtyard, you know, that stayed in that blessed moment for some time and then Vivekananda quietly said, used to call Baburam, Baburam Dai go, please go and Baburam Maharaj started walking he always had that power of becoming immersed in the absolute himself and throwing anybody else. One of his disciples asked him this question, Vivekananda was very pleased with him, young man in Calcutta and said ask me anything, ask me for anything and that disciple said tell me what is Maya. Vivekananda said ask me a different question and that disciple wasn't going to let go he said having got a guru like you if I don't understand this mystery then I will never understand it. I want to know this. Then Vivekananda started speaking and the disciple has recorded his experiences he said as I listened to Vivekananda the world whirled around me and as if everything disappeared I couldn't see the room around me I couldn't see my own body or Vivekananda also but only his voice continued and there was this mass of luminosity which was there. After some time, I burst out and said but you, what, what you are doing? This work of the of the monastery, the Ramakrishna mission and all it's all Maya. The world is Maya. Even the work that you're doing is Maya and then he said this. He said when I said this I realized, in Bengali you use two kinds of words for “you” - apni or tumi. Apni means thou, you which is respectful but you would use to a senior or a parent or a guru and tumi is what you would use to a friend. All Indian languages have these addresses and this person, he said it and then suddenly it struck him I'm talking to Vivekananda and I said tumi the way you address somebody you're equal. The moment he thought this everything snapped back into place, the world and room and Vivekananda sitting in front of him and he looked staring at Vivekananda. Vivekananda looked down at him smiling. He says that is true. That's true means it is all Maya. If you can plunge your mind in meditation, become one with the, with the divine, with Brahman. If you cannot then come and help in this work. Vivekananda had said that let all vision cease, let all dreams cease or if you cannot then dream but better dreams which are, which are eternal love and service free. What is the best possible life to lead even when we are not enlightened, in this life. It is eternal love, unconditional love. Doesn't matter what the other person is? What the other person does? Unconditional love and expressed in my life as service free - I don't want anything in return. Vivekananda said give, give and do not look back. Whoever looks back their ocean dwindles into a drop. His achievements were extraordinary. In this country, he opened the door to the inflow Of, what, what Sister Nivedita says, the 5,000 years of patient development of spirituality in India. All the accumulated treasures, they began to flow into this country and through in the United States across the world. Phil Goldberg in his book, American Veda, he has shown how Vivekananda came, the Vedanta Societies, this is the first one, he speaks about this Vedanta society also and the next one was in San Francisco - Vivekananda established that and the others were established also after this but not just the Vedanta societies, it shows how many teachers, Swamis and yogis and Lamas, Buddhist teachers, Vedanta teachers, yoga teachers, bhakti teachers, teachers of meditation, even Hath yoga, all the yoga studios and all the stretching and asana - all of that it came in the wake of Vivekananda and not just the practices, a change in the way we think. Phil Goldberg has a chapter - the Swamis taught the smart guys and the smart guys taught the rest of us. That's the name of the chapter. He talks about, for example, right here in New York - he talks about Salinger, JD Salinger one of the most beloved novelists of America who after the war, he wrote this “Catcher in the Rye”. They made a movie about Salinger recently “Rebel in the Rye” and they showed coming to the Vedanta society the Ramakrishna Vivekananda center on the east side, they've shown it very nicely. I saw that, saw that clip just, just to see how they have shown and they've shown Swami Nikhilananda. Very nicely done. I tried to read “Catcher in the Rye” but I didn't quite like it and somebody told me - too late Swami, you should have read it when you were a teenager. You're too old for that. You have to be a teenager to understand that kind of feeling and he learned Vedanta very deep in his head, a deep personal devotion to Sri Ramakrishna and Ma Sharada and Swami Vivekananda. In the Movie, they are very particular, very moving scene at the end where they show that he has become a recluse. He became a recluse because of that and he kept on writing. The last scene of the movie, at that one I remember, they show that he's in this cottage, Salinger, and writing. He is sitting in meditation. The picture of Thakur, Ma, Swamiji in front of him and then he gets up and then he goes to his writing desk and starts writing and that's the fade out of the movie. He wrote that these two classics Raja Yoga and Karma Yoga, both published by the way from the Vedanta Society of New York for the first time. Vivekananda wrote Raja Yoga here in the Vedanta Society - his translation and commentary on the Patanjali Yoga Sutras and Karma Yoga, these two classics our American youth would do well to carry these two classics around in their pockets. Salinger, his book Franny and Zooey is full of references to karma and Jnana and in fact in his own words there's a copy of Franny and Zooey which he presented to Swami Nikhilananda. In that, there's a pencil note saying that I wrote this book to spread the ideas of Vedanta, Salinger. Star Wars - did you know and who would have thought George Lucas, George Lucas was friends with Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell gave him many ideas. He was a disciple of Swami Nikhilananda and you can see many Vedantic ideas in the Star Wars movies. How it spreads across popular culture? The Lion King: you see when the lion is being shown his reflection in the water and to see who you really are. That's exactly the story that Vivekananda tells about the lion cub who grew up not knowing who he was. He was, thought he was sheep and he was shown that he's a lion that he realizes. I am the spirit that's what we are supposed to realize. I'm not body. What sheep means – body, senses, mind - I'm not these. I am awareness. I'm eternal consciousness. Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Gerald Hurd all of them were very close to Swami Prabhavananda in Southern California in Hollywood and look at the product of that. Isherwood wrote that one of the most amazing biographies of Sri Ramakrishna, “Ramakrishna and his disciples”, right, even now when in here and in India, when people recommend a book about Sri Ramakrishna in English, we recommend that one “Ramakrishna and his disciples”. It's so well written and also the kind of price some of these people paid for their, for their contribution. Isherwood was, you know, the darling of the jet set here, intellectual jet set here in the East Coast and the West Coast in United States in the 50s and 60s and when he wrote that book some reviews were nasty. Some said that oh he's become part of some Hindu cult or something like that, you know, but he maintained his association with the Vedanta Society till the very end. It's very closely connected with the Vedanta Society of Southern California. Aldous Huxley - one of the leading intellectuals in Britain and then they were all British. By the way Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Gerald Hurd, Alan Watts. Alan Watts was not directly connected with Vedanta but he taught Vedanta and Zen a kind of eclectic mixture of both. Aldous Huxley - his amazing book the perennial philosophy. Huston Smith - major figure in in the study of comparative religion and his book “The World's Religions”. He wrote that he was a disciple of Swami Satprakashananda in the Vedanta Society in St. Louis. So, this spread of Vedantic ideas, yogic ideas, ideas of and then later on Buddhism and so on that Vivekananda was the pioneer. He opened the door here and he went back to India. The other side of his work. Sister Nivedita writes when he stood up to speak here in Chicago - his message for the West. He said I have a message for the West as Buddha had the message for the East but his message, his words, Nivedita writes traveled back across the dark oceans to a land, to his motherland asleep to awaken her to a sense of her greatness. When he went back to India, India which was colonized which was starving, superstitious, divided. He was the first person historian says to consistently refer to himself as Indian. Other leaders at that time they called themselves Bengali or Maharashtrian or Tamil or Punjabi and within a generation, within Vivekananda's generation itself all leaders in India political and thought leaders and writers they were talking of themselves as Indian. He, I would say kick-started the Indian national movement which finally led to the freedom of India. Now they said we are celebrating the 75 years of Indian freedom whether it is Pandit Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, who said that in my generation we all read Vivekananda and I would urge the youth of today, this is after Indian independence and to read Vivekananda. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the philosopher and president of India who was at Harvard University, I saw the Center for Study of World Religions was inaugurated by Dr. Radhakrishnan in 1950s I think late 50s. He was inspired by Vivekananda down to the our present Prime Minister Modi from his youth onwards is inspired by Vivekananda. So the tremendous effect of Vivekananda on India and the West, this was the power that was unleashed. He came from a region of luminosity, a region of light Luminosity, our real nature, his real nature, our real nature and he came to give us that message not just a separate message of spirituality but a global message which includes not just spirituality, not just religion but science and art and, and human civilization as such. What he has given us is we are just beginning to see the working out of that in this world today whether in India or here and in the centuries ahead. We will not be alive but people will keep on seeing what happens. I am sure, I am sure as the decades and centuries roll past, all the great figures - good and bad of the 20th century, of the 19th century will diminish and fade away into history and Vivekananda will stand taller and taller and taller. When people look back a hundred years, two hundred years, five hundred years from now into back into history the first figure they will find is Vivekananda. I am sure of it. I can see it happening. I am not prophetic but on this day I pray to Sri Ramakrishna, Ma Sharada, Swami Vivekananda to bless us all. We have come here. Sri Ramakrishna says those who come here, it is their last birth. They will attain freedom in this life. What does it mean coming here? Sri Ramakrishna also says one more thing that if they like the teachings of this place, he would refer to himself as this place. They like the teachings of this place that's the meaning of coming here. So we are here. Yes we say we like the teachings. We like what you say. We like this view of life and spirituality and humanity. We pray to Thakur, Ma, and Swamiji to bless us all, to give us Viveka and Vairagya, to fill our hearts with courage, with peace, with joy and give us by their grace that vision of that infinite nature of reality and of ourselves in this very life itself.