Swami Vivekananda Jayanti is celebrated on January 12th every year in India to commemorate the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk, philosopher, and religious teacher . He was born on January 12, 1863 named Narendra, in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India (now Kolkata, West Bengal, India).
The Government of India declared this day as National Youth Day in 1984, and since then, it is celebrated every year as National Youth Day. Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in introducing Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world and is credited with raising interfaith awareness and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion. He was also the founder of Ramakrishna Mission and Ramakrishna Math.
Vedanta is a school of Hindu philosophy that originated in ancient India and is based on the Vedas, the earliest sacred literature of India. The term Vedanta means “conclusion of the Vedas” and refers to the Upanishads, which are elaborations of the Vedas. The philosophy of Vedanta is centered around the idea of Atman (the individual soul) and Brahman (the ultimate reality).
Meeting Ramakrishna
In 1881, Narendra first met Ramakrishna, who became his spiritual focus after his own father had died in 1884. Ramakrishna died on 16 August 1886.
Monastic vows
In December 1886 Narendra and eight other disciples took formal monastic vows. They decided to live their lives as their master lived. Narendra took the name "Swami Vivekananda".
Ramakrishna Math
MOTTO: The motto of the organisation is ATMANO MOKSHARTHAM JAGAD HITAYA CHA, “For one’s own salvation and for the welfare of the world”. It was formulated by Swami Vivekananda.
The organisation were brought into existence by Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), the great 19th century saint from Bengal who is regarded as the Prophet of the Modern Age, and Sri Ramakrishna’s chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), one of the foremost thinkers and religious leaders of the present age, who is regarded as ‘one of the main moulders of the modern world’, in the words of an eminent Western scholar A.L. Basham.
It is a worldwide, non-political, non-sectarian spiritual organisation which has engaged in various forms of humanitarian, social service activities for more than a century. Inspired by the ideals of renunciation and service, the monks and lay devotees of the Math serve millions of men, women and children, without any distinction of status, caste, religion or race, because they see the living God in them.
It has been silently working for more than a hundred years to catalyse the spiritual regeneration of humanity.
The chief catalyst in this ongoing transformation is India’s ancient religious philosophy known as Vedanta. Although several other systems of philosophy arose in India at different times, they were confined to small groups. Vedanta alone has remained the dominant philosophy of India’s religious tradition from Vedic times to the present day. In modern times this ancient system of thought has been purified, unified and energised by Sri Ramakrishna, and expounded in the modern idiom by Swami Vivekananda and thus made available to all people all over the world without any distinctions of caste, creed or race.
Inspired by the idea of the harmony of all faiths, its centres encourage different faiths to meet in a spirit of friendship and mutual appreciation, and to learn from one another without having to give up one’s own faith. In the words of Sri Ramakrishna: “God has made different religions to suit different aspirants, lives and countries … all doctrines are only so many paths; but a path is by no means God Himself. Indeed, one can reach God if one follows any of the paths with whole-hearted devotion.”
IDEALS: Work as worship, potential divinity of the soul, and harmony of religions are three of the noteworthy ideals on which this organisation is based. It is this ideal of service to man as service to God that sustains the large number of hospitals, dispensaries, mobile medical units, schools, colleges, rural development centres and many other social service institutions run the organisation.
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