Swami Vivekananda for beginners: The orator who taught the world tolerance

Time of India

04-07-2025

9/11 might be remembered as the most intolerant day of them all.
Except, of course, for that other 9/11 in 1893, when a saffron-robed monk stood before the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, folded his hands, and thundered:
'Sisters and brothers of America…'
It was the first time an Indian addressed the West as an equal, not as a subordinate.
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The applause thundered for two minutes. In that instant, Swami Vivekananda became the roaring voice of a civilisation long silenced.
And today, July 4, 2025, is his 162nd birthday. A day that reminds India not just of a monk in ochre robes, but of the lion who taught her to roar again.
For beginners, Swami Vivekananda was born as Narendranath Datta in 1863, in a Calcutta teeming with imperial arrogance and native despair.
He was no child saint meditating under a peepal tree. He was the neighbourhood terror: fighting wrestling bouts, belting out classical ragas, and interrogating priests on whether they had actually seen God.
His restlessness led him to Dakshineswar, to a mystic named Ramakrishna. Narendra asked the question burning within him: 'Have you seen God?'
Ramakrishna smiled and replied, 'Yes, I see Him as clearly as I see you.'
That answer set Narendra on fire. Under Ramakrishna, he discovered that God was not a faraway being in the clouds but the living divinity within every creature. When his guru passed, Narendra renounced his identity as a lawyer's son and became Swami Vivekananda – bliss of discernment, the monk with a thunderbolt mind.
He walked barefoot across India. He slept under trees, shared stale rotis with starving farmers, listened to the cries of widows, and saw the real India – not the British caricature of snake-charmers and famine skeletons, but a civilisation wounded yet radiating eternal wisdom.
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His travels birthed an unbreakable conviction: India's rebirth would not come from imported ideologies or borrowed revolutions. It would come when her people realised their own inherent strength.
'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached,' he said. For Vivekananda, this was not a motivational slogan. It was a civilisational commandment.
When he arrived in Chicago for the Parliament of Religions, he had no formal invitation, no wealthy patron.
Yet his presence was magnetic. On September 11, 1893, he rose to speak – not to convert, but to awaken.
'We believe not only in universal tolerance, but we accept all religions as true,' he declared.
His words were like a Himalayan breeze cutting through the stale air of Western supremacy. Here was a man who spoke with the confidence of a civilisation that had pondered infinity while Europe was still painting itself blue to hunt mammoths.
Swami Vivekananda's genius lay in his simplicity. He took the dense verses of Vedanta and distilled them into blazing truths:
Each soul is potentially divine.
Religion is the manifestation of this divinity within.
For him, religion was not ritual. It was strength, action, and fearless pursuit of truth. He once said, 'You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the Bhagavad Gita.'
Imagine that. In an India where boys were scolded for playing in the sun, here was a monk telling them to build biceps before quoting shlokas.
Because he knew spirituality without strength becomes escapism. A nation of cowards chanting Sanskrit verses cannot uplift itself.
Another story often forgotten is how, during his travels, he stayed with people of all castes, eating with scavengers and sleeping in huts. When orthodox critics attacked him, he replied:
'
Call me whatever you like. I am only the servant of the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed.'
He saw India's future in education – but not rote learning that produced clerks. He wanted an education that built character, inspired fearlessness, and created men and women with nerves of steel and hearts of compassion.
He said: 'Give me a few men and women who are pure and selfless and I shall shake the world.'
For the West, Vivekananda was the first Hindu monk they could not patronise. They invited him to lecture at Harvard and meet industrialists.
Yet he never once fawned or flattered. He told them that while their material prosperity was admirable, their spiritual poverty was glaring.
He saw India as the lighthouse of spiritual knowledge. Not in arrogance, but as a duty to share what was universal. And yet, he never romanticised poverty. He called for industries, science, technology – but rooted in Dharma, so India would never become a third-rate clone of Europe.
Today, when you see his images circulating on WhatsApp, know that he was not just a quote bank for gym bros and motivational speakers. He was the blazing force that ignited India's psychological independence decades before political freedom came.
He was the monk who made India see herself not as a victim, but as a Vishwa Guru – a teacher to the world.
On his birthday today, it is worth remembering what he really stood for:
Strength, not sentimentality.
Universalism, not narrowness.
Fearless enquiry, not blind faith.
Action, not escapism.
Service, not selfishness.
He said, 'They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.'
And he lived those words till his last breath at the age of 39. In four short decades, he compressed centuries of wisdom into a life that continues to inspire revolutionaries, scientists, monks, and students alike.
9/11 may have become a symbol of hate in modern history. But that other 9/11 in 1893 gave humanity a message it still struggles to practise:
That the world is one family, and each of us carries within a spark of the infinite.
For beginners, this is Swami Vivekananda:
The lion who taught India to roar – with strength, wisdom, and unbreakable dignity.