Swami Vivekananda Jayanti 2023: The birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda is celebrated as National Youth Day. Today is Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary. His teachings continue to inspire people to pursue their highest ideals and live their highest ideals.
He was born on January 12, 1863 in Calcutta, now Kolkata, and was a leader who has been remembered by generations and is still a guiding force for many.
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) is best known in the United States for his seminal speech at the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893, in which he introduced Hinduism to America and advocated for religious tolerance and the abolition of fanaticism. He was the chief disciple of the 19th-century mystic Ramakrishna and the founder of the Ramakrishna Mission. Swami Vivekananda is also regarded as a pivotal figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the West, and is credited with elevating Hinduism to the status of a world religion.
In the Presidency College entrance examination, he was the only student who received first-division marks.
Vivekananda was an avid reader of philosophy, religion, history, social science, art, and literature, and went on to become a key figure in the introduction of the Indian darsanas (teachings and practises) of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, as well as being credited with raising interfaith awareness.
Humble tributes to the great philosopher Swami Vivekananda ji on his jayanti. His thoughts and ideals are our guiding force which inspires us to serve the nation with pride, dignity and dedication. #NationalYouthDay pic.twitter.com/LLmKpfbxTn
— Sarbananda Sonowal (@sarbanandsonwal) January 12, 2023
Swami Vivekanand Quotes on National Youth Day 2023:
1. In a day, when you don’t come across any problems – you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path
2. All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. You can do anything and everything, without even the guidance of anyone. Stand up and express the divinity within you.
3. Anything that makes you weak – physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject it as poison.
4. We are what our thoughts have made us; so, take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
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Swami Vivekananda Speech in Chicago
Address at the final session
Chicago, September 27, 1893
The World’s Parliament of Religions has become an accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has helped those who laboured to bring it into existence, and crowned with success their most unselfish labour.
My thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and then realized it.
My thanks to the shower of liberal sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My thanks to this enlightened audience for their uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of every thought that tends to smooth the friction of religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them, for they have, by their striking contrast, made general harmony the sweeter.
Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, “Brother, yours is an impossible hope.” Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid.
The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.
Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.
If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: “Help and not fight,” “Assimilation and not Destruction,” “Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.”