1. Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna.
76 Facts About Swami Vivekananda
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Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world.
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Swami Vivekananda is credited with raising interfaith awareness and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion in the late nineteenth century.
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Swami Vivekananda founded the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, which became the foundations for Vedanta Societies in the West.
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Swami Vivekananda is widely regarded as one of the greatest figures of modern India.
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Swami Vivekananda was one of the most influential philosophers and social reformers of his time, and the most successful missionary of Vedanta to the Western world.
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Swami Vivekananda was a major force in contemporary Hindu reform movements and in the development of nationalism in colonial India.
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Swami Vivekananda's birthday is celebrated in India as National Youth Day.
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Swami Vivekananda was born as Narendranath Datta in a Bengali Kayastha family in his ancestral home at 3 Gourmohan Mukherjee Street in Calcutta, the capital of British India, on 12 January 1863 during the Makar Sankranti festival.
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Swami Vivekananda's father, Vishwanath Datta, was an attorney at the Calcutta High Court.
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Swami Vivekananda's mother said, "I prayed to Shiva for a son and he has sent me one of his demons".
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Swami Vivekananda was an avid reader in a wide range of subjects, including philosophy, religion, history, social science, art and literature.
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Swami Vivekananda studied Western logic, Western philosophy and European history at the General Assembly's Institution.
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Swami Vivekananda became fascinated with the evolutionism of Herbert Spencer and corresponded with him.
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Swami Vivekananda was known for his prodigious memory and speed reading ability, and a number of anecdotes attest to this.
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Sen's focus on creating "an accessible, non-renunciatory, everyman type of spirituality" that introduced "lay systems of spiritual practice" was an influence on the teachings Swami Vivekananda later popularised in the west.
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Swami Vivekananda initially saw Ramakrishna's ecstasies and visions as "mere figments of imagination" and "hallucinations".
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Swami Vivekananda even rejected the Advaita Vedanta teaching of "identity with the absolute" as blasphemy and madness, and often ridiculed the idea.
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Swami Vivekananda questioned God's existence, but found solace in Ramakrishna, and his visits to Dakshineswar increased.
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Swami Vivekananda ultimately prayed for true knowledge and devotion from the goddess.
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Swami Vivekananda gradually became ready to renounce everything for the sake of realising God, and accepted Ramakrishna as his Guru.
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Swami Vivekananda was transferred to Calcutta and then to a garden house in Cossipore.
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Swami Vivekananda was taught that service to men was the most effective worship of God.
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Swami Vivekananda developed sympathy for the suffering and poverty of the people, and resolved to uplift the nation.
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Swami Vivekananda visited several cities in Japan, China and Canada en route to the United States, reaching Chicago on 30 July 1893.
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Swami Vivekananda wished to participate, but learned that only individuals with credentials from a bona fide organisation would be accepted as delegates.
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Swami Vivekananda wrote of the professor: "He urged upon me the necessity of going to the Parliament of Religions, which he thought would give an introduction to the nation".
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On hearing that Swami Vivekananda lacked the credentials to speak at the Parliament, Wright said: "To ask for your credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine in the heavens".
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On this day, Swami Vivekananda gave a brief speech representing India and Hinduism.
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At these words, Swami Vivekananda received a two-minute standing ovation from the crowd of seven thousand.
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Swami Vivekananda attracted widespread attention in the press, which called him the "cyclonic monk from India".
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Swami Vivekananda spoke several more times "at receptions, the scientific section, and private homes" on topics related to Hinduism, Buddhism and harmony among religions.
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Swami Vivekananda soon became known as a "handsome oriental" and made a huge impression as an orator.
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Swami Vivekananda's popularity gave him an unprecedented opportunity to communicate his views on life and religion to great numbers of people.
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Swami Vivekananda spent nearly two years lecturing in the eastern and central United States, primarily in Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and New York.
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Swami Vivekananda founded the Vedanta Society of New York in 1894.
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Swami Vivekananda's demanding schedule eventually began to affect his health, and in Spring 1895 he ended his lecture tours and began giving free, private classes in Vedanta and yoga.
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Swami Vivekananda was offered academic positions in two American universities ; he declined both, since his duties would conflict with his commitment as a monk.
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Swami Vivekananda travelled to the United Kingdom in 1895 and again in 1896.
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On his second visit, in May 1896, Swami Vivekananda met Max Muller, a noted Indologist from Oxford University who wrote Ramakrishna's first biography in the West.
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Swami Vivekananda's success led to a change in mission, namely the establishment of Vedanta centres in the West.
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Swami Vivekananda adapted traditional Hindu ideas and religiosity to suit the needs and understandings of his western audiences, who were more familiar with western esoteric traditions and movements.
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Swami Vivekananda initiated several followers, including Marie Louise who became Swami Abhayananda, and Leon Landsberg who became Swami Kripananda, so that they could serve the mission of the Vedanta Society.
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Swami Vivekananda regularly corresponded with his followers and brother monks, offering advice and financial support.
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Swami Vivekananda left for India from England on 16 December 1896, accompanied by his disciples Captain and Mrs Sevier and JJ Goodwin.
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Swami Vivekananda was followed to India by Sister Nivedita, who devoted the rest of her life to the education of Indian women and the goal of India's independence.
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Swami Vivekananda arrived in Colombo, British Ceylon on 15 January 1897, and received a warm welcome.
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Swami Vivekananda travelled from Colombo to Pamban, Rameswaram, Ramnad, Madurai, Kumbakonam and Madras, delivering lectures.
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On 1 May 1897 in Calcutta, Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission, an institution dedicated to social service, with ideals based on Karma Yoga.
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Swami Vivekananda earlier inspired Jamsetji Tata to set up a research and educational institution when they travelled together from Yokohama to Chicago on Swami Vivekananda's first visit to the West in 1893.
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Tata now asked him to head his Research Institute of Science; Swami Vivekananda declined the offer, citing a conflict with his "spiritual interests".
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Swami Vivekananda visited Punjab, attempting to mediate an ideological conflict between Arya Samaj and sanatan.
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Swami Vivekananda consolidated the work of the math and trained disciples for several months.
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Swami Vivekananda travelled to Paris for the Congress of Religions in 1900.
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On 4 July 1902, Swami Vivekananda awoke early, went to the monastery at Belur Math and meditated for three hours.
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Swami Vivekananda fulfilled his prophecy that he would not live forty years.
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Swami Vivekananda was cremated on a sandalwood funeral pyre on the bank of the Ganga in Belur, opposite where Ramakrishna was cremated sixteen years earlier.
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Swami Vivekananda synthesised and popularised various strands of Hindu thought, most notably classical yoga and Advaita Vedanta.
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Swami Vivekananda's initial beliefs were shaped by Brahmo concepts, which included belief in a formless God, the deprecation of idolatry, and, according to Michelis, a "streamlined, rationalized, monotheistic theology strongly coloured by a selective and modernistic reading of the Upanisads and of the Vedanta".
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Swami Vivekananda thought that the essence of Hinduism was best expressed in Adi Shankara's Advaita Vedanta philosophy.
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Swami Vivekananda adhered to Ramakrishna's teaching that the Absolute is both immanent and transcendent.
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In line with Advaita Vedanta texts like Drg-Drsya-Viveka and Vedantasara, Swami Vivekananda saw samadhi as a means to attain liberation.
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Via his affiliations with Keshub Chandra Sen's Nava Vidhan, the Freemasonry lodge, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, and Sen's Band of Hope, Swami Vivekananda became acquainted with Western esotericism.
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Swami Vivekananda adapted traditional Hindu ideas and religiosity to suit the needs and understandings of his Western audiences, particularly those familiar with Western esoteric traditions and movements such as Transcendentalism and New thought.
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Swami Vivekananda linked morality with control of the mind, seeing truth, purity and unselfishness as traits which strengthened it.
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Swami Vivekananda advised his followers to be holy, unselfish and to have shraddha.
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Swami Vivekananda supported brahmacharya, believing it the source of his physical and mental stamina and eloquence.
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Swami Vivekananda believed that a country's future depends on its people, and his teachings focused on human development.
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Swami Vivekananda wanted "to set in motion a machinery which will bring noblest ideas to the doorstep of even the poorest and the meanest".
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Swami Vivekananda was one of the most influential philosophers and social reformers in his contemporary India.
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Swami Vivekananda is considered to be the most successful and influential missionary of Vedanta to the Western world.
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Swami Vivekananda's reinterpretation created a new understanding and appreciation of Hinduism inside and outside India, and paved the way for the enthusiastic reception of other forms of Indian spiritual self-improvement in the West, such as yoga and Transcendental Meditation.
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Swami Vivekananda espoused the idea that all sects within Hinduism are different paths to the same goal.
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Swami Vivekananda's nationalism gave unprecedented substance to the emerging nationalist ideal of British-ruled India.
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Swami Vivekananda drew attention to the extent of poverty in the country, and maintained that addressing such poverty was a prerequisite for national awakening.
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The 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda was celebrated in India and abroad.