On Swami Vivekananda's 157th Birth Anniversary, Let's Have A Glimpse Into His Childhood

Naren showed signs of a great master as early in his boyhood days. He showed tremendous traits of courage and possessed a striking personality with a built of an athlete, a resonant voice coupled with a brilliant intellect. This year, 12 January will mark his 157th birth anniversary.

Naren who was later known as Swami Vivekananda, in a book "Swami Vivekananda On Himself," he said, "From my boyhood days I have been a daredevil; otherwise could I have attempted to make a tour around the world, almost without a penny in my pocket?"

Another behaviour that bespoke of him becoming a great Yogi in the after years was his meditative side. It is more accurate to tell that meditation dawned on him effortlessly than he volunteering to meditate. A particular happening that he mentioned in the above-mentioned book throws light on his unusual meditative behaviour during his boyhood days.

One night He was lost in deep meditation within closed doors of His room. At the culmination of it, he was not aware as to how long he had meditated. However continuing to sit, he suddenly saw a strange sight. A luminous figure emerged out of the southern wall of the room. Bearing a wonderful radiance on its visage and with a shaven head with a stick in a hand and a kammandalu in the other gazed at Him and seemed as if it were to address him. Naren looked at it with wonder until suddenly he was seized by fright that he left the room immediately. He later regretted his frightful departure and decided that he would not do so if he was to encounter the strange person again. However, he did not get to see the vision again. He has stated in the same book that "I now think it was the Lord Buddha whom I saw".

Naren possessed an extraordinary memory that brought about a strange familiarity in certain objects, place, people or words from his very boyhood. Once while he was engaged in a discussion, he was suddenly reminded of the particular happening at the same place, with the same people and the same discussion that had taken the same turn! He says: "Now I believe before I was born I must have had visions somehow, of those subjects and people of whom I would have to come in contact in my present world. Such memories have come every now and then throughout my life."

Naren also possessed an interestingly striking insight on the content of whatever he was reading. He could follow the author by not reading his book line by line. The first and the last line of the page was sufficed for him to get the whole import. Where the author took several pages to explain a certain matter, Naren could asses the whole trend of the argument by just reading the first few lines. There was none in college who could beat him in an argument.

During his college days, Naren possessed a sharp intellect and a rational and analytical mind. The 19th century saw the dwindling of conventional practices with regards to ceremonies and creeds in religion with the sudden surge of rationalism and materialism sweeping in. As a boy, this scepticism reached Naren as well which probed him to study Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and others. He then came to understand the fundamental principles of all the religions were the same, which in turn pushed him to know what exactly the truth was.

With the sweeping wave of Brahmo Samaj, the popular Socio-religious movement at that time, Naren was exposed to a lot of lectures. At the end of every long session, he enquired the lecturer if he had seen God. The reaction was always that the lecturer was taken aback on the fact of seeing God.

Swamiji says, "The only man who told me, 'I have,' was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and not only so, but he said, 'I will put you in the way of seeing Him too."

To be continued