Swami Vivekananda’s influence on Netaji

Swami Vivekananda had a colossal influence on Netaji’s life. In his Autobiography he writes: -

“One day by sheer accident I stumbled upon what turned out to be my greatest help in this crisis. A relative of mine, who was a newcomer to the town, was living next door and I had to visit him. Glancing over his books, I came across the works of Swami Vivekananda. I had hardly turned over a few pages when I realised that here was some­thing which I had been longing for. I borrowed the books from him, brought them home, and devoured them. I was thrilled to the marrow of my bones. My headmaster had roused my aesthetic and moral sense — -had given a new im­petus to my life — but he had not given me an ideal to which I could give my whole being. That Vivekananda gave me.”

He then goes on to say that: -

“I was barely fifteen when Vivekananda entered my life. Then there followed a revolution within, and everything was turned upside down. It was, of course, a long time be­fore I could appreciate the full significance of his teachings or the greatness of his personality, but certain impressions were stamped indelibly on my mind from the outset. Both from his portraits as well as from his teachings, Vivekanan­da appeared before me as a full-blown personality. Many of the questions which vaguely stirred my mind, and of which I was to become conscious later on, found in him a satisfac­tory solution. My headmaster’s personality ceased to be big enough to serve as my ideal. I had previously thought of studying philosophy as he had done and of emulating him. Now I thought of the path which Vivekananda had indi­cated.”

Not thinking the headmaster to be your idol has its repercussions as well. Netaji admits that he became more rebellious as the days went by, to the extent that his parents became concerned.

He says: -

“My parents noticed before long that I was going out frequently in the company of other boys. I was questioned, warned in a friendly manner, and ultimately rebuked. But all to no pur­pose. I was rapidly changing and was no longer the goody-goody boy afraid of displeasing his parents. I had a new ideal before me now which had inflamed my soul — to effect my own salvation and to serve humanity by abandoning all worldly desires and breaking away from all undue restraints. I no longer recited Sanskrit verses inculcating obedience to one’s parents; on the contrary, I took to verses which preached defiance. I doubt if I have passed through a more trying period in my life than now. Ramakrishna’s example of renunciation and purity entailed a battle royal with all the forces of the lower self. And Vivekananda’s ideal brought me into conflict with the existing family and social order. I was weak, the fight was a long drawn one in which success was not easy to obtain, hence tension and unhappiness with oc­casional fits of depression.”

This raises a deep question. Should one always strive to please their parents in everyway possible or, can there be situations where defiance of one’s parents is permissible and morally acceptable? To me this should be thought in counterfactuals, i.e. had Netaji not become defiant and rebellious, he would have stayed a good boy in the eyes of his parents but would have been of no good use to the nation.

He again goes ahead to describe how he had become so callous that even his mothers’ tears could not sway him anymore: -

“The more my parents endeavoured to restrain me, the more rebellious I became. When all other attempts failed, my mother took to tears. But even that had no ef­fect on me. I was becoming callous, perhaps eccentric, and more determined to go my own way, though all the time I was feeling inwardly unhappy. To defy my parents in this way was contrary to my nature and to cause them pain was disagreeable, but I was swept onwards as by an irresistible current.”

I feel we should be thankful that he wasn’t swayed by his mother’s tears, because if he had, we wouldn’t have a Netaji.

He had become so devoted to his company of friends that he felt closer to them than his own family. He writes: -

“There was very little appreciation or understanding at home of what I was dreaming at the time, and that added to my misery. The only solace was to be found in the com­pany of friends and I began to feel more at home when away from home.”

He even lost interested in studies for which he had worked all his life. He goes on to say: -

“Studies began to lose their importance for me and, but for the fact that for years I had studied hard, I would have gone under. The only thing that now mattered to me was mental or spiritual exercise.”

He even said that most people thought he had become a lunatic. This does not come as a surprise to me, because labelling misfits as lunatics comes naturally to most people and societies.

Netaji then goes on to describe his first attempt at meditation: -

“The first time I resolved to sit down in the Yogic fash­ion, the problem was how to do it without being seen and how to face ridicule should I be discovered during the act. The best thing was to attempt it in the dark after sunset, and so I did. But I was ultimately seen one day and there was a titter. One night while I was meditating in secret, the maid happened to come in to make the bed and bumped against me in the dark. Imagine her surprise when she found that she had knocked against a lump of flesh.”

Following the words of Vivekananda he started searching for a guru to guide him in his spiritual path. He says that he was more attracted to the hermit types than the saints who were married or belonged to a specific organization. He writes: -

“Once there came an old Sannyasi, more than ninety years old, the head of a well-known Ashrama of all-India repute, one of whose disciples was a leading medical practi­tioner of the town. It soon became the rage to visit him and we too joined the crowd. After doing obeisance to him we took our seats. He was very kind to us — — in fact, affection­ate — and we were drawn towards him. Some hymns were recited by his disciples to which we respectfully listened. At the end we were given printed copies of his teachings and were advised to follow them. We inwardly resolved to do so — at least I did. The first item was — eat neither fish nor flesh nor eggs. Our family diet was non-vegetarian, and it was not possible to adhere to vegetarian food without com­ing in for criticism and perhaps opposition. Nevertheless, I obeyed the mandate despite all obstruction. The second item was daily recitation of certain hymns. That was easy. But the next item was formidable — the practice of submis­siveness to one’s parents. We had to begin the day by doing obeisance (pranam) to our parents. The difficulty about doing this was a two-fold one. Firstly, there was never any practice to do daily obeisance to our parents. Secondly, I had passed the stage when I believed that obedience to one’s parents was in itself a virtue. I was rather in a mood to defy every obstacle to my goal, no matter from what source it came. However, with a supreme effort of the will, I mastered myself and marching straight to my father in the morning, I made obeisance as instructed by my preceptor18 I can still recall the scene — how my father was taken aback at this unexpected sight. He asked me what was the matter, but without uttering a word I marched back after doing my duty. Up till now I have not the faintest notion of what he or my mother (who also had to undergo the same experience) thought of me at the time. It was nothing less than a torture every morning to muster sufficient strength of mind to go up to my parents and do obeisance to them. Members of the family or even servants must have wondered what had made the rebellious boy suddenly so submissive. Little did they know perhaps that behind this phenomenon was the hand of a Sadhu.

After some weeks, perhaps months, I began to ques­tion myself as to what I had gained from the above practice and, not being satisfied with the reply, I gave it up. I went back to the teachings of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. No realisation without renunciation — — I told myself again.”

He also became influenced by the idea of Vivekananda — that God lives in the poor and downtrodden. He writes: -

“But he(Vivekananda) had further enjoined on everyone to serve the poor, for according to him God often comes to us in the form of the poor and to serve the poor is to worship God. I remember that I became very lib­eral with beggars, fakirs, and Sadhus, and whenever any of them appeared before our house, I helped them with what­ever came within my reach. I derived a peculiar satisfaction from the act of giving.”

His rebellious attitude was increasing day by day because of the influence of Vivekananda’s words. We should remember that all this was going on when he was only 15 years old. He talks about one of these incidents: -

“Though the atmosphere in which I grew up was on the whole liberalizing, there were occasions when I was forced into a clash with social or family conventions. I re member one incident when I was about fourteen or fifteen. A class friend of mine who was also a neighbour of ours invited some of us to dinner. My mother came to know of it and gave instructions that no one was to go. It might have been because his social status was lower than ours, or because he belonged to a lower caste, or simply because on medical grounds it was considered inadvisable to dine out. And it is true that very rarely did we go anywhere for din­ner. However, I regarded my mother’s orders as unjustified and felt a peculiar pleasure in defying them. When I took to religion and Yoga seriously and wanted freedom to go where I liked and meet whomsoever I wished, I frequently came up against parental instructions. But I had no hesita­tion in disobeying them because by that time I believed, un­der the inspiration of Vivekananda, that revolt is necessary for self-fulfilment — that when a child is born, its very cry is a revolt against the bondage in which it finds itself”

Till now he was a follower of Vivekananda. Although he wanted to work for the upliftment of the downtrodden, the idea of service to the nation as a whole did not take place in him.

That happened when he went to study in Presidency University and met a group of concurring individuals. He writes: — “For the first two years of my College life I was greatly under the influence of the group referred to above and I developed intellectually during this period. The group consisted mainly of students, the leaders being two students of the Medical College. It followed generally the teachings of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda but emphasised social service as a means to spiritual development. It interpreted social service not in terms of building hospitals and chari­table dispensaries, as the followers of Vivekananda were inclined to do, but as national reconstruction, mainly in the educational sphere. Vivekananda’s teachings had been neglected by his own followers-by the Ramakrishna Mission which he had founded — and we were going to give effect to them. We could therefore be called the neo-Vivekananda group, and our main object was to bring about a synthesis between religion and nationalism, not merely in the theo­retical sphere but in practical life as well. The emphasis on nationalism was inevitable in the political atmosphere of Calcutta of those days.

When I left Cuttack in 1913 my ideas were altogether nebulous. I had a spiritual urge and a vague idea of social service of some sort. In Calcutta I learnt that social service was an integral part of Yoga and it meant not merely relief to the half, the maimed, and the blind, but national recon­struction on modern lines”

So, we can conclude that Vivekananda had the highest contribution on Netaji and his outlook towards the society and country. It is safe to say that if Netaji had not read through Vivekananda’s work at his relatives place described at the beginning of this essay, he would never have become the man who is revered highly by all people in the country and is equally respected and idolised by people across the political left and right spectrum.

References: -

1. NETAJI’S LIFE and WRITINGS: AN INDIAN PILGRIM/ Unfinished AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE