By IANS,
New Delhi : The legacy of Swami Vivekananda is relevant to India at a time when the society is redefining itself to become more just and equitable as the old order makes way for the new, President Pranab Mukherjee said Thursday. He also called for fresh assimilation of the progressive and harmonius ideals preached by the 20th century Bengali visionary for a more “egalitarian society with equal opportunities” for all.
Addressing the inaugural session of an interfaith conference, “One World Religions: Diversity, Not Dissension at” at Rashtrapati Bhavan’s Durbar Hall to commemorate his 150th birth anniversary, the president said: “Swamiji’s teachings were in consonance with the Vedanta.”
“He brought out the divinity lying dormant in man. Swami Vivekananda had said ‘I call god whom common man call human beings by mistake.’ Being the superior creation of god, he believed that human beings and the state of their existence cannot be ignored,” the president said.
“Religion should be a weapon for self-transformation as well as transformation of the society.” “His guru Ramakrishna Paramhans had taught him that service to man was service to god. Swamiji made the principle the basis of his social service programme,” Mukherjee said.
The president said the seer had established the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897 for what “he described as the creating of a machinery that would bring the noblest of ideas to the doorstep of even the poorest and the meanest”.
“Through his speech in Chicago and his subsequent work in America and England. Swamiji showed the universal relevance and significance of India’s ancient philosophy and spiritual culture in solving many of the problems associated with modern living,” he said, adding that “Vivekananda was the bridge between the East and the West”.
Being a universalist, Vivekananda’s knowledge and understanding of “spiritualism went beyond Hinduism”, the president said. “He was deeply familiar with the messages of other religions. Swamiji laid the foundation for harmony among religions and also harmony between religion and science,” Mukherjee pointed out.
The two-day conference has brought together delegations from across nine faiths – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Bahai and Zoarastrianism to share “how reconciliation and compassion is possible across religion in this age of religious animosities”.
Born in 1863 as Narendranath Dutta, Swami Vivekananda “in his brief span of 39 years of remarkable life reignited the imagination of such a large number of men and women”. “His thoughts are relevant to our contemporary multi-religious societies worldwide,” Anindita N. Balshev, academic coordinator of the conference, said.
Addressing the gathering, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) president Karan Singh said: “The history of inter-civilisational dialogues and the interfaith movement for the last 100 years is the legacy of Vivekananda, which began with his Chicago address”.
“He took the voice the resurgent India across the ocean to US and Europe,” Karan Singh said.
Presented by the ICCR, the conference will end with a valedictory session March 9 to be addressed by the Dalai Lama, Mpho Tutu, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan and Karan Singh.