Swami Vivekananda and his legacy with Gwilym Beckerlegge: Hindu Scholars, #2

By Wise Studies and Gwilym Beckerlegge

In this 5 part lecture series Gwilym Beckerlegge discusses the life and legacy of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), the Hindu teacher who was arguably the first 'global guru'. Vivekananda has been influential in shaping, among other things,  Hindu notions of social activism, and what has come to be known as Modern Yoga, which is now practised beyond India. Gwilym covers the influence of Vivekananda's own guru, the widely revered Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda's  fascinating journey from India to the United States and Europe at the turn of the 20th century, and the institutions Vivekananda started in Ramakrishna's name.

 

Vivekananda  has been a highly influential but contentious figure in the history of recent Hindu tradition.  These lectures will explore aspects of Vivekananda's legacy with particular reference to the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, the movement Vivekananda founded in his guru's name, and the Vivekananda Kendra, also inspired by Vivekananda, which came into existence in 1972.  The Kendra, however, promotes in Vivekananda's name an ideology strongly influenced by Hindu nationalism. Through an examination of these two movements, the lecture will illustrate the diffuse and durable nature of Vivekananda's influence, and in the process explain why Vivekananda has been judged by some to have been a contradictory and controversial figure.

 

Session 1 – Introducing Vivekananda and his guru Ramakrishna

Session 2 – Vivekananda in the USA and London

Session 3 – Establishing the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in India: Vivekananda and the spiritual discipline of service

Session 4 – Continuity, discontinuity, and innovation in Vivekananda's ideas

Session 5 – Vivekananda and his Hindu nationalist admirers

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wise Studies
• Release date: May 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393077718

Book preview

Wise Studies presents Swami Vivekananda with Professor Gwilym Beckerlegge. At Wise Studies we are committed to illuminating the texts and teachings of the world’s great contemplative traditions. In this course Gwilym explores the life and legacy of Swami Vivekananda. In this first session Gwilym introduces Swami Vivekananda and his guru the nineteenth century saint Ramakrishna.

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Section 1 - Introducing Vivekananda and Ramakrishna, his guru

If asked to name the most influential Hindu or perhaps the Hindu they most admire, many people beyond India would almost certainly nominate Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi. Thanks to Richard Attenborough's acclaimed biopic of 1982, a moving and powerful image of Gandhi and his achievements has been projected far beyond India, although this film has been criticised for sliding around difficulties that made Gandhi a contentious figure in India. If one were to ask the same question of Hindus, whether in India or elsewhere, their answers to this question might be more varied, and influenced by the nature of their relationship to the Hindu tradition. For example, if attached to a guru, devotion might well strongly influence their response. But many might express at least respect and reverence for Gandhi as the father of the nation and for the way in which he lived his life. It is probably fair to say, that other Hindu gurus and leaders who have attracted countless devotees and admirers, and who have also had a significant impact on India and on developments within the Hindu tradition over the last few centuries, have remained, nevertheless, somewhat in Gandhi's global shadow.

In this e-book, I shall focus on Swami Vivekananda, who although far less well known beyond India, remains a figure of considerable stature in India, and particularly in what is now the state of West Bengal and the city of Kolkata, where Vivekananda met and interacted with his guru, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. The nation celebrated the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Vivekananda's birth in 2012/2013. There were conferences, commemorative publications, and special events where children dressed up to look like Vivekananda. Through this exploration of Vivekananda's impact and legacy, and the heated debates that have surrounded assessments of his achievements, I hope you will come to see why Vivekananda remains a fascinating figure.

I first encountered Vivekananda’s name in the late 1960s in a university textbook as I began my studies of the Hindu tradition. At the time, he was just one in a string of unfamiliar names in an account of nineteenth-century Hindu movements, but there was something that did catch my attention. Vivekananda was still a student when he first met the guru who would transform his life. Also, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, Vivekananda travelled from India to Chicago, intending to speak at the World's Parliament of Religions, which had been planned to run alongside the World's Colombian Exposition or World's Trade Fair of 1893. Still a student, I warmed to the notion that Vivekananda struck a chord with his audiences in Chicago because his reconstruction of Hinduism on this international platform highlighted universalism and tolerance as the characteristics of Hinduism, often in contrast to the perceived exclusivism of missionary Christianity. Why did this intrigue me? Well, of course, it was the 1960s and this seemed to chime with the times. But I was also struck by the fact that not only had Vivekananda adopted the life of a Hindu renouncer, almost as he finished his undergraduate studies, but he had made what seemed to be the reverse of the journey to India that many of my generation were making, some in search of some kind of spiritual or religious enlightenment. Vivekananda did have sponsors in India, but as someone who had adopted a life of renunciation, he did not have funds of his own to draw upon. He did not travel to Chicago knowing there would be people waiting to receive him. In fact, as he found out, he had not even realised that delegates to the parliament had to be invited, not just turn up. It was unquestionably a bit of a leap in the dark and that made me want to learn more about him.

I have hardly said anything about Vivekananda as yet, but already we are beginning to see signs of a remarkable life. He was the disciple of a greatly revered Hindu mystic - and I shall come back to that term later - Ramakrishna. Vivekananda created a Hindu movement that continues to this day, not just in India but in several other countries.  His route to this, strikingly at that time, was to travel to the USA to speak about Hinduism, and to try to secure support for a project he had yet to formalise. When I referred to Vivekananda's message at Chicago, I deliberately used the phrase ‘reconstruction of Hinduism’. As we shall see, it is Vivekananda's reconstruction of Hinduism that has attracted a good deal of critical attention from scholars. In the century or more since his death, Vivekananda has been revered by his followers, including many not attached to the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, the movement he created in the name of his guru. He has been respected by many prominent Indians, including political leaders of the independence movement and subsequent presidents and prime ministers of India. It used to be said, for example, that Indira Gandhi would never go to Kolkata without going to visit Belur Math, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. Some Indian politicians have attributed their entry into politics to Vivekananda's influence. He has been spoken of as a great patriot, inspiring those involved in the struggle for independence. Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the first Indian Governor General of India (the office that superseded Viceroy in India until India became a republic in 1950), went so far as to say that Vivekananda had saved Hinduism and India.

Vivekananda has been spoken of more dispassionately by scholars as the first global guru and as arguably one of the most important gurus of recent times. The Ramakrishna Math and Mission, the movement he created, has been described as laying down a kind of template for other Hindu organisations. It is because of this widespread impact that a distanced appraisal of Vivekananda is so necessary. This is, of course, in the nature of the critical study of religion, but it would be difficult to find a Hindu movement whose self-understanding has been as radically challenged, and as fundamentally deconstructed, as that of the Ramakrishna movement.

The aspects of the Hindu tradition that Vivekananda has been said to have strongly influenced, perhaps reconstructed, include notions of social activism, and particularly the growth across a range of contemporary Hindu movements of the practice of seva, here meaning organised service to humanity. He has influenced the development of modern yoga, and elements phasing into what have been labelled New Age movements and ideologies. The growth of Hindu nationalism in India over the last century has also been touched by his influence. He has played an important part, together with other prominent Hindus, in the definition of what we now refer to as Hinduism, and the understanding of Hinduism as a world religion, as that phrase is often used. Also, he has been involved in the promotion of what has been described as a Neo-Vedantin universal religion, again, something else we shall discuss later. This is why Richard King has asserted that Vivekananda's importance far outweighs his involvement with the Ramakrishna Mission. Because of Vivekananda's reach, he has become an important mediator of Hinduism on the global stage, even though his name might not be so instantly recognised beyond India. I would not wish to underplay the importance of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission and Vivekananda's role in its creation, but I agree that this should not be allowed to overshadow his wider influence in shaping aspects of Hindu belief and practice, for example, yoga, that have come to be far more widely known after his death. Having mentioned Gandhi's global reputation at the beginning of this talk, I would be prepared to argue that Vivekananda has exerted a far greater influence on subsequent developments and institutional changes within the Hindu tradition. 

So, what led me to focus my interest on Vivekananda, as I did