Born on 12 January 1863, at 3 Gourmohan Mukherjee Street at Shimla, North Calcutta, as the son of a renowned lawyer Biswanath Dutta, the beginning of Narendranath Dutta’s rise to the ‘Viswajayi’ (world-conquering) Vivekananda can be traced back to his six major speeches delivered at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in September, 1893. The speech of a young Indian, just thirty years old, amused the world that day when, on 11 September 1893, in his ‘Response to Welcome,’ he said, “Sisters and Brothers of America, it fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.”
Swamiji’s own writings reveal the profound effect that his first speech in Chicago on September 11th had on the American people and how they embraced him. In a letter to his disciple Alasinga, dated November 2, 1893, he wrote,
“I made a short speech. I addressed the assembly as ‘Sisters and Brothers of America’, a deafening applause of two minutes followed, and then I proceeded, and when it was finished, I sat down, almost exhausted with emotion. The next day all the papers announced that my speech was the hit of the day, and I became known to the whole of America.”
In his speech on the first day, Swami Vivekananda also said, “I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.”
Sri Aurobindo understood that the journey of Swami Vivekananda to the West for attending the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago was not the foreign journey of any ordinary Indian. Regarding Swamiji’s journey abroad, Aurobindo told,
“The going forth of Vivekananda, marked out by the Master (Sri Ramakrishna) as the heroic soul destined to take the world between his two hands and change it, was the first visible sign to the world that India was awake not only to survive but to conquer.”
On reaching Chicago, Swamiji learned that he could not attend the convention without formal credentials. As the cost of living in Chicago was too high, Swamiji moved to Boston. At that time, Professor John Henry Wright met with Swamiji on August 25. Professor of Harvard University Mr. Wright became aware of his knowledge during their first conversation. When Swamiji informed him that he did not have official credentials to attend the conference, Professor Wright replied, “To ask you, Swami, for your credentials is like asking the sun about its right to shine.” Professor Wright himself wrote the credentials for Swamiji. In it, he wrote, “Here is a man who is more learned than all our learned professors put together.”
After listening to Swamiji’s speech, the famous British writer Annie Besant wrote, “A striking figure, clad in yellow and orange, shining like the sun of India in the midst of the heavy atmosphere of Chicago, a lion head, piercing eyes, mobile lips, movements swift and abrupt….”
Nobel laureate and renowned French novelist Romain Rolland said that listening to Swami Vivekananda’s words, when one lies down, he sits up. If you sit, you will stand up, and if you stand, you will run.
According to a report published in Chicago’s Sunday Herald newspaper about Swamiji’s speech on September 15, Swamiji stated that brotherhood among people should be the most desirable goal for us.
The most important of the six major lectures Swamiji gave in Chicago was the written lecture he delivered on September 19, in which his topic was ‘Paper on Hinduism.’ On that day, Swami Vivekananda spoke about the greatness of Hinduism in front of representatives of different religions from different parts of the world. He said, “From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu’s religion.”
Swami Vivekananda stood on foreign soil and spoke about a Dharma where God is not but common people.
Swamiji said, “sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.”
Although the representatives of each religion present at the conference were eager to prove their own religion as superior, Swamiji presented the tolerance and generosity of Hinduism. Without boasting of religious bigotry, fanaticism, or superiority, Swamiji stated that the welfare of the people was the main goal. Swamiji’s dharma was completely people-centered. That is why the main goal of the Ramakrishna Mission established by him is “Bahujana hitaya bahujana sukhaya cha.”
Why do we need to study these Chicago speeches at present, Swami Vivekananda delivered 131 years ago? Swamiji’s Chicago lecture is needed today to remove the narrow-mindedness and hatred that have been created among the people of India, the birthplace of Swami Vivekananda. In an essay titled ‘Crisis in Civilization’ Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “Thus, while these other countries were marching ahead, India, smothered under the dead weight of British administration, lay static in her utter helplessness.”
The study of Swamiji’s Chicago speech is needed again today to change this immoral, valueless society that was created as a result of following the education system introduced by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1835. As a result, we see various inhuman crimes taking place. The recent RG Kar junior doctor rape and murder incident is one of those, where so-called highly educated people are involved in that brutal incident.
Not only that, but today we see that religious extremism has become a serious problem for the whole world. People of the 21st century are witnessing how countries from different parts of the world are at war with each other. Be it the Russia-Ukraine war or the Israel-Palestine war, the people of the war-torn countries, as well as the people from different countries around the world, are taking to the streets to demand a ceasefire. However, somewhere we may have forgotten the principles of establishing world peace, as was already said by a young man of just thirty; not today but before 131 years at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago on September 27, 1893. In his address at the final t session, Swami Vivekananda said in the last line, “every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: ‘Help and not Fight’, ‘Assimilation and not Destruction’, ‘Harmony and Peace and not Dissension’.”
Harmony and peace; the harmony that is sorely lacking today, whether between two people or between two countries. That’s why, Swami Vivekananda’s Chicago speech should be taught from a young age to build individuals with ethics and proper values, establishing peace in this troublesome world.
