Swami Vivekananda was a Rishi. Truth was the essence of his life. Standing on truth, he fought many a battle and emerged invincible. His struggles to uphold truth amidst untruth were legendary and an object lesson to those who wished to tread the path of truth.
The seed of truth was planted in him by his mother in his childhood. It was later watered and nourished by his Master Sri Ramakrishna to grow and flourish enormously. Finding him a stickler for truth, his mother firmly supported him, saying, “Whatever might be the result, you must do that alone always which you know as the truth.” Sri Ramakrishna inspired him to test the truth of his words and deeds before accepting them.
He was sure that he would one day make an exceptionally successful teacher of truth. His teaching in moral, intellectual, social, cultural and religious spheres was unmatched. Its impact on the world was evidently spectacular because it was laden with truth, righteousness and reason. Sri Ramakrishna raised him to be an Acharya. Swamiji learnt from Sri Ramakrishna that the austerity (tapasya) of this age (Kali yuga) was to speak the truth.
He exemplified and illustrated this in his own life and had earned the reputation of an authentic teacher. He proclaimed in the light of his experience of the truth, “It is truth alone that gives us strength.” But then he also sarcastically mentioned observing our frivolity: “We are always after truth, but never want to get it.” The reason he gave for this was because we are selfish.
He said: “Truth can never come to us as long as we are selfish.” Truth is knowledge which reveals itself to those who are pure at heart. Swamiji demonstrated it to others who wanted to learn from him. In one of his classes he taught them, “Seek truth for truth’s sake alone, look not for bliss. It may come but do not let that be your incentive.
Have no motive except God. Dare to come to Truth even through hell.” His appeal to them being indomitable, they came again and again. Giving her impression, one wrote: ‘The swami held his audiences, for his was the grasp of the ‘master hand’ and he spoke as one with authenticity. His arguments were logical, convincing, and in his most brilliant oratorical flights never did he once lose sight of the main issue, ~ the truth he wished to drive home.”
He urged them to speak the truth in order to get rid of bondage, keeping away from intelligent people who do not respect truth. He said: “Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better.” He would not stop there.
Going further to drive home the idea of truth’s indispensability, he would say, “Truth is to be judged by truth and by nothing else. Doing good is not the test of truth; the Sun needs no torch by which to see it. Even if truth destroys the whole universe, still it is truth; stand by it.” People cutting across nations followed him to build their characters in his teaching. His unequivocal instruction to them was, “Truth cannot be partial, it is for the good of all.
Finally, in perfect rest and peace meditate upon it, concentrate your mind upon it making yourself one with it. Then no speech is needed; silence will carry the truth.” His message to them was, “To accomplish anything we must be willing to die for truth.” He taught, “Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.”
They saw he was a burning example of this cardinal precept. That is why his influence on them was inexorable. An elite American lady had undergone a thorough transformation attending his teaching. She made him her life-long mentor. He also significantly relied on her for his work because of her impeccable faithfulness. She took his message to different lands. Her name was Miss Josephine Macleod.
She thought she was born anew having come to him. On 29 January 1895 she heard him first in a crowded class. She wrote in her reminiscences: “He said something…, but instantly to me that was truth, and the second sentence he spoke was truth, and the third sentence was truth. And I listened to him for seven years and whatever he uttered was to me truth.
From that moment life had a different import. It was as if he made you realise that you were in eternity. It never altered. It never grew. It was like the sun that you will never forget once you have seen.” Swamiji never shrank to speak truth, even if it was bitter and could invite trouble.
Those who loved him were worried lest he suffered the wrath of his detractors whom he exposed as liars in public. What he said in this connection was richly educative. He wrote: “I know full well how it is good for one’s worldly prospects to be sweet. I do everything to be sweet, but when it comes to a horrible compromise with the truth within, then I stop. I do not believe in humility.
I believe in samadarshitva ~ same state of mind with regard to all. The duty of the ordinary man is to obey the commands of his ‘God’, society; but the children of light never do so. This is an eternal law. One accommodates himself to surroundings and social opinion and gets all good things from society, the giver of all good to such.
The other stands alone and draws society up towards him. The accommodating man finds a path of roses; the non-accommodating, one of thorns. But the worshippers of ‘Vox Populi’ go to annihilation in a moment; the children of truth live forever.” Swamiji brooked nothing that divided humanity. His aim was to galvanize humanity on man’s true identity which is divine and one, as well as unalterable. He said, “Everything that makes for oneness is truth.”
Laying exorbitant stress upon such truths, he tried to make mankind one, especially when it was severely divided. He exhorted: “Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim on it.” Clarifying it, he had further stated, “The truth can be learnt from the lowest individual, no matter to what caste or creed he belongs.” Needless to say, he had incessantly said all that since he keenly noticed how humanity was sinking in the abyss of untruth to perish.
Swamiji warned us that, “Truth doesn’t pay homage to any society, ancient or modern; but it is the society which has to pay homage to truth or die.” He wanted us to be conscious about the fact that we cannot have a secure future, unless we apply truth in our way of life.
He said society is a graded organization in which each is great in his own place. We must admit this truth and then consider our social development inclusively. He said, “That society is the greatest where highest truths become practical.” Role of religion in human life is vital because it is the constitutional need of man. Swamiji told: “When we come to the real, spiritual, universal concept, then, and then alone, religion will become real and living.” He believed that there should be a universal religion beyond sectarianism that could satisfy man’s nature and evolve a sense of oneness.
He said, “Truth religion is positive and not negative.” He said religion is realisation of God present in every being. Hence he told us, “I shall call you religious from the way you begin to see God in men and women.” He thought it was the greatest truth society has to adopt first to make real progress. “Religion comes with intense self sacrifice,” he said.
He brought the idea of service into perspective. He said, “Doing good to others is the one great universal religion.” Swamiji gave an alert call, saying: “When principles are entirely lost sight of and emotions prevail, religions degenerate into fanaticism and sectarianism.” He presented religion to us as a science. He said, “Religion is the science which learns the transcendental in nature through the transcendental in man.”
For, he said, religion wants to know the truth. To fulfill its purpose, in his view, “Religious teaching must be constructive, not destructive.” Thus, Swamiji hammered truth after truth upon us with the immaculate dream of a truthful world. But the world is now in the hands of some inordinately powerful purveyors of lies and subterfuge vigorously active to thwart truth with ulterior motives! Even then, truth must ultimately prevail, vanquishing untruth, as Swamiji had spiritually realised.
(The writer is associated with the Ramakrishna Mission, Narendrapur)