In The Memory Of Swami Vivekananda..

A Brief Life Of Swami Vivekananda

Narendranath Datta was born in 3 Gourmohan Mukherjee Street, Shimla Pally, Calcutta (Now Kolkata) at 6:33 a.m on Monday in a traditional Kayastha family, "12 January 1863" as the son of Viswanath Dutta and Bhuvaneswari Devi.

Narendranath had varied interests and a wide range of scholarship in philosophy, religion, history, the social sciences, arts, literature, and other subjects.

He evinced much interest in scriptural texts, Vedas, the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas. He was also well versed in classical music, both vocal and instrumental and is said to have undergone training under two Ustads.

With Sri Ramakrishna

Vivekananda met Ramakrishna for the first time in November 1881. He asked Ramakrishna the same old question, whether he had seen God. The instantaneous answer from Ramakrishna was, "Yes, I have seen God, just as I see you here, only in a more clear sense."Narendra was astounded and puzzled. He could feel the man's words were honest and uttered from depths of experience. He started visiting Ramakrishna frequently.

During the course of five years of his training under Ramakrishna, Narendra was transformed from a restless, puzzled, impatient youth to a mature man who was ready to renounce everything for the sake of God-realization. Soon, Ramakrishna's passed away into Mahasamadhi in August 1886. After this Narendra and a core group of Ramakrishna's disciples took vows to become monks and renounce everything, and started living in a supposedly haunted house in Baraganore.


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