India · 1863–1902
Swami Vivekananda
Monk who introduced Vedānta and yoga to the West
A disciple of Ramakrishna, he presented Vedānta as a universal religion at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, and taught that serving the poor is worshipping God in human form.
Life and thought
Narendranath Datta (1863–1902) was a Calcutta-educated young man steeped in Western philosophy and the reformist Brahmo Samaj when, around 1881, he met the Bengali mystic Ramakrishna. After his teacher’s death he became a wandering monk as Swami Vivekananda. On 11 September 1893 he addressed the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, opening with “Sisters and brothers of America”, and became famous almost overnight. He lectured in America and Britain, founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897, and died at thirty-nine.
Vivekananda recast Śaṅkara’s Advaita as a modern, universal religion. Every soul is potentially divine, and all religions are paths to the same truth, though he presented Vedānta as their fullest form. He turned non-duality into an ethic: if the same divinity lives in everyone, serving the poor is worshipping God, and India’s regeneration needs both spiritual confidence and practical work. His Raja Yoga (1896) reinterpreted Patañjali for Western readers and helped start the global spread of yoga.
Works
Shaped by
c. 700–750 (older scholarship: 788–820)ŚaṅkaraAdvaita master whose commentaries defined non-dual VedāntaShaped
1872–1950Sri AurobindoAurobindo said that Vivekananda’s presence came to him in meditation while he was in Alipore jail.Meanwhile, in other traditions
1857–1913Ferdinand de SaussureGeneva linguist whose lectures founded structural linguistics1859–1938Edmund HusserlMoravian-born mathematician turned philosopher, founder of phenomenology1859–1952John DeweyPhilosopher of education and democracy; lectured in China 1919–211870–1945Nishida KitarōFounder of the Kyoto School1872–1970Bertrand RussellLogician, public intellectual and Nobel laureate; lectured in China 1920–211873–1958G. E. MooreCambridge defender of common sense against idealismOn the record
A disciple of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda presented Vedānta at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago; Raja Yoga appeared in 1896.
He first met Ramakrishna in 1881 (or early 1882), spoke at the opening of the Parliament on 11 September 1893, published Raja Yoga in 1896, and lived 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Swami Vivekananda”
Aurobindo said that Vivekananda’s presence came to him in meditation while he was in Alipore jail.
In a letter of 13 September 1946 Sri Aurobindo wrote that he heard ‘constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation’ and ‘felt his presence’, on a limited field of spiritual experience. It is his own later account, as the atlas implies, of his 1908–09 imprisonment in the Alipore bomb case.
Sources: Sri Aurobindo, letter of 13 September 1946 (Letters on Himself and the Ashram)