Swami Vivekananda’s Views on Philosophy of Education

Bablu Barman

12th January 1863 was the day, Narendranath was born. Swamiji would have had the same message if he was alive today, he would have used a different language but am sure his tonality and his enthusiasm would have been the same. He propagated Karma Yoga as the best Yoga for the youth. Today’s youth wants quick buck. Vivekananda’s politics and economics are all to be found in his social philosophy. And in this domain we encounter Vivekananda as the messenger of modern materialism. Kant is the father of modern materialism for the west. Vivekananda is the father of modern materialism for India. India, like Europe, was in need of a man who could say with all honesty he could command that Prakriti was no less sacred than Purusa and that the pursuit of material science and material prosperity was as godly as that of the science and activities bearing on the soul. Vivekananda had been a rationalist and a deist, though he fancied that he was a theist. His early religious associations were with the Brahmo-Samaj.Ramkrishna Paramahasa attracted; however; many members of the Brahmo-Samaj by his great psychic powers and more particularly by his passionate love of God. Real freedom is achieved not through war, but through peace. War or renunciation or isolation has a place no doubt in the scheme of life, but only a temporary place as a means to the attainment of the ultimate end which is not perpetuation of the inevitable conflict of evolution. Freedom, again, is one. Freedom from the domination of our passions and appetites is the first step in the realization of the ideal. Freedom from the fear of brother-man is the next step. Freedom from the domination of any external authority must follow next. In this way from personal freedom, through social freedom including political freedom, man must attain his real freedom. And when he attains it, he realizes, finally, that he and his God are one. This is really the message of his Master to the modern world. I think that Vivekananda greatest service is the development in his teaching of the finest features of Indian culture.Vivekananda said that there was the power of Brahman in every man that Narayana (i.e. God) wanted to have our service through the poor. Gospel showed the path of infinite freedom from man’s tiny egocentric self beyond the limits of all selfishness. This was no sermon relating to a particular ritual, nor was it a narrow injunction to be imposed upon one’s external life. This naturally contained in it protest against untouchability-not because that would make for political freedom, but because that would do away with the humiliation of man-a curse which in fact puts to shame the self of us all. Vivekananda’s gospel marked the awakening of man in his fullness and that is why it inspired our youth to the diverse courses of liberation through work and sacrifice.