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Much has been said of Viveka­nanda’s greatness as saint and phi­losopher but, curiously enough, the fact that he is a poet of the first order does not seem to have received much attention.

The content of all his poems is nothing but a synthesis of the poetic thought of the ancient saints and the saintly vision of kindred bards. Viveka­nanda is the name given to him by his Guru who gave him the vision too. The epithet has earned a name for him and proved itself to be an apt combination of terms on account of its association with him. All good poetry or great philosophy is the manifestation of ‘Viveka culminating in “Ananda�. In fact, this kind of philosophy and po­etry are the spring of his inspiration.

“The cloud puts forth its deluge
strength
When lightning cleaves its
breast:
When the soul is stirred to its
inmost depth
Great ones unfold their best.�

One day during 1895, while he was staying in the Thousand Island Park at New York, he was lecturing to his pupils in his spiritual training camp on Sanyasa and its welcome experiences. Suddenly something str­uck him and he left the class quite unceremoniously and in no time a me­morable melody came out of him and that is the famous “Song of the Sanyasin�. It begins as follows:

“Wake up the note! the song that had its birth Far off, where worldly taint could never reach; In mountain caves and glades of forest deep, whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame could ever dare to break, where rolled the stream of knowledge, truth and bliss that follows both.

Sing high that note, Sanyasin
bold! Say

Om Tat Sat Om!�

He projected in it a colourful picture with a rich ground. Kali to him is not the three-foot idol at Daksh­ineswara, but something more, the Omnipotent Power behind the three-­worlds and the Trinity. He under­stands her as Time-incarnate. He had the chance of her sight before, through the medium of his Guru. Sister Nive­dita says, no sooner did he finish the song than he fell down to the ground in a fit of ecstatic emotion. He ob­serves, in another of his poems:

“Perchance the shining sage
Saw more than he could tell
Who knows, what soul and when
The Mother makes her throne?�

This aptly applies to him also.

He presents the document of his self-realisation as follows:

Before the sun, the moon, the earth
Before the stars or comets free
Before e’en Time had its birth
I was, I am and I will be.�

Here, in this, “The Song of the Free,� we clearly see thought and diction are well in a race with each other.

He sees God in man, nay, in the nerve of every living being and in one song proclaims the love of all beings to be the best worship:

‘These are his manifold forms
before thee,
Rejecting them, where seekest
thou for God?
Who loves all beings, without
distinction,
He indeed is worshipping best
his God.�

In another, he warns the fools, who neglect the living God, worshipping mute idols:

“Ye fools! who neglect the
living God,
And his infinite reflections with
which the world is full,
While ye run after imaginary
shadows,
That lead alone to fights and
quarrels,
Him worship the only visible!
Break all other idols!�

All this is not a mere platitude. It forms the very core of his nature. He is a man of action, a dynamic personal­ity. Vivekananda is another name for Philosophy practised. I describe the great �Sadhana� he made, in his own poetic language.

“Listen friend, I will speak my
heart of thee,
I have found in my life this truth,
Buffeted by waves, in this whirl
of life
There is one ferry that takes
across the sea,
Formulas of worship, control of
breath,
Science, philosophy, systems
varied,
Relinquishment, possession, and
the like,
All these are delusions of the
mind;
Love, Love that’s the one thing,
the Sole treasure.�

This is the net result of all the endeavour of the great saints, Vivekananda or another. This sermon of love is their perpetual message to man­kind.

The Swami has given us yet another sermon, the sermon of peace in terms more clearly defined and with a better refinement of poetic setting. I quote a few lines here:

“It is not joy nor sorrow,
But that which is in between;
It is sweet rest in music;
And pause in sacred art;
Between two fits of passion
It is the calm of heart;
It is beauty never seen,
And love that stands alone,
The void whence rose creation,
And that where it returns;
It is the goal of life,
And peace - its only home!�

He is a devout pupil and a kindred teacher too. He hails in Sanskrit, his Guru, Sri Ramakrishna as an Avatar of Sri Krishna, the preceptor of the Gita. He blesses Sister Nivedita, his disciple, to be the mistress, servant and friend, all in one, to India’s futureson. He addresses another western lady-disciple from New York, as an ‘Early Violet� and exhorts her in poetry, not to get disheartened at her unbecoming situation and give up her bloom and blossom. “Change not thy nature ... ever pour thy sweet perfume, unasked, unstinted, sure!� that is the Upadesh of this great master.

(Reprinted from Triveni, January, 1964)