“My Faith is in the Younger Generation, the Modern Generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like Lions.”
Swami Vivekananda expressed this confidence in the youth of this country exactly 50 years before the end of Colonial Rule while speaking to a mammoth gathering of youngsters in Madras. Swami ji himself was the embodiment of youth, dynamism and vibrancy. The life and ideals of Swami ji are the greatest inspiration for the youth of our nation. In a short life of 39 years, 5 months and 22 days, this great man conquered the entire world with his message. Many great personalities both in India and across the world became deeply inspired by Swami ji.
The writings of Swami ji can ignite the minds of the reader. Someone rightly pointed out that if you are lying down and reading Swami ji’s work you will instantly sit upright. If you are sitting and reading his writings then you will stand up and if you read him standing, you will at once set out towards your mission. This is nothing but the influence of Swami Vivekananda’s lively message. Anybody who has come into either direct or indirect contact has witnessed an ocean of change in his or her life. Today, the youth of this country faces various challenges and I am certain that the message of Swami Vivekananda has the power to wonderfully guide them into the future.
PURPOSE OF LIFE
Swami ji always held that the real birth of the individual takes place when the purpose of his life germinates. He believed that he who does not have a purpose is nothing but a walking-talking corpse. Till the purpose is not recognized, life is absolutely useless.
Our youngsters should decide what they want to do in this life. Right from our childhood, we are constantly chained by the thought of careers, or what we want to be and in that process forget some of the finer aspects that life has to offer. It is extremely important not to decide the purpose of life with the narrow objective to be something or the other. Think of doing not becoming and in this process you will certainly become something. Once the purpose of life is clear, all actions of life become driven by that purpose.
SELF-CONFIDENCE
A precursor to do anything in life is to have confidence in the self. Swami Vivekananda attached more importance to self-confidence than even faith in God!
“He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself,” he famously stated. Unfortunately, we have limited ourselves without knowing our capabilities. Many times we feel that we can do ‘only this much’ despite being blessed with tremendous capabilities. If our youth is determined, there can be nothing impossible for them to achieve in the world! But, for this we must regain our self-confidence.
Swami ji always believed that everything that is happening around us be it small, big, positive or negative gives us the opportunity to manifest the potential within.
DEDICATION
For any endeavor to attain the pinnacle of success, dedication to the cause is absolutely essential. Swami Vivekananda once said,
“To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. ‘I will drink the ocean’, says the persevering soul; ‘at my will mountains will crumble up’. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.” Another quality that Swami Vivekananda spoke of was patience. He said,
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Be like the pearl oyster. There is a pretty Indian fable to the effect that if it rains when the star Svâti is in the ascendant, and a drop of rain falls into an oyster, that drop becomes a pearl. The oysters know this, so they come to the surface when that star shines, and wait to catch the precious raindrop. When a drop falls into them, quickly the oysters close their shells and dive down to the bottom of the sea, there to patiently develop the drop into the pearl. We should be like that.” Very often, it so happens that we take on a task with immense enthusiasm but as time passes by, the same enthusiasm fizzles out. Pursuing a challenge with utmost dedication is indeed a road to success for our youth.
TEAMWORK
This era belongs to organization and teamwork. Be it any sector from science, technology to business, teamwork constitutes a major cornerstone to attaining the desired results. When he was in USA, Swami Vivekananda was greatly impressed by the spirit of teamwork there and he thought of the need to re-vitalize this spirit of teamwork in India. Leading by example, he founded the Ramakrishna Mission and organized Sanyasis to work towards nation building.
Friends, if the present youth walks on the hallow path of Swami ji’s ideals and beliefs it will merely be a matter of time before India adorns the mantle as the leader of the World. In any case, we are the most youthful nation in the world but simply that is not enough. It is necessary to arm our youth with the relevant knowledge and skill that will convert this mammoth potential to desired results.
India is celebrating Swami Vivekananda’s 150th Birth Anniversary and Gujarat is commemorating the entire year as ‘Yuva Shakti Varsh’. It is indeed high time that we resolve to follow these ideals of Swami Vivekananda and take this youthful nation to greater heights as the leader of the world.
