(RNS) — The precious that the colossal majority of flip-of-the-twentieth-century People heard of Swami Vivekananda was the speech the 30-yr-ancient Hindu delegate gave at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893 in Chicago. Vivekananda captivated his viewers, addressing them as his “sisters and brothers,” and spoke about Hinduism’s teachings of the “oneness of existence” — heralding a religious revolution within the West.
It wouldn’t be the final People heard of the Indian monk and disciple of the guru Ramakrishna. Seven years later, Vivekananda would return, touring completely on the West Soar to utter lectures to hundreds of Californians. His evangelism would attain to an end in conjunction with his premature death at 39, in 1902.
However his tag is gentle felt within the drawl the build, he explained in his writings, “he gave his easiest.”
“He’s our model,” acknowledged Swami Prasannatmananda, swami-in-fee of the Vedanta Society of Berkeley. “His name is ample.”
On Saturday (Feb. 22), the Vedanta Society of Berkeley, in partnership with the Indian consulate in San Francisco, will kick off a yearlong occasion of Vivekananda’s affect 125 years after his focus on over with. The inaugural match, a dialogue amongst numerous religion leaders, shall be held at the historical First Unitarian Church of Oakland, the build Vivekananda delivered eight lectures at some level of his focus on over with in 1900.
“I for my portion take into accout that establish as a suite of pilgrimage,” acknowledged Prasannatmananda.
A chair extinct by Swami Vivekananda, beneath his portrait, at First Unitarian Church of Oakland. (Photo by Laurel Liefert)
Inside the church a plaque on the pulpit from which he spoke and a chair the build he sat tag his focus on over with there on Feb. 25, 1900. He appeared at the invitation of the Rev. Benjamin Fay Mills, the church’s non secular head at the time, who had heard Vivekananda at the 1893 parliament. All eight lectures were given to packed audiences of greater than 2,000, with 500 extra listeners lined up outside the door.
“My determining is that at that time, our church was the best venue in Northern California that can presumably have allowed him to focus on,” acknowledged the Rev. Laurel Liefert, Mills’ successor at First Unitarian this day. “1900 is a lengthy time within the past, so that’s improbable. That is merely so powerful and in reality per who we desire to be within the neighborhood.”
“The build is the resolution of this world?” Vivekananda asked the crowds. “Those that leer outside will never obtain it; they must flip their eyes inward and obtain truth. Religion lives interior.”
Liefert acknowledged she didn’t know a lot about Vivekananda when she got right here to the church. That didn’t quit her from feeling a “kinship” with him, she acknowledged. “After I represent Vivekananda in our pulpit, I represent that he’s merely emanating gentle,” acknowledged Liefert. “For me as a minister, I consistently feel savor I’m an instrument of one thing that’s coming thru me. And I merely can’t even imagine what an instrument he was.”
Liefert, who preaches to Buddhists, Sufis, atheists, agnostics, humanists and pagans in her congregation, acknowledged that a lot of Vivekananda’s message overlaps with the “radical hospitality” of the Unitarian Church and his conception that, while there are numerous paths, every thing ends within the divine.
The Rev. Laurel Liefert speaks at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, Sunday, Feb. 9. 2025. (Video veil rob)
Sarah Watts, a member of the First Unitarian congregation and choir, agreed the denomination owes a debt to Vivekenanda and other Eastern spiritualists whose words influenced the religion’s forefathers. “I am happy with most of the things that Unitarian Universalists have accomplished within the previous, standing up and announcing, ‘Hey, you know what? The style we operate things? You understand shall we operate it in a different diagram, or leer at it this diagram.’”
Watts says right here’s what led her to the church: the root that “I will have the beliefs I have, and folks can have theirs, and we could presumably merely be in dialog. We can toughen every other.”
In his day, Vivekananda was asking predominantly Christian People to coexist peacefully with other faiths. ”Now we’re thinking we must whisk previous tolerance, and compare out to explore one thing deeper, savor determining,” acknowledged Liefert. “I mediate that if he was alive this day, he would rep that correct.”
Prasanna Vengadam, a professor of English at Laney College and devotee of the Vedanta Society, acknowledged Vivekananda’s 1900 day out was unlike any sooner than that time or, she believes, since. “There was no Hindu who’s commanded this a lot respect, who’s given the most elegant teachings, as Swami Vivekananda has, and I desire to utterly esteem that,” acknowledged Vengdam, who made a presentation on the importance of interfaith determining at the 2006 Parliament of the World’s Religions. “He’s given our neighborhood participants right here an spectacular foothold to face on and to rep pleasure from ourselves.”
Swami Vivekananda in Jaipur, India (circa 1885 – 1895). (Photo courtesy Wikimedia/Creative Commons)
Vengadam, who immigrated to the US within the Eighties, says Vivekananda gave her the language to focus on her gain beliefs, which were influenced by the Hindu family she was raised in and her years of coaching in a Catholic convent college in Chennai, India.
Most significantly, she acknowledged, his teachings pushed her correct into a existence of carrier outside of the temple: to leer God in all people around her.
“He cannot be a ‘easiest saved secret,’” acknowledged Vengadam. “He cannot merely sit down in books. So at well timed intervals, we’ve got to bring him out and state, ‘Hey other people, we’ve got these teachings. Come over and listen to them. Please read this. Please know this. So reviving what he taught so that extra other people can ranking extra fulfillment and construction of their very gain non secular paths.”
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