READING SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

LIFE - COLORES INFINITUM (58)

I was regular with reading since an early age. I had no particular choice of what I would pick to read. Some magazines and newspapers were in routine. For others, a careful scan of some pages into the ‘print’ would make for my decision. Once, into the written work, if it clicked, I went on to finish the work with full joy of reading.

Now, as I reflects back, I see it as one of the formative processes of being my 'Self', for it inspired me to try and think independently of what I read and it guided me on how I wrote (how I would write) my thoughts on the issues I thought over. The teachings have come to stay with me. 

In the process, when I was still in the college, I picked up a magazine on Osho, found it interesting, and went on reading it. The reading of the magazine pushed me to read more on Osho. Along with the magazine, I found some books. The Osho reading went on almost for a year.

Yes, interesting it was. But I could not come to correlate with it. But I never reasoned about it. The continued reading for almost a year was more about reading something unorthodox and thinking over it.

Meanwhile, after a chance-event, I had started reading Swami Vivekananda, too. 

It happened so that once I was visiting a Ramakrishna Mission hospital. At the entrance of the hospital I saw a book shop selling Vedanta and other works on cultural and spiritual literature. While leaving the hospital, I gave a visit to the book shop. The visit took more than an hour. I read some pages of some books and decided to pick some by Swami Vivekananda.

Swami Vivekananda is known globally for his spiritual views and for resurrecting the pride of the Indian spiritual heritage.  I, too, was having this image of Swamiji when I picked up the books from that shop. But it was going to be my first serious reading of Swamiji.

As I started reading Swamiji, I found my 'Self' more and more drawn towards reading Swamiji even more. Moreover, I found an instant liking of him, of his life, and of unorthodox and traditional ways.

This happened while I was still reading Osho. 

Swamiji and Osho, both delved deeper into the spiritual practices like Yoga and Meditation. But as I read more of Swamiji, I found many points of contradictions in Osho’s viewpoints. When the contradictions created many layers creating a trust-gap, I stopped reading Osho.

Reading a text has to be a text-reading. Try to be as objective as you can be. If you read something, try not to be trapped in its environs, be it negative or positive in the worldly means. Read the work in the context of its writing plot but if you have to think over it, never allow its context to influence yours. I thought so. I think so. I believe it to be so. 

While reading Osho, I never thought to follow him. And not just with Osho, it had not happened so to me yet while reading a written work. I still follow this sell-evolved principle.

But Swamiji was the one who became a natural exception to this principle. I read and rewrote my words. I tried to follow his teachings. I came to know my limitations in following Swamiji's teachings. I consciously made it a point for me to follow my new found attachment earnestly. Also, Swamiji was an important aspect of my connect with her. 

But if the inclination to follow Swamiji came to me naturally, equally spontaneous was the fact that I never felt dominated by his teachings. I tried to follow all of his teachings initially but realized I could not. And I never felt sorry for it.

I don't feel sorry about it for, I know reading Swamiji is more about the ‘Process’ in my life; a life that loves to evolve consistently, a life that tries to live meaningfully, a life that lives severally alone, a life that believes in making sense of its existence, a life that understands what its identity means, a life that knows it needs to contribute for its existence to be one with its identity. 

(An earlier written, reworked write-up) 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/