Towards the close of the last century, our country witnessed a close conflict between the cultural values of the East and the West, between our deep-rooted civilization and the European civilization of the British and between the spiritual attitude of the East and the materialism of the West.
The British had conquered politically every inch of the Indian soil and had also been successful in dominating the minds of the intelligential, through a subtle cultural invasion by thrusting an educational system of the English type and by relegating the Indian traditional arts and literature to the background.
Cultural slavery’ was slowly and dangerously dominating the Indian mind. Under the stress of a foreign culture and alien civilization, our countrymen lost their tracks, became skeptical of their own culture and placed themselves totally under the influence of British education.
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It was at this stage in the last decades of the 19th century when two divine personalities arose to fight the storm of Western culture and to revive India’s heritage and spiritual wealth, accumulated during the past four thousand years. Swami Vivekananda in Bengal and very soon afterwards Swami Rama Tirtha in Punjab (the two opposite horizontal directions of the vast expanse of the country) made their appearance like two shining stars in the firmament of the educational, philosophical, religious and cultural milieu. Both of them were contemporaries.
Both were drenched deep in the nectar of Indian spiritualism. Each one of them was an erudite scholar, a born, patriot, a born teacher, a philosopher, a saint, a revivalist of Indian culture, an apostle of practical Vedanta, a prophet and a realized-self. We could use one word to embody every quality of theirs, viz., “super mind in the sense. Shri Aurobindo explained the word:
Perhaps the word ‘supermind’ or ‘superman’ may not convey fully the characteristics of Swami Vivekananda. The Swamiji possessed vast knowledge of Eastern and Western culture, and was drenched deep in the nectar of the Indian spiritual philosophy of Vedanta.
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He was an ascetic who dived into the fountain of self-realization (atmasaksathara), and stood at the topmost summit of the hill of the Vedantic philosophy of India. Besides being a (Brahmajnani, he acted as a human being, a lover of humanity, with broad human sympathy.
He was a matchless patriot, an apostle of national resurgence, and a harbinger of the reglorification of India. With a burning spirit of nationalism, he proclaimed to the whole world (especially to the Westerners) the glory that is India’s and placed before the world the treasure of Indian thought and wisdom.
With firmness of conviction and with indomitable strength, as well as with a divine vision, he worked for the rejuvenation of the downtrodden Indian society. We can briefly summarise his teachings in general and his educational philosophy in particular.