VIVEKANANDA, THE POET
DR. S. V. JOGA RAO
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. Perhaps the eminence of his
saintly career has overshadowed the other. But in fact, long before the Gitanjali
of Rabindranath Tagore, he delivered to the West the message of our
spiritual bards of the bygone ages, festooned with fine flowers of poetry. His
message is a bridge of goodwill between the Orient and the Occident, and his
life an overall interpretation of the vision of the great Saint, Sri
Ramakrishna, his Gurudev.
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, that 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.”
So observes the Swami
in his “The Song of the Free.” True, it is the same with his
own poetry.
All
his poetry is a matter of some sixty-five pages and thirty-three pieces in all,
out of which only two are translations. Eight pieces were originally composed
in Bengali, his mother tongue, four in Sanskrit, one in Hindi and the rest in
English. He is well versed in all these languages. The output is small but not
the quality. His poems, if presented in suitable Sanskrit garb, appear like
excerpts taken from Upanishadic texts. The feeling of
a sublime spiritual vision or experience is the string that binds all the
scattered beads.
Kindred
souls, immersed in Bhakti and philosophy, are themselves at times overcome with
a feeling of aesthetic pleasure, while writing poetry. Their statement looks
like a gospel for others. When the poets intend preaching philosophy with
poetic fervour, others derive the experience of an
absolute bliss. Here lies the secret of all Mystic poetry. Some of our Vedic
bards and the Sufi poets have given us the key to Mystic experience and
Swami Vivekananda stands on a par with them. Obviously we find a striking
resemblance in the poems of all these men of God. It is not the result of any
kind of mimesis on their part. They are independent monologues of individual
experience and yet, all of them are members in the pilgrimage to the One Shrine
Divine. Hence the natural coincidence.
One
day during 1895, while he was staying in the
“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
This
is nothing but what is contained in our sacred scriptures and nothing but the
outburst of his own experience at the same time. “The ‘I’ has All become, the
All is ‘I’ and Bliss; know thou art that….”–this is how he describes the
situation when the soul, once for all, gets free from all bondage. He gives
here the crux of the Mahavakyas–Sarvam
khalvidam Brahma, Anando Brahmeti, Aham Brahmasmi, Tatvamasi, as if
it were a commentary is brief on the way of life of our Maharshis.
He
composed his song “Kali, the mother”, a brilliant spark of his poetic
inspiration, in the earthly Paradise of Kashmir. He projected in it a colourful picture with a rich background. Kali to him is
not the three-foot idle 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.
The
resurgent notes of his song, “The Awakened India” had their echoes in our
National movement afterwards. He is a patriot of the first
order but his vision is unbounded. He celebrated the day of the American
Independence too with a beautiful poem. He is an
advocate of Freedom and an apostle of Love and Peace. He hears sermons in
stones and books in running brooks; hears the music of the spheres and ably
brings out the tempo of their being in a dynamic rythm
of well-poised words of choice.
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, He pledged even life for gaining knowledge and devoted half his days on earth for the sake of love; even as one insane, he often clutched at lifeless shadows. For religion, he sought many creeds, lived in mountain caves, on cremation grounds and by the Ganges and other holy rivers and passed many days on alms, friendless, clad in rags, with no possession at all, and feeding, from door to door, on what chance would bring. His frame was broken under Tapasya’s weight. Thus having undergone such a tremendous hardship of effort, what could he achieve in the end? The Swami himself answers in the ebb of his own voice.
“Listen,
friend, I will speak my heart to thee,
I
have found in my life this truth,–
Buffeted
by waves, in this whirl of live,
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
I request the reader particularly to go through three of his poems, “My play is done”, “A song I sing to thee”, and “And let Shyama dance there”–which are replete with lyrical outpourings in a high pitch of poetic sublimity. Particularly in the last one, as a great devotee with a soul-stirring emotion, he prepares the stage for the dynamic rhythm of the Dance of the Divine Mother. He depicts the dual aspect of creation, the beautiful hues and the terrible horrors of wild Nature by a beautiful contrast. There he stands alone, all by himself, in the ‘Samadhi’ of his imagination, at the two ends of Universal Nature, namely Creation and Destruction.
He
selected for translation only two pieces from Sanskrit–one is the Nirvana shatka, the famous Hymn of self-realisation of Sankaracharya, his own great counterpart, and the other is
the Nasadiya Sukta from Rigveda, the greatest of the Hymns of creation ever heard.
His selection itself marks him to be a true ‘Advaitin’
and his rendering them into English proves him to be a skilful architect of
phrase. His style is remarkably lucid all through. He, in his turn, sang a
beautiful Hymn of creation and saw the Transcendental Light beyond the Skies.
He is a great seer and a rythmic being in one. Hail
to Swami Vivekananda, whose penance flowered into poetry!