A Tribute To Vivekananda

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A Tribute to Vivekananda It is 12 January today, the one hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. We celebrate it as youth's day. He was the first Hindu monk after lord Buddha who won recognition the world over. Yes, I use the word - 'won' because Swami ji was a spiritual warrior who went around on a tireless mission to make everybody believe that every soul is divine and one needn't look for inspiration without but evolve ourselves from within. He roared like a lion, 'Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached'. What a man he was about whom his revered guru, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, said, "A yogi like Narendra? Na bhooto na bhavishyati (never had been and never ever will be)". He made an appeal to his countrymen to look towards the glorious past of their country for inspiration. He warned them against blind imitation, and against believing that everything that is Indian is bad and all that is western is good. It's sad to see our youths today lose faith in their country, their culture and their own identity. How ironical it is to see the youth ridiculously dressed on the western patterns, shrugging their shoulders like people in western countries, vomiting out third class English expressions and thinking that the more American they can look the smarter they would appear. Smartness is synonymous to originality and not duplication. I never mean to say that wearing western dresses or adopting whatever is good in the western culture is wrong. It is aping someone which is bad. Can't we stand up firmly and say we are proud of India and its culture. Our true progress lies in restoring the same glory and prestige that India once commanded the world over. The question, as Mark Tully, the BBC reporter once said, is whether we want to build an original India or a duplicate America. Let us stride towards believing in all that is
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