A. Vivekananda first became known, not in India, but because he succeeded in spreading the message of harmony of religions to the Western audiences in USA, UK, Europe, talking and interacting both with societal leaders and common men and women, in simple English. For the first time he highlighted to the world the idea that all religions lead us to a goal of Perfection. He showed the harmony of religions by pinpointing the commonsense fact and reality that essentially, “each soul is potentially divine” and “the Goal is to manifest the divinity within”, thru’ practice of ‘work and duties’ as worship, supported by our respective prayers, meditations, worship”.

B. By the time he returned to India the newspapers had made him well-known. To India his message was to learn from the West their excellence in work, organizational skills, science, technology, planned charity, freedom of women. What India could offer in return was the wisdom of Practical Vedanta & Karma Yoga but expressed not as my vs your god and religion, but in modern terms.

The modern generation has a more logical, questioning, intellectual outlook because they have seen how religions and politics have led to divisions, spread of fanaticism and hatred for the ‘others! So, worldwide, the modern educated, intellectual era doesn’t think much of mere religious beliefs in this or that gods, superstitions, rituals, etc.

C. How Vivekananda learnt Practical Vedanta? Narendra Nath Dutta, who later became Swami Vivekananda, was then a young person and was outside the room when he heard Ramakrishna say: “Compassion for living beings! Fool! Who are you, an insignificant creature, to show compassion? No, no, not compassion, but service to all beings, looking upon them as God Himself.” These words had a tremendous impact on Narendra, and he immediately expressed to his fellow-devotees:

# I have found a new light today.

# This ecstatic utterance of the Master has shown me that ‘Vedanta’ need not be a dry, other worldly – affair.

# If a person learns to look upon all people as the Lord, he cannot have feelings of anger, superiority etc. towards anybody.

# Working as Service to the Divine in individual beings, he will have his heart purified and be convinced in a short time that he himself is also a part of the Lord, who is none else, but the eternally pure, blissful, absolute.

# Let man do everything he is doing; there is no harm in that; it is sufficient for him, first, to be fully convinced that it is the Lord who is manifested before him as the universe and all the beings in it. Those with whom he comes in contact every moment of his life, whom he loves, respects and honors, and to whom his sympathy and kindness flow are all His parts, are all He Himself.

# If he can thus look upon all the persons of the world as Lord, how can there be an occasion for him to regard himself as superior to them or cherish anger and hatred for them or an arrogant attitude towards them, or even to be kind to them?

# Thus, serving the ‘human beings as the Lord himself’, he will have his heart purified and be convinced in a short time that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Lord is all pervasive.

D. Vedanta literally means ‘end of the Veda, i.e. the essence of spiritual wisdom. Vedanta asserts along with many other religions, in the unity of God, unity of man and that one omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God pervades the entire creation.

E. Reflections: No one knows who in the modern society are responsible and accountable to make the enlightened public servants, committed to Fundamental Duties and to selfless kartavya-palan for the good of society as a whole? Though GOI has directed all public servants to be trained to be Karma Yogi, we also need to evolve education, training modules and methods of evaluation for accepting teachers, preachers, professionals, public servants as Karma Yogi? And without proper governance, narrow minded preachers and leaders will happily keep dividing societies for selfish gains!

Do we as a society, nation, academics, governance, etc. discuss and deliberate on what exactly is our national, societal, common, universal common North? Who will be our guide to lead us from ‘short-term pleasures for me and mine’ towards more and more long-term good for more and more … towards the ideal of One Family? How do we bring together our religious preachers, politicians, administrators, professionals, Judiciary, to think together on these national issues!

E. 4 Shouldn’t our Preachers, Academia, Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha have Standing Committees to discuss the basic wisdom of: “Dharma-Artha-Kama-Moksha”, viz. Imbibe ‘Dharma (Righteous ethical conduct; Kartavya-palan not religion!). Then thru Dharma, Earn & Enjoy attaining our respective ideal of “Perfection”; Vedantic ideal of our Oneness, Freedom, and “Yoga & Religion” as “Re-unite, Re-gain, in Latin”.

F. Education must focus on Praxis, Practice! To change ourselves we must learn to work on our Mind. Mere teaching has totally failed to produce the good! Education must work with Interfaith NGOs to see how we could provide one-hour daily for establishing the Youth in the habit of Daily Self-Reflection and Self-development Practices, Life-skills, Abhyasa Yoga, to build viveka-buddhi, powers of Mind and ability for selfless commitment of our respective duties. And only those who sincerely strive to imbibe the spirit of Practical Vedanta and Karma Yoga get promoted to leadership positions.

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