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The Vivekananda Society, Colombo - "a Religious Society for the promotion of spiritual knowledge among the Hindu young men of Colombo" - was founded on July 13, 1902, just nine days after the demise of the Swami Vivekananda in Calcutta, India in remembrance and in honour of the great service he had done in his short life span of forty years to Hinduism, the individual and society as a whole. The Society, the very first to be set up for Swami Vivekananda, is celebrating its hundredth year from July 13, 2002 to July 13, 2003. It is organizing various events in all parts of Sri Lanka to be spread out through the year.

The Swami Vivekananda made a stop in Colombo in 1897 on his way to India from the Untied States of America after attending and making the now world famous address at the World Parliament of Religions which was held in Chicago on 19th September 1893.

The Ceylonese were awed and honoured that he should come to Colombo after making the historic address through which he had taken Hinduism to great heights. He was greeted with great pomp and pageantry, by many eminent members of Society and thousands of admirers who were awed and proud of the yeoman service he had done to Hinduism in countries far away.

He travelled the length and breadth of Sri Lanka. He gave many inspirational addresses. The collection of these addresses have been compiled and is called "From Colombo to Almora".

The impact of his visit and message prompted the thoughts of many to inaugurate a Society for the development of Hinduism and the promotion of spiritual knowledge among the Hindu men of Colombo. Before this idea could materialize Swami Vivekananda passed away at an early age of only forty years. However, the organizers continued on their quest and inaugurated the Society in his name just nine days later on July 13, 1902.

The birth of The Vivekananda Society -

"Our predecessors keenly felt the necessity 'for a Religious Society for the promotion of spiritual knowledge among the Hindu men of Colombo', and a notice dated June 18, 1902 was circulated among the Hindus convening a meeting on the July 13, 1902, to inaugurate a Society. In the meantime on July 4, 1902 our revered Swamiji cast off his mortal coil. We invite your kind attention to these facts and dates for reasons, which could be apparent later. Here we will allow the First Annual Report to speak for itself".

The inaugural meeting was held on July 13, 1902, nine days after the passing of Srimat Swami Vivekananda and in selecting a name to the Society it was impossible not to connect with it the name of the departed Patriot-sage, the 'Conqueror of Chicago', who had done yeoman service to our Religion and the fruits of whose labour are still being gathered in and out of Aryawarta.' A report submitted by the Society on 19th December 1903, says that the Society's object is 'the study and dissemination of the Sanatana Dharma (Religion Eternal) and the promotion of wisdom, love and fraternity' and it was named the Vivekananda Society 'in commemoration of the late patriot-sage'.

We are compelled to remind you that our religion Sanatana Dharma - is eternal. It was not found by any man. It is not based upon persons but on principles. There were of course, Rishis (Mantra Drishtas-Seers of Thought) and Munis who discovered the mass of knowledge known as the Vedanta and Sidhanta and who gave us the benefit of their discovery; but none of them was the founder of our religion and none of them claimed our allegiance to him personally. There were also Acharyas, great teachers who were born in different times and emphasized on certain phases of our Dharma which required emphasis in their times. Many of us believe that Swami Vivekanandaji was one of them and revere him as such."

Since then the Society was led by very eminent leaders of our society and workers who gave of themselves unselfishly for the principles that the Society stood for. The late Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, V. Karalapillai, C. Perumalpillai, A. Chellappa, H. Thiruvilangam, Sir Arunachalam Mahadeva, C. Namasivayam, K. Alvapillai, S. Natesan, S. Sivasubramaniam, A.C. Nadarajah, Dr. K. Velauthapillai are some of the eminent members of society who have led this Society successfully in its history of 100 years. The present President is D.M. Swaminathan.

Many great leaders have paid their homage at the Society in the 100 years of its existence. To name a few - in 1927 the Mahatma Gandhi; in 1931 Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Srimathi Kamala and Indra Nehru; in 1942 in his last visit to Colombo the first Indian Governor General His Excellency Sri Rajagopaladchari, the Society remembers the fervent appeals made by him to all Hindus to give their fullest support to the Vivekananda Society and assist the Society and thus serve our Religion; in 1954 Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit, President of the United Nations Organisation General Assembly who inaugurated the Society's Golden Jubilee celebrations; in 1955 the Kundrakudi Adigalaar; many other Hindu dignitaries; through the years many of the Swamis attached to the Ramakrishna Mission; and the list goes on. The Vivekananda Society has also been instrumental in the founding of many Hindu religious and service organizations in its history of 100 years. It had served its people doing yeoman service in establishing schools, conducting Hindu examinations for schoolchildren, receiving and honouring Hindu dignitaries, serving the people in their needs.

Swami Vivekananda was the disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the founder of the Ramakrishna Mission. After the Mahasamadhi of the Master Narendranath as he was then known, took Sanyasa and set out for wandering and came in contact with the people of all walks of life in India. His heart was pained, by seeing the condition of the poverty stricken and down trodden common mass of the motherland.

During which time he was asked to attend the World Parliament of Religions to be held in Chicago, U.S.A. on the 11th September 1983 as a representative of Hinduism. Though reluctant, he felt that this might open a new way for him to serve India and humanity at large. And even today, a hundred years later, his thoughts and philosophy expressed at the Parliament of Religions are still contemporary to be understood, followed and to inspire the young and the old.

At the Parliament he became the most popular figure. According to the New York Herald 'he was undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions'. The Boston Evening Transcript observed: '.... If he merely crosses the platform, he is applauded; ....' The Swami Vivekananda endearing himself to all present at the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago, with his acknowledgement of "Sisters and Brothers of America" during his response to the welcome stated: "I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in Universal toleration but we accept all religions as true.... I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is everyday repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."

The present convention which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me."

In the Programme of the Centenary Celebrations of the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago held in Calcutta in 1993, the Convenor Swami Lokeswaranandaji has said "The Parliament of Religions, which opened in Chicago on 11 September 1893, is a landmark in the history of East and West relations, for this was the first intellectual encounter on the same platform between the two hemispheres.

This encounter is especially significant because it saw the emergence of the ideal of the religious harmony. It will be recalled that it was Swami Vivekananda who first preached it and set the tone of the discussion that followed.

The ideal which Swami Vivekananda and the Parliament of Religions stood for is still going on all over the world often on minor religious and ethnic issues. Intolerance is still acute and widespread... But sporadic efforts by a handful of private organizations cannot solve the problem. Hatred and distrust are now a global menace. Mankind as a whole has to make a concerted attempt to cope with it. All world bodies, national and international leaders, legislatures, universities, other academic bodies and the media - in short, every thoughtful person and institution have to tackle the situation.

Political adjustment may help for a while, but they do not go deep enough. Man needs an ideal, which will give him the reason why he has to be tolerant and love others."

The Publishers of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda say that: "The swami Vivekananda would have been less than he was, had anything in this Evangel of Hinduism been his own. Like the Krishna of the Gita, like Buddha, like Sankaracharya, like every great teacher, that Indian thought has known, his sentences are laden with quotations from the Vedas and Upanishads. He stands merely as the Revealer, the Interpreter to India of the treasures that she herself possesses in herself. The truths he preaches would have been as true, had he never been born. Would have been equally authentic.

The difference would have lain in their difficulty of access, in their want of modern clearness and incisiveness of statement, and in their loss of mutual coherence and unity. Had he not lived, texts that today will carry the bread of life to thousands might have remained the obscure disputes of scholars. He taught with authority, and not as one of the Pundits. For he himself had plunged to the depths of the realization which he preached and he came back like Ramanuja only to tell its secrets to the pariah the outcast and the foreigner.

And yet this statement that his teaching holds nothing new is not absolutely true. It must never be forgotten that it was the Swami Vivekananda who, while proclaiming the sovereignty of the Advaita Philosophy, as including that experience in which all is one, without a second, also added to Hinduism the doctrine that Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita and Advaita are but three phases or stages in a single development, of which the last-named constitutes the goal.

After attending the World Parliament of Religions and touring America and Europe preaching Vedanta, he came to the conclusion that people of India would have to strive hard for their own regeneration.

After the Mahasamadhi of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Narendranath as he was then called took sanyasa and set out for wandering. He returned to India and established the Ramakrishna Mission with the dictum - "For one's own liberation and for the good of the world, this mission will work."

"This is the gist of all worship" to be pure and to do good to others. He who sees Shiva in the poor, in the weak and in the diseased, really worships Shiva; and if he sees Shiva only in the image his worship is but preliminary.

He who has served and helped one poor man seeing Shiva in him, without thinking of his caste, creed or race or anything with him, Shiva is more pleased than the man who sees him only in temples."

"Arise and Awake" called out Swami Vivekananda to the youth. He inspired them to see the One in the many; to alleviate the suffering of these many in whom God resides.

He said that today (true even in contemporary times) it is not the knowledge of the religion that is important. How could one speak of Religion to one who is starving, who is suffering, who needs the basics.

He said, "It is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion; it is an insult to a starving man to teach him metaphysics."The Vivekananda Society had not only held him as an example but also developed Saiva Siddhantham and at the same time continued to concentrate on the youth and service over the hundred years of this existence.

Vanathy Ravindran

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