VYC Lecture at IIEST, Shibpur

Relevance of Swami Vivekananda in an Institute of Science & Technology

Learned Professors on the stage, Prof Gautam Bhattacharya, President of Vivekananda Youth
Circle, Prof Bichitra Kumar Guho, Dean of Faculty affairs, Prof N C Dey, Dean of Student Affairs, other
dignitaries in the Hall and my dear students:
I am very happy to be present here today to celebrate Swami Vivekanandas birthday as National
Youth Day. I happen to be informally associated with the VYC in the sense that I keep meeting some of
the members of VYC, or rather the ex-members of VYC. They come to me at Belur Math and I too visit
them here in this College campus. It is therefore nice to be here again.
Prof N C Dey mentioned an incident about Swamiji advising someone to throw his certificates to
the ocean. I havent read that incident, although that would be the kind of harsh statement Swamiji would
have said under the circumstances. But I do not know the veracity of the statement. Secondly he referred
to Narens prayer to Kali. That is one very interesting incident. It has been authentically recorded from Sri
Ramakrishnas own words and also Swamijis own words. The thing was Naren lost his father. He
himself had no job. His mother and others at home were starving. He felt piqued. He approached Sri
Ramakrishna and told him to pray to his Mother Kali so that Narens family wouldnt starve. All of us
will agree that this was a most reasonable request. But Sri Ramakrishnas reply was extremely strange. He
said that he couldnt make such requests to Kali but that if Naren himself wanted to ask Mother Kali for
such a thing, he was free to do so and that Mother Kali would listen to his prayer. I think this was
diplomacy at the highest level. Sri Ramakrishna did not want to be the intermediary, especially in Narens
case. Suppose he did make that prayer and later on Naren were to complain that Ramakrishna did not ask
properly, that what he had in mind was of some other nature. Ramakrishna perhaps did not want to get
caught in such complications. Perhaps, I say because, there might have been something much, much
deeper than that too. Anyway, Naren had to go to Kali and place his request before Her himself. And he
did go. Not once, not twice, but thrice he went and each time he asked for Devotion and Renunciation, not
for money! This is indeed very strange. I wont go into the details of this incident here, for we have
another equally interesting topic to deal with today Relevance of Swami Vivekananda in an Institute of
Science & Technology.
Let me start by telling you two incidents in the life of Swami Vivekananda. The year is 1888. He
was a young monk. He was still not known as Swami Vivekananda. Having taken the vows of
monasticism, he could not revert to his old name, Narendranath Dutta. But he had not yet decided on what
new name to adopt. He was still trying on many names. During that time, he was travelling in North India
and was in a place called Hathras. The station master of that town was a young man called Sharat
Chandra Gupta, who later became a monk. He was in fact the first monastic disciple of Swamiji and was
called Swami Sadananda. While talking to Sharat Chandra Gupta in Hathras, Swamiji mentioned
something remarkable. Actually the turn of events was something like this: Sharat Chandra observed that
Swamiji was stressed, as though he was thinking very deeply over something, all the time. You know the
pre-occupied look that comes over a person when he is in that state. Sharat Chandra observed something
like that in Swamiji. He asked him. Swamiji replied, You see, I have a great mission to fulfil in my life.
It is a command given to me by my Guru. It is nothing short of the spiritual generation of the whole
country. Imagine, you meet a monk, and you ask him something casual and he replies I have a great
mission to fulfil! How strange it must have sounded to the young man!
Move forward to 1893-94. Swamiji had already spoken at the Chicago World Parliament of
Religions. Now he was travelling to the various towns and cities in USA. The newspapers of those places
announced that an exotic Hindu monk was visiting their town and would be speaking in such and such
Page 1 of 7

VYC Lecture at IIEST, Shibpur

venues. And, in all those cases, the newspapers would also announce that the Hindu monk was still in
America trying to get some funds and ideas for starting a Technical School in India!
What happened to spiritual regeneration of the whole country? Had his mission changed all of a
sudden? There seem to be some missing links here. In the course of this lecture, we shall try to discover
those missing links.
Much later than 1894, while giving an interview, once Swamiji made another most interesting
statement. The conversation was on India and her future and the interviewer asked What exactly does
India need? Swamiji replied, and I consider this as the most important statement he ever made for India
What we need is Western Science coupled with Vedanta, with Brahmacharya as the guiding motto,
and Shraddha or faith in oneself. You see the clarity of thought here! Just four things, he said India
needed Western Science, Vedanta, Brahmacharya and Shraddha. Everything that he had ever said about
this country can be found in this one statement. Everything that he wanted us to be, so that India can
become glorious, is presented in this one statement. Very rarely do you find any leader articulating his
vision for his followers with such clarity. This is indeed the statement of a Prophet.
Now, what did he mean by this statement? We know what Western Science means. But when he
says we need Western Science, how are we to understand it? I will place before you my personal take on
this issue. When he used the term Western Science, what he meant was Wealth Generation. Does it
seem a bit far-fetched? Let me explain a little bit here. I consider that the central aspect of western science
is its amazing capacity to generate wealth. Ideas are used to generate wealth. Science gives you that
orientation. Take the classic case of Sir J C Bose. Prof Guho mentioned him in his welcome address.
There is a controversy on who exactly discovered Wireless Communication. Some say it was Bose. Some
others say it was Marconi. The facts however seem to indicate that the phenomenon was indeed
discovered by J C Bose. He gave a demonstration of the phenomenon in the Royal Society of London.
Now, the catch is here. He believed that ideas are free for everyone and no person should have monopoly
over an idea that he had happened to discover. It is a typically Indian idea. It is said that Marconi saw that
demonstration in the Royal Society and he was able to immediately see the wealth generating potential
behind this simple idea. And he went ahead and monetized it! He used that simple idea and made it into
something that people could use in their daily lives, thereby enriching their own lives and simultaneously
giving him money and making him rich! This is the idea with which Swamiji used this term Western
Science. We Indians lack this faculty. We need to develop it.
Not just that, I also understand this term to mean Organization. We know that what we call
science today took birth from the Age of Enlightenment after the famous Dark Ages. People started
discovering basic principles on which the world runs. People also started thinking seriously on how those
discoveries could be put to use in mans daily life. This lead to a spurt of innovation and engineering was
born. That was the Industrial Revolution. But, this transition from science into technology would not have
happened if the Europeans hadnt come up with the idea of Organization. Again, you may say that
organization wasnt actually a European idea and that Indians knew organization and that Buddha had
created the first successful and efficient organization in the world. My reply is why then didnt we use it
in areas other than religion? If we had done that, Indian history would have turned out differently. The
Joint Stock companies funded the innovations, their manufacturing and marketing, and in providing the
people with requisite skills. Just look around you in this room. Excepting these flowers and plants,
everything here is made by man. Even before the Industrial Revolution, man used to manufacture things.
Especially in India, we have all along been great at manufacturing things and creating wealth. You must
certainly know that we were the richest and wealthiest nation in the world for a very long time. Every
nation in the world wanted to have economic ties with us then. That is the reason we find country after
Page 2 of 7

VYC Lecture at IIEST, Shibpur

country discovering land routes and sea routes to India in the past. Now we are poor. Sometime in the 15th
or 16th century, things started going south for India. We went into a deep slumber. And while we slept,
Europe woke up.
There is a vital difference in the method of manufacturing that we had in India and the method of
manufacturing that Europe developed during the Industrial Revolution. All along in India, we have
emphasized on skill development. You all know the stories of the Mahabharata. Do you recall the one
year that the five Pandava Princes spent incognito? What did they do during that one year? Each one
entered into the service of the King Viraata. One of the brothers was a cook, another tended horses. You
see, they were all princes, royal people, yet they knew some trade! All along our history, we have had this
strong bent of mind for learning various skills. Then for some reasons, these skills started getting
monopolized within families. This habit developed into the infamous caste system. That is the reason you
find even today that certain trades are handled by people of a certain caste only and not by others. People
even carry family names that tell you what trade they specialized in! So, all along our history, we
manufactured things and created wealth. However, there was one catch. We were able to rise up to
cottage industry only. Take vehicles, for instance. We had bullock carts, horse drawn chariots and
carriages, all manufactured in India. But can you manufacture a car or an airplane by cottage industry
methods of manufacturing? The European organization allowed man to reach a new level of
manufacturing things. Various people with different sets of skills came together, pooled in their money
and resources, and brought about an unprecedented level of value addition. That created wealth at an
unprecedented rate. We need that amazing machinery of creating wealth in our country too.
Prof Guho mentioned that Swamiji met J N Tata on a ship to America and that as a result of that
interaction the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in
Bombay came up. When J N Tata met Swamiji, he was a trader. He purchased matchboxes from Japan
and brought them to India for selling here. Of course, he too had independently decided to set up an Iron
& Steel plant somewhere in Eastern India and on that particular trip, he was going to Japan to bring some
Engineers to test whether the site in present Jamshedpur was suitable for the plant or not. But what is
noteworthy is that during that interaction, Swamiji exhorted J N Tata to stop trading and get into
manufacturing! He wanted Tata to make things in India and not just trade things from abroad for India.
Please note, this is not your Prime Minister speaking about Make in India; this was in 1892, Swami
Vivekananda speaking with a person who became the icon of indigenous manufacture in India. That was
the trend of Swamijis thoughts. We need to produce things in India by adopting the European methods of
organization and machinery so that we can produce wealth at an enormous rate. In fact in one place,
Swamiji says, We need material civilization. No, not just that, we also need luxury, so that we can
generate jobs for the poor. Look at the language and his thoughts! Our country is very slowly catching
up with him, very slowly.
So, we need Western Science in the sense, we need to learn how to come together, how to
organize ourselves and create more wealth by applying our minds. There is a wonderful philosophy that
explains why this is needed. I wont go into that today. Maybe sometime later. Next, we need Vedanta.
Again, Prof Guho mentioned about Advaita Vedanta. That is one of the schools of Vedanta, the most
popular one though. But there are many more schools of Vedanta. What school of Vedanta did Swamiji
have in mind when he said that we need Vedanta? Again, my take on this issue is he used this term to
represent a particular idea, the idea of Sacredness. This entire world is divine. Hence it is sacred.
Approach it worshipfully. Western Science is grand, it confers great material benefits on us. All that is
good. But without this attitude of worshipfulness at the back of our mind, Western Science tends to sap
the life out of us. We deal day-in and day-out with the things of this world and we end up becoming
Page 3 of 7

VYC Lecture at IIEST, Shibpur

lifeless things, instead of bettering ourselves as human beings. Let us deal with this world. Let us work
hard and make money. But, let us be worshipful about it.
You know, I hold that there arent many great thinkers in this world that have given attention to
the work that we do. All human beings work. Work is so universal. Yet very few have given thought to
this. Why should we work? What is work? What is the end result of all the work we do? Two people who
have shed light on this vital issue of work are Karl Marx and Swami Vivekananda. I think they were
contemporaries. Or maybe Karl Marx was older, I am not sure. Both say that man is bound to work. We
simply cannot escape from work. However, there is a major difference in their views. Karl Marx held that
all work that man does can be converted in terms of money. Swamiji held that only a certain portion of
mans work can be monetized. A major portion of the work that man does cannot be monetized, but that
portion goes to create his personality, his character. That is where the idea of sacredness comes in. let us
work in a worshipful manner. Let us earn money commensurate with our work, while allowing the
attitude of sacredness to transform our consciousness. That is the reason I objected to the use of the word
suffering in introducing me. I worked among the tribes in Arunachal Pradesh with an attitude of prayer
and worship. How can I suffer when I work with that attitude? In fact, I saw that they were suffering and
hence I worked among them!
Anyway, let us look at the third term Swamiji has used Brahmacharya. You may feel that
notwithstanding the elaborate explanation that Prof Gautam Bhattacharya gave about VYC not being a
monastic recruitment center, here comes this swami from Belur Math talking about the very thing! Some
of you may think that although we say VYC has nothing to do with monasticism, we do plug our ideas of
monasticism covertly! Nothing of the kind. You may relax. People dont become monks by attending
some organization or study circle. It is like saying that if you study Physics, you will become like Prof
Guho here! Is that true? People dont become physicists like Prof Guho by studying physics. Those are
rare cases. However, dont all of us need some physics knowledge in our lives? Somehow we have come
to understand Brahmacharya to be synonymous with formal monasticism. As though rest of the people do
not need Brahmacharya at all! This term means Self-control. That is all. There, is that so terrible now?
Dont we all need some degree of self-control in our lives?
Let me tell you about a wonderful experiment conducted by a Stanford University psychologist
way back in the 1960s. He took some kindergarten children and put them in a room, one after the other. In
front of the child he would place a marshmallow, a kind of sweet. He would tell them, Look here, I have
to go out for a few minutes. If you dont eat this sweet till I am back, I will give you one more
marshmallow. However, if you eat it before I return, you wont be getting any more. And he would go
out. There was a camera in the room that recorded the reactions of the kids. You know how kids are.
Some ate the sweet even before he had completely left the room. Then there were some kids who had
conflict written all over their face! He said he would come back and give me one more. What if he
doesnt? What if he comes back and takes even this one back? No. let me wait. But, am I being a fool?
Stuff like that. Then there were a few who didnt even look at the sweet and were busy with something
else. Now the interesting part of this experiment is that Walter Mitchell, that is the name of the
psychologist, studied the lives of these kids for the next 20-25 years. His findings were amazing. He
found that there was a direct correlation between the degree of self-control the kids had and their future
grades, education, jobs and incomes. Kids who did not eat the marshmallows but had waited to get one
more ended up with high educational degrees and had good jobs with good incomes. This is what is
meant by Brahmacharya here. Brahmacharya has its value in spiritual life, but not less in the material life
too.

Page 4 of 7

VYC Lecture at IIEST, Shibpur

You see, the whole problem with this concept of Brahmacharya is we see people who live
profligate lives also becoming successful in life, in the material sense. Take for instance Richard
Feynman. An amazing person, but he would visit places which I cannot mention from this podium! Yet
he was a great achiever. Or, take Mozart, for instance. What an amazing musician and composer! The
music he created is divine. He was also a most wretched, debased person who led a life of utter
debauchery. Examples such as these seem to work against the concept of and necessity of Brahmacharya.
But I argue, when you speak of Feynman, why dont you look at Newton? That man was so focused on
his scientific work that he even forgot about his own wedding! When you speak of Mozart, why dont you
also speak of Beethoven? He was so utterly focused on music that he never felt the need to marry! The
way to understand this is like this in this world, we come across a few people who seem to be born with
great abilities. We call them prodigies. They are born with certain skills, certain talents. They dont need
to pick it up by hard effort in this life. They are born with that. Such people are the exceptions. They may
not need to be self-controlled. Or rather, they may not need to pick up and nurture self-control in a
conscious way in order to excel in life. For the rest of us, self-control leads to the flowering of faculties
and skills in us. When we practice self-control, we can pick up any skill, any ability we choose. That is
the utility of Brahmacharya. I am not speaking of complete self-control. Leave that to the monks. A small
degree is all I am speaking of. To the extent we can nurture this habit of self-control, to that extent we can
see for ourselves how faculties flower in our personality. You know, in Sanskrit, one of the words used
for a student is Kamajit one who is self-controlled!
So, Swamiji said that India needs four things in order to be great Western Science, Vedanta,
Brahmacharya and Shraddha. We have seen in brief the first three ideas. Now, Shraddha. This is a term
he himself once said he wouldnt translate into English, for there is no equivalent word in the whole of the
English language. Shraddha is Aasthikyabuddhi, which means a positive frame of mind. It distills into
the attitude of I can do this. That is all it is. Not very complicated. Recently, psychologists have found
out that the human mind cannot deal with negatives. It understands only the positives. Let me explain this
with a story.
A king once started getting bald. You know baldness has no medicine. But he tried desperately to
grow his hair back. Many doctors tried many things but nothing worked. He also had the terrible habit of
killing a doctor who attempted to cure his baldness and failed. Slowly, one by one the number of doctors
started reducing in the kingdom. The Minister understood that this was not a good thing to happen. He hit
upon a plan to make the King realize his folly. He went up to the king and said, Maharaja, this is magic
oil. If you apply it for 30 days after bath, your hair will grow back. But there is one catch. You must not
thing of monkeys while applying it. The king was very happy. It wanted to try out this new magic oil.
Next day he took his bath, poured some oil into his palm and started applying the oil. He recalled that he
was not supposed to think of monkeys. Ah! Right there, the picture of a monkey flashed before his minds
eye. That day he couldnt apply the oil. No problem. He would start the next day and continue for 30 days
thereafter. But the next day also, same thing happened. Like this, the entire oil got wasted and he couldnt
even apply it on his head!
Do you realize what happened here? The minister said dont do this to the King. Mind doesnt
understand this Dont business. It only understands the Do thingy. If the king knew this secret of the
mind, he could have easily circumvented his problem. He could have thought of lions and the thought of
monkeys wouldnt have entered his minds at all! This is what is meant by Shraddha. You have to learn to
speak to yourself in positive terms. That is all that is required. Rest of the things, the mind itself will
accomplish for you.

Page 5 of 7

VYC Lecture at IIEST, Shibpur

You know, there was a famous psychologist called Eric Fromm. He even started a new field
within psychology; I think it is called Social Psychology or something like that. He introduced a
wonderful idea to us. He says that most people design their own failures in life. Isnt this frightening to
hear? He says that we all have something inside us called Will to fail. We plan our own failures! Can
you imagine something worse than this? This is not suicide that I am referring to here. There are subtle
ways in which we sabotage our own progress, our own growth. And since we ourselves do it, we cant
blame anyone else! Of course, the mind is a master at justifying our actions. Someone once said I think
it was George Bernard Shaw or someone We are excellent advocates for our mistakes and the strictest
judges for those of others! Listen to a story. It will clarify how this Will to fail works.
There was once a village; a fairy tale village; only animals lived there. But the fun is all animals
were extremely friendly towards one another. There was perfect peace and harmony among them. No
enmity, no anger. It was heaven on Earth. One day, a tiger of that village had gone to the jungle for
hunting food for its family. It was returning back and it became dark. On the way it met a goat of the
same village. The goat also had gone to the jungle to collect some firewood for its family. The tiger said,
Brother Goat, it is good we met. Now we can go together. You have nothing to fear. After sometime,
the goat said, Brother Tiger, I know it is foolish of me, but I have this fear that you might want to eat me
up. The tiger was shocked. It said, Brother Goat, that is absurd for more reasons than one. First of all,
we are all friends in our village. We dont have any of the enmity that other animals have elsewhere in the
world. We are one family here. Secondly, look at me. I have a spear in one hand, a basket in another, a
wild fowl in my third hand and my hunting dog in my fourth. All my hands are occupied. How could I
ever kill you in this condition? That was indeed true. So the goat fell silent. But, after sometime the goat
said, Brother Tiger, I was just thinking to myself: suppose you drive the spear into the ground and tie the
dog to that spear, then keep the fowl on the ground and place the basket over it, you will be free to kill
me!
Did you just see that? The tiger had no clue and the goat worked out the problem for the tiger!
That is how our mind works. However, when we cultivate Shraddha, our mind loses its capability to think
of anything negative.
We have thus seen the necessity of Swamiji and his message for improving our country. Since
time is already up, I might as well wrap up todays deliberations and take two quick questions.
Q1: I plan many things. But then I discuss them with my mother and I end up thinking that I cant
do any of them. I lack self-confidence. Moreover I keep changing my plans. What should I do?
This reminds me of story. You know those Jatras that are held in the villages. Whole night the
performance goes on. It is always either the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. One such Jatra was going on.
It was on Ramayana. At the break of dawn, it ended. One friend tells another, That was a wonderful
performance, the best I have seen. But I did not understand one thing though. How are Rama and Sita
related?
Self-confidence comes by asserting it in oneself. There is no other way. You keep listening to
your mother and friends and others; they can do nothing for you. You get confidence by telling yourself
repeatedly that you can achieve your goal.
But more often than not, our problem lies not so much in lack of self-confidence. It lies in the fact
that we have no clear conception of the goal we need to pursue. Supposing I go out of your college gate
with no clue as to where I am headed. Is there a particular bus I need to catch? It is uncertain where I will
go. So how can I fix the bus number? First of all, I need to fix where I need to go. Then I will know
Page 6 of 7

VYC Lecture at IIEST, Shibpur

which bus to catch. Bhagawan Buddha makes an amazing statement. He says, If you dont know where
you are going, any road will do.
You know, I keep telling boys who come to me that they need to plan out their future in the
minutest detail possible. Such planning gives a focus for our lives. In India, we do not encourage this
planning habit in our kids. Here it is all a confusion masquerading under the name of religion and
devotion. If you ask anyone here what he or she would like to be as an adult, you get answers such as
Who knows what God has in store for me? Let us see what God does with me. What will God do with
you? He will keep you in his Pending file. If you havent decided anything, God wont decide anything
for you. God does not micro-manage this world. You know, you ought to have a clear idea of where
exactly you will be 5 years from now, 10 years from now and 20 years from now. The planning must be
so clear, you must even have a clear idea of what brand car you will have and what city you will live in.
that is the kind of planning I am talking of.
Q2: Swamiji speaks of selfless work. How can I do unselfish work?
Why would you want to do unselfish work right at the beginning? It is like a primary school boy
saying I want to become a PhD this year. There are steps you have to cross. First of all, you need to
work selfishly. Most of us are yet to start working with selfish motives. As I just said, we do not even do
that. We have no clear goals. All work is not Karma. The work we are speaking of in the context of
Karma Yoga is a very special kind of work. There is responsibility associated with it. Lot of ego is
associated with it. We all work. But when things start going south, we blame others. That is no work. You
will have to stand up and take the blame for every failure that you will face. Unselfish work is no joke.
These lights and fans and ACs work in this room. They dont do it for themselves. They do it for us. Isnt
that unselfish work then? It would be absurd to call it unselfish work, isnt it? You will have to exert your
ego and work for a long time. You will have to become experts in exerting your ego. Take your Director
for instance. Every day he has to face and solve innumerable problems. Slowly he is building up this
Institute. That is real work. He is taking responsibility for all he does. After one becomes an expert in
working this way, by conscious exercise of ones ego, he becomes qualified to take up the next stage of
working which is unselfish work. With an ego that strong, he will be able to influence the gods to take
responsibility for all that he does. Unless God takes responsibility for what you do, you will have to take
responsibility yourself and that is not unselfish work. Just because you and I decide to call something
unselfish work, it doesnt become so. There is a definite entry of God Himself into the picture; He
declares Go ahead, do such and such a thing; I take responsibility for the act; you need not worry. Then
that work becomes unselfish work. So, we cannot begin at that stage. We have to begin at the beginning.
We have to learn to stand up and work and take complete responsibility for all our actions. Unselfish
work is not working in slums and villages. Social work is not necessarily unselfish work. Either God
should directly take the responsibility or the entire world should take up responsibility for your actions.
Then alone it becomes unselfish work. How one raises oneself up to that stage, I wont tell you today. If I
tell you everything in one day, you wont invite me again. So, I will keep that for the next time we meet.
I once again thank the organizers of VYC for having allowed me to participate in this program
today.
Om Shantih, shantih, shantihi. Sri Ramakrishnarpanamastu.
***********

Page 7 of 7