The Making of a Rare Vivekananda: The Role of Ramakrishna
Acharya Prashant: The serious, austere, simple, energetic, fearless, truth-loving young man is an ‘idea’. He really does not exist. He has to be brought into existence, by someone who is exactly that which needs to be brought into existence, before we talk of Swami Vivekanand, let's talk of Ramakrishna Paramhans. There would have been no Swami Vivekanand, had there been no Paramhans first of all. Swami Vivekanands don't drop up from the sky, they're raised, they're made, they're given birth—not by their mothers, but by somebody like Paramhans.
Where is Paramhans? Swami Vivekanand was an ordinary man—Narendra, and he too had his ordinary pursuits. It was the magical touch of Paramhans, that turned him into Vivekanand. And he wasn't too eager either. Many a time he ran away from Ramakrishna. Sometimes in the name of family responsibilities, sometimes in the name of education, and sometimes because he was just bored with this ordinary devotee of Dakshineswar temple. It is a gigantic task, it doesn't just happen on its own. If you leave the youth to how they are, it is not liberation that would happen. Procreation would happen. On its own liberation never happens, procreation happens, that you don't have to teach.
But we somehow have a feeling that liberation is cheap; It too should happen on its own! Why must it happen on its own? When we complain that our sons and daughters are not like Vivekanand and Nivedita, we must first ask ourselves, are we like Ramakrishna and Sharda? If we are not like Ramakrishna and Sharda, how will our sons and daughters be like Vivekanand and Nivedita? I repeat fruits drop from trees, it is automatic, it is prakritik, it just happens. Man does not automatically get liberated. Man does not even have a conscious innate desire for liberation. It is not there, in fact, if somebody has it, it is unnatural. Unnatural in the prakritik sense, one is not supposed to have it. How will you have it? Even Vivekanand would not have had it, had it not been aroused in him by an external agency.
Nobody can just have it, except maybe one in a million, one in a billion, we should not even talk of them. There are some kind of manufacturing problems. They are God’s mistakes. They cannot be taken as the rule. They cannot be taken as ideals. Throughout his childhood, the fellow was interested in toys and sweets, right? When he would play with fellow kids, he would either be violent or afraid. And we would say, "Oh, this is per the course for kids, this is how kids are." Right? And when he turns fifteen, we say, "Why is he not turning towards wisdom literature?" Why must he turn towards wisdom literature?
A six-month-old baby, you go close to him, you want to kiss his face. And what does he do, he extends his little fingers and clasps at your necklace. Then do you complain that fellow is so materialistic? "I wanted to kiss, but all he was looking at was my necklace." And you know that babies do exhibit exactly this kind of behavior, right? Go close to them, and they will want to grab, whatever they can. Not God, something material. If Arjun (one of the listeners) goes to them, they will (mimic grabbing action)—this is from experience. And the grip is firm, the fist won't open too easily. And when you try to force it open, then the kid would cry.
Do you see the fellow has an inclination towards fisting, right from that age? He wants to hold stuff, here (makes a fist)! And then you don't say, “Why is he not like Swami Vivekanand? Why does he not approach people with palms wide open?” One denoting that I came with nothing, the other denoting that I will go away with nothing? Then do you say, "Oh, he's but a baby, it is very natural that he is clasping at everything?” Tomorrow he clasps at money, at security, and all these things you are complaining against; then why do you find it odd?
Just as this fist was trying to clutch something. Similarly, at some other age, this same fist is used to clutch the genitalia! Don't you see that it is the same stream? Why complain against it when it comes midway? Its very origin is in darkness, how do you expect it to magically transform all by itself when it reaches the mid-ranges? It won't. The clasping fist, is it not symbolic of babies? Across gender, nationality, and religion— this is (makes a fist again) what you will find little kids always exhibiting (shows the fist).
Instead of forcing an idealism upon them, it would be far better, if we, first of all, have them realize that beneath the wheel of civilization, we are 100 percent apes and chimpanzees! And even this civilization is an attempt gone badly wrong. It was supposed to raise us from the jungle. Instead, it has been such a botched-up attempt that it has repressed us. That which needed to be elevated, could not be elevated. So to hide the failure, it has been repressed. Are you getting it?
And that has given rise to the dark and dirty subconscious mind, which is a storehouse of all kinds of frustrations and desires, and pent-up urges. If you will force kids to behave differently than their prakritik selves, their jungle selves, and their chimpanzee selves, then they will do that. With persuasiveness and punishment and incentive, you can succeed in getting the youth to behave in an ideal way. But I assure you beneath that ideal behaviour an angry chimpanzee would still be lurking, and the chimpanzee would now be very-very angry!
Very-very angry! Why would he be angry? Because he has been made to act like Swami Vivekanand. Inside a chimpanzee and outside he has been forced to behave as a swami, you see a lot of that in a circus, don't you? The elephant is walking on two legs and shaking hands with kids. How do you think is he actually feeling? That's how our civilized youth are, especially 'spiritually civilized youth’. The chimpanzee is speaking in French and reciting Sanskrit verses. Inside he is swearing, he’ll have a super go at you, whenever he can get half a chance.
There was this parrot who was being made to ride a bicycle—a little bicycle, you know? How do you think the parrot is feeling? That's how the youth today are feeling. You want to elevate their consciousness, right? First of all, you must know what elevation really means, and you must know even before that, where you want to elevate them from. It is a problem if you do not know where you want to go. It's a far more massive problem if you do not know where you are standing. You can be helped if you do not know where to go. You cannot be helped if do not tell where you are standing.
"I need help, I need help."
"But where are you?"
"That I do not know."
First of all, tell the youth where they are really standing. Tell them that they are chimpanzees, as we all are. It's not an insult, it's the fact of our physical existence. It's not a humiliation. Don't unnecessarily eulogize human birth. Don't say that because you are born as a biped and your surname is Singh or Shukla or Johnson, so you are destined to do great things. Tell them that it doesn't matter that you are born human, the fact is, you are an animal. And you better know that, you better fully acknowledge that. All your natural instincts are towards physical security, continuation, and procreation. That's what you continuously want and you should never-never forget this. Teach this to the youngster, teach this to the youngster even before he turns young.
Let him know this when he is eight years of age. When he looks at the dog going after the bitch, and he asks, "Mama, what's this?" Tell him, "Human birth! We all are born as a result of this and we are all born to do this." Man is a dog, a woman is a bitch, without exception! That's what this entire drama is about. And no amount of economic progress, technical sophistication, or civilization null advancement can hide that or should hide that! That's what man's basic energy is—libido.
You can give it fascinating names, alright. Teach this to them, and when they encounter the fact of their savagery, in all its bloodiness, then maybe, a repulsion, an inner repugnance would arise and that would be transformational. But there can be no transformation without an intimacy with the fact. If the fellow is thinking—as most of us do—that we are special just because we were born in a hospital, and not in a jungle, then too bad for us.
A man might find it humiliating. The ego finds it absolutely scurrilous that after centuries, rather millennia, of development and progress, one is still to be called an animal. But we must acknowledge it because that is the fact, and every kid must be taught this. Then there would be the one odd little Narendra, who would say, "I hear this, I know this to be true as a fact but I don't like this. There is something in me that revolts against this." And then let him walk out of the classroom and discover a Paramhans. And then there is some possibility of a real Vivekanand taking birth.
