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Samartha Bharat Parva is celebrated from 25th December to 12th January by Vivekananda Kendra every year. Samarth Bharat Parva is more to focus on the youth of India so that they are inspired about the greatness of India, the relevance of India in the contemporary context and also they take a resolve to work for India. Various activities are organised for the youth during Samarth Bharat Parva like, exhibitions telling about the greatness of India, youth camps, conducting workshops for youth, and also involving youth to reach out to different people to take the message of Swami Vivekananda and also of Bharat.
Samarth Bharat Parva is celebrated to
cherish the meditation of Swami Vivekananda on the mid-Rock at Kanyakumari on
25th, 26th and 27th of December 1892. It was not an ordinary meditation, but it
was the meditation in which Swami Vivekananda meditated to know what role he
has to play to raise his nation, to raise his people because before that
meditation, he had gone round the country and he had seen the poverty and
ignorance that was afflicting his people. So his meditation was more to know
‘what should I do for my nation’, and Swami Vivekananda had also seen that
India in spite of so many invasions and vicissitudes of life, kept intact great
principles of existence, like we are all interconnected, interrelated and
interdependent, each soul is potentially divine, the aim of life is to manifest
that divinity within, diversity is the plan of nature. So to cherish, respect,
accept the diversity by seeing the One which is beyond many and thus practising
diversified unity in life. After returning from the affluent and technologically
advanced West, Swami Vivekananda emphatically said, - ‘If there is any land on this earth that can lay
claim to be the blessed Punya
Bhumi, to be the land to which all souls on this earth must come to account
for Karma, the land to which every soul that is wending its way Godward must
come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has attained its highest
towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness, above
all, the land of introspection and of spirituality — it is India. Hence have
started the founders of religions from the most ancient times, deluging the
earth again and again with the pure and perennial waters of spiritual truth.
Hence have proceeded the tidal waves of philosophy that have covered the earth,
East or West, North or South, and hence again must start the wave which is
going to spiritualise the material civilisation of the world. Here is the
life-giving water with which must be quenched the burning fire of materialism
which is burning the core of the hearts of millions in other lands. Believe me,
my friends, this is going to be.’
Swami Vivekananda felt that for the
further evolution of human being for which all the civilisations of the world
have contributed something or other, Hindu civilisation also has great many
things to contribute, but for that India will have to first raise herself. In
the past India contributed but she has a role even in contemporary as well as
future world. We have to get back our confidence. We have to organise all that
is good in us, in the service of the humanity. But to give that message, Swami
Vivekananda needed a platform, a place, an occasion so that his voice can reach
many. That is how sitting on the last bit of Indian Rock, Swamy Vivekananda
took the momentous decision of his life that he would go and participate in the
Parliament of Religions. He shall represent Hindu Dharma there, Hindu being a
common name for all the spiritual traditions of India. Thus, his meditation of
25th 26th, 27th was a meditation in which decision was taken to raise India, to
enable India to contribute to the whole humanity.
Remembering that message of Swami
Vivekananda and striving for applying it to our own life, Samarth Bharat Parva
is celebrated by Vivekananda Kendra every year from 25th December onward till
12th January, which is the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.
Swami Vivekananda had meditated
with this question that what is it that I should do to raise my nation.
In Samartha Bharat Parva, the youth, mainly and all the people in general are
to be encouraged to contemplate and to find out in what way they can contribute
for national resurgence. So Samarth Bharat Parva is a very important festival
of Vivekananda Kendra, which culminates in Swami Vivekananda Jayanti on 12th
January. During this Parva Bharatmata Poojan, Swadesh Mantra and full Vande Mataramis organised.
Swami Vivekananda not only awakened the
nation and the national consciousness, but he united the nation by telling that
it has destiny to fulfil, mission to accomplish, a message to deliver for the
good of the humanity. Thus, the nation had a purpose, a larger purpose, not
just for one’s own existence, but in the interest of the humanity.
Swami Vivekananda gave a clarion call, ‘Arise, O India! Let all your energies be
united for the great cause of the regeneration of India.’ Swami Vivekananda
also united our nation by pointing out the commonalities. These commonalities
are the basis on which the great diversities of our nation have flourished.
To raise the nation, Swami Vivekananda
felt the youth of India have a great role to play. We know by nature the youth
is not calculative, is not stuck up only in the past, but also has dreams for
future. But if the noble dreams are not given to the youth, then dreams of
youth get limited to their own career and comforts. Swami Vivekananda expected
the youth to have muscles of iron and nerves of steel in which dwells the mind
that is made of that material with which thunderbolt is made. But that is not
all. He also reminded us that, ‘India
will be raised not with the power of the flesh but with the power of the
spirit.’ He wanted our youth to have unshakeable conviction and faith in
themselves and in our nation. He said, ‘The idea of
true Shraddha must be brought back
once more to us, the faith in our own selves must be reawakened, and, then
only, all the problems which face our country will gradually be solved by
ourselves.’
We hear voices that say Gen Z should
protest, get angry to destroy the old. But Swamiji said, ‘I fully agree with the educated classes in India
that a thorough overhauling of society is necessary. But how to do it? The
destructive plans of reformers have failed. My plan is this. We have not done
badly in the past, certainly not. Our society is not bad but good, only I want
it to be better still. Not from error to truth, nor from bad to good, but from
truth to higher truth, from good to better, best. I tell my countrymen that so
far they have done well — now is the time to do better.’
Sri Rabindranath Tagore used to tell
youth to read the works of Swami Vivekananda to know about India, as he
felt, in Vivekananda "there is everything positive and nothing
negative."
Swami Vivekananda by giving a greater,
positive and constructive vision to the youth of India, also saw to it that if
youth want, they can make their life meaningful, purposeful for all. How India
would be raised? He envisaged, “A hundred thousand
men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in
the Lord, and nerved to lion’s courage by their sympathy for the poor and the
fallen and the downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land,
preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social
raising-up — the gospel of equality.” He wanted us to take whole responsibility on our shoulders: “Stand up! Be bold! Be strong! Take the
whole responsibility on your own shoulders.”
Swami Vivekananda was fearless like a
lion. In the West he moved with them with all confidence and compassion for
all. He was very fond of quoting the message of fearlessness of Upanishads.
Though under British rule, he exhorted the youth, ‘Fear is the greatest sin. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will
be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.’
Taking inspiration from Swami
Vivekananda, many persons, dedicated their life to get freedom for India or to
serve the neglected parts of our society or went in the interior regions for
serving our people. Swami Vivekananda felt that the Vedantic truth of Oneness
has to be the contribution of India to the whole world, but at same time it is
also a basis on which we all can work for the good of our nation, for raising
our masses which we have neglected for too long due to uncertain social conditions
in the colonial and in the period of invasions.
It was the intense love of Swami
Vivekananda for India that touched the hearts of the people then, as well now.
It is that intense love that we have to feel in our heart when we set out to
work for our people and our nation.
Sister Christine once told— "Our
love for India came to birth, I think, when we first heard him
(Swami Vivekananda) say the word, "India" in that marvellous
voice of his. It seems incredible that so much could have been put into one
small word of five letters. There was love, passion, pride, longing, adoration,
tragedy, chivalry, and again love. Whole volumes could not have
produced such a feelings in others. It had the magic power of creating love in
those who heard it."
When we are asserting as a civilisation
there are powers that cannot tolerate this. Either by suppressing or by
deviating us from our roots, they want to obliterate our nation. Even there are
efforts to divide us. But we should never forget what we stand for and should
not succumb to few crumbs of comforts being offered to us by these powers.
Swami Vivekananda has inspired us with these fiery words, ‘O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood
is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the God thou worshippest is the
great Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Umâ; forget
not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are not
for thy individual personal happiness; forget not that thou art born as a
sacrifice to the Mother’s altar; forget not that thy social order is but the
reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; forget not that the lower classes,
the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh
and blood, thy brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that
thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is
my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute
Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother." Thou, too,
clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top of thy voice:
"The Indian is my brother, the Indian is my life, India’s gods and goddesses
are my God. India’s society is the cradle of my infancy, the pleasure-garden of
my youth, the sacred heaven, the Varanasi of my old age." Say, brother:
"The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my
good," and repeat and pray day and night, "O Thou Lord of Gauri, O
Thou Mother of the Universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me! O Thou Mother of
Strength, take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness, and make me a
Man!"
Nivedita Raghunath
Bhide
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